Kitabı oku: «Joan Thursday: A Novel», sayfa 24

"Needn't yell," he said thickly: "I've been shot … done for…"

His gaze shifted heavily to the woman. With effort he enunciated one word more: "Drink…"

As though by that monosyllable freed from an enchaining spell, Joan started, moved quickly to his side and held the goblet to his lips.

He drank noisily, gulping and slobbering; overflowing at either corner of his mouth, the liquor dripped twin streams upon his naked bosom.

Mechanically Matthias put his hat down on the table.

He experienced an incredulous sensation, as though he were struggling to cast off the terror and oppression of some particularly vivid and coherent nightmare.

From the farther room that noise persisted of monotonous and awful laughter.

Marbridge ceased to swallow and grunted. Joan removed the glass and drew away without looking at Matthias. At a cost of considerable will-power, apparently, the wounded man collected himself and levelled at Matthias his louring, but now less dull, regard.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said ungraciously. "Well, you'll do at a pinch… I wanted Arlington … but you if he couldn't be found."

"Well," said Matthias stupidly, "I'm here… The doctor's seen you, I suppose?"

"Yes – did what he could for me – no use wasting effort – it's my cue to exit."

"Oh, come! It's not as bad as that!"

"The hell it ain't. The doctor knows – I know. Not that it matters. It was coming to me and I got it."

"Where's the doctor?" Matthias insisted. "Why isn't he attending you now?"

"He's in the other room … trying to silence that crazy woman… She plugged me and … went into hysterics…"

"Who?"

"Nella Cardrow… Had the devil of a time with her before doctor came … trying to keep her from rushing out and giving herself up … all this in the papers… But all right now: we'll hush it up."

"Then that's what you want of me?"

"Wait," Marbridge grunted. "Where's that girl?"

Joan moved back to his side. "What can I do?" she said; and these were all the words Matthias heard her utter from first to last of that business.

Marbridge nodded at her with a curling lip: "You can get out!"

She turned sharply and left the room, banging the door.

"That's the kind she is," Marbridge commented. "You were lucky to get rid of her as easy as you did… Give me more brandy, will you, like a good fellow – and be stingy with the water. I've got to … hold out a couple of hours more."

Matthias served him.

"I presume Venetia knows nothing about this, yet?"

Having drunk, Marbridge shook his head. "Not yet. Now, listen… You guessed it: I want you to help hush this up, for Venetia's sake… Rotten mess – do no good if it gets in the papers – only humiliation for her. Will you – ?"

"What is it you want me to do?"

"Help me home and keep your mouth shut… You see, this is my place; I've had it years; very handy – private entrance – all that… Nella used to meet me here. That's how she came to have a key. I'd forgotten… Well, I got tired of her, and she couldn't act, and Arlington was sore about that. So we planned to get rid of her. I guess you must've heard. It was a dirty business, all round… And tonight, when her play went to pieces, just as we'd planned it should, she saw how she'd been bilked and lost her head… Came here, let herself in quietly, without the maid's hearing her, and shot me when I came in with Joan. I managed to get the gun away before she could turn it on herself, and locked her up. Then – hysterics… Well, I'm finished. I asked for it, and got it… No: no remorse bunk, no deathbed repentance, nothing like that! But I realize I've been a pretty rotten proposition, first and last. Never mind… What I'm getting at's this: nobody need suffer but me. That's where you come in. For Venetia's sake. You and Arlington and the doctor can cover it all up between you. Arlie can quiet that girl – Joan – and the doctor's all right; he'll want a pretty stiff cheque to fix the undertaker – and that's all right, too. Then you've got to scare Nella Cardrow so's she won't give herself away, and buy my chauffeur and that maid out there, Sara… But first off, you'll have to help doctor get me home and in bed. I'm the sort that's got to die in the house."

His chin dropped again.

"Well … I guess it's a good job … at that…"

He shivered.

The hall-door opened and Arlington entered, followed by a lean man with worried eyes who proved to be the doctor.

XXXIX

Shortly before seven o'clock, that same morning, a limousine car pulled up quietly just short of the corner of Madison Avenue, and its occupant, with a word on alighting to his driver, addressed himself briskly to the door of the ground-floor flat.

He was a handsome, well dressed, well-set-up and well-nourished animal of something more than middle-age: a fact which the pitilessly clear light of early morning betrayed, discovering lines and hollows in his clean-shaven countenance which would ordinarily have escaped notice.

But he had passed that time of life when he could suffer a sleepless night of anxiety without visibly paying for it.

His intention to announce himself by ringing the bell was promptly anticipated, the door opening before his finger could touch the button. He checked momentarily in obvious surprise, then jauntily lifted his hat as he stepped hurriedly inside.

