After dinner I sat down to read, Amy and Willy played double Canfield,
Evelyn and Herbert went off to the little drawing-room to talk about
their house, Aunt Penelope ran the victrola, and Uncle Archie, S. K.,
and our two guests played auction. They put up quite a heavy stake on
it, criticized each other’s plays after each hand, and acted as people
do when they are playing cards for pleasure.
Ito came in with a tray of glasses and some sort of light Italian wine,
and then he left, and it began to get late. Of course, Willy didn’t know
about it, and at ten he left.
I went with him to the hall, and he told me how insulted he had been by
Amy that morning, but that he felt that there were possibilities in her
and that he was going to try to develop them.
Then he coughed and said: “You know that offer of mine?”
I said I recalled it.
“Well,” he went on, “it is good. No Southern gentleman ever forgets his
honour, but we were both young. You know darned well, Nat, that I’ll go
through with it if I _have_ to, but I think you’d be a better pitcher
than a wife!”
Everybody had annoyed me that day, Uncle Frank had just left, and saying
good-bye to him was hard, and I was excited over the mystery, so I spoke
frankly, to be truthful. I almost shouted, “I wouldn’t _have_ you!” and
then I turned and saw S. K. coming towards us. He was going down to get
a piece of Japanese carving that aunt wanted to see, but he let Willy
start before he did.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “thank Heaven I did! . . . Nat, I’m a fool, but that
chap’s coming upset me. You see, my conscience keeps me from entering
the race just now. His evidently does not.”
I explained and put him right on that. “And anyway,” I added, “there
wouldn’t be any race.”
“Dear child,” he said, “if I dared let myself believe you! But,” he
continued, with a change in tone, “that is a tabooed subject. Some day,
if it is true, you’ll prove it. Now, won’t you?” He looked down at me
ever so anxiously, and I laughed up at him. I felt exceedingly
light-hearted since the weight of his disapproval was removed. That had
really bothered me.
“The subject,” I said, “is tabooed!”
He put his hands on my shoulders, shook me gently, told me I was a “dear
scamp,” and started off. The minute after he got outside the lights went
out, and I never in all my life have heard anything like the noise that
followed! Evelyn and Herbert rushed out of the little drawing-room and
fell over a pedestal. Amy fell over a chair that had a pile of records
on it, and those tipped off and clattered as they went to pieces on the
bare floor. Someone knocked over the card-table, and someone else the
chair that held the tray of glasses; Aunt Penelope screamed, and Uncle
Archie said things that I cannot quote, repeating them at intervals, in
this manner:
“What the blank do you think you’re doing!” or, “Penelope, shut up that
blank noise!” He became frightfully natural, as people do in crises, and
added considerably to the confusion.
When the lights came on again the detectives looked very silly. One of
them said something about hoping “it” would never get out. Then Ito was
summoned and asked what had happened to the lights.
“Not can say,” he replied, with a lift of his shoulders.
Then I went to my room, looked for my bracelet, and found it was gone.
Everything moved after that. Ito, Jane, and the cook were ordered to the
library, where for the first and last time they sat in state; S. K. and
his man were sent for, and enough moves to satisfy even Douglas
Fairbanks were packed into the next few minutes.
“What was this fellow doing when you went down?” the detective asked of
S. K. He looked at Debson.
“I don’t know,” S. K. answered. “I didn’t go down. I heard the noise and
tried to get back.”
“How about the outside men?” the detective went on; and I then found
that there had been other people on guard--these watching outside.
Someone went down and returned with a crest-fallen, baffled air.
“Saw nothing,” he said, “but this fellow”--looking at Debson--“went down
the stairs after the lights went out.”
Then Ito spoke. “He has habit,” he explained, “of spending evening with
Jane, when Mr. Kempwood suspect him to be answering door-bell, it was
therefore that I remove light plug to delay Mr. Kempwood and cover
retreat of Debson, since we are friends.”
“That is true,” said Jane, beginning to cry, “and I hope, sir, that
you’ll not blame him, since it is my fault and----”
“That’ll do,” someone said, and she relapsed into very moist-sounding
sniffs. I don’t know how the “servant class,” as aunt calls them, manage
to sniff like that, for theirs is a pervasive, far-carrying sniff. But I
notice that they always employ it when they are thinking of leaving, and
perhaps strength comes from constant practice.
