CHAPTER VII
GRIGGS GETS AN ORDER
At eight o'clock Laurie found Doris sitting under the shade of areading-lamp in her studio, deep in the pages of a sophisticated Frenchnovel and radiating an almost oppressive atmosphere of well-being.
Subconsciously, he resented this. His mood was keyed to tragedy. But hereturned her half-serious, half-mocking smile with one as enigmatic,shook hands with grave formality, and surveyed with mild interest amodest heap of bank-notes of small denominations that lay on the table,catching the room's high lights. Following his glance, Doris noddedcomplacently.
"I left them there for you to see," she remarked.
"Did the kind gentleman under the three balls give you all that?"
"He did. Count it."
Laurie frowned.
"Don't be so arrogant about your wealth. It's fleeting. Any copy-bookwill tell you so."
She opened a small drawer in the table, swept the bills into it, andcasually closed it. Laurie stared.
"Are you going to leave it there? Just like that?"
She looked patient.
"Why not?"
"I begin to understand why you are sometimes financially cramped."
He took the bills, smoothed them out flat, rolled back the rug to theedge of the table, laid the money under it, and carefully replaced therug.
"That's the place to put it," he observed, with calm satisfaction. "Noone connected with a studio ever lifts a rug. Bangs and I used to throwour money under the furniture, and pick it up as we needed it; butothers sometimes reached it first. This way is better. How lovely youlook!" he added. As he spoke he comfortably seated himself on the otherside of the reading-lamp, and moved the lamp to a point where it wouldnot obstruct his view of her.
She did look lovely. She had put on an evening gown, very simply made,but rich in the Oriental coloring she loved. She was like Louise inthat. Laurie's thoughts swung to the latter's sick-room, and hisbrilliant young face grew somber. The girl lounging in the big chairobserved the sudden change in his expression. She pushed a box ofcigarettes toward him.
"Smoke if you like," she said, indifferently. "All my friends do."
He caught the phrase. Then she had friends!
"Including Herbert Ransome Shaw?" he asked, as he lit a match.
"Don't include him among my friends! But--he was here this afternoon."
"He was!" In his rising interest Laurie nearly let the match go out."What did he want?"
"To warn me to have nothing to do with you."
"I like his infernal cheek!"
Laurie lit the cigarette and puffed at it savagely. Then, rising, hedrew his chair forward and sat down facing her.
"See here," he said quietly, "you'd better tell me the whole story. Ican't help you much if I'm kept in the dark. But if you'll let me intothings--And before I forget it," he interrupted himself to interject, "Iwant to bring a friend of mine to call on you. She will be a tower ofstrength. She's a Russian, and one of the best women I know."
She listened with a slight smile.
"What's her name?"
"Miss Orleneff, Sonya Orleneff, a great pal of my sister's and anall-round good sort. I'd like to bring her in to-morrow afternoon. Willfive be convenient?"
"No." She spoke now with the curtness of the morning. "In nocircumstances," she added, decisively.
"But--why?"
He was dazed. If ever a knight errant worked under greater difficultiesthan these, Laurie told himself, he'd like to know the poor chap's name.
"I have no wish to meet Miss Orleneff."
"But she's an ideal person for you to know, experienced, sympathetic,and understanding. She did a lot for my sister last year. I must tellyou all about that sometime. She could do more for you--"
"Mr. Devon!" The finality of her tone brought him up short. "We mustunderstand each other."
"I should like nothing better." He, too, was suddenly formal.
"This morning you projected yourself into my life."
"Literally," he cordially agreed.
"I am grateful to you for what you did and what you wish to do. But Iwill not meet any more strangers. I will not meet Miss Orleneff, or anyone else. Is that clear?"
"Oh, perfectly!" Laurie sighed. "Of course you're a crowned head," hemused aloud. "I had forgotten. Would you like my head on a charger, oranything like that?"
She studied him thoughtfully.
"Almost from the first," she said, "and except for an occasional minuteor two, you have refused to be serious. That interests me. Why is it?Aren't you willing to realize that there are real troubles in the world,terrible troubles, that the bravest go down under?"
