In And Out Part 32

"Yes!"

"And you remained!" finished Johnson Boller's better half. "Where is she?"

"She isn't here now!" came almost automatically from Anthony.

Once more Beatrice laughed.

"Isn't she, though?" said she. "That sort doesn't leave a twenty-dollar hat behind, Mr. Fry--nor a bag worth perhaps five times as much. She had moved in quite cozily, hadn't she? If I hadn't appeared, her trunk would have been along--or perhaps it is here now? If I hadn't----" Mrs. Boller continued, and her voice broke as the unearthly calm splintered and departed.

"_Where is she?_" And, her whole mien altering in an instant, Mrs.

Boller's hands clenched tightly and her face flamed with outraged fury.

"_Where is she?_"

Johnson Boller looked around wildly and helplessly.

"I tell you, she isn't here!" he began. "You see----"

"And I tell you that that's a lie!" said his wife. "I'll find her, and when I _do_ find her, Johnson Boller, some one will pay on the spot for the home I've lost! Do you hear? I'll suffer--suffer for it, perhaps!

_But she'll pay!_"

The Spanish grandmother had risen in Beatrice and declared herself!

Cold-blooded a.s.sa.s.sination shook the air of Anthony's apartment. His head spun; he wondered hysterically if there would be much screaming before it was all over--if the police and the Lasande employees would break in before the ghastly finish of the affair. There would be just one finish, and it was written in those flaming eyes, written more clearly than any print!

And afterward? Well, there would be no afterward for Anthony. He understood that perfectly, yet he was too numb to grieve just now.

Fifteen minutes after the worst had happened, the Lasande would present him with a check covering the balance of his lease and would request him to go: such was the procedure here and it had proved court-proof.

Although he could afford to laugh at them. He had merely to sit down and wait until the news had traveled a bit; Mary's father or Robert Vining would attend to the rest--and there would be the end of Anthony Fry's stately, contented existence.

Beatrice was gone!

Flaming eyes, heaving bosom, pathetic little hat--all had vanished together, but they had vanished down the corridor, and life leaped suddenly through Anthony's veins. Even now there was a chance--faint and forlorn, but still a chance to save Mary's life at least! He turned, did Anthony Fry, just as Johnson Boller flew after his demented spouse, and glided into Johnson Boller's bedroom.

Mary, very white indeed, was waiting for him.

"Where is she now?" she panted.

"You heard?"

"Of course I heard!"

"Miss Mary," said Anthony, "I'm afraid that the time has come when we'll have to stop planning and act. The lady is--er--essentially crazy just now. It is painful enough, but you'll have to leave as you are. Yes, even without a hat, for she has that. Simply leave!"

"And if I'm recognized?"

"It is unavoidable."

Mary stamped her foot.

"Well, it isn't, and I think you're the stupidest old man I ever knew!"

she said flatteringly, as she sped to the closet. "Here! Give me a hand with it!"

"With what?"

"The wardrobe trunk, of course. I've been looking at it and trying to get it open, but I cannot do it in there. I'm going out in that trunk!"

"Eh?" said Anthony, tugging at it quite stupidly.

"Open it!" Mary commanded.

Anthony opened it.

"Yes, there's room and to spare, if you'll take out those drawers and things!" the girl said quickly. "No! Pile them in the closet neatly; she'll look in there! Now, about your man; is he strong?"

"Very, I believe."

"Get him here, quick!" said Mary.

She seemed to have taken matters into her own hand; more, she seemed to know what she was about. Anthony, after an instant of blank staring, pushed four times on the b.u.t.ton of Johnson Boller's room, which signal indicated that Wilkins was needed in a hurry.

Some four or five seconds they stood, breathing hard, both of them, and listening for the sounds of disaster which might echo any minute from the corridor. They had not echoed when Wilkins appeared.

"You! Wilkins is your name?" Mary said. "Wilkins, I'm going to get into the trunk! Have you grasped that?"

"Why--yes, Miss!"

"And you, instantly, are going to take the trunk, with me in it, to my home--you know where that is? You don't, of course. Well, load the trunk into a taxi and tell the man to go across to West End Ave!"

"And the corner of Eighty--th Street!" Anthony supplied.

"Exactly!" said the girl. "Go to the side door and take in the trunk, through the yard, of course, and say it is for Felice--Felice Moreau, my maid? Have you the name, Wilkins?"

"Felice Moreau, miss. Yes, miss," said the blunderer.

"And then take it to her room and get out!" Mary concluded. "Don't lock the thing. Load it into the back of the cab with yourself and try to get it open a little so that I'll have air, when we've started!"

Saying which, Mary Dalton, who knew a really desperate situation when she saw one, and who also inherited much of her father's superb executive ability in a genuine emergency--Mary gathered her skirts and stepped into the trunk, huddling down as prettily and gracefully as if it had been rehea.r.s.ed for weeks!

She looked at Wilkins, and Wilkins, with a sweep, had closed the lid; and with a great emotional gulp Wilkins looked at his master and said:

"_My eye_, sir! A bit of all right, that, Mr. Fry!"

Anthony Fry nodded quickly and thrust several bills into his hand.

"Don't stand there talking about it!" he said. "Get your hat and hustle, Wilkins! Take the first taxi you see and--and handle her gently! Felice Moreau, Wilkins--remember that."

"I shall, indeed, sir!" said the faithful one; and, delicate consideration in every finger, he lifted the trunk and walked into the living-room, while Anthony Fry held his breath and followed every move with fascinated eyes.

Through the room, then, went Wilkins and trunk together and to the door.

The sober black felt affair he had used these three years was on Wilkins's head now, and he lugged the trunk onward--turned in the outer hall and lugged it to the freight elevator--and now, as Anthony watched from the doorway of his lately peaceful home, onto the freight elevator.