The seventh shot A detective story
girls!” said Miss Legaye. “I’m starved, and not a bit ashamed of it!
Boned squab, after this, waiter, and romaine salad.”
“If you let me eat so much I shall be dull and stupid,” declared Sybil.
“And I want to be extra brilliant to talk to my manager. I simply have
to hypnotize him into engaging me!”
“Who is he?”
“Altheimer.”
“Altheimer! You aren’t going into musical comedy, surely?”
Sybil flushed a bit and bent over her plate to hide her discomfort.
“I—I’m going into anything I can get,” she answered in a low voice.
Then she smiled and went on more bravely: “I’ve been out of work since
March, Miss Legaye. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Oh, dear—how horrid!” Miss Legaye felt sincerely sympathetic—for the
moment. “It’s a thousand pities that you have to go into one of the
Altheimer shows. You can really act, and there—well, of course, he
doesn’t care about whether you can act or not; he’ll take you for your
figure.” And she looked the other girl over candidly.
Sybil flushed again, but answered promptly: “I think he has some sort
of part for me—a real part. He knows I don’t sing or dance. You are
rehearsing, aren’t you, Miss Legaye?”
“Yes; with Alan Mortimer.”
“I wish you’d tell me what you think of him!” said Sybil, with
interest. “He’s such a mystery to every one. His first play, isn’t it?
As a star, I mean.”
“Yes; Dukane is trying an experiment—starring an unknown actor in a
Broadway production. Pretty daring, isn’t it? But Dukane doesn’t make
many mistakes. He knows Alan Mortimer will make good. He’s got a lot of
personality, and he’s extremely attractive, I think. I—saw a good deal
of him down at Nantucket during the summer.”
Kitty Legaye never blushed, but there was a certain soft hesitancy
about the way in which she uttered the simple words that was, for her,
the equivalent of a blush. Sybil, noting it, privately concluded that
there had been something like a romance “down at Nantucket during the
summer.”
Being a nice girl, and a tactful one, she said gently:
“Is it a good play, do you think?”
Miss Legaye shrugged her shoulders carelessly; the moment of sentiment
had passed.
“It’s melodrama,” she rejoined; “the wildest sort. ‘Boots and Saddles’
is the name, and it’s by Carlton; now you know.”
They both laughed. Carlton was a playwright of fluent and flexible
talent, who made it his business always to know the public pulse.
“What time is your appointment with Altheimer?”
“Quarter past one.”
“What an ungodly hour! Doesn’t the man ever eat? But finish your lunch
comfortably; if you’re late he’ll appreciate you all the more. Besides——”
She paused, regarding the girl cautiously and critically; and that
evanescently calculating look drifted across her face for the space of
a breath.
“Besides what?” demanded Sybil. “If I lose that part, I’ll sue you for
a job! Besides what?”
Kitty, for all her pretty, impulsive ways, rarely did things without
consideration; so it was with quite slow deliberation that she answered
Sybil’s question with another:
“Would you like to come with Alan Mortimer?”
“Mercy!” The girl put down her knife and fork and stared with huge blue
eyes. “Do you mean to say that there’s a part open—after rehearsing ten
days?”
“How do you know how long we’ve been rehearsing?” queried the older
woman.
Sybil grew delicately pink. “I know a man in the company,” she
confessed, laughing shyly. “Norman Crane—oh, he’s only got a little bit
of a part; perhaps you haven’t noticed him, even. It’s a big company,
isn’t it? But he’s quite keen about your play.”
“Norman Crane?” repeated the other thoughtfully. “Why, yes, I know him.
A tall, clean-looking fellow with reddish hair and a nice laugh?”
“That’s Norman! He isn’t a great actor, but—he’s quite a dear.”
Miss Legaye nodded slowly, still regarding her. The notion which had
come to her a minute before seemed to her more and more markedly a good
notion, a wise notion—nay, even possibly an inspired notion! Mortimer’s
leading woman, Grace Templeton, was a brilliant blonde with Isoldelike
emotions, and Kitty had loathed and feared her from the first, for the
new star swung in an orbit that was somewhat willful and eccentric,
to say the very least of it, and his taste in feminine beauty was
unprejudiced by a bias toward any special type.
For a long time Kitty had yearned to get rid of Miss Templeton. If
the thing could possibly be managed, here was a girl of undoubted
talent—she had seen her act and knew that she had twice the ability of
the average young player—presentable, but not too radiantly pretty, and
proper and conventional and all that—not at all the sort of girl who
would be likely to have an affair with the star. And then, if she was
interested in young Crane, why, it would be altogether perfect!
“So you know Norman Crane,” she said. “Then if you did come into the
company, that would make it particularly nice for you, wouldn’t it?”
“Why, yes,” the girl returned, frankly enough. “We’re quite good
friends, though I don’t see much of him these days. We used to play
together in stock out West two years ago; we were both most awful
duffers at acting.”
Kitty Legaye nodded as though fairly well satisfied. It was on the
tip of her tongue to say that she would try to get Sybil a small part
in the play, with the chance to understudy Miss Templeton—it was all
she could even partially promise until she had conferred with Dukane
and Mortimer—when her attention was sharply distracted by the sight
of two men who had just entered the room and who were looking about
them in choice of a table. She uttered a quick exclamation, as quickly
suppressed.
