CHAPTER I

Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

"PERSONS UNKNOWN"

BY VIRGINIA TRACY

ILLUSTRATIONS BY

HENRY RALEIGH

NEW YORK

THE CENTURY CO.

1914

Copyright, 1914, by

THE CENTURY CO.

Copyright, 1914, by The Ridgway Company

_Published, October, 1914_

TO

MY FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS

HELEN L. KLOEBER AND JESSIE C. SOULE

When winter's breath was on the pane,

Through dusk and snow, wild winds and rain,

I fled to your bright hearth again

To read about a _Shadow_!

You lit the lamp, you brewed the tea,

Pulled up the deepest chair for me,

And set yourselves to guess and see--

_What ailed that minx, Christina?_

What Herrick found--what Nancy knew--

Whose motor raced the county through--

What could that harsh Policeman do--

You never failed to argue;

Of moonlight, murders, lovers, threats,

Vengeance and kisses, siren's nets,

And pale, dark men with cigarettes,

Not once I found you weary!

Through broken music, sudden light

In the deep darkness, jewels bright,

Persons unknown in unknown plight,

You still sought _unknown_ persons;

Authors, if you would straightway know

Where faith and cheer and counsel grow,

Suggestions flourish and hints flow:

_Go ask my Nancy Cornish!_

[Illustration: Suddenly she flung one arm up and out in such a strange

and splendid gesture, of such free and desperate passion, as Herrick had

never seen before]

CONTENTS

BOOK FIRST

THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND

I WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT 3

II HERRICK FINDS A DOOR BOLTED 7

III SOMETHING ELSE IS FOUND 12

IV HERRICK IS SURE OF ONE THING 14

V HERRICK READS A NEWSPAPER 19

VI HERRICK IS ASKED A FAVOR 25

VII HERRICK HAS A BUSIEST DAY 36

VIII MRS. WILLING TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS 51

IX JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED 58

X JOE PATRICK ARRIVES 67

XI PERSONS UNKNOWN 89

XII HERRICK RECEIVES A TELEPHONE MESSAGE 96

BOOK SECOND

THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN

I HERRICK PAYS A CALL, AND THE TEA IS SPILT 103

II IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS ARM IS OUTSTRETCHED 115

III HERRICK GUESSES AT THE MYSTERY AND GETS IN SOMETHING'S

WAY 124

IV THE MYSTERY PAUSES, AND OTHER THINGS GO FORWARD 133

V HERRICK HEARS A BELL RING 158

VI AND HOLDS A RECEPTION AFTER ALL 166

VII MORNING IN THE PARK: THE SILENT OUTCRY 170

VIII A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN

ENTERS 177

IX PRESTO CHANGE: "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS

ME!" 184

X MIDNIGHT IN THE PARK; "JE SUIS AUSSI SANS DESIR--" 190

XI KEEPING CHRISTINA OUT OF IT 201

XII AULD ACQUAINTANCE: WHAT CHRISTINA SAW 206

XIII THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS: THE PRINCESS IN THE TRANSFORMATION

SCENE 215

XIV ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS 219

XV "WHEN STARS GROW COLD" 222

BOOK THIRD

WILL O' THE WISP

I GLEAMS IN THE RAIN: WHEELER'S STORY 231

II CORPSE CANDLES IN THE NIGHT: MRS. DEUTCH'S STORY 242

III SEARCH-LIGHTS FLASHED IN THE EYES: KANE'S STORY 254

IV A LIGHT ALONG THE ROAD: DENNY GIVES AN ADDRESS 270

V THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LIGHT: WHERE CHRISTINA

WAS 283

VI THE YELLOW HOUSE AND WHAT THEY FOUND AT IT 292

VII VANISHING LADY: THE SHADOW AT THE DANCE 298

VIII JILL-IN-THE-BOX! THE LAST OF THE GRAY TOURING CAR 305

IX A SIGN IN THE SKY 314

X "THE OLD EARL'S DAUGHTER": MRS. PASCOE ON FAMILY

TIES 324

XI THE ARM OF JUSTICE ON CLEANING DAY: AN OVERTURE

TO A COMIC OPERA 334

XII THE COMIC OPERA CHORUS: "AND SAID, 'WHAT A GOOD

BOY AM I!'" 343

XIII "WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?": A CRIMINAL PERFORMANCE 356

XIV THE SICILIAN TRAITOR: "YOU THAT CHOOSE NOT BY THE

VIEW" 365

XV ONE WITNESS SPEAKS 377

XVI THE LAST SHADOW: "LEAVE ALL THAT TIES THY FOOT

BEHIND AND FOLLOW, FOLLOW ME!" 380

XVII HERSELF 385

BOOK FOURTH

THE LIGHTED HOUSE

I THE HOSTESS PREPARING 389

II THE EXPECTED COMPANY 399

III THE SHIPS AT ACTIUM 401

IV TURN, FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL-- 423

V CARNAGE: A COMIC OPERA CLIMAX 433

VI THE DARKEST HOUR: "OF WOUNDS AND SORE DEFEAT I

MADE MY BATTLE STAY!" 447

VII THE SHADOW'S FACE: BEING ALSO THE FULL STORY OF

THE SHADOW'S FLIGHT 459

VIII IN WHICH CHRISTINA HOPE DOES POSITIVELY REAPPEAR 481

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Suddenly she flung one arm up and out in such a strange and

splendid gesture, of such free and desperate passion, as

Herrick had never seen before _Frontispiece_

Not a breath, not a movement, greeted the invaders 10

"Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to correct a false impression;

may I? 76

"'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'There's Miss Hope!'" 86

"There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. "Don't

deny it--I know!" 160

Nowhere was there a letter, no significant writing nor any

other name 296

"You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous fool!

Thank God, I've done with you!" 420

"Shall I let her come in? Shall I tell at last what you are,

through and through--?" 476

BOOK FIRST

THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND

CHAPTER I

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT

"Ask Nancy Cornish!"

The phrase might have exploded into Herrick's mind, it leaped there with

such sudden violence, distinct as the command of a voice, out of the

smothering blackness of the torrid August night.

He started up instantly, as if to listen, sitting upright on the bed

from which he had long since tossed all covering. Then he frowned at the

tricks which the heat was playing upon even such strong nerves as his.

In the unacknowledged homesickness of his heart his very first doze had

brought him a dream of home; then the dream had slid along the trail of

desire to a cool sea beach, where he and Marion used to be taken every

summer when they were children, and a fog had rolled in along this beach

which, at first, he had welcomed because it was so deliciously cold. It

was no longer his sister who was there beside him; it was no less

unexpected a person than the Heroine of the novel he was writing and

whose conduct in the very next chapter he had been trying all day to

decide. It was a delightful convenience to have her there, ready to tell

him the secret of her heart! He saw that she had brought the novel with

her, all finished. She held it out to him, open, and he read one

phrase, "When Ann and her lover were down in Cornwall." He asked her

what that was doing there--since her name was not Ann and he had never

imagined her in Cornwall. And then the fog rolled up between them,

blotting out the book, blotting out his Heroine; that fog became a

horror, he was lost in it, and yet it vaguely showed him the shadowy

forms of shadowy persons--he hoped if they were his other characters

they really weren't quite so shadowy as that!--one of whom threateningly

cried to him through the fog, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" And here he was, now,

actually conscious of a great rush of energy and intention, as if he

really had some way of asking Nancy Cornish, or anything to ask her, if

he had!

He remembered perfectly well, now, who she was--a little red-headed

girl, a friend of his sister; a girl whom he had not seen in eight years

and did not care if he never saw again. What had brought her into his

dreams?

She certainly had no business there. No girl had any business anywhere

inside his head for the present, except that Heroine of his, whose

photograph he had had framed to reign over his desk. It was a photograph

which he had found forgotten, last winter, in the room of a hotel in

Paris, and it had seemed to him the personality he had been looking for.

Of the original he knew no more than that. But he knew well enough she

was not Nancy Cornish.

The novel was his first novel; and, after a long day of laborious

failure at it, Herrick, in pure despair of his own work, had early flung

himself abed. He had lain there waking and restless upon scorching

linen, reluctantly listening, listening; to the passage of the trolley

cars on upper Broadway; to the faint, threatening grumble of the Subway;

the pitiful crying of a sick baby; the advancing, dying footfalls; to

all the diabolic malevolence of shrieking or chugging automobiles. The

mere act of sitting up, however, recalled him from the mussy stuffiness

in which he had been tossing. Why, he was not buried somewhere in a

black hole! He was occupying his landlady's best bedroom--the back

parlor, indeed, of Mrs. Grubey's comfortable flat. Well, and to-morrow,

after two months of loneliness, of one-sided conversations with the

maddeningly mute countenance of his Heroine and of swapping jokes,

baseball scores, weather prophecies, and political gossip with

McGarrigle, the policeman on the beat, he was going to take lunch with

Jimmy Ingham, the most eminent of publishers. Everything was all right!

That peculiar sense of waiting and watching was growing on him merely

with the restless brooding of the night, which smelt of thunder. In that

burning, motionless air there was expectancy and a crouching sense of

climax.

Yet it was not so late but that, in the handsome apartment house

opposite, an occasional window was still lighted. The pale blinds of one

of these, directly on a level with Herrick's humbler casement, were

drawn to the bottom; and Herrick vaguely wondered that any one should

care to shut out even the idea of air. Just then, behind those blinds,

some one began to play a piano.

The touch was the touch of a master, and Herrick sat listening in

surprise. The tide of lovely melody swept boldly out, filling the air

with soaring angels. Could people be giving a party?

Herrick got to his feet and struck a match. Five minutes past one! If he

dressed and went down to the river, he would wake Mrs. Grubey and the

Grubey children. He resigned himself; glancing at the precious letter of

appointment with Ingham on his desk, and at the photograph of his

Heroine, looking out at him with her quiet eyes; shy and candid, tender

and bravely boyish, and cool with their first youth. To her he sighed,

thinking of his novel, "Well, Evadne, we must have faith!" He turned out

the light again, stripped off the coat of his pajamas, sopped the

drinking water from his pitcher over his head and his strong shoulders,

and drew an easy chair up to the window. Down by the curb one of those

quivering automobiles seemed to purr, raspingly, in its sleep. Some one

across the street was talking on and on, accompanied by the musician's

now soft and improvising touch. Then, in Herrick's thoughts, the voice,

or voices, and the fitful, straying music began to blend; and then he

had no thoughts at all.

He was wakened by a demonic crash of chords. His eyes sprang open; and

there, on the blind opposite, was the shadow of a woman. She stood there

with her back to the window, lithe and tense, and suddenly she flung one

arm up and out in such a strange and splendid gesture, of such free and

desperate passion, as Herrick had never seen before. For a full minute

she stood so; and then the gesture broke, as though she might have

covered her face. The music, scurrying onward from its crash, had never

ceased; it had risen again, ringing triumphantly into the march from

Faust, a man's voice rising furiously with it, and it flashed over

Herrick that they might be rehearsing some scene in a play. Then the

sound of a pistol-shot split through the night. Immediately, behind the

blind, the lights went out.

CHAPTER II

HERRICK FINDS A DOOR BOLTED

The sleepy boy at the switchboard of the house opposite did not seem to

feel in the situation any of the urgency which had brought Herrick into

that elegant vestibule, barefoot and with nothing but an unbuttoned

ulster over his pajama trousers. The boy said he guessed the shot wasn't

a shot; he guessed maybe it was an automobile tire. There couldn't be a

lady in 4-B, anyhow; it was just a bachelor apartment. Well, he supposed

it was 4-B because there was always complaints of him playing on the

piano late at night. The switchboard called him imperatively as he

spoke, and he reluctantly consented to ring up the superintendent.

Instinctively, he refrained from interfering with Herrick when that

young man possessed himself of the elevator and shot to the fourth

floor.

There was no further noises, no call for help, no woman's fleeing

figure. But Herrick's sense of locality guided him down a little hall,

upon which, toward the front, only two apartments opened. One of these

was lettered 4-B. If Herrick had not stopped for his boots he had for

his revolver and it was with the butt end of this that he began

hammering upon the sheet-iron surface of that door. There was no answer.

Was he too late?

The other door opened the length of a short chain. A little man, with

wisps of woolly gray standing up from his head as if in amazement,

brought his face to the opening and quavered, "Be careful! You'll get

hurt! Be--"

"Good God!" cried Herrick. "There's a woman in there!"

"A woman! Why--I _thought_ I heard a woman--!"

It was not so long since Herrick's reporting days but that he believed

he could still work the trick pressure by which two policemen will burst

in the strongest lock. But he now gave up hope of the woolly gentleman

as an assistant and turned his attention to the brass knob. "Get me a

screw-driver!"

"Theodore!" came a voice from behind the woolly gentleman, "Don't you

open our door! It's no business of yours!"

Herrick, glancing desperately about him for any aid, was sufficiently

aware that he might be making a fool of himself for nothing. But the

young fellow felt that was a risk he had to take. In the long hall

crossing the little one he could hear doors opening; the clash of

questioning voices mingled with excited cries--And then came a girl's

voice shrilling, "Isn't anybody going to _do_ anything?" A husky

business voice roared from secure cover, "You don't know what you may be

breaking into, young man! You may get yourself in trouble."

Herrick growled through his teeth an imprecation that ended in "Hand me

a screw-driver, can't you? And a hammer!" The sweat was pouring down his

face from the pressure of his strength upon the lock, but the lock held.

What was going on in there? Or--what had ceased to go on? He could hear

Theodore tremblingly protesting, "I have telephoned for the

superintendent--He has the keys. It's the superintendent's business--"

Had the one shot done the trick? Then, above the stairhead, across the

longer hall, appeared the helmet of a policeman. At his heels came the

superintendent, carrying the keys.

The policeman was jolted from his first idea of arresting Herrick by

Herrick's welcoming cry, "Get a gait on you, McGarrigle!" which

proclaimed to him a valued acquaintance; then, with a hand shaking with

excitement, the half-dressed superintendent fitted the key in the lock.

The lock turned but nothing happened. The door was bolted on the inside.

The re-captured elevator was heard in the distance, and the

superintendent sang out, "Get the engineer! Hurry! Make him hurry!--You

heard no cries--no?" he asked of Herrick. And he stood wiping his face

and breathing hard, his brow dark with trouble.

The halls had begun to be bravely peopled. Also, a second policeman had

arrived. And the information spread that one of these reassuring figures

had been left in the hall downstairs and that another had gone to the

roof. Curiosity, comparatively comfortable and respectable, now, made

itself audible and even visible on every side; some adventurers from the

street had sallied in. When McGarrigle asked the superintendent, "Any

way we can get a look in?" some one immediately volunteered, "There's

Mrs. Willing's apartment right across the entrance-court. You can see in

both these rooms from hers."

"Only two rooms?"

"Parlor, bedroom and bath," said somebody in the tone of a prospectus.

"You go see what you can see, Clancy," said McGarrigle to the second

policeman. "Now, Mr. Herrick?"

Herrick told what he knew, and McGarrigle, his eyes resting with

admiration on the extremely undraped muscles of his informant, plied him

with attentive questions. Herrick's own eyes were on the engineer's

steel. Would it never spring the bolt? "If only she'd cry out!" he said.

"Why doesn't she make some sign?"

"You're sure 'twas him fired?"

"That shadow had no revolver."

"He's done for her, then. Els't he'd never have barricaded himself

like, in there. He didn't give himself a dose, after?"

"Only the one shot."

"If there's an inquest you'll be wanted."

"All right.--But why hasn't he tried to gain time with some kind of

parley--some kind of bluff?"

"Knows he's cornered. He'll show fight as we go in on him. If there's

more than one--" The bolt gave.

McGarrigle turned like a fury. "Clear the hall," he cried.

There was a confused movement. Obedient souls disappeared.

Clancy returned and reported the front room invisible from Mrs.

Willing's side window, the shade of its own side window being down. In

the bedroom and bath all lights out, but shades up and nothing stirring.

"Any hall?"

The superintendent replied in the negative.

"No fire-escapes, you say?"

"No. Fireproof building."

"They're right ahead of us, then."

Again, with a long shudder, the door gave.

The whole hall seemed to give a gasping breath. McGarrigle growled.

"I'll have no mix-up in this hall!" He favored Herrick with a wink that

said, "See me clear 'em out!" "Clancy, you stay here by the door; pick

out half a dozen of 'em that see it through and hold 'em to be

witnesses." The halls were cleared. Locks clicked as if by simultaneous

miracles and even the adventurers from the street could be heard in full

flight. Herrick and McGarrigle exchanged grim smiles. "Now! You keep

back, Mr. Herrick! Clancy, look out!" The engineer jumped to one side.

The door swung open.

[Illustration: Not a breath, not a movement, greeted the invaders]

It gave directly into the dark room which had lately been full of light

and music and a woman's passionate grace. Not a breath, not a

movement, greeted the invaders. No shadow, now, on the white blind.

Whatever was within the dusk simply waited. Herrick, pushing past

Clancy, entered the room with McGarrigle. Behind them the superintendent

leaned in and pressed an electric button. Light sprang forth, flooding

everything. The room was empty.

CHAPTER III

SOMETHING ELSE IS FOUND

"Get-away, eh!" said McGarrigle, grimly.

The superintendent, shaken and wide-eyed, responded only "The bolt!"

They glanced round them, non-plused.

The large living-room upon which they had entered was richly furnished,

but it had no screens nor hidden corners, and, on that summer night, the

windows were undraped. The doorway in which they stood faced the great

window which took up nearly all the frontage of the room. The door

opened against the left wall. Just beyond the door, along that left

wall, stood the piano; beyond that a couch; between the head of the

couch and the front window the wall was cut, up to the molding, by one

of those high, narrow doors which, in a modern apartment house, indicate

the welcome, though inopportune, closet. This door was the single object

of suspicion; then, an overturned chair caught their attention. It lay

between the great library-table which, standing horizontally, almost

halved the room, and the narrow strip of paneling of wall to the right

of the main door in which the superintendent had pressed the button for

the lights. In the right wall, opening on the entrance-court, directly

opposite the piano, but also with its blind drawn, was another window of

ordinary size.

"The bedroom," said the superintendent, moistening his lips, "'s on the

court, there." Then they observed, to their right, the bedroom's arch

hung with heavy portieres. And the sight of these portieres carried

with it a cold thrill. But--"There ain't anybody in there!" Clancy

persisted.

McGarrigle walked over to the door in the wall and tried it. It was

locked and there was no key in the lock. "What's this?"

"A closet."

"Open it, engineer. Clancy, you stand by him."

He went up to the portieres, opened them with some caution and peered

in. Faced only by an empty room he jerked at the portieres to throw them

back; they were very heavy and the humidity made their rings stick to

the pole so that Deutch, running to his assistance, held one aside for

him, while with his other hand he himself fumbled to spring on the

bedroom light. Herrick was hard upon McGarrigle's heels, but, a look

round revealing nothing, he was struck by a sudden fancy and, recrossing

the living-room, raised the shade. No, the little balcony was wholly

empty. The great window had been made in three sections, and the middle

section was really a pair of doors that opened outward on this balcony.

Clancy commented upon the foolishness of their not opening in as he

watched Herrick step through them into the calm night that offered no

explanation of that bolted emptiness. Herrick stepped to the end of the

balcony and craned round toward the entrance-court. From the now lighted

bedroom window there was no access to any other. He glimpsed

McGarrigle's head stuck forth from the bathroom for the same

observation. And it somehow surprised him that a trolley car should

still bang indifferently past the corner; that, just opposite, that

automobile should still chug away, as if nothing had happened. Then he

heard a cry from the superintendent, followed by the policeman's oath.

Herrick ran into the bedroom and stopped short. On the floor at the foot

of the bed lay the body of a young man in dinner clothes. He had been

shot through the heart.

CHAPTER IV

HERRICK IS SURE OF ONE THING

There was something at once commonplace and incredible about it--about

the stupid ghastliness of the face and about the horrid, sticky smear in

the muss of the finely tucked shirt. That gross, silly sprawl of the

limbs!--was it those hands that had called forth angelic music? The dead

man was splendidly handsome and this somehow accentuated Herrick's

revulsion. McGarrigle bent over the body. After a moment he said to the

superintendent, "No use for a doctor. But if you got one, get him."

"He's dead!" said the superintendent. "It's suicide!" He spoke quietly,

but with a dreadfully repressed and labored breath. "Officer, can't you

see it's suicide?" He called up the doctor, and then to the silent group

he again insisted, "It's him shot himself. The door was bolted on the

inside. He had to shoot himself!"

McGarrigle was at the 'phone, calling up the station. Turning his head

he responded, "Where's the weapon?"

They had got the closet open now; no one there. No one in the bedroom

closet. No one under the big brass bed, in the folds of the portieres,

behind the piano, under the couch. No one anywhere. Nor any weapon,

either.

Herrick and Clancy began to examine the fastening of the door. It was an

ordinary little brass catch--a slip-catch, the engineer called it--which

shot its bolt by being turned like a Yale lock. "If this door shut

behind any one with a bang, could the catch slip of itself?" The

engineer shook his head.

The hall was long since full again, though the adventurers were ready to

pop back at a moment's notice; pushing through them came the doctor.

Herrick did not follow him into the bedroom. The room he stood in had a

personality it seemed to challenge him to penetrate.

His most pervasive impression was of cool coloring. The portieres were

of a tapestry which struck Herrick as probably genuine Gobelin, but with

their famous blue faded to a refreshing dullness and he now remembered

that in handling them he had found them lined with a soft but very heavy

satin of the same shade, as if to give them all possible substance. The

stretched silk, figured in tapestry, which covered the walls, had been

dyed a dull blue, washed with gray, to match them; and, to Herrick, this

tint, sober as it was, somehow seemed a strange one for a man's room. In

couch and rugs and lampshades these notes of gray and blue continued to

predominate, greatly enhanced by all the woodwork, which, evidently

supplied by the tenant, was of black walnut.

He had been no anchorite, that tenant. In the corner between the bedroom

and the court window the surface of a seventeenth century sideboard

glimmered under bright liquids, under crystal and silver. Beyond that

window all sorts of rich lusters shone from the bindings of the books

that thronged shelves built into the wall until they reached the great

desk standing in the farthest right hand corner to catch the front

window's light. A lamp stood on this desk, unlighted. At present all the

illumination in the room came from three other lamps; one that squatted

atop of the grand piano, between the now flameless old silver

candelabra; one, almost veiled by its heavy shade, in the middle of the

library table; and one, of the standing sort, that rose up tall from a

sea of newspapers at the head of the couch. All these lamps, worked by

the same switch, were electric, and the ordinary electric fixtures had

been dispensed with; the light was abundant, but very soft and thrown

low, with outlying stretches of shadow. It was not remarkable that it

had failed to show them the murdered man until the electricity in the

bedroom itself had been evoked.

Herrick looked again at the couch. Its cushions had lately been rumpled

and lounged upon; at its head, under the tall lamp, stood a teakwood

tabouret, set with smoking materials on a Benares tray. At its foot, as

if for the convenience of the musician, a little ebony table bore a

decanter and a bowl of ice; the ice in a tall glass, half-empty, was

still melting into the whiskey; in a shallow Wedgewood saucer a

half-smoked cigarette was smoldering still.

"McGarrigle!" said Herrick, in a low voice.

"Hallo!"

"He was shot in here, after all. I was sure of it." And he pointed to

the foot of the piano stool. Still well above the surface of the

hardwood flooring was a little puddle of blood.

McGarrigle contemplated this with a kind of sour bewilderment. "Well,

the coroner's notified. You'll be wanted, y'know, to the inquest."

"What's this?" asked somebody.

It was a long chiffon scarf and it lay on the library table under the

lamp. Clancy lifted it and its whiteness creamed down from his fingers

in the tender lights and folds which lately it had taken around a

woman's throat. Just above the long silk fringe, a sort of cloudy

arabesque was embroidered in a dim wave of lucent silk. And Herrick

noticed that the color of this border was blue-gray, like the blue-gray

room. As they all grimly stared at it, the superintendent exclaimed, "I

never saw it before!"

McGarrigle looked from him to the scarf and commanded, in deference to

the coming coroner, "You leave that lay, now, Clancy!"

Clancy left it. But something in the thing's frail softness affected

Herrick more painfully than the blood of the dead man. In no nightmare,

then, had he imagined that shadow of a woman! She had been here; she was

gone. And, on the floor in there, was that her work?

Now that the interest of rescue had failed, he wanted to get away from

that place. He wanted to dress and go down to the river and think the

whole thing over alone. He had now heard the doctor's verdict of instant

death; and McGarrigle, again reminding him that he would be wanted at

the inquest, made no objection to his withdrawal.

On his own curb stood a line of men, staring at the windows of 4-B as if

they expected the tragedy to be reenacted for their benefit. They all

turned their attention greedily to Herrick as he came up, and the

nearest man said, "Have they got him?"

"Him?"

"Why, the murderer!"

"Oh!" Herrick said. Even in the crude excitement of the question the

man's voice was so pleasant and his enunciation so agreeably clear that

Herrick, constitutionally sensitive to voices and rather weary for the

sound of cultivated speech, replied familiarly, "I'm afraid, strictly

speaking, that there isn't any murderer. It's supposed to be a woman."

"Indeed! Well, have they caught her?"

"They've caught no one. And, after all, there seems to be some hope that

it's a suicide."

"Oh!" said the other, with a smile. "Then you found him in evening

dress! I've noticed that bodies found in evening dress are always

supposed to be suicides!"

The note of laughter jarred. "I see nothing remarkable," Herrick rebuked

him, with considerable state, "in his having on dinner clothes."

"Nothing whatever! 'Dinner clothes'--I accept the correction. Any poor

fellow having them on, a night like this, might well commit

suicide!--I'm obliged to you," he nodded. And, humming, went slowly down

the street.

Herrick suddenly hated him; and then he saw how sore and savage he was

from the whole affair. The same automobile still waited, not far from

his own door, and he longed to leap into it and send it rapid as fury

through the night, leaving all this doubt and horror behind him in the

cramped town. His troubled apprehension did not believe in that

suicide.--What sort of a woman was she? And what deviltry or what

despair had driven her to a deed like that? Where and how--in God's

name, how!--had she fled? He, too, looked up at that window where he had

seen the lights go out. It was brightly enough lighted, now. But this

time there was no blind drawn and no shadow. The bare front of the house

baulked the curiosity on fire in him. "How the devil and all did she get

out?" It was more than curiosity; it was interest, a kind of personal

excitement. That strange, imperial, and passionate gesture! The woman

who made it had killed that man. Of one thing he was sure. "If ever I

see it again, I shall know her," he said, "among ten thousand!"

CHAPTER V

HERRICK READS A NEWSPAPER

Late the next morning Herrick struggled through successive layers of

consciousness to the full remembrance of last night. But now, with

to-morrow's changed prospective, those events which had been his own

life-and-death business, had, as it were, become historic and passed out

of his sphere; they were no longer of the first importance to him.

Inestimably more important was his appointment with Ingham. Herrick had

passed such a lonely summer that the prospect of a civilized luncheon

with an eminent publisher was a very exciting business. Moreover, this

was a critical period in his fortunes.

At twenty-eight years of age Bryce Herrick knew what it was to live a

singularly baffled life--a life of artificial stagnation. His first

twenty-two years, indeed, had been filled with an extraordinary

popularity and success. In the ancient and beloved town of Brainerd,

Connecticut, where he was born, it had been enough for him to be known

as the son of Professor Herrick. The family had never been rich, but for

generations it had been an honored part of the life of the town. It was

Bryce's mother who, marrying in her girlhood a spouse of forty already

largely wedded to his History of the Ancient Chaldeans and Their

Relation to the Babylonians and the Kassites, brought him a little

fortune; she brought, as well, the warm rich strain of mingled Irish and

Southern blood which still touched the shrewdness of her son's clear

glance and his boyish simplicity of manner, with something at once

peppery and romantic. It was a popular combination. He grew into a tall

youth with a square chin, with square white teeth and rather an

aggressive nose, but, in his crinkly blue eyes, humor and kindness; with

a kind of happy glow pervading all his thought and all his

dealings--just as it pervaded his fresh color, his look of gay hardihood

and enduring power, the ruddiness of his brown hair and his tanned skin,

and of his sensitive and sanguine blood. At college he had appeared very

much more than the son of an eminent man. Of that fortunate physical

type which is at once large and slender--broad shouldered and deep

chested, but narrow hipped, long of limb and strong and light of

flank--it had surprised nobody when he became, as if naturally,

spontaneously, a figure in athletics. What surprised people was the

craftmanship in those articles of travel and adventure which sprang from

his vacations. At twenty-two he was a reporter on the New York _Record_;

soon other reporters were prophesying that rockets come down like

sticks, and he was not yet twenty-three when the blow fell. Mrs. Herrick

died, and it was presently found that her money had been a long time

gone; mismanaged utterly by a hopeful husband. This amiable and innocent

creature had been bitten, in his old age, by the madness and the vanity

of speculation; he had made a score of ventures, not one of which had

come to port. His health being now quite shattered, Switzerland was

prescribed; there, for five years, in the country housekeeping of their

straitened circumstances, his son and daughter tended him. There, during

the first two years of exile, Herrick had written those short stories

which had won him a distinguished reputation. No predictions had been

thought too high for him; but he had never got anything together in book

form, and bye-and-bye he had become altogether silent. It was all too

painful, too futile, too muffling! He seemed to be meant for but two

uses: to struggle with the knotted strains of Herrick senior's business

affairs and to assist with that History of the Ancient Chaldeans and

Their Relation to the Babylonians and the Kassites, which was his

father's engrossing, and now sole and senile, mania. His father

suffered, so that the young man was the more enslaved; and made him

suffer, so that he was the more anxious his sister should do no

secretary work for the Chaldeans. But it was his mother's suffering he

thought of now; the years in which she had put up with all this,

uncomforted, and struggled to save something out of the wreck for Marion

and for him, struggled to keep the shadow of it from their youth--and he

had not known! In so much solitude and so much distasteful occupation,

this idea flourished and struck deep. He saw his sister's life

sacrificed, too; given up to household work and nursing, to exile and

poverty, with lack of tenderness and with continual ailing pick-thanks;

and there grew up in him a passionate consideration for women, a

romantic faith in their essential nobility, a romantic devotion to their

right to happiness. Snatched from all the populous clamor and dazzle of

his boyhood and set down by this backwater, alone with a young girl and

the Ancient Chaldeans, he grew into a very simple, lonely fellow;

sometimes irascible but most profoundly gentle; a little old-fashioned;

perhaps something of the pack-horse in his daily round; but living,

mentally, in a very rosy, memory-colored vision of the great, strenuous,

lost, world.

Death gave him back his life; Professor Herrick followed the Chaldeans,

the Babylonians, and the Kassites; within a few months Marion was

married; and Herrick, with something like Whittington's sixpence in his

pocket, famished for adventure and companionship, with the appetite of a

man and the experience of a boy, started for the rainbow metropolis of

his five-years' dream. In this mood he had rushed into the hot stone

desert of New York in summer--a New York already changed, and which

seemed to have dropped him out!

But he brought, like other young desperadoes, his first novel with him;

and he had approached the junior partner of the famous old house of

Ingham and Son with letters from mutual friends in Brainerd. Now, at

last, within twenty-four hours after his own return from abroad,

Ingham--himself scarcely a decade older than Herrick, preceding him at

the same university, and with a Brainerd man for a brother-in-law,--had

responded with the invitation to lunch. Yes, it was exciting enough!

Herrick looked at his watch. It was barely ten. And then he took time to

remember when he had last looked at his watch in that room.

Certainly, it was rather grim! And yet, said the desperado, it wasn't

going to be such a bad thing with which to command Ingham's interest at

lunch and get him into a confidential humor that wouldn't be too

superior. While he was attempting to inspire Ingham with a craving for

his complete works, this thrilling topic would be just the thing to do

away with self-consciousness. He mustn't lose faith in himself. And,

before all things, he mustn't, as he had done last night, lose faith in

his Heroine!

He looked across the room at her picture; got out of bed; walked over to

her, and humbly saluted. Lose faith in her? "Evadne," he said, "through

my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous--You darling!" Lose

faith in _her_!

The photograph, which looked like an enlargement of a kodak, represented

a very young girl, standing on a strip of beach with her back to the

sea. Her sailor tie, her white dress, and the ends of her uncovered hair

all seemed to flutter in the wind. Slim and tall as Diana she showed, in

her whole light poise, like a daughter of the winds, and Herrick was

sure that she was of a fresh loveliness, a fair skin and brown hair,

with eyes cool as gray water. It was the eyes, after all, which had

wholly captured his imagination. They were extraordinarily candid and

wide-set; in a shifting world they were entirely brave. This was what

touched him as dramatic in her face; she was probably in the new dignity

of her first long skirts, so that all that candor and courage, all the

alert quiet of those intelligent eyes were only the candor and courage

of a kind of royal child. She wanted to find out about life; she longed

to try everything and to face everything; but she was only a tall little

girl! That was the look his Heroine must have! Thus had she come

adventuring to New York with him, to seek their fortunes, and all during

those dreary months of heat and dust she had borne him happy company; in

the Park or in the Bowery, at Coney Island or along Fifth Avenue's

deserted pomp, he had always tried to see, for the novel, how things

would look to that young eagerness--no more ardent, had he but realized

it, than his own!--"Evadne," said he, now, "if things look promising

with Ingham this afternoon we'll take a taxi, to-night, and see the moon

rise up the river." He called her Evadne when he was talking about the

moon; when he required her pity because the laundress had faded his best

shirt, he called her Sal.

A sound as of the Grubey children snuffling round his door recalled him

to the illustrious circumstance that he was by way of being a hero of a

murder story. But, if he was nursing pride in that direction, it was

destined to a fall. Johnnie Grubey thrust under the door something

which, as he had brought it up from the mail-box in the vestibule,

Johnnie announced as mail. But it was only a large, rough scrap of

paper, which astonished Herrick by turning out to be wall-paper--a

ragged sample of the pale green "cartridge" variety that so largely

symbolizes apartment-house refinement--and which confronted him from its

smoother side with the lines, penciled in a long, pointed, graceful

hand,

For the Apollo in the bath-robe! Or was it a raincoat?

But should not Apollos stay in when it rains?

It was many a day since Herrick had received a comic valentine, but all

the appropriate sensations returned to him then. The hand of this

neighborly jest was plainly a woman's and its slap brought a blush. He

was forced to grin; but he longed to evade the solemn questioning of the

Grubeys through whose domain he must presently venture to his bath and

it occurred to him that the most peaceful method of clearing a road was

to send out the younger generation for a plentiful supply of newspapers.

Besides, he wished very much to see the papers himself.

He distributed them freely and escaped back to his room still carrying

three. When he had closed his door, the first paragraph which met his

eyes was on the lower part of the sheet which he held folded in half. It

began--"The body of Mr. Ingham was not found in the living-room, but--"

He flapped it over, agog for the headlines. They read:

DEATH BAFFLES POLICE.

James R. Ingham, Noted Publisher, Found Shot in Apartment--

Herrick was still standing with the paper in his hand when the second

Grubey boy brought him a visiting-card. It bore the name of Hermann E.

Deutch; and scribbled beneath this in pencil was the explanatory phrase,

"Superintendent, Van Dam Apartment House."

CHAPTER VI

HERRICK IS ASKED A FAVOR

Hermann Deutch was a shortish, middle-aged Jew, belonging to the humbler

classes and of a perfectly cheap and cheerful type. But at the present

moment he was not cheerful. He showed his harassment in the drawn

diffidence of his sympathetic, emotional face, and in every line of

what, ten or fifteen years ago, must have been a handsome little person.

Since that period his tight black curls, receding further and further

from his naturally high forehead, had grown decidedly thin, and exactly

the reverse of this had happened to his figure. But he had still a pair

of femininely liquid and large black eyes, brimming with the romance

which does not characterize the cheap and cheerful of other races, and

Herrick remembered him last night as very impressionably, but not

basely, nervous.

He now fixed his liquid eyes upon Herrick with an anxiety which took

humble but minute notes. Since the young fellow was at least

half-dressed in very well-cut and well-cared-for, if not specially new,

garments, it was clear to Mr. Deutch's reluctant admiration that he was

thoroughly "_high-class_!" Whatever was Mr. Deutch's apprehension, it

shrank weakly back upon itself. Then he simply took his life in his

hands and plunged.

"I won't keep you a minute, Mr. Herrick. But I've got a little favor I

want to ask you.--You behaved simply splendid last night, Mr.

Herrick.--Well, I will, thanks,"--as he dropped into a chair. "I--I

won't keep you a minute--"

"I'll be glad to do anything I can," Herrick interrupted.

The news in his paper had made him feel as if he had just been

disinherited and, now that the dead man was a personality so much nearer

home, his brain rang with a hundred impressions of pity and wonder and

excitement. But he sympathized with poor Mr. Deutch; it could be no

sinecure to be the superintendent of a murder! Then, recollecting, "What

made you so certain it was suicide?" he asked suddenly.

"What else could it be? There wasn't anybody but him there."

"There was a woman there," Herrick said, "when the shot was fired."

The superintendent took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. "Well,

now, Mr. Herrick, that's just what I wanted to see you about. Now

please, Mr. Herrick, don't get excited and mad! All I want to say is, if

there _was_ a lady there last night--but there _couldn't_ have

been--well, of course, Mr. Herrick, if you say so! Why, you couldn't

have seen her so very plain, now could you?"

"What are you driving at?" Herrick asked.

"Couldn't it have been a gentleman's shadow you saw, Mr. Herrick? Mr.

Ingham's shadow? Raising his pistol, maybe, with one hand--"

"While he played the piano with the other?"

"Mr. Herrick, there couldn't have been any lady there!" He bridled.

"It's against the rules--that time o' night! I wouldn't ever allow such

a thing. There's never been a word against the Van Dam since I been

running it. Why, Mr. Herrick, if there was to be that kind of talk,

especially if she was to murder the gentleman and all like that, I'd be

ruined. And so'd the house. It ain't one o' these cheap flat buildings.

We got leases signed by--"

"Oh, I see!" Herrick felt his temper rising. But he tried to be

reasonable while he added, "I'm very sorry for you. But there was a

woman there. I've reported so already to the police. Even if I had not,

I couldn't go in for perjury, Mr. Deutch."

"No, no! Of course not! Of course! I wouldn't ask you! You don't

understand me! It's not to take back what you said already to the

police. That'd get you into trouble. And it couldn't be done. I couldn't

expect it. It's not facts you might go a little easy on, Mr. Herrick;

it's your language!"

"What!"

"It's your descriptive language, Mr. Herrick. If only you wouldn't be

quite so particular--"

"Look here!" said Herrick with his odd, brusk slowness. "I didn't know

it myself last night. But Mr. Ingham wasn't altogether a stranger to

me." Deutch stared at him. "He had friends in the town I come from and a

good many people I know are going to be badly cut up about his death. I

was to have met him on business this very day. Now you can see that I

don't feel very leniently to the person--not even to the woman--who

murdered him. I don't believe he killed himself. He had no reason to do

it. If there's anything I can do to prove he didn't, that thing's going

to be done. If there's any word of mine that's a clue to tell who killed

him, I can't speak it often enough nor loud enough. Understand that, Mr.

Deutch. And, good-morning."

"Oh, my God! Oh, dear! But my dear sir--"

"And let me give you a word of warning. If you keep on like this what

people will really say is, that you knew there was a woman there and

that it was you who connived at her escape!"

"All right!" cried Mr. Deutch, unexpectedly. "Let 'em say it! I got no

kick coming if people tell lies about me, any. All I want stopped is the

lies you're putting into people's heads about Miss Christina."

"Miss Christina!" Herrick exclaimed. He stared, wondering if the poor

worried little soul had gone out of his head. "I never mentioned any

woman's name. I didn't know any to mention. I never heard of any Miss

Christina!"

"You told the policeman the way she made motions, moving around and all

like that, it made you think maybe they were rehearsing something out of

a play."

"Did I? Well?"

Mr. Deutch possessed himself of the newspaper which Herrick had dropped

upon the bed, and pointed to the last line of the murder story. It ran:

"About a year ago Mr. Ingham became engaged to be married to Christina

Hope, the actress." And Herrick read the line with a strange thrill, as

of prophecy realized. "Oh--ho!" he breathed.

"Oh--ho!" hysterically mocked the superintendent. "You see what it makes

you think, all right. Even me!--that was what brought her first to my

mind, poor lady. The police officers may have forgot it or not noticed,

any. But if you say it again, at the inquest, you'll make everybody

think the same thing. And it's not so!" he almost shrieked. "It's not

so. It's a damn mean lie! And you got no right to say such a thing!"

"That's true," said Herrick, intently. After his impulsive whistle he

had begun to furl his sails. He had heard vaguely of Christina Hope, as

a promising young actress who had made her mark somewhere in the West,

and was soon to attempt the same feat on Broadway. He knew nothing to

her detriment.

"Ain't it hard enough for her, poor young lady, with him gone and all,

but what she should have that said about her! And it wouldn't stop

there, even! She was there alone with him at night, they'd say, with

their nasty slurs. She'd never stand a chance. For there ain't any

denying she's on the stage, and that's enough to make everybody think

she's guilty--"

"Oh, come! Why--"

"Wasn't it enough for you, yourself?"

Herrick opened his lips for an indignant negative, but he closed them

without speaking.

"The minute you seen that paragraph you felt 'She's just the person to

be mixed up with things that way.' And then you grabbed hold of yourself

and said, 'Why, no. She may be as nice as anybody. Give her the benefit

of the doubt.' But there's the doubt, all right. You're an edjucated

gennelman," said Mr. Deutch, sympathetically, "but all these prejudiced,

old-fashioned farmers and low-brows like they got on juries--people like

them, and Miss Christina--Oh! Good Lord! Ach, don't I know 'em! Mr.

Herrick, it's my solemn word, if you say that at the inquest to turn

them on to Miss Christina, you--"

"I shan't say it at the inquest," Herrick said. He was astonished at the

completeness of the charge in his own mind. He was convinced, now, in

every nerve, that Ingham had met death at the hands of his betrothed.

