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The Mystery of Murray Davenport

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THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT

_A Story of New York at the Present Day_

By

Robert Neilson Stephens

1903



Works of Robert Neilson Stephens

An Enemy to the King

The Continental Dragoon

The Road to Paris

A Gentleman Player

Philip Winwood

Captain Ravenshaw

The Mystery of Murray Davenport




[Illustration: "'DO YOU KNOW WHAT A "JONAH" IS?'"]




CONTENTS

I. MR. LARCHER GOES OUT IN THE RAIN

II. ONE OUT OF SUITS WITH FORTUNE

III. A READY-MONEY MAN

IV. AN UNPROFITABLE CHILD

V. A LODGING BY THE RIVER

VI. THE NAME OF ONE TURL COMES UP

VII. MYSTERY BEGINS

VIII. MR. LARCHER INQUIRES

IX. MR. BUD'S DARK HALLWAY

X. A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

XI. FLORENCE DECLARES HER ALLEGIANCE

XII. LARCHER PUTS THIS AND THAT TOGETHER

XIII. MR. TURL WITH HIS BACK TO THE WALL

XIV. A STRANGE DESIGN

XV. TURL'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

XVI. AFTER THE DISCLOSURE

XVII. BAGLEY SHINES OUT

XVIII. FLORENCE




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"'DO YOU KNOW WHAT A "JONAH" IS?'"

"THE PLAY BECAME THE PROPERTY OF BAGLEY"

"'I'M AFRAID IT'S A CASE OF MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE'"

"'YOU'RE QUITE WELCOME TO THE USE OF MY AUTOMOBILE'"

"TURL, HAVING TAKEN A MOMENT'S PRELIMINARY THOUGHT, BEGAN HIS ACCOUNT"

"'GOOD EVENING, MR. MURRAY DAVENPORT! HOW ABOUT MY BUNCH OF MONEY?'"




THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT




CHAPTER I.


MR. LARCHER GOES OUT IN THE RAIN

The night set in with heavy and unceasing rain, and, though the month was
August, winter itself could not have made the streets less inviting than
they looked to Thomas Larcher. Having dined at the caterer's in the
basement, and got the damp of the afternoon removed from his clothes and
dried out of his skin, he stood at his window and gazed down at the
reflections of the lights on the watery asphalt. The few people he saw
were hastening laboriously under umbrellas which guided torrents down
their backs and left their legs and feet open to the pour. Clean and dry
in his dressing-gown and slippers, Mr. Larcher turned toward his easy
chair and oaken bookcase, and thanked his stars that no engagement called
him forth. On such a night there was indeed no place like home, limited
though home was to a second-story "bed sitting-room" in a house of
"furnished rooms to let" on a crosstown street traversing the part of New
York dominated by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Mr. Larcher, who was a blue-eyed young man of medium size and medium
appearance every way, with a smooth shaven, clear-skinned face whereon
sat good nature overlaid with self-esteem, spread himself in his chair,
and made ready for content. Just then there was a knock at his door, and
a negro boy servant shambled in with a telegram.

"Who the deuce--?" began Mr. Larcher, with irritation; but when he opened
the message he appeared to have his breath taken away by joyous surprise.
"Can I call?" he said, aloud. "Well, rather!" He let his book drop
forgotten, and bestirred himself in swift preparation to go out. The
telegram read merely:

"In town over night. Can you call Savoy at once? EDNA."

The state of Mr. Larcher's feelings toward the person named Edna has
already been deduced by the reader. It was a state which made the young
man plunge into the weather with gladness, dash to Sixth Avenue with no
sense of the rain's discomfort, mentally check off the streets with
impatience as he sat in a north-bound car, and finally cover with flying
feet the long block to the Savoy Hotel. Wet but radiant, he was, after
due announcement, shown into the drawing-room of a suite, where he was
kept waiting, alone with his thumping heart, for ten minutes. At the end
of that time a young lady came in with a swish from the next room.

She was a small creature, excellently shaped, and gowned--though for
indoors--like a girl in a fashion plate. Her head was thrown back in
a poise that showed to the best effect her clear-cut features; and
she marched forward in a dauntless manner. She had dark brown hair
arranged in loose waves, and, though her eyes were blue, her flawless
skin was of a brunette tone. A hint has been given as to Mr. Larcher's
conceit--which, by the way, had suffered a marvellous change to humility
in the presence of his admired--but it was a small and superficial thing
compared with the self-satisfaction of Miss Edna, and yet hers sat upon
her with a serenity which, taking her sex also into consideration, made
it much less noticeable.

"Well, this is a pleasure!" he cried, rapturously, jumping up to meet
her.

