The City of Masks Part 42

"And if I thought ye'd even dream of settin' foot outside this house I'd gladly stand on the sidewalk in the rain, without food or drink, for forty-eight hours, waitin' for ye."

And as that was the mildest thing he said to Stuyvie, it is only fair to state that Peasley, who was listening in the hall, hastily opened the front door and looked up and down the street for a policeman. With commendable foresight, he left it ajar and retired to the foot of the stairs, hoping, perhaps, that Stuyvesant might undertake to throw the obnoxious guest into the street,--in which case it would be possible for him to witness the whirlwind without being in the path of it.

To Smith-Parvis, Senior, the eloquent McFaddan addressed these parting words:

"I don't know what you had in mind when you invited me here, Mr.

Smith-Parvis, but whatever it was you needn't worry about it,--not for a minute. Put it out of your mind altogether, my good man. And if I've told you anything at all about this pie-faced son of yours that ye didn't already know or suspect, you're welcome to the information. He's a bad egg,--and if ye don't believe me, ask Lady Jane Thorne,--if she happens to be about."

He spoke without thinking, but he did no harm. No one there had the remotest idea who he meant when he referred to Lady Jane Thorne.

"Come, Peggy, we'd better be going," he said to his wife. "If we want a bite o' dinner, I guess we'll have to go over to Healy's and get it."

Far in the night, Mrs. Smith-Parvis groaned. Her husband, who sat beside her bed and held her hand with somnolent devotion, roused himself and inquired if the pain was just as bad as ever.

She groaned again.

He patted her hand soothingly. "There, there, now,--go to sleep again.

You'll be all right--"

"Again?" she cried plaintively. "How can you say such a thing? I haven't closed my eyes."

"Oh, my dear," he expostulated. "You've been sound asleep for--"

"I have not!" she exclaimed. "My poor head is splitting. You know I haven't been asleep, so why will you persist in saying that I have?"

"At any rate," said he, taking up a train of thought that had become somewhat confused and unstable by pa.s.sing through so many cat-naps, "we ought to be thankful it isn't worse. The dear boy might have gone to the electric chair if we had permitted him to follow the scoundrel to the sidewalk."

Mrs. Smith-Parvis turned her face toward him. A spark of enthusiasm flashed for an instant in her tired eyes.

"How many times did he knock him down at Spangler's?" she inquired.

"Four," said Mr. Smith-Parvis, proudly.

"And that dreadful woman was the cause of it all, writing notes to Stuyvesant and asking him to meet her--What was it Stuyvesant called them?"

"Crush-notes, Angie. Now, try to go to sleep, dearie."

CHAPTER XIX

FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT

"GOODNESS! What's that?" whispered Lady Jane, starting violently.

For what seemed to them many hours, she and Thomas Trotter had sat, quite snugly comfortable, in the dark air-chamber. Comfortable, I say, but I fear that the bewildering joy of having her in his arms rendered him impervious to what under other conditions would most certainly have been a severe strain upon his physical endurance. In other words, she rested very comfortably and cosily in the crook of his arm, her head against his shoulder, while he, sitting bolt upright with no support whatsoever--But why try to provide him with cause for complaint when he was so obviously contented?

Her suppressed exclamation followed close upon the roar and crash of an ear-splitting explosion. The reverberation rolled and rumbled and dwindled away into the queerest silence. Almost immediately the clatter of falling debris a.s.sailed their ears. She straightened up and clutched his arm convulsively.

"Rain," he said, with a short laugh. For an instant his heart had stood still. So appalling was the crash that he involuntarily raised an arm to s.h.i.+eld his beloved companion from the shattered walls that were so soon to tumble about their ears. "Beating on the tin roof," he went on, jerkily.

"Oh,--wasn't it awful?" she gasped, in smothered tones. "Are you sure?"

"I am now," he replied, "but, by Jove, I wasn't a second or two ago.

Lord, I thought it was all over."

"If we could only see!" she cried nervously.

"Any how," he said, with a rea.s.suring chuckle, "we sha'n't get wet."

By this time the roar of rain on the roof so close to their heads was deafening.

"Goodness, Eric,--it's--it's leaking here," she cried out suddenly, after a long silence.

"That's the trouble with these ramshackle old--Oh, I say, Jane, your frock! It will be ruined. My word! The confounded roof's like a sieve."

He set out,--on all fours,--cautiously to explore.

"I--I am frightfully afraid of thunder," she cried out after him, a quaver in her voice. "And, Eric, wouldn't it be dreadful if the building were to be struck by lightning and we should be found up here in this--this unexplainable loft? What _could_ we say?"

"Nothing, dearest," he replied, consolingly. "That is, provided the lightning did its work properly. Ouch! It's all right! Don't bother, dear. Nothing but a wall. Seems dry over here. Don't move. I'll come back for you."

"It's--it's rather jolly, isn't it?" she cried nervously as his hand touched her shoulder. She grasped it eagerly. "Much jollier than if we could see." A few moments later: "Isn't it nice and dry over here. How clever of you, Eric, to find it in the dark."

On their hands and knees they had crept to the place of shelter, and were seated on a broad, substantial beam with their backs against a thin, hollow-sounding part.i.tion. The journey was not without incident.

As they felt their way over the loose and sometimes widely separated boards laid down to protect the laths and plaster of the ceiling below, his knee slipped off and before he could prevent it, his foot struck the lathing with considerable force.

"Clumsy a.s.s!" he muttered.

After a long time, she said to him,--a little pathetically:

"I hope M. Mirabeau doesn't forget we are up here."

"I should hope not," he said fervently. "Mrs. Millidew is going out to dinner this evening. I'd--"

"Oh-h!" she whispered tensely. "Look!"

A thin streak of light appeared in front of them. Fascinated, they watched it widen, slowly,--relentlessly.

The trap-door was being raised from below. A hand and arm came into view,--the propelling power.

"Is that you, de Bosky?" called out Trotter, in a penetrating whisper.

Abruptly the trap flew wide open and dropped back on the scantlings with a bang.

The head and shoulders of a man,--a bald-headed man, at that,--rose quickly above the ledge, and an instant later a lighted lantern followed.