_ CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH SHIRLEY SURPRISES HIMSELF
They reached the hotel without untoward adventure.
"Perhaps we might find a little corner in that dining-room I saw this afternoon, with an obliging waiter to bring us something to eat. Shall we try? I need a lot of coffee, for I am going down to the dock of the Yacht Club to await developments."
"You big silly boy," she cautioned, with a maternal note in her voice which was very sweet to bachelor ears from such a maiden mouth, "you must not let Nature snap. You have a wonderful physique but you must go home to bed."
"It can't be done--I want to hear about your little visit to the apartment, and the story of the diary. I'll ask the clerk."
A bill glided across the register of the hotel desk, and the greeter promised to attend to the club sandwiches himself. He led them to a cosey table, in the deserted room, and started out to send the bell-boy to a nearby lunchroom.
"Just a minute please,--if any one calls up Miss Marigold, don't let them know she has returned. I have something important to say, without interruption: you understand?"
"Yes, I get you, sir," and the droll part was that with a familiarity generated of the hotel arts he did understand even better than Shirley or Helene. He had seen many other young millionaires and golden-haired actresses. Shirley looked across the table into the astral blue of those gorgeous eyes. Certain unbidden, foolish words strove to liberate themselves from his stubborn lips.
"I am a consummate idiot!" was all that escaped, and Helene looked her surprise.
"Why, have you made a mistake?"
"I hope not. But tell me of Warren's mistake."
She had been waiting what seemed an eternity before Van Cleft's house, when a big machine drew up alongside. Warren greeted her with a smiling invitation to leave Shirley guessing. Her willingness to go, she felt, would disarm his suspicions. The little dinner in the apartment with Shine, Warren and three girls had been in good taste enough: pretending, however, to be overcome with weariness she persuaded them to let her cuddle up on the couch, where she feigned sleep. Warren had tossed an overcoat over her and left the apartment with the others, promising to return in a few minutes. He had said to Shine, "She'll be quiet until we return--it may be a good alibi to have her here." Then he had disappeared, wearing only a soft hat, with no other overcoat. Listening at the closed hall door, she heard him direct the elevator man, "Second off, Joe." The door was locked from the outside. The servant's entrance was locked, all the bedrooms locked, every one with a Yale lock above the ordinary keyhole. The Chinese cook had been sent out sometime before to buy groceries and wine for the later party.
"But where did you find the note-book? It may send him to the electric chair." Monty Shirley was lighting one of the cigarettes handed him by his host. He sniffed at it and crushed out the embers at the end. "This cigarette would have sent me to dreamland for a day at least--Warren understands as much chemistry as I do."
"At first I studied the books in the library out of curiosity and then noticed that three books were shoved in, out of alignment with the others on the shelf. With a manservant in the house, instead of a woman, of course things needed dusting. But where these three books were it had been rubbed off! I took out the books, reached behind and found the little leather volume. It was simple. I went to his typewriter when I saw that the pages were all typed, and took out some note-paper, from the bronze rack."
"And then, Miss Sleuth?"
"Don't laugh at me. I had heard of the legal phrase 'corroborative evidence,' so knowing that it would be necessary to connect that typewriter with the book, I rattled off a few lines on the machine. Here it is: it will show the individuality of the machine to an expert."
"You wonderful girl!" he murmured simply. She protested, "Don't tease me. I have watched you and am learning some of your simple but complete methods of working. I understand you better than you think."
"Go on with your story," and Shirley was uncomfortable, although he knew not why.
"That is the end of my tale of woe. The kitchen being open, I took advantage of the dumb-waiter, as you already know. It's fortunate that waiter is dumb, for it must have many lurid confessions to make. I never saw such an interminable shaft; it seemed higher than the Eiffel Tower. See how I blistered my hands on the rope, letting myself down."
She opened her palms, showing the red souvenirs of the coarse strands. Almost unconsciously she placed her soft fingers within Shirley's for a brief instant. She quickly drew them away, sensing a blush beneath the cosmetics, glad that he could not detect it. That gentle contact thrilled Shirley again, even as the dear memory of the tired cheek against his shoulder, during the automobile trip of the previous night.
"After finding you so accidentally and returning with your aid, on the little elevator, I threw myself back into the original pose on the big couch. It was just in time, for Warren returned. His cook came in shortly afterward. I imagine that he allows no one in that apartment, ordinarily, when he is not there himself. But what, sir, do you think I discovered upon the shoulder of his coat?"
Shirley shook his head. "A beautiful crimson hair," he asked gravely, "from the sun-kissed forehead of the delectable Pinkie? Or was it white, from the tail of the snowy charger which tradition informs us always lurks in the vicinity of auburn-haired enchantresses?"
"Nothing so romantic. Just cobwebs! He saw me looking at them, and brushed them off very quickly."
"The man thinks he is a wine bottle of rare vintage!" observed Shirley. But the jest was only in his words. He looked at her seriously and then rapt in thought, closed his eyes the better to aid his mental calculation. "He got off at the second floor--He wore no overcoat--A black silk handkerchief--cobwebs--and that garage on the other street, through the block! Miss Helene, you are a splendid ally!"
"Won't you tell me what you mean about the garage? Who were those men who attacked you? What happened since I deserted you?"
But Shirley provokingly shook his head, as he drew out his watch.
"It is half-past two. I must hurry down to East Twenty-fifth Street and the East River, at the yacht club mooring, before three. Tomorrow I will give you my version in some quiet restaurant, far from the gadding crowd of the White Light district."
He rose, drawing back his chair; they walked to the elevator together. The clerk beckoned politely.
"A gent named Mr. Warren telephoned to ask if you were home yet, Miss Marigold. I told him not yet. Was that wrong?"
"It was very kind of you. Thank you so much," and Helene's smile was the cause of an uneasy flutter in the breast of the blase clerk. "Good-night."
"That's a lucky guy, at that, Jimmie," confided the clerk to the bell-boy. "She is some beauty show, ain't she? And she's on the right track, too."
"Yep, but she's too polite to be a great actress or a star. Her temper'ment ain't mean enough!" responded this Solomon in brass buttons. "I hopes we gits invited to the wedding!"
Outside, Shirley enjoyed the stimulus of the bracing early morning air. A new inspiration seemed to fire him, altogether dissimilar to the glow which he was wont to feel when plunging into a dangerous phase of a professional case. He slowly drew from his pocket the typed note-paper which had nestled in such enviable intimacy with that courageous heart. The faint fragrance of her exquisite flesh clung to it still. He held it to his lips and kissed it. Then he stopped, to turn about and look upward at the tall hostelry behind him. High up below the renaissance cornice he beheld the lights glow forth in the rooms which he knew were Helene's.
As he hurried to the club, he muttered angrily to himself: "I have made one discovery, at least, in this unusual exploit. I find that I have lost what common sense I possessed when I became a Freshman at college!" _