Seven Keys to Baldpate

  Produced by Tor Martin Kristiansen, Joseph Cooper, MaryMeehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

  SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE

  BY EARL DERR BIGGERS

  Buccaneer BooksNEW YORK

  Copyright 1913 by The Bobbs-Merrill Company

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-66864

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I "WEEP NO MORE, MY LADY"

  II ENTER A LOVELORN HABERDASHER

  III BLONDES AND SUFFRAGETTES

  IV A PROFESSIONAL HERMIT APPEARS

  V THE MAYOR CASTS A SHADOW BEFORE

  VI GHOSTS OF THE SUMMER CROWD

  VII THE MAYOR BEGINS A VIGIL

  VIII MR. MAX TELLS A TALE OF SUSPICION

  IX MELODRAMA IN THE SNOW

  X THE COLD GRAY DAWN

  XI A FALSEHOOD UNDER THE PALMS

  XII WOE IN NUMBER SEVEN

  XIII THE EXQUISITE MR. HAYDEN

  XIV THE SIGN OF THE OPEN WINDOW

  XV TABLE TALK

  XVI A MAN FROM THE DARK

  XVII THE PROFESSOR SUMS UP

  XVIII A RED CARD

  XIX EXEUNT OMNES, AS SHAKESPEARE HAS IT

  XX THE ADMIRAL'S GAME

  XXI THE MAYOR IS WELCOMED HOME

  XXII THE USUAL THING

  SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE

  CHAPTER I

  "WEEP NO MORE, MY LADY"

  A young woman was crying bitterly in the waiting-room of the railwaystation at Upper Asquewan Falls, New York.

  A beautiful young woman? That is exactly what Billy Magee wanted to knowas, closing the waiting-room door behind him, he stood staring justinside. Were the features against which that frail bit of cambric wasagonizingly pressed of a pleasing contour? The girl's neatly tailoredcorduroy suit and her flippant but charming millinery augured well.Should he step gallantly forward and inquire in sympathetic tones as tothe cause of her woe? Should he carry chivalry even to the lengths ofUpper Asquewan Falls?

  No, Mr. Magee decided he would not. The train that had just roared awayinto the dusk had not brought him from the region of skyscrapers andderby hats for deeds of knight errantry up state. Anyhow, the girl'stears were none of his business. A railway station was a natural placefor grief--a field of many partings, upon whose floor fell often intorrents the tears of those left behind. A friend, mayhap a lover, hadbeen whisked off into the night by the relentless five thirty-fourlocal. Why not a lover? Surely about such a dainty trim figure as thiscourtiers hovered as moths about a flame. Upon a tender intimate sorrowit was not the place of an unknown Magee to intrude. He put his handgently upon the latch of the door.

  And yet--dim and heartless and cold was the interior of thatwaiting-room. No place, surely, for a gentleman to leave a ladysorrowful, particularly when the lady was so alluring. Oh, beyondquestion, she was most alluring. Mr. Magee stepped softly to the ticketwindow and made low-voiced inquiry of the man inside.

  "What's she crying about?" he asked.

  A thin sallow face, on the forehead of which a mop of ginger-coloredhair lay listlessly, was pressed against the bars.

  "Thanks," said the ticket agent. "I get asked the same old questions sooften, one like yours sort of breaks the monotony. Sorry I can't helpyou. She's a woman, and the Lord only knows why women cry. And sometimesI reckon even He must be a little puzzled. Now, my wife--"

  "I think I'll ask her," confided Mr. Magee in a hoarse whisper.

  "Oh, I wouldn't," advised the man behind the bars. "It's best to let 'emalone. They stop quicker if they ain't noticed."

  "But she's in trouble," argued Billy Magee.

  "And so'll you be, most likely," responded the cynic, "if you interfere.No, siree! Take my advice. Shoot old Asquewan's rapids in a barrel ifyou want to, but keep away from crying women."

  The heedless Billy Magee, however, was already moving across theunscrubbed floor with chivalrous intention.

  The girl's trim shoulders no longer heaved so unhappily. Mr. Magee,approaching, thought himself again in the college yard at dusk, with thegreat elms sighing overhead, and the fresh young voices of the glee clubringing out from the steps of a century-old building. What were thewords they sang so many times?

  "Weep no more, my lady, Oh! weep no more to-day."

  He regretted that he could not make use of them. They had always seemedto him so sad and beautiful. But troubadours, he knew, went out offashion long before railway stations came in. So his remark to the youngwoman was not at all melodious:

  "Can I do anything?"

