AN INVITATION
That evening Laurie walked across the square to Doris's studio with a
decision in his stride which definitely expressed his mental attitude.
He had come to the conclusion that something must be done. What this
something would be was still hazy in his mind, but the first step at
least seemed clear. Doris must move.
He was so convinced of the urgency of this step that he brought up the
subject almost before the greetings of guest and hostess were over.
Tossing his hat and coat on a convenient chair, he stood facing Doris,
his hands in his pockets, his black eyes somber.
"We've got to get you out of this, you know," he abruptly announced.
Her eyes, which had brightened at his entrance, grew as somber as his
own. Without replying, she turned, walked across the room to the window,
and stood looking down into the street.
"Is he there?" she asked at last, and without moving her head.
"Shaw? Great Scott, no! At least I didn't see him. I suppose he takes a
few hours off now and then, during the twenty-four; doesn't he?"
"Oh, yes, he comes and goes, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly. I did
not see him at all to-day until late this afternoon. Then he took up his
post across the street just opposite this window, and stood there for
almost an hour."
Laurie ground his teeth.
"What does he expect to gain by that performance?"
"Several things, I suppose. For one, he wants to get on my nerves; and
he does," she added somberly, and still without turning.
Laurie made a vague tour around the room and brought up by her side.
"You know," he confessed, "I haven't really taken this thing in yet.
Even now, this minute, it doesn't seem possible to me that Shaw could do
you any real harm."
She nodded. "I know. Why should it? Even to me it is like a nightmare
and I keep hoping to wake up. There are hours, even days, when I
convince myself that it isn't real." She stopped. "It must be very hard
for any one else to understand," she ended, when he did not speak.
"Nevertheless," admitted Laurie, "I can't forget it. I can't think of
anything else."
She took this as naturally as she had taken his first remark.
"It's going to be very hard for you. I was wrong to draw you into it. I
am realizing that more and more, every minute."
"You couldn't help yourself," he cheerfully reminded her. "Now that I am
in it, as I've warned you before, I intend to run things. It seems to me
that the obvious course for you is to move. After you're safely hidden
somewhere, I think I can teach Herbert Ransome Shaw a lesson that won't
react on you."
She shook her head.
"If I moved, how long do you think it would take him to find me?"
"Weeks, perhaps months."
Again she shook her head.
"I moved here a few days ago. He appeared exactly forty-eight hours
later. If I moved from here it would only mean going through the game of
hare and hounds again."
"But--" he began. She interrupted him.
"I've reached the point where I can't endure that any more." For the
first time her voice broke. "Can't you imagine what that sort of thing
would be? To get up in the morning and wonder if this is the day I'll
see him under my window? To go to bed at night and ask myself if he is
lurking in the shadows below, or across the street, or perhaps outside
my very door? To know that sooner or later he will be there, that his
coming is as inevitable as death itself--" She broke off.
"I sometimes think I'd rather see a boa-constrictor crawling into my
room than see Shaw down on the sidewalk," she ended. "And yet--I know
you can understand this--there's a queer kind of relief in the knowledge
that at last, and finally, he has got me."
She whirled to face Laurie and threw out her hands. There was nothing
theatrical in the gesture, merely an effect of entire finality.
"We have come to the end of things," she finished. "Since you would not
have them end my way, they must end his way. Whatever happens, I shall
not run and hide any more."
For a moment silence hung like a substance between them. Then the
visitor resolutely shook off the effect of her words.
"I promise you I will get to the bottom of this," he quietly told her.
"In the meantime, will you try to forget it, for a little while? You
know you said you could do that, occasionally."
He was clearing the table as he spoke. Now he proceeded to unpack a
basket he had sent over an hour before by Griggs, and which, he
observed, had not been opened. Dropping back into her big chair, she
watched him with an odd look. If he had seen this look it would have
sorely puzzled him, for it held not only interest but an element of
apprehension, even of fear.
"In the past two days," she said, after an interval, "you have sent me
five baskets of food, four baskets of fruit, six boxes of candy, and
three boxes of flowers. What do you suppose becomes of them all?"
"I know what becomes of the flowers." He cast an appreciative glance
around the transformed room. "And I hope," he mildly added, "that you
eat the food."
