Terence O'Rourke, Gentleman Adventurer

Front matter

Gentleman Adventurer

By Louis Joseph Vance Author of "The Brass Bowl," etc.

New York Publishers

Part I: Chapter 1

PART FIRST

The Empire of Illusion

CHAPTER I

HE IS ROWELED OF THE SPUR OF NECESSITY

MADAME THÉRÈSE was of a heavy build—round and stout and comfortable-looking; nevertheless she possessed a temper. The vicious bang of the door behind her was evidence of that sufficient unto O'Rourke, even if he had not the memory of her recent words to remind him of the fact.

He drew a long and disconsolate face, standing in the precise center of what he called his "compartment"—it was six feet one way by nine another, and boasted of but one window, set in a slanting roof. His mobile and sympathetic lips drooped dolefully at the corners; his expressive brows puckered wofully over the bridge of his nose; and even the nose itself was crinkling with dismay. Madame's words still rang in his ears, even as the sound of her descending footsteps was still distinctly audible—and Madame Therese was by then on the fifth flight down, the second up from the street.

"The rent!" she had shrilled tempestuously. "The rent, m'sieur, must be paid by to-morrow morning! Otherwise—"

O'Rourke sighed from the bottom of his heart. "Faith, yes!" he said plaintively. "Otherwise . . . Oh, sure!" He frowned at the cracks in the floor, and with one forefinger tentatively caressed a light stubble of beard on his square chin.

But presently it occurred to him that care had been responsible for the death of the domestic cat. He smiled faintly, apprehensively, as though half, afraid that a smile would hurt; finding the experiment painless he prolonged it, grinning broadly.

Below stairs, the last echoing thump of Madame's feet was to be heard. O'Rourke lifted his shoulders together, sighed, chuckled, and anathematized his landlady.

"Brrrrr!" cried O'Rourke, with a flirt of his hand in the general direction of the conciergerie. "Brrrrrp! And may the Old Boy fly away with ye!"

He turned to the window, dismissing his troubles with a second shrug of his broad shoulders, and, leaning his elbows on the sills and himself perilously far out over the eaves, stared earnestly at a window in the attic of the house that stood just behind O'Rourke's hôtel. But it proved vacant.

O'Rourke pursed his lips and whistled persuasively. "Faith, darlint," said he, and as earnestly as though he really expected to be heard, "'tis no more than a glimpse of your red cheeks and bright eyes that I'm needing to put the heart into me. Will ye not come,—only for one little minute?"

He whistled again, more piercingly. There was no response; the little dormer window, where a black-eyed and red-cheeked little seamstress ordinarily sat of a morning, sewing industriously—but not too industriously to be altogether unaware of the infatuated Irishman's burning glances—remained desolately empty.

"Oh, well!" conceded O'Rourke, in the end. "If 'tis obstinate ye are, me dear, sure and that only proves ye a true daughter of Mother Eve!"

And he swung a chair up to the window and sat down, cocking his feet upon the sill. A pipe lay convenient to his hand—a small and intensely black clay; unconsciously O'Rourke's fingers wandered towards it. They clasped with loving tenderness about the bowl, while the fingers of his other hand explored his coat pocket for a match. That found, the Irishman discovered a fresh beauty in the brilliant morning—a beauty but enhanced by the clouds of blue-gray incense that floated between him and the open casement.

By degrees, however, his smile faded. Not always was it possible for O'Rourke to laugh in the teeth of his adversities. His gaze wandered far out from the open window and over the billowy sea of Parisian roofs that lay steaming in a bath of May sunshine.

The morning was one clear and brilliant, following on the heels of a day of scourging rain. Paris was happy; her face was washed, and she had on a clean pinafore dashed with the perfume of the spring things that were budding in her gardens. O'Rourke alone, perhaps, was out of tune with the universal spirit of contentment.

Now, good reasons why a man may be out of sorts in a Parisian springtide are few and far between; but they exist; O'Rourke had brought his with him when he had moved upon the capital on the edge of the winter, just vanished; and thereafter he had eaten and slept, moved and had his being in their company, enduring them with what patience he might—which was not overmuch, in truth. But now he was especially wistful and uneasy in his actions.

His supply of ready cash was not alarmingly low; it was non-existent—one all-sufficient reason for the disquietude of his soul.

