CONSPIRACY
"My dear sister!" interposed Mr. Savage with an imitation so exact of
the woman's tone that he nearly wrung a smile even from Sally. "Do
calm yourself--don't make a scene. The matter is quite easy to
explain--"
"But what--"
"Oh, give us a chance. But permit me!" He bowed with his easy laugh.
"Adele, this is Miss Manvers--Miss Manvers, my sister Mrs. Standish.
And now"--as Sally half started from her chair and Mrs. Standish
acknowledged her existence by an embittered nod--"do sit down, Adele!"
With the manner of one whose amazement has paralysed her parts of
speech, the woman sank mechanically into the chair which Savage
(having thoughtfully waved away the hovering waiter) placed beside the
table, between himself and his guest. But once seated, precisely as if
that position were a charm to break the spell that sealed them,
promptly her lips reformed the opening syllables of "_What does this
mean?_"
Mr. Savage, however, diplomatically gave her no chance to utter more
than the first word.
"Do hold your tongue," he pleaded with a rudeness convincingly
fraternal, "and listen to me. I am deeply indebted to Miss
Manvers--for my very life, in fact. Oh, don't look so blamed
incredulous; I'm perfectly sober. Now _will_ you please give me a
show?"
And, the lady executing a gesture that matched well her look of blank
resignation, her brother addressed himself to a terse summing up of
the affair which, while it stressed the gravity of the adventure with
the fat burglar, did not seem to extenuate Sally's offence in the
least and so had the agreeable upshot of leaving the sister in a
much-placated humour and regarding the girl with a far more indulgent
countenance than Sally had found any reason at first to hope for.
As for that young woman, the circumstance that she was inwardly all
a-shudder didn't in the least hinder her exercise of that feminine
trick of mentally photographing, classifying, and cataloguing the
other woman's outward aspects in detail and, at the same time,
distilling her more subtle phases of personality in the retort of
instinct and minutely analysing the precipitate.
The result laid the last lingering ghost of suspicion that all was not
as it should be between these two, that Blue Serge had not been
altogether frank with her.
She had from the first appreciated the positive likeness between Mrs.
Standish and the portrait in the library, even though her observation
of the latter had been limited to the most casual inspection through
the crack of the folding doors; there wasn't any excuse for
questioning the identification. The woman before her, like the woman
of the picture, was of the slender, blonde class--intelligent,
neurotic, quick-tempered, inclined to suffer spasmodically from
exaltation of the ego. And if she had not always been pampered with
every luxury that money has induced modern civilisation to invent, the
fact was not apparent; she dressed with such exquisite taste as only
money can purchase, if it be not innate; she carried herself with the
ease of affluence founded upon a rock, while her nervousness was
manifestly due rather to impatience than to the vice of worrying.
"And now," Mr. Savage wound up with a graceless grin, "if you'll be
good enough to explain what the dickens you're doing here instead of
being on the way to Boston by the eleven-ten, I'll be grateful; Miss
Manvers will quit doubting my veracity--secretly, if not openly; and
we can proceed to consider something I have to suggest with
respect to the obligations of a woman who has been saved the loss of a
world of gewgaws as well as those of a man who is alive and whole
exclusively, thanks to . . . Well, I think you know what I mean."
"Oh, as for that," said Mrs. Standish absently, "when you turned up
missing on the train I stopped it at the Hundred and Twenty-Fifth
Street station and came back to find out what was the matter. I've
been all through this blessed place looking for you--"
"Pardon!" Mr. Savage interrupted. "Did I understand you to say you had
stopped the train?"
"Certainly. Why not? You don't imagine I was going to let myself be
carried all the way to Boston in ignorance--"
"Then, one infers, the eleven-ten doesn't normally stop at One Hundred
and Twenty-Fifth Street?"
"No. I had to speak to the conductor. Do be quiet. It doesn't matter.
What were you going to say?"
"Nothing much, except that the clothes Miss Manvers stands in are
hardly to be considered an adequate reward."
"True. But you mentioned some suggestion or other--"
"Without being downright about it, thereby sparing Miss Manvers
any embarrassment, she might feel should you disapprove, as I'm
confident you won't--"
This was the woman's turn; she silenced him with a gesture of infinite
ennui. "Why is it," she complained, "that you _never_ get anywhere
without talking all around Robin Hood's barn?"
"Objection," Mr. Savage offered promptly, "on the ground of mixed
metaphor."
"Objection sustained," his sister conceded. "But do come to the
point."
"I wish only to remind you of the news imparted by our respected aunt
in her letter of recent date."
The woman frowned slightly, as with mental effort; then a flash of
comprehension lightened her blue eyes. Immediately her brows mutely
circumflexed a question. A look of profound but illegible significance
passed between the two. Mr. Savage nodded. Mrs. Standish pursed
speculatively her thin, well-made-up lips and visibly took thought,
according to the habit of her sex, by means of a series of intuitive
explosions. Then she nodded vigorously and turned upon Miss Manvers a
bewildering smile, for the first time addressing her directly.
