He still had use, however, for Winifred Child, Sadie Kirk, Earl Usher, and two or three other "live" workers in Toyland. They compared notes joyously; but despite her sense of relief, Win's heart was heavy for those left out in the cold. The girls who were disappointed hurried away in silence, but many of the men whom No. 2884 had not thought of as friends, scarcely as acquaintances, came up to say good-bye. They held out their hands and remarked that they were "glad to have known her."
Some of her ways and some of her sayings were pretty good, they guessed, and they wouldn't forget her, although they didn't suppose that they'd ever meet again. Suddenly Win realized that they had been kind and pleasant, so far as it had lain in their power, and she, staying on, would miss the faces that were gone. She choked a little over these men's appreciation of the difference between her "ways" and those of some other girls, and was half ashamed that it should surprise her.
"I expect I'll have to take to the sea again," sighed the ex-steward. "I wanted a little more time on land, but it ain't to be. Don't forget, you and your friend Sadie, that I can get you jobs on one of the big greyhounds."
"What a Christmas Eve!" Win said to herself aloud, as she almost fell into her room at eleven-thirty. "In half an hour more it will be Christmas, and I don't suppose there's one soul with a thought for me in all Europe or America!"
But on the ugly red cover (warranted not to betray dirt) of the rickety bed were two parcels—a big box and a little one. Somebody must have been thinking of her, after all!
Revived, she cut the strings on both boxes and opened the little one first, on the childlike principle of "saving the best thing for the last."
"Lilies of the valley! Why, how lovely! Who could have sent them?" There was no name, and a question asked itself in Win's mind that spoiled all her pleasure—but only for a moment. She unwrapped the big box, and on the cover (which looked curiously familiar) she read, evidently scrawled in furious haste, with pencil: "From Ursus to Lygia, with respectful regards and wishes for a merry Christmas. Also please accept lilies."
(Miss Leavitt had testified her admiration for the blond giant by sending him a box of her name flowers, bought with some of the "change" Mr. Logan had told her to keep. The admired one had promptly "passed them on." But Win did not know this, and he didn't see why she ever should. Anyhow, flowers were flowers!)
The girl was so pleased to know that the lilies came from Ursus, not another, that she could almost have kissed them—but not quite. Then, in her relief, she lifted the cover of the large box and gave a cry which was not unlike a sob. There, in silk and lace, with eyes closed and smiling lips, lay Little Sister.
"Oh, his watch—his presentation watch!" she gurgled. And sitting on the bed, with the great doll in her arms, she let fall on the unresponsive head a few tears of grief and gratitude. She understood everything now, even the "big bluff."
What had been or had not been in Miss Leavitt's pay envelope Win did not know until the morning after Christmas, that strangest Christmas of her life, which she spent resting quietly in bed. Returning next day to Toyland, where everything looked half asleep in the early gloom, she saw the glitter of red hair.
"Hello!" said Miss Leavitt. "Here we are again! Did you have a merry––"
She stopped short, her eyes fastened on a tiny spray of pearly bells half hidden in the folds of the other's black silk blouse. For an instant she forgot what she had meant to say, gasped slightly, closed her lips, opened them as if to speak, shut her teeth together with a snap, swallowed heavily, and went on where she had broken off—"Christmas?"
Win thanked her, said "Yes," and asked politely how Miss Leavitt had spent her holiday. This gave the girl with red hair time to control the temper which accompanied it. But if, in that brief interval of uncertainty, she had burst out with the fierce insult which burned her tongue, never again could she have ventured to claim friendship with Winifred Child. And if she had lost her right to claim it, all the future might have been different for one of them.
"YES" TO ANYTHING
At last it was July, and New York felt like a vast hermetically sealed Turkish bath into which all were free to enter, but once in, must remain, as there were no exits and no closing hours. Most of the people you read about in the Sunday supplements (except those who commit murders and such things) had escaped to the sea or mountains before the Turkish bath opened for the summer. But there is never anything in Sunday supplements about the assistants in department stores, for they are fashionable only in restricted districts, and they do not commit murders and such things, though they might occasionally enjoy doing so.
It had been, said the newspapers, an exceptionally gay winter and spring. Seldom had there been so many beautiful and important débutantes. Lovely girls and admiring men had decorated each page of the calendar, like rose petals. There had been cup races for automobiles, and football and baseball matches for men and girls, and other matches less noisy but almost as emotional. There had been dinners and balls, first nights at the opera, Washington's Birthday week-end house parties in the Adirondacks, and Easter church parades for those who had not gone abroad or to Florida. Among those who chose Florida (there had been a great deal about this in the Sunday supplements) were Miss Rolls and her brother. Ena had collapsed under an alleged attack of grippe after Lord Raygan went away and his engagement with Portia (alias "Pobbles") Gregory—the rich Miss Gregory—was announced. Some people were mean enough to say that it was not grippe but grief which laid Ena low in the height of the season; and if there was anything in this gossip, the grief would have been greater had Miss Rolls known that she herself was (indirectly) responsible for the happy ending of Raygan's romance.
A letter written by Lady Eileen while at Sea Gull Manor to her cousin Pobbles had (so Pobbles confessed later) suddenly opened the lady's eyes to her own true feelings. She began to wonder if Rags had loved her "for herself," after all. And, anyhow, she didn't want a girl like Ena Rolls to get him. So she met the ship on which Lady Raygan, Rags, and Eileen returned to Ireland, in order to "make a dead set" at the man she had once discarded. An engagement was the consequence, and in the first letter Rags wrote to thank his kind host and hostess on Long Island, he asked for congratulations.
It was the same day that Ena began to sneeze so dismally that the only place for her was bed. And when she could leave its seclusion the next only place was Palm Beach. She said she would die unless she could go to Palm Beach, so mother took her, and Peter took them both, not to speak of Ena's maid.
He did not wish to play courier. To turn his back on New York interfered seriously with his plans and half plans and hopes and half hopes. But father would not go, and mother and Ena could not without a man. Peter was the only one available at the moment, and it was April when Ena felt well enough to face the North again. By this time the news of her engagement to the Marchese di Rivoli had been copied from all the principal papers into the little papers, and even the most confirmed cats must be acknowledging far and near that to lose an earl and gain a marquis is a step up in life.
It was, of course, not ideal that the Marchese di Rivoli had no remaining family estates of which his fiancée could talk, and there were creatures ready to swear not only that he had come to Palm Beach to pick up an heiress, but that the penniless princess who introduced him to Miss Rolls had received a commission. Still there are always family estates in the market, and where a coronet is there is gossip also. Only the cat tribe start or believe it, and even cats purr to a marchesa, lest they may want to visit Italy next year.
In the Turkish bath which was New York that July, Peter Rolls's department store was one of the hot rooms. Miss Rolls did not come over from Long Island to choose her trousseau there, as a badly informed newspaper announced that she would do. She went to London and Paris instead, because it was cooler as well as smarter to put the Atlantic between her and "New York with the lid off." She ran over with the divorced Italian princess who had made her acquainted with the Marchese di Rivoli, and mother and Peter were released.
