Find the Woman Page 11

  XI

  It was more difficult to leave Ferroni's than it had been to enter it.It was Clancy's first experience in a restaurant that, she assumed--andcorrectly enough--was a fashionable one. And it was not merely thepaying of the obsequious waiter that flustered Clancy. She felt like awallflower at a college dance. Conscious that her clothing was notmodish, she had slipped timidly across the room to join Grannis. Now,having tipped the waiter, she must walk lonesomely across the room tothe door, certain that everyone present was sneering inwardly at thegirl whose cavalier had deserted her.

  For Clancy was like most other girls--a mixture of timidity and conceit.She knew that she was beautiful; likewise, she knew that she was ugly.With a man along, admiration springing from his eyes--Clancy feltassured. Alone, running the gantlet of observation--she felthobbledehoyish, deserted.

  As a matter of fact, people _were_ looking at her. Neither the cheap hatnor her demoded coiffure could hide the satiny luster of her black hair.Embarrassment lent added brilliance to her wonderful skin, and theawkwardness that self-consciousness always brings in its train could notrob her walk of its lissom grace. She almost ran the last few steps ofher journey across the room, and seeing a flight of stairs directlybefore her, hastened down them, not waiting for the elevator.

  She walked rapidly the few steps from the entrance to Ferroni's toFifth Avenue, then turned south. The winter twilight, which ispractically no twilight at all, had ended. The darkness brought securityto Clancy. Also the chill air brought coolness to a forehead that hadbeen flushed by youth's petty alarms.

  It did more than that; it gave her perspective. She laughed, a somewhatcynical note in her mirth, which Zenith had never heard from the prettylips of Clancy Deane. With a charge of murder in prospect, she had letherself be concerned over such matters as the fit of a skirt, thethickness of the soles of her shoes, the casual opinions of staringpersons whom she probably would never see again, much less know.

  She had placed Grannis's thousand-dollar bill in her pocketbook. Sheclasped the receptacle tightly as she crossed Forty-second Street,battling, upon the sidewalks and curbs, with the throng of commutersheaded for the Grand Central Station. For a moment she was occupied inmaking her way through it, but another block down the avenue brought herto a backwater in the six-o'clock throng. She sauntered more slowly now,after the fashion of people who are engaged in thought.

  Her instinct had been correct--Grannis was dishonest. His gift of athousand dollars proved that. But why the gift? He knew, of course, thatshe was aware of his partnership with Zenda. His statement that hedidn't want Zenda to know that he had seen her had been proof of hisassumption of her knowledge of the partnership that existed betweenhimself and the famous director. Then why did he dare do something thatindicated disloyalty to his associate?

  Why hadn't she made him take the money back? He had every right toassume that she was as dishonest as she seemed. She had permitted him toleave without protest. Further, with the five-dollar bill that he hadput upon the table, she had paid the check. She made a mental note ofthe amount of the bill. Three dollars; and she had given the waiterfifty cents. One dollar and seventy-five cents, then--an exact half ofthe bill she owed to Grannis. She wouldn't let such a man buy her tea.Also, the change from the five-dollar bill, one dollar and a half. Threedollars and a quarter in all. Plus, of course, the thousand.

  She felt tears, vexatious tears, in her eyes. She was in a mood when itwould have been easy for her to slap a man's face. She had never donesuch a thing in her life--at least, not since a little child, and then ithad been the face of a boy, not a man. But now, once again, minor thingsassumed the ascendency in her thoughts.

  For even Grannis's attempt to bribe her--that was what it was--was aminor matter compared to the Beiner murder. She wondered what theevening papers would have to say further about that mystery.

  A newsboy crying an extra at Thirty-fourth Street sold her a paper. Shewanted to open it at once, but, somehow, she feared that reading anewspaper on a cold wintry evening would be most conspicuous on FifthAvenue.

  Even when she had secured a seat on a down-town 'bus, she was halfafraid to open the paper. But, considering that practically everyoneelse in the vehicle was reading, she might safely open hers.

  She found what she was looking for without difficulty. Her eyes werekeen and the name "Beiner" leaped at her from an inside page. But thereporters had discovered nothing new to add to the morning account. Atheory, half-heartedly advanced by the police, that possibly Beiner hadkilled himself was contradicted by the findings of the coroner, but ifthe police had any inkling as to the identity of the murderer, they hadnot confided in the reporters.

  That was all. She began to feel justified in her course. To have gone tothe police would have meant, even though the police had believed herstory, scandal of the most hideous sort. She would have been compelledto tell that Beiner had embraced her, had tried to kiss, had-- Sheremembered the look in the murdered man's eyes, and blushed hotly at therecollection. She would never have been able to hold her head up again.For she knew that the uncharitable world always says, when a man hasinsulted a woman, "Well, she must have done _something herself_ to makehim act that way."

