MRS3 The Velvet Hand

by Hulbert Footner

  STOREY.

  VIII

  On the day named, with Crider and another operative duly armed with passes, I made my way to the pier of the French line. With the jabbering on every side it was like a bit of Paris transplanted, that Paris which I only knew for three days, but which I shall be homesick for as long as I live. All we could see of the great ship were squares of black hull and white upperworks through the openings in the pier shed. She brought a good crowd for the westward voyage at this season. The majority of the passengers were foreigners coming to America for their vacations.

  We stationed ourselves where we could get a good view of the first-class gangway. My job was to point out Margaret to Crider and his partner, who were to keep her in view until Mme Storey's arrival on the following day. I had not much fear that she would recognize me in my workaday clothes. Moreover, I was in the crowd, whereas the passengers had to pass one by one in review before us, as they gingerly picked their steps down the plank.

  Hundreds of passengers descended before them, and I was growing anxious. Finally I saw them on deck, standing back with aristocratic reserve until the press should be over. It was Hélie's red cheeks that I spotted. He was quite unchanged, but in America he looked very French. As for Margaret, had he not been with her, I should have had to look hard before recognizing her. For with M. Craqui's assistance she had changed her role again. Nothing of the bizarre or the sensational in her appearance now. She was the high-born Princess on her travels. Her hat, suit, summer furs expressed the very perfection of well-bred distinction. Her make-up was absent—or discreetly appeared to be absent, and it surprised me to discover how good-looking she was without it.

  But she was not extraordinarily good-looking; she was something rarer. For a thousand good-looking women there is I suppose one who can look and bear herself like a princess, and Margaret was that one. When she came stepping daintily and stiffly down the gangplank you could see all the lookers-on glance at each other as much as to say: "Here comes somebody. Who is she?" I could only ask myself helplessly: Where did she get it? Where did she get it? this daughter of the odd-jobs-man of Weddinsboro, Ind.

  She looked around her with an amused interest, as might a Frenchwoman first setting foot on these shores. Technically, of course, she was a Frenchwoman now, and undoubtedly travelling under a French passport. She kept herself very much to herself, and left Hélie to attend to the luggage, of which they had a vast pile. Each expensive piece was marked with an R under a coronet. All the good Americans on the dock stared awestruck at the coronet. Yet nothing is easier, surely, than to have a coronet painted on one's trunks. I wonder if the million in securities was in one of the trunks. Probably not.

  Leaving them there under the eyes of Crider and his partner, I returned to the office.

  Later Crider reported that they held passage tickets to Shanghai, and that the greater part of their baggage had been forwarded through to Vancouver in bond. This was somewhat disconcerting. However, taking a trunk apiece, they had had themselves driven to the Madagascar, where they had engaged a suite for three days. At the Madagascar they had registered as Prince and Princesse de Rochechouart, and the reporters had already got hold of Hélie.

  The interview, when I read the report of it in the evening papers, was merely the perfunctory thing which gives nothing away. Margaret had kept out of sight, and the reporters had not elicited the fact that she was an American.

  Next morning I made my way to a different pier with very different feelings. This time I had no need to hide. I planted myself as close to the foot of the gangplank as they would let me. When my dear mistress ran down she gave me a good squeeze. She was dressed with extreme plainness, and was partially disguised by a comical little veil to the tip of her pretty nose. It appeared that she had kept as close as possible to her stateroom on the way over, and had made no friends aboard. True, she was recognized by reporters on the pier, but she smilingly asked them not to announce her return "for reasons of policy." Mme Storey is a great favourite with newspaper men, because she deals with them with absolute frankness, and they promised to respect her request.

  She had brought but one tiny trunk home with her. As soon as we were alone in the taxicab she said:

  "Well, where are they?"

  "At the Madagascar," I replied. "Ostensibly for two more days."