No doubt other big stores were as hot or hotter than Peter Rolls's that July; but it seemed to Winifred Child that the Tropic of Cancer might have breezes which the Hands missed. Those of the salespeople who did not look as if at any moment their eyes might come out and all their veins burst, were living advertisements for Somebody's Anti-Anemia Mixture before the mixture was taken. Win was of the latter type. She had become so pale and thin that Sadie Kirk compared her to a celery stalk. Sadie herself had, according to her own criticism, "shrunk and faded in the wash," but the two girls had now few chances of "passing remarks" on each other's appearance, for, though Sadie was still in Toys, Win had been put into Mantles.
This in itself was a solution of the Meggison mystery. The girl's "cheek" had frightened the would-be "dog" and reminded him that a model superintendent must never lose a born saleswoman. But he had not sent for Win again, and Gloves were not for such as she.
Sadie, having "sauced" her landlady, found it wise to change her quarters. She had taken a room in an apartment house two blocks removed from her former home, and Win, not being able to afford a "flit," remained at the old address. At first, when her pay was increased by two dollars a week, she had intended to save and follow Sadie. One had, however, to live mostly on ice-cream soda in the hot weather, which cost money. Besides, even had she possessed the dollars, she lacked energy of late. It was easier to keep on doing what one had done than do anything new. And, in any case, nothing that one did seemed to matter.
As for the lion tamer, Peter Rolls's shop saw him no more. He had "got his nerve back" and had returned to lion taming, not because the old life drew him irresistibly, but because there was far more money in dominating real lions than in selling Teddy ones.
In the birth of Earl Usher's adoring love for Win the demise of the animal who had "died on him" was forgotten. "Nerve" and courage and love and the desire to conquer were one in his heart. When a "good summer job at Coney" came his way, through an old friend in the "show business," he took it.
Reluctant as he was to leave Peter Rolls, which meant leaving "his girl," a change of position offered the only hope of obtaining her in the end. And despite every discouragement from his Lygia, Ursus did secretly cherish this hope. As she no longer lived in Toyland when he went, the wrench of parting was not what it would have been to leave her at the mercy of any man who could afford to buy a doll. There was no excuse for men to "butt into" Mantles, unless accompanied by female belongings, and thus accompanied, their sting was gone.
At Coney Island Ursus was earning thirty dollars a week instead of ten, and was encouraged by crowds of admiring girls (who watched his performance and bought his photographs) to consider himself exceedingly eligible on that income. Many indeed made it plain to him that he would have been worth taking for his face, his muscles, and his spangled tights alone.
Sometimes on Sundays Sadie Kirk persuaded Win to "go to Coney for a blow." The crowd on the boats was alarming and on the beach when you got there, but the air was splendid, and poor Ursus beamed over his lions' heads with pride and pleasure. These few excursions, however, had been Winifred's only outings, except a play or two seen from a gallery, since she came to make her fortune in America; and as each day the heat pressed more heavily upon her with its leaden weight, she felt that she would collapse and "do something stupid" if she could not have a change. Anything—anything at all that was different and would break the monotony!
Lily Leavitt, who was in the Mantles, too, had never ceased to be friendly, and had often invited Win to go out with her in the long summer evenings, but always in vain, month after month, until one day in mid-July, when the heat wave had surged to its record height. It just chanced—if there be such a thing as chance—to happen on the day when the girl's craving for a change had become an obsession, almost an illness.
It was a little past noon, and the seniors in Mantles had gone out to lunch. They were rather by way of being aristocrats, these seniors, for the mantle department, Jewellery, and some others worked "on commission." Salaries were no larger than elsewhere, but a handsome percentage was paid on sales; and those tigers and tigresses who were strong and ferocious enough to grab meat from under their weaker comrades' noses did extremely well. The Mantles girls who had gone out were champion tigresses. They could afford to eat at something like real restaurants, and as there was nothing worth rushing back for, they would not return until the last moment.
Lily Leavitt, who was qualifying as a tigress, had just snatched a sale which ought to have been Win's, but that did not count in their private relations. It was business, and Win was "welcome to play the same game"—if she could. Only, there was no danger that she would. Win was not of the stuff from which tigresses are made, and was incapable of seizing for herself anything—be it a seat in the subway or the chance to sell a mantle—which some other human creature was striving to get.
Win bore Lily no grudge for having "bagged" her customer and gained in three minutes three dollars which should rightfully have found their way to her purse. She listened without resentment to the description of a hat which Lily intended to buy with the money—a "sticker" it had proved in Hats, and was now marked down to half price. Lily had had an eye on it for some time, and would, of course, get it "ten per." off.
"I bought me a sweet party dress last week—a bargain," Miss Leavitt went on, seeing that Win had no intention of "slanging" her for what she had just done. "It came outta commission on that green chiffon evening cloak and that white yachtin' I snapped off Kit Vance when she was daydreamin' and let me catch onto her customer like you done just now. Things is down to no price this hot weather. It's an ill wind blows no one good, and now is us guyls' time to get a bit of our own. P.R. always manages to make his hay, rain or shine. And even with our ten per. off, it's forty per. profit for him. When you think there's two thousand folks forced to buy on the premises, you savvy what he squeezes outta us! If we do pick up a bargain, it's a rare chance. I wonder you don't hustle more'n you do and make enough com to buy yourself sumpin' nice. Your sheryt waists are the wuyst in the dep, if you don't mind my sayin' so, and the guyls speak of it. Now if you had a party dress to doll up in, I could give you the time of your life to-night."
"Could you?" echoed Win, more in the desire to turn Miss Leavitt's attention from her "shirt waist" to something else than because she wished to hear about the great opportunity.
Miss Leavitt had offered her numerous opportunities of alleged entertainment, none of which, though glowingly described, had ever tempted her to acceptance. At first she had been afraid of Lily's fruit and chocolates and theatre tickets, which, like the marshmallows, might have come from Mr. Logan. But for the last three or four months, since the two girls migrated together into Mantles, Logan had been conspicuously absent. Apparently he had not invented a cloak as well as a toy! Win no longer connected Lily Leavitt's occasional invitations with him. Her refusals were prompted merely by a disinclination for Lily's society out of business hours and the conviction that her friends would be no more congenial than herself. Winifred now, however, particularly wished to show her companion that she bore no animosity for the filched commission, therefore she became loquacious.
"I don't need to spend my hard-earned dollars on a party dress, as it happens," she said. "I can save all my pennies for the hire of my typewriter, which is going to lead me from the Hands some day along the road to fortune. I've got the most gorgeous gown you can possibly imagine. I don't believe Cinderella's godmother could give her anything better. There's only one trouble. I shall never be invited to a party good enough for it."
"I've invited you to as swell a party as there could be in little old New York," boasted Miss Leavitt. "I ain't foolin'. That's straight. Honour bright, cross my heart."
"Oh, but you didn't invite me. You said you would if I had a dress. You've got only my word for that," Win reminded her.
"I meant to invite you all the same, dress or no dress," Lily confessed, "I'd o' lent you one. Have you really got something swell? If you have, now's your chance to show it off. It's an artist gives this party. I sit to artists sometimes, Sundays, for my hair. I guess you offen seen it on covers o' magazines. This artist friend o' mine's the best o' the whole bunch."
"Man or woman?" Win wanted to know.
