initial commit of ebook 15873HEADmain

1 files changed, 9582 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/15873.txt b/15873.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..50f2553
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15873.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9582 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Day of Days, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Day of Days
+       An Extravaganza
+
+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Illustrator: Arthur William Brown
+
+Release Date: May 20, 2005 [EBook #15873]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAY OF DAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+THE DAY OF DAYS
+
+
+BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
+
+
+THE DAY OF DAYS
+THE DESTROYING ANGEL
+THE BANDBOX
+CYNTHIA-OF-THE-MINUTE
+NO MAN'S LAND
+THE FORTUNE HUNTER
+THE POOL OF FLAME
+THE BRONZE BELL
+THE BLACK BAG
+THE BRASS BOWL
+THE PRIVATE WAR
+TERENCE O'ROURKE
+
+
+[Illustration: "What I want to say is--will you be my guest at the
+theatre tonight?" FRONTISPIECE.]
+
+
+
+THE DAY OF DAYS
+
+_AN EXTRAVAGANZA_
+
+
+
+BY
+
+LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE BRASS BOWL," "THE BLACK BAG," "THE BANDBOX," "THE
+DESTROYING ANGEL," ETC.
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR WILLIAM BROWN
+
+BOSTON
+LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
+
+1913
+
+_Copyright, 1912, 1913_,
+BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE.
+
+_All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign
+languages, including the Scandinavian._
+
+Published, February, 1913
+Reprinted, March, 1913
+
+THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I. THE DUB
+   II. INSPIRATION
+  III. THE GLOVE COUNTER
+   IV. A LIKELY STORY
+    V. THE COMIC SPIRIT
+   VI. SPRING TWILIGHT
+  VII. AFTERMATH
+ VIII. WHEELS OF CHANCE
+   IX. THE PLUNGER
+    X. UNDER FIRE
+   XI. BURGLARY UNDER ARMS
+  XII. THE LADY OF THE HOUSE
+ XIII. RESPECTABILITY
+  XIV. WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD
+   XV. SUCH STUFF AS PLOTS ARE MADE OF
+  XVI. BEELZEBUB
+ XVII. IN A BALCONY
+XVIII. THE BROOCH
+  XIX. NEMESIS
+   XX. NOVEMBER
+  XXI. THE SORTIE
+ XXII. TOGETHER
+XXIII. PERCEVAL UNASHAMED
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"What I want to say is--will you be my guest at the theatre tonight?"
+
+"You are the one woman in a thousand who knows enough to look before
+she shoots!"
+
+Facing her, he lifted his scarlet visor.
+
+He was Red November.
+
+
+
+
+THE DAY OF DAYS
+
+I
+
+THE DUB
+
+
+"Smell," P. Sybarite mused aloud....
+
+For an instant he was silent in depression. Then with extraordinary
+vehemence he continued crescendo: "Stupid-stagnant-sepulchral-
+sempiternally-sticky-Smell!"
+
+He paused for both breath and words--pondered with bended head,
+knitting his brows forbiddingly.
+
+"Supremely squalid, sinisterly sebaceous, sombrely sociable Smell!" he
+pursued violently.
+
+Momentarily his countenance cleared; but his smile was as fugitive as
+the favour of princes.
+
+Vindictively champing the end of a cedar penholder, he groped for
+expression: "Stygian ... sickening ... surfeiting ... slovenly ...
+sour...."
+
+He shook his head impatiently and clawed the impregnated atmosphere
+with a tragic hand.
+
+"_Stench!_" he perorated in a voice tremulous with emotion.
+
+Even that comprehensive monosyllable was far from satisfactory.
+
+"Oh, what's the use?" P. Sybarite despaired.
+
+Alliteration could no more; his mother-tongue itself seemed
+poverty-stricken, his native wit inadequate. With decent meekness he
+owned himself unfit for the task to which he had set himself.
+
+"I'm only a dub," he groaned--"a poor, God-forsaken, prematurely aged
+and indigent dub!"
+
+For ten interminable years the aspiration to do justice to the Genius
+of the Place had smouldered in his humble bosom; to-day for the first
+time he had attempted to formulate a meet apostrophe to that God of
+his Forlorn Destiny; and now he chewed the bitter cud of realisation
+that all his eloquence had proved hopelessly poor and lame and
+halting.
+
+Perched on the polished seat of a very tall stool, his slender legs
+fraternising with its legs in apparently inextricable intimacy; sharp
+elbows digging into the nicked and ink-stained bed of a counting-house
+desk; chin some six inches above the pages of a huge leather-covered
+ledger, hair rumpled and fretful, mouth doleful, eyes disconsolate--he
+gloomed...
+
+On this the eve of his thirty-second birthday and likewise the tenth
+anniversary of his servitude, the appearance of P. Sybarite was
+elaborately normal--varying, as it did, but slightly from one
+year's-end to the other.
+
+His occupation had fitted his head and shoulders with a deceptive but
+none the less perennial stoop. His means had endowed him with a single
+outworn suit of ready-made clothing which, shrinking sensitively on
+each successive application of the tailor's sizzling goose, had come
+to disclose his person with disconcerting candour--sleeves too short,
+trousers at once too short and too narrow, waistcoat buttons straining
+over his chest, coat buttons refusing to recognise a buttonhole save
+that at the waist. Circumstances these that added measurably to his
+apparent age, lending him the semblance of maturity attained while
+still in the shell of youth.
+
+The ruddy brown hair thatching his well-modelled head, his sanguine
+colouring, friendly blue eyes and mobile lips suggested Irish lineage;
+and his hands which, though thin and clouded with smears of ink, were
+strong and graceful (like the slender feet in his shabby shoes) bore
+out the suggestion with an added hint of gentle blood.
+
+But whatever his antecedents, the fact is indisputable that P.
+Sybarite, just then, was most miserable, and not without cause; for
+the Genius of the Place held his soul in Its melancholy bondage.
+
+The Place was the counting-room in the warehouse of Messrs. Whigham &
+Wimper, _Hides & Skins_; and the Genius of it was the reek of hides
+both raw and dressed--an effluvium incomparable, a passionate
+individualist of an odour, as rich as the imagination of an editor of
+Sunday supplements, as rare as a reticent author, as friendly as a
+stray puppy.
+
+For ten endless years the body and soul of P. Sybarite had been thrall
+to that Smell; for a complete decade he had inhaled it continuously
+nine hours each day, six days each week--and had felt lonesome without
+it on every seventh day.
+
+But to-day all his being was in revolt, bitterly, hopelessly mutinous
+against this evil and overbearing Genius....
+
+The warehouse--impregnable lair of the Smell, from which it leered
+smug defiance at the sea-sweet atmosphere of the lower city--occupied
+a walled-in arch of the Brooklyn Bridge, fronting on Frankfort Street,
+in that part of Town still known to elder inhabitants as "the Swamp."
+Above rumbled the everlasting inter-borough traffic; to the right, on
+rising ground, were haunts of roaring type-mills grinding an endless
+grist of news; to the left, through a sudden dip and down a long
+decline, a world of sober-sided warehouses, degenerating into slums,
+circumscribed by sleepy South Street; all, this afternoon, warm and
+languorous in the lazy breeze of a sunny April Saturday.
+
+The counting-room was a cubicle contrived by enclosing a corner of the
+ground-floor with two walls and a ceiling of match-boarding. Into this
+constricted space were huddled two imposing roll-top desks, P.
+Sybarite's high counter, and the small flat desk of the shipping
+clerk, with an iron safe, a Remington typewriter, a copy-press, sundry
+chairs and spittoons, a small gas-heater, and many tottering columns
+of dusty letter-files. The window-panes, encrusted with perennial
+deposits of Atmosphere, were less transparent than translucent, and so
+little the latter that electric bulbs burned all day long whenever the
+skies were overcast. Also, the windows were fixed and set against the
+outer air--impregnable to any form of assault less impulsive than a
+stone cast by an irresponsible hand. A door, set craftily in the most
+inconvenient spot imaginable, afforded both ventilation and access to
+an aisle which led tortuously between bales of hides to doors opening
+upon a waist-high stage, where trucks backed up to receive and to
+deliver.
+
+Immured in this retreat, P. Sybarite was very much shut away from all
+joy of living--alone with his job (which at present nothing pressed)
+with Giant Despair and its interlocutor Ennui, and with that blatant,
+brutish, implacable Smell of Smells....
+
+To all of these, abruptly and with ceremony, Mr. George Bross,
+shipping clerk, introduced himself: a brawny young man in
+shirt-sleeves, wearing a visorless cap of soiled linen, an apron of
+striped ticking, pencils behind both angular red ears, and a smudge of
+marking-ink together with a broad irritating smile upon a clownish
+countenance.
+
+Although in receipt of a smaller wage than P. Sybarite (who earned
+fifteen dollars per week) George squandered fifteen cents on
+newspapers every Sunday morning for sheer delight in the illuminated
+"funny sheets."
+
+In one hand he held an envelope.
+
+Draping himself elegantly over Mr. Wimper's desk, George regarded P.
+Sybarite with an indulgent and compassionate smile and wagged a
+doggish head at him. From these symptoms inferring that his
+fellow-employee was in the throes of a witticism, P. Sybarite cocked
+an apprehensive eye and tightened his thin-lipped, sensitive mouth.
+
+"O you--!" said George; and checked to enjoy a rude giggle.
+
+At this particular moment a mind-reader would have been justified in
+regarding P. Sybarite with suspicion. But beyond taking the pen from
+between his teeth he didn't move; and he said nothing at all.
+
+The shipping clerk presently controlled his mirth sufficiently to
+permit unctuous enunciation of the following cryptic exclamation:
+
+"O you Perceval!"
+
+P. Sybarite turned pale.
+
+"You little rascal!" continued George, brandishing the envelope.
+"You've been cunning, you have; but I've found you out at last....
+_Per_-ce-val!"
+
+Over the cheeks of P. Sybarite crept a delicate tint of pink. His eyes
+wavered and fell. He looked, and was, acutely unhappy.
+
+"You're a sly one, you are," George gloated--"always signin' your name
+'P. Sybarite' and pretendin' your maiden monaker was 'Peter'! But now
+we know you! Take off them whiskers--Perceval!"
+
+A really wise mind-reader would have called a policeman, then and
+there; for mayhem was the least of the crimes contemplated by P.
+Sybarite. But restraining himself, he did nothing more than
+disentangle his legs, slip down from the tall stool, and approach Mr.
+Bross with an outstretched hand.
+
+"If that letter's for me," he said quietly, "give it here, please."
+
+"Special d'liv'ry--just come," announced George, holding the letter
+high, out of easy reach, while he read in exultant accents the
+traitorous address: "'Perceval Sybarite, Esquire, Care of Messrs.
+Whigham and Wimper'! O you Perceval--Esquire!"
+
+"Give me my letter," P. Sybarite insisted without raising his voice.
+
+"Gawd knows _I_ don't want it," protested George. "I got no truck with
+your swell friends what know your real name and write to you on
+per-_fumed_ paper with monograms and everything."
+
+He held the envelope close to his nose and sniffed in ecstasy until it
+was torn rudely from his grasp.
+
+"Here!" he cried resentfully. "Where's your manners?... Perceval!"
+
+Dumb with impotent rage, P. Sybarite climbed back on his stool, while
+George sat down at his desk, lighted a Sweet Caporal (it was after
+three o'clock and both the partners were gone for the day) and with a
+leer watched the bookkeeper carefully slit the envelope and withdraw
+its enclosures.
+
+Ignoring him, P. Sybarite ran his eye through the few lines of notably
+careless feminine handwriting:
+
+  MY DEAR PERCEVAL,--
+
+  Mother & I had planned to take some friends to the theatre to-night
+  and bought a box for the Knickerbocker several weeks ago, but now
+  we have decided to go to Mrs. Hadley-Owen's post-Lenten masquerade
+  ball instead, and as none of our friends can use the tickets, I
+  thought possibly you might like them. They say Otis Skinner is
+  _wonderful_. Of course you may not care to sit in a stage box
+  without a dress suit, but perhaps you won't mind. If you do, maybe
+  you know somebody else who could go properly dressed.
+
+  Your aff'te cousin,
+
+  MAE ALYS.
+
+The colour deepened in P. Sybarite's cheeks, and instantaneous
+pin-pricks of fire enlivened his long-suffering eyes. But again he
+said nothing. And since his eyes were downcast, George was unaware of
+their fitful incandescence.
+
+Puffing vigorously at his cigarette, he rocked back and forth on the
+hind legs of his chair and crowed in jubilation: "Perceval! O you
+great, big, beautiful Perc'!"
+
+P. Sybarite made a motion as if to tear the note across, hesitated,
+and reconsidered. Through a long minute he sat thoughtfully examining
+the tickets presented him by his aff'te cousin.
+
+In his ears rang the hideous tumult of George's joy:
+
+"_Per-ce-val!_"
+
+Drawing to him one of the Whigham & Wimper letterheads, P. Sybarite
+dipped a pen, considered briefly, and wrote rapidly and freely in a
+minute hand:
+
+  MY DEAR MAE ALYS:--
+
+  Every man has his price. You know mine. Pocketing false pride, I
+  accept your bounty with all the gratitude and humility becoming in
+  a poor relation. And if arrested for appearing in the box without
+  evening clothes, I promise solemnly to brazen it out, pretend that
+  I bought the tickets myself--or stole them--and keep the newspapers
+  ignorant of our kinship. Fear not--trust me--and enjoy the masque
+  as much as I mean to enjoy "Kismet."
+
+  And if you would do me the greatest of favours--should you ever
+  again find an excuse to write me on any matter, please address me
+  by the initial of my ridiculous first name only; it is of course
+  impossible for me to live down the deep damnation of having been
+  born a Sybarite; but the indulgence of my friends can save me the
+  further degradation of being known as Perceval.
+
+  With thanks renewed and profound, I remain, all things considered,
+
+  Remotely yours,
+
+  P. SYBARITE.
+
+This he sealed and addressed in a stamped envelope: then thrust his
+pen into a raw but none the less antique potato; covered the red and
+black inkwells; closed the ledger; locked the petty-cash box and put
+it away; painstakingly arranged the blotters, paste-pot, and all the
+clerical paraphernalia of his desk; and slewed round on his stool to
+blink pensively at Mr. Bross.
+
+That gentleman, having some time since despaired of any response to
+his persistent baiting, was now preoccupied with a hand-mirror and
+endeavours to erase the smudge of marking-ink from his face by means
+of a handkerchief which he now and again moistened in an engagingly
+natural and unaffected manner.
+
+"It's no use, George," observed P. Sybarite presently. "If you're in
+earnest in these public-spirited endeavours to--how would you put
+it?--to remove the soil from your map, take a tip from an old hand and
+go to soap and water. I know it's painful, but, believe me, it's the
+only way."
+
+George looked up in some surprise.
+
+"Why, _there_ you are, little Bright Eyes!" he exclaimed with spirit.
+"I was beginnin' to be afraid this sittin' would pass off without a
+visit from Uncle George's pet control. Had little Perceval any message
+from the Other Side th'safternoon?"
+
+"One or two," assented P. Sybarite gravely. "To begin with, I'm going
+to shut up shop in just five minutes; and if you don't want to show
+yourself on the street looking like a difference of opinion between a
+bull-calf and a fountain pen--"
+
+"Gotcha," interrupted George, rising and putting away handkerchief and
+mirror. "I'll drown myself, if you say so. Anythin's better'n letting
+you talk me to death."
+
+"One thing more."
+
+Splashing vigorously at the stationary wash-stand, George looked
+gloomily over his shoulder, and in sepulchral accents uttered the one
+word:
+
+"Shoot!"
+
+"How would you like to go to the theatre to-night?"
+
+George soaped noisily his huge red hands.
+
+"I'd like it so hard," he replied, "that I'm already dated up for an
+evenin' of intellect'al enjoyment. Me and Sammy Holt 'a goin' round to
+Miner's Eight' Avenoo and bust up the show. You can trail if you
+wanta, but don't blame me if some big, coarse, two-fisted guy hears me
+call you Perceval and picks on you."
+
+He bent forward over the bowl, and the cubicle echoed with sounds of
+splashing broken by gasps, splutters, and gurgles, until he
+straightened up, groped blindly for two yards or so of dark grey
+roller-towel ornamenting the adjacent wall, buried his face in its
+hospitable obscurity, and presently emerged to daylight with a
+countenance bright and shining above his chin, below his eyebrows, and
+in front of his ears.
+
+"How's that?" he demanded explosively. "Come off all right--didn't
+it?"
+
+P. Sybarite inclined his head to one side and regarded the outcome of
+a reform administration.
+
+"You look almost naked around the nose," he remarked at length. "But
+you'll do. Don't worry.... When I asked if you'd like to go to the
+theatre to-night, I meant it--and I meant a regular show, at a
+Broadway house."
+
+"Quit your kiddin'," countered Mr. Bross indulgently. "Come along: I
+got an engagement to walk home and save a nickel, and so've you."
+
+"Wait a minute," insisted P. Sybarite, without moving. "I'm in earnest
+about this. I offer you a seat in a stage-box at the Knickerbocker
+Theatre to-night, to see Otis Skinner in 'Kismet.'"
+
+George's eyes opened simultaneously with his mouth.
+
+"Me?" he gasped. "Alone?"
+
+P. Sybarite shook his head. "One of a party of four."
+
+"Who else?" George demanded with pardonable caution.
+
+"Miss Prim, Miss Leasing, myself."
+
+Removing his apron of ticking, the shipping clerk opened a drawer in
+his desk, took put a pair of cuffs, and begun to adjust them to the
+wristbands of his shirt.
+
+"Since when did you begin to snuff coke?" he enquired with mild
+compassion.
+
+"I'm not joking." P. Sybarite displayed the tickets. "A friend sent me
+these. I'll make up the party for to-night as I said, and let you come
+along--on one condition."
+
+"Go to it."
+
+"You must promise me to quit calling me Perceval, here or any place
+else, to-day and forever!"
+
+George chuckled; paused; frowned; regarded P. Sybarite with narrow
+suspicion.
+
+"And never tell anybody, either," added the other, in deadly earnest.
+
+George hesitated.
+
+"Well, it's your _name_, ain't it?" he grumbled.
+
+"That's not my fault. I'll be damned if I'll be called Perceval."
+
+"And what if I keep on?"
+
+"Then I'll make up my theatre party without you--and break your neck
+into the bargain," said P. Sybarite intensely.
+
+"You?" George laughed derisively. "You break _my_ neck? Can the
+comedy, beau. Why, I could eat you alive, Perceval."
+
+P. Sybarite got down from his stool. His face was almost colourless,
+but for two bright red spots, the size of quarters, beneath either
+cheek-bone. He was half a head shorter than the shipping clerk, and
+apparently about half as wide; but there was sincerity in his manner
+and an ominous snap in the unflinching stare of his blue eyes.
+
+"Please yourself," he said quietly. "Only--don't say I didn't warn
+you!"
+
+"Ah-h!" sneered George, truculent in his amazement. "What's eatin'
+you?"
+
+"We're going to settle this question before you leave this warehouse.
+I won't be called Perceval by you or any other pink-eared cross
+between Balaam's ass and a laughing hyena."
+
+Mr. Bross gaped with resentment, which gradually overcame his better
+judgment.
+
+"You won't, eh?" he said stridently. "I'd like to know what you're
+going to do to stop me, Perce--"
+
+P. Sybarite stepped quickly toward him and George, with a growl, threw
+out his hands in a manner based upon a somewhat hazy conception of the
+formulae of self-defence. To his surprise, the open hand of the smaller
+man slipped swiftly past what he called his "guard" and placed a
+smart, stinging slap upon lips open to utter the syllable "val."
+
+Bearing with indignation, he swung his right fist heavily for the head
+of P. Sybarite. Somehow, strangely, it missed its goal and ...
+
+George Bross sat upon the dusty, grimy floor, batted his eyes,
+ruefully rubbed the back of his head, and marvelled at the
+reverberations inside it.
+
+Then he became conscious of P. Sybarite some three feet distant,
+regarding him with tight-lipped interest.
+
+"Good God!" George ejaculated with feeling. "Did _you_ do that to me?"
+
+"I did," returned P. Sybarite curtly. "Want me to prove it?"
+
+"Plenty, thanks," returned the shipping clerk morosely, as he picked
+himself up and dusted off his clothing. "Gee! You got a wallop like
+the kick of a mule, Per--"
+
+"Cut that!"
+
+"P.S., I mean," George amended hastily. "Why didn't you ever tell me
+you was Jeffries's sparrin' partner?"
+
+"I'm not and never was, and furthermore I didn't hit you," replied P.
+Sybarite. "All I did was to let you fall over my foot and bump your
+head on the floor. You're a clumsy brute, you know, George, and if you
+tried it another time you _might_ dent that dome of yours. Better
+accept my offer and be friends."
+
+"Never call you Per--"
+
+"Don't say it!"
+
+"Oh, all right--all right," George agreed plaintively. "And if I
+promise, I'm in on that theatre party?"
+
+"That's my offer."
+
+"It's hard," George sighed regretfully--"damn' hard. But whatever
+_you_ say goes. I'll keep your secret."
+
+"Good!" P. Sybarite extended one of his small, delicately modelled
+hands. "Shake," said he, smiling wistfully.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+INSPIRATION
+
+
+When they had locked in the Genius of the Place to batten upon itself
+until seven o'clock Monday morning, P. Sybarite and Mr. Bross, with at
+least every outward semblance of complete amity, threaded the roaring
+congestion in narrow-chested Frankfort Street, boldly breasted the
+flood tide of homing Brooklynites, won their way through City Hall
+Park, and were presently swinging shoulder to shoulder up the sunny
+side of lower Broadway.
+
+To be precise, the swinging stride was practised only by Mr. Bross; P.
+Sybarite, instinctively aware that any such mode of locomotion would
+ill become one of his inches, contented himself with keeping up--his
+gait an apparently effortless, tireless, and comfortable amble,
+congruent with bowed shoulders, bended head, introspective eyes, and
+his aspect in general of patient preoccupation.
+
+From time to time George, who was maintaining an unnatural and painful
+silence, his mental processes stagnant with wonder and dull
+resentment, eyed his companion askance, with furtive suspicion. Their
+association was now one of some seven years' standing; and it seemed a
+grievous thing that, after posing so long as the patient butt of his
+rude humour, P.S. should have so suddenly turned and proved himself
+the better man--and that not mentally alone.
+
+"Lis'n--" George interjected of a sudden.
+
+P. Sybarite started. "Eh?" he enquired blankly.
+
+"I wanna know where you picked up all that classy footwork."
+
+"Oh," returned P.S., depreciatory, "I used to spar a bit with the
+fellows when I was a--ah--when I was younger."
+
+"When you was at _what_?" insisted Bross, declining to be fobbed off
+with any such flimsy evasion.
+
+"When I was at liberty to."
+
+"Huh! You mean, when you was at college."
+
+"Please yourself," said P. Sybarite wearily.
+
+"Well, you was at college oncet, wasn't you?"
+
+"I was," P.S. admitted with reluctance; "but I never graduated. When I
+was twenty-one I had to quit to go to work for Whigham & Wimper."
+
+"G'wan," commented the other. "They ain't been in business twenty-five
+years."
+
+"I'm only thirty-one."
+
+"More news for Sweeny. You'll never see forty again."
+
+"That statement," said P. Sybarite with some asperity, "is an uncivil
+untruth dictated by a spirit of gratuitous contentiousness--"
+
+"Good God!" cried Bross in alarm. "I'm wrong and you're right and I
+won't do it again--and forgive me for livin'!"
+
+"With pleasure," agreed P. Sybarite pleasantly....
+
+"It's a funny world," George resumed in philosophic humour, after a
+time. "You wouldn't think I could work in the same dump with you seven
+years and only be startin' to find out things about you--like to-day.
+I always thought your name was Pete--honest."
+
+"Continue to think so," P. Sybarite advised briefly.
+
+"Your people had money, didn't they, oncet?"
+
+"I've been told so, but if true, it only goes to prove there's nothing
+in the theory of heredity...."
+
+"I gotcha," announced Bross, upon prolonged and painful analysis.
+
+"How?" asked P. Sybarite, who had fallen to thinking of other matters.
+
+"I mean, I just dropped to your high-sign to mind my own business. All
+right, P.S. Far be it from me to wanta pry into your Past. Besides, I
+'m scared to--never can tell what I'll turn up--like, f'rinstance,
+Per--"
+
+"Steady!"
+
+"Like that they usta call you when you was innocent, I mean."
+
+To this P. Sybarite made no response; and George subsided into morose
+reflections. It irked him sore to remember he had been worsted by the
+meek little slip of a bookkeeper trotting so quietly at his elbow.
+
+He was a man of his word, was George Bross; not for anything would he
+have gone back on his promise to keep secret that afternoon's
+titillating discovery; likewise he was a covetous soul, loath to
+forfeit the promised treat; withal he was human (after his kind) and
+since reprisals were not barred by their understanding, he began then
+and there to ponder the same. One way or another, that day's
+humiliation must be balanced; else he might never again hold up his
+head in the company of gentlemen of spirit.
+
+But how to compass this desire, frankly puzzled him. It were cowardly
+to contemplate knockin' the block off'n P. Sybarite; the disparity of
+their statures forebade; moreover, George entertained a vexatious
+suspicion that P. Sybarite's explanation on his recent downfall had
+not been altogether disingenuous; he didn't quite believe it had been
+due solely to his own clumsiness and an adventitious foot.
+
+"That sort of thing don't never _happen_," George assured himself
+privately. "I was outclassed, all right, all right. What I wanna know
+is: where'd he couple up with the ring-wisdom?"
+
+Repeated if covert glances at his companion supplied no clue; P.
+Sybarite's face remained as uncommunicative as well-to-do relations by
+marriage; his shadowy, pale and wistful smile denoted, if anything,
+only an almost childlike pleasure in anticipation of the evening's
+promised amusement.
+
+Suddenly it was borne in upon the shipping clerk that in the probable
+arrangement of the proposed party he would be expected to dance
+attendance upon Miss Violet Prim, leaving P. Sybarite free to devote
+himself to Miss Lessing. Whereupon George scowled darkly.
+
+"P.S.'s got his nerve with him," he protested privately, "to cop out
+the one pippin in the house all for his lonely. It's a wonder he
+wouldn't slip her a chanct to enjoy herself with summon' her own
+age....
+
+"Not," he admitted ruefully, "that I'd find it healthy to pull any
+rough stuff with Vi lookin' on. I don't even like to think of myself
+lampin' any other skirt while Violet's got _her_ wicks trimmed and
+burnin' bright."
+
+Then he made an end to envy for the time being, and turned his
+attention to more pressing concerns; but though he pondered with all
+his might and main, it seemed impossible to excogitate any way to
+square his account with P. Sybarite. And when, at Thirty-eighth
+Street, the latter made an excuse to part with George, instead of
+going home in his company, the shipping clerk was too thoroughly
+disgusted to question the subterfuge. He was, indeed, a bit relieved;
+the temporary dissociation promised just so much more time for
+solitary conspiracy.
+
+Turning west, he was presently prompted by that arch-comedian Destiny
+(disguised as Thirst) to drop into Clancey's for a shell of beer.
+
+Now in Clancey's George found a crumpled copy of the _Evening Journal_
+almost afloat on the high-tide of the dregs-drenched bar. Rescuing the
+sheet, he smoothed it out, examined (grinning) its daily meed of
+comics, read every word on the "Sports Page," ploughed through the
+weekly vaudeville charts, scanned the advertisements, and at length
+reviewed the news columns with a listless eye.
+
+It may have been the stimulation of his drink, but it was probably
+nothing more nor less than jealousy that sparked his sluggish
+imagination as he contemplated a two-column reproduction in coarse
+half-tone of a photograph entitled "Marian Blessington." Slowly the
+light dawned upon mental darkness; slowly his grin broadened and
+became fixed--even as his great scheme for the confusion and
+confounding of P. Sybarite took shape and matured.
+
+He left Clancey's presently, stepping high, with a mind elate;
+foretasting victory; convinced that he harboured within him the
+makings of a devil of a fellow, all the essential qualifications of
+(not to put _too_ fine a point upon it) a regular wag....
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE GLOVE COUNTER
+
+
+With a feeling of some guilt, becoming in one who stoops to unworthy
+artifice, P. Sybarite walked slowly on up Broadway a little way, then
+doubled on his trail, going softly until a swift and stealthy survey
+westward from the corner of Thirty-eighth Street assured him that
+George was not skulking thereabouts to spy upon him. Then mending his
+pace, he held briskly on toward the shopping district.
+
+From afar the clock recently restored to its coign high above unlovely
+Greeley Square warned him that his hour was fleeting: in twenty
+minutes it would be six o'clock; at six, sharp, Blessington's would
+close its doors. Distressed, he scurried on, crossed Thirty-fourth
+Street, aimed himself courageously for the wide entrance of the
+department store, battled manfully through the retreating army of
+feminine shoppers--and gained the glove counter with a good fifteen
+minutes to spare.
+
+And there he halted, confused and blushing in recognition of
+circumstances as unpropitious as unforeseen.
+
+These consisted in three girls behind the counter and one customer
+before it; the latter commanding the attention and services of a fair
+young woman with a pleasant manner; while of the two disengaged
+saleswomen, one bold, disdainful brunette was preoccupied with her
+back hair and prepared mutinously to ignore anything remotely
+resembling a belated customer whose demands might busy her beyond the
+closing hour, and the other had a merry eye and a receptive smile for
+the hesitant little man with the funny clothes and the quaint pink
+face of embarrassment. In most abject consternation, P. Sybarite
+turned and fled.
+
+Weathering the end of the glove counter and shaping a course through
+the aisle that paralleled it, he found himself in a channel of
+horrors, threatened on one side by a display of most intimate
+lingerie, belaced and beribboned distractingly, on the other by a long
+rank of slender and gracious (if stolid) feminine limbs, one and all
+neatly amputated above their bended knees and bedight in silken
+hosiery to shame the rainbow; while to right and left, behind these
+impudent revelations, lurked sirens with shameless eyes and mouths of
+scarlet mockery.
+
+A cold sweat damped the forehead of P. Sybarite. Inconsistently, his
+face flamed. He stared fixedly dead ahead and tore through that aisle
+like a delicate-minded jack-rabbit. He thought giggles were audible in
+his wake; and ere he could escape found his way barred by Authority
+and Dignity in one wonderfully frock-coated person.
+
+"You were looking for something?" demanded this menace incarnate, in
+an awful voice accompanied by a terrible gesture.
+
+P. Sybarite brought up standing, his nose six inches from and his eyes
+held in fascination to the imitation pearl scarf-pin in the beautiful
+cravat affected by his interlocutor.
+
+"Gloves--!" he gasped guiltily.
+
+"This way, if you please."
+
+With this, Dignity and Authority clamped an inexorable hand about his
+upper arm, swung him round, and piloted him gently but ruthlessly back
+the way he had come, back to the glove counter, where he was planted
+directly in front of the dashing, dark saleslady with absorbing back
+hair and the manner of remote hauteur.
+
+"Miss Brady, this gentleman wants to see some gloves."
+
+The eyes of Miss Brady flashed ominously; as plain as print, they
+said: "Does, does he? Well, leave him to _me_!"
+
+Aloud, she murmured from an incalculable distance: "Oh, ve-ry well!"
+
+A moment later, looking over the customer's head, she added icily:
+"What kind?"
+
+The floor-walker retired, leaving P. Sybarite a free agent but none
+the less haunted by a feeling that a suspicious eye was being kept on
+the small of his back. He stammered something quite inarticulate.
+
+The brune goddess shaped ironic lips:
+
+"Chauffeurs', I presoom?"
+
+A measure of self-possession--akin to the deadly coolness of the
+cornered rat--returned to the badgered little man.
+
+"No," he said evenly--"ladies', if you please."
+
+Scornfully Miss Brady impaled the back of her head with a lead pencil.
+
+"Other end of the counter, please," she announced. "I don't handle
+ladies' gloves!"
+
+"I'm sure of that," returned P. Sybarite meekly; left her standing;
+and presented himself for the inspection of the fair young woman with
+the pleasant manner, who was now free of her late customer.
+
+She recognised him with surprise, but none the less with a friendly
+smile.
+
+"Why, Mr. Sybarite--!"
+
+In his hearing, her voice was rarest music. He gulped; stammered "Miss
+Lessing!" and was stricken dumb by perception of his effrontery.
+
+"Can I do anything for you?"
+
+He breathed in panic: "Gloves--"
+
+"For a lady, Mr. Sybarite?"
+
+He nodded as expressively as any automaton.
+
+"What kind?"
+
+"I--I don't know."
+
+"For day or evening wear?"
+
+He wagged a dismal head: "I don't know."
+
+Amusement touched her eyes and lips so charmingly that he thought of
+the sea at dawn, rimpled by the morning breeze, gay with the laughter
+of young sunlight.
+
+"Surely you must!" she insisted.
+
+"No," he contended in stubborn melancholy.
+
+"Oh, I see. You wish to make a present--?"
+
+"I--ah--suppose so," he admitted under pressure--"yes."
+
+"Evening gloves are always acceptable. Does she go often to the
+theatre?"
+
+"I--don't know."
+
+The least suspicion of perplexed frown knitted the eyebrows of Miss
+Lessing.
+
+"Well ... is she old or young?"
+
+"I--ah--couldn't say."
+
+"Mr. Sybarite!" said the young woman with decision.
+
+He fixed an apprehensive gaze to hers--which inclined to disapproval,
+if with reservations.
+
+"Yes, Miss Lessing?"
+
+"Do you really want to buy gloves?"
+
+"No-o...."
+
+"Then what under the sun _do_ you want?"
+
+He noticed suddenly that, however impatient her tone, her eyes were
+still kindly. Eyes of luminous hazel brown they were, wide open and
+clear beneath dark and delicate brows; eyes that assorted oddly with
+her hair of pale, dull gold, rendering her prettiness both individual
+and distinctive.
+
+Somehow he found himself more at ease.
+
+"Please," he begged humbly, "show me some gloves--any kind--it doesn't
+matter--and pretend you believe I want to buy 'em. I don't really.
+I--I only want--ah--word with you before you go home."
+
+If this were impertinence, the girl elected quickly not to resent it.
+She turned to the shelves behind her, took down a box or two, and
+opened them for his inspection.
+
+"These are very nice," she suggested quietly.
+
+"I think so, too." He grinned uneasily. "What I want to say is--will
+you be my guest at the theatre to-night?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't understand you," she said, replacing the gloves.
+
+"With Miss Prim and George Bross," he amended hastily. "Somebody--a
+friend--sent me a box for 'Kismet.' I thought--possibly--you might
+care to go. It--it would give me great pleasure."
+
+Miss Lessing held up another pair of gloves.
+
+"These are three-fifty-nine," she said absently. "Why did you come
+here to ask me?"
+
+"I--I was afraid you might make some other engagement for the
+evening."
+
+He couldn't have served his cause more handsomely than by uttering
+just that transparent evasion. In a thought she understood: at their
+boarding-house he could have found no ready opportunity to ask her
+save in the presence of others; and he was desperately afraid of a
+refusal.
+
+After all, he had reason to be: they were only table acquaintances of
+a few weeks' standing. It was most presumptuous of him to dream that
+she would accept....
+
+On the other hand, he was (she considered gravely) a decent, manly
+little body, and had shown her more civility and deference than all
+the rest of the boarding-house and shop people put together. And she
+rather liked him and was reluctant to hurt his feelings; for she knew
+instinctively he was very sensitive.
+
+Her eyes and lips softened winningly.
+
+"It's so good of you to think of me," she said.
+
+"You mean--you--you will come?" he cried, transported.
+
+"I shall be very glad."
+
+"That's--that's awf'ly kind of you," he said huskily. "Now, do please
+find some way to get rid of me."
+
+Smiling quietly, the girl recovered the glove boxes.
+
+"I'm afraid we haven't what you want in stock," she said in a voice
+not loud but clear enough to carry to the ears of her inquisitive
+co-labourers. "We're expecting a fresh shipment in next week--if you
+could stop in then...."
+
+"Thank you very much," said P. Sybarite with uncalled-for emotion.
+
+He backed away awkwardly, spoiled the effect altogether by lifting his
+hat, wheeled and broke for the doors....
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A LIKELY STORY
+
+
+From the squalour, the heat, dirt and turmoil of Eighth Avenue, P.
+Sybarite turned west on Thirty-eighth Street to seek his
+boarding-house.
+
+This establishment--between which and the Cave of the Smell his
+existence alternated with the monotony of a pendulum--was situated
+midway on the block on the north side of the street. It boasted a
+front yard fenced off from the sidewalk with a rusty railing: a plot
+of arid earth scantily tufted with grass, suggesting that stage of
+baldness which finally precedes complete nudity. Behind this, the
+moat-like area was spanned to the front door by a ragged stoop of
+brownstone. The four-story facade was of brick whose pristine coat of
+fair white paint had aged to a dry and flaking crust, lending the
+house an appearance distinctly eczematous.
+
+The sun of April, declining, threw down the street a slant of kindly
+light to mitigate its homeliness. In this ethereal evanescence the
+house Romance took the air upon the stoop.
+
+George Bross was eighty-five per-centum of the house Romance. The
+remainder was Miss Violet Prim. Mr. Bross sat a step or two below Miss
+Prim, his knees adjacent to his chin, his face, upturned to his
+charmer, wreathed in a fond and fatuous smile. From her higher plane,
+she smiled in like wise down upon him. She seemed in the eyes of her
+lover unusually fair--and was: Saturday was her day for seeming
+unusually fair; by the following Thursday there would begin to be a
+barely perceptible shadow round the roots of her golden hair....
+
+She was a spirited and abundant creature, hopelessly healthy beneath
+the coat of paint, powder and peroxide with which she armoured herself
+against the battle of Life. Normally good-looking in ordinary
+daylight, she was a radiant beauty across footlights. Her eyes were
+bright even at such times as belladonna lacked in them; her nose
+pretty and pert; her mouth, open for laughter (as it usually was),
+disclosed twin rows of sound, white, home-made teeth. Her active young
+person was modelled on generous lines and, as a rule, clothed in a
+manner which, if inexpensive, detracted nothing from her conspicuous
+sightliness. She was fond of adorning her pretty, sturdy shoulders, as
+well as her fetching and shapely, if plump, ankles, with
+semi-transparent things--and she was quite as fond of having them
+admired.
+
+P. Sybarite, approaching the gate, delicately averted his eyes....
+
+At that moment, George was announcing in an undertone: "Here's the
+lollop now."
+
+"You are certainly one observin' young gent," remarked Miss Prim in
+accents of envious admiration.
+
+Ignoring the challenge, Bross pondered hastily. "Think I better spring
+it on him now?" he enquired in doubt.
+
+"My Gawd, no!" protested the lady in alarm. "I'd spoil the plant,
+sure. I'd _love_ to watch you feed it to him, but Heaven knows I'd
+never be able to hold in without bustin'."
+
+"You think he'll swallow it, all right?"
+
+"That simp?" cried Miss Prim in open derision. "Why, he'll eat it
+_alive_!"
+
+P. Sybarite walked into the front yard, and the chorus lady began to
+crow with delight, welcoming him with wild wavings of a pretty,
+powdered forearm.
+
+"Well, _look_ who's here! 'Tis old George W. Postscript--as I live!
+Hitherwards, little one: I wouldst speech myself to thee."
+
+Smiling, P. Sybarite approached the pair. He liked Miss Prim for her
+unaffected high spirits, and because he was never in the least ill at
+ease with her.
+
+"Well?" he asked pleasantly, blinking up at the lady from the foot of
+the steps. "What is thy will, O Breaker of Hearts?"
+
+"That'll be about all for yours," announced Violet reprovingly. "You
+hadn't oughta carry on like that--at your age, too! Not that _I_
+mind--I rather like it; but what'd your family say if they knew you
+was stuck on an actress?"
+
+"'Love blows as the wind blows,'" P. Sybarite quoted gently. "How
+shall I hide the fact of my infatuation? If my family cast me off, so
+be it!"
+
+"I told you, behave! Next thing you know, George will be bitin' the
+fence.... What's all this about you givin' a box party at the
+Knickerbocker to-night?"
+
+"It's a fact," affirmed P. Sybarite. "Only I had counted on the
+pleasure of inviting you myself," he added with a patient glance at
+George.
+
+"Never mind about that," interposed the lady. "I'm just as tickled to
+death, and I love you a lot more'n I do George, anyway. So _that's_
+all right. Only I was afraid for a while he was connin' me."
+
+"You feel better now?"
+
+Violet placed a theatrical hand above her heart. "Such a relief!" she
+declared intensely--"you'll never know!" Then she jumped up and
+wheeled about to the door with petticoats professionally a-swirl.
+"Well, if I'm goin' to do a stagger in society to-night, it's me to go
+doll myself up to the nines. So long!"
+
+"Hold on!" George cried in alarm. "You ain't goin' to go dec--decol--low
+neck and all that? Cut it, kid: me and P.S. ain't got no dress soots,
+yunno."
+
+"Don't fret," returned Violet from the doorway. "I know how to pretty
+myself for my comp'ny, all right. Besides, you'll be at the back of
+the box and nobody'll know you exist. Me and Molly Leasing'll get all
+the yearnin' stares."
+
+She disappeared by way of the vestibule. George shook a head heavy
+with forebodings.
+
+"Class to that kid, all right," he observed. "Some stepper, take it
+from me. Anyway, I'm glad it's a box: then I can hide under a chair. I
+ain't got nothin' to go in but these hand-me-downs."
+
+"You'll be all right," said P. Sybarite hastily.
+
+"Well, I won't feel lonely if you don't dress up like a horse. What
+are you going to wear, anyway?"
+
+"A shave, a clean collar, and what I stand in. They're all I have."
+
+"Then you got nothin' on me. What's your rush?"--as P. Sybarite would
+have passed on. "Wait a shake. I wanna talk to you. Sit down and have
+a cig."
+
+There was a hint of serious intention in the manner of the shipping
+clerk to induce P. Sybarite, after the hesitation of an instant, to
+accede to his request. Squatting down upon the steps, he accepted a
+cigarette, lighted it, inhaled deeply.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I dunno how to break it to you," Bross faltered dubiously. "You
+better brace yourself to lean up against the biggest disappointment
+ever."
+
+P. Sybarite regarded him with sharp distrust. "You interest me
+strangely, George.... But perhaps you're no more addled than usual.
+Consider me gently prepared against the worst--and get it off your
+chest."
+
+"Well," said George regretfully, "I just wanna put you next to the
+facts before you ask her. Miss Lessing ain't goin' to go with us
+to-night."
+
+P. Sybarite looked startled and grieved.
+
+"No?" he exclaimed.
+
+George wagged his head mournfully. "It's a shame. I know you counted
+on it, but I guess you'll have to get summonelse."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't understand. How do you know Miss Lessing won't go?
