IN WHICH THE PUZZLE FALLS INTO PLACE
While the colonel was trying to decipher his tragical puzzle, while
Edwin Keatcham was busied with plans that affected empires and
incidentally were to save and to extinguish some human lives, while
Janet Smith had her own troubles, while Mrs. Rebecca Winter enjoyed
a game more exciting and deadly than Penelope’s Web, Mrs. Millicent
Winter and the younger people found the days full of joyous business.
The household had fallen into normal ways of living. Although the
secret patrol watched every rod of approach to the house, the espial
was so unobtrusive that guests came and went, tradesmen rattled
over the driveways; the policemen, themselves, slumbered by day and
loitered majestically by night without the Casa Fuerte portals, never
suspecting. Little Birdsall had his admirable points; they were now in
evidence. To all outward seeming, a pleasant house-party was enjoying
the lavish Californian hospitality of Casa Fuerte; and Black Care was
bundled off to the closet with the family skeleton, according to the
traditions of mannerly people. Arnold had opened his garage and his
stables. There was bridge of an evening; and the billiard-balls clinked
on the pool-table. Archie could now back the electric motor into almost
any predicament. The new Chinese chef was a wonder and Tracy was
initiating him into the possibilities of the Fireless, despite a modest
shrinking on the part of the oriental artist who considered it to be a
new kind of bomb.
Millicent, encouraged by Arnold, had had Mrs. Wigglesworth and two
errant Daughters, whose husbands were state regents for Melville’s
university, to luncheon and to dinner; the versatile Kito donning a
chauffeur’s livery and motoring them back to the city in the Limousine,
on both occasions; all of which redounded to Millicent’s own proper
glory and state.
Indeed, about this time, Millicent was in high good humor with her
world. Even Janet Smith was no longer politely obliterated as “the
nurse,” but became “our dear Miss Janet”; and was presented with
two of Mrs. Melville’s last year’s Christmas gifts which she could
not contrive to use; therefore carried about for general decorative
generosity. One was a sage-green linen handkerchief case, quite fresh,
on which was etched, in brown silk, the humorous inscription: “WIPE
ME BUT DO NOT SWIPE ME!” The other was a white celluloid brush-broom
holder bedecked with azure forget-me-nots enframing a complicated
monogram which might just as well stand for J. B. B. S. (Janet Byrd
Brandon Smith) as for M. S. W. (Millicent Sears Winter) or any other
alphabetical herd. These unpretending but (considering their source)
distinguished gifts she bestowed in the kindest manner. Janet was no
doubt grateful; she embroidered half a dozen luncheon napkins with Mrs.
Melville’s monogram and crest, in sign thereof; and very prettily,
she being a skilful needle-woman. On her part, Mrs. Mellville was so
pleased that she remarked to her brother-in-law, shortly after, that
she believed Cousin Angela’s sisters hadn’t been just to Miss Smith;
she was a nice girl; and if she married (which is quite possible,
insinuated Mrs. Melville archly), she meant to give a tea in her honor.
“Now, that’s right decent of you, Millie,” cried the colonel; and he
smiled gratefully after Mrs. Melville’s beautifully fitted back. Yet a
scant five minutes before he had been pursuing that same charming back
through the garden terraces, in a most unbrotherly frame, resolved to
give his sister-in-law a “warning with a fog-horn.” The cause of said
warning was his discovery of her acquaintance with Atkins. For days
a bit of information had been blistering his mind. It came from the
girl at the telegraph office at the Palace, not in a bee-line, but
indirectly, through her chum, the girl who booked the theater tickets.
It could not be analyzed properly because the telegraph girl was gone
to Southern California. But before she went she told the theater girl
that the lady who received Mr. Makers’ wires was one of Mrs. Winter’s
party! This bit of information was like a live coal underfoot in the
colonel’s mind; whenever he trod on it in his mental excursions he
jumped.
“Who else but Janet?” he demanded. But by degrees he became first
doubtful, then daring. He had Birdsall fetch the telegraph girl back
to San Francisco. A ten minutes’ interview assured him that it was his
brother’s wife who had called for Mr. Makers’ messages, armed with Mr.
Makers’ order.
Aunt Rebecca was not nearly so vehement as he when he told her. She
listened to his angry criticism with a lurking smile and a little shrug
of her shoulders.
