"But you"ll get off," choked Epstein. "It"s self-defense--it"s--it"s--"
"Or a brain storm, or temporary insanity!" Laurie interrupted. "No, old chap, that isn"t good enough. No padded cell for me! And I"m not going to have my name dragged through the courts, and the case figuring in the newspapers for months. I"ve got a reason I think you will all admit is a good one." Again his voice changed. "That would break my sister"s heart," he ended brokenly.
At the words Bangs uttered an odd sound, half a gasp and half a groan.
Epstein, again in his pit of wretchedness, caught it.
"Now you see the job ve done!" he muttered. "Now you see how ve looked after him, like she told us to!"
Bangs paid no attention to him.
"What are you going to do?" he heavily asked Laurie.
"I"ll tell you, on one condition--that you give me your word, all three of you, not to try in any way to interfere or to prevent it. You couldn"t, anyway, so don"t make the blunder of trying. You know what I"m up against. There"s only one way out."
He looked at them in turn. Doris and Epstein merely stared back, with the effect of not taking in what he was saying. But Bangs recoiled.
"No, by G.o.d!" he cried. "No! No!"
Laurie went on as if he had not spoken.
"I promised Perkins to be in my rooms at eight o"clock to-morrow morning," he muttered, and they had to strain their ears to catch the words. "I did _not_ promise to be--alive."
This time it was Doris who gasped out something that none of them heard.
For a moment Laurie sat silent in his chair, watching her with a strange intentness. Then, in turn, his black eyes went to the faces of Bangs and Epstein. Huddled in the big chair he occupied, the manager sat looking straight before him, his eyes set in agony, his jaw dropped. He had the aspect of a man about to have a stroke. Bangs sat leaning forward, staring at the floor. The remaining color had left his face. He appeared to have wholly forgotten the presence of others in the room. He was muttering something to himself, the same thing over and over and over: "And it"s all up to us. It"s--all--up--to us."
For an interval which none of the three ever forgot, Laurie watched the tableau. Then, rising briskly, he ostentatiously stretched himself, and in loud, cheerful tones answered Rodney"s steady babble.
"Yes, old chap, it"s all up to you," he said. "So what do you think of this as a climax for the play?"
Grinning down at his pal, he waited for a reply. It did not come.
Epstein was still unable to speak or move. Doris seemed to have heard the words without taking them in. But at last Bangs rose slowly, groped his way to his chum as if through a fog, and catching him by the shoulders looked wildly into his eyes.
"You mean--you mean," he stuttered at last, "that--that--this--was--all--a--hoax?"
"Of course it was," Laurie admitted, in his gayest voice. "It was the climax of the hoax you have played on me. An hour ago Shaw confessed to me how you three arranged this whole plot of Miss Mayo"s adventure, so that I should be kept out of mischief and should think I was having an adventure myself. I thought a little excitement was due you in return.
How do you like my climax, anyhow? Pretty fair, I call it."
He stopped short. Rodney had loosened his grip on his shoulders and stumbled to a chair. Now, his arm on its back and his head on his arm, his body shook with the relentless convulsion of a complete nervous collapse. Epstein had produced a handkerchief and was feebly wiping his forehead. Doris seemed to have ceased to breathe. Laurie walked over to her, took her hands, and drew them away from her face. Even yet, she seemed not to understand.
"I"m sorry," he said, very gently. "I"ve given you three an awful jolt.
But I think you will all admit that there was something coming to you.
You"ve put me through a pretty bad week. I decided you could endure half an hour of reprisal."
None of the three answered. None of the three could. But, in the incandescent moments that followed, the face of Epstein brightened slowly, like a moon emerging from black clouds. Bangs alone, who had best borne the situation up till now, was unable to meet the reaction.
In the silence of the little studio he wept on, openly and gulpingly and unrestrainedly, as he had not wept since he was a little boy.
CHAPTER XVIII
A LITTLE LOOK FORWARD
"So Shaw told you!" muttered Epstein a few moments later.
"You bet he did!" Laurie blithely corroborated. "He had to, to save his skin. But he was pretty game, I"ll give him credit for that. I had to fire one shot past his head to convince him that I meant business.
Besides, as I"ve said, I thought he was reaching for something. I suppose I was a little nervous. Anyway, we clenched again, and--well--I"d have killed him, I guess, if he hadn"t spoken."
He smiled reminiscently. All three were tactfully ignoring Bangs, who had walked over to the window and by the exercise of all his will-power was now getting his nerves under control.
"Shaw didn"t do the tale justice, he hadn"t time to," Laurie continued, "and I was in such a hurry to get back to Miss Mayo that I didn"t ask for many details. But on the way to the garage it occurred to me that I had a chance for a come-back that would keep you three from feeling too smug and happy over the way I had gulped down your little plot. So I planned it, and I rather think," he added complacently, "that I put it over."
"Put it over!" groaned Epstein. "Mein Gott, I should think you did put it over! You took twenty years off my life, young man; that"s von sure thing."
He spoke with feeling, and his appearance bore out his words. Even in these moments of immense relief he looked years older than when he entered the room.
"You"ll revive." Laurie turned to Rodney, who was now facing them. "All right, old man?"
"I guess so," gulped Rodney. There was no self-consciousness in his manner. He had pa.s.sed through blazing h.e.l.l in the last twenty minutes, and he did not care who knew it.
"Then," urged Laurie, seeking to divert him, "you may give me the details Shaw had to skip. How the d.i.c.kens did you happen to start this frame-up, anyhow?"
"How much did Shaw tell you?" Rodney tried to speak naturally.
"That the whole adventure was a plant you and Epstein had fixed up to keep me out of mischief," Laurie repeated, patiently. "He explained that you had engaged a company to put it over, headed by Miss Mayo, who is a friend of Mrs. Ordway, and who has a burning ambition to go on the stage. He said you promised her that if she made a success of it, she was to have the leading role in our next play. That"s about all he told me."
He did not look at Doris as he spoke, and she observed the omission, though she dared not look at him. Also, she caught the coldness of his rich young voice. She hid her face in her hands.
"That"s all I know," ended Laurie. "But I want to know some more. Whose bright little idea was this, in the first place?"
"Mrs. Ordway"s."
"Louise"s!" Unconsciously Laurie"s face softened.
"Yes. I went to see her one day," Bangs explained, "and I mentioned that we couldn"t get any work out of you till you"d had the adventure you were insisting on. Mrs. Ordway said, "Well, why don"t you give him an adventure?" That," confessed Rodney, "started me off."
"Obviously," corroborated his friend. "So it was Louise"s idea. Poor Louise! I hope she got some fun out of it."
"You bet she did!" corroborated Bangs, eagerly. "I kept her posted every day. She said it was more fun than a play, and that it was keeping her alive."
"Humph! Well, go on. Tell me how it started." Laurie was smiling. If the little episode just ended had been, as it were, a bobolink singing to Louise Ordway during her final days on earth, it was not he who would find fault with the bird or with those who had set it singing.
"The day we saw the caretaker in the window across the park," continued Rodney, "and I realized how interested you were, it occurred to me that we"d engage that studio and put Miss Mayo into it. Miss Mayo lives in Richmond, Virginia, and she had been making a big hit in amateur theatricals. She wanted to get on the legitimate stage, as Shaw told you; so Mrs. Ordway suggested that Epstein and I try her out--"
"Never mind all that!" interrupted Laurie. "Perhaps later Miss Mayo will tell me about it herself."
Bangs accepted the snub without resentment.