The Day of Days Part 29

"I know," said P. Sybarite, with a quiet chuckle: "the Hadley-Owen masquerade."

"How did you know?"

"_Kismet!_ It had to be."

"Are you by any chance--mad?"

"I shouldn't be surprised. Anyhow, I'm a bit mad I wasn't invited.

Everybody I know or meet--almost--is either bidden to that party or knows somebody who is. Forgive the interruption.... Anyway," he added, "we're here."

The taxicab was drawing up before an apartment house entrance.

Hastily recovering his h.o.a.rd of gold-pieces, P. Sybarite jumped out and presented one to the driver.

"Can't change that," said the latter, staring. "Besides, this was a charge call."

"I know," said P. Sybarite apologetically; "but this is for you."

"Good G.o.d!" cried the chauffeur.

"And yet," mused P. Sybarite, "they'd have you believe all taxicab chauffeurs mercenary!"

Recklessly he forced the money into the man's not altogether inhospitable palm.

"For being a good little tight-mouth," he explained gravely.

"Forever and ever, amen!" protested the latter fervently. "And thank _you_!"

"If you're satisfied, we're quits," returned P. Sybarite, offering a hand to the boy.

"I can manage," protested this last, descending without a.s.sistance.

"And it's better so," he explained as they crossed to the door; "I don't want the hallboys here to suspect--and I can hold up a few minutes longer, never fear."

"Business of taking off my hat to you," said P. Sybarite in unfeigned admiration; "for pure grit, you're a young wonder."

A liveried hallboy opened the door. A second waited in the elevator.

Promptly ascending, they were set down at one of the upper floors.

Throughout the boy carried himself with never a quiver, his countenance composed and betraying what pain he suffered only to eyes keen to discern its trace of pallor. Now as he left the elevator and fitted a key to the lock of his private front door, he addressed the attendant, over his shoulder, in a manner admirably casual:

"By the way, Jimmy--"

"Sir?"

"Call up Dr. Higgins for me."

"Yes, sir."

"Tell him I've an attack of indigestion and will be glad if he'll turn out and see if he can't fix me up for the night."

"Very good, Mr. Kenny."

The gate clanged and the cage dropped from sight as Mr. Kenny opened the door and stood aside to let P. Sybarite precede him.

"Rot!" objected the little man forcibly. "Go in and turn up the lights. Punctilio from a man in your condition--!"

The boy nodded wearily, pa.s.sed in, and switched up the lights in a comfortably furnished sitting-room.

"As a matter of fact," he said thoughtfully, when P. Sybarite had followed him in and shut the door--"I'm wondering how much of a bluff I may be, after all."

"Meaning--?"

"By all literary precedent I ought to faint now, after my magnificent exhibition of superhuman endurance. But I'm not going to."

"That's rather sporting of you," P. Sybarite grinned.

"Not at all; I just don't want to--don't feel like it. That sick feeling is gone--nothing but a steady agony like a hot iron through my shoulder--something any man with teeth to grit could stand."

"We'll find out soon enough. I don't pretend to be any sort of a dab at repairs on punctured humanity, but I read enough popular fiction myself to know that the only proper thing to do is to ruin that handsome coat of yours by cutting it off your back. We can antic.i.p.ate the doctor to that extent, at least."

"That's one thing, at least, that the popular novelist knows _right_,"

a.s.serted Mr. Kenny with conviction. "Sorry for the coat--but you'll find scissors yonder, on my desk."

And when P. Sybarite fetched them, he sat himself sideways in a straight-backed chair and cheerfully endured the little man's impromptu essays in first-aid measures.

A very little snipping and slas.h.i.+ng sufficed to do away with the shoulder and sleeve of the boy's coat and to lay open his waistcoat as well, exposing a bloodstained s.h.i.+rt. And then, at the instant when P.

Sybarite was noting with relief that the stain showed both in back and in front, the telephone shrilled.

"If you don't mind answering that--" grunted Mr. Kenny.

P. Sybarite was already at the instrument.

"Yes?" he answered. "Dr. Higgins?"

"Sorry, sir," replied a strange voice: "Dr. Higgins isn't in yet. Any message?"

"Tell him Mr. Kenny needs him at the Monastery, and the matter's urgent.... Doctor not in," he reported superfluously, returning to cut away collar, tie, s.h.i.+rt, and unders.h.i.+rt. "Never mind, I shouldn't be surprised if we could manage to do without him, after all."

"Meaning it's not so bad--?"

"Meaning," said the other, exposing the naked shoulder, "I'm beginning to hope you've had a marvellously narrow escape."

"Feels like it," said Kenny, ironic.

P. Sybarite withheld response while he made close examination. At the base of Mr. Kenny's neck, well above the shoulder-blade, dark blood was welling slowly from an ugly puncture. And in front there was a corresponding puncture, but smaller. And presently his deft and gentle fingers, exploring the folds of the boy's unders.h.i.+rt, closed upon the bullet itself.

"I don't believe," he announced, displaying his find, "you deserve such luck. Somehow you managed to catch this just right for it to slip through without either breaking bone or severing artery. And by a special dispensation of an all-wise Providence, Red November must have been preoccupied when he loaded that gun, for somehow a steel-jacketed instead of a soft-nosed bullet got into the chamber he wasted on you.

Otherwise you'd have been pretty badly smashed. As it is, you'll probably be laid up only a few days."