One of the chief features of detective work is that you must be able to
change your mind. That may not sound hard—especially when the owner of
the mind happens to be a female—but believe me it’s some stunt. You get
pointed one way, and to have to shift and face round in another is candy
for a weather vane but bread for a sleuth.
Well, that’s what happened to me. In the week that followed my visit to
the Whitneys I had to start out fresh on a new line of thought. I’d left
the office pretty certain, as the others were, that the bond between
Esther Maitland and Chapman Price was love, and before those seven days
were gone I’d thrown that theory into the discard, rolled up my sleeves,
taken a cinch in my belt, and set forth to blaze a new trail.
I came round to it slow at first and I came round through Mr. Ferguson.
It was fine weather and when Bébita would go off with Annie, I’d curl up
in my conning tower in the school room window and take observations. As
I said before, it was a convenient place, just over Miss Maitland’s
study, deserted all afternoon, and with the Venetian blinds down against
the sun, I could sit comfortable on my cushion and spy out between the
slats.
The first thing that caught my attention was that Mr. Ferguson, who’d
come over pretty nearly every day, wouldn’t make straight for the front
piazza which was the natural way to get there. Instead he’d take a
slanting course across the garden, come up some steps to the terrace,
and then walk slow past the study door. Sometimes he’d see Miss Maitland
and stop for a chat, and sometimes she wouldn’t be there and he’d go by.
But each and every time, thinking no one was watching, he’d let a look
come on his face that’s common to the whole male sex when the one
particular star is expected above the horizon. I guess the cave man got
it when, club in hand, he was chasing the cave girl and Solomon with his
six hundred wives must have had it stamped on his features so it came to
be his habitual expression.
Though it was registered good and plain on Mr. Ferguson’s countenance, I
couldn’t at first believe it. It was too like a novel, too like
Cinderella and the Prince. Then, seeing it so frequent, I was convinced.
I’d say to myself "Why not—a girl’s a girl if she is a plutocrat’s
social secretary, and all men are free and equal when it comes to
disposing of their young affections." The romance of it got me, gripped
at my heart. I’d sit with my eye to the crack in the blinds staring down
at him as he’d send that look out for her—that wonderful look, that look
which gives you chills and fever, blind staggers and heart failure and
you’d rather have than a blank check drawn to your order and signed by
John Rockefeller. Oh, gee—I was a girl once myself—don’t I know! I’d
have been interested if it was just an ordinary love story, but it
wasn’t. It was a love story with a mystery for good measure; it was a
love story that had Mrs. Price thrown in to complicate the plot; it was
a love story that was all tangled up with other elements; and it was a
love story that I only could see one side of.
For I couldn’t get at her feelings at all. This was mostly because I
hardly ever saw her with him. If she did happen to be there when he
passed, she’d be either in her room or under the balcony roof and I
couldn’t see how she acted or hear what she said. Also she had such a
hold on herself, had such a calm, reserved way with her, that you’d have
to be a clairvoyant to get under her guard.
Any woman would have been thrilled but _me_, knowing what I did—can’t
you see my thoughts going round in wheels and whirligigs? If she
reciprocated—and there’s few that wouldn’t or I don’t know my own
sex—what was she doing with Price? Was she a siren playing the two of
them? Was she Mrs. Price’s secret rival with both men? Was she the kind
of vampire heroine they have in plays who can break up a burglar-proof
home with one hand tied behind her? You wouldn’t think it to look at
her—but the more I hit the high spots of society the more I feel you
can’t tell people by the ordinary trade-marks.
Then one afternoon toward the end of the week I saw a little scene right
under my window that lightened up the darkness. It gave me what I call
facts; what the Whitneys, anyway Mr. George—but that belongs farther on.
Mr. Ferguson came out of the wood path, across the garden and on his
usual beat, up the terrace steps. He had a spray of lemon verbena in his
hand and as he walked over the grass with his long, light stride, he
kept his eyes on the balcony keen and expectant, his face all eager and
serious. Suddenly it changed, brightened, softened, glowed like the
sunlight had fallen on it—you didn’t need to be a detective to know
she’d come out of the study.
