Part 12

"This way," said Margery, and she and Simpson passed by Jennie and Merriam, who stood a little behind Jennie, and disappeared into the flat.

Jennie gave one quick look at Norman, who was leaning weakly against the railing staring in front of him, turned away with eyes that were very bright and a little hard, brushed past Merriam, and went back into the sitting room and sat down.

Almost at the same moment Simpson returned, carrying a rather tall stepladder and followed by Margery.

Norman came out of his apathy and stared. Simpson set the ladder up in the center of the hall, mounted it, and climbed through the trap, which they had left open when they descended.

"Here. Catch!" said Rockwell. He tossed Norman's silk hat up through the trap, and Simpson caught it.

Then he stooped, picked Norman up again, and began to mount the ladder with him.

"What in hell!" said the sick man.

Rockwell did not reply but continued to mount and then hoisted the Senator up so that Simpson could catch him under the arms and draw him through the trap.

Finally he spoke to Merriam:

"Take this ladder inside. Then you must go straight to bed. He'll be here any time now. I'll 'phone from the hotel when we get there."

He swung himself up on to the roof. The trap closed.

"Well, I'll be damned!" said Margery Milton.

Merriam did not like profanity in women, even in Margeries.

"Very likely you will," he said.

Margery looked at him sharply:

"You think you're smart, don't you? Are you going to bring that ladder in?"

*CHAPTER XIX*

*A NEW ANTAGONIST*

Merriam shut the stepladder together, lifted it into an oblique position, and carried it through the inner hallway into the sitting room, where he stopped, not knowing where to go with it.

Jennie was still sitting. She looked up at him. The same expression of interest which had showed in her eyes once before returned to them. She smiled and shifted her position, crossing her knees. But she volunteered no information as to what he should do with the stepladder which he was awkwardly holding.

Meanwhile Margery had followed him into the inner hall, closed the door, and put up the chain. She now came past him and pushed aside the portieres into the dining room.

"Bring it this way, please," she said, quite politely.

He carried the ladder through the blue dining room into a kitchenette, and thence through a door which Margery held open on to a narrow back porch, from which he had a glimpse of a sort of orderly labyrinth of steep wooden stairs and narrow back porches around the four sides of an inner court.

He returned into the kitchenette, which was almost entirely filled up with a gas stove. Margery shut the door.

"Go into the sitting room and talk to Jen," she said. "I want her to forget about Simpson. I'll change the bed for you."

"Thank you," said Merriam, who began to perceive that Miss Milton, in spite of her profanity, had certain admirable qualities.

He went through the dining room, hesitated for a moment before the portieres--he could not have said why--and then pushed them open.

Jennie had risen and was standing beside a table between the windows. The table held a parchment-shaded lamp, a newspaper, a small camera, and a bowl of violets. Merriam had not noticed the flowers before. He remembered the violets worn by the floor clerk at the hotel, and wondered whether George Norman had saved himself trouble at the florist's by ordering two bunches from the same lot, to be sent to different addresses.

Jennie was looking down at the flowers. She must have been aware of his presence. If so, she was apparently content that he should have the benefit of a good look at her trim figure and at her face in profile, which was its best view. She had a pretty nose; the artificially heightened colour of her cheeks was charming in this light; and the bright knob of her fair hair over her ear was a most alluring ornament.

In a moment she bent gracefully down to smell the violets. As she straightened up she turned to look at him--a serious, appraising look that was somehow intimate. Then she smiled brightly.

"Come in, Mr.----" (she seemed to forget his name and let it go) "and sit down."

She tripped across the room to the davenport and sat, indicating that he was to sit beside her.

Merriam wanted both to take that seat and not to take it. He took it.

She crossed one leg over the other and looked at him, smiling. One small, squarish, plump hand lay on her knee, ready, Merriam half divined, to be taken if any one should desire to take it. He wondered if it were true that she had "never had any one but George."

"I forget your name," she said confidentially.

"Merriam." It was not said stiffly. He was too much attracted to be stiff. He realised that he was answering her smile.

"What's your first name?"

"John."

"Then I shall call you 'John.' I don't like last names--and 'Mister' and 'Miss.'"

