The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  The bill was ninety dollars! Ye gods, were they determined to ruin me?

  With me to think is to act. I am always like that. I always, alas, feel that the thing I have thought of is right, and there is no use arguing about it. This is well known in my Institution of Learning, where I am called impetuus and even rash.

  That night, my Familey being sunk in sweet slumber and untroubled by finances, I made a large card which said: "For Hire." I had at first made it "For Higher," but saw that this was wrong and corected it. Although a natural speller, the best of us make mistakes.

  I did not, the next day, confide in my betrothed, knowing that he would object to my earning Money in any way, unless perhaps in large amounts, such as the stock market, or, as at present, in Literature. But being one to do as I make up my mind to, I took the car to the station, and in three hours made one dollar and a fifteen cent tip from the Gray's butler, who did not know me as I wore large gogles.

  I was now embarked on a Commercial Enterprize, and happier than for days. Although having one or to narrow escapes, such as father getting off the train at my station instead of the other, but luckily getting a cinder in his eye and unable to see until I drove away quickly. And one day Carter Brooks got off and found me changing a tire and very dusty and worried, because a new tube cost five dollars and so far I had made but six-fifteen.

  I did not know he was there until he said:

  "Step back and let me do that, Bab."

  He was all dressed, but very firm. So I let him and he looked terrible when finished.

  "Now" he said at last, "jump in and take me somewhere near the Club. And tell me how this happened."

  "I am a bankrupt, Carter," I responded in a broken tone. "I have sold my birthright for a mess of porridge."

  "Good heavens!" he said. "You don't mean you've spent the whole business?"

  I then got my Check Book from the tool chest, and held it out to him. Also the unpaid bills. I had but $40.45 in the Bank and owed $90.00 for the things mother had bought.

  "Everything has gone wrong," I admitted. "I love this car, but it is as much expence as a large familey and does not get better with age, as a familey does, which grows up and works or gets married. And Leila is getting to be a Man-hater and acts very strange most of the time."

  Here I almost wept, and probably would have, had he not said:

  "Here! Stop that, Or I----" He stopped and then said: "How about the engagement, Bab? Is it a failure to?"

  "We are still plited," I said. "Of course we do not agree about some things, but the time to fuss is now, I darsay, and not when to late, with perhaps a large familey and unable to seperate."

  "What sort of things?"

  "Well," I said, "he thinks that he ought to play around with other girls so no one will suspect, but he does not like it when I so much as sit in a hammick with a member of the Other Sex."

  "Bab," he said in an ernest tone, "that, in twenty words, is the whole story of all the troubles between what you call the Sexes. The only diference between Tommy Gray and me is that I would not want to play around with any one else if--well, if engaged to anyone like you. And I feel a lot like looking him up and giving him a good thrashing."

  He paid me fifty cents and a quarter tip, and offered, although poor, to lend me some Money. But I refused.

  "I have made my bed," I said, "and I shall occupy it, Carter. I can have no companion in misfortune."

  It was that night that another house near the Club was robed, and everything taken, including groceries and a case of champane. The Summer People got together the next day at the Club and offered a reward of two hundred dollars, and engaged a night watchman with a motor-cycle, which I considered silly, as one could hear him coming when to miles off, and any how he spent most of the time taking the maids for rides, and broke an arm for one of them.

  Jane spent the night with me, and being unable to sleep, owing to dieting again and having an emty stomache, wakened me at 2 A. M. and we went to the pantrey together. When going back upstairs with some cake and canned pairs, we heard a door close below. We both shreiked, and the Familey got up, but found no one except Leila, who could not sleep and was out getting some air. They were very unpleasant, but as Jane observed, families have little or no gratitude.

  I come now to the Stranger again.

  On the next afternoon, while engaged in a few words with the station hackman, who said I was taking his trade although not needing the Money--which was a thing he could not possably know--while he had a familey and a horse to feed, I saw the Stranger of the milk wagon, et cetera, emerge from the one-thirty five.

