The DESTROYING ANGEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 840, 7 December 1929, Page 26

The DESTROYING ANGEL

BY

LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

(Copyright by Public Ledger.)

CHAPTER XL. | “I really don't mind.” he assured j her with a strange smile. “But .. . i would you mind excusing me. one ; moment? I’ve forgotten something ! very important.” “Why, certainly.” He was already at the telephone in the hallway, just beyond the livingroom door. it was impossible to escape overhearing his words. The woman listened perforce with in the beginning a little visible wonder, then j with astonishment, ultimately with a I consternation that shook her with j violent tremblings. "Hello,” said Whitaker, “get me Rector 2-200.”

“Hello! Rector 2-20 C? North German Line? . . . This is Mr. H. M. Whitaker. I telephoned you 15 minutes ago about a reservation on the George Washington, sailing on Saturday. . . . Yes . . . yes . . . yes, t promised to call for the ticket before noon, but I now find I shan't be able to go. Will you be kind enough to cancel it, if you please? . . . Thank you. . . . Good-bye.” But when he turned back into the living-room he found awaiting him a quiet and collected woman, perhaps a thought more pale than when she had entered, and with eyes that seemed a trifle darker, but on the whole positively the mistress of herself. "Why did you do that?” she asked evenly.

"Because,” said Whitaker, "i’ve had my eyes opened. I’ve been watching the finest living actress play a carefully rehearsed role, one that she had given long study and all her heart to : —but her interpretation didn’t ring j true. _Mary, I admit at first you got I me. t believed you meant what you | said. But only my mind believed ; it; my heart knew better, just .as it ! has always known better, although | this wretched time of doubt and misj ery and separation you’ve subjected us both to. And that was why i couldn’t trust myself to answer you, for if I had I should have laughed for joy. Oh, Mary, Mary,” he cried, his voice softening, “my dear, dear woman, you can’t lie to love!”

“You betray yourself in every dear word that would be heartless, in every adorable gesture that would seem final; And love knows better always. ... Of course, I shall be in that box tomorrow night; of course, I shall be there to witness your triumph! And after you’ve won it, dear, I shall carry you off with me. . . .” He opened his arms wide, but with a smothered cry she backed away, placing the table between them.

“No.” she protested, and the words were almost sobs; “no.” “Yes!” he exclaimed exultantly. “Yes! A thousand times ves! It must be so!” With a swift movement she seized her muff and scarf from the chair and fled to the door. There pausing, she turned her face white and blazing. ‘"■lt is not. true!” she cried. “You are mistaken. Do you hear me? You are utterly mistaken. I do not love you. You are mad to think of it. I have just told you I don’t love you. I am afraid of you; I daren’t stay with you for fear of you. I—l despise you!” “I don’t believe it!” he cried, advancing. But she was gone. The hall door slammed before he could reach it. He halted, turned back, his whole long body shaking, his face wrung with fear and uncertainty. “Which of us is right—she or I?”

Toward 8 in the evening, after a day-long search through all his accustomed haunts, Ember ran Whitaker to earth in the diningroom of the Primordial. The young man, alone at i table, was in the act of topping off ,au excellent dinner with a still more excellent cordial and a super-excel-lent cigar. His person seemed to diffuse a generous atmosphere of contentment and satisfaction, no less msotal than physical and singularly at variance with his appearance, which, moreover, was singularly out of keeping not only with his surroundings but also with his normal as peat.