+Did she tell you so?"
+
+"Not what you might call exactly, but she won't all right," George
+returned with confidence. "There ain't one chance in a hundred I'm in
+wrong."
+
+"In wrong? How?"
+
+"About her bein' who she is."
+
+P. Sybarite subjected the open, naif countenance of the shipping clerk
+to a prolonged and doubting scrutiny.
+
+"No, I ain't crazy in the head, neither," George asseverated with some
+heat. "I suspicioned somethin' was queer about that girl right along,
+but now I _know_ it."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"Ah, it ain't nothin' against her! You don't have to scorch your
+collar. _She's_ all right. Only--she 's in bad. I don't s'pose you
+seen the evenin' paper?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I picked up the _Joinal_ down to Clancey's--this is it." With
+an effective flourish, George drew the sheet from his coat pocket and
+unfolded its still damp and pungent pages. "And soon's I seen that,"
+he added, indicating a smudged halftone, "I begun to wise up to that
+little girl. It's sure some shame about her, all right, all right."
+
+Taking the paper, P. Sybarite examined with perplexity a portrait
+labelled "Marian Blessington." Whatever its original aspect, the
+coarse mesh of the reproducing process had blurred it to a vague
+presentment of the head and shoulders of almost any young woman with
+fair hair and regular features: only a certain, almost indefinable
+individuality in the pose of the head remotely suggested Molly
+Lessing.
+
+In a further endeavour to fathom his meaning, the little bookkeeper
+conned carefully the legend attached to the putative likeness:
+
+  MARIAN BLESSINGTON
+
+  only daughter of the late Nathaniel Blessington, millionaire
+  founder of the great Blessington chain of department stores.
+  Although much sought after on account of the immense property into
+  control of which she is to come on her twenty-fifth birthday, Miss
+  Blessington contrived to escape matrimonial entanglement until last
+  January, when Brian Shaynon, her guardian and executor of the
+  Blessington estate, gave out the announcement of her engagement to
+  his son, Bayard Shaynon. This engagement was whispered to be
+  distasteful to the young woman, who is noted for her independent
+  and spirited nature; and it is now persistently being rumoured that
+  she had demonstrated her disapproval by disappearing mysteriously
+  from the knowledge of her guardian. It is said that nothing has
+  been known of her whereabouts since about the 1st of March, when
+  she left her home in the Shaynon mansion on Fifth Avenue,
+  ostensibly for a shopping tour. This was flatly contradicted this
+  morning by Brian Shaynon, who in an interview with a reporter for
+  the EVENING JOURNAL declared that his ward sailed for Europe
+  February 28th on the _Mauretania_, and has since been in constant
+  communication with her betrothed and his family. He also denied
+  having employed detectives to locate his ward. The sailing list of
+  the _Mauretania_ fails to give the name of Miss Blessington on the
+  date named by Mr. Shaynon.
+
+Refolding the paper, P. Sybarite returned it without comment.
+
+"Well?" George demanded anxiously.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Ain't you hep yet?" George betrayed some little exasperation in
+addition to his disappointment.
+
+"Hep?" P. Sybarite iterated wonderingly.
+
+"Hep's the word," George affirmed: "John W. Hep, of the well-known
+family of that name--very closely related to the Jeremiah Wises. Yunno
+who I mean, don't you?"
+
+"Sorry," said P. Sybarite sadly: "I'm not even distinctly connected
+with either family."
+
+"You mean you don't make me?"
+
+"God forestalled me there," protested P. Sybarite piously.
+"Inscrutable!"
+
+Impatiently brushing aside this incoherent observation, George slapped
+the folded paper resoundingly in the palm of his hand.
+
+"Then this here don't mean nothin' to you?"
+
+"To me--nothing, as you say."
+
+"You ain't dropped to the resemblance between Molly Lessing and Marian
+Blessington?"
+
+"Between Miss Lessing and _that_ portrait?" asked P. Sybarite
+scornfully.
+
+"Why, they're dead ringers for each other. Any one what can't see
+that's blind."
+
+"But I'm _not_ blind."
+
+"Well, then you gotta admit they look alike as twins--"
+
+"But I've known twins who didn't look alike," said P.S.
+
+"Ah, nix on the stallin'!" George insisted, on the verge of losing his
+temper. "Molly Lessing's the spit-'n'-image of Marian Blessington--and
+you know it. What's more--look at their names? _Molly_ for _Mary_--you
+make that? _Mary_ and _Marian's_ near enough alike, ain't they? And
+what's _Lessing_ but _Blessington_ docked goin' and comin'?"
+
+"Wait a second. If I understand you, George, you're trying to imply
+that Miss Lessing is identical with Marian Blessington."
+
+"You said somethin' then, all right."
+
+"Simply because of the similarity of two syllables in their surnames
+and a fancied resemblance of Miss Lessing to this so-called portrait?"
+
+"Now you're gettin' warm, P.S."
+
+P.S. laughed quietly: "George, I've been doing you a grave injustice.
+I apologise."
+
+George opened his eyes and emitted a resentful "_Huh?_"
+
+"For years I've believed you were merely stupid," P.S. explained
+patiently. "Now you develop a famous, if fatuous, gift of imagination.
+I'm sorry. I apologise twice."
+
+"Imag'nation hell!" Mr. Bross exploded. "Where's your own? It's
+plain's daylight what I say is so. When did Miss Lessing come here?
+Five weeks ago, to a day--March foist, or close onto it--just when the
+_Joinal_ says she did her disappearin' stunt. How you goin' to get
+around that?"
+
+"You forget that the _Journal_ simply reports a rumour. It doesn't
+claim it's true. In fact, the story is contradicted by the very person
+that ought to know--Miss Blessington's guardian."
+
+"Well, if she sailed for Europe on the _Mauretania_, like he
+says--how's it come her name wasn't on the passenger list?"
+
+"It's quite possible that a young woman as much sought after and
+annoyed by fortune hunters, may have elected to sail incognita. It can
+be done, you know. In fact, it _has_ been done."
+
+George digested this in profound gloom.
+
+"Then you don't believe what I'm tellin' you?"
+
+"Not one-tenth of one iota of a belief."
+
+George betrayed in a rude, choleric grunt, his disgust to see his
+splendid fabrication, so painfully concocted for the delusion and
+discomfiture of P. Sybarite, threatening to collapse of sheer
+intrinsic flimsiness. He had counted so confidently on the credulity
+of the little bookkeeper! And Violet had supported his confidence with
+so much assurance! Disgusting wasn't the word for George's emotions.
+
+In desperation he grasped at one final, fugitive hope.
+
+"All right," he said sullenly: "_all_ right! You don't gotta believe
+me if you don't wanta. Only wait--that's all I ask--_wait_! You'll see
+I'm right when she turns down your invite to-night."
+
+P. Sybarite smiled sunnily. "So that is why you thought she wouldn't
+go with us, is it?"
+
+"You got me."
+
+"You thought she, if Marian Blessington, must necessarily be such a
+snob that she wouldn't associate with poor devils like us, did you?"
+
+"Wait. You'll see."
+
+"Well, it's none of your business, George; but I don't mind telling
+you, you're wrong. Quite wrong. In the head, too, George. I've already
+asked Miss Lessing, and she has accepted."
+
+George's eyes, protruding, glistened with poignant surprise.
+
+"You ast her already?"
+
+"That's why I left you down the street. I dropped into Blessington's
+for the sole purpose of asking her."
+
+"And she fell for it?"
+
+"She accepted my invitation--yes."
+
+After a long pause George ground his cigarette beneath his heel, and
+rose.
+
+"In wrong, as usual," he admitted with winning simplicity. "I never
+did guess _any_thin' right the first time. Only--you just grab this
+from me: maybe she's willin' to run the risk of bein' seen with us,
+but that ain't sayin' she's anybody but Marian Blessington."
+
+"You really think it likely that Miss Blessington, hiding from her
+guardian and anxious to escape detection, would take a job at the
+glove counter of her own store, where everybody must know her by
+sight--where her guardian, Shaynon himself, couldn't fail to see her
+at least twice a day, as he enters and leaves the building?"
+
+Staggered, Bross recovered quickly.
+
+"That's just her cuteness. She doped it out the safest place for her
+would be the last place he'd look for her!"
+
+"And you really think that she, accustomed to every luxury that money
+can buy, would voluntarily come down to living here, at six dollars a
+week, and clerking in a department store--simply because, according to
+the papers, she's opposed to a marriage that she can't be forced to
+contract in a free country like this?"
+
+"Wel-l...." George floundered helplessly for a moment; and fell back
+again upon an imagination for the time being stimulated to an abnormal
+degree of inventiveness:
+
+"P'raps old Shaynon's double-crossed her somehow we don't know nothin'
+about. He ain't above it, if all they tell of him's true. Maybe he's
+got her coin away from her, and she had to go to work for a livin'.
+Stranger things have happened in this burg, P.S."
+
+It was the turn of P.S. to hesitate in doubt; or at all events, so
+George Bross inferred from a sudden change in the expression of the
+little man's eyes. Momentarily they seemed to cloud, as if in
+introspection. But he rallied quickly enough.
+
+"All things are possible, George," he admitted with his quizzical
+grin. "But this time you're mistaken. I'm not arguing with you,
+George; I'm _telling_ you: you're hopelessly mistaken."
+
+"You think so--huh?" growled George. "Well, I got eight iron bucks
+that says Marian Blessington to any five of your money."
+
+He made a bold show of his pay envelope.
+
+"It'd be a shame to rob you, George," said P. Sybarite. "Besides,
+you're bad-tempered when broke."
+
+"Never you mind about that. Here's my eight, if you've got five that
+makes a noise like Molly Lessing."
+
+P. Sybarite laughed softly and produced the little wad of bills that
+represented his weekly wage. At this, George involuntarily drew back.
+
+"And how would you settle the bet?"
+
+"Leave it to her," insisted George in an expiring gasp of bravado.
+
+"You'd ask her yourself?"
+
+"Ye-es--"
+
+"And let it stand on her answer?"
+
+"Wel-l--"
+
+"Here she comes now," added P. Sybarite, glancing up the street.
+"Quick, now; you've only a minute to decide. Is it a bet?"
+
+With a gesture of brave decision, George returned his money to his
+pocket.
+
+"You're an easy mark," he observed in accents of deep pity. "I knew
+you'd think I meant it."
+
+"But didn't you, George?"
+
+"Nah--nothin' like that! I was just kiddin' you along, to see how much
+you'd swallow."
+
+"It's all right then," agreed P. Sybarite. "Only--George!"
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Don't you breathe a word of this to Miss Lessing?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I tell you not to--because," said P. Sybarite firmly, "I
+forbid you."
+
+"You--you forbid me? Holy Mike! And what--"
+
+"Sssh!" P. Sybarite warned him sibilantly. "Miss Lessing might hear
+you.... What will happen if you disobey me," he added as the shop girl
+turned in at the gateway, lowering his own voice and fixing the
+shipping clerk with a steely stare, "will be another accident, much
+resembling that of this afternoon--if you haven't forgotten. Now mind
+what I tell you, and be good."
+
+Mr. Bross swelled with resentment; exhibited a distorted and empurpled
+visage; but kept silence.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE COMIC SPIRIT
+
+
+Pausing at the foot of the stoop, Miss Lessing looked up at the two
+young men and smiled.
+
+"Good-evening," she said with a pretty nod for P. Sybarite; and, with
+its fellow for George, "Good-evening, Mr. Bross," she added.
+
+Having acknowledged this salutation with that quaint courtesy which
+somehow seemed to fit him like a garment, P. Sybarite smiled strangely
+at the shipping clerk.
+
+The latter mumbled something incoherent, glanced wildly toward the
+young woman, and spluttered explosively; all with a blush so deep that
+its effect was apoplectic.
+
+Alarmed by this exhibition, Miss Lessing questioned P. Sybarite with
+her lifted brows and puzzled eyes.
+
+"George is a little bit excited," he apologised. "Every so often he
+becomes obsessed with mad desire to impose upon some simple and
+credulous nature like mine. And failure always unbalances him. He
+becomes excitable--ah--irrational--"
+
+With an inarticulate snort, Mr. Bross turned and fled into the house.
+
+Confusion possessed him, and with it rage: stumbling blindly on the
+first flight of steps, he clawed the atmosphere with fingers that
+itched for vengeance.
+
+"I'll get even!" he muttered savagely--"I'll get hunk with that boob
+if it's the last act of my life!"
+
+Fortunately, the hall was gloomy and at that moment deserted.
+
+On the first landing he checked, clutched the banisters for support,
+and endeavoured to compose himself--but with less success than he
+realised.
+
+It was with a suggestion of stealth that he ascended the second
+flight--with an enforced deliberateness and caution that were wasted.
+For as he reached the top, the door of the back hall-bedroom opened
+gently for the space of three inches. Through this aperture were
+visible a pair of bright eyes, with the curve of a plump and pretty
+cheek, and an adorable bare arm and shoulder.
+
+"That you, George?" Violet Prim demanded with vivacity.
+
+Reluctantly he stopped and in a throaty monosyllable admitted his
+identity.
+
+"Well, how'd it go off?"
+
+"Fine!"
+
+"He fell for it?"
+
+"All over himself. Honest, Vi, it was a scream to watch his eyes pop.
+You could've clubbed 'em outa his bean without touchin' his beak. I
+'most died."
+
+Miss Prim giggled appreciatively.
+
+"You're a wonder, George," she applauded. "It takes you to think 'em
+out."
+
+"Ah, I don't know," returned her admirer with becoming modesty.
+
+"He's gone on her, all right, ain't he?"
+
+"Crazy about her!"
+
+"Think he'll make a play for her now?"
+
+George demurred. Downright lying was all very well; he could manage
+that with passable craft, especially when, as in this instance,
+detection would be difficult; but prophecy was a little out of his
+line. Though with misgivings, he resorted to unvarnished truth:
+
+"You never can tell about P.S. He's a queer little gink."
+
+Footsteps became audible on the stairs below.
+
+"Well, so long. See you at dinner," George added in haste.
+
+"George!"
+
+"Well?" he asked, delaying with ill grace.
+
+"What makes you sound so funny?"
+
+"Laughin'!" protested George convincingly.
+
+With determination and a heavy tread he went on to his room.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SPRING TWILIGHT
+
+
+When he had shaved (with particular care) and changed his linen
+(trimming collar and cuffs to a degree of uncommon nicety) and resumed
+his coat (brushing and hating it simultaneously and with equal
+ferocity, for its very shabbiness) P. Sybarite sought out a pipe old
+and disreputable enough to be a comfort to any man, and sat down by
+the one window of his room (top floor, hall, back) to smoke and
+consider the state of the universe while awaiting the dinner gong.
+
+The window commanded an elevated if non-exhilarating view of back
+yards, one and all dank, dismal, and littered with the debris of a
+long, hard winter. Familiarity, however, had rendered P. Sybarite
+immune to the miasma of melancholy they exhaled; the trouble in his
+patient blue eyes, the wrinkles that lined his forehead, owned another
+cause.
+
+In fact, George had wrought more disastrously upon his temper than P.
+Sybarite had let him see. His hints, innuendoes, and downright
+assertions had in reality distilled a subtle poison into the little
+man's humour. For in spite of his embattled incredulity and the clear
+reasoning with which he had overborne George's futile insistence,
+there still lingered in his mind (and always would, until he knew the
+truth himself) a carking doubt.
+
+Perhaps it was true. Perhaps George had guessed shrewdly. Perhaps
+Molly Lessing of the glove counter really was one and the same with
+Marian Blessington of the fabulous fortune.
+
+Old Brian Shaynon was a known devil of infinite astuteness; it would
+be quite consistent with his character and past performances if,
+despairing of gaining control of his ward's money by urging her into
+unwelcome matrimony with his son, he had contrived to over-reach her
+in some manner, and so driven her to become self-supporting.
+
+Perhaps hardly likely: the hypothesis was none the less quite
+plausible; a thing had happened, within P. Sybarite's knowledge of
+Brian Shaynon....
+
+Even if George's romance were true only in part, these were wretched
+circumstances for a girl of gentle birth and rearing to adopt. It was
+really a shocking boarding-house. P. Sybarite had known it intimately
+for ten years; use had made him callous to its shortcomings; but he
+was not yet so far gone that he could forget how unwholesome and
+depressing it must seem to one accustomed to better things. He could
+remember most vividly how he had loathed it for weeks, months, and
+years after the tide of evil fortunes had cast him upon its crumbling
+brownstone stoop (even in that distant day, crumbling).
+
+Now, however ... P. Sybarite realised suddenly that habit had
+instilled into his bosom a sort of mean affection for the grim and
+sordid place. Time had made him sib to its spirit, close to its
+niggard heart. Scarcely a nook or corner of it with which he was not
+on terms of the most intimate acquaintance. In the adjoining room a
+deserted woman had died by her own hand; her moans, filtered through
+the dividing wall, had summoned P. Sybarite--too late. The double
+front room on the same floor harboured an amiable couple whose
+sempiternal dissensions only his tact and persistence ever served to
+still. The other hall-bedroom had housed for many years a dipsomaniac
+whose periodic orgies had cost P. Sybarite many a night of bedside
+vigil. On the floor below lived a maiden lady whose quenchless hopes
+still centred about his amiable person. Downstairs in the clammy
+parlour he had whiled away unnumbered hours assisting at dreary
+"bridge drives," or playing audience to amateur recitals on the aged
+and decrepit "family organ." For an entire decade he had occupied the
+same chair at the same table in the basement dining-room, feasting on
+beef, mutton, Irish stew, ham-and-beans, veal, pork, or
+just-hash--according to the designated day of the week....
+
+The very room in which he sat was somehow dear to him; upon it he
+wasted a sentiment in a way akin to that with which one regards the
+grave of a beloved friend; it was, in fact, the tomb of his own youth.
+Its narrow and impoverished bed had groaned with the restless weight
+of him all those many nights through which he had lain wakeful, in
+impotent mutiny against the outrageous circumstances that made him a
+prisoner there. Its walls had muted the sighs in which the desires of
+youth had been spent. Its floor matting was worn threadbare with the
+impatient pacings of his feet (four strides from door to window: swing
+and repeat _ad libitum_). Its solitary gas-jet had, with begrudged
+illumination, sicklied o'er the pages of those innumerable borrowed
+books with which he had sought to dull poignant self-consciousness....
+
+A tomb!... Bitterly he granted the aptness of that description of his
+cubicle: mausoleum of his every hope and aspiration, sepulchre of all
+his ability and promise. In this narrow room his very self had been
+extinguished: a man had degenerated into a machine. Everything that
+caught his eye bore mute witness to this truth: the shabby tin alarm
+clock on the battered bureau was one of a dynasty that had roused him
+at six in the morning with unfailing regularity three hundred and
+sixty-five times per year (Sundays were too rare in his calendar and
+too precious to be wasted abed). From an iron hook in the window frame
+dangled the elastic home-exerciser with which it was his unfailing
+habit to perform a certain number of matutinal contortions, to keep
+his body wholesome and efficient. Beneath the bed was visible the rim
+of a shallow English tub that made possible his subsequent sponge
+bath....
+
+A machine; a fixture; creature of an implacable routine; a spirit
+immolated upon the altar of habit: into this he had degenerated in ten
+years. Such was the effect of life in this melancholy shelter for the
+homeless wage-slave. He was no lonely victim. In his term he had seen
+many another come in hope, linger in disappointment, leave only to go
+to a meaner cell in the same stratum of misfortune.
+
+Was this radiant spirit of youth and gentle loveliness (who might, for
+all one knew to the contrary, be Marian Blessington after all) to be
+suffered to become one of that disconsolate crew?
+
+What could be done to prevent it?
+
+Nothing that the wits of P. Sybarite could compass: he was as
+inefficient as any gnat in any web....
+
+Through the halls resounded the cacophonous clangour of a cracked gong
+announcing dinner. Sighing, P. Sybarite rose and knocked the ashes
+delicately from his pipe--saving the dottle for a good-night whiff
+after the theatre.
+
+Being Saturday, it was the night of ham-and-beans. P. Sybarite loathed
+ham-and-beans with a deathly loathing. Nevertheless he ate his dole of
+ham-and-beans. He sat on the landlady's right, and was reluctant to
+hurt her feelings or incur her displeasure. Besides, he was hungry:
+between the home-exerciser and the daily walks to and from the
+Brooklyn Bridge, his normal appetite was that of an athlete in pink of
+training.
+
+Miss Lessing sat on the same side of the main dining-table, but half a
+dozen chairs away. P. Sybarite couldn't see her save by craning his
+neck. He refused to crane his neck: it might seem ostentatious.
+
+Violet and her George occupied adjoining chairs at another and smaller
+table. Their attendance was occasionally manifested through the medium
+of giggles and guffaws. P. Sybarite envied them: he had it in his
+heart to envy anybody young enough to be able to see a joke at that
+dinner table.
+
+By custom, the landlady relinquished her seat some minutes in advance
+of any guest. When P. Sybarite left the room he found her established
+at a desk in the basement hallway. Pausing, he delivered unto her the
+major portion of his week's wage. Setting aside another certain amount
+against the cost of laundry work, tobacco, and incidentals, he had
+five dollars left....
+
+He wondered if he dared risk the extravagance of a modest supper after
+the theatre; and knew he dared not--knew it in wretchedness of spirit,
+cursing his fate....
+
+There remained half an hour to be killed before time to start for the
+theatre. George Bross joined him on the stoop. They smoked pensively,
+while the afterglow faded from the western sky and veil after veil of
+shadow crept stealthily out of the east, masking the rectangular,
+utilitarian ugliness of the street, deepening its dusk to darkness.
+Street lamps, touched by the flame-tipped wand of a belated
+lamplighter, bourgeoned spasmodically like garish flowers of the
+metropolitan night. Across the way gas-lit windows glowed like squares
+on some great, blurred checker-board. The roadway teemed with
+shrieking children. Somewhere--near at hand--a pianola lost its temper
+and whaled the everlasting daylights out of an inoffensive melody from
+"The Pink Lady." Other, more diffident instruments tinkled
+apologetically in the distance. Intermittently, across the gaunt
+scaffolding of the Ninth Avenue L, at one end of the block, roaring
+trains flashed long chains of lights. On the other hand, Eighth Avenue
+buzzed resonantly in stifling clouds of incandescent dust. The air
+smelt of warm asphalt....
+
+And it was Spring: the tenth Spring P. Sybarite had watched from that
+self-same spot.
+
+Discontent bred in him a brooding despondency. He felt quite sure that
+the realists were right about Life: it wasn't worth living, after all.
+
+The prospect of the theatre lost its attraction. He was sure he
+wouldn't enjoy it. Such silly romantical nonsense was out of tune with
+the immortal Truth about Things, which he had just discovered: Life
+was a poor Joke....
+
+At his side, George Bross, on his behalf, was nursing his private and
+personal grouch. Between them they manufactured an atmosphere of gloom
+that would have done credit to a brace of dumb Socialists.
+
+But presently Miss Prim and Miss Lessing appeared, and changed all
+that in a twinkling.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+AFTERMATH
+
+
+"Well," observed Violet generously, "I thought little me was pretty
+well stage-broke; but I gotta hand it to Otis. He's _some_ actor. He
+had me going from the first snore."
+
+"Some actor is _right_," affirmed Mr. Bross with conviction, "and some
+show, too, if you wanta know. I could sit through it twicet. Say, I
+couldn't quit thinkin' what a grand young time I'd start in this old
+burg if I could only con this _Kismet_ thing into slippin' me _my_ Day
+of Days. Believe me or not, there would be _a_ party."
+
+"What would you do?" asked Molly Lessing, smiling.
+
+"Well, the first flop I'd nail down all the coin that was handy, and
+then I'd buy me a flock of automobiles--and have a table reserved for
+me at the Knickerbocker for dinner every night--and...." Imagination
+flagged. "Well," he concluded defensively, "I can tell you one thing I
+wouldn't do."
+
+"What?" demanded Violet.
+
+"I wouldn't let any ward politician like that there _Wazir_, or
+whatever them A-rabs called him, kid me into trying to throw a bomb at
+Charlie Murphy--or anythin' like that. No-oh! Not this infant. That's
+where your friend _Hajj the Beggar's_ foot slipped on him. Up to then
+he had everythin' his own way. If he'd only had sense enough to stall,
+he'd've wound up in a blaze of glory."
+
+"But, you bonehead," Violet argued candidly, "he had to. That was his
+part: it was written in the play."
+
+"G'wan. If he'd just stalled round and refused to jump through, the
+author'd 've framed up some other way out. Why--blame it!--he'd've
+_had_ to!"
+
+"That will be about all for me," said Violet. "I don't feel strong
+enough to-night to stand any more of your dramatic criticism. Lead me
+home--and please talk baseball all the way."
+
+With a resentful grunt, Mr. Bross clamped a warm, moist hand round the
+plump arm of his charmer, and with masterful address propelled her
+from the curb in front of the theatre, where the little party had
+paused, to the northwest corner of Broadway: their progress consisting
+in a series of frantic rushes broken by abrupt pauses to escape
+annihilation in the roaring after-theatre crush of motor-cars. P.
+Sybarite, moving instinctively to follow, leaped back to the sidewalk
+barely in time to save his toes a crushing beneath the tires of a
+hurtling taxicab.
+
+He smiled a furtive apology at Molly Lessing, who had demonstrated
+greater discretion, and she returned his smile in the friendliest
+manner. His head was buzzing--and her eyes were kind. Neither spoke;
+but for an instant he experienced a breathless sense of sympathetic
+isolation with her, there on that crowded corner, elbowed and
+shouldered in the eddy caused by the junction of the outpouring
+audience with the midnight tides of wayfarers surging north and south.
+
+The wonder and the romance of the play were still warm and vital, in
+his imagination, infusing his thoughts with a roseate glamour of
+unreality, wherein all things were strangely possible. The iridescent
+imagery of the Arabian Nights of his boyhood (who has forgotten the
+fascination of those three fat old volumes of crabbed type,
+illuminated with their hundreds of cramped old wood-cuts?) had in a
+scant three hours been recreated for him by Knoblauch's fantastic
+drama with its splendid investment of scene and costume, its admirable
+histrionic interpretation, and the robust yet exquisitely tempered
+artistry of Otis Skinner. For three hours he had forgotten his lowly
+world, had lived on the high peaks of romance, breathing only their
+rare atmosphere that never was on land or sea.
+
+Difficult he found it now, to divest his thoughts of that
+enthrallment, to descend to cold and sober reality, to remember he was
+a clerk, his companion a shop-girl, rather than a Prince disguised as
+Calander esquiring a Princess dedicated to Fatal Enchantment--that
+Kismet was a quaint fallacy, one with that whimsical conceit of Orient
+fatalism which assigns to each and every man his Day of Days, wherein
+he shall range the skies and plumb the abyss of his Destiny,
+alternately its lord and its puppet.
+
+But presently, with an effort, blinking, he pulled his wits together;
+and a traffic policeman creating a favourable opening, the two
+scurried across and plunged into the comparative obscurity of West
+Thirty-eighth Street: sturdy George and his modest Violet already a
+full block in advance.
+
+Discovering this circumstance by the glimmer through the shadows of
+Violet's conspicuously striped black-and-white taffeta, P. Sybarite
+commented charitably upon their haste.
+
+"If we hurry we might catch up," suggested Molly Lessing.
+
+"I don't miss 'em much," he admitted, without offering to mend the
+pace.
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+"Are they really in love?"
+
+"George is," replied P. Sybarite, after taking thought.
+
+"You mean she isn't?"
+
+"To blush unseen is Violet's idea of nothing to do--not, at least,
+when one is a perfect thirty-eight and possesses a good digestion and
+an infinite capacity for amusement _a la carte_."
+
+"That is to say--?" the girl prompted.
+
+"Violet will marry well, if at all."
+
+"Not Mr. Bross, then?"
+
+"Nor any other poor man. I don't say she doesn't care for George, but
+before anything serious comes of it he'll have to make good use of his
+Day of Days--if _Kismet_ ever sends him one. I hope it will," P.
+Sybarite added sincerely.
+
+"You don't believe--really--?"
+
+"Just now? With all my heart! I'm so full of romantic nonsense I can
+hardly stick. Nothing is too incredible for me to believe to-night.
+I'm ready to play _Hajj the Beggar_ to any combination of
+impossibilities _Kismet_ cares to brew in Bagdad-on-the-Hudson!"
+
+Again the girl laughed quietly to his humour.
+
+"And since you're a true believer, Mr. Sybarite, tell me, what use
+_you_ would make of your Day of Days?"
+
+"I? Oh, I--" Smiling wistfully, he opened deprecatory palms. "Hard to
+say.... I'm afraid I should prove a fatuous fool in George's esteem
+equally with old _Hajj_. I'm sure that, like him, the sunset of my Day
+would see me proscribed, a price upon my head."
+
+"But--why?"
+
+"I'm afraid I'd try to use my power to right old wrongs."
+
+After a pause, she asked diffidently: "Your own?"
+
+"Perhaps.... Yes, my own, certainly.... And perhaps another's, not so
+old but possibly quite as grievous."
+
+"Somebody you care for a great deal?"
+
+Thus tardily made to realise into what perils his fancy was leading
+him, he checked and weighed her question with his answer, gravely
+judgmatical.
+
+"Perhaps I'd better not say that," he announced, a grin tempering his
+temerity; "but I'd go far for a friend, somebody who had been kind to
+me, and--ah--tolerant--if she were in trouble and could use my
+services."
+
+He fancied her glance was quick and sharp and searching; but her voice
+when she spoke was even and lightly attuned to his whimsical mood.
+
+"Then you're not even sure she--your friend--is in trouble?"
+
+"I've an intuition: she wouldn't be where she is if she wasn't."
+
+Her laughter at this absurdity was delightful; whether with him or at
+him, it was infectious; he echoed it without misgivings.
+
+"But--seriously--you're not sure, are you, Mr. Sybarite?"
+
+"Only, Miss Lessing," he said soberly, "of my futile, my painfully
+futile good will."
+
+She seemed to start to speak, to think better of it, to fall silent in
+sudden, shy constraint. He stole a side-long glance, troubled,
+wondering if perhaps he had ventured too impudently, pursuing his whim
+to the point of trespass upon the inviolable confines of her reserve.
+
+She wore a sweet, grave face, _en profile_; her eyes veiled with long
+lashes, the haunts of tender shadows; her mouth of gracious lips
+unsmiling, a little triste. Compunctions smote him; with his crude and
+clumsy banter he had contrived to tune her thoughts to sadness. He
+would have given worlds to undo that blunder; to show her that he had
+meant neither a rudeness nor a wish to desecrate her reticence, but
+only an indirect assurance of gratitude to her for suffering him and
+willingness to serve her within the compass of his poverty-stricken
+powers. For in retrospect his invitation assumed the proportions of an
+importunity, an egregious piece of presumption: so that he could have
+groaned to contemplate it.
+
+He didn't groan, save inwardly; but respected her silence, and held
+his own in humility and mortification of spirit until they were near
+the dooryard of their boarding-house. And even then it was the girl
+who loosed his tongue.
+
+"Why--where are they?" she asked in surprise.
+
+Startled out of the deeps of self-contempt, P. Sybarite discovered
+that she meant Violet and George, who were nowhere visible.
+
+"Violet said something about a little supper in her room," explained
+the girl.
+
+"I know," he replied: "crackers and cheese, beer and badinage: our
+humble pleasures. You'll be bored to extinction--but you'll come,
+won't you?"
+
+"Why, of course! I counted on it. But--"
+
+"They must have hurried on to make things ready--Violet to set her
+room to rights, George to tote the wash-pitcher to the corner for the
+beer. And very likely, pending our arrival, they're lingering at the
+head of the stairs for a kiss or two."
+
+The girl paused at the gate. "Then we needn't hurry," she suggested,
+smiling.
+
+"We needn't delay," he countered amiably. "If somebody doesn't
+interrupt 'em before long, George will be too late to get the pitcher
+filled. This town shuts up tight at midnight, Saturdays--if you want
+to believe everything you hear. So there's no need of being too
+indulgent with our infatuated fellow-inmates."
+
+"But--just a minute, Mr. Sybarite," she insisted.
+
+"As many as you wish," he laughed. "As a matter of fact, I loathe
+draught beer."
+
+"Do be serious," she begged. "I want to thank you."
+
+He was aware of a proffered hand, slender and fine in a shabby glove;
+and took it in his own, uneasily conscious of a curious disturbance in
+his bosom, of a strange and not unpleasant sense of commingled
+expectancy, pleasure, and diffidence (as far as he was able to analyse
+it--or cared to--at that instant).
+
+"It was kind of you to come," he said jerkily, in his embarrassment.
+
+"I enjoyed every moment," she said warmly. "But that wasn't all I
+meant when I thanked you."
+
+His eyebrows climbed with surprise.
+
+"What else, Miss Lessing?"
+
+"Your delicacy in letting me know you understood--"
+
+Disengaging her hand, she broke off with a startled movement, and a
+low cry of surprise.
+
+A taxicab, swinging into the street from Eighth Avenue, had boiled up
+to the curb before the gate, and pausing, discharged a young man in a
+hurry; witness the facts that he had the door open when halfway
+between the corner and the house, and was on the running-board before
+the vehicle was fairly at a halt.
+
+In a stride this one crossed the sidewalk and pulled up, silently,
+trying to master the temper which was visibly shaking him. Tall,
+well-proportioned, impressively turned out in evening clothes, he
+thrust forward a handsome face marred by an evil, twisted mouth, and
+peered searchingly at the girl.
+
+Instinctively she shrank back inside the fence, eyeing him with a look
+of fascinated dismay.
+
+As instinctively P. Sybarite bristled between the two.
+
+"Well?" he snapped at the intruder.
+
+An impatient gesture of a hand immaculately gloved in white abolished
+him completely--as far, at least, as the other was concerned.
+
+"Ah--Miss Lessing, I believe?"
+
+The voice was strong and musical but poisoned with a malicious triumph
+that grated upon the nerves of P. Sybarite; he declined to be
+abolished.
+
+"Say the word," he suggested serenely to the girl, "and I'll bundle
+this animal back into that taxi and direct the driver to the nearest
+accident ward. I'd rather like to, really."
+
+"Get rid of this microbe," interrupted the other savagely--"unless you
+want him buried between glass slides under a microscope."
+
+The girl turned to P. Sybarite with pleading eyes and imploring hands.
+
+"If you please, dear Mr. Sybarite," she begged in a tremulous voice:
+"I'm afraid I must speak alone with this"--there was a barely
+perceptible pause--gentleman. If you won't mind waiting a moment--at
+the door--?"
+
+"If it pleases you, Miss Lessing--most certainly." He drew back a step
+or two. "But speaking of microbes," he added incisively, "a word of
+advice: don't tease 'em. My bite is deadly: neither Pasteur nor your
+family veterinary could save you."
+
+Ignored by the man, but satisfied in his employment of the last word,
+he strutted back to the brownstone stoop, there to establish himself,
+out of earshot but within, easy hail.
+
+Hearing nothing, he made little more of the guarded conference that
+began on his withdrawal. The man, entering the dooryard, had cornered
+the girl in an angle of the fence. He seemed at once insistent,
+determined, and thoroughly angry; while she exhibited perfect
+composure with some evident contempt and implacable obstinacy.
+Nevertheless, in a brace of minutes the fellow seemingly brought forth
+some telling argument. She wavered and her accents rose in doubt:
+
+"Is that true?"
+
+His reply, if inaudible, was as forcible as it was patently an
+affirmative.
+
+"I don't believe you!"
+
+"You don't dare doubt me."
+
+This time he was clearly articulate, and betrayed a conviction that he
+had won the day: an impression borne out by the evident irresolution
+of the girl, prefacing her abrupt surrender.
+
+"Very well," she said in a tone of resignation.
+
+"You'll go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He moved aside, to give her way through the gate. But she hung back,
+with a glance for P. Sybarite.
+
+"One moment, please," she said: "I must leave a message."
+
+"Nonsense--!"
+
+She showed displeasure in the lift of her chin. "I think I'm my own
+mistress--as yet."
+
+He growled indistinguishably.
+
+"You have my promise," she cut him short coldly. "Wait for me." And
+she turned back to the house.
+
+Wondering, P. Sybarite went to meet her. Impulsively she gave him her
+hand a second time; with as little reflection, he took it in both his
+own.
+
+"Is there nothing I can do?"
+
+Her voice was broken: "I don't know. I must go--it's imperative....
+Could you--?... I wonder!"
+
+"Anything you ask," he asserted confidently.
+
+Hesitating briefly, in a tone little above a whisper: "I must go," she
+repeated. "I can't refuse. But--alone. Do you understand--?"
+
+"You mean--without him?" P. Sybarite nodded toward the man fuming in
+the gateway.
+
+"Yes. If you could suggest something to detain him long enough for me
+to get into the cab and say one word to the chauffeur--"
+
+The chest of P. Sybarite swelled.
+
+"Leave it to me," he said with fine simplicity.
+
+"Molly!" cried the man at the gate.
+
+"Don't answer," P. Sybarite advised: "if you don't, he'll lose
+patience and come to fetch you. And then--"
+
+"But I'm afraid he may--"
+
+"_Molly!_"
+
+"Don't you fear for me: God's good to the Irish."
+
+"MOLLY!"
+
+"Do be quiet," suggested P. Sybarite, not altogether civilly.
+
+The other started as if slapped.
+
+"What's that?" he barked in a rage.
+
+"I said, hold your tongue."
+
+"The devil you did!" With a snort the man strode in to the stoop. "Do
+you know who you're talking to?" he demanded wrathfully, towering over
+P. Sybarite, momentarily forgetful of the girl.
+
+Stepping aside, as if in alarm, she moved behind the fellow, and
+darted through the gate.
+
+"I don't," P. Sybarite admitted amiably; "but your nose annoys me."
+
+He fixed that feature with an irritating glare.
+
+"You impudent puppy!" stormed the other. "Who are you?"
+
+"Who--me?" echoed P. Sybarite in surprise. (The girl was now
+instructing the chauffeur.) "Why," he drawled, "I'm the guy that put
+the point in disappointment. Sure you've heard of _me_?"
+
+At the curb, the door of the taxicab closed with a slam.
+Simultaneously the drone of the motor thickened to a rumble. The man
+with the twisted mouth turned just in time to see it drawing away.
+
+"_Hi!_" he cried in surprise and dismay.
+
+But the taxi didn't pause; to the contrary, it stretched out toward
+Ninth Avenue at a quickening pace.
+
+With profanity appreciating the fact that he had been tricked, he
+picked up his heels in pursuit. But P. Sybarite had not finished with
+him. Deftly plucking the man back by the tail of his full-skirted
+opera coat, he succeeded in arresting his flight before it was fairly
+started.
+
+"Here!" he protested. "What's your hurry?"
+
+With a vicious snarl, the man turned and snatched at his cloak. But P.
+Sybarite adhered tenaciously to the coat.
+
+"We were discussing your nose--"
+
+At discretion, he interrupted himself to duck beneath the swing of a
+powerful fist. And this last, failing to find a mark, threw its owner
+off his balance. Tripping awkwardly over the low curbing of the
+dooryard walk, he reeled and went a-sprawl on his knees, while his hat
+fell off and (such is the impish habit of toppers) rolled and bounded
+several feet away.
+
+Releasing the cloak, P. Sybarite withdrew to a respectful remove and
+held himself coolly alert against reprisals that never came. The other
+picked himself up quickly, cast about for the taxicab, discovered it
+swiftly making off--already twenty yards distant--and with a howl of
+rage bounded through the gate and gave chase at the top of his speed.
+
+Gravely, P. Sybarite retrieved the hat and followed to the curbing.
+
+"Hey!" he shouted after the fast retreating figure--"here's your
+_hat_!"
+
+But he wasted breath. The taxicab was nearing Ninth Avenue, its
+pursuer sprinting bravely a hundred feet to the rear, and as he
+watched, both turned the northern corner and vanished like shapes of
+dream.
+
+Sighing, P. Sybarite went back to the stoop and sat down to consider
+the state of his soul (which was vain-glorious) and the condition of
+the hat (which was soiled, rumpled, and disreputable).
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+WHEELS OF CHANCE
+
+
+Turning the affair over in his mind, and considering it from every
+imaginable angle, P. Sybarite decided (fairly enough) that it was, on
+the whole, mysterious; lending at least some colour of likelihood to
+George's gratuitous guess-work.
+
+Certainly it would seem that one had now every right to assume Miss
+Molly Lessing to be other than as she chose to seem; nowadays the
+villain in shining evening dress doesn't pursue the shrinking
+shop-girl save through the action of the obsolescent mellerdrammer or
+of the ubiquitous moving-picture reel. So much must at least be said
+for these great educators: they have broken the villain of his
+open-face attire; to-day he knows better, and when prowling to devour,
+disguises himself in the guileless if nobby "sack suit" of the widely
+advertised Kollege Kut brand....
+
+In short, Molly Lessing might very well be Marian Blessington, after
+all!
+
+In which case the man with the twisted mouth was, more probably than
+not, none other than that same Bayard Shaynon whom the young lady was
+reported to have jilted so arbitrarily.
+
+Turning the topper over in his hands, it occurred to P. Sybarite to
+wonder if he did not, in it, hold a valuable clue to this riddle of
+identity. Promptly he took the hat indoors to find out, investigating
+it most thoroughly by the flickering, bluish glare of the lonely
+gas-jet that burned in the hallway.
+
+It was a handsome and heavy hat of English manufacture, as witness the
+name of a Bond Street hatter in its crown; by the slight
+discolouration of its leather, had seen service without, however,
+depreciating in utility, needing only brushing and ironing to restore
+its pristine brilliance; carried neither name nor initials on its
+lining; and lacked every least hint as to its ownership--or so it
+seemed until the prying fingers of P. Sybarite turned down the leather
+and permitted a visiting card concealed therein to flutter to the
+floor.
+
+The hall rack was convenient; hanging up the hat, P. Sybarite picked
+up the card. It displayed in conventional script the name, _Bailey
+Penfield_, with the address, _97 West 45th Street_; one corner,
+moreover, bore a pencilled hieroglyphic which seemed to read:
+"_O.K.--B.P._"
+
+"Whatever," P. Sybarite mused, "_that_ may mean."
+
+He turned the card over and examined its unmarked and taciturn
+reverse.
+
+Stealthy footsteps on the stairs distracted his studious attention
+from the card. He looked up, blinking and frowning thoughtfully, to
+see George descending with the wash-pitcher wrapped in, but by no
+means disguised by, brown paper. Once at the bottom of the stairs,
+this one expressed amazement in a whisper, to avoid rousing their
+landlady, who held, unreasonably, that it detracted from the tone of
+her establishment for gentlemen boarders to rush the growler....
+
+"Hel-lo! We thought you must've got lost in the shuffle."
+
+"Did you?" said P. Sybarite absently.
