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Page 46
"Well, _any_way," P. Sybarite went on with elaborate ease, "I saw this
man climb your fire-escape and so I came after him."
The woman frowned as she weighed this likely story; and P. Sybarite
was at pains to conceal any exultation he may have felt over the
prompt response of his vivid imagination to the call of exigence.
Would she or wouldn't she accept that wildly fanciful yarn of his? For
moments that, brief though they must have been, seemed intolerably
protracted, he awaited her verdict in the extremest anxiety--not,
however, neglecting to employ the respite thus afforded him to make
another quick survey of the room and a second and more shrewd
appraisal of its admirably self-possessed tenant.
A bit too florid and ornate--he concluded--woman and lodgings alike
were somewhat overdone. A superabundance of gilt and pink marred the
colour scheme of the apartment; and there was ostentatious evidence of
wealth lavishly expended on its furnishings. An overpowering
voluptuousness of silken clothing dressed the bed itself.
But if her setting were luxurious, the woman outshone it tenfold with
the dark splendour of her animal beauty. As comely and as able-bodied
as a young pantheress, she was (one judged) little less dangerous--as
vital, as self-centred, as deadly. Sitting up in bed, openly careless
of charms hardly concealed by nightwear of sheer silk lace and _cr�pe
de Chine_, she looked P. Sybarite up and down with wide eyes overwise
in the ways of life, shrewdly judicious of mankind; handled her pistol
with experienced confidence; spoke, in a voice of surpassing
sweetness, with decision and considerable overt contempt for the
phraseology of convention--swearing without the least affectation,
slanging heartily when slang best suited her humour....
"Maybe you're telling the truth, at that," she announced suddenly,
eyes coldly unprepossessed. "You sound fishy as all-hell, and God
_knows_ you're the sickest-looking cop I ever laid eyes on; but there
are less unlikely things than that a second-story man should try this
route for his getaway.... Well!" she demanded urgently--"what're you
standing there for, like a stone man?"
"My dear lady--!" expostulated the dismayed P. Sybarite.
"Can the fond stuff and get busy. What're you going to do?"
"What am I--? What--ah--do you wish me to do?"
"If you're a cop, go to it--cop somebody," she replied with a brusque
laugh--"and then clear out. I can use the room and time you're
occupying. Besides, while you stand there staring as if you'd never
seen a good-looking woman in a nightgown before, you're slipping the
said burglar a fine young chance to make the front door--unless he's
under the bed."
"Under the bed?" stammered the masquerader.
"You said something then," the woman snapped. "Why not look?"
Mechanically obedient to her suggestion, down P. Sybarite plumped on
his knees, lifted the silken valance at the foot of the bed, and
pretended to explore the darkness thereunder--finding precisely what
he had anticipated, that is to say, nothing.
While thus occupied (and badgering his addled wits to invent some
plausible way to elude this Amazon) he was at once startled and still
further dismayed to hear the bed-springs creak, a light double thump
as two bare feet found the floor, and again the woman's voice
flavoured with acid sarcasm.
"You seem to find it interesting down there. Is it the view? Or are
you trying to hypnotise your burglar by the well-known power of the
human eye?"
"It's pure and simple reverence for the proprieties," P. Sybarite
replied without stirring, "keeps me emulating the fatuous ostrich. I
don't pretend it's comfortable, but I, believe me, madam, am a plain
man, of modest tastes, unaccustomed to--"
"Get up!" the lady interrupted peremptorily. "I guess your regard for
the proprieties won't suffer any more than my fair name. Come out of
that and hunt burglars like a good little cop."
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