THE DESTROYING ANGEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 822, 16 November 1929, Page 22

THE DESTROYING ANGEL

BY

LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

(Copyright by Public Ledger.)

CHAPTER VI. i Continued i. j Irresponsibly. hi~ wife re-embraied ! the memory he had of the woman I who alone held the key to his matri-j monial entanglement. The business \ i bound his imagination with an iu- ; elm 1 table fascination. No matter how ‘ ; far his thought s wandered, they were j | sure to return to beat themselves to , w. ariness against that hard-faced 1 rays!ory, lik- moths bewitched by the light behind a clouded window glass. I’ "as very curious th>- thought > that nl and so inrested a’ one anil the same time, j The. possibility that she might, have ' married a second time did not. dis- ! turb his pulse by the least, fraction iof a beaf. He even contemplated the chance that she might be dead with normal equanimity., Fortunate that he didn't love her. More fortunate I still that he loved no one else. It occurred to him suddenly that 1 i» "cold take a ions time for a letter to elicit information from Berlin. Incontinently he wrote and dispatched a long, extravagant cablegram to Mrs. Pettit in care of the American Embassy, little doubting that she would immediately answer. Then he set wholeheartedly about the business of making himself presentable for the evening. When eventually he strode into the White Room Max was already established at the famous little table in tile south-east corner. Whitaker was conscious of turning heads and guarded comment, as he took his place , opposite the little fat man. i ' .Make you famous in a night." Max assured him importantly. "Don't i happen to need any notoriety, do i you?" “No, thanks.” “Dine with me here three nights hand-running and they'll let you into the Syndicate by the back door without even asking your name. P.T.A.'s one grand little motto, mv bov ” “P.T.A.?” "Pays to advertise. Paste that in

your hat, keep your head small enough to wear it, and don't givadam if folks do think you’re an addlepated village eut-up, and you'll have this town at heel like a good dog as long as—well.” Max wound up v hh a short laugh, "as long as vour luck lasts.”

“Yours seems to be pretty healthy —no signs of going into a premature decline.”

Ah said Max gloomily. “Seems!” With a morose manner he devoted himself to his soup. l.ook me over,” he requested abruptly, leaning back. "[ guess I'm some giddy young buck, what?” Whitaker reviewed the striking effect Max had created bv encasing his brief neck and double chin in an old-fashioned high collar and black silk stock, beneath which his important chest was protected by an elaborately frilled shirt decorated with black pearl studs. His waist was strapped in by a pique waistcoat edged with black, and there was a distinctly perceptible "invisible” stripe in the material of his evening coat and trousers.

"Dressed up like a fool,” Max summed up the ensemble before his guest could speak. "Would vou beneve that despair could gnaw' at the l vitals of any one as wonderfully arrayed? ! not '” Whitaker asserted I ody , ' vould '” said Max mourn--1 fully And yet, ’tis true.” | "Meaning ?” AN OFFER Oil. 1 m just down i n tile mouth | because this is Sara's last appearl duce Max motioned the waiter to remove the debris of a course. "I'm as superstitious as any trouper in he pi otesslon. I've got it in mv knob 'hat sues mv mascot. If she leaves me my luck goes with her. I neve? had any luck until she came under nn management, and I don't expect to hate any after she retires. I made at. all i ight, but she made me. too; and it sprains my sense of good busi- , ness to break up a paying combination like that. " ; "Nonsense." Whitaker contended warmly. "If l m not mistaken, you were telling me this afternoon that you stand next to Belasco as a producing manager. The loss of one star isMt’”° ,nS *° r ° b you of that Prestige, "You never can tell,” the little man contended darkly; "I wouldn't bet 30 cents my next production would turn out a hit.” What will it cost—your next pro- : duct ion j The show I have in rniud ” j - lax considered a moment then anj S n ?w2° S^ Vely: “Between eighteen i and twent> thousand. J call that big gambling ” "Gambling? Oh. that's just part of tne game. I meant a side bet. If the production flivvers. I ll need that 30 cents for coffee and sinkers at Dennett's. So I won't bet. . . . But,” lie volunteered brightly, "i'll sell vou a half interest in the show for twelv -I . thousand.” Is that a threat or a promise?” it 1 mean it. Max insisted seriously; j though I'll admit I'm not crazy about i you accepting—yet. I've had 'several : i lose calls witlt Sara—she's threatened I i to chuck tile stage often before this; | but every time something happened to i make her change her mind. I've got a 1 hunch maybe something will happen I this time, too. If it does, I won't 1 want any partners.” Whitaker laughed quietly and! turned the conversation, accepting the f manager s pseudo-confidences at their face value—that is. as pure bluff, 1 quite consistent with the managerial pose. They rose presently and made their way out into the crowded, blatant night of Broadway. "We'll walk, if you don't mind.” Max suggested. “It isn't far. and I'd like to 1 get a line on the house as it goes in ” I Tie sighed affectedly. "Heaven knows ! when I'll see another swell audience 1 mobbing one of my attractions!” His companion raised no objection. ! This phase of the life of New York exerted an attraction for his imagination of unfailing potency. He was more willing to view it afoot than from the windows of a cab. They pushed forward slowly ; through the eddying rides, elbowed by! a. matchless motley of humanity, deaf- i ened by Its thousand tongues, dazzled , to blindness by walls of living light. ; i Whitaker experienced a sensation of :

