Persons Unknown

  CHAPTER I

  HERRICK PAYS A CALL, AND THE TEA IS SPILT

  Herrick had written on his card, "Forgive what must seem an intrusion. Iam asking your time on a matter of business, but I'm afraid I must callit a personal matter, too." After the maid had taken it, he suffered theterrors of considering this message at once pretentious and tooemotional and in the worst possible taste.

  Christina's little reception-room was a delicate miracle of Spartanwhite, with a few dark gleams of slender formal mahogany shapes and acouple of water-colors in white frames. On a little table a broad,shallow bowl was filled with marigolds. Herrick had time for a second'scharmed curiosity at the presence of the little country flowers, andthen, from the floor above, he heard a low cry.

  Instinctively, he stepped into the hall, and there came Christina,flying down the stairs.

  "Oh, Mr. Herrick," she called out to him. "Have you any news?" And then,"Please don't hesitate. I can bear it! I can't bear suspense!"

  "News?" he queried.

  "Of Nancy!"

  He cursed himself for not having known that that would be her firstthought. "I'm sorry and ashamed, Miss Hope. I've no news of her at all."

  Christina's legs gave way under her, and she sat down on the stairs.

  Herrick's chagrin and discomfiture were extreme. She paid no furtherattention to him. Dropping her head on her clenched hands, "Oh! Oh! Oh!"she said.

  Mrs. Hope came out of a room at the back, and, passing Herrick with aslittle ceremony as even her daughter had displayed, caught hold ofChristina's wrists and shook her sharply.

  "Christina!" she exclaimed. "Christina! Now, there has been quite enoughof this!"

  Christina did not seem to resent this summary treatment. She began tosob more quietly, until she suddenly burst forth, "Where is she, then?Can you tell me that? Where is she?"

  "I don't care where she is!" cried poor Mrs. Hope. "Or, at least, nowyou know very well what I mean, my dear. I can't have you going on inthis hysterical way all the time, when you've rehearsals to attend to.Nancy probably went away to get out of all the disagreeable notorietythat you've got into. And I'm sure she's very well off."

  "Where is she, then?" Christina wailed. She seemed to have anextraordinary capacity for sticking to her point. "With all the policein New York looking for her, where is she?"

  "Well, she hasn't been murdered, as you seem to think! If she had been,she'd be found. If people kill people, they have to do something withtheir bodies! But if people are alive, they can do something withthemselves!"

  Christina shuddered.

  "Now, my dear," said her mother, "it's very high time that we apologizedto Mr. Herrick, who must think us mad. But let me tell you this. I amnot going to have you go on the stage in a month looking like your ownghost and all unstrung. I'm not going to have the play ruined by you,and have you turn Mr. Wheeler and all of them into your enemies. Itwould be better for them to get some one else. You don't sleep, youwon't eat, and you sit brooding all the time, as if you were looking atnightmares. Well, if you don't get some kind of hold over yourselfwithin the next day or two, I shall tell Mr. Wheeler that you arenervously unfit to be entrusted with a part, and I am taking you away."

  Christina sat for an appreciable time without moving. Then she slowlylifted her face and smiled at Herrick with her wet eyes. "We havetreated you to a strange scene," she said. "It is our bad hour.But--sometimes--we can be really nice." She held out her hand. Then,becoming aware of herself sitting on the steps, and of her mother andHerrick standing before her, "'Have we no chears?'" she quoted; and,springing up, she led the way into the little white room.

  Herrick found that it was only he who followed her there. Mrs. Hope,having dealt with the emergency, had again retreated; evidently feelingthat Christina, even in tears, was quite capable of entertaining a youngman single handed.

  But when he was seated near her, Herrick was shocked by the girl'sappearance. It was not only that her face was worn with anxiety, butthat, in twenty-four hours, she seemed actually to have lost flesh. Thelovely outline of her cheek was sunken and the jaw sharpened; if it werepossible to be paler than she had been yesterday, she was paler now. Shelooked so fine and light and frail that it seemed as if the beating ofher heart must show through her body, and all during the talk thatfollowed, Herrick had the sense of her bright, still eyes beingconcentrated in expectation,--almost, as it were, in listening,--throughher thick, wet lashes; the gentle wildness of some woodland animallistens so for the moving of a twig. She was dressed in white serge witha knot of the marigolds in her belt, and they seemed like a kind ofbright wound in the tragic pallor of her weariness.

  The cause of his visit seemed more than ever an impertinence, but itmust be faced, and he began to stumble out the story of his Sundayspecial.

