The Crooked Cross

Book excerpt: As a rule the first of June always found Bartley out of the city. With the coming of the first days of spring, he would begin to grow restless. One would find upon the large rosewood desk in his library various fishing flies, and maps showing far-off lakes and streams. For a while he would even drop his books and pamphlets which told of the 18th century of France, and pore over various guides of the woods and mountains; and then when June arrived, we would take the big car and go wandering forth in search of rest. But the first of June had come and gone, and it was now the middle of the month. What was worse, there did not seem to be the slightest chance that we could get away for many weeks to come. Down in the Court House a sensational murder trial was slowly dragging itself out to a conclusion—a conclusion not yet in sight. It was this trial which was keeping us in the city, for Bartley's testimony was the hope upon which the defense leaned for an acquittal. The stay in the city might have been endured if it had not been for the weather. For over a week we had sweltered under the warmest heat spell of many a year. Each morning I rose with but one thought in my mind—that there would be a breeze. But every day the thermometer went a few degrees higher than the day before—while each evening the list of those overcome by the heat grew larger. Bartley, far more of a philosopher than myself, at my constant complaint that it was warm, suggested that I follow the example of Trouble, our Airedale, who retired each morning to the cellar to spend the day. One evening toward the end of the third week in June I entered Bartley's house in Gramercy Square long after our usual dinner hour. Going to the dining room, I found that Bartley had eaten several hours before. Rance, our old colored man, served me with the air of one who felt insulted over the fact my delay had caused his well-cooked dinner to grow cold. It was not until I was drinking my coffee that he unbent so far as to inform me that Bartley wished to see me in the library. Bartley's library had once been called the most distinctive room in the city. When he had remodeled the house, he had torn away all the partitions to make one huge room. It ran across the entire front of the house, and had one of the largest fireplaces I have ever seen. The walls were covered with French prints—not copies, but the rare originals of the eighteenth century. Boucher, Fragonard, and their contemporaries covered three of the walls, while the fourth was left for the Belgian—Rops—whose devilish suggestiveness leered at one in over sixty etchings.