ALIAS MANWARING
Fickle-minded fortune favoured Mr. Savage's belated application for
additional sleeping-car accommodation: somebody turned back a
reservation only ten minutes or so before train-time, in consequence
of which Mrs. Standish and Miss Manvers enjoyed adjoining compartments
of luxury, while Mr. Savage contented himself with less pretentious
quarters farther aft.
Thus it was that at one minute past one o'clock, when a
preternaturally self-respecting porter dispassionately ascertained
that nothing more would be required of him till morning and shut
himself out of her presence, the girl subsided upon the edge of a bed
of such sybaritic character as amply to warrant the designation _de
luxe_, and, flushed and trembling with excitement (now that she dared
once again to be her natural self) and with all incredulity
appropriate to the circumstances, stared at the young woman who
blankly stared back from a long mirror framed in the door.
It was truly a bit difficult to identify that modishly dressed and
brilliantly animated young person with S. Manvers of the Hardware
Notions in Huckster's Bargain Basement, while reason tottered and
common sense tittered when invited to credit the chain of accidents
responsible for the transformation.
Strange world of magic romance, this, into which she had stumbled over
the threshold of a venial misdemeanour! Who now would dare contend
that life was ever sordid, grim, and cruel, indigestible from soup to
savoury? Who would have the hardihood to uphold such contention when
made acquainted with the case of Sarah Manvers, yesterday's drudge,
unlovely and unloved, to-day's child of fortune, chosen of a golden
destiny?
Sally's jubilation was shadowed by a pensive moment; dare she assume
that the winters of her discontent had been forever banished by one
wave of Chance's wand?
She shook a confounded head, smiled an uncertain smile, sighed a
little, broken sigh, and with determination bade adieu to misgivings,
turning a deaf ear to the dull growls of mother-wit arguing that the
Board of Health ought to be advised about the State of Denmark.
Sufficient unto the night its room de luxe; she found her couch no
less comfortable for the sword that conceivably swayed above it,
suspended by a thread of casual favour.
For a time she rested serenely in the dark--only half undressed in
view of the ever-possible accident--cheek to pillow, face turned to
the window that endlessly screened the sweeping mysteries of that dark
glimmering countryside, quite resigned so to while away the night,
persuaded it was inevitable that one with so much to ponder should be
unable to sleep a wink.
Deliberately, to prove this point, she closed her eyes. . . .
And immediately opened them to broad daylight, revealing, through that
magic casement, the outskirts of a considerable city, street after
suburban street wheeling away like spokes from a restless hub.
A simultaneous pounding on the door warned her she had but ten minutes
in which to dress; no time to grasp the substance of a dream come
true, no time even to prepare a confident attitude with which to
salute the fairy godparents of her social debut--time only to
struggle into her outer garments and muster a half-timid, deprecatory
smile for those whom she was to find awaiting her in the corridor,
impatient to be off, none too amiably conscious of foregone beauty
sleep, accepting their protegee with a matter-of-course manner almost
disillusioning.
"Got to hurry, you know," Savage informed her brusquely; "only
twenty minutes to snatch a bite before our train leaves for the
Island."
They hurried down a platform thronged with fellow passengers similarly
haunted by the seven devils of haste, beneath a high glazed but opaque
vault penning an unappetizing atmosphere composed in equal parts of a
stagnant warm air and stale steam, into a restaurant that had patently
been up all night, through the motions of swallowing alternate
mouthfuls of denatured coffee and dejected rolls, up again and out and
down another platform--at last into the hot and dusty haven of a
parlour-car.
