Part 10

Opposite the elevators on this floor was a small reception room or parlour, and here Senator Norman's other guests were awaiting him--Rockwell, Murray, Mayor Black, Alicia, and Alicia's father.

To the last-named gentleman Merriam was immediately presented. He was a stoutish, jovial man of fifty or so, bald of pate and humorous of eye, and the amused particularity with which he surveyed Merriam and the gusto with which he addressed him as "Senator" showed both that Alicia had performed her task of enlightening him and that she had been right as to the attitude he would take.

"Splendid!" he whispered to Merriam. "You would have fooled me all right," and he beamed delightedly.

Alicia gave him only a minute. "They are ready," she said. "We are to go right in. You are to walk with me." (This last to Merriam.)

In a moment, therefore, Merriam found himself escorting Alicia down a sort of central aisle among the tables of the Peacock Cabaret, behind an excessively urbane head waiter, conscious that the rest of his guests were making a more or less imposing procession after them, and intensely conscious of suspended conversation throughout the great restaurant and of countless curious eyes staring across rosebuds and water bottles at himself.

"Say something to me," whispered Alicia. "You mustn't look self-conscious."

Merriam glanced at her and realised for the first time that evening her vivid, vigorous, peony-like beauty.

"What can I say," he asked smiling, "except 'How lovely you are'?" and he wondered why it was so easy to say this to Alicia when he had been unable to say it to Mollie June.

"Bravo, Boy Senator!" applauded Alicia, and then they reached the haven of that alcove which Rockwell had promised.

It was really a small square room quite separate from the main part of the Peacock Cabaret except that there was no wall between. The head waiter guided Merriam to the seat at the far end of the table. Thus when he sat down he would be facing the main dining room, visible to all its occupants, yet screened from them by the table and his own guests about that table. It was really an excellent device for displaying him in public and still protecting him from close inspection.

In a moment the whole party had arrived and been seated.

A canape was being served, and Alicia at his end of the table and her father at the other end were starting conversation. Merriam glanced across the board at Mollie June. For some reason a charming girl never looks more lovely than at table. She looked up and caught his gaze. Her face was grave. He thought she looked wistful. For a moment only he met her eyes, then turned to reply to a remark of Alicia's. Somehow his spirits soared. He plunged into the conversation with a zest which he had hardly known since his fraternity days. Mollie June said little, but she laughed at the stories and seemed to become excited and happy. She was content, perhaps, to enact the role of the gallery to which Merriam was playing with such excellent effect. As for Rockwell and Aunt Mary, they sat by in serene content: the affair was going well; as long as that was the case they need not exert themselves.

The mildly uproarious party undoubtedly attracted the desired amount of attention from the main dining room. Eyes were turned and necks craned, and couples and groups that passed the alcove almost invariably slowed their steps to stare. Some dozens of men who had heard the stories of the real Norman's whereabouts were convinced that these were false, at least in part; by the witness of their own eyes they knew that the Senator was that evening at any rate in the bosom of his family at the hotel. They could be relied upon to assert as much in all parts of the city on the following day.

Only one outsider ventured to intrude upon the party and submit Merriam to the ordeal of closer inspection, and he got no nearer than the length of the table. This was the Colonel Abbott whom Merriam had so perilously encountered at the very beginning of his play-acting the night before. Merriam remembered him vividly, called him by name, and replied cordially to his expressions of pleasure at finding him recovered from his threatened indisposition. So that danger passed, and the table, after a brief exchanging of relieved glances, recovered its gayety, perhaps with some accentuation.

A little later came a reporter. Merriam professed that he had "nothing to say." Asked if it was true that he was to speak at the Reform League luncheon on the morrow, he replied, with an inner quailing but with outward composure, that he was.

The reporter turned to Mr. Wayward. Was it true that he intended to make a contribution to the campaign fund of the Reform League? Mr. Wayward's joviality suffered an eclipse. His eyes fell. But on raising them he encountered a glance from his daughter that can only be described as stern, and promptly admitted that it was true.