+
+"Where's Molly?"
+
+"Miss Lessing?" P. Sybarite looked surprised. "Isn't she
+upstairs--with Violet?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"That's funny...."
+
+"Why, when'd she leave you?"
+
+"Oh, ten minutes ago, or so."
+
+"She must have stopped in her room for somethin'."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"But why didn't you come on up?"
+
+"Well, you see, I met a man outside I wanted to talk to for a moment.
+So I left her at the door."
+
+"Well, Vi's waitin'. Run on up. I won't be five minutes. And knock on
+Molly's door and see what's the matter."
+
+"All right," returned P. Sybarite serenely.
+
+His constructive mendacity light upon his conscience, he permitted
+George time enough to leave the house and gain Clancey's, then quietly
+followed as far as the gate, from which point he cut across the
+southern sidewalk, turned west to Ninth Avenue, and there north to
+Forty-second Street, where he boarded a cross-town car.
+
+This was quite the most insane freak in which he had indulged himself
+these many years; and frankly admitting this much, he was rather
+pleased than otherwise. He was bound to call on Mr. Bailey Penfield
+and inform that gentleman where he might find his hat. Incidentally he
+hoped to surprise something or other informing with regard to the
+fortunes of Miss Lessing subsequent to her impulsive flight by
+taxicab.
+
+All of which, he calmly admitted, constituted an inexcusable
+impertinence: he deserved a thoroughgoing snubbing, and rather
+anticipated one, especially if destined to find Mr. Penfield at home
+or, by some vagary of chance, to encounter Miss Lessing again.
+
+But he smiled cheerfully in contemplation of this prospect, buoyed up
+with a belief that his unconsciously idiotic behaviour was
+intrinsically more or less Quixotic, and further excited by the hope
+that he might possibly be permitted to serve his lady of mystery.
+
+At all events, he meant to know more about Mr. Bailey Penfield before
+he slept.
+
+Alighting at Sixth Avenue, he walked to Forty-fifth Street, turned off
+to the right, and in another moment was at a standstill, in the
+extremest perplexity, before Number 97.
+
+By every normal indication, the house was closed and tenantless. From
+roof to basement its every window was blind with shades close-drawn.
+The front doors were closed, the basement grating likewise. An
+atmospheric accumulation of street debris littered the area
+flagstones, together with one or two empty and battered ash-cans, in
+whose shadows an emaciated cat skulked apprehensively. The one thing
+lacking to signify that the Penfield menage had moved bodily to the
+country, was the shield of a burglar protective association in one of
+the parlour windows. P. Sybarite looked for that in vain.
+
+Disappointed in the conviction that he had drawn a false lead, the
+little man strolled on eastward a little distance, then on sheer
+impulse, gave up his project and, swinging about, started to go home.
+But now, as he approached Number 97 the second time, a taxicab turned
+in from Sixth Avenue, slid to the curb before that dwelling, and set
+down a smallish young man dressed in the extreme of fashion--a person
+of physical characteristics by no means to be confused with those of
+the man with the twisted mouth--who, negligently handing a bill to the
+chauffeur, ran nimbly up the steps, rang the door-bell, and promptly
+letting himself into the vestibule, closed the door behind him.
+
+The taxicab swung round and made off. Not so P. Sybarite. Profoundly
+intrigued, he waited hopefully for this second midnight caller to
+reappear, as baffled as himself. But though he dawdled away a patient
+five minutes, nothing of the sort occurred. The front doors remained
+closed and undisturbed, as little communicative as the darkened
+windows.
+
+Here was mystery within mystery, indeed! The circumstances annoyed P.
+Sybarite intensely. And why (he asked himself, with impatience) need
+he remain outside when another entered without let or hindrance?
+
+Upon this thought he turned boldly up the steps, pressed the
+bell-button; laid hold of the door-knob, and entered into a vestibule
+as dark as his bewilderment and as empty as the palm of his hand;
+proving that the young gentleman of fashion had experienced no
+difficulty in penetrating farther into fastnesses of this singular
+establishment. And reflecting that where one had gone, another might
+follow, P. Sybarite pulled the door to behind him.
+
+Instantly the bare and narrow vestibule was flooded with the merciless
+glare of half a dozen electric bulbs; and at the same time he found
+himself sustaining the intent scrutiny of a pair of inhospitable dark
+eyes set in an impassive dark face--this last abruptly disclosed in
+the frame of a small grille in one of the inner doors.
+
+Though far too dumfounded for speech, he contrived to return the stare
+with aggressive interest, and to such effect that he presently wore
+through the patience of the other.
+
+"Well?" he was gruffly asked.
+
+"The Saints be praised!" returned P. Sybarite. "I find myself so. And
+yourself?" he added civilly: not to be outdone, as the saying is.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+Irritating discourtesy inhered in the speaker's tone. P. Sybarite
+stiffened his neck.
+
+"To see Mr. Penfield," he returned firmly--"of course!"
+
+"What Mr. Penfield?" asked the other, after a pause so transient that
+it was little more than distinguishable, but which to P. Sybarite
+indicated beyond question that at least one Mr. Penfield was known to
+his cautious interlocutor.
+
+"Mr. Bailey Penfield," he replied. "Who else?"
+
+During a pause slightly longer than the first, the hostile and
+suspicious eyes summed him up a second time.
+
+"No such party here," was the verdict. The man drew back and made as
+if to shut the grille.
+
+"Nonsense!" P. Sybarite insisted sharply. "I have his card with this
+number--got it from him only to-night."
+
+"Card?" The face returned to the grille.
+
+P. Sybarite made no bones about displaying his alleged credential.
+
+"I believe you'll find that authentic," he observed with asperity.
+
+By way of answer, the grille closed with a snap; but his inclination
+to kick the door was nullified when, without further delay, it opened
+to admit him. Nose in air, he strutted in, and the door clanged behind
+him.
+
+"Gimme another slant at that card," the guardian insisted.
+
+Surrendering it with elaborate indifference, P. Sybarite treated
+himself to a comprehensive survey of the place.
+
+He stood in the main hall of an old-fashioned residence. To his right,
+a double doorway revealed a drawing-room luxuriously furnished but, as
+far as he could determine, quite untenanted. On the left, a long
+staircase hugged the wall, with a glow of warm light at its head. To
+the rear, the hall ended in a single doorway through which he could
+see a handsome mahogany buffet elaborately arranged with shimmering
+damask, silver, and crystal.
+
+"It's all right," announced the warden of the grille, his suspicions
+to all seeming completely allayed. "Mr. Penfield ain't in just at
+present, but"--here he grinned shrewdly--"I reckon you ain't so dead
+set on seein' him as you made out."
+
+"On the contrary," P. Sybarite retorted stiffly, "my business is
+immediate and personal with Mr. Penfield. I will wait."
+
+"Sure." Into the accents of the other there crept magically a trace of
+geniality. "Will you go right on up, or would you like a bite of
+somethin' to eat first?"
+
+At the mere hint of food, a frightful pang of hunger transfixed P.
+Sybarite. He winked furtively, afraid to trust Iris tongue to speech.
+
+"What d'ya say?" insinuated the doorkeeper. "Just a bit of a snack,
+eh? Say a caviare sandwich and a thimbleful of the grape?"
+
+Abandoning false pride, P. Sybarite yielded:
+
+"I don't mind if I do, thank you."
+
+"Straight on back; Pete'll take care of you, all right."
+
+A thumb indicated the door in the rear of the hall. Thither P.
+Sybarite betook himself on the instant, spurred by the demands of an
+appetite insatiable once it had won recognition.
+
+He found the back room one of good proportions: whatever the
+architect's original intention, now serving as a combined lounge and
+grill, richly and comfortably furnished in sober, masculine fashion,
+boasting in all three buffets set forth with a lavish display of food
+and drink. In one of many deeply upholstered club chairs a gentleman
+of mature years and heavy body, with a scarlet face and a crumpled,
+wine-stained shirt-bosom, was slumbering serenely, two-thirds of an
+extravagant cigar cold between his fingers. In others two young men
+were confabulating quietly but with a most dissipated air, heads
+together over a brace of glasses. At a corner service table a negro in
+a white jacket was busy with a silver chafing-dish which exhaled a
+tantalising aroma. This last, at the entrance of P. Sybarite, glanced
+quickly over his shoulder, and seeing a strange face, clapped the
+cover on the steaming chafing-dish and discovered a round black
+countenance bisected by a complete mouthful of the most brilliant
+teeth imaginable.
+
+"Yas-suh--comin'!" he gabbled cheerfully. "It's sho' a pleasure to see
+yo' again."
+
+"At least," suggested P. Sybarite, dropping into a chair, "it will be,
+next time."
+
+"Tha's right, suh--that's the troof!" The negro placed a small table
+adjacent to his elbow. "Tha's what Ah allus says to strange gemmun,
+fust time they comes hyeh, suh; makes 'em feel more at home like. Jus'
+lemme know what Ah kin do for yo' to-night. That 'ere lobstuh
+Newburg's jus' about prime fo' eatin' this very minute, ef yo' feel a
+bit peckish."
+
+"I do," P. Sybarite admitted. "Just a spoonful--"
+
+"An' uh lil drink, suh? Jus' one lil innercent cocktail to fix yo'
+mouf right?"
+
+"If you insist, Pete--if you insist."
+
+"Yas-suh; and wif the lobstuh, suh, Ah venture to sug-gest a nice cold
+lil ha'f-pint of Cliquot, Yallah Label? How that strike yo' fancy,
+suh? Er mebbe yo'd perfuh--"
+
+"Enough!" said P. Sybarite firmly. "A mere bite and a glass are enough
+to sustain life."
+
+"Ain't that the troof?"
+
+Chuckling, the negro waddled away, returned, and offered the guest a
+glass brimming with amber-tinted liquid.
+
+Poising the vessel delicately between thumb and forefinger, P.
+Sybarite treated himself to one small sip--an instant of lingering
+delectation--another sip. So only, it is asserted, must the victim of
+the desert begin to allay his burning thirst; with discretion--a sip
+at a time--gingerly.
+
+It was years since P. Sybarite had tasted a cocktail artfully
+concocted.
+
+Dreamily he closed his eyes halfway. From a point in his anatomy a
+degree or two south of his diaphragm, a sensation of the most warm
+congratulation began to pervade his famished system: as if (he
+thought) his domestic economy were organising a torchlight procession
+by way of appropriate celebration.
+
+Tender morsels of lobster smothered in cream and sherry (piping hot)
+daintiest possible wafers of bread-and-butter embracing leaves of pale
+lettuce, a hollow-stemmed glass effervescent with liquid sunlight of a
+most excellent bouquet, and then another: these served not in the
+least to subdue his occult jubilation.
+
+Finally "the house," through the medium of its servitor, insisted that
+he top off with a cigar.
+
+Ten years since his teeth had gripped a Fancy Tales of Smoke!...
+
+Now it mustn't be understood that P. Sybarite entertained any
+misapprehensions as to the nature of the institution into which he had
+stumbled. He had not needed the sound, sometimes in quieter moments
+audible from upstairs, of a prolonged whirr ending in several staccato
+clicks, to make him shrewdly cognisant of its questionable character.
+
+So at length, satiate and a little weary--drawn by curiosity
+besides--he rose, endowed Pete lavishly with a handful of small change
+(something over fifty cents; all he had in the world aside from his
+cherished five dollars), and with an impressive air of the most
+thorough-paced sophistication (nodding genially to the doorkeeper _en
+passant_) slowly ascended to the second floor.
+
+Here, in remodelling the house for its present purposes, partitions
+had arbitrarily been dispensed with, aside from that enclosing the
+well of the stairway; the floor was one large room, wholly devoted to
+some half a dozen games of chance. With but few of these was P.
+Sybarite familiar; but on information and belief he marked down a faro
+layout, the device with which his reading had made him acquainted
+under the designation of _les petits chevaux_, and at either end of
+the saloon, immense roulette tables.
+
+Upon all the gaming tables massive electric domes concentrated their
+light. The walls, otherwise severely unadorned, were covered with
+lustrous golden fabric; the windows were invisible, cloaked in
+splendid golden hangings; the carpet, golden brown in tone, was of a
+velvet pile so heavy that it completely muffled the sound of
+footsteps. The room, indeed, was singularly quiet for one that
+harboured some two-score players in addition to a full corps of
+dealers, croupiers, watchers, and waiters. The almost incessant whine
+of racing ivory balls with their clattering over the metal
+compartments of the roulette wheels, clicking of chips, dispassionate
+voices of croupiers, and an occasional low-pitched comment on the part
+of one or another of the patrons, seemed only to lend emphasis to the
+hush.
+
+The warmth of the room was noticeable....
+
+A brief survey of the gathering convinced P. Sybarite that, barring
+the servants, he was a lonely exception to the rule of evening dress.
+But this discovery discomfited him not at all. The wine buzzing in his
+head, his demeanour, not to mince matters, rakehelly, with an eye
+alert for the man with the twisted mouth, negligent hands in his
+trouser pockets, teeth tight upon that admirable cigar, he strutted
+hither and yon, ostensibly as much in his native element as a press
+agent in a theatre lobby.
+
+A few minutes sufficed to demonstrate that the owner of the abandoned
+hat was not among those present; which fact, coupled with the
+doorkeeper's averment that Mr. Bailey Penfield was out, persuaded P.
+Sybarite that this last was neither more nor less than the proprietor
+of the premises. But this conclusion perturbed, completely unsettling
+his conviction regarding the _soi-disant_ Miss Lessing; he couldn't
+imagine either her or Miss Marian Blessington in any way involved with
+a common (or even a proper) gambler.
+
+To feel obliged constantly to revise his hasty inferences, he
+considered tremendously tiresome. It left one all up in the air!
+
+His tour ended at last in a pause by the roulette table at the rear of
+the room. Curious to watch the game in being, he lingered there, head
+cocked shrewdly on one shoulder, a speculative pensiveness informing
+his eyes, his interest plainly aloof and impersonal. This despite the
+fact that his emotions of intestinal felicity were momentarily
+becoming more intense: the torchlight procession was in full swing,
+leaving an enduring refulgence wherever it passed.
+
+There were perhaps half a dozen players round the board--four on one
+wing, two on the other. Of the latter, one was that very young man who
+had been responsible for P. Sybarite's change of mind with regard to
+going home. With a bored air this prodigal was frittering away
+five-dollar notes on the colours, the columns, and the dozens: his ill
+success stupendous, his apparent indifference positively magnificent.
+But in the course of the little while that P. Sybarite watched, he
+either grew weary or succeeded in emptying his pockets, and ceasing to
+play, sat back with a grunt of impatience more than of disgust.
+
+The ball ran its course thrice before he moved. Then abruptly lifting
+his finger to the croupier: "Five on the red, Andy," said he.
+
+"Five on the red," repeated the croupier; and set aside a
+chocolate-coloured chip in memorandum of the wager.
+
+When the ball settled again to rest, the announcement was monotonously
+recited: "Nine, red, odd, first dozen." And the blase prodigal was
+presented with the chocolate-coloured token.
+
+Carelessly he tossed it upon the red diamond. Black won. Unperturbed,
+he made a second oral bet, this time on black, and lost; increased his
+wager to ten dollars on black--and lost; made it twenty, shifted to
+red, and lost; dropped back to five-dollar bets for three turns of the
+wheel, and lost them all. Fifty dollars in debt to the house, he rose,
+nodded casually to the croupier, left the room.
+
+In mingled envy and amazement P. Sybarite watched him go. Fancy losing
+three weeks' wages and a third of another week's without turning a
+hair! Fancy losing fifty dollars without being required to pay up!
+
+"Looks easy," meditated P. Sybarite with a thrill of dreadful
+yearning....
+
+At precisely that instant the torchlight procession penetrated a
+territory theretofore unaffected, which received it with open arms and
+tumultuous rejoicings and even went so far as to start up a couple of
+bonfires of its own and hang out several strings of Japanese lanterns.
+In the midst of a confusion of soaring skyrockets and Roman candles
+vomiting showers of scintillant golden sparks, P. Sybarite was shocked
+to hear his own voice.
+
+"Five on the red," it said distinctly, with an effect of extravagant
+apathy.
+
+A thought later he caught the croupier's eye and drove the wager home
+with a nod. His heart stopped beating.
+
+Five dollars! All he had in the world!
+
+The _whirr_ of the deadly little ball in its ebony runway was like
+nothing less than the exultant shriek of a banshee. Instantaneously
+(as if an accident had happened in the power house) every light in his
+body went out and left it cold and dark and altogether dismayed.
+
+The croupier began his chant: "Three, red--!"
+
+P. Sybarite failed to hear the rest. All the lights were on again,
+full blast. The croupier tossed him a chocolate token. He was
+conscious that he touched it with numb and witless fingers,
+mechanically pushing it upon the red diamond.
+
+Ensued another awful, soul-sickening minute of suspense....
+
+"Twenty-five, red--!"
+
+A second brown chip appeared magically on top of the first. P.
+Sybarite regarded both stupidly; afraid to touch them, his brain
+communicated to his hand the impulse to remove the chips ere it was
+too late, but the hand hung moveless in listless mutiny.
+
+"_Thirty-four red_--!"
+
+Two more chips were added to his stack.
+
+And this time his brain sulked. If his body wouldn't heed its plain
+and sagacious admonition--very well!--it just wouldn't bother to
+signal any further advice.
+
+But quite instinctively his hand moved out, tenderly embraced the four
+brown chips, and transferred them to the green area dominated by the
+black diamond.
+
+"_Twelve, black_--!"
+
+Forty dollars were represented in that stunted pillar of brown wafers!
+P. Sybarite experienced an effect of coming to his senses after an
+abbreviated and, to tell the truth, somewhat nightmarish nap. Aping
+the manner of one or two other players whom he had observed before
+this madness possessed him, he thrust the chips out of the charmed
+circle of chance, and nodded again (with what a seasoned air!) to the
+croupier.
+
+"Cash or chips?" enquired that functionary.
+
+"Oh--cash, thank you."
+
+The chips gathered into the company of their brethren, two
+twenty-dollar bills replaced them.
+
+Stuffing these into his pocket, P. Sybarite turned and strolled
+indifferently toward the door.
+
+"Better leave while your luck holds," Intelligence counselled.
+
+"Right you are," he admitted fairly. "I'll go home now before anybody
+gets this away from me."
+
+"Sensible of you," Intelligence approved.
+
+"Still," suggested the small but clear voice of Greed, "you've got
+your original five dollars yet to lose. Be a sport. Don't go without
+turning in a cent to the house. It wouldn't look pretty."
+
+"There's something in that," admitted P. Sybarite again.
+
+Nevertheless, he never quite understood how it was that his feet
+carried him to the other roulette table, at the end of the salon
+opposite that at which he had been playing; or how it was that his
+fingers produced and coolly handed over the board, one of the
+twenty-dollar notes rather than the modest five he had meant to risk.
+
+"How many?" the new croupier asked pleasantly.
+
+P. Sybarite pulled a doubtful mouth. Five dollars' worth was all he
+really wanted. What on earth would he do with all the chips twenty
+dollars would buy? He'd need a bushel measure!
+
+Before he could make up his mind, however, exactly twenty white
+counters were meted out to him.
+
+"What are these worth?" he demanded incredulously, dropping into a
+chair.
+
+"One dollar each," he was informed.
+
+"Indeed?" he replied, politely smothering a slight yawn.
+
+But he conceived a new respect for those infatuated men who so
+recklessly peppered the lay-out with chips--singly and in little piles
+of five and ten--worth one-hundred cents each!
+
+However, to save his face, he'd have to go through his twenty. But
+after that--exit!
+
+He made this promise to himself.
+
+Prying a single chip apart from its fellows, he tossed it heedlessly
+upon the numbered squares. It landed upon its rim, rolled toward the
+wheel, and fainted gracefully upon the green compartment numbered 00.
+
+The croupier cocked an eyebrow at him, as if questioning his
+intention, at the instant the ivory ball began to sing its song of a
+single note. Abruptly it was chattering; in another instant it was
+still.
+
+"Double O!" announced a voice.
+
+A player next P. Sybarite swore soulfully.
+
+Thirty-five white chips were stacked alongside the winning stake. With
+unbecoming haste P. Sybarite removed them.
+
+"Well," he sighed privately, "there's one thing certain: this won't
+last. But I don't like to seem a piker. I'll just make sure of this
+one: it can't win. And at that, I'll be another fifteen dollars in."
+
+Deliberately he shifted the nineteen remaining of his original stack
+to keep company with his winning chip on the Double O....
+
+A minute or so later the man at his elbow said excitedly: "I'll be
+damned if it didn't repeat! Can you beat that--!"
+
+P. Sybarite stared stupidly.
+
+"How's that?" he said.
+
+"Double O," the croupier answered: "the second time."
+
+"This is becoming uncanny," P. Sybarite observed to himself;
+and--"Cash!" said he aloud with cold decision.
+
+Seven new one-hundred dollar certificates were placed in his hand. In
+a daze he counted, folded, and pocketed them. While thus engaged he
+heard the ball spin again. His original twenty dollars remained upon
+the double naught. Ten turned up: his stake was gathered in.
+
+"You've had enough," Intelligence advised.
+
+"Perfectly true," P. Sybarite admitted.
+
+This time his anatomy proved quite docile. He found himself at the
+foot of the steps, fatuously smiling at the doorkeeper.
+
+"He ain't come in yet," said the latter; "but he's liable to be here
+any minute now."
+
+"Oh, yes," said P. Sybarite brightly, after a brief pause--"Mr.
+Penfield, of course. Sorry I can't wait."
+
+"Well, you'll want your hat before you go--won't you?"
+
+Placing an incredulous hand upon the crown of his head, P. Sybarite
+realised that it was covered exclusively with hair.
+
+"I must have put it down somewhere upstairs," he murmured in panic.
+
+"Mebbe you left it with Pete before you went up."
+
+"Perhaps I did."
+
+Turning back to the lounge, he entered to find it deserted save for
+the somnolent old gentleman and the hospitable Pete, but for whom P.
+Sybarite would probably never have known the delirious joy of that
+internal celebration or found the courage to risk his first bet.
+
+And suddenly the fifty-cent tip previously bestowed upon the servitor
+seemed, to one unexpectedly fallen heir to the princely fortune then
+in P. Sybarite's pockets, the very nadir of beggarliness.
+
+"Pete," said he with owlish gravity, "I begin to see that I have done
+you an inexcusable injustice."
+
+Giggling, the negro scratched his head.
+
+"Well, suh," he admitted, "Ah finds that gemmun gen'ly does change
+they min's erbout me, aftuh they done cut er melon, like."
+
+With the air of an emperor, P. Sybarite gave the negro a twenty-dollar
+bill.
+
+"And now," he cut short a storm of thanks, "if you'll be good enough
+to give me just one more glass of champagne, I think I'll totter
+home."
+
+"Yas-_suh!_"
+
+In a twinkling a glass was in his hand. As if it were so much
+water--in short, indifferently--P. Sybarite tossed it off.
+
+"And my hat."
+
+"Yo' hat?" Pete iterated in surprise. "Yo' didn't leaf yo' hat wif me,
+suh; yo' done tek it wif yo' when yo' went upstahs."
+
+"Oh," murmured P. Sybarite, dashed.
+
+He turned to the door, hesitated, turned back, and solemnly sat
+himself down.
+
+"Pete," said he, extending his right foot, "I wish you'd do something
+for me."
+
+"Yas-suh!"
+
+"Take off my shoe."
+
+Staring with naif incredulity until assured of the gentleman's
+complete seriousness, the negro plumped down upon his knees, unlaced,
+and removed the shoe.
+
+"It's a shocking shoe," observed P. Sybarite dreamily.
+
+Bending forward he tucked his original five-dollar note into the toe
+of the despised footgear.
+
+"I am not going home broke," he explained laboriously to Pete; "as I
+certainly shall if I dare go upstairs again to find my hat."
+
+"Yo's sholly sens'ble," Pete approved. "But they ain't no reason why
+yo' sho'd tek enny mo' chances ef yo' don't wantuh," he added,
+knotting the laces. "I'd just as leave's not go fetch yo' hat."
+
+"You needn't bother," P. Sybarite returned with dignity.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE PLUNGER
+
+
+A humour the most cool and reckless imaginable now possessed P.
+Sybarite. The first flush of his unaccustomed libations seemed to have
+worn itself out, his more recent draught to have had no other effect
+than to steady his gratulate senses; and a certain solid comfort
+resided in the knowledge that his hard-earned five dollars reposed in
+safe deposit.
+
+"They can't get _that_ away from me--not so long as I'm able to kick,"
+he reflected with huge satisfaction.
+
+And the seven hundred and thirty-five in his pocket was possessed of a
+devil of restlessness. He could almost feel it quivering with
+impatience to get into action. After all, it was only seven hundred
+and thirty-five dollars: not a cent more than the wages of forty-nine
+weeks' servitude to the Genius of the Vault of the Smell!
+
+"That," mused P. Sybarite scornfully, "won't take me far....
+
+"What," he argued, "is the use of travelling if you can't go to the
+end of the line?...
+
+"I might as well be broke," he asseverated, "as the way I am!"
+
+Glancing cunningly down his nose, he saw the finish of a fool.
+
+"Anyway," he insisted, "it was ever my fondest ambition to get rid of
+precisely seven hundred and thirty-five dollars in one hour by the
+clock."
+
+So he sat down at the end of the table of his first winnings, and
+exchanged one of his seven big bills for one hundred white chips.
+
+"What," he asked with an ingenious smile, "is the maximum?"
+
+"Seein's it's you," said the croupier, grinning, "we'll make it twenty
+a throw."
+
+"Such being the case"--P. Sybarite pushed back the little army of
+white chips--"you may give me twenty dark-brown counters for
+these...."
+
+In ten minutes he had lost two hundred dollars.
+
+At the end of twenty minutes, he exchanged his last thirty-five
+dollars for seven brown chips.
+
+Ten minutes later, he was worth eighteen hundred dollars; in another
+ten, he had before him counters calling for five thousand or
+thereabouts.
+
+"It is," he observed privately--"it must be my Day of Days!"
+
+A hand touched his shoulder, and a quiet voice said: "Beg pardon--"
+
+He looked up with a slight start--that wasn't one of joyous welcome,
+because the speaker was altogether a stranger--to find at his elbow a
+large body of man entirely surrounded by evening clothes and urbanity;
+whose face was broad with plump cheeks particularly clean-shaven;
+whose eyes were keen and small and twinkling; whose fat hand (offered
+to P. Sybarite) was strikingly white and dimpled and well-manicured;
+whose dignity and poise (alike inimitable) combined with the
+complaisance of a seasoned student of mankind to mark an individuality
+at once insinuating and forceful.
+
+"You were asking for me, I believe?" pursued this person, with
+complete suavity.
+
+P. Sybarite pursed doubtful lips. "I'm afraid," he replied
+pleasantly, "you have the advantage of me.... Let's see: this is my
+thirty-second birthday...."
+
+The ball was spinning. He deposited four chips on the square numbered
+32.
+
+"I am Mr. Penfield," the stranger explained.
+
+"Really?" P. Sybarite jumped up and cordially seized his hand. "I hope
+I see you well to-night."
+
+Releasing the hand, he sat down.
+
+"Quite well, thank you; in fact, never better." With a slight smile
+Mr. Penfield nodded toward the gaming table. "Having a good time?"
+
+"_Thirty-two, red, even_," observed the croupier....
+
+"Oh, tolerable, tolerable," assented P. Sybarite, blandly accepting
+counters that called for seven hundred dollars....
+
+"In one year from to-day, I shall be thirty-three," he reckoned; and
+shifted a maximum to the square designated by that number....
+
+"What do you think? Is Teddy going to get the nomination?"
+
+"I'm only very slightly interested in politics," returned Mr.
+Penfield. "I shouldn't like to express an opinion.... Sorry a prior
+engagement obliged me to keep you waiting."
+
+"_Thirty-three, black, odd_...."
+
+"Don't mention it," insisted P. Sybarite politely. "Not another word
+of apology--I protest! Indeed, I've managed to divert myself amazingly
+while waiting.... Thank you," he added in acknowledgment of another
+seven-hundred-dollar consignment of chips. "To-day," he mused aloud,
+"is the thirteenth of April--"
+
+"The fourteenth," corrected Mr. Penfield: "to-day is only about two
+hours old."
+
+"Right you are," admitted P. Sybarite, shifting twenty dollars from
+the 13 to the 14. "Careless memory of mine ..."
+
+"_Thirteen, black, odd_...."
+
+"There, now! You see--you spoiled my aim," P. Sybarite complained
+peevishly.
+
+"Forgive me," murmured Mr. Penfield while P. Sybarite made another
+wager. "Are you in a hurry to break the bank?" he added.
+
+"It's my ambition," modestly confessed the little man, watching a
+second twenty gathered in to the benefit of the house. "But I've only
+a few minutes more--and you do play such a _darned_ small game."
+
+"Perhaps I can arrange matters for you," suggested Mr. Penfield.
+"You'd like the limit removed?"
+
+"Not as bad as all that. Make the maximum a hundred, and I'll begin to
+feel at home."
+
+"Delighted to oblige. You won't object to my rolling for you?"
+Penfield nodded to the croupier; who (first paying P. Sybarite seven
+hundred on his last wager) surrendered his place.
+
+"Not in the least," agreed P. Sybarite, marshalling his chips in
+stacks of five: twenty-five dollars each. "It's an honour," he added,
+covering several numbers as Penfield deftly set ball and wheel in
+motion.
+
+He won the first fall; and encouraged by this, began to play
+extravagantly, sowing the board liberally with wagers of twenty-five,
+fifty, and one hundred dollars each. Hardly ever the ball clattered to
+a lodgment but he cashed one or another of these; and the number of
+times that the house paid him thirty-five hundred dollars passed his
+count. All other play at that table ceased; and a gallery of patrons
+of the establishment gathered round, following with breathless
+interest the fortunes of this shabby little plunger. Their presence,
+far from annoying, pleased him; it was just so much additional
+assurance of fair play. The mounting of the roulette wheel--it was
+placed upon a broad sheet of plate-glass elevated several inches above
+the table--was proof against secret manipulation. And a throng of
+spectators not only forbade any attempt to call wrong numbers on a
+winning cast but likewise insured fair dealing on the part of the
+croupier, who was so busy raking in losing bets or paying winnings
+that P. Sybarite had time neither to watch him nor to check his
+payments.
+
+Penfield, cool and smiling, confined his attention to the wheel. If he
+felt any uneasiness or dismay on account of P. Sybarite's steadily
+augmented mountain of chips, he betrayed it not at all overtly.
+
+But abruptly (they had been playing less than fifteen minutes) he
+paused and, instead of starting the ball on another race round its
+ebony run, dropped it lightly in the depression immediately above the
+axle of the wheel.
+
+"The game is closed," he announced evenly, with a slow smile.
+"Sir"--directly to P. Sybarite--"although it lacks the resources of
+Monte Carlo, this establishment nevertheless imitates its protective
+measures. A table losing twenty-five thousand dollars in one day
+ceases operations. You are just twenty-five thousand to the good.
+Accept my congratulations."
+
+"You are very amiable," insisted P. Sybarite, rising, with a little
+bow. "But if you care for revenge, I shall be pleased to continue at
+the other table."
+
+"Unfortunately that, too, has suspended operations," returned
+Penfield. "However, I hope before long to relieve you of your gains."
+
+Opening the cash drawer, he cleared it completely of its contents,
+placing before P. Sybarite a tremendous accumulation of bills, old and
+new, of all denominations, loose and in packages, together with some
+ten or twelve golden double-eagles.
+
+"I believe you will find that correct," he observed genially.
+"Afterwards, I trust you will do me the honour of splitting a bottle
+with me in the lounge."
+
+"Delighted," said P. Sybarite.
+
+Penfield strolled off, exchanged a few words with an acquaintance or
+two, and a few more with his employees, and went downstairs. The
+remaining handful of patrons disappeared gradually, yet so quickly
+that P. Sybarite was a lonely outsider by the time he had finished
+counting his winnings and stowing them away about his person.
+
+Presenting the croupier with five hundred dollars, he recovered his
+hat (at last) and descended, to find Penfield awaiting him at the foot
+of the steps.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+UNDER FIRE
+
+
+Bloated though he was with lawless wealth and fat with insufferable
+self-satisfaction, P. Sybarite, trotting by the side of his host, was
+dwarfed alike in dignity and in physique, strongly resembling an
+especially cocky and ragged Airedale being tolerated by a well-groomed
+St. Bernard.
+
+Now when Pete had placed a plate of caviare sandwiches between them,
+and filled their glasses from a newly opened bottle, he withdrew from
+the lounge and closed the door behind him; whether or not at a sign
+from Penfield, P. Sybarite was unaware; though as soon as they were
+alone and private, he grew unpleasantly sensitive to a drop in the
+temperature of the entente cordiale which had thus far obtained
+between himself and the gambler. Penfield's eyes promptly lost much of
+their genial glow, and simultaneously his face seemed weirdly less
+plump and rosy with prosperity and contentment. Notwithstanding this,
+with no loss of manner, he lifted a ceremonious glass to the health of
+his guest.
+
+"Congratulations!" said he; and drank as a thirsty man drinks.
+
+"May your shadow never grow less!" P. Sybarite returned, putting down
+an empty glass.
+
+"That's a perfectly good wish plumb wasted," said Penfield, refilling
+both glasses, his features twisted in the wriest of grimaces. "Fact
+is--I don't mind telling you--your luck to-night has, I'm afraid,
+played the very devil with me. This house won't open up again until I
+raise another bank-roll."
+
+"My sympathy," said P. Sybarite, sipping. "I'm really distressed....
+And yet," he added thoughtfully, "you had no chance--none whatever."
+
+"How's that?" said Penfield, staring.
+
+"You couldn't have won against me to-night," P. Sybarite ingenuously
+explained; "it could _not_ be done: I am invincible: it
+is--_Kismet_!--my Day of Days!"
+
+Penfield laughed discordantly.
+
+"Maybe it looks that way to you. But aren't you a little premature?
+You haven't banked that wad yet, you know. Any minute something might
+happen to make you think otherwise."
+
+"Nothing like that is going to happen," P. Sybarite retorted with calm
+conviction. "The luck's with me at present!"
+
+"And yet," said the other, abandoning his easy pose and sitting up
+with a sharpened glance and tone, "you are wrong--quite wrong."
+
+"What makes you think that?" demanded P. Sybarite, finishing his
+second glass.
+
+"Because," said his host with a dangerous smile, "I am a desperate
+man."
+
+"Oh?" said P. Sybarite thoughtfully.
+
+"Believe me," insisted the other with convincing simplicity: "I'm such
+a bum loser, I'm willing to stake my last five hundred on the
+proposition that you don't leave this house a dollar richer than you
+entered it."
+
+"Done!" said P. Sybarite instantly. "If I get away with it, you pay me
+five hundred dollars. Is that right?"
+
+"Exactly!"
+
+"But--where shall we meet to settle the wager?"
+
+Penfield smiled cheerfully. "Dine with me at the Bizarre this evening
+at seven."
+
+"If I lose, with pleasure. Otherwise, you are to be my guest."
+
+"It's a bargain."
+
+"And--that being understood," pursued P. Sybarite curiously--"perhaps
+you won't mind explaining your grounds for this conspicuous
+confidence."
+
+"Not in the least," said the other, pulling comfortably at his
+cigar--"that is, if you're willing to come through with a little
+information. I'm curious to know how you came to butt in here on my
+personal card of introduction. Where did you get it?"
+
+"Found it in a hat left in my possession by a gentleman in a great
+hurry, whom I much desired to see again, and therefore--presuming him
+to be Mr. Bailey Penfield--came here to find."
+
+"A gentleman unknown to you?"
+
+"Entirely: a tall young man with an ugly mouth; rather fancies
+himself, I should say: a bit of a bounder. You recognise this sketch?"
+
+"Perhaps ..." Penfield murmured thoughtfully.
+
+"His name?"
+
+"Maybe he wouldn't thank me for telling you that."
+
+"Very well. Now then: why and how are you going to separate me from my
+winnings?"
+
+"By force," said Mr. Penfield with engaging candour. "It desolates me
+to descend to rough-neck methods, but I am a larger, stronger man than
+you, Mr.--"
+
+"Sybarite," said the little man, flushing, "P.--by the grace of
+God!--Sybarite."
+
+"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Sybarite.... But before we
+lose our tempers, what do you say to a fair proposition: leave me what
+you have won to-night, and I'll pay it back to the last cent with
+interest in less than six months."
+
+P. Sybarite shook his head: "I'm sorry."
+
+The dark blood surged into Penfield's cheeks. "You won't accept my
+word--?"
+
+"I have every confidence in your professional honour," P. Sybarite
+replied blandly, "up to the certain point to which we have attained
+to-night. But the truth is--I need the money."
+
+"You're unwise," said the other, and sighed profoundly. "I'm sorry.
+You oblige me to go the extreme limit."
+
+"Not I. On the contrary, I advise you against any such dangerous
+course."
+
+"Dangerous?"
+
+"If you interfere with me, I'll go to the police."
+
+"The police?" Penfield elaborated an inflexion of derision. "I keep
+this precinct in my vest pocket."
+
+"Possibly--so far as concerns your maintenance of a gambling house.
+But murder--that's another matter."
+
+"Meaning, you refuse to submit without extreme measures?"
+
+"Meaning just that, sir!"
+
+Again the gambler sighed. "What must be, must," said he, rising.
+Moving to the wall, he pressed a call-button, and simultaneously
+whipped a revolver into view. "I hope you're not armed," he protested
+sincerely. "It would only make things messy. And then I hate to have
+my employees run any risk--"
+
+"You are summoning a posse, I take it?" enquired P. Sybarite, likewise
+on his feet.
+
+"Half a dozen huskies," assented the other. "If you know your little
+book, you'll come through at once and save yourself a manhandling."
+
+"It's too bad," P. Sybarite regretted pensively--and cast a desperate
+glance round the room.
+
+What he saw afforded him no comfort. The one door was unquestionably
+guarded on the farther side. The windows, though curtained, were as
+indubitably locked and further protected by steel outside blinds.
+Besides, Penfield bulked big and near at hand, a weapon of the most
+deadly calibre steadily levelled at the head of his guest.
+
+But exactly at the moment when despair entered into the heart of the
+little man--dispossessing altogether his cool assumption of confidence
+in his star--there rang through the house a crash so heavy that its
+muffled thunder penetrated even the closed door of the lounge. Another
+followed it instantly, and at deliberate intervals a third and fourth.
+
+Penfield blenched. His eyes wavered. He punched the bell-button a
+second time.
+
+The door was thrown wide and--with the instantaneous effect of a
+jack-in-the-box--Pete showed a dirty-grey face of fright on the
+threshold.
+
+"Good Lord, boss!" he yelled. "Run for yo' life! We's raided!"
+
+He vanished....
+
+With an oath, Penfield started toward the door--and instantly P.
+Sybarite shot at his gun hand like a terrier at the throat of a rat.
+Momentarily the shock of the assault staggered the gambler, and as he
+gave ground, reeling, P. Sybarite closed one set of sinewy fingers
+tight round his right wrist, and with the other seized and wrested the
+revolver away. The incident was history in a twinkling: P. Sybarite
+sprang back, armed, the situation reversed.
+
+Recovering, Penfield threw him a cry of envenomed spite, and in one
+stride left the room. He was turning up the stairs, three steps and an
+oath at a bound, by the time P. Sybarite gained the threshold and sped
+his departing host with a reminder superfluously ironic:
+
+"The Bizarre at seven--don't forget!"
+
+A breathless imprecation dropped to him from the head of the
+staircase. And he chuckled--but cut the chuckle short when a heavy and
+metallic clang followed the disappearance of the gambler. The iron
+door upstairs had closed, shutting off the second floor from the lower
+part of the house, and at the same time consigning P. Sybarite to the
+mercies of the police as soon as they succeeded in battering down the
+front door.
+
+Now he harboured no whim to figure as the sole victim of the raid--to
+be arrested as a common gambler, loaded to the guards with cash and
+unable to give any creditable account of himself.
+
+"Damn!" said P. Sybarite thoughtfully.
+
+The front doors still held, though shaking beneath a shower of
+axe-strokes that filled the house with sonorous echoes.
+
+At his feet, immediately to the left of the lounge door, yawned the
+well of the basement stairway. And one chance was no more foolhardy
+than another. Like a shot down that dark hole he dropped--and brought
+up with a bang against a closed door at the bottom. Happily, it wasn't
+locked. Turning the handle, he stumbled through, reclosed the door,
+and intelligently bolted it.
+
+He was now in a narrow and odorous corridor, running from front to
+rear of the basement. One or two doors open or ajar furnished all its
+light. Trying the first at a venture, P. Sybarite discovered what
+seemed a servant's bedroom, untenanted. The other introduced him to a
+kitchen of generous proportions and elaborate appointments--cool,
+airy, and aglow with glistening white paint and electric light;
+everything in absolute order with the exception of the central table,
+where sat a man asleep, head pillowed on arms folded amid a disorder
+of plates, bottles and glasses--asleep and snoring lustily.
+
+P. Sybarite pulled up with a hand on the knob, and blinked with
+surprise--an emotion that would assuredly have been downright dismay
+had the sleeper been conscious. For he was in uniform; and a cap hung
+on the back of his chair; and uniform and cap alike boasted the
+insignia of the New York Police Department.
+
+Wrinkling a perplexed nose, P. Sybarite swiftly considered the
+situation. Here was the policeman on the beat--one of those creatures
+of Penfield's vaunted vest-pocket crew--invited in for a bite and sup
+by the steward of the house. The steward called away, he had drifted
+naturally into a gentle nap. And now--"Glad I'm not in _his_ shoes!"
+mused P. Sybarite.
+
+And yet.... Urgent second thought changed the tenor of his temper
+toward the sleeper. Better far to be in his shoes than in those of P.
+Sybarite, just then....
+
+Remembering Penfield's revolver, he made sure it was safe and handy in
+his pocket; then strode in and dropped an imperative hand on the
+policeman's shoulder.
+
+"Here--wake up!" he cried; and shook him rudely.
+
+The fellow stirred, grunted, and lifted a bemused, red countenance to
+the breaker of rest.
+
+"Hello!" he said in dull perception of a stranger. "What's--row?"
+
+"Get up--pull yourself together!" P. Sybarite ordered sternly. "You
+'re liable to be broke for this!"
+
+"Broke?" The officer's eyes widened, but remained cloudy with sleep,
+drink, and normal confusion. "Where's Jimmy? Who're you?"
+
+"Never mind me. Look to yourself. This place is being raided."
+
+"Raided!" The man leaped to his feet with a cry. "G'wan! It ain't
+possible!"
+
+"Listen, if you don't believe me."
+
+The crashing of the axes and the grumble of the curious crowd
+assembled in the street were distinctly audible. The officer needed no
+other confirmation; and yet--instant by instant it became more clearly
+apparent that he had drunk too deeply to be able to think for himself.
