"Why not the daughter?" I inquired. I touched the little gold bag under the pillow.
"Well," he said judicially, "you"ve always declared against the immaturity and romantic nonsense of very young women - "
"I never said anything of the sort," I retorted furiously.
""There is more satisfaction to be had out of a good saddle horse!"" he quoted me. ""More excitement out of a polo pony, and as for the eternal matrimonial chase, give me instead a good stubble, a fox, some decent hounds and a hunter, and I"ll show you the real joys of the chase!""
"For Heaven"s sake, go down to the telephone, you make my head ache," I said savagely.
I hardly know what prompted me to take out the gold purse and look at it. It was an imbecile thing to do - call it impulse, sentimentality, what you wish. I brought it out, one eye on the door, for Mrs. Klopton has a ready eye and a noiseless shoe. But the house was quiet. Down-stairs McKnight was flirting with the telephone central and there was an odor of boneset tea in the air. I think Mrs. Klopton was fascinated out of her theories by the "boneset" in connection with the fractured arm.
Anyhow, I held up the bag and looked at it. It must have been unfastened, for the next instant there was an avalanche on the snowfield of the counterpane - some money, a wisp of a handkerchief, a tiny booklet with thin leaves, covered with a powdery substance - and a necklace. I drew myself up slowly and stared at the necklace.
It was one of the semi-barbaric affairs that women are wearing now, a heavy pendant of gold chains and carved cameos, swung from a thin neck chain of the same metal. The necklace was broken: in three places the links were pulled apart and the cameos swung loose and partly detached. But it was the supporting chain that held my eye and fascinated with its sinister suggestion. Three inches of it had been snapped off, and as well as I knew anything on earth, I knew that the bit of chain that the amateur detective had found, blood-stain and all, belonged just there.
And there was no one I could talk to about it, no one to tell me how hideously absurd it was, no one to give me a slap and tell me there are tons of fine gold chains made every year, or to point out the longarm of coincidence!
With my one useful hand I fumbled the things back into the bag and thrust it deep out of sight among the pillows. Then I lay back in a cold perspiration. What connection had Alison West with this crime?
Why had she stared so at the gun-metal cigarette case that morning on the train? What had alarmed her so at the farm-house? What had she taken back to the gate? Why did she wish she had not escaped from the wreck? And last, in Heaven"s name, how did a part of her necklace become torn off and covered with blood?
Down-stairs McKnight was still at the telephone, and amusing himself with Mrs. Klopton in the interval of waiting.
"Why did he come home in a gray suit, when he went away in a blue?" he repeated. "Well, wrecks are queer things, Mrs. Klopton. The suit may have turned gray with fright. Or perhaps wrecks do as queer stunts as lightning. Friend of mine once was struck by lightning; he and the caddy had taken refuge under a tree. After the flash, when they recovered consciousness, there was my friend in the caddy"s clothes, and the caddy in his. And as my friend was a large man and the caddy a very small boy - "
McKnight"s story was interrupted by the indignant slam of the dining-room door. He was obliged to wait some time, and even his eternal cheerfulness was ebbing when he finally got the hospital.
"Is Doctor Van Kirk there?" he asked. "Not there? Well, can you tell me how the patient is whom Doctor Williams, from Washington, operated on last night? Well, I"m glad of that. Is she conscious? Do you happen to know her name? Yes, I"ll hold the line." There was a long pause, then McKnight"s voice: "h.e.l.lo - yes. Thank you very much. Good-by."
He came up-stairs, two steps at a time.
"Look here," he said, bursting into the room, "there may be something in your theory, after all. The woman"s name - it may be a coincidence, but it"s curious - her name is Sullivan."
"What did I tell you?" I said, sitting up suddenly in bed. "She"s probably a sister of that scoundrel in lower seven, and she was afraid of what he might do."
"Well, I"ll go there some day soon. She"s not conscious yet. In the meantime, the only thing I can do is to keep an eye, through a detective, on the people who try to approach Bronson. We"ll have the case continued, anyhow, in the hope that the stolen notes will sooner or later turn up."
"Confound this arm," I said, paying for my energy with some excruciating throbs. "There"s so much to be looked after, and here I am, bandaged, splinted, and generally useless. It"s a beastly shame."
"Don"t forget that I am here," said McKnight pompously. "And another thing, when you feel this way just remember there are two less desirable places where you might be. One is jail, and the other is - " He strummed on an imaginary harp, with devotional eyes.
But McKnight"s light-heartedness jarred on me that morning. I lay and frowned under my helplessness. When by chance I touched the little gold bag, it seemed to scorch my fingers. Richey, finding me unresponsive, left to keep his luncheon engagement with Alison West. As he clattered down the stairs, I turned my back to the morning sunshine and abandoned myself to misery. By what strain on her frayed nerves was Alison West keeping up, I wondered? Under the circ.u.mstances, would I dare to return the bag? Knowing that I had it, would she hate me for my knowledge? Or had I exaggerated the importance of the necklace, and in that case had she forgotten me already?