The reporter tried Rockwell, but the latter shook his head so indomitably that the interviewer at once abandoned him and passed to Mayor Black. That gentleman promptly and as it were automatically gave utterance to several eloquent phrases, too meaningless to be recorded. Even the reporter neglected to make notes of them, and looked about the table for other prey. Finding none, he excused himself with the remark, "I am making note of the names, of course," and disappeared.

Once more the conspiratorial table drew a long breath and endeavoured to recover its festive mood, but before much progress had been made in that direction a bell boy came with a note addressed to Senator Norman and asking that he and Mr. Rockwell come to Room D, one of the private dining rooms.

Merriam passed the note to Rockwell and then to Aunt Mary, and the three prime conspirators stared at one another. None of them knew the handwriting, which was poor and hurried and in pencil.

"I'll go," said Rockwell. "You stay here."

The rest of the party did not know what had happened, but in their situation the most trivial incident was, of course, sufficient to cause uneasiness. The conversation during Rockwell's absence was forced and fragmentary. In fact, it was almost a solo performance on Alicia's part. Merriam caught Mollie June's eyes upon him, and was grateful for their expression of self-unconscious solicitude.

Presently the boy returned again with the same note, at the bottom of which was scribbled: "Come--Room D. Rockwell."

Merriam showed it to Aunt Mary.

"Is that his handwriting?"

"Yes, it is."

"Then I suppose I must go."

He rose, murmured an "excuse me" to the table at large, and made his way towards the open end of the alcove. As he did so he glanced at Mollie June. Alarm stood in her eyes. Coming opposite her chair, he bent down and said gently:

"It's all right. I probably shan't be long."

It was perhaps a little too much in the tone and manner that Mollie June's real husband might properly have used. Mollie June herself did not seem to notice this; she appeared duly comforted. But Mr. Wayward, at her left, undoubtedly stared after Merriam with an odd expression in his genial eyes.

Following the bell boy, Merriam tried hard to think what might be in store for him. "Thompson" and "Crockett" were the only ideas his blank mind could muster. Had they discovered the trick and come to threaten him with exposure? Well, Rockwell would be present. He leaned heavily on Rockwell.

The boy stopped before a curtained door.

"This is it, sir," he said and waited expectantly.

Merriam fumblingly produced a dime, and the boy departed. Drawing a deep breath, he pushed aside the curtain and entered Room D.

To his great relief the only persons present were Rockwell and Simpson. They were both standing, beside a bare table. Merriam vaguely remembered that Simpson had not appeared in connection with the serving of the last two or three courses.

"Now tell it again," said Rockwell promptly.

The waiter looked steadily at Merriam.

"It's this way, sir," he said. "Mr. Thompson, as was the Senator's manager until this morning, has found out where the Senator really is, at----" the man looked away. "Jennie's," he finished, without expression in his tone. "There's a girl she lives with, Margery Milton, who's a milliner's assistant at one of the department stores. He got it from her. Straight from her he came here to have dinner with Mr. Crockett, out in the Cabaret. When I saw them come in, I turned your party over to another man and served them myself. I managed to hear a lot of what they said. Mr. Crockett had learned of your dinner party, of course. Putting that together with what Mr. Thompson had got from Margery, they saw the game. Mr. Crockett would hardly believe it at first. But Mr. Thompson means to make sure. He's going to Jennie's himself about ten o'clock to-night--they have some kind of a committee first,--and force his way in, if necessary, and see the Senator himself. Then they'll have proof, you see. I thought I'd better let you and Mr. Rockwell know."

"You did just right," said Rockwell warmly, "and we'll make it worth your while."

He turned abruptly to the younger man.

"Merriam! You're the only one who can save us in this fix."

"How?" said Merriam, to whom it seemed that all was lost.

