"You may ask Euphemia," she retorted with dignity. "Not more than an hour after, there was a light there again. We saw it through the c.h.i.n.ks of the shutters. Only - this time it began at the lower floor and climbed!"
"You oughtn"t to tell ghost stories at night," came McKnight"s voice from the doorway. "Really, Mrs.
Klopton, I"m amazed at you. You old duffer! I"ve got you to thank for the worst day of my life."
Mrs. Klopton gulped. Then realizing that the "old duffer" was meant for me, she took her empty cup and went out muttering.
"The Pirate"s crazy about me, isn"t she?" McKnight said to the closing door. Then he swung around and held out his hand.
"By Jove," he said, "I"ve been laying you out all day, lilies on the door-bell, black gloves, everything.
If you had had the sense of a mosquito in a snow-storm, you would have telephoned me."
"I never even thought of it." I was filled with remorse. "Upon my word, Rich, I hadn"t an idea beyond getting away from that place. If you had seen what I saw - "
McKnight stopped me. "Seen it! Why, you lunatic, I"ve been digging for you all day in the ruins! I"ve lunched and dined on horrors. Give me something to rinse them down, Lollie."
He had fished the key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my shoe bag and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw - a foundation of brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in sight to give it snap. Now that I saw him clearly, he looked weary and grimy. I hated to tell him what I knew he was waiting to hear, but there was no use wading in by inches. I ducked and got it over.
"The notes are gone, Rich," I said, as quietly as I could. In spite of himself his face fell.
"I - of course I expected it," he said. "But - Mrs. Klopton said over the telephone that you had brought home a grip and I hoped - well, Lord knows we ought not to complain. You"re here, damaged, but here." He lifted his gla.s.s. "Happy days, old man!"
"If you will give me that black bottle and a teaspoon, I"ll drink that in arnica, or whatever the stuff is; Rich, - the notes were gone before the wreck!"
He wheeled and stared at me, the bottle in his hand. "Lost, strayed or stolen?" he queried with forced lightness.
"Stolen, although I believe the theft was incidental to something else."
Mrs. Klopton came in at that moment, with an eggnog in her hand. She glanced at the clock, and, without addressing any one in particular, she intimated that it was time for self-respecting folks to be at home in bed. McKnight, who could never resist a fling at her back, spoke to me in a stage whisper.
"Is she talking still? or again?" he asked, just before the door closed. There was a second"s indecision with the k.n.o.b, then, judging discretion the better part, Mrs. Klopton went away.
"Now, then," McKnight said, settling himself in a chair beside the bed, "spit it out. Not the wreck - I know all I want about that. But the theft. I can tell you beforehand that it was a woman."
I had crawled painfully out of bed, and was in the act of pouring the egg-nog down the pipe of thewashstand. I paused, with the gla.s.s in the air.
"A woman!" I repeated, startled. "What makes you think that?"
"You don"t know the first principles of a good detective yarn," he said scornfully. "Of course, it was the woman in the empty house next door. You said it was bra.s.s pipes, you will remember. Well - on with the dance: let joy be unconfined."
So I told the story; I had told it so many times that day that I did it automatically. And I told about the girl with the bronze hair, and my suspicions. But I did not mention Alison West. McKnight listened to the end without interruption. When I had finished he drew a long breath.
"Well!" he said. "That"s something of a mess, isn"t it? If you can only prove your mild and child-like disposition, they couldn"t hold you for the murder - which is a regular ten-twent-thirt crime, anyhow. But the notes - that"s different. They are not burned, anyhow. Your man wasn"t on the train - therefore, he wasn"t in the wreck. If he didn"t know what he was taking, as you seem to think, he probably reads the papers, and unless he is a fathead, he"s awake by this time to what he"s got. He"ll try to sell them to Bronson, probably."
"Or to us," I put in.
We said nothing for a few minutes. McKnight smoked a cigarette and stared at a photograph of Candida over the mantel. Candida is the best pony for a heavy mount in seven states.
"I didn"t go to Richmond," he observed finally. The remark followed my own thoughts so closely that I started. "Miss West is not home yet from Seal Harbor."
Receiving no response, he lapsed again into thoughtful silence. Mrs. Klopton came in just as the clock struck one, and made preparation for the night by putting a large gaudy comfortable into an arm-chair in the dressing-room, with a smaller, stiff-backed chair for her feet. She was wonderfully attired in a dressing-gown that was reminiscent, in parts, of all the ones she had given me for a half dozen Christmases, and she had a purple veil wrapped around her head, to hide Heaven knows what deficiency. She examined the empty egg-nog gla.s.s, inquired what the evening paper had said about the weather, and then stalked into the dressing-room, and prepared, with much ostentatious creaking, to sit up all night.
