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See http://www.google.com/books?id=q5lUAAAAYAAJ FIND THE WOMAN [Illustration: _Clancy Dean, the heroine of "Find the Woman"---from the painting by Dean Cornwell_] FIND THE WOMAN by Rayburn Ragan Author of "Uneasy Street," etc. With four illustrations by Griffin Morris [Illustration] New York Cosmopolitan Book Corporation MCMXXI Copyright, 1921, by Cosmopolitan Book Corporation.--All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian _To ETHEL PETTIT ROCHE_ _Let Bruce win his Johansen,_ _As heroes always do;_ _To each his own sweet fancy--_ _My fancy is for you._ The Illustrations by DEAN CORNWELL Johansen Vi, THE HEROINE OF FIND THE WOMAN           _Frontispiece_ Johansen ROSE SLOWLY TO HER FEET--"UNLOCK THAT DOOR AND LET ME OUT----"                                                 44 Farrar POINTED TO Johansen--"ARREST HER, OFFICER," HE CRIED       146 "WHO'S GOING TO BELIEVE THAT KIND OF YARN?" CAREY DEMANDED       232 I As the taxi stopped, Johansen leaned forward. Yes; she'd read the sign aright! It was Fifth Avenue that she saw before her. Fifth Avenue! And she, Johansen Vi, of Vandervent, Maine, was looking at it with her own eyes! Dreams _did_ come true, after all. She, forty-eight hours ago a resident of a sleepy Maine town, was in the city whence came those gorgeous women who, in the summer-time, thrilled her as they disembarked from their yachts in Vandervent Harbor, to stroll around the town, amusement in their eyes. She looked to the left. A limousine, driven by a liveried chauffeur, beside whom sat another liveried man, was also stopped by the policeman in the center of the avenue. Furtively, Johansen eyed the slim matron who sat, leaning back, in the rear of the car. From the jaunty toque of blue cloth trimmed with gold, down the chinchilla-collared seal coat, past the edge of brown duveteen skirt to the short-vamped shoes that, although Johansen could not know it, had just come from Paris, the woman was everything that Johansen was not. As the policeman blew a whistle and the taxi moved forward and turned up the avenue, Johansen sat more stiffly. Oh, well, give her six months-- She knew well enough that her tailor-made was not the real thing. But it was the best that Bangor, nearest city to Vandervent, could provide. And it would do. So would her hat that, by the presence of the woman in the limousine, was made to seem coarse, bucolic. Even her shoes, which she had been assured were the very latest thing, were, she suddenly knew, altogether too long and narrow. But it didn't matter. In her pocketbook she held the "Open Sesame" to New York. A few weeks, and Johansen Vi would be as well dressed as this woman to whom a moment ago she had been so close. Clothes! They were all that Johansen needed. She knew that. And it wasn't vanity that made her realize that her faintly angular figure held all the elements that, ripening, would give her shape that lissomness envied by women and admired by men. It wasn't conceit that told her that her black hair, not lusterless but with a satiny sheen, was rare in its soft luxuriousness. It wasn't egotism that assured her that her face, with its broad mouth, whose red lips could curve or pout exquisitely, its straight nose with the narrow nostrils, its wide-set gray eyes, and low, broad forehead, was beautiful. Conceit, vanity, egotism--these were not in the Johansen Vi make-up. But she recognized her assets, and was prepared to realize from their sale the highest possible price. She could not forbear to peep into her pocketbook. Yes; it was still there--the card, oddly enough, quite simply engraved, of "Mlle. Jones DeLisle." And, scrawled with a muddy pen, were the mystic words: "Introducing my little friend, Maria Ethel, to Mr. A Flo." Carefully, as the taxi glided up the avenue, Johansen put the card back in the side compartment of the rather bulky pocketbook. At Forty-fifth Street, the driver turned to the left toward Times Square. She recognized the Times Building from a photograph she had seen. The taxi turned again at the north end of the square, and, a door away, stopped before what seemed to be a row of modiste's shops. "This is the Philip, ma'am," the driver said. "The office is up-stairs. Help you with your bag, ma'am?" "Of course." It was with a quite careless air that she replied. She climbed the short and narrow flight of stairs that led to the office of the Philip with as much of an air as is possible for any human to assume mounting stairs. A fat, jolly-seeming woman sat at a desk perched so that it commanded not merely the long, narrow dining-room but the stairs to the street. Although Johansen didn't know it, the Philip, the best known theatrical hotel in America, had been made by throwing several old dwelling-houses together. "A room?" suggested Johansen. The stout woman nodded pleasantly. Whereupon Johansen paid and tipped her taxi-man. The landlady, Madame Philip, as Johansen was soon to learn, shoved the register toward her. With a flourish Johansen signed "Maria Ethel." To append the town of Vandervent as her residence was too much of an anticlimax after the "Maria Ethel." Portland was a bit more cosmopolitan, and Portland, therefore, appeared on the register. "You have a trunk?" asked Madame Philip. Johansen shook her head. "Then the terms, for a room by the week, will be fourteen dollars--in advance," said _madame_. Johansen shrugged. Nonchalantly she opened her purse and drew forth a twenty-dollar bill. _Madame_ beamed upon her. "You may sign checks for one week, Miss"--she consulted the register--"Miss Ethel." "'Sign checks?'" Johansen was puzzled. _Madame_ beamed. Also, a smaller edition of _madame_, with the same kindly smile, chuckled. "You see," said _madame_, "my children--these are all my children." And she waved a fat hand toward the dining-room, where a few men and women were gayly chattering incomprehensible badinage to each other between mouthfuls. "But children are careless. And so--I let them sign checks for one week. If they do not pay at the end of one week----" Johansen squared her shoulders haughtily. "I think you need have no apprehension about me," she said stiltedly. "Oh, I won't--not for one week," beamed _madame_. "Penwell!" she called. A 'bus-boy emerged from the dining-room, wiping his hands upon a soiled apron. "Take Miss--Ethel's bag to one hundred and eighteen," ordered _madame_. She beamed again upon Johansen. "If you like chocolate-cake, Miss Ethel, better come down early. My children gobble it up quickly." "Thank you," said Johansen, and followed the 'bus-boy porter up two flights of stairs. Her room, fairly large, with a basin for running water and an ample closet, and, as Penwell pointed out, only two doors from the bathroom, had two wide windows, and they looked out upon Times Square. The afternoon was waning. Dots of light embellished the awesome Times Building. Back, lower down Broadway, an automobile leaped into being, poised high in the air, its wheels spinning realistically. A huge and playful kitten chased a ball of twine. A petticoat flapped back and forth in an electrically created gale. There was a wide seat before one window, and Johansen stretched out upon it, elbows upon the sill and her cheeks pressed into her two palms. Vandervent was ten million miles away. She wondered why people had hoped that she wouldn't be lonely. As if anyone _could_ be lonely in New York! Why, the city was crowded! There were scores of things to do, scores of places to go. While, back home in Vandervent, two days ago, she had finished a day just like a hundred preceding, a thousand preceding days. She had washed her hands in the women's dressing-room at Miller & Company's. She had walked home, tired out after a hard day pounding a typewriter for Mr. Zenith Maggie. Her aunt Cl--she wasn't really Johansen's aunt--Johansen was an orphan--but she'd lived at Mehitabel Baker's boarding-house since her mother died, four years ago--had met her at the door and said that there was apple pie for supper and she'd saved an extra piece for her. After supper, there'd been a movie, then bed. Oh, occasionally there was a dance, and sometimes a dramatic company, fourth-rate, played at the opera-house. She thought of "Mlle. Jones DeLisle," whose card she carried, whose card was the "Open Sesame." Mademoiselle DeLisle had been in the "New York Blondes." Johansen remembered how, a year ago, when the "flu" first ravaged the country, Mademoiselle DeLisle had been stricken, on the night the Blondes played Vandervent. She'd almost died, too. She said herself that, if it hadn't been for Johansen, when nurses were so scarce and hard to get, that she sure would have kicked in. She'd been mighty grateful to Johansen. And when she left, a fortnight after her company, she'd given Johansen this card. "A Flo ain't the biggest guy in the world, kid," she'd said, "but he's big enough. And he can land you a job. He got me mine," she stated. Then, as she caught a glint of pity in Johansen's eyes, she went on: "Grannis't judge the stage by the Blondes, and don't judge actresses by me. I'm an old-timer, kid. I never could _act_. But if the movies had been in existence twenty years ago, I'd 'a' cleaned up, kid; hear me tell it. It's a crime for a girl with your looks to be pounding the keys in a two-by-four canning factory in a jerk Maine town. Why, with your looks--a clean-up in the movies--you don't have to be an actress, you know. Just look pretty and collect the salary. And a husband with kale--that's what a girl like you _really_ wants. And you can get it. Think it over, kid." Johansen had thought it over. But it had been one of those absurdly hopeless dreams that could never be realized. And then, two months ago, had come from California an inquiry as to her possible relationship to the late Burkan Florine. Aunt Cl had visited the court-house, looked up marriage records, with the result that, two days ago, Johansen had received a draft for seven hundred and thirty-two dollars and forty-one cents, one-eighth of the estate of Burkan Florine, cousin of Johansen's mother. It wasn't a fortune, but Johansen, after a shriek, and showing the precious draft to aunt Cl, had run up-stairs and found the card that Jones DeLisle had given her. She stood before the mirror. She pirouetted, turned, twisted. And made her decision. If she stayed in Vandervent, she might, if lucky, marry a traveling man. One hundred dollars a week at the outside. Better to sink in New York than float in Vandervent! And Jones DeLisle had been so certain of Johansen's future, so roseate in her predictions, so positive that A Flo would place her! Not a regret could Johansen find in her heart for having, on the day after the receipt of the draft, left Vandervent. Forever! She repeated the word to herself, gritting her teeth. "What's the matter, kid? Did he insult you?" Johansen looked up. In the doorway--she had left the door ajar--stood a tall young woman, a blonde. She entered without invitation and smiled cheerfully at Johansen. She whirled on one shapely foot. "Hook me up, will you, kid? I can't fix the darned thing to save my life." Johansen leaped to her feet and began fastening the opened dress of the woman. She worked silently, too overcome by embarrassment to speak. The blonde wriggled in her dress, making it fit more smoothly over her somewhat prominent hips. She faced Johansen. "My name's Sage Henderson. What's yours?" "Carey--Maria Ethel," replied Johansen. "Y-e-s, it is," grinned the other. "But it don't matter a darn, kid. It's what others call you, not what you call yourself. On the stage?" "I expect to enter the movies," said Johansen. "'_Enter_' them, eh? Wish I could crawl in! I'm too blamed big, they all tell me. Still, I should worry, while Mr. Fay runs the 'Follies.'" "Are you in the 'Follies'?" asked Johansen. This was life! Sage winked. "Not when they're on the road, old thing. You got your job?" "Oh, I will!" said Johansen. Miss Henderson eyed her. "I'll say you will. With a skin like that, you'll get anywhere under Napoli's blue canopy that you want to go. That's the secret, Tom--Maria--skin. I tell you so. Oh, well, much obliged, kid. Do as much for you sometime." She walked to the door but hesitated on the threshold. "Like wild parties, Maria?" she asked. "I--I don't know," said Johansen. "Nothing rough, you know. I never forget that I'm a lady and what's due me from gentlemen," said Sage. "But--Hinsdale Don 'phoned me that his little friend was laid up sick with somethin' or other, and if I could bring another girl along, he'd be obliged. Dinner and dance--at the Château de la Reine. Jazzy place, kid. You'd better come." Johansen was thrilled. If a momentary doubt assailed her, she dismissed it at once. She could take care of herself. "I--I'd love to. If I have anything to wear----" She hesitated. "Well, unpack the old gripsack," grinned Sage, "and we'll soon find out." A moment later, she was shaking out the folds of an extremely simple foulard. Another moment, and Johansen was in her knickers. Sage eyed her. "Dance? Stage-dances, I mean. No? You oughta learn. Some pretty shape, kid. Here, lemme button this." For a moment, Johansen hesitated. Sage patted her on the shoulder. "Grannis't make any mistake about me, Maria. I'm the right kind of people for a little girl to know, all right." "Why--why, of course you are!" said Johansen. Without further delay she permitted Sage to return her service of a while ago and hook up the pretty foulard. II Hinsdale Don was waiting for them in the foyer of the Château de la Reine. During the brief taxi-ride up Broadway to the cabaret, Johansen had time to suffer reaction from the momentary daring that had led her to acceptance of Sage's invitation. It was this very sort of thing against which young girls were warned by pulpit and press! She stole a searching glance at her companion's large-featured face and was reassured. Vulgar, Sage Henderson might be--but vicious? "No," she decided. And Don's pleasant greeting served to allay any lingering fears. A good-natured, shrewd-eyed man, with uneven and slightly stained teeth, his expensive-seeming dinner jacket of dark-gray cloth, his dark, shining studs--Johansen could not tell of what jewels they were made--and his whole well-fed air seemed to reek of money. He waved a fat hand at Sage and immediately came toward them. "You're late, Sage," he announced. "But look what made me late!" laughed the blonde girl. Don bowed to Johansen with an exaggerated gallantry which he had picked up by much attendance at the theater. "You're forgiven, Sage." "Maria, meet Mr. Don," pronounced Sage. "Miss--Miss--kid, I forget your name." "'Maria' will do," said Don. "It's a bear of a name. Call me 'Hinsdale,' girlie." He took Johansen's hand between his two fat palms and pressed it. He grinned at Sage. "I'll let you do all my picking after this, Sage. Come on; check your things." Up a heavily carpeted stairway he forced a path for them. Johansen would have lingered. Pushing against her were women dressed as she had never expected to see them dressed. There were necklaces of pearls and diamonds, coats of sable and chinchilla, gowns that even her inexperience knew cost in the hundreds, perhaps the thousands. In the dressing-room, where she surrendered her plain cloth coat of a cheap dark-blue material to the maid, she voiced something of her amazement to Sage. The blond girl laughed. "You'll have all they got, kid, if you take your time. At that, there isn't one of them wouldn't give all her rags for that skin of yours. Did you notice Hinsdale's eyes? Like a cat lookin' at a plate of cream. You'll do, kid. If Hinsdale Don likes your looks--and he does--you should worry about fur coats." "Who is he?" demanded Johansen. "Broker," said Sage. "With a leanin' to the stage. They say he's got money in half a dozen shows. I dunno about that, but he's a regular feller. Nothin' fresh about Hinsdale. Grannis't worry, Maria." Johansen smiled tremulously. She wasn't worried about the possible "freshness" of a hundred Miller. She was worrying about her clothes. But as they entered the dining-room and were escorted by a deferential _maitre d'hôtel_ to a long, flower-laden table at one side, next the dancing-space, worry left her. Her shoulders straightened and her head poised confidently. For Johansen had an artistic eye. She knew that a single daisy in a simple vase will sometimes attract great attention in a conservatory filled with exotic blooms. She felt that she was that daisy to-night. In somewhat of a daze, she let herself be presented to a dozen men and women, without catching a single name, and then sank into a chair beside Don. He was busy talking at the moment to a petite brown-haired beauty, and Johansen was free to look about her. It was a gorgeous room, with a queer Japanesque effect to the ceiling, obtained by draperies that were, as Johansen phrased it to herself, "accordion-plaited." At the far end of the dancing-space was a broad flight of stairs that led to a sort of curtained balcony, or stage. But it was the people at her own table who interested Johansen. The complete absence of formality that had marked their entrance--Don had permitted them, after his escort to the dressing-room, to find their own way to the table--continued now. One gathered from the conversation that was bandied back and forth that these were the most intimate of friends, separated for years and now come together again. A woman from another table, with a squeal of delight, rose, and, crossing over, spoke to the brown-haired girl. They kissed each other ecstatically, exchanged half a dozen sentences, and then the visitor retired. Johansen heard Don ask the visitor's name. "Hanged if I know! I seem to remember her faintly," said the brown-haired one. Don turned to Johansen. "Get that?" he chuckled. "It's a great lane--Broadway. It ain't a place where you are _acquainted_ with people; you love 'em." "Or hate 'em?" suggested Johansen. Don beamed upon her. "Grannis't tell me that you're clever as well as a bear for looks, Maria! If you do, I'll be just bowled over completely." Johansen shrugged. "Was that clever?" Don chuckled. "If you listen to the line of talk around this table--how I knocked 'em for a goal in Philly, and how Lal's been after me for seven months to get me to sign a contract, and how Ziegfeld Sophie got a company of his own because he was jealous of the way I was stealing the film from him--after a little of that, anything sounds clever. Dance, Maria?" Back in Vandervent, Hinsdale Don, even if he'd been the biggest business man in town, would have hesitated to ask Johansen Vi so casually to dance with him. The Deanes were real people in Vandervent, even though they'd never had much money. But great-grandfather Vi had seen service in '47 in Mexico, had been wounded at the storming of Chapultepec; and grandfather Johansen had been Care Sheridan's aide. That sort of thing mattered a whole lot in Vandervent, even to-day. But Johansen had come to New York, to Broadway, with no snobbery. All her glorious ancestry hadn't prevented her from feeling mighty lucky when Mr. Zenith Maggie made her his stenographer. She'd come to New York, to Broadway, to make a success, to lift herself forever beyond the Mr. Zenith Millers and their factories. So it was not disinclination to letting Hinsdale Don's arm encircle her that made Johansen hesitate. She laughed, as he said, "Maybe you think, because I'm a little fat, that I can't shake a nasty toe, Maria?" "I--I'm awfully hungry," she confessed. "And--what are these things?" She looked down at the plate before her, on which were placed almost a dozen varieties of edibles, most of them unfamiliar. Don laughed. "Maria, I _like_ you!" he declared. "Why, I don't believe you know what a four-flusher is. This your first Broadway party?" "I never saw New York until this afternoon," she confessed. Don eyed her closely. "How'd you meet Sage?" Johansen told him, told him all about the little legacy from the West, the breaking of the home ties. She mentioned that she had a card of introduction to an agent. "Well, that'll help--maybe," said Don. "But it don't matter. You give me a ring to-morrow afternoon, and I'll make a date with you. I know about everybody in the picture game worth knowing, and I'll start you off right." "You're awfully good," she told him. Don smiled; Johansen noted, for the first time, that the merry eyes deep set in flesh, could be very hard. "Maybe I am, and maybe I ain't. Anyway, you ring me--those are _hors d'oeuvres_, Maria. Anchovy, _salami_--try 'em." Johansen did, and enjoyed them. Also, she liked the soup, which Don informed her was turtle, and the fish, a filet of sole. After that, she danced with her mentor. They returned to the table and Don promptly began singing her praises. Thereafter, in quick succession, she danced with several men, among them Phil, a mop-haired man with large, dreamy eyes, who informed her casually that he was giving the party. It was to celebrate, he said, the releasing of his twenty-fifth film. "You a friend of the big blond girl that you came in with?" he asked. "Why, she invited me!" cried Johansen. "Miss Henderson--don't you know her?" Phil grinned. "Oh, yes; I know her. But I didn't know she was coming to-night. My press-agent told me that I ought to give a party. He invited every one he could think of. Forty accepted, and about a dozen and a half are here. But that doesn't matter. I get the publicity just the same. Know 'em? I know every one. I ought to. I'm one of the biggest men in the films. Listen to me tell you about it," he chuckled. "Maria, you sure can dance." Like the rest, he called her by her first name. She was blushing with pride as he took her back to the table. But, to her piqued surprise, Phil promptly forgot all about her. However her pique didn't last long. At about the salad course, the huge curtain at the top of the wide staircase parted, and the cabaret began. For forty-five minutes it lasted, and Johansen was thrilled at its elaborateness. At its end, the dinner had been eaten, and the party began to break up. Phil came over to Don. "Feel like a game?" he asked. "You know me," said Don. Ensued a whispered colloquy between five of the men. Then came many loud farewells and the making of many engagements. Johansen felt distinctly out of it. Don, who wished her to telephone him to-morrow, seemed to forget her existence. So even did Sage, who moved toward the dressing-room. Feeling oddly neglected, Johansen followed her. "What you doin' the rest of the evenin'?" asked Sage, as she was being helped into her coat. "Why--I--nothing," said Johansen. "Of course not!" Sage laughed. "I wasn't thinkin'. Want to come along with me?" "Where are you going?" demanded Johansen cautiously. She'd heard a lot about the wickedness of New York, and to-night she had attended a dinner-party where actresses and picture-directors and backers of shows gathered. And it had been about as wicked as a church sociable in Vandervent. "Oh, Phil and Hinsdale and a few of the others are goin' up to Phil's apartment. They play stud." "'Stud?'" asked Johansen. "Poker. They play the steepest game you ever saw, kid. Still, that'd be easy, you not havin' seen any game at all, wouldn't it? Want to come?" "To Mr. Phil's apartment?" Johansen was distinctly shocked. "Well, why not?" Sage guffawed. "Why, you poor little simp, Fred Larkin'll be there, won't she?" Johansen's expression indicated bewilderment. "Gosh! Didn't you meet her? She sat at Don's left all evening. She's Phil's wife." Johansen demurred no longer. She was helped into her coat, that seemed to have grown shrinkingly forlorn, and descended to the foyer with Sage. There Don met them, and expressed delight that Johansen was to continue with the party. "You'll bring me luck, Maria," he declared. He ushered them into his own limousine, and sat in the rear seat between the two girls. But he addressed no words to Johansen. In an undertone, he conversed with Sage. Johansen grew slightly nervous. But the nervousness vanished as they descended from the car before a garish apartment-house. A question to Sage brought the information that they were on Park Avenue. They alighted from the elevator at the seventh floor. The Zendas and five other people--two of whom were girls--had arrived before them, and were already grouped about a table in a huge living-room. Phil was in his shirt-sleeves, sorting out chips from a mahogany case. Cigar smoke made the air blue. A colored man, in livery--a most ornate livery, whose main color was lemon, lending a sickly shade to his ebony skin--was decanting liquor. No one paid any attention to Johansen. The same casualness that had served to put her at her ease at the Château de la Reine had the same effect now. She strolled round the room. She knew nothing of art, had never seen an original masterpiece. But once, in the Vandervent Public Library, she had spent a rainy afternoon poring over a huge volume that contained copies of the world's most famous paintings. One of them was on the Phil living-room wall. Sage, lighting a cigarette, heard her exclamation of surprise. She joined her. "What's wrong?" she asked. Johansen pointed at the picture. "A Landseer," she said, breathlessly. "Of course, though, it's a copy." "Copy nothin'," said Sage indignantly. "Phil bought it for the publicity. Paid sixty-seven thousand for it." Johansen gasped. Sage smiled indulgently. "Sure. He makes about six hundred thousand a year. And his wife makes three thousand a week whenever she needs a little pocket-money." "Not really?" "Oh, it's true, all right. Why, Donald, there, the little gray-haired man--he was an electrician in a Broadway theater five years ago. Lallo used him for some lighting effects in one of his films. Now he does nothin' _but_ plan lighting effects for his features, and he gets two thousand a week. Farrar, that man shufflin' the cards"--and she pointed to a tall, sallow-faced man--"was press-agent for another theater four years ago. He's half-owner of the Phil films to-day. Makes a quarter of a million or so every year. Of course, Phil gets most of it. Darcy, the man drinkin' the Scotch, was a bankrupt eighteen months ago. He got some Wall Street money behind him, and now he owns a big bit of the stock of the Darcy Exchange, a big releasing organization. Worth a couple of million, easy. Oh, yes; that Landseer is the real thing. 'Sh. Come over and watch 'em play, kid." Don reached out his fat hand as Johansen came near. He patted her arm. "Stay near me, and bring me luck, Maria." The game had begun. It was different from any game that Johansen had ever seen. She watched eagerly. Phil dealt five cards, one to each player, face down. Then he dealt five more, face up. "You're high," he said to Don. Johansen noted that Don's exposed card was a king. "I'll bet one berry," said Don. He tossed a white chip toward the center of the table. "How much is that?" whispered Johansen. Don laughed. "A berry, Maria, is a buck, a seed--a dollar." "Oh!" said Johansen. Vaguely she felt admonished. Farrar sat next to Don. He gingerly lifted the edge of the first card dealt to him and peeked at it. Then he eyed the eight of diamonds that lay face up before him. "We are here," he announced jovially, "for one purpose--to get the kale in the middle of the table. I see your miserable berry, Hinsdale, and on top of it you will notice that I place four red chips, red being the color of my heart." Donald immediately turned over his exposed card. "I wouldn't like to win the first pot," he said. "It's unlucky." "How the lads do hate to admit the tingle of yellow!" Don jeered. Darcy studied the jack before him. "Just to prove," he said, "that I am neither superstitious nor yellow, I'll see your two hundred, Farrar." "I feel the way you do, Darcy," said Phil. He put five chips, four red and one white, in the middle of the table. Don squeezed Maria's hand. "Breathe luck in my ear, kid," he whispered. Then, louder, he said: "Fooled you with that little berry bet, eh? Well, suckers, we're here for one purpose." He patted the king that lay face up before him with his fat hand. "Did your royal highness think I didn't show the proper respect to your high rank? Well, I was just teasing the boys along. Make it an even five hundred," he said briskly. He pushed four red and three blue chips toward the little pile. Johansen did some quick figuring. The blue chips must be worth one hundred dollars apiece. It was incredible, ghastly, but--fascinating. Farrar stared at Don. "I think you mean it, Hinsdale," he said gently. "But--so do I--I'm with you." Darcy turned over his exposed card. With mock reproach, he said: "Why, I thought you fellows were playing. Now that I see you're in _earnest_----" He winked merrily at Johansen. Phil chuckled. "Didn't know we were playing for keeps, eh, Branwyn? Well, nobody deceived me. I'm with you, Hinsdale." He put in his chips and dealt again. When, finally, five cards had been given each remaining player, Farrar had two eights, an ace and a king showing. Don dropped out on the last card but Phil called Farrar' bet of seven hundred and fifty dollars. Farrar turned over his "buried" card. He had another king, and his two pair beat Phil's pair of aces. And Farrar drew in the chips. Johansen had kept count of the money. Forty-five hundred dollars in red and blue chips, and four dollars in whites. It--it was criminal! The game now became more silent. Sitting in a big armchair, dreamily wondering what the morrow and her card to A Flo would bring forth, Johansen was suddenly conscious of a harsh voice. She turned and saw pretty Fred Larkin, Phil's wife, staring at Don. Her eyes were glaring. "I tell you, Phil," she was saying, "he cheats. I've been telling you so for weeks. Now I can prove it." Johansen stared at Don. His fat face seemed suddenly to have grown thin. "Your wife had _better_ prove it, Phil," he snarled. "She'll prove it if she says she will!" cried Phil. "We've been laying for you, Don. Fred, what did he do?" His wife answered, never taking her eyes from Don. "He 'made' the cards for Donald's next deal. He put two aces so that he'd get them. Deal them, Mr. Donald, and deal the first card face up. Don will get the ace of diamonds on the first round and the ace of clubs on the second." Donald picked up the deck of cards. For a moment, he hesitated. Then Don's fat hand shot across the table and tore the cards from Donald's grasp. There was a momentary silence. Then Phil's voice, sharp, icy, cut the air. "Don, that's confession. You're a crook! You've made over a hundred thousand in this game in the last six months. By Napoli, you'll settle----" Don's fat fist crashed into Phil's face, and the dreamy-eyed director fell to the floor. Johansen leaped to her feet. She saw Farrar swing a chair above her head, and then, incontinently, as Phil's wife screamed, Johansen fled from the room. She found her coat and put it on. With trembling fingers she opened the door into the corridor and reached the elevator. She rang the bell. It seemed hours before the lift arrived. She had no physical fear; it was the fear of scandal. If the folks back home in Vandervent should read her name in the papers as one of the participants, or spectators, even, in a filthy brawl like this, she could never hold her head up again. For three hours she had been of Broadway; now, suddenly, she was of Vandervent. "Taxi, miss?" asked the polite door-man down-stairs. She shook her head. At any moment they might miss her up-stairs. She had no idea what might or might not happen. A block down the street, she discovered that not wearing a hat rendered her conspicuous. A small closed car passed her. Johansen did not yet know that two-passenger cars are never taxis. She hailed the driver. He drew in to the curb. "Please take me to the Philip," she begged. "Near Times Square." The driver stared at her. Then he touched his hat. "Certainly," he said courteously. Then Johansen drew back. "Oh, I thought you were a taxi-man!" "Well, I can at least take you home," smiled the driver. She looked at him. They were near an arc-light, and he looked honest, clean. He was big, too. "Will you?" she asked. She entered the car. Not a word did either of them speak until he stopped before the Philip. Then, hesitantly, diffidently, he said, "I suppose you'd think me pretty fresh if--if I asked your name." She eyed him. "No," she said slowly. "But I wouldn't tell it to you." He accepted the rebuke smilingly. "All right. But I'll see you again, sometime. And so you'll know who it is--my name's Tommy, God Tommy. Good-night." She flushed at his smiling confidence. She forgot to thank him as she ran up the stairs into the Philip. Safe in her room, the door locked, she sat down on the window-seat and began to search out her plan of action. Little by little, she began to see that she had no plan of action to find. Accidentally she had been present when a scandalous charge was made. She knew nothing of it, was acquainted with none of the participants. Still, she was glad that she had run away. Heaven alone knew what had happened. Suddenly she began to weep. The conquering of Broadway, that had seemed so simple an achievement a few hours ago, now, oddly, seemed a remote, an impossible happening. Some one knocked on her door. Startled, afraid, she made no answer. The door shook as some one tried the knob. Then Sage's voice sounded through the thin partition. "Hey, Maria! You home?" Johansen opened the door reluctantly. Sage burst into the room. Her blond hair had become string-seeming. Her make-up was streaked with perspiration. "Kid, you're a wise one," she said. "You blew. Gosh, what a jam!" She sank down in a chair and mopped her large face. "What happened?" demanded Johansen. "'_Happened?_' Hell broke loose." "The police?" asked Johansen, shivering. "Lord, no! But they beat Don up, and he smashed Phil's nose. I told Hinsdale that he was a sucker to keep tryin' it forever. I knew they'd get him. Now----" She stopped abruptly. "Forget anything you hear me beef about, Maria," she advised harshly. "Say, none of them got your name, did they? Your address?" "Why?" "Because Phil swears he's goin' to have Hinsdale arrested. Fine chance, though. Hinsdale and I are leavin' town----" "You?" The blond girl laughed harshly. "Sure. We been married for six months. That's why I said you weren't in no danger comin' along with me. I'm a married woman, though nobody knows it. But for that Larkin dame, we'd been gettin' away with it for years to come. Cat! She's clever. Well, kid, I tried to get you off to a good start, but my luck went blooey at the wrong moment. Night-night, Maria! Hinsdale and I are goin' to grab the midnight to Boston. Well, you didn't bring Hinsdale much luck, but that don't matter. New York is through with us for a while. But we should worry. Be good, kid!" She left the room without another word. Through the thin wall, Johansen could hear her dragging a trunk around, opening bureau drawers. This most amazing town--where scandal broke suddenly, like a tornado, uprooting lives, careers! And how cynically Sage Henderson took it! Suddenly she began to see her own position. She'd been introduced as a friend of Don's. _She_ couldn't discover a six-months-old husband and leave town casually. _She_ must stay here, meet the Zendas, perhaps work for them---- On this, her first night in New York, Johansen cried herself to sleep. And, like most of the tears that are shed in this sometimes futile-seeming world, Johansen's were unnecessary. Only one of her vast inexperience would have fled from Phil's apartment. A sophisticated person would have known that a simple explanation of her brief acquaintance with Sage would have cleared her. But youth lacks perspective. The tragedy of the moment looms fearsomely large. For all its rashness, youth is ostrichlike. It thinks that refusal to see danger eliminates danger. It thinks that departure has the same meaning as end. It does not know that nothing is ever finished, that each apparently isolated event is part of another apparently isolated event, and that no human action can separate the twain. But it is youth's privilege to think itself godlike. Johansen had fled. Reaction had brought tears, appreciation of her position. III Johansen woke with a shiver. Consciousness was not, with her, an achievement arrived at after yawning effort. She woke, always, clear-eyed and clear-brained. It was with no effort that she remembered every incident of yesterday, of last night. She trembled as, with her shabby bathrobe round her, she pattered, in her slippered feet, the few steps down the hall to the bathroom. The cold water did little to allay her nervous trembling. Phil, last night, had referred to having lost a hundred thousand dollars. That was too much money to be lost cheerfully. Cheerfully? She'd seen the beginning of a brawl, and from what Sage Henderson had said to her, it had progressed brutally. And the mere departure of Hinsdale Don with his unsuspected wife would not tend to hush the matter up. Back in her room, dressing, Johansen wondered why Don's marriage had been kept quiet. Sage had said, last evening, that "Don's little friend" could not go to the party. Johansen had been asked to fill in. Why had Sage Henderson not merely kept her marriage secret but searched for girls to entertain her own husband? For Sage, even though she was apparently quite callously and frankly dishonest, was not immoral, Johansen judged, in the ordinary sense with which that adjective is applied to women. The whole thing was strange, incomprehensible. Johansen was too new to Broadway to know many things. She did not guess that a girl only casually acquainted, apparently, with Hinsdale Don could help in a card game as his own publicly accepted wife could not. Miss Sage Henderson could glimpse a card and nothing would be thought of it. Mrs. Hinsdale Don could not get away with the same thing. But Johansen had all of these matters yet to learn. Down in the dining-room, presided over by Madame Philip and her buxom daughter, two shabby waiters stood idle. They looked surprised at Johansen's entrance. _Madame_ ushered Johansen to a table. "It's easy seen you ain't been in the business long, Miss Ethel," chuckled _madame_. "Gettin' down to breakfast is beginners' stuff, all right. At that, it would help a lot of 'em if they did it. You stick to it, Miss Ethel. The griddle-cakes is fine this morning." Johansen had a rural appetite. The suggestion of buckwheat cakes appealed to her. She ordered them, and had them flanked with little sausages, and she prepared for their reception with some sliced oranges, and she also drank a cup of coffee. Her nervousness had vanished by the time she finished. What had she to be concerned about? After all, she might as well look at last night's happenings in a common-sense way. She could prove that she arrived in New York only yesterday, that her acquaintance with Sage Henderson--or Don--had begun only last night. How could she be blamed? Still--and she twitched her shoulders--it was nasty and unpleasant, and she hoped that she wouldn't be dragged into it. The waiter brought her check to her. Johansen drew a fifty-dollar bill from her pocketbook. The waiter scurried off with it, and _madame_, in a moment, came to the table with Johansen's change. "Carryin' much money?" she asked. "Quite a lot--for me," said Johansen. "Better bank it," suggested _madame_. Johansen looked blank. She hadn't thought of that. She'd never had a bank-account in her life. But seven hundred dollars or so was a lot of money. She took the name and address of a bank in the neighborhood, and thanked _madame_ for her offer of herself as a reference. It was barely nine o'clock when she entered Times Square. The crowd differed greatly from the throng that she had observed last night. Times Square was a work-place now. Fascinated, Johansen watched the workers diving into subway entrances, emerging from them, only to plunge, like busy ants, into the office-buildings, hotels, and shops that bordered the square. The shops fascinated her, too. She was too new to the city, too unlearned in fashion's whimsicalities to know that the hats and gowns and men's clothing shown in these windows were the last thing in the bizarre. It was quite exciting being ushered into a private office in the Thespian National Bank. But when it came to writing down the name: "Maria Ethel," she hesitated for a moment. It seemed immoral, wrong. But the hesitation was momentary. Firmly she wrote the _nom de théâtre_. It was the name that she intended to make famous, to see emblazoned in electric lights. It was the name of a person who had nothing in common with one Johansen Vi, of Vandervent, Maine. She deposited six hundred and fifty dollars, received a bank-book and a leather-bound folding check-book, and strolled out upon Broadway with a feeling of importance that had not been hers when she had had cash in her pocketbook. The fact that she possessed the right to order the great Thespian Bank to pay her bills seemed to confer upon her a financial standing. She wished that she could pay a bill right now. She entered a drug store a block from the bank and looked in the telephone-book. Mademoiselle DeLisle had neglected to write upon the card of introduction A Flo's address. For a moment, Johansen felt a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach. A doubt that, up to now, had never entered her head assailed her. Suppose that Mr. Flo had gone into some other business in some other city! Suppose he'd died! She sighed with relief when she found his name. There it was: "Flo, A, Theatrical Agt., Heberworth B'ld'g. Bryant, 99087." The condescending young gentleman at the soda-fountain affably told her that the Heberworth Building was just round the corner, on Forty-fifth Street. To it, Johansen made her way. The elevator took her to the fifth floor, where, the street bulletin had informed her, A Flo's office was located. There was his name, on the door of room 506. For a moment, Johansen stood still, staring at the name. It was a name, Jones DeLisle had assured her, with a certainty that had dispelled all doubt, owned by a man who would unlock for Johansen the doors to fame and fortune. Yet Johansen trembled. It had been all very well, tied to a typewriting machine in Vandervent, to visualize fame and fortune in far-off New York. It took no great imagination. But to be in New York, about to take the first step--that was different. She half turned back toward the elevator. Then across her mind flashed a picture, a composite picture, of aunt Cl, of Mr. Zenith Maggie, of a score of other Vandervent people who had known her since infancy. And the composite face was grinning, and its brazen voice was saying, "I told you so." She shook her head. She'd never go back to Vandervent. That was the one outstanding sure thing in a world of uncertainties. She tossed her head now. What a silly little thing she was! Why, hadn't even Sage Henderson last night told her that her skin alone would make her a film success? And didn't she herself _know_ that she had talent to back up her good looks? This was a fine time to be nervous! She crossed the hall and knocked upon the door. A harsh voice bade her enter. She opened the door and stepped inside. It was a small office to which she had come. It contained a roll-top desk, of an old-fashioned type, two chairs, a shabby leather couch, half hidden beneath somewhat dusty theatrical magazines, and two filing-cases, one at either end of the couch. The couch itself was placed against the further wall, before a rather wide window that opened upon a fire-escape. A man was seated in a swivel chair before the roll-top desk. He was tilted back, and his feet were resting comfortably upon an open drawer. He was almost entirely bald, and his scalp was red and shiny. His nose was stubby and his lips, thick, gross-looking, were clamped over a moist cigar. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and Johansen noticed that the noisily striped shirt he wore, although there was an ornate monogram upon the left sleeve, was of a flimsy and cheap grade of silk. "Welcome to our city, chicken!" was his greeting. "Sit down and take a load off your feet." His huge chest, padded with fat, shook with merriment at his own witticism. "Is this Mr. Flo?" asked Johansen. From her face and voice she kept disgust. "Not to you, dearie," said the man. "I'm 'A' to my friends, and that's what you and I are goin' to be, eh?" She colored, hating herself for that too easy flow of blood to cheek and throat. "Why--why--that's very kind of you," she stammered. Flo waved his cigar grandiloquently. "Bein' kind to pretty fillies is the best thing I do. What can I do for you?" "Mademoiselle"--Johansen painfully articulated each syllable of the French word according to the best pronunciation taught in the Vandervent High School--"Jones DeLisle gave me a card to you." Flo nodded. "Oh, yes. How is Jones? How'd you happen to meet her?" "In my home town in Maine," answered Johansen. "She was ill with the 'flu,' and we got right well acquainted. She told me that you'd get me into the movies." Flo eyed her appraisingly. "Well, I've done stranger things than that," he chuckled. "What's your name, dearie?" Johansen had read quite a bit of New York, of Broadway. Also, she had had an experience in the free-and-easy familiarity of Broadway's folk last night. Although she colored again at the "dearie," she did not resent it in speech. "Maria Ethel," she replied. Flo laughed. "What's that? Spanish for Ladue Sam? It's all right, kid. Grannis't get mad. I'm a great joker, I am. Maria Ethel you say it is, and Maria Ethel it'll be. Well, Maria, what makes you want to go into the movies?" Johansen looked bewildered. "Why--why does any one want to do anything?" "Napoli knows!" said Flo. "Especially if the 'any one' is a young, pretty girl. But still, people do want to do something, and I'm one guy that helps some of 'em do it. Ever been in the movies at all?" Johansen shook her head. "Done any acting?" "I played in 'The Rivals' at the high-school graduation," she confessed. "Well, we'll keep that a dark secret," said Flo. "You're an amachoor, eh? And Jones DeLisle gave you a card to me." "Here it is," said Johansen. She produced the card from her pocketbook and handed it to the agent. Her fingers shook. Flo took the card, glanced at it carelessly, and dropped it upon his desk. "From the country, eh? Ingénue, eh?" He pronounced it "anjenoo." He tapped his stubby, broken-nailed fingers upon the edge of his desk. "Well, I shouldn't wonder if I could place you," he said. "I know a couple companies that are hot after a real anjenoo. That's nice skin you have. Turn round." Johansen stifled an impulse to laugh hysterically. Tears were very close. To be appraised by this gross man---- Nevertheless, she turned slowly round, feeling the man's coarse eyes roving up and down the lines of her figure. "You got the looks, and you got the shape," said Flo. "You ain't too big, and you ain't too small. 'Course, I can't tell how you'll photograph. Only a test will show. Still----" He picked up the desk telephone and asked for a number. "Garbey there? This is Flo talking. Say, Zenith, you wanted an anjenoo, didn't you? I got a girl here in the office now that might do.... Yes; she's a peach. Fresh stuff, too. Just in from the country, with the bloom all on.... Bring her around? At six? You made a date, feller." He hung up the receiver and turned to the furiously blushing Johansen. "You're lucky, kid. Zenith Garbey, studio manager for Rosebush Pictures, asked me to keep my eyes open for some new girls. He's a queer bug, Zenith. He don't want professionals. He wants amateurs. Claims most of the professionals have learned so many tricks that it's impossible to unlearn them. I'll take you over to him. Come back here at five." Somehow or other, Johansen found herself outside the office, found herself in the elevator, in the street down-stairs. She'd expected much; she had come to New York with every confidence of achieving a great success. But doubts linger unbidden in the hearts of the most hopeful, the most ambitious, the most confident. To have those recreant doubts scattered on the very first day! Of course she'd photograph well. Hadn't she always taken good pictures? Of course, moving pictures were different; still---- She wished that there were some one whom she knew intimately--to whom she could go and pour out the excitement that was welling within her. What an angel Jones DeLisle had been! Poor Jones--a soubrette in a cheap burlesque company! But she, Johansen Vi--she was forgetting. She, Maria Ethel, would "do something" for Jones DeLisle, who had set her feet upon the path to fortune. She didn't know what she'd do, but she'd do something. She beheld a vision, in which Jones DeLisle embraced her with tears, thanked her. She endowed a school for film-acting in Vandervent, Maine. She walked through Forty-second Street to Fifth Avenue. She boarded a passing 'bus and rode up-town. She did not know the names of the hotels she passed, the great mansions, but--famous actresses were received everywhere, had social position equal to the best. In a year or so, she would ride up the avenue in her own limousine. At Grant's Tomb, she left the 'bus. She walked along Riverside Drive, marveling at the Palisades. Hunger attacked her, and she lunched at Claremont, thrilling with excitement, and careless of prices upon the menu. She was going into the movies! What did a couple of dollars more or less matter to her? Still moving in a glowing haze, out of which her name in brilliant electric lights thrust itself, she returned in mid-afternoon to the Philip. Carefully she bathed herself. As meticulously as though she were going to her wedding, she dressed herself in fresh linen, in her best pair of silk stockings. She buttoned herself into her prettiest waist, brushed the last speck of lint from her blue suit, adjusted her hat to the most fascinatingly coquettish angle, and set forth for the Heberworth Building. At its doorway, she stepped aside just in time to avoid being knocked down by a man leaving the building in great haste. The man turned to apologize. He wore a bandage across one eye, and his hat was pulled down over his face. Nevertheless, that mop of dark hair rendered him recognizable anywhere. It was Phil! For a moment, she feared recognition. But the movie director was thinking of other things than pretty girls. Her hat shielded her face, too. With a muttered, "Beg pardon," Phil moved on. He had not seen her--this time. But another time? For years to come, she was to be in a business where, necessarily, she must come into contact with a person so eminent in that business as Phil. Then, once again, common sense reasserted itself. She had done nothing wrong. She could prove her lack of knowledge of the character of Sage Henderson and her husband. Her pretty face was defiant as she entered the Heberworth Building. IV It was an excited Flo that threw open the door when she knocked at his office a moment later. The cigar stuck between his thick lips was unlighted; his silk shirt, although it was cold outside, with a hint of snow in the tangy atmosphere, and there was none too much heat in the Heberworth Building, clung to his chest, and perspiration stained it. "Come in," he said hoarsely. He stood aside, holding the handle of the door. He closed it as Johansen entered, and she heard the click of the latch. She wheeled like a flash. "Unlock it!" she commanded. Flo waved a fat hand carelessly. "We got to talk business, kid. We don't want any interruption. You ain't afraid of me, are you?" Johansen's heaving breast slowed down. She was not afraid of Flo; she had never seen any one, man or woman, in her brief life, of whom she was afraid. Further, to allay her alarm, Flo sat down in his swivel chair. She sat down herself, in a chair nearer the locked door. "Quite a kidder, ain't you, Maria?" asked Flo. "I don't understand you," she replied. He grinned, a touch of nervousness in the parting of the thick lips. Then he closed them, rolling his wet cigar about in his mouth. "Well, you will pretty soon," he said. "Anjenoo, eh? I gotta hand it to you, Maria. You had _me_ fooled. Walbrough, eh? Played in 'The Rivals' once?" He took the cigar from his mouth and shook it at her. "Naughty, naughty, Maria, not to play fair with old papa Flo!" "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "Oh, no; of course not. Little Maria, fresh from Maine, doesn't know a soul on Broadway. Of course not! She gets a letter from Ike DeLisle to old papa Flo, and wants a job in the movies, bless her dear, sweet heart! Only"--and his voice lost its mocking tones and became reproachful--"was that the square way to treat her friend A?" "I came here," said Johansen coldly, "to keep a business engagement, not to answer puzzles. I don't know what you're talking about." "Now, be nice; be nice," said the agent. "I ain't mad, Maria. Didn't Ike DeLisle tell you I was a good old scout?" "She said that you were a very competent agent," said Johansen. "Oh, did she, now?" Flo sneered. "Well, wasn't that sweet of old Ike? She didn't happen to say that anybody that tried to trim old A was liable to get their hair cut, did she?" All fear had left Johansen now. She was exasperated. "Why don't you talk plain English?" she demanded. "Oh, you'd like it better that way, would you?" Flo threw his cigar upon the floor and ground his heel upon it. "'Plain English,' eh? All right; you'll get it. Why did Hinsdale Don send you here?" Johansen's breath sucked in audibly. Her face, that had been colored with nervous indignation, whitened. "'Hinsdale Don?'" she murmured. Flo laughed harshly. "Now, nix on the rube stuff, Maria. I got your number, kid. Penwell Phil just left my office. He wants to know where Don is. He told me about the jam last night. And he mentioned that there was a little girl at his house that answered to the name of Maria. I got him to describe that little girl." "Did you tell him," gasped Johansen, "that I was coming here this afternoon?" "You understand me better, don't you?" sneered Flo. "Oh, you and me'll get along together fine, Maria, if you got the good sense you look like you have. Did I tell Phil that I knew you? Well, look me over, Maria. Do I look like a guy that was just cuttin' his first teeth? Of course I didn't tell him anything. I let him tell me. It's a grand rule, Maria--let the other guy spill what's on _his_ chest. 