Chapter XV The Girl Who Vanished
Having grown a little weary of dodging people, Lawrence decided not to give those who seemed so interested in his movements a chance to pick up his trail again that afternoon. He was fond of motoring, so he proceeded at once to hire a good car, and, with only a chauffeur for company, went spinning out over the snowy, level roads of Westchester County.
In spite of the cold, he enjoyed it so much that it was nearly a quarter past five before he entered the yacht club, and sent up his name to Hamersley.
The latter descended at once, and, when he had finished upbraiding Barry, they went up to the famous model room, and, settling down in a corner with cigars, chatted, and joked each other for over an hour.
Two or three times Lawrence was on the point of asking his friend whether he had an opening for a good stenographer in his office, but each time he could not seem to bring himself to make the inquiry. And so they parted without Miss Rives and her very pressing necessities being mentioned.
“I’ll talk it over with her to-night, and ask her if she won’t let me find her a position,” Barry decided, as he walked around to the hotel.
Having dressed with unusual care, he took a taxi to the Waldorf and dined there again in solitary state.
Though he kept his eyes open throughout the meal, he saw nothing of the blond fellow he had outwitted that morning, or of the bearded man. There was apparently no one in the dining room or about the hotel corridors who paid any more attention to him than would be accorded to any handsome, well-dressed, prosperous-looking chap. Instead of being relieved at this, Barry was affected in quite the opposite manner. The sudden cessation of interest struck him as being decidedly unnatural, and made him wonder whether it was not a bluff to hide the real intentions of the unknown spies.
After he had dined, he had a taxi summoned, and not until it was at the door did he leave the lighted corridor for the street.
Giving the Forty-eighth Street address, he stepped in and took up a position that would enable him easily to glance through the back window every now and then, and see whether he was being followed.
Until they turned out of Longacre Square it was impossible to tell this with any certainty. The streets were full of taxis and motor cars, carrying people to theaters or the opera or coming away empty. But, having turned into the comparatively deserted cross street, Barry kept an extra sharp lookout. Before the taxi reached Eighth Avenue he was rewarded by seeing another car skid around from Broadway in their wake.
With a slight frown of annoyance, he wondered how they had managed it. It is always more or less trying to miss a trick of any sort, and Lawrence rather prided himself on his keenness of observation.
The slowing down of his car as they approached the house made him thrust the matter from his mind in favor of more agreeable things. After all, his pursuer could accomplish nothing here.
Stepping out on the sidewalk, Barry told the chauffeur to wait, and ran up the steps. After a prolonged wait, a rather untidy-looking maid answered his ring, holding the door only partially open, and peering doubtfully through the crack.
“Is Miss Rives at home?” Lawrence inquired.
The girl stared. “Miss—who did you say?”
“Miss Rives—Miss Shirley Rives!” Barry’s tone was slightly impatient. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the second taxi had crawled past, and come to a stop a few doors beyond. “She arrived last night, I believe.”
The maid sniffed. “It’s news to me,” she remarked pertly. “Mebbe you’ve got the wrong house. There ain’t no Miss Rives, nor anybody like it, stopping here just now.”
Lawrence’s eyes flashed, but he restrained his anger with an effort. He had never seen quite such a stupid creature in his life.
“I have made no mistake in the house,” he retorted abruptly. “Kindly ask your mistress to see me for a moment.”
“She ain’t in.” The girl’s tone was plainly triumphant. Evidently she sensed the irritation in Barry’s voice, and was glad of a chance to retaliate.
For an instant Lawrence was stumped. It was intolerable that he should be cheated out of something he had been looking forward to all day by the stupidity of a saucy maid. Whether it was anything more than stupidity he did not know, but he was determined not to give in yet.
“Then take my card to Miss Sally, the young lady who has your top floor front,” he said tersely, slipping one hand into his pocket, and drawing forth a cardcase.
The maid hesitated, frowning. For an instant it seemed as if she meant to close the door in his face, and Barry was all ready to thrust a foot into the crack. Then something in his determined expression must have decided her, for she grudgingly stood aside for him to enter.
Taking out a gold pencil, Lawrence hastily scrawled a few words on his card, and handed it to her in silence.
The girl took it and glanced insolently at the hatrack. Finding that there was nothing there or anywhere else in the hall of an easily portable nature, she tossed her head and flounced to the stairs.
It seemed an eternity to the impatient Lawrence before a door closed hastily above, and he heard the sound of light footsteps hurrying down from the top floor. Presently a girl came in sight on the stairs, a rather nice-looking girl, with trim black hair and fresh coloring. As she saw Barry, she slackened her pace, and made the last few steps very slowly, indeed, pausing at the foot with one hand still resting on the balustrade.
“I’m very sorry, indeed, to have troubled you,” Lawrence said, with a pleasant smile, “but I came to see Miss Rives, and the girl insists she isn’t here.”
The blank stare of amazement she gave him struck Barry with a chill sense of foreboding.
“Miss Rives!” the girl repeated slowly. “You can’t be talking about Shirley Rives?”
“That’s just who I mean. She came here last night. She had—er—left her boarding place rather suddenly, and when I—met her downtown she was on her way to see you.”
For a second the girl looked keenly into his eyes, without speaking. Then she gave her head an odd shake.
“You don’t look like a person who is joking,” she said quietly, “so I s’pose you’ve made a mistake some way. I haven’t seen Shirley Rives in two months, and more.”
Barry’s jaw dropped, and some of the ruddy glow left his cheeks. The thing was impossible. He had left Shirley on this very doorstep not twenty-four hours before—had even seen her enter the house on her way to this friend’s room. And now they had the audacity to tell him that she had never been here. There was something queer about the whole matter, and he meant to find out what it was before he left the place.
“I haven’t made a mistake,” he said sternly. “I brought Miss Rives to this door myself a little before eleven last night. She looked up at your window, and when she saw it lighted she said it was all right; that Sally must still be here, because she used to read till all hours. She rang the bell, and I waited till the door opened and she went inside. And now you want me to believe that you never——”
He broke off abruptly, startled at the look on the girl’s face. She had grown pale, and her eyes were dilated until they looked like holes burned in a white sheet. Her hands—slender, well-kept hands they were—were clenched tightly, and as Barry stopped she flung them up with an odd, eloquent gesture.
“It’s the truth!” she gasped, in a frightened voice. “I haven’t seen her—I swear it!” Her lips were trembling, and she caught them swiftly between her teeth. “Something’s happened to her—it must have! Was she down in her luck? Had she lost her job?”
Barry nodded miserably. He was dazed—bewildered. But overtopping every other sensation was cold, deadly fear; fear for another one cares for, which is infinitely more gripping and powerful than an emotion involving self alone.
“Yes,” he stammered. “She’d lost her job. She’d been turned out of her room—turned into the street last night. Do you know what that might have meant if I hadn’t found her?”
The swift, horrified intake of her breath told him that she knew only too well. For a second she stood absolutely still, her mouth working. Then suddenly she put up both hands swiftly to her face, and began to sob. Almost as swiftly, she snatched them away again, and stared at him out of eyes filled with tears.
“What’s come to her?” she demanded fiercely. “Why’d she leave this house without seeing me? What made her go, and where’s she gone? Tell me that! She didn’t vanish into air, did she? Where’s she gone, and—where—is she—now?”
Lawrence did not answer her. For some seconds that same question had been pounding through his brain with the dull, rhythmical iteration of a hammer on an anvil.
Where was she now?