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Her Forbidden Knight
By Rex Stout MysteriousPress.com
Copyright © 1997 Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4532-5709-8
CHAPTER 1
The Champion and the Lady
"Young man," said Tom Dougherty, "that'll do. Remove yourself."
"What do you mean?" said the person addressed, pugnaciously.
Dougherty regarded him with stern disfavor.
"You know what I mean. Go over and talk to Venus at the cigar stand. But as for that"—he nodded toward the telegraph desk, where sat Lila Williams, the operator, her face reddened by the impertinent gaze of the young man—"nothing doing. Stay away, and far away."
"Private, eh?" the young man grinned.
Dougherty's face became sterner still.
"You say one more word," he said calmly, "and I'll punch your face. Now clear out."
At this threat the young man raised his brows in a sort of pained surprise.
"I say," he protested, "that isn't necessary. When you talk about punching my face you offend my sensibilities. I regard it as impolite. Nevertheless, I'm a good fellow, and I'll be glad to seek fresh pastures on your assurance that the little brunette yonder, who is somewhat of a peach, belongs to you. If she does, I wish to congratulate you on having—"
But the voluble young man's oration met with a sudden and effectual interruption. Staggered, but not floored, by the scientific blow that Dougherty planted on his jaw, he fell a step or two backward, involuntarily raising his hands to a posture of defense. Then, as his face colored with anger, he recovered himself and glared at Dougherty with an almost joyous hostility.
"In that case," he said calmly, "where shall we go?"
"To the billiard room," said Dougherty in a pleased tone. There was something to this young fellow, after all, he thought.
The affair was not without its audience. A half-dozen loungers who had observed the clash in the lobby followed on their heels, and the attendant and one or two players looked up curiously as they entered the billiard room.
In the lobby the Venus at the cigar stand, otherwise known as Miss Hughes, stretched her neck to an unbelievable length in an effort to look round two corners at once, and Lila Williams, the innocent cause of the battle, trembled in her chair and covered her face with her hands.
Dougherty soon discovered that there was, indeed, "something to this young fellow." No sooner had he squared off and assumed his favorite guard—for Dougherty had at one time been a prizefighter—than he suddenly felt himself in the midst of a mad, breathless whirlwind.
A thousand arms and fists seemed to be revolving crazily about his head and shoulders. This was bewildering.
And what was worse, sometimes they landed. Nothing more unscientific could possibly be imagined; Dougherty felt aggrieved. This was no man, but a windmill.
Dougherty struck out blindly with both arms, then suddenly felt himself propelled backward by some jolting force, while he clutched frantically at a table to save himself from falling.
He opened his eyes. Before him stood the young man, smiling pleasantly; on either side a knot of lobby loungers, on their faces an expression of amused surprise.
"This is where Tom gets his," observed Billy Sherman.
At this remark Dougherty's strength returned. He leaped at his opponent fiercely and by the mere force of impact bore him to the floor; then, as they both rose, he landed a free swing on the young man's ear.
But the windmill proved too much for him. A succession of jolts on the nose and mouth rattled and unnerved him; his hands waved wildly in the air; and when, after a feeling of delicious repose and a succeeding blackness, he found himself lying flat on his back on the floor, he decided to remain there.
"How about it, old man?" came a voice.
Dougherty opened his eyes and smiled weakly.
"Hello, Dumain! Oh, all right. Only he don't know how to fight. Does he think he's a semaphore? What was it he hit me with?"
Dumain stooped down, placed his hands under Dougherty's shoulders and helped him to his feet. One or two of the others approached and offered assistance, but Dougherty shook them off with a gesture.
"Here, brace up," said Dumain. "What was zee quarrel?"
"Woman, lovely woman," chirped Harry Jennings.
"Shut up," growled Dougherty. "It was Miss Williams," he added, turning to Dumain. "The puppy insulted her."
"My dear fellow," came a voice, "how can you call me that after what has just happened? Do you require additional demonstration?"
Dougherty turned and glared at his late opponent.
"No, thanks," he said dryly. "You've already proved you're one. Just because I've lost my wind is no sign you're a man. And anybody who insults Miss Lila Williams is a puppy, and remains so till he apologizes."
"You are, I take it, the young lady's champion," the young man observed.
"Call it anything you like. But I'm her friend," said Dougherty.
"And I," said Dumain.
"And I," came in a chorus from the loungers, who had remained to support Dougherty.
The young man whistled expressively.
"So many! She is a lucky woman. And surely she could use one more."
"Zee next time," Dumain observed significantly, "there will be five of us, or seex. I imagine you will have rather a lively time of it. And be good enough to refrain from remarks such as zee one you have just made. They displease us."
"But what the deuce!" the young man exclaimed.
