The Cinema Murder

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

"Won't you go round yourself, Mr. Ware?" he suggested. "Miss Dalstan has another ten minutes before she is on."

Philip shook his head.

"I'm looking for a man I know," he replied evasively. "I'll be somewhere about here in five minutes."

The answer came in less than that time. It was just a scrawled line in pencil:

"Forgive me, dear. I will explain everything in the morning, if you will come to my rooms at eleven o'clock. This evening I have a hateful duty to perform and I cannot see you."

Philip, impatient of the atmosphere of the theatre, wandered out into the streets with the note in his pocket. Broadway was thronged with people, a heterogeneous, slowly-moving throng, the hardest crowd to apprehend, to understand, of any in the world. He looked absently into the varying stream of faces, stared at the whirling sky-signs, the lights flashing from the tall buildings, heard snatches of the music from the open doors of the cafes and restaurants. Men, and even women, elbowed him, unresenting, out of the way, without the semblance of an apology. It seemed to him that his presence there, part of the drifting pandemonium of the pavement, was in a sense typical of his own existence in New York. He had given so much of his life into another's hands and now the anchor was dragging. He was suddenly confronted with the possibility of a rift in his relations with Elizabeth; with a sudden surging doubt, not of Elizabeth herself but simply a feeling of insecurity with regard to their future. He only realised in those moments how much he had leaned upon her, how completely she seemed to have extended over him and his troubled life some sort of sheltering influence, to which he had succumbed with an effortless, an almost fatalistic impulse, finding there, at any rate, a refuge from the horrors of his empty days. It was all abstract and impersonal at first, this jealousy which had come so suddenly to disturb the serenity of an almost too perfect day, but as the hours passed it seemed to him that his thoughts dwelt more often upon the direct cause of his brief separation from Elizabeth. He turned in at one of the clubs of which he had been made a member, and threw himself gloomily into an easy-chair. His thoughts had turned towards the grim, masterful personality of the man who seemed to have obtruded himself upon their lives. What did it mean when Elizabeth told him she was engaged for to-night? She was supping with him somewhere—probably at that moment seated opposite to him at a small, rose-shaded table in one of the many restaurants of the city which they had visited together. He, Sylvanus Power, his supplanter, was occupying the place that belonged to him, ordering her supper, humouring her little preferences, perhaps sharing with her that little glow of relief which comes with the hour of rest, after the strain of the day's work. The suggestion was intolerable. To-morrow he would have an explanation! Elizabeth belonged to him. The sooner the world knew it, the better, and this man first of all. He read her few lines again, hastily pencilled, and evidently written standing up. There was a certain ignominy in being sent about his business, just because this colossus from the West had appeared and claimed—what? Not his right!—he could have no right! What then?…

Philip ordered a drink, tore open an evening paper, and tried to read. The letters danced before his eyes, the whisky and soda stood neglected at his elbow. Afterwards he found himself looking into space. There was something cynical, challenging almost, in the manner in which that man had taken Elizabeth away from him, had acknowledged his introduction, even had treated the author of a play, a writer, as some sort of a mountebank, making his living by catering for the amusements of the world. How did that man regard such gifts as his, he wondered?—Sylvanus Power, of whom he had seen it written that he was one of the conquerors of nature, a hard but splendid utilitarian, the builder of railways in China and bridges for the transit of his metals amid the clouds of the mountain tops. In the man's absence, his harshness, almost uncouthness, seemed modified. He was a rival, without a doubt, and to-night a favoured one. How well had he known Elizabeth? For how long? Was it true, that rumour he had once heard—that the first step in her fortunes had been due to the caprice of a millionaire? He found the room stifling, but the thought of the streets outside unnerved him. He looked about for some distraction.

The room was beginning to fill—actors, musicians, a few journalists, a great many men of note in the world of Bohemia kept streaming in. One or two of them nodded to him, several paused to speak.

"Hullo, Ware!" Noel Bridges exclaimed. "Not often you give us a look in.
What are you doing with yourself here all alone?"

Philip turned to answer him, and suddenly felt the fire blaze up again. He saw his questioner's frown, saw him even bite his lip as though conscious of having said a tactless thing. The actor probably understood the whole situation well enough.