“Let me think,” Mrs. Brace said, coolly.
Lucille exulted inwardly, “She’ll do it! She’ll do it!” The hard eyes dissected her eager face. The girl drew back in her chair, thinking now: “She suspects who sent me!”
At last, the older woman spoke:
“The detective, Hastings, would never have allowed you to come here, Miss Sloane.—Excuse my frankness,” she interjected, with a smile she meant to be friendly; “but you’re frank with me; we’re not mincing matters; and I have to be careful.—He’d have warned you that your errand’s practical confession of your knowledge of something incriminating Berne Webster. If you didn’t suspect the man even more strongly than I do, you’d never have been driven to—this.”
She leaned the rocker back and crossed her knees, the movement throwing into high relief the hard lankness of her figure. She gazed at the wall, over Lucille’s head, as she dealt with the possibilities that presented themselves to her analysis. Her manner was that of a certain gloating enjoyment, a thinly covered, semi-orderly greediness.
“She’s not even thinking of her daughter,” Lucille thought, and went pale a moment. “She’s as bad as Mr. Hastings said—worse!”
“Then, too,” Mrs. Brace continued, “your father discharged him last night.”
Lucille remembered the detective’s misgivings about Jarvis; how else had this woman found that out?
“And you’ve taken matters into your own hands.—Did your father send you here—to me?”
“Why, no!”
The other smiled slyly, the tip of her tongue again visible, her eyebrows high in interrogation. “Of course,” she said; “you wouldn’t tell me if he had. He would have warned you against that admission.”
“It’s Mr. Webster about whom I am most concerned,” Lucille reminded, sharpness in her vibrant young voice. “My father’s being annoyed is merely incidental.”
“Oh, of course! Of course,” Mrs. Brace grinned, with broad sarcasm.
Lucille started. The meaning of that could not be misunderstood; she charged that the money was offered at Arthur Sloane’s instigation and that the concern for Berne Webster was merely pretence.
Mrs. Brace saw her anger, and placated it:
“Don’t mind me, Miss Sloane. A woman who’s had to endure what I have—well, she doesn’t always think clearly.”
“Perhaps not,” Lucille assented; but she was aware of a sudden longing to be done with the degrading work. “Now that we understand each other, Mrs. Brace, what do you say?”
Mrs. Brace thought again.
“How much?” she asked at last, her lips thickening. “How much, Miss Sloane, do you think my silence is worth?”
Lucille took a roll of bills from her handbag. The woman’s chair slid forward, answering to the forward—leaning weight of her new posture. She was lightly rubbing her palms together, as, with head a little bowed, she stared at the money in the younger woman’s hand.
“I have here five hundred dollars,” Lucille began.
“What!”
Mrs. Brace said that roughly; and, in violent anger, drew back, the legs of her chair grating on the floor.
For a moment Lucille gazed at her, uncomprehending.
“Oh!” she said, uncertainly. “You mean—it isn’t enough?”
“Enough!” Mrs. Brace’s rage and disappointment grew, her lowered brows a straight line close down to her eyes.
“But I could get more!” Lucille exclaimed, struggling with disgust. “This,” she added, with ready invention, “can serve as a part payment, a promise of—”
“Ah-h!” the older woman exclaimed. “That’s different. I misunderstood.”
She put down the signals of her wrath, succeeding in that readjustment so promptly that Lucille stared at her in undisguised amazement.
“You must pardon me, Miss Sloane. I thought you were making me the victim of your ridicule, some heartless joke.”
“Then, we can come to an agreement? That is, if this money is the first—”
She broke the sentence. Mrs. Brace had put up her hand, and now held her head to one side, listening.
There was a step clearly audible outside, in the main hall. The next moment the doorbell rang. They sat motionless. When the bell rang again, Mrs. Brace informed her with a look that she would not answer it.
But the ringing continued, became a prolonged jangle. It got on Lucille’s already strained nerves.
“Suppose you slip into the bedroom,” Mrs. Brace whispered.
“Oh, no!” Lucille whispered back.
She was weighed down by black premonition; she hoped Mrs. Brace would not open the door.
The bell rang again.
“You’ll have to!” Mrs. Brace said at last. “I won’t let anybody in. I have to answer it!”
“You’ll send them away—whoever it is—at once?”
“At once. I don’t want you seen here, any more than you want to be seen!”
Lucille started toward the bedroom. At the first step she took, Mrs. Brace put a hand on her arm.
“That money!” she demanded, in a low whisper. “I’ll take it.”
“And do what I asked—stop attacking us?”
“Yes. Yes!”
Lucille gave her the money.
There were no lights in the bedroom. Lucille, for fear of stumbling or making a noise, stood to one side of the door-frame, close to the wall.
Mrs. Brace’s footsteps stopped. There was the click of the opening door. Then, there came to Lucille the high-pitched, querulous voice which she had been afraid she would hear.
It was her father’s.
XVII
“THE WHOLE TRUTH”
“Mrs. Brace, good evening.—May I come in?”
Then followed the sound of footsteps, and the closing of the door.
“I shan’t detain you long, Mrs. Brace.” They were still in the hall. “May I come in?”
