“She might have stepped down from that painting!” said Barry, pointing to a reproduction of part of a wall of the great temple at Medinet Habu, above the carven mantelpiece of the library.
His father nodded and smiled, but not unkindly. He was strangely like his son, except that John Cumberland’s curly hair was gray and Barry’s curly hair was brown.
At the present moment Barry did not look his best, owing to the fact that a patch of the said curly hair was very neatly shaved and the corresponding portion of his skull decorated with unattractive surgical dressing.
They both possessed fresh, healthy colouring and steadfast gray eyes. Both were virile, real, and would have been unusually handsome except that both had “the Cumberland nose,” which was quite frankly tip-tilted. But, in spite of it, there were many girls in New York who invariably referred to Barry Cumberland as good-looking. And indeed he was, as his father still remained.
No two men could have seemed more strangely out of place in this setting. John Cumberland might have passed for an old-fashioned English squire; Barry was as typical a young man of to-day--sane, fit, keen--as one could find anywhere in the English-speaking world. Yet this library more closely resembled one of the Egyptian rooms at the British Museum than the favourite haunt of a prosperous man of affairs.
Egypt--unaccountable though it appeared to his friends--was John Cumberland’s hobby; a hobby in which he had sunk a not inconsiderable fortune; in which he had sought, and ultimately found, it would seem, consolation for the loss of Barry’s mother, who had died when Barry was seven years old.
To-day the Cumberland Collection ranked as the second finest of its kind in the United States. It was representative of Egyptian civilization in all its phases--save that it contained no mummies. It was not confined to the library, but overflowed into practically every room in the house. Yet nowhere were there any mummies. This was a concession to Aunt Micky, John Cumberland’s sister, who acted as the widower’s housekeeper and hostess.
Whereas the loss of his wife had occasioned a wound to John Cumberland’s heart that only time had healed, the loss by his sister of the dissolute Count Colonna had left her a grateful if somewhat embittered woman. The later years of her married life had been years of hidden misery, during which she had realized to the full that, if she had married a title, Colonna had married a dowry. Time, however, had sweetened her even as it had healed her brother. She tasted the strange fruits of our modern orchard with astonishment but without dyspepsia, nevertheless firmly declining to remain under the same roof with a mummy.
“This girl on the balcony seems to have made a tremendous impression upon you,” said John Cumberland, keenly watching his son across the library table.
“I can never forget her,” Barry declared; for between these two was that rare comradeship which makes secrets unnecessary. “I don’t mean that I have fallen in love at first sight, or anything ridiculous like that! But I have an intense curiosity to know who she is.”
“You are quite sure,” his father went on, carefully selecting a cigar, “that the order of events was: the girl and the crash?--not the crash and the girl? You see what I mean, Barry? You have always had an interest in these things--” he waved his cigar vaguely in the direction of the library walls--“which I suppose I have encouraged. You had it in mind to get back here to supper, and so it is just possible----”
“I quite see what you mean,” Barry interrupted: “that the girl on the balcony was the beginning of delirium after I had banged my head? Well, of course, it’s impossible to explain how I know it, but you are wrong. I certainly saw her. And what adds to my certainty is the curious behaviour of the people who took care of me afterward.”
“You mean the man who brought you to the hospital and the one who towed your car to the garage?”
“Why, certainly!” Barry replied. “As not a thing was stolen, either from me personally or out of the Rolls, why should these people have deliberately kept in the background?”
“I see your point,” said his father slowly; “but I rather think there was only one man concerned.”
“I believe you are right,” Barry agreed; “and I believe that this man was acting for the girl I saw at the window!”
John Cumberland looked up, fumbling for his lighter.
“Now,” he confessed, “I don’t entirely follow you.”
“I mean, Dad,” Barry explained excitedly, “that she must have seen me. She was looking at me. If I saw her, she certainly saw me!”
John Cumberland lighted his cigar.
“Now I begin to follow,” he nodded. “You mean that she didn’t want you to trace her?”
“Exactly!”
“You are sure she saw you? A flash of lightning such as you describe would have a very blinding effect.”
“It did,” Barry admitted ruefully, “in my case! But the crash took place less than twenty yards from the spot where she was standing.”
“Yes,” his father mused; “probably you are right. You think that she sent this mysterious man with the Studebaker to your assistance, had you taken to the hospital in Elizabeth, and then had the Rolls towed to a distant garage, with the idea that you would be unable to find the spot later? Rather a hazard. How was she to know that you were unfamiliar with the neighbourhood?”
“She might have thought it worth a chance, at any rate.”
