Her Forbidden Knight

by Rex Stout

  Knowlton halted at a table near the wall toward the rear, and they seated themselves opposite each other. It was a little early for dinner in the Restaurant Lucia; it was not yet half filled. Lila glanced about curiously as she took off her gloves and gave the inevitable tug to her hat.

  Knowlton, being a man, immediately proceeded to business.

  “Will you have oysters, or clams?” he asked. “And will you have a cocktail?”

  Lila made a grimace.

  “I couldn’t possibly decide what to eat,” she declared. “You select. And I—I don’t care to drink anything.”

  Knowlton regarded her with the usual mild surprise of a man at a woman’s lack of interest in the sublime topic of food, and entered into a serious conversation on that subject with the waiter, while Lila amused herself by a survey of the dining room. She was seated facing the door, to which Knowlton’s back was turned.

  Knowlton, having completed his order, tossed the menu aside and looked across at his companion. Her elbow was resting on the table, with her chin in her cupped hand.

  Her eyelids drooped as though reluctant to leave unveiled the stars they guarded, and a tiny spot of pink glowed on either cheek.

  Suddenly, as Knowlton sat watching her silently, her hand dropped to the table and she gave a startled movement, while her face filled with unmistakable alarm. She glanced at Knowlton and met his questioning gaze.

  “Mr. Sherman,” she whispered excitedly. “He just entered the restaurant, and is sitting at a table near the door. He saw us.”

  Knowlton started to turn round to see for himself, but thought better of it and remained facing his companion.

  “The Erring Knights,” he said easily, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. “Assuredly, they protect you with a vengeance. But I can hardly compliment them on their choice of an emissary.”

  “But surely it must be—he is here by accident,” said Lila. “They would not have sent him.”

  “Perhaps he sent himself,” Knowlton suggested. “I happen to know that he is an adept at the gentle art of shadowing.”

  Lila’s face flushed with annoyance.

  “He has no right”—she began impetuously. “I hate him. He has spoiled my dinner—I mean, our dinner.

  At this Knowlton, who was hiding his own annoyance, protested with a laugh that it would take more than Sherman to spoil it for him. His enjoyment, he declared, rested only with his companion. Lila sighed and poised her fork daintily over her plate of clams.

  “Does the creature eat?” asked Knowlton presently.

  Lila glanced toward the door.

  “No,” she replied. “He drinks.”

  Knowlton chuckled at her tone of disgust and declared that he felt a certain pity for Mr. Sherman.

  But gradually, as the dinner progressed, they forgot his presence. Knowlton exerted himself to that end, and soon had Lila laughing delightedly at a recital of his boyhood experiences in the country.

  Under the influence of his sparkling gaiety her cheeks resumed the healthy flush of youth and health, and her eyes glowed with pleasure and animation.

  “Not so much—please!” she protested, as Knowlton heaped her plate high with asparagus tips. “You know, I am not a poor, overworked farmer, as you seem to have been. Though, to tell the truth, I don’t believe half of it.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Knowlton cheerfully. “In fact, I don’t believe it all myself.”

  For a time there was silence, while Lila listened dreamily to the orchestra, and her companion frowned portentously over the delicate and stupendous task of apportioning the salad.

  “And now,” Knowlton said presently, placing the spoon in the empty bowl with a sigh of relief, “what about yourself? I shall expect you to be just as frank as I have been. I already know your age, so you may leave that out.”

  Lila felt a little thrill find its way to her heart. Was it possible he remembered their first meeting so well? Of course, she did, but that was different. She decided to find out.

  “And pray, what is my age?” she asked.

  “Twenty,” said Knowlton promptly. “Did you think I had forgotten? I guessed nineteen. You said twenty.”

  Then he did remember! Lila paused a moment to keep a tremor from her voice as she said:

  “Then there is little to tell. I get up in the morning and go to work. I go home at night and go to bed. That’s all.”

  “Fair play!” Knowlton protested. “Now that I have a chance to learn something I shan’t let you escape. So far I’ve been able to learn just one thing about you.”

