Abruptly, in a fit of witless agitation, he crossed to the divan, caught the sleeper by the shoulder and shook him till he wakened--till he rolled over on his back, grunted and opened one eye.

"Look here!" said Staff in a quaver--"I've been asleep!"

"You've got nothing on me, then," retorted Iff with pardonable asperity.

"All the same--congratulations. Good _night_."

He attempted to turn over again, but was restrained by Staff's imperative hand.

"It's four o'clock, and after!"

"I admit it. You might be good enough to leave a call for me for eleven."

"But--d.a.m.n it, man!--that cab hasn't come--"

"I can't help that, can I?"

"I'm afraid something has happened to that girl."

"Well, it's too late to prevent it now--if so."

"Good G.o.d! Have you no heart, man?" Staff began to stride distractedly up and down the room. "What am I to do?" he groaned aloud.

"Take unkie's advice and go bye-bye," suggested Iff. "Otherwise I'd be obliged if you'd rehea.r.s.e that turn in the other room. I'm going to sleep if I have to brain you to get quiet."

Staff stopped as if somebody had slapped him: the telephone bell was ringing again.

He flung himself across the room, dropped heavily into the chair and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the receiver.

A man's voice stammered drowsily his number.

"Yes," he almost shouted. "Yes--Mr. Staff at the 'phone. Who wants me?"

"Hold the wire."

He heard a buzzing, a click; then silence; a prolonged _brrrrp_ and another click.

"h.e.l.lo?" he called. "h.e.l.lo?"

His heart jumped: the voice was Miss Searle's.

"Mr. Staff?"

It seemed to him that he could detect a tremor in her accents, as if she were both weary and frightened.

"Yes, Miss Searle. What is it?"

"I wanted to rea.s.sure you--I've had a terrible experience, but I'm all right now--safe. I started--"

Her voice ceased to vibrate over the wires as suddenly as if those same wires had been cut.

"Yes?" he cried after an instant. "Yes, Miss Searle? h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo!"

There was no answer. Listening with every faculty at high tension, he fancied that he detected a faint, abrupt sound, like a m.u.f.fled sob. On the heels of it came a click and the connection was broken.

In his anxiety and consternation he swore violently.

"Well, what's the trouble?"

Iff stood at his side, now wide-awake and quick with interest. Hastily Staff explained what had happened.

"Yes," nodded the little man. "Yes, that'd be the way of it. She had trouble, but managed to get to the telephone; then somebody grabbed her--"

"Somebody! Who?" Staff demanded unreasonably.

"I don't really know--honest Injun! But there's a smell of garlic about it, just the same."

"Smell of garlic! Are you mad?"

"Tush!" said Mr. Iff contemptuously. "I referred poetically to the fine Italian hand of Cousin Arbuthnot Ismay. Now if I were you, I'd agitate that hook until Central answers, and then ask for the manager and see if he can trace that call back to its source. It oughtn't to be difficult at this hour, when the telephone service is at its slackest."

[Ill.u.s.tration: He fancied that he detected a faint, abrupt sound, like a m.u.f.fled sob

_Page 176_]

X

DEAD O' NIGHT

Beneath a nature so superficially shallow that it shone only with the reflected l.u.s.tre of the more brilliant personalities to which it was attracted, Mrs. Ilkington had a heart--sentiment and a capacity for sympathetic affection. She had met Eleanor Searle in Paris, and knew a little more than something of the struggle the girl had been making to prepare herself for the operatic stage. She managed to discover that she had no close friends in New York, and shrewdly surmised that she wasn't any too well provided with munitions of war--in the shape of money--for her contemplated campaign against the army of professional people, marshalled by indifferent-minded managers, which stood between her and the place she coveted.

Considering all this, Mrs. Ilkington had suggested, with an accent of insistence, that Eleanor should go to the hotel which she intended to patronise--wording her suggestion so cunningly that it would be an easy matter for her, when the time came, to demonstrate that she had invited the girl to be her guest. And with this she was thoughtful enough to select an unpretentious if thoroughly well-managed house on the West Side, in the late Seventies, in order that Eleanor might feel at ease and not worry about the size of the bill which she wasn't to be permitted to pay.

Accordingly the two ladies (with Mr. Bangs tagging) went from the pier directly to the St. Simon, the elder woman to stay until her town-house could be opened and put in order, the girl while she looked round for a spinster's studio or a small apartment within her limited means.

Promptly on their arrival at the hotel, Mrs. Ilkington began to run up a telephone bill, notifying friends of her whereabouts; with the result (typical of the New York idea) that within an hour she had engaged herself for a dinner with theatre and supper to follow--and, of course, had managed to have Eleanor included in the invitation. She was one of those women who live on their nerves and apparently thrive on excitement, ignorant of the meaning of rest save in a.s.sociation with those rest-cure sanatoriums to which they repair for a fortnight semi-annually--or oftener.

Against her protests, then, Eleanor was dragged out in full dress when what she really wanted to do was to eat a light and simple meal and go early to bed. In not unnatural consequence she found herself, when they got home after one in the morning, in a state of nervous disquiet caused by the strain of keeping herself keyed up to the pitch of an animated party.

Insomnia stared her in the face with its blind, blank eyes. In the privacy of her own room, she expressed a free opinion of her countrymen, conceiving them all in the guise of fevered, unquiet souls cast in the mould of Mrs. Ilkington.

Divesting herself of her dinner-gown, she slipped into a negligee and looked round for a book, meaning to read herself sleepy. In the course of her search she happened to recognise her bandbox and conceive a desire to rea.s.sure herself as to the becomingness of its contents.

The hat she found therein was becoming enough, even if it wasn't hers.

The mistake was easily apparent and excusable, considering the confusion that had obtained on the pier at the time of their departure.