THE WHISPER
MRS. OGDEN looked complaisantly about the theater as the lights were
turned up, and a gentle sigh of content escaped her. No other box party
presented a more distinguished appearance than hers, and again she
heaved a sigh of content; inviting Ethel Ogden to spend the winter with
her had indeed been a clever inspiration. The girl’s beauty and lovable
character had won her place and popularity in Washington’s cosmopolitan
society, and Mrs. Ogden’s card tray was the richer by her presence in
their house. Mrs. Ogden was not adverse to receiving the _entrée_ to
exclusive homes by indirect means, if no better obtained, and she felt
that her winter in Washington had not been misspent energy, and that
some day she might hope to be a Personage.
But Mrs. Ogden’s social ambitions had received a rude setback on being
informed that evening by her husband that Ethel Ogden had refused
James Patterson. Patterson’s great wealth, his career in Congress,
and his family connections made him one of the few real catches in
the National Capital, and Mrs. Ogden had preened herself on receiving
him on an intimate footing in her house. All her plans had worked
out serenely until Julian Barclay’s arrival, and at the thought Mrs.
Ogden’s face hardened. Inviting him had not, decidedly not, been an
inspiration. Come to think of it he had more or less invited himself;
if it had not been for a letter from California stating he was coming
east and might stop in Washington, she would never have written urging
him to visit them. Such being the case, perhaps it would not be a great
breach of hospitality to suggest that he curtail his visit? Two weeks
had slipped by, but she had mentioned a month! This time Mrs. Ogden’s
sigh was distinctly audible, and brought Barclay’s wandering attention
back to her.
“What is troubling you, Cousin Jane?” he inquired, replacing a scarf
about her shoulders.
“The perversity of human nature,” retorted Mrs. Ogden, and he laughed,
while wondering at the concentration of her gaze. Mrs. Ogden sighed
again; Barclay was undeniably handsome, but so was James Patterson in a
big, fine way, and she infinitely preferred the dogged will power and
driving force indicated in his rugged features, to Barclay’s sensitive,
high-strung temperament.
Mrs. Ogden liked to have good-looking people about her, and her gaze
rested on her husband and Professor Norcross with satisfaction; in
their way each was a credit to her box party. Ethel, seated in the
farther corner of the box, was unaware of her cousin’s scrutiny as
she kept up an animated conversation with Professor Norcross. She had
learned in the hard school of necessity to repress her emotions, and
as she talked on indifferent subjects, the professor never guessed the
effort it cost her, nor how maddening was the desire to turn and look
at Julian Barclay.
After the first shock of her mother’s postscript, with its suggestion
of crime and treachery, Ethel had pulled herself together and with the
shrewd common sense of her New England forbears, had reasoned out her
doubts and suspicions. The murder of Dwight Tilghman, the presence of
Julian Barclay on the same train, the presence of her mother in the
Atlanta station at the time the crime was committed, the hand at the
window grasping a suspicious-looking paper, the similarity of the ring
on the hand in the window and the one given her by Julian Barclay, the
arrival of her mother’s letter on the day Barclay had given her the
ring, could be--should be, in her loyal mind,--simply coincidences, to
be explained away when she had a talk with Julian Barclay.
She had dressed early and gone downstairs hoping for an opportunity to
see Barclay alone before dinner, but he had been the last to appear,
and Mrs. Ogden had hurried them off to the theater immediately after
coffee had been served. On entering the box she had expected that
Barclay would occupy the seat directly behind her, but on turning
around she found him standing by the chair nearest Mrs. Ogden. He
caught her eye, bowed, and sat down by Mrs. Ogden.
Ethel had flushed painfully; a look, a smile from her had always
brought him to her side. Could it be that he was intentionally avoiding
her? The thought stung, and turning her back on Barclay, she greeted
Professor Norcross with so brilliant a smile that he was conscious of
an accelerated pulse. But her false gaiety had waned with the progress
of the play, and finally she sat silent in her chair and listened to
Norcross, his voice coming to her as from a long way off.
The amateur performance was given for the benefit of the Associated
Charities, and Washington society had taken tickets and turned out _en
masse_. The boxes were filled with members of the Diplomatic Corps and
Cabinet officers, while justices and men prominent in both Houses of
Congress entertained parties in the orchestra.
“The play is good,” announced Walter Ogden. “But the entr’acte are
fearfully long. Who is that bowing to you, Ethel, there, across the
further aisle in the orchestra?”
Ethel looked vainly in the direction he pointed. “Do you mean Jim
Patterson?” she asked, encountering the Congressman’s eyes.
Patterson rose, excused himself to his neighbors, and clambering over
them, made his way up the aisle.
