Chapter XVI

Zenda Films, Incorporated, occupied the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth floors of the newly named--though Clancy didn't know it--Zenda Building. In the lobby was a list of the building's tenants, and it stated that the executive offices of Zenda Films were on the tenth floor.

An office-boy heard her name, asked if she had an appointment, and reluctantly, upon her stating that she had, turned toward an inner room, casting over his shoulder the statement that he didn't think Mr. Zenda was in.

But from the room toward which he was making his sullen way--that sullen way peculiar to office-boys--emerged a tall young man, garbed in the height of Broadway fashion. He advanced beamingly to Clancy.

"Miss Deane? Please come right in."

Clancy followed him through the door, across an inner room, and into a further chamber beyond. And the instant she was inside that second room, Clancy knew that she had been a gullible fool, for instead of Zenda, she beheld Grannis.

But what was somehow more terrifying still, she saw beside Grannis, his thick features not good-humored to-day, the face of Weber. She didn't scream--Clancy was not the sort who would use valued and needed energy in vocalities--she turned. But the tall youth had deftly locked the door behind her. He faced her with a triumphant grin, then stepped quickly to one side; the key which he had been holding in his hand he transferred to the hand of Grannis, who put it, with an air of grim finality, into his trousers pocket.

Clancy knew when she was beaten, knew, at least, when the first round had gone against her. She did the one thing that rendered uncertain the mental attitudes of her captors. She walked coolly to a chair and sat.

Grannis, expecting to see a girl reduced by fright to hysteria, eyed her bewilderedly. He had intended to be calm, intending, by calm, to convince Clancy that her danger was the greater. Now he lapsed, at the start, into nervous irritation, the most certain sign of indecision.

"Pretty cool about it, Miss Deane, aren't you?"

Clancy knew, somehow, that her cool desperation had given her, in some inexplicable fashion, an equally inexplicable advantage.

"Why not?" she asked.

Grannis' sallow face reddened.

"Will you feel that way when you see a policeman?" he demanded.

"You talked about policemen yesterday," said Clancy. "Don't talk about them to-day. I want to see Mr. Zenda," she added.

Weber interjected himself into the scene.

"I suppose you do. But you see, Florine, my little dear, we're seeing you first. And you're seeing us first."

"Pretty clever of you, writing to Zenda," said Grannis. "Never occurred to you that, getting a letter from you, I might run through Zenda's mail, looking for a note in the same handwriting, eh?"

"No-o, it didn't," said Clancy slowly. "Yet, I suppose I should have known that one kind of crook is another kind, too."

Grannis nodded his head. His underlip came forward a trifle.

"I'll give you credit; you're game enough. If being a fool can be called gameness. And any one that parts with a thousand dollars in this town is certainly a fool. But _that's_ all right. You probably don't need money. 'Little Miss Millions' is your name, I suppose."

Clancy yawned.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mr. Grannis, but if you're being funny, I somehow can't get it."

"You will!" snapped Grannis. "Look here, Miss Deane! You're breaking into matters that don't concern you."

"I suppose I am," said Clancy.

She turned to Weber.

"I understood that New York's climate was bad for you," she said.

"Not half as unhealthy as it's going to be for you, Florine," he retorted. "You can make up your mind this minute. Either out of town for yours or the Tombs. Take your pick."

He had advanced threateningly until he stood over Clancy. Grannis pushed him aside.

"Let me handle her," he said. "Now, let's get down to cases, Miss Deane. Ike never done anything to you, did he?" Clancy shrugged. "'Course he didn't," said Grannis. "Then why not be a regular feller and keep out of things that don't concern you? Zenda never paid the rent for you, did he? No. We're willing to pay the rent and the eats, too, for a long while to come. That thousand is only a part. Listen: Ike got me on the long-distance last night. I told him it's O. K. to come back to town, that Zenda, with you keeping your face closed, couldn't do a thing to him. And then I get your letter this morning, and grab your note to Zenda. I find out that you're giving me the double cross. Well, we won't quarrel about it. Maybe you think Zenda is a heavier payer than I'd be. But you'd have to gamble on that, wouldn't you? You don't have to gamble on me. You take ten thousand dollars and leave town for just six months. That's all I ask. How about it?"

"I thought that you were Zenda's partner," said Clancy. Her pretty lips curled in the faintest contemptuous sneer.

"Never mind about that," snapped Grannis. "You're not talking to any one's partner, now. You're just talking to me."

"And me," put in Weber.

"And both of you want me to help you in swindling Mr. Zenda?" said Clancy.

Weber took a step toward her, his big fist clenched. Once again, Grannis intervened.

"Never mind the rough stuff, Ike!" he cried. "Let me handle her. Now, Miss Deane, are you going to listen to sense? Ike is back in town. He don't feel like skipping out every time you get a change of heart. And listen to this: Ike is a good-hearted guy, at that. All you can tell Zenda won't _prove_ anything. It'll just cause a lot of trouble--that's all. It'll make a bunch of scandal, you claiming that Fay Marston told you that Ike was gyping Zenda, but it won't _prove_ much."

"I don't suppose that your offering me money to leave town will prove anything, either," said Clancy.

"I'll just say you lie," said Grannis.

"I wonder which one of us Mr. Zenda will believe," retorted Clancy.

"I've never been in jail. I've got no criminal record," said Grannis.

"Neither have I!" cried Clancy.

Grannis smiled. It was a nasty smile, a smile that chilled Clancy. The advantage that she had felt was somehow hers seemed to have left her. She became suddenly just what she always was, a young girl, unwise in the ways of the metropolis. Courage, desperation made her forget this, but when courage ebbed, though ever so slightly, she became fearful, conscious of a mighty aloneness. She felt this way now.

