Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/57



Bronx yielded no better success. It took several hours to exhaust its possibilities, but finally the seekers after Pomeroys were obliged to concede that if Jessica Pomeroy lived in the Bronx, she was not in the telephone book, anyway, nor was she known by her name to any of the Pomeroys they interviewed.

At dinner time they drew up in front of Val’s home, tired though not discouraged. Chong had dinner ready in a few minutes, and Eddie became once more the impassive servant waiting on his master at table.

Val ate in silence for a long time, thinking over the surprising events of the day and planning a course of action. The tang of the chase was keen in him; his blood was beginning to course warm with the joy of the hunt. He was looking for a woman; not a woman—the woman. What was there on earth that a man could search for more precious than the one woman? What could he find more worth the ardors of the search?

Val asked himself these questions mechanically, his mind turning, meanwhile, on the problem of locating Jessica Pomeroy. His mind, however, yielded him nothing, but a blank at the moment, and he gave vent to his irritation in a single expletive:

“Damn!” he said; low but forcibly. Rh