CHAPTER XIX
BACK TO BELLWOOD
The inability of Margery Fleming to tell who had chloroformed her, andMrs. Butler's white face and brooding eyes made a very respectablemystery out of the affair. Only Fred, Edith and I came down to breakfastthat morning. Fred's expression was half amused, half puzzled. Edithfluttered uneasily over the coffee machine, her cheeks as red as the bowof ribbon at her throat. I was preoccupied, and, like Fred, I proppedthe morning paper in front of me and proceeded to think in its shelter.
"Did you find anything, Fred?" Edith asked. Fred did not reply, so sherepeated the question with some emphasis.
"Eh--what?" Fred inquired, peering around the corner of the paper.
"Did--you--find--any--clue?"
"Yes, dear--that is, no. Nothing to amount to anything. Upon my soul,Jack, if I wrote the editorials of this paper, I'd _say_ something." Hesubsided into inarticulate growls behind the paper, and everything wasquiet. Then I heard a sniffle, distinctly. I looked up. Edith wascrying--pouring cream into a coffee cup, and feeling blindly for thesugar, with her pretty face twisted and her pretty eyes obscured. In asecond I was up, had crumpled the newspapers, including Fred's, into aball, and had lifted him bodily out of his chair.
"When I am married," I said fiercely, jerking him around to Edith andpushing him into a chair beside her, "if I ever read the paper atbreakfast when my wife is bursting for conversation, may I have somegood and faithful friend who will bring me back to a sense of my duty."I drew a chair to Edith's other side. "Now, let's talk," I said.
She wiped her eyes shamelessly with her table napkin. "There isn't asoul in this house I can talk to," she wailed. "All kinds of awfulthings happening--and we had to send for coffee this morning, Jack. Youmust have used four pounds last night--and nobody will tell me a thing.There's no use asking Margery--she's sick at her stomach from thechloroform--and Ellen never talks except about herself, and she'shorribly--uninteresting. And Fred and you make a ba--barricade out ofnewspapers, and fire 'yes' at me when you mean 'no.'"
"I put the coffee back where I got it, Edith," I protested stoutly. "Iknow we're barbarians, but I'll swear to that." And then I stopped, forI had a sudden recollection of going up-stairs with something fat andtinny in my arms, of finding it in my way, and of hastily thrusting itinto the boys' boot closet under the nursery stair.
Fred had said nothing. He had taken her hand and was patting it gently,the while his eye sought the head-lines on the wad of morning paper.
"You burned that blue rug," she said to me disconsolately, with a threatof fresh tears. "It took me ages to find the right shade of blue."
"I will buy you that Shirvan you wanted," I hastened to assure her.
"Yes, to take away when you get married." There is a hint of the shrewin all good women.
"I will buy the Shirvan and _not_ get married."
Here, I regret to say, Edith suddenly laughed. She threw her head backand jeered at me.
"You!" she chortled, and pointed one slim finger at me mockingly. "You,who are so mad about one girl that you love all women for her sake! You,who go white instead of red when she comes into the room! You, who havelet your practice go to the dogs to be near her, and then never speak toher when she's around, but sit with your mouth open like a puppy beggingfor candy, ready to snap up every word she throws you and wiggle withjoy!"
I was terrified.
"Honestly, Edith, do I do that?" I gasped. But she did not answer; sheonly leaned over and kissed Fred.
"Women like men to be awful fools about them," she said. "That's why I'mso crazy about Freddie." He writhed.
"If I tell you something nice, Jack, will you make it a room-size rug?"
"Room size it is."
"Then--Margery's engagement ring was stolen last night and when Icommiserated her she said--dear me, the lamp's out and the coffee iscold!"
"Remarkable speech, under the circumstances," said Fred.
Edith rang the bell and seemed to be thinking. "Perhaps we'd better makeit four small rugs instead of one large one," she said.
"Not a rug until you have told me what Margery said," firmly.
"Oh, that! Why, she said it really didn't matter about the ring. She hadnever cared much about it anyway."
"But that's only a matter of taste," I protested, somewhat disappointed.But Edith got up and patted me on the top of my head.
"Silly," she said. "If the right man came along and gave her a rubberteething ring, she'd be crazy about it for his sake."
"Edith!" Fred said, shocked. But Edith had gone.
She took me up-stairs before I left for the office to measure for theShirvan, Edith being a person who believes in obtaining a thing whilethe desire for it is in its first bloom. Across the hall Fred wastalking to Margery through the transom.
"Mustard leaves are mighty helpful," he was saying. "I always take 'emon shipboard. And cheer up: land's in sight."
I would have given much for Fred's ease of manner when, a few minuteslater, Edith having decided on four Shirvans and a hall runner, she tookme to the door of Margery's room.
She was lying very still and pale in the center of the white bed, andshe tried bravely to smile at us.
"I hope you are better," I said. "Don't let Edith convince you that mycoffee has poisoned you."
