After a long wait he found that Mr. Howland was out. He returned to the operator, leaning over her desk and fingering his quarter as though loath to leave unsatisfied.
"Call Mr. Bloeckman," he said suddenly. His own words surprised him. The name had come from some crossing of two suggestions in his mind.
"What's the number, please?"
Scarcely conscious of what he did, Anthony looked up Joseph Bloeckman in the telephone directory. He could find no such person, and was about to close the book when it flashed into his mind that Gloria had mentioned a change of name. It was the matter of a minute to find Joseph Black--then he waited in the booth while central called the number.
"Hello-o. Mr. Bloeckman--I mean Mr. Black in?"
"No, he's out this evening. Is there any message?" The intonation was cockney; it reminded him of the rich vocal deferences of Bounds.
"Where is he?"
"Why, ah, who is this, please, sir?"
"This Mr. Patch. Matter of vi'al importance." "Why, he's with a party at the Boul' Mich', sir." "Thanks."
Anthony got his five cents change and started for the Boul' Mich', a popular dancing resort on Forty-fifth Street. It was nearly ten but the streets were dark and sparsely peopled until the theatres should eject their spawn an hour later. Anthony knew the Boul' Mich', for he had been there with Gloria during the year before, and he remembered the existence of a rule that patrons must be in evening dress. Well, he would not go up-stairs--he would send a boy up for Bloeckman and wait for him in the lower hall. For a moment he did not doubt that the whole project was entirely natural and graceful. To his distorted imagination Bloeckman had become simply one of his old friends.
The entrance hall of the Boul' Mich' was warm. There were high yellow lights over a thick green carpet, from the centre of which a white stairway rose to the dancing floor.
Anthony spoke to the hallboy: "I want to see Mr. Bloeckman--Mr. Black," he said. "He's up-stairs--have him paged."
The boy shook his head.
"'Sagainsa rules to have him paged. You know what table he's at?"
"No. But I've got see him."
"Wait an' I'll getcha waiter."
After a short interval a head waiter appeared, bearing a card on which were charted the table reservations. He darted a cynical look at Anthony--which, however, failed of its target. Together they bent over the cardboard and found the table without difficulty--a party of eight, Mr. Black's own.
"Tell him Mr. Patch. Very, very important."
Again he waited, leaning against the banister and listening to the confused harmonies of "Jazz-mad" which came floating down the stairs. A check-girl near him was singing: _"Out in--the shimmee sanitarium The jazz-mad nuts reside. Out in--the shimmee sanitarium I left my blushing bride. She went and shook herself insane, So let her shiver back again--"_ Then he saw Bloeckman descending the staircase, and took a step forward to meet him and shake hands.