“Look at those two men standing near the door!” she said. “There, close
to the buffet. What do you think of them? Do tell me: I’ve a reason for
asking.”
Sybil’s eyes followed hers.
The two men were both noticeable, but one of them was so striking in
appearance that one hardly had eyes for any one else near by. He was a
very tall, very broad, very conspicuous type of man. Everything about
him was superlative—even the air of brooding ill temper which for
the moment he seemed to wear. He was exceedingly dark, with swarthy
coloring, coal-black hair, thick and tumbled, and deeply set black
eyes. His features were strong and heavy, but well shaped. Indeed, he
was in his general effect unquestionably handsome, and the impression
which he made was one not lightly to be felt nor quickly to be
forgotten.
“Well?” insisted Miss Legaye impatiently, as Sybil did not immediately
speak. “I asked you what you thought of him.” This time she did not
say “them,” but Sybil did not notice the altered word.
The girl continued to look at the tall, dark man as though she were
mesmerized, and when she spoke it was in a curious, detached tone, as
she might have spoken if she were thinking aloud.
“He is a very strange man,” she said. “He does not belong here in a
Broadway restaurant. He should be somewhere where things are wild and
wonderful and free—and perhaps rather terrible. I think he belongs
in—is it Egypt? He would be quite splendid in Egypt. Or—the prairies——”
She spoke dreamily as she stared at him.
“You look as though he were a ghost, not a man!” exclaimed Kitty, with
a laugh. “I must tell him what you said——”
“Tell him?” repeated Sybil, rousing herself. “You know him, then?”
“My dear child,” said Kitty Legaye, “that is Alan Mortimer!”
At the same moment Mortimer caught sight of her and strode toward her,
passing between the fragile little luncheon tables with the energy of a
whirlwind.
“Guess what has happened now!” he exclaimed in a deep but singularly
clear and beautifully pitched voice. “Dukane has fired Templeton, and
apparently I open little more than two weeks from to-night without a
leading woman! What do you know about that!”
“Without a leading woman? No, you don’t, either,” promptly rejoined
Kitty, the inspired. She always liked a neat climax for a scene,
especially when she could supply it herself. “I’ve just picked out Miss
Merivale to play _Lucille_.”
Breathless and amazed, Sybil looked up to meet his eyes. They were dark
and piercing. At first she thought only of that, and of their fire and
beauty. Then something obscurely evil seemed for a transient second to
look out of them. “What an awful man!” she said to herself. But he was
holding out his hand.
“Did you think of that all by yourself, Kit?” he said. A faint but
rather attractive smile lightening his moody eyes. “How do you
do—Lucille? You may consider the engagement—ah—confirmed.”
But Sybil, as she drew her hand away, felt vaguely frightened—she could
not have told why.
CHAPTER II
THE WOMAN IN PURPLE
Mortimer had been drinking, else he would never have assumed the
entire responsibility of engaging Sybil Merivale for the leading part
in his play. When sober, he had a very wholesome respect for Dukane,
the producing manager who had discovered him and who was “backing him
blind” to the tune of many thousands of dollars. But when he had even
a little too much to drink, the man’s whole personality and viewpoint
underwent a metamorphosis. He became arrogant, self-assertive,
unmanageable. Eventually it was this, as even his friends and adherents
were wont to prophesy, which would be the means of his downfall.
Now, though Dukane himself stood at his elbow, the actor, with a
swagger which he had too much sense to use on the stage or when he was
entirely himself, cried:
“Let us sit down here with you, Kitty, and we’ll drink the health
of the new _Lucille_.” Kitty smiled indulgently as she watched him
seat himself and give a whispered order to the waiter which presently
resulted in the party being served with high balls. Meanwhile, as
Dukane also sat down, Kitty introduced him to Sybil.
Dukane was short and squarely built, with gray hair and steely eyes,
a face as smooth and bland as a baby’s, and an air so gentle and
unassuming that his occasional bursts of biting sarcasm came upon
his victims as a shock. His gaze, clear yet inscrutable, swept Sybil
Merivale in the moment taken up by his introduction to her. He was used
to thus rapidly appraising the material presented him.
He was inclined to approve of her appearance. She was not startlingly
beautiful, but the hair was unusual and would light up well. She
carried her head properly, too, and her low-voiced “How do you do, Mr.
Dukane!” was quite nicely pitched. It would be worth while hearing her
read the part, at any rate. For once Mortimer had not too crassly put
his foot in it, as he was apt to do after four or five high balls.
That the actor had taken a good deal too much upon himself in
practically engaging Miss Merivale without even consulting his superior
troubled Dukane not a whit. He was not a little man, and he did not
have to bluster in order to assert his authority. His actors and
actresses were to him so many indifferently controlled children. When
they said or did absurd things, he usually let them rave. If they
really became troublesome or impertinent—as Miss Templeton had been
that morning—he discharged them with the utmost urbanity and firmness.
He sat down and quietly told the waiter to bring him cold meat and
coffee, while Mortimer ordered more high balls. “Miss Merivale can
come back with us and read the part in the last act,” Dukane said,
sipping his coffee. “I shan’t ask the company to go through the early
part of the play again to-day. In any case”—and he smiled at the girl
pleasantly—“in any case, Miss Merivale will look the part.”
“That’s more than Templeton ever did!” exclaimed Kitty Legaye, with
open spite.
Dukane smiled once more. “Miss Templeton,” he said, “is rather