Short Fiction · The Grand Duke’s Rubies 1 (2/2)

“Gentlemen, gag that man⁠—gag him: I will be listened to. There, now, will you be quiet? You make me lose the thread. Where was I? Oh, yes: the Russian seemed to reflect a moment, and looked at his watch. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘it would be better to go straight to the Brevoort House.’ (The grand duke, I knew, was stopping there.) ‘My prince is to go out this afternoon between two and three, and if you do not see him today it may be hard to manage it tomorrow.’ ‘I am at your orders, Excellency,’ I answered; ‘business before pleasure.’ ‘Good, then,’ he returned; ‘we will take a droshky, or, better even, your railway that is in the air.’ ‘The elevated, you mean,’ I said⁠—‘the elevated. Yes, of course.’ Inwardly I was well pleased that the suggestion should have come from him, for I am not overfond of riding in a cab with a hundred and ten thousand dollars’ worth of rubies in my pocket and a stranger for sole companion. For he was a stranger⁠—wasn’t he?⁠—and, by his own account, not well-to-do. But that Russian had a knack of disarming suspicion. And, besides, how was it possible for me to have any doubts about a man who fought as he had over the percentage? It would have been nonsensical. So I did the rubies up in cotton, put them in a box, and off we went. On the way to the elevated you ought to have seen how the people stared at that coat. All the time he kept up a delightful flow of conversation. He told me any number of interesting things about his country, and when I asked if he had read The Journey Due North he told me that he had, and that when Sala was in Russia his father had entertained him at his country-house a few versts from Moscow. Think of that, now! Altogether, he made himself most agreeable. I asked him on the way if he thought that inasmuch as I was to have the honor of seeing the grand duke it would not be more in accordance with etiquette for me to put on a dress-coat. But he laughed, and said, no, the grand duke would never notice. Then he told me some very curious anecdotes about him⁠—how, for instance, he fainted dead away at the sight of an apple, and yet kept a balloon and an aeronaut, just as Jones there might keep a dogcart and a groom. He told me, among other things, that at Petersburg the grand duke had a pet tiger, which would accept food from no one but him, and on my asking how the tiger got along when the grand duke was away, he said that the grand duke had him stuffed. Oh, he was very entertaining, and spoke English better than you would have imagined. We walked over from Eighth Street to the hotel, and when we reached it he took me straight upstairs to his own room. ‘If you will sit a minute,’ he said, ‘I will see if his Highness can receive you.’ He went away, and I looked about me. The room into which I had been shown was a sitting-room with a bedroom opening from it. There was a writing-table standing against the door which led to the adjoining apartment, and while I was waiting I just glanced at the things with which the table was littered. There were a number of foreign newspapers, but in what language they were printed I could not make out; there was a package of official-looking documents tied with a string, a great blue envelope addressed in French to the Prince Michel Zaroguine and postmarked Washington, and back of all, in a frame, the photograph of a man.”

For some minutes previous Mr. Fairbanks had been speaking quite composedly, though Jones, with the observant eye of his class, had noticed that near the ears his cheeks and his forehead as well were wet with perspiration. But now abruptly he grew unaccountably excited, and his speech displayed a feverish animation. His face had lost its scarlet; it had grown very white; and it seemed to the novelist that in some manner which he could not explain to himself it had taken on a not unfamiliar aspect. “H’m!” he reflected, “it’s odd. I know I never saw the man before, and I am sure that I do not particularly care ever to see him again. Leigh ought to have more sense than to bring an orangutan even into such a club as the Smallpox. Besides, what does he mean by boring everyone to death? By gad, I believe he has put Leigh to sleep. It’s worse than a play.” But still he made no effort to move. In spite of himself, he felt vaguely fascinated, and, though he declined to admit it, a trifle ill at ease.

