Simms saw them off from the door of his office with an amount of protocol equal to that with which he had greeted them.
Again the bustle floated in such airy elegance above that workaday bank floor as bustle never had before. Save this same one on its way in. Again the sentimental calflike eyes of cooped-up clerks and tellers and accountants rose from their work to follow her in escapist longings, and an unheard sigh of romantic dejection seemed to go up from all of them alike. It was like the sheen of a rainbow trailing its way through a murky bog, presently to fade out. But while it passed, it was a lovely thing.
"He was nice, wasn't he ?" she confided to Durand.
"Not a bad sort," he agreed with more masculine restraint.
"May I ask him to dinner ?" she suggested deferentially.
He turned and called back, "Mrs. Durand would like you to dine with us soon. I'll send you a note."
Simms bowed elaborately, from where he stood, with unconcealed gratification.
He stood for several moments after they had gone out into the street, thoughtfully cajoling his own whiskers and envying Durand for having such a paragon of a wife.
16
The letter was on his desk when he returned to the office from his noonday meal. It must have come in late, therefore, been delayed somehow in delivery, for the rest of his mail for that day had already been on hand awaiting his attention when he first came in at nine.
It was already well on toward three by now. The noonday meal of a typical New Orleans businessman, then, was no hurried snack snatched on the run, there then back again. It was a leisurely affair with due regard for the amenities. He went to his favorite restaurant. He seated himself in state. He ordered with care and amplitude. Friends and acquaintances were greeted, or often joined him at table. Business was discussed, sometimes even transacted. He lingered over his coffee, his cigar, his brandy. Finally, in his own good time, refreshed, restored, ready for the second half of the day's efforts, he went back to his place of work. It was a process that consumed anywhere from two to three hours.
Thus it was midafternoon before, returning to his desk, he found the letter there lying on his blotting-pad.
Twice he started to open it, and twice was interrupted. He took it up, finally, and prepared to spare it a moment of his full attention.
The postmark was St. Louis again. Whether spurred by that or not, he recognized the handwriting, from the time before. From her sister again.
But this time there could be no mistake. It was addressed to him directly. Intentionally so. "Louis Durand, Esq." To be delivered here, at his place of business.
He slit it along the top with a letter opener and plucked it out of its covering, puzzled. He swung himself sideward in his chair and gave it his attention.
If dried ink on paper can be said to scream, it screamed up at him.
Mr. Durand!
I can stand this no longer! I demand that you give me an
explanation! I demand that you give me word of my sister without
delay!
I am writing to you direct as a last resource. If you do not
inform me immediately of my sister's whereabouts, satisfy me that
she is safe and sound, and have her communicate with me herself at
once to confirm this, and to enlighten me as to the cause of this
strange silence, I shall go to the police and seek redress of them.
I have in my hand a letter, in answer to the one I last sent
her, purporting to be from her, and signed by her name. It is not
from my sister. It is written by someone else. It is in the
handwriting of a stranger,--an unknown person--
17
How long he sat and stared at it he did not know. Time lost its meaning. Reading over and over the same words. "The handwriting of an unknown person. Of an unknown person. An unknown person." Until they became like a whirring buzz saw slashing his brain in two.
Then suddenly hypnosis ended, panic began. He flung himself out of his swivel-backed chair, so that it fell over behind him with a loud clatter. He crushed the letter into his pocket, in such stabbing haste as if it were living fire and burned his fingers at touch.
He ran for the door, forgetting his hat. Then ran back for it, then ran for the door a second time. In it he collided with his office boy, drawn to the entryway just then by the sound the chair had made. He flung him almost bodily aside, gripping him by both shoulders at once; fled on, calling back "Tell Jardine to take over, I've gone home for the day!"
In the street, he slashed his upraised arm every which way at once, before, behind him, sideward, like a man combatting unseen gnats, hoping to draw a coach out of the surrounding emptiness. And when at last he had, after a moment that seemed an hour of agonized waiting, he had run along beside it, was in before it had stopped; standing upright in the middle of it like a latter-day charioteer, leaning over the driver's shoulder in the crazed intensity of giving him the address.
"St. Louis Street, and quickly! I must get there without delay!"
The wheel spokes blurred into solid disks of motion, New Orleans' streets began to stream backward around him, quivering, like scenes pictured on running water.
He struck his own flank, as if he were the horse. "Quicker, coachman! Will you never get there ?"
"We're practically flying now, sir. We apt to run down somebody."
"Then run down somebody and be damned! Only get me there!"
He jumped from the carriage as he had entered it, slapped coins from his backward-reaching palm into the driver's forward-reaching one, ran for his own door as if he meant to hurl himself bodily against it and crash it down.
Aunt Sarah opened it with surprising immediacy. She must have been right there in the front hall, on the other side of it.
"Is she in ?" he flung into her face. "Is she here in the house ?"
"Who ?" She drew back, frightened by the violence of the question. But then answered it, for it could refer to only one person. "Miss Julia? She been gone all afternoon. She tole me she going shopping. she be back in no time. That was 'bout one o'clock, I reckon. She ain't come back since."
"My God!" he intoned dismally. "I was afraid of that. Damn that letter for not coming an hour earlier!"
Then he saw that a young girl was huddled there waiting on a backless seat against the wall. Frugally dressed, a large boxed parcel held in her lap. She was shrinking timidly back, her wan face coloring painfully as a result of the recent expletive he had used.
"Who's this ?" he demanded, lowering his voice.
"Young lady from the dressmaker's, sent over to have Miss Julia try on a dress they making for her. She say she tole her to be here at three. She been waiting a couple hours now."
Then she didn't intend to remain away today, in the ordinary course of events, flashed through his mind. And her doing so now proves-- "When was this appointment made?" he challenged the girl, causing her to cower still further.
"Some--some days ago," she faltered. "I believe last week, sir."
He ran up the stairs full tilt, oblivious of appearances, hearing behind him Aunt Sarah's tactful whisper, "You better go now, honey. Some kind of trouble coming up; you call back some other day."
He stood there in their bedroom, breathing hard from the violence of his ascent but otherwise immobile for a moment, looking about in mute helplessness. His eye fell on the trunk. The trunk that had never been opened. Draped deceptively, but he knew it now, since that Sunday, for what it was. He wrenched off the slip cover, and the initials came to view again. "J.R.," in paint the color of fresh blood.
He turned, bolted out again, ran down the stairs once more. Only part of the way this time, stopping halfway to the bottom.