participating in a royal progress: Max was plainly a man of mark; he left a wake of rippling interest. At every j step somebody hailed him, as a rule j by his first tame: generally he re-1 sponded by a curt nod and a tightening of his teeth upon his cigar. CHAPTER VII. AT THE THEATRE They turned east through 46th Street, shouldered by a denser rabble whose faces, all turned in one direction. shone livid with the glare of a gigantic electric sign, midwav down the block: Theatre Max - SARA LAW’S FAREWELL It was nearly half-past S; the house had been open since 7; and still a queue ran from the gallery doors to Broadway, while still an apparently interminable string of vehicles writhed from one corner to the lobby entrance, paused to deposit its perishable freight. and streaked away to 6th Avenue. The lobby itself was crowded to suffocation with an Occidental durbar of barbaric magnificence, the city’s supreme manifestation of its religion, the ultimate rite in the worship of the pomps of the flesh. "‘Look at that.” Max grumbled through his cigar. ‘‘Ain’t it a shame?” “What?” Whitaker had to lift his voice to make it carry above the buzzing of the throng. “The money I'm losing,” returned the manager, vividly disgusted. “1 could’ve filled the Metropolitan Opera House three times over!” He swung on his heel and began to push his way out of the lobby. “Come along—no use trying to get in this way.” Whitaker followed, to be led down a blind alley between the theatre and the adjoining hotel. An illuminated sign advertised the stage door, through which, via a brief hallway, they entered the postscenium—a vast, cavernous, cluttered, shadowy and drafty place, made visible for the most part by an unnatural glow filtering from the footlights through the canvas walls of an interior set. Whitaker caught hasty glimpses of stage-hands idling about: heard a woman’s voice declaiming loudly from within the set; saw a middle-aged actor waiting for his cue beside a substantial wooden door in the canvas walls; and —Max dragging him by the arm—passed through a small door into the gangway behind the boxes.

‘‘Curtain’s just up,” Max told him; “Sara doesn’t come on till near the I middle of the act. Make yourself | comfortable: I'll be back before long.” i He drew aside a curtain and ushered ! his guest into the right-hand stagei box, then vanished. Whitaker, findj ing himself the sole occupant of the box, established himself in desolate grandeur as far out of sight as he could arrange his chair without losing j command of the stage. A single glance S glance over the body of the house | showed him tier upon tier of dead- ! white shirt-bosoms framed in black, » alternating with bare gleaming shouldt ers and dazzling exquisite gowns. The i few empty stalls were rapidly filling I up. There was a fluent movement through the aisles. A subdued hum and rustle rose from that portion of the audience which was already seated. The business going on upon the stage was receiving little attention —from Whitaker as little as from any I one. He was vaguely conscious only jof a scene suggesting with cruel j cleverness the interior of a shabby- ; genteel New York flat and of a few | figures peopling it, all dominated by a heavy-limbed, harsh-voiced termagant, j That to which he was most sensitive i was a purely psychological feeling of ' suspense and excitement, a semi- ; hysterical, high-strung, emotional state : which he knew he shared with the j audience, its source in fact. The , opening scene in the development of ! the drama interested the gathering little or not at all: it was hanging in | suspense upon the unfolding of some j extraordinary development, something j unprecedented and extraneous, foreign to the play.

