Innocent for once, Anthony and Johnson Boller merely frowned at Beatrice, and after a little she shrugged her shoulders.
"Not Mrs. Henry Wales, evidently," she mused. "Very well; I was right about her. I"ve met her, I think, and she seemed a little bit too nice for that sort of thing. Er--Laura Cathcart!"
Once more the word was hurled straight into them. Once more Anthony and his old friend stared innocently--but they did a little more this time.
They turned and stared at one another, and all the air between them vibrated with a wordless message!
Beatrice had made one grave tactical error in not reading the right name first; Anthony and his friend understood now and were quite prepared for anything--and it seemed almost as if Beatrice sensed the message, for she frowned a little as she said:
"Mary Dalton!"
Blankly, innocently as babes unborn, and still not too innocently withal, Anthony and Johnson Boller stared back, and the latter even had a.s.surance enough to say:
"What"s the idea, Bee? Is it a roll-call?"
"It is the names of the three women in New York who have bought that particular style of hat from Sarah," said Mrs. Boller. "She made up just three, as is her custom, and when they were sold she made no more. So that in spite of your extreme wonder at hearing the names, and although I had rather hoped to guess which one it might be, one of that trio was in this flat last night. Which one?"
Johnson Boller shook his head vigorously.
"None of "em!" he said flatly.
"What do _you_ say?" Beatrice asked Anthony.
"Madam, I decline to say anything whatever!" Anthony said stiffly.
"Really?" smiled Beatrice, and gazed at them pensively for a little while. "I do not know intimately any of these ladies. They have, doubtless, a husband and fathers and, I hope, a few big brothers, too, to take care of them properly. And since they have, I may as well tell you just what I mean to do. I"m going to Mrs. Wales first."
It produced no visible shock.
"I"m going to accuse her, in so many words, of pa.s.sing last night in this apartment, and I"ll say you confessed!" pursued Beatrice. "Perhaps she can clear herself by showing me the duplicate of this hat; perhaps she cannot. In any event, it seems probable that her husband and the rest of her male relatives will make a point of coming here and beating you two to a jelly."
It did seem rather likely, and Johnson Boller glanced at his old friend and received no aid at all.
"Unless she confesses, Miss Cathcart receives the next call," said Johnson"s wife. "The procedure will be the same; the results to you, I sincerely hope, will be the same. After that, if necessary, I shall go to the Dalton woman"s home and repeat the performance, and doubtless _her_ father and _her_ brothers will----"
"Say! Do you want to have us killed?" Johnson Boller gasped.
"Yes!" hissed the Spanish strain in Beatrice. "Well?"
Anthony shook his head quietly.
"None of the ladies you have mentioned----" he began.
"One of them was here, and I"ll soon know which one!" Beatrice corrected quickly. "Do you wish to save the other two?"
Anthony said nothing.
"Nope!" Johnson Boller said doggedly.
Beatrice rose slowly and looked them over.
"Do you know," said she, all withering contempt, "I had been fool enough to fancy that there was man enough in one or the other of you to spare the innocent women a very distressing quarter of an hour. Even if that failed, I had fancied that one or the other would have sufficient intelligence to avoid a thrashing if possible. I was wrong! There isn"t a spark of manhood or an ounce of brain matter in either of you--and to think that I married _you_!"
She had risen. She was getting ready to go upon her fell mission; and the calm contempt slid away from Anthony and cold terror crawled up his spinal column. Just when he had fondly imagined that all was well, Beatrice had come and proved that all was anything else in the world!
Just when he had fancied that Mary was safe at home and, with her doubtless capable maid, was devising a convincing tale to account for her absence, Beatrice must needs appear and show that, tale or no tale, Mary was to be accused.
And there wasn"t a flaw in her program, by the way. She held the hat as a man might cling to a straw in mid-ocean; and the lady who could show a similar hat would clear herself and then start her male relatives after Anthony; and the lady who could not show a similar hat--was Mary!
Obviously the fine resolve he had made was to avail little enough, but Anthony could think of no way of staying the lady. Physical force leaped up as a possibility in his tortured mind and leaped out again as quickly.
One suggestion of that sort of thing and instinct told him that Beatrice, in her present unlovely mood, would scream until the rafters echoed, if they happened to have rafters in the Hotel Lasande. Moral suasion, honeyed talk were still farther from the possibilities. No, Beatrice would have to go!
She was ready now. Habit superseding circ.u.mstances, Beatrice had stepped to the mirror and tucked up a few stray locks of hair. The little hat was under her arm, and the arm had shut down tight on it.
"You two _curs_!" Beatrice said, by way of farewell, and turned away from them with a sweep.
It was no apartment in which to do what one expected to do. Beatrice, one step taken, stopped short. Out at the door some one was hammering in a way oddly familiar. Anthony, rising again, hurried to answer the summons--and the door was hardly open when young Robert Vining hurtled in and gripped him by both arms.
"It"s no use, Anthony!" he gasped. "There"s not a trace of her yet!"
"No?"
"She"s gone! She"s _gone_!" cried Robert, breaking into his familiar refrain. "I"ve just had the house on the wire, and there"s no news of her at all as yet. I"ve had police headquarters on the wire, and they haven"t heard or seen a thing. Miriam--that"s one of her chums--has just finished going over Bellevue, and there"s no sign of Mary down there!"
By now they were in the living-room, and Beatrice, somewhat startled at the sign of a being in agony equal to her own stood aside.
"She"s gone!" said Robert Vining. "And I"ve been around to Helene"s--that"s another of her chums, Anthony--and she"s going to telephone all the girls. That takes that off my hands and leaves me free to go over all the hospitals that haven"t been covered yet. That"s what brings me here, old man. You"ll have to come with me."
"Very well!" Anthony said swiftly. "We"ll start now."
"Because I haven"t got the nerve to do it alone!" Robert cried.
"I--somebody has to go to the Morgue, too! And suppose we should go down there--I was there just once and I had the horrors for a month--suppose we should go down there and find her, Anthony, all----"
"Hush!" said Anthony. "Don"t go into the possibilities; there"s a lady present, Bob."
Vining almost came to earth for a moment.
"What?"
"To be sure. Mrs. Boller--Mr. Robert Vining."
He spoke directly at her, so that Robert, out of his emotional fog, gained an idea of her location, and turned dizzily toward her. There was upon his countenance a strained, heart-broken, half-apologetic smile as he faced Beatrice Boller. He bowed, too, perfunctorily.
Then Robert raised his stricken eyes.
And as he raised them, a great shock ran through Robert, and after it he stiffened. His eyes popped, as if he could not quite believe what he saw, and his body swayed forward. Robert, with a hoa.r.s.e, incoherent scream, ran straight at Beatrice Boller and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the hat from under her arm.
"That"s Mary"s! That"s Mary"s!" he cried hysterically. "That"s Mary"s hat, because I was with her the day she bought it, and I"d know it among ten thousand hats! Yes, and it"s torn and broken--it"s all smashed on this side!"