"Because Hitchin knows perfectly well that I haven"t a sister, of course. Don"t fume and thresh around like that, Johnson; it bothers me."
"But if my wife ever hears of it----"
"She never will," said Anthony, without great concern, "unless you have Hitchin for dinner some night and ask him to tell about it."
"And Wilkins--he heard it, too!"
"Well, I shall instruct Wilkins not to mention it, later on," Anthony sighed. "Now quiet down, will you, and let us think how----"
"Have you decided how to get me out of here?" Mary asked brightly, entering without a sound.
Anthony stayed the bitter words that were in his very throat.
"We have been accused of murdering David Prentiss!" he said.
"Really?"
"Very really indeed!"
"Isn"t that funny?" Mary laughed. "Isn"t it perfectly ridiculous?"
"It"s a scream!" said Johnson Boller. "About the time we both get pinched it may be up to you to----"
"Tell the truth?" Mary said quickly.
"Just that!"
"I"ll never do it!" the girl cried pa.s.sionately. "No! Not even to save both of you! I"m not here through any fault of my own, and--and--why, a man who could suggest such a thing----"
"He"s not suggesting it; he"s just excited," Anthony said miserably, "Now, suppose we try, just once more, to sit down sanely and devise the way of getting you safely home, Miss Mary?"
"And soon!" said the girl, somewhat feverishly. "If I could have gotten home while it was dark Felice could have smuggled me in and--and lied about it, if necessary. But it isn"t night any longer; it"s nine o"clock or past nine, and----"
She said no more. Lips parted, and eyes, all in an instant, thoroughly horrified, she stood and listened; and from the door of Anthony"s apartment a thumping sounded once more and a voice said:
"Hurry up! Open that door!"
"Robert again!" Mary gasped.
"Is that possible?" Anthony gasped, bouncing to his feet.
It was not only possible. It was the solid fact, for Wilkins, muttering as he fumbled at the latch, was mentioning Mr. Vining"s name and bidding him be patient for an instant--and Mary, with a little scream, had made another of her projectile disappearances down the corridor--and into the room came Robert Vining!
He was far from being the same collected young man. His whole person seemed to have been towsled by some overwhelming excitement. His eyes belonged in the head of a madman, and his hands waved irresponsibly as he rushed at Anthony Fry and clutched his coat and panted:
"Fry! You"ll have to help me!"
"Help you--how?"
"You know more people than I--you know people everywhere, Anthony!
You"ll have to help me by calling them up and having them call up their friends, you know. That--that may do some good. I--I don"t know! I don"t know what I"m talking about, Anthony! I feel as if I"d gone crazy!"
"You act very much that way," Anthony said quietly. "What"s wrong?"
Robert Vining gaped at him and then laughed quite insanely.
"Wrong!" he shouted. "Wrong! _Mary"s disappeared!_"
"Mary----"
"You don"t know Mary--no, of course not!" young Mr. Vining rushed on.
"She--she"s the girl I"m going to marry, Anthony! Yes, I"m engaged, although it hasn"t been announced yet. I"ve been engaged for a week now, and we--great Heaven! I can"t think. I--why, Anthony, I was talking to her even at dinner last night and there was never a hint that she even meant to go out of the house. In fact, when we parted, she seemed rather bored at the idea of staying home and--why, not a soul knows even when she left the house! She"s gone, Fry! She"s just _gone_!"
A coa.r.s.e nature ever, Johnson Boller winked at Anthony and turned his back!
"Mary! Why, my little Mary out alone at night----" young Robert choked.
"She"s just twenty, Anthony--a delicate, beautiful girl like that disappearing from the most beautiful, the happiest home in all New York!
Why, from the day she was born, Dalton never spared her a penny to----"
"Eh? What Dalton?" Anthony asked suddenly.
"What? Theodore Dalton, of course. He"s her father--Dalton, the patent-medicine man, Anthony. You must have met him? You know Theodore Dalton?"
Curiously, fortunately enough, sheer nervous tension jerked him away from Anthony Fry just then and set him to pacing the floor, a man distracted, a man unseeing, a man who recked of nothing on earth beyond his terrible and immediate grief.
And this was very well indeed, for Anthony was making himself conspicuous!
Anthony took three backward steps and looked at the unconscious Robert much as if the young man had branded himself a leper. He looked at Johnson Boller, too, although his eyes were blank--and then, one hand on his head, Anthony staggered straight out of the room and into the corridor; and, having gone that far, he turned and staggered down to the window at the end of the window-seat, where he collapsed much as if the bones had been whisked from his long, slender legs!
Here Johnson Boller, following, found him five seconds later. Mr.
Boller, who was beginning to feel downright peculiar himself with Vining threshing about the living-room and babbling incoherent agony, shook his old friend with no gentle hand as he demanded:
"Say, you! What is it now? What in blazes got you that time, Anthony?
Are you going to have a fit?"
"Johnson!" Anthony said feebly, clutching coldly at Mr. Boller"s plump hand. "Oh, Johnson!"
"_What?_"
"Her father! She"s the daughter of Theodore Dalton, Johnson! She"s the daughter of the man they call the liniment king!"
"Yes?" said Johnson Boller.
The icy hand closed tighter about his own, rousing something almost akin to sympathy in Johnson Boller"s bosom and causing him to lay a soothing hand on Anthony"s shoulder--for so do men cling to a raft in mid-ocean.
"Johnson," Anthony Fry said piteously. "I"ve kidnaped the daughter of the only man in the world who can ruin me, and he"ll do it!"