Tom Appleton sauntered out through the great vestibule, turning his eyes
casually from the marble floor up to the balconies that look down from
aloft upon this outer lobby. He was whistling an air from “Apollo” which
he had heard a few weeks before at the New York Casino.
He hastened his steps when he saw a 'bus passing down Broad Street. A
leap down the Grand Opera House steps and a lively run enabled him to
catch the 'bus before it reached Columbia Avenue. He clambered up to
the top and was soon being well shaken as he enjoyed the breeze and the
changing view of the handsome residences on North Broad Street.
Haslam's sharp eyes took note of Appleton's action.
“He's on that 'bus,” said the doctor to Amy as she took his arm on the
sidewalk. “Shall we take the next one?”
“No; for then we can't see where he gets off. Can't we find a cab?”
“There's none in sight. We can have one called here, but we'll have to
wait for it at least ten minutes.”
“That will never do. To think he could elude us so easily, without even
knowing that we're after him!”
Vexation was stamped upon the dainty face, with its soft brown eyes, as
she raised her veil.
“Ah! I have it,” said Haslam, who would have gone to great lengths to
drive that vexation away.
“A bicycle! This section teems with bicycle shops. We can hire a tandem.
It's a good thing we're both expert bicyclists.”
“And that I'm suitably dressed for this kind of a race,” replied Amy, as
the two hurried down the block.
She stood outside the bicycle store and kept her gaze upon the 'bus,
which was growing less and less distinct to the eye as it rolled down
the street, while Haslam hastily engaged a two-seated machine.
The 'bus had not yet disappeared in the darkness when the pursuers,
Amy upon the front seat, glided out from the sidewalk and down over
the asphalt. The passage became rough below Columbia Avenue, where the
asphalt gives away to Belgian block paving. Haslam's athletic training
and the acquaintance of both with the bicycle served to minimize this
disadvantage.
The frequent stoppages of the 'bus made it less difficult for them to
keep in close sight of it. Conversation was not easy between them.
Both kept silence, therefore, their eyes fixed upon the 'bus ahead, and
carefully watching its every stop.
“You're sure he hasn't gotten off yet?” she asked, at Girard Avenue.
“Certain.”
“He's probably going to his rooms down-town.”
“Or to his club.”
So they pressed southward. Before them stretched the lone vista of
electric lights away down Broad Street to the City Hall invisible in the
night.
The difficulty of talking made thinking more involuntary. Haslam's mind
turned back three years. Was it, as he had dared sometimes to fancy, a
juvenile capriciousness that had impelled this girl in front of him
to reject him when she was seventeen, after having manifested an
unmistakable tenderness for him? And now that she was twenty, and had in
the meantime rejected several others, and broken one engagement, was it
too late to attempt to revive the old spark?
His meditations were suddenly interrupted by an exclamation from the
girl herself.
“Look! He's left the 'bus. He's going into the Park Theatre.”
So he was. His slim person was easily distinguishable in the wealth
of electric light that flooded the street upon which looked the broad
doorways and the allegorical facades of the Park.
The second act of “La Belle Helene” was not yet over when Appleton
entered and stood at the rear of the parquet circle. He indifferently
watched the finale, made some mental comments upon the white flowing
gown of Pauline Hall, the make-up of Fred Solomon, and the grotesqueness
of the five Hellenic kings. Then he scanned the audience.
Haslam and Amy dismounted near the theatre and entrusted the bicycle to
a small boy's care. When they had bought admission tickets and reached
the lobby, the gay finale of the second act was being given. The curtain
fell, was called up three times, and then people began to pour forth
from the entrance to drink, smoke, or enjoy the air in the entr'acte.
Appleton was involved in the movement of those who resorted to the
little garden with flowers and fountain and asphalt paving, accessible
through the northern exits. He paused for a time by the fountain,
not sufficiently curious to join the crowd that stood gaping at
the apertures through which the members of the chorus could be seen
ascending the stairs to the upper dressing-rooms, many of them carolling
scraps of song from the opera as they went.
Appleton soon reëntered the lobby and again surveyed the audience
closely. Haslam caught sight of him just in time to avoid him. Amy had
resumed the concealment of her veil.
To the surprise of his watchers, Appleton left the theatre before the
third act opened. Again he jumped upon a 'bus, but this time it was upon
one moving northward.
“It looks as if he were going back to the Grand Opera House,” suggested
Amy, as she and her companion started to repossess the bicycle.
“His movements are a trifle unaccountable,” said Haslam, thoughtfully.
“Ah! Now you admit he is acting queerly. Perhaps you'll see I was quite
right.”
Again mounted upon the bicycle, the doctor and the young woman returned
to the chase. They were soon brought to a second stop by Appleton's
departure from the 'bus at Girard Avenue.
“Where can he be going to now?” queried Amy.
“He's going to take that east-bound Girard Avenue car.”
“So he is. What can he mean to do in that part of town?”
They turned down Girard Avenue. The car was half a block in advance of
them.
“You're energetic enough in this pursuit,” Amy shouted back to the
doctor as the machine fled over the stones, “even if you don't believe
in it.”
“Energetic in your service, now and always.”
She made no answer.
This time her reflections were abruptly checked--as his had been on
Broad Street--by the cry of the other.
“See! He's getting off at the Girard Avenue Theatre.”
Again they found a custodian for their bicycle and followed Appleton
into a theatre.
The young man stopped at the box-office in the long vestibule, bought
a ticket, and had a call made for a coupé. Then he passed through the
luxurious little foyer, beautiful with flowers and soft colours, and
stood behind the parquet circle railing.
