DUNCAN’S DILEMMA
PAULINE CALHOUN-COOPER laid down her embroidery with a resigned sigh as
her brother, after striding moodily up and down the drawing-room, made
a sudden dash for the door.
“Where are you going, Joe?” she called.
“Out----” and the front door banged shut behind him.
Pauline’s lips curved in an irritating smile. “Your ‘poy Joe’ gets more
impossible every day, mother. I think father had better be told----”
“No you don’t, young lady,” Mrs. Calhoun-Cooper spoke with unwonted
authority. “I won’t permit any further interference.”
“Oh, well, take the consequences then,” replied her daughter,
undutifully. “Chichester Barnard warned me Joe spends most of his
time with that trained nurse, Kathryn Allen; he said he couldn’t tell
_me_ what kind of a character she is”--Pauline raised her eyebrows
suggestively.
Her mother reddened angrily. “I’ll thank Mr. Barnard to mind his own
business,” she snapped. “Joe is too much of a gentleman to drop Miss
Allen’s acquaintance after her kindness to him. He tells me their
friendship is entirely platonic.”
“Is that all?” Pauline’s sarcastic drawl was enough to exasperate a far
better tempered woman than Mrs. Calhoun-Cooper. “Don’t blame me, mother
dear, if you get an undesirable daughter-in-law.”
Her mother’s retort was checked by the entrance of Janet and Marjorie,
and she rose somewhat flurriedly to greet them.
“So good of you to call,” she cooed. “Pauline, dear, you know Miss
Langdon. Come and sit by me, Miss Janet, and tell me of all your gay
doings. Joe will be so sorry to have missed you.”
“We caught a vanishing glimpse of him as we drove up to the door,”
Janet loosened her furs, for the room was uncomfortably warm. “Are you
going to the Charity Ball on Monday evening?”
“Yes, we have taken a box. Can’t you come with us?” added Mrs.
Calhoun-Cooper hospitably.
“Thanks very much, but I believe father has secured a box also,” Janet
smiled prettily upon her hostess while her hand played nervously with
the silver ornaments on the tea-table. “I think it’s awfully kind of
you and your daughter to be so sweet to me, a newcomer.”
Marjorie, sitting some distance from Mrs. Calhoun-Cooper and Janet,
watched them anxiously, and ignored Pauline’s decidedly cool manner
and curt speech. They talked on uninteresting topics for some time,
and Marjorie was on the point of rising to leave when she heard Janet
accept Mrs. Calhoun-Cooper’s offer of a cup of tea. She had neglected
to warn Janet before entering that they must make their visit a short
one, as their calling list that afternoon was exceedingly long.
There was nothing for it but to wait until Janet had swallowed her
exceedingly hot cup of tea, which the butler had just brought in, and
concealing her impatience, she surrendered herself to the inevitable.
“So sorry you had to leave the Walbridge dance,” said Pauline, as
conversation languished. “Miss Fordyce tells me you are subject
to--eh--headaches, isn’t it?”
“Headaches of the very worst kind,” acknowledged Marjorie. Her eyes
roved about the room, which she had known so well when her aunt had
owned the house; even some of the furniture, many pieces of which had
been sold with the house, were still in use in the drawing-room, and
she had much ado to keep back a rush of tears at the recollections
their presence gave her.
“I am told headaches are the bane of existence as one advances in
years,” said Pauline sweetly. “Why, father!” as a tall man entered the
room. “What brings you home at this hour?”
“A moment’s leisure,” he replied. “How do you do, Miss Fordyce,”
shaking hands cordially with Janet, and turning toward Marjorie. There
was a moment’s awkward pause, then Pauline remembered her manners.
“Miss Langdon, father.”
Representative J. Calhoun-Cooper stepped forward and held out his hand
as Marjorie rose and advanced to meet him, “Miss Marjorie Langdon?” he
inquired, and she wondered faintly at the concentration of his gaze.
