Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/122

 gorgeous house in which to commit a murder. It could be crammed full of corpses and nobody would ever find them."

"It is a funny old place," he said, "but the apartments upstairs are classy. Several times I've been on the verge of putting this house in a story. I've always got cold feet. Nobody would believe such a house existed. They'd say I invented it. Incidentally I don't invent any place in my stories. Every street or town I mention really exists. Yesterday one of my greatest chums came to see me. He shook hands with me solemnly when he left. He told me although he valued my friendship, he doubted if he'd ever see me again. He'd never be able to find his way back. Before he finally went he made me draw a diagram of the house. Even then he came back three times before he disappeared forever. Twice he had got out into God's clear air again only to find he was in a blind court."

"I hope I have better luck than he did," Dorothy said.

Jimmy picked up an armful of books and bade her sit down.

"Gee, it's great to have you here!" he said.

She looked around her in amazement at all the books. "Where do you sleep?" she asked.

"Oh, I simply crawl in between the pages of a book," he said flippantly. "On cold winter nights I sleep in Dante's Inferno. I've got a perfectly swell copy, a tremendous thing a yard long, illustrated by Doré. The other day a dog bit it and the marks of his teeth are still on the binding."

"You ought to have bitten the dog," said she.

Jimmy Whale was in love with Dorothy but instead of being happy he was miserable. Night after night he sat in his rooms surrounded by his books, smoking innumerable cigarettes and gazing into the smoke. It was an impossible situation. He was poor. He'd never be able to earn enough money to be financially in a class with Dorothy. He was staggered by the size of the problem.

If he married her they'd be living on her money. The bare idea of being a kept man was revolting to him. He'd have to try to forget her. This he proceeded to do, valiantly, for a week. He usually ate breakfast in a Doughnut Shop on