"I'm not blind," Aunt Selina said, with one eye on the tray. "You two silly children adore each other; I saw some things last night."
Bella took a step forward; then she stopped and shrugged her shoulders. Jim was purple.
"I saw you kiss her in the dining room, remember that!" Aunt Selina went on, giving the screw another turn.
It was Bella's turn to be excited. She gave me one awful stare, then she fixed her eyes on Jim.
"Besides," Aunt Selina went on, "you told me today that you loved her. Don't deny it, James."
Bella couldn't keep quiet another instant. She came over and stood at the foot of the bed.
"Please don't excite yourself, DEAR Miss Caruthers," she said in a voice like ice. "Every one knows that he loves her; he simply overflows with it. It—it is quite a by-word among their friends. They have been sitting together in a corner all evening."
Yes, that was what she said; when I had not spoken to Jimmy the whole time in the den. Bella was cattish, and she was jealous, too. I turned on my heel and went to the door; then I turned to her, with my hand on the knob.
"You have been misinformed," I said coldly. "You can not possibly know, having spent three hours in a corner yourself—with Mr. Harbison." I abhor jealousy in a woman.
Well, Aunt Selina ate all the lobster salad, and drank the port after Bella had told her it was beef, iron and wine, and she slept all night, and was able to sit up in a chair the next day, and was so infatuated with Bella that she would not let her out of her sight. But that is ahead of the story.
At midnight the house was fairly quiet, except for Jim, who kept walking around the halls because he couldn't sleep. I got up at last and ordered him to bed, and he had the audacity to have a grievance with me.
"Look at my situation now!" he said, sitting pensively on a steam radiator. "Aunt Selina is crazy. I only kissed your hand, anyhow, and I don't know why you sat in the den all evening; you might have known that Bella would notice it. Why couldn't you leave me alone to my misery?"
"Very well," I said, much offended. "After this I shall sit with Flannigan in the kitchen. He is the only gentleman in the house."
I left him babbling apologies and went to bed, but I had an uncomfortable feeling that Bella had been a witness to our conversation, for the door into Aunt Selina's room closed softly as I passed.
I knew beforehand that I was not going to sleep. The instant I turned out the light the nightmare events of the evening ranged themselves in a procession, or a series of tableaus, one after the other; Flannigan on the roof, with the bracelet on his palm, looking accusingly at me; Mr. Harbison and the scene on the roof, with my flippancy; and the result of that flippancy—the man on the stairs, the arms that held me, the terrible kisses that had scorched my lips—it was awful! And then the absurd situation across Aunt Selina's bed, and Bella's face! Oh, it was all so ridiculous—my having thought that the Harbison man was a gentleman, and finding him a cad, and worse. It was excruciatingly funny. I quite got a headache from laughing; indeed I laughed until I found I was crying, and then I knew I was going to have an attack of strangulated emotion, called hysteria. So I got up and turned on all the lights, and bathed my face with cologne, and felt better.
But I did not go to sleep. When the hall clock chimed two, I discovered I was hungry. I had had nothing since luncheon, and even the thirst following the South American goulash was gone. There was probably something to eat in the pantry, and if there was not, I was quite equal to going to the basement.
As it happened, however, I found a very orderly assortment of left-overs and a pitcher of milk, which had no business there in the pantry, and with plenty of light I was not at all frightened.
I ate bread and butter and drank milk, and was fast becoming a rational person again; I had pulled out one of the drawers part way, and with a tray across the corner I had improvised a comfortable seat. And then I noticed that the drawer was full of soiled napkins, and I remembered the bracelet. I hardly know why I decided to go through the drawer again, after Flannigan had already done it, but I did. I finished my milk and then, getting down on my knees, I proceeded systematically to empty the drawer. I took out perhaps a dozen napkins and as many doilies without finding anything. Then I took out a large tray cloth, and there was something on it that made me look farther. One corner of it had been scorched, the clear and well defined imprint of a lighted cigarette or cigar, a blackened streak that trailed off into a brown and yellow. I had a queer, trembly feeling, as if I were on the brink of a discovery—perhaps Anne's pearls, or the cuff buttons with storks painted on china in the center. But the only thing I found, down in the corner of the drawer, was a half-burned cigarette.