Was it due simply to the fact that all these people were present at the last public appearance—as advertised —of a star of unusual popularity ? Whitaker wondered. Or was there something else in their minds, something deeper and more profoundly significant? Max slipped quietly into the box and handed his guest a programme. ‘‘Better get over here,” he suggested in a hoarse whisper, indicating a chair uear the rail. “You may never have another chance to see the greatest living actress.” Whitaker thanked him and adopted the suggestion, albeit with reluctance. The manager remained standing for a moment, quick eyes ranging over the house. By this time the aisles were all clear, the rows of seats presenting an almost unbroken array of upturned faces. DRUMMOND ABSENT Max combined a nod denoting satisfaction with a slight frown. “Wonderful house,” he whispered, sitting down behind Whitaker. “Drummond hasn't shown up yet, though.” “That so?” Whitaker returned over his shoulder. “Yes, it’s funny; never knew him to be so late. He always has the aisle seat, fourth row, centre. But he’ll be along presently.” Whitaker noted that the designated stall was vacant, then tried to fix his attention upon the stage; but without much success. After a few moments he became aware that he had missed something important: the scene was meaningless to him, lacking what had gone before. He glanced idly at his programme, Indifferently absorbing the information that “Jules Max has the honour to present Miss Sara Law in her first and greatest success entitled ‘Joan Thursday’—a play in three acts —” The audience stirred expectantly; i movement ran through it like the movement of waters, murmurous upon i shore. Whitaker’s gaze was drawn ;o the stage as if by an implacable * f orc*e. Max shifted on the chair Iklind him and said something indis- : inguishable in an unnatural tone. A woman had come upon the stage, •uddenly and tempestuously, banging i door behind her. The audience got he barest glimpse of her profile as. >ausing momentarily, she eyed the

other actors. Then, without speaking. ; < she turned and walked up-stage, her j ] back to the footlights. j i Applause broke out like a thunder- j clap, pealing heavily through the big j j auditorium, but the actress showed no I « consciousness of it. She was standing j < before a cheap mirror, removing her! hat, arranging her hair with the typi- j ■ cal, unconscious gestures of a weary shopgirl: she was acting—living the i scene, with no time to waste in pandering to her popularity by bows and set smiles; she remained before the! glass, prolonging the business, until ■ the applause subsided. "Whitaker received an impression as of a tremendous force at work across i the footlights. The woman diffused j an effect as of a terrible and bound- j less energy under positive control. She was not merely an actress, not . even merely a great actress', she was the very soul of the drama of today, j A PLAY WITHIN A PLAY Beyond this he knew in his heart that she was his wife. Sara Law was I the woman he had married in that sleepy Connecticut town six years be- j fore that night. He had not yet seen her face clearly, but. he knew. To find himself mistaken would have shaken the foundations'Of his understanding. Under cover of the applause he turned to Max. “Who is that? What is her name?” “The divine Sara,” Max answered, his eyes shining. "I mean, what is her name off the [ stage, in private life?” "The same," Max nodded with conduction; "Sara Law’s the only name ■ she's ever worn in my acquaintance ! with her.” | At that moment, the applause liavj ing subsided to such an extent that it ! was possible for her to make herself heard, the actress swung round from : the mirror and addressed one of the other players. Her voice was clear, strong and vibrant, yet sweet; but Whitaker paid no heed to The lines she spoke. lie was staring, fascinated, at her face. Sight of it set the seal of certainty j upon conviction; she was one with j Mary Ladislas. He had forgotten her | j so completely in the lapse of years j as to have been unable to recall her i features and colouring, yet he had needed only to see to recognise her beyond any possibility of doubt. Those big, intensely burning eyes, that drawn and pallid face, the quick, nervous movements of her thin white hands, the slenderness of her tall, awkward, immature figure—in every line and contour, in every gesture and inflection, she reproduced the Mary Ladislas whom he had married. And yet , . . Max was whispering over l his shoulder: “Wonderful make-up—what?” “Make-up!” Whitaker retorted. “She's not made up—she's herself to the last detail.” Amusement glimmered in the manager’s round little eyes: “You don’t know her. Wait till you get a pipe at her off the stage.” Then he checked the reply that was shaping on Whitaker’s lips, with a warning lift of his hand and brows: “Ssh! i Catch this. now. She's a wonder in I this scene.” j The superb actress behind the i i counterfeit of the hunted and hungry j shopgirl was holding spellbound I with her inevitable witchery the most I sophisticated audience in the world; j like wheat in a windstorm it swayed ■ to the modulations of her marvellous I voice as it ran through a passage-at-arms with the termagant. Sud- I denly ceasing to speak, she turned I down to a chair near the footlights, followed by a torrent of shrill vituper- i ation under the lash of which she \ quivered like a whipped thoroughbred. Abruptly, pausing with her bauds on the back of the chair, there came a change. The actress had glanced across the footlights; Whitaker could not but follow the direction of her gaze; the eyes of both focussed for a brief instant on the empty aisle-seat in the fourth row. A shade of additional pallor showed on the woman's face. She looked quickly, questioningly, toward the box of her manager. Seated as he was so near the stage, Vi hitaker’s face stood out in rugged relief, illumined by the glow reflected ! j from the footlights. It was inevi- j j table that she should see him. Her I 1 eyes fastened, dilating, upon his. The j j scene faltered perceptibly. She stood ! ! transfixed. . . . “RING DOWN” In the hush Max cried impatiently: j | “What the devil!! The words broke the spell of amazement upon the I actress. In a twinkling the pitiful counterfeit of the shopgirl was rent and torn away; it hung only in shreds and tatters upon an individuality wholly strange to Whitaker; a larger, stronger woman seemed to have started out of the mask. She turned, calling imperatively into the wings: “Ring down!” Followed a pause of dumb amaze- ! m ©nt. In all the house, during the | space of thirty pulse-beats, no one moved. Then Max rapped out an oath and slipped like quicksilver from the box. Simultaneously the woman’s foot stamped an echo from the boards. j “Ring down!” she cried. “Do you! hear? Ring down!” With a rush the curtain descended j as pandemonium broke out on both i ! sides of it. I CHAPTER VIII. i ON BOTH SIDES OF THE CURTAIN j , Impulsively Whitaker got up to fol- j ! low Max. then hesitated and sank S hack in doubt, his head a whirl. He ; | was for the time being shocked out i jof capacity for clear reasoning i j or right thinking. Uppermost In his ! : consciousness he had a half-formed j ! notion that it wouldn’t help matters i if he were to force himself in upon the crisis behind the scenes. Beyond all question his wife had i recognised in him the man whom she had been given every reason to believe dead; a discovery so unnerving as to render her temporarily unable to continue. But if theatrical precedent were a reliable guide, she would presently pull herself together and go on; people of the stage seldom forget that their first duty is to the audience. If he sat tight and waited, all might yet be well—-as well as any such hideous coil could be hoped ever to be. . .

