AS MARY SEES HERSELF
As Clifford went out it seemed to him, for the moment, that his efforts
thus far had resulted only in bringing him into contact with affairs
far removed from his main business. But the next moment experience
reminded him that nothing in life was irrelevant. Might not these
seemingly unrelated fragments be revealed as closely articulated parts
of a great drama of life whose working-out lay in the unvisioned future?
Anyhow, he had new questions to put to himself. What was behind
Loveman’s suave statement that he knew nothing of Mary Regan? And what
behind Bradley’s offer of partnership? They meant something: and the
more Clifford thought, the more was he convinced that Loveman was in
whatever business might be brewing; and since Loveman was in it, it was
safely and adroitly based upon the weakness, vanity, or ambition of our
common human nature.
The sense, though he had little definite basis for it, that Mary was
vitally concerned in this impenetrable business, that she was perhaps
the chief victim of its hidden workings and of its dangers, grew in
Clifford with every moment. He simply had to find her!
Hoping against hope, Clifford daily expected a note from Mary
Regan--for he could not wholly discount her promise--but no note came.
And though Uncle George, Slant-Face, and Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly,
in their divers manners, were all looking for Mary, none during the
next four days reported a trace of her. Nor did Commissioner Thorne,
with his larger resources, turn up a single clue. She seemed to have
vanished utterly.
All these days Clifford himself kept doggedly to the tedious routine
of centering his personal endeavors upon Peter Loveman--following that
dapper gentleman from home to office, to court-rooms, to restaurants
on Broadway or the Avenue for his substitute for afternoon tea, to
his home again to dress, then to the long evening’s schedule of
pleasures--taking rest only during the periods when Loveman was held in
court, or during the five hours between three and 8 A.M. that Loveman
allowed himself for sleep.
On the seventh afternoon, while Loveman was tied up in court, and while
Clifford was spending an hour at home, a note was delivered him by
messenger. It read:--
See me at headquarters at your earliest convenience.
THORNE.
Clifford considered. Then he sent back the message, “Will try to come
at five.” It was now three o’clock; Loveman would be out of court at
half-past three or four. He had decided that the best procedure was to
follow Loveman from court to club or restaurant, and then if the lawyer
seemed settled, as usually was the case, he could safely slip down to
Police Headquarters.
At four o’clock Clifford saw Loveman leave the Criminal Courts Building
and step into the closed car he had seen Loveman and Mary Regan enter
seven nights earlier in front of the Grand Alcazar. Clifford, at a
discreet distance, followed in a taxi. The big car, after twisting
about through the region of clubs and restaurants, deposited Loveman
before a great hotel on Fifth Avenue, The Grantham. Clifford, following
him in, saw Loveman address the perfect young blonde who sat at a
switchboard within a grilled enclosure, wait while the blonde announced
his name through the telephone, then saw him make for the elevators.
Clifford waited several minutes, then himself approached the deity of
the switchboard. “I want to get in touch with Mr. Loveman at once, and
I believe he’s calling here.”
“Yes, on Mrs. Gardner--twelfth floor, Apartment M. Shall I ’phone up
you’re here?”
“I guess I’ll not interrupt him. I’ll catch him when he comes down.”
The blonde, Clifford had at once divined, was the sort not averse to
talk. “I wonder if this is the Mrs. Gardner I know,” he said easily.
“What’s she like?”
“Never really seen her,” returned the blonde. “Has all her meals in
her suite. Goes out only at night--about nine, when everything’s dead
here--just for an hour’s motor ride. She’s always in black, and veiled.
Guess she’s a widow.”
A little more chat and Clifford drifted into the hotel bar, from which
he could watch the elevators. He sipped his Vichy with a casual,
lounging air that required his best acting. Could that Mrs. Gardner be
Mary Regan? And if she was Mary Regan, was she also truly Mrs. Gardner?
Half an hour passed; then Loveman came out of one of the elevators.
Clifford had a moment’s fear that the blonde would tell him that a
caller had made inquiry for him; but the blonde was answering the
questions of a guest and did not see Loveman go out. Clifford allowed a
few more minutes to pass, then he approached the blonde’s cage with a
brisk air.
“There’s something Mr. Loveman forgot to say to Mrs. Gardner, and he
asked me to come back and tell her. Just say it’s Mr. Loveman calling
again.”
The girl spoke through the telephone as directed; then, “You’re to go
right up.”
Tingling with suspense, Clifford shot up to the twelfth floor and rang
the bell of Apartment M. The door was promptly opened, and without
waiting for the maid to cry a warning because of this suddenly altered
Mr. Loveman, Clifford walked quickly past her through a little hallway
into a sitting-room. At a window, looking down into the Avenue stood a
slender figure in a gown of gold-brown chiffon velvet, softly touched
with fur. She was Mary Regan.
