The peace and aristocratic calm of the Janney household was disrupted.
Into its dignified quietude burnt an irruption of alien activity and the
great white light of publicity. Kissam with his minions came that
evening and reporters followed like bloodhounds on the scent. Scenes
were enacted similar to those Mr. Janney had read in novels and
witnessed at the theater, but which, in his most fevered imaginings, he
had never thought could transpire in his own home. It was unreal, like a
nightmare, a phantasmagoria of interviews with terrified servants,
trampings up and down stairs, strange men all over the place, reporters
on the steps, the telephone bell and the front door bell ringing
ceaselessly. Everybody was in a state of tense excitement except Mr.
Janney whose condition was that of still, frozen misery. There were
moments when he was almost sorry he’d married again.
After introductory parleys with the heads of the house the searchlight
of inquiry was turned on the servants. Their movements on the fateful
night were subject of special attention. When Kissam elicited the fact
that they had not returned from the village till nearly midnight he fell
on it with ominous avidity. Dixon, however, had a satisfactory
explanation, which he offered with a martyred air of forbearance. Mr.
Price’s man, Willitts, had that morning come up from town to Cedar
Brook, the next station along the line. In the afternoon he had biked
over to see them and, hearing of their plan to visit the movies, had
arranged to meet them there. This he did, afterward taking them to the
Mermaid Ice Cream Parlors where he had treated them to supper. They had
left there about half past eleven, Willitts going back to Cedar Brook
and the rest of them walking home to Grasslands.
From the women left in the house little was to be gathered. This was
unfortunate as the natural supposition was that the burglary had been
committed during the hours when they were alone there. Both, feeling
ill, had retired early, Delia at about half-past eight, going
immediately to bed and quickly falling asleep. Hannah was later; about
nine, she thought. It was very quiet, not a sound, except that after she
got to her room she heard the dogs barking. They made a great row at
first, running down across the lawn, then they quieted, "easing off with
sort of whines and yaps, like it was somebody they knew." She had not
bothered to look out of the window because she thought it was one of the
work people from the neighborhood, making a short cut through the
grounds.
In the matter of the safe all was incomprehensible and mysterious. Five
people in the house knew the combination—Mr. and Mrs. Janney, Dixon and
Isaac and Miss Maitland. Mrs. Janney was as certain of the honesty of
her servants and her Secretary as she was of her own. She rather
resented the detectives’ close questioning of the latter. But Miss
Maitland showed no hesitation or annoyance, replying clearly and
promptly to everything they asked. She kept the house money and some of
her account books in the safe and on the second of the month—five days
before the robbery—had taken out such money as she had there to pay the
working people who did not receive checks. She managed the financial
side of the establishment, she explained, paying the wages and bills and
drawing the checks for Mrs. Janney’s signature.
Questioned about her movements that afternoon, her answers showed the
same intelligent frankness. She had spent the two hours after lunch
altering the dress she was to wear that evening. As it was very warm in
her room she had taken part of it to her study on the ground floor. When
she had finished her work—about four—she had gone for a walk returning
just before the storm. After that she had retired to her room and stayed
there until she came down to go to Mr. Ferguson’s dinner.
The safe and its surroundings were subjected to a minute inspection
which revealed nothing. Neither window had been tampered with, the locks
were intact, the sills unscratched, the floor showed no foot-mark. There
were no traces of finger prints either upon the door or the
metal-clamped boxes in which the jewel cases were kept. The mended chair
was just as Mrs. Janney remembered it, set between the safe and the
window, in the way of any one passing along the hall.
It was on Sunday afternoon—twenty-four hours after the discovery—that
Dick Ferguson appeared with one of his gardeners, who had a story to
tell. On Friday night the man had been to a card party in the garage of
a neighboring estate and had come home late "across lots." His final
short cut had been through Grasslands, where he had passed round by the
back of the house. He thought the time would be on toward one-thirty.
Skirting the kitchen wing he had seen a light in a ground floor window,
a window which he was able to indicate. He described the light as not
very strong and white, not yellow like a lamp or candle. As he looked at
it he noticed that it diminished in brightness as if it was withdrawn,
moved away down a hall or into a room. He could see no figure, simply
the lit oblong of the window, with the pattern of a lace curtain over
it, and anyway he hadn’t noticed much, supposing it to be one of the
servants coming home late like himself.
This settled the hour of the robbery. It had not been committed when the
place was almost deserted, but when all its occupants were housed and
sleeping. The window, pointed out by the man, was directly opposite the
safe door, the light as he described it could only have been made by an
electric lantern or torch, its gradual diminishment caused by its
removal into the recess of the safe.