+Standing with a hand on the table, he rocked to and fro until, losing
+his balance, he sat down heavily.
+
+"My Gawd!" he cried. "I'm done for!"
+
+"Nonsense! No more than I--unless you're too big a fool to take a word
+of advice. Here--off with your coat."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I say, off with your coat, man--and look sharp! Get it off and I'll
+hide it while you slip into one of those waiter's jackets over there.
+Then, if they find us here, we can pretend to be employees. You
+understand?"
+
+"We'll get pinched, all the same," the man objected stupidly.
+
+"Well, if we do, it only means a trip to the Night Court, and a fine
+of five or ten dollars. You'll be up to-morrow for absence from post,
+of course, but that's better than being caught half-drunk in the
+basement of a gambling house on your beat."
+
+Impressed, the officer started to unbutton his tunic, but hesitated.
+
+"S'pose some of the boys recognise me?"
+
+"Where are your wits?" demanded P. Sybarite in exasperation. "This
+isn't a precinct raid! You ought to know that. This is Whitman, going
+over everybody's head. Anyhow, it can't be worse for you than it
+is--and my way gives you a fighting chance to get off."
+
+"Guess you 're right," mumbled the other thickly, shrugging out of his
+coat and surrendering it.
+
+Several white jackets hung from hooks on the wall near the door.
+Seizing one of these, the policeman had it on in a jiffy.
+
+"Now what'll I do?" he pursued, as P. Sybarite, the blue coat over his
+arm, grabbed the police cap and started for the door.
+
+"Do? How do I know? Use your own head for a while. Pull yourself
+together--cut some bread--do something useful--make a noise like a
+steward--"
+
+With this the little man shot out into the hallway, slammed the door
+behind him, and darted into the adjoining bedroom. Once there, he lost
+no time changing coats--not forgetting to shift his money as
+well--cocked the cap jauntily on one side of his head (a bit too big,
+it fitted better that way, anyhow) buttoned up, and left the room on
+the run. For by this time the front doors had fallen in and the upper
+floor was echoing with deep, excited voices and heavy, hurrying
+footsteps. In another moment or so they would be drawing the basement
+for fugitives.
+
+He had planned--vaguely, inconclusively--to leave by the area door
+when the raiders turned their attention to the basement, presenting
+himself to the crowd in the street in the guise of an officer, and so
+make off. But now--with his fingers on the bolts--misgivings assailed
+him. He was physically not much like any policeman he had ever seen;
+and the blue tunic with its brass buttons was a wretched misfit on his
+slight body. He doubted whether his disguise would pass
+unchallenged--doubted so strongly that he doubled suddenly to the back
+door, flung it open, and threw himself out into the black strangeness
+of the night--and at the same time into the arms of two burly
+plain-clothes men posted there to forestall precisely such an attempt
+at escape.
+
+Strong arms clipping him, he struggled violently for an instant.
+
+"Here!" a voice warned him roughly. "It ain't goin' to do you no
+good--"
+
+Another interrupted with an accent of deep disgust, in patent
+recognition of his borrowed plumage: "Damned if it ain't a patrolman!"
+
+"Why the hell didn't you say so?" demanded the first as P. Sybarite
+fell back, free.
+
+"Didn't--have--time. Here--gimme a leg over this fence, will you?"
+
+"What the devil--!"
+
+"They've got a door through to the next house--getting out that way.
+That's what I'm after--to stop 'em. Shut up!" P. Sybarite insisted
+savagely--"and give me a leg."
+
+"Oh, well!" said one of the plain-clothes men in a slightly mollified
+voice--"if that's the way of it--all right."
+
+"Come along, then," brusquely insisted the impostor, leading the way
+to the eastern wall of boards enclosing the back yard.
+
+Curiously complaisant for one of his breed, the detective bent his
+back and made a stirrup of his clasped hands, but no sooner had P.
+Sybarite fitted foot to that same than the man started and,
+straightening up abruptly, threw him flat on his back.
+
+"Patrolman, hell! Whatcha doin' in them pants and shoes if you're a
+patrol--"
+
+"Hel-_lo_!" exclaimed the other indignantly. "Impersonatin' an
+officer--eh?"
+
+With this he dived at P. Sybarite; who, having bounced up from a
+supine to a sitting position, promptly and peevishly swore, rolled to
+one side (barely eluding clutches that meant to him all those
+frightful and humiliating consequences that arrest means to the
+average man) and scrambled to his feet.
+
+Immediately the others closed in upon him, supremely confident of
+overcoming by concerted action that smallish, pale, and terrified
+body. Whereupon P. Sybarite' stepped quickly to one side and, avoiding
+the rush of one, directly engaged the other. Ducking beneath a
+windmill play of arms, he shot an accurate fist at this aggressor's
+jaw; there was a click of teeth, the man's head snapped back, and
+folding up like a tripod, he subsided at length.
+
+Then swinging on a heel, P. Sybarite met a second onset made more
+dangerous by the cooler calculations of a more sophisticated
+antagonist. Nevertheless, deftly blocking a rain of blows, he closed
+in as if eager to escape punishment, and planted a lifted knee in the
+large of the detective's stomach so neatly that he, too, collapsed
+like a punctured presidential boom and lay him down at rest.
+
+Success so egregious momentarily stupefied even P. Sybarite. Gazing
+down upon those two still shapes, so mighty and formidable when
+sentient, he caught his breath in sharp amazement.
+
+"Great Heavens! Is it possible _I_ did that?" he cried aloud--and the
+next moment, spurred by alert discretion, was scaling the fence with
+the readiness of an alley-cat.
+
+Instantaneously, as he poised above the abyss of Stygian blackness on
+the other side, not a little daunted by its imperturbable mystery, a
+quick backward glance showed him figures moving in the basement
+hallway of the gambling house; and easing over, he dropped.
+
+Hard flags received him with native impassivity: stumbling, he lost
+balance and sat down with an emphasis that drove the breath from him
+in one mighty "_Ooof!_"
+
+There was a simultaneous confusion of new, strange voices on the other
+side of the fence; cries of surprise, recognition, excitement:
+
+"Feeny, by all that's holy!"
+
+"Mike Grogan, or I'm a liar!"
+
+"What hit the two av urn?"
+
+"Gawd knows!"
+
+"Thin 'tis this waay thim murdherous divvles is b'atin' ut!"
+
+"Gimme a back up that fince!..."
+
+P. Sybarite picked himself up with even more alacrity that if he'd
+landed in a bed of nettles, tore across that terra-incognita, found a
+second fence, and was beyond it in a twinkling.
+
+Swift as he was, however, detection attended him--a voice roaring:
+"There goes wan av thim now!"
+
+Other voices chimed in spendthrift with suggestions and advice....
+
+Blindly clearing fence after fence without even thinking to count
+them, P. Sybarite hurtled onward. Noises in the rear indicated a
+determined pursuit: once a voice whooped--"_Halt or I fire!_"--and a
+shot, waking echoes, sped the fugitive's heels....
+
+But in time he had of necessity to pause for breath, and pulled up in
+the back-yard of a Forty-sixth Street residence, his duty--to find a
+way to the street and a shift from that uniform of unhappy
+inspiration--as plain as the problem it presented was obscure.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+BURGLARY UNDER ARMS
+
+
+And there P. Sybarite stood, near the middle of a fence-enclosed area
+of earth and flagstones; winded and weary; looking up and all around
+him in distressed perplexity; in a stolen coat (to be honest about it)
+and with six months' income from a million dollars unlawfully procured
+and secreted upon his person; wanted for resisting arrest and
+assaulting the minions of the law; hounded by a vengeful and
+determined posse; unacquainted with his whereabouts, ignorant of any
+way of escape from that hollow square, round whose sides window after
+excitable window was lighting up in his honour; all in all, as
+distressful a figure of a fugitive from justice as ever was on land or
+sea....
+
+Conceiving the block as a well a-brim with blackness and clamorous
+with violent sound, studded on high with inaccessible, yellow-bright
+loopholes wherefrom hostile eyes spied upon his every secret movement,
+and haunted below by vicious perils both animate and still: he found
+himself possessed of an overpowering desire to go away from there
+quickly.
+
+But--short of further dabbling in crime--_how_?
+
+To break his way to the street through one of those houses would he
+not only to invite apprehension: it would be downright burglary.
+
+To continue his headlong career of the fugitive backyards tom-cat was
+out of the question, entirely too much like hard work, painful into
+the bargain--witness scratched and abraded palms and agonised shins.
+Sooner or later his strength must fail, some one would surely espy him
+and cry on the chase, he must be surrounded and overwhelmed: while to
+hide behind some ash-barrel was not only ignoble but downright
+fatuous: faith the most sublime in his _Kismet_ couldn't excuse any
+hope that, eventually, he wouldn't be discovered and ignominiously
+routed out.
+
+Very well, then! So be it! Calmly P. Sybarite elected to venture
+another and deeper dive into amateurish malfeasance; and gravely he
+studied the inoffensive building whose back premises he was then
+infesting.
+
+It seemed to offer at least the negative invitation of desuetude. It
+showed no lights; had not an open window--so far as could be
+determined by straining sight aided only by a faint reflection from
+the livid skies. One felt warranted in assuming the premises to be
+vacant. Encouraging surmise! If such were in fact the case, he might
+hope soon to be counting his spoils in the privacy of his
+top-floor-hall-bedroom, back....
+
+At the same time, to one ignorant of the primary principles of
+house-breaking, the problem of negotiating an entrance was of
+formidable proportions.
+
+To break a basement window was feasible, certainly--but highly
+inadvisable for a number of obvious reasons.
+
+To force a window-latch required (if memory served) a long flat-bladed
+knife--a kitchen knife; and P. Sybarite happened to have no such
+implement about him.
+
+Similarly, to pry open the back door would require the services of a
+jimmy (whatever that might be).
+
+Moreover, there were such things as burglar alarms--inventions of the
+devil!
+
+On the other hand, unless his senses deceived him, there were police
+officers in plenty only a fence or two away; and the back of this
+house boasted a fire-escape. By inverting a convenient ash-can and
+standing on it, an active man might possibly, if sufficiently
+desperate, manage to jump a vertical yard (more or less), catch the
+lowermost grating of the fire-escape, and draw himself up.
+
+In a thought P. Sybarite turned the galvanised iron cylinder
+bottom-up, clambered upon it, and on tiptoe sought to gauge the exact
+distance of the requisite leap. But now the grating seemed to have
+receded at least three feet from its position as first judged--to be
+hopelessly removed from the grasp of his yearning fingers.
+
+Yet that mad attempt must be made. Why die fighting when a broken neck
+would serve as well?
+
+Gathering his slight person together, P. Sybarite crouched, quivered,
+jumped for glory and the Saints--and all but brained himself on that
+impish and trickish grating. Clutching it and kicking footloose, he
+was stunned by the wonder of many brilliant new-born constellations
+swirling round his poor head to the thunderous music of the spheres,
+as rendered by the ash-can which, displaced by the vigour of his
+acrobatics, had toppled over and was rolling and clattering hideously
+on the flagging.
+
+In his terrified bosom P. Sybarite felt the heart of him turn to cold
+and clammy stone.
+
+No clamour more infernal could well have been improvised, given
+similar circumstances and facilities as rude. It seemed hours, rather
+than instants, that the damned thing wallowed and bellowed beneath
+him, raising a din to disturb all Christendom. While, the moment it
+was still, the cries of the police pack belled clear and near at hand:
+
+"This way, b'ys!"
+
+"There he is, the--"
+
+"Got 'im now--"
+
+"Halt or--!"
+
+Another pistol shot!...
+
+Glancing over shoulder, the hunted man caught a glimpse of uncouth
+shapes wriggling along a fence ridge several rods away. No more than
+the barest glimpse, it served: with a mighty heave and wriggle he
+breasted the lower platform, shifted a hand to the top of its railing,
+heaved himself up to a foothold, and swarmed up the iron ladder with
+an agility an ape might have envied.
+
+But as he mounted, it grew momentarily more evident that the stage
+thunder manufactured by that wretched galvanised iron cylinder had, in
+fact, served him far from ill; reverberating from wall to wall within
+the hollow of the block, its dozen echoes diverted pursuit to as many
+quarters, luring the limbs of the law every way but the right one.
+Nobody, it appeared, was alert enough to espy that fugacious shadow on
+the fire-ladder. And in less than a brace of minutes P. Sybarite, at
+the top, was pulling himself gingerly over the lip of a stone coping.
+
+Surmising that he had gained not the roof of the house but that of a
+two-story rear extension, he found himself in what seemed a small
+roof-garden, made private by awnings and Venetian blinds. Between his
+soles and the stone flooring he could feel the yielding texture of a
+grass mat, and he could not only dimly discern but also smell the
+perfume of green things in pots here and there. And his first step
+forward brought him into soft collision with a wicker basket-chair.
+
+He paused and took thought in perturbation.
+
+A most disappointing and deceptive sort of a house--inhabited, after
+all: its sombre and quiet aspect masking Heaven alone knew what
+pitfalls!...
+
+Not a glint of light, not a sound....
+
+When he moved again, it was with scrupulous caution.
+
+Stealing softly on, the darkness seemed to thicken round him. He was
+sensible of suspense and qualms, of creeping flesh and an almost
+irresistible inclination to hold his breath. Uncanny business,
+this--penetrating unknown fastnesses of a dark and silent house at
+dead of night: a trespasser unable to surmise when the righteous
+householder, lurking on familiar ground and vigilant under arms, might
+not open fire....
+
+Nevertheless, the police behind him were a menace of known calibre.
+With whatever shrinkings and dire misgivings, P. Sybarite went on.
+
+Without misadventure he gained the main wall of the house, and there
+found open windows and (upon further cautious investigation) a
+doorway, likewise wide to the bland night air. Hesitant on the
+threshold of this last he sought with impotent senses to probe
+impenetrable obscurity--listening, every nerve taut and vibrant, for
+some sound significant of human tenancy, and detecting never an one.
+In spite of this, it was without the least confidence that presently
+he plucked up heart to proceed....
+
+Three steps on into darkness, and his knee found a chair that might
+have poised itself on one leg, in malicious ambush, so promptly did it
+go over--and with what a racket.
+
+Incontinently something rustled quite near at hand; followed a
+click--blinding light--a shrill, excited voice:
+
+"Hands up!"
+
+With a jerk, up went his hands high above his head. Blinking furiously
+in the glare, he comprehended his plight.
+
+The lights he found so dazzling blazed from sconces round the walls of
+a bedroom more handsome than any he had thought ever to see--unless
+perhaps upon a stage. The voice belonged to a young woman sitting up
+in bed and coolly covering him with the yawning muzzle of a peculiarly
+poisonous-looking automatic pistol.
+
+It was astonishingly evident that she wasn't at all frightened. The
+arm that levelled the weapon (a round and shapely arm, bare to the
+shoulder) was admirably steady; the rich colouring of her distinctly
+handsome face showed not a trace of pallor; and the fire that
+flickered in her large and darkly beautiful eyes was of indignation
+rather than of fear.
+
+Abruptly she dropped her weapon and sat up yet straighter in her
+huddled bed-clothing, mouth and eyes widening with astonishment.
+
+"Well!" she said quite simply--"I'll be damned if it ain't a cop!"
+
+P. Sybarite immediately took occasion to lower his hands to a more
+comfortable position.
+
+Fright inspired his latent histrionic genius; momentarily he became
+almost a good actor.
+
+"Thank God!" he exclaimed fervently. "You're the one woman in a
+thousand who knows enough to look before she shoots! _Phwew!_"
+
+[Illustration: "You're the one woman in a thousand who knows enough to
+look before she shoots!"]
+
+Quite naturally he drew a braided blue cuff across a beaded forehead.
+
+"That's all very well," the woman took him up sharply--"but be careful
+I don't shoot after looking. Cop or no cop, you--what the devil do you
+want in my bedroom at this hour of the night?"
+
+"Madam," P. Sybarite expostulated, aggrieved yet with an air of the
+utmost candour--"my duty, of course!"
+
+"Duty!" she echoed. "What do you think you mean by that?"
+
+"Perhaps," he countered blandly, "you're not aware a burglar has
+passed through this room?"
+
+"A burglar? What rot!"
+
+"Pardon me, madam," P. Sybarite lied nonchalantly, "but five minutes
+ago I was called in by the people in Two-thirty-three Forty-fifth
+Street, to nab a burglar who'd broken in there. They thought they had
+him locked up safe enough in one of the rooms, but when they came to
+open the door and let _me_ at him--the bird had flown! He'd taken a
+long chance--swung himself from the window-ledge to a fire-escape five
+feet away--don't ask _me_ how he did it! I got to the window just in
+time to see him go over the back fence. You heard me take a shot at
+him? No?"
+
+"No, I didn't," said the woman in a manner eloquent of positive
+incredulity.
+
+"Well, _any_way," P. Sybarite went on with elaborate ease, "I saw this
+man climb your fire-escape and so I came after him."
+
+The woman frowned as she weighed this likely story; and P. Sybarite
+was at pains to conceal any exultation he may have felt over the
+prompt response of his vivid imagination to the call of exigence.
+
+Would she or wouldn't she accept that wildly fanciful yarn of his? For
+moments that, brief though they must have been, seemed intolerably
+protracted, he awaited her verdict in the extremest anxiety--not,
+however, neglecting to employ the respite thus afforded him to make
+another quick survey of the room and a second and more shrewd
+appraisal of its admirably self-possessed tenant.
+
+A bit too florid and ornate--he concluded--woman and lodgings alike
+were somewhat overdone. A superabundance of gilt and pink marred the
+colour scheme of the apartment; and there was ostentatious evidence of
+wealth lavishly expended on its furnishings. An overpowering
+voluptuousness of silken clothing dressed the bed itself.
+
+But if her setting were luxurious, the woman outshone it tenfold with
+the dark splendour of her animal beauty. As comely and as able-bodied
+as a young pantheress, she was (one judged) little less dangerous--as
+vital, as self-centred, as deadly. Sitting up in bed, openly careless
+of charms hardly concealed by nightwear of sheer silk lace and _crepe
+de Chine_, she looked P. Sybarite up and down with wide eyes overwise
+in the ways of life, shrewdly judicious of mankind; handled her pistol
+with experienced confidence; spoke, in a voice of surpassing
+sweetness, with decision and considerable overt contempt for the
+phraseology of convention--swearing without the least affectation,
+slanging heartily when slang best suited her humour....
+
+"Maybe you're telling the truth, at that," she announced suddenly,
+eyes coldly unprepossessed. "You sound fishy as all-hell, and God
+_knows_ you're the sickest-looking cop I ever laid eyes on; but there
+are less unlikely things than that a second-story man should try this
+route for his getaway.... Well!" she demanded urgently--"what're you
+standing there for, like a stone man?"
+
+"My dear lady--!" expostulated the dismayed P. Sybarite.
+
+"Can the fond stuff and get busy. What're you going to do?"
+
+"What am I--? What--ah--do you wish me to do?"
+
+"If you're a cop, go to it--cop somebody," she replied with a brusque
+laugh--"and then clear out. I can use the room and time you're
+occupying. Besides, while you stand there staring as if you'd never
+seen a good-looking woman in a nightgown before, you're slipping the
+said burglar a fine young chance to make the front door--unless he's
+under the bed."
+
+"Under the bed?" stammered the masquerader.
+
+"You said something then," the woman snapped. "Why not look?"
+
+Mechanically obedient to her suggestion, down P. Sybarite plumped on
+his knees, lifted the silken valance at the foot of the bed, and
+pretended to explore the darkness thereunder--finding precisely what
+he had anticipated, that is to say, nothing.
+
+While thus occupied (and badgering his addled wits to invent some
+plausible way to elude this Amazon) he was at once startled and still
+further dismayed to hear the bed-springs creak, a light double thump
+as two bare feet found the floor, and again the woman's voice
+flavoured with acid sarcasm.
+
+"You seem to find it interesting down there. Is it the view? Or are
+you trying to hypnotise your burglar by the well-known power of the
+human eye?"
+
+"It's pure and simple reverence for the proprieties," P. Sybarite
+replied without stirring, "keeps me emulating the fatuous ostrich. I
+don't pretend it's comfortable, but I, believe me, madam, am a plain
+man, of modest tastes, unaccustomed to--"
+
+"Get up!" the lady interrupted peremptorily. "I guess your regard for
+the proprieties won't suffer any more than my fair name. Come out of
+that and hunt burglars like a good little cop."
+
+"But who am I," pleaded the little man, "to gaze unblinded upon the
+sun?"
+
+"That," said the lady, smothering a giggle, "will be about _all_ from
+you. Get up--or I'll call in a sure-enough cop to search your title to
+that uniform."
+
+Hastily P. Sybarite withdrew his head and rose. An embarrassed glance
+askance comforted him measurably: the lady had thrown an exquisite
+negligee over her nightdress and had thrust her pretty feet into
+extravagantly pretty silken mules.
+
+"Now," said she tersely, "we'll comb the premises for this burglar of
+yours: and if we don't find him"--her lips tightened, her brows
+clouded ominously--"I promise you an interesting time of it!"
+
+"I'm vastly diverted as it is--truly I am!" protested P. Sybarite,
+ruefully eyeing the lady's pistol. "But there 's really no need to
+disturb yourself: I'm quite competent to take care of any
+housebreaker--"
+
+"That," she broke in, "is something you'll have to show me.... Where's
+your nightstick?"
+
+"My--er--what?"
+
+"Your nightstick. What've you done with it?"
+
+With consternation P. Sybarite investigated the vacant loop at his
+side.
+
+"Must've dropped out while I was shinning over the back fence," he
+surmised vaguely. "However, I shan't need it. This"--with a bright and
+confident smile displaying Penfield's revolver--"will do just as
+well--better, in fact."
+
+"That?" she questioned. "That's not a Police Department gun. Where'd
+you--"
+
+"Oh, yes, it is. It's the new pattern--recently adopted. They've just
+begun to issue 'em. I got mine to-day--"
+
+The lady's lips curled. "Very well," she concluded curtly. "I don't
+believe a word you say, but we'll see. Lead the way--show me one
+solitary sign that a burglar has been here--"
+
+"Perhaps you'd prefer me to withdraw from the case?" the little man
+suggested with offended dignity. "After all, I may be mistaken--"
+
+"You'd better not be. I warn you, find me a burglar--or"--she added
+with unmistakable significance--"I'll find one myself."
+
+Interpreting the level challenge of her glance, P. Sybarite's heart
+quaked, his soul curdled, his stomach for picaresque adventure failed
+him entirely: anatomically, in short, he was hopelessly disqualified
+for his chosen role of favourite of _Kismet_, protagonist of this Day
+of Days. Withal, there was no use offering resistance to the demands
+of this masterful woman; she was patently one to be humoured against a
+more auspicious turn of affairs.
+
+He shrugged, gave in with a gesture. Her imperative arm, uplifted,
+indicated an inner door.
+
+"Find that burglar!"
+
+"Swell chance I've got to get away with that proposition," he
+grumbled. "You've delayed me long enough to let any burglar get clean
+away!"
+
+"And you hang back, giving him more time," she cut in. "Lead the way,
+now!"
+
+Awed, P. Sybarite grasped his revolver and strode to the door with
+much dramatic manner, but paused with a hand on the knob to look over
+his shoulder.
+
+The woman was there, not a foot distant, her countenance a mask of
+suspicious determination.
+
+"Go on!" she commanded in menacing accents.
+
+He pulled the door open, flung out into the hallway, paused again at
+the mouth of the back pit of the stairway.
+
+Behind him the woman snapped a switch; an electric bulb glared out of
+the darkness. And P. Sybarite, peering down, started back with a gasp
+of amazement that was echoed in his ear.
+
+On the stairs, halfway down, a man was crouching in a posture of
+frozen consternation: a small electric pocket-lamp burning brilliantly
+in one hand, the other, lifted, grasping a weapon of some curious
+sort, in the eyes of P. Sybarite more than anything else like, a small
+black cannon: a hatless man in evening clothes, his face half blotted
+out by a black mask that, enhancing the brightness of startled eyes
+gleaming through its peepholes, left uncovered only his angular
+muscular jaw and ugly, twisted mouth.
+
+For a full minute (it seemed) not one of the three so much as drew
+breath; while through the haze of dumfounderment in P. Sybarite's
+brain there loomed the fact that once again _Kismet_ had played into
+his hands to save his face in thus lending material body and substance
+to the burglar of his desperate invention.
+
+And then, as if from a heart of agony, the woman at his side breathed
+a broken and tortured cry:
+
+"You dog! So it's come to murder, has it?"
+
+As if electrified by that ejaculation, P. Sybarite whipped up
+Penfield's revolver and levelled it at the man on the stairs.
+
+"Hands up!" he snapped. "Drop that gun!"
+
+The answer was a singular sound--half a choking cough, half a
+smothered bark--accompanied by a jet of fire from the strange weapon,
+and coincident with the tinkling of a splintered electric bulb.
+
+Instantly the hall was again drenched in darkness but little mitigated
+by the light from the bedroom.
+
+Heedless of consequences, in his excitement, P. Sybarite pulled
+trigger. The hammer fell on an empty chamber, rose and fell half a
+dozen times without educing any response other than the click of metal
+against metal: demonstrating beyond question that the revolver was
+unloaded.
+
+From the hand of the marauder another tongue of flame licked out, to
+the sound of the same dull, bronchial cough; and a bullet thumped
+heavily into the wall beside P. Sybarite.
+
+Enraged beyond measure, he drew back his worthless weapon and threw it
+with all his might. And _Kismet_ winged the missile to the firing arm
+of the assassin. With a cry of pain and anger, this last involuntarily
+relaxed his grasp and, dropping his own pistol, stumbled and half
+fell, half threw himself down to the next floor.
+
+As this happened, a white arm was levelled over the shoulder of P.
+Sybarite.
+
+The woman took deliberate aim, fired--and missed.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE LADY OF THE HOUSE
+
+
+Until that moment of the woman's shot, what with the failure of P.
+Sybarite's weapon to fire and the strange, muted coughing of the
+assassin's, an atmosphere of veritable decorum, nothing less, had
+seemed to mark the triangular duel, lending it something of the
+fantastic quality of a nightmare: an effect to which the discovery of
+a marauder, where P. Sybarite had expected to find nobody, added
+measurably....
+
+But now, temporarily blinded by that vicious bright blade of flame
+stabbing the gloom a hand's breadth from his eyes, and deafened by the
+crash of the explosion not two feet from his ear-drums, he quickened
+to the circumstances with much of the confusion of a man awakened by a
+thunder-clap from evil dreams to realities yet more grim.
+
+Of a sudden he understood that murder had been attempted in his
+presence and knowledge: a stark and hideous fact, jarring upon the
+semi-humorous indulgence with which hitherto he had been inclined to
+regard the unfolding of this night of _outre_ adventure. Twice the man
+had shot to kill with that singular weapon of silent deadliness--and
+both times had missed his mark by the barest margin....
+
+At once, like a demon of exceptional malignity, a breathless and
+overpowering rage possessed P. Sybarite. Without the least hesitation
+he stretched forth a hand, snatched the pistol from the grasp of the
+woman--who seemed to relinquish it more through surprise than
+willingly--threw himself halfway down the stairs, and took a hasty
+pot-shot at the man--almost invisible in the darkness as he rounded
+the turn of the next flight.
+
+Missing, P. Sybarite flung on recklessly. As he gained the lower
+floor, the hall lights flashed up, switched on from the upper landing
+by the woman of the house. Thus aided, he caught another glimpse of
+his prey midway down the next flight, and checked to take a second
+shot.
+
+Again he missed; and as the bullet buried itself in splintering
+wainscoting, a cry of almost childish petulence escaped him. With but
+one thought, he hurled on, swung round to the head of the stairs, saw
+his man at the bottom, pulled up to aim, and....
+
+Beneath him a small rug slipped on polished parquetry of the landing.
+P. Sybarite's heels went up and his head down with a sickening thump.
+He heard his pistol explode once more, and again visioned a reeling
+firmament fugitively coruscant with strange constellations.
+
+Then--bounding up with uncommon resiliency--he saw the street door of
+the house close behind the fugitive and heard the heavy slam of it.
+
+In another breath, pulling himself together, he was up and descending
+three and four steps at a stride. Reaching the door, he threw it open
+and himself heedlessly out and down a high stone stoop to the
+sidewalk--pulled up, bewildered to discover himself the sole living
+thing visible in all that night-hushed stretch between Fifth Avenue
+and Sixth: of the assassin there was neither sign nor sound....
+
+He felt perilously on the verge of tears--would gladly have bawled and
+howled with temper--and gained little relief from another short-lived
+break of heartfelt profanity--something halting and inexpert, truth to
+tell.
+
+Above him, on the stoop, the lady of the house appeared; paused to
+peer searchingly east and west; looked down at the trembling figure of
+the small man in his overgrown police tunic, shaking an impotent fist
+in the face of the City of New York; and laughed quietly to herself.
+
+"Come back," she called in a guarded tone. "He's made a clean getaway.
+Got to hand him _that_. No use trying to follow--you'd never catch up
+in a thousand years. Come back--d'you hear?--and give me my gun!"
+
+A trifle dashed, P. Sybarite raked the street with final reluctant
+glances; then in a spirit of witless and unquestioning docility
+returned.
+
+The woman retired to the vestibule, where she closed and locked the
+door as he passed through, further ensuring security by means of a
+chain-bolt; then entering the hallway, closed, locked, and similarly
+bolted the inner doors.
+
+"Now, then!" she addressed the little man with a brilliant smile--"now
+we can pow-wow. Come into the den"--and led the way toward the rear of
+the house.
+
+Trotting submissively in her wake, his wrinkled nose and batting
+eyelids were eloquent of the dumb amaze with which he was reviewing
+this incredible affair.
+
+Turning into a dark doorway, the woman switched light into an electric
+dome, illuminating an interior apartment transformed, by a wildly
+original taste in eccentric decoration, into a lounging room of such
+distressful uniquity that it would have bred unrest in the soul of a
+lotus-eater.
+
+Black, red, and gold--lustreless black of coke, lurid crimson of fresh
+blood, bright glaring yellow of gold new-minted--were the predominant
+notes in a colour scheme at once sombre and violent. The walls were
+hung with scarlet tapestries whereon gold dragons crawled and fought
+or strove to swallow dead black planets, while on every hand black
+imps of Eblis writhed and struggled over golden screens, golden devils
+mocked and mowed from panels of cinnabar, and horrific masks of
+crimson lacquer, picked out with gold and black, leered and snarled
+dumb menaces from darkened corners.
+
+In such a room as this the mildest mannered man, steeping his soul in
+the solace of mellow tobacco, might have been pardoned for dreaming
+lustfully of battle, murder and sudden death, or for contemplating
+with entire equanimity the tortured squirmings of some favourite enemy
+upon the rack.
+
+"Cosy little hole," P. Sybarite couldn't forbear to comment with a
+shudder as he dropped into a chair in compliance with the woman's
+gesture.
+
+"I have my whims," she said. "How would you like a drink?"
+
+"Not at all," he insisted hastily. "I've had all I need for the time
+being."
+
+"That's a mercy," she replied. "I don't much feel like waiting on you
+myself, and the servants are all abed."
+
+Offering cigarettes in a golden casket, she selected and lighted one
+for herself.
+
+"You have servants in the house, then?"
+
+"Do I look like a woman who does her own housework?"
+
+"You do not," he affirmed politely. "But can you blame me for
+wondering where your servants've been all through this racket?"
+
+"They sleep on the top floor, behind sound-proof doors," his hostess
+explained complacently, "and have orders to answer only when I ring,
+even if they should happen to hear anything. I've a passion for
+privacy in my own home--another whim, if you like."
+
+"It's nothing to me, I assure you," he protested. "Minding my own
+business is one of the best little things I do."
+
+"If that's so, why do you walk uninvited into strange bedrooms at all
+hours, pretending to be a policeman, with a cock-and-bull yarn about a
+burglar--"
+
+"But there was a burglar!" P. Sybarite contended brightly. "You saw
+him yourself."
+
+"No."
+
+"But--but you _did_ see him--later, on the stairs!"
+
+Smiling, the woman shook her head. "I saw no burglar--merely a dear
+friend. In short, if it interests you to know, I saw my husband."
+
+"Madam!" P. Sybarite sat up with a shocked expression.
+
+"Oh," said the woman lightly, "we're good enough for one another--he
+and I. He deserved what he got when he married me. But that's not
+saying I'm content to see him duck what's coming to him for to-night's
+deviltry. In fact, I mean to get him before he gets me. Are you game
+to lend me a hand?"
+
+"Me, madam!" cried P. Sybarite in alarm. "Far be it from me to come
+between husband and wife!"
+
+"Don't be afraid: I'm not asking you to dabble your innocent hands in
+a fellow-human's blood--merely to run an errand for me."
+
+"Really--I'd rather be excused."
+
+"Really," she mocked pleasantly, "you won't be. I'm a gentle creature
+but determined--frail but firm, you know. Perhaps you've heard of
+me--Mrs. Jefferson Inche?"
+
+Decidedly he had; and so had nine-tenths of New York's
+newspaper-reading population. His eyes widened with new interest.
+
+"Truly?" he said, civilly responsive to the challenge in her
+announcement. "But _I_ never knew Mrs. Jefferson Inche was beautiful."
+
+"It needs a beautiful woman to be known as the most dangerous in
+Town," she explained with modest pride.
+
+"But--ah--Mr. Inche, I understand, died some years ago."
+
+"So he did."
+
+"Yet you speak of your husband--?"
+
+"Of my present husband, whose name I don't wear for reasons of
+real-estate. I took the rotter on because he's rich and will be richer
+when his father dies; he married me because he was rotten and I had
+the worst reputation he could discover. So we're quits _there_. If our
+marriage comes out prematurely, he'll be disinherited; so we've agreed
+to a _sub-rosa_ arrangement which leaves him, ostensibly, a marketable
+bachelor. Now, I happen to know a marriage has recently been offered
+him through which he would immediately come into control of a big pot
+of money, and naturally he's strong for it. But I refused his offer of
+a cool half-million to play the Reno circuit, and so he concluded to
+sue for a divorce with a revolver, a Maxim silencer, and a perfect
+alibi. Do you follow me?"
+
+"As far as the alibi."
+
+"Oh, that's quite simple. We don't live together, and he's in
+sure-enough society, and I'm not. To-night the annual Hadley-Owen
+post-lenten masquerade's in full swing just around the corner, and
+friend husband's there with the rest of the haughty bunch. Can't you
+see how easy it would be for him to drop round here between dances,
+murder his lawful wedded wife, and beat it back, without his absence
+ever being noticed?"
+
+"It does sound feasible, if--ah--sickening," P. Sybarite admitted.
+"But really, it's hard to believe. Are you positive--?"
+
+"I tell you," said the woman impatiently, "I recognised him; I saw his
+mouth--his mask wouldn't hide that--and knew him instantly."
+
+P. Sybarite was silent: he, too, had recognized that mouth.
+
+Briefly he meditated upon this curious freak of _Kismet_ that was
+linking his fortunes of the night with those of the man with the
+twisted mouth.
+
+"Now you know the lay of the land--how about helping me out?"
+
+Now the trail of the man with the twisted mouth promised fair to lead
+to Molly Lessing. P. Sybarite didn't linger on his decision.
+
+"I'm awf'ly impressionable," he conceded with a sigh; "some day, I'm
+afraid, it'll get me in a peck of trouble."
+
+"I can count on you, then?"
+
+"Short of trying a 'prentice hand at assassination--"
+
+"Don't be an ass. I only want to protect myself. Besides, you can't
+refuse. Consider how lenient I've been with you."
+
+P. Sybarite lifted questioning eyebrows, and dragged down the corners
+of a dubious mouth.
+
+"If I wanted to be nasty," Mrs. Inche explained, "you'd be on your way
+now to a cell in the East Fifty-first Street station. But I was
+grateful."
+
+"The Saints be praised for that!" exclaimed the little man fervently.
+"What's it for?"
+
+"For waking me up in time to prevent my murder in my sleep," she
+returned coolly; "and also for being the spunky little devil you are
+and chasing off that hound of a husband of mine. If it wasn't for you,
+he'd've got me sure. Or else," she amended, "I'd've got him; which
+would have been almost as unpleasant--what with being pinched and
+tried and having juries disagree and getting off at last only on the
+plea of insanity--and all that."
+
+"Madam," said P. Sybarite, rising, "the more I see of you, the more
+you claim my admiration. I entreat you, permit me to go away before my
+emotion deepens into disastrous infatuation."
+
+"Sit down," countered Mrs. Inche amiably; "don't be afraid--I don't
+bite. Now you know who I am, but before you go, I mean to know who you
+are."
+
+"Michael Monahan, madam." This was the first alliterative combination
+to pop into his optimistic mind.
+
+"Can that," retorted the lady serenely--"solder it up tight, along
+with the business of pretending to be a cop. It won't get you
+anything. I've a proposition to make to you."
+
+"But, madam," he declared with his naif and disarming grin--"believe
+me--my young affections are already engaged."
+
+"You're not half the imbecile you make yourself out," she judged
+soberly. "Come--what's your name?"
+
+Taking thought, he saw no great danger in being truthful for once.
+
+"P., unfortunately, Sybarite," he said: "bookkeeper for Whigham and
+Wimper--leather merchants, Frankfort Street."
+
+"And how did you come by that coat and hat?"
+
+"Borrowed it from a drunken cop in Penfield's, a little while ago.
+They were raiding the place and I kind of wanted to get away. Strange
+to say, my disguise didn't take, and I had to leave by way of the back
+fences in order to continue uninterrupted enjoyment of the inalienable
+rights of every American citizen--life, liberty, the pursuit of
+happiness."
+
+"I don't know why I believe you," said Mrs. Inche reflectively, when
+he paused for breath. "Perhaps it's your spendthrift way with
+language. Do you talk like that when sober?"
+
+"Judge for yourself."
+
+"All right," she laughed indulgently: "I believe everything you say.
+Now what'll you take to do me a service?"
+
+"My services, madam, are yours to command: my reward--ah--your smile."
+
+"Bunk," observed the lady elegantly. "How would a hundred look to you?
+Good, eh?"
+
+"You misjudge me," the little man insisted. "Money is really no
+object."
+
+"Still"--she frowned in puzzlement--"I should think a clerk in the
+leather business--!"
+
+"I'm afraid I've misled you. I should have said that I _was_ a clerk
+in the leather business until to-day. Now I happen to be independently
+wealthy, a clerk no longer."
+
+"How's that--wealthy?"
+
+"Came into a small fortune this evening--nothing immodest, but ample
+for one of my simple tastes and modest ambitions."
+
+"I think," announced the lady thoughtfully, "that you are one of the
+slickest young liars I ever listened to."
+
+"That must be considerable eminence," considered P. Sybarite with
+humility.
+
+"On the other hand, you're unquestionably a perfect little gentleman,"
+she pursued. "And anyhow I'm going to take you at your word and trust
+you. If you ever change your mind about that hundred, all you've got
+to do is to come back and speak for it.... Do I make you right? You're
+willing to go a bit out of your way to do me a favour to-night?"
+
+"Or any other night."
+
+"Very well." Mrs. Inche rose. "Wait here a moment."
+
+Wrapping her negligee round her, she swept magnificently out of the
+"den," and a moment later again crossed P. Sybarite's range of vision
+as she ascended the stairs. Then she disappeared, and there was
+silence in the house: a breathing spell which the little man strove to
+employ to the best advantage by endeavouring to assort and rearrange
+his sadly disordered impressions.
+
+Aware that he would probably do wisely to rise and flee the place, he
+none the less lingered, vastly intrigued and more than half inclined
+to see the affair through to the end.
+
+His confused reverie was presently interrupted by the sound of the
+woman's high, clear voice at a telephone located (he fancied)
+somewhere in the hallway of the second story.
+
+"Hello! Columbus, seven, four hundred, please.... Hello--Mason?...
+Taxicab, please--Mrs. Jefferson Inche.... Yes--charge....
+Yes--immediately.... Thank you!"
+
+A moment later she reappeared on the stairs, carrying a wrap of some
+sort over her arm: a circumstance which caused P. Sybarite uneasily to
+wonder if she meant to push her notorious indifference to convention
+to the limit of going out in a taxicab with no other addition to her
+airy costume than a cloak.
+
+But when she again entered the "den," it proved to be a man's coat and
+soft hat that she had found for him.
+
+"Get up," she ordered imperiously, "and change to these before you get
+pinched for impersonating an officer. I've called a taxi for you, and
+this is what I want you to do: go to Dutch House--that's a dive on
+Fortieth Street--"
+
+"I've heard of it," nodded P. Sybarite. "Any sober man who stays away
+from it is almost perfectly safe, I believe."
+
+"I'll back you to take care of yourself," said the lady. "Ask for Red
+November.... You know who he is?"
+
+"The gangster? Yes."
+
+"If he isn't in, wait for him if you wait till daylight--"
+
+"Important as all that, eh?"
+
+"It's life or death to me," said Mrs. Inche serenely. "I've got to
+have protection--you've seen yourself how had I need it. And the
+police are not for the likes of me. Besides," she added with engaging
+candour, "if I squeal and tell the truth, then friend husband will be
+disinherited for sure, and I'll have had all my trouble for nothing."
+
+"You make it perfectly clear, Mrs. Inche.... And when I see Mr. Red
+November--?"
+
+"Say to him three words: _Nella wants you_. He'll understand. Then you
+can go home."
+
+"_If_ I get out alive."
+
+"You're safe if you don't drink anything there."
+
+"Doubtless; but I'll feel safer if you'll lend me the loan of this
+pretty toy," said P. Sybarite, weighing in one hand her automatic
+pistol.
+
+"It's yours."
+
+"Anything in it?"
+
+"Three shots left, I believe. No matter. I'll get you a handful of
+cartridges and you can reload the clip in the taxicab. Not that you're
+likely to need it at Dutch House."
+
+From the street rose the rumble of a motor, punctuated by a horn that
+honked.
+
+"There's the cab, now," announced Mrs. Inche briskly. "Shake yourself
+out of that coat and into this--and hustle!"
+
+"It's my impressionable nature makes all my troubles," observed P.
+Sybarite disconsolately. "However..."
+
+Shrugging into the coat Mrs. Inche held for him, he cocked the felt
+hat jauntily on the side of his head.
+
+"Always," he proclaimed with gesture--hand on heart--"always the
+ladies' slave!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+RESPECTABILITY
+
+
+But when it came to viscid second thought, alone in the gloom of an
+unsympathetic taxicab, P. Sybarite inclined to concede himself more
+ass than hero. It was all very well to say that, having spread his
+sails to the winds of _Kismet_, he was bound to let himself drift to
+their vagrant humour: but there are certain channels of New York life
+into which even the most courageous mariner were ill-advised to
+adventure under pilotage no more trustworthy than that of sufficient
+champagne and a run of good luck.