  "There's the old argument that it must be done by somebody. Only, ofcourse, without your sanction, it will never be done by me. I'veventured to bring it to you," said he, guiltily producing the articlewhich he had sat up all night to typewrite. "If I might, I'd leave ithere, and the maid could give it to me when I called for it--you wouldonly have had to run your pencil through anything that distressed you. Iknow how distasteful the idea--the horribly melodramatic and sensationalidea--must be to you--"

  "Oh, well, I don't know that I joined a profession so retiring as allthat!" Christina said, and she held out her hand for the manuscript. Sheseemed to weigh this for a moment, and then she handed it back toHerrick unopened. "No,--say what you please of me. It is sure to be onlytoo good. Well, and if not?--What does it matter?" She closed her eyes,and the terrible fatigue of her face brought him to his feet. At thesame time, he knew his story was amazingly good, and, despite histremors, he couldn't help wanting her to read it.

  "But--" he ventured.

  "Well, then, I will tell you what we can do--give it to my mother. Youwill need it at once? She can have read it by tea-time. You may be quiteeasy that if there is anything in it which can injure me I shall breakthe news to you, over your tea-cup, that it is in ashes. Will thatdo?--Ada," she said to the maid, "please take this in to my mother andask her to read it at once. She's alone, isn't she?"

  "Please, ma'am, Mrs. Deutch is with her."

  "Then they can both read it."

  Herrick expressed his thanks and added, "About five, then, I may comeback?"

  Christina opened her eyes full on him; glancing from the portieres tothe softly curtained windows between which they two were completelyalone, "Is it so terrible here?" she inquired.

  Herrick sat down.

  She waited for him to speak and he had something on his conscience. Hetold her, then and there, about the voice in his dream which had said tohim, "Ask Nancy Cornish!" The little nerves in her skin trembled and he,too, felt a superstitious thrill. "But I must suppose, now, that Ididn't dream it at all. Some one in that room must have called itout--perhaps when they saw her card on the piano. I was in a prettyfidgety state,--to speak grandly, an electric state,--and, being just onthe sensitive borderline between sleeping and waking, I suppose I simplyhappened to catch it--like a wireless at sea."

  "Ask Nancy Cornish!" Christina repeated. "Ask Nancy--ah, if we could!What kind of voice was it? Should you recognize it, do you think, if youheard it again?"

  "How could I? I'm scarcely even sure that I heard a voice."

  "Only that you heard a shot and had to help! And didn't it occur to youthat it might have been the woman who fired? I see--you don't think ofwomen in that way. The reason I didn't ask you, yesterday, to callhere," Christina volunteered, "was that I didn't want you to come."

  She made this rude announcement with an effect of such good faith thatHerrick laughed, "Ah, well, it's too late for that! I'm here!"

  "Exactly! But not through me. My friends come to no good, Mr.Herrick--they are parted from me by a trouble as wide as the world, orelse--" She put one hand over her eyes. "What is it?--a curse, adarkness?--I don't know! It's like a trap! It's as if vengeance baited acircle wit
h me and, whenever a kindness advanced toward me, the trapfell. Even my poor Herr Hermy, who lost his picture-shop with the plushcurtains, may lose his superintendency because I sent Mr. Ingham to hishouse. You would do better to take my word; to believe me when I tellyou that somehow I bring danger. What have I done? What does it mean? Ican't tell you. It's always been so. I'm like some bird that brings thestorm on its wings, it doesn't know why. Life's hard for me, that'sall." She pushed up her hair with the backs of her hands,--the quaintlittle gesture that he loved. "But what use is there in saying all thisto frighten you. Something tells me you will never be afraid. Well,then, if you come here against my will, is that my fault? You do wish tobefriend me? Isn't that true?"

  "It's the biggest truth in my life," Herrick replied.

  "You see. I, who am so unlucky, what am I to do? If ever a poor girlneeded a friend, I am that girl. But I don't dare let you touch my need.I don't know what it may do to you."

  Herrick answered her with a smile--"And I don't care."

  She, too, smiled. It began to be borne in upon Herrick how great, whenshe chose to exercise it, was her self-control. She could talk to himwith one part of her mind while the other was still listening, peering,questing, trembling for some fatal news. And he was suddenly aware ofher murmuring--

  "'Vous qui m'avez tant puni, Dans ma triste vie--'"

  "Well, then," she said, "if you must,--I want something. Not protection,not pity, not championship; I'm a little in your own line, you know, I'mnot easily frightened.

  "'Je suis aussi sans desir Autre que d'en bien finir-- Sans regret, sans repentir--'

  "I don't know if you read Peter Ibbetson?"

