The seventh shot A detective story
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THE SEVENTH SHOT
_A Detective Story_
BY
Harry Coverdale
CHELSEA HOUSE
79 Seventh Avenue New York City
Copyright, 1924
By CHELSEA HOUSE
The Seventh Shot
(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. “Brook Trout For Two” 11
II. The Woman in Purple 24
III. The “Tag” 36
IV. The Letter of Warning 51
V. Miss Templeton 63
VI. The Divided Danger 72
VII. The Dark Scene 80
VIII. Awaiting the Police 96
IX. Reconstructing the Crime 103
X. Facts and Fancies 112
XI. In the Star Dressing Room 123
XII. The Two Doorways 131
XIII. The Initial 142
XIV. A Tip—and an Invitation 150
XV. A Morning Call 156
XVI. A Scarlet Evening Coat 163
XVII. Blind Trails 168
XVIII. Miss Templeton at Home 179
XIX. Glimmers in the Darkness 190
XX. Checking Up 197
XXI. Tony’s Report 206
XXII. “Rita the Daredevil” 215
XXIII. ’Twixt the Cup and the Lip 223
XXIV. What Sybil Had Hidden 229
XXV. New Developments 242
XXVI. Wrenn’s Story 248
XXVII. An Incriminating Letter 263
XXVIII. A Strange Summons 271
XXIX. Through the Night 279
XXX. The Whisper in the Dark 284
XXXI. Tony Does His Bit 292
XXXII. The Lost Clew 302
XXXIII. The False Gods Go 315
THE SEVENTH SHOT
CHAPTER I
“BROOK TROUT FOR TWO”
It was twelve o’clock—a hot, sunny noon in the latter part of August.
Broadway blazed with the last fiery effort of the passing summer; there
was a steady stream of humanity pouring up and down on either side of
the clanging cars, and occasionally swirling between them. In spite of
the temperature, New York was as fervently busy as usual, especially
here on what is affectionately known as the Rialto. For in nearly every
theater in the Forties rehearsals had begun, and those actors who were
not already employed were frantically hunting jobs. Gone the brief
weeks in which they had forgotten calcium and make-up boxes; it was
nearly September—time to work.
Chorus girls, half dead from three hours of ceaseless dancing, came
hurrying from stage doors, wiping their dripping faces and talking
shrilly of new steps, tired legs, and the brutalities of their stage
managers. “Principals,” in scarcely less haste, repaired to one of
the big restaurants for a cold buffet lunch, wearing the blank,
concentrated expression that is born of trying to memorize lines or to
estimate the cost of new costumes. Clean-shaven young men, all dressed
precisely alike, forgathered on street corners or plunged pallidly into
cafés. Shabby little actresses, out of work and wearing their best
clothes of last year, scurried anxiously from agent to agent.
A few stars sank wearily into touring cars or limousines and flew
homeward for an hour and a half of rest and refreshment before the
long, grinding, sweltering afternoon. Stage managers, with scripts
sticking out of their pockets and a grim and absent glare in their
eyes, strode along, mentally blue-penciling the prompt book and cursing
the company. Authors crept miserably away to eat without appetite
and wonder if there would be any play at all left by the date of the
opening. In short, theatrical Broadway was at one of its most vigorous
seasons of activity, and to walk along it was like turning the pages of
a dramatic newspaper.
At the side door of one of the big, cool, luxurious hotels extensively
patronized by the profession when it has enough money in its pockets,
two young women nearly ran into each other, laughed, and exchanged
greetings:
“Miss Legaye! How nice to see you again!”
“It has been ages, hasn’t it? Are you lunching here, too, Miss
Merivale?”
“I hardly know,” returned the younger and taller girl, adding, with
a frank laugh: “I was wondering whether it would be too sinfully
extravagant to blow myself to a gilt-edged meal all alone. However, I
believe I had about succumbed to temptation; I have a manager to see
this afternoon, and I really think I should fortify myself.”
“Lunch with me,” suggested Kitty Legaye. “I hate my own society, and I
am all alone.”
“For a wonder!” laughed the other. “Yes, I’d love to, if you’ll let
it be Dutch. I’ve been up and down a thousand pairs of stairs this
morning, and I’m nearly dead.”
