V
The only thing in the nature of a policy or plan of action which Mrs. Waddington had had when making for the fire-escape had been a general desire to be as far away as possible from the representative of the Law when he stopped sneezing and opened his eyes and began to look around him for his assailant. But, as her feet touched the first rungs, more definite schemes began to shape themselves. Fire-escapes, she knew, led, if followed long enough, to the ground: and she decided to climb to safety down this one. It was only when she had descended as far as the ninth floor that, glancing below her, she discovered that this particular fire-escape terminated not, as she had supposed, in some back-alley, but in the gaily-lighted outdoor premises of a restaurant, half the tables of which were already filled.
This sight gave her pause. In fact, to be accurate, it froze her stiff. Nor was her agitation without reason. Those of the readers of this chronicle who have ever thrown pepper in a policeman’s face, and skimmed away down a fire-escape are aware that fire-escapes, considered as a refuge, have the defect of being uncomfortably exposed to view. At any moment, felt Mrs. Waddington, the policeman might come to the edge of the roof and look down: and to deceive him into supposing that she was merely an ashcan or a milk-bottle was, she knew, beyond her histrionic powers.
The instinct for self-preservation not only sharpens the wits, but at the same time dulls the moral sensibility. It was so with Mrs. Waddington now. Her quickened intelligence perceived in a flash that if she climbed in through the window outside which she was now standing she would be safe from scrutiny: and her blunted moral sense refused to consider the fact that such an action—amounting, as it did, to what her policeman playmate had called breaking and entering—would be most reprehensible. Besides, she had broken and entered one apartment already that night, and the appetite grows by what it feeds on. Some ten seconds later, therefore, Mrs. Waddington was once more groping through the darkness of somebody else’s dwelling-place.
A well-defined scent of grease, damp towels and old cabbages told her that the room through which she was creeping was a kitchen: but the blackness was so uniform that she could see nothing of her surroundings. The only thing she was able to say definitely of this kitchen at the moment was that it contained a broom. This she knew because she had just stepped on the end of it and the handle had shot up and struck her very painfully on the forehead.
“Ouch!” cried Mrs. Waddington.
She had not intended to express any verbal comment on the incident, for those who creep at night through other people’s kitchens must be silent and wary: but the sudden agony was so keen that she could not refrain from comment. And to her horror she found that her cry had been heard. There came through the darkness a curious noise like the drawing of a cork, and then somebody spoke.
“Who are you?” said an unpleasant, guttural voice.
Mrs. Waddington stopped, paralysed. She would not, in the circumstances, have heard with any real pleasure the most musical of speech: but a soft, sympathetic utterance would undoubtedly have afflicted her with a shade less of anguish and alarm. This voice was the voice of one without human pity; a grating, malevolent voice; a voice that set Mrs. Waddington thinking quiveringly in headlines:
“Society Leader Found Slain in Kitchen.”
“Who are you?”
“Body Dismembered Beneath Sink.”
“Who are you?”
“Severed Head Leads Trackers to Death-Spot.”
“Who are you?”
Mrs. Waddington gulped.
“I am Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington,” she faltered. And it would have amazed Sigsbee H., had he heard her, to discover that it was possible for her to speak with such a winning meekness.
“Who are you?”
“Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington, of East Seventy-Ninth Street and Hempstead, Long Island. I must apologise for the apparent strangeness of my conduct in. …”
“Who are you?”
Annoyance began to compete with Mrs. Waddington’s terror. Deaf persons had always irritated her, for like so many women of an impatient and masterful turn of mind she was of opinion that they could hear perfectly well if they took the trouble. She raised her voice and answered with a certain stiffness.
“I have already informed you that I am Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington. …”
“Have a nut,” said the voice, changing the subject.
Mrs. Waddington’s teeth came together with a sharp click. All the other emotions which had been afflicting her passed abruptly away, to be succeeded by a cold fury. Few things are more mortifying to a proud woman than the discovery that she had been wasting her time being respectful to a parrot: and only her inability to locate the bird in the surrounding blackness prevented a rather unpleasant brawl. Had she been able to come to grips with it, Mrs. Waddington at that moment would undoubtedly have done the parrot no good whatever.
“Brrh!” she exclaimed, expressing her indignation as effectively as was possible by mere speech: and, ignoring the other’s request—in the circumstances, ill-timed and tasteless—that she should stop and scratch its head, she pushed forward in search of the door.