Then impressions found time for readjustment. The journey promised,
and turned out, to be by no means one of unalloyed delights. The early
morning temper discovered by Mrs. Standish offered chill comfort to
one like Sally, saturate with all the emotions of a stray puppy
hankering for a friendly pat. Ensconced in the chair beside her
charge, the patroness swung it coolly aside until little of her was
visible but the salient curve of a pastel-tinted cheek and buried her
nose in a best-selling novel, ignoring overtures analogous to the
wagging of a propitiatory tail. While Savage, in the chair beyond his
sister, betrayed every evidence of being heartily grateful for a
distance that precluded conversation and to a Providence that
tolerated _Town Topics_. Sally was left to improve her mind with
a copy of _Vanity Fair_, from contemplation of whose text and pictures
she emerged an amateur adventuress sadly wanting in the indispensable
quality of assurance. It wasn't that she feared to measure wits,
intelligence, or even lineage with the elect. But in how many
mysterious ways might she not fall short of the ideal of Good Form?
What--she pondered gloomily, chin in hand, eyes vacantly reviewing a
countryside of notable charms adrowse in the lethargic peace of a
mid-summer morning--what the dickens was Good Form, anyway?
Nothing, not even her own normally keen power of observation, offered
any real enlightenment.
She summed up an hour's studious reflection in the dubious conclusion
that Good Form had something subtly to do with being able to sit
cross-kneed and look arrogantly into the impertinent lens of a
camp-follower's camera--to be impudently self-conscious, that is--to
pose and pose and get away with it.
The train came to a definite stop, and Sally startled up to find Mrs.
Standish, afoot, smiling down at her with all her pretty features
except her eyes, and Mr. Savage smiling in precisely the reverse
fashion.
"All out," he announced. "Change here for the boat. Another
hour, and--as somebody says Henry James says--there, in a manner of
speaking, we all are."
They straggled across a wharf to a fussy small steamer, Mrs. Standish
leading the way with an apprehensive eye for possible acquaintances
and, once established with her brother and Sally in a secluded corner
of the boat's upper deck, uttering her relief in a candid sigh.
"Nobody we know aboard," she added, smiling less tensely at Sally.
"Eh--what say'?" Mr. Savage inquired from a phase of hypnosis induced
by a glimpse of Good Form in a tailored skirt of white corduroy.
"Nobody of any consequence in this mob," his sister paraphrased,
yawning delicately.
"Oh," he responded with an accent of doubt. But the white corduroy
vanished round a shoulder of the deck-house, and he bestirred himself
to pay a little attention to Sally.
"There's the Island," he said, languidly waving a hand. "That
white-pillared place there among the trees--left of the
lighthouse--that's Aunt Abby's."
Sally essayed a smile of intelligent response. Not that the Island
failed to enchant her; seen across a fast diminishing breadth of
wind-darkened blue water, bathed in golden mid-morning light, its
villas of delicious grey half buried in billows of delicious
green, its lawns and terraces crowning fluted grey-stone cliffs from
whose feet a broad beach shelved gently into the sea, it seemed more
beautiful to Miss Manvers than anything she had ever dreamed of.
But what was to be her reception there, what her status, what her
fortunes?
"I've been thinking," Mrs. Standish announced when a sidelong glance
had reassured her as to their practical privacy, "about Miss Manvers."
"I hope to Heaven you've doped out a good one," Savage interrupted
fervently. "In the cold grey dawn it doesn't look so good to me. But
then I'm only a duffer. Perhaps it's just as well; if I'd been a good
liar I might have married to keep my hand in. As it is, I never forget
to give thanks, in my evening prayers, for my talented little sister."
"Are you finished?" Mrs. Standish inquired frigidly.
"I'd better be."
"Then, please pay close attention, Miss Manvers. To begin with, I'm
going to change your name. From now on it's Sara Manwaring--Sara
without the _h_."
"Manwaring with the _w_ silent, as in wrapper and wretch?" Savage
asked politely.
For Sally's benefit Mrs. Standish spelled the word patiently.
"And the record of the fair impostor?" Savage prompted.
"That's very simple. Miss Manwaring came to me yesterday with a letter
of introduction from Edna English. Edna sailed for Italy last
Saturday, and by the time she's back Aunt Abby will have forgotten to
question Miss Manwaring's credentials."
"What did I tell you?" Mr. Savage wagged a solemn head at Sally.
