Mrs Peixada. Harland Henry
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Название: Mrs Peixada
Автор: Harland Henry
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066216061
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Mused Arthur, absently, “An old lady named Hart; and he doesn’t know whether the musician is her daughter or not.”
“Fact is,” put in William, “I dunno much about ’em—only what I’ve heerd. But we’ll know all about them before long. Every body knows every body in this neighborhood.”
“Yes, that’s so.—Well, good night.”
“Good night, sir,” said William, touching his cap.
Upstairs in the sitting-room, Arthur threw himself upon a sofa. Hetzel was away. By and by Arthur picked up a book from the table, and tried to read. He made no great headway, however: indeed, an hour elapsed, and he had not yet turned the page. His thoughts were busy with the fair one of the corner house. He had spun out quite a history for her before he had done. He devoutly trusted that ere long Fate would arrange a meeting between her and himself. He whistled over the melody of Wohin, imitating as nearly as he could the manner in which she had sung it. When his mind reverted to the Peixada business, as it did presently, lo! the prospective trip to Europe had lost half its charm. He felt that there was plenty to keep one interested here in New York.
All day Sunday, despite the fun at his expense in which Hetzel liberally indulged, Arthur haunted the front of the house. But when he went to bed Sunday night, he was no wiser respecting his musical neighbor than he had been four-and-twenty hours before.
CHAPTER III.—STATISTICAL.
MONDAY morning Arthur entered Peixada’s warehouse promptly as the clock struck ten. Peixada had not yet got down.
Arthur was conducted by a dapper little salesman to an inclosure fenced off at the rear of the showroom, and bidden to “make himself at home.” By and by, to kill time, he picked up a directory—the only literature in sight—and extracted what amusement he could from it, by hunting out the names of famous people—statesmen, financiers, etc. The celebrities exhausted, he turned to his own name and to those of his friends. Among others, he looked for Hart. Of Harts there were a multitude, but of G. Harts only three—a Gustav, a Gerson, and a George. George was written down a laborer, Gerson a peddler, Gustav a barber; none, it was obvious, could be the G. Hart of Beekman Place. In about half an hour Peixada arrived.
“Ah, good morning,” he said briskly. “Well?”
“I am sorry to bother you so soon again, Mr. Peixada,” said Arthur, stiffly; “but——”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Peixada interrupted. “Glad to see you. Sit down. Smoke a cigar.”
“Then,” pursued Arthur, his cigar afire, “having thought the matter well over——”
“You have concluded—?”
“That your view of the case was correct—that we’re in for a long, expensive, and delicate piece of business.”
“Not a doubt of it.”
“You see, beforehand it would strike one as the simplest thing in the world to locate a woman like your sister-in-law. But this case is peculiar. It’s going on four years that nobody has heard from her. Clear back in January, 1881, she was somewhere in Vienna. But since then she’s had the leisure to travel around the world a dozen times. She may be in Australia, California, Brazil—or not a mile away from us, here in New York. She may have changed her name. She may have married again. She may have died.—The point I’m driving at is that you mustn’t attribute it to a lack of diligence on my part, if we shouldn’t obtain any satisfactory results for a long while.”
“Oh, certainly not, certainly not,” protested Peixada, making the words very large, and waving his hand deprecatingly. “I’m a man of common sense, a business man. I don’t need to be told that it’s going to be slow work. I knew that. Otherwise I shouldn’t have hired you. I could have managed it by myself, except that I hadn’t the time to spare.”
“Well, then,” said Arthur, undismayed by Peixada’s frankness, “my idea of the tactics to be pursued is to begin with Vienna, January, ’81, and proceed inch by inch down to the present time. There are two methods of doing this.”
“Which are——?”
“One is to enlist the services of the United States consuls. I can write to Vienna, to our consul, and ask him to find out where Mrs. Peixada went when she left there; then to the consul at the next place—and so on to the end. But this method is cumbrous and uncertain. The trail is liable to be lost at any point. At the best, it would take a long, long time. Besides, the consuls would expect a large remuneration.”
“Well, the other method?”
“I propose it reluctantly. It is one which, so far as my personal inclinations are concerned, I should prefer not to take. I—I might myself go to Vienna and conduct the investigation on the spot.”
“Hum,” reflected Peixada.—After a pause, “That would be still more expensive,” he said.
“Perhaps.”
“Sure.—It seems to me that there is a third method which you haven’t thought of.”
“Indeed? What is it?”
“Why not engage the services of an attorney in Vienna, instead of the consul’s? You can easily get the name of some reliable attorney there. Then write on, stating the case, and offering a sum in consideration of which he is to furnish us with the information we want.”
“Yes, I might do that,” Arthur answered, with a mortifying sense that Peixada’s plan was at once more practical and more promising than either of those which he had proposed.
“Better try it, anyhow,” his client went on. “Attorney’s fees, as I chance to know, are low in Austria. Fifty dollars ought to be ample for a starter. I’ll give you a check for that amount now. You can exchange it for a draft, after you’ve decided on your man.”
Peixada filled out a check. Arthur took up his hat.
“Oh, àpropos,” said Peixada, without explaining what it was àpropos of, “I showed you some newspaper clippings about Mrs. P.’. trial the other day—recollect? Well, I’ve got a scrapbook full of them in my safe. Suppose you’d find it useful?”
“I don’t know. It could do no harm for me to run it over.”
Peixada touched a bell, gave the requisite orders to the underling who responded, and said to Arthur, “He’ll fetch it.”
Presently the man returned, bearing a large, square volume, bound in bluish black leather. Arthur bowed himself out, with the volume under his arm.
The remainder of the day he passed in procuring the name of a trustworthy Viennese attorney, drafting a letter to him in English, and having it translated into German. The attorney’s name was Ulrich. Arthur inclosed the amount of Peixada’s check in the form of an order upon an Americo-Austrian banking house. At last, weary, and with his СКАЧАТЬ