|Louise Hansbury did not go out for her customary “constitutional” that
morning. She arose, tired and depressed after a sleepless night. Soon
after she had her breakfast,--chocolate and toast and a prescribed
porridge,--she complained of a sudden and violent nausea.
Mrs. Carstairs went in to see her, and was alarmed. She took the girl's
temperature and then called up the doctor.
“You have a fever,” she said. “You must go back to bed. It's nothing, I
daresay, but we have to be on the safe side, dear.”
Louise betrayed her agitation. She pleaded to be allowed to dress and go
out for her walk. There were moments when actual fear lurked in her dark
eyes.
“I will be all right in a little while, Aunt Frieda. Don't be cross with
me. I must have eaten something last night that disagreed with me. The
lobster,--I ate a tiny bit of it.”
“Very likely,” said her aunt calmly. “All the more reason for being
careful today. No, my dear, I must insist on your remaining in bed,--at
least until Dr. Browne has seen you.”
“When is he coming?”
“The attendant said she could locate him and would send him here as soon
as possible. He is out making his calls.”
“The chocolate tasted queerly this morning, Aunt Frieda,” said the girl,
feverishly.
“Imagination. Nothing tastes right when one's stomach is upset.”
“Oh, I want so much to get out for a breath of fresh air. It is a
perfectly lovely day. I am sure Dr. Browne will say it's the best thing
in the world--”
“Dr. Browne doesn't know everything,” interrupted Mrs. Carstairs.
She laid her hand on the girl's hot forehead. “You _must_ go back
to bed,--just for a little while,” she said, and there was an
inexorableness in her tone that roused swift resentment in Louise. A
rebellious, angry light smouldered in her eyes. “I know what is best for
you. If it should turn out to be ptomaine poisoning--”
“It can't be ptomaine if it came from the chocolate I drank,” sad
Louise, excitement causing her voice to tremble and to take on a certain
shrillness.
“I am confident it is all due to nervousness,” said Mrs. Carstairs.
She spoke in a patient, consoling manner. “Dr. Browne will give you
something to straighten out your digestion, and you will be all right by
tomorrow. You are not strong yet, you know. Just be patient, my dear. It
takes time.”
“I should like to telephone, Aunt Frieda,” said the girl abruptly.
Submissive to the gentle but unyielding authority of the older woman,
who dominated as one with the power to scourge if resistance continued,
she had begun to divest herself, rather helplessly, of the gay peignoir
in which she had breakfasted. With feverish haste, she slipped her arms
through the loose folds, and faced her aunt. There was defiance in her
glance. For an instant it held.
The calm smile and the tolerant shake of the head, as to a pleading
child, shattered her resolve; she saw that argument was useless. The
robe fell from her shoulders as she turned away with a sob in her
throat.
“Is it important?” inquired the older woman.
“I--this afternoon will do as well, I suppose,” replied the girl,
without turning her head.
“Let me call up for you, dear. It is no trouble at all. I can explain
that you are ill.”
“No, thank you, Aunt Frieda. It--it doesn't matter.”
She hesitated about confiding to Mrs. Carstairs that she was going out
to meet her lover. Something told her that it would be the wrong thing
to do,--something that for want of another name would have to go as
cunning. She shared a vague, disturbing secret with Steele....
Mrs. Carstairs tucked the bedclothes about her.
“The doctor will be here soon, I am sure,” she said. “Do you feel any
better? Are you more comfortable?”
“I am in no pain,--if that's what you mean. Just this wretched nausea.
What do the morning papers say about the loss of the _Elston_, Aunt
Frieda?”
“Nothing, I believe. Your uncle says there was no mention of it. I
daresay the news has been held up for the time being. Waiting for full
details. Wasn't it fortunate,--wasn't it providential that the transfer
to the _Campion_ was so cleverly accomplished?”
A maid-servant came to the door.
“You are wanted on the telephone, Mrs. Carstairs. Shall I say you are
engaged?”
“Who is it, Wrenn?”
“A gentleman. I couldn't catch the name, Mrs. Carstairs.”
“I will see who it is.”