She expected the answer to be "man," but Lily did not seem to hear. Her face looked dreamy.
"It's the loveliest house where the party'll be," she said. "'Tain't the artist's own. It's some relation's that's lent it for the summer while they're away at the seashore. I bin there. It's in the Fifties, just off Fift' Av'noo. Tonight it'll be cool as snow, and everything'll be iced for supper. Iced consummay, chicken salad cold as the refrigerator, iced champagne cup flowin' like water; ice-cream and strawb'ries, the big, sweet, red ones from up north, where they keep on growin' all summer, and lilies and roses from the country to give away to us when we go home."
Win forgot the question that had not been answered. She seemed to see those strawberries and to smell the sweetness of roses and lilies in a house "as cool as snow."
"Heavenly!" she sighed. "I didn't remember there were such things in the world!"
"Well, come with me to-night and remind yourself," coaxed Miss Leavitt. "You needn't be afraid, because I said it was artists, to butt into some rowdy crowd. They'll be as quiet and refined as mice. They're more your kind than mine, I guess."
"But who invites me?" Win made another bid for information.
"My artist friend said I could bring any one I wanted to bring, and I want to bring you. I don't just know who all'll be there, but I guess not many, and it's a real swell house to see. You always refuse everything I ask you to, but I do think you might say yes this one time and show you're not proud and stuck up. It'd do you good!"
"I believe it would, and I'll go!" cried Win. She was in the mood to say "yes" to anything.
"Hully gee! That's the best thing's happened to me since the measles!" exclaimed Miss Leavitt jovially. "I'll call for you at your place half-past nine this evening, so you can have a good rest before you begin fixin' yourself up."
"It's an engagement," said Win, with a kind of self-defiance.
She had wished for a change, "anything for a change," and presto! her wish had been suddenly granted by fate. Rather spitefully granted, it would seem, because to go to a "party" with Lily Leavitt was the very last thing she would have chosen. And spitefully, also, as if to punish her own foolishness in wishing, she accepted such goods as the gods had mischievously provided.
"You've said yes, and now you must stick to it," she told herself in preparation for a wave of regret, but to her surprise the day wore on and the expected tide of repentance did not set in.
The girl realized that she was looking forward, actually looking forward to the evening. It would be like walking wide awake into the Hall of Dreams to put on a dress beautiful enough for a princess, and eat ice-cream and big red strawberries in a house "cool as snow" instead of sitting in her hot bedroom practising on the hired typewriter or panting on her bed, dead to everything in the world except a palm-leaf fan.
When she had been a little girl, invited to children's parties, it had not been of the slightest importance whether she liked the child or not. The party was the thing. Now history was repeating itself in her nature. The blank monotony of life and work had given back that childish eagerness for fun, no matter whence it came. She did not care whose ice-cream and strawberries she was going to eat, provided she got them and they were good. Besides, it would be like finding an old lost friend to look into her mirror (it was cracked and turned one's complexion pale green, with iridescent spots; but that was a detail) and see a bare-necked, white-armed girl in evening dress.
There was a new way of doing the hair which Win had noticed on a smiling wax beauty in Peter Rolls's Window-World and had dimly wished to try for herself. Only dimly, because if her hair were glossy and trim it suited those plain, ninety-eight-cent shirt waists better than the elaborate fashions affected by Lily Leavitt and one or two of the more successful tigresses who cheaply copied expensive customers. Now there was an incentive for the experiment and Win laughed at the eagerness with which she looked forward to the moment of making it, laughed patronizingly, as she might have laughed at a child's longing for Christmas.
"Anyhow, it's something that I can laugh," she thought, recalling, as she often did, her boast to Peter Rolls, Jr. "And I haven't cried yet!"
She had not guessed how vividly the sight of the Moon dress and putting it on would bring Mr. Balm of Gilead to her mind. But as she stood gazing into the greenish glass, with her hair very successfully done in the new way and the Moon gown shimmering night-blue and silver, it was as if Peter Rolls came and looked over her shoulder, their eyes meeting in the mirror.
Yes, she saw him for an instant as clearly as that. He was there. He was her friend, the nicest, most altogether delightful man she had ever seen; the one she knew best and needed most, though their actual acquaintanceship was but a few days old. The kind blue eyes were true and brave, and said: "I dare you not to believe in me, as I believe in you!"
Then the vision (it had almost amounted to that) was gone like a broken bubble. Win felt physically sick, as if the one thing worth having in the world had been shown her for a second, then suddenly snatched away forever.
The silvery sheen and the faint, lingering perfume of that Nadine model gown had woven a magic carpet of moonbeams and transported her back to the mirrored room on the Monarchic for an instant. But it was only for an instant. Then the Columbus Avenue bedroom, with its window open to the roar and rush of the "L," had her again, and made the Moon dress and the Moon-dress dreams seem ridiculously unsuited to life.
Win touched a switch which shut off light from the one unshaded electric bulb hanging like a lambent pear over her head. Then, palm-leaf fan in hand, she sat down in the blue summer darkness to await the coming of Miss Leavitt.
For the first time she repented her promise to go out. Monotony was preferable to the party as she pictured it—a silly, giggling crowd of crude young people among whom she, the stranger, would be like a muted note on a cheap piano. Should she stay at home, after all, and tell Lily that the heat had made her too limp to stir? It would be quite true. But no. If she stayed she would not have the courage to undress for a long, long time. She would just sit there in the dark by the window in the Moon gown, its perfume surrounding her with the past, shutting her up, as it were, in the mirror room with Mr. Balm of Gilead who had never really existed.
Yet, had he not? What had the eyes in the cracked glass said just now? Why shouldn't she believe them instead of Ena Rolls's dreadful hints? Why might not a sister, even with the best intentions, be mistaken about a brother?
These were exactly the sort of questions that were upsetting and altogether useless to ask one's self, and Win jumped up to turn on the electric light again. She would go with Lily Leavitt!
Five minutes later a taxicab—a real, live, magnificent, unthinkably expensive taxicab—stopped and chortled in front of the apartment house in which Mrs. McFarrell's flat was one of many. Heads flew out of windows, for the thing was unbelievable, and among other heads was Win's.
Instinct cried that the chortling was for her. The balcony where the rubber plants had died and mummied themselves, being scarcely more than a foot wide, she was able to see a face, crowned with red hair and white as a Pierrette's in the lights of the street, looking anxiously up from the cab window. Its expression implored the guest to hurry down, because each heart-throb meant not a drop of red blood, but several red cents. Win caught the message, and seizing the ancient though still respectable evening cloak which had spent months in a trunk with the "New Moon," she flew downstairs.
"What an extravagant creature!" she gasped, breathless when after a wasted sixty seconds at most the taxi was en route.
"I had a present from a gentleman friend," said Lily in a self-satisfied voice, adding hastily, in deference to Miss Child's "stuck-up primness," "a filopena present, to choose myself anything I liked with. I thought us bein' in party dress, and you sort o' tired out, a taxi'd be just about the best thing goin'."
