Page:Weird Tales volume 02 number 03.djvu/63

62 Dale had been right.

Carol received such an ovation as comes to few, and next morning she awoke to find herself famous.

When the curtain fell for the last time Lord Oakby turned to Paul and said simply:

"Paul, I want to meet that girl."

Paul looked thoughtfully at him, noting with approval the steady eyes and firm mouth.

"You shall," he said.

In three months they were engaged to be married, for the Earl, finding that the "dancing girl" was the daughter of a gentleman and the ward of a man for whom he had a profound respect, consented to see her. After the interview, the old man became, as Paul said, almost as eager for the marriage as his son.

EMEMBERING these things, Paul smiled happily to himself as he and Oakby drove to the theater to see Carol give her last performance. On the morrow she bade adieu to the stage, to become the Viscountess Oakby.

The theater was crowded to its utmost capacity when they entered their box, and Lord Oakby sat back to endure the boredom of waiting until Carol should appear. But Paul leaned forward to watch the beautiful Russian as she swayed voluptuously in time to the music of her dance. He knew the type—imperious, passionate, quick to love and to hate. A dozen times he had seen such women playing sinister parts in dramas of love and crime. He watched her with the same mixture of admiration and repulsion as he would have felt at the sight of a magnificent tigress.

At last the curtain fell, and Oakby’s eyes sparkled as the conductor signaled to his orchestra. The great curtain rose again, and a storm of plaudits greeted Carol’s appearance.

Never had she danced so well; she was a butterfly, fluttering from blossom to blossom, a fairy, treading a magic measure on the enchanted sward.

At last the dance drew to its close. Snatching the golden lily from the attendant’s hands, she advanced to the footlights. A hundred times before she had raised the lily to her lips with the same gesture, but tonight, turning toward the box in which, as the great audience knew, there sat the man she loved, she held the lily to him with outstretched hands, in a shy yet proud admission of her surrender.

In instant sympathy with the girl’s movement, a burst of cheering broke out—only to be strangled at its birth. For as she pressed the spring which illuminated the lily, a blinding flash leaped from it, and the globe was shattered into a thousand fragments.

For a moment Carol stood holding the stem of the golden lily; then, with a little cry, she fell, a crumpled, pitiful wisp of white on the green carpet.

Quickly as Lord Oakby sprang to the door of the box, Paul was before him, and the two men raced up the corridor, through the entrance to the wings and on to the stage, where Vivian Dale, Crawdell, the stage manager, Nadia and a dozen others were gathered about the prostrate girl.

Pushing quickly through the group, Lord Oakby raised Carol in his strong arms, and carried her to her dressing-room, followed by Paul and Dale. In a moment they were joined by Doctor Saunders, the doctor retained by the management, who had fortunately been one of those who had come to see Carol’s final stage triumph.

The others stood in silent suspense as the medical man made his examination. At last he turned to them.

"Ye’ll not need to be alar-rmed," he said, in his dry, Scotch manner. Tis shock the girl’s suffering from, chiefly. 'Tis a mercy you thing wasna nearer to her face ..."

It might have been an accident that his eyes rested on Paul as he spoke. The latter, whispering a few words to Dale, left the room hurriedly, and the others watched the doctor as he applied restoratives.

In a few minutes Carol stirred and opened her eyes. Dr. Saunders, smiling quizzically, motioned to Oakby, who sprang forward and knelt beside the couch, pillowing the girl’s head on his arm.

"Arthur!" she murmured, happily, and the doctor and Vivian Dale found important business to discuss in another corner of the room.

Barely a quarter of an hour had passed when Paul returned, to find his ward almost herself again, and coloring with pleasure at hearing that the great audience had refused to leave the theater until they had heard from Dale’s lips that their idol had suffered no serious injury.

"I think," said Paul, significantly, "that Doctor Saunders will forgive my poaching on his preserves if I suggest that Carol would be none the worse for a rest. Meanwhile, Dale and I have a little matter to attend to. Perhaps you will be good enough to join us in Dale’s office, Doctor?"

Leaving Carol, still too shaken to pay much attention to what was going on, though little the worse for her experience, in the charge of her dresser and her fiance, Paul led the way to the comfortable room in which Dale transacted the business of the theater. Awaiting them they found Mademoiselle Nadia and Gilbert Crawdell. The actress and the stage manager were chatting easily together, but the shrewd Scottish doctor fancied that he perceived a certain anxiety beneath their light manner.

Paul, entering last, very composedly locked the door and handed the key to Vivian Dale, who took it and placed it on the writing table at which he seated himself.

"You weesh to see me, M’siu Dale?" asked Nadia, haughtily, who had watched these proceedings with scornful eyes.

"I did," replied Dale briefly. "Be good enough to sit down. Now, Mr. Pry ..."

He paused expectantly.

Paul, whose pleasant face had grown very stern, nodded.

"I am obliged to you," he said, "for acting so promptly on my hint. I find that I was justified in my suspicions, and I think you will be surprised at what I have to tell you."

"Je suis fatiguée," protested Nadia, yawning. "If Mr. Pry like to tell a story I beg to be excusé—"

"Sit down!" said Paul sharply.

He did not raise his voice, but there was something in his cold, stern tone that silenced the woman, who paled beneath her rouge as she sank into her chair.

RAWDELL who had not spoken nor moved, took out his handkerchief and wiped his damp hands.

"It is not often," Paul resumed, "that one is able so quickly to solve what is undoubtedly an unusual problem; I have, however, been fortunate, and I hope that my explanation need occupy little more time than my investigations.

"I should first explain that I was not unaware that Mademoiselle Nadia was jealous of Carol. That, perhaps, was to be expected. Women like Mademoiselle do not lightly see their own fame eclipsed by that of another—however innocently. But I confess that I was not prepared for the ingenuity with which she attempted to revenge herself. With true feminine subtlety, she waited for the evening of her rival’s final triumph, and hoped to deal her a worse blow than death.

"A tool was ready to her hand. Crawdell, as I had already observed, was passionately in love with her—so passionately that when she offered herself to him as the price of his help, he forgot his manhood, his honor, and helped her in one of the cruelest schemes I have ever heard of.