“I do,” said John Bruce grimly. “Claire is right. It isn't safe for me to stay here, and I'll go to-night. If only Hawkins hadn't----” He laughed a little harshly. “But I'll go to-night, just the same. A taxi will do quite as well.” CHAPTER THIRTEEN--TRAPPINGS OF TINSEL |UNDER the shaded light on his table, in his private sitting room in the Bayne-Miloy Hotel, John Bruce had been writing steadily for half an hour--but the sheets of paper over which his pen had traveled freely and swiftly were virgin white. He paused now, remained a moment in thought, and then added a line to the last sheet. No mark was left, but from the movement of the pen this appeared to be a signature. He gathered the sheets together, folded them neatly, and slipped them into an envelope. He replaced the cap on the fountain pen he had been using, placed the pen in his vest pocket, and from another pocket took out another pen that was apparently identical with the first. With this second pen, in black ink, he addressed the envelope to one Gilbert Larmon in San Francisco. He sealed the envelope, stamped it, put it in his pocket, returned the second fountain pen to his vest pocket, lighted a cigarette leaned back in his chair, and frowned at the ascending spirals of smoke from the cigarette's tip. The report which he had just written to Larmon, explaining his inaction during the past weeks, had been an effort--not physical, but mental. He had somehow, curiously, felt no personal regret for the enforced absence from his “work,” and he now felt no enthusiasm at the prospect of resuming it. He had had no right to tinge or color his letter to Larmon with these views; nor had he intended to do so. Perhaps he had not; perhaps he had. He did not know. The ink originated by the old Samoan Islander had its disadvantages as well as its advantages. He could not now read the letter over once it was written! He flicked the ash irritably from his cigarette. He had been back here in the hotel now for two days and that feeling had been constantly growing upon him. Why? He did not know except that the cause seemed to insist on associating itself with his recent illness, his life in the one-time pawn-shop of Paul Veniza. But, logically, that did not hold water. Why should it? He had met a pawnbroker who roamed the streets at night in a fantastic motor car, driven by a drunkard; and he had fallen in love with a girl who was glad she was going to marry a dope-eating criminal. Good God, it was a spectacle to make----