THE CARHART MYSTERY

The conversation had grown reminiscent, as conversations will when old acquaintance stirs its coffee after dinner and the blue wreaths of good tobacco-smoke float ceilingward, like pleasant specters, in the subdued light of the shaded lamps.

Barton and I, in following back some winding paths of memory now well-nigh overgrown, were in danger of forgetting our good manners till Willoughby reminded us of his presence.

"I might as well embrace this opportunity for a nap," he said, stretching his long legs to the fire, and sinking back into one of Barton's most engaging armchairs. "Just wake me up when you fellows hit upon a subject I know something of. I happen to have been living in India during the time the thrilling tea-and-tennis episodes you recall so fondly were taking place, and, to tell the truth, they bore me."

Barton laughed.

"Oh, we have done with recollections, and now you shall have a chance to bore us with an Indian tale or so by way of recompense," he said, with the candor permissible only between men who know each other well. "Make clear to us the difference between a maharajah and a pongee pajama, and go ahead."

"At least, my stories do not deal with duels that ended in Delmonico's, and flirtations which fell flat," asserted Willoughby, blowing a cloud of fragrant incense into space. "I've no idea of wasting occult material on a brace of rank Philistines, but if I were so disposed——"

"Dear boy!" I put in, rather testily; for I dislike fatuous patronage even in fun. "Either Barton or I could relate to you an incident which occurred in this very room, within a yard of where you sit, remarkable enough to make your Kiplingest jungle-tale seem as tame as 'Mother Hubbard's Dog!'"

"Indeed!" he said, sinking still farther into his chair, with something very like a yawn; and Barton, as he arose and moved to the mantelpiece, cast a look of remonstrance toward me which I was careful not to recognize.

"Ah, here comes Nathan with fresh coffee," our host announced, clearly to change the subject, as the round-shouldered figure of his worthy valet appeared in the lamplight. "Pray let him fill your cups, and, if it is not strong enough, don't hesitate to tell him."

"It'th not the coffee gentlemen dethired when I wath young," commented Nathan, a trifle sadly, and with the amusing lisp which made him something of a character, albeit he was rather a dull man even for a valet.

"I never take a second cup," Willoughby declared, adding: "But, if it's all the same, I might be tempted by a sip of soda later, say in half an hour or so."

This struck me as an excellent suggestion, and Barton evidently thought the same.

"Bring soda in half an hour," he instructed the servant, "and mind you have it cold."

"It'th never any other way you've had your thoda a thingle night for fifteen yearth, thir," retorted Nathan, with quite sufficient truth, no doubt, to justify the protest; and as he shuffled from the room, "Jim" Barton's guests chuckled.

"I move we give the half-hour to your yarn," said Willoughby, crossing his legs. "That is, if it can be told in thirty minutes."

"It's not worth half that time if it were told at all," replied our host. "The story is not worth much at best, but to give old Joe here the chance to intimate a too-elaborate dinner."

My name is Joseph, by the way.

"Oh, if you will admit that explanation——" I began, to draw him on, for I was anxious Willoughby should understand that interesting things could happen elsewhere than in India.

"I don't admit it in the least!" cried Barton, interrupting. "I assure you, Willoughby, upon my word, as sure as I stand here, I had tasted nothing more potent than a glass or two of Burgundy that night."

"What night?" inquired Willoughby.

"The night young Carhart disappeared," I interposed impressively. "The night a fellow six feet high and heavier than any one of us vanished as completely from this room as a puff of smoke dissolves in air."

"I have seen a puff of smoke go flying through a window," Willoughby suggested, laughing, though his interest had evidently been aroused, for he glanced toward the bay of leaded glass which made one of the pleasantest features of Barton's cozy smoking-room.

"But no man ever went through this particular window," I replied, taking the burden of enlightenment upon myself, in spite of my host's very apparent disapproval. "This window looks out upon a neighbor's yard, and ever since the house was built it has been barred as heavily as you see it now."

