THE BLOSSOM FESTIVAL
Two hours sleep, bath, breakfast, and I started on my early morning run
for the county seat. Nobody else was going my way; but even at that
hour, the road was full of autos, buggies, farm wagons, pretty much
everything that could run on wheels, headed for the festival, all
trimmed and streaming with the blossoming branches of their orchards.
These were the country folks, coming in early to make a big day of it;
orchardists; ranchers from the cattle lands in the south end of the
county; truck and vegetable farmers; flower-seed gardeners; the Japs and
Chinese from their little, closely cultivated patches; this tide
streamed past me on my left hand, as I made my way to Worth and the
jailer's office, trying with every mile I put behind me, to bolster my
courage. Why wasn't this shift of the enemy a blessing in disguise? Let
their setting of the hour for the murder stick, and wouldn't Worth's
alibi be better than any we should have been able to dig up for him
before midnight?
From time to time I was troubled by recollection of Barbara's crushed
look from the moment they sprung it on us, but brushed that aside with
the obvious explanation that her efforts in bringing Mrs. Bowman to
speak out had just been of no use; surely enough to depress her.
Worth met me, fit, quiet, not over eager about anything. They let us
talk with a guard outside the door. Once alone, he listened
appreciatively while I told him of our interview with Cummings and
Dykeman as fast as I could pile the words out.
"Nobody on earth like Bobs," was his sole comment. "Never was, never
will be."
"And now," I reminded him nervously, "there's the question of this
alibi. You went straight from the restaurant to your room at the Palace
and to bed there?"
"No-o," he said slowly. "No, I didn't."
"Well--well," I broke in. "If you stopped on the way, you can remember
where. The people you spoke to will be as good as the clerks and
bell-hops at the Palace for your alibi." He sat silent, thoughtful, and
I added, "Where did you go from Tait's, Worth?"
"To a garage--in the Tenderloin--where they keep good cars. I'd hired
machines from them before."
"Oh, they knew you there? Then their testimony will--"
"I don't believe you want it, Jerry. It only accounts for the half
hour--or less--right after I left you; all I did was to hire a car."
"A car," I echoed vaguely. "What kind of a car? Hired it for when?"
"I asked them for the fastest thing they had in the shop. Told 'em to
fill it all round, and see that it was tuned up to the last notch. I
wanted speed."
"My God, Worth! Do you know what you're telling me?"
"The truth, Jerry." His eye met mine unflinchingly. "That's what you
want, isn't it?"
"Where did you go?" I groaned. "You must have seen somebody who could
identify or remember you?"
"Not a solitary human being to identify me. Those I passed--there were
people out of course, late as it was--saw my headlights as I went by.
But I was moving fast, Jerry. I was working off a grouch; I needed
speed."
"Where did you go?"
"Straight down the peninsula on the main highway to Palo Alto, made the
sweep across to the sea, and then up the coast road. I ran into the
garage about dawn."
"No stops anywhere?"
He shook his head.
"And that's your alibi?"
"That's my alibi." Worth looked at me a long while before he said
finally,
"Don't you see, Jerry, that the other side had all this before they
encouraged Bowman to change his mind about when father was shot?"
I did see it--ought to have known from the first. This was what they had
back of them last night in Cummings' room; this explained the lawyer's
smug self-confidence, Dykeman's violent certainty that Worth was a
criminal. A realization of this had whitened Barbara's face, set her
lips in that pitiful, straight line. As to their momentary chagrin over
Bowman; no trouble to them to get other physicians to bolster any
opinion he'd given. Medical testimony on such a point is notoriously
uncertain. All the jury would want to know was that there could be such
a possibility. I sat there with bent head, and felt myself going to
pieces. Cummings was right--I was no fit man to handle this job. My
personal feelings were too deeply involved. It was Worth's voice that
recalled me.
"Cheer up, Jerry, old man. Take it to Bobs."
Take it to Bobs--the idea of a big, husky old police detective running
to cast his burden on such shoulders! I couldn't quite do it then. I
went and telephoned the little girl that I was doing the best I
could--and then ran circles for the rest of the day, chasing one vain
hope after another, and finally, in the late afternoon, sneaked home to
Santa Ysobel.
Now I had the road more to myself; only an occasional handsome car,
where the wealthy were getting in to the part of the festival they'd
care for. In the orchards near town where the big picnic places had been
laid out with rough board tables and benches, seats for thousands, there
were occasional loud basket lunch parties scattered. All at once I was
hungry enough to have gone and asked for a handout.