This time she came down the steps and went toward him. They met under my
window and stood there, he facing me, brushing his lips with the spray
of lemon verbena and looking down at her, a lover if ever I saw one. He
asked her what she was doing that afternoon, and she said going for a
walk, and when he wanted to know where, she said through the woods to
the beach. "A solitary walk?" he asked and she said yes, her walks were
always solitary.
"By preference?"
She turned half away from him and I could see her profile. I’d hardly
have known it for Miss Maitland’s, soft, shy, the cheek pink. Her eyes
were on the toe of her shoe, white against the green grass, and with her
head drooping she was like a girl, bashful and blushing before her beau.
"It generally is by preference," she said.
"Would it exclude me," he asked, "if I tried to butt in?"
She didn’t answer for a moment, then said very low:
"Not if you really wanted to come—didn’t do it just to be kind to a
lonesome lady."
"Lonesome lady be hanged," he exclaimed as joyful as if she’d given him
a kiss, "it’s just the other way round—kindness to a lonesome gentleman.
I’m terribly lonesome this afternoon."
But he wasn’t going to be long—far from it. Round the corner of the
house, walking soft as a cat, came Mrs. Price. She made me think of a
cat every way, stepping so stealthy, her body so slim and lithe, a
small, secret smile on her face as if she’d come on two nice little
helpless mice. She was all in white, shining and spotless, a tennis
racket in one hand, a bunch of letters in the other. They didn’t see her
and she got quite close, then said, sweet and smooth as treacle:
"Good afternoon, Dick."
They weren’t doing anything but planning a walk, but they both started
like it had been a murder.
"Oh," says Mr. Ferguson, looking blankly disconcerted, "oh, Suzanne, I
didn’t see you. How do you do—good afternoon."
She came to a halt and stood softly swinging her racket, looking at him
with that mean, cold smile.
"I was in my room and saw you so I came down at once. It’s a splendid
afternoon for our game, not a breath of wind."
I saw, and she saw, and I guess any but a blind man could have seen,
he’d a date to play tennis with her and had forgotten it. Of course a
woman would have scrambled out, had _something_ to offer that made a
noise like an excuse; but that poor prune of a man—they’re all alike
when a quick lie’s needed—couldn’t think of a thing to say. He just
stood between them, looking haunted and stammering out such gems of
thought as, "Our game—of course our game—I hadn’t noticed it but there
_is_ no wind."
She had him; he couldn’t throw her down after he’d made the engagement,
and with her there he couldn’t say what he wanted to Esther Maitland.
And neither of them helped him; Mrs. Price listened to his flounderings
with the little smile, light and cool on her painted lips, and Miss
Maitland stood by, not a word out of her. I noticed that Mrs. Price
never looked at her, acted as if she wasn’t there, and presently
Ferguson, getting desperate, turns to her and says:
"How about taking our walk later—after Mrs. Price and I have finished
our game?"
The girl got red, burning; she started to answer, but Mrs. Price cut in,
for the first time addressing her:
"Oh, Miss Maitland, that reminds me—I want these letters answered, if
you’ll be so kind. Just follow the notes on the edges, and please do it
as soon as possible—they’re rather important. They must go out on the
evening mail."
She handed the letters to the girl and Esther Maitland took them with a
murmur. I know that kind of answer—it’s the agreeing response of the
wage-earner. It comes soft and polite—it has to—but like the pleasant
rippling of the ocean on the beach it’s not the only sound that element
can give forth.
Ferguson tried to say something; he was mad and mortified and everything
else he ought to have been, but she wouldn’t give him a chance.
"Come along, Dick," she says, bright and easy, "you’ve kept me waiting
which is very rude, but I’m in a good humor and I’ll forgive you.
There’s a racket at the court—we were playing there this morning. You
can walk with Miss Maitland some other day. I’m afraid she’ll have to
attend to _my_ work this afternoon."
