The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  The door by which I had entered was a faint, yellowish rectangle from the distant hall lamp. That is, it had been a rectangle. It was partly obscured now. And gradually the opacity took on the height and breadth and general outline of a man. He was pointing a revolver at me!

  III

  I think it occurred to him then that I might be pointing something at him not knowing that my deadliest weapon was a silver fork. For he slid in side the room with his back against the wall. And there we stood, backed against opposite corners, staring into the darkness, and I, for one, totally unable to speak. Finally, he said: "I think it will end right here."

  "I--I don't know what you mean," I quavered, for I was plainly expected to say something. There was another total silence, which I learned afterward was inability on his part to speak. Then:

  "By Jove!" he exclaimed; and then again, under his breath: "By Jove!"

  (That assured me somewhat. "By Jove" is so largely a gentleman's exclamation. If he had said "Blow me," which is English lower class, or "Shiver my timbers," I know I should have shivered mine But "By Jove" gave me courage.)

  He fumbled for and lighted a match then, and took a step forward. We had a ghastly glimpse of each other before the match went out, and I saw he was in tweeds and knickers, and had one of Daphne's sandwiches in his left hand. He saw the candle then and, stepping forward, he lighted it where it stood on the chair. And when he had lighted it and put it on the table he actually smiled across it.

  "I am not sure yet that I am awake," he said easily. "Please don't disappear. The sandwich seems real enough, but that's the way in dreams. You find something delectable and wake up before you taste it. You see, the sandwich is gone al ready."

  "You dropped it," I said as calmly as I could.

  "Oh," he said, lowering the candle and peering under the table. "Ah, here it is. So it isn't a dream! You have no idea how many times I have dreamed I was finding money sovereigns, you know, and all that and wakened at the psychological moment." He put his revolver on the table, took a bite of the sandwich and stared at me, at my gown, and then at my pearls. I fancied his eyes gleamed.

  I did not speak; I was listening with all my might for the car, but I could hear nothing but the patter of the rain on the flagstones outside. c Tm afraid I have startled you," he went on, still looking at me with uncomfortable intentness. "The fact is, I was asleep. I got in through a window an hour or so ago after a day and a night on the moor. I had no idea there was anybody here until you brushed past me in the dark."

  The moor! Then of course I knew. It had been dawning on me slowly For all I could tell he might have had the Romney under his coat at that moment. I put my hands to my throat for air because, although he was smiling and pleasant enough, every body knows that the bigger the game a burglar makes a specialty of the more likely he-is to look and act like a gentleman. So, because he seemed to expect me to do something, I unclasped my collar with shaking fingers and threw it to him across the table.

  "Oh, please take it and go away," I implored him. "It it isn't imitation, anyhow, and Daphne says the Romney was."

  "Oh," he said slowly, staring at the pearls, "so Daphne says the Romney was, eh?"

  He ran the collar through his fingers as if his conscience was troubling him a little. Then, "I wouldn't care to pit my judgment against that of a lady," he went on without even a word about the collar, "but I think your friend Daphne is wrong." His eyes travelled comprehensively to the silver on the floor.

  "If you don't mind," he said whimsically (this seems the only word, although can a burglar be whimsical?) "I wish you would tell me how you opened that cupboard door. It was locked an hour ago."

  "I dare say it was very unprofessional," I said boldly for he didn't show any sign of trying to choke me, and my courage was returning, "but I did it with a hairpin."

  "Ah!" He was thoughtful. "And I suppose that is the way you opened the front entry door, also?'

  "No. Violet had a key " I began. Then I stopped, furious at myself.

  He dropped the sandwich again and took a step forward with his eyes narrowed.

  "Violet!" he said.

  It seems extraordinary, looking back, to think I could have mistaken him for a theif when he was something else altogether. But that wasn't the only mistake I made. I could scream when I remember He was not at all like his picture, and because I hadn't recognised him as Basil Harcourt, who hated The Cause, I had lost quantities of valuable time.

  One thinks quickly in emergencies, and women have one advantage over men. They can think very hard while they are talking about an entirely different subject. His next question gave me a cue, He came forward and leaned on the table, near the candle. I could see he was not very old after all not nearly so old as I had expected.