"Hello, Tom!" she said, placidly, giving him her hands for a moment. "You
needn't look apprehensively at that door. Aunt Clara's with me, of
course, but she's gone to see a sick friend in Fifty-eighth Street. We
have at least an hour to ourselves."

"An hour. Well, it's a lot, considering I had no hope of seeing you at
this time of year. When I got your telegram--"

"I suppose you _were_ surprised. To think of being in New York in
August!--and to find such horrid weather, too! But it's better than a hot
wave. I haven't any shopping to do--any real shopping, that is, though I
invented some for an excuse to come. I can do it in five minutes, with a
cab. But I came just to see you."

"How kind of you, dearest. But honestly? It seems too good to be true."
The young man spoke sincerely.

"It's true, all the same. I'll tell you why in a few minutes. Sit down
and be comfortable,--at this table. I know you must feel damp. Here's
some wine I saved from dinner on purpose; and these cakes. I mustn't
order anything from the hotel--Auntie would see it in the bill. But if
you'd prefer a cup of tea--and I could manage some toast."

"No, thanks; the wine and cakes are just the thing--with you to share
them. How thoughtful of you!"

She poured a glass of Hockheimer, and sat opposite him at the small
table. He took a sip, and, with a cake in his hand, looked delightedly
across at his hostess.

"There's something I want you to do for me," she answered, sitting
composedly back in her chair, in an attitude as graceful as comfortable.

"Nothing would make me happier."

"Do you know a man in New York named Murray Davenport?" she asked.

"No," replied Larcher, wonderingly.

"I'm sorry, because if you knew him already it would be easier. But I
should have thought you'd know him; he's in your profession, more or
less--that is, he writes a little for magazines and newspapers. But,
besides that, he's an artist, and then sometimes he has something to do
with theatres."

"I never heard of him. But," said Larcher, in a somewhat melancholy tone,
"there are so many who write for magazines and newspapers."

"I suppose so; but if you make it an object, you can find out about him,
of course. That's a part of your profession, anyhow, isn't it?--going
about hunting up facts for the articles you write. So it ought to be
easy, making inquiries about this Murray Davenport, and getting to know
him."

"Oh, am I to do that?" Mr. Larcher's wonder grew deeper.

"Yes; and when you know him, you must learn exactly how he is getting
along; how he lives; whether he is well, and comfortable, and happy, or
the reverse, and all that. In fact, I want a complete report of how he
fares."

"Upon my soul, you must be deeply interested in the man," said Larcher,
somewhat poutingly.

"Oh, you make a great mistake if you think I'd lose sleep over any man,"
she said, with lofty coolness. "But there are reasons why I must find out
about this one. Naturally I came first to you. Of course, if you
hesitate, and hem and haw--" She stopped, with the faintest shrug of the
shoulders.

"You might tell me the reasons, dear," he said, humbly.

"I can't. It isn't my secret. But I've undertaken to have this
information got, and, if you're willing to do me a service, you'll get
it, and not ask any questions. I never imagined you'd hesitate a moment."

"Oh, I don't hesitate exactly. Only, just think what it amounts to--
prying into the affairs of a stranger. It seems to me a rather intrusive,
private detective sort of business."

"Oh, but you don't know the reason--the object in view. Somebody's
happiness depends on it,--perhaps more than one person's; I may tell you
that much."

"Whose happiness?"

"It doesn't matter. Nobody's that you know. It isn't _my_ happiness, you
may be sure of that, except as far as I sympathize. The point is, in
doing this, you'll be serving _me_, and really I don't see why you should
be inquisitive beyond that."

"You oughtn't to count inquisitiveness a crime, when the very thing you
ask me to do is nothing if not inquisitive. Really, if you'd just stop to
think how a self-respecting man can possibly bring himself to pry and
question--"

"Well, you may rest assured there's nothing dishonorable in this
particular case. Do you imagine I would ask you to do it if it were? Upon
my word, you don't flatter me!"

"Don't be angry, dear. If you're really _sure_ it's all right--"

"_If_ I'm sure! Tommy Larcher, you're simply insulting! I wish I had
asked somebody else! It isn't too late--"

Larcher turned pale at the idea. He seized her hand.

"Don't talk that way, Edna dearest. You know there's nobody will serve
you more devotedly than I. And there isn't a man of your acquaintance can
handle this matter as quickly and thoroughly. Murray Davenport, you say;
writes for magazines and newspapers; is an artist, also, and has
something to do with theatres. Is there any other information to start
with?"

"No; except that he's about twenty-eight years old, and fairly
good-looking. He usually lives in rooms--you know what I mean--and takes
his meals at restaurants."

