“I lost a silver mesh-bag two days ago between 8:20 and 8:35 in the morning, while riding in Central Park, just back of the Museum. The bag had been put in the right-hand pocket of my riding jacket; it was dislodged during my ride.”
“Describe as carefully and exactly as you can the contents of the bag.”
“There were $16,400 in bank notes—140 hundred dollar bills, the rest in fifties and twenties. There was also a necklace with a platinum clasp, containing ninety-one pearls of graduated size, the largest about the size of a large grape; a plain gold ring set with a diamond-shaped emerald——”
“Of what size?”
“About the size of a lump of sugar. There were, in addition, eight Bethlehem Steel stock certificates, and, what I value most of all, several letters written by friends and business associates to my late husband, which contain matter of the most private sort.”
Meanwhile he would be checking the list off, envelope in hand. Now he would say quietly, taking the bag from his pocket and presenting it to her:
“I think you will find your property intact.”
Seizing the bag with a cry, she would sink quickly upon a leather divan, opening it with trembling fingers and hastily counting through the contents. He would watch her with nervous constraint, conscious of the personal risk he took, the unanswerable suspicion that might be attached to him if everything was not there. But everything would be!
Finally looking up, her voice filled with fatigue and unutterable relief, she would say:
“Everything is here! Everything! Oh! I feel as if I had been born again!”
Bowing coldly and ironically, he would answer:
“Then, madam, you will pardon me the more willingly if I leave you now to enjoy the first happy hours of your childhood alone.”
And, taking his battered but adventurous-looking old hat from a table, he would start for the door. She would follow immediately and interrupt his passage, seizing him again by the arms in her excitement:
“No, you shall not go yet. You shall not go until you tell me what your name is. What is your name? You must tell me your name!”
Very coldly he would answer:
“The name would not matter to you. I am not known yet. I am only a poor writer.”
She would see, of course, from his ragged clothing—the same suit he was now wearing—that he was neither a wealthy nor fashionable person, but she would also see, from the great sense of style with which his frame carried these rags, as if indifferent or unconscious of them, that there was some proud royalty of nature in him that had no need of worldly dignities. She would say:
“Then, if you are a poor writer, there is one thing I can do—one very small return I can make for your splendid honesty. You must accept the reward that I have offered.”
“Reward?” He would say in an astounded tone. “Is there a reward?”
“Five thousand dollars. I—I—hope—if you wouldn’t mind—” she would falter, frightened by the stern frown on his forehead.
“I accept, of course,” he would answer, harshly and proudly. “The service I rendered was worth it. I am not ashamed to take my wage. At any rate, it is better invested with me than it would be among a group of Irish policemen. Let me congratulate you on what you have done today for the future of art.”
“I am so glad—so happy—that you’ll take it—that it will be of any help to you. Won’t you come to dinner tonight? I want to talk to you.”
He would accept.
Before he left they would have opportunity to observe each other more closely. He would see that she was rather tall for a woman—about five feet six or seven inches, but giving the impression of being somewhat taller. She would have a heavy weight of rather blondish hair, but perhaps with a reddish tint in it, also—perhaps it would be the color of very pale amber. It would be piled compactly and heavily upon her head, so as to suggest somewhat a molten or malleable weight, and it would be innumerably various with little winking lights.