The Door by Mary Roberts Rinehart Page A

no particular approval. The very fact that he was still idling through his late forties; that he was content to live modestly because extravagance meant work; that he could still put in weeks of preparation on the Bachelors’ Ball, given each year for the débutantes; that his food and drink were important to him, and his clothes—all these things had annoyed me.
    Nor had I ever quite believed in his feeble health; certainly he was a stronger man than Howard, who had always worked and who was still working in the very shadow of death. Certainly Jim was able to play golf, to sit up all night at bridge, to eat and drink what he wanted, and to dance with a young generation which liked his cocktails and the flowers he sent them.
    But this was the surface of Jim Blake. Of the real man, buried under that slightly bulging waistline, that air of frivolity, those impeccable garments, I doubt if even Katherine knew anything. He went his way, apparently a cheerful idler, with his present assured, and his future undoubtedly cared for in the case of Howard’s death.
    There was, however, nothing cheerful about the Jim I found on Wednesday night, lying in his handsome bed and nursed and valeted by Amos. I have often wondered since just what were his thoughts as he lay there day after day, watching Amos moving deftly about the room; Amos who knew so much and yet not enough.
    The two watching each other, the black man and the white, and yet all serene between them on the surface.
    “I’ve ordered sweetbreads for luncheon, sir.”
    “That’s right. Put them on a little ham, Amos.”
    And Amos going out, efficient and potentially dangerous, to order sweetbreads.
    Jim must have had his bad hours, his own temptations. He could have escaped even then; could have slipped out the rear door to his car and gone somewhere, anywhere, for his illness was certainly not acute. But he did not. He lay there in his bed and waited for the inevitable.
    He was glad to see me, I thought. He was propped up in bed in a pair of mauve silk pyjamas, and with a dressing gown of dark brocade hanging over a chair beside him. The room was masculine enough, but a trifle too carefully done, as though Jim had taken pains to place the jewel which was himself in a perfect setting. There was something incongruous in the contrast between that soft interior, shaded and carefully lighted, with Jim as the central figure, the star of its stage, and the man I had seen across the street as I walked to the house. I had walked. I felt that it was not necessary to take my household into my confidence in this particular matter.
    “Well,” he said, “this is a kindly and Christian act! Sit down. That’s a good chair.”
    He was nervous. I saw for the first time, that night, the slight twitching about the mouth which was never afterwards to leave him, and as I told him my story it grew more and more marked. Yet save for that twitching he heard me through quietly enough.
    “What do you want me to say?” he said. “Or to do? If the police want a scapegoat—innocent men have been arrested before this for the sake of the sensational press—what am I to do about it? Run away?”
    “You can tell them the truth.”
    “What truth?” he said irritably.
    “Tell them where you were the night Sarah was killed. Surely you can do that, Jim.”
    “I have already told them. I live the usual life of a bachelor. I’m neither better nor worse than others. I decline to drag a woman into this; any woman. They can all go to hell first.”
    I felt my heart sink. His indignation was not real. He spoke like a man who has rehearsed a speech. And from under his eyebrows he was watching me, intently, furtively. For the first time I realized how badly frightened he was.
    “I see,” I said, quietly. “And I daresay that’s where you left the cane. Naturally you would not care to speak about it.”
    “The cane? What cane?”
    “The one I gave you, Jim. It’s missing, apparently.”
    He said