CHAPTER XII
DORIS TAKES A JOURNEY
Within five minutes he was in the studio building across the square,frantically punching the elevator bell. Outwardly he showed no signs ofthe anxiety that racked him, but presented to Sam, when thatappreciative youth stopped his elevator at the ground floor, thesartorial perfection which Sam always vastly admired and sometimesdreamed of imitating. But for such perfection Sam had no eyes to-day.
At this early hour--it was not much more than half-past eight--he hadbrought down only two passengers, and no one but Laurie was waiting forthe upward journey. When the two tenants of the building had walked farenough toward its front entrance to be out of ear-shot, Sam graspedLaurie's arm and almost dragged him into the car. As he did so, hehissed four words.
"She gone, Mist' Devon!"
"Gone! Where? When?"
Laurie had not expected this. He realized now that he should have doneso. His failure to take in the possibility of her going was part of hisinfernal optimism, of his inability even now to take her situation atits face-value. Sam was answering his questions:
"'Bout eight, jes' after Henry went and I come on. An aut'mobile stop infront de do', an' dat man wid de eyes he come in. I try stop him fumtakin' de car, but he push me on one side an' order me up, like he wasWilson hisself. So I took him to de top flo'. But when we got dere an'he went to Miss Mayo's do', I jes' kep' de car right dere an' watchhim."
"Good boy! What happened?"
"He knock an' nuffin' happen. Den he call out, 'Doris, Doris,' jes' likedat, an' she come an' talk to him; but she didn't open de do'."
"Could you hear what else he said?"
"No, sah. After dat he whisper to her, hissin' like a snake."
Laurie set his teeth. Even Sam felt the ophidian in Shaw.
"Go on," he ordered.
"Den I reckon Miss Mayo she put on a coat, an' dat man wait. I t'oughthe was gwine leave, an' I sho' was glad. But he stood dere, waitin' an'grinnin' nuff to split his haid."
Laurie recognized the grin.
"'Bout two-three minutes she come out," Sam went on. "She had a big furcoat an' a veil on. She look awful pale, an' when dey got in de el'vatorshe didn' say a word. Dey wasn' nobody else in de car, an' it seem lak Icouldn't let her go off no-how, widout sayin' somethin'. So I say, 'Yougwine away, Miss Mayo?' De man he look at me mighty cold an' hard, an'she only nod."
"Didn't she speak at all?"
"No, sah. She ain't say a word. She jes' stood stiff an' still, an' hetook her out to de car, an' dey bofe got in."
"Was it a limousine, a closed car?"
"Yaas, sah."
"Did the man himself drive it?"
"No, sah. He sat inside wid Miss Mayo. The man what drove it wasyounger."
"What did he look like?"
"I couldn't see much o' him. He had a big coat on, an' a cap. But hishair was yallah."
Laurie recognized the secretary.
"Which way did they go?"
"East."
They were standing on the top landing by this time, and Laurie strodeforward.
"I'll take a look around her rooms. Perhaps she left some message."
Sam accompanied him, and though he had not desired this continuedcompanionship, Laurie found a certain solace in it. In his humble waythis black boy was Doris's friend. He was doing his small part now tohelp her, if, as he evidently suspected, there was something sinister inher departure.
Entering the familiar studio, Laurie looked around it with a pang.Unlike the quarters of Shaw, it remained unchanged. The room, facingnorth as it did, looked a little cold in the early light, but it wasstill stamped with the impress of its former occupant. The flowers hehad given her only yesterday hung their heads in modest welcome, andhalf a dozen eye-flashes revealed half a dozen homely little detailsthat were full of reassurance. Here, open and face down on thereading-table, was a book she might have dropped that minute. There wasthe long mirror before which she brushed her wonderful hair and, yes,the silver-backed brushes with which she brushed it. On thewriting-table were a pencil and a torn sheet of paper, as if she hadjust dashed off a hurried note.
In short, everything in the room suggested that the owner, whosepresence still hung about it, might return at any instant. And yet,there in the window, where he had half jokingly told her to place it,hung the brilliant symbol of danger which he himself had selected.