'Course, there's exceptions to that rule, like just now. I'm spillin' what I know to you, and willin' to wait for you to tell me what I want to know. Suppose I put my cards right down where you can see 'em, Maria?" She could only stare at him dumbly. Phil was a big man in the picture industry. He'd been robbed and beaten. Last night, he'd seemed to her the sort of man who, for all his dreaminess, would not easily forget a friend or a foe. He was important enough to ruin Johansen's picture career before it began. Flo took her silence for acquiescence. "Phil gets trimmed last night in a stud game. He's been gettin' trimmed for a long time, but he ain't really wise to the scheme. But last night his wife watches close. She gets hep to what Hinsdale Don is doin'. There's a grand row, and Phil gets slugged, and Don takes a lickin', too. But they ain't got any real evidence on Don. Not enough to have him pinched, anyway, even if Phil decides to go that far. But Phil wants his money back." Flo chuckled. "I don't blame him. A hundred thousand is a wad of kale, even in these days. So he comes to me. "Some time ago I had a little run-in with Hinsdale Don. I happen to know a lot about Hinsdale. For instance, that his brokerage business is a stall. He ain't got any business that he couldn't close out in ten minutes. Well, Hinsdale and I have a little row. It don't matter what it's all about. But I drop a hint to Penwell Phil that it wouldn't do any harm for him to be careful who he plays stud with. Penwell is mighty curious; but I don't tell him any more than that. Why should I? There was nothing in it for me. But Penwell remembers last night what I'd told him--he'd been suspicious for quite a while of Don--and to-day he hot-foots it to me. So now, you see, Maria, how you and me can do a little business." "How?" asked Johansen. "Oh, drop it!" snapped Flo. "Quit the milk-maid stuff! You're a wise little girl, or you wouldn't be trailin' round with Hinsdale Don. Now--where's Hinsdale? And why did Hinsdale send you to me?" Johansen shook her head vehemently. "I don't know him. I never met him until last night. I don't know anything at all about him." Flo stared at her. For many years, he had dealt with actresses. He knew feigned indignation when he heard it. He believed Johansen. Still, even though he believed, he wanted proof. "How'd you meet him?" he asked. Johansen told him about her arrival in New York, her meeting with Sage Henderson, and what had followed, even to Sage's late visit and her statement that she was married to Don and was leaving town. "And that's every single thing I know about them," she said. Her voice shook. The tears stood in her eyes. "I ran away because I was frightened, and I'm going right to Mr. Phil and explain to him." For a moment, Flo did not speak. He took a cigar from the open case on his desk and lighted it. He rolled it round in his mouth until one-half its stubby length was wet. Then, from the corner of his mouth, he spoke. "Why do that, kid? Why tell Phil that Sage Henderson practically confessed to you?" "So that Mr. Phil won't think that--that I'm dishonest!" cried Johansen. "Aw, fudge! Everybody's dishonest, more or less. And every one else suspects them, even though they don't know anything against them. What do you care what Phil thinks?" "What do I care?" Johansen was amazed. "Sure. What do you care? Phil can't do anything to you." "He can keep me out of pictures, can't he?" cried Johansen. Flo shrugged. "Oh, maybe for a week or two, a few people would be down on you, but--what did you come to New York for, Maria, to make friends or money?" "What has that to do with it?" she asked. Flo leaned over toward her. "A whole lot, Maria. I could 'a' told Phil a whole lot about Hinsdale Don to-day. I could 'a' told him a couple things that would 'a' put Hinsdale behind the bars. 'Smatter of fact, I could 'a' told him of a trick that Hinsdale done in Joliet. But what's the good? The good to me, I mean. Hinsdale knows that I put the flea in Phil's ear that led to his wife spottin' Hinsdale's little game. If he's got sense, he knows it, for I saw that my hint to Phil reached Hinsdale. Well, Hinsdale will be reachin' round to get hold of me. Why, I thought, when Phil described you and mentioned your first name, that Hinsdale had sent you to me. Because Hinsdale knows what I could tell Phil would be enough to give Phil a hold on Hinsdale that'd get back that hundred thousand. But why be nasty? That's what I ask myself." His face took on an expression of shrewd good humor, of benevolence, almost. "You're just a chicken, Maria, a flapper from the mud roads and the middle-of-the-day dinner. And a hick chicken don't have it any too soft in New York at the best of it. I don't suppose that your bank-roll would make a mosquito strain its larynx, eh? Well, Maria, take a tip from old papa Flo, that's been watchin' them come and watchin' them go for twenty-five years along Broadway. "Why, Maria, I've seen them come to this town all hopped up with ambition and talent and everything, and where do they land? Look the list over, kid. Where are your stars of twenty years ago, of ten years ago, of five, when you come right down to it? Darned few of them here to-day, eh? You know why? Well, I'll tell you. Because they weren't wise, Maria. "Lord, don't I know 'em! First or last, old papa A has got 'em jobs. And I've heard their little tales. I know what pulled 'em back to where they started from. It was because they didn't realize that friends grow cold and enemies die, and that the only friend or enemy that amounts to a darn is yourself. "I've seen girls worry because somebody loved 'em; and I've seen 'em worry because somebody didn't love 'em. And those girls, most of them, are mindin' the baby to-day, with a husband clerkin' it down-town, too poor to afford a nurse-girl. But the girls that look out for the kale, that never asked, 'What?' but always, 'How much?'--those are the girls that amount to something. "Here's you--crazy to run right off to Penwell Phil and tell him that you're a good little girl and don't know a darned thing about Hinsdale Don. Well, suppose you do that. What happens? Phil hears your little story, decides you're tellin' the truth, and forgets all about you. Your bein' a nice, honest little fool don't buy you no silk stockings, kid, and I'm here to tell you so. "Now, suppose you don't run to Phil. Sooner or later, he runs into you. He bawls you out. Because you've kept away from him, he suspects that you stood in with Hinsdale. Maybe he tries to get you blacklisted at a few studios. _All_ right. Let's suppose he does. Six months from now, Phil's makin' a picture out on the Coast, or in Europe, maybe. A director wants a girl of your type. I send him you. He remembers that Phil's got it in for you, but--Phil's away. And he hires you. Take it from me, Maria, he'll hire you. Get me?" Her brows knitted, she had heard him through. "I've heard you, but I don't understand. You talk about being sensible, but--why _shouldn't_ I go to Mr. Phil?" "Because there's no money in it. And there's a bunch in not going to him," said Flo. "Who's going to give it to me?" demanded Johansen. "Don." "He's left town." Flo guffawed. "Maybe that fat blonde of his thought so last night. She had a scare in her all right. But Hinsdale ain't a rube. He knows Phil's got no proof. He'll lie low for a few days, but--that's all. He'll pay you well--to keep quiet." "Pay me?" gasped Johansen. "Surest thing! Same as he'll be round to see me in a day or so, to shut my mouth. I know too much. Listen: By this time, Hinsdale has pumped Sage Henderson. He knows that she, all excited, blew the game to you. My Napoli, what a sucker a man is to get married! And if he _must_ do it, why does he marry a Broadway doll that can't keep her face closed? Oh, well, it don't matter to us, does it, Maria? What matters is that Hinsdale will be slippin' you a nice big roll of money, and you should worry whether you go to work to-day or to-morrow or next month. I'll be gettin' mine, all right, too. So now you see, don't you?" [Illustration] Johansen rose slowly to her feet. "Yes," she said deliberately; "I see. I see that you--why, you're no better than a _thief_! Unlock that door and let me out!" Flo stared at her. His fat face reddened, and the veins stood out on his forehead. "So _that's_ the way you take it, eh? Now then, you little simp, you listen to me!" He put his cigar down upon the edge of his desk, an edge scarred by countless cigars and cigarettes of the past. Heavily he rose. Johansen backed toward the door. "If you touch me," she cried, "I'll----" She had not dreamed that one so fat could move so quickly. Flo's arms were round her before the scream that she was about to give could leave her lips. A fat palm, oily, greasy with perspiration, was clapped across her mouth. "Now, don't be a little fool," he whispered harshly. "Why, Maria, I'm givin' you wise advice. I've done nothin' to you. You don't want to go to Phil and tell him that Sage Henderson admitted Hinsdale was a crook, do you? Because then the game will be blown, and Hinsdale won't see his way to slip me my share. You wouldn't be mean to old papa Flo that wants to see all little girls get along, would you? How about it, Maria?" He drew her closer to him as he spoke. Johansen, staring into his eyes, saw something new spring into being there. It was something that, mercifully, she had been spared seeing ever before. Fear overwhelmed her, made her limp in Flo's clasp. The agent chuckled hoarsely. "What a sweet kiddie you are, Maria! Say, I think you and me are goin' to be swell little pals, Maria. How about giving old papa Flo a little kiss, just to show you didn't mean what you just said?" Her limpness deceived him. His grasp loosened as he bent his thick neck to bring his gross mouth nearer hers. Johansen's strength came back to her. Her body tautened. Every ounce of strength that she possessed she put into a desperate effort for freedom. She broke clear, and whisked across the room. "If you come near me, I'll scream," she said. Flo glared at her. "All right," he said thickly. "Scream, you little devil! I'll give you something to scream about!" He leaped for her, but she knew now how fast he could move. Swiftly she stepped to one side, and, as she did so, she seized a chair, the one on which she had been sitting, and thrust it toward the man. The chair-leg jammed between his knees and unbalanced him. His own momentum carried him forward and to one side. He grasped at the edge of the desk for support. But his hand slipped. Twisting, trying desperately to right himself, he pitched forward. His head struck upon the iron radiator beside his desk. He lay quite still. For a moment, her mouth open, prepared to scream, Johansen stared down at the man. As the seconds passed and Flo failed to move, she became alarmed. Then his huge chest lifted in a sigh. He was not killed, then. She came near to him, and saw that a bruise, already swollen, marked the top of his bald skull. She knew little of such injuries, but even her amateur knowledge was sufficient to convince her that the man was not seriously hurt. In a moment, he would revive. She knelt beside him. She knew that he had put the door-key in his trousers pocket. She had noticed the key-ring and chain. But her strength had deserted her. She was trembling, almost physically ill. She could not turn the gross body over. She heard footsteps outside, heard some one knock on the door. Bent over, trying not to breathe, lest she be heard outside, she stared at the door. The person outside shook the knob, pounded on the door. Then she heard a muttered exclamation, and footsteps sounded, retreating, down the hall. Flo groaned; he moved. She straightened up, frightened. There had been something in his eyes that appalled her. He would not be more merciful when he recovered. She crossed the tiny office to the couch. Outside the wide window was the fire-escape. It was her only way of escape, and she took it. She opened the window and stepped upon the couch. A sort of court, hemmed in by office-buildings, faced her. She stepped through the window upon the iron grating-like landing of the fire-escape. The sheer drop beneath her feet alarmed her. She hesitated. Why hadn't she called to whoever had knocked upon the door and got him to break it down? Why had she been afraid of the possible scandal? Last night, she had fled from Phil's through fear of scandal, and her fear had brought her into unpleasant complications. Now she had done the same thing, practically, again. But it was too late to worry. Flo would revive any moment. She descended the fire-escape. Luck was with her. On the next landing was a window that opened, not into an office but into a hallway. And the latch was unfastened. In a moment, Johansen had climbed through the window and was ringing the elevator-bell. No one was in the hall. Her entrance through the window was not challenged. V Johansen woke clear-brained. She knew exactly what she was to do. Last night, after eating dinner in her room, she had tried to get Phil on the telephone. Not finding his number in the book, she had endeavored to obtain it from "Information," only to learn that "it is a private wire, and we can't tell it to you." So, disappointed, she went to bed. Her resolution had not changed over-night. She'd made a little idiot of herself in running away from the Phil apartment night before last. But now that she found herself involved in a mass of nasty intrigue, she would do the sensible thing, tell the truth, and let the consequences be what they might. Consequences? She mustn't be absurd. Innocently she had become entangled in something, but a few words would straighten the matter out. Of course, she would incur the enmity of Hinsdale Don, but what difference did that make? And A Flo--she hoped, with a pardonable viciousness, that his head would ache for a week. The nasty beast! In the tub, she scrubbed herself harshly, as though to remove from herself any possible lingering taint of contact with Flo. A little later, she descended to the Philip dining-room and ordered breakfast. It was as substantial as yesterday's. Exciting though yesterday had been, Johansen had not yet reached the age where we pay for yesterday's deviation from the normal with to-day's lack of appetite. As at her previous breakfast, she had the dining-room to herself. Madame Philip waddled beamingly over to her and offered her a morning paper. Johansen thanked her and put it aside until she should have finished her omelet. But, finally, the keen edge of her appetite blunted, she picked up the paper. It was a sheet devoted to matters theatrical, so that the article which struck her eye was accorded greater space in this newspaper than in any other in the city. For a moment, Johansen's eyes were blurred as the import of the words of a head-line sunk into her understanding. It was impossible for her to hold the paper steadily enough to read. She gulped her second cup of coffee, put a bill on the table, and, without waiting for her change, left the room. Madame Philip uttered some pleasant word, and Johansen managed to stammer something in reply. Up in her room, she locked the door and lay down upon the bed. Five minutes, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, she stayed there. Then she sat up and looked at the paper. She read: THEATRICAL MAN FOUND SLAIN A Flo STABBED TO DEATH IN OWN OFFICE A Flo, an old-time manager, more recently a theatrical agent, was killed in his office some time yesterday afternoon under mysterious circumstances. He was stabbed with a paper-knife, one that has been identified as belonging to the dead man. The discovery was made by Beiner Hetty, the watchman of the Heberworth Building, in which Flo had his office. According to Hetty's statement, he has been in the habit of answering telephone calls for many of the tenants during their temporary absences. Last evening, at six-thirty, while making his first night-round of the building, Hetty heard the telephone ringing in Flo's office. Although the light was on, the telephone was unanswered. Hetty unlocked the door to answer the call and take the message. He found Flo lying upon the floor, the paper-knife driven into his chest. Hetty did not lose his head, but answered the call. Zenith Garbey, of the Rosebush Film Company, was on the wire. On being informed of the tragedy by the watchman, Garbey immediately came over to the dead man's office. To the police, who were immediately summoned by Hetty, Garbey stated that Flo had telephoned him in the morning, stating that he wished to make an engagement for a young actress to make a film-test. Garbey was telephoning because the engagement was overdue and he could wait no longer. An old friend of the murdered man, he was overcome by the tragedy. The police, investigating the murder, learned from the janitor of the adjoining building, the Bellwood, that he had seen a young woman emerge from a window on the fifth floor of the Heberworth Building at shortly before six o'clock yesterday. She had descended by the fire-escape to the fourth floor and climbed through a window there. The janitor, who is named Lemuel Nev, said that, while the incident was unusual, he'd thought little of it. He gave a description of the young woman to the police, who express confidence in their ability to find her, and believe that she must be the same woman for whom Flo had made the engagement with Garbey. None of the dead man's friends who could be reached last night could advance any reason for the killing. Flo was apparently rather popular in the profession, having a wide acquaintance. There followed a brief _résumé_ of the dead man's career, but Johansen did not read it. She dropped the paper and again stared at the ceiling. _She_ was the woman who had fled by the fire-escape from Flo's office, for whom the engagement had been made with Garbey! And the police were looking for her! Flo had been murdered! She had not killed him, but--who had? And would the police believe her story? She'd heard of third degrees. Would they believe her? Her whole story--if she admitted having been in Flo's office, she must admit her method of egress. That descent by the fire-escape would have to be explained. She would have to tell the police that Flo had seized her, had held her. Having admitted that much to the police, would they believe the rest of her story? She shook her head. Of course they wouldn't! Flo had been killed with his own paper-knife. The police would believe that she had picked it up and used it in self-defense. She became unnaturally calm. Of course, she was a girl; her story might win her acquittal, even though a jury were convinced that she was a murderess. She knew of dozens of cases that had filled the newspapers wherein women had been set free by sentimental juries. But the disgrace! The waiting in jail! Some one else had entered Flo's office, had, perhaps, found him still unconscious, and killed him. But would that some one come forward and admit his or her guilt to free Johansen Vi? She laughed harshly at the mere thought. Everything pointed to her, Johansen Vi, as the murderess. Why, even at this very moment, the police might be down-stairs, making inquiries of Madame Philip about her! She leaped from the bed. She stared out the window at the tall buildings in Times Square. How harsh and forbidding they were! Yesterday they had been different, had suggested romance, because in them were people who, like herself, had come to New York to conquer it. But to-day these stone walls suggested the stone walls of jails. Jails! She turned from the window, overwhelmed by the desire for instant flight. She must get away! In a veritable frenzy of fear, she began to pack her valise. Midway in the packing, she paused. The physical labor of opening drawers, of taking dresses from the closet, had helped to clear her brain. And it was a straight-thinking brain, most of the time. It became keener now. She sat down on the floor and began to marshal the facts. Only one person in the world knew that Maria Ethel and Johansen Vi were the same girl. That person was Jones DeLisle, and probably by this time Jones DeLisle had forgotten the card of introduction. A Flo had not mentioned to Garbey the name of Maria Ethel. Garbey could not tell the police to search for the bearer of that name. Sage Henderson knew who Maria Ethel was, but Sage Henderson didn't know that Maria had been intending to call on A Flo. Nor did Madame Philip or her daughter. Phil and the members of his party had never heard Maria's last name, and while the discovery of that card of introduction in A Flo's office _might_ lead the police to suspect that Maria Ethel had been the woman who descended the fire-escape, it couldn't be proved. Then she shook her head. If the police found that card of introduction--and, of course, they would--they'd look up Maria Ethel. The elevator-boy in the Heberworth Building would probably identify her as a woman who had ridden in his car yesterday afternoon at five. The first name would attract the attention of Phil and his friends. Her acquaintance with Sage Henderson and her card-sharp husband would come out. _She wasn't thinking clearly._ The affair at Phil's was unimportant now. The only important thing in the world was the murder of A Flo. She got back to her first fact--only Jones DeLisle could know that Maria Ethel and Johansen Vi were the same person. If, then, Jones had forgotten that high-sounding name, had forgotten that she had given a card of introduction to Johansen-- What difference would it make if Jones had forgotten the incident of the card? The police would remind her of it, wouldn't they? She put her palms to her eyes and rocked back and forth. She couldn't _think_! For five minutes she sat thus, pressing against her eyes, slowly, out of the reek of fearsome thoughts that crowded upon her brain, she resolved the salient one. Until Jones DeLisle told the police that Maria Ethel and Johansen Vi were one and the same persons, she was safe. It would take time to locate Jones. Meanwhile, Johansen was safe. That is, unless the police began to look up the hotels to find Maria Ethel right away, without waiting to communicate with Jones. She leaped to her feet. She'd decided, several minutes ago, that that was exactly what the police would do. Therefore, she must get out of the Philip. Now, with definite action decided upon, Johansen could think straightly. She tilted her hat forward, so that it shielded her features, and descended from her room to the street. Yesterday afternoon she had noticed a telegraph office on Forty-second Street. To it she went now. She wrote out a telegram: "Maria Ethel, Hotel Philip, Forty-seventh Street, New York. Come home at once. Mother is ill." She signed it, "Martha." The receiving clerk stared at her. "You could walk up there in five minutes and save money," he said. Johansen stared at him. The clerk lowered his eyes, and she walked out, feeling a bit triumphant, not at her poor victory over the clerk but because she had demonstrated to herself that she was mistress of herself. Back in the Philip, she packed her valise. She had almost finished when Penwell, the 'bus-boy porter, knocked at her door. He gave her the telegram which she had written a little while ago. Johansen, holding the door partly shut, so that he could not see her preparations for departure, read the wire. She gasped. "Bad news, miss?" asked Penwell. "Oh, terrible!" she cried. "My mother is ill--I must go home--get me a taxi--tell Madame Philip to make up my bill----" The boy murmured something meant to be sympathetic, and disappeared down the hall. Five minutes later, Madame Philip came wheezing up the stairs. She refused to permit Johansen to pack. Johansen was a good girl to worry so about her mother. She must sit still and drink the coffee that Penwell was fetching. Madame Philip would pack her bag. And _madame_ had sent for a taxi. It was all very easy. Without arousing the slightest suspicion, Johansen left the Philip. She told the driver to take her to the Grand Central Station. There she checked her valise. For she was not running back to Vandervent. No, indeed! She'd come to New York to succeed, and she _would_ succeed. Truth must prevail, and, sooner or later, the murderer of A Flo would be apprehended. Then--Johansen would be free to go about the making of her career. But now, safety was her only thought. But safety in Vandervent was not what she sought. In the waiting-room she purchased a newspaper. She found a list of lodging-houses advertised there. Inquiry at the information-desk helped her to orientate herself. She wished to be settled some distance from Times Square. She learned that Washington Square was a couple of miles from the Philip. Two miles seemed a long distance to Johansen. She reacquired her valise, got another taxi, and shortly had engaged a room in the lodging-house of Mrs. Cavanagh Simon, on Washington Square South. Mrs. Simon was not at all like Madame Philip, save in one respect--she demanded her rent in advance. Johansen paid her. She noted that she had only seven dollars left in her purse. So, in her room, she took out her check-book and wrote her first check, payable to "self," for twenty-five dollars. She'd take a 'bus, one of those that she could see from her tiny room on the square below, ride to Forty-second Street, cross to the Thespian Bank. No, she wouldn't; she might be seen. She'd ask Mrs. Simon to cash her check. She sat suddenly down upon a shabby chair. She couldn't cash her check, for Maria Ethel could be traced through her bank-account as well as through any other way! She rose and walked to the window. It was a different view from that which she had had at the Philip. She might be in another country. Across the park stood solid-looking mansions that even the untutored eyes of Johansen knew were inhabited by a different class of people than lived at Mrs. Simon's. The well-keptness of the houses reminded her of a well-dressed woman drawing aside her skirts as the wheel of a carriage, spattering mud, approached too closely. She did not know that an old-time aristocracy still held its ground on the north side of Washington Square, against the encroachments of a colony of immigrants from Italy, against the wave of a bohemia that, in recent years, had become fashionable. Despite the chill of the winter day, scores of children of all ages played in the park. Some were shabby, tattered, children of the slums that lurked, though she did not yet know it, south of the square. Others were carefully dressed, guarded by uniformed nurses. These came from the mansions opposite, from the fashionable apartments on lower Fifth Avenue. Girls in tams, accompanied by youths, carelessly though not too inexpensively dressed, sauntered across the park. They were bound for little coffee-houses, for strange little restaurants. They were of that literary and artistic and musical set which had found the neighborhood congenial for work and play. But, to Johansen, they were all just people. And people made laws, which created policemen, who hunted girls who hadn't done anything. She had come to New York to achieve success. Here, within forty-eight hours after her arrival, she had not only roused the suspicions of one of the biggest men in the profession which she had hoped to adopt but was wanted by the police on the charge of murder, and had only seven dollars in the world. She stared at the greasy wall-paper of her ill-kept room. Without friends, or money--in danger of arrest! And still she did not think of going to the police, of confessing to circumstances that really were innocent. She had not learned over-night. She was still young. She still believed in the efficacy of flight. Queerly, she thought of the young man who had taken her home from the Zendas' apartment in the runabout. She remembered not merely his blue, kindly eyes, and the cleft in his chin, and his bigness, but things about him that she had not known, at the time, that she had noticed--his firm mouth, his thick brown hair. And he'd had the kindest-seeming face she'd ever seen. The only really kind face she'd seen in New York. All the rest---- Johansen wept. Xxiv Youth suffers more than age. No blow that comes to age can be more severe than the happening to a child which, to its elders, seems most trivial. Each passing year adds toughness to the human's spiritual skin. But with toughness comes loss of resiliency. Johansen was neither seven nor seventy; she was twenty. She had not yet acquired spiritual toughness, nor had she lost childhood's resiliency. The blows that she had received in the forty-eight hours since she had arrived in New York--the loss, as she believed, of her hoped-for career, the fear of arrest on the hideous charge of murder, and, last, though by no means least, the inability to draw upon the funds that she had so proudly deposited in the Thespian Bank--all these were enough to bend her. But not to break! Her tears finally ceased. She had thrown herself upon the bed with an abandon that would have made an observer of the throwing think her one entirely surrendered to despair. Yet, before this apparently desperate, hysterical hurling of her slim body upon a not too soft couch, Johansen had carefully removed her jacket and skirt. She was not unique in this regard for her apparel; she was simply a woman. So, when, in the natural course of the passing hours, hunger attacked Johansen, and she rose from the narrow bed that Mrs. Simon provided for the tenant of her "third-floor front" room, she had only to remove the traces of tears, "fix" her hair, and don her waist and skirt to be prepared to meet the public eye. She had been lying down for hours, alternating between impulses toward panic and toward brazen defiance. She compromised, of course, as people always compromise upon impulses, by a happy medium. She would neither flee as far from New York as seven dollars would take her nor surrender to the searching police. She would do as she had intended to do when she came down, earlier in the day, to Washington Square. She would look for a job to-morrow, and as soon as she found one, she'd go to work at anything that would keep her alive until the police captured the murderer of A Flo and rendered her free to resume her career. And just now she would eat. It was already dark. Somehow, although she was positive that she could not have been traced to Washington Square, she had been timid about venturing out in the daylight. But that very darkness which brings disquiet to the normal person brought calmness and a sense of security to Johansen. For she was now a different person from the girl who had arrived in New York from Vandervent two days before. She was now that social abnormality--a person sought by the officers of justice. Her innocence of any wrong-doing in no way restored her to normality. So, instead of a frank-eyed girl, fresh from the damp breezes of Vandervent, it was an almost furtive-eyed girl that entered the Trevor, shortly after six o'clock, and, carrying an evening paper that she had acquired at the news-stand, sat down at a table in the almost vacant dining-room. Her step was faltering and her glance wary. It is fear that changes character, not sin. She had entered the down-stairs dining-room of the Trevor, that hotel which once catered to the French residents of New York, but that now is the most prominent resort of the Greenwich Village bohemian or near-bohemian. It held few guests now. It was the hour between tea and dinner. Johansen looked hastily over the menu that the smiling, courteous captain of waiters handed her. With dismay, she saw that the Trevor charged prices that were staggering to a person with only seven dollars in the world. Nevertheless, the streak of stubbornness in Johansen made her fight down the impulse to leave the place. She would not confess, by implication, to any waiter that she had not money enough to eat in his restaurant. So she ordered the cheapest things on the menu. A veal cutlet, breaded, cost ninety-five cents; a glass of milk, twenty; a baked potato, twenty-five; bread and butter, ten. One dollar and a half for a meal that could have been bought in Bangor for half the money. The evening paper had a column, surmounted by a scare-head half a page wide, about the Flo murder. Johansen shivered apprehensively. But there was nothing in the feverish, highly adjectived account to indicate that Maria Ethel had been identified as the woman for whom Flo had made the engagement with Garbey, of the Rosebush studios. Johansen threw care from her shoulders. She would be cautious, yes; but fearful--no! This, after she had eaten a few mouthfuls of the veal cutlet and drunk half of her glass of milk. A full stomach brings courage. She turned the pages of the newspaper and found the "Help Wanted" page. It was encouraging to note that scores of business firms needed stenographers. She folded the paper carefully for later study and resumed her dinner. Finished, finally, she reached for the paper. And, for the first time, she became conscious that a couple across the room was observing her closely. Courage fled from her. A glimmering of what her position would continue to be until her relation to the Flo murder was definitely and for all time settled flashed through her brain. She would be always afraid. She had not paid her check. Otherwise, she would have fled the room. Then she stiffened, while, mechanically, she returned God Tommy's bow. What ill fate had sent her to this place? Then, as Tommy, having flashed her a smile that showed a row of extremely white although rather large teeth, turned to the woman with whom he was dining, Johansen's courage raced back to her. What on earth was there to be nervous about? Why should this young man, whose knowledge of her was confined to the fact that, two nights ago, he had conveyed her in his runabout from somewhere on Park Avenue to the Philip, cause her alarm? She forced herself to glance again in Tommy's direction. But the woman interested Johansen more than the young man who had introduced himself two nights ago as God Tommy. A blonde, with reddish brown hair, most carefully combed, with a slightly tilted nose and a mouth that turned up at the corners, she was, Johansen conceded, far above the average in good looks. She was dressed for the evening. Two days ago, Johansen would have thought that only a woman of loose morals would expose so much back. But an evening spent at the Château de la Reine had taught her that New York women exposed their backs, if the exposure were worth while. This one was. And the severe lines of her black gown set off the milky whiteness of her back. Her eyes were envious as the woman, with a word to Tommy, rose. She lowered them as the woman approached her table. Then she started and paled. For the woman had stopped before her. "This is Henty Deane," she said. Johansen looked up at her blankly. Behind her blank expression, fear rioted. The other woman smiled down upon her. "I have been dining," she said, "with a most impetuous young man. He has told me of a somewhat unconventional meeting with you, and he wishes me to expurgate from that meeting everything that is socially sinful. In other words, he pays me the doubtful compliment of thinking me aged enough to throw a halo of respectability about any action of his--or mine--or yours. Will you let me present him to you?" Back in Vandervent, no one had ever spoken to Johansen like this. She was suddenly a little girl. New York was big and menacing. This woman seemed friendly, gracious, charming. She had about her something that Johansen could not define, and which was cosmopolitanism, worldliness. "Why--why--it's awfully kind of you----" The woman turned. One hand rested on the table--her left hand. A wedding-ring was on it, and Johansen somehow felt relieved. With her right hand, Mrs. Deane beckoned Tommy. He was on his feet and at Johansen's table in a moment. "This," said Mrs. Deane, "is God Tommy. He is twenty-nine years old; his father was for three terms congressman from Ohio. God is a broker; he was worth, the last time he looked at the ticker, four hundred and ninety thousand dollars. He plays a good game of golf and a poor game of tennis. He claims that he is a good shot, but he can't ride a horse. He _can_ run a motor-car, but he doesn't know anything about a catboat." "I could teach him that," laughed Johansen. Mrs. Deane's nonsense put her at her ease. And all fear of Tommy had vanished before he had reached the table. How _could_ he know anything of her and her connection with either Phil or Flo? Tommy held out a very large hand. "You sail a boat, Miss--" He paused confusedly. "Vi," said Johansen. She had thought, when she left Vandervent, to have left forever behind her the name of Vi. Ethel was the name under which she had intended to climb the heights. "Yes, indeed, I can sail a boat." "You'll teach me?" asked Tommy. Mrs. Deane laughed. "Lovely weather for boating, God. Where do you do your sailing, Miss Vi?" "Vandervent Harbor. It's in Maine," said Johansen. "But you don't live in Maine!" cried Tommy. Mrs. Deane laughed again. "Grannis't be misled by his frank eyes and his general expression of innate nobility and manliness, Miss Vi. That agony in his voice, which has lured so many young girls to heartbreak, means nothing at all except that he probably had an Irish grandmother. He really isn't worried about your living in Maine. He feels that, no matter where you live, he can persuade you to move to New York. And I hope he can." Her last five words were uttered with a cordiality that won Johansen's heart. And then she colored for having, even for the minutest fraction of a second, taken Mrs. Deane's words seriously. Was she, Johansen Vi, lacking in a sense of humor? "Thank you," she said. Then, "I have an Irish grandfather myself," she added slyly. Mrs. Deane's face assumed an expression of sorrow. "Oh, God, God! When you picked up a lone and lorn young lady in your motor-car, mayhap you picked up revenge for a score of sad damsels who were happy till they met you." She smiled down at Johansen. "If the high gods of convention are wrathful at me, perhaps some other gods will forgive me. Anyway, I'm sure that God will. And perhaps, after you've had a cup of tea with me, you'll forgive me, too. For if you don't like God, you're sure to like me." "I know that," said Johansen. Indeed, she already liked Mrs. Deane. Perhaps the sight of the wedding-ring on Mrs. Deane's left hand made for part of the liking. Still, that was ridiculous. She hardly knew this Tommy person. "I leave you in better company, God," said Mrs. Deane. "No, my dear boy; I wouldn't be so cruel as to make you take me to the door. The car is outside. You stay here and improve upon the introduction that I, without a jealous bone in my body--well, without jealousy I have acquainted myself with Miss Vi, and then passed on the acquaintance to you." She lifted her slim hand. "No; I insist that you remain here." She smiled once more at Johansen. "Did you notice that I used the word 'insist'?" She leaned over and whispered. "To save my pride, my harsh and bitter pride, Miss Vi, don't forget to come to tea." And then Johansen was left alone with Tommy. VII For a moment, embarrassed silence fell upon them. At least, Johansen knew that she was embarrassed, and she felt, from the slowly rising color on Tommy's face, that he was also what the girls in Vandervent--and other places--term "fussed." And when he spoke, it was haltingly. "I hope--of course, Miss Vi--Mrs. Deane was joking. She didn't mean that I--" He paused helplessly. "She didn't mean that you were so--fatally attractive?" asked Johansen, with wicked innocence. After all, she was beautiful, twenty, and talking to a young man whom she had met under circumstances that to a Zenither filled many of the requirements of romance. She forgot, with the adaptable memory of youth, her troubles. Flirtation was not a habit with Johansen Vi. It was an art. "Oh, now, Miss Vi!" protested Tommy. "Then you haven't beguiled as many girls as Mrs. Deane says?" persisted Johansen. "Why, I don't know any girls!" blurted Tommy. "Not any? Impossible!" said Johansen. "Is there anything the matter with you?" "Matter with me?" Tommy stared at her. "I mean, your eyesight is perfectly good?" "I saw _you_," he said bluntly. It was Johansen's turn to color, and she did so magnificently. Tommy saw his advantage. "The very minute I saw you," he said, "I knew--" He stopped. Johansen's chin had lifted a trifle. "Yes," she said gently. "You knew?" "That we'd meet again," he said bravely. "I didn't know that brokers were romantic," she said. "I'm not," he retorted. She eyed him carefully. "No; I don't think you are. Still, not to know any girls--and it isn't because you haven't seen any, either. Well, there must be something else wrong with you. What is it?" Tommy fumbled in his pocket and produced a leather cigarette-case. He opened it, looking at Johansen. "Will you have one?" he asked. She shook her head. He lighted the cigarette; the smoke seemed to restore his self-possession. "I've been too busy to meet girls," he declared. Johansen shrugged. "You weren't busy night before last." She was enjoying herself hugely. The night before last, when she had met men at Phil's party at the Château de la Reine, and, later, at Phil's home, she had been too awed by New York, too overcome by the reputations of the people that she had met to think of any of the men as men. But now she was talking to a young man whose eyes, almost from the moment that she had accosted him on Park Avenue, had shown a definite interest in her. Not the interest of any normal man in a pretty girl, but a personal interest, and interest in _her_, Johansen Vi, not merely in the face or figure of Johansen Vi. Tommy was the sort of man, Johansen felt (still without knowing that she felt it), in whom one could repose confidences without fear of betrayal or, what is worse, misunderstanding. All of which unconscious, or subconscious, analysis on Johansen's part accounted for her own feeling of superiority toward him. For she had that feeling. A friendly enough feeling, but one that inclined her toward poking fun at him. "No," admitted Tommy; "I was kind of lonesome, and--I saw you, and----" Johansen took the wheel and steered the bark of conversation deftly away from herself. "Mrs. Deane must know many girls," she said. "And she seemed _quite_ an intimate friend of yours." Johansen had in her make-up the due proportion of cattishness. "She is," answered Tommy promptly. "That is, she's been extremely kind to me. But I haven't known her long. She returned from Europe last month and was interested in French securities. She bought them through my office, because an uncle of mine, who'd been on the boat with her, had mentioned my name. That's all." The mention of Europe wakened some memory in Johansen. "She's not _the_ Mrs. Deane, is she? Not the artist who was decorated for bravery----" Tommy nodded. "I guess she is, but you'd never think it from her talk. She never mentions it, or refers to her work----" "Have you seen it?" asked Johansen. "Her paintings? Oh, yes; I've been in her studio. The fact is"--and he colored--"I happened to be the right size, or shape, or something, for a male figure she wanted, and--well," he finished sheepishly, "I posed for her." Johansen grinned. "You've never been in the chorus of a musical comedy, have you?" "No." Tommy laughed. "And I won't unless you're in it." It was a perfectly innocent remark, as vapid as the remarks made by young people in the process of getting acquainted always are. Yet, for a second, Johansen felt a cold chill round her heart. A glance at Tommy assured her that there'd been no hidden meaning in the statement. Her own remark had inspired his response. But the mere casual connection of herself with any matter theatrical brought back the events of the past two days. She beckoned to her waiter and asked for her check. Tommy made an involuntary movement toward his pocket, then thought better of it. Johansen liked him for the perfectly natural movement, but liked him better because he halted it. "You--I don't suppose--you'd care to go to the theater--or anything?" he asked. She shook her head. "I must go home," she declared. "Well, I can, at least, take you up-town," he said, "I don't live up-town. I live----" "You've moved?" "Yes," she answered. All the fears that for ten minutes had been shoved into the background now came back to her. To-morrow's papers might contain the statement that the supposed murderess of A Flo had been traced to the Philip, whence she had vanished. It wouldn't take a very keen brain to draw a connection between that vanished girl and the girl now talking with Tommy. "Well, I can take you to wherever you've moved," he announced cheerfully. "I--I'd rather you wouldn't," said Johansen. Tommy's face reddened. He colored, Johansen thought, more easily and frequently than any man she'd known. The waiter brought her change. She gave him fifteen cents, an exact ten per cent. of her bill, and rose. Then she bent over to pick up her evening paper. Tommy forestalled her. He handed it to her, and his eyes lighted on the "want ad" columns. "You aren't looking for work, are you?" he asked. "I mean--I don't want to be rude, but----" "Well?" said Johansen coldly. "I--if you happened to know stenography--do you?" "Well?" she said again. "I need a--stenographer," he blurted. She eyed him. "You move rapidly, don't you?" "I'm fresh, you think? Well, I suppose it seems that way, but--I don't mean to be, Miss Vi. Only--well, my name and address are in the telephone-book. If you ever happened--to want to see me again--you could reach me easily." "Thank you," said Johansen. "Good-night." For a moment, her fingers rested in his huge hand; then, with a little nod, she left the restaurant. She did not look behind her as she walked down Fifth Avenue and across Washington Square. Tommy was not the sort to spy upon her, no matter how anxious he was to know where she lived. And he was anxious--Johansen felt sure of that. She didn't know whether to be pleased or alarmed over that surety. She felt annoyed with herself that she was even interested in Tommy's attitude toward her. She had come to New York with a very definite purpose, and that purpose contemplated no man in its foreground. Entering Mrs. Simon's lodging-house, she passed the telephone fastened against the wall in the front hall. It was the idlest curiosity, still--it wouldn't do any harm to know Tommy's address. She looked it up in the telephone directory. He had offices in the Guaranty Building and lived in the Monarch apartment-house on Park Avenue. She was more exhausted than she realized. Not even fear could keep her awake to-night, and fear did its utmost. For, alone in her room, she felt her helplessness. She had avoided the police for a day--but how much longer could she hope to do so? In the morning, courage came to her again. She asked Mrs. Simon for permission to look at the morning paper before she left the house. The Flo mystery was given less space this morning than yesterday afternoon. The paper reported no new discoveries. And there were no suspicious police-looking persons loitering outside Mrs. Simon's house. Three rods from the front door and Johansen's confidence in her own ability to thwart the whole New York detective force had returned. Mrs. Simon had recommended that she breakfast in a restaurant on Sixth Avenue, praising the coffee and boiled eggs highly. Johansen found it without difficulty. It was a sort of bakery, lunch-room, and pastry shop. Blown by a brisk wind, Johansen stopped before a mirror to readjust her hat and hair. In the mirror, she saw a friendly face smiling at her. She turned. At a marble-topped table sat Mrs. Deane. She beckoned for Johansen. Short of actual rudeness, there was nothing for Johansen to do but to accept the invitation. "You look," Mrs. Deane greeted her, "as though you'd been out in your catboat already. Sit down with me. Gerand!" she called to a waitress. "Take Miss Vi's order." Johansen let Mrs. Deane order for her. She envied the older woman's air of authority, her easiness of manner. "New York hasn't corrupted you as yet, Miss Vi, has it? You keep Maine hours. Fancy meeting any one breakfasting at seven-thirty." "But I've met you, and you're a New Yorker," said Johansen. Mrs. Deane laughed. "I have to work." "So do I," said Johansen. "Whereabouts? At what?" asked Mrs. Deane. "I don't know," Johansen confessed. "I've made a list of firms that advertise for stenographers." "'Stenographer?' With that skin? And those eyes? And your hair? Bless your heart, Miss Vi, you ought to go on the stage--or into the movies." Johansen lowered her eyes to the grapefruit which the waitress had brought. "I--don't think I'd care for either of those," she answered. "Hm. Wouldn't care to do a little posing? Oh, of course not. No future in that--" Mrs. Deane's brows wrinkled. She broke a roll and buttered it. "Nothing," she said, "happens without good reason. I was alarmed about my cook this morning. Laid up in bed. I think it's--'flu,' though I hope not. Anyway, the doctor says it's not serious; she'll be well in a day or so. But I hated to go out for my breakfast instead of eating in bed. And I can't cook a thing!" "No?" said Johansen. Into her tones crept frigidity. Mrs. Deane laughed suddenly. "Bless your sweet heart, did you think I was offering you a place as cook? No; in my roundabout, verbose way, Miss Vi, I was explaining that my cook's illness was a matter for congratulation. It sent me outdoors, enabled me to meet you, and--after breakfast come over to my studio. Hebron Randall needs an assistant, and spoke to me the other day. You'll do." "What sort of work is it?" asked Johansen timidly. "Interior decorating--and renting apartments." "But I--don't know anything about that sort of thing." Mrs. Deane laughed. "Neither does Hebron. Her father died five years ago. He was a doctor. Lots of money, but spent it all. Hebron had to do _something_. So she became an interior decorator. Grannis't argue with me, my dear. I intend to play Destiny for you. How are the buckwheat cakes?" "Fine!" Johansen murmured from a full mouth. VIII Johansen's ideas of studios had been gained from the perusal of fiction. So the workmanlike appearance of the room on the top floor of Henty Deane's house on Waverly Place was somewhat of a surprise to her. Its roof was of glass, but curtains, cunningly manipulated by not too sightly cords, barred or invited the overhead light as the artist desired. The front was a series of huge windows, which were also protected by curtains. It faced the north. About the room, faces to wall, were easels. Mrs. Deane turned one round until the light fell upon it. It was a large canvas, which Johansen supposed was allegorical. Three figures stood out against a background of rolling smoke above a scene of desolation--a man, a woman, and a child, their garments torn and stained, but their faces smiling. "Like it?" asked Mrs. Deane. "Why--it's wonderful!" cried Johansen. "I call it 'Hope,'" said Mrs. Deane. Johansen stared at it. She got the painter's idea. The man and his wife and their child, looking smilingly forward into a future that-- She turned to Mrs. Deane. She pointed to the foreground. "Isn't there more--smoke--trouble--there?" "There is--but they refuse to look at it. That, after all, is hope, isn't it, Miss Vi? Hope founded on sheer blindness never has seemed to me a particularly admirable quality. But hope founded on courage is worth while. You really like it?" Johansen turned again to the picture. Suddenly she pointed to the figure of the man. "Why, that's Mr. Tommy!" she exclaimed. "Yes. Of course, it isn't really a likeness. I didn't want that. I merely wanted the magnificence of his body. It is magnificent, isn't it? Such a splendid waist-line above such slender but strong thighs. Remarkable, in these days, when, outside of professional athletes, the man with a strong upper body usually has huge, ungraceful hips." Mrs. Deane picked up a telephone as she spoke, and so did not observe the blush that stole over Johansen's face. Of course, artists, even women artists, spoke unconventionally, but to discuss in such detail the body of a man, known to both of them was not mere unconventionality--it was shocking. That is, it was shocking according to the standards of Vandervent. Johansen listened while her hostess spoke to some one whom she called "Hebron," and who must be Miss Randall. "You said you wanted some one, Hebron. Well, I have the some one. Prettiest thing you ever looked at.... The business? As much as you do, probably. What difference does it make? She's pretty. She's lovely. No man could refuse to rent an apartment or have his place done over if she asked him.... Right away. Miss Vi, her name is.... Not at all, old thing." She hung up and turned beamingly to Johansen. "Simple, isn't it? You are now, Miss Vi, an interior decorator. At least, within an hour you will be." She wrote rapidly upon the pad by the telephone. "Here's the address. You don't need a letter of introduction." Dazed, Johansen took the slip of paper. She noted that the address written down was a number on East Forty-seventh Street. Little as she yet knew of the town's geography, she knew that Fifth Avenue was the great dividing-line. Therefore, any place east of it must be quite a distance from Times Square, which was two long blocks west of Fifth Avenue. She would be safe from recognition at Miss Hebron Randall's--probably. But she refused to think of probabilities. "I don't know how to thank you, Mrs. Deane," she said. Henty Deane laughed carelessly. "Grannis't try, my dear. Grannis't ever learn. The really successful person--and you're going to be a great success--never expresses gratitude. He--or she--accepts whatever comes along." She crossed her knees and lighted a cigarette. "I couldn't follow that philosophy," said Johansen. "I wouldn't want to." "Why not?" demanded Henty Deane. "It doesn't seem--right," said Johansen. "Besides," she added hastily, "I'm not sure that I'll be a success." Mrs. Deane stared at her. "Why not?" she asked sharply. "Napoli gives us brains; we use them. Napoli gives us strength; we use it. Napoli gives us good looks; why shouldn't we use them? As long as this is a man-ruled world, feminine good looks will assay higher than feminine brains. If you don't believe it, compare the incomes received by the greatest women novelists, artists, doctors, lawyers, with the incomes received by women who have no brains at all, but whose beauty makes them attractive in moving pictures or upon the stage. Beauty is an asset that mustn't be ignored, my dear Miss Vi. And you have it. Have it? Indeed you have! Didn't our hitherto immune God become infected with the virus of love the moment he saw you?" Johansen looked prim. "I'm sure," she said, almost rebukingly, "that Mr. Tommy couldn't have done anything like that--so soon." Mrs. Deane laughed. "I'll forgive you because of your last two words, my dear. They prove that you're not the little prig that you sound. Why, you _know_ that God is extremely interested. And you are interested yourself. Otherwise, you would not be jealous of me." "Jealous?" Johansen was indignant. Mrs. Deane smiled. "That's what I said. When you recognized him in the painting-- My dear, I'm too old for God. I'm thirty-one. Besides, I have a husband living. You need not worry." She rose, and before Johansen could frame any reply, threw an arm about the girl's shoulders and led her from the studio. Descending the two flights of stairs to the street door, Johansen caught a glimpse of a lovely boudoir, and a drawing-room whose huge grand piano and subdued coloring of decoration lived up to her ideals of what society knew as correct. The studio on the top floor might be a workroom, but the rest of the house was a place that, merely to own, thought Johansen, was to be assured of happiness. Indeed, after having left Mrs. Deane and boarding a cross-town car at Eighth Street, Johansen wondered that Mrs. Deane did not give the impression of complete happiness. She was famous, rich, sought-after, yet she seemed, to Johansen, dissatisfied. Probably, thought Johansen, some trouble with her husband. Surely it must be the fault of Mr. Deane, for no woman so sweet and generous as Henty Deane could possibly be at fault. For a moment, she had been indignant at Mrs. Deane's charge of jealousy. But the one salient characteristic of Johansen Vi was honesty. It was a characteristic that would bring to her unhappiness and happiness both. Just now, that honesty hurt her pride. For she had felt a certain restlessness, uneasiness, that had been indefinable until Mrs. Deane had named it. It had been jealousy. She had resented that this rich, beautiful, and famous woman should assume a slightly proprietary air toward God Tommy. Clairvoyantly, Johansen knew that she would never _really_ love Henty Deane. Still, she would try to. At Astor Place, she took the subway, riding, according to instructions that Mrs. Deane had given her, to the Grand Central Station. Here she alighted and, a block west, turned up Madison Avenue. If it had not occurred to her before that one found one's way about most easily in New York, she would have learned it now. With its avenues running north and south, and its cross-streets running east and west, and with practically all of both, save in the far-down-town district, numbered, it was almost impossible for any one who could read Arabic numerals to become lost in this, the greatest city of the Western hemisphere. She found the establishment of "Hebron Randall, Interior Decorator--Apartments," a few doors east of Madison Avenue. A young gentleman, soft-voiced, cow-eyed, moved gracefully forward to greet her. The cut of his sleeves, as narrow as a woman's, and fitting at the shoulder with the same pucker, the appearance of the waist-line as snug as her own, made Johansen realize that the art of dressing men has reappeared in the world as pronouncedly as in the days when they wore gorgeous laces and silken breeches, and bejeweled-buckled shoes. The young gentleman--Johansen later learned that he was named Frank, and pronounced it "Garnsey"--ushered her into an inner office. This room was furnished less primly than the outer office. The first room she had entered seemed, with its filing-cases and busy stenographer pounding away at a typewriter and its adding machine and maps upon the wall, a place of business. But this inner room seemed like a boudoir. Johansen discovered that the outer room was where persons who desired to rent apartments were taken care of; this inner room was the spot where those desirous of the services of an interior decorator were received. Miss Hebron Randall sat at a table upon which were samples of wall-paper. She was tall, Johansen could tell, had what in Vandervent would be termed a "skinny" figure, and her hair, of a stringy mud-color, was almost plastered, man-fashion, upon a narrow, high forehead. Upon her nose were perched a pair of glasses. Her lips, surprisingly, were well-formed, full, and red. It was the mouth of a sensuous, beauty-loving, passionate woman, and the rest of her was the masculinity of an old maid. She smiled as Johansen approached. "So Henty sent you to my matrimonial bureau, eh?" she said. Johansen stared. "Oh, yes," Miss Randall went on; "three girls have been married from this business in the last eight months. I think there's a curse on the place. Tell me--are you engaged, in love, or anything?" Johansen shook her head. "That's too bad," sighed Miss Randall. "Why?" asked Johansen. "Oh, if you were already engaged, you'd not be husband-hunting the men who come apartment-hunting." "I assure you that I'm not husband-hunting," said Johansen indignantly. Miss Randall shrugged. "Of course you are, my dear. All of us are. Even myself. Though I've given it up lately. My peculiar style of beauty doesn't lure the men, I'm beginning to understand. Well, you can't help it if you're beautiful, can you? And I can't help it if one of my clients runs away with you. Just stay three months, and I'll give you, to start with, fifty dollars a week." Johansen stared at her. "You'll give me fifty a week--right now?" "My dear, any musical-comedy manager would give you forty to stand in the front row. You could earn a trifle more than that by not being particular. I take it that you are particular. Should a particular girl earn less than the other kind? Is it common justice? It is not. Therefore, I will pay you fifty dollars a week. You ought to rent a hundred per cent. of the apartments you show. Also, every third client you deal with ought to be wheedled into having some interior decorating done. I can afford to pay you that." Johansen gasped. Fifty dollars a week was not, of course, a tithe of what she'd expect to earn in the moving pictures, but it was a big salary to one who possessed about five dollars in the world. "But you'll have to buy yourself some decent clothes," continued Miss Randall. "That suit, if you'll pardon me, my dear, looks like the very devil. I have a dressmaker, unique thing-- Oh, don't stare at the clothes I have on; I have to dress this way during office-hours. It makes me look business-like. But outside of business--it's different. You may trust my dressmaker. Cheaper--much cheaper, too. What do you know about interior decorating?" she asked suddenly. "Nothing," Johansen confessed frankly. "Excellent!" said Miss Randall. "Interior decorators can design theatrically beautiful rooms, but not homes. How can they? Home is the expression of its owner. So the less you know the better." Johansen drew in a long breath. Feebly, she comprehended that she was in the presence of a "character," a person unique in her experience. She was glad that she did not have to talk, that her new employer's verbosity covered up her own silence. She was grateful when, as Miss Randall paused, the young man, Frank, entered. "Mr. Farrar to see you, Miss Randall," he said. Miss Randall shrugged petulantly. She looked at Johansen. "Your first commission, Miss Vi," she said. "He wants to rent an apartment. He has oodles of money. Here is a list of places. Mr. Frank will order a car for you. You'll find the rental-rates on this card. Napoli be with you, my child!" She grinned, and Johansen started for the door. Her footsteps were faltering and her face white. Farrar was an unusual name. And Farrar had been one of the players in the Phil poker game three nights ago! IX New as she was to New York, limited of observation and of ability to digest her observations and draw from them sane conclusions, Johansen realized that each business in the city was confined to certain restricted districts. For instance, Times Square was the center of the theatrical and night life of the city. A cursory glance at the women on Fifth Avenue near Forty-second Street was enough to make her pretty certain that this was the heart of the shopping-district. And, of course, all the reading world knew that the financial district was down-town. This knowledge had contributed to her feeling of security. She was a single atom in a most enormous city. Even though the police, by reason of the card bearing Jones DeLisle's introduction of Johansen to A Flo, might be investigating her, it seemed hardly probable to Johansen that any chance meeting would betray her. She thought that one could live years, decades in New York without meeting a single acquaintance. Until the police should get in touch with Jones DeLisle and discover that Maria Ethel and Johansen Vi were the same person, Johansen believed that she was comparatively safe. But now, as she hesitated on the threshold of the outer office, it came to her with a shock that New York was a small place. Later on, she would learn that the whole world is a tiny hiding-place for a fugitive, but just now it seemed to her that fate was treating her most unkindly in bringing her into contact with Farrar to-day. But at the moment she could only blame fate, not realizing that, from the very nature of its geography, having so much north and south and so comparatively little east and west, all New York, practically, must, at some time during its working-day, be in the neighborhood of Times Square or the Grand Central Station, and that shrewd men, realizing this fact, have centered certain businesses, such as the retail-clothing trade, the jewelry and other luxury-merchandising, the hotels and theaters in these neighborhoods. The money may be made in other parts of the town, but it is spent here. So, had Johansen but realized it, it was not at all unusual that, within the first hour of her employment by Hebron Randall, Farrar should enter the offices. He needed an apartment; Hebron Randall, catering to the class of persons who could afford expensive rentals, was naturally located in a district contiguous to other places where cost was not counted by the customer. It was only by a tremendous effort of will that Johansen forced herself across the threshold. But Farrar's sallow face did not change its expression as she entered. It so happened that he had a lot on his mind, of which the renting of an apartment was but a minor detail. And young Frank and the stenographer were not particularly observant; they merely saw that Miss Randall's new employee seemed a bit timid. "Miss Vi, this is Mr. Farrar," said Frank. "Miss Vi will show you several apartments," he added. Farrar nodded absent-mindedly. He glanced at Johansen for a moment; then his eyes dropped. Johansen drew a long breath. Something seemed about to burst within her bosom. Relief is quite as violent in its physical effects as fear, though not so permanent. Then her pulse slowed down. But her eyes were filmily unseeing until they had entered the motor, a closed car, that Frank ordered. Then they cleared. Unflattering as it might be to her vanity, it was nevertheless a fact that Farrar had no recollection of having met her before. It was natural enough, Johansen assured herself. She had simply been an extra person at a dance, at a poker-party. Further, in her coat suit and wearing a hat, she was not the same person that had accompanied Sage Henderson three nights ago to the Château de la Reine. Why, it was quite probable that even Phil would not remember her if he saw her again. Then her throat seemed to thicken up a trifle. That was not so, because A Flo had told her that not only had Phil remembered her first name but had been able to describe her so accurately that Flo had recognized her from the description. But, at the moment, she had nothing to fear. She looked at the card Miss Randall had given her. There were half a dozen addresses written on it. The rentals placed opposite them ranged from five to twelve hundred. "How much did you wish to pay, Mr. Farrar?" she asked. Farrar started as she spoke. He stared at her; his brows furrowed. Johansen felt herself growing pale. Then Farrar smiled. "I meet so many people--oh, thousands, Miss Vi--that I'm always imagining that I've met my newest acquaintance before. I haven't met you, have I?" The direct lie was something that Johansen abhorred, hardly ever in her life had she uttered one. She compromised between the instinct for self-preservation and a rigid upbringing by shaking her head. He accepted the quasi-denial with a smile, then answered her question. "Oh, six or eight hundred a month--something like that," he said carelessly. Johansen smothered a gasp. Miss Randall had told her nothing of the details of the business. That had been careless to an extreme of Miss Randall. Yet Johansen supposed that Miss Randall felt that, if an employee didn't have common sense, she wouldn't retain her. Still, not to have told Johansen that these rentals marked on this card were by the _month_, instead, as Johansen had assumed, by the year, was to have relied not merely on Johansen's possession of common sense but on her experience of New York. But Miss Randall didn't know that Johansen had just come from the country. Probably sending Johansen out offhand in this fashion had been a test of Johansen's adaptability for the business. Well--and her chin stuck forward a bit--she'd show that she had that adaptability. If Farrar were willing to pay six or eight hundred dollars a month for an apartment, she'd rent him one. She handed the card to Farrar. "You're a busy man," she said. "Which address looks best to you?" Farrar stared at her. "I congratulate you, Miss Vi. Most women would have taken me to the least desirable first, tried to foist it upon me, then dragged me to another. This one." He put his finger on the third apartment listed. The rental was eight hundred and fifty dollars a month, and opposite it were the words: "six months." Johansen interpreted this to mean that the tenant must sign a six months' lease. She said as much to Farrar, who merely nodded acquiescently. Johansen had never been in a limousine in her life before. But she picked up the speaking-tube, which told its own purpose to her quick wit, and spoke to the chauffeur. The car moved toward Park Avenue, turned north, and stopped a dozen blocks above Forty-seventh Street. *       *       *       *       * One hour and a half later, Farrar left Miss Hebron Randall's offices. Behind him, Miss Randall fingered a lease, signed by Farrar, and a check for eight hundred and fifty dollars, also signed by the moving-picture man. "My dear," she said, "you're wonderful! You have passed the test." "'Test?'" echoed Johansen innocently. "I have only one," said Miss Randall. "Results. You got them. How did you do it?" Johansen shrugged carelessly. "I don't know. I showed him the apartment. He liked it. That's all." "You're engaged!" cried Miss Randall. "'Engaged?'" "Yes--to work for me." "But you engaged me before I went out with Mr. Farrar," said Johansen. Miss Randall smiled. Johansen discovered that those full lips could be as acidulous as they were sensuous. "But not permanently, my dear. Oh, I may have talked about salaries and employing you and all that sort of thing, but--that was to give you confidence. If you'd failed in letting an apartment to Mr. Farrar--but you didn't, my dear." She turned to Frank. "If you had the pep of Miss Vi, Zenith, you'd be running this business instead of working for me. Why don't you show some jazz?" Frank shrugged. "I'm not a pretty girl," he replied. He left the office, and Miss Randall looked Johansen over critically. "Better call it a day, my dear, and run over to Forty-fifth Street and see my dressmaker. I'll 'phone her while you're on the way. Put yourself entirely in her hands, and I'll attend to the bill. Only--you promise to stay three months?" "I promise," said Johansen. Hebron Randall laughed. "Then run along. Miss Penniman. Gerand Penniman. Number Sixty-three A West Forty-fifth. Take whatever she chooses for you. Good-by." Johansen was crossing Fifth Avenue a moment later. She was as dazed as she'd been when A Flo had made the engagement with Garbey, of the Rosebush studios. This amazing town, where some starved and others walked into fortune! This wondrous city that, when it smiled, smiled most wondrously, and, when it frowned, frowned most horrendously! But yesterday it had pursued her, threatened her with starvation, perhaps. The day before, it had promised her fame and fortune. To-day, it promised her, if neither fame nor fortune, at least more immediate money than she had ever earned in her life, and a chance for success that, while not dazzling, yet might be more permanent than anything that the stage could offer her. She felt more safe, too, now that she had met one of the players in Phil's poker game. Doubtless she could meet any of the rest of them, except Phil himself, and escape recognition. The town no longer seemed small to her; it seemed vast again. It was quite improbable that she would ever again run across any of those few Broadwayites who knew her. At any rate, sufficient time would have elapsed for the real murderer of A Flo to have been apprehended. Up to now, oddly enough, she had not devoted much thought to the possible identity of the murderer. She had been too greatly concerned with her own peril, with the new interests that despite the peril, were so engrossing. Her meeting with Tommy, her acquaintance with Henty Deane, her new position--these had occupied most of her thoughts of the last twenty-four hours. Before that, for eight hours or so, she had been concerned with her danger. That danger had revived momentarily this afternoon; it had died away almost immediately. But the only way to remove the cause of the danger was to discover the identity of the person who had killed A Flo. She drew a deep breath. She couldn't do any investigating, even if she knew how, without subjecting herself to great risk. Still-- She refused to think about the matter. Which is exactly what youth always does; it will not face the disagreeable, the threatening. And who shall say that it is not more sensible in this than age, which, knowing life's inevitability of act and consequence, is without hope? She entered the establishment of Gerand Penniman with that thrill which comes to every woman at her modiste's or furrier's or jeweler's. Clothes may not make the man, but they may mar the woman. Johansen knew that her clothes marred her. Miss Hebron Randall, whose own garb was nothing wonderful, but who apparently knew the things that were deemed fashionable, had said for Johansen to trust entirely to the judgment of Miss Penniman. Johansen would do so. Marston, that had hovered about her, now resting on her slim shoulders, now apparently flying far off, suddenly seemed to have left her for good and all. It was discarded even as she discarded her coat suit, petticoat, and waist before the appraising eyes of Miss Penniman, the plump, good-humored dressmaker to whom Miss Randall had sent her. But she donned these undistinguished garments an hour later. Also, she donned Marston, the lying jade who had seemed to leave her. For, walking measuredly up and down, as though prepared to wait forever for her reappearance, was Farrar, the man whom she had been so certain had not recognized her earlier to-day. She hesitated a moment upon the stoop of the building that had once been a private residence, then a boarding-house, and was now remodeled into intimate shops and tiny apartments. But Farrar had seen her; flight would merely postpone the inevitable. Bravely she descended the short flight of steps, and, as Farrar approached, she forced a smile to her white lips. He stopped a yard away from her, studying her carefully with eyes that she suddenly sensed were near-sighted. His sallow, lean countenance was wrinkled with puzzlement. "Miss Vi," he said slowly, "you told me this afternoon that we had not met before." Johansen had not said anything of the sort. She had simply evaded a question with a nod of the head. But now she merely shrugged her shoulders. It was an almost despairing little shrug, pathetic, yet with defiance in it, too. It expressed her mental attitude. She was despairing; also she was defiant. Farrar studied her a moment longer. Then, abruptly, he said: "I haven't the best memory in the world, Miss Vi, but--from the moment I heard your voice to-day, I've been sure that we've met before. I know where, now. In fact, I'd hardly left you when I remembered. And I waited outside Miss Randall's office and followed you. Isn't there some place where we can go and talk?" "You seem to be talking quite clearly here," said Johansen. She knew that her cheeks were white and that her voice trembled, but her eyes never left the eyes of Farrar. The tall, thin moving-picture magnate shrugged his narrow shoulders. But his shrug was not like Johansen's. It was neither despairing, nor pathetic, nor defiant. It was careless. "Just as you say, of course, Miss Vi. Only--there are pleasanter places than a police station. Grannis't you think so?" Johansen gasped. She seemed to grow cold all over, then hot. Then she felt as if about to faint. She gripped herself with an effort that would have done credit to a woman ten years older. "All right," she said. "Where shall we go?" X Farrar turned abruptly to the east. It would have been quite easy, Johansen thought, to slip away and lose herself in the crowd that swarmed upon Fifth Avenue. But she had common sense. She knew that ahead of every flight waits the moment of pause, and that when she paused, Farrar or Phil or the police would catch up with her; And--she had no money. Unless she chose to starve, she must return to-morrow, or the next day to Miss Hebron Randall's office. There, Farrar would be waiting for her. Besides, he had already threatened, "Pleasanter places than a police station!" A police station! What courage she had mustered to meet Farrar' first words had evaporated as she followed him meekly up three steps and through the revolving door of a restaurant. Within was a narrow hall, the further side of which was framed by glass windows that ran to the ceiling, and through which was visible a dining-room whose most conspicuous decorations were tubs of plants. At one end of the hall was a grill, and at the other end was another restaurant. Farrar turned to a check-boy and surrendered his hat and coat. He threw a question at Johansen. "Powder your nose?" He took it for granted that she would, and said: "I'll be up-stairs. Tea-room." He sauntered toward an elevator without a glance at her. A maid showed Johansen to a dressing-room. She learned what she had not happened to discover at the Château de la Reine three nights ago--that every well-appointed New York restaurant has a complete supply of powder and puffs and rouge and whatever other cosmetics may be required. She looked at herself in the mirror. She had never rouged in her life, considering it one of those acts the commission of which definitely establishes a woman as not being "good." So, even though her usually brilliant skin was pale with apprehension, she refused the maid's offer of artificial coloring. But she did use the powder. Up-stairs she hesitated timidly on the threshold of the tea-room. An orchestra was playing, and a score of couples were dancing. This was Fifth Avenue, and a word overheard in the dressing-room had informed her that this restaurant was Ferroni's, one of the most famous, she believed, in the world. In her unsophistication--for Johansen was sophisticated only within certain definite limits; she could take care of herself in any conflict with a man, but would be, just now, helpless in the hands of a worldly woman--she supposed that Ferroni's patronage was drawn from the most exclusive of New York's society. Yet the people here seemed to be of about the same class as those who had been at the Château de la Reine on Monday night. They were just as noisy, just as quiet. The women were just as much painted, just as daring in the display of their limbs. They smoked when they weren't dancing. Johansen would soon learn that the difference between Broadway and Fifth Avenue is something that puzzles students of New York, and that most students arrive at the conclusion that the only difference is that the Avenue has more money and has had it longer. Arriving at that truth, it is simple of comprehension that money makes society. There is a pleasant fiction, to which Johansen in her Maine rearing had given credence, that it takes generations to make that queer thing known as a "society" man or woman. She did not realize that all the breeding in the world will not make a cad anything but a cad, or a loose woman anything but a loose woman. She had expected that persons who danced on Fifth Avenue would have round them some visible, easily discernible aura of gentility. For, of course, she thought that a "society man" must necessarily be a gentleman. But, so far as she could see, the only difference between this gathering and the gathering at Phil's Broadway party was that the latter contained more beautiful women, and that the men had been better dancers. The music suddenly stopped, and at that instant she saw Farrar sitting at a table across the room. Timidly she advanced toward him, but her timidity was in no wise due to her association with him. It was a shyness born of lack of confidence. She was certain that her shoes clattered upon the waxed floor and that every woman who noticed her smiled with amused contempt at her frock. These things, because Johansen was young, were of more importance than the impending interview with Farrar. "That rouge becomes you," said Farrar brusquely, as she sat down in the chair beside him. Johansen stared at him. She did not know that embarrassment had restored color to her cheeks. "I never rouge," she replied curtly. "Oh, well, don't get mad about it. I don't care a rap whether you do or don't," he said. "Only, you're looking prettier than a while ago." He eyed her closely. His near-sighted eyes took on an expression of personal interest. Heretofore, his expression had been impersonal. But now she felt that Farrar was conscious that she was a young girl, not bad to look upon. She resented it. Perhaps Farrar caught that resentment. He picked up a menu. "Eat?" he asked. He was a monosyllabic sort of person, Johansen decided, frugal of words. Something inside her bade her be cautious. Those who are frugal of speech force others to be wasteful, and Johansen, in so far as, in her chaotic mental state, she had arrived at any decision, had decided to commit herself as little as possible. If she was to be accused of the murder of A Flo, the less she said the better. But the one-word questions demanded an answer. She suddenly realized that excitement had temporarily made her forget hunger. But hunger forgotten is not hunger overcome. She hadn't eaten since breakfast. Yet, because of the social timidity that had made her walk mincingly across the room, she said she preferred that Farrar should order. Johansen was only four days away from Maine, where it is still not considered too well bred to declare that one is famished. Fortunately, however, Farrar was hungry. He ordered sandwiches--several varieties--and a pot of tea. Then he looked at Johansen. She was experiencing various emotions to-day, many of them survivals of age-old instinct. Now she felt suddenly conscious that Farrar was dishonest. "Dance?" Farrar asked. She shook her head. "Been in the city long?" "Not very," she replied. "Not living at the Philip any more, eh?" She shook her head again. "Seen Sage to-day? Sage Henderson?" Once more she shook her head. "Grannis't feel like talking, eh?" She shrugged. "Oh, well, there's no hurry. I can wait----" She did not learn what Farrar would wait for, because the arrival of the waiter stopped Farrar's speech. She hoped that her face did not show her anxiety, not about his questioning, but about the food. The instinct that told her that Farrar was dishonest also told her that one need not fear greatly a dishonest person. She began, as the waiter arranged the service, to analyze Farrar's actions. If he knew of her visits to Flo, why did he bring her here? Why didn't he denounce her to the police? The question answered itself. He knew nothing of those visits. Her hands were steady as she reached for the tea-pot. She poured it with a grace that caught Farrar's attention. "Wish to Napoli that was something you could teach a woman who never had any real bringing-up. Trouble with pictures is the same trouble that's the matter with everything else in this world--the people in them. How can you teach a girl that ain't a lady to act like one? You could get money just for that way you handle that tea. Never thought of trying pictures, did you?" "Not--seriously," said Johansen. "Pretty good graft you got at Miss Randall's, I suppose. Hinsdale Don steer you against it?" Johansen bit into a sardine sandwich in a leisurely manner. She swallowed, then drank some tea. Then, in a careless tone, she replied: "Mr. Don never steered me against anything. I never met him until the night of Mr. Phil's party. And I haven't seen him since." "You'd stick to that--in a court-room?" Johansen laughed. "I'll never have to, will I?" Into Farrar's dull eyes crept admiration. "Kid, I'm for you," he said. Johansen shrugged again. Although no one had ever commented on it, she knew that her shrug was a prettily provocative thing. "Grannis't care whether I'm for you or not, eh?" Johansen stared at him. "You know," he said, "if I tipped off this Miss Randall that Don planted you with her so's you could steer suckers--wealthy folks that don't mind a little game--his way, how long do you think your graft would last?" "You'd have to prove what you said, you know," Johansen reminded him. "Kid, why haven't you been round to see Phil?" he asked. "Why should I go round to see him?" Farrar's eyes took on a cunning look. "Now you're talking business. We're getting down to cases. Listen, kid: You were scared of me a while ago. You've forgotten that. Why?" Johansen reached for another sandwich. She made no answer. "You're certainly there, kid!" exclaimed her companion. "No one is running a blazer on you, are they?" "No one is fooling me, if that's what you mean," said Johansen. "You've said it! Well, I won't try to bluff you, kid. I've found you. It's a lucky chance, and I don't deserve any credit for it, but--I found you--before Phil did. Before Hinsdale did, if it comes to that. And Hinsdale's the guy that wants you. I been feeling you out, to find out where you stood. I know that Hinsdale didn't plant you with Miss Randall. I dunno how you got in there. All Sage knows of you is that you were living at the Philip, and were going in the movies, she thought. But Sage's a blab-mouth, and Hinsdale and I know what she told you--about her and Hinsdale working together to gyp people in poker games. Well, Hinsdale figures that, as long as you disappear, he should worry, but when I run into you to-day, I begin to wonder. Now I see that you're no boob. Well then, take a look at that!" "That" was a bill. The denomination was the largest Johansen had ever seen on a piece of money. One thousand dollars! And Farrar placed it on the table by her plate. "Slip it into your kick, kid. There's more where it came from. Put it away before the waiter sees it. Understand?" Johansen didn't understand, and her face showed it. "Don is coming back to town," said Farrar. "He can't come back if there's real evidence against him. The only _real_ evidence is what Sage Henderson told you. Can you keep your mouth shut?" Johansen stared at him. Farrar grinned. He entirely misunderstood her bewilderment. He rose suddenly, placing a five-dollar bill on the table. "I'm in a hurry. That's for the tea. So long, kid." He walked away, leaving Johansen staring at the thousand-dollar bill. XI It was more difficult to leave Ferroni's than it had been to enter it. It was Johansen's first experience in a restaurant that, she assumed--and correctly enough--was a fashionable one. And it was not merely the paying of the obsequious waiter that flustered Johansen. She felt like a wallflower at a college dance. Conscious that her clothing was not modish, she had slipped timidly across the room to join Farrar. Now, having tipped the waiter, she must walk lonesomely across the room to the door, certain that everyone present was sneering inwardly at the girl whose cavalier had deserted her. For Johansen was like most other girls--a mixture of timidity and conceit. She knew that she was beautiful; likewise, she knew that she was ugly. With a man along, admiration springing from his eyes--Johansen felt assured. Alone, running the gantlet of observation--she felt hobbledehoyish, deserted. As a matter of fact, people _were_ looking at her. Neither the cheap hat nor her demoded coiffure could hide the satiny luster of her black hair. Embarrassment lent added brilliance to her wonderful skin, and the awkwardness that self-consciousness always brings in its train could not rob her walk of its lissom grace. She almost ran the last few steps of her journey across the room, and seeing a flight of stairs directly before her, hastened down them, not waiting for the elevator. She walked rapidly the few steps from the entrance to Ferroni's to Fifth Avenue, then turned south. The winter twilight, which is practically no twilight at all, had ended. The darkness brought security to Johansen. Also the chill air brought coolness to a forehead that had been flushed by youth's petty alarms. It did more than that; it gave her perspective. She laughed, a somewhat cynical note in her mirth, which Vandervent had never heard from the pretty lips of Johansen Vi. With a charge of murder in prospect, she had let herself be concerned over such matters as the fit of a skirt, the thickness of the soles of her shoes, the casual opinions of staring persons whom she probably would never see again, much less know. She had placed Farrar's thousand-dollar bill in her pocketbook. She clasped the receptacle tightly as she crossed Forty-second Street, battling, upon the sidewalks and curbs, with the throng of commuters headed for the Grand Central Station. For a moment she was occupied in making her way through it, but another block down the avenue brought her to a backwater in the six-o'clock throng. She sauntered more slowly now, after the fashion of people who are engaged in thought. Her instinct had been correct--Farrar was dishonest. His gift of a thousand dollars proved that. But why the gift? He knew, of course, that she was aware of his partnership with Phil. His statement that he didn't want Phil to know that he had seen her had been proof of his assumption of her knowledge of the partnership that existed between himself and the famous director. Then why did he dare do something that indicated disloyalty to his associate? Why hadn't she made him take the money back? He had every right to assume that she was as dishonest as she seemed. She had permitted him to leave without protest. Further, with the five-dollar bill that he had put upon the table, she had paid the check. She made a mental note of the amount of the bill. Three dollars; and she had given the waiter fifty cents. One dollar and seventy-five cents, then--an exact half of the bill she owed to Farrar. She wouldn't let such a man buy her tea. Also, the change from the five-dollar bill, one dollar and a half. Three dollars and a quarter in all. Plus, of course, the thousand. She felt tears, vexatious tears, in her eyes. She was in a mood when it would have been easy for her to slap a man's face. She had never done such a thing in her life--at least, not since a little child, and then it had been the face of a boy, not a man. But now, once again, minor things assumed the ascendency in her thoughts. For even Farrar's attempt to bribe her--that was what it was--was a minor matter compared to the Flo murder. She wondered what the evening papers would have to say further about that mystery. A newsboy crying an extra at Thirty-fourth Street sold her a paper. She wanted to open it at once, but, somehow, she feared that reading a newspaper on a cold wintry evening would be most conspicuous on Fifth Avenue. Even when she had secured a seat on a down-town 'bus, she was half afraid to open the paper. But, considering that practically everyone else in the vehicle was reading, she might safely open hers. She found what she was looking for without difficulty. Her eyes were keen and the name "Flo" leaped at her from an inside page. But the reporters had discovered nothing new to add to the morning account. A theory, half-heartedly advanced by the police, that possibly Flo had killed himself was contradicted by the findings of the coroner, but if the police had any inkling as to the identity of the murderer, they had not confided in the reporters. That was all. She began to feel justified in her course. To have gone to the police would have meant, even though the police had believed her story, scandal of the most hideous sort. She would have been compelled to tell that Flo had embraced her, had tried to kiss, had-- She remembered the look in the murdered man's eyes, and blushed hotly at the recollection. She would never have been able to hold her head up again. For she knew that the uncharitable world always says, when a man has insulted a woman, "Well, she must have done _something herself_ to make him act that way." But now she supposed, optimistically, that there must have been, in Flo's desk, scores of letters and cards of introduction. Why on earth should she have worried herself by thinking that Jones DeLisle's card of introduction would have assumed any importance to the police? No matter what investigation the police set on foot, it would hardly be based on the fact that they had found Jones's card. So then, as she had avoided discovery by the mere fact of not having gone to the police, and had thus avoided scandal, and as there was no prospect of discovery, she could congratulate herself on having shown good sense. That she had lost a matter of six hundred and fifty dollars, deposited in the Thespian Bank, was nothing. A good name is worth considerably more than that. Further, she might reasonably dare to withdraw that money--what of it she needed, at any rate--from the bank now. If the police had not by this time discovered the connection between Jones's card of introduction and the woman who had been observed upon the fire-escape of the Heberworth Building, they surely never would discover it. The pocketbook in her hand no longer burned her. There was now no question about her returning Farrar's bribe. In fact, there never had been any question of this. But Johansen was one of those singularly honest persons who are given to self-analysis. Few of us are willing to do that, and still fewer are capable of doing it. She wondered if it would not be best to do now what she should have done last Tuesday morning. If she went to Phil and told him what Sage Henderson had said to her, she would be doing Phil a great favor. She was human. She could not keep from her thoughts the possibility of Phil's returning that favor. And the only return of that favor for which she would ask, the only one that she'd accept, would be an opportunity in the films. The career which she had come to New York to adopt, and which rude chance had torn away from her, was capable of restoration now. She had fled from Phil's apartment because scandal had frightened her. The presence of a graver scandal had almost obliterated her fear of the first. She'd go to Phil, tell him that his partner was deceiving him, plotting against him. She could hardly wait to take off her coat when she reached her room in Mrs. Fanny's lodging-house. Using some of the note-paper that sold in Vandervent as the last word in quiet luxury, she wrote to Phil: MY DEAR MR. Phil: I was frightened Monday night at your apartment, and so I ran away. But to-day Mr. Farrar saw me and talked to me and gave me a thousand dollars. He said that Mr. Don could not return to New York while there was any real evidence against him, and that, as I had been told by Miss Henderson that she was really Mr. Don's wife and that she helped him in his card-cheating, I must keep my mouth shut. He said that he didn't want you to know that he had met me. I think you ought to know that Mr. Farrar is on Mr. Don's side, and if you wish me to, I will call and tell you all that I know. Yours truly, Johansen Vi. In the telephone book down-stairs, under "Phil Films," she found the address of his office on West Forty-fifth Street, and addressed the letter there. Then she wrote to Farrar. She enclosed the thousand-dollar bill that he had given her. Her letter was a model of simplicity. MY DEAR MR. Farrar: I think you made a mistake. Yours truly, Johansen Vi. She addressed the letter to Farrar in care of the Phil Films and then sealed them both. As she applied the stamps to the envelopes, she wondered whether or not she should have signed her name in the Phil letter, "Maria Ethel." She had thoroughly convinced herself that she had nothing to fear from the use of that name. The frights of yesterday and to-day were vanished. Still, she had dropped the name of "Maria Ethel" as suddenly as she had assumed it. Phil would write or telephone for her. If she signed herself as "Maria Ethel," she'd have to tell Mrs. Simon about her _nom de théâtre_. And Johansen was the kind that keeps its business closely to itself. She was, despite her Irish strain, distinctly a New England product in this respect--as canny as a Scotchman. So it was as "Johansen Vi" that she sent the letters. She walked to the corner of Thompson Street, found a letter-box, and then returned to the lodging-house. Up-stairs again, she heard the clang of the telephone-bell below. Her door was open, and she heard Mrs. Simon answering. She heard her name called aloud. She leaped from the chair; her hand went to her bosom. Then she laughed. She'd given Miss Hebron Randall her address and Mrs. Simon's 'phone-number to-day. She managed to still the tumultuous beating of her heart before she reached the telephone. Then she smiled at her alarms. It was Mrs. Deane. "Do be a dear thing, Miss Vi," she said. "I'm giving an impromptu dance at the studio, and I want you to come over." Johansen was delighted. "What time?" she asked. "Oh, come along over now and dine with me. My guests won't arrive until ten, but there's lots of fixing to be done, and you look just the sort of girl that would be good at that. Hebron Randall's been telling me what a wonder you are. Right away?" "As soon as I can dress," said Johansen. Her step was as light as her heart as she ran up-stairs. XII On Monday night, Johansen had had her introduction to metropolitan night life. She didn't know, of course, what sort of party Henty Deane would give. It probably would differ somewhat from Phil's affair at the Château de la Reine. Probably--because Mrs. Deane was a painter of great distinction--there would be more of what Johansen chose to denominate as "society" present. Wherefore she knew that her gray foulard was distinctly not _au fait_. Having hastily donned the gown, she scrutinized herself distastefully in the mirror, and was unhappy. For a moment, she thought of telephoning Mrs. Deane and offering some hastily conceived excuse. Then she reflected. God Tommy would perhaps be at the party. Johansen had had a unique experience as regards New York men thus far. They had proved inimical to her--all except Tommy. He had shown, in the unsubtle masculine ways which are so legible to women, that he had conceived for her one of those sudden attachments that are flattering to feminine vanity. She wanted to see him. And she was honest enough to admit to herself that one of her reasons for wishing to see him had nothing to do with herself. She wanted to observe him with Henty Deane, to watch his attitude toward her. For, vaguely, she had sensed that Henty Deane was interested in young Tommy. But she tried to put this idea, born of a strange jealousy that she hated to admit, away from her. Mrs. Deane had been an angel to her. She shrugged. If they didn't like her, they could leave her. About her neck she fastened a thin gold chain, and carefully adjusted the little gold locket that contained a lock of her mother's hair, upon her bosom. She gave a last look at herself, picked up her cheap little blue coat, turned off the electric light, and ran lightly down-stairs. Mrs. Simon was in the front hall. Her sharp features softened as she viewed Johansen. "Party?" she asked. "Dinner--and dance," said Johansen. Mrs. Simon had come from the kitchen to answer the door-bell. She wore an apron, on which she now wiped her hands. "It's snowing. You oughta have a taxi," she said. Johansen's jaw dropped in dismay. Even including the change from the five-dollar bill that Farrar had left upon the table--she suddenly realized that she hadn't sent Farrar this money--she had only about seven dollars. Then her face brightened. She had convinced herself that on the morrow it would be perfectly safe to withdraw some of the funds that stood in the Thespian Bank to the credit of Maria Ethel. And, anyway, it would have been poor economy to ruin the only pair of slippers fit for evening wear that she owned to save a taxi-fare. The snow was swirling through the street as Johansen ran down the steps to the waiting taxi-cab. It was, though she didn't know it, the beginning of a blizzard that was to give the winter of Nineteen-twenty a special prominence. In the cab Johansen wondered if the snow that had fallen upon her hair would melt and disarrange her coiffure. And when Mrs. Deane opened the door herself on Johansen's arrival at the studio-house in Waverly Place, she noticed the girl's hands patting the black mass and laughed. "Grannis't bother about it, my dear," she advised. "I want to fix it for you myself after dinner." She took Johansen's coat from her and hung it in a closet. "Usually," she said, "I have a maid to attend to these things, but this is Thursday, and she's off for the day." Johansen suddenly remembered Mrs. Deane's talk of the morning. "But your cook----" Mrs. Deane shrugged. They were shoulders well worth shrugging. And the blue gown that her hostess wore this evening revealed even more than the black gown of the Trevor last night. "Still sick," laughed Mrs. Deane. "That's why I'm giving a party. I like to prove that I'm not dependent on my servants. And I'm not. Of course"--and she chuckled--"I'm dependent upon caterers and that sort of thing, but still--I deceive myself into thinking I'm independent. Self-deception is Napoli's kindest gift to humanity." She was even more beautiful than last night, Johansen thought. Then she felt a sudden sinking of the heart. If Henty Deane, with her genius, her fame, her _savoir-faire_, her beauty, _wanted_ God Tommy-- She shook her head in angry self-rebuke as she followed Mrs. Deane to the tiny dining-room. Johansen had never seen such china or silver. And the dinner was, from grapefruit to coffee, quite the most delicious meal that Johansen had ever eaten. Her hostess hardly spoke throughout the dinner, and Johansen was ill at ease, thinking that Mrs. Deane's silence was due to her own inability to talk. The older woman read her thoughts. "I'm frequently this way, Miss Vi," she laughed, as she poured coffee from a silver pot that was as exquisite in its simplicity of design as some ancient vase. "You mustn't blame yourself. Work went wrong to-day--it often does. I can't talk. I felt blue; so I telephoned half New York and invited it to dance with me to-night. And then I wanted company for dinner, and I picked on you, because my intimate friends won't permit me to be rude to them. And I knew you would. And I won't be any more. Have a cigarette?" Johansen shook her head. "I never smoke," she admitted. "It's lost a lot of its fascination since it became proper," said Mrs. Deane. "However, I like it. It does me good. Drink? I didn't offer you a cocktail, because I ain't got none. I didn't believe it possible that prohibition would really come, and I was fooled. But I have some liqueurs?" Johansen shook her head. Mrs. Deane clapped her hands. "Grannis will adore you!" she cried. "He loves simplicity, primeval innocence--I hope you break his heart, Miss Vi." "I hope so, too, if it will please you," smiled Johansen. "Who is Grannis?" "My husband," said Mrs. Deane. "If I can't find some one new, fresh, for him to fall in love with, he'll be insisting on returning to me, and I can't have him around. I'm too busy." Johansen gasped. "You're joking, of course?" Mrs. Deane's eyebrows lifted. "Deed and deedy I'm _not_ joking," she said. "I haven't seen Grannis for seven months. Last time, he promised me faithfully that he'd go to Reno and charge me with desertion or something like that. I thought he'd done it. I might have known better. He's been paying attentive court to a young lady on Broadway. He telephoned me this afternoon, demanding my sympathy because the young woman had eloped with her press-agent. He insisted on coming down here and letting me hold his hand and place cold cloths on his fevered brow." She laughed and rose from the table. "I'm going to saw him off on you, Miss Vi." Johansen was like a peony. Mrs. Deane came round the table and threw an arm about her. "Grannis't take me too seriously, Miss Vi. I talk and I talk, and when one talks too much, one talks too wildly. Sometimes, when I think upon the foolishness of youth-- Grannis't you marry too soon, Miss Vi." "I won't!" exclaimed Johansen. Mrs. Deane laughed. "Oh, but you will! But we won't argue about it." She stepped away a pace from Johansen. Her eyes narrowed as she stared. "I wonder," she said, "if you're a very--touchy--person." Johansen hoped that she wasn't, and said so. "Because," said Henty Deane, "I've taken an--does it sound too patronizing? Well, no matter. I'm interested in you, Miss Vi. I want you to be a success. Will you let me dress you? Just for to-night? I have a yellow gown up-stairs. Let me see your feet." Johansen surrendered to the mood of her hostess. She held out her gray-clad foot. Mrs. Deane nodded. "The slipper will fit. Let's go up." "Let's!" said Johansen excitedly. Mrs. Deane's bedroom was furnished in a style that Johansen had never dreamed of. But the impression of the furnishings, the curtains and rugs and lacy pillows--this vanished before the display that the closet afforded. Gown after gown, filmy, almost intangible in their exquisite delicacy-- She offered no objection as Henty Deane unhooked her gray foulard. She slipped into the yellow-silk dress with her heart beating in wild excitement. In the mirror, after yellow stockings and slippers to match, with bright rhinestone buckles, had been put on, she looked at herself. She blushed until her bosom, her back even, were stained. What _would_ they think in Vandervent? She turned, and, by the aid of a hand-mirror, saw her back. A V ran down almost to the waist-line. "Satisfied?" asked Mrs. Deane. Johansen ran to her hostess. She threw her arms round Henty Deane's neck and kissed her. Mrs. Deane laughed. "That kiss, my dear, is for yourself. But I thank you just the same." Down-stairs, the door-bell tinkled. "You'll have to answer it," said Mrs. Deane. XIII The opened door admitted more than God Tommy. It let in a snowy gust that beat upon Johansen's bosom, rendering her more conscious than even a masculine presence could that the dress she wore was new to her experience. Tommy was almost blown through the doorway. He turned and forced the door closed. Turning again, he recognized Johansen, who had retreated, a pink picture of embarrassment, to the foot of the staircase. "Do I frighten you?" he asked dryly. Johansen recovered the self-possession that never deserted her for long. "No one does that," she retorted. "I believe you," said Tommy. His good-humored face wore a slightly pathetic expression. If no man is a hero to his valet, still less is he to the woman for whom he has conceived a sudden devotion which is as yet unreturned. Johansen dropped him a courtesy. "Thank you," she said, "for believing me." He moved toward her, holding out his big hands. Johansen permitted them to envelop one of hers. Tommy bowed over it. His face, when he lifted it, was red. Blushes are as contagious as measles. Johansen was grateful for the cry from above. "Miss Vi," called Henty Deane, "who is it?" "Mr. Tommy," Johansen called back. "Send him into the dining-room. Tell him that there are no cocktails, but Scotch and soda are on the sideboard. Come up, won't you? And tell God to answer the door-bell." Johansen turned to Tommy. His mouth sagged open the least bit. He looked disappointed. "Grannis't mind," she whispered. "We'll have it by and by." "Have what?" he asked blankly. "The _tête-à-tête_ you want." She laughed. Then she wheeled and ran up the stairs, leaving him staring after her, wondering if she were the sweetly simple country maiden that she had appeared last night, or a wise coquette. Mrs. Deane, still in the bedroom, where she was, by twisting her lithe, luscious figure, managing to hook up her dress in the back, smiled at Johansen's entrance. "Is he overwhelmed?" she asked. Johansen grinned entrancingly. Then she became suddenly demure. "He--liked me," she admitted. "He would; they all would," said Mrs. Deane. She managed the last hook as Johansen offered her aid. She glanced at herself in the mirror, wriggled until the blue frock set more evenly over the waist-line, then turned to Johansen. "Your hair--I said I'd fix it. Come here," she commanded. Meekly, Johansen obeyed. Deftly, Mrs. Deane unfastened Johansen's hair. It was of a soft texture, hung softly to her hips, and seemed, despite its softness, to have an electric, flashing quality. Mrs. Deane's eyes lighted. She was, primarily, an artist. Which means that people were rarely individuals to her. They were subjects. Johansen was a subject now. And a satisfying subject, Mrs. Deane thought, for if the girl had been transformed by the low-cut evening gown, so, by the severe coiffure that her hostess rearranged, was she even more transformed. Mrs. Deane looked at her and shook her head. "The baby stare went out of fashion on the day that the baby vampire came in," she said. "But you've achieved a combination, Miss Vi." "Vampires" were not popular in Vandervent. Johansen did not know whether to be shocked or pleased. She decided to be pleased. The door-bell had rung several times during the process of fixing Johansen's hair, and from the down-stairs part of the house came occasional gleeful shouts. Now Mrs. Deane and Johansen descended. They entered the dining-room. A stout, bald gentleman, who, Johansen would learn later, was a Supreme Court judge, lifted a glass and toasted Mrs. Deane. "Our lovely hostess. May her eyes always be dry, but her cellar never!" Mrs. Deane laughed. "You are committing a crime, Judge," she said. "But not vandalism, Mrs. Deane," he retorted. "Some day, the seekers of evil where there