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Page 104
"Simon," he said, "whatever I happen to have there--there's a shotgun,
I know, and a tennis racket and some fishing rods. . . . The rest for
the moment I can't recall. . . . I want you to put all of it in a
bundle and send it here at once by special messenger. I have the
tickets here. . . . I'll have them ready. . . . Yes, I'll give him a
check. . . . No, Simon, it won't be certified and he'll take it as it
is."
He rang off and searched impatiently for pawn tickets. Simon's
messenger arrived and, strained and hostile, Kenny looked over the
contents of the bundle and wrote a check.
Alone in the studio again, he flung up a window, his mind pushing ahead
to eleven o'clock. It seemed to him then that he could not possibly
wait and go on fighting for his self-control. A gust of sleet and hail
swept in with a pattering sound upon the floor. Its cold, stinging
contact with his face refreshed him. Kenny's brain cleared. He gulped
and gasped. Garry's car! He would not wait.
"Frank," he telephoned after an unavailing interval of search for
Garry, "if you're willing we'll motor to Finlake in Garry's car. He'll
not be mindin'. I borrow it often. It's a bad night of course--but we
could start now. And we can make time on the road. It's barely two
hundred and fifty miles but the branch roads and changes make
unendurable delay. Shall I come for you in half an hour?"
Again Barrington gasped. Again he whistled. "Make it three quarters,"
he said, "and I think I can swing it."
"You're a jewel for sense," Kenny told him, a passionate note of
gratitude in his voice. "I love you for it."
He called Ann's studio at six. Joan had not returned. Ann took the
message, startled and sympathetic.
"I'll wire her in the morning," he said and, hanging up, found that
Sidney Fahr had come in. He stood with his back against the door, his
round face blank with terror.
"Kenny," he stammered, "I--I couldn't help hearing." The hot sympathy
he could not bring himself to utter, flamed desperately in his
face--almost to the ruin of Kenny's iron control. "I--I--I can do
something, can't I, Kenny?"
"Yes, Sid, darlin', you can," said Kenny gently. "I'm taking Garry's
car. You can square me with him."
"I--I'd even thrash him," mumbled Sid.
"Then if you will I'd like you to get in touch with Westcott's wife and
tell her. I'm painting her portrait. She comes to-morrow at ten.
Sid, could you--could you clean off those two chairs?"
Sid fell upon the nearest chair with fearful energy. At the table
Kenny hurriedly wrote a check.
"And to-morrow I want you to deposit this to Brian's account. I'm
paying back--what I owe him." His mouth worked.
"Oh, Sid!" he said, his face scarlet.
"Now, now, now, Kenny," choked the little painter, winking and making
horrible faces at the littered chair, "don't you go to taking on.
Don't you do it. I'll call up Westcott. The old gladiator!" Somehow
he turned his sniffle to a snort. "What in thunder does she want to be
painted for anyway? She's got a nose like a triangle and the
composition of her face is all wrong."
He blinked away the wetness on his lashes and wondered why, with every
other chair in the studio clear, Kenny should make a point of the
littered two. But he did not ask. Instead he entered upon a period of
fruitless and agitated trotting that lasted until Kenny came hack from
the garage with Garry's car. Then Sid packed him in, made one last
terrible face and bolted across the sidewalk for the door.
Beyond the threshold he bolted for a telephone.
"Jan," he said in shocked tones, "I want you to come down to the bar
and watch me. I--I've made up my mind to get drunk. I've got to." He
gulped. "I'll tell you why when you come down."
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