The Adventures of Sally Part 40

"If you insist, I'll make it five. Not more."

"Well, ten, then?"

"Five!"

"Suppose," said Ginger insinuatingly, "I said seven?"

"I never saw anyone like you for haggling," said Sally with disapproval.

"Listen! Six. And that's my last word."

"Six?"

"Six."

Ginger did sums in his head.

"But that would only work out at three hundred dollars a year. It isn't enough."

"What do you know about it? As if I hadn't been handling this sort of deal in my life. Six! Do you agree?"

"I suppose so."

"Then that's settled. Is this man you talk about in New York?"

"No, he's down on Long Island at a place on the south sh.o.r.e."

"I mean, can you get him on the 'phone and clinch the thing?"

"Oh, yes. I know his address, and I suppose his number's in the book."

"Then go off at once and settle with him before somebody else snaps him up. Don't waste a minute."

Ginger paused at the door.

"I say, you're absolutely sure about this?"'

"Of course."

"I mean to say..."

"Get on," said Sally.

2

The window of Sally's sitting-room looked out on to a street which, while not one of the city's important arteries, was capable, nevertheless, of affording a certain amount of entertainment to the observer: and after Ginger had left, she carried the morning paper to the window-sill and proceeded to divide her attention between a third reading of the fight-report and a lazy survey of the outer world. It was a beautiful day, and the outer world was looking its best.

She had not been at her post for many minutes when a taxi-cab stopped at the apartment-house, and she was surprised and interested to see her brother Fillmore heave himself out of the interior. He paid the driver, and the cab moved off, leaving him on the sidewalk casting a large shadow in the suns.h.i.+ne. Sally was on the point of calling to him, when his behaviour became so odd that astonishment checked her.

From where she sat Fillmore had all the appearance of a man practising the steps of a new dance, and sheer curiosity as to what he would do next kept Sally watching in silence. First, he moved in a resolute sort of way towards the front door; then, suddenly stopping, scuttled back.

This movement he repeated twice, after which he stood in deep thought before making another dash for the door, which, like the others, came to an abrupt end as though he had run into some invisible obstacle. And, finally, wheeling sharply, he bustled off down the street and was lost to view.

Sally could make nothing of it. If Fillmore had taken the trouble to come in a taxi-cab, obviously to call upon her, why had he abandoned the idea at her very threshold? She was still speculating on this mystery when the telephone-bell rang, and her brother's voice spoke huskily in her ear.

"Sally?"

"Hullo, Fill. What are you going to call it?"

"What am I... Call what?"

"The dance you were doing outside here just now. It's your own invention, isn't it?"

"Did you see me?" said Fillmore, upset.

"Of course I saw you. I was fascinated."

"I--er--I was coming to have a talk with you. Sally..."

Fillmore's voice trailed off.

"Well, why didn't you?"

There was a pause--on Fillmore's part, if the timbre of at his voice correctly indicated his feelings, a pause of discomfort. Something was plainly vexing Fillmore's great mind.

"Sally," he said at last, and coughed hollowly into the receiver.

"Yes."

"I--that is to say, I have asked Gladys... Gladys will be coming to see you very shortly. Will you be in?"

"I'll stay in. How is Gladys? I'm longing to see her again."

"She is very well. A trifle--a little upset."

"Upset? What about?"

"She will tell you when she arrives. I have just been 'phoning to her.

She is coming at once." There was another pause. "I'm afraid she has bad news."

"What news?"

There was silence at the other end of the wire.

"What news?" repeated Sally, a little sharply. She hated mysteries.