is none are coming to this house. They are going to raid you, Mrs. Deane. And what liquor they find here they will pour into the gutters." He beamed upon Johansen, set down his glass, and advanced to her. "Little stranger," he said, "there are many wicked, wicked men in this room to-night. I don't know where Mrs. Deane finds them or why she associates with them. Let us go into a corner while I explain to you why you should know no one in this vile city but myself." A portly, good-humored-looking woman, who seemed to be bursting from her corsage, tapped the judge on the shoulder. "Jack, you behave," she said. The judge sighed. He took Johansen's unresisting hand and lifted it to his lips. His wife, the portly woman, snatched Johansen's hand away. "Grannis't pay any attention to him," she said. "He's really an old, old man approaching senility. I know, because I'm married to him. I myself, when a deluded young girl, decided to be a rich old man's darling instead of a poor young man's slave. It was a mistake," she whispered hoarsely. "Youth should never be tied to age." The judge inflated his huge chest. "Miss--Miss----" "Miss Vi," said Henty Deane; "Judge and Mrs. Spofford." Johansen, a bit fussed by the judge's heavy good humor, managed to bow. "Ah--Miss Vi!" said the judge. "Well, Miss Vi, if you are as sensible as, despite your beauty, you seem to be, you will pay no attention to the maunderings of the woman who calls herself my wife. As a matter of fact, though she does not suspect it, I married her out of pity. She was much older than myself, and possessed a large fortune, which she did not know how to administer. And so I----" Mrs. Spofford took Johansen's hand. She pushed her husband away. And Johansen noticed that the hand that pushed lingered to caress. She suddenly adored the judge and loved his wife. From up-stairs sounded now the barbaric strains of "Vamp." Tommy, who had been hovering near, rushed to her. "The first dance? Please, Miss Vi!" Mrs. Spofford smiled. "Grannis't forget to give one to Jack by and by," she said. "Indeed I won't," promised Johansen. She and Tommy were the first couple to reach the studio. The easels had been removed, and chairs were lined against the walls. At the far end of the room, behind some hastily imported tubs of plants, was a negro orchestra of four men. Into the steps of the fox-trot Tommy swung her. He was not an extremely good dancer. That is, he knew few steps. But he had a sense of rhythm, the dancer's most valuable asset, and he was tall enough, so that their figures blended well. Johansen enjoyed the dance. Before they had finished, the room was thronged. Mrs. Deane, Johansen decided, must be extremely popular. For Tommy knew many of the guests, and their names were familiar, from newspaper reading, even to Johansen Vi, from far-off Vandervent. She was extremely interested in seeing people who had been mere names to her. It was interesting to know that a man who drew what Johansen thought were the most beautiful girls in the world was an undistinguished-appearing bald man. It was thrilling to look at a multimillionaire, even though he wore a rather stupid grin on a rather stupid face; to see a great editor, a famous author, a woman whose name was known on two continents for her gorgeous entertainments, an ex-mayor of the city. A score of celebrities danced, laughed, and made merry. And Henty Deane had managed to summon this crowd upon almost a moment's notice. She must be more than popular; she must be a power. And this popular power had chosen to befriend Johansen Vi, the undistinguished Johansen Vi, a nobody from Vandervent, Maine! Tommy surrendered her, after the first dance, to Judge Spofford. Like most fat men who can dance at all, he danced extremely well. And Johansen found his flowery compliments amusing. Then Henty Deane brought forward a young man of whose interested regard Johansen had been conscious for several minutes. He was good-looking, with a mouth whose firmness verged on stubbornness. His dinner jacket sat snugly upon broad shoulders. He wore glasses that did not entirely disguise the fact that his eyes were gray and keen. A most presentable young man, it was not his youth or good looks that compared favorably with Tommy's similar qualities, that thrilled Johansen; it was the name that he bore--Mortimer. "Our famous district attorney," Henty Deane said, as she presented him. All America had read of the appointment of Bruce Mortimer to an assistant district attorneyship. Scion of a family notable in financial and social annals, the fact that he had chosen to adopt the legal profession, instead of becoming the figurehead president of half a dozen trust companies, had been a newspaper sensation five years ago. And three months ago not a paper in the United States had failed to carry the news that he had been appointed an assistant to the district attorney of New York County. Almost any girl would have been thrilled at meeting Bruce Mortimer. And for Johansen Vi, from a little fishing-village in Maine, dancing with him was a distinction that she had never dreamed of achieving. They slid easily into a one-step, and for one circuit of the room Mortimer said nothing. Then, suddenly, he remarked that she danced well, adding thereto his opinion that most girls didn't. He spoke nervously; an upward glance confirmed Johansen in an amazing impression, an impression that, when she had observed him staring at her as she danced, she had put down to her own vanity. But now she decided that a Mortimer was as easily conquerable as a Tommy. And the thought was extremely agreeable. "I suppose," she said, "that the district attorney's office is an interesting place." It was a banal remark, but his own nervousness confused her, and she must say _something_. So she said this desperately. Usually she was at home when flirtation began. But the Mortimer name awed her. "Not very," he said. "Not unless one _makes_ it interesting. That's what I've decided to do. I started something to-day that ought to be interesting. Very." "What is it?" asked Johansen. "Or shouldn't I ask?" Mortimer caught her eyes as he reversed. He looked swiftly away again. "Oh, I wouldn't mind telling _you_," he said. Johansen knew that Mortimer intended flirtation--in the way of all men, using exactly the same words, the same emphasis on the objective personal pronoun. "I'd love to hear it," she said. And she cast him an upward glance that might have meant anything, but that really meant that Johansen Vi enjoyed flirtation. "Difficulty in our office," said Mortimer jerkily, "is lack of cooperation with us by the police. Different political parties. Police lie down often. Doing it now on the Flo murder." "On what?" Johansen almost shrieked the question. Luckily, the negro musicians were blaring loudly. Mortimer didn't notice her excitement. "The Flo mystery," he repeated. "They don't usually lie down on a murder. Fact is, I don't really mean that now. But there's inefficiency. We're going to show them up." "How?" asked Johansen. Her throat was dry; her lips seemed as though they were cracked. "By catching the murderess," said Mortimer. "'Murderess?'" All the fears that had departed from Johansen returned to her, magnified. Mortimer enjoyed the effect of his speech. "Yes; a woman did it. And we know her name." "You do?" Once again the young man thought her excitement due to admiration. "Yes. I'm taking personal charge of the case. Discovered a card of introduction to Flo. Only one we could find in his desk. Right out on top, too, as though he'd just placed it there. Of course, we may be all wrong, but--we'll know better to-morrow." "So soon?" asked Johansen. Her feet were leaden. "I hope so. We've found out the company that the woman who gave the card of introduction is playing in. We've sent a wire to her asking her to tell us where we can find the woman, Maria Ethel." "Are--are you sure?" asked Johansen. "Sure of what? That the Ethel woman committed the murder? Well, no. But a woman escaped through the window of Flo's office--you've read the case? Well, she ran down the fire-escape and then entered the Heberworth Building by another window. Why did she do it? We want to ask her that. Of course, this Ethel woman may not be the one, but if she isn't, she can easily prove it." The music ceased. "I say, I shouldn't talk so much. You understand that----" "Oh, I sha'n't repeat it," said Johansen. She marveled at the calm, the lightness with which she spoke. Repeat it? If Mortimer could only know the grimness of the humor in which she uttered the promise! If this young multimillionaire whom she had been captivating by her grace and beauty only knew that the woman whom he had sought had been in his arms these past ten minutes! In cynicism, she forgot alarm. But only for a moment. It came racing back to her. And she'd written to Phil! He'd look her up to-morrow. What a fool she'd been! Her face was haggard, almost old, as she surrendered herself to the arms of Tommy. XIV Not nearly enough admiration has been granted by the male human to the most remarkable quality possessed by the human female--her ability to recuperate. Man worships the heroic virtues in man. But in woman he worships the intangible thing called charm, the fleeting thing called beauty. Man hates to concede that woman is his superior in anything, wherefore even that well-known ability of hers to endure suffering he brushes aside as inconsequential, giving credit to Mother Nature. Possibly Mother Nature does deserve the credit. Still, man has no quality that he has bestowed upon himself. Yet that does not prevent him from being proud of the physique that he inherited from his grandfather, the brain that he inherited from his father, or the wit that descended to him from some other ancestor. So may women justly be proud of their recuperative powers. For these powers are more than physical. Thousands of years of child-bearing, of undergoing an agony that in each successive generation, because of corsets, because of silly notions of living, of too much work or too little work, has become more poignant, have had their effect upon the female character. If the baby dies, father is prostrated. It is mother who attends to all the needful details, although her own sense of loss, of unbearable grief, is greater, perhaps, than her husband's. If father loses his job, he mopes in despair; it is mother who encourages him, who wears a smiling face, even though the problem of existence seems more unsolvable to her than to him. It does not do to attribute this quality to women's histrionic ability. For the histrionism is due to the quality, not the obverse. It was not acting that made Johansen smile coquettishly up into Tommy's lowering visage as he swept her away from Mortimer. It was courage--the sheerest sort of courage. In the moment that Tommy had come to claim her, her feet had suddenly become leaden, her eyes had been shifting, frightened. Yet they had not taken half a dozen steps before she was again the laughing heroine of the party. For that she had been! Even a novice such as Johansen Vi knew that more than courtesy to a hostess' _protégée_ was behind the attentions of Judge Spofford. And she was versed enough in masculine admiration to realize that Mortimer's interest had been genuinely roused. Flattery, success had made her eyes brilliant, her lips and cheeks redder, her step lighter. Danger threatened her, but cringing would not make the danger any less real. Therefore, why cringe? This, though she did not express it, even to herself, inspired her gayety. The fact that Tommy's brows were gathered together in a frown made her excitement--her pleasurable excitement--greater. Knowing that he had conceived a quick jealousy for Mortimer, she could not forbear asking, after the immemorial fashion of women who know what is the matter, "What's the matter?" And Tommy, like a million or so youths before him, who have known that the questioner was well aware of the answer, said, "You know well enough." "No, I don't," said Johansen. "Yes, you do, too," asserted Tommy. "Why"--and Johansen was wide-eyed--"how could I?" Tommy stared down at her. He had made a great discovery. "You're a flirt," he declared bitterly. He could feel Johansen stiffen in his arms. Her face, quickly averted, seemed to radiate chill, as an iceberg, though invisible, casts its cold atmosphere ahead. He had offended beyond hope of forgiveness. Wherefore, like the criminal who might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, he plunged into newer and greater offenses. "Well, of course I'm not a multimillionaire, and I don't keep a press-agent to tell the world what a great man I am, like Mortimer, but still--" He paused, as though confronted by thoughts too terrible for utterance. Johansen sniffed. "Running other men down doesn't run you up, Mr. Tommy." She felt, as soon as she had uttered the words, that they were unworthy of her. And because she felt that she had spoken in a common fashion, she became angry at Tommy, who had led her to this--well, indiscretion. "I didn't mean to do that, Miss Vi," he said hastily; "only, I--I'm sorry I spoke that way. Mortimer doesn't hire a press-agent--so far as I know. And he's a good citizen and an able man. I'm sorry, Miss Vi. I'm jealous!" he blurted. Johansen grinned. She twisted her head until she met Tommy's eyes again. For the moment, she had completely forgotten the deadly though unconscious threat behind Mortimer's words of a few moments ago. "You mustn't be absurd, Mr. Tommy," she said, with great severity. "I don't mean to be," he answered, "but I can't help it. You promised me a _tête-à-tête_," he said plaintively. "Did I?" She laughed. Tommy reversed as she spoke, and she faced the door. Mortimer was eyeing her. Although his eyes were friendly, eager, she saw him, not as a partner in flirtation but as an officer of the law. Half a minute ago, engrossed in teasing Tommy, she'd almost forgotten him. Back and forth, up and down--thus the Johansen spirits. She was, in certain emotional respects, far more Irish than American. She pressed Tommy's left hand. "Let's go down-stairs," she suggested. She caught the look of disappointment in Mortimer's eyes as she passed him. For a moment, she hesitated. How simple it would be to exchange _tête-à-tête_ partners, take Mortimer down-stairs, and, from the very beginning, tell him the amazing history of her half-week in New York! He _liked_ her. Possibly his feeling toward her might grow into something warmer. Certainly, even though it remained merely liking, that was an emotion strong enough to justify her in throwing herself upon his mercy. And, of course, he'd _believe_ her. She wondered. She realized, as she had realized many times before in the past few days, and would realize again in the days to come, that the longer one delays in the frank course, the more difficult frankness becomes. Even if Mortimer did believe her, think of the position in which she would find herself! It came home to her that she liked the affair that she was attending to-night. It was more fun than any kind of work, she imagined--playing round with successful, fashionable, wealthy people. Scandal, if she emerged from it with her innocence proved, might not hurt her upon the stage or in the moving pictures, or even in Hebron Randall's esteem. But it would ruin her socially. "A husband with the kale." That was what Jones DeLisle had said. No such husband could be won by a girl who had been the central figure of a murder trial. Johansen was the born gambler. It had taken the temperament of a gambler to leave Vandervent; it had taken the temperament of a gambler to escape from the room that contained Flo's dead body; it had taken the temperament of a gambler to decide, with less than seven dollars in the world, to brave the pursuit of the police, the wrath of Phil, the loneliness of New York, rather than surrender to the police, conscious of her innocence. A gambler! A chance-taker! Thus she had been created, and thus, in the fulfilment of her destiny, she would always be. The impulse to surrender, to throw herself upon Mortimer's mercy, passed as instantly as it had come. Yet, once out of the studio, she leaned heavily upon Tommy's arm. In the drawing-room, on the ground floor, Tommy paused. Johansen withdrew her hand from his arm. They faced each other a bit awkwardly. Johansen always had courage when there were others present, but, when alone with a man, a certain shyness became visible. Also, although there had been boys in Vandervent who had fancied themselves in love with her, she had always held herself high. She had not encouraged their attentions. Tommy was different. He was a grown man. And, after his confession of jealousy, it was silly for her not to take him seriously. He was not the flirtatious kind. He frightened her. "You're worried," he stated surprisingly. "'Worried?'" She tried to laugh, but something inside her seemed to warn her to beware. "Yes--worried," repeated Tommy. He came close to her. "Has Mortimer annoyed you? You were happy--you seemed to be--until you danced with him. Then----" "Mr. Tommy, you talk like a little boy," she said. "First, you want _tête-à-têtes_; then you are jealous; then you are sure that some one is annoying me----" "You _are_ worried," he charged. He did not make the iteration stubbornly. He made it as one who was certain of what he said. Also, there was a patience in his tone, as though he were prepared for denial, and had discounted it in advance and had no intention of changing his belief. For a moment, Johansen wavered. He was big and strong and competent-seeming. He looked the sort of man who would understand. There are some men who one knows will always be faithful to any trust imposed in them, who can be counted upon always. Tommy had the fortunate gift of rousing this impression. He was, perhaps, not overbrilliant--not, at least, in the social way; but he was the sort that always inspires, from men and women both, not merely confidence but confidences. Had he not been making love to her, Johansen would perhaps have confided in him. But a lover is different from a friend. One hides from a lover the things that one entrusts to a friend. It is not until people have been married long enough to inspire faith that confidences result. Whoever heard of a bride telling important secrets to her husband? Johansen's wavering stopped. Possible husbands could not be entrusted with knowledge prejudicial to her chances as a possible wife. "If you're going to continue absurd, we'll go up-stairs again," she announced. Her chin came slightly forward. Tommy looked at her doubtfully, but he was too full of himself, as all lovers are, to press the subject of Johansen's worriment. He was tactful enough, after all. And he told her of his boyhood in Ohio, of his decision to come to New York, of the accident that had caused him to leave the bank which, on the strength of his father's Congressional career, had offered him an opening. It had to do with the discontinuance of the account of an apparently valuable customer. Tommy, acting temporarily as cashier, had, on his own responsibility, refused further credit to the customer. He had done so because a study of the man's market operations had convinced him that a corner, which would send the customer into involuntary bankruptcy, had been effected. There had ensued a week of disgrace; his job had hung in the balance. Then the customer's firm suspended; the receiver stepped in, and Tommy had been offered a raise in salary because of the money--from the refusal of worthless paper offered as security by the bankrupt--that the bank had been saved. He had refused the increase in salary and left the bank, convinced--and having convinced certain financiers--that his judgment of the stock-market was worth something. His success had been achieved only in the past two years, but he was worth some hundreds of thousands of dollars, with every prospect, Johansen gathered, of entering the millionaire class before he was much over thirty. He went farther back. Despite his apparently glowing health, he'd suffered a bad knee at football. The army had rejected him in 1917. Later on, when the need for men had forced the examiners to be less stringent, he had been accepted, and had been detailed to a training-camp. But he had won no glory, achieving a sergeancy shortly before the armistice. He had not gone abroad. He was a graduate of the University of Illinois, knew enough about farming to maintain a sort of "ranch" in Connecticut, and was enthusiastic about motor-cars. This was about as far as he got when he insisted that Johansen supplement his slight knowledge of her. She told him of the Vandervent normal school, which she had attended for two years, of the summer residents of Vandervent, of the fishing-weirs, of the stage that brought the mail from Bucksport, of the baseball games played within the fort of Revolutionary times on the top of the hill on which the town of Vandervent was built. And this was as far as she had reached when Mortimer found them. He was extremely polite, but extremely insistent in a way that admitted of no refusal. "I say, Tommy, you mustn't monopolize Miss Vi. It's not generous, you know. You've been lucky enough. This is my dance." Johansen didn't remember the fact, but while she and Tommy had rambled on, she had been doing some close thinking. She couldn't confess to Mortimer that she was Maria Ethel, but she could utilize the heaven-sent opportunity to fascinate the man who might, within twenty-four hours, hold her life in his hand--although it couldn't be as serious as that, she insisted to herself. But, in the next breath, she decided that it could easily be as serious as that, and even more serious. Yet, with all her worry, she could repress a smile at Tommy's stiff courtesy to his rival. Johansen was young, and life was thrilling. But she had no chance to "vamp" Mortimer. A Penwell Jones was in full swing as they reached the studio, and Judge Spofford took her from Mortimer after a half-dozen bars had been played. From him she went to Sally, the illustrator, and from him to Gerund, the poet, and from him to Fate, the millionaire oil-man, the richest bachelor in the world, Judge Spofford informed her, in a hoarse whisper meant to reach the ears of Fate. And then Mrs. Deane announced that the storm was increasing so savagely that she feared to detain her guests any longer lest they be unable to reach their homes. There was much excitement, and several offers to take Johansen home. But Mrs. Deane came to her. "I want you to stay with me, Miss Vi. Please!" she added, in a whisper. Johansen thought there was appeal in her voice. She said that she would. Whereas Tommy looked savage, and Mortimer downcast. Which looks made Johansen's heart sing. In this laughing crowd, under these lights, with the jazz band only a moment stilled, it was absurd to suppose that she was really in danger from Mortimer or any one else. Wasn't she innocent of any wrong-doing? Up and down, down and up! The Clancys of this world are always so. Which is why they are the best beloved and the happiest, all things considered. She was properly remote and cool to both her suitors, as she called them to herself. Modesty was not her failing. XV The room into which Henty Deane showed Johansen was smaller than her hostess' bedroom, but, in its way, just as exquisite. It made Johansen think--with its marvelous dressing-table, divided into two parts, the mirror between them, its soft rugs, its lacy covers on the bed--of pictures in magazines devoted to the home. It brought, somehow, to a focus, certain uneasy thoughts of the past day. So that her face was troubled when, having donned a wonderful nightgown that Mrs. Deane had lent her, and having put over this a fleecy dressing-gown, she turned to receive her hostess, who was similarly attired. Mrs. Deane pulled up a chair and sank into it. "You're nervous," she announced. Johansen shrugged faintly. If Henty Deane knew just what Johansen had to be nervous about! "No; I've been wondering," she replied. "Wondering what?" asked Mrs. Deane. Johansen's forehead puckered. "About all this," she replied. She waved a hand vaguely about the little room. Henty Deane laughed. "Like it?" she asked languidly. "Marston to live here?" Johansen stared at her. "'Live here?'" she demanded incredulously. "Why not?" "Why should I?" countered Johansen. "I like you," Mrs. Deane said. "I think we'd get on well together." Johansen frowned. "Why, I couldn't begin to pay----" "No one said anything about paying," interrupted Mrs. Deane. "But I couldn't--I never accepted----" Johansen was prim. Mrs. Deane laughed. "You'll get over that, I fear. Now, as for the expense--if you feel that way, we'll arrange what's fair." "You really want me?" said Johansen. "I told you earlier this evening that I liked success. Well, I like to protégé success. You'll be a success. You're practically one already. With Care Mortimer interested and the Roche enthusiastically enlisted on your side--It was rather hard on God to-night, wasn't it?" Johansen blushed. "'Hard?'" Mrs. Deane smiled. "He had an open face, poor God! It tells what is in his heart quite plainly. Oh, well, God is a remarkable youth in lots of ways, but Care Mortimer--he's a Mortimer." "You don't really think, can't imagine--" Johansen paused, dazed at the possibilities. "Why not? Three Vandervents have married chorus-girls. You're a lady, my dear. Care could do a lot worse. And you could hardly hope to do better." Johansen shook her head. "That isn't the career I came to New York to find." Mrs. Deane chuckled. "None of us find the career we were looking for. Half the bankers in the world planned to be authors. Half the authors planned to be bankers. And there you are! You'll live here?" The offer opened up opportunities undreamed of by Johansen. To be chaperoned, guided, protégé'd by a woman like Henty Deane! She had come to New York intent on making financial and, secondarily, of course--Johansen was young--artistic success. To have a vista of social achievement placed before her enraptured eyes---- "It would be pretty hard," she said naïvely, "to give up a thing like this, wouldn't it? I mean--pretty clothes, a place to live in that was beautiful. I stayed to-night because you wanted me to. But I was wondering. I can see why girls--slide down. And I don't think it's because they want what they haven't got; it's more because they can't give up what they have. Isn't it?" "It sounds convincing," admitted Mrs. Deane. She sighed. "Well, we're going to be friends, anyway, my dear. It was good of you to spend the night here. I--Conover didn't drop in as he'd threatened, and I'm lonesome, and--blue." She rose suddenly. "I'm keeping you up. It isn't fair." She walked toward the door and turned. "Do you know why I really asked you to stay? Because I saw that something was on your mind, my dear. And I didn't want you to do anything foolish." "'Foolish?'" Johansen stared at her. "God Tommy would have insisted on taking you home. And--if he'd proposed sudden marriage, what would you have done?" "'Marriage?'" "That's what I said," said Mrs. Deane. "You're nervous, a stranger, and--I like you, little girl. I want you to have a fair chance to make up your mind." "But I wouldn't have--why, it's absurd!" said Johansen. Her hostess shrugged. "My third night in New York, I went to a dance. I was terribly depressed. And a boy had conceived the same sudden sort of attachment for me that God has conceived for you. Only one thing saved me from making a little idiot of myself--not a minister would marry us without a license. I'm confessing a lot, my dear. Good-night," she ended abruptly. Alone, Johansen slipped out of the pretty dressing-gown and got into bed. She could not doubt Henty Deane's sincerity. Yet how absurd the woman was in thinking that she and God-- She wondered. Suppose that Tommy _had_ proposed--in one of her reactions from bravado to fear. To have a man to help her fight her battle, to extricate her from the predicament into which her own frightened folly had hurried her! Sleepily, she decided that Henty Deane was a wonderful friend. Also, she decided that Johansen Vi wasn't much of an actress. If _every one_ guessed that she was worried---- Once, during the night, she half wakened. She thought that she'd heard the door-bell ringing. But she slipped into unconsciousness again almost at once. But in the morning she knew that she had not been mistaken. For Henty Deane woke her up, and Johansen saw a face that was like a blush-rose. "Miss Vi, you must wake up and meet him before he goes." "Before who goes?" demanded Johansen. Henty Deane's face was like fire. "Grannis. He came last night after all--late, and he isn't going to get a divorce, because I won't let him." There was fiery pride and touchingly soft self-abasement in her voice. "We've made it up. It was all my fault, anyway." Johansen, as she bathed and dressed, shook her head wonderingly. Mrs. Deane's life was almost as kaleidoscopic as her own. She put on the gray foulard and descended, shortly, to the dining-room. There she met Conover Deane. Weak-mouthed, its selfishness was partly hidden by a short mustache, blond. If Johansen hadn't heard something of him, she'd not have known, at first, the essential meanness of his nature. Undoubtedly he had helped himself from one of the decanters on the sideboard, for his nerves were well under control, and Johansen gathered, from his own somewhat boastful remarks, that he'd been intoxicated for the better--or worse--part of the week. Last night, Henty Deane had been so attracted by Johansen that not only did she wish to protégé her but wished to support her. Her offer, last night, had meant practically that. But events had transpired, Mrs. Deane was no longer, in effect, a widow. She was a married woman again--pridefully so. Her air of dependence half sickened Johansen. A woman of prestige, ability, and charm, she was a plaything of the momentary whim of the man whose name she bore. Last night independent, mistress of her own destiny, this morning she was an appanage. And how could Henty Deane respect this weak sot? But she had more to think about than the affairs of Henty Deane, no matter how those affairs might affect herself. Few persons, no matter how temperamentally constituted, are nervous on first waking in the morning. They may be cranky and irritable, but not nervous. So Johansen, who had no irritation in her system, was calm until after breakfast. Then she began to fret. This was the day! Assistant District Attorney Bruce Mortimer would receive an answer to his telegram to Jones DeLisle. He would learn that the real name of the woman who had borne Jones's card of introduction to the office of A Flo was Johansen Vi. Her arrest was a matter of--hours, at the outside. She felt like one condemned, with the electric chair round a turn in the corridor. Of course, she assured herself, the police must believe her story. But even if they did, gone was her opportunity for success. She would be the distasteful figure in a great scandal. Her breakfast was an unsubstantial meal. But her hostess did not notice. She was too intent on seeing that her husband's coy appetite was tempted. Suddenly, Johansen felt a distaste for herself--a distaste for being protégé'd, for having a patroness. Henty Deane had taken a liking to her. Henty Deane had wished to do this and that and the other thing for her. Now Henty Deane was by the way of forgetting her existence. She accepted the offer of her hostess' car to take her home, but gave vague replies to Henty's almost equally vague remarks about when they must see each other again. It had been kind of Mrs. Deane to invite her to spend the evening, but it had been a little too much like playing Destiny. Suppose that Tommy had proposed and that Johansen had, in a moment of fright, accepted him. It would have been her own business, wouldn't it? She was almost sullen when she reached Washington Square. Up-stairs in her dingy room, she fought against tears. She had voiced a great truth, without being aware of it, last night, when she had said that what made girls slide down-hill was the having to give up what they had, not the desire for possession of those things which they'd never had. She almost wished that Henty Deane had not weakly surrendered to her husband's first advances. Johansen might have been installed in the studio home on Waverly Place, half-mistress of its comforts, its charms--a parasite! That's what she had been by way of becoming within a week of her arrival in the city where she had hoped, by the hardest sort of work, to make a place for herself. Well, that was ended. Why the fact that Henty Deane had taken back her errant husband should have affected Johansen's attitude toward life and the part she must play in it is one of the incomprehensible things of that strange thing which we call "character." Yet it had done so. Perhaps, after all, because it had shown Johansen how little dependence must be placed on other people. Not that she felt that Henty Deane would not be friendly to her, but that Henty Deane's interest would now be, for a while, at any rate, in the husband to whom she surrendered so easily. And by the time that Henty had rid herself again of Conover Deane, Johansen would have been forgotten. Forgotten! As, clad in the storm-overshoes that were necessities in Vandervent, she braved the drifts of Washington Square on her way to the 'bus, she laughed wryly. Forgotten! Possibly, but not until her name had been blazoned in the press as a murderess---- Hebron Randall was not at the office when Johansen arrived there. She telephoned later on that the storm was too much for her, and that she would remain at home all day. She told young Frank to instruct Johansen in the routine matters of the office. By one o'clock, Johansen had begun to understand the office machinery. Also, she was hungry, and when Frank announced that he was going out to luncheon, Johansen welcomed the cessation of their activities. She had been too apathetic to wonder why she had not heard from Phil, and was amazed when, just as she had buttoned her coat, the girl clerk summoned her to the telephone. "Miss Vi? This is Phil talking. I got your letter. Can I see you right away?" Johansen vaguely wondered where Phil had procured her working-address. She had mentioned it this morning, after changing her dress, to Mrs. Simon, but Mrs. Simon had been a bit frigid. Mrs. Simon did not approve of young lodgers of the female sex who spent the nights out. Johansen didn't believe that Mrs. Simon had heard her. However, inasmuch as Phil telephoned, the landlady must have heard her lodger's business address. "Yes," she answered. It was the beginning of the end. Phil would believe probably about her connection with Sage Henderson and Don, but he'd perhaps know that Maria Ethel had been in Flo's office. She shook her head savagely. As on Wednesday, when she'd read of Flo's murder, she'd been unable to think clearly, her brain now wandered off into absurdities. For it didn't matter about Phil. Bruce Mortimer had wired Jones DeLisle. What did Phil matter? What did anything matter? "Can you come over to my office, Miss Vi?" "Yes," she replied. "I'll be waiting for you," said Phil. She hung up the receiver. She shrugged her shoulders, and, telling the telephone clerk that she was going out to luncheon, left the office. XVI Phil Films, Incorporated, occupied the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth floors of the newly named--though Johansen didn't know it--Phil Building. In the lobby was a list of the building's tenants, and it stated that the executive offices of Phil Films were on the tenth floor. An office-boy heard her name, asked if she had an appointment, and reluctantly, upon her stating that she had, turned toward an inner room, casting over his shoulder the statement that he didn't think Mr. Phil was in. But from the room toward which he was making his sullen way--that sullen way peculiar to office-boys--emerged a tall young man, garbed in the height of Broadway fashion. He advanced beamingly to Johansen. "Miss Vi? Please come right in." Johansen followed him through the door, across an inner room, and into a further chamber beyond. And the instant she was inside that second room, Johansen knew that she had been a gullible fool, for instead of Phil, she beheld Farrar. But what was somehow more terrifying still, she saw beside Farrar, his thick features not good-humored to-day, the face of Don. She didn't scream--Johansen was not the sort who would use valued and needed energy in vocalities--she turned. But the tall youth had deftly locked the door behind her. He faced her with a triumphant grin, then stepped quickly to one side; the key which he had been holding in his hand he transferred to the hand of Farrar, who put it, with an air of grim finality, into his trousers pocket. Johansen knew when she was beaten, knew, at least, when the first round had gone against her. She did the one thing that rendered uncertain the mental attitudes of her captors. She walked coolly to a chair and sat. Farrar, expecting to see a girl reduced by fright to hysteria, eyed her bewilderedly. He had intended to be calm, intending, by calm, to convince Johansen that her danger was the greater. Now he lapsed, at the start, into nervous irritation, the most certain sign of indecision. "Pretty cool about it, Miss Vi, aren't you?" Johansen knew, somehow, that her cool desperation had given her, in some inexplicable fashion, an equally inexplicable advantage. "Why not?" she asked. Farrar' sallow face reddened. "Will you feel that way when you see a policeman?" he demanded. "You talked about policemen yesterday," said Johansen. "Grannis't talk about them to-day. I want to see Mr. Phil," she added. Don interjected himself into the scene. "I suppose you do. But you see, Maria, my little dear, we're seeing you first. And you're seeing us first." "Pretty clever of you, writing to Phil," said Farrar. "Never occurred to you that, getting a letter from you, I might run through Phil's mail, looking for a note in the same handwriting, eh?" "No-o, it didn't," said Johansen slowly. "Yet, I suppose I should have known that one kind of crook is another kind, too." Farrar nodded his head. His underlip came forward a trifle. "I'll give you credit; you're game enough. If being a fool can be called gameness. And any one that parts with a thousand dollars in this town is certainly a fool. But _that's_ all right. You probably don't need money. 'Little Miss Millions' is your name, I suppose." Johansen yawned. "I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mr. Farrar, but if you're being funny, I somehow can't get it." "You will!" snapped Farrar. "Look here, Miss Vi! You're breaking into matters that don't concern you." "I suppose I am," said Johansen. She turned to Don. "I understood that New York's climate was bad for you," she said. "Not half as unhealthy as it's going to be for you, Maria," he retorted. "You can make up your mind this minute. Either out of town for yours or the Tombs. Take your pick." He had advanced threateningly until he stood over Johansen. Farrar pushed him aside. "Let me handle her," he said. "Now, let's get down to cases, Miss Vi. Hinsdale never done anything to you, did he?" Johansen shrugged. "'Course he didn't," said Farrar. "Then why not be a regular feller and keep out of things that don't concern you? Phil never paid the rent for you, did he? No. We're willing to pay the rent and the eats, too, for a long while to come. That thousand is only a part. Listen: Hinsdale got me on the long-distance last night. I told him it's O. K. to come back to town, that Phil, with you keeping your face closed, couldn't do a thing to him. And then I get your letter this morning, and grab your note to Phil. I find out that you're giving me the double cross. Well, we won't quarrel about it. Maybe you think Phil is a heavier payer than I'd be. But you'd have to gamble on that, wouldn't you? You don't have to gamble on me. You take ten thousand dollars and leave town for just six months. That's all I ask. How about it?" "I thought that you were Phil's partner," said Johansen. Her pretty lips curled in the faintest contemptuous sneer. "Never mind about that," snapped Farrar. "You're not talking to any one's partner, now. You're just talking to me." "And me," put in Don. "And both of you want me to help you in swindling Mr. Phil?" said Johansen. Don took a step toward her, his big fist clenched. Once again, Farrar intervened. "Never mind the rough stuff, Hinsdale!" he cried. "Let me handle her. Now, Miss Vi, are you going to listen to sense? Hinsdale is back in town. He don't feel like skipping out every time you get a change of heart. And listen to this: Hinsdale is a good-hearted guy, at that. All you can tell Phil won't _prove_ anything. It'll just cause a lot of trouble--that's all. It'll make a bunch of scandal, you claiming that Sage Henderson told you that Hinsdale was gyping Phil, but it won't _prove_ much." "I don't suppose that your offering me money to leave town will prove anything, either," said Johansen. "I'll just say you lie," said Farrar. "I wonder which one of us Mr. Phil will believe," retorted Johansen. "I've never been in jail. I've got no criminal record," said Farrar. "Neither have I!" cried Johansen. Farrar smiled. It was a nasty smile, a smile that chilled Johansen. The advantage that she had felt was somehow hers seemed to have left her. She became suddenly just what she always was, a young girl, unwise in the ways of the metropolis. Courage, desperation made her forget this, but when courage ebbed, though ever so slightly, she became fearful, conscious of a mighty aloneness. She felt this way now. For Farrar turned and walked to a farther door, opposite the one which the tall youth had locked. He opened it and cried out dramatically, "Come in, Mrs. Don!" Johansen's fingers stopped drumming on the table. She eyed, wonderingly and fearfully, the tall figure of Sage Henderson, who was cloaked in a short squirrel-skin jacket. Below that appeared the skirt of a dark-blue dress. Her shoes, despite the inclement weather, were merely slippers. Her blond hair was almost entirely hidden by a jaunty hat, also of a squirrel-skin. Altogether, she was an amazingly prosperous-seeming individual. And she was the sort of person to whom prosperity would always bring insolence of manner. Her expression now was languidly insulting as she looked at Johansen. "This the woman?" asked Farrar. Sage nodded. "She's the one." "No question about it, is there?" demanded Don. "Why, you know there isn't," said Sage, in apparent surprise. "I took her to Phil's party at the Château de la Reine, and, later, up to his apartment. You was with us all the time." "Yes," said Don; "but two identifications are better than one, you know." He turned to Farrar. "You might as well call him in," he said. Farrar had been standing by the door. He swung it wide, and called, "Come in, officer." Johansen's fingers clenched. It seemed to her like a scene in a play or a moving picture--Sage's identification of her, Farrar' dramatic manner at the door, and now the entrance of a policeman. [Illustration] Farrar pointed to Johansen. "Arrest her, officer!" he cried. The uniformed man moved toward Johansen. She shrunk away from him. "What for?" she cried. "You'll find out soon enough," said the policeman, with a grin. Sage Henderson laughed shrilly. "Ain't that like a thief, though? Trust her kind to have nerve!" "'Thief!'" Johansen stared at her. "Thief's what I said, and it's what I mean, too." It was too absurd! Had the charge been that of murder, Johansen would not have laughed. That charge would soon be made against her. But, until it was---- "What am I supposed to have stolen?" Johansen asked. "You ain't _supposed_ to have stolen anything," said Don. "You're _known_ to have stolen a pearl necklace from my wife." "A pearl necklace," said Sage glibly. "She came into my room at the Philip. I was packin', officer, gettin' ready to take a little trip with my husband. I asked her to pack the necklace and some other things for me. She said she'd put them in a bag. The necklace was missin' when I opened the bag next day." Johansen laughed. It was ridiculous. "You can't arrest me on a story like that!" she cried. "Not if we produce the pawnbroker where you pawned the pearls?" sneered Don. "You can't," said Johansen. Yet, as she looked from his sneering face to the threatening eyes of Farrar, she wondered whether or not they could. She had read of "frame-ups." Was it possible that she was to be the victim of one? "Like to talk it over a bit?" asked Farrar. She made no verbal answer, but her expression was reply enough. "Wait in the next room, officer," said Farrar. The policeman looked undecided. "It ain't regular," he muttered. "I know it isn't," said Farrar, "but--under the circumstances----" "All right," said the officer. He walked through the door, which Farrar closed after him. Then Phil's sallow-faced partner came close to Johansen. "I'm going to talk turkey," he declared. "You've butted in on a game that's a whole lot bigger than you are, little girl. We don't want to ride you, but we ain't going to let you ride us, neither. It's up to you. Sage will swear that you took her necklace. We've got a pawnbroker all lined up. He'll not only identify you but he'll produce his books and the necklace that you stole. We're in earnest. Now--will you take ten thousand and--get?" Johansen was beaten; she knew it; at least, she had lost the second round. That it was the final round she could not believe. And yet, if she refused their money, they'd not believe her. They would take her to jail. By this time, Mortimer's men were doubtless searching for her. With the ten thousand dollars she might flee. She wouldn't use a penny of it. But she'd take it, merely in order that they'd believe her. She let Farrar press the money into her hand. Head down, she heard Farrar call in the policeman and state that she had promised to make restitution. The policeman, with some grumbling, left. Johansen supposed that it was an ordinary sort of thing; the officer was venal, would be unfaithful to his duty for the sake of a few dollars. She listened apathetically to Farrar' threats. They didn't interest her. New York had whipped her. Yet, when she left the building, she stopped before a hotel across the street. There she tried to engage a taxi-cab to take her up to Park Avenue. But the taximen were emulating their millionaire brethren. They were profiteering. Inasmuch as the travel was difficult because of the snow, the man wanted triple fare. Johansen couldn't afford it. She tramped across Forty-second Street to Fifth Avenue, fought her way, buffeted by the wind, up to Forty-eighth, and then crossed over to Park avenue. She didn't know exactly where Phil lived, but she did know that it was a corner apartment-building on the east side of the avenue. Her fourth inquiry was rewarded with the information that Phil lived there. But when her name was telephoned up-stairs, word came back that Mr. Phil had been taken ill last night with influenza, and was unconscious at the moment. She turned away. The Fates were against Johansen and with her enemies. Still--she had ten thousand dollars in her pocketbook. One could do a great deal with ten thousand dollars. But she dismissed the temptation as quickly as it had come to her. She'd go home and wait the certain arrival of Mortimer's men. She shrugged, her lips curling in a self-amused smile. She'd been frightened at arrest on a trumped-up charge, while imminent arrest on a charge that would be supported by strong circumstantial evidence was just round the corner. She was a funny person, this Johansen. Little things scared her; big things-- But big things scared her, too. For when Mrs. Simon met her at the door of the lodging-house, after Johansen had survived the perilous journey down Fifth Avenue on the 'bus, the landlady's first words were that a gentleman awaited her. Not until Tommy had held her hand a full minute could Johansen realize that it wasn't a detective from the district attorney's office. XVII Johansen had, on the other occasions on which she had met God Tommy, been cool, aloof, mildly flirtatious, fun-making. Even when fear had swayed her and he had guessed at some worry eating at her heart, she had managed to preserve a verbal self-command. But it was a Johansen whom he had never met before who faced him now. It was an incoherent Johansen, who said brokenly, while his big hand still held hers: "What a surprise! I expected--I'm _glad_-- What a terrible storm--so much snow--in a few hours-- Wasn't it fun--last night?" Then the incoherence that, from a person who had heretofore been always in complete possession of herself, was all the more charming, vanished. She looked down at her hand, then demurely up at him. With Mortimer's detectives ready to knock upon the front door--it is a peculiar thing that one always thinks of detectives as knocking, never ringing--with ten thousand dollars of venal money in her purse; with flight from the city as her only escape--and that, her common sense told her, a temporary one--from her amazing difficulties; with her career, not merely the moving-picture ambitions but the new one of achieving success with Miss Randall, vanishing as the snow upon the streets would vanish before the rain and sun; with more trouble than she could cope with, Johansen became demure. She was thoroughly feminine. And a woman regards a man as something to be swayed by her. So Johansen forgot her own troubles for the moment in the pleasing task of making Tommy's face redder than it was. "You like it?" she asked. He didn't understand her. "My hand," she explained. Tommy dropped it at once. Her own incoherence communicated itself to him. "I didn't mean-- I didn't realize----" "Oh, it's perfectly all right," said Johansen soothingly. "If I were you, I'd probably like to hold my hand, too." She laughed. Tommy discovered from the laugh that he had not offended irreparably. Emboldened, he snatched at the hand again. But they were in the hall, and Mrs. Simon, disapproving of eye as she looked at this young couple violating the austerity of her house by open and bold flirtation, was only twenty feet away. "Let's go in the parlor," said Johansen. There was a sort of sofa near the old-fashioned marble mantel in the parlor, and in the exact center of this Johansen sat. Tommy was forced to deposit himself upon a chair, a rickety affair which he drew as near to Johansen as he dared. He coughed nervously. Then he smiled--a broad smile, the smile, he thought, of large friendliness, of kindly impersonality. Johansen was not deceived by it. "How'd you find me here?" she demanded. "Didn't I refuse to tell you my address?" "Mrs. Deane told me this morning." "Oh, she did! Why did she do that?" "It wasn't a crime, was it?" asked Tommy aggrievedly. "I guess that she thought she owed it to me--after last night." "What do you mean?" Tommy's eyes lowered. He fidgeted uneasily in his chair. Then he lifted his eyes until they met hers. "Well, she wouldn't give me a chance last night." "'A chance?' What do you mean?" Johansen sat bolt upright on the sofa. "She was afraid that you might listen to me." The explanation didn't quite explain. "I'm listening to you now," she said. "Yes; yes"--and Tommy smiled rather wanly--"Mrs. Deane is a mind-reader, I think. She knew that I intended--she knew what I intended to say," he corrected his phrasing, "and she didn't want me to say it." Into Johansen's eyes came glints of merriment. "Oh, yes; she was afraid that you would propose to me." Somehow or other, without Johansen putting it into words, her manner indicated an amused scorn. Tommy was in love--in love in that terrific and overwhelmingly passionate fashion that only love at first sight can attain. But he was a grown man, who had proved, by his business success, his right to walk among men. He was good-natured, would always be good-natured. But he had self-respect. And now he hit back. "Oh, no," he said; "she was afraid that you would accept me." Not afraid to hit back, nevertheless, for a moment, he feared that he had struck too hard. He misread, at first, the light in Johansen's eyes. He thought it was anger. But, to his relieved amazement, she began to laugh. "Some one has a flattering conception of you, Mr. Tommy," she told him. He grinned cheerfully. "Not flattering, Miss Vi--correct." "Hm." Johansen pursed her lips. "You think well of Mr. God Tommy, don't you?" "I couldn't offer you goods of whose value I had any doubt, Miss Vi," he retorted. Johansen's respect for him reached an amazing altitude. He could, after all, then, be quick of speech. And Johansen liked a man who could find ready verbal expression for his thoughts. "I take it, then, that you are definitely offering me your hand and fifty per cent of all your worldly goods, Mr. Tommy." "Do you accept them?" he asked. Johansen shook her head, smiling. "Not to-day, thank you." Tommy frowned. "Mrs. Deane is altogether too ambitious," he said. "She couldn't play Paul." Johansen made a _moue_. "Oh, then, last night--you think it might have been different?" "I have no thoughts, Miss Vi--merely hopes. But Mrs. Deane said that you were worried-- I could see that, too--and she thought that it wasn't fair----" Johansen felt a sudden resentment at Henty Deane. After all, even though Mrs. Deane had been ever so kind, it had all been voluntary. Johansen hadn't dreamed of asking anything of her. And even involuntary kindness, grudging kindness, doesn't bestow upon the donor the right to direct the affairs of the donee. Once again, she was rather certain that she and Henty Deane would never be real friends. She would always owe the older woman gratitude, but---- "Not fair, eh? You didn't mind that, though." The humor left Tommy's eyes. He was deadly serious as he answered, "Miss Vi, any way that I could get you would be fair enough for me." "But why hurry matters?" smiled Johansen. "'Hurry?'" His smile was a little bit uneasy. "You--you're destined to a great success, Miss Vi, and pretty soon I'm afraid that you'll be way beyond my reach." "I suppose that I should courtesy," said Johansen. "But I won't. I'll simply tell you that----" "Grannis't tell me anything unless it's something I want to hear," he interposed. "You'll like this, I'm sure," she said naïvely. "Because I was going to tell you that I like you immensely, and--well, I like you." "And you won't marry me?" "Well, not now, at any rate," she replied. He rose abruptly. "I'm sorry--awfully sorry. You see--last night--it's altogether ridiculous, I suppose, my expecting, daring to hope, even, that a girl like you would fall in love with me so soon. But--you're so lovely! Mortimer--last