She broke into her rare laugh, soft, deep-throated, and contagious.
Under it his spirits rose dizzyingly.
"You are feeding half the people in this building," she said, "not to
mention Sam and his home circle. Sam has absorbed roast chicken, cold
partridge, quail, and sweetbreads till he is getting critical. He asked
me this morning if I shouldn't like ham and eggs for a change!"
Laurie felt slightly aggrieved.
"Do you mean to say that you're not eating any of the stuff yourself?"
he demanded.
"Oh, I eat three meals a day. But I don't keep boarders, you know; so I
give the rest to Sam to distribute. He feeds several dozen art students,
I infer, and staggers home every night under the burden of what's
left."
"There won't be anything left this night."
She had risen now and was helping to set the little table. Laurie looked
at her with shining eyes. One of her rapid changes of mood had taken
place, and she was entering into the spirit of the impromptu supper as
cheerfully as if it were a new game and she a child. She had become a
wholly different personality from the tragic-eyed girl who less than ten
minutes ago had somberly announced that she was making her last stand in
life. Again, as often before, Laurie felt overwhelmed by the rush of
conflicting emotions she aroused.
"Shall we have this big bowl of roses in the center, or the four little
bowls at the corners?" she asked absorbedly.
As she spoke, she studied the flowers with her head on one side. For the
moment, it was clear, the question she had asked was the most vital in
the world.
"The little ones," decided the guest. "The big one might shut off some
of you from my devouring eyes." He was mixing ingredients in a
chafing-dish as he spoke, and he wore the trying air of smug complacency
that invariably accompanies that simple process.
"No," he objected, as she tried to help him, "I will do the brain-work.
Your part is to be feminine and rush briskly back and forth, offering me
things I don't want. And at the last moment," he added gloomily, "you
may tell me that there isn't a lemon in the place." He looked about with
the hopelessness of a great artist facing the failure of his
chef-d'oeuvre. "I forgot the lemons."
She went across the room to a small closet. Even in the strain of the
moment he observed the extraordinary grace and swiftness of her
movements. She was very slender, very lithe, and she moved like a flash
of light.
"Fancy my being caught without a lemon!" she scoffed, as she returned
with the fruit. "Your brain-work stops abruptly sometimes, doesn't it?"
She handed him the lemons with a little gesture expressing amusement,
triumph, and a dash of coquetry. Laurie's eyes glowed as he looked at
her. For the second time, in her actual presence, a sharp thrill shot
through him. Oh, if she were always like this!--gay, happy, without that
incredible, unbelievable background of tragedy and mystery! He turned
his mind resolutely from the intruding thought. This hour at least was
hers and his. It should be prolonged to the last moment.
What he longed for was to hear her talk, but that way, he knew, lay
disaster to the little supper in swift-returning memory. If she began to
talk, the forbidden topic, now dormant, would uncoil its hideous length
and hiss. He must hold her attention to other things.
He plunged at random into chatter. For the first time he told her about
Bangs, his chum, and about Epstein, their manager; about their plays and
their experiences in rehearsals and on the road. Being very young and
slightly spoiled, he experienced some chagrin in the discovery that she
seemed alike ignorant of the men and the plays. Worse yet, she seemed
not even aware that she should have known who Bangs and Epstein were.
She did not recall having heard the title of "The Black Pearl." She was
not only unaware that "The Man Above" had broken all box-office records;
she seemed unconscious that it had ever been written. Observing his
artless surprise, she gravely explained. "I have been interested in
other things," she reminded him.
The forbidden topic was stirring, stretching. To quiet it, Laurie leaped
into the comedy scenes of "The Man Above." They delighted her. Her soft,
delicious laughter moved him to give her bits from "The Black Pearl,"
and, following these, the big scenes from the latter play. This last
effort followed the supper; and Laurie, now in his highest spirits,
added to his effects by the use of a brilliant afghan, and by much
raising and lowering of the light of the reading-lamp.
He was a fine mimic. He became by turns the star, the leading lady, the
comedian, and the "heavy" of the big play. It was only when he had
stopped for a moment's rest, and Doris demanded a description of the
leading lady's gowns, now represented by the afghan, that his ingenuity
failed.
"They're so beautiful that most people think I made them," he said,
serenely. "But I didn't, really, so I can't give you any details, except
that they're very close-fitting around the feet."