  "I know it isn't my affair at all," he began, half smiling, "but I am under the impression that the Hall has been closed for some years. And yet I find a young woman here alone, surrounded by --er--dust and decay. It's a sort of reversed Sleeping Beauty and the Prince. You should have been asleep. As you say, it isn't my affair, but what in the world brought you here?"

  (When I told this afterward Poppy said: "It sounds exactly like him, of course.")

  "I came to steal the silver," I said brazenly.

  That was my plan, you see. If he would only take me away and give me in charge he would be safely out of the way and beyond interfering. And the next morning, when everything was over, I would tell my real name and be released, and every thing would be over. Something had to be done at once, for, as Daphne said, "to kidnap the Prime Minister would be a coup d'etat, but to try to do it and fail would be low comedy."

  When I said I was stealing the silver, which was certainly not worth five guineas, Mr. Harcourt took a step back and caught hold of a chair.

  "Really!" he said. And then: "But what in the world did you intend doing with it? if you don't mind the question."

  This was unexpected, but I rose to the occasion.

  "Melt it," I declared. I thought this was in spired. Don't they always melt down stolen silver?

  "By Jove!" he exclaimed. "You are experienced!" Then he sat down suddenly in the chair and coughed very hard into his handkerchief. But he made no move to arrest me.

  "Aren't you going to give me in charge?" I asked in alarm, for time was flying. He put away his handkerchief.

  "Wouldn't that be a horrible thing for me to do?" he asked gravely. "Perhaps it's your first offence, you know, although I doubt that. You seem so capable And if I let you go you may reform. Take my word for it, there's nothing to a life of crime I suppose you er appropriated the string of pearls that are not imitation?"

  This was unexpected.

  "It is mine, honestly mine, Mr. Harcourt," I began. He glanced at me when I called him by name. Then he took the collar out and looked at it. "I shall advertise it," he said judicially and slid it back into his pocket. "If the owner offers a reward I will see that you get it minus the newspaper costs, of course."

  Then we both heard it at the same moment there came the throb of the machine down the drive. He raised his eyebrows and glanced at me. "More people after the silver, probably," he said, and picked up the candle. I slipped after him to the entrance hall.

  Just inside the door, with a cordial smile of greeting fading into a blank, stood a middle-aged English gentleman, rather florid, with a drooping, sandy moustache and thinnish hair. When he saw me the ghost of the smile returned.

  "I am sure I beg your pardon. A--a thousand apologies. That cursed--hem--the chauffeur has made a beastly mistake. I was led to believe I that is--"

  He was staring at me. Then his eye struck the banner across the hall, with "Votes for Women" on it, and from there it travelled to Mr. Harcourt. He had grown visibly paler. He put a hand to his tweed travelling-cap, gave it a jerk and, turning without warning, he disappeared through the entry into the storm. I caught Mr. Harcourt by the arm as he was about to follow, muttering savagely.

  "Oh,
he's going to run away," I wailed. "And he will take pneumonia or something like that, and die! I told Daphne how it would be!" Mr. Harcourt ran down the steps. "Sir George! Sir George!" I called desperately into the darkness from the door way. There was no answer, but Mr. Harcourt stopped and glanced back from the drive.

  "Sir George!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

  "It's the Prime Minister," I called desperately, "and if you care anything at all about Violet--but, of course, you don't--oh, do find him and bring him back!"

  (Nothing but the excitement of the occasion would have made me mention Violet to him. I was sorry on the instant, for Mother knew a man once who had a fainting spell every time he heard his divorced wife's name, and the only way they could revive him was by sprinkling him with lilac water, which had been her favourite perfume. Very ro mantic, I think. But there was nothing but rain to sprinkle on Mr. Harcourt, even if he had taken a fit, which he didn't.)

  Instead, he turned on his heel and started down the drive. Sir George had disappeared, and the engine of the motor car had given a final throb and died in the distance. Sounds of feet splashing through mud and water came back to me.

