Double Trouble | Page 6

to this man Brassfield, had occurred within the past
sixteen hours. And, great God! where had Florian Amidon been since
June, 1896? All was dark; and, in sympathy with it, blackness came
over his eyes, and he rode into New York in a dead faint.

III
ANY PORT IN A STORM
Cosimo: Join us, Ludovico! Our plans are ripe, Our enterprise as fairly

lamped with promise As yon steep headland, based, 'tis true, with cliff,
But crowned with waving palms, and holding high Its beaconing light,
as holds its jewel up, Your lady's tolling finger! Come, the stage Is set,
your cue is spoke.
Ludovico: And all the lines Are stranger to my lips, and alien quite To
car and eye and mind. I tell thee, Cosimo, This play of thine is one in
which no man Should swagger on, trusting the prompter's voice; For
mountains tipped with fire back up the scene, Out of the coppice roars
the tiger's voice: The lightning's touch is death; the thunder rends The
very rocks whereon its anger lights, The paths are mined with gins; and
giants wait To slay me should I speak with faltering tongue Their crafty
shibboleth! Most dearest coz, This part you offer bids me play with
death! I'll none of it. --Vision of Cosimo.
"Comin' round all right, now, suh?" said the learned-looking porter.
"Will you go to the Calumet House, as usual, suh? Ca'iage waitin', if
you feel well enough to move, suh."
"I'm quite well," said Mr. Amidon, though he did not look it, "and will
go to the--what hotel did you say?"
"Calumet, suh; I know you make it yo' headquahtahs thah."
"Quite right," said Mr. Amidon; "of course. Where's the carriage and
my grips?"
He had never heard of the Calumet; but he wanted, more than anything
else then, privacy in which he might collect his faculties and get
himself in hand, for his whole being was in something like chaos. On
the way, he stopped the cab several times to buy papers. All showed the
fatal date. He arrived at the palatial hotel in a cab filled with papers,
from which his bewildered countenance peered forth like that of a
canary-bird in the nesting-season. He was scarcely within the door,
when obsequious servants seized his luggage, and vied with one
another for the privilege of waiting on him.
"Why, how do you do?" said the clerk, in a manner eloquent of

delighted recognition. "Your old room, I suppose?"
"Yes, I think so," said Mr. Amidon.
The clerk whirled the register around, and pointing with his pen, said:
"Right there, Mr. Brassfield."
Mr. Amidon's pen stopped midway in the downward stroke of a capital
F.
"I think," said he, "that I'll not register at present. Let me have checks
for my luggage, please--I may not stay more than an hour or so."
"As you please," said the clerk. "But the room is entirely at your
service, always, you know. Here are some telegrams, sir. Came this
morning."
He took and eyed the yellow envelopes with "E. Brassfield" scrawled
on them, as if they had been infernal machines; but he made no
movement toward opening them. Something in the clerk's look
admonished him that his own was extraordinary. He felt that he must
seek solitude. To be called by this new and strange name; to have thrust
on him the acting of a part in which he knew none of the lines and
dared not refuse the character; and all these circumstances made dark
and sinister by the mysterious maladjustment of time and place; the
possession of another man's property; the haunting fear that in it
somewhere were crime and peril--these things, he thought, would drive
him out of his senses, unless he could be alone.
"I think I'll take the room," said he.
"If any one calls?" queried the clerk.
"I'm not in," said Amidon, gathering up the telegrams. "I do not wish to
be disturbed on any account."
Five years! What did it mean? There must be some mistake. But the
break in the endless chain of time, the change from summer to winter,

and from the dropping to sleep at Elm Springs Junction to the
awakening in the car--there could be no mistake about these. He sat in
the room to which he had been shown, buried in the immense pile in
the strange city, as quiet as a heron in a pool, perhaps the most solitary
man on earth, these thoughts running in a bewildering circle through
his mind. The dates of the papers--might they not have been changed
by some silly trick of new journalism, some straining for effect, like the
agreement of all the people in the world (as fancied by Doctor Holmes)
to say "Boo!" all at once to the