SUSPENSE
By ISABEL OSTRANDER
AUTHOR OF
"THE CLUE IN THE AIR,"
"THE PRIMAL LAW,"
ETC.
NEW YORK
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & CO.
1918
Copyright, 1918, by
ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & CO.
Published March, 1918
CONTENTS
I THE GIRL WITH THE SCAR
II THE SILENT INTRUDER
III THE VELVET GLOVE
IV BLINDFOLD
V BOX A-46
VI A MESSAGE FROM PHARAOH
VII TEN THOUSAND SHEEP
VIII THE ORCHID LADY
IX CROSSROADS
X FACE TO FACE
XI THE FOURTH PEW
XII THE FANGS OF THE WOLF
XIII JUSTICE NODS
XIV NAKED FOILS
XV THE PORTRAIT OF BEETHOVEN
XVI THE CLOSING NET
XVII TURNED TABLES
XVIII UNMASKED
XIX THE HONOR OF THE NAME
XX TREASURE TROVE
SUSPENSE
CHAPTER I.
_The Girl With the Scar._
"Young woman, well-bred, educated, stranger in city, and without
relatives, desires situation as companion or social secretary with lady
of established reputation and position. Good oral reader, pianist,
quick and accurate household accountant, intelligent amanuensis,
willing and obliging. Amount of salary optional. Address Miss Betty
Shaw, 160 Wakefield Avenue."
The girl read the advertisement for the twentieth time, then dropped
the newspaper upon the shabbily ornate center table with a shrug of
impatience, a frown gathering between her level brows.
The boarding house parlor was shrouded in gloom, and outside the window
whirling snowflakes showed white against the deepening dusk. A little
heap of torn envelopes and a card or two upon the mantel bore evidence
that the naïve appeal had evoked response, yet it was with a hopeless
gesture that the girl turned from them and began pacing the floor, her
brooding eyes fixed as though they would pierce the shadows which crept
about her.
All at once she paused tense and alert with lifted chin and quickened
breath. The throbbing purr of a motor had pulsed upon the stillness of
the snow-enwrapped street, and halted with a dull grinding of brakes
before the door.
She darted to the window and peered eagerly out between the dingy
curtains. A massive limousine stood at the curb, its bulk looming
blackly against the lesser darkness, with broad diagonal lines of white
striping the lower body, and a rakish torpedo-shaped hood. It was just
such a car as a person of somewhat bizarre taste and the wealth with
which to gratify it might have chosen, yet had it been a veritable
juggernaut its effect upon the girl could have been no more sinister.
She recoiled from the window, her hands clenched, her breast heaving
tumultuously, and shadowed as it was, her face seemed distorted into a
mere mask of malevolent fury akin to triumph.
Then the small hands relaxed, and with a visible effort at control, she
turned toward the door, as laggard feet shuffled along the passageway
and a murmur of voices arose.
"'Nother lady to see you, Miss." A frowsy head appeared in the doorway
and the girl advanced to meet the summons.
"Ask her to come in, please, Susan." Her voice was guilelessly soft and
low. "No, wait, I must light the gas--"
But the servant had already disappeared and in her place stood a tall,
commanding figure, swathed in furs and heavily veiled. For a moment the
girl hesitated, then with a steady hand she struck a match and a flare
of light streamed from the gas jet. In the full flow of its radiance,
she turned and faced her visitor.
The woman in the doorway took a step forward and paused involuntarily,
with a slight murmur of shocked surprise. The girl before her was
slender and of quite a usual type, with soft brown hair and moderately
large blue eyes, but a spreading blood-red scar with five curved
streaks reaching out from it like an angry clutching hand covered her
left cheek from brow to neck.
If the girl observed the other's momentary loss of poise she gave no
sign. Her level brows were arched ingenuously, her expression childlike
in its bland candor, but the smile which parted her lips did not reach
her shadowed, inscrutable eyes.
"Won't you take this chair? You wished to see me regarding my
advertisement for a position?"
The woman advanced and sank into the seat indicated, loosening her furs
deliberately before she replied. The heavy veil still obliterated her
features, but through its meshes her eyes glowed fixedly.
