Kitabı oku: «Joan Thursday: A Novel», sayfa 15
"Friend Joan —
"I hope you are not still mad with me and sorry I got hot under the collar Monday only I thought you might of been a little easy on me because, I am strictly on the Water Wagon and this time mean it —
"What I wanted to talk to you about was a Sketch I got hold of a while ago you know you picked the other one only that was punk stuff compared with this I think – Please read this and tell me what you think about it if you like it, I think I will try it out soon, if it's any good it's a cinch to cop out Orpheum time for a Classy Act like this —
"Your true friend —"Chas. H. Quard.
"P.S. of course I mean I want you to act the Womans part if you like the Sketch, what do you think!"
It was afternoon before she realized the flight of time.
She turned back to Quard's note, a trifle disappointed that he hadn't suggested an hour when he would call for her answer.
Adjusting her hat before the mirror, preparatory to going out to lunch, she realized without a qualm that there was no longer any question of her intention as between Quard's offer and the wishes of Matthias. Whatever the consequences she meant to play that part – but on terms and conditions to be dictated by herself.
But in the act of drawing on her gloves, she checked, and for a long time stood fascinated by the beauty and lustre of the diamond on her left hand. A stone of no impressive proportions, but one of the purest and most excellent water, of an exceptional brilliance, it meant a great deal to one whose ingrained passion for such adornments had, prior to her love affair, perforce been satisfied with the cheap, trashy, and perishable stuff designated in those days by the term "French novelty jewellery." Subconsciously she was sensitive to a feeling of kinship with the beautiful, unimpressionable, enigmatic stone: as though their natures were somehow complementary. Actively she knew that she would forfeit much rather than part with that perfect and entrancing jewel. With nothing else in nature, animate or inert, would it have been possible for her to spend long hours of silent, worshipful, sympathetic communion.
If she were to persist in the pursuit of her romantic ambition, it might bring about a pass of cleavage between herself and her lover; it was more than likely, indeed; she knew the prejudices of Matthias to be as strong as his love, and this last no stronger than his sense of honour. Tacitly if not explicitly, she had given him to understand that she would respect his objections to a stage career. He would not forgive unfaith – least of all, such clandestine and stealthy disloyalty as she then contemplated.
The breaking of their engagement would involve the return of the diamond.
Intolerable thought!
And yet…
Staring wide-eyed into her mirror, she saw herself irresolute at crossroads: on the one hand Matthias, marriage, the diamond, a secure and honourable future; on the other, Quard, "The Lie," disloyalty, the loss of the diamond, uncertainty – a vista of grim, appalling hazards…
And yet – she had four weeks, probably six, perhaps eight, in which to weigh the possibilities of this tremendous and seductive adventure. "The Lie" might fail…
In that case, Matthias need never know.
XXII
As she drew near to Longacre Square, Joan saw Quard detach himself from an area-railing against which he had been lounging across the street, and move over to intercept her. Since she had anticipated that he might waylay her in some such manner, if he didn't call at the house, she was not surprised by this manœuvre; but she was a little surprised and not a little amused (if quite privately) to see him throw away his cigar as they drew together, and lift his hat. Such attentions from him were distinctly novel – and gratifying.
Complacent, and at the same time excited beneath a placid demeanour, she greeted him with a cool little nod.
He grinned broadly but nervously.
"I was wondering if you wouldn't happen along soon…"
"Is that so?" Joan returned blandly.
"Mind my walking with you?"
"No-o," the girl drawled.
"Of course, if I'm in the way – "
"Oh, no – I'm just looking for some place to lunch."
"Well, I'm hungry myself. Why not let me set up the eats?"
"All right," she assented indifferently.
"Fine! Where'll we go?"
"Oh, I don't know…"
"Anywheres you say."
"Well, Rector's is right handy."
"That suits me," Quard affirmed promptly.
But Joan's sidelong glance discovered a look of some discomfiture.
"I guess you got my letter, all right?" he pursued as they crossed to the sidewalk of the New York Theatre Building.
"Oh, yes," Joan replied evenly, after a brief pause.
"Wha'd you think of the piece?"
"Oh … the sketch! Why, it seems very interesting. Of course," Joan added in a tone of depreciation, "I didn't have much time – just glanced through it, you know – "
"I felt pretty sure you'd like it!"
"Oh, yes; I thought it quite interesting," said the girl patronizingly.