"Of course." He was serious now. He had begun to realize that fully."It's my unfortunate manner, I suppose," he defended himself. "I'venever taken anything seriously for very long. It's hard to form thehabit, all of a sudden."
"You will have to take me seriously."
He made a large gesture of acceptance.
"All right," he promised. "That brings us back to where we were. Tell methe truth. If there's anything in it that really menaces you, you'llfind me serious enough."
Before answering, she rose and opened the studio door, on which, heobserved with approval, a strong new lock and an inside bolt had alreadybeen placed. He saw her peer up and down the hall. Then she closed andbolted the door, and returned to her chair. The precaution broughtbefore him a mental vision of Herbert Ransome Shaw prowling about thedim corridors. He spoke incredulously.
"There is someone outside that door!" she whispered]
"Are you really afraid of that chap?"
"I have good reason to be," she said quietly. She sat down in her chairagain, rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, in thepose already so familiar to him, and added quietly, "He is the source ofall my present trouble."
She stopped and turned her head to listen.
"Do you hear anything moving in the hall?" she asked, almost in awhisper.
"No. Shall I look?"
She shook her head. "Don't unbolt the door."
"You're nervous. I'm sure there's nothing there. Please go on," heurged. "Our little friend Bertie--"
Seeing her expression, he stopped short. "Forgive me," he said, humbly."But the plain truth is, it's awfully hard for me to take that fellowseriously. Oh, I know he's venomous," he conceded, "but I can't helpfeeling that he hasn't as much power over you as you think he has."
He realized that she was listening, but not to him.
"There _is_ some one outside that door!" she whispered.
Laurie leaped to the door as noiselessly as a cat, unbolted it, andflung it open. The hall was empty. He had an instantaneous impressionthat something as silent as a moving shadow had vanished around thestaircase at the far end, but when he reached the spot he saw nothingsave the descending iron spirals of successive stairways. He returned tohis companion, smiling reassuringly.
"It's our nerves," he said. "In a few minutes more I shall be worryingabout Bertie, myself."
"Bolt the door again," she directed.
He obeyed. She went on as if there had been no interruption to theirtalk.
"It isn't what he is," she admitted. "He himself is nothing, as you say.It's what is back of him that--that frightens me! Why don't you smoke?"she interrupted herself to ask.
Laurie automatically selected and lit another cigarette.
"I know what's going to be back of Bertie pretty soon," he darklypredicted. "Whoever he is, and whatever he is doing, he has a big joltcoming to him, and it's coming fast."
He laid down the cigarette and turned to her with his most charmingexpression, a wonderfully sweet smile, half shy, wholly boyish. Beforethis look, any one who loved Laurence Devon was helpless.
"Come," he said gently, "tell me the whole story. You know it's notcuriosity that makes me ask. But how can I help you when I'm working inthe dark?"
As she hesitated, his brilliant eyes, so softened now, continue
d to holdhers.
"And I want to help you," he added. "I want that privilege more than Iwant anything else in the world."
For a long moment she sat still, as if considering his words, her eyeson her hands, folded in her lap. The strange, deep flush he had noticedonce before again stained her face. At last she straightened up with aquick movement, throwing back her shoulders as if to take on again someburden they had almost cast off.
"I am sorry to seem so mysterious," she said, "and so unresponsive. Iwill tell you this much, and it is more than I ought to say. In thesituation we are in I am in his power, horribly so. He can crush me atany time he chooses."
"Then why doesn't he?"
The gentleness of her caller's voice softened the brusqueness of hiswords.
"Because--" She stopped again. For the first time she had becomeembarrassed and self-conscious. She made her climax in a rush: "Latelyhe insists that he has fallen in love with me!"
Laurie uttered an ejaculation. It was not a pretty one, but it nicelyfitted the emergency.
"He has hoped that to save myself, and others, I will marry him, thecontemptible, crawling snake!"
The listener was impressed by her comparison. Certainly there wassomething ophidian about Shaw. He himself had noticed it.
"Then, for the time being, you're really safe?" he suggested.
"No. His patience is exhausted. He is beginning to realize that I'drather die."
"The police can stop all this nonsense." But Laurie spoke without hiscustomary authority.