“No, not Patterson,” explained Ogden. “The man to his left.”
“Oh,” Ethel raised her opera glasses. “Why”--in pleased surprise--“that
is little Maru Takasaki and his wife,” and she bowed in greeting.
“Aren’t they the cutest little pair?”
“If you mean acute, I’ll agree with you.” Barclay had edged his chair
forward and joined in the conversation. “Takasaki has never taken his
eyes off Patterson during each entr’acte.”
“Seems to me you were observing them pretty closely to find that out,”
remarked Mrs. Ogden dryly. “Hardly complimentary to me, Julian.”
“I, eh,” he stammered in some confusion, but the entrance of James
Patterson interrupted him.
“Sit here,” exclaimed Ogden rising and pushing forward a chair toward
the middle of the box, and Patterson, casting an indignant look at
Norcross who still sat by Ethel, accepted the seat offered. Ethel’s
cool smile was not made up to him by Mrs. Ogden’s cordial welcome.
“What were you discussing when I came in?” he asked.
“You,” promptly answered Mrs. Ogden, and Patterson looked gratified.
“Julian had just remarked that the little Jap, Takasaki, has been
watching you all the evening.”
“Not from admiration, I’ll wager.” Patterson’s smile was grim. “I have
a bit of information which may electrify that heavily armed little
empire, and awaken our national indifference to a coming crisis.”
“And when will you explode your bomb?” asked Barclay.
“In a day or so.” Patterson turned and regarded Barclay attentively
from head to foot, and suddenly he smiled, a smile of such satisfaction
that Barclay, his fingers clenched about his program, had difficulty in
controlling his rising anger.
“Is it to be war with Japan?” asked Ogden, smiling ironically. “Sorry,
Patterson, I don’t scare worth a cent.”
“I cannot see, Patterson,” Norcross joined in the conversation, “that
we have so very much to fear in a war with Japan. I think that you
overrate their fighting qualities, and undervalue ours.”
“Not a bit of it,” responded Patterson. “Didn’t that little empire
whip the backbone out of Russia almost in no time? And we are just as
unwieldy and _unready_ as Russia was in those days.”
“Ah, but was their victory entirely the Japs’ doing?” asked Norcross.
“It is believed in China and I have heard it whispered in this country
that the crack marksmen of gun crews were enticed away from American
battleships and cruisers in the Pacific by Japanese wiles to serve on
Japanese battleships. And these American gunners in a large measure
were responsible for Japan’s naval success over Russia.”
“Oh, tush!” ejaculated Ogden unbelievingly.
“I’ve heard that tale before,” admitted Patterson, paying scant
attention to Ogden. “And I believe it. The Japanese use us at every
turn, and when the moment comes, will knife us in the back.”
Ethel had been an interested listener. She had always looked on
Patterson’s fervid tirades against the Japanese as a distinct bore, but
suddenly she saw her way to eliciting information without appearing to
do so, and promptly took a hand in the conversation.
“Didn’t you tell me of a Japanese knifing an American on the train with
you, Mr. Barclay?” she asked.
It was the first time she had addressed him that evening, and Barclay
bent forward so as not to lose a note of her voice.
“A Japanese did poison Dwight Tilghman, not knife him,” he answered.
“Norcross and I were passengers on the same train.”
“How horrible!” Ethel shivered. “Could no one prevent the crime?”
“No one was around--” Barclay waited until Patterson stopped speaking
across him to Mrs. Ogden, and then continued. “The crime was apparently
committed while the train was in the station at Atlanta.”
“Dear me, what a public place in which to commit murder,” chimed in
Mrs. Ogden, not liking to be left too long out of the conversation. “I
should have thought the murder would have been detected instantly.”
“Well, it wasn’t.” At that moment the orchestra ceased playing and in
the sudden quiet Barclay’s voice rang out sharply. “The passengers were
mostly strolling about the station or in Atlanta, during our enforced
wait there, and the Pullman cars were left empty.”
“Did you go sight-seeing also, Barclay?” and as Patterson put the
question his eyes never left Barclay’s face. His absorption prevented
him observing Ethel’s eagerness. She held her breath for Barclay’s
answer which was slow in coming.
“Yes,” he replied. Ethel’s taut muscles relaxed as she sank back in
her chair. She had caught the expression in Barclay’s eyes, and it had
given the lie to his spoken “Yes.” Barclay leaned further forward and
spoke to her directly. “Have you ever come across a man named Yoshida
Ito among your Japanese friends?” he asked.
“What is it?” she mumbled, and raised her handkerchief to conceal her
trembling lips.