+
+Dutch House in Fortieth Street, West, wore the reputation of being as
+sinister a dive as ever stood cheek-by-jowl with Broadway and brazenly
+flaunted an all-night liquor license in the face of law-abiding New
+York; of which it was said that no sober man ever went there, other
+than those who went to prey, and that no drunkard ever escaped from it
+unfleeced; haunt of the most deadly riff-raff to be found in Town,
+barring inmates of certain negro stews on the lower West Side and of
+some of the dens to which the sightseer does _not_ penetrate in the
+tour of Chinatown.
+
+Grim stories were current of men who had wandered thither in their
+cups, "for the lark of it," only to return to consciousness days
+afterwards, stripped, shorn, and shattered in health bodily and
+mental, to find themselves in some vile kennel miles from Dutch House;
+and of other men who passed once through its foul portals and--passed
+out a secret way, never to return to the ken of their friends....
+
+Yet it stood, and it stands, waxing fat in the folly of man and his
+greed.
+
+And to this place P. Sybarite was travelling to deliver a message from
+a famous demi-rep to a notorious gang leader; with only a .25 calibre
+Colt's automatic and his native wit and audacity to guard the moderate
+fortune that he carried with him in cash--a single hundredth part of
+which would have been sufficient to purchase his obliteration at the
+hands of the crew that ran the place.
+
+However, in their ignorance his safety inhered; and it was not really
+necessary that he advertise his swollen fortunes; and as for the gold
+in his trousers pocket--a ponderable weight, liable to chink
+treacherously when he moved--P. Sybarite removed this and thoughtfully
+cached it under one of the cushions of his cab. It seemed a long
+chance to take with a hundred dollars: but a hundred dollars wasn't a
+great deal, after all, to a man as flush as he; and better lose it all
+(said he) than make a noise like a peripatetic mint in a den of
+thieves and worse....
+
+The cab drawing up to the curb, out P. Sybarite hopped, a dollar in
+hand for the chauffeur, and the admonition: "I'm keeping you; wait
+till I come out, if I'm all night; and don't let your motor die,
+'cause I _may_ be in a hurry."
+
+"Gotcha," said the chauffeur tersely; pocketed the bill; lighted a
+cigarette....
+
+P. Sybarite held back an instant to inspect the approach.
+
+This being Sunday morning, Dutch House was decorously dull to the
+street; the doors to the bar closed, the lights within low and drowsy;
+even the side door, giving access to the "restaurant," was closed much
+of the time--when, that is to say, it wasn't swinging to admit an
+intermittent flow of belated casuals and habitues of both sexes.
+
+A row of vehicles lined the curb: nighthawk taxicabs for the most
+part, with one or two four-wheelers, as many disreputable and
+dilapidated hansoms, and (aside from that in which P. Sybarite had
+arrived) a single taxicab of decent appearance. This last stood, with
+door ajar, immediately opposite the side entrance, its motor pulsing
+audibly--evidently waiting under orders similar to those issued by P.
+Sybarite.
+
+Now as the latter advanced to enter Dutch House, shadows appeared on
+the ground glass of the side door; and opening with a jerk, it let out
+a gush of fetid air together with Respectability on the
+prowl--Respectability incognito, sly, furtive of air, and in
+noticeable haste.
+
+He paused for a bare instant on the threshold; affording P. Sybarite
+opportunity for a good, long look.
+
+"Two-thirty," said Respectability brusquely over his shoulder.
+
+The man behind him growled affirmation: "Two-thirty--don't worry: I'll
+be on the job."
+
+"And take care of that boy."
+
+"Grab it from me, boss, when he wakes up, he won't know where he's
+been."
+
+"Good-night, then," said Respectability grudgingly.
+
+"G'd-night."
+
+The door closed, and with an ineradicable manner of weight and
+consequence Respectability turned toward the waiting taxicab: a man
+of, say, well-preserved sixty, with a blowsy plump face and fat white
+side-whiskers, a fleshy nose and arrogant eyes, a double chin and a
+heavy paunch; one who, in brief, had no business in that galley at
+that or any other hour of day or night, and who knew it and knew that
+others (worse luck!) would know it at sight.
+
+All this P. Sybarite comprehended in a glance and, comprehending,
+bristled like a truculent game-cock or the faithful hound in the
+ghost-story. The aspect of Respectability seemed to have upon him the
+effect of a violent irritant; his eyes took on a hot, hard look, his
+lips narrowed to a thin, inflexible crease, and his hands
+unconsciously closed.
+
+And as Respectability strode across the sidewalk, obviously intending
+to bury himself in the body of his waiting cab as quickly as possible,
+P. Sybarite--with the impudence of a tug blocking the fairway for an
+ocean liner--stepped in his path, dropped a shoulder, and planted both
+feet firmly.
+
+Immediately the two came together; the shoulder of P. Sybarite in the
+paunch of Respectability, evoking a deep grunt of choleric surprise
+and bringing the gentleman to an abrupt standstill.
+
+Upon this, P. Sybarite's mouth relaxed; he smiled faintly, almost
+placatingly.
+
+"Well, old top!" he cried with malicious cordiality. "Who'd think to
+meet _you_ here! What's the matter? Has high finance turned too risky
+for your stomach? Or are you dabbling in low-life for the sheer fun of
+it--to titillate your jaded senses?"
+
+Respectability's cheeks puffed out like red toy balloons; so likewise
+his chest.
+
+"Sir!" he snorted--"you are drunk!"
+
+"Sir!" retorted P. Sybarite, none too meekly--"you lie."
+
+The ebony-and-gold cane of Respectability quivered in mid-air.
+
+"Out of my way!"
+
+"Put down that cane, Mr. Brian Shaynon," said P. Sybarite peaceably,
+"unless you want me to play horse with you in a way to let all New
+York know how you spend the wee sma' hours!"
+
+At the mention of his name Respectability stiffened in dismay.
+
+"Damnation!" he cried hoarsely. "Who are you?"
+
+"Why, have you forgotten me? Careless of you, Mr. Shaynon. I'm the
+little guy that put the speck in Respectability: I'm the noisy little
+skeleton in the cupboard of your conscience. Don't you know me now?"
+
+With a gasp (prudently lowering his stick) Mr. Shaynon bent to peer
+into the face exposed as P. Sybarite pushed back his hat; stared an
+instant, goggling; wheeled about, and flung heavily toward his
+taxicab.
+
+"The Bizarre!" wheezed he to the chauffeur; and dodging in, banged the
+door.
+
+As for P. Sybarite, he watched the vehicle swing away and round the
+corner of Seventh Avenue, a doubtful glimmer in eyes that had burned
+hot with hostility, a slight ironic smile wreathing lips that had
+shown hatred.
+
+"But what's the good of that?" he said in self-disgust, as the taxicab
+disappeared.
+
+With a sigh, shaking himself together, he went into Dutch House.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD
+
+
+From street door to restaurant entrance, the hallway of Dutch House
+was some twenty-five feet long, floored with grimy linoleum in
+imitation of tiling, greasy as to its walls and ceiling, and boasting
+an atmosphere rank with a reek compounded of a dozen elements, in
+their number alcohol, cheap perfumery, cooked meats, the sweat of
+unclean humanity, and stale tobacco smoke.
+
+Save for this unsavoury composite wraith, the hall was empty when P.
+Sybarite entered it. But it echoed with sounds of rowdy revelry from
+the room in back: mechanical clatter of galled and spavined piano,
+despondent growling of a broken-winded 'cello, nervous giggling and
+moaning of an excoriated violin--the three wringing from the score of
+_O You Beautiful Doll_ an entirely adequate accompaniment to the
+perfunctory performance of a husky contralto.
+
+Though by no means squeamish, on the testimony of his nose and ears P.
+Sybarite then and there concluded that he would have to have become
+exceedingly blase indeed to find Dutch House amusing.
+
+And when he had gone on into the restaurant itself, slipping his
+modest person inconspicuously into a chair at the nearest unoccupied
+table, the testimony of his other senses as to the character of his
+company served to confirm this impression.
+
+"It's no use," he sighed: "I'm too old a dog.... Be it ever so
+typical, there's _no_ place like one's own hash-foundry." ...
+
+This room was broad and deep, and boasted, at its far end, a miniature
+stage supporting the orchestra and, temporarily, the gyrations of a
+lady in a vivacious scarlet costume--mistress of the shopworn
+contralto--who was "vamping with the feet" the interval between two
+verses of her ballad.
+
+The main floor was strewn with tables round which sat a motley
+gathering of gangsters, fools, pretty iniquities and others by no
+stretch of the imagination to be termed pretty, confidence men,
+gambling touts, and the sprinkling of drunkards--plain, common,
+transient, periodical, suburban, habitual, and unconscious--for and by
+whom the place was, and is, maintained. In and out among these
+circulated several able-bodied waiters with soiled shirt-bosoms, iron
+jaws and, not infrequently, cauliflower ears.
+
+Spying out P. Sybarite, one of these bore down upon him with an air of
+the most flattering camaraderie.
+
+It was true that the little man, in a dark coat and hat alike too
+large for him, with his shabby shoes and trousers and apologetic
+demeanour, promised no very profitable plucking; but the rule of Dutch
+House is to neglect none, however lowly.
+
+"Well, bo'," grunted the waiter cheerfully, polishing off the top of
+the table with a saturated towel, "yuh don't come round's often as y'
+uster."
+
+"That's a fact," P. Sybarite agreed. "I've been a long time
+away--haven't I?"
+
+"Yuh said somethin' _then_. Mus' be months sinst I seen yuh last.
+What's the trouble? Y' ain't soured on the old joint, huh?"
+
+"No," P. Sybarite apologised. "I've been--away. Where's Red?"
+
+"MacManus--?" asked the waiter, beginning to believe that this strange
+little creature must in fact be a "regular" of the "bunch"--one whose
+name and face had somehow, unaccountably, slipped from his memory.
+
+"November," P. Sybarite corrected.
+
+"Oh, he's stickin' round--pretty busy to-night. Wouldn't fuss him, 'f
+I was yuh, 'less it's somethin' extra."
+
+"I make you," said the little man. "But this is his business. Tell him
+I have a message for him, will you?"
+
+"Just as yuh say, bo'," returned the other cautiously. "What's it
+goin' to be? Bucket of grape or a tub of suds?"
+
+"Do I look like the foolish waters?" enquired P. Sybarite with mild
+resentment. "Back me up a shell of lather."
+
+Grinning amiably at this happy metaphorical description of the glass
+of lager regularly served at Dutch House, the waiter shouldered
+through the swinging doors to the bar....
+
+Then fell a brief lull in the melange of music and tongues, during
+which a boyish voice lifted up in clear remonstrance at a table some
+three removed from that at which P. Sybarite sat:
+
+"But I don't _want_ anything more to drink!"
+
+P. Sybarite looked that way. The owner of the voice (now again
+drowned) was apparently a youngster of twenty years--not more--clean
+of limb and feature, with a hot flush discolouring his good-looking
+face, a hectic glitter in his eyes, and a stubborn smile on his lips.
+
+Lounging low in a straight-backed chair, with his hands in his pockets
+and his head wagging obstinately, he was plainly intoxicated, but as
+yet at a stage sufficiently mild to admit of his recognising the
+self-evident truth that he needed not another drop.
+
+Yet his companions would have him drink more deeply.
+
+Of these, one was a woman of no uncertain caste, a woman handsome in a
+daring and costly gown, and as yet not old, but in whose eyes
+flickered a curious febrile glare ("as though," commented P. Sybarite,
+moralist, "reflected back from the mouth of Hell").
+
+The other was a man singularly handsome in a foreign way--Italian, at
+an indifferent guess--slight and graceful of person in well-tailored
+if somewhat flashy clothing; boasting too much jewellery; his teeth
+gleaming a vivid white against his dark colouring as he smiled
+good-humouredly in his attempts to press more drink upon the other.
+
+The music stopped altogether for a time, and again the boy's voice
+rang out clearly:
+
+"Tell you--'ve had enough."
+
+The Italian said something urgent, in an undertone. The woman added
+inaudible persuasion to his argument. The boy looked from one to
+another with a semi-stupid smile; but wagged an obdurate head.
+
+"I will _not_. No--and I don't want--lie down jus' for few minutes.
+I'm goin' sit here till these--ah--foolish legs 'mine straighten
+'emselves out--then 'm going home." ...
+
+"Here's your beer, bo'," P. Sybarite's waiter announced.
+
+"Keep the change," said the guest, tendering a quarter.
+
+"T'anks"--with a look of surprise. Then familiarly knuckling the top
+of the table, the waiter stroked a rusty chin and surveyed the room.
+"There's Red, now," he observed.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Over there with the skirt and the kid souse. Yuh kin see for yourself
+he's busy. D' yuh want I sh'u'd stir him up now?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said P. Sybarite, in the tone of one recognising an
+oversight. "What's doing over there--anything?" he proceeded casually.
+
+The waiter favoured him with a hard stare. "Red November's business
+ain't none'r mine," he growled; "an' less you know him a heluva sight
+better'n I do, you'd better take a straight tip from me
+and--_leave--it--lay_!"
+
+"Oh!" said the little man hastily--"I was only wondering.... But I
+wish you would slip Red the high sign: all I want is one word with
+him."
+
+"All right, bo'--you're on."
+
+Slouching off, obviously reluctant to interrupt the diversions of Mr.
+November, the man at length mustered up courage to touch that
+gentleman's elbow. The gangster turned sharply, a frown replacing the
+smile which had illuminated his attempts to overcome the boy's
+recently developed aversion to drink. The waiter murmured in his
+private ear.
+
+Promptly P. Sybarite received a sharp look from eyes as black and hard
+as shoe buttons; and with equanimity endured it--even went to the
+length of a nod accompanied by his quaint, ingratiating smile. A
+courtesy ignored completely: the dark eyes veered back to the waiter's
+face and the white teeth flashed as he was curtly dismissed.
+
+He shuffled back, scowling, reported sulkily: "Says yuh gotta wait";
+and turned away in answer to a summons from another table.
+
+Unruffled, P. Sybarite sipped his beer--sipped it sparingly and not
+without misgivings, but sedulously to keep in character as a familiar
+of the dive.
+
+Presently there came yet another lull in the clatter of tongues; and
+again the accents of the boy sounded distinctly from the gangster's
+table:
+
+"I won't--that's flat! I refuse positively--go up stairs--sleep it
+off. I'm a' right--give you m' word--in the _head_. All my
+trouble's--these mutinous dogs of legs. But I'll make 'em mind, yet.
+Trust me--"
+
+And again the babel blotted out his utterance.
+
+But P. Sybarite had experienced a sudden rush of intelligence to the
+head--was in the throes of that mental process which it is our habit
+wittily to distinguish by the expressive term, "putting two and two
+together."
+
+Could this, by any chance, be "that boy" who, Mr. Brian Shaynon had
+been assured, wouldn't know where he'd been when he waked? Was an
+attempt to ensure that desired consummation through the agency of a
+drug, being made in the open restaurant?
+
+If not, why was Red November neglecting all other affairs to press
+drink upon a man who knew when he had enough?
+
+If so, what might be the nature of the link connecting the boy with
+the "job," to be on which at half-past two November had just now
+covenanted with Brian Shaynon?
+
+What incriminating knowledge could this boy possess, to render old
+Shaynon, willing that his memory should be expurgated by such a
+mind- and nerve-shattering agent as the knock-out drop of White Light
+commerce?
+
+Now Shaynon was capable of almost any degree of infamy, if not,
+perhaps, the absolute peer of Red November.
+
+This strange development of that night of Destiny began to assume in
+P. Sybarite's esteem a complexion of baleful promise.
+
+But the more keenly interested he grew, the more indifferent he made
+himself appear, slouching low and lower in his chair, his eyes
+listless and half closed--his look one of the most pronounced apathy:
+the while he conned the circumstances, physical as well as psychical,
+with the narrowest attention. Certainly, it would seem, a man who had
+enough instinctive decency to wish to escape the degradation of deeper
+drunkenness, should be humoured rather than opposed....
+
+The table on which his attention was focussed stood against the wall,
+the young man sitting in the corner between November and the woman. Of
+two tables between it and P. Sybarite's, one was vacant, the other
+occupied by a brace of hatchet-faced male intimates of the dive and
+creatures of November's--or their looks libelled them shamefully.
+
+It seemed unlikely that the boy could get away against the wishes of
+the gang leader, however steadfastly he might stand upon his
+determination to drink no more. For nothing was to be hoped for from
+the sots, prostitutes, and parasites who made up the balance of that
+company: one and all, either too indifferent or too sophisticated, if
+not in active sympathy with the practices of the establishment, to
+lift a hand to interfere....
+
+Testimony in support of this inference P. Sybarite received within the
+next few minutes, when the boy's temper abruptly veered from
+good-natured obduracy to open irritation.
+
+"Damn it, no!" he cried in a high voice and with an impatient movement
+struck the glass from November's hand.
+
+Though it went to the floor with a splintering crash, the incident
+attracted little more than casual glances from those at neighbouring
+tables....
+
+November's countenance, however, turned grey with anger beneath its
+olive shade.
+
+Momentarily his glance clashed with the woman's; and of a sudden the
+paint upon her cheeks and lips stood out as starkly artificial as
+carmine splashed upon a whitewashed wall. At the same time he flashed
+a like warning to his two followers at the next table; and the legs of
+their chairs grated on the tiled flooring as they shifted position,
+making ready for the signal to "mix in."
+
+At this, P. Sybarite rose and nonchalantly moved over to November; his
+approach remarked by the latter with an evil leer; by the woman with a
+start of consternation; by the boy with sudden suspicion. Indubitably
+this last was beginning to question a hospitality that would not
+permit him to do as to him seemed best. With relief P. Sybarite noted
+symptoms of this dawning distrust. It made the problem simpler, to
+have the boy alive to his peril.
+
+Pausing, P. Sybarite met November's glare with eyes informed with an
+expression amazingly remote and dispassionate, and in a level and
+toneless voice addressed him.
+
+"I've a message for you--a hurry call--won't keep--"
+
+"Well?" snapped the gangster. "What's it about? Spit it out!"
+
+"Why, Nella says--" P. Sybarite began deliberately; and paused to
+cough politely behind his hand; and leaned confidentially over the
+table.
+
+At this juncture the boy pushed back his chair and rose.
+
+"Pardon me, m' dear," he said thickly to the woman; "'m goin' home."
+
+"Ah, sit down," November interrupted quickly, pitching his protean
+accents to a key of cajolery--"sit down and have another. What's your
+hurry?"
+
+His eyes caught the woman's.
+
+"That's right, dearie," she chimed in hurriedly, laying a soft
+detaining hand on the boy's forearm. "Be a good fellow. Stake me to
+just one more pint--"
+
+"No," the boy insisted, shaking free--"I'm going home. Le' me alone."
+
+"Nella," P. Sybarite interpolated in an imperative tone, momentarily
+distracting November's attention--"Nella says to tell you she wants
+you--now--immediately. Do you get that?"
+
+"Damn Nella!" snapped the gang leader. "Tell her to go to the devil.
+And you"--he menaced P. Sybarite with a formidable look--"you slide
+outa here--in a hurry! See?"
+
+With this, rising in his place, he put forth a hand to detain the boy,
+who was sullenly pushing past the woman.
+
+"Wait!" he insisted. "You can't go before you pay up--"
+
+Whipping from his pocket a note (of what denomination he never
+knew--but it was large) P. Sybarite slapped it down upon the table.
+
+"That'll pay whatever he owes," he announced, and to the boy: "Clear
+out--quick--do you hear!--while you've got a chance--"
+
+"What t'ell business is it of yours?" November demanded, turning upon
+him furiously.
+
+With an enigmatic smile, P. Sybarite dexterously tipped up his side of
+the table and, overturning it, caught the gangster unprepared for any
+such manoeuvre and pinned him squirming in the angle of wall and
+floor.
+
+Immediately the woman came to her feet shrieking; while the little man
+seized the befuddled boy and swung him toward the door actually before
+he realised what was happening.
+
+Simultaneously, November's henchmen at the adjoining table leapt into
+the brawl with an alacrity that sent their chairs clattering back upon
+the floor.
+
+But in his magnificent assurance P. Sybarite had foreseen and planned
+cunningly against precisely that same contingency. No sooner had he
+sent the boy staggering on his way than he whirled completely round
+with a ready guard--and in no more than the very wink of exigence.
+
+Already one of the creatures was almost on his back--the other hanging
+off and singularly employed (it seemed, considering) with his hands;
+just what he was up to P. Sybarite had time neither to see nor to
+surmise.
+
+Sidestepping a wild swing, he planted a left full on the nose of the
+nearer assailant and knocked him backwards over a sprawling chair.
+Then turning attention to the other, he was barely in time to duck an
+uppercut--and out of the corners of his eyes caught the glint of
+brass-knuckles on the fist that failed to land.
+
+Infuriated, he closed in, sent a staggering left to the thug's heart
+and a murderous right to his chin, so that he reeled and fell as if
+shot--while P. Sybarite with a bound again caught the boy by the arm
+and whirled him out through the doorway into the hall.
+
+"Hurry!" he panted. "We've one chance in ten thousand--"
+
+Beyond doubt they had barely that.
+
+Hardened though they were to scenes of violence, the clients of the
+dive had stilled in apprehension the moment November lifted his voice
+in anger; while P. Sybarite's first overtly offensive move had struck
+them all dumb in terror.
+
+Red November was one who had shot down his man in cold blood on the
+steps of the Criminal Courts Building and, through the favour of The
+Organisation that breeds such pests, escaped scot-free under the
+convenient fiction of "suspended sentence"; and knowing well the
+nature and the power of the man, the primal concerted thought had been
+to flee the place before bullets began to fly. In blind panic like
+that of sheep, they rose as one in uproar and surged toward the outer
+doors. November himself, struggling up from beneath the table, was
+caught and swept on willy-nilly in the front rank of the stampede. In
+a thought he found himself wedged tight in a press clogging the door.
+Before his enraged vision P. Sybarite was winning away with the boy.
+
+Maddened, the gang leader managed to free his right arm and send a
+haphazard shot after them.
+
+Only the instinctive recoil of those about him deflected his aim.
+
+The report was one with a shock of shattered plate-glass: the
+soft-nosed bullet, splashing upon the glazed upper half of the door,
+caused the entire pane to collapse and disappear with the quickness of
+magic.
+
+Halting, P. Sybarite wheeled and dropped a hand to the pocket wherein
+rested Mrs. Inche's automatic.
+
+"Get that door open!" he cried to the boy. "I've got a taxi waiting--"
+
+His words were drowned out by the thunderous detonations set up by a
+second shot in that constricted space.
+
+With a thick sob, the boy reeled and swung against the wall as sharply
+as though he had been struck with a sledge-hammer.
+
+Whimpering with rage, P. Sybarite tugged at the weapon; but it stuck
+fast, caught the lining of his coat-pocket.
+
+Most happily before he could get it in evidence, the door was thrust
+sharply in, and through it with a rush materialised that most rare of
+metropolitan phenomena--the policeman on the spot.
+
+Young and ardent, with courage as unique as his ubiquity, he blustered
+in like a whirlwind, brushing P. Sybarite to one side, the wounded boy
+to the other, and pausing only a single instant to throw back the
+skirts of his tunic and grasp the butt of the revolver in his
+hip-pocket, demanded in the voice of an Irish stentor:
+
+"_What's-all-this? What's-all-this-now?_"
+
+"Robbery!" P. Sybarite replied, mastering with difficulty a giggle of
+hysterical relief. "Robbery and attempted murder! Arrest that man--Red
+November--with the gun in his hand."
+
+With an inarticulate roar, the patrolman swung on toward the
+gangster--and P. Sybarite plucked the boy by the sleeve and drew him
+quickly to the sidewalk.
+
+By the never-to-be-forgotten grace of _Kismet_ his taxicab was
+precisely where he had left it, the chauffeur on the seat.
+
+"Quick!" he ordered the reeling boy--"into that cab unless you want to
+be treated by a Bellevue sawbones--held as a witness besides. Are you
+badly hurt?"
+
+"Not badly," gasped the boy--"shot through the shoulder--can wait for
+treatment--must keep out of the papers--"
+
+"Right!" P. Sybarite jerked open the door, and his charge stumbled
+into the cab. "Drive anywhere--like sin," he told the chauffeur--"tell
+you where to stop when we get clear of this mess--"
+
+Privately he blessed that man; for the cab was in motion almost before
+he could swing clear of the sidewalk. He tumbled in upon the floor,
+and picked himself up in time to close the door only when they were
+swinging on two wheels round the corner of Seventh Avenue.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+SUCH STUFF AS PLOTS ARE MADE OF
+
+
+"How is it?" P. Sybarite asked solicitously.
+
+"Aches," replied the boy huddled in his corner of the cab.
+
+Then he found spirit enough for a pale, thin smile, faintly visible in
+a milky splash from an electric arc rocking by the vehicle in its
+flight.
+
+"Aches like hell," he added. "Makes one feel a bit sickish."
+
+"Anything I can do?"
+
+"No--thanks. I'll be all right--as soon as I find a surgeon to draw
+that slug and plaster me up."
+
+"That's the point: where am I to take you?"
+
+"Home--the Monastery--Forty-third Street."
+
+"Bachelor apartments?"
+
+"Yes; I herd by my lonesome."
+
+"Praises be!" muttered P. Sybarite, relieved.
+
+For several minutes he had been entertaining a vision of himself
+escorting this battered and bloody young person to a home of shrieking
+feminine relations, and poignantly surmising the sort of welcome apt
+to be accorded the good Samaritan in such instances.
+
+And while he was about it, he took time briefly to offer up thanks
+that the shock of his wound seemed to have sobered the boy completely.
+
+Opening the door, he craned his neck out to establish communication
+with the ear of the chauffeur; to whom he repeated the address, adding
+an admonition to avoid the Monastery until certain he had shaken off
+pursuit, if any; and dodged back.
+
+At this juncture the taxicab was slipping busily up Eighth Avenue,
+having gained that thoroughfare via Forty-first Street. A little later
+it turned eastwards....
+
+"No better, I presume?" P. Sybarite enquired.
+
+"Not so's you'd notice it," the boy returned bravely.... "First time
+anything like this ever happened to me," he went on. "Funny
+sensation--precisely as if somebody had lammed me for a home run--with
+a steel girder for a bat ..."
+
+"Must be tough!" said P. Sybarite blankly, experiencing a qualm at the
+thought of a soft-nosed bullet mushrooming through living flesh.
+
+"Guess I can stand it.... Where are we?"
+
+P. Sybarite took observations."
+
+"Forty-seventh, near Sixth Avenue," he reported finally.
+
+"Good: we'll be home in five minutes."
+
+"Think you can hold out that long?"
+
+"Sure--got to; if I keel over before we reach my digs ... chances are
+it'll get you into trouble ... besides, I want to fight shy of the
+papers ... no good airing this scandal ..."
+
+"None whatever," affirmed P. Sybarite heartily. "But--how did you get
+into it?"
+
+"Just by way of being a natural-born ass."
+
+"Oh, well! If it comes to that, I admit it's none of my business--"
+
+"The deuce it isn't! After all you've done for me! Good Lord, man,
+where _would_ I be...!"
+
+"Sleeping the sleep of the doped in some filthy corner of Dutch House,
+most likely."
+
+"And you saved me from that!"
+
+"And got this hole drilled through you instead."
+
+"Got me away; I'd've collected the lead anyhow--wasn't meaning to stay
+without a fight."
+
+"Then you weren't as drunk as you seemed?"
+
+"Didn't you catch me making a move the minute you created a diversion?
+Of course, I'd no idea you were friendly--"
+
+"Look here," P. Sybarite interrupted sharply: "doesn't it hurt you to
+talk?"
+
+"No--helps me forget this ache."
+
+"All right, then--tell me how this came about. What has Red November
+got on you, to make him so anxious--?"
+
+"Nothing, as far as I know; unless it was Brian Shaynon's doing--"
+
+"A-ah!"
+
+"You know that old blighter?"
+
+"Slightly--very slightly."
+
+"Friend of yours?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+The accent of P. Sybarite's laugh rendered the disclaimer conclusive.
+
+"Glad to hear that," said the boy gravely: "I'd despise to be beholden
+to any friend of his ..."
+
+"Well.... But what's the trouble between you and old man Shaynon?"
+
+"Search me--unless he thought I was spying on him. I say!" the boy
+exclaimed excitedly--"what business could he have had with Red
+November there, to-night?"
+
+"That _is_ a question," P. Sybarite allowed.
+
+"Something urgent, I'll be bound!--else he wouldn't ever have dared
+show his bare map in that dump."
+
+"One would think so...."
+
+"I'd like to figure this thing out. Perhaps you can help. To begin
+with--I went to a party to-night."
+
+"I know," said P. Sybarite, with a quiet chuckle: "the Hadley-Owen
+masquerade."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"_Kismet!_ It had to be."
+
+"Are you by any chance--mad?"
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised. Anyhow, I'm a bit mad I wasn't invited.
+Everybody I know or meet--almost--is either bidden to that party or
+knows somebody who is. Forgive the interruption.... Anyway," he added,
+"we're here."
+
+The taxicab was drawing up before an apartment house entrance.
+
+Hastily recovering his hoard of gold-pieces, P. Sybarite jumped out
+and presented one to the driver.
+
+"Can't change that," said the latter, staring. "Besides, this was a
+charge call."
+
+"I know," said P. Sybarite apologetically; "but this is for you."
+
+"Good God!" cried the chauffeur.
+
+"And yet," mused P. Sybarite, "they'd have you believe all taxicab
+chauffeurs mercenary!"
+
+Recklessly he forced the money into the man's not altogether
+inhospitable palm.
+
+"For being a good little tight-mouth," he explained gravely.
+
+"Forever and ever, amen!" protested the latter fervently. "And thank
+_you_!"
+
+"If you're satisfied, we're quits," returned P. Sybarite, offering a
+hand to the boy.
+
+"I can manage," protested this last, descending without assistance.
+"And it's better so," he explained as they crossed to the door; "I
+don't want the hallboys here to suspect--and I can hold up a few
+minutes longer, never fear."
+
+"Business of taking off my hat to you," said P. Sybarite in unfeigned
+admiration; "for pure grit, you're a young wonder."
+
+A liveried hallboy opened the door. A second waited in the elevator.
+Promptly ascending, they were set down at one of the upper floors.
+
+Throughout the boy carried himself with never a quiver, his
+countenance composed and betraying what pain he suffered only to eyes
+keen to discern its trace of pallor. Now as he left the elevator and
+fitted a key to the lock of his private front door, he addressed the
+attendant, over his shoulder, in a manner admirably casual:
+
+"By the way, Jimmy--"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Call up Dr. Higgins for me."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Tell him I've an attack of indigestion and will be glad if he'll turn
+out and see if he can't fix me up for the night."
+
+"Very good, Mr. Kenny."
+
+The gate clanged and the cage dropped from sight as Mr. Kenny opened
+the door and stood aside to let P. Sybarite precede him.
+
+"Rot!" objected the little man forcibly. "Go in and turn up the
+lights. Punctilio from a man in your condition--!"
+
+The boy nodded wearily, passed in, and switched up the lights in a
+comfortably furnished sitting-room.
+
+"As a matter of fact," he said thoughtfully, when P. Sybarite had
+followed him in and shut the door--"I'm wondering how much of a bluff
+I may be, after all."
+
+"Meaning--?"
+
+"By all literary precedent I ought to faint now, after my magnificent
+exhibition of superhuman endurance. But I'm not going to."
+
+"That's rather sporting of you," P. Sybarite grinned.
+
+"Not at all; I just don't want to--don't feel like it. That sick
+feeling is gone--nothing but a steady agony like a hot iron through my
+shoulder--something any man with teeth to grit could stand."
+
+"We'll find out soon enough. I don't pretend to be any sort of a dab
+at repairs on punctured humanity, but I read enough popular fiction
+myself to know that the only proper thing to do is to ruin that
+handsome coat of yours by cutting it off your back. We can anticipate
+the doctor to that extent, at least."
+
+"That's one thing, at least, that the popular novelist knows _right_,"
+asserted Mr. Kenny with conviction. "Sorry for the coat--but you'll
+find scissors yonder, on my desk."
+
+And when P. Sybarite fetched them, he sat himself sideways in a
+straight-backed chair and cheerfully endured the little man's
+impromptu essays in first-aid measures.
+
+A very little snipping and slashing sufficed to do away with the
+shoulder and sleeve of the boy's coat and to lay open his waistcoat as
+well, exposing a bloodstained shirt. And then, at the instant when P.
+Sybarite was noting with relief that the stain showed both in back and
+in front, the telephone shrilled.
+
+"If you don't mind answering that--" grunted Mr. Kenny.
+
+P. Sybarite was already at the instrument.
+
+"Yes?" he answered. "Dr. Higgins?"
+
+"Sorry, sir," replied a strange voice: "Dr. Higgins isn't in yet. Any
+message?"
+
+"Tell him Mr. Kenny needs him at the Monastery, and the matter's
+urgent.... Doctor not in," he reported superfluously, returning to cut
+away collar, tie, shirt, and undershirt. "Never mind, I shouldn't be
+surprised if we could manage to do without him, after all."
+
+"Meaning it's not so bad--?"
+
+"Meaning," said the other, exposing the naked shoulder, "I'm beginning
+to hope you've had a marvellously narrow escape."
+
+"Feels like it," said Kenny, ironic.
+
+P. Sybarite withheld response while he made close examination. At the
+base of Mr. Kenny's neck, well above the shoulder-blade, dark blood
+was welling slowly from an ugly puncture. And in front there was a
+corresponding puncture, but smaller. And presently his deft and gentle
+fingers, exploring the folds of the boy's undershirt, closed upon the
+bullet itself.
+
+"I don't believe," he announced, displaying his find, "you deserve
+such luck. Somehow you managed to catch this just right for it to slip
+through without either breaking bone or severing artery. And by a
+special dispensation of an all-wise Providence, Red November must have
+been preoccupied when he loaded that gun, for somehow a steel-jacketed
+instead of a soft-nosed bullet got into the chamber he wasted on you.
+Otherwise you'd have been pretty badly smashed. As it is, you'll
+probably be laid up only a few days."
+
+"I told you I wasn't so badly hurt--"
+
+"God's good to the Irish. Where's your bathroom?"
+
+With a gesture Kenny indicated its location.
+
+"And handkerchiefs--?"
+
+"Upper bureau drawer in the bedroom."
+
+In a twinkling P. Sybarite was off and back again with materials for
+an antiseptic wash and a rude bandage.
+
+"How'd you know I was Irish?" demanded the patient.
+
+"By yoursilf's name," quoth P. Sybarite in a thick brogue as natural
+as grass, while he worked away busily. "'Tis black Irish, and well I
+know it. 'Twas me mither's maiden name--Kenny. She had a brother,
+Michael he was and be way av bein' a rich conthractor in this very
+town as ever was, befure he died--God rist his sowl! He left two
+children--a young leddy who mis-spells her name M-a-e A-l-y-s--keep
+still!--and Peter, yersilf, me cousin, if it's not mistaken I am."
+
+"The Lord save us!" said the boy. "You're never Percy Sybarite!"
+
+P. Sybarite winced. "Not so loud!" he pleaded in a stage whisper.
+"Some one might hear you."
+
+"What the devil's the matter with you?"
+
+"I am that man you named--but, prithee, Percy me no Percevals, an'
+you'd be my friend. For fifteen years I've kept my hideous secret
+well. If it becomes public now ..."
+
+Peter Kenny laughed in spite of his pain.
+
+"I'll keep your secret, too," he volunteered, "since you feel that way
+about it.... But, I say: what have you been doing with yourself
+since--since--" He stammered.
+
+"Since the fall of the House of Sybarite?"
+
+"Yes. I didn't know you were in New York, even."
+
+"Your mother and Mae Alys knew it--but kept it quiet, the same as me,"
+said the little man.
+
+"But--well--what _have_ you been doing, then?"
+
+"Going to and fro like a raging lion--more or less--seeking what I
+might devour."
+
+"And the devourings have been good, eh? You're high-spirited enough."
+
+"I think," said P. Sybarite quietly--"I may say--though you can't see
+it--that my present smile would, to a shrewd observer, seem to
+indicate I'd swallowed a canary-bird ... a nice, fat, golden
+canary-bird!" he repeated, smacking his lips with unction.
+
+"You talk as if you'd swallowed a dictagraph," said Peter Kenny.
+
+"It's my feeling," sighed P. Sybarite. "But yourself? Let's see; when
+I saw you last you were the only authentic child pest of your day and
+generation--six or seven at most. How long have you been out of
+college?"
+
+"A year--not quite."
+
+"And sporting bachelor rooms of your own!"
+
+"I'm of age. Besides, if you must know, mother and Mae Alys are both
+dotty on the society game, and I'm not. I won't be rushed round to
+pink teas and--and all that sort of thing."
+
+"Far more wholesome than pink whiskeys at Dutch House."
+
+"You don't understand--"
+
+"No; but I mean to. There!" announced P. Sybarite, finishing the
+bandage with a tidy flat knot--make yourself comfortable on that
+couch, tell me where you keep your whiskey, and I'll mix myself a
+drink and listen to your degrading confession....
+
+"Now," he added, when Peter Kenny, stretched out on the couch, had
+suffered himself to be covered up--"not being an M.D., I've no
+conscience at all about letting you talk yourself to death; eaten
+alive as I am with curiosity; and knowing besides that you can't kill
+a Kenny but with kindness."
+
+"You'll find the whiskey on the buffet," said the boy.
+
+"Obliged to you," P. Sybarite replied, finding it.
+
+"And I suppose I--"
+
+"You're quite right; you've had enough. Alcohol is nothing to help
+mend a wound. If your friend Higgins permits it, when he comes--well
+and good.... Meanwhile," he added, taking a seat near the head of the
+couch, and fixing his youthful relation with a stern enquiring
+eye--"what were you doing in Dutch House the night?"
+
+"I've been trying to tell you--"
+
+"And now you must.... Is there a cigar handy?... Thanks.... This
+whiskey is prime stuff.... Go on. I'm waiting."
+
+"Well," Peter Kenny confessed sheepishly. "I'm in love--"
+
+"And you proposed to her to-night at the ball?"
+
+"Yes, and--"
+
+"She refused you."
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"So you decided to do the manly thing--go out and pollute yourself
+with drink?"
+
+"That's about the size of it," Peter admitted, shamefaced.
+
+"It's no good reason," announced P. Sybarite. "Now, if you'd been
+celebrating your happy escape, I'd be the last to blame you."
+
+"You don't understand, and you won't give me a chance--"
+
+"I'm waiting--all ears--but not the way _you_ mean."
+
+"It wasn't as if she'd left me any excuse to hope ... but she told me
+flat she didn't care for me."
+
+"That's bad, Peter. Forgive my ill-timed levity: I didn't mean it
+meanly, boy," P. Sybarite protested.
+
+"It's worse than you think," Peter complained. "I can stand her not
+caring for me. Why should she?"
+
+"Why, indeed?"
+
+"It's because she's gone and promised to marry Bayard Shaynon."
+
+P. Sybarite looked dazed.
+
+"She? Bayard Shaynon? Who's the girl?"
+
+"Marian Blessington. Why do you ask? Do you know her?"
+
+There was a pause. P. Sybarite blinked furiously.
+
+"I've heard that name," he said quietly, at length. "Isn't she old
+Brian's ward--the girl who disappeared recently?"
+
+"She didn't disappear, really. She's been staying with friends--told
+me so herself. That's all the foundation the _Journal_ had for its
+story."
+
+"Friends?"
+
+"So she said."
+
+"Did she name them?"
+
+"No--"
+
+"Or say where?"
+
+"No; but some place out of town, of course."
+
+"Of course," P. Sybarite repeated mechanically. He eyed fixedly the
+ash on the end of his cigar. "And she told you she meant to marry
+Bayard Shaynon, did she!"
+
+"She said she'd promised.... And that," the boy broke out, "was what
+drove me crazy. He's--he's--well, you know what he is."
+
+"His father's son," said P. Sybarite gloomily.
+
+"He was there to-night--the old man, too; and after what Marian had
+told me, I just couldn't trust myself to meet or speak to either of
+them. So I bolted back here, took a stiff drink, changed from costume
+to these clothes, and went out to make a besotted ass of myself.
+Naturally I landed in Dutch House. And there--the first thing I
+noticed when I went in was old Shaynon, sitting at the same table you
+took, later--waiting. Imagine my surprise--I'd left him at the Bizarre
+not thirty minutes before!"
+
+"I'm imagining it, Peter. Get ahead."
+
+"I hailed him, but he wouldn't recognise me--simply glared. Presently
+Red November came in and they went upstairs together. So I stuck
+around, hoping to get hold of Red and make him drunk enough to talk.
+Curiously enough when Shaynon left, Red came directly to my table and
+sat down. But by that time I'd had some champagne on top of whiskey
+and was beginning to know that if I pumped in anything more, it'd be
+November's party instead of mine. And when he tried to insist on my
+drinking more, I got scared--feeling what I'd had as much as I did."
+
+"You're not the fool you try to seem," P. Sybarite conceded. "I heard
+November promise Shaynon, at the door, that you wouldn't remember much
+when you came to. The old scoundrel didn't want to be seen--hadn't
+expected to be recognised and, when he found you'd followed, planned
+to fix things so that you'd never tell on him."
+
+"But _why_?"
+
+"That's what I'm trying to figure out. There's some sort of shenanigan
+brewing, or my first name's Peter, the same as yours--which I wish it
+was so.... Be quiet a bit and let me think."
+
+For a little while P. Sybarite sat pondering with vacant eyes; and the
+wounded boy stared upward with a frown, as though endeavouring to
+puzzle the answer to this riddle out of the blankness of the ceiling.
+
+"What time does this Hadley-Owen party break up?"
+
+"Not till daylight. It's the last big fixture of the social season,
+and ordinarily they keep it up till sunrise."
+
+"It'll be still going, then?"
+
+"Strong. They'll be in full swing, now, of after-supper dancing."
+
+"That settles it: I'm going."
+
+The boy lifted on his elbow in amaze, then subsided with a grunt of
+pain.
+
+"_You're_ going?"
+
+"You say you've got a costume of some sort here? I'll borrow it. We're
+much of a size."
+
+"Heaven knows you're welcome, but--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"You have no invitation."
+
+Rising, P. Sybarite smiled loftily. "Don't worry about that. If I
+can't bribe my way past a cordon of mercenary foreign waiters--and
+talk down any other opposition--I'm neither as flush as I think nor as
+Irish."
+
+"But what under the sun do you want there?"
+
+"To see what's doing--find out for myself what devilment Brian
+Shaynon's hatching. Maybe I'll do no good--and maybe I'll be able to
+put a spoke in his wheel. To do that--once--_right_--I'd be willing to
+die as poor as I've lived till this blessed night!"
