"Go on," he ordered.
"Den I reckon Miss Mayo she put on a coat, an" dat man wait. I t"ought he 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 fur coat an" a veil on. She look awful pale, an" when dey got in de el"vator she didn" say a word. Dey wasn" n.o.body else in de car, an" it seem lak I couldn"t let her go off no-how, widout sayin" somethin". So I say, "You gwine 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" he took 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 was younger."
"What did he look like?"
"I couldn"t see much o" him. He had a big coat on, an" a cap. But his hair was yallah."
Laurie recognized the secretary.
"Which way did they go?"
"East."
They were standing on the top landing by this time, and Laurie strode forward.
"I"ll take a look around her rooms. Perhaps she left some message."
Sam accompanied him, and though he had not desired this continued companionship, Laurie found a certain solace in it. In his humble way this black boy was Doris"s friend. He was doing his small part now to help her, if, as he evidently suspected, there was something sinister in her departure.
Entering the familiar studio, Laurie looked around it with a pang.
Unlike the quarters of Shaw, it remained unchanged. The room, facing north as it did, looked a little cold in the early light, but it was still stamped with the impress of its former occupant. The flowers he had given her only yesterday hung their heads in modest welcome, and half a dozen eye-flashes revealed half a dozen homely little details that were full of rea.s.surance. Here, open and face down on the reading-table, was a book she might have dropped that minute. There was the long mirror before which she brushed her wonderful hair and, yes, the silver-backed brushes with which she brushed it. On the writing-table were a pencil and a torn sheet of paper, as if she had just dashed off a hurried note.
In short, everything in the room suggested that the owner, whose presence 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 discovered that only half the scarf hung there, and that one end was jagged, as if roughly and hastily cut off. He put the scarf into his pocket. As he did so, his pulses leaped. Pinned to its folds was a bit of paper, so small and soft that even the inquisitive eye of Sam, following his every motion, failed to detect it. Laurie turned to the black boy.
"We"d better get out of here," he suggested, trying to speak carelessly and 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 a day in the country. Certainly nothing here looks as if she had gone away for 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 pa.s.senger was about to depart with a nod, Sam presented him with a reflection to take away with him.
"She didn" _look_ lak no lady what was goin" on no excu"sion," he muttered, darkly.
Laurie rushed back to his rooms with pounding heart and on the way opened and read at a glance his first note from Doris. It was written in pencil, seemingly on a sc.r.a.p of paper torn from the pad he had seen on her 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, no date. The writing, though hurried, was clear, beautiful, and full of character. In his rooms, he telephoned the garage for his car, and read and reread the little note. Then, still holding it in his hand, he thought it over.
Two things were horribly clear. Shaw"s "plan" had matured. He had taken Doris away. And--this was the staggering phase of the episode--she seemed to have gone willingly. At least she had made no protest, though a mere word, even a look of appeal from her, would have enlisted Sam"s help, and no doubt stopped the whole proceeding. Why hadn"t she uttered that word? The answer to this, too, seemed fairly clear. Doris had become a fatalist. She had ceased to hide or fight. She was letting things go "his way," as she had declared she would do.
Down that dark avenue she had called "his way" Laurie dared not even glance. His mind was too busy making its agile twists in and out of the tangle. Granting, then, that she had gone doggedly to meet the ultimate issue of the experience, whatever that might be, she had nevertheless appealed to him, Laurie, for help. Why? And why did she know approximately where she was to be taken?
Why? Why? Why? Again and again the question had recurred to him, and this time it dug itself in.
Despite his love for her (and he fully realized that this was what it was), despite his own experience of the night before, he had hardly been able to accept the fact that she was, must be, in actual physical danger. When, now, the breath of this realization blew over him, it checked his heart-beats and chilled his very soul. In the next instant something in him, alert, watchful, and suspicious, addressed him like an inner voice.
"Shaw will threaten," this voice said. "He will fight, and he will even chloroform. 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 of last night, again recurred to Laurie. He knew now the meaning of the look in those projecting eyes. It was fear. Though he had carried off the rest of the interview with entire a.s.surance, during that fight the creature had been terror-stricken.
"He"ll have reason for fear the next time I get hold of him," Laurie reflected, grimly. But that fear was of him, not of Doris. What might not Doris be undergoing, even now?
