Hand pressed against her bosom, Clancy stared into the dining-room. She
could not breathe as she waited for Carey's reply to his visitor's
charge. So Don Carey had possessed a key to the office of Morris Beiner!
The theatrical man had been locked in his office when Clancy had made
her escape from the room by way of the window. The door had not been
forced. And Don Carey had possessed a key!
For a moment, she thought, with pity, of the woman up-stairs, the woman
who had befriended her, whose life had been shadowed by her husband. But
only for a moment. She herself was wanted for this murder; her eyes were
hard as she stared into the room.
Carey's fingers reached out aimlessly. They fastened finally upon a
half-drained glass.
[Illustration: _"Who's going to believe that kind of yarn?" Carey
demanded_]
"Who's going to believe that kind of yarn?" he demanded.
"I can prove it all right," said the other.
"Well, even if you can prove it, what then?"
His visitor shrugged.
"You seemed worried about it a minute ago," he said. "Oh, there ain't no
use tryin' to kid me, I know what I know. It all depends on you who I
tell it to. I ain't a mean guy." His voice became whining. "I ain't a
trouble-maker. I can keep my trap closed as well as any one. When," he
added significantly, "there's enough in it for me."
"And you think you can blackmail me?" demanded Carey. His attempt at
righteous indignation sounded rather flat. The elevator-man lost his
whine; his voice became sulkily hard.
"Sticks and stones won't break no bones," he said. "Call it what you
please. I don't care--so long as I get mine."
Carey dropped his pretense of indignation.
"Well, there's no need of you shouting," he said. He rose to his feet,
assisting himself with a hand on the edge of the table.
"My wife's up-stairs," he said. "No need of screaming so she'll be
butting in again. Shut that door."
Clancy leaped back. She gained the stairs in a bound. She crouched down
upon them, hoping that the banisters would shield her. But no prying
eyes sought her out. One of the two men in the room closed the
dining-room door.
For a minute after it was shut, Clancy remained crouching. She had to
_think_. A dozen impulses raced through her mind. To telephone
Vandervent, the judge? To run out upon the street and call for a
policeman? As swiftly as they came to her, she discarded them. She had
begun to glean in recent days something of what was meant by the word
"evidence." And she had none against Carey. Not yet!
But she could get it! She _must_ get it! Sitting on the stairs,
trembling--with excitement now, not fear--Clancy fought for clarity of
thought. What to do? There must be some one correct thing, some action
demanded by the situation that later on would cause her to marvel
because it had been overlooked. But what was it?
She could not think of the correct thing to do. The elevator-man knew
something. He was the same man who had identified her to Spofford, the
plain-clothes man. The man assuredly knew the motive that lay behind the
request for identification. And now, having told a detective things that
made Clancy Deane an object of grave suspicion, the man was blandly--he
was mentally bland, if not orally so--blackmailing Don Carey.
Yet Clancy did not disbelieve her ears merely because what she heard
sounded incredible. Nor did she, because she believed that the
elevator-man had proof of another's guilt, delude herself with the idea
that her own innocence was thereby indisputably shown. Her first
impulse--to telephone Vandervent--returned to her now. But she dismissed
it at once, this time finally.
For a man who brazenly pointed out one person to the police while
endeavoring to blackmail another was not the sort of person tamely to
blurt out confession when accused of his double-dealing. She had nothing
on which to base her accusation of Carey save an overheard threat. The
man who had uttered it had only to deny the utterance. Up-stairs was
Sophie Carey, torn with anguish, beaten by life and its injustices. The
hardness left her eyes again. If she could only be sure that she herself
would escape, she would be willing, for Sophie's sake, to forget what
she had overheard.
She heard Sophie's voice whispering hoarsely to her from the landing
above.
"Miss Deane, Miss Deane!" Then she saw Clancy. Her voice rose, in
alarm, above a whisper. "Has he--did he--dare----"
Clancy rose; she ran up the stairs.
"No, no; of course not!" she answered. "I--I twisted my ankle." It was a
kindly lie.
It was, Clancy thought, characteristic of Sophie Carey that she forgot
her own unhappiness in sympathy for Clancy. The older woman threw an arm
about the girl.
"Oh, my dear! You poor thing----"
"It's all right," said Clancy. She withdrew, almost hastily, from the
embrace. Postpone it though she might, she was going to bring disgrace
upon the name of Carey. She _had_ to--to save herself. She could not
endure the other's caress now.
"Who was it?" asked Mrs. Carey.
Clancy averted her eyes.
"I don't know," she said. "I---- The door was closed."
