Chapter 12

THE LADY OF THE HOUSE

Until that moment of the woman's shot, what with the failure of P. Sybarite's weapon to fire and the strange, muted coughing of the assassin's, an atmosphere of veritable decorum, nothing less, had seemed to mark the triangular duel, lending it something of the fantastic quality of a nightmare: an effect to which the discovery of a marauder, where P. Sybarite had expected to find nobody, added measurably....

But now, temporarily blinded by that vicious bright blade of flame stabbing the gloom a hand's breadth from his eyes, and deafened by the crash of the explosion not two feet from his ear-drums, he quickened to the circumstances with much of the confusion of a man awakened by a thunder-clap from evil dreams to realities yet more grim.

Of a sudden he understood that murder had been attempted in his presence and knowledge: a stark and hideous fact, jarring upon the semi-humorous indulgence with which hitherto he had been inclined to regard the unfolding of this night of outr� adventure. Twice the man had shot to kill with that singular weapon of silent deadliness--and both times had missed his mark by the barest margin....

At once, like a demon of exceptional malignity, a breathless and overpowering rage possessed P. Sybarite. Without the least hesitation he stretched forth a hand, snatched the pistol from the grasp of the woman--who seemed to relinquish it more through surprise than willingly--threw himself halfway down the stairs, and took a hasty pot-shot at the man--almost invisible in the darkness as he rounded the turn of the next flight.

Missing, P. Sybarite flung on recklessly. As he gained the lower floor, the hall lights flashed up, switched on from the upper landing by the woman of the house. Thus aided, he caught another glimpse of his prey midway down the next flight, and checked to take a second shot.

Again he missed; and as the bullet buried itself in splintering wainscoting, a cry of almost childish petulence escaped him. With but one thought, he hurled on, swung round to the head of the stairs, saw his man at the bottom, pulled up to aim, and....

Beneath him a small rug slipped on polished parquetry of the landing. P. Sybarite's heels went up and his head down with a sickening thump. He heard his pistol explode once more, and again visioned a reeling firmament fugitively coruscant with strange constellations.

Then--bounding up with uncommon resiliency--he saw the street door of the house close behind the fugitive and heard the heavy slam of it.

In another breath, pulling himself together, he was up and descending three and four steps at a stride. Reaching the door, he threw it open and himself heedlessly out and down a high stone stoop to the sidewalk--pulled up, bewildered to discover himself the sole living thing visible in all that night-hushed stretch between Fifth Avenue and Sixth: of the assassin there was neither sign nor sound....

He felt perilously on the verge of tears--would gladly have bawled and howled with temper--and gained little relief from another short-lived break of heartfelt profanity--something halting and inexpert, truth to tell.

Above him, on the stoop, the lady of the house appeared; paused to peer searchingly east and west; looked down at the trembling figure of the small man in his overgrown police tunic, shaking an impotent fist in the face of the City of New York; and laughed quietly to herself.

"Come back," she called in a guarded tone. "He's made a clean getaway. Got to hand him that. No use trying to follow--you'd never catch up in a thousand years. Come back--d'you hear?--and give me my gun!"

A trifle dashed, P. Sybarite raked the street with final reluctant glances; then in a spirit of witless and unquestioning docility returned.

The woman retired to the vestibule, where she closed and locked the door as he passed through, further ensuring security by means of a chain-bolt; then entering the hallway, closed, locked, and similarly bolted the inner doors.

"Now, then!" she addressed the little man with a brilliant smile--"now we can pow-wow. Come into the den"--and led the way toward the rear of the house.

Trotting submissively in her wake, his wrinkled nose and batting eyelids were eloquent of the dumb amaze with which he was reviewing this incredible affair.

Turning into a dark doorway, the woman switched light into an electric dome, illuminating an interior apartment transformed, by a wildly original taste in eccentric decoration, into a lounging room of such distressful uniquity that it would have bred unrest in the soul of a lotus-eater.

Black, red, and gold--lustreless black of coke, lurid crimson of fresh blood, bright glaring yellow of gold new-minted--were the predominant notes in a colour scheme at once sombre and violent. The walls were hung with scarlet tapestries whereon gold dragons crawled and fought or strove to swallow dead black planets, while on every hand black imps of Eblis writhed and struggled over golden screens, golden devils mocked and mowed from panels of cinnabar, and horrific masks of crimson lacquer, picked out with gold and black, leered and snarled dumb menaces from darkened corners.

In such a room as this the mildest mannered man, steeping his soul in the solace of mellow tobacco, might have been pardoned for dreaming lustfully of battle, murder and sudden death, or for contemplating with entire equanimity the tortured squirmings of some favourite enemy upon the rack.

"Cosy little hole," P. Sybarite couldn't forbear to comment with a shudder as he dropped into a chair in compliance with the woman's gesture.

"I have my whims," she said. "How would you like a drink?"

"Not at all," he insisted hastily. "I've had all I need for the time being."

"That's a mercy," she replied. "I don't much feel like waiting on you myself, and the servants are all abed."

Offering cigarettes in a golden casket, she selected and lighted one for herself.

"You have servants in the house, then?"