He walked over and took it from the latch. In doing this, he discoveredthat only half the scarf hung there, and that one end was jagged, as ifroughly and hastily cut off. He put the scarf into his pocket. As he didso, his pulses leaped. Pinned to its folds was a bit of paper, so smalland soft that even the inquisitive eye of Sam, following his everymotion, failed to detect it. Laurie turned to the black boy.
"We'd better get out of here," he suggested, trying to speak carelesslyand leading the way as he spoke. "Miss Mayo may be back at any moment."
Sam's eyes bulged till they rivaled Shaw's.
"You don' t'ink she gone?" he stammered.
"Why should we think she has gone?" Laurie tried to grin at him."Perhaps she's merely taking an automobile ride, or an early train for aday in the country. Certainly nothing here looks as if she had gone awayfor good. People usually pack, don't they?"
Sam dropped his eyes. His face, human till now, took on its familiar,sphinxlike look. He followed "Mist' Devon" into the elevator in silence,and started the car on its downward journey. But as his passenger wasabout to depart with a nod, Sam presented him with a reflection to takeaway with him.
"She didn' _look_ lak no lady what was goin' on no excu'sion," hemuttered, darkly.
Laurie rushed back to his rooms with pounding heart and on the wayopened and read at a glance his first note from Doris. It was written inpencil, seemingly on a scrap of paper torn from the pad he had seen onher desk.
Long Island, I _think_. An old house, on the Sound, somewhere near Sea Cliff. Remember your promise. _No police._
That was all there was to it. There was no address, no signature, nodate. The writing, though hurried, was clear, beautiful, and full ofcharacter. In his rooms, he telephoned the garage for his car, and readand reread the little note. Then, still holding it in his hand, hethought it over.
Two things were horribly clear. Shaw's "plan" had matured. He had takenDoris away. And--this was the staggering phase of the episode--sheseemed to have gone willingly. At least she had made no protest, thougha mere word, even a look of appeal from her, would have enlisted Sam'shelp, and no doubt stopped the whole proceeding. Why hadn't she utteredthat word? The answer to this, too, seemed fairly clear. Doris hadbecome a fatalist. She had ceased to hide or fight. She was lettingthings go "his way," as she had declared she would do.
Down that dark avenue she had called "his way" Laurie dared not evenglance. His mind was too busy making its agile twists in and out of thetangle. Granting, then, that she had gone doggedly to meet the ultimateissue of the experience, whatever that might be, she had neverthelessappealed to him, Laurie, for help. Why? And why did she knowapproximately where she was to be taken?
Why? Why? Why? Again and again the question had recurred to him, andthis time it dug itself in.
Despite his love for her (and he fully realized that this was what itwas), despite his own experience of the night before, he had hardly beenable to accept the fact that she was, must be, in actual physicaldanger. When, now, the breath of this realization blew over him, itchecked his heart-beats and chilled his very soul. In the next instantsomething in him, alert, watchful, and suspicious, addressed him like aninner voice.
"Shaw will threaten," this voice said. "He will fight, and he will evenchloroform. But when it comes to a show-down, to the need of definite,final action of any kind, he simply won't be there. He is venomous, he'd_like_ to bite, but he has no fangs, and he knows it."
The vision of Shaw's face, when he had choked him during the struggle oflast night, again recurred to Laurie. He knew now the meaning of thelo
ok in those projecting eyes. It was fear. Though he had carried offthe rest of the interview with entire assurance, during that fight thecreature had been terror-stricken.
"He'll have reason for fear the next time I get hold of him," Lauriereflected, grimly. But that fear was of him, not of Doris. What mightnot Doris be undergoing, even now?
He went to the little safe in the wall of his bedroom, and took from itall the ready money he found there. Oh, if only Rodney were at home! ButMr. Bangs had gone out, the hall man said. He also informed Mr. Devonthat his car was at the door.
The need of consulting Rodney increased in urgency as the difficultiesmultiplied. Laurie telephoned to Bangs's favorite restaurant, toEpstein's office, to Sonya's hotel. At the restaurant he was suavelyassured that Mr. Bangs was not in the place. At the office the voice ofan injured office boy informed him that there wasn't never nobody theretill half-past nine. Over the hotel wire Sonya's colorful tones heldenough surprise to remind Laurie that he could hardly hope that evenRodney's budding romance would drive him to the side of the lady soearly in the morning.
