“It might be, Mr.—”
“Pardon me, sir!” The visitor extended a card. “Kapaloff, Boris Kapaloff.”
Phil took the card and pretended to scrutinize it while he marshaled his thoughts. He was far from certain that he cared to force himself into this man’s affairs. The man’s whole appearance — the broad forehead slanting down from the roots of the crisp black hair to bulge a little just above the brows; the narrow, widely spaced eves of cold hazel; the aquiline nose with a pronounced flare to the nostrils; the firm, too-red lips; the hard line of chin and jaw — evidenced a nature both able and willing to hold its own in any field. And while Phil considered himself second to no man in guile, he knew that his intrigues had heretofore been confined to the world of tin-horn gamblers, ward-heelers, and such small fry. Small schooling for a game with this man whose voice, appearance and poise proclaimed a denizen of a greater, more subtle world. Of course, if some decided advantage could be gained at the very outset...
“Where was the bag lost?” Phil asked.
The Russian’s poise remained undisturbed.
“That would be most difficult to say,” he replied in his cultured. musical voice. “My niece had been to a dance, and she carried several friends to their homes before returning to hers. The bag may have dropped from the car anywhere along the way.” A temptation to speak of the struggle on Washington street came to Phil but he put it aside. Kapaloff might have been present that morning but it was obvious that he did not recognize Phil. The bag could have been found by someone who passed the spot later. Phil decided to leave Kapaloff in doubt on that point for as long as possible, in hope that some advantage would come out of it; and he was further urged to postpone the clash that might ensure by a faint fear of coming to a show-down with this suave Russian. Nothing would be lost by waiting...
Kapaloff allowed a gentle impatience to tinge his manner. “Now about the bag?”
“The three hundred and fifty-five dollars is reward?” Phil asked.
Kapaloff sighed ruefully.
“I am sorry to say it is. Ridiculous, of course, but perhaps you know something of young women. My niece was very fond of the opal ring — a trinket, worth but little. Yet no sooner did she discover her loss than she telephoned the newspaper office and offered the money as reward. Ridiculous! A hundred dollars would be an exaggerated value to place upon everything in the bag. But having made the offer, we shall have to abide by it.”
Phil nodded dumbly. Kapaloff was lying — no doubt of that — but he wasn’t the sort that one baldly denounces. Phil fidgeted and found himself avoiding his visitor’s eyes. Then a wave of self-disgust flooded him. “Here I am,” be thought, “letting this guy bluff me in my own flat, just because be has a classy front.” He looked into Kapaloff’s hazel eyes and asked with perfect casualness, keeping every sign of what was going on in his brain out of his poker-player’s face: “And how did the scrap in the automobiles come out? I didn’t see the end of it.”
“I am so glad you said that!” Kapaloff cried, bis face alight with joyous relief. “So very glad! Now I can offer my apologies for my childish attempts at deception. You see, I wasn’t sure that you had seen the unfortunate occurrence — you could have found the bag later — although I was told that someone had tried to interfere. You were not injured seriously?” His voice was weighted with solicitude.
None of the bewilderment, chagrin, recognition of defeat that raged in Phil’s brain showed in his face. He tried to match the other’s blandness. “Not at all. A slight headache next morning, a sore spot for a few hours. Nothing to speak of!”
“Splendid!” Kapaloff exclaimed. “Splendid! And I want to thank you for your attempt to assist my niece, even though I must assure you it was most fortunate you were unsuccessful. We certainly owe you an explanation — my niece and I — and if you will bear with me I shall try not to take up too much of your time with it. We are Russians — my niece and I — and when the tsar’s government collapsed our place in our native land was gone. Kapaloff was not our name then; but what is a title after the dynasty upon which it depends and the holdings accruing to it are gone? What we endured between the beginning of the revolution and our escape from Russia I pray may never come to another!” A cloud touched his face with anguish, but he brushed it away with a gesture of one delicate hand. “My niece saw her father and her fiance struck down within ten minutes. For months after that the real world did not exist for her. She lived in a nightmare. We watched her night and day for fear that she would succeed in her constant efforts to destroy herself. Then, gradually, she came back to us. For six months she has been, we thought, well. The alienists assured us that she was permanently cured. And then, late Monday night, she found between the pages of an old book a photograph of Kondra — he was her betrothed — and the poor child’s mind snapped again. She fled from the house, crying that she must go back to Petrograd, to Kondra. I was out, but my valet and my secretary followed her, caught her somewhere in the city, and returned with her. The roughness with which your gallantry was met — for that I must beg your forgiveness. Serge and Mikhail have not yet learned to temper their zeal. To them I am still ‘His Excellency,’ in whose service anything may be done.”
Kapaloff stopped, as if waiting for Phil’s comment, but Phil was silent. His brain was telling him, over and over, “This bird has got you licked! The generosity of the reward isn’t accounted for by this tale, but it will be before he’s through. This bird has got you licked!”
His genial eyes still on Phil’s, Kapaloff fulfilled the prophesy. “After my niece was safely home and I heard what had happened, I had the advertisement put in the paper. It seemed the most promising way of learning the extent of the injury to the man who had tried to aid my niece. If he were unhurt and had found the bag, he would turn it over to the Chronicle, and the three hundred and fifty dollars would be little enough reward for his trouble. On the other hand, if he were seriously injured he would use the advertisement to get in touch with me and I could take further steps to provide for him. If the bag were found by someone else I would remain in ignorance; but you will readily understand that I had no desire to have my niece’s distressing plight paraded before the public in the newspapers.”
He paused, waiting again.
When the pause had become awkward Phil shifted in his chair and asked, “And your niece — how is she now?”
“Apparently well again. I called a physician as soon as she returned, she was given an opiate and awoke that afternoon as if nothing unusual had happened. It may be that she will never be troubled again.”
Phil started to get up from his chair to get the bag. There seemed to be no tangible reason for doubting the Russian’s story — except that be did not want to believe it. But was the story flawless? He relaxed in the chair again. If the tale were true, would Kapaloff have dictated the advertisement so that the bag would be delivered to the Chronicle? Wouldn’t he have wanted to interview the finder? The Russian was waiting for Phil to speak, and Phil had nothing to say. He wanted time to think this affair over carefully, away from the glances of the hazel eyes that were lancet-keen for all their blandness.
“Mr. Kapaloff,” he said, hesitantly, “here is how all this stands with me: I saw the bag’s owner and found it under — well — funny circumstances. Not,” he interjected quickly, as Kapaloff’s eyebrows rose coldly, “that your explanation is hard to believe; but I want to be sure I’m doing the right thing. So I’ll have to ask you either to let me deliver the bag to your niece, or to go to the police, tell our stories, and let them straighten it out.”