This reduced Win to the necessity for gratitude, and after months of the "L," the subway, and the crosstown car, the girl could not help revelling in a taxi. She refused to be depressed by the gloomy spectacle of lower-class New York in the throes of a heat wave—pallid people hanging out of windows or standing at corners to be eased of their torture by the merciful spray from fire hydrants; barefooted half-naked children staring thirstily at soda fountains in bright, hot drug stores they could never hope to enter—every one limp, lethargic, glistening unhealthily with horrid moisture, all loathing themselves and indifferent to each other. Sometimes Win felt that these were her true brothers and sisters, the only ones who could understand, because they were the only ones who really suffered; but to-night she dared not think of them. If she did, because of what they endured she could not enjoy the ice-cream and strawberries in the snow coolness of the artist's borrowed house.
New York not being her own city, its different divisions lacked for her the meaning and importance they had for those at home; therefore she was disappointingly calm when Lily made the taxi stop in front of a house only three or four doors off Fifth Avenue. Miss Leavitt had the fare ready, with a small tip for the driver, and the two were out of the cab, standing in the street, before Win noticed a thing that struck her sharply and quickly as being very strange.
"Why!" she exclaimed, "we must have come to the wrong place. All these houses are shut. Their doors and windows are boarded up!"
THE CLOSED HOUSE
"It's all right," said Lily. "Don't you remember I told you the house was lent to my artist friend by the folks who own it and who've gone away for the summer to the seashore? The front door and windows were boarded up, I guess, like they always are, before the house was lent. My friend lives in the back part, and the caretaker looks after everything, but it's awful nice. You needn't be afraid you're goin' to waste your grand dress. Say, it's some swell street, ain't it?"
Lily talked fast and slid an arm through Win's in the thin silk kimono cloak, encouraging her to mount the steps. But Win objected to being hustled. She paused to look up at the house front which—like all its neighbours except a big, lighted building at the corner, that had the air of being a club—had apparently been put to sleep for the summer months.
The dark-brown façades were expressionless as the faces of mummies. Smooth boards had been neatly fitted into the window frames and made to cover front doors. There seemed at first glance to be no way in, but as Winifred slowly ascended the steps of the fourth house from the corner, she made out the lines of a little door cut in the boards which protected the big one. There was no handle to break the smooth, unpainted surface of wood—old, well-seasoned wood which had evidently served the same purpose year after year—but there was a small, inconspicuous keyhole, and into this Miss Leavitt deftly fixed a key which she took from her hand bag.
"My friend sent me this," she explained, "to save us waiting, 'cause there's only one servant, and he might be busy. Say, this is real fun, ain't it?"
"It's—it's quite like a sort of adventure," Win answered "I had no idea the house would be shut up, or––"
"It'll make it all the cooler," said Lily. She had got the little door open, and the space between it and the house door it protected could be seen in the street lights, like a miniature vestibule. "Squeeze in and feel around till you find the electric bell," she went on. "Some one'll open the real door, and I can lock up behind us."
"Why lock up?" argued Win, hesitating. "Aren't there others coming?"
"My, yes, unless they're all here. But it wouldn't do to leave a cover-up door like this standing open. If the police happened along and saw, they'd think there was something wrong and make my friend a whole lot of bother."
Win saw the force of this explanation, and stooping to pass through the low aperture, found herself close to a pretentiously carved portal. The electric bell revealed itself to groping fingers, and to her surprise a few seconds after she had touched it, without hearing a sound, the door opened.
In the dimness of a hall or large vestibule the figure of a man loomed black against dark gray. Win could see of him only that he was tall and straight and prim, like a well-trained servant, and his voice was a servant's voice as he said: "Please be a little careful, miss, not to trip. We have to keep it rather dark here, but there's plenty of light inside Let me show you through the hall."
Win thanked him, but turned inside the door to ask: "Aren't you coming, Miss Leavitt?" (They had never been upon Christian name terms.)
"Yes, I'm just turning the key," replied Lily. "Go along. I'll follow."
Win went on through the dusk, dimly seeing panelled walls. She heard the door shut sharply behind her and supposed that Lily had come in, but at the same instant another door opened ahead and a soft wave of rosy light flowed out.
"Walk in, if you please, miss," requested the tall servant standing attentive, and mechanically Win obeyed.
Lily Leavitt had not exaggerated—this was a "swell house," and "cool as snow." The room into which she had been ushered was a dining-room, and at first glance was all one rosy glow—walls, drawn curtains, thick, mossy carpet, brocade-upholstered furniture, lamps and candle shades. The table was a shining bunch of lilies in a garden of deep-red roses seen at sunset, and the glitter of silver and gleam of glass was a bright sprinkle of dewdrops catching the red western light.
It was so long since Win had been in a pretty room or had seen a charmingly decorated table that for a few seconds she lost herself in the sheer joy of beauty. The sunset-garden simile flashed into her mind and pleased her. She was glad that she had come. The guests might be uninteresting, of the Lily Leavitt sort, and the artists might be so called only by themselves. The room might be over-gorgeous by daylight, but it was beautiful thus lighted, with a rosy radiance from above, bringing out the whiteness of damask, the snow purity of camellias crowding a crystal bowl, and the ruby splendour of strawberries piled on their own leaves.
What a wonderful sight after months of the Hands restaurant and free lunches with five-cent chocolate in busy drug stores! Oh, yes, she was glad she had come, and she must look, look, look at this beautiful picture, so that she might remember its details and hold it before her eyes, like a delicately painted transparency, in front of future realities.
But it was in carrying out this intention, in taking in the details, that Win's heart suddenly bounded and then missed a beat. The table had two chairs drawn up to it. It was small and round, and on it only two places were laid.
Win turned her head and looked for Lily Leavitt. Lily was not there, neither was the tall, respectable servant. But a smiling man in evening dress was just coming into the room with the ingratiating air of one who is a little late for an appointment.
"How do you do, Miss Child?" Jim Logan cordially inquired, holding out his hand. "This is mighty good of you!"
A thousand thoughts whirled after each other through the girl's head, like the mechanical horses on a circular toy race course, such as she had often sold at Peter Rolls's. Round and round they wildly turned for an instant, then began to slow down.
This house was closed for the summer. The front was boarded up, and perhaps the back windows also. No lights could be seen, and probably no sounds heard. Two places only were laid for supper. Lily, then, had gone—had always meant to go and leave her here, had been bribed to bring her and go. Oh, but it must have been a big bribe this time, for surely Lily Leavitt would never dare look her in the face again! One of them would have to disappear from the mantle department of the Hands. Was Logan giving Lily enough money to make up for a sacrifice of all those commissions, or did Lily think that after to-night she—Winifred Child—would never come back to Peter Rolls's?
As that question asked itself loud bells jangled in Win's head. She felt as if she were losing her senses. But no, she must not—must not do that. Never in her life had she so much need to keep them all as now, in this locked house, where she had no help to hope for save what her own wits might give, and no one could hear or see what happened to her except this smiling man and his well-trained servant. For all outside this was an empty house.
She steadied herself, the more readily because something in the narrow eyes twinkling into hers said that Jim Logan had expected her to scream and make a scene. Never until now had she imagined it possible to be afraid of him. In the park, when he had stopped his car to follow and speak to her, she had been a little startled, a good deal annoyed. Then, when Ursus had opportunely arrived to frighten him away as easily as the Spider frightened Miss Muffet, she had been impishly amused.
