CHAPTER XV
Thick and Fast
However faint the appeal it made to Johnson Boller, Anthony's statementhad been the literal truth--his sole concern just now was the shieldingof Mary Dalton.
More and more, these last calmer minutes, the ghastly aspect of the caseas viewed from the woman's side had appealed to him. It is entirelypossible that a little real mental suffering had rendered Anthony Fryless selfish and more considerate of the rest of the human race--JohnsonBoller always excepted--than he had been for many years.
Whatever the cause, the weight of his own guilt was bearing down harderand harder, and he was prepared to go to extreme lengths if necessary inthe way of keeping Mary's adventure an eternal secret.
But like many another plan and resolve of this bedeviled night andmorning, the latest had been blasted to flinders!
Beatrice Boller, standing there with Mary's hat still clutched tight andpartly broken, was not smiling the smile of a woman who fancied herselfon the right track. She smiled the smile of one who knew exactly whereshe stood. Her lips curled now as she examined the worm that had beenher husband, and she perched on the edge of the center-table.
"Unfortunate, isn't it, that you didn't pick some poor drab from thestreets?" she asked, significantly and triumphantly. "Unfortunate foryou and unfortunate for her!"
"Well, this--well, this----" Johnson Boller tried.
"Don't talk to me, please. I want to talk to you--oh, not for my sake orfor your sake, to be sure. I don't know how much real man may be left ineither of you; not very much, I imagine. But if you do want to save twoinnocent women from a good deal of embarrassment, you shall have thechance."
She laughed again as she watched the effect of the cryptic statement.She sat down, then, and having opened her hand-bag and drawn therefrom alittle slip of paper, she resumed her inspection of the silent pair.
"You don't understand at all, do you? Well, you shall! Your lady friendmade one mistake, gentlemen. Any young woman off on that sort ofadventure should be cautious enough to destroy marks of identification.This hat, as it happens, came from Mme. Altier, just uptown."
"The little blonde?" escaped from Johnson Boller.
"The little blonde," sneered his wife. "The little blonde is quite afriend of mine; I lent her the money that started her in business upthis way, in fact, and I've been buying hats there for five years.Therefore, I went and interviewed the little blonde, and her memory andher methods of bookkeeping are alike commendable. She might not havetold another woman, but she was very glad to tell me."
Beatrice gazed at the slip briefly.
"Mrs. Henry Wales!" she said very suddenly indeed, and sent her eyesstraight through both of them at once.
Innocent for once, Anthony and Johnson Boller merely frowned atBeatrice, and after a little she shrugged her shoulders.
"Not Mrs. Henry Wales, evidently," she mused. "Very well; I was rightabout her. I've met her, I think, and she seemed a little bit too nicefor that sort of thing. Er--Laura Cathcart!"
Once more the word was hurled straight into them. Once more Anthony andhis old friend stared innocently--but they did a little more this time.They turned and stared at one another, and all the air between themvibrated with a wordless message!
Beatrice had made one grave tactical error in not reading the right namefirst; Anthony and his friend understood now and were quite prepared foranything--and it seemed almost as if Beatrice sensed the message, forshe frowned a little as she said:
"Mary Dalton!"
Blankly, innocently as babes unborn, and still not too innocentlywithal, Anthony and Johnson Boller stared back, and the latter even hadassurance enough to say:
"What's the idea, Bee? Is it a roll-call?"
"It is the names of the three women in New York who have bought thatparticular style of hat from Sarah," said Mrs. Boller. "She made up justthree, as is her custom, and when they were sold she made no more. Sothat in spite of your extreme wonder at hearing the names, and althoughI had rather hoped to guess which one it might be, one of that trio wasin this flat last night. Which one?"
Johnson Boller shook his head vigorously.
"None of 'em!" he said flatly.
"What do _you_ say?" Beatrice asked Anthony.
"Madam, I decline to say anything whatever!" Anthony said stiffly.
"Really?" smiled Beatrice, and gazed at them pensively for a littlewhile. "I do not know intimately any of these ladies. They have,doubtless, a husband and fathers and, I hope, a few big brothers, too,to take care of them properly. And since they have, I may as well tellyou just what I mean to do. I'm going to Mrs. Wales first."
It produced no visible shock.
"I'm going to accuse her, in so many words, of passing last night inthis apartment, and I'll say you confessed!" pursued Beatrice. "Perhapsshe can clear herself by showing me the duplicate of this hat; perhapsshe cannot. In any event, it seems probable that her husband and therest of her male relatives will make a point of coming here and beatingyou two to a jelly."