He hung up the receiver with a groan of disgust, and busied himselfpacking a small bag and selecting a greatcoat for his journey. Also, hewent to a drawer and took out the little pistol he had taken away fromDoris in the tragic moment of their first meeting.
Holding it in his hand, he hesitated. Heretofore, throughout his shortbut varied life, young Devon had depended upon his well-trained fists toprotect him from the violence of others. But when those others were thekind who went in for chloroform--and this time there was Doris to thinkof. He dropped the revolver into his pocket, and shot into the elevatorand out on the ground floor with the expedition to which the operatorwas now becoming accustomed.
His car was a two-seated "racer," of slender and beautiful lines. As hetook his place at the wheel, the machine pulsated like a living thing,panting with a passionate desire to be off. Laurie's wild young heartfelt the same longing, but his year in New York had taught him respectfor its traffic laws and this was no time to take chances. Carefully,almost sedately, he made his way to Third Avenue, then up to theQueensboro Bridge, and across that mighty runway to Long Island. Herehis stock of patience, slender at the best, was exhausted. With a deepbreath he "let her out" to a singing speed of sixty miles an hour.
A cloud had obscured the sun, quite appropriately, he subconsciouslyfelt, and there were flakes of snow in the air. As he sped through thegray atmosphere, the familiar little towns he knew seemed to comeforward to meet him, like rapidly projected pictures on a screen.Flushing, Bayside, Little Neck, Manhasset, Roslyn, Glenhead, one by onethey floated past. He made the run of twenty-two miles in somethingunder thirty minutes, to the severe disapproval of several policemen,who shouted urgent invitations to him to slow down. One of these was sopersistent that Laurie prepared to obey; but just as the heavy hand ofthe law was about to fall, its representative recognized young Devon,and waved him on with a forgiving grin. This was not the first timeLaurie had "burned up" that stretch of roadway.
At the Sea Cliff station he slowed up; then, on a sudden impulse,stopped his car at the platform with sharp precision and entered thetiny waiting-room. From the ticket window a pretty girl looked out onhim with the expression of sudden interest feminine eyes usually took onwhen this young man was directly in their line of vision. With uncoveredcurly head deferentially bent, he addressed her. Had she happened tonotice a dark limousine go by an hour or so before, say around half-pasteight or nine o'clock? The girl shook her head. She had not come onduty until nine, and even if such a car had passed she would hardly haveobserved it, owing to the frequency of the phenomenon and her ownexacting responsibilities.
Laurie admitted that these responsibilities would claim all theattention of any mind. But was there any one around who might have seenthe car, any one, say, who made a specialty of lounging on the platformand watching the pulsations of the town's life in this its throbbingcenter? No, the girl explained, there were no station loafers aroundnow. The summer was the time for them.
Then perhaps she could tell him if there were any nice old houses forrent near Sea Cliff, nice old houses, say, overlooking the Sound, and alittle out of the town? Laurie's newly acquired will power was provingits strength. With every frantic impulse in him crying for action, forknowledge, for relief from the intolerable tension he was under, hepresented to the girl the suave appearance of a youth at peace withhimself and the hour.
The abrupt transitions of the gentleman's interest seemed to surprisethe lady. She looked at him with a suspicion which perished under theexpression in his brilliant eyes. What he meant, Laurie soberlyexplained, was the kind of house that might appeal to a casual touristwho was passing through, and who had dropped into the station and therehad suddenly realized the extreme beauty of Sea Cliff. The girllaughed. She was a nice girl, he decided, and he smiled back at her; fornow she was becoming helpful.
Yes, there was the Varick place, a mile out and right on the water'sedge. And there was the old Kiehl place, also on the Sound. These wereclose together and both for rent, she had heard. Also, there was a housein the opposite direction, and on the water's edge. She did not know thename of that house, but she had observed a "To Let" sign on it lastSunday, when she was out driving. Those were all the houses she knew of.She gave him explicit instructions for reaching all three, and theinterview ended in an atmosphere of mutual regard and regret. Indeed,the lady even left her ticket office to follow the gentleman to the doorand watch the departure of his chariot.
