The Cinema Murder Part 20

"That's very nice of you, Mr. Fink," Philip declared. "Now I am sure you all want your supper."

At a sign from Philip, the maitre d'hotel handed round the tray of c.o.c.ktails. Mr. Fink raised his gla.s.s.

"Here's success to the play," he exclaimed, "and good luck to all of us!"

He tossed off the contents of the gla.s.s and they all followed his example. Then they took their places at the little round table and the service of supper began. The conversation somewhat naturally centered around Philip. The three strangers were all interested in his personality and the fact that he had no previous work to his credit. It was unusual, almost dramatic, and for a time both Elizabeth and he himself found themselves hard put to it to escape the constant wave of good-natured but very pertinent questions.

"You'll have a dose of our newspapermen to-morrow, sir," Mr. Fink promised him. "They'll be buzzing around you all day long. They'll want to know everything, from where you get your clothes and what cigarettes you smoke, to how you like best to do your work and what complexioned typist you prefer. They're some boys, I can tell you."

Philip's eyes met Elizabeth's across the table. The same instinct of disquietude kept them both, for a moment, silent.

"I am afraid," Elizabeth sighed, "that Mr. Ware will find it rather hard to appreciate some of our journalistic friends."

"They're good fellows," Mr. Fink declared heartily, "white men, all of them. So long as you don't try to put 'em off on a false stunt, or anything of that sort, they'll sling the ink about some. Ed Harris was in my room just after the second act, and he showed me some of his stuff. I tell you he means to boost us."

Elizabeth laid her hand upon her manager's arm.

"They're delightful, every one of them," she agreed, "but, Mr. Fink, you have such influence with them, I wonder if I dare give you just a hint?

Mr. Ware has pa.s.sed through some very painful times lately. He is so anxious to forget, and I really don't wonder at it myself. I am sure he will be delighted to talk with all of them as to the future and his future plans, but do you think you could just drop them a hint to go quietly as regards the past?"

Mr. Fink was a little perplexed but inclined to be sympathetic. He glanced towards Philip, who was deep in conversation with Sara Denison.

"Why, I'll do my best, Miss Dalstan," he promised. "You know what the boys are, though. They do love a story."

"I am not going to have Mr. Ware's story published in every newspaper in New York," Elizabeth said firmly, "and the newspaper man who worms the history of Mr. Ware's misfortunes out of him, and then makes use of it, will be no friend of mine. Ask them to be sports, Mr. Fink, there's a dear."

"I'll do what I can," he promised. "Mr. Ware isn't the first man in the world who has funked the limelight, and from what I can see of him it probably wasn't his fault if things did go a little crooked in the past.

I'll do my best, Miss Dalstan, I promise you that. I'll look in at the club to-night and drop a few hints around."

Elizabeth patted his hand and smiled at him very sweetly. The conversation flowed back once more into its former channels, became a medley of confused chaff, disjointed streams of congratulation, of toast-drinking and pleasant speeches. Then Mr. Fink suddenly rose to his feet.

"Say," he exclaimed, "we've all drunk one another's healths. There's just one other friend I think we ought to take a gla.s.s of wine with. Gee, he'd give something to be with us to-night! You'll agree with me, Miss Dalstan, I know. Let's empty a full gla.s.s to Sylva.n.u.s Power!"

There was a curious silence for a second or two, then a clamour of a.s.senting voices. For a single moment Philip felt a sharp pang at his heart. Elizabeth was gazing steadily out of the room, a queer tremble at her lips, a look in her eyes which puzzled him, a look almost of fear, of some sort of apprehension. The moment pa.s.sed, but her enthusiasm, as she raised her gla.s.s, was a little overdone, her gaiety too easily a.s.sumed.

"Why, of course!" she declared. "Fancy not thinking of Sylva.n.u.s!"

They drank his health noisily. Philip set down his gla.s.s empty. A curious instinct kept his lips sealed. He crushed down and stifled the memory of that sudden stab. He did not even ask the one natural question.

"Say, where is Sylva.n.u.s Power these days?" Mr. Fink enquired.

"In Honolulu, when last I heard," Elizabeth replied lightly, "but then one never knows really where he is."

Philip became naturally the central figure of the little gathering. Mr.

Fink was anxious to arrange a little dinner, to introduce him to some fellow workers. Noel Bridges insisted upon a card for the Lambs Club and a luncheon there. Philip accepted gratefully everything that was offered to him. It was no good doing things by halves, he told himself. The days of his solitude were over. Even when, after the departure of his guests, he glanced for a moment into the anteroom beyond and remembered those few throbbing moments of suspense, they came back to him with a curious sense of unreality--they belonged, surety, to some other man, living in some other world!

"You are happy?" Elizabeth murmured, as she took his arm and they waited in the portico below for her automobile.

