Part 3

Briefly described, the plan and specifications of the ghost were as follows: A human skull was securely attached to one end of a piece of inch gas pipe twelve feet long. The other end of the pipe was flattened out, to permit its passing readily through the grip slot of the cable road, and was provided with a pair of self-acting spring nippers, ingeniously constructed of nickel, and so affixed as to act in the capacity of a grip. Front and rear guards held the structure upright. Just below the skull the pipe passed through a strip of board, two feet long by three inches wide, which served as shoulders. Over this the white shroud, which fell to within two feet of the ground, was loosely draped, while to one end of the strip the skeleton arm was fastened. Lower down, at right angles with the first, was a second board, with rounded ends, which served to give the drapery a natural spread, as well as to prevent a fracture of the skull when the figure was suddenly felled by its operators, as the two friends had seen it.

"John," said Joyce, after the examination had been made, "look at these two revolvers, and then tell us what you've got to say for yourself."

"Him not my glost," repeated the Chinaman, sullenly.

"Whose is it, then?"

"Him Wun Lung glost."

"Who is Wun Lung, and where does he live?"

"Him no livee--him dead."

"Oh! So this is his ghost. Why did you knock it down?"

"Wun Lung say, 'go catchee glost.'"

"Here!" interrupted Nelson, "you just said Wun Lung was dead."

Joyce waved his hand with some impatience. "What's your name?" he continued.

"My name Sing Lo--me velly good cook--me--"

"Hold on, Lo. Nelson, I'll match you pennies to see which of us is to give Sing Lo a dollar to tell us the whole story about the ghost."

"I'll go you," grumbled the lawyer, "but it isn't good law."

"Here you are, Sing Lo. Here's your dollar--now tell us everything, and we'll let you go."

"You givee me back Wun Lung glost?"

"Yes--go ahead."

This assurance, with the sight of the broad coin and the disappearance of the pistols, worked wonders with the hitherto quaking and evasive laundryman, and in his best English and most straightforward manner--circumlocutory as it was--he related the particulars of an interesting tale.

It appeared that Wun Lung--whose mortal remains the ingenious contrivance captured had been meant to simulate--had been the proprietor of a laundry on Dupont Street, a profitable spot, the site of which appealed to Michael O'Brien, a local politician, as very desirable for the location of a saloon, but his offer to purchase was declined and his threats disregarded. The disappointed Irishman therefore proceeded to extreme measures, broke up the laundry and shot the owner, who was Sing Lo's employer, but was promptly released with a five-dollar fine by a compatriot on the bench, on the ground of self-defence. When O'Brien established his residence and saloon on the dead Chinaman's premises, a junior Wun Lung conceived the ingenious idea of frightening the murderer away with the "ghost" of his victim. The ghastly dummy was constructed and sent flying up and down the hill at midnight, being attached to and removed from the cable by Sing Lo and his fellow-laundryman, Ah Wing, while Wun Lung himself roused the saloon keeper from drunken slumber by a sharp tapping on his window by means of a "tick-tack," as boys call an ingenious combination of string, pin, and nail. The appeal to the fears of O'Brien and the identity of the spectre were emphasized by the solitary bleached hand of the apparition, the departed Wun having had but a single arm during the latter years of his life.

"Why did your friend make this contrivance of nickel?" asked Nelson, with the instinctive inquisitiveness of his legal training.

Sing Lo grinned as he replied:

"Wun Lung say, 'Put-um nickel in slot, Ilishman see-um glost.'"

With an additional dollar, designated by Nelson as "witness fees," and with his late employer's ghost under his arm, the Chinaman was released and drifted out into the darkness of Chinatown.

Half an hour later, Joyce was on his way to the home of his friends. He paused a moment at Dupont Street, and there, near the corner, read the following sign:

[Illustration: MICHAEL O'BRIEN

CHOICE WINES AND LIQUORS]

Some few months afterwards, on returning from his honeymoon, which was passed among the grand scenery of Washington and Oregon, he found himself again near the corner of Dupont Street, with his bride. With a start of remembrance and recognition, he looked up. The imposing black and gold of the liquor sign had disappeared, and in its place, in gold and red, a smaller board bore the significant inscription:

[Illustration: WUN LUNG

CHINESE LAUNDRY]

It was evident to Malcolm Joyce that on the night of his memorable adventure Mr. Michael O'Brien had taken the bony semblance of his Celestial victim for The Real Thing.

