Chapter XIV: Love’s Alarm

Cornelius Hart surprised and delighted Margot with his unsuspected power for dramatic narrative. It was almost as exciting, she told him sweetly, as if she had been present at the pursuit, discovery and final capture of Murchison.

“… and so, after we’d smashed in his door, and searched everywhere in his almost empty room, I knew there was only one place he could be. He’d locked himself into the room, for the lodging-house woman next door was positive she’d seen him go up a short time before. She was equally sure he hadn’t come down again. Funny, the way those dames keep track of their lodgers!” The amused reflection cut into his narrative.

“Yes, isn’t it!” Margot laughed, with a sudden picture of her own landlady snooping around in halls and outside of doors.

“Well, as I was saying, I knew he was inside that room. There was no roof, like outside that room of yours, for him to get out on and no fire-escape either. I took one look at the hole he’d dug to get into this house, and I had a pretty good hunch where the old fellow was hiding. So we poked into it. I’ll be damned if he hadn’t crawled so far in, and was so tightly wedged in the tunnel, that it took two of us to drag him out by his heels.”

“Poor old thing, I’m a little sorry for him, after all.” Margot’s tender heart was not proof even against the menace of a criminal who might have threatened her own safety.

“Don’t waste your pity, Miss Anstruther! He’s a hard old nut. But I’ll say this much for him--he didn’t squeal on the man involved with him the night the girl had her arm chopped off.”

“I didn’t think he would,” Margot said, smiling at Gene. “Honor among thieves, Mr. Hart.”

“He may tell yet. We haven’t grilled him yet. Wait till he’s brought to trial. That’ll be the test, when he’ll have a chance to get off light by squealing.”

“Rotten ethics, I should say!” Margot’s lips curled with scorn for the strange and devious ways of the law and of what is called justice.

“Well, that’s the way it’s always been, and always will be, I guess. Of course you’ll have to be present at the trial, Miss Anstruther.” He looked at her as if expecting a feminine protest, but Margot only laughed.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world! And besides,” she added seriously, “I’m sincerely interested in that poor girl, so I’d want to be on hand for her sake, even if I didn’t have to be.”

When Hart had gone, Margot stared thoughtfully at Gene.

“I do hope,” she said anxiously, “that I’ll be able to get a light sentence for that poor girl. Wish I could get her off altogether, but I’m afraid there’s no hope for that.”

“Guess not. But if _anyone_ can influence the judge in her favor, you can, Margot, in the circumstances. Shouldn’t be surprised if she’d go straight after this, if they give her half a chance.”

“I’m _sure_ of it. She’s got a real brain in that small head of hers, but she’s had a rotten run for her money all her young life. ‘_Nous allons changer tout cela_’, as the French say. But my _next_ job is to tackle our friend Stoner, through Corinne. And then--well, there’ll be time for another matter of importance before the trial.”

“Now what the devil have you up your sleeve?” Gene frowned impatiently.

“Oh, a most important and thrilling affair that will demand all my thought and time--for a few weeks.”

Gene’s despair was obvious. It would appear that the mystery, apparently cleared up, had fallen again. Apparently Margot was not yet ready to give him--and his love for her--their due place in the scheme of things.

“Don’t you wish you knew?” she teased him. “All in good time, old dear.”

“But, Margot, there’s a limit to my endurance. I’m madly in love with you, and you promised to face that particular tragedy--and it most certainly is a tragedy for me until I can end this suspense--as soon as you cleared up the mystery. Now it’s cleared up, and you actually have the nerve to tell me that when you’ve cleaned up Delamar and Stoner, you’ve still got another important matter to adjust!”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Her eyes tried to look dreamily absent, in a mist of uncertainty, but she couldn’t prevent the spark of laughter and roguish dart of mischief as her glance met his.

“You _are_ a little devil!” He made a rush at her, but she was too quick for him.

“Come on, now, Gene! I’m famished and I’m sure you are too. Let’s celebrate with a good dinner somewhere which includes the privilege of buying as many cocktails as we can swallow. I feel just like it, and I know just the place. Come on!”

