Her Forbidden Knight

Chapter III Hidden Wires

On the following morning Knowlton was formally enrolled as a member of the Erring Knights. “The qualifications,” said Tom Dougherty, “are a good pair of biceps and a boundless esteem for Miss Lila Williams. The dues are two dozen roses each week. A fresh bouquet every morning. Your day will be Saturday.”

Dumain was really not quite easy about it. He himself had introduced Knowlton to the Lamartine, and he knew nothing whatever about him, having picked him up in a Broadway café by accident. But, as was quite right for a palmist and clairvoyant, he trusted to Providence for justification of his action.

From that day forth Knowlton took his place and held it. In spite of his superior education and breeding, he seemed exactly to fit, and within a week had earned quite a reputation as a good fellow. He always had money, and leisure and willingness to spend it.

Nothing came of the encounter with Sherman. A day or two afterward they had met in the billiard room. Dumain and Knowlton were playing.

“Take a cue, Sherman?” Dumain had said.

“If Knowlton doesn’t object,” Sherman replied.

“Not I,” laughed Knowlton. “You can’t bluff in billiards, you know. It’s either hit or miss.”

The significance of this remark was not lost on Sherman.

No one knew anything of the nature of Knowlton’s occupation, or even if he had any. He was in the Lamartine at all hours of the day, and he always had leisure to perform any favor or meet any engagement.

He had one habit that aroused some comment. Two or three times each week he sent a telegram at Lila’s desk. It always bore the same address.

Laughingly alluding to their first meeting, he always insisted on paying with a ten-dollar bill, and the state of Lila’s cash drawer became a standing joke between them. Lila wondered a little about the mysterious telegrams; in fact, she wondered about everything connected with him — and knew nothing.

She even wondered why she was interested in him; why she looked forward to the sight of his face and the sound of his voice. For her innocence was that of inexperience and ignorance — the purest if not the best. It led her into a score of charming deceptions, of which, however, she herself was always the victim.

One of these had to do with the bouquet of roses.

In the first place, no girl likes to receive flowers unless she knows who gives them to her. So, on the first appearance of the glorious vase, Lila had set about discovering its source.

Let us not be too harsh on the poor little messenger boy. It is true that he had promised Dougherty not to tell, but if you blame him severely for his betrayal of the confidence it merely proves that you know nothing of the charm of Lila’s smile.

It would have coaxed a secret from the Sphinx herself. Thus she became aware that the roses were the gift of the Erring Knights, furnished by each in his turn.

Then one morning, about a week after the first appearance of Knowlton, she decided that her information was not sufficiently definite. Observe the effect of love! Ordinarily Lila was the most open and straightforward creature in the world. But see the cunning of her procedure!

“Jimmie,” she said to the messenger boy, “the roses yesterday were the most beautiful shade I have ever seen. Do you know who got them?”

“What’s today — Saturday?” Jimmie asked.

“Yes. Yesterday was Friday.”

“Then it was Mr. Driscoll.”

“Oh!” Lila hesitated. “And who — who gets them on Thursday?”

“Mr Dumain — Frenchy.”

“And on Wednesday?”

Jimmie remained silent and eyed her keenly.

“Mr. Knowlton’s day is Saturday,” he said finally. “That’s today.”

Lila blushed a rosy pink.

“Jimmie!” she exclaimed.

“Aw, come off! Don’t you think I know nothin’?” said the boy. Only a boy — or a woman — could have guessed it.

Lila was silent. But that evening she took the bouquet of roses home with her. As to what she did with them after she got them there, you must guess for yourself. Unlike Jimmie, I can keep a secret.

A month passed uneventfully.

Dumain improved his play at billiards till he threatened to take part in a tournament; Jennings reported daily concerning his contract with Charles Frohman; Knowlton continued to spend his ten-dollar bills on telegrams at Lila’s desk, and Driscoll spouted the classics on all occasions. Dougherty and Booth held down their chairs and talked philosophy.

Since the day of Knowlton’s introduction, Sherman, who had always been barely tolerated by the others, had increased his attentions to Lila to a point where they were noticed by several of the others. But, as Driscoll said, they regarded him as harmless.

Had Lila cared to speak she could have told them that which would have caused them to think differently; but she bore his troublesome attentions in silence. And if she had but known the depth of his treachery and the strength of his passion for her, she would have feared him, instead of merely despising him, and avoided many a poignant hour of sorrow and anxiety.