"Can you give me any other points about his appearance? There _might_
possibly be two men of the same name in the same occupation. I shouldn't
like to be looking up the wrong man."

"Neither should I like that. We must have the right man, by all means.
But I don't think I can tell you any more about him. Of course _I_ never
saw him."

"There wouldn't probably be more than one man of the same name who was a
writer and an artist and connected with theatres," said Larcher. "And it
isn't a common name, Murray Davenport. There isn't one chance in a
thousand of a mistake in identity; but the most astonishing coincidences
do occur."

"He's something of a musician, too, now that I remember," added the young
lady.

"He must be a versatile fellow, whoever he is. And when do you want this
report?"

"As soon as possible. Whenever you find out anything about his
circumstances, and state of mind, and so forth, write to me at once; and
when you find out anything more, write again. We're going back to
Easthampton to-morrow, you know."

A few minutes after the end of another half-hour, Mr. Larcher put up his
umbrella to the rain again, and made his way back to Sixth Avenue and a
car. Pleasurable reflections upon the half-hour, and the additional
minutes, occupied his mind for awhile, but gave way at last to
consideration of the Murray Davenport business, and the strangeness
thereof, which lay chiefly in Edna Hill's desire for such intimate news
about a man she had never seen. Whose happiness could depend on getting
that news? What, in fine, was the secret of the affair? Larcher could
only give it up, and think upon means for the early accomplishment of his
part in the matter. He had decided to begin immediately, for his first
inquiries would be made of men who kept late hours, and with whose
midnight haunts he was acquainted.

He stayed in the car till he had entered the region below Fourteenth
Street. Getting out, he walked a short distance and into a basement,
where he exchanged rain and darkness for bright gaslight, an atmosphere
of tobacco smoke mixed with the smell of food and cheap wine, and the
noisy talk of a numerous company sitting--for the most part--at long
tables whereon were the traces of a _table d'hôte_ dinner. Coffee and
claret were still present, not only in cups, bottles, and glasses, but
also on the table-cloths. The men were of all ages, but youth
preponderated and had the most to say and the loudest manner of saying
it. The ladies were, as to the majority, unattractive in appearance,
nasal in voice, and unabashed in manner. The assemblage was, in short,
a specimen of self-styled, self-conscious Bohemia; a far-off,
much-adulterated imitation of the sort of thing that some of the young
men with halos of hair, flowing ties, and critical faces had seen in
Paris in their days of art study. Larcher made his way through the crowd
in the front room to that in the back, acknowledging many salutations.
The last of these came from a middle-sized man in the thirties, whose
round, humorous face was made additionally benevolent by spectacles, and
whose forward bend of the shoulders might be the consequence of studious
pursuits, or of much leaning over café-tables, or of both.

"Hello, Barry Tompkins!" said Larcher. "I've been looking for you."

Mr. Tompkins received him with a grin and a chuckle, as if their meeting
were a great piece of fun, and replied in a brisk and clean-cut manner:

"You were sure to find me in the haunts of genius." Whereat he looked
around and chuckled afresh.

Larcher crowded a chair to Mr. Tompkins's elbow, and spoke low:

"You know everybody in newspaper circles. Do you know a man named Murray
Davenport?"

"I believe there is such a man--an illustrator. Is that the one you
mean?"

"I suppose so. Where can I find him?"

"I give it up. I don't know anything about him. I've only seen some of
his work--in one of the ten-cent magazines, I think."

"I've got to find him, and make his acquaintance. This is in confidence,
by the way."

"All right. Have you looked in the directory?"

"Not yet. The trouble isn't so much to find where he lives; there are
some things I want to find out about him, that'll require my getting
acquainted with him, without his knowing I have any such purpose. So the
trouble is to get introduced to him on terms that can naturally lead up
to a pretty close acquaintance."

"No trouble in that," said Tompkins, decidedly. "Look here. He's an
illustrator, I know that much. As soon as you find out where he lives,
call with one of your manuscripts and ask him if he'll illustrate it.
That will begin an acquaintance."

"And terminate it, too, don't you think? Would any self-respecting
illustrator take a commission from an obscure writer, with no certainty
of his work ever appearing?"

"Well, then, the next time you have anything accepted for publication,
get to the editor as fast as you can, and recommend this Davenport to do
the illustrations."

"Wouldn't the editor consider that rather presumptuous?"

