The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Louise and her mother had, from the first, been the great stumbling-blocks. The plan had been to send Louise away until it was too late for her to interfere, but she came back to the hotel at C-- just at the wrong time. There was a terrible scene. The girl was told that something of the kind was necessary, that the bank was about to close and her stepfather would either avoid arrest and disgrace in this way, or kill himself. Fanny Armstrong was a weakling, but Louise was more difficult to manage. She had no love for her stepfather, but her devotion to her mother was entire, self-sacrificing. Forced into acquiescence by her mother's appeals, overwhelmed by the situation, the girl consented and fled.

  From somewhere in Colorado she sent an anonymous telegram to Jack Bailey at the Traders' Bank. Trapped as she was, she did not want to see an innocent man arrested. The telegram, received on Thursday, had sent the cashier to the bank that night in a frenzy.

  Louise arrived at Sunnyside and found the house rented. Not knowing what to do, she sent for Arnold at the Greenwood Club, and told him a little, not all. She told him that there was something wrong, and that the bank was about to close. That his father was responsible. Of the conspiracy she said nothing. To her surprise, Arnold already knew, through Bailey that night, that things were not right. Moreover, he suspected what Louise did not, that the money was hidden at Sunnyside. He had a scrap of paper that indicated a concealed room somewhere.

  His inherited cupidity was aroused. Eager to get Halsey and Jack Bailey out of the house, he went up to the east entry, and in the billiard-room gave the cashier what he had refused earlier in the evening--the address of Paul Armstrong in California and a telegram which had been forwarded to the club for Bailey, from Doctor Walker. It was in response to one Bailey had sent, and it said that Paul Armstrong was very ill.

  Bailey was almost desperate. He decided to go west and find Paul Armstrong, and to force him to disgorge. But the catastrophe at the bank occurred sooner than he had expected. On the moment of starting west, at Andrews Station, where Mr. Jamieson had located the car, he read that the bank had closed, and, going back, surrendered himself.

  John Bailey had known Paul Armstrong intimately. He did not believe that the money was gone; in fact, it was hardly possible in the interval since the securities had been taken. Where was it? And from some chance remark let fall some months earlier by Arnold Armstrong at a dinner, Bailey felt sure there was a hidden room at Sunnyside. He tried to see the architect of the building, but, like the contractor, if he knew of the such a room he refused any information. It was Halsey's idea that John Bailey come to the house as a gardener, and pursue his investigations as he could. His smooth upper lip had been sufficient disguise, with his change of clothes, and a hair-cut by a country barber.

  So it was Alex, Jack Bailey, who had been our ghost. Not only had he alarmed--Louise and himself, he admitted--on the circular staircase, but he had dug the hole in the trunk-room wall, and later sent Eliza into hysteria. The note Liddy had found in Gertrude's scrap-basket was from him, and it was he who had startled me into unconsciousness by the clothes chute, and, with Gertrude's help, had carried me to Louise's room. Gertrude, I learned, had watched all night beside me, in an extremity of anxiety about me.

  That old Thomas had seen his master, and thought he had seen the Sunnyside ghost, there could be no doubt. Of that story of Thomas', about seeing Jack Bailey in the footpath between the club and Sunnyside, the night Liddy and I heard the noise on the circular staircase--that, too, was right. On the night before Arnold Armstrong was murdered, Jack Bailey had made his first attempt to search for the secret room. He secured Arnold's keys from his room at the club and got into the house, armed with a golf-stick for sounding the walls. He ran against the hamper at the head of the stairs, caught his cuff-link in it, and dropped the golf-stick with a crash. He was glad enough to get away without an alarm being raised, and he took the "owl" train to town.

  The oddest thing to me was that Mr. Jamieson had known for some time that Alex was Jack Bailey. But the face of the pseudo- gardener was very queer indeed, when that night, in the card- room, the detective turned to him and said:

  "How long are you and I going to play our little comedy, MR. BAILEY?"

