Quick Action Part 32

This picture is not concerned with his destination. Or even whether he ever got there.

But it is very directly concerned with George Z. Green, and the direction he took when he parted from his old school friend.

As he walked up town he said to himself, "Bunk!" several times. After a few moments he fished out his watch.

"I know I'm an a.s.s," he said to himself, "but I'll take a chance. I'll give myself exactly ten minutes to continue making an a.s.s of myself. And if I see the faintest symptom of Romance--if I notice anything at all peculiar and unusual in any person or any thing during the next ten minutes, I won't let it get away--believe _me_!"

He walked up Broadway instead of Fifth Avenue. After a block or two he turned west at hazard, crossed Sixth Avenue and continued.

He was walking in one of the upper Twenties--he had not particularly noticed which. Commercial houses nearly filled the street, although a few old-time residences of brownstone still remained. Once well-to-do and comfortable homes, they had degenerated into chop sueys, boarding houses, the abodes of music publishers, artificial flower makers, and mediums.

It was now a shabby, unkempt street, and Green already was considering it a hopeless hunting ground, and had even turned to retrace his steps toward Sixth Avenue, when the door of a neighbouring house opened and down the shabby, brownstone stoop came hurrying an exceedingly pretty girl.

Now, the unusual part of the incident lay in the incongruity of the street and the girl. For the street and the house out of which she emerged so hastily were mean and ign.o.ble; but the girl herself fairly radiated upper Fifth Avenue from the perfectly appointed and expensive simplicity of hat and gown to the obviously aristocratic and dainty face and figure.

"Is _she_ a symptom?" thought Green to himself. "Is _she_ an element?

That is sure a rotten looking joint she came out of."

Moved by a sudden and unusual impulse of intelligence, he ran up the brownstone stoop and read the dirty white card pasted on the facade above the door bell.

THE PRINCESS ZIMBAMZIM TRANCE MEDIUM. FORTUNES.

Taken aback, he looked after the pretty girl who was now hurrying up the street as though the devil were at her dainty heels.

Could _she_ be the Princess Zimbamzim? Common sense rejected the idea, as did the sudden jerk of soiled lace curtains at the parlour window, and the apparition of a fat lady in a dingy, pink tea-gown. _That_ must be the Princess Zimbamzim and the pretty girl had ventured into these purlieus to consult her. Why?

"This _is_ certainly a symptom of romance!" thought the young man excitedly. And he started after the pretty girl at a Fifth Avenue amble.

He overtook and pa.s.sed her at Sixth Avenue, and managed to glance at her without being offensive. To his consternation, she was touching her tear-stained eyes with her handkerchief. She did not notice him.

What could be the matter? With what mystery was he already in touch?

Tremendously interested he fell back a few paces and lighted a cigarette, allowing her to pa.s.s him; then he followed her. Never before in his life had he done such a scandalous thing.

On Broadway she hailed a taxi, got into it, and sped uptown. There was another taxi available; Green took it and gave the driver a five dollar tip to keep the first taxi in view.

Which was very easy, for it soon stopped at a handsome apartment house on Park Avenue; the girl sprang out, and entered the building almost running.

For a moment George Z. Green thought that all was lost. But the taxi she had taken remained, evidently waiting for her; and sure enough, in a few minutes out she came, hurrying, enveloped in a rough tweed travelling coat and carrying a little satchel. Slam! went the door of her taxi; and away she sped, and Green after her in his taxi.

Again the chase proved to be very short. Her taxi stopped at the Pennsylvania Station; out she sprang, paid the driver, and hurried straight for the station restaurant, Green following at a fas.h.i.+onable lope.

She took a small table by a window; Green took the next one. It was not because she noticed him and found his gaze offensive, but because she felt a draught that she rose and took the table behind Green, exactly where he could not see her unless he twisted his neck into att.i.tudes unseemly.

He wouldn't do such things, being really a rather nice young man; and it was too late for him to change his table without attracting her attention, because the waiter already had brought him whatever he had ordered for tea--m.u.f.fins, buns, crumpets--he neither knew nor cared.

So he ate them with jam, which he detested; and drank his tea and listened with all his ears for the slightest movement behind him which might indicate that she was leaving.

Only once did he permit himself to turn around, under pretense of looking for a waiter; and he saw two blue eyes still brilliant with unshed tears and a very lovely but unhappy mouth all ready to quiver over its toast and marmalade.

What on earth could be the matter with that girl? What terrible tragedy could it be that was still continuing to mar her eyes and twitch her sensitive, red lips?

Green, sipping his tea, trembled pleasantly all over as he realised that at last he was setting his foot upon the very threshold of Romance. And he determined to cross that threshold if neither good manners, good taste, nor the police interfered.

And what a wonderful girl for his leading lady! What eyes! What hair!

What lovely little hands, with the gloves hastily rolled up from the wrist! Why should she be unhappy? He'd like to knock the block off any man who----

Green came to himself with a thrill of happiness: her pretty voice was sounding in exquisite modulations behind him as she asked the waiter for m-more m-marmalade.

In a sort of trance, Green demolished bun after bun. Normally, he loathed the indigestible. After what had seemed to him an interminable length of time, he ventured to turn around again in pretense of calling a waiter.

Her chair was empty!

At first he thought she had disappeared past all hope of recovery; but the next instant he caught sight of her hastening out toward the ticket boxes.

Flinging a five-dollar bill on the table, he hastily invited the waiter to keep the change; sprang to his feet, and turned to seize his overcoat. It was gone from the hook where he had hung it just behind him.

Astonished, he glanced at the disappearing girl, and saw his overcoat over her arm. For a moment he supposed that she had mistaken it for her own ulster, but no! She was wearing her own coat, too.

A cold and sickening sensation a.s.sailed the pit of Green's stomach. Was it not a mistake, after all? Was this lovely young girl a professional criminal? Had she or some of her band observed Green coming out of the bank and thrusting a fat wallet into the inside pocket of his overcoat?

He was walking now, as fast as he was thinking, keeping the girl in view amid the throngs pa.s.sing through the vast rotunda.

When she stopped at a ticket booth he entered the bra.s.s railed s.p.a.ce behind her.

She did not appear to know exactly where she was going, for she seemed by turns distrait and agitated; and he heard her ask the ticket agent when the next train left for the extreme South.

Learning that it left in a few minutes, and finding that she could secure a stateroom, she took it, paid for it, and hastily left without a glance behind her at Green.

Meanwhile Green had very calmly slipped one hand into the breast pocket of his own overcoat, where it trailed loosely over her left arm, meaning to extract his wallet without anybody observing him. The wallet was not there. He was greatly inclined to run after her, but he didn't. He watched her depart, then:

"Is there another stateroom left on the Verbena Special?" he inquired of the ticket agent, coolly enough.

"One. Do you wish it?"

"Yes."

The ticket agent made out the coupons and shoved the loose change under the grille, saying:

"Better hurry, sir. You've less than a minute."

He ran for his train and managed to swing aboard just as the coloured porters were closing the vestibules and the train was in motion.

A trifle bewildered at what he had done, and by the rapidity with which he had done it, he sank down in the vacant observation car to collect his thoughts.

He was on board the Verbena Special--the southern train-de-luxe--bound for Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Palm Beach, Verbena Inlet, or Miami--or for Na.s.sau, Cuba, and the remainder of the West Indies--just as he chose.

He had no other luggage than a walking-stick. Even his overcoat was in possession of somebody else. That was the situation that now faced George Z. Green.