THE REVEREND MR. PYECROFT
The next evening, Friday, as they left the dining-room, draped with
the heavy odor of a dark, mysterious viand which Matilda in a whisper
had informed Mrs. De Peyster to be pot-roast, Mrs. Gilbert stopped
them on the stairs. In her most casual, superior tone, she notified
Mrs. De Peyster that she would thank them for another week's pay in
advance the following day, or their room.
Here was a crisis that had to be faced at once. Up in their room they
discussed finance, going over and over their predicament, for two
hours. There seemed no practical solution.
A heavy rain had begun to fall. The night was hot, close. The
unaccustomed high collar of Matilda's dress had seemed suffocating to
Mrs. De Peyster, and she had loosened it, and also she had taken off
the pearl pendant which had chafed her beneath the warm, heavy cloth.
The pearl and its delicate chain of platinum were now lying on their
center-table.
Several times Matilda's eye had gone furtively toward the pendant.
"I don't see why," she at length said doggedly, "you shouldn't let me
pawn that pearl."
"I believe I have requested you not to refer to this again." Mrs. De
Peyster's tone was stiff.
Matilda's face showed stubborn bitterness. But the habit of obedience
was too old and strong for her to speak further.
There was another silence. Both sat in desperate thought. Suddenly
Mrs. De Peyster looked up. "Matilda, I think I have it."
"What is it, ma'am?"--with faintly reviving hope.
"You have the keys to my house. You slip back there to-night, find my
purse, or bring something that you might sell."
Matilda slumped down, aghast.
"It's perfectly simple," Mrs. De Peyster reassured her. "We should
have thought of it at first."
"But, ma'am!" quaveringly protested Matilda. "Suppose a policeman
should see me! They watch those closed houses. And suppose--suppose he
should shoot!"
"Nonsense, Matilda! No one will see you if you are careful."
"But if--if--Mr. Jack should hear me and come down and see me--"
"We shall prepare for such an emergency some kind of plausible
explanation that will satisfy Jack."
"But, ma'am, please! I don't think I could ever do it!"
"Matilda, it is the only way"--in the voice of authority. And then
more emphatically, and in some desperation: "Remember, we have got to
do something! We have simply got to have money!"
Matilda was beginning to whimper yieldingly, when a knock sounded at
their door. They clutched each other, but did not answer.
The knuckles rapped again.
They continued silent.
The knock sounded more loudly.
"It's the landlady, come to throw us out," quaked Matilda.
"Open the door," ordered Mrs. De Peyster, decorously rearranging the
throat of her dress, "and tell her she shall have her money in the
morning."
Matilda unlocked the door, partially opened it, then fell back with
a little cry. There entered the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. He smiled at
them, put a finger to his lips. Then he locked the door behind him.
"Please leave this instant!" commanded Mrs. De Peyster.
"It is not in my nature," he returned in his bland voice, "to go and
leave behind me fellow creatures in distress."
"Fellow creatures in distress?" repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
"I was passing," said he, "and chanced to overhear you say a moment
since that you simply had to have money."
Mrs. De Peyster's face filled with suspicion. "You have been listening
all the while?"
"Possibly," said Mr. Pyecroft, with the same bland smile.
"Eavesdropper!"
His smile did not alter. "I did not hear very much, really. Miss
Thompson, may I beg the favor of a few minutes with you alone?"
"Most certainly not!"
"I am sure when you learn what it is, Miss Thompson, you would prefer
that it be between yourself and myself."
"Matilda, don't go!"
He shrugged his shoulders pleasantly. "I had really hoped that the
matter might be between just you and me, Miss Thompson. However, if
you prefer Miss Perkins"--Matilda's name at Mrs. Gilbert's--"to be
present, yours is the right to command. Shall we be seated?"
Matilda had already subsided upon her couch. Mrs. De Peyster sank into
one of the chairs. The Reverend Mr. Pyecroft drew the other up to face
her and sat down.
"Miss Thompson," he began, "I have a very serious proposition to lay
before you."
Mrs. De Peyster shrank away. An awful premonition burst upon her. It
was coming! This impudent, pompous, philandering clergyman was about
to propose to her! To _her!_ She gave a swift horrified glance at
Matilda, who gave back a look of sympathetic understanding.
Then Mrs. De Peyster's horror at the indignity changed to horror
of quite another sort; for the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft was leaning
confidentially close to her, eyes into hers, and was saying in a low
voice:--
"I suppose, Miss Thompson, you are not aware how much you look like a
certain great lady, a famous social leader? To be explicit, like Mrs.
De Peyster?"
She sank back, mere jelly with a human contour. So she was discovered!
She rolled her eyes wildly toward Matilda; Matilda rolled wild eyes
toward her.