"Do I look like a woman who does her own housework?"

"You do not," he affirmed politely. "But can you blame me for wondering where your servants've been all through this racket?"

"They sleep on the top floor, behind sound-proof doors," his hostess explained complacently, "and have orders to answer only when I ring, even if they should happen to hear anything. I've a passion for privacy in my own home--another whim, if you like."

"It's nothing to me, I assure you," he protested. "Minding my own business is one of the best little things I do."

"If that's so, why do you walk uninvited into strange bedrooms at all hours, pretending to be a policeman, with a cock-and-bull yarn about a burglar--"

"But there was a burglar!" P. Sybarite contended brightly. "You saw him yourself."

"No."

"But--but you did see him--later, on the stairs!"

Smiling, the woman shook her head. "I saw no burglar--merely a dear friend. In short, if it interests you to know, I saw my husband."

"Madam!" P. Sybarite sat up with a shocked expression.

"Oh," said the woman lightly, "we're good enough for one another--he and I. He deserved what he got when he married me. But that's not saying I'm content to see him duck what's coming to him for to-night's deviltry. In fact, I mean to get him before he gets me. Are you game to lend me a hand?"

"Me, madam!" cried P. Sybarite in alarm. "Far be it from me to come between husband and wife!"

"Don't be afraid: I'm not asking you to dabble your innocent hands in a fellow-human's blood--merely to run an errand for me."

"Really--I'd rather be excused."

"Really," she mocked pleasantly, "you won't be. I'm a gentle creature but determined--frail but firm, you know. Perhaps you've heard of me--Mrs. Jefferson Inche?"

Decidedly he had; and so had nine-tenths of New York's newspaper-reading population. His eyes widened with new interest.

"Truly?" he said, civilly responsive to the challenge in her announcement. "But I never knew Mrs. Jefferson Inche was beautiful."

"It needs a beautiful woman to be known as the most dangerous in Town," she explained with modest pride.

"But--ah--Mr. Inche, I understand, died some years ago."

"So he did."

"Yet you speak of your husband--?"

"Of my present husband, whose name I don't wear for reasons of real-estate. I took the rotter on because he's rich and will be richer when his father dies; he married me because he was rotten and I had the worst reputation he could discover. So we're quits there. If our marriage comes out prematurely, he'll be disinherited; so we've agreed to a sub-rosa arrangement which leaves him, ostensibly, a marketable bachelor. Now, I happen to know a marriage has recently been offered him through which he would immediately come into control of a big pot of money, and naturally he's strong for it. But I refused his offer of a cool half-million to play the Reno circuit, and so he concluded to sue for a divorce with a revolver, a Maxim silencer, and a perfect alibi. Do you follow me?"

"As far as the alibi."

"Oh, that's quite simple. We don't live together, and he's in sure-enough society, and I'm not. To-night the annual Hadley-Owen post-lenten masquerade's in full swing just around the corner, and friend husband's there with the rest of the haughty bunch. Can't you see how easy it would be for him to drop round here between dances, murder his lawful wedded wife, and beat it back, without his absence ever being noticed?"

"It does sound feasible, if--ah--sickening," P. Sybarite admitted. "But really, it's hard to believe. Are you positive--?"

"I tell you," said the woman impatiently, "I recognised him; I saw his mouth--his mask wouldn't hide that--and knew him instantly."

P. Sybarite was silent: he, too, had recognized that mouth.

Briefly he meditated upon this curious freak of Kismet that was linking his fortunes of the night with those of the man with the twisted mouth.

"Now you know the lay of the land--how about helping me out?"

Now the trail of the man with the twisted mouth promised fair to lead to Molly Lessing. P. Sybarite didn't linger on his decision.

"I'm awf'ly impressionable," he conceded with a sigh; "some day, I'm afraid, it'll get me in a peck of trouble."

"I can count on you, then?"

"Short of trying a 'prentice hand at assassination--"

"Don't be an ass. I only want to protect myself. Besides, you can't refuse. Consider how lenient I've been with you."

P. Sybarite lifted questioning eyebrows, and dragged down the corners of a dubious mouth.

"If I wanted to be nasty," Mrs. Inche explained, "you'd be on your way now to a cell in the East Fifty-first Street station. But I was grateful."

"The Saints be praised for that!" exclaimed the little man fervently. "What's it for?"

"For waking me up in time to prevent my murder in my sleep," she returned coolly; "and also for being the spunky little devil you are and chasing off that hound of a husband of mine. If it wasn't for you, he'd've got me sure. Or else," she amended, "I'd've got him; which would have been almost as unpleasant--what with being pinched and tried and having juries disagree and getting off at last only on the plea of insanity--and all that."

"Madam," said P. Sybarite, rising, "the more I see of you, the more you claim my admiration. I entreat you, permit me to go away before my emotion deepens into disastrous infatuation."

"Sit down," countered Mrs. Inche amiably; "don't be afraid--I don't bite. Now you know who I am, but before you go, I mean to know who you are."

"Michael Monahan, madam." This was the first alliterative combination to pop into his optimistic mind.

