And Paul Pry’s smile became a chuckle as he realized that the attorney had not observed the surreptitious theft of the missive that Tom Meek had left beneath the tablecloth.
Paul Pry was a handsome individual. Moreover, he had a ready poise and a magnetic manner. His companion was grateful and pleased. And, as Paul Pry returned her to her table at the termination of the waltz, he gave to the older woman the triumph of waiting a few moments until the younger couple had returned to the table. Nor did the sharp eyes of Paul Pry miss the sudden look of incredulous surprise on the face of the younger woman, or the expression of triumphant elation upon the face of the woman with whom he had been dancing.
Then Paul Pry bowed from the waist, muttered his pleasure, and returned once more to his own table.
The chair in which Mugs Magoo had been sitting was now occupied by a woman some twenty-seven years of age. She had a willowy figure, a daring backless gown, and blue eyes that stared at Paul Pry with frank invitation.
Paul Pry paused. “I beg your pardon,” he said.
The woman’s eyes rested upon his face with a directness of gaze that was frankly seductive. The sensuous red lips parted in a smile.
“You should,” she said.
Paul Pry raised his eyebrows.
“Not,” said the young woman still smiling, “that I object so much to your appearance, as to the stereotyped manner in which you have tried to pick me up. I presume you will pretend that this was your table and—” She broke off abruptly with an expression of dismay suffusing her features. “Good heavens!” she said. “It is your table!”
Paul Pry remained standing and smiling.
“Oh!” she said. “I’m so sorry. I had left the room and the lights went down. You see, my escort was called away on a business matter and I returned to my table alone. I just became confused, I guess.”
She made a motion as if to rise, but her wide blue eyes remained fastened steadily upon Paul Pry’s face.
“Well,” he said, “since you’re here, and since, apparently, your escort has left, why not finish the evening with me?”
“Oh, no!” she said. “I couldn’t. Please don’t misunderstand. I assure you it was just an accident.”
“Of course it was an accident,” Paul Pry said and pulled out the other chair, sat down and smiled across at her. “The sort of an accident,” he went on, “that fate sometimes throws in the way of a lone man who appreciates wide blue eyes and coppery hair.”
“Flatterer!” she exclaimed.
Paul Pry, glancing up at that moment, saw Mugs Magoo walking toward the table. And Mugs Magoo abruptly became conscious of the woman who was seated opposite Paul Pry.
The camera-eye man stopped dead in his tracks while his glassy eyes flickered over the features of the woman. Then Mugs Magoo raised his left hand to his ear lobe and tugged at it once, sharply. Then he turned and walked away.
In the course of the association which had grown up between the two adventurers, it had been necessary to arrange an elaborate code of signals, so that, in times of emergency, Mugs Magoo might convey complete ideas to Paul Pry by a single sign. And in their code, the gestures Mugs had just completed meant: “The party who is talking to you knows me and is dangerous. I’m getting under cover so I won’t be recognized. You must extricate yourself from a dangerous position at once.”
2. As a Highwayman
It was as Mugs Magoo turned away, that the cooing voice of the young woman reached Paul Pry’s ears.
“Well,” she said, “since you’re so attractive and so nice about it, perhaps I will make an exception just this once. Won’t it be a lark going through the evening pretending that we’re old acquaintances, and each of us not really knowing who the other is. You may call me Stella. And your name?”
“Wonderful!” exclaimed Paul Pry with enthusiasm. “You may call me Paul.”
“And we’re old friends, Paul, meeting for the first time after an absence of years?”
“Yes,” he said, “but don’t make the absence too long. It doesn’t sound plausible. Having once known you, a man would never permit too great an interval of separation.”
She laughed lightly. “And so you believe in fate?” she asked.
Paul Pry nodded, his lips smiling but his eyes watchful.
“Perhaps,” she said, “it was, after all, fate.” She sighed, and for the first time since she had sat at his table, lowered her eyes.
“What is fate?” asked Paul Pry.
“The fact that I should meet you just when I needed someone...” Her voice trailed off into silence and she shook her head vehemently.
“No,” she said decisively, “I mustn’t go into that.”
The orchestra struck up a rollicking one-step. The blue eyes once more impacted full upon his face.
“And do we dance, Paul?” she asked.
He nodded and rose, taking the back of her chair in his hand, moving it away from the table as she swung up, in front of him, her arms open, her lips smiling invitingly.
They moved out onto the floor, a couple well calculated to catch the eye of any connoisseur of the dance. Paul Pry, moving as gracefully and lightly as though his feet had been floating on air just above the floor, the girl well curved but willowy, straight limbed and radiating a consciousness of her sex.
“Do you know,” she said, “that I was contemplating suicide earlier in the evening?”
Paul Pry tightened his arms in a gesture of protection. “You’re joking,” he exclaimed.
“No,” she said. “It’s a fact.”
“Would you care to tell me about it?” he asked.
“I think,” she said slowly, “I would.”
They danced for a few moments in silence and in some subtle way she managed to convey the impression that she had thrown herself entirely upon his masculine strength as a bulwark of protection. “But,” she added after the interval of silence, “I couldn’t tell you here.”
“Where?” he asked.
“I have an apartment,” she said, “if you care to come there.”
“Splendid,” Paul Pry said enthusiastically.
“Let’s go then,” she told him. “I was here only for the excitement. Only to get my mind away from myself. Now you’ve given me just the stimulus that I need to restore my perspective.”
The music stopped.
She gave just the faintest hint of pressing her body close to his and then managed to forestall the intimacy of the moment and become, once more, respectably distant, standing with her hand on his arm, her frank blue eyes smiling into his.
“A wonderful dance,” he said applauding.
“You dance divinely,” she breathed.
There was no encore. She gently exerted pressure on his arm.
“Would you care to leave now?” she asked.
“Yes, indeed,” he told her.
Paul Pry lived by his wits and he was an opportunist. Moreover, he was, as Mugs Magoo so frequently pointed out, entirely without prudence. Paul Pry would walk into any danger which offered a reasonable amount of excitement, and do it with the utmost sangfroid, trusting to his ingenuity to extricate himself from any untoward complications.
Paul Pry, upon this occasion, took only a reasonable amount of precaution to ascertain that he was not being shadowed as he left the cabaret. Having satisfied himself that no one was on his trail, he handed the young woman into a taxicab, followed her, and was lighting a cigarette as the cab driver slammed the door and nodded his comprehension of the address the young woman had given him.
It was but a short ride to the apartment and Paul Pry followed docilely into the elevator, out of the car again, and down a corridor. A close observer would have noticed that his right hand hovered near the left lapel of his coat as the young woman opened the door of the apartment and switched on the lights. But a moment later his hand was back at his side, for the apartment was, quite apparently, empty, unless someone were concealed behind a closed door. And Paul Pry always claimed that he could get a gun from its holster long before a person could twist the knob of a door, open it and draw a bead.