She seemed unconscious of his quick, questioning glance, and Quard withdrew temporarily into suspicious, baffled silence.
In the pause they crossed Forty-fourth Street and entered the restaurant.
It was rather crowded at that hour, but by good chance they found a table for two by one of the windows; where a heavily-mannered captain of waiters, probably thinking he recognized her, held a chair for Joan and bowed her into it with an empressement that secretly delighted the girl and lent the last effect to Quard's discomfiture.
"Please," she said gravely as the actor, with the captain suave but vigilant at his elbow, knitted expressive eyebrows over the menu – "please order something very simple. I hardly ever have much appetite so soon after breakfast."
"I – ah – how about a cocktail?" Quard ventured, relief manifest in his smoothened brow.
"I thought you – "
"Oh, for you, I mean. Mine's ice'-tea."
"I think," said Joan easily, "I would like a Bronx."
And then, while Quard was distracted by the importance of his order, she removed her gloves and, with her hands in her lap hidden beneath the table, slipped off the ring and put it away in her wrist-bag: looking about the room the while with a boldness which she could by no means have mustered a month earlier, in such surroundings.
Distrustful of her cocktail, when served, for all her impudence in naming it, she merely sipped a little and let it stand.
The mystery of the change in her worked a trace of exasperation into Quard's humour. He eyed her narrowly, with misgivings.
"I guess you ain't lost much sleep since we blew up," he hazarded abruptly.
"Whatever do you mean?" drawled Joan.
"You look and act's if you'd come into money since I saw you last."
"Perhaps I have," she said with provoking reserve.
"Meaning – mind my own business," he inferred morosely.
"Well, now, what do you think?"
"I – well, I'd be sorry to think what some folks might," he blundered.
Joan's eyes flashed ominously. "Suppose you quit worrying about me; I guess I can take care of myself."
"I guess you can," he admitted heavily. "Excuse me."
"That's all right – and so'm I." Joan relented a little; lied: "I have come into some money – not much." Her gaze was as clear and straightforward as though her mouth had been the only authentic well-spring of veracity. "Let it go at that."
"That's right, too." His face cleared, lightened. "Le's get down to brass tacks: how about that sketch?"
"Didn't I say it seemed very interesting?"
He nodded with impatience. "But you ain't said how my proposition strikes you. That's what I want to know."
"You haven't made me any proposition."
"Go on! Didn't you read my note?"
"Sure I did; but you only said you wanted me for the woman's part."
"Ain't that enough?"
She shook her head with a pitying smile. "You got to talk regular business to me. I ain't as easy as I was once; I know the game better, and I don't need a job so bad. How much will you pay?"
He hesitated: named reluctantly a figure higher than that which he had had in mind: "Thirty-five dollars…"
"Nothing doing," said Joan promptly.
"But look here: you're only a beginner – "
"It's lovely weather we're having, for September, isn't it?"
"I'd offer you more if I could afford it, but – "
"Have you heard anything from Maizie since she left town?"
"Damn Maizie! How much do you want, anyhow?"
"Fifty – and transportation on the road."
He checked; whistled guardedly and incredulously; changed his manner, bending confidentially across the table: "Listen, girlie, yunno I'd do anything in the world for you – "
"Fifty and transportation!"
"But I had to pay the guy what wrote this piece fifty for a month's option. If I take it up I gotta slip him a hundred more and twenty-five a week royalty as long's we play it: and there's three others in the cast, outsida you and me. David'll want fifty at least, and the Thief thirty-five and the servant twenty-five: there's a hundred and thirty-five already, including royalty. Add fifteen for tips and all that: a hundred and fifty; fifty to you, two-hundred. The best I can hope to drag down is three, and Boskerk'll want ten per cent commission for booking us, leaving only seventy for my bit – and I'm risking all I got salted away to try it out."
He paused with an air of appeal to which Joan was utterly cold.
"It's a woman's piece," she said tersely; "if you get a sure-'nough actress to play it, she'll want a hundred at least, if she's any good at all. You're saving fifty if you get me at my price."
This was so indisputably true that Quard was staggered and temporarily silenced.
"And," Joan drove her argument shrewdly home with unblushing mendacity – "Tom Wilbrow says it's only a question of time before I can get any figure I want to ask, in reason."
Quard's eyes started. "Tom Wilbrow!" he gasped.
"He rehearsed me in 'The Jade God' before Rideout went broke. I guess you heard about that."
