“If you will do as I ask, no harm will come to any one.”
De Spain heard the receiver hung up at the other end of the wire. He signalled the operator hastily, called for his office, asked for Lefever, and, failing to get him, got hold of Bob Scott. To him he explained rapidly what had occurred, and what he wanted. “Get up to Grant and Rancherio, Bob, as quick as the Lord will let you. Come by the back streets. There’s a high mulberry hedge at the southwest corner you can get behind. This chap may have been talking for somebody else. Anyway, look the man over when he passes under the arc-light. If it is Sassoon or Gale Morgan, come into Jeffries’s house by the rear door. Wait in the kitchen for my call from 376 the living-room, or a shot. I’ll arrange for your getting in.”
Leaving the telephone, de Spain rejoined Nan in the living-room. He told her briefly of the expected visit and explained, laughingly, that his caller had asked to have the lights out and to see him alone.
Nan, standing close to him, her own hand on his shoulder and her curling hair against his scarred cheek, asked questions about the incident because he seemed to be holding something back. She professed to be satisfied when he requested her to go up to her room and explained it was probably one of the men coming to tell about some petty thieving on the line or of a strike brewing among the drivers. He made so little of the incident that Nan walked up the stairs on de Spain’s arm reassured. When he kissed her at her room door and turned down the stairs again, she leaned in the half-light over the banister, waving one hand at him and murmuring the last caution: “Be careful, Henry, won’t you?”
“Dearie, I’m always careful.”
“’Cause you’re all I’ve got now,” she whispered.
“You’re all I’ve got, Nan, girl.”
“I haven’t got any home––or anything––just you. Don’t go to the door yourself. Leave the 377 front door open. Stand behind the end of the piano till you are awfully sure who it is.”
“What a head, Nan!”
De Spain cut off the lights, threw open the front door, and in the darkness sat down on the piano stool. A heavy step on the porch, a little while later, was followed by a knock on the open door.