Tales From Bohemia by Robert Neilson Stephens

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After luncheon they walked up the boardwalk to the iron pier.

Seeing the lifeboat there, rising and falling in the waves, Clara asked:

"Would the lifeguard take us in his boat for a while, I wonder?"

Morrow went down to the beach and shouted to the lifeguard, who was none
other than the robust and stentorian Captain Clark. The captain brought the
boat ashore and as there were no bathers in the water at this point, he
agreed to row the young people out to the end of the pier.

"This is a great place for brides and grooms this summer," remarked the
captain in his frank and jocular way.

Clara looked at Morrow with a blush and a laugh. Morrow was pleased at
seeing that she seemed not displeased.

"We're not married," said Morrow to the captain.

"Not yet, mebbe," said the captain with one of his significant winks, and
then he gave vent to loud and long laughter.

That evening Morrow and Clara took the steamer trip from the Inlet to
Brigantine and the ride on the electric car along flat and sandy Brigantine
beach. On the return, they became very sentimental. They decided to walk
all the way from the Inlet down the boardwalk. He found himself quite
oblivious to the crowd of promenaders. The loveliest girl in the world
might have passed him a dozen times without attracting his attention. He
had eyes and ears for none but Clara Hunt.

And that night, far from reproaching himself for his conduct toward the
loveliest girl, etc., he hardly thought of her at all, more than to wonder
by what good fortune he had avoided meeting her. Some of the people at
their hotel made the same mistake regarding Morrow and Clara as Captain
Clark had made; the two were seen constantly together. Others thought they
were engaged.

Morrow spoke of this to her next morning as they were being whirled down to
Longport on a trolley car along miles of smooth beach and stunted distorted
pine trees. "I heard a woman on the piazza whisper that I was your fiancé,"
he said.

"Well, what if you were--I mean what if she did?"

At Longport they took the steamer for Ocean City. They rode through that
quiet place of trees and cottages on the electric car, returning to the
landing just in time to miss the 11.50 boat for Longport. They had to wait
an hour and a half and they were the only people there who were not bored
by the delay. They returned by way of Somers' Point.

While the boat was gliding through the sunlit waters of Great Egg Harbour
Inlet, Clara's hand happened to fall on Morrow's, which was resting on the
gunwale. She let her hand remain there. Morrow looked at it, and then at
her face. She smiled. When the Italian violin player on the boat came that
way, Morrow gave him a dollar. Alas for the loveliest girl in the world!

They passed most of that evening in a boardwalk pavilion, ostensibly
watching the sea and the crowd. They went up the thoroughfare in a catboat
the next morning, and, strange as it seemed to them, were the only people
out who caught no fish. The captain winked at his mate, who grinned.

In the afternoon, while Morrow and Clara stood on the boardwalk looking
down at the Salvation Army tent, along came that innocent eccentric
"Professor" Walters in bathing costume and with his swimming machine. The
tall, lean whiskered, loquacious "Professor" had made Morrow's acquaintance
in a former summer and now greeted him politely.

"How d'ye do?" said the "Professor." "Glad to see you here. You turn up
every year."

"You're still given to rhyming," commented Morrow.

"Yes, I have a rhyme for every time, in pleasure or sorrow. Is this Mrs.
Morrow?"

"No."

"You ought to be sorry she isn't," remarked the "Professor," taking his
departure.

Morrow and Clara walked on in silence. At last he said somewhat nervously:

"Everybody thinks we're married. Why shouldn't we be?"

She answered softly, with downcast eyes:

"I would be willing if I were sure of one thing."

"What's that?"

"That you have never loved any other woman. Have you?"

"How can you ask? Believe me, you are the only girl I have ever loved."

That evening, after dinner, Morrow and Clara, the newly affianced, about
starting from the hotel to the boardwalk, were at the top of the hotel
steps when a man appeared at the bottom.

Morrow uttered a cry of recognition.

"Why, Haddon, old boy, I'm glad to see you. Let me introduce you to my wife
that is to be."

Haddon stood still and stared. Clara, too, remained motionless. After a
moment, Haddon said very quietly:

"You're mistaken. Let me introduce you to my wife that is."

Morrow looked at Clara. She turned her gray eyes fearlessly on Haddon.

"You, too, are mistaken," she said. "I had a husband before you married me.
He's my husband still. He's doing a song and dance act in a variety theatre
in Chicago. I'm sorry about all this, Mr. Morrow. I really like you.
Good-bye."