  "Hm! That doesn't give us much time, does it? I suppose you're keen to know what happened in Paris after you left. Well, nothing happened except the grand fact of their marriage and the announcement of their voyage to America. That astonished me, I confess. My one tête-à-tête with canny Margaret convinced me that I would never get anything out of her by direct methods. At our first meeting at the Jockey I caught her off her guard with a strong dose of flattery, but she evidently thought it over, and at the Ritz she was armed for me. So I appeared to let her drop. She thought I had a tenderness for Hélie and was jealous of her, and I allowed her to think so. The woman is a fool, my Bella, that's the extraordinary thing about her. One of the toughest problems that has ever confronted me, and yet, in a sense, a fool!

  "After that I only met her by accident. I had them both kept in sight, of course. You can get such good men in Paris for almost nothing. A week before they sailed it was reported to me that they had engaged passage for America. This was playing right into my hand, if they meant it, but I could not be sure they might not slip off to South America instead. To have come back on the same ship would certainly have aroused the lady's suspicions, so I engaged passage on the Berengaria and bade good-bye to all my friends, and left Paris. But I let the Berengaria go, of course, and spent a glorious week in Rouen doing the Norman churches: Chartres, Coutances, Mont St. Michel; I had an adventure—but I'll tell you that some other time. When my Frenchman reported that they had actually gone aboard the Paris and she had cast off, then I cabled you and ran up to Cherbourg to catch the Mauretania.

  "Bella, I'll bet a dollar you cannot guess where they are going next!"

  "Shanghai," I said.

  "Eventually, yes. But before that."

  I shook my head.

  "To Weddinsboro, Indiana."

  "No!"

  "That is why she was obliged to tell Hélie so large a part of the truth about herself. That is why she has brought him to America. Indeed, I believe that is the principal reason why she married him, as she does not seem to care for him particularly and sees through him perfectly. How stupid I was not to have foreseen it from the first. Crider's report from Weddinsboro throws a great white light upon her motives. The daughter of the village drunkard! An object of contemptuous pity to the village women. No young friends of either sex. One can imagine how that wound has been festering all these years. Now she is going back as La Princesse de Rochechouart to put it all over them.

  "Can't you see her registering at the village hotel, if there is one; walking about the village streets for a day, clinging to the arm of her prince? She will donate ten thousand dollars for a war memorial, if they haven't got one already, or a village hall; then on to Shanghai, trailing clouds of glory! Can you imagine a more complete and artistic revenge? There are moments when I can scarcely bring myself to interfere with it!"

  "Mme Storey!" I said indignantly.

  "Moments, Bella, moments.... Seriously, in all my experience I have never met with so cold-blooded and devilish a crime. For at least seven years she lived with the thought of it, wholly absorbed. The Greenfields indeed nourished a viper."

  "She was bold to venture back to America," I said.

  "Not particularly," said Mme Storey. "From her point of view the incident is closed. She showed her boldness, superhuman boldness, when she remained on the job week after week assisting the lawyers to delve into Mr. Greenfield's affairs. They gave her a clean bill of health, and she feels she has nothing more to fear from the law.... You have been keeping in touch with Mrs. Greenfield?"

  "Yes," I said, "but I didn't tell her in advance that Margaret was coming back. The old la
dy is so frail I feared the excitement——"

  "Quite right," said Mme Storey. "Time enough to tell her when we've clinched the matter.... What does Cardozo say?"

  "He will make a final report to you this afternoon.... Have you a case?" I added anxiously.

  "For theft, yes, thanks to your work. For murder——"

  She shook her head. "I know she did it. I even know how she did it, but I could not prove it to the satisfaction of a jury. We have a day of intensive work before us, my Bella. I must take action before they get out of New York."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because when Margaret gets to Weddinsboro, she is bound to hear at once that somebody has been there making inquiries respecting her past.... No, within the next twenty-four hours we must forge the vital link in the chain."

  "And if we cannot do so?"

  "I'll make a bold play to break her nerve and force a confession."

  "Break that woman's nerve!"

