Thick and Fast
However faint the appeal it made to Johnson Boller, Anthony's statement
had been the literal truth--his sole concern just now was the shielding
of Mary Dalton.
More and more, these last calmer minutes, the ghastly aspect of the case
as viewed from the woman's side had appealed to him. It is entirely
possible that a little real mental suffering had rendered Anthony Fry
less selfish and more considerate of the rest of the human race--Johnson
Boller always excepted--than he had been for many years.
Whatever the cause, the weight of his own guilt was bearing down harder
and harder, and he was prepared to go to extreme lengths if necessary in
the way of keeping Mary's adventure an eternal secret.
But like many another plan and resolve of this bedeviled night and
morning, the latest had been blasted to flinders!
Beatrice Boller, standing there with Mary's hat still clutched tight and
partly broken, was not smiling the smile of a woman who fancied herself
on the right track. She smiled the smile of one who knew exactly where
she stood. Her lips curled now as she examined the worm that had been
her husband, and she perched on the edge of the center-table.
"Unfortunate, isn't it, that you didn't pick some poor drab from the
streets?" she asked, significantly and triumphantly. "Unfortunate for
you and unfortunate for her!"
"Well, this--well, this----" Johnson Boller tried.
"Don't talk to me, please. I want to talk to you--oh, not for my sake or
for your sake, to be sure. I don't know how much real man may be left in
either of you; not very much, I imagine. But if you do want to save two
innocent women from a good deal of embarrassment, you shall have the
chance."
She laughed again as she watched the effect of the cryptic statement.
She sat down, then, and having opened her hand-bag and drawn therefrom a
little slip of paper, she resumed her inspection of the silent pair.
"You don't understand at all, do you? Well, you shall! Your lady friend
made one mistake, gentlemen. Any young woman off on that sort of
adventure should be cautious enough to destroy marks of identification.
This hat, as it happens, came from Mme. Altier, just uptown."
"The little blonde?" escaped from Johnson Boller.
"The little blonde," sneered his wife. "The little blonde is quite a
friend of mine; I lent her the money that started her in business up
this way, in fact, and I've been buying hats there for five years.
Therefore, I went and interviewed the little blonde, and her memory and
her methods of bookkeeping are alike commendable. She might not have
told another woman, but she was very glad to tell me."
Beatrice gazed at the slip briefly.
"Mrs. Henry Wales!" she said very suddenly indeed, and sent her eyes
straight through both of them at once.
Innocent for once, Anthony and Johnson Boller merely frowned at
Beatrice, and after a little she shrugged her shoulders.
"Not Mrs. Henry Wales, evidently," she mused. "Very well; I was right
about her. I've met her, I think, and she seemed a little bit too nice
for that sort of thing. Er--Laura Cathcart!"
Once more the word was hurled straight into them. Once more Anthony and
his old friend stared innocently--but they did a little more this time.
They turned and stared at one another, and all the air between them
vibrated with a wordless message!
Beatrice had made one grave tactical error in not reading the right name
first; Anthony and his friend understood now and were quite prepared for
anything--and it seemed almost as if Beatrice sensed the message, for
she frowned a little as she said:
"Mary Dalton!"
Blankly, innocently as babes unborn, and still not too innocently
withal, Anthony and Johnson Boller stared back, and the latter even had
assurance enough to say:
"What's the idea, Bee? Is it a roll-call?"
"It is the names of the three women in New York who have bought that
particular style of hat from Sarah," said Mrs. Boller. "She made up just
three, as is her custom, and when they were sold she made no more. So
that in spite of your extreme wonder at hearing the names, and although
I had rather hoped to guess which one it might be, one of that trio was
in this flat last night. Which one?"
Johnson Boller shook his head vigorously.
"None of 'em!" he said flatly.
"What do _you_ say?" Beatrice asked Anthony.
"Madam, I decline to say anything whatever!" Anthony said stiffly.
"Really?" smiled Beatrice, and gazed at them pensively for a little
while. "I do not know intimately any of these ladies. They have,
doubtless, a husband and fathers and, I hope, a few big brothers, too,
to take care of them properly. And since they have, I may as well tell
you just what I mean to do. I'm going to Mrs. Wales first."
It produced no visible shock.
"I'm going to accuse her, in so many words, of passing last night in
this apartment, and I'll say you confessed!" pursued Beatrice. "Perhaps
she can clear herself by showing me the duplicate of this hat; perhaps
she cannot. In any event, it seems probable that her husband and the
rest of her male relatives will make a point of coming here and beating
you two to a jelly."
It did seem rather likely, and Johnson Boller glanced at his old friend
and received no aid at all.
