That Affair at Elizabeth, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  A Bride's Vagary

  Two minutes later, I was speeding downward in the elevator, havingpaused only long enough to give a word of instruction to the head clerk.A glance at my watch showed me that if I would catch the 12.38, I had notime to lose; but luckily a cab was passing at the moment, and I jumpedaboard the boat for Jersey City just as the gates were closing.

  Not until I was safely aboard the train did I give myself time toconjecture what this imperative summons meant, but during the half-hourrun to the little New Jersey city, I had ample time to try to puzzle itout.

  One thing was quite certain--it was no ordinary emergency which hadmoved Mr. Royce to summon me from the office at a time when I was sobadly needed there. I got out the telegram again, and read it, word byword. It affected me as a wild cry for help would have done, atmidnight, in some lonely place--and it was just that--a wild cry forhelp! But why had he needed aid, when he himself was so clear-sighted,so ready-witted, so fertile of resource? What was this astoundingoccurrence which confronted him, this crisis so urgent and over-whelmingthat it had shaken and startled him out of his self-control? The messageitself was proof of his deep excitement. Apparently he had wired for meinstinctively, finding himself suddenly in the toils of some dilemma,which left him dazed and nerveless.

  Ever since the time when I had succeeded, more by luck than anythingelse, in discovering the whereabouts of Frances Holladay, and solvingthe mystery of her father's death, our junior partner had conceived atremendously exalted opinion of my abilities as an untangler of abstruseproblems, and never lost an opportunity of referring to me such as camein his way. Every firm of practising lawyers knows how frequently a casehinges upon some puzzling point of evidence--how witnesses have a way ofdisappearing--and Graham & Royce had their full share of such perplexingtangles. It had come to be one of the unwritten rules of the office thatsuch points should be referred to me, and while I was by no meansuniformly successful in solving them, I always took a lively pleasure inthe work. It was no doubt that habit which had caused our junior to turnto me in this emergency. I could guess how terrifying it must have beento overwhelm so completely a man so well-balanced and self-controlled--Icould almost see the trembling hand with which he had penned themessage.

  So it was with a certain quickening of the pulse that I stepped from thetrain at the triangular Elizabeth station, and an instant later, Mr.Royce had me by the hand.

  "I've a carriage over here, Lester," he said, drawing me toward it, andI noticed that he was fairly quivering with excitement. "I thought youcould make this train," he added, as we took our seats and the driverwhipped up smartly. "I knew you wouldn't lose any time, and I can't tellyou how glad I am to have you here. Curtiss is all broken up--doesn'tknow which way to turn. Neither do I. I had just sense enough to sendyou that wire."

  "I thought it was a mystery of some sort," I said, beginning to tinglein sympathy with him. "What has happened?"

  "The bride-to-be has disappeared," answered Mr. Royce simply;"vanished--skipped out!"

  For a moment, I scarcely understood. It seemed preposterous to supposethat I had heard aright.

  "Disappeared!" I echoed helplessly. "Skipped out!"

  "Yes, skipped out!" and Mr. Royce crushed his unlighted cigar savagelyin his fingers and hurled it through the carriage window. "I haven't theslightest doubt that she deliberately ran away."

  The sight of his emotion calmed me a little.

  "At the last moment?" I questioned.

  "Practically at the last moment--less than an hour before the time setfor the ceremony. She was getting ready for it--was in herwedding-dress, in fact. I tell you, Lester----"

  "Wait," I said, putting out a restraining hand. "Begin at the beginning.What's her name?"

  "Marcia Lawrence."

  "And she's the 'ideal' Curtiss imagined he'd found?"

  "Yes," said Mr. Royce slowly, "and so far as I can judge from what I'veseen and heard, she really was as nearly perfect as any woman can be."

  "Yet she 'skipped out'!"

  "That's why I'm so upset--she was the last woman in the world to do sucha thing!"

  "Tell me about her," I said.

  "I don't know very much; but I do know that she wasn't a mereempty-headed chit. She was an accomplished and cultured woman. I'vealready told you how her beauty affected me."

  I paused a moment to consider it--I was fairly nonplussed. It seemedincredible that such a woman should, under any conceivablecircumstances, deliberately desert her lover at the altar!

  "And in her wedding-gown!" I murmured, half to myself.

  "Yes, in her wedding-gown!" repeated our junior, passing his handfeverishly across his eyes. "It's unbelievable! It's--I can't find anyword to describe it. I can scarcely believe I'm awake."

  "Perhaps she found she didn't love him," I suggested.

  "At the last moment?"

  "Stranger things have happened."

  "I don't believe it!' A woman like Marcia Lawrence knows her own heartbefore she goes that far!"

  "Suppose we say sudden insanity?"

  "Well-balanced women don't go mad merely because they're going to getmarried."

  "Then she didn't run away," I said.

  Mr. Royce looked at me quickly.

  "You mean----"

  But the carriage stopped with a jolt and the driver jerked open thedoor.