As has been indicated, he arrived at his conclusion through no such detailed argument: his mind leaped to it, and he rested upon if while still beset by a half score of tormenting considerations. This, then, explained Drummond’s reluctance to have him bidden to the supper party whatever ultimate course of action he planned to pursue, Drummond had been unwilling, perhaps pardonably so. to have bis romance overthrown and altogether shattered in a single day. And Drummond, too. must haveknown who Sara Law was, even while denying knowledge of the existence

of Mary Ladislas Whitaker. He hid j lied, lied desperately, doubi less meaning to encompass a marriage before Whitaker could find his wife, and so j furnish him with every reason that could influence an honorable man to ! disappear a second time. Herein, however, lay the reason tor j the lawyer’s failure to occupy his j stall on that farewell night. It was j just, posible that Whitaker would j not recognise his wife: and vice j versa: but it was a chance that 1 Drummond hadn't the courage to ! face. Even so, he might have hidden himself somewhere in the nouse. waiting and wanting to see what would happen. On the. other hand, Max to a certainty was ignorant of the relationship between his star and his oldtime friend, just as lie must have been ignorant of her identity with the onetime Mary Ladislas. For that matter. Whitaker had to admit that, damning as was the evidence to c ontrovert i the theory, Drummond might be just |as much in the dark as Max was. j There was always the chance that the i girl had kept her secret to herself, inviolate, informing neither her manager nor the man she had covenanted to wed. Drummond’s absence from the house might be due to any one of a hundred reasons other than that to which Whitaker inclined to assign it. It was only fair to suspend judgment. In the meantime . . . The audience was getting beyond control. The clamour of comment and questioning which had broken loose when fhe curtain fell was waxing and gaining a high querulous note of impatience. In the gallery the gods were beginning to testify to their normal intolerance, with shrill whistles, cat-calls, sporadic bursts of hand-clapping and a steady, sinister rumble of stamping fcei. In the orchestra and dress-circle people were moving about restlessly and talking at the top of their voices in order to make themselves heard above the growing din. Had there been music | to fill the interval, they might have j been more calm; but Max had fallen | in with the theatrical dernier cri and ! had eliminated orchestras from his j houses, employing only a peal of j gongs to ensure silence and attention before each curtain. Abruptly Max bimself appeared at one side of the proscenium arch. It was plain to those nearest the stage that he was seriously disturbed. There was a noticeable hesitancy in nis manner, a pathetic frenzy in his habitually mild and lustrous eyes. Advancing half-way to the middle of the apron, he paused, begging attention with a pudgy hand. It was a full minute before the gallery would let him be heard. “Ladies and gentlemen.” he announced plaintively, “I much regret •to inform you that Miss Law has suffered a severe nervous shock” —his gaze wandered in perplexed inquiry toward the right-hand stage-box, then | was hastily averted —“and will not be able to continue for a few* moments. llf you will kindly grant us your ! patience for a very few minute's . . .” !He backed precipitately from view, hounded by mocking applause. (To be continued on Monday.)