“You’ll explain on the way up—now.”
Harford looked to have made up his mind; looked angry. He took her elbow rather forcefully and started with her into the corridor.
On the sill she stopped and faced him defiantly. “I won’t explain until and unless I wish to. You can’t use that tone with me, Mills, successful as you may have found it with others. Mr. Pape is going to put me into the car.”
And lo, the Westerner found himself by her side, his hand at her elbow. He had felt electrified by her summons. Although not once had she glanced toward where he stood just outside the curtains, uncertain whether to advance or retreat, she apparently had been keen to his presence and had felt his readiness to serve.
Their last glance at Harford showed his face auburn as his hair. They hurried down the grand stairway, passed the regal doorman and queried the resplendent starter. His signal brought the Sturgis limousine, parked on Broadway in consideration of the emergency call. The driver, a Japanese, was alone on the seat in front.
Jane had not volunteered one word on the way down, and Pape was mindful to profit by the recent demonstration of her resentment of inquiries. Now, however, he began to fear that she had forgotten his existence entirely. A nod from her kept the chauffeur from scrambling out. She let herself into the car and tried the inside catch of the door as if to make sure that she was well shut in—alone.
But Pape’s habit of initiative overruled his caution. He had fractured too many rules of convention to-night to be intimidated at this vital moment. With the same sweep of the hand he demanded a moment more of the driver and pulled open the door.
“Of course I’m going along, Jane dear,” said he.
She gasped from shock of his impudence; a long moment stared at him; then, with a flash of the same temper she had shown Mills, returned him value received.
“Of course you’re not, Peter dar-rling.”
“Why not?”
Stubbornly he placed his shiny, large, hurting right foot on the running-board.
“Because you’re not a possible person. You’re quite impossible.” And with the waspish exclamation she leaned out, took him by the coat lapels and literally pushed him out of her way. “I know that I don’t know you at all. Did you think you had deceived me for one instant? I am not in the habit of scraping acquaintance with strangers, even at grand opera.”
“But—but——” he began stammered protest.
“It was partly my fault to-night. I did stare at you,” she continued hurriedly. “You looked so different from the regular run of men in black and white. Maybe my curiosity did invite you and you showed nerve that I learned to like out West by accepting. I couldn’t be such a poor sport as to turn you down before the rest. But it’s time now for the good-by we didn’t say in the Yellowstone.” She turned to the speaking tube. “Ready, Tamo. And don’t mind the speed limit getting home.”
From the decision of her voice, the man from Montana knew that she meant what she said. Never had he found it necessary to force his presence upon a woman. He stepped aside, heard the door pulled to with a slam; watched the heavy machine roll away. Its purr did not soothe him.
“Not good-by. Just au revoir, as Zaza’d say.”
That was all he had managed to reply to her. In his memory it sounded simpering as the refrain of some silly song. He hadn’t played much of a part, compared to hers. What an opponent she would make at stud poker, holding to the last card! She was a credit to his judgment, this first woman of his independent self-selection.... Good-by? The word she had used was too final—too downright Montanan. Although far from a linguist, as had been impressed upon him during his late jaunt overseas, he had learned from the French people to prefer the pleasanter possibilities of their substitute—of au revoir.
As to when and where he should see her again—The shrug of his shoulders said plainly as words, “Quién sabe?” The lift of his hair in the street breeze caused him to realize his bare-headed state. A thought of the precipitation with which he had left both hat and coat on his hundred-fifty-simoleon hook brought a flash of Irene and the outraged glance she had cast toward his departure. She had said that she “doted” on all Westerners. Perhaps if he returned to the Harford box on the legitimate errand of bidding his new acquaintances a ceremonious good-night she might come to dote on him enough in the course of another half hour or so to invite him to that supper which——
In the vacuum left by the sudden withdrawal of the evening’s chief distraction, he gave up for a moment to his pedal agony. He’d a heap rather return at once to his hotel, where he could take off his new shoes. At least he could loosen the buttons of the patent pincers. This he stooped to do, but never did.
Lying beside the curb to which, from his stand in the street, he had lifted the more painful foot, was something that interested him—something small, white, crumpled. The overbearing Miss Lauderdale must have dropped it in her violent effort to shove him from the running-board. Had her flash of fury toward him been as sincere as it had sounded? Had she left him the note, whether consciously or sub, by way of suggestion? Under urge of such undeveloped possibilities, Pape strode to the nearest light and smoothed out the crumpled sheet. It bore an engraved address in the eight-hundreds of Fifth Avenue, and read:
Jane, dear:—Have just discovered the wall-safe open. That antique tabatière you entrusted to my care is gone. I can’t understand, but fear we have been robbed. Don’t frighten Irene or the others, but do come home at once. Tamo will be waiting for you with the car. Please hurry.
Aunt Helene.
So! She had been robbed of some trinket, the very threat of whose loss had stopped the blood in her veins. Perhaps her predicament was his opportunity to advance a good start. He had all details of the case literally in hand, down to the engraved house address.
Jane had proved herself the honest sort he liked in acknowledging that first, probably involuntary invitation of her eyes. At least it had been the invitation of Fate. Was this the second—her second?
Why not find out—why not?
CHAPTER VII—THE EMERGENCY MAN
“Sixty-fourth and Central Park East. Otherwise Fifth Avenue, boss.” The driver of the pink-and-gray made the announcement through the open window behind the wheel seat as he drew up at the park-side curb. “Where away, now?”
“Nowhere away. We’ve arrived. How much says the clock?”
“Dollar twenty—to you.” The overcharge was committed with the usual stress of favoring the fare.
Why-Not Pape reached across with two green singles. “Keep the bonus, friend robber. Likely you need it more than I. If you’ve any scruples, though, you can overcome ’em by telling me what building that is, the dingy one with the turrets, back among the park trees.”
“Arsenal they calls it. Police station.”
Succinct as his service, the licensed highwayman of city streets stepped on the gas and was off to other petty pilfering. Police stations and overcharges probably did not seem suitable to him on the same block.
“The Arsenal, eh?” Pape queried himself. “Ain’t the Arsenal where Pudge O’Shay threatened to take me to tea the afternoon Dot polkaed up those sacred rocks to the block-house?”
He crossed the oily asphalt, smeared with the spoor of countless motor vehicles; turned south a few steps; half way between Sixty-fourth and Sixty-third streets located the eight-hundred-odd number in which