  “And that is?”

  “That you’re an angel.”

  Lila did not know whether to be angry or amused. The smile on her companion’s face added to her uncertainty; but Knowlton hastened to relieve her of her embarrassment.

  “I had it from Dougherty,” he continued. “On the morning of my admission to the charmed circle of the Erring Knights I asserted my right to information. Tom gave it to me something like this.”

  Knowlton curled his upper lip and puffed out his cheeks, in imitation of the ex-prizefighter.

  “ ‘Listen here, Knowlton. All we know is that she’s an angel. And that’s all you need to know.’ And,” Knowlton finished, “as he seemed to know what he was talking about, I believed him.”

  Lila opened her mouth to reply, then stopped short and gazed at the door. Then she turned to her companion with a sigh of relief.

  “He’s gone,” she announced.

  “Who?” asked Knowlton.

  “Mr. Sherman.”

  “Oh! I had forgotten all about him.” Knowlton beckoned to the waiter and asked for his check before he continued: “Well, this time we shall follow him—at least, out of the restaurant.”

  “Oh!” cried Lila. “Must we go?”

  “Unless we are willing to be late,” Knowlton smiled, glancing at his watch. “It is 8:15. It will take us ten minutes to get to the theater.”

  “To the theater!”

  Lila’s eyes were round with surprise.

  On his part, Knowlton pretended surprise.

  “Surely you wouldn’t think of sending me away so early?” he exclaimed. “I supposed that was understood.”

  Lila shook her head firmly.

  “I couldn’t possibly,” she declared.

  “Have you anything else to do?”

  Lila did not answer.

  “Do you mean you don’t want to go?”

  Lila said: “I mean I can’t.”

  “Say you don’t want to go.”

  She was silent.

  Knowlton looked at her.

  “Is there any reason?”

  “Dozens,” Lila declared. “For one, my dress. I have been working in it all day. Look at it.”

  Knowlton did so. It was of dark-blue ratine, with white lace collar and cuffs, and its simple delicacy appeared to him to leave nothing to be desired. After a scrutiny of some seconds, during which a flush of embarrassment appeared on Lila’s cheeks, he looked up at her face and smiled.

  “Is that all?” he demanded.

  Lila, after some faltering and hesitation, admitted that it was.

  “Then you must go,” Knowlton declared. “I won’t take a refusal. Your dress is perfectly all right. You look a thousand times more—I mean—I would rather be—”

  He covered his confusion by rising from his chair to help Lila with her coat. She, still protesting, drew on her gloves and accompanied him to the door. There Knowlton halted to ask if she would choose the theater. She replied that she had no preference.

  “But you will go?”

  Lila nodded. Knowlton thanked her with a look as they left the restaurant and started toward Broadway.

  At the corner he hailed a taxicab and ordered the driver to drive them to the Stuyvesant Theater, having wrapped Lila snugly in the laprobe, for the night was freezing.

  “Are you tired or cold?” he asked, bending toward her solicitously.

 
“Neither,” Lila answered, “but very comfortable. I wish you would take your share of the robe.”

  Knowlton protested that he was really too warm already, while he bit his tongue to keep his teeth from chattering.

  Broadway was sprinkled with cabs and limousines, but the sidewalks were almost deserted. Your New Yorker is no cold-weather man. On moderate days he wears an overcoat, and on cold ones he stays indoors.

  Knowlton and Lila arrived at the theater barely in time to be seated before the raising of the curtain, and Lila had not even time to note the name of the play. She looked at her program; the lights were down and it was too dark to read. She leaned over to Knowlton.

  “The name of the play?” she whispered.

  He whispered back: “It hasn’t any.”

  She looked at the stage, and, in her wonder at what she saw, forgot to wonder at the oddity of his reply.

  I shall not attempt to describe the scene. It was the ambitious attempt of a daring manager to stage Gautier’s famous fantasy in the eleventh chapter of Mlle. de Maupin.