Laurie raced in turn to the Varick place and the Kiehl place. Shaw, hesuspected, had probably rented some such place, just as he had rentedthe East Side office. But a very cursory inspection of the two oldhouses convinced him that they were tenantless. No smoke came from theirchimneys, no sign of life surrounded them; also, he was sure, they werenot sufficiently remote from other houses to suit the mysterious Shaw.
The third house on his list was more promising in appearance, for itstood austerely remote from its neighbors. But on its soggy lawn twosoiled children and a dog played in care-free abandon, and from the sideof the house came the piercing whistle of an underling cheerily engagedin sawing wood and shouting cautions to the children. Quite plainly, theclosed-up, shuttered place was in charge of a caretaker, whose offspringwere in temporary possession of its grounds. Laurie inspected otherhouses, dozens of them. He made his way into strange, new roads. Nowherewas there the slightest clue leading to the house he sought.
It was one o'clock in the afternoon when, with an exclamation of actualanguish, he swung his car around for the return journey to the station.For the first time the hopelessness of his mission came home to him.There must be a few hundred houses on the Sound near Sea Cliff. How washe to find the right one?
Perhaps that girl had thought of some other places, or could direct himto the best local real-estate agents. Perhaps he should have gone tothem in the first place. He felt dazed, incapable of clear thought.
As the car swerved his eye was caught by something bright lying fartherup the road, in the direction from which he had just turned. For aninstant he disregarded it. Then, on second thought, he stopped themachine, jumped out, and ran back. There, at the right, by the wayside,lay a tiny jagged strip of silk that seemed to blush as he stared downat it.
Slowly he bent, picked it up, and, spreading it across his palm,regarded it with eyes that unexpectedly were wet. It was a two-inch bitof the Roman scarf, hacked off, evidently, by the same hurried scissorsthat had severed the end in his pocket. He realized now what thatcutting had meant. With her hare-and-hounds' experience in mind, Dorishad cut off other strips, perhaps half a dozen or more, and hadundoubtedly dropped them as a trail for him to pick up. Possibly he hadalready unseeingly passed several. But that did not matter. He was onthe right track now. The house was on this road, but farther up.
He leaped into the car again and started back. He drove very slowly,forcing the reluctant racer to crawl along, and sweeping eve
ry inch ofthe roadside with a careful scrutiny, but he had gone more than a milebefore he found the second scent. This was another bit of the vividsilk, dropped on a country road that turned off the main road at a sharpangle. With a heartfelt exclamation of thanksgiving, he turned into thisbypath.
It was narrow, shallow-rutted, and apparently little used. It might stopanywhere, it might lead nowhere. It wound through a field, a meadow, abit of deep wood, through which he saw the gleam of water. Then, quitesuddenly, it again widened into a real road, merging into an avenue oftrees that led in turn to the entrance of a big dark-gray house, in asomber setting of cedars.
Laurie stopped his car and thoughtfully nodded to himself. This was theplace. He felt that he would have recognized it even without thatguiding flame of ribbon. It was so absolutely the kind of place Shaw'smelodramatic instincts would lead him to choose.
There was the look about it that clings to houses long untenanted, alook not wholly due to its unkempt grounds and the heavy boards over itswindows. It had been without life for a long, long time, but somewherein it, he knew, life was stirring now. From a side chimney a thin lineof smoke curled upward. On the second floor, shutters, newly unbolted,creaked rustily in the January wind. And, yes, there it was; outside ofone of the unshuttered windows, as if dropped there by a bird, hung avivid bit of ribbon.
Rather precipitately Laurie backed his car to a point where he couldturn it, and then raced back to the main road. His primitive impulse hadbeen to drive up to the entrance, pound the door until some oneresponded, and then fiercely demand the privilege of seeing Miss Mayo.But that, he knew, would never do. He must get rid of the car, come backon foot, get into the house in some manner, and from that point meetevents as they occurred.
Facing this prospect, he experienced an incredible combination ofemotions--relief and panic, recklessness and caution, fear and elation.He had found her. For the time being, he frantically assured histrembling inner self, she was safe. The rest was up to him, and he feltequal to it. He was intensely stimulated; for now, at last, in his earsroared the rushing tides of life.