The Cinema Murder Part 26

"Nothing," he answered.

"I want to go out of the city--into the country, at once," she told him feverishly. "The car is waiting. I ordered it for a quarter to eleven.

Let us start."

"Of course, if you wish it," he a.s.sented.

He opened the door but before she pa.s.sed through he leaned towards her.

She shook her head. His heart sank. What could there be more ominous than this!

"I am not well," she muttered. "Don't take any notice of anything I say or do for a little time. I am like this sometimes--temperamental, I suppose. All great actresses are temperamental. I suppose I am a great actress. Do you think I am, Philip?"

He was following her down-stairs now. He found it hard, however, to imitate the flippancy of her tone.

"The critics insist upon it," he observed drily. "Evidently your audience last night shared their opinion."

She nodded.

"I love them to applaud like that, and yet--audiences don't really know, do they? Perhaps--"

She relapsed into silence, and they took their places in the car. She settled herself down with a little sigh of content and drew the rug over her.

"As far as you can go, John," she told the man, "but you must get back at six o'clock. The country, mind--not the sh.o.r.e."

They started off.

"So you were there last night?" she murmured, leaning back amongst the cushions with an air of relief.

"I was there for a few moments. I wrote my note to you in the box office."

She shook the memory away.

"And afterwards?"

"I went to one of the clubs down-town."

"What did you do there?" she enquired. "Gossip?"

"Some of the men were very kind to me," he said. "I had supper with Noel Bridges, amongst others."

"Well?" she asked, almost defiantly.

"I don't understand."

She looked intently at him for a moment.

"I forgot," she went on. "You are very chivalrous, aren't you? You wouldn't ask questions.... See, I am going to close my eyes. It is too horrible here, and all through Brooklyn. When we are in the lanes I can talk. This is just one of those days I wish that we were in England. All our country is either suburban or too wild and restless. Can you be content with silence for a little time?"

"Of course," he a.s.sured her. "Besides, you forget that I am in a strange country. Everything is worth watching."

They pa.s.sed over Brooklyn Bridge, and for an hour or more they made slow progress through the wide-flung environs of the city. At last, however, the endless succession of factories and small tenement dwellings lay behind them. They pa.s.sed houses with real gardens, through stretches of wood whose leaves were opening, whose branches were filled with the sweet-smelling sap of springtime. Elizabeth seemed to wake almost automatically from a kind of stupor. She pushed back her veil, and Philip, stealing eager glances towards her, was almost startled by some indefinable change. Her face seemed more delicate, almost the face of an invalid, and she lay back there with half-closed eyes. The strength of her mouth seemed to have dissolved, and its sweetness had become almost pathetic. There were signs of a great weariness about her. The fingers which reached out for the little speaking-tube seemed to have become thinner.

"Take the turn to the left, John," she instructed, "the one to Bay Sh.o.r.e.

Go slowly by the lake and stop where I tell you."

They left the main road and travelled for some distance along a lane which, with its bramble-grown fences and meadows beyond, was curiously reminiscent of England. They pa.s.sed a country house, built of the wood which was still a little unfamiliar to Philip, but wonderfully homelike with its cl.u.s.ter of outbuildings, its trim lawns, and the turret clock over the stable entrance. Then, through the leaves of an avenue of elms, they caught occasional glimpses of the blue waters of the lake, which they presently skirted. Elizabeth's eyes travelled over its placid surface idly, yet with a sense of pa.s.sive satisfaction. In a few minutes they pa.s.sed into the heart of a little wood, and she leaned forward.

"Stop here, close to the side of the road, John. Stop your engine, please, and go and sit by the lake."

The man obeyed at once with the unquestioning readiness of one used to his mistress' whims. For several minutes she remained silent. She had the air of one drinking in with almost pa.s.sionate eagerness the sedative effect of the stillness, the soft spring air, the musical country sounds, the ripple of the breeze in the trees, the humming of insects, the soft splash of the lake against the stony sh.o.r.e. Philip himself was awakened into a peculiar sense of pleasure by this, almost his first glimpse of the country since his arrival in New York. A host of half forgotten sensations warmed his heart. He felt suddenly intensely sympathetic, perhaps more genuinely tender than he had ever felt before towards the woman by his side, whose hour of suffering it was. His hand slipped under the rug and held her fingers, which clutched his in instantaneous response. Her lips seemed unlocked by his slight action.