If before this Mr. Janney’s mental state was painful, it now became
agonized. He was afraid to be with the detectives for fear of what he
would hear, and he was afraid to leave them alone, for fear of what he
might miss. When Mrs. Janney conferred with Kissam he sat by her side,
swallowing on a dry throat, and trying to control the inner trembling
that attacked him every time the man opened his lips. He gave way to
secret, futile cursings of the jewels, distracted prayers that they
never might be found. For if they were, the theft might be traced to its
author—and _then_ what? It would be the end of his wife, her proud head
would be lowered forever, her strong heart broken. Sleep entirely
forsook him and the people who came to call treated him with a soothing
gentleness as if they thought he was dying.
His misery reached a climax when something he remembered, and every one
else had forgotten, came to light. It was one day in the library when
Kissam asked Mrs. Janney if there had ever been any one else in the
house—a discharged employee or relation—who had known the combination.
Mrs. Janney said no and then recollected that Chapman Price did, he had
kept his tobacco in the safe as the damp spoiled it. Kissam showed no
interest—he knew Chapman Price was her son-in-law and was no longer an
inmate—and then suddenly asked what had been done with the written
combination.
At that question Mr. Janney felt like a shipwrecked mariner deprived of
the spar to which he has been clinging. He saw his wife’s face charged
with aroused interest—she’d forgotten it, it was in Mr. Janney’s desk,
had always been kept there. They went to the desk and found it under a
sheaf of papers in a drawer that was unlocked. Kissam looked at it, felt
and studied the papers, then put it back in a silence that made Mr.
Janney feel sick.
After that he was prepared for anything to happen, but nothing did. He
got some comfort from the papers, which assumed the robbery to have been
an "outside job"; no one in the house fitting the character of a
suspect. It was the work of experts, who had entered by the second
story, and were of that class of burglar known as "tumblers" Mr. Janney,
who had never heard of a "tumbler" save as a vessel from which to drink,
now learned that it was a crackman, who from a sensitive touch and long
training, could manipulate the locks and work out the combination. He
found himself thanking heaven that such men existed.
When a week passed and nothing of moment came to the surface, the Janney
jewel robbery slipped back to the inside page, and, save in the environs
of Berkeley, ceased to occupy the public mind. Mr. Janney could once
more walk in his own grounds without fear of reporters leaping on him
from the shrubberies or emerging from behind statues and garden benches.
His tense state relaxed, he began to breathe freely, and, in this
restoration to the normal, he was able to think of what he ought to do.
Somehow, some day, he would have to face Suzanne with his knowledge and
get the jewels back. It would be a day of fearful reckoning; it was so
appalling to contemplate that he shrank from it even in thought. He said
he wasn’t strong enough yet, would work up to it, get some more sleep
and his nerves in better shape. And she might—there was always the
hope—she might get frightened and return them herself.
So he rested in a sort of breathing spell between the first, grinding
agony and the formidably looming future. But it was not to last—events
were shaping to an end that he had never suspected and that came upon
him like a bolt from the blue.
It happened one afternoon eight days after the robbery. Mrs. Janney and
Suzanne had gone for a drive and he was alone in the library, listlessly
going over the morning papers. His zest in the news had left him—the
Chicago murder offered no interest, the stabbed policeman in desperate
case from blood poisoning, his assailant still at large, could not
conjure away his dark anxieties. With his glasses dangling from his
finger, his eyes on the green sweep of the lawn, he was roused by a
knock on the door. It was Dixon announcing Mr. Kissam, who had walked up
from the village and wanted to see him.
Kissam, with a brief phrase of greeting, closed the door and sat down.
Mr. Janney thought his manner, which was always hard and brusque, was
softened by a suggestion of confidence, something of intimacy as one who
speaks man to man. It made him nervous and his uneasiness was not
relieved in the least by the detective’s words.
"I’m glad to find you alone, Mr. Janney. I ’phoned up and heard from
Dixon that the ladies were out and that’s why I came. I want to consult
you before I say anything to Mrs. Janney."
"That’s quite right," said Mr. Janney, then added with a feeble attempt
at lightness, "Are you, as the children say, getting any warmer?"
"We’re very warm. In fact I think we’ve almost got there. But it’s
rather a ticklish situation."
Mr. Janney did not answer; he glanced at his shoes, then at the silver
on the desk. For the moment he was too perturbed to look at Kissam’s
shrewd, attentive face.
"It’s so out of the ordinary run," the man went on, "and _so much_ is
involved that I decided not to move without first telling you. The
family being so prominent—"
"The family!" Mr. Janney spoke before he thought, his limp hands
suddenly clenching on the arms of the chair.
The detective’s eyes steadied on the gripped fingers.
"What do you mean? Let me have it straight," said the old man huskily.
Kissam put his hand in his hip pocket and drew out an electric torch
which he put on the desk.
"This torch I myself found two days ago in a desk in Mrs. Price’s room.