  A portion of the handkerchief was removed, and an eye which, Mr. Mageenoted, was of an admirable blue, peeped out at him. To the gaze of evena solitary eye, Mr. Magee's aspect was decidedly pleasing. YoungWilliams, who posed at the club as a wit, had once said that Billy Mageecame as near to being a magazine artist's idea of the proper hero of astory as any man could, and at the same time retain the respect andaffection of his fellows. Mr. Magee thought he read approval in the loneeye of blue. When the lady spoke, however, he hastily revised hisopinion.

  "Yes," she said, "you can do something. You can go away--far, far away."

  Mr. Magee stiffened. Thus chivalry fared in Upper Asquewan Falls in theyear 1911.

  "I beg your pardon," he remarked. "You seemed to be in trouble, and Ithought I might possibly be of some assistance."

  The girl removed the entire handkerchief. The other eye proved to be thesame admirable blue--a blue half-way between the shade of her corduroysuit and that of the jacky's costume in the "See the World--Join theNavy" poster that served as background to her woe.

  "I don't mean to be rude," she explained more gently, "but--I'm crying,you see, and a girl simply can't look attractive when she cries."

  "If I had only been regularly introduced to you, and all that,"responded Mr. Magee, "I could make a very flattering reply." And a trueone, he added to himself. For even in the faint flickering light of thestation he found ample reason for rejoicing that the bit of cambric wasno longer agonizingly pressed. As yet he had scarcely looked away fromher eyes, but he was dimly aware that up above wisps of golden hairpeeped impudently from beneath a saucy black hat. He would look at thosewisps shortly, he told himself. As soon as he could look away from theeyes--which was not just yet.

  "My grief," said the girl, "is utterly silly and--womanish. I think itwould be best to leave me alone with it. Thank you for your interest.And--would you mind asking the gentleman who is pressing his face sofeverishly against the bars to kindly close his window?"

  "Certainly," replied Mr. Magee. He turned away. As he did so he collidedwith a rather excessive lady. She gave the impression of solidity andbulk; her mouth was hard and knowing. Mr. Magee felt that she wanted tovote, and that she would say as much from time to time. The lady had aglittering eye; she put it to its time-honored use and fixed Mr. Mageewith it.

  "I was crying, mamma," the girl explained, "and this gentleman inquiredif he could be of any service."

  Mamma! Mr. Magee wanted to add his tears to those of the girl. Thisfrail and lovely damsel in distress owning as her maternal parent aheavy unnecessary--person! The older woman also had yellow hair, but itwas the sort that suggests the white enamel pallor of a drug store, withthe soda-fountain fizzing and the bottles of perfume ranged in anodorous row. Mamma! Thus rolled the world along.

  "Well, they ain't no use gettin' all worked up for nothing," advised theunpleasant parent. Mr. Magee was surprised that in her tone there was nohostility to him--thus belying her looks. "Mebbe the gentleman candirect us to a good hotel," she ad
ded, with a rather stagy smile.

  "I'm a stranger here, too," Mr. Magee replied. "I'll interview the manover there in the cage."

  The gentleman referred to was not cheerful in his replies. There was, hesaid, Baldpate Inn.

  "Oh, yes, Baldpate Inn," repeated Billy Magee with interest.

  "Yes, that's a pretty swell place," said the ticket agent. "But it ain'topen now. It's a summer resort. There ain't no place open now but theCommercial House. And I wouldn't recommend no human beingthere--especially no lady who was sad before she ever saw it."

  Mr. Magee explained to the incongruous family pair waiting on the bench.

  "There's only one hotel," he said, "and I'm told it's not exactly theplace for any one whose outlook on life is not rosy at the moment. I'msorry."

  "It will do very well," answered the girl, "whatever it is." She smiledat Billy Magee. "My outlook on life in Upper Asquewan Falls," she said,"grows rosier every minute. We must find a cab."

  She began to gather up her traveling-bags, and Mr. Magee hastened toassist. The three went out on the station platform, upon which lay athin carpet of snowflakes. There the older woman, in a harsh raspingvoice, found fault with Upper Asquewan Falls,--its geography, its publicspirit, its brand of weather. A dejected cab at the end of the platformstood mourning its lonely lot. In it Mr. Magee placed the large lady andthe bags. Then, while the driver climbed to his seat, he spoke into theinvisible ear of the girl.

  "You haven't told me why you cried," he reminded her.

  She waved her hand toward the wayside village, the lamps of which shonesorrowfully through the snow.

  "Upper Asquewan Falls," she said, "isn't it reason enough?"

  Billy Magee looked; saw a row of gloomy buildings that seemed to list asthe wind blew, a blurred sign "Liquors and Cigars," a street thatstaggered away into the dark like a man who had lingered too long at theemporium back of the sign.

