The Gilded Man: A Romance of the Andes

  X

  AN OLD MYSTERY

  The vanishing of David Meudon in broad daylight while traveling on oneof the main thoroughfares of the Republic became the sensation of thehour in Bogota. It excited more interest even than the return of GeneralHerran and his party from Panama. The tale of David's disappearancethree years before was revived, and gossip found plenty of material fromwhich to weave wild romance as to what had happened on both occasions.But you can't build up a durable romance without some solid fact tobase it on, and since this whole affair was wrapped in mystery, lackinganything tangible, public interest gradually and inevitably died out.Among government leaders, however, owing to the strained relationsexisting between the United States and Colombia, there was some anxietyover the incident.

  General Herran, who was related to the President of the Republic, andwho was proved to have had nothing to do--consciously, that is--with theloss of Panama, declared that the government was responsible for David'sdisappearance. He argued that, as the country was not in a state of war,the marching of volunteer regiments on the public roads was a menaceto foreigners having business in Colombia, and that therefore theseregiments should either be disbanded or else ample protection be givento all travelers who might encounter them. As it was too late to lookafter David--so said the General--his friends, who were about to setout for Bogota, should at least be guarded from a like fate on the waythither. Accordingly, as this view of the case was approved, a companyof soldiers was sent to Honda--and thus it happened that Doctor Miranda,Leighton and his niece, Mrs. Quayle and the schoolmaster--recoveredfrom his fever and the Doctor's pills--made the journey under militaryescort, arriving in the capital quite like official personages.

  This novel manner of traveling, although it kept off vagrant militia,had its sinister features for the timid members of the party. Mrs.Quayle, whose fear of a burro grew in proportion as she became familiarwith that harmless and necessary animal, believed that she and herfriends had fallen captives, through a skillful bit of strategy,into the enemy's hands and were being led either to their death orimprisonment. To this belief she stuck, in spite of the vehemence andridicule with which Doctor Miranda seasoned his arguments againstit. Indeed, had she dared express her full opinion her suspicionswould have involved the Doctor himself, whose explosive habits andother eccentricities kept her in a continual state of alarm that wasincreased, every now and then, by his malicious allusions to the jewelryshe wore. Andrew, inclined to attribute his fever to the famous pillsand the heroic treatment to which he had been subjected, secretly sharedher feeling, and was in hourly dread of some new calamity striking himfrom the same quarter. Harold Leighton and Una, however, were toomuch absorbed in David's mysterious fate to be greatly concerned bywhat was going on immediately around them. The old savant, unable toexplain the disaster, was distressed beyond measure by the poignantgrief of his niece. In his own mind he was convinced that the singularoccurrence on the Honda road was related in some way to David's formerdisappearance, and this belief stimulated his professional eagerness tosolve the puzzle presented by so strange a coincidence. Una's appeal,therefore, to go any length in the rescue of David needed no urging. Itwas met with a hearty promise of aid from Doctor Miranda, who stormed atthe government, in and out of season, for permitting bands of peons toendanger the lives of harmless travelers.

  The Doctor was especially indignant with Herran, who called upon theAmericans before they were fairly settled in their hotel in Bogota.He pitched into this hapless officer with his choicest bits ofvituperation, until Herran began to think that the loss of one man,under certain circumstances, was as serious an affair as the loss of anisthmus. Leighton, however, did not share Doctor Miranda's views of thematter.

  "Miranda is unreasonable," he said to Herran. "There is a mystery inthis case. You have done all you could to save the young man, and youare now offering to help us."

  "That is right! That is right!" agreed Miranda. "We must find him."

  "Anything I can do----" volunteered Herran.

  "Do you know an American in this town by the name of Raoul Arthur?"interrupted Leighton.

  "How not! But--I don't like him."

  "Never mind. I must see him. If any one can unravel this thing, he can."

  "Mr. Meudon spoke of him. I will find him for you."

  "Do you know where he lives?"

  "Surely, Senor. In the Calle Mercedes."

  "Take me to him."

  "Very well, Senor," said Herran, apparently overcoming his reluctance;"that is settled. First, I will be sure he is there. Then, this night, Itake you to his house."

