The Yellow Claw, Sax Rohmer [top 100 novels of all time .TXT] 📗

down by the Storis, Victoria Street, conductor,” she directed, and handed him a penny—the correct fare.

It chanced that at about the time, within a minute or so, of the American lady's leaving the hotel, and just as red rays, the harbingers of dusk, came creeping in at the latticed widow of her cozy work-room, Helen Cumberly laid down her pen with a sigh. She stood up, mechanically rearranging her hair as she did so, and crossed the corridor to her bedroom, the window whereof overlooked the Square.

She peered down into the central garden. A common-looking man sat upon a bench, apparently watching the labors of the gardener, which consisted at the moment of the spiking of scraps of paper which disfigured the green carpet of the lawn.

Helen returned to her writing-table and reseated herself. Kindly twilight veiled her, and a chatty sparrow who perched upon the window-ledge pretended that he had not noticed two tears which trembled, quivering, upon the girl's lashes. Almost unconsciously, for it was an established custom, she sprinkled crumbs from the tea-tray beside her upon the ledge, whilst the tears dropped upon a written page and two more appeared in turn upon her lashes.

The sparrow supped enthusiastically, being joined in his repast by two talkative companions. As the last fragments dropped from the girl's white fingers, she withdrew her hand, and slowly—very slowly—her head sank down, pillowed upon her arms.

For some five minutes she cried silently; the sparrows, unheeded, bade her good night, and flew to their nests in the trees of the Square. Then, very resolutely, as if inspired by a settled purpose, she stood up and recrossed the corridor to her bedroom.

She turned on the lamp above the dressing-table and rapidly removed the traces of her tears, contemplating in dismay a redness of her pretty nose which did not prove entirely amenable to treatment with the powder-puff. Finally, however, she switched off the light, and, going out on to the landing, descended to the door of Henry Leroux's flat.

In reply to her ring, the maid, Ferris, opened the door. She wore her hat and coat, and beside her on the floor stood a tin trunk.

“Why, Ferris!” cried Helen—“are you leaving?”

“I am indeed, miss!” said the girl, independently.

“But why? whatever will Mr. Leroux do?”

“He'll have to do the best he can. Cook's goin' too!”

“What! cook is going?”

“I am!” announced a deep, female voice.

And the cook appeared beside the maid.

“But whatever—” began Helen; then, realizing that she could achieve no good end by such an attitude: “Tell Mr. Leroux,” she instructed the maid, quietly, “that I wish to see him.”

Ferris glanced rapidly at her companion, as a man appeared on the landing, to inquire in an abysmal tone, if “them boxes was ready to be took?” Helen Cumberly forestalled an insolent refusal which the cook, by furtive wink, counseled to the housemaid.

“Don't trouble,” she said, with an easy dignity reminiscent of her father. “I will announce myself.”

She passed the servants, crossed the lobby, and rapped upon the study door.

“Come in,” said the voice of Henry Leroux.

Helen opened the door. The place was in semidarkness, objects being but dimly discernible. Leroux sat in his usual seat at the writing-table. The room was in the utmost disorder, evidently having received no attention since its overhauling by the police. Helen pressed the switch, lighting the two lamps.

Leroux, at last, seemed in his proper element: he exhibited an unhealthy pallor, and it was obvious that no razor had touched his chin for at least three days. His dark blue eyes the eyes of a dreamer—were heavy and dull, with shadows pooled below them. A biscuit-jar, a decanter and a syphon stood half buried in papers on the table.

“Why, Mr. Leroux!” said Helen, with a deep note of sympathy in her voice—“you don't mean to say”...

Leroux rose, forcing a smile to his haggard face.

“You see—much too good,” he said. “Altogether—too good.”...

“I thought I should find you here,” continued the girl, firmly; “but I did not anticipate”—she indicated the chaos about—“this! The insolence, the disgraceful, ungrateful insolence, of those women!”

“Dear, dear, dear!” murmured Leroux, waving his hand vaguely; “never mind—never mind! They—er—they... I don't want them to stop... and, believe me, I am—er—perfectly comfortable!”

“You should not be in—THIS room, at all. In fact, you should go right away.”...

“I cannot... my wife may—return—at any moment.” His voice shook. “I—am expecting her return—hourly.”...

His gaze sought the table-clock; and he drew his lips very tightly together when the pitiless hands forced upon his mind the fact that the day was marching to its end.

Helen turned her head aside, inhaling deeply, and striving for composure.

“Garnham shall come down and tidy up for you,” she said, quietly; “and you must dine with us.”

The outer door was noisily closed by the departing servants.

“You are much too good,” whispered Leroux, again; and the weary eyes glistened with a sudden moisture. “Thank you! Thank you! But—er—I could not dream of disturbing”...

“Mr. Leroux,” said Helen, with all her old firmness—“Garnham is coming down IMMEDIATELY to put the place in order! And, whilst he is doing so, you are going to prepare yourself for a decent, Christian dinner!”

Henry Leroux rested one hand upon the table, looking down at the carpet. He had known for a long time, in a vague fashion, that he lacked something; that his success—a wholly inartistic one—had yielded him little gratification; that the comfort of his home was a purely monetary product and not in any sense atmospheric. He had schooled himself to believe that he liked loneliness—loneliness physical and mental, and that in marrying a pretty, but pleasure-loving girl, he had insured an ideal menage. Furthermore, he honestly believed that he worshiped his wife; and with his present grief at her unaccountable silence was mingled no atom of reproach.

But latterly he had begun to wonder—in his peculiarly indefinite way he had begun to doubt his own philosophy. Was the void in his soul a product of thwarted ambition?—for, whilst he slaved, scrupulously, upon “Martin Zeda,” he loathed every deed and every word of that Old Man of the Sea. Or could it be that his own being—his nature of Adam—lacked something which wealth, social position, and Mira, his wife, could not yield to him?

Now, a new tone in the voice of Helen Cumberly—a tone different from that compound of good-fellowship and raillery, which he knew—a tone which had entered into it when she had exclaimed upon the state of the room—set his poor, anxious heart thrumming like a lute. He felt a hot flush creeping upon him; his forehead grew damp. He feared to raise