CHAPTER XI
The Other Lady
It was plain enough to Johnson Boller.
Anthony, poor devil, was raving at last! Since there was no one likelyto ruin Anthony, the strain had developed the illusion that--or was itan illusion? Anthony had calmed these last few seconds, clingingchildlike to his friend; his eyes denoted the general state of mind of ahunted doe, but there was nothing more abnormal.
"Say, kid," Johnson Boller began kindly. "You----"
"You don't understand," Anthony said hoarsely but more quietly. "I'venever told you about the Dalton matter, because I've tried my best toforget the interview--but Dalton is the man who controls virtually thewhole proprietary liniment market, barring only Fry's Imperial. My--myliniment," said Anthony, and there was an affectionate note in his voicewhich Johnson Boller had never heard before in connection with theImperial, "is the only one he has failed to acquire."
"Yes?" said Johnson Boller, with rising interest.
Anthony smiled wanly, dizzily.
"Well, Dalton came to the office one day about five years ago, havingmade an appointment to meet me personally there. He wanted to buy usout, and I wouldn't hear of it--partly sentiment and partly because hedidn't want to pay enough. Then he tried his usual tactics ofthreatening to drive Imperial off the market, and I sat down and pointedout to him just what it would cost and what it would gain him. He's ahard devil, Johnson, and he was pretty angry, yet he saw the reason inwhat I told him."
"Go on," said Johnson Boller.
"We parted on rather curious terms," groaned Anthony. "One might call itan armed truce, I suppose. He seemed to be willing to let matters restas they were, and he has done just that ever since; but he told me in somany words that if ever I tried to break into his particular market, ifever, for any cause, I offended him in any way, he'd sail in andadvertise me out of business."
"Can he do it?"
"He can do it," Anthony said, with pained conviction. "He can do it,because he's able to spend a million where I spend ten thousand, andonce he starts Fry's Imperial Liniment is as dead as Julius Caesar. Andwhen he learns about this thing----"
"He--he might never learn," Johnson Boller said, without even trying tobe convincing.
Anthony laughed forlornly.
"Hell learn; I'm done for!" said he. "It's as good as done and over withnow, Johnson. Almost every cent I have in the world is invested in thefirm, you know, and once that goes to pieces I--why, great Heaven,Johnson! I'll have to get out and work for a living!"
Johnson Boller, for a little, said nothing at all. Coming from anotherman, he would have fancied the statements largely exaggeration andimagination; coming from Anthony he knew that they were mostly solidtruth.
"Well, I told you in the first place that kid meant trouble," hemuttered.
"You have a prophetic soul!" Anthony sighed.
"Trouble isn't the word!" Mr. Boller mused further. "If you tell thetruth, according to your figuring, the old gentleman will ruin you--butthat doesn't matter much, because when you've told the truth it's a deadsure thing Vining will let the daylight through you, so that you'll haveno need for money anyway. And if you go on trying to keep it all darkand succeed in doing it, that Hitchin idiot will have us both jailed formurder--_and we'll have to produce a David Prentiss before we get out_!"
Anthony, gazing fixedly at him, felt hope that hardly dared to becreeping into his eyes.
"Johnson, could we get hold of a boy somewhere and bribe him?" he asked.
"To do what?"
"To go into a police court and swear that he was David Prentiss and thathe came here last night and left again about half-past twelve," said themodel citizen, without even reflecting that it involved perjury. "If wecould manage that it might be best of all to let Hitchin go ahead."
"Stick you and me in jail?" Johnson Boller asked harshly.
"Better that than risk----"
"I don't see it!" the less chivalrous gentleman snapped. "There'snothing inside urging me to go to jail for anybody's sake, evenovernight. And another thing, I've got a wife, Anthony! Just considerwhere this would put me with Beatrice, and how dead certain it would be,with Hitchin airing his views and conclusions, that he'd mention thelady you introduce as Mrs. Boller!"
