Read Ebook: Find the Woman by Roche Arthur Somers Cornwell Dean Illustrator

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Ebook has 1827 lines and 63550 words, and 37 pages

the searching police. She would do as she had intended to do when she came down, earlier in the day, to Washington Square. She would look for a job to-morrow, and as soon as she found one, she'd go to work at anything that would keep her alive until the police captured the murderer of Morris Beiner and rendered her free to resume her career. And just now she would eat.

It was already dark. Somehow, although she was positive that she could not have been traced to Washington Square, she had been timid about venturing out in the daylight. But that very darkness which brings disquiet to the normal person brought calmness and a sense of security to Clancy. For she was now a different person from the girl who had arrived in New York from Zenith two days before. She was now that social abnormality--a person sought by the officers of justice. Her innocence of any wrong-doing in no way restored her to normality.

So, instead of a frank-eyed girl, fresh from the damp breezes of Zenith, it was an almost furtive-eyed girl that entered the Trevor, shortly after six o'clock, and, carrying an evening paper that she had acquired at the news-stand, sat down at a table in the almost vacant dining-room. Her step was faltering and her glance wary. It is fear that changes character, not sin.

She had entered the down-stairs dining-room of the Trevor, that hotel which once catered to the French residents of New York, but that now is the most prominent resort of the Greenwich Village bohemian or near-bohemian. It held few guests now. It was the hour between tea and dinner.

Clancy looked hastily over the menu that the smiling, courteous captain of waiters handed her. With dismay, she saw that the Trevor charged prices that were staggering to a person with only seven dollars in the world. Nevertheless, the streak of stubbornness in Clancy made her fight down the impulse to leave the place. She would not confess, by implication, to any waiter that she had not money enough to eat in his restaurant.

So she ordered the cheapest things on the menu. A veal cutlet, breaded, cost ninety-five cents; a glass of milk, twenty; a baked potato, twenty-five; bread and butter, ten. One dollar and a half for a meal that could have been bought in Bangor for half the money.

The evening paper had a column, surmounted by a scare-head half a page wide, about the Beiner murder. Clancy shivered apprehensively. But there was nothing in the feverish, highly adjectived account to indicate that Florine Ladue had been identified as the woman for whom Beiner had made the engagement with Hildebloom, of the Rosebush studios. Clancy threw care from her shoulders. She would be cautious, yes; but fearful--no! This, after she had eaten a few mouthfuls of the veal cutlet and drunk half of her glass of milk. A full stomach brings courage.

She turned the pages of the newspaper and found the "Help Wanted" page. It was encouraging to note that scores of business firms needed stenographers. She folded the paper carefully for later study and resumed her dinner. Finished, finally, she reached for the paper. And, for the first time, she became conscious that a couple across the room was observing her closely.

Courage fled from her. A glimmering of what her position would continue to be until her relation to the Beiner murder was definitely and for all time settled flashed through her brain. She would be always afraid.

She had not paid her check. Otherwise, she would have fled the room. Then she stiffened, while, mechanically, she returned David Randall's bow.

What ill fate had sent her to this place? Then, as Randall, having flashed her a smile that showed a row of extremely white although rather large teeth, turned to the woman with whom he was dining, Clancy's courage raced back to her.

What on earth was there to be nervous about? Why should this young man, whose knowledge of her was confined to the fact that, two nights ago, he had conveyed her in his runabout from somewhere on Park Avenue to the Napoli, cause her alarm? She forced herself to glance again in Randall's direction.

But the woman interested Clancy more than the young man who had introduced himself two nights ago as David Randall. A blonde, with reddish brown hair, most carefully combed, with a slightly tilted nose and a mouth that turned up at the corners, she was, Clancy conceded, far above the average in good looks. She was dressed for the evening. Two days ago, Clancy would have thought that only a woman of loose morals would expose so much back. But an evening spent at the Ch?teau de la Reine had taught her that New York women exposed their backs, if the exposure were worth while. This one was. And the severe lines of her black gown set off the milky whiteness of her back.

Her eyes were envious as the woman, with a word to Randall, rose. She lowered them as the woman approached her table. Then she started and paled. For the woman had stopped before her.

"This is Sophie Carey," she said.

Clancy looked up at her blankly. Behind her blank expression, fear rioted. The other woman smiled down upon her.

