Mr. Markham. I wish there was some adequate way of thanking you.” He looked up hesitantly. “I presume you are still opposed to my visiting the apartment.… I know you think me unreasonable and perhaps sentimental; but the girl represented something in my life that I find very difficult to tear out. I don’t expect you to understand it—I hardly understand it myself.”
“I think it’s easily understandable, don’t y’ know,” remarked Vance, with a sympathy I had rarely seen him manifest. “Your attitude needs no apology. History and fable are filled with the same situation, and the protagonists have always exhibited sentiments similar to yours. Your most famous prototype, of course, was Odysseus on the citron-scented isle of Ogygia with the fascinatin’ Calypso. The soft arms of sirens have gone snaking round men’s necks ever since the red-haired Lilith worked her devastatin’ wiles on the impressionable Adam. We’re all sons of that racy old boy.”
Spotswoode smiled. “You at least give me an historic background,” he said. Then he turned to Markham. “What will become of Miss Odell’s possessions—her furniture and so forth?”
“Sergeant Heath heard from an aunt of hers in Seattle,” Markham told him. “She’s on her way to New York, I believe, to take over what there is of the estate.”
“And everything will be kept intact until then?”
“Probably longer, unless something unexpected happens. Anyway, until then.”
“There are one or two little trinkets I’d like to keep,” Spotswoode confessed, a bit shamefacedly, I thought.
After a few more minutes of desultory talk he rose and, pleading an engagement, bade us good afternoon.
“I hope I can keep his name clear of the case,” said Markham, when he had gone.
“Yes; his situation is not an enviable one,” concurred Vance. “It’s always sad to be found out. The moralist would set it down to retribution.”
“In this instance chance was certainly on the side of righteousness. If he hadn’t chosen Monday night for the Winter Garden, he might now be in the bosom of his family, with nothing more troublesome to bother him than a guilty conscience.”
“It certainly looks that way.” Vance glanced at his watch. “And your mention of the Winter Garden reminds me. Do you mind if we dine early? Frivolity beckons me tonight. I’m going to the Scandals.”
We both looked at him as though he had taken leave of his senses.
“Don’t be so horrified, my Markham. Why should I not indulge an impulse?… And, incidentally, I hope to have glad tidings for you by lunchtime tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 18
THE TRAP
(Friday, September 14; noon)
Vance slept late the following day. I had accompanied him to the Scandals the night before, utterly at a loss to understand his strange desire to attend a type of entertainment which I knew he detested. At noon he ordered his car, and instructed the chauffeur to drive to the Belafield Hotel.
“We are about to call again on the allurin’ Alys,” he said. “I’d bring posies to lay at her shrine, but I fear dear Mannix might question her unduly about them.”
Miss La Fosse received us with an air of crestfallen resentment.
“I might’ve known it!” She nodded her head with sneering perception. “I suppose you’ve come to tell me the cops found out about me without the slightest assistance from you.” Her disdain was almost magnificent. “Did you bring ’em with you?… A swell guy you are!—But it’s my own fault for being a damn fool.”
Vance waited unmoved until she had finished her contemptuous tirade. Then he bowed pleasantly.
“Really, y’ know, I merely dropped in to pay my respects, and to tell you that the police have turned in their report of Miss Odell’s acquaintances, and that your name was not mentioned on it. You seemed a little worried yesterday on that score, and it occurred to me I could set your mind wholly at ease.”
The vigilance of her attitude relaxed. “Is that straight?… My God! I don’t know what would happen if Louey’d find out I’d been blabbing.”
“I’m sure he won’t find out, unless you choose to tell him.… Won’t you be generous and ask me to sit down a moment?”
“Of course—I’m so sorry. I’m just having my coffee. Please join me.” She rang for two extra services.
Vance had drunk two cups of coffee less than half an hour before, and I marveled at his enthusiasm for this atrocious hotel beverage.
“I was a belated spectator of the Scandals last night,” he remarked in a negligent, conversational tone. “I missed the revue earlier in the season. How is it you yourself were so late in seeing it?”
“I’ve been so busy,” she confided. “I was rehearsing for ‘A Pair of Queens’; but the production’s been postponed. Louey couldn’t get the theater he wanted.”
“Do you like revues?” asked Vance. “I should think they’d be more difficult for the principals than the ordin’ry musical comedy.”
“They are.” Miss La Fosse adopted a professional air. “And they’re unsatisfactory. The individual is lost in them. There’s no real scope for one’s talent. They’re breathless if you know what I mean.”
“I should imagine so.” Vance bravely sipped his coffee. “And yet, there were several numbers in the Scandals that you could have done charmingly; they seemed particularly designed for you. I thought of you doing them, and—d’ ye know?—the thought rather spoiled my enjoyment of the young lady who appeared in them.”
“You flatter me, Mr. Vance. But, really, I have a good voice. I’ve studied very hard. And I learned dancing with Professor Markoff.”
“Indeed!” (I’m sure Vance had never heard the name before, but his exclamation seemed to imply that he regarded Professor Markoff as one of the world’s most renowned ballet masters.) “Then, you certainly should have been starred in the Scandals. The young lady I have in mind sang rather indifferently, and her dancing was most inadequate. Moreover, she was many degrees your inferior in personality and attractiveness.… Confess: didn’t you have just a little desire Monday night to be singing the ‘Chinese Lullaby’ song?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Miss La Fosse carefully considered the suggestion. “They kept the lights awfully low; and I don’t look so well in cerise. But the costumes were adorable, weren’t they?”
“On you they certainly would have been adorable.… What color are you partial to?”
“I love the orchid shades,” she told him enthusiastically; “though I don’t look at all bad in turquoise blue. But an artist once told me I should always wear white. He wanted to paint my portrait, but the gentleman I was engaged to then didn’t like him.”
Vance regarded her appraisingly.
“I think your artist friend was right. And, y’ know, the St. Moritz scene in the Scandals would have suited you perfectly. The little brunette who sang the snow song, all in white, was delightful; but really, now, she should have had golden hair. Dusky beauties belong to the southern climes. And she impressed me as lacking the sparkle and vitality of a Swiss resort in midwinter. You could have supplied those qualities admirably.”
“Yes; I’d have liked that better than the Chinese number, I think. White fox is my favorite fur, too. But, even so, in a revue you’re on in one number and off in another. When it’s all over, you’re forgotten.” She sighed unhappily.
Vance set down his cup and looked at her with whimsically reproachful eyes. After a moment he said, “My dear, why did you fib to me about the time Mr. Mannix returned to you last Monday night? It wasn’t a bit nice of you.”
“What