But McKnight had not gone, after all. I heard him coming back, his voice preceding him, and I groaned with irritation.
"Wake up!" he called. "Somebody"s sent you a lot of flowers. Please hold the box, Mrs. Klopton; I"m going out to be run down by an automobile."
I roused to feeble interest. My brother"s wife is punctilious about such things; all the new babies in the family have silver rattles, and all the sick people flowers.
McKnight pulled up an armful of roses, and held them out to me.
"Wonder who they"re from?" he said, fumbling in the box for a card. "There"s no name - yes, here"s one."
He held it up and read it with exasperating slowness.
""Best wishes for an early recovery. A COMPANION IN MISFORTUNE." "Well, what do you know about that!" he exclaimed. "That"s something you didn"t tell me, Lollie."
"It was hardly worth mentioning," I said mendaciously, with my heart beating until I could hear it. She had not forgotten, after all.
McKnight took a bud and fastened it in his b.u.t.ton-hole. I"m afraid I was not especially pleasant about it. They were her roses, and anyhow, they were meant for me. Richey left very soon, with an irritating final grin at the box.
"Good-by, sir woman-hater," he jeered at me from the door.
So he wore one of the roses she had sent me, to luncheon with her, and I lay back among my pillows and tried to remember that it was his game, anyhow, and that I wasn"t even drawing cards. To remember that, and to forget the broken necklace under my head!
CHAPTER XIII FADED ROSES I was in the house for a week. Much of that time I spent in composing and destroying letters of thanks to Miss West, and in growling at the doctor. McKnight dropped in daily, but he was less cheerful than usual. Now and then I caught him eying me as if he had something to say, but whatever it was he kept it to himself. Once during the week he went to Baltimore and saw the woman in the hospital there.
From the description I had little difficulty in recognizing the young woman who had been with the murdered man in Pittsburg. But she was still unconscious. An elderly aunt had appeared, a gaunt person in black, who sat around like a buzzard on a fence, according to McKnight, and wept, in a mixed figure, into a damp handkerchief.
On the last day of my imprisonment he stopped in to thrash out a case that was coming up in court the next day, and to play a game of double solitaire with me.
"Who won the ball game?" I asked.
"We were licked. Ask me something pleasant. Oh, by the way, Bronson"s out to-day."
"I"m glad I"m not on his bond," I said pessimistically. "He"ll clear out."
Not he." McKnight pounced on my ace. "He"s no fool. Don"t you suppose he knows you took those notes to Pittsburg? The papers were full of it. And he knows you escaped with your life and a broken arm from the wreck. What do we do next? The Commonwealth continues the case. A deaf man on a dark night would know those notes are missing."
"Don"t play so fast," I remonstrated. "I have only one arm to your two. Who is trailing Bronson? Did you try to get Johnson?"
"I asked for him, but he had some work on hand."
"The murder"s evidently a dead issue," I reflected. "No, I"m not joking. The wreck destroyed all the evidence. But I"m firmly convinced those notes will be offered, either to us or to Bronson very soon.
Johnson"s a blackguard, but he"s a good detective. He could make his fortune as a game dog. What"s he doing?"
McKnight put down his cards, and rising, went to the window. As he held the curtain back his customary grin looked a little forced.
"To tell you the truth, Lollie," he said, "for the last two days he has been watching a well-known Washington attorney named Lawrence Blakeley. He"s across the street now."
It took a moment for me to grasp what he meant.
"Why, it"s ridiculous," I a.s.serted. "What would they trail me for? Go over and tell Johnson to get out of there, or I"ll pot at him with my revolver."
"You can tell him that yourself." McKnight paused and bent forward. "h.e.l.lo, here"s a visitor; littleman with string halt."
"I won"t see him," I said firmly. "I"ve been bothered enough with reporters."
We listened together to Mrs. Klopton"s expostulating tones in the lower hall and the creak of the boards as she came heavily up the stairs. She had a piece of paper in her hand torn from a pocket account-book, and on it was the name, Mr. Wilson Budd Hotchkiss. Important business."
"Oh, well, show him up," I said resignedly. "You"d better put those cards away, Richey. I fancy it"s the rector of the church around the corner."
But when the door opened to admit a curiously alert little man, adjusting his gla.s.ses with nervous fingers, my face must have shown my dismay.
It was the amateur detective of the Ontario!
I shook hands without enthusiasm. Here was the one survivor of the wrecked car who could do me any amount of harm. There was no hope that he had forgotten any of the incriminating details. In fact, he held in his hand the very note-book which contained them.
His manner was restrained, but it was evident he was highly excited. I introduced him to McKnight, who has the imagination I lack, and who placed him at once, mentally.
"I only learned yesterday that you had been - er - saved," he said rapidly. "Terrible accident - unspeakable. Dream about it all night and think about it all day. Broken arm?"
"No. He just wears the splint to be different from other people," McKnight drawled lazily. I glared at him: there was nothing to be gained by antagonizing the little man.
"Yes, a fractured humerus, which isn"t as funny as it sounds."
"Humerus-humorous! Pretty good," he cackled. "I must say you keep up your spirits pretty well, considering everything."