"There's Art for you!"
"She comes from a family prominent socially in"--Mrs. Standish paused
a fraction of a second--"Massillon, Ohio--"
"Is there any such place?"
"Of course--"
"What a lot you do know, Adele!"
"But through a series of unhappy accidents involving the family
fortunes was obliged to earn her own living."
"Is that all?"
"Isn't it enough?"
"Plenty. Simple, succinct, stupendous! It has only one flaw."
"And that, if you please?" Mrs. Standish demanded, bristling a trifle.
"It ain't possible for anyone to be prominent socially in a place
named Massillon, Ohio. It can't be done--not in a place I never heard
of before."
"Do you understand, Miss Manwaring?" the woman asked, turning an
impatient shoulder to her brother.
"Perfectly," Sally assented eagerly; "only--who is Edna English?"
"Mrs. Cornwallis English. You must have heard of her."
"Oh, yes, in the newspapers . . ."
"Social uplift's her fad. She's done a lot of work among
department-store girls."
"To their infinite annoyance," interpolated Savage.
"At all events, that's how she came to notice you."
"I see," said Sally humbly.
"You may fill in the outlines at your discretion," Mrs. Standish
pursued sweetly. "That's all I know about you. You called at the house
with the letter from Mrs. English yesterday afternoon, and I took a
fancy to you and, knowing that Aunt Abby needed a secretary, brought
you along."
"Thank you," said Sally. "I hope you understand how grate--"
"That's quite understood. Let us say no more about it."
"Considerable story," Savage approved. "But what became of the letter
of introduction?"
"I mislaid it," his sister explained complacently. "Don't I mislay
everything?"
For once the young man was dumb with admiration. But his look was
eloquent.
Deep thought held the amateur adventuress spellbound for some minutes.
"There's only one thing," she said suddenly, with a puzzled frown.
"And that?" Mrs. Standish prompted.
"What about the burglary? Your servants, when they came home last
night, must have noticed and notified the police."
"Oh, I say!" Savage exclaimed blankly.
"Don't let's worry about that," Mrs. Standish interrupted. "We can
easily let it be understood that what was stolen was later recovered
from--whatever they call the places where thieves dispose of their
stealings."
"That covers everything," Savage insisted impatiently. "Do come along.
There's the car waiting."
Coincident with this announcement a series of slight jars shook the
steamer, and with surprise Sally discovered that, without her
knowledge in the preoccupation of being fitted with a completely new
identity, the vessel had rounded a wooded headland, opening up a deep
harbour dotted with pleasure craft, and was already nuzzling the town
wharf of a sizable community.
She rose and followed her fellow conspirators aft and below to the
gangway, her mind registering fresh impressions with the
rapidity of a cinema film.
The grey cliff had given place to green-clad bluffs sown thick with
cottages of all sorts, from the quaintly hideous and the obviously
inexpensive to the bewitchingly pretty and the pretentiously ornate
--a haphazard arrangement that ran suddenly into a plot of streets
linking a clutter of utilitarian buildings, all converging upon the
focal point of the village wharf.
Upon this last a cloud of natives and summer folk swarmed and buzzed.
At its head a cluster of vehicles, horse-drawn as well as
motor-driven, waited. In the shadow beneath it, and upon the crescent
beach that glistened on its either side, a multitude of children,
young and old, paddled and splashed in shallows and the wash of the
steamer.
Obviously the less decorative and exclusive side of the island, it was
none the less enchanting in Sally's vision. A measure of confidence
reinfused her mood. She surrendered absolutely to fatalistic enjoyment
of the gifts the gods had sent. Half closing her eyes, she drank deep
of salt-sweet air vibrant with the living warmth of a perfect day.
A man whose common face was as impassive as a mask shouldered through
the mob and burdened himself with the hand-luggage of the party. Sally
gathered that he was valet to Mr. Savage. And they were pushing
through the gantlet of several hundred curious eyes and making
toward the head of the pier.