"Unless she confesses, Miss Cathcart receives the next call," said
Johnson's wife. "The procedure will be the same; the results to you, I
sincerely hope, will be the same. After that, if necessary, I shall go
to the Dalton woman's home and repeat the performance, and doubtless
_her_ father and _her_ brothers will----"
"Say! Do you want to have us killed?" Johnson Boller gasped.
"Yes!" hissed the Spanish strain in Beatrice. "Well?"
Anthony shook his head quietly.
"None of the ladies you have mentioned----" he began.
"One of them was here, and I'll soon know which one!" Beatrice corrected
quickly. "Do you wish to save the other two?"
Anthony said nothing.
"Nope!" Johnson Boller said doggedly.
Beatrice rose slowly and looked them over.
"Do you know," said she, all withering contempt, "I had been fool enough
to fancy that there was man enough in one or the other of you to spare
the innocent women a very distressing quarter of an hour. Even if that
failed, I had fancied that one or the other would have sufficient
intelligence to avoid a thrashing if possible. I was wrong! There isn't
a spark of manhood or an ounce of brain matter in either of you--and to
think that I married _you_!"
She had risen. She was getting ready to go upon her fell mission; and
the calm contempt slid away from Anthony and cold terror crawled up his
spinal column. Just when he had fondly imagined that all was well,
Beatrice had come and proved that all was anything else in the world!
Just when he had fancied that Mary was safe at home and, with her
doubtless capable maid, was devising a convincing tale to account for
her absence, Beatrice must needs appear and show that, tale or no tale,
Mary was to be accused.
And there wasn't a flaw in her program, by the way. She held the hat as
a man might cling to a straw in mid-ocean; and the lady who could show a
similar hat would clear herself and then start her male relatives after
Anthony; and the lady who could not show a similar hat--was Mary!
Obviously the fine resolve he had made was to avail little enough, but
Anthony could think of no way of staying the lady. Physical force leaped
up as a possibility in his tortured mind and leaped out again as
quickly.
One suggestion of that sort of thing and instinct told him that
Beatrice, in her present unlovely mood, would scream until the rafters
echoed, if they happened to have rafters in the Hotel Lasande. Moral
suasion, honeyed talk were still farther from the possibilities. No,
Beatrice would have to go!
She was ready now. Habit superseding circumstances, Beatrice had stepped
to the mirror and tucked up a few stray locks of hair. The little hat
was under her arm, and the arm had shut down tight on it.
"You two _curs_!" Beatrice said, by way of farewell, and turned away
from them with a sweep.
It was no apartment in which to do what one expected to do. Beatrice,
one step taken, stopped short. Out at the door some one was hammering in
a way oddly familiar. Anthony, rising again, hurried to answer the
summons--and the door was hardly open when young Robert Vining hurtled
in and gripped him by both arms.
"It's no use, Anthony!" he gasped. "There's not a trace of her yet!"
"No?"
"She's gone! She's _gone_!" cried Robert, breaking into his familiar
refrain. "I've just had the house on the wire, and there's no news of
her at all as yet. I've had police headquarters on the wire, and they
haven't heard or seen a thing. Miriam--that's one of her chums--has just
finished going over Bellevue, and there's no sign of Mary down there!"
By now they were in the living-room, and Beatrice, somewhat startled at
the sign of a being in agony equal to her own stood aside.
"She's gone!" said Robert Vining. "And I've been around to
Helène's--that's another of her chums, Anthony--and she's going to
telephone all the girls. That takes that off my hands and leaves me free
to go over all the hospitals that haven't been covered yet. That's what
brings me here, old man. You'll have to come with me."
"Very well!" Anthony said swiftly. "We'll start now."
"Because I haven't got the nerve to do it alone!" Robert cried.
"I--somebody has to go to the Morgue, too! And suppose we should go down
there--I was there just once and I had the horrors for a month--suppose
we should go down there and find her, Anthony, all----"
"Hush!" said Anthony. "Don't go into the possibilities; there's a lady
present, Bob."
Vining almost came to earth for a moment.
"What?"
"To be sure. Mrs. Boller--Mr. Robert Vining."
He spoke directly at her, so that Robert, out of his emotional fog,
gained an idea of her location, and turned dizzily toward her. There was
upon his countenance a strained, heart-broken, half-apologetic smile as
he faced Beatrice Boller. He bowed, too, perfunctorily.
Then Robert raised his stricken eyes.
And as he raised them, a great shock ran through Robert, and after it he
stiffened. His eyes popped, as if he could not quite believe what he
saw, and his body swayed forward. Robert, with a hoarse, incoherent
scream, ran straight at Beatrice Boller and snatched away the hat from
under her arm.
