XXXVI

THE TELEPHONE AGAIN

In the middle of the square, Achilles stopped—­a lighted sign had caught his eye.  He hurried the child across the blur of tracks to the sign, and opened a door softly.  A sleepy exchange-girl looked up and waited while Achilles’s dark fingers searched the page and turned to her—­“Main—­four-four-seven—­”

She drawled sleepily after him—­“Go in there—­number four.”

Achilles, with the child’s hand in his, entered the booth and closed the door.  Little noises clicked about them—­queer meanings whispered—­and waited—­and moved off—­the whole night-life of the great city stirred in the little cage....  “Go ahead—­four!” called the girl lazily.

Achilles lifted the black tube.  The child beside him pressed close, her eyes fixed on the tube.  Achilles’s words ran swift on the wire, and her eager face held them—­other words came back—­sharp—­swift.  And the child heard them crackle, and leap, and break and crackle again in the misty depths—­and she touched Achilles’s arm softly—­“They must not hurt Mrs. Seabury—?” she said.  “You tell them not to hurt Mrs. Seabury!”

Achilles’s hand pressed her shoulder gently.  “Yes—­I tell—­they know.”  It was a swift aside—­and his voice had taken up the tale—­“That woman—­you not take that woman....  You hear?  Yes—­she good woman!”

“Tell them to look in the cellar!” said Betty.  She had pressed closer, on tiptoe.  “There is a hole there—­under a barrel—­and a barrel in the garden.  You tell them—­”

His eye dropped to her.  “In cellar?  You say that?”

“Yes—­yes—­” Her hands were clasped.  “They took me there!  You tell them!”

Achilles’s eye smiled.  “Hallo—­you look in cellar!...  What you say?—­no—­I don’t see it.  But you look in cellar—­yes!  They make tunnel—­yes!” He hung up the receiver and took her hand.  “Now we go home,” he said.

They passed swiftly out, dropping payment—­into a sleepy, unseeing palm—­and crossing the square to the car that should carry them home.  There were no delays now—­only swift-running wheels... a few jolts and stops—­and they were out again, beneath the stars, hurrying along the great breakwater of the lake—­hurrying home....  The big, red-brown house thrust itself up—­its gables reaching to thin blackness—­and, suddenly, as they looked, it was touched lightly, as with a great finger, and the dawn glowed mistily up the walls.

They crossed swiftly and mounted the steps, between the lions, the child’s feet stumbling a little as they went, but Achilles’s hand held fast and his touch on the bell summoned hurrying feet... there was a fumbling at the chains—­a swift, cautious creak, and the door swung back.  “Who is it?” said a voice that peered out.  The dawn touched his face grotesquely.

“It’s me!” said the child.  “It’s Betty Harris, Conner.”