"Trying," Mrs. Standish observed in an aside to the girl. "I always
say that everything about the Island is charming but the getting
here."
Sally murmured an inarticulate response and wondered. Disdain of the
commonalty was implicit in that speech; it was contact with the herd,
subjection to its stares, that Mrs. Standish found so trying. How,
then, had she brought herself so readily to accept association on
almost equal terms with a shop-girl misdemeanant--out of gratitude, or
sheer goodness of heart, or something less superficial?
The shadow of an intimation that something was wrong again came
between Sally and the sun, but passed as swiftly as a wind-sped cloud.
The valet led to a heavy, seven-seated touring-car, put their luggage
in the rear, shut the door on the three, and swung up to the seat
beside the chauffeur. The machine threaded a cautious way out of the
rank, moved sedately up a somnolent street, turned a corner and
pricked up its heels to the tune of a long, silken snore, flinging
over its shoulder two miles of white, well-metalled roadway with no
appreciable effort whatever.
For a moment or two dwellings swept by like so many telegraph-poles
past a car-window. Then they became more widely spaced, and were
succeeded by a blurred and incoherent expanse of woods, fields,
parks, hedges, glimpses of lawns surfaced like a billiard-table,
flashes of white facades maculated with cool blue shadows.
Then, without warning if without a jar, the car slowed down to a safe
and sane pace and swung off between two cobblestone pillars into a
well-kept wilderness of trees that stood as a wall of privacy between
the highroad and an exquisitely parked estate bordering the cliffs.
Debouching into the open, the drive swept a gracious curve round a
wonderful wide lawn of living velvet and through the pillared
porte-cochere of a long, white-walled building with many gaily
awninged windows in its two wide-spread wings.
Sentinelled by sombre cypresses, relieved against a sapphire sky
bending to a sea of scarcely deeper shade, basking in soft, clear
sunlight, the house seemed to hug the earth very intimately, to belong
most indispensably, with an effect of permanence, of orderliness and
dignity that brought to mind instinctively the term estate, and caused
Sally to recall (with misspent charity) the fulsome frenzy of a
sycophantic scribbler ranting of feudal aristocracies, representative
houses, and encroaching tenantry.
The solitary symptom of a tenantry in evidence here was a perfectly
good American citizen in shirt-sleeves and overalls, pipe in
mouth, toleration in his mien, calmly steering a wheelbarrow down the
drive. Sally caught the glint of his cool eyes and experienced a flash
of intuition into a soul steeped in contemplative indulgence of the
city crowd and its silly antics. And forthwith, for some reason she
found no time to analyse, she felt more at home, less apprehensive.
As the car pulled up beneath the porte-cochere a mild-eyed footman ran
out to help the valet with the luggage; Savage skipped blithely down
and gave a hand to his sister, offering like assistance to Sally in
turn; and on the topmost of three broad, white, stone steps the
chatelaine of Gosnold House appeared to welcome her guests--a vastly
different personality, of course, from any in Sally's somewhat
incoherent anticipations.
Going upon the rather sketchy suggestions of Mrs. Standish, the girl
had prefigured Aunt Abby as a skittish female of three-score years and
odd; a gabbling creature with a wealth of empty gesticulation and a
parrot's vacant eye; semi-irresponsible, prone to bright colours and
an overyouthful style of dress.
She found, to the contrary, a lady of quiet reserve, composed of
manner, authoritative of speech, not lacking in humour, of impeccable
taste in dress, and to all appearances not a day older than
forty-five, despite hair like snow that framed a face of rich
but indisputably native complexion.
In her regard, when it was accorded exclusively to Sally, the girl
divined a mildly diverted question, quite reasonable, as to her choice
of travelling costume. Otherwise her reception was cordial, with
reservations; nothing warranted the assumption that Mrs. Gosnold (Aunt
Abby by her legitimate title) was not disposed to make up her mind
about Miss Manwaring at her complete leisure. Interim she was very
glad to see her; any friend of Adele's was always welcome to Gosnold
House; and would Miss Manwaring be pleased to feel very much at home.
