Molly Brown of Kentucky

by Nell Speed

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

  When the teller of a tale has to fly from one side of the ocean to theother in the twinkling of an eye, as it were, at any rate betweenchapters, and the persons in the tale have no communication with oneanother except by letters that are more than likely to be tampered withon the high seas, it is a great comfort to find that all the charactershave at last arrived at the same date. On that morning after thedropping of bombs when Judy, dressed in her sad mourning garb, wasselling spinach and tarts to the hungry occupants of the Montparnassequarter, Molly, allowing for the difference in time, was oversleepingherself after a wakeful night and the college girls were quietlycleaning her living room. Kent and Jim Castleman were stretchingthemselves luxuriously in the not too comfortable beds of the _HauteLoire_ preparatory to making themselves presentable, first to findJudy, and then to find the general who, no doubt, would be glad to havethe Kentucky giant enlist in the ranks, even though his letter ofintroduction and credentials had gone to the bottom with the _Hirondellede Mer_. Jim Castleman's appearance was certainly credential enough thathe would make a good fighter.

  A bath and a shave did much towards making our young men presentable.Kent with a needle and thread, borrowed from the chambermaid, darned theknees of his trousers so that they did very well just so long as he didnot try to sit down; then the strain would have been too much. Jim'swere hopelessly short.

  "Nothing but a flounce would save me, so I'll have to go around at highwater mark; but I'll soon be in a uniform, I hope."

  They had breakfast in a little cafe where Kent had often gone while hewas a student at the Beaux Arts, and there Jim Castleman astonished themadame by ordering four eggs. She couldn't believe it possible that anyone could eat that much _dejeuner_ and so cooked his eggs four minutes.His French was quite sketchy but he plunged manfully in with what he hadand finally came out with breakfast enough to last until luncheon. Kentwas willing to do the talking for him but he would none of it.

  "Let me do it myself! I'll learn how to get something to eat if I starvein the attempt."

  And now for Judy! Kent could hardly wait for his famished friend to eathis two orders of rolls and coffee and his four eggs, but at last he wasthrough.

  First to the bank! No, they did not know where Mlle. Kean was. She hadbeen in once to get money but they were sorry they could not honour herletter of credit. She had left no address.

  Then to the American Club! Judy had been in the day before for mail, andhad had quite a budget. She had left no address, but came for lettersalways when the American mail was reported in.

  Where could she be?

  Next, to his cousin, the Marquise d'Ochte, on the Faubourg!

  The venerable porter, at the porte-cochere, who came in answer to thevigorous ring that the now very uneasy Kent gave the bell, said thatnone of the family was within and they had no visitor. Madame theMarquise had gone to the front only the day before, but was coming homesoon to open a hospital in her own home. Even then the workmen were busycarrying out her orders, packing away books, pictures, ornaments, rugsand what not so that the house would be the more suitable to care forthe wounded. The Marquis and Philippe were both with their regiments.The old porter was sad and miserable. Jules, the butler, was gone; alsoGaston, the chef whose sauces were beyond compare. Madame had takengreat hampers of food with her, even going to Montparnasse for tartsfrom Tricots'.

  Kent turned sadly away. Judy was somewhere, but where? Her letter toMolly telling of her being in the Bents' studio had come after Kentleft Kentucky and he had no way of knowing that she was there. PollyPerkins and his wife, he knew were in the thick of the battle from thefirst letter he had seen from Judy. Where was Pierce Kinsella? He hadnot heard from his studio mate and friend but he rather thought therewas little chance of finding him. At any rate, he determined to go tothe Rue Brea and see if the concierge there knew anything of the lostdamsel.

  They found a crowd at the entrance to the court on which the studiosfronted. The concierge in the midst of them was waving her arms andtalking excitedly.

  "Yes, and the first I heard was a click! click! click! and that, itseems, was the terrible thing flying over us and then an explosion thatdeafened me. They say it was meant for the Luxembourg and they missedtheir mark. That I know nothing about----"

  "What is it? Tell me quick!" demanded Kent, elbowing his way through thecrowd with the help of Jim, that renowned center rush.

  "Ah, Monsieur Brune!" she exclaimed, grasping his hand. "Did you knowthat a dirty Prussian had sent a bomb right down through the skylight ofthe good Bents' and now all their things are wrecked?"

  "The Bents'!" gasped Kent. "Was any one hurt?"

  "And that we can't say. The young lady has not been sleeping therelately but yesterday she came and got the key and did not return it, soI thought she must have slept there last night! This morning we can findno trace of her. The bomb did much damage, but surely it could not havedestroyed her completely."

  "Destroyed her! What young lady?"

  "Why, Mademoiselle Kean, of course."

