The Seventh Noon

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"My brother was an Arsdale--like the rest of us."

So she lived her peaceful life and was conscious of missing nothing,
save at odd moments the man with the beautiful mustache. Marie, the
old housekeeper, was as careful of her as Jacques was of her father.
Ben was kind to her, though during the latter years he had grown a bit
out of her life. This had worried the father--this and other things.
One day he had called her into the library, and though he was greatly
agitated she saw that it was not in the usual way.

"Little girl," he said, "if it should so happen that you are ever left
alone here with Ben and he--he does not seem to act quite himself, I
want you to promise me that you will go to this address which I shall
leave for you."

She had promised, knowing well to what he referred.

Then his face had hardened.

"There is still another thing you must promise; if at the end of six
months he is no better I wish you to promise that you will not live in
this house with him or anywhere near him--that you will cut off your
life utterly from his life."

"But, Dada--"

"Promise."

She promised again, little thinking that the crisis of which he seemed
to have a foreboding was so near at hand. A dark day came within two
months when her soul was rent with the knowledge that he lay stark and
cold in that very library where so much of his life had been lived.
Marie gathered her into her arms and held her tight. She stared aghast
at a world which frightened her by its emptiness. At her side stood
Ben, his lips twitching, and in his eyes that haunting fear which
always foreran the father's struggles. A month later the boy did not
come home one night, but came after three days, a feeble wreck of a
man. She tore open the letter the father had left, and this took her
to Barstow, with whom he had evidently left instructions. That was
five months ago, and in the meanwhile she had grown from a very young
girl into a woman.

This was the sombre background to her frightened thoughts as she lay in
her bed next to Marie. In the midst of all the figures which haunted
her, there stood now one alone who offered her anything but fearful
things--and he was a stranger. Out of the infinite multitude of the
indifferent who surrounded her, he had leaped and within these few
hours made her debtor to him for her life, and now for partial relief
from a strain which was worse than sudden death might have been. In
spite of other torments it was like a cool hand upon her brow to know
that out in that chaos into which the boy had plunged, this other had
followed. She had perfect confidence in him. After all, it is as easy
in a crisis to pick a friend from among strangers as from among friends.

CHAPTER VIII

_The Man Who Knew_

There are several members of the New York police force who think they
know their Chinatown; there are several slum workers who think they do;
there are many ugly guides, real guides, who think they do, but Beefy
Saul, ex-newspaper man, ex-United States Chinese immigration inspector,
and finally of the Secret Service, really does. This is because Beefy
Saul knows not only the bad, but the good Chinamen; because he knows
not only the ins and outs of Chinatown, but the ins and outs of New
York; because he knows not only the wiles and weaknesses of Chinamen,
the wiles and weaknesses of ugly souled guides (and of slum workers),
but best of all, because he knows the several members of the New York
police department who think they know their Chinatown. But like men
who know less, Beefy Saul enjoys his sleep and naturally objects to
being roused at three o'clock in the morning, even though in the east
the silver is showing through the black, as Donaldson pointed out, like
the eyes of a certain lady when she smiles (as Donaldson did not point
out). Beefy came down in answer to the insistent bell which connected
with his modest flat--it ought to be called a suite, for the lower hall
boasted only six speaking tubes--and he swore like a pirate as he came.
Finally the broad shoulders, which gave him his name, filled the door
frame.

"I don't give a tinker's dam who you are," he growled before he had
made out the features before him, "it's a blasted outrage! Hello, Don,
what in thunder brings you out at this time of night? You look white,
man, what's the trouble?"

Saul hitched up his trousers, his round sleepy face that of a
good-natured farmer.

"I want you to do me a favor if you will, Beefy. I know it 's a darned
shame to get you out at this hour."

"Tut, tut, man. If a friend can't get up for another friend, he ain't
much of a friend. Tell your troubles."

"I 'm looking for a man, Beefy, who 's down there somewhere among your
Chinks."

"Hitting the pipe?"

"I 'm afraid so."

"Have n't any address I suppose--don't know his favorite joint?"

"I don't know a thing about him except that he has been down there
before--that he lit out again a little over an hour ago, half mad--and
that I must find him."

"An hour ago, eh? That helps, some. There 's only a few of 'em open
to the public at that time. But say, is there any special hurry? He's
had time to get his dope by now. I 've got some work there in the
morning."