+
+He paused an instant on the threshold of his cousin's bedroom; turned
+back a sombre visage.
+
+"I've little love for Brian Shaynon, myself, or none. You know what he
+did to me--and mine."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+BEELZEBUB
+
+
+Late enough in all conscience was the last guest to arrive for the
+Hadley-Owen masquerade.
+
+Already town-cars, carriages, and private 'busses were being called
+for and departing with their share of the more seasoned and
+sober-sided revellers, to whom bed and appetite for breakfast had come
+to mean more than a chance to romp through a cotillion by the light of
+the rising sun--to say discreetly little or nothing of those other
+conveyances which had borne away _their_ due proportion of far less
+sage and by no means sober-sided ones, who yet retained sufficient
+sense of the fitness of things to realise that bed followed by
+matutinal bromides would be better for them than further dalliance
+with the effervescent and evanescent spirits of festivity.
+
+More and more frequently the elevators, empty but for their
+attendants, were flying up to the famous ball-room floor of the
+Bizarre, to descend heavy-laden with languid laughing parties of
+gaily-costumed ladies and gentlemen no less brilliantly
+attired--prince and pauper, empress and shepherdess, monk, milkmaid,
+and mountebank: all weary yet reluctant in their going.
+
+And at this hour a smallish gentleman, in an old-style Inverness
+opera-coat that cloaked him to his ankles, with an opera hat set
+jauntily a wee bit askew on his head, a mask of crimson silk covering
+his face from brows to lips, slipped silently like some sly, sinister
+shadow through the Fifth Avenue portals of the Bizarre, and shaped a
+course by his wits across the lobby to the elevators, so discreetly
+and unobtrusively that none of the flunkeys in attendance noticed his
+arrival.
+
+In effect, he didn't arrive at all, but suddenly was there.
+
+A car, discharging its passengers before the smallish gentleman could
+catch the eye of its operator, flew suddenly upward in the echo of a
+gate slammed shut in his face; and all the other cars were still at
+the top, according to the bronze arrows of their tell-tale dials. The
+late arrival held up patiently; but after an instant's deliberation,
+doffed his hat, crushed it flat, slipped out of his voluminous cloak,
+and beckoned a liveried attendant.
+
+In the costume thus disclosed, he cut an impish figure: "Satan on the
+half-shell," Peter Kenny had christened him.
+
+A dress coat of black satin fitted P. Sybarite more neatly than him
+for whom it had been made. The frilled bosom of his shirt was set with
+winking rubies, and the lace cuffs at his wrists were caught together
+with rubies--whether real or false, like coals of fire: and ruby was
+the hue both of his satin mask and his satin small-clothes. Buckles of
+red paste brilliants burned on the insteps of his slender polished
+shoes with scarlet heels; and his snug black silk stockings set off
+ankles and calves so well-turned that the Prince of Sin himself might
+have taken pride in them. For boutonniere he wore a smouldering
+ember--so true an imitation that at first he himself had hesitated to
+touch it. Literally to crown all, his ruddy hair was twisted upward
+from each temple in a cornuted fashion that was most vividly
+picturesque.
+
+"Here," he said, surrendering hat and coat to the servitor before the
+latter could remonstrate--"take and check these for me, please. I
+shan't be going for some time yet."
+
+"Sorry, sir, but the cloak-room down 'ere 's closed, sir. You'll have
+to check them on the ball-room floor above."
+
+"No matter," said the little man: and groping in a pocket, he produced
+a dollar bill and tendered it to ready fingers; "you keep 'em for me,
+down here. It'll save time when I'm ready to go."
+
+"Very good, sir. Thank you."
+
+"You won't forget me?"
+
+The flunkey grinned. "You're the only gentleman I've seen to-night,
+sir, in a costume anything like your own."
+
+"There's but one of me in the Union," said the gentleman, sententious:
+"my spear knows no brother."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the servant civilly, making off.
+
+With an air of some dubiety, the little man watched him go.
+
+"I say!" he cried suddenly--"come back!"
+
+He was obeyed.
+
+A second dollar bill appeared as it were by magic between his fingers.
+The flunkey stared.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir?"
+
+"Take it"--impatiently.
+
+"Thank you." The well-trained fingers executed their most familiar
+manoeuvre. "But--m'y I ask, sir--wot's it for?"
+
+"You called me a gentleman just now."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You were right."
+
+"Quite so, sir."
+
+"The devil _is_ a gentleman," the masquerader insisted firmly.
+
+"So I've always 'eard, sir."
+
+"Then you may go; you've earned the other dollar."
+
+Obsequiousness stared: "M'y I ask, 'ow so?"
+
+"By standing for that antediluvian bromidiom. I had to get it off my
+chest to somebody, or else blow up. Far better to hire an audience
+when you can't be original. Remember that; you've been paid: you
+daren't object."
+
+"Thankyousir," said the lackey blankly.
+
+"And now--avaunt--before I brand thee for mine own!"
+
+The little gentleman flung out an imperative, melodramatic arm; and
+veritable sparks sprayed from his crackling finger-tips. The servant
+retired in haste and dismay.
+
+"'E's balmy--or screwed--or the Devil 'imself!" he muttered....
+
+Beneath his mask the little man grinned privately at the man's
+retreat.
+
+"Piker!" said he severely--"sharpening your wits on helpless servants.
+A waiter has no friends, anyway!"
+
+An elevator, descending, discharged into the lobby half a dozen
+mirthful maskers. Of these, a Scheherazade of bewitching prettiness
+(in a cloak of ermine!) singled out the silent, cynical little
+gentleman in scarlet mask and smalls, and menaced him merrily with a
+jewelled forefinger.
+
+"What--you, Lucifer! Traitor! Where have you been all evening?"
+
+"Madame!"--he bowed mockingly--"in spirit, always at your ear."
+
+She flushed and bit her lip in charming confusion; while an abbess,
+with face serene in the frame of her snowy coif, caught up the ball of
+badinage:
+
+"Ah, in spirit! But in the flesh?"
+
+"Why, poppet!" he retorted in suave surprise--"it isn't possible that
+_you_ missed me?"
+
+And she, too, coloured; while a third, a girl dressed all in buckskin
+from beaded hunting-shirt to fringed leggings and dainty moccasins,
+bent to peer into his face.
+
+"Who are you?" she demanded curiously. "I don't seem to know you--"
+
+"That, child, you have already proved."
+
+"I?... Proved?... How do you mean?"
+
+"You alone have not yet blushed."
+
+And wheeling mischievously to the others, he covered them with
+widespread hands in burlesque benediction.
+
+"The unction of my deep damnation abide with ye, my children, now and
+forevermore!" he chanted, showering sparks from crepitant finger-tips;
+and bounded lightly into the elevator.
+
+"But your mask!" protested Scheherazade in a pet. "You've no
+right--when we all unmasked at supper."
+
+Through the iron fretwork of the gate, the little gentleman shot a
+Parthian spark or two.
+
+"I wear no mask!" he informed them solemnly as the car shot from
+sight.
+
+The conceit tickled him; he had it still in mind when he alighted at
+the ball-room floor.
+
+Pausing in the anteroom, he struck an artificial pose on his high red
+heels and stroked thin, satiric lips with slender fingers, reviewing
+the crush with eyes that glinted light-hearted malice through the
+scarlet visor; seeking a certain one and finding her not among those
+many about him--their gay exotic trappings half hidden beneath wraps
+of modern convention assumed against impending departure.
+
+A hedge of backs hid from him the ball-room, choking the wide, high
+arch of its entrance.
+
+Turning to one side, he began to pick a slow way through the press,
+and so presently found himself shoulder to shoulder with elderly and
+pompous Respectability in a furred great-coat; who, all ready for the
+street, with shining topper poised at breast-level, had delayed his
+going for an instant's guarded confabulation with a youngish man
+conspicuous in this, that he, alone of all that company, was in simple
+evening dress.
+
+Their backs were toward P. Sybarite, but by the fat pink folds above
+the back of Respectability's collar and the fat white side-whiskers
+adorning his plump pink chops, Beelzebub knew that he encountered for
+the second time that evening Respectability of the gold-capped cane.
+
+Without the least shame, he paused and cocked sharp ears to catch what
+he could of the conversation between these two.
+
+Little enough he profited by his open eavesdropping; what he heard was
+scarcely illuminating when applied to the puzzle that haunted him.
+
+"She won't--that's flat," Respectability's companion announced in a
+sullen voice.
+
+By the tone of this last Beelzebub knew that it issued from an ugly
+twisted mouth.
+
+"But," Respectability insisted heavily--"You're sure you've done your
+best to persuade her?"
+
+"She won't listen to reason."
+
+"Well ... everything's arranged. You have me to thank for that."
+
+"Oh," sneered the younger man, "you've done a lot, you have!"
+
+And then, moving to give way to another making toward the elevators,
+Brian Shaynon discovered at his elbow that small attentive body in
+sinister scarlet and black.
+
+For a breath, utterance failed the old man. He glared pop-eyed
+indignation from a congested countenance, his fat lips quivering and
+his jowls as well; and then as Beelzebub tapped him familiarly if
+lightly upon the chest, his face turned wholly purple, from swollen
+temples to pendulous chin.
+
+"Well met, _ame damnee_!" P. Sybarite saluted him gaily. "Are you
+indeed off so early upon my business?"
+
+"Damnation!" exclaimed Brian Shaynon, all but choking.
+
+"It shall surely be your portion," gravely assented the little man.
+"To all who in my service prosper in a worldly way--damnation, upon my
+honourable Satanic word!"
+
+"Who the devil--?"
+
+"_Whisht!_" P. Sybarite reproved. "A trifle more respect, if you
+please--lest you wake in the morning to find all my benefactions
+turned to ashes in your strong-boxes!"
+
+But here Respectability found his full voice.
+
+"Who are you?" he demanded so stormily that heads turned curiously his
+way. "I demand to know! Remove that mask! Impertinent--!"
+
+"Mask?" purred Beelzebub in a tone of wonder. "I wear no mask!"
+
+"No mask!" stammered the older man, in confusion.
+
+"Nay, _I_ am frankly what I am--old Evil's self," P. Sybarite
+explained blandly; "but you, Brian Shaynon--now you go always masked:
+waking or sleeping, hypocrisy's your lifelong mask. You see the
+distinction, old servant?"
+
+In another moment he might have suffered a sound drubbing with the
+ebony cane but for Peter Kenny's parlour-magic trick. For as Brian
+Shaynon started forward to seize Beelzebub by the collar, a stream of
+incandescent sparks shot point-blank into his face; and when he fell
+back in puffing dismay, Beelzebub laughed provokingly, ducked behind
+the backs of a brace of highly diverted bystanders, and quickly and
+deftly wormed his way through the press to the dancing-floor itself.
+
+As for the younger man--he of the unhandsome mouth--P. Sybarite was
+content to hold him in reserve, to be dealt with later, at his
+leisure. For the present, his business pressed with the waning night.
+
+In high feather, bubbling with mischief, he sidled along the wall a
+little way, then halted to familiarise himself with scene and
+atmosphere against his next move.
+
+But after the first minute or two, spent in silent review of the
+brilliant scene, his thin lips lost something of their cynic
+modelling, the eyes behind the scarlet visor something of their
+mischievous twinkle--softening with shadows envious and regretful.
+
+The room was as one vast pool of limpid golden light, walls and
+ceilings so luminous with the refulgence of a thousand electric bulbs
+that they seemed translucent, glowing with a radiance from beyond.
+
+On the famous floor, twelve-score couples swung and swayed to the
+intoxicating rhythms of an unseen orchestra; kaleidoscopic in their
+amazingly variegated costuming of colour, drifting past the lonely,
+diabolical little figure, an endless chain of paired anachronisms.
+
+Searching narrowly each fair face that flashed past in another's arms,
+he waited with seeming patience. But the music buzzed in his brain and
+his toes tingled for it; breathing the warm, voluptuous air, he
+inhaled hints of a thousand agreeable and exciting scenes; watching,
+he perceived in perturbation the witchery of a hundred exquisite
+women. And a rancorous discontent gnawed at his famished heart.
+
+This was all his by right of birth--should be his now, but for the
+blind malice of his sorry destiny. _Kismet_ had favoured him greatly,
+but too late....
+
+But of a sudden he forgot self-pity and vain repining, in the
+discovery of the one particular woman swinging dizzily past in the
+arms of an Incroyable, whose giddy plumage served only to render the
+more striking her exquisite fairness and the fine simplicity of her
+costume.
+
+For she was all in the black-and-white uniform of a Blessington
+shopgirl; black skirt and blouse, stockings and pumps, relieved by
+showy linen at throat and wrists, with at waist the white patch of a
+tiny lace-and-linen apron.
+
+Perhaps it was his start of recognition; it may have been the very
+fixed intensity of his regard; whatever drew it, her gaze veered to
+his silent and aloof figure, and for an instant his eyes held hers. At
+once, to his consternation, the hot blood stained her lovely face from
+throat to brow; her glance wavered, fell in confusion, then as though
+by a strong effort of will alone, steadied once more to his. Nodding
+with an air of friendly diffidence, she flashed him a strange,
+perplexing smile; and was swept on and away.
+
+For a thought he checked his breath in stupefaction. Had she, then,
+recognised him? Was it possible that her intuition had been keen
+enough to pierce his disguise, vizard and all?
+
+But the next moment he could have sworn in chagrined appreciation of
+his colossal stupidity. Of course!--his costume was that worn by Peter
+Kenny earlier in the evening; and as between Peter and himself, of the
+same stock, the two were much of a muchness in physique; both,
+moreover, were red-headed; their points of unlikeness were negligible,
+given a mask.
+
+So after all, her emotion had been due solely to embarrassment and
+regret for the pain she had caused poor Peter by refusing his offer of
+marriage!
+
+Well!... P. Sybarite drew a long, sane breath, laughed wholesomely at
+himself, and thereafter had eyes only to keep the girl in sight,
+however far and involved her wanderings through the labyrinth of the
+dance.
+
+In good time the music ended; the fluent movement of the dancers
+subsided with a curious effect of eddying--like confetti settling to
+rest; and P. Sybarite left his station by the wall, slipping like
+quicksilver through the heart of the throng to the far side of the
+room, where, near a great high window wide to the night, the
+breathless shopgirl had dropped into a chair.
+
+At Beelzebub's approach the Incroyable, perhaps mindful of obligations
+in another quarter, bowed and moved off, leaving the field temporarily
+quite clear.
+
+She greeted him with a faint recurrence of her former blush.
+
+"Why, Peter!" she cried--and so sealed with confirmation his surmise
+as to her mistake--"I was wondering what had become of you. I thought
+you must have gone home."
+
+"Peter did go home," P. Sybarite affirmed gravely, bending over her
+hand.
+
+His voice perplexed her tremendously. She opened eyes wide.
+
+"Peter!" she exclaimed reproachfully--"you promised it wouldn't make
+any difference. We were to go on just as always--good friends. And
+now ..."
+
+"Yes?" P. Sybarite prompted as she faltered.
+
+"I don't like to say it, Peter, but--your voice is so different.
+You've not been--doing anything foolish, have you?"
+
+"Peter hasn't," the little man lied cheerfully; "Peter went home to
+sulk like the unwhipped cub he is; and sulking, was yet decent enough
+to lend me these rags."
+
+"You--you're not Peter Kenny?"
+
+"No more than you are Molly Lessing."
+
+"Molly Lessing! What do you know--? Who can you be? Why are you
+masked?"
+
+"Simply," he explained pleasantly, "that my incognito may remain such
+to all save you."
+
+"But--but who _are_ you?"
+
+"It is permitted?" he asked, with a gesture offering to take the tiny
+printed card of dance engagements that dangled from her fingers by its
+silken thong.
+
+In dumb mystification the girl surrendered it.
+
+Seating himself beside her, P. Sybarite ran his eye down the list.
+
+"The last was number--which?" he enquired with unruffled impudence.
+
+Half angry, half amused, wholly confused, she told him: "Fifteen."
+
+"Then one number only remains."
+
+His lips hardened as he read the initials pencilled opposite that
+numeral; they were "B.S."
+
+"Bayard Shaynon?" he queried.
+
+She assented with a nod, her brows gathering.
+
+Coolly, with the miniature pencil attached to the card, he changed the
+small, faint _B_ to a large black _P_, strengthened the _S_ to
+correspond, and added to that _ybarite_; then with a bow returned the
+card.
+
+The girl received the evidence of her senses with a silent gasp.
+
+He bowed again: "Yours to command."
+
+"You--Mr. Sybarite!"
+
+"I, Miss Blessington."
+
+"But--incredible!" she cried. "I can't believe you ..."
+
+Facing her, he lifted his scarlet visor, meeting her stare with his
+wistful and diffident smile.
+
+[Illustration: Facing her, he lifted his scarlet visor.]
+
+"You see," he said, readjusting the mask.
+
+"But--what does this mean?"
+
+"Do you remember our talk on the way home after _Kismet_--four hours
+or several years ago: which is it?"
+
+"I remember we talked ..."
+
+"And I--clumsily enough, Heaven knows!--told you that I'd go far for
+one who'd been kind and tolerant to me, if she were in trouble and
+could use my poor services?"
+
+"I remember--yes."
+
+"You suspected--surely--it was yourself I had in mind?"
+
+"Why, yes; but--"
+
+"And you'll certainly allow that what happened later, at the door,
+when I stood in the way of the importunate Mr. 'B.S.'--if I'm not
+sadly in error--was enough to convince any one that you needed a
+friend's good offices?"
+
+"So," she said softly, with glimmering eyes--"so for that you followed
+me here, Mr. Sybarite!"
+
+"I wish I might claim it. But it wouldn't be true. No--I didn't follow
+you."
+
+"Please," she begged, "don't mystify me--"
+
+"I don't mean to. But to tell the truth, my own head is still awhirl
+with all the chapter of accidents that brought me here. Since you
+flew off with B.S., following afoot, I've traversed a vast deal of
+adventure--to wind up here. If," he added, grinning, "this is the
+wind-up. I've a creepy, crawly feeling that it isn't...."
+
+"Miss Blessington," he pursued seriously, "if you have patience to
+listen to what I've been through since we parted in Thirty-eighth
+Street--?" Encouraged by her silence he went on: "I've broken the bank
+at a gambling house; been held up for my winnings at the pistol's
+point--but managed to keep them. I've been in a raid and escaped only
+after committing felonious assault on two detectives. I then
+burglarised a private residence, and saved the mistress of the house
+from being murdered by her rascally husband--blundered thence to
+the deadliest dive in New York--met and slanged mine ancient enemy,
+the despoiler of my house--took part in a drunken brawl--saved my
+infatuated young idiot of a cousin, Peter Kenny, from assassination--took
+him home, borrowed his clothing, and impudently invited myself to this
+party on the mere suspicion that 'Molly Lessing' and Marian Blessington
+might be one and the same, after all!... And all, it appears, that I
+might come at last to beg a favour of you."
+
+"I can't think what it can be," breathed the girl, dumfounded.
+
+"To forgive my unpardonable impertinence--"
+
+"I've not been conscious of it."
+
+"You'll recognise it immediately. I am about to transgress your
+privacy with a question--two, in fact. Will you tell me, please, in
+confidence, why you refused my cousin, Peter Kenny, when he asked you
+to marry him?"
+
+Colouring, she met his eyes honestly.
+
+"Because--why, it was so utterly absurd! He's only a boy. Besides, I
+don't care for him--that way."
+
+"You care for some one else--'that way'?"
+
+"Yes," said the girl softly, averting her face.
+
+"Is it--Mr. Bayard Shaynon?"
+
+"No," she replied after a perceptible pause.
+
+"But you have promised to marry him?"
+
+"I once made him that promise--yes."
+
+"You mean to keep it?"
+
+"I must."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It was my father's wish."
+
+"And yet--you don't like him!"
+
+Looking steadily before her, the girl said tensely: "I loathe him."
+
+"Then," cried P. Sybarite in a joyful voice, "I may tell you
+something: you needn't marry him."
+
+She turned startled eyes to his, incredulous.
+
+"_Need_ not?"
+
+"I should have said _can_ not--"
+
+Through the loud hum of voices that, filling the room, had furnished a
+cover for their conversation, sounded the opening bars of music for
+the final dance.
+
+The girl rose suddenly, eyes like stars aflame in a face of snow.
+
+"He will be coming for me now," she said hurriedly. "But--if you mean
+what you say--I must know--instantly--why you say it. How can we
+manage to avoid him?"
+
+"This way," said P. Sybarite, indicating the wide window nearby.
+
+Through its draped opening a shallow balcony showed, half-screened by
+palms whose softly stirring fronds, touched with artificial light,
+shone a garish green against the sombre sky of night.
+
+Immediately Marian Blessington slipped through the hangings and,
+turning, beckoned P. Sybarite to follow.
+
+"There's no one here," she announced in accents tremulous with
+excitement, when he joined her. "Now--_now_ tell me what you mean!"
+
+"One moment," he warned her gently, turning back to the window just as
+it was darkened by another figure.
+
+The man with the twisted mouth stood there, peering blindly into the
+semi-obscurity.
+
+"Marian...?" he called in a voice meant to be ingratiating.
+
+"Well?" the girl demanded harshly.
+
+"I thought I saw you," he commented blandly, advancing a pace and so
+coming face to face with the bristling little Mephistophelean figure,
+which he had endeavoured to ignore.
+
+"My dance, I believe," he added a trace more brusquely, over the
+little man's head.
+
+"I must ask you to excuse me," said the girl coldly.
+
+"You don't care to dance again to-night?"
+
+"Thank you--no."
+
+"Then I will give myself the pleasure of sitting it out with you."
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, Bayard," she returned,
+consistently inflexible.
+
+He hesitated. "Do I understand you're ready for me to take you home?"
+
+"You're to understand that I will neither dance nor sit out the dance
+with you--and that I don't wish to be disturbed."
+
+"Bless your heart!" P. Sybarite interjected privately.
+
+The voice of the younger Shaynon broke with passion.
+
+"This is--the limit!" he cried violently. "I've reached the end of my
+endurance. Who's this creature you're with?"
+
+"Is your memory so short?" P. Sybarite asked quietly. "Have you
+forgotten the microbe?--the little guy who puts the point in
+disappointment?"
+
+"I've forgotten nothing, you--animal! Nor that you insulted my father
+publicly only a few minutes ago, you--"
+
+"That is something that takes a bit of doing, too!" affirmed P.
+Sybarite with a nod.
+
+"And I want to inform you, sir," Shaynon raged, "that you've gone too
+far by much. I insist that you remove your mask and tell me your
+name."
+
+"And if I refuse?" said the little man coolly.
+
+"If you refuse--or if you persist in this insolent attitude,
+sir!--I--I'll--"
+
+"_What?_ In the name of brevity, make up your mind and give it a name,
+man!"
+
+"I'll thrash you within an inch of your life--here and now!" Shaynon
+blustered.
+
+"One moment," P. Sybarite pleaded with a graceful gesture. "Before
+committing yourself to this mad enterprise, would you mind telling me
+exactly how you spell that word _inch_? With a capital _I_ and a final
+_e_--by any chance?"
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+IN A BALCONY
+
+
+Bewilderment and consternation, working in the man, first struck him
+dumb, aghast, and witless, then found expression in an involuntary
+gasp that was more than half of wondering fear, the remainder rage
+slipping its leash entirely:
+
+"_What?_"
+
+He advanced a pace with threatening mien.
+
+Overshadowed though he was, P. Sybarite stood his ground with no least
+hint of dismay. To the contrary, he was seen to stroke his lips
+discreetly as if to erase a smile.
+
+"The word in question," he said with exasperating suavity, "is the
+common one of four letters, to-wit, _inch_; as ordinarily spelled
+denoting the unit of lineal measurement--the twelfth part of a foot;
+but lend it a capital _I_ and an ultimate _e_--my good fellow!--and it
+stands, I fear too patiently, for the standard of your blackguardism."
+
+Speechless, the younger Shaynon hesitated, lifting an uncertain hand
+to his throat, as if to relieve a sense of strangulation.
+
+"Or what if I were to suggest--delicately--that you're within an Inche
+of the end of your rope?" the little man pursued, grimly playful.
+"Give you an Inche and--what will you take, eh?"
+
+With an inarticulate cry, Shaynon's fist shot out as if to strike his
+persecutor down; but in mid-air P. Sybarite's slim, strong fingers
+closed round and inflexibly stayed his enemy's wrist, with barely
+perceptible effort swinging it down and slewing the man off poise, so
+that perforce he staggered back against the stone of the window's deep
+embrasure.
+
+"Behave!" P. Sybarite counselled evenly. "Remember where you are--in a
+lady's presence. Do you want to go sprawling from the sole of my foot
+into the presence of more than one--or over this railing, to the
+sidewalk, and become food for inch-worms?"
+
+Releasing Shaynon, he stepped back warily, anticipating nothing less
+than an instant and disgraceful brawl.
+
+"As for my mask," he said--"if it still annoys you--"
+
+He jerked it off and away.
+
+Escaping the balustrade, it caught a wandering air and drifted
+indolently down through the darkness of the street, like an errant
+petal plucked from some strange and sinister bloom of scarlet
+violence.
+
+"And if my face tells you nothing," he added hotly, "perhaps my name
+will help. It's Sybarite. You may have heard it!"
+
+As if from a blow, Shaynon's eyes winced. Breathing heavily, he
+averted a face that took on the hue of parchment in the cold light
+striking up from the electric globes that march Fifth Avenue. Then
+quietly adjusting his crumpled cuff, he drew himself up.
+
+"Marian," he said as soon as he had his voice under control, "since
+you wish it, I'll wait for you in the lobby, downstairs. As--as for
+you, sir--"
+
+"Yes, I know," the little man interrupted wearily: "you'll 'deal with'
+me later, 'at a time and a place more fitting.'...Well, I won't mind
+the delay if you'll just trot along now, like a good dog--"
+
+Unable longer to endure the lash of his mordacious wit, Shaynon turned
+and left them alone on the balcony.
+
+"I'm sorry," P. Sybarite told the girl in unfeigned contrition.
+"Please forgive me. I've a vicious temper--the colour of my hair--and
+I couldn't resist the temptation to make him squirm."
+
+"If you only knew how I despised him," she said, "you wouldn't think
+it necessary to excuse yourself--though I don't know yet what it's all
+about."
+
+"Simply, I happen to have the whip-hand of the Shaynon conscience,"
+returned P. Sybarite; "I happened to know that Bayard is secretly the
+husband of a woman notorious in New York under the name of Mrs.
+Jefferson Inche."
+
+"Is that true? Dare I believe--?"
+
+Intimations of fears inexpressibly alleviated breathed in her cry.
+
+"I believe it."
+
+"On what grounds? Tell me!"
+
+"The word of the lady herself, together with the evidence of his
+confusion just now. What more do you need?"
+
+Turning aside, the girl rested a hand upon the balustrade and gazed
+blankly off through the night.
+
+"But--I can't help thinking there must be some mistake--some terrible
+mistake."
+
+"If so, it is theirs--the Shaynons', father and son."
+
+"But they've been bringing such pressure to bear to make me agree to
+an earlier wedding day--!"
+
+"Not even that shakes my belief in Mrs. Inche's story. As a matter of
+fact, Bayard offered her half a million if she'd divorce him quietly,
+without any publicity, in the West."
+
+"And she accepted--?"
+
+"She has refused, believing she stands to gain more by holding on."
+
+"If that is true, how can it be that he has been begging me this very
+night to marry him within a month?"
+
+"He may have entertained hopes of gaining his end--his freedom--in
+another way."
+
+"It's--it's inexpressibly horrible!" the girl cried, twisting her
+hands together.
+
+"Furthermore," argued the little man, purposefully unresponsive, "he
+probably thinks himself forced to seem insistent by the part he's
+playing. His father doesn't know of this entanglement; he'd disinherit
+Bayard if he did; naturally, Bayard wouldn't dare to seem reluctant to
+hasten matters, for fear of rousing the old man's suspicions."
+
+"It may be so," she responded vacantly, in the confusion of adjusting
+her vision of life to this new and blinding light....
+
+"Tell me," he suggested presently, stammering--"if you don't mind
+giving me more of your confidence--to which I don't pretend to have
+any right--only my interest in--in you--the mystery with which you
+surround yourself--living alone there in that wretched boarding-house--"
+
+He broke off with a brief uneasy laugh: "I don't seem to get
+anywhere.... My fear lest you think me presumptuous--"
+
+"Don't fear that for another instant--please!" she begged earnestly;
+and swinging to face him again, gave him an impulsive hand. "I'm so
+grateful to you for--for what you've saved me from--"
+
+"Then..." Self-distrustful, he retained her fingers only transiently.
+"Then why not tell me--everything. If I understood, I might be able to
+offer some suggestions--to save you further distress--"
+
+"Oh, no; you can't do that," she interrupted. "If what you've said is
+true, I--I shall simply continue to live by myself."
+
+"You don't mean you would go back to Thirty-eighth Street?"
+
+"No," she said thoughtfully, "I'm--I don't mean that."
+
+"You're right," he assured her. "It's no place for you."
+
+"That wasn't meant to be permanent," she explained--"merely an
+experiment. I went there for two reasons: to be rid for a while of
+their incessant attempts to hasten my marriage with Bayard; and
+because I suddenly realised I knew nothing about my father's estate,
+and found I was to know nothing for another year--that is, until,
+under his will, I come into my fortune. Old Mr. Shaynon would tell me
+nothing--treated me as though I were still a child. Moreover I had
+grown deeply interested in the way our girls were treated; I wanted to
+know about them--to be sure they were given a fair chance--earned
+enough to live decently--and other things about their lives--you can
+imagine...."
+
+"I think I understand," said P. Sybarite gravely.
+
+"I had warned them more than once I'd run away if they didn't let me
+alone.... You see, Mr. Shaynon insisted it was my father's wish that I
+should marry Bayard, and on that understanding I promised to marry him
+when I came into possession of the estate. But that didn't suit--or
+rather, it seemed to satisfy them only for a little time. Very soon
+they were pestering me again to marry at once. I couldn't see the
+need--and finally I kept my word and ran away--took my room in
+Thirty-eighth Street, and before long secured work in my own store. At
+first I was sure they'd identify me immediately; but somehow no one
+seemed to suspect me, and I stayed on, keeping my eyes open and
+collecting evidence of a system of mismanagement and oppression--but I
+can't talk about that calmly--"
+
+"Please don't if it distresses you," P. Sybarite begged gently.
+
+"At all events," she resumed, "it wasn't until to-night that Bayard
+found out where I was living--as you saw. At first I refused to return
+home, but he declared my disappearance was creating a scandal; that
+one newspaper threatened to print a story about my elopement with a
+chauffeur, and that there was other unpleasant talk about Mr.
+Shaynon's having caused me to be spirited away so that he might gain
+control of my estate--"
+
+"Wonder what put _that_ into his head!" P. Sybarite broke in with
+quickening curiosity.
+
+"He insisted that these stories could only be refuted if I'd come home
+for a few days and show myself at this dance to-night. And when I
+still hesitated, he threatened--"
+
+"What?" growled the little man.
+
+"That, if I didn't consent, he'd telephone the paper to go ahead and
+publish that awful story about the chauffeur."
+
+P. Sybarite caught himself barely in time to shut his teeth upon an
+expletive.
+
+"There!" said the girl. "Don't let's talk about it any longer. After
+what you've told me.... Well, it's all over now!"
+
+P. Sybarite pondered this in manifest doubt.
+
+"Are you sure?" he queried with his head thoughtfully to one side.
+
+"Am I sure?" she repeated, puzzled. "Rather! I tell you, I've finished
+with the Shaynons for good and all. I never liked either of
+them--never understood what father saw in old Mr. Shaynon to make him
+trust him the way he did. And now, after what has happened ... I shall
+stop at the Plaza to-night--they know me there--and telephone for my
+things. If Mr. Shaynon objects, I'll see if the law won't relieve me
+of his guardianship."
+
+"If you'll take a fool's advice, you'll do that, whether or no. An
+uneasy conscience is a fine young traitor to its possessor, as a
+rule."
+
+"Now, what can you mean by that?"
+
+"I don't believe there's been any whisper of suspicion that the
+Shaynons had caused you to be spirited away."
+
+"Then why did Bayard say--"
+
+"Because he was thinking about it! The unconscious self-betrayal of
+the unskilled but potential criminal."
+
+"Oh!" cried the girl in horror. "I don't think _that_--"
+
+"Well, I do," said P. Sybarite gloomily. "I know they're capable of
+it. It wouldn't be the first time Brian Shaynon ruined a friend. There
+was once a family in this town by the name of Sybarite--the family of
+a rich and successful man, associated with Brian Shaynon in a business
+way. I'm what's left of it, thanks to _my_ father's faith in old
+Brian's integrity. It's too long a story to detail; but the old fox
+managed to keep within the letter of the law when he robbed me of my
+inheritance, and there's no legal way to get back at him. I'm telling
+you all this only to show you how far the man's to be trusted."
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry--!"
+
+"Don't be, please. What I've endured has done me no harm--and to-night
+has seen the turn of my fortunes--or else I'm hopelessly deluded.
+Furthermore, some day I mean to square my account with Brian Shaynon
+to the fraction of a penny--and within the law."
+
+"Oh, I do hope you may!"
+
+P. Sybarite smiled serenely. "I shall; and you can help me, if you
+will."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Stick to your resolution to have no more to do with the family;
+retain a good lawyer to watch your interests under old Brian's charge;
+and look out for yourself."
+
+"I'll surely do all that, Mr. Sybarite; but I don't understand--"
+
+"Well, if I'm not mistaken, it'll help a lot. Public disavowal of your
+engagement to Bayard will be likely to bring Shaynon's affairs to a
+crisis. I firmly believe they're hard pressed for money--that it
+wasn't consolidation of two going-concerns for mutual advantage, but
+the finding of new capital for a moribund and insolvent house that
+they've been seeking through this marriage. That's why they were in
+such a hurry. Even if Bayard were free--as his father believes him to
+be--why need the old man have been so unreasonable when all the delay
+you ask is another twelvemonth? Believe me, he had some excellent
+reason for his anxiety. Finally, if the old villain isn't fomenting
+some especially foul villainy, why need he sneak from here to-night to
+the lowest dive in town to meet and confer with a gang leader and
+murderer like Red November?"
+
+"What are you talking about now?" demanded the bewildered girl.
+
+"An hour or so ago I met old Brian coming out of a dive known as Dutch
+House, the worst in this old Town. What business had he there, if he's
+an honest man? I can't tell you because I don't know. But it was
+foul--that's certain. Else why need he have incited Red and his
+followers to drug Peter Kenny into forgetfulness? Peter found him
+there before I did. It was only after the deuce of a row that I got
+the boy away alive."
+
+Temporarily he suppressed mention of Peter's hurt. The girl had enough
+to occupy her without being subjected to further drain upon her
+sympathies.
+
+"I'd like to know!" he wound up gloomily.... "That old scoundrel never
+visited Dutch House out of simple curiosity; and whatever his purpose,
+one thing's sure--it wasn't one to stand daylight. It's been puzzling
+me ever since--an appointment of some sort he made with November just
+as I hove within earshot. '_Two-thirty_,' he said; and November
+repeated the hour and promised to be on the job. 'Two-thirty!'--what
+_can_ it mean? It's later than that now but--mark my words!--something's
+going to happen this afternoon, or to-morrow, or some time soon, at
+half-past two o'clock!"
+
+"Perhaps you're right," said the girl doubtfully. "And yet you may be
+wrong in thinking me involved in any way. Indeed, I'm sure you must be
+wrong. I can't believe that he could wish me actual harm."
+
+"Miss Blessington," said P. Sybarite solemnly, "when you ran off in
+that taxi at midnight, I had five dollars in all the world. This
+minute, as I stand, I'm worth twenty-five thousand--more money than I
+ever hoped to see in this life. It means a lot to me--a start toward
+independence--but I'd give every cent of it for some reliable
+assurance that Brian Shaynon and his son mean you no harm."
+
+Surprised and impressed by his unwonted seriousness, the girl
+instinctively shrank back against the balustrade.
+
+"Mr. Sybarite--!" she murmured, wide-eyed.
+
+He remarked her action with a gesture almost of supplication.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," he begged; and there was in his voice the least
+flavour of bitterness. "I'm not going to say anything I
+shouldn't--anything you wouldn't care to hear. I'm not altogether mad,
+Miss Blessington; only...
+
+"Well!" he laughed quietly--"when my run of luck set in to-night back
+there at the gambling house, I told myself it was _Kismet's_
+doing--that this was my Day of Days. If I had thought, I should
+instead have called it my Night of Nights--knowing it must wear out
+with the dawn."
+
+His gesture drew her heed to the east; where, down the darkling,
+lamp-studded canyon of a cross-town street, stark against a sky
+pulsing with the faintest foreboding of daybreak, the gaunt,
+steel-girdered framework of the new Grand Central Station stood--in
+its harshly angular immensity as majestic as the blackened skeleton of
+a burnt-out world glimpsed against the phosphorescent pallor of the
+last chill dawn....
+
+In the great ball-room behind them, the last strains of dance music
+were dying out.
+
+"Now," said the little man with a brisker accent, "by your leave, we
+get back to what we were discussing; your welfare--"
+
+"Mr. Sybarite," the girl interrupted impetuously--"whatever happens, I
+want you to know that I at least understand you; and that to me you'll
+always be my standard of a gentleman brave and true--and kind."
+
+As impulsively as she had spoken, she gave him her hands.
+
+Holding them fugitively in both his own, he gazed intently into the
+shadowed loveliness of her face.
+
+Then with a slight shake of his head--whether of renunciation or of
+disappointment, she couldn't tell--he bent so low that for a thought
+she fancied he meant to touch his lips to her fingers.
+
+But he gave them back to her as they had come to him.
+
+"It is you who are kind, Miss Blessington," he said steadily--"very
+kind indeed to me. I presume, and you permit; I violate your privacy,
+and you are not angry; I am what I am--and you are kind. That is going
+to be my most gracious memory....
+
+"And now," he broke off sharply, "all the pretty people are going
+home, and you must, too. May I venture one step farther? Don't permit
+Bayard Shaynon--"
+
+"I don't mean to," she told him. "Knowing what I know--it's
+impossible."
+
+"You will go to the Plaza?"
+
+"Yes," she replied: "I've made up my mind to that."
+
+"You have a cab waiting, of course. May I call it for you?"
+
+"My own car," she said; "the call check is with my wraps. But," she
+smiled, "I shall be glad to give it to you, to hand to the porter, if
+you'll be so good."
+
+He had longed to be asked to accompany her; and at the same time
+prayed to be spared that trial. Already he had ventured too perilously
+close to the brink of open avowal of his heart's desire. And that
+way--well he knew it!--humiliation lay, and opaque despair. Better to
+live on in the melancholy company of a hopeless heart than in the
+wretchedness of one rejected and despised. And who--and what--was he,
+that she should look upon him with more than the transient favour of
+pity or of gratitude for a service rendered?
+
+But, since she, wise in her day and generation, did not ask him,
+suddenly he was glad. The tension of his emotion eased. He even found
+grace to grin amiably.
+
+"To do Bayard out of that honour!" he said cheerfully. "You couldn't
+invent a service to gratify me more hugely."
+
+She smiled in sympathy.
+
+"But he will be expecting to see you home?"
+
+"No matter if he does, he shan't. Besides, he lives in bachelor
+rooms--within walking distance, I believe."
+
+Holding aside the window draperies, he followed her through to the
+ball-room.
+
+Already the vast and shining hall was almost empty; only at the
+farther wall a handful of guests clustered round the doorway, waiting
+to take their turn in the crowded cloakrooms. Off to one side, in a
+deep apsidal recess, the members of the orchestra were busily packing
+up their instruments. And as the last of the guests--save Marian
+Blessington and P. Sybarite--edged out into the ante-rooms, a
+detachment of servants invaded the dancing-floor and bustled about
+setting the room to rights.
+
+A moment more, and the two were close upon the vanguard of departing
+guests.
+
+"You'll have a time finding your hat and coat," smiled the girl.
+
+"I? Not I. With marvellous sagacity, I left 'em with a waiter
+downstairs. But you?"
+
+"I'm afraid I must keep you waiting. No matter if it is four in the
+morning--and later--women do take a time to wrap up. You won't mind?"
+
+"Not in the least--it prolongs my Day of Days!" he laughed.
+
+"I shall look for you in the lobby," she replied, smiling; and slipped
+away through the throng.
+
+Picking his way to the elevators, constantly squirming more
+inextricably into the heart of the press, elbowed and shouldered and
+politely walked upon, not only fore and aft, but to port and starboard
+as well, by dame, dowager, and debutante, husband, lover, and esquire,
+patricians, celebrities and the commonalty (a trace, as the chemists
+say), P. Sybarite at length found himself only a layer or two removed
+from the elevator gates.
+
+And one of these presently opening, he stumbled in with the crush, to
+hold his breath in vain effort to make himself smaller, gaze in
+cross-eyed embarrassment at the abundant and nobly undisguised back of
+the lady of distinction in front of him, and stand on tiptoes to spare
+those of the man behind him; while the cage descended with maddening
+deliberation.
+
+If he had but guessed the identity of the man in the rear, the chances
+are he would have (thoughtlessly of course) brought down his heels
+upon the other's toes with all his weight on top of them. But in his
+ignorance P. Sybarite was diligent to keep the peace.
+
+Liberated on the lower floor, he found his lackey, resumed hat and
+coat, and mounted guard in the lobby opposite the elevators.
+
+Miss Blessington procrastinating consistently with her warning, he
+schooled himself to patience, mildly diverted by inspection of those
+who passed him, going out.
+
+At the side-street entrance, the crush of ante-room and elevators was
+duplicated, people jamming the doorway and overflowing to the sidewalk
+while awaiting their motor-cars and carriages.
+
+But through the Fifth Avenue entrance only the thin stream of those
+intending to walk was trickling away.
+
+After a time P. Sybarite discovered Mr. Bayard Shaynon not far off,
+like himself waiting and with a vigilant eye reviewing the departing,
+the while he talked in close confidence with one who, a stranger to P.
+Sybarite, was briefly catalogued in his gallery of impressions as
+"hard-faced, cold-eyed, middle-aged, fine-trained but awkward--very
+likely, _nouveau riche_;" and with this summary, dismissed from the
+little man's thoughts.
+
+When idly he glanced that way a second time, the younger Shaynon was
+alone, and had moved nearer; his countenance impassive, he looked
+through and beyond P. Sybarite a thought too ostentatiously. But when
+eventually Marian appeared, he was instant to her side, forestalling
+even the alert flanking movement of P. Sybarite.
+
+"You're quite ready, Marian?" Shaynon asked; and familiarly slipped a
+guiding hand beneath the arm of the girl--with admirable effrontery
+ignoring his earlier dismissal.
