Waltz Into Darkness (21 page)

"I
tell you, I'm the luckiest man. But you should see her. You don't
have to believe me; you should just see her for yourself."

"Oh,
I do believe you," Durand protested demurely.

"You
should have a girl like that" (clap). "You should get
yourself a girl like that" (clap, clap).

"We
can't all be as lucky," Durand murmured, stropping the edge of
one foot restlessly along the brass bar rail.

"Hate
to see a fine figure of a man like you mooning around alone"
(dap).

"I'm
not complaining," Durand said, scouring the bottom of his glass
disclaimingly around on the bar-top in interlocked circles, until he
had brought it back again around to where it had started from.

"But,
dammit, look at me. I have you bettered by ten years, I vow. I don't
stand around waiting for them to come to me. You'll never get anyone
that way. You have to go out and find one."

"That's
right, you do," agreed Durand, with the air of a man pledging to
himself: I'll keep up my end of this conversation if it kills me.

The
colonel was suddenly assailed by belated misgivings of having
transgressed good taste. This time he pinioned Durand fondly by the
coat revere, in lieu of a clap. "I'm not being too personal, am
I?" he besought. "If I am, just say so, and I'll back out.
Wouldn't want you to think that for the world."

"No
offense whatever," Durand assured him. Which was literally true.
It was like discussing astrology or some other remote subject.

"Reason
I take such an interest in you is, I like you. I find your company
most enjoyable."

"I
can reciprocate the feeling," said Durand gravely, with a brief
inclination that seemed to be exerted by the top of his head alone.

"I'd
like to have you meet my fiancée. There's a girl."

"I'd
be honored," said Durand. He was beginning to wish the nightly
page boy would put in an appearance.

"She'll
be coming down in a minute or two for me to pick her up." The
colonel was suddenly visited with an inspiration. Pride of possession
very frequently being synonymous with pride of display. "Why
don't you join us for tonight? Love to have you. Come on out with me
and I'll introduce you."

"Not
tonight," said Durand a little hastily. Grasping at any excuse
he could find, he stroked his own jaw line tentatively. "I
wasn't expecting-- Afraid I'm not presentable."

The
colonel cocked his head critically. "Nonsense. You look all
right. You're clean shaven."

He
bethought himself of a compromise. "Well, just step out the door
with me a moment and let me have you meet her, as she comes down.
Then we'll go on alone."

Durand
was suddenly visited by scruples of delicacy, which came in handy to
his purpose. "I don't think she'd thank you for bringing anyone
straight out of here to be presented to her face to face. It
mightn't look right; you know how the ladies are. After all, this is
a men's drinking café."

"But
I come in here every night myself," the colonel said
uncertainly.

"But
you know her; I'm a stranger to her. It's not the same thing."

Before
Worth could make up his mind on this fine point of social etiquette,
the habitual bellboy had come in and delivered his summons.

"Your
lady's down, sir."

The
colonel put a coin in his gloved hand, drained his drink.

"Tell
you what. I have a better idea. Suppose we make it a foursome. I'll
have my fiancée bring someone along for you. She must know
some of the unattached young ladies around here by now. That'll make
it more comfortable for you. How about tomorrow night? Nothing on for
then, have you ?"

"Not
a thing," said Durand, satisfied with having gained his reprieve
for the present at least, and toying with the thought of sending his
excuses sometime during the course of the following day as the best
way of getting out of it. Any further reluctance at the moment, he
realized, would have veered over into offense, even where such a
thick-skinned individual as Worth was concerned, and it was none of
his intent to offend the man gratuitously.

"Fine!"
said Worth, beaming. "That's an engagement, then. I'll tell you
what's just the place for it. There's a little supper establishment
called The Grotto. Open late. Not fast, you understand. Just good
and lively. They have music there, and very good wine. We go there
often, Miss Castle and I. Instead of meeting here at the hotel, where
there are a lot of old fogies around ready to gossip, you join us
there. I'll bring the two young ladies with me."

"Excellent,"
said Durand.

The
colonel rubbed his hands together gleefully, evidently former facets
of his life not having yet died out as completely as he himself might
have wished to believe.

"I'll
engage a private alcove. They have them there, curtained off from
prying eyes. Look for us, you'll find us in one of them." He
tapped Durand on the chest with his index finger. "And don't
forget, the invitation's mine."

"I
dispute you there," Durand said.

"We'll
quarrel over that when the time comes. Tomorrow night, then.
Understood ?"

"Tomorrow
night. Understood."

Worth
went hurrying toward the page who stood waiting for him just within
the doors, evidently having received literal instructions to bring
him with him, on the part of one who knew the colonel well.

Suddenly
he turned, came hastening back, rose on tiptoe, and whispered
hoarsely into Durand's ear: "I forgot to ask you. Blonde or
brunette ?"

Her
image crossed Durand's mind for a minute. "Brunette," he
said succinctly, and a flicker of pain crinkled his eyes momentarily.

The
colonel dug an elbow into his ribs with ribald camaraderie.

35

Somehow,
the next day, he was too lackadaisical about the engage.. ment even
to send his perfunctory regrets in time, and so before he knew it, it
was evening, the appointment had become confirmed if only by default,
and it was too late to extricate himself from it without being guilty
of the grossest rudeness, which would not have been the case had he
canceled it a few hours earlier.