"Listen, man. You go back to our table and excuse yourself and me. 'Important business.' Don't tell them anything more. Not even Aunt Mary. We haven't time. Better bring Murray. We may need an extra man, and we can trust him best. We three will take a taxi at once. We shall have to circle about a bit, to throw off possible trailers. But in less than an hour we'll be at Jennie's. You shall take Norman's place there, and we'll take Norman and bring him back to the hotel, to his room. Just as we planned, only a bit sooner. When Thompson arrives, Jennie shall let him in. He'll insist on seeing you. Let him. You're not Senator Norman. Tell him so. Jennie shall tell him so, too. He'll see it himself, of course, as soon as he looks close with his eyes open. You and Jennie must make him think you played off the resemblance on this Margery Milton for a joke. We'll fix her, too, of course. You'd better tell him your real name, so he can look you up if he wants to. He won't expose you in Riceville. He'll have no motive to. And he won't think anything of your little escapade in itself. You came to Chicago on school business--went out to see the sights--got a little more liquor than you were used to. Your taxi driver took you to some dance hall. He'll interpret 'Reiberg's.' You stayed there a while--don't know what you did--met Jennie there--and she brought you home. You were pretty sick in the morning and stayed over all day: You see? It all hangs together, and relieves Norman entirely of the Reiberg incident and Jennie, and cinches his blameless presence at the hotel all last night and all to-day. It'll save everything! Better than we planned. Couldn't be better!"

Rockwell had worked himself up to exultant enthusiasm.

Merriam's emotions while this new plot was unfolded were sufficiently complex. There was an opaque background of sheer bewilderment. There was also a sharp sense of alarm at the thought of having his own name appear in this business. But other sentiments, less acute individually, but of some potency none the less, joined their voices with Rockwell's to silence that alarm. There was the mere love of adventure, of playing a dangerous game, which is strong in any healthy young man. Then there was the thought of Mollie June: he would be doing it for her--making a real sacrifice, of his reputation, possibly of his position, his pedagogical career, for her sake. And, oddly enough, quite simultaneously with this thought of Mollie June, there was a recollection of "Jennie's" voice over the telephone. He was not conscious that he was curious to see "Jennie," but I am afraid he was.

Scarcely half a minute had passed when Rockwell, eagerly scanning his face, cried, "You'll go!"

"Yes," said Merriam, looking at Simpson's impassive countenance and surprised at his own words, "I suppose I will."

*CHAPTER XVII*

*A DEVIOUS JOURNEY*

Rockwell, as usual, gave Merriam no time for reconsideration.

"Go and make your excuses at the table then."

But Merriam was still looking at Simpson. He had perceived that the impassivity of the waiter's countenance covered a blank misery.

"Simpson," he said, "we'll try to see that this works out to your advantage--at Jennie's. Shake on that." And, in violation of all codes on which the social system rests, he held out his hand as one man to another.

Simpson, much more rigorously trained in those codes than Merriam had been, hesitated, glanced at Rockwell. But a light came into his eyes. He seized the hand, gripped it, gave one spasmodic shake.

"Thank you, sir!" he said.

He dropped the hand and as quickly as possible regained his servitorial manner.

Merriam smiled at him and then spoke to Rockwell:

"Where shall I join you--Murray and I?"

"At the Ladies' Entrance," Rockwell replied. "It's less likely to be watched than the other."

Merriam turned and passed through the curtained doorway, down the hall, and along one side of the Peacock Cabaret. The curtain being up on the small stage and the moderately comely demoiselles of the chorus executing a dance which involved a liberal display of white tights, he reached his alcove comparatively unnoticed.

He stopped beside Mollie June's chair, which was nearest the open side of the alcove. All the members of the dinner party regarded him anxiously; Aunt Mary's face was more than usually grim. Carefully pitching his voice so that it should be audible to all at the table yet should not carry to the main dining room without, he said:

"I am tremendously sorry to have to desert this pleasant company, but Mr. Rockwell and I are called away on important business. We should be very glad if you will come too, Father Murray.--Can you come at once?" he added as the priest stared.

Aunt Mary's lips opened.

"I'll explain later," said Merriam hurriedly.

As he spoke, however, he realised that no opportunity to "explain later" would probably be afforded him. Alicia had said they "all" would go to see him in the morning at the Nestor House. They could not "all" come to Jennie's.

