The Cab of the Sleeping Horse.
by John Reed Scott.
I
THE PHOTOGRAPH
"A beautiful woman is never especially clever," Rochester remarked.
Harleston blew a smoke ring at the big drop-light on the table and watched it swirl under the cardinal shade.
"The cleverest woman I know is also the most beautiful," he replied.
"Yes, I can name her offhand. She has all the finesse of her s.e.x, together with the reasoning mind; she is surpa.s.singly good to look at, and knows how to use her looks to obtain her end; as the occasion demands, she can be as cold as steel or warm as a summer"s night; she--"
"How are her morals?" Rochester interrupted.
"Morals or the want of them do not, I take it, enter into the question,"
Harleston responded. "Cleverness is quite apart from morals."
"You have not named the wonderful one," Clarke reminded him.
"And I won"t now. Rochester"s impertinent question forbids introducing her to this company. Moreover," as he drew out his watch, "it is half-after-twelve of a fine spring night, and, unless we wish to be turned out of the Club, we would better be going homeward or elsewhere.
Who"s for a walk up the avenue?"
"I am--as far as Dupont Circle," said Clarke.
"All hands?" Harleston inquired.
"It"s too late for exercise," Rochester declined; "and our way lies athwart your path."
"I don"t think you make good company, anyway, with your questions and your athwarts," Harleston retorted amiably, as Clarke and he moved off.
"Who is your clever woman?" asked Clarke.
"Curious?" Harleston smiled.
"Naturally--it"s not in you to give praise undeserved."
"I"m not sure it is praise, Clarke; it depends on one"s point of view.
However, the lady in question bears several names which she uses as expediency or her notion suits her. Her maiden name was Madeline Cuthbert. She married a Colonel Spencer of Ours; he divorced her, after she had eloped with a rich young lieutenant of his regiment. She didn"t marry the lieutenant; she simply plucked him clean and he shot himself.
I"ve never understood why he didn"t first shoot her."
"Doubtless it shows her cleverness?" Clarke remarked.
"Doubtless it does," replied Harleston, neatly spitting a leaf on the pavement with his stick. "Afterward she had various adventures with various wealthy men, and always won. Her particularly spectacular adventure was posing, at the instigation of the Duke of Lotzen, as the wife of the Archduke Armand of Valeria; and she stirred up a mess of turmoil until the matter was cleared up."
"I remember something of it!" Clarke exclaimed.
"By that time she had so fascinated her employer, the Duke of Lotzen, that he actually married her--morganatically, of course."
"Again showing her astonishing cleverness."
"Just so--and, cleverer still, she held him until his death five years later. Which death, despite the authorized report, was not natural: the King of Valeria killed him in a sword duel in Ferida Palace on the princ.i.p.al street of Dornlitz. The lady then betook herself to Paris and took up her present life of extreme respectability--and political usefulness to our friends of Wilhelm-stra.s.se. In fact, I understand that she has more than made good professionally, as well as fascinated at least half a dozen Cabinet Ministers besides.
"Wilhelm-stra.s.se?" Clarke queried.
Harleston nodded. "She is in the German Secret Service."
"They trust her?" Clarke marvelled.
"That is the most remarkable thing about her," said Harleston, "so far as I know, she has never been false to the hand that paid her."
"Which, in her position, is the cleverest thing of all!" Clarke remarked.
They pa.s.sed the English Legation, a bulging, three-storied, red brick, dormer-roofed atrocity, standing a few feet in from the sidewalk; ugly as original sin, externally as repellent as the sidewalk and the narrow little drive under the _porte-cochere_ are dirty.
"It"s a pity," said Clarke, "that the British Legation cannot afford a man-servant to clean its front."
"No one is presumed to arrive or leave except in carriages or motor cars," Harleston explained. "_They_ can push through the dirt to the entrance."
"Why, would you believe it," Clarke added, "the deep snow of last February lay on the walks untouched until well into the following day.
The blooming Englishmen just then began to appreciate that it had snowed the previous night. Are they so slow on the secret-service end?"
"They have quite enough speed on that end," Harleston responded. "They are on the job always and ever--also the Germans."
"You"ve b.u.mped into them?"
"Frequently."
"Ever encounter the clever lady, with the a.s.sortment of husbands?"
"Once or twice. Moreover, having known her as a little girl, and her family before her, I"ve been interested to watch her travelling--her remarkable career. And it has been a career, Clarke; believe me, it"s been a career. For pure cleverness, and the appreciation of opportunities with the ability to grasp them, the devil himself can"t show anything more picturesque. My hat"s off to her!"
"I should like to meet her," Clarke said.
"Come to Paris, sometime when I"m there, and I"ll be delighted to present you to her."
"Doesn"t she ever come to America?"
"I think not. She says the Continent, and Paris in particular, is good enough for her."
Harleston left Clarke at Dupont Circle and turned down Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue.
The broad thoroughfare was deserted, yet at the intersection of Eighteenth Street he came upon a most singular sight.
A cab was by the curb, its horse lying prostrate on the asphalt, its box vacant of driver.