It did seem rather likely, and Johnson Boller glanced at his old friendand received no aid at all.
"Unless she confesses, Miss Cathcart receives the next call," saidJohnson's wife. "The procedure will be the same; the results to you, Isincerely hope, will be the same. After that, if necessary, I shall goto the Dalton woman's home and repeat the performance, and doubtless_her_ father and _her_ brothers will----"
"Say! Do you want to have us killed?" Johnson Boller gasped.
"Yes!" hissed the Spanish strain in Beatrice. "Well?"
Anthony shook his head quietly.
"None of the ladies you have mentioned----" he began.
"One of them was here, and I'll soon know which one!" Beatrice correctedquickly. "Do you wish to save the other two?"
Anthony said nothing.
"Nope!" Johnson Boller said doggedly.
Beatrice rose slowly and looked them over.
"Do you know," said she, all withering contempt, "I had been fool enoughto fancy that there was man enough in one or the other of you to sparethe innocent women a very distressing quarter of an hour. Even if thatfailed, I had fancied that one or the other would have sufficientintelligence to avoid a thrashing if possible. I was wrong! There isn'ta spark of manhood or an ounce of brain matter in either of you--and tothink that I married _you_!"
She had risen. She was getting ready to go upon her fell mission; andthe calm contempt slid away from Anthony and cold terror crawled up hisspinal column. Just when he had fondly imagined that all was well,Beatrice had come and proved that all was anything else in the world!
Just when he had fancied that Mary was safe at home and, with herdoubtless capable maid, was devising a convincing tale to account forher absence, Beatrice must needs appear and show that, tale or no tale,Mary was to be accused.
And there wasn't a flaw in her program, by the way. She held the hat asa man might cling to a straw in mid-ocean; and the lady who could show asimilar hat would clear herself and then start her male relatives afterAnthony; and the lady who could not show a similar hat--was Mary!
Obviously the fine resolve he had made was to avail little enough, butAnthony could think of no way of staying the lady. Physical force leapedup as a possibility in his tortured mind and leaped out again asquickly.
One suggestion of that sort of thing and instinct told him thatBeatrice, in her present unlovely mood, would scream until the raftersechoed, if they happened to have rafters in the Hotel Lasande. Moralsuasion, honeyed talk were still farther from the possibilities. No,Beatrice would have to go!
She was ready now. Habit superseding circumstances, Beatrice had steppedto the mirror and tucked up a few stray locks of hair. The little hatwas under her arm, and the arm had shut down tight on it.
"You two _curs_!" Beatrice said, by way of farewell, and turned awayfrom them with a sweep.
It was no apartment in which to do what one expected to do. Beatrice,one step taken, stopped short. Out a
t the door some one was hammering ina way oddly familiar. Anthony, rising again, hurried to answer thesummons--and the door was hardly open when young Robert Vining hurtledin and gripped him by both arms.
"It's no use, Anthony!" he gasped. "There's not a trace of her yet!"
"No?"
"She's gone! She's _gone_!" cried Robert, breaking into his familiarrefrain. "I've just had the house on the wire, and there's no news ofher at all as yet. I've had police headquarters on the wire, and theyhaven't heard or seen a thing. Miriam--that's one of her chums--has justfinished going over Bellevue, and there's no sign of Mary down there!"
By now they were in the living-room, and Beatrice, somewhat startled atthe sign of a being in agony equal to her own stood aside.
"She's gone!" said Robert Vining. "And I've been around toHelene's--that's another of her chums, Anthony--and she's going totelephone all the girls. That takes that off my hands and leaves me freeto go over all the hospitals that haven't been covered yet. That's whatbrings me here, old man. You'll have to come with me."
"Very well!" Anthony said swiftly. "We'll start now."
"Because I haven't got the nerve to do it alone!" Robert cried."I--somebody has to go to the Morgue, too! And suppose we should go downthere--I was there just once and I had the horrors for a month--supposewe should go down there and find her, Anthony, all----"
"Hush!" said Anthony. "Don't go into the possibilities; there's a ladypresent, Bob."
Vining almost came to earth for a moment.
"What?"
"To be sure. Mrs. Boller--Mr. Robert Vining."
He spoke directly at her, so that Robert, out of his emotional fog,gained an idea of her location, and turned dizzily toward her. There wasupon his countenance a strained, heart-broken, half-apologetic smile ashe faced Beatrice Boller. He bowed, too, perfunctorily.
Then Robert raised his stricken eyes.