In Toys at Peter Rolls's she had been vexed, irritated, but never hotly angry. The young man's persistence had not seemed serious enough to call "persecution." She had rather enjoyed "shunting" him off upon Lily Leavitt, and thwarting him through Cupid and Earl Usher. It had never occurred to her that behind the unfailing smile and the twinkling gray eyes the brutal ferocity of the animal might lurk.
She had thought that he had forgotten her long ago and turned his attentions elsewhere. What girl, unless silly and Victorian, would be afraid of a dude who lived for the sleekness of his hair and the spick-and-spanness of his clothes? Yet now Win was afraid, and she did not think it was because she had suddenly become silly or Victorian. This aquiline-faced young man with the prominent jaw was looking at her as the primitive brute looks at the prey under his paws, and if he smiled and twinkled, it was but as the primitive brute might purr.
Winifred thought of this, and she thought, too, that when the prey had presence of mind to feign sleep or death the brute was said not to kill, after all.
She did not put her hand into the hand that Logan held out, but neither did she turn to run from him. "This is quite a surprise," she remarked quietly.
"A pleasant surprise, I hope," he suggested.
"A sort of practical joke, I suppose," the girl said.
"Well, yes, that's just what it is," Logan smiled, evidently wondering at her calmness and not sure whether to take it as a good or bad omen. "It seemed to be the only way I could get you to accept any invitation of mine."
"Rather a high-handed way!" said Win, shrugging her shoulders. "Still—here I am. This seems to be a nice house. Is it yours?"
"It's my father's. We're all supposed to be somewhere else for the summer. But I run in sometimes. My servant looks after me. He's as devoted as the servants in books. I pay him to be. There's nothing I want done that he wouldn't do."
"He appears to have made you a very nice supper." Win's eyes rested on the table.
"Nothing could be too good for you. If I've got you here—well, sort of under false pretences—there'll be no false pretences about anything else now I have got you. There's a little surprise in those flowers by your plate. I hope you'll like it."
"A peace offering?" suggested Win lightly.
"Yes. And a love token. You know I've been in love with you, you bewitching thing, just madly in love, since that night in the park. I never rested till I saw you again at Peter Rolls's. And then I knew I couldn't rest until––"
"Wait!" exclaimed Win, putting out both hands to hold him off as he came close. "Wait—please!" She still spoke lightly. "I'm your guest. I quite understand that 'might makes right!' But there's another law—the law of hospitality, isn't there? This is—a great adventure. Let me get into the spirit of it before you say or do any more. Give me time—to breathe. Where may I put my cloak? Perhaps you've a long mirror somewhere? I want to see if I'm beautiful enough for my background."
Logan yielded to the hands which pushed him away. It charmed him that this tall, spirited creature was taking things in a debonair way. He thought it splendid that she should talk of an adventure and of entering into the spirit of it. If she had made a fuss and tried to escape and refused to eat supper with him, there would have been some pleasure in conquering, but not the same pleasure there would be in a jolly little supper with a pretty girl who gayly acknowledged that the "joke was on her," and then making love to her afterward.
Not that he quite trusted the strange creature yet. She might be like a kitten that submits to be petted while lying in wait for its chance to spring. But this kitten might lie in wait as long as it liked. The chance to spring wouldn't come. By and by the kitten would discover that fact if the hope were in its mind, for he meant business this time.
"There's a room next door my mother and sister use for their boudoir," he said graciously. "It's full of long mirrors, and you can have all the electric light you want, but the furniture's covered up. The dining-room and my den are the only places that are shipshape, I'm afraid."
Logan walked out into the hall and threw open one of the doors that opened into it. "Here you are!" he announced, switching on a blaze of electric light that showed a small room shrouded in white covers. "The first thing you see is a life-size picture of yourself. I guess that's what you want."
"You have guessed right. You deserve a prize," Win answered.
In the lighted boudoir a mirror faced the door.
"Will you give me a few minutes to myself?" she asked. "I may just as well confess that this surprise of yours has—gone to my head a little, as your champagne probably will—when I drink it. The hot weather has been taking it out of me horribly, and I'm not very strong. If I may sit still for five minutes and shut my eyes and think, why—I'm sure I shall be a more amusing guest at supper."
Logan, who had touched the electric-light switch inside the door, stood on the threshold, barring the way. Win did not try to push past him, nor did she show any impatience, nor even eagerness. He stared her in the eyes as if to ask: "What trick do you hope to play, I wonder? Do you think I'm such a blamed idiot as to leave a way out open after all the trouble and expense I've put myself to on your account?"
But being perfectly sure that there was no way out, no trick in her power seemed worth worrying about—unless she had some melodramatic little bottle of poison concealed about her which she would drain and die, like the heroine of an old-fashioned play. He was certain that the brave, vital young creature who had seized his fancy would do nothing of the kind, however, and he felt that it was safe to humour her.
"You can even go to sleep on the sofa, if you like, provided you'll promise to dream of me," he said, "and if you'll let me come and wake you up. Oh, I've caught you looking at the keyhole! There's no key in it, you see, for me to lock you in—or for you to lock me out."
"Neither of us would be so medieval, would we?" she laughed. "That would be a silly way to begin the evening. Now that I am here I am going to make the very, very best of it, I promise you!"
"That's right! You're the girl of my heart!" said Logan, and, stepping away from the door, let her walk into the lighted boudoir.
Gently and slowly, almost coquettishly, she shut him out, smiling into his face until the oak panels had closed between him and her.
THE TELEPHONE
The boudoir was stuffy and smelled of moth powder With its ivory-white walls and masses of sheeting it looked crudely bright in the glare of electricity switched on by Logan. A glance at the closed bay window showed that outside the glass was a screen of unpainted wood. There was no door save that through which Win had just entered.
All the furniture was pushed against the walls, except a writing-desk with gilded legs, which stood in the embrasure of the big window, and to this the girl ran softly, on tiptoe, across the bare parquet floor. It was covered with sheeting, which she turned carefully back that nothing might be disturbed and, in falling, make a noise. Almost she had reached the limit of her strength and had no breath even to whisper the "Thank heaven!" she felt, seeing what she had prayed to find—a telephone and directory.
It was the hope of this that had upheld her through the scene which already seemed dreamlike. But though telephone and book were here, she was far enough yet from being out of danger. She had not seen the house number, as the boards which covered the front door covered it also. Knowing the street and the name of the man who owned the house (if Logan had told the truth), she could find the telephone number in the book, but it meant a waste of time.
And then, Logan might have lied. This might not be his father's house. Or, if it were, the telephone might have been cut off for the summer in the family's absence. She could not be sure of that till the last moment, for the instant Logan heard her talk he would try to tear her away from the telephone. If only there were a key or a bolt—the frailest, slightest bolt, just strong enough to keep the man out for five minutes! But it was useless to wish for what could not be. She must do her best with the ammunition at hand, and be quick about it, for here was her fort of refuge, and she must hold it while she fired her one shot.
