When the Dobton sheriff and his deputies came to arrest Mrs. Balfame,
the wife of their old comrade in arms, all they were able to tell her
was that the District Attorney had applied for the warrant immediately
after the testimony before the Grand Jury of Frieda Appel and of the
Krauses, father and son. What that testimony had been they could not
have told her if they would, but that it had been strong and
corroborative enough to insure her indictment by the Grand Jury was as
manifest as it was ominous.
They arrived just as Mrs. Balfame was about to leave the house to lunch
with Mrs. Cummack; Frieda had left long before it was time to prepare
the midday meal. Mr. Cramb, the sheriff, shut the door behind him and in
the faces of the indignant women reporters, who, less ruthless but
equally loyal to their journals, wanted a "human interest" story for the
stimulated public. Mrs. Balfame and her friends retreated before the
posse into the parlour. Mrs. Battle wept loudly; Alys Crumley, who had
come in with her mother a few moments since, fell suddenly on a chair in
the corner and pressed her hands against her mouth, her horrified eyes
staring at Mrs. Balfame. The other women shed tears as the equally
doleful sheriff explained his errand and read the warrant. Mrs. Balfame
alone was calm. She exerted herself supremely and sent so peremptory a
message along her quaking nerves that it benumbed them for the moment.
She had only a faint sense of drama, but a very keen one of her own
peculiar position in her little world, and she knew that in this grisly
crisis of her destiny she was expected to behave as a brave and
dignified woman should--a woman of whom her friends could continue to
exult as head and shoulders above the common mass. She rose to the
occasion.
"Don't you worry--just!" said Mr. Cramb, patting her shoulder, although
he never had had the temerity to offer her his hand before, and had
often "pitied Dave." "They lied, them Duytchers, for some reason or
other, but they can't really have nothin' on you, and we'll find out
what they're up to, double quick."
"I do not worry," said Mrs. Balfame coldly, "--although quite naturally
I object to the humiliation of arrest, and of spending even a night in
jail. Exactly what is the charge against me?"
The sheriff crumpled his features and cleared his throat. "Well, it's
murder, I guess. It's an ugly word, but words don't mean nothin' when
there's nothin' in them."
"In the first degree?" shrieked Mrs. Gifning.
Cramb nodded.
"And it don't admit of bail?" Mrs. Frew's eyes rolled wildly.
"Nothin' doin'."
Mrs. Balfame rose hurriedly. There was a horrid possibility of contagion
in this room surcharged with emotion. She kissed each of her friends in
turn. "It will be all right, of course," she reminded them gently. "Only
men could be taken in by such a plot, and of course there are a lot of
Germans on the Grand Jury--there are so many in this county. I shall
have an excellent lawyer, Dave's friend, Mr. Rush. And I am sure that I
shall be quite comfortable in the County Jail--it is so nice and new."
But she shuddered at the vision, in spite of her fine self-control.
"You'll be treated like a queen," interposed the sheriff hastily. He was
proud of her, and immensely relieved that he was not to escort an
hysterical prisoner five miles to the County Seat. "You'll have the
Warden's own suite, and I guess you'll be able to see your friends right
along. Guess we'd better be gettin' on."
As Mrs. Balfame was leaving the room, her eyes met the horrified and
puzzled gaze of Alys Crumley, and one of those obscure instincts that
dart out of the subconscious mind like memories of old experiences
released under high mental pressure, made her put out her hand
impulsively and draw the girl to her.
"I can always be sure of your trust," she whispered. "Won't you come up
and help me pack?"
Alys followed unresisting: the blow had been so sudden; she had believed
so little in the power of the law to touch a woman like Mrs. Balfame,
and even less that she committed the crime; for the moment she forgot
her jealous hostility, remembered only that the best friend of her
mother and of her own childhood was in dire straits.
Mrs. Cummack had run up ahead and was carrying two suitcases from the
large closet to the bed as they entered. Her face was burning and
tear-stained, but she was one of those highly efficient women of the
home that rise automatically to every emergency and act while others
consider. "Glad you've come too," she said to Alys. "Open those drawers
in the bureau, and I'll pick out what's needed. Of course the ridiculous
charge will be dismissed in a day or two--but still! Well, if they're
all idiots down there at Dobton, we can come over here and pack a trunk
later. To take it now would be nonsense, and Sam'll move heaven and
earth to get them to accept bail. You just put on your best black, Enid,
and wear your veil so they can't snapshot you."
While she was gasping on, Mrs. Balfame, whose brain had never worked
more clearly, went into the bathroom and emptied the contents of an
innocent looking medicine bottle into the drain of the wash-stand. She
feared young Broderick more than she feared the district attorney, who,
after all, had been her husband's friend--had, in fact, eaten all of his
political crumbs out of that lavish but discriminating hand. She
recalled that she had always been gracious to him (at her husband's
request, for she regarded him as a mere worm) when he had dined at her
table, and felt sure that he would favour her secretly, whatever his
obvious duty. Moreover, he was of those that spat at the very mention of
the powerful Kraus, and would gladly, especially since the outbreak of
the war, have run him out of the community.
Mrs. Balfame, being a brilliant exponent of that type which enjoys the
unwavering admiration and loyalty of its own sex, had a corresponding
belief in her friends, and rarely if ever had used the word _cat_
denotatively. She called out the best in women as they of a certainty
called out the best in her. Therefore, it did not occur to her either to
close the bathroom door or to glance behind her. Alys Crumley, standing
before the bureau and happening to look into the mirror, saw her empty
and rinse the bottle. The suspicions of Broderick regarding the glass of
lemonade flashed into the young artist's mind; and from that moment she
believed in the guilt of Mrs. Balfame.
Although her hands were shaking Alys lifted from the lavender-scented
drawers the severely chaste underwear of the leader of Elsinore society,
and as soon as the suitcases were packed, she made haste to adjust Mrs.
Balfame's veil and pin it so firmly that no more kisses could be
exchanged. Of her ultimate purpose Alys had not the ghost of an idea,
but kiss a woman whom she believed to be guilty of murder and whom she
might possibly be driven to betray, she would not. Suddenly grown as
secretive as if she had a crime of her own to conceal, she even walked
out to the car with Mrs. Balfame and helped to drive away the crowding
newspaper women, several of whom she recognised. They in turn bore her
off, determined to get some sort of a story for the issues of the
morrow.