  Well, it is all over now. Paul Armstrong rests in Casanova churchyard, and this time there is no mistake. I went to the funeral, because I wanted to be sure he was really buried, and I looked at the step of the shaft where I had sat that night, and wondered if it was all real. Sunnyside is for sale--no, I shall not buy it. Little Lucien Armstrong is living with his step- grandmother, and she is recovering gradually from troubles that had extended over the entire period of her second marriage. Anne Watson lies not far from the man she killed, and who as surely caused her death. Thomas, the fourth victim of the conspiracy, is buried on the hill. With Nina Carrington, five lives were sacrificed in the course of this grim conspiracy.

  There will be two weddings before long, and Liddy has asked for my heliotrope poplin to wear to the church. I knew she would. She has wanted it for three years, and she was quite ugly the time I spilled coffee on it. We are very quiet, just the two of us. Liddy still clings to her ghost theory, and points to my wet and muddy boots in the trunk-room as proof. I am gray, I admit, but I haven't felt as well in a dozen years. Sometimes, when I am bored, I ring for Liddy, and we talk things over. When Warner married Rosie, Liddy sniffed and said what I took for faithfulness in Rosie had been nothing but mawkishness. I have not yet outlived Liddy's contempt because I gave them silver knives and forks as a wedding gift.

  So we sit and talk, and sometimes Liddy threatens to leave, and often I discharge her, but we stay together somehow. I am talking of renting a house next year, and Liddy says to be sure there is no ghost. To be perfectly frank, I never really lived until that summer. Time has passed since I began this story. My neighbors are packing up for another summer. Liddy is having the awnings put up, and the window boxes filled. Liddy or no Liddy, I shall advertise to-morrow for a house in the country, and I don't care if it has a Circular Staircase.

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT

  By Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER I

  SENTIMENT AND CLUES

  IN my criminal work anything that wears skirts is a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From the frayed and slovenly petticoats of the woman who owns a poultry stand in the market and who has grown wealthy by selling chickens at twelve ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie Tracy, whose diamonds have been stolen down on the avenue, or the staidly respectable black and middle-aged skirt of the client whose husband has found an affinity partial to laces and fripperies, and has run off with her--all the wearers are ladies, and as such announced by Hawes. In fact, he carries it to excess. He speaks of his wash lady, with a husband who is an ash merchant, and he announced one day in some excitement, that the lady who had just gone out had appropriated all the loose change out of the pocket of his overcoat.

  So when Hawes announced a lady, I took my feet off my desk, put down the brief I had been reading, and rose perfunctorily. With my first glance at my visitor, however, I threw away my cigar, and I have heard since, settled my tie. That this client was different was borne in on me at once by the way she entered the room. She had poise in spite of embarrassment, and her face when she raised her veil was white, refined, and young.

  "I did not send in my name," she said, when she saw me glancing down for the card Hawes usually puts on my table. "It was advice I wanted, and I--I did not think the name would matter."

  She was more composed, I think, when she found me considerably older than herself. I saw her looking furtively at the graying places over my ears. I am only thirty-five, as far as that goes, but my family, although it keeps its hair, turns gray early--a business asset but a social handicap.

  "Won't you sit down?" I asked, pushing out a chair, so that she would face the light, while I remained in shadow. Every doctor and every lawyer kn
ows that trick. "As far as the name goes, perhaps you would better tell me the trouble first. Then, if I think it indispensable, you can tell me."

  She acquiesced to this and sat for a moment silent, her gaze absently on the windows of the building across. In the morning light my first impression was verified. Only too often the raising of a woman's veil in my office reveals the ravages of tears, or rouge, or dissipation. My new client turned fearlessly to the window an unlined face, with a clear skin, healthily pale. From where I sat, her profile was beautiful, in spite of its drooping suggestion of trouble; her first embarrassment gone, she had forgotten herself and was intent on her errand.

  "I hardly know how to begin," she said, "but suppose"--slowly--"suppose that a man, a well-known man, should leave home without warning, not taking any clothes except those he wore, and saying he was coming home to dinner, and he--he--"

  She stopped as if her voice had failed her.