After she had closed Louise's door behind her, Frieda Carstairs stood
stockstill in the long corridor. She put her hand to her breast and
held it there lightly, as if to transmit its vital strength to the organ
which pounded so violently. Her tall figure was tense; her face took on
the pallor of death and its rigidity. For as long as fifteen or twenty
seconds, she remained motionless. Then her lips moved stiffly; they
twitched as in a spasm of pain. The two words they formed hut did not
utter were:
“Poor girl!”
Once, as she covered the short distance to her own sitting-room, her
figure swayed slightly. She even put out a hand to steady herself
against the wall,--a needless precaution, for she instantly regained
command of herself.
She closed the door, and, before taking up the receiver, threw in
the device which cut out the instrument from other extensions in the
apartment,--those in the butler's pantry, her husband's study, and the
one that stood on the night-table at the head of his bed. Her knees
suddenly became weak; they trembled as with the palsy. She sat down at
the writing table and dropped her elbow heavily on the top. Again she
feared that she was going to faint.
“Yes?” she murmured thickly into the transmitter, and, instantly
realizing that her voice betrayed nervousness and even alarm, repeated
the word firmly, crisply. “Yes,--this is Mrs. Carstairs.”
“I am speaking for the _Evening----_” (the name of the newspaper was
indistinctly pronounced)--“and I called up, Mrs. Carstairs, to ask if
it is true that Captain Derrol Steele was engaged to be married to your
niece, Miss Louise Hansbury?”
She did not reply. Her lips parted but no sound issued forth.
Again the voice spoke in her ear. “Are you there?”
The “yes” she uttered in reply was little more than a hoarse gasp. And
then: “I hear you quite distinctly.” There was a click at the other end.
Slowly, as in a daze, she hung up the receiver. Not another word passed.
She did not leave the apartment that day, but spent most of the time
with her niece, whose indisposition was promptly diagnosed as an acute
attack of indigestion by the learned and complacent physician, who dosed
her and went his way. He ordered her to remain in bed; he would run in
and see her in the morning. If anything, ah!--a--alarming turned up, he
murmured to Mrs. Carstairs, she was to call him at once. Not likely, of
course, said he, nothing to be apprehensive about, but--well, you never
can tell. Resistance not yet fully restored,--and, “after all, as
I've said all along, Mrs. Carstairs, one's own resistance is the best
chemistry going, and one has to fill his own prescription when it comes
to that sort of thing, don't you know.”
Being a very fashionable doctor he gave her pyromedan to bring down the
temperature in a hurry, and codeine to quiet the pain.
Davenport Carstairs seldom reached his home before six or half-past. It
was his custom,--if business happened to be indulgent,--to drop in
at his favourite club about four in the afternoon. On this afternoon,
however, he drove straight home from the office. The clock in the hall
was striking four as he entered the apartment. The afternoon newspapers
were under his arm,--four or five of them.
“Has Mrs. Carstairs come in, Hollowell?” he asked.
“Mrs. Carstairs did not go out today, sir. Miss Hansbury is ill.”
Ordinarily Carstairs would have been disturbed by this information.
He had been gravely worried over his niece's condition. Hollowell's
supplementary statement, however, appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.
“Say that I'm home, Hollowell, and in my room.”
“Very good, sir. Is there anything I can do, sir?”
“Do? What do you mean?”
“I thought perhaps you might be ill, sir. I--”
“Not at all, not at all,” somewhat irascibly. “Ask Mrs. Carstairs to
come to my room--Wait! Have you had any news here today?”
“No, sir,--nothink as I am aware of, sir.”
“No--er--commotion?”
“I think not, sir. It isn't serious. Sort of--ah--what you might call
stomach--ah--although cook says it can't have been anything she ate
last--”
“_By_ the way, what made you think I was ill?”
“Well,--since you ask, sir,--you do look a bit seedy, sir,--that is to
say pale and--”
“I wish to see Mrs. Carstairs alone. Please avoid mentioning my return
in Miss Hansbury's presence.”
He went at once to his study, where, moved by the remark of the butler,
he stared long and hard at his features in a mirror. His face was ashen
grey, and suddenly, strangely old.
He had tossed the newspapers on the rare old Italian table in the centre
of the room. After a few moments of complete abstraction, his dull,
frowning gaze was raised from the floor to sweep the room,--which, for
some strange, almost uncanny cause, seemed almost unfamiliar to him. And
yet it was the same,--nothing had been changed. Only he had altered--his
own perspective had undergone a vast, incomprehensible change. His eyes
falling upon the papers, he took them up, one by one, and stared again
at a certain headline in each,--a raw caption that fascinated him and
hurt him like the cut of a knife.
