She had, for instance, mentioned Clare Rossiter, very casually. Oh very, very casually. And he had said: "Clare Rossiter? Oh, yes, the tall blonde girl, isn't she?"
She was very happy. He had not seemed to find her too young or particularly immature. He had asked her opinion on quite important things, and listened carefully when she replied. She felt, though, that she knew about one-tenth as much as he did, and she determined to read very seriously from that time on. Her mother, missing her that afternoon, found her curled up in the library, beginning the first volume of Gibbon's "Rome" with an air of determined concentration, and wearing her best summer frock.
She did not intend to depend purely on Gibbon's "Rome," evidently.
"Are you expecting any one, Elizabeth?" she asked, with the frank directness characteristic of mothers, and Elizabeth, fixing a date in her mind with terrible firmness, looked up absently and said:
"No one in particular."
At three o'clock, with a slight headache from concentration, she went upstairs and put up her hair again; rather high this time to make her feel taller. Of course, it was not likely he would come. He was very busy. So many people depended on him. It must be wonderful to be like that, to have people needing one, and looking out of the door and saying: "I think I see him coming now."
Nevertheless when the postman rang her heart gave a small leap and then stood quite still. When Annie slowly mounted the stairs she was already on her feet, but it was only a card announcing: "Mrs. Sayre, Wednesday, May fifteenth, luncheon at one-thirty."
However, at half past four the bell rang again, and a masculine voice informed Annie, a moment later, that it would put its overcoat here, because lately a dog had eaten a piece out of it and got most awful indigestion.
The time it took Annie to get up the stairs again gave her a moment so that she could breathe more naturally, and she went down very deliberately and so dreadfully poised that at first he thought she was not glad to see him.
"I came, you see," he said. "I intended to wait until to-morrow, but I had a little time. But if you're doing anything--"
"I was reading Gibbon's 'Rome,'" she informed him. "I think every one should know it. Don't you?"
"Good heavens, what for?" he inquired.
"I don't know." They looked at each other, and suddenly they laughed.
"I wanted to improve my mind," she explained. "I felt, last night, that you-that you know so many things, and that I was frightfully stupid."
"Do you mean to say," he asked, aghast, "that I--! Great Scott!"
Settled in the living-room, they got back rather quickly to their status of the night before, and he was moved to confession.
"I didn't really intend to wait until to-morrow," he said. "I got up with the full intention of coming here to-day, if I did it over the wreck of my practice. At eleven o'clock this morning I held up a consultation ten minutes to go to Yardsleys and buy a tie, for this express purpose. Perhaps you have noticed it already."
"I have indeed. It's a wonderful tie."
"Neat but not gaudy, eh?" He grinned at her, happily. "You know, you might steer me a bit about my ties. I have the taste of an African savage. I nearly bought a purple one, with red stripes. And Aunt Lucy thinks I should wear white lawn, like David!"
They talked, those small, highly significant nothings which are only the barrier behind which go on the eager questionings and unspoken answers of youth and love. They had known each other for years, had exchanged the same give and take of neighborhood talk when they met as now. To-day nothing was changed, and everything.
Then, out of a clear sky, he said:
"I may be going away before long, Elizabeth."
He was watching her intently. She had a singular feeling that behind this, as behind everything that afternoon, was something not spoken. Something that related to her. Perhaps it was because of his tone.
"You don't mean-not to stay?"
"No. I want to go back to Wyoming. Where I was born. Only for a few weeks."
And in that "only for a few weeks" there lay some of the unspoken things. That he would miss her and come back quickly to her. That she would miss him, and that subconsciously he knew it. And behind that, too, a promise. He would come back to her.
"Only for a few weeks," he repeated. "I thought perhaps, if you wouldn't mind my writing to you, now and then--I write a rotten hand, you know. Most medical men do."
"I should like it very much," she said, primly.
She felt suddenly very lonely, as though he had already gone, and slightly resentful, not at him but at the way things happened. And then, too, everyone knew that once a Westerner always a Westerner. The West always called its children. Not that she put it that way. But she had a sort of vision, gained from the moving pictures, of a country of wide spaces and tall mountains, where men wore quaint clothing and the women rode wild horses and had the dash she knew she lacked. She was stirred by vague jealousy.
"You may never come back," she said, casually. "After all, you were born there, and we must seem very quiet to you."
"Quiet!" he exclaimed. "You are heavenly restful and comforting. You--" he checked himself and got up. "Then I'm to write, and you are to make out as much of my scrawl as you can and answer. Is that right?"
"I'll write you all the town gossip."
"If you do--!" he threatened her. "You're to write me what you're doing, and all about yourself. Remember, I'll be counting on you."
And, if their voices were light, there was in both of them the sense of a pact made, of a bond that was to hold them, like clasped hands, against their coming separation. It was rather anti-climacteric after that to have him acknowledge that he didn't know exactly when he could get away!
She went with him to the door and stood there, her soft hair blowing, as he got into the car. When he looked back, as he turned the corner, she was still there. He felt very happy affable, and he picked up an elderly village woman with her and went considerably out of his way to take her home.