"Don't imagine that. The police know nothing about this matter, and theynever will." A sudden thought struck her and she rose almost with aspring. He rose, too, staring at her in bewilderment. She caught hisshoulders and held them tightly, in a grip wholly free fromself-consciousness.
"If you warn the police," she said swiftly; "if you draw them into this,you will ruin everything. You will do me a harm that could never beundone. Give me your word that you won't. Please, _please_!"
She was almost shaking him now. Under the clasp of her hands on hisshoulders Laurie paled a little, but his black eyes held hers steadily.
"Of course I promise," he said, slowly, "as you make such a point ofit."
She removed her hands and stepped back.
"Please go now."
"So soon? Why, I've only just come!"
"I know--but I'm tired."
There was no mistaking the sincerity of this. It was a poignant outcry.Clearly, she was at the breaking-point. He took both her hands.
"This whole experience gives me the oddest feeling," he told her gently."In one way, I seem to be dreaming it. Under it all there's a convictionthat I'm on the track of the mystery; that everything will be clearedup, for us both, in another minute or two. It's merely an instinct. Ican't explain it. But one thing I know. Sooner or later--sooner, Ihope--I shall be able to work it out for you."
She seemed suddenly to remember that he was holding her hands. Flushing,she gently withdrew them. Then she turned, and with a brusque gesturewalked away from him.
"I'm sorry I got you into this!" she cried.
"Don't worry about me." He smiled at her from the door he was holdingopen. "May I come and take you to lunch to-morrow?"
"Not to-morrow. The next day, perhaps."
"We've got to look for that job, you know."
"With all this?" She indicated with the toe of her slipper a significantspot on the rug.
Laurie regarded the slipper with approval. It was a beautiful slipper,on a charming foot. It so diverted his mind from the main issue of theconversation that he was in the elevator and half-way down to the groundfloor before he recalled that issue. He was not disturbed. Doris hadenough to go on with; and certainly he himself had sufficient scope forthought in the revelations she had just made.
As he walked down the outer steps of the studio building and emerged onthe sidewalk, a figure detached itself from the shadow of a low ironfence and stealthily followed him. It was a short figure, overcoated outof recognition. It carried its hands in its pockets, and its head wasthrust forward in a peculiar way. It kept a dozen feet behind him, untilhe reached the pretentious entrance of the apartment building where hedwelt.
Here, in the glaring light of two huge electric globes, convenientlyheld aloft for him by a pair of bronze warriors, Laurie turned suddenly,warned by the inner sense that tells us we are watched. The figurebehind ducked modestly into the background, but not until he hadrecognized the round face and projecting eyes of Herbert Ransome Shaw.
Laurie checked a passionate impulse to hurl himself upon that lurkingand unpleasant shape. Slowly but surely he was learning self-control.Martin, the elevator operator, and Griggs, the night hall man, werealready bidding him good evening and regarding him with friendly andinterested eyes. To see him suddenly fall upon and beat a shabbystranger would surprise and pain them, besides unpleasantly stirring upthe neighborhood. A better opportunity would present itself, or could bemade.
In the meantime, however, he must convey to Herbert Ransome Shaw someidea of the utter contempt in which he held him. Taking Griggsconfidentially by the arm, Laurie pointed out the skulking shadow.
"See that?" he asked in ringing tones.
Griggs was a Goliath in proportions and deliberate in his movements. Hetook his time to discover the object young Devon indicated. In theshadow the object stirred restlessly.
"Yessir," Griggs then said, uncertainly. "It's--it's a man, sir."
"Is it?" asked Laurie with interest, and still in loud, clear tones."I'm afraid you're mistaken. But whatever it is, _step_ on it!"
He entered the elevator after this crisp instruction, and was wafted upto his rooms. The hall man moved hesitatingly down the building's threesteps to the sidewalk. One never knew exactly what young Devon wasgetting at. Still, if he really wanted Griggs to step on anything--
Griggs stopped. A slight sensation of disappointment swept over him. Hewas a conscientious man who desired to do his duty. But there wasabsolutely nothing for him to step on, except the snow-covered andotherwise inoffensive pavement.