gallery grew more and more obstreperous and turbulent. Wave upon wave of
sound swept through the auditorium to break, roaring, against the
obdurate curtain. When eventually a second figure appeared before the
footlights, the audience seemed to understand that Max dared not show
himself again, and why. It was with difficulty that the man--evidently
the stage-manager--contrived to make himself disconnectedly audible.
"Ladies and ..." he shouted, sweat beading his perturbed forehead ...
"regret ... impossible to continue ... money ... box-office...."
An angry howl drowned him out. He retreated at accelerated discretion.
Whitaker, slipping through the stage-door behind the boxes, ran into the
last speaker standing beside the first entrance, heatedly explaining to
any one who would listen the utter futility of offering box-office
prices in return for seat checks which in the majority of instances had
cost their holders top-notch speculator prices.
"They'll wreck the theatre," he shouted excitedly, mopping his brow with
his coat sleeve, "and damned if I blame 'em! What t'ell'd she wana pull
a raw one like this for?"
Whitaker caught his arm in a grasp compelling attention.
"Where's Miss Law?" he asked.
"You tell me and I'll make you a handsome present," retorted the man.
"What's happened to her? Can't you find her?"
"I dunno--go ask Max."
"Where is _he_?"
"You can search me; last I saw of him he was tearing the star
dressin'-room up by the roots."
Whitaker hurried on just in time to see Max disappearing in the
direction of the stage-door, at which point he caught up with him, and
from the manager's disjointed catechism of the doorkeeper garnered the
information that the star had hurried out of the building while Max was
making his announcement before the curtain.
Max swung angrily upon Whitaker.
"Oh, it's you, is it? Perhaps you can explain what this means? She was
looking straight at you when she dried up! I saw her--"
"Perhaps you'd better find Miss Law and ask her," Whitaker interrupted.
"Have you any idea where she's gone?"
"Home, probably," Max snapped in return.
"Where's that?"
"Fifty-seventh Street--house of her own--just bought it."
"Come on, then." Passing his arm through the manager's, Whitaker drew
him out into the alley. "We'll get a taxi before this mob--"
"But, look here--what business've _you_ got mixing in?"
"Ask Miss Law," said Whitaker, shortly. It had been on the tip of his
tongue to tell the man flatly: "I'm her husband." But he retained wit
enough to deny himself the satisfaction of this shattering rejoinder. "I
know her," he added; "that's enough for the present."
"If you knew her all the time, why didn't you say so?" Max expostulated
with passion.
"I didn't know I knew her--by that name," said Whitaker lamely.
At the entrance to the alley Max paused to listen to the uproar within
his well-beloved theatre.
"I'd give five thousand gold dollars if I hadn't met you this
afternoon!" he groaned.
"It's too late, now," Whitaker mentioned the obvious. "But if I'd
understood, I promise you I wouldn't have come--at least to sit where
she could see me."
He began gently to urge Max toward Broadway, but the manager hung back
like a sulky child.
"Hell!" he grumbled. "I always knew that woman was a Jonah!"
"You were calling her your mascot two hours ago."
"She'll be the death of me, yet," the little man insisted gloomily. He
stopped short, jerking his arm free. "Look here, I'm not going. What's
the use? We'd only row. And I've got my work cut out for me back
there"--with a jerk of his head toward the theatre.
Whitaker hesitated, then without regret decided to lose him. It would be
as well to get over the impending interview without a third factor.
"Very well," he said, beckoning a taxicab in to the curb. "What's the
address?"
Max gave it sullenly.
"So long," he added morosely as Whitaker opened the cab door; "sorry I
ever laid eyes on you."
Whitaker hesitated. "How about that supper?" he inquired. "Is it still
on?"
"How in blazes do I know? Come round to the Beaux Arts and find out for
yourself--same's I'll have to."
"All right," said Whitaker doubtfully. He nodded to the chauffeur, and
jumped into the cab. As they swung away he received a parting impression
of Max, his pose modelled on the popular conception of Napoleon at
Waterloo: hands clasped behind his back, hair in disorder, chin on his
chest, a puzzled frown shadowing his face as he stared sombrely after
his departing guest.
