CHAPTER IX
Crime?
Entering, the Owner of Fry's Imperial Liniment had been justifiablyannoyed. Twenty seconds after entering, Mary's obvious excitement hadcaused the annoyance to give place to not very interested wonder; butnow Mary had claimed all his attention and the annoyance was all gone.Indeed, as a quantity to claim one's whole attention Mary had been asuccess from the very beginning.
Anthony Fry, then, scowled flitting incredulity at her; and theabsurdity of being incredulous of one who panted and shook as did Marybecoming at once apparent, Anthony paled somewhat.
"I cannot--believe that such an astonishing coincidence----" he began.
"What you believe or don't believe doesn't interest me!" Mary saidswiftly. "Did I hear him talking about that wretched fight last night?"
"Er--yes."
"He was there?"
"Of course."
"Well, it's the same Robert Vining!" Mary whispered. "Get him out ofhere!"
"But----"
"Don't argue about it! Get him out of here!" said Mary. "Do you supposeI want him to come wandering down this way and _find me_?"
"He will not do that, because----"
"How do you know whether he will or not?" Mary demanded hotly. "Why didhe have to come here? It's all his fault--the whole thing's his fault!If he hadn't refused to take me to that beastly old fight and made sucha time about it, I'd never have made up my mind to go, anyway!"
"So that's what happened?" Anthony muttered.
"That is what happened. Now get him out of here!" Mary directed. "And doit quickly!"
After all, the unlucky little coincidence was not nearly so serious asshe seemed to think. Anthony smiled quite calmly.
"He will not stay very long," said he, "and when he is ready to go Iwill not detain him, of course. But I can't very well go in and orderhim out, you know."
Mary, bosom heaving still, looked straight at him with burning eyes.
"Mr. Fry," she said solemnly, "I've always lived too much out doors andboxed and shot and paddled and ridden too much to be given to hysterics.The only time I ever had hysterics was the night they thought dad hadbeen killed--but _that_ night, once I started, the neighbors came out onthe street two blocks away to see what was the matter!"
"I don't understand?"
"You will," Mary said, controlling herself with visible difficulty."You've made me stand enough since last night, and there are some thingsI cannot--some things I will not even try to stand! I tell you honestlythat if Bob isn't out of this flat in two minutes, I'm going into a fitof hysterics that will have the reserves piling into this sanctifiedhotel just as surely as the sun is shining!"
"Miss Mary----" faltered Anthony Fry.
Mary's hands clenched in the most peculiar manner.
"Hadn't you better make the best of those two minutes?" she askedbreathlessly.
His quiet smile was gone now; lines appeared in Anthony's countenance ashe looked at her--and then, wasting no further time in aimless comment,he turned and tottered into the corridor. Mary meant just what she said.
Robert Vining and Johnson Boller were sprawling in the deep chairs,opposite one another, smoking comfortably and giving every evidence ofhaving settled down for a considerable session. Young Mr. Vining grinnedthrough the smoke at his older friend.
"Sit down, Anthony," said he. "We're just going over the thing round byround, to see if either of us can remember a worse fight for the money.We're working on round two, just now."
Anthony smiled strangely and laid a dramatic hand upon his brow.
"I will not join the discussion," he said.
"Eh? What's the matter?" Robert asked, sitting up.
"Headache! One of the--er--headaches that make my life a burden!"Anthony groaned.
"I never knew you had 'em," young Vining said with a mystified smile.
"Neither did I," Johnson Boller contributed healthfully.
"Did you have it before you talked to Wilkins, there?" pursued Robert,who owned a really keen mind.
"Er--it was just coming on."
"No bad news, old chap?" Vining said, crossing his legs the other way.
Anthony shook his head and smiled again, indicating suffering that wasnot all simulated.
"No, just the--er--headache," he said. "Comes on suddenly, you know, andsettled in the back of my head and neck. There is only one thing thatcan be done for it and that is a steady massage. Perhaps you'd do thatfor me, Johnson?"
