Miss Maitland Private Secretary Part 36

They started in pursuit, repeating their challenge and then an order to lie to. Again there was no response and they clapped on top speed and raced in its wake. They were gaining on it when, in answer to a louder hail, the man fired on them, the bullet pa.s.sing between two of them and burying itself in the gunwale. They replied with a return fire, there was a fusillade of shots, and the two boats sped in a darkling rush across the Sound. They knew something was wrong with their opponent; his launch headed in a straight line swept through the wash of steamers, cut across the bows of tugs and river craft, rocking like a c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l, menaced by destruction, shouts and objurgations following its mad course. They were up with it, almost alongside on the last lap. He made no answer to their hails, sat upright and motionless, sat so when his bow crashed against the rocks of the Connecticut sh.o.r.e. They found him dead, a bullet in his brain, the wheel still gripped in his hands.

Ferguson dropped into the launch and drew down the coat that had been thrown over the body. The face, the false beard gone, was handsome, the body large and powerful, the hands fine and well kept-it was not the type he had expected to see. He felt in the pockets and found the money still in its envelope, clasped by the rubber bands. There were no other papers, no means of identification. After a short colloquy with the men, he and Price drove back to Council Oaks.

Price left the next morning. His presence was necessary in the city, he said, and he seemed preoccupied and anxious to go. He hinted at forthcoming revelations which would clear up what was still unexplained, but declared himself unable at present to say more.

When he had gone, Ferguson walked to Gra.s.slands where he found the family recuperating in a relief too deep for words. Bebita was in bed still asleep. The doctor, sent for the night before, said she was suffering from the effects of a drug, but that rest and quiet would soon restore her.

They collected on the balcony to hear his story. When it was over, questions answered, amazement and horror vented in various forms, Mr.

Janney said he would like to walk over to the wharf and have a talk with the police himself. Ferguson decided to go with him; there would be a lot of business to be gone through, an inquest with all its unpleasant detail.

As they rose to leave, Suzanne announced that she wanted to come too.

She looked a wreck, in her hysterical jubilation forgetful of her rouge and powder; a worn little wraith of a woman whose journey to the heart of life had stripped her of all coquetry and beauty. They tried to dissuade her, but, as usual, she was insistent; she wanted to see the men herself, she wanted to hear everything. On this day of thanksgiving no one had the will to thwart her, so they accepted with the best grace they could and she walked through the woods with them.

There was a group of men on the wharf, the local police, the coroner, some of Ferguson's employees. The body had been put in the boathouse, laid on a table under a sheltering tarpaulin. Ferguson and Mr. Janney drew off to the end of the dock in low-toned conference with the officials. They were relieved to see that Suzanne had no mind to listen, but stayed by herself in the shade of the boathouse wall.

She leaned against it, looking out over the sparkling reaches of the Sound. Her thoughts were of the dead man, close behind her there, on the other side of the wooden part.i.tion. She wondered with an awed amaze at his wild act and its dark ending. She wondered what manner of man he was, what he was like-a human creature, unknown to her, who could want only to cause her such anguish.

She shot a glance over her shoulder and saw that the door of the boathouse was half open-the coroner had been in and had neglected to close it. She looked at the men at the end of the wharf; they stood in a little cl.u.s.ter, backs toward her, heads together in animated discussion.

She moved from the wall, advanced on tip-toe through the slant of shade, and slipped through the open doorway.

The place was very still, its clear, varnished brownness impregnated with the sea's salty tang, through its windows the golden gleam of the waves reflected in rippling lights that chased across its peaked ceiling. She stole to the table where the grim shape lay and lifted the tarpaulin with a trembling hand. The other shot suddenly to her mouth, strangling a scream, and she dropped the heavy cloth as if it burned her. Both hands went up over her face, flattened there until the nails were empurpled, and she stood, bent as if cramped with pain, for the moment all movement paralyzed.

Ferguson, informed of all he wanted to know, turned from the others to join her. She was not where he had left her, and moving down the wharf he looked about and, seeing no sign of her, decided that she had gone home. He was pa.s.sing the boathouse doorway when she came through it almost upon him.