At this point Mrs. Standish affectionately linked arms with her
relation and, with the nonchalant rudeness that was in those days
almost a badge of caste, dragged her off to a cool and dusky corner of
the panelled reception-hall to acquaint her with the adulterated facts
responsible for the phenomenon of Miss Manwaring.
"Be easy," Mr. Savage comforted the girl airily; "trust Adele to get
away with it. That young woman is sure of a crown and harp in the
hereafter if only because she'll make St. Peter himself believe black
is white. You've got nothing to worry about. Now I'm off for a bath
and nap; just time before luncheon. See you then. So-long."
He blew a most debonnaire kiss to his maternal aunt and trotted
lightly up the broad staircase; and as Sally cast about for some place
to wait inconspicuously on the pleasure of her betters, Mrs. Gosnold
called her.
"Oh, Miss Manwaring!"
The girl responded with an unaffected diffidence apparently pleasing
in the eyes of her prospective employer.
"My niece has been telling me about you," she said with an engaging
smile; "and I am already inclined to be grateful to her. It isn't
often--truth to tell--she makes such prompt acknowledgment of my
demands. And I'm a most disorderly person, so I miss very much the
services of my former secretary. Do come nearer."
Sally drew within arm's-length, and the elder woman put out a hand and
caught the girl's in a firm, cool, friendly grasp.
"Your first name?" she inquired with a look of keen yet not unpleasant
scrutiny.
"Sarah," said Sarah bluntly. "Man'aring" stuck in her guilty throat.
"S-a-r-a," Mrs. Standish punctiliously spelled it out.
"Thank you; I recognise it now." A shrewd, sidelong glance flickered
amusement at Mrs. Gosnold's niece. "You come from the middle West, I
understand, and you've had rather a hard time of it in New York.
What do you do best?" "Why--I've tried to write," Sally confessed
shyly.
"Oh? Novels?"
"Not quite so ambitious; short stories to begin with and then special
articles for the newspapers--anything that promised to bring in a
little money, but nothing ever did."
"Then, I presume, you're familiar with typewriters?"
"Oh, yes."
"And can punctuate after a fashion?"
"I think so."
"You don't look it; far too womanly, unless your appearance is
deceptive, to know the true difference between a semicolon and a
hyphen. No matter; you have every qualification, it seems, including a
good manner and a pleasant smile. You're engaged--on probation; I mean
to say, for this one week we'll consider you simply my guest, but
willing to help me out with my correspondence. Then, if you like the
place and I like you as much as I hope I shall, you'll become my
personal secretary at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week and all
expenses. No--don't thank me; thank your sensible eyes."
Mrs. Gosnold laughed lightly, gave Sally's hand a final but
barely perceptible pressure, and released it.
"Now Thomas will show you your room. Mrs. Standish tells me she has
promised to outfit you; her maid will bring you more suitable things
by the time you've had your tub and some rest. Plenty of time; we
lunch at one-thirty."
The girl stammered some sort of an acknowledgment; she was never able
to recall precisely what she said, in truth, but it served. And then
she was amazedly ascending the broad staircase and following the
flunky's back down a long, wide, drafty corridor to a room at one
extreme of the building--a small room, daintily furnished and bright
with summery cretonne, its individual bath adjoining.
"I'll be sending the maid to you at once, ma'am," said Thomas, and
shut the door.
Sally wandered to a window, lifted the shade, and looked out with
bewildered eyes.
From the front of the house to the edge of the cliff the grounds were
as severely composed as an Italian formal garden; but to one side,
screened by high box hedges, a tennis-court was in the active
possession of four young people, none of them, apparently over twenty
years of age. Their calls and clear laughter rang in the quietness,
vibrant with careless joy of living.
They did not in the least suggest the crew of adventurers which
Mrs. Standish had led Sally to expect.