He looked down at Mollie June. She was looking up at him. His view of her from above--the contour of her face and throat, the recalcitrant wave of her soft hair, the brightness of her lifted eyes--might have moved older and colder blood than Merriam's. He was close enough to catch a faint, warm sense of her in the air. He desired to envelop her in love. What he might do he could not resist. He laid his hand gently over one of hers that rested on the edge of the table and bent to her ear.

"Mr. Rockwell will tell you to-morrow what I have done," he whispered. "It is for your sake, Mollie--June."

He straightened up. He was not flushed outwardly. He looked almost cold. Father Murray was making his way down the side of the table.

"Good night, all," said Merriam. "This way, Father Murray."

He glanced once more at Mollie June--his last sight of her, he thought. Her face was rosy and her eyes glistened. It was a picture for which a man--a very young man, at least--might do anything, even sacrifice his love. He smiled at her almost gaily, turned, and passed out of the alcove, Father Murray following.

They skirted the sides of the Peacock Cabaret in an effort to reach the exit as little observed as possible. Unfortunately, before they attained that goal, the curtain of the small stage descended, the white legs of the chorus, kicking at it as it fell, were hidden from the attentive eyes of the male diners, and not a few of these observed the famous senator's escape. This probably mattered little, however, because of Father Murray. The well-known High Churchman was enough to shield the name of Norman. He could hardly be bound for Reiberg's, or even, it would be argued, for "a certain little flat," in Father Murray's company.

They got their coats from the checkroom, went up the stairs to the first floor, and made a detour through passages to the Ladies' Entrance.

Rockwell was already there with a taxicab. He motioned to them to enter it.

Merriam was a little surprised, and Father Murray probably more so, to find Simpson already within. Father Murray greeted him with clerical suavity. Merriam said nothing. He was listening to Rockwell's colloquy with the chauffeur:

"This cab will probably be followed. Your first job is to shake off pursuit. Circle around through the Loop--twist and turn--until you're absolutely sure you've lost anybody who is after us. Then make for the Eighteenth Street Station of the Alley L. If there's no one behind us when you get there, it will be worth twenty-five dollars to you above the fare."

"Right, sir," said the man. "Jump in, sir."

Rockwell stepped in and slammed the door, seating himself with Simpson, his back to the driver. In a moment he was staring intently through the peephole window in the back of the taxi.

"See!" he said.

Merriam, turning to look over his shoulder, perceived a yellow cab about sixty feet behind them, also starting, at about the same pace as their own.

They went west to Fifth Avenue and turned north along the car tracks under the Elevated. A moment later the yellow cab also turned north on the car tracks.

They swerved east on Randolph Street. For a minute or two the yellow cab did not appear. It must have been caught behind some car or truck. But presently it rounded the corner and sprinted till it was again within about thirty yards of them, when it slowed down to their own pace.

Rockwell spoke through the tube to the chauffeur:

"That yellow cab!"

"I'll lose 'em!" the man replied, with reassuring confidence.

At the second corner he turned north again and sped across the Clark Street Bridge. The yellow cab also had business north of the river.

Their subsequent maneuvers were at first decidedly puzzling to Merriam and his fellow passengers, with the possible exception of Simpson. They sped around and around a rectangle of streets enclosing half a dozen squares, with one of its sides only one block from the River. On the shorter sides they sometimes lost the yellow cab, but on the longer stretches it always appeared in full and open chase behind them.

"What the devil!" cried Rockwell as their driver turned west for the fourth time on the southern, side of the rectangle--the street nearest the River.

Simpson spoke: "He's all right. It's the bridge trick."

No further explanation was necessary. Their chauffeur suddenly swerved south on Dearborn Street, making in a burst of speed for the River. The bridge bell was jangling its warning that traffic must stop for the opening of the bridge to let a steamer pass. Theirs was the last vehicle on the bridge. The bars dropped behind them. Looking back through the peephole window, our passengers had the satisfaction of seeing the yellow cab caught behind the bars, unable to follow them, unable even, because of other vehicles crowding behind, to turn out and make a detour to another bridge.