He got balky, lingered, looked at Miss Maitland, but she turned sharply
away and moved toward the balcony. So there was nothing for him to do
but to go off with his captor. I couldn’t but look after them, both in
beautiful white clothes, both rich, both young, he so tall, she so slim,
for all the world like a picture of lovers on the cover of a magazine.
Then I switched back to Miss Maitland. She’s come to a halt, right below
the window, and, standing there like a graven image, was watching them.
I never saw any one so still. You wouldn’t have known she was alive
except for her eyes which moved after them, moved and moved, until the
pair disappeared behind the rose-covered trellis that hid the courts.
Then she let out a sound, a smothered ejaculation that you couldn’t
spell with letters; but you didn’t need to, it said more than printed
pages. Rage was in it and pain and love. They were in her face, too,
stamped and cut into it. I wouldn’t have known it for hers, it was all
marred and tragic, a pitiful, dreadful face.
She looked blankly at the letters in her hand, at first as if she didn’t
know what they were, then crumpled them, threw them on the ground and
made a run for the balcony. She was almost there, I craning my neck to
keep her in sight, when she stopped, wheeled around, went back to the
scattered papers and picked them up. "Oh, bread and butter," I thought,
"bread and butter! Aren’t you cursing it now?" Bad as I believed her to
be I couldn’t but be sorry for her, for I’ve been in that position
myself. Take it from me, licking the hand that feeds you is a job that
comes hard to the worst of us.
She pressed out the letters, smoothed away the creases slow and careful
and came back to the balcony. Just before she disappeared under it she
stopped and lifted her face, the eyes closed, the teeth pressed on her
under lip. It quivered like a child’s on the brink of tears, but she
wasn’t crying—fighting, I’d say, against something deeper than tears. I
couldn’t bear to look at it and shut my own eyes; when I opened them she
was gone.
You didn’t need to tell me any more after that. She was in love with
Ferguson, not Price; she was in love and straining every nerve to hide
it; she was in love so she was jealous of Mrs. Price—and I’d bet a hat
she was the kind who could love fierce and hard.
I had to get this into the office and the next day asked for time off
from Mrs. Janney and went in. I found them different to what they had
been on my first visit, taking it serious like they were warming to it.
I’d hardly sat down before I heard the reason. O’Malley had been busy
and turned up enough evidence to make them sure that Chapman Price and
Miss Maitland were in deep in some sort of plot or conspiracy.
O’Malley’s investigation of Price’s movements on the night of July the
seventh had revealed these facts: Price had taken his car from Sommers’
garage at Cedar Brook at eight-thirty, not returning till five minutes
before two. To one of the garage men he had said that the night being so
fine he had gone for a long run over the island. No trace of his
whereabouts during these hours had been found until O’Malley dropped on
a policeman at the end of the Queensborough Bridge. This man said Price
had crossed over to the city between nine-thirty and ten. He was
positive of his identification, as early in June he had stopped the
young man for exceeding the speed limit on the bridge, taken his name
and address and had a heated altercation with him. From that time to his
return to Cedar Brook Price had dropped out of sight. He had not been in
the lodgings he kept in town or in any of the garages he patronized.
Whatever his business had been in the city he had had plenty of time to
return to Grasslands and participate in the theft of the jewels.
A continued watch of the house at 76 Gayle Street had shown that both
Miss Maitland and Price had been there on the Thursday previous and
Price on Sunday afternoon. Each had entered with noiseless haste and
each had used a latchkey. O’Malley in a search for a room had
interviewed the janitor, a grouchy old chap living in the basement; and
got a line on all the tenants, none of whom answered to the description
of Price or Miss Maitland. Of their visits to the house the man was
evidently ignorant, but he supplied some information which showed how
they could come and go without his cognizance.
