Although the need for haste had become urgent, Cristie didn’t move. Sara Hazard was descending the steps. Cristie recognized her instantly, her golden head was uncovered, shimmered palely above the long folds of the white ermine cape. Sara Hazard was also looking for a cab and had evidently reached the same decision as Cristie because she turned left, started to walk away.
She hadn’t gone more than a few yards when she came to an abrupt halt. Cristie stared through the gloom. A man had stepped out of the shadows, a big man in a dark suit with a soft dark hat pulled down over her eyes. He stood directly in Sara Hazard’s path so that she was automatically forced to a standstill.
Light from a street lamp shone down on the man’s big shoulders, his rugged brow, on the outline of his jaw and chin. The man was Pat Somers, Assemblyman Clifford Somers’s brother. Cristie was startled and a little bewildered. Cliff Somers had said that his brother Pat was in Albany with the Governor. Why was Pat Somers lurking outside Margot’s penthouse? Because it was quite evident that he had been waiting there, and waiting for a purpose. He started to speak. Cristie couldn’t help hearing him.
Pat Somers said, “Good evening, Mrs. Hazard. Don’t run away.” The words were even, unaccented. Their import wasn’t.
Sara Hazard drew her cape tightly around her. Her voice had a nervous quality to it as she exclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Somers! But I thought you were out of town. At least— I don’t know who—I mean, someone said you were. I thought…” She stopped in the middle of a sentence.
Pat Somers reached out. He took Sara Hazard’s shoulders in a huge tight grip. He said calmly, quietly, every word audible, “No. I’m not out of town. I’m right here. I was at home earlier this evening. I know what went on there. I saw you. Listen, Mrs. Hazard. This is a warning. Keep away from my brother Cliff. Stop your little game. I won’t have it, do you understand, I won’t have it. That’s all. And I don’t play ping-pong.”
There was something singularly menacing in his trenchant tone. Sara Hazard jerked herself loose from the hands resting on her shoulders. She said vehemently, furiously, her silken ease torn to shreds, “You seem to think you own this town, Pat Somers. Well, you don’t. And you can’t bluff me. I can play tougher games than ping-pong myself.”
Pat Somers reached out again. This time there was more than warning in his big, well-manicured fingers. His hands stopped in mid-air. They fell to his side. A man was running down the apartment house steps. His back was toward Cristie. He called, “Oh, there you are, Mrs. Hazard. Gonna take you home. Damn shame pretty woman has to go home alone. Won’t ’low it.”
Cristie recognized the voice. It was Euen Firth and Euen seemed to be pretty well plastered. Sara Hazard welcomed Euen’s arrival, tight or no tight. She took his proffered arm, said acidly, “Good night, Mr. Somers.”
Euen’s long cream-colored roadster was parked at the curb a little farther along. Euen helped Sara into it, got in himself. Pat Somers watched them drive away. The tip of his cigar glowed and ashed and glowed again. He took the cigar from his mouth, threw it in the gutter and, as the roadster disappeared around the corner, he started for the Avenue.
Cristie found a cab at the corner of Madison and Sixty-third. She gave the driver general directions. She dismissed the cab on the side street to the west, walked toward Franklin Place, paused near the opposite corner. Euen Firth’s roadster was standing in front of Steven’s apartment hotel, a big building overlooking the East River. Sara and Euen were seated in the cream-colored roadster. There was no sign of Steven up or down the block.
Perhaps he was in the rooms on the fourteenth floor already. Perhaps he had returned since she had called from the penthouse. But perhaps not. She must telephone again and make sure. She looked back along the dark side street. Yes, the garage was there, she had noticed it when she drove past. Its lights streamed out. Garages always had telephones. She turned her back on Franklin Place, walked toward it quickly.
The telephone was in a booth just inside the big doors. No one stopped her or interfered with her. Luckily she had change. She called the Hazard apartment. Again it was the maid who answered. Thank God. Steven wasn’t home. She was in time. But she would have to hurry.
Back near the corner opposite the towering apartment house, dotted here and there with a few illuminated windows, she settled down to wait.
Sara Hazard was out of the cream-colored roadster. She was having trouble getting away from Euen. It was very quiet. Cristie heard Euen urging her to go down to Jimmy Kelly’s with him for “’nother little drink” but Sara refused. She said good-night curtly and disappeared through the big grilled iron doors.
The night was still warm but Cristie was shivering. Suppose Steven had gone in while she was telephoning from the garage? No, that was scarcely likely. If he had, Sara would probably have gone upstairs with him. Where was he and what was he doing? Pain seized her again, numbing her faculties, destroying her equilibrium. She climbed clear of it with effort, braced her shoulders against the brickwork of the wall against which she leaned in a dense bank of shadow and kept her eyes fastened on the apartment across the way and to the north.
Euen’s car was still standing at the curb. He sat sprawled back against the cushions. Only the fact that he was smoking showed that he hadn’t fallen asleep in an alcoholic stupor. A man and a woman entered the apartment hotel. A colored man came out and sloshed water on the steps, went in again. Someone was polishing the inside of the doors.
Fifty feet farther away a dim globe burned above the service entrance. When Cristie had been standing there for about ten minutes, a woman came out of it, a slender blonde in modish black. Euen Firth moved. He sat erect, put his hand on the door of the roadster. She heard him call, “Mrs. Hazard.” The woman passed the main entrance, glanced at him curiously and continued on her way. Euen sank back. The woman wasn’t Sara Hazard. The colored man was on the steps with another bucket of water. He spoke to the woman. Cristie didn’t know that it was Eva Prentice, the Hazard maid. Presently Euen Firth drove away.
The apartment door opened. Cristie caught a glimpse of women on their knees with mops and pails. A clock somewhere struck three. The door started to close. It was Sara Hazard who came out. She had changed her evening gown for a dark suit and a small dark hat. Cristie caught the gleam of her hair beneath the hat brim. She was carrying her purse under her arm.
Where was she going at that hour of the night? There a suggestion of watchfulness about her. Out on the Place she paused, looking right and left.
A couple of stray cabs went past. An ambulance clanged distantly. The faraway murmur of traffic rose and fell. It was fainter now. New York was approaching its zero hour.
After that sharp right and left stare, Sara Hazard walked to the corner, the corner opposite the one on which Cristie stood well back in deep shadow. Sara Hazard turned into the side street running down to the river. A car was parked in the obscurity near the top of the short steep hill. Its back was toward Cristie. It was facing the East River Drive below. It was Steven’s gray convertible.
Mrs. Hazard got in and switched on the lights. They did little more than make the darkness visible. There was no sign of Steven. Get as near as possible to the apartment, Cristie thought, so as to catch him when he arrived.
The mouth of the steep side street was almost directly in front of her on the far side of Franklin Place. The car with Sara Hazard in it was some fifty feet from the corner. Cristie started across. The roadbed was smooth, even. She was in the middle of it when she jolted to a stop. There was movement in front of her, in and around the gray coupe.
Cristie’s knee