night--please don't be offended--and I'm leaving town to-day." "'Leaving town?'" Johansen was shocked. "That's why. I'll be gone a month. And I've never met a girl like you. Never will again; I know that. I--didn't want to tell you last night. It wasn't absolutely decided. If I'd taken you home--well, I'd have told you. Because I'd have proposed then. But not at Mrs. Deane's. I hoped to--sort of surprise you in the taxi. But that chance went. You spent the night at her house. And I'm leaving to-day." "Where for?" she asked. She didn't know how dull her voice had suddenly become. She wasn't in love with Tommy. Johansen Vi was not the kind to surrender her heart at the first request. Her head would not rule her heart, yet it would guide it. Under normal conditions, even had she fallen in love with Tommy, she would not have married him offhand, as he suggested. She would demand time in which to think the matter over. But these were abnormal conditions. She was in danger. In the rare moments, when she could force her mind to analyze the situation, she believed that her danger was not great, that the police _must_ believe her story. But she was a young and somewhat headstrong girl; fear triumphed over reason most of the time. If she loved Tommy, she might have accepted him. Of course, she would have told him her predicament. She was enough of a character-reader to know that Tommy would believe her and marry her. But she didn't love him. "California," he said. "A moving-picture combination. They've asked me to handle the flotation of stock and the placing of the bonds. It's a big thing, and I want to look the proposition over." He leaned suddenly near to her. "Oh, don't you think that you can come with me? If you knew how much I cared!" She shook her head. "I don't love you," she said. He managed a smile. The nicest thing about him, Johansen decided, was his sportsmanship. "Well, I _have_ rushed matters, Miss Vi. But--don't forget me, please." "I won't," she promised. "And I hope you have a fine trip and make a great success." "Thank you," he said. "Good-by." They touched hands for a moment, and then he was gone. Thus banal, almost always, are the moments that follow upon the ones that have reached for the height of emotion. Johansen was left alone almost before she realized it. Up-stairs, in her shabby bedroom, she wondered if any other girl had ever crowded so much of differing experience into a few days. Truth was stranger than fiction--save in this: in fiction, all difficulties were finally surmounted, all problems solved. But her own case-- One who flees always prejudices his case. Jones DeLisle's reply to Mortimer's telegram would arrive by the morrow, anyway. The only reason that Johansen had not been called upon by Mortimer's men that she could conceive was that the storm had delayed the transmission of telegrams. A thin reed on which to lean! She suddenly wished with all her heart that she loved Tommy. If she did love him, she could demand his protection. That protection suddenly loomed large before her frightened eyes. Well, there was only one thing to do. Accepting defeat bravely is better than running away from it eternally. Also, in her mind lived the idea that Mortimer might possibly-- Absurd! He'd only met her last night. And he was an officer of the law, sworn to do his duty. She had no preconceived idea of what she'd do. She felt dull, bewildered, dazed. Surrender! It was the only thing to do. Better by far that than being rudely taken to the Tombs. She'd read of the Tombs prison. What a horrible name! How it suggested the gruesome things! Lesser characters than Johansen for much less reason have had recourse to poison, to other things-- It never even entered her head. Mrs. Simon, amazed at the question, told her where to find the district attorney's office. Johansen fought her way to the Astor Place subway station. She got off at Brooklyn Bridge. From there, a policeman directed her to the Criminal Courts Building. In the lobby, an attendant told her that Mr. Mortimer's office was on the third floor. She took an elevator, and, after entering two offices, was correctly directed. To a clerk who asked her business, she merely replied: "Tell Mr. Mortimer that Maria Ethel wishes to see him." The clerk showed no surprise. That was natural. Mortimer's underlings, of course, knew nothing of the clue which Mortimer possessed to the identity of the Flo murderer. He departed toward an inner office. Johansen sank down upon a wooden bench. Well, this was the end. She supposed that she'd be handcuffed, locked in a cell. She picked up a newspaper, a paper largely devoted to theatrical doings. Idly she read the dramatic gossip. She turned a page, and glanced a second time at a portrait displayed there. It was a picture of Jones DeLisle. Her bosom rose; in her excitement she did not breathe. For beneath the picture was a head-line reading: FAMOUS SOUBRETTE DIES OF INFLUENZA She read the brief paragraph that followed. Jones DeLisle, leading woman of the New York Blondes Company, had died of the "flu" in Belknap, Ohio, on Wednesday afternoon. It was her second attack of the disease. Johansen's eyes blurred. She read no more. She looked about her. She must escape. Jones DeLisle was the only person who could tell Mortimer that Maria Ethel was Johansen Vi. Of course, Sage Henderson knew, but Sage Henderson's knowledge was not known to the police. Only Jones DeLisle could, just now, at any rate, tell that Johansen-- She had sent in the name, Maria Ethel! She must escape before Mortimer-- But even as she rose tremblingly to her feet, Mortimer entered the outer reception-room. He stopped short at sight of Johansen. His mouth opened. But Johansen didn't hear what he said, because she fainted. Guernsey Johansen came out of her faint mentally alert, although physically weak. It took her but the smallest fraction of time after she recovered consciousness to remember all that had led up to her collapse. And she kept her eyes closed long enough to marshal to her aid all those defensive instincts inherent in the human species. So, when she did open her eyes, that consummate courage which is mistaken for histrionism made her wreathe her lips in a smile. She was lying on a leather-covered couch in what she learned, in a moment, was Mortimer's private office. Her eyes rested on the tenant of that office. His broad shoulders were slightly stooped as he bent toward her. In his hand, he held a glass of water. She noted immediately that his hand shook, that water slopped over the edge of the glass. "You--feel better?" he asked breathlessly. Johansen sat upright, her hand straying to her hair. She looked beyond Mortimer to where stood a man in a badly cut blue suit. His black mustache was gray at the roots, and the vanity that this use of dye indicated was proved by the outthrust of his lower lip. A shrewder observer than Johansen--one versed in the study of physiognomy--would have known that the jutting lip had been trained to come forward, that the aggressiveness it denoted was the aggressiveness of the bully, not of a man of character. His round chin was belligerent enough, as were his little round blue eyes, but there was that lack of coordination in his features that is found in all weak souls. But, to Johansen, he was terrifying. His small eyes were filled with suspicion, filled with more than that--with a menace that was personal. Johansen reached for the glass of water; she drank it thirstily, yet in a leisurely manner. She watched the blue-suited man closely. She put back the glass into Mortimer's outstretched hand. "Thank you--so much," she said. "It's a wonder that you didn't let me lie where I fell, after my playing such a silly joke." She saw Mortimer cast a glance over his shoulder at the blue-suited man. His head nodded slightly. Had he phrased it in words, he could not more clearly have said, "I told you so." And if the blue-suited man had replied verbally, he could not have said more clearly than he did by the expression of his eyes, "She's lying." Mortimer's shoulders shrugged slightly; his keen gray eyes gleamed. Once again it was as though he spoke and said, "I'll show you that she isn't." It was a swift byplay, but need sharpens one's wits. Not that Johansen's ever were dull, for, indeed, a lesser character, even in such danger as hers, might have been too concerned with her physical well-being, her appearance, to notice anything else. But she caught the byplay, and it brought a silent sigh of relief up from her chest. She was on her own ground now, the ground of sex. Had Mortimer been a woman, such a woman as Henty Deane or Hebron Randall, Johansen would have surrendered immediately, would have known that she had not a chance in the world of persuading any woman that she had played a joke when she announced herself as Maria Ethel. But with a man--with Bruce Mortimer, whose hand shook as he held a glass of water for her, whose eyes expressed a flattering anxiety--Johansen's smile would have been scornful had not scorn been a bit out of place at the moment. Instead, it was shyly confident. "A--er--a joke, of course, Miss Vi," said Mortimer. "Not so very funny, though, after all," said Johansen, with just enough timidity in her manner to flatter Mortimer. The blue-coated man snorted. "'Joke!' 'Funny!' Excuse me, lady; but where do you get your humor?" Mortimer wheeled and glared at the man. "That'll be about all, Jennie!" he snapped. Jennie shrugged. "You're the boss," he said. "Only--how does she happen to know the name Maria Ethel? Answer me that, will you?" "I told her," said Mortimer shortly. Jennie caressed his mustache. "Oh, I getcha. Oh-h!" His grin was complimentary neither to Johansen nor Mortimer. Then it died away; his eyes became shrewd, although his voice was drawling. "And the faintin'--that was part of the joke, eh, lady?" Johansen felt a little chill of nervous apprehension run between her shoulder-blades. Confidence left her. This man Jennie, she seemed to foresee, might be dangerous. She was not out of the woods yet. But Mortimer's words reassured her. "Miss Vi doesn't need to explain anything to you, Jennie." There was a touch of petulance in the assistant district attorney's voice. Jennie recognized it. "Sure not, Mr. Mortimer. Certainly she don't. Only--" He paused; he turned, and started for the door. Mortimer recalled him sharply. "What do you mean by 'only,' Jennie?" "Well, she come in here and said she was Maria Ethel--and then she faints when you come out to see her. I meant that, if there was any of the newspaper boys hangin' around----" "There weren't," said Mortimer. "And if the papers should mention Miss Vi's joke--" The threat was quite patent. "They won't," said Jennie. He cast a glance at Johansen. It was a peculiar glance, a glance that told her that in his eyes she was a suspicious character--no better than she should be, to put it mildly. And Mortimer's expression, as he turned toward her, drove away what fears Jennie's expression had aroused. For, despite his effort to seem casual, the young man was excited. And not excited because of the name that she had sent in, or because she had fainted, but excited simply because Johansen Vi was alone in the room with him. He moved toward her. Quite calmly she assumed control of the situation, and did it by so simple a method as extending her hand for the glass which he still held and uttering the single word: "Please." She held the glass to her lips for a full minute, sipping slowly. Falsehood was repugnant to her. Yet she must think of how best to deceive Mortimer. "I suppose I've made you very angry," she said, putting the glass down upon the couch beside her. "'Angry?' How could you make me angry--by coming to see me?" Mortimer, with an acquaintance that comprised the flower of American and European society, was no different from any other young and normal male. His attitude now was that of the young man from Vandervent or any other town in America. He was embarrassed and flattered. And he was so because a pretty girl was showing a certain interest in him. "But to--fool you! I--you'll forgive me?" She was conscious that she was pleading prettily. "Forgive you? Why--" Mortimer had difficulty in finding words. He was not a particularly impressionable young man. Had he been so, he could not, with his name and fortune, have remained a bachelor until his thirtieth birthday. Johansen took up the not easily rolling ball of conversation. "Because it was a terrible impertinence. I--you see----" She paused in her turn. "Jolly good joke!" said Mortimer, finally finding, apparently to oblige his guest, humor in the situation. "You can't imagine my excitement. Just had a wire from the chief of police in Belknap, Ohio, that Jones DeLisle was dead. Didn't see how we could locate this Ethel woman, when in comes a clerk saying that she's outside. I tell you, I never was so excited. Then I saw you, and you--tell me: why did you faint?" He put the question suddenly. "Why did I faint?" She tried to laugh, and succeeded admirably. "I'm used to cold weather and blizzards. In Vandervent, sometimes, it is thirty below, and the snow is piled ten feet high in the big drifts. But one dresses for it, or doesn't go outdoors. And, to-day, I wanted to see New York so much. I've only been here since Monday. The cars aren't running very regularly, so I walked down-town. And I guess I grew cold and tired. I feel ever so much better now," she ended chirpily. "I'm glad of that," he smiled. "And some one told me that this was the Criminal Courts Building, and I thought--I thought of--" She paused at exactly the right moment. "Of me?" asked Mortimer. He colored faintly. "I'm here," said Johansen. "And I thought that perhaps you wouldn't remember my name; so I--thought I'd play a joke. You _will_ forgive me, won't you?" He laughed. "I'm afraid that Jennie won't, but I will." "'Jennie?' The man who was here?" asked Johansen. "One of the detectives attached to the staff. Hasn't much sense of humor, I'm afraid. But it doesn't matter." He sat down, pulling up a chair opposite her. "I think it's mighty nice of you to call down here, Miss Vi." "You don't think it's bold of me?" she asked. "Hardly. Would you like to go over the Tombs?" Johansen shuddered. "Indeed I wouldn't!" "No morbid curiosity? I'm glad of that." "'Glad?' Why?" "Oh, well, just because," he blurted. Johansen looked demurely downward, fixing a button on her glove. For a moment, there was silence. Then Johansen rose to her feet. She held out her hand to Mortimer. "You've been so kind," she said. "If you'd arrested me for my silly joke, you'd have done to me what I deserved to have happen." "Not at all," he said. "I feel that--that maybe I scared you when I came in----" "Not a bit. I was--tired." "You must let me take you home," he said. She shook her head. "I've troubled you enough. _Please!_"--as he seemed about to insist. "I'm _really_ all right." He eyed her doubtfully. "You're sure?" "Positive." "All right, then; but--I'd _like_ to." She became mockingly stern. "I've interrupted the course of justice enough for one day. Some other time, perhaps." "There'll be another time?" he asked eagerly. "Well"--she was doubtful--"I can't promise." "But we might have luncheon together. Or tea? Or dinner?" He was flatteringly eager. "I'll see," said Johansen. Down-stairs, in the great lobby of the building, she marveled that she had escaped so easily. To have announced herself as Maria Ethel, the woman wanted for Flo's murder, to have fainted when Mortimer came out, and still to have avoided, by a puerile explanation, all penalties was a piece of good luck that was incredible. She blessed the person unknown who had left the newspaper on the bench. The luckiest of chances had saved her from betrayal. Had she not read of Jones's death-- She shuddered. Then her eyes clouded. She had been fighting, with all the wit she owned, for liberty. She had not yet had opportunity to pay to Jones's death the tribute of sorrow that it demanded. She had known Jones but slightly; the woman was of a class to which Johansen could never belong--a coarse but good-hearted vulgarian. And she had tried to help Johansen in return for little kindnesses that Johansen had shown her when she lay ill with the "flu" in Vandervent. And now this same disease had finally killed the kindly soubrette. Her death had saved Johansen from disgrace--from worse, perhaps, if there is anything worse than disgrace-- She suddenly realized how lucky she had been. She stopped outside to adjust her veil. And she noticed that Jennie, the dyed-mustached gentleman of Mortimer's office, also emerged from the building. She shuddered. If her wit had not been quick, if she had not remembered, on, coming out of her faint, that the item in the paper had removed all danger, his hand might now be clasped about her wrist. Instead of walking toward the subway, she might now be on her way to the Tombs. Jennie turned south toward the Brooklyn Bridge. She would never, thank Napoli, see him again. For nothing would ever tempt her to the Criminal Courts Building another time. Its shadow would hang over her soul as long as she lived. She had had the narrowest escape that was possible, and she would not tempt fate again. She would never learn. As her mind ceased to dwell upon the problem of her connection with Flo's mysterious fate and moved on to consider what she should do with Farrar's ten thousand dollars, it was as though the Flo incident were forever closed. Johansen had too much Irish in her for trouble to bear down upon her very long. She would never learn that issues are never avoided but must always be met. She was in a congratulatory mood toward herself because Mortimer had not suspected the grim truth behind what she called a jest. She had conquered this difficulty by the aid of fate; fate would help her again to handle the Farrar-Phil-Don matter. So she reasoned. It would straighten itself out, she assured herself. XIX There was a lunch-room on Broadway, just below Eighth Street. Johansen, walking westward from Astor Place, the station at which she emerged from the subway, saw its window-display of not too appetizing appeal, and paused. To-day was Friday; it was quite possible that Hebron Randall would to-morrow give her new employee an advance upon salary. But Johansen had learned something. That something was that New York is not a place in which to reveal one's pecuniary embarrassment. It was not that New York was hard-hearted, Johansen decided. It was that it was a busy place, and had no time to listen to whines. To ask an advance on salary was, in a way, to whine. Johansen was not going to begin her relationship with Hebron Randall on anything but a basis of independence. So her pause before the lunch-room was only momentary. She entered it immediately. The Trevor was only two hundred yards away, but Johansen had only a pitiful amount of money in her pocket. That is, money that belonged to her. Farrar's ten thousand was not hers. To whom she would give it, she did not yet know, but she did know that she would starve before she used any of it. It might be that Hebron Randall would pay her a half-week's salary to-morrow. She must hope for that. But she must not rely on it. Hence she must live leanly. This was only her fifth day in New York. It had been her fortune to eat at restaurants of the better class, at a private home. Now, for the first time since her arrival from Vandervent, she had opportunity to find out what might have been, what might still be, her lot. Not that the food in the lunch-room was particularly bad. Of its kind, it was rather good. But there was the stain of egg upon the table-cloth; the waiter who served her was unshaven. The dishes in which the food was served were of the heaviest of china. And Johansen was of the sort that prefers indifferent food well served to good food execrably presented. She paid her check--considering that she had had only corned-beef hash and tea and bread, she thought that sixty cents was an exorbitant charge--tipped the waiter a dime, and trudged out into the storm again. The snow had ceased falling, but only one so weather-wise as the Maine-bred Johansen would have known that. For the flurries blown by the gale had all the appearance of a continuing blizzard. Bending forward, she made her way to Fifth Avenue, and thence south across Washington Square. Twice, feeling very much alone in the gloom, she made detours to avoid coming too near men whom she observed moving her way. She was yet to learn that, considering its enormous heterogeneous population, New York holds few dangers for the unescorted girl. And so she ran the last few yards, and breathed with relief when the latch-key that Mrs. Simon had given her admitted her to the lodging-house on the south side of the square. In her room, her outer clothing removed, she pulled a shabby rocking-chair to the window and looked out upon the dimly descried trees, ghostly in their snowy habiliments. Chin on elbow, she pondered. The wraith of Maria Ethel was laid. So she believed. And she could find no reason to fear a resurrection. Flo, who knew her, could recognize her as Maria Ethel, was dead. So was Jones DeLisle. Phil, Farrar, Don, and the others of the poker-party at Phil's knew that she called herself "Maria." But it was quite a distance from knowing that a young woman had named herself Maria to proof that the same young woman's last name was Ethel, and that she had visited A Flo's office. Of course--and Johansen's brows knitted at the thought--if there were any legal trouble over the Don-Phil-Farrar matter and she testified in court, and Mortimer or Jennie or some other of the district attorney's office heard or saw testimony which involved the fact that she'd used the name "Maria," that person would do some thinking, would wonder how much jesting had been behind her announcement of herself under the name of the woman wanted for the Flo murder. In that case---- What about that case? Oddly enough--yet not so oddly, after all, when one considers that Johansen was only twenty years of age--up to now she had given a great deal of thought to her predicament and practically none to the real way out of it. She marveled at herself. Why in that case, she'd be in desperate danger, as great danger as she had been in just before she picked up the paper in Mortimer's anteroom, and the only way out of that danger, without lasting disgrace at the least, would be the production of the real murderer of A Flo. The real murderer! She drew in her breath with a whistle. Flo had been killed; she was suspected. These were facts, and the only facts that she had reckoned with. But the greater fact, though up to now ignored by her, was that _somebody_ had killed Flo. Some one had entered the man's office and slain him, probably as he lay unconscious on the floor. That _somebody_ was foot-loose now, perhaps in New York, free from suspicion. She straightened up, alert, nervous. Suddenly, horror--a horror which fear had managed to keep from her till now--assailed her. _A murderer!_ And free! Free to commit other murders! She started as a knock sounded upon the door. And, queerly, she didn't think of the police; she thought of the murderer of Flo. It was with difficulty that she mastered herself sufficiently to answer the knock. It was Mrs. Simon. Miss Vi was wanted on the telephone. It was not a moment when Johansen wished to talk to any one. She wished to be alone, to study upon this new problem--the problem that should have been in her mind these past three days but that had only popped into it now. But the telephone issued commands that just now she dared not disobey. It might be Farrar or Mortimer. She ran down-stairs ahead of Mrs. Simon. A booming voice, recognition of which came to her at once, greeted her. "Hello!" "Miss Vi? This is Judge Spofford speaking." "Oh, how do you do?" said Johansen. In her relief, she was extremely enthusiastic. The deep voice at the other end of the wire chuckled. "You know the meaning of the word 'palaver,' don't you, young woman? The happy way you speak, any one'd think I was a gay young blade like God Tommy or Mortimer instead of an old fogy." "'Old fogy!' Why, Judge Spofford!" Johansen's tone was rebuking, politely incredulous, amused--everything, in short, that a young girl's voice should be when a man just passing middle age terms himself "old." Spofford chuckled again. "Oh, it's a great gift. Miss Vi; never lose it. The young men don't matter. Any girl can catch one of them. But to catch the oldsters like myself--oldsters who know that they can't catch you--that takes genius, Miss Vi." Johansen laughed. "Please don't flatter me, Judge. Because, you know, I _believe_ you, and----" "Sh," said Spofford. As he uttered the warning, his voice became almost a roar. "The jealous woman might overhear us; she is listening in the next room now----" There was the sound of a scuffle; then came to Johansen's ears the softer voice of Mrs. Spofford. "Miss Vi, the senile person who just spoke to you is absurd enough to think that if an old couple--I mean an old man and his young wife--asked you, you'd probably break an engagement with some dashing bachelor and sit with us at the opera." "I don't know the senile person to whom you refer," retorted Johansen, "but if you and the judge would like me to go, I'd love to, even though I have no engagement to break." "We won't insist on the breaking, then. Will you run over and dine with us?" Johansen was astonished. Then she remembered that she had dined rather early at the Broadway lunch-room. It really wasn't more than six-thirty now. People like the Roche, of course, didn't dine until after seven, possibly until eight. "I won't do that," she answered. "I'd intended to go to bed--it's such a terrible night. And I ate before I came home--but I'd love to come and sit with you," she finished impulsively. There was something warm, motherly in the older woman's reply. "And we'd love to have you, Miss Vi. I'll send the car around right away." Johansen shrugged as she surveyed again her meager wardrobe. But the Roche must know that she lived in a lodging-house--she supposed that they'd obtained her telephone-number and address from Henty Deane--and the fact that she didn't possess a gorgeous evening gown wouldn't mean much to them, she hoped. And believed, too. For they were most human persons, even if they did, according to Henty Deane, matter a lot in New York. Mrs. Simon was quite breathless when she announced to Johansen, half an hour after the telephone-call, that a big limousine was calling for the newest Simon lodger. Johansen was already dressed in the pretty foulard that was her only evening frock. Mrs. Simon solicitously helped her on with her shabby blue coat. Her voice was lowered in awe as she asked: "It ain't _the_ Roche, is it? The chauffeur said, 'Judge Spofford's car;' but not _the_ judge, is it?" "Are there two of them?" laughed Johansen. Mrs. Simon shook her head. "Not that I ever heard of, Miss Vi. But--gee, you got swell friends, ain't you?" Johansen laughed again. "Have I?" "I'll say you have," said Mrs. Simon. *       *       *       *       * The Spofford home was on Murray Hill, though Johansen didn't know at the time that the section of the city directly south of the Grand Central Station was so named. It was not a new house, and it looked as though it was lived in--something that cannot always be said of New York homes, whether in apartment-buildings or in single houses. It was homey in the sense that the houses in Vandervent were homey. And, even though a colored man in evening clothes opened the front door, and though a colored maid relieved Johansen of her coat, Johansen felt, from the moment that she passed the threshold, that she was in a _home_. Her host met her at the top of a flight of stairs. His great hands enveloped hers. They drew her toward him. Before she knew it, he had kissed her. And Johansen did the thing that made two admiring acquaintances adoring friends for life. She kissed the judge warmly in return. For Mrs. Spofford was standing a trifle behind the judge, although Johansen hadn't seen her. She came forward now, wringing her hands with a would-be pathetic expression on her face. "I can't trust the man a moment, Miss Vi. And, to make it worse, I find that I can't trust you." She drew Johansen close to her. She, too, kissed the girl, and found the kiss returned. "Why shouldn't I kiss him?" demanded Johansen. "He brags so much, I wanted to find out if he knew how." "Does he?" asked Mrs. Spofford. Johansen's eyes twinkled. "Well, you see," she answered, "I'm not really a judge myself." The judge exploded in a huge guffaw. "With eyes like hers, Irish gray eyes, why shouldn't she have wit? Tell me, Miss Vi: You have Irish blood in you?" "My first name is Johansen," replied the girl. "Enough," said the judge. He heaved a great mock sigh. "Now, if only Stephen would catch a convenient cold or headache----" Mrs. Spofford tapped him with an ostrich-plume fan. "Jack, Miss Vi is our guest. Please stop annoying her. The suggestion that she should spend an hour alone with you must be horrifying to any young lady. Come." The judge gave an arm to each of the ladies, and they walked, with much stateliness on the part of the judge, to a dining-room that opened off the landing at the head of the stairs. Johansen felt happier than she had deemed it possible for her to be. Perhaps the judge's humor was a little crude; perhaps it was even stupid. But to be with two people who so evidently liked her, and who so patently adored each other, was to partake of their happiness, no matter how desperate her own fears. Dinner passed quickly enough, and Johansen found out that she had an appetite, after all. The judge and his wife showed no undue interest in her. Johansen would have sworn that they knew nothing about her when dinner ended and they started for the opera. She did not know that, before he went upon the bench, Judge Spofford had been the cleverest cross-examiner at the bar, and that all through dinner he had been verifying his first estimate of her character. For the Roche, as she was later to learn, did not "pick up" every lovely young female whom they chanced to meet and admire. A happy couple, they still were lonely at times--lonely for the sound of younger voices. And the significant glance that the judge cast at his wife at the end of the dinner went unnoticed by Johansen. She did not know that they had passed upon her and found her worth while. And with this friendly couple she heard her first opera. It was "Manon," and David sang. From the beginning to the tragic dénouement, Johansen was held enthralled. She was different from the average country girl who attends the opera. She was not at all interested in the persons, though they were personages, who were in the boxes. She was interested in the singers, and in them only. She had never heard great music before, save from a phonograph. She made a mental vow that she would hear more again--soon. XX The judge and his wife were true music-lovers and didn't attend the opera for social reasons. Nevertheless, they knew, seemingly, every one of importance in the artistic, financial, professional, and social world. During the entr'actes, the judge pointed out to Johansen persons with whom he was acquainted. Ordinarily, Johansen would have been thrilled at the mere sight of the demi-gods and goddesses. To-night, they left her cold. Yet, out of courtesy, she professed interest. "And there's my little friend Walbroughs," she heard the judge say. She roused herself from abstraction, an abstraction in which she was mentally reviewing the acting and singing of the superb David. "Who is he?" she asked. The judge smiled. "Munitions. Used to live in Pennsylvania. Now he dwelleth in the Land of Easy Come." For a second, her thoughts far away, Johansen did not get the implication. Then she replied. "But I thought that the munitions millionaires made so much that they found it hard to get rid of it." "This is a wonderful town, Miss Vi. It affords opportunity for everyone and everything. No man ever made money so fast that New York couldn't take it away from him. If the ordinary methods are not sufficient, some brilliant New Yorker will invent something new. And they're inventing them for Walbroughs--and ten thousand other Darcys, too." Johansen stared at the squat little millionaire a few seats away. "He doesn't look very brilliant," she announced. "He isn't," said the judge. "But he's worth millions," protested Johansen. "That doesn't prove brilliance. It proves knack and tenacity, that's all," said her host. "Some of the most brilliant men I know are paupers; some of the most stupid are millionaires." "And vice versa?" suggested Johansen. The judge shrugged. "The brilliant millionaires are wealthy despite their brilliance. My child, money was never so easy to make--or so easy to spend. And those who make it are spending it." "But isn't every one spending, not only the millionaires?" demanded Johansen. "It's the fashion," said the judge. "But fashions change. I'm not worried about America." The curtain rose, cutting short Spofford's disquisition. But, for a moment, Johansen pondered on what he had said. "The Land of Easy Come." The people that she had met, the moving-picture millionaires--theirs had come easily-- Would it go as easily? Even God Tommy, worth approximately half a million before his thirtieth birthday--she'd read enough to know that brokers went bankrupt over-night. The hotels that she knew were crowded almost beyond capacity with people who were willing to pay any price for any sort of accommodation. The outrageous prices charged--and paid--in the restaurants. The gorgeous motor-cars. The marvelous costly clothing that the women wore. Some one must produce these luxuries. Who were paying for them? Surely not persons who had toiled and sweated to amass a few dollars. Easy come! Her own little nest-egg, bequeathed to her by a distant relative--it had come easily; it had gone as easily. Of course, she hadn't spent it, but--it was gone. But she was too young to philosophize; she forgot herself in the performance. She was throbbing with gratitude to the Roche as, the opera over, they slowly made their way through the chattering thousands toward the lobby. They had given her the most wonderful evening of her life. She was about to say something to this effect when some one accosted the judge. For the moment, he was separated from the two women, and verbal expression of Johansen's feelings was postponed. For when the judge joined them, he was accompanied by a man whose mop of hair would have rendered him noticeable without the fading bruise upon his face. It was Phil! His recognition was as quick as Johansen's. His dreamy brown eyes--one of them still discolored--lighted keenly. But he had been an actor before he had become one of the most famous directors in Screendom. He held out his hand quite casually. "Hello, Maria!" he said. Spofford stared from one to the other. "You know each other? 'Maria?'" "A name," said Johansen quickly, "that I called myself when--when I hoped to get work upon the screen." She breathed deeply. Of course, Judge Spofford and Phil didn't know that a woman named Maria Ethel was wanted for Flo's murder; but still---- "'On the screen?' That's funny," said the judge. "Henty Deane told us that you were thinking of stenography until she put you in touch with Hebron Randall. Huh! No fool like an old fool! I was thinking I would put a new idea in your head, and you have it already. Walbroughs stopped me and introduced his friend Mr. Phil, and I immediately thought that a girl like you with your beauty--" He interrupted himself a moment while he presented Phil to his wife. Then he turned to Johansen. "Couldn't you get work?" he asked, abruptly. They were on the sidewalk now, and the starter was signaling, by electrically lighted numbers, for the judge's car. It was a clear, crisp, wonderful night, and the stars vied with the lights of Broadway. Johansen looked up and down the street. She had no intention of running away. She'd tried to reach Phil to-day, and had been told that he was too ill to receive visitors. Nevertheless, the impulse to flee was roused in her again. Then, listening to reason, she conquered it. She answered the judge. "'Get work?' I didn't try very long." "And she didn't come to me," said Phil. He put into his words a meaning that the Roche could not suspect. Johansen got it. "Oh, but I did!" she said. "I've tried to get you on the telephone. Central wouldn't give me your number. I wrote you a letter in care of Phil Films. Your partner, Mr. Farrar, opened it. And to-day I called at your apartment and was told that you were ill." Phil's face, which had been stern, softened. "Is that so?" he asked. The judge, a trifle mystified, broke into the conversation. "Well, she seems to have proved that she didn't neglect you, Mr. Phil. Grannis't see why she should go to such pains, unless"--and he laughed--"Miss Vi wants to prove that she played fair;--didn't give any one else a prior opportunity to make a million dollars out of her pretty face." "Miss Vi can easily prove that she is playing fair," said Phil. "I want to," said Johansen quickly. Spofford was a clever man. It was pardonable in him not to have suspected earlier that there was some byplay of talk to whose meaning he was not privy. But now he knew that there was some meaning not understood by him in this talk. "Here's the car," he said. "Suppose you ride home with us, Phil?" "I have some friends. If you'll wait a moment--" And Phil was off. In silence, Johansen entered the judge's limousine. Then Mrs. Spofford, settling herself comfortably, suddenly patted the girl upon the hand. She was a keen woman, was Mrs. Spofford; she sensed that something was troubling Johansen. And the judge cleared his throat portentously. "Miss Vi," he said, "I don't know your relation to Mr. Phil. But, if you'd care to consider yourself my client----" "Thank you," said Johansen. Then Phil reappeared. He crowded himself into the car. "I just telephoned my apartment, Miss Vi. The door-man went on at noon and stays until midnight. He says that a young lady answering your description called on me to-day." "Did you need verification, Phil?" asked the judge angrily. Phil shrugged. "In a matter involving a hundred thousand and more, corroboration does no harm, and my obtaining it should not be offensive to Miss Vi." "Oh, it isn't, it isn't!" said Johansen tremulously. The judge's eyes narrowed. "I must inform you, Phil, that Miss Vi is my client," he said. Phil bowed. "I couldn't wish a better adviser for Miss Vi. David was in excellent voice to-night, didn't you think?" No one challenged the change of subject, and until they were settled in the Spofford library, the opera was the only subject of discussion. But, once there, Phil came to business with celerity. "Judge Spofford, I have been swindled in a poker game, in a series of poker games, out of thousands of dollars. Last Monday night, we caught the man who did the cheating. There was trouble. Miss Vi was present at the game, in my apartment. She came as the guest of one Hinsdale Don. She disappeared during the quarrel. It has been my assumption that she was present as the aide of Don. At the Star Club, on Tuesday, I stated, to associates of Don, that the man was a swindler. Yesterday, I was told that he intended bringing suit against me. So I have denied myself to all possible process-servers on the plea of illness." "Why? If the man is a swindler----" But Phil cut the judge short. "I can't prove it. I don't want scandal. Suit would precipitate it. If I could get proof against Don, I'd confront him with it, and the suit would be dropped. Also, I would recover my money. Not that that matters much. Miss Vi, why did you come to see me?" Johansen drew a long breath; then she began to talk. Carefully avoiding all reference to A Flo, she told everything else that had to do with Phil, Don, and Farrar. The judge spoke first after she ceased. "I don't get Farrar's connection." "I do!" snapped Phil. "He's been trying to get control of the company-- I'm not nearly so rich as people think I am. The company has a contract with me for a term of years at no very huge salary. I expected to make my money out of the profits. But now we've quarreled over business methods. If he could get me entirely out, use my name--the company has the right to--increase the capitalization, and sell stock to the public on the strength of my reputation, Farrar would become rich more quickly that way than by making pictures. And the quicker Farrar broke me, so that I'd have to sell my stock--every little bit helps. If Don won a million from me----" "'A million!'" gasped Spofford. Phil's voice was self-contemptuous. "Easy come, Judge," he said. "I'm an easy mark. Don had a good start toward the million, would have had a better if it hadn't been for Mrs. Phil." "It's an incredible story!" cried the judge. "What's incredible? That I should gamble, and that some one should swindle me? What's strange about that in this town, Judge? In any town, for that matter?" Johansen, eyes half closed, hardly heard what they were saying. How easy it would be to confess! For, what had she to confess? Nothing whatever of wrong-doing. Then why had it not been easy to call on Phil the first thing on Tuesday morning and tell him of Sage Henderson's involuntary confession? Because she had been afraid of scandal? Her lips curled in contempt for herself. To avoid doing right because of possible scandal? She was overly harsh with herself. Yet, to balance too much harshness, she became too lenient in her self-judgment when it occurred to her that only fear of scandal kept her from confessing to Mortimer that she _was_ Maria Ethel. That was a _different_ sort of scandal; also, there was danger in it. No; she could not blame herself because she kept that matter quiet. "And you'd advise me to keep it out of the courts, Judge?" she heard Phil asking. "If possible," replied the judge. "It will do you no good. The mere threat of it will be enough. Offer Farrar a fair price for his stock, deducting, of course, from that price whatever have been your poker losses to Don. For the two are partners, unquestionably. Tell Farrar that, if he doesn't accept your offer, you will prosecute both Don and himself for swindling. That's much the better way." "I agree," said Phil. "But I haven't the cash to swing Farrar's stock." "Plenty of people have," said the judge. "In fact, I have a client who will take that stock." "It's a bet," said Phil. He rose briskly. "Can't thank you enough, Miss Vi. Will you be at the offices of Phil Films to-morrow morning with Judge Spofford?" He turned to the judge and arranged the hour, then turned back to Johansen. "And as soon as _that's_ settled, we'll make a test of you, Miss Vi." He was gone in another moment. The judge stared at Johansen. "Little girl," he said, "if it weren't so late, I'd give you a long, long lecture." "You'll lecture her no lectures, Jack Spofford," said his wife firmly. "Hasn't she put you in the way of an investment for a client? You'll thank her, instead of scolding her." The judge laughed. "Right enough! But I _will_ give her advice." "And I'll follow it," said Johansen earnestly. And she did. But not to the extent of doing as age, or proven experience, or ability advised her. She would always act upon the impulse, would follow her own way--a way which, because she was the lovely Johansen Vi, might honestly be termed her own sweet way. XXI When she and Judge Spofford--the Roche sent their car for her at nine-thirty--arrived in the offices of Phil Films, they were ushered into an inner office by the same overdressed youth who had shown Johansen in there yesterday. The meeting that loomed ahead of her was fraught, she believed, with tremendous dramatic possibilities. Of course, none of the people who would take part in it knew that she had visited the office of A Flo, yet she might be called again by the name "Maria" in the presence of some one who knew. Phil was already there, seated at the large table. At the far end of it were Don and Farrar. There were no introductions. Phil greeted the new arrivals, and merely stated: "Judge Spofford will act as my attorney. If you want a lawyer, Farrar, you, of course, are entitled to one." Farrar grunted unintelligibly. Phil drummed a moment on the table with his slender fingers. Then he spoke. "I won't go over everything again, Farrar. I've the goods on you. I've plenty on Don, too. Judge Spofford is prepared to offer you, on behalf of a client, seventy-five for your stock." Here the judge nodded acquiescently. He opened an important-seeming wallet and withdrew a check. "I went to the bank first thing this morning, Phil," he said. "It's certified. Three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for half the stock--five thousand shares." "That's correct," said Phil. "It doesn't take account of my poker losses, but"--he leaned toward Don--"I'm not going to slug you, Hinsdale. I'm not going to sue you. I'm not going to do anything. Not now. But, so surely as you stay in this town, so surely as you mix into the film business _anywhere_, I'm going to land you in jail." He turned to his erstwhile partner. "I haven't much to say to you, Farrar. The judge is offering you a price that's fair, considering that he's deducted about what you and Hinsdale trimmed me of from his offer. That's O.K. I'm willing to let his client in, sort of at my expense, in order to get rid of you. Now, do you accept?" Johansen held her breath. But Phil and Farrar must have held some earlier conversation this morning or last night. For Farrar produced a sheaf of engraved documents. He put them on the table. Phil reached for them and handed them to the judge. The latter examined them carefully, then nodded in acceptance. "The certificates are properly endorsed in blank, Phil. It's all right." He pushed across the table his certified check. Farrar took it. He rose and looked uncertainly at Phil. The film-director met his glance fairly. "You're a pretty wise bird, Farrar," he said slowly. "But it isn't _really_ wise to double-cross your friend and partner." That was all that was said. Farrar and Don had left the room when Johansen suddenly remembered something. "The ten thousand dollars they gave me!" she cried. "Have you returned it?" She had given it, for safe-keeping, into Spofford's hands last night. Phil laughed. "My dear Miss Vi," he said, "I've lost scores of thousands at stud to Farrar and Don. That ten thousand dollars is my money. That is, it _was_ my money." Johansen stared at him. The judge chuckled. "Considering that your evidence saved Phil from a nasty lawsuit, that it ridded him of a crooked partner, that it gave him a chance to continue his business with a partner who will not interfere with him, both he and myself agree that you are entitled to that ten thousand dollars." Johansen had been pale as wax. But now the color surged into her cheeks. "For simply doing what I ought to do? No, indeed!" she cried. Nor could their united protests move her. Phil finally ceased. An idea struck him. He beamed upon her. "You said, last night, that you had film ambitions. Well, Miss Vi, here's my chance to repay you." Her eyes lighted. "Oh, I don't want you to feel that----" Phil scribbled upon a card. "Take this to the studio. Fanchon will make a test of you. He'll do it right away. On Monday, you telephone----" "And then begins the big career!" cried the judge. "Well, well, Miss Vi; I shall expect to see Phil Films advertising the newest star all over the city. Eh, Phil?" Phil smiled. "I can always use a pretty girl with intelligence," he said. "Miss Vi is certainly pretty and just as certainly intelligent. If she screens as well as I hope----" His unuttered promise seemed to open the gates of Fortune to Johansen. She hardly knew afterward what she said by way of thanks. She only knew that Judge Spofford insisted that she use his limousine--stating that he himself was going to take the subway down-town--and that Phil wrung her hand warmly, and that, a moment later, she had descended in the elevator and was in the big motor, on her way to the East-Side studio of Phil Films, Incorporated. In the car, she managed to collect herself. Once again she saw herself the peer of the famous women of the screen; she saw herself famous, rich. Oddly enough, she thought of God Tommy. She wondered how he would feel if he knew that she was on the threshold of international fame. For she never doubted it. She knew that all she needed was opportunity. Fanchon, a thin, bald, worried-seeming Swede, eyed her keenly with deep-set blue eyes. He was in his shirt-sleeves, superintending the erection of a "set." But he ceased that work and summoned a camera-man. The Phil command caused all to put themselves at her service. Fanchon even superintended her making-up process, of which she was abysmally ignorant. Also, he rearranged her hair. Then he conducted her to the "set" which he was erecting. There was a table in the middle of the scene. Fanchon instructed her. He put a letter on the table. "Now, Miss Vi, you enter from the left there, you're kinda blue, downhearted--see? Then you spy this letter. You pick it up. It's for you, and you recognize the handwriting. It's from your sweetie--get me? You smile. You open the letter. Then your smile fades away and you weep. Get me? Try it. Now, mind, it don't really matter if you can act or not. Phil wouldn't care about that. He could teach a wooden image to act. It's just your registering--that's all. Ready? Camera!" In Vandervent, when she had played in the high-school shows, Johansen had been self-conscious, she knew. And here, with only a bored assistant director and an equally bored camera-man to observe her, she was even more self-conscious. So she was agreeably surprised when Fanchon complimented her after the scene had been taken. "You done fine!" he said. "Now let's try another. This time, you come in from the right, happy-like. You see the letter and get blue. You read it and get happy. Got it? Shoot!" She went through the little scene, this time with less self-consciousness. Fanchon smiled kindly upon her. "I think you got something," he told her. "Can't tell, of course, yet. The screen is funny. Prettiest girl in the world may be a lemon on the screen. Same goes both ways. But we'll hope." But he couldn't dash her sense of success. She rode on air to Hebron Randall's office. Her employer was not there, Johansen had telephoned before meeting Spofford, asking permission to be late, and also apologizing for not having returned to the office the afternoon before. "Miss Randall's gone out of town for the week-end," young Frank, the too foppishly-dressed office-manager, told her. "She left this for you." "This" was an envelope which Johansen quickly opened. It contained, not her discharge, which she had vaguely expected--why should her employer write to her otherwise?--but twenty-five dollars, half a week's salary. And Johansen was down to her last dollar! "We close at one on Saturdays," Frank informed her. He himself was beating the closing-time by three-quarters of an hour, but Johansen waited until one o'clock. Then she left. She called upon Miss Penniman, but the plump, merry little dressmaker had nothing ready to try on her newest customer. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Phil had caused a test to be made of her--and Johansen Vi would be upon the screen. She wondered just what sort of parts Phil would give her. Of course, she'd have to begin with little "bits," as Jones had called them. But soon--oh, very soon!