THE SURAKARTA
I
MR. HEREFORD ENTERTAINS A STRANGER FROM JAVA
In appearance the offices which bore the name of the "Regan Estate—Wade Hereford, Administrator"—were only ordinary Chicago business offices. Business men, stenographers, clerks and boys, whose affairs took them past the neatly lettered doors of these offices, failed to differentiate them in any interesting way from those suites on either side.
Those whose affairs took them on the other side of the heavy doors noted nothing unusual. The suite by its location in the most desirable corner of an upper floor of one of Chicago's newest and tallest buildings, was removed almost entirely from the noises of the street. Heavy rugs stifled all sound of footsteps; the furniture, of massive design and deeply upholstered in leather, received or parted with a burden without a sound. Nothing in these rooms or in Hereford himself—imperturbable, carefully dressed, a little over thirty and member of all the city's best clubs—denoted how frequently, though at irregular and unforseen intervals, complications had been projected there from the furthest corners of the world to disturb the serenity of the office and of Hereford alike.
Wade Hereford—early in the thirty months since Matthew Regan, the packer, had left him sole executor of his estate—had learned to carry a minimum of one hundred thousand dollars subject to the immediate call of the only heir, Lorine.
More than once a demand for double this amount—additional to the regular monthly allowance—had tumbled out upon his desk, without warning, from the morning's mail. So long as these drafts upon him did not exceed in any twelve months the income from the estate, the executor had nothing to say. When they did Hereford had learned his second lesson—though not so promptly as his first—to protest in no more personal terms than:
Miss Lorine Regan, Peking—Mombasa, Cairo, Constantinople, or wherever she felt the need of money.
Dear Madam: The present value of the industrial stocks, bonds, real estate and other income-bearing principal property left you by your father is $8,540,000. This, invested at an average a trifle under seven per cent—for which all items will be sent you upon your request—bears income for this year of $597,000. Of this, a total of $536,000 has already been placed at your disposal. The balance of sixty-one thousand dollars—$61,000—is therefore all I am empowered to place to your immediate use, except in the event of any of those extraordinary exigencies provided for in your father's will.
There was nothing surprising, therefore, in her letter of this morning. Yet Hereford, having read with distinct uneasiness her curt notification to deposit one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to her check, put it aside unanswered.
Still more than that was due her. Its amount could be more than accounted for by preparation for another hunting party from Mombasa to Cairo; or by return of curiosity as to—and therefore the immediate and complete excavation of—the site of some early Assyrian city on whose mounds she might have lunched; or by another attempt—as in that one delirious month when the executor had learned that comment upon his ward's actions was forbidden—to break the bank of a fashionable European gambling place. Another turbine yacht would account for it; another private aeroplane plant, any one of a dozen more such caprices as these; though he knew, however, it would be none of these things which he called specifically to mind, for he had learned thoroughly that his ward never repeated.
Yet it was not the certainty it would be something different that caused Hereford to frown now. It was the knowledge that this new caprice, whatever it might be, was evidently about to be carried out in his vicinity.
Hereford stared for many minutes over the city roofs, and slightly flushed as he comprehended that his ward, for the first time in his knowledge of her—which so far had been entirely by letter—had honored her source of income with a visit; for the hotel address to which he was to acknowledge receipt of her instructions was one in the city.
This proximity, with its promise of embarrassing complications for himself, made him anxious to learn her purpose in coming here. Whereas usually he held off and put to as much trouble as possible those coming to him on any business connected with his ward, he now instructed to have sent in at once the man whose card, engraved "James Annis," inscribed "Concerning Miss Lorine Regan," he had found upon his desk.
Old Matthew Regan—roughly powerful in mind and body—with the perspicacity that marked all he did, had chosen well the executor of his estate in favor of his daughter. On matters concerning her, impostors, swindlers and get-rich-quick individuals from the four quarters of the world invaded Hereford's office. The atmosphere of even the outer office chilled and discouraged them. Their carefully prepared stories began to disintegrate long before they had penetrated as far as Hereford himself. He, on his part, treated every stranger as an impostor until he had proved himself otherwise. Matthew Regan had known the world and his daughter both too well to select as his executor a man of pleasant and agreeable manners, but Hereford was a strong man who did things by direct methods. He had got so he could classify and frustrate scheming strangers as they entered his door.