"Why, my dear!" he addressed the woman who held the door – "up so early!"

"I haven't been to bed, of course, Mr. Arlington," Joan informed him.

"Well," he observed, not without envy, "you don't look it."

"I've been packing all night," she returned. "Of course – I can't stay here, after what's happened."

"Of course not," he agreed sympathetically.

Having closed the outside door, she moved before him into a small drawing-room which adjoined the entry-hall on the left, and when he had followed shut its door with particular care.

"Sara's still packing," she explained, turning to Arlington. "Well?"

He hesitated, looking her over with a doubtful eye. But she was, at least outwardly, quite cool and collected, her manner exhibiting no undue amount of anxiety.

Still, a certain amount of make-believe would seem no more than decent…

"Look here," he said almost sharply – "you're feeling all right, eh?"

"Quite – only tired as a dog; and naturally – "

"I understand," he interrupted. "But you'll be fit to go on tonight, you think?"

"Don't worry about that," Joan advised him decidedly. "I'm hoping to get a nap before evening, but even if I don't, I know the first duty of an actress is always to her public."

"Yes," Arlington agreed briefly, avoiding her eyes… "Still, I must ask you to be prepared."

Joan's figure stiffened slightly, and her dark eyes widened.

"Dead?" she questioned in a low voice.

Arlington nodded. "I'm sorry… About half an hour after we got him home."

The girl sat down suddenly and buried her face in her hands.

"Oh!" she cried in a stifled voice – "how awful!"

"There!" Arlington moved over and rested a hand familiarly on her shoulder. "Brace up. You'll forget all about this before long."

"O no – never!" she moaned through her fingers.

"But you will," he insisted, looking down at her with an odd expression. "To begin with, I'm going to make it my business to see that you forget. You must. You can't do justice to your – genius, if you keep harping on this accident. It wasn't your fault, you know. Just as soon as I've arranged a few details… By the way, how's the Cardrow woman?"

"Asleep," Joan answered. "She hasn't made a bit of trouble since the doctor gave her that dope – whatever it was."

"Good. He'll be along presently with a nurse he can trust. And by that time I'll have you out of the way. I know just the place for you, a little flat uptown, on Fifty-ninth Street, overlooking the Park. You'll be very quiet and comfortable there, and near the theatre besides."

"I'm glad of that. I was thinking, of course, I'd have to go to some hotel … and I didn't want to."

"And quite natural. You want to be alone until you feel yourself again… I'll find you a good maid, and make everything smooth for you. You're not to fret about anything, and if you're troubled you must come right to me."

"You're awf'ly kind."

"Don't look at it that way, please."

"How can I ever thank you?"

"Oh, we'll talk that over some other time." Arlington removed his hand from her shoulder and went back to the table, upon which he had deposited a bundle of newspapers. "There's no doubt of your success," he pursued soothingly. "Your notices are the finest I've seen in years. I brought you the lot of them in case you care – "

Joan uncovered her face and looked up quickly. "Oh, do let me see them!"

Arlington placed the papers in her eager hands.

"They're all folded with your reviews uppermost."

"Oh, thank you ever so much!"

But in the act of opening the bundle, Joan hesitated and let it fall into her lap.

"There's nothing about – ?" she questioned fearfully.

"No, and won't be," he promised. "Besides, these were already on the presses by the time it happened… You needn't worry," he resumed, moving to a window and looking abstractedly out, hands clasped behind him; "the affair will be kept perfectly quiet. Everybody's been seen and fixed, except the Cardrow, and the doctor has already given us a certificate of death under the knife – operation for appendicitis, imperatively required at an hour's notice… By the way, I don't suppose you know, but – Marbridge didn't leave any papers or anything of that sort lying round here, did he?"

There was no answer. He heard a paper rustle, and looking round saw the girl with her attention all absorbed by one of her notices.

"Well," he said after a moment, "I'll go and have a talk with that maid, Sara."

"All right," she returned abstractedly.

"You're all ready to leave when I've fixed things up with her?"

"Yes," she returned, without looking up.

He hesitated a moment by the door, remarking the flush of colour that was deepening in her cheeks; then with a mystified shake of his head, he left the room very quietly.

She remained alone for upwards of half an hour, in the course of which time she read all the reviews once and some of the more enthusiastic twice.

Then carefully folding the papers, she put them aside and sat thinking.

She thought for a long time without moving, her eyes shining as they looked ahead, out of the stupid and sordid turmoil of yesterday into the golden promise of tomorrow.

She thought by no means clearly, with a brain confused by praise and sodden with fatigue; but above the welter of her thoughts, a single tremendous fact stood out, solid and unshakable, like a mountain towering about cloud-wrack:

She was a Success.