The haunting hand
matter how mad she is or what she says, I can calm her down
afterwards. But you’ll have to meet me half way. I’m not going to let
myself in for a scrap with Corinne Delamar, unless you promise me two
things.”
Sheer curiosity to see to what lengths Stoner could conceivably go,
made Margot say with a faint smile:
“_Two_ things! What are they, Mr. Stoner?”
“First, cut loose from this haunted house bunk. It’s going to do you
and all of us harm if you persist in being connected with it. I’d like
to have you forget the thing ever happened.” His words were spoken
calmly enough, but she noted a slight twitching of his face.
Certainly the man was nervous. Probably he drank and smoked too much.
Most persons did.
“I might possibly be persuaded to buy the security of my job in your
picture at that price, although I’d lose a lot of fun.” Her levity
brought no smile to his lips. Then she said: “And what is the other
condition?”
“Well, I suppose you’ll think I’ve got my nerve, but I want you to let
me be your friend, and see you often. I’m not asking to make love to
you--though God knows I’m crazy about you, Margot--but at least give
me the chance to help you as I can’t while you’re running around with
Valery.”
This last offer of selfish patronage of her career was more bald than
previous offers or hints had been, but why let it anger her, she
wisely concluded, giving a non-committal smile.
“You’re very kind, Mr. Stoner. I’ll give the matter thought when I
have more time, and not so many absorbing things to think about. Then
I’ll let you know what I decide to do.”
Her delicate irony did not altogether miss its mark. He scowled
heavily, but apparently could think of no effective retort, so he
stood with shoulders thrown back, and head in air, as she walked off
and left him.
A negro maid edged out of the narrow compartment as Margot entered
Corinne’s dressing room. The star was sitting in a wicker chair beside
a table strewn with cosmetics. A disproportionately large mirror hung
above the table, flanked by hooks on which were draped a variety of
startlingly gaudy Spanish bolero-jackets and shawls. There seemed to
be no place for a visitor to sit, so Margot stood, in graceful and
well-bred disregard of having to stand.
Corinne was certainly beautiful, Margot thought, looking down at her.
Margot was always generous in her enthusiasm over another woman’s
beauty or charm. The star might be somewhat over thirty, but her
strange gold-colored eyes, her ivory-palid cheeks and throat, and her
fierce red pouting lips, had all the splendor of early youth.
For an appreciable moment, Corinne did not even turn her head. Then
she twisted slowly around in her chair, and looked up at Margot out of
narrowed eyes. Her voice was modulated to the velvet softness of the
woman whose pose is to appear better bred than she is.
“Miss Anstruther,” she began softly, “I understand that this wild
story about you in the papers is the result of a play for publicity.
Doesn’t it strike you as taking an unpardonable liberty, while you
have a part supporting me?” At least she had gone directly to the
point.
“Who has given you to understand such a thing, Miss Delamar? It’s Mr.
Stoner, isn’t it?”
“Yes. What of it?” Corinne’s voice was a trifle less suave.
Of a sudden, and most unexpectedly, Margot wanted intensely to
convince Corinne, even to propitiate her, not at all for professional
reasons, but because of some deep and mysterious urge to make a friend
of the young woman, whose antagonism she had so unwittingly aroused. A
swift decision came to her. She would tell the star her so-called
ghost story, from beginning to end, or rather to the point it had
reached. She would offer neither explanations nor excuses, she would
stick to narrative and description of the persons in her little drama.
“Miss Delamar,” she began gently, “will you be kind enough to let me
tell you frankly just what has happened? I’m sorry if I’ve done
anything to annoy you, but I’d really like you to know the facts at
first hand.”
Corinne stared at her intently, then she said, pulling out a stool
from under the table:
“Please sit down. I’m sorry I haven’t a comfortable chair. I’ll be
glad to hear what you have to say, Miss Anstruther.”
Margot’s shrewd and watchful eyes did not miss the brightening of
Corinne’s eyes, or the eager play of her lips, as she listened to the
odd and arresting tale. She had held the star’s interest and she had
won her trust, at least, so far as her mysterious adventure was
concerned.
“You certainly put the whole thing in a different light, Miss
Anstruther. I’ll talk to you again later in the week. I want to think
over the matter.”
Margot could not restrain the impulse that made her bend over, with an
eager smile, as she stood up to go, and say:
“Please do your own thinking, unassisted by Mr. Stoner. For some
reason he’s determined to put me in the wrong in this matter and make
me drop the investigation. I don’t know what it’s all about, but I
can’t see why he’s so keen about it.”
At her first words, Corinne’s eyes flashed angrily, but it became
clear to her that Margot meant no personal offense, and she nodded a
good-by with the first amiable smile that she had ever conferred upon
Margot.
On the trip back to town, Margot felt suddenly tired and depressed.
Such a fuss and bother and so much confusion to face in the immediate
future. She hated rows. She hated having people dislike her or suspect
her of mean motives. A sudden overwhelming yearning rushed over her,
for the mother who had died when she was sixteen. She had loved her
mother, and she had needed her always, but the years in their swift
passing, had made her more self-reliant and less given to lonely
meditation.
