The Day of Days: An Extravaganza

by Louis Joseph Vance

  XII

  THE LADY OF THE HOUSE

  Until that moment of the woman's shot, what with the failure of P.Sybarite's weapon to fire and the strange, muted coughing of theassassin's, an atmosphere of veritable decorum, nothing less, hadseemed to mark the triangular duel, lending it something of thefantastic quality of a nightmare: an effect to which the discovery ofa marauder, where P. Sybarite had expected to find nobody, addedmeasurably....

  But now, temporarily blinded by that vicious bright blade of flamestabbing the gloom a hand's breadth from his eyes, and deafened by thecrash of the explosion not two feet from his ear-drums, he quickenedto the circumstances with much of the confusion of a man awakened by athunder-clap from evil dreams to realities yet more grim.

  Of a sudden he understood that murder had been attempted in hispresence and knowledge: a stark and hideous fact, jarring upon thesemi-humorous indulgence with which hitherto he had been inclined toregard the unfolding of this night of _outre_ adventure. Twice the manhad shot to kill with that singular weapon of silent deadliness--andboth times had missed his mark by the barest margin....

  At once, like a demon of exceptional malignity, a breathless andoverpowering rage possessed P. Sybarite. Without the least hesitationhe stretched forth a hand, snatched the pistol from the grasp of thewoman--who seemed to relinquish it more through surprise thanwillingly--threw himself halfway down the stairs, and took a hastypot-shot at the man--almost invisible in the darkness as he roundedthe turn of the next flight.

  Missing, P. Sybarite flung on recklessly. As he gained the lowerfloor, the hall lights flashed up, switched on from the upper landingby the woman of the house. Thus aided, he caught another glimpse ofhis prey midway down the next flight, and checked to take a secondshot.

  Again he missed; and as the bullet buried itself in splinteringwainscoting, a cry of almost childish petulence escaped him. With butone thought, he hurled on, swung round to the head of the stairs, sawhis man at the bottom, pulled up to aim, and....

  Beneath him a small rug slipped on polished parquetry of the landing.P. Sybarite's heels went up and his head down with a sickening thump.He heard his pistol explode once more, and again visioned a reelingfirmament fugitively coruscant with strange constellations.

  Then--bounding up with uncommon resiliency--he saw the street door ofthe house close behind the fugitive and heard the heavy slam of it.

  In another breath, pulling himself together, he was up and descendingthree and four steps at a stride. Reaching the door, he threw it openand himself heedlessly out and down a high stone stoop to thesidewalk--pulled up, bewildered to discover himself the sole livingthing visible in all that night-hushed stretch between Fifth Avenueand Sixth: of the assassin there was neither sign nor sound....

  He felt perilously on the verge of tears--would gladly have bawled andhowled with temper--and gained little relief from another short-livedbreak of heartfelt profanity--something halting and inexpert, truth totell.

  Above him, on the stoop, the lady of the house appeared; paused topeer searchingly east and west; looked down at the trembling figure ofthe small man in his overgrown police tunic, shaking an impotent fistin the face of the City of New York; and laughed quietly to herself.

  "Come back," she called in a guarded tone. "He's made a clean getaway.Got to hand him _that_. No use trying to follow--you'd never catch upin a thousand years. Come back--d'you hear?--and give me my gun!"

  A trifle dashed, P. Sybarite raked the street with final reluctantglances; then in a spirit of witless and unquestioning docilityreturned.

  The woman retired to the vestibule, where she closed and locked thedoor as he passed through, further ensuring security by means of achain-bolt; then entering the hallway, closed, locked, and similarlybolted the inner doors.

  "Now, then!" she addressed the little man with a brilliant smile--"nowwe can pow-wow. Come into the den"--and led the way toward the rear ofthe house.

  Trotting submissively in her wake, his wrinkled nose and battingeyelids were eloquent of the dumb amaze with which he was reviewingthis incredible affair.

  Turning into a dark doorway, the woman switched light into an electricdome, illuminating an interior apartment transformed, by a wildlyoriginal taste in eccentric decoration, into a lounging room of suchdistressful uniquity that it would have bred unrest in the soul of alotus-eater.

