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He would have liked to reassure Jason but he had neither the time, nor, for that matter, the ability to do so. The old man would be reassured when he saw his Master Jim enter the house again and not until then! Jimmie Dale glanced about him up and down the street. The car had gone, and he was well away from the entrance to Marlianne's. The street itself was practically deserted.
He could be at the Sanctuary in another few minutes, ten minutes at the outside; then, say, another twenty to rehabilitate Larry the Bat, and by eleven he "Yes hello!" he was speaking quickly into the 'phone, as Jason's voice reached him. "Jason, I am down here at Marlianne's. Tell Benson to come for the car, and " He stopped abruptly.
His decision made, Jimmie Dale gave his undivided attention to his car, and ten minutes later, stopping in the shabby street that harboured Marlianne's, he entered the restaurant, threaded his way through the small crowded rooms for Marlianne's, despite its spotted linen, was crowded at all hours to a sort of hallway at the rear of the place, and entered the telephone booth.
He, Jimmie Dale, would drive, say, to Marlianne's restaurant, and telephone Jason to send Benson for the car Marlianne's, besides being a very natural stopping place, possessed the added advantage of being quite close to the Sanctuary.
Jimmie Dale threaded the small, crowded rooms the interior of Marlianne's had never been altered from the days when the place had been a family residence of some pretension and, reaching the hall, received his hat from the frowsy-looking boy in attendance. He passed outside, and, at the top of the steps, paused as he took his cigarette case from his pocket.
Jason's voice faltered over the wire: "Are you there, sir, Master Jim?" "Yes," said Jimmie Dale quietly. "Bring the letter with you, Jason, and come down with Benson. I will wait for you here in the car outside Marlianne's. And hurry, Jason take a taxi down." "Yes, sir," said Jason, his voice trembling a little. "At once, Master Jim."
But for a sort of tinselled ostentation the place might well have been the Marlianne's that he had just left it was crowded and riot was at its height; a stringed orchestra in Hungarian costume played what purported to be Hungarian airs; shouts, laughter, clatter of dishes, and thump of steins added to the din.
It was as though she had suddenly and miraculously appeared out of thin air, and taken form on a sidewalk a little way down from Marlianne's. "That's queer!" commented Jimmie Dale to himself. "However " He took out another match, lighted his cigarette, jerked the match stub away from him, and, with a lift of his shoulders, went down the steps.
James Club, his own home on Riverside Drive where a dinner fit for an epicure and served by Jason, that most perfect of butlers, awaited him, and Marlianne's, Jimmie Dale, driving in alone in his touring car from an afternoon's golf, had chosen Marlianne's. Marlianne's, if such a thing as Bohemianism, or, rather, a concrete expression of it exists, was Bohemian.
A two-piece string orchestra played valiantly to the accompaniment of a hoarse-throated piano; and between courses the diners took up the refrain and, as it was always between courses with some one, the place was a bedlam of noisy riot. Nevertheless, it was Marlianne's and Jimmie Dale liked Marlianne's.
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