But Sherman cleverly concealed his real nature and treacherous designs under an appearance of blunt frankness. It must be admitted that the others were easily deceived. But then what cause had they for suspicion? We learn of the presence of the deadly rattlesnake only when we hear his warning rattle, and Sherman, like the serpent, was waiting silently for the time to spring.

It was Dumain who first noticed that Lila carried home the bouquet of roses on Saturday evening. These Frenchmen have an eye for such things. He watched and discovered that this compliment was paid on Saturdays only.

Now Dumain was not exactly jealous. The mere fact that Lila exhibited a preference for Knowlton’s roses did not disturb him; but the question was, what had Knowlton done to bring about such a state of affairs? For it was evident to Dumain that Knowlton must have done or said something thus to have installed himself in the first place in Lila’s affections.

Of course, Dumain was mistaken. A girl gives her heart not to a man’s actions or words, but to the man himself. Knowlton was innocent of any treachery to the Erring Knights. He was not to blame for the vagaries of Dan Cupid.

But when, for the fourth Saturday in succession, he saw Lila carefully place the roses in a large paper bag and leave the hotel with the bag under her arm, he could contain himself no longer. He called to Knowlton, who was talking with the Venus at the cigar stand.

Knowlton walked over to him in a secluded corner of the lobby.

“I want to talk to you,” said Dumain.

“Fire away!” said Knowlton.

“It is about zee roses.”

“Roses?”

“Yes. Zee roses you gave to Miss Williams.”

“What about them?”

Dumain pointed toward Lila’s desk.

“You see. Zee vase is empty.”

“Why, so it is,” said Knowlton. “I wonder — that’s funny.”

“Very funny.” said Dumain sarcastically. “Now, where are they?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you mean to say you don’t know?”

“I don’t know.”

Dumain eyed him incredulously.

“Well, zen, I tell you,” he said finally. “Miss Williams took zem home.”

Knowlton seemed surprised.

“Miss Williams took them home?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“Well, they are hers, aren’t they? Hasn’t she a right to do as she pleases with them? Why do you trouble me about it?”

“Because she pay zat compliment to no one but you,” said Dumain impressively.

“What? How — only to me?”

“She never take any roses home but yours. She does it now for — oh, a month. And what does zat mean? It means you’re a traitor. It means you’ve deceived us. It means you are trying to make zee impression on Mees Williams, and I am afraid you succeed.”

Knowlton appeared to be touched. His face colored, and he seemed to be at a loss for words. Was it possible that this evidence of an interest in him on the part of Miss Williams found a corresponding thrill in his own breast?

Suddenly he smiled — a smile of genuine amusement.

“Dumain,” he said, “you fellows are the limit. You’re not only amusing — you’re extremely dense. I would be very happy indeed if I could believe that Miss Williams had singled me out for the distinction you mention; but the real cause of her seeming preference is only too evident.”

“Well?”

“Every evening,” Knowlton continued, “Miss Williams’s roses are left to adorn the lobby of this hotel. It is by her order, as you know. But as she is at home on Sunday she wants them on that day for herself.

“So every Saturday evening she takes them home. That must be the correct explanation. She can’t even know that I bought them.”

Dumain’s little round face was filled with light.

“Of course!” he exclaimed. “What an ass am I! Forgive me, Knowlton. Zen she doesn’t care for you?”

“I’m afraid not.” Knowlton smiled. But the smile was not an easy one.

“And you haven’t been trying to—”

“My good fellow,” Knowlton interrupted him, “as long as I am an Erring Knight I shall act only in the role of protector.”

At that moment Driscoll approached and the interview was ended. Knowlton wandered over to the cigar stand, bought a packet of cigarettes, and, lighting one, transferred the remainder to a silver-mounted leather case. Then strolling past Lila’s desk with a nod, he stopped in front of the lounge in the corner and exchanged the time of day with Harry Jennings and Billy Sherman.

After a few minutes of desultory conversation with Jennings, during which Sherman sat noticeably silent, Knowlton, glancing at his watch and observing that he had an engagement, left the lobby of the hotel, and started up Broadway.

He had no sooner disappeared man Sherman sprang up from the lounge, left by the side door, and followed him some twenty paces in the rear.