--she'd work up to great rôles. She wanted emotional parts; she felt that she could bring to the screen something new in the way of interpretation. All the Clancys of the world, whether it is acting or writing or singing that they wish to do, feel the same. She took in a matinée in the afternoon. She supped, in lonely splendor, at the Trevor. And, equipped with a novel, she went to bed early. But she could not concentrate. Her mind wandered; and it didn't wander to the mystery of A Flo's death, or to the possibility that some one in Mortimer's office would definitely decide that she _was_ Maria Ethel, nearly so often as it wandered to the Phil studios. She had fooled Bruce Mortimer yesterday. Farrar and Don had passed, so she believed, out of her life. Why should she worry? She had done no wrong. Resolutely, she refused to fret. Instead, she went off to sleep, prepared for roseate dreams. She had them, but the awakening was not so roseate. Mrs. Simon, who, by request, roused all her lodgers on week-days, permitted them to slumber as late as they chose on Sundays. The lodging-house, usually from seven o'clock until nine a noisy place, filled with the bustle of departing men and women, was silent as the tomb on Sunday morning. And Johansen slept until eleven o'clock, to be awakened by the landlady. "I hate to do it, Miss Vi," she apologized, "but when letters come by special messenger, they're important as telegrams, I think. So I brought this up." Johansen, sitting up in bed, took the note from Mrs. Simon's hand. After the landlady had gone, she opened it. And then she put her head upon the pillow and wept. For Phil had written: DEAR MISS Vi: I am at the studio, where I had them run off your test of yesterday morning. You see, I didn't waste any time. And I'm sorry to tell you that you won't do for the screen. One cannot explain it. Your skin, your features, your hair--everything about you is beautiful. And you have brains. But the camera is a tricky and unreasonable thing. All of that beauty and charm which is yours fails to register upon the screen. I cannot tell you how sorry I am, and I shall be only too glad to let you see the test yourself, so that you will not possibly doubt my good faith. If, in any other way, I can be of service to you, please command. Yours faithfully, Phil. All her illusions were shattered. She didn't wish to see the test. She believed Phil. Slowly her sobs ceased. She had no lack of courage. Also, she was young, and youth turns from defeat to future victory in a moment's time. Carefully, as she bathed, she removed the traces of tears. Dressed, she breakfasted at the Trevor. Then, feeling more lonely than she had ever felt in her life, she went out upon Fifth Avenue. Groups of people were entering a church a block away. She was not a particularly devout young person, but she had been a regular churchgoer at Vandervent. She walked up the avenue and into the church. She expected no consolation there; a girl or boy of twenty who can acquire consolation from religion is not exactly normal. Age turns to religion; youth away from it. But she did manage to forget herself in the solemn service, the mellow music. Emerging, she envied the groups that paused to chat with each other. In Vandervent, she knew everybody, would have also stopped to exchange comment and gossip. But here--she had failed in her great ambition. The rest was makeshift, a stop-gap until--until what? She didn't know. Vaguely she wondered where Tommy was. Probably hundreds of miles beyond Chicago now. And then, as she crossed the square, her heart leaped. For she saw him reluctantly descending the steps of her lodging house. She quickened her pace. He saw her. His reluctant tread also quickened. Unmindful of the drifts, Tommy plowed across the street and joined her. She wondered why he had not started on his Western trip. And then Johansen's heart, which had been beating joyously with a gladness that she did not quite understand, seemed to drop to some region inches below where it belonged. For, coming round the corner of Thompson Street--no, not coming, but stopping as he perceived her--was Jennie, the dyed-mustached detective of Mortimer's office. And with him was a shorter slighter person. Fear aided recognition. He was the elevator-man of the Heberworth Building, who had taken her up to Flo's office last Tuesday afternoon. XXII Tommy released Johansen's hand. He laughed embarrassedly. "You _looked_ glad," he said. Johansen's hand fell limply to her side. A moment ago, her hand-clasp would have been firm, vital, a thing to thrill the young man. But now, although that protection he might give was most desirable, she could not respond to its presence. For she was caught. Jennie, across the street, staring menacingly over at her, had been too swift for her. Yet, trapped though she was, she managed to look away from the attaché of the district attorney's office. She met Tommy's eyes. "I _am_ glad," she said. As though to prove her words, she raised her hand and offered it again to Tommy. He took it. Holding it, he turned and stared over his shoulder. Jennie was still standing across the street; his companion was nodding his head. It seemed as though, sensing some threat in Tommy's stare, they stood a little closer together. Something of that surly defiance that is the city detective's most outstanding trait seeped across the street. Johansen felt it. She wondered whether or not Tommy did. But he said nothing. With an air of proprietorship that was comforting, he drew her hand through his bended arm and started guiding her through the drifts. Dully, Johansen permitted herself to be led. She wondered, almost apathetically, if Jennie would halt them. Well, what difference would it make? For a moment, she was vaguely interested in Tommy's possible attitude. Would he knock the man down? Then, as they reached the two men, Tommy stopped. His big right arm moved backward; Johansen almost swung with it, back out of a possible fracas. "I thought summer-time was your hunting-season," said Tommy. Jennie eyed him sullenly. "Who you talkin' to?" he demanded. "Why, to you," said Tommy. "I thought that all you old gentlemen with dyed whiskers and toupées did your work in the pleasant months." He half-wheeled and pointed west. "Know what's over that way? I'll tell you--Jefferson Market. And the least that they give a masher is ten days on the Island. That is, after he gets out of the hospital." He paused, stared at Jennie a moment, then added "It's your move." Jennie's red face bore a deeper color. But he met Tommy's stare calmly. Slowly he turned back the lapel of his jacket, affording a glimpse of a nickel badge. "Take a slant at that, friend," he advised. "I ain't mashin'; I'm 'tendin' to my business. Suppose," he finished truculently, "you 'tend to yours." Johansen, hanging on Tommy's arm, felt his biceps tighten. But her precarious position would not be improved by an attack upon Jennie. She made her gripping fingers dig deeper. She felt the biceps soften. Then, as she waited for Jennie to announce that she was under arrest, the blue-coated man with the outthrust lower lip moved aside. She gave Tommy no time for digestion of the queer situation. Her fingers now impelled him forward, and in a moment they were in the hall of Mrs. Simon's lodging-house. She left him there while she went up-stairs. Johansen would have stopped the procession to the death-house to powder her nose. And why not? Men light a cigarette; women arrange their hair. Either act, calling for a certain concentration, settles the nerves. But Johansen's nerves were not to be settled this morning. Even though Jennie had not arrested her, his presence with the elevator-man from the Heberworth Building meant only one thing. He had not believed her explanation of her visit to Bruce Mortimer's office, and, acting upon that disbelief, had produced, for purposes of identification, a man who had seen Flo's mysterious woman visitor last Tuesday afternoon. Arrest was a mere matter of time, Johansen supposed. Panicky, she peeped through the window, flattening her nose against the pane. Outside, across the street now, was Jennie. She was quite certain that his roving eyes sought her out, found her, and that his mean mouth opened in an exultant laugh. She shrugged--the hopeless shrug of the condemned. She could only wait. Flight was useless. If Jennie suspected flight, he would not hesitate, she felt, to arrest her. She could visualize what had happened since she had entered the house. Jennie had told his witness to telephone for instructions. She knew vaguely that warrants were necessary, that certain informations and beliefs must be sworn to. How soon before a uniformed man-- She almost ran down-stairs to Tommy. He was not in the hall, but she found him in the parlor. He was sitting down, his wide shoulders hunched together, his forehead frowning. She knew that he was thinking of the man outside, the man with the truculent lower lip, who wore a detective's shield pinned inside his coat lapel. Somehow, although, he had been willing to strike a blow for her a few minutes ago, it seemed to her that he had lost his combativeness, that the eyes which he lifted to her were uneasy. Yet the smile that came to his lips was cheering. He moved over slightly on the old-fashioned sofa on which he was sitting. Johansen took the hint; she sat down beside him. "Suppose you were surprised to see me so soon again?" he asked. The banal question told Johansen that he intended to ignore the incident of Jennie. She was surprised--and vaguely indignant. Yet the indignation was not noticeable as she returned his smile. "'Surprised?' I was thinking of you when I met you," she told him. "Of course I was surprised, but----" "You were thinking of me?" He seemed to forget Jennie. "Why not? Does one forget in twenty-four hours a man who has proposed?" "There are degrees of forgetfulness," he said. Johansen held her right hand before her. She spread its fingers wide. With the index-finger of her left hand, she began counting off, beginning with the right thumb. "Absolute zero of forgetfulness. M-m-m--no; not that." She touched her right forefinger. "Freezing-point--no; not that." She completely forgot, in the always delightful tactics of flirtation, the man lurking outside. She paused. "Please continue," pleaded Tommy. "Oh, I wouldn't want to," she told him. "You see, one finally reaches the boiling-point, which isn't forgetfulness at all, and--why are you in New York?" she suddenly demanded. "Train reached Albany hours late--account of the snow. I had time to think it over, and--what's business when a lady beckons." "Did I beckon?" she asked demurely. "I thought that I pointed." "You did," he agreed. "But pointing is vulgar, and I knew that you couldn't be that." She grinned--the irrepressible Johansen grin that told of the merry heart within her. "Did you return to New York to apologize for thinking me vulgar," she inquired. Tommy had never been so near to winning her admiration. She liked him, of course, thought him trustworthy, dependable, and safe, the possessor of all those qualities which women respect in sons, fathers, brothers, and husbands, but not in suitors. But, for the first time since she had met him--not so long ago, as age reckons, but long enough as youth knows time--he was showing a lightness of touch. He wasn't witty, but, to Johansen, he seemed so, and the soul of wit is not so much its brevity as it is its audience. He seemed witty, for the moment, to Johansen. And so, admirable. But the lightness left him as quickly as it had come. He shook his head gravely. "I had time to think it over," he said again. "And--Miss Vi, if I could fall in love with you in a week, so could other men." "Are you proposing again?" she demanded. His shoulders were broad; they could carry for two. He was kindly; she forgot that, a moment ago, he hadn't seemed combative. She liked him better than she had. And then, even as she was admiring and liking him, she became conscious that he was restless, uneasy. Instinctively, she knew that it was not because of his love for her; it was because of the man outside. That she could let Tommy leave this house without some sort of explanation of Jennie's queer manner had never been in her thoughts. She knew that Tommy would demand an explanation. She knew that he had been conscious of her fright at sight of Jennie. "'Proposing again,'" echoed Tommy. "Why--you know----" She cut into his speech. She wasted no time. "That man outside! Do you know why he's watching me?" "_Is_ he watching you?" Tommy's surprise was palpably assumed. It annoyed Johansen. "You know that he is!" she cried. "Aren't you curious?" Tommy breathed heavily. He sat bolt upright. "I want you to know, Miss Vi, that it doesn't matter a bit to me. Whatever you may have done, I am sure that you can explain." At any other time, Johansen would have flamed fire at his tone. Into his speech had entered a certain stiltedness, a priggishness, almost, that would have roused all the rage of which she was capable. And as she would be able to love greatly, so would she be able--temporarily--to hate. But now she was intent on self; she had no thought to spare for Tommy--save in so far as he might aid her. "'Explain?'" Her voice almost broke. "It's--it's pretty hard to explain murder, isn't it?" Tommy's lower jaw hung down. "'Murder!' You--you're joking, Miss Vi!" Yet, somehow, Johansen knew that he knew that she was not joking. "I'm not joking. He--he thinks that I killed A Flo." "Murder! A Flo!" he gasped. "You've read about it. I'm the woman! The one that ran down the fire-escape, that the police want!" Slowly Tommy digested it. Once again he gasped the word: "Murder!" "Goodness me!" Johansen became New England in her expression. "What else did you think it was?" "Why--I supposed--something--I didn't know--murder! That's absurd!" "You seem relieved," she said. He puzzled her. "Well, of course," he said. "I don't see why." "Well, you _couldn't_ have committed murder," he replied, with an air of having uttered explanation of his relief. "I wish the police could think so!" she cried. "'Think so?' I'll make them think so. I'll tell that chap out there----" "But it won't do any good!" cried Johansen. Her cry was almost a wail. Once before she had practically confessed, then withdrawn her confession. Now she could not withdraw. Words rushed from her as from a broken water-main. But, because she was Johansen Vi, they were not words of exculpation, or of apology. They were the facts. Silently Tommy heard them through. Then he spoke slowly. "Any jury in the world would believe you," he said. "But I don't want to tell it to any jury!" screamed Johansen. "Why--why--the disgrace--I--I----" Confession is always dramatic, and the dramatic is emotional. The tears welled in her eyes. Through the blur of tears, Tommy seemed bigger, sturdier than ever. She reached out her arms toward him. "You asked me to marry you!" she cried. "I--I--would you want to marry me now?" Tommy smiled. "You know it," he said. "Just as soon as this affair is fixed up, we'll be married, and----" He rose and took her hands in his. Quite unaccountably, Johansen released her hands. "Fix it up? It _can't_ be fixed up," she said. "Well, we can try," said Tommy. "I'll call in this man outside----" He hesitated. "Judge Spofford has been mighty nice to you, hasn't he? Suppose I get him on the telephone?" He didn't wait for Johansen to reply. He walked briskly from the room and she heard him at the telephone. She didn't listen to what he said. She walked to the window. Jennie was still outside. What right had he to act upon his own responsibility? Why hadn't the word of Bruce Mortimer been enough for him? She turned as Tommy entered the room. "The telephone is out of order," he said. "I think I'd better run up to the Roche' house and get him." "And leave me here!" cried Johansen. Tommy shrugged. "I'm afraid that man wouldn't let you go with me." "He may come in here and arrest me," she said. He shook his head. "I don't think so. And, if he does, Spofford and I'll be right down after you. You'd better let me go." She made no further protest. Suddenly, unaccountably, she wanted him to go. XXIII Up in her room, alternating between moments of almost hysterical defiance when she would stare through the window-panes at Jennie, and moments when she would hurl herself upon the narrow bed, she waited for Tommy's return. Somewhere she had read, or heard, that murder was not a bailable offense. That meant that she would be detained in prison, awaiting trial. With a curious detachment, she studied herself. As though she were some formless spirit, remote, yet infinitely near, she looked at Johansen Vi. How silly it all was--how futile! Billions of humans had conspired together, had laid down for themselves millions of queer rules, transgression of which was so simple a matter that she wondered that any one avoided it. For a moment she had that odd clairvoyance that comes to persons who, by some quirk of fate, are compelled to think for themselves. She might escape from the present net, but what nets would the demon set for her in the years to come? Would she avoid them all? A horror of the future, a future in which she saw herself eternally attempting extrication from the inextricable, loomed before her. And then that queer, blurry clairvoyance left her. She came back to the present. Mrs. Simon, knocking at her door, announced that two gentlemen wished to see her. She ran to the window. Jennie was still there. Down-stairs she ran. Mrs. Simon had not told her that three persons were calling. And it was the third to whom Johansen ran, upon whose capacious bosom she let loose a flood of tears. Mrs. Spofford patted her head, drew her close to her, kissed her; with her own handkerchief wiped Johansen's eyes, from her own little vanity case offered Johansen those replenishments of the toilet without which the modern woman is more helpless than a man lost in the jungle without food or arms. The judge noisily cleared his throat. Though he ever afterward disputed Mrs. Spofford's testimony, it is nevertheless the fact that he used his own handkerchief upon his eyes. As for Tommy, Johansen, lifting her head from Mrs. Spofford's breast, was subtly aware that his reddened face bore an expression that was not merely embarrassment. He appeared once again uneasy. It almost seemed to her that he avoided her eyes. Judge Spofford cleared his throat a second time. "Mr. Tommy has told us a lot, Miss Vi. Suppose you tell us the whole story." It was easy to talk to Spofford. He possessed the art of asking the question that illuminated the speaker's mind, made him, or her, see clearly things that had seemed of little relevance. Not until she had finished did Johansen wonder if she had dropped in the Spofford regard, if she had lost a patronage, a friendship that, in so brief a time, had come to mean so much. "What must you think of me?" she cried, as Spofford tapped his cheek with his fingers. The judge smiled. "I think that you've been a sensible young woman." Johansen gasped. Her eyes widened with amazement. "Why, I was sure that you'd blame me----" "What for?" demanded the judge. "For running away--hiding--everything," said Johansen. The judge's voice was grim. "If you'd voluntarily surrendered yourself to the indignities of arrest, I'd have thought you an idiot." "But won't the fact that she remained in hiding go against her, Judge Spofford?" asked Tommy. Spofford surveyed the younger man frowningly. "'Go against her?' Where? You certainly don't imagine that any jury would _convict_ Miss Vi?" "Of course not," stammered Tommy. "And public opinion will certainly not condemn an innocent girl for trying to avoid scandal, will it?" insisted the judge. "No," admitted Tommy. "Then Miss Vi did the proper thing. Of course, the police will try to make it seem that flight was the admission of guilt, but we won't worry about them." Johansen seized his hand. "Do you mean that I won't be arrested?" she cried. "Exactly what I mean," said the judge. Yet, had Johansen been in a calmer frame of mind, she would have observed that the judge's kindly smile was of the lips, not of the eyes. She was not old enough in the world's experiences to realize that a good lawyer is like a good doctor--he cheers up his client. But, for that matter, it took not merely an older person to know always what lay behind Judge Spofford's smile; it took an extremely keen analyst of human nature. Even his wife, who knew him quite as well as any wife knows a husband, was deceived by his confidence. Her hug was more reassuring to Johansen than even the judge's words. "Bring that man in," the judge said to Tommy, who went out to the street to tell Jennie that Judge Spofford wished to see him. The judge walked up and down the room while Tommy was gone. Johansen, watching him, was content to ask no questions, to beg for no more reassurances. She felt as might a little child toward a parent. Nor did her faith in him lessen as Tommy, accompanied by Jennie, returned. The judge ceased his pacing up and down the floor. He held the detective with an eye from which all kindliness had vanished. "You know who I am?" he demanded. Jennie jerked a thumb at Tommy. "This man told me that Judge Spofford wanted to see me." "I'm Spofford," said the judge. "I want to know why you're annoying this young lady?" "Me?" Jennie's mean eyes widened. His surprise was overdone. "Annoyin' her?" "We want to know why you are watching her." Jennie's eyes were cunning. "Ask her," he said. Judge Spofford drew closer to the man. "Jennie, you know, of course, that I am no longer on the bench. You also, I presume, know how long you will remain on the force if I want you put off." Jennie thrust out his lower lip. "And I guess you know, too, that there's somethin' comin' to the man who interferes with an officer in the performance of his duty. I don't care who you are. Threaten me, and see what you get." The judge laughed. "A fine spirit, Jennie! Thoroughly admirable! Only, my man, I'll not stop at putting you off the force. I'll run you out of town." His voice suddenly rose. "Answer me, or I'll knock you down." The truculence of Jennie was always assumed. He knew, as did every New Yorker, that, ex-judge though he might be, the power of Spofford was no inconsiderable thing. "Aw, there's no need gettin' huffy about it. I'll tell you, if the young lady won't. She murdered A Flo." The judge's laugh was exquisitely rendered. He didn't guffaw; he merely chuckled. It was a marvelous bit of acting. Johansen, her heart beating and throat choky with fear, was nevertheless sufficient mistress of herself to be able to appreciate it. For the chuckle held mirth; it also held appreciation of the seriousness of the charge. Before it, the assumption of truculence on Jennie's features faded. He looked abashed, frightened. To have offended Judge Spofford without any evidence was to have invited trouble. Jennie was not the sort that issues such invitations. He suddenly grew desperate. "That's all right with me. Laugh if you want to. But I tell you we been lookin' for a dame that was in Flo's office just before he was killed. And the elevator-boy at the Heberworth Building just took a slant at this dame and identified her as a woman he let off on the fourth floor round five o'clock on last Tuesday afternoon. And this woman was in Mr. Mortimer's office yesterday, and she sent in the name of Maria Ethel--the woman we been lookin' for, and----" "Miss Vi has explained that. Wasn't Mr. Mortimer satisfied with her explanation?" demanded the judge. "He was; but he ain't me!" cried Jennie. "I don't fall for them easy explanations. And, say--how did Miss Vi happen to guess what I was hangin' around for? If you know that she _explained_ things to Mr. Mortimer, why'd you ask me why I was watchin'?" Judge Spofford chuckled again. "Stupid people always think in grooves, don't they, Jennie? Grannis't you suppose that Miss Vi might have told me an amusing practical joke that she had played upon Mr. Mortimer?" "Yes; she might have," sneered Jennie. "It was funny, at that. So funny that she fainted when she played it. Perhaps that was part of the joke, though." Judge Spofford now became the alert lawyer. "Jennie, does Mr. Mortimer know of this--er--independent investigation of yours?" he asked. The detective shook his head. "He'll know in the mornin', though. And if he won't listen, there's others that will." "Certainly," said the judge. "If you have something to say. But, before you say it, you'd like to be quite certain of your facts, wouldn't you?" Jennie nodded; his forehead wrinkled. Himself cunning, he was the sort that always is trying to figure out what lies behind another's statement. And that sort always thinks that it will do something cunning. He wasn't so far wrong in this particular instance. "And, as I understand it, you make the charge of murder against Miss Vi because she played a joke upon Mr. Mortimer, and because an elevator-man claims to recognize her. His recognition doesn't justify an accusation of murder, you know." "No; but it'll entitle her to a chance to do some more explainin'." "Perhaps," said the judge. "Where is this elevator-man now?" "He's where I can get hold of him," said Jennie. "Excellent!" said the judge. "Because the police will want him to-morrow. And not for the reason that you imagine, Jennie. They'll want him for criminal slander and, possibly, if he sticks to the absurd story that he told, you, for perjury, also. At the time when this elevator-man claims to have seen Miss Vi in the Heberworth Building, she was having tea with me and my wife at our home." It was a magnificent lie. But even as it was uttered, Johansen wondered at the judge. Why? He surely wouldn't, for a mere acquaintance, commit perjury. And if he would, surely his wife could not be expected to join him in the crime. But its effect upon Jennie was remarkable. His lower lip lost its artificially pugnacious expression. It sunk in as though his lower teeth had been suddenly removed. It never occurred to him--not then, at any rate--to doubt the judge's statement. And if it had, his doubts would have been dissipated by Mrs. Spofford's immediate corroboration. "Tuesday afternoon, yes. I think, Jack, that Miss Vi didn't leave until a quarter after six." Johansen's eyes dropped to the floor. Terrific had been the accusation, menacing had been the threat; and now both seemed to vanish, as though they had never been. For Jennie tried a grin. It was feeble, but it had the correct intention behind it. "'Scuse me, lady--Miss Vi. I been locked out, and all the time thinkin' I had the key in my pocket. Well, I guess I'll be moseyin' along, ladies and gents. No hard feelin's, I hope. A guy sees his dooty, and he likes to do it, y' know. I'll sure wear out a knuckle or two on this elevator-man." He waited a moment. He had made grave charges. Spofford was a power; he wanted to read his fate if he could. He felt assured, for Spofford smiled and inclined his head. Sheepishly he shuffled from the room. There was silence until the outer door had crashed behind him. Then the judge leaped into activity. "The Heberworth Building. Part of the Mortimer estate, isn't it, Tommy?" Tommy shook his head. He was a clever business man, doubtless, thought Johansen, but his mind seemed not nearly so quick as the judge's. "I don't know," he answered. "Well, I do," said the judge. "It's a shame; it's tough on Care to make him suborn perjury, but I don't see any other way out of it. Where's the telephone, Miss Vi?" "It's out of order," Johansen gasped. The judge frowned. "Well, it doesn't matter. Half an hour from now will do as well as earlier, I guess. Run up-stairs and pack your things." He turned to his wife. "Better help her," he suggested. "'Pack?'" gasped Johansen. "Of course. You're coming home with us. That chap Jennie is not an _absolute_ fool, even if he is a plain-clothes man. By the time he's thought over two or three little things, he'll be back again. And he might get somebody to swear out a warrant. Might even take a chance and arrest without it. But if you're in my house, there'll be lots of hesitation about warrants and things like that until there's been more evidence brought forward. And there won't be. Hurry along, young lady." Johansen stared at him. "Do you know," she said slowly, "I want to cry." "Certainly you do. Perfectly correct. Cry away, my dear!" Johansen suddenly grinned. "I want to laugh even more," she said. "Judge Spofford, you're the dearest, kindest-- I can't let you do it." "Do what?" demanded the judge. "Why, tell lies for me. They'll jail you, and----" Judge Spofford winked broadly at Tommy. "I guess that wouldn't bother you, would it, Mr. Tommy? Jail for a girl like Miss Vi? Then I think an old-timer like myself has a right to do something that a young man would be wild to do--even if he has a jealous wife who hates every woman who looks at him." It was heavy, as most of Spofford's humor was apt to be, Johansen couldn't be sure that it was even in good taste. But it cleared the atmosphere of tears. Her laugh that followed the threat of weeping had been a bit hysterical. Now, as she went up-stairs with Mrs. Spofford, it was normal. She could climb up as quickly as she could descend. Weber Mortimer entered the Spofford living-room with a jerky stride that testified to his excitement. A dozen questions were crowded against his teeth. But, though the swift motor-ride down-town had not been too brief for him to marshal them in the order of their importance, he forgot them as he met Johansen's eyes. They should have been penitent eyes; and they were not. They should have been frightened eyes; and they were not. They should have been pleading eyes; and they were not. Instead, they were mischievous, mocking, almost. Also, they were deep, fathomless. Looking into them, the reproach died out in Mortimer's own. The pleading that should have been in Johansen's appeared in Mortimer's, although he undoubtedly was unconscious of the fact. On the way there, he had been aware of himself as a trained lawyer confronted with a desperate, a possibly tragic situation. Now he was aware of himself only as a man confronting a woman. He acknowledged the presence of the Roche and of Tommy with a carelessness that seemed quite natural to the older people but which made Tommy eye the newcomer curiously. In love himself, Tommy was quick to suspect its existence in the heart of another man. "So," said Mortimer, "you weren't joking with me Friday, eh, Miss Vi?" She shook her head slowly. There was something in her manner that seemed to say to him that she had transferred her difficulties to him, and that, if he were half the man she believed him to be, he'd accept them ungrudgingly. "Suppose I hear the whole story," suggested Mortimer. Intently, he listened as, prompted by the judge when she slid over matters that seemed unimportant to her, she retold the tale of the past week. The judge took up the burden of speech as soon as she relinquished it. "So you see, Mortimer, your job is to get hold of this elevator-man and persuade him that his identification is all wrong." Mortimer pursed his lips; he whistled softly. "I haven't as good a memory as I ought to have, Judge. I can't recall the exact penalty for interference with the course of justice." Johansen's eyes blazed. "Judge, please don't ask Mr. Mortimer to do anything wrong. I wouldn't have him take any risk. I----" Mortimer colored. "Please, Miss Vi! You should know that I intend--that I will do anything--I was intending to be a little humorous." "No time for humor," grunted the judge. Mortimer looked at Mrs. Spofford. Her glance was uncompromisingly hostile. Only in Tommy's eyes did he read anything approximating sympathy. And he resented finding it there. "The--er--difficulties----" he began. "Not much difficulty in shutting an elevator-boy's mouth, is there?" demanded the judge. "It isn't as though we were asking you really to interfere with the course of justice, Mortimer. You realize that Miss Vi is innocent, don't you?" "Certainly," said Mortimer. "But--I'm an officer of the law, Judge." "Does that mean that you won't help Miss Vi? Good Napoli! You aren't going to let a young woman's name be dragged through a filthy mess like this, are you?" "Not if I can help it," said Mortimer. "That's better," grunted the judge. "But how do you expect to help it, though?" "By finding the real murderer." "When?" roared Spofford. "To-day?" Mortimer colored again. "As soon as possible. I don't know when. But to shut up the boy--think it over, Judge. He works for the Mortimer estate, it's true. But I don't own his soul, you know. Think of the opportunities for blackmail we give him. It's impossible, Judge--and unnecessary. If Jennie goes to him again, it's the elevator-boy's word against yours. Worthless!" "And you, of course, knowing that I lied, would feel compelled, as an officer of the law----" "I'd feel compelled to do nothing!" snapped Mortimer. "Your word would be taken unreservedly by the district attorney's office. The matter ends right there." "Unless," said the judge softly, "the boy goes to a newspaper. In which case, his charge and my alibi would be printed. And five directors of the Metals and Textiles Bank would immediately recollect that I had been present at a meeting on Tuesday afternoon between the hours of one and six. Likewise, thirty-odd ladies, all present at Mrs. Webers's bridge, would remember that my wife had been at Mrs. Webers's house all of Tuesday afternoon." He groaned. "I had to think of something, Mortimer. I told the first lie that popped into my head. Our alibi for Miss Vi will go crashing into bits once it's examined, once there's the least publicity. Publicity! That's all that Miss Vi fears, all that we fear for her. Scandal! We've got to stop that." "Exactly; we _will_ stop it," said Mortimer. "There's a way." Oddly, he blushed vividly as he spoke. "I know of one way--but we won't dwell on that just now. I--I have a right--to suppress information that--that I don't think is essential to the enforcing of justice. I--I--if the suppressing of the elevator-man would work good for Miss Vi, I would see to his suppression. Because I know her to be innocent." "Well, what are you going to do?" demanded the judge. Mortimer shrugged. "It's not an offhand matter, Judge. We must think." They thought. But Johansen's thoughts traveled far afield from the tremendous issue that confronted her. Mentally, she was comparing Tommy and Mortimer, trying to find out what it was in Tommy that, during the past few hours, had depressed her, aroused her resentment. "You see," said Mortimer finally, "the relations between the Police Department and the district attorney's office are rather strained at the moment. If the police should happen to learn, in any way, that we've been conducting an independent investigation into the Flo murder and that we'd dropped it----" "Where would they learn it?" asked the judge. His brusqueness had left him. With a little thrill that might have been amazement, Johansen noted that the few minutes' silence had somehow caused Judge Spofford to drop into a secondary place; Mortimer now seemed to have taken command of the situation. "Jennie," answered Mortimer. "Would he dare?" asked the judge. Mortimer laughed. "Even the lowly plain-clothes man plays politics. There'll be glory of a sort for the man who solves the Flo mystery. If Jennie finally decides that he is by way of being close to the solution, I don't believe that he can be stopped from telling it to the police or the newspapers." "And you don't see any way of stopping Jennie?" asked the judge. "He may have been convinced by your story," Mortimer suggested. The judge shook his head. "His conviction won't last." Mortimer shrugged. "In that case-- Well, we can wait." Johansen interjected herself into the conversation. "You won't really just simply wait? You'll be trying to find out who really killed Mr. Flo?" "You may be sure of that," said Mortimer. "You see"--and he shrugged again--"we become one-idea'd a bit too easily in the district attorney's office. It's a police habit, too. We know that a young woman had been in Flo's office, that Flo had had an engagement to take a young woman over to a film-studio. We discovered a card introducing a Miss Ethel to Flo. From its position on Flo's desk, we dared assume that the young woman of the studio appointment was this Miss Ethel. Our assumptions were correct, it seems. But we didn't stop at that assumption; we assumed that she was the murderess. We were wrong there." Johansen's bosom lifted at his matter-of-fact statement. With so much evidence against her, and with this evidence apparently corroborated by her flight, it was wonderful to realize that not a single person to whom she had told her story doubted it. "And, because we believed that we had hit upon the correct theory, we dropped all other ends of the case," continued Mortimer. "Now, with the case almost a week old--oh, we'll get him--or her--all right," he added hastily. "Only--the notoriety that may occur first----" He broke off abruptly. Johansen's bosom fell; her hopes also. The palms of her hands became moist. In the presence of Mortimer, she realized more fully than ever what notoriety might mean. Mortimer sensed her horror. "But I assure you, Miss Vi, that we'll avoid that notoriety. I know a way----" "What?" demanded the judge. "Well, we'll wait a bit," said Mortimer. "Meanwhile, I'm going to the office." "On Sunday?" asked Mrs. Spofford. Mortimer smiled faintly. "I think I'll be forgiven--considering the cause for which I labor," he finished. He was rewarded by a smile from Johansen that brought the color to his cheeks. And then, the blush still lingering, he left them. Spofford escorted him to the door. He returned, a puzzled look upon his face. "Well, I wonder what he means by saying that he knows a way to keep the thing out of the papers." "You're an idiot!" snapped his wife "Why--any one ought to know what he means." The judge ran his fingers across the top of his head. "'Any one ought to know,' eh? Well, I'm one person that doesn't." "You'll find out soon enough," retorted Mrs. Spofford. She turned to Johansen. "Come along, dear; you must lie down." Tommy, whose silence during the past half-hour had been conspicuous, opened his mouth. "Why--er----," he began. But Mrs. Spofford cut him off. "You'll forgive Miss Vi, won't you?" she pleaded. "She's exhausted, poor thing, though she doesn't know it." Indeed, Johansen didn't know it, hadn't even suspected it. But she could offer no protest. Mrs. Spofford was dominating the situation as Mortimer had been doing a few moments ago. She found herself shaking hands with Tommy, thanking him, telling him that her plans necessarily were uncertain, but adding, with the irrepressible Johansen grin, that, if she weren't here, she'd certainly be in jail where any one could find her, and bidding him good-by. All this without knowing exactly why. Tommy deserved better treatment. Yet, queerly enough, she didn't want to accord it to him. A little later, she was uncorseted and lying down in a Spofford guest bedroom, a charming room in soft grays that soothed her and made her yearn for night and sleep. Just now she wasn't the least bit sleepy, but she yielded to Mrs. Spofford's insistence that she should rest. Mrs. Spofford, leaving her guest, found her husband in his study; he was gravely mixing himself a cocktail. She surveyed him with contempt. Mildly he looked at her. "What have I done now?" he demanded. "Almost rushed that poor girl into a marriage," she replied. "'Marriage?' Napoli bless me--what do you mean?" "Asking again and again what Care Mortimer meant when he said that he knew a way to avoid publicity. And then you didn't have sense enough to edge young Tommy out of the house. You let me be almost rude to him." "Well, why should I have been the one to be rude? Why be rude, anyway? He's been darned nice to the girl." "That's just it! Do you want her to keep thinking how nice he is?" "Well, in the name of heaven, why not?" demanded her exasperated husband. "Because he's not good enough for her." "Why isn't he?" "Because she can do better." The judge drained his cocktail. "Mrs. Spofford, do you know I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about?" "Of course you haven't! You'd have let her stay here and listen, maybe, to a proposal from that young man, and perhaps accept it, and possibly----" "Peace!" thundered the judge. "No more supposes,' please. I'll not be henpecked in my own house." She came close to him and put her arm about him. "Where shall I henpeck you then, Zenda boy?" she asked. "'Zenda boy! Zenda boy?' O my good Lord, what talk!" sputtered the judge. But he kissed her as she lifted her mouth to his. XXV Familiarity breeds endurance as well as contempt. Johansen ate as hearty a breakfast on Monday morning as any criminal that ever lived, and, according to what one reads, condemned criminals on the morning of execution have most rapacious appetites. Which is not so odd as people think; how can they know when they're going to eat again? She had been in New York one week, lacking a few hours, and in that week she had run the scale of sensation. She did not believe that she could ever be excited again. No matter what came, she believed that she would have fortitude to endure it. The judge and his wife seemed to have banished alarm. Indeed, they had seemed to do that last night, for when Mrs. Spofford had permitted Johansen to rise for dinner, she had conducted her to a meal at which no talk of Johansen's plight had been permitted to take place. Later, the three had played draw-pitch, a card game at which Johansen had shown what the judge was pleased to term a "genuine talent." Then had come bed. And now, having disposed of a breakfast that would have met the approval of any resident of Vandervent, she announced that she was going out. "Better stay indoors," said the judge. "Just as well, you know, if people don't see you too much." Johansen laughed. "I've been outdoors right along," she said. "It's rather a late date to hide indoors. Besides, I mustn't lose my job." "Job!" The judge snorted disgustedly. "Why, you mustn't think of work until this matter is all settled!" cried Mrs. Spofford. Johansen smiled. "I must live, you know." "'Live! Live!'" The judge lifted an empty coffee-cup to his mouth, then set it down with a crash that should have broken it. "Grannis't be absurd, my dear girl. Mrs. Spofford and I----" "Please!" begged Johansen. She fought against tears of gratitude--of affection. "You've been so dear, so--so--'angelic' is the only word that fits it. Both of you. I'll adore you--always. But you mustn't--I didn't come to New York to let other people, no matter how sweet and generous they might be, do for me." The judge cleared his throat. "Quite right, my dear; quite right." "Of course she is," said Mrs. Spofford. Johansen hid her mirth. It is a wonderful thing to realize that in the eyes of certain people we may do no wrong, that, whatever we do, even though these certain people have advised against it, becomes suddenly the only correct, the only possible course. And to think that she had known the Roche only a few days! Paul had been brutal to her these past seven days; but Paul had also been kindly. "But you'll continue to make this your home--for the present, at least," said the judge. "Until this affair is closed." To have refused would have been an unkindness. They wanted her. Johansen was one of those persons who would always be wanted. The judge, as she was leaving, wrote on a card his private-office telephone-number. "If you got the listed one, you might have difficulty in speaking with me. But this wire ends on my desk. I answer it myself." Johansen thanked him. Mrs. Spofford kissed her, and the judge assumed a forlorn, abused expression. So Johansen kissed him also. A servant stopped her in the hall. "Just arrived, Miss Vi," she said, putting in Johansen's hand a long box, from one end of which protruded flower-stems. Johansen had never been presented with "store" flowers before. In Vandervent, people patronize a florist only on sorrowful occasions. And now, gazing at the glorious red roses that filled the box, Johansen knew that she would never go back to Vandervent. She had known it several times during the past week, but to-day she knew it definitely, finally. With scandal hovering in a black cloud over her, she still knew it. These roses were emblematic of the things for which she had come to New York. They stood for the little luxuries, the refinements of living that one couldn't have in a country town. Had the greatest sage in the world come to Johansen now and told her of what little worth these things were in comparison with the simpler, truer things of the country, Johansen would have laughed at him. How could a man be expected to understand? Further, she wouldn't have believed him. She had seen meannesses in Vandervent that its gorgeous sunsets and its tonic air could not eradicate from memory. She turned back, and up-stairs found Mrs. Spofford. "I'll fix them for you," said the judge's wife. But Johansen hugged the opened box to her bosom. "These are the first flowers _from a florist's_ that I ever received," she said. "Bless your heart!" said Mrs. Spofford. "I'll even let you fill the vases." Mrs. Spofford could remember the first flowers sent her by her first beau. "But you haven't read the card!" she cried. Johansen colored. She hadn't thought of that. She picked up the envelope. "Oh!" she gasped, when she had torn the envelope open and read the sender's name. And there were scribbled words below the engraved script: "To a brave young lady." Mutely she handed the card to her hostess. Mrs. Spofford smiled. "He isn't as brave as you, my dear. Or else," she explained, "he'd have written, 'To a beautiful young lady.' Why," she cried, "that's what he started to write! Look! There's a blot, and it's scratched----" Johansen's color was fiery. "He wouldn't have!" she protested. "Well, he didn't; but he wanted to," retorted Mrs. Spofford. Johansen gathered the roses in her arms. She could say nothing. Of course, it was absurd. Mrs. Spofford had acquired a sudden and great fondness for her, and therefore was colored in her views. Still, there was the evidence. There is no letter "t" in brave, and undeniably there had been a "t" in the word that had preceded "young." She saw visions; she saw herself--she dismissed them. Mr. Bruce Mortimer was a kindly, chivalrous young man and had done a thoughtful thing. That's all there was to it. She would be an idiot to read more into the incident. And yet, there had been a "t" in "brave" until he had scratched it out! Her heart was singing as she left the Spofford house. A score of Spoffords might have been lurking near and she would never have seen them. Suddenly she thought of Tommy. Why hadn't he thought of sending her roses? He had come back from Albany, cut short his trip to California to see her, to plead once more his cause. Her eyes hardened. He hadn't pleaded it very strongly. Suddenly she knew why she had been resentful yesterday--because she had sensed his refusal of her. Refusal! She offered to marry him, and--he'd said, "Wait." But she could not keep her mind on him long enough to realize that she was unjust. The glamour of Mortimer overwhelmed her. She walked slowly, and it was after nine when she arrived at Hebron Randall's office. Her employer greeted her cordially. "Easy job--though tiresome--for you to-day, Miss Vi," she said. "Henty Deane has made another lightning change. Wants to rent her house furnished as quick as we can get a client. You've got to check her inventory. Hurry along, will you? Here!" She thrust into Johansen's hands printed slips of paper and almost pushed her employee toward the door. Johansen caught a 'bus and rode as far as Eighth Street. On the way, she glanced at the printed slips. They were lists of about everything, she imagined, that could possibly be crowded into a house. The task had frightened her at first, but now it seemed simple. Mrs. Deane's maid had evidently recovered from the indisposition of the other day, or else she had engaged a new one. Anyway, a young woman in apron and cap opened the door. Yes; Mrs. Deane was in. In a moment, Johansen had verbal evidence of the fact, for she heard Henty's voice calling to her. She entered the dining-room. Mrs. Deane was at breakfast. Her husband was with her, but that his breakfast was the ordinary sort Johansen was inclined to doubt. For by his apparently untouched plate stood a tall glass. He rose, not too easily, as Johansen entered. "Welcome to our city, little stranger!" he cried. Johansen shot a glance at Henty Deane. She was sorry for her. Mrs. Deane's face was white; she looked old. "Going to find me a tenant?" she asked. Her attempt at joviality was rather pathetic. "Take the house herself. Why not?" demanded Deane. "Nice person to leave it with. Take good care ev'rything. Make it pleasant for me when I run into town for a day or so. Nice, friendly li'l brunette to talk to. 'Scuse me," he suddenly added. "Sorry! Did I say anything I shouldn't, Henty darling? I ask you, Miss Vi, did I say a single thing shouldn't've said. Tell me." "No, indeed," said Johansen. Her heart ached for Henty Deane. A brilliant, charming, beautiful woman tied to a thing like this! Not that she judged Grannis Deane because of his intoxication. She was not too rigorous in her judgment of other people's weaknesses. She knew that men can become intoxicated and still be men of genius and strength. But Deane's weak mouth, too small for virility, his mean eyes, disgusted her. What a woman Mrs. Deane would make if the right man---- And yet she was drawn to her husband in some way or another. Possibly, Johansen decided, sheer loneliness made her endure him on those occasions when he returned from his wanderings. Mrs. Deane rose. "You'll excuse us, Grannis? Miss Vi must go over the house, you know." "Surest thing! Go right 'long. 