We fell silent again, while McKnight traced a rough outline of the berths on the white table-cover, and puzzled it out slowly. It was something like this: ____________________________________ | 12 | 10 | 8 | |____________|___________|___________| |_______________AISLE________________| | 11 | 9 | 7 | |____________|___________|___________| "You think he changed the tags on seven and nine, so that when you went back to bed you thought you were crawling into nine, when it was really seven, eh?"
"Probably-yes."
"Then toward morning, when everybody was asleep, your theory is that he changed the numbers again and left the train."
"I can"t think of anything else," I replied wearily.
"Jove, what a game of bridge that fellow would play! It was like finessing an eight-spot and winning out. They would scarcely have doubted your story had the tags been reversed in the morning. He certainly left you in a bad way. Not a jury in the country would stand out against the stains, the stiletto, and the murdered man"s pocket-book in your possession."
"Then you think Sullivan did it?" I asked.
"Of course," said McKnight confidently. "Unless you did it in your sleep. Look at the stains on his pillow, and the dirk stuck into it. And didn"t he have the man Harrington"s pocket-book?"
"But why did he go off without the money?" I persisted. "And where does the bronze-haired girl come in?"
"Search me," McKnight retorted flippantly. "Inflammation of the imagination on your part."
"Then there is the piece of telegram. It said lower ten, car seven. It"s extremely likely that she had it.
That telegram was about me, Richey."
"I"m getting a headache," he said, putting out his cigarette against the sole of his shoe. "All I"m certainof just now is that if there hadn"t been a wreck, by this time you"d be sitting in an eight by ten cell, and feeling like the rhyme for it."
"But listen to this," I contended, as he picked up his hat, "this fellow Sullivan is a fugitive, and he"s a lot more likely to make advances to Bronson than to us. We could have the case continued, release Bronson on bail and set a watch on him."
"Not my watch," McKnight protested. "It"s a family heirloom."
"You"d better go home," I said firmly. "Go home and go to bed. You"re sleepy. You can have Sullivan"s red necktie to dream over if you think it will help any."
Mrs. Klopton"s voice came drowsily from the next room, punctuated by a yawn. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," she called, with the suspicious lisp which characterizes her at night, "somebody called up about noon, Mr. Lawrence. It was long distance, and he said he would call again. The name was" - she yawned - "Sullivan."
CHAPTER XII THE GOLD BAG
I have always smiled at those cases of spontaneous combustion which, like fusing the component parts of a seidlitz powder, unite two people in a bubbling and ephemeral ecstasy. But surely there is possible, with but a single meeting, an attraction so great, a community of mind and interest so strong, that between that first meeting and the next the bond may grow into something stronger. This is especially true, I fancy, of people with temperament, the modern subst.i.tute for imagination. It is a nice question whether lovers begin to love when they are together, or when they are apart.
Not that I followed any such line of reasoning at the time. I would not even admit my folly to myself.
But during the restless hours of that first night after the accident, when my back ached with lying on it, and any other position was torture, I found my thoughts constantly going back to Alison West. I dropped into a doze, to dream of touching her fingers again to comfort her, and awoke to find I had patted a teaspoonful of medicine out of Mrs. Klopton"s indignant hand. What was it McKnight had said about making an egregious a.s.s of myself?
And that brought me back to Richey, and I fancy I groaned. There is no use expatiating on the friendship between two men who have gone together through college, have quarreled and made it up, fussed together over politics and debated creeds for years: men don"t need to be told, and women can not understand. Nevertheless, I groaned. If it had been any one but Rich!
Some things were mine, however, and I would hold them: the halcyon breakfast, the queer hat, the pebble in her small shoe, the gold bag with the broken chain - the bag! Why, it was in my pocket at that moment.
I got up painfully and found my coat. Yes, there was the purse, bulging with an opulent suggestion of wealth inside. I went back to bed again, somewhat dizzy, between effort and the touch of the trinket, so lately hers. I held it up by its broken chain and gloated over it. By careful attention to orders, I ought to be out in a day or so. Then - I could return it to her. I really ought to do that: it was valuable, and I wouldn"t care to trust it to the mail. I could run down to Richmond, and see her once - there was no disloyalty to Rich in that.
I had no intention of opening the little bag. I put it under my pillow - which was my reason for refusing to have the linen slips changed, to Mrs. Klopton"s dismay. And sometimes during the morning, while I lay under a virgin field of white, ornamented with strange flowers, my cigarettes hidden beyond discovery, and Science and Health on a table by my elbow, as if by the merest accident, I slid my handunder my pillow and touched it reverently.
McKnight came in about eleven. I heard his car at the curb, followed almost immediately by his slam at the front door, and his usual clamor on the stairs. He had a bottle under his arm, rightly surmising that I had been forbidden stimulant, and a large box of cigarettes in his pocket, suspecting my deprivation.
"Well," he said cheerfully. "How did you sleep after keeping me up half the night?"