And as he raised them, a great shock ran through Robert, and after it hestiffened. His eyes popped, as if he could not quite believe what hesaw, and his body swayed forward. Robert, with a hoarse, incoherentscream, ran straight at Beatrice Boller and snatched away the hat fromunder her arm.
"That's Mary's! That's Mary's!" he cried hysterically. "That's Mary'shat, because I was with her the day she bought it, and I'd know it amongten thousand hats! Yes, and it's torn and broken--it's all smashed onthis side!"
Greenish white, jaw sagging, Robert looked from one to the other ofthem.
"You--you're afraid to tell me!" said he. "She--there was an accident! Ican see that by the hat. There was an accident and she was hurtand--where is she now? Where is she now? Good God! Is she--dead?"
"She isn't dead," Anthony said queerly, because he had been looking atBeatrice and feeling his flesh crawl as he looked.
"Then where is Mary? Why don't you tell me about it?" Robert stormed on."What's the matter? Is she badly hurt? Doesn't she want me? Hasn't shetried to send for me?" And whirling upon Beatrice, the unfortunate youngman threw out his hands and cried: "You tell me, if they will not! Whathas happened to her? Where did you get the hat?"
Normally, Beatrice Boller was the very last mortal in the world toinflict pain upon a fellow-being; but the normal Beatrice was far awayjust now.
As Anthony noted with failing heart, it was a big moment for theoutraged creature before Robert Vining, for she was about to makeanother of the accursed sex to suffer. It did not seem humanly possiblethat she could communicate her personal view of Mary to Robert; butcertainly Beatrice was accomplishing a very dramatic pause, and in ither lips drew back and showed her beautiful teeth.
"The young lady is a friend of yours, too?" she asked very sweetly.
"Friend!" cried Robert cried. "She's the girl I'm going to marry! Whereis she, madam? Can't you tell me what has happened?"
Beatrice's laugh was blood-curdling.
"Mrs. Boller!" Anthony cried. "I protest----"
"Do you really?" Beatrice smiled and turned directly to Robert. "Soyou're going to marry her?"
"What? Yes."
"Or perhaps you're not!" Mrs. Boller mused, "You think her a very worthyyoung woman?"
Robert looked blankly at her.
"But she is not," Beatrice said softly. "And you look like a decentsort, and however much it may hurt for a little, you shall have thetruth. You asked me where I found this hat. Well, it was in the bedroomat the end of that corridor--Mr. Boller's room!"
She waited vainly for a little, because Robert simply did notcomprehend. He frowned at Beatrice and then shook his head.
"What--what do you say?"
"It had been there all night, Mr. Vining," Beatrice purred on. "So hadshe!"
"Mary--_my Mary_? Mary Dalton?" Robert gasped.
"Mary Dalton!"
"But that--that's all damned--pardon me!--nonsense! That----"
He turned on Anthony; and then, quickly as he had turned, he gasped andstared with burning eyes.
View him as one chose, there was nothing about Anthony to indicate thatit was nonsense. He was biting his lips; his eyes were upon the floor;had he rehearsed the thing for months he could not possibly have lookedmore guilty.
"Why--why----" choked Robert Vining.
Beatrice laid a slender hand on his arm.
"Come with me," she said quickly. "Come and see her bag and her littletoilet case and several other of her things. Perhaps you'll recognizethem, too, and they'll convince you that she really settled down herefor a visit. Come!"
As a man in a dreadful dream, Robert Vining followed her blindly intothe corridor and out of sight. Johnson Boller smiled a demon smile andthrust his hands into his trouser-pockets.
"Here's where _he_ gets _his_!" he stated. Anthony could no more thanspeak.
"That--that woman!" he contrived. "What an absolutely mercilessthing----"
"Huh? Bee?" the remarkable Boller said sharply. "She's all right; she'sacting according to her own lights, isn't she? Why the devil shouldn'tVining suffer, too? D'ye think I'm the only man in the world that has tosuffer?"
"I think you're in luck if she divorces you!" Anthony stated feelingly."A woman capable of that is capable of anything!"
Johnson Boller stayed the angry words upon his lips and smiled grimly.More, after a moment he thrust out his hand.
"I guess it doesn't matter much what you think now, Anthony," said he."Good-by!"
"What?"
"Good-by, old man! You're going to leave this world in about threeminutes, you know--just as soon as he's convinced and able to act again,Anthony. So long I'll be sorry to think of you as missing--sometimes, Isuppose, but not when I think what you've put over on me."
Anthony laughed viciously.