"That's Mary's! That's Mary's!" he cried hysterically. "That's Mary's
hat, because I was with her the day she bought it, and I'd know it among
ten thousand hats! Yes, and it's torn and broken--it's all smashed on
this side!"
Greenish white, jaw sagging, Robert looked from one to the other of
them.
"You--you're afraid to tell me!" said he. "She--there was an accident! I
can see that by the hat. There was an accident and she was hurt
and--where is she now? Where is she now? Good God! Is she--dead?"
"She isn't dead," Anthony said queerly, because he had been looking at
Beatrice and feeling his flesh crawl as he looked.
"Then where is Mary? Why don't you tell me about it?" Robert stormed on.
"What's the matter? Is she badly hurt? Doesn't she want me? Hasn't she
tried to send for me?" And whirling upon Beatrice, the unfortunate young
man threw out his hands and cried: "You tell me, if they will not! What
has happened to her? Where did you get the hat?"
Normally, Beatrice Boller was the very last mortal in the world to
inflict pain upon a fellow-being; but the normal Beatrice was far away
just now.
As Anthony noted with failing heart, it was a big moment for the
outraged creature before Robert Vining, for she was about to make
another of the accursed sex to suffer. It did not seem humanly possible
that she could communicate her personal view of Mary to Robert; but
certainly Beatrice was accomplishing a very dramatic pause, and in it
her lips drew back and showed her beautiful teeth.
"The young lady is a friend of yours, too?" she asked very sweetly.
"Friend!" cried Robert cried. "She's the girl I'm going to marry! Where
is she, madam? Can't you tell me what has happened?"
Beatrice's laugh was blood-curdling.
"Mrs. Boller!" Anthony cried. "I protest----"
"Do you really?" Beatrice smiled and turned directly to Robert. "So
you're going to marry her?"
"What? Yes."
"Or perhaps you're not!" Mrs. Boller mused, "You think her a very worthy
young woman?"
Robert looked blankly at her.
"But she is not," Beatrice said softly. "And you look like a decent
sort, and however much it may hurt for a little, you shall have the
truth. You asked me where I found this hat. Well, it was in the bedroom
at the end of that corridor--Mr. Boller's room!"
She waited vainly for a little, because Robert simply did not
comprehend. He frowned at Beatrice and then shook his head.
"What--what do you say?"
"It had been there all night, Mr. Vining," Beatrice purred on. "So had
she!"
"Mary--_my Mary_? Mary Dalton?" Robert gasped.
"Mary Dalton!"
"But that--that's all damned--pardon me!--nonsense! That----"
He turned on Anthony; and then, quickly as he had turned, he gasped and
stared with burning eyes.
View him as one chose, there was nothing about Anthony to indicate that
it was nonsense. He was biting his lips; his eyes were upon the floor;
had he rehearsed the thing for months he could not possibly have looked
more guilty.
"Why--why----" choked Robert Vining.
Beatrice laid a slender hand on his arm.
"Come with me," she said quickly. "Come and see her bag and her little
toilet case and several other of her things. Perhaps you'll recognize
them, too, and they'll convince you that she really settled down here
for a visit. Come!"
As a man in a dreadful dream, Robert Vining followed her blindly into
the corridor and out of sight. Johnson Boller smiled a demon smile and
thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets.
"Here's where _he_ gets _his_!" he stated. Anthony could no more than
speak.
"That--that woman!" he contrived. "What an absolutely merciless
thing----"
"Huh? Bee?" the remarkable Boller said sharply. "She's all right; she's
acting according to her own lights, isn't she? Why the devil shouldn't
Vining suffer, too? D'ye think I'm the only man in the world that has to
suffer?"
"I think you're in luck if she divorces you!" Anthony stated feelingly.
"A woman capable of that is capable of anything!"
Johnson Boller stayed the angry words upon his lips and smiled grimly.
More, after a moment he thrust out his hand.
"I guess it doesn't matter much what you think now, Anthony," said he.
"Good-by!"
"What?"
"Good-by, old man! You're going to leave this world in about three
minutes, you know--just as soon as he's convinced and able to act again,
Anthony. So long I'll be sorry to think of you as missing--sometimes, I
suppose, but not when I think what you've put over on me."
Anthony laughed viciously.
"Don't use up all your sympathy," he said. "You may need a little for
yourself, Johnson. The things are in what's supposed to be _your_ room,
you know."
"What?" gasped Johnson Boller. "That's true! That----"
Out at the entrance, a key was scraping in the latch; and when it had
scraped for the second time Anthony smiled forlornly.
"Wilkins," he said. "Back to report that the girl's safe at
home--whatever good that may do now. Is that you, Wilkins?"
"That's--that's me, sir!" Wilkins puffed.