“Certainly.” The tardy assent was the perfection of indifference.
They entered the living room. Lucille, without using her eyes, knew that her father was standing just within the doorway, glancing around with his slight squint, working his lips nervously, his head thrust forward.
“Ah-h!” his shrill drawl, although he kept it low, carried back to Lucille. “All alone—may I ask?” He went toward the chairs by the window. “That is, I hope to have—well—rather a confidential little talk with you.”
Mrs. Brace resumed her place on the armless rocker after she had moved a chair forward for him. Lucille heard it grate on the floor. Certain that he had taken it, she looked into the room. Her intuition was correct; Mrs. Brace had placed it so that his back was turned to both the bedroom door and the door into the entry. This made her escape possible.
The relief she got from the thought was of a violent nature. It came to her like a blow, almost forcing a gasp from her constricted throat. If she could tiptoe without sound a distance of eighteen feet, a matter of six or seven steps, she could leave the apartment without his knowledge.
To that she was doubly urged. In the first place, Hastings’ warning drummed upon her brain; he had specified the importance of keeping even her father in ignorance of her errand.
Upon that came another reason for flight, her fear of hearing what her father would say. A wave of nausea weakened her. She bowed down, there in the dark, under the burden of her suspicion: he had come to do, for quite a different reason, what she had done! She kept away from definite analysis of his motive. Fear for Berne, or fear for himself, it was equally horrible to her consideration.
“I admire your spirit, Mrs. Brace,” he was saying, in ingratiating tone; “and your shrewdness. I’ve followed all you said, in the papers. And I’m in hopes that we may—”
He stopped, and Lucille, judging from the thin edges
of sounds that she caught, had a mental picture of his peering over his shoulder. He resumed:
“I must apologize, I’m sure. But you’ll realize my concern for secrecy—after I’ve explained. May I—ah-h-h—do you mind if I look about, for possible hearers?”
“It’s unnecessary,” came the calm, metallic assurance. “I’ve no objection to your searching my apartment, if you insist.” She laughed, a mirthless deprecation of his timidity, and coolly put herself at his disposal in another sentence: “I’ve sense enough to form an idea of what you’ll propose; and I’d scarcely want others to hear it—would I?”
“Ah-h-h!” he drawled, expressing a grudging disposition to accept her assurance. “Certainly not.—Well, that’s very reasonable—and obliging, I’m sure.”
Again by the thin fringes of sound, Lucille got information of his settling into his chair.
“Why,” he began; “why, in the name of all the unfathomable, inscrutable angels—”
“First, Mr. Sloane,” Mrs. Brace interrupted him—and Lucille heard the rattle of a newspaper; “as a preface to our—shall we say conference?—our conference, then, let me read you this summary of my position.—That is, if you care to understand my position thoroughly.”
She was far from her habitual quietness, rattling the newspaper incessantly. The noise, Lucille realized, would hang as a curtain between her father’s ears and the possible sounds of her progress from the bedroom door to the entry.
Stealing a glance into the living room, she saw his back and, over his stooped shoulders, Mrs. Brace’s calm face. In that instant, the newspaper shook more violently—enough, she thought, to signal cooperation.
She sickened again at sight of that woman about to dispense bought favours to her father. The impulse to step forth and proclaim her presence rose strongly within her; but she was turned from it by fear that her interruption might produce disastrous results. After all, she was not certain of his intention.
She knew, however, that at any moment he might insist on satisfying himself, by a tour of inspection, that he was safe from being overheard. She hesitated no longer. She would try to get away.
“Look at this, Mr. Sloane, if you please,” Mrs. Brace was saying; “notice how the items are made to stand out, each in a paragraph of large type.”
She held the paper so that Sloane bent forward, and, against his will, was held to joint perusal while she read aloud. The curtain of protecting noise thus was thickened.
“‘That Mrs. Brace has knowledge of the following facts,’” the harsh, colourless voice was reading.
Lucille began her escape. She moved with an agony of precaution, taking steps only a few inches long, her arms held out from her sides to avoid unnecessary rustling of her clothing. She went on the balls of her feet, keeping the heels of her shoes always free of the floor, each step a slow torture.
Her breathing stopped—a hysterical contraction of her chest prevented breathing. Her face burned like fire. Her head felt crowded, as if the blood tried to ooze through the confining scalp. There was a great roaring in her ears. The pulse in her temples was like the blows of sledges.
Once, midway of the distance, as she stood lightly balanced, with arms outstretched, something went wrong with her equilibrium. She started forward as she had often done when a child, with the sensation of falling on her face. Her skirt billowed out in front of her. If she had had any breath in her, she would have cried out.
But the automatisms of her body worked better than her overtaxed brain. Her right foot went out easily and softly—she marvelled at that independent motion of her leg—and, taking up the falling weight of her body, restored her balance.
Mrs. Brace’s voice had not faltered, although she must have seen the misstep. Arthur Sloane’s bowed shoulders had not stirred. Mrs. Brace continued the printed enumeration of her stores of knowledge.