“Yes,” she answered, and her large hazel-gray eyes smiled back at him
with friendly interest. How came so distinguished looking a man to have
such an impossible family?
“If I am not mistaken, you are related to Madame Yvonett, are you not?”
he asked, and again his keen scrutiny swept over her.
“She is my great-aunt.”
“I gathered that was the relationship; please give her my kind
remembrances and say that I hope to call soon.” Calhoun-Cooper turned
back to his wife. “Miss Langdon is a great-granddaughter of Hugh
Pemberton, who gave my father his start in life,” he explained. “You
must show every hospitality to Miss Langdon, mother.”
Mrs. Calhoun-Cooper, divided between vexation at being called “mother”
in public by her usually thoughtful husband, and bewilderment at
Marjorie’s suddenly increased importance, clutched the tea-tray in
despair.
“Of course, John, of course,” she stammered. “Dear Miss Langdon, will
you have a cup of tea? Where is them tongs?”
Janet, catching sight of Pauline’s furious expression, almost laughed
aloud. She covered her mouth with her large muff, the better to conceal
her amusement. Truly, Mrs. Calhoun-Cooper’s parts of speech were
flying to the four winds.
“You are very kind,” said Marjorie gently. “But I have had to give up
drinking tea and coffee, Miss Cooper,” addressing Pauline directly.
“Mrs. Fordyce wishes to know if you and your brother will dine with her
informally on Tuesday next?”
“I don’t recall any engagement for that night,” Pauline slightly
mollified, answered with more than her usual warmth; a more intimate
footing with the Fordyce family counted for much in her social
ambitions. “Please tell Mrs. Fordyce that Joe and I will be happy to
come.”
“That is very nice,” smiled Marjorie. “Mrs. Fordyce has sent you a
formal invitation which you will receive this evening, but she asked me
to speak of the matter as the time is short. Come, Janet, I am afraid
we must go. Good-bye, so glad we found you.”
Calhoun-Cooper accompanied the two girls to their limousine. “Don’t
forget my message to your aunt, Miss Langdon,” he said, as he closed
the door of the machine.
“Where next?” inquired Janet, as Marjorie consulted her list.
“I think we had better leave cards at the White House,” she said, and
Janet, picking up the speaking tube, gave the order, and the big car
started down Sixteenth Street.
“Have you seen Captain Nichols lately, Marjorie?” asked Janet, breaking
the brief pause.
“No, he hasn’t been near me.” Marjorie studied Janet’s flushed face
with keen attention. Could it be possible that the young débutante was
falling in love with Tom? Had she lost interest in Chichester Barnard?
With all her heart Marjorie hoped such was the case. Janet was too
charming a girl to be taken in by the wiles of a fortune hunter. To
Marjorie’s relief, she had seen nothing of Chichester Barnard since
meeting him at her aunt’s on Christmas Day, nor had he called recently
at the Fordyces. It was not like him to be easily discouraged, he was
of the persevering kind, and Marjorie marveled at his absence. Were
Janet and he meeting clandestinely? The thought sent a cold shiver down
her back. Abruptly she turned to Janet.
“Were you walking with Chichester Barnard yesterday?” she inquired.
“No,” replied Janet shortly, and again lapsed into silence.
Janet’s thoughts at the moment were centered on Tom Nichols, as they
had been all too frequently of late, considering she regarded herself
secretly engaged to Chichester Barnard. Though absent, the latter’s
daily notes, received surreptitiously, were a constant reminder of
her pledge to him. Barnard’s charm of manner and conversation always
left her breathless, carried away by the fervor of his pleading, but
she turned restive under the exotic, extravagant phrases which cloaked
his passionate intentness on paper. She longed for Tom’s breezy
wholesomeness and merry smile.
On their return from Bladensburg she and Tom had faithfully carried out
their prearranged program, and no question had been raised, so far as
Janet knew, as to where she had spent the early afternoon on Christmas.