He'd
lain down on his bed, fully dressed, late in the afternoon for a
short nap, and when he awoke the time set was already imminent, and
there was nothing left to do now but fulfill the engagement.

He
sighed and grimaced privately to his mirror, but then commenced the
necessary preparations nonetheless, stirring his brush vigorously
within his thick crockery mug until foam swelled up and beaded
driblets of it ran down the sides. He could remain a half-hour, he
promised himself, as a token of participation, then arrange to have
himself called away by one of the waiters with a decoy message, and
leave. Making sure to pay his share of the entertainment before he
did, so they wouldn't think that the motive. They would be offended,
he supposed, but less than if he were not to appear at all.

Fortified
by this intention, shaved and cleanly shirted, he shrugged on his
coat, thumbed open his money-fold to see that it was sufficiently
well filled, and glumly set forth. No celebrant ever started out with
poorer grace or longer face to join what was meant to be a pleasure
party. He was swearing softly under his breath as he closed the door
of his room behind him: at the overgregarious colonel for inveigling
him into this; at the unknown he was expected to pay Court to for the
mere fact that she was a woman and so could force him into a position
where he was obliged to; and at himself, first and foremost, for not
having had the bluntness to refuse point-blank the night before when
the invitation had first been put to him.

Some
vapid, simpering heifer; everyone's leavings. He could imagine the
colonel's taste in women, judging by the man himself.

A
ten-minute walk, in this caustic frame of mind, and unmellowed to the
very end by the spangled brocade of starred sky hanging over him, had
brought him to his destination.

The
Grotto was a long, narrow., cabinlike, single-story structure, flimsy
and unprepossessing on the outside like many another ephemeral
holiday resort catering-place. Gas and oil light rayed forth from
every crack and seam of it, tinted rose and blue by some peculiarity
of shading on the inside. The interior, due to some depression in the
ground, was somewhat lower than the walks outside, so that he had to
descend a short flight of entry steps once he had been bowed in by
the colored door-flunkey. The main dining room itself, seen from
their top, was a disordered litter of white-clothed table Xops, heads
studding them in circular formation, and each one set with a rose or
blue-shaded table lamp, an innovation borrowed from Europe, which
dimmed the glare, usual in such places, to a twilight softness and
created a suggestion of illicit revelry and clandestine romance. It
gave the.place the appearance of a field of blinking fireflies.

A
pompous dining steward, with wide-spreading frizzed sideburns,
clasping a bill-of-fare slantwise like a painter holding a palette,
greeted him at the foot of the stairs.

"Are
you alone, sir? May I show you to a table?"

"No,
I was to join a party," Durand said. "Colonel Worth and
friends. In one of the private booths. Which way are they?"

"Oh,
straight to the back, sir. At the far end of the room. You are
expected. They are in the first one on the right."

He
made his way down the long central lane of clearance to the rear,
like someone wresting his way through a brawl, auditory and
olfactory, if not combative. Through cellular entities or zones of
disparate food odors, that remained isolated, each in its little
nucleus, refusing to mingle; now lobster, now charcoaled steak, now
soggy linen and spilled wine. Through dismembered snatches of
conversation and laughter that likewise remained compartmentalized,
each within its own little circular area.

"When
he's with me he says one thing, and when he's with the next girl he
says another. Oh, I've heard all about you, never you mind !"

"--an
administration that's the ruination of this country! And I don't care
who hears me, I'm entitled to my opinion!"

"--and
now I come to the best part of the story. This is the part that will
delight you--"

At
the back, the room narrowed to a single serving passage leading to
the kitchen. Lining each side of this, however, were openings leading
into the little private alcoves or dining nooks Worth had mentioned.
All alike discreetly curtained-off from view, although otherwise they
were doorless. The nearest one on either side, however, was not
strictly parallel to the passage but placed slantwise to it, cutting
off the corner.

As
he fixed his eyes upon the one to the right, marking that for his
eventual destination, though still a little distance short of it,
with the last bank of tables projecting somewhat between, the
protective curtain gashed back at one side and a waiter came out
backward, in the act of withdrawal but lingering a moment half-in
halfout to allow the completion of some instruction being given him.
He held the curtain, for that moment, away from the wall in a sort of
diamond-shaped aperture, with one hand.

Durand's
foot, striking ground, never moved on again, never took him a space
nearer.

It
was as if a cameo of purest line, of clearest design, were in that
opening, held there for Durand to see, a cameo of dazzling clarity,
presented against a dark velvet mounting.

On
one side, fluctuating with utterance of orders to the waiter, was a
slice of the lumpy profile of the colonel. At the other, facing back
toward him, was a slice of the smooth-turned profile of an unknown,
dark of hair and dark of eye.

Midway
between the two, facing outward, bust-length, white as alabaster,
dazzling as marble, regal as a diminutive Juno, beautiful as a blonde
Venus or the Helen of the Trojans, were the face and throat and bared
shoulders and half-bared bosom that he would never forget, that he
could never forget, brought as if by magic transmutation back from
out his dreams into the living substance again.

Julia.

He
could even see the light on her hair, in moving golden sheen. Even
see the passing glint, as of crystal, as her eyes moved.

Julia,
the killer. The destroyer of his heart.