"But----"
"But nothing!" Johnson Boller said, his personal trouble cominguppermost again. "That's the worst break you've made so far, Anthony!That Mrs. Boller business is likely to cause me----"
He shut his teeth on the end of the sentence. Wilkins, white anddistressed, was coming down the corridor with what looked rather likekangaroo leaps. He came to David's door and stopped, turning the knob.He entered--and immediately he left the room again and sped to Anthony.
"She wishes to see you again, sir!"
Anthony jerked obediently to his feet and laid a cold hand on JohnsonBoller's.
"Get up there and keep Vining busy," he said. "That's all. Hurry!"
Johnson Boller shuffled back to the living-room, where the unfortunatepaced up and down and wrung his hands. Anthony, waiting tremulouslyuntil he heard both their voices, hurried into Mary's room--and lookedat her with a new, dreadful terror. She was no longer a merelyunfortunate, unknown young woman whose good name he had placed inconsiderable jeopardy; Mary, by now, had become the potential stick ofdynamite that bade fair to blast him out of the Lasande, out of hisregular life, out of everything but the chance to sally forth and hunt ajob!
"Well? Well?" she asked swiftly.
"Yes?"
"Is he gone? Is he gone?" Mary cried.
"He will--go shortly!" Anthony said thickly. "You--you are TheodoreDalton's daughter!"
Mary stared at him.
"So you've discovered that?"
"He--in a business way----" Anthony muttered vaguely.
"Yes, that was my reason for coming here," Mary said, cheerfully enough."I've heard him speak of you--oh, no, not very flatteringly; I don'tthink he likes you. I've heard him say that some day he'd wreck you,when he was ready; and I was very curious indeed to see what sort of manyou were and whether you were nice enough to plead for, if he everstarted. I don't like dad to wreck people."
Anthony nodded.
"And that was another reason why I was afraid to tell the truth lastnight," said Mary. "If you were business enemies--bitter ones, Imean--and you found out that you had father's daughter here--well, thathas nothing to do with getting Bobby away, has it?"
"He'll go presently."
"Presently isn't soon enough!" Mary informed her captor. "I sent forWilkins to tell you that he must go _now_!"
"But the boy is distracted and----"
"About me?"
"Yes."
"Is he really suffering?" Mary asked.
"I think so."
The girl considered very thoughtfully indeed.
"Maybe I'd better go out there and quiet him, poor little boy!" she saidstaggeringly. "He'll believe me if I tell him the truth and----"
"I wouldn't do that!" Anthony exploded. "He's wildly excited now, andthe truth might not appeal to him as reasonable."
Again Mary hesitated, causing his blood to congeal.
"Very well. Then get rid of him now!" she said sharply. "If he ever camedown here and found me, all the explaining in the world would neverhelp!"
"He will not," Anthony said impatiently. "Bob isn't the sort to strayabout one's apartment and----"
And from the corridor came:
"She's gone, Boller! Johnson, she's gone!"
And steps came in their direction, too, and while Mary Dalton turned toflame, Anthony Fry turned to ice! He was coming and coming steadily, andthe door was open fully two inches. He was abreast of them now andfaithful Johnson Boller apparently was with him, for they heard--
"Well, I wouldn't go wandering around like that, old man. Come back andsit down and we'll talk it over."
"I'll sit here on the window-seat!" Robert Vining panted.
"Don't do that," Mr. Boller protested. "No,
not there, Bobby! That'sweak and likely to go down in a heap with you!"
The steps ceased. Through ten terrible seconds Anthony Fry and lovelyMary stood listening to the panting of the afflicted youth. Then:
"My God, Johnson!" he cried wildly. "I--I want to look over the wholeworld at once for her! I want to look into every room in New York! Iwant to look into every room in this place and then tear out andlook----"
"Yes, but you couldn't do that," Johnson Boller assured him soothingly."Now, cut out the mad-house talk, old man, and come back. Have one ofAnthony's good, strong cigars and I'll dig out that brandy he keeps forhis best friends. Don't go nosing around these rooms!" said JohnsonBoller, and simultaneously they caught the shiver in his voice and sawthe door move as Vining's hand landed on the knob. "Just controlyourself and come back."
Robert Vining laughed hideously and helplessly.
