Tales from Bohemia Part 31

"You're not very complimentary, Doctor Haslam. Perhaps you don't think that being jilted by me is sufficient to make a man commit suicide."

"Frankly I don't. If I had thought so three years ago, I'd be dust or ashes at this present moment. It can't be that you would feel hurt if Tom Appleton there should fail to keep his oath and should continue to live in spite of your renunciation of him?"

"How dare you think me so vain and cruel, when I've taken all this trouble and come all this distance simply to prevent him from keeping his oath?"

"But how in the world would you prevent him if he were honestly bent on getting rid of himself?"

"By watching him until the moment he makes the attempt, and then rushing up and telling him that I'd renew our engagement. That would stop him, and gain time for me to manage so that he'd fall in love with some other girl and release me of his own accord."

"But think a moment. You can watch him until the opera is out and perhaps for some time later. But if he means to die he certainly has a sufficient share of good manners to induce him to die quietly in his own home. So he'll eventually go home. When his door is locked, how are you going to keep your eye on him, and how can you rush to him at the proper moment?"

"I never thought of that."

"No, you're a woman."

She proceeded to do some thinking there upon the stairs.

"Oh," she said, finally, "I know what to do. I'll follow him until he does go home, to make sure he doesn't attempt anything before that time, and then I'll tell the police. They'll watch him."

"You'll probably get Mr. Tom Appleton into some very embarra.s.sing complications by so doing."

"What if I do," she said, heroically, "if I save his life? Now, will you a.s.sist me to watch him? I'll need an escort in the street, of course."

"I put myself at your command from now henceforth, if only for the joy of the time that I am thus privileged to pa.s.s with you."

She smiled pleasantly, and with pleasure, trusting to her veil to hide the facial indication of her feelings. But Haslam's trained gray eye noted the smile, and also what kind of smile it was, and the discovery had a potent effect upon him. It deprived him momentarily of the power of speech, and he looked vacantly at her while colour came and went in his face.

Then he regained control of himself and he sighed audibly, while she dropped her eyes.

They were still standing upon the stairs, heedless of the confusion of vocal sounds that arose from the lobby strollers, from the boys selling librettos, from the people returning from the vestibule in a thick stream, from the musicians afar in the orchestra, tuning their instruments, from the many sources that provide the delightful hubbub of the entr'acte.

"Hush!" said Amy to Haslam. "Stand in front of me, so that Tom won't see me if he looks up here as he pa.s.ses. He's coming this way."

Young Appleton, chaffing with the persons whom he had met at the exit, was sharing in the general movement from the byways of the lobby to the middle entrance of the parquet. The electric bell in the vestibule had sounded the signal that the third act was to begin. Mr. Hinrichs had returned to the director's stand in the orchestra and was raising his baton.

Arrived at the middle entrance, Appleton raised his hat to those with whom he had been talking, as if not intending to go in just then.

Mr. Hinrichs's baton tapped upon the stand, the music began, and the curtain rose.

"Why doesn't he go in?" whispered Amy, alluding to Appleton.

But the young man yawned, looked at his watch, and departed from the lobby--not to the auditorium, but out to the vestibule.

"He's going to leave the theatre," said Miss Winnett, excitedly. "We must follow."

And she tripped hastily down the stairs, Haslam after her.

II

_A Triangular Chase_

Tom Appleton sauntered out through the great vestibule, turning his eyes casually from the marble floor up to the balconies that look down from aloft upon this outer lobby. He was whistling an air from "Apollo" which he had heard a few weeks before at the New York Casino.

He hastened his steps when he saw a 'bus pa.s.sing down Broad Street. A leap down the Grand Opera House steps and a lively run enabled him to catch the 'bus before it reached Columbia Avenue. He clambered up to the top and was soon being well shaken as he enjoyed the breeze and the changing view of the handsome residences on North Broad Street.

Haslam's sharp eyes took note of Appleton's action.

"He's on that 'bus," said the doctor to Amy as she took his arm on the sidewalk. "Shall we take the next one?"

"No; for then we can't see where he gets off. Can't we find a cab?"

"There's none in sight. We can have one called here, but we'll have to wait for it at least ten minutes."

"That will never do. To think he could elude us so easily, without even knowing that we're after him!"

Vexation was stamped upon the dainty face, with its soft brown eyes, as she raised her veil.

"Ah! I have it," said Haslam, who would have gone to great lengths to drive that vexation away.

"A bicycle! This section teems with bicycle shops. We can hire a tandem.

It's a good thing we're both expert bicyclists."

"And that I'm suitably dressed for this kind of a race," replied Amy, as the two hurried down the block.

She stood outside the bicycle store and kept her gaze upon the 'bus, which was growing less and less distinct to the eye as it rolled down the street, while Haslam hastily engaged a two-seated machine.

The 'bus had not yet disappeared in the darkness when the pursuers, Amy upon the front seat, glided out from the sidewalk and down over the asphalt. The pa.s.sage became rough below Columbia Avenue, where the asphalt gives away to Belgian block paving. Haslam's athletic training and the acquaintance of both with the bicycle served to minimize this disadvantage.

The frequent stoppages of the 'bus made it less difficult for them to keep in close sight of it. Conversation was not easy between them.

Both kept silence, therefore, their eyes fixed upon the 'bus ahead, and carefully watching its every stop.

"You're sure he hasn't gotten off yet?" she asked, at Girard Avenue.

"Certain."

"He's probably going to his rooms down-town."

"Or to his club."

So they pressed southward. Before them stretched the lone vista of electric lights away down Broad Street to the City Hall invisible in the night.

The difficulty of talking made thinking more involuntary. Haslam's mind turned back three years. Was it, as he had dared sometimes to fancy, a juvenile capriciousness that had impelled this girl in front of him to reject him when she was seventeen, after having manifested an unmistakable tenderness for him? And now that she was twenty, and had in the meantime rejected several others, and broken one engagement, was it too late to attempt to revive the old spark?

His meditations were suddenly interrupted by an exclamation from the girl herself.

"Look! He's left the 'bus. He's going into the Park Theatre."