PROOFS AND MORE PROOFS
"You are absolutely crazy!" I said, laughing, though the laugh choked
in my throat, as I looked at Stone. "You see, Fibsy, you're gone dotty
over this thing, and you're running round in circles. I know both Mrs.
Schuyler and Miss Van Allen, and they've nothing in common. There
couldn't be two people more dissimilar."
"That's just it--that's how I know," wailed the boy. "That's how I
first caught on. You see--oh, tell him, Mr. Stone."
"The boy is right," said Stone, slowly. "And the--"
"He can't be right! It's impossible!" I fairly shouted, as thoughts
came flashing into my mind--dreadful thoughts, appalling thoughts!
Ruth Schuyler and Vicky Van one person! Why, then, Ruth killed--No! a
thousand times NO! It couldn't be true! The boy was insane, and Stone
was, too. I'd show them their own foolishness.
"Stop a minute, Stone," I said, trying to speak calmly. "You and the
boy never knew Vicky Van. You never saw her, except as she ran along
the street for a few steps at midnight. And Terence didn't see her
then. It's too absurd, this theory of yours! But it startled me, when
you sprung it. Now, Fibsy, stop your sobbing and tell me what makes
you think this foolish thing, and I'll relieve your mind of any such
ideas."
"I don't blame you, Mr. Calhoun," and Fibsy mopped his eyes with his
wet handkerchief. He was a strange little figure, in his new clothes,
but with his red hair tumbled and his eyes big and swollen with
weeping. "I know you can't believe it, but you listen a bit, while I
tell Mr. Stone some things. Then you'll see."
"Yes, Terence," said Stone; "go ahead. What about the prints?"
"They prove up," and Fibsy's woe increased afresh. "They ain't no
shadder of doubt. The very reason I know they're the same is 'cause
they're so unlike. Yes, I'll explain--wait a minute--"
Again a crying spell overwhelmed him, and we waited.
"Now," he said, regaining self-control, "now I've spilled all my tears
I'll out with it. The first thing that struck me was the abserlute
unlikeness of those two ladies. I mean in their tastes an' ways. Why,
fer instance, an' I guess it was jest about the very first thing I
noticed, was the magazines. In here, on Miss Van Allen's table, as you
can see yourself, is--jest look at 'em! Vogue, Vanity Fair, Life,
Cosmopolitan, an' lots of light-weight story magazines. In at
Schuylers' house is Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Century, The Forum,
The North American Review, and a lot of other highbrow reading. An'
it ain't _only_ that the magazines in here are gayer an' lighter, an'
in there heavier an' wiser; but there isn't a single duplicate! Now,
Miss Vicky Van likes good readin', you can see from her books an' all,
so why don't she take Harper's an' Century? 'Cause she has 'em in her
other home--"
"But, wait, child," I cried, getting bewildered; "you don't mean Vicky
Van lives sometimes in this house and sometimes in the Schuyler house
as its mistress!"
"That's jest what I do mean. I know it sounds like I was batty, but
let me tell more. Well, it seemed queer that there shouldn't be any
one magazine took in both houses, but, of course, that wasn't no real
proof. I only noticed it, an' it set me a thinkin'. Then I sized up
their situations. Mrs. Schuyler's dignified an' quiet in her ways,
simple in her dress, wears only poils, no other sparklers whatever.
Vicky Van's gay of action, likes giddy rags, and adores gorgeous
jewelry, even if it ain't the most realest kind. Now, wait--don't
interrup' me, Lemme talk it out. 'Cause it's killin' me, an' I gotter
get it over with. Well, all Mrs. Schuyler's things--furnicher, I
mean--is big an' heavy an' massive, an' terrible expensive. Yes, I
know her husband made her have it that way. But never mind that. Vicky
Van's furnicher is all gay an' light an' pretty an' dainty colorin'
and so forth. And the day the old sister-in-laws was in here they
said, 'How Ruth would admire to have things like these! 'Member how
she begged Randolph to do up her boodore in wicker an' pink silk?'
That's what they said! Oh, well, I got a bug then that the two ladies
I'm talkin' about was just the very oppositest I ever did see! Then,
another thing was the records. The phonygraft in here is full of light
opery and poplar music like that. Not a smell o' fugues and classic
stuff. An' in at Schuyler's, as we seen to-night, there's no gay
songs, no comic operas, no ragtime."
"But, Terence," I broke in, "that all proves nothing! The Schuylers
don't care for ragtime and Vicky Van does. You mustn't distort those
plain facts to fit your absurd theory!"