Reaction had left her almost calm. The trepidation of a few moments back had vanished; and she advanced now in a brisk and businesslike way. She found the door and opened it. There was more darkness beyond, but an uncurtained window gave sufficient light for her to see that she was in a sitting-room. Across one corner of this room lay a high-backed chesterfield. In another corner stood a pedestal desk. And about the soft carpet there were distributed easy chairs in any one of which Mrs. Waddington, had the conditions been different, would have been delighted to sit and rest.
But, though she had been on her feet some considerable time now and was not a woman who enjoyed standing, prudence warned her that the temptation to relax must be resisted. It was a moment for action, not repose. She turned to the door which presumably led into the front hall and thence to the stairs and safety: and had just opened it when there came the click of a turning key.
Mrs. Waddington acted swiftly. The strange calm which had been upon her dissolved into a panic fear. She darted back into the sitting-room: and, taking the chesterfield in an inspired bound, sank down behind it and tried not to snort.
“Been waiting long?” asked some person unseen, switching on the light and addressing an invisible companion.
The voice was strange to Mrs. Waddington: but about the one that replied to it there was something so fruitily familiar that she stiffened where she lay, scarcely able to credit her senses. For it was the voice of Ferris, her butler. And Ferris, if the truth was in him, should by now have been at the sickbed of a relative.
“Some little time, sir, but it has caused me no inconvenience.”
“What did you want to see me about?”
“I am addressing Mr. Lancelot Biffen, the editor-in-chief of Town Gossip?”
“Yes. Talk quick. I’ve got to go out again in a minute.”
“I understand, Mr. Biffen, that Town Gossip is glad to receive and pay a substantial remuneration for items of interest concerning those prominent in New York Society. I have such an item.”
“Who’s it about?”
“My employer—Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington, sir.”
“What’s she been doing?”
“It is a long story. …”
“Then I haven’t time to listen to it.”
“It concerns the sensational interruption to the marriage of Mrs. Waddington’s stepdaughter. …”
“Didn’t the wedding come off, then?”
“No, sir. And the circumstances which prevented it. …”
Mr. Biffen uttered an exclamation. He had apparently looked at his watch and been dismayed by the flight of time.
“I must run,” he said. “I’ve a date at the Algonquin in a quarter of an hour. Come and talk to me at the office tomorrow.”
“I fear that will be impossible, sir, owing to. …”
“Then, see here. Have you ever done any writing?”
“Yes, sir. At Little-Seeping-in-the-Wold I frequently contributed short articles to the parish magazine. The vicar spoke highly of them.”
“Then sit down and write the thing out. Use your own words and I’ll polish it up later. I’ll be back in an hour, if you want to wait.”
“Very good, sir. And the remuneration?”
“We’ll talk about that later.”
“Very good, sir.”
Mr. Biffen left the room. There followed a confused noise—apparently from his bedroom, in which he seemed to be searching for something. Then the front door slammed, and quiet descended upon the apartment.
Mrs. Waddington continued to crouch behind her chesterfield. There had been a moment, immediately after the departure of Mr. Biffen, when she had half risen with the intention of confronting her traitorous butler and informing him that he had ceased to be in her employment. But second thoughts had held her back. Gratifying as it would undoubtedly be to pop her head up over the back of the sofa and watch the man cower beneath her eye, the situation, she realised, was too complicated to permit such a procedure. She remained where she was, and whiled away the time by trying out methods to relieve the cramp from which her lower limbs had already begun to suffer.
From the direction of the desk came the soft scratching of pen on paper. Ferris was plainly making quite a job of it, putting all his energies into his task. He seemed to be one of those writers, like Flaubert, who spared no pains in the quest for perfect clarity and are prepared to correct and re-correct indefinitely till their artist-souls are satisfied. It seemed to Mrs. Waddington as though her vigil was to go on forever.
But in a bustling city like New York it is rarely that the artist is permitted to concentrate for long without interruption. A telephone-bell broke raspingly upon the stillness: and the first sensation of pleasure which Mrs. Waddington had experienced for a very long time came to her as she realised that the instrument was ringing in the passage outside and not in the room. With something of the wild joy which reprieved prisoners feel at the announcement of release she heard the butler rise. And presently there came from a distance his measured voice informing some unseen inquirer that Mr. Biffen was not at home.
Mrs. Waddington rose from her form. She had about twenty seconds in which to act, and she wasted none of them. By the time Ferris had returned and was once more engrossed in his literary composition, she was in the kitchen.
She stood by the window, looking out at the fire-escape. Surely by this time, she felt, it would be safe to climb once more up to the roof. She decided to count three hundred very slowly and risk it.