I went by back streets down to the house to get my mail. There seemed no
human reason that I should feel it a treachery to have Worth in jail at
San Jose, and be able to walk into his house at Santa Ysobel a free man.
The place was empty; Chung had the day off, of course. It was possible
Worth's cook, even, didn't know what had happened to his employer. Santa
Ysobel had no morning paper. In the confusion of the blossom festival, I
ventured to guess that not more than a score of people did as yet know
of the arrest. Our end of town was drained, quiet; nobody over at the
Vandeman bungalow; looking down at the Square as I made my sneak
through, I had caught a glimpse of Bronson Vandeman, a great rosette of
apricot blossoms on his coat lapel, making his speech of presentation to
the cannery girl queen, while his wife, Ina, her fair face shaded doubly
by a big flower hat and a blossom covered parasol, listened and looked
on.
One of my pieces of mail concerned the Skeels chase. If my men down
there had Skeels, and Skeels was Clayte, it would mean everything in
handling Cummings and Dykeman. I took out the report and ran hastily
through it; a formal statement; day by day stuff:
"_Found Skeels and Dial at Tiajuana. Negotiating to buy saloon and
gambling house. Arranged with Jefico for arrest of S. (Expense
$20.) Rurales took S. to jail. (Expense, $4.50) I interviewed S.,
and he said he came here to open a business where he could sell
booze. D. was his partner in proposition. S. knew nothing of bank
affair. Would waive extradition and come back to stand trial at our
expense. Interviewed D. He says combined capital of two is $4500.,
saved from S's business and D's miner's wages. D. said--_"
Not much to show up with; but there were three photographs enclosed that
I wanted to try on Cummings and Dykeman. No telling where I'd find
either, but the Fremont House was my best bet. Getting back there
through the crowd, I saw Skeet Thornhill in a corner drugstore, waiting
at its counter. I was afoot, having been obliged to park my roadster in
one of the spaces set apart for this purpose. I noticed Vandeman's car
already there.
I lingered a minute on that corner looking down the slope that led to
City Hall Square. Tent restaurants along the way; sandwiches; hot dogs;
coffee; milk; pies; doughnuts. Part way down a hurdy-gurdy in a tent
began to get patronage again; the school children in white dresses with
pink bows in their hair had just finished a stunt in the Square. They
and their elders were streaming our way, headed for the snake charmers,
performing dogs and Nigger-in-the-tank. In the midst of them Vandeman
and his wife came afoot. He caught sight of me, hailed, and when I
joined them, asked quickly, glancing toward the drugstore entrance,
"Worth come with you?"
I shook my head. He made that little clucking sound with his tongue that
people do when they want to offer sympathy, and find the matter hard to
put into words.
A seller of toy balloons on the corner with a lot of noisy youngsters
around him; the ka-lash, ka-lam of a mechanical piano further down the
block; and young Mrs. Vandeman's staccato tones saying,
"I tell Bron that the only thing Worth's friends can do is to go on
exactly as if nothing had happened. Don't you think so, Mr. Boyne?"
I agreed mutely.
"Well, I wish you'd say so to Barbie Wallace," her voice sharpened.
"She's certainly acting as though she believed the worst."
"Now, Ina," Vandeman remonstrated. And I asked uncomfortably,
"What's Barbie done? Where is she?"
"Up at Mrs. Capehart's. In her room. Doesn't come out at all. Isn't
going to the ball to-night. Skeet said she refused to speak to Mr.
Cummings."
"Is that all Skeet said? Vandeman, you've told your wife that Cummings
swore to the complaint?"
"Yes, but--er--there's no animus. The executor of Gilbert's estate--With
all the talk going around--If Worth's proved innocent, he might in the
end be glad of Cummings' action."
"Oh, might he?" Skeet Thornhill had hurried out from the drugstore, a
package of medicine in her hand. Her eyes looked as though she'd been
crying; they flashed a hostile glance over the new brother-in-law,
excellently groomed, the big flower favor on his coat, the tall,
beautiful sister, all frilly white and flower festival fashion.
"_If_ Worth's proved innocent!" she flung at them. "Bronse Vandeman,
you've got a word too many in when you say that."
"Just a tongue-slip, Skeeter," Vandeman apologized. "I hope the boy'll
come through all right--same as you do."
"You don't do anything about it the same as I do!" Skeet came back. "I'd
be ashamed to 'hope' for a friend to be cleared of a charge like that.