"It is really a remarkable likeness," went on the low voice of the
Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. "I've seen Mrs. De Peyster, you know; not more
than six yards away; and the likeness struck me the very moment I
saw you. You haven't the grand-duchess dignity she had on when I saw
her--say, but you should have seen the figure she made!--but it's
a wonderful coincidence. Dressed right, and with some lofty spirit
pumped into you, you could pass anywhere as Mrs. De Peyster, provided
they did not know Mrs. De Peyster too intimately. That likeness is the
foundation of my proposition."
[Illustration: "IT IS REALLY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS"]
Mrs. De Peyster stared at him, and began to clutch at consciousness.
After all, was it possible that he hadn't recognized her as Mrs. De
Peyster? Perhaps he hadn't--for every one knew Mrs. De Peyster was
abroad, and, furthermore, all the social world yawned inimitably
between Mrs. De Peyster and this apparent nobody that she was, in an
obscure boarding-house, and in a housekeeper's gown. But if he hadn't
recognized her, then what was he driving at?
While she gazed she became aware of an amazing change in his face, of
the possibility of which she had previously had only hints. The bland,
elderish, clerical look faded; the face grew strangely young, the
right corner of his mouth twisted upward, and his right eyelid drooped
in a prodigious, unreverend wink.
"Friend," he remarked, "what's you two ladies' game?"
"Our game?" Mrs. De Peyster repeated blankly.
"Now don't try to come Miss Innocence over me," he said easily. "I
sized you two up from the first minute, and I've been watching you
ever since. The other one could get away with the housekeeper's part
O.K., but any one could see through your makeup. What are the bulls
after you for?"
"The--the what?"
"Oh, come,--you're dodging the police, or why the disguise?" he
queried pleasantly. He picked up Mrs. De Peyster's pearl pendant.
"Housekeepers don't sport this kind of jewelry. What are you?
Housebreakers--sneak thieves--confidence game?"
Mrs. De Peyster gaped at him. "I--I don't understand."
"It's really a pretty fair front you're putting up," he commented with
a dry indulgent smile. "But might as well drop it, for you see I'm on.
But I think I understand." He nodded. "You don't want to admit
anything until you feel you can trust me. That's about the size of it,
isn't it, friends?"
Mrs. De Peyster stared, without speaking.
"Now I know I can trust you," he went on easily, "for I've got
something on you and I give you away if you give me away. Well,
sisters, of course you know you're not the only people the police are
after. That's why I am temporarily in the ministry."
He grinned widely--a grin of huge enjoyment.
"Who are you?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
"Well, you don't hesitate to ask, do you?" He laughed, lightly. "Say,
it's too good to keep! I always was too confiding a lad; but I've got
you where you won't squeal, and I suppose we've got to know each other
if we're going to do business together. You must know, my dear ladies,
that every proposition I've handled I've gone into it as much for the
fun as for the coin." He cocked his head; plainly there was an element
of conceit in his character. "Well, fair ones--ready?"
Mrs. De Peyster nodded.
"Ever heard of the American Historical Society's collection of
recently discovered letters of a gentleman named Thomas Jefferson?"
Mrs. De Peyster started.
"Yes."
"And perhaps you have heard that authorities now agree that said
Thomas Jefferson was dead almost a hundred years when said letters
were penned; and that he must have been favored with the assistance of
an amanuensis of, so to say, the present generation?"
"Yes."
"That being the case you may have heard of one Thomas Preston, alleged
to be said amanuensis?"
"Yes."
He put his hand across his clerical vest, and bowed first to Mrs. De
Peyster, then to Matilda.
"It gives Mr. Preston very great pleasure to meet you, ladies. Only
for the present he humbly petitions to be known as Mr. Pyecroft."
Mrs. De Peyster was quite unable to speak. So this was the man Judge
Harvey was trying to hunt down! Her meeting him like this, it seemed
an impossible coincidence--utterly impossible! She little dreamed that
the laws of chance were not at all concerned in this adventure; that
this meeting was but the natural outcome of Matilda's trifling act in
picking up from the library rug a boarding-house card and slipping it
into her slit-pocket.
The young man, for he now obviously was a young man, plainly delighted
in the surprise he had created.
"I like to hand it to these pompous old stiffs," he went on
gleefully--"these old boys who will come across with sky-high prices
for old first editions and original manuscripts, and who don't care
one little wheeze of a damn for what the author actually wrote. I'm
sorry, though,"--in a tone of genuine contrition,--"that Judge Harvey
was the man finally to be stung; they say he's the real thing."
Suddenly his mood changed; his eye dropped in its unreverend wink.
"There's a Raphael that the Metropolitan is solemnly proud of. It cost
Morgan a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It cost me an even five
hundred to have it made."
He laughed again: that gay, whimsical, irresponsible laugh. Mrs. De
Peyster was recovering somewhat from her first surprise.
Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward. "But this isn't getting down to our
business. I've got a plan that's more fun than the Jefferson letters,
and that will make us a lot of money, Miss Thompson. And it's easy and
it's sure fire. It depends, as I said, upon the remarkable coincidence
of your likeness to Mrs. De Peyster."
"Yes?" Mrs. De Peyster managed to say.
"You've read of her, of course; stiffest swell of the lot," went
on the young gentleman rapidly, in clipped phrases oddly unlike the
sonorous sentences of the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. "Looks down on most
of the Four Hundred as _hoi polloi_. She's in Europe now, and the
papers say she won't be back until the very end of summer. We can't do
a thing till then; have to lie low and wait. You need money, I heard
you say; I suppose you're afraid to hock this twinkler"--touching the
pearl pendant. "Police probably watching the pawnshops and would nab
you. Well, I'll stake you till Mrs. De Peyster comes back."
"Stake me?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
"Yes. Give you, both of you, what money you need."
"And--and when--Mrs. De Peyster comes back?"
Young Mr. Pyecroft chortled with delight.
"Say, this scheme's the best ever! The day we learn Mrs. De Peyster
has landed, we dress you up as a top-notcher--gad, but we can make you
look the part!--we put you in a swell carriage, with her coat of arms
painted on it--and you go around to Tiffany's and all the other swell
shops where in the mean time I'll have learned Mrs. De Peyster has
charge accounts. You select the most valuable articles in the shop,
and then in the most casual, dignified manner,--I can coach you on how
to put on the dignity,--you remark, 'Charge to my account, and I'll
just take it along with me.' And off you go, with a diamond necklace
under your arm. And same thing at all the shops. Then we duck before
the thing breaks, and divide the fruits of our industry and superior
intelligence, as the economists say. Isn't that one great little
game!"
Mrs. De Peyster stared at his face, grinning like an elated gargoyle;
herself utterly limp, her every nerve a filament of icy horror.
"Well, what do you say, girls?" prompted Mr. Pyecroft.
Mrs. De Peyster at first could say nothing at all. Whereupon the young
man, gleeful over his invention, prompted her again.
"I--can't--can't do it," she gulped out.
"Can't do it!" He stared at her, amazed. "Say, do you realize what
you're passing up?"
"I can't do it," repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
"Why?" he demanded.
She did not reply.
He stood up, smiling again. "I won't argue with you; it's bigger than
anything you ever pulled off--so big, I guess it stuns you; I'll just
let the matter soak in, and put up its own argument. You'll come in,
all right," he continued confidently, "for you need money, and I'm the
party that can supply you. And to make certain that you don't get the
money elsewhere, I'll just take along this vault of the First National
Bank as security"--with which he slipped Mrs. De Peyster's pearl
pendant into his pocket. "Now, think the matter over, girls. I'll be
back in half an hour. So-long for the present."
The door closed behind him.
Mrs. De Peyster gazed wildly after him. The plan "soaked in," as
he had said it would; and as it soaked in, her horror grew. She saw
herself becoming involved, helpless to prevent it, in the plan Mr.
Pyecroft considered so delectable; she saw herself later publicly
exposed as engaged in this scheme to defraud herself; she could hear
all New York laughing. Her whole being shivered and gasped. Of all the
plans ever proposed to a woman--!
And all the weeks and months this Mr. Pyecroft would be hovering about
her!...
Despairingly she sat upright.
"Matilda, we can't stay in the same house with that man."
"Oh, ma'am," breathed the appalled Matilda, "of course not!"
"We've got to leave! And leave before he comes back!"
"Of course, ma'am," cried Matilda. And then: "But--but where?"
"Anywhere to get away from him!"
"But, ma'am, the money?" said Matilda who had handled Mrs. De
Peyster's petty cash account for twenty years, and whose business
it had been to think of petty practicalities. "We've only got
twenty-three cents left, and we can't possibly get any more soon, and
no one will take us in without money or baggage. Don't you see? We
can't stay here, and we can't go any place else."
This certainly was a dilemma. The two gazed at each other, their faces
momently growing more ghastly with helplessness. Then suddenly Mrs. De
Peyster leaned forward, with desperate decision.
"Matilda, we shall go back home!"
"Go home, ma'am?" cried Matilda.
"There's nothing else we can do. I'll slip into my sitting-room, lock
the door, and live there quietly--and Jack will never know I'm in the
house."
"But, ma'am, won't that be dangerous?"
"Danger is comparative. Anything is better than this!"
"Just as you say; I suppose you're right, ma'am." And then with an
hysterical snuffle: "But oh, ma'am, I wish I knew how this thing was
ever going to turn out!"
Five minutes later the two twin figures of somberness, their veils
down, stole stealthily down the stairs and out into the night.