"I suppose I'm making an ass of myself!" said his weak voice. "I can'thelp it! On my soul, I can't help it. Give me a shot of the brandy,though, and maybe I'll steady a bit!"
Something like one hundred years passed; then the hand slid from thedoor and they could hear Johnson Boller leading the sufferer gently awayfrom the shock of his whole lifetime. Mary, her eyes closed for amoment, gripped herself and spoke very softly:
"Mr. Fry, if--if you don't get that boy out of here and then find a wayof sending me home--if you don't do it instantly, I'm going out there toBob and tell him that you brought me here and kept me here all nightagainst my will! After that, whatever happens, happens!"
Life returned to Anthony's frozen legs.
"I will go!" he managed to say, and he went.
The brandy was already within Robert Vining, yet it seemed to have madesmall difference in his condition. The young man's eyes were wild androlling; they rested on Anthony for a moment as if they had seen himbefore but could not quite place him.
"You--you've been telephoning," he said.
"Not yet," said Anthony, "but if you'll run along and do your share,I'll think up ways of helping you."
"My share?" Vining echoed.
Mentally, he was not more than half himself. Anthony Fry, therefore,grew very firm and very stern, pleasantly certain that Robert was payingno heed to his pallor or the uncontrollable shake that had come to hishands.
"If the girl has really disappeared," he said steadily, "your part isnot to be sitting here and whining for help, Robert. Why don't you getout and hustle and see if you can't get track of her? Have you gone toall her friends?"
"Eh? No!"
"Then go now!" said Anthony Fry. "You know her girl friends? Get afterthe most intimate at first--and get about it!"
Here he scowled, and Robert Vining, rising, shook himself together.
"You're right, Anthony," he said. "I'm an ass; I've lost my headcompletely this last hour. I--I caught it from her father, I think; theman's going about like an infuriated bull, swearing to kill everybody inthe world if Mary isn't returned and--but you're right, old chap. Thankyou for steadying me." Robert concluded bravely. "Where's my hat? I'vebeen wearing it all this time, eh? Good-by, Anthony. Good-by, Johnson."
He tried to smile at them--and he fled. This time it was Johnson Bollerwho turned weak at his going. Mr. Boller, smiling at his old friend in asickly, greenish way, dropped into a chair and mopped his forehead.
"Narrow squeak, Anthony!"
"Yes!" Anthony agreed, with some difficulty.
"I was never so scared as that in all my life!" Johnson Boller went onfaintly. "I thought sure I'd have to watch it and--Anthony, it turned meso sick I could hardly stand on my feet!"
"What did?"
"The idea of seeing you shot down there," Mr. Boller said with ashudder. "Gad! I could picture the whole thing, Anthony! I could see himstart and look at you both--I swear I could see him pull a gun from hispocket and shoot! I could see the blood spurting out of your forehead,Anthony, and hear the chicken screech, and it turned me so infernallysick----"
"Didn't think of any of my sensations, did you?" Anthony askedcaustically.
"As a matter of fact--no, I didn't!" muttered Johnson Boller, withanother great shiver. "What do your confounded sensations matter,anyway? This whole affair is your fault, not mine! You deserve whateveryou get--I don't! You've got nobody in the world to worry over you, butI've got a _wife_, Anthony!"
"You have mentioned it before."
"And I'm likely to mention it again!" said Mr. Boller savagely. "Youknow, Anthony, I'm about through with this thing! I'm a nervous man, andI can stand about so much suffering of my own, but I don't see the ideaof taking on yours as well. And what is more, this thing of introducingthis girl as my wife is----"
"Well? What is it?" Mary herself asked very crisply, appearing in herdisconcertingly and silent fashion.
Johnson Boller smiled feebly.
"It's very flattering in some ways, Miss--Miss Dalton, but for a manlike me, who loves his wife, you know, and all that sort of thing----"
His voice thinned out and died before the decidedly cold light in Mary'seye. It seemed to Johnson Boller that she had a low opinion of himself;and when she looked at Anthony he noted that she had a low opinion ofAnthony as well.
"Have you settled it yet!" she snapped.
"The--er--means of getting you out?"