Then he hesitated and appeared to consider.
"Now, listen here," he continued finally; "you can't frighten me. I'd take you all on in a minute. But I'm a good fellow. I would rather walk on my own feet than somebody else's toes.
"As far as your Miss Williams is concerned, I'm interested in her. But if you chaps have any reason, philosophical, domestic, or amatory, which might cause me to smother my inclinations, I'm willing to hear it. I put it up to you."
"Indeed!" said Dumain contemptuously. "And who are you?"
"Let him alone," said Dougherty. "I like him. Moreover, I'll talk to him.
The young man smiled.
"My name is Driscoll—Bub Driscoll," he said, holding out his hand to Dougherty.
"Tom Dougherty," said that gentleman, taking the hand.
They found chairs in a corner of the billiard room, and Dougherty began his tale. Some of the others gathered round—for Dougherty's tongue was famous—and divided their attention between the narration and a game of billiards begun by Harry Jennings and Billy Sherman.
Driscoll, during the readjustment, found opportunity for the first time to take note of his surroundings.
Filled with stale tobacco smoke, poorly ventilated, and receiving constantly the heterogeneous fumes from the bar adjoining, the most noticeable thing about the room was the odor which pervaded it. To an ordinary human being this atmosphere is vitiating: but the sport and the tenderloin loafer thrive and grow fat on it. They breathe it as the salamander does the flame.
The room, long and narrow, was lined along either side with chairs with raised seats, the better to overlook the five or six billiard tables which ranged along the center from end to end. On the walls were hung pictures of racehorses and actresses, and copies of the rules of the National Billiard Association; at intervals a cue rack. A wide arch at one end led into the main half of the hotel; a small door at an opposite corner connected with the bar.
Here and there were small tables ready to hold whatever might be deposited on them by the white-coated attendants, at the request of those made thirsty by the exercise and mental strain occasioned by the classic and subtle game of billiards.
The occupants were few. This was not the result of any lack of popularity for the Lamartine, being on the Madison Square section, in the Nineties, was at the height of its career. The fact is, it was only ten o'clock; an hour when any sensible man—according to the view of the Broadway sport—should be trying to decide whether to turn over for another snatch of sleep or to get up and give his serious consideration to the question of breakfast. Therefore was the billiard room by no means filled.
The game just begun by Harry Jennings and Billy Sherman was the only one in progress, and the spectators were few in number.
In the farthest corner the white-coated attendant was replacing some chairs that had been overturned during the late unpleasantness. Driscoll, observing this, smiled at some inward recollection and turned to Dougherty who was seated at his side.
"Really," said Dougherty, "there's nothing to it. We're Miss Williams's friends, and we don't intend to let anyone annoy her. That's all."
"But it's not enough," declared Driscoll. "We've agreed to argue this out as man to man. Very well. Now, I'll leave it to you: If, in my wanderings through the highways and byways of existence, I suddenly find a young woman who causes my heart to jump from side to side like the pendulum of an eight-day clock, what is there to keep me from telling her so? The mere fact that she possesses friends? Hardly."
Dougherty observed him with a new interest.
"That was exactly how I felt," he observed.
"How? What?"
"Like the pendulum of an eight-day clock."
"Oh! Well?"
"Well"—Dougherty hesitated—"it's like this: I suppose I must begin at the beginning. If I didn't you wouldn't understand how we feel. Anyway, there's not much to tell.
"It was about two months ago that we first saw Miss Williams. We all hang out here in the Lamartine—that is, Dumain, Booth, Sherman, Jennings, myself, and one or two others. Well, one day, coming in the lobby, what do I see? I see what I call the Queen of Egypt sitting at the telegraph desk.
"'Aha!' says I, 'a new one.' Without loss of time I proceed to skirmish. The enemy ignores me. I advance right up to the fortifications. Still no sign. I prepare to turn loose with my artillery, and at that point am interrupted by Dumain and Jennings entering the lobby.
"As soon as they observe me they hasten up with reenforcements. 'Who is it?' says Jennings. 'The Queen of Egypt,' says I, 'and no time to be lost.' Then we begin in earnest.
"Dumain had a roll—some rich guy wanted to find out who to give it to (you know, Dumain's a palmist)—and that day we must have sent something like five million telegrams, having found her silent on all other topics. It wasn't easy. Did you ever try to write a telegram when you had nothing to say and nobody to say it to? And still we never got across the trenches. It went something like this:
"'How much?' says I, handing over for the ninth time a telegram to my brother in Trenton, telling him I was well and hoping he was the same.
"'Sixty cents,' says the Queen of Egypt.