  He then looked at a piece of MAUVE NOTE PAPER, and said:

  "How much to take me up the Greenfield Road?"

  "Where to?" I asked in a pre-emptory manner.

  He then looked at a piece of MAUVE NOTE PAPER, and said:

  "To a big pine tree at the foot of Oak Hill. Do you know the Place?"

  Did I know the Place? Had I not, as a child, rolled and even turned summersalts down that hill? Was it not on my very ancestrial acres? It was, indeed.

  Although suspicous at once, because of no address but a pine tree, I said nothing, except merely:

  "Fifty cents."

  "Suppose we fix it like this," he suggested. "Fifty cents for the trip and another fifty for going away at once and not hanging around, and fifty more for forgetting me the moment you leave?"

  I had until then worn my gogles, but removing them to wipe my face, he stared, and then said:

  "And another fifty for not running into anything, including milk wagons."

  I hesatated. To dollars was to dollars, but I have always been honest, and above reproach. But what if he was the Theif, and now about to survey my own Home with a view to entering it clandestinely? Was I one to assist him under those circumstanses?

  However, at that moment I remembered the Reward. With that amount I could pay everything and start life over again, and even purchace a few things I needed. For I was allready wearing my TROUSEAU, having been unable to get any plain every-day garments, and thus frequently obliged to change a tire in a CREPE DE CHINE petticoat, et cetera.

  I yeilded to the temptation. How could I know that I was sewing my own destruction?

  IV

  Let us, dear reader, pass with brevaty over the next few days. Even to write them is a repugnent task, for having set my hand to the Plow, I am not one to do things half way and then stop.

  Every day the Stranger came and gave me to dollars and I took him to the back road on our place and left him there. And every night, although weary unto death with washing the car, carrying people, changeing tires and picking nails out of the road which the hackman put there to make trouble, I but pretended to slumber, and instead sat up in the library and kept my terrable Vigil. For now I knew that he had dishonest designs on the sacred interior of my home, and was but biding his time.

  The house having been closed for a long time, there were mice everywhere, so that I sat on a table with my feet up.

  I got so that I fell asleep almost anywhere but particularly at meals, and mother called in a doctor. He said I needed exercise! Ye gods!

  Now I think this: if I were going to rob a house, or comit any sort of Crime, I should do it and get it over, and not hang around for days making up my mind. Besides keeping every one tence with anxiety. It is like diving off a diving board for the first time. The longer you stand there, the more afraid you get, and the farther (further?) it seems to the water.

  At last, feeling I could stand no more, I said this to the Stranger as he was paying me. He was so surprized that he dropped a quarter in the road, and did not pick it up. I went back for it later but some one else had found it.

  "Oh!" he said. "And all this time I've been beleiving that you--well, no matter. So you think it's a mistake to delay to long?"

  "I think when one has somthing Right or Wrong to do, and that's for your conscience to decide, it's easier to do it quickly."
r />   "I see," he said, in a thoughtfull manner. "Well, perhaps you are right. Although I'm afraid you've been getting one fifty cents you didn't earn."

  "I have never hung around," I retorted. "And no Archibald is ever a sneak."

  "Archibald!" he said, getting very red. "Why, then you are----"

  "It doesn't matter who I am," I said, and got into the car and went away very fast, because I saw I had made a dreadfull Slip and probably spoiled everything. It was not untill I was putting the car up for the night that I saw I had gone off with his overcoat I hung it on a nail and getting my revolver from under a board, I went home, feeling that I had lost two hundred dollars, and all because of Familey pride.

  How true that "pride goeth before a fall"!

  I have not yet explained about the revolver. I had bought it from the gardner, having promised him ten dollars for it, although not as yet paid for. And I had meant to learn to be an expert, so that I could capture the Crimenal in question without assistance, thus securing all the reward.

  But owing to nervousness the first day I had, while practicing in the chicken yard, hit the Gardner in the pocket and would have injured him severely had he not had his garden scizzors in his pocket.