But the very violence of his conviction warned him not to lay such a

handicap upon other minds. His chance phrase, his chance impression,

must color neither the popular nor the legal outlook. "I shall take very

good care, you may be sure, to say nothing of the kind. Here!" he cried,

"you want a drink!"

For Mr. Deutch, at this emphatic assurance, had put his plump elbows on

his plump knees and hidden his moon face, his spaniel eyes, with plump

and shaky fists. He drank the whiskey Herrick brought him and slowly got

himself together; without embarrassment, but with a comfort in his

relaxation which made Herrick guess how tight he had been strung. As he

returned the glass he said, "If you knew what a lot we thought, Mr.

Herrick, me and my wife, of the young lady, I wouldn't seem anywheres

near so crazy to you."

Herrick sat down on the edge of the bed in his shirtsleeves and

regarded his guest. Strict delicacy required that he ask no questions.

But he was human. And he had been a reporter. He said, "You used to see

her with Mr. Ingham?"

"Oh, great Scott, Mr. Herrick, we knew her long before that! Long before

ever _he_ set eyes on her. When she was a tiny little thing and her papa

had money, he used to get his wine from my firm. He was such a

pleasant-spoken, agreeable gentleman that when I went into business for

myself I sent him my card. It wasn't the wine business, Mr. Herrick, it

was oil paintings. I always was what you might call artistic; I got very

refined feelings, and business ain't exactly in my line. I had as

high-class a little shop as ever you set your eyes on; gold frames;

plush draperies, electric lights; fine, beautiful oil paintings--oh,

beautiful!--by expensive, high-class artists; everything elegant. But it

wasn't a success. The public don't appreciate the artistic, Mr. Herrick,

they got no edjucation. I lost my last dollar, and I don't know as I

ever recovered exactly. I ain't ever been what you could call anyways

successful, since."

"But you saw something of Mr. Hope--"

"Well, Mr. Hope was an edjucated gentleman, Mr. Herrick, like you are

yourself. He had very up-to-date ideas; and when he'd buy a picture,

once in a while I'd go up to the house to see it hung. Miss Christina

was about eight years old, then, and I used to see her coming in from

dancing school with her maid, or else she'd be just riding out with her

groom behind her, like a little queen. When my shop failed; I went to

manage my sister-in-law's restaurant. I was ashamed to let Mr. Hope know

that time. But one Sunday night, my wife says to me, 'Ain't that little

girl as pretty as the one you been telling me about?' And there in the

door, with her long hair straight down from under her big hat and her

little long legs in black silk stockings straight down from one o' them

pleated skirts and her long, square, coat, was Miss Christina. Behind

her was her papa and her mama. And after that they came pretty regular

every week or two; we served her twelfth birthday party. My wife made a

cake with twelve pink rosebuds, all herself. She was always the little

lady, Miss Christina, but she made her own friends, and to people she

liked she spoke as pretty as a princess. We got to feel such an

affection for her, Mr. Herrick, we couldn't believe there was anybody

like her in this world. We never had a child of our own, me and my wife,

Mr. Herrick. It does knock out your faith in things to think a thing

like that can happen, but it's what's happened to her and me. We was

kind of cracked about all children, and Miss Christina was certainly the

most stylish child I ever set eyes on!"

"Father living?" Herrick prompted.

"No, Mr. Herrick, no. And before he died, he got into business

difficulties himself, and he didn't leave enough to keep a bird alive. I

helped Mrs. Hope dispose of all the bric-a-brac, my paintings and all,

everything that wasn't mortgaged, and they put it in with an aunt of Mr.

Hope's, a catamaran, and went to keeping a high-class boarding-house.

We're all apt to fall, Mr. Herrick. I've fallen myself."

"The boarding-house didn't succeed either, then?"

"I ask you, how could it, with that battle-ax? She cheated my poor

ladies, and she bullied Miss Christina, and used to take the books she

was always reading and burn 'em up, and say nasty common things to her,

when she got older, about the young gentlemen that were always on her

heels even then, and that she'd like well enough, one day, and the next

she couldn't stand the sight of. If there's one thing Miss Christina

has, more than another, it's a high spirit; she has what I'd call a

plenty of it. They had fierce fights. Often, when she'd come to me with

a little breastpin or other to pawn for her, so her and her mama'd have

a mite o' cash, she'd put her pretty head down on my wife's shoulder and

cry; and my wife'd make her a cup o' tea. She'd say then she was going

to run away and be an actress. And, when she was sixteen yet, she ran.

Two years afterward, her and her mama turned up in my first little

flat-house; a cheap one, down Eighth Avenue, in the twenties. She was on

the stage, all right, and what a time she'd had! It'd been cruel, Mr.

Herrick; cruel hard work and, just at the first, cruel little of it. But

now she's a leading lady. And this fall she's going to open in New York,

in a big part. It's the play they call 'The Victors'; I guess you've

heard. Mr. Wheeler, he's the star, and Miss Christina's part's better

than what his is. But now--"

There was a pause. Mr. Deutch mopped his face, and Herrick, cogitating,

bit his lip.

"This engagement to Ingham--"

"She met him about two years ago, when she had her first leading part,

and they went right off their heads about each other. I never expected I

should see Miss Christina act so regular loony over any man. But she

refused him time and again. She said she'd always been a curse to

herself and she wasn't going to bring her curse on him. In the end, of

course, she gave in. She said she'd marry him this winter, if he'd go

away for the summer and leave her alone. You knew it was only day before

yesterday he got back from Europe?"

"Yes. I know."

"My wife and me have seen a lot more of her this summer than since she

was a little girl. There's been years at a time, all the while she was

on the road, that we wouldn't know if she was alive or dead. And then

some day I'd come home, and find her sitting in our apartment--it's a

basement apartment, Mr. Herrick!--as easy as if she'd just stepped

across the street. But I wouldn't like you should think it's Miss

Christina's talked to us very much about her engagement. She's a pretty

close-mouthed girl, in her way, and a simply elegant lady. Not but what

Mrs. Hope is an elegant lady, too. But still she is--if you know what I

mean--gabby! Miss Christina's always been a puzzle to her; and she's a

great hand to sit and make guesses at her with my wife. Mr. Ingham left

a key with Miss Christina when he went abroad so she could come and play

his piano and read his books whenever it suited her, and she'd have a

quiet place to study her part. Every once in a while Mrs. Hope would

take a notion it wasn't quite the proper thing she should come by

herself. But after she'd seen her inside, she'd drop down our way and

wait. She wasn't just exactly gone on Mr. Ingham, and my wife wasn't

either."

Herrick lifted his head with a flash of interest. "Mrs. Hope opposed the

marriage?"

"Well, not opposed. She never opposed the young lady in anything, when

you came down to it. But he wanted she should leave the stage. And he

wasn't ever faithful to her, Mr. Herrick! For all he was so crazy about

her and so wild-animal jealous of the very air she had to breathe, he

wasn't ever faithful to her--and if ever you'd seen her, that'd make

your blood boil! She'd hear things; and he'd lie. And she'd believe him,

and believe him! If it wasn't for his money, she'd be well rid of him,

to my mind."

He sat nursing his wrath. And Herrick, still watching him, felt sorry.

For, in Herrick's mind it was now all so clear; so pitiably clear! Poor

little chap!--he didn't know how scanty was the reassurance in his

portrait of his Miss Christina! The indulged, imperious child, choosing

"her own" friends; the unhappy, bold, bedeviled girl, already with young

men at her heels, whom she encouraged one day and flouted the next;

pawning her trinkets at sixteen and plunging alone into the world, the

world of the stage; the ambitious, adventurous woman capable of holding

such a devotion as that of the good Deutch by so capricious and

high-handed a return, snaring such a man of the world as Ingham by an

adroit blending of abandon and retreat, putting up with the humiliations

of his flagrant inconstancies only, perhaps, to find herself, after her

stipulated summer alone, on the verge of losing him through his

insensate jealousy--were there no materials here for tragic quarrel? Was

not this the very figure that last night he had seen fling out an arm in

unexampled passion and grace? In his heart he saw Christina Hope, while

her betrothed, whether as accuser or accused, taunted her from the

piano, kill James Ingham. And he profoundly knew that he had almost seen

this with his eyes. His pulse beat high; but it was with a sobered mind

that he beheld Mr. Deutch preparing to depart.

"Well, you see how I had to ask you, Mr. Herrick, not to say that lady's

shadow made you think any of an actress?"

"I do, indeed."

"There isn't any language can express how I thank you. But I know if

only you was acquainted with her--" He had turned, in rising, to get his

hat, and he now stopped short and exclaimed with bewildered reproach,

"Oh, well, now, Mr. Herrick! Why wouldn't you tell me?"

"Tell you?" Herrick's eyes followed his. They led to the likeness of his

Evadne, of his dear Heroine. "Tell you what?"

"Why, that you _was_ acquainted with--" said Mr. Deutch, extending his

hat, as if in a magnificence of introduction, "Christina Hope."

Herrick could not speak. And Deutch added, "You was acquainted with her,

all along! It's a real old picture--'bout five years ago. You knew her

then? You knew her--And you--saw--" His voice died away. His glance

turned from Herrick's and traveled unwillingly to where, upon the blinds

drawn down again, across the street, it seemed to both men the shadow

must start forth. And, as he slowly withdrew his gaze, Herrick saw,

looking out at him from those soft, spaniel eyes, the eyes of fear.

Deutch bowed bruskly and withdrew. Herrick was alone, as he had been

these many months, with the young challenge of his Heroine; the familiar

face, long learned by heart, asking its innocent questions about life,

shone softly out on him, in pride. And, on that August morning, he felt

his blood go cold.

CHAPTER VII

HERRICK HAS A BUSIEST DAY

There was a time coming when Herrick was to salute as prophetic what he

now noted with a grim amusement; that from the moment the shadow sprang

upon the blind the current of his life was changed. Peopled, busy,

adventurous, it had passed, as one might say, into active circulation.

He was suddenly in the center of the stage.

This was brought home to him rather sharply when Deutch had been not

five minutes gone. On the exit of that gentleman Herrick's first thought

had been for Miss Hope's photograph. Although an actress seems less a

woman than a type, yet, since, to any stray gossip, she was recognizable

as a real person, she mustn't, at this critical time, be left hanging on

his wall to excite comment. He had scarcely laid the photograph on his

desk to compare it with a cut in one of the newspapers when information

that he was "wanted on the 'phone" made him drop the paper atop of his

dethroned Heroine and hurry into the hall. And the place to which the

telephone invited him was the Ingham publishing house.

The message was from old Gideon Corey, the prop and counselor of the

House of Ingham, father and son. It told Herrick that Ingham senior had

just arrived in New York and had not yet gone to an hotel; he had turned

instinctively to his office, where he besought Herrick, whose name he

had recognized, to come to him and tell him what there was to tell. It

was only the piteous human longing to be brought nearer, by some detail,

by some vision later than our own, to those to whom we shall never be

near again. Herrick flinched from the task, but there could be no

question of his obedience; and he came out from that interview humbly,

softened by the gentleness of such a grief. It seemed to him that he had

never seen so tender a dignity of reserve; that beautiful old gentleman

who had wished to question him had also wished to spare him; wished,

too,--and taken the loyalest precautions--to spare some one else.

"I don't know if you are aware, Mr. Herrick," Ingham's father had said

to him, "that my son was engaged to be married?"

"I had just heard--"

"Then you will understand how especially painful it is that there should

be any mention of a--another lady--Miss Hope is a sweet girl," said the

old gentleman, "a sweet, good girl--" He paused, as if he were feeling

for words delicate enough for what he had to say; and then a little

breath that was like a cry broke from him. "My son was a wild boy, Mr.

Herrick, but he loved her--he loved her! Will it be necessary to add to

her grief by telling her that, at the very last, he was entertaining--?

I wanted her for my daughter! May she not keep even the memory of my

son?"

Herrick could have groaned aloud. "Only tell me," he said, "what can I

do?"

"Mr. Ingham means to ask"--Corey interposed--"whether, at the--the

inquest, it will be necessary to lay so much emphasis on that shadow you

observed?"

Thus, for the second time that day, from what different mouths and under

what different circumstances, came the same request! And there passed

over Herrick that little shiver of the skin which takes place, the

country people tell you, when some one steps over your grave.

"Could you not assume that you might have been mistaken? That it might

have been a man's shadow--?"

"I was not mistaken--Why, look here!" he continued, eagerly. "Can't you

see that it would be the worst kind of a mistake for me to change now?

They'd think I'd heard who the woman was, and was trying to shield her!

And, besides," he added to Corey, "it's your only clue." It occurred to

him, as he spoke, that Ingham's family might be concerned for his

reputation rather than for vengeance; this continued to seem probable

even while they assured him that it was not the police, but Miss Hope

alone, from whom they wished to keep the circumstance; they were

thinking of what would have been the dead man's dearest wish. What she

read in the papers they could perhaps deny; but what she heard at the

inquest--

When, however, they reluctantly agreed with him that it was too late for

any effectual reticence it was with unabated kindliness that Corey went

with him into the hall. "We remain infinitely obliged to you, Mr.

Herrick, and--later on--we mustn't lose track of you again--Well,

good-morning! Good-morning!"

It was nearly afternoon and Herrick stepped out from the dark,

old-fashioned elevator into its sunny heat, which occasional spattering

showers had vainly tried to dissipate, with a very highly charged sense

of moving among vivid personalities. Concerning two of these there

persisted a certain lack of reassurance, and as that of Ingham

brightened or darkened the shadow herself now shone as a tigress

devouring, now an avenging angel. Sometimes her figure stood out

clearly, by itself; sometimes it wavered and changed, and passed,

whether Herrick willed it or not, into the figure of Christina Hope.

Then, whether for Deutch's or Ingham's sake, or for Evadne's, there was

something oppressive in the sunshine.

But the young fellow was not enough of a hypocrite to pretend, even to

himself, that all this excitement, all this acquaintance with swift

events, with salient people under the influence of strong emotion, all

this quick, warm, and strong feeling which had been aroused in himself,

were anything but very welcome. Nor were his adventures over yet. His

walk brought him, with a thoughtful forehead but all in a breathing glow

of interest, to City Hall Park; a spot where he had loitered that summer

a score of times, wearying vaguely for a friendly face. To-day, his

brisk step had scarcely carried him within its boundaries before he

heard his name called and, turning, was accosted by a _Record_

acquaintance of six years ago whose recognition displayed the utmost

eagerness.

The spirit of New York City, which had hitherto considered him merely

one of her returned failures, had now made up her mind to show what she

could do for such a darling as the near-eye-witness of a murder. He

found himself hailed into the office of the _Record_, whence they had

been madly telephoning him this long while, and immediately

commissioned, at the price of a high, temporary specialist, to report

the Ingham inquest, and to write a Sunday special of the murder!

He thought of Ingham's father, and "It isn't a tasty job!" he said to

his old chief. But it swept upon him what material it was; it felt, in

his empty hand, like the key of success; and then, there is always in

our ears at such a time the whisper that it will certainly be done by

somebody. "And never, surely," Herrick wrote his sister that night, "so

chastely, so justly, with either such dash or such discretion, as by our

elegant selves!"

This, at least, was the view which the Ingham office took of it. Corey

reported the family as glad to leave it in Herrick's hands; while a

tremor at once of regret, pleasure and superstition pricked over

Herrick's nerves as Corey followed up this statement with an invitation

through the _Record_ phone to meet him at the Pilgrims' Club and talk

some things over during lunch!

"To shake the iron hand of Fate" was becoming so much the rule that

Herrick was nearly capable of feeling gripped by it even in the somewhat

remote circumstances that the Pilgrims' had been founded as a club of

actors and, overrun as it was by men of all professions and particularly

literary men, it had remained essentially a club of actors--while he,

Bryce Herrick, hastening toward it through a smart shower, had at first

conceived of his novel as a play and then, in Switzerland, been baffled

by the inaccessibility of that world! His novel, of whom the heroine had

been so unwittingly Christina Hope!--However, the low, wide portals of

the Pilgrims' received him under their great, wrought iron lanterns

without excitement and he passed, self-consciously and with a certain

shyness, into the cooling twilight of a hallway still perfectly calm and

over the lustrous, glinting sweeps of easy and quite indifferent stairs

up to an "apartment brown and booklined" that looked out on a green

park.

At one of the windows Corey stood talking to a dark, heavy, vigorous man

whose face was familiar to Herrick and whom Corey introduced as Robert

Wheeler. It was a name of note but Herrick bewilderedly exclaimed "Miss

Hope's manager?" Two or three men turned to Wheeler and grinned and he,

himself, said with a gruff chuckle, yes, he supposed it had come to

that, already! Herrick's embarrassed tactlessness sought refuge in

looking out of doors.

The famous square had kept its ancient privacy secure from all the

city's noise and hurry. It was still, secluded; self-sufficient with an

old-world grace; and the green park shone fresh after the shower, its

flower beds and the window boxes of its grave, dark houses gave out a

delicate, glimmering sparkle along with their moist and newly piercing

sweetness. Nothing could have been more tranquil except the cool spaces,

the dusky, sunny, airy, oak-hued shadows of the wide-windowed

club--neither could anything have been less like Mrs. Grubey's or even

Professor Herrick's idea of what an actors' club would be. The whole

place seemed to rebuke its visitor, more graciously than had Hermann

Deutch, for the feverish suggestion which Christina's calling had hinted

round her name. The blithe young gentlemen in light clothes, fussing

over with cigarette smoke and real and unreal English accents, the older

men, less saddled and bridled and fit for the fray but still with

something at once lazy and boyish in the quick sensibility of their

faces, appeared to have no very lurid intensities up their sleeve and

amid so much serene and humorous assurance Ingham senior's "sweet, good

girl," Hermann Deutch's "Miss Christina" seemed better founded in kind

and credible probabilities. She bloomed, indeed, hedged with all

proprieties in the sound of Wheeler's voice saying, "But must Miss Hope

appear at the inquest?"

"Yes," said Corey, tartly, "since her name will add to its notoriety!

Have you forgotten our coroner?" Wheeler lifted his thick brows in

annoyance and with the same sourness of inflection Corey added, "Is it

possible any corner of the universe can for a moment forget Cuyler Ten

Euyck!"

Herrick started and looked at the two men with quick eagerness. "You

don't mean--"

"Precisely! The mighty in high places--Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler

Ten Euyck! No less!"

Wheeler broke into a curse and then into his deep laugh, and said Miss

Hope's manager would do well to clear out before any Sherlock Holmes

with wings got to throwing his mouth around here. "I can stand his

always bringing down a curtain with 'Seventy times a millionaire--the

world is at my feet!' A man has to believe in something! But it's his

taking himself for a tin District-Attorney-on-wheels that'll get his

poor jaw broken one of these days!"

Herrick's curiosity was roused to certain reminiscences and he went on

putting them together even while he followed Corey downstairs and out

onto an open gallery whose tables overlooked a little garden. As soon

as the waiter left them he asked Corey, "But--I've been so long

away--this coroner can't be the same Ten Euyck--"

"Can you think there are two?"

Well, the world is certainly full of entertainment! A man born to one of

the proudest names and greatest fortunes of his time serving as

coroner--coroner! That was what certain references of McGarrigle's

meant, certain newspaper flippancies. "Mr. Ten Euyck!" Herrick's extreme

youth had witnessed the historic thrill that shook society when the full

significance of the great creature's visiting-cards first burst upon a

startled and ingenuous nation! But even then Mr. Ten Euyck must have

aspired beyond social thrills and seen himself as a man of parts and

public conscience. It was not so much later that Herrick remembered him

as a literary dabbler, an amateur statesman, endeavoring by means of

elegant Ciceronics to waken his class to its duty as leader of the

people! He had then seemed merely a solemn ass who, having learned

during a long residence abroad an aristocratic notion of government,

took his caste and its duties much too seriously.--"But why coroner?"

Despair, apparently, over that caste's lack of seriousness! There had

been talk of abolishing the coronership, Corey said, and Ten Euyck had

run for it. If irresponsible idlers dared to slight even the presidency

in their choice of careers let them see what could be done with the

least considerable of offices! If younger sons dared lessen class-power

by neglecting government, let them see to what Mr. Ten Euyck could

condescend in the public service! It was an old-fashioned, an old-world

ambition; the man, essentially stiff-necked, essentially egotistical,

was in no sense a reformer. "He pushes his office, upon my word, to the

diversion of the whole town; holding court, if you please, as if he were

launching a thunderbolt, making speeches and denunciations, and taking

himself for a kind of District Attorney.--I may as well say, Mr.

Herrick, that it's a black bitterness to me that that pretentious puppy

should have authority in--in dealing with Mr. James. There was never

anything cordial between them; in fact, quite the contrary. We refused a

book of his once!"

"But, great heavens,--"

"It was a book of plays, Mr. Herrick; blank verse and Roman

soldiery--with orations! I don't deny Mr. James's letter was a trifle

saucy; he was often not conciliating; no, not conciliating! Well, now,

it's Ten Euyck's turn. If he can soil Mr. James's memory in Miss Hope's

eyes, why, that will be just to his taste, believe me. Now I come to

think of it, I believe Miss Hope herself is rather in his black books!

It seems to me she once took part in one of the plays, and it failed. I

tell you all this, Mr. Herrick, because James Ingham had the highest

admiration for you, and had great pleasure in the hope of bringing out

your novel."

Herrick gaped at him in an astonishment which had not so much as become

articulate before--such is our mortal frailty--his slight, but hitherto

persistent, repulsion from the dead man was shaken to its foundation and

moldered in dust away.

"Yes, when we are ourselves again, you must bring in that manuscript.

Yes, yes, he wished it! They were almost the last words I had from him.

He was very pleased to get your letter, very pleased. He was talking

about it to Stanley, his young brother, and to me; we were all there

yesterday--think of it, Mr. Herrick, yesterday!--working out his ideas

for our new Weekly. He was always an enthusiast, a keen enthusiast, and

the Weekly was his latest enthusiasm. Its politics would have been very

different from Mr. Ten Euyck's--"

A friendly visage at another table favored them with a sidelong

contortion and a warning wink. Just behind them a shrewd voice ceased

abruptly and a metallic tone responded, "Yes, but you--you're a man with

a mania!"

The first voice replied, "Well, you're down on criminals and I'm down on

crime."

Then Ten Euyck's was again lifted. "You're out after a criminal whom you

think corrupting and to wipe him out you'll pass by fifty of the

plainest personal guilt! In my view nobody but the corruptible is

corrupted. Any person who commits a crime belongs in the criminal

class."

"Crime may end in the criminal class," the other voice took up the

challenge, "but it begins at home. You can't always pounce upon the

decayed core. But if you observe a very little speck on a healthy

surface, one of two things--either you can cut it away and save the

apple, or your tunneling will lead you farther and farther in, it will

open wider and wider and the speck will vanish, automatically, because

the whole rotten fruit will fall open in your hand."

"Delightful, when it does! But in this short life I prefer the pounce!"

By this time everybody was harkening and Herrick ventured to turn his

chair and look round. He beheld a sallow man, nearer forty than thirty

and as tall as himself or taller, but of a straighter and stiffer

height; with a long head, a long handsome nose and chin, long hands and

long ears. This elongated countenance was not without contradictions.

Under the sparse, squarely cut mustache Herrick was surprised to find

the lips a little pouting, and the glossily black eyes were prominent

and full. Fastidiously as he was dressed there persisted something

funereal in the effect; forward of each ear a shadow of clipped whisker

leant him the dignity of a daguerreotype. He spoke neatly, distinctly.

His excellent, strong voice was dry, cold and inflexible. On the whole

Herrick's easy and contemptuous amusement received a slight set-back.

"I prefer the pounce!" To be pounced upon by that bony intensity might

not be amusing at all!

Then he discovered what had changed his point of view: it had shifted a

trifle toward the criminal's! All very well for Ten Euyck's

guest--Herrick had somehow gathered that the other man was a guest--to

give up the argument, indifferently refusing to play up to his host! All

very well for the free-hearted lunchers to sit, diverted, getting

oratorical pointers from the monologue into which Ten Euyck had plunged!

It was neither the lunchers nor the guest, but Herrick who must,

to-morrow morning, appear as a witness before Ten Euyck! He would have

to tell the man something which the Inghams had asked him not to tell

because it might prove prejudicial to James Ingham--his admirer--which

Hermann Deutch had asked him not to tell because it might prove

prejudicial to Christina Hope--she whose face had been his heart's

companion through hard and lonely times! The idea of the inquest had

become exceedingly disagreeable to Herrick.

And the more he listened to Ten Euyck, the more disagreeable it became;

the more he felt that a derisive audience had underestimated its man.

Ten Euyck might take himself too seriously; he might show too small a

sense of the ridiculous in loudly delivering, at luncheon, a sort of

Oration-on-the-Respect-of-Law-in-Great-Cities. But this depended on

whether you considered him as a man or a trap. The real quality in a

trap is not a sense of the ridiculous nor a delicate repugnance to

taking itself seriously. Its real quality is the ability to catch

things. And, as a trap, Herrick began to feel that Ten Euyck was made

for success.

The new-born criminal actually felt an impulse to warn his unknown

accomplice how trivial gossip had been, how blind the public gaze.

Platitudes about law, yes. But, when the orator came to dealing with the

lawless, the whole man awoke. Those who broke the rules of the world's

game and yet struggled not to lose it were to him mere despicable

impertinents whose existence at large was an outrage to self-respecting

players and for what he despised he found excellent cold thrusts and

even a kind of homely and savage humor. Then, indeed, "it was not blood

which ran in his veins, but iced wine." Why, he was right to think of

himself as a prosecutor--he was born a prosecutor! In unconsciously

assuming the robes of justice he had simply found himself. To him

justice meant punishment, punishment an ideal vocation for the righteous

and life a thing continually coming up before him to be weighed, found

wanting and rebuked. To admonish, to blame, and then--with a spring--to

crush--it is a passion which grows by what it feeds on, so that even Ten

Euyck's jests had become corrections and the whole creature admirably of

one piece, untorn by conflicting beliefs and inaccessible to reason,

provocation, pity or consequences; because illegal actions--ideas, too,

daily spreading--must be suppressed at all costs by proper persons and

the patriarchal arrangement of the world rebuilt over the body of a

rebel.--Of course, as his cowed analyst admitted, with P. W. B. C. Ten

Euyck on top! Thank heaven the monster had one weak spot! As he jibed at

a newspaper cartoon of the coroner's office he displayed fully the

symptom of his disease; a raging fever of egotism. He was one to die of

a laugh and Herrick doubted if he could have survived a losing game.

But when was he likely to lose? Not when, as now, he lifted the bugle of

a universal summons, calling expertly on a primitive instinct. Your

aristocrat may be a fool and a bore in your own workshop, but he is the

hereditary leader of the chase; his mounted figure convinces you he will

run down the fugitive and in the minds of men the weight of his millions

add themselves, automatically, to his hand. This huntsman had branched

off to the importance of motive in murder trials and his audience was

not smiling, now. It had warmed itself at his cold fire and the

excitement of the hunt was in the air. Ten Euyck always uttered the word

"crime" with a gusto that spat it forth, indeed, but richly scrunched;

and it was a day on which that word could not but start an electrical

contagion. Nothing definite was said, in Corey's presence; still less

was a name named--nor was any needed. But a sense of gathering issues,

of closing in on some breathless revelation thickened in the heating,

thrilling, restive atmosphere till a boy's voice said languidly, "Lead

me to the air, Reginald! This is too rich for my blood!" and they all

dropped the wet blanket of a shamefaced relief upon the coroner's

inconsiderate eloquence. The quiet guest got suddenly to his feet and

bore his host away.

In a tone of tremulous scorn Corey said to Herrick, "He's grown a

mustache, you see, because Kane wears one!"

"Kane?"

"You've no nose for celebrities! Ten Euyck brought him here to-day to

pose before him as a literary man and before us as a political lion. But

our coroner's founded himself on Gerrish so long I don't know what'll

become of him now we've got a District-Attorney who has no particular

appetite for the scalps of women!"

Kane! So the District-Attorney was the quiet guest! To Herrick's roused

apprehension Kane might just as well have been brought there to be

presented with any chance mention which might indicate some circumstance

connected with last night. And he understood too well the allusion to

Gerrish, a District-Attorney of the past whose successful prosecutions

had made a speciality of women; who had never delegated, who had always

prosecuted with especial and eloquent ardor, any case in which the

defendant was a woman, whether notorious or desperate. Herrick could

scarcely restrain a whistle; this did indeed promise a lively inquest!

Heaven help the lady of the shadow if this imitation prosecutor should

nose her out! It was, perhaps, an immoral exclamation. Yet all the

afternoon, as Herrick worked on his story for the _Record_, he could not

rout his distaste for his own evidence.

Even after his late and imposing lunch he brought himself to a cheap and

early dinner, rather than go back to the Grubey flat. He affected, when

he found himself downtown, a little Italian table d'hote in the

neighborhood of Washington Square; much frequented by foreign laborers

and so humble that a plaintive and stocky dog, a couple of peremptory

cats, and two or three staggering infants with seraphic eyes and a

chronic lack of handkerchiefs or garters generally lolled about the

beaten earth of the back yard, where the tables were spread under a

tent-like sail-cloth. It was all quaint and foreign and easy; and, so

far as might be, it was cool; on occasions, the swarthy _dame de

comptoir_ was replaced by a spare, square, gray-haired woman, small and

neat and Yankee, whom it greatly diverted Herrick to see at home in such

surroundings; a little gray parrot, looking exactly like her, climbed

and see-sawed about her desk; a vine waved along the fence; the late sun

flickered on the clean coarseness of the table-cloths and jeweled them,

through the bottles of thin wine, with ruby glories; there was a

worthless, poverty-stricken charm about the place, and Herrick sat

there, early and alone, smiling to himself with, after all, a certain

sense of satisfying busyness and of having come home to life again.

He had little enough wish to return to his close room where his

perplexities would be waiting for him and he lingered after dinner,

practicing his one-syllable Italian on Maria Rosa, the little eldest

daughter of the house, who trotted back and forth bearing tall glasses

of branching bread-sticks and plates of garnished sausage to where her

mother was setting a long table for some fete, and, when the guests

began to come, he still waited in his corner, idly watching.

They were all men and all poor, but all lively; there was an almost

feminine sweetness in the gallantry of the Latin effervescence with

which they passed a loving-cup in some general ceremony. And no woman

could have been more beautiful than the tall Sicilian whose grave

stateliness, a little stern from the furrowing of brows still touched

with Saracen blood, faced Herrick from the table's farther end. Herrick

even inquired, as he paid his check, who this imposing creature was and

the Yankee woman replied with unconcern that he was Mr. Gumama, who ran

a pool-game at the barber's.

It charmed Herrick to combine this name and occupation with the fervent

kisses which Mr. Gumama, rising majestically and swooping to the nearer

end of the table, implanted, one on each cheek, upon the hero of the

fete. All the guests, as each finished the ceremonial draught, followed

his example. None of the rest, however, had Saracen brows, nor long,

grim earrings whose fringe swing beneath three stories of gilt squares.

The Yankee woman turned contemptuously from "such monkey-shines," but

Herrick lingered till the last kiss and as he even then walked home

through the hot cloudy night it was after nine o'clock before he reached

there. He had not been in since morning and he was greatly to blame. For

he had had a caller and the caller was Cuyler Ten Euyck!

The Grubeys were greatly excited by this circumstance and it excited

Herrick, too. The coroner had himself examined Ingham's apartment and

then the conscientious creature had climbed the stairs to Herrick's. He

had even waited in the hope that his witness might return. All this was

proudly poured forth while Herrick was also asked to examine a rival

public interest--a most peculiar prize which the corner saloon-keeper's

son had been awarded at a private school; he had loaned it to Johnnie

Grubey for twenty-four hours if Johnnie would let him see the revolver

with which Herrick would have shot the murderer last night if the

murderer had been there! It was a sort of return in kind; for the

school prize was also a revolver.

It was a very little one and Johnnie insisted that it was solid gold. On

the handle was a monogram of three capital A's in small bright stones,

white, green and red--near them a straggling C had been wantonly

scratched. Johnnie averred that the A's stood for Algebra, Astronomy and

Art-Drawing and even had the combination of studies for one prize been

less remarkable Herrick would have suspected that the boy was lying.

What he suspected he hardly knew; still less when he discovered that

this unwontedly sympathetic prize was, after all, a fake. The little

golden pistol was not a pistol, but a curiously pointless trinket--the

cylinder was nothing but a sculptured suggestion; the toy was made all

in one piece!--"D'yeh ever see the like?" Mrs. Grubey asked him. And he

never had. It was quainter than Mr. Gumama's kisses.

But Herrick's head was full of other things. As he opened his door he

grinned to think of that aristocratic scion waiting in his humble

bedroom. Well, it had been a great day! Even if he had lost heart for

that taxi-ride up the river with Evadne! And then from long habit, he

glanced at Evadne's empty place.

The picture had left an unfaded spot on the wall-paper. "I suppose I

might add 'And on my heart!'" said Herrick. He lifted the concealing

newspaper. Then he went out and made inquiries. No one but Ten Euyck and

Mrs. Grubey had been in the room nor had Mrs. Grubey noticed that the

picture had been moved. Now Herrick was certain he had left the likeness

under the newspaper, lying face up. It was still under the newspaper,

but face down. He said to himself, with a shrug of annoyance, that the

coroner had made good use of his time.

CHAPTER VIII

MRS. WILLING TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS

The morning of the inquest was cloudy, with a wet wind. Herrick was

nervous, and he could not be sure whether this nervousness sprang from

the ardor of championship or accusation. But one thing was clear.

Christina Hope had slain Evadne and closed his mouth to Sal; but, at

last, he was to see her, face to face.

She was there when he arrived, sitting in a corner with her mother.

Herrick recognized her at once, but with a horrid pang of

disappointment. Was this his Diana of the Winds? Or yet his Destroying

Angel? This was only a tall quiet girl in a gray gown. To be more exact

it was a gray ratine suit, with a broad white collar, and her small gray

hat seemed to fold itself close in to the shape of her little head; the

low coil of her hair was very smooth. Herrick observed with something

oddly akin to satisfaction that he had been right about her

coloring--there were the fair skin, the brown hair, the eyes cool as

gray water. Under these to-day there were dark shadows and her face was

shockingly pale.

The first witness called was a Doctor Andrews. After the preliminary

questions as to name, age, and so forth, he was asked, "You reside in

the Van Dam Apartments?"

"I do."

"On what floor?"

"The ninth."

"On the night of August fifth did you hear any unusual sounds?"

"Not until I heard the pistol-shot--that is, except Mr. Ingham, playing

his piano--if you could call that unusual."

"He often played late at night?"

"He had been away during the summer; but, before that, there was a great

deal of complaint. He gave a great many supper-parties; at the same

time, he was such a charming fellow that people forgave him whenever he

wished. Besides, he was a magnificent musician."

"Were there ladies at these supper-parties?"

"Not to my personal knowledge."

"What did you do, Dr. Andrews, when you heard the shot?"

"I looked out of the window, and saw nothing. I thought I might have

been mistaken; it might have been a tire bursting. But I noticed that

the piano had stopped."

After the shot the witness had remained restless.

"Presently I thought I heard some one hammering. I got up again and

opened the door and then I heard it distinctly. I know now that it was

the efforts of Mr. Herrick to break Ingham's lock with a revolver. I

could hear a mixture of sounds--movements. I went back and began to get

my clothes on and when I was nearly dressed my 'phone rang."

"Tell us what it said."

"It was the voice of the superintendent saying, 'Please come down to 4-B

in a hurry, Dr. Andrews. Mr. Ingham's shot himself.'"

"And you went?"

"Immediately."

"He was dead on your arrival?"

"Quite."

"How long should you, as a physician, say it was since death occurred?"

"Not more than fifteen or twenty minutes."

"Had the death been instantaneous?"

"Certainly. He was shot through the heart."

"Then, in your opinion, if the deceased had taken his own life, he could

not have sprung off the electric lights, nor in any fashion done away

with the weapon, after the shot."

"He certainly could not."

"In your professional opinion, then, he did not commit suicide?"

"There is no question of an opinion. I know he did not."

"You are very positive, Dr. Andrews?"

"Absolutely positive. Death was instantaneous. Also, there was no powder

about the wound, showing that the shot had been fired from a distance of

four feet or more. Also, the body did not lie where it had fallen."

"How do you know that?"

"There was a little puddle of blood in the sitting-room, where Ingham

fell. Your physician and myself called the attention of the police to

marks on the rugs following a trail of drops of blood into the bedroom

where the body was found."

"You do not think that the deceased could have crawled or staggered

there, after the shooting?"

"I do not."

"You believe that the body was dragged there, after death?"

"Yes."

"You remained with the body until the arrival of myself and Doctor

Shippe?"

"I did."

"Dr. Andrews, the apartment in which the shooting occurred had no access

to the windows of any other apartment, no fire-escape, and no means of

egress except through a door which was found bolted on the inside.

Suppose that a murder was committed. Have you any theory accounting for

the murderer's escape?"

"None whatever."

"And does not the absence of all apparent means of escape shake your

theory of the impossibility of suicide?"

"Not in the least. It is unshakable."

"Thank you. That will do."

The coroner's physician confirmed Dr. Andrews in every particular. The

coroner settled back and seemed to pause. And the listeners drew a long

breath. Something at least had been decided. It was not suicide. It was

murder.

This had been established so completely and so early in the examination

that Herrick found himself impressed with the idea of the coroner's

knowing pretty distinctly what he was about. It seemed that he might

very well have some theory to establish, for which, in the first place,

he had now cleared the ground. Herrick stole a glance at Deutch. His

face was wet and colorless, and his eyes fixed on vacancy. And then,

curious to note the effect of hearing her lover proclaimed foully

murdered, he permitted himself the cruelty of looking at Miss Hope.

Apparently it had no effect on her at all. Her mother, a slight,

handsome woman, very fashionably turned out, followed eagerly every

suggestion of the evidence. But the girl still sat with lowered eyes.

The next evidence, that of the police, threw no further light; and then

came the tremulous Theodore of Herrick's acquaintance whose surname

transpired as Bird.

Bird, too, had been awake and had heard the shot; he had been fully

aware from the first that it was a pistol-shot. He and Mrs. Bird had

risen and put up the chain on their door, and then he had telephoned to

the superintendent.

"Did the hall-boy connect you at once?"

"It isn't the hall-boy. It's the night-elevator-boy."

"Well, did the night-elevator-boy connect you at once?"

"No, I was a long time getting him."

"The boy?"

"Yes."

"Ah! He, at least, was able to sleep. But, after you got him, was your

connection with the superintendent immediate?"

"Almost immediate, I guess."

"It didn't strike you that he was purposely delaying?"

The listeners leaned forward. And Herrick, as at a touch home, dropped

his eyes.

"Why, I couldn't say that it did. No, hardly. Besides, he might have

been asleep, too."

"Ah! So he might. And what was the first thing he said to you?"

"Through the 'phone?"

"Certainly. Through the 'phone."

"He said, 'What is it?'" (Slight laughter from the crowd.)

"Well? Go on!"

"I said, 'Excuse me. But I heard a shot just now, in 4-B.' And he said,

'A pistol-shot?' And I said, 'Yes.' And he said, 'Do you think somebody

has got hurt?' And I said, 'I'm afraid so.' Then he said, 'Well, I'll

come up.'"

"Did he seem excited?"

"Not so much as I was."

Mrs. Bird, though she described at some length her forethought in

dressing and getting their valuables together, had nothing material to

add. Nor had the widow and her son in the apartment below that in which

the catastrophe took place; nor the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Willing, in the

apartment across the court which had been invaded as a look-out station

by the police, anything further to relate; until, indeed, the lady

stumbled upon the phrase--"The party had been going on for some time."

"In 4-B?"

"What? Yes."

"What made you think there was a party going on in 4-B?"

"There were voices. And then he often had them."

"Did you, as a near neighbor, ever observe that there were any ladies at

these parties?"

"I wouldn't like to say."

"I see. Well, on this occasion, how many voices were there?"

"I don't know."

"About how many? Two? A dozen? Twenty?"

"Oh, not many at all. There was poor Mr. Ingham's voice, nearly all the

time. And maybe a couple of others. I was in my bedroom, trying to

sleep, and the piano was going all the time."

"I see. So there may have been two or three persons besides Mr. Ingham,

and there may have been only one?"

"Yes, sir. At times I was pretty sure I heard another voice. I mean a

third one, anyhow."

"Was it a man's voice or a woman's?"

"I don't know."

"Could you swear you heard a third voice at all?"

"Well, I don't believe I could exactly. No."

"Now, Mrs. Willing, I want you to be very careful. And I want you to try

and remember. Please tell exactly all that you can remember about what I

am going to ask you and nothing more."

"Oh, now, you're frightening me dreadfully."

"I don't want to frighten you. But I do want you to think. Now. You are

certain you heard at least two voices?"

"Yes, I am, I--"

"Mr. Ingham's and one other?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was that other voice the voice of a man?"

"No, sir."

"It was a woman's voice?"

"I--I suppose so."

"Aren't you sure?"

"Well, yes, I am."

"Was it angry, excited?"

"Toward the end it was."

"As if the speaker were losing control of herself?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, Mrs. Willing, had you ever heard it before?"

"The woman's voice?"

"Yes."

"I can't be sure."

"What do you think?"

"Well, I thought I had, yes. I told Mr. Willing so. He'd been to a

bridge party upstairs and he came down just along there."

"You recognized it then?"

"Well, toward the end I thought I did; yes."

"Mrs. Willing, whose was that voice?"

"Oh, sir,--I--I'd rather not say!"

"You must say, Mrs. Willing."

"Well, then, I'll just say I don't know."

"That won't do, Mrs. Willing.--When you told your husband that you

thought you recognized that voice, exactly what did you say?"

"Well, I said--oh!--I--Well, what I said was 'That's that actress he's

engaged to in there with him.'"