"They're stiff," he said, "playing up" alarmingly as on a former occasion.

She scrutinised his face, growing grave.

"You're awfully like George," she said, "except here."

She raised her hand, and with the tip of her forefinger touched his chin.

"You're sterner," she added.

It was the very point Merriam himself had noted. He admired her acuteness of observation. And of course he was flattered. But he realised that he was not being particularly stern at that moment.

"I expect I am," he said, trying to look, if not to be, more so.

Jennie moved an inch or two farther away from him, as if a little frightened by the iron qualities of this male.

"Where's Margery?" she asked.

"Here," said Margery's voice, with disconcerting patness.

She came through the portieres and surveyed the two of them with an ironical look that was by no means lost on Merriam. He felt ashamed of himself.

But Jennie gave him a quick glance with a little pout in it, as if to say, "What a nuisance! When we were just beginning to get acquainted!"

And straightway his shame fled and he smiled at her.

Margery, however, was speaking in her most businesslike tones:

"I've changed your bed, and you'd better get into it as quick as you can. It's late now."

"Yes," said Merriam, rising. "What time is it?"

Before he could get out his own timepiece Jennie raised her arm and glanced at a small gold wrist watch.

"Oh! Five minutes after ten!" she cried. She rose too. "You must hurry."

"Yes," said Merriam.

He moved to the portieres--hesitated. He did not know how to take leave under these novel circumstances.

"Good night, ladies," he ventured in rather ceremonious tones.

To his chagrin both girls burst out laughing.

"Good night, gentleman!" Jennie called merrily after him, and their renewed giggling pursued him as, in painful confusion, he crossed to the door of the bedroom.

He shut that door behind him and rapidly undressed, stimulated to speed in his operations by a vigorous mental kicking of himself as an ass and a "boob." A suit of pajamas, apparently quite new; was laid out on a chair. He got into these and slipped into bed.

The moment he was recumbent he realised that he had forgotten to turn out his light. No matter. He had no idea of sleeping. Besides Thompson would be there any minute.

Ah, Thompson! With relief his mind seized upon this topic. It was sufficiently absorbing. Any minute now Thompson would burst in, demanding Senator Norman. He, Merriam, would pretend he had never seen Thompson before, never even heard of him. "My name is not Norman," he would say. "My name is Merriam. Who are you? And what do you want?" Thompson would stare, falter, begin to apologise and explain. It was pleasingly dramatic. He pursued the interview. His own conduct therein displayed the quintessence of composure and _savoir faire_. Jennie and Margery--yes, both of them were present--would be impressed; they would laugh at him no longer. Thompson was sacrificed mercilessly.

But the minutes passed and nothing happened. There was no sign of the real Thompson. What was wrong? The silence of the small, lighted bedroom began to get on Merriam's excited nerves. Had Thompson somehow, in spite of Rockwell's elaborate precautions, got wind of the real situation, discovered their trick before it was played? Had he remained at the hotel, seen the real Norman return, and perceived the whole imposition?

A light knock sounded on his door. Merriam jumped and then lay still.

"Can I come in?"

It was Jennie's voice.

"Yes," he said, embarrassed; but what other reply could be made?

Jennie opened the door and came to his bedside. She had changed her attire completely. She now wore the costume of a _ballerina_--a tight pink corsage, very low and sleeveless, with the slightest of pink loops over her shoulders, a short, fluffy pink skirt barely to her knees, pink tights, and pink dancing slippers. Over one of the bright knobs of her hair was a pink rose. She was much more brilliantly rouged than before, and he was conscious of a warm scent of powder and perfume.

Merriam lay staring at her without speaking, subconsciously shocked perhaps, but openly bewildered and fascinated.

She smiled at him and seemed to be inspecting him in return. Her left hand hung at her side, holding something heavy, but she put out her right and touched his hair--with a single little movement ruffled it.

"You look very nice lying there," she said in the most natural tones in the world. "How do I look?"

She stepped back and pirouetted, turning completely around on her toes. The fluffy pink skirts swung out and circled with her in a most entrancing manner. Merriam was quite dazzled. The white gleam of her back as she turned, the slender white arms, held gracefully away from her sides, in spite of that heavy something in one hand, the tight slimness of the waist, the glimpse of pink legs beneath the circling skirt--he had seen the like only on the stage. It was rather overpowering so close at hand.

