第19章

THE ROBE OF PEACE.

Mysteries follow one another so closely in a great city that the reading public and the friends of Johnny Bellchambers have ceased to marvel at his sudden and unexplained disappearance nearly a year ago.This particular mystery has now been cleared up, but the solution is so strange and incredible to the mind of the average man that only a select few who were in close touch with Bellchambers will give it full credence.

Johnny Bellchambers, as is well known, belonged to the intrinsically inner circle of the _'elite_.Without any of the ostentation of the fashionable ones who endeavor to attract notice by eccentric display of wealth and show he still was _au fait_ in everything that gave deserved lustre to his high position in the ranks of society.

Especially did he shine in the matter of dress.In this he was the despair of imitators.Always correct, exquisitely groomed, and possessed of an unlimited wardrobe, he was conceded to be the best-dressed man in New York, and, therefore, in America.There was not a tailor in Gotham who would not have deemed it a precious boon to have been granted the privilege of making Bellchambers' clothes without a cent of pay.As he wore them, they would have been a priceless advertisement.Trousers were his special passion.Here nothing but perfection would he notice.He would have worn a patch as quickly as he would have overlooked a wrinkle.He kept a man in his apartments always busy pressing his ample supply.His friends said that three hours was the limit of time that he would wear these garments without exchanging.

Bellchambers disappeared very suddenly.For three days his absence brought no alarm to his friends, and then they began to operate the usual methods of inquiry.All of them failed.He had left absolutely no trace behind.Then the search for a motive was instituted, but none was found.He had no enemies, he had no debts, there was no woman.There were several thousand dollars in his bank to his credit.He had never showed any tendency toward mental eccentricity; in fact, he was of a particularly calm and well-balanced temperament.Every means of tracing the vanished man was made use of, but without avail.It was one of those cases--more numerous in late years--where men seem to have gone out like the flame of a candle, leaving not even a trail of smoke as a witness.

In May, Tom Eyres and Lancelot Gilliam, two of Bellchambers'

old friends, went for a little run on the other side.While pottering around in Italy and Switzerland, they happened, one day, to hear of a monastery in the Swiss Alps that promised something outside of the ordinary tourist-beguiling attractions.The monastery was almost inaccessible to the average sightseer, being on an extremely rugged and precipitous spur of the mountains.The attractions it possessed but did not advertise were, first, an exclusive and divine cordial made by the monks that was said to far surpass benedictine and chartreuse.Next a huge brass bell so purely and accurately cast that it had not ceased sounding since it was first rung three hundred years ago.Finally, it was asserted that no Englishman had ever set foot within its walls.Eyres and Gilliam decided that these three reports called for investigation.

It took them two days with the aid of two guides to reach the monastery of St.Gondrau.It stood upon a frozen, wind-swept crag with the snow piled about it in treacherous, drifting masses.

They were hospitably received by the brothers whose duty it was to entertain the infrequent guest.They drank of the precious cordial, finding it rarely potent and reviving.They listened to the great, ever-echoing bell, and learned that they were pioneer travelers, in those gray stone walls, over the Englishman whose restless feet have trodden nearly every corner of the earth.

At three o'clock on the afternoon they arrived, the two young Gothamites stood with good Brother Cristofer in the great, cold hallway of the monastery to watch the monks march past on their way to the refectory.They came slowly, pacing by twos, with their heads bowed, treading noiselessly with sandaled feet upon the rough stone flags.As the procession slowly filed past, Eyres suddenly gripped Gilliam by the arm."Look," he whispered, eagerly, "at the one just opposite you now--the one on this side, with his hand at his waist--if that isn't Johnny Bellchambers then Inever saw him!"

Gilliam saw and recognized the lost glass of fashion.