A CASE FOR TWO
As Bobs left the small shop, she glanced at her watch, and finding that
it was nearly four, she hastened her steps, recalling that that was the
hour when she might expect a call from the young lawyer. As she turned
the corner at the East River, she saw a small, smart-looking auto drawing
up at the curb in front of the Pensinger mansion, and from it leaped a
fashionably groomed young man. Truly an unusual sight in that part of New
York's East Side, where the clothes, ill-fitting even at best, descended
from father to son, often made smaller by merely being haggled off at arm
and ankle. No wonder that Ralph Caldwaller-Cory was the object of many an
admiring glance from the dark eyes of the young Hungarian women who, with
gayly colored shawls over their heads, at that moment were passing on
their way to the tobacco factory; but Ralph was quite unconscious of
their scrutiny, for, having seen Bobs approaching, he hastened to meet
her, hat in hand, his good-looking, clean-shaven face glowing with
anticipation.
"Have you found a clue as yet, Miss Vandergrift?" he asked eagerly, when
greetings had been exchanged.
Roberta laughed. "No, and I'll have to confess that I haven't given the
matter a moment's thought since we parted three hours ago."
"Is that all it has been? To me it has seemed three centuries." The boy
said this so sincerely that Roberta believed that he must be greatly
interested in the Pensinger mystery. It did not enter her remotest
thought that he might also be interested in her. Having reached the
mansion, Bobs led the way up the wide stone steps, saying: "I do hope
Gloria and Lena May are at home. I want my sisters to meet you."
But no one was to be seen. Gwen was still in her room, while the other
girls had not returned from the Settlement House.
"Well, there's another time coming." Bobs flashed a smile at her
companion, then led the way to the wide fireplace, where comfortable
chairs awaited them, and they seated themselves facing the still burning
embers.
"I say, Miss Vandergrift," Ralph began, "you're a girl and you ought to
know better than I just what another girl, even though she lived
seventy-five years ago, would do under the circumstances with which we
are both familiar. If you loved a man, of whom your mother did not
approve, would you really drown yourself, or would you marry him and
permit your parents to believe that you were dead?"
Bobs sat so long gazing into the fire that the lad, earnestly watching
her, wondered at her deep thought.
At last she spoke. "I couldn't have hurt my mother that way," she said,
and there were tears in the hazel eyes that were lifted to her companion.
"I would have known that her dearest desire would be for my ultimate
happiness."
"But mothers are different, we will have to confess," the lad declared.
"Marilyn's may have thought only of social fitness." Then, as he glanced
about the old salon and up at the huge crystal chandeliers, he added: "I
judge that the Pensingers were people of great wealth in those early days
and probably leaders in society."
"I believe that they were," Roberta agreed, "but my mother had a
different standard. She believed that mental and soul companionship
should be the big thing in marriage, and for that matter, so do I."
Ralph felt awed. This was a very different girl from the hoidenish young
would-be detective with whom he had so brief an acquaintance.
"Miss Vandergrift," he said impulsively, "I wish I had a sister like you,
and wouldn't my mother be pleased, though, if you were her daughter. A
girl, I am sure, would have been more of a comfort and companion to her
when my brother Desmond died." Then he added, after a moment of silence:
"I can get your point of view, all right. I wouldn't break my mother's
heart by pretending to drown myself, not even if the heavens fell."
"I'd like to know your mother," Roberta said. "She must be a wonderful
woman."
"She is!" the lad declared. "I want you to meet her as soon as she
returns. Just now she is touring the West with friends, but, to get back
to Marilyn Pensinger. From the little that we know of her family, I
conclude that her mother was a snob and placed social distinction above
her daughter's happiness. But, the very fact that the father made his
will as he did, proves, doesn't it, that he loved his daughter more
sincerely? He did not cut her off with a shilling when he believed that
she had eloped with a foreign musician. Instead, he arranged so that a
descendant of that Hungarian, whose name we do not even know, would
inherit all that Mr. Pensinger possessed. But this isn't getting us
anywhere. Do you happen to know anyone who has recently come over from
Hungary?"
Bobs smiled. "Wouldn't that be grasping at straws?"
"Maybe, but do you?"