“Of course she has butted in, as you tersely express it, in the
language of this mannerless generation; Millicent always butts in. How
did she get acquainted with this unpleasant, assassinating, poor white
trash? My dear child, _she_ didn’t probably; he made an acquaintance
with her. He pumped her and lied to her. We know he wanted to find
out Mr. Keatcham’s abode; he may have got his clue from her; she knew
young Arnold had been to see him. There’s no telling. I only know
that in the interest of keeping a roof over our heads and having our
heads whole instead of in pieces from explosives, I butted in a few
days ago when somebody wanted Mrs. Melville Winter on the telephone.
I answered it. The person asked if I was Mrs. Melville Winter; it
was a strange man’s voice. I don’t believe in Christian Science or
theosophy or psychics, but I do believe I felt in my bones that here
was an occasion to be canny rather than conscientious. You know I
can talk like Millicent--or anybody else; so I intoned through the
telephone in her silken Anglican accents, ‘Do you want Mrs. Melville
Winter or Aunt Rebecca, _Madam_ Winter?’ I hate to be called Madam
Winter, and she knows it, but Millicent is catty, you know, and she
always calls me Madam Winter behind my back. The fellow fell into the
trap at once--recognized the voice, I dare say, and announced that
it was Mr. Makers; Mr. Atkins, who had left for Japan, had not been
able to pay his respects and say good-by; but he had left with him an
embroidered Chinese kimono for Professor Winter, whom he had admired
so much; and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for her to pay a visit
to her friend--one of those women she had to luncheon, who’s at the
St. Francis--he would like to show her several left by Mr. Atkins, for
her to select one. Then in the most casual way, he asked after Mr.
Keatcham’s health. I believed he was improving; had had a very good
night. I fancy it didn’t please him, but he made a good pretense. Then
he went off into remarks about its being such a pity Mr. Atkins had
left Mr. Keatcham; but he was so conscientious, a Southern gentleman
I knew; yet he really thought a great deal still of Mr. Keatcham,
who had many fine qualities; only on account of the unfortunate
differences--Atkins was so proud and sensitive; he was anxious to hear,
but not for the world would he have any one know that he had inquired;
so would I be very careful not to let any one know he had asked. Of
course I would be; I promised effusively; and said I quite understood.
I think I _do_, too.”
“They are keeping tab on us through Millicent,” fumed the colonel. “I
dare say she gave it away that Arnold was visiting Keatcham at the
hotel; and it wouldn’t take Atkins long to piece out a good deal more,
especially if his spy overheard Tracy’s ’phone. Well, I shall warn
Millicent--with a fog-horn!”
The way he warned Millicent has been related. But from Millicent he
deflected to another subject--the impulse of confession being strong
upon him. He freed his mind about the stains on Cary Mercer’s cuffs;
and, when at last he sought Millicent he was in his soul praising
his aunt for a wise old woman. After justice was disarmed by his
miscomprehension of Millicent’s words, he took out his cigarette case
and began pacing the garden walks, smoking and humming a little
Spanish love song, far older than the statehood of California.
_La noche está serena, tranquilo el aquilon;
Tu dulce centinella te guarda el corazon.
Y en al as de los céfiros, que vagan par doquier,
Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!
Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!_
_De un corazon que te ama, recibe el tierno amor;
No aumentes mas la llama, piedad, á an trobador.
Y si te mueve á lastima eterno padecer,
Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer!
Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer!_[B]
The words belonged to the air which he had whistled a weary week ago.
Young Tracy came along, and caught up the air, although he was innocent
of Spanish; he had his mandolin on his arm; he proffered it to the
colonel.
“Miss Janet has been singing coon-songs to his nibs, who is really
getting almost human,” he observed affably; “well, a little patience
and interest will reveal new possibilities of the Fireless Stove! In
man or metal. Shall we get under his nibs’ window and give him the
_Bedouin Love Song_ and _I Picked Me a Lemon in the Garden of Love_ and
the Sextette from _Lucia_ and other choice selections? He seemed to be
sitting up and taking notice; let’s lift him above the sordid thoughts
of Wall Street and his plans for busting other financiers.”
The soldier gave this persiflage no answer; his own thoughts were far
from gay. He stood drinking in the beauty of the April night. The air
was wonderfully hushed and clear; and the play of the moonlight on
the great heliotrope bushes and the rose-trees, which dangled their
clusters of yellow and white over the stone parapets of the balconies,
tinted the leafage and flickered delicately over the tracery of shadow
on the gray walls. Not a cloud flecked the vast aërial landscape--only
stars beyond stars, through unfathomable depths of dim violet, and
beneath the stars a pale moon swimming low in the heavens; one could
see it between the spandrels of the arches spanning the colonnade.