But he could not classify the man who entered with a swinging step in answer to his summons. An American—sallow-skinned, lithe, with sun-bleached hair and brows—Hereford guessed he had spent many years away from the States. He saw by the careful grooming and new clothes that Annis had prosperous pockets now at least. He divined that Annis had spent more than a little of his life where one preserves life itself only by alertness of mind and quickness of eye and hand.
The stranger took the seat Hereford had not offered him.
"I am on my way to New York from Java, Mr. Hereford," Annis explained. "I have been living in Java for the past six years. I was in Samarang when Miss Regan—who, I am told, is your ward—was there last year."
Hereford, looking steadily at him, said nothing.
"On the possibility that you have not been informed of the position into which Miss Regan put herself at that time I have dropped in to see you, as I believe—having observed what I have—is the duty of a gentleman."
"That is a phrase open to many constructions, Mr.—Annis." Hereford was studiously affronting.
"That?"
"The duty of a gentleman."
If the man was, as he professed to be, an ally he failed to notice the insult; if he was an opponent he was worth heeding, for he did not flush. "I will hear what you have to say," Hereford decided promptly. "I am, as you seem to be informed, the executor of the late Matthew Regan's estate. My responsibility, however, is confined to financial affairs. His daughter was already of age when her father died. I am merely administrator of her estate. Miss Regan put herself into no position in Java regarding which she found it necessary to consult me as administrator."
"Then you have not heard of her engagement to the Soesoehoenan of Surakarta?"
Hereford's eyes did not waver. The man might be merely trying to catch him. Who—he asked himself—was the Soesoehoenan of Surakarta?
"I thought so!" Annis nodded; he glanced round to see that the door through which he had entered was shut. "So you've really heard nothing at all of this?"
"You may assume so," Hereford granted unwillingly.
Annis smiled his satisfaction.
"Therefore you have had no reason particularly to investigate Javan society as yet. Am I right?"
"You mean I do not know who the Soesoehoenan of Surakarta is? Again you may assume so if you wish."
"I can tell you that much very briefly. Java, as of course you know, is one of the largest and it is by far the most populous and prosperous of the East Indies. It has a population of over thirty million Javanese proper, the Sudanese and the Madurese—all three brown men, of course, of Malay stock. Java soil is said to be the richest in the world, and before Java was taken over as a colony the native sultans were among the most luxurious and absolute rulers in the world. When the Dutch took over the island and began to govern it they had often to leave the native rulers alone. Gradually seventeen of the sultanates have been formed into what the Dutch call residencies, with a Dutch resident as ruler or adviser to the native ruler; but in two sultanates—those of Surakarta and Jokjakarta—the native sultans still govern under only the most formal supervision of the Dutch resident. The Soesoehoenan of Surakarta is one of these—the richest native ruler in Java, by far the most independent and powerful; most despotic and absolute in his sultanate, and by far the most interesting. He has no less than ten thousand servants in his palace and his palace walls are four miles about. He is an Oxford graduate of some six or seven years ago, I believe—that is, he is about thirty years old. He is an excellent oarsman, tennis and cricket player; and is also a most skillful and daring automobile driver. Before I left he was going in for aëronautics with a biplane and a monoplane."
"You're his ardent biographer, Mr. Annis."
"No; for I'm going to give you the reverse of his picture too. The last time I saw him he was taking part in a Mohammedan ceremony—in his native costume, which does not include trousers; and his harem now numbers upward of a hundred and fifty women—Malay, Hindu, European, black, white and black-and-tan."
"And you have dropped in to tell me that my ward, Miss Regan, has engaged to add herself to those?"
"Not at all; but she has engaged to marry him if he will give them up—including Alarna, his favorite and reigning wife; provided, also, he takes from Alarna and sends to Miss Regan the great emerald known as the Surakarta, as proof of it all. All of which he has done."
"I don't quite follow you now."
"I can't tell you everything from first hand, but I believe Miss Regan came to Java eight months ago?"
"You are asking me for information now."
"No; the exact date is of no importance. She was with a party of English—army people, I believe, who had just been to India. Most respectable people too—you understand, there was not even talk of a scandal about her."
Hereford put his hand briskly toward a bell.
Annis checked him.