"Yes," he said, his eyes burning as they glared into mine. "An' Mr.
Schuyler he wouldn't never let his wife go to the light operas or
vodyville, an' she hadn't any records, so how--_how_, I ask you, comes
it that she's so familiar with the song about 'My Pearlie Girlie' that
she joined in the singin' of it with me at the dinner table to-night?
That's what clinched it. Mrs. Schuyler, she knew that song's well as I
did, and she picked it up where I left off and hummed it straight to
the end--words _and_ music! How'd she know it, I say?"
"Why, she might have picked that up anywhere. She goes to see
friends, I've no doubt, who are not so straight-laced as the
Schuylers, and they play light tunes for her."
"Not likely. I've run down her friends, and they're all old fogies
like the sister dames or like old man Schuyler himself. The old ladies
are nearly sixty and Mr. Schuyler was fifty odd, and all their friends
are along about those ages, and Mrs. Schuyler, she ain't got any
friends of her own age at all. But, as Vicky Van, she has friends of
her own age, yes, an' her own tastes, an' her own ways of life an'
livin.' An' she's got the record of 'My Pearlie Girlie.'"
"It's true, Calhoun," said Fleming Stone. "I know it's all incredible,
but it's true. I couldn't believe it, myself, when Fibsy hinted it to
me--for it's his find--to him belongs all the credit--"
"Credit!" I groaned. "Credit for fastening this lie, this base
lie--oh, you are well named Fibsy!--on the best and loveliest woman
that ever lived! For it is a lie! Not a word of truth in it. A
distorted notion of a crazy brain! A--"
"Hold on, Calhoun," remonstrated Stone, and I dare say I was acting
like a madman. "Listen to the rest of this more quietly or take your
hat and go home."
Stone spoke firmly, but not angrily, and I sat still.
"Then, here's some more things," Fibsy continued. "I've gone over this
house with a eye that sees more'n Mr. Stone's lens, an' it don't
magnerfy, neither. I spotted a lot of stuff in the pantry and
storeroom. It's all stuff that keeps, you know; little jugs an' pots
of fine eatin'--imported table delicacies--that's what they call 'em.
Well, an' among 'em was lickures an' things like that. And boxes of
candied rose leaves an' salted nuts--oh, all them things. An' that's
why I wanted to go to dinner at Mrs. Schuyler's an' see if she liked
to eat those things. An' she did! She had the rose leaves an' she had
the kind o' lickure that's down in the pantry cupboard in this house.
An' she said it was her fav'rite, an' the old girls said she never
used to have those things when her husband was runnin' the house--an'
oh, dear, can't you see it all?"
"Yes, I see it," said Stone, but I still shook my head doggedly and
angrily.
"I don't see it!" I declared. "There's nothing to all this but a pipe
dream! Why shouldn't two women like _Eau de vie de Dantzic_ as a
liqueur? It's very fashionable--a sort of fad, just now."
"It ain't only this thing or that thing, Mr. Calhoun," said Fibsy,
earnestly. "It's the pilin' up of all 'em. An' I ain't through yet.
Here's another point. Miss Van Allen, she ain't got any pitchers of
nature views--no landscapes nor woodsy dells in this whole house. She
jest likes pitchers of people--pretty girls, an' old cavalier
gentlemen, an nymps, an' kiddy babies--but all human, you know. Now,
Mrs. Schuyler, _she_ don't care anythin' special for nature, neither.
I piped up about the beauty scenery out Westchester way an' over in
the park, an' it left her cold an' onintrusted. But she has portfolios
of world masterpieces, or whatever you call 'em, over to that house,
an' they're all figger pieces."
"And her writing desk," prompted Stone.
"Yessir, that checked up, too. You know, Mr. Calhoun, they ain't
nothin' more intim'tly pers'nal than a writin' desk. Well, Miss Van
Allen's has a certain make of pen, an' a certain number and kind of
pencils. An' Mrs. Schuyler, she uses the same identical styles an'
numbers."
"And notepaper, I suppose," I flung back, sarcastically.
"No, sir, but that helps prove. The note paper in the two houses is
teetumteetotally different! That was planned to be different! Mrs.
Schuyler's is a pale gray, plain paper. Miss Van Allen's is light
pink, to match her boodore, I s'pose. An' it has that sort of indented
frame round it, that's extry fashionable, an' a wiggly gold monogram,
oh--quite a big one!"
I well remembered Vicky's stationery, and the boy described it
exactly.
"Proves nothing!" I said, contemptuously, but I listened further.
"All right," Fibsy said, wearily pushing back his shock of red hair.