"Sure," said Johnson Boller, whose eyes shot two questions to thesecond. "Sit down and we can go on talking while I rub."
"Well, I have to lie down for this," Anthony explained. "On the bed, youknow, and it's--well, it is likely to take an hour or more. You wouldn'tcare to wait around, Bob?"
Mr. Vining gazed steadily at him. No refined intuition was necessary totell Anthony that it was not his morning for tactful dismissals. Thiseffort, evidently, had carried the delicate touch of a blow from abaseball bat, for Robert, flushing slightly, spoke with unpleasantcrispness:
"No, I couldn't wait, I'm sure. And while I don't understand it, ofcourse, I'm sure I'm sorry to have intruded. Good-by."
"You--haven't intruded," Anthony cried. "Only----"
"Well, don't bother explaining," said young Mr. Vining. "I beg yourpardon for breaking in and--good morning."
Wherewith he stalked out to the corridor, removed his hat from the rackwithout the assistance of Wilkins and, opening the door himself, closedit after him with a careful lack of force that was more expressive thanany slam.
"Gone off mad!" Johnson Boller said.
"I can't help it!" Anthony said miserably.
"Nice chap, too! Too bad to offend him that way," Mr. Boller pursuedmeditatively. "Friends are few and far between in this sad old world,Anthony, and a queer dick like you--rich or poor--has trouble hanging onto the few he makes. Oh, I don't mean to be nasty, you know; I'm justtelling you. Well, come and have your head rubbed."
Anthony collapsed into his chair.
"There's nothing wrong with my head," he said. "That was the first lie Icould think of, Johnson, to get him out of here. He had to go!"
"Why?"
"She said so," Anthony informed him, with a ghastly little smile. "She'sengaged to him!"
"To Bob Vining?"
"Yes!"
Johnson Boller whistled softly and, elevating his eyebrows, thrust hishands into his trousers pockets and looked at Anthony with newcommiseration.
"Too bad, that!" said he. "Too bad for you that it should have been achap of the Vining type."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, sooner or later, he may find out. The chances are that he _will_find out just what you've done to that girl," Boller went oncontemplatively. "It's just about as she says, too. If he was a fool,you could fool him, one way or another. Or if he was a little snide,Anthony, you could talk him off or bribe him off--but it'll never belike that with Bob. He'll never take any account of the circumstances;he'll just snatch out the gun and let fly!"
"Rot!" Anthony said thinly.
Johnson Boller's face grew grave and more grave. He sighed and lookedover Anthony's head for a little and then, reaching a decision, helooked at him suddenly.
"Old chap," he said kindly.
"Well?"
"I don't want to worry you, but perhaps it is better for you toknow--now. And I wish you wouldn't mention it, because Bob told me once,two years ago, and showed it to me in a sort of burst of confidence."
"Showed you what?"
"Down at the base of his thumb, Bob Vining's got _the murderer'scross_!" Johnson Boller said huskily.
"Nonsense!" Anthony said sharply.
"It's a fact! The little mark is there, clear as if it had been drawn inwith a knife!" said Mr. Boller. "And for another fact--I don't knowwhether you know this or not, but virtually every murderer who has beenexecuted in the last twenty years in this State, has shown that cross insome form and----"
He stayed the pleasant
flow abruptly. From the direction of David'sdoorway a rustle was coming, very softly and cautiously, yet quitedistinctly. It paused in the corridor while Mary drew aside a corner ofthe curtain and looked in--and then Mary was with them and asking:
"Is he gone?"
"Yes," Anthony sighed.
"Was he excited while he was here?"
"Not at all, apparently."
"Then he doesn't know yet that I've disappeared," Mary said calmly,returning to her place at the cleared table. "Isn't he a darling?"
"He is--a very charming fellow," Anthony muttered, thinking of themurderer's cross.
"Did your man take my coffee away?" Mary pursued.