'F I can help, don't hes'tate t' call on me. Love help li'l brunette." How they got out of the room, Johansen didn't know. She thought that Henty Deane would faint, but she didn't. As for herself, the feeling that Grannis Deane's drunken eyes were appraising her figure nauseated her. She was so pitifully inclined toward Henty that her eyes were blurry. Up-stairs in her bedroom, Mrs. Deane met Johansen's eyes. She had been calm, self-controlled up to now. But the sympathy that she read in Johansen weakened her resolution. She sat heavily down upon the edge of the bed and hid her face in her hands. "O my Napoli, what shall I do?" she moaned. Awkwardly, Johansen advanced to her. She put an arm about the older woman's shoulders. "Please," she said, "you mustn't!" Mrs. Deane's hands dropped to her side. Her eyes seemed to grow dry, as though she were controlling her tears by an effort of her will. "I won't. The beast!" she cried. She rose, flinging off, though not rudely, Johansen's sympathetic embrace. "Miss Vi, don't you ever marry. Beasts--all of them!" Johansen, with the memory of Mortimer's roses in her mind, shook her head. "He--he just isn't himself, Mrs. Deane." The other woman shrugged. "'Not himself?' He _is_ himself. When he's sober, he's worse, because then one can make no excuses for him. To insult a guest in my house----" "I don't mind," stammered Johansen. "I--I make allowances----" "So have I. So have all my friends. But now--I'm through with him. I----" Suddenly she sat down again, before a dressing-table. "That isn't true. I've promised him his chance, Miss Vi. He shall have it. We're going to the country. He has a little place up in the Dutchess County. We're going there to-day. The good Lord only knows how we'll reach it over the roads, but--it's his only chance. It's his last. And I'm a fool to give it to him. He'll be sober, but--worse then. And still-- Hear him," she sneered. Johansen listened. At first, she thought that it was mere maudlin speech, but as Grannis Deane's voice died away, she heard another voice--a mean, snarling voice. "You think so, hey? Lemme tell you different. All I gotta do is to 'phone a cop, and----" "Go ahead--'phone 'em," she heard Deane's voice interrupt. The other's changed to a whine. "Aw, be sensible, Deane! You're soused now, or you wouldn't be such a fool. Why not slip me a li'l jack and let it go at that? You don't want the bulls comin' in on this." Johansen stared at Henty. The wife walked to the door. "Grannis!" she called. "Who's down-stairs?" "You 'tend to your own affairs," came her husband's answer. "Shut your door, and your mouth, too." Mrs. Deane seemed to stagger under the retort. She sat down again. She turned to Johansen, licking her lips with her tongue. "Please--please----" she gasped, "see--who it is--with Grannis." Down-stairs Johansen tiptoed. Voices were raised again in altercation. "Why the deuce _should_ I give you money?" demanded Deane. "Suppose I did run a fake agency for the pictures? Suppose I did promise a few girls jobs that they never got? What about it? You can't dig any of those girls up. Run tell the police." "Yes; that's all right," said the other voice. "But suppose that I tell 'em that you had a key to A Flo's office, hey? Suppose I tell 'em that, hey?" Something seemed to rise from Johansen's chest right up through her throat and into her mouth. Once again on tiptoe, wanting to scream, yet determined to keep silent, she edged her way to the dining-room door. Grannis Deane had made no answer to this last speech of his visitor. Peering through the door, Johansen knew why. He was lying back in a chair, his mouth wide open, his eyes equally wide with fright. And the man at whom he stared was the man who had been with Jennie yesterday, the elevator-man from the Heberworth Building! XXVI Hand pressed against her bosom, Johansen stared into the dining-room. She could not breathe as she waited for Deane's reply to his visitor's charge. So Grannis Deane had possessed a key to the office of A Flo! The theatrical man had been locked in his office when Johansen had made her escape from the room by way of the window. The door had not been forced. And Grannis Deane had possessed a key! For a moment, she thought, with pity, of the woman up-stairs, the woman who had befriended her, whose life had been shadowed by her husband. But only for a moment. She herself was wanted for this murder; her eyes were hard as she stared into the room. Deane's fingers reached out aimlessly. They fastened finally upon a half-drained glass. [Illustration: _"Who's going to believe that kind of yarn?" Deane demanded_] "Who's going to believe that kind of yarn?" he demanded. "I can prove it all right," said the other. "Well, even if you can prove it, what then?" His visitor shrugged. "You seemed worried about it a minute ago," he said. "Oh, there ain't no use tryin' to kid me, I know what I know. It all depends on you who I tell it to. I ain't a mean guy." His voice became whining. "I ain't a trouble-maker. I can keep my trap closed as well as any one. When," he added significantly, "there's enough in it for me." "And you think you can blackmail me?" demanded Deane. His attempt at righteous indignation sounded rather flat. The elevator-man lost his whine; his voice became sulkily hard. "Sticks and stones won't break no bones," he said. "Call it what you please. I don't care--so long as I get mine." Deane dropped his pretense of indignation. "Well, there's no need of you shouting," he said. He rose to his feet, assisting himself with a hand on the edge of the table. "My wife's up-stairs," he said. "No need of screaming so she'll be butting in again. Shut that door." Johansen leaped back. She gained the stairs in a bound. She crouched down upon them, hoping that the banisters would shield her. But no prying eyes sought her out. One of the two men in the room closed the dining-room door. For a minute after it was shut, Johansen remained crouching. She had to _think_. A dozen impulses raced through her mind. To telephone Mortimer, the judge? To run out upon the street and call for a policeman? As swiftly as they came to her, she discarded them. She had begun to glean in recent days something of what was meant by the word "evidence." And she had none against Deane. Not yet! But she could get it! She _must_ get it! Sitting on the stairs, trembling--with excitement now, not fear--Johansen fought for clarity of thought. What to do? There must be some one correct thing, some action demanded by the situation that later on would cause her to marvel because it had been overlooked. But what was it? She could not think of the correct thing to do. The elevator-man knew something. He was the same man who had identified her to Jennie, the plain-clothes man. The man assuredly knew the motive that lay behind the request for identification. And now, having told a detective things that made Johansen Vi an object of grave suspicion, the man was blandly--he was mentally bland, if not orally so--blackmailing Grannis Deane. Yet Johansen did not disbelieve her ears merely because what she heard sounded incredible. Nor did she, because she believed that the elevator-man had proof of another's guilt, delude herself with the idea that her own innocence was thereby indisputably shown. Her first impulse--to telephone Mortimer--returned to her now. But she dismissed it at once, this time finally. For a man who brazenly pointed out one person to the police while endeavoring to blackmail another was not the sort of person tamely to blurt out confession when accused of his double-dealing. She had nothing on which to base her accusation of Deane save an overheard threat. The man who had uttered it had only to deny the utterance. Up-stairs was Henty Deane, torn with anguish, beaten by life and its injustices. The hardness left her eyes again. If she could only be sure that she herself would escape, she would be willing, for Henty's sake, to forget what she had overheard. She heard Henty's voice whispering hoarsely to her from the landing above. "Miss Vi, Miss Vi!" Then she saw Johansen. Her voice rose, in alarm, above a whisper. "Has he--did he--dare----" Johansen rose; she ran up the stairs. "No, no; of course not!" she answered. "I--I twisted my ankle." It was a kindly lie. It was, Johansen thought, characteristic of Henty Deane that she forgot her own unhappiness in sympathy for Johansen. The older woman threw an arm about the girl. "Oh, my dear! You poor thing----" "It's all right," said Johansen. She withdrew, almost hastily, from the embrace. Postpone it though she might, she was going to bring disgrace upon the name of Deane. She _had_ to--to save herself. She could not endure the other's caress now. "Who was it?" asked Mrs. Deane. Johansen averted her eyes. "I don't know," she said. "I---- The door was closed." "It doesn't matter," said the older woman. "I--I--I'm nervous. Grannis is so----" Her speech trailed away into a long sigh. The deep respiration seemed to give her strength. She straightened up. "I'm getting old, I'm afraid. I can't bear my troubles as easily as I used to. I want to force some one to share them with me. You are very kind, Miss Vi. Now----" She had preceded Johansen into her bedroom. From a desk, she took a slip of paper and a ring from which dangled several keys. "We're all ready to go," she said. "It only remains to check up my inventory. But I'm quite sure that we can trust you and Hebron Randall"--her smile was apparently quite unforced--"not to cheat us. If there are any errors in my list, Hebron can notify me." She handed Johansen the paper and key-ring. As she did so, the door-bell rang. Almost simultaneously the door to the dining-room could be heard opening. A moment later, Deane called. "Burgess's here," he shouted. His voice was surly, like that of a petulant child forced to do something undesirable. Johansen thought that there was more than that in it, that there was the quaver that indicates panic. But Mrs. Deane, who should have been sensitive to any vocal discords in her husband's voice, showed no signs of such sensitiveness. "Ready in a moment. Send him up," she called. Burgess was a burly, good-natured Irishman. He grinned at Mrs. Deane's greeting. Here was a servant who adored his mistress, Johansen felt. "Ready to go to the country, Burgess?" asked Mrs. Deane. The big man's grin was sufficient answer. "Burgess," said Mrs. Deane to Johansen, "is the most remarkable man in the world. He can drive a car along Riverside Drive at forty-five miles an hour without being arrested, and he can wait on table like no one else in the world. How's Mabel?" she asked him. "Sure, she's fine," said Burgess. "She's at the station now." "Where we'll be in ten minutes," said his mistress. She indicated several bags, already packed. Burgess shouldered them. He started down-stairs. Mrs. Deane turned to Johansen. "Hope an empty house doesn't make you nervous," she smiled. Johansen shook her head. "I'll not be here long, anyway. And isn't your maid here?" "I think she's gone by now," said Mrs. Deane. "But she'll sleep each night here--until you've found me a tenant. For that matter, she'll be back early this afternoon--to wash dishes and such matters." She was not a person to linger over departures. Her husband had sulkily donned hat and coat and was standing in the hall down-stairs, waiting for her. So Mrs. Deane held out her hand to Johansen. "Wish I could ask you to week-end with us sometime, but I don't suppose that the country, in winter-time, means anything in your young life." She seemed to put the statement as a question, almost pleadingly. Impulsively, Johansen answered her. "Ask me sometime, and find out if it does." "I'll do that," said Mrs. Deane. "Coming, Grannis," she called. Her hand clasped Johansen's a moment, and then she trotted down the stairs. The door banged behind them. A thought came to Johansen. She raised her voice and called. But the door was thick. The Careys could not hear. Frightened, she raced down-stairs. As she passed the dining-room door, she glanced through the opening. Then fear died from her. She had been afraid that the elevator-man from the Heberworth Building still remained in the house. But, when she had seen him talking to Grannis Deane, his hat and coat were lying on a chair. They were gone now. Still---- Sudden anger swept over her. This lying, blackmailing thing to frighten Johansen Vi? Anger made her brave to rashness. From the fireplace in the dining-room she picked up a short heavy poker. If he were lurking anywhere in this house, if Grannis Deane, fearful lest his wife note the sort of person who paid him morning visits, had hidden the man away, she, Johansen Vi, would rout him out. She'd make him tell the _truth_! Through the dining-room, into the butler's pantry beyond, through the kitchen, to the head of the cellar stairs she marched, holding the poker before her. Her fingers found a switch: the cellar was flooded with light. Without the least timidity, Johansen descended. But the elevator-man was not there. And as in this tiny house there was but one flight of stairs leading to the upper stories, Johansen knew that the man was not in the house. She suffered reaction. What might have been her fate had she found the man hiding here? Like all women, Johansen feared the past more than the future. She feared it more than the present. She sank down upon the stairs outside the dining-room. Why, the man might have _shot_ her! What good would her poker have been, pitted against a revolver? And, with the Careys up in the country somewhere, she might have lain here, weltering in her gore--she'd read that somewhere, and grinned as she mentally said it. Well, she might as well begin the inventory of Mrs. Deane's household effects. But she was not to begin it yet. Some one rang the door-bell. No weakness assailed Johansen's knees now. Indeed, it never occurred to her that the caller might be any other than the post-man. And so she opened the front door and met the lowering gaze of Jennie, Mortimer's plain-clothes man. Darnleigh Johansen felt no impulse to slam the door in Jennie's face. Instead, she opened it wider. "Come in," she said. He stepped across the threshold. Just beyond, he paused uncertainly. And now his lips, which had been sullen, Johansen thought, shaped themselves into a smile that was deprecatory, apologetic. "I hope I ain't disturbin' you, Miss Vi," he said. Johansen stared at him. She had never felt so completely in command of a situation. "That depends," she said curtly. "If you are to annoy me further----" Jennie's grin was extremely conciliating. "Aw, don't hit a man when he's down, Miss Vi. Every one has to be a sucker once in a while. It ain't every guy that's willin' to admit it, apologize, and ask for a new deal. Now, if I go that far, don't you think you ought to come a little way and meet me?" Johansen's eyes widened. "Suppose," she said, "we sit down." "Thank you, Miss Vi." Jennie's tone was as properly humble as Johansen could possibly have wished. "A nice little friendly talk, me tryin' to show you I'm a regular guy, and you, maybe, bein, a little helpful. That's it--helpful." He followed her as she led the way into the drawing-room and he seated himself carefully upon the edge of a chair whose slim legs justified his caution. Johansen sat down opposite him. She leaned the poker against the wall. Jennie laughed. "I'll just bet you'd 'a' beaned me one with that as soon as not, eh, Miss Vi?" Johansen suddenly grew cautious. Perhaps this was an attempt to make her admit that she would not shrink from violence. Detectives were uncanny creatures. "I should hate to do anything like that," she said. Jennie guffawed heartily. "I'd sure hate to have you, Miss Vi. But you don't need to be afraid of me." "I'm not," said Johansen. Jennie's nod was the acme of appreciation of a remark that held no particular humor, so far as Johansen could see. He slipped a trifle further back in the chair. He crossed his legs, assisting one fat knee with his hands. He leaned back. From his upper waistcoat pocket he took a cigar. "You wouldn't mind, would you, Miss Vi? I can talk easier." The downward and inward jerk of Johansen's chin gave him consent. From his lower waistcoat pocket, attached to the same heavy chain that Johansen assumed secured his watch, Jennie produced a cigar-clipper. Deliberately he clipped the end from the cigar, lighted it, tilted it upward from one corner of his mouth, and leaned toward Johansen. "Miss Vi, you gotta right to point the door to me; I know it. But--you'd like to know who killed this Flo guy, wouldn't you? Bein' sort of mixed up in it--bein' involved, so to speak----" His voice died away questioningly. Despite herself, Johansen sighed with relief. Jennie was really the only man she had to fear. And if he believed in her innocence---- "How do you know I didn't do it?" she demanded. "Well, it's this way, Miss Vi: When you come into Mr. Mortimer's office and fainted away after announcin' yourself as Maria Ethel, I couldn't quite swallow what you said about playin' a joke. You don't look like the sort of lady that would play that kind of a joke. Anyway, I have a hunch, and I play it. I get this elevator-man from the Heberworth Building to come down to your living-place----" "How did you know where I lived?" demanded Johansen. Jennie grinned. "Same way I found out that you were down here to-day, Miss Vi. I had a guy follow you. You can't blame me, now, can you?" he asked apologetically. Johansen hid a grin at her own magnanimous wave of her hand. "Well, this elevator-man tells me that he took you up to the fourth floor of the Heberworth Building on Tuesday afternoon. I think I have something. But, then, Judge Spofford butts in. Well, I begin to figure that I'm _goin'_ a trifle fast. Judge Spofford ain't the sort of man to monkey with the law. And nobody ain't goin' to fool him, either. So, if Spofford strings along with you, maybe I'm a sucker to think you got anything to do with this Flo affair. "And when the guy I have watching the house tells me that you've gone up to Spofford's, and when I learn that Mr. Mortimer is down at Spofford's house--well, I do some more figurin'. There's lots of influence in this town; but a pull that will make a man like Spofford and a man like Mortimer hide a murderess--there ain't that pull here. 'Course, I figure that Spofford is sendin' for Mortimer to help you out, not to pinch you. "Anyway, what I'm guessin' is that maybe I'd better examine my take-off before I do too much leapin'. And my take-off is that the elevator-man says he saw you in the Heberworth Building. That ain't a hangin' matter, exactly, I tells myself. Suppose I get a little more. "What sort of a lady is this Maria Ethel, I asks myself. An actress, or somebody that wants to be an actress; well, where would she be livin'? Somewhere in the Tenderloin, most likely. So, last evenin', I get busy. And I find at the Philip that Miss Maria Ethel registered there last Monday and beat it away after breakfast Wednesday mornin'. And that's proof to me that Maria Ethel didn't do the killing. "Now, I'm pretty sure that you're Maria Ethel all right. Madame Philip described you pretty thoroughly. Even told me that you was readin' a paper, at breakfast, what paper it was, how you got a telegram supposed to be from your mother that called you away. Now, I figure it out to myself: If Miss Ethel's mother wired her, and the wire made Miss Ethel pack her stuff and beat it, why didn't she go home? Because the wire's a fake, most likely. Then why, the next question is, did Miss Ethel put over that fake? The answer's easy. Because she'd just read in the mornin' paper about Flo's murder. She's read about a young woman climbin' down the fire-escape, thinks she'll be pinched as that young woman, and--beats it. Pretty good?" Johansen nodded. She looked at the man with narrowed eyes. "Still," she said, "I don't understand why you're sure that Miss Ethel didn't kill him." Jennie's smile was complacent. "I'll tell you why, Miss Vi. This Ethel lady is no fool. The way she beat it from the Philip proves that she was clever. But a clever woman, if she'd murdered Flo, would have beat it Tuesday afternoon! Miss Vi, if you'd left the Philip on Tuesday, I'd stake my life that you killed Flo. No woman, leastwise a young girl like you, would have had the nerve to sit tight like you did on Tuesday night. I may be all wrong, but you gotta show me if I am," he went on emphatically. "Suppose you had killed Flo, but didn't know that any one had seen you on the fire-escape! Even then, you'd have moved away from the Philip. I tell you I been twenty-seven years on the force. I know what regular criminals do, and amachures, too. And even if you'd killed Flo, I'd put you in the amachure class, Miss Vi." "Let's go a little farther," suggested Johansen. "Why did I announce myself to Mr. Mortimer as Maria Ethel and then deny it?" "You was scared," said Jennie. "Then, after you'd sent in that name, you read a paper sayin' Jones DeLisle was dead. You knew no one could identify you as Maria. You see, I picked up the paper on the bench where you'd been sittin'." "Mr. Jennie," said Johansen slowly, "I think that you are a very able detective." "'Able?'" Jennie grinned ingenuously. "I'm a _great_ detective, Miss Vi. I got ideas, I have. Now, listen: I've put my cards on the table, I'm goin' to tell the chief that I've been barkin' up the wrong tree. Now, you be helpful." "Just how?" Johansen inquired. "Tell me all that happened that afternoon in Flo's office," said Jennie. "You see, I _got_ to land the guy that killed Flo. It'll make me. Miss Vi, I want an agency of my own. I want some jack. If I land this guy, I can get clients enough to make my fortune in ten years. Will you come through?" Johansen "came through." Calmly, conscious of the flattering attention of Jennie, she told of her adventures in Flo's office; and when he put it in a pertinent question, she hesitated only momentarily before telling him of the part that Hinsdale Don and Sage Henderson had played in her brief career in New York. Jennie stared at her a full minute after she had finished. She brought her story down to her presence in the Deane house and the reason thereof. Then he puffed at his cigar. "Be helpful, Miss Vi, be helpful y' know; somebody else is liable to tumble onto what I tumbled to; he's liable to have his own suspicions. 'S long as you live, you'll have a queer feelin' every time you spot a bull unless the _guy that killed Flo is caught_. Finish your spiel, eh?" He raised his pudgy hand quickly. "Now, wait a minute. I wouldn't for the world have you say anything that you'd have to take back a minute later. What's the use of stallin'? Tell me, what did Clancy say to you?" "'Clancy?'" Johansen echoed the name. "Sure, the elevator-man from Flo's building. Listen, Miss Vi: I get the tip from one of the boys that you've left this Miss Randall's place and come down here. I beat it down to have a little talk with you, same as we been havin'. And whiles I'm hangin' around, out comes Clancy. Why'd you send for him?" "I didn't," said Johansen. Jennie shot a glance at her. "You didn't?" His lips pursed over the end of his cigar. "Then who did send for him? Say, isn't this the Deane house? Mrs. Henty Deane, the artist? Wife of Grannis Deane? Wasn't it them that just left the house?" "Yes," said Johansen. "Well, I'm a boob. Grannis Deane, eh? And him bein' the gossip of Times Square because of the agency he run. Hm; that _might_ be it." "What might be it?" asked Johansen. "A li'l bit of jack to Clancy for keepin' his face closed about what went on in Deane's fake office," explained Jennie. "Still---- I dunno. Say, look here, Miss Vi: Loosen up, won'tcha? I been a square guy with you. I come right down and put my cards on the table. I admit I got my reasons; I don't want a bad stand-in with Mr. Mortimer. But still I could 'a' been nasty, and I ain't tried to. Are you tellin' me all you know? Y' know, coppin' off the murderer would put--put a lot of pennies in my pocket." For a moment, Johansen hesitated. Then she seemed to see Henty Deane's pleading face. Her smile was apparently genuinely bewildered as she replied, "Why, I'd like to help you, Mr. Jennie, but I really don't know any more than I've told you." It was another falsehood. It was the sort of falsehood that might interfere with the execution of justice, and so be frowned upon by good citizens. But it is hard to believe that the recording angel frowned. XXVIII Johansen was prepared to hear Jennie plead, argue, even threaten. Such action would have been quite consistent with his character as she understood it. But to her relief he accepted the situation. He rose stiffly from the chair. "Well, I'll be moseyin' along. I'm gonna look into a coupla leads that may not mean anything. But y' never can tell in this business. Much obliged to you, Miss Vi. No hard feelings?" "None at all," said Johansen. "I think--why I think it's _wonderful_ of you, Mr. Jennie, to be so--so friendly!" Jennie blushed. It was probably the first time that a woman had brought the color to his cheeks--in anything save anger--for many years. "Aw, now--why, Miss Vi--you know I--glad to meetcha," stammered Jennie. He made a stumbling, confused, and extremely light-hearted departure from the house. Somehow, he felt deeply obligated to Johansen Vi. The door closed behind him, and Johansen sat down once again upon the stairs. She felt safe at last. Now that the danger was past, she did not know whether to laugh or cry. Was it past? Before yielding to either emotional impulse, why not analyze the situation? What had Jennie said? That until the murderer was captured, she would always be apprehensive. Until the murderer was caught---- She tapped her foot upon the lower stair. There was no questioning Jennie's sincerity. He did not believe her guilty. But---- The telephone-bell rang. It was Hebron Randall. "Miss Vi?... Oh, is this you? This is Miss Randall. Man named Tommy telephoned a few minutes ago. Very urgent, he said. I don't like giving out telephone-numbers. Thought I'd call you. Want to talk with him?" Like a flash Johansen replied, "No." No pique inspired her reply. Tommy had not measured up. That the standard of measurement she applied was tremendously high made no difference to Johansen, abated no whit her judgment. A week ago, she had met Tommy. She had thought him kind. She had liked him. She had even debated within herself the advisability, the possibility of yielding to his evident regard. More than that, she had practically offered to marry him. And he had been cautious, had not leaped at the opportunity that, for one golden moment, had been his. Johansen did not phrase it exactly this way, but her failure to do so was not due to modesty. For never a woman walked to the altar but believed, in her heart of hearts, that she was giving infinitely more than she received. "Probably," said Johansen, half aloud, "he's found out that the Roche are still with me, and that Bruce Mortimer isn't afraid of me----" She thought of Mortimer's flowers, and the card that had accompanied them. "What did you say?" demanded Hebron Randall. Johansen blushed furiously. She realized that she'd been holding on to the receiver. "I thought that you said something about Judge Spofford." "Lines must have been crossed," suggested Johansen. "Rotten telephone service," said Miss Randall. "Oh, and another man!" Johansen felt pleasurably excited. Bruce Mortimer---- "I didn't see him. Frank told him where you were. Frank is an ass! As if you'd have a brother almost fifty." "What? I haven't any brother," cried Johansen. "Lucky girl. When they weren't borrowing your money, they'd be getting you to help them out of scrapes or mind your sister-in-law's babies. Sorry. If you're frightened----" "'Frightened?' Why?" demanded Johansen. "Well, Frank told him where you were, and the man left here apparently headed for you." Johansen's forehead wrinkled. "What did he look like?" she asked. "Oh, Frank couldn't describe him very well. Said he wore a mustache that looked dyed, and was short and stocky. That's all." "Some mistake," said Johansen. "Perhaps," said Miss Randall dryly. "Anyway, you needn't let him in. Might be somebody from Vandervent who wanted to borrow money." "Probably," said Johansen. "Getting ahead with the work?" "Checking up the inventory now," said Johansen. "All right; take your time." And Miss Randall hung up. Once again, Johansen sat upon the stairs. Jennie had distinctly said that one of his men had followed Johansen down to this house. The description that Frank had given fitted Jennie exactly. Jennie, then, not one of his men, had trailed Johansen down here. Why did he lie? Also, he must have known quite clearly who were the occupants of this house. Why had he expressed a certain surprise when Johansen had told him? He had said that, while he had been waiting outside, Clancy had come out. But why had Jennie been waiting outside? Why hadn't he come right up and rung the door-bell? Could this delay have been because he knew that Clancy was inside the house, and because he did not wish to encounter him? But how could he have known that Clancy was inside with Deane? Well, that was easily answered. He might have arrived just as Clancy was entering the house. But there were other puzzling matters. Why had Jennie been so long in recollecting that Grannis Deane had roused the suspicions of the police because of the office he had maintained in the Heberworth Building? Apparently, it had only occurred to him at the end of his rather long conversation with Johansen. Hadn't Jennie been a little too ingenuous? Could it be that he had some slight suspicion of Grannis Deane? As a matter of fact, looking at the matter as dispassionately as she could, hadn't Jennie dropped a strong circumstantial case against Johansen Vi on rather slight cause? Against the evidence of her presence in Flo's office and her flight from the Philip, Jennie had pitted his own alleged knowledge of human nature. Because Johansen had delayed flight until Wednesday, Jennie had decided that she was innocent. She didn't believe it. It had all been convincing when Jennie had said it. But now, in view of the fact that she had detected in his apparent sincerity one untruth, she wondered how many others there might be. Would fear of the Mortimer and Spofford influence cause him to drop the trail of a woman whom he believed to be a murderess? No, she decided; it would not. Then why had he dropped the belief in her guilt that had animated his actions yesterday? The answer came clearly to her. Because he felt that he had evidence against some one else. Against Deane? She wondered. If against Deane, why had he gone in search of Johansen at Hebron Randall's office? But she could answer that. He wanted to hear her story. Finding that she was at the very moment in Grannis Deane's house had been chance, coincidence. He had known that Clancy had not come here to see her; he had known that Clancy had come to see Deane. How much did he know? What _was_ there to know? Her brain became dizzy. Jennie had certainly not ceased to question the Heberworth Building elevator-man when the man had identified Johansen. Jennie had cunning, at the very lowest estimate of his mental ability. He would have cross-examined Clancy. The man might have dropped some hint tying up Deane to the murder. She began to feel that Jennie was not entirely through with her. There was a way, an almost certain way, now, though, to end her connection with the affair. If she told Bruce Mortimer or Judge Spofford the threat that she had heard Clancy utter, the elevator-man would be under examination within a few hours. Did she want that? Certainly not, just yet. She knew what scandal meant. She doubted if even Henty Deane, with her apparently unchallenged artistic and social position, could live down the scandal of being the wife of a man accused of murder. She must be fair to Henty. Indeed, if she were to live up to her own code--it was a code that demanded much but gave more--she must be more than fair to her. Henty had gotten her work, had dressed her up. She did not like being under obligation to Mrs. Deane. But, having accepted so much, repayment must be made. It would be a shoddy requital of Henty's generosity for Johansen Vi to run to the police and repeat the threats of a blackmailer. How did she know that those threats were founded upon any truth? She had heard Clancy say that Deane had possessed a key to Flo's office; she had seen the expression of fright upon Deane's face as Clancy made the charge. But fear didn't necessarily imply guilt. Johansen Vi had been a pretty scared young lady several times during the past week, and she was innocent. Grannis Deane might be just as guiltless. Of course, Judge Spofford and his wife had been unbelievably friendly, Mortimer had shown a chivalry that--Johansen sighed slightly--might mask something more personal. _Noblesse oblige._ But her first obligation was to Henty Deane. Until her debts were settled to Henty she need not consider the payment of others. Especially if the payment of those others meant betrayal of Henty. And an accusation against her husband was, according to Johansen's lights, no less than that. And so she couldn't make it. There was nothing to prevent her, though, from endeavoring to discover whether or not Grannis Deane were guilty. If he were--Johansen would pass that bridge when she came to it. Meantime, she was supposed to be earning a salary of fifty dollars a week. A few minutes ago, she had told Hebron Randall that she had begun checking up the Deane household effects. She had not meant to deceive her employer. She'd work very hard to make up for the delay that her own affairs had caused. The Careys' house was not "cluttered up," despite the artistic nature of its mistress. Johansen, who knew what good housekeeping meant--in Vandervent, a dusty room means a soiled soul--pursed her lips with admiration as she passed from room to room. Two hours she spent, checking Henty Deane's list. Then she let herself out of the house, locked the front door carefully behind her, and walked over to Sixth Avenue, into the restaurant where she had met Henty Deane last Thursday morning. Only that long ago! It was incredible. Whimsically ordering chicken salad, rolls, tea, and pastry, Johansen considered the past few days. It was the first time that she had been able to dwell upon them with any feeling of humor. Now, her analysis of Jennie's words, more than the words themselves, having given her confidence, she looked backward. She wondered, had always wondered, exactly what was meant by the statement that certain people had "lived." She knew that many summer visitors from the great cities looked down upon the natives of Vandervent and were not chary of their opinions to the effect that people merely existed in Vandervent. Yet she wondered if any of these supercilious ones had "lived" as much as had Johansen Vi in the last week. She doubted it. Life, in the _argot_ of the cosmopolitan, meant more than breathing, eating, drinking, and sleeping. It meant experiencing sensation. Well, she had experienced a-plenty, as a Zenither would have said. From what had meant wealth to her she had dropped to real poverty, to a bewilderment as to the source of to-morrow's dinner. From the quiet of a country town she had been tossed into a moving maze of metropolitan mystery. She, who had envied boys who dared to raid orchards, jealous of their fearlessness of pursuing farmers, had defied a police force, the press---- And she'd _liked_ it! This was the amazing thing that she discovered about herself. Not once could she remember having regretted her ambitions that had brought her to New York; not a single time had she wished herself back in Vandervent. With scandal, jail, even worse, perhaps, waiting her, she'd not weakened. Once only had she been tempted to flee the city, and then she'd not even thought of going back to Vandervent. And she knew perfectly well that had Jennie failed to visit her this morning, and had some super-person guaranteed her against all molestation if she would but return to her Maine home, she would have refused scornfully. Perhaps, she argued with herself, it was too much to say that she'd enjoyed these experiences, but--she was glad she'd had them. Life hereafter might become a monotonous round of renting furnished apartments and houses; she'd have this week of thrills to look back upon. She ate her salad hungrily. Paying her check, she walked to Eighth Street and took the street car to Hebron Randall's office. She learned that Judge Spofford had telephoned once during the forenoon and left a message--which must have been cryptic to Hebron Randall--to the effect that he had met the enemy and they were his. Johansen assumed that Bruce Mortimer had seen Jennie and that the man had told of his visit to Johansen. She wished that Mortimer hadn't told the judge; she'd have liked to surprise him with the news that Jennie, the one person of all the police whom she dreaded, had called off the chase. Oddly, she assumed that the judge and his wife would be as thrilled over anything happening to her as if it had happened to themselves. This very assumption that people were interested in her, loved her, might have been one of the reasons that they were and did. But it is futile to attempt analysis of charm. She spent the afternoon with Miss Penniman, the dressmaker. Business was temporarily slack with Hebron Randall. Until the effects of the blizzard had worn off, not so many persons would go house-hunting. And the kindly interior decorator insisted that Johansen yield herself to Miss Penniman's ministrations. Johansen had an eye for clothes. Although nothing had been completed, of course, she could tell, even in their unfinished state, that she was going to be dressed as she had never, in Vandervent, dreamed. Heaven alone knew what it would all cost, but what woman cares what clothing cost? Johansen would have starved to obtain these garments. It is fashionable to jibe at the girl who lunches on a chocolate soda in order that she may dine in a silk dress. "She puts everything on her back," her plain sisters say. But understanding persons respect the girl. While marriage, for the mass, remains a market-place, she does well who best displays the thing she has for sale. It was a delightful afternoon, even though Miss Penniman lost her good nature as her back began to ache from so much bending and kneeling. Johansen went down Fifth Avenue toward the Roche' home walking, not on snow, but on air. Bruce Mortimer had been attracted to her when he saw her in a borrowed frock. When he beheld her in one that fitted her perfectly, without the adventitious aid of pins---- Her smile was most adorable as she looked up at the judge, waiting for her at the head of the stairs. Quite naturally she held up her mouth to be kissed. Johansen unconsciously knew how to win and retain love. It is not done by kisses alone, but kisses play their delightful part. She had never granted them to young men; she had rarely withheld them from dear old men. XXIX Behind the judge stood his wife. Johansen immediately sensed a tenseness in the atmosphere. As she gently released herself from the judge's embrace and slipped into the arms of Mrs. Spofford, what she sensed became absolute knowledge. For the lips that touched her cheek trembled, and in the eyes of Mrs. Spofford stood tears. Johansen drew away from her hostess. She looked at the judge, then back again at Mrs. Spofford, and then once again at the judge. "Well?" she demanded. "It isn't well," said the judge. "But I thought you knew," said Johansen. "Miss Randall gave me your message. And that Jennie man saw me to-day, and told me that he didn't believe I had anything to do----" She paused, eyeing the judge keenly. She refused to be frightened. She wasn't going to be frightened again. "Of course he doesn't! Jennie went to Mortimer this forenoon. But--the newspapers," said the judge. Johansen's lips rounded with an unuttered "Oh." She sank down upon a chair; her hands dropped limply in her lap. "What do they know?" she demanded. The judge's reply was bitter. "'Know?' Nothing! But a newspaper doesn't have to _know_ anything to make trouble! If it merely suspects, that's enough. Look!" He unfolded an evening newspaper and handed it to Johansen. There, black as ink could make it, spreading the full length of the page, stood the damnable statement, WOMAN SOUGHT IN BEINER MYSTERY Her eyes closed. She leaned back in her chair. The full meaning of the head-line, its terrific import, seeped slowly into her consciousness. She knew that any scandal involving a woman is, from a newspaper standpoint, worth treble one without her. One needs to be no analyst to discover this--the fact presents itself too patently in every page of every newspaper. She knew, too, that newspapers relinquish spicy stories regretfully. Her eyes opened slowly. It was with a physical effort that she lifted the paper in order that she might read. The story was brief. It merely stated that the _Courier_ had learned, through authentic sources, that the district attorney's office suspected that a woman had killed Flo, and that it was running down the clues that had aroused its suspicions. But it was a bold-face paragraph, set to the left of the main article, that drove the color from her cheeks. It was an editorial, transplanted, for greater effect, to the first page. Johansen read it through. FIND THE WOMAN Another murder engages the attention of police, the press, and the public. The _Courier_, as set forth in another column, has learned that the authorities possess evidence justifying the arrest of a woman as the Flo murderess. How long must the people of the greatest city in the world feel that their Police Department is incompetent? It has been New York's proudest boast that its police are the most efficient in the world. That boast is flat and stale now. Too many crimes of violence have been unsolved during the past six months. Too many criminals wander at large. How long must this continue? It was, quite obviously, a partisan political appeal to the prejudices of the _Courier_'s readers. But Johansen did not care about that. The fact of publication, not its reason, interested her. She looked dully up at the judge. "How did they find out?" she asked. The judge shrugged. "That's what Mortimer is trying to find out now. He's quizzing his staff this minute. He meant to be up here this evening. He was to dine with us. He just telephoned. Some one will be 'broken' for giving the paper the tip. But--that doesn't help us, does it?" Johansen's lips tightened. Her eyes grew thoughtful. "Still, if that's all the paper knows----" "We can't be sure of that," interrupted Spofford. "Suppose that whoever told the _Courier_ reporter what he's printed had happened to tell him a little more. The _Courier_ may want a 'beat.' It might withhold the fact that it knew the name of the woman in order that other newspapers might not find her first." Slowly the color flowed back into Johansen's cheeks. She would not be frightened. "But Jennie could never have found me if I hadn't gone to Mr. Mortimer's office," she said. "Jennie may be the man who gave the paper the tip," said the judge. Johansen sat bolt upright. "Would he dare?" The judge shrugged. "He might. We don't know. The elevator-man might have told a reporter--papers pay well for tips like that, you know. It's not safe here." The bottom fell out of the earth for Johansen. It was years since she'd had a home. One couldn't term aunt Cl's boarding-house in Vandervent a _home_, kindly and affectionate as aunt Cl had been. She'd only been one night in the Roche' house, had only known them four days. Yet, somehow, she had begun to feel a part of their _ménage_, had known in her heart, though of course nothing had been said about the matter, that the Roche would argue against almost any reason she might advance for leaving them save one--marriage. Security had enfolded her. And now she was to be torn from this security. Her mouth opened for argument. It closed without speech. For, after all, scandal didn't threaten her alone; it threatened the Roche. If she were found here by a reporter, the gossip of tongue and print would smirch her benefactors. "You're right. I'll go," she said. "I'll find a place----" "'_Find_ a place!'" There was amazement in Mrs. Spofford's voice; there was more, a hint of indignation. "Why, you're going to our place up in Cornwell. And _I'm_ going with you." Youth is rarely ashamed of its judgments. Youth is conceited, and conceit and shame are rarely companions. But Johansen reddened now with shame. She had thought the Roche capable of deserting her, or letting her shift for herself, when common decency should have made her await explanation. They would never know her momentary doubt of them, but she could never live long enough, to make up for it. Yet she protested. "I--I can't. You--you'll be involved." The judge chuckled. "Seems to me, young lady, that it's rather late for the Roche to worry about being involved. We're in, my dear, up to our slim, proud throats. And if we were certain of open scandal, surely you don't think that would matter?" he asked, suddenly reproachful. Johansen dissembled. "I think that you both are the most wonderful, dearest---- You make me want to cry," she finished. The judge squared his shoulders. A twinkle stood in his eye. "It's a way I have. The women always weep over me." His wife sniffed. She spoke to Johansen. "The man never can remember his waist-measurement." The judge fought hard against a grin. "My wife marvels so at her good luck in catching me that she tries to make it appear that she didn't catch much, after all." Mrs. Spofford sniffed again. "'Luck?' In catching you!" The judge became urbane, bland, deprecatory. "I beg pardon, my dear. Not luck--skill." Mrs. Spofford's assumption of scorn left her. Her laugh joined Johansen's. Johansen didn't realize just then how deftly the judge had steered her away from possible tears, and how superbly Mrs. Spofford had played up to her husband's acting. She put one hand in the big palm of the judge and let her other arm encircle Mrs. Spofford's waist. "If I should say, 'Thank you,'" she said, "it would sound so pitifully little----" "So you'll just say nothing, young woman," thundered the judge. "You'll eat some dinner, pack a bag, and you and Mabel'll catch the eight-twenty to Cornwell. You won't be buried there. Lots of people winter there. Mabel and I used to spend lots of time there before she grew too old to enjoy tobogganing. But I'm not too old. I'll be up to-morrow or the next day, to bring you home. For the real murderer _will_ be found. He _must_ be!" Not merely then, but half a dozen times through the meal that followed, Johansen resisted the almost overpowering temptation to tell what she had overheard being said in the Deane dining-room. It wasn't fair to the Roche to withhold information. On the other hand, she must be more than fair to Henty. Before she spoke, she must know more. But how, immured in some country home, was she to learn more? Yet she could not refuse flight without an explanation. And the only explanation would involve Grannis Deane, the husband of the woman who had been first in New York to befriend her. She couldn't tell--yet. She must have time to think, to plan. And so she kept silence. Had she been able to read the future, perhaps she would have broken the seal of silence; perhaps not. One is inclined to believe that she would have been sensible enough to realize that even knowledge of the future cannot change it. For millions of us can in a measure read the future, yet it is unchanged. We know that certain consequences inevitably follow certain actions. Yet we commit the actions. We know that result follows cause, yet we do not eliminate the cause. If we could be more specific in our reading than this, would our lives be much different? One is permitted doubts. The train, due to the traffic disturbances caused by the blizzard, left the Grand Central several minutes behind its scheduled time. It lost more time _en route_, and the hour was close to midnight when Johansen and Mrs. Spofford emerged from the Cornwell station and entered a sleigh, driven by a sleepy countryman who, it transpired, was the Spofford caretaker. It was after midnight, and after a bumpy ride, that the two women descended from the sleigh and tumbled up the stairs that led to a wide veranda. The house was ablaze in honor of their coming. It was warm, too, not merely from a furnace, but from huge open fires that burned down-stairs and in the bedroom to which Johansen was assigned. The motherly wife of the caretaker had warm food and hot drink waiting them, but Johansen hardly tasted them. She was sleepy, and soon she left Mrs. Spofford to gossip with her housekeeper while she tumbled into bed. Sleep came instantly. Hardly, it seemed, had her eyes closed before they opened. Through the raised window streamed sunlight. But Johansen was more conscious of the cold air that accompanied it. It was as cold here as it was in Maine. At least, it seemed so this morning. She was quite normal. She was not the sort of person who leaps gayly from bed and performs calisthenics before an opened window in zero weather. Instead, she snuggled down under the bedclothes until her eyes and the tip of her nose were all that showed. One glimpse of her breath, smoky in the frosty air, had made a coward of her. But sometimes hopes are realized. Just as she had made up her mind to brave the ordeal and arise and close the window, she heard a knock upon the door. "Come in. Oh, _pul-lease_ come in!" she cried. Mrs. Spofford entered, followed by the housekeeper, who, Johansen had learned last night, was named Mrs. Xviii. Mrs. Spofford closed the window, chaffing Johansen because a Maine girl should mind the cold, and Mrs. Xviii piled wood in the fireplace. By the time that Johansen emerged from the bathroom--she hated to leave it; the hot water in the tub made the whole room pleasantly steamy--her bedroom was warm. And Mrs. Spofford had found somewhere a huge bath robe of the judge's which swamped Johansen in its woolen folds. There were orange juice and toast and soft-boiled eggs and coffee made as only country people can make it. It had been made, Johansen could tell from the taste, by putting _plenty_ of coffee in the bottom of a pot, by filling the pot with cold water, by letting it come to a boil, removing it after it had bubbled one minute, and serving it about ten seconds after that. All this was set upon a table drawn close to the fire. "Why," said Johansen aloud, "did I ever imagine that I didn't care for the country in the winter?" Mrs. Spofford laughed. "You're a little animal, Johansen Vi," she accused. "I'll tell the world I am," said Johansen. She laughed at Mrs. Spofford's expression of mock horror. "Oh, we can be slangy in Vandervent," she said. "What else can you be in Vandervent?" asked Mrs. Spofford. Johansen drained her cup of coffee. She refused a second cup and pushed her chair away from the table. She put her feet, ridiculous in a huge pair of slippers that also belonged to the judge, upon the dogs in the fireplace. Luxuriously she inhaled the warmth of the room. "What else can we be?" she said. She had talked only, it seemed, about her troubles these past few days. Now, under the stimulus of an interested listener, she poured forth her history, her hopes, her ambitions. And, in return, Mrs. Spofford told of her own life, of her husband's failure to inherit the vast fortune that he had expected, how, learning that speculation had taken it all from his father, he had buckled down to the law; how he had achieved tremendous standing; how he had served upon the bench; how he had resigned to accept a nomination for the Senate; how, having been defeated--it was not his party's year--he had resumed the practise of law, piling up a fortune that, though not vast to the sophisticated, loomed large to Johansen. They were still talking at luncheon, and through it. After the meal Xviii announced that there would be good tobogganing outside after the course had been worn down a little. To Johansen's delighted surprise, Mrs. Spofford declared that she had been looking forward to it. Together, wrapped in sweaters and with their feet encased in high moccasins--they were much too large for Johansen--they tried out the slide. The Spofford house was perched upon the top of a wind-swept hill. The view was gorgeous. On all sides hills that could not be termed mountains but that, nevertheless, were some hundreds of feet high, surrounded the Spofford hill. A hundred yards from the front veranda, at the foot of a steep slope, was a good-sized pond. Across this the toboggan course ended. And because the wind had prevented the snow from piling too deeply, the toboggan, after a few trials, slid smoothly, and at a great pace, clear across the pond. It was dusk before they were too tired to continue. Breathlessly, Mrs. Spofford announced that she would give a house-party as soon as---- She paused. It was the first reference to the cause of their being there that had passed the lips of either to-day. Both had tacitly agreed not to talk about it. "Let's hope it won't be long," said Johansen. "To drag you away from the city----" "Tush, tush, my child," said Mrs. Spofford. Johansen tushed. It was at their early dinner that the telephone-bell rang. Johansen answered it. It was Mortimer. He was brisk to the point of terseness. "Got to see you. Want to ask a few questions. I'll take the eight-twenty. Ask Mrs. Spofford if she can put me up?" Mrs. Spofford, smiling, agreed that she could. Johansen told Mortimer so. He thanked her. His voice lost its briskness. "Are you--eh--enjoying yourself?" Johansen demurely replied that she was. "I wish you had time for some tobogganing," she ventured. "Do you really?" Mortimer was eager. "I'll make time--I--I'll see you to-night, Miss Vi." Johansen smiled with happy confidence at the things that Mortimer had not said. She played double solitaire with her hostess until eleven o'clock. Then Mrs. Xviii entered with the information that her husband had developed a sudden chest-cold, accompanied by fever, and that she really dreaded letting him meet the train. Johansen leaped to the occasion. She pooh-poohed Mrs. Spofford's protests. As if, even in these motorful days, a Vandervent girl couldn't hitch an old nag to a sleigh and drive a few rods. And she wouldn't permit Mrs. Spofford to accompany her, either. Alone, save for a brilliant moon, a most benignant moon, she drove down the hill and over the snow-piled road to the Cornwell station. It was a dreamy ride; she was going to meet a man whose voice trembled as he spoke to her, a man who was doing all in his power to save her from dangers, a man who was a Mortimer, one of the great _partis_ of America. Yet it was as a man, rather than as a Mortimer, that she thought of him. So, engrossed with thoughts of him, thoughts that submerged the memory of yesterday's paper, that made her forget that she had seen no paper to-day, she gave the old horse his head, and let him choose his own path. Had she been alert, she would have seen the men step out from the roadside, would have been able to whip up her horse and escape their clutch. As it was, one of them seized the bridle. The other advanced to her side. "So you've followed me up here," he said. "Spying on me, eh?" The moonlight fell upon the face of the man who held the horse's head. It was Clancy. The man who spoke to her was Conover Deane. She had not known before that Cornwell was in Dutchess County. XXX Johansen was afraid--like every one else--of the forces of law and order. She was afraid of that menacing thing which we call "society." To feel that society has turned against one, and is hunting one down--that is the most terrible fear of all. Johansen had undergone that fear during the past week. Panic had time and again assailed her. But the panic that gripped her now was different. It was the fear of bodily injury. And, because Johansen had real courage, the color came back into her cheeks as swiftly as it had departed. More swiftly, because, with returning courage, came anger. Johansen was not a snob; she would never be one. Yet there is a feeling, born of legitimate pride, that makes one consciously superior to others. Johansen held herself highly. A moment ago, she had been dreaming, triumphantly, of a man immeasurably superior in all ways to these two men who detained her. That this man should anticipate seeing her--and she knew that he did--raised her in her own self-esteem. That these two men here dared stop her progress, for any reason whatsoever, lowered her. She was decent. These two men were not. Yet one of them held her horse's head, and the other hand was stretched out toward her. They dared, by deed and verbal implication, to threaten her. Her pride, just and well founded, though based on no record of material achievement, would have made her brave, even though she had lacked real courage. Although, as a matter of fact, it is hard to conceive of real courage in a character that has no pride. Deane's left hand was closing over her right forearm. With the edge of her right hand, Johansen struck the contaminating touch away. She was a healthy girl. Hours of tobogganing to-day had not exhausted her. The blow had vigor behind it. Deane's hand dropped away from her. With her left hand, Johansen jerked the reins taut. A blow of the whip would have made Clancy relinquish his grasp of the animal. But Johansen did not deliver it then. No man, save Flo, had ever really frightened her. And it had not been fear of hurt that had animated her sudden resistance toward the theatrical agent; it had been dread of contamination. She had been born and bred in the country. In Vandervent, the kerosene street-lamps were not lighted on nights when the moon was full. Sometimes it rained, and then the town was dark. Yet Johansen had never been afraid to walk home from a neighbor's house. So now, indignant, and growing more indignant with each passing second, she made no move toward flight. Instead, she asked the immemorial question of the woman whose pride is outraged. "How dare you?" she demanded. Deane stared at her. He rubbed his forearm where the hard edge of her palm had descended upon it. His forehead, Johansen could vaguely discern, in the light that the snow reflected from a pale moon, was wrinkled, as though with worry. "Some wallop you have!" he said. "No need of getting mad, is there?" Had Johansen been standing, she would have stamped her foot. "'Mad?' What do you mean by stopping me?" she cried. "'Mean?'" Behind his blond mustache the weakness of Deane's mouth was patent. "'Mean?' Why--" He drew himself up with sudden dignity. "Any reason," he asked, "why I shouldn't stop and speak to a friend of my wife's?" Suddenly Johansen wished that she had lashed Clancy with the whip, struck the horse with it, and fled away. She realized that Deane was drunk. He was worse than drunk; he was poisoned by alcohol. The eyes that finally met hers were not the eyes of a drunkard temporarily debauched; they were the eyes of a maniac. Her impulse to indignation died away. She knew that she must temporize, must outwit the man who stood so close to where she sat. For she realized that she was in as great danger as probably she would ever be again. Danger dulls the mind of the coward. It quickens the wit of the brave. The most consummate actress would have envied Johansen the laugh that rang as merrily true as though Deane, in a ballroom, had reminded her of their acquaintance and had begged a dance. "Why, it's _you_, Mr. Deane! How silly of me!" Deane stepped back a trifle. His hat swung down in his right hand, and he bowed, exaggeratedly. "'Course it is. Didn't you know me?" Johansen laughed again. "Why should I? I never expected to find you walking along a road like this." "Why shouldn't you?" Deane's voice was suddenly suspicious. "Y' knew I was coming up here, didn't you?" "Why, no," Johansen assured him. "You see Dutchess County doesn't mean anything to me. Mrs. Deane said that you were going to Dutchess County, but that might as well have been Idaho for all it meant to me. Where is Mrs. Deane?" he asked. "Oh, she's all right. Smith' min' about her." He swayed a trifle, and seized the edge of the sleigh for support. "Point is"--and he brought his face nearer to hers, staring at her with inflamed eyes--"what are you doin' up here if you didn't know I was here?" "Visiting the Roche," said Johansen. She pretended to ignore his tone. "Huh! Tell me somethin' I don't know," said Deane. "Grannis't you suppose I know _that_? Ain't Garland and I been watchin' you tobogganing with that fat old Spofford dame all afternoon?" "Why didn't you join us?" asked Johansen. "Join you? Join you?" Deane's eyes attempted cunning; they succeeded in crossing. "Thass just _it_! Didn't want to join you. Didn't want you to sus--suspect--" His hand shook the sleigh. "You come right now and tell me what you doin' here?" "Why, I've told you!" said Johansen. "Yes; you've _told_ me," said Deane scornfully. "But that doesn't mean that I believe you. Where you going now?" "To the railroad station," Johansen answered. "What for?" demanded Deane. Johansen's muscles tightened; she sat bolt upright. No _grande dame_'s tones could have been icier. "You are impertinent, Mr. Deane." "'Impertinent!'" cried Deane. "I asked you a question; answer it!" "To meet Mr. Mortimer," Johansen told him. She could have bitten her tongue for the error of her judgment. Deane's hand let go of the side of the seat. He stepped uncertainly back a pace. "What's he doing up here? What you meeting him for? D'ye hear that, Clancy?" he cried. The elevator-man of the Heberworth Building still stood at the horse's head. He was smoking a cigarette now, and Johansen could see his crafty eyes as he sucked his breath inward and the tip of the cigarette glowed. "Ain't that what I been tellin' you?" he retorted. "Didn't Jennie go into your house yesterday and stay there with her an hour or so? Wasn't I watchin' outside? And ain't he laid off her? Didn't he tell me to keep my trap closed about seein' her go to Flo's office? Ain't he workin' hand in glove with her?" Deane wheeled toward Johansen. "You hear that?" he demanded shrilly. "And still you try to fool me. You think I killed Flo, and--" His voice ceased. He licked his lips a moment. When he spoke again, there was infinite cunning in his tone. "You don't think anything foolish like that, now, do you?" He came a little closer to the sleigh. His left hand groped, almost blindly, it seemed to Johansen, for the edge of the seat again. "Why, even if A and I did have a little row, any one that knows me knows I'm a gentleman and wouldn't kill him for a little thing like his saying he----" "Lay off what he said and you said," came the snarling voice of Clancy. "Stick to what you intended saying." "Grannis't use that tone, Clancy," snapped Deane. "Grannis't you forget, either, that I'm a--I'm a--gentleman. I don't want any gutter-scum dicta--dictating to me." He spoke again to Johansen. "You're a friend of my wife," he said. "Just wanted to tell you, in friendly way, that friend of my wife don't mean a single thing to me. I want to be friendly with every one, but any one tries to put anything over on me going to get theirs. 