Morris Beiner, an old-time manager, more recently a theatrical
agent, was killed in his office some time yesterday afternoon under
mysterious circumstances. He was stabbed with a paper-knife, one
that has been identified as belonging to the dead man.
The discovery was made by Lemuel Burkan, the watchman of the
Heberworth Building, in which Beiner had his office. According to
Burkan's statement, he has been in the habit of answering
telephone calls for many of the tenants during their temporary
absences. Last evening, at six-thirty, while making his first
night-round of the building, Burkan heard the telephone ringing in
Beiner's office. Although the light was on, the telephone was
unanswered. Burkan unlocked the door to answer the call and take
the message. He found Beiner lying upon the floor, the paper-knife
driven into his chest.
Burkan did not lose his head, but answered the call. Frank
Hildebloom, of the Rosebush Film Company, was on the wire. On
being informed of the tragedy by the watchman, Hildebloom
immediately came over to the dead man's office. To the police, who
were immediately summoned by Burkan, Hildebloom stated that Beiner
had telephoned him in the morning, stating that he wished to make
an engagement for a young actress to make a film-test. Hildebloom
was telephoning because the engagement was overdue and he could
wait no longer. An old friend of the murdered man, he was overcome
by the tragedy.
The police, investigating the murder, learned from the janitor of
the adjoining building, the Bellwood, that he had seen a young
woman emerge from a window on the fifth floor of the Heberworth
Building at shortly before six o'clock yesterday. She had
descended by the fire-escape to the fourth floor and climbed
through a window there. The janitor, who is named Fred Garbey,
said that, while the incident was unusual, he'd thought little of
it. He gave a description of the young woman to the police, who
express confidence in their ability to find her, and believe that
she must be the same woman for whom Beiner had made the engagement
with Hildebloom.
None of the dead man's friends who could be reached last night
could advance any reason for the killing. Beiner was apparently
rather popular in the profession, having a wide acquaintance.
There followed a brief _résumé_ of the dead man's career, but Clancy did
not read it. She dropped the paper and again stared at the ceiling.
_She_ was the woman who had fled by the fire-escape from Beiner's
office, for whom the engagement had been made with Hildebloom! And the
police were looking for her!
Beiner had been murdered! She had not killed him, but--who had? And
would the police believe her story? She'd heard of third degrees. Would
they believe her? Her whole story--if she admitted having been in
Beiner's office, she must admit her method of egress. That descent by
the fire-escape would have to be explained. She would have to tell the
police that Beiner had seized her, had held her. Having admitted that
much to the police, would they believe the rest of her story?
She shook her head. Of course they wouldn't! Beiner had been killed with
his own paper-knife. The police would believe that she had picked it up
and used it in self-defense.
She became unnaturally calm. Of course, she was a girl; her story might
win her acquittal, even though a jury were convinced that she was a
murderess. She knew of dozens of cases that had filled the newspapers
wherein women had been set free by sentimental juries.
But the disgrace! The waiting in jail! Some one else had entered
Beiner's office, had, perhaps, found him still unconscious, and killed
him. But would that some one come forward and admit his or her guilt to
free Clancy Deane?
She laughed harshly at the mere thought. Everything pointed to her,
Clancy Deane, as the murderess. Why, even at this very moment, the
police might be down-stairs, making inquiries of Madame Napoli about
her!
She leaped from the bed. She stared out the window at the tall buildings
in Times Square. How harsh and forbidding they were! Yesterday they had
been different, had suggested romance, because in them were people who,
like herself, had come to New York to conquer it.
But to-day these stone walls suggested the stone walls of jails. Jails!
She turned from the window, overwhelmed by the desire for instant
flight. She must get away! In a veritable frenzy of fear, she began to
pack her valise.
Midway in the packing, she paused. The physical labor of opening
drawers, of taking dresses from the closet, had helped to clear her
brain. And it was a straight-thinking brain, most of the time. It became
keener now. She sat down on the floor and began to marshal the facts.
Only one person in the world knew that Florine Ladue and Clancy Deane
were the same girl. That person was Fanchon DeLisle, and probably by
this time Fanchon DeLisle had forgotten the card of introduction.
Morris Beiner had not mentioned to Hildebloom the name of Florine Ladue.
Hildebloom could not tell the police to search for the bearer of that
name. Fay Marston knew who Florine Ladue was, but Fay Marston didn't
know that Florine had been intending to call on Morris Beiner. Nor did
Madame Napoli or her daughter. Zenda and the members of his party had
never heard Florine's last name, and while the discovery of that card of
introduction in Morris Beiner's office _might_ lead the police to
suspect that Florine Ladue had been the woman who descended the
fire-escape, it couldn't be proved.
Then she shook her head. If the police found that card of
introduction--and, of course, they would--they'd look up Florine Ladue.
The elevator-boy in the Heberworth Building would probably identify her
as a woman who had ridden in his car yesterday afternoon at five.
The first name would attract the attention of Zenda and his friends. Her
acquaintance with Fay Marston and her card-sharp husband would come out.
_She wasn't thinking clearly._ The affair at Zenda's was unimportant
now. The only important thing in the world was the murder of Morris
Beiner.
She got back to her first fact--only Fanchon DeLisle could know that
Florine Ladue and Clancy Deane were the same person. If, then, Fanchon
had forgotten that high-sounding name, had forgotten that she had given
a card of introduction to Clancy-- What difference would it make if
Fanchon had forgotten the incident of the card? The police would remind
her of it, wouldn't they?
