The Owl Taxi. Footner Hulbert
As Greg stepped out of the office he felt a light touch on his arm. He beheld an eager young face looking up into his, a face whose speaking beauty went to his heart like an arrow. The glance of the brilliant eyes at once implored his assistance and enjoined secrecy upon him. Greg was won before a word was spoken. As for the rest he saw a slender, jaunty figure in boy's clothes with cap pulled low over the head. Amazement grew in him, for he knew instantly that it was no boy. A boy's eyes could not have moved him so. He gazed at her breathlessly as at a lovely apparition. He did not realize that she was speaking to him. She had to repeat her question.
"That's your cab there?"
He nodded.
"Where are you taking that man?"
"Hotel Tours."
"All right. I'm following in another cab. When you drop him go on for half a block and wait for me, will you? I want to talk to you."
Greg nodded eagerly. Just here his fare looked around the cab to see what was keeping him, and the pseudo-youth melted like a shadow into the darkness. Greg resumed his place at the wheel in a kind of dream.
CHAPTER III
GREG'S SECOND FARE
He made the rest of the run to the Hotel Tours in a high state of anticipation. That charming vivid face traveled between him and the asphalt on which his chauffeur's gaze was fixed. His delight in the prospect of the coming meeting was not unmixed with dread—for her. He shuddered to think of the risks she ran wandering about town alone in the small hours of night. Surely any one could see through her disguise at a second glance. Her character was written in her eyes—ignorant, innocent and daring. Clearly she had little idea of the dangers she was braving.
His fare paid him liberally without demur and disappeared within the hotel without giving Greg a second glance. Greg went on for half a block and drew up beside the curb. Presently another cab came to a stop behind him, and the seeming youth got out and paid the driver. He (she) made a feint of entering the nearest doorway, and when the second cab had gone on, returned, and slid into the seat beside Greg as a matter of course. She had much the air of a confident child who expects to find the whole world friendly.
"We'd better go back where we can watch that hotel," she said. "I don't think he intends to remain there long."
Greg was utterly charmed by that "we." She took it for granted that he was willing to help her. Well, she should not be disappointed. Little did he care what it was all about; he was on her side anyhow. He burned to assure her of this, but prudence suggested it might be better to let things be taken for granted. He was glad it was to him she had applied; he trembled to think of how she might have been deceived in another taxi-driver. It did not occur to him that she might, like children generally (she was scarcely more than a child) have an intuitive perception of character.
He turned his cab around and they watched the entrance to the Tours from across the street.
She plunged into the middle of her business without any preamble. "You crossed on the Twenty-third Street ferry. I couldn't find a cab just at that moment, so I had to follow on foot. So I lost you when you drove away on the other side. Where did you take him over there?"
"Nowhere," said Greg. "It appeared he was just looking for a drink and when we couldn't find a place we came back to New York."
"Is that all?" she said, disappointed and puzzled. "What reason did he give for getting out of the cab on the way over?"
"No reason. He seemed to be a little drunk."
"Drunk? I can't understand it. He's not a drinking man."
"Who is he?" asked Greg with natural curiosity.
She gave him a look of appeal. "Don't ask me. I can't tell you the truth."
Her speech had an alluring quality of strangeness. It was not that she spoke with an accent exactly; it was more like the speech of an American who might have lived long among foreigners. Greg could not read her race from her features; she had great brown eyes with a fleck of red in them when they caught the light; her skin was creamy. He could not tell the color of her hair because of the cap that she had pulled completely over her head in the style that youths affect, but he guessed it was dark red to match her eyebrows. She had a soft and babyish mouth that did not seem to go with the fiery eyes. Greg guessed that the eyes expressed her character, while the mouth had just been thrown in to make her adorable. Her voice was too deep for her size, but that was no doubt assumed. Sometimes when she forgot it scaled up. She was displaying a boyish nonchalance that was altogether delightful and funny. To tease her Greg offered her a cigarette. She declined it.
"I smoke a pipe," was her astonishing reason.
She did not, however, offer to produce it.
As she had forecast, the tall foreigner did indeed presently issue from the Tours, and hailed one of the cabs waiting below the entrance. Greg cranked his engine. The other cab turned around at the corner and passed down beside them. Greg took care to be hidden behind his cab as the other passed. Climbing in he followed it as a matter of course.
"What time do you suppose it is?" asked his companion.
"About three."
"What a night!" she murmured.
"You're dead right!" said Greg grimly. He remembered what he carried behind and shivered.
They sped down town over the smooth pavement of Broadway. That erstwhile busy street was deserted now except for an occasional motor car like themselves roaring up or down with wide open throttle and except for the ubiquitous cats prowling diagonally across from curb to curb on errands known to themselves. The street lamps shone down like moons as indifferently upon solitude as upon crowds; all the shop fronts were dark.
Greg, it need hardly be said, was fairly eaten up with curiosity concerning his passenger, yet he could not question her. Her air of friendliness and confidence disarmed him. Questions implied a doubt. She volunteered no information about herself, but seemed to feel the necessity of saying something.
"Perhaps I ought to be riding in behind."
"Oh, no!" said Greg very quickly.
"Well, I thought it might look odd, my sitting here in front."
"Why shouldn't a taxi-driver be giving a friend a lift, especially at this time of night?"
This seemed to make her uneasy. She said: "All right; but you know I'm hiring you really, just like anybody."
Greg felt a most unreasonable hurt. "I didn't ask for any pay," he said gruffly.
She was distressed. "Oh, you mustn't let your feelings be hurt! I've got to pay you, you know. You don't know anything about me."
Greg answered with a look that meant: "I'd like to!" But she did not take the hint. Aloud he said: "I won't take anything."
She let the matter drop.
The cab they were following drew up at the great Hotel Meriden at Eightieth Street.
"I thought so," murmured the girl. "He is stopping here. The chase is over for to-night. Drive on for a block or two, then come back. It will give him a chance to get to his room."
Greg obeyed. As they returned and circled in front of the hotel she said:
"Don't stop at the entrance. Go on to the end of the building and wait there."
They came to a stop opposite the last of the great windows that lighted the lobby and the lounge of the Meriden. Greg wondered, if the chase were over, what they were to wait for. The answer came directly, conveying an important bit of information obliquely.
She said, pointing