To me, it seemed quite enough. It was one of the South American cigarettes, with a tobacco wrapper instead of paper, that Mr. Harbison smoked.
Chapter XII. THE ROOF GARDEN
I was quite ill the next morning—from excitement, I suppose. Anyhow, I did not get up, and there wasn't any breakfast. Jim said he roused Flannigan at eight o'clock, to go down and get the fire started, and then went back to bed. But Flannigan did not get up. He appeared, sheepishly, at half-past ten, and by that time Bella was down, in a towering rage, and had burned her hand and got the fire started, and had taken up a tray for Aunt Selina and herself.
As the others straggled down they boiled themselves eggs or ate fruit, and nobody put anything away. Lollie Mercer made me some tea and scorched toast, and brought it, about eleven o'clock.
"I never saw such a house," she declared. "A dozen housemaids couldn't put it in order. Why should every man that smokes drop ashes wherever he happens to be?"
"That's the question of the ages," I replied languidly. "What was Max talking so horribly about a little while ago?" Lollie looked up aggrieved.
"About nothing at all," she declared. "Anne told me to clean the bath tubs with oil, and I did it, that's all. Now Max says he couldn't get it off, and his clothes stick to him, and if he should forget and strike a match in the—in the usual way, he would explode. He can clean his own tub tomorrow," she finished vindictively.
At noon Jim came in to see me, bringing Anne as a concession to Bella. He was in a rage, and he carried the morning paper like a club in his hand.
"What sort of a newspaper lie would you call this?" he demanded irritably. "It makes me crazy; everybody with a mental image of me leaning over the parapet of the roof, waving a board, with the rest of you sitting on my legs to keep me from overbalancing!"
"Maybe there's a picture!" Anne said hopefully.
Jim looked.
"No picture," he announced. "I wonder why they restrained themselves! I wish Bella would keep off the roof," he added, with fresh access of rage, "or wear a mask or veil. One of those fellows is going to recognize her, and there'll be the deuce to pay."
"When you are all through discussing this thing, perhaps you will tell me what is the matter," I remarked from my couch. "Why did you lean over the parapet, Jim, and who sat on your legs?"
"I didn't; nobody did," he retorted, waving the newspaper. "It's a lie out of the whole cloth, that's what it is. I asked you girls to be decent to those reporters; it never pays to offend a newspaper man. Listen to this, Kit."
He read the article rapidly, furiously, pausing every now and then to make an exasperated comment.
ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE FRUSTRATED MEMBERS OF THE FOUR HUNDRED DEFY THE LAW
"Special Officer McCloud, on duty at the quarantined house of James Wilson, artist and clubman, on Ninety-fifth Street, reported this morning a daring attempt at escape, made at 3 A.M. It is in this house that some eight or nine members of the smart set were imprisoned during the course of a dinner party, when the Japanese butler developed smallpox. The party shut in the house includes Miss Katherine McNair, the daughter of Theodore McNair, of the Inter-Ocean system; Mr. and Mrs. Dallas Brown; the Misses Mercer; Maxwell Reed, the well-known clubman and whip; and a Mr. Thomas Harbison, guest of the Dallas Browns and a Sout
h American.
"Officer McCloud's story, told to a Chronicle reporter this morning, is as follows: The occupants of the house had been uneasy all day. From the air of subdued bustle, and from a careful inspection of the roof, made by the entire party during the afternoon, his suspicion had been aroused. Nothing unusual, however, occurred during the early part of the night. From eight o'clock to twelve, McCloud was relieved from duty, his place being taken by Michael Shane, of the Eighty-sixth Street Station.
"When McCloud came on duty at midnight, Shane reported that about eleven o'clock the searchlight of a steamer on the river, flashing over the house, had shown a man crouching on the parapet, evidently surveying the roof across, which at this point is only twelve feet distant, with a view of making his escape. One seeing Shane below, however, he had beat a retreat, but not before the officer had seen him distinctly. He was dressed in evening clothes and wore a light tan overcoat.