WHEN THE CUCKOO CALLED

The announcement that London music hall audiences are losing their heads and hearts over "The Girl with the Guitar" causes Mr. Seymour Gaston to smile as he looks down upon the world from his offices on the nineteenth floor of a New York sky-scraper. Mr. Gaston is an ingenious, much traveled young bachelor with a history and a fortune. He recently invented a folding fire-escape, which also has a history and in which another fortune is said to await him. And "The Girl with the Guitar" is one of the two Zillerthaler sisters, whose permanent address is unknown and who receive two hundred guineas a night for presenting their Tyrolean second-sight séance. To such an extent do these mysterious maidens from the mountains hypnotize the public that they appear nightly at four different music halls. At the Alhambra they open the performance at eight o'clock, after which they are rushed by their manager in an automobile to the stage door of the second music hall, where they appear at eight forty-five, and so on, winding up at the Aquarium at a few minutes before ten with a thousand dollars in their pockets for the evening's work.

When the curtain rises upon their ten-minute act it discloses a typical Tyrolean scene--dim mountains in the background, a sombre pine forest, a toylike, gabled cottage in the distance. The lights are low and the stage is empty. The orchestra begins almost inaudibly a simple melody in the minor key. Presently a rich voice, that raises doubt in the mind of the listener as to whether it is male or female, joins in. It is a song of love, a serenade. The lights grow dimmer. A new sound steals into the concerted music of voice and instruments; there are strange, bizarre chords and rippling arpeggios, and then the music is drowned in the burst of wild applause that greets the appearance of "The Girl with the Guitar." She bows modestly, the lights go up, the rich voice is heard again in a joyous yodel, and the sister, too, appears, dressed in the picturesque attire of an Alpine hunter. This artistically conceived prologue brings the audience into closer sympathy with what follows. "The Girl with the Guitar," unheeding the applause and the demonstrations of the male portion of the audience, seats herself at the extreme right of the stage near the footlights. The sister is led by the manager along a narrow platform projecting into the centre of the hall, where, after being blindfolded, she seats herself with her back to the stage, and the real performance begins, to the muted music of the orchestra and the sad, fantastic chords of the guitar. The second-sight séance progresses in the time-honored way, except that no word is spoken save by the blindfolded sister, who accurately names and describes, in a clear, musical voice, each article as it is borrowed from the audience and held up in silence before the footlights by the manager, some thirty feet behind her back. "A gold watch with a picture of a lady on its face"; "a pair of pearl opera glasses"; "a half-crown piece with a hole in it"; and so on, the blindfolded girl describes the exhibits as though they were held out before her naked eyes. She never falters, never misses, and the puzzled look that comes to every face shows how completely she has mastered her art. But it is the strange, brilliant beauty and the fantastic music of "The Girl with the Guitar," who, seemingly unconscious of her surroundings, gazes idly across the stage, that hold the breathless attention of the audience. Music like hers has never before been heard from any instrument. It is absolutely unique; a new scale and new system of harmonies seem to have been discovered by this sombre-eyed girl. It is her weird, haunting melodies that trouble the mind with strange thoughts, and the impression of mystical, occult powers at work, produced by the performance, is really traceable to this music and the mysterious personality of the girl which pervades and dominates it all.

All this vividly recalls to Mr. Gaston a ten-minute drama of life in which he once played a part and which illustrates how a man can regain his lost peace of mind by being suddenly brought to the brink of eternity.

Four years ago, while he was managing the affairs of a large American enterprise in London, a cablegram announced to him one day that his business partner in the United States had robbed him of all he possessed. Brooding over his ruined business, to which he had given ten years of his life and sacrificed his health, his peace of mind fled and he traveled aimlessly over the Continent in search of anything that might bring him sleep and help him to bury the past. The doctors sent him to Baden-Baden, but he soon found that the conventional watering-place, where one reads suffering in almost every face, proved an irritant to his insomnia. The more he came in contact with humanity the more he felt drawn toward Nature. So he started on a tour of the Black Forest. At Trieberg, the picturesque little village which stands on the edge of a great waterfall high up in the dark, pine-clothed mountains, he found pleasure for a few days in visiting the quaint cottages scattered through the surrounding wilderness where the cuckoo clocks, music-boxes and wood carvings are made that always attract foreigners. The mountaineers carry these clocks and carvings on the back for miles down the winding, perilous pathways to a public exhibition hall at Trieberg in which is kept a full line of samples for the convenience of purchasers.

But the novelty of these scenes soon wore off, and on the third day after his arrival Gaston, craving excitement, bribed the custodian of this exhibition hall to set off all the clocks and instruments at intervals of one second. The chorus of a thousand cuckoos, reinforced by the patriotic rendering of "Die Wacht am Rhein," the William Tell Overture and "Die Lorelei" by scores of orchestrions and music-boxes, delighted him, but proved demoralizing to a party of American tourists bent on doing Europe in ten days. Mistaking their excited brandishing of alpenstocks, umbrellas and Baedekers for demonstrations of approval, the keeper kept up the performance until the inexorable schedule dragged the prospective purchasers away. They had spent the ten minutes allotted to the Black Forest.

