CHAPTER IX.

THE HIDEOUS CHINAMAN APPEARS AGAIN.

When Marion reached her dressing-room after leaving Howard Everett she found a note awaiting her.

She was about to throw it aside, thinking that it was one of the nightly “mash notes” which she had been receiving all the week, when a sharper glance revealed that the handwriting was familiar.

She tore it open hastily and a smile of pleasure lighted her features as she read. It was from Alma Allyn, one of her dearest friends. Miss Allyn told her briefly that she was in the theatre and would be at the stage door to go home with her right after the performance.

Miss Allyn was a newspaper reporter and a very clever woman. She had known both the Marlowe girls ever since they came to the city, and it was in her flat that Dollie Marlowe was married.

Since Dollie’s marriage she had been living alone, but she visited the bride as often as possible.

Marion hurried on her street dress so as not to keep her waiting, and very soon after eleven o’clock the girls took a cab and were driven up town together.

“I have a lot of news for you, Marion,” was Miss Allyn’s greeting, “and now that we have a few minutes together we must make up for lost time and tell each other everything.”

“I haven’t much to tell,” was Marion’s quick answer; “only Carlotta hates me and is trying to make trouble for me, and I can’t help feeling that she is going to be successful.”

“She’s a bad woman, from all accounts,” said Miss Allyn, shortly; “for, besides being divorced from her husband, she is Clayton Graham’s mistress—and not a very faithful one, either, according to rumor.”

“How perfectly awful,” said Marion, gasping, “and to think that I went home with her one night in the hope of making a friend of her.”

Miss Allyn looked at her with an inquiring glance, and Marion made haste to tell her all about it.

“You were lucky to get out so easily,” she said, when the story was finished. “I wouldn’t trust that woman the length of my nose. Why I believe she’d knife a person if she got very angry.”

“Well, now tell me your news,” said Marion, quickly. “I want to get that unpleasant taste out of my mind as soon as possible.”

“My news will make your heart go pit-a-pat, Marion,” said Miss Allyn, laughing, “for I saw your devoted admirer, Dr. Reginald Brookes, to-day, and he fairly loaded me down with tender messages for you.”

“Why didn’t he bring them himself?” asked Marion, slyly.

“Couldn’t,” said Miss Allyn. “He’s up to his ears in business. You know he only came down from the Prison Hospital yesterday, and to-day he was around looking up an office.”

“I suppose he’ll be up to-morrow, then?” said Marion, dreamily. “I shall be glad to see him, for he will bring all the news from the Island.”

“It is like getting a message from Hades, isn’t it, Marion?” asked Miss Allyn, shivering. “Some way I always had a horror of Blackwell’s Island!”

“Well, vice is quite concentrated up there,” said her companion, smiling, “but there is an advantage in that which we don’t have here in the city.”

“No, that’s so,” said Miss Allyn, promptly; “it is badly scattered here. You dodge it on one corner only to bump into it on another. Oh, the crooks and the criminals are not all on the Island by any means! But don’t you wish to hear any of the doctor’s messages, Marion? There’s one that I’m sure will be very pleasant.”

“What is it?” asked Marion, striving hard not to show her eagerness.

“I have a great notion not to tell you, Miss Indifference,” said Miss Allyn. “But here it is: Dr. Brookes is taking music lessons. He thinks he will study for the operatic stage, and has an amazing taste all of a sudden for comic opera.”

Marion burst out laughing as Miss Allyn finished.

“You are surely joking, Alma,” she exclaimed, her cheeks glowing. “What do you mean by telling such stories?”

“It’s the Gospel truth,” said Miss Allyn, chuckling. “A few months ago he was desperately interested in the sick people on Blackwell’s Island: now he is possessed with an insane desire to go into comic opera. Why, Marion, I’ll bet a quarter that if you started a dressmaking establishment, Dr. Reginald Brookes would learn to do fine sewing.”

The flush on Marion’s cheek had deepened steadily and her eyes sparkled with mischief at Miss Allyn’s suggestion, but she could hardly believe that the doctor was quite so badly smitten as her friend’s remarks would indicate, and she was greatly surprised at his new ambition.

“Why, he never told me that he sang,” she said, after a minute; “although, of course, I knew he was a great admirer of music.”

“He is passionately fond of singing,” said Miss Allyn, smiling, “and unless I’m much mistaken, he is also passionately fond of a certain singer.”

She pinched Marion’s arm very gently as she spoke, but the beautiful girl had no answer ready.

“Here we are at Dollie’s,” said Miss Allyn, poking her head out of the carriage window; “now you must run in and let them know you are safe, and then you must come over and stay all night at my bachelor’s quarters.”

Her friend sprang out of the carriage and ran up the steps. In a few minutes she returned, bringing a small handbag with her.

“Oh, Marion, I’ve seen a sight!” was Miss Allyn’s greeting. “A creepy-looking ‘chink’ just passed the carriage. His face was all scars, and he was simply hideous.”

“Are you sure it was a Chinaman?” asked Marion, quickly; “a small, swarthy fellow, with long, yellow, clawlike fingers?”

“He was small and swarthy all right,” was the answer, “but his hands were out of sight. I couldn’t see his fingers.”

“That is very strange,” said Marion, half to herself, as she seated herself beside Miss Allyn. “That is the second time I’ve known of that fellow being around here, and I’d like to know what he is striving to accomplish.”

“He looked like a ghoul,” was Miss Allyn’s extraordinary answer. “I have seen pictures of such creatures; they are always haunting graveyards.”

“I wonder if he can be that wicked Chinaman who steals young girls,” said her companion, thoughtfully, and then she told of the article Dollie’s husband had seen in the paper.

Miss Allyn had been in the newspaper business too long not to know that even stranger things than this occurred in a big city, so she listened without a word and at the end she seemed to be thinking deeply.

“We must be on the lookout in the future,” she said, “and above all we must warn Dollie to be very particular. She must never step out after dark unless Ralph is with her.”

“I don’t think she does” was Marion’s answer; then a sudden idea seemed to come to both of them.

“Perhaps he is looking for you,” Miss Allyn said, slowly.

“Well, I hope not,” said Marion, with a shiver, “but I’d much rather it would be me than my darling sister.”