THE "THE DANSANT"
I felt, however, that Seabury accepted this conclusion reluctantly, in
fact with a sort of mental reservation not to cease activity himself.
The remainder of the forenoon, and for some time during the early
afternoon, Craig plunged into one of his periods of intense work and
abstraction at the laboratory.
It was, indeed, a most unusual and delicate test which he was making.
For one thing, I noticed that he had, in a sterilizer, some peculiar
granular tissue that had been sent to him from a hospital. This tissue
he was very careful to cleanse of blood and then by repeated boilings
prepare for whatever use he had in mind.
As for myself, I could only stand aside and watch his preparations in
silence. Among the many peculiar pieces of apparatus which he had, I
recall one that consisted of a glass cylinder with a siphon tube running
into it halfway up the outside. Inside was another, smaller cylinder.
All about him as he proceeded were glass containers, capillary pipettes,
test tubes, Bunsen burners, and dialyzers of porous parchment paper
whose wrappers described them as "permeable for peptones, but not for
albumins."
Carefully set aside was the blood which he had drawn from Seabury's
veins, allowed to stand till the serum separated out from the clot.
Next he pipetted it into a centrifuge tube and centrifuged it at high
speed, some sixteen thousand revolutions, until the serum was perfectly
clear, with no trace of a reddish tint, nor even cloudy. After that he
drew off the serum into a little tube, covered it with a layer of a
substance called toluol from another sterile pipette, and finally placed
it in an incubator at a temperature of about ninety-eight.
It was well along toward four o'clock when he paused as if some mental
alarm clock had awakened him to another part of the plan of action he
had laid out.
"Walter," he remarked, hastily doffing his stained old laboratory coat,
"I think we'd better drop around to the Vanderveer."
Curious as I had been at the preparations he was making in the
laboratory, I was still glad at even the suggestion of something that my
less learned mind could understand and it was not many seconds before we
were on our way.
Through the lobby of the famous new hostelry we slowly lounged along,
then down a passage into the tea room, where, in the center of a circle
of quaint little wicker chairs and tables, was a glossy dancing floor.
Kennedy selected a table not in the circle, but around an "L,"
inconspicuously located so that we could watch the dancing without
ourselves being watched.
At one end of the room an excellent orchestra was playing. I gazed
about, fascinated. At the dancing tea was represented, apparently, much
wealth--women whose throats and fingers glittered with gold and gems,
men whose very air exuded prosperity--or at least its veneer.
About it all was the glamor of the _risque_. One felt a sort of
compromising familiarity in this breaking down of old social restraints
through the insidious influence of the tea room, with its accompaniments
of music and dancing.
"I suppose," remarked Craig after we had for some time settled ourselves
and watched the brilliant scene, "that, like many others, Walter, you
have often wondered whether these modern dances are actually as
stimulating as they seem."
I shrugged my shoulders non-committally.
"Well, there is what psychologists might call a real dance neurosis," he
went on, contemplatively, toying with a glass. "In fact few persons can
withstand the physical effect of the peculiar rhythm, the close contact,
and the sinuous movements--at least where, so to speak, the surroundings
are suggestive and the dance becomes less restrained and more sensuous,
as it does often in circumstances like these, often among strangers."
The music had started again and one after another couples seemed to
float past in unhesitating hesitation--dowager and debutante, dandy and
doddering octogenarian.
"Why," he exclaimed, looking out at the whirling kaleidoscope, "here in
the most advanced epoch, people of culture and intelligence frankly say
they are 'wild' for something primitive."
"Still," I objected, "dancing even in the wild, stimulating emotional
manner you see here need not be merely an incitement to love, need it?
May it not be a normal gratification of the love instinct--eroticism
translated into rhythm? Perhaps it may represent sex, but not
necessarily badly."
Kennedy nodded. "Undoubtedly the effect of the dances is in direct ratio
to the sexual temperament of the dancer," he admitted.
He paused and again watched the whirl.
"Does Mrs. Seabury herself understand it?" he mused, only half speaking
to me. "I'm sure that this Sherburne is clever enough to do so, at any
rate."
A hearty round of applause came from the dancers as the music ceased.
None left the floor, however, but remained waiting for the encore
eagerly, scarcely changing the positions in which they had stopped.
"To my mind," Kennedy resumed, with the music, "several things seem
significant. Many people have noticed that after marriage women
generally lose much of their ardor for dancing. I feel that it is an
unsafe matter on which to generalize, but--well--Mrs. Seabury seems not
to have lost it."
"Then," I inquired quickly, "you imply that--she is not really as much
in love with her husband as she would have us think--or, perhaps,
herself believes?"