“Looks like a prize night-scene on the stage, doesn’t it?” said Tracy.
“Jolly good shadows--and aren’t these walls bulging out at the bottom
bully? I used to know the right name for such architectural stunts
when I was taking Fine Arts Four--dreadful to neglect your educational
advantages and then forget all the little you didn’t neglect, ain’t it?
I say, get on to those balconies--that isn’t the right word for the
mission style, I guess; but never mind; aren’t they stunning? Do you
see the ladies up there? Is that Archie sniggering? What do you think
of the haunted house, _now_, Colonel?”
Tracy’s gay eyes sought the other’s gaze to find it turn somber.
Winter couldn’t have told why; but a sudden realization of the hideous
peril dogging the warm, lighted, tenanted house, submerged him and
suffocated him like a foul gas. Let their guards be vigilant as fear,
let their wonderful new search-light flood rock and slope and dusky
Chaparral bush; and peer as it might through the forest aisles beyond;
yet--yet--who could tell!
But he forced an equal smile in a second for the college boy; and
chatted easily enough as they climbed up the stepped arches to the
balcony and the little group looking seaward.
Aunt Rebecca in black lace and jewels was tilting with the world in
general and Millicent Winter in particular; she displayed her most
cynical mood. She had demolished democracy; had planted herself firmly
on the basic doctrine that the virtues cultivated by slavery far
outnumber its inseparable vices; and that most people, if not all,
need a master; had been picturesquely and inaccurately eloquent on the
subject of dynamite (which she pronounced the logical fourth dimension
of liberty, fraternity and equality); had put the yellow rich where
they belonged; and the red anarchists mainly under the sod; and she
had abolished the Fourth of July to the last sputter of fire-cracker;
thence by easy transitions she had extolled American art (which
American patrons were too ignorant to appreciate), deplored American
music (“The trouble isn’t that it is _canned_,” says she, “but that it
was spoiled before they canned it!”) and was now driving a chariot of
fire through American literature; as for the Academics, they never said
what they thought, but only what they thought they ought to think; and
they always mistook anemia for refinement, as another school mistook
yelling and perspiring for vigor.
Just as Winter modestly entered the arena, no less a personage than
Henry James was under the wheels. Janet Smith had modestly confessed to
believing him a consummate artist; and Millicent in an orotund voice
declared that he went deep, deep down into the mysteries of life.
“I don’t deny it; he _ought_ to get down deep,” returned Aunt Rebecca
in her gentlest, softest utterance; “he’s always boring.”
Mrs. Melville’s suppressed agitation made her stays creak.
“Do you really think that James is not a great artist?” she breathed.
“I think he is not worth while.”
“Wow!” cried Tracy. “Oh, I say--”
“Aunt Rebecca; you can not mean--” this was Mrs. Melville, choking with
horror.
“His style,” repeated the unmoved iconoclast, “his style has the
remains of great beauty; all his separate phrases, if you wish, are
gems; and he is a literary lapidary; but his sentences are so subtle,
so complex, so intricately compounded, and so discursive that I get a
pain in the back of my neck before I find out what he _may_ mean; and
then--I don’t agree with him! Now is it worth while to put in so much
hard reading only to be irritated?”
“I beg pardon,” Winter interposed, with masculine pusillanimity evading
taking sides in the question at issue, “I thought we were going to have
some music; why don’t you boys give us some college songs? Here is a
mandolin.”
Aunt Rebecca’s still luminous eyes went from the speaker to Janet
Smith in the corner. She said something about hearing the music better
from the other side of the balcony. Now (as Mrs. Millicent very truly
explained) there was not a ha’pennyworth’s difference in favor of one
side over the other; but she followed in the wake of her imperious aunt.
The colonel drew nearer to Janet Smith; in order to sink his voice
below disturbing the music-lovers he found it necessary to sit on a
pile of cushions at her feet.
“Did you know Mercer will be back to-night?” he began, a long way from
his ultimate object. He noticed that leaning back in the shadow her
ready smile had dropped from her face, which looked tired. “I want to
tell you a little story about Mercer,” he continued; “may I? It won’t
take long.”
He was aware, and it gave him a twinge of pain to see it, that she
sat up a little straighter, like one on guard; and oh, how tired her
face was and how sweet! He told her of all his suspicions of her
brother-in-law; of the blood-stains and the changing of clothes; she
did not interrupt him by a question, hardly by a motion, until he told
of the conversation with Keatcham and the note signed “The Black Hand.”