She ran back into the hotel and arranged to make her departure on an early
train next morning.

Haddon turned toward the boardwalk, and Morrow, quite dazed, involuntarily
followed him. After a period of silence, Morrow said:

"This is astonishing. A bigamist, and a would-be trigamist. She came here
the night before you left. How did you find out she was here?"

"I read it in the Atlantic City letter of _The Philadelphia Press_ that one
of the Comic Opera singers daily seen on the boardwalk is Miss Clara Hunt,
who is known to theatre-goers by her stage name, Lulu Ray. These newspaper
correspondents know some of the obscurest people. If I had told you her
real name, you would have known who she was in time to have avoided being
taken in by her."

"Her having another husband lets you out."

"Yes. I'm glad and sorry, for damn it, I was fond of the girl. Excuse me
awhile, old fellow. I want to go on the pier and think awhile."

Haddon went out on the pier and looked down on the incoming waves and
thought awhile. He found it a disconsolate occupation, even with a cigar to
sweeten it. So he came back and mingled with the gay crowd on the boardwalk
and tried to forget her.

Morrow had no sooner left Haddon than he felt his arm touched. Looking
around, he saw the smiling face of the loveliest girl in the world.

"Well, by Jove, Edith," he said. "At last I've found you!"

"Yes. I heard you were down here. You see, I've been up in town for the
last week. Gracious, but Philadelphia is hot! Here's Aunt Laura."

Morrow spent the evening with Edith. One night a week later, he proposed to
her on the pier.

"I will say yes," she replied, "if you can give me your assurance that
you've never been in love with any one else."

"That's easily given. You know very well you're the only girl I've ever
loved."

II

A BIT OF MELODY [Footnote: Copyrighted by J. Brisbane Walker, and used by
the courtesy of the _Cosmopolitan Magazine_.]

It was twelve o'clock that Sunday night when, leaving the lodging-house for
a breath of winter air before going to bed, I met the two musicians coming
in, carrying under their arms their violins in cases. They belonged to the
orchestra at the ---- Theatre, and were returning from a dress rehearsal of
the new comic opera that was to be produced there on the following night.

Schaaf, who entered the hallway in advance of the professor, responded to
my greeting in his customary gruff, almost suspicious manner, and passed
on, turning down the collar of his overcoat. His heavily bearded face was
as gloomy-looking as ever in the light of the single flickering gaslight.

The professor, although by birth a compatriot of the other, was in
disposition his opposite. In his courteous, almost affectionate way, he
stopped to have a word with me about the coldness of the weather and the
danger of the icy pavements. "I'm t'ankful to be at last home," he said,
showing his teeth with a cordial smile, as he removed the muffler from his
neck, which I thought nature had sufficiently protected with an ample red
beard. "Take my advice, my frient, tempt not de wedder. Stay warm in de
house and I play for you de music of de new opera."

"Thanks for your solicitude," I said, "but I must have my walk. Play to
your sombre friend, Schaaf, and see if you can soften him into geniality.
Good night."

The professor, with his usual kindliness, deprecated my thrust at the
taciturnity of his countryman and confrère, with a gesture and a look of
reproach in his soft gray eyes, and we parted. I watched him until he
disappeared at the first turn of the dingy stairs.

As I passed up the street, where I was in constant peril of losing my
footing, I saw his windows grow feebly alight. He had ignited the gas in
his room, which was that of the professor's sinister friend Schaaf.

My regard for the professor was born of his invariable goodness of heart.
Never did I know him to speak an uncharitable word of any one, while his
practical generosity was far greater than expected of a second violinist.
When I commended his magnanimity he would say, with a smile:

"My frient, you mistake altogedder. I am de most selfish man. Charity
cofers a multitude of sins. I haf so many sins to cofer."

We called him the professor because besides fulfilling his nightly and
matinée duties at the theatre, he gave piano lessons to a few pupils, and
because those of us who could remember his long German surname could not
pronounce it.

One proof of the professor's beneficence had been his rescue of his friend
Schaaf on a bench in Madison Square one day, a recent arrival from Germany,
muttering despondently to himself. The professor learned that he had been
unable to secure employment, and that his last cent had departed the day
before. The professor took him home, clothed him and cared for him until
eventually another second violin was needed in the ---- Theatre orchestra.

Schaaf was now on his feet, for he was apt at the making of tunes, and he
picked up a few dollars now and then as a composer of songs and waltzes.