The actor nodded moodily. "But I didn't know you was in the cast… Look here: make it – "
"Fifty or nothing."
After another moment of hesitation, Quard gave in with a surly "All right."
At once, to hide his resentment, he attacked with more force than elegance the food before him.
Joan permitted herself a furtive and superior smile. The success of her tactics proved wonderfully exhilarating, even more so than the prospect of receiving fifty dollars a week; she would have accepted fifteen rather than lose the opportunity. She had demonstrated clearly and to her own complete satisfaction her ability to manage men, to bend them to her will…
There was ironic fatality in the accident which checked this tide of gratulate reflection.
From some point in the restaurant behind Joan's back, three men who had finished their lunch rose and filed toward the Broadway entrance. Passing the girl, one of these looked back curiously, paused, turned, and retraced his steps as far as her table. His voice of spirited suavity startled her from a waking dream of power tempered by policy, ambitions achieved through adulation of men…
"Why, Miss Thursday, how do you do?"
Flashing to his face eyes of astonishment, Joan half started from her chair, automatically thrust out a hand of welcome, gasped: "Mr. Marbridge!"
Quard looked up with a scowl. Marbridge ignored him, having in a glance measured the man and relegated him to a negligible status. He had Joan's hand and the knowledge, easily to be inferred from her alarm and hesitation, that she remembered and understood the scene of last Sunday, and was at once flattered and frightened by that memory. His handsome eyes ogled her effectively.
"Please don't rise. I just caught sight of you and couldn't resist stopping to speak. How are you?"
"I" – Joan stammered – "I'm very well, thanks."
"As if one look at you wouldn't have told me you were as healthy as happy – more charming than both! You are – eh – not lonesome?"
His intimate smile, the meaning flicker of his eyes toward Quard, exposed the innuendo.
"Oh, no, I – "
"Venetia was saying only yesterday we ought to look you up. She wants to call on you. Where do you put up in town?"
Almost unwillingly the girl gave her address – knowing in her heart that the truth was not in this man.
"And, I presume, you're ordinarily at home round four in the afternoon?" She nodded instinctively. "I'll not forget to tell Venetia. Two-eighty-nine west Forty-fifth, eh? Right-O! I must trot along. So glad to have run across you. Good afternoon…"
Regaining control of her flustered thoughts, Joan found Quard eyeing her with odd intentness.
"Friend of yours?" he demanded with a sneer and a backward jerk of his head.
"Yes – the husband of a friend of mine," she replied quickly.
The actor digested this information grimly. "Swell friends you've got, all right!" he commented, not without a touch of envy. "Now I begin to understand… What's Marbridge going to do for you?"
"Do for me? Mr. Marbridge? Why, nothing," she answered blankly, in a breath. "I don't know what you mean."
"That's all right then. But take a friendly tip, and give him the office the minute he begins to talk about influencing managers to star you. I've heard about that guy, and he's a rotten proposition – grab it from me. He's Arlington's silent partner – and you know what kind of a rep. Arlington's got."
"No, I don't," Joan challenged him sharply. "What's more, I don't care. Anyway, I don't see what Arlington's reputation's got to do with my being a friend of Marbridge's wife."
"No more do I," grumbled Quard – "not if Marbridge believes you are."
XXIII
Before leaving the restaurant Quard outlined in detail his plans for producing "The Lie" for vaudeville presentation. He named the other two actors, spoke of hiring a negro dresser who would double as the servant, and indicated his intention of engaging a producing director of the first calibre who, he said, thought highly of the play.
Joan was a little overcome. Peter Gloucester was a producer quite worthy to be named in the same breath with Wilbrow.
"Well, he believes in the piece," Quard explained – "the same as me – and he says he'll give us ten afternoon rehearsals for a hundred and fifty. It'll be worth it."
"You must think so," said Joan, a little awed.
"You bet I do. This means a lot to me, anyway; I gotta do something to keep my head above out-of-town stock – or the movies again." Mentioning his recent experience, he shuddered realistically. "But if this piece ain't actor-proof, I'm no judge. Gloucester says so, too. And to have him tune it up into a reg'lar classy act will be worth … something, I tell you!"
His hesitation was due to the fact that Quard was secretly counting on the representations of his agent, Boskerk, who insisted that, properly presented, the sketch would earn at least four hundred and fifty dollars a week, instead of the sum he had named to Joan.