  Una, hearing of this decision, doubted its wisdom. From the fewreferences David had made to his partner in the Guatavita miningventure she had felt instinctively that Raoul was his enemy, an opinionstrengthened by the psychometer test used at Stoneleigh. Leighton hadagreed in this opinion, more or less; hence Una's surprise that heruncle, who was usually overcautious, should now turn to Raoul for help.

  "I believe the man knows where David is," he declared.

  "If he does, he will never tell you," remonstrated Una.

  "I am not so sure of that."

  "You may force him to do something fatal," she urged.

  "On the contrary! By going to him at once I will prevent any foulplay--if there is to be any foul play."

  The possibility alarmed her. The suspense, the mystery surrounding Davidseemed more than she could bear. Bitterly she remembered Leighton'sattitude towards him in Rysdale. And now that their trip to Bogota,insisted on from the first by her uncle, had ended as it had, her faithin him was sadly shaken. She could not accept his judgment in a caseabout which he had already shown so grave a lack of foresight. Leighton,on his part, realized Una's distrust of him. He did not try to dispelthis feeling; but the knowledge that it was there spurred him on to dohis best and with the least possible delay.

  So, that very evening Leighton, piloted by Herran, sought Raoul Arthur'sabode on the Calle Mercedes. Like most Bogota houses of the humblersort, this was a one-storied building, its heavy street door openingupon a wide brick corridor leading to a central patio from which thevarious rooms were reached. Following Colombian custom, the two menentered without announcement and made their way along the unlightedpassage to the main living room, extending from the patio to the street.A lamp at the center of a long table heaped with books and papersdistinguished this from the other rooms of the house, all of which werein darkness and apparently uninhabited. A man, somewhat past thirty, hishair slightly grizzled, his features pale and sharpened from study, satat the table in this main room reading a much-worn leather-bound volume,the large black type and thick, yellowed paper of which gave ample proofof age. Aroused by the noise made by Leighton and Herran, he closed hisbook with a quick, nervous movement and turned to the doorway where histwo visitors stood.

  "This is Mr. Raoul Arthur?" asked Leighton grimly.

  "Who are you?" demanded the other, his strange, shifting eyes on themassive figure before him.

  "My name is Leighton. I am looking for David Meudon."

  "He is not here," was the quick reply.

  "I hardly expected to find him here," retorted the savant.

  "Then why ask me for him?"

  "You were once, if you are not now, Meudon's business partner. Youmust have heard of his disappearance. On his way from Honda to Bogotahe--well, he simply vanished. That's the only way to describe it. It allhappened, no one knows how, a few days ago. The same thing took placesome years ago when he was living here with you. You know all about thedetails of that first disappearance."

  "You are mistaken," interrupted Raoul. "David Meudon left me for anumber of months. On his return he failed--or didn't think it worthwhile--to explain his absence."

  "That is all very well. Perhaps he could, perhaps he couldn't explainit. At any rate, you thought that absence sufficiently peculiar to makeit the subject of an article for the Psychological Journal."

  Raoul flinched perceptibly under
this statement. His cool indifferencetook on the sort of cordiality that repels one more than open enmity.Bending over the table before which he was standing, he occupied himselfin elaborately sorting and rearranging some papers at which he had beenworking.

  "Of course," he said, "I know you now! Mr. Harold Leighton. I didn'tplace the name at first, which was altogether stupid of me. I have oftenwanted to meet you. As a matter of fact, I heard of your coming. It's arare treat in this out-of-the-way part of the world to run across a manwho has advanced our knowledge of psychology as you have."

  The profuse compliment was not relished by the old savant. "I am notaware that I have advanced our knowledge of psychology, as you put it,one iota," he said testily. "But I am here to add to the small stock ofwhat I have already learned."

  "You must have found David a rare problem!" exclaimed Raoul.

  "You know him, perhaps, better than I do."

  "Yes, I know him. That is, in a way. Engaging sort of chap. Clever,and all that. Mysterious, too, don't you think? So, he has disappearedagain, you say?"

  "Don't tell me that you have not known of it! The whole town has beentalking about it."

  "Rumors, only rumors," protested Raoul. "I would like to hear the realfacts."

