MINUTES mean much in Manhattan. They produce surprising meetings, curious situations that often seem like something designed by fate’s hand. Yet for all the remarkable coincidences that occur, there are many more that miss. People who haven’t met for years may pass within a block of one another, or just around the corner, without ever realizing it.
Similarly, for every singular occurrence that a person may witness by chance, a dozen other similar incidents may remain unobserved because of the same freak. Usually though, there is a direct cause; this time it was a taxicab.
If Shrevvy’s cab hadn’t been at Cranston’s call, things would have taken a different turn. The slight delay that Cranston avoided by having the cab handy, caused him to miss a bit of luck that fate would otherwise have tossed right in his lap.
Another cab stopped in front of the Chateau Parkview just after Cranston’s pulled away. From it stepped a girl, an attractive blonde dressed in blue, which made her floral decoration seem rather drab and therefore conspicuous in a negative way.
The blonde was wearing a bunch of lilacs.
Looking about, the girl frowned rather prettily, then entered the lobby and stared at the people there. Her eyes returned to the door, then roved the lobby again, missing the young man who entered at that moment.
He was a rugged type, this young man, and his stolid expression made him look older than he was. He had a slight limp, but he wasn’t tired when he paused just inside the doorway. The reason that he paused was because he expected someone to be looking for him, which was evidenced by the way he took a stance well in the open of the lobby.
Against the dark brown of his suit, the flower that the young man wore in his lapel stood out very sharply, except that it wasn’t exactly a flower.
It was a tiny sprig of lilac.
At about that moment, the girl in blue decided that she too should be letting someone look for her, instead of the other way around. Relaxing, she turned toward the doorway and her gaze met that of the man in brown. She noticed a contrast instantly; the young man’s face looked very pale, but that was because his hair matched the color of his suit. A slight pallor would naturally be exaggerated in such a setting.
The young man smiled, both slightly and nicely, then took a few steps forward. Realizing that she was about to be accosted, the girl was worried, but only briefly. The man’s face was frank and he obviously intended to be polite. The girl started to smile in return, hesitated, then let the smile arrive.
She had seen the sprig of lilac.
“I’m Philip Harley,” the young man stated. “You expected me of course.”
The girl nodded. Then:
“And I’m Arlene Forster,” she declared. “Of course I knew that you would expect me, but I wasn’t quite sure -”
“Quite sure that I’d be here?”
“No, no.” Arlene spoke hastily. “I was certain that someone would meet me, but I wasn’t positive when it would be.”
“But the time was specified. Seven o’clock on the evening of the fifteenth.”
“That’s what I wasn’t sure about, whether you said the fifteenth or the sixteenth. It was you who phoned me, wasn’t it, Mr. Harley?”
A striking change came over the young man’s face. Phil Harley was puzzled, which was why his expression tightened. As quickly the expression faded, before Arlene Forster noticed it. The girl at that moment was answering her own question in a reminiscent tone and her violet eyes had a reflective stare.
“No, it couldn’t have been you, Mr. Harley,” Arlene mused. “The voice was different. Whoever called said the fifteenth, then changed the day to the sixteenth. I was sure of it at the time, yet afterward -”
Pausing, Arlene nodded.
“Well, this is the fifteenth,” she decided brightly. Her eyes sparkled as they again met Phil’s gaze. “Anyway, we were supposed to meet, and here we are. We know we’re the right people, because we’re both wearing a bit of lilac. It’s rather unusual, lilac as a flower, isn’t it?”
Phil agreed that it was. Now his expression was very steady. He wondered if this girl was trying to trick him, or whether she simply wanted him to declare himself. Since Phil had nothing to declare, the only alternative was to profess ignorance, which was something else he didn’t care to do.
Fortunately, the girl herself provided an opportunity for Phil to parry longer. She glanced across the lobby toward a pretentious restaurant; then remarked:
“One thing I remember from that long distance call. The date included dinner. Am I right this time?”
“You are,” assured Phil, “so let’s go.”
Though various things might puzzle Phil Harley, he had cultivated one faculty, that of sensing when something odd was occurring nearby. Right now, Phil was sure that somewhere in the lobby someone had observed his meeting with the blonde who answered to the name of Arlene Forster.
Phil could almost feel a stir among the patrons of the place, whether they lived here or merely intended to dine in the swanky cafe that flanked the lobby of the Chateau Parkview. Locating that stir or the invisible eyes it represented was a problem in itself, but Phil felt sure that something would happen to solve it.
Something did happen.
A bellboy emerged suddenly from behind a pillar, included Arlene with a quizzical look and called:
“Paging Miss Forster - paging Miss Forster -”
The blonde interrupted the process and announced herself as Miss Forster. The bell-hop gestured to a deep alcove around past a newsstand.
“Phone call for you,” he told Arlene. “You’ll find it in the phone booth where the receiver is off the hook.”
Phil tipped the bellboy a quarter and followed Arlene. To be polite, he paused at the newsstand while the blonde entered the booth. As Arlene closed the door, Phil gave her a final glance.
She was very charming. Her profile was shapely and the flowing fluff of her hair showed beautifully against the background of the booth, though it lost its blonde effect in the semi-darkness.
What interrupted Phil’s stare was the query of the man behind the newsstand, asking if he wanted anything. Phil decided to buy some cigarettes, so he named his brand and while the man was finding them, Phil glanced at the headlines of some newspapers lying on the stand.
Funny headlines, these, all about a banshee in Central Park. There wasn’t any picture of the banshee, but she was described as something very sprightly and beautiful. Apparently the banshee liked lilacs, for there was a picture of a lilac tree with inserts showing a broken bough and loose sprig that fitted it.
That cluster of lilac blossoms depicted in the photograph was oddly like Arlene’s corsage!
Eyes narrowing, a flush sweeping his pale face, Phil swung toward the phone booth. Another oddity impressed him now; he couldn’t see Arlene through the glass of the closed door. There were times when Phil Harley could become impulsive and this was one of them.
Striding to the phone booth, Phil thrust the door open on its inward hinges, intending to interrupt Arlene and ask her what the lilac was all about.
That was simply the beginning of a real surprise. Arlene Forster wasn’t in the phone booth. It was entirely empty!
This was something that just couldn’t happen - or could it? If Phil’s senses were right, and he prided himself on their accuracy, he certainly should have been aware of Arlene sneaking past him, if she’d chosen that course. Phil glared accusingly at the newsstand man, who stared back blankly.
“You saw the girl, didn’t you?” demanded Phil. “Where did she go?”
The man seemed to remember the girl vaguely; then, piecing events, he took the obvious that Phil rejected.
“Guess she went out to the lobby.” The newsstand man gestured in that direction. “I was getting cigarettes; when I turned around, you were reading the paper. No wonder neither of us saw her leave.”