  "And he does not come?" I prompted.

  She nodded, fumbling for her handkerchief in her bag.

  "How long has he been gone?" I asked. I had heard exactly the same thing before, but to leave a woman like that, hardly more than a girl, and lovely!

  "Ten days."

  "I should think it ought to be looked into," I said decisively, and got up. Somehow I couldn't sit quietly. A lawyer who is worth anything is always a partisan, I suppose, and I never hear of a man deserting his wife that I am not indignant, the virtuous scorn of the unmarried man, perhaps. "But you will have to tell me more than that. Did this gentleman have any bad habits? That is, did he--er--drink?"

  "Not to excess. He had been forbidden anything of that sort by his physician. He played bridge for money, but I--believe he was rather lucky." She colored uncomfortably.

  "Married, I suppose?" I asked casually.

  "He had been. His wife died when I--" She stopped and bit her lip. Then it was not her husband, after all! Oddly enough, the sun came out just at that moment, spilling a pool of sunlight at her feet, on the dusty rug with its tobacco-bitten scars.

  "It is my father," she said simply. I was absurdly relieved.

  But with the realization that I had not a case of desertion on my hands, I had to view the situation from a new angle.

  "You are absolutely at a loss to account for his disappearance?"

  "Absolutely."

  "You have had no word from him?"

  "None."

  "He never went away before for any length of time, without telling you?"

  "No. Never. He was away a great deal, but I always knew where to find him." Her voice broke again and her chin quivered. I thought it wise to reassure her.

  "Don't let us worry about this until we are sure it is serious," I said. "Sometimes the things that seem most mysterious have the simplest explanations. He may have written and the letter have miscarried or--even a slight accident would account--" I saw I was blundering; she grew white and wide-eyed. "But, of course, that's unlikely too. He would have papers to identify him."

  "His pockets were always full of envelopes and things like that," she assented eagerly.

  "Don't you think I ought to know his name?" I asked. "It need not be known outside of the office, and this is a sort of confessional anyhow, or worse. People tell things to their lawyer that they wouldn't think of telling the priest."

  Her color was slowly coming back, and she smiled.

  "My name is Fleming, Margery Fleming," she said after a second's hesitation, "and my father, Mr. Allan Fleming, is the man. Oh, Mr. Knox, what are we going to do? He has been gone for more than a week!"

  No wonder she had wished to conceal the identity of the missing man. So Allan Fleming was lost! A good many highly respectable citizens would hope that he might never be found. Fleming, state treasurer, delightful companion, polished gentleman and successful politician of the criminal type. Outside in the corridor the office boy was singing under his breath. "Oh once there was a miller," he sang, "who lived in a mill." It brought back to my mind instantly the reform meeting at the city hall a year before, where for a few hours we had blown the feeble spark of protest against machine domination to a flame. We had sung a song to that very tune, and with this white-faced girl across from me, its words came hack with revolting truth. It had been printed and circulated through the hall.

  "Oh, once there was a capitol That sat on a hill, As it's too big to steal away It's probably there still. The ring's hand in the treasury And Fleming with a sack. They take it out in wagon loads And never bring it back."

  I put the song out of my mind with a shudder.

  "I am more than sorry," I said. I was, too; whatever he may have been, he was her father. "And of course there are a number of reasons why this ought not to be known, for a time at least. After all, as I say, there may be a dozen simple explanations, and--there are exigencies in politics--"

  "I hate politics!" she broke in suddenly. "The very name makes me ill. When I read of women wanting to--to vote and all that, I wonder if they know what it means to have to be polite to dreadful people, people who have even been convicts, and all that. Why, our last butler had been a prize fighter!" She sat upright with her hands on the arms of the chair. "That's another thing, too, Mr. Knox. The day after father went away, Carter left. And he has not come back."

  "Carter was the butler?"

  "Yes."

  "A white man?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "And he left without giving you any warning?"