"I came here alone two years ago," she told him, "and since then often, sometimes to study a difficult part, sometimes only to think. One moment."

She released her fingers from his, drew out the hatpins from her hat, unwound the veil and threw them both on to the opposite seat. Then she laid her hands upon her forehead as though to cool it. The little breeze from the lake rippled through her hair, bringing them every now and then faint whiffs of perfume from the bordering gardens.

"There!" she exclaimed, with a little murmur of content. "That's a man's action, isn't it? Now I think I am getting brave. I have something to say to you, Philip."

He felt her fingers seeking his again and held them tightly. It was curious how in that moment of crisis his thoughts seemed to wander away.

He was watching the little flecks of gold in her hair, wondering if he had ever properly appreciated the beautiful curve of her neck. Even her voice seemed somehow attuned to the melody of their surroundings, the confused song of the birds, the sighing of the lake, the pa.s.sing of the west wind through the trees and shrubs around.

"Philip," she began, clinging closely to him, "I have brought you here to tell you a story which perhaps you will think, when you have heard it, might better have been told in my dressing-room. Well, I couldn't.

Besides, I wanted to get away. It is about Sylva.n.u.s Power."

He sat a little more upright. His nerves were tingling now with eagerness.

"Yes?"

"I met him," she continued, "eight years ago out West, when I was in a travelling show. I accepted his attentions at first carelessly enough. I did not realise the sort of man he was. He was a great personage even in those days, and I suppose my head was a little turned. Then he began to follow us everywhere. There was a scandal, of course. In the end I left the company and came to New York. He went to China, where he has always had large interests. When I heard that he had sailed--I remember reading it in the paper--I could have sobbed with joy."

Philip moved a little uneasily in his place. Some instinct told him, however, how greatly she desired his silence--that she wanted to tell her story her own way.

"Then followed three miserable years, during which I saw little of him. I knew that I had talent, I was always sure of making a living, but I got no further. It didn't seem possible to get any further. Nothing that I could do or say seemed able to procure for me an engagement in New York.

Think of me for a moment now, Philip, as a woman absolutely and entirely devoted to her work. I loved it. It absorbed all my thoughts. It was just the one thing in life I cared anything about. I simply ached to get at New York, and I couldn't. All the time I had to play on tour, and you won't quite understand this, dear, but there is nothing so wearing in life as for any one with my cravings for recognition there to be always playing on the road."

She paused for a few minutes. There was a loud twittering of birds. A rabbit who had stolen carefully through the undergrowth scurried away. A car had come through the wood and swept past them, bringing with it some vague sense of disturbance. It was some little time before she settled down again to her story.

"At the end of those three years," she went on, "Sylva.n.u.s Power had become richer, stronger, more masterful than ever. I was beginning to lose heart. He was clever. He studied my every weakness. He knew quite well that with me there was only one way, and he laid his schemes with regard to me just in the same fashion as he schemed to be a conqueror of men, to build up those millions. We were playing near New York and one day he asked me to motor in there and lunch with him. I accepted. It was in the springtime, almost on such a day as this. We motored up in one of his wonderful cars. We lunched--I remember how shabby I felt--at the best restaurant in New York, where I was waited upon like a queen. Somehow or other, the man had always the knack of making himself felt wherever he went. He strode the very streets of New York like one of its masters and the people seemed to recognise it. Afterwards he took me into Broadway, and he ordered the car to stop outside the theatre where I am now playing. I looked at it, and I remember I gave a little cry of interest.

"'This is the new theatre that every one is talking about, isn't it?' I asked him eagerly.

"'It is,' he answered. 'Would you like to see inside?'

"Of course, I was half crazy with curiosity. The doors flew open before him, and he took me everywhere. You know yourself what a magnificent place it is--that marvellous stage, the auditorium all in dark green satin, the seats like armchairs, the dressing rooms like boudoirs--the wonderful s.p.a.ciousness of it! It took my breath away. I had never imagined such splendour. When we had finished looking over the whole building, I clutched his arm.

"'I can't believe that it isn't some sort of fairy palace!' I exclaimed.

And to think that no one knows who owns the place or when it is going to be opened!'

"'I'll tell you all about that' he answered. 'I built it, I own it, and it will be opened just when you accept my offer and play in it.'