  For ten minutes I cowered on that miserable settee, with "Votes for Women" over my head. And I remembered America, and the way I was always sheltered there, and nobody even thinking of kidnapping the Cabinet. The President being the whole thing anyhow and always guarded by secret service men. And besides, imagine abducting nine men! Or is it seven?

  After eternities I heard voices outside and Mr. Harcourt appeared, half leading, half coaxing Sir George. He had him by the arm. The Prime Minister was oozing mud and he was very pale.

  "Terrible!" he was saying. "Unbelievable! Is there anything they won't do!" Then he caught a glimpse of the seven chairs and the gavel on the drawing-room table, and tried to bolt again. But the entry door was closed.

  "Now, then," Mr. Harcourt said to me disagree ably. "Tell us what you know about this thing. It isn't an accident, I presume?"

  I shook my head.

  "You see, sir," he said to the P. M., "you are the centre the storm centre of a Suffragette plot of some sort. I was a fool not to have guessed it, but I actually thought--Well, no matter what I thought. I presume you were going to'Gresham Place?'"

  Sir George nodded and groaned. A terrible flash of lightning was followed almost instantly by a splintering crash. The very house rocked. Mr. Harcourt closed the door.

  "This is Harcourt Hall," he explained. "It's in bad shape, but we have at least a roof. I think you are alone?" to me very curtly.

  I nodded mutely.

  "I fancy the best thing under the circumstances is to wire to Gresham Place, and have them send a car over providing the telephone is in order."

  "The wire is cut," I broke in. And then, like the poor thing I am, I began to cry. I hate lightning. It always makes me nervous.

  Both Sir George and Mr. Harcourt stared at me helplessly. And then, still sniffling, I told them the whole story, and how Daphne and the rest would soon be there, and that I wasn't really a Suffragette; that I was an American, and I thought women ought to vote, but be ladylike and proper about it, and that, at least, they ought to be school directors, because they understood little children so well and paid taxes, anyhow.

  When I got through and looked up at them Sir George was staring at me in bewilderment and Mr. Harcourt was smiling broadly.

  "My dear young lady," he said, "of course you ought to vote. And if voting went by general attractiveness you would have to be what Americans call a repeater==vote twice, you know."

  (It was at this point, when I told the story, that Ernestine Sutcliffe looked contemptuous. "We are not all pretty puppets," she said. And I retorted: "No, I should say not!")

  All this had taken longer than it sounds, for on the very tail of Mr. Harcourt's speech came a double honk from the drive. Mr. Harcourt jumped for the hall lamp and extinguished it in an instant. I hardly know what happened next. My eyes were still staring wide into the blackness when he reached over and clutched me by the shoulder.

  "Not a word, please," he ordered. "This way, Sir George! The door is bolted, and we will have time to get upstairs and hide. There's a secret room, if I can remember how to get to it. Walk lightly."

  I could hear Daphne at the door outside and I opened my mouth to scream. But Mr. Harcourt divined my intention and clapped a hand over it.

  As I was half led, half dragged back through the dark hall I saw Violet enter by one of the windows.

  IV

  We got upstairs somehow, with Sir George breathing in gasps. I realised then that Mr. Harcourt was still supporting me and I freed myself with a jerk, on which he coolly took my hand and led the way along the musty hall. Once or twice boards creaked and the two men stopped in alarm. But no one heard. From below came a babel of high, excited voices and the crash of an overturned chair. I backed against the wall and held my hands out defensively in front of me.

  "How dare you carry me off like this!" I demanded when I could speak. "I am going back!"

  But Mr. Harcourt blocked the passage with his broad shoulders and struck a match cautiously. First he looked at the walls, then he glanced at me.

  "My dear young lady," he said curtly, "we should be only too happy to leave you but you know too much." Then, to Sir George: "I must have taken a wrong turn," he whispered ruefully. "There ought to be a wainscoting here. Good Heavens! I believe they are coming up."

  We could hear Daphne calling "Madge!" frantically from the lower stairs. And suddenly I was ashamed of the whole affair: of myself, for lending myself to it; of Violet, for thrusting the man beside me out of her life and then stooping to borrow his house; of Poppy, for braining a man with a chair and then being afraid of a bat. I turned to Mr. Harcourt as the footsteps ran up the stairs.

