Shirley smoothed away the ripple of suspicion which he had mischievously aroused with, “So, that is why fellows like us would not bother with the life. The same physical and intellectual effort expended by a criminal genius would bring him money and power with no clutching legal hand to fear. But there, we're getting morbid. What I really want to do is to satisfy my vanity. Where did Miss Marigold disappear?”
“Talking about me?” and Helene opened her eyes languorously. “I was so tired waiting for you that when Mr. Warren came along in his wonderful new car I yielded to his invitation, so we enjoyed that tea-room trip which you had promised. Such a lark! Then we came up here where I had the most wonderful dinner with him and three girls. I was tired and sleepy, so I dozed away on that library davenport until the party began—and there you are and here I are, and so, forgive me, Monty?”
She slipped nimbly to the floor, with a maddening display of a silken ankle, advancing to the criminologist with a wistful playfulness which brought a flush of sudden feeling, to the face of Reginald Warren. Helene was carrying out his directions to the letter, Shirley observed.
They lingered at Warren's festivities until a wee sma' hour, Helene pretending to share the conviviality, while actually maintaining a hawk-like watch upon the two conspirators as she now felt them to be. She was amused by the frequency with which Shine Taylor and Reginald Warren plied their guest with cigarettes: Shirley's legerdemain in substituting them was worthy of the vaudeville stage.
“The wine and my smoking have made me drowsy,” he told her, with no effort at concealment. “We must get home or I'll fall asleep myself.”
A covert smile flitted across Warren's pale face, as Shirley unconventionally indulged in several semi-polite yawns, nodding a bit, as well. Helene accepted glass after glass of wine, thoughtfully poured out by her host. And as thoughtfully, did she pour it into the flower vases when his back was turned: she matched the other girls' acute transports of vinous joy without an error. Shirley walked to the window, asking if he might open it for a little fresh air. Warren nodded smiling.
“You are well on the way to heaven in this altitude of eight stories,” volunteered Shirley, with a sleepy laugh.
“Yes. The eighth and top floor. A burglar could make a good haul of my collection, except that I have the window to the fire escape barred from the inside, around the corner facing to the north. Here, I am safe from molestation.”
“A great view of the Park—what a fine library for real reading; and I see you have a typewriter—the same make I used to thump, when I did newspaper work—a Remwood. Let me see some of your literary work, sometime—”
Warren waved a deprecating hand. “Very little—editors do not like it. I do better with an adding machine down on Wall Street than a typewriter. But let us join the others.” There was a noticeable reluctance about dwelling upon the typewriter subject. Warren hurried into the drawing-room, as Shirley followed with a perceptible stagger.