Something else was there--a human object, sprawled abjectly in the Morris chair, garbed in slippers and bathrobe, hair disheveled, but black-rimmed eye-glasses still on his nose, the conspicuous black ribbon still hanging from them down the long face. It was that well-known playwright, Peter Ericson Mann, author of _The Buzzard, Odd Change and Anchored_; and, more recently, of the scenario for Jacob Zanin's Nature him. Author, too, of the new satirical comedy. _The Triffler_, written at Sue Wilde and booked for production in September at the Astoria Theater.
The Worm had not told Hy that he had just seen Sue. Now, standing motionless, the thousand memory-threads that bound the old rooms to his heart clinging there like leafless ivy, he looked down at the white-faced man in the Morris chair and knew that he was even less likely to mention the fact to Peter. He thought--“Why, we're not friends! That's what it means!”
“You, Worm!” he said huskily, and tried to smile. “I'm rather ill, I think. It's shock. You know a shock can do it.”
“What shocked you?” asked Henry Bates rather shortly, turning to the window.
“Hy. He's crazy, I think. It's the only possible explanation. He said I was a”--Peter's expressive voice dropped, more huskily still, into the tragic mood--“a murderer. It was a frightful experience. The boy has gone batty. It's his fear of losing his job, of course. But the experience has had a curious effect on me. My heart is palpitating.” His right hand was feeling for the pulse in his left wrist. “And I have some, difficulty in breathing.” Now he pressed both hands to his chest.
The Worm stared out the window. Peter would act until his dying day; even then. One pose would follow another, prompted by the unstable emotions of genius, guided only by an egotism so strong that it would almost certainly weather every storm of brain or soul. In a very indirect way Pete had murdered the old boy. No getting around that. An odd sort of murder--sending Sumner Smith to ask that question. Peter himself, away down under his egotism, knew it. Hence the play for sympathy.
Peter was still talking. “It really came out of a clear sky. Until very lately I should have said that Hy and I were friends. As you know, we had many points of contact. Last fall, when--”