In his wanderings and search for adventure, Gaston came one day upon what seemed like an unused trail that led higher up the mountain from an almost impenetrable jumble of rocks and pines near the waterfall.

"The Witches' Path," exclaimed his landlord, when questioned, "and whoever follows it never returns." It might have an outlet in another valley beyond, he added, but, shaking his head, there were strange stories about the Witches' Path, and while he could not verify them he knew that no one of his guests who had essayed to explore it had ever come back.

Sick of chattering men and women, harrowed day and night by his troubles, Gaston rejoiced in the prospect of an adventure of any kind, and while he smiled at the suggestion of danger lurking in the recesses of the Witches' Path, he secretly hoped there might be. Life was not a joyful possession to Seymour Gaston in those days, and he cared little whether he lived or died. So, early the following morning, with a well-provisioned knapsack on his back and an alpenstock in his hand, he set out upon the Witches' Path. After ten hours of climbing, crawling, sliding and slipping over almost impassable rocks and through impossible thickets, the trail led into a stretch of forest so dense as to completely shut out the fading daylight, and the wanderer was glad to accept as a bed the thick, endless carpet of pine needles that lay stretched out before him. The following morning he resumed his journey and at noon discovered, high on the mountain side, what appeared like a gray toy-house hidden among the rocks and pines. After another hour of tiresome climbing he stood before a cottage built upon the very edge of an immense cleft. From far below echoed the hoarse booming of a mountain stream. His knock was answered by a short, white-bearded mountaineer with piercing gray eyes, who, upon learning that his visitor spoke German, received him hospitably with the remark that it was seldom indeed that visitors came his way to brighten the lonely lives of himself and niece, who, he added, lived by making cuckoo clocks. It required no urging on the part of Caspar Kollner, the cottager, to induce his guest to defer his return until the following day, and after supper, served by the mountaineer's attractive young niece, the tourist was equally willing to join his host in a pipe and game of écarté, while the young lady looked on and played weird airs upon her guitar. Whether it was the strange quality of her undeniable beauty and the sombre mystery of her eyes, or her music, Gaston soon lost interest in the game. Although there seemed little purpose or training in her half listless playing, the sounds seemed to hint at unfathomable things, at fancies such as Gaston supposed might visit the soul of one who had strayed from the paths of his fellow-men into an exotic, unhealthy world of his own, where strange birds sang in a dusky, scented twilight. He played recklessly, lost steadily, and was repeatedly compelled to resort to the Bank of England notes in his wallet.

"You are in bad luck to-night. Shall we stop? You must be tired after your long tramp," at last suggested the host. Then, counting the money slowly and with evident pleasure, he handed to Gaston all the latter had lost. It was promptly pushed back protestingly, whereupon Kollner exclaimed, "Never! The pleasure is mine; the money is yours. It is my custom to play for stakes to lend interest to the game, but the law of hospitality forbids my keeping what I win." So Gaston returned the money to his wallet and bade his generous host and hostess good-night. Kollner led him to a large, low-studded room on the upper floor in which every article of furniture was elaborately hand-carved.

"The masterpiece of my craft," exclaimed Kollner, as he pointed with pride to a mammoth cuckoo clock, fully four feet wide and reaching nearly to the ceiling. "But our proudest possession," he continued, as he led his guest through a tall French window upon a small veranda, "is this," pointing to a view that caused Gaston to gasp for breath. The balcony directly overhung the mighty gorge, and from the gulf of blackness far below rose the sound of the tumultuous stream, while an uncertain moon threw fantastic shadows over the towering peaks above. "Most wonderful of all," continued Kollner, "is the echo, 'The Ghost of the Gorge' as it is called. You shall hear it at dawn." With that he wound up and set the big clock, adding, "When the cuckoo calls, rise and come to this balcony. My niece shall play from the rocks below and you will hear the spirit answer. Good-night!"

As on many other weary nights, sleep refused to come to Gaston. He lay for hours listening to the gurgle of the water and hearing in it echoes of the wild music of the guitar. Towards morning a feverish slumber came, from which he was aroused by the shrill "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" of the mechanical bird.