"Perhaps he would; but there's an editor or two who wouldn't consider it
presumptuous if _I_ did it. Suppose it happened to be one of those
editors, you could call on some pretext about a possible error in the
manuscript. I could call with you, and suggest this Davenport as
illustrator in a way both natural and convincing. Then I'd get the editor
to make you the bearer of his offer and the manuscript; and even if
Davenport refused the job,--which he wouldn't,--you'd have an opportunity
to pave the way for intimacy by your conspicuous charms of mind and
manner."

"Be easy, Barry. That looks like a practical scheme; but suppose he
turned out to be a bad illustrator?"

"I don't think he would. He must be fairly good, or I shouldn't have
remembered his name. I'll look through the files of back numbers in my
room to-night, till I find some of his work, so I can recommend him
intelligently. Meanwhile, is there any editor who has something of yours
in hand just now?"

"Why, yes," said Larcher, brightening, "I got a notice of acceptance
to-day from the _Avenue Magazine_, of a thing about the rivers of New
York City in the old days. It simply cries aloud for illustration."

"That's all right, then. Rogers mayn't have given it out yet for
illustration. We'll call on him to-morrow. He'll be glad to see me; he'll
think I've come to pay him ten dollars I owe him. Suppose we go now and
tackle the old magazines in my room, to see what my praises of Mr.
Davenport shall rest on. As we go, we'll look the gentleman up in the
directory at the drug-store--unless you'd prefer to tarry here at the
banquet of wit and beauty." Mr. Tompkins chuckled again as he waved a
hand over the scene, which, despite his ridicule of the pose and conceit
it largely represented, he had come by force of circumstances regularly
to inhabit.

Mr. Larcher, though he found the place congenial enough, was rather for
the pursuit of his own affair. Before leaving the house, Tompkins led the
way up a flight of stairs to a little office wherein sat the foreign old
woman who conducted this tavern of the muses. He thought that she, who
was on chaffing and money-lending terms with so much talent in the shape
of her customers, might know of Murray Davenport; or, indeed, as he had
whispered to Larcher, that the illustrator might be one of the crowd in
the restaurant at that very moment. But the proprietress knew no such
person, a fact which seemed to rate him very low in her estimation and
somewhat high in Mr. Tompkins's. The two young men thereupon hastened to
board a car going up Sixth Avenue. Being set down near Greeley Square,
they went into a drug-store and opened the directory.

"Here's a Murray Davenport, all right enough," said Tompkins, "but he's
a playwright."

"Probably the same," replied Larcher, remembering that his man had
something to do with theatres. "He's a gentleman of many professions,
let's see the address."

It was a number and street in the same part of the town with Larcher's
abode, but east of Madison Avenue, while his own was west of Fifth. But
now his way was to the residence of Barry Tompkins, which proved to be a
shabby room on the fifth floor of an old building on Broadway; a room
serving as Mr. Tompkins's sleeping-chamber by night, and his law office
by day. For Mr. Tompkins, though he sought pleasure and forage under the
banners of literature and journalism, owned to no regular service but
that of the law. How it paid him might be inferred from the oldness of
his clothes and the ricketiness of his office. There was a card saying
"Back in ten minutes" on the door which he opened to admit Larcher and
himself. And his friends were wont to assert that he kept the card
"working overtime," himself, preferring to lay down the law to
companionable persons in neighboring cafés rather than to possible
clients in his office. When Tompkins had lighted the gas, Larcher saw a
cracked low ceiling, a threadbare carpet of no discoverable hue, an old
desk crowded with documents and volumes, some shelves of books at one
side, and the other three sides simply walled with books and magazines
in irregular piles, except where stood a bed-couch beneath a lot of
prints which served to conceal much of the faded wall-paper.

Tompkins bravely went for the magazines, saying, "You begin with that
pile, and I'll take this. The names of the illustrators are always in the
table of contents; it's simply a matter of glancing down that."

After half an hour's silent work, Tompkins exclaimed, "Here we are!" and
took a magazine to the desk, at which both young men sat down. "'A Heart
in Peril,'" he quoted; "'A Story by James Willis Archway. Illustrated by
Murray Davenport. Page 38.'" He turned over the leaves, and disclosed
some rather striking pictures in half-tone, signed "M.D." Two men and two
women figured in the different illustrations.

"This isn't bad work," said Tompkins. "I can recommend 'M.D.' with a
clear conscience. His women are beautiful in a really high way,--but
they've got a heartless look. There's an odd sort of distinction in his
men's faces, too."

"A kind of scornful discontent," ventured Larcher. "Perhaps the story
requires it."

"Perhaps; but the thing I mean seems to be under the expressions
intended. I should say it was unconscious, a part of the artist's
conception of the masculine face in general before it's individualized.
I'll bet the chap that drew these illustrations isn't precisely the man
in the street, even among artists. He must have a queer outlook on life.
I congratulate you on your coming friend!" At which Mr. Tompkins,
chuckling, lighted a pipe for himself.