"Don't use up all your sympathy," he said. "You may need a little foryourself, Johnson. The things are in what's supposed to be _your_ room,you know."
"What?" gasped Johnson Boller. "That's true! That----"
Out at the entrance, a key was scraping in the latch; and when it hadscraped for the second time Anthony smiled forlornly.
"Wilkins," he said. "Back to report that the girl's safe athome--whatever good that may do now. Is that you, Wilkins?"
"That's--that's me, sir!" Wilkins puffed.
And the door closed and in the foyer bump--bump--bump indicated thatWilkins was carrying something, a trunk one might almost have thoughtfrom the sound. Rather red, gleaming perspiration that had not all comefrom exertion, Wilkins appeared, moved into the room, gazed feelingly athis master, was about to speak and then caught the sound of voices fromDavid's room.
"The--the parties couldn't attend to the trunk to-day!" said Wilkins.
"_She_--isn't in there?" Anthony whispered.
"I have no reason to think otherwise, sir," said the faithful one.
"You didn't leave her?"
"There was no one to leave her with, sir, and I was ordered out with thetrunk," Wilkins said, smiling wanly. "There wasn't nowhere to come buthere, sir, with the police after me."
From
down the corridor issued--
"Yes! I'm--Heaven help me--I'm convinced!"
"I'll be taking her into your room, sir," Wilkins said hastily. "Shemust be needing a breath of air by this time, poor young lady!"
Another nightmare figure, he lumbered across the living-room and intoAnthony's chamber; and regardless of possible consequences Anthonyfollowed and snatched open the trunk.
Mary had not expired. Her face was decidedly red and her eyes ratherbewildered, but she struggled out with Anthony's assistance, breatheddeeply several times, glanced at her hair in the mirror and then, beinga thoroughly good sport, Mary even managed a small, wretched laugh.
"Back again!" she said simply. "They'd discharged Felice."
"Was there--nobody else?" Anthony asked.
"Dorothy, our little parlor maid, would have done, I suppose, butWilkins didn't know about her," said the girl, facing him. "It's prettyawful, isn't it?"
Even now she had not lost her nerve! The chivalrous something in Anthonywelled up more strongly than ever; the precise, rather old-maidishquality of his expression vanished altogether--and for the very firsttime Mary almost liked him.
"It's very awful, indeed," he said quickly. "More awful than youimagine, but--we'll try to believe that all is not lost even now. Oneway or another, I'll get you out of it, Miss Mary, if I have to lie mysoul into perdition. I don't know how at the moment, but the way willindicate itself; I decline to believe anything else! You'll have to stayhere and keep your ears wide open and take your cue from whatever I'msaying. I hope----"
"Psst!" said Johnson Boller.
Anthony left the room with a motion that was more twitch than anythingelse, and he left it none too soon. The shock, or the first of it, wasover; Robert Vining was coming back to them, not like a nice young man,but rather like a Kansas cyclone! Three thuds in the corridor, and heappeared before them.
Robert's countenance was gray-white; his white lips, parted a little,seemed to be stretched over his teeth; his eyes blazed blue fire! Andbehind Robert--and be it confessed that there was a certain indefiniteatmosphere of fright about her--Beatrice smiled.
"So you--_you_--you beastly scoundrel!" Robert began, his hands workingas he looked straight at Johnson Boller and ignored the very existenceof Anthony Fry. "I don't know whether a thing like you can pray, but ifyou can, pray quick!"
"_Me?_" Johnson Boller gulped.
Robert laughed dreadfully.
"Don't waste your time gaping!" he said, thickly. "Pray if you want to,because you're going to die! D'ye hear? I'm going to choke out yournasty life as I'd choke the life out of a mad dog."
"Not my life!" Johnson Boller protested, with pale lips, as he pointedat Anthony. "He----"
"Whatever he may have had to do with luring her here I can settle withhim afterward!" Robert cried. "My concern is with _you_; and if you wantto say anything, hurry about it. I can't hold myself more than anothersecond or two!"
By way of proving it, he stalked down upon Johnson Boller--not rapidly,but with a deadly slowness and deliberation which suggested the tigercoming down upon its prey. His flaring eyes had fascinated the victim,too, for Johnson Boller could not move a muscle. Once he tried to smilea farewell at Beatrice; his eyes would not remain away from Robert evenlong enough for that. Once he tried to look at Anthony, but it was quiteuseless.
And from that ominous region of the doorway came Wilkins's warm tones:
"Well, that's all right, gentlemen, but he's busy now."