Again, city life irked the man, who was of a nature tran- sient, delaying under one roof no longer than was unavoidable—happiest, indeed, with no more than the wide sky for his bed canopy, the soft stars for his night lamps.

Finally, for some months O'Rourke had been kicking the heels of him about the pavements of civilization, devoutly praying for a war of magnitude; but in answer to his prayers no war had been vouchsafed unto him.

The broad world drowsed, sluggish, at peace with its neighbors—save in a corner of Afghanistan, where the British Empire was hurling army corps after army corps at the devoted heads of an insignificant, bewildered tribe of hillmen who had presumed to call their souls their own—knowing no better.

But the tempest in that particular teapot had slight attractions for O'Rourke, sincere seeker after distraction and destruction that he was. He felt rather sorry for the hill tribe who at the same time were beginning to feel rather more than sorry for themselves, and to wish that they hadn't done so.

The Irishman, however, positively refused to fight with, if he did not care to fight against, England. So there was, in his own disconsolate phrasing, nothing doing at all, at all.

And now the concierge was insisting upon the payment of that overdue rent. Plainly, something must be contrived, and that with expedition.

O'Rourke swore, yawned, stretched widely. He removed his feet from the window sill, and arose.

"I'll do it," he said aloud. "Faith, 'tis like pulling teeth—but I'll do it. I despise the necessity. Conspuez the necessity! A bas the necessity!"

At the foot of the bed stood his sole personal property—a small, iron-bound trunk, aged and disreputable to the eye, sown broadcast with the labels of hotels, 'railways and steamships.

O'Rourke went to it with a deep and heartfelt sigh, unlocked it, and for a space delved into its tumbled contents, eventually emerging flushed and triumphant from his search, with a watch in his hand—a watch of fine gold, richly chased, and studded with gems.

He shook his head, gazing upon it, and sighed deeply.

Long since the timepiece had been presented to O'Rourke by the grateful president of a South American republic, in recognition of the Irish adventurer's services as a captain-general under that republic's flag. It was so stated, in an inscription within the case.

O'Rourke treasured it lovingly, as he treasured the portrait of his mother, his love for the land of his nativity, the parting smile of his last sweetheart. He treasured it as he valued his honorable discharge from the Foreign Legion, the sword he had won in Cuba, and the captain's commission he had once held under the Grecian flag.

But—the rent!

He slammed his hat upon his head, the watch into his pocket, and the door behind him; he was going to call upon his "aunt in Montmartre."

When he returned he was minus the timepiece, but able to reinstate himself in the concierge's graces. Indeed, as she signed the receipt, the lady declared that she had always known in her soul that monsieur was an honorable gentleman.

O'Rourke accepted the honeyed words sourly, disgruntled to the extreme. He had a residue of a very few francs: actual hardship was but staved off for several days. Nevertheless, he had indulged himself in the luxury of a complete file of the day's papers.

Back in his little room again he read them all, thoroughly, even with eagerness; read the foreign news first, then the native, the scandal, the advertisements—even the editorials.

He found that England had completed her subjugation of the hill tribes, and incidentally the education of her rawest troops. On the horizon no war cloud threatened—unless in one spot.

From a meager paragraph, eked out by his knowledge of Central American politics, O'Rourke gleaned a ray of hope: trouble boded on the Isthmus of Panama. But that was indeed far from Paris.

He put aside his pipe and the last sheet, and glowered longingly across the roofs to the western sky line.

What his eyes rested upon, he saw not; mentally he was imaging to himself, scenting, even feeling the heat haze that lowers above that narrow ribbon of swamp, rock-spined, which lies obdurate between two oceans.

On his businesses of the moment he had crossed the isthmus several times. He had warred in its vicinity. He knew it very well indeed, and were there to be ructions there he desired greatly to be in and a part of them—to grip the hilt of a sword, to hold a horse between his thighs, to sweat and swelter, to toil and to suffer, to fight—above all, to fight—!

Clearly the obvious course of action was to go—to stand not on the order of his going, but to go at once.

O'Rourke started from his chair, with some half-formulated notion of proceeding directly to the Gare du Nord, and taking train for Havre; thence, he would engage passage via the French line to New York, thence, by coasting steamer to Aspinwall.