"Not quite that," he replied doubtfully. "But I am wondering whether
there is such a factor that must be considered."
Before I could answer Kennedy touched my arm. Instinctively I followed
the direction of his eye and saw Mrs. Seabury step out on the floor
across from us. Without a word from Craig, I realized that the man with
her must be Sherburne, our "tango thief."
Fashionably dressed, affable, seemingly superficially, at least, well
educated, tall, graceful, with easy manners, I could not help seeing at
a glance that he was one of the most erotic dancers on the little floor.
As they passed near us, Mrs. Seabury caught Kennedy's eye in momentary
recognition. Her face, flushed with the dance, colored perhaps a shade
deeper, but not noticeably to her partner, who was devoting himself
wholly and skillfully to leading her in a manner that one could see
called forth frequent comment from others, less favored.
As they sat down after this dance and the encore, Craig motioned to the
waiter at our table and whispered to him.
A few moments later, a man whom I had seen around the hotel on my
infrequent visits, but did not know, slipped quietly into a seat beside
Kennedy, even deeper in the shadow of the recess in which we were
sitting.
"Walter, I'd like to have you meet Mr. Dunn, the house detective,"
whispered Kennedy under his breath.
The usual interchange of remarks followed, during which Dunn was
evidently waiting for Kennedy to reveal the real purpose of our visit.
"By the way, Dunn," remarked Craig at length, "who is that fellow--over
there with the woman in blue--the fellow with the heavy braided coat?"
Dunn craned his neck cautiously, then shrugged his shoulders. "I've seen
him here with her before," he remarked. "I don't know him, though. Why?"
Briefly Kennedy sketched such facts of a supposedly hypothetical case as
would be likely to secure an opinion from the house man. Dunn narrowed
his eyes thoughtfully.
"That's rather a ticklish situation, Kennedy," Dunn remarked when Craig
had stated the case, omitting all reference to Seabury's name as well as
his suspicions. "Of course," he went on, "I know we've got to protect
the name of the hotel. And I know we can't have men meeting our women
patrons, doing a gavotte or two--and then fox-trotting them into
blackmail."
Dunn stroked his chin thoughtfully. "You see, we can do a great deal to
suppress card sharps, agents for fake mining stocks, passers of
worthless checks, and confidence men of that sort. But it is not so
simple to thwart the vultures who prey on the gullibility and passions
of the so-called idle rich."
"There must be something you can do to get it on this fellow, though,"
persisted Craig.
"Well," considered the house man, "we have what might be called our
hotel secret service--several men and women operating entirely apart
from the hotel force of detectives who, like myself, are too well known
to clever crooks. Nobody knows them, except myself. There's one--that
girl over there dancing with that middle-aged man who has mail sent here
but doesn't live here. Could they be of use?"
"Just the thing," exclaimed Craig enthusiastically. "Can't you have her
get acquainted--just as a precaution--with that man? His name, by the
way, I understand is Sherburne."
"I'll do it," agreed Dunn, rising unostentatiously.
Just then I happened to glance across the floor and over the heads of
those seated at the tables at a door opposite us. It was my turn hastily
to seize Kennedy's elbow.
"Good God!" I exclaimed involuntarily.
There, in the further doorway of the tea room, stood Judson Seabury
himself!
Without a word, Craig rose and quickly crossed the dancing floor,
stopping before Mrs. Seabury's table. Instead of waiting to be
introduced, he sat down deliberately, as though he had been there all
the time and had just gone out of the room and come back. He did it all
so quickly that he was able in a perfectly natural way to turn and see
that Seabury himself had been watching and now was advancing slowly,
picking his way among the crowded tables.
From around my corner I saw Craig whisper a word or two to Mrs. Seabury,
then rise and meet Seabury less than halfway from the door by which he
had been standing.
The tension of the situation was too much for Mrs. Seabury. Confounded
and bewildered, she fled precipitately, passing within a few feet of my
table. Her face was positively ghastly.
As for Sherburne, he merely sat a moment and surveyed the irate husband
with calm and studied insolence at a safe distance. Then he, too, rose
and turned deliberately on his heel.
Curious to know how Craig would meet the dilemma, I watched eagerly and
was surprised to see Seabury, after a moment's whispered talk, turn and
leave the tea room by the same door through which he had entered.
"What did you do?" I asked, as Craig rejoined me a few moments later.
"What did you say? My hat's off to you," I added in admiration.
"Told him I had trailed her here with one of my operatives, but was
convinced there was nothing wrong, after all," he returned.
"You mean," I asked as the result of Craig's quick thinking dawned on
me, "that you told him Sherburne was _your_ operative?"
Kennedy nodded. "I want to see him, now, if I can," he said simply.