"There's a girl waiting for him, Beefy, a girl who is paying big for
every hour he's gone."

"So? Well, m' boy, guess we 'll have to get him then. I 'll be down
in ten minutes. Make yourself at home on the doorstep."

Donaldson waited in the taxicab. For the first time in his life he
computed the value of one-sixth of an hour. So long as he had been
with the girl--or so long as he had been active in her behalf--the
minutes were filled with sufficient interest to make them pass
unreckoned. But to sit here and wait, to sit here and watch the
seconds wasted, to sit here and be conscious of each one of them as it
bit, like a thieving wharf rat, into his dwindling Present and carried
the morsel of time back to the greedy Past, was a different matter.
When finally Saul appeared with a fat cigar in one corner of his chubby
mouth, Donaldson was halfway across the sidewalk to meet him.

"Good Lord!" he laughed excitedly, almost pushing the big man toward
the cab, "I thought you were lost up there."

Saul paused with one foot already on the step. Then turning back, he
struck a match for his cigar. The flare revealed Donaldson's eager
eyes, his tense mouth. He carelessly snapped the burnt match to the
lapel of Donaldson's coat and stooping to pick it off took occasion to
whiff the latter's breath.

"The sooner we start--" suggested Donaldson, impatiently.

Saul stepped in, his two hundred pounds making the springs squeak, and
sinking into a corner waited to see what he might learn from
Donaldson's talk. The suspicion had crossed his mind that possibly the
latter had got into some such way himself--it was over a year since he
had seen him--and was taking this method to hunt up an all-night opium
joint. His experience made him constantly suspicious, but unlike the
regular police, a suspicion with him remained a suspicion until proven.
It never gained strength merely by being in his thought. At the end of
five minutes he had discarded this theory. Stopping the machine, he
gave the cabby a real address in the place of the fictitious one he had
first given in Donaldson's hearing. The latter's mind, supernormally
alert, detected the ruse instantly. He placed a hand upon Saul's knee.

"Beefy, you didn't suspect me, did you?"

"What the devil is the matter with you then?" demanded Saul.

"Nothing. What makes you think there is?"

"The mouth, man, the mouth! You don't get those wrinkles in the corner
and a tight chin by being left alone five minutes, if all that is
troubling you is a lost friend."

"You 're too confounded suspicious. It's only that I 've so many
things to do, Beefy."

"Business picked up?"

Donaldson smiled. Saul had known his Grub Street life. As the cab
sped on he regained his self-control. Action, movement was all he
needed. For the next ten minutes he surprised Saul with his enthusiasm
and loquacity. The latter having known him as a quiet and rather
reserved fellow, finally decided that it was a clear case of woman.
The questions he asked about young Arsdale, in securing a minute
description of the man, confirmed this impression.

The cab turned into the narrow cobbled streets of Chinatown, past the
dark windows, Chinese stores and restaurants, a region that, deserted
now, appeared in the early morning quiet ominous rather than peaceful.
Dark alleys opened out frequently--alleys which coiled like snakes past
cellar entrances, noisome rears of tottering tenements, to
grease-fingered doors as impassive as the stolid faces of guards who
drowsed behind them asleep to all save those who knew the deadly
pass-word. Paradoxical doors which shut in, instead of out, danger!
But Saul knew them and they knew Saul. He knew further the haunts of
beginners, where opium is high and the surroundings are fairly clean,
he knew the haunts of the confirmed, where opium is cheaper and where
surroundings do not matter at all. Also he knew Wun Chung, who does
not smoke, but who, being rich, controls the trade and so keeps in
touch with all who buy.

On the way to Chung's Saul made one stop. With Donaldson at his heels,
he darted down a side street, pushed open, without knocking, a dingy
door, went up a flight of stairs, along a dark hallway and down another
flight, where he was stopped by a shadow. The big man spoke his name,
and the shadow turned instantly from a guard to an obsequious servant.
He opened the door and Saul strode across a narrow yard, stooping to
brush beneath the stout clothes-line hung with blankets, an innocent
appearing wash, which however served as an effective barrier to any one
who might approach at a run. They entered the rear of a second
tenement which faced a parallel street, but which, oddly enough, had no
entrance to its rear rooms from the front. Another shadow rose before
them only to vanish as the round red face of Saul appeared. He pushed
on into a long, low-ceilinged room lined with bunks, the air heavy with
the acrid dead smoke of opium.

