HE miniature sun in the traffic-tower at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street was sharply snuffed out, to be succeeded by the warning red; then the green light gleamed like an emerald against the soft, thick dusk of the November evening. In obedience to the signals, the two streams of motors flowing up and down the Avenue came to an automatic stop.
Of the northbound cars, the one which halted nearest the curb was a big gray limousine which Wallace Ramsey, who stood waiting to cross, would have recognized at once even if his attention had not been caught and held by one of its occupants, a girl who, at the pause, leaned forward and glanced over the sidewalk throngs.
Her eyes encountered his for a second and then swept on. But for Ramsey it was one of those fleeting moments which come to all of us, when the world about us seems suddenly phantasmagorical and unreal. Autumn twilight, the hurrying crowds, the traffic lights, the prismatic colors of shop-windows disappeared; and Ramsey was on April slopes where hyacinths filled the spring air with their fragrance, and flowering branches lay against a pale, clear sky.
The girl had turned again to the man beside her, whom Ramsey now recognized as Heywood Achison. Her manner toward him was one of joyous confidence, and she seemed to be plying him with excited questions broken by happy laughter. Achison, bland and smiling, his gray head bent toward her, was answering them with indulgent, pleased amusement; and Ramsey, with a feeling of unreasonable resentment, saw that one of her hands was slipped into his. Then the signals flashed again, and they drove on.
Ramsey walked on up the street, his mind still rankling with indignant protest. A girl like that with Achison! Athene and a satyr! His April slopes had melted into the crass reality of Fifth Avenue, but against a murky background her face still bloomed. Who was she? Possibly a relative. The thought was consolatory. Achison was a bachelor, but bachelors did often have nieces.
Ramsey had taken a long, aimless stroll, and now he realized that the dinner-hour was passing, and that in spite of his preoccupation he was hungry; so he stopped at one of the hotels and went into the grill-room. Near the door some one hailed him. It was Howard Brown, a newspaper man of his acquaintance.
“I was just wishing some one would come in,” said Brown. “I'm all alone; why don't you join me?”
“Glad to,” returned Ramsey, and took the opposite chair,
“No dinner of herbs for me tonight,” laughed Brown presently indicating the array of dishes before him. “I've got to stokes the old engine. There's work ahead, and a long, cold drive behind me. I've just got back from looking over Achison's ruined bungalow.”
“Achison's ruined bungalow?” repeated Ramsey, staring at him. “What do you mean?”
Brown picked up the evening paper beside his plate and handed it across the table, pointing to a brief article on the front page
“They only gave it a couple of sticks,” he said contentedly. “It's good for headlines in my sheet tomorrow morning.”
Ramsey hastily read the paragraph which stated that the country home of Mr. Heywood Achison, the distinguished lawyer and art-collector, had been burned to the ground shortly after noon, and it was reported that a painting of great value had been lost in the flames. This had not been verified, however, as it was impossible to locate Mr. Achison before going to press.
Anything that pertained to Achison was of interest to Ramsey, but he had his own reasons for not showing that fact too patently.
“Too bad!” He tried to make his comment carefully casual. “What's behind it? Not much news-value in the mere burning of a bungalow out in Jersey.”
“The backbone of the story,” said Brown, cutting into a thick steak with its accompanying onions, “is, so to speak, a 'fade in.' We must flash back to the Edgewater collection. Ever hear of it? No?” Ramsey had made a negative gesture. “I forgot that you are more or less a newcomer among us.
“Well,—I'll have to talk between bites,—Edgewater was a queer old bird, very eccentric. He was one of the figures of New York back in the seventies and eighties—made a pile of money off a shoe-string, and when he had properly salted it down, started off on a grand tour. But instead of going around the world, as he had planned, he lingered in France and Italy, got the picture craze, and developed a passion for collecting.
“After he came home, he still had agents buying for him on the other side, and was always a high bidder at the really important sales here. But when anything passed into his hands, it was seen no more.