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

He didn’t believe for an instant that she had meant to run away with the Cadogan collar; and he hoped fervently that she hadn’t been involved in any serious trouble by the qualified thing. Furthermore, he candidly wished he might be permitted to help extricate her, if she were really tangled up in any unpleasantness.

Such, at all events, was the general tone of his meditations throughout dinner and his homeward stroll down Fifth Avenue from Forty-fourth Street, a stroll in which he cast himself for the part of the misprized hero; and made himself look it to the life by sticking his hands in his pockets, carrying his cane at a despondent angle beneath one arm, resting his chin on his chest—or as nearly there as was practicable, if he cared to escape being strangled by his collar—and permitting a cigarette to dangle dejectedly from his lips....

He arrived in front of his lodgings at nine o’clock or something later. And as he started up the brownstone stoop he became aware of a disconsolate little figure hunched up on the topmost step; which was Mr. Iff.

The little man had his chin in his hands and his hat pulled down over his eyes. He rose as Staff came up the steps and gave him good evening in a spiritless tone which he promptly remedied by the acid observation:

“It’s a pity you wouldn’t try to be home when I call. Here you’ve kept me waiting the best part of an hour.”

“Sorry,” said Staff gravely; “but why stand on ceremony at this late day? My bedroom windows are still open; I left ’em so, fancying you might prefer to come in that way.”

“It’s a pity,” commented Iff, following him upstairs, “you can’t do something for that oratorical weakness of yours. Ever try choking it down? Or would that make you ill?”

With which he seemed content to abandon persiflage, satisfied that his average for acerbity was still high. “Besides,” he said peaceably, “I’m all dressed up pretty now, and it doesn’t look right for a respectable member of society to be pulling off second-story man stunts.”

Staff led him into the study, turned on the lights, then looked his guest over.

So far as his person was involved, it was evident that Iff had employed Staff’s American money to advantage. He wore, with the look of one fresh from thorough grooming at a Turkish bath, a new suit of dark clothes. But when he had thrown aside his soft felt hat, his face showed drawn, pinched and haggard, the face of a man whose sufferings are of the spirit rather than of the body. Loss of sleep might have accounted in part for that expression, but not for all of it.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Staff, deeply concerned.

“You ask me that!” said Iff impatiently. He threw himself at length upon the divan. “Haven’t you been to the St. Simon? Don’t you know what has happened? Well, so have I, and so do I.”

“Well ...?”

Iff raised himself on his elbow to stare at Staff as if questioning his sanity.

“You know she’s gone—that she’s in his hands—and you have the face to stand there and say ‘Wel-l?’ to me!” he snapped.

“But—good Lord, man!—what is Miss Searle to you that you should get so excited about her disappearance, even assuming what we’re not sure of—that she decamped with Ismay?”

“She’s only everything to me,” said Iff quietly: “she’s my daughter.”

Staff slumped suddenly into a chair.

“You’re serious about that?” he gasped.

“It’s not a matter I care to joke about,” said the little man gloomily.

“But why didn’t you tell a fellow ...!”

“Why should I—until now? You mustn’t forget that you sat in this room not twenty-four hours ago and listened to me retail what I admit sounded like the damnedest farrago of lies that was ever invented since the world began; and because you were a good fellow and a gentleman, you stood for it—gave me the benefit of the doubt. And at that I hadn’t told you half. Why? Why, because I felt I had put sufficient strain upon your credulity for one session at least.”

“Yes—I know,” Staff agreed, bewildered; “but—but Miss Searle—your daughter—!”

“That’s a hard one for you to swallow——what? I don’t blame you. But it’s true. And that’s why I’m all worked up—half crazed by my knowledge that that infamous blackguard has managed to deceive her and make her believe he is me—myself—her father.”

“But what makes you think that?”

“Oh, I’ve his word for it. Read!”

Iff whipped an envelope from his pocket and flipped it over to Staff. “He knew, of course, where I get my letters when in town, and took a chance of that catching me there and poisoning the sunlight for me.”

Staff turned the envelope over in his hands, remarking the name, address, postmark and special delivery stamp. “Mailed at Hartford, Connecticut, at nine this morning,” he commented.

“Read it,” insisted Iff irritably.

Staff withdrew the enclosure: a single sheet of note-paper with a few words scrawled on one side.

“‘I’ve got her,’” he read aloud. “‘She thinks I’m you. Is this sufficient warning to you to keep out of this game? If not—you know what to expect.’”

He looked from the note back to Iff. “What does he mean by that?”

“How can I tell? It’s a threat, and that’s enough for me; he’s capable of anything fiendish enough to amuse him.” He shook his clenched fists impotently above his head. “Oh, if ever again I get within arm’s length of the hound ...!”

“Look here,” said Staff; “I’m a good deal in the dark about this business. You’ve got to calm yourself and help me out. Now you say Miss Searle’s your daughter; yet you were on the ship together and didn’t recognise one another—at least, so far as I could see.”