"Ah!--And, now, I suppose you know the name of the actress he was

engaged to?"

"Yes, of course. She's Miss Hope. Christina Hope her name is. Of course,

I haven't said I was sure!"

"Thank you. That will do."

CHAPTER IX

JOE PATRICK IS DETAINED

A thrill shook the assemblage. It was plain enough now to what goal was

the coroner directing his inquiry. The covert curiosity which all along

had been greedily eyeing Christina Hope stiffened instantly into a wall,

dividing her from the rest of her kind. She had become something

sinister, set apart under a suspended doom, like some newly caught wild

animal on exhibition before them in its cage. Through the general gasp

and rustle, Herrick was aware of Deutch slightly bounding and then

collapsing in his seat, with a muffled croak. His wife frowned; clucking

indignant sympathy, she looked with open championship at the suspected

girl. Mrs. Hope started up with a little cry; Herrick judged that she

was much more angry than frightened. When the coroner said, "You will

have your chance to speak presently, Mrs. Hope," she dropped back with

exclamations of fond resentment, and taking her daughter's hand, pressed

it lovingly. Christina alone, a sedate and sober-suited lily, maintained

her composure intact.

But, now, for the first time, she lifted her head and slowly fixed a

long, grave look upon the coroner. There was no anger in this look. It

was the expression of a very good and very serious child who regards

earnestly, but without sympathy, some unseemly antic of its elders. Once

she had fixed this gaze upon the coroner's face, she kept it there.

In that devout decorum of expression and in the outline of her exact

profile occasioned by her change of attitude, Herrick began once more

to see the youthful candor of his Evadne. Yes, there _was_ something

royally childlike in that round chin and softly rounded cheek, in that

obstinate yet all too sensitive lip, and that clear brow. Yes, thus

expectant and motionless, she was still strangely like a tall little

girl. Where did the coroner get his certainty? By God, he was branding

her!--"Mr. Bryce Herrick," the coroner called.

The young man was aware at once of being a local celebrity. His evidence

was to be one of the treats of the day. Not even the attack upon

Christina had created a much greater stir. He took his place; and, "At

last," said the coroner, "we are, I believe, to hear from somebody who

saw _something_."

Herrick told his story almost without interruption. He was listened to

in flattering silence; the young author had never had a public which

hung so intently on his words. The silence upon which he finished was

still hungry.

The coroner drew a long breath. "We're greatly obliged to you, Mr.

Herrick. And now let us get this thing straight. It was one o'clock or

thereabouts that Mr. Ingham began to play?"

They established the time and they went over every minutest detail of

changing spirit in Ingham's music.

"That crash which waked you for the second time--do you think it could

have been occasioned by an attack on Mr. Ingham?--that he may have been

struck and thrown against the piano?"

"Oh, not at all. It was a perfectly deliberate discord, a kind of

hellish eloquence."

"Ah! I'm obliged to you for that phrase, Mr. Herrick." And again he was

asked--"That gesture which so greatly impressed you--do you think you

could repeat it for us?"

Herrick quelled the impulse to reply, "Not without making a damned fool

of myself," and substituted, "I can describe it."

"Kindly do so."

"She threw her arm high up, as high as it would go, but at a very wide

angle from her body, and at that time her hand was clenched. But while

the arm was still stretched out, she slowly opened her fingers, as if

they were of some stiff mechanism--and it seemed to me that it was the

violence of her feeling they were stiff with--until the whole hand was

open, like a stretched gauntlet."

"Well, and then, when she took down her hand?"

"She drew it in toward her quickly; I had an idea she might have covered

her face."

"And then she disappeared?"

"Yes; but she seemed to dip a little forward."

"As if to pick something up?"

"Well, not as much as from the floor; no."

"From a chair, then, or the couch?"

"Possibly."

"She would, standing at the window, have been some five or six feet from

the piano, where Ingham sat?"

"I should say about that."

"Mr. Herrick, are you absolutely sure that this was not until after the

shooting?--this forward dip?"

"After? No, it was before!"

"Ah--And directly after the shot the lights went out?"

"Directly after. Almost as if the shot had put them out."

"Now, Mr. Herrick, you have testified that from, as you say, the vague

outline of the hair and shoulders and the slope of her skirts, and from

the fact that when she raised her arm there was a bit of lace, or

something of the kind, hanging from her sleeve, you were perfectly sure

that this shadow was the shadow of a woman. Yet you still could not in

the least determine anything whatever of her appearance. That I can

quite understand. But didn't you gather, nevertheless, some notion of

her personality?"

Herrick avoided Deutch's eye. He said--"I don't think so."

"That extraordinary movement, then, did not leave upon you a very

distinct impression?"

"In what way?"

"An impression of a lady not much concerned with social constraint or

emotional control; and of a very great habitual ease and flexibility in

movement."

Herrick managed to smile. "I'm afraid I'm no such observer as all that.

Perhaps any lady, within sixty seconds of committing murder, is a little

indifferent to social constraint."

The coroner looked at him with a slight change of expression. "Well,

then, let us put it another way. You would not expect to see your

mother, or your sister, or any lady of your own class, make such a

gesture? No? Yet you must often have seen an actress do so?"

"That doesn't follow!" Herrick said. His flush resented for Christina

the slur that his words overlooked. And suddenly words escaped him. "You

answered the previous question yourself, remember! Be kind enough not to

confuse my evidence with yours!"

The coroner studied him a long time without speaking, while the young

man's color continued to rise, and at length came the comment, "I'm not

falling asleep, Mr. Herrick. I'm only wondering what charming influence

has been at work with the natural appetite, at your age, for discussing

an actress."

"Ask me that later, outside your official capacity," said Herrick hotly,

"and we'll see if we can't find an answer!"

"Mr. Herrick, why, on the morning after the murder, did you take down

Miss Hope's photograph from over your desk?"

"Because, never having met Miss Hope, it was a photograph I had no right

to. I took it down when I learned the identity of the original. I didn't

want its presence to be misconstrued by cads."

"Thank you. That will do. Hermann Deutch, if you please."

Herrick retired, ruffled and angry at himself; and Deutch, in passing

him, cast him a clinging glance, as of a fellow conspirator, that he

found strangely indigestible. At Christina, he could not look.

It did not take the coroner two minutes to make hay of Mr. Deutch. Not,

indeed, that he was able to extract any very damaging admissions. The

superintendent said that he was wakened by his wife, who had herself

been wakened by the 'phone. He had held the before stated conversation

with Mr. Bird, and, not being able to get the elevator, had walked

upstairs, being joined in the office by a policeman. The rest of his

proceedings were unquestionable. But the coroner, an expert in

caricature and bullying and the twisting of phrases, by making him

appear ridiculous, managed to make him appear mendacious; this was the

easier because every now and then there was a slip in the sense of what

he said, as if he had forgotten the meaning of words; he certainly

perspired more than was at all persuasive; he soon began to stumble and

to contradict himself about nothing; his slight accent thickened and, in

a syntax with which his German tongue was habitually glib, but not

accurate, he was soon making errors laughably contemptible to a public

that presumably expressed itself with equal elegance in all languages.

So that presently, when he was sufficiently harrowed, the coroner drew

from him an admission; not only had Ingham frequently entertained ladies

at his supper-parties, but complaints had been made to Deutch by various

tenants, and these complaints he had not transmitted to the owners of

the apartment house. The most searching inquiry failed to connect

Christina with these parties, but the inference was obvious.

"I didn't,"--Mr. Deutch burst forth--"keep 'em quiet any because she was

there. She wouldn't have touched such doings, not with the sole of her

foot. But I didn't want the gentleman she was engaged to should be put

out of the house when I was running it, after her recommending it to

him, on my account!" His eyes and his voice were full of exasperated

tears. "He'd have told her one lie and yet another and another, and

she'd have believed him, and he'd have wanted her to fight me. Not that

she would. But he was fierce against her friends, any of 'em. And I

didn't want she should have no more trouble than what she had with him

already."

"Very kind of you. Nature made you for a squire of dames, Mr. Deutch.

Miss Hope, now,--you are a particularly old friend of hers, I believe.

And I understand you would do a great deal for her."

"I'd do anything at all for her."

"I see." All that was crouching in the coroner coiled and sprang. "Even

to committing perjury for her, Mr. Deutch. Even to concealing a murder

for her sake?--Silence!" he commanded Christina's friends.

In the sudden deathly stillness Deutch lifted his head. He looked at the

coroner with the eyes of a lion, and in a firm voice he replied, "Say,

when you speak like that about a lady, Mr. Coroner, you want to look out

you don't go a little too far."

"I am about to call a witness," said the coroner, with his cold laugh,

"who will go even farther. Joseph Patrick, please!"

Joe Patrick was the night-elevator boy.

People stared about them. No witness. The coroner's man came forward,

saying something about "telephoned--accident--get here shortly."

"See that he does,--The day-elevator boy in court!"

Disappointment reigned. After the glorious baiting of one whose race

went so long a way to make him fair game, almost anything would have

been an anti-climax. There now advanced for their delectation a slim,

blond, anemic, peevish youth, feeble yet cocky, almost as much like a

faded flower from a somewhat degenerated stalk as if he had been nipping

down Fifth Avenue under a silk hat, and whose name of Willie Clarence

Dodd proclaimed him of the purest Christian blood. Yet the stare of the

assembly wandered from him, passed, grinning, where Deutch sat with

hanging head, and settled down to feed upon the pallor of Christina's

cheek. Herrick rose suddenly, displacing, as it were, a great deal of

atmosphere with his large person, and stalking across the room, pulled

up a chair to Deutch's side. If he had clasped and held that plump, that

trembling hand, his intention could not have been more obvious.

Christina turned her head a little and, with no change of expression,

looked at him for a moment. Then she turned back again to Willie

Clarence Dodd. That gentleman, ogling her with a canny glance, affably

tipped his hat to her, and she bowed to him with utter gravity.

Mr. Dodd was a gentleman cherishing a just grudge. By the accident of

bringing him into day-service instead of night-service, when there was a

murder up her sleeve, Fate had balked him of his legitimate rights in

life. Notoriety had been near him, but it had escaped. Mr. Dodd's

self-satisfaction, however, was not easily downed. He had still a card

to play, and he played it as jauntily as if doom had not despoiled him

of his due. He smiled. And he had a right to. The first important

question asked him ran--"On the day after Mr. Ingham's return from

Europe--the day, in fact, of his death--did Mr. Ingham have any

callers?"

"Yes, sir. He had one."

Interest leaped to him. He bloomed with it.

Apart from interruptions, his story ran--"Yes, sir. A lady. Quite a

good-looker. Medium height. Might make you look round for a white horse;

but curls, natural. Very neat dresser and up-to-date. Cute little feet.

She wouldn't give her name. But not one o' _that_ sort, you understand.

She came up to me--the telephone girl was sick and I was onto her

job--and she says to me, very low, as if she'd kind of gone back on

herself,--'Will you kindly tell Mr. James Ingham that the lady he

expects is here?' He came down livelier than I'd ever known him, and she

said it was good of him to see her and they sat down on the window-seat.

That's one thing where the Van Dam's on the bum--no parlor. I was really

sorry for the little lady--no, not short, but the kind a man just

naturally calls little--she was so nervous and she talked about as loud

as a mouse; I guess he felt the same way, for he says, 'Won't you come

upstairs to tell me all this? We shall be quite undisturbed,' he says.

And while they were waiting for the elevator--the hall-boy wasn't much

on running it--she says to him, 'You understand; I don't want to get

Christina into any trouble.' And he says, 'Of course; that is all quite

understood.' In about half an hour down they came together and he had

his hat. He wanted to send her off in a cab, but she wouldn't let him.

The minute she was gone he says to me, ''Phone for a taxi!' They didn't

answer, and he says, 'Ring like the devil!' It hadn't stopped at the

door when he was in it and off."

"You couldn't, of course, hear his direction?"

"Nop! He got back about six--chewing the rag, but on the quiet. Went out

in his dress suit about seven-thirty. I went off at eight."

He was dismissed, strutting.

"And now let us get down to business. If you please," said the coroner,

"Miss Christina Hope."

CHAPTER X

JOE PATRICK ARRIVES

If the young actress and Ten Euyck, now at his best as the coroner, had,

as Corey had suggested, any previous knowledge of each other, neither of

them stooped to signify it now.

"Your name, if you please?"

"Christina Hope."

"Occupation?"

"Actress."

"May one ask a lady's age?"

"Twenty-two years."

She said she was single, and resided with her mother at No. -- West 93rd

Street. The girl spoke very low, but clearly, and of these dry

preliminaries in her case not a syllable was lost. Her audience, leaning

forward with thumbs down, still took eagerly all that she could give

them. On being offered a chair, she said that she would stand--"Unless,

of course, you would rather I did not."

The coroner replied to this biddable appeal--"I shan't keep you a moment

longer than is necessary, Miss Hope. I have only to ask you a very few

questions. Believe me, I regret fixing your mind upon a painful subject;

and nothing that I have hitherto said has been what I may call

_personally_ intended. I question in the interests of justice and I hope

you will answer as fully as possible in the same cause."

"Oh, certainly."

"You were engaged to be married to Mr. Ingham, Miss Hope?"

"Yes."

"When did this engagement take place?"

"About a year ago."

"And your understanding with him remained unimpaired up to his death?"

"Yes."

"When did you last see him alive?"

"On the day before he--died. He drove to our house from the ship."

"Ah! Very natural, very natural and proper. But surely you dined

together? Or met again during the next twenty-four hours?"

"No."

"No? What were you doing on the evening of the fourth of August--the

evening of his death?"

"My mother and I dined alone, at home. We were neither of us in good

spirits. I had had a bad day at rehearsal--everything had gone wrong. My

head ached and my mother was worn out with trying to get our house in

order; it was a new house, we were just moving in."

"You rented a new house just as you were going to be married?"

"Yes, that was why. I was determined not to be married out of a flat."

A smile of sympathy stirred through her audience. It might be stupidity

which kept her from showing any resentment toward a man who had

practically accused her of murder. Or, it might be guilt. But she was so

young, so docile, so demure! Her voice was so low and it came in such

shy breaths--there was something so immature in the little rushes and

hesitations of it. She seemed such a sweet young lady! After all, they

didn't want to feed her to the tigers yet awhile!

And the coroner was instantly aware of this. "Then your mother," he

said, "is the only person who can corroborate your story of how you

passed that evening?"

"Yes."

"How did you pass it?"

"I worked on my part until after eleven, but I couldn't get it. Then I

took a letter of my mother's out to the post-box."

"At that hour! Alone!"

"Yes. I am an actress; I am not afraid. And I wanted the air."

"You came straight home?"

"Yes."

"While you were out did any neighbor see you? Did you speak to any one?"

"On the way to the post-box I saw Mrs. Johnson, who lives two doors

below and who had told us about the house being for rent. She is the

only person whom I know in the neighborhood. On the way back I met no

one."

"Then no one saw you re-enter the house?"

"I think not."

"Did the maid let you in?"

"No, I had my key. The maids had gone to bed."

"But it was a very hot night. People sat up late, with all their windows

open, and caretakers in particular must have been sitting on the steps,

some one must have seen you return."

"Perhaps they did."

"Did you, yourself, notice no one whom we can summon as a witness to

your return?"

"No one."

"What did you do when you came in?"

"I went to bed."

"You do not sleep in the same room with your mother?"

"No."

"On the same floor?"

"Yes."

"Do you lock your door?"

"No."

"But she would not be apt to come into your room during the night?"

"Not unless something had happened; no."

"Could you pass her door without her hearing you?"

"I should suppose so. I never tried."

"So that you really have no witness but your mother, Miss Hope, that you

returned to the house, and no witness whatever that you remained in it?"

"No," Christina breathed.

"Well, now I'm extremely sorry to recall a painful experience, but when

and how did you first hear of Mr. Ingham's death?"

"In the morning, early, the telephone began to ring and ring. I could

hear my mother and the maids hurrying about the house, but I felt so ill

I did not try to get up. I knew I had a hard day's work ahead of me, and

I wanted to keep quiet. But, at last, just as I was thinking it must be

time, my mother came in and told me to lie still; that she would bring

up my breakfast herself. I said I must go to rehearsal at any rate; and

she said, 'No, you are not to go to rehearsal to-day; something has

happened.'"

The naivete of Christina's phrases sank to an awed whisper; her eyes

were very fixed, like those of a child hypnotized by its own vision.

"I saw then that she was trying not to tremble and that she had been

crying. She couldn't deny it, and so she told me that Mr. Ingham was

very, very ill, and she let me get up and helped me to dress. But then,

when I must see other people--she told me--she told me--"

Christina's throat swelled and her eyes filled suddenly with tears.

The coroner, cursing the sympathy of the situation, forced himself to a

commiserating, "Did she say how he died?"

"She told me it was an accident. I said, 'What kind of an accident?' And

she said he was shot. 'But,' I said, 'how could he be shot by an

accident? He didn't have any pistol? You know he didn't own such a

thing.'" A slight sensation traversed the court. "Then it came out--that

no one knew--that people were saying it was--murder--"

"Do you believe that, Miss Hope?"

"I don't know what to believe."

"Did Mr. Ingham have any enemies?"

"I knew of none."

"From your intimate knowledge of Mr. Ingham's affairs you know of no

one, either with a grudge to satisfy or a profit to be made, by his

death?"

"No. No one at all."

"So that you have really no theory as to how this terrible thing

happened?"

"No, really, I haven't."

"Well, then, I suppose we may excuse you, Miss Hope."

The girl, with her tranquil but slightly timid dignity, inclined her

head, and heaving a deep sigh of relief, turned away.--

--"Oh, by the way, Miss Hope,--" And suddenly, with a violent change of

manner, he began to beat her down by the tactics which he had used with

Deutch. But with how different a result! Nothing could make that pale,

tall girl ridiculous. Scarcely speaking above a breath, she answered

question after question and patiently turned aside insult after insult.

He found no opposition, no confusion, no reticence; nothing but that

soft yielding, that plaintive ingenuousness. The crudest jokes, the

cruelest thrusts still left her anxiously endeavoring to convey desired

information. He took her back over her relations with Ingham, their

interview upon his return, the events of the last evening, with an

instance and a repetition that wearied even the auditors to distraction;

he would let her run on a little in her answers and then bring her up

with a round turn; twenty times he took with her that journey to and

from the post-box and examined every step, and still her replies ran

like sand through his fingers and left no trace behind. But, at last,

she put out a hand toward the chair she had rejected, and sank slowly

into it. Then indeed it became plain that she was profoundly exhausted.

And because her exhaustion was so natural and so pitiable, the coroner,

watching its effect, said, "Well, I can think of nothing more to ask

you, Miss Hope. I suppose it would be useless to inquire whether, being

familiar with the apartment, you could suggest any way in which, the

door being bolted, the murderer could have escaped?"

Christina looked up at him with a very faint smile and with her humble

sweetness that had become almost stupidity, she said, "Perhaps the

murderer wasn't in the apartment at all!"

The whole roomful of tired people sat up. "Not in the apartment! And

where, then, pray?"

"Well," said Christina, softly, "he could have been shot through an open

window, I suppose. Of course, I'm only a woman, and I shouldn't like to

suggest anything. Because, of course, I'm not clever, as a lawyer is.

But--"

"Well, we're waiting for this suggestion!"

"Oh!--Well, it seems to me that when this lady, whose shadow excited the

young gentleman so much, disappeared as if it went forward, perhaps it

did go forward, perhaps she ran out of the room. You can see--if you

don't mind stopping to think about it--that she must have been standing

right opposite the door. If she had been quarreling with Mr. Ingham, he

may have bolted the door after her. I don't know if you've looked--but

the button for the lights is right there--in the panel of the wall

between the door and the bedroom arch. Mr. Ingham was a very nervous,

emotional person. If there had been a scene, he might very well have

meant to switch the lights out after her, too. If he had his finger on

the button when the bullet struck him, he might very well, in the shock,

have pressed it. And then the lights would have gone out, almost as if

the bullet had put them out, just as the young man says. But, of course,

if this were what had happened, you would have thought of it for

yourself." And she looked up meekly at him, with her sweet smile.

The coroner smiled, too, with compressed lips, and putting his hands in

his pockets, threw back his head. "And how do you think, then, that--if

he was killed instantly, as the doctors have testified,--the corpse

walked into the bedroom, where it was found?"

"Ah!" said Christina, "I can't account for everything! I'm not an

observer, like you! But there has never been, has there, a doctor who

was ever wrong? Of course, I don't pretend to know."

"Well, it's a pretty theory, my dear young lady, and I'm sure you mean

to work it out for us all you can. So give us a hint where this bullet,

coming through an open window, was fired from."

"It could have been fired from the apartment opposite. Across the

entrance-court. You remember, the policeman who went in there found that

the windows exactly--do you call it 'tallied'?"

"Very good, Miss Hope. If it were an unoccupied apartment. But it is

occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Willing, and Mrs. Willing was in the apartment

the entire evening."

"Yes," said Christina, turning and looking pleasantly at the lady

mentioned, "alone." Then she was silent.

After a staggered instant, the coroner asked, "And what became of this

lady who ran out into the hall?"

"Well, of course," said Christina, sweetly, "if it was Mrs. Willing--"

The Willings leaped to their feet. "This is ridiculous! This is an

outrage! Why!" cried the husband, "his blind opposite our sitting-room

was down all the time. There isn't even a hole through it where a shot

would have passed!"

"Oh, isn't there?" asked Christina. "You see, it wasn't I who knew

that!"

"What do you mean, you wicked girl! How dare you! Why, you heard the

policeman say that it was only when he looked through our bedroom that

he could see into Mr. Ingham's apartment--"

"And wasn't it in the bedroom that the body was found?"

"Miss Hope!" said the coroner, sternly, "I must ask you not to

perpetrate jokes. You know perfectly well that your implied charge

against Mrs. Willing is perfectly ridiculous--"

"Is it?" Christina interrupted, "she implied it about me!"

And for the first time she lifted to his a glance alight with the

faintest mockery of malice; a wintry gleam, within the white exhaustion

of her face. Then,--if all the time she had been playing a part--then,

if ever, she was off her guard.

And she could not see what Herrick, from his angle, could see very well;

that the coroner had been quietly slipping something from his desk into

his hand, and was now dangling it behind his back.

This something was the scarf found on Ingham's table--that white scarf

with its silky border, cloudy, watery, of blue glimmering into gray. How

the tender, misty coloring recalled that room of Ingham's!

"Don't you know very well, Miss Hope," the coroner went on, "that Mrs.

Willing had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Ingham's death?"

"How can I? You see, I wasn't there!"

"So that, by no possibility," said the coroner, "could this be yours?"

He launched the scarf, like a soft, white serpent, almost in her face.

And the girl shrank from it, with a low cry. She might as well have

knotted it about her neck.

And in the horrible stillness that followed her cry, the coroner said,

"Your nerves seem quite shattered, Miss Hope. I was only going to ask

you if you didn't think that ornament, in case it was not yours, might

have been left on Mr. Ingham's table by the young lady who called on him

that afternoon."

With a brave attempt at her former mild innocence, Christina responded,

"I don't know."

"Neither can you tell us, I suppose,--it would straighten matters out

greatly--who that caller was?"

"No, I can't. I'm sorry."

"Think again, Miss Hope. Are there so many smartly dressed and pretty

young ladies of your acquaintance, with curly red hair and, as Mr. Dodd

informs us, with cute little feet?"

Christina was silent.

"What? And yet she knows you well enough to say to your fiance--'I don't

wish to get Christina into trouble'!" Whose was the smile of malice,

now! "Come, come, Miss Hope, you're trifling with us! Tell us the

address of this lady, and you'll make us your debtors!"

The girl opened her pale lips to breathe forth, "I can't tell you! I

don't know!"

"Let us assist your memory, Miss Hope, by recalling to you the lady's

name. Her name is Ann Cornish."

Herrick's nerves leaped like a frightened horse. And then he saw

Christina start from her chair, and, casting round her a wild glance

that seemed to cry for help, drop back again and put her hands over her

face. A dozen people sprang to their feet.

Mrs. Hope ran to her daughter's side, closely followed by Mrs. Deutch.

The two women, crying forth indignation and comfort, and exclaiming that

the girl was worn out and ought to be in bed, rubbed Christina's head,

and began to chafe her hands. She was half fainting; but when a glass of

whiskey had appeared from somewhere and Mrs. Deutch had forced a few

drops between her lips, Christina, unlike the heroine of romance whose

faints always refuse stimulants, lifted her head and drank a mouthful

greedily. She sat there then, breathing through open lips, with a trace

of color mounting in her face.

Then the coroner, once more commanding attention, held up a slip of

pasteboard. "This visiting-card," he said, "is engraved with Miss

Cornish's name, but with no address. It was found leaning against a

candlestick on Mr. Ingham's piano, as though he wished to keep it

certainly in mind. As a still further reminder, Mr. Ingham himself had

written on it in pencil--'At four.'"

Christina, with the gentlest authority, put back her friends. She rose,

slowly and weakly, to her feet. "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to

correct a false impression; may I?"

[Illustration: "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to correct a false

impression; may I?"]

"That's what we're here for, my dear young lady," the coroner scornfully

replied.

"I have said nothing," she went on, "that is not true, but I have

allowed something to be inferred which is not true." She pressed her

hands together and drew a long breath. "It is true that I was engaged to

Mr. Ingham. And when you asked me if our understanding was unimpaired at

the time of his death, I said yes; for, believe me, our understanding

then was better than it had ever been before. But that was not what you

meant. I will answer what you meant, now. At the time of his death, I

was not engaged to marry Mr. Ingham."

"You were not! Why not?"

"We had quarreled."

"When?"

"The day before he died."

An intense excitement began to prevail. Herrick longed to stand up and

shout, to warn her, to muzzle her. Good God! was it possible she

didn't see what she was doing? The coroner, weary man, sat back with a

long sigh of satisfaction. His whole attitude said, "Now we're coming to

it."

"And may one ask an awkward question, Miss Hope? Who broke the

engagement?"

"I did."

"Oh, of course, _naturally_. And may one ask why?"

"Because I began to think that life with Mr. Ingham would not be

possible to me."

"But on what grounds?"

"He was grossly and insanely jealous," said Christina, flushing. "Some

women enjoy that sort of thing; I don't."

"Jealous of anyone in particular, Miss Hope?"

"Only," said Christina, "of everyone in particular."

"There was never, of course, any grounds for this jealousy?"

Christina looked through him without replying.

"Well, well. And was there nothing but this?"

"He objected to my profession; and when I was first in love with him I

thought that I could give it up for his sake. But as I came to know more

of--everything--and to understand more of myself, I knew that I could

not. And I would not."

"So that it was partly Mr. Ingham, himself, in his insistence upon your

renouncing your profession, who broke the engagement?"

"If you like."

"At least, your continuance in it made his jealousy more active?"

"It made it unbearable. And as it gradually became clear to me that he

scarcely pretended to practise even the rudiments of the fidelity that

he exacted, it seemed to me that there were limits to the insults which

even a gentleman may offer to his betrothed. And I--freed myself."

Two or three people exchanged glances.

"Was the engagement ever broken before and patched up again?"

"We had quarreled before, but not definitely. Last spring I asked him to

release me, and he would not. But he consented to my remaining on the

stage, and to going away for the summer, so that I could think things

out."

"And you immediately took a house from which to be married!"

"Yes. I tried to go on with it. I thought furnishing it might make me

want to. But I couldn't. I wrote him so, and he came home. While he was

on the ocean I found out something which made any marrying between us

utterly impossible. When he drove to my house the day before he was

killed, I told him so. We had a terrible scene, but he knew then as well

as I that it was the end. I never saw him again."

"As a matter of fact, then, the definite breaking of the engagement was

caused by something new and wholly extraneous to your profession or his

jealousy?"

"Yes."

"And what was this discovery, Miss Hope?"

"Oh!" said Christina, quite simply, "I am not going to tell you that."

And she suddenly began to speak quite fast. "Do you think I don't know

what I am doing when I say that? Do you think you have not taught me?

But I don't care about appearing innocent any longer. And so I know,

now, what I'm saying. I will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. It

had nothing to do with Mr. Ingham's death. It was simply

something--monstrous--which happened a long time ago. But, between us

two, it had to fall like a gulf. More than that I will not tell you. And

you can never make me."

"And you don't know Ann Cornish?"

Christina hesitated. "Of course I thought of her. But I couldn't bear

to have that little girl brought into it. She's only twenty," Christina

added, as if the difference in their ages were half a century. "And,

besides, how could it be she? She scarcely knew Mr. Ingham; she never

had an appointment with him; I can't believe she ever told him ill of

me. She is my dearest friend. But ask her, Mr. Coroner, ask her. Her

address is--" And Christina gave an address which was hastily copied.

"She is rehearsing at the Sheridan Theater. She, too, is an actress,

poor child!"

"Let us go back a moment, Miss Hope. What do you mean,--you don't care

about appearing innocent any longer?"

"I mean that never again will I go through what I have gone through this

afternoon. You have asked me the last question I shall answer. You've

made me sound like a liar, and feel like a liar; you've made me turn and

twist and dodge, trying to convince you of the truth about me, and now

that I have told you all the truth, you may think a lie about me, if you

choose!"

Her face was all alive, now, and her voice thrilled out its deep notes,

impassioned as they were soft. "Oh, I wished so much to say nothing! Not

to have to stand up here and tell all sorts of intimate things, in this

horrible place before these gaping people! But when you began to worry

me, to threaten and jeer at me, trying to trip me, I was afraid of you!

I know people say that your one thought is to make a mark and have a

career, and I seemed to see in your face that you would be glad to kill

me for that. I remembered all I had ever heard of you; how you hated

women--once, I suppose, some woman hurt you badly;--how you copied an

attorney who made all his reputation by the prosecution, by the

persecution, of women, and how they say you never run a woman so hard as

when she has to work for her living, as I do, and stands exposed to

every scandal, as I am! And so I tried to convince you, to answer

everything you asked; I am in great trouble, and I am not so very old,

and since this came I have scarcely eaten and not slept at all. For if

you imagine that, because I haven't really loved him this long while, it

is easy to bear thinking how his life had been rived out of him like

that, oh, you are wrong--and my nerves are all in shreds. So that it

seemed as if I must clear myself, as if it were too hideous to be hated,

and to have every one thinking I had murdered him! I struggled to defend

myself, and I let you torture me. But oh, I was wrong, wrong! To be

judged and condemned and insulted, that's hard, but it's not degrading.

But to explain, and pick about, and plead, and wrack your brain to make

people believe your word, oh, that degrades!" She paused on a little

choking breath. "Think what you like! I have no witness but my mother,

and I know very well, in such a case, she doesn't count. I can't prove

that I returned to my house, I can't prove that I stayed in it. It's

worse than useless to try. If I had friends to speak for me do you think

I would have them subjected to what Mr. Deutch has borne for me to-day?

I've nothing that shop-keepers call position; I've no money; I'm all

alone. Think what you please." And Christina crossed the room and sat

down beside her mother.

Conflicting emotions clashed in the silence. She seemed to flash such

different lights! She had so little, now, the manners or the sentiments

of a sweet young lady. Many people were greatly moved, but no one knew

what to think. If Christina had brought herself to slightly more

conciliatory language or if, even now, she had thrown herself girlishly

into her mother's arms, she could, at that moment, easily have melted

the public heart. But she sat with her head tipped back against the

wall, with her eyes on vacancy, and great, slow tears rolling down her

unshielded face, "as bold as brass." And the coroner, leaning forward

across his desk, surveyed the assemblage with a cold, fine smile. "My

friends," he began, "after the young lady's eloquence, I can hardly

expect you to care for mine. Nevertheless, while we are waiting for a

witness unavoidably detained, I will ask you to listen to me. Let us get

into shape what we have already learned.--The first thing of which we

are sure is that James Ingham landed in New York on the afternoon of the

third of August and drove directly to the residence of Miss Christina

Hope, his betrothed. Miss Hope tells us that when he left that house

their engagement was broken; that he was unbearably jealous; that he

disapproved of the profession which she persisted in following and that

they quarreled over something which she refuses to divulge. We have no

witness to this quarrel, but I will ask you to remember it. I will ask

you to remember that neither have we witnesses to Miss Hope's statement

that it was she, rather than Mr. Ingham, who broke the engagement.

"Let us get to our next positive fact. Our next positive fact is that

Mr. Ingham, on the next afternoon, the afternoon of August fourth, had

an appointment with a lady for four o'clock--an appointment the hour of

which he was so anxious not to forget that he wrote it on the lady's

visiting-card, and stood the card against a candle on his piano. Our

next facts are that the lady kept this appointment, that she had a

private interview with Mr. Ingham which greatly excited him; that, as

soon as she was gone, he drove off in a taxi with desperate haste, and

that he returned in about an hour, still under the repressed excitement

of some disagreeable emotion. If, gentlemen of the jury, you should

bring in a verdict warranting the State in examining that cabman and in

questioning Miss Ann Cornish as to the news she imparted to Mr. Ingham,

then, indeed, I am much mistaken if we do not have our hands upon the

great clue to all murders, gentlemen, the motive. For, as you have

clearly perceived, the meeting between Mr. Ingham and Miss Cornish was

not a lover's meeting. Or, if so, it was not a meeting of acknowledged

lovers. Miss Hope tells us that Miss Cornish is her confidential friend,

and, as far as she knew, had only the most formal acquaintance with Mr.

Ingham. No, Miss Cornish had a piece of information to give Mr. Ingham,

and she expected this information to serve her own ends, for she

said--'It is good of you to see me.' And Mr. Ingham found the

information important, for he soon wished it told him at greater length

upstairs, 'where we shall be quite undisturbed.' The lady agrees;

although she adds, 'I don't want to get Christina into trouble.' Now, I

ask you, gentlemen, what could have been her object except to get

Christina into trouble. Why does a pretty young woman who refuses to

give her name come to a specially attractive man with news of her

dearest friend whom she supposes him to be still engaged to marry--news

for which she feels it necessary to apologize--for but one of two

reasons;--either she is in love with him herself, and wishes to injure

her friend in his eyes, or she is in love with some other man and

jealous of her friend whom she wishes warned off by the friend's

legitimate proprietor. In either case, she evidently effected her point

for she sent Mr. Ingham rushing from the house. He, however, apparently

failed in what he set out to do. All this, gentlemen, is but conjecture.

"Here is where I expected to present you with an astonishing bridge of

facts. I had now meant to show you that Mr. Ingham, that evening,

expected an unwelcome visitor; that he left orders she was not to be

admitted; that she came, that she was well-known to the elevator boy,

and to all of us here present as well as to a greater public; that

despite the efforts of the elevator boy, she penetrated to Mr. Ingham's

apartment, whence she was not seen to return, and that she was the only

visitor he had that night. But in the continued absence of the boy,

Joseph Patrick, all this must wait.

"Our next known fact is that Mr. Herrick was wakened by Mr. Ingham's

playing at one or shortly before. You will remember that it was after

eleven when Miss Hope spoke to Mrs. Johnson on her way to the post-box,

and that after that no one but her mother claims to have seen or spoken

with her. For a quarter of an hour, Mr. Herrick tells us, Mr. Ingham

played, calmly and beautifully. All was peace. But then there began to

be the sound of voices talking through the music--the voices, as other

witnesses have testified, of a man and a woman. And the piano begins to

sound fitfully and brokenly. The man and the woman have begun to

quarrel. Their voices--particularly the woman's voice--rise higher and

stormier. Mr. Herrick, with the whole street between, has fallen asleep.

But Mrs. Willing, just across the court, hears a voice she knows, and

says to her husband, who has just come in, 'He's got that actress he's

engaged to in there with him.' And then even Mr. Herrick is awakened by

a deliberate discord from the piano; a jarring crash, 'a kind of hellish

eloquence.' In other words, the man, with his comparative calm and his

mastery over his instrument, is mocking and goading the woman, whose

shadow, convulsed, threatening, furious, immediately springs out upon

the blind. Gentlemen, can you not imagine the sensations of that woman?

Let us suppose a case. Let us suppose that a girl ambitious and lovely,

but of a type of loveliness not easily grasped by the mob, a girl who

has had to work hard and fight hard, who is worthy to adorn the highest

circles, but who is, in Miss Christina Hope's feeling expression,

without position, without money, without friends, suddenly meets and

becomes engaged to marry a distinguished and wealthy man. Let us suppose

that she puts up with this man's exactions, with his furious jealousies,

with his continual infidelities for the sake of the security and

affluence of becoming his wife. But is it not possible that when this

exacting gentleman is safely across the ocean she may allow herself a

little liberty? That in the chagrin of knowing she is presently to be

torn from her really more congenial friends and surroundings she goes,

in his absence, a little too far? At any rate, he cuts short his visit

in Europe, he flies to her from the steamer, full of accusations,

but--contrary to the experience narrated by Miss Hope--he is perhaps

soothed by her version of things and goes away, without having fully

withdrawn his word, to examine matters. Let us suppose that on the next

day he receives a call from his fiancee's confidential friend,--very

possibly his informant while he was abroad--who circumstantially

confirms his worst suspicions. Let us suppose he drives wildly to the

house of his betrothed; but she is not at home, and after a time he

gives up looking for her. He comes miserably back, dines out, returns

early, but leaves word that he is not at home. But in the meanwhile may

not the lady have got word of all this? Suppose that when she does, she

comes to him,--at any hour, at any risk,--and uses her hitherto

infallible charm to get him back. Suppose she gets him back; they are

alone together; she is excited and confident and off her guard. She lets

something slip. Instantly the battle is on. This time she cannot get him

back. She becomes desperate. If he speaks, as perhaps he has threatened

to, she loses not only him, but everything. For she is on the brink of

the great step of her career. She is to play the leading feminine role

under a celebrated star, who does not care for scandal in his

advertisements. On the contrary, he has bruited everywhere her youth,

her propriety, her breeding, her good blood. She is a fairy-tale of the

girlish virtues. He has no use for her otherwise. And still the man at

the piano proclaims her everything that is otherwise, and she sees that

she is to lose him and all she has struggled for, professionally, in one

breath. He sits there--he, he, the man who has been continually false to

her, claiming for himself a different morality--he sits there playing,

playing, shattering her nerves with his crash of chords, with his

hellish eloquence. But with his back to her, you observe, where she

stands at the window and suddenly she sees something lying on a little

table or the foot of the couch--something not unusual in a man's

apartment, although we have Miss Hope's word that Mr. Ingham did not

possess one--something which, perhaps, in his wrecked happiness, he had

loaded earlier in the evening with that sinister intention of suicide in

which Miss Hope's respected friend, Mr. Deutch, so profoundly believes.

Well, gentlemen, the frenzied eye of this tormented girl lights on that

little object, she stoops to pick it up, he turns,--and then comes a

pistol-shot. There is an end to the strength of a woman's nerves,

gentlemen, and she has found it. She cannot look upon her handiwork. She

springs off the light and flees. In the confusion she escapes.

Gentlemen, with the dumbfounding mystery of that bolted door I can not

deal, unless--as Miss Hope has reminded us--medical science may be for

once at fault,--unless the wounded man instinctively staggered to the

door and bolted it, staggered toward his telephone, in his bedroom, and

died there. That, gentlemen, can be threshed out at the trial. In the

meantime, I must ask you to remember that the lady whom events seem to

indicate is high-strung and overwrought; that her natural grief and

nervousness led her through a long cross-examination in which she never

once betrayed any hesitation, or the fact that she had quarreled with

Mr. Ingham or that she was aware of the existence of Ann Cornish, to a

satirical attack upon Mrs. Willing, whose remarks had annoyed her; that,

as she tells us, she has no one to take care of her, and if we are

inclined to think that she can take very good care of herself, we must

remember that when she was confronted with a lady's scarf found not far

from the murdered man, she screamed at the sight of it, and when

confronted with the visiting-card of Ann Cornish, she so much wished her

friend to be kept out of it that she fainted, and, afterwards, _changed

all her evidence_.--Gentlemen, I rejoice to see, entering this room, our

witness, Joseph Patrick."

Joe Patrick, a short, thick-set young fellow, with rough hair and a

bright eye, advanced to the coroner's desk. His forehead was ornamented

with a great deal of very fresh surgeon's plaster, and when asked why he

was so late, he replied that he had been knocked down by an automobile

on his way to the inquest. Well, yes, he would sit down; he did feel a

little weak, but it wasn't so much from that--he'd had some candy sent

him day before yesterday and he'd been awful sick ever since he ate it.

Joe was a friendly soul and he added that he was sorry the man the

coroner sent hadn't seen anybody but his mother. He was to the doctor's,

then.

"But you had telephoned a pretty detailed account to your mother, hadn't

you, before you left the Van Dam--on the morning of the murder--much

more detailed than you gave the police?"

"Yes, sir. I guess I did."

"Well, then, please give that account to us."

Joe looked rather at sea, and the coroner added, "You have said from the

beginning, that a lady called upon Mr. Ingham the night of his death?"

"Oh, yes, sir! She did!"

"Well, tell us first what happened when you went on watch. You had a

message from Mr. Ingham?"

"Yes, sir. He telephoned down to me. He says, 'I'm out. And if any lady

comes to see me this evening, you say right away I'm out.'"

"Well, and then?"

"Well, along about half-past twelve--it was awful hot and lonesome,

and--and--"

"And you began to get sleepy! It seems that at least the house-staff was

able to sleep that night!"

"Well," said Joe, "I guess anybody'd get sleepy, been sittin' there for

four hours in that heat! Anyhow, it seemed like I'd just closed my eyes,

when they came open all of a sudden and I was looking at the front

door. And there, all in white--'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there's

Miss Hope!' I don't know why it seemed so awful queer to me, unless

because I wasn't really but half-awake."

[Illustration: "'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there's Miss Hope!'"]

It is not too much to say that a shudder traversed the court. Christina,

white as death, and her eyes black and strained with horror, leaned

toward him in an agony.

"Perhaps you thought she was rather a late visitor!" smiled the coroner.

"Well? She didn't melt away, I suppose?"