I sprang up, and, when I had pressed a button which set a dozen electric bulbs aglow in the four corners of the room, drew the light curtains to one side.

"Examine for yourself!" I cried, much in the manner of a showman.

"I'll take your word for it the iron in that grille is genuine," said Willoughby, without rising. "And I will admit that no fasting Yogi could worm himself through interstices so small. But how about the door?"

"The door," I hastened to assure him, "was then just as you see it now, an opening three feet wide, and Barton himself stood before it in the hall, a single step beyond the threshold."

I should have gone on in my eagerness to call attention to the walls and ceiling and floor, all obviously free from secret openings, had not Barton interrupted.

Shifting uneasily on his feet before the mantelpiece, he said: "Our friend Joe has not explained that he knows nothing of the circumstances beyond what I have told him."

"But not in confidence," I protested.

"No," admitted Barton, "not in confidence." And to his other guest he said: "I have made no secret of this strange occurrence, Willoughby, and my reluctance to discuss it arises from a doubt that long familiarity with the circumstances has not made it impossible for me to give to each its proper weight. I am in constant fear of coming upon a weakness which I have overlooked in the chain, and yet it would be a relief to discover such a flaw. I should have called in an expert at once. I should have sought the counsel of detectives; and such would unquestionably have been my course had not those most interested dissuaded me, Young Carhart's father telegraphed me: 'Say nothing to authorities. Disappearance satisfactorily explained.' And, at the time, that was enough. It was not till some months later that I learned the family were theosophists, a sect to which nothing is so satisfactory as the inexplicable. I have, myself, no theory to advance. The man, my guest, was here one moment, and the next he had gone from a room where the only openings were a grilled window and a guarded door. His overcoat and hat are still in my possession; and, from all I have been able to learn, he has not been heard of since."

"I beg that you will not think it necessary to tell me more of the story if it distresses you," protested Willoughby, courteously; for Barton's face had grown grave, and I had begun to feel my introduction of the subject ill-timed. But our host was quick to reassure him with a gesture.

"On the contrary," he said, "you have but just returned from India, where, as I have heard, mysterious disappearances are not uncommon, and occult matters are better understood. Your opinion will be of the greatest service."

"In that case," Willoughby replied, becoming instantly, judicially alert, "let us begin at the beginning. Who was Carhart? How came he here? What was the manner of his going?"

"That's just the mystery," I interposed.

"Joe, please don't interrupt," said Barton, making an effort to collect his thoughts.

"Sit down, old man," Willoughby suggested. "We'll choke Joe if he speaks again. Now let us have the facts—I'm deeply interested. Do sit down."

Barton complied in so far as to perch himself upon the broad arm of a leather chair.

"I shan't be tragic," he began; "for, as I said, there may be—in fact, there must be—some purely natural explanation. Of course, you never met young Carhart; for he came here while you were away. He had but few acquaintances in New York; for, although he brought good letters from Boston, where his people lived, he had not chosen to present them. He was a most attractive sort—half-back at Harvard, stroke-oar and all the rest. Great fellow in the Hasty Pudding Club, and poet of his class, but just a trifle—shall I say—susceptible and—"

"Soft," I suggested.

"No," contradicted Barton; "though, to tell the truth, he never could resist a pretty face. That was his failing."

"Remarkable man!" Willoughby commented, with fervor.

"He was," assented Barton. "In that respect, at least. He carried it too far. He wanted to marry every good-looking girl he met. He would have been married a dozen times before he graduated, had not his friends interfered."

"Thank heaven for friends!" commented Willoughby, with still more fervor.

"Till at last," continued Barton, now sufficiently himself to punctuate his narrative with occasional whiffs of his cigar, "at last Carhart fell under the influence of a widow."

"A designing widow," I put in, to make the situation clearer.

"Attractive?" Willoughby inquired.

"Oh, decidedly."

"Encumbrances?"

"No," answered Barton. "Not exactly. There were rumors of a husband in the background somewhere, but he was not produced."

