Persons Unknown Part 26

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 hoa.r.s.e, 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 nonent.i.ty 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 unG.o.dly 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 sc.r.a.p 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 gra.s.sy 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 circ.u.mstance 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed over Denny's face, but he said nothing. "Good G.o.d!" 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 pa.s.sed 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.