The Apartment Next Door, William Andrew Johnston [red novels .txt] 📗

is it?" she asked, trying to assume an air of hauteur but without being able wholly to mask her curiosity.

"You are an American, aren't you?" he asked abruptly.

"Of course."

"A good American?"

"I hope so." She decided now that he must be one of the members of some Red Cross fund "drive," or perhaps an overenthusiastic salesman for government bonds. "But I don't quite understand what it is that you wish."

"I can't explain," said her questioner, "but if you really are a good American and you'd like to do your country a great service--an important service--go at once to the address on this card."

She took the slip of white pasteboard handed her. On it was written in pencil "Room 708." The building was a skyscraper down-town.

"What is it?" she asked half indignantly, "a new scheme to sell bonds?"

"No, no, Miss Strong," he cried, "it is nothing like that. It is a great opportunity to do an important service for America."

"How did you know my name?"

"I heard you give it to the clerk just now."

"And why," she inquired with what she intended to be withering sarcasm, "have I been selected so suddenly for this important work?"

"I heard the address you gave, that's why," he answered. "That's what makes it so important that you should go to that number at once. Ask for Mr. Fleck."

"I can't go," she temporized. "I am on my way now to meet my mother at the Ritz."

"Go to-morrow, then," he insisted. "I'll see Mr. Fleck meanwhile and tell him about you."

Puzzled at the man's unusual and wholly preposterous request, yet in spite of herself impressed by his evident sincerity, Jane turned the card nervously in her hand and discovered some small characters on the back; "K-15" they read.

"What do those figures mean?" she asked.

"I can't tell you that. Mr. Fleck will explain everything. Promise me you will go to see him."

"Who are you?"

"I can't tell you that, yet."

"Who, then, is Mr. Fleck?"

"He will explain that to you."

"What has my address to do with it? I can't understand yet why you make this preposterous request of me."

"I tell you I can't explain it to you, not yet," the man replied, "but it's because you live where you do you must go to see Mr. Fleck. It's about a matter of the highest importance to your government. It is more important than life and death."

His last words startled her. They brought to her mind afresh the mysterious occurrence she had witnessed the night before and the equally mysterious death near her home. Had this man's odd request any connection, she wondered, with what had happened there? The lure of the unknown, the opportunity for adventure, called to her, though prudence bade her be cautious.

"I'll ask my mother," she temporized.

"Don't," cried the man. "You must keep your visit to Mr. Fleck a secret from everybody. You mustn't breathe a word about it even to your father and mother. Take my word for it, Miss Strong, that what I am asking you to do is right. I've two daughters of my own. The thing I'm urging you to do I'd be proud and honored to have either of them do if they could. There is no one else in the world but you that can do this particular thing. A word to a single living soul and you'll end your usefulness. You must not even tell any one you have talked with me. See Mr. Fleck. He'll explain everything to you. Promise me you'll see him."

"I promise," Jane found herself saying, even against her better judgment, won over by the man's insistence.

"Good. I knew you would," said her mysterious questioner, turning on his heel and vanishing speedily as if afraid to give her an opportunity of reconsidering.

Puzzled beyond measure not only at the man's strange conduct but even more at her own compliance with his request, Jane made her way slowly and thoughtfully to the Ritz, where she found her mother and Mrs. Starrett had already arrived.

As they sipped their tea the two elder women chatted complacently about the matinée, about their acquaintances, about other women in the tea-room and the gowns they had on, about bridge hands--the usual small talk of afternoon tea.

To Jane, oppressed with her two secrets, all at once their conversation seemed the dreariest piffle. Great things were happening everywhere in the world, nations at war, men fighting and dying in the trenches of horror for the sake of an ideal, kings were being overthrown, dynasties tottering, boundaries of nations vanishing. Women, she realized, too, more than ever in history, were taking an active and important part in world affairs. In the lands of battle they were nursing the wounded, driving ambulances, helping to rehabilitate wrecked villages. In the lands where peace still reigned they were voting, speech-making, holding jobs, running offices, many of them were uniting to aid in movements for civic improvement, for better children, for the improvement of the whole human race.

And here they were--here she was, idling uselessly at the Ritz as she had done yesterday, last week, last month--forever, it seemed to her. The vague protest that for some time had been growing within her against the senselessness and futility of her manner of existence crystallized itself now into a determination no longer to submit to it. Courageously she was resolving that she would take the first opportunity to escape from this boresome routine of pleasure-seeking. She was wondering if the request that had been so unexpectedly made of her would prove to be her way out from her prison of desuetude.

The talk of the two women with her drifted aimlessly on. Seldom was she included in it, save when her mother, nodding to some one she knew, would turn to say:

"Daughter, there is Mrs. Jones-Lloyd."