"'Now,' says I, 'that's what I don't like. I don't mind paying out five for a dinner or tickets to a show, but I do hate to spend money on telegrams. But as I say, I'd just as soon buy tickets to a show as not—any show.'
"'Sixty cents,' says the Queen of Egypt.
"'And so far as dinner is concerned—why, I hardly consider ten dollars too much for a good dinner,' says I.
"'Sixty cents, please,' says she.
"And that was the way it went all day. Not a word could we get. It appeared to be hopeless. Jennings got disgusted.
"'You've made a mistake, Dougherty,' says he. 'She belongs to Egypt all right, but she's not the queen. She's the Sphinx.' I was inclined to agree with him.
"The time passed quicker than we thought. We were sitting over in the corner, trying to think up one more telegram, when we heard somebody stop right in front of us. It was the Queen of Egypt, with her hat and coat on, ready to go home. Before we could say a word she spoke.
"'Gentlemen,' she says, 'you must pardon me for speaking to you. I do it because I believe you are gentlemen. I suppose you have been trying to joke with me today; and I am sure that when I tell you it disturbs me and makes me unhappy, you will promise not to do it any more. For if you continue, I must give up my position.'
"You can imagine—maybe—how we felt. Dumain stammered something, and I choked, and the next minute we saw the door close behind her. I guess she realized our condition.
"Well, the next day we had to catch Booth and train him. And the day after that, Sherman. He was the hardest of all. About every day it happens that some stranger suddenly finds himself de trop, though we don't usually interfere unless he insists. And now you get us. She is no longer the Queen of Egypt. She is Miss Lila Williams—which is to say, she's better than any queen."
"But still," persisted Driscoll, "by what right do you interfere with me?"
"Well," Dougherty appeared to reflect, "perhaps none. But there's one or two things we've found out that I haven't told you. One is that she has no father or mother. She's all alone.
"Very well. One thing a mother does is this: if some guy comes round with a meaning eye, she hauls him up short. She says to him: 'Who are you, and what are you good for, and what are your intentions?' Well, that's us. As far as that part of it's concerned, we're mama."
"But I have no intentions," said Driscoll.
"That's just the point. You have no intentions. Then hands off."
Dougherty at this point glanced aside at a shout from the billiard players. When he turned back he found Driscoll standing before him with outstretched hand.
"You're on," said Driscoll briefly. "Shake."
"You're a gentleman," said Dougherty, grasping the hand.
"And now—will you introduce me to Miss Williams?"
Dougherty looked somewhat taken aback.
"I want to apologize to her," Driscoll explained.
"Why, sure," said Dougherty. "Of course. I forgot. Come on."
Halfway to the door they were intercepted by Dumain.
"Well?" said he.
"Oh, it's all right," said Dougherty. "Driscoll's a gentleman."
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the little Frenchman. "Eet ees not surprising. For zee little Miss Williams—she ees irresistible."
He returned to the game, and Driscoll and Dougherty passed down the hall and thence into the lobby.
The lobby, more ornate and pretentious than the billiard room, was at the same time more typical. With Driscoll, we shall pause to observe it in detail.
There were two entrances: the main one on Broadway, and a side door leading to a crosstown street not far from Madison Square. On the right, entering, were the hotel desk and the cigar stand; beyond, the hall leading to the bar and billiard room. Further on came the telegraph desk and the elevators. Along the whole length of the opposite side was a line of leather-covered lounges and chairs, broken only by the side entrance.
At one time the Lamartine had been quiet, fashionable, and exclusive. Now it was noisy, sporty, and popular; for fashion had moved north.
The marble pillars stood in lofty indifference to the ever-changing aspect and character of the human creatures who moved about on the patterned floor; subtly time had imprinted the mark of his fingers on the carvings, frescoes, and furniture. From magnificent the lobby had become presentable; it was now all but dingy.
With its appearance and character, its employees had changed also. The clerks were noisy and assertive, the bell boys worldly-wise to the point of impudence, and the Venus at the cigar stand needs no further description than the phrase itself.
But what of the girl at the telegraph desk? Here, indeed, we find an anomaly. And it is here that Driscoll and Dougherty stop on their way from the billiard room.
As Lila Williams looked up and found the two men standing before her, her face turned a delicious pink and her eyes fell with embarrassment. Before Dougherty spoke Driscoll found time to regard her even more closely than he had before, in the light of the new and interesting information he had received concerning her.
Her figure was slender and of medium height; exactly of the proper mold and strength for her small, birdlike head, that seemed to have fluttered and settled of itself on the white and delicate neck. Her lips, partly open, seemed ever to tremble with a sweet consciousness of the mystery she held within her—the mystery of the eternal feminine.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Her Forbidden Knight by Rex Stout. Copyright © 1997 Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of MysteriousPress.com.
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