Adventure Tales 6. H. Bedford-Jones

easily strolling, we had entered the little street in which lived and studied my classmate, Ashenhurst.

      Cambridge Court interested Lavender deeply, and his glance was everywhere as we proceeded into its dusky canyon.

      “Not many lamps,” he murmured. “Only three in the block. And the folks retire early. It can’t be more than 10:30, yet nearly every house is in darkness. Two lights down there near the corner, across the street, and one here on our left. The nearest, I suppose, is Ashenhurst’s?”

      I corroborated the supposition, and in a moment we had turned up the steps, to discover at the top, smoking his inevitable pipe, my friend, the student. Ashenhurst’s long body uncoiled and rose upright in the darkness.

      “Hoped you’d come,” he said briefly, but warmly. “This is Mr.—?”

      “Yes,” interrupted Lavender swiftly. “Happy to know you, I’m sure. Hope the studies are coming along well. Gilly says you’re an awful ‘dig,’ you know.”

      “Come up,” said Ashenhurst abruptly, sensing a mystery, and we trudged after him up the dark stairs and into his room at the front, where he turned a puzzled face to the detective.

      “It’s all right, old man,” smiled Lavender, “but your case is so peculiar that I thought it as well not to shout my name about the neighborhood. One never knows who may be listening. Nothing to add to Gilly’s story, I suppose?”

      The tall student shrugged, then glanced uneasily at the clock. “Not yet,” he answered, with a rueful smile, “Soon, maybe!”

      We spoke in low tones for a time, while Ashenhurst and Lavender became acquainted, and then the conversation languished.

      “It’s getting along,” remarked Lavender at length, “and it’s just as well not to talk too much. I’ve a funny idea at the back of my head. It won’t stand talking about, and it involves silence at this time. Literal silence! I may be quite wrong; but I think that from now until midnight we had better sit quite still. I’m sorry I can’t be more explicit.”

      I looked at him curiously in the half-darkness of the room. “The light?” I murmured.

      “Yes,” he agreed, “let’s silence the light, too.”

      So Ashenhurst, no doubt vastly wondering at this strange conduct on the part of my friend, extinguished his lamp, and in darkness we began our vigil. The moments seemed to crawl as we awaited the zero hour.

      From his busy smoking and an occasional restless movement, I knew that Lavender was thinking hard. My own thoughts were bewildered and incoherent, and Ashenhurst’s, I fancy, were no better. What Lavender’s “funny idea” might be puzzled me profoundly; I had seen and heard all that he had seen and heard, and I was quite at sea. This, however, was the usual way of things, and I knew better than to question his decisions.

      In the darkness the ticking of the little nickel-plated clock became intolerable. It seemed that hours had passed before Lavender stirred and came upright.

      He moved quietly to the window, and in the poor light from the street lamp opposite, looked at his watch. I noted that he kept out of sight of the street.

      “Ten minutes more,” he whispered; and again it seemed that the moments crawled.

      Ashenhurst moved to my friend’s side, and stood behind the curtains. I instantly followed, overpoweringly curious. Lavender drew our heads together and spoke in a sharp whisper against our ears.

      “If he does not come tonight, Gilruth and I shall stay here all night. If he comes, as usual, Gilruth shall stay the night alone, and I shall go home.”

      But he came—whoever he may have been.

      Lavender’s ears were sharp, but it was the ears of Ashenhurst that first caught the distant patter of feet, as his clutch on our arms betrayed. In a moment we all heard them, swift and terrible in the silence; and convinced as I was that the thing could not be, I felt my scalp stir.

      Then the half-darkness opened, and the white figure raced past, as Ashenhurst, with a sharp breath, flung both arms about my shoulders and clung. Lavender’s face was a mask set with glittering eyes. And incredible as it might be, it was the stone figure of the white faun that shot by under the window. The lamplight shone on its white clustered curls and shining shoulders, and made a glory of its body in the instant of its passing.

      In the stunned silence that followed, Lavender leaped for the electric lamp on the table and snapped on the current, then leaped again for the door.

      “Stay here with Ashenhurst, Gilly,” he crisply ordered. “If there should be trouble, call me at home in an hour, or any time after that. At any rate, see me in the morning.”

      A moment later we heard him plunging down the stairs on light feet, heard the street door close behind him, and from the open window saw him run off in the darkness in the direction taken by the fleeing figure.

      III

      The rest of the night was uneventful. In effect, we slept upon our arms, vaguely alarmed by Lavender’s final remark; but no further sound disturbed the quiet of the little street, and the house itself was silent as a tomb. Not a soul, apparently, had been aroused by Lavender’s departure. In the morning, not much refreshed, we both betook ourselves to Lavender’s room, for Ashenhurst declared himself much too curious, not to say nervous, to think of work that day.

      We discovered the detective deep in a file of The Playbill, borrowed from a neighboring public library reading-room. His feet were on the piano bench on which stood his typewriter, and the room was thick with tobacco fumes. He was shaved but otherwise his appearance was negligée in an extreme degree. He greeted our advent with an appraising grin.

      “Had breakfast? So have I! Well, watchmen, what of the night?”

      Ashenhurst replied for us both that it had been excessively tame. “Anything,” he added, “would have been anti-climax after our adventure.”

      “Yes,” agreed Lavender, “destiny is frequently a bit of an artist. My own adventures ended at the same time.”

      “He got away, then?” I eagerly inquired.

      “Clean as a whistle! I rather expected he would. My start was a trifle late. The best I hoped for was a glimpse, but I was denied even that. The street was blank from end to end when I emerged from the house, and the boulevard was equally deserted. That, of course, is significant, eh?”

      “You mean that he didn’t run far? That he may have turned in some place?”

      “That is one explanation. Another is that an auto was waiting for him at the corner, engine running and all ready for a quick start. That, as a matter of fact, is what I had in mind when I ran out. I thought that at least I might hear it departing. Not a sound! You may be right about his turning in some place; it’s the logical assumption, for I wasn’t far behind him, surely.”

      “In heaven’s name,” broke in Ashenhurst, “what was it? Who was he, if it was a man?”

      “I can’t say, of course; but I did get an idea during the night, and it has involved all this reading without much result.” He indicated the scattered journals and smiled faintly.

      “Why The Playbill?” I asked.

      “Why not?” countered Lavender. “The fellow is no amateur, I fancy. He ran like a professional of some kind—and jumped like a Russian dancer. Consider that, now, in connection with his amazing make-up, and there emerges somebody connected with the stage. Don’t you think?”

      “Um-m! Maybe!” I was not enthusiastic.

      “Oh, it’s a long shot, of course. But we must consider probabilities until they are shown to be improbabilities. I base my idea on more than a superficial appearance. I’ve been trying to guess what lies behind.”

      “I lay awake guessing half the night,” contributed Ashenhurst bitterly.

      “And