If I couldn't _know_ he was clear--clear all the time--I'd try to forget
about it."
"See here, Skeet," Ina obviously restrained herself, "that's what we're
all trying to do for Worth: forget about it--make nothing of it--act
exactly as if it'd never happened. You ought to come on out to the ball
with the other girls. You're just staying away because Barbara Wallace
is."
"I'm not. Some damn fool went and told mother about Worth being
arrested, and made her a lot worse. She's almost crazy. I'd be afraid to
leave her alone with old Jane. You get me and this medicine up home--or
shall I go around to Capehart's and have Barbie drive me?"
"I'll take you, Skeeter," Vandeman said. "We're through here. We're for
home to dress, then to the country club--and not leave it again till
morning. That ball out there has got to be made the biggest thing Santa
Ysobel ever saw--regardless. Come on." The crowd swallowed them up.
Making for the Fremont House, I passed Dr. Bowman's stairway, and on
impulse turned, ran up. I found the doctor packing, very snappish, very
sorry for himself. He was leaving next day for a position in the state
hospital for the insane at Sefton. His kind have to blow off to
somebody; I was it, though he must have known I had no sympathy to
offer. The hang-over of last night's drunk made emotional the tone in
which he said,
"After all, a man's wife makes or breaks him. Mine's broken me. I could
have had a fine position at the Mountain View Sanitarium, well paid,
among cultured people, if she'd held up her damned divorce suit a little
longer."
"And as it is, you have to put up with what Cummings can land you with
such pull as he has."
"I'm not complaining of Cummings," sullenly. "He did the best he could
for me, I suppose, on such short notice. But a man of my class is
practically wasted in a place of the sort."
I had learned what I wanted; I carried more ammunition to the interview
before me. I found Dykeman in his room, propped up in bed, wheezing with
an attack of asthma. A sick man is either more merciful than usual, or
more unmerciful. Apparently it took Dykeman the former way; he accepted
me eagerly, and had me call Cummings from the adjoining room. The lawyer
was half into that costume he had brought from San Francisco. He came
quite modern as to the legs and feet, but thoroughly ancient in a shirt
of mail around the arms and chest, and carrying a Roman helmet in his
hand as though it had been an opera hat.
"Trying 'em on?" Dykeman whispered at him.
Cummings nodded with that self-conscious, half-tickled, half-sheepish
air that men display when it comes to costume. His greeting to me was
cool but not surly. What had happened might go as all in the day's work
between detective and lawyer.
"Just seen Bowman," was my first pass at them. "I gather he's not very
well pleased with the position you got him; seems to think it small pay
for a dirty job."
"What's this? What's this?" croaked Dykeman. "You been getting a place
for Bowman, Cummings?"
"Certainly," the lawyer dodged with swift, practical neatness. "I'd
promised him my influence in the matter some little time ago."
"Yes," I said, "mighty little time ago--the day he promised the
testimony you wanted in the Gilbert case."
"Anything in what Boyne says, Cummings?" Dykeman asked anxiously. "You
know I wouldn't stand for that sort of stuff."
The lawyer shook his head, but I didn't believe it was ended between
them; Dykeman was the devil to hang on to a point. This would come up
again after I was gone. Meantime I made haste to shove the photographs
before them. Cummings passed them back with an indifferent, "What's the
idea?"
"You don't recognize him?"
"Never saw the man in my life," and again he asked, "What's the idea?"
"You'd recognize a picture of Clayte?" I countered with a question of my
own.
"Yes--I think so," rather dubiously. "But Dykeman would. Show them to
him."
Dykeman reached for the photographs, spread them out before him, then
looked up from them peevishly to say,
"For the good Lord's sake! Don't look any more like Clayte than it does
like a horned toad. Is that what you've been wasting your time over,
Boyne? If you ask me--"
"I don't ask you anything," retrieving the pictures, planting them deep
in an inner pocket. Then I got myself out of the room.
Standing on the sidewalk in front of the Fremont House, I felt sort of
bewildered. This last crack had taken all the pep I had left. I suddenly
realized it was long after dinner time, and I'd had no dinner, no lunch,
nothing to eat since an early breakfast. Worth had sent me to the
girl--and I hadn't gone. I dragged myself around to Capehart's cottage
as nearly whipped as I ever was in my life.
I found Barbara with Laura Bowman, every one else off the place, out at
the shows. Those girls sure were good to me; they fed me and didn't ask
questions till I was ready to talk. Nothing to be said really, except
that I'd failed. I told them of meeting the Vandemans, and gave them
Ina Vandeman's opinion as to how Worth's friends should conduct
themselves just now.
