The fact was, however, that I was like Johnson. I was soft from my week’s inaction, and I was pretty well done up. McKnight, who was a well spring of vitality and high spirits, ordered a strange concoction, made of nearly everything in the bar, and sent it over to the detective, but Johnson refused it.
“I hate that kind of person,” McKnight said pettishly. “Kind of a fellow that thinks you’re going to poison his dog if you offer him a bone.”
When we got back to the car line, with Johnson a draggled and drooping tail to the kite, I was in better spirits. I had told McKnight the story of the three hours just after the wreck; I had not named the girl, of course; she had my promise of secrecy. But I told him everything else. It was a relief to have a fresh mind on it: I had puzzled so much over the incident at the farmhouse, and the necklace in the gold bag, that I had lost perspective.
He had been interested, but inclined to be amused, until I came to the broken chain. Then he had whistled softly.
“But there are tons of fine gold chains made every year,” he said. “Why in the world do you think that the—er—smeary piece came from that necklace?”
I had looked around. Johnson was far behind, scraping the mud off his feet with a piece of stick.
“I have the short end of the chain in the sealskin bag,” I reminded him. “When I couldn’t sleep this morning I thought I would settle it, one way or the other. It was hell to go along the way I had been doing. And—there’s no doubt about it, Rich. It’s the same chain.”
We walked along in silence until we caught the car back to town.
“Well,” he said finally, “you know the girl, of course, and I don’t. But if you like her—and I think myself you’re rather hard hit, old man—I wouldn’t give a whoop about the chain in the gold purse. It’s just one of the little coincidences that hang people now and then. And as for last night—if she’s the kind of a girl you say she is, and you think she had anything to do with that, you—you’re addled, that’s all. You can depend on it, the lady of the empty house last week is the lady of last night. And yet your train acquaintance was in Altoona at that time.”
Just before we got off the car, I reverted to the subject again. It was never far back in my mind.
“About the—young lady of the train, Rich,” I said, with what I suppose was elaborate carelessness, “I don’t want you to get a wrong impression. I am rather unlikely to see her again, but even if I do, I—I believe she is already ‘bespoke,’ or next thing to it.”
He made no reply, but as I opened the door with my latchkey he stood looking up at me from the pavement with his quizzical smile.
“Love is like the measles,” he orated. “The older you get it, the worse the attack.”
Johnson did not appear again that day. A small man in a raincoat took his place. The next morning I made my initial trip to the office, the raincoat still on hand. I had a short conference with Miller, the district attorney, at eleven. Bronson was under surveillance, he said, and any attempt to sell the notes to him would probably result in their recovery. In the meantime, as I knew, the Commonwealth had continued the case, in hope of such contingency.
At noon I left the office and took a veterinarian to see Candida, the injured pony. By one o’clock my first day’s duties were performed, and a long Sahara of hot afternoon stretched ahead. McKnight, always glad to escape from the grind, suggested a vaudeville, and in sheer ennui I consented. I could neither ride, drive nor golf, and my own company bored me to distraction.
“Coolest place in town these days,” he declared. “Electric fans, breezy songs, airy costumes. And there’s Johnson just behind—the coldest proposition in Washington.”
He gravely bought three tickets and presented the detective with one. Then we went in. Having lived a normal, busy life, the theater in the afternoon is to me about on a par with ice-cream for breakfast. Up on the stage a very stout woman in short pink skirts, with a smile that McKnight declared looked like a slash in a roll of butter, was singing nasally, with a laborious kick at the end of each verse. Johnson, two rows ahead, went to sleep. McKnight prodded me with his elbow.
“Look at the first box to the right,” he said, in a stage whisper. “I want you to come over at the end of this act.”
It was the first time I had seen her since I put her in the cab at Baltimore. Outwardly I presume I was calm, for no one turned to stare at me, but every atom of me cried out at the sight of her. She was leaning, bent forward, lips slightly parted, gazing raptly at the Japanese conjurer who had replaced what McKnight disrespectfully called the Columns of Hercules. Compared with the draggled lady of the farmhouse, she was radiant.
For that first moment there was nothing but joy at the sight of her. McKnight’s touch on my arm brought me back to reality.
“Come over and meet them,” he said. “That’s the cousin Miss West is visiting, Mrs. Dallas.”
But I would not go. After he went I sat there alone, painfully conscious that I was being pointed out and stared at from the box. The abominable Japanese gave way to yet more atrocious performing dogs.
“How many offers of marriage will the young lady in the box have?” The dog stopped sagely at “none,” and then pulled out a card that said eight. Wild shouts of glee by the audience.