He got back to the office at half past six to find a red-eyed Minnie in the hall.
X
AT half past five that afternoon David had let himself into the house with his latch key, hung up his overcoat on the old walnut hat rack, and went into his office. The strain of the days before had told on him, and he felt weary and not entirely well. He had fallen asleep in his buggy, and had wakened to find old Nettie drawing him slowly down the main street of the town, pursuing an erratic but homeward course, while the people on the pavements watched and smiled.
He went into his office, closed the door, and then, on the old leather couch with its sagging springs he stretched himself out to finish his nap.
Almost immediately, however, the doorbell rang, and a moment later Minnie opened his door.
"Gentleman to see you, Doctor David."
He got up clumsily and settled his collar. Then he opened the door into his waiting-room.
"Come in," he said resignedly.
A small, dapper man, in precisely the type of clothes David most abominated, and wearing light-colored spats, rose from his chair and looked at him with evident surprise.
"I'm afraid I've made a mistake. A Doctor Livingstone left his seat number for calls at the box office of the Annex Theater last night --the Happy Valley company--but he was a younger man. I--"
David stiffened, but he surveyed his visitor impassively from under his shaggy white eyebrows.
"I haven't been in a theater for a dozen years, sir."
Gregory was convinced that he had made a mistake. Like Louis Bassett, the very unlikeliness of Jud Clark being connected with the domestic atmosphere and quiet respectability of the old house made him feel intrusive and absurd. He was about to apologize and turn away, when he thought of something.
"There are two names on your sign. The other one, was he by any chance at the theater last night?"
"I think I shall have to have a reason for these inquiries," David said slowly.
&
nbsp; He was trying to place Gregory, to fit him into the situation; straining back over ten years of security, racking his memory, without result.
"Just what have you come to find out?" he asked, as Gregory turned and looked around the room.
"The other Doctor Livingstone is your brother?"
"My nephew."
Gregory shot a sharp glance at him, but all he saw was an elderly man, with heavy white hair and fierce shaggy eyebrows, a portly and dignified elderly gentleman, rather resentfully courteous.
"Sorry to trouble you," he said. "I suppose I've made a mistake. I--is your nephew at home?"
"No."
"May I see a picture of him, if you have one?"
David's wild impulse was to smash Gregory to the earth, to annihilate him. His collar felt tight, and he pulled it away from his throat.
"Not unless I know why you want to see it."
"He is tall, rather spare? And he took a young lady to the theater last night?" Gregory persisted.
"He answers that description. What of it?"
"And he is your nephew?"
"My brother's son," David said steadily.
Somehow it began to dawn on him that there was nothing inimical in this strange visitor, that he was anxious and ill at ease. There was, indeed, something almost beseeching in Gregory's eyes, as though he stood ready to give confidence for confidence. And, more than that, a sort of not unfriendly stubbornness, as though he had come to do something he meant to do.
"Sit down," he said, relaxing somewhat. "Certainly my nephew is making no secret of the fact that he went to the theater last night. If you'll tell me who you are--"
But Gregory did not sit down. He stood where he was, and continued to eye David intently.
"I don't know just what it conveys to you, Doctor, but I am Beverly Carlysle's brother."
David lowered himself into his chair. His knees were suddenly weak under him. But he was able to control his voice.
"I see," he said. And waited.
"Something happened last night at the theater. It may be important. I'd have to see your nephew, in order to find out if it is. I can't afford to make a mistake."
David's ruddy color had faded. He opened a drawer of his desk and produced a copy of the photograph of Dick in his uniform. "Maybe this will help you."
Gregory studied it carefully, carrying it to the window to do so. When he confronted David again he was certain of himself and his errand for the first time, and his manner had changed.
"Yes," he said, significantly. "It does."
He placed the photograph on the desk, and sitting down, drew his chair close to David's. "I'll not use any names, Doctor. I think you know what I'm talking about. I was sure enough last night. I'm certain now."
David nodded. "Go on."
"We'll start like this. God knows I don't want to make any trouble. But I'll put a hypothetical case. Suppose that a man when drunk commits a crime and then disappears; suppose he leaves behind him a bad record and an enormous fortune; suppose then he reforms and becomes a useful citizen, and everything is buried."
Doctor David listened stonily. Gregory lowered his voice.
"Suppose there's a woman mixed up in that situation. Not guiltily, but there's a lot of talk. And suppose she lives it down, for ten years, and then goes back to her profession, in a play the families take the children to see, and makes good. It isn't hard to suppose that neither of those two people wants the thing revived, is it?"
David cleared his throat.
"You mean, then, that there is danger of such a revival?"
"I think there is," Gregory said bitterly. "I recognized this man last night, and called a fellow who knew him in the old days, Saunders, our stage manager. And a newspaper man named Bassett wormed it out of Saunders. You know what that means."
David heard him clearly, but as though from a great distance.
"You can see how it appears to Bassett. If he's found it, it's the big story of a lifetime. I thought he'd better be warned."
When David said nothing, but sat holding tight to the arms of his old chair, Gregory reached for his hat and got up.