  He was very angry, and said he had a bruize the exact shape of the scizzors on him, so I had had to give him the ten plus five dollars more, which was all I had and left me stranded.

  I went to my domacile that evening in low spirits, which were not improved by a conversation I had with Tom that night after the Familey had gone out to a Club dance.

  He said that he did not like women and girls who did things.

  "I like femanine girls," he said. "A fellow wants to be the Oak and feel the Vine clinging to him."

  "I am afectionate," I said, "but not clinging. I cannot change my Nature."

  "Just what do you mean by afectionate?" he asked, in a stern voice. "Is it afectionate for you to sit over there and not even let me hold your hand? If that's afection, give me somthing else."

  Alas, it was but to true. When away from me I thought of him tenderly, and of whether he was thinking of me. But when with me I was diferent. I could not account for this, and it troubled me. Because I felt this way. Romanse had come into my life, but suppose I was incapable of loving, although loved?

  Why should I wish to be embrased, but become cold and fridgid when about to be?

  "It's come to a Show-down, Bab," he said, ernestly. "Either you love me or you don't. I'm darned if I know which."

  "Alas, I do not know" I said in a low and pitious voice. I then buried my face in my hands, and tried to decide. But when I looked up he was gone, and only the sad breese wailed around me.

  I had expected that the Theif would take my hint and act that night, if not scared off by learning that I belonged to the object of his nefarius designs. But he did not come, and I was wakened on the library table at 8 A. M. by George coming in to open the windows.

  I was by that time looking pale and thin, and my father said to me that morning, ere departing for the office:

  "Haven't anything you'd like to get off your chest, have you, Bab?"

  I sighed deeply.

  "Father," I said, "do you think me cold? Or lacking in afection?"

  "Certainly not."

  "Or one who does not know her own mind?"

  "Well," he observed, "those who have a great deal of mind do not always know it all. Just as you think you know it some new corner comes up that you didn't suspect and upsets everything."

  "Am I femanine?" I then demanded, in an anxious manner.

  "Femanine! If you were any more so we couldn't bare it."

  I then inquired if he prefered the clinging Vine or the independant tipe, which follows its head and not its instincts. He said a man liked to be engaged to a clinging Vine, but that after marriage a Vine got to be a darned nusance and took everything while giving nothing, being the sort to prefer chicken croquets to steak and so on, and wearing a boudoir cap in bed in the mornings.

  He then kissed me and said:

  "Just a word of advise, Bab, from a parent who is, of course, extremely old but has not forgoten his Youth entirely. Don't try to make yourself over for each new Admirer who comes along. Be yourself. If you want to do any making over, try it on the boys. Most of them could stand it."

  That morning, after changing another tire and breaking three finger nails, I remembered the overcoat and, putting aside my scruples, went through the pockets. Although containing no Burglar's tools, I found a SKETCH OF THE LOWER FLOOR OF OUR HOUSE, WITH A CROSS OUTSIDE ONE OF THE LIBRARY WINDOWS!

  I was for a time greatly excited, but calmed myself, since there was work to do. I felt that, as I was to capture him unaided, I must make a Plan, which I did and which I shall tell of later on.

  Alas, while thinking only of securing the Reward and of getting Sis married, so that I would be able to be engaged and enjoy it without worry as to Money, coming out and so on, my Ship of Love was in the hands of the wicked, and about to be utterly destroyed, or almost, the complete finish not coming untill later. But

  'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

  This is the tradgic story. Tom had gone to the station, feeling repentant probably, or perhaps wishing to drive the Arab, and finding me not yet there, had conversed with the hackman. And that person, for whom I have nothing but contempt and scorn, had observed to him that every day I met a young gentleman at the three-thirty train and took him for a ride!

  Could Mendasity do more? Is it right that such a Creature, with his pockets full of nails and scandle, should vote, while intellagent women remain idle? I think not.

