The Voice in the Fog | Page 4

form any retort. Where had she heard
that voice before? With a little shudder--due to the thought of those
cold strange fingers feeling about her throat--her hands went up.
Instantly she cried aloud in dismay. Her sapphires! They had vanished!
CHAPTER II
Daniel Killigrew, of Killigrew and Company (sugar, coffee and spices),
was in a towering rage; at least, he towered one inch above his normal
height, which was five feet six. Like an animal recently taken in
captivity he trotted back and forth through the corridors, in and out of
the office, to and from the several entrances, blowing the while like a
grampus. All he could get out of these infernally stupid beings was
"Really, sir!" He couldn't get a cab, he couldn't get a motor, he couldn't
get anything. Manager, head-clerk, porter, doorman and page, he told
them, one and all, what a dotty old spoof of a country they lived in; that
they were all dead-alive persons, fit to be neither under nor above earth;
that they wouldn't be one-two in a race with January
molasses--"Treacle, I believe you call it here!" And what did they say
to this scathing arraignment? Yes, what did they say? "Really, sir!" He
knew and hoped it would happen: if ever Germany started war, it would
be over before these Britishers made up their minds that there was a
war. A hundred years ago they had beaten Napoleon (with the
assistance of Spain, Austria, Germany and Russia), and were now
resting.
Quarter to one, and neither wife nor daughter; outside there,
somewhere in the fog; and he could not go to them. It was maddening.
Molly might be arrested and Kitty lost. Served him right; he should

have put his foot down. The idea of Molly being allowed to go with
those rattle-pated women! Suffragettes! A "Bah!" exploded with a loud
report. Hereafter he would show who voted in the Killigrew family.
Poor man! He was made of that unhappy mental timber which agrees
thoughtlessly to a proposition for the sake of peace and then regrets it
in the name of war. His wife and daughter twisted him round their little
fingers and then hunted cover when he found out what they had done.
He went out again to the main entrance and smoked himself headachy.
He hated London. He had always hated it in theory, now he hated it in
fact. He hated tea, buttered muffins, marmalade, jam, toast, cricket, box
hedges three hundred years old, ruins, and the checkless baggage
system, the wet blankets called newspapers. All the racial hatred of his
forebears (Tipperary born) surged hot and wrathful in his veins. At the
drop of a hat he would have gone to war, individually, with all England.
"Really, sir!" Nothing but that, when he was dying of anxiety!
A taxicab drew up before the canopy. He knew it was a taxicab because
he could hear the sound of the panting engine. The curb-end of the
canopy was curtained by the abominable fog. Mistily a forlorn figure
emerged. The doorman started leisurely toward this figure. Killigrew
pushed him aside violently. Molly, with her hat gone, her hair awry, her
dress torn, her gloves ragged, her eyes puffed! He sprang toward her,
filled with Berserker rage. Who had dared.
"Give the man five pounds," she whispered. "I promised it."
"Five. . . ."
"Give it to him! Good heavens, do I look as if I were joking? Pay him,
pay him!"
Killigrew counted out five sovereigns, perhaps six, he was not sure.
The chauffeur swooped them up, and set off.
"Molly Killigrew. . . ."
"Not a word till I get to the rooms. Hurry! Daniel, if you say anything I

shall fall down!"
He led her to the lift. Curious glances followed, but these signified
nothing. On a night such as this was there would be any number of
accidents. Once in the living-room of the luxurious suite, Mrs.
Killigrew staggered over to the divan and tumbled down upon it. She
began to cry hysterically.
"Molly, old girl! Molly!" He put his arm tenderly across her heaving
shoulders and kneeled. His old girl! Love crowded out all other
thoughts. Money-mad he might be, but he never forgot that Molly had
once fried his meat and peeled his potatoes and darned his socks.
"Molly, what has happened? Who did this? Tell me, and I'll kill him!"
"Dan, when they started up the street for the prime minister's house, I
could not get out of the crowd. I was afraid to. It was so foggy you had
to follow the torches. I did not know what they were about till the
police rushed us. One grabbed me, but I got away." All this between
sobs. "Dan, I don't want to be a