  "Are you doomed to stay here long?" he asked.

  "Come on, Mary," cried a deep voice from the cab. "Get in and shut thedoor. I'm freezing."

  "It all depends," said the girl. "Thank you for being so kind and--goodnight."

  The door closed with a muffled bang, the cab creaked wearily away, andMr. Magee turned back to the dim waiting-room.

  "Well, what was she crying for?" inquired the ticket agent, when Mr.Magee stood again at his cell window.

  "She didn't think much of your town," responded Magee; "she intimatedthat it made her heavy of heart."

  "H'm--it ain't much of a place," admitted the man, "though it ain't thegeneral rule with visitors to burst into tears at sight of it. Yes,Upper Asquewan is slow, and no mistake. It gets on my nerves sometimes.Nothing to do but work, work, work, and then lay down and wait forto-morrow. I used to think maybe some day they'd transfer me down toHooperstown--there's moving pictures and such goings-on down there. Butthe railroad never notices you--unless you go wrong. Yes, sir, sometimesI want to clear out of this town myself."

  "A natural wanderlust," sympathized Mr. Magee. "You said something justnow about Baldpate Inn--"

  "Yes, it's a little more lively in summer, when that's open," answeredthe agent; "we get a lot of complaints about trunks not coming, frompretty swell people, too. It sort of cheers things." His eye roamed withinterest over Mr. Magee's New York attire. "But Baldpate Inn is shut uptight now. This is nothing but an annex to a graveyard in winter. Youwasn't thinking of stopping off here, was you?"

  "Well--I want to see a man named Elijah Quimby," Mr. Magee replied. "Doyou know him?"

  "Of course," said the yearner for pastures new, "he's caretaker of theinn. His house is about a mile out, on the old Miller Road that leads upBaldpate. Come outside and I'll tell you how to get there."

  The two men went out into the whirling snow, and the agent waved a handindefinitely up at the night.

  "If it was clear," he said, "you could see Baldpate Mountain, overyonder, looking down on the Falls, sort of keeping an eye on us to makesure we don't get reckless. And half-way up you'd see Baldpate Inn,black and peaceful and winter-y. Just follow this street to the thirdcorner, and turn to your left. Elijah lives in a little house back amongthe trees a mile out--there's a gate you'll sure hear creaking on anight like this."

  Billy Magee thanked him, and gathering up his two bags, walked up "MainStreet." A dreary forbidding building at the first corner bore the sign"Commercial House". Under the white gaslight in the office window threeborn pessimists slouched low in hotel chairs, gazing sourly out at thestorm.

  "Weep no more, my lady, Oh! weep no more to-day,"

  hummed Mr. Magee cynically under his breath, and glanced up at thesolitary up-stairs window that gleamed yellow in the night.

  At a corner on which stood a little shop that advertised "Groceries andProvisions" he paused.

  "Let me see," he pondered. "The lights will be turned off, of course.Candles. And a little something for the inner man, in case it's theclosed season for cooks."

  He went inside, where a weary old woman served him.

  "What sort of candles?" she inquired, with the air of one who had aninfinite variety in stock. Mr. Magee remembered that Christmas was near.

  "For a Christmas tree," he explained. He asked for two hundred.

  "I've only got forty," the woman said. "What's this tree for--theOrphans' Home?"

  With the added burden of a package containing his purchases in the tinystore, Mr. Magee emerged and continued his journey through the stingingsnow. Upper Asquewan Falls on its way home for supper flitted past himin the silvery darkness. He saw in the lighted windows of many of thehouses the green wreath of Christmas cheer. Finally the houses becameinfrequent, and he struck out on an uneven road that wound upward. Oncehe heard a dog's faint bark. Then a carriage lurched by him, and astrong voice cursed the roughness of the road. Mr. Magee half smiled tohimself as he strode on.

  "Don Quixote, my boy," he muttered, "I know how you felt when you movedon the windmills."

  It was not the whir of windmills but the creak of a gate in the stormthat brought Mr. Magee at last to a stop. He walked gladly up the pathto Elijah Quimby's door.

  In answer to Billy Magee's gay knock, a man of about sixty yearsappeared. Evidently he had just finished supper; at the moment he wasengaged in lighting his pipe. He admitted Mr. Magee into the intimacy ofthe kitchen, and took a number of calm judicious puffs on the pipebefore speaking to his visitor. In that interval the visitor cheerilyseized his hand, oblivious of the warm burnt match that was in it. Thematch fell to the floor, whereupon the older man cast an anxious glanceat a gray-haired woman who stood beside the kitchen stove.