What did she care about Mrs. Jones-Lloyd? What did she care about any of the people about them, aimless, pleasure-hunting drifters like themselves. Left to her own devices for mental activity her thoughts kept recurring to the surprising adventure she had had a few minutes before. Thoughtfully she pondered over the mysterious message that had been given to her. The man had said that it was a wonderful opportunity for her to do her country a great service. She wondered why he had been so secretive about it. She decided that she would investigate further and made up her mind to carry out his instructions. What harm could befall her in visiting an office building in the business district? At least it would be something to do, something new, something different, something surely exciting and, perhaps, something useful.

It would be better, she decided, for the present at least, to keep her intentions entirely to herself. Any hint of her plans to her mother would surely result in permission being refused. The man certainly had seemed sincere, honest, and perfectly respectable, even if he was not of the sort one would ask to dinner. She made up her mind to go down-town to the address given the very first thing to-morrow morning. If anything should happen to her, she felt that she could always reach her father. His office was in the next block.

The problem of making the mysterious journey without her mother's knowledge bothered her not at all. As in the case of most apartment-house families, she and her mother really saw very little of each other, especially since she had become a "young lady." Mrs. Strong went constantly to lectures, to luncheons, to bridge parties, to matinées with her own particular friends. Jane's engagements were with another set entirely, school friends most of them, whose parents and hers hardly knew each other. Both she and her mother habitually breakfasted in bed, generally at different hours, and seldom lunched together. At dinner, when Mr. Strong was present, there were no intimacies between mother and daughter. The only times they really saw each other for protracted periods were when they happened to go shopping, or go to the dressmaker's together, and then the subject always uppermost in the minds of both of them was the all-important and absorbing topic of clothes. Occasionally, Jane poured at one of her mother's more formal functions, but for the most part the time of each was taken up in a mad, senseless hunt for amusement.

Suddenly every thought was driven from Jane's head. Her face went white, and with difficulty she managed to suppress an alarmed cry.

"What is it, daughter?" asked her mother, noting her perturbation. "Are you feeling ill?"

"A touch of neuralgia," she managed to answer.

"Too many late hours," warned Mrs. Starrett reprovingly.

"I'm afraid so," said Mrs. Strong. "As soon as I've paid my check we'll go."

"I'm perfectly all right now," said Jane, controlling herself with effort, though her face was still white.

The danger that she had feared had passed for the present at least. Glancing toward the entrance a moment before she had been terrified to see entering the black-mustached man who had accosted her a few moments before. Her one thought now had been that he had followed her here, and in a panic she was wondering how she should make explanations if he came up to their table and spoke. To her great relief he gave no intimation of having seen her, but settled himself into a chair near the door where he was half hidden from her by a great palm. Furtively she watched him, trying to divine his intention in having followed her there. Respectable enough though he was in appearance and garb, he did not seem in the least like the sort of man likely to be found at tea-time in an exclusive hotel. As she studied him she soon saw that his attention seemed to be riveted on some one sitting at the other side of the room. Wonderingly she let her eyes follow his, and once more it was with difficulty that she suppressed an excited gasp.

There, across the room, calmly sipping some coffee, was the handsome young man from the next apartment--the man whom she had felt sure, or at least almost sure, was a murderer, about whom she had been wondering all day long, picturing him as a hunted criminal fleeing from the law. Chatting interestedly with him was another man, a young man in the uniform of a lieutenant in the navy.

What did it all mean? Why was the black-mustached man watching them so intently? Her eyes turned back to him. He was still sitting there, leaning forward a little, his brows in a pucker of concentration, his eyes still fixed on the pair opposite. It looked almost as if he was trying to read their lips and tell what they were talking about.

Jane thrilled with excitement. The black-mustached man, she decided, must be a detective. She recalled that he had said to her it was because she lived at the address she did that she was available for the mission for which he wanted her. Did he, she wondered, know about the mysterious death in the street outside their apartment house? Was that the reason he was spying on her neighbor? But what could be his motive in seeking to involve her in the matter?

Unable to find satisfactory answers to her questions she gave herself up interestedly to studying the faces of the two young men across the room. Neither of them, she decided, could be much more than thirty. The face that only a few hours before she had seen utterly convulsed with bitter hate, now placid and smiling, was really an attractive one, not in the least like a murderer's. Frank, alert blue eyes looked out from under an intellectual forehead. A small military mustache lent emphasis to a clean-shaven, forceful jaw. His flaxen hair was neatly trimmed. His linen and clothing were immaculate, and the hand that curved around his cup had long, tapering, well-manicured fingers. The cut of his clothing, his manners, everything about him seemed American, yet there was an indefinable something in his appearance that suggested