"You seem to have escaped injury," I parried. He was fumbling for something in his pockets.
"Yes, I escaped," he replied abstractedly. "Remarkable thing, too. I haven"t a doubt I would have broken my neck, but I landed on - you"ll never guess what! I landed head first on the very pillow which was under inspection at the time of the wreck. You remember, don"t you? Where did I put that package?"
He found it finally and opened it on a table, displaying with some theatricalism a rectangular piece of muslin and a similar patch of striped ticking.
"You recognize it?" he said. "The stains, you see, and the hole made by the dirk. I tried to bring away the entire pillow, but they thought I was stealing it, and made me give it up."
Richey touched the pieces gingerly. "By George," he said, "and you carry that around in your pocket!
What if you should mistake it for your handkerchief?"
But Mr. Hotchkiss was not listening. He stood bent somewhat forward, leaning over the table, and fixed me with his ferret-like eyes.
"Have you see the evening papers, Mr. Blakeley?" he inquired.
I glanced to where they lay unopened, and shook my head.
"Then I have a disagreeable task," he said with evident relish. "Of course, you had considered the matter of the man Harrington"s death closed, after the wreck. I did myself. As far as I was concerned, I meant to let it remain so. There were no other survivors, at least none that I knew of, and in spite of circ.u.mstances, there were a number of points in your favor."
"Thank you," I put in with a sarcasm that was lost on him.
"I verified your ident.i.ty, for instance, as soon as I recovered from the shock. Also - I found on inquiring of your tailor that you invariably wore dark clothing."
McKnight came forward threateningly. "Who are you, anyhow?" he demanded. "And how is this any business of yours?" Mr. Hotchkiss was entirely unruffled.
"I have a minor position here," he said, reaching for a visiting card. "I am a very small patch on the seat of government, sir."
McKnight muttered something about certain offensive designs against the said patch and retired grumbling to the window. Our visitor was opening the paper with a tremendous expenditure of energy.
"Here it is. Listen." He read rapidly aloud: "The Pittsburg police have sent to Baltimore two detectives who are looking up the survivors of the ill-fated Washington Flier. It has transpired that Simon Harrington, the Wood Street merchant of that city, was not killed in the wreck, but was murdered in his berth the night preceding the accident. Shortly before the collision, John Flanders, the conductor of the Flier, sent this telegram to the chief of police: ""Body of Simon Harrington found stabbed in his berth, lower ten, Ontario, at six-thirty this morning.
JOHN FLANDERS, Conductor."
"It is hoped that the survivors of the wrecked car Ontario will be found, to tell what they know of the discovery of the crime.
"Mr. John Gilmore, head of the steel company for which Mr. Harrington was purchasing agent, has signified his intention of sifting the matter to the bottom.
"So you see," Hotchkiss concluded, "there"s trouble brewing. You and I are the only survivors of that unfortunate car."
I did not contradict him, but I knew of two others, at least: Alison West, and the woman we had left beside the road that morning, babbling incoherently, her black hair tumbling over her white face.
"Unless we can find the man who occupied lower seven," I suggested.
"I have already tried and failed. To find him would not clear you, of course, unless we could establish some connection between him and the murdered man. It is the only thing I see, however. I have learned this much," Hotchkiss concluded: "Lower seven was reserved from Cresson."
Cresson! Where Alison West and Mrs. Curtis had taken the train!
McKnight came forward and suddenly held out his hand. "Mr. Hotchkiss," he said, "I - I"m sorry if I have been offensive. I thought when you came in, that, like the Irishman and the government, you were "forninst" us. If you will put those cheerful relics out of sight somewhere, I should be glad to have you dine with me at the Incubator." (His name for his bachelor apartment.) "Compared with Johnson, you are the great original protoplasm."
The strength of this was lost on Hotchkiss, but the invitation was clear. They went out together, and from my window I watched them get into McKnight"s car. It was raining, and at the corner the Cannonball skidded. Across the street my detective, Johnson, looked after them with his crooked smile.
As he turned up his collar he saw me, and lifted his hat.
I left the window and sat down in the growing dusk. So the occupant of lower seven had got on the car at Cresson, probably with Alison West and her companion. There was some one she cared about enough to shield. I went irritably to the door and summoned Mrs. Klopton.
"You may throw out those roses," I said without looking at her. "They are quite dead."
"They have been quite dead for three days," she retorted spitefully. "Euphemia said you threatened to dismiss her if she touched them."
CHAPTER XIV THE TRAP-DOOR
By Sunday evening, a week after the wreck, my inaction had goaded me to frenzy. The very sight of Johnson across the street or lurking, always within sight of the house, kept me constantly exasperated. It was on that day that things began to come to a focus, a burning-gla.s.s of events that seemed to center on me.
I dined alone that evening in no cheerful frame of mind. There had been a polo game the day before and I had lent a pony, which is always a bad thing to do. And she had wrenched her shoulder, besides helping to lose the game. There was no one in town: the temperature was ninety and climbing, and my lefthand persistently cramped under its bandage.