Broadway was crowded and Sherman was forced to keep close to his quarry in order not to lose sight of him. Knowlton walked with a swinging, athletic stride, looking neither to right nor left — ordinarily the gait of a man who has nothing to fear and nothing to be ashamed of. Now and then the pressure of the crowd caused him to make a detour, and Sherman dodged in and out behind him.

At Madison Square Knowlton stopped abruptly and looked first to one side, then the other. On account of the congested traffic at that point the action was perfectly natural, and Sherman, who had darted quickly behind a standing cab, was convinced that he had not been seen. After a short wait Knowlton stepped off the curb, crossed the square, and proceeded up Broadway.

At Twenty-eighth Street he turned suddenly and disappeared through the swinging doors of a café.

Sherman approached, and halted a foot from the door.

“Now,” he muttered, “if I only dared go in! I’d give a ten-spot to know who he’s with in there. That would settle it. But they’ll probably come out together, anyway.” He retired to a doorway nearby and waited.

In a few minutes Knowlton emerged alone. Sherman, cursing under his breath, hesitated and appeared ready to give it up; then, with a gesture of decision, he resumed the chase with an air of determined resolve. Knowlton had quickened his step, and Sherman had to move swiftly to overtake him.

At Thirtieth Street Knowlton turned westward. At once the pursuer’s task became more difficult. There was no crowd of pedestrians here, as on Broadway, and there was imminent danger of discovery. Twice when Knowlton halted he was forced to dodge aside into a doorway.

At Sixth Avenue Sherman found his passage obstructed by a passing cab. It was empty. Struck by a sudden thought, he sprang inside and, thinking thus to lessen the chances of detection, pointed to Knowlton and instructed the driver to follow him.

The driver grinned, wheeled his cab sharply, and turned down Thirtieth Street.

They crossed Seventh Avenue and Eighth, past rows of five-story apartment houses, with their narrow brass-railed stoops and air of dingy respectability. Straight ahead at a distance the Hudson could be seen shimmering in the light of the winter sun; from the rear came the sounding rumble and rattle of an Elevated train above the low, never-ceasing hum of the great city.

Knowlton continued his rapid stride to Ninth Avenue, and beyond, while the cab followed cautiously. Then suddenly he turned in at the entrance of one of a row of apartment houses. By the time the cab approached he had disappeared within.

Sherman ordered the driver to halt in front of the entrance, while a look of disappointment and chagrin covered his face. “Well, I’ll be hanged,” he said finally. “I thought sure I had him this time. And here he comes home to take a nap!”

He sat undecided in a corner of the cab.

“Hello, Sherman!” came a voice from above.

Sherman, startled, leaned out through the cab door and looked up. Knowlton was leaning out of an open window on the second story of the apartment house he had entered, looking down with an amused grin.

“Won’t you come up and have some tea?” he sang out pleasantly.

Sherman’s face colored with rage.

“No, thank you, Mr. John Norton,” he called. Then he turned and shouted at the driver to go on, while his brain whirled with the thousand wild schemes of a baffled and enraged man.

He, too, had noticed Lila’s preference for Knowlton. And he understood it, as Dumain did not; for the eyes of love are keen. He saw the uselessness of trying to combat that preference, for he recognized Knowlton’s superiority; but he hoped to acquire the power to force Knowlton to remove himself.

He believed that he possessed the key to that power, and he had sought in many ways to verify his suspicions, but so far without success. He had begun by attempting a bluff. But Knowlton had called it, and it had failed.

He had started a correspondence with friends in Warton. The information he obtained from them encouraged him; his suspicions were strengthened, but not confirmed. And he required evidence.

Then he had shadowed Knowlton, and seemed ever on the verge of a discovery. But the proof he sought, though ever within his grasp, forever eluded him. He was at last almost persuaded to give it up as hopeless.

He was filled with chagrin, disappointment, and despair, while the sight of Lila’s face and his desire for her spurred him on to renewed effort.

Now, as he made his way back to the Lamartine, he resolved on a stroke in the open. He would enlist the services of the Erring Knights, at the same time blinding them as to his own designs.

“They’re a bunch of fools, anyway,” he thought. “I think I’ll tackle the little Frenchman.”

Accordingly, when he reached the Lamartine he called Dumain aside.

“What do you want?” Dumain asked shortly.

“I want to talk to you about Knowlton,” said Sherman.

“What ees eet?”

“I’ve discovered something about him that I think you ought to know — something not exactly to his credit.”