They went together into one of the most comfortable dining rooms in
the city. They chose a little table so placed that an electric fan,
artificially hidden behind flowering plants, swept it with a very fair
imitation of aromatic summer winds.
Miss Legaye, who always knew exactly what she wanted, waved aside the
menu proffered by the waiter and rapidly ordered: “Brook trout in aspic
for two. I’ll tell you the rest later.”
Then she tossed off her fur neckpiece and turned to the other girl.
“I never asked you if you liked trout!” she exclaimed, in a sweet,
rather high voice which her admirers called “larklike.” “Now, that’s so
like me! Do you?”
“Very much,” said her companion, smiling. “I don’t often get it,
though. You are looking awfully well, Miss Legaye!”
“I am always well,” replied Kitty Legaye.
She was an exceedingly pretty woman, already in her early thirties,
but even by daylight she did not look more than twenty-five. On
the stage, with the glamour of rouge and footlights to enhance her
naturally youthful appearance, she passed easily for a girl in her
teens. Very small, very dainty, with the clear, ivory-white skin
which keeps its freshness so well, big dark eyes, brown curls, and a
very red, tiny, full mouth, she still made an enchanting ingénue and
captivated every one who saw her.
To-day she was entirely charming in one of the innocently sophisticated
frocks she particularly loved to wear—a creation of black and white,
most daring in effect, though demurely simple in cut. Always pale by
nature, she was doubly so now from fatigue and heat, yet she still
looked young and lovely, and her smile had the irresistible and
infectious quality of a child’s.
If at times her eye grew a bit cynical or her pretty mouth a trifle
hard, such slips in self-control occurred seldom. As a rule she kept
a rigid guard upon herself and her expressions, not only because an
obviously ugly mood or reflection made her look older, but because, if
permitted to become a habit, it would be perilously and permanently
aging.
Kitty Legaye was too truly clever not to know that her one valuable
asset, both as an actress and a woman, was her quality—or illusion—of
youth. When she lost that, she shrewdly judged, she would lose
everything. She was not a sufficiently brilliant actress to continue
successfully in character work after her looks had gone. And so far as
her personal and private life was concerned she had lived too selfishly
to have made a very cozy human place for herself in the world.
Not that she was a disagreeable or an unkind woman; she could even
be generous on occasion, and she was almost always pleasant to her
associates; but the spirit of calculation which she strove so hard to
keep out of her face had left its mark upon her life. She had few close
friends, though she liked many persons and many persons liked her. She
had long since drifted away from her own people, and she had never been
willing to give up her independence for the sake of any man. So, in
spite of a great number of admirers and a remarkably handsome salary,
her existence seemed just a little barren and chilly sometimes.
We have said that she never had been willing to give up her
independence. That had been true all her life until now. To-day she
was considering just that proposition. Did she care enough, at last,
to marry? Love—she had had no small measure of that all her life, for
Kitty was by way of being temperamental; but marriage! That was another
and a vastly more serious matter.
She looked almost wistfully across the table at Sibyl Merivale. For a
moment she had an unaccountable impulse to confide in her. She wished
she knew her well enough. She looked, Kitty thought, like the sort of
girl who would understand about this sort of thing—loving enough to
get married, and—and all that.
Sybil was as unlike Miss Legaye as she well could be. She was tall,
and built strongly though slenderly, like a young Artemis, and her
eyes were very clear and starry and blue. Her hair was of that rare
and delicious shade known as _blonde cendrée_, and the silvery, ashen
nimbus about her face made her brown eyebrows and lashes effective. Her
skin was very fair, and her color came and went sensitively. She was
not a beauty; her nose was decidedly _retroussé_, and her mouth too
large. But she was unquestionably sweet and wholesome and attractive,
and her lovely forehead and the splendid breadth between her eyes
suggested both character and intelligence.
Kitty looked disapprovingly at the dust-colored linen dress she wore;
it was far too close to the tint of her hair to be becoming. Blondes,
thought Kitty, could wear almost any color on the face of the earth
except—just that! However, she felt rather pleased than otherwise that
Miss Merivale was not looking her best. When she appeared in public
with another woman, she was well satisfied to have the other woman
badly dressed. She herself never was.
Both women were honestly and healthily hungry, and talked very little
until they were half through the trout. Then they met each other’s eyes
and laughed a little.
“Thank goodness you don’t pretend not to have an appetite, like most