At this her eyes lighted; she exclaimed impetuously: “Cary Mercer never
_did_ send that letter!” She drew a deep intake of breath. “I don’t
believe he touched Mr. Keatcham!”
“Neither do I,” said the colonel, “but wait!” He went on to the theater
girl’s report of the receiver of the telegrams. Her hands, which
clasped her knee, fell apart; her lips parted and closed firmly.
“Did I think it was you?” said he. “Why, yes, I confess I did fear it
might be and that you might be trying to shield Atkins.”
“I!” she exclaimed hotly; “that detestable villain!”
“_Isn’t_ he?” cried the colonel. “But--well, I couldn’t tell how he
might strike a lady,” he ended lamely.
“I reckon he _would_ strike a lady if she were silly enough to marry
him and he got tired of her. He is the kind of man who will persecute a
girl to marry him, follow her around and importune her and flatter her
and then, if he should prevail, never forgive her for the bother she
has given him. Oh, I never _did_ like him; I’m afraid of him--awfully.”
“Not you?”--the colonel’s voice was cheerful, as if he had not shivered
over his own foreboding vision. “I’ve seen you in action already, you
know.”
“Not fighting bombs. I hate bombs. There are so many pieces to hit you.
You can’t run away.”
“Well, you’ll find them not so bad; besides, you _did_ fight one this
very morning, and you were cool as peppermint!”
“That was quite different; I had time to think, and the danger was more
to me than to any one else; but to think of Mrs. Winter and Archie and
y-- all of you; that scares me.”
“Now, don’t let it get on your nerves,” he soothed--of course it is
necessary to take a girl’s hand to soothe her when she is frightened.
But Miss Smith calmly released her hand, only reddening a little; and
she laughed. “Where--where were we at?” she asked in her unconscious
Southern phraseology.
“Somewhere around Atkins, I think,” said the colonel; he laughed in his
turn,--he found it easy to laugh, now that he knew how she felt toward
Atkins. “You see, after I talked with Keatcham I couldn’t make anything
but Atkins out of the whole business. But there were those stained
cuffs and his changing his clothes--”
“Yes,” said she.
“How explain? There was only one explanation: that was, that perhaps
Mercer had discovered Keatcham before we did, unconsciously spotted
his cuffs, been alarmed by our approach and hidden, lest it should be
the murderers returning. He might have wanted a chance to draw his
revolver. Say he did that way, he might foolishly pretend to enter
for the first time. If he made that mistake and then discovered the
condition of his cuffs and the spots on his knee, what would be his
natural first impulse? Why, to change them, trusting that they hadn’t
been noticed. Maybe, then, he would wash them out--”
“No,” murmured Miss Smith meekly, with a little twinkle of her eye;
“_I_ did that; he hid them. How ridiculous of me to get in such a
fright! But you know how Cary hated Mr. Keatcham; and you--no, you
don’t know the lengths that such a temperament as his will go. I did
another silly thing: I found a dagger, one of those Moorish stilettoes
that hang in the library; it was lying in the doorway. When no one
was looking I hid it and carried it off. I stuck it in one of the
flower-beds; I stuck it in the ferns; I have stuck that wretched thing
all over this yard. I didn’t dare carry it back and put it in the empty
place with the others because some one might have noticed the place.
And I didn’t dare say anything to Cary; I was right miserable.”
“So was I,” said the colonel, “thinking you were trying to protect the
murderer. But do you know what I had sense to do?”
“Go to Mrs. Winter? Oh, I _wanted_ to!”
“Exactly; and do you know what that dead game sport said to me? She
said she found those washed and ironed cuffs and the trousers neatly
cleaned with milka--what’s milka?--and the milka cleaned the spots so
much cleaner than the rest that she had her own suspicions started. But
says she, ‘Not being a plumb idiot, I went straight to Cary and he told
me the whole story--’”
“Which was like _your_ story?”
“Very near. And you see it would be _like_ Atkins to leave
incriminating testimony round loose. That is, incriminating testimony
against Mercer and Tracy. The dagger, Tracy remembers, was not in the
library; it was in the _patio_. Right to hand. Atkins must have got in
and found Mr. Keatcham on the floor in a faint. Whether he meant to
make a bargain with him or to kill him, perhaps we shall never know;
but when he saw him helpless before him he believed his chance was come
to kill him and get the cipher key, removing his enemy and making his
fortune at a blow, as the French say. _Voilà tout!_”
“Do you think”--her voice sank lower; she glanced over her
shoulder--“do you reckon _Atkins_ had anything to do with that train
robbery? Was it a mere pretext to give a chance to murder Mr. Keatcham,
fixing the blame on ordinary bandits?”