She said she was a little better, and that she didn't know she had hadany coffee. That was the extent of the conversation. I, who have a localreputation of a sort before a jury, I could not think of another word tosay. I stood there for a minute uneasily, with Edith poking me with herfinger to go inside the door and speak and act like an intelligent humanbeing. But I only muttered something about a busy day before me andfled. It was a singular thing, but as I stood in the doorway, I had avivid mental picture of Edith's description of me, sitting up puppy-liketo beg for a kind word, and wiggling with delight when I got it. If Islunk into my office that morning like a dog scourged to his kennel,Edith was responsible.
At the office I found a note from Miss Letitia, and after a glance at itI looked for the first train, in my railroad schedule. The note wasbrief; unlike the similar epistle I had received from Miss Jane the dayshe disappeared, this one was very formal.
"MR. JOHN KNOX:
"DEAR SIR--Kindly oblige me by coming to see me as soon as you get this. Some things have happened, not that I think they are worth a row of pins, but Hepsibah is an old fool, and she says she did not put the note in the milk bottle.
"Yours very respectfully,
"LETITIA ANN MAITLAND."
I had an appointment with Burton for the afternoon, to take Wardrop, ifwe could get him on some pretext, to Doctor Anderson. That day, also, Ihad two cases on the trial list. I got Humphreys, across the hall, totake them over, and evading Hawes' resentful blink, I went on my way toBellwood. It was nine days since Miss Jane had disappeared. On my wayout in the train I jotted down the things that had happened in thattime: Allan Fleming had died and been buried; the Borough Bank hadfailed; some one had got into the Fleming house and gone through thepapers there; Clarkson had killed himself; we had found that Wardrop hadsold the pearls; the leather bag had been returned; Fleming's secondwife had appeared, and some one had broken into my own house and,intentionally or not, had almost sent Margery Fleming over theborderland.
It seemed to me everything pointed in one direction, to a malignityagainst Fleming that extended itself to the daughter. I thought of whatthe woman who claimed to be the dead man's second wife had said the daybefore. If the staircase she had spoken of opened into the room whereFleming was shot, and if Schwartz was in town at the time, then, in viewof her story that he had already tried once to kill him, the likelihoodwas that Schwartz was at least implicated.
If Wardrop knew that, why had he not denounced him? Was I to believethat, after all the mystery, the number eleven twenty-two was to resolveitself into the number of a house? Would it be typical of the Schwartz Iknew to pin bits of paper to a man's pi
llow? On the other hand, if hehad reason to think that Fleming had papers that would incriminate him,it would be like Schwartz to hire some one to search for them, and hewould be equal to having Wardrop robbed of the money he was taking toFleming.
Granting that Schwartz had killed Fleming--then who was the woman withWardrop the night he was robbed? Why did he take the pearls and sellthem? How did the number eleven twenty-two come into Aunt Jane'spossession? How did the leather bag get to Boston? Who had chloroformedMargery? Who had been using the Fleming house while it was closed? Mostimportant of all now--where was Aunt Jane?
The house at Bellwood looked almost cheerful in the May sunshine, as Iwent up the walk. Nothing ever changed the straight folds of theold-fashioned lace curtains; no dog ever tracked the porch, or buriedsacrilegious and odorous bones on the level lawn; the birds were nestingin the trees, well above the reach of Robert's ladder, but they weredecorous, well-behaved birds, whose prim courting never partook of theexuberance of their neighbors', bursting their little throats in an elmabove the baby perambulator in the next yard.
When Bella had let me in, and I stood once more in the straight hall,with the green rep chairs and the Japanese umbrella stand, involuntarilyI listened for the tap of Miss Jane's small feet on the stairs. Insteadcame Bella's heavy tread, and a request from Miss Letitia that I goup-stairs.
The old lady was sitting by a window of her bedroom, in a chintzupholstered chair. She did not appear to be feeble; the only change Inoticed was a relaxation in the severe tidiness of her dress. I guessedthat Miss Jane's exquisite neatness had been responsible for the whiteruchings, the soft caps, and the spotless shoulder shawls which hadmade lovely their latter years.
"You've taken your own time about coming, haven't you?" Miss Letitiaasked sourly. "If it hadn't been for that cousin of yours you sent here,Burton, I'd have been driven to sending for Amelia Miles, and when Isend for Amelia Miles for company, I'm in a bad way."
"I have had a great deal to attend to," I said as loud as I could. "Icame some days ago to tell you Mr. Fleming was dead; after that we hadto bury him, and close the house. It's been a very sad--"
"Did he leave anything?" she interrupted. "It isn't sad at all unless hedidn't leave anything."
"He left very little. The house, perhaps, and I regret to have to tellyou that a woman came to me yesterday who claims to be a second wife."
She took off her glasses, wiped them and put them on again.
"Then," she said with a snap, "there's one other woman in the world asbig a fool as my sister Martha was. I didn't know there were two of 'em.What do you hear about Jane?"
"The last time I was here," I shouted, "you thought she was dead; haveyou changed your mind?"
"The last time you were here," she said with dignity, "I thought a goodmany things that were wrong. I thought I had lost some of the pearls,but I hadn't."
"What!" I exclaimed incredulously. She put her hands on the arms of herchair, and leaning forward, shot the words at me viciously.
"I--said--I--had--lost--some--of--the--pearls--well--I--haven't."
