Part 39 (1/2)
But Eleanor possessed no means of telling one package from another; they were all so similar to one another in everything save size, in which they differed only slightly, hardly materially.
None the less, having dared so much, she wasn't of the stuff to give up the attempt without at least a little effort to find what she sought.
And impulsively she selected the first package that fell under her hand, with nervous fingers unwrapped it and--found herself admiring an extremely handsome diamond brooch.
As if it had been a handful of pebbles, she cast it from her to blaze despised upon the mean plank flooring, and selected another package.
It contained rings--three gold rings set with solitaire diamonds. They shared the fate of the brooch.
The next packet held a watch. This, too, she dropped contemptuously, hurrying on.
She had no method, other than to take the uppermost packets from each pigeonhole, on the theory that the necklace had been one of the last articles entrusted to the safe. And that there was some sense in this method was demonstrated when she opened the ninth package--or possibly the twelfth: she was too busy and excited to keep any sort of count.
This last packet, however, revealed the Cadogan collar.
With a little, thankful sigh the girl secreted the thing in the bosom of her dress and prepared to rise.
Behind her a board creaked and the doorlatch clicked. Still sitting--heart in her mouth, breath at a standstill, blood chilling with fright--she turned in time to see the door open and the face and figure of her father as he stood looking down at her, his eyes blinking in the glare of light that painted a gleam along the polished barrel of the weapon in his hand.
XV
THE ENEMY'S HAND
In spite of the somewhat abrupt and cavalier fas.h.i.+on in which Staff had parted from Alison at the St. Simon, he was obliged to meet her again that afternoon at the offices of Jules Max, to discuss and select the cast for _A Single Woman_. The memory which each retained of their earlier meeting naturally rankled, and the amenities suffered proportionately. In justice to Staff it must be set down that he wasn't the aggressor; his contract with Max stipulated that he should have the deciding word in the selection of the cast--aside from the leading role, of course--and when Alison chose, as she invariably did, to try to usurp that function, the author merely stood calmly and with imperturbable courtesy upon his rights. In consequence, it was Alison who made the conference so stormy a one that Max more than once threatened to tear his hair, and as a matter of fact did make futile grabs at the meagre fringe surrounding his bald spot. So the meeting inevitably ended in an armed truce, with no business accomplished: Staff offering to release Max from his contract to produce, the manager frantically begging him to do nothing of the sort, and Alison making vague but disquieting remarks about her inclination to ”rest.” ...
Staff dined alone, with disgust of his trade for a sauce to his food.
And, being a man--which is as much as to say, a creature without much real understanding of his own private emotional existence--he wagged his head in solemn amazement because he had once thought he could love a woman like that.
Now Eleanor Searle was a different sort of a girl altogether....
Not that he had any right to think of her in that light; only, Alison had chosen to seem jealous of the girl. Heaven alone (he called it honestly to witness) knew why....
Not that _he_ cared whether Alison were jealous or not....
But he was surprised at his solicitude for Miss Searle--now that Alison had made him think of her. He was really more anxious about her than he had suspected. She had seemed to like him, the few times they'd met; and he had liked her very well indeed; it's refres.h.i.+ng to meet a woman in whom beauty and sensibility are combined; the combination's piquant, when you come to consider how uncommon it is....
He didn't believe for an instant that she had meant to run away with the Cadogan collar; and he hoped fervently that she hadn't been involved in any serious trouble by the qualified thing. Furthermore, he candidly wished he might be permitted to help extricate her, if she were really tangled up in any unpleasantness.
Such, at all events, was the general tone of his meditations throughout dinner and his homeward stroll down Fifth Avenue from Forty-fourth Street, a stroll in which he cast himself for the part of the misprized hero; and made himself look it to the life by sticking his hands in his pockets, carrying his cane at a despondent angle beneath one arm, resting his chin on his chest--or as nearly there as was practicable, if he cared to escape being strangled by his collar--and permitting a cigarette to dangle dejectedly from his lips....
He arrived in front of his lodgings at nine o'clock or something later.
And as he started up the brownstone stoop he became aware of a disconsolate little figure hunched up on the topmost step; which was Mr.
Iff.
The little man had his chin in his hands and his hat pulled down over his eyes. He rose as Staff came up the steps and gave him good evening in a spiritless tone which he promptly remedied by the acid observation:
”It's a pity you wouldn't try to be home when I call. Here you've kept me waiting the best part of an hour.”