Whitaker settled back and, oblivious to the lights of Broadway streaming
past, tried to think--tried with indifferent success to prepare himself
against the unhappy conference he had to anticipate. It suddenly
presented itself to his reason, with shocking force, that his attitude
must be humbly and wholly apologetic. It was a singular case: he had
come home to find his wife on the point of marrying another man--and
_she_ was the one entitled to feel aggrieved! Strange twist of the
eternal triangle!...
He tried desperately, and with equal futility, to frame some excuse for
his fault.
Far too soon the machine swerved into Fifty-seventh Street, slipped
halfway down the block, described a wide arc to the northern curb and
pulled up, trembling, before a modest modern residence between Sixth and
Seventh avenues.
Reluctantly Whitaker got out and, on suspicion, told the chauffeur to
wait. Then, with all the alacrity of a condemned man ascending the
scaffold, he ran up the steps to the front door.
A man-servant answered his ring without undue delay.
Was Miss Law at home? He would see.
This indicated that she was at home. Whitaker tendered a card with his
surname pencilled after that of _Mr. Hugh Morten_ in engraved script. He
was suffered to enter and wait in the hallway.
He stared round him with pardonable wonder. If this were truly the home
of Mary Ladislas Whitaker--her property--he had builded far better than
he could possibly have foreseen with that investment of five hundred
dollars six years since. But who, remembering the tortured, half-starved
child of the Commercial House, could have prefigured the Sara Law of
to-day--the woman who, before his eyes, within that hour, had burst
through the counterfeit of herself of yesterday like some splendid
creature emerging from its chrysalis?
Soft, shaded lights, rare furnishings, the rich yet delicate atmosphere
of exquisite taste, the hush and orderly perfection of a home made and
maintained with consummate art: these furnished him with dim, provoking
intimations of an individuality to which he was a stranger--less than a
stranger--nothing....
The man-servant brought his dignity down-stairs again.
Would Mr. Whitaker be pleased to wait in the drawing-room?
Mr. Whitaker surrendered top-coat and hat and was shown into the
designated apartment. Almost immediately he became aware of feminine
footsteps on the staircase--tapping heels, the faint murmuring of
skirts. He faced the doorway, indefinably thrilled, the blood quickening
in throat and temples.
To his intense disappointment there entered to him a woman impossible to
confuse with her whom he sought: a lady well past middle-age, with the
dignity and poise consistent with her years, her manifest breeding and
her iron-gray hair.
"Mr. Whitaker?"
He bowed, conscious that he was being narrowly scrutinized, nicely
weighed in the scales of a judgment prejudiced, if at all, not in his
favor.
"I am Mrs. Secretan, a friend of Miss Law's. She has asked me to say
that she begs to be excused, at least for to-night. She has suffered a
severe shock and is able to see nobody."
"I understand--and I'm sorry," said Whitaker, swallowing his chagrin.
"And I am further instructed to ask if you will be good enough to leave
your address."
"Certainly: I'm stopping at the Ritz-Carlton; but"--he demurred--"I
should like to leave a note, if I may--?"
Mrs. Secretan nodded an assent. "You will find materials in the desk
there," she added, indicating an escritoire.
Thanking her, Whitaker sat down, and, after some hesitation, wrote a few
lines:
"Please don't think I mean to cause you the slightest inconvenience
or distress. I shall be glad to further your wishes in any way you
may care to designate. Please believe in my sincere regret...."
Signing and folding this, he rose and delivered it to Mrs. Secretan.
"Thank you," he said with a ceremonious bow.
The customary civilities were scrupulously observed.
He found himself in the street, with his trouble for all reward for his
pains. He wondered what to do, where to go, next. There was in his mind
a nagging thought that he ought to do something or other, somehow or
other, to find Drummond and make him understand that he, Whitaker, had
no desire or inclination to stand in his light; only, let the thing be
consummated decently, as privately as possible, with due deference to
the law....
The driver of the taxicab was holding the door for him, head bent to
catch the address of the next stop. But his fare lingered still in
doubt.
Dimly he became aware of the violent bawlings of a brace of news-vendors
who were ramping through the street, one on either sidewalk. Beyond two
words which seemed to be intended for "extra" and "tragedy" their cries
were as inarticulate as they were deafening.
At the spur of a vague impulse, bred of an incredulous wonder if the
papers were already noising abroad the news of the fiasco at the Theatre
Max, Whitaker stopped one of the men and purchased a paper. It was
delivered into his hands roughly folded so that a section of the front
page which blazed with crimson ink was uppermost--and indicated,
moreover, by a ridiculously dirty thumb.