Mr. Larcher sat looking dubious. If Murray Davenport was an unusual sort
of man, the more wonder that a girl like Edna Hill should so strangely
busy herself about him.




CHAPTER II.


ONE OUT OF SUITS WITH FORTUNE

Two days later, toward the close of a sunny afternoon, Mr. Thomas Larcher
was admitted by a lazy negro to an old brown-stone-front house half-way
between Madison and Fourth Avenues, and directed to the third story back,
whither he was left to find his way unaccompanied. Running up the dark
stairs swiftly, with his thoughts in advance of his body, he suddenly
checked himself, uncertain as to which floor he had attained. At a
hazard, he knocked on the door at the back of the dim, narrow passage he
was in. He heard slow steps upon the carpet, the door opened, and a man
slightly taller, thinner, and older than himself peered out.

"Pardon me, I may have mistaken the floor," said Larcher. "I'm looking
for Mr. Murray Davenport."

"'Myself and misery know the man,'" replied the other, with quiet
indifference, in a gloomy but not unpleasing voice, and stepped back to
allow his visitor's entrance.

A little disconcerted at being received with a quotation, and one of such
import,--the more so as it came from the speaker's lips so naturally
and with perfect carelessness of what effect it might produce on a
stranger,--Larcher stepped into the room. The carpet, the wall-paper, the
upholstery of the arm-chair, the cover of the small iron bed in one
corner, that of the small upright piano in another, and that of the table
which stood between the two windows and evidently served as a desk, were
all of advanced age, but cleanliness and neatness prevailed. The same was
to be said of the man's attire, his coat being an old gray-black garment
of the square-cut "sack" or "lounge" shape. Books filled the mantel, the
flat top of a trunk, that of the piano, and much of the table, which held
also a drawing-board, pads of drawing and manuscript paper, and the
paraphernalia for executing upon both. Tacked on the walls, and standing
about on top of books and elsewhere, were water-colors, drawings in
half-tone, and pen-and-ink sketches, many unfinished, besides a few
photographs of celebrated paintings and statues. But long before he had
sought more than the most general impression of these contents of the
room, Larcher had bent all his observation upon their possessor.

The man's face was thoughtful and melancholy, and handsome only by these
and kindred qualities. Long and fairly regular, with a nose distinguished
by a slight hump of the bridge, its single claim to beauty of form was in
the distinctness of its lines. The complexion was colorless but clear,
the face being all smooth shaven. The slightly haggard eyes were gray,
rather of a plain and honest than a brilliant character, save for a tiny
light that burned far in their depths. The forehead was ample and smooth,
as far as could be seen, for rather longish brown hair hung over it, with
a negligent, sullen effect. The general expression was of an odd
painwearied dismalness, curiously warmed by the remnant of an
unquenchable humor.

"This letter from Mr. Rogers will explain itself," said Larcher, handing
it.

"Mr. Rogers?" inquired Murray Davenport.

"Editor of the _Avenue Magazine_."

Looking surprised, Davenport opened and read the letter; then, without
diminution of his surprise, he asked Larcher to sit down, and himself
took a chair before the table.

"I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Larcher," he said, conventionally; then, with
a change to informality, "I'm rather mystified to know why Mr. Rogers,
or any editor, for that matter, should offer work to me. I never had any
offered me before."

"Oh, but I've seen some of your work," contradicted Larcher. "The
illustrations to a story called 'A Heart in Peril.'"

"That wasn't offered me; I begged for it," said Davenport, quietly.

"Well, in any case, it was seen and admired, and consequently you were
recommended to Mr. Rogers, who thought you might like to illustrate this
stuff of mine," and Larcher brought forth the typewritten manuscript from
under his coat.

"It's so unprecedented," resumed Davenport, in his leisurely, reflective
way of speaking. "I can scarcely help thinking there must be some
mistake."

"But you are the Murray Davenport that illustrated the 'Heart in Peril'
story?"

"Yes; I'm the only Murray Davenport I know of; but an offer of work to
_me_--"

"Oh, there's nothing extraordinary about that. Editors often seek out new
illustrators they hear of."

"Oh, I know all about that. You don't quite understand. I say, an offer
to _me_--an offer unsolicited, unsought, coming like money found, like a
gift from the gods. Such a thing belongs to what is commonly called good
luck. Now, good luck is a thing that never by any chance has fallen to me
before; never from the beginning of things to the present. So, in spite
of my senses, I'm naturally a bit incredulous in this case." This was
said with perfect seriousness, but without any feeling.

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