But in a single rosy moment her revolution was completed. She was facing him again and relaxing down off her toes.

"How do I look?" she repeated, smiling, with the slightest natural augmentation of her artificial flush.

Merriam swallowed. "Stunning!" he ejaculated.

She beamed. "Of course I do," she said.

Then her face seemed to harden. She stepped closer to the bed so that she was almost bending over him.

"I've got a part to play," she said. "Well, I'm going to play it." There was a touch of something like defiance in her voice now. "I've cooked up a plot for Mister Thompson. Marge don't like it, but she'll help. I'll show him! You've got to help too."

She raised her left hand, displaying the heavy object held therein, which he had not yet identified. He was somewhat startled to see that it was a small revolver.

"Take it," she said.

As he did not instantly put out his arm she tossed it across so that it fell on the bed on the other side of him.

"It's loaded," she said, "with blanks. Mister Thompson shall see you first. But afterwards Marge and I will see what we can do with him. We'll get him to stay for a little supper, and I'm going to play up to him. I'll do a dance on the table. But when he tries to catch me I'll scream. That's where you come in. You rush out with your revolver and drive him out of the house. Won't it be fun?" she demanded, glowing with excitement. "We'll have the goods on him. He'll keep his face shut after that. Whatever he knows or thinks about George! We'll have a fine story for Mrs. Thompson, if he don't. Oh!"

A doorbell had rung loudly in the kitchenette.

"There he is now. Remember! When I scream!"

She was gone from the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Merriam lay as if dazed. This "high life" was proving almost too fast for his bucolic and pedagogical wits. He jumped when the bell rang again more violently. Then he heard the sound of the hall door being opened and a loud masculine voice. Was it Thompson's? A moment or two later the voice became more distinct, and he could hear the girls' voices too. He could not be sure it was Thompson. Was it some one of his "henchmen" instead? Whoever he was, he was in the sitting room. In a moment or two he would almost certainly be coming out to the bedroom.

Merriam suddenly remembered the revolver and reached for it and slipped it under the bedclothes. He had several minutes more to wait. The voices became lower. Then they were raised again. Suddenly he heard the rings of the portieres clash--the curtains had been sharply flung aside. Margery's thin voice came to him.

"See for yourself, then!" it said.

"That's better," said the masculine voice in tones half amused, half irritated. Was it Thompson?

Light footsteps and heavy footsteps crossed the dining room together. The bedroom door was opened.

"Sir," said Margery to Merriam, in tones a little shrill with excitement, "this is a Mr. Crockett. He has some crazy notion about your being Senator Norman. See for yourself, Mr.--Crockett!" She spoke his name as though it were an insult. "Remember, he's sick," she added warningly. Margery was not a bad actress.

Crockett! Crockett himself! So much the better! With an effort Merriam steadied his nerves. Mr. Crockett advanced to the bedside--a tall, imposing gentleman in evening clothes with keen blue eyes and a thin remnant of lightish hair.

"Well, George," he said blandly, "glad to see you. Your little friends are very loyal. But they couldn't keep me away from you."

Merriam instantly disliked Mr. Crockett. He plunged with zest into his part.

"George?" he inquired coldly. "My name's not George!"

"Oh, come, come, Norman! You're caught. Fess up."

But he looked closer. At the same moment Margery lifted a silk shade off the electric bulb by the bureau, and the cold hard light fell full on the younger man's face.

"Who do you think I am?" said Merriam. "And who are you?" he added in an insolent tone.

The impressive financier stared. He bent down and stared harder.

"Well?" Merriam demanded with all the hauteur he could muster. And then: "Got an eye-ful?"

He had preconceived this colloquy in much more dignified phrases, but the insulting tag of boyish slang popped out of him unawares. However, he could not have done better. Probably he could never, by taking thought, have done as well. Senator Norman would assuredly not have used that expression; it had been coined long since his day in Boyville.

Mr. Crockett was convinced. But he was a gentleman of considerable imperturbability. He merely straightened up and asked:

"Who are you?"

