Short Fiction · The Facts In The Curious Case Of H Hyrtl Esq (1/8)

I

A year or two ago Hugh Hyrtl was absolutely unknown; if it be different today, it is because of the following curious circumstances:

To begin with, he was an artist⁠—a young artist, a good artist, a good-looking artist⁠—but he was anything but a rich artist, and, as I have intimated, unknown. There were days when he was not certain whether he would dine or not, but, being young, he was hopeful, and, being hopeful, courageous. His atelier, which was also his bedroom and parlor, overlooked the courtyard of a great house on Tompkins Square.

Tompkins Square is not a locality over which Fashion presides, and Hugh, who was dainty in his ways, hated it as thoroughly as it is possible for an honest young fellow to hate anything. But Tompkins Square is perhaps the least expensive residential quarter of New York, and there Hugh was able to achieve the impossible⁠—to dream of Fame and live on a dollar a day.

Meanwhile he was at work on that great picture which everyone has since seen⁠—Heliogabalus smothering men with flowers. The picture had plenty of color, plenty of action, plenty of archaeology, and Hugh was beginning to feel that it might be a success when one fine day, as he happened to be retouching the gold sigma on which the little emperor lounged and laughed, a window opposite his own was thrown open, and the initial incident of the accompanying drama occurred.

Across the court there came a trill, then a burst of song, a roulade of sheer joy such as is always pleasant to intercept, but particularly so when you happen to be in the youth of life and the youth of the year. Hugh looked up. In the opposite window was a girl⁠—a pretty girl; yet when I say pretty I mean that prettiness which, when you see it, makes you want to jump straight down the possessor’s throat. It was the prettiness that comes with the eighteenth year to a girl who has blue eyes, kissable lips and a complexion of roses and cream.

When Hugh looked up the trill trembled and ceased. Four eyes had met. Hugh smiled, which was impertinent of him; the girl blushed, which was modest of her; then an old man appeared, one who neither blushed nor smiled, who looked exceeding cross and shut the window with a bang.

“Caesar, what a beauty!” Hugh exclaimed, and turned to the sigma once more. In a moment he looked across the court. The window was blank. “I wonder,” he mused, and whistled softly to himself; “I wonder if I haven’t got too much ochre stuck on there.” He looked again at the window across the court. “Bah!” he continued, “as if I could have too much ochre. It’s the purple on the laticlave that jars.”

For a little space he painted away very determinedly, the muscles of his jaw close set; then he looked again at the window⁠—there was no one, not even the cross old man.

“Oh, hang it all,” he cried. “I can’t work any more today!”

When an agile young fellow wants to, it doesn’t take him very long to get down six flights of stairs⁠—no, nor seven, either, however steep those stairs may be⁠—and presently Hugh entered a dingy den over which the janitress of the building presided.

The janitress was a fat person, with the voice of an ogre, and a great love for gossip and tenants who paid their way. Hugh never gossiped, but he had a smile which had won her heart, all ogress that she was. She laughed as he entered and flourished a broom.

“Mrs. O’Hassadam,” he began, “you are looking very handsome this morning. I⁠—”

“Don’t be flattering an old lady like meself, Mr. Hyrtl, but say to me just plainly what you want, with no nonsense whatever.”

“Then, Mrs. O’Hassadam, as you love righteousness and abhor mammon, tell me who those people are that live up there on the other side of the court, yes, on the sixth story where the geranium is?”

“No great shakes, Mr. Hyrtl.”

“What!”

“No great shakes, Mr. Hyrtl.”

“But the girl?”

“No great shakes, I keep telling you; a gadabout, that’s what she is, with an ex-convict for a pa.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” cried Hugh, indignantly, “no, not one word.”

“Question a lady’s veracity, Mr. Hyrtl? Where are your manners, Mr. Hyrtl. Mr. Hyrtl, mind what I am telling you. For ten years that old forger has been here, and, since I can remember, not a letter has come for him whatever, not a soul has come to see him and not once has he put his foot out of this door. Question a lady’s word!”