On the desk lay a large tortoise-shell paper knife. That, thrust under the door as a wedge, would be almost as good as a lock. At least she might count on it to protect her for those so necessary five minutes. But if she pushed it through to the other side Jim Logan would see the flat, brown blade stick out like a defiant tongue over the door sill, if he were in the hall keeping watch. Knowing that she could not escape, perhaps he had returned to the dining-room, perhaps he was giving instructions to his servant—perhaps any one of a dozen things, yet she could not count on any of them!
She took the paper knife, and holding it firmly by its carved handle, she put the blade under the sole of her foot and thus snapped it off short.
The thick end, still attached to the handle, was just not too thick to push part way under the door. Win could only hope that it might hold when need came.
Now for the book! As she began turning over the pages she found that her hands were trembling. She had to repeat the alphabet from the beginning before she could remember where the letter "L" came in.
Yes, there was the name—Logan. There were many Logans, but only one in this particular street. With a blunt pencil attached to a small writing-pad she scribbled down the telephone and house number to have them before her eyes, lest in her frantic excitement she might confuse the two in her mind.
These preparations made, the girl's heart quickened as the fateful moment came. The prompt response from Central was heavenly music. The Logan family had not studied economy and cut off their telephone. "Give me the nearest police station quick!" she added to the number, and at the sound of an hysterical note in her voice Logan's hand was on the door knob.
If the wedge failed she was lost. But bending over the desk, the receiver at her ear, she dared not turn to see what was happening.
"You young devil! Let me in, or you'll be sorry all your life!" Logan shouted through the door, giving the heavy oak panels a kick.
"Is that the police?" Win spoke loudly that Logan might hear. She gave the number of the house, then hurried on: "For God's sake send at once. The house is shut up, but by a trick a girl has been brought in by young Mr. Logan. She's in great danger. It's she who is calling—begging for help—quick—quick—he's here!"
Crash! The door flew wide and banged against the wall, Logan almost falling into the room as the wedge shook loose. Slipping on the smooth parquet, he lost his balance for an instant, and before he could reach the girl to snatch the receiver from her hand, she had dashed through the door and into the hall. There she would have been stopped by the servant if she had not dodged under his arm and darted into the dining-room. Once in, she slammed the door shut in the face of Logan's man, and fumbled wildly to turn the key her trembling fingers found.
Something was wrong—or else it was the fault of those shaking fingers. The key would not turn. Win set her shoulder to the door and pushed against the panels with the whole strength of her slim body. But it was not enough. The door gave and pushed her back. Then, realizing that she could not hold it against superior force, she suddenly let go and ran to stand at bay behind the table.
When Jim Logan, all the latent brutality in him wide awake, came bounding over the threshold she faced him across his silver and flowers and glittering glass.
"Come here!" he said in a voice curiously unlike the jovial tones she had known as his.
"No!" she panted. "I'll stay where I am till the police arrest you as a kidnapper."
"You'll not stay!" he flung at her. "If you won't come out of that, I'll fetch you."
The girl stood behind one of the two chairs drawn up to the table and both hands convulsively clutched the high, carved back. But seeing him spring toward her, she lost her nerve for the first time. Trying to make a screen of the chair, she felt the floating gauze of her dress catch on some unseen nail or splinter of broken woods struggled to tear it free, and found herself in Logan's arms. The shrill sound of ripping stitches and tearing gauze mingled with the sharp blow of the girl's palm on the man's ear, and his oath breathed hot on her cheek.
"You fool, do you think I wish to keep you after what you've done?" he blurted out. "All I ask is to be rid of you before those fellows get here. I thought I'd have one kiss—but I wouldn't take it now if you gave it to me. Sims, run down into the basement and let her out that way. Now, you young devil, after him, if you don't want to be choked and buried in the cellar."
Hardly knowing what she did, Win obeyed. Tripping in the rags of her torn gown, she followed the man, who opened a door that led to a narrow stairway. Next came a vague vision of a basement corridor and a disordered kitchen. A minute later she was pushed into a dark area, a door was shut behind her, she was stumbling up some stone steps; then, hurrying along the street as fast as she could go, conscious only that danger was behind her, that she must fly from it and put a long distance between her and that closed house.
If Win had known that the door had shut upon Jim Logan also, and that he had walked out of the house almost on her heels, she would have hurried even faster. But she did not know. And luckily he took the opposite direction, making straight for the New Cosmopolitan Club at the corner, which she had noticed when passing in the taxi.
Hardly five minutes after he had interrupted his guest in her call to the police, Jim Logan was inquiring of the hall porter whether Mr. Fred Fortescue had come in that evening.
"He came, sir, but has gone out again," replied the man, thinking that the immaculate Mr. Logan—one of the best-dressed, best-groomed members of the New Cosmopolitan—appeared to be feeling the heat severely.
"Jove, I'm sorry to hear that," and Logan's expression confirmed his words. "I wanted to see him badly. Let me think. Who else is here? What about Mr. Pindar?"
"Hasn't been in, sir, for weeks," was the reply.
"Gee!" muttered Logan. He seemed worried, and in the brilliant light of the fine hall—white-panelled, and hung with clever caricatures of well-known men—his face was pale and even drawn. He looked, it occurred to the hall porter (a man of imagination), rather like a caricature of himself, not so well coloured as those on the walls. Evidently conning the names of friends who might be useful in an emergency, Logan's eyes were fixed on the stairway, as if thence inspiration or salvation might come. He had the air of having sent his astral body hastily upstairs to reconnoitre the reading and smoking room, but at that minute Peter Rolls, Jr., appeared on the landing, and Logan and his astral body joined forces again.
"Hello, Rolls!" he called out. "You're just the man I want. Will you do me a great favour in a big hurry?"
Petro, whose inmost self had also been absent on some errand, came to earth again with a slight start. "Hello!" he echoed, hastening his steps.
He did not care much for Logan, who had been a classmate of his at college, and whose acquaintance he had not cultivated since. Still he had nothing against the fellow except that he was a "dude" and something of an ass, whose outlook on life was so different from Petro's that friendship was impossible. They met occasionally at the New Cosmopolitan Club, of which they had both been members for some years, and at houses where their different "sets" touched distantly. If they talked at all, they talked of old times, but each bored the other. Petro, however, could never bear to refuse any one a favour, even if granting it were an uncongenial task. This peculiarity was constitutional and too well known for his comfort.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked in a tone polite, but void of personal interest.
"To come home with me quick and get me out of a horrid scrape. No trouble for you—but a lot for me without a pal to see me through. I won't keep you more than a few minutes, if you're engaged anywhere."
"I'm not engaged. But—" Petro began, only to be cut short.
"Come along, then, for the Lord's sake. Tell you everything when we're there." And taking Rolls affectionately by the arm, the other rushed him out of the club.
"House shut up, you know. But I stay there. My man'll let us in the basement way, if you don't mind," Logan explained disjointedly as they hurried along the street to the dwelling four doors away.
Sims, obedient to instructions flung at him over his master's shoulder when the girl had been let out, now awaited Logan's return at the tradesmen's entrance. The two young men were admitted and the door locked behind them. A minute more and they were in the rosily glowing dining-room, where the white table still offered attractive refreshment.
"Sit down," said Logan, and as he said it a great knocking began somewhere.
