AT THE STATION
So it had been the tiger, not the lady! Well, I had held to that theory
all through. Jennie suddenly became a valuable person; if necessary she
could prove the connection between Sullivan and the murdered man, and
show a motive for the crime. I was triumphant when Hotchkiss came in.
When the girl had produced a photograph of Mrs. Sullivan, and I had
recognized the bronze-haired girl of the train, we were both well
satisfied—which goes to prove the ephemeral nature of most human
contentments.
Jennie either had nothing more to say, or feared she had said too much.
She was evidently uneasy before Hotchkiss. I told her that Mrs.
Sullivan was recovering in a Baltimore hospital, but she already knew
it, from some source, and merely nodded. She made a few preparations
for leaving, while Hotchkiss and I compared notes, and then, with the
cat in her arms, she climbed into the trap from the town. I sat with
her, and on the way down she told me a little, not much.
“If you see Mrs. Sullivan,” she advised, “and she is conscious, she
probably thinks that both her husband and her father were killed in the
wreck. She will be in a bad way, sir.”
“You mean that she—still cares about her husband?”
The cat crawled over on to my knee, and rubbed its head against my hand
invitingly. Jennie stared at the undulating line of the mountain
crests, a colossal sun against a blue ocean of sky. “Yes, she cares,”
she said softly. “Women are made like that. They say they are cats, but
Peter there in your lap wouldn’t come back and lick your hand if you
kicked him. If—if you have to tell her the truth, be as gentle as you
can, sir. She has been good to me—that’s why I have played the spy here
all summer. It’s a thankless thing, spying on people.”
“It is that,” I agreed soberly.
Hotchkiss and I arrived in Washington late that evening, and, rather
than arouse the household, I went to the club. I was at the office
early the next morning and admitted myself. McKnight rarely appeared
before half after ten, and our modest office force some time after
nine. I looked over my previous day’s mail and waited, with such
patience as I possessed, for McKnight. In the interval I called up Mrs.
Klopton and announced that I would dine at home that night. What my
household subsists on during my numerous absences I have never
discovered. Tea, probably, and crackers. Diligent search when I have
made a midnight arrival, never reveals anything more substantial.
Possibly I imagine it, but the announcement that I am about to make a
journey always seems to create a general atmosphere of depression
throughout the house, as though Euphemia and Eliza, and Thomas, the
stableman, were already subsisting, in imagination, on Mrs. Klopton’s
meager fare.
So I called her up and announced my arrival. There was something
unusual in her tone, as though her throat was tense with indignation.
Always shrill, her elderly voice rasped my ear painfully through the
receiver.
“I have changed the butcher, Mr. Lawrence,” she announced portentously.
“The last roast was a pound short, and his mutton-chops—any
self-respecting sheep would refuse to acknowledge them.”
As I said before, I can always tell from the voice in which Mrs.
Klopton conveys the most indifferent matters, if something of real
significance has occurred. Also, through long habit, I have learned how
quickest to bring her to the point.
“You are pessimistic this morning,” I returned. “What’s the matter,
Mrs. Klopton? You haven’t used that tone since Euphemia baked a pie for
the iceman. What is it now? Somebody poison the dog?”
She cleared her throat.
“The house has been broken into, Mr. Lawrence,” she said. “I have lived
in the best families, and never have I stood by and seen what I saw
yesterday—every bureau drawer opened, and my—my most sacred
belongings—” she choked.
“Did you notify the police?” I asked sharply.
“Police!” she sniffed. “Police! It was the police that did it—two
detectives with a search warrant. I—I wouldn’t dare tell you over the
telephone what one of them said when he found the whisky and rock candy
for my cough.”
“Did they take anything?” I demanded, every nerve on edge.
“They took the cough medicine,” she returned indignantly, “and they
said—”
“Confound the cough medicine!” I was frantic. “Did they take anything
else? Were they in my dressing-room?”
“Yes. I threatened to sue them, and I told them what you would do when
you came back. But they wouldn’t listen. They took away that black
sealskin bag you brought home from Pittsburg with you!”