It was pushed back in a drawer which was full of letters and papers. It
fits the description of the torch that was lost by Mrs. Price’s little
girl."
Mr. Janney’s head sunk forward on his breast, and Kissam knew now that
his suspicions were correct and that the old man had known all along. He
was sorry for him:
"Mrs. Price not being your daughter, Mr. Janney, I decided to come to
you. I suspected her after the second day and I’ll tell you why. I had a
private interview with that woman Elspeth, Mrs. Janney’s maid, and she
told me of a quarrel she had overheard between Mrs. Janney and her
daughter. The subject of the quarrel was money, Mrs. Price asking for a
large sum to meet certain debts and losses in the stock market which
Mrs. Janney refused to give her. That supplied the motive and gave me
the lead. The loss of the torch was also significant. The child was
confident—and children are very accurate—that she had left it on the
table in her nursery when she went to bed. The proximity of the two
rooms made the theft of the torch an easy matter. What puzzled me was
how Mrs. Price had gained access to the safe, but that was cleared up
when the written combination was found in your desk here; and finally I
ran across what I should call perfectly conclusive evidence in Mrs.
Price’s room. I don’t refer only to the torch, but to the fact that a
wrapper that was hanging in the back of one of the closets showed a
smudge of varnish on the skirt."
Mr. Janney leaned forward over his clasped hands, feeling wan and
shriveled.
"If your surmise is right," he said, "where has she put them?"
"If!" echoed the other. "I don’t see any if about it. You can’t suspect
either of the men servants—reliable people of established character—nor
Miss Maitland. A girl in her position—even if she happened to be
dishonest, which I don’t for a moment think she is—wouldn’t tackle a job
as big as that. Come, Mr. Janney, we don’t need to dodge around the
stump. As soon as I’d spoken I saw you thought Mrs. Price had done it."
The old man nodded and said sadly:
"I did."
"Would you mind telling me why you did?"
There was nothing for it but to tell, and he told, the detective
suppressing a grin of triumph. It cleared up everything, was as
conclusive as if they’d seen her commit the act.
"As for where she put them," he said, "she may have a hiding place in
the house that we haven’t discovered, or cached them outside. In matters
like this women sometimes show a remarkable cunning. I’ve looked up her
movements on the Saturday and it’s possible she hid them somewhere in
the woods. She left the house at twelve, carrying a silk work bag,
walked past Ferguson’s place and talked there with him in the garden for
about fifteen minutes, went on to the beach, sat there a while, and then
walked to the Fairfax house on the bluff, where she stayed to lunch,
coming back here about half-past four. She had ample opportunity during
that time and in the places she passed through to find a cache for
them."
Mr. Janney raised a gray, pitiful face:
"Mr. Kissam, if Mrs. Janney knew this it would kill her."
Kissam gave back an understanding look:
"That’s why I came to you."
"Then it must stop here—with me." The old man spoke with a sudden,
fierce vehemence. "It _can’t_ go further. The girl’s been a torment and
a trouble for years. I won’t let her end by breaking her mother’s heart,
bringing her gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Good God, I’d rather
say I did it myself."
"There’s no need for that. We can let it fizzle out, die down
gradually." He gave a slight, sardonic smile. "I’ve happened on this
sort of thing before, Mr. Janney. The rich have their skeletons in the
closet, and I’ve helped to keep ’em there, shut in tight."
"Then for heaven’s sake do it in this case—help me hide this skeleton.
Keep up the search for a while so that Mrs. Janney won’t suspect
anything; play your part. Mr. Kissam, if you’ll aid me in keeping this
dark there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to repay you."
Kissam disclaimed all desire for reward. His professional pride was
justified; he had made good to his own satisfaction. And, as he had
said, the case presented no startling novelty to his seasoned
experience. Many times he had helped distracted families to suppress
ugly revelations, presented an impregnable front to the press, and seen,
with a cynical amusement, columns shrink to paragraphs and the public’s
curiosity fade to the vanishing point. He promised he would aid in the
slow quenching of the Janney sensation, gradually let it flicker out,
keep his men on the job for a while longer for Mrs. Janney’s benefit,
and finally let the matter decline to the status of an "unsolved
mystery."
As to the restoration of the jewels he gave advice. Say nothing for a
time, sit quiet and give no sign. If she was as thoroughly scared as she
ought to be, she would probably return them—they would wake one fine
morning and find everything back in the safe. If, however, she tried to
realize on them it would be easy to trace them—he would be on the
watch—and then Mr. Janney could confront her with his knowledge and have
her under his thumb forever.
Mr. Janney was extremely grateful—not at the prospect of having Suzanne
under his thumb, that was too complete a reversal of positions to be
comfortable—but at the detective’s kindly comprehension and aid. With
tears in his eyes he wrung Kissam’s hand and honored him by a personal
escort to the front door.