  "That seems visionary to you?" Mme Storey said, smiling. "But, after all, she's only flesh and blood like ourselves, however she may pretend to be superior."

  Within an hour of our arrival at the office Mme Storey had the voluminous exhibits of the case organized and the contents at her finger tips. Nelson, the man who had the Rochechouarts under surveillance, reported by 'phone that the couple were on a sightseeing and shopping tour. At noon Crider came in to report in person. Crider said:

  "Three days ago I found the doctor who attended Mrs. Gowan. A number of names had been furnished me by the drug store in the flat-building on One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Street where the Gowans first lived in New York. Name Michelson; West One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street. His memory required considerable prodding before he recalled the people. They must have been cash patients, because their name did not appear on his books. It was the fact that Miss Gowan worked for Mr. Daniel Greenfield that brought it back. The millionaire's name had made an impression.

  "On his first visit the Gowans had just moved in, Dr. Michelson said; their things were still strewn about. Mrs. Gowan was a heart patient; serious condition. He remembered seeing her several times in that flat: a chronic and progressive case; all he could do for her was to prescribe the usual stimulants and restoratives. He remembered calling on them once, perhaps oftener, in a more expensive flat at an address he had forgotten—that would be the Eighty-second Street place. The woman died there. He was called in after her death and issued the certificate."

  "What could he tell you about his prescriptions?" asked Mme Storey.

  "Nothing positive. He supposed that he had issued several, but he could not remember them after so many years. Doctors do not keep any record of their prescriptions. The first thing would naturally be a powerful heart stimulant, he said, and he wrote out for me what he would prescribe in such a case, without being able to state, of course, that it was exactly the same thing he ordered years ago."

  Crider handed over a prescription.

  "I then returned to the drug store which had given me his name," Crider went on, "but I was unable to find that such a prescription, or indeed that any prescription for Miss Gowan had ever been filled there. Yet people generally deal with the nearest drug store. Every one of the drug stores in the neighbourhood yielded the same result. That is what I have been doing the last three days."

  Said Mme Storey: "You have not been able to find that such a prescription was filled, but can we be certain that it was not?"

  "Yes, Madame," said Crider. "Prescriptions are never destroyed. The system of keeping them was the same in every place that I visited. They are pasted in a book as received, and given a serial number. A prescription always has the name of the patient written upon it and is signed by the doctor. As I knew the approximate date of issue, it was a simple matter to look them up."

  Mme Storey puffed at a cigarette, and considered. "The Gowans were very poor at that time," she said, thinking aloud, "and had to count every penny. Margaret, knowing that she would be at a heavy expense for medicine, could hardly fail to think of the cut-price drug stores which were at that time just coming into prominence.... There are two possibilities, the shopping centre on West One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street where she must have gone sometimes to do her marketing, and the down town places.

  "Bella," she went on to me, "you take One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street this afternoon. You will find a big cut-price drug store near the elevated station. As for you, Crider, one of the oldest and best-known of such places, Cadnam's, is on Broadway almost opposite the building where Mr. Greenfield had his offices. You go there. Meanwhile I will go through the Greenfield correspondence."

  In three hours we were both back in Mme Storey's office. I had had no luck, but Crider had found what he went after.

  "Dr. Michelson's original prescription for a heart stimulant is on file at Cadnam's," he said. "They have a system there of endorsing the date on a prescription every time it is refilled. This prescription was renewed no less than seven times during a course of years. It was filled for the last time in March, 1915, which would be shortly before Mrs. Gowan died."

  "But there was something else?" said Mme Storey, reading his face.

  "Yes, Madame, another endorsement, reading: 'Copy given Oct. 2, 1922.' This was just ten days before Mr. Greenfield's death."

  "Go on," said Mme Storey.

