“Orwin Prescott will be there!”
“It’s big fun, isn’t it”—now his face was but inches removed from Moya’s—”to know that my secretary is wised up on the latest moves and that I’m a pawn in the game. There’s another thing, Eileen. Maybe you know what’s become of Herman Grosset? He checked in on nowhere more than an hour back, and I never move out without Herman.”
He grasped Moya’s shoulders. She turned her head aside.
“You’re maybe wiser than you look, pretty. You know where I stand. No President can baulk me now. We’ve started wrong. Let’s forget it. Look at me. I want to tell you something——”
Came a discreet rap on the study door.
“Hell!” growled Harvey Bragg. He released Moya, stood upright and turned:
“Come in.”
The door opened, and Salvaletti entered, smiling but apologetic.
“Well!” Bragg challenged.
“It’s time we left for Carnegie Hall.”
Salvaletti spoke in a light, silvery voice.
“Where’s Herman? I want to see him.”
Salvaletti slightly inclined his head.
“You have naturally been anxious; so have I. But he is here.”
“What!”
“He arrived only a few minutes ago. His explanation of his absence is somewhat. . .” He shrugged.
“What! On the booze, on a night like this?”
“I don’t suggest it. But, anyway, he is perfectly all right now.”
“Ask him to step right in here,” roared Harvey Bragg, his voice booming around the study. “I want a few words with Herman.
“Cutting it rather fine. But if you insist . . .”
“I do insist.”
He cursed under his breath as Salvaletti went out, turned, and stared angrily at Moya Adair; her calm aloofness maddened him.
“Something blasted funny going on,” he growled. “And I guess, Miss Breon, you know all about it.”
“I know no more than you know, Mr. Bragg. I can only ask you in your own interests to remember——”
“The coaching! Sure I’ll remember it. I’m in up to the eyebrows. But after to-night, I climb out!”
The door was thrown open, and Herman Grosset burst in. His eyes were wild as he looked from face to face.
“Harvey”‘ he said hoarsely, “I’m real sorry. You won’t believe me, but I’ve been dead sober all day. I guess it must be blood pressure, or maybe incipient insanity. It’s in the family isn’t it, Harvey? Listen”—he met the angry glare: “Don’t talk yet—give
“What do you mean?” growled Harvey Brag.
“I mean I don’t know what happened from the time I got that message which I can’t remember—up to five minutes ago, when I found myself sitting on a chair down in the vestibule feeling darn sleepy and wondering where in hell I’d been.”
“You’re a drunken sot!” Harvey Bragg bawled. “That’s what you are—a drunken sot. You’ve been soused all afternoon. And this is the damn-fool story you think you can pull on me. Get out to the cars; we’re late already.”
“I don’t like your words,” said Herman Grosset truculently. “They ain’t just, and they ain’t right.”
“Right or wrong—get out!” yelled Harvey Bragg. “Get on with your job. I have to get on with mine. . . .”
Two minutes later a trio of powerful cars roared down Park Avenue bound for Carnegie Hall. In the first were four armed bodyguards; in the second Harvey Bragg and Salvaletti; in the third, three more guards and Herman Grosset.
“Bluebeard” was well protected.
In Nayland Smith’s temporary office in Carnegie Hall silence , vibrant with unspoken thoughts, had fallen.
Maurice Norbert had just ceased speaking. He stood looking smilingly from face to face. Nayland Smith, seated on the edge of the desk, lean brown hands clutching one upraised knee, watched him unflinchingly. Sarah Lakin’s steady grave eyes were fixed upon him also.
Senator Lockly, one of Orwin Prescott’s most fervent supporters, had joined the party, and his red, good- humoured face now registered bewilderment and doubt. Nayland Smith broke the silence.
“Your explanation, Mr. Norbeert,” he replied, “presents certain curious features into which at the moment we have no opportunity to inquire. We are to understand that Dr. Prescott communicated with you roughly at the same time that he communicated with Miss Lakin, and gave you certain instructions which you carried out. These necessitated your meeting a car at an agreed point and being driven to an unknown destination, where you found Dr. Prescott receiving medical attention under the care of a physician whom you did not meet?”
