The Cinema Murder Part 16

"You're going to like me better," he a.s.sured her, "because we are going to have a c.o.c.ktail together within the next three minutes. Look at you--pale as you can stick. I bet you haven't had a mouthful of food all day. Neither have I, except a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter with my tea this morning. We're a nice sort of couple to talk about clothes. What we want is food."

She swayed for a moment and pretended that she tripped. He caught her arm and steadied her. She jerked it from him.

"Have your own way," she yielded.

They reached the corner of the street, plunged into the surging crowds of Broadway, pa.s.sed into the huge restaurant, were once more pounced upon by a businesslike but slightly patronizing maitre d'hotel, and escorted to a remote table in a sort of annex of the room. Philip pushed the menu away.

"Two c.o.c.ktails--the quickest you ever mixed in your life," he ordered.

"Quicker than that, mind."

The man was back again almost at once with two frosted gla.s.ses upon a tray. They laughed together almost like children as they set them down empty.

"I know what I want, and you, too, by the look of you," he continued--"a beefsteak, with some more of that green corn you gave me the other day, and fried potatoes, and Burgundy. We'll have some oysters first while we wait."

She sighed.

"I don't mean to come here with you again," she said, a little impatiently. "I don't know why I give in to you. You're not strong, you know. You are a weak man. Women will always look after you; they'll always help you in trouble--I suppose they'll always care for you. Can't think why I do what you want me to. Guess I was near starving."

He laughed.

"You don't know much about me yet," he reminded her.

"You don't know much about yourself," she retorted glibly. "Why, according to your own confession, you only started life a few weeks ago.

I fancy what went before didn't count for much. You've been fretted and tied up somewhere. You haven't had the chance of getting big like so many of our American men. What are you going to do with this play of yours?"

"Miss Elizabeth Dalstan has promised to produce it," he told her.

She looked at him in some surprise.

"Elizabeth Dalstan?" she repeated. "Why, she's one of our best actresses."

"I understood so," he replied. "She has heard the story--in fact I wrote out one of the scenes with her. She is going to produce it as soon as it's finished."

"Well, all you poor idiots who write things have some fine tale to tell their typewriter," she remarked. "You seem as though you mean it, though.

Where did you meet Elizabeth Dalstan?"

"I came over with her on the _Elletania_," he answered thoughtlessly.

She gave a little start. Then she turned upon him almost in anger.

"Well, of all the simpletons!" she exclaimed. "So that's the way you give yourself away, is it? Just here from Jamaica, eh! Nothing to do with Douglas Romilly! Never heard of the _Elletania_, did you! I'd like to see you on the grid at police headquarters for five minutes, with one of our men asking you a few friendly questions! You'd look well, you would! You ought to go about with a nurse!"

Philip had all the appearance of a guilty child.

"You see," he explained penitently, "I am new to this sort of thing.

However, you know now."

"Still ready to swear that you're not Douglas Romilly, I suppose?"

"On my honour I am not," he replied.

"Kind of funny that you should have been on the steamer, after all," she jeered.

"Perhaps so, but I am not Douglas Romilly," he persisted.

She was silent for a moment, then she shrugged her shoulders.

"What do I care who your are?" she said. "Here, help me off with this raincoat, please. It's warm in here, thank goodness!"

He looked at her as she sat by his side in her plain black dress, and was impressed for the first time with a certain unsuspected grace of outline, which made him for the moment oblivious of the shabbiness of her gown.

"You have rather a nice figure," he told her with a sudden impulse of ingenuousness.

She turned upon him almost furiously. Something in his expression, however, seemed to disarm her. She closed her lips again.

"You are nothing but a child!" she declared. "You don't mean anything.

I'd be a fool to be angry with you."

The waiter brought their steak. Philip was conscious of something in his companion's eyes which almost horrified him. It was just that gleam of hungry desire which has starvation for its background.

"Don't let's talk," he pleaded. "There isn't any conversation in the world as good as this."

The waiter served them and withdrew, casting a curious glance behind.

They were, from his point of view, a strange couple, for, cosmopolitan though the restaurant was, money was plentiful in the neighbourhood, and clients as shabby as these two seldom presented themselves. He pointed them out to a maitre d'hotel, who in his turn whispered a few words concerning them to a dark, lantern-jawed man, with keen eyes and a hard mouth, who was dining by himself. The latter glanced at them and nodded.

"Thank you, Charles," he said, "I've had my eye on them. The girl's a pauper, daughter of that old fool Grimes, the actor. Does a little typewriting--precious little, I should think, from the look of her. The man's interesting. Don't talk about them. Understand?"

The maitre d'hotel bowed.

"I understand, Inspector. Not much any one can tell you, sir."

"Pays his bill in American money, I suppose?" the diner asked.

"I'll ascertain for you, Mr. Dane," Charles replied. "I believe he is an Englishman."

"Name of Merton Ware," the inspector agreed, nodding, "just arrived from Jamaica. Writes some sort of stuff which the girl with him typewrites.

That's his story. He's probably as harmless as a baby."

Charles bowed and moved away. His smile was inscrutable.

CHAPTER V

New York became a changed city to Philip. Its roar and its turmoil, its babel of tongues speaking to him always in some alien language, were suddenly hushed! He was no longer conscious of the hard unconcern of a million faces, of the crude buildings in the streets, the cutting winds, the curious, depressing sense of being on a desert island, the hermit clutching at the sleeves of imaginary mult.i.tudes. A few minutes' journey in a cable car which seemed to crawl, a few minutes' swift walking along the broad thoroughfare of Fifth Avenue, where his feet seemed to fall upon the air and the pa.s.sersby seemed to smile upon him like real human beings, and he was in her room. It was only an hotel sitting room, after all, but eloquent of her, a sitting room filled with great bowls of roses, with comfortable easy-chairs, furniture of rose-coloured satin, white walls, and an English fire upon the grate. Elizabeth was in New York, and the world moved differently.

She came out to him from an inner room almost at once. His eyes swept over her feverishly. He almost held his breath. Then he gave a great sigh of satisfaction. She came with her hands outstretched, a welcoming smile upon her lips. She was just as he had expected to find her. There was nothing in her manner to indicate that they had not parted yesterday.

"Welcome to New York, my dramatist!" she exclaimed. "I am here, you see, to the day, almost to the hour."