And the door closed and in the foyer bump--bump--bump indicated that
Wilkins was carrying something, a trunk one might almost have thought
from the sound. Rather red, gleaming perspiration that had not all come
from exertion, Wilkins appeared, moved into the room, gazed feelingly at
his master, was about to speak and then caught the sound of voices from
David's room.
"The--the parties couldn't attend to the trunk to-day!" said Wilkins.
"_She_--isn't in there?" Anthony whispered.
"I have no reason to think otherwise, sir," said the faithful one.
"You didn't leave her?"
"There was no one to leave her with, sir, and I was ordered out with the
trunk," Wilkins said, smiling wanly. "There wasn't nowhere to come but
here, sir, with the police after me."
From down the corridor issued--
"Yes! I'm--Heaven help me--I'm convinced!"
"I'll be taking her into your room, sir," Wilkins said hastily. "She
must be needing a breath of air by this time, poor young lady!"
Another nightmare figure, he lumbered across the living-room and into
Anthony's chamber; and regardless of possible consequences Anthony
followed and snatched open the trunk.
Mary had not expired. Her face was decidedly red and her eyes rather
bewildered, but she struggled out with Anthony's assistance, breathed
deeply several times, glanced at her hair in the mirror and then, being
a thoroughly good sport, Mary even managed a small, wretched laugh.
"Back again!" she said simply. "They'd discharged Felice."
"Was there--nobody else?" Anthony asked.
"Dorothy, our little parlor maid, would have done, I suppose, but
Wilkins didn't know about her," said the girl, facing him. "It's pretty
awful, isn't it?"
Even now she had not lost her nerve! The chivalrous something in Anthony
welled up more strongly than ever; the precise, rather old-maidish
quality of his expression vanished altogether--and for the very first
time Mary almost liked him.
"It's very awful, indeed," he said quickly. "More awful than you
imagine, but--we'll try to believe that all is not lost even now. One
way or another, I'll get you out of it, Miss Mary, if I have to lie my
soul into perdition. I don't know how at the moment, but the way will
indicate itself; I decline to believe anything else! You'll have to stay
here and keep your ears wide open and take your cue from whatever I'm
saying. I hope----"
"Psst!" said Johnson Boller.
Anthony left the room with a motion that was more twitch than anything
else, and he left it none too soon. The shock, or the first of it, was
over; Robert Vining was coming back to them, not like a nice young man,
but rather like a Kansas cyclone! Three thuds in the corridor, and he
appeared before them.
Robert's countenance was gray-white; his white lips, parted a little,
seemed to be stretched over his teeth; his eyes blazed blue fire! And
behind Robert--and be it confessed that there was a certain indefinite
atmosphere of fright about her--Beatrice smiled.
"So you--_you_--you beastly scoundrel!" Robert began, his hands working
as he looked straight at Johnson Boller and ignored the very existence
of Anthony Fry. "I don't know whether a thing like you can pray, but if
you can, pray quick!"
"_Me?_" Johnson Boller gulped.
Robert laughed dreadfully.
"Don't waste your time gaping!" he said, thickly. "Pray if you want to,
because you're going to die! D'ye hear? I'm going to choke out your
nasty life as I'd choke the life out of a mad dog."
"Not my life!" Johnson Boller protested, with pale lips, as he pointed
at Anthony. "He----"
"Whatever he may have had to do with luring her here I can settle with
him afterward!" Robert cried. "My concern is with _you_; and if you want
to say anything, hurry about it. I can't hold myself more than another
second or two!"
By way of proving it, he stalked down upon Johnson Boller--not rapidly,
but with a deadly slowness and deliberation which suggested the tiger
coming down upon its prey. His flaring eyes had fascinated the victim,
too, for Johnson Boller could not move a muscle. Once he tried to smile
a farewell at Beatrice; his eyes would not remain away from Robert even
long enough for that. Once he tried to look at Anthony, but it was quite
useless.
And from that ominous region of the doorway came Wilkins's warm tones:
"Well, that's all right, gentlemen, but he's busy now."
"He's not too busy to see me," said an entirely strange voice, and heavy
steps passed by Wilkins.
Into the large room which had already seen so much suffering, the
distinctly scared person of Hobart Hitchin was propelled by a large,
hairy hand. The owner of the hand glanced at him for an instant; and
then for five terrific seconds stared at Anthony Fry, who after the
first violent start had turned immobile as Johnson Boller himself.
"Mr.--what's your name?--Hitchin!" Dalton barked.
Hobart Hitchin straightened up with an effort.
"Fry," said he, "we--er--that is, I accuse you of the--ah--murder of
Theodore Dalton's only son, Richard, alias David Prentiss!"