Silently, Anthony rang for his servitor. Silently, Wilkins brought backpot and cup and the little plate of toast; and Mary, a very pleasinglittle figure indeed, sipped and munched and asked:
"Well, have you determined how I'm to leave?"
Anthony merely stared moodily at her at first. Johnson Boller, though,found his sense of humor overcoming him again. He gazed at Anthony, hairrumpled, eyes fogged with anxiety such as he rarely knew, and presentlyJohnson Boller was vibrating again. One merry little wheeze escaped andearned a glare from Anthony, another followed it--and after that JohnsonBoller sat back and haw-hawed frankly until Anthony spoke.
"So far, I have been thinking of the ways in which you cannot leave," headmitted tartly. "If you'd consent to try my clothes and----"
"Umum," said Mary, shaking her head. "No, no!"
"Then frankly, I don't know what to suggest," said the master of theapartment. "You are not invisible. You cannot walk through the officewithout being seen, Miss Mary--and once you have done that be sure thatyour face will be registered in the memory of the employees. You have noidea of moving from New York, I take it?"
"Hardly."
"Then since you will be about town for years, may I point out that eachman who sees you will remember, also for years, that you left one ofthese apartments and----"
He paused, partly in distress and partly because it seemed to him thatWilkins was whispering to somebody. He sat up then, because Wilkins_was_ talking and there was another voice he could not at first place.He had heard it before, many times, and it was very calm, very clear,very determined; and now Wilkins' tone came distinctly and resignedly.
"Well, of course, if he's expecting you, sir----"
The door closed. Steps approached the living-room. And with Mary sittingat the table, coffee-cup in hand, furnishing just the homelike touch abachelor apartment must normally lack, Hobart Hitchin was with them!
One glance settled the fact that the amateur detective had attained ahigh state of nervous tension. Behind his spectacles, the keen eyesflashed about like a pair of illuminated steel points; his face seemedtired, but the rest of him was as alive as a steel spring, and his righthand held a fat brief-case.
Had he been more intimately acquainted with Hobart Hitchin, Anthony Frywould have trembled. As it was, he felt merely keen annoyance--and thenutter consternation, because Hitchin had stopped with a jerk and waslooking straight at Mary.
"I--er--didn't know," he said.
Poor little Mary, be she who she might, was in a decidedly ticklishposition, however perfectly her outward calm was preserved. Everythingthat was chivalrous in Anthony surged up and told him to protect her;and coming out of the nowhere at the very last second, mercifulinspiration reached his brain and he stared so fixedly, so warningly atJohnson Boller that that gentleman's chronic quiver ceased.
"Only--ah--Mrs. Boller!" Anthony said quietly. "My dear Mrs. Boller--Mr.Hitchin, one of our neighbors here."
Johnson Boller himself started out of his chair, gripping its arms; andthen, the general sense penetrating his cranium, dropped back with apuff. His mouth opened, as if to protest; his eye caught the eye ofAnthony Fry. With a gasp and a flush, Mr. Johnson Boller subsided forthe time, and Anthony was saying suavely:
"Mr. and Mrs. Boller were with me overnight, you know--decorators havecaptured their place and they were good enough to take the edge off myloneliness for a little."
"I never knew you minded it; I've heard you say you liked it," HobartHitchin smiled as he took Mary's hand and favored her with hisdrill-point stare. "But when you are alone again I'm quite sure thatyou'll know how lonely you are! My dear Mrs. Boller, I am honored!"
Mary, after one startled and one thankful glance at Anthony, dimpledcharmingly. Mr. Hitchin dropped her hand and ceased his inspection, andimmediately he turned more tensely solemn than upon his entrance.
"Ah--Fry," said he. "I suppose we can have a few minutes' chat?"
"An hour if you like," Anthony smiled, quite happily, too, because hewas rather proud of his quick-wittedness.
Hobart Hitchin gazed straight at Mary.
"And Mr. Boller will remain with us?"
"What's the mystery?" Johnson Boller asked.