  "This gentleman, General Herran, with whom Mr. Meudon was traveling, cantell you the facts, such as they are. But I can't see why you shouldneed them."

  Raoul turned to Leighton's companion, who had been trying to followwhat the two men were saying. As they talked in English, a languageof which he knew scarcely a word, he could make very little of it.Asked, in Spanish, to give the details of his ride with David, he madean excellent story of it, relating something of the discussion thathad absorbed them while on the road together, the friendly feelingthat had grown up between them, its touch of conviviality, and theirabrupt separation in the midst of their encounter with the regiment ofvolunteers.

  Raoul listened intently to Herran's narrative, his glance rovingrestlessly from the narrator to his companion and back again, as if tocompare the effect on both of what was said.

  "It's a strange tale, Senor," he commented when Herran had come tothe end. "These things with a touch of mystery in them are alwaysfascinating--until you stumble on the clew. Then it's very simple. Isuppose you have no theory to explain our friend's disappearance?"

  "None, Senor."

  "You have just told me, Mr. Leighton," he went on, addressing thelatter, "that you are here to add to your knowledge of psychology."

  "I did."

  "Well, what do you make of it? Here's what you are looking for--a neatpsychological problem right to your hand."

  "I don't see it," said the savant impatiently.

  "That's always the way with you great scientists! But--it's simple,"declared Raoul, a note of triumph in his voice; "absolutely simple--ifyou know David as well as I do."

  "I said that you probably know him better. I have not known him as longor as intimately as you have. But--again I fail to see what psychologyhas to do with it."

  "It has everything to do with it. David was not spirited away, as youseem to imagine. He disappeared of his own accord."

  "There is every reason to think the contrary," said Leightoncontemptuously.

  "Oh, of course I may be wrong in my theory. But, as there is no otherevidence, I see only one solution. It's the clew we are after, youknow--and the clew is right under your nose."

  "Perhaps you are on the wrong scent. Some investigators have a knack ofbeing cocksure about everything. But--explain your meaning."

  "Very well. Let's talk as one psychologist to another, then. Meudon hasa peculiar temperament. You probably know that. But you may not knowthat the dual personality is highly developed in him. Under strong,sudden excitement this personality becomes greatly exaggerated."

  "He was laboring under no particular excitement at the time of hisdisappearance," objected Leighton.

  "What about the mission he was on? I have an idea that it was ofabsorbing importance to him. Remember, he was revisiting scenesconnected with an episode that for some years he has been trying toforget but which he now wants to revive. And then, to cap the climax,suddenly he comes, slap bang, right into the midst of a rabble of peonswho would be only too glad to kill him, or imprison him, or torturehim--or anything else unpleasant. The same crowd tried to get me once,so I know what it all means."

  "All this is true; but the excitement was hardly enough to drown David'snormal personality."

  "It all helps, though. It predisposes things. It is, as I look atit, the final stage setting, with all the characters in their placesawaiting the entrance of the villain to finish up the tragedy. Andin this case the villain entered just at the critical moment. Mr.Leighton," he asked abruptly, "have you ever known David to drink aglass of wine?"

  "I can't say that I have," he answered doubtfully.

  "Well, alcoholic stimulus, with certain temperaments--you know what itdoes. It starts up an altogether abnormal psychology, doesn't it?"

  "Very apt to."

  "Depends a little on the stage setting, doesn't it? But, even withoutthat it has its odd effects. On rare occasions, for instance, I haveknown Meudon to take a single drink of liquor. The result has beensimilar to that brought on by hypnotism."

  "Well?"

  "There's your clew!" Raoul announced triumphantly. "You have heardGeneral Herran's story. He tells us that just before they parted heand David drank several toasts together--and the toasts, I fancy, werestronger than mere wine."

  "You think, then----"

  "Why, it's childishly simple! David was knocked over by a force, aninfluence, to which he is unaccustomed. He is not at all a drinkingman, you understand. Quite the reverse. With him the effect of drinkwould not be in the least like ordinary intoxication. From two formerexperiences I know that it would be far subtler. It would produce whatyou would call a pseudo-hypnosis, a condition of abnormal psychology."