  "Yes. He served luncheon the day after father went away, and the maids say he went away immediately after. He was not there that evening to serve dinner, but--he came back late that night, and got into the house, using his key to the servants' entrance. He slept there, the maids said, but he was gone before the servants were up and we have not seen him since."

  I made a mental note of the butler.

  "We'll go back to Carter again," I said. "Your father has not been ill, has he? I mean recently."

  She considered.

  "I can not think of anything except that he had a tooth pulled." She was quick to resent my smile. "Oh, I know I'm not helping you," she exclaimed, "but I have thought over everything until I can not think any more. I always end where I begin."

  "You have not noticed any mental symptoms--any lack of memory?"

  Her eyes filled.

  "He forgot my birthday, two weeks ago," she said. "It was the first one he had ever forgotten, in nineteen of them."

  Nineteen! Nineteen from thirty-five leaves sixteen!

  "What I meant was this," I explained. "People sometimes have sudden and unaccountable lapses of memory and at those times they are apt to stray away from home. Has your father been worried lately?"

  "He has not been himself at all. He has been irritable, even to me, and terrible to the servants. Only to Carter--he was never ugly to Carter. But I do not think it was a lapse of memory. When I remember how he looked that morning, I believe that he meant then to go away. It shows how he had changed, when he could think of going away without a word, and leaving me there alone."

  "Then you have no brothers or sisters?"

  "None. I came to you--" there she stopped.

  "Please tell me how you happened to come to me," I urged. "I think you know that I am both honored and pleased."

  "I didn't know where to go," she confessed, "so I took the telephone directory, the classified part under 'Attorneys,' and after I shut my eyes, I put my finger haphazard on the page. It pointed to your name."

  I am afraid I flushed at this, but it was a wholesome douche. In a moment I laughed.

  "We will take it as an omen," I said, "and I will do all that I can. But I am not a detective, Miss Fleming. Don't you think we ought to have one?"

  "Not the police!" she shuddered. "I thought you could do something without calling a detective."

  "Suppose you tell me what happened the day your father left, and how he went away. Tell me the little things too. They may be straws that will point in a certain
direction."

  "In the first place," she began, "we live on Monmouth Avenue. There are just the two of us, and the servants: a cook, two housemaids, a laundress, a butler and a chauffeur. My father spends much of his time at the capital, and in the last two years, since my old governess went back to Germany, at those times I usually go to mother's sisters at Bellwood--Miss Letitia and Miss Jane Maitland."

  I nodded: I knew the Maitland ladies well. I had drawn four different wills for Miss Letitia in the last year.

  "My father went way on the tenth of May. You say to tell you all about his going, but there is nothing to tell. We have a machine, but it was being repaired. Father got up from breakfast, picked up his hat and walked out of the house. He was irritated at a letter he had read at the table--"

  "Could you find that letter?" I asked quickly.

  "He took it with him. I knew he was disturbed, for he did not even say he was going. He took a car, and I thought he was on his way to his office. He did not come home that night and I went to the office the next morning. The stenographer said he had not been there. He is not at Plattsburg, because they have been trying to call him from there on the long distance telephone every day."

  In spite of her candid face I was sure she was holding something back.

  "Why don't you tell me everything?" I asked, "You may be keeping back the one essential point."

  She flushed. Then she opened her pocket-book and gave me a slip of rough paper, On it, in careless figures, was the number "eleven twenty-two." That was all.

  "I was afraid you would think it silly," she said. "It was such a meaningless thing. You see, the second night after father left, I was nervous and could not sleep. I expected him home at any time and I kept listening for his step down-stairs. About three o'clock I was sure I heard some one in the room below mine--there was a creaking as if the person were walking carefully. I felt relieved, for I thought he had come back. But I did not hear the door into his bedroom close, and I got more and more wakeful. Finally I got up and slipped along the hall to his room. The door was open a few inches and I reached in and switched on the electric lights. I had a queer feeling before I turned on the light that there was some one standing close to me, but the room was empty, and the hall, too."