“But the object?” John Cumberland exclaimed. “What could be the object? Was she very inadequately dressed? I mean was she likely to feel ashamed of having been seen in such a condition?”
“Why, no,” said Barry reflectively. “She was very strangely dressed, and, as far as that goes, scantily. But in these days that wouldn’t upset her. There’s some mystery about it--of this I am certain. To-morrow I am going exploring. I wish you could come.”
“Unfortunately I can’t,” was the reply. “I have two important conferences. But if you go, let Hemingway drive you. You have had a devil of a knock on the head, my boy, and you shouldn’t overtax yourself.”
Barry, however, had planned to go with Jim Sakers, who claimed to know the country like the palm of his hand. And on the following morning the two made an early start, beneath a cloudless sky which lent the towering buildings of New York an unfamiliar ethereal quality.
Jim Sakers, in appearance and in temperament, was as different from Barry Cumberland as a Gruyère cheese is different from an ivory Buddha. He was dark and of a lovable ugliness; practical to a degree that his friend sometimes found irritating; invariably good-humoured; and frankly ignorant of everything that could not be dealt with on Wall Street. An enthusiastic sportsman to whom the Arts were an awful mystery, he, withal, regarded the moody Barry more tenderly than Horatio looked upon Hamlet.
Once extricated from the crossword puzzle of New York’s traffic and clear of Hoboken’s shores, they began to make speed, Jim commenting continuously upon sights by the way, as was his manner, Barry answering only in monosyllables and being entirely wrapped up in his own thoughts. Presently:
“When we get to the house,” he said, “I propose to call.”
“Cheers!” cried Jim. “I hope the Egyptian princess keeps a good cellar. But what for?”
“To thank her for looking after me. I shall take it for granted that she did.”
“Wait until we find the house,” Jim warned; “and then, wait until we get in!”
Barry smiled lightly.
“Of course we shall find the house,” he asserted. “You know the way, don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Jim assured him, “as far as the forks. I simply couldn’t go wrong. But from there onward, I am entirely in your hands. You say you took the middle road?”
“Yes,” Barry nodded. “The middle one.”
He became lost in thought again, paying so little attention to his companion’s cheery remarks that presently these ceased, as mile after mile was left behind and New York seemed to become very remote, in the peace of the countryside that they were traversing.
And now, undaunted, Jim began to sing, loudly.
“‘Dear one, the moon is waiting for the sunshine----’”
“Shut up!” Barry implored. “Don’t sing. Or, if you must sing, sing the right words. It isn’t ‘the moon’--it’s ‘the world.’”
“Oh!” Jim stared. “I don’t believe it. But, anyway, I like ‘the moon’ better.”
“The tune is all wrong as well.”
“You’re too blamed particular!” said Jim.
Engaged in this argument they came sweeping down a long, straight road, turned sharply to the right, and Jim pulled up.
“Behold!” he cried, and pointed.
Barry could not conceal his excitement.
“Gad!” he muttered. “It looks all different, now. But, yes, that’s the road.”
“Middle one, boss?”
“Yes.”
“Very good, boss.”
Jim grinned cheerfully and swung around into the thoroughfare indicated.
“Tell me when to stop, boss!” he shouted. “‘Dear one, the moon…’”
He sang lustily, and inaccurately, for half a mile or more; until:
“Here we are! Left!” Barry shouted.
Jim obediently turned into the narrow way indicated by his companion, raced along it, and then:
“What’s this?” he exclaimed, and pulled up sharply. A barrier confronted them. “We’ve got into a private road! And it’s closed for repairs. Look!” He pointed to the board which clearly stated this fact. “It’s been closed for a long time, too, from the look of it. You’ve muddled the contract, you poor nut!”
Barry sat staring blankly ahead. At last:
“Try back,” he suggested. “I can’t make this out.”
Jim grunted, backed out to a gap, turned, and retraced the path to the high road. Slowing up:
“Now, boss,” he demanded, “what next? Where’s the princess?”
Barry, who had been sitting with knitted brows, looked up sharply.
“Jim,” he declared, “that was the right road--and it was open on the night I drove along it!”
“We might park the bus and walk,” Jim suggested helpfully.
“No,” Barry replied; “I don’t feel fit enough. Besides----”
“Well?” Jim prompted.
“Why was the road closed? There’s a mystery here, Jim, and I shall never solve it by blundering in like a bull at a fence.”
“Then what do we do now, boss?” Jim demanded.
“Go home!” was the reply.
“Right!” said Jim, and headed east for New York. “Once upon a time,” he recited, in a loud singsong, “there was a princess…”