"Yes." She inclined her head slightly. "You are Miss Shaw?"
The girl nodded in turn.
"I have had no previous experience, but it has become necessary for me
to earn my own living and I have not had any specialized training. I am
quite alone in the world--"
The woman leaned suddenly forward.
"May I ask why you stated that in your advertisement, Miss Shaw?
You are very young and doubtless inexperienced, but you must have
realized that to announce yourself as alone and friendless would invite
unsuitable and even dangerous response."
The girl glanced at the cards on the mantel and then back to her
visitor in wide-eyed amazement.
"Why, no!" she exclaimed. "I wanted to make it clear that I could give
no references except social ones from my own home town, and that my
object was not so much a matter of salary as a home of refinement where
I could feel safe and sheltered. It is dreadful to be adrift, with
no one to take a personal interest, but back in Greenville there was
nothing for me to do."
"Greenville?"
"In Iowa. My mother and I moved out there to live with an uncle of
hers when my father died. I was a little girl then. Last year Uncle
Will died, and six months ago, my mother." She glanced down at the
simple black gown. "There is no one left belonging to me, and very
little money, so I came back to the city where I was born to try to
find a position. I have been here only a few days, but it is more
difficult than I had thought. You are looking for a companion or
secretary? I did not put it in the advertisement, but I am quite
capable of taking charge of a household and managing servants. If--if
you have children I can amuse them, too, they always take to me."
The woman's eyes searched the flushed, eager face but seemed to linger,
repelled yet fascinated, on the sinister scar.
"You--er, you have had an accident?" she asked.
"Accident?" The girl repeated. Then with a smile of understanding quite
free from bitterness she touched her cheek. "You mean--this? It is a
birthmark and everyone around me is so accustomed to it that I scarcely
ever think of it. It must be awfully unpleasant to strangers, though. I
suppose it--it would be a drawback----"
Her tone was wistful, almost pleading, and she paused with a catch in
her breath. There was a long minute of silence before her visitor spoke.
"Not unpleasant. It will merely be necessary, as you so sensibly
say, for one to become accustomed to it. I am not sure that it is
a disadvantage--" she caught herself up abruptly. "You spoke of
social references from Greenville. You have friends there to whom I
can write, if we come to an understanding? You realize that I, too,
must be careful about whom I take into my household in so intimate a
relationship as that of companion."
"Of course," the girl assented quickly. Then she hesitated. "You live
here in the city?"
"On the North Drive. I am Mrs. Atterbury." The woman spoke as if the
mere mention of her name sufficed to establish her status, and with
a deliberate gesture she threw back her veil. The face revealed to
the girl's frankly curious gaze was colorless, the thin, arched nose
and firm, straight lines of her lips as immobile as if carved from
marble. Only the eyes, sloe-black and glittering, gave a semblance of
life to the flawless, masklike expression. The smooth, dark hair was
coiled tightly about her head and brought low over the ears, but did
not cover them sufficiently to conceal their peculiar formation. Small
and delicately pink, they were lobeless and narrowed toward the top so
sharply that the girl wondered if beneath the hair they might not be
pointed, like a cat's.
As if intuitively aware of the other's scrutiny, the woman drew her
furs more closely about her neck and spoke hurriedly.
"I forgot for a moment that you were a stranger here. My husband was
one of the most prominent financiers in the city, but since his death
I have lived very quietly, receiving only a few old friends quite
informally. I am childless, and, like you, alone in the world." She
paused, with a slight suggestion of a smile and the girl's intent gaze
shifted and dropped. "My home is one which you would perhaps consider
luxurious, but it needs a youthful presence. I want the companionship
of a bright, cheerful young girl, gently reared, who can amuse and
interest me, and assist in the occasional entertainment of my guests.
Practically the only duty you would have would be to attend to my
correspondence, which is large as I have financial interests and
property all over the country. I would require your time unreservedly,
however. That is why I prefer a stranger, with no affiliations to
distract her. For such services I am willing to pay well, but there are
certain conditions I should impose."
The girl had listened without a change of expression, but now she
glanced up quickly.
"Mourning depresses me. Would you be willing to lay it aside and dress
in colors, such colors as I choose for you?"