“Suppose we go down and search,” said Amy. “Probably he’s”--she pointed
to S. K.’s man--“hidden it.”
I never saw such a look of outraged innocence as that man wore. “If
there is any doubt,” he said, “I will request a search. I am honest.”
“Was there a blind man around?” I asked. “Did you hear of him
downstairs?”
The man whom I asked--the man who had been outside--said there was.
“But,” he said, “I am afraid you won’t make a detective, miss. He has
been watched; he has not moved, and, since this affair, he has been
searched.”
“Where was he sitting?” I asked.
“Come to think of it,” said one of the men, “I think he was sitting by a
window that leads to the coal cellars.”
“They got in coal to-day,” I said. “I heard it go in. Possibly the inner
window was not replaced. If the grating only was locked, my bracelet
would go through that.”
Then I saw Debson move. And he spoke quickly, and in doing so made me
sure that he was guilty.
“As I said, I am honest,” he began, voice shaking. “I love this
girl”--he pointed to Jane--“but, if you want my opinion, you will not
have to go as far as the basement to find the bracelet.”
“What leads you to say that?” asked the man who was putting the
questions. He asked it sternly.
“My conscience,” replied S. K.’s servant, “and a sudden recollection of
having seen it on her arm one night when I took her to the Clover Leaf
Social Club ball. I afterward saw it on Miss Page’s arm when she was
having tea with Mr. Kempwood.”
Jane cried harder than ever. “Just onct,” she gasped, “and, honest to
Gawd, I never done it again----”
But no one was convinced. I felt sure that Jane was being truthful, but
I think I was alone in this. Then, after dividing the men and leaving
the suspects guarded, a party was sent to the basements. I went with
them, and I--found my bracelet.
It was wrapped in a piece of burlap and a string was tied to it.
“Lowered from my window to the blind man,” I said, as I triumphantly
undid it. The man who had told me I was not a detective told me he would
give me a job any day. I did feel proud. Then we started upstairs once
again, and I heard how the bracelet had come back. Evelyn did it, and,
after she finished, Herbert put his arm around her, which proved to me
that he does really care deeply.
“There’s no mystery about that bracelet disappearing and reappearing,”
she said suddenly and stridently, when I was being questioned about
that. “I have--until recently--cared a good deal about _things_,
possessions, and, in this--my bracelet--I thought I had something that
was unique, individual. When Natalie appeared with the real mate, it
completely outshone mine and annoyed me frightfully. I began to warn her
not to wear it, with hastily scribbled small notes which I left out. She
ignored these. I therefore put it where she could not wear it. That is,
I locked it in my jewel-case. When I felt that I must return it, I did
so at night. Sometimes when I went in, she stirred, and I, wanting her
to think the affair supernatural and not to have her connect it with me,
began to send it back at the end of my riding-crop. I’d put the handle
against the bracelet and shove it in the room just as far as I could
reach; I don’t know how many times I did it. That is what she means when
she said it ‘crept in by itself.’ . . . Naturally she didn’t see my
crop, which is dark.”
“I only saw the glitter of the gold,” I said, “and I didn’t know _you_
didn’t want me to wear it. If I had, of course I wouldn’t have done so.”
“It seemed a joke then,” she went on. “I didn’t think at first that
Natalie could misunderstand, and then--well, I was annoyed with her and
I let it go on. It was a form of ‘getting even.’ I even tried to
frighten her once or twice. One night I stole her flashlight; she saw my
hand and was frightened, I think, for she called. When I began to care
more for you, Natalie,” she continued in a different tone, and speaking
directly to me, “I was sorry, but--somehow--I couldn’t say so. And
because you’d stopped telling of things that occurred to bother you, I
thought you weren’t frightened any more. I know it was contemptible. I
hope you can forgive me.”
Of course I said I did and I cared a lot for her and that it didn’t
matter.
“Didn’t you know your cousin’s writing?” asked one of the men. I shook
my head.
“Perhaps it looked different in pencil,” I explained, “and I suppose I
never had even noticed it in ink. Then I was so sure those notes came
from Madam Jumel. Her initials and Evelyn’s are the same and----” Then I
paused, but they made me go on, and I had to tell of our family
misfortunes which had, to some minds, been twisted about that bracelet.