“Sit down, Mr. Loveman,” she said, not turning. And then after a pause
she added a bit impatiently, but in that distant, composed tone she
had so often used toward him in other days: “Well, what else is there?
Haven’t I already promised to follow your instructions in every detail?”
Clifford did not reply, and his silence caused her to turn. At sight of
him the tint of autumn rose left her dark face.
“Mr. Clifford!” she breathed.
“Good-afternoon--” He hesitated; the last time he had spoken to her,
six months before, he had called her Mary. “Good-afternoon, Miss Regan.”
And then the fear that was in him caused him quickly to add, “Or should
I say Mrs. Gardner?”
“I am still Mary Regan.” She moved nearer. “You here! The name you sent
up was Mr. Loveman.”
“I used Mr. Loveman’s name because I thought if I sent my own you would
refuse to see me.”
“Why?”
He had searched her out primarily to learn the danger she was in and
to save her from it, but here he was in the first moment speaking of
himself. “I reasoned that you did not want to see me from the fact that
you have been in town a week and have sent me no word. And I thought,
after your promise--”
He could not finish. She motioned him to be seated, herself took a
chair, and there was a moment’s pause. Pale, a strained composure in
her face, she was wondrously striking in the gold-brown velvet with its
margin of fur; she seemed to have matured, yet to have grown no older;
and never before had she seemed more poignantly desirable to him. The
old questions that had haunted him for six months, surged up and he was
almost choked with the immanence of the answer to them. Had there come
the change that they had talked about? Had she reached the decision
that he had so long been waiting for?
At length she spoke, and the contralto warmth and color of her voice
were subdued to a neutral monotone. “I could have sent you word,” she
said. “But I have no excuse to offer, and prefer not to explain.”
“You know what I’ve been hoping for--and waiting for,” he said with
difficulty. “You have not forgotten that last night in Washington
Square?”
“No. And you have not forgotten the point I then insisted upon--that I
wanted to go off, alone, to examine myself and try to learn whether I
was really the sort of woman you declared me to be.”
“I remember. And now that you have been away, and come back?”
Her voice was steady. “I have learned I am not that kind of woman.”
“No?”
“I have learned that I do not look upon life--that is life for
myself--in the way you thought I would.”
“Just what do you mean?”
“I know now that I am by nature more worldly than you believed me.”
He grew suddenly sick at her even words. “I was hoping that you would
have decided that you cared for me.”
“I am and always shall be grateful to you for the things you did for
me, and I shall always appreciate your high opinion of the qualities
you believed to exist in me. You were kind and generous--and I shall
never forget.”
“But you have no other feeling--toward me?”
She shook her head.
“Then this is final--as far as my hopes are concerned,” he whispered
dryly. He was dazed; too dazed to note that she had grown even more
pale than a few moments before and that her hands were gripping folds
of the velvet gown.
Presently he tried to pull himself together. He remembered the main
purpose of his presence here.
“But at least you will let me help you?”
“Certainly--if I need you.”
He leaned closer. “You never needed me more than now!”
“For what reason?”
“You are in danger--great danger!”
She started, and gazed at him with a sharp penetration which even at
that moment struck him as peculiar. “In what danger?”
Her question took him back. In his intensity he had forgotten that he
knew so little that was definite.
“I thought you would know,” he confessed. And then, with a ring of
certainty, “If you do not know yourself to be in danger, then why are
you in hiding?”
She ignored his last sentence. “I am in no danger of which I am
conscious.”
He seized upon the one point he was certain of. “But you have been
seeing Peter Loveman. I hope you are not letting him get control of
your affairs.”
“Mr. Loveman has merely been giving me some friendly advice. He is a
very able lawyer.”
“There is no abler lawyer in New York than Peter Loveman. But Peter
Loveman cannot be trusted.”
“I am not trusting him--very far.” She spoke with that supreme
self-confidence that had always characterized her. “And I believe I can
take care of myself.” This last she added coldly, yet not unkindly.
Clifford felt himself baffled. And then, suddenly, he remembered
another possible source of danger to her--or at least of danger to that
Mary Regan he had believed her to be. Could she, as the worldly-wise
old Uncle George had suggested, have felt the pull of old associations,
old points of view, and have reverted--
But even as he was thinking of this, she with her remarkable keenness
had read his mind. “Don’t worry about that. I have no intention of
going back to the sort of things I once tried to do, and you stopped me
from doing.”
“I’m glad of that,” he said simply. And then he added, “But still I
feel you are in some great vague danger.”