"Can that," retorted the lady serenely--"solder it up tight, along with the business of pretending to be a cop. It won't get you anything. I've a proposition to make to you."

"But, madam," he declared with his na�f and disarming grin--"believe me--my young affections are already engaged."

"You're not half the imbecile you make yourself out," she judged soberly. "Come--what's your name?"

Taking thought, he saw no great danger in being truthful for once.

"P., unfortunately, Sybarite," he said: "bookkeeper for Whigham and Wimper--leather merchants, Frankfort Street."

"And how did you come by that coat and hat?"

"Borrowed it from a drunken cop in Penfield's, a little while ago. They were raiding the place and I kind of wanted to get away. Strange to say, my disguise didn't take, and I had to leave by way of the back fences in order to continue uninterrupted enjoyment of the inalienable rights of every American citizen--life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness."

"I don't know why I believe you," said Mrs. Inche reflectively, when he paused for breath. "Perhaps it's your spendthrift way with language. Do you talk like that when sober?"

"Judge for yourself."

"All right," she laughed indulgently: "I believe everything you say. Now what'll you take to do me a service?"

"My services, madam, are yours to command: my reward--ah--your smile."

"Bunk," observed the lady elegantly. "How would a hundred look to you? Good, eh?"

"You misjudge me," the little man insisted. "Money is really no object."

"Still"--she frowned in puzzlement--"I should think a clerk in the leather business--!"

"I'm afraid I've misled you. I should have said that I was a clerk in the leather business until to-day. Now I happen to be independently wealthy, a clerk no longer."

"How's that--wealthy?"

"Came into a small fortune this evening--nothing immodest, but ample for one of my simple tastes and modest ambitions."

"I think," announced the lady thoughtfully, "that you are one of the slickest young liars I ever listened to."

"That must be considerable eminence," considered P. Sybarite with humility.

"On the other hand, you're unquestionably a perfect little gentleman," she pursued. "And anyhow I'm going to take you at your word and trust you. If you ever change your mind about that hundred, all you've got to do is to come back and speak for it.... Do I make you right? You're willing to go a bit out of your way to do me a favour to-night?"

"Or any other night."

"Very well." Mrs. Inche rose. "Wait here a moment."

Wrapping her negligee round her, she swept magnificently out of the "den," and a moment later again crossed P. Sybarite's range of vision as she ascended the stairs. Then she disappeared, and there was silence in the house: a breathing spell which the little man strove to employ to the best advantage by endeavouring to assort and rearrange his sadly disordered impressions.

Aware that he would probably do wisely to rise and flee the place, he none the less lingered, vastly intrigued and more than half inclined to see the affair through to the end.

His confused reverie was presently interrupted by the sound of the woman's high, clear voice at a telephone located (he fancied) somewhere in the hallway of the second story.

"Hello! Columbus, seven, four hundred, please.... Hello--Mason?... Taxicab, please--Mrs. Jefferson Inche.... Yes--charge.... Yes--immediately.... Thank you!"

A moment later she reappeared on the stairs, carrying a wrap of some sort over her arm: a circumstance which caused P. Sybarite uneasily to wonder if she meant to push her notorious indifference to convention to the limit of going out in a taxicab with no other addition to her airy costume than a cloak.

But when she again entered the "den," it proved to be a man's coat and soft hat that she had found for him.

"Get up," she ordered imperiously, "and change to these before you get pinched for impersonating an officer. I've called a taxi for you, and this is what I want you to do: go to Dutch House--that's a dive on Fortieth Street--"

"I've heard of it," nodded P. Sybarite. "Any sober man who stays away from it is almost perfectly safe, I believe."

"I'll back you to take care of yourself," said the lady. "Ask for Red November.... You know who he is?"

"The gangster? Yes."

"If he isn't in, wait for him if you wait till daylight--"

"Important as all that, eh?"

"It's life or death to me," said Mrs. Inche serenely. "I've got to have protection--you've seen yourself how had I need it. And the police are not for the likes of me. Besides," she added with engaging candour, "if I squeal and tell the truth, then friend husband will be disinherited for sure, and I'll have had all my trouble for nothing."

"You make it perfectly clear, Mrs. Inche.... And when I see Mr. Red November--?"

"Say to him three words: Nella wants you. He'll understand. Then you can go home."

"If I get out alive."

"You're safe if you don't drink anything there."

"Doubtless; but I'll feel safer if you'll lend me the loan of this pretty toy," said P. Sybarite, weighing in one hand her automatic pistol.

"It's yours."

"Anything in it?"

"Three shots left, I believe. No matter. I'll get you a handful of cartridges and you can reload the clip in the taxicab. Not that you're likely to need it at Dutch House."

From the street rose the rumble of a motor, punctuated by a horn that honked.

"There's the cab, now," announced Mrs. Inche briskly. "Shake yourself out of that coat and into this--and hustle!"

"It's my impressionable nature makes all my troubles," observed P. Sybarite disconsolately. "However..."

Shrugging into the coat Mrs. Inche held for him, he cocked the felt hat jauntily on the side of his head.

"Always," he proclaimed with gesture--hand on heart--"always the ladies' slave!"