  But now she supposed, optimistically, that there must have been, inBeiner's desk, scores of letters and cards of introduction. Why on earthshould she have worried herself by thinking that Fanchon DeLisle's cardof introduction would have assumed any importance to the police? Nomatter what investigation the police set on foot, it would hardly bebased on the fact that they had found Fanchon's card.

  So then, as she had avoided discovery by the mere fact of not havinggone to the police, and had thus avoided scandal, and as there was noprospect of discovery, she could congratulate herself on having showngood sense. That she had lost a matter of six hundred and fifty dollars,deposited in the Thespian Bank, was nothing. A good name is worthconsiderably more than that. Further, she might reasonably dare towithdraw that money--what of it she needed, at any rate--from the banknow. If the police had not by this time discovered the connectionbetween Fanchon's card of introduction and the woman who had beenobserved upon the fire-escape of the Heberworth Building, they surelynever would discover it.

  The pocketbook in her hand no longer burned her. There was now noquestion about her returning Grannis's bribe. In fact, there never hadbeen any question of this. But Clancy was one of those singularly honestpersons who are given to self-analysis. Few of us are willing to dothat, and still fewer are capable of doing it.

  She wondered if it would not be best to do now what she should have donelast Tuesday morning. If she went to Zenda and told him what Fay Marstonhad said to her, she would be doing Zenda a great favor. She was human.She could not keep from her thoughts the possibility of Zenda'sreturning that favor. And the only return of that favor for which shewould ask, the only one that she'd accept, would be an opportunity inthe films. The career which she had come to New York to adopt, and whichrude chance had torn away from her, was capable of restoration now.

  She had fled from Zenda's apartment because scandal had frightened her.The presence of a graver scandal had almost obliterated her fear of thefirst. She'd go to Zenda, tell him that his partner was deceiving him,plotting against him.

  She could hardly wait to take off her coat when she reached her room inMrs. Gerund's lodging-house. Using some of the note-paper that sold inZenith as the last word in quiet luxury, she wrote to Zenda:

  MY DEAR MR. ZENDA: I was frightened Monday night at your apartment, and so I ran away. But to-day Mr. Grannis saw me and talked to me and gave me a thousand dollars. He said that Mr. Weber could not return to New York while there was any real evidence against him, and that, as I had been told by Miss Marston that she was really Mr. Weber's wife and that she helped him in his card-cheating, I must keep my mouth shut. He said that he didn't want you to know that he had met me. I think you ought to know that Mr. Grannis is on Mr. Weber's side, and if you
wish me to, I will call and tell you all that I know.

  Yours truly, CLANCY DEANE.

  In the telephone book down-stairs, under "Zenda Films," she found theaddress of his office on West Forty-fifth Street, and addressed theletter there.

  Then she wrote to Grannis. She enclosed the thousand-dollar bill that hehad given her. Her letter was a model of simplicity.

  MY DEAR MR. GRANNIS:

  I think you made a mistake.

  Yours truly, CLANCY DEANE.

  She addressed the letter to Grannis in care of the Zenda Films and thensealed them both. As she applied the stamps to the envelopes, shewondered whether or not she should have signed her name in the Zendaletter, "Florine Ladue."

  She had thoroughly convinced herself that she had nothing to fear fromthe use of that name. The frights of yesterday and to-day werevanished.

  Still, she had dropped the name of "Florine Ladue" as suddenly as shehad assumed it. Zenda would write or telephone for her. If she signedherself as "Florine Ladue," she'd have to tell Mrs. Gerand about her_nom de theatre_. And Clancy was the kind that keeps its businessclosely to itself. She was, despite her Irish strain, distinctly a NewEngland product in this respect--as canny as a Scotchman.

  So it was as "Clancy Deane" that she sent the letters. She walked to thecorner of Thompson Street, found a letter-box, and then returned to thelodging-house. Up-stairs again, she heard the clang of thetelephone-bell below. Her door was open, and she heard Mrs. Gerandanswering.

  She heard her name called aloud. She leaped from the chair; her handwent to her bosom. Then she laughed. She'd given Miss Sally Hendersonher address and Mrs. Gerand's 'phone-number to-day. She managed to stillthe tumultuous beating of her heart before she reached the telephone.Then she smiled at her alarms. It was Mrs. Carey.

  "Do be a dear thing, Miss Deane," she said. "I'm giving an impromptudance at the studio, and I want you to come over."

  Clancy was delighted.

  "What time?" she asked.

  "Oh, come along over now and dine with me. My guests won't arrive untilten, but there's lots of fixing to be done, and you look just the sortof girl that would be good at that. Sally Henderson's been telling mewhat a wonder you are. Right away?"

  "As soon as I can dress," said Clancy. Her step was as light as herheart as she ran up-stairs.