Outside, limelight turned night into day, and a team of cameramen awaited the arrival of distinguished members of the audience. Thousands who had been disappointed in obtaining admittance thronged the sidewalks; the corner of 57th Street was impassable. Patrolmen, mounted and on foot, kept a way open for arriving cars.
Hepburn walked into the office just as Nayland Smith replaced the telephone. Smith turned, sprang up.
Sarah Lakin, seated in a rest-chair on the other side of the big desk, flashed an earnest query into the bespectacled eyes. Mark Hepburn shook his head and removed his spectacles.
“Almost certainly,” he said in his dry, unemotional way, “Abbot Donegal is not in the hall, so far.”
Nayland Smith began to walk up and down the room tugging at the lobe of his ear, then:
“And there is no news from the Mott Street area. I am beginning to wonder—I am beginning to doubt.”
“I have deferred to your views, Sir Denis,” came the grave voice of Miss Lakin, “but I have never disguised my own opinion. In assuming on the strength of a letter, admittedly in his own hand, that Orwin will be here to-night, I think you have taken a false step.”
“Maurice Norbert’s telephone message this morning seemed to me to justify the steps we have taken.” said Hepburn drily.
“I must agree with you there, Captain Hepburn,” Miss Lakin admitted; “but I cannot understand why Mr. Norbert failed to visit me or to visit you. It is true that Orwin has a custom of hiding from the eyes of the Press whenever an important engagement is near, but hitherto I have been in his confidence.” She stood up. “I know, Sir Denis, that you have done everything which any man could do to trace his whereabouts. But I am afraid.” She locked her long, sensitive fingers together. “Somehow, I am very afraid.”
A sound of muffled cheering penetrated to the office.
“See who that is, Hepburn,” snapped Nayland Smith.
Hepburn ran out. Miss Lakin stared into the grim, brown face of the man pacing up and down the floor. Suddenly he stopped in front of her and rested his hand upon her shoulder.
“You may be right and I may be wrong,” he said rapidly. “Nevertheless, I believe that Orwin Prescott will be here tonight.”
Mark Hepburn returned.
“The Mayor of New York,” he reported laconically. “The big names are beginning to arrive.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Plenty of time yet.”
“In any event,” said Nayland Smith, “we have neglected no possible measure. There is only one thing to do— wait.”
Chapter 20
THE CHINESE CATACOMBS (concluded)
Orwin Prescott dressed himself with more than his usual care. Maurice Norbert had brought his evening clothes and his dressing-case, and in a perfectly appointed bathroom which adjoined the white bedroom, Prescott had bathed, shaved, and then arrayed himself for the great occasion.
The absence of windows in these apartments had been explained by Nurse Arlen. This was a special rest room, usually employed in cases of over-tired nerves and regarded as suitable by Dr. Sigmund, in view of the ordeal which so soon his patient must face. The doctor he had not seen in person;
quite satisfied with his progress, the physician—called to a distant patient—had left him in the care of Nurse Arlen. Orwin Prescott would have been quite prepared to remain in her care for a long time. Although he more than suspected the existence of a yellow streak in Nurse Arlen’s blood, she was the most fascinating creature with whom he had personally come in contact.
He knew that he was forming an infatuation for this graceful nurse, whose soothing voice had run through all the troubled dreams which had preceded his complete recovery. And now, as he stood looking at himself in the glass, he thought that he had never appeared more keenly capable in the whole of his public life. He studied his fine, almost ascetic features. He was pale, but his pallor added character to the curt, grey military moustache and emphasized the strength of dark eyebrows. His grey hair was brushed immaculately.
The situation he had well in hand. Certainly there were remarkable properties in the prescriptions of Dr. Sigmund. His mental clarity he recognized to be super-normal. He had memorized every fact and every figure prepared for him by Norbert! He seemed to have a sort of pre-vision of all that would happen; his consciousness marched a step ahead of the clock. He knew that to-night no debater in the United States could conquer him. He had nothing to fear from the crude rhetoric of Harvey Bragg.
Satisfied with his appearance, delighted with the issue of this misadventure which might well have wrecked his career, he rang the bell as arranged, and Maurice Norbert came in. He, too, was in evening dress and presented a very smart figure.
“I have arranged, Doctor,” he said, “for the car to be ready in twenty minutes. I will set out now to prepare our friends for your arrival, and to see that you are not disturbed in any way until the debate is over. I have never seen you look more fit for the fray”
“Thanks to your selection of a remarkable physician, Norbert, I have never felt more fit.”
“It’s good to hear you say so. I’ll go ahead now; you start in twenty minutes. I will collect the brushes and odds and ends to-morrow. I thought it best to arrange for a car with drawn blinds. The last thing we want is an ovation on the street which might hold you up. You’ll be driven right to the entrance, where I shall be waiting for you.”
Less than two minutes after Norbert’s departure, Nurse Arlen came in.
“I was almost afraid,” said Orwin Prescott, “that I was not to see you again before I left.”
She stood just by the door, one hand resting on a slender hip, watching him with those long, narrow, dark eyes.
“How could you think I would let so interesting a patient leave without wishing him every good fortune for to- night?”
