The Girl in the Mirror

by Elizabeth Garver Jordan

A cloud had obscured the sun, quite appropriately, he subconsciously felt, and there were flakes of snow in the air. As he sped through the gray atmosphere, the familiar little towns he knew seemed to come forward to meet him, like rapidly projected pictures on a screen. Flushing, Bayside, Little Neck, Manhasset, Roslyn, Glenhead, one by one they floated past. He made the run of twenty-two miles in something under thirty minutes, to the severe disapproval of several policemen, who shouted urgent invitations to him to slow down. One of these was so persistent that Laurie prepared to obey; but just as the heavy hand of the law was about to fall, its representative recognized young Devon, and waved him on with a forgiving grin. This was not the first time Laurie had "burned up" that stretch of roadway.

At the Sea Cliff station he slowed up; then, on a sudden impulse, stopped his car at the platform with sharp precision and entered the tiny waiting-room. From the ticket window a pretty girl looked out on him with the expression of sudden interest feminine eyes usually took on when this young man was directly in their line of vision. With uncovered curly head deferentially bent, he addressed her. Had she happened to notice a dark limousine go by an hour or so before, say around half-past eight or nine o'clock? The girl shook her head. She had not come on duty until nine, and even if such a car had passed she would hardly have observed it, owing to the frequency of the phenomenon and her own exacting responsibilities.

Laurie admitted that these responsibilities would claim all the attention of any mind. But was there any one around who might have seen the car, any one, say, who made a specialty of lounging on the platform and watching the pulsations of the town's life in this its throbbing center? No, the girl explained, there were no station loafers around now. The summer was the time for them.

Then perhaps she could tell him if there were any nice old houses for rent near Sea Cliff, nice old houses, say, overlooking the Sound, and a little out of the town? Laurie's newly acquired will power was proving its strength. With every frantic impulse in him crying for action, for knowledge, for relief from the intolerable tension he was under, he presented to the girl the suave appearance of a youth at peace with himself and the hour.

The abrupt transitions of the gentleman's interest seemed to surprise the lady. She looked at him with a suspicion which perished under the expression in his brilliant eyes. What he meant, Laurie soberly explained, was the kind of house that might appeal to a casual tourist who was passing through, and who had dropped into the station and there had suddenly realized the extreme beauty of Sea Cliff. The girl laughed. She was a nice girl, he decided, and he smiled back at her; for now she was becoming helpful.

Yes, there was the Varick place, a mile out and right on the water's edge. And there was the old Kiehl place, also on the Sound. These were close together and both for rent, she had heard. Also, there was a house in the opposite direction, and on the water's edge. She did not know the name of that house, but she had observed a "To Let" sign on it last Sunday, when she was out driving. Those were all the houses she knew of. She gave him explicit instructions for reaching all three, and the interview ended in an atmosphere of mutual regard and regret. Indeed, the lady even left her ticket office to follow the gentleman to the door and watch the departure of his chariot.

Laurie raced in turn to the Varick place and the Kiehl place. Shaw, he suspected, had probably rented some such place, just as he had rented the East Side office. But a very cursory inspection of the two old houses convinced him that they were tenantless. No smoke came from their chimneys, no sign of life surrounded them; also, he was sure, they were not sufficiently remote from other houses to suit the mysterious Shaw.

The third house on his list was more promising in appearance, for it stood austerely remote from its neighbors. But on its soggy lawn two soiled children and a dog played in care-free abandon, and from the side of the house came the piercing whistle of an underling cheerily engaged in sawing wood and shouting cautions to the children. Quite plainly, the closed-up, shuttered place was in charge of a caretaker, whose offspring were in temporary possession of its grounds. Laurie inspected other houses, dozens of them. He made his way into strange, new roads. Nowhere was there the slightest clue leading to the house he sought.

It was one o'clock in the afternoon when, with an exclamation of actual anguish, he swung his car around for the return journey to the station. For the first time the hopelessness of his mission came home to him. There must be a few hundred houses on the Sound near Sea Cliff. How was he to find the right one?

Perhaps that girl had thought of some other places, or could direct him to the best local real-estate agents. Perhaps he should have gone to them in the first place. He felt dazed, incapable of clear thought.