On July the eighth a lady, giving no name, had taken the right hand
front room on the top floor for a friend, Miss Agnes Brown, an art
student coming from the west but not yet arrived in the city. The lady
paid a month’s rent in advance, took the key, and said when Miss Brown
arrived, the janitor would be informed, but that she might be delayed
through illness in her family. This lady, as described by the janitor,
was beyond a doubt Esther Maitland.
O’Malley was positive that the man honestly believed the room unused and
awaiting its occupant. He had seen no signs of habitation, heard no
sound from behind its closed door. Cooking was permitted in the house
and it was part of his business to sweep down the halls every morning
and empty the pails containing the food refuse which were placed outside
the doors. He had seen no pail, no milk bottles, and never at night,
when he went up to light the hall gas, had there been a gleam from the
transom of Miss Brown’s apartment.
The room had been engaged by Esther Maitland the day after the robbery,
had been secured for a tenant who had not materialized. She had taken
the key herself and had visited the place, as Chapman Price had done.
Both had made their exits and entrances so carefully that the janitor
had no idea any one had ever been inside the door since the day it was
rented.
After I’d heard all this I opened up with what I’d collected. The Chief
didn’t say much, which is his way when you come in with a new "twist,"
but Mr. George wouldn’t have it, got quite peevish and said my
imagination had run away with me.
"Do you think a girl in love with another man would have embroiled
herself with Price the way she has?" he snapped out.
"I don’t know, Mr. George. I’m not ready to say yet what she’s done or
hasn’t done. No one can deny that things are dead against her. All I’m
sure of now is that she is in love with Mr. Ferguson and, that being the
case, I don’t think she’s the kind, guilty or innocent, who’d take up
with another man."
"But you can’t base a conviction on a moment’s pantomime such as you
overlooked. The girl was probably angry at Mrs. Price’s manner. It can
be a deuced disagreeable manner; I’ve seen it."
"She didn’t act like that—it wasn’t only anger—it was all sorts of
feelings."
He couldn’t see it any way but his own and hammered at me.
"But the whole structure’s built on the assumption of an affair between
her and Price. Do you think she’d steal for him, lie for him, hire a
room to meet him in, unless she was so crazy about him she was clay in
his hands?"
"Mr. George," I said, dropping back in my chair sort of helpless but
still as obstinate as a government mule, "every word you say sounds like
sense and I’m not saying it isn’t. But while I’m not passing any
criticisms on you, in this kind of question, I’d back my own judgment
against any man’s that ever lived since Adam tried to throw the blame on
Eve."
The Chief laughed like he was amused at the scrapping of two kids.
"That’s right, Molly," he says, "don’t let him brow-beat you, stick to
your own opinion."
"Well, what do _you_ think?" Mr. George turned to him all red and
ruffled up. "Isn’t she building up theories on the flimsiest kind of
foundation?"
The Chief wouldn’t give him any satisfaction.
"I’ll take a leaf out of her book," he said, "not pass any criticisms.
And I think we’re going on too fast. I expect to have Chapman here
himself in a day or two and ask some questions about that long ride on
the night of July the seventh. After that we’ll be on a firmer
footing—or we ought to be. Meantime, Molly, you go back to Grasslands.
Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut and if anything turns up let me
know."
CHAPTER XIV—A CHAPTER ABOUT BAD TEMPERS
Things were not going Mr. Larkin’s way. What had begun with such bright
promise was declining to a twilight uncertainty. The morning after his
ignominious failure with Willitts he had a letter from Suzanne,
forwarded from his New York office, telling him that she would be in
town on the following Monday and would like to see him. The letter
disturbed him greatly. It was not alone that he had nothing to report;
it was that the tone of the missive was irritated and impatient. It was
the angrily imperious summons of a lady who is disappointed in her
hireling.