"So they'll all be out there," I concluded, "Vandeman and his wife
leading the grand march, her sisters as maids of honor--except Skeet,
staying at home with her mother. Cummings goes as a Roman soldier;
Doctor Bowman as a Spanish cavalier. Edwards didn't see it as the
Vandemans do, but after I'd talked to him awhile, he agreed to be
there."
And suddenly I noticed for the first time how the relative position of
these two women had shifted. Laura Bowman wasn't red-headed for nothing;
out from under the blight of Bowman and that hateful marriage, she had
already thrown off some of her physical frailness; the nervous tension
showed itself now in energy. She was moving swiftly about putting to
rights after my meal while she listened. But Barbara sat looking
straight ahead of her; I knew she was seeing streets full of carnival,
every friend and acquaintance out at a ball--and Worth in a murderer's
cell. It wouldn't do. I jumped to my feet with a brisk,
"Girl, where's your hat? We'll go to the study and look over all our
points once more. Get busy--get busy. That's the medicine for you."
She gave me a miserable look and a negative shake of the head; but I
still urged, "Worth sent me to you. The last thing he said was, 'Take it
to Bobs.'"
Dumbly she submitted. Mrs. Bowman came running with the girl's hat, and,
"What about me, Mr. Boyne? Isn't there something I can do?"
"I wish you'd go to the country club--to the ball--the same as all the
others. Got a costume here, haven't you?"
"Yes, I can wear Barbara's," she glanced to where a pile of soft black
stuff, a red scarf, a scarlet poppy wreath, lay on a chair, "She was to
have gone as 'The Lady of Dreams.'"
Barbara went with me out into the flare of carnival illumination that
paled the afterglow of a gorgeous sunset. No cars allowed on these
down-town streets; even walking, we found it best to take the long way
round. To our left the town roared and racketed as though it was afire.
Nothing said between us till I grumbled out,
"I wish I knew where Cummings was keeping Eddie Hughes."
Barbara's voice beside me answered unexpectedly,
"Here. In Santa Ysobel. Eddie was at Capehart's fifteen minutes before
you got there; he came for Bill. A gasoline engine at the city hall had
broken down."
I pulled up short for a moment, and looked back at the town.
"Where'd he go?"
"With Bill, to the city hall. Eddie's one of the queen's guards. They're
all to be at the country club at ten o'clock to review the grand march
that opens the ball."
I mustn't let her dwell on that. I hurried on once more, and neither of
us spoke again till I unlocked the study door, snapped on the lights,
brought out and put on the table the 1920 diary and the little blue
blotter--the last bits of evidence that I felt hadn't been thoroughly
analysed. Barbara just dropped into a chair and looked from them to me
helplessly.
"You've read this all--carefully?" she sighed.
It shook me. To have Barbara, the girl I'd seen get meanings and facts
from a written page with a mere flirt of a glance, ask me that. What I
really wanted from her was an inspection of the book and blotter, and a
deduction from it. As though she guessed, she answered with a sort of
wail,
"I can't, I can't even remember what I did see when I looked at these
before. I--can't--remember!"
I went and knelt on the hearth with a pretext of laying a fire there,
since the shut-up room was chill. And when I glanced stealthily over my
shoulder, she had gone to work; not as I had ever seen her before, but
fumbling at the leaves, hesitating, turning to finger the blotter;
setting her lips desperately, like an over-driven school-child, but
keeping right on. I spun out my fire building to leave her to herself.
Little noises of her moving there at the table; rustle and flutter of
the leaves; now and again, a long, sobbing breath. At last something
like a groan caused me to turn my head and see her, with face pale as
death, eyes staring across into mine.
"It was Clayte--Edward Clayte--who killed Mr. Gilbert here--in this
room."
The hair on the back of my neck stirred; I thought the girl had gone
mad. As I ran over to the table and looked at what was under her hand,
it came again.
"He did. He did. It was Clayte--the wonder man!"
"Do--do you deduce that, Barbara?"
"Did I?" she raised to mine the face of a sick child. "I must have.
See--it's here on the blotter: 'y-t-e,' that's Clayte. Double l-e-r;
that's 'teller,' 'Avenue' is part of 'Van Ness Avenue Bank.' Oh, yes; I
deduced it, I suppose. Both crimes end in a locked room and a perfect
alibi. But--but--don't you see, if it is true--and it is--it is--we're
worse off than we were before. We've the wonder man against us."