He wore rough tweeds, and they were damp and baggy; his boots were muddy; his hair was a trifle disorderly. The ensemble made a figure wildly incongruous to the soberly spilendid and stately diuinghall of th£« Primordial Club, with its sparse patrcmage of members in evening dress. Ember, hiiuself as severely beautiful in black', and white as the ceremonious livcaty of today permits a man to be, wp#3 wonder-struck at sight of Whitaker in such unconventional guise, at such .a time, iu such a place. With neither invitation nor salutation, he slipped into a chair on the other side of the table, and stared. Whitaker snxilad benignantly upon him, and called a waiter. Ember, always abstemious, lifted his hand and smiled a. negative smile. Whitaker dismissed the waiter. “Well . . .?” he inquired cheerfully. “What right have-you got to look like that?” Ember dennanded. “The right of ,wery free-born American citizen, to mt.ke an ass of himself according to Hie dictates of his conscience. I’ve been exploring the dark backward and abysm of the Bronx —afoot. Got caught in the rain on the way home. Was late getting back, and dropped", iu here to celebrate.” “I’ve been looking for ytou everywhere. since morning,’’ “I suspected you would be- That’s why I went walking—to be lonesome and thoughtful tor once in a -way.” Ember stroked his chin . with thoughtful fingers. “You’ve heard the news, then?” “In three ways,” Whitaker returned, i with calm. “How’s that—three ways?” “Through the newspapers, tfie billboards, and —from the lips of my wife. Ember opened his eyes wide. “You’ve been to see her?” “On the contrary.” “The devil you say!”

“Slie called this morning- ” But Ember interrupted, thrusting a ready and generous hand across the table: “My dear man, T am gladl” Whitaker took the proffered hand readily and firmly. “Thank you. . . . I was saying: she called this morning to inform me that, though wedded once, we must be strangers now—and evermore!” “But, you— 7sf course —you argued that nonsense out of her head.” “To the contrary—again.” “But —my dear man! —you said you were celebrating; you permitted me to congratulate you just now ” “The point is,” ..said Whitaker, with a bland and confident grin.; “Eve succeeded in arguing that nonsense out of my head—not hers —mine.” CHAPTER; Kin. “You’re becomings more human word by word,” commented Ember with open approval: “Continue; elucidate; I can understand how. a-'faiiiy resolute • lover with the gift of gab can talk a weak-minded" fond female into denying her pet superstition; but how you’re going, to get round * Max passes my comprehension. The man unquestionably has her under contract—' “But you fbrgot • life god is Mammon,” Whitaker put in. “Mix will do anything in the world for money. Therein resides the kernel of my plan. It’s simplicity itself; I'm going to buy him.” “Buy Max!” “I doubt if you’ll succeed in getting the ear of the great man before mid-

night; however. I'm not disposed to quibble about a lew hours.” “But why shouldn’t I?”

“Because Max is going to be the busiest young person in town tonight. And that is why I’ve been looking for you. . . . Conforming to his custom, lie’s giving an advance glimpse of the production to the critics and a few friends in the form of a final grand dressrehearsal tonight. Again, in conformity with his custom, he has honoured me with a bid. I’ve been chasing you all day to find out if you’d care to

“Eight, o’clock and a bit after,” Whitaker interrupted briskly, consulting his watch. “Here, boy,” he hailed a passing page; “call a taxi for me.” And then, rising alertly, “Come along; I’ve got to hustle home and make myself look respectable enough for the occasion; but at that with luck, 1 fancy we’ll be there before the first curtain.” This mood of faith, of self-reliance and assured optimism held unruffled throughout the dash ' homeward, his hurried change of clothing and the ride to the Theatre. Nothing that Ember, purposely pessimistic, could say or do availed t.o.diminish the high buoyancy of his humour. He maintained a serene faith in his star, a spirited temper that refused to recognise obstacles in the his desire. ,-. . - . • - In the taxicab ni routu u> the Theatre Max he co.irtrivqd evairrtQjdistil a good omen from the dHvifig..’;tfitumnal downpour itself. . . .'The rain-swept pavements, their polished blackness shot with a thousand strands of golden brilliance; the painted bosom of the lowering, heavy sky; the teardrenched windowpanes; even the incessant crepitation on the roof of the scurrying, skidding cab seemed to lend a colour-of. assurance to bis thoughts. “On; such a day ■ as-t-hfs,” he told his doubting, friend, Jjd won her first; on such a day 1 shall win her anew, finally and for all time!” . . .