Adelaide Randall's embodiment of “The Grand Duchess” held his attention
for a time. Haslam and Miss Winnett, to avoid the risk of being
discovered by him, sought the seclusion of the balcony stairs.
“We had a few bars of Offenbach at the Park, and here we have Offenbach
again,” commented the doctor.
“And again, only a few bars, for there goes our man.”
Appleton, having given as much attention to the few spectators as to the
players, left the theatre and got into the cab that had been ordered for
him.
Haslam, behind the pillar at the entrance to the theatre, overheard
Appleton's direction to the driver. It was:
“To the Grand Opera House. Hurry! The opera will soon be over.”
The cab rumbled away.
“It's well we heard his order,” observed Haslam to Amy. “We couldn't
have hoped to keep up with a cab. He'll probably wait at the Grand Opera
House till we get there.”
“But we mustn't lose any time, for, as he said, the performance will
soon be over.”
“Oh, 'Tell' is a long opera and Guille will have an encore for the aria
in the last act. That will give us a few minutes more.”
III
_A Telegraphic Revelation_
A boy walking down Girard Avenue, as Appleton got into the cab, had been
whistling the tune of “They're After Me,”--a thing that was new to the
variety stage last fall, but is dead this summer. The air, whistled by
the boy, clung to Appleton's sense, and he unconsciously hummed it to
himself as his cab went on its grinding way over the stones.
The cabman was considerate of his horse, and he coolly ignored
Appleton's occasional shouts of, “Get along there, won't you?”
It was, therefore, not impossible for the bicyclists to keep in sight of
the coupé.
“All this concern about a man you say you don't care for,” said Haslam
to Amy, as the bicycle turned up Broad Street. “It's unprecedented.”
“It's only humanity.”
“You didn't bother about following me around like this when you threw me
over.”
“You didn't threaten to kill yourself.”
“No; if I had, I'd have carried out my threat. But for months I endured
a living death--or worse.”
“Really? Did you, though?”
Eager inquiry and sudden elation were expressed in this speech.
“Of course I did. Why do you ask in that way?”
“Oh--you took me by surprise. Why did you never tell me it affected you
so? I thought--I thought--”
“What did you think?”
“That if you really cared for me you would have--tried again.”
“What? Then I was fatally ignorant! I thought that when you said a
thing, you meant it.”
“I didn't know what I meant until it was too late.”
“But is it too late--ah! see, he's getting out of the cab at the Grand
Opera House.”
They quickly switched the bicycle from the street to the sidewalk, and
both dismounted.
They were checked at the entrance to the theatre by the appearance of
Appleton. He was coming from within the building, and with him were two
women, one elderly and unattractive, the other a plump young person
with bright blue eyes in a saucy face that had more claim to piquant
effrontery than to beauty. She was simply dressed and was all smiles to
Appleton.
Amy and Haslam quickly turned their backs, thus avoiding recognition,
and while they seemed to be looking through the glass front into
the vestibule, they overheard the following conversation between the
blue-eyed girl and Appleton.
“I'm glad you found us at last, Tom. Three acts of grand opera are about
enough for me, thanks, and we'd have left sooner if your telegram that
you'd be in town to-night hadn't made me expect to see you.”
“Well, I've been hunting for you in every open theatre in town where
there's grand opera. In your answer to my telegram from the Catskills,
you said merely you were going to the opera this evening. You didn't say
what opera, but I supposed it was this one, so I bought a ticket as soon
as I arrived in town at the down-town office. I got here after the first
act, and spent all the second act looking around for you.”
“It's strange you didn't see us. We were in the middle of row K, right.”
“Well, I missed you, that's all, and I kept a watch on the lobby after
the act, thinking you'd perhaps come out between the acts. Then I went
to the Park Theatre, and then to the Girard Avenue.”
Amy and Haslam went into the vestibule. Amy was crimson with anger.
Haslam quietly said:
“Do you wish to continue the pursuit?”
Before she found time to answer, another matter distracted her
attention.
“Look! There's Mary, the housemaid, who was to stay up for me till I got
home. She has come here for me.”
The servant stood by the door leading into the lobby, in a position
enabling her to scan the faces of people coming out from the auditorium.
“Oh, Miss Amy, are you here? I was waiting for you to come out. Here's
a telegram that came about a half-hour ago. I thought it might be
important.”
Amy tore open the envelope.
“Why,” she said to Haslam, “this was sent to-day from Philadelphia to
me at the Catskills, and my cousins have had it repeated back to me. And
look--it's signed by you.”
“I surely didn't send it.”
But there was the name beyond doubt, “Henry Haslam, M.D.”
“This is a mystery to me, I assure you,” reiterated the doctor.
“But not to me,” cried Amy. “Read the message and you'll understand.”
He read these words:
“Mr. Appleton is very ill. His life depends upon his will-power. He
tells me that you alone can say the word that will save him. Henry
Haslam, M.D.”
Haslam smiled.
“A clever invention to make you think he tried to execute his threat.
Now you know what he was doing while you were taking your handbag home.
He probably concocted the scheme on his journey. But why did he sign my
name, I wonder?”
She dropped her eyes and answered in a low tone:
“Because he knew that I would believe anything said by you.”
“Would you believe that I love you still more than I did three years
ago?”
“Yes; if it came from your own lips--not by telegraph.”
She lifted her eyes now, and her lips, too; Mary the housemaid sensibly
looked another way.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Tales From Bohemia, by Robert Neilson Stephens