All of which has little to do, apparently, with my post-midnight walk
in that freezing weather. As I turned into Broadway, I was surprised to
collide with my friend the doctor.

"I came out for a stroll and a bit to eat," I said. "Won't you join me? I
know a snug little place that keeps open till two o'clock, where devilled
crabs are as good as the broiled oyster."

"With pleasure," he replied, cordially, still holding my hand; "not for
your food, but for your society. But do you know what you did when you ran
against me at the corner? For a long time I've been trying to recall a
certain tune that I heard once. Three minutes ago, as I was walking along,
it came back to me, and I was whistling it when you came up. You knocked it
quite out of mind. I'm sorry, for interesting circumstances connected with
my first hearing of it make it desirable that I should remember it."

"I can never express my regret," I said. "But you may be able to catch it
again. Where were you when it came back to you three minutes ago?"

"Two blocks away, passing a church. I think it was the shining of the
electric light upon the stained glass window that brought it back to me,
for on the night of the day when I first heard it in Paris a strong light
was falling upon the stained glass windows of the church opposite the house
in which I had apartments."

"Perhaps, then," I suggested, "the law of association may operate again if
you take the trouble to walk back and repass the church in the same manner
and the same state of mind, as nearly as you can resume them."

"By Jove," said the doctor, who likes experiments of this kind, "I'll try
it. Wait for me here."

I stood at the corner while the doctor briskly retraced his steps. His
firmly built, comfortable-looking form passed rapidly away. Within five
minutes he was back, a triumphant smile lighting his face.

"Success!" he said. "I have it, although whether from chance or as a result
of repeating my impression of light falling on a church window I can't say.
Certainly, after all these years, the tune is again mine. Listen."

As we proceeded up the street the doctor whistled a few measures composing
a rather peculiar melody, expressive, it seemed to me, of unrest. I never
forget a tune I have once heard, and this one was soon fixed in my memory.

"And the interesting circumstances under which you heard it?" I
interrogated. "Surely after the concern I've shown in the matter, you're
not going to deprive me of the story that goes with the tune?"

"There is no reason why I should. But I hope you will not circulate the
melody. It is the music that accompanies a tragedy."

"Indeed? You have written one, then? It must be brief, as there isn't much
of the music."

"I refer to a tragedy which actually occurred. Tragedies in real life are
not, as a rule, accompanied by music, and, to be accurate, in this case
music preceded the tragedy. Ten years ago, when I was living in Paris,
apartments adjoining mine were taken by a musician and his wife. His name,
as I learned afterward, was Heinrich Spellerberg, and he came from Breslau.
The wife, a very young and pretty creature, showed herself, by her attire
and manners, to be frivolous and vain, and without having more than the
slightest acquaintance with the pair, I soon learned that she had no
knowledge of or taste for music. He had married her, I suppose, for
her beauty, and had too late discovered the incompatibility of their
temperaments. But he loved her passionately and jealously. One day I
heard loud words between them, from which I gathered unintentionally that
something had aroused his jealousy. She replied with laughter and taunts to
his threats. The quarrel ended with her abrupt departure from the room and
from the house.

"He did not follow her, but sat down at the piano and began to play in the
manner of one who improvises. Correcting the melody that first responded to
his touch, modifying it at several repetitions, he eventually gave out the
form that I have just whistled.

"Evening came and the wife did not return. He continued to play that strain
over and over, into the night. I dropped my book, turned down my lamp
light, and stood at the window, looking at the church across the way.
Suddenly the music ceased. The wife had returned. 'Where did you dine?' I
heard him ask. I could not hear her reply, but the next speech was plainly
distinguished. 'You lie!' he said, in vehement tone of rage; 'you were with
----.' I did not catch the name he mentioned, nor did I know what she said
in answer, or actually what happened. I heard only a confused sound, which
did not impress me at the time as indicating a struggle, and which was
followed by silence. I imagined that harmony or a sullen truce had been
restored in the household, and thought no more about the affair. The next
morning the wife was found dead, strangled. The husband had disappeared,
and has never, I believe, been heard of to this day."

We reached the restaurant as the doctor finished his story. How the account
had impressed me I need not tell. Seated in the warm café, with appetizing
viands and a bottle before us, I asked the doctor to tell me again the
husband's name.

"Heinrich Spellerberg."

"And who had the woman been?"