From Broadway to Sixth Avenue, Forty-sixth Street was bright with the yellow glare of the huge sign in front of the Theatre Max. But this night, unlike that other night when he had approached the stage of his wife’s triumphs, there was no crawling rank of cabs, no eager and curious press of .people in the street; but few vehicles disputed - their way; otherwise the rain and the hurrying raincoated wayfarers had the thoroughfare to themselves. . . . And even this he chose to consider a favourable omen—there was not now a public to come between him and his love —only Max and her frightened fancies. The man at the door recognised Ember with a cheerful nod; Whitaker he did not know.

“Just in time, Mr. Ember—curtain’s *Jt>een up about ten minutes.” The auditorium was in almost, total dferkness. A single voice was audible from the stage, that confronted it like some tremendous moonlight canvas in a huge frame of tarnished goM- They stole silently round the orchestra seats to the stage box—the same - box that Whitaker had on the forme*r occasion occupied in company with Max.

I They succeeded in taking possession without attracting attention; either from the owners of that scanty | scattering of sliirt-bosoms in the or- | chestra—the critical fraternity and ; those intimates bidden by the manaI' ger to the first glimpse of his new revelation in stage-craft—or from those occupying the stage. 1 The latter were but two. Evidently, ■ though the curtain had been up for i some minutes, the action of the piece ’ had not yet been permitted to begin to unfold. Whitaker inferred that ; Max had been dissatisfied with something about the lighting of the scene. The manager was standing -in midstage, staring up at the borders—a stout and pompous figure, tenacious to every detail of that public self which, lie had striven so successfully to make unforgettably individual: a figure quaintly, incongruous in flatbrimmed silk hat. perched well back on his head, with. his malacca stick and lemon-coloured gloves and small and excessively glossy patent leather shoes; poised against the counterfeit, of a moonlit formal garden. Aside from him, tlje only other occupant of the stage was Sava Law. She sat On a stone bench with her profile to the audience, her back to the right of the proscenium arch, so that she could not, without turning, have noticed the entrance of Ember and her husband. A shy. slight, deathlessly youthful figure in pale and flowing garments, that moulded themselves fluently to her sweet and girlish body, in a posture of pensive meditation; she was nothing less than adorable. Whitaker could not take his eyes from her for sheer wonder and delight. He was only vaguely conscious that Max, at length satisfied, barked a word to that effect to an unseen electrician off to the left, and waving his hand with a gesture indelibly associated with his personality, dragged a light cane-seated chair to the left of tile proscenium and sat himself down. “All ready?” he demanded in a sharp and irritable voice. The woman on the marble seat, nodded imperceptibly. “Go ahead,” snapped the manager. An actor advanced from the wings,

paused and addressed the seated woman. His lines were brief. She lifted her head with a startled air, listening. He ceased to speak, and her voice of golden velvet filled the house with the flowing beauty of its unforgettably sweet modulations. Beyond the footlights a handful of sophisticated and sceptical habitues of the theatre forgot for the moment their ingrained incredulity and thrilled in sympathy with the wonderful rapture of that voice of enternal youth. Whitaker himself for the time forgot that he- was the husband of this woman and her lover; she moved before his vision in the guise of some .divine creature, divinely unattainable, a dream woman divorced utterly from any semblance of reality. That opening scene was one perhaps unique in the history of the stage. Composed by Max in some mad, poetical moment of inspired plagiarism, it not only owned a poignant and enthralling beauty of imagery, but it moved with an almost Grecian certitude, with a significance extraordinarily direct and devoid of circumlocution, seeming to lay bare the living tissue of immortal drama. But with the appearance of other characters, there came a change; the rare atmosphere of the opening began to dissipate perceptibly. The action clouded and grew vague. The auditors began to feel the flutterings of. uncertainty in the ’ air. Something . was. failing to cross the footlights. The sweeping and .assured gesture of the accomplished playwright faltered: a clumsy bit of construction was damningly exposed: faults of characterisation multiplied depressingly. Sara Law herself lost an indefinable proportion of her rare and provoking charm; the strangeness of failing to hold her audience in an ineluctable grasp seemed at once to nettle and distress her.