He had no longer any idea of telling her of that disquieting visit. The touch of her hair blown against his cheek, as he had helped her on with her cloak, something in her voice, some slight diffidence, a queer, half expostulating look in the eyes that fell with a curious uneasiness before his, drove every thought of future danger out of his mind. He had at least the present! He answered without a moment's hesitation.

"For the first time in my life!"

She gave the chauffeur a whispered order as she stepped into the car.

"I have told him to go home by Riverside Drive," she said, as they glided off. "It is a little farther, and I love the air at this time of night."

He clasped her fingers--suddenly felt, with the leaning of her body, her heart beating against his. With that wave of pa.s.sion there was an instant and portentous change in their att.i.tudes. The soft protectiveness which had sometimes seemed to shine out of her face, to envelop him in its warmth, had disappeared. She was no longer the stronger. She looked at him almost with fear, and he was electrically conscious of all the vigour and strength of his stunted manhood, was master at last of his fate, accepting battle, willing to fight whatever might come for the sake of the joy of these moments. She crept into his arms almost humbly.

CHAPTER III

The success of "The House of Shams" was as immediate and complete as was the social success of its author. After a few faint-hearted attempts, Philip and Elizabeth both agreed that the wisest course was to play the bold game--to submit himself to the photographer, the interviewer, and, to some judicious extent, to the wave of hospitality which flowed in upon him from all sides. He threw aside, completely and utterly, every idea of leading a more or less sheltered life. His photograph was in the Sunday newspapers and the magazines. It was quite easy, in satisfying the appet.i.te of journalists for copious personal details, especially after the hints dropped by Mr. Fink, to keep them carefully off the subject of his immediate past. There had been many others in the world who, on attaining fame, had preferred to gloss over their earlier history. It seemed to be tacitly understood amongst this wonderful freemasonry of newspaper men that Mr. Merton Ware was to be humoured in this way. He was a man of the present. Character sketches of him were to be all foreground. But, nevertheless, Philip had his trials.

"Want to introduce you to one of our chief 'movie' men," Noel Bridges said to him one day in the smoking room of "The Lambs." "He is much interested in the play, too. Mr. Raymond Greene, shake hands with Mr.

Merton Ware."

Mr. Raymond Greene, smiling and urbane, turned around with outstretched hand, which Philip, courteous, and with all that charm of manner which was making him speedily one of the most popular young men in New York, grasped cordially.

"I am very happy to meet you, Mr. Greene," he said. "You represent an amazing development. I am told that we shall all have to work for you presently or find our occupation gone."

With a cool calculation which had come to Philip in these days of his greater strength, he had purposely extended his sentence, conscious, although apparently he ignored the fact, that all the time Mr. Raymond Greene was staring in his face with a bewilderment which was not without its humorous side. He was too much a man of the world, this great picture producer, to be at a loss for words, to receive an introduction with any degree of clumsiness.

"But surely," he almost stammered, "we have met before?"

Philip shook his head doubtfully.

"I don't think so," he said, "As a matter of fact, I am sure we haven't, because you are one of the men whom I hoped some day to come across over here. I couldn't possibly have forgotten a meeting with you."

Mr. Raymond Greene's blue eyes looked as though they saw visions.

"But surely," he expostulated, "the _Elletania_--my table on the _Elletania_, when Miss Dalstan crossed--"

Philip laughed easily.

"Why," he exclaimed, "are you going to be like the others and take me for--wasn't it Mr. Romilly?--the man who disappeared from the Waldorf?

Why, I've been tracked all round New York because of my likeness to that man."

"Likeness!" Mr. Raymond Greene muttered. "Likeness!"

There was a moment's silence. Then Mr. Greene knew that the time had arrived for him to pull himself together. He had carried his bewilderment to the very limits of good breeding.

"Well, well!" he continued. "Fortunately, it's six o'clock, and I can offer you gentlemen a c.o.c.ktail, for upon my word I need it! Come to look at you, Mr. Ware, there's a trifle more what I might term _savoir faire_, about you. That chap on the boat was a little crude in places, but believe me, sir," he went on, thrusting his arm through Ware's and leading him towards the bar, "you don't want to be annoyed at those people who have mistaken you for Romilly, for in the whole course of my life, and I've travelled round the world a pretty good deal, I never came across a likeness so entirely extraordinary."

"I have heard other people mention it," Noel Bridges intervened, "although not quite with the same conviction as you, Mr. Greene.

Curiously enough, however, the photograph of Romilly which they sent out from England, and which was in all the Sunday papers, didn't strike me as being particularly like Mr. Ware."

"It was a d.a.m.ned bad photograph, that," Mr. Raymond Greene p.r.o.nounced. "I saw it--couldn't make head nor tail of it, myself. Well, the world is full of queer surprises, but this is the queerest I ever ran up against.

Believe me, Mr. Ware, if this man Romilly who disappeared had been a millionaire, you could have walked into his family circle and been made welcome at the present moment. Why, I don't believe his own wife or sister, if he had such appendages, would have been able to tell that you weren't the man."