The Seventh Noon Part 11

"Do you think I can waste time in sleep?"

"Better take a little now or you 'll be having a long one coming to you."

"That's just it," retorted Donaldson. "I 've got all eternity for sleep."

"So? Well, I 'll take mine here and now, thanks. I want to wake up!"

The older man's sober common-sense brought Donaldson to himself.

"Guess you 're right," he admitted.

He took out a card and scribbled two addresses, one of the Waldorf and the other of the Arsdale house.

"You will notify me at one of these places as soon as you learn anything?"

"Allee light."

"_At once_, you understand?"

Saul insisted upon landing Donaldson at his hotel before going on to his own home. The latter grasped the big hand of his friend.

"Beefy," he said, "if ever I can give _her_ a chance to thank you, I 'll bet you 'll think your trouble worth while."

"Turn in and give her a chance to thank _you_ in the morning. I reckon she 'll appreciate that more than an opportunity to thank me."

The cab bearing the big detective glided off. Donaldson watched it melt down the dwindling vista until finally, dissolved altogether, it became one with the dark.

CHAPTER IX

_Dawn_

Donaldson took a cold dip and then carefully dressed himself in fresh clothes. Sleep was out of the question. He had never in his life felt more alert in mind and body. He felt as though he could walk farther, hear farther, see farther than ever before. He was more keenly responsive to the perfume of the roses which were now drooping a bit languidly near the window; he was more alive to the delicate traceries of the ferns which banked one corner of the room; more appreciative of the little marine which he had hung near his dresser and--more alive to her into whose life Fate had picked him up and hurled him. He felt the warm pressure of her fingers as though they still rested within his; saw the marvelous quiet beauty of her eyes which had led him so far back into his past. Again out of this past they led him on--on to--he was checked as in his picture of her the ticking clock behind her intruded itself. There stood the sentinel to whom he must give heed.

There stood the warning finger pointing to the seventh noon.

Good Lord, he must have more room. He must get out into the dawn--out where he could share these emotions which now surged in upon him with some virginal pa.s.sion as big and fresh as the new-born day. He crossed to the window and looked out upon the dormant city. The morning light was just beginning to wash out the dark and to sketch in the outlines of buildings and the gray path of the road between them. He watched the new creation of a world. Around him lay a million souls ready to people it--ready to seize it and make it a part of themselves. In a few hours that dim street would be a bridge over which tens of thousands of people would pa.s.s to sorrow, to joy; to poverty, to riches; to hate, to love; to death, to life. That was a drama worth looking at. He must get out and rub shoulders with those who were playing their parts. He, too, must play his part in it.

He descended to the office and left instructions with the night clerk to insist upon a message from whoever might call him up. He would be back, he said, in an hour. He had not walked long before he found the city gently astir with life. Pa.s.sing cars were soon well filled, traffic fretted the streets lately so quiet, while yawning pedestrians reminded him that there were still those who slept. At the end of thirty minutes more of brisk walking, the sky had melted through the entire gamut of colors, and finally settled into a blinding golden blue. A newsboy clicking out of s.p.a.ce like a locust, shouted "Extra!"

Donaldson gave little heed to the cry until he heard the word "Riverside," and caught the blatant headlines, "Another robbery." With an interest growing out of Saul's connection with the case, he skimmed through the story.

Then he tossed his paper away and took his course back to the hotel, glad to forget that sordid bit of drama, in the movement of the crowd now forcing its way to work. But something was lacking in the spectacle this morning. The play of light and color he still saw, the vibrancy of it he still felt, the dramatic quality of it he still appreciated, but still with the consciousness that it lacked something--that it had gone a bit flat. He no longer felt that princely sense of superiority to it--as though it were a gorgeous pageant upon which he was a mere onlooker. He felt now a harrying sense of responsibility towards it. It was as though they called him to join them. He quickened his pace. He must get back to the hotel and see if any message awaited him.

He caught his breath--he must get back to her. That was it. That was what the hurrying pa.s.sers-by had called to him. Get back to her--what did the morning count until she became a part of it? It was because she had placed the red-blooded actuality of life before his eyes in contrast to the superficial picturesqueness of its expression as he had viewed it yesterday that the show had lost its vividness. She was making him see it again with eyes as they were at twenty. He recoiled.

That way lay danger. He must put himself on guard. But from that moment he had but one object in mind--to get back to her as soon as possible.

A telephone message waiting him from Chung reported that no trace could be found of the boy.

He jumped into a cab and went at once to the Arsdale house. Miss Arsdale herself came to the door, her eyes heavy from lack of sleep but her face lighting instantly at sight of him.

"You have news?" she exclaimed.

"No," he answered directly.

She was a woman with whom one might be direct.

"No news may be good news," he added. "They have n't been able to locate him in Chinatown. I don't think there is a nook there in which he could hide from those people."

"Then," she exclaimed, "he has gone to Cranton."

"Then," he answered deliberately, "I will follow him there."

"No, I could n't allow you. It is two hours from town. You have already given generously of your time."

"Miss Arsdale," he said gently, "we of the inner woods must stand by each other. This week is a sort of vacation for me. I am quite free."

Yes, she was she he had seen through the tops of the whispering pines when he had thought it nothing but the blue sky; she was she who had brushed close to him when he had thought it only the rustling of dry leaves. Now that she stood beside him, his heart cried out, "Why did you not come before? Why did you not come a week ago?" If she could have stood for one brief second in that dingy office which had slowly closed in upon him until it squeezed the soul out of him, then he would have forced back the walls again. If only once she had walked by his side through the crowds, then he would have caught their cry in time.

The world had narrowed down to a pin p.r.i.c.k, but if only she had come a scant two days ago, she would have bent his eye to this tiny aperture as to the small end of a telescope as she did now and made him see big enough to grasp the meaning of life.

Well, the past was dead--even with her eyes magnifying the days to eternities; the past was dead, even with the delicate poise of her lips ready to utter prophecies. He must not forget that, and in remembering this he must choose this opportunity for exiling himself from her for the day. This mission would consume some six hours. It would take him out of the city where he would be able to think more clearly. This was well.

"Have you any idea how the trains run?" he inquired.

"I looked them up. There is one at 9.32."

"I can make it easily," he answered, glancing at the big clock. He had left his own watch at the hotel. He refused to carry so grim a reminder. "I suppose I 'll have no trouble in finding the place."

"You would ask for the Arsdale bungalow," she answered. "Every one there knows it. But the chances are so slight--it is only that his father went out there once. After several days Jacques, Marie's boy and father's servant, found him hidden in the unused cottage. I thought that possibly Ben might remember this."

"I should say that it was more than probable that he would go there if his object is to keep in hiding."

"It is three miles from the station and quite secluded."

"That will make a good walk for me."

He rose to leave at once. But she, too, rose.

"If you think it best to go," she said firmly, "then I must go, too. I could not remain here pa.s.sive another day. And, besides, if he is there, it is better that I should be with you. I know how to handle him. He is always gentle with me."

Donaldson caught his breath. This was an emergency that he had not foreseen. Manifestly, she could not go. She must not go. It would be to take her back to the blue sky beneath which she was born. It would be to give her a setting that would intensify every wild thought he was trying so hard to throttle.

"No," he exclaimed. "You had better permit me to go alone."

"I should not think of it," she answered decisively.

"But he may not be there. He might come back here while you were gone."

"He will be quite safe if he returns here."