Above the penciled scribble was neither date nor heading, but the signature in Christina's slapdash scrawl made the world spin before Herrick's eyes. Upon that sheet of paper her hand had rested and had written there to Wheeler, but not to him! The message ran—
"Announce me for Thursday night, September 20th. I will be there.
"Christina Hope."
"Where did it come from?"
"From the infernal regions, apparently. It was left here at the club without the mannikin in buttons so much as noticing by whom. It may have been written from across the street; it may have been enclosed from anywhere."
"When?"
"This noon-time. You don't doubt its being genuine?" Wheeler asked. "No more do I. As for what to think, I haven't a guess. The girl may be, for all I know, a mere born-devil, or the tool of devils. Let her come back to my cast, and, for what I care, she may bring all hell in her pocket! I've had a very nasty interview with Ten Euyck, who thinks I can explain my sign."
Stanley stood there with his face working. "You don't mean to tell me," he cried aloud, "you don't mean to tell me that it's been nothing but an advertising trick from the beginning!"
"God forgive you!" Wheeler said. "You are our public!—No, my dear lad, there is one thing in this angelic wildcat of ours that you can tie to. When she tells me, in our business, to bank on her being in the theater Thursday night, I bank on it; if she can set one foot before the other, there she will be. That's my belief, if it were my last breath, and I'm staking everything on it. But we've got to allow for one thing. If she can! Christina has a great idea of her powers. But, even for her, heaven and earth are not always movable."
More people than one were perhaps discovering a certain helplessness before fate. About noon of the next day Mrs. Pascoe sat knitting in a bedroom above her niece's table d'hôte. There was only one other person in the room, a smallish man in the early thirties, who looked as though he had once been a gentleman, and whose correct feminine little features were now drawn into an expression at once weak and wild. His soft helpless-looking figure writhed and twitched as he now lay down and now sat up upon the bed; his face was swollen with weeping and the tears still flowed from his eyes.
"Well, if yeh're goin' to take on that way," said Mrs. Pascoe, "I dunno as I can blame her any. I dunno as I blame her anyhow. Yeh never objected when there was any money in it. It's kind o' late to carry on, now. What say?"