But Joan overlooked this lamely retrieved slip; she was all preoccupied with a glowing sense of gratification growing out of this endorsement of her first surmise, that Quard had only waited on her consent to go ahead. The thought was unctuous flattery to her conceit, inflating it tremendously even in the face of a shrewd suspicion that it was sentiment more than an exaggerated conception of her ability that made Quard reckon her coöperation indispensable. That the man was infatuated with her she was quite convinced; on the other hand, she didn't believe him sufficiently blinded by passion to imperil the success of his venture by giving her the chief part unless he believed she could play it – "actor-proof" or no.
"Lis'n, girlie," Quard pursued after one meditative moment: "could you begin rehearsing tomorrow?"
"Of course I could."
"Because if we don't, we lose three days…"
"How?"
"Well," Quard explained with a sheepish grin, "I guess I ain't any more nutty than the next actor you'll meet on Broadway; but I'd as lief slip my bank-roll to the waiter for a tip as start anything on a Friday. And Sat'day and Sunday's busy days for the Jinx, too. I got too much up to wish anything mean onto this piece!.."
At his suggestion they left the dining-room by the hotel entrance on Forty-fourth Street, and Joan waited in the lobby while Quard telephoned Gloucester.
"It's all right," he announced, beaming as he emerged from the booth – "Pete's ready to commence tomorrow aft'noon. Now I got to hustle and round up the rest of the bunch."
"Where will it be?" asked Joan.
"Don't know yet – I'll 'phone you where in the morning, at the latest…"
Hastening home, Joan plunged at once into the study of her part, with the greater readiness since the occupation was anodynous to an uneasy conscience. Though she was always what is known as a "quick study," this new rôle was a difficult one; by far the longest, and unquestionably the most important, it comprised fully half the total number of "sides" in the manuscript – nearly half as many again as were contained in Quard's part, the next in order of significance. And her application, that first day, was hindered by a perplexing interruption in the early evening, when a box was delivered to her containing a dozen magnificent red roses and nothing else – neither a card nor a line of identification. At first inclining to credit Quard with this extravagance, on second thought she remembered Marbridge, whom she felt instinctively to be quite capable of such overtures. And her mind was largely distracted for the rest of the night by empty guesswork and futile attempts to decide whether or not she ought to run the risk of thanking Quard when next they met.
Eventually she made up her mind to let the sender furnish the clue; and inasmuch as Quard never said anything which the most ready imagination could interpret as a reference to the offering, she came in time to feel tolerably satisfied that the anonymous donor must have been Marbridge.
It was to be long, however, before this surmise could be confirmed; although, on getting home Saturday night, after a hard day's work and a late dinner with Quard, she was informed that a gentleman had called and asked for her during the afternoon, but had left neither word nor card. The same thing happened on Monday, under like circumstances; after which the attempts to see her were discontinued.
And then, Joan noticed that Venetia didn't call…
Interim, the task of whipping "The Lie" into shape went on so steadily that she had little leisure to waste wondering about Marbridge or feeling flattered by his interest; and she even ceased, except at odd moments, to regard Quard as a man and therefore a possible conquest: Gloucester drilled the actors without mercy and spared himself as little.
A pursy body, with the childish, moon-like face of a born comedian, he applied himself to the work with the extravagant solemnity of a minor poet mouthing his own perfumed verses at a literary dinner. During rehearsals his manner was immitigably austere, aloof, inspired; but however precious his methods, he achieved brilliant effects in the despised medium of clap-trap melodrama; and under his tutelage even Joan achieved surprising feats of emotional portrayal – and this, singularly enough, without learning to despise him as she had despised Wilbrow.
She learned what either Wilbrow had lacked the time to teach her or she had then been unable to learn: how to assume the requisite mood the moment she left the wings and drop it like a mask as soon as she came off-stage again. She was soon able to hate and fear Quard with every fibre of her being throughout their long scenes of dialogue, and to chat with him in unfeigned amiability both before and after. And her liking and admiration for the man deepened daily, as Gloucester deftly moulded Quard's plastic talents into a rude but powerful impersonation.
Partly because of the brevity of the little play, which enabled them to run through it several times of an afternoon as soon as they were familiar with its lines, and partly because Gloucester was hard up and in a hurry to collect his fee, the company was prepared well within the designated ten days. And through the agent Boskerk's influence, they were favoured with an early opportunity to present it at a "professional try-out" matinée, a weekly feature of one of the better-class moving-picture and vaudeville houses.