"It doesn't matter," said the older woman. "I--I--I'm nervous. Don is
so----" Her speech trailed away into a long sigh. The deep respiration
seemed to give her strength. She straightened up. "I'm getting old, I'm
afraid. I can't bear my troubles as easily as I used to. I want to force
some one to share them with me. You are very kind, Miss Deane. Now----"
She had preceded Clancy into her bedroom. From a desk, she took a slip
of paper and a ring from which dangled several keys.
"We're all ready to go," she said. "It only remains to check up my
inventory. But I'm quite sure that we can trust you and Sally
Henderson"--her smile was apparently quite unforced--"not to cheat us.
If there are any errors in my list, Sally can notify me."
She handed Clancy the paper and key-ring. As she did so, the door-bell
rang.
Almost simultaneously the door to the dining-room could be heard
opening. A moment later, Carey called.
"Ragan's here," he shouted. His voice was surly, like that of a petulant
child forced to do something undesirable. Clancy thought that there was
more than that in it, that there was the quaver that indicates panic.
But Mrs. Carey, who should have been sensitive to any vocal discords in
her husband's voice, showed no signs of such sensitiveness.
"Ready in a moment. Send him up," she called.
Ragan was a burly, good-natured Irishman. He grinned at Mrs. Carey's
greeting. Here was a servant who adored his mistress, Clancy felt.
"Ready to go to the country, Ragan?" asked Mrs. Carey.
The big man's grin was sufficient answer.
"Ragan," said Mrs. Carey to Clancy, "is the most remarkable man in the
world. He can drive a car along Riverside Drive at forty-five miles an
hour without being arrested, and he can wait on table like no one else
in the world. How's Maria?" she asked him.
"Sure, she's fine," said Ragan. "She's at the station now."
"Where we'll be in ten minutes," said his mistress. She indicated
several bags, already packed. Ragan shouldered them. He started
down-stairs. Mrs. Carey turned to Clancy. "Hope an empty house doesn't
make you nervous," she smiled.
Clancy shook her head. "I'll not be here long, anyway. And isn't your
maid here?"
"I think she's gone by now," said Mrs. Carey. "But she'll sleep each
night here--until you've found me a tenant. For that matter, she'll be
back early this afternoon--to wash dishes and such matters." She was not
a person to linger over departures. Her husband had sulkily donned hat
and coat and was standing in the hall down-stairs, waiting for her.
So Mrs. Carey held out her hand to Clancy.
"Wish I could ask you to week-end with us sometime, but I don't suppose
that the country, in winter-time, means anything in your young life."
She seemed to put the statement as a question, almost pleadingly.
Impulsively, Clancy answered her.
"Ask me sometime, and find out if it does."
"I'll do that," said Mrs. Carey. "Coming, Don," she called. Her hand
clasped Clancy's a moment, and then she trotted down the stairs. The
door banged behind them.
A thought came to Clancy. She raised her voice and called. But the door
was thick. The Careys could not hear. Frightened, she raced down-stairs.
As she passed the dining-room door, she glanced through the opening.
Then fear died from her. She had been afraid that the elevator-man from
the Heberworth Building still remained in the house. But, when she had
seen him talking to Don Carey, his hat and coat were lying on a chair.
They were gone now.
Still---- Sudden anger swept over her. This lying, blackmailing thing to
frighten Clancy Deane? Anger made her brave to rashness. From the
fireplace in the dining-room she picked up a short heavy poker. If he
were lurking anywhere in this house, if Don Carey, fearful lest his wife
note the sort of person who paid him morning visits, had hidden the man
away, she, Clancy Deane, would rout him out. She'd make him tell the
_truth_!
Through the dining-room, into the butler's pantry beyond, through the
kitchen, to the head of the cellar stairs she marched, holding the poker
before her. Her fingers found a switch: the cellar was flooded with
light. Without the least timidity, Clancy descended.
But the elevator-man was not there. And as in this tiny house there was
but one flight of stairs leading to the upper stories, Clancy knew that
the man was not in the house. She suffered reaction. What might have
been her fate had she found the man hiding here?
Like all women, Clancy feared the past more than the future. She feared
it more than the present. She sank down upon the stairs outside the
dining-room. Why, the man might have _shot_ her! What good would her
poker have been, pitted against a revolver? And, with the Careys up in
the country somewhere, she might have lain here, weltering in her
gore--she'd read that somewhere, and grinned as she mentally said it.
Well, she might as well begin the inventory of Mrs. Carey's household
effects. But she was not to begin it yet. Some one rang the door-bell.
No weakness assailed Clancy's knees now. Indeed, it never occurred to
her that the caller might be any other than the post-man. And so she
opened the front door and met the lowering gaze of Spofford,
Vandervent's plain-clothes man.