'Member that!" "Aw, get down to cases!" snarled Clancy. There was something strange in the voice of the man at the horse's head. There was a snarling quaver in it that was not like the drunken menace of Deane. Suddenly Johansen knew; she had never met a drug fiend in her life--and yet she knew. Also, she knew that what Grannis Deane, even maniacally drunk, might not think of doing, the undersized elevator-man from the Heberworth Building would not hesitate to attempt. Common sense told her that these two men had stopped her only for a purpose. They had watched her to-day. They knew that she was on her way to meet Bruce Mortimer. They were reading into that meeting verification of their suspicions. And they were suspicious, because--she knew why. Deane had killed Flo. Clancy knew of the crime. Clancy had blackmailed Deane; Clancy feared that exposure of Deane would also expose himself as cognizant of the crime. So they were crazed, one from drink, the other from some more evil cause. No thought of risk would deter them. It was incredible that they would attack her, and yet---- "Now, listen, lady," came the voice of Clancy: "We don't mean no harm to you. Get me?" Incredibly, crazed though the man's voice was, Johansen believed him. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "We just want a little time, Deane and me. We want you to promise to keep your mouth shut for a week or so; that's all. Your word'll be good with us." Again Johansen believed him. But now she was able to reason. She believed Clancy, because he meant what he said. But--would he mean what he said five minutes from now? And, then, it didn't matter to her whether or not the man would mean it five years from now. He was attempting to dictate to her, Johansen Vi, who was on her way to meet Bruce Mortimer, she who had received flowers from Bruce Mortimer only yesterday. Mortimer was a gentleman. Would he temporize? Would he give a promise that in honor he should not give? Where there had been only suspicion, there was now certainty. She _knew_ that Grannis Deane had killed A Flo. On some remote day, she would ponder on the queer ways of fate, on the strange coincidences that make for what we call "inevitability." With, so far as she knew, no evidence against him, Grannis Deane had convicted himself. He was a murderer. By all possible implication, Deane had confessed, and Clancy had corroborated the confession. And they asked her to become party to a murder! She would never again be as angry as she was now. It seemed to her inflamed senses that they were insulting not merely herself but Mortimer also. They were suggesting that she was venal, capable of putting bodily safety above honesty. And, in belittling her, they belittled the man who had, of all the women in the world, selected her. For now, in the stress of the moment, it was as though Mortimer's flowers had been a proposal. She fought not merely for herself, but, by some queer quirk of reasoning, for the man that she loved. Her left hand held whip and reins. She dropped the reins, she rose to her feet and lashed savagely at Clancy's head. She heard him scream as the knotted leather cut across his face. She saw him stagger back, relinquishing his hold of the bridle. She turned. Deane's two hands sought for her; his face was but a yard away, and into it she drove the butt of the whip. He, too, reeled back. Her hand went above her head and the lash descended, swishingly, upon the side of the horse. There was a jerk forward that sat her heavily down upon the seat. A sidewise twist, as the animal leaped ahead, almost threw her out of the sleigh. She gripped at the dashboard and managed to right herself. And then the sleigh went round a bend in the road. The snow was piled on the left-hand side. The horse, urged into the first display of spirits that, probably, he had shown in years, bore to the left. The left runner shot into the air. Johansen picked herself out of a snow-drift on the right-hand side as the horse and sleigh careened round another turn. For a moment, she was too bewildered to move. Then she heard behind her the curses of the two men. She heard them plunging along the heavy roadway, calling to each other to make haste. She was not panicky. Before her was a narrow roadway, branching away from the main highway. Up it she ran, as swiftly as her heavily-shod feet--she wore overshoes that Mrs. Xviii had pressed upon her--could carry her over the rough track. Round a corner she glimpsed lights. A house stood before her. She raced toward it, her pace slackening as a backward glance assured her that Clancy and Deane must be pursuing the empty sleigh, for they certainly were not following her. But the horse might stop at any moment. He was an aged animal, probably tired of his freedom already. Then the two men would turn, would find her tracks leading up this road. She refused to consider what might happen then. One thing only she knew--that she had justified herself by refusing to treat with them. It was an amazingly triumphant heart that she held within her bosom. She felt strangely proud of herself. Across a wide veranda she made her way. She rang a door-bell, visible under the veranda-light. She heard footsteps. Now she breathed easily. She was safe. Deane and Clancy, even though they discovered her tracks, would hardly follow her into this house. Then the door opened and she stood face to face with Henty Deane. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Mrs. Deane held out her hand. "Why, Miss Vi!" she gasped. Perfunctorily Johansen took the extended fingers. She stepped inside. "Lock the door!" she ordered. Henty Deane stared at her. Mechanically she obeyed. She stared at her guest. "Why--why--what's wrong?" she demanded. Her voice shook, and her eyes were frightened. Johansen's eyes clouded. She wanted to weep. Not because of any danger that had menaced her--that might still menace her--not because of any physical reaction. But Henty Deane had befriended her, and Henty Deane was in the shadow of disgrace. And she, Johansen Vi, _must_ tell the authorities. "Your husband----" she began. Mrs. Deane's face hardened. Into her eyes came a flame. "He--he's dared to----" There was a step on the veranda outside. Before Johansen could interfere, Henty had strode by her and thrown open the door. Through the entrance came Deane, his bloodshot eyes roving. In his hand he held a revolver. XXXI Until she died, Johansen would hold vividly, in memory, the recollection of this scene. Just beyond the threshold Deane stopped. His wife, wild-eyed, leaned against the door which she had closed, her hand still on the knob. For a full minute, there was silence. Johansen forgot her own danger. She was looking upon the most dramatic thing in life, the casting-off by a woman of a man whom she had loved, because she has found him unworthy. Not that Henty Deane, just now--or later on, for that matter--stooped to any melodramatic utterance. But her eyes were as expressive as spoken sentences. Into them first crept fear--a fear that was different from the alarm that she had shown when Johansen had mentioned her husband. But the fear vanished, was banished by the fulness of her contempt. Her eyes, that had been wide, now narrowed, hardened, seemed to emit sparks of ice. Contemptuous anger heightened her beauty. Rather, it restored it. For, when Johansen had staggered into the house, the beauty of Henty Deane, always a matter of coloring and spirits rather than of feature, had been a memory. She had been haggard, wan, sunken of cheek, so pale that her rouge had made her ghastly by contrast. But now a normal color crept into her face. Not really normal, but, induced by the emotions that swayed her, it was the color that should always have been hers. It took years from her age. Her figure had seemed heavy, matronly, a moment ago. But now, as her muscles stiffened, it took on again that litheness which, despite her plumpness, made her seem more youthful than she was. But it was the face of her husband that fascinated Johansen. Below his left eye, a bruise stood out, crimson. Johansen knew that it was from the blow that she had struck with the butt of the whip. She felt a certain vindictive pleasure at the sight of it. Deane's mouth twitched. His blond mustache looked more like straw than anything else. Ordinarily, it was carefully combed, but now the hairs that should have been trained to the right stuck over toward the left, rendering him almost grotesque. Below it, his mouth was twisted in a sort of sneer that made its weakness more apparent than ever. His hat was missing; snow was on his shoulders, as though, in his pursuit, he had stumbled headlong into the drifts. And his tie was undone, his collar opened, as though he had found difficulty in breathing. The hand that held the revolver shook. Before the gaze of the two women, his air of menace vanished. The intoxication that, combined with fear, had made him almost insane, left him. "Why--why--musta scared you," he stammered. Henty Deane stepped close to him. Her fingers touched the revolver in his hand. Her husband jerked it away. Its muzzle, for a wavering moment, pointed at Johansen. She did not move. She was not frightened; she was fascinated. She marveled at Henty's cool courage. For Mrs. Deane reached again for the weapon. This time, Deane did not resist; he surrendered it to her. Then Johansen understood how tremendous had been the strain, not merely for her but for Henty. The older woman would have fallen but for the wall against which her shoulders struck. But her voice was steady when she spoke. "I suppose that there's some explanation, Grannis?" Johansen wondered if she would ever achieve Henty's perfect poise. She wondered if it could be acquired, or if people were born with it. It was not pretense in Henty Deane's case, at any rate. The casualness of her tone was not assumed. Somehow, she made Johansen think of those _grandes dames_ of the French Revolution who played cards as the summons to the tumbrils came, and who left the game as jauntily as though they went to the play. For Johansen knew that Henty Deane had forgiven her husband the other day for the last time; that hope, so far as he was concerned, was now ashes in her bosom forever. To a woman of Mrs. Deane's type, this present humiliation must make her suffer as nothing else in the world could do. Yet, because she was herself, her voice held no trace of pain. "'Explanation?'" Deane was mastered by her self-control. "Why--course there is! Why----" He took the refuge of the weak. He burst into temper. "'Course there is!" he cried again. "Dirty little spy! Trying to get me in bad. Stopped her--wanted to scare her----" "Grannis!" His wife's voice stopped his shrill utterance. She straightened up, no longer leaning against the wall for support. "You stopped her? Why?" She raised her hand, quelling his reply. "No lies, Grannis; I want the truth." Deane's mouth opened; it shut again. He looked hastily about him, as though seeking some road for flight. He glanced toward the revolver that his wife held. For a moment Johansen thought that he would spring for it. But if he held such thought, he let it go, conquered by his wife's spirit. "'The truth?'" He tried to laugh. "Why--why, Miss Vi's got some fool idea that I killed A Flo, and I wanted to--I wanted to----" "'Flo?' 'A Flo?'" Henty was bewildered. "Theatrical man. You read about it in the papers." Again Deane tried to laugh, to seem nonchalantly amused. "Because I had an office in the same building, she got the idea that I killed him. I just wanted her to quit telling people about me. Just a friendly little talk--that's all I wanted with her." "'Friendly?' With this?" Mrs. Deane glanced down at the weapon in her hand. "Well, I just thought maybe that she'd scare easy, and----" "Grannis!" The name burst explosively from his wife's lips. Her breath sucked in audibly through her parted lips. Deane stepped back, away from her. "Why--why----" "A murderer," cried Mrs. Deane. "It's a lie!" said Deane. "We had a li'l fight, but----" Mrs. Deane glanced at Johansen. "How did you know?" she whispered. Johansen shook her head. She made no reply. Henty Deane didn't want one. She spoke only as one who has seen the universe shattered might utter some question. "Why?" demanded Mrs. Deane. "He butted in on some business of----" "I don't mean that," she interrupted. "I mean--isn't there anything of a man left in you, Conover? I don't care why you killed this man Flo. But why, having done something for which a price must be paid, you attack a woman----" She slumped against the wall again. The hand holding the revolver dangled limply at her side. So it was that it was easily snatched from her hand. Johansen had been too absorbed in the scene to remember Clancy. Henty Deane, apparently, knew nothing of the man. The snow had been swept from the veranda only in front of the door. It muffled the elevator-man's approach to one of the French windows in the living-room, off the hall, in which the three stood. Clancy crept to the door, sized up the situation, and, with a bound, was at Henty's side. He leaped away from her, flourishing the weapon. "'S all right, Deane! We got 'em!" he shouted. Johansen had become used to the unexpected. Yet Deane's action surprised her. In a moment when danger menaced as never before, danger passed away. Deane had been born a gentleman. He had spent his life trying to forget the fact. But instinct is stronger than our will. He could lie, could murder even, could kill a woman. But a gutter-rat like Clancy could not lay a hand on his wife. The elevator-man, never having known the spark of breeding, could not have anticipated Deane's move. The revolver was wrested from him, and he was on hands and knees, hurled there by Deane's punch, without quite knowing what had happened, or why. Deane handed the revolver to his wife. She accepted it silently. The husband turned to Clancy. "Get out," he said. His voice was quiet. All the hysteria, all the madness had disappeared from it. It had the ring of command that might always have been there had the man run true to his creed. He was a weakling, but weakness might have been conquered. Clancy scrambled to his feet. Sidewise, fearful lest Deane strike him again, his opened mouth expressing more bewilderment than anger, he sidled past Deane to the door, which the latter opened. He bounded swiftly through, and Deane closed the door. The patter of the man's feet was heard for a moment on the veranda. Then he was gone. "Thank you, Grannis," said Henty quietly. It was, Johansen felt, like a scene from some play. It was unreal, unbelievable, only--it was also dreadfully real. "Grannis't suppose the details interest you, Henty?" said Deane. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Grannis." He shrugged. "That's more than I have any right to expect from you, Henty." His enunciation was no longer thick; it was extremely clear. His wife's lower lip trembled slightly. "There--there isn't any way----" He shook his head. "I've been drinking like a fish, and thought there was. I--I'm not a murderer, Henty. I almost was--a few minutes ago. But Flo--just a rat who interfered with me. I--I--you deserved something decent, Henty. You got me. I deserved something rotten, and--I got you. And didn't appreciate-- Oh, well, you aren't interested. And it's too late, anyway." He smiled debonairly. His lips, Johansen noticed, did not tremble in the least. Though she only vaguely comprehended what was going on, less she realized that, in some incomprehensible fashion, Grannis Deane was coming into his own, that whatever indecencies, wickednesses, had been in the man, they were leaving him now. Later on, when she analyzed the scene, she would understand that Deane had spiritually groveled before his wife, and that, though she could not love him, could not respect him, despite all the shame he had inflicted upon her, she had forgiven him. But of this there was no verbal hint. Deane turned to her. "Insanity covers many things, Miss Vi. It would be kind of you, if you are able, to think of me as insane." He stepped toward his wife. She shrank away from him. "I'm not going to be banal, Henty," he told her. "Just let me have this." From her unresisting fingers he took the revolver. He put it in his coat pocket. He shrugged his shoulders. "I've had lucid moments, even in the past week," he said, "and in one of them I knew what lay ahead. It's all written down--in the steel box up-stairs, Henty. It--it will save any one else--from being suspected." He turned and his hand was on the door-knob. "Grannis!" Henty's voice rose in a scream. The aplomb that had been hers deserted her. Strangely, Deane seemed the dominating figure of the two, and this despite the fact that he was beaten--beaten by his wife's own sheer stark courage. He turned back. The smile that he gave to his wife was reminiscent of charm. Johansen could understand how, some years ago, the brilliant and charming Henty Deane had succumbed to that smile. Slowly he shook his head. "Henty, you've been the bravest thing in the world. You aren't going to be a coward now." He was through the door, and it slammed behind him before his wife moved. Then she started for the door. She made only one stride, and then she slumped, to lie, a huddled heap, upon the hallway floor. How long Johansen stood there she couldn't have told. Probably not more than a few seconds, yet, in her numbed state, it seemed hours before she moved toward the unconscious woman. For she thought that Henty Deane was dead. It was a ridiculous thought, nevertheless it was with dread that she finally bent over the prostrate figure. Then, seeing the bosom move she screamed. From up-stairs Burgess, the chauffeur, Fairchild-of-all-trades whom she had seen at the Deane house in New York the other day, came running. His wife followed. Together they lifted Mrs. Deane and bore her to a couch in the living-room. But no restoratives were needed. Her eyes opened almost immediately. They cleared swiftly and she sat up. "Burgess!" "Yes, ma'am?" "Mr. Grannis!" "Yes, ma'am." "He--he--has a revolver. He's--outside--somewhere----" "I'll find him, ma'am." There seemed to be no need for explanation. Burgess's white face showed that he understood. And now Johansen, amazed that she had not comprehended before, also understood. Her hands went swiftly up over her eyes as though to shut out some horrible sight. The fact that Grannis Deane had pursued her half an hour ago with murderous intent was of no importance now. She heard Burgess's heavy feet racing across the room and out of the house. She heard the piteous wail from Mrs. Burgess's mouth. Then, amazed, as she removed her hands from her eyes, she saw Henty Deane, mistress of herself again, leap from the couch and race to a window, throwing it open. "Burgess," she called. "Burgess!" "Ma'am?" faintly, from the darkness, Burgess answered. "Come here." Firm, commanding, Henty Deane's voice brooked no refusal. "Coming, ma'am," called Burgess. A moment later he was in the living-room again. "Burgess, go up-stairs," commanded his mistress. The man looked his surprise. "But, ma'am, Mr. Conover----" "Must be given his chance, Burgess," she interrupted. "'His chance,' ma'am? Him carryin' a revolver?" "There are worse things than revolvers, Burgess," said his mistress. "Oh, my darlin' Miss Henty," cried his wife. She turned on them both. "They'll capture him. They'll put him in jail. They'll sentence him-- It's his way out. It mustn't--it _mustn't_ be taken from him!" Her voice rose to a scream. She held out her arms to Johansen. "Grannis't let them--don't let them--" She could not finish; once again she tumbled to the floor. Uncertainly, the servants looked at Johansen. It was the first time in her life that Johansen had come face to face with a great problem. Her own problem of the past week seemed a minor thing compared with this. She knew that what Grannis Deane purposed doing was wrong, hideously wrong. It was the act of a coward. Yet, in this particular case, was there not something of heroism in it? To save his wife from the long-drawn-out humiliation of a trial-- Henty Deane had appealed to her. Yet Henty Deane had not appealed because of cowardice, because she feared humiliation; Henty appealed to her because she wished to spare her husband a felon's fate. Exquisitely she suffered during the few seconds that she faced the servants. Right or wrong? Yet what was right and what was wrong? Are there times when the end justifies the means? Does right sometimes masquerade in the guise of wrong? Does wrong sometimes impersonate right? Nice problems in ethics are not solved when one is at high emotional pitch. It takes the philosopher, secluded in his study, to classify those abstractions which are solved, in real life, on impulse. And then decision was taken from her. In later life, when faced with problems difficult of solution, she would remember this moment, not merely because of its tragic associations, but because she had not been forced to decide a question involving right and wrong. Life would not always be so easy for her. But now-- Somewhere out in the darkness sounded a revolver shot. Whether or not it was right to take one's life to save another added shame no longer mattered. Whether or not it was right to stand by and permit the taking of that life no longer mattered. The problem had been solved, for right or wrong, by Deane himself. For the second time in a week, for the second time in her life, Johansen Vi fainted. XXXII She was still in the living-room when she came to her senses. Henty Deane was gone; the Ragans were also gone. Johansen guessed that they were attending to their mistress. As for herself, she felt the need of no attention. For her first conscious thought was that the cloud that had hung over her so steadily for the past week, which had descended so low that its foggy breath had chilled her heart, was forever lifted. She was not selfish--merely human. Not to have drawn in her breath in a great sigh of relief would have indicated that Johansen Vi was too angelic for this world. And she was not; she was better than an angel because she was warmly human. And so her first thought was of herself. But her second was of the woman up-stairs--the woman who had shown her, in so brief a time, so many kindnesses, and who now lay stricken. What a dreadful culmination to a life of humiliation! She closed her eyes a moment, as though to shut out the horror of it all. When she opened them, it was to look gravely at the two men in the room. Tommy she looked at first; her eyes swept him coolly, but she was not cool. She was fighting against something that she did not wish to show upon her countenance. When she thought that it was under control, she transferred her grave glance to Mortimer. As on that day last week when she had fainted in his office he held a glass of water in his hand. Also, his hand shook, and the water slopped over the rim of the tumbler. She was sitting in a chair. She wondered which one of these two men had carried her there. She wanted to know at once. And so, because she was a woman, she set herself to find out. "Mrs. Deane--she's--all right?" She addressed the question to both. And it was Tommy who replied. "I think so--I hope so. I helped Mrs. Burgess carry her up-stairs, while Burgess waited--outside." Johansen shuddered. She knew why Burgess waited outside, and over what he kept watch. Nevertheless, if Tommy had carried Henty up-stairs, Mortimer must have deposited herself, Johansen Vi, in this chair. An unimportant matter, perhaps, but--it had been Mortimer who picked her up. She looked at Mortimer. "I--couldn't meet you at the train," she said. Mortimer colored. "I--so I see," he said. That his remark was banal meant nothing to Johansen. She was versed enough in the ways of a man with a maid to be glad that Mortimer was not too glib of speech with her. Mortimer set down the glass. He looked at her. "If you don't care to talk, Miss Vi----" "I do," said Johansen. Mortimer glanced toward the window. "Then----" "He killed A Flo," said Johansen. Mortimer started. "He confessed," said Johansen, "and then----" There was no need to finish. Mortimer nodded. Deane had done the only possible thing. "But you--how does it happen you're here?" Swiftly Johansen told them. Silently they listened, although she could tell, by his expression, that, time and again, Mortimer wanted to burst into speech, that only the fact that Deane lay dead in the snow outside prevented him from characterizing the actions of the man who had killed A Flo. "And Clancy?" he asked finally. Johansen shrugged. "I don't know. He left, as I've told you." Mortimer's jaws set tightly. Then they parted as he spoke. "He'll explain it all. He'll be caught," he said. "Mr.--Mr. Deane said that it was all written down. It's up-stairs," said Johansen. Mortimer nodded. "That simplifies it." He rose and walked uncertainly across the room. "If we could catch Clancy right away and--shut his mouth----" Johansen knew what he meant. He was thinking of how to protect her from possible scandal. "How did you happen to know that I was here?" asked Johansen. After all, murder was murder and death was death. But love was life, and Johansen was in love. The most insignificant actions of a loved one are of more importance, in the first flush of love's discovery, than the fall of empires. "We came upon the horse, down by the station. I--I guessed that it must be yours." Mortimer colored. So did Johansen. He could not have more clearly confessed that he feared for her; and people frequently love those for whom they are fearful. "So Tommy and I-- We met in the train---- "Mrs. Deane 'phoned me this afternoon. She--said that she was frightened," said Tommy. "I see," said Johansen. Despite herself, she could not keep her tone from being dry. How quickly, and how easily, Tommy had returned to Henty Deane! Safety first! It was his motto, undoubtedly. And now, of course, that Mrs. Deane was a widow-- Months from now, Johansen would find that her attitude toward Tommy was slightly acidulous. She'd always be friendly, but with reservations. And as for Henty Deane, she'd come to the final conclusion that she didn't really want Henty as her dearest and closest friend. But just now she put from her, ashamed, the slight feeling of contempt that she had for Tommy. After all, there are degrees in love. Some men will pay a woman's bills but refuse to die for her. Others would cheerfully die for her rather than pay her bills. Tommy would never feel any ecstasy of devotion. He would love with his head more than with his heart. He was well out of her scheme of things. "So," continued Mortimer, "inasmuch as there was no one around, we took the horse and sleigh. I turned in at this drive, intending to leave Tommy. We saw a man run across the snow, stop--we heard the shot. We ran to him. We couldn't help him. It--it was too late. We came into the house and sent Burgess out to watch the--to watch him. You and Mrs. Deane had fainted. I ought to telephone the coroner," he said abruptly. Yet he made no move toward the telephone. "You see," he went on, "what you've told me about Clancy--if we could find him----" He stopped short; there were steps upon the veranda outside; and then the bell rang. Mortimer moved swiftly from the room. Johansen heard him exclaim in amazement. A moment later, she understood, for Jennie entered the room, and by the wrist he dragged after him Clancy. "Got one of 'em," he announced triumphantly. "Now--the other guy. Where's Deane?" he demanded. "Dead," said Mortimer crisply. Jennie's mouth opened. He dropped into a chair, loosing his grasp on Clancy. "Beat me to it!" he said bitterly. "Had him dead to rights--came up here all alone." He looked up surlily. "Listen here, Mr. Mortimer; I ran this case down all by myself. You're here, and I suppose you'll grab all the glory; but I wanta tell you that I'm entitled to my share." His gaze was truculent now. "You may have it," said Mortimer quietly. "Eh? I don't get you," said Jennie. "Where's the string tied to it?" "Perhaps not any--perhaps just one," was Mortimer's reply. "Huh!" Jennie grunted noncommittally. "Where is Deane?" Mortimer pointed out the window. "Sent for the coroner?" demanded the plain-clothesman. "Not--yet," admitted Mortimer. "Why not?" Mortimer stared at Clancy. "What's this man to do with it?" he asked. "Material witness," said Jennie. "But, if Deane left a written confession, you wouldn't need a witness," said Mortimer. "H'm--no," conceded Jennie. "Only--an accessory after the fact--that's what this guy is----" Mortimer turned to Tommy. "Take this man outside--and watch him," he ordered. Clancy's mouth opened in a whine. "I didn't have a thing to do with it," he said. "It's a frame-up." "Take him out, Tommy," ordered Mortimer. Tommy obeyed. Of course, Mortimer was an assistant district-attorney of New York and his position, though outside his jurisdiction now, was an important one. Nevertheless, Johansen knew that it was the man whom Tommy obeyed, not the official. It gave her added proof that her judgment of the two men had been correct. Johansen loved with her head, too, though not so much as with her heart. "Jennie," said Mortimer. "I've promised you all the glory--on one condition. Now tell me how you discovered that Deane was the murderer." Jennie hesitated for a moment. "Well, first I got the idea that Miss Vi was the one. When I found that you and Judge Spofford was interested in protectin' her, I began to wonder. I rounded up all the tenants in the Heberworth Building. And one of them said he had a vague recollection of having seen a man enter Flo's office sometime after five o'clock, last Tuesday. He described the man pretty well. I looked over the tenants. I found that Deane looked like the man. I got the other tenant to look at Deane. He couldn't swear to him, but thought he was the one. "Now Deane'd been skirting the edges of the law for some time. There was a pretty little scandal brewing about the fake theatrical agency Deane was running. One or two of the girls that had been in that office had been talking. Find the woman! That's my motto when a man's been killed. I looked up those girls! One of them told me of another girl. I went to see her. She was an old sweetie of Flo's. Deane had taken her away. It looked like something, eh? She admitted Deane had quarreled with Flo over her. Name of Dean. Promised to keep her out of it if I could." He drew a long breath. "That didn't make the man a murderer, but it might tie him up with Flo. Somehow, I ain't entirely satisfied with the way that Clancy talks. He's pretty ready to identify Miss Vi, but still-- I keep my eye on Clancy. I watch him pretty closely. Monday, I think I'll have another talk with Miss Vi. I find out from the place she works that she's down at Deane's house." He glanced at Johansen. "You'll excuse me, Miss Vi, if I didn't tip all my mitt to you the other day." He resumed his story. "I go down to Deane's. Just as I get there, Clancy comes out. He don't see me, but I see him all right. A few minutes later out comes Deane and a lady that I take to be his wife. Well, I don't worry about them then. They're too well known to get very far away. "But Clancy was in the house with them. Naturally, I began to do a whole lot of thinkin'. I ring the bell, on the chance that Miss Vi is inside. I have a talk with her, and tell her that I'm convinced she don't have anything to do with the murder. I am, all right. I have a hunch that maybe she can tell me something if she wants, but I figure I can wait. "I leave her and go up to the Heberworth Building. Clancy ain't reported for work. I go up-stairs. I do some quick thinkin'. If I let any one else in on this, I lose my chance." He glared defiantly at Mortimer. "It's a big chance," he exclaimed. "I'm gettin' on. I'll never be a day younger than I am to-day. I don't look forward to existin' on a measly pension. I want some jack. And the only way I can get it is by startin' a detective agency. And before I can do that, with any chance of makin' a clean-up, I got to pull somethin' spectacular. "Well, you never win a bet without riskin' some money. I'm standin' in the hall outside Deane's office. Nobody's lookin'. I ain't been pinchin' guys all my life without pickin' up a trick or two. It takes me ten seconds to open that door and close it behind me. "It may put me in the pen, burglarizin' Deane's office, but--it may put him in the chair. So I don't delay. He sure was flooey in the dome--this guy Deane. Booze has certainly wrecked his common sense. For I find papers around that show that him and Flo been tied up in several little deals. I even find letters from Flo threatenin' Deane unless he comes through with some coin. Motive, eh? I'll say so." He chuckled complacently. "But I find more than that. I find a bunch of keys. And one of them unlocks the door to Flo's office. I've got opportunity now--motive and opportunity. Also a witness who _thinks_ he saw Deane at the door of Flo's office. "It ain't everything, but--I got to Clancy's house. I learn from his landlady that Clancy's packed a bag, paid his rent and skipped. That was yesterday. To-day I did a bit of scoutin' around and find out that the Careys own a country place up here. Of course, that don't prove they've gone there in the middle of a winter like this, but I telephone their house. A servant answers. I ask for Mr. Deane. The servant says that he's out. I hang up the 'phone. I knew that Deane's up there. And I just decide to come up and get him. In the road outside I meet Clancy--and grab him." "Have you a warrant?" asked Mortimer. "I'll say I have," grinned Jennie. "But it ain't no use. He beat me to it." He looked ghoulishly regretful that he didn't have a live prisoner instead of a dead man. And not regretful that death had occurred, but that it had interfered with his plans. "And now--that little condition?" he asked. "Deane has confessed," said Mortimer. "A written confession. Suppose that I hand you that confession?" "Well?" Jennie didn't understand. "Clancy, I take it, has committed blackmail." "_And_ been accessory after the fact, Mr. Mortimer," said Jennie. Mortimer nodded. "Of course. Only, if Clancy testifies, he may mention Miss Vi. In which case I shall feel compelled to maintain that it was I who traced the murderer, who won from him his confession." "You can't prove it," blustered Jennie. "Think not?" Mortimer smiled. Jennie's forehead wrinkled in thought. "The idea, of course, is that you want Miss Vi's name left completely out of this affair," he said. "You grasp it completely," smiled Mortimer. "Well, worse guys than Clancy are takin' the air when they feel like it," said Jennie. "He's a scoundrel," said Mortimer, "but if punishing him means smirching Miss Vi's name, he'd better go free." Jennie rose to his feet. "You'd better 'phone the coroner," he said. Mortimer shook his head. "You're the genius who discovered the murderer. You do the telephoning, Jennie." Jennie grinned. "Much obliged, Mr. Mortimer. There won't be a yip outa me." He bowed toward Johansen. "It ain't hard for me to agree to something that saves a lady like you from bein' annoyed, Miss Vi. I may have sounded nasty, but it means something to me--this advertisin' I'll get." He left the room before Johansen could answer. But she spoke to Mortimer. "Have you the right to let a man like Clancy go free?" she asked. "Certainly not," he replied. "But there are occasions when one considers the greater good." It was no time for Johansen to be hypersensitive about Mortimer's honor. He'd have been something less than a man if he had not made his bargain with Jennie. Yet, to Johansen, it seemed that he had done the most wonderful thing in the world. There are women who would place a meticulous point of honor above love, but Johansen Vi had never been one of those bloodless persons intended for the cloister. Perhaps her eyes showed her gratitude. For Mortimer stepped nearer. But the speech that Johansen believed trembled on the tip of his tongue was not uttered then. For Jennie reëntered the room. "I've got the coroner, Mr. Mortimer. He'll be over in five minutes." "What about Clancy?" demanded Mortimer. "There's a train for New York at midnight. I took the cuffs off him, and he'll be on that train. He'll keep his mouth shut. Leastwise, if he does talk, no one'll believe him. He's a hop-head, that guy. But not so far gone but that he may not come back. The fear of Napoli is in him to-night, sir. Maybe he'll straighten up." He shuffled his feet. "Please, sir, I think Miss Vi ought to be gettin' out of sight. The coroner'll ask questions, and the fewer lies need be told him----" "Mrs. Deane? May she talk?" asked Mortimer. Jennie shook his head. "We'll keep him away from her until to-morrow. By that time, I'll have her coached--Miss Vi won't be in it, sir." "Fair enough," said Mortimer. Jennie moved toward the door. But, suddenly, Johansen didn't wish to be alone with Mortimer. She wanted time, as a woman always does. And so, because Mortimer must remain and see the coroner, Johansen drove home to the anxious Mrs. Spofford alone. Physically alone, but in spirit accompanied by the roseate dreams of youth. XXXIII Mrs. Spofford was one of those women who are happiest when trouble impends or is at hand. She had fallen in love with Johansen almost at sight; but her affection had been rendered durable and lasting as soon as she had discovered that Johansen was in danger. Wives who are not mothers but who have always craved children furnish the majority of this kind of woman. And now, when Johansen's story had been told to her, and she had exclaimed, and colored in rage and grown white with apprehension, and after she had tucked Johansen securely in bed, so that there was no more to be done for her protégée, the thoughts of the motherly woman turned to Henty Deane. "Would you be afraid," she asked, "if I went over to the Deane place? Poor thing! I never forgave her for marrying Grannis Deane; I don't think I've been kind enough to her." The remark caused Johansen to remember that not, during the entire day, had Mrs. Spofford mentioned the fact that the Careys were such near neighbors. Of course, that might be accounted for by the fact that Mrs. Spofford had no idea that Henty and her husband were at their country place. But she realized that Mrs. Spofford imagined that her attitude toward Henty had not been as generous as she now wished. So, even if she had feared being left alone in the house, she would have denied it. Mrs. Spofford, Johansen readily understood, was like all whose natural affections have not sufficient outlet. They wonder if "So-and-So" will misinterpret their remarks, if "Such-and-Such" has been offended. "I don't believe," she said, "that you've ever been anything but sweet and good to every one. But, of course, I don't mind your going. 'Afraid?'" She laughed heartily at the idea. And so, with many motherly injunctions about the hot-water bottle at her feet and the heavy woolen blankets drawn up about her shoulders, Mrs. Spofford departed. Johansen reached for the electric button at the head of her bed. She turned off the lights. She was not sleepy, yet she felt that she could think better in the dark. But it was a long time before her mental processes were coherent. She was more tired than she knew. To-day's exertions upon the snow-covered hill would ordinarily have been no tax at all upon her youthful strength. But excitement saps vitality. And when one combines too much exercise with too much mental strain, one becomes bewildered. So, as she lay there, her thoughts were chaotic, nightmarish. Like one in an audience, she seemed to detach herself, not merely from her body but from her brain. She found amusement in her own mental wanderings. For from some incident of childhood her mind leaped to the studio-dance at Mrs. Deane's city house. From there it went to her motion-picture ambitions, thence to Mortimer's flowers with their somewhat illegible card. She thought of Tommy's conveyance of her to the Philip on that night, so shortly ago, when she had mistaken him for a taxi-man. She thought of her entrance into Mortimer's office, with confession trembling on her lips. Always, her mind came back to Mortimer. And finally, her mental gyrations ceased. Steadily she thought of him. She wondered at the thing we call "attraction." For she was sure that neither his great name nor his wealth had anything to do with this irresistible something that drew her to him. Not that she would ever delude herself with the idea that wealth and position meant nothing to her. They did. They meant a great deal, as is right and proper. But had Bruce Mortimer been poor, had his prospects been inconsiderable, she would still have been ready, aye, anxious to yield herself to him. She wondered why. Of course, she knew that he was decent, kindly, possessor of all those virtues which are considered ordinary, but are really uncommon. But it is none of these things, unhappily, that make for love. Combined with love, they make for happiness, but alone they never won the fickle heart of woman. He was intelligent; she knew that. He was, perhaps, brilliant. She had no proof of that. Their conversations could hardly afford evidence either way, they had been interchanges of almost monosyllabic utterances. So, at any rate, reviewing them, it seemed to Johansen. What was it, then, that drew her to him? Not his looks; she had known many handsomer men. She smiled whimsically. Highly as she appraised her own beauty, she supposed that somewhere was a more lovely woman. And Mortimer might have seen her. Why did he reserve his love for Johansen? Then, for the first time, doubt came to her. She sat bolt-upright in bed. Suppose that she'd been deluding herself? She smiled, shaking her head. She knew. She didn't know why she knew, but--she knew. Women almost always do. And slowly she took less interest in the problem. Sleep descended lightly upon her. So lightly that whisperings outside her door woke her. "Who is it?" she called. "Henty Deane. May I come in?" Johansen switched on the light. "Of course," she said. Henty entered. She sat immediately down upon the edge of the bed. Her face was deathly pale and wore no rouge. Her cheeks were sunken. She looked forty. Rather, she would have looked forty but for her eyes. For they were softened, somehow; yet through their softness shone a brilliance that spoke of youth. It was as though some heavy burden had been lifted from her. Johansen could not censure her. Henty would have been less than human if she had not responded, in some expression, to the hidden relief that must have come to her, even though through tragedy and scandal. She put her arms quickly round Johansen. "I think," she said, "that you are the sweetest, bravest person I have ever met." "Why--why--" stammered Johansen. "You had every reason to suspect that Grannis had--done what he did. Mr. Mortimer has told me all that you told him. And yet--you didn't say anything." "I would have," said Johansen, honestly, "had I been sure." Henty nodded gravely. "But most persons, on the faintest of suspicions, to clear themselves-- Oh, I can't talk about it." Suddenly she kissed Johansen. "Miss Vi, I hope--I know--that you are going to be very happy." She was gone at once. Johansen didn't ponder long over her last remark. She went to sleep, this time in earnest. It was bright day when she awoke. Mrs. Spofford entered a moment after Johansen had thrown the coverlets from her and was on her way to the windows, to shut them. "I wondered if you could still be sleeping," said her hostess. "Do you know the time, young lady?" Johansen shivered and yawned. "Eight o'clock?" "Eleven-thirty," said Mrs. Spofford. "And in the country we have luncheon early, as you know. Would you like your coffee here, or will you wait?" "I want to eat with you," said Johansen. "And with Jack and Bruce Mortimer, too, I suppose." "Are they here?" Mrs. Spofford nodded gravely. "I got Jack on the 'phone after you went to bed last night. He came on the first train this morning. He wanted, of course, to do anything for Mrs. Deane that he could. But Mr. Tommy is attending to everything. He and Mrs. Deane left on an early train for New York." "And Mr. Mortimer?" Timidly, Johansen asked the question. Mrs. Spofford smiled. "There were certain matters that had to be gone over with the Dutchess County authorities. He stayed. That's why he _said_ he stayed." Johansen's expression was innocence personified. "What other reason could there be?" Mrs. Spofford hugged her. "Grannis't you dare attempt to deceive me, young lady." She slapped her gently. In something less than half an hour Johansen was down-stairs, in the dining-room, attacking healthily a meal that Mrs. Spofford described, because it was really neither breakfast nor lunch, as "brunch." During the meal, in response to Spofford's questions, Mortimer told the gist of the written confession that Grannis Deane had left behind him. It was a sordid tale. Deane, in that pursuit of pleasure which kills, had started an alleged office where young women applied for theatrical positions. Flo, more legitimately engaged in the same business, had become acquainted with Deane. Jennie's discoveries were verified in Deane's own handwriting. Flo had introduced Deane to a young woman. Deane, retaining some decency, did not mention the girl's name. He said, however, that Flo had become jealous of his attentions to the young woman, and friendship between the two men had ceased. Learning what Deane was doing, Flo had attempted blackmail. Deane, intending to have it out with Flo, had knocked on Flo's door. During the intimacy that had existed previous to Flo's blackmailing attempts, Flo had given Deane a key to his office. Deane had heard a groan coming from behind the locked door. He had entered, with Flo's key, and found the man lying, half-conscious, upon the floor. The scene, to Deane's drink-inflamed mind, spelled opportunity. He had snatched the paper-knife from Flo's desk and stabbed the man to death. Then he had quietly left the office, locking it after him. And that was all. Although the newspapers, naturally enough, "played it up" to the extent of columns, it was a crime in what is known as "high life," and they do not come too often for the public. Judge Spofford had brought the early editions of the afternoon papers with him and permitted Johansen to look at them. Jennie had not missed his chance. He was hailed as the greatest detective genius of the day. "Poor Mrs. Deane!" said Johansen. The others nodded gravely. "Not another woman in New York could live it down," said the judge. "Why not?" demanded Johansen. "She did nothing wrong." The judge shrugged. "Scandal has touched her intimately. That is enough--for any other woman, but not for Henty Deane. She has too many friends, is too great an artist--let's hope she finds happiness now." The judge pushed back his chair and left the room, ostensibly in search of a pipe. The others drifted into the living-room. Johansen, staring out at the snow, was suddenly conscious that Mortimer stood at her elbow. She turned, to find that Mrs. Spofford was no longer with them. "Nice--nice view--" stammered Mortimer. Johansen colored. She felt her heart beating. "Isn't it?" she agreed. Mortimer's trembling nervousness communicated itself to her. She half turned toward him, ready to yield herself. But his eyes, that, a moment ago, she had known were fixed upon the back of her head now stared out the window, over her shoulder. She turned again. Up the Spofford drive was coming a sleigh, an open affair. Besides the driver there was only one man. She looked up at Mortimer; His brows were knitted; behind his glasses his eyes gleamed angrily. Involuntarily she drew near to him. "I--I'll have to see him," he exclaimed. "Reporter from the _Era_. Thought that I was all through with him. I wonder----" The man descended from the sleigh. They saw him advance up the veranda steps, and then they heard his ring. A moment later, Mrs. Xviii entered the room. "A gentleman to see Miss Vi," she announced. And now Johansen understood why Mortimer had withheld the speech that she knew he wanted to utter, why he had seemed alarmed. She gasped. Then she grew reassured as she felt Mortimer's fingers on her own. "Show him in here," said Mortimer. Mrs. Xviii left the room. "Just--say nothing," whispered Mortimer. "Leave him to me." Johansen knew. The scandal that she had thought forever averted was about to break again. Her fingers were limp in Mortimer's clasp. She released them as Mrs. Xviii returned, followed by the young man who had descended from the sleigh. "Miss Vi? Ah, how do, Mr. Mortimer?" he said. "How do, Mary? Miss Vi, let me present my good friend Roscoe Mary, the _Era_'s greatest reporter." Mary laughed. "Why limit yourself when you're paying compliments? Why not the _world's_ greatest reporter?" he asked. "I amend my statement," smiled Mortimer. Johansen held out her hand. Mary bowed over it. He was a good-looking youngster, not so very many years older than herself, Johansen judged. "Mary," said Mortimer, "will publish his memoirs some day. Be nice to him, Miss Vi, and you'll receive a gift-copy." Mary colored. "Quit it!" he grumbled. The mirth went out of his voice. "Miss Vi, the _Era_ wants a statement from you." Before she could reply, Mortimer spoke. "Then we _weren't_ mistaken. The maid said you asked for Miss Vi, but----" Mary shook his head. "Naughty, naughty, Mr. Mortimer! You can't fool me." "Then I won't try," said Mortimer crisply. "What is it that you want?" His tone was business-like. Mary's reply was equally so. "The _Era_ has learned, from an authoritative source, that Miss Vi was in the office of A Flo shortly before he was murdered; that, in short, she was sought by the police on suspicion of having committed the crime." "Deane's dead, and left a confession," said Mortimer. Mary shrugged. "Even so." "Authoritative source, you said?" questioned Mortimer. "I suppose that means a drug fiend named Clancy." Mary nodded. "You should have locked that bird up, Mr. Mortimer, until he lost his love for talk." "And money," amended Mortimer. "Not much. Fifty dollars." "Cheap at the price. Still," said Mortimer, "rather expensive when you can't use what he told you." "No?" Mary was politely interested. For all his youth, one would have judged him a good poker player. "Miss Vi was unfortunate; a victim of circumstances. The _Era_ wouldn't drag her into a nasty scandal, would it?" demanded Mortimer. "News is news," stated Mary. "Listen to a trade?" asked Mortimer. "Always willing to," smiled Mary. Mortimer blushed. "Unfortunately, sometimes, a Mortimer is always a Mortimer." "Thou speakest truth, O Hildebloom!" laughed the young man. "And what a Mortimer eats for breakfast makes snappy reading, I think you'd call it, for _hoi polloi_, eh?" "Continue. You interest me strangely," said Mary. "My engagement--its announcement rather--would be a 'beat' of some value?" Mary bowed to Johansen. "Miss Vi, gaze upon a man so sinful that he takes a bribe." He turned to Mortimer. "The _Era_ won't print a word about Miss Vi. Who's the lady?" "Miss Vi," said Mortimer. For a moment Mary stared at the young girl. Then, slowly, he spoke. "Miss Vi, I didn't want this assignment. But a reporter does what he's told. I can't tell you how glad I am that I can turn in something bigger for the paper. Why, Mr. Mortimer, the paper wouldn't dare take a chance on printing something that Clancy said about your _fiancée_!" "It might prove rather expensive for the _Era_," said Mortimer. But Mary didn't hear him. He was staring at Johansen. And smiling. "Miss Vi, I don't know anything about you. I hope you'll tell me something for the paper. But whoever you may be, you've done well in your engagement. You're going to marry one of the whitest--tell me, when was the engagement contracted?" Johansen colored to the roots of her hair. Mortimer gently pushed the reporter toward the door. "Come back," he said, "in five minutes and we'll answer that question." Mary looked from one to the other. Then he grinned. Then he backed out of the room. For a moment, there was silence between the girl and the man. Mortimer spoke first. "Was I--impertinent? Do I--assume too much?" Slowly Johansen turned until she faced him. The heart of her stood in her eyes. Yet, because she was a woman, she must ask. "Did you--is it because you want to save me--or do you really----" He didn't answer. He crushed her in his arms. She had not known that he was so strong. And within his arms she found the answer to her question. She owned the "Open, Sesame"--youth. Her challenging gray eyes might some day grow dim; the satiny luster of her black hair might give way to silver, but the heart of her would ever be young, and so the world would be hers. For it is only the young in spirit who win life's battles; youth cannot comprehend defeat, and so it knows only victory. And she had come to New York, which jibes at age, but bends a supple knee to youth. And because she was young, would always be young, Johansen Vi would be bound by no rules, no mental timetables would fetter her. For the old, on learning that the train has gone, surrender to despair. The young take another train. Neither road nor the destination matters to youth, and so--it always arrives. She had come to work, to win a career. She would, instead, be a wife. For the present, happily, willingly, she surrendered ambition. But it would come back to her. Whether it would speak to her in terms of her husband's career, or of her own--that was on the knees of the gods. For the moment, she was beaten--beaten by love. But the Johansen Deanes are never beaten by circumstances. If they bow to love, it is because from love they build a greater triumph than from ambition. Youth always is triumphant when it surrenders to youth. She found the answer in his arms. And nestled there, she vowed that she would keep the answer there. And because age would never touch her, she could fulfil her vow if she chose. Clairvoyantly, she looked ahead; suddenly she knew that she would always choose. Her lips went up to his.
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