+
+On the instant, halting, the girl turned to him a full, cold stare.
+
+"I prefer you do not touch me," she said clearly, yet in low tones.
+
+"Oh, come!" he laughed uneasily. "Don't be foolish--"
+
+"Did you hear me, Bayard?"
+
+"You're making a scene--" the man flashed, colouring darkly.
+
+"And," P. Sybarite interjected quietly, "I'll make it worse if you
+don't do as Miss Blessington bids you."
+
+With a shrug, Shaynon removed his hand; but with no other
+acknowledgment of the little man's existence, pursued indulgently:
+"You have your carriage-call check ready, Marian? If you'll let me
+have it--"
+
+"Let's understand one another, once and for all time, Bayard," the
+girl interrupted. "I don't wish you to take me home. I prefer to go
+alone. Is that clear? I don't wish to feel indebted to you for even so
+slight a service as this," she added, indicating the slip of
+pasteboard in her fingers. "But if Mr. Sybarite will be so kind--"
+
+The little man accepted the card with no discernible sign of
+jubilation over Shaynon's discomfiture.
+
+"Thank you," he said mildly; but waited close by her side.
+
+For a moment Shaynon's face reminded him of one of the masks of
+crimson lacquer and black that grinned from the walls of Mrs. Inche's
+"den." But his accents, when he spoke, were even, if menacing in their
+tonelessness.
+
+"Then, Marian, I'm to understand it's--goodnight?"
+
+"I think," said the girl with a level look of disdain, "it might be
+far better if you were to understand that it's good-bye."
+
+"You," he said with slight difficulty--"you mean that, Marian?"
+
+"Finally!" she asseverated.
+
+He shrugged again; and his eyes, wavering, of a sudden met P.
+Sybarite's and stabbed them with a glance of ruthless and unbridled
+hatred, so envenomed that the little man was transiently conscious of
+a misgiving.
+
+"Here," he told himself in doubt, "is one who, given his way, would
+have me murdered within twenty-four hours!"
+
+And he thought of Red November, and wondered what had been the fate of
+that personage at the hands of the valiant young patrolman. Almost
+undoubtedly the gunman had escaped arrest....
+
+Shaynon had turned and was striding away toward the Fifth Avenue
+entrance, when Marian roused P. Sybarite with a word.
+
+"Finis," she said, enchanting him with the frank intimacy of her
+smile.
+
+He made, with a serious visage, the gesture of crossed fingers that
+exorcises an evil spirit.
+
+"_Absit omen!_" he muttered, with a dour glance over shoulder at the
+retreating figure of his mortal enemy.
+
+"Why," she laughed incredulously, "you're not afraid?"
+
+Forcing a wry grin, he mocked a shudder.
+
+"Some irreverent body walked over the grave of me."
+
+"You're superstitious!"
+
+"I'm Irish," P. Sybarite explained sufficiently.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE BROOCH
+
+
+They came to the carriage entrance, where the crush of waiting people
+had somewhat thinned--not greatly.
+
+Leaving Marian in the angle of the doorway, P. Sybarite pressed out to
+the booth of the carriage-call apparatus, gave the operator the
+numbered and perforated cardboard together with a coin, saw the man
+place it on the machine and shoot home a lever that hissed and spat
+blue fire; then turned back.
+
+"What was the number?" she asked as he approached. "Did you notice? I
+did--but then thought of something else; and now I've forgotten."
+
+"Two hundred and thirty," replied P. Sybarite absently.
+
+Between the two there fell a little pause of constrained silence ended
+by Marian.
+
+"I want to see you again, very soon, Mr. Sybarite."
+
+The eyes of the little man were as grateful as a dog's.
+
+"If I may call--?" he ventured diffidently.
+
+"Could you come to-morrow to tea?"
+
+"At the Plaza?"
+
+"At the Plaza!" she affirmed with a bright nod.
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Above the hum of chattering voices rose the bellow of the carriage
+porter:
+
+"Two hundred and thirty! _Two_ hundred and _thirty_!"
+
+"My car!" said the girl with a start.
+
+P. Sybarite moved in front of her, signalling with a lifted hand.
+
+"Two hundred and thirty," he repeated.
+
+A handsome town-car stood at the curb beneath the permanent awning of
+iron and glass. Behind it a long rank waited with impatient,
+stuttering motors and dull-burning lamps that somehow forced home
+drowsy thoughts of bed.
+
+Hurrying across the sidewalk, Marian permitted P. Sybarite to help her
+into the vehicle.
+
+Transported by this proof of her graciousness, he gave the chauffeur
+the address:
+
+"Hotel Plaza."
+
+With the impudent imperturbability of his breed, the man nodded and
+grunted without looking round.
+
+From the body of the vehicle Marian extended a white-gloved hand.
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Sybarite. To-morrow--at five."
+
+Touching her fingers, P. Sybarite raised his hat; but before he could
+utter the response ready upon his tongue, he was seized by the arm and
+swung rudely away from the door. At the same time a voice (the
+property of the owner of that unceremonious hand) addressed the porter
+roughly:
+
+"Shut that door and send the car along! I'll take charge of this
+gentleman!"
+
+In this speech an accent of irony inhered to exasperate P. Sybarite.
+Half a hundred people were looking on--listening! Angrily he wrenched
+his arm free.
+
+"What the devil--!" he cried into the face of the aggressor; and in
+the act of speaking, recognised the man as him with whom Bayard
+Shaynon had been conversing in the lobby: that putative
+parvenu--hard-faced, cold-eyed, middle-aged, fine-trained, awkward in
+evening dress....
+
+The hand whose grasp he had broken shifted to his shoulder, closing
+fingers like steel hooks upon it.
+
+"If you need a row," the man advised him quietly, "try that again. If
+you've got good sense--come along quiet'."
+
+"Where? What for? What right have you--?" P. Sybarite demanded in one
+raging breath.
+
+"I'm the house detective here," the other answered, holding his eyes
+with an inexorable glare. And the muscles of his heavy jaw tightened
+even as he tightened his grasp upon the little man's shoulder. "And if
+it's all the same to you, we're going to have a quiet little talk in
+the office," he added with a jerk of his head.
+
+A sidelong glance discovered the fact that Marian's car had
+disappeared. Doubtless she had gone in ignorance of this outrage,
+perhaps thinking him accosted by a chance acquaintance. At all events,
+she was gone, and there was now nothing to be gained from an attempt
+to bluster the detective down, but deeper shame and the scorn of all
+beholders.
+
+"What do you want?" the little man asked in a more pacific tone.
+
+"We can talk better inside, unless"--the detective grinned
+sardonically--"you want to get out hand-bills about this matter."
+
+"Let me go, then," said P. Sybarite. "I'll follow you."
+
+"You've got a better guess than that: you'll go ahead of me," retorted
+the other. "And while you're doing it, remember that there's a cop at
+the Fifth Avenue door, and I've got a handy little emergency ration in
+my pocket--with my hand on the butt of it."
+
+"Very well," said P. Sybarite, boiling with rage beneath thin ice of
+submission.
+
+His shoulder free, he moved forward with a high chin and a challenge
+in his eye for any that dared question his burning face--marched up
+the steps through ranks that receded as if to escape pollution, and so
+re-entered the lobby.
+
+"Straight ahead," admonished his captor, falling in at his side.
+"First door to the right of the elevators."
+
+Shoulder to shoulder, the target for two-score grinning or surprised
+stares, they strode across the lobby and through the designated door.
+
+It was immediately closed; and the key, turned in the lock, was
+removed and pocketed by the detective.
+
+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 dispassionately, "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
+damning 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 blustered and committed himself inextricably in a
+multitude 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
+pass: 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 circumstances, 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 damn' cock-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."
+
+"Shut up!" snapped P. Sybarite. "What do you know about it? You've
+lied yourself out of court already."
+
+A transitory expression of bewilderment clouded Shaynon's eyes.
+
+"I'm no judge," the detective announced doubtfully.
+
+"It makes no difference," Shaynon insisted. "Theft's theft!"
+
+"It makes a deal of difference whether it's grand or petit larceny,"
+P. Sybarite flashed--"a difference almost as wide and deep as that
+which yawns between attempted and successful wife-murder, Mr.
+Shaynon!"
+
+His jaw dropped and a look of stupefying terror stamped itself upon
+Shaynon's face.
+
+It was the turn of P. Sybarite to laugh.
+
+"Well?" he demanded cuttingly. "Are you ready to come to the
+station-house and make a charge against me? I'll go peaceful as a lamb
+with the kind cop, if by so doing I can take you with me. But if I do,
+believe me, you'll never get out without a bondsman."
+
+Shaynon recollected himself with visible effort.
+
+"The man 's crazy," he muttered sickishly, rising. "I don't know what
+he 's talking about. Arrest him--take him to the station-house--why
+don't you?"
+
+"Who'll make the charge?" asked the detective, eyeing Shaynon without
+favour.
+
+"Not Bayard Shaynon!" P. Sybarite asseverated.
+
+"It's not my brooch," Shaynon asserted defensively.
+
+"You saw him take it," the detective persisted.
+
+"No--I didn't; I suspected him. It's you who found the brooch on him,
+and it's your duty to make the charge."
+
+"You're one grand little lightning-change-of-heart-artist--gotta slip
+it to you for that," the detective observed truculently. "Now, lis'n:
+I don't make no charge--"
+
+"Any employee of the establishment will do as well, for _my_ purpose,"
+P. Sybarite cut in. "Come, Mr. Manager! How about you? Mr. Shaynon
+declines; your detective has no stomach for the job. Suppose you take
+on the dirty work--kind permission of Bayard Shaynon, Esquire. I don't
+care, so long as I get my grounds for suit against the Bizarre."
+
+The manager spread out expostulatory palms. "Me, I have nossing
+whatever to do with the matter," he protested. "To me it would seem
+Mrs. Strone should make the charge."
+
+"Well?" mumbled the detective of Shaynon. "How aboutcha?"
+
+"Wait," mumbled Shaynon, moving toward the door. "I'll fetch Mrs.
+Strone."
+
+"Don't go without saying good-bye," P. Sybarite admonished him
+severely. "It isn't pretty manners."
+
+The door slammed tempestuously, and the little man chuckled with an
+affectation of ease to which he was entirely a stranger: ceaselessly
+his mind was engaged with the problem of this trumped-up charge of
+Shaynon's.
+
+Was simple jealousy and resentment, a desire to "get even," the whole
+explanation?
+
+Or was there something of an uglier complexion at the bottom of the
+affair?
+
+His head buzzed with doubts and suspicions, and with misgivings on
+Marian's behalf but indifferently mitigated by the reflection that, at
+worst, the girl had escaped unhindered and alone in her private car.
+By now she ought to be safe at the Plaza....
+
+"He won't be back," P. Sybarite observed generally to detective and
+manager; and sat him down serenely.
+
+"You feel pretty sure about that?" the detective asked.
+
+"Wait and see."
+
+Bending forward, the little man examined the gilt clock on the
+manager's desk. "Twenty minutes past four," he announced: "I give you
+ten minutes to find some one to make a charge against me--Shaynon,
+Mrs. What's-her-name, or either of yourselves, if you like the job. If
+you fail to produce a complainant by half-past four precisely, out of
+here I go--and I'm sorry for the man who tries to stop me."
+
+The detective took a chair, crossed his legs, and produced a cigar
+which he began to trim with tender care. The manager, anxiously pacing
+the floor, after another moment or so paused at the door, fidgeted,
+jerked it open, and with a muffled "Pardon!" disappeared--presumably
+in search of Shaynon.
+
+Striking a match, the detective puffed his cigar aglow. Over its tip
+his small eyes twinkled at P. Sybarite.
+
+"Maybe you're a gentleman crook, and maybe not," he returned with fine
+impartiality. "But you're all there, son, with the tongue action. You
+got me still goin' round in circles. Damn 'f I know yet what to
+think."
+
+"Well, if that's your trouble," P. Sybarite told him coolly, "this is
+your cue to squat on your haunches, scratch your left ear with your
+hind leg, and gaze up into my face with an intelligent expression in
+your great brown eyes."
+
+"I'll do better 'n that," chuckled the man. "Have a cigar."
+
+"Thank you," said P. Sybarite politely, accepting the peace offering.
+"All I need now is a match: I acknowledge the habit."
+
+The match supplied, he smoked in silence.
+
+Four minutes passed, by the clock: no sign of the manager, Shaynon, or
+Mrs. Strone.
+
+"Story?" the detective suggested at length.
+
+"Plant," retorted P. Sybarite as tersely.
+
+"You mean he salted you?"
+
+"In the elevator, of course."
+
+"It come to me, that was the way of it when he sprung that bunk stuff
+about you coarsely loading said loot into your coat-tail," admitted
+the detective. "That didn't sound sensible, even if you did have a
+skirt to fuss into a cab. The ordinary vest-pocket of commerce
+would've kept it just as close, besides being more natural--easy to
+get at. Then the guy was too careful to tip me off not to pinch you
+until the lady had went--didn't want her name dragged into it.... A
+fellow in my job's gotta have a lot of imagination," he concluded
+complacently. "That's why I'm letting you get away with it in this
+unprofessional manner."
+
+"More human than in line with the best literary precedent, eh?"
+
+"That's me. I seen he was sore when the dame turned him down, too, and
+started right off wondering if maybe it wasn't a jealousy plant. I
+seen this sorta thing happen before. Not that I blame him for feeling
+cut up: that was one swell piece of goods you bundled into numba
+two-thirty."
+
+P. Sybarite's cigar dropped unheeded from his lips.
+
+"_What!_" he cried.
+
+The detective started.
+
+"Wasn't that the numba of the lady's cab--two-thirty?"
+
+"Good God!" ejaculated P. Sybarite, jumping up.
+
+"What's hit you?"
+
+"I'm going!" the little man announced fiercely.
+
+"Your time allowance ain't expired by several minutes--"
+
+"To hell with my time allowance! Try to keep me, if you like!"
+
+P. Sybarite strode excitedly to the door and jerked it open. The
+detective followed him, puffing philosophically.
+
+There was no one in sight in the hall.
+
+"Looks like you got a fine show for a clean getaway," he observed
+cheerfully between his teeth. "Your friend's beaten it, the boss has
+ducked the responsibility, and you got _me_ scared to death.
+Besides--damn 'f I'm going to be the goat that saddles this hash-hut
+with a suit for damages."
+
+His concluding words were addressed to the horizontal folds of the
+inverness that streamed from the shoulders of P. Sybarite as he bolted
+unhindered through the Fifth Avenue doorway.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+NEMESIS
+
+
+"Dolt!... Blockhead!... Imbecile!... Idiot!... Numskull!... Ass!...
+Simpleton!... Loon!..."
+
+The chill air of early morning wiped the blistering epithets from his
+lips as he fled like a madman down Fifth Avenue, at every stride
+wringing from the depths of an embittered bosom new and more virulent
+terms of vituperation with which to characterize his infatuated
+stupidity--and finding one and all far too mild. In simple truth, the
+King's English lacked invective poisonous enough to do justice to his
+self-contempt.
+
+Deliberately had he permitted himself to be duped, circumvented,
+over-reached. He had held in his hand a tangible clue to that mystery
+which had so perplexed him--and had allowed it to be filched away
+before he could recognise it and shape his course accordingly.
+
+Why had he never for an instant dreamed that the term "_two-thirty_"
+could indicate anything but the hour of some otherwise undesignated
+appointment? Of course it had signified the number of Marian's
+carriage-check, "230": _two hundred and thirty_, rolling off the
+modern tongue, stripped to essentials--thanks to the telephone's
+abbreviated influence--as, simply, "_two-thirty_"!
+
+And he had held that check in his hand, had memorised its number and
+repeated it to Marian, had heard it bawled by the carriage porter, had
+shouted it himself in reply: never for an instant thinking to connect
+it with the elder Shaynon's parting admonition to the gang leader!
+
+If he had ere this entertained any doubts whatever of the ugly grounds
+for his fears they were now resolved by recognition of Bayard's clumsy
+ruse to keep him both out of the cab and out of the way, while
+November and his lieutenants executed their infamous commission....
+
+And all that was now ten--fifteen--twenty minutes old! Marian's car
+was gone; and if it had not reached the Plaza, the girl was lost,
+irrevocably lost to the frantic little man with the twinkling red
+heels and scarlet breeches, sprinting so wildly down Fifth Avenue in
+the dank, weird dusk that ran before the dawn of that April morning.
+
+Fortunately he hadn't far to run; else he would certainly have been
+waylaid or overhauled by some policeman of enquiring turn of mind,
+anxious (in the way of duty) to learn his reason for such
+extraordinary haste.
+
+As it was, P. Sybarite managed to make his goal in record time without
+attracting the attention of more than half a dozen wayfarers; all of
+whom gave him way and went their own with that complete indifference
+so distinctly Manhattanesque....
+
+He had emerged from the restaurant building to find the street bare of
+any sort of hirable conveyance and himself in a fret too exacting to
+consider walking to the Plaza or taking a street-car thither. Nothing
+less than a taxicab--and that, one with a speed-mad chauffeur--would
+satisfy his impatient humour.
+
+And indeed, if there were a grain of truth in his suspicions, formless
+though in a measure they remained, he had not an instant to lose.
+
+But on the way to the Bizarre from Peter Kenny's rooms, some freak of
+a mind superficially preoccupied had caused him to remark, on the
+south side of Forty-third Street, immediately east of Sixth Avenue, a
+long rank of buildings which an utilitarian age had humbled from their
+once proud estate of private stables to the lowlier degree of quarters
+for motor vehicles both public and private.
+
+Of these one building boasted the blazing electric announcement: "_ALL
+NIGHT GARAGE_."
+
+Into this last P. Sybarite pelted at the top of his speed and pulled
+up puffing, to stare nervously round a place gloomy, cavernous, and
+pungent with fragrance of oil, rubber, and gasoline. Here and there
+lonely electric bulbs made visible somnolent ranks of motor-cars. Out
+of the shadows behind him, presently, came a voice drawling:
+
+"You certainly do take on like you'd lost a power of trouble."
+
+P. Sybarite whirled round as if stung. The speaker occupied a chair
+tilted back against the wall, his feet on the rungs, a cigarette
+smouldering between his lips in open contempt of the regulations of
+the Fire Department and all other admonitions of ordinary
+common-sense.
+
+"What can I do for you?" he resumed, nothing about him stirring save
+eyes that twinkled as they travelled from head to foot of the odd and
+striking figure P. Sybarite presented as _Beelzebub, Knight Errant_.
+
+"Taxi!" the little man panted vociferously.
+
+The other yawned and stretched. "It can't be done," he admitted
+fairly. "They ain't no such animal on the premises."
+
+With a gesture P. Sybarite singled out the nearest car.
+
+"What's that?" he demanded angrily.
+
+Shading his eyes, the man examined it with growing wonder which
+presently found expression: "As I live, it's an autymobeel!"
+
+"Damn your sense of humour!" stormed P. Sybarite. "What's the matter
+with that car?"
+
+"As man to man--nothing."
+
+"Why can't I have it?"
+
+"Ten dollars an hour--"
+
+"I'll take it."
+
+"But you _asked_ for a taxi," grumbled the man, rising to press a
+button. Whereupon a bell shrilled somewhere in the dark backwards of
+the establishment. "Deposit...?" he suggested, turning back.
+
+P. Sybarite disbursed a golden double-eagle; and to the operator who,
+roused by the bell, presently drifted out of the shadows, gaping and
+rubbing his eyes, he promised a liberal tip for haste.
+
+In two minutes he was rolling out of the garage, ensconced in the body
+of a luxurious and high-powered touring machine which he strongly
+suspected to be somebody's private car lawlessly farmed out while its
+owner slept.
+
+The twilight was now stronger, if still dull and as cold as the air it
+coloured, rendering P. Sybarite grateful for Peter Kenny's inverness
+as the car surged spiritedly up the deserted avenue, its disdain for
+speed regulations ignored by the string of yawning peg-post
+cops--almost the only human beings in sight.
+
+Town was indeed deep sunk in lethargy at that small hour; the
+traditional milk-wagon itself seemed to have been caught napping. With
+one consent residence and shop and sky-scraping hotel blinked
+apathetically at the flying car; then once more turned and slept. Even
+the Bizarre had forgotten P. Sybarite--showed at least no sign of
+recognition as he scurried past.
+
+A curious sense of illusion troubled the little man. The glamour of
+the night was gone and with it all that had lent semblance of
+plausibility to his incredible career; daylight forced all back into
+confused and distorted perspective, like the pageant of some fantastic
+and disordered dream uncertainly recalled long hours after waking.
+
+As for himself, in his absurd attire and bound upon his ambiguous
+errand, he was all out of the picture--horribly suggestive of an
+addled sparrow who had stayed up all night on purpose to cheat some
+legitimately early bird out of a chimerical first worm....
+
+Self-conscious and ill at ease, he presented himself to the amused
+inspection of the night force in the office of the Plaza, made his
+halting enquiry, and received the discounted assurance that Miss
+Blessington, though a known and valued patron of the house, was not
+then its guest.
+
+Convinced, as he had been from the moment that the words "two-thirty,"
+falling from the lips of the Bizarre's house detective, had made him
+alive to his terrible oversight, that this would be the outcome at the
+Plaza, he turned away, sobered, outwitted, and miserably at a loss to
+guess what next to do.
+
+Gloomily he paused with a hand on the open door of his car, thoughts
+profoundly disturbed and unsettled, for so long that the operator grew
+restless.
+
+"Where next, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Wait," said P. Sybarite in a manner of abstraction that did him no
+injustice; and entering the car, mechanically shut the door and sat
+down, permitting his gaze to range absently among the dusky distances
+of Central Park; where through the netted, leafless branches, the
+lamps that march the winding pathways glimmered like a hundred tiny
+moons of gold lost in some vast purple well....
+
+Should he appeal to the police? His solicitude for the girl forbade
+him such recourse save as a last resort. Publicity must be avoided
+until the time when, all else having failed, it alone held out some
+little promise of assistance.
+
+But--adrift and blind upon uncharted seas of uncertainty!--what to do?
+
+Suddenly it became plain to him that if in truth it was with her as he
+feared, at least two persons knew what had become of the girl--two
+persons aside from himself and her hired kidnappers: Brian Shaynon and
+Bayard, his son.
+
+From them alone authoritative information might be extracted, by ruse
+or wile or downright intimidation, eked out with effrontery, a stout
+heart, and perhaps a little luck.
+
+A baleful light informing his eyes, an ominous expression settling
+about his mouth, he gave the operator the address of Shaynon's
+town-house; and as the car slipped away from the hotel was sensible of
+keen regret that he had left at Peter Kenny's, what time he changed
+his clothing, the pistol given him by Mrs. Jefferson Inche, together
+with the greater part of his fortuitous fortune--neither firearms nor
+large amounts of money seeming polite additions to one's costume for a
+dance....
+
+In five minutes the car drew up in front of one of those few
+old-fashioned, brownstone, English-basement residences which to-day
+survive on Fifth Avenue below Fifty-ninth Street, elbowed, shouldered,
+and frowned down upon by beetling hives of trade.
+
+At all of its wide, old-style windows, ruffled shades of
+straw-coloured silk were drawn. One sign alone held out any promise
+that all within were not deep in slumber: the outer front doors were
+not closed. Upon the frosted glass panels of the inner doors a dim
+light cast a sickly yellow stain.
+
+Laying hold of an obsolete bell-pull, P. Sybarite yanked it with a
+spirit in tune with his temper. Immediately, and considerably to his
+surprise, the doors were thrown open and on the threshold a butler
+showed him a face of age, grey with the strain of a sleepless night,
+and drawn and set with bleary eyes.
+
+"Mr. Shaynon?" the little man demanded sharply.
+
+"W'ich Mr. Shaynon, sir?" enquired the butler, too weary to betray
+surprise--did he feel any--at this ill-timed call.
+
+"Either--I don't care which."
+
+"Mr. Bayard Shaynon 'as just left--not five minutes ago, sir."
+
+"Left for where?"
+
+"His apartments, I presume, sir."
+
+"Then I'll see Mr. Brian Shaynon."
+
+The butler's body filled the doorway. Nor did he offer to budge.
+
+"I'm afraid, sir, Mr. Shaynon is 'ardly likely to see any one at this
+hour."
+
+"He'll see me," replied P. Sybarite grimly. "He hasn't gone to bed, I
+gather?"
+
+"Not yet, sir; but 'e's goin' immediate'."
+
+"Very well. You may as well let me in."
+
+Suspicious but impressed, the servant shuffled aside, and P. Sybarite
+brushed past him into the hallway.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"If you'll give me your nime, sir, I'll tell him you're 'ere."
+
+P. Sybarite hesitated. He was in anything but the mood for joking, yet
+a certain dour humour in the jest caught his fancy and persuaded him
+against his better judgment.
+
+"Nemesis," he said briefly.
+
+"Mr.--name--what? Beg pardon, sir!"
+
+"Nem-e-sis," P. Sybarite articulated distinctly. "And don't Mister it.
+He'll understand."
+
+"Thenk you," muttered the servant blankly; and turned.
+
+"If he doesn't--tell him it's the gentleman who was not masked at the
+Bizarre to-night."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+The man moved off toward the foot of a broad, shallow staircase at the
+back of the hall.
+
+On impulse, P. Sybarite strode after him.
+
+"On second thoughts, you needn't announce me. I'll go up with you."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't permit that, sir," observed the butler, horrified.
+
+"Afraid you'll have to."
+
+And P. Sybarite would have pushed past, but the man with a quick and
+frightened movement of agility uncommon in one of his age and bulk put
+himself in the way.
+
+"Please, sir!" he begged. "If I was to permit that, sir, it might cost
+me my position."
+
+"Well--"
+
+P. Sybarite drew back, relenting.
+
+But at this juncture, from a point directly over their heads, the
+voice of Brian Shaynon himself interrupted them.
+
+"Who is that, Soames?" he called impatiently, without making himself
+immediately visible. "Has Mr. Bayard returned?"
+
+"No, sir," the butler called, distressed. "It's--it's a person,
+sir--insists on seein' you--says 'is nime's Nemmysis."
+
+"_What!_"
+
+"He has it right--Nemesis," P. Sybarite replied incisively. "And you
+may as well see me now, whether you want to or not. Sooner or later
+you'll have to!"
+
+There was a sound of heavy, dragging footsteps on the upper landing,
+and Brian Shaynon showed himself at the head of the stairs; now
+without his furred great-coat, but still in the evening dress of
+elderly Respectability--Respectability sadly rumpled and maltreated,
+the white shield of his bosom no longer lustrous and immaculate, his
+tie twisted wildly beneath one ear, his collar unbuttoned, as though
+wrenched from its fastenings in a moment of fury. These things apart,
+he had within the hour aged ten years in the flesh: gone the proud
+flush of his bewhiskered gills, in its place leaden pallor; and gone
+the quick, choleric fire from eyes now smouldering, dull and all but
+lifeless....
+
+He stood peering down, with an obvious lack of recognition that hinted
+at failing sight.
+
+"I don't seem to know you," he said slowly, with a weary shake of his
+head; "and it's most inopportune--the hour. I fear you must excuse
+me."
+
+"That can't be," P. Sybarite returned. "I've business with
+you--important. Perhaps you didn't catch the name I gave your
+butler--Nemesis."
+
+"Nemesis?" Shaynon repeated vacantly. He staggered and descended a
+step before a groping hand checked him on the baluster-rail. "Nemesis!
+Is this an untimely joke of some sort, sir?"
+
+His accents quavered querulously; and P. Sybarite with a flash of
+scorn put his unnatural condition down to drink.
+
+"Far from it," he retorted ruthlessly. "The cat's out, my friend--your
+bag lean and flapping emptiness! What," he demanded sternly--"what
+have you done with Marian Blessington?"
+
+"Mar--Marian?" the old voice iterated. "Why, she"--the man pulled
+himself together with a determined effort--"she's in her room, of
+course. Where should she be?"
+
+"Is that true?" P. Sybarite demanded of the butler in a manner so
+peremptory that the truth slipped out before the fellow realised it.
+
+"Miss Marian 'asn't returned as yet from the ball," he whispered.
+"'E--'e's not quite 'imself, sir. 'E's 'ad a bit of a shock, as one
+might s'y. I'd go easy on 'im, if you'll take a word from me."
+
+But P. Sybarite traversed his advice without an instant's
+consideration.
+
+"Brian Shaynon," he called, "you lie! The police have caught Red
+November; they'll worm the truth out of him within twenty minutes, if
+I don't get it from you now. The game's up. Come! What have you done
+with the girl?"
+
+For all answer, a low cry, like the plaint of a broken-hearted child,
+issued from the leaden, writhen lips of the old man.
+
+And while he stared in wonder, Brian Shaynon seemed suddenly to lose
+the strength of his limbs. His legs shook beneath him as with a palsy;
+and then, knees buckling, he tottered and plunged headlong from top to
+bottom of the staircase.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+NOVEMBER
+
+
+"E's gone," the butler announced.
+
+Kneeling beside the inert body of Brian Shaynon, where it had lodged
+on a broad, low landing three steps from the foot of the staircase, he
+turned up to P. Sybarite fishy, unemotional eyes in a pasty fat face.
+
+The little man said nothing.
+
+Resting a hand on the newel-post, he looked down unmoved upon the
+mortal wreck of him who had been his life's bane. Brian Shaynon lay in
+death without majesty; a crumpled and dishevelled ruin of flesh and
+clothing, its very insentience suggesting to the morbid fancy of the
+little Irishman something foul and obscene. Brian Shaynon living had
+been to him a sight less intolerable....
+
+"Dead," the butler affirmed, releasing the pulseless leaden wrist, and
+rising. "I presume I'd best call 'is doctor, 'adn't I, sir?"
+
+P. Sybarite nodded indifferently. Profound thought enwrapped him like
+a mantle.
+
+The butler lingered, the seals of professional reticence broken by
+this strange and awful accident. But there was no real emotion in his
+temper--only curiosity, self-interest, the impulse of loquacity.
+
+"Stroke," he observed thoughtfully, fingering his pendulous jowls and
+staring; "that's w'at it was--a stroke, like. He'd 'ad a bit of shock
+before you come in, sir."
+
+"Yes?" murmured P. Sybarite absently.
+
+"Yes, sir; a bit of a shock, owin' to 'is 'avin' quarrelled with Mr.
+Bayard, sir."
+
+"Oh!" P. Sybarite roused. "Quarrelled with his son, you say?"
+
+"Yes, sir; somethin' dreadful they was goin' on. 'E couldn't 'ave got
+over it when you come. Mr. Bayard 'adn't been gone, not more than
+five minutes, sir."
+
+P. Sybarite interrogated with his eyes alone.
+
+"It was a bit odd, come to think of it--the 'ole affair, sir. Must
+'ave been over an hour ago, Mr. Shaynon 'ere, 'e come 'ome alone from
+the dance--I see you must've been there yourself, sir, if I m'y mike
+so bold as to tike notice of your costume. Very fawncy it is, too,
+sir--becomes your style 'andsome, it does, sir."
+
+"Never mind me. What happened when Mr. Shaynon came home?"
+
+"W'y, 'e 'adn't more than got inside the 'ouse, sir, w'en a lidy
+called on 'im--a lidy as I 'ad never set eyes on before, sime as in
+your caise, sir; although I wouldn't 'ave you think I mean she was of
+your clawss, sir. 'Ardly. Properly speakin', she wasn't a lidy at
+all--but a woman. I mean to s'y, a bit flash."
+
+"I understand you. Go on."
+
+"Well, sir, I didn't 'ave a chance to over'ear w'at 'er business were,
+but it seemed to work on Mr. Brian there somethin' 'orrid. They was
+closeted in the library upstairs not more than twenty minutes, and
+then she went, and 'e rung for me and to bring 'im brandy and not
+delay about it. 'E nearly emptied the decanter, too, before Mr. Bayard
+got 'ere. And the minute they come together, it was 'ammer-and-tongs.
+'Ot _and_ 'eavy they 'ad it for upwards of an _hour_, be'ind closed
+doors, sime as like with the lidy. But w'en Mr. Bayard, 'e come to go,
+sir, the old gent follows 'im to the landin'--just where 'e was when
+he spoke to you, sir, before 'e 'ad the stroke--and 'e says to 'im,
+says 'e: 'Remember, I cawst you off. Don't come to me for nothin'
+after this. Don't ever you darken my doorstep ag'in,' 'e says. And Mr.
+Bayard, sir, 'e ups and laughs fiendish in 'is own father's fice.
+'You've got another guess comin',' he mocks 'im open': 'you're in this
+business as deep as me,' 'e says, 'and if you cross me, I'll
+double-cross you, s'elp me Gawd, and in the newspapers, too.' And with
+that, out 'e went in a rige."
+
+"So that was the way of it!" P. Sybarite commented dully.
+
+So Mrs. Inche had sought the father to revenge herself upon the son;
+and with this outcome--Bayard unharmed, his father dead!...
+
+"That was hexactly 'ow it 'appened, sir," affirmed the butler, rubbing
+his fat old hands.
+
+"You 're wasting time. Go telephone the doctor," said P. Sybarite
+suddenly.
+
+"Right you are, sir. But there's no real 'urry. He's dead as Guy
+Fawkes, and no doctor livin'--"
+
+"Nevertheless, telephone--if you don't want to get into trouble."
+
+"Quite right, sir. I'll do so at once."
+
+Turning, the man waddled off, disappearing toward the back of the
+house.
+
+Alone, with neither hesitation nor a single backward glance at the
+body of his ancient enemy, the little man swung about, walked quietly
+to the front door, and as quietly let himself out.
+
+He was of no mind to be called as a witness at a possible inquest; and
+business of far greater import urged him, the real business of his
+life, this: to discover the whereabouts of Marian Blessington with the
+least avoidable delay.
+
+His first cast having failed, he must now try to draw the son; and, if
+possible, before the latter learned of his father's death.
+
+Not until about to re-enter the car did he remember he had neglected
+to secure Bayard's address from the butler. But he wouldn't turn back;
+it could be ascertained elsewhere; Peter Kenny would either know it or
+know where to get it.
+
+To Peter's rooms he must of necessity return first of all; for it
+would not much longer prove possible to go up and down and to and fro
+upon Manhattan Island in a black silk dress-coat and flaming scarlet
+small-clothes; to change was imperative.
+
+"The Monastery," he directed, settling back into his seat.
+
+It was now clear daylight: a morning of bright promise breaking over a
+Town much livelier than it had been half an hour or so ago, with more
+citizens abroad, some striding briskly to the day's work, some
+trudging wearily from the night's.
+
+Over all brooded still that effect of illusion: this might have been,
+almost, a foreign city into whose streets he was adventuring for the
+first time, so changed and strange seemed everything in his eyes.
+
+P. Sybarite himself felt old and worn and tired, and with a thoughtful
+finger rubbed an over-night growth of stubble upon his chin....
+
+"Wait," he told the driver, on alighting at the Monastery; "I'm
+keeping you."
+
+Money passed between them--more than enough to render his wishes
+inviolable.
+
+A dull-eyed hallboy recognised and let him in, sullenly passing him on
+to the elevator; but as that last was on the point of taking flight to
+Peter Kenny's door, it hesitated; and the operator, with his hand on
+the half-closed gate, shot it open again instead of shut.
+
+A Western Union messenger-boy, not over forty years tired, was being
+admitted at the street door. The colloquy there was distinctly
+audible:
+
+"Mr. Bayard Shaynon?"
+
+"'Leventh floor. Hurry up--don't keep the elevator waitin'."
+
+"Ah--ferget it!"
+
+Whistling softly, the man with the yellow envelope ambled nonchalantly
+into the cage; fixed the operator with a truculent stare, and demanded
+the eleventh floor.
+
+Now Peter Kenny's rooms were on the twelfth....
+
+The telegram with its sprawling endorsement in ink, "_Mr. Bayard
+Shaynon, Monastery Apartments_," was for several moments within two
+feet of P. Sybarite's nose.
+
+It was, indeed, anything but easy to keep from pouncing upon that
+wretched messenger, ravishing him of the envelope (which he was now
+employing artfully to split a whistle into two equal portions--and
+favour to none), and making off with it before the gate of the
+elevator could close.
+
+Impossible to conjecture what intimate connection it might not have
+with the disappearance of Marian Blessington, what a flood of light it
+might not loose upon that dark intrigue!
+
+Indeed, the speculations this circumstance set awhirl in P. Sybarite's
+weary head were so many and absorbing that he forgot altogether to be
+surprised or gratified by the favour of _Kismet_ which had caused
+their paths to cross at precisely that instant, as if solely that he
+might be informed of Bayard Shaynon's abode....
+
+"What door?" demanded Western Union as he left the cage at the
+eleventh floor.
+
+"Right across the hall."
+
+The gate clanged, the cage mounted to the next floor, and P. Sybarite
+got out, requiring no direction: for Peter Kenny's door was
+immediately above Bayard Shaynon's.
+
+As he touched the bell-button for the benefit of the elevator man--but
+for his own, failed to press it home--the grumble of the door-bell
+below could be heard faintly through muffling fire-brick walls.
+
+The grumble persisted long after the elevator had dropped back to the
+eleventh floor.
+
+And presently the voice of Western Union was lifted in sour
+expostulation:
+
+"Sa-ay, whatcha s'pose 's th' matta wid dis guy? I' been ringin'
+haffanour!"
+
+"That's funny," commented the elevator boy: "he came in only about ten
+minutes ago."
+
+"Yuh wuddn' think he cud pass away 's quick 's all that--wuddja?"
+
+"Ah, I dunno. Mebbe he had a bun on when he come in. Gen'ly has. I
+didn' notice."
+
+"Well, th' way he must be poundin' his ear now--notta hear dis
+racket--yud think he was trainin' for a Rip van Winkle Marathon."
+
+Pause--made audible by the pertinacious bell, grinding away like a
+dentist's drill in a vacant tooth....
+
+"Waitin' here all day won't get me nothin'. Here, what's th' matta wid
+you signin' for't?"
+
+"G'wan. Sign it yourself 'nd stick unda the door, whydoncha?"
+
+Second pause--the bell boring on, but more faintheartedly, as if
+doubting whether it ever would reach that nerve.
+
+Finally Western Union gave it up.
+
+"A'right. Guess I will."
+
+Clang of the gate: whine of the descending car: silence....
+
+Softly P. Sybarite tiptoed down the stairs.
+
+Disappointment, however, lay in ambush for him at his nefarious goal:
+evidently Western Union had been punctilious about his duty; not even
+so much as the tip of a corner of yellow envelope peeped from under
+the door.
+
+Reckless in exasperation, P. Sybarite first wasted time educing a
+series of short, sharp barks from the bell--a peculiarly irritating
+noise, calculated (one would think) to rouse the dead--then tried the
+door and, finding it fast, in the end knelt and bent an ear to the
+keyhole, listening....
+
+Not a sound: silence of the grave; the house deathly still. He could
+hear his own heart drumming; but, from Shaynon's flat, nothing....
+
+Or--was that the creak of a board beneath a stealthy footstep?
+
+If so, it wasn't repeated....
+
+Again, could it be possible his ears did actually detect a sound of
+human respiration through the keyhole? Was Bayard Shaynon just the
+other side of that inch-wide pressed-steel barrier, the fire-proof
+door, cowering in throes of some paralysing fright, afraid to answer
+the summons?...
+
+If so, why? What did he fear? The police, perhaps? And if so--why?
+What crime had become his so to unman him that he dared not open and
+put his fate to the test?...
+
+Quickly there took shape in the imagination of the little Irishman a
+hideous vision of mortal Fear, wild-eyed, white-lipped, and all
+a-tremble, skulking in panic only a little beyond his reach: a fancy
+that so worked upon his nerves that he himself seemed infected with
+its shuddering dread, and thought to feel the fine hairs a-crawl on
+his neck and scalp and his flesh a-creep.
+
+When at length he rose and drew away it was with all stealth, as
+though he too moved in the shadow of awful terror bred of a nameless
+crime....
+
+Once more at Peter Kenny's door, his diffident fingers evoked from the
+bell but a single chirp--a sound that would by no means have gained
+him admission had Peter not been sitting up in bed, reading to while
+away the ache of his wound.
+
+But it was ordered so; Peter was quick to answer the door; and P.
+Sybarite, pulling himself together (now that he had audience critical
+of his demeanour) walked in with a very tolerable swagger--with a
+careless, good-humoured nod for his host and a quick look round the
+room to make certain they were alone.
+
+"Doctor been?"
+
+"Oh--an hour ago."
+
+"And--?"
+
+"Says I'm all right if blood-poisoning doesn't set in."
+
+Shutting the door, Peter grinned not altogether happily. "That's one
+of the most fetching features of the new code of medical ethics, you
+know--complete confidence inspired in patient by utter frankness on
+doctor's part--and all that!...
+
+"'An insignificant puncture,'" he mimicked: "'you'll be right as rain
+in a week--unless the wound decides to gangrene--it's apt to, all on
+its own, 'spite of anything we can do--in which case we'll have to
+amputate your body to prevent infection spreading to your head.'...
+
+"Well?" he wound up almost gaily. "What luck?"
+
+"The worst. Where are my rags? I've got to change and run. Also--while
+you're up"--Peter had just dropped into a chair--"you might be good
+enough to mix me a Scotch and soda."
+
+Whereupon, while changing his clothes, and between breaths and gulps
+of whiskey-and-water, P. Sybarite delivered himself of an abbreviated
+summary of what had happened at the ball and after.
+
+"But why," he wound up peevishly--"_why_ didn't you tell me Bayard
+Shaynon lived in the flat below you?"
+
+"Didn't occur to me; and if you ask me, I don't see why it should
+interest you now."
+
+"Because," said P. Sybarite quietly, "I'm going down there and break
+in as soon as I'm dressed fit to go to jail."
+
+"In the sacred name of Insanity--!"
+
+"If he's out, I'll steal that telegram and find out whether it has any
+bearing on the case. If it hasn't, I'll sift every inch of the room
+for a suspicion of a leading clue."
+
+"But if he's in--?"
+
+"I'll take my chances," said P. Sybarite with grim brevity.
+
+"Unarmed?"
+
+"Not if I know the nature of the brute." He stood up, fully dressed
+but for his shoes. "Now--my gun, please."
+
+"Top drawer of the buffet there. How are you going? Fire escape?"
+
+"Where is it?" P. Sybarite asked as he possessed himself of his
+weapon.
+
+"Half a minute." Peter Kenny held out his hand. "Let's have a look at
+that gun--will you?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"One of those newfangled automatic pistols--isn't it? I 've never seen
+one before."
+
+"But--Great Scott!--you've had this here--"
+
+"I know, but I didn't pay much attention--thinking of other things--"
+
+"But you're delaying me--"
+
+"Mean to," said Peter Kenny purposefully; and without giving P.