“Have you ever met a Japanese named Yoshida Ito?” repeated Norcross, as
the orchestra resumed playing and drowned Barclay’s voice. “He is the
man who is thought to have murdered Tilghman.”
“Yoshida Ito?” Ethel shook her head. “I will ask the ambassador and Mr.
Takasaki; perhaps they may have heard of him.”
“They probably have,” agreed Patterson. “But you will get nothing
out of those two men but what they want you to learn. There goes the
curtain----”
Ethel never afterward remembered one word of what transpired on the
stage; she was grateful for the darkness which concealed the agony
she was enduring from too inquiring eyes. With dry lips and burning
eyeballs she sat staring before her, combating with every reason she
could command her growing conviction that, if not the actual criminal,
Julian Barclay was, in some way responsible for Dwight Tilghman’s
death. If he had not lied when asked his whereabouts in Atlanta!
There must be extenuating circumstances--and yet he had lied. Of that
Ethel was thoroughly convinced; she had come to know and read Julian
Barclay’s expression as only a loving woman can during their brief,
happy days together.
Under cover of the darkness Barclay edged back his chair until he could
get an uninterrupted view of Ethel. He could only see the outline of
her shapely head and shoulders, and he longed unspeakably for the sound
of her voice, the touch of her hand. In a sudden rush of passion all
his loss came home to him, and an involuntary groan escaped between his
clenched teeth. It was drowned in rounds of applause as the curtain
descended at the end of the play.
“Now, Mr. Patterson, you must have supper with us at the New Willard,”
announced Mrs. Ogden, rising to put on her wraps. “I shall not take
‘no’ for an answer.”
“You are awfully kind, Mrs. Ogden.” Patterson looked appealingly at
Ethel, but her face was averted and he only caught a glimpse of a
flushed cheek. He was about to decline the invitation when his dogged
perseverance gained the mastery. “I’ll come with pleasure.”
Barclay moved impulsively to help Ethel on with her cloak, then
drew back as Patterson slipped it about her shoulders. Bah! it was
Patterson’s right, he was the interloper, and turning, he made blindly
for the stairs. Others were before him, however, and he made but slow
progress. Suddenly he realized that Ethel was standing at his elbow. He
was about to speak to her when he caught sight of a face in the crowd
beneath them.
“There--look!” he cried, and his excitement communicated itself to
Ethel.
“Where?” she eagerly scanned the crowd. “Oh, that’s Mr. Takasaki.” But
her words were unheeded as Barclay, regardless of the crowd about them,
forced his way down the staircase and out of the theater.
Ethel turned in bewilderment to Professor Norcross who was on her other
side, and to his horror he found her eyes were filled with tears.
“Pay no attention to Barclay,” he whispered. “He is excitable--and
tomorrow will be properly ashamed of his eccentric behavior. Ah, here
is Mrs. Ogden.”
“Ethel,” Mrs. Ogden was out of breath from her efforts to call to them
over the heads of the crowd. “Mr. Patterson will take you over to the
Willard in his car.”
“Oh, no,” Ethel shrank back. Her endurance had reached the breaking
point, and she could not face another interview with James Patterson.
“I--I--have a splitting headache, Cousin Jane; could you let me go
directly home?”
“And not go to the Willard!” ejaculated Mrs. Ogden in consternation.
“Why, Ethel, Secretary and Mrs. Thomas and their guests are to have
supper with us. You simply must come.”
“Suppose you walk over to the Willard with me,” suggested Norcross.
“The air may do you good, Miss Ogden.” And Ethel flashed him a grateful
smile as she took his arm, but at the theater entrance Patterson joined
them.
“Aren’t you coming with me, Ethel?” he asked.
Norcross answered for her. “Miss Ogden has a bad headache, and we are
walking over to the hotel in the hopes that the exercise may do her
good.”
“But the Willard is several blocks off,” exclaimed Patterson, aghast.
“And in that light dress, Ethel--better let me take you both over in my
limousine; I have room for you, Professor.”
“Very well,” Norcross chose to overlook the incivility which
accompanied the invitation to himself. “I did not realize that the
hotel was so far from the theater, Miss Ogden. Suppose we ride over
with Patterson.”
Ethel acquiesced wearily. So long as she did not have to talk alone to
Patterson it was immaterial to her how she reached the hotel. Except
that she felt under obligation to her cousins she would not have
attended the supper. She was grateful for the silence of the two men
during their short ride to the hotel, and when she entered Peacock
Alley she had regained control of herself.
It was close on two in the morning when Ethel reached her bedroom, and
without undressing, threw herself across the bed and closed her eyes.
