“Thanks so much, Miss Warren. Good night.”
He replaced the receiver and rose from his chair. He turned to find the face of his hostess within an inch of his own. The colour had fled again from her cheeks; the eyes again held fear in them. It seemed as if this passing-on of her brother’s name had revived her terror.
“Preserve absolute calm,” said Anthony softly. “The cry of the moment is ‘dinna fash.’ ” Gently, he forced her into a chair.
The eyes were piteous now. “I don’t—I don’t understand anything!” she gasped. “What was that message? What will it do? What am I to—to do? Oh, don’t go! Please don’t go!”
“The message,” Anthony said, “was to a great friend whose discretion is second only to mine own. Don’t you think it was a nice message? Nothing there any long ears at the exchange could make use of, was there? All so nice and above board, I thought. And I liked the very canine Latin labelled libellously ‘Cicero.’ That was to make sure he understood that the affair was urgent. The need for discretion he’ll gather from the way the message was wrapped up. Oh, I’m undoubtedly a one, I am!
“And as for going, I’m not until I’ve had an answer from Hastings. That ought to be about midnight. At least, I won’t go unless you ask me to.” He sat down, heavily, upon a sofa.
Something—his calmness, perhaps—succeeded. He saw the fear leave the face, that face of his dreams. For a moment, he closed his eyes. He was thirsty for sleep, yet desired wakefulness. She glanced at him, timidly almost, and saw the deep lines of fatigue in the thin face, the shadows under the eyes.
“Mr. Gethryn,” she said softly.
“Yes?” Anthony’s eyes opened.
“You look so tired! I feel responsible. I’ve been so very difficult, haven’t I? But I’m not going to be silly any more. And—and isn’t there anything I can do? You are tired, you know.”
Anthony smiled and shook his head.
Suddenly: “Fool that I am!” she exclaimed; and was gone from the room.
Anthony blinked wonderingly. He found consecutive thought difficult. This sudden recurrence of fatigue was a nuisance. “Haven’t seen her laugh yet,” he murmured. “Must make her laugh. Want to hear. Now, what in hell do we do if Brother James turns out to be the dastardly assassin after all? But I don’t believe he is. It wouldn’t fit. No, not at all!”
His eyes closed. With an effort, he opened them. To hold sleep at bay he picked up a book that lay beside him on the couch. He found it to be a collection of essays, seemingly written in pleasant and even scholarly fashion. He flicked over the leaves. A passage caught his eye. “And so it is with the romantic. He is as a woman enslaved by drugs. From that first little sniff grows the craving, from the craving the necessity, from the necessity—facilis descensus Averno. …”
The quotation set his mind working lazily. So unusual to find that dative case; they nearly all used the almost-as-correct but less pleasant “Averni.” But he seemed to have seen “Averno” somewhere else, quite recently, too. Funny coincidence.
The book slipped from his hand to the floor. In a soft wave, sleep came over him again. His eyes closed.
He opened them to hear the door of the room closed softly. From behind him came a pleasant sound. He sat upright, turning to investigate.
Beside a small, tray-laden table stood his hostess. She was pouring whisky from decanter to tumbler with a grave preoccupation which lent an added charm to her beauty. Anthony, barely awake, exclaimed aloud.
She turned in a flash. “You were asleep,” she said, and blushed under the stare of the green eyes.
“I’m so psychic, you know,” sighed Anthony. “I always know when spirits are about.”
She laughed; and the sound gave him more pleasure even that he had anticipated. Like her voice, it was low and soft and golden.
She lifted the decanter again. “Say when,” she said, and when he had said it: “Soda?”
“Please—a little.” He took the glass from her hand and tasted. “Mrs. Lemesurier, I have spent my day in ever-increasing admiration of you. But now you surpass yourself. This whisky—prewar, I think?”
“Yes.” She nodded absently, then burst out: “Tell me, why are you doing all this for me—taking all this trouble? Tell me!”
Tonight Anthony’s mind was running in a Latin groove. “Veni, vidi, vicisti!” he said, and drained his glass.
VIII
The Inefficiency of Margaret
I
Miss Margaret Warren, severely exquisite as to dress, golden hair as sleek as if she were about to begin rather than finish the day’s work, sat at her table in Hastings’s room.
Before her was the pad on which, ten minutes ago, she had written Anthony’s message. She knew it by heart. As the minutes passed she grew more troubled at her employer’s absence. Here—it was obvious—was something which ought to be done without waste of time; and time had already been wasted. She knew Colonel Gethryn well enough to be sure that the talk about a “great joke” had been camouflage. No, this was all something to do with the murder. Had he not said with emphasis that Ja—Mr. Hastings was to ring him up as soon as he had found this man Masterson? He had, and all had to know, it seemed, where this man Masterson had