Rockwell excitedly seized the tube. "Good work!" he called. "I'll give you another ten for that."

"Thank you, sir," came the complacent reply.

With a sigh of relaxing tension Merriam sank back in his corner, abandoning the peephole.

"Who do you suppose it was?" he asked.

"Thompson?"

"Oh, no, not Thompson himself. One of his henchmen. He and Norman have all kinds of assistants!"

"Where are we going?" asked Father Murray.

Rockwell laughed. "I'd almost forgotten that you don't know yet. I'll tell you," and he entered upon an explanation of Thompson's discovery and proposed method of verification and their own counterplot.

Father Murray was feebly protesting against the difficulties and dangers of the counterplot, but these complaints were interrupted by the stopping of the taxi. They had reached the Eighteenth Street Station of the Elevated.

Rockwell looked quickly through the peephole window and then opened the door and jumped out. The others followed. They scanned the street in both directions. There was no other taxicab in sight.

Rockwell stepped up to the smiling chauffeur, asked the amount of the fare, and paid it with the thirty-five dollars bonus.

"You did the trick very neatly," he said. "Now scoot!"

"Thank you, sir. Yes, sir."

There was still no trace of curiosity in the man's tone or glance.

"Come!" said Rockwell, and he led them to the entrance of the Elevated Station.

At Forty-Seventh Street they left the Elevated and, walking to the corner, waited for a cross-town surface car.

"What's the idea?" Merriam asked, his mind becoming active again.

"Well," said Rockwell, "the first thing our late chauffeur will do after getting back to town will be to gather in another twenty-five dollars or maybe more for telling some one of Thompson's men where he left us. So it's best to muss up our trail a bit more before we strike Jennie's."

He was hailing an east-bound car.

As they sat silent again inside, Merriam's mind took its cue from Rockwell's last word. "Jennie's!" Phrases from his one brief telephone dialogue with Jennie sounded in his ear, oddly clear and melodious:

"Georgie, boy! Don't you know me?--You ought to!" with a thrilling little laugh. "You must be careful, Georgie," in a lowered tone. "Can you come anyway?--You'll telephone again?--Georgie, boy!" and the sound of a kiss!

These phrases--surely nothing in themselves--echoed in his mind with the same unaccountable piquancy and warmth with which they had first come to him over the telephone. He flushed a little, sitting there in the stuffy, bumping, jangling car, as he recalled the way he had involuntarily "played up" to them. He had promised to go to her if he could get away, to telephone her again if he could. That was mere trickery and deceit, a part of the game he was playing; that was all right. But his final whispered "Dearie, good night!" Had that been necessary? He remembered Rockwell's dry comment: "You don't need much prompting!" But his thoughts ran away with him again. Now he was going to see her--to spend a night in her apartment. What would she be like--tall or short, slender like Mollie June or plump like Alicia, fair or dark, with blue eyes or brown or black, curly hair or straight? He could not frame an image that satisfied him as the instrument of that voice.

"Well, what is it to me?" he demanded roughly of himself, suddenly realising the tenor of his meditations. "See here, my boy, you must be careful. She's probably a regular chorus girl--or worse." (But he did not really believe that of her.) "She's nothing whatever to me," he asserted sternly to his truant fancy. "She belongs to--Simpson. And I belong to Mollie June."

The car stopped at last, and Rockwell was getting up.

When they had descended into the street Merriam found that they were at the end of the line by the Lake.

"Illinois Central next," said Rockwell, grinning, and marched them to the Forty-Seventh Street Station of that railway. None of the others spoke.

Their guide bought tickets to the City. "Are we going back to the Loop, then?" thought Merriam.

In a moment they were on the platform. Merriam walked back and forth apart from the others, drawing deep breaths of the Lake air and looking up at the stars, dimly bright in the April night. "I belong to Mollie June," he said firmly to himself.

Presently one of the odd little suburban trains drew up, and they entered.

But they had scarcely sat down and yielded up their tickets when Rockwell routed them out--at Forty-Third Street. Evidently his buying tickets clear to the City had been a part of his elaborate ruse.