  "Well?"

  "Don't you see what happened?"

  "I have not had your experience with David," was the sarcastic reply.

  "It is not a question of mere personal experience," said Raoulirritably; "it involves what we know--or guess--of the eccentricities ofthe human soul."

  "You are an enthusiast. Be more explicit. Don't wander off in yourstatements."

  "Very well. I'll put it in the lingo of science as nearly as I can.It appears to me, then, that David, by this little exchange of pistolshots, as you call them, with General Herran, brought into activitya portion of his brain that had not, for a number of years, intrudeditself upon his conscious life. It had literally been sleeping all thattime. On the last occasion when it was awake--when, in other words, hewas under the sway of this subconscious ego--he was here, amid the veryscenes in which he again finds himself. A moment ago you connected hisfirst disappearance with the one which has just taken place on the roadfrom Honda. Well, the General's 'pistol,' as he calls it, suddenly threwDavid back into the memory of that first subconscious experience."

  "The Ghost of the Forgotten found at last," mused Leighton, more tohimself than to Raoul.

  "Exactly! That's a good way to put it."

  "Suppose your theory correct; what happened after David's subconsciousmemory was awakened?"

  "As a psychologist, you are better able to answer that than I."

  "I am not interested in abstruse problems just now. I am here simply tofind David."

  "Difficult, perhaps. I couldn't find him before. But at least I havegiven you the clew."

  "Your clew doesn't explain. I don't know what to do with it."

  "A restatement of my theory may clear things up. Through a combinationof certain circumstances, exerting upon him a peculiar influence, Davidis living again in an environment and through a set of experiences thatbelong to him only when he is in what we call a condition of secondarypersonality. Discover that environment--the same, I believe, as the onein which he was lost three years ago--and you will discover David."

  Lei
ghton made no comment. He regarded Raoul with characteristicimmobility. One gathered from his silence, however, that he wasimpressed with what he had just heard. Slowly pacing the length of thesala, he stopped before General Herran, who, through his ignorance ofEnglish, was in a quite helpless state of bewilderment at the turn theinterview between the two men had taken.

  "This young man will help us find Meudon," said Leighton in his brokenSpanish.

  "He knows where he is?" asked Herran eagerly.

  "He knows--something," replied the savant with significant emphasis."For one thing, General, those pistol shots you had with Meudon seem tohave played the devil."

  "Caramba! Does he say so? But that is foolishness!"

  "No, it is theory," said Leighton drily.

  "How will he prove it?"

  "By finding Meudon."

  There was a finality in the tone of Leighton's rejoinder which, morethan the words themselves, indicated the seeker's conviction that theroad to David's discovery was in plain view. Raoul Arthur, however, saidnothing. Standing aloof from his two visitors, apparently not heedingthem, his silence aroused Leighton's curiosity.

  "Naturally, I depend on you, Arthur," said the old man, with an emphasisthat sounded like a threat.

  "I don't know why," he demurred. "David was with your party when thishappened. I failed to find him three years ago, you know."

  "There is no proof that you did anything then to rescue the man who wasyour friend and business partner," retorted Leighton. "This time failuremight be fatal--for you."

  The words and Leighton's manner had their effect. Shaking off his real,or assumed, apathy, Raoul faced his accuser angrily.

  "I have given you the one clew of which I have any knowledge," he said,meeting Leighton for the first time eye to eye. "I have done what Icould, I will still do what I can. But I won't act at the dictation of aman of whom I know nothing, whom I never even met until this moment."

  "That's all very well," replied the other imperturbably. "But, as Isaid, I depend on you--quite naturally, it seems to me--to help in therecovery of your friend. My niece and I are in this country for theexpress purpose of solving David's former disappearance."

  "Your niece?"

  "Yes; the woman whom David expects to marry."

  Raoul's defiant attitude vanished before this announcement. Irritationgave place to amazement, distrust turned to friendliness. Nor did heattempt to conceal his appetite for further news of David's personalaffairs.

  "David wrote me nothing of this," he said. "From his letter I learnedthat he was coming with friends. He did not tell me who these friendswere."

  "Well, there's every reason why I should be frank with you--as I expectyou to be frank with me."

