While the Light Lasts Read Online Free PDF

week.’
    â€˜If all goes well, you’ll probably have to let her understudy “Cora”.’ She smothered his protests witha wave of her hand. ‘Danny, answer me one question honestly. Do you think I can act? Really act , I mean. Or am I just an attractive woman who trails round in pretty dresses?’
    â€˜Act? My God! Olga, there’s been nobody like you since Duse!’
    â€˜Then if Levitt is really a coward, as I suspect, the thing will come off. No, I’m not going to tell you about it. I want you to get hold of the Ryan girl. Tell her I’m interested in her and want her to dine here tomorrow night. She’ll come fast enough.’
    â€˜I should say she would!’
    â€˜The other thing I want is some good strong knock-out drops, something that will put anyone out of action for an hour or two, but leave them none the worse the next day.’
    Danahan grinned.
    â€˜I can’t guarantee our friend won’t have a headache, but there will be no permanent damage done.’
    â€˜Good! Run away now, Danny, and leave the rest to me.’ She raised her voice: ‘Miss Jones!’
    The spectacled young woman appeared with her usual alacrity.
    â€˜Take down this, please.’
    Walking slowly up and down, Olga dictated the day’s correspondence. But one answer she wrote with her own hand.
    Jake Levitt, in his dingy room, grinned as he tore open the expected envelope.
    â€˜Dear Sir,
    I cannot recall the lady of whom you speak, but I meet so many people that my memory is necessarily uncertain. I am always pleased to help any fellow actress, and shall be at home if you will call this evening at nine o’clock.
    Yours faithfully,
Olga Stormer’
    Levitt nodded appreciatively. Clever note! She admitted nothing. Nevertheless she was willing to treat. The gold-mine was developing.
    III
    At nine o’clock precisely Levitt stood outside the door of the actress’s flat and pressed the bell. No one answered the summons, and he was about to press it again when he realized that the door was not latched. He pushed the door open and entered the hall. To his right was an open door leading into a brilliantly lighted room, a room decorated in scarlet and black. Levitt walked in. On the table under the lamp lay a sheet of paper on which were written the words:
    â€˜Please wait until I return.–O. Stormer.’
    Levitt sat down and waited. In spite of himself a feeling of uneasiness was stealing over him. The flat was so very quiet. There was something eerie about the silence.
    Nothing wrong, of course, how could there be? But the room was so deadly quiet; and yet, quiet as it was, he had the preposterous, uncomfortable notion that he wasn’t alone in it. Absurd! He wiped the perspiration from his brow. And still the impression grew stronger. He wasn’t alone! With a muttered oath he sprang up and began to pace up and down. In a minute the woman would return and then–
    He stopped dead with a muffled cry. From beneath the black velvet hangings that draped the window a hand protruded! He stooped and touched it. Cold–horribly cold–a dead hand.
    With a cry he flung back the curtains. A woman was lying there, one arm flung wide, the other doubled under her as she lay face downwards, her golden-bronze hair lying in dishevelled masses on her neck.
    Olga Stormer! Tremblingly his fingers sought the icy coldness of that wrist and felt for the pulse. As he thought, there was none. She was dead. She had escaped him, then, by taking the simplest way out.
    Suddenly his eyes were arrested by two ends of redcord finishing in fantastic tassels, and half hidden by the masses of her hair. He touched them gingerly; the head sagged as he did so, and he caught a glimpse of a horrible purple face. He sprang back with a cry, his head whirling. There was something here he did not understand. His brief glimpse of the face, disfigured as it was, had shown him one thing.