It did not occur to him until long afterwards, and then only in
retrospective contemplation of events that filled the most important day
in his life, that his wife was a long time in appearing. She came into
the study at last, and, as was her unvarying custom, pressed her lips to
his cheek. He noticed that her lips, always moist and soft and alive,
were hot and dry and as dead as parchment. Before he spoke a word to
her, he crossed the room and closed the door into the hall.
She was staring at him in amazement as he turned toward her again.
“What has happened, Davenport! You--you look so strange,--so--Oh,
something dreadful has happened! Is it--is it Alfred! Tell me! For God's
sake, don't--”
“It isn't Alfred, my dear,” said he. There was a dull, hollow note in
his voice,--a note that held to one key. “Where is Louise!”
“In bed. She hasn't been well--”
“We must manage somehow to break this thing gently to her. It
might--there is no telling what it may do to her, Frieda.”
She steadied herself against the table. Her face now was as white as
his. It had been pale before; now it was livid.
“What is it, Davenport?” He looked searchingly, anxiously into her
eyes for a moment, and then said: “It will be a shock to you too,
Frieda,--but I know you. You can take it like a soldier. Derrol Steele
shot himself last night. He is dead. He--There, there, dearest! I
shouldn't have blurted it out like--sit down here, Frieda! That's right!
Poor old girl! Curse me for a blundering fool! I might have known it
would be a dreadful shock to you. You were devoted to him. He--”
“Tell me,--tell me everything, Davenport,” she broke in, her eyes fixed
on his lips. She did not look into his eyes. He was leaning over her,
clasping one of her hands,--a hand that suddenly became limp after
the utmost rigidity. “Just a moment. Compose yourself. Pull yourself
together, dear. It's--it's a cruel story--an incredible story. I would
have staked my soul on Derrol Steele. I've known him since he was a
little boy. If I had been asked to name the most honourable, the most
loyal man in the--but, Frieda, I was wrong--I was deceived in him,--just
as you were--and Louise. Louise! God, how this will crush that poor,
innocent, loving--”
“Tell me!” she insisted, her fingers tightening on his, her voice
scarcely more than a whisper.
For answer, he placed the newspaper in her hands, and pointed to the
headline at the top of the page.
“Read it, Frieda. Read this first.”
He sat on the edge of the table, his arms folded across his breast, and
waited for her to finish. At last the paper fell from her fingers and
she looked up into his face. Her eyes were bleak.
“I can't believe it, Davenport,--I will not believe it of Derrol
Steele.”
“As soon as I saw the paper,--about two o'clock, I should say,--I
hurried over to the United States Attorney's office. The story is true,
Frieda. It appears that a secret service agent--'gad, how marvellous
they are!--an agent overheard scraps of a conversation between two men
late last night,--in front of a little French restaurant, I think
it was. Steele's name was mentioned two or three times. He was not
interested, however, until he heard them speak of a man long suspected
by the department. Then he pricked up his ears. The marshal did not
repeat the name, for obvious reasons. The man heard enough to convince
him that this suspect and one or two other men were to be at Steele's
apartment before three o'clock this morning. The address was carefully,
precisely given by one of the men, who was very greatly agitated.
Captain Steele had vital information in his possession,--that much, at
least, the listener was able to grasp. One sentence he heard distinctly.
I recall it clearly. 'Tomorrow will be too late,' This was enough for
the agent. He was too clever to arrest these men on the spot. The way
was clear for the seizure of at least four or five men, including an
officer in the United States Army. So he--are you listening, dear?”
“Yes, yes!” she replied, as if waking from a dream.
“This agent had been set there to watch for a man and a woman, posing
as French people, who are under surveillance. As soon as the speakers
parted, he rushed up the street to an hotel, and called up headquarters.
This was too big a thing to be sidetracked for the French couple.
Several operatives were dispatched immediately to assist him. They went
to the building where Derrol lives--or lived. They seized the driver of
the taxi-cab, but the others evidently got wind of the raid, for when
they went up to Steele's apartment, hoping to catch them in the place
with him, they found him alone. He had slipped a bath gown over his
pajamas and was undoubtedly waiting for his fellow-conspirators. He
realized in an instant that he was trapped. They smashed in the door.