“What?” she queried as before. “I am here of my own choice. I go and
come as I please. Whatever I may now be doing I do of my own free will.”
“Then you have a plan?”
She was silent a long moment, all the while gazing at him steadily.
Then she replied, “I have.”
“May I ask what it is?”
“You have earned the right. As Robert Clifford, the man, you might not
approve of it. As Robert Clifford, detective, you can find nothing
wrong. Beyond this I can tell you nothing--now.”
He felt shut out--placed at a far distance--and felt the dizzy sickness
once more come on him. He had met her again, after long waiting, after
long search--and this was the poor ending of it all!
He saw her glance furtively at a gilded clock. Awkwardly he arose.
“I’ve kept you too long,” he mumbled.
She made no polite denial, but also stood up. He started out--and found
he could not go.
He turned. “Please tell me two other things. First, why are you in
hiding?”
“That I must be excused from answering.”
“Is it part of your plan?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“And your calling yourself Mrs. Gardner--is that, too, a part of your
plan?”
“Yes--to the extent that I am temporarily using it to hide behind. Now
you must go--please!”
“Good-bye--I won’t bother you any further.”
Sick, bewildered, and with as great a fear as when he entered, Clifford
started out. But at that moment there was a ring at the doorbell.
“Why didn’t you go before!” cried Mary; and then, seizing his arm,
“Wait, you mustn’t go now!”
“Why?”
“It would be misunderstood.”
“Then you know who that is?”
“Yes.”
“Is it Peter Loveman?”
“No.” Her dark eyes gazed at him very straight; she spoke rapidly.
“You are an old acquaintance--you met me in Paris before the war broke
out--that’s all you really know about me. Except that my name is Mary
Regan.”
“I’ll play the part,” said Clifford.
“Sit there by the window.”
Clifford obeyed, more dazed than ever, and wonderingly watched Mary.
She stood in the middle of the room, tensely composed. The maid had
answered the bell, and Clifford now heard a man’s voice in the hall--a
familiar voice. The next moment the visitor was through the doorway,
and Clifford beheld that likable young man-about-town, Jack Morton.
But Jack Morton saw only Mary, and his face flushed with delight.
“Mary!” he cried and crossed to her with open arms. Without hesitation
she stepped forward and her lips met his.
Clifford experienced such a swift onrush of dizziness and sickness that
he barely kept his seat.
After a moment Mary drew away from Morton. “Jack, I want to introduce
an old acquaintance to you--Mr. Clifford.”
“Bob Clifford--you here!” cried Morton. “You know Miss Regan?”
Clifford remembered his lines. “I met Miss Regan in Paris before the
outbreak of the war.”
Mary held her pale face steadily upon Clifford. “I suppose, Jack, Mr.
Clifford might as well know the truth.”
“After what he’s seen I guess he knows it.” Young Morton, a glowing
smile on his pleasant face, held out his hand. “Congratulate me, Bob!”
Clifford took the hand. “You--you are married?”
“We are going to be--as soon as it’s safe.”
“Safe?”
“You see my--”
“Mr. Clifford does not need to know that,” Mary quickly interrupted.
“Why--” Clifford stared; gulped. “I did not even know you were
acquainted.”
“We were not, till three months ago.” Morton grinned happily. He
slipped his arm about Mary and Mary allowed it to remain. “Remember my
telling you the other night about my being away, far from the madding
crowd?--in a place where they don’t raise a thing but isolation? Well,
that’s where I met Mary--at Pine Mountain Lodge. Wasn’t that some
coincidence, Bob?”
Clifford agreed that it was. He looked searchingly at Mary; but her
pale, proud face met his eyes with a steadfast gaze that was blank of
any offer to apologize or explain.
“Here’s wishing you luck, Morton,” Clifford said with a control that
surprised himself. He gave Mary Regan a look that was quite as composed
as her own. “And you, Miss Regan, I hope that all your best dreams come
true.”
He maintained his control until he had managed a very decent exit. But
out in the corridor, he leaned against the wall, a very sick man, with
ejaculations and questions stabbing him through and through. This,
then, was what his long waiting had come to, his hopes and his dreams
of a different Mary Regan! This affair with Jack Morton, a good enough
fellow of his sort, that was her plan!... Yes, but what lay behind
that plan?... And did she care for Morton?... And why had she not
frankly written him of her purpose?... And Peter Loveman, where did
Loveman come in?... And Bradley, guide and protector of young Morton,
what might be Bradley’s part?... And what kind of person, after these
months, was really behind that exterior which Mary Regan had presented
him?...
In bitter revulsion Clifford straightened up and walked away. What she
was, and what she was doing, and what she had got herself in for, these
matters were now none of his affairs. For him Mary Regan was a closed
incident.