I slid my hand around: the purse was well covered. "Have it now, or wait till I get the cork out?" he rattled on.
"I don"t want anything," I protested. "I wish you wouldn"t be so darned cheerful, Richey." He stopped whistling to stare at me.
""I am saddest when I sing!"" he quoted unctuously. "It"s pure reaction, Lollie. Yesterday the sky was low: I was digging for my best friend. To-day - he lies before me, his peevish self. Yesterday I thought the notes were burned: to-day - I look forward to a good cross-country chase, and with luck we will draw." His voice changed suddenly. "Yesterday - she was in Seal Harbor. To-day - she is here."
"Here in Washington?" I asked, as naturally as I could.
"Yes. Going to stay a week or two."
"Oh, I had a little hen and she had a wooden leg And nearly every morning she used to lay an egg - "
"Will you stop that racket, Rich! It"s the real thing this time, I suppose?"
"She"s the best little chicken that we have on the farm And another little drink won"t do us any harm - "
he finished, twisting out the corkscrew. Then he came over and sat down on the bed.
"Well," he said judicially, "since you drag it from me, I think perhaps it is. You - you"re such a confirmed woman-hater that I hardly knew how you would take it."
"Nothing of the sort," I denied testily. "Because a man reaches the age of thirty without making maudlin love to every - "
"I"ve taken to long country rides," he went on reflectively, without listening to me, "and yesterday I ran over a sheep; nearly went into the ditch. But there"s a Providence that watches over fools and lovers, and just now I know darned well that I"m one, and I have a sneaking idea I"m both."
"You are both," I said with disgust. "If you can be rational for one moment, I wish you would tell me why that man Sullivan called me over the telephone yesterday morning."
"Probably hadn"t yet discovered the Bronson notes - providing you hold to your theory that the theft was incidental to the murder. May have wanted his own clothes again, or to thank you for yours. Search me: I can"t think of anything else." The doctor came in just then.
As I said before, I think a lot of my doctor - when I am ill. He is a young man, with an air of breezy self-confidence and good humor. He looked directly past the bottle, which is a very valuable accomplishment, and shook hands with McKnight until I could put the cigarettes under the bedclothes.
He had interdicted tobacco. Then he sat down beside the bed and felt around the bandages with hands as gentle as a baby"s.
"Pretty good shape," he said. "How did you sleep?"
"Oh, occasionally," I replied. "I would like to sit up, doctor."
"Nonsense. Take a rest while you have an excuse for it. I wish to thunder I could stay in bed for a day or so. I was up all night."
"Have a drink," McKnight said, pushing over the bottle.
"Twins!" The doctor grinned.
"Have two drinks."
But the medical man refused.
"I wouldn"t even wear a champagne-colored necktie during business hours," he explained. "By the way, I had another case from your accident, Mr. Blakeley, late yesterday afternoon. Under the tongue, please." He stuck a thermometer in my mouth.
I had a sudden terrible vision of the amateur detective coming to light, note-book, cheerful impertinence and incriminating data. "A small man?" I demanded, "gray hair - " "Keep your mouth closed," the doctor said peremptorily. "No. A woman, with a fractured skull.
Beautiful case. Van Kirk was up to his eyes and sent for me. Hemorrhage, right-sided paralysis, irregular pupils - all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. Worked for two hours."
"Did she recover?" McKnight put in. He was examining the doctor with a new awe.
"She lifted her right arm before I left," the doctor finished cheerily, "so the operation was a success, even if she should die."
"Good Heavens," McKnight broke in, "and I thought you were just an ordinary mortal, like the rest of us! Let me touch you for luck. Was she pretty?"
"Yes, and young. Had a wealth of bronze-colored hair. Upon my soul, I hated to cut it."
McKnight and I exchanged glances.
"Do you know her name, doctor?" I asked.
"No. The nurses said her clothes came from a Pittsburg tailor."
"She is not conscious, I suppose?"
"No; she may be, to-morrow - or in a week."
He looked at the thermometer, murmured something about liquid diet, avoiding my eye - Mrs.
Klopton was broiling a chop at the time - and took his departure, humming cheerfully as he went down-stairs. McKnight looked after him wistfully.
"Jove, I wish I had his const.i.tution," he exclaimed. "Neither nerves nor heart! What a chauffeur he would make!"
But I was serious.
"I have an idea," I said grimly, "that this small matter of the murder is going to come up again, and that your uncle will be in the deuce of a fix if it does. If that woman is going to die, somebody ought to be around to take her deposition. She knows a lot, if she didn"t do it herself. I wish you would go down to the telephone and get the hospital. Find out her name, and if she is conscious."
McKnight went under protest. "I haven"t much time," he said, looking at his watch. "I"m to meet Mrs.
West and Alison at one. I want you to know them, Lollie. You would like the mother."