"Well, then, how's this? On Mrs. Schuyler's desk the pen wiper is a
fancy little contraption, but it's clean-I mean it's never had a pen
wiped on it. Miss Van Allen's desk hasn't got any pen wiper. On each
desk is a pencil sharpener, of the same sort. On each desk is a little
pincushion, with the same size of tiny pins, like she was in the habit
of pinnin' bills together or sumpum like that. On each desk the
blotter is in the same place and is used the same way. There's a lot
of pussonality 'bout the way folks use a blotter. Some uses both
sides, some only one side. Some has their blotters all torn an' sorta
nibbled round the edges, an' some has 'em neat and trim. Well, the
blotters on these two desks is jest alike--"
"But, Fibsy," I cried in triumph, "I've seen the handwriting of these
two ladies, over and over again, and they're not a bit alike!"
"I know it," and Fibsy nodded. "But, Mr. Calhoun, did you know that
Miss Van Allen always writes with her left hand?"
"No, and I don't believe she does!"
"Yessir. I went to the bank an' they said so. An' I asked the sewin'
woman, an' she said so. An' I asked the caterer people an' they said
so. And the inkstand is on the left-hand side of Miss Van Allen's
desk."
"All right, then she is left-handed, but that proves nothing!"
"No, sir, Miss Van Allen ain't left-handed. You know she ain't
yourself. You'd 'a' noticed it if she had been. But she writes
left-handed, 'cause if she didn't she'd write like Mrs. Schuyler!"
"Oh, rubbish!" I began, but Fleming Stone interrupted.
"Wait, Calhoun, don't fly to pieces. All Terence is saying is quite
true. I vouch for it. Listen further."
"They ain't no use goin' further," said Fibsy, despondently. "Mr.
Calhoun knows I'm right, only he can't bring himself to believe it,
an' I don't blame him. Why, even now, he's sizin' up the case an'
everything he thinks of proves it an' nothin' disproves it. But
anyway, the prints prove it all."
"Prints?" I said, half dazedly.
"Yessir. I photographed a lot o' finger prints in both houses, an' the
Headquarters people fixed 'em up for me, magnerfied 'em, you know, an'
printed 'em on little cards, an' as you can see, they're all the
same."
I glanced at the sheaf of cards the boy had and Fleming Stone took
them to scrutinize.
"I got those prints from all sorts of places," Fibsy went on. "Off of
the glass bottles and things in the bathrooms and off of the hair
brushes and such things, an' off of the envelopes of letters, an' off
the chairbacks an' any polished wood surfaces, an' I got lots of 'em
in both houses, an' the police people picked out the best an' cleanest
an' fixed 'em up, an' there you are!"
They seemed to think this settled the matter. But I would not be
convinced. Of course, I'd been told dozens of times that no two people
in the world have finger prints alike, but that didn't mean a thing to
me. It might be, I told them, that Vicky Van and Ruth Schuyler were
friends, that Ruth had withheld this fact, and that--
"No," said Stone, "not friends, but identical--the same woman. And,
listen to this. Mrs. Schuyler heard us say this evening that Fibsy
could photograph the brushes and such things over here to get Miss Van
Allen's finger prints, and what does she do? She sends Tibbetts over
to scrub and wipe off those same brushes, also the mirrors, chairbacks
and all such possible evidence. A hopeless task--for the woman
couldn't eradicate all the prints in the house. And, also, it was too
late, for Fibsy had already done his camera work."
"How do you know she did all that?" and I glowered at the detective.
"Because Fibsy just told me he found evidences of this cleaning up,
and, too, because Mrs. Schuyler purposely kept us over there longer
than we intended to stay. You know how, when we proposed to say
good-night, she urged us to stay longer. That was to give her maid
more time for the work. Now, Mr. Calhoun, go on with your objections
to our conclusions. It helps our theory to answer your refutations."
"Her letters," I mumbled, scarce able to formulate my teeming
thoughts. "Vicky Van sent a letter to Ruth Schuyler--"
"Of course, she did. Wrote it herself, with her left hand, and mailed
it to her other personality, in order to make the police give up the
search. And, too, the letter from Miss Van Allen, found in Randolph
Schuyler's desk after his death, was written and placed there by Mrs.
Schuyler for us to find."
"Impossible!" I cried. "I won't allow these libels. You'll be saying
next that Ruth Schuyler killed her husband!"
"She did," asserted Fleming Stone, gravely. "She did kill him, in her
character as Vicky Van. Don't you see it all? Schuyler came here as
Somers, never dreaming that Vicky Van was his own wife in disguise.