"A pretty widow is beyond the habeas corpus act," mused Willoughby.

"Quite so," Barton admitted. "But, at all events, there was nothing really known against the lady except a maiden aunt, and this objectionable relative was, by the way, quite as much opposed to the match as were Carhart's own people."

"And why were they opposed to it?"

"Oh, you see, with his proclivities for poetry and acting, they were afraid an unhappy marriage would drive him to the stage, and, naturally, they took every measure to prevent it."

Here Barton paused to light a fresh cigar, while we others sipped our coffee thoughtfully.

"And what were these preventive measures?" Willoughby inquired.

"Oh, the usual thing," said Barton. "Threats, badgering, advice and promises. All these failed to move him; he was determined to make her his wife, and, as a last resource, his father wrote to me, putting the matter in my hands without reserve. Our ancestors came over on the same boat, so it appeared."

"The Mayflower," I breathed, but that was scarcely necessary.

"Quite so," he admitted; "and that, of course, entailed a certain obligation."

"Of course," we both assented, and the narrative continued.

"An elopement had been planned, as we had every reason to believe, for a certain evening; and the elder Carhart kept the Boston wires hot all day with appeals to me to save his son."

"And did you?" Willoughby inquired.

"Yes," answered Barton, cautiously, "in a way."

"How?"

"I began by inviting him to dinner."

"And, of course, he did not accept?"

"Oh, yes, he did. He both accepted and arrived on time, and I must say I never saw a man confront a filet mignon bordelaise with more outward satisfaction; and, though we spoke upon indifferent topics, his spirits seemed exuberant beyond all bounds. But you may be sure I kept an eye upon his every movement. I was determined he should not escape. In an extremity, I was prepared to administer a harmless sleeping-potion in his coffee."

"Indeed!" said Willoughby, as he set down his cup, and ran an investigating and suspicious tongue along the edges of his lips.

"A drastic measure, I admit," continued Barton, "but one which I should have considered justifiable, could I have foreseen the miscarriage of my other plan. You know my eldest sister, Emily?"

We bowed, for it was a duty to know Emily.

"And you know her eldest daughter, Emeline?"

We bowed again; it was a pleasure to know Emeline.

"Well," went on Barton, "it so happened that they were to dine that evening in the neighborhood, and I arranged with them to drop in upon me in an offhand way soon after their dinner, which was a small, informal one. I was convinced, you see, that Carhart could not fail to fall desperately in love with Emeline, which would have simplified affairs at once."

Of course, we both assented—I through civility, but Willoughby, as I fancied, with a somewhat heightened color.

"I presume you did not take Miss Emeline into your confidence," he said, a trifle stiffly.

"No," answered Barton, "but I have often wished since that I had been more frank. It's just the sort of thing she's good at."

Willoughby tossed his excellent cigar, half smoked, into the grate, with what appeared unnecessary violence.

"You were saying that your plan fell through," he prompted.

"It did," rejoined the host. "It fell through completely, as you shall see. I kept my young friend at the table as long as possible, and Nathan—to his credit I will say it—was never more deliberate; but when Carhart had declined almonds and raisins rather pointedly for the third time, we rose from the table, as the clock struck ten, and came in here to smoke. The lights were low, as they were before our friend Joe tried to blind us."

"I beg your pardon!" I exclaimed, and, hastening to the button, I reduced the room again to semi-darkness.

"Ah, that's more like it," said Barton. "I much prefer the light subdued. Well, here we were—Carhart before the mantelpiece, where I stood just now, smoking composedly enough, and I between him and the door, listening for the sound of the bell which might at any moment announce the arrival of the ladies. I remember perfectly that we were discussing setter-dogs; and, as you may well believe, I was never so put to it for anecdotes in my life, when at last the welcome summons came."

"I thought you said your plan fell through," Willoughby interposed.