"He's not too busy to see me," said an entirely strange voice, and heavysteps passed by Wilkins.
Into the large room which had already seen so much suffering, thedistinctly scared person of Hobart Hitchin was propelled by a large,hairy hand. The owner of the hand glanced at him for an instant; andthen for five terrific seconds stared at Anthony Fry, who after thefirst violent start had turned immobile as Johnson Boller himself.
"Mr.--what's your name?--Hitchin!" Dalton barked.
Hobart Hitchin straightened up with an effort.
"Fry," said he, "we--er--that is, I accuse you of the--ah--murder ofTheodore Dalton's only son, Richard, alias David Prentiss!"
CHAPTER XVI
The Lie
Even Robert Vining halted his death march. A man of but one idea in theworld just a second ago, he jerked about suddenly and cried:
"_Dick?_"
Dalton a strong man half-benumbed by mental agony, turned slowly uponhim.
"Are you--here, too, Robert?" he muttered. "Yes, Dicky!"
And slowly he turned back to Anthony and, slowly also, he drew forth theautomatic in all its steely-blue nastiness.
"Well, Fry?"
Anthony Fry merely shook his head. The mood that was come upon him nowpassed any explanation; he was neither frightened nor excited. He heardthe latest absurd accusation without even forming an opinion on it.Either he had passed the point where one may feel the sensation ofastonishment or infinite desperation had blessed him with a calm pastany understanding. He did not know which and he did not care; it wasenough that he could look straight at Dalton and not even change color!
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Dalton," he said quietly.
Beatrice leaped into action.
"Dalton!" she cried. "Mary Dalton's father?"
"What?" Dalton, momentarily sidetracked, whirled upon her. "You've heardsomething from Mary, madam? You know----"
"I know all about Mary!" said Beatrice Boller.
"Madam!" Anthony broke in. "I forbid you to say one word of yourridiculous and unjustified----"
Beatrice simply ignored his presence and favored Theodore Dalton withher unspeakable smile.
"Mary Dalton passed the night in this apartment," she said quickly.
"Mary----" Dalton cried, just as Robert hurried to his side and clutchedhis arm.
"They say she was here!" he panted. "The woman says so, and Mary'shat--see! She's holding it even now! And Mary's bag is in a room there,and her comb and brush and two of her handkerchiefs and----"
"But it wasn't a woman, whatever she's left!" Hobart Hitchincontributed. "It was a boy, about twenty or twenty-two--a boy Fryintroduced to me as David Prentiss, and who was Dalton's son. Look! Wehave his trousers, and Dalton has identified them as his son's!"
Dalton's attention was still upon Beatrice.
"You say that--that my daughter----"
"I say that she was here and that she left suddenly when I came, sosuddenly that she hadn't even time to take her hat!" said Boller'scharming wife. "Where she is now I don't know; not in this apartmentbecause I've searched it; probably somewhere else in the house, becauseshe would be unlikely to leave without a hat. But she was here, and ifyou doubt it, _ask those men_!"
Slowly, Dalton turned back to Anthony Fry. One glance he sent down atthe automatic and his finger settled over the trigger.
And still the calm held Anthony.
It was one of the most curious things he had ever experienced, thatcalm, and more curious than the calm itself was the astounding capacityfor thought that had come to his tired brain. Except for this lastinexplicable accusation, which he discarded, he was thinking lucidly,and swiftly and, by the way, along a single line. Mary was all thatmattered just now.
And to some extent, if Fate remained kind, he saw his way to savingMary, should the girl have sense enough to remain quiet in his room. Hesmiled, did Anthony, and looked so confidently, so directly at Daltonthat the latter scowled in bewilderment.
"I know nothing whatever about your son, Dalton," said he. "I did noteven know that you had a son. Are you sure he is not at home?"
"He has not been at home for weeks," Hitchin put in. "That's whatpuzzles us; how did you get him to the city?"
"From what point?"
"Hillcombe, in the Adirondacks," Dalton said. "He----"
"Is it possible to get Hillcombe on the long distance?"
The unfathomable self-possession made its own impression on Dalton.
"Very likely," h
e muttered.
"Then if you will give my man the number or the name of the hotel, orwhatever it may be, he will put in the call," said Anthony Fry. "Let ushope that you'll be able to talk to your son shortly. If he doesn'tanswer, wire him," Anthony pursued, impatiently. "That is the very bestI can suggest."