"Oh, yes. I thought of that, in any event."
"Do you speak any foreign language?"
The girl shook her head.
"There were no foreigners in Greenville but the Italian road builders."
"You are prepared to place yourself absolutely at my disposal? There
will, of course, be hours when I will not need you, but I shall want
you within call. Moreover, if I make you a member of my household I
shall feel responsible for you. You must not attempt to go about the
city alone without consulting me first. That is understood?"
The girl's eyes narrowed and for an instant her lips compressed, but
she replied quietly:
"Of course. I appreciate the interest you take in me, Mrs. Atterbury,
and I am grateful for it. I shall do my best to please you."
A few details followed.
"Then we will consider the matter settled." The women glanced at the
jeweled watch on her wrist. "How long will it take you to pack?"
"You mean you wish me to go with you at once?" The girl's face had
whitened until the scar stood out in cruel clarity upon her cheek. "I
had thought of taking a few days to prepare--"
"Anything you need can be purchased tomorrow." There was a hardened
note of dominance in the cold voice which brooked no denial. "I am
a person of quick decisions, as you will discover, Betty--that is
your name, isn't it? I came to take you home with me if I found you
suitable, but I cannot keep my car waiting long in this storm."
Betty rose submissively.
"I have no trunk, only two bags. It will take me only a few minutes to
pack, if you will excuse me."
Mrs. Atterbury sat immovable until the sound of the girl's footsteps
had died away upon the creaking stairs far overhead. Then she rose and
gliding swiftly to the mantel, glanced over the cards and notes of her
predecessors. Tossing them aside contemptuously, her eyes fell upon
an open desk between the windows. A sheet of note-paper half covered
with writing lay upon it and picking it up she scanned it deliberately,
nodding in evident satisfaction.
"'Reverend Doctor Slade,'" she repeated aloud. "Greenville, Iowa."
A quarter of an hour later, two figures emerged from the dingy
vestibule and descended to the waiting car, the girl cringing in her
thin black cloak against the icy blast which swirled about them, the
older woman erect as if the very elements themselves could not compel
her to bow her head.
With her foot upon the step the girl hesitated and her eyes swept the
bleak snowy darkness in swift terror, like a trapped animal. The look
was gone as quickly as it had come, however, and into her face crept
a trace of the sinister, resolute triumph which had crossed it while
she waited behind the curtains of her window for the entrance of this
woman in whose hands she had placed herself.
In silence she seated herself beside her new employer, the footman
closed the door with a snap and they glided swiftly away through the
snow-muffled streets. Few words were spoken during the brief journey,
and they were mere commonplaces, but beneath the casual banality ran an
undercurrent of sharp tension almost tangible enough to be felt. It was
as if, unconsciously, they were adversaries, pausing by tacit consent
to take breath for a second encounter. The girl lay back relaxed with
half-closed eyes, the woman sat with her veiled face averted, and each
seemed buried in her own thoughts, yet each was aware of the sly,
furtive glances of mutual speculative appraisal which passed between
them.
The droning wind arose to a shrieking gale when they turned into the
North Drive, the merging strands of electric light breaking into widely
detached clusters as compact rows of brick and stone gave place to
exclusive residences, each sequestered within its private park. The
whistles of the river boats rose eerily above the blast of the storm
and the girl shuddered and drew the straggling fur collar more closely
about her throat.
"You must have warmer clothing." The woman spoke without turning
her head. "You will need one or two dinner frocks also. That can be
arranged tomorrow, and I will supply them, as you are disposing of
your mourning at my request. We are home at last."
The car swerved from the broad avenue and turning in between two high
gate-posts, followed a short winding drive to a brilliantly lighted
_porte-cochère_. Light streamed, too, from the opened doorway, upon the
threshold of which stood a thick-set man in the conventional black of a
butler.
"Welch," Mrs. Atterbury spoke with curt authority, "Miss Shaw will take
Miss Harly's place. Show her to her room, please." Turning, she added
to her companion: "We dine at seven. You need not change."