For Grannis turned and walked to a farther door, opposite the one which the tall youth had locked. He opened it and cried out dramatically,

"Come in, Mrs. Weber!"

Clancy's fingers stopped drumming on the table. She eyed, wonderingly and fearfully, the tall figure of Fay Marston, who was cloaked in a short squirrel-skin jacket. Below that appeared the skirt of a dark-blue dress. Her shoes, despite the inclement weather, were merely slippers. Her blond hair was almost entirely hidden by a jaunty hat, also of a squirrel-skin. Altogether, she was an amazingly prosperous-seeming individual. And she was the sort of person to whom prosperity would always bring insolence of manner. Her expression now was languidly insulting as she looked at Clancy.

"This the woman?" asked Grannis.

Fay nodded.

"She's the one."

"No question about it, is there?" demanded Weber.

"Why, you know there isn't," said Fay, in apparent surprise. "I took her to Zenda's party at the Château de la Reine, and, later, up to his apartment. You was with us all the time."

"Yes," said Weber; "but two identifications are better than one, you know." He turned to Grannis. "You might as well call him in," he said.

Grannis had been standing by the door. He swung it wide, and called,

"Come in, officer."

Clancy's fingers clenched. It seemed to her like a scene in a play or a moving picture--Fay's identification of her, Grannis' dramatic manner at the door, and now the entrance of a policeman.

Grannis pointed to Clancy.

"Arrest her, officer!" he cried.

The uniformed man moved toward Clancy. She shrunk away from him.

"What for?" she cried.

"You'll find out soon enough," said the policeman, with a grin.

Fay Marston laughed shrilly.

"Ain't that like a thief, though? Trust her kind to have nerve!"

"'Thief!'" Clancy stared at her.

"Thief's what I said, and it's what I mean, too."

It was too absurd! Had the charge been that of murder, Clancy would not have laughed. That charge would soon be made against her. But, until it was----

"What am I supposed to have stolen?" Clancy asked.

"You ain't _supposed_ to have stolen anything," said Weber. "You're _known_ to have stolen a pearl necklace from my wife."

"A pearl necklace," said Fay glibly. "She came into my room at the Napoli. I was packin', officer, gettin' ready to take a little trip with my husband. I asked her to pack the necklace and some other things for me. She said she'd put them in a bag. The necklace was missin' when I opened the bag next day."

Clancy laughed. It was ridiculous.

"You can't arrest me on a story like that!" she cried.

"Not if we produce the pawnbroker where you pawned the pearls?" sneered Weber.

"You can't," said Clancy.

Yet, as she looked from his sneering face to the threatening eyes of Grannis, she wondered whether or not they could. She had read of "frame-ups." Was it possible that she was to be the victim of one?

"Like to talk it over a bit?" asked Grannis. She made no verbal answer, but her expression was reply enough. "Wait in the next room, officer," said Grannis.

The policeman looked undecided.

"It ain't regular," he muttered.

"I know it isn't," said Grannis, "but--under the circumstances----"

"All right," said the officer.

He walked through the door, which Grannis closed after him. Then Zenda's sallow-faced partner came close to Clancy.

"I'm going to talk turkey," he declared. "You've butted in on a game that's a whole lot bigger than you are, little girl. We don't want to ride you, but we ain't going to let you ride us, neither. It's up to you. Fay will swear that you took her necklace. We've got a pawnbroker all lined up. He'll not only identify you but he'll produce his books and the necklace that you stole. We're in earnest. Now--will you take ten thousand and--get?"

Clancy was beaten; she knew it; at least, she had lost the second round. That it was the final round she could not believe. And yet, if she refused their money, they'd not believe her. They would take her to jail. By this time, Vandervent's men were doubtless searching for her. With the ten thousand dollars she might flee. She wouldn't use a penny of it. But she'd take it, merely in order that they'd believe her. She let Grannis press the money into her hand.

Head down, she heard Grannis call in the policeman and state that she had promised to make restitution. The policeman, with some grumbling, left. Clancy supposed that it was an ordinary sort of thing; the officer was venal, would be unfaithful to his duty for the sake of a few dollars.

She listened apathetically to Grannis' threats. They didn't interest her. New York had whipped her.

Yet, when she left the building, she stopped before a hotel across the street. There she tried to engage a taxi-cab to take her up to Park Avenue. But the taximen were emulating their millionaire brethren. They were profiteering. Inasmuch as the travel was difficult because of the snow, the man wanted triple fare. Clancy couldn't afford it.

She tramped across Forty-second Street to Fifth Avenue, fought her way, buffeted by the wind, up to Forty-eighth, and then crossed over to Park avenue. She didn't know exactly where Zenda lived, but she did know that it was a corner apartment-building on the east side of the avenue. Her fourth inquiry was rewarded with the information that Zenda lived there. But when her name was telephoned up-stairs, word came back that Mr. Zenda had been taken ill last night with influenza, and was unconscious at the moment.

She turned away. The Fates were against Clancy and with her enemies.

Still--she had ten thousand dollars in her pocketbook. One could do a great deal with ten thousand dollars. But she dismissed the temptation as quickly as it had come to her. She'd go home and wait the certain arrival of Vandervent's men.

She shrugged, her lips curling in a self-amused smile. She'd been frightened at arrest on a trumped-up charge, while imminent arrest on a charge that would be supported by strong circumstantial evidence was just round the corner. She was a funny person, this Clancy. Little things scared her; big things-- But big things scared her, too. For when Mrs. Gerand met her at the door of the lodging-house, after Clancy had survived the perilous journey down Fifth Avenue on the 'bus, the landlady's first words were that a gentleman awaited her. Not until Randall had held her hand a full minute could Clancy realize that it wasn't a detective from the district attorney's office.