The audiences attracted by such trial performances are the most singular imaginable in composition, and of a temper the most difficult – with the possible exceptions of a London first-night house bent on booing whatever the merits of the offering, and a body of jaded New York dramatic critics and apathetic theatre loungers assembled for the fourth consecutive first-night of a week toward the end of a long, hard winter.
On Tuesday afternoons and nights (as a rule) they foregather in the "combination houses" of New York, animated (save for a sprinkling of agents and bored managers) by a single motive, the desire to laugh – preferably at, but at a pinch with, those attempting to win their approbation. Their sense of humour has been nourished on the sidewalk banana-peel, the slap-stick and the patch on the southern exposure of the tramp's trousers; and while they will accept with the silence of curiosity, if not of respect, and at times even applaud, straight "legitimate" acting, the slightest slip or evidence of hesitation on the part of an actor, the faintest suggestion of bathos in a line, or even the tardy adjustment of one of the wings after the rise of the curtain, will be hailed with shrieks of delight and derision.
Before an assemblage of this character, "The Distinguished Romantic Actor, Chas. H. Quard & Company," presented "The Lie" as the fifth number of a matinée bill.
Waiting in the wings and watching the stage-hands shift and manœuvre flats and ceiling, and arrange furniture and properties at the direction of the David (who doubled that rôle with the duties of stage manager) Joan listened to the dreadful wails of a voiceless vocalist who, on the other side of the scene-drop, was rendering with sublime disregard for key and tempo a ballad of sickening sentimentality; heard the feet of the audience, stamping in time, drown out both song and accompaniment, the subsequent roar of laughter and hand-clapping that signalized the retirement of the singer, and experienced, for the first and only time, premonitory symptoms of stage-fright.
Through what seemed a wait of several minutes after the disappearance of the despised singer – who, half-reeling, half-running, with tears furrowing her enameled cheeks, brushed past Joan on her way to her dressing-room – the applause continued, rising, falling, dying out and reviving in vain attempts to lure the object of its ridicule back to the footlights.
At a word from David, the stage-hands vanished, and at his nod Joan moved on. David seated himself and opened a newspaper while the girl, trembling, took up a position near a property fireplace, with an after-dinner coffee-cup and saucer in her hands. She was looking her best in the evening frock purchased for the week-end at Tanglewood, and was in full command of her lines and business; but there was a lump in her throat and a sickly sensation in the pit of her stomach as the cheap orchestra took up the refrain of a time-worn melody which had been pressed into service as curtain music.
Peering over the edge of his newspaper, David spoke final words of kindly counsel: "Don't you mind, whatever happens. Make believe they ain't no audience."
The house was quiet, now, and the music very clear.
Kneeling within the recess of the fireplace, almost near enough to touch her hand, Quard begged plaintively: "For the love of Gawd, don't let their kidding queer you, girlie. Remember, Boskerk promised he'd have Martin Beck out front!"
Joan nodded – gulped.
The curtain rose. Through the glare of footlights the auditorium was vaguely revealed, a vast and gloomy amphitheatre dotted with an infinite, orderly multitude of round pink spots, and still with the hush of expectancy. Joan thought of a dotted lavender foulard she had recently coveted in a department-store; and the ridiculous incongruity of this comparison in some measure restored her assurance. Turning her head slowly, she looked at David, who was properly intent on his newspaper, smiled, and parted her lips to speak the opening line.
From the gallery floated a shrill, boyish squeal:
"Gee! pipe the pippin!"
The audience rocked and roared. Joan's heart sank; then, suddenly, resentment kindled her temper; she grew coldly, furiously angry, and forgot entirely to be afraid of that stupid, bawling beast, the public. But her faint, charming smile never varied a fraction. Turning, she spoke the first line, heedless of the uproar; and as if magically it was stilled. A feeling of contempt and superiority further encouraged her. She repeated the words, which were of no special value to the plot – merely a trick of construction to postpone the ringing of a telephone-bell long enough to let the audience grasp the relationship of those upon the stage.
In a respectful silence, David looked up from the newspaper and replied. The telephone-bell rang. Turning to the instrument on the table beside him, he lifted the receiver to his ear and – the plot began to unfold.
