As he started toward Lexington Avenue and a disengaged taxi, he searched the sea of resource for the likeliest channel through which to bring his promise-threat into port and the anchorage of accomplishment.
CHAPTER XX—ONE LIVELY ESCUTCHEON
Interrogatory argument had forced most answers in Pape’s career. Now two of a pertinent order forced an italicized third which, under limitations of the moment, was unanswerable.
Why delay a reappearance before his self-selected lady?
By way of excuse, why not realize on that well-bred dare of Aunt Helene—why not make good on his agreement to match the Sturgis coat-of-arms with that of the house of Pape?
After which, what?
Even more alive than was he must his escutcheon be. Just how dynamically alive, he’d be able soon to demonstrate, unless the West Shore Railroad’s fast freight from Chicago had met with delay. He’d ask no recourse to the weighty tomes of ancient history or the public library’s genealogical records. His showing must be more representative of the last of the line than that and up to the second.
The flags of all the taxis he sighted were furled for earlier fares, but a flat-wheeled Fifty-ninth Street surface car bore him cross-town. The checker at the door of Polkadot’s palatial boarding-house further taxed his time.
“Gent here asking for you, Mr. Pape, not more than half hour ago.... No, he wasn’t small or sharp-faced—not partic’aler so. No, he didn’t have no cauliflower ear. What I did notice was his wat’ry voice and what might pass for a mustache if you had magnifying eyes.... Said he’d just stick around.”
So! His trailer of the moment was neither Welch nor Duffy, but the youth of the slightly adorned lip. The nature of that small matter of business which had brought him to the Astor last evening might better remain a mystery since mysteries were the order of the day and attempted solutions were likely to land one before a magistrate.