  "After a bit of a search the clerk was found who had made out the copy. The request for it had come by mail, he said. The address given was a post-office box in Newark, N. J. The letter was signed John Gowan. I should explain that, as customary, the prescription was merely headed 'Gowan' without any initial or prefix. The writer stated that he had had such a prescription made up at Cadnam's years ago, and being about to leave the country he wanted a copy of it in case he should ever require that medicine again. He had written to the doctor for it, he added, but had had no reply, so he supposed the doctor was dead or had moved away."

  "A characteristic Margaret touch," murmured Mme Storey.

  "The original package having been lost," Crider went on, "he was unable to give the number of the prescription, but he gave the date, the doctor's name, and the character of the medicine. And enclosed a dollar to reimburse them for their trouble."

  "But the letter itself?" said Mme Storey eagerly.

  "It was destroyed, Madame," said Crider. "In a big cash store there is no provision for filing letters."

  An exclamation of chagrin escaped my mistress. She arose and paced the room. "Oh, the clever devil!" she murmured. "The clever, clever devil! How can I bring it home to her?"

  Crider and I maintained a gloomy silence. We had nothing to offer.

  Mme Storey returned to her desk and put a hand forth for the telephone. She called up the Madagascar and asked for Princesse de Rochechouart. Crider and I pricked up our ears. After running the usual gamut of operators and servants she got her, and this is what we heard:

  "Ah, Princesse," in a bland voice, "I could not mistake your voice. This is Madame Storey, Rosika Storey—Paris, you remember; our déjeuner at the Ritz.... Welcome to America, Princesse. I have just read the papers. I got in on the Berengaria a week ago. You are well, I hope? ... And Prince de Rochechouart? ... Splendid! I expect you are besieged with out-of-town invitations, but I hope I may have the pleasure ... What! Going to leave us so soon! Oh, Princesse! Can't we persuade you to linger even a few days... Your reservations are made. I'm so sorry! But at least you'll give me the pleasure of having you to lunch to-morrow. You and Prince Rochechouart. At my apartment. It's a tiny place, but it will be more intimate than a restaurant. Just ourselves and Miss Brickley, whom you met in Paris. She returned with me. I positively will not take a refusal...."

  There was a pause here. Mme Storey smiled wickedly at us. "She's asking Hélie," she remarked, holding her hand over the transmitter.

  "Yes, Princesse? ... That will be perfectly delightful! At one-thirty to-morrow. Have you a pencil? ... My address is —— East Sixty-third Street. Go
t that? ... I shall be looking forward to it. Good-bye, and thank you."

  My heart beat thickly thinking of the scene next day. Where would I be between those two terrible women? "How can I go through with it?" I murmured. "I am not made of steel, like you!"

  "You have never failed me yet, Bella," said Mme Storey.

  "Must I be there?" I pleaded.

  "I have to have a witness," explained Mme Storey. "The husband could not be forced to testify."

  IX

  Mme Storey shares a house on East Sixty-third Street with her friend the famous Mrs. Lysaght. Those two talented women put their heads together and produced a dwelling that in New York, at least, was unique. It was an old-fashioned house remodelled. Outside, the plain brownstone shell differed in no respect, except the basement entrance, from dozens of its neighbours; but inside it was so amusing and convenient and charming, one wondered how people could go on building in the old conventional way.

  The kitchen was alongside the front entrance. When you rang the bell a wicket opened in the wall, and the smiling face of Grace or Matilda looked you over. If you were all right, she pressed a button in the manner of a Paris concierge and you walked in through an iron gate. Consider how admirable an arrangement in Manhattan, where the front doors are beset by beggars, canvassers, and nuisances of every sort.

  You were not yet in the house, but in a passage paved with red tiles which led right through under a charming archway into a tiny formal garden at the rear. The front door proper was at your left hand where Grace (or Matilda) met you. Within, a tiny electric elevator carried you to the rooms above. Mme Storey's bedroom was in front, and the living room extended across the rear with a balcony overlooking the garden. The dining room was under the living room, with glass doors opening on a level with the garden. Mrs. Lysaght had the two floors above Mme Storey, and the servants of both households shared the top floor.