"When we are married?" Kedzie parroted.

"Of course! That's where we're bound for, isn't it? Where else could we pull up--that is, of course, a.s.suming that you'll do me the honor of anchoring a great artist like you up to a big dub like me. Will you?"

"Why--why--I'd like to think it over; this is so sudden."

"Of course, you'd better think it over, you poor angel!"

Kedzie could not think what else to say or even what to think. The word "marriage" reminded her that she had what the ineffable Bunker Bean would have called "a little old last year's husband" lying around in the garret of her past.

She went almost blind with rage at that beast of a Gilfoyle who had dragged her away and married her while she was not thinking. He must have hypnotized her or drugged her. If only she could quietly murder him! But she didn't even know where he was.

CHAPTER XXI

The investigations of Messrs. Hodshon & Hindley in the life of Zada and Cheever prospered exceedingly. In blissless ignorance of it, Zada had been inspired to set a firm of sleuths on Charity's trail. She wanted to be able to convince Cheever that Charity was intrigued with Dyckman. The operators who kept Mrs. Charity Coe Cheever under espionage had the most stupid things to report to Zada.

To Zada's disgust, Mrs. Cheever never called upon Jim Dyckman, and he never called on her. Zada accused the bureau of cheating her, and finally put another agency to shadowing Jim Dyckman. According to the reports she had, his neglect of Mrs. Cheever was perfectly explained.

He was a mere satellite of a moving-picture actress, a new-comer named Anita Adair.

The detectives reported that such gossip as they could pick up about the studio indicated that Dyckman was putting money into the firm on her account.

"A movie angel!" sneered Zada. She had wasted a hundred dollars on him to find this out, and two hundred and fifty on Mrs. Cheever to find out that she was intensely respectable. That was bitter news to Zada. She canceled her business with her detective agency. And they called in the shadows that haunted Charity's life.

The detectives on Zada's trail, however, had more rewarding material to work with--although they found unexpected difficulties, they said, in getting the dictagraph installed in her apartment. They did not wish to ruin the whole enterprise by too great haste--especially as they were receiving eight dollars a day and liberal expenses per man.

At last, however, Hodshon sent word to Mrs. Cheever that the dictagraph was installed and working to a T, and she could listen-in whenever she was ready.

Charity was terrified utterly now. New scales were to be shaken from her eyes at the new tree of knowledge. She was to hear her man talking to his leman.

She had almost an epilepsy of terror, but she could not resist the importunate opportunity.

She selected from her veils a heavy crepe that she had worn during a period of mourning for one of her husband's relatives. It seemed appropriate now, for she was going into mourning for her own husband, living, yet about to die to her.

She left the house alone after dark and walked along Fifth Avenue till she found a taxicab. She gave the street number Hodshon had given her and stepped in. She kept an eye on the lighted clock and in the dark sorted out the exact change and a tip, adding dimes as they were recorded on the meter. She did not want to have to pause for change, and she did not wish to make herself conspicuous by an extravagant tip.

As the taxicab slid along the Avenue Charity wondered if any of the pa.s.sengers in other cabs could have an errand so gruesome as hers.

She was tortured by fantastic imaginings of what she might hear. She wondered how a man would talk to such a person as Zada, and how she would answer. She imagined the most dreadful things she could.

The taxicab surprised her by stopping suddenly before a brown-fronted residence adjoining an apartment-house of (more or less literally) meretricious ornateness. She stepped out, paid her fare, and turned, to find Mr. Hodshon at her elbow. He had been waiting for her. He recognized her by her melodramatic veil. He gave her needed help up a high stoop and opened the door with a key.

She found herself in a shabby, smelly hall where no one else was.

He motioned her up the stairway, and she climbed with timidity. At each level there were name-plates over the electric b.u.t.tons. The very labels seemed illicit. Hodshon motioned her up and up for four flights.

Then he opened a door and stepped back to let her enter a room unfurnished except for a few chairs and a table. Two men were in the room, and they were laughing with uproar. One of them had a telephone-receiver clamped to his ear, and he was making shorthand notes, explaining to his companion what he heard.

They turned in surprise at Hodshon's entrance and rose to greet Charity with the homage due so great a client.

Charity could hardly bespeak them civilly. They took her curtness for sn.o.bbery, but it was not. It swept over her that these people were laughing over her most sacred tragedy.

She advanced on the operator and put out her hand for the headpiece he wore. He took it off and rubbed it with his handkerchief, and told her that she must remove her hat and veil.

She came out startlingly white and brilliant from the black. She put the elastic clamp over her head and set the receiver to her ear. Instantly she was a.s.sailed by dreadful noises, a jangle of inarticulate sounds like the barking of two dogs.

"I can't hear a word," she protested.

"They're talkin' too loud," said the operator. "The only way to beat the dictagraph is to cut the wire or yell."

"Are they quarreling, then?" Charity asked, almost with pleasure.

"Yes, ma'am. But it's the lady and her maid. They been havin' a terrible sc.r.a.p about marketin'. He--Mr. Cheever--ain't there yet. They're expectin' him, though."

Charity felt that she had plumbed the depths of degradation in listening to a quarrel between such a creature and her maid. What must it be to be the maid of such a creature! She was about to s.n.a.t.c.h away the earpiece when she heard the noise of a door opening. She looked toward the entrance of the room she was in, but the door that opened was in the other room in the other building.

The voices of Zada and her maid stopped jangling, and she heard the most familiar of all voices asking:

"What's the row to-day?"

There was an extra metal in the timbre and it had the effect of an old phonographic record, but there was no questioning whose voice it was.

Zada's voice became audibly low in answer.

"She is such a fool she drives me crazy."

A sullen, servile voice answered: "It ain't me's the fool, and as for crazy--her wantin' me to bring home what they ain't in no market.

How'm I goin' to git what ain't to be got, I asts you. This here war is stoppin' ev'y kind of food."

Cheever's answer was characteristic. He didn't believe in servants'

rights.

"Get out. If you're impudent again I'll throw you out, and your baggage after you."

"Ya.s.sar," was the soft answer.

There was the sound of shuffling feet and a softly closed door. Then Zada's voice, very mellow:

"I thought you'd never come, dearie."

"Awfully busy to-day, honey."

"You took dinner with her, of course."

"No. It was a big day on the Street, and there was so much to do at the office that I dined down-town at the Bankers' Club with several men and then went back to the office. I ought to be there all night, but I couldn't keep away from you any longer."

There were mysterious quirks of sound that meant kisses and sighs and tender inarticulations. There were cooing tones which the dictagraph repeated with hideous fidelity.