Dumain stiffened.

“Knowlton ees my friend,” he observed meaningly. “Go slow, Sherman.”

“If that’s the way you feel about it I have nothing more to say,” said Sherman, turning to go. “Only I thought you were a friend of Miss Williams.”

Dumain looked up quickly.

“And so I am,” he declared. “But what is zee connection?”

“Only this: That no one who is a real friend of Miss Williams can possibly be a friend of John Knowlton.”

“And why?”

“Because... well, I don’t think he intends to marry her.”

“Mon Dieu!” Dumain gasped. “Has he been—”

“No — not yet. But he will be. And she likes him too well already. Have you noticed what she does with the roses he gives her? And do you know how her eyes follow him all over the lobby?”

“Well?”

“Well, you know what that means. It means that Knowlton can do just about what he likes with her. If not now, it’ll come soon. And he’ll ruin her. Do you know anything about Knowlton? Listen:

“His real name is Norton. One year ago he was cashier in a bank in a little town in Ohio. One morning they find the safe robbed — dynamited. They couldn’t prove Norton was implicated, but everybody knew he was. He beat it to New York. That explains where he got his coin. Now you have it. Should a guy like that be allowed to hang around Lila Williams?”

Dumain sighed.

“We are none of us pairfect,” he observed.

“Oh, the devil!” exclaimed Sherman, exasperated. “Perhaps not. I guess neither you nor me is going to publish our diaries. But that isn’t the point. To put it plainly, I happen to know that Miss Williams is in love with this Knowlton, and that he fully intends to take advantage of it. You know what that means.”

Dumain appeared to be lost in thought.

“But what can we do?” he said finally.

“The same as we’ve done to a dozen others.”

“But zis Knowlton — he is no coward.”

“There are six of us,” said Sherman meaningly.

Dumain rose from his chair with a gesture of decision.

“I speak to Dougherty and Driscoll,” he said as he turned to go.

Sherman watched him cross the lobby.

“The little idiot!” he muttered contemptuously. Then he turned his eyes toward Lila’s desk.

As he gazed at her his face burned with desire and his eyes glittered like the eyes of the serpent. Slowly they filled with evil exultation. Then, subduing this outward betrayal of his thoughts, he crossed to her desk, halted uncertainly, and finally reached for a telegram blank.

“You have decided to give me some of your patronage?” Lila smiled.

“Yes,” Sherman replied. “Only it won’t be in code.”

A tinge of color appeared in Lila’s cheeks, and a pang of jealousy that stung Sherman’s heart made him regret the observation. He placed the telegram blank on the top of the desk and after a minute’s thought wrote on it as follows:

Lila smiled as she read it.

“You newspaper men are so mysterious,” she observed. Then suddenly she turned slightly pale and glanced up quickly.

“She’s noticed the similarity in the names,” thought Sherman.

“Why?” he said aloud. “Is there anything so mysterious about that?”

“It sounds like a missing heir or a — an embezzler,” said Lila.

“I’m sorry I can’t enlighten you.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to. I suppose you’re full of important and terrible secrets.”

“Perhaps.” Sherman hesitated a moment, then added: “But there’s only one that I regard as important.”

Lila was silent.

“It is about you,” Sherman continued.

“About me?” Lila’s tone was incredulous.

“About you,” Sherman repeated. His tone was low and significant as he added, “and me.”

His meaning was too clear to admit of any pretense that it was not understood. For a moment Lila’s face was lowered, then she raised it and said firmly: “Mr. Sherman, I do not wish you to talk to me — like — that.”

“I can’t help it. You know it, anyway. I love you.” Sherman’s voice trembled with desire.

“Must I tell you that you annoy me?” she said, rising to her feet.

Sherman lost control of himself.

“You wouldn’t say that to Mr. John Knowlton,” he sneered. “And the time will come when you can’t say it to me. I want you. Look at me. Do I look like a man who wouldn’t take what he wants? You will — you must be mine.”

The unexpectedness of it caused Lila’s face to turn a fiery red. Then she as suddenly became pale. For a moment neither spoke. They had no words; for Sherman had no sooner spoken than he regretted the rashness of his premature avowal. Lila was the first to recover herself.

“Mr. Sherman,” she said calmly, “if you ever speak to me in this way again I shall tell Mr. Dougherty and Mr. Driscoll that you are annoying me. Now go.”

And Sherman went.