But what was giving Janet more concern than she had known in many
years was the fact that she had neither seen nor heard from Tom since
that afternoon, and that she had never received back the diamond and
emerald bracelet which she had left with the Justice of the Peace at
Hyattsville. And Tom had promised to get it for her the very next day!
“Did mother invite Captain Nichols to our dinner next week?” she asked.
“She put his name on the list, but I didn’t get the invitation written
before we came out; however, I’ll call him up tonight, and ask him
verbally and send him a reminder card later.”
“There’s Duncan!” exclaimed Janet, catching a glimpse of her brother
as the car turned the corner into H Street. “I hope he won’t forget to
order the violets he promised me.”
Spying them at the same moment Duncan raised his hat, and laughingly
declining Janet’s frantic gesture to join them, he continued on his way
to the Metropolitan Club. But at Seventeenth Street Tom Nichols drew
his roadster up in front of the curb, and leaned forward to speak to
him.
“Jump in and come over to the Army and Navy Club with me,” he said, and
Duncan, time hanging heavy on his hands, accepted the invitation with
alacrity. “I intended calling up your house, Fordyce, to ask if your
sister is home.”
“She’s out calling; I just saw her and Miss Langdon in the limousine.”
“Do you think she can see me this evening?” Tom swung his car into I
Street.
“I’m afraid not, we are all dining at the British Embassy. Will you be
there?”
“Not invited,” replied Tom shortly. He parked the roadster near the
entrance to the club, and led Duncan into one of the smoking-rooms.
Duncan found him singularly morose, and regarded the usually jovial
young officer in some perplexity; then he concluded that Janet and Tom
must have had a squabble of some sort and that the latter was trying to
make up the quarrel.
Tom, in fact, was exceedingly disturbed. He had just returned from
Hyattsville, where he had redeemed Janet’s bracelet. His duties at Fort
Myer had prevented his going there during the past two days, and he had
not dared to ask a brother officer to go in his place, fearing news
of the arrest for speeding might leak out, with other details. He had
hoped to find Janet at home that afternoon and return the bracelet. He
had tried several times to talk to her on the telephone, but each time
the Fordyce servants had told him Janet was either out or engaged. He
would have confided the whole affair to Marjorie except for his promise
to Janet.
“Can you go to the Charity Ball with us?” asked Duncan.
“Why yes, I’d like to very much,” answered Tom, awaking to the fact
that he had not spoken for some moments.
“Good, don’t trouble to get a ticket, and I think you had better dine
with us first----”
“Excuse me, Captain, but you are wanted on the telephone,” interrupted
a club attendant.
“I’ll be right back, Fordyce,” Tom sprang precipitously to his feet;
perhaps Janet had called him up. “Wait for me,” and he disappeared
after the attendant.
An older man sitting by a window some distance away glanced up at
hearing the name “Fordyce,” and scanned Duncan intently, then rose and
slowly approached him.
“I beg your pardon, but are you not Duncan Fordyce?” he asked.
Duncan looked at him attentively for a second, then stepped forward.
“How do you do, Admiral Lawrence,” he said, extending his hand.
The Admiral’s haggard face lighted with a pleased smile. “So you
remember me, Duncan; it’s some years since we met,” a sigh accompanied
the words. “How is your dear mother?”
“Very well, thank you. Won’t you sit down, sir?” pulling forward a
chair.
“Please thank your mother for her kind note of sympathy; I intended
answering it----” the Admiral broke off abruptly and cleared his
throat. “Tell me of yourself, Duncan, since we last met.”
“There’s nothing very much to recount, Admiral; I graduated from Yale,
then from the Harvard Law School; traveled a bit in China and South
America, and on my return joined a law firm in San Francisco. I am East
on a short visit.”
“Sorry to have been so long,” said Tom, appearing behind the Admiral,
whom he already knew. “Much obliged to you, sir, for taking care of
Fordyce in my absence.”
“Duncan and I are old friends,” Admiral Lawrence stepped back. “I won’t
interrupt you two any longer.”
“Don’t run away, Admiral,” protested Tom, “it’s I who must be leaving.
