The Bandbox - Louis Joseph Vance (read along books .TXT) 📗

uniform after dark. Beard and glasses—what?”

“I believe you’re right!” Staff rose excitedly. “I didn’t notice the glasses, but otherwise you’ve described him!”

“What did I tell you?” Iff helped himself to a cigarette. “By now the dirty dog’s probably raising heaven and hell to find out where Miss Searle has hidden herself.”

Staff began to pace nervously to and fro. “I wish,” he cried, “I knew where to find her!”

“Please,” Iff begged earnestly, “don’t let your sense of the obligations of a host interfere with your amusements; but if you’ll stop that Marathon long enough to find me a blanket, I’ll shed these rags and, by your good leave, curl up cunningly on yon divan.”

Staff paused, stared at the little man’s bland and guileless face, and shook his head helplessly, laughing.

“There’s no resisting your colossal gall,” he said, passing into the adjoining room to get bed-clothing for his guest.

“I admit it,” said Iff placidly.

As Staff returned, the telephone bell rang. In his surprise he paused with his arms full of sheets, blankets and pillows, and stared incredulously at his desk.

“What the deuce now?” he murmured.

“The quickest way to an answer to that,” suggested Iff blandly, “is there.” He indicated the telephone with an ample gesture. “Help yourself.”

Dropping his burden on the divan, Staff seated himself at the desk and took up the receiver.

“Hello?”

He started violently, recognising the voice that answered: “Mr. Staff?”

“Yes—”

“This is Miss Searle.”

“I know,” he stammered; “I—I knew your voice.”

“Really?” The query was perfunctory. “Mr. Staff—I couldn’t wait to tell you—I’ve just got in from a theatre and supper party with some friends.”

“Yes,” he said. “Where are you?”

Disregarding his question, the girl’s voice continued quickly: “I wanted to see my hat and opened the bandbox. It wasn’t my hat—it’s the one you described—the one that—”

“I know,” he interrupted; “I know all about that now.”

“Yes,” she went on hurriedly, unheeding his words. “I admired and examined it. It—there’s something else.”

“I know,” he said again; “the Cadogan collar.”

“Oh!” There was an accent of surprise in her voice. “Well, I’ve ordered a taxi, and I’m going to bring it to you right away. The thing’s too valuable—”

“Miss Searle—”

“I’m afraid to keep it here. I wanted to find out if you were up—that’s why I called.”

“But, Miss Searle—”

“The taxi’s waiting now. I’ll be at your door in fifteen minutes.”

“But—”

“Good-bye.”

He heard the click as she hung up the receiver; and nothing more. With an exclamation of annoyance he swung round from the desk.

“Somebody coming?” enquired Iff brightly.

Staff eyed him with overt distrust. “Yes,” he said reluctantly.

“Miss Searle bringing the evanescent collar, eh?”

Staff nodded curtly.

“Plagued nuisance,” commented Iff. “And me wanting to go to sleep the worst I ever did.”

“Don’t let this keep you up,” said Staff.

“But,” Iff remonstrated, “you can’t receive a lady in here with me asleep on your divan.”

“I don’t intend to,” Staff told him bluntly. “I’m going to meet the taxi at the door, get into it with her, and take that infernal necklace directly to Miss Landis, at her hotel.”

“The more I see of you,” said Mr. Iff, removing his coat, “the more qualities I discover in you to excite my admiration and liking. As in this instance when with thoughtfulness for my comfort”—he tore from his neck the water-soaked rag that had been his collar—“you combine a prudent, not to say sagacious foresight, whereby you plan to place the Cadogan collar far beyond my reach in event I should turn out to be a gay deceiver.”

By way of response, Staff found his hat and placed it handily on the table, went to his desk and took from one of its drawers a small revolver of efficient aspect, unloaded and reloaded it to satisfy himself it was in good working order—and of a sudden looked round suspiciously at Mr. Iff.

The latter, divested of his clothing and swathed in a dressing-gown several sizes too large for him, fulfilled his host’s expectations by laughing openly at these warlike preparations.

“I infer,” he said, “that you wouldn’t be surprised to meet up with Cousin Arbuthnot before sunrise.”

“I’m taking no chances,” Staff announced with dignity.

“Well, if you should meet him, and if you mean what you act like, and if that gun’s any good, and if you know how to use it,” yawned Mr. Iff, “you’ll do me a favour and save me a heap of trouble into the bargain. Good night.”

He yawned again in a most business-like way, lay down, pulled a blanket up round his ears, turned his back to the light and was presently breathing with the sweet and steady regularity of a perfectly sound and sincere sleeper.