He packed up his things and left Cedar Brook—the collapse of his
endeavor there was complete—and at the hour appointed found Suzanne
waiting in the shaded reception room. Her words and manner showed him
how disagreeable a fine lady can be; they gave him a cold premonition
that his fat salary would end unless something distinct and definite was
soon forthcoming. In fact she hinted it; his assurances that interesting
developments were pending, that this sort of work was necessarily slow,
kindled no responsive enthusiasm in the crossly accusing eye she
fastened on him. His manner became almost pleading; he was on the edge
of discoveries, unquestionably he would have something to tell her by
the end of the week. At that she hung dubious, the angry eye less
disconcerting, and said she would be in town on Friday as she was going
to take her little girl to the oculist.
Mr. Larkin hailed the announcement with a sleuth-like eagerness, but, as
if anxious to quench any little flicker of his spirit, she added
blightingly that she didn’t think it would be possible to see him as the
child would be with her. He grappled with the difficulty, displaying
both patience and resourcefulness, for Mrs. Price, in a bad temper, had
a talent for creating obstacles.
Why, he suggested, couldn’t the little girl go to the oculist with her
nurse or companion and Mrs. Price be left, so to speak, free to roam?
Mrs. Price’s answer snapped with an angry click—that was of course what
she would do—she always did. _But_, Mr. Larkin did not suppose she took
the exhausting trip from Berkeley for nothing, did he? She had matters
to attend to herself, shops to go to, people to see; when they came into
town they were swamped, simply _swamped_, by what they had to do. She
depicted with a lively irritation their harried progress, the party
split into halves, one in a hired vehicle, one in the family motor,
passing through the marts of trade in a stampede of breathless shopping.
She rubbed it in, seemed to be intimating that he was attempting to
frustrate an overtaxed and weary woman in the accomplishment of gigantic
tasks.
Mr. Larkin met the difficulties and kept his patience. It took a good
deal to finally reach a settlement which was obvious from the start. The
child and her companion could go on their errands and Suzanne could go
on hers, but be back before them. He could meet her at the house at any
hour she named and would leave before the return of the other half of
the party. He forced her to an admission that the plan was feasible,
though she gave it grudgingly, her manner still suggesting that if he
had conducted himself as a detective worthy of his hire she would not
have been put to so much trouble. She arranged to be at the house at
twelve which she calculated might give her half an hour alone with him.
Should there be any change of plans she would let him know, and she
_hoped_, with an accentuated glance, he would have something
satisfactory to tell her.
His good temper unshaken, Mr. Larkin assured her he would and rose to
go. On the doorstep he mopped his forehead though the day was not warm,
also he swore softly as he descended the steps.
A day or two after this, Chapman Price went to the Whitney office. He
had received a communication from them asking for an interview, the
ostensible subject of debate being Suzanne’s divorce. The suit would be
conducted at Reno where Mrs. Price would go in the autumn, but the
Whitneys, as the Janney lawyers, wanted to talk the matter over with Mr.
Price for the arranging of various financial details.
These were quickly opened up for his attention by Wilbur Whitney, who,
with George, saw the young man in his private office. The ground of
divorce—non-support—was touched on with a tactful lightness. Mrs. Price
would of course ask for no alimony and so forth and so on. From that the
elder Whitney passed to the subject of the child; it was the desire of
its mother and grandparents that Chapman should relinquish all claim on
it. The young man listened, gloomy and scowling, now and then muttering
in angry repudiation. But the diplomatic arguments of the lawyer bore
down his opposition; he had to give in. The child ought to remain with
its mother, the natural guardian of its tender years; left entirely to
the Janneys it would be the eventual heiress of their great wealth, but
if Chapman antagonized them by a fight for its possession its prospects
might suffer. It was a persuasive appeal, made to Chapman’s parental
affections, the welfare of his daughter before his own. It brought him
to a sullen consent, and Wilbur Whitney, with a sound of approval,
pushed back his chair, elated as by a good work done.
Price rose, his face flushed and frowning. That he was resentful was
plain to be seen, but he had himself in hand, inquiring with a sardonic
politeness if that was all they wanted of him. The elder Whitney with a
hospitable gesture toward the empty chair, said no, there were some
questions he’d like to ask, nothing of any especial moment and on an
entirely different matter.
