"Well," agreed a manager, solemnly, after every possible version of the affair had been discussed, "what I've always said is—Strung on wires! He's the best in his own line, I don't deny it! You could have your star and your juvenile man tearing each other to pieces in the middle of the stage and he'd be down in a corner, with an eye on a crack, and everybody'd be looking at him! But I've always said, and I say it again—Strung on wires!" The manager seemed to think that this remark met the occasion fully at every point.
And as the men became more and more excited in their talk, Herrick discovered that the very heart of their excitement was their sympathy for Denny's own manager who would have to replace him by to-morrow night. Heaped all around lay this morning's papers, every one of them extolling Denny's performance of the night before, and little guessing what the next editions would bring forth; these fine notices made the management's position all the more difficult and the talkers all seemed to feel that it was very hard, after so expensive a production, that Denny should get himself arrested for murder at such a moment.
So that between this extremely business-like sympathy which suited Herrick to perfection and his own desire that Christina should be kept out of it, he perceived that about the last person for whom any one was excited was Denny himself. He was congratulating himself that Mrs. Hope was a person to keep distressing newspapers out of sight as long as possible and that her daughter was sure to rise late on the morning of the night of nights when a boy brought him a 'phone message. "You're please to go and ask to see Mr. Denny at Inspector Corrigan's office!"
With somewhat restive promptitude Herrick obeyed. As he was shown into the office the first person his eye lighted upon was Christina.
CHAPTER XII
AULD ACQUAINTANCE: WHAT CHRISTINA SAW
The only professional appearance which Wheeler had hitherto permitted Christina to make in New York had been when she recited at a benefit early in the preceding spring. The benefit was for the families of some policemen who had perished valiantly in the public service and when Christina had enlisted the Ingham influence in the cause Wheeler had made the whole affair appear of her contriving. To procure herself an interview with Denny in the Inspector's office before the formalities of the Tombs should close about him she had not scrupled to make use of this circumstance, and whether because it combined with her having business there, in the identification of Nancy's message, or because the Inspector believed she could really influence Denny to talk, as she said she could, or because he wanted to watch them together, or, after all, because she was one of those who get what she desired, there she was.
Herrick was no longer at a loss to account for a sort of tickled admiration which admitted him as one at least near the rose. She had evidently been treated with the consideration due the chief mourner, whatever one may think of the corpse; the Inspector, over by the window, had made himself inconspicuous and for a moment Herrick saw only Christina—a Christina wholly baffled and at a loss! She had, indeed, that air of having spent her life in the office which was her distinguishing characteristic in any atmosphere. Her hat was, as usual, anywhere but on her head; she had stripped off her gloves and tossed them into it. But she now sat in an attitude of despairing quiet which she broke on Herrick's entrance only to catch his arm with one hand; turning her face in upon his sleeve, "Bryce," she moaned, "I brought him to this!"
Then he saw that Denny was standing looking through the barred window with his back to them. When he turned Herrick had to struggle against a touch of sympathy for the change in his appearance. Although he had never seen Denny in the daylight before, there was no denying that he was only the worn ghost of what he had been last night. His slenderness had the broken droop of physical and emotional exhaustion; beneath the intense black of his hair, his face was the color of ashes and his quick, brilliant eyes looked lifeless and burned out. Nevertheless, Herrick preferred the daytime version. The sort of evil phosphorescence of the French marquis which had continued to dazzle his eyes in the darkness and the sharp electric light, had wholly vanished; Denny was not playing a villain now—and in the blue serge suit of ordinary life, there was something almost boyish in him.