"Good heavens!" he said angrily, "have you been in _there_?" Then, seeing her face, he caught her arm and held her. Would there ever be an end to her willfulness!

"Come home," he said, sharply, and led her away. She tottered beside him, drooping and ghastly. As they crossed the road to the path up the bluff he could not forbear an exasperated:

"What in the name of common sense did you do that for? Didn't you know it was not a thing for you to see?"

Her hands locked on his arm; she leaned against him lifting a haggard glance to his face. Her voice was a husky whisper:

"It's not that, d.i.c.k. It wasn't just the dead man. It was-it was-he was my detective-Larkin!"

CHAPTER XXIX-MISS MAITLAND EXPLAINS

On Sat.u.r.day afternoon several telephone messages were sent to Esther Maitland at O'Malley's flat. They came from Ferguson, from Gra.s.slands, and the Whitney office. In the two latter cases they were conciliatory and apologetic and asked that Miss Maitland would see the senders and explain the circ.u.mstances that had so strangely involved her in the case.

To both her employers and the Whitneys Miss Maitland returned an evasive answer. She would be happy to do as they asked, but would have to let a few more days pa.s.s before she would be free to speak. Meantime she would remain with Mrs. O'Malley, who had offered to keep her, and who had treated her with the utmost kindness and consideration. One request she made-this to the Whitneys-she would like Chapman Price to be advised of her whereabouts. It would be necessary for her to communicate with him before she would be able to explain her share in the mystery.

Ferguson's message had been an importunate demand to let him come to her. She refused, said she would see no one until she was at liberty to clear herself, which would not be for some days yet. Her voice showed a tremulous urgency, a note of pleading, new to his ears and infinitely sweet. But he could not break down her resolution; she begged him to do as she asked, not to seek her out, not to demand any explanations until she was ready to give them. The one favor she granted him was that when the time was up and she could break her silence, he could come for her.

This did not happen until Wednesday. That morning she 'phoned to them all that she could now see them and tell them what they wanted to hear.

A meeting was arranged at the Whitney office for three that afternoon and Ferguson went to fetch her.

They met in Mrs. O'Malley's front parlor, considerately vacated and with the folding doors closed against intrusion. Without greeting Ferguson took her hands and held them, looking down into her face. She was beaming, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shy. She began to say something about being at last able to vindicate herself, but he cut her off:

"Before you go into that, I want to say something to you."

"No, that's not fair; I must speak first and you must let me. It's my privilege."

"With the others maybe, but not with me. What I have to say has to be said _before_ I hear. Esther, do you know what it is?"

She was silent, her head drooping, her hands growing cold in his grasp.

He went on, very quietly and simply:

"It's that I ask you to be my wife. And I must ask it before the clearing or vindicating or any rubbish of that sort. I don't know what _you'll_ say to it and I don't want any answer now. That's at your own good time and your own good pleasure. It's just that I wanted you to see how I stand and have stood since that night when we walked through the woods together. Come along now-it's nearly three, and we mustn't keep them waiting."

It was a very different Esther who sat in Wilbur Whitney's private office, facing those who had once been her accusers. She gave no evidence of rancor, greeted them with a frank friendliness, smiled with a radiance they set down to the rebound from long tension and strain.

Suzanne, her jealous fires burned out, could acknowledge now that she was handsome; Mr. Janney wondered at her look of breeding. "A fine girl," old Whitney thought, as he studied her through his gla.s.ses, "spirited and high-mettled as a racer."

"It's a long story," she said, "and for you to understand it I'll have to go back to a time when none of you had ever heard of me. And before I begin, I want to say to Mrs. Janney," she turned to the older woman eagerly earnest, "if I had understood people better, if I hadn't been hardened and made suspicious by the struggle I'd had, I would have trusted you and told you more, and all this misery would have been averted. So, in a way it was my fault, and being such I've suffered for it.