Hope you’ll forgive me, Fordyce, but they’ve telephoned me to return
to Myer at once. Please tell Miss Janet I’ll be in tomorrow.” He
hesitated; should he give the bracelet to Duncan? No. Janet had
particularly charged him not to let any inkling of her motor ride reach
her brother’s ears, and Duncan would naturally ask him how he came to
have his sister’s bracelet in his possession. “Ask her if she will
telephone me what hour will be most convenient for her to see me,” he
added hurriedly.
“I will,” promised Duncan, turning back to say good-bye to Admiral
Lawrence.
“Can you spare me a few minutes now, Duncan?” the latter asked
anxiously.
“Certainly, sir; my time is at your disposal.”
Admiral Lawrence surveyed the room in silence; then led the way to the
farther end, where two chairs stood by themselves.
“Sit down, Duncan,” he said, dragging his seat nearer the window.
“We’re out of ear-shot over here, and I’ve something important to
say to you,” he stopped, and Duncan waited respectfully for him to
continue. “I called up your house yesterday, and your butler told me
your father was out of town.”
“He went over to Philadelphia on business; we are expecting him back
tomorrow or next day.”
“I may not be in town when he returns; therefore I must speak to you,”
the Admiral paused, “about a very delicate matter....”
“Yes,” put in Duncan encouragingly, as his companion again paused.
“Marjorie Langdon is in your mother’s employ, is she not?”
“Yes.” But Duncan’s slight start was not observed by the Admiral, who
continued his questions.
“As companion to your sister?”
“Yes,” replied Duncan for the third time.
The Admiral turned in his chair and made sure that no one was in their
vicinity, then leaned toward Duncan. “Marjorie Langdon was my secretary
for the past two years; on November first, I discharged her because I
found she was a thief.”
For a second Duncan was blind to his surroundings. But Admiral Lawrence
read nothing of his mental suffering in his expressionless face.
Marjorie then was really a thief! Marjorie, his ideal in womanhood!
His strong hands clenched themselves so tightly over the arms of his
chair that the knuckles shone white. He had succeeded in conquering
the suspicions he had harbored against Marjorie after the mysterious
disappearance of his father’s forty dollars. Marjorie, if guilty of
the theft of the money, would never have mentioned the exact sum, one
hundred and fifty dollars, when she handed him the bank notes to give
his father. She _must_ have been innocent, he had reasoned, with dogged
determination. Now another man thought her a thief!
“I would not have disclosed her true character had I not heard that
Marjorie was with your sister continually,” said the Admiral slowly.
“It is not proper that a young girl should be subjected to such
contaminating influences.”
“One moment,” Duncan held up his hand protestingly. “You have made
a serious charge, Admiral, against Miss Langdon; can you prove your
statements?”
The Admiral whitened with anger. “I am not in the habit of lying,” he
retorted stiffly.
“Nor am I accusing you of lying,” calmly. “But in my father’s absence
you have come to me, as the acting head of my house, to warn me against
one of my father’s employees. I am within my rights, sir, in demanding
your proofs that Miss Langdon is a ----” Duncan choked over the word
thief--“is not a proper associate for my sister.”
“Perhaps you are right,” admitted the Admiral, his anger cooling.
“I presume you have met my wife’s nephew by marriage, Chichester
Barnard----”
“I have.”
“My wife, who has always been wealthy in her own right, promised her
first husband, Dimintry Barnard, that she would leave one hundred
thousand dollars to his nephew, Chichester, whom he had legally
adopted, and in making her will some years ago, she carried out her
promise. Just before her last illness, she quarreled with Chichester
over some unfortunate investments he had made for her, and incensed by
his manner, declared she would revoke her bequest to him.
