Part 17 (2/2)

Lindsay let himself in the door; bounded lightly up the two flights of stairs; unlocked the door of Spink's apartment. Everything was silent there. The dust of two months of vacancy lay on the furnis.h.i.+ngs. Lindsay stood in the center of the room, contemplating the door which led backward into the rest of the apartment.

”Well, old top, _you're_ not going to trouble me any longer. I get that with my first breath. I've done what _she_ wanted and what _you_ wanted so far. Now what in the name of heaven is the next move?”

He stood in the center of the room waiting, listening.

And then into his hearing, stretched to its final capacity, came sound.

Just _sound_ at first; then a dull murmur. Lindsay's hair rose with a p.r.i.c.kling progress from his scalp. But that murmur was human. It continued.

Lindsay went to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the hall. The murmur grew louder. It was a woman's voice; a girl's voice; unmistakably the voice of youth. It came from the little room next to Spink's apartment.

Again Lindsay listened. The monotone broke; grew jagged; grew shrill; became monotonous again. Suddenly the truth dawned on him. It was the voice of madness or of delirium.

He advanced to the door and knocked. n.o.body answered. The monotone continued. He knocked again. n.o.body answered. The monotone continued. He tried the k.n.o.b. The door was locked. With his hand still on the k.n.o.b, he put his shoulder to the door; gave it a slow resistless pressure. It burst open.

It was a small room and furnished with the conventional furnis.h.i.+ngs of a bedroom. Lindsay saw but two things in it. One was a girl, sitting up in the bed in the corner; a beautiful slim creature with streaming loose red hair; her cheeks vivid with fever spots; her eyes brilliant with fever-light. It was she who emitted the monotone.

The other thing was a miniature, standing against the gla.s.s on the bureau. A miniature of a beautiful woman in the full lusciousness of a golden blonde maturity.

The woman of the miniature was Lutetia Murray.

The girl--

X

She felt that the room was full of suns.h.i.+ne. Even through her glued-down lids she caught the darting dazzle of it. She knew that the air was full of bird voices. Even through her drowse-filmed ears, she caught the singing sound of them. She would like to lift her lids. She would like to wake up. But after all it was a little too easy to sleep. The impulse with which she sank back to slumber was so soft that it was scarcely impulse. It dropped her slowly into an enormous dark, a colossal quiet.

Presently she drifted to the top of that dark quiet. Again the sunlight flowed into the channels of seeing. Again the birds picked on the strings of hearing. By an enormous effort she opened her eyes.

She stared from her bed straight at a window. A big vine stretched films of green leaf across it. It seemed to color the suns.h.i.+ne that poured onto the floor--green. She looked at the window for a long time.

Presently she discovered among the leaves a crimson, vase-like flower.

”Why, how thick the trumpet-vine has grown!” she said aloud.

It seemed to her that there was a movement at her side. But that movement did not interest her. She did not fall into a well this time.

She drifted off on a tide of sleep. Presently--perhaps it was an hour later, perhaps five minutes--she opened her eyes. Again she stared at the window. Again the wonder of growth absorbed her thought; pa.s.sed out of it. She looked about the room. Her little bedroom set, painted a soft creamy yellow with long tendrils of golden vine, stood out softly against the faded green cartridge paper.

”Why! Why have they put the bureau over there?” she demanded aloud of the miniature of Glorious Lutie which hung beside the bureau. With a vague alarm, her eyes sped from point to point. The dado of Weejubs stood out as though freshly restored. But all her pictures were gone; the four colored prints, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter--each the head of a little girl, decked with buds or flowers, fruit or furs, had vanished. The faded squares where they had hung showed on the walls. Oh, woe, her favorite of all, ”My Little White Kittens,” had disappeared too. On the other hand--on table, on bureau, and on commode-top--crowded the little Chinese toys.

”Why, when did they bring them in from the Dew Pond?” she asked herself, again aloud.

With a sudden stab of memory, she reached her hand up on the wall. How curious! Only yesterday she could scarcely touch the spring; now her hand went far beyond it. She pressed. The little panel opened slowly.

She raised herself in bed and looked through the aperture.

Glorious Lutie's room was stark--bare, save for a bed and her long wooden writing-table.

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