  Black, red, and gold--lustreless black of coke, lurid crimson of freshblood, bright glaring yellow of gold new-minted--were the predominantnotes in a colour scheme at once sombre and violent. The walls werehung with scarlet tapestries whereon gold dragons crawled and foughtor strove to swallow dead black planets, while on every hand blackimps of Eblis writhed and struggled over golden screens, golden devilsmocked and mowed from panels of cinnabar, and horrific masks ofcrimson lacquer, picked out with gold and black, leered and snarleddumb menaces from darkened corners.

  In such a room as this the mildest mannered man, steeping his soul inthe solace of mellow tobacco, might have been pardoned for dreaminglustfully of battle, murder and sudden death, or for contemplatingwith entire equanimity the tortured squirmings of some favourite enemyupon the rack.

  "Cosy little hole," P. Sybarite couldn't forbear to comment with ashudder as he dropped into a chair in compliance with the woman'sgesture.

  "I have my whims," she said. "How would you like a drink?"

  "Not at all," he insisted hastily. "I've had all I need for the timebeing."

  "That's a mercy," she replied. "I don't much feel like waiting on youmyself, and the servants are all abed."

  Offering cigarettes in a golden casket, she selected and lighted onefor herself.

  "You have servants in the house, then?"

  "Do I look like a woman who does her own housework?"

  "You do not," he affirmed politely. "But can you blame me forwondering where your servants've been all through this racket?"

  "They sleep on the top floor, behind sound-proof doors," his hostessexplained complacently, "and have orders to answer only when I ring,even if they should happen to hear anything. I've a passion forprivacy in my own home--another whim, if you like."

  "It's nothing to me, I assure you," he protested. "Minding my ownbusiness is one of the best little things I do."

  "If that's so, why do you walk uninvited into strange bedrooms at allhours, pretending to be a policeman, with a cock-and-bull yarn about aburglar--"

  "But there was a burglar!" P. Sybarite contended brightly. "You sawhim yourself."

  "No."

  "But--but you _did_ see him--later, on the stairs!"

  Smiling, the woman shook her head. "I saw no burglar--merely a dearfriend. In short, if it interests you to know, I saw my husband."

  "Madam!" P. Sybarite sat up with a shocked expression.

  "Oh," said the woman lightly, "we're good enough for one another--heand I. He deserved what he got when he married me. But that's notsaying I'm content to see him duck what's coming to him for to-night'sdeviltry. In fact, I mean to get him before he gets me. Are you gameto lend me a hand?"

  "Me, madam!" cried P. Sybarite in alarm. "Far be it from me to comebetween husband and wife!"

  "Don't be afraid: I'm not asking you to dabble your innocent hands ina fellow-human's blood--merely to run an errand for me."

  "Really--I'd rather be excused."

  "Really," she mocked pleasantly, "you won't be. I'm a gentle creaturebut determined--frail but firm, you know. Perhaps you've heard ofme--Mrs. Jefferson Inche?"

  Decidedly he had; and so had nine-tenths of New York'snewspaper-reading population. His eyes widened with new interest.

  "Truly?" he said, civilly responsive to the challenge in herannouncement. "But _I_ never knew Mrs. Jefferson Inche was beautiful."

  "It needs a beautiful woman to be known as the most dangerous inTown," she explained with modest pride.

  "But--ah--Mr. Inche, I understand, died some years ago."

  "So he did."

  "Yet you speak of yo
ur husband--?"

  "Of my present husband, whose name I don't wear for reasons ofreal-estate. I took the rotter on because he's rich and will be richerwhen his father dies; he married me because he was rotten and I hadthe worst reputation he could discover. So we're quits _there_. If ourmarriage comes out prematurely, he'll be disinherited; so we've agreedto a _sub-rosa_ arrangement which leaves him, ostensibly, a marketablebachelor. Now, I happen to know a marriage has recently been offeredhim through which he would immediately come into control of a big potof money, and naturally he's strong for it. But I refused his offer ofa cool half-million to play the Reno circuit, and so he concluded tosue for a divorce with a revolver, a Maxim silencer, and a perfectalibi. Do you follow me?"