  He had succeeded, if not perfectly, at least admirably. There were the glowworms and the pea blossoms and the eyes of dwarfs and gnomes and the distance of apple-green. The characters, with their pointed steeple-shaped hats and swollen hose, wandered aimlessly about with an infinite grace and talked of this and that and nothing in soft, musical tones of carelessness.

  To Lila, who had certainly not read Mlle. de Maupin, the scene was inexplicable, but wonderful. Throughout the entire act she held her breath in amazed delight, expecting every minute that something would happen. Nothing happened, of course; but she was not disappointed. When the curtain fell she sighed deeply and turned to her companion.

  He was smiling at her curiously.

  “What do you think of it?” he asked.

  Lila answered him with a series of “Oh!” and “Ahs!” and exclamations of delight.

  “But,” she managed to say finally, “I don’t understand it a bit.”

  Knowlton told her of the origin of the fantasy, and explained that she couldn’t very well be expected to understand it, since it had neither beginning nor end, nor cause nor reason.

  “It wasn’t made to be understood,” he finished. “It was made to enjoy.”

  The two following acts were similar to the first, with a change of setting and costumes. Throughout Lila sat in breathless delight, with now and then a glance at Knowlton to see if he were sharing her enjoyment.

  Always as she looked at him his eyes turned to meet hers, and they exchanged a smile of sympathy and understanding. When the curtain fell for the last time Lila turned to him with a sigh of regret.

  “Oh,” she said, “if the world were only like that!”

  “It would be amusing,” Knowlton agreed “But we would die of ennui. It would be too easy. No struggle, no passion, no hate, no love.”

  Lila was silent as they made their way out of the theater. The audience had been small, and they had no difficulty to find a cab at the door. As Knowlton seated himself at her side he leaned forward and told the driver to drive to the Manton.

  Lila laid a hand on his arm.

  “Please,” she protested earnestly. “I must go home, really. I couldn’t eat a bite, anyway; and it would spoil the play. I want to stay in fairyland.”

  Knowlton felt the earnestness of her tone and forbore to insist. He gave Lila’s address to the driver, and they started uptown.

  “And now to come to the point,” said Knowlton suddenly, after several minutes of silence, during which the cab had sped swiftly northward.

  His tone, Lila thought, was constrained and forced. It gave her a vague uneasiness and she asked what he meant.

  “About the counterfeit bills,” Knowlton explained.

  He appeared to be speaking with difficulty, like a man who forces himself to mention an unpleasant subject.

  Lila realized with a feeling of surprise that she had forgotten entirely the events that had caused her such great anxiety and pain but a day before.

  His words came to her with a distinct shock. She looked at him and wondered at herself for having supposed, under any circumstances, that such a man as John Knowlton could do anything wrong.

  “Of course, I must explain—” the young man was continuing, when Lila interrupted him.

  “Please, Mr. Knowlton, don’t! There is nothing to explain—or rather there is nothing which needs to be explained. I was silly ever to imagine that you could be—I mean, please don’t talk about it.”

  Knowlton tried to insist, but without eagerness.

  “But that is what we are here for. It was my excuse for asking you to come. I admit the subject is painful and embarrassing to me, but I promised to explain and I ought to.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I want you to believe in me and be my friend. I—I want you to think well of me.”

  “Well, I do,” said Lila. The protecting darkness hid the glowing color that mounted to her face. “I am your friend. There!” She held out a tiny gloved hand.

  Knowlton took it and held it for a moment in his own. But he did not smile, and his manner was uneasy and constrained.

  “Please let’s forget it,” Lila begged. “Do you want to spoil my whole evening?”

  Knowlton said “No” without enthusiasm.

  “Well, you are doing it,” Lila declared with pretended severity. “And if you don’t improve within one minute I shall complain of you to Mr. Dumain and Mr. Dougherty and Mr. Driscoll.”

  This brought a smile.

  “I imagine that will be unnecessary,” Knowlton observed.

  “But I can goad them on.”

  “That would be unfair. They are already six to one. I had counted on having you on my side.”

  “And so I would be if you weren’t so gloomy.”