"I understand—not even mention of the word scandal with that implication in connection with Miss Regan's name. Quite right, too, Mr. Hereford, since I understand she has always avoided scandal of that sort at least. They all went together to visit the Soesoehoenan. It seemed one of the men in the party knew him at Oxford. He entertained them all, I understand, in the most extravagant manner for a month or so. He, I have gathered from fair reports, at least interested Miss Regan. She shot with him, beat him at tennis, took him up and showed him how to volplane down in his machine. He seems to have dared her, I might say, to marry him. She agreed to do it if he would give up all his wives, including Alarna, and take from Alarna and—if he still wished her, Miss Regan, rather than all the rest after six months—send to her to keep absolutely the great Surakarta as his pledge. It is, as any lapidarist can tell you, the most remarkable and by far the largest and most valuable emerald in the world. It is, indeed, invaluable—clear, without flaw and, cut in perfect star contour, larger than a man's fist. But, more than its money value, it has represented for centuries the honor of the ruling family of Surakarta. It is a sort of palladium, the possession of which is the superstitious hold over the sultan's people. A pretender, possessing it, could soon overturn the Soesoehoenan and put himself on the throne. The sending of this stone to Miss Regan, therefore, is the most absolute pledge of his sincerity possible. In giving it to her he puts himself absolutely into her hands. If—as may be her plan—she keeps it in her possession at some bank or other safe place to which she may have access, at the first suspicion of disloyalty to her she need only give it to the sultan's cousin to seat him in the sultan's place, or turn it over to the Dutch for them to take from him his power; or she could ruin him in a dozen other ways. That is what the sending of the emerald means. And Miss Regan's receiving of it tomorrow means that she will marry him—will become the wife of this Malay, Mr. Hereford."
Hereford scrutinized him with narrowed eyes.
"The sending of this—receiving it—tomorrow?" he questioned. "What do you mean?"
The traveler, seeing that at last he had made his impression, struck the desk.
"I mean that the emerald is here—the Soesoehoenan's envoys have it here at this moment at the Hotel Tonty. Tomorrow morning they will deliver it to your ward; and she will take it and formally betroth herself to the Soesoehoenan—unless you prevent it."
"Of course you are quite disinterested in coming to tell me this—quite disinterested, Mr. Annis? They always are," Hereford said unpleasantly.
"I learned these facts in Java, as I said; and being on my way to New York I believed it only the part of a countryman of Miss Regan's to make sure that whoever was protecting her knew them too. I believed you might consider it your duty to interfere. If I have made a mistake and wasted my time I beg your pardon."
Hereford considered that a man living long among inferior and despised races—holding, perhaps, his memory of American women as an ideal—would undoubtedly act as Annis had just done.
"But if these are facts," he said uneasily, "why have I heard nothing of them? Less than this about Miss Regan has deeply interested the newspapers before now."
"The sultan, without doubt—if for considerations of safety alone—would conceal the fact that the suite he is sending here has with it the emerald. Miss Regan, perhaps, has too good a sense of a news sensation to allow anything to leak out prematurely."
Hereford's suspicions returned.
"You wish to leave me your address—or do you not?" he questioned caustically. "They sometimes leave an address—more often not."
"I intend to set out for New York this afternoon. If you wish I will send you my hotel from there."
He rose, waiting apparently for Hereford to rise too. The executor looked steadily at him and did not get up.
Hereford, as the other closed the door behind him, pushed a button.
"Mr. James Annis, who is just leaving here, expects to take a train this afternoon for New York," he directed. "I'd be glad to know for certain whether he does take that train. You understand? Be quick or you may lose sight of him!"
Nevertheless, for several minutes he sat scowling at the door through which Annis had gone, as though he expected the traveller to return—often other persons had pretended to leave in this way only to come back almost at once and betray the real motives in their stories by their demands for money. When fully five minutes had passed and no other sound had followed the double closing of the outer office door which had marked Annis' departure and that of the boy he had sent after him, Hereford swung his chair around uneasily.
Hereford of late had begun to flatter himself that in connection with Lorine Regan nothing could surprise him; but now he had been thoroughly surprised.
Plainly there were two things to be done immediately—a telephone call to the hotel his ward had given as her address, and another call to the Hotel Tonty, where the stranger had said the Javanese were staying. One of these told him that a party of Javanese gentlemen had registered late the evening before, about whom the management of the Hotel Tonty knew or would tell nothing; the other that Miss Regan had just arrived.
But it was quite impossible—considering the strained relations between himself and his ward—to go direct to Lorine with this fantastic story, of which he had no more evidence than the narrative of a total stranger. The mere mention of it, if there was no truth behind it at all, would be an insult which might destroy forever the influence, slight as it was, that he had been able to maintain over her.
Hereford went to the closet and got his hat.
The best thing obviously was a visit to Max Schimmel.