Chapter XXII The Touch Of Cold Steel
The two friends made their way briskly up Madison Avenue to Forty-fifth Street, and thence turned to the left toward Fifth Avenue. At the entrance to the St. Albans they paused a minute, while Jock finished the diverting story he had commenced.
“Good, ain’t it?” he chuckled. “Jimmie Toler has the greatest raft of ’em you ever heard. Well, see you around eight or after, I s’pose. S’long.” He took a few long strides, and then wheeled around. “Say, you missed the time of your life cutting away early last night, Barry,” he called back. “Greatest little queen you ever saw. Miss Rives was her name—Shirley Rives, from Virginia.”
Lawrence caught his breath swiftly, and took a single, impulsive step toward his friend. But Hamersley had already resumed his chuckling way, and, with a sigh, Barry went into the hotel and up to his rooms.
“So that was really her name,” he murmured, in a puzzled way, as he was dressing a little later. “I’ll be hanged if I can understand it. The whole business is one too many for me.”
The problem occupied his mind throughout his entire toilet; and afterward, as he bowled down to the Waldorf, he quite forgot to keep his eyes open for the persistent followers. So he failed to notice that the trailing taxi was conspicuous by its absence.
As he ate his oysters, the wonderful, deep eyes of the Southern girl looked at him in spirit from across the table. It seemed impossible that such eyes could be false, yet what else was there for him to believe? Again he saw, as clearly as if he had been gazing on it in the flesh, that bewitching mouth, with the tragic, little droop at the corners of the sensitive lips. How could such lips have voiced the things they had to him, if each word they uttered was a lie?
He could not believe it. Suddenly there came to him a conviction that he had been a fool to act as he had last night. There must be something about it all which he could not understand; some mystery which could be explained in a simple, logical way, if only he had the key. And, as he remembered the things he had thought of her, he became ashamed. A flood of crimson surged into his pleasant face at the realization of what a cad he had been. No one had known, to be sure. Happily he had voiced his feelings to no single soul, but he was a cad, nevertheless, unworthy of her friendship. From this moment things would be very different. He would have faith in her, no matter what happened, or how much appearances were against her. When he saw her again——
His heart suddenly sank within him. That was the question. Was he ever going to see her again? Would he ever be given a chance to show what he felt for her? Perhaps his new-found faith had come too late.
In this unenviable state of mind he finished his dinner, and left the table.
It was barely half past seven when he reached the corridor, and he realized, with some slight impatience that he had a wait of nearly fifteen minutes before the limousine he had ordered from the garage would put in an appearance.
Taking out his case, he extracted a thick Egyptian cigarette, and lighted it. As he tossed the match aside, and took a first deep whiff of smoke, he had the curious, instinctive feeling that some one was looking at him.
Slowly, leisurely, without any appearance of premeditation, he turned, as if to stroll down the corridor, and found that his intuition had not been at fault.
Standing perhaps twenty feet away, in an attitude which indicated he had been merely passing toward the elevator when something arrested his attention, was a tall, rather elderly man in faultless evening dress. He wore a top hat, and carried a heavy, fur-lined coat over one arm.
But Barry barely noticed those details. He was occupied with the handsome, distinguished face, smooth shaven, and with a subtle touch of intellectual power in the brilliant dark eyes. Those eyes were fixed upon the Harvard man with an expression at once so surprised and puzzled that, in a flash, Lawrence was reminded of the look on Mrs. Winslow Courtney’s high-bred face the day before.
And then—the parallel was amazingly like—a quick, genial smile flashed into the stranger’s face; he bowed pleasantly, hesitated a second, as if tempted to cross the intervening space to Barry’s side, then resumed his progress across the corridor and disappeared.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” Lawrence muttered, in a tone of whimsical annoyance. Though taken by surprise, he had returned the older man’s salutation promptly. “Reckon I must have a double floating around town, or else people like my looks a lot more than they used to.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he crossed to the desk, and, giving a brief description of the elderly gentleman, asked one of the clerks who he was.
“I think you must mean Mr. Grafton Fahnstock,” the latter returned promptly. “He passed through the lobby a moment ago.”
Barry thanked him, and walked away, puffing meditatively on his cigarette. Presently he smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. Grafton Fahnstock was the famous cabinet minister, who had just returned from a diplomatic conference at the Hague.
“Coming up in the world, my boy,” he chuckled, as he strolled toward the door. “First Mrs. Winslow Courtney, now Fahnstock. Next thing you know you’ll be chumming with his excellency at Wash——”
“Your car is here, Mr. Lawrence.”
It was the carriage man who spoke, and with a start Barry realized that he must have spent more time than he supposed dawdling about the lobby.
Hurriedly slipping into his coat, which he had been carrying on his arm, he walked rapidly out across the sidewalk to where a handsome limousine stood by the curb.
“Mr. Jacob Hamersley’s house on Fifth Avenue,” he told the chauffeur.
“Yes, sir.” The man saluted, without turning his head.
Lawrence leaped in, the porter slammed the door, and the car started off with a jerk.
The next instant Barry realized that he was not alone. A shadow in the farther corner of the wide seat had suddenly come to life.
But before the surprised Harvard man could so much as lift a finger, the cold barrel of an automatic revolver was pressed firmly against his temple, and a cool, steely voice said in his ear:
“Just sit tight, and don’t let a yip out of you, my friend, if you want to keep your brains where they belong!”