THE BLACKENED BAG
As it chanced, she did not turn. The hall door opened--the head behind the settee sank down again. Jack Bailey entered, carrying a couple of logs of firewood.
Dale moved toward him as soon as he had shut the door.
"Oh, things have gone awfully wrong, haven"t they?" she said with a little break in her voice.
He put his finger to his lips.
"Be careful!" he whispered. He glanced about the room cautiously.
"I don"t trust even the furniture in this house to-night!" he said. He took Dale hungrily in his arms and kissed her once, swiftly, on the lips. Then they parted--his voice changed to the formal voice of a servant.
"Miss Van Gorder wishes the fire kept burning," he announced, with a whispered "Play up!" to Dale.
Dale caught his meaning at once.
"Put some logs on the fire, please," she said loudly, for the benefit of any listening ears. Then in an undertone to Bailey, "Jack--I"m nearly distracted!"
Bailey threw his wood on the fire, which received it with appreciative crackles and sputterings. Then again, for a moment, he clasped his sweetheart closely to him.
"Dale, pull yourself together!" he whispered warningly. "We"ve got a fight ahead of us!"
He released her and turned back toward the fire.
"These old-fashioned fireplaces eat up a lot of wood," he said in casual tones, pretending to arrange the logs with the poker so the fire would draw more cleanly.
But Dale felt that she must settle one point between them before they took up their game of pretense again.
"You know why I sent for Richard Fleming, don"t you?" she said, her eyes fixed beseechingly on her lover. The rest of the world might interpret her action as it pleased--she couldn"t bear to have Jack misunderstand.
But there was no danger of that. His faith in her was too complete.
"Yes--of course--" he said, with a look of grat.i.tude. Then his mind reverted to the ever-present problem before them. "But who in G.o.d"s name killed him?" he muttered, kneeling before the fire.
"You don"t think it was--Billy?" Dale saw Billy"s face before her for a moment, calm, impa.s.sive. But he was an Oriental--an alien--his face might be just as calm, just as impa.s.sive while his hands were still red with blood. She shuddered at the thought.
Bailey considered the matter.
"More likely the man Lizzie saw going upstairs," he said finally.
"But--I"ve been all over the upper floors."
"And--nothing?" breathed Dale.
"Nothing." Bailey"s voice had an accent of dour finality. "Dale, do you think that--" he began.
Some instinct warned the girl that they were not to continue their conversation uninterrupted. "Be careful!" she breathed, as footsteps sounded in the hall. Bailey nodded and turned back to his pretense of mending the fire. Dale moved away from him slowly.
The door opened and Miss Cornelia entered, her black knitting-bag in her hand, on her face a demure little smile of triumph. She closed the door carefully behind her and began to speak at once.
"Well, Mr. Alopecia--Urticaria--Rubeola--otherwise BAILEY!" she said in tones of the greatest satisfaction, addressing herself to Bailey"s rigid back. Bailey jumped to his feet mechanically at her mention of his name. He and Dale exchanged one swift and hopeless glance of utter defeat.
"I wish," proceeded Miss Cornelia, obviously enjoying the situation to the full, "I wish you young people would remember that even if hair and teeth have fallen out at sixty the mind still functions."
She pulled out a cabinet photograph from the depths of her knitting-bag.
"His photograph--sitting on your dresser!" she chided Dale. "Burn it and be quick about it!"
Dale took the photograph but continued to stare at her aunt with incredulous eyes.
"Then--you knew?" she stammered.
Miss Cornelia, the effective little tableau she had planned now accomplished to her most humorous satisfaction, relapsed into a chair.
"My dear child," said the indomitable lady, with a sharp glance at Bailey"s bewildered face, "I have employed many gardeners in my time and never before had one who manicured his fingernails, wore silk socks, and regarded baldness as a plant instead of a calamity."
An unwilling smile began to break on the faces of both Dale and her lover. The former crossed to the fireplace and threw the d.a.m.ning photograph of Bailey on the flames. She watched it shrivel--curl up--be reduced to ash. She stirred the ashes with a poker till they were well scattered.
Bailey, recovering from the shock of finding that Miss Cornelia"s sharp eyes had pierced his disguise without his even suspecting it, now threw himself on her mercy.
"Then you know why I"m here?" he stammered.
"I still have a certain amount of imagination! I may think you are a fool for taking the risk, but I can see what that idiot of a detective might not--that if you had looted the Union Bank you wouldn"t be trying to discover if the money is in this house. You would at least presumably know where it is."
The knowledge that he had an ally in this brisk and indomitable spinster lady cheered him greatly. But she did not wait for any comment from him. She turned abruptly to Dale.
"Now I want to ask you something," she said more gravely. "Was there a blue-print, and did you get it from Richard Fleming?"
It was Dale"s turn now to bow her head.
"Yes," she confessed.
Bailey felt a thrill of horror run through him. She hadn"t told him this!
"Dale!" he said uncomprehendingly, "don"t you see where this places you? If you had it, why didn"t you give it to Anderson when he asked for it?"
"Because," said Miss Cornelia uncompromisingly, "she had sense enough to see that Mr. Anderson considered that piece of paper the final link in the evidence against her!"
"But she could have no motive!" stammered Bailey, distraught, still failing to grasp the significance of Dale"s refusal.
"Couldn"t she?" queried Miss Cornelia pityingly. "The detective thinks she could--to save you!"
Now the full light of revelation broke upon Bailey. He took a step back.
"Good G.o.d!" he said.
Miss Cornelia would have liked to comment tartly upon the singular lack of intelligence displayed by even the nicest young men in trying circ.u.mstances. But there was no time. They might be interrupted at any moment and before they were, there were things she must find out.