To make his rest the more comfortable, Staff turned off all the lights save that on his desk. Then he filled a pipe and sat down to envy the little man. The very name of sleep was music in his hearing, just then.

The minutes lagged on leaden wings. There was a great hush in the old house, and the street itself was quiet. Once or twice Staff caught himself nodding; then he would straighten up, steel his will and spur his senses to attention, waiting, listening, straining to catch the sound of an approaching taxi. He seemed to hear every imaginable night noise but that: the crash and whine of trolleys, the footsteps of a scattered handful of belated pedestrians, the infrequent windy roar of trains on the Third Avenue L, empty clapping of horses’ hoofs on the asphalt ... the yowl of a sentimental tomcat ... a dull and distant grumble, vague, formless, like a long, unending roll of thunder down the horizon ... the swish and sough of waters breaking away from the flanks of the Autocratic ... and then, finally, like a tocsin, the sonorous, musical chiming of the grandfather’s clock in the corner.

He found himself on his feet, rubbing his eyes, with a mouth dry as paper, a thumping heart, and a vague sense of emptiness in his middle.

Had he napped—slept? How long?... He stared, bewildered, groping blindly after his wandering wits....

The windows, that had been black oblongs in the illuminated walls, were filled with a cool and shapeless tone of grey. He reeled (rather than walked) to one of them and looked out.

The street below was vacant, desolate and uncannily silent, showing a harsh, unlovely countenance like the jaded mask of some sodden reveller, with bleary street-lamps for eyes—all mean and garish in the chilly dusk that foreruns dawn.

Hastily Staff consulted his watch.

Four o’clock!

It occurred to him that the watch needed winding, and he stood for several seconds twisting the stem-crown between thumb and forefinger while stupidly comprehending the fact that he must have been asleep between two and three hours.

Abruptly, in a fit of witless agitation, he crossed to the divan, caught the sleeper by the shoulder and shook him till he wakened—till he rolled over on his back, grunted and opened one eye.

“Look here!” said Staff in a quaver—“I’ve been asleep!”

“You’ve got nothing on me, then,” retorted Iff with pardonable asperity. “All the same—congratulations. Good night.”

He attempted to turn over again, but was restrained by Staff’s imperative hand.

“It’s four o’clock, and after!”

“I admit it. You might be good enough to leave a call for me for eleven.”

“But—damn it, man!—that cab hasn’t come—”

“I can’t help that, can I?”

“I’m afraid something has happened to that girl.”

“Well, it’s too late to prevent it now—if so.”

“Good God! Have you no heart, man?” Staff began to stride distractedly up and down the room. “What am I to do?” he groaned aloud.

“Take unkie’s advice and go bye-bye,” suggested Iff. “Otherwise I’d be obliged if you’d rehearse that turn in the other room. I’m going to sleep if I have to brain you to get quiet.”

Staff stopped as if somebody had slapped him: the telephone bell was ringing again.

He flung himself across the room, dropped heavily into the chair and snatched up the receiver.

A man’s voice stammered drowsily his number.

“Yes,” he almost shouted. “Yes—Mr. Staff at the ’phone. Who wants me?”

“Hold the wire.”

He heard a buzzing, a click; then silence; a prolonged brrrrp and another click.

“Hello?” he called. “Hello?”

His heart jumped: the voice was Miss Searle’s.

“Mr. Staff?”

It seemed to him that he could detect a tremor in her accents, as if she were both weary and frightened.

“Yes, Miss Searle. What is it?”

“I wanted to reassure you—I’ve had a terrible experience, but I’m all right now—safe. I started—”

Her voice ceased to vibrate over the wires as suddenly as if those same wires had been cut.

“Yes?” he cried after an instant. “Yes, Miss Searle? Hello, hello!”

There was no answer. Listening with every faculty at high tension, he fancied that he detected a faint, abrupt sound, like a muffled sob. On the heels of it came a click and the connection was broken.

In his anxiety and consternation he swore violently.

“Well, what’s the trouble?”

Iff stood at his side, now wide-awake and quick with interest. Hastily Staff explained what had happened.

“Yes,” nodded the little man. “Yes, that’d be the way of it. She had trouble, but managed to get to the telephone; then somebody grabbed her—”

“Somebody! Who?” Staff demanded unreasonably.

“I don’t really know—honest Injun! But there’s a smell of garlic about it, just the same.”

“Smell of garlic! Are you mad?”

“Tush!” said Mr. Iff contemptuously. “I referred poetically to the fine Italian hand of Cousin Arbuthnot Ismay. Now if I were you, I’d agitate that hook until Central answers, and then ask for the manager and see if he can trace that call back to its source. It oughtn’t to be difficult at this hour, when the telephone service is at its slackest.”