The younger man suddenly decided not to give his name. There was that in Mr. Crockett's blue eyes that suggested an uncomfortable pertinacity and ruthlessness in following up any clue he might get hold of.

"What business is that of yours?" said Merriam.

Mr. Crockett blinked. He was doubtless unaccustomed to such replies. But he merely asked another question:

"Where are you from?"

"Down State," said Merriam. That was both insolent and safe: Illinois is tolerably sizable.

"How old are you?"

Merriam saw an advantage in answering this query truthfully.

"Twenty-eight," he said. "What of it?"

"You don't happen to be a young nephew or cousin of Senator Norman's, do you?" asked Mr. Crockett, hitting the bull's-eye with his first arrow.

Merriam, somewhat startled, countered with a flat denial:

"No, I'm not. I've been told I look like him," he added. "Somebody took me for him last night. But I'm only related to him through Adam and Eve--so far as I know."

Mr. Crockett scanned him narrowly:

"Somebody took you for Norman last night?"

"They sure did." Having struck the slangy note by accident, Merriam was enough of an actor to keep it up.

"I should be much obliged if you will tell me about that."

Merriam's self-confidence returned. He had been realising how little this dialogue was developing in accordance with his pleasing anticipations. Instead of the role of a polished man of the world, delivering brilliant thrusts of irony and reducing his interlocutor to apologetic confusion, he had stumbled inadvertently on that of a slangy youth, submitting to be catechised by an individual who remained singularly composed and had proved dangerously shrewd. But at last he had led up adroitly enough to the story which Rockwell had charged him to tell. He set himself to tell it in character:

"Well, if you want to know, I came up to the City on business--yesterday. When I got my work done I thought I'd have a little fun--see the sights, you know. I don't know this town much, but I got hold of a taxi man who took me around. I looked in at several places. I guess I had a pretty good time. I don't remember much. I had more highballs than I'm used to. We ended up at a dance hall somewhere. There were some pretty girls there. Somebody said, 'You're Senator Norman, aren't you?' That struck me as funny. 'Sure, I am,' I said, and I kept it up. Soon everybody in the place was calling me 'Senator.' I treated the gang. Then I got into a fight. I don't remember how. Somebody knocked me down, I think. But I wasn't hurt any. After that I picked up this little girl that lives here--the one in pink,--and she brought me home with her. I had a bad head on this morning and a bad cold besides. The little girl is a good sport. She let me stay here all day. I'm going down home in the morning."

"I see," said Mr. Crockett slowly.

Merriam had need of all his self-command to conceal his elation as he perceived that his formidable antagonist had swallowed bait, hook, and sinker, as the idiom goes. He was obviously piecing Merriam's narrative together in his mind with the _Tidbits_ story about Norman. Margery, who had remained standing unobtrusive and silent by the bureau, flashed Merriam a commendatory glance.

Stimulated thereby, he pertly followed up his advantage:

"Care for any more of my personal memoirs?"

"No, thank you," said Mr. Crockett with a rather sour smile. "Good night, Mr.--Mr.----"

He was angling for the name again, but with a feebleness unworthy of a great financier.

"Mr. Blank," said Merriam. "I've a bit of a reputation to keep up in my own home town."

"I see," said Mr. Crockett again. "Well, I'm sorry to have intruded. Take care of your reputation!"

He turned away towards the door.

In that open door Jennie had stood listening. Now her cue had come. She took it promptly. She advanced into the bedroom, stepping lightly on her toes, her pink skirt waving prettily. She smiled her brightest smile at Mr. Crockett.

"He isn't Senator Norman, is he?" she cried gaily.

"He certainly isn't," said Mr. Crockett, looking at her. No man could have helped looking at her.

"You were awfully rude about it," said Jennie, pouting. She had stopped about two feet in front of him.

"Was I?"

"I should say you were. Awfully! You ought to do something to make up for it."

"What ought I to do?" asked Mr. Crockett.

"You might stay for a little supper with Margery and me."

"Might I?"

Unexpectedly Mr. Crockett looked away from Jennie. He looked at Merriam, thoughtfully--a disconcerting thoughtfulness. Then he turned back to Jennie.

"Perhaps I might," he said, with a faint smile.