He was folding up the afghan as he spoke, and he stopped in the act,
leaving one end dangling on the floor. From the street below the sound
of a whistle came up to him, sharp and penetrating, repeating over and
over the same musical phrase, the opening notes of the Fifth Symphony.
At first he thought the notes were whistled by some casual passer-by.
Then, glancing at the girl's face, he knew better. The sharp, recurrent
phrase was a signal.
He finished folding the afghan, and carefully replaced it on the divan
from which he had borrowed it. As he did so, he prattled on. He had
suddenly decided not to hear that signal. Doris, sitting transfixed and
staring at him, slowly became convinced that he had not heard it.
He glanced at his watch.
"A shocking hour!" he ejaculated. "Ten o'clock. If I go now, may I come
back for breakfast?"
"You may not." She made an effort to speak lightly.
"To take you to luncheon, then, at one?"
"No, please."
He shook his head at her.
"This is not the atmosphere of hospitality I am used to, but I shall
come anyway. I'll be here at one. In the meantime, I suddenly realize
that we are not using all of our opportunities. We must change that."
He looked around as he spoke, and, finding what he sought, picked it up.
It was a small scarf, a narrow bit of Roman silk carrying a vivid
stripe. He held this before her.
"Something may happen some day, and you may want me in a hurry," he
said. "I have observed with regret that you have no telephone in this
room, but we can get on without one. My mirror reflects your window, you
know," he added a little self-consciously. "If you need me, hang up this
scarf. Just drape it over this big window-catch. If I ever see it, I'll
come prancing across the square like a knight to your rescue."
"Thank you."
She gave him her hand and the enigmatic smile that always subtly but
intensely annoyed him. There was something in that smile which he did
not understand, but he suspected that it held an element of amused
understanding. So might Doris, years hence, smile at her little son.
"She thinks I'm a reed," Laurie reflected as he waited in the outer hall
for the elevator. "I don't blame her. I've been a perfectly good reed
ever since I met her friend Bertie."
His thoughts, thus drawn to Shaw, dwelt on that ophidian personality.
When the elevator arrived he was glad to recognize the familiar face of
Sam.
"Yaas, sah," that youth affably explained, with a radiant exhibition of
teeth, "it's Henry's night _off_, so I has to be _on_."
They were alone in the car. Laurie, lighting a cigarette, asked a casual
question.
"There's a plump person in blue serge who hangs around here a good
deal," he remarked, indifferently. "Does he live in the building?"
"The one wid eyes what sticks out?"
"That's the one."
Sam's jaw set.
"No, sah, dat party don' live yere. An' ef he don' stop hangin' 'round
yere, somethin's gwine t' happen to dat man," he robustly asserted.
"What's he after?"
"I dunno. I only seen him twicet. Las' time he was sneakin' fum de top
flo'. But I cert'n'y don' like dat man's looks!"
Nothing more was to be learned from Sam. Laurie thoughtfully walked out
into the square. He had taken not more than a dozen steps when a voice,
strange yet unpleasantly familiar, accosted him.
"Good-evening, Mr. Devon," it said.
Laurie turned sharply. Herbert Ransome Shaw was walking at his side,
which was as it should be. It was to meet and talk with Herbert Ransome
Shaw that he had so abruptly ended his call.
"Look here," he said at once, "I want a few words with you."
"Exactly." Shaw spoke with suave affability. "It is to have a few words
that I am here."
"Where can we go?"
Shaw appeared to reflect.
"Do you mind coming to my rooms?" Laurie hesitated. "I live quite near,
and my quarters, though plain, are comfortable."
Anger surged up in the young man beside him. There was something almost
insulting in Shaw's manner as he uttered the harmless words, and in the
reassuring yet doubtful intonation of his voice.
"Confound him!" Laurie told himself. "The hound is actually hinting that
I'm afraid to go!" Aloud, he said brusquely, "All right."
"You have five minutes to spare? That's capital!"
Shaw was clearly both surprised and pleased. He strode forward with
short steps, rapid yet noiseless, and Laurie adapted his longer stride
to his companion's. He, too, was content. Now, at last, he reflected, he
was through with mysteries, and was coming to a grip with something
tangible.