"No, sir. She came up to me, all smiles like, but you bet there was

something that wasn't a bit funny in that smile. And she says to me, 'Is

our friend, Mr. Ingham, at home?' she says. And I says, 'No, ma'am.' And

she says, 'You're a bad liar, my boy! But you won't take me up, I

suppose?' And I says, 'He told me not to, ma'am.'"

"Well? Go on!"

"So she says, 'Well, then, I must take myself up.' And before you could

say 'Pop,' she was up the stairs."

"And what did you do?"

"'Oh, here, ma'am, ma'am,' I says, 'you mustn't do that!' She stopped

and put her elbows on the stair-rail,--they run right up to one side o'

the 'phone desk, you know,--and laughed down at me. She looked awful

pretty, but there was something about her kind o' scared me. And 'It's

all right, my boy,' she says. 'I shan't hurt him!' An' she laughed again

an' ran on up."

"And you did nothing?"

"Well, what could I do, I like to know! But I grabbed at the switchboard

and called up Mr. Ingham. 'Mr. Ingham,' I says, 'that lady's coming up

anyhow.' An' he says, 'Damnation!' That's the last word I ever heard out

o' him."

"'That lady!' Didn't you give him her name?"

"Why, I didn't know her name, sir!"

"Not know her name! Why, you know Miss Hope--you know her name?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Well, are you crazy, then? It was Miss Hope, was it not?"

"Why, no, you bet you it wasn't! It was another lady altogether!"

CHAPTER XI

PERSONS UNKNOWN

The revulsion of feeling in Christina's favor was so immense that it

became a kind of panic. It practically engulfed the rest of the inquest.

The taking of testimony from her mother and Mrs. Deutch was the emptiest

of formalities; the notion of holding her under surveillance until

Ingham's cabman and Ann Cornish could be produced confessed itself

ridiculous. Another woman, a strange woman, an aggressive, sarcastic

woman forcing her way in upon Ingham a couple of hours before his death,

and not coming down again! Well!

As for the coroner, he suffered less a defeat than a rout. Even his

instant leap upon Joe Patrick was only a plucky spurt. He was struggling

now against the tide, and he knew it; the strength of his attack was

sucked down. Even the remainder of Joe's own evidence did not receive

its due consideration. The public fancy fastened upon that figure of a

smiling woman, "awful pretty, but with something scaring about her,"

leaning over the baluster to laugh, "I won't hurt him!" It worked out

the rest for itself.

"Yes, sir," Joe persisted, "my mother misunderstood me, all right. I

said I took her for Miss Hope at the door, and so I did. But she

wasn't."

"Did she look so much like Miss Hope?"

"No, sir; not when she came near. That was the thing made me feel so

queer. I can't understand it. First she was Miss Hope, and then she

wasn't. She gave me a funny feeling when I seen her standing there in

the door an' says to myself, 'There's Miss Hope.' 'Twas kind of's if I

seen her ghost. An' then all of a sudden there she was, right on top o'

me. An' not like Miss Hope a bit. An' that gimme a funny feeling, too!"

"Well, never mind your sensations. If she didn't resemble Miss Hope, at

least how did she differ from her?"

"Why, I guess she was a good deal handsomer for one thing. At least I

expect most people would think so, though I prefer Miss Hope's style,

myself. She was dressier, for one thing, in white lace like, with a big

hat, an' she was pretty near as slim, but yet she had, as you might say,

more figger. An' she had red hair."

Joe had made another sensation.

"Red hair! Curly?"

"Well, it was combed standin' out fluffy like one o' these here halos,

up into her hat. It wasn't anyways common red, you know, sir, it was

elegant, stylish red, like the goldy part in flames."

"Don't get poetic, Joe. Was she a very young lady?"

"I don't think so, sir.--Oh, I guess she wouldn't hardly see twenty-five

again! Her feet, sir? I didn't notice. But she didn't walk kind o'

waddlin', either, nor else kind o' pinchin', the way ladies mostly do;

she just swum right along, like Miss Hope does."

"But she didn't swim downstairs again, without your seeing her?"

"No, sir."

"Now look here, Joe Patrick, how do you know she didn't? When Mr. Bird

went to the 'phone after the shooting he was a long time getting

connected, and Mr. Herrick found you asleep at the desk."

"I couldn't have fell asleep again until after one o'clock, sir, for I

had a clock right on the desk and at one I noticed the time. I was

watchin' for her, she was such a queer one, an' only one man came in all

that time, that I had to carry upstairs. He only went to the fourth

floor, just where she was, an' I rushed him up an' dropped right down

again. She couldn't ha' walked down in that time. I could hear the piano

goin' all the while, the front doors bein' open. But after one I must

ha' dropped off. Because it was about twenty minutes past when Mr.

Herrick shook me up. Then I knew I'd been kind o' comin' to, the last

few minutes, hearin' Mr. Bird ringin'. When Mr. Herrick grabbed my

elevator I called up Mr. Deutch, an' he was quite a minute, too. I says

to him, 'Say, Mr. Deutch, somepun's happened,' an' I switched him onto

Mr. Bird."

"Well, we're very much obliged to you, Mr. Patrick, for an exceedingly

full account. What apartment did the gentleman have whom you took up to

the fourth floor? Perhaps he may have heard something."

"I don't know, sir."

"What?"

"He just stepped into the elevator, like he lived there, an' he says to

me, 'Fourth!' I never thought nothing about him."

"You didn't know him?"

"No, sir."

"You'd never seen him before?"

"No, sir."

"Nor since?"

"No, sir."

"You took a man upstairs in the middle of the night, without announcing

him, whom you knew to be a stranger?"

"Why no, I thought he was a new tenant. We got a few furnished

apartments in the building, goes by the month. And then there's always a

good deal o' sublettin' in the summer. He was so quiet an' never asked

any questions nor anything, goin' right along about his business, I

never give him a thought."

"Well, give him a thought now, my boy. When you let him out of the

elevator, which way did he turn?"

The boy started and his eyes jumped open. "Oh, good Lord! sir," he

cried, "why, he turned down toward 4-B."

His start was reproduced in the persons of all present. Only the coroner

controlled himself.

"What time was this?"

"It hadn't quite struck one, sir."

"And during all this talk about Mr. Ingham's murder, at one-fifteen, it

never occurred to you that at just before one, you had taken up to his

floor a man whom you had never seen, whom you never saw again, and who

turned toward his apartment?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I never thought of it till this minute."

"Think hard, now. Give us a good description of this man."

"A description of him?"

"Yes, yes. What did he look like?"

"Why, I don't hardly know, sir."

"Try and remember. He at least, I presume, did not remind you of Miss

Hope?"

"No, sir; he didn't remind me of anything."

"He looked so unlike other people?"

"No, sir. He looked just like all gentlemen."

"I see, Joseph, that you don't observe your own sex with the passionate

attention which you reserve for ladies. Well, had he a beard or a

mustache?"

"No, sir, he hadn't any beard, I'm sure."

"Come, that's something! And no mustache?"

"Well, I don't think so, sir. But I wouldn't hardly like to say."

"Was he light or dark?"

"I never noticed, sir."

"Was he tall?"

"Well, sir, I should say he was about middle height."

"About how old?"

"Oh, maybe thirty, sir. Or forty, maybe. Or maybe not so old."

"Stout?"

"No, sir."

"Ah! He was slender, then?"

"Well, I shouldn't say he was either way particular, sir."

"How was he dressed, then?"

"Well, as far as I can remember; he had on a suit, and a straw hat."

"Was the suit light or dark?"

"About medium, sir."

"Not white, then? Nor rose color, I presume? Nor baby blue?"

"No, sir."

"Black?"

"I don't think so, sir."

"Well, was it brown, gray, navy-blue?"

"Well, it seems like it might have been a gray, the way I think of it.

But then, again, when I think of it, it seems like it might ha' been a

blue."

"Thank you, Joe. Your description is most accurate. It's a pity you're

not a detective."

"There's no use getting mad at me, Mister," Joe protested. "I'm doing

the best I know."

"I'm sure you are. If Mr. Ingham's second anonymous visitor had only

been a lady, what revelations we should have had! But this unfortunate

and insignificant male, Mr. Patrick. Should you know him again if you

saw him?"

"I think so, sir. I wouldn't hardly like to say."

"Well, to get back to more congenial topics!--The lady who was not Miss

Hope--you would know her, I presume?"

"Oh, yes, sir!"--Joe hesitated.

"Out with it!" commanded the coroner.

"Why, it's only--why, anybody'd know her, sir. They couldn't help it.

She had--" He paused, blushing.

"She had--what?"

"I couldn't hardly believe it myself, sir. She had--I'm afraid you'll

laugh."

"Oh, not at you, Joe! Impossible!"

"Well, she had a blue eye, sir."

"A blue eye! You don't mean she was a Cyclops?"

"Sir?"

"She had more than the one eye, hadn't she?"

"Oh, yes, sir. She had the two o' them all right."

"Well, then, I don't see anything remarkable in her having a blue one."

"No, sir. Not if they was both blue. But the other one was brown!"

The anticipated laughter swept the room. After a pallid glare even the

coroner laughed.

"Well, Joe, I'm afraid you must have been very sleepy indeed! I don't

wonder the lady gave you such a turn! But if only you had been awake,

Joe, your friend would have had one invaluable quality--she would be

easily identified!"

Thus, almost gaily, the inquest ended. With Mr. Ingham closeted just

before his death with an unaccounted-for woman and, presumably, with an

unaccounted-for man, there was but one verdict for the jury to bring in,

and they brought it. James Ingham had come to a violent death by

shooting at the hands of a person or persons unknown.

Christina was surrounded by congratulating admirers. But Herrick had not

gone far in the free air of the rainy street when, hearing his name

called, he turned and saw her coming toward him. She had, in Joe

Patrick's phrase, swum right along. She came to him exactly as she had

come along the sea-beach in his dream, the wet wind in her skirts and in

her hair, the fog behind her, and the cool light of clearing in her

eyes. And she said to him,

"You're the man, I think, who thought a woman was in distress and went

to help her?"

He replied, awkwardly enough, "I didn't see what else I could do!"

"You haven't been long in New York, Mr. Herrick," she replied. "I

wonder, will you shake hands?"

He had her hand in his, stripped of her long glove, her soft but

electric vitality at once cool and vibrant in his clasp.

"And try to believe, will you?" said Christina, "that perhaps, whoever

she was and whatever she did, perhaps she was in distress, after all."

CHAPTER XII

HERRICK RECEIVES A TELEPHONE MESSAGE

Herrick came home through a world which he had never seen before,

blindly climbed his three flights of stairs, and, shutting himself into

his room, sat down on his bed. He stared across the floor at the

wall-paper, like a man drugged. Yes, there was wall-paper in the world,

just as there had been this morning. This room had existed this morning!

And so had he! Incredible! Almost indecent! To-day, for the first time,

he had found himself. For he had found Her!

Yes, he had lived twenty-eight years, and it had been so much time

wasted! But he need waste little more. She was an actress. Incredibly,

she did not abide in a sanctuary! She was stuck up there on the stage

for fools to gape at. And, for two dollars a performance, he, too, could

gape! Two dollars a vision--eight visions a week. He began to perceive

that he would need some money!

And, with the thought of money, there materialized out of the void of

the past a quantity of loose scribbled papers, which, last night, had

been of paramount importance. They belonged to his Sunday special.

Good--that would buy many theater tickets! Yesterday it had been the key

to Success. But now he said to himself, "Success?" And he looked dully

at the scribbled sheets. "Success?" he thought again, as he might have

thought "Turkish toweling?" It was a substance for which, at the moment,

he had no use.

He had no use for anything except the remembrance of being near her.

First there was the time when she was just a girl, sitting beside her

mother. He remembered that he, poor oaf, had been disappointed in her.

And then came the time when she turned her head, and he had seen that

strange, proud, childish innocence--like Evadne's. At the time he had

reminded himself that this effect was largely due to her extraordinary

purity of outline; to the curving perfection of modeling with which the

length of her throat rose from that broad white collar of hers into the

soft, fair dusk of her coiled hair; to the fine fashioning of brows and

short, straight nose and little chin and the set of the little head, so

that the incomparable delicacy of every slope and turn, of every curve

and line and luminous surface at last seemed merely to flower in one

innocent ravishment. He had then admitted that for a girl who wasn't a

howling beauty she had at least the comeliness of being quite perfectly

made. And no bolt from the blue had descended upon his gross complacency

to strike him dead!

He remembered next, how, at the end of his testimony, she had, with her

first restless movement, begun pulling off her long gloves. Her hands

were slim and strong and rather large, with that look of sensitive

cleverness which one sees sometimes in the hands of an extremely nice

boy. And with the backs of these hands she had a childish trick of

pushing up the hair from her ears, which Herrick found adorable.

Suddenly his brain became a kind of storm-center filled with snatches of

verse, now high, now homely--she had risen to give her testimony! There

she stood before that brute; and the thing he remembered clearest in the

world was a line from his school-reader--

"My beautiful, my beautiful, that standest meekly by--"

Did he, then, think that she was beautiful? Had he not denied it? For

the first time she lifted her eyes, giving their soft radiance, so mild,

so penetrating, out fully to the world. And every pulse in him had

leaped with but the one cry,

"Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air,

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!"

"Your name?"

"Christina Hope."

"Occupation?"

"Actress."

"Age?"

"Twenty-two years."

Through the light, clear silver of Christina's speech there ran a strain

deeper, lower, richer colored,--Irish girls speak so, sometimes. It

trailed along the listener's heart; it dragged; it drawled; by the

unsympathetic it might have been called husky. Conceivably, creatures

may have existed who did not care for it. But to those who did, it was

the last turn of the screw.

"Name?"

"Christina Hope."

"Occupation?"

"Actress."

"The devil hath not yet in all his choice

An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice!"

This arrow, with Christina's very first word, pierced to the center and

the quick of Herrick's heart, and nailed it to the mast!

"Name?"

"Christina Hope."

"Age?"

"Twenty-two years."

At the beginning of that scrap of dialogue, Herrick, as a lover, had not

yet been born; at its end, compared to him, Romeo was a realist.

He did not tell himself that he was in love with her, and he would have

denied convulsively that he wished her to be in love with him. With him?

Fool! Dolt! Lout! Boor! Not to him did he wish her to stoop! All he

wanted was to become nobler for her sake, to serve her, to die for her!

Merely that! And before dying, to become humbly indispensable to her, to

know her more intimately than any one had ever known her, to take up

every moment of her time! It was entirely for the sake of her

perfection, of the holy and ineffable vision, that he objected

profoundly, almost with nausea, to Deutch's saying that she had acted

loony about Ingham. Ingham!--why Ingham? Even he, Herrick, would be

better than Ingham. For had not he, unworthy, by his deep perception of

her become worthy? Great as her beauty was, it was not for the mob. It

was too fine, too subtle; slim as a flame and winged as the wind yet

April-colored, its aching ravishment could thrill only sensitive nerves.

Yet he remembered something--the elevator boy had thought that, too!

Joseph Patrick had declared he supposed that other people thought

dressier ladies was handsomer, but he preferred Miss Hope! Deutch, too;

hadn't he suggested something of the kind? Now he came to think of it,

even the beast of a coroner had said so! Then, and not till then, did he

fully perceive the cruel trick, the last refinement of her perfect

beauty; that it came to you in such a humble, friendly, simple guise, so

slight and helpless did it knock upon your heart, whispering its shy way

into your blood with the sweet promise that it was yours alone and that

you alone could understand it. Until, when it had taken you wholly,

passion and spirit, it drew aside its veil and revealed itself as the

dream of every common prince and laborer and lover; the poet's hope and

the world's desire. He saw her now, coming toward him through the wet

wind, shining in the gray day, with a smile on her uplifted face, and,

at last, past its candor and its child's decorum, he knew it for the

face that launch'd a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of

Ilium!

At that moment the summons of a Grubey infant declared him wanted on the

telephone. And through the potent instrument a friendly voice from the

_Record_ office brought him back to earth. It said, "Say, Herrick, we've

got hold of a corking wind-up for your inquest story."

He cared nothing, now, for inquests, since they no longer concerned her.

But he said, "Have you?"

"Yes. We thought we'd see what the Cornish girl had to say, and we sent

right down, both to her boarding-house and her theater."

"And what had she?"

"Why, that's it. Since the day of the murder she hasn't showed up at

either place. She's disappeared."

BOOK SECOND

THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN

CHAPTER I

HERRICK PAYS A CALL, AND THE TEA IS SPILT

Herrick had written on his card, "Forgive what must seem an intrusion. I

am asking your time on a matter of business, but I'm afraid I must call

it a personal matter, too." After the maid had taken it, he suffered the

terrors of considering this message at once pretentious and too

emotional and in the worst possible taste.

Christina's little reception-room was a delicate miracle of Spartan

white, with a few dark gleams of slender formal mahogany shapes and a

couple of water-colors in white frames. On a little table a broad,

shallow bowl was filled with marigolds. Herrick had time for a second's

charmed curiosity at the presence of the little country flowers, and

then, from the floor above, he heard a low cry.

Instinctively, he stepped into the hall, and there came Christina,

flying down the stairs.

"Oh, Mr. Herrick," she called out to him. "Have you any news?" And then,

"Please don't hesitate. I can bear it! I can't bear suspense!"

"News?" he queried.

"Of Nancy!"

He cursed himself for not having known that that would be her first

thought. "I'm sorry and ashamed, Miss Hope. I've no news of her at all."

Christina's legs gave way under her, and she sat down on the stairs.

Herrick's chagrin and discomfiture were extreme. She paid no further

attention to him. Dropping her head on her clenched hands, "Oh! Oh! Oh!"

she said.

Mrs. Hope came out of a room at the back, and, passing Herrick with as

little ceremony as even her daughter had displayed, caught hold of

Christina's wrists and shook her sharply.

"Christina!" she exclaimed. "Christina! Now, there has been quite enough

of this!"

Christina did not seem to resent this summary treatment. She began to

sob more quietly, until she suddenly burst forth, "Where is she, then?

Can you tell me that? Where is she?"

"I don't care where she is!" cried poor Mrs. Hope. "Or, at least, now

you know very well what I mean, my dear. I can't have you going on in

this hysterical way all the time, when you've rehearsals to attend to.

Nancy probably went away to get out of all the disagreeable notoriety

that you've got into. And I'm sure she's very well off."

"Where is she, then?" Christina wailed. She seemed to have an

extraordinary capacity for sticking to her point. "With all the police

in New York looking for her, where is she?"

"Well, she hasn't been murdered, as you seem to think! If she had been,

she'd be found. If people kill people, they have to do something with

their bodies! But if people are alive, they can do something with

themselves!"

Christina shuddered.

"Now, my dear," said her mother, "it's very high time that we apologized

to Mr. Herrick, who must think us mad. But let me tell you this. I am

not going to have you go on the stage in a month looking like your own

ghost and all unstrung. I'm not going to have the play ruined by you,

and have you turn Mr. Wheeler and all of them into your enemies. It

would be better for them to get some one else. You don't sleep, you

won't eat, and you sit brooding all the time, as if you were looking at

nightmares. Well, if you don't get some kind of hold over yourself

within the next day or two, I shall tell Mr. Wheeler that you are

nervously unfit to be entrusted with a part, and I am taking you away."

Christina sat for an appreciable time without moving. Then she slowly

lifted her face and smiled at Herrick with her wet eyes. "We have

treated you to a strange scene," she said. "It is our bad hour.

But--sometimes--we can be really nice." She held out her hand. Then,

becoming aware of herself sitting on the steps, and of her mother and

Herrick standing before her, "'Have we no chears?'" she quoted; and,

springing up, she led the way into the little white room.

Herrick found that it was only he who followed her there. Mrs. Hope,

having dealt with the emergency, had again retreated; evidently feeling

that Christina, even in tears, was quite capable of entertaining a young

man single handed.

But when he was seated near her, Herrick was shocked by the girl's

appearance. It was not only that her face was worn with anxiety, but

that, in twenty-four hours, she seemed actually to have lost flesh. The

lovely outline of her cheek was sunken and the jaw sharpened; if it were

possible to be paler than she had been yesterday, she was paler now. She

looked so fine and light and frail that it seemed as if the beating of

her heart must show through her body, and all during the talk that

followed, Herrick had the sense of her bright, still eyes being

concentrated in expectation,--almost, as it were, in listening,--through

her thick, wet lashes; the gentle wildness of some woodland animal

listens so for the moving of a twig. She was dressed in white serge with

a knot of the marigolds in her belt, and they seemed like a kind of

bright wound in the tragic pallor of her weariness.

The cause of his visit seemed more than ever an impertinence, but it

must be faced, and he began to stumble out the story of his Sunday

special.

"There's the old argument that it must be done by somebody. Only, of

course, without your sanction, it will never be done by me. I've

ventured to bring it to you," said he, guiltily producing the article

which he had sat up all night to typewrite. "If I might, I'd leave it

here, and the maid could give it to me when I called for it--you would

only have had to run your pencil through anything that distressed you. I

know how distasteful the idea--the horribly melodramatic and sensational

idea--must be to you--"

"Oh, well, I don't know that I joined a profession so retiring as all

that!" Christina said, and she held out her hand for the manuscript. She

seemed to weigh this for a moment, and then she handed it back to

Herrick unopened. "No,--say what you please of me. It is sure to be only

too good. Well, and if not?--What does it matter?" She closed her eyes,

and the terrible fatigue of her face brought him to his feet. At the

same time, he knew his story was amazingly good, and, despite his

tremors, he couldn't help wanting her to read it.

"But--" he ventured.

"Well, then, I will tell you what we can do--give it to my mother. You

will need it at once? She can have read it by tea-time. You may be quite

easy that if there is anything in it which can injure me I shall break

the news to you, over your tea-cup, that it is in ashes. Will that

do?--Ada," she said to the maid, "please take this in to my mother and

ask her to read it at once. She's alone, isn't she?"

"Please, ma'am, Mrs. Deutch is with her."

"Then they can both read it."

Herrick expressed his thanks and added, "About five, then, I may come

back?"

Christina opened her eyes full on him; glancing from the portieres to

the softly curtained windows between which they two were completely

alone, "Is it so terrible here?" she inquired.

Herrick sat down.

She waited for him to speak and he had something on his conscience. He

told her, then and there, about the voice in his dream which had said to

him, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" The little nerves in her skin trembled and he,

too, felt a superstitious thrill. "But I must suppose, now, that I

didn't dream it at all. Some one in that room must have called it

out--perhaps when they saw her card on the piano. I was in a pretty

fidgety state,--to speak grandly, an electric state,--and, being just on

the sensitive borderline between sleeping and waking, I suppose I simply

happened to catch it--like a wireless at sea."

"Ask Nancy Cornish!" Christina repeated. "Ask Nancy--ah, if we could!

What kind of voice was it? Should you recognize it, do you think, if you

heard it again?"

"How could I? I'm scarcely even sure that I heard a voice."

"Only that you heard a shot and had to help! And didn't it occur to you

that it might have been the woman who fired? I see--you don't think of

women in that way. The reason I didn't ask you, yesterday, to call

here," Christina volunteered, "was that I didn't want you to come."

She made this rude announcement with an effect of such good faith that

Herrick laughed, "Ah, well, it's too late for that! I'm here!"

"Exactly! But not through me. My friends come to no good, Mr.

Herrick--they are parted from me by a trouble as wide as the world, or

else--" She put one hand over her eyes. "What is it?--a curse, a

darkness?--I don't know! It's like a trap! It's as if vengeance baited a

circle with me and, whenever a kindness advanced toward me, the trap

fell. Even my poor Herr Hermy, who lost his picture-shop with the plush

curtains, may lose his superintendency because I sent Mr. Ingham to his

house. You would do better to take my word; to believe me when I tell

you that somehow I bring danger. What have I done? What does it mean? I

can't tell you. It's always been so. I'm like some bird that brings the

storm on its wings, it doesn't know why. Life's hard for me, that's

all." She pushed up her hair with the backs of her hands,--the quaint

little gesture that he loved. "But what use is there in saying all this

to frighten you. Something tells me you will never be afraid. Well,

then, if you come here against my will, is that my fault? You do wish to

befriend me? Isn't that true?"

"It's the biggest truth in my life," Herrick replied.

"You see. I, who am so unlucky, what am I to do? If ever a poor girl

needed a friend, I am that girl. But I don't dare let you touch my need.

I don't know what it may do to you."

Herrick answered her with a smile--"And I don't care."

She, too, smiled. It began to be borne in upon Herrick how great, when

she chose to exercise it, was her self-control. She could talk to him

with one part of her mind while the other was still listening, peering,

questing, trembling for some fatal news. And he was suddenly aware of

her murmuring--

"'Vous qui m'avez tant puni,

Dans ma triste vie--'"

"Well, then," she said, "if you must,--I want something. Not protection,

not pity, not championship; I'm a little in your own line, you know, I'm

not easily frightened.

"'Je suis aussi sans desir

Autre que d'en bien finir--

Sans regret, sans repentir--'

"I don't know if you read Peter Ibbetson?"

"Raised on it!" Herrick said.

"Well, then, you understand things--I don't mean merely his French

songs! And that is exactly what I want--to be quite simply and sensibly

and decently understood! I am a more successful actress than you

realize, you backward Easterners, and I am treated like a goddess, a bad

child, a sibyl, an adventuress, a crazy woman. I should like to speak

now and then with some one who knew that I was nothing but a lonely girl

with some brains in her head, who often took herself too seriously and

sometimes, alas! not seriously enough; who was capricious and perverse

but not a coward, and oh, who meant so well! Such a person would

sometimes say, 'She was silly to-day, but by this time she is ashamed.

She had a strange girlhood and they taught her very bad manners, but she

is not a fool and she will learn.' Well, I will not have any common

person thinking like that about me! It takes an artist to understand an

artist! You think me very arrogant to speak like that of you and me,

because, at the bottom of your heart, you have the arrogance of all the

world--you do not admit that an actress really is an artist! Wait a

little, and you shall own that I am one. At any rate, I know a bit of

other people's art; it's my pride I was among the first to be made happy

by yours--and oh, but I could do very well with a friend I could be

proud of!"--It was not very long before he had embarked upon the history

of his novel.

He went on and on; he explained to her Ten Euyck's thrust about the

photograph; he told her of Evadne and of Sal. The first thing she said

to him was--"Is there a play in it?"

"I tried it as a play first, but--"

"Oh, surely, the novel's better first! You can get it all out of your

system in the novel, and then we could drain it of the pure gold for my

end of it--for the play! You'd never sell it over my head! Why, I could

have you up,--couldn't I?--for plagiarism! Do you know how you can keep

me agreeable? Bring it to me here, when my rehearsals are over, and read

it to me--it will please me and it can do you no harm. If you find me

stupid, say to yourself, 'She is drunk with pleasure, poor thing, at

what I have made of her.' Oh, you'd never have the heart to publish my

portrait, and not let me see the proof!"

The compact was concluded as the maid entered with the tea things. Mrs.

Hope came in radiant. She began to thank Herrick for his article, and

Christina said, "Where is Mrs. Deutch?"

"She is in the sitting-room. She says she must go home."

Christina went and parted the portieres and Herrick heard her speaking

with a kind of sweet authority in German, of which he caught the

phrase--"Yes, you will stay! You will certainly stay!" She waited there

till her friend joined her, and then, returning, she took charge of the

tea-table.

Henrietta Deutch was a large, handsome woman of about forty-five, too

stout, but of a matronly dignity; her beautiful coloring was blended

into a smooth, rich surface as foreign-looking as lacquer. So far as he

was capable of perceiving anything but Christina, Herrick perceived that

not only her physical but her social stature was higher than her

husband's; she was neither ignorant nor fussy; she was a person of large

silences, as well, he imagined, as of grave sympathies; for her age she

was, to an American, strangely old-fashioned but, despite her addiction

to black silk and the incessant knitting of white woolen clouds, she

had, in her continental youth, received an excellent formal education

"with accomplishments."

"Tante Deutch," said Christina, "this is our new friend, Mr. Herrick,

who stood up for us against that man."

The little maid continued to throw out signals of distress and Mrs.

Hope, going to her relief, was heard to say, "Well, she'll use her

white one." She explained to Christina, "It's only about laying out your

things for to-night. She can't find your blue cloak--you know, the long

one with the hood--"

"I am very glad to know you, sir," said Mrs. Deutch. "Christina, my

lamb, you are ill!"

"No, I am not ill. But I am distracted. Sugar, Mr. Herrick? Lemon? My

hand shakes and if the coroner were here he would say it was with guilt.

Poor soul, what a disappointment!"

"Christina!" exclaimed Mrs. Hope. "Don't laugh!"

"I am not laughing. I think the man a dangerous enemy and now he is my

enemy. He will never forgive me for letting him make himself ridiculous.

He is too righteous to forget a grudge, for any one who earns such a

thing from the excellent Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyck

becomes a criminal by that action. 'Winthrop.' Of course there had to be

the New England strain--he was born to wear a steeple hat and snoop for

witches! May he never light the faggots about me!"

"Now, my dear, you are working yourself up!"

"Dear mother, you are a bit hard to please! First you tell me not to

laugh and then you reproach me with working myself up! But you are

right! Why should I fash myself over a man with a personality like a

pair of shears? Ah, if I could get news of Nancy, my hand would be

steady enough!"

"You'll have news of Nancy when she gets ready!" declared Mrs. Hope,

with the maternal freedom of speech toward our dearest friends, "An

ungrateful, stubborn, secretive girl!"

"My mother," said Christina, "is enthusiastic but inaccurate. She means

that Nancy is neither voluble nor impulsive, like the paragon before

you, and that though her affection is steady it is not easily dazzled.

We have been friends scarcely more than four years--since she made her

first five dollars a week as part of a stage-mob--but I knew her at

once for the little real sister of my heart. I told you I'd always been

a lonely girl, Mr. Herrick, and that soft, little touch came close on my

loneliness, like a child's. I have succeeded and she has not; I am the

world's own daughter--I know the world and she does not; my hands are

very keen, believe me, for the power and the glory--after all, one must

have something!--and she can only put hers into mine. But where I am

weak, she is strong. One can't ask one's family to forgive that!" said

Christina. And with a tempestuous swoop she handed him a photograph upon

which, whether for newspapers or detectives, had been pasted some

memoranda. "This is more to the point."

He beheld a charming little face, fresh and pretty, quaintly feminine,

with sensible and resolute brows to balance the wistfulness of the soft

mouth; a face at once grave and glad, with a deep dimple softening the

stubborn little chin. Herrick, studying the memoranda, compared them

with his own vague memories and the photograph.

Height, five feet, four inches.

Weight, a hundred and twenty pounds.

Age, twenty years.

Complexion, fair.

Hair, dark auburn and curling.

Eyes, blue.

Wearing, when last seen, a white organdie dress with lace insertion;

white shoes, stockings and gloves; small straw hat, dull green, trimmed

with violets; carried a white embroidered linen sunshade and a small

purse-bag, green suede with silver monogram, "A. C." No jewelry of any

value. Wearing round her neck a string of green beads. Missing from her

effects and commonly worn by her, two bangle bracelets--one silver, one

jade. One silver locket. One scarab ring, bluish-green Egyptian

turquoise, set in silver. Last seen on West Eighty --th Street,

walking east, at five o'clock in the afternoon of August fourth.

It was now August seventh; she had been missing for three days.

"Where is she?"

"And I thought it strange enough, before the inquest, that I was in such

trouble and didn't hear from her! Mother, you say she is hiding herself.

But,--all alone? I have telegraphed and telephoned everywhere, to every

one! And then--does a girl throw down her work, her engagement, for

nothing, without a syllable, and disappear! Her things are all at Mrs.

McBride's; her bill for her room is still going on; she was to have gone

out to an opening that night with Susie Grayce! She hadn't a valise with

her, not a change of clothes! She turned east from Jim Ingham's doorway,

and that's all!" Christina was beginning to lose control of herself; she

looked as if her teeth were going to chatter.

"Now, my pretty--" began Mrs. Deutch.

"Turned east?" ruminated Mrs. Hope. "East? That's toward the park. She

might have been going to meet--Well, Christina!"

For the hand which Christina had criticized as trembling had dropped the

tea-pot. This must have dropped rather hard, for it broke to pieces.

Everything was deluged with tea.

"My sweeting!" cried Mrs. Deutch. "Move yet a little!" For she was

already at work upon the disaster which was threatening Christina's

white gown. The fragments of the wreck were cleared away, and while

fresh tea was being made Christina urged Mrs. Deutch to play "and get me

quiet."

"Yes, you will play. You will play for me and for Mr. Herrick. Mr.

Herrick is not one of these deaf Yankees--don't you remember what he

wrote about the music in Berlin?"

"So!" said Mrs. Deutch. "In Berlin! Is it so!" She went seriously to

the piano where she executed some equally serious music with admirable

technique and some feeling, but her performance was scarcely so

remarkable as to account for Christina's extreme eagerness.

When she had finished Herrick took himself unwillingly away, and was

still so agitated by the sweetness of Christina's farewell that after he

had got himself into the hall he dropped his glove. The little maid who

had opened the door for him, let it slam as she sprang to pick up the

glove, and at the closing of the door he heard Christina's voice break

hysterically forth, and rise above some remonstrance of her mother's.

"Yes, you do. You spy on me, both of you."

"But, my little one--" ejaculated Mrs. Deutch.

"You spy on me, you whisper, you stare, you guess, you talk! Talk! Talk!

And you remember nothing that I tell you! I shall go mad! I am among

spies in my own house!"

Herrick quickened his petrified muscles and went. Even to his

infatuation it occurred that whatever might have been the faults of

James Ingham, Christina herself was a person with whom it would not be

too difficult to quarrel.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS ARM IS OUTSTRETCHED

It was not because this reflection was in any way cooling to his love

that Herrick did not see again, for some days, the lady of his heart. He

was, perhaps, not very self-assured. Yet when his story of the murder

and the inquest appeared he became a marked man. He awoke to find

himself famous, and to be summoned to another interview at the Ingham

publishing house.

There seemed to be no thought of allowing the prestige of "Ingham's" to

perish with its brilliant junior partner. Ingham, senior, who for years

had been only nominally its head, intended to resume active work once

more, at least until the younger son should have finished college and

gone into training for his brother's place. Perhaps the real pillar of

the house was Corey; and Corey remained, to sustain both father and son.

And they had all three agreed not to forsake the new, the yet unborn

enterprise of _Ingham's Weekly_. "Mr. James Ingham was wrapped up in

it," Corey told Herrick, whom he had met with the kindest compliments,

"and his father can't bear that all his work should be wasted now.

Besides, in the whole of the business, it's the thing that most

interests young Mr. Stanley, and it seems to me the place where the boy

may be most of use. We want the _Weekly_ to be a real force, Mr.

Herrick, and in its first number we shall want to give up the usual

editorial pages to a memoir of its founder and his ideals for it. Mr.

Herrick, if we could induce you to undertake that memoir we should think

ourselves extremely fortunate."

Herrick could not believe his ears; it seemed such a strange sequel to a

kind of police report, however able, for the Sunday papers. There began

to be something uncanny to him about his connection with Ingham's death

and how it continued to seem his Open Sesame to fortune. But he was glad

enough and grateful enough. He ventured to send Christina a note telling

her that her new friend was now being pursued by good not evil fortune

and her reply came in the same mail with a letter from his sister to

whom he had written for details about Nancy Cornish.

Marion remembered only that Nancy's parents had been killed in a runaway

when she was about fourteen and that Nancy had gone out West

somewhere,--to Portland, Oregon, Marion thought, to live with an

uncle--and had gradually ceased to write. Of this uncle's name or

address both Marion and the principal of the school which both girls had

attended were amiably ignorant.

"There's only one thing I'm positive about; she was the best little soul

alive. Never in this world did she go to that man's rooms to tell tales

of her friend. She never told tales. She was a natural born

hero-worshiper; the most loyal child I ever saw and the most generous,

the bravest, the lovingest, the most devoted. If she went to Mr. Ingham,

it wasn't to injure that Christina Hope; it was to help her out of some

scrape. She was just the kind of girl to be taken in by a woman like

that, whom I must say sounds--"

Herrick dropped this letter to return to that other which it cannot be

denied he had read first. It was directed in a penmanship new to him but

recognized at once in every nerve, and he had drawn forth Christina's

note with that strange thrill which stirs in us at the first sight of

the handwriting of the beloved. She thanked him, with a certain shyness,

for his news. It was so good one must take it with their breath held!

And now she had a favor to ask. Stanley Ingham had gone home to

Springfield for the week-end, but he had just telephoned her that he

would be back in town on Tuesday morning, by the train which got in to

the Grand Central at eleven thirty-five. He had some news for her but

she would be at rehearsal; she should not see him until the evening, and

she was naturally an impatient person. Would not Mr. Herrick humor a

spoiled girl, meet the train and bring her the news at about noon to a

certain little tea-room of which she gave him the address. "You may find

it a great bore. They are supposed to let us out for an hour, like the

shop-girls. But, alas! they don't do it so regularly. They may push us

straight through till mid-afternoon. But I know you will have patience

with my eagerness to hear any news where it need not trouble my mother.

She has had anxiety enough." It may be taken as a measure of Herrick's

infatuation that he saw nothing in this letter which was not angelic.

The Grand Central Station, however, is no sylvan spot and Herrick

wondered how he should recognize an unknown Stanley Ingham among the

hordes swarming in its vast marble labyrinth. But that gentleman proved

to be a lively youth of about twenty, who plucked Herrick from the crowd

without hesitation and led him to a secluded seat with that air of

deferential protection which a really smart chap owes it to himself to

show to age. His collar was so high that it was remarkable how

powerfully he had established winking terms with the world over the top

of it, but he stooped to account for himself at once as an emissary of

Christina's.

"She wired me to see you here, and here I am. You know I'm the bearer of

some new exhibits for the police. We think we've struck a new trail.

After I've handed 'em over I'm dining with Miss Hope, and as she'd have

heard all about 'em then, should think she might have waited. Still, you

know how women are!

"In the first place," young Mr. Ingham continued, "we want you, we want

everybody, to know we're Miss Hope's friends. We want to go on record

that the way she's been knocked around in this thing has been simply

damnable, and, if poor old Jim were alive--"

He stopped. At the mention of his brother a moisture, which Herrick knew

he considered the last word of shame, rose in his eyes; behind his high

collar something swelled and impeded his utterance. Then Mr. Stanley

Ingham became once more a man of the world.

"You can take it from me that if you hadn't treated her as jolly well as

you did in that capital article of yours, we shouldn't be trying to

lasso you now onto the staff of the _Weekly_." Herrick started, but the

man of the world was not easily checked. "You were awfully decent, you

know, to all of us, and Corey was all the more pleased because

that--that last day, old Jim was down at the office till three

o'clock--the first day after he was home, too,--working like a dog, and

yet when he found that letter of Rennett's introducing you he was as

pleased as Punch, and when he made the appointment with you for next

day, he said to Corey, 'People are taking that boy pretty easy yet

awhile, but he's the best short-story writer on this side of the

Atlantic; and if he's really got a novel about him, the old house will

show him it's still awake.'" The man of the world repeated these phrases

with an innocent satisfaction in having them at first hand, and

Herrick's own heart went questing into the future.

Then his attention returned to the words of his young friend. "We don't

think we've done enough for her, and we want to do all we can do."

"Miss Hope?"

"Of course. You see, we don't any of us feel she was wrong in quarreling

with Jim--except the mater, who thinks she ought to have let him cut her

throat for breakfast every morning and damned glad to get him--and,

considering everything, we think she let him down pretty easy at the

inquest. There's no denying the dear old fellow had been a gay one in

his time, and, of course, he drove a high-spirited girl like that

frantic with a lot of antiquated notions about the stage. You see, he

was pretty close to thirty-five, and when a man gets along about there

he's apt to lose touch with what's going on. Well, having her in our pew

and our carriage at the funeral didn't shut all the fools' mouths in New

York nor Springfield either! So now we're going to do something really

swotting--we've taken a box for her first night, and we're going to get

mother into it, mourning and all, if we have to bring her in a bag. It's

our duty. Read that."

"My dear and kind Mr. Ingham (ran Christina's letter): You must try

and be patient with me, and not think hardly of me, when I tell you

that I can not profit by the terms of Jim's will. He made those

provisions for the girl who was to be his wife, and not for me who

never could be.

"As I write this I feel your good heart harden to me, with the

sense that I never loved him. But oh, believe me!--time was when I

loved him better than earth or heaven. We couldn't agree, he and I.

Let it remain my consolation that between us there was never any

question of expedient nor compromise.

"If she can bear it, give my love to his mother.

"My heart is full of fondest gratitude to all that family which I

should have been so proud to enter. And do you keep a little

kindness for your unhappy,

"CHRISTINA HOPE."

"What do you think of that? Won't take a cent! You can easily see,"

commented the wise one, "that they'd have made it up all right. Splendid

girl! Best thing the poor old chap ever did was trying to get her into

the family. I don't suppose you're as hipped about her good looks as I

am? Takes a special kind of eye, I fancy! I snaked this particularly to

show you--but we want everybody to know she's turned down the coin. And

we're going to have the beast that fired that shot if he's alive on this

planet. 'Tisn't only on Jim's account! It's for her--it's the only way

you can knock that damned lie on the head about her being up there in

his rooms that night.--Chris! Why, she's a regular kid! And the

straightest kid that ever lived! We mean to keep the police hot at it.

And look here what I'm turning in to them!"

It was a typewritten envelope, postmarked "New York City" and addressed

to Mr. James Ingham.

"We found it, opened, in his desk at the office," the boy explained.

"But we've only just got it away from my mother." Its contents were a

piece of red ribbon and a single sheet of paper, closely typed.

The Arm of Justice warns Mr. James Ingham--

("Is this a joke?") "Go on! Read it!"

--warns Mr. James Ingham that it demands ten thousand dollars. ("By

George!") If Mr. Ingham wisely decides to grant this application, he

will tie the enclosed ribbon to the frame work of his awning on the

afternoon of August fourth, at four o'clock. It will be seen by an

agent of the Society, who will then advise Mr. Ingham as to how and

where the money may be paid. If Mr. Ingham decides against the

application, he will do nothing.