"Officer McCloud relieved Shane at midnight, and sent for a plain-clothes man from the station house. This man was stationed on the roof of the Bevington residence next door, with strict injunctions to prevent an escape from the quarantined mansion. Nothing suspicious having occurred, the man on the roof left about 3 A.M., reporting to McCloud below that everything was quiet. At that moment, glancing skyward, one of the officers was astounded to see a long narrow board project itself from the coping of the Wildon house, waver uncertainly for a moment, and then advance stealthily toward the parapet across. When it was within a foot or two of a resting place, McCloud called sharply to the invisible refugee above, at the same time firing his revolver in the ground.
"The result was surprising. The board stopped, trembled, swayed a little, and dropped, missing the vigilant officers by a hair's breadth, and crashing to the cement with a terrific force. An inspection of the roof from the Bevington house, later, revealed nothing unusual. It is evident, however, that the quarantine is proving irksome to the inhabitants of the sequestered residence, most of whom are typical society folk, without resources in themselves. Their condition, without valets and maids, is certainly pitiable. It has been rumored that the ladies are doing their own hair, and that the gentlemen have been reduced to putting their own buttons in their shirts. This deplorable situation, however, is unavoidable.
"The vigilance of the board of health has been most commendable in this case. Beginning with a wager over the telephone that they would break quarantine in twenty-four hours, and ending with the attempt to span a twelve-foot gulf with a board, over which to cross to freedom, these shut-in society folk have shown characteristic disregard of the laws of the state. It is quite time to extend to the millionaire the same strictness that keeps the commuter at home for three weeks with the measles; that makes him get the milk bottles and groceries from the gate post and smell like dog soap for a month afterward, as a result of disinfection.'"
We sat in dead silence for a minute. Then:
"Perhaps it is true," I said. "Not of you, Jim—but some one may have tried to get out that way. In fact, I think it extremely likely."
"Who? Flannigan? You couldn't drive him out. He's having the time of his life. Do you suspect me?"
"Come away and don't fight," Anne broke in pacifically. "You will have to have luncheon sent in, Jimmy; nobody has ordered anything from the shops, and I feel like old Mother Hubbard."
"I wish you would all go out," I said wearily. "If every man in the house says he didn't try to get over to the next roof last night, well and good. But you might look and see if the board is still lying where it fell."
There was an instantaneous rush for the window, and a second's pause. Then Jimmy's voice, incredulous, awed:
"Well, I'll be—blessed! There's the board!"
I stayed in my room all that day. My head really ached and then, too, I did not care to meet Mr. Harbison. It would have to come; I realized that a meeting was inevitable, but I wanted time to think how I would meet him. It would be impossible to cut him, without rousing the curiosity of the others to fever pitch; and it was equally impossible to ignore the disgraceful episode on the stairs. As it happened, however, I need not have worried. I went down to dinner, languidly, when every one was seated, and found Max at my right, and Mr. Harbison moved over beside Bella. Every one was talking at once, for Flannigan, ambling around the table as airily as he walked his beat, had presented Bella with her bracelet on a salad plate, garnished with romaine. He had found it in the furnace room, he said, where she must have dropped it. And he looked at me stealthily, to approve his mendacity!
Every one was famished, and as they ate they discussed the board in the area way, and pretended to deride it as a clever bit of press work, to revive a dying sensation. No one was deceived; Anne's pearls and the attempt to escape, coming just after, pointed only to one thing. I looked around the table, dazed. Flannigan, almost the only unknown quantity, might have tried to escape the night before, but he would not have been in dress clothes. Besides, he must be eliminated as far as the pearls were concerned, having been locked in the furnace room the night they were stolen. There was no one among the girls to suspect. The Mercer girls had stunning pearls, and could secure all they wanted legitimately; and Bella disliked them. Oh, there was no question about it, I decided; Dallas and Anne had taken a wolf to their bosom—or is it a viper?—and the Harbison man was the creature. Although I must say that, looking over the table, at Jimmy's breadth and not very imposing personality, at Max's lean length, sallow skin, and bold dark eyes, at Dallas, blond, growing bald and florid, and then at the Harbison boy, tall, muscular, clear-eyed and sunburned, one would have taken Max at first choice as the villain, with Dal next, Jim third, and the Harbison boy not in the running.