"Light," demanded Saul.

The sleepy proprietor brought a kerosene lamp, the chimney befouled
with soot and grease. It was an old trick. These fellows protect
their customers and through a sooted chimney the feeble light makes
scarcely more than shadows in which it is very difficult to identify a
man. Seizing the slant-eyed ghoul by the arm Saul held the lamp within
an inch of the yellow face, so close that it burned.

"Don't try such fool things on me, Tong," he warned. "Bring me a
light."

The Chinaman squirmed in terror, and when loosed was back again in a
hurry with a lamp that lighted the whole room. Saul took it and
examined the nearest bunk. Donaldson glanced at the first face. That
was enough. He retreated to the door for fresh air. Down the line
went Saul, looking like some devil in Hell making tally of lost souls.
He reached in and turned them, one after the other, face to the light,
while Donaldson stood outside, dreading the call that should force him
to look again. He was no man of the world and the reek of the place
appalled him. Nothing he had ever read conveyed anything of the plain
sordidness of it,--the unrelieved pall of it which burdened like the
weary dead stretch of an alkali desert. The scene did not even become
romantic to him, until glancing up, he saw above the irregular
roof-tops, the stars still bright in the virgin purple, saw the
unfouled spaces of the planet fields between them. What had such clean
things as the stars to do with this mired world below? This jeweled
roof was not intended for so squalid a floor. But the stars above
brought him back to the girl again, and she to her brother, and her
brother to this. Strange cycle! Then the stars and the blue gathered
them all into one. Strange one!

"Not here," announced Saul, wiping the oil from his fingers. Donaldson
breathed more freely. Without delay they hurried back to the cab.

"I had sort of a hunch that we 'd find him there," said Saul, "but we
did n't. Now we 'll have a cup of tea with Chung and set him to work.
It's a darned sight easier and a lot swifter way when you have n't any
clue at all to work on."

"And pleasanter," returned Donaldson. "I 've seen enough of this."

"Not so had when you get used to 'em," answered Saul, lighting a fresh
cigar. "But I know how you feel; I 'm just that queer about morgues.
Can't get used to 'em nohow. Get the creeps every time I step inside a
morgue. But then I don't hanker after murder work of any sort like
some of the boys. It would be just my chance to get a taste of it
before I 'm done with the Riverside robberies."

"What are the Riverside robberies?" inquired Donaldson, with a faint
remembrance of the name.

"You been out of town?"

"No, but I don't read the papers much."

"I should say not. Four hold-ups in three weeks, all within half a
mile of one another on Riverside Drive."

"Riverside Drive?"

He remembered now. The Arsdale home was near Riverside Drive. Barstow
had spoken of these crimes.

"You on the case?" he asked indifferently,

"Yes," answered Saul. "I 'm on the case and if another one breaks, the
case and the Chief will be on me."

The cab had stopped before an unlighted store. The street light
revealed a window filled with a medley of china, teas, silks, and
joss-sticks. Above, in big gilt letters, was the sign "Wun Chung and
Co."

It was surprising how quickly in response to Saul's knocking a door to
the left of the main entrance, and leading upstairs, opened. After a
few words with the moon-faced attendant, the light was switched on and
the three ascended to a small room, brilliant with gaudy Oriental
colors and heavy with ebony furnishings. A group of three or four
Chinamen sat at a small table soberly drinking their tea with the
exaggerated innocence of those who have a deck of cards up their
sleeves. The proprietor himself, fat as a butter ball, toddled up to
Saul with a grin upon his round, colorless face. He ordered tea for
all and they sat down. In two minutes Saul had explained what he
wished, and in five a couple of the silent group near had taken Chung's
orders and stolen out like ghosts.

Saul swallowed his tea boiling hot and glanced at his watch. It was
half-past four.

"Now," he said, "I 'm going back for a wink of sleep. You can sit on
here or you can have Chung notify you at your hotel, eh, Chung?"

"Allee light," nodded the proprietor.

"How long do you think it will take?" asked Donaldson quickly.

"Might take till noon to search every place--and then we might not find
him if he's an old hand at the game," answered Saul.

"Till noon!" exclaimed Donaldson irritably. "Good Lord, that's eight
hours!"

