The Maker of Opportunities

From the window of his apartment Crabb watched Dicky’s taxi spin up the avenue in the direction of the modest boarding-house which sheltered the waiting bride, then turned with a heavy sigh and rang for McFee. Love like that never comes to the very rich. He, Mortimer Crabb, was not a sentient being, but only a chattel, an animated bank account upon which designing matrons cast envious eyes and for which ambitious daughters laid their pretty snares. No, love like that was not for him – or ever would be, it seemed.

His toilet made, Crabb strolled out for the air, wondering as he often did how the people on the street could smile their way through life, while he —

A hansom passed, turned just beyond and drew up at the curb beside him, and a voice addressed him.

“Crabb! Mortimer Crabb! By all that’s lucky!”

“Ross Burnett!” said Crabb, gladly. “I thought that you were dead. Have you dropped from heaven, man?”

“No,” laughed Ross, “not so far, only from China.”

Burnett dismissed the hansom at once and together they went to the Bachelors’ Club near by, where, over a friendly glass, they gathered up the loose ends of their friendship. Crabb listened with new interest as his old friend gave him an account of what had happened in the five years which had intervened since they had last met, recalling piece by piece the unfortunate events which had led to his departure from New York, and Burnett, glad of receptive ears, rehearsed it for him.

The boy had squandered his patrimony in Wall Street. Then by the grace of one of the senators from New York he obtained from the President an appointment as consular clerk, an office, which if it paid but little at home carried with it some dignity, a little authority, and certain appreciable perquisites in foreign ports.

He had chosen wisely. At Cairo, where he had been sent to fill a temporary vacancy caused by the death of the consul general and subsequent illness of his deputy, he found himself suddenly in charge of the consular office in the fullest press of business, with diplomatic functions requiring both ingenuity and discretion.

After all, it was very simple. The business of a consulate was child’s play, and the usual phases in the life of a diplomat were to be requisitely met by the usages of gentility – a quality Burnett discovered was not too amply possessed by those political gentlemen who sat abroad in the posts of honor to represent the great republic.

He thought that if he could get a post, however small, with plenary powers, he would be happy. But, alas! He had been away from home so long that he didn’t even know whether his senator was dead or alive, and when he reached Washington, a month or so after the inauguration, he realized how small were his chances for preferment.

The President and Secretary of State were besieged daily by powerful politicians, and one by one the posts coveted, even the smallest of them, were taken by frock-coated, soft-hatted, flowing-tied gentlemen, whom he had noticed lounging and chewing tobacco in the Willard Hotel lobby. It was apparently with such persons that power took preferment. His roseate dreams vanished. Ross Burnett was a mere State Department drudge again at twelve hundred a year!

He told Crabb that he had spoken to the chief of the diplomatic bureau in despair.

“Isn’t there any way, Crowthers?” he had asked. “Can’t a fellow ever get any higher?”

“If he had a pull, he might – but a consular clerk – ” The shake of Crowthers’ head was eloquent.

“Isn’t there anything a fellow – even a consular clerk – could do to win promotion in this service?” he continued.

Crowthers had looked at him quizzically.

“Yes, there’s one thing. If you could do that, you might ask the Secretary for anything you wanted.”

“And that – ”

“Get the text of the treaty between Germany and China from Baron Arnim.”

Crowthers had chuckled. Crabb chuckled, too. He thought it a very good joke. Baron Arnim had been the special envoy of Germany to China, accredited to the court of the Eastern potentate with the special mission of formulating a new and secret treaty between these monarchs. He was now returning home carrying a copy of this document in his baggage.

Burnett had laughed. It was a good joke.

“You’d better send me out again,” Burnett had said, hopelessly. “Anything from Arakan to Zanzibar will do for me.”

Crabb listened to the story with renewed marks of appreciation.

“So you’ve been out and doing in the world, after all?” he said, languidly, “while we —eheu jam satis!– have glutted ourselves with the stale and unprofitable. How I envy you!”

Burnett smoked silently. It was very easy to envy from the comfortable vantage ground of a hundred and fifty thousand a year.

“Why, man, if you knew how sick of it all I am,” sighed Crabb, “you’d thank your stars for the lucky dispensation that took you out of it. Rasselas was right. I’ve been pursuing the phantoms of hope for thirty years, and I’m still hopeless. There have been a few bright spots” – Crabb smiled at his cigar ash – “a very few, and far between.”