"The thing for him to do," he said, "is to leave town for a while. This Bassett is a hound-hog on a scent. They all are. He is Bassett of the Times-Republican. And he took Jud--he took your nephew's automobile license number."
Still David sat silent, and Gregory moved to the door.
"Get him away, to-night if you can."
"Thank you," David said. His voice was thick. "I appreciate your coming."
He got up dizzily, as Gregory said, "Good-evening" and went out. The room seemed very dark and unsteady, and not familiar. So this was what had happened, after all the safe years! A man could work and build and pray, but if his house was built on the sand--
As the outer door closed David fell to the floor with a crash.
XI
Bassett lounged outside the neat privet hedge which it was Harrison Miller's custom to clip with his own bachelor hands, and waited. And as he waited he tried to imagine what was going on inside, behind the neatly curtained windows of the old brick house.
He was tempted to ring the bell again, pretend to have forgotten something, and perhaps happen in on what might be drama of a rather high order; what, supposing the man was Clark after all, was fairly sure to be drama. He discarded the idea, however, and began again his interested survey of the premises. Whoever conceived this sort of haven for Clark, if it were Clark, had shown considerable shrewdness. The town fairly smelt of respectability; the tree-shaded streets, the children in socks and small crisp-laundered garments, the houses set back, each in its square of shaved lawn, all peaceful, middle class and unexciting. The last town in the world for Judson Clark, the last profession, the last house, this shabby old brick before him.
He smiled rather grimly as he reflected that if Gregory had been right in his identification, he was, beyond those windows at that moment, very possibly warning Clark against himself. Gregory would know his type, that he never let go. He drew himself up a little.
The house door opened, and Gregory came out, turning toward the station. Bassett caught up with him and put a hand on his arm.
"Well?" he said cheerfully. "It was, wasn't it?"
Gregory stopped dead and stared at him. Then:
"Old dog Tray!" he said sneeringly. "If your brain was as good as your nose, Bassett, you'd be a whale of a newspaper man."
"Don't bother about my brain. It's working fine to-day, anyhow. Well, what had he to say for himself?"
Gregory's mind was busy, and he had had a moment to pull himself together.
"We both get off together," he said, more amiably. "That fellow isn't Jud Clark and never was. He's a doctor, and the nephew of the old doctor there. They're in practice together."
"Did you see them both?"
"Yes."
Bassett eyed him. Either Gregory was a good actor, or the whole trail ended there after all. He himself had felt, after his interview, with Dick, that the scent was false. And there was this to be said: Gregory had been in the house scarcely ten minutes. Long enough to acknowledge a mistake, but hardly long enough for any dramatic identification. He was keenly disappointed, but he had had long experience of disappointment, and after a moment he only said:
"Well, that's that. He certainly looked like Clark to me."
"I'll say he did."
"Rather surprised him, didn't you?"
"Oh, he was all right," Gregory said. "I didn't tell him anything, of course."
Bassett looked at his watch.
"I was after you, all right," he said, cheerfully. "But if I was barking up the wrong tree, I'm done. I don't have to be hit on the head to make me stop. Come and have a soda-water on me," he finished amiably. "There's no train until seven."
But Gregory refused.
"No, thanks. I'll wander on down to the station and get a paper."
The reporter smiled. Gregory was holding a grudge against him,
for a bad night and a bad day.
"All right," he said affably. "I'll see you at the train. I'll walk about a bit."
He turned and started back up the street again, walking idly. His chagrin was very real. He hated to be fooled, and fooled he had been. Gregory was not the only one who had lost a night's sleep. Then, unexpectedly, he was hailed from the curbstone, and he saw with amazement that it was Dick Livingstone.
"Take you anywhere?" Dick asked. "How's the headache?"
"Better, thanks." Bassett stared at him. "No, I'm just walking around until train-time. Are you starting out or going home, at this hour?"
"Going home. Well, glad the head's better."
He drove on, leaving the reporter gazing after him. So Gregory had been lying. He hadn't seen this chap at all. Then why--? He walked on, turning this new phase of the situation over in his mind. Why this elaborate fiction, if Gregory had merely gone in, waited for ten minutes, and come out again?
It wasn't reasonable. It wasn't logical. Something had happened inside the house to convince Gregory that he was right. He had seen somebody, or something. He hadn't needed to lie. He could have said frankly that he had seen no one. But no, he had built up a fabric carefully calculated to throw Bassett off the scent.
He saw Dick stop in front of the house, get out and enter. And coming to a decision, he followed him and rang the doorbell. For a long time no one answered. Then the maid of the afternoon opened the door, her eyes red with crying, and looked at him with hostility.
"Doctor Richard Livingstone?"
"You can't see him."
"It's important."
"Well, you can't see him. Doctor David has just had a stroke. He's in the office now, on the floor."
She closed the door on him, and he turned and went away. It was all clear to him; Gregory had seen, not Clark, but the older man; had told him and gone away. And under the shock the older man had collapsed. That was sad. It was very sad. But it was also extremely convincing.
He sat up late that night again, running over the entries in his notebook. The old story, as he pieced it out, ran like this:
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 327