Roberta thought a moment, then looked up brightly. "I believe I do. At
least I know a Hungarian. His name is Mr. Hardinian and he is doing
social welfare work. He speaks perfect English, however, and may have
been born in this country. Suppose we go over to his clubhouse and
interview him."
Then, as she rose, she added: "You will like Mr. Hardinian. He has such
beautiful eyes."
Ralph laughed as he also arose. "Is that a girl's reason for liking a
man?" he inquired. Then he added, "Would I were a Hungarian that I might
have interesting eyes. As it is, mine are the plain, unromantic American
variety."
Roberta smiled at her new friend, but what she said showed that her
thought was far from the subject: "Before we go, I want to be sure that
my sister, Gwen, is comfortable."
Gwendolyn was sleeping so quietly that Roberta believed she would not
awaken before Lena May's return, and so, beckoning the lad to follow, she
left the house, closing the door softly. Ralph turned and looked back at
the upper windows of the rooms that were not occupied, as he inquired:
"Do you have a hunch that the old mansion holds the clue we are seeking?"
Roberta's reply was: "Only the ghost of Marilyn knows."
When the two partner-detectives were in the small, luxurious car, and
going very slowly, because of the congested traffic down First Avenue,
Ralph said: "Tell me a little about your sisters and yourself that I may
feel better acquainted." And so, briefly, Roberta told the story of their
coming to the East Side to live.
"I say, Miss Vandergrift, that certainly was hard luck, losing the fine
old place that your family had supposed was its own for so many
generations." Then the lad added with sincere admiration: "You girls
certainly are trumps! I'm mighty glad I met you, and I hope you'll be
glad, too, some day."
"Why, Mr. Caldwaller-Cory, I'm glad right this very moment," Roberta
assured him in so impersonal a manner that the lad did not feel greatly
flattered. Indeed, he was rather pleased that this was so. Being the son
of a famous judge, possessed of good looks, charming manners and all the
money he wished to spend, Ralph had been greatly sought after by the fond
mothers of the girls in his set, if not by the maidens themselves, and it
seemed rather an interesting change to meet a girl whose interest in him
was not personal.
After a silent moment in which the lad's entire attention had been
centered on extricating his small auto from a crush of trucks,
vegetable-laden push-carts and foreign pedestrians, he turned and smiled
at his companion. "Let's turn over to Central Park now," he suggested.
"It's a little round about, I'll agree, but it will be pleasanter
riding."
It was decidedly out of their way, but a glance at her wrist watch
assured Roberta that Lena May would have returned to be with Gwen by that
time, and so she was in no especial hurry.
How beautiful the park seemed after the thronged noisy East Side with its
mingled odors from tobacco, fish markets, and general squalor.
"There, now we can talk," Ralph said as he drove slowly along one of the
winding avenues under a canopy formed by wide-spreading trees. "What
shall it be about?"
"You," Roberta replied. "Tell me about yourself."
"There isn't much to tell," the lad began. "My brother Desmond and I grew
up in a happy home. During the winter months we attended a boys' school
up the Hudson, and each summer vacation we traveled with our parents. We
have been about everywhere, I do believe. Desmond and I were all in all
to each other. We were twins. Perhaps that was why we seemed to love each
other even more than brothers usually do. I did not feel the need of any
other boy companion, and when at last we entered college we were
permitted to be roommates. In our Sophomore year, Desmond died, and I
didn't much care what happened after that. It seemed as though I never
could room with another chap; but at last the dormitories were so crowded
that I had to take a fellow in. That was two years ago, and today Dick De
Laney is as close to me as Desmond was, almost, not quite, of course. No
one will ever be that. But, I tell you, Miss Vandergrift, Dick is a fine
chap, clear through to the core. I'd bank on Dick's doing the honorable
thing, come what might. I'm a year older than he is, and he won't finish
until June, then he's coming on here to little old New York and spend a
month with me. I say, Miss Vandergrift, I'd like to have you meet him."
Roberta smiled. "I've been waiting for you to come to a period that I
might tell you that Dick De Laney and I were playmates when we wore
pinafores. You see, they were our next-door neighbors." Bobs said this in
so matter-of-fact a tone that Ralph did not think for one moment that
this could be the girl his pal had once told him that he loved and hoped
to win.
If only Ralph had realized this, much so might have been saved for one of
them.