Thus far, indeed, Sally had failed to detect anything in the
atmosphere of the establishment or in the bearing of its mistress to
bear out the innuendo that Gosnold House was infested by a parasitic
swarm and "Aunt Abby" the dupe of her own unholy passions. Doubts
hummed in Sally's head, and she was abruptly surprised to find the
view obscured by a mist of her own making--by, in short, nothing less
than tears.
The simple kindliness of Mrs. Gosnold's welcome had touched the
impostor more deeply than she had guessed. All this was offered her,
this life of semi-idleness and luxury in this spot of poetic beauty,
in return for nothing but trifling services. But she was not worthy!
A little gust of anger shook her--anger with her benefactors, that
they could not have introduced her to this mundane paradise as her
simple self, Miss Manvers--Sarah with the vulgar _h_--by her own
merits and defects to stand or fall. . . .
But, as though the fates were weaving the fabric of her destiny less
blindly than is their commonly reputed custom, the young woman's
conscience during those few first hours had little time in which to
work upon her better nature. Its first squeamish qualms, when it at
length got Sally alone, were quickly counteracted by a knock at
her door and what followed--the entrance of a quiet-mannered maid
whose fresh-coloured countenance loomed like some amiable, mature moon
above a double armful of summery apparel.
"Mrs. Standish's compliments, ma'am, and I'm bringing your things.
There's more to come--as much again I'm to fetch immediate--and the
rest, Mrs. Standish says, there'll be time enough for after luncheon,
when all her trunks is unpacked."
Carefully depositing her burden upon the bed, she beamed
acknowledgment of Sally's breathless thanks and made off briskly, to
return much too soon to suit one who would have been glad of longer
grace in which to become more intimately acquainted with this new
donation of her ravishing good fortune.
None the less, it didn't need another double armful of beautiful
things to satisfy Sally that, whatever and how many might be the
faults of her benefactress, niggardliness was not of their number.
"That's all for now, and Mrs. Standish's compliments, and will you be
so kind as to stop and see her, when you're dressed, before going down
to lunch. It's the last door on the left, just this side the stairs.
Will I turn on your bath now?"
"Please don't trouble. I--"
"No trouble at all, ma'am. Indeed, and I'm sure you'll find us all
very happy to do anything we can for you. It'll be a nice change
to be waiting on a pleasant-spoken person like yourself after that"--
with a sniff--"Miss Matring."
"Oh!" Genuine disappointment was responsible for the exclamation. But
a moment's thought persuaded Sally she had been unreasonable to hope
her secret might be kept from the servants. Even if Mrs. Standish had
not betrayed it to this maid, there had been that flunky, Thomas, in
the reception-hall close at hand during the establishment of Sally's
status, with his pose of inhuman detachment of interest--quite too
perfect to be true.
"Beg pardon, ma'am?"
"Oh, nothing!" Sally swallowed her chagrin bravely. "I mean, thank you
very much, but I'm accustomed to waiting on myself--except when it
comes to hooks up the back--and you must have enough to keep you busy
with so many people in the house."
"Not a great many just now, ma'am--not more'n a dozen, counting in
Mrs. Standish and her brother and you. This has been an off week, so
to speak, but they'll be arriving in plenty to-morrow and Saturday,
I'm told."
That gossip was the woman's failing was a fact as obvious as that her
desire was only to be friendly; brief reflection persuaded Sally that
it was to her own interest neither to snub nor to neglect this
gratuitous source of information. With some guilty conceit, befitting
one indulging in all most Machiavellian subtlety, she let fall an
extravagantly absent-minded "Yes?" and was rewarded, quite properly,
with a garrulous history of her predecessor's career, from which she
disengaged only two profitable impressions: that the staff of servants
was devoted to their mistress, and that it would little advantage a
secretary to quarrel with the one in the hope of ingratiating herself
with the other.
So she contrived, as soon as might be without giving offence, to
interrupt and dismiss the maid; then steeled her heart against the
temptation to try on everything at once, and profited by long practice
in the nice art of bathing, dressing, breakfasting, and trudging two
miles in minimum time--between, that is, the explosion of a matutinal
alarm and the last moment when one might, without incurring a fine,
register arrival on the clock at Huckster's entrance for employees.