"Mrs. Janney," he explained, "has suggested that we make a separate,
private investigation of the robbery. She’s lost faith in Kissam, who
hasn’t done anything but draw his pay envelope and wants us to see what
we can do. So we’ve been clearing up a lot of dead wood, looking into
the movements of the people in the house and the neighborhood that
night."
Price, who had remained standing, turned his eyes on the speaker in a
gaze that had a quality of sudden fixed attention.
"Oh," he said, in a tone containing a note of hostile comprehension, "so
_you’re_ in it, are you?"
"Yes; we’re in it—only a little way so far. We’ve been rounding up every
one that has, or has had, any dealings with the family and we’ve taken
you in in the sweep."
"_Me?_" Price’s voice showed an intense surprise. "What have I got to do
with it?"
"Nothing, my dear boy, except that you _were_ a member of the household,
and as I said, we’re clearing up every one in sight. It’s only a
formality, a tagging and disposing of all unnecessary elements. You went
for a motor ride that night—a long ride. You wouldn’t mind telling us
where, would you? It’s just for the purpose of eliminating you along
with the rest of the dead wood."
The young man’s gaze dropped from Whitney’s face to his own hat lying on
the table. He looked at it with an absent stare.
"A motor ride?" he murmured.
"Yes, from eight-thirty till nearly two."
"Um," Price appeared to be considering. "Let me see—what was the date, I
don’t remember?"
George assisted his memory:
"July the seventh—a moonlight night."
"Ah," he had it now, nodding his head several times in restored
recollection. "Of course, I remember perfectly. There was a heavy rain
early in the evening and then a full moon." He turned to the elder man.
"I’m rather fond of ranging about at night, and couldn’t quite place
what especial ride you referred to. I took a long spin up the Island."
"Up?" said Whitney, "not being a Long Islander I don’t know your
directions. Would ’up’ mean toward the city?"
"No, the other way, out along the Sound roads and on toward Peconic."
"Kept to the country, eh? Too fine a night to waste in town."
Price’s face darkened. George watching him noticed a slight dilation of
his nostrils, a slight squaring of the line of his jaw. His answer came
in a tone hard and combative:
"Exactly. I get enough of town in the day. I rode, as I told you, out to
the east, a long way—I can’t give you the exact route if that’s what you
want." He suddenly leaned forward and snatched his hat from the table.
Holding it against his side he made an ironical bow to his questioner
said, "Does _that_ eliminate me as a suspect?"
Whitney laughed, a sound of lazy good humor rich with the tolerance of a
vast experience:
"My dear Chapman, why use such sensational terms? Suspect is a word we
haven’t reached yet. Take this as it’s meant—a form, merely a form."
"The form might have included a questioning of me before you took the
trouble to look up what I did. Evidently my word wasn’t thought
sufficient."
His glance, darkly threatening, moved from one man to the other. George
started to protest, but he cut in, his words directed at old Whitney:
"It’s all I have to offer you now. It’s what I say against what you’ve
been told to believe. I can prove no alibi, for I was with no one, saw
no one, started alone and stayed alone. That’s all you’ll get out of me,
and you can take it or leave it as you d——n please."
He turned and walked toward the door, the elder Whitney’s conciliatory
phrases delivered to his back. The door knob in his hand he wheeled
round, the anger he had been struggling to subdue fierce in his face:
"Don’t think for a moment you’ve fooled me. I was ignorant when I came
in here, but I’m on to the whole dirty business now. I see through this
pussy-footing round the divorce. It’s the Janneys—the blow in the back I
might have known was coming. They’ve got my child, set you on to wheedle
her out of me. But that wasn’t enough—they’re going to try and finish
the good work—put me out of business so there’s no more trouble coming
from me. Brand me as a thief—that’s their game, is it? Well—they’ve gone
too far. I’ve held my hand up to this but now I’ll let loose. They’ll
see! By God, they’ll see that I can hit back blow for blow."