Westward; westward we flew, while I sat behind her, watching her and wondering at her as she soothed and entertained him.
She knew it was no hour for argument. He wished to submerge, for the present, the conflict between them; so she humored him, taking up and making as much as possible of the trifles he offered for conversation; and she delighted him.
Almost as completely ignored as Larkin in the rear of the cabin, I became a spectator. Suppressed was her terror of him; conquered, was her prostration at the luncheon table. She smiled and laughed and bantered; and, in my wonder at her, I realized that she had had training at this with him. She had met him, originally, through visits to him at a sanitarium.
Late in the afternoon, he recollected Larkin. "Tea," he ordered; and the man, whose talents proved to be many, opened an electrically equipped cupboard, prepared tea and toast, produced little cakes and served us upon a tiny table.
She sipped her tea and ate her toast and cake. Not with appetite, but she managed it. On we flew.
Chicago proved to be our destination. We passed and accompanied the customary passenger and freight planes as we approached the towers in twilight. For the sun of the long day was set. The crimson and yellow of the afterglow hung high in the dust halo over the city; but already air beacons gleamed and roofs were swept with the horizontal glare of landing lights.
Planes humming beside us, their position lanterns streaking across the sky. Likewise we were only a hum and a streak as we circled, finding a way for our descent. We signalled a definite roof; it flashed back, "All clear; come down"; and we were down on our wheels and stopped ten yards from the windward edge.
Groundmen materialized from a trap door to take charge of the machine; they lifted a section of roof, disclosing a runway down which the plane was slipped. The roof section settled back; the roof was ready for another landing.
Bane escorted us from the cabin to an elevator operated by a man who addressed him respectfully.
"Mr. Cawder in his office?" Bane asked him.
"Yes, sir. I just brought him myself from the street."
"Thirty," said Bane to the man, designating the floor; to us, he volunteered the information. "This is our building."
"Your building?" I repeated.
"Why not?" Bane asked me, smiling.
We were dropping floor after floor to reach the thirtieth; and the roof had given me some idea of the linear proportions of the building. It was a mammoth structure. Bane explained to me:
"We don't need it all for offices. We rent out several floors; but our main offices are here. We own the building."
"We?" I repeated. "Who do you mean by we?"
Bane smiled at me, as the elevator stopped and the three of us stepped into a lighted hall with long rows of office doors showing lighted transoms. "Cawder and Company, Investments. Entrance" read the lettering on the door directly before us.
"This is our name on this floor," Bane informed me and reminded me, "I told you I'd show you who's sane."
He opened the door, leading us into a waiting-room panelled, soft-carpeted, furnished with large leather chairs and a desk at which a demurely dressed but alert-looking girl sat in attendance.
She spoke to Bane who asked: "Mr. Cawder alone?"
"He has just heard you're here."
"I'll send for these people in a minute," Bane said to her and with no word to us, he opened a further door and disappeared, leaving us alone with the girl at the desk. Behind us, only the door through which we had entered and the hallway and the elevators of "their" building.
I could take his complete carelessness as a pose to impress us or not as carelessness at all but complete confidence. Hardly confidence in us but in the situation which enveloped us.
The girl at the desk gave absolutely no suggestion of guarding us or even watching us with particular concern. To be sure, a telephone transmitter was only a few inches from her lips and on the desk top were rows of ivory buttons suggestive of power to summon others instantly.
Probably I could not escape if I tried; and the thought of trying seemed not even to enter Helen Lacey's head. She ignored the attendant's invitation to be seated and stood gazing impatiently at the inner door through which, after a few minutes, another girl appeared and informed us;
"Mr. Cawder will see you."
We followed her through a large office, lighted but deserted, where several desks denoted the presence, at business hours, of a dozen men, probably, and as many more stenographers. Our reception at evening obviously did not mean that this office operated at night; the air of the place was of an office opened, after hours, for some special, personal work of an executive. We proceeded into a panelled passage and suddenly upon the right was a doorway or, at least, an aperture. A panel was swung inward, acting as a door except that it was without knob or keyhole or evidence of lock in the panel itself. The girl gestured us through this doorway and we entered a panelled room of good size, almost square.
It was peculiar in some important aspect but I had no mind to discern in what. Bane stood near the center beside a large, flat-topped desk at which sat a remarkable man who immediately monopolized me. He was broad and strong and bent forward in an attitude of extraordinary intentness. He had strawyellow hair and face so florid that, taken with his attitude, I imagined at first that we had interrupted him in some outburst of anger or excitement. I realized in a moment, however, that this was anything but the case. Naturally his face was flushed; naturally, he bent forward. He had been a huge, handsome man who, after he had attained his growth, had been broken in two by some frightful accident. An airplane crash came to my mind as an explanation. I looked at his grey eyes, of the grey which is cold, at his cool, curt lips and his long, competent hands and I had no trouble imagining him as having been a pilot.
He was thirty, I guessed; perhaps not so much; perhaps pain had somewhat aged him; for I realized, as he moved a little, he was in some pain. This motion in his chair was his substitute for arising at the approach of the girl with me.
"Mr. Cawder, Helen," Bane said; and she nodded to him.
"Sit down, please," asked Cawder; and seeing that he held himself up from his seat with his hands, while she was standing, she quickly slipped into the chair which Bane offered her. Cawder let himself relapse.
"Flight lieutenant Carrick," Bane made introduction of me.
"Sit down," said Cawder to me and I complied. Bane sat between me and Helen Lacey. No one else was in the room. The panel, through which we had entered, had swung shut; as I gazed about, it was indistinguishable from the other panels. I could only guess where it was.
My glance followed the panels all around the room and I saw what made the place peculiar. It was without windows. The big broken man watched me and discerned my discovery of this feature.
"We built this room," he said to me, "a couple of years ago on the chance that we might actually need it—actually need its seclusion, I mean," he explained. "Having been brought in as you were, you cannot properly appreciate it. Our architect really deserves some credit; for this space is taken away from the other offices on the floor so cleverly that, having the plan of the other floors in mind, no one would suspect that this floor has this additional room. It was arranged when we thought we might meet with personal difficulties in proceeding with our plans. Of course we have not. Our way has opened even wider than we had hoped. The case for the feeble, fumbling order of things which people call popular government has become absolutely desperate.
"Some strong group must take over affairs. That is plain to you, is it not?"
He was glancing from Helen Lacey across Bane to me and back again; his eyes rested on her when he stopped so she made reply to him, with quivering lips: "That is what you are planning to do?"
"He did not tell you," said Cawder kindly, "even that?" He glanced at Bane not so patiently; and I better understood our situation. Because I was one of a pair of pilots potentially useful to him, this crippled man had sent for me. He had not sent for her; Bane had brought her because he could not himself present the plan to her. He preferred to have Cawder do it.