"Ther'y'are, sir. 'Orrible moider.... Thanky...."
The man galloped on, howling. But Whitaker stood with his gaze riveted
in horror. The news item so pointedly offered to his attention was
clearly legible in the light of the cab lamps.
LATEST EXTRA
TRAGIC SUICIDE IN HARLEM RIVER
Stopping his automobile in the middle of Washington Bridge at 7.30
P.M., Carter S. Drummond, the lawyer and fiance of Sara Law the
actress, threw himself to his death in the Harlem River. The body
has not as yet been recovered.
VIII
A HISTORY
Whitaker returned at once to the Theatre Max, but only to find the front
of the house dark, Forty-sixth Street gradually reassuming its normal
nocturnal aspect.
At the stage-door he discovered that no one knew what had become of the
manager. He might possibly be at home.... It appeared that Max occupied
exclusive quarters especially designed for him in the theatre building
itself: an amiable idiosyncrasy not wholly lacking in advertising value,
if one chose to consider it in that light.
His body-servant, a prematurely sour Japanese, suggested grudgingly that
his employer might not improbably be found at Rector's or Louis
Martin's. But he wasn't; not by Whitaker, at least.
Eventually the latter realized that it wasn't absolutely essential to
his peace of mind or material welfare to find Max that night. He had
been, as a matter of fact, seeking him in thoughtless humour--moved
solely by the gregarious instinct in man, which made him want to discuss
the amazing events of the evening with the one who, next to himself and
Sara Law, was most vitally concerned with them.
He consulted a telephone book without finding that Drummond had any
private residence connection, and then tried at random one of the clubs
of which they had been members in common in the days when Hugh Whitaker
was a human entity in the knowledge of the town. Here he had better
luck--luck, that is, in as far as it put an end to his wanderings for
the night; he found a clerk who remembered his face without remembering
his name, and who, consequently, was not unwilling to talk. Drummond, it
seemed, had lived at the club; he had dined alone, that evening, in his
room; had ordered his motor car from the adjacent garage for seven
o'clock; and had left at about that hour with a small hand-bag and no
companion. Nothing further was known of his actions save the police
report. The car had been found stationary on Washington Bridge, and
deserted, Drummond's motor coat and cap on the driver's seat. Bystanders
averred that a man had been seen to leave the car and precipitate
himself from the bridge to the stream below. The body was still
unrecovered. The club had notified by telegraph a brother in San
Francisco, the only member of Drummond's family of whom it had any
record. Friends, fellow-members of the club, were looking after
things--doing all that could and properly ought to be done under the
circumstances.
Whitaker walked back to his hotel. There was no other place to go: no
place, that is, that wooed his humour in that hour. He could call to
mind, of course, names of friends and acquaintances of the old days to
whom there was no reason why he shouldn't turn, now that he had elected
to rediscover himself to the world; but there was none of them all that
he really wanted to see before he had regained complete control of his
emotions.
He was, indeed, profoundly shocked. He held himself measurably
responsible for Drummond's act of desperation. If he had not wilfully
sought to evade the burden of his duty to Mary Ladislas, when he found
that he was to live rather than die--if he had been honest and generous
instead of allowing himself to drift into cowardly defalcation to her
trust--Drummond, doubtless, would still be alive. Or even if, having
chosen the recreant way, he had had the strength to stick to it, to stay
buried....
Next to poor Peter Stark, whom his heart mourned without ceasing, he had
cared most for Drummond of all the men he had known and liked in the old
life. Now ... he felt alone and very lonely, sick of heart and forlorn.
There was, of course, Lynch, his partner in the Antipodes; Whitaker was
fond of Lynch, but not with the affection that a generous-spirited youth
had accorded Peter Stark and Drummond--a blind and unreasoning affection
that asked no questions and made nothing of faults. The capacity for
such sentiment was dead in him, as dead as Peter Stark, as dead as
Drummond....
It was nearly midnight, but the hour found Whitaker in no humour for bed
or the emptiness of his room. He strolled into the lounge, sat down at a
detached table in a corner, and ordered something to drink. There were
not many others in the room, but still enough to mitigate to some extent
his temporary horror of utter loneliness.
He felt painfully the heaviness of his debt to the woman he had married.