But in that case he must be prepared for the publication of a

paragraph in the _Voice of Justice_, beginning--"There has recently

come to light an episode in the career of Mr. James Ingham, the

well-known publisher, eldest son of Robert Ingham of Springfield and

New York, who is engaged to be married to the popular actress,

Christina Hope--"

It will go on to relate the story of his association with a young,

pure and helpless girl eight years ago; how he betrayed her, and,

after a promise of marriage--she being then destitute--abandoned

her. It will tell this girl's name and where she is. It will give

all names in connection with the affair. It will publish letters

that passed between Mr. Ingham and this young girl, corroborating

the worst that has been said.

Mr. Ingham knows the standards of society, the reputation, the

probity and the justice of his father, and also the temper of Miss

Christina Hope. Mr. Ingham is the best judge of whether or not it

will be wise to pay for silence.

"That's all!" exclaimed Stanley Ingham, as if the absence of signature

were really remarkable. "Well, how's that! Poor old chap, you know--how

dare they!" He reddened. "Because, hang it all, of course a man has to

be a man, and you've got to be liberal-minded and all that; but, just

the same, a fellow that would do what that thing says--why, he'd be

regularly rotten! You can't deny it, he'd be rotten."

Herrick sat dumb. Words of Christina's were passing in his mind.--"I

will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. It was simply something

monstrous which happened a long time ago." Because he had to say

something, he said--"And you're taking this in to the police?"

"Yes. Isn't it a mercy Jim didn't destroy it? Meant it for the

detectives himself, I dare say. Perhaps his not hanging out that piece

of ribbon didn't have anything to do with his death. And perhaps it did.

Anyhow, wait a bit--I'm a walking post-office this morning. Here's the

last exhibit!" And he plumped down on Herrick's knee the duplicate of

the typewritten envelope. The postmark, however, was dated August ninth,

and it was directed to Ingham senior.

"It opened with the same formalities, but this time its threat ran--

"The _Voice_ will relate the actual circumstances connected with

the death of Mr. James Ingham--"

"Jove!" cried Herrick, "that would be something!"

"Wait till you read 'em!"

"It will not pause after the story of the young girl whom Ingham

abandoned years ago. It will tell how, on the eve of his departure for

Europe, just such a story was reenacted, but this time with a close

friend of his intended bride, an actress named Ann Cornish; who, on his

return, appealed to him for the only reparation in his power; even

slandering her friend Christina Hope in the attempt to win him back.

Failing in this, she fled, and disappeared--perhaps destroyed herself.

It will tell how Miss Hope suspected the intrigue, having quarreled

about it with her lover the day before, when he denied all knowledge of

Nancy Cornish; how, suspecting an appointment for the evening instead of

the afternoon of August fourth, Miss Hope disguised herself in a red wig

and dabs of paint about her eyes and penetrated to Ingham's apartment;

how, finding no one there, she was placated until she spied Nancy

Cornish's card on the piano and how then a terrible quarrel arose; the

excitable young woman, springing in front of the window with her arm

outstretched, the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air,

uttered a terrible, low cry, and snatching up Ingham's revolver from the

table at the head of the couch, shot him dead. It will follow the flight

of Miss Hope exactly as she described it at the inquest--out through

the door which Ingham must have bolted behind her. She ran upstairs and

escaped over the roof into the apartment house next door. It was a

terribly hot night, and, against all rules, the roof-doors of both

apartment houses had been fastened back. Miss Hope came quietly

downstairs, passed through an entrance hall, empty of the boy who had

run to join the crowd in the street, and walked away. This will be the

conclusion of the narrative."

CHAPTER III

HERRICK GUESSES AT THE MYSTERY AND GETS IN SOMETHING'S WAY

The light in the little tea-room was rather dim. Christina spread out

Herrick's copies of the two blackmailing letters upon the table and

studied them, propping her chin on her hands. Herrick, in surrendering

them, had dreaded the squalid clutch which they laid upon herself. But

when she lifted her eyes it was to say--"We must never let them credit

this trash about Nancy!"

"None of it, then--?"

"Not a syllable! Not a breath!--Jim! Little she cared for Jim, poor

child! She was unhappy, but not with that unhappiness. It's true her

only love-affair had come to grief. That's what my mother means by

calling her secretive--even I have never been able to get out of her

what happened to it. But disgrace--run away! Disgrace could never have

looked at her, and never in her life did she run away from anything! And

if she were alive and free, anywhere upon this earth, the first word

against me would have brought her back. She would butt walls down, with

her little red head, to stand by a friend's side!"

"That's what my sister says. It's odd!"

"Odd?"

"I mean--Well, there's the circumstance that the hour when she called on

Ingham was the hour when the ribbon was to have signaled from the

window. And she didn't give her name, you know; she said, 'The lady he

expects.' Then one remembers that this mysterious woman who passed Joe

had red hair. Joe says she had on a white lace dress, Miss Hope--well,

Miss Cornish was in white with lace trimming. He mistook her for you.

Still, he was very sleepy, and though she's not so tall as you are,

she's not short, and she's very slender, too. Forgive me for making you

impatient. But the boy's devoted to you, isn't he?"

"I suppose so," Christina ingenuously replied.

"Well, he knows, now, that Nancy Cornish is your dear friend. I can't

altogether rely upon his not recognizing her photograph."

"I can," said Christina, almost tartly. "White--everybody's in white. I

wore a white dress that night, myself. It wasn't Nancy. You may put that

out of your mind."

Herrick considered. "That business of the variegated eyes--people seem

to suppose he threw it in for good measure. But could such an effect be

produced by make-up?"

"I think not. On the stage we generally use blue pencil to darken our

lashes. Well, once in a way, some one from the front assures us that we

have blue eyes. Or else brown, if we use brown. But close to, and--and

in combination--surely not! And why try so thin a disguise?"

"To suggest a striking mark of identification which does not really

exist. That would explain so much. Why she was willing to make a

conspicuous impression on the boy--she may have been a dark woman, you

know, in a red wig, only too glad to leave behind her the picture of a

blonde. There always lingers the impression that it may have been some

one whom Joe knew, or was used to seeing, and that it was merely this

vague familiarity which he recognized before he had time to be taken in

by her disguise. Ingham was on his mind; that may have been why he first

thought of you.--Miss Hope, do you know what other impression, or

superstition, or whatever you like, I can't get rid of? That the

mystery of who fired the shot is part of the answer to the mystery of

that bolted door. When we know how he got out, we shall know who he

was."

"He?"

"Well--man or woman. It's ridiculous, it's silly, but I feel as if that

personality were somehow still imprisoned in those rooms. As though, if

we knew how to look, it would be there and there only we should find the

truth."

Christina murmured a soft sound of regret and wonder. "What a strange

thing! His poor mother--she feels so, too! She won't have a thing in his

rooms touched till the lease is up. She says the secret is still there."

He loved the pity in Christina's face. And then he watched her

reabsorption in the letters. But though they absorbed, they did not

impress her. They somehow seemed even to bring her mind relief.

"Heavens!" said she, presently. "Is it altogether a bad joke?--'The Arm

of Justice!'"

"I did think at first they were a hoax of some sort. But the Inghams are

far from thinking so."

"They think--?"

"Yes. They've accepted these letters as changing the whole course of the

investigation. They believe now that the scandalous, the personal motive

was an entirely wrong lead; that Ingham was murdered in cold blood, as a

matter of business; that the woman was only a cat's paw. And they're

looking for a man."

"Dear God!" said Christina. "How hot it is in here! That fan--can't they

start it?" She took off her hat; the cool air from the fan came about

her face, carrying to Herrick's nostrils a scent of larkspur and verbena

and candy-tuft (how she clung to those garden flowers!), and she closed

her eyes.

Herrick sat watching her with concern. He thought of how she had said

her mother had had anxiety enough. It seemed now, to Herrick, that

Christina, too, had had anxiety enough. "Evadne!" he said, suddenly.

She opened her eyes, smiling at him.

"You know I have known you very intimately and served you very

faithfully for an immensely long time. I am your author, and I'm going

to bully you. I want you to drop all this! What is it to you? Something

hideous, that's over. In no way can the miserable muck of these letters

touch you! Let the Inghams and the police and the District Attorney

worry--it's their business. It's your business to make beautiful things

for the world. Dear Evadne, you've got to possess your own soul if

you're going to polish up ours! Forget these lies!"

It was rather late in the little restaurant and they were the only

patrons. After a moment the girl leaned toward him, and laid her hand on

his.

"I will try!" she said, gently. "And you will dine with us to-night? And

Stan can tell what the detectives say to you, and not to me? Oh, please!

You are right. I want to forget. I am worn out, my soul and my body; my

heart's drying up. Nancy! Nancy! Oh, Nancy! If I could only know about

Nancy! But for the rest, I don't care. You are my friend, and I will

tell you something. Whenever they've wanted to show me they didn't think

me a murderess, they've said, 'Of course, my dear, you're as eager to

have the criminal caught as any of us.' It's false! Why should I wish

for anything so horrible?"

He looked at her with a start of wonder that was half agreement.

"In what age are we living that I am expected to enjoy an execution? Do

you know what one's like? I've been on trial for my life now, and I've

been reading it up! They--"

"Hush!" said Herrick, sternly.

"But isn't it wicked? Why should I wish that done?--to man or

woman?--Or to lock some one up for life--that's worse! Why should it

amuse me to have people tortured? Who tortured Jim? Poor fellow, he

scarcely could have known! Why should they suffer more than he? For the

act of one little minute to burn in fire all the rest of one's life. Oh,

my good friend, what's the use of pretending? We know perfectly well

that some girl's despair may have fired that shot, that if she had a

brother or a lover--Can't you stop them, Mr. Herrick? Must they go

frothing on in this man-hunt? It's to clear my name? My name's my own; I

won't have it put up against any human being's misery! If they catch and

kill some unhappy creature for my sake--it will kill me, too. I shall

die of it!"

"What you'll do now," said Herrick, "is to come out of here into the

sunlight, and get some air before you go back to rehearsal."

She let him walk with her to the stage-door, and before it swallowed

her, she abruptly and almost gaily soliloquized, "A man! A man wrote

those letters! Does one man send a piece of ribbon to another, and ask

him to hang it out of his window? Do you mean, to tell me that it was a

man who made that remark about my temper? 'The Arm of Justice' forsooth!

There's a female idea of a brigand."

It was plain that she inclined to believe the blackmailer some mercenary

trickster, who knew no more of the murder than herself. Some woman, she

said. But there were two persons in Joe Patrick's testimony. And Herrick

believed there were two in the attempted blackmail. As to their

knowledge of Ingham's death, one circumstance appeared to him highly

significant; the changed standpoint of the second letter! He said to

himself, "The first is obviously sincere; it was written in the genuine

hope of getting money out of Ingham by a person who really felt that he

or she had a case. And the second is nothing on earth but an attempt to

divert suspicion from the murderer by a lot of villainous poppycock.

Between the writing of those two letters they lost their case and they

lost their nerve. Suppose the first letter had been written by a

woman,--by a woman of some cultivation, with a very strong taste for

expressing herself picturesquely. But her picturesqueness all streams

into one channel--into hatred for Ingham. When she cuts at him, her pen

scorches the paper. She has only one sentiment of anything like equal

strength--her sympathy with the girl whom Ingham is supposed to have

deserted. There, now, is a person whom she thoroughly admires. Was she

herself once that girl?"

Herrick was on his way to dine at Christina's by the time that he

hazarded this runaway guess, and he told himself that he must pull up a

little, now he was on the public street, or he would be holding people

with his glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner.

But one fact continued to strike him. The man whom Joe Patrick had taken

up to the fourth floor after the arrival of the red-haired woman did not

appear in the narrative.

How if this man himself had written the second letter? The writer had

sacrificed the only other persons mentioned--Christina and

Nancy--without a scruple, but that curt and silent male it had never

occurred to him to sacrifice. He was consistently shielded. Having no

feasible way of accounting for him, the writer had not even explained

him away. He had simply left him out, hoping that, in the definiteness

of the accusation of a woman, he would be forgotten. For this reason he

had gone into details of her flight without even touching the great dark

points of the moving of Ingham's body and the bolted door. He was too

busy pointing: "Look, look, there she goes! The murderess! The woman! I

am calling her Christina Hope. But, in any case, a woman. No man has had

anything to do with it."

Herrick turned off the avenue into Christina's street. And trying to

clear his brain lest its feverish contagion should presently reach hers,

he told himself, "You're cracked, my friend. You know nothing whatever.

Simply cracked." But he could not cure himself. Right or wrong, his

obsession continued. Nonsense or no, there grew steadily within him the

notion of that man who had seen all, who knew all, and who had done his

work! This figure became strangely potent, and singularly ominous. They

were all suffering and struggling here, ridiculously ignorant,

ridiculously in pain, and he could laugh at them. Not a sound had

escaped him. He had betrayed himself by no melodramatic shadow. "He was

so quiet," Joe Patrick had said, "goin' right along about his

business--" Yes, he had come upon his business, he had accomplished it,

he had vanished, and left no trace behind. Blackmailer, slanderer,

murderer, and maybe coward and traitor, there was about him a stillness

that had a strange effect. The very blankness of his passage--he looked

so like "all gentlemen," neither tall nor short, stout nor thin, light

nor dark, thirty, forty, or some other age--why, Beelzebub himself could

not have accomplished a more complete disguise! It was as if, going so

quietly on such an errand, some evil of devilish mockery looked out from

behind that featureless face, as from behind a mask. And about the heart

of the big, lean, ruddy youth striding toward his beloved through the

warm August evening, the cold breath of superstition lightly breathed.

It was, for one instant, as though it were at him the mockery were

directed; as though, when that mask should be removed, it would be his

blood that would be frozen by the sight. The next moment his strength

exulted. Patience! He must be found, that fellow--he had made Christina

suffer! The young man's heart winced and then steeled itself upon the

phrase. He drew deep into his spirit the horrid degradation that had

been breathed upon her; the sickening danger that had struck at her; he

saw the thinned line of her cheek, her pallor and her tears, and the

dark circles under those dear eyes. He saw and his teeth set themselves.

Oh, yes, that featureless and silent fellow should be found! And when

that hour came, and Herrick's hand was on that mask, it made him laugh

to think how well its wearer should learn that it was not only a woman

at whom he had struck!

Immersed in these thoughts Herrick had not noticed a scudding automobile

which now passed him so close that he had to spring backward in order to

avoid being knocked down. And he was not in the mood when springing

backward could be in the least agreeable to him. The rescuer of ladies

was thrown into a fuming rage. What, he, he, a free-born American

citizen, he, a knight-errant on his way to the queen of love and beauty,

he, Bryce Herrick, a presentable young man of the privileged classes to

bound into the air like a ball or a mountebank! Made to retreat

ignominiously and hurriedly!--actually to--in the language of his

childhood--to "skip the gutter" by the menial of upstarts with his

horn!--By George, the fellow had not blown his horn!

Herrick came to a raging pause and looked about him for a policeman. He

could at least complain to a policeman! Then he discovered that he was

within half a block of Christina's corner; her house was on the other

side of the street. To come into her presence was to forget everything

else. As he reached the corner and started to cross the road he heard

the whirr of another motor and then beheld it speeding toward him, some

distance off, from the same direction as his first enemy. Determined not

to skip the gutter this time he advanced at a dignified pace,

deliberately fixing the automobile with the power of the human eye. The

wild beast approached headlong, nevertheless, and Herrick, observing

that it, too, dispensed with the formality of blowing its horn, stopped

dead in its path. He was filled with the immense public spirit of

outraged dignity and pure temper. The automobile was a long, low

touring-car, gray, with an unfashionable look of hard usage, and there

were three roughly dressed men in it. If they thought he would move

unless that horn were blown, they were mistaken! He glared pointedly at

the number which was streaked, illegibly, with mud. And the truth came

to him, that this was no second automobile--it was the same one! And now

it was so near that, above the man's raised collar, he could see the

eyes of the chauffeur looking straight at him. Then it was he knew that

they did not expect him to get out of the way; that they did not intend

to blow the horn; nor did they intend to swerve aside. What they

intended was to run him down! With inconceivable rapidity the thing had

loomed out of the distance and was here; death lunged at him in a flash,

bulked right upon him, the wind of it in his angry eyes. The shock of

that anger utterly controlled him and took up the challenge; he could

not have changed the set of his whole nature and broken his defiance if

he would. But from the sidewalk some one screamed. Automatically, he

started, and the touring-car, as though rocked by the scream, swayed a

hair's breadth to one side. Only a hair's breadth! Herrick felt an

impact like the end of things; then a horrible, jarring pain as if his

bones were coming out through himself and knocking him to splinters. And

then--nothing.

CHAPTER IV

THE MYSTERY PAUSES, AND OTHER THINGS GO FORWARD

The doctor drew back from examining a badly bruised, cut, and skinned

youth and smiled.

"Well, young man," said he, "if I were you, the next time I saw an

automobile making right for me, I'd get out of its way."

"I guess I'm all right," Herrick grinned. The grin was rather sketchy.

He was not very secure yet in which world he was.

On first recovering consciousness he had found himself lying with his

head in Christina's lap, and had supposed he was in heaven. But it

hadn't been heaven; it had still been the middle of Ninety-third Street

and Christina was sitting in the dust thereof. And then he had another

glimmer; he was on a couch, and, facing him, Christina was huddled on

her heels on the floor with large tears running down her nose and

plumping off the end of it into a bowl, full of funny red water, that

she held; a cloth in her hand was even redder, and her mouth had such a

piteous droop that if only he could have sat up it would have been the

natural thing to kiss it. "Darling!" he had said, to comfort her; and

she had said, eagerly, "Yes!" just as if that were her name; then

another blackness. And now the couch was in her drawing-room and

everywhere was the scent and the sheen of her country flowers--larkspur

and sweet alyssum and mignonette, the white of wild cucumber vine, the

lavender of horsemint, and everywhere the breath of clover--the house

was filled with them! Wherever did she get them?

"What's that?" he asked sharply. It was a policeman's helmet.

The policeman was merely left there,--the automobile having escaped

without leaving its number behind it,--to take his evidence of the

accident. Herrick rather dreaded being laughed at for his surety that it

was no accident; but a man who had seen it from a window and the passing

lady who had saved his life by shrieking had already testified to the

same effect. They had both declared the offending car to be a gray

touring-car; a very dark gray, Herrick thought. The policeman, who had

read his Sunday special, stooped to be communicative. "Do you remember

the young feller," he asked, "that was a witness to the Ingham inquest?

Do you remember he got there late through bein' knocked over by 'n

automobile?"

Herrick stared.

"Well, the young lady called him on the 'phone with me listenin', an' I

guess you're on a'ready to what kind of a car it was that hit him--'twas

a gray tourin'-car."

By-and-by, when the policeman and the doctor were gone, and Mrs. Hope

and Mrs. Deutch, without whom no crisis in the life of the Hope family

seemed to be complete, had swathed him tastefully in one of Mrs. Hope's

kimonos they began to tell him that he must send for his things, because

he would have to convalesce as Christina's guest. The idea was

distressing to him, but he was a little surprised by the soft bitterness

with which Christina opposed it. "Do you want him murdered outright?"

she said. "What has he done that he should be mixed up with my house and

my life? I was wrong ever to let him be my friend." She was spreading a

cloth over a little table which Stanley Ingham had brought close to the

couch. She lifted a lighted lamp out of Herrick's eyes and set it on the

mantel shelf behind his head. Looking down as the light touched his

bandaged forehead and the unusual pallor of his bronzed face she said,

so gently that Herrick's heart melted with a painful sweetness, "I

warned you!"

"It does look awfully funny," young Ingham exclaimed, "about this

touring-car. Wonder what the police will say to that! Wouldn't open

their mouths about the letters, and warned me not to open mine. Wouldn't

even let me tell you, Chris!"

"Fortunately," said Christina, "Mr. Herrick had told me before any one

could possibly interfere.--The police think they're genuine, then?"

"You bet they do! At least, I s'pose they do. They didn't say. But they

grabbed them, fast enough."

Christina asked no more, and thereafter, if she kept the talk around

Herrick quiet, she kept it almost gay. She and the boy ate their dinner

with him in order to wait on him and watch his comfort; and before long

she seemed scarcely the older of the two. It was all wonderfully simple

and kind; there could be no embarrassment in that light, genial

atmosphere; when the dishes had been cleared away the girl went to the

piano and sang softly--tender negro melodies, little folk lullabies,

snatches of German love-songs. Just as Herrick, greatly soothed and at

peace, was beginning to feel tired, Deutch arrived and he and Stanley

Ingham took the patient home in a taxi and put him to bed.

To Herrick's indignant astonishment, it was four or five days before he

could get about again, and at the end of that period the Deutches had

become almost as large a part of his life as of the Hopes. It was in

vain he protested. Mrs. Deutch came twice a day and looked after his

comfort with a devotion as arbitrary as a mother's; she inspected all

his garments, and, with clucks of consternation, took them away with her

and returned them, perfected; between her and Mrs. Grubey a deep

distrust as to each other's cookery arose. She cooked him three meals a

day, beside all sorts of elaborate "foreign" trifles, Mr. Deutch

bringing them over in a basket, piping hot; and Mrs. Grubey, entering

with her own dainty contribution of pork chops and canned lobster,

professed herself unable to understand how he could eat such messes. He

finished his memorial of Ingham amid the perpetual bloom and fragrance

of Christina's garden flowers; once Mr. Ingham came, with Stanley, to

inquire; Mrs. Hope came twice. On her second visit, when he was almost

ready to re-enter the world, she brought Christina with her.

The girl had lost her air of tragic greatness; there was more color in

her face, the pupils of her eyes were less expanded and her nostrils

less inflated. She seemed, too, to have been rather put back into her

place as a young lady, for she smiled sweetly but a little shyly about

Herrick's room, and left the talking to her mother; when her eyes

encountered the photograph which had been replaced over the desk a faint

flush suffused her face.

"My daughter has at last allowed herself to be persuaded," said Mrs.

Hope, "that Miss Cornish is hiding voluntarily; and that, if there is a

blackmailing society trying to slander us and to injure any one who is

apt to defend us, the police are quite as capable of dealing with it as

she is. Therefore she is now able to give a little attention to her own

affairs."

Herrick was sorry for the poor lady; he knew that she was devoted to

Christina and that she must have had a great deal to endure. He had

learned by this time that she had been a Miss Fairfax, and that her

family, however desperately poor, considered her to have made a

misalliance with a mere wealthy manufacturer of wall-papers, like Hope.

It had been, indeed, a runaway match and relations with her family were

never really resumed. Now Deutch reported that of late conciliatory

relatives, making advances to the rising star, had been routed with

great slaughter. But both men guessed that this had not been the real

wish of a person so socially inclined as Mrs. Hope; she was too plainly

dragged at the chariot-wheels of a freer spirit, and in this light even

her occasional asperities, her method of communicating with her daughter

mainly by protesting exclamations, became only pathetic attempts at an

authority she did not possess. "You know, Mr. Herrick," she now went on,

"that the opening of 'The Victors' three weeks from next Thursday night

is the great occasion of my daughter's life. I can't begin to tell you

what it means to us; it's everything. At such a time I think we--we

ought to have our friends about us. The Inghams are so kind; they are

taking me in their box. But Christina had already ordered me two of the

best seats in the house, and I'm sure I'm speaking for her, too, when I

say what a pleasure it would be if you would accept them. Indeed it

would be a favor.--My dear, can't you persuade him?"

"It's only--" said Christina, slowly, "that I'm afraid."

"Christina! I do wish you would drop that ridiculous pose. No horrible

fate has overtaken me!"

"Ah, mother," said the girl, touching her mother's shoulder, "perhaps

because we were both born, you and I, under the same ban!"

"My dear!" cried Mrs. Hope, as if Christina had mentioned something

indecent. "I hope you won't pay any attention to her, Mr. Herrick."

"I certainly shan't. I shall be too glad to get those seats."

"Ah, now you're a dear! You'll see Christina at her best, and I'm going

to say that that's something to see. It's a magnificent part and Mr.

Wheeler has been so wonderful in rehearsing her in it. Christina doesn't

find him at all intimidating or brutal, as people say. Though, of

course, he's a very profane man."

"I love every bone in his body," Christina said.

"My child! I wish you wouldn't speak so immoderately!"

"I'm an immoderate person," the girl replied. She rose, and pointing out

of the window she said to Herrick--"You sat here? It was there, on that

shade?"

"Yes."

Christina shuddered; just then Mr. Deutch arrived with the luncheon

basket. The ladies passed him in taking their leave and Christina

slipped her hand through his arm. "Mr. Herrick," she said, "Herr Hermy

does not look wise--no, Herr Hermy, you don't,--but if ever I puzzle

you, ask him. Do not ask Tante Deutch, she will tell you something noble

and solid, for she herself is wise, and so she can never understand me.

But Herr Hermy is a little foolish, just as I am. He is flighty; he has

the artistic temperament and understands us; he knows me to the

core.--Herr Hermy, he is coming to see me act; tell him I am really Sal,

not Evadne; tell him that I am a hardworking girl."

As he came to know her better, Herrick did not need to be told that. He

had never seen any one work so hard nor take their work quite so

seriously. But her advice remained with him and he began to listen more

respectfully to Hermann Deutch on his favorite subject. "Wait till you

see her, Mr. Herrick! She's like Patti, and the others were the chorus;

you'll say so, too. And it don't seem but yesterday, hardly, she didn't

know how she should go to faint, even! Drop herself, she would, about

the house, and black and blue herself in bumps! We used to go in the

family circle, when I had a half-a-dollar or two, and watch great

actresses and when one did something she had a fancy for, she'd pinch me

like a pair o' scissors! And she'd be up practising it all night, over

and over, and the gas going! She'd wear herself out, and there's those

that would expect she shouldn't wear them out, too!"

"She takes things too hard," said the lover fondly.

"Yes," said Mr. Deutch, after a pause, "she takes 'em hard, but she can

drop 'em quick!" Herrick felt a little knife go through his heart; and

then Deutch added, "Not that she's the way people talk--insincere. Oh,

that's foolish talk! She's only quick-like; she sees all things and she

feels all things, and not one of 'em will she keep quiet about! Those

glass pieces, you know, hang from chandeliers?--when they flash first in

the one light and then the way another strikes 'em, they ain't

insincere. An' that's the way Miss Christina is--she's young, an' she's

got curiosity, an' she wants she should know all things an' feel all

things, so she can put 'em in her parts; she wants all the lights to go

clean through her. And there's so many of 'em! So many to take in and so

many to give out! There ain't one of 'em, Mr. Herrick, but what she'll

reflect it right into your face."

Although, in this elaborate fancy, Herrick suspected an echo of

Christina's own eloquence, he did not listen to it less eagerly on that

account. "After all," he translated, "it's only that she's willingly and

extraordinarily impressionable, and then willingly and extraordinarily

expressive! In that case, instead of being less sincere than other

people, she's more so!"

"You got it!" cried Mr. Deutch with satisfaction. "That's what these

outsiders, they can't ever understand. The best friend she ever had says

to me once, 'If ever Miss Hope gets enough really good parts to keep her

interested, she'll take things more quietly around the house!' That's

been a great comfort to me, Mr. Herrick.--She's got these emotions in

her, I'll say to myself, and what harm is it she should let 'em off?"

"The best friend she ever had?"

"Well, now, Mr. Herrick, he was an old hand when she first came into the

business. He taught her a lot; she'd be the first to say so. Often I've

thought if she hadn't been so young then, what a match they might ha'

made of it! But she never thought of it, nor, I shouldn't wonder, he

neither, and now it's too late. But don't you worry because she takes

all things hard; she's got a kind of a spring in her. When she's laid

down to die of one thing, comes along another and she gets up again."

If Herrick did not complete this analysis, it was not for lack of

opportunity. As soon as he was about again he found himself as merged in

the life of the Hopes as were the Deutches themselves. "You interest

Christina," Mrs. Hope told him. "You take her mind off these dreadful

things. It's a very critical week with us. I hope you won't leave her

alone."

Herrick did all that in him lay to justify this hope, and if Christina

never urged nor invited, never made herself "responsible" for his

presence, she accepted it unquestioningly. His first outing was a Sunday

dinner at their house, and again Christina kept herself in the

background, and only drew her mother's affectionate wrath upon herself

by one remark; saying, as Herrick helped himself from the dish the maid

was passing him, "I hope it's not poisoned!"

She seemed rather tired, and he hoped this was not because she had made

him come at an outrageously early hour and read her the beginning of his

novel. He knew she was recasting it into scenes as he read; she got him

to tell her all that he meant to do with it and, as they all, save Mrs.

Hope, lighted their cigarettes over the coffee in the sitting-room, she

began telling Wheeler about it.--Wheeler had dined there, too.

Christina's star was a big, stalwart man of about fifty, who had not

quite ceased to be a matinee idol in becoming one of the foremost of

producers. He listened with a good deal of interest and indeed the story

lost nothing on Christina's tongue; Herrick began to see that her mind

was a highly sensitized plate which could catch reflections even of

disembodied things. Then Wheeler exclaimed what an actor's approval has

to say first, whatever he may bring himself to deal with afterward.

"Why, but there's a play in that!"

"Yes," said Christina, promptly. "For me!"

Humor shone out of the good sense and good feeling of Wheeler's heavy,

handsome face. "Give me more coffee, my cormorant! Do you think I want

to play the young lady myself? Nay, 'I know the hour when it

strikes!'--heavy fathers for mine! Stouter than I used to be--Tut-tut,

no sugar!--There will be too much of me--Did you get your idea of moral

responsibility out of New England, Mr. Herrick?"

"Well, this form of it I got from such a different source as a very

suave, amiable Italian, Emile Gabrielli, an intending author, too,--a

lawyer who had exiled himself to Switzerland. Do you know a line of

Howell's?--'The wages of sin is more sinning.' And it's seemed to me

that the more-sinning doesn't stop with ourselves; it draws the most

innocent and indifferent people into our net. Well, I always wanted to

find a vehicle for that notion."

"And your Italian told you this story?"

"Something like it. Set the tone for it, too, in a way. He was a highly

respectable sentimental person, and used to carry about an old miniature

of a lovely girl to whom, I believe, he had once been betrothed. The

bans had been forbid by cruel parents but he used to brag to me, at

fifty, that they could never force him to part from her idolized face!

Yet he knew so many shady stories I've often wondered if he hadn't left

home in order to avoid a circle of too embarrassing clients. At any rate

he had known a woman whose husband had got into trouble with the police

in Italy--for swindling, I think he said. She had to clear out and

disappeared. Years afterward he found that she had run into the arms of

a respectable, God-fearing family; the natural prey of cheats because

years before their little daughter had been kidnapped or lost and never

found. They cry out at this young woman's resemblance to the child; the

young woman puts two and two together into a story which deceives those

who wish to be deceived, and settles down to be taken care of for the

rest of her life. It must have been any port in a storm, for I didn't

gather her adopted family had money. Spent all they had in looking for

her when she was a baby, as I understood. To Signor Gabrielli the cream

of the jest was that this girl was being petted and cherished and

labored for by industrious people who would have perished of horror if

they had known who she was, and who had not one drop of their blood in

her veins.--I may not have got the incidents at all straight, but that's

the idea."

"But you've changed the relationship--?"

"Oh, yes. I've cut down the family to a daughter and, as you see, I've

reversed the parts--in my story it is the daughter who is deceived; it

is the supposed mother who settles down upon the devoted innocence and

labor of a generous girl."

"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Mrs. Hope. "Put it all on the mother!

Nowadays, everything's sure to be her fault!"

Christina gave her mother her hand, much as she might have given her a

cup of tea and said, "Well, but that is only where your novel begins?"

"Yes. I thought the interesting part was all to come. I thought I should

be justified in supposing my reformed lady to go back to her old habits,

perhaps through the mere claim of genuine ties,--old friendships, real

relationships--to be caught in some serious crime, involve those friends

and, finally, without in the least intending it, draw her daughter and

her daughter's lover into her quicksand--of course, by means of their

efforts to pull her out! And then to see what happened!"

"When the daughter finds out," Wheeler cogitated, "that should be a

strong scene, a very strong scene.--What made you think of reversing the

characters?--less trite?"

"Simply, I could handle it this way and not the other. When I had the

cheat a young woman, she was very strenuous--I couldn't keep her from

being the most lurid of common adventuresses. And I had a theory that

people are never like that to themselves. Well, as soon as I substituted

a rather passee woman she became much quieter--just a feeble, worthless,

selfish person a good deal battered by life, and wanting nothing but

comfort--trying to get it in the easiest way. I wanted so much to give

the commonplace quality of crime, of what a simple, sensible, ordinary

piece of business it seems to the person engaged in it--at any rate

until it's found out, and he begins to be reacted on by fear and other

people's minds. Ah, if I can only give these people their own point of

view, and make one thing after another seem quite ordinary and human,

just the necessary thing to do! Until they begin to lose their heads

when one gate and then another closes and, finding themselves cornered,

they fight like rats in a trap! The good as well as the bad, in one

panic degradation of despair! I heard a figure of crime the other day

which I should like to carry out. I should like to start with the

smallest blemish on the outside of the clean, rosy apple of respectable

society, 'the little, pitted speck in garnered fruit, which, rotting

inward' lets you, by following it, down and down, from one layer of

human living to another, at last hold a whole sphere of crime,

collapsed, crumbling and wide open, in your hand. Then I've got to save

Evadne in the end, without the effect of dragging her through a

trap-door!"

"Well, if you made it into a play," Wheeler persisted, "would the mother

or the daughter be the star-part?"

"I could play both!" Christina cried.

Wheeler laughed aloud. "You are too good to be true!"

"Well, but why not? Why not a dual role? Even if the relationship were

false, the resemblance would have to be real--it's the backbone of the

story! Mother and I look a good deal alike, but I've seen chance

resemblances incomparably stronger!"

She went on eagerly and Herrick was surprised to see that it was not she

alone but Wheeler who took the idea of dramatization seriously. It was

his first real gage of what was expected of Christina as an

actress--that in a year or two she would be starring on her own account.

She was not only Wheeler's leading-woman, she was his find, his

speculation; he meant to be her manager and Christina meant that he

should, too. Again Ingham's death seemed to be dragging Herrick into the

path of success.

Then his attention was caught by Wheeler's saying, "Well, we must all be

as criminal as we can, while we can. Once P. L. B. C. Ten Euyck gets to

be a police inspector there will be no more crime. The word will be

blotted from the vocabulary of New York."

"That man!" Mrs. Hope cried.

"Well, all these recent scandals in the Department are making them

remove Simmonds; they want somebody beyond the reach of graft; and Ten

Euyck has resigned his coronership. What does that look like to you?

"It will be nuts to watch," Wheeler went on. "The force, down in his

district, will be shaken up till its teeth rattle. Ten Euyck won't rest

contented till he has stopped mice from stealing scraps of cheese! But

my leading-woman must be civil to him, now, or he's the sort of fellow

to get my license revoked. Nobody's ever run up against his

self-righteousness and got away with it, yet. Poor chap, he'd be mighty

able if he weren't crazy! I believe I could do a Valjean if I could

engage him as Javert!"

"Don't let us speak forever of that bilious person! Why do you distract

a poor girl from her work? Come," cried she to Wheeler, "are we going to

do our scene?"

She drove her rather reluctant star to action.--"Young miss!" he said,

"it is not every ageing favorite who would take a girl on the word of a

mutual friend, give her a better part than his own, push her over his

own head, and coach her in private into the bargain!" He put his big

hand on Christina's shoulder. "But she's worth it!" he said. "A scene

with her is a tonic to me--I did not know the old man had so much blood

in him! Sally, the poor working-girl, what are you going to do to the

critics, that still sleep unconscious? 'Ha--ha! Wait till Monday week!'

or whenever we open!

"'They'll be all gangin' East an' West,

They'll be all gane a-glee!

They'll be all gangin' East an' West,

Courtin' Molly Lee!'

"Mr. Herrick, as you come up Broadway, you don't see her name on the

bills! But they might as well be printing the paper!--for the younger

generation is knocking at the door. Ah, Christina, my dear, thou art thy

Wheeler's glass, and he in thee calls back the lovely April of his

prime!" His indulgent sardonic glance caught Christina's and the flaming

sword of hers drove him to work. They left behind them such a vivid

sense of Herrick's having written his play and their having taken it,

that he might have thought it a scene of his they were working on.

From the room where they were immured strange sounds occasionally

escaped; sometimes Wheeler laughed and sometimes he swore furiously.

"She'll get everything that he knows out of him!" said Mrs. Hope with

great satisfaction.

Herrick discovered this, in no ignoble sense, to be the keynote of

Christina's life. It was borne in upon him with every hour that her

work in the theater was the essence of her; that no matter where nor how

utterly she should consciously give her heart the unconscious course of

her nature would still flow through the field of dramatic endeavor. He

might admire or condemn this, like it or leave it; but the jealous

humility of his love must recognize it.

She seemed largely to have recovered from the terrors that had enveloped

her upon Ingham's death. If for Nancy Cornish she had lain down to die,

for her opening night she had got up again. And she was ready to bend

the whole world to that night's service. Herrick saw that she had always

been so.

It became a thrilling amusement to him to watch her at work; to see how

vividly she perceived, how unscrupulously she absorbed! In the

vocabulary of her profession, everything was so much "experience." All

her life long she had sucked out of every creature that came near her

some sort of artistic sustenance; learning from the jests of her own

heart and its despair; out of the shop windows and the night sky. At an

age when other girls were being chaperoned to dancing-parties she had

worked,--she with her soft cheek and slight strength and shy eye,--"like

a miner buried in a landslide"; she was mistress of her body's every

curve, of her voice's every note; she had read widely and with

passionate intelligence; as soon as she had begun to make money, she had

poured it into her accomplishments; she was a diligent student of

passing manners and historic modes, and of each human specimen through

which she did not hesitate to run her pin.

For instance, what use had she not made of the Deutches? From Henrietta

Deutch she had learned German and a not inconsiderable amount of music;

they had a venerated library of standard works that contained a few

modern continentals in the original; she developed her school-girl

French by reading the Parisians under Mrs. Deutch's supervision and in

Italian she surpassed her; while all the time she learned just enough

knitting to know how people feel when they knit, and just what the

sensation is of stirring sugar into the preserves. She liked to go to

their apartment of an evening and, once, when Mrs. Hope sent Herrick

after her, he found her sitting on the floor with her hair down and her

head against Mrs. Deutch's black silk knee while that lady crooned

German lullabies to the baby she had never borne, and "Herr Hermy"

played the pianola. As soon as she had twisted up her hair, she put on a

long apron and got supper and waited on them all with the charming

daughterly ways which lent her such a tender girlishness; and Herrick

perceived that when a part required her to move about a kitchen she

would be able to welcome the kitchen as an old friend. She could

reproduce Deutch's accent, his whole personal equation, with inhuman

exactness, even his tremors at the inquest, his inarticulate stammer--as

of a mental dumbness, groping for words--that overtook him in moments of

extreme excitement, she had caught in her net; she had learned from him

some jokes and stories, some student songs, which would have astonished

the many delicate tea-tables at which she shyly cast down her thieving

eyes to observe exactly what service was in vogue; she did not hesitate

to stir him up to dreadful stories of old racial hates and though

Herrick saw her eyes darken and her nostrils expand he knew that she was

drawing thoroughly into her system the dark passion of retaliation with

which she would some day scorch an astonished audience. "If ever I get a

queen to do--oh, one of the virtuous queens, of course," she said, "I

shall have to fall back on Tante Deutch." And Herrick saw how right she

was; how all along she had modeled her grand moments--and Christina,

though so fond of describing herself as a poor working girl, had

occasional moments of extreme grandeur--upon that simple, domestic

stateliness which was really the stateliness of a great lady.

On the other hand when she was out with her mother she modeled

herself--except for a stray vagary of speech--upon Mrs. Hope's excellent

idea of a-young-lady-out-with-her-mother-a-la-mode; and she was by no

means insensible to the glories of the smart world, nor to the luxuries

of the moneyed world. "I want them all," she confessed to Herrick as

they walked up Fifth Avenue from rehearsal. "I covet them; I long to own

them, and I dare swear I should never be owned by them. I'm infinitely

more fit than those that have them, and thank heaven I've stood out here

when I was cold and wet and _oh!_ how hopeless, and felt in me the

anarchist and his bomb. I was never made to smile on conquerors. One

man, from these great houses, once taught me how to hate them! How I

should like to do a Judith! How I should like to _tame_ all this!" She

looked, with a bitterer gaze than he had ever seen in her, down the

incomparable pomp of the great street. Then more lightly, with a curving

lip, "My Deutches, I believe," she said, "are supposed to belong to the

moneyed camp. But it is borne in upon me, every now and then, that our

own race has occasionally put by a dollar or two."

She moved in such an atmosphere of luxury that it was difficult to

imagine her what she plainly called "hard up." But it will be seen that

they were now continually together and there was something about her

which made it possible to offer her the simplest and the cheapest

pleasures. In her rare hours of freedom he had the fabulous happiness of

taking her where he had often taken Evadne in that old empty time; to

Coney Island, to strange Bowery haunts, to the wharves where the boys

dive, and even to his table d'hote in the back yard. She had a zest, a

fresh-hearted pleasure in everything and her sense of characterization

fed upon queer colors and odd flavors just as he had known it would. He

was so sorry that the little Yankee woman was absent from his table

d'hote, particularly as he had recently had a specimen of her which he

longed to hear Christina reproduce. She had a little sewing-table behind

her desk at which she sat playing solitaire with a grim precision which

made Herrick think of the French Revolution and the knitting women; but

as she had then been absent from the restaurant for some time he

ventured a "Buon giorno" as he passed.

She instantly replied, "You needn't talk that Dago talk to me. I just

took my daughter's paul-parrot away from here, case 't 'ed get so it

couldn't talk real talk."

