CHAPTER XIV
Concerning Three Groups
For the first time, Wilkins looked at Mr. Bates and thought swiftly.Having thought for half a minute, he had accomplished a complete circleand was exactly where he had started. It was plain that the maid Felicewas somewhere else; equally plain was it that, for the purpose of themoment, the maid Felice could satisfactorily be in but one place--andthat right here!
Had she merely been out for a little time he could have taken the trunkto her room and, opening the lid a bit, could have fled with his taskaccomplished; she was, however, out permanently--so that the very bestWilkins had accomplished at the end of a full minute was:
"Out? Quite so. But where has the young person gone, if you please?"
Mr. Bates scowled angrily.
"We don't know, I've told you!" he said sharply. "When one of the help'sdismissed under circumstances like that, we don't trouble to ask whereshe's going and we don't keep her address."
"But she might be having mail to forward----" Wilkins essayed hopefully.
"Any mail that comes for her'll be handed to the carrier again," Batessnapped. "And now will you get her box out of here, you? I can't have itabout, and I've no time this morning to argue with you. The master'sdaughter's disappeared and we're all on edge."
"And not a soul in the world knowing where she's gone, poor lamb!"sniveled the under-laundress, laying a hand on the trunk that held Mary."And her that home-loving she never----"
"Hush!" said Mr. Bates.
The woman subsided into her apron.
"Whatever's taken her, she's trying to get home! She's trying----" shesobbed.
"Well, whatever's taken her, get that trunk out of here!" the Daltonbutler snapped.
Was there anything else to do? Wilkins, having thought until his headached, could not see it. If the girl had a friend among the help, itmight be left with the friend; but the only woman of the householdpresent had taken pains to look properly scandalized at each mention ofFelice. Or if Mary hadn't cautioned him particularly against this Bates,he would have risked taking Bates aside and communicating the astoundingtruth.
But since things were as they were, and not as they might have been;since Bates was actually glaring at him now, and would, in anotherminute, be banging the trunk back to the street himself, there wasreally nothing left for Wilkins but to grip the wide handle and startslowly for the door again.
It was bad! Oh, it was very bad, with Mary in there and very likelystifling to death, but Wilkins shuffled slowly back to the taxicab withhis burden, slowly and carefully put it aboard once more.
"What's wrong?" asked the driver.
"The party it was for had left!" said Wilkins.
"Where to?"
Wilkins pondered heavily.
"Back again where we came from," he sighed. "But you might go ratherslow, I think. Like enough I'll change my mind and decide to take itsomewhere else. I can't say at the moment."
Clambering after himself, he looked about while the man hopped out andcranked his motor. Failure had leaped out and blasted the flower ofsuccess, just as every petal had opened wide! Utter failure was theportion of Wilkins--and the policeman on the far corner was watching himin the most disconcerting way.
Squinting over there in the sunshine, the blue-coat's instinct wastelling him that there was something wrong about the trunk. He moved tothe other side of the lamp-post and stared on; and Just here hissergeant appeared from the side street and the officer addressed him,even pointing with his club at the taxi!
Faithful Wilkins's heart stopped! When an officer approaches and asksone to open a trunk or bag, one opens it or goes up. Having opened thisone, it was almost a certainty that one would go up also--and with thatone would go Mary Dalton, and in the evening papers one of the moststartling stories of the year would be featured.
We all of us have a peculiar way of seeing our own side of any givencase before examining the others; so it was with Wilkins. Wilkins sawhimself dismissed from what was really a very excellent, very well-paid,very easy job; he saw Anthony cursing himself and his stupidity andordering him out of his sight forever!
"Can't you start?" he shot at his driver.
"Well, I'm just sitting down," that person stated acidly.
"Well, get her a-going and then turn around; don't go over there, but goback up this block! And start!" said Wilkins.
The cab started and turned, and he did not look behind. He had not needfor that; he could feel the official eyes boring through the back of thecab and into himself; he could hear running feet; once he was quite surehe heard the pounding of a club on the curb, which meant that everyofficer in hearing would flock into sight. Wilkins, becoming stony ofcountenance after a struggle, shut his teeth and sat back, quiteforgetting that Mary might welcome a breath or two of the outer air.
It was possible, after a little, if the police did not appear and stopthe machine, that he would order the cab into the country and thererelease Mary, hat or no hat--but somehow Wilkins doubted whether hewould make that decision.
What he craved more than anything else just now was security behindbrick and stone walls--like the Lasande's.
* * * * *
Be it said that Hobart Hitchin had regained enough of his normal sensesto feel distinctly startled. His vision cleared considerably as helooked at Theodore Dalton, crouching behind his table. He felt, in spiteof himself, that Dalton's grief was perfectly genuine, but the uttermystery of the thing swept over him, too, and he leaned forward andasked:
"What did you say, sir? Your son?"
"These--these!" Dalton said, clutching the trousers. "My son Dick's--hisfishing suit."
"And your son, where is he supposed to be?"
