The Ghost Breaker Part 12

"Laugh, sir, as much as you please. My father laughed the same way. He called them silly, ignorant peasant tales. He said he would show them that it was now the twentieth century, and teach them how foolish were their fears."

She hesitated. Her dark eyes burned as she continued slowly: "He went there, Mr. Jarvis. He went there! He was never seen again!"

The Kentuckian leaned forward, engrossed.

"What happened?"

"No one knows. He disappeared--vanished utterly, without the slightest clew. Grandfather's treasure was never found!"

"Oh, what treasure?" Jarvis was almost rude in his impatient interest.

"The fortune he left. You know, grandfather converted all his wealth into Spanish gold to finance a Spanish colonization scheme in the West Indies. It amounted to about a million dollars in your American money."

Warren whistled, and twisted his intertwined fingers about an elevated knee--whose ache had been forgotten.

"That's a ripping good yarn. When did all this happen?"

"Fifteen years ago. Since then, two other men disappeared in the same horrible manner as my father did. Not a trace of their leaving: it is so horrible that it makes my heart creep to tell it. And yet you scoff!"

"I'm sorry," he said penitently. "But what's the latest news from the trenches?"

"Now the Duke tells me that my brother has entered the fatal castle ...

you see that daring runs in the blood! Up to a week ago he had sent me a cable every day. Everything was well until Sunday. Then his messages stopped. All this week there has not been a word, not even answering my cables!"

Warren digested this in silence for a moment.

"Why did your Highness leave Spain, knowing all this?"

"Well, Mr. Jarvis, a part of the legend tells that my grandfather had drawn a secret map showing exactly where his treasure was located. It was not safe to let the public know where wealth was located, fifteen years ago, in Spain."

"From the extremely businesslike devotion of that ghost, it doesn't seem that conditions have improved in the district of your exalted estates!"

"Oh, Mr. Jarvis, can't you be serious? I learned from an old letter to my grandmother, from her husband the Prince, that this plan had been hidden in the back-clasp of a locket containing her miniature. Without letting my brother know of the secret, for fear that he would foolishly tell it, I engaged a secret-service man from Paris to look the matter up. When my grandparents died, much of the estate was sold--for the Spanish-American War had wrought havoc with the family income. That locket had been sold to an American collector, and I came to America just in time to save it from being sold to some museum. I p.a.w.ned my mother's jewels to buy it. That was the locket which dropped from the trunk, in my bedroom last night."

"And you have the locket?"

"Yes--but not my brother!"

"Ah, then, my particular ch.o.r.e as va.s.sal to this haunted family is to find your brother and solve the mystery? In other words, you want me to put this infernal, tin-plated, panhandling ghost out of his misery?"

"Yes ... Mr. Jarvis!" and the Princess was more humble than he had noticed her during the hours of their acquaintance. "Are you frightened by the ghost?"

"You asked that question before. Where I came from only negroes and poor whites fear the departed spirits. Perhaps this spirit is not as departed as circ.u.mstances would indicate. But, how about the Duke? What is his interest in the ghost?"

"He fears it, too. He has begged me to stay away from the wretched castle altogether. If it were not for my brother's future, and the fortune of the family--his family, and perhaps ... my family ... some day ... I would shun the place. We are not completely dest.i.tute, you know!"

Jarvis studied the luxurious furnis.h.i.+ngs of the cabin, the jewels and aristocratic modishness of the girl's attire, and nodded.

"I imagine you're not! But this high, exalted, and altogether superior cousin of yours is far from being a fool. He will want to know how, where, why you met me. And what he doesn't know, contrary to the usual theory, is apt to interfere with his sleep. Beware, your Highness, of men who cannot sleep o'night--they think altogether too shrewdly!"

The girl was worried.

"He will ask dreadful questions. I know him, Mr. Jarvis!"

"So do I. Will you tell him you have made of me a ... perfectly good va.s.sal?"

"I think not--just yet," and there was a shyness in her manner.

Jarvis looked adown his nose, and there was a smile on the firm lips below it!

"By the way, Mrs. Princess--as Rusty so beautifully phrases it--just how should a va.s.sal, a fine A-number-One va.s.sal, address his liege-lady and the owner of his soul? What is the _au fait_ procedure in this case? You know I am only an ignorant pig of an American!"

She hesitated, embarra.s.sed, and then answered: "Highness--is correct!"

"Highness! I had imagined so--incidentally we were introduced by Fate on the eleventh floor, as I recollect. Tell me, Highness: a va.s.sal doesn't amount to much, does he? I always considered him a piker!"

She was mystified. These phrases had not been in the curriculum of the exclusively proper English boarding-school.

"A piker--a soldier who carries a pike?"

"No, just a p.a.w.n in this human game of chess--along with the queens, and kings, and castles--and knights!... But I have known of a p.a.w.n saving a game, in the hands of an expert. By the way, and apropos of nothing-whatever-at-all, could a good, hard-working, reliable, moral, union-labeled va.s.sal work his way up to a good job--such as a Duke or a Lord, or something like that?"

She caught the drift of his quizzical humor, and retorted in kind.

"You're an ambitious va.s.sal. Such men have occasionally lost their heads--literally speaking. I'm afraid you wouldn't be content with anything less than a kings.h.i.+p."

The Kentuckian spoke with meaning behind his jest.

"A king--a prince--or a bandit!"

"A bandit--why a bandit? That is essentially Spanis.h.!.+"

Jarvis lit another cigarette.

"A king could command--a prince might request--a bandit generally seizes!"

"What?" and the woman emerged from the hauteur of the royal personality.

"That which a va.s.sal can only admire!"

VIII

THE NEW PROFESSION