He was a short, stoutish man, with alert black eyes and an intense manner. He came in, glancing eagerly about him, and his eye brightened as it fell on Fifi like the eye of a hungry man when he sees prospective food. Fifi returned his gaze curiously, evidently unaware that his arrival had anything to do with herself.
“Is this the lady?” he cried, dismissing her aunts with a perfunctory handshake and approaching Fifi at a lively hop.
“This gentleman is Doctor Gallup, dear,” beamed Aunt Jo, expectant and reassured. “He’s an old friend of mine who’s going to help you.”
“Of course I am!” insisted Doctor Gallup, jumping around her cordially. “I’m going to fix her up just fine.”
“He understands everything about the human mind,” said Aunt Jo.
“Not everything,” admitted Doctor Gallup, smiling modestly. “But we often make the regular doctors wonder.” He turned roguishly to Fifi. “Yes, young lady, we often make the regular doctors wonder.”
Clapping his hands together decisively, he drew up a chair in front of Fifi.
“Come,” he cried, “let us see what can be the matter. We’ll start by having you tell me the whole story in your own way. Begin.”
“The story,” remarked Fifi, with a slight yawn, “happens to be none of your business.”
“None of my business!” he exclaimed incredulously. “Why, my girl, I’m trying to help you! Come now, tell old Doctor Gallup the whole story.”
“Let my aunts tell you,” said Fifi coldly. “They seem to know more about it than I do.”
Doctor Gallup frowned.
“They’ve already outlined the situation. Perhaps I’d better begin by asking you questions.”
“You’ll answer the doctor’s questions, won’t you, dear?” coaxed Aunt Jo. “Doctor Gallup is one of the most modern doctors in New York.”
“I’m an old-fashioned girl,” objected Fifi maliciously. “And I think it’s immoral to pry into people’s affairs. But go ahead and I’ll try to think up a comeback for everything you say.”
Doctor Gallup overlooked the unnecessary rudeness of this remark and mustered a professional smile.
“Now, Miss Marsden, I understand that about a month ago you came out here for a rest.”
Fifi shook her head.
“No, I came out to hide my face.”
“You were ashamed because you had broken your engagement?”
“Terribly. If you desert a man at the altar you brand him for the rest of his life.”
“Why?” he demanded sharply.
“Why not?”
“You’re not asking me. I’m asking you…. However, let that pass. Now, when you arrived here, how did you pass your time?”
“I walked mostly—walked along the beach.”
“It was on one of these walks that you met the—ah—person your aunt told me of over the telephone?”
Fifi pinkened slightly.
“Yes.”
“What was he doing when you first saw him?”
“He was looking down at me out of a tree.”
There was a general exclamation from her aunts, in which the word “monkey” figured.
“Did he attract you immediately?” demanded Doctor Gallup.
“Why, not especially. At first I only laughed.”
“I see. Now, as I understand, this man was very—ah—very originally clad.”
“Yes,” agreed Fifi.
“He was unshaven?”
“Yes.”
“Ah!” Doctor Gallup seemed to go through a sort of convolution like a medium coming out of a trance. “Miss Fifi,” he cried out triumphantly, “did you ever read ‘The Sheik’?”
“Never heard of it.”
“Did you ever read any book in which a girl was wooed by a so-called sheik or cave man?”
“Not that I remember.”
“What, then, was your favorite book when you were a girl?”
“‘Little Lord Fauntleroy.’”
Doctor Gallup was considerably disappointed. He decided to approach the case from a new angle.
“Miss Fifi, won’t you admit that there’s nothing behind this but some fancy in your head?”
“On the contrary,” said Fifi startlingly, “there’s a great deal more behind it than any of you suspect. He’s changed my entire attitude on life.”
“What do you mean?”
She seemed on the point of making some declaration, but after a moment her lovely eyes narrowed obstinately and she remained silent.
“Miss Fifi”—Doctor Gallup raised his voice sharply—“the daughter of C. T. J. Calhoun, the biscuit man, ran away with a taxi-driver. Do you know what she’s doing now?”
“No.”
“She’s working in a laundry on the East Side, trying to keep her child’s body and soul together.”
He looked at her keenly; there were signs of agitation in her face.
“Estelle Holliday ran away in 1920 with her father’s second man!” he cried. “Shall I tell you where I heard of her last? She stumbled into a charity hospital, bruised from head to foot, because her drunken husband had beaten her to within an inch of her life!”
Fifi was breathing hard. Her aunts leaned forward. Doctor Gallup sprang suddenly to his feet.
“But they were playing safe compared to you!” he shouted. “They didn’t woo an ex-convict with blood on his hands.”
And now Fifi was on her feet, too, her eyes flashing fire.
“Be careful!” she cried. “Don’t go too far!”
“I can’t go too far!” He reached in his pocket, plucked out a folded evening paper and slapped it down on the table.
“Read that, Miss Fifi!” he shouted. “It’ll tell you how four man-killers entered a bank in West Crampton three weeks ago. It’ll tell you how they shot down the cashier in cold blood, and how one of them, the most brutal, the most ferocious, the most inhuman, got away. And it will tell you that that human gorilla is now supposed to be hiding in the neighborhood of Montauk Point!”
There was a short stifled sound as Aunt Jo and Aunt Cal, who had always done everything in complete unison, fainted away together. At the same moment there was loud, violent knocking, like the knocking of a heavy club, upon the barred front door.
IV
“Who’s there?” cried Doctor Gallup, starting. “Who’s there—or I’ll shoot!”
His eyes roved quickly about the room, looking for a possible weapon.
“Who are you?” shouted a voice from the porch. “You better open up or I’ll blow a hole through the door.”
“What’ll we do?” exclaimed Doctor Gallup, perspiring freely.
Fifi, who had been sprinkling water impartially upon her aunts, turned around with a scornful