"Yes! I"m--Heaven help me--I"m convinced!"
"I"ll be taking her into your room, sir," Wilkins said hastily. "She must be needing a breath of air by this time, poor young lady!"
Another nightmare figure, he lumbered across the living-room and into Anthony"s chamber; and regardless of possible consequences Anthony followed and s.n.a.t.c.hed open the trunk.
Mary had not expired. Her face was decidedly red and her eyes rather bewildered, but she struggled out with Anthony"s a.s.sistance, breathed deeply several times, glanced at her hair in the mirror and then, being a thoroughly good sport, Mary even managed a small, wretched laugh.
"Back again!" she said simply. "They"d discharged Felice."
"Was there--n.o.body else?" Anthony asked.
"Dorothy, our little parlor maid, would have done, I suppose, but Wilkins didn"t know about her," said the girl, facing him. "It"s pretty awful, isn"t it?"
Even now she had not lost her nerve! The chivalrous something in Anthony welled up more strongly than ever; the precise, rather old-maidish quality of his expression vanished altogether--and for the very first time Mary almost liked him.
"It"s very awful, indeed," he said quickly. "More awful than you imagine, but--we"ll try to believe that all is not lost even now. One way or another, I"ll get you out of it, Miss Mary, if I have to lie my soul into perdition. I don"t know how at the moment, but the way will indicate itself; I decline to believe anything else! You"ll have to stay here and keep your ears wide open and take your cue from whatever I"m saying. I hope----"
"Psst!" said Johnson Boller.
Anthony left the room with a motion that was more twitch than anything else, and he left it none too soon. The shock, or the first of it, was over; Robert Vining was coming back to them, not like a nice young man, but rather like a Kansas cyclone! Three thuds in the corridor, and he appeared before them.
Robert"s countenance was gray-white; his white lips, parted a little, seemed to be stretched over his teeth; his eyes blazed blue fire! And behind Robert--and be it confessed that there was a certain indefinite atmosphere of fright about her--Beatrice smiled.
"So you--_you_--you beastly scoundrel!" Robert began, his hands working as he looked straight at Johnson Boller and ignored the very existence of Anthony Fry. "I don"t know whether a thing like you can pray, but if you can, pray quick!"
"_Me?_" Johnson Boller gulped.
Robert laughed dreadfully.
"Don"t waste your time gaping!" he said, thickly. "Pray if you want to, because you"re going to die! D"ye hear? I"m going to choke out your nasty life as I"d choke the life out of a mad dog."
"Not my life!" Johnson Boller protested, with pale lips, as he pointed at Anthony. "He----"
"Whatever he may have had to do with luring her here I can settle with him afterward!" Robert cried. "My concern is with _you_; and if you want to say anything, hurry about it. I can"t hold myself more than another second or two!"
By way of proving it, he stalked down upon Johnson Boller--not rapidly, but with a deadly slowness and deliberation which suggested the tiger coming down upon its prey. His flaring eyes had fascinated the victim, too, for Johnson Boller could not move a muscle. Once he tried to smile a farewell at Beatrice; his eyes would not remain away from Robert even long enough for that. Once he tried to look at Anthony, but it was quite useless.
And from that ominous region of the doorway came Wilkins"s warm tones:
"Well, that"s all right, gentlemen, but he"s busy now."
"He"s not too busy to see me," said an entirely strange voice, and heavy steps pa.s.sed by Wilkins.
Into the large room which had already seen so much suffering, the distinctly scared person of Hobart Hitchin was propelled by a large, hairy hand. The owner of the hand glanced at him for an instant; and then for five terrific seconds stared at Anthony Fry, who after the first violent start had turned immobile as Johnson Boller himself.
"Mr.--what"s your name?--Hitchin!" Dalton barked.
Hobart Hitchin straightened up with an effort.
"Fry," said he, "we--er--that is, I accuse you of the--ah--murder of Theodore Dalton"s only son, Richard, alias David Prentiss!"
CHAPTER XVI
The Lie
Even Robert Vining halted his death march. A man of but one idea in the world just a second ago, he jerked about suddenly and cried:
"_d.i.c.k?_"
Dalton a strong man half-benumbed by mental agony, turned slowly upon him.
"Are you--here, too, Robert?" he muttered. "Yes, d.i.c.ky!"
And slowly he turned back to Anthony and, slowly also, he drew forth the automatic in all its steely-blue nastiness.
"Well, Fry?"
Anthony Fry merely shook his head. The mood that was come upon him now pa.s.sed any explanation; he was neither frightened nor excited. He heard the latest absurd accusation without even forming an opinion on it.
Either he had pa.s.sed the point where one may feel the sensation of astonishment or infinite desperation had blessed him with a calm past any understanding. He did not know which and he did not care; it was enough that he could look straight at Dalton and not even change color!
"I have no idea what you"re talking about, Dalton," he said quietly.
Beatrice leaped into action.
"Dalton!" she cried. "Mary Dalton"s father?"
"What?" Dalton, momentarily sidetracked, whirled upon her. "You"ve heard something from Mary, madam? You know----"
"I know all about Mary!" said Beatrice Boller.
"Madam!" Anthony broke in. "I forbid you to say one word of your ridiculous and unjustified----"
Beatrice simply ignored his presence and favored Theodore Dalton with her unspeakable smile.
"Mary Dalton pa.s.sed the night in this apartment," she said quickly.
"Mary----" Dalton cried, just as Robert hurried to his side and clutched his arm.
"They say she was here!" he panted. "The woman says so, and Mary"s hat--see! She"s holding it even now! And Mary"s bag is in a room there, and her comb and brush and two of her handkerchiefs and----"
"But it wasn"t a woman, whatever she"s left!" Hobart Hitchin contributed. "It was a boy, about twenty or twenty-two--a boy Fry introduced to me as David Prentiss, and who was Dalton"s son. Look! We have his trousers, and Dalton has identified them as his son"s!"
Dalton"s attention was still upon Beatrice.
"You say that--that my daughter----"