  "You are still suspicious. What can I do, or say? I tell you, I don'tknow where David is."

  "Do you know where he was when he disappeared from Bogota three yearsago?"

  "No."

  "Strange! A man with all your interests at stake in this puzzle--surelyyou must have reached some conclusion?"

  "I tell you, I have not," he replied sharply. "I know nothing,absolutely nothing."

  "You admit you have a theory--let's call it that--a theory that fits thefacts so far as you know them?"

  "That's your deduction," sneered the other.

  "But, I'm right?"

  "Possibly," Raoul answered, turning again to the papers that litteredhis writing table.

  "That's all I want," declared Leighton with satisfaction. "Now, we willplan our campaign."

  Raoul, engrossed in a large, musty document which he had spread beforehim, greeted the proposal with a shrug of his shoulders. General Herran,impatient at the apparently futile and--to him--incomprehensiblediscussion, consumed innumerable cigarettes, while Leighton, with theair of one for whom waiting is an enjoyment, settled himself comfortablyin a capacious rocking-chair.

  The ensuing silence was rudely broken. There was a vigorous poundingupon the outer door, followed by the abrupt and noisy entrance into thehouse of some one from the street. Whoever it was, this late visitorstood little upon ceremony. But Leighton and General Herran had nodifficulty in recognizing the nervous shuffle of feet along the stonecorridor, the thump of the heavy walking-stick, accompanied by grunts ofdissatisfaction and suppressed wrath. When Doctor Miranda finally boltedinto the room, fanning himself as usual--although fans were a decidedlyuncomfortable superfluity in the chilly night air of Bogota--they were,in a way, prepared for him.

  "He is gone! He is lost--that leetle fellow! There is one more lost ofthem!" he shouted, repeating his disjointed English in staccato Spanish,as soon as he caught sight of his two friends.

  Leighton and Herran exchanged amazed glances at this enigmatic bit ofintelligence, while Raoul, preoccupied and restless though he was, couldnot restrain a grin at the unconventional being who had rolled his way,unannounced, into his house.

  "What do you mean?" demanded Leighton.

  "I tell you, he is lost, that leetle schoolmaster!" Miranda exploded.

  "Andrew Parmelee lost? Impossible!"

  "You are an estupido," retorted the Doctor angrily. "I say he is lost.Before my eyes he disappear. I never lie, I never mistake."

  Not caring to discuss this announcement, Leighton tried to divert thetorrent of words into something like a coherent statement. But in hispresent excitable mood Doctor Miranda floundered hopelessly in a morassof verbal difficulties and ended by telling his story in alternatelayers of Spanish and English. From his account, however, his hearerswere able to put together the main points of an occurrence that,vehemently vouched for though it was by the narrator, strained theircredulity to the limit.

  Early that morning, it appeared, Doctor Miranda, accompanied by thereluctant Andrew, had left Bogota for a visit to Lake Guatavita. Thereport that David's disappearance three years before had taken placethere was given as the reason for the trip. Arrived at the lake, Andrewhad declined to accompany the Doctor in his search among the cliffs thatguarded the mysterious body of water, and had stationed himself near thecutting made centuries before by the Spaniards. This was a comparativelywell sheltered spot and sufficiently removed from the precipitous shorewhich the cautious schoolmaster was anxious to avoid. His investigationsconcluded after the lapse of something like two hours, Miranda returnedto the old Spanish cutting, expecting to rejoin Andrew. But Andrew wasnot there. Surprised at not finding him, the doctor at first supposedthat the schoolmaster had grown tired of waiting and had journeyed backto Bogota alone. A single circumstance proved that in this he was wrong.There stood Andrew's horse where he had originally left him--and itseemed altogether unlikely that his rider had deliberately set out tocover the long and arduous miles to Bogota afoot.

  "Another puzzle in psychology, I suppose," commented Leighton, with asarcastic glance at Raoul Arthur.

  The latter, however, in spite of the fact that Andrew was an utterstranger to him, appeared to be more amazed than the others byMiranda's story, and for the moment paid no heed to Leighton.

  "When you found his horse you made a thorough search for your friend, ofcourse, Senor?" he asked Miranda eagerly.