Listening in surprise, Petro forgot to accept the invitation—which might have been more tempting if he had not, about half an hour ago, finished dinner. Logan repeated the words, however, and even pulled out a chair for Petro, who took it. Logan seized the other, and Petro, following his host's example, drew up to the table. Still the pounding went on, more loudly than before, if possible. It began to seem rather like something in a play when you had missed the first scene and didn't quite understand what it was all about.
"I think, sir, it's some one at the door," calmly announced Sims, raising his voice decorously, to be heard over the noise. "Shall I see who it is, or shall I let them knock and go away?"
"See who it is, and if it's the police, make no objection to their coming in. Be surprised, but not frightened, and say Mr. Logan has a friend supping with him. Savvy?"
"Yes, sir," responded Sims, and vanished.
"No time to let you into this stunt on the ground floor," went on Logan. "But I will as soon as the turn's over. For all sakes, keep mum while I talk."
Before Petro could answer, if he had an answer ready, there were deep voices in the hall. Then the door was opened by Sims, and two plain-clothes policemen stepped briskly in.
"Hello! What's up? House on fire?" exclaimed Logan, pausing in the act of handing a dish of iced caviar to his guest.
"We're not from the fire department," said the elder and smarter looking of the pair, civilly, yet with a certain grimness. "I guess you know that well enough. We've been sent here on a hurry call on your 'phone to the police—a girl supposed to be detained in the house against her will." And keen eyes took in the details of the room.
Logan broke into a jovial guffaw. "Girl? Well, of all—the freak—stunts!" he chortled. "Say, Rolls, are you the great female impersonator? Ha, ha!"
"Sorry to interrupt you and your friend," remarked the detective, still grimly, though he had caught and been slightly impressed by the name of Rolls, as the speaker had, perhaps, intended. Logan as a name also carried some weight in New York. One was not rude to a Logan until sure how far and fast duty compelled one to proceed. "But I gotta ask you straight whether there's a girl in this house, and you'd better answer the same way."
Logan stopped laughing. "Really, I thought at first you were some of the fellows from the club got up in disguise for a joke," he said. "Of course I'll answer you straight. There's no girl in this house so far as I know, and hasn't been since my sister went away with the rest of the folks, 2d of June. I can't think how such a—but gee! yes, I can! The silly old sucker! I bet it's a put-up job."
"What d'ye mean?" the plain-clothes man wanted to know.
"Why, does the name of Frederick Doland Fortescue mean anything to you?"
"We know who he is."
"Well, then, I guess you know he's the champion practical joker of this burg. He was here a while ago—hasn't been gone a quarter of an hour. Went just before Mr. Rolls came in. Asked if he could use the telephone. I said yes, and my servant showed him into my mother's boudoir next to this room. I heard him ring up some one, but didn't get what he said. I noticed when he was through he came out chuckling, and then he was off like a shot—told me he had a date uptown somewhere. That's all I know, but it would be like him to play just such a fool trick on you and me."
"Seems 'twas a woman's voice at the 'phone."
"Gee! I did sort of get onto it, he was mimicking a girl! Sounded kind of shrill, but I didn't pay attention. He's always up to some lark. You're welcome to go over the house, though, if you don't believe me."
"It ain't a question of believing or not," said the detective. "But we'll have to look around."
"All right!" returned Logan, still with that perfect good nature which was having its effect on the two intruders. "Would you rather do the job by your lones, or shall my man show you the way? I suppose you don't mind us going on with our supper if I spare you Sims and we help ourselves to food?"
"You can stay where you are," was the answer.
"Thanks. But when you're satisfied that a mosquito or so's the only live stock on the premises, I should like you both to crack a bottle of champagne with us."
"It wouldn't be quite in order––"
"Hang order! The police and I are pals. Now you'll do me proud if you'll look in on your way out. Bring the girl, if you find her!" And Logan laughed at his own joke.
"Don't think I've let you in for anything!" he turned to Rolls as the door shut. "They'll find no one, for the good reason that there's no one to find. All the same, I should have been in a mess if you hadn't come right along like a brick and helped me out."
"I don't quite see yet how I have helped you," rather dryly remarked Petro.
"But I guess you're guessing."
"If I've guessed right, I'm not enjoying the joke."
"Then maybe you haven't guessed right! Give me the benefit of the doubt till those good men and true are the other side of the front door, will you? I'm as rattled as they make 'em now! Say, this is a raid, ain't it? Wonder if they've got the Black Maria outside? Can't you eat any caviar? Wish you would. Well, shall we skip along to the consommé?"
"I've just got down my dinner," said Rolls, who was guessing too hard to taste anything with salt in it, in his old classmate's house.
"Well, a little of this champagne cup, anyhow? It's girls' drink, but not bad this weather, and old Sims is a nailer at mixing—"
"No, thanks, nothing at all."
"You must let me half fill your glass, or those chaps will get onto it that you're playing dummy!" As he spoke Logan poured champagne cup into Peter's tall tumbler and his own. The latter he filled with the ice-cold, sparkling liquid which, as he said, was "girls' drink," and then, seizing the glass, emptied it in one long draft.
It was he who did most of the talking that whiled away time till the policemen returned from their tour of the house; and when they opened the door of the dining-room once more he was eating chicken salad while Peter crumbled toast.
"I don't see the lady!" Logan exclaimed facetiously, with his mouth full.
"Neither did we," said the man who had taken the lead.
"Hope you did the thing thoroughly while you were about it! Garret to cellar and all the rest?"
"You bet we did," returned the policeman, allowing himself the relief of a grin now. "I guess you was right about the practical joke. But you must excuse us if we look behind these curtains."
"Under the table, too!" laughed Logan, jumping to his feet. "Stand and deliver, Rolls!"
Petro obeyed rather reluctantly, feeling that he had been made a fool of, at best, in his stupid wish to be good-natured. It might be a joke, as Logan insisted, but something told him it was not. The look on the fellow's face as he gulped down the champagne cup had not been funny. It was in Petro's mind that he had been brought in to cover up with his presence an unpleasant incident and ignorantly to trick the police.
Of course, if there were a girl in the house, the police would have found her. But—there was something queer. He meant to have it all out with Logan when the police were gone. Meantime, however, he behaved loyally and stood up to leave the table clear while one of the detectives did actually bend down to peer under it. As the policeman stooped Peter mechanically pulled the chair back, and doing so he caught sight of a thin blue streak lying, like solidified cigarette smoke, across the red brocade cushion. In this smoke-blue streak there were little things that glistened—little silver things shaped like crescent moons set at regular intervals from each other. Peter had been unconsciously sitting on the smoke wreath, and as the policeman rose he deliberately sat down on it again. He felt suddenly sick, and his heart was large and cold in his breast, where it did not beat, but floundered like a caught fish.
THE FRAGRANCE OF FRESIAS
Winifred Child had been in this house, or else she had sold or given the Moon dress to another girl who had been here.
Thoughts were flashing through Peter's brain with the sharp quickness of motion pictures following one another to a far conclusion. Of the girl he could not be sure. The lost dryad, needing money more than she needed a smart evening gown, might well have disposed of Ena's gift. And yet Petro had—strangely enough it had seemed to him then—thought of Winifred and the mysterious "dryad door" on the Monarchic the moment he came into this place.