With a return to her normal cheerfulness, Margot put her key in the
lock of the front door, and ran up to her room. Gene, the dear boy,
was coming to take her to dinner. Her glance fell on a yellow telegram
on the table. She ran to it, tore it open and read:
_Terribly sorry. Can’t come for dinner. Stoner requires that I work in
the studio to-night. Been transferred to another unit. See you
to-morrow night without fail._
Gene.
Now, what in creation did that mean! It was most unusual to transfer a
camera man to another unit, in the middle of a picture. Of course it
was done occasionally, but rarely. Besides, why did Stoner call upon
Gene at such short notice! He seemed to be under her feet at every
turn.
She had dinner alone, then returned to her room, after a brief but not
to be avoided conversation with Mrs. Bellew, on the subject of
reporters and other kindred matters. Margot had some mending to do,
and it struck her with ironic force, that, in the midst of so much
mental confusion, she should be sitting alone in the so-called
“haunted” house, mending her stockings.
About a half hour later a tap sounded on her door. Wondering if it
could be Gene, after all, or another message from him, she opened her
door. On the threshold stood Stoner, the landlady vaguely and
apologetically in the dim background of the hall.
CHAPTER IX.
HIDDEN MOTIVES
Frederick Stoner stood on the doorsill, holding hat and stick, and
striving to smile as if his presence on the threshold of Margot’s room
was the most natural of all natural happenings.
In Margot’s gray eyes, surprise changed swiftly to a cold dismissal.
Her aloofness and her obvious disinclination to make the most
perfunctory gesture of welcome, brought the landlady forward from
where she stood in the shadows of the hall. She put a nervous,
apologetic hand on Margot’s arm.
“The gentleman said that he was a friend of yours, and your boss, out
where you do your play acting. And he said he must see you most
particular to-night. And I saw him when he come to your party, so I
thought it was all right and I brought him up stairs, my dear.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Bellew. Wait a minute, please,” she added
hastily seeing the landlady’s gentle movement toward the head of the
stairs. Margot turned steely eyes on Stoner. “What is it you wish to
see me about, Mr. Stoner?”
He fumbled his hat and he fumbled his reply.
“Why--er--it’s about--in relation to--this matter of the--the mystery
you’re trying to solve, Margot.”
“What do you mean? Another warning such as you gave me this morning?”
Her gaze did not waver nor grow less coldly repellent. It was one
thing to use diplomacy with Stoner on his own ground, the studio, but
when he had the impudence to force himself upon her privacy, without
permission or even warning, no diplomacy was required.
“Not that at all,” he said hastily. “Nothing of that sort, Miss
Anstruther. I’ve taken the liberty of calling on you to tell you of
something that’s occurred to me that may be helpful to you.”
She frowned, a little puzzled by his manner and his remark. Odd of
Stoner, the aggressive, self-sufficient Stoner, to conduct himself in
so Uriah Heepish a manner. No unbending came to her reception of him.
She stood guard over her threshold with senses alert and watchful.
“I don’t think I quite understand. Helpful in what way? Just what do
you mean, may I ask?”
He drew himself up and took a firmer grip of his position. Margot read
in the pursing of his thick lips, his realization that his deference
to her wasn’t getting him anywhere.
“After seeing you to-day, Margot, I had a brainstorm, I guess you’d
call it. Or call it a hunch, or anything you like. Anyway, something
came into my head, and I couldn’t wait to tell you all about it. I’ve
got an idea it may go far to clear up your mystery.”
Mrs. Bellew’s shuddering gasp and quick approach to Margot made her
smile. She decided to ask Stoner to come into the room, but the
landlady must come also.
“Very well, if you’ve something interesting to tell me, Mr. Stoner,
I’m willing to listen to it. Won’t you come in? You also Mrs. Bellew.”
She stood aside to let them enter, but Stoner drew back.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, “but what I have to say is strictly
confidential.”
Perhaps it was the terseness of his refusal to talk before Mrs. Bellew
that decided Margot to interview him unchaperoned. If he had
expostulated with excuses or supplications, she would have let him go.
He seemed in earnest, and determined, and her quickly aroused
curiosity where he was concerned, decided her to dismiss Mrs. Bellew.
She turned to the eager dame with a kindly smile.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bellew, but if Mr. Stoner feels that he can’t discuss
the matter except with me, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to let me
withdraw my invitation.”
With the door closed on the landlady’s retreating figure, Margot
wished for a second that she had refused to receive Stoner alone.
However, what did it matter! What could he do to her anyway! She
indicated a place for the bestowal of his hat and coat, then sat down,
pointing to a chair a few feet from her. The preliminary rites of
asking permission to smoke, and lighting his and her cigarette, left
them at last with the blue haze of smoke and an awkward silence
between them. Then Margot asked him what it was he had thought might
be of significance in the clearing up of her mystery.
“Well, Margot, by the time I’ve told you what I’ve doped out, I hope
I’ll be able to share honors with you and Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I
didn’t know I had it in me, but from what I’ve heard of the details of
your story, I believe I’ve hit on something that you haven’t even
thought of.”
“What _is_ it?” She was growing impatient.
“Just a minute now. I don’t want to make a fool of myself. I’ve got a
theory and I believe it’s workable, but I’m not going to spill it
without having some chance to verify it for my own benefit. Of course