She lay there an hour or more, inexplicably weary in mind and body;
then dragged herself upright as the clock on the mantel chimed four.
She removed her gown and slipped on a heavy silk wrapper and made her
way to her desk. There was one thing she must do before more hours
passed, and taking up a pen she wrote:
DEAR MOTHER:
A lengthened pause followed, then she added:
I’ve read your postscript with interest--
She paused again, and continued:
I see no connection between the mysterious hand and the poisoning of
Dwight Tilghman. Don’t bother the coroner with any wild theories. And
I wouldn’t speak of being in the train-shed without a porter, it might
get you into trouble with the railway officials.
Much love, darling Mother, to you and Dad.
Your devoted
ETHEL.
Taking up an envelope Ethel addressed and sealed it and searched
among her papers for her stamp book. Finding it at last she placed a
special delivery as well as a two-cent stamp on the letter, and paused
undecidedly. The letter, if left on the table in the lower hall, would
be posted before seven o’clock by the butler, and she could not rest
until she knew that her warning was on its way to her mother. She had
given orders to have her breakfast served in her bedroom, and if she
kept the letter it might not get mailed before noon.
Ethel crossed the room and opening her hall door peered cautiously into
the corridor. A solitary electric light was burning at the head of the
staircase, and Ethel, leaving her bedroom door ajar, stole along the
corridor and down the staircase. She had reached the table in the large
front entrance hall, had placed her letter upon the silver card tray
and was returning toward the staircase when the sound of a window being
raised sent her heart into her mouth.
She had paused by an alcove, and as she laid her hand on one of the
long portières hanging before it, a figure flitted by her, raced
noiselessly to the back of the hall, raised a window and vaulted
through it. Thoroughly frightened Ethel started forward to ring the
hall bell, but a sound behind her caused her to retreat hastily into
the shelter of the curtained alcove. Peering cautiously out from behind
the portière, she was thunderstruck at the sight of Julian Barclay.
Whether he came from the library, the drawing room, or the entrance
leading to the servants’ quarters it was impossible to tell, as he was
well in the hall when she saw him. Had he detected her presence?
Too surprised to call out, Ethel watched him cross the hall and make
for the open window. He looked out for a second, then drew back and
moved swiftly over to the huge carved mantel. By aid of the hall light,
which Walter Ogden kept burning all night, Ethel saw that Barclay wore
dark trousers and a dark tightly fitting jersey. Pausing by the mantel
Barclay took from an inside pocket a small object and, first touching
it to his lips, placed it in one of the Dresden china jars standing on
the mantel, then running back to the window, he vaulted through it.
Completely mystified and not a little terrified, Ethel paused
undecidedly; then her woman’s curiosity conquered, and she crept softly
over to the mantel. What was it that Barclay had handled so tenderly?
She slipped her hand inside the jar and taking out a small package
wrapped in chamois, unrolled it. It was a miniature of herself.
For one moment Ethel stared at it with unbelieving eyes, then, her
face suffused with blushes, she started to return the miniature to its
hiding place inside the jar when she became conscious that someone
was watching her from the staircase. Wheeling about she saw Professor
Norcross, a sweater drawn over his hastily donned trousers, and caught
the glint of light on the revolver in his hand. Seeing she had observed
him, he raised his finger to his lips, and crossing the hall, joined
her.
“Did he go that way?” he whispered, indicating the open window.
“Yes.” Ethel slipped the miniature unseen inside her pocket.
The professor, not waiting for her answer, hurried to the window. A
second more and Ethel was by his side, peering eagerly out into the
night. It was a fair drop to the ground below, but near at hand was
the low roof of the garage. Ethel, wondering if Barclay and the man he
pursued had used that means to reach the yard, looked farther down the
yard to where the alley light cast some illumination, and her heart
beat fast at sight of Julian Barclay sitting astride the brick wall.
The watchers saw him lean downward toward the alley side, and a faint
whisper reached them.
“Ito, I tell you I have no more money to spare.”
How many minutes Ethel stood by the window she never knew, but a strong
hand drew her back across the hall and inside the portières of the
alcove as a noise of someone scrambling upward cut the stillness. A
few seconds later Julian Barclay clambered through the window, turned,
closed it, and sped swiftly up the staircase.
In silence Ethel walked over to the staircase, Norcross at her side,
but under the full rays from the electric light on the newel post she
recoiled at the expression in the professor’s eyes.
“You must not tell,” she whispered, putting out her hand imploringly.
“You must not get Julian into trouble. He”--her voice shook--“he can
explain.”
Norcross laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. “Trust me,” he whispered
comfortingly. “Good night,” and with a sobbing word of thanks, Ethel
fled upstairs.