Part 26 (1/2)

I saw him drop quickly on his knees beside the unconscious girl. He tore open the heavy suitcase and a moment later he had taken from it a sort of cap, at the end of a rubber tube, and had fastened it carefully over her beautiful, but now pale, face.

”Pump!” Garrick muttered to me, quickly showing me what to do.

I did, furiously.

”Where did you come from?” he asked of Warrington. ”I thought I saw someone across the street who looked like you as we came along, but you didn't recognise us and in a moment you were gone. Keep on with that pulmotor, Tom. Thank heaven I came prepared with it!”

Eagerly I continued to supply oxygen to the girl on the divan before us.

Garrick had stooped down and picked up both the handkerchief with its crushed bits of the kelene tube and near it a shattered gla.s.s hypodermic.

”Oh, I got thinking about things, up there at Mead's,” blurted out Warrington, ”and I couldn't stand it. I should have gone crazy. While the doctor was out I managed to slip away and take a train to the city.

I knew this address from the letter. I determined to stay around all night, if necessary. She got in before I could get to her, but I rang the bell and managed to get my foot in the door a minute later. I heard the struggle. Where were you? I heard your voice in here but you came through the front door.”

Garrick did not take time to explain. He was too busy over Violet Winslow.

A feeble moan and a flutter of the eyelids told that she was coming out from the effects of the anaesthetic and the drug.

”Mortimer--Mortimer!” she moaned, half conscious. ”Don't let them take me. Oh where is--”

Warrington leaned over, as Garrick removed the cap of the pulmotor, and gently raised her head on his arm.

”It's all right--Violet,” he whispered, his face close to hers as his warm breath fanned her now flushed and fevered cheek.

She opened her eyes and vaguely understood as the mist cleared from her brain.

Instinctively she clung to him as he pressed his lips lightly on her forehead, in a long pa.s.sionate caress.

”Get a cab, Tom,” said Garrick turning his back suddenly on them and placing his hand on my shoulder as he edged me toward the hall. ”It's too late to pursue that fellow, now. He's slipped through our fingers again--confound him!”

CHAPTER XIX

THE EAVESDROPPER AGAIN

It took our combined efforts now to take care not only of Violet Winslow but Warrington himself, who was on the verge of collapse after his heroic rescue of her.

I found the cab and in perhaps half an hour Miss Winslow was so far recovered that she could be taken to the hotel where she and her aunt had engaged rooms for the night.

We drew up at an unfrequented side carriage entrance of the hotel in order to avoid the eyes of the curious and Warrington jumped out to a.s.sist Violet. The strain had told on him and in spite of his desire to take care of her, he was glad to let Garrick guide him to the elevator, while I took Miss Winslow's arm to a.s.sist her.

Our first object had been to get our two invalids where they could have quiet and so regain their strength and we rode up in the elevator, unannounced, to the suite of Violet and her aunt.

”For heaven's sake--Violet--what's all this?” exclaimed Mrs. de Lancey as we four entered the room.

It was the first time we had seen the redoubtable Aunt Emma. She was a large woman, well past middle age, and must have been handsome, rather than pretty, when she was younger. Everything about Mrs. de Lancey was correct, absolutely correct. Her dress looked like a form into which she had been poured, every line and curve being just as it should be, having ”set” as if she had been made of reinforced concrete. In short, she was a woman of ”force.”

An incursion such as we made seemed to pain her correct soul acutely.

And yet, I fancied that underneath the marble exterior there was a heart and that secretly she was both proud and jealous of her dainty niece.