“By Jove! it might be.”
“I don’t suppose we shall ever know. But, Colonel Winter, do you mind
explaining to me just what Brother Cary’s scheme with Mr. Keatcham was?
Mrs. Winter told me you would.”
“She told _me_,” mused the colonel, “that you didn’t know anything
about this big game which has netted them millions. They’ve closed
out their deals and have the cash. No paper profits for Auntie! She
said that she would not risk your being mixed up in it; so kept you
absolutely in the dark. I’m there, too. Didn’t you know Mercer had
kidnapped Archie?”
“No; I didn’t know he was with Mr. Keatcham at the hotel. It would have
saved me a heap of suffering; but she didn’t dare let me know for fear,
if anything should happen, I would be mixed up in it. It was out of
kindness, Colonel Winter, truly it was. Afterward when she saw that I
was worried she gave me hints that I need not worry, Archie was quite
safe.”
“And the note-paper?”
“I suppose she gave it to them,” answered Miss Smith.
“And the voice I heard in the telephone?” He explained how firmly she
had halted the conversation the time Archie would have reassured him.
“You weren’t there, of course?” said he.
“No, I was down-stairs in the ladies’ entrance of the court in
the hotel; I had come in a little while before, having carried
an advertisement to the paper; I wonder why she--maybe it was to
communicate with them without risking a letter.”
“But how did _your_ voice get into my ’phone?” he asked.
She looked puzzled only a second, then laughed as he had not heard her
laugh in San Francisco--a natural, musical, merry peal, a girlish laugh
that made his heart bound.
“Why, of course,” said she, “it is so easy! There was a reporter who
insisted on interviewing Mrs. Winter about her jewelry; and I was
shooing him away. Somehow the wires must have crossed.”
“Do you remember--this is very, very pretty, don’t you think? Just like
a puzzle falling into place. Do you remember coming here on the day
Archie was returned?”
“I surely do; my head was swimming, for Mrs. Winter sent me and I began
then to suspect. She told me Brother Cary was in danger; of course I
wanted to do anything to help him; and I carried a note to him. I
didn’t go in, merely gave the note and saw him.”
“_I_ saw you.”
“You? How?”
“Birdsall and I; we were here, in the _patio_; we, my dear Miss Janet,
were the Danger! You had on a brown checked silk dress and you were
holding a wire clipper in your hand.”
“Yes, sir. I saw it on the grass and picked it up.”
She laughed a little; but directly her cheeks reddened. “What must you
have thought of me!” she murmured under her breath; and bit the lip
that would have quivered.
“I should like to tell you--_dear_,” he answered, “if you will--O Lord,
forgive young men for living! If they are not all coming back to ask me
to sing! But, Janet, dear, let me say it in Spanish--yes, _yes_ if you
really won’t be bored; throw me that mandolin.”
Aunt Rebecca leaned back in the arm-chair, faintly smiling, while the
old, old words that thousands of lovers have thrilled with pain and
hopes and dreams beyond their own power of speech and offered to their
sweethearts, rose, winged by the eternal longing:
“_Y si te mueve á lastima mi eterno padecer,
Como te amo, amame, bellissima mujer!
Como te amo, amame, bellissima mujer!_”
“And what does it mean in English, Bertie?” said Mrs. Melville. “Can’t
you translate it?”
“Shall I?” said the colonel, his voice was careless enough, but not so
the eyes which looked up at Janet Smith.
“Not to-night, please,” said she. “I--I think Mr. Keatcham is expecting
me to read to him a little. Good night. Thank you, Colonel Winter.”
She was on her feet as she spoke; and Winter did not try to detain her;
he had held her hand; and he had felt its shy pressure and caught a
fleeting, frightened, very beautiful glance. His dark face paled with
the intensity of his emotion.
Janet moved away, quietly and lightly, with no break in her composure;
but as she passed Mrs. Winter she bent and kissed her. And when Archie
would have run after her a delicate jeweled hand was laid on his arm.
“Not to-night, laddie; I want you to help me down the steps.”
With her hand on the boy’s shoulder she came up to Rupert, and inclined
her handsome head in Janet’s direction. “I think, by rights, that kiss
belonged to you, _mon enfant_,” said she.