"I have a half-sister, Florence Jackson, nine years younger than I am; that would make her eighteen. When my stepfather died, ten years ago, he left us penniless and I had to start in at once to make our bread. I boarded Florry out with friends and found a position as a school teacher. That was only for a year or two; soon I advanced into the secretarial work which was less fatiguing and better paying. In the first place I got, Florry was living near me and on Sundays she used to come and see me. My employer didn't like it-did not want a strange child about the house and told me so without mincing words. I was angry-I was hot-tempered and sensitive in those days and I made a vow to keep my life to myself, be nothing to my employers but a machine who rendered certain services for a certain wage. When I came to you, Mrs. Janney, I should have seen that I was with some one who was big-hearted and generous, but I had been molded and the mold had set in a hard and bitter shape.

"Earning more money I was able to put Florry in good schools. It was my intention to give her a fine education, and equip her for the task of earning her living. She was quick and clever, but willful and hard to control. I suppose it was because she had had no home influences, no place that belonged to her. She had to spend her vacations anywhere-sometimes at the school, sometimes with cla.s.smates. It was a miserable life for a child.

"She was always pretty-when she was little people used to stop on the streets to look at her-and as she grew older she grew prettier. She was charming, too, there was something about her very willfulness that was captivating. The combination worried me; if she had had more balance, been more reasonable, it wouldn't have mattered. But she was the kind who is always full of wild enthusiasms, going off at a tangent about this, that and the other. Not a promising temperament for a girl who has to support herself.

"A year ago I got her into a first cla.s.s school near Chicago-I had met the princ.i.p.al, who had been very kind and taken her at a greatly reduced rate. It was to be her last year; in June she would graduate and with her education finished, I felt sure I could get her a position in New York where I could help her and watch over her. During the winter-last winter-her letters made me uneasy. She was discontented, tired of study, wanted to be out in the world doing something. I was prepared for a struggle with her, but not for what happened.

"One day-it was in March-I had a letter from her saying she had run away from school, was in New York and was looking for a job. I was angry and bitterly disappointed, also I was frightened-Florry in New York without a cent, with no one to be with her, with no home or companion. I went to the address she gave me and found her in the hall bedroom of a third rate boarding house-a woman on the train had told her of it-full of high spirits and a sort of childish joy at being free. She did not understand my disappointment, laughed at my fears. I lost my temper, said more than I ought-and-well, we had a quarrel, the first real one we ever had.

"That night I couldn't sleep, blaming myself, knowing that whatever she did it was my duty to stand by her. The next day I went to the place and found she'd gone, leaving no address. For three days I heard nothing from her and was on the verge of going to you, Mrs. Janney, and imploring your aid and advice, when a letter came. She was all right, she had found paying employment, she was independent at last. In my first spare hour I went to her and found her in another boarding house, a cheap, shabby place, but decent. A good many working women lived there, the better paid shop girls and heads of departments. It was through one of these, a fitter, at Camille's, that she had got work.

With her beauty it had been easy-she had been employed as a model at Camille's."

"Camille's!" the word came on a startled note from Suzanne. Esther turned to her:

"Yes, Mrs. Price, and you saw her there-you ordered a dress from a model that Florry wore."

"The girl with the reddish hair-the tall girl?"

"Yes, that was Florry. She told me afterward how she walked up and down in front of you."

"But-" Suzanne's voice showed an incredulous wonder, "she was beautiful; they were all talking about her."

"I said she was-I was not exaggerating. She was satisfied with her work, liked it, I think she would have liked anything that was novel and took her away from the grind of study. _I_ didn't like it, but at least it wasn't the stage, and I set about trying to find something better. That was the situation till April and then-" She paused, her eyes dropped to the floor. The color suddenly rose in her face and raising them she shot a look at Ferguson. He answered it with a slight, almost imperceptible nod and smiled in open encouragement. She took a deep breath and addressed Mrs. Janney:

"What I have to tell now isn't pleasant for me to say or for you to hear, but I have to tell it for all the subsequent events grew from it.

Mr. Price had been to Camille's that first time with his wife."

There was a slight stir in the listening company, a sudden focusing of intent eyes on the girl, a waiting expectancy in the grave faces. She saw it and answered it:

"Yes, he saw Florry. He went again-Mrs. Price was buying several dresses. After that second visit he waited one night at the side door used for employees and spoke to her. I can't condone what she did, but I can say in extenuation that she was very young, very inexperienced, that she knew who Mr. Price was, and that she had never in her life met a man of his attractions.