Saul placed his hand affectionately upon Donaldson's shoulder.

"See here, Don," he replied earnestly. "Take my advice and get some
sleep."

"Do you think I can waste time in sleep?"

"Better take a little now or you 'll be having a long one coming to
you."

"That's just it," retorted Donaldson. "I 've got all eternity for
sleep."

"So? Well, I 'll take mine here and now, thanks. I want to wake up!"

The older man's sober common-sense brought Donaldson to himself.

"Guess you 're right," he admitted.

He took out a card and scribbled two addresses, one of the Waldorf and
the other of the Arsdale house.

"You will notify me at one of these places as soon as you learn
anything?"

"Allee light."

"_At once_, you understand?"

Saul insisted upon landing Donaldson at his hotel before going on to
his own home. The latter grasped the big hand of his friend.

"Beefy," he said, "if ever I can give _her_ a chance to thank you, I
'll bet you 'll think your trouble worth while."

"Turn in and give her a chance to thank _you_ in the morning. I reckon
she 'll appreciate that more than an opportunity to thank me."

The cab bearing the big detective glided off. Donaldson watched it
melt down the dwindling vista until finally, dissolved altogether, it
became one with the dark.

CHAPTER IX

_Dawn_

Donaldson took a cold dip and then carefully dressed himself in fresh
clothes. Sleep was out of the question. He had never in his life felt
more alert in mind and body. He felt as though he could walk farther,
hear farther, see farther than ever before. He was more keenly
responsive to the perfume of the roses which were now drooping a bit
languidly near the window; he was more alive to the delicate traceries
of the ferns which banked one corner of the room; more appreciative of
the little marine which he had hung near his dresser and--more alive to
her into whose life Fate had picked him up and hurled him. He felt the
warm pressure of her fingers as though they still rested within his;
saw the marvelous quiet beauty of her eyes which had led him so far
back into his past. Again out of this past they led him on--on to--he
was checked as in his picture of her the ticking clock behind her
intruded itself. There stood the sentinel to whom he must give heed.
There stood the warning finger pointing to the seventh noon.

Good Lord, he must have more room. He must get out into the dawn--out
where he could share these emotions which now surged in upon him with
some virginal passion as big and fresh as the new-born day. He crossed
to the window and looked out upon the dormant city. The morning light
was just beginning to wash out the dark and to sketch in the outlines
of buildings and the gray path of the road between them. He watched
the new creation of a world. Around him lay a million souls ready to
people it--ready to seize it and make it a part of themselves. In a
few hours that dim street would be a bridge over which tens of
thousands of people would pass to sorrow, to joy; to poverty, to
riches; to hate, to love; to death, to life. That was a drama worth
looking at. He must get out and rub shoulders with those who were
playing their parts. He, too, must play his part in it.

He descended to the office and left instructions with the night clerk
to insist upon a message from whoever might call him up. He would be
back, he said, in an hour. He had not walked long before he found the
city gently astir with life. Passing cars were soon well filled,
traffic fretted the streets lately so quiet, while yawning pedestrians
reminded him that there were still those who slept. At the end of
thirty minutes more of brisk walking, the sky had melted through the
entire gamut of colors, and finally settled into a blinding golden
blue. A newsboy clicking out of space like a locust, shouted "Extra!"
Donaldson gave little heed to the cry until he heard the word
"Riverside," and caught the blatant headlines, "Another robbery." With
an interest growing out of Saul's connection with the case, he skimmed
through the story.

Then he tossed his paper away and took his course back to the hotel,
glad to forget that sordid bit of drama, in the movement of the crowd
now forcing its way to work. But something was lacking in the
spectacle this morning. The play of light and color he still saw, the
vibrancy of it he still felt, the dramatic quality of it he still
appreciated, but still with the consciousness that it lacked
something--that it had gone a bit flat. He no longer felt that
princely sense of superiority to it--as though it were a gorgeous
pageant upon which he was a mere onlooker. He felt now a harrying
sense of responsibility towards it. It was as though they called him
to join them. He quickened his pace. He must get back to the hotel
and see if any message awaited him.