It was just after dinner that the surprise was sprung on me. Mr. Harbison came around to me gravely, and asked me if I felt able to go up on the roof. On the roof, after last night! I had to gather myself together; luckily, the others were pushing back their chairs, showing Flannigan the liqueur glasses to take up, and lighting cigars.
"I do not care to go," I said icily.
"The others are coming," he persisted, "and I—I could give you an arm up the stairs."
"I believe you are good at that," I said, looking at him steadily. "Max, will you help me to the roof?"
Mr. Harbison really turned rather white. Then he bowed ceremoniously and left me.
Max got me a wrap, and every one except Mr. Harbison and Bella, who was taking a mass of indigestables to Aunt Selina, went to the roof.
"Where is Tom?" Anne asked, as we reached the foot of the stairs. "Gone ahead to fix things," was the answer. But he was not there. At the top of the last flight I stopped, dumb with amazement; the roof had been transformed, enchanted. It was a fairy-land of lights and foliage and colors. I had to stop and rub my eyes. From the bleakness of a tin roof in February to the brightness and greenery of a July roof garden!
"You were the immediate inspiration, Kit," Dallas said. "Harbison thought your headache might come from lack of exercise and fresh air, and he has worked us like nailers all day. I've a blister on my right palm, and Harbison got shocked while he was wiring the place, and nearly fell over the parapet. We bought out two full-sized florists by telephone."
It was the most amazing transformation. At each corner a pole had been erected, and wires crossed the roof diagonally, hung with red and amber bulbs. Around the chimneys had been massed evergreen trees in tubs, hiding their brick-and-mortar ugliness, and among the trees tiny lights were strung. Along the parapet were rows of geometrical boxwood plants in bright red crocks, and the flaps of a crimson and white tent had been thrown open, showing lights within, and rugs, wicker chairs, and cushions.
Max raised a glass of benedictine and posed for a moment, melodramatically.
"To the Wilson roof garden!" he said. "To Kit, who inspired; to the creators, who perspired; and to Takahiro—may he not have expired."
Every one was very gay; I think the knowledge that tomorrow Aunt Selin
a might be with them urged them to make the most of this last night of freedom. I tried to be jolly, and succeeded in being feverish. Mr. Harbison did not come up to enjoy what he had wrought. Jim brought up his guitar and sang love songs in a beautiful tenor, looking at Bella all the time. And Bella sat in a steamer chair, with a rug over her and a spangled veil on her head, looking at the boats on the river—about as soft and as chastened as an an acetylene headlight.
And after Max had told the most improbable tale, which Leila advised him to sprinkle salt on, and Dallas had done a clog dance, Bella said it was time for her complexion sleep and went downstairs, and broke up the party.
"If she only give half as an much care to her immortal soul," Anne said when she had gone, "as she does to her skin, she would let that nice Harbison boy alone. She must have been brutal to him tonight, for he went to bed at nine o'clock. At least, I suppose he went to bed, for he shut himself in the studio, and when I knocked he advised me not to come in."
I had pleaded my headache as an excuse for avoiding Aunt Selina all day, and she had not sent for me. Bella was really quite extraordinary. She was never in the habit of putting herself out for any one, and she always declared that the very odor of a sick room drove her to Scotch and soda. But here she was, rubbing Aunt Selina's back with chloroform liniment—and you know how that smells—getting her up in a chair, dressed in one of Bella's wadded silk robes, with pillows under her feet, and then doing her hair in elaborate puffs—braiding her gray switch and bringing it, coronet-fashion, around the top of her head. She even put rice powder on Aunt Selina's nose, and dabbed violet water behind her ears, and said she couldn't understand why she (Aunt Selina) had never married, but, of course, she probably would some day!
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 49