  “Then from now on I shall be Momus himself,” laughed Knowlton. “We are already at Ninety-sixth Street, and surely I can wear the mask for three minutes.”

  He began with an imitation of Pierre Dumain expounding the scientific value of the game of billiards, and soon had Lila laughing unrestrainedly. By the time the cab stopped at her door he was as gay as she.

  As the driver opened the door of the taxi Knowlton sprang out and assisted Lila up the steps of the apartment-house stoop. At the door Lila stopped and held out her hand.

  “Have you your key?” asked Knowlton.

  Lila produced it from a pocket in her coat. He unlocked the door and she passed within. She thanked him and gave him her hand, and fluttered up the stairs. At the top of the first flight she halted. She had not heard the door close.

  “Good night!” she called softly, and up to her came Knowlton’s voice in return:

  “Good night!” Then the sound of the closing door.

  Lila entered her room and lit the gas. It seemed strangely unfamiliar. Here she had wept and read and slept and prayed. But here she had never been happy. For two years—since her mother’s death—it had been her home. Home! Rather it had been her cage.

  But now, as she sat on the edge of the bed without having removed her hat or coat or gloves, the room seemed transformed. The dingy little dressing table, the chairs, the pictures, seemed to have assumed a new form of beauty.

  The ticking of the little marble clock on the mantel, that had been mournful and melancholy and disconsolate, sounded a cheerful note of sympathy. For Lila was happy!

  Half an hour later she was standing in front of her mirror, gazing at the reflection of a rosy, flushed face and deep, liquid, lustrous eyes. “Why,” she said aloud, “that can’t be me! I never saw anything so beautiful in my life!”

  Then, laughing happily at her own foolishness, she got into bed and snuggled cozily beneath the covers.

  CHAPTER VII.

  The Enemy’s Roof

  KNOWLTON, HAVING BID LILA GOOD NIGHT, stood irresolutely for a moment with his foot on the step of the taxicab. He thought of walking downtown and mentally calculated
the distance—seventy blocks—three miles and a half. He looked at his watch; it was a quarter to twelve, and the cold had increased with the deepening of the night.

  Drawing his coat closer round him and stepping into the cab, he gave the driver the number of his rooms on Thirtieth Street.

  As the vehicle started forward the face of the man inside was set sternly, almost painfully. His eyes stared straight ahead, his lips formed a thin, straight line, and now and men the muscles of the cheek quivered from the tensity of the jaws.

  Thus he remained, motionless, for many minutes; evidence of a conflict of no common strength and importance. He was insensible to the movement of the cab, to the streets through which they passed, even to the nipping cold. He gave a start of surprise when the cab stopped and looked up to find himself arrived at his destination.

  He sprang out, handed the driver a bill, and started toward the entrance of the apartment house.

  “Wait a minute, mister!” came the driver’s voice. “This is a ten-spot.”

  “All right; keep it,” replied Knowlton.

  He halted and turned to observe the curious phenomenon—a New York taxicab driver who announced that he had been paid too much! He heard his cry of “Thank ye sir!” and saw him mount his seat and send his taxi off at a speed that carried him out of sight in three seconds.

  As Knowlton turned again to mount the stoop he noticed a big red limousine approaching from the east slowly. He glanced at it in idle curiosity as it stopped directly in front of his own door, then began to move up the steps, feeling in his pocket for his key.

  Suddenly he was halted by a shout from the street:

  “Is that you, Knowlton?”

  The voice was Tom Dougherty’s.

  Knowlton, mastering his surprise, with his hand on his key in the door, turned and sang out:

  “Yes. What do you want?”

  Three men had got out of the limousine and were standing on the edge of the sidewalk. In front was Dougherty; Knowlton recognized him by his slouch hat. Dougherty made a step forward as he called in a lower tone:

  “Come here.”

  Knowlton understood, of course, what was up. That is, he knew why they wanted him—but what did they want? And, being curious and by no means a coward he decided to find out. He stepped back to the sidewalk and across to the three men.