The route mapped itself plain to his imagination; the way was simple, very; there was but one complication. Realizing which O'Rourke sat down again, and cursed bitterly, if fluently.

"The divvle!" he murmured in disgust. "Now, if I hadn't been so enthusiastic for paying me rent—"

He produced his fortune and contemplated it with a disgusted glare: five silver francs and a centime or two, glittering bright in the rays of the declining sun.

"Why, sure," he mused, "'tis not enough to buy the dinner for a little bird—and 'tis meself that's no small bird!"

Now, how may a man by taking thought increase five francs one or two or three hundred fold?

At nightfall he concluded to give it up, the problem looming unsolvable. There seemed to be no answer to it, and O'Rourke was considering himself a much abused person with no friend to call his own the wide world 'round, barring—

"Paz!" he cried suddenly. "And why did I not think of Paz before, will ye be telling me?"

He sat silent for some time, wrapped in thought, as in a mantle.

"Likely am I to go hungry, the night," he admitted at length, ruefully; "but I'll dine in style or not at all."

Incontinently, he began to bustle about the narrow room—how he had grown to hate its mean confines of late!—preparing to go out.

He started by shaving his lean cheeks, indelibly sun-burned, very closely; then he wriggled into the one immaculate shirt his wardrobe boasted, brushed with care and donned his evening clothes and an inverness; and completed his adornment with gloves and shoes of the sleekest—both of which he had been hoarding all the winter against just such an emergency.

When through he indulged in a moment's approving inspection in his mirror, and nodded with satisfaction because of the transformation he had brought about in his personal appearance.

"I'll say this for ye, Terence, me lad," he volunteered: "that when ye are of the mind to take trouble with yourself, 'tis the bould, dashing creature ye are!"

And he chuckled light-heartedly at his own conceit, extinguishing the lamp and locking his door.

Yet he had no more than hinted at the irrefutable truth, for he was by no means ill-favored by nature: a man tall and broad beyond the average, with square shoulders and a full chest, with lean yet muscular flanks and long and sinewy limbs, well-knit and well set-up. His countenance was dark,—as has been indicated, the hall mark of a veteran campaigner—but nevertheless of a versatile mobility, and illuminated with eyes of warm gray, steadfast yet alert, swift to mirror the play of his emotional and passionate nature, bespeaking good-humor, an easy temper and—ordinarily at least—a habit of optimism.

For the rest he carried himself with confidence and assurance, as fits well upon an Irish gentleman—was he not "the O'Rourke"?—but without any aggressiveness. He was ready of wit, quick of tongue, tolerant of disposition: a citizen of the wide world, seasoned, sure of himself, young.

He descended the stairs with spirit, passed out before the conciergerie with an air. Madame Thérèse, the vigilant, observed and admired, regretting the harsh terms she had applied to her lodger, earlier in the day. "He gives the hôtel distinction," she murmured; and resolved mentally that in the future she would accord this splendid young person more consideration.

Now, it so came about that Madame Thérèse was not afforded the opportunity of putting in effect that good resolution for many and many a long day; the turn of affairs presently precluded Colonel O'Rourke's return to his little room. Which, however, was not greatly to his dissatisfaction.

But at the moment, O'Rourke himself had no more apprehension of this than had she. He was, in point of fact, anticipating an early return and a penniless to-morrow. The prospect did not tend to lighten his mood.

In the street he turned and cocked a—momentarily—jaundiced eye up at the towering, smudged, gloomy façade of the lodging house.

"'Tis no palace ye are," he apostrophized it, hating it consumedly; "'tis no gilded cage ye are, for a bird of me brilliant plumage. But 'tis needs must whin the divvle drives, I've heard—and if wishes were motors, this beggar would ride!" And then, "Faith, 'tis damnable—no less!" he declared with a short laugh. "To think of me, the O'Rourke, in all me fine feathers, that can't so much as afford the price of a fiacre!"

Part I: Chapter 2

CHAPTER II

HE IS "CHEZ PAZ"

The house of Paz fronts upon the Boulevard Rochechouart—which is not the worst street in Paris, morally, though near it—and wears the dismayed, ingenuous expression of a perfectly innocent house which suddenly finds itself rooted in a neighborhood which is—well, not perfectly innocent. In other words, the house managed by Monsieur Paz is something of a hypocrite among houses; in sober reality it is no better than it ought to be, or even not so good.

