CHAPTER XVI
THE LAST SHADOW: "LEAVE ALL THAT TIES THY FOOT BEHIND AND FOLLOW, FOLLOWME!"
Oh, yes, the Italian proprietress cheerfully informed him, the parrothad been in the country with Maria Rosa and her great-aunt. Truly, thegreat-aunt was fond of the country, she was still there. When was hegoing to see Maria Rosa again? Oh, there, alas!--Maria Rosa had gonewith her father to the moving-picture show--
He could get no further and he feared to excite conjecture. He mightwaylay the little girl as she returned, but not too near the watchedhouse--nor was the idea of the father encouraging. Nevertheless, hebetook himself outside, turning toward Third Avenue where thepicture-shows flourished. About two blocks down the street he tookrefuge in the hole of a tobacconist, whose door stood open into the warmdusk. On the farther corner the bright blue interior of a delicatessenthat was also a fruit stand blazed hot with gas and, in exchange for abottle of oil, a child passed a coin over the counter. The gas gleamedon the child's face and Herrick crossed the street. Here was Maria Rosaand here the moving-picture show which she attended!
He stopped on the outside for some nuts and affected surprise when Mariaappeared. She accepted various delicacies and was freely chatty abouther country visit. Oh, she had been in a beautiful place; grass, trees,flowers--nothing of its whereabouts could be ascertained. Great-auntiehad lived there with old auntie--old auntie was her mama--when she wasa little girl no bigger than Maria Rosa! But they had gone often to agrand big place where Cousin Nick's office used to be in the basement.But the morning after they brought the sick lady the things for theoffice were all gone! Ah, the grand big place had made the greaterimpression, but ignorance had evidently been carefully preserved.Herrick tried the words "Waybridge" and "Benning's Point" to no avail.With "river" he was more successful. Did you go there by the boat?Apparently not. Finally it came out that you went there by the walk pastold auntie's house. And what pretty thing had she ever noticed about oldauntie's house? Eh? Come, now? What did she like best?
"The marble kitties with wings."
The marble--
A child had dropped an address, after all!
Herrick, reaching into his pocket for a time table, had discovered atrain for Benning's Point at eight-fifteen when, hearing his name heturned; beyond the now hurrying figure of Maria Rosa Joe Patrick wasadvancing toward him.
The boy came up hastily, extending an envelope addressed to Herrick inMrs. Deutch's hand. As he took it he saw that Joe was brimming with somecommunication. "I saw you from down street. She sent for me an' says tobring you this. I was lookin' for you when I met Mr. Ten Euyck and hesaid the place to find you was around here."
"Touche!" Herrick said to himself. Even at that moment he vouchsafed anadmiring smile to Ten Euyck's able conveying of a taunt.
"Mr. Herrick?"
"Yes, Joe."
"I got to get right back in time for the theayter. But I'd like to speakto you a minute."
"Walk back toward the Square with me."
"It's something I been worried about telling for days an' now I'm goin'to. I mean--Mr. Herrick, I wouldn't tell it to anybody but a friend o'hers! But I make out that it's right to tell it to you.--You rememberthat night out to Riley's?"
"Yes."
"An' the shadder the chaufers seen?"
"Yes?"
"I was there. My cousin Sweeney sent for me, an' my uncle an' me comeout together. As we come into the yard--that toon--you know! There wasthe shadder--I seen it, too! And another man seen it an' skipped up thesteps an' went inside. Me after him! An' before he'd got in, hardly, outhe bounced with a lady. That lady wasn't no Mrs. Riley, Mr. Herrick. Itwas--_her_!"
"You've seen the moving-picture?"
"Yes, sir."
"And this gesture was the same?"
"Yes, sir."
"So that you thought you saw Miss Hope's shadow?"
"I know I did, sir."
"Wait. This gentleman, had you ever seen him before?"
"No, I never laid eyes on him."
"He went right into the room?"
"Popped right in as if he lived there!"
"And came out with Miss Hope?"
"Yes, sir."
"How was she dressed?"
"She had on a long coat an' a fussed up hat o' Mrs. Riley's."
"And no one else saw them?"
"No, sir. They run down the back-stairs as everybody come up thefront."
"She was willing to go with him, then? He wasn't forcing her?"
"Well, you bet he wasn't! She was hangin' right on to him!"
"What was your idea of the whole business?"
"I thought mebbe she done it for a signal to him when to come in."
"Now, Joe, don't you believe that--it being, as you say, done soquick--and you having just seen this shadow which you had taken for MissHope's, you might have imagined it was she who came out with this man?"
"No, Mr. Herrick. I was at the door when they come out. I saw her faceclear. I didn't make no mistake this time."
"And you didn't follow?"
"No, sir. Because--because--Oh, Mr. Herrick, she seen me as plain as Isee you an' she smiled at me!"
Herrick paused with a threatening cry. "Why didn't you speak to her,then? Why didn't you tell--"
"Because, Mr. Herrick, when she opened her eyes wide and smiled at me,that way, she put her finger to her lips! Oh, Mr. Herrick, I ain't evertold a soul but you!"
She put her finger to her lips! Secret she had ever been, and there wasanother way in which Christina had never failed. She had never failed,in any stress of change or chance, to seize the measure of a devotionand use it to its hilt.
She smiled and put her finger to her lips! She pleased herself, then!She was free! She came and went at her own pleasure! Secretly, withcompanions of her choice! While he, in the room below--That night, too!That night of the road and the fields, of Denny and the yellow house!
Bitterness mastered him. An indifference like the indifference of sleepsomehow wearied him to the bone. After Joe's departure, when he stoppedunder a street-lamp to open Mrs. Deutch's letter, he scarcely cared whatit contained.
"--When you were not at home he sent this to me. Think you for yourselfthe meaning for it. What in myself I believed and prayed, thatafternoon, now in person have I ascertained. Christina was born in thiscity of New York; she was baptized in the same month in the Church ofthe Holy Service, April 17, 1892."
He unfolded Gabrielli's cablegram:
Girl you inquire of victimized family named Hope, in America. They livedat Naples 1886. Record daughter born to Hopes, Allegra, not Christina,1886. Died 1889.
The Hopes had had a child, that died three years before Christina wasborn! What was the meaning in the case of this dead baby? And ifChristina was Mrs. Pascoe's child, what had the death of Allegra Hope todo with her? How could she have passed herself off on the Hopes for adead child six years older than herself? He knew that somewhere in hisaching brain the answer quivered to spring forth, when--at about thetime when the Italians started with their prisoner from the garage--anopen taxi hesitated at the corner nearest to the table d'hote and thenspun on without stopping. As it passed under the lamp Herrick was justleaving, a veiled lady rose in it to her tall height and pulled on along, light coat. And all the pulses in his body stopped as though theyhad been stricken dead. For his eyes had recognized Christina.