Washington Square was hardly awake when they churned up to the sidewalk. Lindsay let himself in the door; bounded lightly up the two flights of stairs; unlocked the door of Spink’s apartment. Everything was silent there. The dust of two months of vacancy lay on the furnishings. Lindsay stood in the center of the room, contemplating the door which led backward into the rest of the apartment.
“Well, old top, you’re not going to trouble me any longer. I get that with my first breath. I’ve done what she wanted and what you wanted so far. Now what in the name of heaven is the next move?”
He stood in the center of the room waiting, listening.
And then into his hearing, stretched to its final capacity, came sound. Just sound at first; then a dull murmur. Lindsay’s hair rose with a prickling progress from his scalp. But that murmur was human. It continued.
Lindsay went to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the hall. The murmur grew louder. It was a woman’s voice; a girl’s voice; unmistakably the voice of youth. It came from the little room next to Spink’s apartment.
Again Lindsay listened. The monotone broke; grew jagged; grew shrill; became monotonous again. Suddenly the truth dawned on him. It was the voice of madness or of delirium.
He advanced to the door and knocked. Nobody answered. The monotone continued. He knocked again. Nobody answered. The monotone continued. He tried the knob. The door was locked. With his hand still on the knob, he put his shoulder to the door; gave it a slow resistless pressure. It burst open.
It was a small room and furnished with the conventional furnishings of a bedroom. Lindsay saw but two things in it. One was a girl, sitting up in the bed in the corner; a beautiful slim creature with streaming loose red hair; her cheeks vivid with fever spots; her eyes brilliant with fever-light. It was she who emitted the monotone.
The other thing was a miniature, standing against the glass on the bureau. A miniature of a beautiful woman in the full lusciousness of a golden blonde maturity.