The butler bowed obsequiously, but his beady eyes surveyed the girl
deliberately from head to foot in a coolly impudent stare before he
picked up her bags and started for the staircase.
The hall was square and of spacious dimensions, with a gallery
encircling the second floor landing, from which rare tapestries were
hung. The leaping flames of the hearth played upon their soft, mellow
hues and glancing off in darting rays from the brass andirons, turned
the dull brown of the leather wall paneling into burnished gold.
Betty Shaw mechanically noted the general effect as she followed her
surly guide. There was little surprise and no curiosity in her gaze,
which had flown straight to the door opposite the hearth. As she
reached the foot of the stairs this door was flung violently open, and
a man sprang forward, confronting her employer.
"Good God, where have you been?" he demanded, his voice grating harshly
with anxiety. "'Ranza has been trying to locate you all the afternoon.
She saw him, but he has broken! He's going to--"
No countering exclamation from the woman had interrupted him, yet he
paused with a strangling gasp, as if a hand had been laid suddenly upon
his throat.
Betty glanced over her shoulder. Mrs. Atterbury stood silently drawn up
to her full height regarding the intruder with eyes which blazed from a
face that might well have given pause. The impassivity which had masked
it was gone, the brows were drawn and knotted and the lips curled back
in a distortion of silent rage so that her strong, white teeth gleamed
menacingly in the firelight. The girl caught one swift glimpse of the
man who cringed in the doorway, then turned and fairly fled up the
stair.
The hall was dimly lighted but a rosy glow came from an opened door
around a turning, and approaching, Betty found herself in a veritable
bower of a room, spacious but cozy, with flowered chintz draperies and
soft, rose-shaded lamps.
"If you want the maid, Miss, there's the bell." Welch had deposited
her bags beside the dressing-table, and was again surveying her with
his curiously intent, lowering gaze. "Should you be liking a cup of
tea, now,--"
"Thank you. I shall require nothing before dinner." Her quiet tone was
in itself a dismissal, yet the man still lingered as if on the point of
further speech. Before her steady eyes, however, his own shifted and
fell, and turning, he shambled from the room.
Betty waited until his stealthy, cat-like footsteps had passed
well down the hall, then closed her door softly and began a minute
examination of her apartment. It faced the side of the house, with two
long French windows opening on a narrow balcony. A door in each wall
led presumably to connecting rooms, but upon examination the first
proved to be fastened, evidently by a bolt on the farther side, for
the keyhole was plugged with a hard substance resembling sealing wax.
The opposite door disclosed a well-appointed bathroom, with no opening
other than a ventilator, high up in the wall.
Completing her simple preparations for dinner, the girl sank in a low
chair before the glowing coals in the English grate and chin in hand,
lost herself in a reverie. The eager, childishly trustful expression
had vanished when she found herself alone and in its place had crept
a hardened, crafty look which robbed her face of its youthful charm.
The scar leaped again into prominence, and seemed to throb as if its
clutching fingers were tightening in a relentless grip, and in her
somber eyes abiding passion brooded.
The silver tones of a gong echoing up from below aroused her and she
sprang to her feet, her clenched hands pressed to her burning temples.
For an instant she stood swaying in the intensity of some all but
overmastering emotion. Then her hands fell to her sides, revealing
again the mask of disingenuousness.
But behind it there lurked, not wholly concealed, an air of joyous
triumph, and she glanced exultantly about her as if out of all the
world, the shelter of this roof had been her goal, and in winning
her way into the household she had brought some deep-laid plan to
consummation.
While she hesitated at the stair's foot, Mrs. Atterbury's voice
summoned her to the drawing-room, where she found beside her employer a
sallow little woman, dull-eyed and slender to the point of angularity,
who was presented as Madame Cimmino. As Betty responded timidly to
the conventional greeting another figure came forward from a shadowed
corner and paused, smiling and urbane.
"Betty, this is an old friend, Mr. Wolvert." An odd smile twisted Mrs.
Atterbury's attenuated lips. "Don't make love to Miss Shaw, Jack. She
seeks sanctuary with me from the world, the flesh and the devil."