"There is not, I fear, much mystery," Hitchin said, looking straight atAnthony. "But there is a little matter I'd like to discuss with--er--youtwo gentlemen."
Mary rose hastily.
"I'd better go?" she smiled.
"If it would not inconvenience you, dear lady," Hitchin said unsmilinglyand with a stiff bow.
Chin squared, he stood in silence until she had vanished down thecorridor. He crossed the room and listened intently, dramatically; heheld up the curtains and looked for the sliding doors which had beentaken out five years before.
"No way of shutting up this room, Fry?" he asked crisply.
"No need of shutting it up, either," said Anthony. "There is no one tolisten. What seems to be the trouble, Hitchin?"
Hitchin wheeled suddenly and turned his remarkable eyes upon Anthony.
"_You_ don't know, eh?" he shot at him.
"I'm sure I do not."
"And whether he does or not, what do you think you're doing?" JohnsonBoller asked impatiently. "Acting a moving picture or----"
"Mr. Boller, may I trouble you to keep out of this for a little?" thecrime student asked amazingly. "Later on I may wish to ask you aquestion or two, and if you will answer them it will serve me and--Mr.Fry. Just now, suppose we draw up around the table here, so that it willnot be necessary to shout?"
Anthony was there already, scowling. Johnson Boller, with a grunt,shuffled over and took a chair; because this Hitchin creature, on theface of him, was the morning's latest full-blown freak, and JohnsonBoller did not wish to miss anything.
Also, if the chance came, he meant to inform Hitchin that Mary was notMrs. Boller at all, if it could be contrived without casting too much ofa slur on Mary--although that could wait until they learned the cause ofHitchin's pale cheek and his keen, excited eye.
Hitchin, however, had relaxed in the most curious fashion; he wassmiling whimsically at Anthony now and, although his eye was across theroom, one felt that it could turn with one one-thousandth of a second'swarning and peer through Anthony's soul.
"Fry," he said thoughtfully, "I have been interested in crime for a goodmany years. I have, as it were, dabbled in it partly for the love of thething and partly because, on one occasion or another, it has beenpossible for me to extend help that would not otherwise have beenextended."
"That's a mysterious statement," Anthony said.
"Crime--some of it--is mysterious," smiled Mr. Hitchin. "Motives areusually more mysterious. Mistaken motives--motives formed undermisapprehension--are most mysterious of all. But the consequences ofcrime," said Mr. Hitchin, whirling suddenly on Anthony, "are inevitable,inescapable as the rising of the sun."
Johnson Boller shook his head. The man had always been queer; now,overnight, he, too, had gone crazy! Anthony, who was largely nerves thismorning, asked:
"What the devil are you talking about, anyway? I'm not trying to beunpleasant, Hitchin, but I'm not myself this morning and this ramblingdiscourse about crime is rather trying."
"You are not yourself this morning?" Hitchin repeated slowly, with avery keen smile at Anthony.
&nbs
p; "No."
"Why are you not yourself this morning, Fry?"
"What? Because I lost some sleep last night, I suppose."
"Ah!" Hitchin cried softly. "And why did you lose some sleep lastnight?"
Anthony's patience snapped.
"See here, Hitchin!" he cried. "I like to be polite and hospitable aspossible, but why on earth I should sit here and answer your ridiculousquestions I cannot see."
Hobart Hitchin laughed, a low, rippling, sinister laugh that chilled thehearer without giving a clue to the reason for the chill.
"Shall I show you why it were better for you to answer, Fry?" he purred.
"No!"
"Oh, but I'd better," insisted the crime student. "Fry, let us go back afew hours. You returned home last night about midnight, I think--fifteenor twenty minutes before the hour?"
"Yes."
"There was with you a young man named David Prentiss?"
"Of course."
"Then here is the reason for my questions!" cried Hobart Hitchin, andhis whole personality seemed aflame. "Anthony Fry, _where is DavidPrentiss_?"
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