He was quite certain that Louis Akers would know where Lily was, and
he anticipated the interview with a sort of grim humor. There might
be another fight; certainly Akers would try to get back at him for the
night before. But he set his jaw. He would learn where Lily was if
he had to choke the knowledge out of that leering devil's thick white
throat. His arrival in the foyer of the Benedict Apartments caused more
than a ripple of excitement.
“Well, look who's here!” muttered the telephone girl, and watched his
approach, with its faint limp, over the top of her desk. Behind, from
his cage, the elevator man was staring with avid interest.
“I suppose Mr. Akers is in?” said Willy Cameron, politely. The girl
smiled up at him.
“I'll say he ought to be, after last night! What're you going to do now?
Kill him?”
In spite of his anxiety there was a faint twinkle in Willy Cameron's
eyes.
“No,” he said slowly. “No. I think not. I want to talk to him.”
“Sam,” called the telephone girl, “take this gentleman up to
forty-three.”
“Forty-three's out.” Sam partly shut the elevator door; he had seen
Forty-three's rooms the night before, and he had the discretion of his
race. “Went out with a lady at quarter to five.”
Willy Cameron took a step or two toward the cage.
“You don't happen to be lying, I suppose?”
“No, sir!” said Sam. “I'll take you up to look, if you like. And about
an hour ago he sent a boy here with a note, to get some of his clothes.
The young lady at the desk was out at the movies at the time.”
“I was getting my supper, Sam.”
Willy Cameron had gone very white.
“Did the boy say where he was taking the things?”
“To the Saint Elmo Hotel, sir.”
On the street again Willy Cameron took himself fiercely in hand. There
were a half-dozen reasons why Akers might go to the Saint Elmo. He
might, for one thing, have thought that he, Cameron, would go back to
the Benedict. He might be hiding from Dan, or from reporters. But there
had been, apparently, no attempt to keep his new quarters secret. If
Lily was at the Saint Elmo--
He found a taxicab, and as it drew up at the curb before the hotel he
saw the Cardew car moving away. It gave him his first real breath for
twenty minutes. Lily was not there.
But Louis Akers was. He got his room number from a clerk and went up,
still determinedly holding on to himself. Afterwards he had no clear
recollection of any interval between the Benedict and the moment he
found himself standing outside a door on an upper floor of the Saint
Elmo. From that time on it was as clear as crystal, his own sudden calm,
the overturning of a chair inside, a man's voice, slightly raised, which
he recognized, and then the thin crash of a wineglass dropped or thrown
to the floor.
He opened the door and went in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account