LORD JOHN
IN NEW YORK

BY

C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON

AUTHORS OF "THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR"

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published in 1918

BY THE SAME AUTHORS

The Lightning Conductor
The Princess Passes
My Friend the Chauffeur
Lady Betty Across the Water
The Car of Destiny
The Botor Chaperon
Set in Silver
Lord Loveland Discovers America
The Golden Silence
The Guests of Hercules
The Demon
The Wedding Day
The Princess Virginia
The Heather Moon
The Love Pirate
It Happened in Egypt
A Soldier of the Legion
The Shop Girl
The War Wedding
The Lightning Conductress
Secret History
The Cowboy Countess
This Woman to this Man

CONTENTS

EPISODE I

THE KEY

EPISODE II

THE GREY SISTERHOOD

EPISODE III

THE GIRL ON THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR

EPISODE IV

THE DEATH TRYST

EPISODE V

THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT

EPISODE VI

THE CLUE IN THE AIR

EPISODE VII

THE WATCHING EYE

EPISODE VIII

THE HOUSE OF REVENGE

EPISODE IX

THE BELL BUOY

TO A CERTAIN KING
OF A CERTAIN CINEMA COMPANY
WHO PUT
"LORD JOHN IN NEW YORK"
ON THE SCREEN

LORD JOHN IN NEW YORK

EPISODE I

THE KEY

"More letters and flowers for you, Lord John," said my nurse.

Not that I needed a nurse; and, above all things, I needed no more letters or flowers. The waste-paper basket was full. The room smelt like a perfume factory. The mantelpiece and all other receptacles having an army of occupation, vases and bowls were mobilising on the floor. This would, of course, not be tolerated in hospital; but I was off the sick list, recovering in a private convalescent home. I was fed up with being a wounded hero; the fragrance of too many flowers, and the kindness of too many ladies, was sapping and mining my brain power; consequently, I could invent no excuse for escape.

The nurse came in, put down the lilies, and gave me three letters.

My heart beat, for I was expecting a note from a woman to whom somehow or other I was almost engaged, and to whom I didn't in the least wish to be engaged. She would not have looked at me before the war, when I was only a younger brother of the Marquis of Haslemere—and the author of a successful detective story called The Key. Now, however; simply because I'd dropped a few bombs from a monoplane on to a Zeppelin hangar in Belgium, had been wounded in one arm and two legs, and through sheer instinct of self-preservation had contrived to escape, I was a toy worth playing with. She wanted to play with me. All the women I knew, not busy with better toys, wanted to play with me. My brother Haslemere, who had been ashamed of my extremely clever, rather successful book, and the undoubted detective talent it showed, was proud of me as a mere bomb-dropper. So, too, was my sister-in-law. I was the principal object of attraction at the moment in Violet's zoo—I mean her convalescent home. She had cried because men were not being wounded fast enough to fill its expensively appointed rooms; I was captured, therefore, to make up for deficiencies and shown off to Violet's many friends, who were duly photographed bending beautifully over me.

There was, as I had feared, a letter from Irene Anderson; there was also—even worse—one from Mrs. Allendale. But the third letter was from Carr Price. On the envelope was the address of the New York theatre where the play he had dramatised from my book would shortly be produced. He had come to England a million years ago, before the war, to consult me about his work, which would have been brought out in London if the war had not upset our manager's plans. I like Carr Price, who is as much poet as playwright; a charming, sensitive, nervous, wonderful fellow. I gave his letter precedence.

"DEAR LORD JOHN," he began, and I judged from the scrawl that he wrote in agitation—"for goodness' sake, what have you done to Roger Odell that he should have a grouch on you? It must have been something pretty bad. I wish to Heaven you'd given me the tip last summer that you'd made an enemy of him. Roger Odell, of all men in America! I suppose the brother of a marquis can stand on his own feet in his own country, but even if his brother's an archangel his feet are apt to get cold in New York if Roger Odell turns the heat off.

"The facts—as I've just heard from Julius Felborn—are these. Yesterday Odell sent for Julius, who went like a bird, for he and Odell are friends. Odell's money and influence put Julius where he is now, as a manager, up at the top, though still young. What was Julius's horror, however, when Odell blurted out a warning not to produce any play dramatised from a book of yours, because he—Odell—would do his best to ruin it! Julius asked what the dickens he meant. Odell wouldn't explain. All he'd say was, that he'd be sorry to hurt Julius and had nothing against me, but The Key would get no chance in New York or any old town in the United States where Roger Odell had a finger in the pie.

"Well, you must have heard enough about Odell to know what such a threat amounts to. There are mighty few pies he hasn't got a finger in. Not that he's a man who threatens as a rule. He's made a good many men. I never heard of his breaking one. But when he decides to do a thing, he does it. Julius is in a blue funk. He's not a coward, but even if he felt strong enough to fight Odell's newspapers and other influence, he says it would be an act of 'base ingratitude' to do so, as he'd be 'walking on his uppers' now but for Odell's help, tiding over rough places in the past. Julius took all night to reflect, and rang me up this morning. I'm writing in his office at the theatre now,