  "The door at the end of the corridor is partly open," I whispered. "We may be able to lock it behind us."

  With that we I shifted my allegiance. From that moment my sole object was to get the Prime Min ister of Great Britain back to his family, his friends and his Sovereign without injury.

  We scurried down the hall and closed the door behind us. It did not lock! But there was no time to go elsewhere. We stood just inside the door, breathing hard, and listened. For a time the search con fined itself to the lower floor. Mr. Harcourt struck another match and looked around him.

  We were in a huge, old-fashioned bedroom with mullioned windows and panelled walls. The furniture was carefully covered, and the carpet had been folded and wrapped in the centre of the floor. I sat down on it in a perfectly exhausted condition.

  Mr. Harcourt stood with his back against the door and we all listened. But the search had not penetrated to our wing. Sir George was breathing heavily and mopping his head. The air was stiffling.

  "I'm awfully sorry," said Mr. Harcourt cautiously; "I could have sworn I had taken the right turn. If I remember rightly there was a passage from the Refuge Chamber down to the garden. How many women are downstairs?"

  "Six," I whispered, "and I suppose Poppy Stafford would count as two. She almost killed a man last year." When Sir George heard Poppy's name he began to fumble with the window-lock. "And, of course," I went on, "your--I mean Violet knows the house perfectly."

  "If we could get out of here," Mr. Harcourt reflected, "we could get down to the lodge somehow. Then, when the motor comes back we could stop it at the gates have them closed, you know and when the chauffeur gets out to open them steal the car."

  Sir George relaxed perceptibly. "A valuable suggestion," he said almost cheerfully. But suddenly I had turned cold.

  "Most valuable," I said from the darkness, "save for one thing: Mr. Harcourt has forgotten, no doubt, but there are no gates at the lodge!"

  He gave a quick movement in the darkness. "Then we will have to manage without gates," he said quite calmly. "I had forgotten, for the moment, that they had been taken down. What's the conundrum? When is a gate not a gate?"


  But his lightness did not reassure me. Why had he taken the wrong turning in his own house? And what man in his senses would forget whether his own lodge had gates or not! But there was no time to puzzle it out. The search had abandoned the first floor and was coming up the stairs. The Prime Minister threw open the window. From down the hall came a babel of voices and Daphne's soap-box and monument voice. "I think I had better tell you," she was saying "that Violet and I have found traces of two men muddy footprints that lead up the stairs. Bagsby says he brought Sir George alone. I do not hazard a guess, but something unforeseen has happened. I only hope--" Here she broke off, and there was a rattle of metallic objects that sounded like brass fire-irons.

  The search came our way slowly but certainly. I sat on my carpet and shivered. Mr. Harcourt stood braced against the door, and Sir George had got the window open and was testing the roof of a conservatory with his foot. Footsteps came down the hall and we sat motionless. I remembered suddenly that somebody always sneezed at crises like these, and then I realised inevitably that I was going to be the person. Somewhere I had heard that if you hold your breath and swallow at the psychological moment you may sneeze silently. So I tried it in desperation and almost strangled, and felt very queer about the ears for an hour after. And at the best there was some sound, for the footsteps outside turned and ran toward the stairs, where there was a hurried colloquy.

  At that, Sir George put the other foot over the windowsill, and in a moment we were all in head long flight. Luckily, the very top of the conservatory was boarded on top of the glass, but it began to slope sooner than I had expected, and I lost my hold on Sir George's hand and slid without warning. I landed on the ground below, standing up to my waist in shrubbery and very much jarred. Sir George was not so lucky. He put a foot through a pane of glass with a terrible crash, and it took all of Mr. Harcourt's strength to release him. Standing below, I could see a flare of light in the room we had just left, and the silhouettes of the two men struggling on the roof. Somebody came to the window just as we were united on the soggy ground. I think it was Violet, but the crash of the rain on the glass of the conservatory had covered the noise of our escape.