"That's what I call a good firm prejudice!" Herrick laughed to himself,

and he continued to hope for some such specimen, or at least for Mr.

Gumama, when he should bring Christina again.

But as the opening drew near, she began to limit her interests and to

exclude from her vision everything which could interfere with the part

in hand. It sometimes seemed to him, indeed, as if even her new calm

about Nancy were only because Nancy--yes, and the threatening Arm of

Justice,--were among these conscious, these voluntary exclusions. It was

almost as though, over the very body of Ingham's death, she had thrown

her part's rosy skirts and shut it out of sight. Beneath her innumerable

moods one seemed permanent, strangely compounded of languor and

excitement. By-and-by, she seemed to dwell within it, veiled, and

Herrick knew that only her part was there behind the veil with her.

It was Mrs. Hope who could least endure this sleepwalking abstraction.

There came an evening when some people whom Mrs. Hope considered of

importance were asked to dinner. Christina improved this occasion by

having her own dinner served upstairs, so that she would not be too

tired to rehearse that night with Wheeler. And to Herrick Mrs. Hope

reported this behavior, biting her lips. "She's the most self-willed

person living! I declare to you, Mr. Herrick, she has the cruelest

tricks in the world. The best friend that any girl ever had said once

that, if acting were in question, she would grind his bones to make its

bread!"

Later, Herrick said jealously to the girl, "Who _was_ the best friend

you ever had?"

Her head happened to be turned from him and it seemed to him a long time

before she spoke. Even then her indifference was so great she almost

yawned as "Who has told you of him?" she asked.

"Both Deutch and your mother called some old actor that."

"They meant a dear fellow who put me in the moving-picture business,

bless him, when I hadn't enough to eat!"

"And where's he now?"

"I dare say he's very well off. He taught me poise. He taught me

independence, too. That's enough for one man. He had a singular way of

turning his eyes, without turning his head. I learned that, too."

Was it true, then--what had been hinted to him often enough--that once

she had plucked out the heart of your mystery, the heart of the human

being she forgot all about? She might be of as various moods as she

would, she was very single-minded, and was all she valued in her friends

some personal mannerism?--any peculiar impression of which she might

master the physical mechanism and reproduce it? A trait like this

naturally made Herrick take anxious stock of his own position. What

personal peculiarity of his was she studying? But it was nevertheless in

such a trait that the staunchness of his love found its true food. He

found his faith digested such things capitally; his passion at once

nourished and clarified itself by every human failing, by all the little

nerves and little ways of his darling divinity, until it ceased to be

merely the bleeding heart of a valentine and found within itself the

solid, articulated bones of mortal life. If, in return, there was the

least thing she could learn of him, let her, in heaven's name, learn it!

Only, how long before she would have finished with it?

In the blessed meantime she scarcely stirred without him. With a freedom

unthinkable in girls of his own world, she let him take her to lunch

every day; unlike a proper heroine of romance, Christina required at

this time a great deal of food and he waited for her after rehearsal and

took her to tea. It was a mercy that he was now doing a series of Famous

Crimes in Manhattan, for the Record, as he certainly did not wish to put

her on a diet of Italian table d'hotes! She accepted all this quite as a

matter of course; and it had become a matter of course that he should go

home with her for dinner. Sometimes they walked up through the Park,

sometimes they took a taxi and drove to shops or dressmakers; she did

not scruple, when she was tired or wanted air, to drive home with her

hat off and her eyes shut. It seemed to the poor fellow that she had

accepted him like the weather.

For she had become strangely quiet in his presence. Eventually she

ceased to use upon him any conscious witchery whatever; something had

spiked all her guns, and Herrick was too much in love to presume that

this quiet meant anything except that he did not irritate her. Every now

and again, it is true, he was breathlessly aware of something that

brooded, touchingly humble and anxious and tender, in a tone, in a

glance. He feared that this anxiety, this tenderness, was only that

royal kindness with which, for instance, when Joe Patrick gave up his

elevator, hating that haunted job, she at once got him taken on as usher

at the theater. But Herrick dared not translate her expression, when,

looking up suddenly, he would find her eyes swimming in a kind of happy

light and fastened on his face. At such moments a flush would run

through him; there would fall between them a painful, an exquisite

consciousness. And, with the passing of the wave, she would seem to him

extraordinarily young.

He considered it a bad sign that seldom or never did she introduce him

to any of her mates. Public as was their companionship, she kept him

wholly to herself. This was particularly noticeable in the restaurants

where she would go to strange shifts to keep actors from dallying at her

table; she would forestall their advances by paying visits to theirs,

leaving Herrick to make what he liked of it; and, do what he would, the

poor fellow could find no flattering reason for this. Already he knew

Christina too well to have any hope that it was the actors who were not

good enough.

They were to her, in the most drastic and least sentimental sense, her

family. She quarreled with them; often enough she abused and mimicked

them; at the memory of bad acting scorn and disdain rode sparkling in

her eye, and if her vast friendliness was lighted by passionate

enthusiasms, it was capable, too, of the very sickness of contempt. But

this was in private and among themselves; there was not the least nor

the worst of them whom she would not have championed against the world.

Quite apart from goodness or badness of art, Christina conceived of but

two classes of human beings, artists and not artists; as who should say

"Brethren"; "Cattle." Herrick congratulated himself that he could be

scooped in under at least the title of "Writer." It was not so good as

"Actor," but 't was enough, 't would serve. All her sense of kin, of

race, of patriotism, and--once you came to good acting--of religion, was

centered in her country of the stage. Herrick had never seen any one so

class conscious. With those whom she called "outsiders," she adopted the

course most calculated, as a matter of fact, to make her the rage; she

refused to know them. And when, for the sake of some day reproducing

high life upon the boards, she brought herself to dine out, this little

protegee of the Deutches had always said to herself, with Arnold

Bennett's hero, "World, I condescend."

Such an affair took place on the Monday before Christina's opening. Some

friends of the Inghams made a reception for her; and Herrick saw a dress

arrive that was plainly meant for conquest. Now Herrick considered that

this reception had played him a mean trick. He had a right to! He who

had recently been a desperado with sixpence was soon to be an associate

editor of _Ingham's Weekly_!--While he was still dizzy with this

knowledge a friend on the _Record_ had pointed out a suite in an old

fashioned downtown mansion, which had been turned into bachelor

lodgings: a friend of the friend wished to sub-let these rooms

furnished, and Herrick had extravagantly taken them. A beautiful

Colonial fireplace had decided him. He remembered a mahogany tea-table

and some silver which Marion could be induced to part with, and it

seemed to him that he could not too quickly bring about the hour when

Christina, before that fireplace and at that tea-table, should pour tea

for whatever Thespians she might think him worthy to entertain. But it

had taken time for the things to arrive; to-morrow she was going on the

road for the preliminary performances, and to-day was set for the

reception! He had, of course, kept silence. But it was heartbreaking to

see how perfect a day it was for tea and fires--one of those cool days

of earliest September. He kindled the flame; alas, it didn't matter!

Then, toward six he went uptown to hear about the party.

He found Mrs. Hope, but not Christina, and the elder lady received him

almost with tears. "She is out driving, Mr. Herrick; she is out driving

about all by herself and she won't come home. She is in one of her

tantrums and all about Mr. Wheeler--a fine actor, of course, but why

bother?"

Herrick had never seen the poor lady so ruffled. "It was such a

beautiful reception," she told him, "all the best people. She got there

late. She always does. You can't tell me, Mr. Herrick, that she doesn't

do it on purpose to make an entrance. All the time I was brushing her up

after the rehearsal she stood with her eyes shut, mumbling one line over

and over from her part. Nobody could be more devoted to her success than

I am, but it got on my nerves so I stuck her with a hairpin and I

thought she would have torn her hair down. 'What are these people to

me?' she said. 'Or I to them.' You know how she goes on, Mr. Herrick, as

if she were actually disreputable, instead of being really the best of

girls. Then, again, she's so exclusive it seems sometimes as if she

really couldn't associate with anybody, except the Deutches! She likes

well enough to fascinate people, all the same. She behaved beautifully

after she got there; and oh, Mr. Herrick, you can't imagine how

beautiful she looked! Surely, there never was anything so lovely as my

daughter!"

"Can't I?" Herrick exclaimed.

"Well, every one just lay down flat in front of her. Even Mr. Ten Euyck.

Yes, he was there. I trembled when they should meet. You know, he has

his inspectorship now. He wants to give her a lunch on board his yacht!

It was a triumph. Christina was very demure. But by-and-by I began to

feel a trifle uneasy. You know that soft, sad look she's got?--it's so

angelic it just _melts_ you--when she's really thinking how dull people

are! Well, there, I saw it beginning to come! And about then they had

got rid of all but the very smartest people, just the cream, you know,

for a little intimacy! We were all getting quite cozy, when some one

asked Christina how she could bear to play love-scenes with a man like

Wheeler--of course, Mr. Herrick, it _is_ annoying, but they will ask

things like that; they can't help it."

"And Miss Hope?"

"She looked up at them with the sugariest expression I ever saw and

asked them why, and they all began reminding her of the--well, you know!

And I must say, when you come to think of his--ah--affairs--! And they

talked about how dear Miss So-and-So had refused to act with him in

amateur theatricals, he said such rough things! And how lovely Christina

was, and how hard it was on her, and all the time I could see Christina

clouding up."

Herrick, with his eyes on the rug, smilingly murmured, "Wave, Munich,

all thy banners wave! And charge, with all thy chivalry!"

"Well, Mr. Herrick, she stood up and looked all round her with that

awful stormy lower she has, and then, in a voice like one of those

pursuing things in the Greek tragedies, 'I!' she said, 'I am not worthy

to kiss his feet!' Oh, Mr. Herrick, why should she mention them? There

are times when she certainly is not delicate!"

Herrick burst out laughing. He thought Christina might at least have

exhibited some sense of humor. "And was the slaughter terrible?"

"Why, Mr. Herrick, what could any one say? She looked as if she might

have hit them. She shook the crumbs off her skirt, as if they were the

party, and then she said good-by very sweetly, but coldly and sadly,

like Mary Queen of Scots going to execution, and left. Mr. Herrick, I

don't know where to hide my head!"

Herrick stayed for some time to counsel and console, but Christina did

not return and as Mrs. Hope did not ask him to dinner he was at length

obliged to go. For all his amusement he felt a little snubbed and blue

and lonely; his eyes hungered for Christina in her finery; he saw her at

once as the darling and the executioner of society and he longed to

reassure himself with the favor of the spoiled beauty; how was he to

wait till to-morrow for the summons of his proud princess? As he opened

his door he saw that the fire had been kept up; some one kneeling

before it turned at his entrance and faced him. It was Christina.

The shock of her presence was cruelly sweet. The firelight played over

her soft light gown; she had taken off her gloves and the ruddiness

gleamed on her arms and her long throat and on the sheen of her hair. As

she rose slowly to her feet that something at once ineffably luxurious

and ineffably spiritual which hung about her like the emanation of a

perfume stirred uneasily in him and his senses ached. Never had her

fairness hurt him like that; his passion rose into his throat and held

him dumb.

"The man looked at me, hard," she told him, "and let me in. I came here

to rest. And because I didn't want to be scolded. Don't scold me.

Perhaps I've thrown away a world this afternoon. But no; it will roll

back to be picked up again. Listen, and tell me that I was right."

Without stirring, "I can never tell you but the one thing," he said. "I

love you!"

It was no sooner said than he loathed himself for speaking. He had not

dreamed that he should say such a thing. It was not yet a month since

her engagement to Ingham had been broken; she was a young girl; she was

here alone with him in his rooms, to which she had paid him the perfect

honor of coming--she, who had accepted him so simply, so nobly, as a

gentleman. Hot shame and black despair seized upon him.

The girl stood quiet as if controlling herself. Then, so gently that she

was almost inaudible, she said, "I must go!"

He could not answer her; he was aware of the ripple and murmur of her

dress as she fetched her wraps; she put on her hat and the lace of her

sleeves foamed back from her arms in the ruddy light; he felt how soon

she would be engulfed by that world which was already rolling back to be

picked up. He stepped forward to help her with her thin chiffon coat and

she suffered this, gently, passively; as it slipped over her shoulders

he felt her turn; he felt her arms come around his neck, clinging to

him, and the sweetness of her body on his breast. In that firelit room

her lips were cold, as they stumbled on his throat with the low cry,

"Oh, you love me!--You love me!" she repeated. "And you're a man! Save

me!"

CHAPTER V

HERRICK HEARS A BELL RING

"Don't let them take me!" Christina entreated. "Don't let them lock me

up! That door--! Turn the key!"

Without demur he turned it. He was in that commotion of bewildered

feeling where one shock after another deliciously and terribly strikes

upon the heart, and anything seems possible. From the trembling girl his

pulses took a myriad alarms; apprehension of he knew not what ran riot

in them and credited the suggestions of her terror; but all the while

his blood rushed through him, warm and singing, and his heart glowed.

She was here, with him! She had fled here and clung to him for defense!

She loved him! In no dream, now, did she lie back there, in the deep

chair beside his fire, with her hand clasping his eagerly as he knelt

and her shoulder leaning against his. It was keener than any dream; it

was that fullness of life, which, even at Herrick's age, we have mostly

ceased to expect.

"There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said. "Don't deny it--I

know! They've been following me from the beginning!"

[Illustration: "There are detectives shadowing me," Christina said.

"Don't deny it--I know!"]

"But why, dearest, why?"

"Because they think I killed Jim Ingham."

"Christina! Why should they think such a thing?"

"Why shouldn't they? Don't you?"

She put her finger on his lips to still his cry of protest, and, looking

down into his face, her own eyes slowly filled with that brooding of

maternal tenderness which seemed to search him through and through. For

a moment he thought that her eyes brimmed, that her lips trembled with

some communication. But, without speaking, she ran her hand along his

arm and a quiver passed through her; taking his face in her two hands

she bent and kissed his mouth. In that kiss they plighted a deeper troth

than in ten thousand promises. And, creeping close into his breast with

a shuddering sigh, she pressed her cheek to his. "Oh, Bryce, you won't

let them take me away? I can stand anything but being locked up--I

couldn't bear that--I couldn't! What can I do?"

"My dearest, no one in the world can harm you!"

"I came here to be safe, where I could touch you. Let me rest here a

little, and feel your heart close to me. Oh, my love, I'm so frightened!

I thought I was strong! I thought I was brave and could go through with

it! But I can't! I'm tired--to death! All through my soul, I'm cold.

It's only here I can get warm!"

"Christina," he asked her, "go through with what?"

She stirred in his arms and drew back. "Look first--ah, carefully!--from

the window. What do you see?"

"Nothing but ordinary people passing. And the usual number of waiting

taxis."

"Well, in the nearest of those taxis is a detective. He has been

following me all the afternoon. He is sitting there waiting for me to

come out."

Herrick carried her hand to his lips. "Christina, don't think me a

cursed schoolmaster. But it's imagination, dear. You've driven yourself

wild with all this worry and excitement. Why, believe me, they're not so

clumsy! If they were following you, you wouldn't know it."

"I tell you I've known it for at least two weeks! I'm an actress, and

if, as they say, we've no intelligence, only instincts, well then, our

instincts are extraordinarily developed. And mine tells me that, over

my shoulder, there is a shadow creeping, creeping, looming on my path."

A series of sounds burst on the air. Herrick went to the window. "There,

my sweet, the taxi's gone."

"Did no one get out?"

"No one."

He had snatched up her hand again and he felt her relax.

"Well, I ought to be used to shadows; all my girlhood there has been a

shadow near me. Bryce, when I was really a child, something happened.

Something that changed my whole heart--oh, you shall know before you

marry me! I shall find a way to tell you!--It made me a rebel and a

cynic; it made me wish to have nothing to do with the rules men make; I

had to find my own morality. Only, when I saw you, I felt such a

strength and freshness, like sunny places. Bryce!"

"Yes."

"My feeling for Jim was dead a year ago. Do you believe that?"

"Oh, my darling! Why--"

"Because I won't have you think me shameless! Nor that an accident, like

death, turned my light love to you! I was just twenty when he first

asked me to marry him; I was so mad about him that my head swam. And yet

it wasn't love. It was only infatuation and I knew it. I was still young

enough for him to be a sort of prince--all elegance and the great world.

The last two have been my big years, Bryce. I was rather a poor little

girl till then. Even so, I held him off ten months. I felt that there

was a curse on it and that it could never, never be! What did I know of

men or that great world--well, God knows he taught me! When I did

consent to our engagement the fire was already dying. But by that time

the idea of him had grown into me. He had always a great influence over

me, Bryce, and he could trouble and excite me long after he had

broken my dream. Oh, my dear, it was one long quarrel. It was a year's

struggle for my freedom! Well, I got my release. I didn't wait for

fate." She paused. And then with a low gasp, "All my life I've stood

quite alone. I have been hard. I have been independent. I have been

brave--oh, yes, I can say it; I have been brave!--but I've broken down.

Only, if you will let me keep hold of you, I shall get courage."

"Christina!"

"Do you know how big you are? Or what a clear look your eyes have got?

There in that coroner's office--oh, heavens,--among those

_stones_!--Bryce, he was there this afternoon! that man!"

"Ten Euyck? Yes, I know."

"Do you know what he means to do as Police Inspector? He means to run me

down! Wait--you've never known. I've kept so still--I didn't want to

think of it. Four years ago he payed for the production of a play of

his, by a stock company I was with. Oh, my dear, that play! It gave us

all quite a chill! He wanted his Mark Antony played like a young

gentleman arranging the marriage-settlements. But he took the rehearsals

so hard, he nearly killed us." She hesitated. "He was very kind to me.

He was too kind. One night, he met me as I was coming out of the

theater, and--forgot himself. One of the boys in the company, who was

right behind me, slapped him in the face! Do you mean to tell me that he

has ever forgotten that? At the inquest he thought he had me down, and

the laugh turned against him! Is he the man to forget that?"

"But what can he do?"

"How I detested him!" Christina hurried on. "He taught me, in that one

minute, when I was eighteen, how men feel about girls who aren't in

their class! Just because I was on the stage, he took it for granted

I--Well, he, too, learned something! Since then I've heard about him.

He isn't a hypocrite, he's an egoist. I wonder, were some of the

Puritans really like that? He's so very proper, and so particular not to

entangle himself with respectable women! But with women he calls bad he

doesn't mind--because for him bad women don't count, they don't exist!

Oh, dear God, how I despise a man who feels like that! How I love you,

who never, never could! Does he really know, I wonder, that sometimes

it's the coldest of heart who can be made to turn his ships at

Actium?--'What can he do?' He can hope I'm guilty! And he can use all

the machinery of his office to prove me so!"

"Why, look here, dearest, if he's never revenged himself on the man who

struck him--"

Christina gave a shrill little cry. "But, now he has his chance with me!

His great spectacular chance! Oh, Bryce, I'm afraid of him, and I was

never afraid before!--Dearest dear, I know you can't do anything! But

the girl's in love with you, poor thing, and she feels as if you can!

I've wanted you--oh, how I've wanted you!--all my life. I've known the

dearest fellows in the world, the cleverest, the gamest, the most

charming. But they were too much like poor Christina; fidgety things,

nervous and on edge. 'You take me where the good winds blow and the

eternal meadows are!'--What are you doing?"

He had bowed down to kiss her wrist and he replied, "I'm thanking God I

look like a farmer!"

"My poor boy!" cried Christina, breaking her tears with little laughs,

"I've got your cheek all wet! Bryce dear, we're engaged, aren't we? You

haven't said.--Bryce!"

He slipped back onto the floor, with his head in her lap and her two

hands gathered in his one. They were both silent. The little fire was

going out and the room was almost dark. And in that happy depth of life

where she had led him he was at first unaware of any change. Then he

knew that the hands he held had become tense, that rigidity was

creeping over her whole body, and looking up, he could just make out

through the dusk, the alert head, the parted lips of one who is waiting

for a sound. "Bryce," she said, "you were mistaken. That detective has

not gone!"

"What do you hear?"

"I don't hear. I simply know." Their senses strained into the silence.

"If he went away, it was only to bring some one back. He went to get Ten

Euyck!"

"Christina! Tell me what you're really afraid of!"

"Oh! Oh!" she breathed.

"Christina, what was it you couldn't go through with?"

"Death!" she said. "Not that way! I can't!" She rocked herself softly to

and fro. "If I could die now!" she whispered.

"You shan't die. And you shan't go crazy, either. You're driving

yourself mad, keeping silence." He drew her to her feet, and she stood,

shaking, in his arms. "Christina, what's your trouble?"

"Nancy,--that murder--my opening--my danger--aren't they enough?"

"For everything but your conviction that it is you who are pursued, and

you who will be punished. Some horrible accident, dear heart, has shown

you something, which you must tell. Tell it to me, and we will find that

it is nothing."

"Bryce," she said, "they're coming. It's our last time together. Don't

let's spend it like this."

"Did you--" he asked her so tenderly that it sounded like a caress, "did

you, in some terrible emergency, in some defense, dear, of yourself,

Christina--did you fire that shot?"

Her head swung back; she did not answer.

"My darling, if you did we must just take counsel whether to fight or to

run. Don't be afraid. The world's before us. Christina, did you?"

"No, no, no!" she whispered. "I did not!" She felt his quiver of relief,

and her nervous hands closed on his sleeve. "Oh, if you only knew. There

is a thing I long to tell you! But not that! Oh, if I could trust you!"

"Can't you?"

"I mean--trust you to see things as I do! To do only what I ask! What I

chose--not what was best for me! Suppose that some one whom--Bryce?"

"Yes?"

"If any one should hear--"

"There is no one to hear."

"You can't tell where they are."

"Christina, can't you see that we're alone here? That the door's locked?

That you're safe in my arms? The cab went away. No one followed you. No

one even knows where I live; my dear, dear love, we're all alone--"

The door-bell sounded through the house.

He thought the girl would have fallen and his own heart leaped in his

side. "Darling, it's nothing. It's for some one else."

"It's for me."

"That's impossible."

There was a knock on the door.

Herrick called--"Who's there?"

"It's a card, sir."

"A card?"

"A gentleman's card, sir. He's down in the hall."

"I can't see any one at present."

"It's not for you, sir; it's for the young lady."

"Did you tell him there was a lady here?"

"He knew it himself, sir."

"Well, she came in here because she felt ill; I'm just taking her home.

She can't be bothered."

"He said it was very important, sir. Something she's to do to-morrow,"

he said.

"Christina! It's only some one about your going away."

"No. It's the end. Take the card."

Springing on the light, he took the card to reassure her. She motioned

him to read it. And he read aloud the words "Mr. Ten Euyck."

CHAPTER VI

AND HOLDS A RECEPTION AFTER ALL

Christina took the card from him, and seemed to put him to one side.

Almost inaudibly she said, "I will go down."

Before Herrick could prevent her, a voice from just outside the door

replied, "Don't trouble yourself, Miss Hope. May I come in?" Ten Euyck,

hat in hand, appeared in the doorway.

He looked from one to the other, noting Christina's tear-stained face,

with a civil, sour smile. "I am sorry if I intrude. I had no idea Mr.

Herrick was to be my host. The truth is, Miss Hope, I followed you and

have been waiting for you, in the hope of making peace--where it was

once my unhappy fortune to make war."

Christina said, "You followed me!"

"But I shouldn't have yielded to that impulse so far as to--well, break

into Mr. Herrick's apartment, if I had not become, in the meanwhile,

simply the messenger of--a higher power." Ten Euyck tried to say the

last phrase like a jest, but it stuck in his throat. He moved out of the

doorway, and there stepped past him into the room the man whom Herrick

had seen at the Pilgrims'. "Miss Hope, Mr. Herrick," Ten Euyck said,

"Mr. Kane; our District Attorney."

Kane nodded quickly to each of them. "Miss Hope," he said, "I don't

often play postman; but when I met our friend Ten Euyck outside and he

told me you were here, the opportunity was too good to lose." He took a

letter out of his pocket, watching her with shrewd and smiling eyes.

"We've been tampering with your mail. Allow me."

Christina took the letter wonderingly, but at its heading her face

contemptuously brightened. "I can hardly see," she said, passing it to

Herrick. "Read it, will you?--He would have to know anyhow," she said

sweetly to the two officials. "We are just engaged to be married. You

must congratulate us."

Herrick, never very eloquent, was stricken dumb. "Sit down, won't you?"

was as much as he could ask his guests. The letter ran--

"The Arm of Justice suggests to Miss Christina Hope that she exert her

well-known powers of fascination to persuade the Ingham family into

paying the Arm of Justice its ten thousand dollars. Miss Hope need not

work for nothing, nor even in order to avert an accusation against which

she doubtless feels secure. But the Arm of Justice has in its possession

a secret which Miss Hope would give much to know. She may learn what

that secret is, and how it may be negotiated if she will hang this white

ribbon out of the window wherever she may be dining on Monday. She will

receive a communication at once."

"Exactly!" said Kane, as though in triumph. "For such swells as the Arms

of Justice it's about dinner-time now. Would you oblige me, Miss Hope,

by tying the ribbon out of the window? Show yourself as clearly as

possible. All the lights, please."

As Christina stepped to the window, he added, "I'm trusting they didn't

recognize us as we came in. It's pretty dark."

They waited. The three men were strung to a high degree of expectation.

"But it's all so silly!" Christina said. The call of the telephone

shrilled through the room.

"Miss Hope?" Herrick asked. "Yes, she's here."

Then they heard Christina answering, "Yes, yes, it's Miss Hope. I hear.

I understand. I'll be there." She hung up the receiver and turned round.

"The Park. To-morrow. At ten in the morning. The bench under the

squirrel's house at the top of the hill beyond the Hundred-and-tenth

Street entrance. And be sure to come alone." She sat down, staring at

Kane.

He said, "Excuse me!" and went to the 'phone. "Boy! Did that party ask

for Miss Hope in the first place? All right. That's queer. They asked

for Mr. Herrick's apartment."

"They knew I was living here? Why, I only moved in this morning."

"And they must know I'm going on the road to-morrow; the eleven-thirty

train!"

"Exactly. They're well informed." Kane had been passing up and down; now

he stopped in front of Christina and again he seemed to measure her with

his keen eyes. "Well!" he said; "are you game for it?"

Christina sprang up and stood before him, glowing.

"You'll keep this appointment?"

"Surely! And alone!"

"Not by a long shot! Your mother and Mr. Ingham have feared exactly some

such escapade; that's why you've had to be shadowed all this while and

not advised of the activities of the police. There will be plenty of

plain clothes men, well planted. But not you, Mr. Herrick, whom they

would know. If you attempt to smuggle yourself in, we'll have to put you

in irons. Well, Miss Hope?"

"My mother," said Christina, rising, and faintly smiling, "deserves to

have her hair turn as white as I'm sure it has by this time." She held

out her hand. "You gave me a great fright," she said. "Did you know it?

I thought you had all come to execute me. Don't! I'm not worth it!"

The admiration which no man could withhold from her for very long

colored Kane's studying face and warmed his handshake. "I can count on

your not losing your head, I think. You'll be there?"

"I'll be there.--But have these people really any secret? Are they

really going to tell me something?"

"Well, my dear young lady, we'll know that to-morrow."

CHAPTER VII

MORNING IN THE PARK: THE SILENT OUTCRY

The week in which Christina was to open in "The Victors" was one of

those which call down the curses of dramatic critics by producing a new

play each night. Thursday was to see the opening of openings; there were

but two nights on the road and Mrs. Hope and Herrick were to live

through these as best they might in a metropolis that was once more a

desert.

After that momentous interview of Monday evening Christina would not let

Herrick drive home with her. "Come to the station in the morning, and

hear what has happened. Lunch with me on Thursday. But don't let me see

you alone again till Friday noon, when--" she laughed--"when I've read

my notices. Let your poor Christina tell you her trouble then. Till then

she has trouble enough!" She put her face up with a kind of humble

frankness, to be kissed. And he saw that it was a weary face, indeed.

Throughout the night his anxiety concerning the next day's meeting with

the blackmailers contended in him with that other anxiety: what she was

to tell him on Friday--when she had read her notices! Whatever it was,

it was not for his passion that he feared. There were even times when he

could almost have wished it were not some distorted molehill that the

girl's excitable broodings had swollen past all proportion, but some

test of his strength, some plumbing of his tenderness. And then again he

would be aware of a cold air crawling over his heart, of that horrible

sinking of the stomach with which, walking in the dark, we feel that we

are taking a step into space. A black wall, ominous, menacing and very

near, would loom upon him and blind him from the wholesome and habitable

world. The daylight reinforced his faith in simpler probabilities. It

washed away all but the sweetly humble arrogance of the one fact which

all night long had shot in glory through his veins and built itself into

the foundations of his life. With the day he remembered only that she

loved him.

He hung about the outskirts of One Hundred-and-tenth Street till he saw

her enter the Park and till he saw her leave it--safe, but with an

exceedingly clouded brow.

"They didn't come, of course!" she said to him at the station. "They

very naturally refused to swim into a net. Mr. Kane is a great dear, but

I wish he would mind his own business! Mother, speak to Bryce." She took

leave of them both with a serenely fond indifference to public

conjecture and the train bore her away.

Mrs. Hope may habitually have endeavored to clutch at the life-lines of

her own world even while she was being submerged in the billows of

Christina's but she was not mercenary and she accepted Herrick with an

evident thankfulness that he was no worse. When he had taken her home,

he found himself at a loss as to what to do with his life. Christina had

become so wholly his occupation that to lose her even for a few days was

to lose the bottom out of the world. Although the morning was still

swathed in yesterday's fog, the sun was struggling, the damp air was

very warm, and his steps turned toward the Park. But he did not follow

the paths which he and Christina had trod homeward from rehearsals;

instinctively, he turned north. Then he smiled to see that he was once

more making for the Hundred-and-tenth Street entrance.

Yes, here was the last spot which had held her, and, as he looked about

him, his heart stirred to think of her here. They should come here

together, he and she. The place was a little wilderness; he could not

have believed that in that kempt and ordered domain there could be so

wild and sweet a grace of nature and charmed loneliness. The hill was

high and thinly wooded; finely veiled in the mist and the faint sunshine

it was the very spot for the dryad length and lightness of Christina's

movements. At the same time, so close to the city's hum, there seemed

something magic, something ominous and waiting in the utter, perfect

stillness, and the little clearing at the top of the hill somehow,

whether by its broken boulders or the columnar straightness of a

semicircle of trees, suggested a Druid clearing. Those who wished to

make a sacrifice here would be very strangely unmolested. High and low

and far away there was no human figure, and a cry might perish long

before it traveled those misty distances. Herrick thought, "If she had

come alone!" and shuddered.

But there was the little squirrel house; there the bench where she had

waited; and at its base he smiled to see the scattered nuts which

Christina, with her variegated interests, had not failed to bring her

furry hosts. A lassitude of loneliness came over him; he was still not

wholly recovered from his accident of three weeks before and with a

weary yielding to stiffness and weakness he dropped down on the bench.

Then he saw that along one of its slats some one had recently penciled a

line, and he recognized Christina's hand. "I will come again for three

days running, after Thursday. At the same hour. And I will come

_alone_."

He was startled, but he smiled. It was so like her! Looking up, he saw

behind him a man sweeping leaves in the distance, and, far down the

hill, there appeared a loafer with a newspaper. The charm was broken.

Good heavens, where were people starting from! He could perceive, now,

to his left a man sleeping in the grass. Could any of these be the plain

clothes men, still lingering hopefully about? By George, they must be!

And Christina was right--they were too obvious a snare! Why, there was

a fourth, altogether too loutishly and innocently eating an apple as he

strayed on!

Herrick looked down at Christina's message, wondering if the detectives

had seen it. Intrepid and obstinate darling, how resolute she was to

know all there was to be known! When he looked up again he saw that the

slumberer had wakened and was sitting up. The other three men were

approaching from their respective angles, nearer and nearer to the

bench. And then it occurred to him--did they take him for a blackmailer?

It made him laugh and then somehow it vexed him; and he began to stir

the fallen leaves with a light stick he carried, restlessly. The men

came on, and it annoyed him to be surrounded like this, as by a pack of

wolves. He lifted his head impatiently, and was about to hail the

nearest man when a splash of sun fell full on that man's face. It was

the face of the chauffeur in the gray touring-car.

He knew then that he was in a trap. Controlling his first impulse to

spring up and bring the struggle to an issue, he counted his chances. He

remembered how far and still was this deserted spot; his muscles were

very stiff, and he felt the slimness of the stick in his hand. He had no

other weapon. And there were four of those figures sauntering in upon

him through the silence and the pale, dreamy sunshine. He felt the high,

hot beating of his heart. The city lay so close at hand! He could still

feel on his mouth Christina's kiss! And the immense desire to live, and

all a man's fury against outrage, against this causeless and

inexplicable brute-hate, which already, in the city's very streets, had

dared to maim and tried to murder him, rose in him with a colder rage

and kept him quiet and expressionless. He rose; and striking the dust of

the bench from his clothes, he glanced about. Yes, the man behind him

was still advancing, sweeping leaves; down the hill before him the man

climbed upward, still mumbling over his newspaper; to his right the

apple-eater, chewing his last bite, tossed away the core as he came on;

the chauffeur alone disdained subterfuge, advancing quietly; he carried

in his hand some lengths of rope. Herrick believed that he had one

chance. This wooded isolation could not be so far-reaching as it seemed:

they would scarcely dare to fire a shot.

Leisurely he idled a step or two down the slope toward the man with the

newspaper, till he was just outside the closing semicircle of the

others. Then, lowering his head, he shot swiftly forward. Immediately

there was a shrill whistle and the reader cast his newspaper away. It

was too late; Herrick's lowered head struck him in the diaphragm and

knocked him backwards. As he fell, Herrick leaped over him and turning,

caught the chauffeur a stinging blow across the eyes with his stick. The

stick broke; and Herrick, dropping to his knees, caught the ankle of the

next comer and threw him flat upon his face. The fourth man flung a

blackjack which, as Herrick rose up, caught him just below the right

elbow; the young fellow sprang up and, shouting now for help at the top

of his strong voice, he raced down the hill as if, once more, he were

bearing the ball to its last goal.

For a moment he felt that he had snatched the victory, but his stiff

muscles played him false and his right arm hung as if paralyzed. His

shouts, too, were leaving him winded and the fourth man, now

considerably in advance of the others, was gaining on him at every step.

Suddenly Herrick mistook the shadow of a little bush for the shadow of a

fifth opponent; in his second's wavering the fourth man lunged at him,

missed him, and losing his own balance clutched the end of Herrick's

coat. They both went down together, getting and giving blows; and though

Herrick was up and off again in an instant, the breath was pretty well

knocked out of him. Violent pains were throbbing now through his arm; he

seemed to himself as heavy as lead; near the bottom of the hill the

fourth man was on him again; Herrick landed on the fellow's head with

his left, only to fall himself into the hands of the two whom he had

thrown at first and who now fell upon him with a zeal that all his

French boxing, which enabled him to land a kick in one jaw and a

horrible backheeled stroke into the ribs of the fellow who was trying to

wrap a coat round his head, scarcely availed to rid him of. He gathered

himself together for one shout that seemed to him to crack the

tree-trunks. But the game was up; without knowing it he was turning

faint from the pain in his arm, and then the men were all round him now;

barring his path and only holding off from him a little because the

chauffeur was running down hill toward them, aiming at Herrick, as he

came, the rope which he had tied into a noose. Herrick leaped to one

side, and clinging to the tactics which had served him best, dropped to

the ground and pulled the chauffeur down atop of him. They clenched like

that and went, rolling and struggling, down the hill; striking against

trees, kicking, clawing, blind with rage, till they were stopped by the

flat ground. It was Herrick who landed on his back and found himself

staring up at the revolver the chauffeur was drawing from his pocket. At

that moment there sounded a policeman's whistle.

The man who had been running after them with the coat for Herrick's

head, dropped it and ran like mad. His companion's arm had been broken

by Herrick's kick, but this man and the fourth continued wildly

searching for something they had dropped on the hill. The chauffeur had

had to ease a little on Herrick in order to draw his gun; but when he

felt Herrick struggling onto his right side and even rolling himself on

top of his right arm, he quickly slid the barrel of the revolver into

his palm and lifted the butt-end. As he did so Herrick's left fist shot

up and dealt him a blow on the point of the chin. He fell back as if his

neck were broken; the pistol slipped out of his hand and Herrick caught

it just as the man with the broken arm dropped on his chest. The

policemen's whistles were sounding nearer and nearer; the man on

Herrick's chest kept him from aiming the pistol, but he discharged it in

the grass, shot after shot, five of them, to guide the police. "Let him

have it!" said the man on top of Herrick, but in an Italian phrase, to

the fourth man, who leaned over Herrick raising what the other had

dropped back there on the hill. It was the blackjack. Herrick could just

turn the pistol a little and point it upward from his side. He fired it

straight into the fourth man's face; and he was always glad, afterward,

that, like a sick girl, he had closed his eyes. The next man who bent

over him was a policeman.

"Don't mind me," Herrick said, "get them! Get after them!" But that

automobile of theirs must have been waiting on the driveway near at

hand; for the man whom Herrick had shot dead was the only one they

caught.

At first the body seemed to offer no clue; save a soiled and torn half

of a blank card on which had been uncouthly scribbled the number

1411--unless its being the body of a young Italian could be called a

clue. Herrick, who had, of course, accompanied it to the station under a

nominal arrest, turned sick with disappointment. At that moment the

lieutenant in charge emitted an exclamation. He had found on the dead

man a letter addressed in the typewriting of the Arm of Justice to

Christina Hope. The inclosure was intact, and the lieutenant held it out

to Herrick.

To the single sheet of paper was fastened a thick, soft curl of dark red

hair. Under the curl, in a rounded but girlish handwriting, were four

words: "Help me, dear Chris!"

CHAPTER VIII

A GREAT OCCASION APPROACHES AND THE VILLAIN ENTERS

This piece of information was very carefully guarded from the

newspapers. Nothing of the Arm of Justice had as yet leaked out. But the

fight in the Park was another matter; people linked it with the sinister

automobile, and it broke out in headlines everywhere. Herrick began to

find himself the most widely advertised man in New York; his

battle-scarred appearance was but too apt to proclaim his identity and

he did not know whether he most objected to being considered a hero who

had slain four ruffians with one hand or a presumptuous nine-pin always

being bowled over and having to be rescued by the police! There was a

good deal of pain below his elbow, where the blackjack had temporarily

paralyzed certain muscles, so that for another day or so his arm hung

helpless at his side; he could almost have wished it a more dangerous

wound! Curious or jeering friends made his life a burden; Christina

called him up over the long distance 'phone and swore him not to leave

the house without his revolver; Marion telegraphed him entreaties to

come home, and his own mind seethed in a turmoil of question and of

horrible fancy to which the young figure of Nancy Cornish was the

unhappy center. Nor could Mrs. Hope be called a comforting companion.

"Besides, Mr. Herrick,--Bryce--were they trying to kidnap you, too? And

if so, wouldn't you think they had enough on their hands already? Or did

they mean to murder you, really? And if so, why? Why? And, oh, Mr.

Bryce, just think how uncontrollable Christina is--and who will it be

next?" Often as Herrick had asked himself these and many other

questions, they could not lose their interest for him. His mind spun

round in them like a squirrel which finds no opening to its cage.

Notoriety, however, sometimes brings strange fish in its net. And when

Mrs. Grubey stopped Herrick on the street to applaud his prowess as a

pugilist, within the loose-woven mesh of her wonder and concern he

seemed to catch a singular gleam, significant of he knew not what.

For Mrs. Grubey, in celebrating the hero which Herrick had become to her

Johnnie, did hope that he would see the boy, sometime, and use his

influence against his being such a little liar.--"You remember that

queer toy pistol, Mr. Herrick, that he said he borrowed off a boy

friend?"

"A. A. A., Algebra, Astronomy and Art-Drawing! It had no connection with

them?"

"Why, it never come from a school at all!"

"I misdoubted it! Art-Drawing was rather elaborate than convincing."

"Oh, you'd oughtn't to laugh, Mr. Herrick--and the child so naughty! Why

that morning after Mr. Ingham was killed he found it propping open the

slit in our letter box." Herrick ceased to laugh. "He was so set on

keeping it he made up that story, and then to go to work and lose it,

an' it so queer the stones in it was maybe real--"

"He lost it, then?"

"Els't we'd never have known on account of him coming home crying. He

lost it in the Park, where he'd been playing train-robber with it an'

lots o' the loafers on benches watchin' him. A bigger boy got it away

from him, larkin' back an' forth, an' threw it to him, an' just then a

horse took fright from an automobile and run up on the grass with its

rig. The boys scattered in a hurry an' when they come back the pistol

was gone. He hadn't noticed no particular person watching, so he didn't

know who was gone, too. I tell him, God took it to punish his lyin',"

concluded Mrs. Grubey, with the self-righteousness of perfect truth,

"but I certainly would like to know how much it was worth! An' how it

ever got there an' who it belonged to."

Herrick had a vision of a comic valentine he had received on the same

morning. "I'm afraid it was meant for me!" he said. He knew this could

not clear things up much for Mrs. Grubey; and afterward he fell to

wondering if the capital "C" scratched on the dummy pistol's golden

surface bore any similarity to the slender, pointed lettering which had

formed the words "To the Apollo in the bath-robe." He could never

remember when the initials rose before him in a new order; the A's blent

as one and then the C--A. C.--Oh, madness! Yet, on Friday, he would ask

Christina.

One other tribute to his popular fame gave him a new idea. It came from

his Yankee woman at the table d'hote. The night after the attack she

motioned him to her as he was leaving and without ceasing to play

solitaire she said, "If I was you, young feller, I guess I wouldn't come

down here for one while."

His eyes opened in amused surprise. "Why not?"

"Ain't you the one shot a Dago yesterday in the Park? Pshaw, you needn't

tell me--I know 'twas 'cause you had t' do it! An' good riddance! But

it's healthier for you to stay where you belong."