He who had promised her new life and the rich fulfilment thereof had
accomplished only its waste and desolation. He had thrust upon her the
chance to find happiness, and as rudely had snatched it away from her.
Nor could he imagine any way in which he might be able to expiate his
breach of trust--his sins of omission and commission, alike deadly and
unpardonable!
Unless ... He caught eagerly at the thought: he might "die" again--go
away once more, and forever; bury himself deep beyond the groping
tentacles of civilization; disappear finally, notifying her of his
intention, so that she might seek legal freedom from his name. It only
needed Max's silence, which could unquestionably be secured, to insure
her against the least breath of scandal, the faintest whisper of
gossip.... Not that Max really knew anything; but the name of Whitaker,
as identified with Hugh Morten, might better be permitted to pass
unechoed into oblivion....
And with this very thought in mind he became aware of the echo of that
name in his hearing.
A page, bearing something on a salver, ambled through the lounge, now
and again opening his mouth to bleat, dispassionately: "Mista Whitaker,
Mista Whitaker!"
The owner of that name experienced a flush of exasperation. What right
had the management to cause him to be advertised in every public room of
the establishment?... But the next instant his resentment evaporated,
when he remembered that he remained Mr. Hugh Morten in the managerial
comprehension.
He lifted a finger; the boy swerved toward him, tendered a blue
envelope, accepted a gratuity and departed.
It was a cable message: very probably an answer to his to Grace Pettit.
Whitaker tore the envelope and unfolded the enclosure, glancing first at
the signature to verify his surmise. As he did so, he heard his name a
second time.
"Pardon me; this is Mr. Whitaker?"
A man stood beside the little table--one whom Whitaker had indifferently
noticed on entering as an equally lonely lounger at another table.
Though he frowned involuntarily with annoyance, he couldn't well deny
his identity.
"Yes," he said shortly, looking the man up and down with a captious eye.
Yet it was hard to find much fault with this invader of his
preoccupation. He had the poise and the dress of a gentleman: dignity
without aggressiveness, completeness without ostentation. He had a
spare, not ungraceful body, a plain, dark face, a humorous mouth, steady
eyes: a man easily forgotten or overlooked unless he willed it
otherwise.
"My name is Ember," he said quietly. "If you'll permit me--my card." He
offered a slip of pasteboard engraved with the name of Martin Ember.
"And I'll sit down, because I want to talk to you for a few minutes."
Accordingly he sat down. Whitaker glanced at the card, and questioningly
back at Mr. Ember's face.
"I don't know you, but ... What are we to talk about, please?"
The man smiled, not unpleasingly.
"Mrs. Whitaker," he said.
Whitaker stared, frowned, and jumped at a conclusion.
"You represent Mrs. Whitaker?"
Mr. Ember shook his head. "I'm no lawyer, thank God! But I happen to
know a good deal it would be to your advantage to know; so I've taken
this liberty."
"Mrs. Whitaker didn't send you to me? Then how--? What the deuce--!"
"I happened to have a seat near your box at the theatre to-night," Mr.
Ember explained coolly. "From--what I saw there, I inferred that you
must be--yourself. Afterwards I got hold of Max, confirmed my suspicion,
and extracted your address from him."
"I see," said Whitaker, slowly--not comprehending the main issue at all.
"But I'm not known here by the name of Whitaker."
"So I discovered," said Ember, with his quiet, engaging smile. "If I
hadn't remembered that you sometimes registered as Hugh Morten--as, for
instance, at the Commercial House six years ago--"
"You were there!"
"A considerable time after the event--yes." The man nodded, his eyes
glimmering.
Whitaker shot a quick glance round the room, and was relieved to find
they were not within earshot of any of the other occupied tables.
"Who the devil are you?" he demanded bluntly.
"I was," said the other slowly, "once, a private detective. Now--I'm a
person of no particular employment, of independent means, with a
penchant--you're at liberty to assume--for poking my nose into other
people's business."
"Oh...."
A word, "blackmail," leapt into Whitaker's consciousness, and served to
harden the hostility in his attitude.
"Mrs. George Pettit once employed me to find her sister, Miss Mary
Ladislas, who had run away with a chauffeur named Morton," pursued the
man, evenly. "That was about the time--shortly after--the death of
Thurlow Ladislas; say, two months after the so-called elopement."