"Barbara," I cried. "Barbara, come out of it!"
"See? You don't believe in me any more," and her head went down on the
table.
I let her cry, while I sat and thought. The broken sentences she'd
sobbed out to me began to fit up like a puzzle-game. By all theories of
good detective work, I should have seen from the first the similarity of
these crimes. But Clayte, slipping in here to do this murder--and why?
What mixed him up with affairs here? And then the icy pang--Dykeman had
seen a connection--Cummings had found one. With them, it was Clayte and
his gang--and his gang was Worth Gilbert. I went and touched Barbara on
the shoulder.
"I'm going to take you home now."
"Yes," tears running down her face as she stumbled to her feet. "I'm a
failure. I can't do anything for Worth."
I wiped her cheeks with my own handkerchief and led her out. As I turned
from locking the door, it seemed to me I saw something move in the
shrubbery. I asked Barbara Wallace about it. She hadn't noticed
anything. Barbara Wallace hadn't noticed anything!
I began to be scared for her. Solemn in the sky above boomed out the
town clock--two strokes. Half past nine. I must get this poor child
home. We were getting in toward the noise and the light when I felt her
shiver, and stopped to say,
"Did I forget your coat? Why, where's your hat?"
"The hat's back there. I had no coat. It doesn't make any difference.
Come on. I can't--can't--I must get home."
I looked at her, saw she was about at the end of her strength, and
decided quickly,
"We'll go straight through the Square. Save time and steps."
She offered no objection, and we started in where the bands played for
the street dances, amid the raucous tooting of a thousand fish-horns,
the clangor of cow-bells, and the occasional snap of the forbidden
fire-cracker. As we turned from Broad Street into Main, I found that the
congestion was greater even than I had supposed. Here, several blocks
away from the city hall, progress was so difficult that I took Barbara
back a block to get the street that paralleled Main. This we could
navigate slowly. Here, also, everybody was masked. Confetti flew,
serpentines unreeled themselves out through the air, dusters spluttered
in faces, and among the Pierrettes, Pierrots, Columbines, sombrero-ed
cowboys, bandana-ed cow-girls, Indians, Sambos, Topsies and Poppy
Maidens, Barbara's little white linen slip and soft white sweater, and
my grey business suit, were more conspicuous than would have been the
Ahkoond of Swat and his Captive Slave. Even after the confetti had
sprinkled her black hair until it reminded me of Skeet's blossom wreath,
infinitely multiplied, I still saw the glances through the eye-holes of
masks follow us wonderingly.
Opposite the city hall, where we must cross to get to the Capehart
street, we were again almost stopped by the dense crowd. The Square was
a green-turfed dancing floor; from its stand, an orchestra jazzed out
the latest and dizziest of dances; and countless couples one-stepped on
the grass, on the asphalt of the streets, even over the lawns of
adjacent houses, tree trunks and flower beds adding more things to be
dodged. At one corner, where the crowd was thick, we saw a big man being
wound to a pole by paper serpentines. Yelling and capering, the masked
dancers milled around and around him, winding the gay ribbons, while
others with confetti and the Spanish cascarones, tried to snow him
under. As we came up, a big fist wagged and Bill Capehart's voice
roared,
"Hold on! Too much is a-plenty!"
He tore himself loose, streaming with paper strips, bent and filled his
fists from the confetti at his feet. His tormentors howled and dropped
back as much as they could for the hemming crowd; he rushed them,
heaving paper ammunition in a hail-storm, and reached us in two or three
jumps.
"Golly!" he roared, "Me for a cyclone cellar! This is a riot. You ain't
in costume, either. Wonder they wouldn't pick on you."
With the words they did. I put Barbara behind me, and was conscious only
of a blinding snow of paper flakes, the punch and slap of dusters, in an
uproar of horns and bells.
"Good deal like fighting a swarm of bees in your shirt-tail with a
willow switch," old Bill panted at my shoulder. "Gosh!" as the snapping
of firecrackers let loose beneath our feet. "Some o' these mosquito-net
skirts'll get afire next--then there'll be hell a-popping!"
Close at hand there was a louder report, as of a giant cracker, and at
that Barbara sagged against me. I whirled and put an arm about her.
Bill grabbed her from me, and lifted her above the pressure of the
crowd. I charged ahead, shouting,
"Gangway! Let us through!"