David, the husband, in his suburban home, was being called to New York on unexpected business with a client booked to sail for Europe in the morning. It was night; reluctant to go, he none the less yielded to pressure, rang for the coachman and ordered a carriage, in the face of the protests of Joan, his wife. She was to be left alone in the house with their little son; for the maids were out and the coachman slept beyond call in the stable. Reassuring her with his promise to return at the earliest possible moment, David departed…
A brief and affectionate passage between the two was rendered inaudible by derisive laughter; but this was almost instantly silenced when Quard showed himself at a window in the back of the set, peering furtively in at the lonely woman in the unguarded house.
An excellent actor when properly guided, and fresh from the hands of one of the most astute producers connected with the American stage, without uttering a word Quard contrived to infuse into this first brief appearance at the window a sense of criminal and sinister mystery which instantly enchained the imagination of the audience.
In the tense silence of the house, the nervous gasp of a high-strung woman was distinctly audible. But it passed without eliciting a single hoot.
Darting round to the door, Quard entered and addressed Joan. She cried out strongly in mingled terror and horror. A few crisp and rapid lines uncovered the argument: Quard was the woman's first husband, who had married and deserted her all in a week and whom she had been given every reason to believe dead. Ashamed of that mad union with a dissolute blackguard, she had concealed it from the husband of her second marriage. Now she was confronted with the knowledge that her innocently bigamous position would be made public unless she submitted to blackmail. Promising in her torment to give the man all he demanded, she induced him to leave before the return of the servant… Alone she realized suddenly the illegitimacy of the child of her second marriage.
At this, a scene-curtain fell, and a notice was flashed upon it informing the audience that the short moment it remained down indicated a lapse of five hours in the action.
Already the interest of the audience had become so fixed that it applauded with sincerity.
Hurrying to her dressing-room, Joan stepped out of her pretty frock and into a negligee. The removal of a few pins permitted her hair to fall down her back, a long, thick, plaited rope of bronze. Then grasping a revolver loaded with blanks, she ran back to the second left entrance.
The scene-curtain was already up; on the stage, in semi-darkness, the Thief, having broken into the house by way of the back window, was attempting to force the combination of a small safe behind a screen… Quard, kneeling to peer through the fireplace, lifted a signalling hand to Joan. David stamped loudly, off-stage. In alarm, the Thief hid himself behind the screen; and Joan came on, with a line of soliloquy to indicate that she had been awakened by the noise of the burglar's entrance. As she turned up the lights by means of a wall-switch, Quard re-entered by way of the window, in a well-simulated state of semi-drunkenness which had ostensibly roused his distrust and brought him back to watch and threaten his wife anew…
Here happened one of those terrible blunders which seem almost inseparable from first performances.
As Joan wheeled round to recognize Quard, her hand nervously contracted on the revolver, and it exploded point-blank at Quard's chest. Had it been loaded he must inevitably have been killed then and there; and when, pulling himself together, Quard managed to go on with the business – springing upon Joan and wresting the weapon from her – the audience betrayed exquisite appreciation of the impossibility, and shrieked and whooped with joy unrestrained.
It was some minutes before they were able audibly to take up the dialogue. And this was fortunate, in a way; for the shock of that unexpected explosion had caused Quard to "dry up" – as the slang of the stage terms nervous dryness of the throat whether or not accompanied by forgetfulness. He required that pandemoniac pause in which to recover; and even when able to make himself heard, he repeated hoarsely and with extreme difficulty the line called to him by David– who was holding the prompt-book, in the fireplace.
But the instinct of one bred to the stage from childhood saved him. And with comparative quiet restored, he braced up and played out the scene with admirable verve and technique. Joan was well aware that, stronger though her rôle might be, the man was giving a performance that overshadowed it heavily.
He was drunk and he was brutal: David had telephoned that he was at the railroad station and would be home in a few minutes; Quard, not content with promises, insisted on money, of which the woman had none to give him, or her jewels, which were locked away in the safe. When she refused to disclose the combination or to open the safe, Quard in besotted rage attempted to force her to open it. Struggling, they overturned the screen, exposing the Thief. Through a breathless and silent instant the two men faced one another, Quard bewildered, the Thief seeing his way of escape barred. Then simultaneously they fired – Quard using the woman's revolver. One shot only took effect – the Thief's– and that fatally. Quard fell. Joan seized the arm of the Thief and urged him from the house; as he vanished through the window, she picked up the revolver which Quard had dropped, and turned to the door. Frantic with alarm, David entered. Joan reeled into his arms, screaming: "I have killed a burglar!"
