in patches to the
staircase and was viscid under the foot like organic matter. At each
turn of the stairs were vacant niches in the wall. Perhaps plants had
once been set within them. If so they had died in that foul and tainted
air. It may be that statues of the saints had stood there, but it was
not difficult to conceive that imps and devils had dragged them forth in
the darkness and down to the unholy depths of some furnished pit below.
"This is the room," said the housekeeper, from her furry throat. "It's a
nice room. It ain't often vacant. I had some most elegant people in it
last summer--no trouble at all, and paid in advance to the minute. The
water's at the end of the hall. Sprowls and Mooney kept it three months.
They done a vaudeville sketch. Miss B'retta Sprowls--you may have heard
of her--Oh, that was just the stage names--right there over the dresser
is where the marriage certificate hung, framed. The gas is here, and you
see there is plenty of closet room. It's a room everybody likes. It
never stays idle long."
"Do you have many theatrical people rooming here?" asked the young man.
"They comes and goes. A good proportion of my lodgers is connected with
the theatres. Yes, sir, this is the theatrical district. Actor people
never stays long anywhere. I get my share. Yes, they comes and they
goes."
He engaged the room, paying for a week in advance. He was tired, he
said, and would take possession at once. He counted out the money. The
room had been made ready, she said, even to towels and water. As the
housekeeper moved away he put, for the thousandth time, the question
that he carried at the end of his tongue.
"A young girl--Miss Vashner--Miss Eloise Vashner--do you remember such a
one among your lodgers? She would be singing on the stage, most likely.
A fair girl, of medium height and slender, with reddish, gold hair and a
dark mole near her left eyebrow."
"No, I don't remember the name. Them stage people has names they change
as often as their rooms. They comes and they goes. No, I don't call that
one to mind."
No. Always no. Five months of ceaseless interrogation and the inevitable
negative. So much time spent by day in questioning managers, agents,
schools and choruses; by night among the audiences of theatres from
all-star casts down to music halls so low that he dreaded to find what
he most hoped for. He who had loved her best had tried to find her. He
was sure that since her disappearan
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