He went to the little safe in the wall of his bedroom, and took from it all the ready money he found there. Oh, if only Rodney were at home! But Mr. Bangs had gone out, the hall man said. He also informed Mr. Devon that his car was at the door.
The need of consulting Rodney increased in urgency as the difficulties multiplied. Laurie telephoned to Bangs"s favorite restaurant, to Epstein"s office, to Sonya"s hotel. At the restaurant he was suavely a.s.sured that Mr. Bangs was not in the place. At the office the voice of an injured office boy informed him that there wasn"t never n.o.body there till half-past nine. Over the hotel wire Sonya"s colorful tones held enough surprise to remind Laurie that he could hardly hope that even Rodney"s budding romance would drive him to the side of the lady so early in the morning.
He hung up the receiver with a groan of disgust, and busied himself packing a small bag and selecting a greatcoat for his journey. Also, he went to a drawer and took out the little pistol he had taken away from Doris in the tragic moment of their first meeting.
Holding it in his hand, he hesitated. Heretofore, throughout his short but varied life, young Devon had depended upon his well-trained fists to protect him from the violence of others. But when those others were the kind who went in for chloroform--and this time there was Doris to think of. He dropped the revolver into his pocket, and shot into the elevator and out on the ground floor with the expedition to which the operator was now becoming accustomed.
His car was a two-seated "racer," of slender and beautiful lines. As he took his place at the wheel, the machine pulsated like a living thing, panting with a pa.s.sionate desire to be off. Laurie"s wild young heart felt the same longing, but his year in New York had taught him respect for its traffic laws and this was no time to take chances. Carefully, almost sedately, he made his way to Third Avenue, then up to the Queensboro Bridge, and across that mighty runway to Long Island. Here his stock of patience, slender at the best, was exhausted. With a deep breath he "let her out" to a singing speed of sixty miles an hour.
A cloud had obscured the sun, quite appropriately, he subconsciously felt, and there were flakes of snow in the air. As he sped through the gray atmosphere, the familiar little towns he knew seemed to come forward to meet him, like rapidly projected pictures on a screen.
Flushing, Bayside, Little Neck, Manha.s.set, Roslyn, Glenhead, one by one they floated past. He made the run of twenty-two miles in something under thirty minutes, to the severe disapproval of several policemen, who shouted urgent invitations to him to slow down. One of these was so persistent that Laurie prepared to obey; but just as the heavy hand of the law was about to fall, its representative recognized young Devon, and waved him on with a forgiving grin. This was not the first time Laurie 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 the tiny waiting-room. From the ticket window a pretty girl looked out on him with the expression of sudden interest feminine eyes usually took on when this young man was directly in their line of vision. With uncovered curly head deferentially bent, he addressed her. Had she happened to notice a dark limousine go by an hour or so before, say around half-past eight or nine o"clock? The girl shook her head. She had not come on duty until nine, and even if such a car had pa.s.sed she would hardly have observed it, owing to the frequency of the phenomenon and her own exacting responsibilities.
Laurie admitted that these responsibilities would claim all the attention of any mind. But was there any one around who might have seen the car, any one, say, who made a specialty of lounging on the platform and watching the pulsations of the town"s life in this its throbbing center? No, the girl explained, there were no station loafers around now. The summer was the time for them.
Then perhaps she could tell him if there were any nice old houses for rent near Sea Cliff, nice old houses, say, overlooking the Sound, and a little out of the town? Laurie"s newly acquired will power was proving its strength. With every frantic impulse in him crying for action, for knowledge, for relief from the intolerable tension he was under, he presented to the girl the suave appearance of a youth at peace with himself and the hour.
The abrupt transitions of the gentleman"s interest seemed to surprise the lady. She looked at him with a suspicion which perished under the expression in his brilliant eyes. What he meant, Laurie soberly explained, was the kind of house that might appeal to a casual tourist who was pa.s.sing through, and who had dropped into the station and there had suddenly realized the extreme beauty of Sea Cliff. The girl laughed. She was a nice girl, he decided, and he smiled back at her; for now she was becoming helpful.
Yes, there was the Varick place, a mile out and right on the water"s edge. And there was the old Kiehl place, also on the Sound. These were close together and both for rent, she had heard. Also, there was a house in the opposite direction, and on the water"s edge. She did not know the name of that house, but she had observed a "To Let" sign on it last Sunday, when she was out driving. Those were all the houses she knew of.