“Bored as ever, Crabb?”

“Immitigably. To live in the thick of things and see nothing but the pale drabs and grays. No red anywhere. Oh, for a passion that would burn and sear – love, hate, fear! I’m forever courting them all. And here I am still cool, colorless and unscarred. Only once” – his gray eyes lit up marvelously – “only once did I learn the true relation of life to death, Burnett; only once. That was when the Blue Wing struggled six days in a hurricane with Hatteras under her lee. It was glorious. They may talk of love and hate as they will; fear, I tell you, is the Titan of passions.”

Burnett was surprised at this unmasking.

“You should try big game,” he said, carelessly.

“I have,” said the other; “both beasts and men – and here I am in flannels and a red tie! I’ve skinned the one and been skinned by the other – to what end?”

“You’ve bought experience.”

“Cheap at any cost. You can’t buy fear. Love comes in varieties at the market values. Hate can be bought for a song; but fear, genuine and amazing, is priceless – a gem which only opportunity can provide; and how seldom opportunity knocks at any man’s door!”

“Crabb the original – the esoteric!”

“Yes. The same. The very same. And you, how different! How sober and rounded!”

There was a silence, contemplative, retrospective on both their parts. Crabb broke it.

“Tell me, old man,” he said, “about your position. Isn’t there any chance?”

Burnett smiled a little bitterly.

“I’m a consular clerk at twelve hundred a year during good behavior. When I’ve said that, I’ve said it all.”

“But your future?”

“I’m not in line of promotion.”

“Impossible! Politics?”

“Exactly. I’ve no pull to speak of.”

“But your service?”

“I’ve been paid for that.”

“Isn’t there any other way?”

“Oh, yes,” Burnett laughed, “that treaty. I happened to know something about it when I was out there. It has to do with neutrality, trade ports and coaling stations; but just what, the devil only knows, and his deputy, Baron Arnim, won’t tell. Arnim is now in Washington, ostensibly sight-seeing, but really to confer with Von Schlichter, the ambassador there, about it. You see, we’ve got rather more closely into the Eastern question than we really like, and a knowledge of Germany’s attitude is immensely important to us.”

“Pray go on,” drawled Crabb.

“That’s all there is. The rest was a joke. Crowthers wants me to get the text of that treaty from Baron Arnim’s dispatch-box.”

“Entertaining!” said Crabb, with clouding brow. And then, after a pause, with all the seriousness in the world: “And aren’t you going to?”

Burnett turned to look at him in surprise.

“What?”

“Get it. The treaty.”

“The treaty! From Baron Arnim! You don’t know much of diplomacy, Crabb.”

“You misunderstood me,” he said, coolly; and then, with lowered voice:

“Not from Baron Arnim – from Baron Arnim’s dispatch-box.”

Burnett looked at his acquaintance in a maze. Crabb had been thought a mystery in the old days. He was an enigma now.

“Surely you’re jesting.”

“Why? It oughtn’t to be difficult.”

Burnett looked fearfully around the room at their distant neighbors. “But it’s burglary. Worse than that. If I, in my connection with the State Department, were discovered tampering with the papers of a foreign government, it would lead to endless complications and, perhaps, the disruption of diplomatic relations. Such a thing is impossible. Its very impossibility was the one thing which prompted Crowthers’ suggestion. Can’t you understand that?”

Crabb was stroking his chin and contemplating his well-shaped boot.

“Admit that it’s impossible,” he said calmly. “Do you think, if by some chance you were enabled to give the Secretary of State this information, you’d better your condition?”

“What is the use, Crabb?” began Burnett.

“It can’t do any harm to answer me.”

“Well – yes, I suppose so. If we weren’t plunged immediately into war with Emperor William.”

“Oh!” Crabb was deep in thought. It was several moments before he went on, and then, as though dismissing the subject.

“What are your plans, Ross? Have you a week to spare? How about a cruise on the Blue Wing? There’s a lot I know that you don’t, and a lot you know that I’d like to. I’ll take you up to Washington whenever you’re bored. What do you say?”

Ross Burnett accepted with alacrity. He remembered the Blue Wing, Jepson and Valentin’s dinners. He had longed for them many times when he was eating spaghetti at Gabri’s little restaurant in Genoa.

