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                      SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE

                       BY EARL DERR BIGGERS



Buccaneer Books
NEW 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 railway
station at Upper Asquewan Falls, New York.

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

No, Mr. Magee decided he would not. The train that had just roared away
into the dusk had not brought him from the region of skyscrapers and
derby hats for deeds of knight errantry up state. Anyhow, the girl's
tears were none of his business. A railway station was a natural place
for grief--a field of many partings, upon whose floor fell often in
torrents the tears of those left behind. A friend, mayhap a lover, had
been whisked off into the night by the relentless five thirty-four
local. Why not a lover? Surely about such a dainty trim figure as this
courtiers hovered as moths about a flame. Upon a tender intimate sorrow
it was not the place of an unknown Magee to intrude. He put his hand
gently upon the latch of the door.

And yet--dim and heartless and cold was the interior of that
waiting-room. No place, surely, for a gentleman to leave a lady
sorrowful, particularly when the lady was so alluring. Oh, beyond
question, she was most alluring. Mr. Magee stepped softly to the ticket
window 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-
hair lay listlessly, was pressed against the bars.

"Thanks," said the ticket agent. "I get asked the same old questions so
often, one like yours sort of breaks the monotony. Sorry I can't help
you. She's a woman, and the Lord only knows why women cry. And sometimes
I 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 'em
alone. 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 if
you want to, but keep away from crying women."

The heedless Billy Magee, however, was already moving across the
unscrubbed 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 the
great elms sighing overhead, and the fresh young voices of the glee club
ringing out from the steps of a century-old building. What were the
words 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 seemed
to him so sad and beautiful. But troubadours, he knew, went out of
fashion long before railway stations came in. So his remark to the young
woman was not at all melodious:

"Can I do anything?"

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

"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 the
year 1911.

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

The girl removed the entire handkerchief. The other eye proved to be the
same admirable blue--a blue half-way between the shade of her corduroy
suit and that of the jacky's costume in the "See the World--Join the
Navy" 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 true
one, he added to himself. For even in the faint flickering light of the
station he found ample reason for rejoicing that the bit of cambric was
no longer agonizingly pressed. As yet he had scarcely looked away from
her eyes, but he was dimly aware that up above wisps of golden hair
peeped impudently from beneath a saucy black hat. He would look at those
wisps shortly, he told himself. As soon as he could look away from the
eyes--which was not just yet.

"My grief," said the girl, "is utterly silly and--womanish. I think it
would 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 so
feverishly against the bars to kindly close his window?"

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

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

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

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

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

The gentleman referred to was not cheerful in his replies. There was, he
said, 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't
open now. It's a summer resort. There ain't no place open now but the
Commercial House. And I wouldn't recommend no human being
there--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 the
place for any one whose outlook on life is not rosy at the moment. I'm
sorry."

"It will do very well," answered the girl, "whatever it is." She smiled
at 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 to
assist. The three went out on the station platform, upon which lay a
thin carpet of snowflakes. There the older woman, in a harsh rasping
voice, found fault with Upper Asquewan Falls,--its geography, its public
spirit,