  "My name's Magee," blithely explained that gentleman, dragging in hisbags. "And you're Elijah Quimby, of course. How are you? Glad to seeyou." His air was that of one who had known this Quimby intimately, inmany odd corners of the world.

  The older man did not reply, but regarded Mr. Magee wonderingly throughwhite puffs of smoke. His face was kindly, gentle, ineffectual; heseemed to lack the final "punch" that send men over the line to success;this was evident in the way his necktie hung, the way his thin handsfluttered.

  "Yes," he admitted at last. "Yes, I'm Quimby."

  Mr. Magee threw back his coat, and sprayed with snow Mrs. Quimby'simmaculate floor.

  "I'm Magee," he elucidated again, "William Hallowell Magee, the man HalBentley wrote to you about. You got his letter, didn't you?"

  Mr. Quimby removed his pipe and forgot to close the aperture as hestared in amazement.

  "Good lord!" he cried, "you don't mean--you've really come."

  "What better proof could you ask," said Mr. Magee flippantly, "than mypresence here?"

  "Why," stammered Mr. Quimby, "we--we thought it was all a joke."

  "Hal Bentley has his humorous moments," agreed Mr. Magee, "but it isn'this habit to fling his jests into Upper Asquewan Falls."

  "And--and you're really going to--" Mr. Quimby could get no further.

  "Yes," said Mr. M
agee brightly, slipping into a rocking-chair. "Yes, I'mgoing to spend the next few months at Baldpate Inn."

  Mrs. Quimby, who seemed to have settled into a stout little mound of awoman through standing too long in the warm presence of her stove, cameforward and inspected Mr. Magee.

  "Of all things," she murmured.

  "It's closed," expostulated Mr. Quimby; "the inn is closed, youngfellow."

  "I know it's closed," smiled Magee. "That's the very reason I'm going tohonor it with my presence. I'm sorry to take you out on a night likethis, but I'll have to ask you to lead me up to Baldpate. I believethose were Hal Bentley's instructions--in the letter."

  Mr. Quimby towered above Mr. Magee, a shirt-sleeved statue of honestAmerican manhood. He scowled.

  "Excuse a plain question, young man," he said, "but what are you hidingfrom?"

  Mrs. Quimby, in the neighborhood of the stove, paused to hear the reply.Billy Magee laughed.

  "I'm not hiding," he said. "Didn't Bentley explain? Well, I'll try to,though I'm not sure you'll understand. Sit down, Mr. Quimby. You arenot, I take it, the sort of man to follow closely the light andfrivolous literature of the day."

  "What's that?" inquired Mr. Quimby.

  "You don't read," continued Mr. Magee, "the sort of novels that are soldby the pound in the department stores. Now, if you had a daughter--afluffy daughter inseparable from a hammock in the summer--she could helpme explain. You see--I write those novels. Wild thrilling tales for thetired business man's tired wife--shots in the night, chases afterfortunes, Cupid busy with his arrows all over the place! It's good fun,and I like to do it. There's money in it."

  "Is there?" asked Mr. Quimby with a show of interest.

  "Considerable," replied Mr. Magee. "But now and then I get a longing todo something that will make the critics sit up--the real thing, youknow. The other day I picked up a newspaper and found my latestbrain-child advertised as 'the best fall novel Magee ever wrote'. It goton my nerves--I felt like a literary dressmaker, and I could see mypublic laying down my fall novel and sighing for my early spring stylesin fiction. I remembered that once upon a time a critic advised me to goaway for ten years to some quiet spot, and think. I decided to do it.Baldpate Inn is the quiet spot."

  "You don't mean," gasped Mr. Quimby, "that you're going to stay thereten years?"

  "Bless you, no," said Mr. Magee. "Critics exaggerate. Two months willdo. They say I am a cheap melodramatic ranter. They say I don't go deep.They say my thinking process is a scream. I'm afraid they're right. Now,I'm going to go up to Baldpate Inn, and think. I'm going to get awayfrom melodrama. I'm going to do a novel so fine and literary that HenryCabot Lodge will come to me with tears in his eyes and ask me to joinhis bunch of self-made Immortals. I'm going to do all this up there atthe inn--sitting on the mountain and looking down on this little oldworld as Jove looked down from Olympus."

  "I don't know who you mean," objected Mr. Quimby.