A high, pale yellow façade is broken by orderly rows of windows that are always blank and sleepy-looking; never is a light visible from within, and for a very good reason: they are fitted with an ingenious device which allows for ventilation, but does not permit a single ray of light to escape to the street.

It was somewhat after eight o'clock in the evening that O'Rourke approached, having traversed the width of Paris in order to reach the place.

In previous, more prosperous days he had known the house of Paz rather intimately—too well, at times, for the good of his own interests. But of late, in his lowly estate, he had neither cared nor dared to pass its portals; which are not for the impecunious.

At present, however, he had a use for it, and was relying both upon his former acquaintance therein and his generally affluent appearance to procure for him admittance to its charmed precincts—something none too easy to a stranger without credentials.

He neared it, I say, and with some trepidation, becoming to a man of emotions who is going to stake his all on a single throw,—which was what O'Rourke proposed to do,—eying the exterior aspect of the place with a wonder as to what changes might have occurred within, in the few years that he had been a stranger to its walls.

While yet some distance away he observed the door opening with circumspection. For a single second the figure of a departing patron was outlined in the light; then the doors swung to, swiftly and noiselessly.

O'Rourke remarked, without great interest, that it was a young man who was leaving so early in the night; a man who stood hesitant at the foot of the steps, glancing up and down the street irresolutely, as one who knows not whither to go.

In a moment, however, he seemed to have made up his mind, and started off toward O'Rourke, walking briskly, but without any spring in his step, holding his head high, his shoulders back. There was a suggestion of the military in his bearing.

As he passed, O'Rourke noted the tightly compressed lips, the hopeless, lack-luster eyes of the man.

"Cleaned out—poor chap!" he sympathized.

Simultaneously the doors open again, briefly; a second man emerged, ran hastily down the steps, and started up the street as though in pursuit of the first.

This man was of an uncommon and distinguished appearance; large and heavily built, yet lithe and active; with a fat-cheeked face, bearded sparsely; thick lips showing red through the dark hair; a thin, chiseled nose, set between eyes pouched, yet bright and kindly, the whole surmounted by a forehead high and well modeled—a type of Gallic intellectuality, in short.

He swung past the Irishman hurriedly, intent upon his chase, but favored him with a searching scrutiny—which O'Rourke returned with composure, if not with impudent interest.

But the evening was yet young, and there was nothing in the encounter to particularly engage his fancy; he dismissed it from his mind, and turned into the house of Paz.

He knocked peculiarly: the familiar signal of old. A minute passed, and then a panel in the door slid back, exposing a small grating, behind which was the withered face of the concierge, with a background of dim, religious light.

"O'Rourke," announced the Irishman, languidly, turning his face to the window for identification.

That was scarcely needed. His name was a magic one; the concierge knew, and had a welcome for one who had been so liberal in the matter of gratuities in days gone by. The doors swung wide.

"M'sieur le Colonel O'Rourke!" murmured the concierge, bowing respectfully.

O'Rourke returned the greeting and passed in, with the guilty feeling of a trespasser. He disposed of his inverness and hat, and ascended the stairway directly to the second floor.

Here was one huge room, in floor space the width and depth of the building, infinitely gorgeous in decoration, shimmering with light reflected from gold leaf, from polished wood and marble.

Around the walls were chairs and small refreshment tables; the floor was covered with rugs of heavy pile, well-nigh invaluable, the walls with paintings of note and distinction. Beyond reasonable doubt Monsieur Paz was prosperous, who could provide such a salle for the entertainment of his patrons.

But in the center of the room was the main attraction—that lodestone which drew the interest of the initiated with a fascination as irresistible as the magnetic pole holds for the needle: an enormous table topped with green cloth whereon was limned a diagram of many numbered spaces and colors.

And in the center of the table, under the electric chandelier, was a sunken basin of ebony, at whose bottom was a wheel of thirty-seven sections, alternately red and black, each numbered from o to 36: the roulette wheel.

