“The plane?”
“Will almost certainly be driven down.”
“What d’you make of this queer smell?”
Mark Hepburn sniffed suspiciously, and then:
“Oxygen,” he replied. “Liquid ozone electrically discharged, maybe. For some reason” (he continued to breathe heavily) “the Doctor wanted to avoid fire. . . .”
Cautiously they mounted the stairs and looked into the dark wreckage which had been Dom Patrick’s study. There were great holes in the roof through which one could see the stars, and two entire walls of the room had disappeared. All lights had gone out. Nayland Smith stared as a hand touched his shoulder.
He turned. Abbot Donegal stood beside him, pointing.
“Look!” he said.
One corner of the study remained unscathed by the explosion. In it stood the microphone installed that day, and from the plaster wall above, St. Jerome looked down undisturbed. . . .
“A sign, Sir Denis! God in His wisdom has ordained that I speak to-night!”
Lola Dumas lay curled up on a cushioned settee; she wore a rest gown and slippers, but no stockings. And in the dimly lighted room the curves of her slender, creamy legs created highlights too startling in their contrast against the blue velvet to have pleased a portrait painter. Stacks of crumpled newspapers lay upon the carpet beside her. Her elbows buried in the cushions, chin resting in cupped hands, her sombre eyes speculative, almost menacing.
On the front page of the journal which crowned the litter a large photograph of Lola appeared. It appeared in nearly all the others as well. She was the most talked-about woman in the United States. Drawings of the dresses to be worn by her bridesmaids had already been published in the fashion papers. It was to be a Louis XIII wedding: twenty tiny pages dressed as Black Musketeers, with Lola herself wearing the famous diamond broach upon the recovery of which Dumas’ greatest romance is based. An archbishop would perform the ceremony, and not less than two bishops would be present. A cardinal would have been more decorative; but since the rites of the Church of Rome had been denied to Lola following her first divorce, she had necessarily abjured that faith.
Moya Adair in the Park Avenue apartment, assisted by extra typists called in for the occasion, had sent out thousands of polite refusals to more or less important people who had applied for seats in the church. None was left.
Lola was to be married from her father’s Park Avenue home. Five hundred invitations had been accepted for the reception; the Moonray Room of the Regal-Athenian had been rented, together with the services of New York’s smartest band.
So keen was the interest which the magnetic rise of Paul Salvaletti had created throughout the world that despite the disturbed state of Europe, war and the rumours of war, special commissioners were being sent to New York by many prominent European newspapers to report the Savaletti-Dumas wedding. In fact this wedding would be the master stroke of the master schemer, setting the seal of an international benediction upon the future President. Love always demands the front page.
But in the sombre eyes of Lola Dumas there was no happiness. She lived for what she called “love” and without admiration must die. In fact, after her second divorce, the circumstances of which had not reflected creditably upon her, she had proclaimed that she intended to renounce the vanities of the world and take the veil. Perhaps fortunately for her, she had failed to find any suitable convent prepared to accept her as a novice.
There came a discreet rap on the door.
“Come in,” Lola called, her voice neither soft nor caressing.
She sat upright, slender jewelled fingers clutching the cushions as Marie, her maid, came in;.
“Well?”
Marie pursed her lips, shrugged and nodded vigorously.
“You are sure?”
“Yes, madame. He is there again! And to-night I have found the number of the apartment—it is Number 36.”
Lola swung her slippered feet to the floor and clenching and unclenching her hands began to walk up and down. In the semi-darkness she all but upset a small table upon which a radio was standing. Marie, fearing one of the brainstorms for which Lola was notorious, stood just outside the door, watching fearfully. Of course, Lola argued, Paul’s mysterious absences (which since they had been in Chicago had become so frequent) might be due to orders from the President. But if this were so, why was she not in Paul’s confidence?
It was unlikely, too, for on many occasions before, and again to-night, he had slipped away from his bodyguard and had gone alone to this place. To-night, indeed, it was more than ever strange: the Abbot Donegal was broadcasting, and almost certainly his address would take the form of an attack.
Any man who admired her inspired Lola’s friendship, but Paul Salvaletti had been the only real passion of her life. There were many who thought that she had been Harvey Bragg’s mistress. It was not so; a circumstance for which Harvey Bragg deserved no blame. Given a knowledge of all the facts, his harshest critic must have admitted that Harvey had done his best. Always it had been Paul, right from the first hour of the meeting. She recognized him; had known what he was destined to become. Her other duties, many of them exacting and tedious, which the President compelled her to undertake, she had undertaken gladly with this goal in view.
The intrusion of the woman Adair had terrified her, followed as it had been by her own transfer to nurse’s duties. (which she understood) in Chinatown. She hated the thought of this Titan blonde’s close association with Paul. Mrs. Adair was cultured, too, the widow of a naval officer, a woman of good family . . . . and always the plans of the President were impenetrable.
Abruptly, long varnished nails pressed into her palms; she pulled up in that wildcat walk right in front of the radio.
“What’s the time, Marie?” she demanded harshly.
“It is after eight o’clock, madame.”
“Fool! Why didn’t you tell me!”
Lola dropped down on to one knee; she tuned in the instrument. Nothing occurred but a dim buzzing. She knelt there manipulating the control, but could get no result. She looked up.
“If this thing has gone wrong,” she said viciously, “I’ll murder somebody in this hotel.”
Suddenly came a voice.
“This is a National Broadcast . . . .” Formalities followed, and then: “I must apologize for the delay. It was caused by an accident to the special microphone, but this has been adjusted. You are now about to hear Dom Patrick Donegal, speaking from the Tower of the Holy Thorn.”
Lola Dumas threw herself back upon the settee, curling her slim body up, serpentine, among the cushions. She was striving with all her will to regain composure. The beautiful voice of the priest helped to calm her; she hated it so intensely, for in her heart of hearts Lola knew that the Abbot of Holy Thorn was a finer orator than Paul Salvaletti. Then her attention was arrested:
“A torpedo of unusual design,” the abbot was saying coldly, “fired from an aeroplane, wrecked my study and delayed this broadcast. I am now going to tell you, and I ask you to listen with particular attention, by whom that torpedo was fired into my study.”
With the judgment of a practised speaker he paused for a moment after this sensational statement. Hourly, Lola had expected an attempt to be made to silence the abbot. It had been made—and failed! She began to listen intently. This man, this damnable priest, was going to wreck their fortunes!
When he resumed, Patrick Donegal with that unfailing art in which Cicero had been his master, struck another note:
“There are many of you I know, who, day after weary day, have returned from a tireless and honourable quest of work, to look into the sad eyes of a woman, to try to deafen your ears to that most dreadful of all cries coming from a child’s lips: ‘I am hungry.’ The League of Good Americans, formerly associated with the name of Harvey Bragg, has—I don’t deny the fact—remedied much of this. There are hundreds of thousands, it may be millions, of men, women and children in this country who to-day have won that need of happiness which every human being strives to earn, through the good offices of the league. But I am going to ask you to consider a few figures—figures are more eloquent than words.”