Lucille took another step. She was safe!—almost. There remained but a yard of her painful progress. One more step, she comforted herself, would put her on the threshold of the entry door, and from there to the corridor door, shielded by the entry wall from possible observation by her father, would be an easy business.
She completed that last step. On the threshold, she had to turn her body through an arc of ninety degrees, unless she backed out of the door. This she was afraid to do; her heel might meet an obstruction; a raised plank of the flooring, even, would mean an alarming noise.
She began to turn. The reading continued. The whole journey from door to door, in spite of the anguished care of every step, had consumed scarcely a minute. She was turning, the balancing arms outstretched. Deep down in her chest there was the beginning of a sensation, muscles relaxing, the promise of a long breath of relief.
Her left hand—or, perhaps, her elbow; in the blinding, benumbing flash of consternation, she did not know which—touched the pile of magazines on the table that was set against the door-frame. The magazines did not fall to the floor, but the fluttering of the loose cover of the one on top made a noise.
She fled, taking with her the flashing memory of the first stirring of her father’s figure and the crackle of the paper in Mrs. Brace’s hand. In two light steps she was at the corridor door. Her hands found the latch and turned it. She ran down the stairs with rapid, skimming steps, the door clicking softly shut as she made the turn on the next landing.
Her exit had been wonderfully quiet. She knew this, in spite of the fact that her straining senses had exaggerated the flutter of the magazine cover and the click of the door into a terrifying volume of sound. It was entirely possible that Mrs. Brace had been able to persuade her father that he had heard nothing more than some outside noise. She was certain that he had not seen her.
She crossed the dim, narrow lobby of the Walman so quickly, and so quietly, that the girl at the telephone board did not look in her direction.
Once in the street, she was seized by desire to confide to Hastings the story of her experience. She decided to act on the impulse.
He was at first more concerned with her physical condition than with what she had to tell. He saw how near she was to the breaking point.
“My dear child!” he said, in the tone of fatherly solicitude which she had learned to like. “Comfort before conference! Here, this chair by the window—so—and this wreck of a fan, can you use it? Fine! Now, cool your flushed face in this thin, very thin stream of a breeze—feel it? A glass of water?—just for the tinkling of ice? That’s better, isn’t it?”
The only light in the room was the reading lamp, under a dark-green shade, and from this little island of illumination there ran out a chaotic sea of shadows, huge waves of them, mounting the height of the book-shelves and breaking irregularly on the ceiling.
In the dimness, as he walked back and forth hunting for the fan or bringing her the water, he looked weirdly large—like, she thought dully, a fairy giant curiously draped. But the serenity of his expression touched her. She was glad she had come.
While she told her story, he stood in front of her, encouraging her with a smile or a nod now and then, or ambled with soft step among the shadows, always keeping his eyes upon her. For the moment, her tired spirit was freshened by his lavish praise of the manner in which she had accomplished her undertaking. Following that, his ready sympathy made it easier for her to discuss her fear that her father had planned to bribe Mrs. Brace.
Nevertheless, the effort taxed her severely. At the end of it, she leaned back and closed her eyes, only to open them with a start of fright at the resultant dizziness. The sensation of bodily lightness had left her. Her limbs felt sheathed in metal. An acute, throbbing pain racked her head. She was too weary to combat the depression which was like a cold, freezing hand at her heart.
“You don’t say anything!” she complained weakly.
He stood near her chair, gazing thoughtfully before him.
“I’m tr
ying to understand it,” he said; “why your father did that. You’re right, of course. He went there to pay her to keep quiet. But why?”
He looked at her closely.
“Could it be possible,” he put the inquiry at last, “that he knew her before the murder?”
“I’ve asked him,” she said. “No; he never had heard of her—neither he nor Judge Wilton. I even persuaded him to question Jarvis about that. It was the same; Jarvis never had—until last Sunday morning.”
“You think of everything!” he congratulated her.
“No! Oh, no!”
Some quick and overmastering emotion broke down the last of her endurance. Whether it was a new and finer appreciation of his persistent, untiring search for the guilty man, or the realization of how sincerely he liked her, giving her credit for a frankness she had not exercised—whatever the pivotal consideration was, she felt that she could no longer deceive him.
She closed her lips tightly, to keep back the rising sobs, and regarded him with questioning, fearful eyes.
“What is it?” he asked gently, reading her appealing look.
“I’ve a confession to make,” she said miserably.
He refused to treat it as a tragedy.
“But it can’t be very bad!” he exclaimed pleasantly. “When we’re overwrought, imagination’s like a lantern swinging in the wind, changing the size of everything every second.”
“But it is bad!” she insisted. “I haven’t been fair. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you this. I tried to think you’d get along without it!”
“And now?”
She answered him with an outward calmness which was, in reality, emotional dullness. She had suffered so much that to feel vividly was beyond her strength.
“You have the right to know it,” she said, looking at him out of brilliant, unwinking eyes. “It’s about father. He was out there—on the lawn—before he turned on the light in his room. I heard him come in, a minute before Berne went down the back stairs and out to the lawn. And I heard him go to his window and stand there, looking out, at least five long minutes before he flashed on his light.”
The Classic Mystery Novel Page 68
