“But of course,” Porthos said. “It was what any red-blooded son of France would have done.”
“And things didn’t turn out so well, did they?”
“No,” Porthos said, shaking his big head sadly, “things did not turn out well at all. No one seemed to understand what I was talking about. A man laughed at me. I drew my sword. And then the gendarmes came, by the dozens.” Porthos sighed. “I have learned since that the whole thing was a make-believe play.”
Phillip patted his shoulder gently. “I’ll talk to the sergeant,” he said. “I’ll do what I can.”
“It is all so confusing,” Porthos said wearily. “I wish I were back in my quiet France.”
Phillip went to look for the sergeant. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but he knew he couldn’t tell the truth of the matter. If he tried to explain that Porthos, a musketeer from the eighteenth century, had gone berserk listening to the fictional tribulations of a heroine in a radio soap drama, he would wind up behind bars himself.
He found the sergeant at his desk, grimly studying his reports.
“Well,” he said, looking up, “you’ve seen your friend now. Maybe you’d be good enough to tell me what’s wrong with him.”
“Er — he’s very sorry about the trouble he caused,” Phillip said.
“Well that’s fine,” the sergeant said sarcastically. “He’s sorry so we’ll just open the doors and let him go, we will not!”
“He lost his head. You see,” Phillip said, thinking desperately, “he’s a radio actor.”
“I thought there was something wrong with him,” the sergeant muttered.
“And he forgot himself. Actors are like that sometimes. They become so absorbed in their parts that they just aren’t themselves at all.”
“That’s no excuse for a man behaving like Tarzan of the Apes,” the sergeant said. “But as long as it wasn’t anything criminal he did, we can set bail for him. Are you willing to take him into your custody until his case comes up?”
“Yes,” Phillip sighed. “I’ll take care of him.”
The details were arranged and in an hour Porthos stood outside the jail with Phillip and D’Artagnan, a free man.
“Well,” D’Artagnan said, “that is over. And now I am hungry and thirsty. Let us forget our troubles with a bottle of wine. Mon Dieu, it seems ages since my palate has welcomed a cooling draught of burgundy.” Porthos shook his head sadly.
“My appetite and thirst are gone forever, I think,” he said. “I want to get away from all this strange civilization and think.”
Phillip realized that he too was hungry. And if ever a man needed a drink he was that person.
He hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of his boarding house. Turning to Porthos, he said, “This cab will take you home. Aramis and Athos are there and they are worried about you. Tell them D’Artagnan and I will be along soon.”
Porthos nodded and climbed into the cab. When it had pulled away from the curb, Phillip turned to D’Artagnan.
“Now for that drink,” he said.
Chapter VII
Phillip led D’Artagnan to a swanky bar in one of the downtown hotels. For some reason he felt like celebrating. He knew that the next day he would have to start thinking seriously about finding another job, but today he refused to let that worry him.
They had barely given their order to a waiter when D’Artagnan grabbed his arm excitedly.
“Look!” he said. “At the table on the other side of the room.”
Phillip looked and saw a beautiful, young red-haired girl sitting with an impeccably clad, middle-aged man who wore a gleaming monocle over one eye.
“What about them?” Phillip asked blankly.
“It is the girl,” D’Artagnan said excitedly. “The girl I saw on the street car this morning. She was in trouble. How could you forget that face?”
Phillip looked again and saw that D’Artagnan was right. The man with whom she was seated was tall and lean, with cold blue eyes and slightly graying hair. There was a saber scar on his cheek that pulled his mouth into a faint, perpetual sneer.
“What luck!” D’Artagnan cried, springing to his feet.
“Wait a minute,” Phillip said; “you can’t go over there.”
“Why not?’
“She is with a man. Such things just aren’t done.”
“Bah! It is about time they were, then,” D’Artagnan said, grinning. “Excuse me.” He bowed and strode across the floor to the girl’s table. Nervously, Phillip followed, thinking he might be able to smooth over the situation.
D’Artagnan bowed to the girl with a flourish.
“This is such a great and unexpected pleasure that I am overwhelmed. I feared this morning that I might never see you again, but the gods are kind.” He pulled up a chair and sat down.
The red haired girl looked at him and there was relief in her eyes.
“It is nice to see you again,” she said warmly. “I hardly had time to thank you this morning. I see you have changed your costume.”
D’Artagnan glanced down at his tweeds and smiled.
“Yes, I was becoming somewhat conspicuous.”
The girl turned to her companion. “Major Lanser, this is the young man I told you about.”
Major Lanser inclined his head briefly toward D’Artagnan and then turned to the girl. A humorless smile touched his thin lips and the saber scar on his cheek twisted.
“How interesting,” he murmured. “Will you be good enough to tell him we are busy?”
“Oh, but we aren’t too busy to talk to gallant young rescuers,” the girl said, laughing. But there was a strange, odd note to her laughter, as if it were close to hysteria.
“How kind of you,” D’Artagnan said. His eyes were watching Major Lanser with quiet speculation. There was a tension at the table that was smoulderingly tangible.
D’Artagnan suddenly grinned disarmingly and pulled up another chair to the table and waved to Phillip to sit down.
“My friend,” he explained, “I hope you won’t mind.” He smiled at the girl. “It will be someone for the Major to talk to.”
The Major’s lean, bard face flushed red as Phillip settle himself cautiously at the table. Phillip felt the peculiar tension that seemed to crack across the table, and when he looked into the Major’s ice-blue, slate-hard eyes he felt a strange prickling of fear.
The Major put his hand on the girl’s arm.
“I think you must bid your friends good-bye,” he said quietly. “It is time for us to leave.”
“No,” the girl said. Her eyes met D’Artagnan’s in a mute appeal. “I’m — I’m not ready to leave yet.”
“I think you are, my dear,” the Major said. His fingers closed over the girl’s arm and the knuckles of his hand suddenly whitened. “You wouldn’t want to cause your friends any — er — inconvenience, would you?”
The girl’s eyes closed and her face was gray.
“No, you mustn’t—” she said. “I’ll come with you.” The last words were a bare whisper.
D’Artagnan’s keen eyes flashed like the glinting blade of a rapier, as he studied Major Lanser’s coldly expresssionless face.
“Major Lanser,” he said softly, “the young lady obviously would rather stay and finish her drink. But you mustn’t let that keep you.” He emphasized the last word carefully.
The Major looked at him for an instant and the silence was tense and charged. Then he shrugged and his hand released the girl’s arm. He stood up and smiled down at the girl.
“You will find my way would have been wiser,” he murmured. He turned slightly to face D’Artagnan and the smile was gone from his lips. “I hope we meet again,” he said.
When he had gone, D’Artagnan turned impulsively to the girl.