When they parted it was with a consciousness on the part of Burnett that the affair of Baron Arnim had not been dismissed. The very thought had been madness. Was it only a little pleasantry of Crabb’s? If not, what wild plan had entered his head? It was unlike the Mortimer Crabb he remembered.

And yet there had been a deeper current flowing below his placid surface that gave a suggestion of desperate intent which nothing could explain away. And how illimitable were the possibilities if some plan could be devised by which the information could be obtained without resort to violent measures! It meant for him at least a post at the helm somewhere, or, perhaps, a secretaryship on one of the big commissions.

The idea of burglary, flagrant and nefarious, he dismissed at a thought. Would there not be some way – an unguarded moment – a faithless servant – to give the thing the aspect of possible achievement? As he dressed he found himself thinking of the matter with more seriousness than it deserved.

CHAPTER IV

A week had passed since the two friends had met, and the Blue Wing now lay in the Potomac near the Seventh Street wharf. It was night and the men had dined.

Valentin’s dinners were a distinct achievement. They were of the kind which made conclusive the assumption of an especial heaven for cooks. After coffee and over a cigar, which made all things complete, Mortimer Crabb chose his psychological moment.

“Burnett,” he said, “you must see that treaty and copy it.”

Burnett looked at him squarely. Crabb’s glance never wavered.

“So you did mean it?” said Burnett.

“Every word. You must have it. I’m going to help.”

“It’s hopeless.”

“Perhaps. But the game is worth the candle.”

“A bribe to a servant?”

“Leave that to me. Come, come, Ross, it’s the chance of your life. Arnim, Von Schlichter and all the rest of them dine at the British embassy to-night. There’s to be a ball afterward. They won’t be back until late. We must get into Arnim’s rooms at the German embassy. Those rooms are in the rear of the house. There’s a rain spout and a back building. You can climb?”

“To-night?” Burnett gasped. “You found out these things to-day?”

“Since I left you. I saw Denton Thorpe at the British embassy.”

“And you were so sure I’d agree! Don’t you think, old man – ”

“Hang it all, Burnett! I’m not easily deceived. You’re down on your luck; that’s plain. But you’re not beaten. Any man who can buck the market down to his last thousand the way you did doesn’t lack sand. The end isn’t an ignoble one. You’ll be doing the Administration a service – and yourself. Why, how can you pause?”

Burnett looked around at the familiar fittings of the saloon, at the Braun prints let into the woodwork, at the flying teal set in the azure above the wainscoting, at his immaculate host and at his own conventional black. Was this to be indeed a setting for Machiavellian conspiracy?

Crabb got up from the table and opened the doors of a large locker under the companion. Burnett watched him curiously.

Garment after garment he pulled out upon the deck under the glare of the cabin lamp; shoes, hats and caps, overcoats and clothing of all sizes and shapes from the braided gray of the coster to the velvet and sash of the Niçois.

He selected a soft hat and a cap and two long, tattered coats of ancient cut and style and threw them over the back of a chair. Then he went to his stateroom and brought out a large square box of tin and placed it on the table.

He first wrapped a handkerchief around his neck, then seated himself deliberately before the box, opened the lid and took out a tray filled with make-up sticks. These he put aside while he drew forth from the deeper recesses mustachios, whiskers and beards of all shapes and complexions. He worked rapidly and silently, watching his changing image in the little mirror set in the box lid.

Burnett, fascinated, followed his skillful fingers as they moved back and forth, lining here, shading there, not as the actor does for an effect by the calcium, but carefully, delicately, with the skill of the art anatomist who knows the bone structure of the face and the pull of the aging muscles.

In twenty minutes Mortimer Crabb had aged as many years, and now bore the phiz of a shaggy rum-sot. The long coat, soft hat and rough bandanna completed the character. The fever of the adventure had mounted in Burnett’s veins. He sprang to his feet with a reckless gesture of final resolution.

“Give me my part!” he exclaimed. “I’ll play it!”

The aged intemperate smiled approval. “Good lad!” he said. “I thought you’d be game. If you hadn’t been I was going alone. It’s lucky you’re clean shaved. Come and be transfigured.”

And as he rapidly worked on Burnett’s face he completed the details of his plan. Like a good general, Crabb disposed his plans for failure as well as for success.