"Just a minute," said Whitaker suddenly--"by your leave--"
Ember bowed gravely. For a thought longer Whitaker's gaze bored into his
eyes in vain effort to fathom what was going on behind them, the animus
undiscovered by his words; then, remembering, he looked down at the
cable message in his hand.
"_Martin Ember_ (it ran) _private agency 1435 Broadway Grace Pettit_."
Whitaker folded the paper and put it away in a pocket.
"Go on, please," he said quietly.
"In those days," Mr. Ember resumed, "I did such things indifferently
well. I had little trouble in following the runaways from Southampton to
Greenport. There they parted. The girl crossed to the Connecticut shore,
while the man went back to New York with the automobile. He turned the
machine in at the Ladislas garage, by the way, and promptly fell into
the hands of the police. He was wanted for theft in a former position,
was arrested, convicted and sent to Sing Sing; where he presently died,
I'm glad to say.... I thought this information might interest you."
Whitaker nodded grimly.
"Can I order you something to drink?"
"No, thank you--and I'm already smoking." Mr. Ember dropped the ash from
a cigar. "On the Connecticut side (because it was my business to find
out things) I discovered that Miss Ladislas had registered at the
Commercial House as Mrs. Morton. She was there, alone, under that name,
for nearly a week before you registered as Hugh Morten, and in the space
of a few hours married her, under your true name, and shipped her off to
New York."
"Right," Whitaker agreed steadily. "And then--?"
"I traced her to the Hotel Belmont, where she stopped overnight, then
lost her completely; and so reported to Mrs. Pettit. I must mention
here, in confidence, in order that you may understand my subsequent
action, that my bill for the investigation was never paid. Mr. Pettit
was not in very comfortable circumstances at the time.... No matter. I
didn't press him, and later was glad of it, for it left me a free
agent--under no obligation to make further report."
"I don't understand you."
"In a moment.... I came into a little money about that time, and gave up
my business: gave it up, that is, as far as placing myself at the
service of the public was concerned. I retained my devouring curiosity
about things that didn't concern me personally, although they were often
matters of extreme interest to the general public. In other words, I
continued to employ my time professionally, but only for my private
amusement or in the interests of my friends.... After some time Mr.
Drummond sought me out and begged me to renew my search for Mrs.
Whitaker; you were dead, he told me; she was due to come into your
estate--a comfortable living for an independent woman."
"And you found her and told Drummond--?"
Whitaker leaned over the table, studying the man's face with intense
interest.
"No--and yes. I found Mrs. Whitaker. I didn't report to Drummond."
"But why--in Heaven's name?"
Ember smiled sombrely at the drooping ash of his cigar. "There were
several reasons. In the first place I didn't have to: I had asked no
retainer from Drummond, and I rendered no bill: what I had found out was
mine, to keep or to sell, as I chose. I chose not to sell because--well,
because Mrs. Whitaker begged me not to."
"Ah!" Whitaker breathed, sitting back. "Why?"
"This was all of a year, I think, after your marriage. Mrs. Whitaker had
tasted the sweets of independence and--got the habit. She had adopted a
profession looked upon with abhorrence by her family; she was succeeding
in it; I may say her work was foreshadowing that extraordinary power
which made her the Sara Law whom you saw to-night. If she came forward
as the widow of Hugh Whitaker, it meant renunciation of the stage; it
meant painful scenes with her family if she refused to abandon her
profession; it meant the loss of liberty, of freedom of action and
development, which was hers in her decent obscurity. She was already
successful in a small way, had little need of the money she would get as
claimant of your estate. She enlisted my sympathy, and--I held my
tongue."
"That was decent of you."
The man bowed a quiet acknowledgment. "I thought you'd think so....
There was a third reason."
He paused, until Whitaker encouraged him with a "Yes--?"
"Mr. Whitaker"--the query came point-blank--"do you love your wife?"
Whitaker caught his breath. "What right--!" he began, and checked
abruptly. The blood darkened his lean cheeks.
"Mrs. Whitaker gave me to understand that you didn't. It wasn't hard to
perceive, everything considered, that your motive was pure
chivalry--Quixotism. I should like to go to my grave with anything half
as honourable and unselfish to my credit."
"I beg your pardon," Whitaker muttered thickly.
"You don't, then?"
"Love her? No."