O'Rourke slid unostentatiously into a vacant seat at the extreme end of the table. A man at his elbow looked up with passing curiosity, but immediately averted his gaze;, otherwise the Irishman attracted no attention. For a few minutes he sat idle, watching the play, the players, the croupier presiding over the wheel—a figure that fascinated his; imagination: a man vulture-like with his frigid impassivity, mathematically marvelous in the swiftness, the unerring, accuracy of his mental computations as he paid out the winnings or raked in the losings.

He stood, imperturbable, watching the board with vigilant, tired eyes, his bald head shining like glass under the sagging electric sunburst. From time to time he opened his wicked old mouth, and croaked dismally the winning number and color, whether odd or even. Followed the ring of coin and the monotonous injunction:

"Messieurs, faites vos jeux!"

The salle was very still, save for the sound of the spinning ivory ball, the click of the wheel, the cries of the croupier. To O'Rourke, new from the freshness of the spring air, the atmosphere was stifling and depressing—hot, fetid, lifeless though charged with the hopes and fears of those absorbed men who clustered around the board, sowing its painted face with coin and bills, hanging breathlessly on the words of the croupier, as he relentlessly garnered the harvest of lost illusions.

The Irishman was not yet ready to bet, having counted on the room being more crowded, forgetful of the early hour. He had but one play to make, the lowest the house permitted—five francs,—and it was so insignificant a sum that the man felt some embarrassment about offering it, fearing that it might attract sneering comment. In a crowd it might have passed, especially if he lost—as, in all likelihood, he would.

He summoned an attendant and ordered a cigar—"on the house"—to make time; and while he was waiting, eyed the man opposite him, at the farther end of the table.

The latter was young, weary and worried, if his facial expression went for aught; he played feverishly, scattering gold pieces over the cloth—as often as not, probably, betting against himself. His face was flushed, for he had been drinking more than could have been good for his judgment; and O'Rourke fancied he recognized in him the youthful lieutenant of a cavalry troop then quartered near Paris.

Abruptly a man flung into the room, as if in anger; at the door he paused to collect himself, scanning each player narrowly, and finally chose a seat near the lieutenant.

"Hello!" thought O'Rourke. "So you're back so soon! I wonder—well, none of me business, I suppose."

It was the man with the beard whom he had noticed leaving the gambling house in such apparent haste, and not so very long since.

The attendant returning with the cigar, the Irishman lit it leisurely, and sat puffing with an enjoyment heightened by the fact that he had been deprived of the luxury of cigars for some weeks.

Presently he turned his attention to the board, and acted a little farce for his own self-satisfaction.

With the air of a man of means, who merely desires to while away an idle hour—win or lose—O'Rourke thrust his hand into his breast pocket and produced a small wallet, tolerably plump and opulent-looking—a result due to ingenious stuffing with paper of no value.

He weighed it in his palm, seeming to debate with himself, then deliberately returned it to the pocket. His manner spoke plainly to the observer—were there one: "No; I'll risk but a trifle of change."

Abstractedly he thrust his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and brought out the said change; to his utter surprise it turned out to be no more than five silver francs!

But finally he made up his mind to play that utterly insignificant sum.

At that moment the ball rattled, was silent. There was an instant's strained silence. The wheel stopped.

"Vingt-quatre," remarked the dispassionate croupier; "noir, pair et passe!"

He poised his rake, overlooking the great board.

The young lieutenant arose suddenly, knocking over his chair; he stood swaying for a moment, his fingers beating a nervous tattoo upon the edge of the board; he was pale, his face hollow-seeming and hopeless in the strong illumination. Others looked at him incuriously. He put his hand to his lips, almost apologetically, essayed what might have been intended for a defiant smile, turned, and moved uncertainly toward the staircase as one who gropes his way in darkness—a ruined man.

"Messieurs, jaites vos jeux!"

O'Rourke hardly heard the words; he was wondering at the bearded man, who was prompt in following the defeated gamester.

"Like to know what's your game," muttered O'Rourke. Simultaneously, without actually thinking what he was doing, he placed his five francs on the cloth. "When he looked he saw that they stood upon the nearest space, the 36. He puckered his lips together, thinking what a pitiful little pile they made.

"'Tis the fool I am!" he admitted, wishing that he might withdraw. But the ball merely mocked him, as the wheel slackened speed, with its "whrr-rup-tup-tup!"

"A fool—" he began again.

But it seemed that he had won!