They would wear their disguises over their evening clothes. Then, if the worst came, vaseline and a wipe of the bandannas would quickly remove all guilty signs from their faces, they could discard their tatters, and resume the garb of convention.

Ross Burnett at last rose swarthy and darkly mustached, lacking only the rings in his ears to be old Gabri himself. He was fully awakened to the possibilities of the adventure. Whatever misgivings he had had were speedily dissipated by the blithe optimism of his companion.

Crabb reached over for the brandy decanter.

“One drink,” he said, “and we must be off.”

The night was thick. A mist which had been gathering since sunset now turned to a soft drizzle of rain. Crabb, hands in pockets and shoulders bent, walked with a rapid and shambling gait up the street.

“We can’t risk the cars or a cab in this,” muttered Crabb. “We might do it, but it’s not worth the risk. Can you walk? It’s not over three miles.”

It was after one o’clock before they reached Highland Terrace. Without stopping they examined the German embassy at long range from the distant side of Massachusetts Avenue. A gas lamp sputtered dimly under the porte-cochère. Another light gleamed far up in the slanting roof. Crabb led the way around and into the alley in the rear. It was long, badly lighted and ran the entire length of the block.

“I got the details in the city plot-book from a real-estate man this afternoon. He thinks I’m going to buy next door. I wanted to be particular about the alleys and back entrances.” Crabb chuckled.

Burnett looked along the backs of the row of N Street houses. They were all as stolid as sphinxes. Several lights at wide intervals burned dimly. The night was chill for the season, and all the windows were down. The occasion was propitious. The rear of the embassy was dark, except for a dim glow in a window on the second floor.

“That should be Arnim’s room,” said Crabb.

He tried the back gate. It was unlocked. Noiselessly they entered, closing it after them. There was a rain spout, which Crabb eyed hopefully; but they found better luck in the shape of a thirty-foot ladder along the fence.

“A positive invitation,” whispered Crabb, joyfully. “Here, Ross; in the shadow. Once on the back building the deed is done. Quiet, now. You hold it and I’ll go up.”

Burnett did not falter. But his hands were cold, and he was trembling from top to toe with excitement. He could not but admire Crabb’s composure as he went firmly up the rungs.

He saw him reach the roof and draw himself over the coping, and in a moment Burnett, less noiselessly but safely, had joined his fellow criminal by the window. There they waited a moment, listening. A cab clattered down Fifteenth Street, and the gongs on the car line clanged in reply, but that was all.

Crabb stealthily arose and peered into the lighted window. It was a study. The light came from a lamp with a green shade. Under its glow upon the desk were maps and documents in profusion. And in the corner he could make out the lines of an iron-bound chest or box. They had made no mistake. Unless in the possession of Von Schlichter it was here that the Chinese treaty would be found.

“All right,” whispered Crabb. “An old-fashioned padlock, too.”

Crabb tried the window. It was locked. He took something from one of the pockets of his coat and reached up to the middle of the sash. There was a sound like the quick shearing of linen which sent the blood back to Burnett’s heart. In the still night it seemed to come back manifold from the wings of the buildings opposite. They paused again. A slight crackling of broken glass, and Crabb’s long fingers reached through the hole and turned the catch. In a moment they were in the room.

The intangible and Quixotic had become a latter-day reality. Burnett’s spirits rose. He did not lack courage, and here was a situation which spurred him to the utmost.

Instinctively he closed the inside shutters behind him. From the alley the pair would not have presented an appearance which accorded with the quiet splendor of the room. He found himself peering around, his ears straining for the slightest sound.

A glance revealed the dispatch-box, heavy, squat and phlegmatic, like its owner. Crabb had tiptoed over to the door of the adjoining room. Burnett saw the eyes dilate and the warning finger to his lips.

From the inner apartment, slowly and regularly, came the sound of heavy breathing. There, in a broad armchair by the foot of the bed, sprawled the baron’s valet, in stertorous sleep. His mouth was wide open, his limbs relaxed. He had heard nothing.

“Quick,” whispered Crabb; “your bandanna around his legs.”

Burnett surprised himself by the rapidity and intelligence of his collaboration. A handkerchief was slipped into the man’s mouth, and before his eyes were fairly opened he was gagged and bound hand and foot by the cord from the baron’s own dressing gown.

From a pocket Crabb had produced a revolver, which he flourished significantly under the nose of the terrified man, who recoiled before the dark look which accompanied it.

