The seventh shot A detective story
“She—I—we would be glad to be mentioned in your paper,” went on
the fat man hurriedly. “You could hardly give your space to a more
scintillating—a more——”
“Nick,” said Rita the Daredevil shortly, “I don’t want to be
interviewed. You arranged with Coyne for this gentleman to come,
representing his paper, but I don’t stand for it. You never can get it
out of your head that we’re not running our own show any longer, and
that the public doesn’t care a continental about us. You keep hanging
on to the old stuff. You keep thinking that because you used to be a
big noise in your own little gramophone, you’re loud enough to take in
Broadway nowadays. It doesn’t get across, Nick. If these gentlemen want
a story,” and her voice was keen and bitter, “they’d better get after
something else.”
“Miss—er—I mean, Mrs. Blankley,” said Teddy, “weren’t you hurt, when
that bullet exploded to-night?”
She changed color; oh, yes, she did change color. But she said with a
swiftness that made Jim Barrison admire her the more: “That? Oh, that
was just advertising! Didn’t you guess?”
Teddy Lucas looked at her. “H’m!” he said, deliberating. “I confess I
did think it was advertising at first, but——”
Rita looked strange; for a moment it seemed that she was going to
strike the newspaper man. Then she let her heavy, dark eyes sink, and
turned away with a muttered remark that none of them could catch.
It was Jim’s moment; the only moment that had been put straight into
his hands that night. He seized it boldly. The fat man was talking
nervously and volubly to the reporter; there was a chance.
“Miss Wrenn,” said Jim Barrison deliberately, “will you let me talk to
you alone?”
He never forgot the look that came into those big black eyes, as she
raised them then to meet his. He could not have told whether it was
horror or hatred, but he was sure that it was one or the other. For a
full half minute she stared at him so, her face white as chalk. Then
she drew a deep breath, and took a step back.
“Since I must,” she said, answering his request. “But I warn you, it
will be to very little purpose—I know why you are here. Do you truly
think that—this—this investigation—is worth your while?”
“I don’t know that,” he said steadily, but still in a voice that was
audible to her alone. “I only know that it is necessary; that it is my
duty. I know that you are the girl I am seeking. Your name is Wrenn. Is
it not?”
“It is,” she replied. “Marita Wrenn!”
Marita! So the initials were to be explained logically after all! M
for Marita; W for Wrenn. The two engraved in that odd fashion which he
could quite understand had been of her inspiration.
“Will you believe,” he went on, steadying his voice, and keeping all
excitement out of it, “that I am only trying to get at the facts? That
I——”
“Marita!” came the voice of the fat man sharply. “This gentleman”—he
indicated Lucas—“has asked us to take supper with him and his friend.
We will go?”
“I should be delighted,” she said, in the mechanical way, which one
felt was her way of accepting all pleasures in life, however they came.
Blankley turned to them with his anxious little bow. “If you would
pardon us——” he begged. “My wife must take off a little make-up, and
then—may we join you at the stage door?”
Barrison hated to let the woman out of his sight, but he scarcely knew
how to refuse so simple a request. He was here as Teddy Lucas’ guest,
and not in his professional capacity. So the two young men went out to
the stage door to wait.
They waited until, with a short laugh, the reporter showed his watch.
Almost sixty minutes had gone by.
“I don’t know just your game, my dear fellow,” he said, as he turned
away. “But, for my part, I think you’ve been jolly well sold!”
“How about you?” said Barrison, raw about his part of it, and yearning
to be disagreeable.
Lucas laughed. “I’m fixed all right,” he said amiably. “I’m going to
write a peach of a story about the shock which led to the canceling of
the Blankley engagement!”
“What shock?” asked Barrison.
Lucas looked at him in polite scorn. “My dear friend,” he said, in a
tired voice, “didn’t you see Dukane in the box to-night?”
Barrison jumped. “You mean you saw him?” he exclaimed.
Lucas sighed heavily. “Saw him?” he said. “My dear fellow, I’m a
reporter!”
CHAPTER XXIV
WHAT SYBIL HAD HIDDEN
Jim Barrison was dog tired. He felt as though the past twenty-four
hours had been twenty-four months; it scarcely seemed possible that the
murder had been committed only the night before! Nevertheless, weary as
he was he called up Lowry and told him of his evening’s experience. The
inspector made some cryptic grunts at the other end of the wire, and
ended up with a curt “I’ll see about it. Good night!”
Barrison smiled, but felt slightly annoyed as he hung up the receiver.
“‘I’ll see about it!’ As though he were Providence incarnate, and could
wind up the moon and stars to go differently if he felt like it!”
He was past more than a fleeting flash of resentment, however, and lost
no time in wending his way homeward and to bed. Tara made a dignified
offering of Scotch and sandwiches, but he waved him away sleepily, and
tumbled in.
So profound was the slumber into which he immediately fell, that the
shrill ringing of the telephone hardly pierced his rest. If he heard it
at all, it was only as a component part of his fitful dreams.
The voice which came to Tara over the wire was cool and crisp:
“Mr. Barrison, please.”
Tara glanced compassionately toward the bedroom where his master was
already in deep repose.
“No, sir!” he responded, politely but firmly.
“What do you mean—no? Has he gone to bed?”
“Yes—please.” Tara was nothing if not deferential.
“Well, get him up. I want to speak to him.”