  "As far as the alibi."

  "Oh, that's quite simple. We don't live together, and he's insure-enough society, and I'm not. To-night the annual Hadley-Owenpost-lenten masquerade's in full swing just around the corner, andfriend husband's there with the rest of the haughty bunch. Can't yousee how easy it would be for him to drop round here between dances,murder his lawful wedded wife, and beat it back, without his absenceever being noticed?"

  "It does sound feasible, if--ah--sickening," P. Sybarite admitted."But really, it's hard to believe. Are you positive--?"

  "I tell you," said the woman impatiently, "I recognised him; I saw hismouth--his mask wouldn't hide that--and knew him instantly."

  P. Sybarite was silent: he, too, had recognized that mouth.

  Briefly he meditated upon this curious freak of _Kismet_ that waslinking his fortunes of the night with those of the man with thetwisted mouth.

  "Now you know the lay of the land--how about helping me out?"

  Now the trail of the man with the twisted mouth promised fair to leadto Molly Lessing. P. Sybarite didn't linger on his decision.

  "I'm awf'ly impressionable," he conceded with a sigh; "some day, I'mafraid, it'll get me in a peck of trouble."

  "I can count on you, then?"

  "Short of trying a 'prentice hand at assassination--"

  "Don't be an ass. I only want to protect myself. Besides, you can'trefuse. Consider how lenient I've been with you."

  P. Sybarite lifted questioning eyebrows, and dragged down the cornersof a dubious mouth.

  "If I wanted to be nasty," Mrs. Inche explained, "you'd be on your waynow to a cell in the East Fifty-first Street station. But I wasgrateful."

  "The Saints be praised for that!" exclaimed the little man fervently."What's it for?"

  "For waking me up in time to prevent my murder in my sleep," shereturned coolly; "and also for being the spunky little devil you areand chasing off that hound of a husband of mine. If it wasn't for you,he'd've got me sure. Or else," she amended, "I'd've got him; whichwould have been almost as unpleasant--what with being pinched andtried and having juries disagree and getting off at last only on theplea of insanity--and all that."

  "Madam," said P. Sybarite, rising, "the more I see of you, the moreyou claim my admiration. I entreat you, permit me to go away before myemotion deepens into disastrous infatuation."

  "Sit down," countered Mrs. Inche amiably; "don't be afraid--I don'tbite. Now you know who I am, but before you go, I mean to know who youare."

  "Michael Monahan, madam." This was the first alliterative combinationto pop into his optimistic mind.

  "Can that," retorted the lady serenely--"solder it up tight, alongwith the business of pretending to be a cop. It won't get youanything. I've a proposition to make to you."

  "But, madam," he declared with his naif and disarming grin--"believeme--my young affections are already engaged."

  "You're not half the imbecile you make yourself out," she judgedsoberly. "Come--what's your name?"

  Taking thought, he saw no great danger in being truthful for once.

  "P., unfortunately, Sybarite," he said: "bookkeeper for Whigham andWimper--leather merchants, Frankfort Street."

  "And how did you come by that coat and hat?"

  "Borrowed it from a drunken cop in Penfield's, a little while ago.They were raiding the place and I kind of wanted to get away. Strangeto say, my disguise didn't take, and I had to leave by way of the backfences in order to continue uninterrupted enjoyment of the inalienablerights of every American citizen--life, liberty, the pursuit ofhappiness."

  "I don't know why I believe you," said Mrs. Inche reflectively, whenhe paused for breath. "Perhaps it's your spendthrift way withlanguage. Do you talk like that when sober?"

  "Judge for yourself."

  "All right," she laughed indulgently: "I believe everything you say.Now what'll you take to do me a service?"

  "My services, madam, are yours to command: my reward--ah--your smile."

  "Bunk," observed the lady elegantly. "How would a hundred look to you?Good, eh?"

  "You misjudge me," the little man insisted. "Money is really noobject."