Then Amy, who had had to be silent, and who had seen how gentle Herbert
had been with Evelyn after her confession, put in. I like Amy most of
the time, and we are good friends, but I knew she made her confession
hoping that she would be thought noble and so that she would be noticed.
“I stole those violets,” she said, standing up. “I myself, under the
lure of an orchid and a wish to snub some of my most intimate friends,
put those stockings in the box that went back to Herbert!” Then she
glared up at the ceiling and clasped her hands. It was a pose she got
from Nazimova, but it didn’t look the way it did under Nazimova’s touch.
Aunt Penelope snapped at her so hard that I felt sorry for her. “You
were a little sneak,” she said, “to let all of us punish your cousin for
weeks for something that _you_ did. Sit down and be quiet or leave the
room.”
“I only ask for forgiveness,” Amy went on sadly, “and that will bring me
peace. How could I know, when I inserted those worn-out yellow socks of
Evelyn’s, that I was to wreck the happiness of a care-free, girlish
heart?”
The detectives laughed, but S. K. glared at her, and he muttered
something about hoping people wouldn’t believe everything they heard
hereafter!
“Am I forgiven?” asked Amy. She made her voice tremble beautifully. She
had learned to from those singing lesson records that you can buy now.
I said she was, of course, and S. K. grunted. And then he put his arm
around me. It seemed to be catching.
“I am going to take care of you after this,” he said through set teeth.
“I have adopted you for the present. Understand? No more of _that_ sort
of nonsense shall occur!”
“How about those noises outside--those noises that were heard on the
balcony?” someone asked.
Jane got in her innings then, and I imagine that Debson was sorry he’d
mentioned having seen her wear my bracelet.
“He come up to see me that way,” she said; “time and again he done it.
He had a long stick with a hook on top that he jabbed in a window-sill
or over the balcony rail, and then he come up, hand over hand. . . . He
_said_ he done a turn one year in vaudeville and that that was in his
bill----” And then she laughed shortly.
“Is true,” said Ito. “Greatly we laugh when he approach in climb manner.
It was in dark of court. No one have opportunity to see. We encourage
him to arrive so like monkey. I think he plan to come in such manners so
that we in back of apartment hear scrape noises. Jane will think he
visit me, I think he visit Jane, meanwhile he inspect and salute Jumel
bracelet.”
“Why did you want it?” asked the detective.
Debson said he did not, loudly protesting his innocence until one of our
visiting gentlemen went forward, slapped his pockets, and then began to
unload them. He found all sorts of interesting things. An implement that
is called a “jimmy,” that is, I believe, largely used in burglaries; a
pistol; S. K.’s best cuff links; and--most important--a ball of twine,
and that matched the piece that I found tied to the bracelet. He had to
give in, and when he saw that protests amounted to nothing he talked
frankly.
“I thought I was safe,” said Debson, after his conviction was achieved.
“No one up _here_ believed the kid, and almost every night I prowled
around somewhere, and during the day too. After I was thick with these
two”--he motioned to Ito and Jane--“why, it looked as exciting as a
Sunday-school picnic. To be sure, I hadn’t located the right bracelet
(she had a way of hiding it), but I could get into her room any time I
wanted to. One afternoon I walked in and busted the lock of the window,
and no one said nothing. I thought I had it all fixed and that my
hunting was over, for just to-day _he_ promised not to kick up a search
until she wanted it. And I believed it. I believed it!” After that he
looked at us and laughed, laughed in a silent, sneering way, but I felt
that his own failure was what made his unhappy mirth; his own failure
and his being caught by such a simple trap.
“Why did you want it?” asked Uncle Archie. “The thing isn’t worth enough
for all the trouble you gave it.”
“Is that so, brother?” said the man, who as a servant had had the most
quiet voice and repressed manner. “Just go ask Vicente Alcon y
Rodriguez! That boy’s a little Sugar King, and he makes enough to
sweeten several lives. _He_ offered me twenty-five thousand if I could
get the Jumel bracelet or its mate for him and get it down to the monkey
zone. And now--yuh got me--what you going to do with me?” He snarled
this.
“We’ll give you a nice chance to rest,” answered one of the men
pleasantly, and, taking handcuffs from his pocket, snapped them on the
man who had made me so much trouble, and all the mystery.
“I wonder why the Sugar King wanted it?” I asked as the men went off,
taking Debson between them.
“I’ll find out,” S. K. answered. And he did.