She put her palms to her eyes and rocked back and forth. She couldn't
_think_! For five minutes she sat thus, pressing against her eyes,
slowly, out of the reek of fearsome thoughts that crowded upon her
brain, she resolved the salient one. Until Fanchon DeLisle told the
police that Florine Ladue and Clancy Deane were one and the same
persons, she was safe.
It would take time to locate Fanchon. Meanwhile, Clancy was safe. That
is, unless the police began to look up the hotels to find Florine Ladue
right away, without waiting to communicate with Fanchon. She leaped to
her feet. She'd decided, several minutes ago, that that was exactly
what the police would do. Therefore, she must get out of the Napoli.
Now, with definite action decided upon, Clancy could think straightly.
She tilted her hat forward, so that it shielded her features, and
descended from her room to the street. Yesterday afternoon she had
noticed a telegraph office on Forty-second Street. To it she went now.
She wrote out a telegram: "Florine Ladue, Hotel Napoli, Forty-seventh
Street, New York. Come home at once. Mother is ill." She signed it,
"Mary."
The receiving clerk stared at her.
"You could walk up there in five minutes and save money," he said.
Clancy stared at him. The clerk lowered his eyes, and she walked out,
feeling a bit triumphant, not at her poor victory over the clerk but
because she had demonstrated to herself that she was mistress of
herself.
Back in the Napoli, she packed her valise. She had almost finished when
Paul, the 'bus-boy porter, knocked at her door. He gave her the telegram
which she had written a little while ago.
Clancy, holding the door partly shut, so that he could not see her
preparations for departure, read the wire. She gasped.
"Bad news, miss?" asked Paul.
"Oh, terrible!" she cried. "My mother is ill--I must go home--get me a
taxi--tell Madame Napoli to make up my bill----"
The boy murmured something meant to be sympathetic, and disappeared down
the hall. Five minutes later, Madame Napoli came wheezing up the
stairs. She refused to permit Clancy to pack. Clancy was a good girl to
worry so about her mother. She must sit still and drink the coffee that
Paul was fetching. Madame Napoli would pack her bag. And _madame_ had
sent for a taxi.
It was all very easy. Without arousing the slightest suspicion, Clancy
left the Napoli.
She told the driver to take her to the Grand Central Station. There she
checked her valise. For she was not running back to Zenith. No, indeed!
She'd come to New York to succeed, and she _would_ succeed. Truth must
prevail, and, sooner or later, the murderer of Morris Beiner would be
apprehended. Then--Clancy would be free to go about the making of her
career. But now, safety was her only thought. But safety in Zenith was
not what she sought.
In the waiting-room she purchased a newspaper. She found a list of
lodging-houses advertised there. Inquiry at the information-desk helped
her to orientate herself. She wished to be settled some distance from
Times Square. She learned that Washington Square was a couple of miles
from the Napoli. Two miles seemed a long distance to Clancy.
She reacquired her valise, got another taxi, and shortly had engaged a
room in the lodging-house of Mrs. Simon Gerand, on Washington Square
South. Mrs. Gerand was not at all like Madame Napoli, save in one
respect--she demanded her rent in advance. Clancy paid her. She noted
that she had only seven dollars left in her purse. So, in her room, she
took out her check-book and wrote her first check, payable to "self,"
for twenty-five dollars. She'd take a 'bus, one of those that she could
see from her tiny room on the square below, ride to Forty-second
Street, cross to the Thespian Bank. No, she wouldn't; she might be
seen. She'd ask Mrs. Gerand to cash her check.
She sat suddenly down upon a shabby chair. She couldn't cash her check,
for Florine Ladue could be traced through her bank-account as well as
through any other way!
She rose and walked to the window. It was a different view from that
which she had had at the Napoli. She might be in another country. Across
the park stood solid-looking mansions that even the untutored eyes of
Clancy knew were inhabited by a different class of people than lived at
Mrs. Gerand's. The well-keptness of the houses reminded her of a
well-dressed woman drawing aside her skirts as the wheel of a carriage,
spattering mud, approached too closely. She did not know that an
old-time aristocracy still held its ground on the north side of
Washington Square, against the encroachments of a colony of immigrants
from Italy, against the wave of a bohemia that, in recent years, had
become fashionable.
Despite the chill of the winter day, scores of children of all ages
played in the park. Some were shabby, tattered, children of the slums
that lurked, though she did not yet know it, south of the square. Others
were carefully dressed, guarded by uniformed nurses. These came from the
mansions opposite, from the fashionable apartments on lower Fifth
Avenue.
Girls in tams, accompanied by youths, carelessly though not too
inexpensively dressed, sauntered across the park. They were bound for
little coffee-houses, for strange little restaurants. They were of that
literary and artistic and musical set which had found the neighborhood
congenial for work and play.
But, to Clancy, they were all just people. And people made laws, which
created policemen, who hunted girls who hadn't done anything.
She had come to New York to achieve success. Here, within forty-eight
hours after her arrival, she had not only roused the suspicions of one
of the biggest men in the profession which she had hoped to adopt but
was wanted by the police on the charge of murder, and had only seven
dollars in the world. She stared at the greasy wall-paper of her
ill-kept room. Without friends, or money--in danger of arrest! And still
she did not think of going to the police, of confessing to circumstances
that really were innocent. She had not learned over-night. She was still
young. She still believed in the efficacy of flight. Queerly, she
thought of the young man who had taken her home from the Zendas'
apartment in the runabout. She remembered not merely his blue, kindly
eyes, and the cleft in his chin, and his bigness, but things about him
that she had not known, at the time, that she had noticed--his firm
mouth, his thick brown hair. And he'd had the kindest-seeming face she'd
ever seen. The only really kind face she'd seen in New York. All the
rest---- Clancy wept.