Herrick looked round him on the good-tempered, smiling people at the

little clean tables, and laughed. "But you don't suppose the whole

nation is one united Black-Hand, do you? You seem to have a mighty poor

opinion of Italians!"

"Well," said the woman, with a grim smile of her own, "I married one.

I'd oughta know!"

She finished her game and seeing him still lingering, in enjoyment of

her tartness, she said, "All forriners 're pretty poor folks. When I

get mad at my children I say it's the streak of forrin' in 'em. Well, my

girl's good Yankee, anyhow. Fair as anybody. It's my son's took after

his father, poor fellow!"

"Then the proprietress, here, isn't your daughter?"

"Her? Sakes, no! She's my niece-in-law. I brought up my daughter like

she was an American girl! It's my son keeps in with these! He's

homesick. My daughter's husband got into a little bit o' trouble in the

Old Country," said this remarkable little dame, without the least

embarrassment, "and her an' me's glad enough to stay here. But the men

kind o' mope. Their business worries 'em and as I say, 'tain't the

business I ever would have chose, but I s'pose when I married a Dago I

might's well made up my mind to it!" She said this with an air

inimitably business like, and so continued--"Now I want you should clear

out from here, young man! There's all kinds of fellers come here. It may

be awful funny to you to think o' gettin' a knife in your back, but I

don't want it any round where I am! When they're after Dagoes, it ain't

my business. But my own folks is my own folks."

Now it could not be denied that there was something not wholly

reassuring as to the pursuits of this respectable old lady's family in

this speech, and in lighter-hearted times Herrick might have noted it as

a testimonial to that theory of his concerning the matter-of-fact in

crime. But now it suggested to him that he might do worse than look for

the faces of the blackmailers in such little eating-places as this one.

After all, they evidently were Italians, and it was with Italians that

they would sojourn. Yes--that was one line to follow! He remembered that

this region was in or adjacent to Ten Euyck's district and he wondered

if he could bring himself to ask the favor of a list of its Latin

haunts. He and Mrs. Hope were on their way to a big Wednesday night

opening when this resolution took definite shape, and it was strange,

with his mind full of these ideas, to come into the crush and dazzle of

the theater lobby.

Mrs. Hope at once began bowing right and left; the theatrical season was

still so young that there were actors and actresses everywhere. Herrick,

abnormally aware of his new conspicuousness, could only endeavor to look

pleasant; and, trailing, like a large helpless child, in her wake, was

glad to catch the friendly eye of Joe Patrick; fellow-sufferer in a

common cause, whom Christina's recommendation as usher he perceived to

have landed him here, instead of at the theater where she was to play.

Unfortunately Joe hailed him by name, in an unexpectedly carrying voice;

a blush for which Herrick could have kicked himself with rage flamed

over him to the roots of his hair, and when he perceived, with horror,

that they were entering a box, he clutched Mrs. Hope's cloak and slunk

behind the curtains with it like a raw boy.

But even so, there was a continual coming and going of acquaintances,

many of whom conveyed a sort of sympathetic flutter over Mrs. Hope's

interest in to-night's play; an impression that Christina must feel her

own absence simply too hard, and Herrick smiled to think how much more

concentrated were Christina's interests than they realized. Not but

their expectation of her appearance to-morrow was keen enough. It seemed

to Herrick that there was a thrill of it in all the audience, which

persistently studied Mrs. Hope's box. Christina's genius was a burning

question, and the unknown quantity of her success agitated her

profession like a troubled air--through which how many eyes were already

ardently directed toward to-morrow night, passionate astronomers,

attendant on a new star! Murders come and murders go, but here was a

girl who, in a few hours, might throw open the brand-new continent of a

new career; who, next season, might be a queen, with powers like life

and death fast in her hands. And, with that tremendous absorption in

their own point of view which Herrick had not failed to observe in the

members of Christina's profession, people asked if it wasn't too

dreadful that this business of Ingham's murder and Nancy Cornish's

disappearance should happen just at this time, when it might upset

Christina for her performance?

Mrs. Hope introduced him to all comers with a liberality which her

daughter had been far from displaying, and he could see them studying

him and trying to place him in Christina's life. It was clear to him

that if he ranked high, they were glad he had not gone and got himself

beaten to death in the Park, or it might have upset her still more. He

thought of the girl whose wet cheek had pressed his in the firelight.

The sweetness of the memory was sharp as a knife, and the rise of the

curtain, displaying wicked aristocrats of Louis the Fourteenth, sporting

on the lawns of Versailles, could not deaden it.

For if there is one quality essential to the effect of wicked

aristocrats it is that of breeding; and of all mortal qualities there is

none to which managers are so indifferent. In a costume play more

particularly, there is one requisite for men and one only; size. Solemn

bulks, with the accents of Harlem, Piccadilly and Pittsburgh, bowed

themselves heavily about the stage in conscientiously airy masquerade

and, since nothing is so terrible as elegance when she goes with a flat

foot, Herrick's eyes roved up and down the darkened house studying the

faces of Christina's confreres, there, and endeavoring to contrast them

with the faces of the public and the critics to whom, to-morrow, she

must entrust her fate.

A burst of applause, recalling his attention to the stage, pointed out

to him a real aristocrat. Among the full-calved males in pinks and

blues, the entrance of a slender fellow in black satin, not very tall,

with an order on his breast and the shine of diamonds among his laces,

had created something the effect of the arrival of a high-spirited and

thoroughbred racehorse among a drove of caparisoned elephants. Herrick,

the ingenuous outsider, supposed this actor the one patrician obtainable

by the management; not knowing that it was his hit as the spy in

"Garibaldi's Advance" which had opened to him the whole field of foreign

villains, and that he could never have been cast for a treacherous

marquis of Louis Quatorze this season if he had not succeeded as a

treacherous private of Garibaldi the season before.

With a quick, light gesture, which acknowledged and dismissed the

welcome of the audience, the newcomer crossed the stage and bowed deeply

before his king. The king stood at no great distance from Herrick's box,

and when the newcomer lifted his extraordinarily bright, dark eyes they

rested full on Herrick's own. Then Herrick found himself looking into

the face of the man in the street who had questioned him about the

murder on the night of Ingham's death.

Herrick had a strange sensation that for the thousandth part of an

instant the man's eyes went perfectly blind. But they never lost their

sparkle, and his lips retained the fine light irony that made his quiet

face one pale flash of mirth and malice. "Who is that?" Herrick asked

Mrs. Hope.

"Who? Oh--that's Will Denny."

Herrick was startled by a hand on his sleeve, and a hoarse, boyish voice

said in his ear, "That's him!" He knew the voice for Joe Patrick's.

"That's the man I took up in the elevator."

CHAPTER IX

PRESTO CHANGE: "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME!"

Herrick excused himself to Mrs. Hope and followed Joe Patrick out of the

box. "But are you sure, Joe?" he asked. "Could you swear to it?"

"Sure I could! Why couldn't I?"

"And you couldn't tell the coroner that that man was as slim as a whip

and as dark as an Indian, about middle height and over thirty, and of a

very nervous, wiry, high-strung build."

"Well, now I look at him close again I can see all that. But he didn't

strike me anyways particular."

Herrick had an exasperated moment of wondering, if Joe considered Denny

commonplace, what was his idea of the salient and the vivid. Was the

whole of Joe's testimony as valueless as this? He stood now and watched

their man with wonder. Had Denny recognized him? Had he seen Joe Patrick

rooted upright there, behind his chair, with staring eyes? If so, after

that first flicker of blindness, not an eyelash betrayed him. He was

triumphantly at his ease; his part became a thing of swiftness and wit,

with the grace of flashing rapiers and of ruffling lace, so that from

the moment of his entrance the act quickened and began to glow; the man

seemed to take the limp, stuffed play up in his hand, to breathe life in

it, to set it afire, to give it wings. And all this so quietly, with

merely a light, firm motion, an eloquent tone, a live glance! He had, as

Herrick only too well remembered, a singularly winning voice, an

utterance of extraordinary distinction, with a kind of fastidious edge

to his words that seemed to cut them clear from all duller sounds. But

Herrick recalled how, after the first pleasure of hearing him speak, he

had disliked a mocking lightness which seemed to blend, now, with the

something slightly satanic of the wicked marquis whom Denny played. He

remembered Shaw's advice, "Look like a nonentity or you will get cast

for villains!" Truly, they didn't cast men like that for heroes! And in

the light of that sinister flash, Herrick was aware of vengeance rising

in him. He rejoiced to be hot on the trail, and when he and Joe parted

it was with the understanding that he was to allay suspicion by

returning to the box and Joe was to telephone the police. Rather to his

surprise the performance continued without interruption and he somehow

missed Joe as he came out.

Now at the ungodly hour of one-thirty in the morning, Christina was

expected home. She was to take the midnight train from some Connecticut

town, and the thought of her approach began gradually to overcome, in

Herrick's mind, the thought of justice. As he walked to meet her through

the beautiful warm, windless dark, he told himself, indeed, that he had

a great piece of news for her and took counsel of her how he should

carry it to Kane.

But when, under the night lights of the station, he saw how she was

ready to drop with fatigue, he simply changed his mind. He had

sufficiently imbibed the tone of her colleagues to feel that nothing was

so necessary as that she shouldn't be upset. It was bad enough that

to-morrow she must be told of Nancy's message and add her identification

of that curly hair; let her sleep to-night.

In the cab she drooped against him with a simplicity of exhaustion that

was full, too, of content. "I was afraid I should never get you back!"

she said, and again, "I thought, all the evening, how you had

been--hurt; and how all that theaterful of women could see that you

were safe--and I couldn't! Do you know how I comforted myself?" And she

began to murmur into his shoulder a little scrap of song--

"Careless and proud,

That is their part of him--

But the deep heart of him

Hid from the crowd!"

"You know where my heart was!" he said. He had forgotten how large a

part of it had been excited by the apparition of Denny.

Still humming, she drew back a little and let her look shine up to his.

"Simple and frank,

Traitors be wise of him!

Are not the eyes of him

Pledge of his rank?"

"Christina!" he said, humbly. "Don't!"

"You don't like it!" she softly jeered. And though when he put her into

her mother's arms her little smile was so pitiful that it frightened

him, and he would have given anything that to-morrow night were past,

yet she turned on the stairway and cast him down, with a teasing

fondness, a final verse.

"Vigor and tan!

Look at the strength of him!

Oh, the good length of him!

There is my man!"

"Christina!" cried Mrs. Hope, scandalized. And Christina, with a

hysterical and weary laugh, dragged herself upstairs.

Herrick went forth into the street bathed in the sense of her love and

with a soul that trembled at her sweetness. He was himself very

restless, and, sniffing the fresh dark, he dismissed the cab. He had

begun to be really in dread lest Christina should break down; after he

had crossed the street he turned, with anxious lingering, to look up at

her window, and he saw the light spring forth behind it as he looked. It

was so hard to leave the sense of her nearness that Herrick, like a boy,

stood still and there rose in his breast a tenderness that seemed to

turn his heart to water. He had no desire, ever again, on any blind, to

see a woman's shadow. Yet he hoped that she might come to the window to

pull this blind down; in case some one else did so for her, he stepped

backward into a little area-way in the shadow of a tall stoop. But she

did not come. The hall light went out, and then hers. He gave up, and

just then the front door opened and Christina, not having so much as

removed her hat, appeared upon the threshold. He remained quite still

with astonishment; and the girl, after glancing cautiously up and down

the street, descended the steps and set off eastward at a brisk pace.

When she turned the corner into Central Park West, the explanation was

clear to him. In some way or another, she had got into communication

with the blackmailers and made a rendezvous which she was determined

this time to keep alone. For the first time, Herrick felt angry with

her. He had a sense of having been trifled with and he was really

frightened; now, indeed, he cursed himself for continuing to go unarmed.

He knew that it would be worse than useless to reason with her, and the

instant she was out of sight, he merely followed. Gaining the avenue, he

looked up the long line of the Park without seeing her. Ah! This time

she was going south. He went as far as he dared on the other side of the

street but he knew her ears were quick and, reaching the Park side he

vaulted the wall, and gained the shelter of the trees.

He had scarcely done so when Christina turned sharply round; and she

continued to take this precaution every little while, but he could see

that it was a mere formality. She no longer thought herself followed and

never glanced among the trees; his steps were inaudible on the soft

turf. At the Seventy-sixth Street entrance she turned into the park;

pausing, wearily, she took off her hat and pushed up her hair with the

backs of her hands. She looked as if she were likely to drop; but then

she set off rapidly again, and Herrick prayed they would meet a

policeman. But no member of the law put in an appearance, and presently

Herrick smelled water, and knew that they were near the border of the

big lake. Under the white electric light Christina stopped and looked at

her watch; she frowned as if her heart would break; and then, in a few

steps, she paused on the threshold of a little summer-house that stood

with the lake lapping its outer edge. The doorway was faintly lighted

from an electric light outside, and Christina glanced expectantly

within. But there was no one there. She uttered a little moan of

disappointment and entering dropped onto the bench beside the lake; she

rested her elbow on the latticework and Herrick could see her dear,

outrageous, uncovered head mistily outlined against the water.

Never in his life had he so little known what to do. A wrong step now

might precipitate untold disaster. His instinct was merely to remain

there, like a watchdog, and never take his eyes off her till the time

came for him to spring. But reason insisted that on the drive, less than

a block away, there must be policemen, and that the quicker he sought

one the better. He had not even yesterday's stick, his right arm was now

useless, and in a struggle by the water the odds against him were

doubled. Moreover, he had no reason to think that the blackmailers

intended Christina any violence. They had come to her yesterday in order

to deliver a message. This failing, they had allowed her to depart

unmolested and, on her side, her only thought was to do as they asked.

He perceived that the meeting would at least open with a parley; if he

could return with reinforcements in time to prevent foul play or to

effect a capture! But he simply could not bear to try it! And then the

nearness of the roadlights and the sense of his own extreme helplessness

overbore his instinct, and kicking off his shoes, he sped noiselessly

over grassy slopes. It seemed to him his feet were leaden; his heart

tugged at him to be back; his senses strained backward for a sound and

when he burst out on the drive he could have cursed the officer he saw

for being fifty feet away. It did not occur to him until afterwards that

if his likeness had not been in every paper in New York he might himself

have been immediately arrested. But the policeman listened with interest

to his story and then ambled out with the circumstance that the

summer-house was not on his beat, but that Herrick would find another

officer near such and such a place! With the blackness of death in his

heart, Herrick sped back as he had come, and then, hearing nothing,

slackened speed. There, still, thank God, was that dim outline of an

uncovered head against the lake! But so motionless that Herrick was

stabbed by one of those quick, insensate pangs of nightmare. Suppose

they had killed her and set her there, like that! He controlled himself;

but he was determined, now, at all hazards to get her away and stepping

into the path before the door, "Christina!" he said.

The figure rose, and as it did so, he saw that it was not Christina at

all, but a man. A slight man, not over tall, who, as he stepped forward

toward the light, turned upon Herrick the pale, dark, restless face of

the actor, Will Denny.

CHAPTER X

MIDNIGHT IN THE PARK; "JE SUIS AUSSI SANS DESIR--"

The men were equally startled; a very slight quiver passed over Denny's

face, but he said nothing. "Good God!" Herrick cried, "what are you

doing here?"

"The same to you," Denny replied.

"But Christina! Where's Miss Hope?"

"Christina! Has she been here?"

Herrick pushed roughly past him. There was no sign of the girl, and in a

cold apprehension, Herrick stared out over the lake. Denny's voice at

his elbow said, "She doesn't seem to float! Why not see if I've thrown

her under the bench?"

"Why not?" Herrick savagely replied.

The other smiled faintly. "Christina? It wouldn't be such an easy job!"

She wasn't under the bench and Herrick hurried back into the path.

"Go and look for her, if you like. I'll wait here." He called in a

sibilant whisper after Herrick, "You'll have to hurry. Don't yell."

No hurry availed, but as Herrick burst out of the Park he caught a

glimpse of her back as she passed into a moving trolley car bound for

home. Only love's baser humors and blacker claims were left in him. He

knew that his dignity lay anywhere but in that little arbor, yet he

deliberately retraced his steps. Again he found Denny sitting there, and

this time the actor did not rise. But he must have been walking about

in Herrick's absence for he made a slight motion to a dark blot on the

bench near him. He said, "Are those your shoes?"

Herrick sat down angrily and put them on, more and more exasperated even

by the dim shape of a cigar in Denny's fingers; although he was a

seething volcano of accusation he could not think of anything to say and

besides, what with emotion and with haste, he was rather breathless. So

that at last it was Denny who broke the silence with, "Well, now that

you are here, have you got a match?--Thank you!" But he did not light

it. He seemed to forget all about it as he sat there silent again in the

darkness waiting for Herrick to speak.

When Herrick struggled with himself and would not, Denny at length

began. "I won't pretend to deny that she came here to find me. I only

deny that she did find me. I missed her, poor child. Doesn't that

content you?"

And Herrick asked him in the strangling voice of hate, "Do you usually

have ladies meet you here? At this hour?"

"No. That's what disturbs me. It must have been something very urgent.

She couldn't trust the telephone and she couldn't wait till morning. She

knows that now I almost never sleep, and that I can't bear to be awake

with walls around me; if I'm not careful I shall have walls around me

close enough. I come here, as Chris remembered, because--I must be

somewhere. So she chanced it. She didn't find me. I came just too late."

Herrick rose. He felt as if he were stifling. "Do you pretend to tell

me, then, that you don't know why she came?"

"No, I'd better not pretend that. I suppose I know why she came." He

added, very low, in his clear voice, "I suppose she came to warn me."

"Warn you? Of what?"

"Come, do I need to tell you that? Her mother must have told her that

you recognized me to-night and that the elevator boy recognized me, too,

and told you."

"You saw all that?"

"I saw all that."

"And did nothing?"

"What could I do?"

"You've had time, since the performance, to get away!"

"Where to?" asked Denny.

If it was the simplicity of despair it affected the distraught and

baffled Herrick like the simplicity of some subtle and fiendish triumph.

Not for nothing had he observed the calm of the French marquis. Taking a

violent hold on himself, "Do you realize--" he demanded, "what you're

admitting?"

"The mark of Cain?" said the other, with his faint smile. "Oh, yes!"

Herrick incredulously demanded, "You don't deny it?"

"Deny it? Why, yes, I deny it. I'm not looking for trouble and I deny it

absolutely. But what then? Will anybody believe me? Between friends, do

you believe me? Well--what's the use?"

"You've no proofs? No defense?"

"None whatever!--And I've been playing villains here for four years! My

dear fellow, don't blush! I'm complimented to find that you, too, are

hit by that impression. And I shan't tell Christina!"

"If I could see by what damned theatrical trick you go about admitting

all this!"

Denny seemed to take no offense. "I'm indifferent to who knows it. I'm

tired out."

Herrick flounced impatiently and, "But season your solicitude awhile,"

the other added. "Remember that even to you I don't admit my--what's the

phrase? My guilt! And legally I shall never admit it."

"You merely 'among friends' allow its inference?"

"If you like."

"You don't seem very clear in your own mind!"

"Clear?" The brilliance of his eyes searched Herrick's face with a

singular, quick, sidelong glance for which he did not turn his head.

Then the glance drooped heavily to earth and Herrick could just hear him

add, in a voice that fell like a stone, "No--pit-murk!" He sat there

with his elbows on his knees and seemed to stare at the loose droop of

his clasped hands. He said, "I shall never play Hamlet. But at least I

am like him in one thing; I do not hold my life at a pin's fee."

"Good God!" Herrick burst forth. "Do you think it's you I care about?"

The other man replied softly into the darkness, "You mean, I've

implicated Christina?"

"You've admitted that she knows--and shields you!"

"So she does, poor girl! But don't think I shall put either Chris or me

to the horrors of a trial. I seem to have given some proof that I carry

a revolver. And I haven't the least fear of being taken alive."

"I care nothing about you!" Herrick repeated. "What I want to understand

is why Miss Hope should shield you--if she is shielding you. Why she

should come here, in the middle of the night, to warn you? Whoever shot

Ingham was mixed up with everything that's rotten--with blackmail--with

the disappearance of that girl--"

"O!" Denny had perceptibly winced. But then he said, "I don't confess to

all the crimes in the decalogue! For instance, Mr. Herrick, I am

perfectly guiltless of those rude--ah--ornamentations on your own brow."

He laughed outright. "How could I face Chris?" he said.

Herrick jumped at him with an oath and bore him, by pure force of

weight, back against the lattice. His hand was on Denny's throat and it

was a moment before Denny could tear it away. When he had done so, he

said nothing; he continued to sit there as if nothing had happened; and

Herrick, a little ashamed, sulked at him, "Don't speak of her like that,

then!" He walked to the door of the arbor and back, facing Denny and

controlling himself, with his hands in his pocket. "There's been enough

of this," he said, through his teeth. "I've got to know now--what's she

to do with you? What's it to her, if you're caught? How, in the first

place, did she ever come to know such a secret? Why should you confide

it to _her_?"

He was aware of Denny lifting his eyes and looking at him steadily

through the half-dark. "I'll tell you why, if you'll sit down. I've done

a hard night's work and, at any rate, I don't care to shout."

Herrick dropped down beside him and Denny struck his match. "Smoke?" he

queried. Herrick shook his head and again, by the light of the little

flame, Denny stared gravely into his set and haggard face. "Is it so

much as that to you?" he said. "Well, then, I never told Christina.

Nothing--whether I was innocent or guilty. I didn't need to. There was

a--friend of hers in the room when it was done. But here's my connection

with the thing. You don't know, I suppose, that two months ago, I

expected to marry Nancy Cornish?"

"I might have known it!" Herrick said.

"I don't see why! Unless you've observed that the sweetest women are

born with a natural kindness for cads. I was perfectly sure that she

loved me. I used to meet her here"--Herrick started--"and take her out

in a boat and all that, as if I were a boy,--she was _so_ young! Well,

then I displeased her and she sent me to the right about. It was hard. I

don't know if you're too happy and too virtuous to see that when another

woman was good to me, then, I fell in what it pleases us to call love

with her. It came and passed, like fever. No matter. She belonged

legally, at that time, to another man, but she swore to me she would get

free and marry me--yes, I believed she loved me, too, if you can swallow

that! You see, there were no limits to my complacency! There were

certain things I couldn't help but know, and she accounted for them all,

to me, by a dreadful tale of ill-usage when she was just growing up--a

man of the world, older than she, her first love, promise of marriage,

desertion, the horrors after it; how she had been forced to accept the

first chance of respectability--but now--for love of me--All the old

story! She never would tell me that man's name. She pretended to hate

him and fear him, and I lashed myself into such a rage against him, and

the insults with which she said he was following her again, that I

hardly saw the streets I walked through. The afternoon before the

shooting Nancy called me up; she said she had something to tell me, and

asked me to meet her at the old place in the Park at five o'clock. It

was cruel hard, because now I'd doubly lost her. I was sick of myself

and the whole world. It was touch and go with me. I sat here, waiting,

waiting--if she'd brought her goodness, her freshness, her gentleness

even within hailing distance of me, then, they might have shed a little

sanity on me as she passed."

"And Christina?" Herrick persisted.

"Well--this other woman was Christina's friend. That day that Nancy

didn't come I had a dress rehearsal, and Christina and this other woman

dined with me, just before that. She said, then, for the first time that

Ingham was the man she had told me of. She said she told me now because

it was he who had sent Nancy away; that Nancy was afraid of me because

he and she--I went straight for him after rehearsal. They didn't expect

me. And up there, in that room with Ingham, I found that other woman.

Would anybody believe in my innocence after that? Ought I to be

innocent? 'Deny it?' No, on the whole, I'd better not deny it!' That's

all!"

They were both silent. Then through his groping thoughts Herrick could

hear Denny half-humming a catch of song whose words were instantly

familiar.

"Je suis aussi sans desir

Autre que d'en bien finir--

Sans regret, sans repentir,

Sans espoir ni crainte--"

"Without regret, without repentance--Repentance? Surely! But--without

regret? He asked a good deal, that lad! You ought to like my little

song--it was taught me by the erudite Christina."

"Where's that woman, now?"

"Ah!" said Denny, "that's her secret."

"And Christina?" said Herrick, again.

"Christina and I are very old chums; aside from the Deutches I am the

oldest friend she has. It was I got Wheeler to go West and see her. I

was in the first company she ever joined, when she was just a tall, slim

kid--sixteen, I think--and I was twenty-six. We've worked together, and

won together and--gone without together. I had been at it for eight

years when she first went on; and I taught her all I knew; when I got

into the moving pictures for a summer I worked her in--"

Herrick started. "The best friend Christina ever had!" he exclaimed.

"Oh!" said the other. "Thank you!" Herrick was aware of his quaint

smile. "Yes, I suppose I might be called that!"

"I was told--I was led to believe you were an older man."

"Ah, that's one of Christina's sweetest traits--she colors things so

prettily! She can't help it! But you see, now, don't you, that she'd

never give me away? Chris would shield her friends as long as she had

breath for a lie. She's pretended a quarrel with me all these weeks,

because, thinking the police were following her, she didn't want them to

find me. She's kept you from knowing people who might speak of me. She's

had but the one thought since the beginning; and that was to save my

life. But she's in love with you, and she can't lie to you any

longer--you'll see. Besides, she thinks she can make you our accomplice;

that because you're a friend of hers, you're a friend of mine. She has

still her innocences, you see, and, in the drama, so many lovers behave

so handsomely." The ring had died out of his voice; but he went on, with

a kind of rueful amusement, spurring himself to be persuasive, "Come,

now, stop thinking of what would influence you, and try to think of what

would influence Chris! Do you think she'd like to see Wheeler hanged?"

"Wheeler!"

"Well, allow me to put forward that Chris thinks me quite as good an

actor as Wheeler, with the double endearment of not being so well

appreciated by outsiders!" He leaned forward with an intent flash. "If

you think she wouldn't stand by me, you don't know her!"

"And is that the reason," asked Herrick, "why you left her in the

lurch?" He was aware of behaving like a quarrelsome old woman, now that

he had a probable murderer on his hands and didn't quite know what to do

with him. The man must feel singularly safe. There was something at once

annoying and disarming in his passiveness, and Herrick drove home this

question with a voice as hard as a blow. "Was it because you could play

on the loyalty and courage of a romantic girl, that, when you were

likely to be suspected, you ran away and left her to bear the public

accusation?"

Denny answered, with that gentleness which Herrick found offensive, "I

didn't run far."

"You've been filling her, too, I suppose, with this cock and bull

melodrama of suicide if you're arrested?"

He had touched a live nerve. "Would it be less melodramatic to crave

that other exit--have my head shaved so that the apparatus could be

fitted on--let them take half an hour strapping me into an electric

chair! Do you think that would be soothing to her? No, thank you! Or do

you want me to hide and run, to twist and duck and turn and be caught in

the end?--I can't help your calling me a coward," Denny said, "and I

dare say I am a coward. A jump over the edge I could manage well enough.

But 'to sit in solemn silence, in a dark, dank dock, awaiting the

sensation of a short, sharp shock--'" He seemed to rein in his voice in

the darkness. "If I were even sure of that! But to be shut up for life,

for twenty years, death every minute of them! To be starved and

degraded, pawed over and mishandled by bullies--" He shuddered with a

violence that seemed to snap his breath; even his eyebrows gave a

convulsive twitch, as if he felt something crawling over his face. And,

rising, he went across to the entrance of the arbor and stood leaning in

the doorway, looking out.

Herrick did not want him to get away and at the same time he did not

want to bring about any crisis until he had seen Christina. He thought

Denny's explanation of her attitude only too probable. "I've known the

dearest fellows in the world--the cleverest, the gamest, the most

charming. But they were all like poor Christina--fidgety things, nervous

and on edge." Was she thinking of Denny then? "Oblige me by staying

where you are!" he said to Denny's back. Denny turned the grim delicacy

of his pale face to smile at him and the smile maddened Herrick. He went

on, "You must see yourself I can't let you go! Will you come to my

rooms for to-night, and in the morning Miss Hope can tell me if this

story's true!"

Denny walked slowly out and stood smoking in the center of the pathway,

under the tall electric light. He was far from a happy-looking man, and

yet he looked as if he were going to laugh. "And what then?" he asked.

"Then I shall know if this isn't all a bid for sympathy. Whether there's

really any other woman beside this Nancy Cornish--"

Denny wheeled suddenly round on him.

"Or whether you don't know more of her--"

"Damn you!" Denny said. "You fool,--" He had come close to Herrick and

then remembering the limp hang of Herrick's arm, he paused. And as he

paused a man stepped out from among the trees and touched him on the

shoulder.

He wheeled round; there were two men behind him. They were in plain

clothes but the man who had touched Denny showed a shield. "Come along!

You're wanted at headquarters."

Denny stood quiet, breathing a little rapidly. "Let me see your

warrant," he said, and he took two steps backward to get it under the

light. So that before any one could stop him, he had whipped out a

revolver, put the end of the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

There was a little click before the man could jump on him and then

another; and then Herrick heard the steel cuffs snap over his wrists.

The man with the shield drew back, and grinning, shook into his palm

what were not even blank cartridges but only careful imitations. "The

next time you rely on a gun," he said, "you want to look out for that

valet of yours!"

Denny was standing with his heavy hair shaken by the struggle about his

eyes; one of the men obligingly pushed it back with the edge of Denny's

straw hat which he picked up and put on Denny's head. "Come! Get a gait

on us," said the man with the star.

Denny said, aloud, "You overheard those last remarks for which this

gentleman raised his voice?"

"Rather!" the three grinned.

"Ah, well, then there is certainly no more to be said." He nodded

agreeably to Herrick, and then between his captors, walked lightly and

quickly off, into the darkness.

CHAPTER XI

KEEPING CHRISTINA OUT OF IT

Daylight was in the streets when Herrick got to bed, sure he should not

close his eyes; then he was wakened only by the cries of the newsboys

underneath his windows, calling, as if it had been an extra--"Ingham

Murderer Arrested! Murderer Arrested! Popular Actor Arrested in the

Ingham Murder!"

Herrick tumbled into his clothes and bought a paper on his way to a very

late breakfast at the Pilgrims', where he had a card. In the account of

the arrest he himself figured as something between a police decoy and an

accomplice in crime, but Christina's midnight sally remained unknown and

he breathed freer. Now that she was to be kept out of it, he could but

admire the quiet good sense with which the police had gone about their

business. While those more closely concerned had dashed and bewildered

themselves against their own points of view like blind, flying beetles,

the police had simply made haste to ascertain if Nancy Cornish had a

lover. She had been engaged to Denny; a recent coolness between them had

been common gossip; and, since Nancy's disappearance, their common

friend, Christina Hope, had kept aloof from Denny, as though embracing

her friend's quarrel or suspecting her friend's sweetheart. It now

transpired for the first time that the police had dug further into that

evidence of Mrs. Willing's which Ten Euyck's eagerness to turn it

against Christina had left undeveloped. Mrs. Willing had heard a man's

voice which she did not think to be Ingham's, call out loudly and very

clearly, "Ask--" somebody or something the name of which was unfamiliar

to her, and which she had forgotten until later events had violently

recalled it--"Ask Nancy Cornish."

Herrick did not read any further till he was seated and had given his

order to a friendly waiter. There were some men at a table near him; it

seemed to him that everybody in the room was talking of the arrest and

as a matter of fact most of them were talking of it. He had an uneasy

desire to know how Christina appeared in her own world's version. But

she remained there the friend of Denny, and of the girl over whom Ingham

and Denny must have quarreled. When he looked at the paper again, he

read that on the night in question by no less a person than Theodore

Bird, Denny had been seen to enter Ingham's apartment!

Yes, the tremulous Theodore, despite his wife's particular instructions

that he should keep out of it, had called at headquarters and delivered

up the fact that at one o'clock or thereabouts, when he was just on the

point of retiring, he had heard what sounded like a ring at his

door-bell. But he had opened the door only a crack because the wires

between his apartment and Ingham's were apt to get crossed, and, indeed,

this was what had happened in the present case. He had seen a man

standing there, at Ingham's door; and Theodore, safe behind his crack,

his constitution being not entirely devoid of rubber, had taken a good

look; had seen Ingham fling wide his door, and the stranger enter. On

being asked if he could identify this stranger, he said he was certain

of it. Confronted with photographs of a dozen men he had unhesitatingly

selected Denny's.

The police had delayed Denny's arrest in the hope of finding him in

correspondence with Nancy Cornish. Sure of their man, they had given him

rope to hang himself. But Joe Patrick's recognition, which, at any

moment, he might reveal to the suspected man, had forced their hand.

They did not add that until yesterday they had never connected Denny or

Nancy with the blackmailing letters, but Herrick now added it for them;

and he saw how Nancy's message, with its suggestion of the girl's peril,

had forced it, too.

He deduced that, by the summer-house, they had not been able to overhear

anything until Denny had gone to the doorway and Herrick had raised his

voice. He read, finally, how, while Denny was changing for the street,

after the performance, his dresser had managed to unload and reload the

revolver. The number of the cartridge used in it was the same as that of

the bullet taken from Ingham's body.

Up to the last line of the article Herrick kept a hope that Denny had

given some clue of Nancy's whereabouts but the police were obliged to

admit that the young man had proved a mighty tough customer. "He has

undergone six hours of as stiff an examination as Inspector Corrigan has

ever put a prisoner through and nothing whatever save the barest denial

has been got out of him. However, the Inspector is confident that in the

near future--" There was something in this last statement which made

Herrick slightly sick. He hoped Christina had not seen it.

He understood well enough the weakness and blankness of Denny's account

of himself. The young man denied the murder much more definitely than he

had troubled himself to deny it to Herrick, but with the same listless

lack of hope and even of conviction. He made no secret of his having

gone to Ingham's room with the intention of shooting him, though he

asserted that Ingham had proved false the story which had occasioned

their quarrel and he had gone away again--that was all. Expect to be

believed? Of course he didn't expect to be believed! On the reason of

their quarrel he remained mute. To all further questions, such as what

other visitors Ingham had that night, he opposed the blankest,

smoothest ignorance. And Herrick, filling out the blanks, was still

impatient of the reticence which left it possible for any woman of the

men's mutual acquaintance to be taken for the woman of the shadow. No

effort for the good name of another woman justified to him the suspicion

and the suffering that Christina had already been allowed to endure.

Denny's guilt he did not and he could not doubt, but he might have

respected a guilt which, after so strong a provocation, had instantly

given itself up. Such an avowal might have kept further silence with the

highest dignity and Herrick wondered why an actor, of all people, could

not see that that would have been even the popular course. Then he heard

another actor, a much handsomer and more stalwart person, remark, "I

always said, poor chap, that he hadn't the physique for a hero!"

"Well," agreed a manager, solemnly, after every possible version of the

affair had been discussed, "what I've always said is--Strung on wires!

He's the best in his own line, I don't deny it! You could have your star

and your juvenile man tearing each other to pieces in the middle of the

stage and he'd be down in a corner, with an eye on a crack, and

everybody'd be looking at him! But I've always said, and I say it

again--Strung on wires!" The manager seemed to think that this remark

met the occasion fully at every point.

And as the men became more and more excited in their talk, Herrick

discovered that the very heart of their excitement was their sympathy

for Denny's own manager who would have to replace him by to-morrow

night. Heaped all around lay this morning's papers, every one of them

extolling Denny's performance of the night before, and little guessing

what the next editions would bring forth; these fine notices made the

management's position all the more difficult and the talkers all seemed

to feel that it was very hard, after so expensive a production, that

Denny should get himself arrested for murder at such a moment.

So that between this extremely business-like sympathy which suited

Herrick to perfection and his own desire that Christina should be kept

out of it, he perceived that about the last person for whom any one was

excited was Denny himself. He was congratulating himself that Mrs. Hope

was a person to keep distressing newspapers out of sight as long as

possible and that her daughter was sure to rise late on the morning of

the night of nights when a boy brought him a 'phone message. "You're

please to go and ask to see Mr. Denny at Inspector Corrigan's office!"

With somewhat restive promptitude Herrick obeyed. As he was shown into

the office the first person his eye lighted upon was Christina.

CHAPTER XII

AULD ACQUAINTANCE: WHAT CHRISTINA SAW

The only professional appearance which Wheeler had hitherto permitted

Christina to make in New York had been when she recited at a benefit

early in the preceding spring. The benefit was for the families of some

policemen who had perished valiantly in the public service and when

Christina had enlisted the Ingham influence in the cause Wheeler had

made the whole affair appear of her contriving. To procure herself an

interview with Denny in the Inspector's office before the formalities of

the Tombs should close about him she had not scrupled to make use of

this circumstance, and whether because it combined with her having

business there, in the identification of Nancy's message, or because the

Inspector believed she could really influence Denny to talk, as she said

she could, or because he wanted to watch them together, or, after all,

because she was one of those who get what she desired, there she was.

Herrick was no longer at a loss to account for a sort of tickled

admiration which admitted him as one at least near the rose. She had

evidently been treated with the consideration due the chief mourner,

whatever one may think of the corpse; the Inspector, over by the window,

had made himself inconspicuous and for a moment Herrick saw only

Christina--a Christina wholly baffled and at a loss! She had, indeed,

that air of having spent her life in the office which was her

distinguishing characteristic in any atmosphere. Her hat was, as usual,

anywhere but on her head; she had stripped off her gloves and tossed

them into it. But she now sat in an attitude of despairing quiet which

she broke on Herrick's entrance only to catch his arm with one hand;

turning her face in upon his sleeve, "Bryce," she moaned, "I brought him

to this!"

Then he saw that Denny was standing looking through the barred window

with his back to them. When he turned Herrick had to struggle against a

touch of sympathy for the change in his appearance. Although he had

never seen Denny in the daylight before, there was no denying that he

was only the worn ghost of what he had been last night. His slenderness

had the broken droop of physical and emotional exhaustion; beneath the

intense black of his hair, his face was the color of ashes and his

quick, brilliant eyes looked lifeless and burned out. Nevertheless,

Herrick preferred the daytime version. The sort of evil phosphorescence

of the French marquis which had continued to dazzle his eyes in the

darkness and the sharp electric light, had wholly vanished; Denny was

not playing a villain now--and in the blue serge suit of ordinary life,

there was something almost boyish in him.

"He won't help me, Bryce," Christina said. "He won't tell me anything,

he won't say anything. He won't even tell me what lawyer he wants."

Denny stood with his eyes fixed on his visitors but in an abstraction

which seemed to take no note of them; and Christina went on to Herrick,

as to a more sympathetic audience. "I tell him he shall have the best

lawyers in the world! He shan't be tormented any longer; he shall have

the law to look out for him! He'll be all right, won't he, Bryce, won't

he? If he'll only help himself! If he'll only say something!" Her voice

rose desperately and broke. "Tell him you're simply _for_ him, as I

am--that's what I brought you here for! Tell him we're with him, both of

us, all the world to nothing, and that we urge him to anything he can

say or do to help himself! And that it will never make any difference

to--either of us!" When Herrick had made out to say that Christina's

friends were his friends, she went up to Denny and took him by the

shoulders. "Don't you understand? I want to speak not only for myself,

but for all those dear to me!"

Denny broke into a nervous laugh, but he said nothing.

Herrick guessed that his denial of his guilt had taken Christina wholly

by surprise; that she had relied greatly on the story of his provocation

and that now she did not know what to do. That it is not seemly for

young ladies to display such extreme emotion over gentlemen to whom they

are not related and who have had the misfortune to be imprisoned for

murder did not cross her mind. She was now reduced to a sort of

hysterical practicality in which, for lack of the treacherous valet, she

enlisted Herrick to discuss with a surprised Inspector what clothes and

furnishings of Denny's she would be allowed to have packed up and sent

to the Tombs--"What ought I to do to make them like me there? Oh, yes,

Bryce, it makes a difference everywhere! I mustn't wear a veil; and I

must get them plenty of passes. It's a pity we can't pretend to be

engaged--it would interest every one so!--How about money, Will?"

"I've plenty, thanks."

"Most ladies don't think beyond flowers!" contrasted the Inspector, in

amused admiration.

Exasperated beyond endurance, Herrick heard himself launch the sickly

pleasantry, "Any use for flowers, Mr. Denny?"

"Not before the funeral," Denny said.

She shook him a little in her eagerness. "Books. And tobacco. And things

to drink. And the best food. And magazines. And all the newspapers."

Christina clung to the items like a child trying to comfort itself.

"Or--perhaps--not the newspapers--"

Denny flung restlessly out of her hands. "Oh, yes," he said, "the

newspapers, please! Let me at least know how I am admired." He went back

to staring out of the window; he seemed so little interested in his

visitors that it was as though he had left them alone.

Christina stood looking at him with an infinite pity. She was not crying

but her magnificent eyes swam in a sort of luminous ether and Herrick

had never seen her so girlishly helpless.--"Knowing me brought him to

this!"

"Don't talk like a fool, Christina!" Denny interrupted over his shoulder

in his dead-and-alive voice.

"It's true. If you'd never known me, or if I'd never engaged myself to

Jim--"

"Or if I'd never been born. It's just as true and just about as

relevant." His absent voice died in his throat. Then, of a sudden, he

turned on her with a kind of restive suspicion. "What did you say,

awhile ago, about Kane's office?"

"He's sent for me to come there to-morrow at two."

"Well, whatever you begin telling him, remember there's one thing I

can't put up with. And that's--Well, anything less than--the full dose."

He came up to the girl and took her hand in his cold fingers. "And I

implore you, Christina, whatever you do, not to set such a motion on

foot, not to work up any sympathies nor bring forward any circumstances

which might lead to what they call a merciful sentence. I couldn't stand

it, Chris. It's the one thing I can't bear.--Oh, don't cry, don't cry!

Come, my dear! Why, you surely don't want me to live--like this! With

nothing to think of except--about Nancy! Well, then!" But Christina was

visibly gasping for breath and, in a nature easily drawn together

against a world harsh or indifferent, all the defenses against feeling

began to give way. Some comfort must be found for those that insist upon

caring! But what comfort?--"Ah now, Chris, dear old girl, such a brave

girl--it's all right. It's bound to be. Why, it's what I want, really.