"Dear lady!" He raised a deprecating hand before extending it to the
shrinking girl. "You malign me! Let me assure you of your immunity from
evil here, Miss Shaw. Our hostess tolerates no serpents in her garden,
as you will find."
The man's tone was smooth and unctuous, but there was an undercurrent
deeper than mere mockery in the careless words, and Mrs. Atterbury's
eyes glittered dangerously, although she shrugged in cold distaste.
"Shall we go in? Cook times her soufflés to the instant and she is the
only mortal before whom I quail. Come, Speranza."
Madame Cimmino laid her hand lightly on Jack Wolvert's arm as she
passed him, but his gaze was riveted upon the girl, and followed her
slim figure curiously until the curtains fell behind her.
"She is attractive, this new little one, eh?" Madame Cimmino had halted
in the doorway and there was a hard ring in her voice. "It is an added
charm, perhaps, that brand upon her face!"
"Don't be absurd, 'Ranza." The man frowned impatiently. "There's
something queer about that girl, something oddly reminiscent. I could
almost swear I had seen her before, or at least heard her voice."
During the simple but perfectly served meal, Betty unobtrusively
studied the two guests seated at either hand. Madame Cimmino was
evidently of Latin birth, although her quick, impulsive speech was
interlarded with ejaculations in many tongues. Huge opal hoops dragged
at the lobes of her ears and her brown, clawlike hands were loaded
with rings which glistened barbarically in her ceaseless gesturing.
She ignored the newcomer as far as courtesy permitted, snubbed Wolvert
with a proprietary air, which failed to carry weight before his bland
equanimity, but showed an anxious almost fawning deference to her
hostess.
Wolvert made a half-playful attempt to draw out the little companion,
but finding no encouragement in her shy, monosyllabic replies, he
devoted himself to his dinner, and Betty found opportunity to observe
him at her leisure. He was a man of approximately forty, lean and wiry
with olive skin and curiously light eyes in grotesque contrast with his
crisply curling, black hair and small, military mustache. The man's
whole personality seemed oddly at variance. His hands were slender and
shapely, with the tapering, sensitive fingers of an artist, yet the
high Slavic cheekbones, spreading nostrils and heavy jaw belied a finer
sensibility, and his face in repose was saturnine.
Regarding him, Betty could scarcely bring herself to believe that he
was the same man who had burst upon the scene at the moment of her
arrival with his impassioned outcry. The inexplicable words still rang
in her ears. "'Ranza," was evidently Madame Speranza Cimmino, but why
had she tried so frantically to ascertain Mrs. Atterbury's whereabouts
during the long afternoon? Who was the man she had seen, and what was
the meaning of the phrase that he had broken?
Dinner concluded, they returned to the drawing-room, and after a brief
desultory conversation Betty was dismissed, to her infinite relief.
Wolvert sprang forward gallantly to open the door for her departure and
stood staring after her until she disappeared around the turning at the
stair's head, the same puzzled, questioning look in his eyes with which
he had regarded her at their meeting.
Her light extinguished, Betty lay motionless and seemingly relaxed, but
her sleepless eyes were fixed as though they would pierce the darkness,
and her ears strained for the slightest sound. The storm swirled
unabated outside the windows, and the tall clock on the stairs droned
out the hours at all but interminable intervals.
Midnight came, and with it the hum of a high-powered motor on the
drive. A subdued murmur of voices floated up to her from the hall, the
front door closed with a thud and the motor snorted its way through
the piling snowdrifts to the gate. A few minutes later there was a
faint silken rustle of skirts past her door, then the cat-like tread
of Welch as he went his final rounds and darkness and utter silence
reigned supreme.
One o'clock struck, then two, and as the echo of the second stroke died
away, Betty threw back the covers, and slipping from bed stole to her
dressing bag. She fumbled for a moment and then a tiny, thread-like
ray of light leaped from her hand. With the electric torch carefully
shielded, she enveloped herself in a dark kimona, thrust her feet into
soft felt slippers, and unbolting her door, crept silently out into
the hall. The gleaming strand of light wavered, then steadied and
moved slowly along to the turning into the gallery. Its pale afterglow
lingered like a nimbus for a minute and then vanished, and darkness
descended once more about the sleeping house.