"Is there anything more important?"
"Ah--decidedly not," Anthony said wearily. "Several times, I think,we've attempted a council of war, and we may as well try it again. Therewill be no interruptions this time, I think, and if we all put our mindsto it----"
That was all. As on several other similar occasion, he halted because ofsounds from the doorway. It seemed to Anthony, indeed, that he had heardWilkins muttering at the telephone a moment ago, too; and now thefaithful one was at the door and working over the latch.
Mary's ears were preternaturally keen, too; Mary had acquired a way ofstanding erect and poising every time sounds came from that door. Shedid it now, remaining on tiptoe until the oddest little giggle broughtAnthony and Johnson Boller to their feet also.
"That's a woman's voice!" Mary whispered.
And she looked about wildly, and, since there was no hope of escapeunseen by the corridor, her eyes fell upon the open door of JohnsonBoller's room. Mary, with a bound that would have done credit to a youngdeer, was across the room, and the door clicked behind her just asWilkins, smiling in a perturbed and mystified way, appeared to announce:
"A lady, sir, who----"
Then the lady had passed him, moving with a speed almost equal to Mary'sown--a lovely lady, indeed, with great, flashing black eyes and blackhair--a lady all life and spirit, her face suffused just now with agreat joy. Wilkins, perceiving that neither gentleman protested aftergazing at her for one second, backed away to regions of his own, and thespell on Johnson Boller broke and his soul found vent in one great, gladcry of:
"Bee!"
"Pudgy-wudgy!" cried the lady, and flew directly into Johnson Boller'sarms!
Anthony Fry steadied himself, mentally and physically, and the littlesmile that came to his lips was more than half sneer--because JohnsonBoller and his lovely wife were hugging each other and babblingsenselessly, and the best that Anthony could make of it at first wassomething like:
"And was it lonely? Oh, Pudgy-wudgy, was it lonely?"
Whereat Johnson Boller burbled:
"Lonely, sugar-plum? Lonely, sweetie? Oh, Beetie-girl, if Pudgy-wudgycould tell you how lonely----"
Here they kissed again, three times, four times, five times!
"Hell!" said Anthony Fry.
"And did it come back?" the imbecile that had been Johnson Bollergurgled.
The dark, exquisite head burrowed deep on Boller's shoulder.
"Oh, Pudgy!" a muffled voice protested, almost tearfully. "I couldn't doit! I thought I could, but I couldn't, sweetest!"
"And so it came back to its Pudgy-wudgy!" Johnson Boller oozedecstatically. "So it turned around and came back to its Pudgy!"
Mrs. Boller regarded him solemnly, holding him off for a moment.
"At some awful, awful place north of Albany," she said. "I couldn't goany farther and I--I was going to wire you to come for me, Pudgy! Andthen I thought I'd stay at their terrible hotel and come down andsurprise you, and you weren't home and they said you'd come here!"
"Yes!" Johnson Boller agreed.
"How could you leave our home, Pudgy-wudgy?" his darling askedreprovingly.
"If I had stayed there another hour without my little chicky-biddy, I'dhave shot myself!" said Pudgy-wudgy. "Ask Anthony!" And here he lookedat Anthony and demanded: "Ain't we silly? Like a couple of kids!"
"You certainly are!" Anthony Fry rasped.
"You don't have to screw your face all up when you say it!" Mr. Bollerinformed him, disengaging himself.
Beatrice laughed charmingly.
"You'll overlook it, Mr. Fry?" said she. "We've never been separatedbefore in all the----"
"Six months!" beamed Johnson Boller.
"--that we've been married!" finished his wife, squeezing his hand.
Followed a pause. Anthony had nothing whatever to say; after witnessingan exhibition like that he never had anything to say for an hour or morethat a lady could hear. He stood, a cold, stately, disgusted figure,surging internally, thanking every star in the firmament that he hadnever laid himself open to a situation of that kind--and after a timethe inimical radiations from him reached Beatrice, for she laugheduneasily.
"May I--may I fix my hair?" she asked. "And then we'll go home, Pudgy?"
"Yes, my love," purred Johnson Boller.