  "Caramba! leetle fellow, what you think?" was the impatient reply. "Ilook, and I look, and I call--fifty times I call. If I can swim I jumpinto the lake to find him there. But I am too fat. So, I call moretimes, and I throw stones, and make the trumpet with the hands. It is nouse. That leetle fellow say nothing. He is not there. So, I come awayafter long time."

  "He is drowned, poor fellow," murmured Herran in Spanish.

  "It is not possible," declared Miranda, turning angrily upon thegeneral. "What make him drown? Of the water he is afraid. If he fallin--by mistake--he make a noise, he call to me. I am close by, I hear--Igo to him quickly. But I hear nothing."

  "Well, if he didn't drown, as our friend argues, what did become ofhim?" demanded Leighton.

  "Ah, Senor," replied Miranda, his mobile features expressing hopelessbewilderment, "I do not know. It is just so as
I tell you; he disappear,he vanish, he is gone. If I know where, I find him--I would not behere."

  "So, there are two disappearances to account for," summed up Leighton."Foreigners visiting Bogota seem to have the trick of vanishing. What doyou make of it, Mr. Arthur?"

  "I am as much at a loss as you."

  "Hardly that, I should think. You, at least, know all about thismysterious lake. You know what happened there three years ago, forinstance. And then you know----"

  "You credit me with a great deal more knowledge than I can lay claimto," interrupted Raoul. "I never heard of this man who has been lost,as your excitable friend tells us, in such a singular manner--this Mr.Andrew----"

  "Parmelee," supplied the other. "Andrew Parmelee, schoolmaster, ofRysdale, Connecticut. He is a very excellent person who, through hisdevotion to my niece and myself, has fallen, I fear, a victim to somestrange plot. You will join us, I have no doubt, in his rescue. I amignorant of the psychology of Guatavita. However, as I have already toldyou, I am here to add to my stock of psychological knowledge, and Ifancy there are few who could teach me more, in cases of this kind, thanyou."

  The sarcasm was not lost on Miranda, who shrugged his shoulders,muttered some unintelligible Spanish imprecation and exchanged acomprehending glance with General Herran. Raoul Arthur, on the otherhand, ignored the tone Leighton had adopted in addressing him. In hisreply he dropped the irritation and suspicion with which he had firstregarded the old savant, and there was even cordiality in the mannerand look accompanying his somewhat ceremonious acceptance of the taskimposed upon him.

  "If I thought it possible of so profound a scholar, Professor Leighton,"he laughed, "I would say you were chaffing me. As it is, I feelthe honor in your proposal that I should join you in solving thesemysterious disappearances. Perhaps I can be of some help. At any rate,depend on me for whatever I can do."

  "Two Americans unaccountably disappear in the heart of Colombia," musedLeighton. "If it were not for certain odd circumstances, I should saythe country's indignation over the loss of Panama had something to dowith it."

  Against this suggestion Miranda impatiently protested.

  "Impossible!" he shouted. "Always these people fight with the gun, themachete, if they are angry. They make much noise and talk; never theysteal the enemies of their country and say nothing. It is one plot--andperhaps this senor will know," he concluded, darting an accusing glanceat Raoul.

  But Raoul, now thoroughly composed, smiled disdainfully, althoughagreeing in Doctor Miranda's rejection of Leighton's half-formed theory.

  "If it is necessary," he assured them, "I can easily prove that I havehad nothing to do with all this. I have not been out of Bogota fora month or more. Besides, I have the strongest business reasons forwanting the safe return of David Meudon to this country. As for Mr.Parmelee; I repeat--I never heard of him before. But, I agree with ourfriend here; the disappearance of these two men has nothing to do withthe Panama trouble. It is something else. There is a mystery about it. Ihave no doubt it can be solved."

  "You have the clew?" demanded Leighton.

  "I didn't say that."

  "Well?"

  "Perhaps I know some one here--a woman--who could help us."

  But that evening, after the departure of his visitors, Raoul Arthurfound the little house in the Calle de las Flores tenantless, andlearned that the woman, known to the neighborhood as La Reina de losIndios, had left Bogota, with all her household effects, a week before.