Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 151: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HOW MANY CARDS? rooms before M. Girard had retired for the night. He found a light glowing dimly from the rear, but the door was bolted, and he rapped smartly upon the glass panel. Mincing footsteps sounded from within, and a withered little man opened the door and peered out. ‘““ Ah, it is you, my friend! Entrez!” He bowed jerkily and waved with a grand manner toward the back of the shop, where behind faded brocade curtains which once had graced the boudoir of a king’s favorite he had arranged a sort of study for himself. Here was his Voltaire and his box of long, slender, odoriferus cigars, his “ chess-board, and the ’cello from which haunting strains rose now and again to McCarty’s rooms, to fill him with senti- mental melancholy or lively exasperation, according to his mood. Here, too, M. Gi- rard kept his shop accounts and enter- tained the few who came to see him, for he was an old man and lonely. “Say, Girard, a funny thing happened to-day!” McCarty began. “I came to tell you about it earlier, but you were away.”’ “Out to the cemetery.” M. Girard pulled a second chair up to the grate where a scant handful of coals were glowing. “Sit close, for there is still the chill of winter in the air. My bones, they felt it out there in the damp of new-turned earth. But what has happened to-day?” ‘“‘T ran across a piece of yours; that old Chinese cabinet with birds on it! That is, if you were telling me the truth about it when you said it was the only one of its kind in this country,” he added with know- ing craftiness. | “Jt is the only one of its kind in exis- tence, my friend!” the old man retorted with dignity. ‘Why do you doubt?” ‘* Because I understood the lady to say that it had been brought to America for her.” “Ah, these new-rich!” M. Girard shrugged expressively. ‘“ They will make up the fairy tale to aggrandize themselves, is it not so? If you saw my cabinet Chinois you must have, been at the house of Mme. Baillie Kip. It does not surprise me, M. McCarty; you must have seen other beautiful things from my shop here during _usually for something of rare value. 17 the last few days, only you did not chance to-recognize them.” ““T did?” McCarty stared. “ You’ve been reading about the Creveling case, haven’t you? he was a customer of yours!” ‘He and several of his friends.”’ The old man shook his head. ‘It is very sad. M. Creveling has been coming to my shop for two or three years past; not often, you comprehend, but when he did come it was It was he who purchased that cabinet for Mme. Kip.” Across McCarty’s mental vision there flashed again the man in the fur coat and he asked: _ ‘How long ago? It seems to me I saw that cabinet here only lately.” “No, my friend. It is six months, at the least. But wait, I will tell you to the day.” He rose and, going to the high, spindle-legged desk, he took a small, flat volume from a drawer and ruffled its pages. ‘“ Ah, here it is! -M. Creveling purchased it for Mme. Kip on the 20th of October. Be- fore that I had sent to her from him a scent- bottle and a fan or two—mere bijouterie. The cabinet was his first gift to her of value and his last! Shall I tell you? It is indis- creet, perhaps, that I gossip now, but it is a piquant little /istoire which might have come from the pages of De Maupassant!” He paused with a reminiscent smile, and McCarty, who gathered only that he was on the trail of some new dope which would ‘be of possible. use in the case, sat up straighter in his chair. “Let’s have it, Girard. He quit making presents to her, do you mean? Why?” “That is the histoire, M. McCarty. Mme. Kip, she have no knowledge of the artistique, no love of beautiful things as have most women, even of the people: it is the price only to her which matters! If a thing is of expense, voila, it is to be desired; if it is exquisite, but of little value in money, she has not eyes to see!” There was im- measurable scorn in his voice. “It is a month after the gift of the cabinet to her that madame comes to me and brings back the two fans; she must have money, I must sell them for her. Ex: bien, that is to me an You don’t mean to say that ~ -COMNMIG 6)(0)O) S (C(O) nn