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"Then why did you give me an appointment for the day after to-morrow?" demanded the young man bluntly. The Tracer looked him squarely in the eye. "Your leave is to be extended," he said. "What?" "Exactly. It has been extended one week." "How do you know that?" "You applied for extension, did you not?" "Yes," said Harren, turning red, "but I don't see how you knew that I " "By cable?" "Y-yes."
Harren pointed back to the table, and they returned to the photograph, the Tracer bending over it and examining it through the glass. "All I see," he said, still studying the photograph, "is a corner of a curtain and a window on which certain figures seem to have been cut. . . . Look, Captain Harren, can you see them?" "I see some marks some squares."
"Just the sort of man who does it," commented Keen. "Continue." Harren fidgeted about in his chair, looked out of the window, squinted at the ceiling, then straightened up, folding his arms with sudden determination. "I'd rather be boloed than tell you," he said. "Perhaps, after all, I am a lunatic; perhaps I've had a touch of the Luzon sun and don't know it."
An enthusiasm for marrying off his friends began to germinate within him; he tried it on Darrell, on Barnes, on Yates, but was turned down and severely stung. Then one day Harren of the Philippine Scouts turned up at the club, and they held a determined reunion until daylight, and they told each other all about it all and what upper-cuts life had handed out to them since the troopship sailed.
When at length the Tracer had finished his work he sat, chin on hand, examining it in silence. Presently he turned toward Harren, smiling. "Well?" inquired the younger man impatiently; "do those scratches representing Solomon's Seal mean anything?" "It's the strangest cipher I ever encountered," said Mr. Keen "the strangest I ever heard of.
The hot color in the Captain's bronzed cheeks mounted to his hair. "Exactly," purred the Tracer, looking out of the window. "Suppose we walk around to your rooms after luncheon. Shall we?" Harren picked up his hat and gloves, hesitating, lingering on the threshold. "You don't think she is a dead?" he asked unsteadily. "No," said Mr. Keen, "I don't."
"Not that I doubt that you can see it," pursued the Tracer calmly. "I simply repeat that I see absolutely nothing on this paper except a part of a curtain, a window pane, and and " "What! for God's sake!" cried Harren hoarsely. "I don't know yet. Wait; let me study it." "Can you not see her face, her eyes?
"Never?" "Not in in the flesh." "Oh, in dreams?" Harren stirred uneasily. "I don't know what you call them. I have seen her since in the sunlight, in the open, in my quarters in Manila, standing there perfectly distinct, looking at me with such strange, beautiful eyes " "Go on," said the Tracer, nodding. "What else is there to say?" muttered Harren. "You saw her or a phantom which resembled her.
It's it's afternoon, anyhow," he added deprecatingly, "and we are liable to make a call." Captain Harren turned like a man in a dream and entered his bedroom. And when he emerged he was dressed and groomed with pathetic precision. "Mr. Keen," he said, "I I don't know why I am d-daring to hope for all s-sorts of things. Nothing you have said really warrants it.
"Hit ain't no use, suh," said the darky respectfully; "dey's mi'ions an' mi'ions ob gemmen jess a-settin' roun' an' waitin' foh Mistuh Keen. In dis here perfeshion, suh, de fustest gemman dat has a 'pintment is de fustest gemman dat kin see Mistuh Keen. You is a military gemman yohse'f, Cap'm Harren, an' you is aware dat precedence am de rigger."
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