+Sybarite the least hint of his intention, suddenly imprisoned his
+wrist, grabbed the weapon by the barrel, and took it to himself--with
+the greater ease since the other neither understood nor attempted
+resistance.
+
+"What in blazes--?" he enquired, puzzled, watching Peter turn the
+weapon over curiously in his hands. "I should think--"
+
+"There!" Peter interrupted placidly, withdrawing the magazine clip
+from its slot in the butt and returning the now harmless mechanism.
+"Now run along. Fire-escape's outside the far window in the bedroom,
+yonder."
+
+"What the deuce! What's the matter with you? Hand over that clip. What
+good is this gun without it?"
+
+"For your present purpose, it's better than if loaded," Peter asserted
+complacently. "For purposes of intimidation--which is all you want of
+it--grand! And it can't go off by accident and make you an
+unintentional murderer."
+
+P. Sybarite's jaw dropped and his eyes opened; but after an instant,
+he nodded in entire agreement.
+
+"That's a head you have on your shoulders, boy!" said he. "As for
+mine, I've a notion that it has never really jelled."
+
+He turned toward the bedroom, but paused.
+
+"Only--why not say what you want? Why these roundabout ways to your
+purpose? Have you, by any chance, been educated for the bar?"
+
+"That's the explanation," laughed Peter. "I'm to be admitted to
+practise next year. Meanwhile, circumlocution's my specialty."
+
+"It is!" said P. Sybarite with conviction. "Well ... back in five
+minutes...."
+
+Of all his weird adventures, this latest pleased him least. It's one
+thing to take chances under cover of night when your heart is light,
+your pockets heavy, and wine is buzzing wantonly within your head: but
+another thing altogether to burglarise your enemy's apartments via the
+fire-escape, in broad daylight, and cold-sober. For by now the light
+was clear and strong, in the open.
+
+Yet to his relief he found no more than limpid twilight in the cramped
+and shadowed well down which zigzagged the fire-escape; while the
+opposite wall of the adjoining building ran blind from earth to roof;
+giving comfortable assurance that none could spy upon him save from
+the Monastery windows.
+
+"One thing more"--Peter Kenny came to the window to advise, as P.
+Sybarite scrambled out upon the gridiron platform--"Shaynon's flat
+isn't arranged like mine. He's better off than I am, you know--can
+afford more elbow-room. I'm not sure, but I _think_ you'll break
+in--if at all--by the dining-room window.... So long. Good luck!"
+
+Clasping hands, they exchanged an anxious smile before P. Sybarite
+began his cautious descent.
+
+Not that he found it difficult; the Monastery fire-escape was a series
+of steep flights of iron steps, instead of the primitive vertical
+ladder of round iron rungs in more general use. There was even a
+guard-rail at the outside of each flight. Consequently, P. Sybarite
+gained the eleventh floor platform very readily.
+
+But there he held up a long instant, dashed to discover his task made
+facile rather than obstructed.
+
+The window was wide open, to force whose latch he had thoughtfully
+provided himself with a fruit knife from Peter Kenny's buffet. Within
+was gloom and stillness absolute--the one rendered the more opaque by
+heavy velvet hangings, shutting out the light; the other with a
+quality individual and, as P. Sybarite took it, somehow
+intimidating--too complete in its promise.
+
+And so for a darkly dubious moment the little man hung back. To his
+quick Celtic instinct there seemed to inhere, in that open, dark, and
+silent window, something as sinister and repellent as the inscrutable,
+soundless menace of a revolver presented to one's head.
+
+Momentarily, indeed, he experienced anew something of that odd terror,
+unreasoning and inexcusable, that had assailed him some time since,
+outside the hall-door to this abode of enigmatic and uncanny quiet....
+
+But at length, shaking his head impatiently--as if to rid it of its
+pestering swarm of fancies--he stepped noiselessly, in his unshod
+feet, down through the window, cautiously parted the draperies, and
+advanced into darkness so thick that there might as well have been
+night outside instead of glowing daybreak.
+
+Then, with eyes becoming accustomed to the change, he made out shapes
+and masses that first confirmed Peter's surmise as to the nature of
+the room, and next gave him his bearings.
+
+Over across from the window stood a door, its oblong dimly luminous
+with light softly shining down the walls of a private hall, from a
+point some distance to the left of the opening.
+
+Rounding a dining-table, P. Sybarite stole softly on, and paused,
+listening, just within the threshold.
+
+From some uncertain quarter--presumably the lighted room--he could
+hear a sound, very slight: so slight that it seemed guarded, but none
+the less unmistakable: the hiss of carbonated water squirting from a
+syphon into a glass.
+
+Ceasing, a short wait followed and then a faint "_Aah!_" of
+satisfaction, with the thump of a glass set down upon some hard
+surface.
+
+And at once, before P. Sybarite could by any means reconcile these
+noises with the summons at the front door that had been ignored within
+the quarter-hour, soft footfalls became audible in the private hall,
+shuffling toward the dining-room.
+
+Instinctively the little man drew back (regretful now that he had
+yielded to Peter's prejudice against loaded pistols) retreating
+sideways along the wall until he had put the bulk of a massive buffet
+between him and the door; and, in the small space between that article
+of furniture and the corner of the room, waited with every nerve taut
+and muscle tense, in full anticipation of incontinent detection.
+
+In line with these apprehensions, the footsteps came no further than
+the dining-room door; then died out for what seemed full two
+minutes--a pause as illegible to his understanding as their manifest
+stealth.
+
+Why need Shaynon take such elaborate precautions against noises in his
+own lodgings?
+
+Suddenly, and more confidently, the footfalls turned into the
+dining-room; and without glance right or left a man strode directly to
+the open window. There for an instant he delayed with an eye to the
+crack between the curtains; then, reassured, thrust one aside and
+stepped into the embrasure, there to linger with his head out of the
+window, intently reconnoitering, long enough to enable P. Sybarite to
+make an amazing discovery: the man was not Bayard Shaynon.
+
+In silhouette against the light, his slight and supple form was
+unmistakable to one who had seen it before, even though his face was
+disfigured by a scant black visor across his eyes and the bridge of
+his nose.
+
+He was Red November.
+
+[Illustration: He was Red November.]
+
+What P. Sybarite would have done had he been armed is problematical.
+What he did was remain moveless, even as he was breathless and
+powerless, but for his naked hands, either for offence or defence. For
+that November was armed was as unquestionable as his mastery of the
+long-barrelled revolver of blue steel (favoured by gunmen of the
+underworld) which he held at poise all the while he carefully surveyed
+his line of retreat.
+
+At length, releasing the curtain, the gang leader hopped lightly out
+upon the grating, and disappeared.
+
+In another breath P. Sybarite himself was at the window. A single
+glance through the curtains showed the grating untenanted; and boldly
+poking his head forth, he looked down to see the figure of the gunman,
+foreshortened unrecognisably, moving down the iron tangle already
+several flights below, singularly resembling a spider in some
+extraordinary web.
+
+Incontinently, the little man ran back through the dining-room and
+down the private hall, abandoning every effort to avoid a noise.
+
+No need now for caution, if his premonition wasn't worthless--if the
+vengeful spirit of Mrs. Inche had not stopped short of embroiling son
+with father, but had gone on to the end ominously shadowed forth by
+the appearance of the gunman in those rooms....
+
+What he saw from the threshold of the lighted room was Bayard Shaynon
+still in death upon the floor, one temple shattered by a shot fired at
+close range from a revolver that lay with butt close to his right
+hand--carefully disposed with evident intent to indicate a case of
+suicide rather than of murder.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE SORTIE
+
+
+At pains not to stir across the threshold, with quick glances P.
+Sybarite reviewed scrupulously the scene of November's crime.
+
+Eventually his nod indicated a contemptuous conclusion: that it should
+not prove difficult to convict November on the evidence afforded by
+the condition of the apartment alone. A most superficial inspection
+ought to convince anybody, even one prone to precipitate conclusions,
+that Bayard Shaynon had never died by his own hand.
+
+If November, in depositing the instrument of his crime close to the
+hand of its victim, had meant to mislead, to create an inference of
+_felo de se_, he had ordered all his other actions with a carelessness
+arguing one of three things: cynical indifference to the actual
+outcome of his false clue; sublime faith in the stupidity of the
+police; or a stupidity of his own as crass as that said to be
+characteristic of the average criminal in all ages.
+
+The rooms, in short, had been most thoroughly if hastily ransacked--in
+search, P. Sybarite didn't for an instant doubt, of evidence as to the
+relations between Shaynon and Mrs. Inche calculated to prove
+incriminating at an inquest; though the little man entertained even
+less doubt that lust for loot had likewise been a potent motive
+influencing November.
+
+He found proof enough of this in the turned-out pockets of the
+murdered man; in the abstraction from the bosom of his shirt of pearl
+studs which P. Sybarite had noticed there within the hour; in the
+abraded knuckles of a finger from which a conspicuous solitaire
+diamond in massive antique setting was missing; in a pigskin
+bill-fold, empty, ripped, turned inside out, and thrown upon the floor
+not far from the corpse.
+
+Then, too, in one corner stood a fine old mahogany desk of quaint
+design and many drawers and pigeonholes, one and all sacked, their
+contents turned out to litter the floor. In another corner, a curio
+cabinet had fared as ill. Even bookcases had not been overlooked, and
+stood with open doors and disordered shelves.
+
+Not, however, with any notion of concerning himself with the
+assassin's apprehension and punishment did P. Sybarite waste that
+moment of hasty survey. His eyes were only keen and eager to descry
+the yellow Western Union message; and when he had looked everywhere
+else, his glance dropped to his feet and found it there--a torn and
+crumpled envelope with its enclosure flattened out and apart from it.
+
+This last he snatched up, but the envelope he didn't touch, having
+been quick to remark the print upon it of a dirty thumb whose
+counterpart decorated the face of the message as well.
+
+"And a hundred more of 'em, probably," P. Sybarite surmised as to the
+number of finger marks left by November: "enough to hang him ten times
+over ... which I hope and pray they don't before I finish with him!"
+
+As for the dead man, he read his epitaph in a phrase, accompanied by a
+meaning nod toward the disfigured and insentient head.
+
+"It was coming to you--and you got it," said P. Sybarite callously,
+with never a qualm of shame for the apathy with which he contemplated
+this second tragedy in the house of Shaynon.
+
+Too much, too long, had he suffered at its hands....
+
+With a shrug, he turned back to the hall door, listened an instant,
+gently opened it--with his handkerchief wrapped round the polished
+brass door-knob to guard against clues calculated to involve himself,
+whether as imputed principal or casual witness after the fact. For he
+felt no desire to report the crime to the police: let them find it out
+at their leisure, investigate and take what action they would; P.
+Sybarite had lost no love for the force that night, and meant to use
+it only at a pinch--as when, perchance, its services might promise to
+elicit the information presumably possessed by Red November in regard
+to the fate of Marian Blessington....
+
+The public hall was empty, dim with the light of a single electric
+bulb, and still as the chamber of death that lay behind.
+
+Never a shadow moved more silently or more swiftly than P. Sybarite,
+when he had closed the door, up the steps to Peter Kenny's rooms.
+Hardly a conceivable sound could be more circumspect than that which
+his knuckles drummed on the panels of Peter's door. And Peter earned a
+heartfelt, instant, and ungrudged blessing by opening without delay.
+
+"Well?" he asked, when P. Sybarite--with a gesture enforcing temporary
+silence--had himself shut the door without making a sound. "Good Lord,
+man! You look as if you'd seen a ghost."
+
+On the verge of agitated speech P. Sybarite checked to shake an
+aggrieved head.
+
+"Bromides are grand for the nerves," he observed cuttingly, "but
+you're too young to need 'em--and I want none now.... Listen to me."
+
+Briefly he told his story.
+
+"Well, but the telegram?" Peter insisted. "Does it help--tell you
+anything? It's maddening--to think Marian may be in the power of that
+bloodthirsty--!"
+
+"There you go again!" P. Sybarite complained--"and not two minutes ago
+I warned you about that habit. Wait: I've had time only to run an eye
+through this: let me get the sense of it."
+
+Peter peering over his shoulder, the two conned the message in
+silence:
+
+  BAYARD SHAYNON
+  Monastery Apts., W. 43rd, N.Y.C.
+
+  Your wire received all preparations made send patient in charge as
+  indicated at convenience legal formalities can wait as you suggest.
+
+  HAYNES PRIVATE SANATORIUM.
+
+Blankly Peter Kenny looked at his cousin; with eyes in which deepening
+understanding mingled with anger as deep, and with profound misgivings
+as well, P. Sybarite returned his stare.
+
+"It's as plain as the face on you, Peter Kenny. Why, all along I've
+had an indefinite notion that something of the sort was what they were
+brewing! Don't you see--'private sanatorium'? What more proof do you
+need of a plot to railroad Marian to a private institution for the
+insane? 'Legal formalities can wait as you suggest'--of course! They
+hadn't had time to cook up the necessary papers, to suborn medical
+certificates and purchase a commitment paper of some corrupt judge.
+But what of that?" P. Sybarite demanded, slapping the message
+furiously. "She was in the way--at large--liable at any time to do
+something that would put her money forever out of their reach.
+Therefore she must be put away at once, pending 'legal formalities' to
+ensure her permanent incarceration!"
+
+"The dogs!" Peter Kenny growled.
+
+"But consider how they've been served out--thunderbolts--justice from
+the very skies! All except one, and," said P. Sybarite solemnly, "God
+do so to me and more also if he's alive or outside bars before this
+sun sets!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"November!"
+
+"What can you do to him?"
+
+"To begin with, beat him to that damned asylum. Fetch me the suburban
+telephone directory."
+
+"Telephone directory?"
+
+"Yes!" P. Sybarite raved. "What else? Where is it? And where are your
+wits?"
+
+"Why, here--"
+
+Turning, Peter took the designated volume from its hook beneath the
+wall instrument at the very elbow of P. Sybarite.
+
+"I thought," he commented mildly, "you had all _your_ wits about you
+and could see it."
+
+"Don't be impudent," grumbled P. Sybarite, rapidly thumbing the pages.
+"Westchester," he muttered, adding: "Oscahana--H--Ha--H-a-d--"
+
+"Are you dotty?"
+
+"Look at that telegram. It's dated from Oscahana: that's somewhere in
+Westchester, if I'm not mistaken. Yes; here we are: H-a-y--Haynes
+Private Sanatorium--number, Oscahana one-nine. You call 'em."
+
+"What shall I say?"
+
+"Where the devil's that cartridge clip you took away from me?... Give
+it here.... And I want my money."
+
+"But," Peter protested in a daze, handing over the clip and watching
+P. Sybarite rummage in the buffet drawer wherein he had banked his
+fortune before setting out for the Bizarre--"but what do you want me
+to--"
+
+"Call up that sanatorium--find out if Marian has arrived. If she has,
+threaten fire and sword and--all that sort of thing--if they don't
+release her--hand her over to me on demand. If she hasn't, make 'em
+understand I'll dynamite the place if they let November bring her
+there and get away before I show up. Tell 'em to call in the police
+and pinch November on sight. And then get a lawyer and send him up
+there after me. And then--set the police after November--tell 'em you
+heard the shot and went down the fire-escape to investigate.... I'm
+off."
+
+The door slammed on Peter as Bewilderment.
+
+In the hall, savagely punching the elevator bell, P. Sybarite employed
+the first part of an enforced wait to return the clip of cartridges to
+its chamber in the butt of Mrs. Inche's pistol....
+
+He punched the bell again....
+
+He put his thumb upon the button and held it there....
+
+From the bottom of the twelve-story well a faint, shrill
+tintinnabulation echoed up to him. But that was all. The car itself
+never stirred.
+
+Infuriated, he left off that profitless employment and threw himself
+down the stairs, descending in great bounds from landing to landing,
+more like a tennis ball than a fairly intelligent specimen of mature
+humanity in control of his own actions.
+
+Expecting to be met by the ascending car before halfway to the bottom,
+he came to the final flight not only breathless but in a towering
+rage--contemplating nothing less than a murderous assault as soon as
+he might be able to lay hands upon the hallboys--hoping to find them
+together that he might batter their heads one against the other.
+
+But he gained the ground-floor lobby to find it as empty as his own
+astonishment--its doors wide to the cold air of dawn, its lights
+dimmed to the likeness of smouldering embers by the stark refulgence
+of day; but nowhere a sign of a hallboy or anything else in human
+guise.
+
+As he paused to make sure of the reality of this phenomenon, and
+incidentally to regain his breath, there sounded from a distance down
+the street a noise the like of which he had never before heard: a
+noise resembling more than anything else the almost simultaneous
+detonations of something like half a dozen firecrackers of sub-cannon
+calibre.
+
+Without understanding this or even being aware that he had willed his
+limbs to action, P. Sybarite found himself in the street.
+
+At the curb his hired car waited, its motor purring sweetly but its
+chauffeur missing.
+
+Subjectively he was aware that the sun was up and high enough to throw
+a sanguinary glare upon the upper stories of the row of garages across
+the street--those same from whose number he had chartered his touring
+car. And momentarily he surmised that perhaps the chauffeur had
+strolled over to the garage on some idle errand.
+
+But no sooner had this thought enhanced his irritation than he had its
+refutation in the discovery of the chauffeur affectionately embracing
+a lamp-post three or four doors away, toward Sixth Avenue; and so
+singular seemed this sight that P. Sybarite wondered if, by any
+chance, the fellow had found time to get drunk during so brief a wait.
+
+At once, blind to all else, and goaded intolerably by his knowledge
+that the time was short if he were to forestall November at the asylum
+in Oscahana, he pelted hot-foot after the delinquent; came up with him
+in a trice; tapped him smartly on the shoulder.
+
+"Here!" he cried indignantly--"what the deuce's the matter with you?"
+
+The man showed him a face pale with excitement; recognised his
+employer; but made no offer to stir.
+
+"Come!" P. Sybarite insisted irascibly. "I've no time to waste. Get a
+move on you, man!"
+
+But as he spoke his accents were blotted out by a repetition of that
+portentous noise which had saluted him in the lobby of the Monastery,
+a moment since.
+
+His eyes, veering inevitably toward the source of that uproar, found
+it quickly enough to see short, vicious jets of flame licking out
+against the gloom of an open garage doorway, nearly opposite the
+Hippodrome stage entrance--something like a hundred feet down the
+street.
+
+"What," he cried, "in Hades--!"
+
+"Gang fight," his chauffeur informed him briefly: "fly-cops cornered a
+bunch of 'em in November's garage--"
+
+"_Whose_ garage--?"
+
+"Red November's! Guess you've heard of him," the man pursued eagerly.
+"That's right--he runs his own garage--taxis for Dutch House souses,
+yunno--"
+
+"Wait!" P. Sybarite interrupted. "Let me get this straight."
+
+Stimulated by this news, his wits comprehended the situation at a
+glance.
+
+At the side of his chauffeur, he found himself in line with a number
+of that spontaneous class which at the first hint of sensation springs
+up from nowhere in the streets of Manhattan. Early as was the hour,
+they were already quite fifty strong; and every minute brought
+re-enforcements straggling up from Fifth Avenue.
+
+But the lamp-post--still a mute, insensate recipient of the
+chauffeur's amorous clasp--marked a boundary beyond which curiosity
+failed to allure.
+
+Similarly at Sixth Avenue, a rabble was collecting, blocking the
+roadway and backing up to the Elevated pillars and surface-car
+tracks--but to a man balking at an invisible line drawn from corner to
+corner.
+
+Midway, the dark open doorway to November's garage yawned
+forbiddingly; and in all the space that separated these two gatherings
+of spectators, there were visible just three human figures: a
+uniformed patrolman, and two plain-clothes men--the former at a
+discreet distance, the two latter more boldly stationed and holding
+revolvers ready for instant employment.
+
+"Fly-cops," the chauffeur named the two in citizen's clothing: "I
+piped 'em stickin' round while you was inside, an' was wonderin' what
+they was after, when all of a sudden I sees November duck up from the
+basement next door to the Monastery, and they tries to jump him. That
+ain't two minutes ago. November dodges, pulls a gun, and fights 'em
+off until he can back into the garage--"
+
+A hand holding an automatic edged into sight round the corner of the
+garage door--and the pistol sang like a locust. Instantly one of the
+detectives fired. The pistol clattered to the walk as the hand
+disappeared. One shot at least had told for law and order.
+
+"Anybody hurt yet?" P. Sybarite asked.
+
+"Not that I know anythin' about."
+
+"But what do you suppose makes 'em keep that door open? You'd think--"
+
+"The way I figure it," the chauffeur cut in, "Red's plannin' to make
+his getaway in a car. He's just waitin' till the goin' looks good, and
+then he'll sail outa there like a streak of greased lightnin'. Yuh
+wanta be ready to duck, too, 'cause he'll come this way, an' keep guns
+goin' to prevent anybody from hinderin' him."
+
+"Why this way? Sixth Avenue's nearer."
+
+"Sure it is, but that way he'd have them L pillars to duck, to say
+nothin' of the crowd, and no tellin' but what a surface-car might
+block him. Yuh watch an' see 'f I ain't doped it out right."
+
+From the dark interior of the besieged garage another automatic
+fluttered briskly; across the street a window fell in....
+
+"Look here--you come with me," said P. Sybarite suddenly, plucking his
+chauffeur by the sleeve.
+
+With a reluctant backward glance, the man suffered himself to be drawn
+apart from the crowd.
+
+"How much nerve have you got?" the little Irishman demanded.
+
+"Who--me? Why?"
+
+"I want to stop this getaway--"
+
+"Not for mine, friend." The chauffeur laughed scornfully. "I ain't
+lost no Red November!"
+
+"Will a thousand dollars make you change your mind?"
+
+The chauffeur's eyes narrowed.
+
+"Whatcha drivin' at? Me--why--I'd take a lotta chances for a
+thousand."
+
+"Help me--do as I say--and it's yours."
+
+"Lead me to the coin," was the prompt decision.
+
+"Here, then!"
+
+P. Sybarite delved hastily into a trousers pocket and produced a
+handful of bills of large denominations.
+
+"There's a five hundred dollar bill to start with," he rattled,
+stripping off the first that fell to his fingers--"and here's a
+hundred--no, here's another five instead."
+
+"In the mitt," the chauffeur stipulated simply, extending his palm.
+"Either you're crazy or I am--but in the mitt, friend, and I'll run
+the car right into that garage, 'f you say so."
+
+"Nothing so foolish as that." P. Sybarite handed over the two bills
+and put away the rest of his wealth. "Just jump into that car and be
+ready to swing across the street and block 'em as they come."
+
+"You're on!" agreed the chauffeur with emotion--carefully putting his
+money away.
+
+"And a thousand more"--his courage wrung this tribute from P.
+Sybarite's admiration--"if you're hurt--"
+
+"You're on there, too--and don't think for a minute I'll letcha
+fergit, neither."
+
+The chauffeur turned to his car, jumped into the driver's seat, and
+advanced the spark. The purr of the motor deepened to a leonine growl.
+
+"Hello!" he exclaimed in surprise, real or feigned, to see P. Sybarite
+take the seat by his side. "What t'ell? Who's payin' _you_ to be a
+God-forsaken ass?"
+
+"Did you think I'd ask you to run a risk that frightened me?"
+
+"Dunno's I thought much about it, but 'f yuh wanta know what I think
+now, _I_ think you oughta get a rebate outa whatcha give me--if you
+live to apply for it. And I don't mind tellin' you, if you do, you
+won't get it."
+
+Again the spiteful drumming of the automatic: P. Sybarite swung round
+in time to see one of the plain-clothes men return the fire with
+several brisk shots, then abruptly drop his revolver, clap a hand to
+his bosom, wheel about-face, and fall prone.
+
+A cry shrilled up from the bystanders, only to be drowned out by
+another, but fortunately more harmless, fusillade from the garage.
+
+"Tunin' up!" commented the chauffeur grimly. "Sounds to me like they
+was about ready to commence!"
+
+P. Sybarite shut his teeth on a nervous tremor and lost a shade or two
+of colour.
+
+"Ready?" he said with difficulty.
+
+The chauffeur's reply was muffled by another volley; on the echoes of
+which the little man saw the nose of a car poke diagonally out of the
+garage door, pause, swerve a trifle to the right, and pause once
+again....
+
+"They're coming!" he cried wildly. "Stand by, quick!"
+
+The alarm was taken up and repeated by two-score throats, while those
+dotting the street and sidewalks near by broke in swift panic and
+began madly to scuttle to shelter within doorways and down basement
+steps....
+
+Like an arrow from the string, November's car broke cover at an angle.
+Ignoring the slanting way from threshold to gutter, it took the bump
+of the curb apparently at full tilt, and skidded to the northern curb
+before it could be brought under control and its course shaped
+eastward.
+
+With a shiver P. Sybarite recognised that car.
+
+It was not the taxicab that he had been led to expect, but the same
+maroon-coloured limousine into which he had assisted Marian
+Blessington at the Bizarre.
+
+On its front seats were two men--Red November himself at the driver's
+side, a revolver in either hand. And the body of the car contained one
+passenger, at least, if P. Sybarite might trust to an impression
+gained in one hasty glance through the forward windows as the car bore
+down upon them--November's weapons spitting fire....
+
+He could not say who that one passenger might be; but he could guess;
+and guessing, knew the automatic in his grasp to be useless; he dared
+not fire at the gangster for fear of loosing a wild bullet into the
+body of the car....
+
+Now they were within fifty feet of one another. By contrast with the
+apparent slowness of the touring car to get in motion, the limousine
+seemed already to have attained locomotive speed.
+
+A yell and a shot from one of November's revolvers (P. Sybarite saw
+the bullet score the asphalt not two feet from the forward wheel)
+warned them to clear the way as the gang leader's car swerved wide to
+pass them.
+
+And on this the touring car seemed to get out of control, swinging
+across the street. Immediately the other, crowded to the gutter,
+attempted to take the curb, but, the wheels meeting it at an angle not
+sufficiently acute, the manoeuvre failed. To a chorus of yells
+November's driver shut down the brakes not a thought too soon--not
+soon enough, indeed, to avoid a collision that crumpled a mudguard as
+though it had been a thing of pasteboard.
+
+Simultaneously P. Sybarite's chauffeur set the brakes, and with the
+agility of a hounded rabbit seeking its burrow, dived from his seat to
+the side of the car farthest from the gangsters.
+
+In an instant he was underneath it.
+
+P. Sybarite, on the other hand, had leaped before the accident.
+
+Staggering a pace or two--and all the time under fire--he at length
+found his feet not six feet from the limousine. It had stopped
+broadside on. In this position he commanded the front seats without
+great danger of sending a shot through the body.
+
+His weapon rose mechanically and quite deliberately he took
+aim--making assurance doubly sure throughout what seemed an age made
+sibilant by the singing past his head of the infuriated gangster's
+bullets.
+
+But his finger never tightened upon the trigger.
+
+November had ceased firing and was plucking nervously at the slide of
+his automatic. His driver had jumped down from his seat and was
+scuttling madly up the street.
+
+In a breath P. Sybarite realised what was the matter: as automatics
+will, when hot with fast firing, November's had choked on an empty
+shell.
+
+With a sob of excitement the little man lowered his weapon and flung
+himself upon the gang leader.
+
+November rose to meet him, reversing his pistol and aiming at P.
+Sybarite's head a murderous blow. This, however, the little man was
+alert to dodge. November came bodily into his arms. Grappling, the two
+reeled and went down, P. Sybarite's fingers closing on the throat of
+the assassin just as the latter's head struck the pavement with brutal
+force.
+
+The man shivered, grunted, and lay still.
+
+P. Sybarite disengaged and got up on his feet.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+TOGETHER
+
+
+In a daze, P. Sybarite shook and felt himself all over, unable to
+credit his escape from that rain of bullets.
+
+But he was apparently unharmed.
+
+_Kismet!_...
+
+Then suddenly he quickened to the circumstances: the thing was
+finished, November stunned and helpless at his feet, November's driver
+making off, the crowd swarming round, the police an imminent menace.
+
+Now if Marian were in the body of the town-car, as he believed, he
+must get her out of it and away before the police and detectives could
+overtake and apprehend them both.
+
+Instant action, inspired audacity, a little luck--and the thing might
+possibly be accomplished.
+
+His chauffeur was crawling ignominiously out from beneath the touring
+car--his countenance livid with grime and the pallor of fright.
+Meeting the eye of his employer, he grinned a sheepish grin.
+
+P. Sybarite seized him by the arm.
+
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+"Not ten cents' worth--much less a thousand dollars! No such luck!"
+
+His mouth to the fellow's ear, P. Sybarite whispered hoarsely and
+hurriedly:
+
+"Unhook your license number--throw it in the car--get ready to move
+on the word--lady in that car--kidnapped--I love her--d'you
+understand?--we must get her away--another thousand in this for you--"
+
+"Gotcha," the man cut in smartly. "And I'm with you to the last act!
+Go to it, bo'--I like your style!"
+
+Swinging about, P. Sybarite jumped upon the running-board of the
+maroon-coloured car, wrenched the door open, and stumbled in.
+
+In her evening frock and her cloak of furs, Marian lay huddled in a
+corner, wrists and ankles alike made fast with heavy twine, her mouth
+closed tight by a bandanna handkerchief passed round her jaws and
+knotted at the nape of her neck. Above its folds her face was like
+snow, but the little man thought to detect in her staring eyes a hint
+of intelligence, and on this he counted with all his soul.
+
+"Don't scream!" he pleaded as, whipping out a pocket knife, he severed
+her bonds. "Don't do anything but depend on me. Pretend, if you like,
+you don't know what's happening--likely you don't at that! No matter.
+Have faith in me; I'll get you clear of this yet!"
+
+He fancied a softening look in those wide and frightened eyes of a
+child.
+
+An instant's work loosed her scored and excoriated wrists; in another,
+the bonds fell from her ankles. Deftly unknotting the bandage that
+closed her mouth, he asked could she walk. With difficulty, in a husky
+and painful whisper, but still courageously, she told him yes.
+
+Hopeful, rather than counting on this assurance, he jumped out and
+offered his hand. She put hers into it (and it was cold as ice),
+stirred, rose stiffly, tottered to the door, and fell into his
+arms....
+
+A uniformed patrolman, breaking through the crowd about them, seized
+P. Sybarite and held him fast.
+
+"What's this? Who's this?" he gabbled incoherently, brandishing a
+vaguely formidable fist.
+
+"A lady, you fool!" P. Sybarite snapped. "Let go and catch that
+scoundrel over there--if you're worth your salt."
+
+He waved his free hand broadly in the direction taken by November's
+driver.
+
+Abruptly and without protest the patrolman released him, butted his
+way through the crowd, and disappeared.
+
+An arm boldly about Marian's waist, P. Sybarite helped her to the step
+of the touring car--and blessed that prince among chauffeurs, who was
+up and ready in his seat!
+
+But now again he must be hindered: a plain-clothes man dropped a heavy
+hand upon his shoulder and screwed the muzzle of a revolver into P.
+Sybarite's ear.
+
+"Under arrest!" he blatted wildly. "Carrying fire-arms! Causing a
+crowd to collect--!"
+
+"All right--all right!" P. Sybarite told him roughly. "I admit it. I'm
+not resisting, am I? Take that gun out of my ear and help me get this
+lady into the car before she's trampled and torn to pieces by these
+staring fools!"
+
+Stupidly enough, the man comprehended some part of his admonishment.
+Staring blankly from the little man to the girl, he pocketed his
+weapon and, grasping Marian's arm, assisted her into the touring car.
+
+"Thanks!" cried P. Sybarite, jumping up on the running-board. "You're
+most amiable, my friend!"
+
+And with the heel of his open hand he struck the man forcibly upon the
+chest, so that he reeled back, tripped over the hapchance foot of an
+innocent by-stander, and went sprawling and blaspheming upon his back.
+
+Somebody laughed hysterically.
+
+"Go!" P. Sybarite cried to the chauffeur.
+
+The crowd gave way before the lunge of the car....
+
+They were halfway to Fifth Avenue before pursuit was thought of; had
+turned the corner before it was fairly started; in five minutes had
+thrown it off entirely and were running free at a moderate pace up
+Broadway just above Columbus Circle....
+
+"Where to now, boss?" the chauffeur presently enquired.
+
+P. Sybarite looked enquiringly at his charge. Since her rescue she had
+neither moved nor spoken--had rested motionless in her corner of the
+tonneau, eyes closed, body relaxed and listless. But now she roused;
+unveiled the dear wonder of her eyes of brown; even mustered up the
+ghost of a smile.
+
+"Wherever you think best," she told him gently.
+
+"The Plaza? You might be bothered there. We may be traced--we're sure
+to. This only saves us for the day. To-morrow--reporters--all
+that--perhaps. Perhaps not!... Don't you know somebody out of town to
+whom you could go for the day? Once across the city line, we're safe
+for a little."
+
+She nodded: breathed an address in Westchester County....
+
+Some time later P. Sybarite became sensible of an amazing fact. A hand
+of his rested on the cushioned seat, and in it lay, now warm and
+wonderfully soft and light, Marian's hand.
+
+He stared incredulously until he had confirmed the substance of this
+impression; looked up blinking; met the confident, straightforward,
+and wistful regard of the girl; and blushed to his brows.
+
+The car swept on and on, through the golden hush of that glorious
+Sunday morning....
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+PERCEVAL UNASHAMED
+
+
+Toward ten of that same Sunday morning a touring car of majestic mien
+drew up in front of a boarding-house in Thirty-eighth Street West.
+
+From this alighted a little man of somewhat bedraggled appearance,
+wearing a somewhat weather-beaten but heartfelt grin.
+
+Ostentatiously (or so it seemed to one solitary and sour-mouthed
+spectator, disturbed in his perusal of a comic supplement on the
+brownstone stoop of the boarding-house) he shook hands with the
+chauffeur, and, speaking guardedly, confirmed some private
+understanding with him.
+
+Then the car rolled off, and P. Sybarite shuffled meekly in through
+the gate, crossed the dooryard, and met the outraged glare of George
+Bross with an apologetic smile and the request:
+
+"If you've got a pack of Sweets about you, George, I can use one in my
+business."
+
+Without abating his manifestation of entire disapproval, George
+produced a box of cigarettes, permitted P. Sybarite to select one, and
+helped himself.
+
+They shared a match, even as brothers might, before honest indignation
+escaped the grim portals of the shipping clerk's mouth.
+
+"Sa-ay!" he exploded--"looky here: where've you been all night?"
+
+"Ah-h!" P. Sybarite sighed provokingly: "that's a long and tiresome
+story, George."
+
+With much the air of a transient, he sat him down by George's side.
+
+"A very long and very weary story, George. I don't like to tell it to
+you, really. We'd be sure to quarrel."
+
+"Why?" George demanded aggressively.
+
+"Because you wouldn't believe me. I don't quite believe it myself, now
+that all's over, barring a page or two. Your great trouble, George, is
+that you have no imagination."
+
+"The devil I ain't!"
+
+"Perfectly right: you haven't. If you point with pride to that wild
+flight of fancy which identified 'Molly Lessing' with Marian
+Blessington, George, your position is (as you yourself would say)
+untenable. It wasn't imagination: it was fact."
+
+"No!" George ejaculated. "Is that right? What'd I tell you?"
+
+"Word of honour! But it's a secret, as yet--from everybody except you
+and Violet; and even you we wouldn't tell had you not earned the right
+to know by guessing and making me semi-credulous--enough to start
+something--several somethings, in fact."
+
+"G'wan!" George coaxed. "Feed it to me: I'll eat it right outa your
+hand. Whatcha been doin' with yourself all night, P.S.?"
+
+"I've been Day of Days-ing myself, George."
+
+"Ah, can the kiddin', P.S. Come through! Whadja do?"
+
+"Broke every Commandment in the Decalogue, George, barring one or two
+of the more indelicate ones; kicked the laws of chance and probability
+into a cocked hat; fractured most of the Municipal Ordinances--and--let
+me see--oh, yes!--dislocated the Long Arm of Coincidence so badly that
+all of its subsequent performances are going to seem stiff and lacking
+in that air of spontaneity without which--"
+
+"My Gawd!" George despaired--"he's off again on that hardy annual
+talkalogue of his!... Lis'n, P.S.--"
+
+"Call me Perceval," P. Sybarite suggested pleasantly.
+
+"_Wh-at!_"
+
+"Let it be Perceval hereafter, George--always. I grant you free
+permission."
+
+"But I thought you said--"
+
+"So I did--a few hours ago. Now I--well, I rather like it. It makes
+all the difference who calls you that sort of name first, and what her
+voice is like."
+
+"One of us," George protested with profound conviction, "is plumb
+loony in the head!"
+
+"It's me," said P. Sybarite humbly: "I admit it.... And the worst of
+it is--I like it! So would you if you'd been through a Day of Days."
+
+George let that pass; for the moment he was otherwise engaged in vain
+speculation as to the appearance of a phenomenon rather rare in the
+calendar of that West Thirty-eighth Street boarding-house.
+
+A Western Union boy, weary with the weariness of not less than forty
+summers, was shuffling in at the gate.
+
+"Sa-ay!" he called with the asperity of ingrained ennui--"either of
+youse guys know a guy named Perceval Sybarite 't lives here?"
+
+Silently P. Sybarite held out his hand, took the greasy little book in
+its black oil-cloth binding, scrawled his signature in the proper
+blank, and received the message in its sealed yellow envelope.
+
+"Wait," he commanded calmly, eyeing Western Union with suspicion.
+
+"W'at's eatin' you? Is they an answer?"
+
+"They ain't no answer," P. Sybarite admitted.
+
+"Well, whatcha want? I got no time to stick round here kiddin'."
+
+"One moment of your valuable time. I believe you delivered a message
+at the Monastery Apartments in Forty-third Street this morning."
+
+"Well, an' what 'f I did?"
+
+"Only this."
+
+P. Sybarite extracted an immense roll of bills from his pocket;
+transferred it to his other hand; delved deeper; eventually produced a
+single twenty-dollar gold-piece.
+
+"Take this," he said, tossing it to the boy with princely nonchalance.
+"It's the last of a lot, but--it's yours."
+
+"What for?" Western Union demanded in amaze; while, as for George
+Bross, _he_ developed plain symptoms of apoplexy.
+
+"You'll never know," said P. Sybarite. "Now run along before I come
+to."
+
+In the shadow of this threat, Western Union fled precipitately....
+
+P. Sybarite rose; yawned; smiled benignantly upon George Bross.
+
+"I'm off to bed--was only waiting for this message," he announced;
+"but before I go--tell me; how much money does Violet think you ought
+to be earning before you're eligible for the Matrimonial Stakes?"
+
+"She said somethin' oncet about fifty per," George remembered
+gloomily.
+
+"It's yours--doubled," P. Sybarite told him. "To-morrow you will
+resign from the employ of Whigham & Wimper and go to Blessington's to
+enter their shipping department at a hundred a week; and if you don't
+earn it, may God have mercy on your wretched soul!"
+
+George got up very suddenly.
+
+"I'll go send for the doctor," he announced.
+
+"One moment more." P. Sybarite dropped a detaining hand upon his arm.
+"You and Violet are invited to dinner to-night--at the Hotel Plaza.
+Don't be alarmed; you needn't dress; we'll dine privately in Marian's
+apartment."
+
+"Marian!"
+
+"Miss Blessington--Molly Lessing that was."
+
+"Honest!" said George sincerely. "I don't know whether to think you've
+gone bughouse or not. You've always been a bit queer and foolish in
+the bean, but never since I've known you--"
+
+"And after dinner," P. Sybarite pursued evenly, "you're going to
+attend a very quiet little wedding party."
+
+"Whose, for God's sake?"
+
+"Marian's and mine; and the only reason why you can't be best man is
+that the best man will be my cousin, Peter Kenny."
+
+"Is that straight?"
+
+"On the level."
+
+George concluded that there was sanity in P. Sybarite's eyes.
+
+"Well, I certainly got to slip you the congrats!" he protested. "And
+say--you goin' to bounce Whigham and Wimper, too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And whatcha goin' do then?"
+
+"I? To tell you the truth, I'm considering joining the Union and
+agitating for an eight-hour Day of Days. This one of mine has been
+eighteen hours long, more or less--since I got those theatre tickets,
+you know--and I'm too dog-tired to keep my eyes open another minute.
+After I've had a nap, I'll tell you all about everything." ...
+
+
+
+But he wasn't too tired to read his telegram, when he found himself
+again, and for the last time, in his hall bedroom.
+
+It said simply: "I love you.--Marian."
+
+From this P. Sybarite looked up to his reflection in the glass. And
+presently he smiled sheepishly, and blinked.
+
+"Perceval...!" murmured the little man fondly.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+_By the author of "The Brass Bowl"_
+
+THE BANDBOX
+
+_By_ LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
+
+Author of "The Day of Days," "The Destroying Angel," etc.
+
+Illustrated by A.I. Keller. Cloth. $1.25 _net_.
+
+Divertingly told, in Mr. Vance's familiarly vigorous style, it never
+fails to entertain.--_Boston Transcript._
+
+Mr. Vance uses the wand of a conjurer--his humor comes bubbling to the
+surface all the time.--_New York Tribune._
+
+The yarn is excellently calculated to pass the time of a jaded novel
+reader.... The story is quite surprising enough, and amusing at
+that.--_New York Evening Sun._
+
+It is a rousing tale of adventure and love told with verve and humor.
+Many will pronounce it the best story yet written by the author of
+"The Brass Bowl."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+The tale bristles with breathless adventure, mistaken identities,
+detective investigations, romantic developments, and startling
+situations.... It is a rousing story, told with a stimulating style,
+and culminating in love rewarded; but, before that happy end is
+reached, there are many thrilling revelations.--_Literary Digest_, New
+York.
+
+LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS
+34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
+
+
+
+_A Curious Story of Woman's Love_
+
+THE DESTROYING ANGEL
+
+By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
+
+Author of "The Bandbox," "The Day of Days," etc.
+
+Illustrated by A.I. Keller. Cloth. $1.25 _net_.
+
+Mr. Vance keeps events moving too fast to cast any shadows
+before.--_New York World._
+
+A very readable story ... Certainly there is not a dull moment in the
+book.--_New York Times._
+
+It's a good story, well told, with plenty of brisk down-to-date humor,
+and its few characters stand out well.--_Los Angeles Times._
+
+Full of romance and strange surprises ... A narrative of dramatic
+events, thrilling adventures, and all-conquering passion that makes a
+swiftly moving tale.--_Philadelphia North American._
+
+Half a dozen less vigorous and full-blooded stories might be built
+from the material so lavishly employed ... There is no moment, from
+start to finish, when the story is not absorbing, and the end of the
+narrative, which winds to a happy climax, is all that the most ardent
+romancist could desire.--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS
+34 BEACON STREETFOSTON
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Day of Days, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAY OF DAYS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 15873.txt or 15873.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/8/7/15873/
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
+