Willing enough, the mob could not make room for passage until my
shoulder, lowered to strike at the breast, forced a way, that closed in
the instant Bill gained through. It was football tactics, with me
bucking the line, Bill carrying the ball. Fortunately, the bunch was a
good-natured festival gathering, or my rough work might have brought us
trouble. As it was, a short, stiff struggle took us to the outer fringe
of the mob.
"How is she? What happened?" I grunted, coming to a stop.
"Search me." Bill twisted around to look at the white face that lay back
on his shoulder, with closed lids. Three strokes chimed from the city
hall tower. Barbara's eyes flashed open; as the last stroke trembled in
the air, Barbara's voice came, sharp with breathless urgence,
"A quarter of ten! Quick--get me to the country club!"
"Take _you_ there? Now, d'ye mean?" I ejaculated; and holding her like a
baby, Bill's eyes flared into mine. "Did something happen to you back
there, girl? Or did you just faint?"
"Never mind about me! There," that glance of hers that saw everything
indicated a parking place packed with machines half a block away up a
side street. "Carry me there. Take one of those cars. Get me to the
country club. Don't--" as I opened my mouth, "don't ask questions."
I turned and ran. Bill galloped behind. Barbara had lifted her head to
cry after me,
"The best one! Pick the fastest!"
I plunged down the line of cars, looking for a good machine and one with
whose drive I was familiar. The guard rushed up to stop me; I showed him
my badge, leaped into the front seat of a speed-built Tarpon, and had it
out by the time Bill came up with the girl in his arms. I turned and
swung open the tonneau door. Almost with one movement, he lifted her in
and climbed after. I started off with braying horn, and at that I had to
use caution. Making my way toward the corner of the street that led to
Bill's house, I felt a small hand clutch the slack of my coat between
the shoulders, and Barbara's voice, faint, but with a fury of
determination in it, demanded,
"Where are you going? I said the country club."
"All right; I'll go. I'll look after whatever you want out there when
I've got you home."
"Oh, oh," she moaned. "Won't you--this one time--take orders?"
I went on past the corner. She had a right to put it just that way. I
gave the Tarpon all I dared in town streets.
"What time is it?" I heard her whispering to Bill. "Eight minutes to
ten? I have to be there by ten, or it's no use. Can he make it? Do you
think he can make it?"
"Yes," I growled, crouching behind the wheel. "I'll make it. May have to
kill a few--but I'll get you there."
By this, we'd come out on the open highway, better, but not too clear,
either. There followed seven minutes of ripping through the night, of
people who ran yelling to get out of our way and hurled curses behind
us, only a few cars meeting us like the whirling of comets in terrifying
glimpses as we shot past; and, at last, the country club; strings of gay
lanterns, winking ruby tail-lights of machines parked in front of it,
the glare from its windows, and the strains of the orchestra in its
ballroom, playing "On the Beach at Waikiki." When she heard it, Barbara
thanked God with,
"We're in time!"
I took that machine up to the front steps over space never intended for
automobiles, at a pace not proper for lawns or even roads, and only
halted when I was half across the walk. Bill rolled from the tonneau
door and stood by it. I jumped down and came around.
"Lift me out, and put me on my feet," Barbara ordered. "Help me--one on
each side. I can walk. I must!"
We crossed a deserted porch; the evening's opening event--the grand
march--had drawn every one, servants and all, inside. So far, without
challenge, meeting no one. We had the place to ourselves till we stood,
the three of us alone, before the upper entrance of the assembly room.
In there, the last strains of Waikiki died away. I looked to Barbara.
She was in command. Her words back there in town had settled that for
me.
"What do we do now?" I asked.
White as the linen she wore, the girl's face shone with some inner fire
of passionate resolution. I saw this, too, in the determined, almost
desperate energy with which she held herself erect, one clenched hand
pressed hard against her side.
"Take me in there, Mr. Boyne. And you," to Capehart, "find a man you can
trust to guard each door of the ballroom."
"What you say goes." Big Bill wheeled like a well trained cart-horse and
had taken a step or two, when she called after him,
"Arrest any one who attempts to enter."
"Arrest 'em if they try to git in," Capehart repeated stoically. "Sure.
That goes." But I interrupted,
"You mean if they try to get out."
At that she gave me a look. No time or breath to waste. Bill,
unquestioning, had hurried to his part of the work. I took up mine with,
"Forgive me, Barbara. I'll not make that mistake again"; slipped my arm
under hers to support her; dragged open the big doors; shoved past the
hallman there; and we stepped into the many-colored, moving brilliance
of the ballroom.