She didn't expect me to believe her, any more than she believed itherself. But why on earth she had changed her attitude about the pearlswas beyond me. I merely nodded comprehensively.
"Very well," I said, "I'm glad to know it was a mistake. Now, the nextthing is to find Miss Jane."
"We have found her," she said tartly. "That's what I sent for youabout."
"Found her!" This time I did get out of my chair. "What on earth do youmean, Miss Letitia? Why, we've been scouring the country for her."
She opened a religious monthly on the table beside her, and took out afolded paper. I had to control my impatience while she changed herglasses and read it slowly.
"Heppie found it on the back porch, under a milk bottle," she prefaced.Then she read it to me. I do not remember the wording, and Miss Letitiarefused, both then and later, to let it out of her hands. As a result,unlike the other manuscripts in the case, I have not even a copy. Thesubstance, shorn of its bad spelling and grammar, was this:
The writer knew where Miss Jane was; the inference being that he wasresponsible. She was well and happy, but she had happened to read anewspaper with an account of her disappearance, and it had worried her.The payment of the small sum of five thousand dollars would send herback as well as the day she left. The amount, left in a tin can on thebase of the Maitland shaft in the cemetery, would bring the missing ladyback within twenty-four hours. On the contrary, if the recipient of theletter notified the police, it would go hard with Miss Jane.
"What do you think of it?" she asked, looking at me over her glasses."If she was fool enough to be carried away by a man that spells cemeterywith one m, she deserves what she's got. And I won't pay five thousand,anyhow, it's entirely too much."
"It doesn't sound quite genuine to me," I said, reading it over. "Ishould certainly not leave any money until we had tried to find who leftthis."
"I'm not so sure but what she'd better stay a while anyhow," MissLetitia pursued. "Now that we know she's living, I ain't so particularwhen she gets back. She's been notionate lately anyhow."
I had been reading the note again. "There's one thing here that makes medoubt the whole story," I said. "What's this about her reading thepapers? I thought her reading glasses were found in the library."
Miss Letitia snatched the paper from me and read it again.
"Reading the paper!" she sniffed. "You've got more sense than I've beengiving you credit for, Knox. Her glasses are here this minute; withoutthem she can't see to scratch her nose."
It was a disappointment to me, although the explanation was simpleenough. It was surprising that we had not had more attempts to play onour fears. But the really important thing bearing on Miss Jane'sdeparture was when Heppie came into the room, with her apron turned uplike a pocket and her dust cap pushed down over her eyes like the slouchhat of a bowery tough.
When she got to the middle of the room she stopped and abruptly droppedthe corners of her apron. There rolled out a heterogeneous collection ofthings: a white muslin garment which proved to be a nightgown, with longsleeves and high collar; a half-dozen hair curlers--I knew those; Edithhad been seen, in midnight emergencies, with her hair twisted aroundjust such instruments of torture--a shoe buttoner; a railroad map, andone new and unworn black kid glove.
Miss Letitia changed her glasses deliberately, and took a comprehensivesurvey of the things on the floor.
"Where did you get 'em?" she said, fixing Heppie with an awful eye.
"I found 'em stuffed under the blankets in the chest of drawers in theattic," Heppie shouted at her. "If we'd washed blankets last week, as Iwanted to--"
"Shut up!" Miss Letitia said shortly, and Heppie's thin lips closed witha snap. "Now then, Knox, what do you make of that?"
"If that's the nightgown she was wearing the night she disappeared, Ithink it shows one thing very clearly, Miss Maitland. She was notabducted, and she knew perfectly well what she was about. None of herclothes was missing, and that threw us off the track; but look at thisnew glove! She may have had new things to put on and left the old. Themap--well, she was going somewhere, with a definite purpose. When wefind out what took her away, we will find her."
"Humph!"
"She didn't go unexpectedly--that is, she was prepared for whatever itwas."
"I don't believe a word of it," the old lady burst out. "She didn't havea secret; she was the kind that couldn't keep a secret. She wasn'tresponsible, I tell you; she was extravagant. Look at that glove! Andshe had three pairs half worn in her bureau."
"Miss Maitland," I asked suddenly, "did you ever hear of eleventwenty-two?"
"Eleven twenty-two what?"
"Just the number, eleven twenty-two," I repeated. "Does it mean anythingto you? Has it any significance?"
"I should say it has," she retorted. "In the last ten years the ColoredOrphans' Home has cared for, fed, clothed, and pampered exactly elevenhundred and twenty-t
wo colored children, of every condition of shape andmisshape, brains and no brains."
"It has no other connection?"
"Eleven twenty-two? Twice eleven is twenty-two, if that's any help. No,I can't think of anything. I loaned Allan Fleming a thousand dollarsonce; I guess my mind was failing. It would be about eleven twenty-twoby this time."
Neither of which explanations sufficed for the little scrap found inMiss Jane's room. What connection, if any, had it with her flight? Wherewas she now. What was eleven twenty-two? And why did Miss Letitia denythat she had lost the pearls, when I already knew that nine of the tenhad been sold, who had bought them, and approximately how much he hadpaid?
The Window at the White Cat Page 19