“You don’t see everything,” said Iff; “but at that, you’re right—she didn’t recognise me. She hasn’t for years—seven years, to be exact. It was seven years ago that she ran away from me and changed her name. And it was all his doing! I’ve told you that Ismay has, in his jocular way, made a practice of casting suspicion on me. Well, the thing got so bad that he made her believe I was the criminal in the family. So, being the right sort of a girl, she couldn’t live with me any longer and she just naturally shook me—went to Paris to study singing and fit herself to earn a living. I followed her, pleaded with her, but she couldn’t be made to understand; so I had to give it up. And that was when I registered my oath to follow this cur to the four corners of the earth, if need be, and wait my chance to trip him up, expose him and clear myself. And now he’s finding the going a bit rough, thanks to my public-spirited endeavours, and he takes this means of tying my hands!”

“I should think,” said Staff, “you’d have shot him long before this.”

“Precisely,” agreed Iff mockingly. “That’s just where the bone-headedness comes in that so endears you to your friends. If I killed him, where would be my chance to prove I hadn’t been guilty of the crimes he’s laid at my door? He’s realised that, all along.... I passed him on deck one night, coming over; it was midnight and we were alone; the temptation to lay hands on him and drop him overboard was almost irresistible—and he knew it and laughed in my face!... And that’s the true reason why I didn’t accuse him when I was charged with the theft of the necklace—because I couldn’t prove anything and a trumped-up accusation that fell through would only make my case the worse in Nelly’s sight.... But I’ll get him yet!”

“Have you thought of going to Hartford?”

“I’m no such fool. If that letter was posted in Hartford this morning, it means that Ismay’s in Philadelphia.”

“But isn’t he wise enough to know you’d think just that?”

Iff sat up with a flush of excitement. “By George!” he cried—“there’s something in that!”

“It’s a chance,” said Staff thoughtfully.

The little man jumped up and began to pace the floor. To and fro, from the hall-door to the windows, he strode. At perhaps the seventh turn at the windows he paused, looking out, then moved quickly back to Staff’s side.

“Taxicab stopping outside,” he said in a low voice: “woman getting out—Miss Landis, I think. If you don’t mind, I’ll dodge into your bedroom.”

“By all means,” assented his host, rising.

Iff swung out of sight into the back room as Staff went to and opened the hall-door.

Alison had just gained the head of the stairs. She came to the study door, moving with her indolent grace, acknowledging his greeting with an insolent, cool nod.

“Not too late, I trust?” she said enigmatically.

“For what?” asked Staff, puzzled.

“For this appointment,” she said, extending a folded bit of paper.

“Appointment?” he repeated with the rising inflection, taking the paper.

“It was delivered at my hotel half an hour ago,” she told him. “I presumed you ...”

“No,” said Staff. “Half a minute....”

He shut the door and unfolded the note. The paper and the chirography, he noticed, were identical with those of the note received by Iff from Hartford. With this settled to his satisfaction, he read the contents aloud, raising his voice a trifle for the benefit of the listener in the back room.

“‘If Miss Landis wishes to arrange for the return of the Cadogan collar, will she be kind enough to call at Mr. Staff’s rooms in Thirtieth Street at a quarter to ten tonight.

“‘N. B.—Any attempt to bring the police or private detectives or other outsiders into the negotiations will be instantly known to the writer and—there won’t be any party.’”

“Unsigned,” said Staff reflectively.

“Well?” demanded Alison, seating herself.

“Curious,” remarked Staff, still thinking.

“Well?” she iterated less patiently. “Is it a practical joke?”

“No,” he said, smiling; “to me it looks like business.”

“You mean that the thief intends to come here—to bargain with me?”

“I should fancy so, from what he says.... And,” Staff added, crossing to his desk, “forewarned is forearmed.”

He bent over and pulled out the drawer containing his revolver. At the same moment he heard Alison catch her breath sharply, and a man’s voice replied to his platitude.

“Not always,” it said crisply. “Be good enough to leave that gun lay—just hold up your hands, where I can see them, and come away from that desk.”

Staff laughed shortly and swung smartly round, exposing empty hands. In the brief instant in which his back had been turned a man had let himself into the study from the hall. He stood now with his back to the door, covering Staff with an automatic pistol.

“Come away,” he said in a peremptory tone, emphasising his meaning with a flourish of the weapon. “Over here—by Miss Landis, if you please.”

Quietly Staff obeyed. He had knocked about the world long enough to recognise the tone of a man talking business with a gun. He placed himself beside Alison’s chair and waited, wondering.

Indeed, he was very much perplexed and disturbed. For the first time since Iff had won his confidence against his better judgment, his faith in the little man was being shaken. This high-handed intruder was so close a counterpart of Mr. Iff that one had to look twice to distinguish the difference, and then found the points of variance negligible—so much so that the fellow might well be Iff in different clothing and another manner. And Iff could easily have slipped out of the bedroom by its hall door. Only, to shift his clothes so quickly he would have to be a lightning-change artist of exceptional ability.

On the whole, Staff decided, this couldn’t be Iff. And yet ... and yet ...

“You may put up that pistol,” he said coolly. “I’m not going to