"I have been dining," she said, "with a most impetuous young man. He has told me of a somewhat unconventional meeting with you, and he wishes me to expurgate from that meeting everything that is socially sinful. In other words, he pays me the doubtful compliment of thinking me aged enough to throw a halo of respectability about any action of his--or mine--or yours. Will you let me present him to you?"

Back in Zenith, no one had ever spoken to Clancy like this. She was suddenly a little girl. New York was big and menacing. This woman seemed friendly, gracious, charming. She had about her something that Clancy could not define, and which was cosmopolitanism, worldliness.

The woman turned. One hand rested on the table--her left hand. A wedding-ring was on it, and Clancy somehow felt relieved. With her right hand, Mrs. Carey beckoned Randall. He was on his feet and at Clancy's table in a moment.

Randall held out a very large hand.

"You sail a boat, Miss--" He paused confusedly.

"Deane," said Clancy. She had thought, when she left Zenith, to have left forever behind her the name of Deane. Ladue was the name under which she had intended to climb the heights. "Yes, indeed, I can sail a boat."

"You'll teach me?" asked Randall.

Mrs. Carey laughed.

"Lovely weather for boating, David. Where do you do your sailing, Miss Deane?"

"Zenith Harbor. It's in Maine," said Clancy.

"But you don't live in Maine!" cried Randall.

Mrs. Carey laughed again.

"Don't be misled by his frank eyes and his general expression of innate nobility and manliness, Miss Deane. That agony in his voice, which has lured so many young girls to heartbreak, means nothing at all except that he probably had an Irish grandmother. He really isn't worried about your living in Maine. He feels that, no matter where you live, he can persuade you to move to New York. And I hope he can."

Her last five words were uttered with a cordiality that won Clancy's heart. And then she colored for having, even for the minutest fraction of a second, taken Mrs. Carey's words seriously. Was she, Clancy Deane, lacking in a sense of humor?

"Thank you," she said. Then, "I have an Irish grandfather myself," she added slyly.

Mrs. Carey's face assumed an expression of sorrow.

"Oh, David, David! When you picked up a lone and lorn young lady in your motor-car, mayhap you picked up revenge for a score of sad damsels who were happy till they met you." She smiled down at Clancy. "If the high gods of convention are wrathful at me, perhaps some other gods will forgive me. Anyway, I'm sure that David will. And perhaps, after you've had a cup of tea with me, you'll forgive me, too. For if you don't like David, you're sure to like me."

"I know that," said Clancy.

Indeed, she already liked Mrs. Carey. Perhaps the sight of the wedding-ring on Mrs. Carey's left hand made for part of the liking. Still, that was ridiculous. She hardly knew this Randall person.

"I leave you in better company, David," said Mrs. Carey. "No, my dear boy; I wouldn't be so cruel as to make you take me to the door. The car is outside. You stay here and improve upon the introduction that I, without a jealous bone in my body--well, without jealousy I have acquainted myself with Miss Deane, and then passed on the acquaintance to you." She lifted her slim hand. "No; I insist that you remain here." She smiled once more at Clancy. "Did you notice that I used the word 'insist'?" She leaned over and whispered. "To save my pride, my harsh and bitter pride, Miss Deane, don't forget to come to tea."

And then Clancy was left alone with Randall.

For a moment, embarrassed silence fell upon them. At least, Clancy knew that she was embarrassed, and she felt, from the slowly rising color on Randall's face, that he was also what the girls in Zenith--and other places--term "fussed." And when he spoke, it was haltingly.

"I hope--of course, Miss Deane--Mrs. Carey was joking. She didn't mean that I--" He paused helplessly.

"She didn't mean that you were so--fatally attractive?" asked Clancy, with wicked innocence. After all, she was beautiful, twenty, and talking to a young man whom she had met under circumstances that to a Zenither filled many of the requirements of romance. She forgot, with the adaptable memory of youth, her troubles. Flirtation was not a habit with Clancy Deane. It was an art.

"Oh, now, Miss Deane!" protested Randall.

"Then you haven't beguiled as many girls as Mrs. Carey says?" persisted Clancy.

"Why, I don't know any girls!" blurted Randall.

"Not any? Impossible!" said Clancy. "Is there anything the matter with you?"

"Matter with me?" Randall stared at her.

"I mean, your eyesight is perfectly good?"

"Yes," she said gently. "You knew?"

"That we'd meet again," he said bravely.

"I didn't know that brokers were romantic," she said.

"I'm not," he retorted.

She eyed him carefully.

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