  "Raised on it!" Herrick said.

  "Well, then, you understand things--I don't mean merely his Frenchsongs! And that is exactly what I want--to be quite simply and sensiblyand decently understood! I am a more successful actress than yourealize, you backward Easterners, and I am treated like a goddess, a badchild, a sibyl, an adventuress, a crazy woman. I should like to speaknow and then with some one who knew that I was nothing but a lonely girlwith some brains in her head, who often took herself too seriously andsometimes, alas! not seriously enough; who was capricious and perversebut not a coward, and oh, who meant so well! Such a person wouldsometimes say, 'She was silly to-day, but by this time she is ashamed.She had a strange girlhood and they taught her very bad manners, but sheis not a fool and she will learn.' Well, I will not have any commonperson thinking like that about me! It takes an artist to understand anartist! You think me very arrogant to speak like that of you and me,because, at the bottom of your heart, you have the arrogance of all theworld--you do not admit that an actress really is an artist! Wait alittle, and you shall own that I am one. At any rate, I know a bit ofother people's art; it's my pride I was among the first to be made happyby yours--and oh, but I could do very well with a friend I could beproud of!"--It was not very long before he had embarked upon the historyof his novel.

  He went on and on; he explained to her Ten Euyck's thrust about thephotograph; he told her of Evadne and of Sal. The first thing she saidto him was--"Is there a play in it?"

  "I tried it as a play first, but--"

  "Oh, surely, the novel's better first! You can get it all out of yoursystem in the novel, and then we could drain it of the pure gold for myend of it--for the play! You'd never sell it over my head! Why, I couldhave you up,--couldn't I?--for plagiarism! Do you know how you can keepme agreeable? Bring it to me here, when my rehearsals are over, and readit to me--it will please me and it can do you no harm. If you find mestupid, say to yourself, 'She is drunk with pleasure, poor thing, atwhat I have made of her.' Oh, you'd never have the heart to publish myportrait, and not let me see the proof!"

  The compact was concluded as the maid entered with the tea things. Mrs.Hope came in radiant. She began to thank Herrick for his article, andChristina said, "Where is Mrs. Deutch?"

  "She is in the sitting-room. She says she must go home."

  Christina went and parted the portieres and Herrick heard her speakingwith a kind of sweet authority in German, of which he caught thephrase--"Yes, you will stay! You will certainly stay!" She waited theretill her friend joined her, and then, returning, she took charge of thetea-table.

  Henrietta Deutch was a large, handsome woman of about forty-five, toostout, but of a matronly dignity; her beautiful coloring was blendedinto a smooth, rich surface as foreign-looking as lacquer. So far as hewas capable of perceiving anything but Christina, Herrick perceived thatnot only her physical but her social stature was higher than herhusband's; she was neither ignorant nor fussy; she was a person of largesilences, as well, he imagined, as of grave sympathies; for her age shewas, to an American, strangely old-fashioned but, despite her addictionto black silk and the incessant knitting of white woolen clouds, shehad, in her continental youth, received an excellent formal education"with accomplishments."

  "Tante Deutch," said Christina, "this is our new friend, Mr. Herrick,who stood up for us against that man."

  The little maid continued to throw out signals of distress and Mrs.Hope, going to her relief, was heard to say, "Well, she'll use herwhite one." She explained to Christina, "It's only about laying out yourthings for to-night. She can't find your blue cloak--you know, the longone with the hood--"

  "I am very glad to know you, sir," said Mrs. Deutch. "Christina, mylamb, you are ill!"

  "No, I am not ill. But I am distracted. Sugar, Mr. Herrick? Lemon? Myhand shakes and if the coroner were here he would say it was with guilt.Poor soul, what a disappointment!"

  "Christina!" exclaimed Mrs. Hope. "Don't laugh!"

  "I am not laughing. I think the man a dangerous enemy and now he is myenemy. He will never forgive me for letting him make himself ridiculous.He is too righteous to forget a grudge, for any one who earns such athing from the excellent Peter Winthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyckbecomes a criminal by that action. 'Winthrop.' Of course there had to bethe New England strain--he was born to wear a steeple hat and snoop forwitches! May he never light the faggots about me!"

  "Now, my dear, you are working yourself up!"

  "Dear mother, you are a bit hard to please! First you tell me not tolaugh and then you reproach me with working myself up! But you areright! Why should I fash myself over a man with a personality like apair of shears? Ah, if I could get news of Nancy, my hand would besteady enough!"

