The Day of Days Part 40

In this room--a small interior apartment, plainly furnished as a private office--two people were waiting: a stout, smooth little man with a moustache of foreign extraction, who on better acquaintance proved to be the manager of the establishment; the other Bayard Shaynon, stationed with commendable caution on the far side of the room, the bulk of a broad, flat-topped mahogany desk fencing him off from the wrathful little captive.

"Well?" this last demanded of the detective the moment they were private.

"Take it calm', son, take it calm'," counselled the man, his tone not altogether lacking in good-nature. "There seems to be some question as to your right to attend that party upstairs; we got to investigate you, for the sake of the rep. of the house. Get me?"

P. Sybarite drew a long breath. If this were all that Shaynon could have trumped up to discomfit him--! He looked that one over with the curling lip of contempt.

"I believe it's no crime to enter where you've not been invited, provided you don't force door or window to do it," he observed.

"You admit--eh?" the manager broke in excitedly--"you have no card of invitation, what?"

"I freely admit I have no card of invitation what or whatever."

"Then perhaps you'll explain whatcha doing here," suggested the detective, not without affability.

"Willingly: I came to find a friend--a lady whose name I don't care to bring into this discussion--unless Mr. Shaynon has forestalled me."

"Mr. Shaynon has mentioned a lady's name," said the manager with a significance lost upon P. Sybarite.

"That," he commented acidly, "is much what might have been expected of"--here he lifted his shoulders with admirable insolence--"Mr.

Shaynon."

"You saw this lady, then?" the detective put in sharply.

"Why--yes," P. Sybarite admitted.

"He not only saw her," Shaynon interpolated with a malicious sneer, "but I saw him see her--and saw him get away with it."

"Get away with--what?" P. Sybarite asked blankly.

"Mr. Shaynon," drawled the detective, "says he saw you lift a di'mond brooch off'n Mrs. Addison Strone, while you was in the elevator."

And while P. Sybarite gaped, thunderstruck and breathless with the rage excited by this groundless accusation, the detective looked to Shaynon for confirmation.

"I stood behind him in the elevator, coming down, ten minutes or so ago," the latter stated heavily. "Mrs. Addison Strone was immediately in front of him. The cage was badly crowded--no one could move. But practically every one else was with friends, you understand--laughing, talking, paying no attention to this--ah--creature. As I got in, I noticed that Mrs. Strone's brooch, a gold bar set with several large diamonds, was apparently loose--pin had parted from the catch, you know--and meant to warn her she was in danger of losing it; but I couldn't, without shouting over this fellow's head, so waited until we got out; and then, when I managed to get to her, the brooch was gone.

Later, I remembered this--fellow--and looking round the lobby, saw him in a corner, apparently concealing something about his person. So I spoke to you about it."

P. Sybarite's face settled into grim lines. "Shaynon," he said slowly, without visible temper, "this won't get you anything but trouble.

Remember that, when I come to pay you out--unless you'll have the grace to retract here and now."

As if he had not heard, Shaynon deliberately produced a gold case, supplied himself with a cigarette, and lighted it.

"Meanin', I take it," the detective interpolated, "you plead not guilty?"

P. Sybarite nodded curtly. "It's a lie, out of whole cloth," he declared. "You've only to search me. I'm not strong for that--mind--and I'm going to make the lot of you smart for this indignity; but I'm perfectly willing to prove my innocence now, by letting you search me, so long as it affords me an earlier opportunity to catch Mister Shaynon when he hasn't got you to protect him."

"That's big talk," commended the detective, apparently a little prepossessed; "and it's all to the good if you can back it up." He rose. "You don't mind my going through your pockets--sure?"

"Go ahead," P. Sybarite told him shortly.

"To save time," Shaynon suggested dispa.s.sionately, "you might explore his coat-tail pockets first. It was there that I saw him put away the brooch."

Nervously in his indignation, P. Sybarite caught his coat-tails from beneath his Inverness, dragged them round in front of him, and fumbling, found a pocket.

Groping therein, his fingers brushed something strange to him--a small, hard, and irregular body which, escaping his clutches, fell with a soft thud to the carpet at his feet.

Transfixed, he stared down, and gulped with horror, shaken by a sensation little short of nausea, as he recognised in the object--a bar of yellow metal studded with winking brilliants of considerable size--the brooch described by Shaynon.

With a noncommittal grunt, the detective stooped and retrieved this d.a.m.ning bit of evidence, while the manager moved quickly to his side, to inspect the find. And P. Sybarite looked up with blank eyes in a pallid, wizened face in time to see Shaynon bare his teeth--his lips curling back in a manner peculiarly wolfish and irritating--and snarl a mirthless laugh.

It was something inopportune; the man could have done no better than keep his peace; left to himself P. Sybarite would in all probability have floundered and bl.u.s.tered and committed himself inextricably in a mult.i.tude of hasty and ill-considered protestations.

But that laugh was as good as a douche of cold water in his face. He came abruptly to his senses; saw clearly how this thing had come to pa.s.s: the temptation of the loose brooch to Shaynon's fingers itching for revenge, while they stood so near together in the elevator, the opportunity grasped with the avidity of low cunning, the brooch transferred, under cover of the crush, to the coat-tail pocket.

Mute in this limpid comprehension of the circ.u.mstances, he sobered thoroughly from sickening consternation; remained in his heart a foul sediment of deadly hatred for Shaynon; to whom he nodded with a significance that wiped the grimace from the man's face as with a sponge. Something clearly akin to fear informed Shaynon's eyes. He sat forward with an uneasy glance at the door.

And then P. Sybarite smiled sunnily in the face of the detective.

"Caught with the goods on, eh?" he chirped.

"Well," growled the man, dashed. "Now, what do _you_ think?"

"I'm every bit as much surprised as you are," P. Sybarite confessed.

"Come now--be fair to me--own up: you didn't expect to see that--did you?"

The detective hesitated. "Well," he grudged, "you did have me goin'

for a minute--you were so d.a.m.n' c.o.c.k-sure--and it certainly is pretty slick work for an amateur."

"You think I'm an amateur--eh?"

"I guess I know every map in the Rogues' Gallery as well's the palm of my hand!"

"And mine is not among them?" P. Sybarite insisted triumphantly.

The detective grunted disdain of this inconclusive argument: "You all've got to begin. It'll be there to-morrow, all right."

"It looks bad, eh--not?" the manager questioned, his predacious eyes fixed greedily upon the trinket.

"You think so?" P. Sybarite purposefully misinterpreted. "Let me see."

Before the detective could withdraw, P. Sybarite caught the brooch from his fingers.

"Bad?" he mused aloud, examining it closely. "Phony? Perhaps it is.

Looks like _Article de Paris_ to me. See what you think."

He returned the trinket indifferently.

"Nonsense!" Shaynon interposed incisively. "Mrs. Strone's not that kind."