"In the north woods, somewhere, although I haven't heard from him for aweek," Dalton choked; and then, being a powerful character, he threw offthe hideous numbness and straightened up. "What did you say? What wereyou trying to tell me? Where did you get--these?"
"From the dumbwaiter where----"
"What dumbwaiter?"
"In the Hotel Lasande."
"When?"
"Very early this morning."
"How did you come to----"
"I saw a young man when he went into the house last night; I live there,you know. I had reason to think that something happened to himovernight, and this morning I managed to snatch this suit from thedumbwaiter as it passed my door. Further----"
"What was he doing there?"
"He came home last night with a gentleman you know," said HobartHitchin. "One Anthony Fry!"
"The liniment Fry?" cried Theodore Dalton.
His gray face turned white and then purple. He rose and ran one handthrough his shaggy gray mop.
"The liniment Fry," Hitchin said.
"My boy--my Dicky went home with that man?"
"A boy was introduced to me as David Prentiss."
Dalton's hands clutched his forehead for a moment and the grinding ofhis teeth was audible.
"You were saying--what were you saying about a trunk?"
"I said that the remains of the boy had been brought here by Fry'spersonal servant, sir. I saw them taken into the side gate not tenminutes ago and----"
"Come!" said Theodore Dalton.
He reached out and, gripping Hitchin's arm, decided that gentleman'scourse for him. As Theodore Dalton strode to the back of the house andto the back stairs, as he went straight down and into and through thekitchen, Hobart Hitchin merely went along, partly in stumbles, partly inlittle jumps; and so they came to the laundry and, nerving himself untilthe veins stood out on his temples, Dalton faced his butler and spokethickly:
"The--the trunk!"
"Beg pardon, sir?" said Bates humbly.
"The trunk which was brought here! Where is it?"
"Oh, that trunk, sir. It was took away again, Mr. Dalton. The personthat brought it said it was for Felice, the maid we dismissed thismorning, sir."
"_For Felice?_" Dalto
n echoed.
"Quite so, sir."
"Why was it sent to Felice?"
"I couldn't say, sir," said Bates, stepping to the gate and opening it."There it goes, sir, on the cab. Shall I send after it?"
Dalton leaned heavily against Hobart Hitchin.
"Goes--where?"
"Well, I'm not sure as it was his voice, sir, but I think, standing outhere, I heard him tell the man to go back where they came from."
Followed quite a tableau.
Bates stared respectfully at his master. Hobart Hitchin, who had not asyet had time to form a complete new set of theories, merely stood andfrowned. But although Theodore Dalton did not move, he did not seemstill.
His face, in fact, mirrored the whole gamut of human emotions of thedarker sort; overwhelming sorrow was there at first, and then,succeeding slowly, amazement and unbelief, and after them tremblinganger. Black fire shot from his deepset eyes, as they switched toHitchin; his lips became a ghastly white line; his mighty chest rose andfell; and now he had taken Hobart Hitchin's arm again and led him backto a dusky corridor.
"You!" said Dalton. "I don't know who you are and why you came here; butthis I ask you, and if you don't answer truthfully, God help you! Doesthat trunk, to your belief, contain the body of the boy you callPrentiss?"
"To my almost certain knowledge!"
"And he was murdered in the apartment of _Anthony Fry_?"
"He was, sir, and----"
"Come!" said Theodore Dalton, once more, and they returned to the studyin a series of stumbles and little jumps.
Once in the dark, handsome room Theodore Dalton walked straight to thecabinet in the corner and, with a key, opened the topmost drawer. Heextracted therefrom a heavy automatic pistol and slipped out itsmagazine. He opened a box of cartridges and filled the little box; andwhen it had clicked into the handle of the automatic, and the pistolitself was in his pocket.
"There was a cab leaving the door when you came," he said quietly. "Didyou dismiss it?"
"I--I believe so," said Hobart Hitchin, who as an actual fact likedneither the sight of the weapon nor the sight of Dalton just now.
"Bates!" Dalton spoke into the little interior telephone. "My car!"
"If you're going somewhere----" escaped Hobart Hitchin.
"I am going to see Anthony Fry. You are going with me. You are going toaccuse him, in my presence, of the crime," said Theodore Dalton, withthe same ominous calm. "And when you have accused him, I shall do therest! Sit down!"
* * * * *
Anthony Fry, because there was more relief in him than flesh and blood,leaned back in his pet chair and gazed at the ceiling, long, steadily,happily. He would have liked to smoke, yet he declined to make theeffort which would break the delicious lassitude that possessed him. Hewould have liked to sing, too, and clap Johnson Boller on the back andassure him that all was well in the best possible world--but for alittle it was enough to sneer smilingly at Boller's bent head.
He, poor fool, fancied that all was over because his infernal wife hadthreshed around a bit and gone off clutching poor little Mary's hat--afunny thing in itself. Instead of getting up and cheering at hisprospective freedom from the matrimonial yoke, Johnson was groaningthere and clawing into his hair; and now, by the way, he was raising hishead and turning toward his old friend.