She hadn't the slightest notion what Mrs. Standish might want of her,
but she was very sure that she didn't mean to invite displeasure by
seeming careless of the lady's whims.
Consequently it was surprisingly soon that she stood, refreshed and
comfortable in white linen, tapping at the door that Emmy, the maid,
had designated.
Another maid, less prepossessing, admitted her to the
dressing-room of the woman of fashion; and this last greeted Sally
with a fretful, preoccupied frown, visible in the mirror, which
reflected as well the excellent results obtainable from discreet
employment of a high-keyed palette.
"Oh, it's you!" said Mrs. Standish shortly. "I was hoping you wouldn't
be forever. Though you do look well in those duds. I've something
quite important to say. You may go now, Ellen; I sha'n't want you
again until evening."
With a scowl Ellen made off, an effort of masterly self-restraint
alone enabling her to refrain from slamming the door.
"A most ridiculous thing has happened," Mrs. Standish pursued,
delicately lining in her devastating eyebrows--"most annoying!" She
jerked an impatient thumb at a telegram that lay open on the
dressing-table. "Read that. It was waiting our arrival."
Sally obeyed with an opening wonder that swiftly gave place to panic
consternation.
House entered by burglars last night discovered this morning forced
entrance by scuttle extent of loss unknown but desk broken open safe
cleaned out dining-room silver gone some clothing dresses missing
one of gang evidently woman garments left in bath-room name
indelible ink faded but apparently manners or manvers police
notified detectives on case advise return please wire
instructions-Riggs.
"Now don't have hysterics!" Mrs. Standish snapped as Sally, with a low
cry of dismay, sank stunned into a chair. "There's nothing for you to
fret about--you're all right, here, with me, under my protection.
Nobody's going to look for you here; but think how fortunate it was I
had the wit to change your name. No, it's I who have to worry!"
"But I don't understand," the girl stammered. "Of course there must be
some mistake; you haven't really lost anything--"
"Oh, haven't I? I wish I could believe that. Don't you see what the
telegram says--'safe cleaned out, dining-room silver gone'? That
sounds suspiciously like a loss to me. Walter didn't 'clean out' the
safe, and of course he didn't touch the silver. On the contrary, he's
positive he shut the safe and fixed the combination before leaving. As
for the dining-room, he didn't once set foot in it."
"Then--that burglar must have come back."
"That's our theory, naturally. Walter was so sure he'd scared the man
off, he simply left the scuttle closed--"
"But he told me he found hammer and nails and fastened it up
securely!"
"That was just his blague; he was having a good time, pretending to be
what you took him for--an amateur cracksman; he made up that
story to fool you. The truth is, he made an uncommonly asinine
exhibition, even for Walter--so excited and upset by that fight with
the real burglar, to say nothing of the mystery of your interference,
that he didn't stop to make sure he had got hold of the right
jewel-case. As a matter of fact, he hadn't; everything I own of any
real value was left behind; what Walter brought me was an old case
containing a lot of trinkets worth little or nothing aside from
sentimental associations."
"Oh, I am so sorry!"
"I'm sure you are, but that doesn't mend matters. The only thing that
will is for you to make good here and keep away from New York until
the whole affair has blown over and, above all, never, under any
consideration, breathe a word of the truth to a living soul."
"I'm hardly likely to do that, Mrs. Standish; it wouldn't--"
"But you might. I've got to warn you. Everything depends on secrecy.
Suppose some one were to question you, and you thought you had to tell
the truth--a detective, for instance. It's not unlikely that one may
come down here to interview me. Walter is leaving for New York by the
first boat--in hopes of preventing anything of the sort--but still it
isn't impossible. And if it ever comes out that Walter was in
the house last night after dark--well, you can see for yourself what
chance we'll have of making the burglar-insurance people pay us for
what we've lost!"