While the violent noise was going on, he shot himself. They did not hear
the report, however, due to the clatter and to the fact that there was
a silencer on the revolver. There was the faintest sign of a pulse,
indicating that the shot had been fired only a minute or two before they
burst in and discovered him sitting in a chair not twenty feet from the
door.”
The tears rolled down the cheeks of Davenport Carstairs. His voice
broke.
“I can't believe it of him, Frieda,--I can't believe it.”
Her face was ghastly. “We have the proof, Davenport,--the indisputable
proof,” she murmured.
“The proof? What proof have _we?_”
“The best proof in the world. He shot himself. Only a guilty man would
have taken his own life in the circumstances. We--we must believe it of
him, Davenport. That poor, sick girl! How are we to tell her?”
Of the two, she was now by far the more composed. Except for the
colourless lips and an almost lavender-like hue that stole slowly into
her cheeks just below the temples, indicative of the vast effort she had
been called upon to exert in order to regain command of her nerves, she
was visibly calm and self-contained. Her husband had sunk dejectedly
into a chair. For many minutes no word passed between them. It was she
who spoke first.
“You say they caught one of the men--one of the others, I mean?” she
inquired.
“The taxi-driver.”
Her lips parted to form another question. She withheld it. With her
handkerchief she wiped away the moisture that suddenly appeared at the
corners of her mouth--oozing from between close-pressed lips.
She read the accounts in the other papers, her face absolutely
emotionless. After a while he looked up, and, unobserved, watched her
face.
“You are a very wonderful woman, Frieda,” he said as she laid the last
of the papers on the table. Her answer was a faint smile and a shake of
the head.
She arose and started resolutely toward the door. As she neared it, she
faltered, and then turned back to him.
“Davenport, I have just had a most disturbing thought. It also may have
occurred to you. Derrol Steele was a trusted and familiar guest in
this house. He heard many important,--let me go on, please,--I can see
revulsion in your eyes. Whether we like it or not, we must look at it
squarely from every point of view. Last night, for example, he heard
the Admiral; he heard what the Countess had to say about the Italian
situation. Going farther back, you yourself spoke in his presence of the
sailing of the _Elston_ with all those men on board.”
“I see what is in your mind, Frieda,” he said slowly. “You mean we may
be dragged into it?”
“Not at all,” she said rather sharply. “We need not be drawn into it in
the slightest degree unless we volunteer information that concerns no
one but ourselves. Why should any one know that he came into possession
of facts here in our home?”
“Such things are bound to leak out, my dear. The investigation will be
thorough. They will go to the bottom of this. Of course, I can manage
it so that we sha'n't come in for any publicity, but we can't escape
questioning.”
“And are we to admit that we discussed these very grave and important
matters in his presence?”
“We are to tell the truth, Frieda. You should not forget that we spoke
of them in the presence of an officer in the United States Army.”
After a moment she said: “I daresay you are right, Davenport. You are
always right. I was only thinking that in view of the fact that there is
no proof against him except the few words overheard by that man in front
of the café,--well, it is possible, don't you see, that there may have
been some horrid, appalling mistake. They have no other proof,--unless
the United States Attorney withheld something from you.”
“They have the best proof in the world. He shot himself, as you have
said.”
She half closed her eyes. A queer little spasm twisted her lips apart.
“Yes,” she said unsteadily, “yes, he shot himself.”
Her hand was on the door-knob.
“Are you going in to tell her now, Frieda?”
“I must have a little time,--just a little, dear. I am more shaken
than you think. I must have time to collect myself. It will be very
difficult, Davenport. Stay here. Do not come unless I call to you.”
“I leave it all to you, Frieda,--God bless you and God give you
strength.”
The door closed behind her. He sat motionless for a long time, wondering
whether he could hear her call to him with that door and doubtless
another intervening. Strange that she should have closed it. He would
wait a little while,--a few minutes only,--and then he would open it
and--listen.
She went straight to her own room.... Presently she lifted the telephone
receiver from the hook. The next moment she replaced it, but did not
release it from her tense fingers.
She sat rigid, staring at the instrument, resolve and indecision
struggling for mastery. At last she pushed the instrument away and sank
back in the chair as if exhausted.