  Kent was glad of the strong arm of Jim Castleman. He certainly needed asupport but only for a moment. He pushed through the crowd and made hisway to the shattered wall of the studio. The bomb had not done so muchdamage as might have been expected. The front wall was fallen and theskylight was broken all over the floor. The chairs and easels werepiled up like jackstraws at the beginning of a game. The bedrooms wereuninjured but the balcony where Judy and Molly had slept that happywinter in Paris had fallen.

  Would Judy have slept up on the roost just for auld lang syne or wouldshe have occupied a more comfortable bedroom? If she had been blown intosuch small bits that there was nothing to tell the tale, why shouldthese other things have escaped? There were the blue tea cups in thechina closet uninjured, although most of them were turned over, showingthat the shock had reached them, too. What was that blue thing lying onthe divan in the corner under untold debris?

  Kent pulled off the timbers and broken glass and unearthed Judy's blueserge dress, which was waiting to be dyed a dismal black. He clasped itin his arms in an agony of apprehension. Letters fell out of the pocket.He recognized his mother's handwriting, also Molly's. So, Judy hadheard from Kentucky! He stuffed them back in the jacket.

  "Jim, I simply don't believe she was here. I couldn't have slept allnight like such a lummux if she--if she----"

  "Yes, old fellow! I know! I don't believe she was here, either."

  "I just know I would have had some premonition of it! I would have beenconscious of it if anything had been happening to Judy," which showedthat Kent Brown was his mother's own son. He was not going to mourn theloss of a loved one until he was sure the loved one was gone, and he hadher own unfailing faith that something could not have happened to one hecared for without his being aware of it.

  "Sure you would!" declared Jim, not at all sure but relieved that hisfriend was taking that view of the matter.

  "I know something that will be a positive proof whether she was here ornot last night." Kent walked firmly to the bath room, which was behindthe bed rooms and out of the path of the bomb. He threw open the doorand looked eagerly on the little glass shelf for a tooth brush.

  "Not a sign of one. I know and you know that if Judy had been here lastnight her tooth brush would have been here, too. I am sure now! Come on,and let's look somewhere else."

  Kent went out with Judy's serge dress over his arm. The concierge lookedsadly after him: "Her dress is all he has to cherish now. The poor youngman! I used to see he was in love with her when Mrs. Brune was in theBents' studio and her son occupied the one to the right with Mr.Kinsella. Oh, la la! _Mais la vie est amer!_"

  The crowd dispersed, since there was nothing more to see and the hourfor _dejeuner a la fourchette_ was approaching. The concierge went offto visit her daughter who was ill. The studios were all empty now andher duties were light. Her husband was to see that no one entered thecourt to
carry off the Bents' things, which were exposed pitifully tothe gaze of the public until the authorities could do something. He,good man, waited a little while and then made his way to a neighbouring_brasserie_ to get his tumbler of absinthe, and one tumbler led toanother and forgetfulness followed soon, and the Bents' studioproperties were but dreams to his befuddled brain.

  Judy had spent a busy morning. Marie had gone to carry tarts to "theregiment" and all of the waiting in the shop fell on her. She did itgladly, thankful that she was so busy she could not think. She measuredsoup and weighed spinach and potato salad and wrapped up tarts until herback ached. Finally Mere Tricot came in from the baking of more tarts.

  "My child, go out for a while. You need the air. I am here now to feedthese gourmands."

  "All right, Mother! I want to get my dress at the studio. Marie says shewill dye it for me."

  "Certainly! Certainly! We can save many a sou by doing it ourselves. Go,child!"

  Judy put on her little mourning bonnet and sadly found her way to theRue Brea.

  "I wonder where the bomb hit last night. Pere Tricot said near theLuxembourg."

  What was her amazement to find the poor studio in ruins. No concierge totell her a thing about it, for her lodge was locked tight and no onenear. Judy picked her way sadly over the fallen front wall.

  "I'll get my dress, anyhow." But although she was sure it had been onthe divan in the studio, no dress was to be found.

  "Well, I'll have to have something to wear besides this thin waist. I amcold now, and what will I do when winter, real winter comes? I shallhave to send to Giverny for my trunk, and no telling what it will costto get it here. Oh, oh, how am I to go on? I wish to God I had beensleeping on that balcony when the bomb struck. Then I would have been atpeace."

  Judy gave herself up to the despair that was in her heart. She made athorough search for the suit through the poor wrecked apartment but nosign of it could she see. She went sadly back to the delicatessen shopand stepped behind the counter, her hat still on, to assist the goodMother Tricot, who was being besieged with customers.

  "Take off your hat, child. Here is a fresh cap of Marie's and an apron.Did you get your dress?"

  Judy told her kind friend of the bomb-wrecked studio and her lost suit.

  "Oh, the vandals! The wretches! There must be a Prussian in our midstwho would be so low as to steal your suit. No Frenchman would have doneit. Before the war,--yes, but now there is not one who would do such adastardly trick. We are all of one family now, high and low, rich andpoor,--and we do not prey on one another."

