Persons Unknown

  CHAPTER XI

  KEEPING CHRISTINA OUT OF IT

  Daylight was in the streets when Herrick got to bed, sure he should notclose his eyes; then he was wakened only by the cries of the newsboysunderneath his windows, calling, as if it had been an extra--"InghamMurderer Arrested! Murderer Arrested! Popular Actor Arrested in theIngham Murder!"

  Herrick tumbled into his clothes and bought a paper on his way to a verylate breakfast at the Pilgrims', where he had a card. In the account ofthe arrest he himself figured as something between a police decoy and anaccomplice in crime, but Christina's midnight sally remained unknown andhe breathed freer. Now that she was to be kept out of it, he could butadmire the quiet good sense with which the police had gone about theirbusiness. While those more closely concerned had dashed and bewilderedthemselves against their own points of view like blind, flying beetles,the police had simply made haste to ascertain if Nancy Cornish had alover. She had been engaged to Denny; a recent coolness between them hadbeen common gossip; and, since Nancy's disappearance, their commonfriend, Christina Hope, had kept aloof from Denny, as though embracingher friend's quarrel or suspecting her friend's sweetheart. It nowtranspired for the first time that the police had dug further into thatevidence of Mrs. Willing's which Ten Euyck's eagerness to turn itagainst Christina had left undeveloped. Mrs. Willing had heard a man'svoice which she did not think to be Ingham's, call out loudly and veryclearly, "Ask--" somebody or something the name of which was unfamiliarto her, and which she had forgotten until later events had violentlyrecalled it--"Ask Nancy Cornish."

  Herrick did not read any further till he was seated and had given hisorder to a friendly waiter. There were some men at a table near him; itseemed to him that everybody in the room was talking of the arrest andas a matter of fact most of them were talking of it. He had an uneasydesire to know how Christina appeared in her own world's version. Butshe remained there the friend of Denny, and of the girl over whom Inghamand Denny must have quarreled. When he looked at the paper again, heread that on the night in question by no less a person than TheodoreBird, Denny had been seen to enter Ingham's apartment!

  Yes, the tremulous Theodore, despite his wife's particular instructionsthat he should keep out of it, had called at headquarters and deliveredup the fact that at one o'clock or thereabouts, when he was just on thepoint of retiring, he had heard what sounded like a ring at hisdoor-bell. But he had opened the door only a crack because the wiresbetween his apartment and Ingham's were apt to get crossed, and, indeed,this was what had happened in the present case. He had seen a manstanding there, at Ingham's door; and Theodore, safe behind his crack,his constitution being not entirely devoid of rubber, had taken a goodlook; had seen Ingham fling wide his door, and the stranger enter. Onbeing asked if he could identify this stranger, he said he was certainof it. Confronted with photographs of a dozen men he had unhesitatinglyselected Denny's.

  The police had delayed Denny's arrest in the hope of finding him incorrespondence with Nancy Cornish. Sure of their man, they had given himrope to hang himself. But Joe Patrick's recognition, which, at anymoment, he might reveal to the suspected man, had forced their hand.They did not add that until yesterday they had never connected Denny orNancy with the blackmailing letters, but Herrick now added it for them;and he saw how Nancy's message, with its suggestion of the girl's peril,had forced it, too.

  He deduced that, by the summer-house, they had not been able to overhearanything until Denny had gone to the doorway and Herrick had raised hisvoice. He read, finally, how, while Denny was changing for the street,after the performance, his dresser had managed to unload and reload therevolver. The number of the cartridge used in it was the same as that ofthe bullet taken from Ingham's body.

  Up to the last line of the article Herrick kept a hope that Denny hadgiven some clue of Nancy's whereabouts but the police were obliged toadmit that the young man had proved a mighty tough customer. "He hasundergone six hours of as stiff an examination as Inspector Corrigan hasever put a prisoner through and nothing whatever save the barest denialhas been got out of him. However, the Inspector is confident that in thenear future--" There was something in this last statement which madeHerrick slightly sick. He hoped Christina had not seen it.

  He understood well enough the weakness and blankness of Denny's accountof himself. The young man denied the murder much more definitely than hehad troubled himself to deny it to Herrick, but with the same listlesslack of hope and even of conviction. He made no secret of his havinggone to Ingham's room with the intention of shooting him, though heasserted that Ingham had proved false the story which had occasionedtheir quarrel and he had gone away again--that was all. Expect to bebelieved? Of course he didn't expect to be believed! On the reason oftheir quarrel he remained mute. To all further questions, such as whatother visitors Ingham had that night, he opposed the blankest,smoothest ignorance. And Herrick, filling out the blanks, was stillimpatient of the reticence which left it possible for any woman of themen's mutual acquaintance to be taken for the woman of the shadow. Noeffort for the good name of another woman justified to him the suspicionand the suffering that Christina had already been allowed to endure.Denny's guilt he did not and he could not doubt, but he might haverespected a guilt which, after so strong a provocation, had instantlygiven itself up. Such an avowal might have kept further silence with thehighest dignity and Herrick wondered why an actor, of all people, couldnot see that that would have been even the popular course. Then he heardanother actor, a much handsomer and more stalwart person, remark, "Ialways said, poor chap, that he hadn't the physique for a hero!"

  "Well," agreed a manager, solemnly, after every possible version of theaffair had been discussed, "what I've always said is--Strung on wires!He's the best in his own line, I don't deny it! You could have your starand your juvenile man tearing each other to pieces in the middle of thestage and he'd be down in a corner, with an eye on a crack, andeverybody'd be looking at him! But I've always said, and I say itagain--Strung on wires!" The manager seemed to think that this remarkmet the occasion fully at every point.

  And as the men became more and more excited in their talk, Herrickdiscovered that the very heart of their excitement was their sympathyfor Denny's own manager who would have to replace him by to-morrownight. Heaped all around lay this morning's papers, every one of themextolling Denny's performance of the night before, and little guessingwhat the next editions would bring forth; these fine notices made themanagement's position all the more difficult and the talkers all seemedto feel that it was very hard, after so expensive a production, thatDenny should get himself arrested for murder at such a moment.

  So that between this extremely business-like sympathy which suitedHerrick to perfection and his own desire that Christina should be keptout of it, he perceived that about the last person for whom any one wasexcited was Denny himself. He was congratulating himself that Mrs. Hopewas a person to keep distressing newspapers out of sight as long aspossible and that her daughter was sure to rise late on the morning ofthe night of nights when a boy brought him a 'phone message. "You'replease to go and ask to see Mr. Denny at Inspector Corrigan's office!"

  With somewhat restive promptitude Herrick obeyed. As he was shown intothe office the first person his eye lighted upon was Christina.