  When, therefore, I waved my hand to my FIANCEE, thus showing a forgiving disposition, I was met but with a cold bow. I was heart-broken, but it is but to true that in our state of society the female must not make advanses, but must remain still, although suffering. I therfore sat still and stared hautily at the water cap of my car, although seathing within, but without knowing the cause of our rupture.

  The Stranger came. I shrink in retrospect from calling him the Theif, although correct in one sense. I saw Tom stareing at him banefully, but I took no notice, merely getting out and kicking the tires to see if air enough in them. I then got in and drove away.

  The Stranger looked excited, and did not mention the weather as customery. But at last he said:

  "Somehow I gather, Little Sister, that you know a lot of things you do not talk about."

  "I do not care to be adressed as `Little Sister,'" I said in an icy tone. "As for talking, I do not interfere with what is not my concern."

  "Good," he observed." And I take it that, when you find an overcoat or any such garment, you do not exhibit it to the Familey, but put it away in some secluded nook. Eh, what?"

  "No one has seen it. It is in the Car now, under that rug."

  He turned and looked at me intently.

  "Do you know," he observed, "my admiration for you is posatively beyond words!"

  "Then don't talk," I said, feeling still anguished by Tom's conduct and not caring much just then about the reward or any such mundane matters.

  "But I MUST talk," he replied. "I have a little plan, which I darsay you have guest. As a matter of fact, I have reasons to think it will fall in with--er--plans of your own."

  Ye gods! Was I thus being asked to compound a felony? Or did he not think I belonged to my own Familey, but to some other of the same name, and was therfore not suspicous.

  "Here's what I want," he went on in a smooth manner. "And there's Twenty-five dollars in it for you. I want this little car of yours tonight."

  Here I almost ran into a cow, but was luckaly saved, as a Jersey cow costs seventy-five dollars and even more, depending on how much milk given daily. When back on the road again, having but bent a mud guard against a fense, I was calmer.

  "How do I know you will bring it back?" I asked, stareing at him fixedly.

  "Oh, now see here," he said, str
aightening his necktie, "I may be a Theif, but I am not that kind of a Theif. I play for big stakes or nothing."

  I then remembered that there was a large dinner that night and that mother would have her jewelery out from the safe deposit, and father's pearl studs et cetera. I turned pale, but he did not notice it, being busy counting out Twenty-five dollars in small bills.

  I am one to think quickly, but with precicion. So I said:

  "You can't drive, can you?"

  "I do drive, dear Little--I beg your pardon. And I think, with a lesson now, I could get along. Now see here, Twenty-five dollars while you are asleep and therfore not gilty if I take your car from wherever you keep it. I'll leave it at the station and you'll find it there in the morning."

  Is it surprizing that I agreed and that I took the filthy lucre? No. For I knew then that he would never get to the station, and the reward of two hundred, plus the Twenty-five, was already mine mentaly.

  He learned to drive the Arab in but a short time, and I took him to the shed and showed him where I hid the key. He said he had never heard before of a girl owning a Motor and her parents not knowing, and while we were talking there Tom Gray went by in the station hack and droped somthing in the road.

  When I went out to look IT WAS THE KEY RING I HAD GIVEN HIM.

  I knew then that all was over and that I was doomed to a single life, growing more and more meloncholy until Death releived my sufferings. For I am of a proud nature, to proud to go to him and explain. If he was one to judge me by apearances I was through. But I ached. Oh, how I ached!

  The Theif did not go further that day, but returned to the station. And I? I was not idle, beleive me. During the remainder of the day, although a broken thing, I experamented to find exactly how much gas it took to take the car from the station to our house. As I could not go to the house I had to guess partly, but I have a good mind for estimations, and I found that two quarts would do it.

  So he could come to the house or nearby, but he could not get away with his ill-gotten gains. I therfore returned to my home and ate a nursery supper, and Hannah came in and said:

  "I'm about out of my mind, Miss Bab. There's trouble coming to this Familey, and it keeps on going to dinners and disregarding all hints."