He caught his breath--he must get back to her. That was it. That was
what the hurrying passers-by had called to him. Get back to her--what
did the morning count until she became a part of it? It was because
she had placed the red-blooded actuality of life before his eyes in
contrast to the superficial picturesqueness of its expression as he had
viewed it yesterday that the show had lost its vividness. She was
making him see it again with eyes as they were at twenty. He recoiled.
That way lay danger. He must put himself on guard. But from that
moment he had but one object in mind--to get back to her as soon as
possible.

A telephone message waiting him from Chung reported that no trace could
be found of the boy.

He jumped into a cab and went at once to the Arsdale house. Miss
Arsdale herself came to the door, her eyes heavy from lack of sleep but
her face lighting instantly at sight of him.

"You have news?" she exclaimed.

"No," he answered directly.

She was a woman with whom one might be direct.

"No news may be good news," he added. "They have n't been able to
locate him in Chinatown. I don't think there is a nook there in which
he could hide from those people."

"Then," she exclaimed, "he has gone to Cranton."

"Then," he answered deliberately, "I will follow him there."

"So, I could n't allow you. It is two hours from town. You have
already given generously of your time."

"Miss Arsdale," he said gently, "we of the inner woods must stand by
each other. This week is a sort of vacation for me. I am quite free."

Yes, she was she he had seen through the tops of the whispering pines
when he had thought it nothing but the blue sky; she was she who had
brushed close to him when he had thought it only the rustling of dry
leaves. Now that she stood beside him, his heart cried out, "Why did
you not come before? Why did you not come a week ago?" If she could
have stood for one brief second in that dingy office which had slowly
closed in upon him until it squeezed the soul out of him, then he would
have forced back the walls again. If only once she had walked by his
side through the crowds, then he would have caught their cry in time.
The world had narrowed down to a pin prick, but if only she had come a
scant two days ago, she would have bent his eye to this tiny aperture
as to the small end of a telescope as she did now and made him see big
enough to grasp the meaning of life.

Well, the past was dead--even with her eyes magnifying the days to
eternities; the past was dead, even with the delicate poise of her lips
ready to utter prophecies. He must not forget that, and in remembering
this he must choose this opportunity for exiling himself from her for
the day. This mission would consume some six hours. It would take him
out of the city where he would be able to think more clearly. This was
well.

"Have you any idea how the trains run?" he inquired.

"I looked them up. There is one at 9.32."

"I can make it easily," he answered, glancing at the big clock. He had
left his own watch at the hotel. He refused to carry so grim a
reminder. "I suppose I 'll have no trouble in finding the place."

"You would ask for the Arsdale bungalow," she answered. "Every one
there knows it. But the chances are so slight--it is only that his
father went out there once. After several days Jacques, Marie's boy
and father's servant, found him hidden in the unused cottage. I
thought that possibly Ben might remember this."

"I should say that it was more than probable that he would go there if
his object is to keep in hiding."

"It is three miles from the station and quite secluded."

"That will make a good walk for me."

He rose to leave at once. But she, too, rose.

"If you think it best to go," she said firmly, "then I must go, too. I
could not remain here passive another day. And, besides, if he is
there, if is better that I should be with you. I know how to handle
him. He is always gentle with me."

Donaldson caught his breath. This was an emergency that he had not
foreseen. Manifestly, she could not go. She must not go. It would be
to take her back to the blue sky beneath which she was born. It would
be to give her a setting that would intensify every wild thought he was
trying so hard to throttle.

"No," he exclaimed. "You had better permit me to go alone."

"I should not think of it," she answered decisively.

"But he may not be there. He might come back here while you were gone."

"He will be quite safe if he returns here."

"But--"

"I will see Marie and come down at once."

She hurried upstairs.

"Marie," she asked, "is it quite safe to leave you here alone until
afternoon?"

"Safe? Why not?"

"I was going out to the bungalow."

The old servant looked up shrewdly.

"Is anything the matter?"

"Nothing that you can help," the girl answered.

She had not yet told her of Ben's last disappearance. There was no use
in worrying those who could give no help.

"Bien. Go on. It will do you both good."

"The telephone is at your bed--you can summon Dr. Abbot if you need
anything."

"Bien."

"And perhaps while I am gone Jacques may come for a visit."

"Perhaps. Run along. The air will do you good."

The girl kissed the wrinkled forehead and hurried to her own room.
There, before the mirror, she was forced to ask herself the question
which she had tried to escape: "Why are you going?"

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