“Honorably excuse,” said Tara, with an instinctive bow to the
instrument, “but—I _not_!”
“You won’t call him?”
“Please—I not!”
The voice at the end of the wire cursed him gently, and then continued:
“Well, will you take a message?”
“Oh, yes, please—I thank!”
The Jap hastily seized pencil and paper, and, after making sundry
hieroglyphics in his own language, said good night humbly, hung up,
and translated what he had noted into English. In the morning, when he
carried coffee in to a refreshed but still drowsy Barrison, the message
which that gentleman read was as follows: “Hon. gent. paper man say if
you please call. Import.”
Barrison knew that this meant Teddy Lucas in all probability, but he
also knew that it was too early to catch him at the newspaper office
yet. He ate breakfast and hunted through the morning papers for
matters of interest. In the _Blaze_, he found a picturesque little
account of the spectacular exit of Mr. and Mrs. Blankley. It was toned
down, however, a good deal, Dukane’s name not being mentioned, and
nothing more sensational being suggested than that “Rita the Daredevil”
lost her nerve after the narrow escape which had left her in a state of
collapse when the _Blaze_ representative was admitted to her presence.
Her husband had urged her discontinuance of the engagement, et cetera.
Barrison could not entirely understand, but he knew that the ways of
newspapers were strange and devious. Later he would call up Lucas and
find out more about it.
It was at this point that his eye caught sight of another item on the
page given over to dramatic news. It was starred in a half column, and
was headed:
TRAGIC AND SENSATIONAL ROMANCE OF MISS
KITTY LEGAYE!
Popular Actress Announces Her Engagement to Star Who
Was Murdered.
(Interview by Maybelle Montagu.)
Miss Kitty Legaye, whose charm and talent have endeared her to
thousands of the American public, is to-day that saddest of figures,
a sorrowing woman bereft of the man who was to have been her husband.
Alan Mortimer, whose terrible and mysterious death has stirred the
entire theatrical world and baffled police headquarters, has left
behind him a woman whose white face bears the stamp of ineffaceable
love and endless grief.
In deepest mourning, which enhanced her childlike loveliness, the
exquisite little actress whose impersonations of young girls upon
the stage have made her famous all over the continent consented to
receive the representative of the New York _Blaze_. It was with a
touching simplicity that she said:
“We had intended to postpone the announcement of our engagement until
later, but he has been taken from me, and why keep silent any longer?
It is, in a way, a comfort to let the world know that we were to have
been married—that, at least, I have the right to mourn for him!”
Her sweet voice was choked with sobs, and in the eyes of even the
seasoned interviewer there were tears.
Barrison shook his head, and smiled a wry, cynical smile.
“Not so prostrated that she can’t make capital out of it!” he commented
to himself. “Lost no time, I must say. However, it’s no concern of
mine.”
Refreshed by his sound sleep, he rushed through the process of dressing
like a whirlwind, and went off to try the doubtful experiment of
another call upon Mr. Dukane.
But before he went up to the great man’s office, he paused to take
due thought. After all, was it the best thing to do? He considered,
and before he had decided, the door of the elevator opened, and young
Norman Crane came out. He looked fresh and wholesome as ever, but, Jim
thought, a bit anxious. He greeted the detective cordially.
“Hello!” he said. “Beastly mess it all is, isn’t it? Were you going up
to see the old man? Because you won’t. Not unless you’ve an awful drag
at court! Every one in the world is waiting in the outer office, all
the poor old ‘Boots-and-Saddles’ bunch, and everybody in town that’s
left over.”
“I hadn’t made up my mind whether I was going up or not,” admitted
Barrison. “Now I have, I think. I’ll walk along with you, if you’ve no
objection?”
“Rather not! I’m——” He hesitated. “I’m going to inquire for Sybil.”
“How _is_ Miss Merivale? I was sorry to hear that she was so ill.”
“Who told you? Oh, it would be Lowry, of course! I can’t get used
to the idea of having Sybil watched and spied on by policemen. Beg
pardon!” He flushed boyishly. “I don’t mean to be offensive, Mr.
Barrison, and you never strike me like that quite, but—you must know
what I mean?”
“Naturally I do,” said Jim, who liked the lad. “And, if you don’t
mind, I’ll come with you when you go to inquire—not in a professional
capacity!” he added hastily, seeing the glint of suspicion in the
other’s transparent eyes.
Crane laughed a little awkwardly. “I’d be very glad to have you,” he
said frankly, “and, for that matter, in your professional capacity,
too! Mr. Barrison, am I right in thinking that—that man suspects Sybil?”
“Suspects is rather a plain term and rather a strong one. I don’t think
he absolutely suspects her; but there are things that will need a bit
of clearing up.”
“I thought so!” The young man’s manner expressed a sort of angry
triumph. “Now, Mr. Barrison, you must come. Sybil must talk to you,
whether she feels like it or not! You know, the whole idea is too
absurd——”
“I think it is absurd myself!” said Barrison kindly. “But you know it’s
just those ridiculous things that make such a lot of bother in the
world! Miss Merivale, I’m convinced, is the last person in the world to
have committed any sort of a crime.”
“Heavens! I should say so!”
“And yet—what was it that she hid in her dress that night?”
Norman stopped and stared at him. “Why should you think she hid
anything in her dress?” he demanded in unfeigned astonishment.