Really it is. You know that. You know I've been pretty well through, all

these weeks, isn't that so?--Oh, take her away, won't you?" he cried to

Herrick.

But Christina had by this time begun to cry, indeed, and now she threw

her arms round Denny's neck, pulled down his face and kissed him. "To

leave you here!" she wept.

For a moment he stood stiff in her embrace and then he gently returned

her kiss; suddenly, with a sobbing breath, he caught her by the

shoulders as a man clings to something tried and dear, which he knows he

may not often see again. "Poor Chris!" he said. "All right, Chris!"

The Inspector signed to the doorman who stepped up, pleasantly enough,

to Denny, and at his touch Denny took the girl by her elbows and held

her off.

"Come," he said, "you've got a performance to-night!"

"Oh, God help me!" Christina cried. "How am I to go through with it!"

"Why," said Denny, quickly, "do it for me! Don't let me wreck everything

I touch!" He looked at Herrick as though to say, "Be good to her--she's

only a girl! You needn't fear she can help me!" And aloud he continued,

"Look here, Christina, you mustn't fail. You're my friend, to pull me

through and make friends for me, isn't that so? Well, then, you mustn't

be a nobody! If you're going to get me out of here, you've got to be a

celebrity, and move worlds. Well, you've got nothing but to-night to do

it with. People like us, my dear, we've nothing but ourselves to fight

with, just ourselves! Come, get yourself together and pull it off

to-night! For me!" Over her head his miserable eyes besought Herrick to

take her away while she could believe this. But the girl, straightening

up, held out her hand. Denny took it and "All right," she said, "I

will!" As they stood thus, a door from within the building opened and

there was admitted no less a person than Cuyler Ten Euyck.

Christina was standing between him and Denny. The eyes of the two men

met and slashed like whips. Herrick never needed to be told whose was

the hand that long ago, for Christina's sake, had struck Ten Euyck. Now

Denny said in a quick undertone, "Don't fret, old girl!" And the guard

took him away.

The newcomer looked rather more frozen than usual; he was surprised and

he did not take kindly to surprises. "It seems to be my fate to

interrupt! Mr. Herrick, don't you feel de trop?"

He indulged himself in this discomforting question while his byplay of

glances was really saying to Inspector Corrigan, "What are all these

people doing here?" and Corrigan's was replying, "None of your

business!" There was evidently no love lost between the types,

particularly when the first glance persisted, "You got nothing out of

him?" And the second was obliged to admit, "Nothing!"--"But I implore

your toleration," Ten Euyck continued to Christina, "I can perhaps do

you some service for the prisoner with Inspector Corrigan."

"The prisoner thanks you, as I do. But we have played in melodrama and

we are acquainted with the practice of poisoned bouquets. Inspector

Corrigan and I are doing very well as we are!"

"You are unkind and, believe me, you are unwise. I really wish to please

you--do you find that so unnatural?--and to justify myself in your

regard. I want to begin by advising you not to let your friend's

melodramatic silence suggest to the public that he is going to hide

behind some story of a woman--"

"He is very foolishly trying to keep a woman's name out of his story,"

Christina clearly and boldly declared.

"Nonsense! There is no such person!"

"Why not?"

"Because if there were he would be only too anxious to get her to come

forward and tell the jury what she told him. It might get him off."

"How do you know what she told him?"

"My dear lady, they all tell the same thing. It seems to those who are

interested--"

"It seems nothing whatever but a chance to divert yourself with what you

consider his disgrace, because the idea of disgrace comes natural to

you--and, indeed, to you, in his presence, it should do so! But I rely

on Inspector Corrigan to limit your diversions. His favors are the

favors of a practical man; neither he nor I are fortune's darlings; we

both work for our living and we both understand one another.--I ought to

say that I am sorry to be rude. But I am not sorry, I rejoice. While

there was a suspicion for you to nose out I was afraid of you. But now I

am free of you. If I were your poor mother," cried Christina, catching

up her hat, "I should pray you were ever in a disgrace that did you so

much honor!"

This outburst produced a silence: Inspector Corrigan amused and

gratified, Inspector Ten Euyck struggling to appear amused and tolerant.

In fact, as Christina, still breathing fire, drew on her gloves, he

became so very easy and happy as to hum a little tune. The words

instantly fitted themselves to it in Herrick's mind.

"Je suis aussi sans desir

Autre que d'en bien finir--"

"That's very charming!" said Christina, in the tone of a person always

governed by amiability. "Where did you hear that?"

"I don't really know. I'll trace it for you, if that will make my

peace."

"Thank you, no.--Then you think," said Christina, sharply to both

officials, "that it would do him great good if this woman, whether he's

innocent or guilty, should come forward of her own accord, and repeat

the story of her trouble as she repeated it to him?"

"Undoubtedly!"

"Well, then, she shall!"

"Christina!"

"Miss Hope!"

Christina was inexpressibly grave; she trembled a little, but her voice

was firm. "What must be, must be!" she said.

"But, Miss Hope, in person?"

"In person, yes."

"But how, when, where?"

"Very simply. On Friday. At the office of the District Attorney."

"And you can be certain of this?"

"I can."

"You know who she is then?"

"Most assuredly I do."

"Mr. Herrick's terrible shadow?"

"Oh, she needn't bring her shadow, need she?" Christina said.

Ten Euyck, who was just leaving the building, turned and looked at her;

there was always a covert, sullen admiration in his glances at her. "I'm

glad to see your spirits are improving. It's now you who are singing!"

"'Auld acquaintance'--a sad enough song! But my Nancy's favorite! Don't

begrudge it me, Inspector Ten Euyck; it reminds all who love her of kind

hours. '_Should_ auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?'

Good-by, Mr. Ten Euyck." The outside door closed after him, and she said

to the Inspector, "There is something you wish me to identify?"

"Here we are!" said the Inspector. "The experts say she wrote it!"

Christina looked at the four words a long time. The tears rose in her

eyes again. "Yes. She did." She turned to Herrick. "This was what I came

to tell Will last night. My mother had just told me. But now that he's

helpless, he mustn't know!"

"Well?" said the Inspector, and he handed Christina the red lock of

curly hair.

She took it a little gingerly; studying it, as it lay in the palm of her

hand. "Of course, one could be deceived," she said, slowly. "But it's

either her hair or it's exactly like it." She lifted the curl and held

it to the light. She untied the string which bound it, and thinning it

out in her fingers spread it to a soft flame of color. "Oh, surely, it's

her hair--oh, poor little girl!" she cried, and crossed by a sudden

shiver, she let the hair fall from her hand. Swifter than the men about

her she gathered it up again, and again stood studying the tumbled and

scattered little mass. And then Herrick saw a terrible change come over

her face--an immense amazement, mingled almost at once with passionate

incredulity; slowly, the incredulity gave way to conviction and to fear;

and then there swept upon Christina's face a blaze of such anger as

Herrick had never seen in a woman's eyes.

"What is it?" they all cried to her.

She opened her lips, as if to call it forth; but then she seemed to lose

her breath, and, all at once, she slipped down in a dead faint at their

feet.

CHAPTER XIII

THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS: THE PRINCESS IN THE TRANSFORMATION SCENE

If the police believed Christina when she revived enough to say that it

had seemed to her as if the hair were soaked in blood it was more than

Herrick did. He only wondered that they let her go and if they were

perhaps not spreading a net about her as they had spread one about

Denny.

But thereafter she was very composed, allowed herself to be taken

quietly home, and took a sedative so as to get some sleep. Herrick came

in from an errand at four and found the house subdued to the ordinary

atmosphere--high-pressured enough in itself--of the house of an actress

before a big first night.

Down in the drawing-room Mrs. Hope said they must not talk about

anything exciting or Christina would be sure to feel it. But she herself

seemed to feel that the fact of her coming appearance in the Inghams'

box was about the only satisfactory piece of calmness in connection with

her daughter's future. She congratulated herself anew upon the outcome

of an old bout with Christina in which the girl had wished to go to

supper afterward with Wheeler rather than with the devoted Inghams, and

in which Mrs. Hope had unwontedly conquered. She said now that she

wished she had spoken to the Inghams about inviting Herrick; it could

have been arranged so easily.

When Christina came in she allowed herself to be fondly questioned as to

how she felt and even to be petted and pitied. She was perhaps no more

like a person in a dream than she would have been before the same

occasion if Ingham had never been shot; when she spoke at all she varied

between the angelic and the snappish; and before very long she excused

herself and went to her room. She was to have a light supper sent up and

Mrs. Hope adjured Herrick not to worry!

He duly sent his roses and his telegram of good wishes, but that she

could really interest herself in the play at such a time seemed horrible

to him and he arrived at the theater still puzzled and rather resentful

of the intrusion of this unreal issue.

But the first thrill of the lighted lobby, glowing and odorous with the

stands of Christina's flowers; the whirr of arriving motors; the shining

of jeweled and silken women with bare shoulders and softly pluming hair;

the expectant crowd; the managerial staff, in sacrificial evening dress,

smiling nervously, catching their lips with their teeth; the busy

movements of uniformed ushers; the clapping down of seats; the high,

light chatter, a little forced, a little false, sparkling against the

memory of those darker issues that clung about Christina's skirts; the

whole, thrilling, judging, waiting house; all this began to affect

Herrick like strong drink on jaded nerves. From his seat in the third

row he observed Mrs. Hope and the Inghams take their places; the

attention of the audience leaped like lightning on them. Just then one

man came into the box opposite and drawing his chair into its very

front, sat down. It was Cuyler Ten Euyck.

Herrick forgot him quickly enough. It was a real play, acted by real

artists; the production held together by a master hand; and it continued

to string up Herrick's nerves even while to himself he scarcely seemed

to notice it. He had had no idea that it would be so terrible to live

through the moment of Christina's entrance. He sat with his eyes on his

program, suffering her nervousness, feeling under what an awful handicap

she was waiting there, the other side of that painted canvas, to lose

or win. There was the wracking suspense of waiting for her, and then, as

in a dream, the sound of her voice. Her dear, familiar voice! She was

there! She was there; radiant, unshadowed, exulting in the flood of

light, at home, at ease; softly, shyly, proudly bending to the swift

welcome and carrying, after that, the hearts of the audience in her

hand. She had only to go on, now, from triumph to triumph; her sun swam

to the meridian and blazed there with a splendid light. Mrs. Hope with

lowered eyes, breathed deep of a success that passed her dreams; Ten

Euyck, compressing his lips, his arms folded, never took his eyes from

Christina's face. And Bryce Herrick, watching her move, watching her

speak, not accepting this, as did the public, for a gift from heaven,

but aware to the bone of its being all made ground, of the art that had

lifted her as it were from off the wrack into this divine power of

breathing and creating loveliness, could have dropped down before her

and begged to be forgiven.

Who was he to have judged her?--to-day or last night? to have exacted

from her a line of conduct? to have tried to force upon her the motives

and the standards of tame, of ordinary women? He remembered having often

smiled, however tenderly, at her pretensions; not having taken quite

seriously her attitude to her work. And here was a genius of the first

order, whose gifts and whose beauty would remain a happy legend in the

hearts of men when he was dust; whose name youth would carry on its lips

for inspiration when no one would care that he had ever been born! Oh,

dear and beautiful Diana who had stooped to a mortal! For this was the

secret thrill that ran like wildfire through the homage of his

heart--the knowledge that she loved him, and the feel of her lips on

his!

Let them worship, poor creatures, poor mob! Unknowing and unguessing

that between him and her there was a bond that crossed the

footlights--the memory of a dark room and firelight, a girl in his

arms.--"Bryce dear, are we engaged? You haven't said?--I've wanted

you--Oh, how I've wanted you--all my life!"--At the end of the

performance it was impossible not to try to see her; not to get a word

with her, to confess and to have absolution.

But at the stage-door there were so many people that he could not have

endured to share his minute with them. He knew the Babel that it must be

inside, and he decided to wait here; by-and-by the Inghams wouldn't

grudge him a moment. They seemed to stay forever; but at last all were

gone but two or three, and he decided to send in his card. As he stepped

forward the door opened, and Christina, in the oblong of light, stood

drawing on her gloves.

She was dressed as if for a coronation and not even upon the stage had

the effulgence of her beauty seemed so drawn together for conquest. Her

long white gown had threads of silver in it; the white cloak thrown back

from her shoulders did not conceal her lovely throat nor the long string

of diamonds that to Herrick's amazement were twisted round her neck and

fell down along her breast; she carried on one arm a great white sheaf

of orchids, and Iphigenia led to the sacrifice was surely not so pale.

Upon her appearance the closed motor which had been waiting across the

street swept into place. It was a magnificent car, lined with white; the

little curtains at the windows were drawn back and a low electric lamp

showed the swinging vases of orchids and white violets. Christina turned

her eyes from it till they met Herrick's; for a moment they widened as

if galvanized, and then, with a sweet, icy bow, she went right past him.

A man who had jumped out of the motor got in after her, and closed the

door. It was the man who had sat all alone in the stage box; Cuyler Ten

Euyck.

CHAPTER XIV

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

There are violences to nature in which she is reined up so suddenly that

after them we are left stupid rather than unhappy. In such a mood of

held-in turmoil Herrick walked home and waited for to-morrow. His

appointment with Christina was at twelve, noon, and until noon he

struggled not to think at all. Anything was better than thought; yet

nothing would now answer save security--security past, present and

future--a full understanding of her life, of her trouble, of her

actions, of what game she was playing and of what part in it she was

ready to give him. By-and-by the wound began to throb, but he merely

kept it closed with a firm hand. Till noon to-morrow!

With the morning the papers he had ordered, in a time that seemed long

ago, came to his door; he found himself opening them, and tracing the

dazzling streams of Christina's notices. Their flaming praises left him

cold; already they seemed to be written about some one whom he did not

know.

Here, at any rate, was a Christina Hope with whom he could imagine

parting. The greatness of her destiny was full upon her; she seemed

ringed with a cold fire, brilliant as the golden collar of the world and

passible, perhaps, by Cuyler Ten Euycks, but hardly by a young literary

man from the country. Never again, whether she wished or no, could she

be quite the same girl in the gray gown who had sat in a corner of the

coroner's office beside her mother. Hermann Deutch's Miss Christina had

become one of the great successes of all time. And Herrick shrank a

little at the loud clang of her fame.

He was going that morning to the Ingham offices at ten o'clock to sign

his contract. The day was oppressively warm, with hot glints of

sunshine, and it seemed to Herrick that the bright, feverish streets

swarmed with the rumors of Christina's triumph. He wondered if it had

got in to that man in jail and acquainted him with the strange

difference in their fates. His contract meant nothing to him; he got

away as soon as he could. Yet already the atmosphere was changed, the

sky was overcast, and as the clocks about Herald Square struck eleven, a

warm, dusty wind, even now bearing heavy drops of rain, swept down the

street. If Herrick took a car he would reach the Hopes a good half hour

too early, and he had no mind, after walking in the wet, to present

himself in muddied boots and a wilted collar before Christina. He looked

about him. He could choose between hotel bars--where actors might be

talking of her glory--dry goods shops and a moving-picture show. Perhaps

because Christina had gratefully mentioned moving-pictures, he chose the

latter. His longing and dread were so concentrated upon twelve o'clock

that he had no consciousness of buying his ticket. Only of

wondering--wondering--

The place was not yet full enough to be oppressive, and Herrick sat

there in the welcome dark, with the rhythmic pounding of the music

stunning his nerves. He closed his eyes; and immediately there sprang up

before his consciousness the eternal, monotonous procession of

questions--What had she meant last night, by throwing over everything

for Ten Euyck? Why had she fainted at the sight of Nancy Cornish's hair

and what strange bond linked Nancy with Ingham's murder? Why had Nancy

disappeared a few hours before the shot; who had said, in Ingham's room,

"Ask Nancy Cornish," and to whom had they said it? Why had her

visiting-card broken down Christina's earlier evidence, and was that her

scarf which had frightened Christina so, or did it belong to that woman

of the shadow? And who was that woman? Why had an uncontrolled and

variable man, such as Denny had described himself, suffered six hours of

the third degree rather than risk revealing her name? By what authority

did Christina promise to produce her, that very afternoon, at the office

of the District Attorney? Had she made Christina break with Ingham, as

she had made Denny kill him, by that story of his betrayal of her youth?

He felt intuitively that in this woman was the key to the entire

situation. She had created it; she would be found, more than they now

knew, to have controlled it; and she, and perhaps she alone, could solve

its manifold involutions. She had arrived before Denny, she had spoken

boldly and insolently to Joe of Ingham; she had forced herself in upon

him when he did not want her; she had come openly in a white lace

dress--he remembered the lace that hung from the shadow's sleeve--and

made herself as conspicuous as possible--why? And as Herrick asked

himself these questions in the darkness he could almost have believed

himself surrounded by the darkness of that night; the brisk strumming of

the orchestra was not much like Ingham's piano, but it had the same

excited hurry of those last few moments; and Herrick's mind called up

again the light, bright surface of the blind and then the shadow of the

woman cast upon it, lithe and tense, with uplifted arm, the fingers

stiffening in the air. His eyes sprang open, and there before him, on

the pictured screen, among the moving figures of the play, was the same

shadow, with uplifted arm, the fingers spreading and stiffening in the

air. Then in the movement of the scene, the shadow turned clean round

and disclosed Christina's face.

CHAPTER XV

"WHEN STARS GROW COLD"

Herrick sat without moving while the shadows played out their play. But

he saw them no longer. They had begun and ended for him with that

certainty which it seemed to him, now, that he had always felt.

When Christina's film came round again he watched it carefully all

through from the beginning. The play was of some western episode, and he

saw Christina come on, a spare slip of a girl in short skirts and long

braids, a little awkward, a little jerky, like a suspicious colt, and he

observed quite coolly what she had gained in five years. He saw Denny

come on, dressed as a Mexican--cast for the villain even then!--and he

saw for himself how greatly Denny had been her superior in those days,

and all the method and knowledge which she had absorbed from him as she

absorbed everything from everybody; and Herrick smiled there, in the

darkness, to think of it. As the action of the play quickened it shook

the novice from her self-consciousness; the promise of her great talent

began to show; already she did things that were magnificent; and when at

last her wedding was interrupted at the church door by the Mexican's

attempt to claim her as his sweetheart, her fire and fury became superb.

Herrick leaned forward watching. He saw Denny pour out his accusation,

he saw the bridegroom hesitate, he saw Christina sweep round denouncing

them both, saw the lithe, tense length of her, and her proudly lifted

head, saw her suddenly fling one arm up and out in her strange and

splendid gesture of her free, her desperate passion; the hand clenched

for an instant and then the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in

the air. He waited for the shot, but no shot came. Only once more the

shadow turned and revealed the young face of Christina, as she was at

seventeen, and shone upon him through the darkness with Christina's

eyes. Herrick rose to his feet and pushed out of the theater. The

streets were full of wind and rain, but he did not know it, and along

the crowded crossings, among multitudes that he did not see, he had the

luck of the drunken and the blind.

He walked for hours without knowing where he went. His soaked clothes

hung on him like lead and the wind pounded him and made him wrestle with

it, but the burning poison of his thoughts could not be put out by wind

or rain. Towards nightfall he found himself at the door of the house

where he lived, and having nothing else to do, he went in. His

sitting-room was dark and cold; he threw himself into a chair and

lounged there, sodden with fatigue and wet, and staring at the empty

grate. There, when it was all aglow, had she leaned to him and put her

face to his and lied. As she had lied to Ingham, waking on his breast!

As she had lied to Denny, folded in his arms! Harlot and liar, liar and

cheat--oh, liar, liar, liar! For that was the poison in the wound, and

the bitterness beyond death--that not for one hour had she been true!

That flower-sweetness of her dear touch, of her hand in his, was as

corrupt as hell. His dear, wild, brave, demure Diana had never drawn one

breath of life--and the adventuress who wore her masque had all along

laughed at him in her sleeve! If she had only told him! It was a

challenge he could have met and carried; he felt his hand lock on

Christina's, strong to draw her from any quicksand of which she

struggled to be free. But that she should have fooled him and played

with him and led him blindfold, that she should have gone out of her way

to snare and laugh at him--what one of the lies with which she had been

waiting for him this noon could he now believe? She had betrayed and

thrown over Ingham for Denny as she had thrown over Denny for him, and

as she had thrown him over for Ten Euyck! She had played them all four

against each other--them, and how many others!--as in her insatiable

vanity she would yet throw Ten Euyck over for some new fool! She was all

vanity and nothing else; foul in her heart and scheming in her tongue,

cruel, cheating, worthless! Oh, Christina, oh, sweet, my sweet--liar,

liar, liar!--oh, Christina!--you! How could you?

He sprang up; going to his sideboard, he poured out a strong drink of

the raw liquor and drained the glass. And as he stood there, with the

rank fire coursing through his exhaustion, the chilled stiffness of his

body and the heavy reeking damp of his crumpled clothes gave way to a

terrible warm sense of life and pain, and to a hunger, such as he had

never known, for that pain to be eased. Only one thing on earth could

ease it and that was the sight of Christina's face.

He struck a light and looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. In the

mirror opposite he could see his leaden face, stiff with soil and

weariness and framed in his moist, rumpled hair. He looked at it with a

sense of its being very ugly and unseemly, and that the dull red

beginning to creep into it from the whiskey was uglier and unseemlier

still. His body weighed upon him horribly, it seemed to creak and

prickle in its reluctant joints, and to loom up tangibly before him, as

if he saw double. But his spirit was very light and fierce and swift,

and throbbed in him, mad to be out of jail. Mechanically he got his hat,

and started for Christina's theater.

He did not want to speak to her, to have any sort of dealings with her;

but see her he must. It was a need like any other, but stronger than any

other; not to be argued with. Now that he knew her, he must see her.

That would cure him. Let him see her once more and he could forget her

in peace. Something heavy, like his body, told him that this wouldn't

do; this was death and damnation, this would destroy him through and

through! And he replied that he hated her, and would forget her, and

never wished to pass another word with her! But see her this once more,

he must. Once more! Through the night and the pouring rain, the lights

of her theater began to gleam. They gleamed on arriving motors; on high

hats and snowy shirt-fronts, on opera cloaks and jeweled hair. Despite

the storm, the city had driven forth to do homage to the new star. The

candles at Christina's altar were burning high and clear; the lobby, all

brightness and warmth, was filled with delicate rustlings, frou-frous of

light feet and chattering voices and soft, merry sounds, idle

excitement. There was a little sparkle on all faces; the glimmer

reflected from Christina's eyes. In all men's mouths was the sound of

her name. Not last night had been more crowded nor more brilliant.

And Herrick was very quiet and knew quite well how to behave. There

would not be a seat left at the box-office, nor would he appeal to the

management. He pushed to the center of the little crowd around a

speculator; then, clutching his ticket, went in. Just as last night, the

ushers ran up and down the aisles, and the seats clapped into place;

just as last night, he was surrounded by a garden of chiffon and satin

and perfume, of gossip and murmur. The audience, a little nervous, was

waiting to be thrilled. The overture was in, and the music quivered

through Herrick as the drink had done. He sat there very still, muddy

and damp, with a wilted collar, a rough head, and no gloves; there was a

little fixed smile on his lips and he stared at the curtain. He couldn't

see through it. But soon it must go up. He was nothing but one waiting

expectancy.

They played a second overture and this did not surprise him. Then he saw

Wheeler, dressed for the first act, come before the curtain. And his

smile broke. Because the delay was so terrible. Then he realized that

Wheeler was making a speech.

"You can imagine, ladies and gentlemen, with what regret I am obliged to

inform you that there will be no performance this evening. On account of

the sudden illness of Miss Christina Hope the theater will be closed for

to-night." There was something about getting back money at the

box-office.

Herrick continued to sit there, unable to accept what had happened to

him. He wasn't going to see her! It was the snatching back of food from

a starving man; he had laid his lips to the spring in the desert and

found it dry! The thing wasn't possible. All his nature had been running

violently forward, and the shock of its stoppage stupefied him. As for

any concern over Christina's illness, it never occurred to him.

By-and-by he stood a long while on the corner of the street, not knowing

where to go. He was not so lost as to seek Christina in person, and

after his recent vigil there his own rooms were insupportable to him.

Presently some one jostled him, and he was face to face with Wheeler.

"Great God, man!" Wheeler said. "Where have you been! What are you

standing here for! We've been looking for you all afternoon. Called up

your rooms a dozen times! Deutch and Mrs. Hope and I, we've scoured the

city--been to the Tombs, the District Attorney's, Police Headquarters,

everywhere. The Inghams are raving crazy. Ten Euyck's worse. Well, and

how about me? After all it's my loss! Everything's been done that can be

done. By to-morrow morning the whole city of New York'll be hit by a

tornado. This little old town's going to get the shock of its life and

go right off its trolley! Say something! Don't stand there like a stuck

pig! Speak, can't you? Have you got any idea?"

Herrick heard his own voice saying, "Is she so ill?"

"Ill? Heavens and earth--you didn't swallow that drool, did you? Where

have you been? Ill? No, the girl's gone--vanished, kidnapped, run away,

whatever you like. She's disappeared!"

BOOK THIRD

WILL O' THE WISP

CHAPTER I

GLEAMS IN THE RAIN: WHEELER'S STORY

Herrick made no outcry at Wheeler's words. He simply stood looking out

into the wet and windy spaces of Times Square, where the great splashes

of colored lights wavered and shone in manifold reflections on the

gleaming pavement. And a tremendous and ultimate change arose like new

life in his heart.

There is a common human fallacy, touching and perhaps profounder than we

know, by which we instinctively assume any person in danger to be an

innocent person. To both men the missing girl was now in danger. It

occurred no more to Herrick than to Wheeler that Christina, by any

possibility whatever, could have voluntarily deserted a performance.

Something had happened. Inevitably, Herrick remembered the once laughed

at Arm of Justice. Had it known, all along, what the shadow on the

screen had told him to-day? A hundred references of hers, a hundred

inconsistencies, were solved at a stroke. Alone with that insensate

malignity which he had himself encountered, had she now tried to break

some blackmailing game and--lost?--He remembered with a horrid shock

that once let her be identified with the shadow on the blind and in the

eyes of the law she became the perjured witness of a murder, accessory

before and after!--Threatened, thus, on every side, Christina's face

seemed to flower for him there, on the night sky; as once, upon a foggy

afternoon just as the wind began to rise, it had shone on him in the

rainy street--when Christina had first held out her hand to him and

said, "Try to believe that perhaps she was in distress, after all!"

In what hectic hot-house had he been stifling?--It was as though, in

this wild hour of sweeping rain and blowing air, of lights that flashed

and changed in the surrounding darkness, of isolation amid the myriad

noises of the theater traffic and the clanging trolleys, he heard, of a

sudden, Christina's cry for help; as though, running out into the

freedom of the storm, he gained her side of the road and took her hand.

It might be the hand of an outlaw, it was empty, forever, of any love or

hope for him; but he could feel it, now, in his and he did not care

against what world, whether his own or hers, he held it. For their

personal relation was no longer the great thing. The great thing could

be only that somewhere beyond him in the darkness, desperately needing

help, _she was_. And the next thing was to find her.

"Well," he heard himself say to Wheeler in a commonplace voice, "let's

hear about it."

"I want to eat something beside trouble!" Wheeler groaned. "Come in

across the way. Stan's to 'phone there at nine."

Instinctively they chose a table by a window, as though in the great

street she had loved so much and won so lately, they might see her

hurrying by. The restaurant was almost empty, but the news was already

there. It peered out of the cigar-smoke of the men to whom Wheeler

curtly nodded; it questioned them from the waiter's face. "Where'll I

begin?" asked Wheeler. "Well, this afternoon they wouldn't let me see

Denny. But I met Stan, and he told me Chris had jumped her appointment

with Kane, never brought her witness! Partly, I could have choked the

girl--and, partly, I couldn't believe it of her. I called up her house

and I've been jumping ever since." And he poured out a story of haste

and confusion, of friends interrogated, detectives summoned, of a mother

more ignorant than any one and more prostrated.--"God, Herrick, I'm

sick! The girl's such a monkey, up to the last minute I hoped she'd show

up! About seven Kane got me over the coals. Wonder what he's hit the

trail so hard for? He'd had his suspicions of the Park,--the little

Cornish girl was last seen, you remember, going that way--but the police

have searched every bush for hours. The Inghams are all stewed up with

him and Stanley's wished on to him like a burr. The first thing he said

to me was, 'At what time did Mrs. Hope inform you of her daughter's

absence? Don't hesitate--I can remind you. She never informed you at

all!' Was he trying to see if I'd lie to him? What does he think I've

done with her? But funny thing--Mrs. Hope and the Deutches had been

worrying round looking for that girl all day and yet she'd never

consulted me! Look here, it's not possible--No, what cause would she

have to harm herself?--Mrs. Hope blames herself because last night when

Christina didn't come home--You didn't know that? Well, she didn't. Her

mother thought she was at the Deutches, out of temper. You knew she

quarreled with her mother about Ten Euyck? They nearly knifed each

other!"

"For God's sake," said Herrick, "tell me whatever you know!" Across his

shoulder the zest of Broadway seemed to peer and listen. But it was too

late to consider that.

"You see, last night's supper has been delicate ground from the

beginning. Before I knew what the Inghams had planned I asked Christina

to come to supper with me--to bring her mother and any one she liked.

She seemed to be down on Denny since he and that Cornish girl disagreed

and, as a particular bait, I mentioned you. I knew she was interested in

you. And when she isn't interested, the Lord help her host! Well, she

preferred my scheme to the Inghams'--she seems to have shown all along

the most ungodly resistance to their help or countenance in any way! But

I could see, as well as her mother, which was best for my

leading-woman, and she finally gave in. It's remarkable how entirely

one thinks of Christina as the head of the house, and yet how often she

does give in--what an influence her mother has over her when she has any

at all!" He drained his long glass with a sigh. "But last night, right

after the performance, Mrs. Hope comes running into my dressing-room,

well--as I may say, at death's door. Christina was going off to supper

with Ten Euyck. You can understand that I didn't listen to her then as I

should now. She wanted me, as the only person Christina would be likely

to take a word from, to reason with her. I said, 'Yes, yes. By-and-by.'

I only wanted to shut her up, you understand. For just then, in the

first flush of Christina's triumph, I didn't any more think of

interfering with her than with the sun in heaven! I won't say I'd been

rehearsing an angel unawares, but the girl had grown, in that one night,

way out of my sphere. I thought probably Ten Euyck had just prostrated

himself and she'd gone a little off her head, and no wonder! It didn't

seem necessarily so terrible to me. But the old lady is a great stickler

for the proprieties--yes, and for all her talk, Christina has her own

eye on social splendor! It's one thing not to receive people and it's

quite another not to have them call!--When I'd got rid of my friends and

had given Christina time to get rid of hers, I went round to thank her

and congratulate her and at the same time to ask her if she didn't think

she was doing the Inghams a pretty dirty trick. There stood my young

lady dressed out--I was going to say 'to kill'--why, to make Solomon in

all his glory turn pale and fade away! Great Scott!--She looked like the

kingdoms of the earth and the wonders thereof! Christina is always

bewailing the money she owes but you may have noticed that, for a poor

working-girl, she does herself rather well in frocks. Mrs. Hope was

sitting quiet in a corner, quashed, and Christina was humming--'Auld

acquaintance,' if you please!--to herself in front of the glass. 'Auld

acquaintance,' indeed! I thought of Denny, and how he'd stood by this

radiant image through thick and thin--in a way, you might say, made her!

And though you'll forgive a good deal to a first night like that, I

began to agree with the people who say she hasn't any heart. And then I

saw--"

"Yes--"

"I saw she had a long string of diamonds twisted round her neck. 'Great

God, girl!' I said, 'where did those come from?'"

"And she answered?"

Wheeler had been speaking slower and slower and now, for a long time, it

seemed as if he were not going to speak at all. Then "She answered,

'They have come from Cuyler Ten Euyck. But don't breathe it. It has just

killed dear mamma.'"

"Well, go on."

"Her mother got up at that and started to go. But Christina stopped her

at the door and took hold of her arm. 'Mother,' she said, 'what does it

matter? Oh, my poor mother, can't you see that whatever happens we have

done with respectability? It's inevitable, it must be done. And to-night

or to-morrow, what does it matter? Twenty-four hours, one way or the

other, and then--mud to the right of us, mud to the left of us, and unto

dust we shall return!' I thought they were the strangest words that ever

came out of a girl's mouth on the night of what you might call her

coronation!"

"And Mrs. Hope?"

"Mrs. Hope just took her daughter's hand off her arm and walked out of

the door and out of the theater.--Well," said Wheeler, with a deep sigh,

"it wasn't for me to do that. I'm a pretty long way from a Puritan! All

the same, this thing made me sick. 'Chris,' said I, 'don't go with him!

Take off those damned diamonds and tell him to go to hell! You can soon

make diamonds for yourself, old girl!' She looked up, singing, in my

face. And that's the last I saw of her."

"Go on!"

"My boy, you need a drink!"

"And Ten Euyck says--?"

"Oh, poor Ten Euyck--his dignity can't bend, so it's all cracked. He

took her to supper at the Palisades and she left early." The Palisades

was a new roadhouse up the river and the rage of that summer. "The

zealous creature has even run to Kane and disgorged the names of his

guests. So it leaks out that, once the poor soul had unbent so far as to

be seen with an actress, he couldn't be devilish by halves. It seems

miss was annoyed at the character of said guests, as well as at finding

supper served in a private room. So with the offended majesty of an

injured queen, she withdrew to no less public a spot than the entrance

porch. There she sat, swathed in her cloak and with her skirts drawn

about her, till the arrival of the cab she had insisted upon." Wheeler

broke into a laugh. "That girl," he said, "is the devil himself!"

"And that--was that the very--last--?"

"Exactly. There she is, togged out in a white, silky crepe-y, trail-y

dress, embroidered in silver, and a white lace opera cloak. In these

useful and inconspicuous garments, she vanishes." His grim grin soured.

"You know what they'll all say! Kane tells the Inghams she couldn't

catch Ten Euyck so surely as with an irritant. She took, of all ways,

the way to hold him. Why, she left him in public--him, the invulnerable

corrector of women! He'll never rest until she is seen, in public,

hanging on his arm! And then the man values his diamonds at forty

thousand dollars!"

"She drove off alone, at midnight, in a taxicab, with forty thousand

dollars' worth of diamonds round her neck--"

"Yes, and the cabman was discharged this morning for drunkenness! Stan's

to 'phone if they've found him. Oh, but look here--take it slow! She

'phoned Ten Euyck's house at eight this morning and left a message,

openly, with her name! The servant who took the message describes

exactly that trailing voice of hers--'tell him he may come for his

necklace to-night!'"

"Come! Come where?"

"Search me! Or Ten Euyck, either, from the foam on his mouth!--Well,

doesn't that put it up that wherever she 'phoned from they got on to the

diamond necklace. So, where was she? You and I, we know old Chris--we

know, after all, that she just went somewhere for the night on account

of her quarrel with her mother. But, oh, lord, Herrick, who else is

going to believe it? The whole braying pack of this intelligent

world--all it can think of's dirt--the devilish gay sensation of the

whole business! Christina Hope! D'you think there's a bank clerk or a

submissive wife that won't recognize her proper atmosphere at a glance?

You and I and little Stan--a poor author, a profane actor and a brat! In

a few hours that's what her kingdom's crumbled to--'that was so wondrous

sweet and fair!' Police and all, there's the spirit in which they're

going to look for her, and that's going to be one of the worst things in

our way. Well, I'm not a rich man and our precious kid's just about

ruined me this night! But I've done for her what may bust me sky-high

and worth it--I've offered ten thousand for her--safe, you understand!

It ought to be in to-night's late editions, so by now, in one spirit or

the other, this town's out after her like a hound!--Eh? All right! It's

Stan, now!"

Herrick sat there staring into the street. A newsboy ran past with the

last extra of the evening. Two of the interested smokers had just left

the restaurant and now stopped in the rain to buy a paper, opening and

scanning the flapping sheets against the wind. Ah, yes, of course! He,

too, sent for a paper. Yes, there, on the first page--scare headings,

but in itself the meagerest fact. Scarcely even insinuations

yet--"friends fear some serious accident," "friends deny suicide,"

"suspicious circumstance--Ten Euyck necklace"--Wheeler's reward, and

news three hours old. When he looked up the square seemed full of

newsboys; several people as they came into the restaurant had papers in

their hands. She was just news, now; disreputable news! "The town's out

after her like a hound!"--Wheeler's hand was on his shoulder. "No cabman

yet. But they want you, Herrick, on the 'phone."

Stanley's voice told him only to hold the wire. Then a crisper tone

asked pleasantly, "Mr. Herrick? This is Henry Kane. I just wanted to ask

you--you had an appointment with Miss Hope for noon to-day. If you

didn't know she was not at home, why didn't you keep it?"

How sharply the trap bit!

"You've had no communication with her since last evening? Nothing

happened to arouse your anxiety? Nor distrust? No, nothing? And yet,

just as it began to rain, you started for a walk in a light suit--or"

(the telephone itself seemed to give forth a dry smile) "what I am told

was once a light suit, and walked about all day in an equinoctial storm!

Taking yourself to the theater at night without changing, without

shaving, without dining, but still carrying on your person a good deal

of the surface of the earth and of the waters under the earth! Well,

sorry to have disturbed you. Only my dear sir, don't trouble yourself to

conceal too much. Don't fancy yourself the only man in New York who has

been to a moving-picture show." Kane hung up the receiver.

That stunned, sick, silent curse of the man on the wrong side of the

law! This attorney fellow was like a hound after her, too! He, then,

since he was so clever, in God's name let him find her and find

her--soon! It was all he asked!--As Herrick stepped out of the booth

into the corridor of mirrors that ran through the building to the next

street a page boy came briskly up the gilded lane, pattering out a

phrase that washed across Herrick's mind in a wave of sound dimly

familiar; he saw the boy turn into the orangerie and through the

glass-screen he vaguely watched him wend his way between the little

green tables with their golden lamps, lifting his flatted tones into the

orange-scented air so that its mechanical legend was caught by trailing

vines and mingled with the plashing of a little fountain. His mind

aimlessly followled the boy's cry till it was lost in the music of a

mezzanine orchestra hidden in the foliage of a tame tropical jungle!

This was what they called civilization--this trash which had achieved no

mechanism to find her, to protect her! But which could know that she had

been struck out of its midst and yet sit there in its futile nonsense,

stuffing--A voice rose from the velvet lounge beside him in the toneless

delivery of one who reads aloud. It was reading the extra's account of a

gesture in a moving picture show. "The police say that boys began

reporting it before noon, and, the attention of the theater having been

called to the film, its patrons are now offered a thrill of realism by

the piano in the orchestra accompanying the gesture with the march from

Faust. This time, it will be remembered..."

Oh, no doubt it would be remembered! Its exultant shout sounded like the

hunter's cry after her now, winged by Wheeler's offer of ten thousand

dollars! Doubtless the film would be repeated on the morrow, that all

the world might steel its heart as it watched with its own eyes

Christina Hope moving with that motion to that time!

Oh, for something to do! Some untried search, some shrewder question!

Something to do, to suffer, to dare--some clue--some suggestion--Denny!

Had they tried Denny? He who knew so much at the least would set them

right, would know and would tell them that she had never deserted his

cause of her own free will, that he who knew her believed in

her--Wheeler came out into the lobby and took him by the arm. He, too,

had bought a paper and now he held it under Herrick's eyes. "This is why

I couldn't see him, then!" In the Tombs that afternoon, Denny had again

attempted suicide.

So that was how he proclaimed his confidence! He had somehow got hold of

a knife, but the blow aimed at his heart had been averted by a watchful

guard and he had received only fleshwounds--one in the left shoulder,

one in the left forearm. A little ludicrous, a little sickening that a

man so expert in killing another should always bungle about killing

himself! But he had been prompt enough and successful enough in setting

upon the girl who had failed him the brand of his despair! Who would

credit, now, that he did not believe in her flight? Herrick felt a

thickness in his throat; with a longing for fresh, dark spaces he pushed

open a door of the lobby and was confronted by the city, glittering in

wet gold. There, up Long Acre, lay the heart of her world.

And from down where the bronze workmen struck the hours in Herald Square

up past where the gathering streets parted again under a new electric

girl, high in the sky, who winked a knowing colossal eye over a rainbow

cocktail, what faith did it keep with her? Her flight, her shadow on the

screen, they burned in a newer sky-sign, they flashed a fearful but a

more stirring legend! This swept up the thoroughfare that never colors

itself more like Harlequin than in its mirrors of wet asphalt and sped

down every side street starred with theaters where, between the acts,

men gathered and returned with news, and it became clear to thrilling

audiences that so long as there had been nothing against this Christina

Hope she had meant to tell some tale to Kane in Denny's behalf--it would

have been a pretty piece of acting--but the mute witness of the shadow

had broken her down. She had fled from that writing on the screen--even

in the dressing-rooms they would say that! And later, in all these hot,

bright jardins de danse that yesterday were cabarets, these cabarets

that were restaurants yesterday, among the pellucid proprieties of slit

skirts, tango turns, and trotting music it would be said that all along

Denny had kept at least the half of his silence for Christina's sake.

Oh, street of a thousand feverish tongues, how she loved you! And why

did she leave you? Where is she, and where is she? How near, how far?

"Where is she? And how doth she?" There lay her theater; what stroke

could be so heavy as to drive her from that? "The Victors!" Leave "The

Victors!" There were great blurs of light before the billboards. But the

wind tore through them at the boards, struggling to wrench the signs

away. Fierce as it was it was still rising and it ran like a crazy

newsboy whooping through the world, senseless as the cry of the page

that came nearer and nearer. So that Wheeler said, "Good lord, man,

don't you know your own name?"

Yes, that was what the boy had been saying all along--"Herr--ick!

Herr--ick! Mr. Bry--us Herrick!"

"No card, sir. Forty-fifth Street entrance. In a taxi, sir. A lady wants

to speak to you."