Merriam read his mind. He was sure he did. The man might or might not be slightly attracted by Jennie's prettiness, but what he was thinking was that he would be able to get more out of her than he had been able to get from Merriam. The latter at once perceived that Jennie's melodramatic scheme was dangerous and silly. It might have been all right with Thompson, but not with this man. She hadn't sense enough to see the difference. But he could do nothing to stop her.

Already she had cried, "Oh, goody!" like a little girl.

She stepped past Mr. Crockett, brushing him with her skirts, put her hands on his shoulders and began playfully to push him towards the dining room.

"It's all ready," she was saying. "We got it for the man inside, but he says he isn't hungry. We have sandwiches and olives and cheese and beer--and there's whiskey, if you like."

"I'll take beer," said Mr. Crockett, mustering a certain lightness and allowing himself to be pushed.

Merriam looked at Margery, still standing by the bureau. She too had changed her costume. She now wore an evening dress of black and gold, in which she looked very well, rather brilliant, in fact. But what Merriam noticed was the understanding look in her eyes. She had read Mr. Crockett's purpose as clearly as he had.

"We'll be careful," she said. "You did fine. Shall I turn out the light?"

"No," said Merriam. "Leave it, please."

She walked out of the room and closed the door.

*CHAPTER XX*

*AN EVENTFUL SUPPER PARTY*

Though Margery had closed the door Merriam could hear practically everything that went on in the adjoining room--as one commonly can in an apartment.

"Get the food from the ice chest, will you, Marge?" cried Jennie, in tones whose gaiety sounded genuine. "I'll set out the drinks. Let's have a cocktail to start with, Mr.----"

She interrupted herself:

"What's your first name?"

"Well," said Crockett, "one of my first names is Henry."

"Then I'll call you 'Harry.' I hate last names--and 'Mister' and 'Miss'!"

Merriam in his recumbent solitude made a cynically humorous grimace. She had used those very words with him--had begun the same way. Her regular formula doubtless.

"I'm 'Jennie,' you know," she continued. "Now, what kind of cocktail?"

"I'll stick to beer, please."

"But I want to start with a cocktail! Have one with me! Please!"

The tone was that of a teasing child. In his mind's eye Merriam could see vividly the trim pink figure (as it had pirouetted before him) and the pretty pouting face. But Crockett was apparently unmoved.

"Bye and bye," he said suavely. "Go ahead with your cocktail. We don't all have to drink the same things, do we? I'll start with beer and work up to cocktails."

"Well, then," said Jennie, with a swift return to unpetulant gaiety, "Marge is bringing your old beer. Oh, goody! See! Cheese sandwiches and chicken sandwiches and lettuce-and-mayonnaise sandwiches!"

Evidently Margery had returned well laden from the ice chest.

"Which kind will you have, Harry?"

"Cheese, thank you," said "Harry."

"There! With my own fingers!"

Jennie spoke with some confidence that the touch of her fingers would render bread and cheese ambrosial.

"Thank you," said "Harry" again, with the barest nuance of dryness in his tone. "I'll open the beer. What will you drink, Miss Milton?"

Undoubtedly he was snubbing Jennie! Those blue eyes of his might perhaps be attentive enough to white arms and tight waists and pink legs when he himself had sought them out, but they were not to be distracted by any such frivolous phenomena when serious business was afoot. Jennie would fail! Merriam was sure of it.

But at any rate she was not easily snubbed.

"Her name's Margery," she cried, consistent in her antipathy to surnames.

"Well, Margery?" said Crockett, complaisantly.

"Beer," said Margery.

It was the first word Merriam had heard her speak. Her taciturnity comforted him. Jennie was a little fool, but Margery would keep her head. They would waste their time and their sandwiches and beer on Crockett, but perhaps she would foil any inquiries he might presently attempt.

"Don't set things in the middle of the table, Marge," cried. Jennie. "Set 'em around the edge. I'm going to do a dance for you, Harry. Wouldn't you like to see me dancing on the table?"

"It would be very charming," said "Harry." But the tone was merely gallant; it betokened no quickening of pulse.

"I must have a sandwich first, though," said Jennie quickly. Even she perceived that she was not making progress.