Part 57 (2/2)

”Well, look who's here!” muttered the telephone girl, and watched his approach, with its faint limp, over the top of her desk. Behind, from his cage, the elevator man was staring with avid interest.

”I suppose Mr. Akers is in?” said w.i.l.l.y Cameron, politely. The girl smiled up at him.

”I'll say he ought to be, after last night! What're you going to do now?

Kill him?”

In spite of his anxiety there was a faint twinkle in w.i.l.l.y Cameron's eyes.

”No,” he said slowly. ”No. I think not. I want to talk to him.”

”Sam,” called the telephone girl, ”take this gentleman up to forty-three.”

”Forty-three's out.” Sam partly shut the elevator door; he had seen Forty-three's rooms the night before, and he had the discretion of his race. ”Went out with a lady at quarter to five.”

w.i.l.l.y Cameron took a step or two toward the cage.

”You don't happen to be lying, I suppose?”

”No, sir!” said Sam. ”I'll take you up to look, if you like. And about an hour ago he sent a boy here with a note, to get some of his clothes.

The young lady at the desk was out at the movies at the time.”

”I was getting my supper, Sam.”

w.i.l.l.y Cameron had gone very white.

”Did the boy say where he was taking the things?”

”To the Saint Elmo Hotel, sir.”

On the street again w.i.l.l.y Cameron took himself fiercely in hand. There were a half-dozen reasons why Akers might go to the Saint Elmo. He might, for one thing, have thought that he, Cameron, would go back to the Benedict. He might be hiding from Dan, or from reporters. But there had been, apparently, no attempt to keep his new quarters secret. If Lily was at the Saint Elmo--

He found a taxicab, and as it drew up at the curb before the hotel he saw the Cardew car moving away. It gave him his first real breath for twenty minutes. Lily was not there.

But Louis Akers was. He got his room number from a clerk and went up, still determinedly holding on to himself. Afterwards he had no clear recollection of any interval between the Benedict and the moment he found himself standing outside a door on an upper floor of the Saint Elmo. From that time on it was as clear as crystal, his own sudden calm, the overturning of a chair inside, a man's voice, slightly raised, which he recognized, and then the thin crash of a winegla.s.s dropped or thrown to the floor.

He opened the door and went in.

In the center of the sitting room a table was set, and on it the remains of a dinner for two. Akers was standing by the table, his chair overturned behind him, a splintered gla.s.s at his feet, staring angrily at the window. Even then w.i.l.l.y Cameron saw that he had had too much to drink, and that he was in an ugly mood. He was in dinner clothes, but with his bruised face and scowling brows he looked a sinister imitation of a gentleman.

By the window, her back to the room, was Lily.

Neither of them glanced at the door. Evidently the waiter had been moving in and out, and Akers considered him as little as he would a dog.

”Come and sit down,” he said angrily. ”I've quit drinking, I tell you.

Good G.o.d, just because I've had a little wine--and I had the h.e.l.l of a time getting it--you won't eat and won't talk. Come here.”

”I'm not hungry.”

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