"Which is your room, pigeon-boy?" his bride asked.
So far as concerned Johnson Boller, Mary had been wafted out of thisworld; all aglow with witless happiness, he pointed at the door as hesaid:
"That one, Beetie-chicken."
Beatrice turned--and ten thousand volts shot through Anthony and causedhis hair to stand on end. His laugh, coming simultaneously, was a loud,weird thing, splitting the still air.
"Your bedroom, Johnson!" he cried. "She means your _bedroom_!"
"Well--of course?" Beatrice said wonderingly.
"Well, that's down at the end of the corridor, dear madam," Anthonysmiled wildly, and went so far as to stay her by laying hands on herarm. "Right down there--see? The open door. That's Johnson's room!"
Beatrice, distinctly startled, glanced at him and nodded and left.Anthony, drawing the first real breath in a full minute, glared at hisfriend in silence; but the morning's dread situation had slid fromJohnson Boller's shoulders as a drop of water from a duck's back. For asecond or two he had been slightly jarred at the magnitude of the breakhe had made--but that was all over now.
"My mistake, old scout," he chuckled softly. "You saved the day--whatare you glowering about?"
"Clod!" gasped Anthony.
"Clod your necktie!" Johnson Boller said airily. "Well, did you ever seethe like of it? Did you ever see anything like the little squeezicks,Anthony! She's back, bless her little heart! She couldn't stand it."
"Umph!" said his host.
"And so I'm let out of it!" Mr. Boller chuckled on. "We'll just scootalong to the little dove-cote, old vinegar-face, and see how she looksafter all this time. I can get my things later on. Well--I'm sorry toleave you with the problem on your hands, you know."
"Don't let it disturb you!" Anthony snapped.
"But at that, you know, fate's doing the kind, just thing by snatchingme out," Mr. Boller concluded earnestly and virtuously. "It wasn't mymuddle in the first place, and somehow I feel that you haven't actedjust on the level with me about any of it."
Anthony's mouth opened to protest. Yet he did not protest. Instead, hejumped, just as one jumps at the unexpected explosion of afire-cracker--for down the corridor a scream, shrill and sharp, echoedsuddenly.
And after the scream came a long, choking gasp, so that even Wilkinsappeared in the doorway and Johnson Boller darted forward to learn whathad overtaken his only darling. He was spared the trouble of going downthe corridor, however. Even as he darted forward, Beatrice had rejoinedthem; and having looked at her just once Johnson Boller stood in histracks, rooted to the floor!
Because Beatrice, the lovely, the loving, Beatrice of the melting eyesand the high color, had left them. The lady in the doorway was white asthe driven snow and breathing in a queer, strangling way; and whateverher eyes may have expressed, melting love for Johnson Boller was notincluded.
For this unpleasant condition the hat in her hand seemed largelyresponsible. It was a pretty little hat, expensively simple, but it wasthe hat of a lady!
And, looking from it to Johnson Boller, Beatrice finally managed:
"This--this! This hat!"
Johnson Boller moved not even a muscle.
"Who is the woman?" Beatrice cried vibrantly. "_Who is she?_"
And still neither Anthony nor Johnson Boller seemed able to canter up tothe situation and carry it of with a blithe laugh. Anthony was makingqueer mouths; Johnson Boller was doing nothing whatever, even now; andwhen three seconds had passed Beatrice whirled abruptly on the onlyother possible source of information present, which happened to beWilkins.
"You were here!" she said swiftly. "You answer me: who was the woman?"
"The--the woman, ma'am!" Wilkins repeated.
Beatrice came nearer and looked up at him, and there was that in hereyes which sent Wilkins back a full pace.
"You--you creature!" Beatrice said. "What woman was in this apartmentlast night?"
Now, as it chanced, Wilkins was far more intelligent than he looked.Give him the mere hint to a situation and he could lumber throughsomehow. Only a little while ago, when Hobart Hitchin came upon them, hehad caught the key to this affair--so he smiled quite confidently andbowed.
"There was no woman here last night, ma'am," said Wilkins, "only Mrs.Boller, the wife of that gentleman there!"