"'Tis not true!" he cried exultantly, yet almost incredulous. But he accepted the one hundred and eighty francs without a murmur, cast them recklessly upon the black, and multiplied the sum by two, and by blind luck. Then, with his heart in his mouth—it was all or nothing with him now—he allowed his winnings to remain upon the black; which again came up, making seven hundred and twenty francs to his credit.

"'Tis outrageous," he insisted gaily. "Will I be making it, now?"

Fifteen hundred francs was the mark he had set himself to attain; that much he needed to carry him to Panama; it was to be that or nothing at all. He divided his winnings, reserving half, scattering the remainder about the numbers, hope high in his heart.

He lost. He played and won again. And again. He reached the mark, passed it, asked himself if he should not stop, now, when the gods were favoring him. …

He need not have asked; by no means could he have stopped; for the gambling fever was as fire in his veins. He played on, and on, and on. He won fabulously, with few reverses; lived for a time in a heaven of wealth, upborne by the fluttering, golden wings of chance—and, at length, awoke as from a dream, to find himself staring at an empty spot on the board before him—the place where temporarily his riches had rested ere they took unto themselves wings and vanished.

Not a single franc remained to him. He had lost.

"Gone?" he muttered blankly. "Faith, I didn't think—" He became aware that he was being watched, though indifferently; in particular the man with the beard was observing him with interest, having now for a third time returned.

O'Rourke yawned nonchalantly, suddenly on his mettle; he was not willing to let them see that he cared.

"Five francs," he thought, arising; "small price for a night's entertainment. Sure, I got the worth of me money, in excitement."

He looked at the clock; to his amazement the hands in-indicated two in the morning. Now the room was half deserted, the attendants gaping discreetly behind their hands. A few earnest devotees still clustered about the table, winning or losing in a blaze of febrile haste.

The ball clattered hollowly; the tones of the croupier only were the same:

"Onze! Noir, impair et manque!" and "Messieurs, faites vos jeux!"—as though it were an epitaph,—as it too often is.

And when he left the room, O'Rourke marked that the bearded man was pushing back his chair and arising.

Part I: Chapter 3

CHAPTER III

HE DECIDES THAT BEGGARS SHOULD RIDE

O'Rourke found the night air soft and balmy, humid but refreshing. He walked with great, limb-stretching strides, throwing back his shoulders and expanding his chest—bathing his lungs, so to speak, with the cleansing atmosphere.

His way led him straight across the city, a walk of no slight distance to his lodgings; but he made a detour to prolong it, to give the exercise an opportunity to clear his brain and steady his nerves—unstrung as they were, from his recent excitement, as from the action of an opiate.

It was later than he began to think; for he could not immediately believe that time had flown so rapidly in the house of Paz. Only the almost deserted streets in which his footsteps echoed loud and lonely, the quietness that lay upon the city, the repose of the gendarmes on the corners, brought home to him the wee smallness of the hour.

He was not sleepy—anything but that; he was very much awake—and yet he was dreaming, holding a "post-mortem" (as he termed it) on his luck and misfortunes of the night, and planning toward his future; or rather, he was striving to solve the riddle of his future, drear and uncompromisingly blank as it then loomed, to his imagination.

For the present—it came to him as a distinct shock—he was exceedingly hungry, and, through his own folly, found himself without the wherewithal to satisfy that young and healthy appetite.

But he told himself that he, an old campaigner who had known keen privation in his time, could stave off starvation by reefing in his belt. "A light stomach makes a light conscience," was the aphorism from which he was seeking consolation when he noticed that he was being followed.

Quick, determined footsteps were sounding in the street behind him.

"Is it possible," he inquired aloud, "that me friend with the Vandyke beard is after me, with his nefarious designs, now? I've half a mind to stop and let him interview me."

He glanced over his shoulder; the man behind was passing under a light about a block distant; O'Rourke judged that he was a heavy, bulky man, with a beard.

"The same!" he cried, pleased as a child with a toy, with the strangeness of the affair. "Faith, now, I'll be giving him a run for his money."

He mended his pace, lengthening his stride; but the other proved obstinate, and was not to be shaken off. For some time O'Rourke could tell by the sound that the distance between them was neither increasing nor decreasing; and then he began to puzzle his head about the pursuer's motive.