"I never ascertained. She was a vain, insignificant, shallow little blonde.
The Paris newspapers could learn nothing as to her antecedents. She, too,
was German, but slight and delicate in physique."

"You didn't save any of the newspapers giving accounts of the affair?"

"No. My evidence was printed, but they spelled my name wrong."

"Do you remember the exact date of the murder?"

"Yes, because it was the birthday of a friend of mine. It was February 17,
187-. Twelve years ago! And that tune has been with me, off and on, ever
since--forgotten, most of the time; a few times recalled--as to-night."

"And the man, what did he look like?"

"Slim and of medium height. Very light complexion and eyes. His face was
entirely smooth. His hair, a bit flaxen in colour, was curly and plentiful,
especially about the back of his neck."

"In your evidence did you say anything about the strain of music, which was
manifestly of the murderer's own composition?"

"No, it did not recur to me until later."

"And nothing was said about it by anybody?"

"No one but myself knew anything about it--except the murderer; and unless
he afterward circulated it, he and you and I are the only men in the world
who have heard it."

"But if he continued, wherever he went, to exercise his profession, he
doubtless made some use of that bit of melody. The tune is so odd--quite
too good for him to have wasted."

"Still, neither of us has ever heard it, or anything like it. And if you
ever should come upon it, it would be interesting to trace the thing,
wouldn't it?"

"Rather."

I began to whistle the air softly. Presently two handsome girls, with jimp
raiment and fearless demeanour, came in and took possession of an adjacent
table.

"What'll it be, Nell?"

"I'll take a dozen panned. I'm hungry enough to eat all the oysters that
ever came out of the sea. A rehearsal like that gives one an appetite."

"A dozen panned, and lobster salad for me, and two bottles of beer," was
the order of the first speaker to the waiter.

I recognized the faces as pertaining to the chorus of the opera company at
the ---- Theatre. I stopped whistling while I watched them.

Suddenly, like a delayed and multiplied echo of my own whistling, came in
a soft hum from one of the girls the notes of the doctor's tragically
associated strain of music.

The doctor and I exchanged glances. The girl stopped humming.

"I think that's the prettiest thing in the piece, Maude," said she.

Undoubtedly it was the comic opera to be produced at the ---- Theatre to
which she alluded as "the piece."

"Amazing," I said to the doctor. "Millocker composed the piece she's
talking about. Millocker never killed a wife in Paris. Nor would he steal
bodily from another. Perhaps the thing has been interpolated by the local
producer. It doesn't sound quite like Millocker, anyhow. I must see about
this."

"Where are you going?"

"To the Actors' Club, or a dozen other places, until I find Harry
Griffiths. He's one of the comedians in the company at the ---- Theatre,
and he has a leading part in that piece to-morrow night. He'll know where
that tune came from."

"As you please," said the amiable doctor. "But I must go home. You can tell
me the result of your investigation to-morrow. It may lead to nothing, but
it will be interesting pastime."

"And again," I said, putting on my overcoat, "it may lead to something.
I'll see you to-morrow. Good night."

I found Griffiths at the Actors' Club, telling stories over a mutton-chop
and a bottle of champagne. When the opportunity came I drew him aside.

"I have bet with a man about a certain air in the new piece. He says it's
in the original score, and I say it's introduced, because I don't think
Millocker did it. This is it," and I whistled it.

"Quite right, my boy. It's not in the original. Miss Elton's part was so
small that she refused to play until the manager agreed to let her fatten
it up. So Weinmann composed that and put--"

"This Weinmann," I interrupted, abruptly, "what do you know about him? Who
is he?"

"He's Gustav Weinmann, the new musical director. I don't know anything
about him. He's not been long in the country. The manager found him in some
small place in Germany last summer."

"How old is he? Where does he live?"

"Somewhat in forty, I should say. I don't know where he stays. If you want
to see him, why don't you come to the theatre when he's there?"

"Good idea, this. Good night."

I would look up this German musician who had come from an obscure German
town. I would go to him and bluntly say:

"Mr. Weinmann, I beg your pardon, but is it true, as some people say it is,
that your real name is Heinrich Spellerberg?"

Meanwhile there was nothing to do but go to bed.

All the way home the tune rang in my head. I whistled it softly as I
began to undress, until I heard the sound of the piano in the parlour
down-stairs. Few of us ever touched that superannuated instrument. The
only ones who ever did so intelligently were Schaaf and the professor. The
latter was wont to visit the piano at any hour of the night. We all were
used to his way, and we liked the subdued melodies, the dreamy caprices,
the vague, trembling harmonies that stole through the silent house.