Clad in his pajamas he drowsily groped his way in the dusk towards the balcony. He had almost reached it when he overturned the chair which had served to keep the window half open during the night. In its outward fall it carried down the balcony with a crash and Gaston, horror-stricken, barely kept his balance by grasping the window casing. From the dark chasm rose the weird strains of the guitar, echoing through the gorge. The Lorelei was calling! But her notes were drowned by the shrill creaking of the iron hinges upon which the balcony now swung to and fro below Gaston, and which, like a flash, told him he had been led to a man-trap of hellish ingenuity. Instantly horror gave way to anger and the instinct of self-defence roused him to action. For months he had been reckless of danger, almost courted death. Now he was seized with an overpowering desire to live. He turned from the window and began to dress hurriedly when a noise attracted his attention to the cuckoo clock. Was it a hideous delusion? No! The thing was actually moving towards the centre of the room! In another instant Kollner appeared from an adjoining room through a door which the clock had concealed, his eyes glaring fiendishly as they rested upon the empty bed. Then, as he turned and saw Gaston, his face became a mask of absolute fright and bewilderment. For a moment only he recoiled, then flung himself upon his guest with the fury of a beast. Each instantly realized that the struggle would be to the death. Frenzied by the miscarrying of his diabolical plot, the mountaineer struggled madly, blindly, for a grip that should enable him to hurl his adversary over the mighty precipice. Foiled again and again by the agility of Gaston and forced to the defensive, he turned towards the open door to escape. As he did so Gaston rushed upon him, pinned his arms to his sides, and pushed him inch by inch to the open window, and--Caspar Kollner reached the end of the Witches' Path! Ten minutes later Gaston found the niece quietly preparing breakfast. She looked surprised, but when he told her that her uncle and not he had answered the Lorelei's call, she asked, with naïve innocence, what he meant. It was only after he had threatened to hand her over to the police at Trieberg that she made this confession:--

She had been brought up by her uncle, who had invented the folding balcony, and who always engaged his guests in a game of cards. He invariably won because he had taught her as a child to signal, by means of notes and chords on the guitar, the cards held by his opponent. He thus learned if his guests were supplied with money, and to gain their full confidence returned all they had lost. He was enabled to set the man-trap from his room below. Although the gorge held the remains of thirty victims, it was his boast that he had never killed a man, that each had of his own free will walked into eternity.

Gaston had heard enough. He did not stop for breakfast. He left Trieberg the following evening and thoughts of his business troubles no longer occupied his mind. When he returned to America he set to work to retrieve his lost fortune, and the folding fire-escape, he tells his friends, was suggested by something he saw abroad.

Gaston does not claim the gift of second sight, but he knows, he says, that in the performance of the Zillerthalers, the weird strains produced by "The Girl with the Guitar" describe to her blindfolded sister the articles borrowed of the audience.

ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION

As the traveler, turning his back to the setting sun, descends into Paradise Valley, there spreads before him a brilliant checker-board of orchard and vineyard. Beyond this an extensive and picturesque group of red buildings gleams still ruddier, and upon one corner of the roof of the principal structure a small house of glass glistens like a huge jewel in the sunset glow. Approaching nearer, the buildings are seen to be surrounded by parks and gardens, where men and women are amusing themselves with golf and baseball, croquet and tennis, under the watchful eyes of discreet attendants.

Here is the home of many a human wreck, cast upon the shores of mental oblivion in the strenuous struggle of life--the man who, during the gold fever of '49, found fortune to lose all else, he who sacrificed everything and gained nothing, and hundreds of others, men and women, who have proved unequal to the strain on nerve and brain imposed by the stress of an unkindly Fate.

Walking apart from these groups may be seen a white-haired man of melancholy mien, who pauses occasionally and makes a peculiar motion with his hands, as if in the act of cutting with an imaginary pocket knife. This man is the sole occupant of the glass house on the roof, which is always brilliantly lighted, blazing all night with electric lamps. At intervals of a few months, he is visited by two ladies, who seem extremely solicitous for his welfare, and twice a year a noted alienist from Paris comes to study this interesting case. Here is the story of this peculiar patient:

Anyone with a sweet tooth and a good memory will recall the curious little pear-shaped sweetmeats which were so popular thirty years ago and then suddenly dropped out of sight. Everyone bought and talked of the new candy, which was small, apple-green and translucent, with a curious red streak in the core. It was not only very delicious to the taste, but produced a strange effect of mental and physical stimulation, of buoyancy--almost of intoxication. Totally different from the action of any known drug, however, and especially from alcohol, it had absolutely no deleterious reaction, but on the contrary seemed to exercise a tonic influence upon the nervous system. Joy Drops, as they were called, were carried in school-children's satchels, sold on trains, taken as a "pick-me-up" by men, ordered by society ladies for their "functions" and consumed by shop-girls by the ton.

The enormous profits from their sales were not divided among shareholders, but all went to one man, Walter H. Torreton, the inventor and manufacturer, who, starting in a small way, had constantly increased his business and incidentally the fame of the Lake city where he lived. There he bought the handsomest estate on Park Avenue and built extensive conservatories, giving much personal attention to a unique species of lily, which had never before been seen, called by him the multi-bloom.

As the fame of Torreton's confectionery spread, other manufacturers put imitations on the market, but without success. Though their candy looked much the same, it wholly lacked the peculiar qualities of the genuine Joy Drops, in which analysis had failed to reveal anything more than sugar, a little fruit flavoring and the merest trace of some quite unknown but very volatile essence, which appeared to be located in the red central stripe.