The Cab of the Sleeping Horse. John Reed Scott
nodded. "She is in the German Secret Service."
"They trust her?" Clarke marvelled.
"That is the most remarkable thing about her," said Harleston, "so far as I know, she has never been false to the hand that paid her."
"Which, in her position, is the cleverest thing of all!" Clarke remarked.
They passed the English Legation, a bulging, three-storied, red brick, dormer-roofed atrocity, standing a few feet in from the sidewalk; ugly as original sin, externally as repellent as the sidewalk and the narrow little drive under the porte-cochère are dirty.
"It's a pity," said Clarke, "that the British Legation cannot afford a man-servant to clean its front."
"No one is presumed to arrive or leave except in carriages or motor cars," Harleston explained. "They can push through the dirt to the entrance."
"Why, would you believe it," Clarke added, "the deep snow of last February lay on the walks untouched until well into the following day. The blooming Englishmen just then began to appreciate that it had snowed the previous night. Are they so slow on the secret-service end?"
"They have quite enough speed on that end," Harleston responded. "They are on the job always and ever—also the Germans."
"You've bumped into them?"
"Frequently."
"Ever encounter the clever lady, with the assortment of husbands?"
"Once or twice. Moreover, having known her as a little girl, and her family before her, I've been interested to watch her travelling—her remarkable career. And it has been a career, Clarke; believe me, it's been a career. For pure cleverness, and the appreciation of opportunities with the ability to grasp them, the devil himself can't show anything more picturesque. My hat's off to her!"
"I should like to meet her," Clarke said.
"Come to Paris, sometime when I'm there, and I'll be delighted to present you to her."
"Doesn't she ever come to America?"
"I think not. She says the Continent, and Paris in particular, is good enough for her."
Harleston left Clarke at Dupont Circle and turned down Massachusetts Avenue.
The broad thoroughfare was deserted, yet at the intersection of Eighteenth Street he came upon a most singular sight.
A cab was by the curb, its horse lying prostrate on the asphalt, its box vacant of driver.
Harleston stopped. What had he here! Then he looked about for a policeman. Of course, none was in sight. Policemen never are in sight on Massachusetts Avenue.
As a general rule, Harleston was not inquisitive as to things that did not concern him—especially at one o'clock in the morning; but the waiting cab, the deserted box, the recumbent horse in the shafts excited his curiosity.
The cab, probably, was from the stand in Dupont Circle; and the cabby likely was asleep inside the cab, with a bit too much rum aboard. Nevertheless, the matter was worth a step into Eighteenth Street and a few seconds' time. It might yield only a drunken driver's mutterings at being disturbed; it might yield much of profit. And the longer Harleston looked the more he was impelled to investigate. Finally curiosity prevailed.
The door of the cab was closed and he looked inside.
The cab was empty.
As he opened the door, the sleeping horse came suddenly to life; with a snort it struggled to its feet, then looked around apologetically at Harleston, as though begging to be excused for having been caught in a most reprehensible act for a cab horse.
"That's all right, old boy," Harleston smiled. "You doubtless are in need of all the sleep you can get. Now, if you'll be good enough to stand still, we'll have a look at the interior of your appendix."
The light from the street lamps penetrated but faintly inside the cab, so Harleston, being averse to lighting a match save for an instant at the end of the search, was forced to grope in semi-darkness.
On the cushion of the seat was a light lap spread, part of the equipment of the cab. The pockets on the doors yielded nothing. He turned up the cushion and felt under it: nothing. On the floor, however, was a woman's handkerchief, filmy and small, and without the least odour clinging to it.
"Strange!" Harleston muttered. "They are always covered with perfume."
Moreover, while a very expensive handkerchief, it was without initial—which also was most unusual.
He put the bit of lace into his coat and went on with the search:
Three American Beauty roses, somewhat crushed and broken, were in the far corner. From certain abrasions in the stems, he concluded that they had been torn, or loosed, from a woman's corsage.
He felt again—then he struck a match, leaning well inside the cab so as to hide the light as much as possible.
The momentary flare disclosed a square envelope standing on edge and close in against the seat. Extinguishing the match, he caught it up.
It was of white linen of superior quality, without superscription, and sealed; the contents were very light—a single sheet of paper, likely.
The handkerchief, the crushed roses, the unaddressed, sealed envelope—the horse, the empty and deserted cab, standing before a vacant lot, at one o'clock in the morning! Surely any one of them was enough to stir the imagination; together they were a tantalizing mystery, calling for solution and beckoning one on.
Harleston took another look around, saw no one, and calmly pocketed the envelope. Then, after noting the number of the cab, No. 333, he gathered up the lines, whipped the ends about the box, and chirped to the horse to proceed.
The horse promptly obeyed; turned west on Massachusetts Avenue, and backed up to his accustomed stand in Dupont Circle as neatly as though his driver were directing him.
Harleston watched the proceeding from the corner of Eighteenth Street: after which he resumed his way to his apartment in the Collingwood.
A sleepy elevator boy tried to put him off at the fourth floor, and he had some trouble in convincing the lad that the sixth was his floor. In fact, Harleston's mind being occupied with the recent affair, he would have let himself be put off at the fourth floor, if he had not happened to notice the large gilt numbers on the glass panel of the door opposite the elevator. The bright light shining through this panel caught his eye, and he wondered indifferently that it should be burning at such an hour.
Subsequently he understood the light in No. 401; but then it was too late. Had he been delayed ten seconds, or had he gotten off at the fourth floor, he would have—. However, I anticipate; or rather I speculate on what would have happened under hypothetical conditions—which is fatuous in the extreme; hypothetical conditions never are existent facts.
Harleston, having gained his apartment, leisurely removed from his pockets the handkerchief, the roses, and the envelope, and placed them on the library table. With the same leisureliness, he removed his light top-coat and his hat and hung them in the closet. Returning to the library, he chose a cigarette, tapped it on the back of his hand, struck a match, and carefully passed the flame across the tip. After several puffs, taken with conscious deliberation, he sat down and took up the handkerchief.
This was Harleston's way: to delay deliberately the gratification of his curiosity, so as to keep it always under control. An important letter—where haste was not an essential—was unopened for a while; his morning newspaper he would let lie untouched beside his plate for sufficiently long to check his natural inclination to glance hastily over the headlines of the first page. In everything he tried by self-imposed curbs to teach himself poise and patience and a quiet mind. He had been at it for years. By now he had himself well in hand; though, being exceedingly impetuous by nature, he occasionally broke over.
His course in this instance was typical—the more so, indeed, since he