  "Well, it makes very little difference," said Judy resignedly. "I'llsend for my trunk. I have other suits in it."

  "Other suits! Oh, what riches!" but then the old woman considered thatthe friend of the Marquise d'Ochte perhaps had many other suits.

  Judy donned the cap and apron and went on with the shop keeping. No onecould have told her from a poor little bereaved French girl. The capwas becoming, as was also the organdy collar. Her face was pale and hereyes full of unshed tears, but the sorrow had given to Judy's facesomething that her enemies might have said it had lacked: a softness anddepth of feeling. Her friends knew that her heart was warm and true andthat the feeling was there, but her life had been care free with notroubles except the scrapes that she had been as clever getting out ofas she had been adroit getting in. She had many times considered herselfmiserable before but now she realized that all other troubles hadbeen nothing--this was something she had had no conception of--thistightening of the heart strings, this hopeless feeling of the bottomhaving dropped out of the universe.

  She felt absolutely friendless, except for her dear Tricots. The Brownscould never see her again. They must blame her, as it was all her faultthat Kent had come for her. If she had not been so full of her ownconceit, she would certainly have sailed for America when all the othersdid at the breaking out of the war. Her mother and father seemed asremote as though they were on another planet. The war might last foryears and there seemed no chance of their leaving Berlin.

  "I'll just stay on here and earn my board and keep," she sighed. "TheTricots find me useful and they want me."

  In the meantime, Kent and Jim Castleman went and sat down in the Gardenof the Luxembourg to smoke and talk it over, Kent still fondly claspingthe serge dress.

  "I'll find her all right before night," declared Kent. "She'll be sureto go to the Bents' studio sometime to-day. I'll write a note and leaveit with the concierge. I'll also leave a note at the American Club. Shemust go there twice a week at least. I'd like to know where the poorlittle thing is," and Kent heaved a sigh.

  "I bet she is all right, wherever she is," comforted Jim. "Say, Brown,I don't like to mention it, but I am starved to death."

  "Not mention it! Why not?"

  "Well, you see when a pal is in trouble it seems so low to go gethungry."

  "But I'm not in trouble. Now if I thought that Judy had been in thatplace last night there would be something to be troubled about, but asit is, I just can't find her for a few hours, or maybe minutes. Whereshall we eat?"

  "That's up to you. I'm getting mighty low in funds, so let's do it cheapbut do it a plenty," and Jim looked rather ruefully at his few remainingfrancs.

  "I am still in funds but I shall have to go it mighty easy, too, to getJudy and me home. I tell you what we might do. Let's go to a shop wherethey have ready cooked food and bring it out here and eat it. They sayyou can live on half what it costs to eat in a restaurant. When I wasstudying over here I knew lots of fellows who lived that way. Of course,they had studios where they could take the stuff and eat it, but theLuxembourg Garden is good enough. I know a place where the Perkinsesused to deal. They are the funny lot I told you about, the long-hairedman and the short-haired woman. He is driving an ambulance now andgoodness knows where she is."

  "Well, let's go to it. I am so hungry I can hardly waddle. TheseContinental breakfasts with nothing but bread and coffee don't fill meup half way."

  Kent smiled, remembering the two full orders and the four eggs hisfriend had tucked away, but he said nothing. Having a good appetite ofhis own, he had naught but sympathy for his famished friend.

  They left the garden and made for the shop where Jo and Polly Perkinshad bought their ready cooked provisions.

  "These people make some little pies that are mighty good, too. We mightget half a dozen or so of them as a top off," suggested Kent.

  "Fine! I've got a mouth for pie, all right."

  Judy had gone to the kitchen for a moment to bring to the fore thesmoked tongue that Pere Tricot had been slicing in those paper-thinslices that he alone knew how to accomplish. She bore aloft a greatplatter of the viand, the even slices arranged like a wreath of autumnleaves. While she was still in the living room behind the shop, twostrangers entered. Their backs being to the light, Judy only saw theirsilhouettes as they bent over the show cases eagerly discussing whatselection of meats and vegetables they should make, while Mere Tricot,accustomed to slim-pocketed customers, patiently waited. Suddenly sheleaned over the counter and touched something which one of the young menhad thrown over his arm.

  "What is this?" she demanded with the manner she could so well assume,that of a woman of the Commune who meant to right her wrongs.

  The purchaser of sauce and potato salad, the two cheapest and mostfilling of the wares, held up rather sheepishly a blue serge suit.

  "Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! Come quick! It is your suit--and noFrenchman, as I said, but a Prussian, no doubt."

  The grenadier slid quickly from behind the counter and putting herbrawny arm out, held the door firmly, so that no escape could bepossible.