I never see moonlight stretching its soft glory athwart a darkened room but
I hear in fancy the infinitely gentle yet often thrilling strains that used
to float through the still night from the piano as its keys took touch from
the delicate white fingers of the professor.

Suddenly the musical summonings of the player assumed a familiar
aspect,--that of the tune which I had been singing in my own brain for the
past hour.

Then it occurred to me that the professor, being a second violin in
the orchestra at the ---- Theatre, would doubtless know more about the
antecedents of the new musical director than Griffiths had been able to
tell me. This was the more probable as the professor himself had come from
Germany.

I descended the stairs softly, traversed the hallway, and, looking through
the open door, beheld the professor at the piano.

The curtains of a window were drawn aside, and the moonlight swept grandly
in. It passed over a part of the piano, bathed the professor's head in soft
radiance, fell upon the carpet, and touched the base of the opposite wall.
Upon a sofa, half in light, half in shadow, reclined Schaaf, who had fallen
asleep listening while the professor played.

The professor's face was uplifted and calm. Rapture and pain--so often
mutual companions--were depicted upon it. I hesitated to break the spell
which he had woven for himself. After watching for some seconds, however, I
began quietly:

"Professor."

The tune broke off with a jangling discord, and the player turned to face
me, smiling pleasantly.

"Pardon me," I went on, advancing into the room and standing in the
moonshine that he might recognize me, "but I was attracted by the air you
were playing. They tell me that it isn't Millocker's, but was composed by
your new conductor at the ----"

The professor answered with a laugh:

"Ja! He got de honour of it. Honour is sheap. He buy dat. It doesn't
matter."

"Ah, then it isn't his own. And he bought the tune? From whom?"

"Me."

"You?"

"Ja. And I have many oder to gif sheap, too."

"But where did you get it?"

"I make it."

"When?"

"Long 'go. I forget. I have make so many. Dey go away from my mindt an'
come again back long time after."

"Professor, what would you give me to tell you where and when you composed
that tune?"

He looked at me with a slightly bewildered expression. It was with an
effort that I continued, as I looked straight into his eyes:

"I will hazard a guess. Could it have been in Paris--one day twelve years
ago--"

"I neffer be in Paris," he interrupted, with a start which shocked and
convinced me, slight evidence though it may seem. So I spoke on:

"What, never? Not even just that night--that 17th of February? Try to
recall it, Heinrich Spellerberg. You remember she came in late,
and--who would think that those soft white fingers had been strong
enough?"

"Hush, my friendt! I not touch her! She kill herself--she try to hang and
she shoke her neck. No, no, to you I vill not lie! You speak all true! Mein
Gott! Vat vill you do?"

The man was on his knees. I thought of the circumstances, the persons
concerned, the high-strung, sensitive lover of music, the coarse, derisive,
perhaps faithless woman, and I replied quickly:

"What will I do? Nothing to-night. It's none of my business, anyhow. I'll
sleep over it and tell you in the morning."

I left him alone.

In the morning the professor's door stood ajar. I looked in. Man, clothes,
violin case, and valise had gone. Whither I have not tried to ascertain.

When the new opera was produced that evening the ---- Theatre orchestra was
unexpectedly minus two of its second violins, for Schaaf, half-distracted,
was wandering the cold streets in search of his friend.

III

ON THE BRIDGE

When I tell you, my only friend, to whom I so rarely write and whom I more
rarely see, that my lonely life has not been without love for woman, you
will perhaps laugh or doubt.

"What," you will say, "that gaunt old spectre in his attic with his books,
his tobacco, and his three flower-pots! He would not know that there is
such a word as love, did he not encounter it now and then in his reading."

True, I have divided my days between the books in a rich man's
counting-room and those in my attic. True, again, I have never been more
than merely passable to look at, even in my best days.

Yet I have loved a woman.

During the five years when my elder brother lay in a hospital across the
river, where he died, it was my custom to visit him every Sunday. I enjoyed
the afternoon walk to the suburbs, when the air has more of nature in it,
especially that portion of the walk which lay upon the bridge. More life
than was usual upon the bridge moved there on Sunday. Then the cars were
crowded with people seeking the parks. Many crossed on foot, stopping to
look idly down at the dark and sluggish water.

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