No less remarkably the woman pursued: "It's all right, then, dearie? I mean, everything is all set for the big bust?"
"Why, of course!" Mallison intoned distinctly, with a dying echo of the emotion which had coloured his last preceding response—"of course I'll be there. But I shall have to go down on my knees and beg Mrs. McFee to forgive me—and I really can't quite forgive myself for being so forgetful."
"Gosh!" the other breathed in awed admiration—"got to hand it to you, kid, you stall so pretty. Well: our friend—you know—is getting impatient, so it's up to you to shake a leg. How soon shall I say you'll be ready?"
"Oh, but really! I'm afraid I can hardly make it under half an hour."
"Sure that'll be long enough?" Surprising solicitude seemed to shade the strange voice. "You know, dearie, we wouldn't for worlds crash in too soon, I mean before you get a good chance to do your very best dirty work. 'Cause the blacker the looks of it, the better the pay—and the surer."
"Oh quite!" Mallison cheerily agreed. "But half an hour will do me famously."
"Good enough." A sly chuckle accompanied this commendation. "You're one little fast worker, all right, darling: I only wanted you to take all the time you need to turn out an artistic job. All rightie: I'll set the alarm for thirty minutes from now—the zero hour! And mind you take good care of yourself, dearie. Ta-ta."
With elegance indisputable Mallison returned a musical "Au revoir."
Lanyard waited for the other receiver to refind its hook, then hung up in turn, and took his seething mystification back to the head of the stairs, whence he could overhear the apologies Mallison was offering below.
"Do be charitable, Folly, and make allowances for my weak mind. I simply can not understand how I could have been so great an idiot as to forget I'd promised Mary Ashe—Mrs. Stuyvesant Ashe, you know—I'd join a party she's made up for the Rendezvous tonight—"