“But⁠—”

“It’s a murderer he is, I am a-thinking, and as for that gal, she’s no better than she should be whatever at all, sitting there where anyone can see her, where I can see her, a-trying to make eyes at you.”

“But⁠—”

“Oh, I know very well you’re forever in your paintbox and pay no attention to likes of her. It’s annoying you, she is, that’s what she’s doing, in a respectable house like this, besides.”

“But⁠—”

“And what is it you want, whatever?” Mrs. O’Hassadam abruptly inquired of a little man, sadly shabby in appearance, who had loomed in the door. “There’s no old bottles today.”

“And if there were I wouldn’t want them,” the little man retorted, defiantly; “unless they were full. It’s lodgings I’m after.”

“It is, is it? Well, then, you’d better try and find them in some nice little place on Fifth Avenue where they’ll only charge you five dollars if you ring the bell and ten dollars if you don’t. This establishment wouldn’t suit you at all.”

And Mrs. O’Hassadam made a skirmish with her broom.

“Lodgings, indeed,” she added, indignantly; “why not chambers, self-contained, with private entrance. Be off, or I’ll call the police. Mr. Hyrtl⁠—”

Hugh had sidled out, pretending not to hear. Presently he was on the sidewalk. Beyond was the Square, deluged by the eager sunlight of a radiant noon; near at hand was a junkshop, and a step or two further on a window in which, temptingly arranged, were coils of sausages, red beefsteak, yellow fowl and a glistening ham. For a second, in sheer perplexity, Hugh stopped; yet, as he loitered there, he saw nothing of the contents of that window⁠—it was what another had held that memory was reproducing, and, as the convolutions of fancy waned and subsided, he found himself staring at the individual whom Mrs. O’Hassadam had ordered to be off.

“Well, sir, do you take me for a freak?”

He was a stout, little man, with a long beard and the restless eyes of a ferret, distressingly shabby, the more so even that in his shabbiness was the unmistakable air of better days.

Hugh started from his reverie.

“Not a bit,” he answered, gently. “I am an artist, and if I stared at you it was because you look like a Roman Senator.”

“Why not a satyr? So you are an artist, eh? Well, where have I seen you before⁠—in Lisbon, Liverpool or Leghorn?”

“Truly,” Hugh answered, “I have never been so far away.”

“You haven’t, haven’t you?” And the little man scrutinized the artist’s face. “All the same, I’ll be blowed if you don’t remind me of someone. Thundering guns, how cold it is!”

“Why, it must be seventy-five, at least.”

“Yes, I dare say⁠—to those who have breakfasted, to those who dined last night and the night before; but when a man hasn’t eaten for forty-eight hours the rarest day of June is colder than Christmas Eve. Thundering guns!”

“You don’t mean to say⁠—”

“Yes, I do mean to say. Now, tell me how I can earn a dollar at once⁠—not tomorrow or tonight, but right now.”

And the little man, who had been looking very fiercely at Hugh, suddenly seemed about to collapse. Hugh caught him by the arm.

“Here, come with me,” he said.

In a moment both were seated at a table of the eating-shop within.

“Take some coffee first,” said Hugh, authoritatively, “and then⁠—”

“Oh, you’re going to treat, are you? Well, now, my name is John Anderson⁠—yes, sir, John Anderson, my Joe John⁠—and it doesn’t rhyme with either beat or sponge. I won’t be treated. I may be indigent, but I am proud. Besides, if I had twopence I could become a millionaire.”

“You will let me,” said Hugh, seductively, “make you a little loan. I have two dollars, here is one. Pay me when you are a millionaire.”

At the sight of the coin the little man turned purple.

“Thundering guns!” he muttered, “yesterday I passed an hour at the Metropolitan Museum looking at a gold piece in a case. Give me your name and address.”

Before the open door of the eating-house a slender figure passed. Hugh jumped from his seat. It was she, he could have sworn. The little man caught him by the arm.

“Your name and address,” he repeated.

Hugh shook himself loose. In a second he was in the street. The slender figure was just turning the corner, but Hugh was right behind. When at last he overtook that slender figure he discovered that it belonged to a sallow brunette.

At the table in the eating-house the little man was muttering:

“But where the deuce have I seen him before?”