Lonesome Town Part 6

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 s.h.i.+ny, 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 sc.r.a.ping 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 subst.i.tute-of _au revoir_.

As to when and where he should see her again-The shrug of his shoulders said plainly as words, "_Quien 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 b.u.t.tons 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 _tabatiere_ 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."

"a.r.s.enal 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 a.r.s.enal, eh?" Pape queried himself. "Ain't the a.r.s.enal 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 he was interested. A brownstone house, not particularly distinguishable from its neighbors it was, entered by a flight of steps above an old-fas.h.i.+oned or "American" bas.e.m.e.nt. Noting that the ground floor was dark and the second and third illumined, he turned back across the Avenue and stopped in the shadow of the wall that bounds Central Park.

Between jerking into his hat and coat in full face of the astonishment of his own opera-box party and accomplis.h.i.+ng the trip up in the fewest possible minutes which could cover the roundabout traffic route prescribed during "theater hours" he had not found time to think out just what he was going to do when he arrived at his destination. Now that he was on the scene of his next impertinence, he appreciated that its success demanded a careful plan. His self-selected lady's dismissal of him had been so definite that he needed some tenable excuse for having followed her home. Stansbury caution warned him that an offer of a.s.sistance would, without doubt, be ignominiously spurned. But Pape initiative was in the saddle.

He had about decided on the most direct course-to rush up the steps, ring the bell, ask for her, tell her that he had come to give her the note and trust to subsequent events-when the front door of the house he was watching flew open. A hatless man bounded down to the sidewalk; straight as though following a surveyed line, headed for the entrance of the a.r.s.enal.

Pape stepped back and waited until the heavy on-comer was about to enter the park, then sprang out and blocked the way.

"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.

From surprise or alarm the man backed a step or two. "To-to the police station," he answered nervously.

"Why didn't you telephone? that would have been quicker. You seem in a h.e.l.l of a hurry."

"The wires are cut, sir."

"Who are you anyway?" Pape's demand was uttered with a note of authority.

"I am Jasper-the Sturgis' butler. Mrs. Sturgis has sent me to bring a detective."

With a short laugh Pape approved the born butler's habit of subordination. "You're in luck, Jasper. I'm the very man you're looking for. Lead me to the case."

His location-he well might have been coming from the Central Park station house-favored him. The a.r.s.enal could be seen a few yards within the wall. Although he had no s.h.i.+eld to show, nor named himself a sergeant of the Force, the butler seemed satisfied with the a.s.sertion and his own misconclusions. Dutifully, he led the way back to the house which he had quitted in such a hurry.

"This rus.h.i.+ng about gets me in the wind, sir," complained Jasper _en route_. "I fear I am growing a bit weighty. And what a comfort is the telephone. Things like that, sir, you never miss until they're gone. Ah, sir, excitement like this is bad for the heart."

Opening the door with a latch key, he conducted his find across the reception hall, up a broad flight of stairs and into a formally furnished drawing-room. From between wide doors, half opened into a room beyond, appeared a woman of medium height, whose looks made unnecessary any introduction as Irene's mother. If her mauve c.r.a.pe dress revealed rather too distinctly her plump outlines, it softened the middle-aged beauty of her face and toned with the magnificent grayish pearls she wore.

"Is this the detective, Jasper?" she asked, but did not await an answer.

"I'll ring when I want you again."

She turned to the stranger as the butler pa.s.sed out of the room. "Thank you for answering our call for help so promptly Mr. --"

"Pape, madam."