Max himself seemed suddenly to wake to the amazing fact that there was- something enormously and irremediably wrong; he began with exasperating frequency to halt the action, to interrupt scenes with advice and demands for repetition. He found it impossible to be still, to keep -his seat or control his rasping, irritable voice. Subordinate characters on the stage lost their heads and either forgot to act or overacted. And then intolerable climax!—of a sudden somebody in the orchestra chairs laughed in outright derision in the middle of a passage meant to be tenderly emotional.

The voice of Sara Law broke and fell. She stood trembling and unstrung. Max without a word turned on his heel and swung out of sight into tlie wings. Four other actors on the stage, aside from Sara Law, hesitated and drew together in doubt and bewilderment. And then abruptly, with no warning whatever, the illusion of gloom in the auditorium and moonlight ;iu the postscenium was rent away by the glare of the full complement of electric’ lights-in-stalled in the house. A thought later, while stiil all were blinking and gasping with surprise, Max strode into view just behind tin!

footlights. Halting, he swept the array of auditors with an ominous and truculent stare. So quickly was this startling change consummated that Whitaker had no more than time to realise the reappearance of the manager before he caught his wrathful and veuemous glance fixed to his own bewildered face. And something in the light that flickered wildly behind Max's eyes reminded him so strongly of a similar expression he had remarked in the eyes of Drummond, the night the latter had been captured by Ember and Sum Fat. that in alarm he half rose from his seat. Simultaneously he saw Max spring toward the box, with a distorted and snarling, countenance. He was tugging at something in his pocket. It appeared in the shape of a heavy pistol. Instantly Whitaker was caught and tripped by Ember and sent sprawling on the floor of the box. As this happened, he heard the voice of the firearm, sharp and vicious—a single report. Unhurt, he picked himself up in time to catch a glimpse of Max, on the stage, momentarily helpless in the embrace of a desperate and frantic woman who had caught his arms from behind and. presumably, had so deflected his aim. In the same breath Ember, who had leaped to the railing round the box, threw himself across the footlights with the lithe certainty of the beast of prey and, seemingly in as many deft motions, knocked the pistol from the manager’s hand, wrested him from the arms of the actress, laid him flat and knelt upon him. With a single bound Whitaker followed him to the stage; in another he had his wife in his arms and was soothing her first transports of semi-liysterical terror. . , . CHAPTER XLH. It was possibly a quarter or an hour later when Ember paused before a door in the ground floor dressing-room gangway of the Theatre Max—a door distinguished by the initials “S.L.” in the centre of a golden star. With some hesitation, with even a little diffidence, he lifted a hand and knocked. At once the door was opened i by the maid, Elise. Recognising Ember, she smiled and stood aside, making way for him to enter the small, curtained lobby. “Madam—and Monsieur,” she said with smiling significance, “told me to show you in at once, Monsieur Ember.” From beyond the curtains, Whitaker’s voice lifted up impatiently: “That you, oldman? Come right inf” Nodding to the maid, Ember thrust aside the portieres and stepped into the brightly lighted dressing room, then paused, bowing and smiling his self-contained, tolerant smile; in appearance as imperturbable and well-, groomed as though he had just escaped from the attentions of a valet, rather than from a furious hand-to-liand tussle with a vicious monomaniac. Mary Whitaker, as yet a little pale and distrait and still in costume, was reclining on a chaiselounge. Whitaker was standing close beside his wife; his face the theatre of conflicting, emotions; Ember, at least, thought with a shrewd glance to recognise a pulsating light of joy beneath a mask of interest and distress and a flush of embarrassment. “f am intruding?” he suggested gravely, with a slight turn as if offering to withdraw. “No.” The word faltering on the lips of Mary Whitaker was lost in an emphatic iteration by Whitaker. “Sit down!” he insisted. “As if we’d let you escape, now, after you’d kept us here in suspense!” He offered a chair, but Ember first advanced to take the hand held out to him by the woman on the chaiselongue. “You are feeling—more composed?” he inquired. Her gaze met his bravely. “I am—troubled, perhaps—but happy,” she said. To be concluded on Monday.