Crabb seemed to have planned exactly what to do. He took a bath towel and tied it over the man’s ears and under his chin. From the bed he took the baron’s sheets and blankets, enswathing the unfortunate servant until nothing but the tip of his nose was visible. A rope of suspenders and cravats completed the job.

The Baron Arnim’s valet, to all the purposes of usefulness in life, was a bundled mummy.

“Phew!” said Crabb, when it was done. “Poor devil! But it can’t be helped. He mustn’t see or know. And now for it.”

Crabb produced a bunch of skeleton keys and an electric bull’s-eye. He tried the keys rapidly. In a moment the dispatch-box was opened and its contents exposed to view.

“Carefully now,” whispered Crabb. “What should it look like?”

“A foolscap-shaped thing in silk covers with dangling cords,” said Ross. “There, under your hand.”

In a moment they had it out and between them on the desk. There it was, in all truth, written in two columns, Chinese on the one side, French on the other.

“Are you sure?” said Crabb.

“Sure! Sure as I’m a thief in the night!”

“Then sit and write, man. Write as you never wrote before. I’ll listen and watch Rameses the Second.”

In the twenty minutes during which Burnett fearfully wrote, Crabb stood listening at the doors and windows for sounds of servants or approaching carriages. The man swaddled in the sheets made a few futile struggles and then subsided. Burnett’s eyes gleamed. Other eyes than his would gleam at what he saw and wrote. When he finished he closed the document, removed all traces of his work, replaced it in the iron box and shut the lid. He dropped the precious sheets into an inner pocket and was moving toward the window when Crabb seized him by the arm. There was a step in the hallway without, and the door opened. There, stout and grizzled, his walrus mustache bristling with surprise, in all the distinction of gold lace and orders, stood Baron Arnim.

CHAPTER V

For a moment there was no sound. The burglars looked at the Baron and the Baron looked at the burglars, mouths and eyes open alike. Then, even before Crabb could display his intimidating revolver, the German had disappeared through the door screaming at the top of his lungs.

“Quick! Out of the window!” said Crabb, helping Burnett over the sill. “Down you go – I’ll follow. Don’t fall. If you miss your footing, we’re ruined.”

Burnett scrambled out, over the coping and down the ladder, Crabb almost on his fingers. But they reached the yard in safety and were out in the alley running in the shadow of the fence before a venturesome head stuck forth from the open window and a revolver blazed into the vacant air.

“The devil!” said Crabb. “They’ll have every copper in the city on us in a minute. This way.” He turned into a narrow alley at right angles to the other. “Off with the coat as you go – now, the mustache and grease paint. Take your time. Into this sewer with the coats. So!”

Two gentlemen in light topcoats, one in a cap, the other in a hat, walked up N street arm in arm, thickly singing. Their shirt fronts and hair were rumpled, their legs were not too steady, and they clung affectionately to each other for support and sang thickly.

A window flew up and a tousled head appeared.

“Hey!” yelled a voice. “Burglars in the alley!”

“Burglars!” said one of the singers; and then: “Go to bed. You’re drunk.”

More sounds of windows, the blowing of night whistles and hurrying feet.

Still the revelers sang on.

A stout policeman, clamorous and bellicose, broke in.

“Did you see ’em? Did you see ’em?” he cried, glaring into their faces. Bleary eyes returned his look.

“W-who?” said the voices in unison.

“Burglars,” roared the copper. “If I wasn’t busy I’d run ye in.” And he was off at full speed on his vagrant mission.

“Lucky you’re busy, old chap,” muttered Crabb to the departing figure. “Do sober up a little, Ross, or we’ll never get away. And don’t jostle me so, for I clank like a bellwether.”

Slowly the pair made their way to Thomas Circle and Vermont Avenue, where the sounds of commotion were lost in the noises of the night.

At L Street Burnett straightened up. “Lord!” he gasped. “But that was close.”

“Not as close as it looked,” said Crabb, coolly. “A white shirt-front does wonders with a copper. It was better than a knock on the head and a run for it. In the meanwhile, Ross, for the love of Heaven, help me with some of the bric-à-brac.” And with that he handed Burnett a gold pin tray, a silver box and a watch fob.

Burnett soberly examined the spoils. “I only wish we could have done without that.”