“On the last day of October my wife, then a very sick woman, sent for
our lawyer, Charles Alvord, and bade him draw up a codicil revoking
Chichester’s bequest. Alvord took his notes into my library, and
without my knowledge, had Marjorie Langdon typewrite the codicil,”
Duncan drew a long slow breath but said nothing, and the Admiral
continued: “He also had her make a carbon copy of the codicil, thinking
if the first was ruined in my wife’s effort to sign it, he would have
the other at hand to substitute. But my wife signed the original copy,
and I instructed Marjorie to put it in my safe. The next morning, on
opening my safe, I found the unsigned copy of the codicil, and not the
signed one.”
“And you believe----?” questioned Duncan.
“That Marjorie Langdon deliberately destroyed the signed codicil and
placed the unsigned one in my safe, hoping the substitution would not
be noticed until after my wife’s death.”
“The last is supposition only,” commented Duncan.
“Not so fast,” retorted Admiral Lawrence. “Marjorie was the only one
outside our family and the lawyer who knew of the signing of the
codicil; it was given to her to place in the safe. She only, beside
myself, knew the combination of the safe, and Alvord, the fool, left
the unsigned copy of the codicil lying loose on my desk, ready to her
hand.”
“And Marjorie Langdon’s motive in destroying the signed codicil?”
“Her infatuation for Chichester Barnard.” The blunt answer shook even
Duncan’s iron self-control, and he looked hastily away, lest the
Admiral read his expression. “Marjorie was the last person to leave my
library that night; I was the first to go there the next morning, and
the codicil was gone.”
“In other words,” said Duncan slowly, “you contend that Marjorie had
the motive and the opportunity to steal that codicil,” Lawrence nodded
affirmatively. “What did she hope to accomplish?”
“To have Chichester Barnard inherit the hundred thousand dollars,” the
Admiral rose heavily to his feet. “The other codicil remained unsigned,
for my wife never regained her faculties before her death, having been
first delirious and then unconscious until death mercifully released
her.”
“So Mr. Barnard will inherit the one hundred thousand dollars?”
The Admiral paused. “Not without a legal fight. Get rid of Marjorie,
Duncan, before the scandal is aired.”
“You mean you are going to charge Miss Langdon with the theft of the
codicil?”
“I do. She thwarted my wife in her last conscious act, and by God, she
shall pay for it!”
Duncan rose to his feet. “Kindly notify me, Admiral, of whatever
steps you propose taking,” he said, accompanying the older man to the
entrance of the club-house.
“Certainly, Duncan, certainly.” The Admiral walked to the curb with
him. “I realize you will want to know in time to prevent your family
from becoming involved in the scandal.”
“You mistake my meaning, sir; I desire to know what legal steps you
contemplate taking, because I propose to defend Miss Langdon in the
courts. Good evening,” and lifting his hat, Duncan turned on his heel.
How far he walked or where he walked he could never afterwards tell,
but he finally became conscious that the park policeman in Lafayette
Square was regarding him with open suspicion.
“Where am I?” he asked, turning in bewilderment to the stalwart
guardian of the peace.
“Sure, I don’t wonder ye ask; ye’ve chased yourself around Jackson’s
statue until ye’ve given me the blind staggers. What ails ye, sir?”
“Nothing,” Duncan pulled himself together and finally got his bearings.
“Where can I find a taxi?”
“At the Shoreham, that way,” waving his arm, and Duncan walked in the
direction indicated.
He was about to cross H Street and enter the hotel when Small’s window
display across Fifteenth Street caught his attention, and he remembered
promising to send Janet a bunch of violets to wear to the British
Embassy. Entering the florist’s shop, he hastily gave his directions;
then paused, and selected a beautiful corsage bouquet of single violets.
“I’ll take this also,” he said. “Send it to Miss Marjorie Langdon, care
of Mr. Calderon Fordyce, same address as the other; and--eh--give me a
blank card,” discovering he had none of his visiting cards with him.
Taking the blank card which the attentive clerk brought him, he wrote:
“With best wishes,” and signed his initials. Before placing the card in
an envelope, he studied the message and his bold, distinctive writing
in some doubt.
“Lord!” he muttered. “Will she take the ‘D. F.’ for Duncan
Fordyce--or--damn fool.”