  "Still"--she frowned in puzzlement--"I should think a clerk in theleather business--!"

  "I'm afraid I've misled you. I should have said that I _was_ a clerkin the leather business until to-day. Now I happen to be independentlywealthy, a clerk no longer."

  "How's that--wealthy?"

  "Came into a small fortune this evening--nothing immodest, but amplefor one of my simple tastes and modest ambitions."

  "I think," announced the lady thoughtfully, "that you are one of theslickest young liars I ever listened to."

  "That must be considerable eminence," considered P. Sybarite withhumility.

  "On the other hand, you're unquestionably a perfect little gentleman,"she pursued. "And anyhow I'm going to take you at your word and trustyou. If you ever change your mind about that hundred, all you've gotto do is to come back and speak for it.... Do I make you right? You'rewilling to go a bit out of your way to do me a favour to-night?"

  "Or any other night."

  "Very well." Mrs. Inche rose. "Wait here a moment."

  Wrapping her negligee round her, she swept magnificently out of the"den," and a moment later again crossed P. Sybarite's range of visionas she ascended the stairs. Then she disappeared, and there wassilence in the house: a breathing spell which the little man strove toemploy to the best advantage by endeavouring to assort and rearrangehis sadly disordered impressions.

  Aware that he would probably do wisely to rise and flee the place, henone the less lingered, vastly intrigued and more than half inclinedto see the affair through to the end.

  His confused reverie was presently interrupted by the sound of thewoman's high, clear voice at a telephone located (he fancied)somewhere in the hallway of the second story.

  "Hello! Columbus, seven, four hundred, please.... Hello--Mason?...Taxicab, please--Mrs. Jefferson Inche.... Yes--charge....Yes--immediately.... Thank you!"

  A moment later she reappeared on the stairs, carrying a wrap of somesort over her arm: a circumstance which caused P. Sybarite uneasily towonder if she meant to push her notorious indifference to conventionto the limit of going out in a taxicab with no other addition to herairy costume than a cloak.

  But when she again entered the "den," it proved to be a man's coat andsoft hat that she had found for him.

  "Get up," she ordered imperiously, "and change to these before you getpinched for impersonating an officer. I've called a taxi for you, andthis is what I want you to do: go to Dutch House--that's a dive onFortieth Street--"

  "I've heard of it," nodded P. Sybarite. "Any sober man who stays awayfrom it is almost perfectly safe, I believe."

  "I'll back you to take care of yourself," said the lady. "Ask for RedNovember.... You know who he is?"

  "The gangster? Yes."

  "If he isn't in, wait for him if you wait till daylight--"

  "Important as all that, eh?"

  "It's life or death to me," said Mrs. Inche serenely. "I've got tohave protection--you've seen yourself how had I need it. And thepolice are not for the likes of me. Besides," she added with engagingcandour, "if I squeal and tell the truth, then friend husband w
ill bedisinherited for sure, and I'll have had all my trouble for nothing."

  "You make it perfectly clear, Mrs. Inche.... And when I see Mr. RedNovember--?"

  "Say to him three words: _Nella wants you_. He'll understand. Then youcan go home."

  "_If_ I get out alive."

  "You're safe if you don't drink anything there."

  "Doubtless; but I'll feel safer if you'll lend me the loan of thispretty toy," said P. Sybarite, weighing in one hand her automaticpistol.

  "It's yours."

  "Anything in it?"

  "Three shots left, I believe. No matter. I'll get you a handful ofcartridges and you can reload the clip in the taxicab. Not that you'relikely to need it at Dutch House."

  From the street rose the rumble of a motor, punctuated by a horn thathonked.

  "There's the cab, now," announced Mrs. Inche briskly. "Shake yourselfout of that coat and into this--and hustle!"

  "It's my impressionable nature makes all my troubles," observed P.Sybarite disconsolately. "However..."

  Shrugging into the coat Mrs. Inche held for him, he cocked the felthat jauntily on the side of his head.

  "Always," he proclaimed with gesture--hand on heart--"always theladies' slave!"