“I took up the photograph,” Mr. Fairbanks continued, “and while I was examining it, the Russian came back. In his hand he held a checkbook. ‘That’s the grand duke himself,’ he said. ‘He will stop in here presently on his way out. There will be two or three members of the suite with him; and, that you may recognize his Highness at once, take a good look at the picture. When he comes in you must do this way: button your coat, please; thanks: now stand anywhere you like and make a low bow. Let me see you make one. Bravo! that is splendid. Only⁠—how shall I say?⁠—do not let your arms hang in that fashion. The grand duke might think you had dropped something and were stooping to pick it up. However, that is a minor matter. It may be that he won’t see you at all. But of all things remember this: under no circumstances must you speak to him unless he first addresses you, and then you must merely answer his question. In other words, do not, I pray you, try to engage him in conversation.’ ‘Does he speak English?’ I asked. I couldn’t help it. I was getting nervous. ‘Now let us have the rubies,’ he said. I took the box out of my breast-pocket and handed it to him. He opened it, drew the cotton aside, and ran his fingers lovingly over the gems. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they will do.’ Then he closed the box again, and put it in the drawer of the table at which he had taken a seat. ‘If,’ he continued, ‘his Highness is satisfied, I will draw a draft for you, and Count Béziatnikoff will sign it. The count,’ he went on to say, ‘is the keeper of the Privy Purse. The draft itself is on the London Rothschilds, but they will cash it at Belmont’s.’ I did not quite like that arrangement: it did not seem entirely businesslike. ‘Your Excellency,’ I said, ‘it is the custom here to have checks for large amounts certified before they are offered in payment.’ But I had to explain what certification meant before he understood me. ‘That is nothing,’ he said, ‘that is nothing. If his Highness is pleased, we will go to Belmont’s together, or, if you prefer, we will sit here over a Sam Ward and let one of the hotel-clerks go to the bank in our stead.’ There seemed to me nothing objectionable in that suggestion; for, after all, I could not exact of anyone, however grand-ducal he might be, to go about with a hundred and ten thousand dollars in his waistcoat.”

“Or in his trousers either.”

“Or in his trousers either, as you very properly put it. Now, Mr. Jones⁠—Mr. Leigh, look at me; Colonel Barker⁠—colonel⁠—I am coming to the point. Where’s that waiter? Gentlemen, see here; watch that man there⁠—watch Jones. Don’t take your eyes off Mr. Jones, but listen, all of you, to what I say. Mr. Leigh, you are looking at me: look at your friend, colonel, I insist. Mr. Jones, you, if you care to, can look at me. Now, gentlemen, now⁠—”

“Have you got a camera concealed about your person?”

“No, I have not, but I have something that came from one. You wait a minute, and I’ll show it to you. I’ll show it to you all. Where did I leave off?”

“In his waistcoat-pocket.”

“Thank you: so I did. Well, gentlemen, we sat there talking as pleasantly as you please. The Russian joked a bit, and said that he wanted a certified check from me⁠—the check for his commission, you remember⁠—and presently he got up and said he would see what was delaying his Highness. So I sat awhile, twirling my thumbs. Five minutes passed, ten minutes passed. I looked at my watch: it was almost half-past two. That draft, I told myself, won’t be cashed today. I went to the window and looked out. I went to the door: there was no one in the hall but a chambermaid. I went back to my seat, and then, moved by my own uneasiness, I opened the drawer of the table. The box was gone! I took the drawer out. It was one that extended the entire width of the table: the further end of it had been cut off. I looked down and in through the place from which I had taken it. I could see into the next room! I pulled the table to one side, and there, just where the drawer had touched the door against which it had stood, was an oblong opening cut through the woodwork of the door itself. I was downstairs in an instant. Gentlemen, the grand duke had gone to Philadelphia that very morning. No such person as Prince Zaroguine lodged in the hotel. The clerk came upstairs with me. ‘That room,’ he said, ‘is occupied by a Frenchman, and the adjoining room belongs to a man who registered from Boston. Why, that’s his picture there!’ he exclaimed, pointing to the picture of the grand duke. ‘I did not even know that they were acquainted. But they will be back; they have left their things; they haven’t even paid their bills.’ I did not wait for their return: if I had I might be waiting still. But I took the photograph, and down to Inspector Byrnes I posted. ‘That,’ said he, ‘that is the picture of one of the ’cutest rogues in the land. He has as many names as the Czar of Russia himself.’ And the original of that picture⁠—Gentlemen, here⁠—Mr. Leigh, here⁠—colonel, here is the picture itself. I have kept it with me ever since. The original of that picture sits before you. Hold on to him, colonel. Jones, if you move I’ll put a bullet through you. Mr. Leigh, do you ring for the police. Hold him, colonel. Disgorge, you scoundrel, disgorge! I have got you at last!” And then, before the astonished gaze of Alphabet Jones, Colonel Barker faded in a mist, Mr. Fairbanks lost his rotundity, his black coat changed to a blue swallowtail with brass buttons, he grew twenty years younger, and, so far from being violent, he seemed rather apologetic than otherwise.

“It’s six o’clock, sir,” he said. “Will you order anything before the bar closes?”

Alphabet blinked his eyes. He was lying in a cramped position on the sofa. He was uncomfortable and very hot. He pulled himself together and looked around. Save for the waiter and himself, the room was deserted.

“Is there any baccarat going on upstairs?” he asked.

“No, sir; the gentlemen are just going away.”

“Well, well,” he mused, “that was vivid. H’m! I’ll work it up as an actual occurrence and send it on to the Interstate: it will be good for the two hundred and fifty which I meant to make at baccarat.⁠—I say, waiter, get me a Remsen cooler, please.”