Cocktails and dinner and jazz! It was the cheeriest, jolliest evening Margot had enjoyed since the night of her now famous party. The late editions of the evening papers gave a grotesquely lurid account of the arrest of Murchison and of the events leading up to it, events in which Margot Anstruther, the beautiful and clever young screen star--a star, mind you!--had played the rôle of detective in the most thrilling of mystery stories since the time of Sherlock Holmes. Some particularly enterprising reporter had got hold of a picture of Margot--a “still” from the studio--in the costume of “Conchita.” The morning papers would of course have additional details--most of them Simon Pure inventions, unless she interviewed the reporters, which she did, later in the evening, before going home.

Margot and Gene took bets as to what Stoner would do on reading the news about Murchison and the stolen radium. Gene bet that he would give himself away by his consciousness of guilt. Margot believed that he would bluff it out, and would try to get word to Murchison, to attempt to bribe the old man not to drag him into it.

“Of course,” Margot said, “he’s been on pins and needles for fear I’d unearth something. But now that the story of the radium and Stella’s arm has come out, and Stoner’s name hasn’t been remotely referred to, I think he’ll feel quite safe except for Murchison. You wait and see if I’m not right.”

“As you’ve been right about everything else to date, I’ll take your word for it, Margot.”

She refused throughout the evening to talk about herself. When Gene took her home, she let him go into her room to smoke a cigarette, but love-making seemed to be taboo. She was tired, she was nervous, she was sleepy--any one of the hundred things a woman can be when she doesn’t want a man’s caresses. Finally Gene, baffled and a little resentful, rose to go.

He bent over her, his eager eyes and lips demanding at least a good-night kiss. She rose slowly and put both hands on his shoulders, looking him squarely in the eyes, without the suspicion of a smile. She said solemnly:

“You may kiss me good night, Gene--as a _brother_. It may be for the very last time,” with which vague threat she kissed him herself, on the lips, in a frankly sisterly manner, and she laughed suddenly into his puzzled eyes.

Puzzlement changed quickly to resentment. She saw his eyes darken and flash, and his lips tighten. He drew back and shook off her hands from his shoulders. Then he said quietly:

“You’re making a fool of me, Margot, and I don’t particularly relish it. If my love for you strikes you merely as a joke, or something to be sisterly about, it’s time I got out from under. I’m getting a little tired of mysteries and of a game which amuses only one of us.”

Surprised, then suddenly angry at his impatience and failure to respond to her mood, Margot spoke coldly.

“Your remark about getting out from under would seem to imply that I’ve been trying to _hold_ you. That’s a little far-fetched, isn’t it, Gene?”

He took a step nearer to her, his eyes glowing with suddenly released passion. With a sweep of his arm he seized her and crushed her against him. He bent his head and kissed her eyes and then her mouth as he had never dared to kiss her before. She was too startled to struggle in his arms, and as suddenly as he had seized her he let her go. His lips, trembling from their passionate contact with hers, formed words that tumbled brokenly, one over the other.

“_That’s_--just how--_brotherly_--I feel--for you. That’s the way--I’m going to kiss you--if at all. I’ll never kiss you again--I’ll never _see_ you--again--unless you send for me--to be your husband--or your lover.” He seemed to fling the last word at her in bitter defiance.

“Your--technique--hasn’t improved.” She knew that it had, but she said that, urged by a vague, primitive desire to see what he would do if further exasperated. She might have known that he would take her a little too literally.

“No,” he said, with slow bitterness. “I don’t suppose it has,” and with that, and before she could detain him with a word or look, he tore open her door and slammed it behind him.

Silly--silly, of them both, Margot reflected, as she undressed. Of course Gene would get over his extraordinary burst of angry resentment, and, of course, when he understood just what she had meant by saying that he could give her a brotherly kiss for the last time, he would be sorry he had been so fierce. However, it was rather interesting and exciting to find that Gene _could_ be fierce like that.

She touched her lips softly, still feeling the pressure of his. She smiled and a little thrill of genuine emotion made her tremble. For the first time in several nights, Margot slept the dreamless sleep of a happy, healthy girl who is in love with life and in love with a man. Gene’s outburst had made very clear to her that she loved him. She would call him back, oh, yes, nothing would be easier, but she would wait until.… Into unconsciousness she carried the vision of his face with its dark, flashing eyes, and the touch of his lips on hers.