"It did," retorted Barton. "The bell, which echoed through the house, was not rung by Emily at all, but by a servant with a note from her to say that, being indisposed, my sister had decided to drive directly home. Emeline, she added, was going on to some infernal dance. I had given Carhart no intimation of my sister's coming, and, naturally, I did not reveal the contents of her note. In fact, I made the dim light an excuse for stepping into the brighter hall, and this enabled me to conceal from him my first chagrin. As I stood not two feet from the threshold, debating what my course should be, I observed that Nathan closed the front door upon the messenger; and presently he passed me, going to his pantry, as I thought. I must have remained standing there before the door nearly a minute, though it seemed much less, for, when I turned, Nathan was at my elbow again, holding in his hand a tray of cups.

"'You served the coffee not a minute ago, you idiot!' I said, betraying the irritation which I felt; and, furthermore, I will confess, the smell of coffee brought back to me most painfully the only plan which then remained.

"'I thought you might be ready for thum more,' persisted Nathan, with his most aggravating lisp. 'I did not know the gentleman had gone.'

"'Gone!' I exclaimed. 'You must be blind. The gentleman, Mr. Carhart, is in the smoking-room.'

"'I beg your pardon, thir; but he'th not,' retorted Nathan, moving from me as though to avoid a blow. 'The gentleman ain't in the thmoking-room.'

"'Fool!' I cried, and darted from him, but the next moment I had found his words too true. Carhart had vanished, disappeared, melted, as one might say, into the element of air."

"Strange!" I reflected, lowering my voice as an aid to Barton's climax.

"Strange enough!" cried Willoughby, less impressed than I had hoped. "And so your servant was the first to make the discovery?"

"Yes," answered Barton; "although I have never allowed him to know of my astonishment. I did my best to pass it off as a joke. I allowed him to believe that Carhart had taken leave of me before the stupid blunder of the second coffee."

"Athking your pardon, thir," came in injured, lisping accents from the gloom. "I never brought no thecond coffee that night, becauth the cat upthet the coffee-pot, nor did I thay, thir, that the gentleman had gone."

Barton, concealing his annoyance, sat regarding his domestic for a moment with assumed indifference.

"And pray, what did you say, then, when you stood there beside me at the door?" he demanded.

"Nothing at all, thir," answered Nathan. "I wathn't there. I went back to my pantry when I had let out the methenger, and there I thtayed until I heard you hammering on the wallth and floor with the fire-shovel."

"That will do, Nathan," returned Barton stiffly; and I perceived an odd expression on the face of Willoughby.

"Thoda, thir?" inquired Nathan of the other guest.

"Yes," was the answer. "And please fill it up."

We settled down into an awkward silence, while Nathan fidgetted with soda-water bottles, Barton fingering his cigar, I toying with a paper-weight, and Willoughby intent upon the fire.

"Carhart," he kept repeating, almost to himself. "Where have I heard that name before? Carhart!"

"Carhart?" said Barton inquiringly.

"Carhart!" repeated Willoughby, with still more abstraction. "Carhart!"

"Yes, Carhart!" I put in, by way of keeping up the train of thought.

"Carhart!" roared Barton, springing to his feet. "Can't anybody say anything but Carhart?"

"And what became of the widow?" Willoughby demanded meditatively.

"I never knew nor cared to know," replied our host.

"Pretty, I think you said," continued Willoughby. "And auburn-haired?"

"Yes, deuced pretty, deuced auburn-haired. What are you driving at?"

Willoughby held up a soothing hand. "Just let me think," he said. "I used to know a man once in Calcutta. An American from Boston; sold canned goods, calico and caramels at wholesale; had a pretty wife. Clever fellow, too; and great at giving imitations—could mimic anything. Used to do an old domestic with a lisp in a way that would make your sides ache. I wish I could recall that fellow's name. By Jove, it was—it was!—it was!——"

"Was what?" I asked.

"Why, 'Carhart'!"

Barton, before the fire, swayed on his feet unsteadily, and clutched the mantelpiece for support. Old Nathan shuffled to his side.

"Thoda, thir?" the servant asked.

"Yes," said the master absently. "If you please, one lump of sugar and a little cream."