  "He was a god--the god of the fruit-stand men," explained Magee."Picture me, if you can, depressed by the overwhelming success of mylatest brain-child. Picture me meeting Hal Bentley in a Forty-fourthStreet club and asking him for the location of the lonesomest spot onearth. Hal thought a minute. 'I've got it', he said, 'the lonesomestspot that's happened to date is a summer resort in mid-winter. It makesCrusoe's island look like Coney on a warm Sunday afternoon incomparison.' The talk flowed on, along with other things. Hal told mehis father owned Baldpate Inn, and that you were an old friend of hiswho would be happy for the entire winter over the chance to serve him.He happened to have a key to the place--the key to the big front door, Iguess, from the weight of it--and he gave it to me. He also wrote you tolook after me. So here I am."

  Mr. Quimby ran his fingers through his white hair.

  "Here I am," repeated Billy Magee, "fleeing from the great glitter knownas Broadway to do a little rational thinking in the solitudes. It'sgetting late, and I suggest that we start for Baldpate Inn at once."

  "This ain't exactly--regular," Mr. Quimby protested. "No, it ain't whatyou might call a frequent occurrence. I'm glad to do anything I can foryoung Mr. Bentley, but I can't help wondering what his father will say.And there's a lot of things you haven't took into consideration."

  "There certainly is, young man," remarked Mrs. Quimby, bustling forward."How are you going to keep warm in that big barn of a place?"

  "The suites on the second floor," said Mr. Magee, "are, I hear, equippedwith fireplaces. Mr. Quimby will keep me supplied with fuel from theforest primeval, for which service he will receive twenty dollars aweek."

  "And light?" asked Mrs. Quimby.

  "For the present, candles. I have forty in that package. Later, perhapsyou can find me an oil lamp. Oh, everything will be provided for."

  "Well," remarked Mr. Quimby, looking in a dazed fashion at his wife, "Ireckon I'll have to talk it over with ma."

  The two retired to the next room, and Mr. Magee fixed his eyes on a "GodBless Our Home" motto while he awaited their return. Presently theyreappeared.

  "Was you thinking of eating?" inquired Mrs. Quimby sarcastically, "whileyou stayed up there?"

  "I certainly was," smiled Mr. Magee. "For the most part I will preparemy own meals from cans and--er--jars--and such pagan sources. But nowand then you, Mrs. Quimby, are going to send me something cooked as noother woman in the county can cook it. I can see it in your eyes. In mypoor way I shall try to repay you."

  He continued to smile into Mrs. Quimby's broad cheerful face. Mr. Mageehad the type of smile that moves men to part with ten until Saturday,and women to close their eyes and dream of Sir Launcelot. Mrs. Quimbycould not long resist. She smiled back. Whereupon Billy Magee sprang tohis feet.

  "It's all fixed," he cried. "We'll get on splendidly. And now--forBaldpate Inn."

  "Not just yet," said Mrs. Quimby. "I ain't one to let anybody go up toBaldpate Inn unfed. I 'spose we're sort o' responsible for you, whileyou're up here. You just set right down and I'll have your supper hotand smoking on the table in no time."

  Mr. Magee entered into no dispute on this point, and for half an hour hewas the pleased recipient of advice, philosophy, and food. When he hadassured Mrs. Quimby that he had eaten enough to last him the entire twomonths he intended spending at the inn, Mr. Quimby came in, attired in ahuge "before the war" ulster, and carrying a lighted lantern.

  "So you're going to sit up there and write things," he commented. "Well,I reckon you'll be left to yourself, all right."

  "I hope so," responded Mr. Magee. "I want to be so lonesome I'll sobmyself to sleep every night. It's the only road to immortality. Good-by,Mrs. Quimby. In my fortress on the mountain I shall expect an occasionalculinary message from you." He took her plump hand; this motherly littlewoman seemed the last link binding him to the world of reality.

  "Good-by," smiled Mrs. Quimby. "Be careful of matches."

  Mr. Quimby led the way with the lantern, and presently they stepped outupon the road. The storm had ceased, but it was still very dark. Farbelow, in the valley, twinkled the lights of Upper Asquewan Falls.

  "By the way, Quimby," remarked Mr. Magee, "is there a girl in your townwho has blue eyes, light hair, and the general air of a queen outshopping?"

  "Light hair," repeated Quimby. "There's Sally Perry. She teaches in theMethodist Sunday-school."

  "No," said Mr. Magee. "My description was poor, I'm afraid. This one Irefer to, when she weeps, gives the general effect of mist on the sea atdawn. The Methodists do not monopolize her."

  "I read books, and I read newspapers," said Mr. Quimby, "but a lot ofyour talk I don't understand."

  "The critics," replied Billy Magee, "could explain. My stuff is only forlow-brows. Lead on, Mr. Quimby."

  Mr. Quimby stood for a moment in dazed silence. Then he turned, and theyellow of his lantern fell on the dazzling snow ahead. Together the twoclimbed Baldpate Mountain.