"Anthony!" Johnson Boller said faintly.
"What is it?"
"You wouldn't pull a thing like that on me?"
"I certainly shall, if you ever try to tell the truth about MissDalton."
"But what did she ever do for me, to let her confounded reputation wreckmy life? All she ever did was to make a female ass of herself by wearingpants and going to a prize fight and then listening to you. Why should athing like that bust up my home?"
Anthony shrugged his shoulders.
"It may not," said he.
"It has!" Johnson Boller said feverishly. "And listen, Anthony! You andI have to stand together, old man. The girl's out of the way, so thatclears your skirts for a while, but what about Hitchin? What if he callsin the police this afternoon?"
Anthony laughed; with Mary out of the way he was another man.
"We'll let that take care of itself. For that matter, why not go downand tell Hitchin the truth and show him what a fool he's making ofhimself? He's a gentleman, I suppose; if we swear him to secrecy he'snot likely to talk."
"And if we call him off, then we'll find Bee and tell her the truth,too?" Johnson Boller asked eagerly. "She's a lady, Anthony. If we swearher to secrecy, she'll never talk--and maybe we could explain it to thegirl and have her verify what we say, hey?"
Anthony actually yawned and stretched as he arose.
"We'll settle Hitchin first," he smiled. "Come along!"
He lounged out of the flat and to the stairs, Boller hugging close tohis side. He yawned again as he pressed the buzzer of the Hitchinapartment, and he even smiled condescendingly at the inscrutableJapanese who answered.
"Mr. Hitchin," said Anthony. "Say that Mr. Fry and Mr. Boller wish tosee him, if you please."
The Japanese shook his head.
"He no home!"
"Out?" said Anthony in some astonishment.
"Yes, sir, li'l while ago," the Oriental said. "He go very quick."
"And he will be back--when?"
"Mr. Hitchin no say, sir!" the Japanese sighed.
Therefore they turned back to the stairs; and as they came to the footof the flight Johnson Boller gripped his friend's arm suddenly andlooked whitely at him.
"It's all over!" he said.
"What?"
"The trunk! The trunk she went out in! Didn't he say something about notsending out anything?"
"That has no connection with his going out!" Anthony snapped, althoughsome of his insouciance fled.
"Hasn't it, though? Well, it has every connection! He's chased Wilkinsand, long before this, he's called a cop and had him taken in! The wholething's over, Anthony. That trunk's in a police station now and they'veopened it--and your Dalton man's daughter is behind the bars as asuspicious character before this."
Anthony Fry's scowl turned black.
"Can't you see me peaceful, without trying to smash it by babbling a lotof rot like that?" he demanded angrily. "Wilkins must have the girlinside her home by this time and----"
"Why should you be peaceful and happy when my home's wrecked?" JohnsonBoller asked hotly.
"We will not discuss it out here," said his host, leading the wayupstairs again.
Dismally he trailed through the door he had left so cheerfully a momentago. Johnson Boller trailed after him even more dismally, albeit withsome grim satisfaction at his altered mien.
"We can sit down here and wait now," he stated. "We don't have to doanything more than that, Anthony. We can figure it all out. Either hehas had the trunk and Wilkins taken in, or he's just determined that ourguilt is cinched. If the former, all creation knows by this time thatDalton's daughter was up to something--queer. If there's a general alarmout for her, they'll recognize her when she comes out of that trunk. Onthe other hand, if Hitchin has let the trunk go, he's having warrantssworn out by this time and they're dusting off the seats in the nearestpatrol-wagon. Either Dalton gets you and probably me, too, or the policeget us. That's all that can happen and----"
"Stop!" Anthony barked. "I don't care a rap what happens, so long as thegirl is not laid open to suspicion, and I don't believe Hitchin oranybody else is going to contrive that, once Wilkins started to deliverthe trunk. That is my sole concern now--to shield her!"
Having delivered with commendable sentiment, Anthony demonstrated hisentire calm by rising with a nervous jerk, by listening, and finally bystriding to the door of his apartment, which he opened.
Thereafter he stepped back suddenly, for with one searing glance at hima woman had passed.
She was in the living-room even now, and smiling horribly at JohnsonBoller. She was, in a word, Johnson Boller's wife, and he
r black eyessnapped more ominously than before.
"Don't touch me!" she was saying, as Johnson Boller approached withhands outstretched. "I've come back, but only to tell you!"
"To tell me that you've changed your mind, little pigeon?" JohnsonBoller cried brokenly. "You're going to let Pudgy-wudgy----"
"Faugh!" said the lady, and from her radiated the Spanish grandmotherand all the strain implied--blood lust, vengeance! "No, I've come totell you that I mean to make that woman's name a scandal and a bywordfrom end of town to the other. Not _some_ woman's name, but _the_woman's name!"
"But----"
"How can I do it?" laughed the different Mrs. Boller. "I've found outwho she is!"
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