The Old Adam Part 52

"And I've got to catch the _Lithuania_, too!" said he. "But Trent doesn't know! ... And, let me tell you, she's going to do the quickest turn round that any s.h.i.+p ever did. The purser a.s.sured me she'll leave at noon to-morrow unless the world comes to an end in the meantime. Now what about a hotel?"

"You'll stay with me--naturally."

"But--" Edward Henry protested.

"Oh, yes, you will. I shall be delighted."

"But I must look after Trent."

"He'll stay with me too--naturally. I live at the Stuyvesant Hotel, you know, on Fifth. I've a pretty good private suite there. I shall arrange a little supper for to-night. My automobile is here."

"Is it possible that I once saved your life and have forgotten all about it?" Edward Henry exclaimed. "Or do you treat everybody like this?"

"We like to look after our friends," said Mr. Sachs simply.

In the terrific confusion of the quay, where groups of pa.s.sengers were mounted like watch dogs over hillocks of baggage, Mr. Sachs stood continually between the travellers and the administrative rigours and official incredulity of a proud republic. And in the minimum of time the fine trunk of Edward Henry and the modest packages of the poet were on the roof of Mr. Sachs's vast car, the three men were inside, and the car was leaping, somewhat in the manner of a motor boat at full speed, over the cobbles of a wide, medieval street.

"Quick!" thought Edward Henry. "I haven't a minute to lose!"

His prayer reached the chauffeur. Conversation was difficult; Carlo Trent groaned. Presently they rolled less perilously upon asphalt, though the equipage still lurched. Edward Henry was forever bending his head toward the window aperture in order to glimpse the roofs of the buildings, and never seeing the roofs.

"Now we're on Fifth," said Mr. Sachs, after a fearful lurch, with pride.

Vistas of flags, high cornices, crowded pavements, marble, jewelry behind gla.s.s--the whole seen through a roaring phantasmagoria of competing and menacing vehicles!

And Edward Henry thought:

"This is my sort of place!"

The jolting recommenced. Carlo Trent rebounded, limply groaning, between cus.h.i.+ons and upholstery. Edward Henry tried to pretend that he was not frightened. Then there was a shock as of the concussion of two equally unyielding natures. A pane of gla.s.s in Mr. Seven Sachs's limousine flew to fragments and the car stopped.

"I expect that's a spring gone!" observed Mr. Sachs with tranquillity.

"Will happen, you know, sometimes!"

Everybody got out. Mr. Sachs's presumption was correct. One of the back wheels had failed to leap over a hole in Fifth Avenue some eighteen inches deep and two feet long.

"What is that hole?" asked Edward Henry.

"Well," said Mr. Sachs. "It's just a hole. We'd better transfer to a taxi." He gave calm orders to his chauffeur.

Four empty taxis pa.s.sed down the sunny magnificence of Fifth Avenue and ignored Mr. Sachs's urgent waving. The fifth stopped. The baggage was strapped and tied to it: which process occupied much time. Edward Henry, fuming against delay, gazed around. A nonchalant policeman on a superb horse occupied the middle of the road. Tram cars pa.s.sed constantly across the street in front of his caracoling horse, dividing a route for themselves in the wild ocean of traffic as Moses cut into the Red Sea. At intervals a knot of persons, intimidated and yet daring, would essay the voyage from one pavement to the opposite pavement; there was no half-way refuge for these adventurers, as in decrepit London; some apparently arrived; others seemed to disappear forever in the feverish welter of confused motion and were never heard of again. The policeman, easily accommodating himself to the caracolings of his mount, gazed absently at Edward Henry, and Edward Henry gazed first at the policeman, and then at the high decorated grandeur of the buildings, and then at the a.s.syrian taxi into which Mr.

Sachs was now ingeniously inserting Carlo Trent. He thought:

"No mistake--this street is alive. But what cemeteries they must have!"

He followed Carlo, with minute precautions, into the interior of the taxi. And then came the supremely delicate operation--that of introducing a third person into the same vehicle. It was accomplished; three chins and six knees fraternized in close intimacy; but the door would not shut. Wheezing, snorting, shaking, complaining, the taxi drew slowly away from Mr. Sachs's luxurious automobile and left it forlorn to its chauffeur. Mr. Sachs imperturbably smiled. ("I have two other automobiles," said Mr. Sachs.) In some sixty seconds the taxi stopped in front of the tremendous gla.s.s awning of the Stuyvesant. The baggage was unstrapped; the pa.s.sengers were extracted one by one from the cell, and Edward Henry saw Mr. Sachs give two separate dollar bills to the driver.

"By Jove!" he murmured.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Sachs politely.

"Nothing!" said Edward Henry.

They walked into the hotel, and pa.s.sed through a long succession of corridors and vast public rooms surging with well-dressed men and women.

"What's all this crowd for?" asked Edward Henry.

"What crowd?" asked Mr. Sachs, surprised.

Edward Henry saw that he had blundered.

"I prefer the upper floors," remarked Mr. Sachs as they were being flung upward in a gilded elevator, and pa.s.sing rapidly all numbers from 1 to 14.

The elevator made an end of Carlo Trent's manhood. He collapsed. Mr.

Sachs regarded him, and then said:

"I think I'll get an extra room for Mr. Trent. He ought to go to bed."

Edward Henry enthusiastically concurred.

"And stay there!" said Edward Henry.

Pale Carlo Trent permitted himself to be put to bed. But, therein, he proved fractious. He was anxious about his linen. Mr. Sachs telephoned from the bedside, and a laundry maid came. He was anxious about his best lounge suit. Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a valet came. Then he wanted a siphon of soda water, and Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a waiter came. Then it was a newspaper he required. Mr. Sachs telephoned and a page came. All these functionaries, together with two reporters, peopled Mr. Trent's bedroom more or less simultaneously. It was Edward Henry's bright notion to add to them a doctor--a doctor whom Mr. Sachs knew, a doctor who would perceive at once that bed was the only proper place for Carlo Trent.

"Now," said Edward Henry, when he and Mr. Sachs were partic.i.p.ating in a private lunch amid the splendours and the grim silent service of the latter's suite at the Stuyvesant, "I have fully grasped the fact that I am in New York. It is one o'clock and after, and as soon as ever this meal is over, I have just _got_ to find Isabel Joy. You must understand that on this trip New York for me is merely a town where Isabel Joy happens to be."

"Well," replied Mr. Sachs. "I reckon I can put you on to that. _She's going to be photographed at two o'clock by Rentoul Smiles_. I happen to know because Rent's a particular friend of mine."

"A photographer, you say?"

Mr. Sachs controlled himself. "Do you mean to say you've not heard of Rentoul Smiles? ... Well, he's called 'Man's photographer.' He has never photographed a woman! Won't! At least, wouldn't! But he's going to photograph Isabel! So you may guess that he considers Isabel some woman, eh?"

"And how will that help me?" inquired Edward Henry.

"Why! I'll take you up to Rent's," Mr. Sachs comforted him. "It's close by--corner of Thirty-ninth and Fifth."

"Tell me," Edward Henry demanded, with immense relief. "She hasn't got herself arrested yet, has she?"

"No. And she won't."

"Why not?"

"The police have been put wise," said Mr. Sachs.

"Put wise?"

"Yes. _Put wise!_"

"I see," said Edward Henry.