The Voice in the Fog - Page 42/93

There are many threads and many knots in a net; these can not be thrown

together haphazard, lest the big fish slip through. At the bottom of

the net is a small steel ring, and here the many threads and the many

knots finally meet. Forbes and Haggerty (who, by the way, thinks I'm a

huge joke as a novelist) and the young man named Webb recounted this

tale to me by threads and knots. The ring was of Kitty Killigrew, for

Kitty Killigrew, by Kitty Killigrew, to paraphrase a famous line.

At one of the quieter hotels--much patronized by touring

Englishmen--there was registered James Thornden and man. Every

afternoon Mr. Thornden and his man rode about town in a rented touring

car. The man would bundle his master's knees in a rug and take the

seat at the chauffeur's side, and from there direct the journey.

Generally they drove through the park, up and down Riverside, and back

to the hotel in time for tea. Mr. Thornden drank tea for breakfast

along with his bacon and eggs, and at luncheon with his lamb or mutton

chops, and at five o'clock with especially baked muffins and

apple-tarts.

Mr. Thornden never gave orders personally; his man always attended to

that. The master would, early each morning, outline the day's work,

and the man would see to it that these instructions were fulfilled to

the letter. He was an excellent servant, by the way, light of foot,

low of voice, serious of face, with a pair of eyes which I may liken to

nothing so well as to a set of acetylene blow-pipes--bored right

through you.

The master was middle-aged, about the same height and weight as his

valet. He wore a full dark beard, something after the style of the

early eighties of last century. His was also a serious countenance,

tanned, dignified too; but his eyes were no match for his valet's; too

dreamy, introspective. Screwed in his left eye was a monocle down from

which flowed a broad ribbon. In public he always wore it; no one about

the hotel had as yet seen him without it, and he had been a guest there

for more than a fortnight.

He drank nothing in the way of liquor, though his man occasionally

wandered into the bar and ordered a stout or an ale. After dinner the

valet's time appeared to be his own; for he went out nearly every

night. He seemed very much interested in shop-windows, especially

those which were filled with curios. Mr. Thornden frequently went to

the theater, but invariably alone.

Thus, they attracted little or no attention among the clerks and bell

boys and waiters who had, in the course of the year, waited upon the

wants of a royal duke and a grand duke, to say nothing of a maharajah,

who was still at the hotel. An ordinary touring Englishman was, then,

nothing more than that.