  "You'll have news of Nancy when she gets ready!" declared Mrs. Hope,with the maternal freedom of speech toward our dearest friends, "Anungrateful, stubborn, secretive girl!"

  "My mother," said Christina, "is enthusiastic but inaccurate. She meansthat Nancy is neither voluble nor impulsive, like the paragon beforeyou, and that though her affection is steady it is not easily dazzled.We have been friends scarcely more than four years--since she made herfirst five dollars a week as part of a stage-mob--but I knew her atonce for the little real sister of my heart. I told you I'd always beena lonely girl, Mr. Herrick, and that soft, little touch came close on myloneliness, like a child's. I have succeeded and she has not; I am theworld's own daughter--I know the world and she does not; my hands arevery keen, believe me, for the power and the glory--after all, one musthave something!--and she can only put hers into mine. But where I amweak, she is strong. One can't ask one's family to forgive that!" saidChristina. And with a tempestuous swoop she handed him a photograph uponwhich, whether for newspapers or detectives, had been pasted somememoranda. "This is more to the point."

  He beheld a charming little face, fresh and pretty, quaintly feminine,with sensible and resolute brows to balance the wistfulness of the softmouth; a face at once grave and glad, with a deep dimple softening thestubborn little chin. Herrick, studying the memoranda, compared themwith his own vague memories and the photograph.

  Height, five feet, four inches.

  Weight, a hundred and twenty pounds.

  Age, twenty years.

  Complexion, fair.

  Hair, dark auburn and
curling.

  Eyes, blue.

  Wearing, when last seen, a white organdie dress with lace insertion;white shoes, stockings and gloves; small straw hat, dull green, trimmedwith violets; carried a white embroidered linen sunshade and a smallpurse-bag, green suede with silver monogram, "A. C." No jewelry of anyvalue. Wearing round her neck a string of green beads. Missing from hereffects and commonly worn by her, two bangle bracelets--one silver, onejade. One silver locket. One scarab ring, bluish-green Egyptianturquoise, set in silver. Last seen on West Eighty --th Street,walking east, at five o'clock in the afternoon of August fourth.

  It was now August seventh; she had been missing for three days.

  "Where is she?"

  "And I thought it strange enough, before the inquest, that I was in suchtrouble and didn't hear from her! Mother, you say she is hiding herself.But,--all alone? I have telegraphed and telephoned everywhere, to everyone! And then--does a girl throw down her work, her engagement, fornothing, without a syllable, and disappear! Her things are all at Mrs.McBride's; her bill for her room is still going on; she was to have goneout to an opening that night with Susie Grayce! She hadn't a valise withher, not a change of clothes! She turned east from Jim Ingham's doorway,and that's all!" Christina was beginning to lose control of herself; shelooked as if her teeth were going to chatter.

  "Now, my pretty--" began Mrs. Deutch.

  "Turned east?" ruminated Mrs. Hope. "East? That's toward the park. Shemight have been going to meet--Well, Christina!"

  For the hand which Christina had criticized as trembling had dropped thetea-pot. This must have dropped rather hard, for it broke to pieces.Everything was deluged with tea.

  "My sweeting!" cried Mrs. Deutch. "Move yet a little!" For she wasalready at work upon the disaster which was threatening Christina'swhite gown. The fragments of the wreck were cleared away, and whilefresh tea was being made Christina urged Mrs. Deutch to play "and get mequiet."

  "Yes, you will play. You will play for me and for Mr. Herrick. Mr.Herrick is not one of these deaf Yankees--don't you remember what hewrote about the music in Berlin?"

  "So!" said Mrs. Deutch. "In Berlin! Is it so!" She went seriously tothe piano where she executed some equally serious music with admirabletechnique and some feeling, but her performance was scarcely soremarkable as to account for Christina's extreme eagerness.

  When she had finished Herrick took himself unwillingly away, and wasstill so agitated by the sweetness of Christina's farewell that after hehad got himself into the hall he dropped his glove. The little maid whohad opened the door for him, let it slam as she sprang to pick up theglove, and at the closing of the door he heard Christina's voice breakhysterically forth, and rise above some remonstrance of her mother's.

  "Yes, you do. You spy on me, both of you."

  "But, my little one--" ejaculated Mrs. Deutch.

  "You spy on me, you whisper, you stare, you guess, you talk! Talk! Talk!And you remember nothing that I tell you! I shall go mad! I am amongspies in my own house!"

  Herrick quickened his petrified muscles and went. Even to hisinfatuation it occurred that whatever might have been the faults ofJames Ingham, Christina herself was a person with whom it would not betoo difficult to quarrel.