Or, he may have suspected it, and may have come to verify his
suspicion. Any way, when she saw and recognized him, whether he knew
her or not, she lured him out to the dining room and stabbed him with
the caterer's knife."
"Never!" I said. I was not ranting now, I was stunned by the
revelations that were coming so thick and fast. I couldn't believe and
yet I couldn't doubt. Of one thing I was certain, I would defend Ruth
Schuyler to the end of time. I would defend her against Vicky
Van--why, if Ruth was Vicky Van--where was this moil to end! I
couldn't think coherently. But I suddenly realized that what they told
me was true. I realized that all along there were things about Ruth
that had reminded me of Vicky. I had never put this into words, never
had really sensed it, but I saw now, looking back, that they had much
in common.
Appearance! Ah, I hadn't yet thought of that.
"Why," I exclaimed, "the two are not in the least alike, physically!"
"Miss Van Allen wore a black wig," said Stone. "A most cleverly
constructed one, and she rouged her cheeks, penciled her eyelashes and
reddened her lips to produce the high coloring that marked her from
Mrs. Schuyler."
I thought this over, dully. Yes, they were the same height and weight,
they had the same slight figure, but it had never occurred to me to
compare their physical effects. I was a bit near-sighted and I had
never taken enough real personal interest in Vicky to learn to love
her features as I had Ruth's.
"You see," Fleming Stone was saying, though I scarce listened, "you
are the only person that I have been able to find who knows both Miss
Van Allen and Mrs. Schuyler. No one else has testified who knows them
both. So much depends on you."
"You'll get nothing from me!" I fairly shouted. "They're not the same
woman at all. You're all wrong, you and your lying boy there!"
"Your vehemence stultifies your own words," said Stone, quietly; "it
proves your own realization of the truth and your anger and fury at
that realization. I don't blame you. I know your regard for Mrs.
Schuyler, I know you have always been a friend of Miss Van Allen. It
is not strange that one woman attracts you, since the other did. But
you've got to face this thing, so be a man and look at it squarely.
I'll help you all I can, but I assure you there's nothing to be gained
by denial of the self-evident truth."
"But, man," I said, trying to be calm, "the whole thing is impossible!
How could Mrs. Randolph Schuyler, a well-known society lady, live a
double life and enact Miss Van Allen, a gay butterfly girl? How could
she get from one house to the other unobserved? Why wouldn't her
servants know of it, even if her family didn't? How could she hoodwink
her husband, her sisters-in-law, and her friends? Why didn't people
see her leaving one house and entering the other? Why wasn't she
missed from one house when she was in the other?"
"All answerable questions," said Stone. "You know Miss Van Allen went
away frequently on long trips, and was in and out of her home all the
time. Here to-day and gone to-morrow, as every one testifies who knew
her."
This was true enough. Vicky was never at home more than a few days at
a time and then absent for a week or so. Where? In the Fifth Avenue
house as Ruth Schuyler? Incredible! Preposterous! But as I began to
believe at last, true.
"How?" I repeated; "how could she manage?"
"Walls have tongues," said Stone. "These walls and this house tell me
all the story. That is, they tell me this wonderful woman did
accomplish this seemingly impossible thing. They tell me how she
accomplished it. But they do not tell me why."
"There's no question about the why," I returned. "If Ruth Schuyler
did live two lives it's easily understood why. Because that brute of a
man allowed her no gayety, no pleasure, no fun of any sort compatible
with her youth and tastes. He let her do nothing, have nothing, save
in the old, humdrum ways that appealed to his notion of propriety.
But he himself was no Puritan! He ran his own gait, and, unknown to
his wife and sisters, he was a roue and a rounder! Whatever Ruth
Schuyler may have done, she was amply justified---"
"Even in killing him?"
"She didn't kill him! Look here, Mr. Stone, even if all you've said is
true, you haven't convicted her of murder yet. And you shan't! I'll
protect that woman from the breath of scandal or slander--and that's
what it is when you accuse her of killing that man! She never did it!"
"That remains to be seen," and Fleming Stone's deep gray eyes showed a
sad apprehension. "But nothing can be done to-night. Can there,
Terence?"
"No, Mr. Stone, not to-night. No, by no means, not to-night! It
wouldn't do!" The boy's earnestness seemed to me out of all proportion
to his simple statement, but I could stand no more and I went home, to
spend the night in a dazed wonder, a furious disbelief, and finally an
enforced conviction that Vicky Van and Ruth Schuyler were one and the
same.