Less than half an hour later, Jimmy's taxi stopped in front of the
fashionable Sherwood Apartments where Zoie had elected to live.
Ascending toward the fifth floor he scanned the face of the elevator boy
expecting to find it particularly solemn because of the tragedy that
had doubtless taken place upstairs. He was on the point of sending out
a "feeler" about the matter, when he remembered Zoie's solemn injunction
to "say nothing to anybody." Perhaps it was even worse than suicide. He
dared let his imagination go no further. By the time he had put out his
hand to touch the electric button at Zoie's front door, his finger was
trembling so that he wondered whether he could hit the mark. The result
was a very faint note from the bell, but not so faint that it escaped
the ear of the anxious young wife, who had been pacing up and down the
floor of her charming living room for what seemed to her ages.
"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" Zoie cried through her tears to her neat little
maid servant, then reaching for her chatelaine, she daubed her small
nose and flushed cheeks with powder, after which she nodded to Mary to
open the door.
To Jimmy, the maid's pert "good-morning" seemed to be in very bad taste
and to properly reprove her he assumed a grave, dignified air out of
which he was promptly startled by Zoie's even more unseemly greeting.
"Hello, Jimmy!" she snapped. Her tone was certainly not that of a
heart-broken widow. "It's TIME you got here," she added with an injured
air.
Jimmy gazed at Zoie in astonishment. She was never what he would have
called a sympathetic woman, but really----!
"I came the moment you 'phoned me," he stammered; "what is it? What's
the matter?"
"It's awful," sniffled Zoie. And she tore up and down the room
regardless of the fact that Jimmy was still unseated.
"Awful what?" questioned Jimmy.
"Worst I've ever had," sobbed Zoie.
"Is anything wrong with Alfred?" ventured Jimmy. And he braced himself
for her answer.
"He's gone," sobbed Zoie.
"Gone!" echoed Jimmy, feeling sure that his worst fears were about to be
realised. "Gone where?"
"I don't know," sniffled Zoie, "I just 'phoned his office. He isn't
there."
"Oh, is that all?" answered Jimmy, with a sigh of relief. "Just another
little family tiff," he was unable to conceal a feeling of thankfulness.
"What's up?"