I knew then that my hours of freedom were numbered. To have found
Sullivan and then, in support of my case against him, to have produced
the bag, _minus_ the bit of chain, had been my intention. But the
police had the bag, and, beyond knowing something of Sullivan’s
history, I was practically no nearer his discovery than before.
Hotchkiss hoped he had his man in the house off Washington Circle, but
on the very night he had seen him Jennie claimed that Sullivan had
tried to enter the Laurels. Then—suppose we found Sullivan and proved
the satchel and its contents his? Since the police had the bit of chain
it might mean involving Alison in the story. I sat down and buried my
face in my hands. There was no escape. I figured it out despondingly.
Against me was the evidence of the survivors of the Ontario that I had
been accused of the murder at the time. There had been blood-stains on
my pillow and a hidden dagger. Into the bargain, in my possession had
been found a traveling-bag containing the dead man’s pocket-book.
In my favor was McKnight’s theory against Mrs. Conway. She had a motive
for wishing to secure the notes, she believed I was in lower ten, and
she had collapsed at the discovery of the crime in the morning.
Against both of these theories, I accuse a purely chimerical person
named Sullivan, who was not seen by any of the survivors—save one,
Alison, whom I could not bring into the case. I could find a motive for
his murdering his father-in-law, whom he hated, but again—I would have
to drag in the girl.
And not one of the theories explained the telegram and the broken
necklace.
Outside the office force was arriving. They were comfortably ignorant
of my presence, and over the transom floated scraps of dialogue and the
stenographer’s gurgling laugh. McKnight had a relative, who was reading
law with him, in the intervals between calling up the young women of
his acquaintance. He came in singing, and the office boy joined in with
the uncertainty of voice of fifteen. I smiled grimly. I was too busy
with my own troubles to find any joy in opening the door and startling
them into silence. I even heard, without resentment, Blobs of the
uncertain voice inquire when “Blake” would be back.
I hoped McKnight would arrive before the arrest occurred. There were
many things to arrange. But when at last, impatient of his delay, I
telephoned, I found he had been gone for more than an hour. Clearly he
was not coming directly to the office, and with such resignation as I
could muster I paced the floor and waited.
I felt more alone than I have ever felt in my life. “Born an orphan,”
as Richey said, I had made my own way, carved out myself such success
as had been mine. I had built up my house of life on the props of law
and order, and now some unknown hand had withdrawn the supports, and I
stood among ruins.
I suppose it is the maternal in a woman that makes a man turn to her
when everything else fails. The eternal boy in him goes to have his
wounded pride bandaged, his tattered self-respect repaired. If he loves
the woman, he wants her to kiss the hurt.
The longing to see Alison, always with me, was stronger than I was that
morning. It might be that I would not see her again. I had nothing to
say to her save one thing, and that, under the cloud that hung over me,
I did not dare to say. But I wanted to see her, to touch her hand—as
only a lonely man can crave it, I wanted the comfort of her, the peace
that lay in her presence. And so, with every step outside the door a
threat, I telephoned to her.
She was gone! The disappointment was great, for my need was great. In a
fury of revolt against the scheme of things, I heard that she had
started home to Richmond—but that she might still be caught at the
station.
To see her had by that time become an obsession. I picked up my hat,
threw open the door, and, oblivious of the shock to the office force of
my presence, followed so immediately by my exit, I dashed out to the
elevator. As I went down in one cage I caught a glimpse of Johnson and
two other men going up in the next. I hardly gave them a thought. There
was no hansom in sight, and I jumped on a passing car. Let come what
might, arrest, prison, disgrace, I was going to see Alison.
I saw her. I flung into the station, saw that it was empty—empty, for
she was not there. Then I hurried back to the gates. She was there, a
familiar figure in blue, the very gown in which I always thought of
her, the one she had worn when, Heaven help me—I had kissed her, at the
Carter farm. And she was not alone. Bending over her, talking
earnestly, with all his boyish heart in his face, was Richey.
They did not see me, and I was glad of it. After all, it had been
McKnight’s game first. I turned on my heel and made my way blindly out
of the station. Before I lost them I turned once and looked toward
them, standing apart from the crowd, absorbed in each other. They were
the only two people on earth that I cared about, and I left them there
together. Then I went back miserably to the office and awaited arrest.