In And Out Part 23

"Did you have it before you talked to Wilkins, there?" pursued Robert, who owned a really keen mind.

"Er--it was just coming on."

"No bad news, old chap?" Vining said, crossing his legs the other way.

Anthony shook his head and smiled again, indicating suffering that was not all simulated.

"No, just the--er--headache," he said. "Comes on suddenly, you know, and settled in the back of my head and neck. There is only one thing that can be done for it and that is a steady ma.s.sage. Perhaps you'd do that for me, Johnson?"

"Sure," said Johnson Boller, whose eyes shot two questions to the second. "Sit down and we can go on talking while I rub."

"Well, I have to lie down for this," Anthony explained. "On the bed, you know, and it's--well, it is likely to take an hour or more. You wouldn't care to wait around, Bob?"

Mr. Vining gazed steadily at him. No refined intuition was necessary to tell Anthony that it was not his morning for tactful dismissals. This effort, evidently, had carried the delicate touch of a blow from a baseball bat, for Robert, flushing slightly, spoke with unpleasant crispness:

"No, I couldn't wait, I'm sure. And while I don't understand it, of course, I'm sure I'm sorry to have intruded. Good-by."

"You--haven't intruded," Anthony cried. "Only----"

"Well, don't bother explaining," said young Mr. Vining. "I beg your pardon for breaking in and--good morning."

Wherewith he stalked out to the corridor, removed his hat from the rack without the a.s.sistance of Wilkins and, opening the door himself, closed it after him with a careful lack of force that was more expressive than any slam.

"Gone off mad!" Johnson Boller said.

"I can't help it!" Anthony said miserably.

"Nice chap, too! Too bad to offend him that way," Mr. Boller pursued meditatively. "Friends are few and far between in this sad old world, Anthony, and a queer d.i.c.k like you--rich or poor--has trouble hanging on to the few he makes. Oh, I don't mean to be nasty, you know; I'm just telling you. Well, come and have your head rubbed."

Anthony collapsed into his chair.

"There's nothing wrong with my head," he said. "That was the first lie I could think of, Johnson, to get him out of here. He had to go!"

"Why?"

"She said so," Anthony informed him, with a ghastly little smile. "She's engaged to him!"

"To Bob Vining?"

"Yes!"

Johnson Boller whistled softly and, elevating his eyebrows, thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and looked at Anthony with new commiseration.

"Too bad, that!" said he. "Too bad for you that it should have been a chap of the Vining type."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, sooner or later, he may find out. The chances are that he _will_ find out just what you've done to that girl," Boller went on contemplatively. "It's just about as she says, too. If he was a fool, you could fool him, one way or another. Or if he was a little snide, Anthony, you could talk him off or bribe him off--but it'll never be like that with Bob. He'll never take any account of the circ.u.mstances; he'll just s.n.a.t.c.h out the gun and let fly!"

"Rot!" Anthony said thinly.

Johnson Boller's face grew grave and more grave. He sighed and looked over Anthony's head for a little and then, reaching a decision, he looked at him suddenly.

"Old chap," he said kindly.

"Well?"

"I don't want to worry you, but perhaps it is better for you to know--now. And I wish you wouldn't mention it, because Bob told me once, two years ago, and showed it to me in a sort of burst of confidence."

"Showed you what?"

"Down at the base of his thumb, Bob Vining's got _the murderer's cross_!" Johnson Boller said huskily.

"Nonsense!" Anthony said sharply.

"It's a fact! The little mark is there, clear as if it had been drawn in with a knife!" said Mr. Boller. "And for another fact--I don't know whether you know this or not, but virtually every murderer who has been executed in the last twenty years in this State, has shown that cross in some form and----"

He stayed the pleasant flow abruptly. From the direction of David's doorway a rustle was coming, very softly and cautiously, yet quite distinctly. It paused in the corridor while Mary drew aside a corner of the curtain and looked in--and then Mary was with them and asking:

"Is he gone?"

"Yes," Anthony sighed.

"Was he excited while he was here?"

"Not at all, apparently."

"Then he doesn't know yet that I've disappeared," Mary said calmly, returning to her place at the cleared table. "Isn't he a darling?"

"He is--a very charming fellow," Anthony muttered, thinking of the murderer's cross.

"Did your man take my coffee away?" Mary pursued.

Silently, Anthony rang for his servitor. Silently, Wilkins brought back pot and cup and the little plate of toast; and Mary, a very pleasing little figure indeed, sipped and munched and asked:

"Well, have you determined how I'm to leave?"

Anthony merely stared moodily at her at first. Johnson Boller, though, found his sense of humor overcoming him again. He gazed at Anthony, hair rumpled, eyes fogged with anxiety such as he rarely knew, and presently Johnson Boller was vibrating again. One merry little wheeze escaped and earned a glare from Anthony, another followed it--and after that Johnson Boller sat back and haw-hawed frankly until Anthony spoke.

"So far, I have been thinking of the ways in which you cannot leave," he admitted tartly. "If you'd consent to try my clothes and----"

"Umum," said Mary, shaking her head. "No, no!"

"Then frankly, I don't know what to suggest," said the master of the apartment. "You are not invisible. You cannot walk through the office without being seen, Miss Mary--and once you have done that be sure that your face will be registered in the memory of the employees. You have no idea of moving from New York, I take it?"

"Hardly."

"Then since you will be about town for years, may I point out that each man who sees you will remember, also for years, that you left one of these apartments and----"