"My dear," she said pleasantly enough--though, of course, the term had
no accent whatever of affection--"this half-witted brother of
mine once in a while stumbles upon the most brilliant inspiration
imaginable. I'm sure he has seen enough of you in this last hour to be
making no mistake in offering you as one answer to a very delicate
question which has been distressing us both for a long time. If you're
not overscrupulous . . ."
She paused with a receptive air.
"I'm sure I don't know what you're driving at," Sally said bluntly;
"but I'm hardly in a position to be nice-minded about trifles."
"It's this way," Savage interposed; "we're offering you a chance to
get away, to enjoy a summer by the seashore, to mix with a lot of
mighty interesting people, and all that sort of thing--everything you
tell me you've been pining for--if you'll consent to sail under false
colours."
"Please!" Sally begged with a confused and excited little laugh.
"He simply can't help it; indirection is Walter's long suit," Mrs.
Standish took up the tale. "First of all, you must know this aunt of
ours is rather an eccentric--frightfully well off, spoiled,
self-willed, and quite blind to her best interests. She's been a widow
so long she doesn't know the meaning of wholesome restraint. She's got
all the high knee-action of a thoroughbred never properly broken to
harness. She sets her own pace--and Heaven help the hindermost!
All in all, I think Aunt Abby's the most devil-may-care person I've
ever met."
"You're too modest," Mr. Savage commented abstractedly.
"Be quiet, Walter. Aunt Abby's passionately fond of two things--cards
and what she calls 'interesting people.' Neither would matter much but
for the other. She gambles for sheer love of it, and doesn't care a
rap whether she wins or loses. And her notion of an interesting person
is anybody fortunate or misfortunate enough to be noticed by the
newspapers. A bit of a scandal is sure bait for her regard . . ."
Pausing, Mrs. Standish smiled coolly. "Take me, for example. Until I
found it necessary to get unmarried, my aunt never could find time to
waste on me. But now, in spite of the fact that the decree was in my
favour, I'm the object of her mad attachment. And if Walter hadn't
come into the limelight through a Senatorial inquiry into high
finance, and made such a sick witness, and got so deservedly roasted
by the newspapers--well, nothing is now too good for him. So, you see,
the people Aunt Abby insists on entertaining are apt to be a rather
dubious lot. I don't mean she'd pick up with anybody openly immoral,
you know; but she certainly manages to fill her houses--she's got
several--with a wild crew of adventurers and--esses--to call 'em
by their first names.
"They're smart enough, God knows, and they do make things hum, but
they charge her--some of them--fat fees for the privilege of
entertaining them. Funny things have happened at her card tables. So
Walter and I have been scheming to find some way to protect her
without rousing her resentment by seeming to interfere. If we could
only get evidence enough to talk privately to some of her
friends--about time-tables, for instance--it would be all right. And
only recently she herself showed us the way--wrote me that she had
quarrelled with her corresponding secretary, a spinster of acid
maturity, and discharged her; and would we please look round for
somebody to replace Miss. Matring. Do you see?"
"You mean," Sally faltered, dumfounded--"you can't mean you'll
recommend _me_ for the position?"
"I'll do more. I'll see that you get it; I'll take you with me
to-night, and by to-morrow noon you'll be engaged. But you must
understand we're giving you the chance solely that you may serve us as
well as Aunt Abby, by keeping your eyes and ears wide open and
reporting to us in strictest confidence and secrecy anything that
doesn't look right to you."
"But--but I--but how--why do you think you can trust me?" the
girl stammered. "Knowing what you do--"
"That's just the point. Don't you see'? We can trust you because you
won't dare betray us."
"But--but after I've stolen--"
"Don't say it!" Savage cut in. "You stole nothing, if you please; you
merely anticipated a reward for a service not yet rendered."
"But . . . Oh, it's kind of you, but don't you see it's impossible?"
"Nothing is impossible except your refusal," said Mrs. Standish. "Do
be sensible, my dear, and realise that we--that I intend you shall
have this chance. What can you possibly find to object to? The deceit?
Surely an innocent deception, practised upon a dear old lady for her
own good!"
"Deceit," Mr. Savage propounded very sagely, "is like any other sin,
it's only sinful when it is. That's elementary sophistry, but I
invented it, and I'm strong for it. Besides, we've got just twenty
minutes now to get aboard the Owl--and I've got to beg, borrow, or buy
transportation on it, because there wasn't a room left but the two I
bought for you and me--and now Adele will have to have one of the
rooms--"
"But I've nothing to wear but these things!" "Don't worry about that,"
Mrs. Standish reassured her. "I've got nine trunks on the way--and
you unquestionably fill my things out like another perfect
figure."
"But how will you explain? Who am I to be?
You can't introduce me as a shop-girl out of work whom you caught
stealing your clothes."
"_La nuit porte conseil_," Mr. Savage announced sagely, and with what
was no doubt an excellent accent. "Let Adele sleep on it, and if she
doesn't come through in the morning with a good, old-fashioned, all
wool, yard-wide lie that will blanket every possible contingency, I
don't know my little sister."
"An elder brother, let me tell you, Miss Manvers, is the best possible
preceptor in prevarication."
"Elder!" exclaimed the outraged young man. "Well, of all--" He turned
appealingly to Sally. "_What_ did I tell you?"