The Box with Broken Seals | Page 8

an _habitué_ to the bar, the precincts
of which, at that time in the late afternoon, were crowded by a motley
gathering. He ordered a Scotch highball, and gently insinuated himself
into the proximity of a group of newspaper men with whom he seemed
to have some slight acquaintance. It was curious how, since his arrival
in this democratic meeting-place, his manners and deportment seemed
to have slipped to a lower grade. He seemed as though by an effort of
will to have lost something of his natural air of distinction, to be
treading the earth upon a lower plane. He saluted the barkeeper by his
Christian name, listened with apparent interest to an exceedingly
commonplace story from one of his neighbours, and upon its
conclusion drew a little nearer to the group.
"Say," he exclaimed confidentially, "if I felt in the humour for it I could
hand you boys out a great scoop."
They were on him like a pack of hungry though dubious wolves. He
pushed his glass out of sight, accepted one of the drinks pressed upon
him, and leaned nonchalantly against the counter.
"What should you say," he began, "to Miss Katharine Beverley, the
New York society young lady--"
"Sister Katharine of St. Agnes's?" one of them interrupted.
"Daughter of old Joe Beverley, the multi-millionaire?" another
exclaimed.
"Both right," Jocelyn Thew acquiesced. "What should you say to that
young woman leaving her hospital and her house in Riverside Drive,
breaking all her engagements at less than twenty-four hours' notice, to

take a sick Englishman whom no one knows anything about, back to
Liverpool on the City of Boston to-morrow?"
"The story's good enough," a ferret-faced little man at his elbow
acknowledged, "but is it true?"
Jocelyn Thew regarded his questioner with an air of pained surprise.
"It's Gospel," he assured them all, "but you don't need to take my word.
You go right along up and enquire at the Beverley house to-night, and
you'll find that she is packing. Made up her mind just an hour ago. I'm
about the only one in the know."
"Who's the man, anyway?" one of the little group asked.
"Nothing doing," Jocelyn Thew replied mysteriously. "You've got to
find that out for yourself, boys. All I can tell you is that he's an
Englishman, and she has known him for a long time--kind of love stunt,
I imagine. She wasn't having any, but now he's at death's door she
seems to have relented. Anyway, she is breaking every engagement
she's got, giving up her chairmanship of the War Hospitals Committee,
and she isn't going to leave him while he's alive. There's no other nurse
going, so it'll be a night and day job for her."
"What's the matter with the chap, anyway?" another questioner
demanded.
"No one knows for sure," was the cautious reply. "He's been operated
upon for appendicitis, but I fancy there are complications. Not much
chance for him, from what I have heard."
The little crowd of men melted away. Jocelyn Thew smiled to himself
on his way out, as he watched four of them climb into a taxicab.
"That establishes Phillips all right as Miss Beverley's protégé," he
murmured, as he turned into Fifth Avenue. "And now--"
He stopped short in his reflections. His careful scrutiny of the

heterogeneous crowd gathered together around the bar had revealed to
him no unfamiliar type save the little man who at that moment was
ambling along on the other side of the way. Jocelyn Thew slackened
his pace somewhat and watched him keenly. He was short, he wore a
cheap ready-made suit of some plain material, and a straw hat tilted on
the back of his head. He had round cheeks, he shambled rather than
walked, and his vacuous countenance seemed both good-natured and
unintelligent. To all appearances a more harmless person never
breathed, yet Jocelyn Thew, as he studied him earnestly, felt that slight
tightening of the nerves which came to him almost instinctively in
moments of danger. He changed his purpose and turned down Fifth
Avenue instead of up. The little man, it appeared, had business in the
same direction. Jocelyn Thew walked the length of several blocks in
leisurely fashion and then entered an hotel, studiously avoiding looking
behind him. He made his way into a telephone booth and looked
through the glass door. His follower in a few moments was visible,
making apparently some aimless enquiry across the counter. Jocelyn
Thew turned his back upon him and asked the operator for a number.
"Number 238 Park waiting," the latter announced, a few moments later.
Jocelyn Thew reentered the box and took up the receiver.
"That you, Rentoul?" he asked.
"Speaking," was the guarded reply. "Who is it?"
"Jocelyn Thew. Say, what's wrong with you? Don't go away."