Vicky Van Part 36

But Ruth was not listening to the child. Stone had said something that claimed her attention.

However, Fibsy was unabashed. With no trace of forwardness, but with due belief in his security of position as a guest, he continued to chatter to Ruth, and rarely addressed any one else.

He has something up his sleeve, I thought, for I was beginning to have great faith in the lad's cleverness.

He sat at Ruth's left hand, Stone being in the seat of the honor guest, and as that left me between the two sisters, I was doomed to partic.i.p.ate in their chatter. But I was opposite my hostess and could enjoy looking at her in the intervals of conversation.

Suddenly, I chanced to look up and I saw Fibsy's comical little face drawn with grimaces as he sang a s.n.a.t.c.h of a popular song.

My heart goes twirly-whirly When I see my pearlie girlie, With her--

"Now, what is that next line? With her--?"

"With her ring-around-a-rosy curls!" supplemented Ruth, her own face breaking into laughter, as, caught by the infection of Fibsy's waggish gayety, she rounded out the phrase.

"Yes, that's it," said Fibsy, eagerly, "and

Her teeth like little s.h.i.+ning pearls, Oh, she's my queen of all the girls, My little twirly-whirly, pearlie Girlie!"

Ruth and Fibsy finished the silly little song in concert, and Stone clapped his hands in applause.

Rhoda sniffed and Sarah acidly remarked:

"How can you, Ruth? I wish you'd be a little more dignified."

Quickly the light went out of Ruth's eyes. She looked reproved, and though she didn't resent it, a patient sadness came into her eyes, and I resolved that I would do all I could to get it arranged that she should live apart from the two carping, criticizing sisters.

After dinner we had coffee in the library. Again, Fleming Stone took it upon himself to entertain the Misses Schuyler, and I drifted toward Ruth. She sat down on a sofa and motioned Fibsy to sit beside her. I drew a chair up to them and thanked a kind fate that let us all leave the table at once, dispensing with a more formal tarrying of the men.

After the coffee there were liqueurs. I glanced at Fibsy to see if he accepted a tiny gla.s.s from the butler's tray.

He did, and, moreover, he examined the contents with the air of a connoisseur.

"Oo de vee de Dantzic," he remarked, holding up his gla.s.s and gazing at the gold flecks in it.

We all smiled at him.

"Your favorite cordial, Terence?" asked Stone, affably.

"Yessir. Don't you love it, Mrs. Schuyler?"

"Yes," she said, and then, "why, no, I don't love it, child. But one gets accustomed to something of the sort."

"But don't you like it better than Cream de mint or Benediction?" he persisted.

Ruth laughed outright. "How do you know those names, you funny boy,"

she said.

"Read 'em on the big signboards," he returned. "They have the biggest billboards in New York for one of these lickures. I forget which one."

"These are what I like," said Ruth, smiling, as the footman pa.s.sed a small bowl of sugared rose-leaves and crisp green candied mint leaves.

"Take some, Terence. They're better for you than liqueurs. Help yourself."

"They are good," and Fibsy obeyed her. "They taste like goin' into a florist's shop."

"So they do," agreed Ruth, herself taking a goodly portion.

"Rubbish," said Rhoda. "I think these things are silly. Randolph would never allow them."

"Now, Rhoda, there's no harm in a few candies," protested Ruth, and then she changed the subject quickly, for she evaded a pa.s.sage at arms with the sisters whenever possible.

The talk, however, soon drifted to the never forgotten subject of the murder. The sisters mulled over all they had heard or learned during the day and begged Stone to propound theories or make deductions therefrom.

Stone obeyed, as that was what he was employed for.

"I think Miss Van Allen is masquerading as somebody else," he affirmed. "I believe she is in some house not very far from this neighborhood, under the care of some friend and accompanied and looked after by her maid Julie. I believe she is in touch with all that goes on, not only from the newspapers but by means of some spy system or secret investigation. But the net is drawing round her. I cannot say just how, but I feel sure that we shall yet get her. It was a grievous mischance that I let her escape last night, but I shall have another chance at her, I'm sure."

"And then you'll arrest her," said Rhoda, with a snap of her thin lips.

"I dare say. Lowney tells me the finger prints on the little knife with which Mr. Schuyler was killed are clear and unmistakable, but we have not yet found out whose they are."

"And can you?" said Ruth, anxiously.

"If we find Miss Van Allen," said Stone, "we can at least see if they are her's."

"Pooh!" said Fibsy contemptuously, "why did'n' youse tell me before that you had the claw prints? I kin get Miss Van Allen's all right, all right!"

"How?" said I, for Fibsy had lapsed into the careless speech that meant business.

"Over to her house. Why, they're all over. I've only gotto photygraph some brushes an' things on her dressin' table to get all the prints you want."

"That's true," agreed Stone. "But it won't give us what we want.

n.o.body doubts that Miss Van Allen held the knife that stabbed Mr.

Schuyler, and to prove it would be a certain satisfaction. But what we want is the woman herself."

It was then that I noticed Ruth's maid, Tibbetts, hovering in the hall outside the library door.

"You may go home, Tibbetts," Ruth said to her, kindly. "These gentlemen will stay late and I'll look after them myself."

Tibbetts went away, and Ruth said, explanatorily, "My maid is a treasure. I'd like to have her live here, but she is devoted to her own little roof tree and I let her off whenever possible."

I knew Tibbets had a home over on Second or Third Avenue, and I thought it kind of Ruth to indulge her in this. But after a change of domicile herself perhaps Ruth would arrange differently for her maid.

And, too, as Winnie had often told me of Ruth's cleverness and efficiency in looking after herself and her belongings, I well knew she could get along without a maid whenever necessary.

"Did you ever trace that picture in Mr. Schuyler's watch?" Ruth asked, a few moments later.

"Yes," I said. "It was just as we supposed. A little vaudeville actress whom Mr. Schuyler had taken out to supper gave it to him, and he stuck it in his watch case, temporarily. Her name is Dotty Fay and she seemed to know little about Mr. Schuyler and cared less. Merely the toy of an evening, she was to him, and merely a chance that the picture was in his watch the night of his visit to Vicky Van's."

We had come to discuss the personal matters of Randolph Schuyler thus freely, for we were all at one in our search for the truth, and there were no secrets or evasions among us.