The perfume of the mirror room was here—the perfume which made all Nadine's model dresses delicately fragrant of spring flowers; fresias, the youngest dryad had said they were; and since then Peter had asked for fresias at the florist's, requested the Scottish head gardener to plant fresias in the garden, and had kept fresias in his room to call back old dreams. If the dryad had sold her dress, would the fresia fragrance haunt it still? Petro thought not. The other woman would have given it her own special perfume. Only in the possession of a dryad would it have retained this scent.
Winifred Child had been here, then—in Logan's dining-room, near Logan's table laid so alluringly for a supper en tête-à-tête!
This idea, passing through several phases, had shaped itself clearly in Peter Rolls's mind by the time the policeman's round black head had come up from under the table. And it was because of the idea that he sat down deliberately on the film of chiffon. He did not want questions to be asked, or Winifred Child's name to be mentioned in this business, at all events, until he had made up his mind what to do.
There was still time to make it up, and speak, if necessary while the detectives were on the spot, for Logan had offered them champagne and they had accepted now they were sure that all parties had been victimized by a practical joker. "Girls' drink" was not for the guardians of New York, and Sims was opening two frosty-looking bottles of the "real thing" just produced from some household iceberg The men would not go for several moments yet.
Winifred Child had listened to Ena Rolls's warnings and had taken them deeply to heart. It had seemed to her impossible that a sister could, for any motive whatever, calumniate a brother whom she loved. And then, Win had reminded herself that her own ignorance of men was profound They were said to be "all alike" in some dreadful ways, even those who seemed the noblest, the most chivalrous—or more especially those. So she had believed Ena's words, against her own instinct, and had not told herself that she lacked her favourite virtue—loyalty.
But with Peter it was exactly the opposite. He trusted his instinct before everything, and though he thought that his lost dryad had been in this shut-up house with Jim Logan, he knew that she had come innocently.
Somehow Logan had met her, admired her (that went without saying), and tricked her into the place. When she had understood the trick she had, of course, tried to get away. (Why, if proof were needed, was not the torn wisp of chiffon enough?) Her quick intelligence had suggested the telephone, and somehow she had contrived to call the police before she could be stopped by Logan.
Yes, that was like her! Then Logan had been scared and let her go, lest she should be found and he should get into disgrace. This was the natural thing for such a man to do in the circumstances, and equally natural that he should dash out to find a supper companion—some accommodating fellow whose presence would account for the table with its two places.
But that he—he, of all men in New York, should be the accommodating fellow found to screen the beast from punishment! This was the astounding thing—the terrible thing—and yet, the providential thing. Through Logan and the coincidence which had brought them together at a certain moment in the hall of the New Cosmopolitan Club, Petro told himself that he would by and by reach Winifred Child. It was a hateful combination of circumstances; but finding her thus would be no worse than discovering a rare jewel in a toad's head.
While the two detectives tossed off their champagne Peter Rolls sat still, his thoughts flashing on behind a face deprived of all expression, as a screen of motionless dark trees can hide the white rush and sparkle of a cataract. His vague contempt for Jim Logan had turned in the last few minutes to active loathing, even to hatred. He wanted the fellow punished, as he would have wanted a rattlesnake to have its poison fangs drawn. He wished to speak out and tell the now laughing policemen the brief story of Logan's hurried visit to the club.
Down would go the half-full champagne glasses on the table. The cheerful grins would be wiped from the two strong faces as by an artist who, with a stroke, changes the expression of a portrait. Peter Rolls's word was at least as good as Jim Logan's. Questions would be asked. Jottings would be made in notebooks. Perhaps they would both have to go to the police station. The girl's name would be demanded; Logan might be forced to tell it. That would be one way of finding Winifred—but it would be a way intolerable.
If only Peter were certain—as certain as he was of her innocence—that she wasn't hidden in the house, he would let the detectives go quietly and get the truth out of Logan himself afterward. But—could he be certain? Had he a right to take such chances when the girl's safety might depend on police knowledge of her whereabouts?
It was reasonable to suppose that Logan had put her into the street after the giving of the alarm and before he ran to the club. Yet he might not have done so. She might be fainting, or even dead. The most terrible, melodramatic things happened every day in New York. One saw them in the papers and felt they could never come into one's own life. Supposing there were some hiding-place?
The fishlike flopping of Peter's heart slowed down as if the fish were losing strength. The thought was too hideous to finish. Yet he would not dismiss it until he had played his hand in the game.
So far he had hardly spoken since the sight of the blue smoke wreath on the chair had set his brain whirling. But when Logan suddenly challenged him to drink a health to the New York police, he took the glass of champagne Sims offered.
"Here's to you!" he said. "I never had such a good chance to appreciate the thoroughness of your methods! By Jove! think of looking even under the table! Now that would never have occurred to me."
"I guess it would," one of the men encouraged him, "if you had our experience. It gets to be second nature to be thorough. We never, so to speak, leave a stone unturned"
"Well, it's mighty smart of you, that's all I can say!" young Mr. Rolls went on. "What do you call being thorough—not 'leaving a stone unturned?' Here, for instance how can you be sure you've looked in every hole and cranny where Mr. Logan might have stowed a young woman in a dead faint, if he wanted to fool you?"
Both men laughed. "You ought to bin with us when we went on our trip around the house!"
"I wish I had! It would have been a sort of experience," said Peter. "I sometimes read detective stories and wonder if they're like the real thing. When you were out of the room I was thinking if we'd had a girl hidden in here—behind the curtains, for instance—we might have sneaked her away when you were upstairs or down in the basement."
They laughed again, patronizing the amateur. "You must take us for Uncle Ezras from Wayback!" genially sneered he who claimed leadership. "We didn't 'both' go upstairs—or in the basement. While I waited in the hall my mate slipped down and locked the door that lets into the area and brought away the key on him. What's more, he did something to the keyhole—a little secret we know—that would have told us if any one had used another key while we were gone. But no one did. Good guard was kept, and if a mouse had tried to slip by we'd 'a' caught it."
"But what if a mouse had tried to hide?" suggested Peter Rolls.
"We'd 'a' found it. There ain't a closet or a pair o' curtains or a shower bath or bookcase or a screen or bureau or table or bed that's had a chance to keep a secret from us––"
"Did you ever hear the song of 'The Mistletoe Bough?'" inquired the doubter.
"You bet we did. You don't have to show us! We snooped all around the trunk room and rummaged in every box big enough to hold a dwarf. None of 'em was locked, but if they had been—why, we go around prepared."
"You don't look as if you'd done much prowling in the coal cellar, anyhow!" laughed Peter.
"That's because there ain't enough coal in it to dirty a dove," explained the policeman. "Why, we even had a squint into the wine bins and the kitchen pantries and under the sink and into a laundry basket. There ain't a fly on the wall in this house but we wouldn't know its face if we met it again!"
They all laughed once more, and none more loudly than Logan, though he had given Peter Rolls a puzzled glance for each new and apparently aimless question.
"If I wrote those detective stories, I'd use this for a plot," Petro went on; "but it wouldn't be much good to the magazines the way it's turned out. I think I'd have a girl hidden behind a sliding panel, or a picture that came out of its frame, or something, and the hero find her."