Theodore Dalton's hand passed through his hair, pausing to clutch it fora moment; Wilkins, waiting attentively, met his eye and Dalton, havingcleared his dry throat, mumbled the name of a camp and turned back toAnthony.
That remarkable figure was quite erect and merely waiting for a chanceto speak again. So far as the general theme was concerned, his mind wasfairly well settled; it meant certain ruin for him, if Dalton was kindenough to believe; it was likely enough to mean even criminalprosecution, but it bade fair to save Mary. Anthony even smiledcomposedly as he tacked on new details; thus does suffering refine us!
Apparently, several of them were about to speak at once. Anthony held uphis lean, commanding hand for silence.
"One moment, please!" said the amazing Anthony. "There is no cause forany further excitement, any further speculation. The thing has gone toofar now; it has passed beyond me and--I have failed."
"What?" Robert rasped.
Anthony drew a deep breath.
"Will you all be seated?" he asked. "I--I wish to confess the truth!"
"You mean that you----" Dalton exploded.
"I mean that nobody has been injured, to the best of my knowledge, andthat your daughter Mary is perfectly safe," Anthony smiled sadly. "Putthe gun away, Dalton, and hear me through at least. Later on, if youfeel inclined to use it, I don't know that I shall object greatly. Iquite understand what is likely to happen to me when you have heard whatI have to tell and--in spite of that the whole affair seems to havetangled itself so terribly that there is nothing to do but tell it!"
He himself was sitting behind the table now, and he certainly claimedtheir attention. Dalton perched on the edge of a chair; Robert took oneof its arms. Beatrice seemed at first unwilling to leave the center ofthe stage, but presently she, too, was seated--and Johnson Bollershuffled to a chair and went into it quite limply, gazing at Anthony andbreathing hard.
Unless Anthony was lying, he meant to tell the truth; and while some ofthose present might believe the truth, Beatrice Boller was not among thenumber.
"I don't know, Dalton," Anthony began evenly, "that I have anything tosay in extenuation of what I have done. Evidently I lost my head, evento the point of downright insanity; some of us do that occasionally, youknow. Brooding over the business was responsible, I suppose. YourCelestial Oil has been cutting pretty heavily into Imperial Linimentthis last year."
"Humph!" said Dalton.
"Cutting in so heavily that whatever efforts I have been able to putforth have been of no avail whatever," Anthony pursued. "Last week--allday last Saturday, in fact--I went over the year's business and itfairly maddened me to see the falling off. I spent Sunday thinking and Iam frank to say, Dalton, that by Sunday night I was all but ready tomurder you. Toward midnight I conceived what seemed to be a means offorcing you into some sort of mutual contract, by which each of us coulddo business with the assurance that the other wasn't coming over to takeaway what didn't belong to him."
"_You_ get away with a thing like that?" Dalton demanded.
"It was a wild notion," Anthony sighed. "I knew that talking wasuseless, I knew that fighting you openly was equally useless, becauseonce I became too conspicuous I knew that you'd sail in and wreck me. Atthe same time something had to be done and that in mighty short order,or Fry's Imperial was likely to die a natural death. Therefore, Dalton,I perfected the scheme of kidnaping your daughter and holding her untilyou'd come to terms."
"Great----"
"Rest easy!" Mr. Fry smiled. "Part of it succeeded, but she hasn't beeninjured and I ask you to believe, at least, that I never had any idea ofinjuring her. What I did mean to do was to threaten you, through a thirdperson I met most unfortunately and who is, not to put too fine a pointupon it, one of the slimiest crooked lawyers in the world--what I meantto do was to make you understand that, unless you came to terms, thegirl would be killed!
"If the details interest you I'll confess that I had a note sent to thegirl last evening, by a messenger who succeeded in telephoning her andhaving her meet him just outside your home. The note informed MissDalton that Vining here--oh, sit still, Vining, you may settle with mewhen I've finished--that Vining here was engaged, if not actuallymarried, to another girl. It was a very convincing note indeed, and themessenger was instructed to tell Miss Dalton, should the note make itsimpression, that he would take her to a place where she would be able toobserve with her own eyes the faithlessness of one she was on the pointof trusting with her whole life!"
"Well, by the holy----" Robert began.
"Every little twist and turn of this story I had perfected beforehand; Icould not see the possibility of a slip and there was no slip. It wasmade plain to Miss Dalton that, if she wished to see Robert under theunpleasant conditions, she would have to attire herself as a man, forshe was likely to spend some time at least in the back room of a saloon.My messenger even took her a wig I had provided for the purpose, and shewas informed that, if she wished to take along her own proper clothing,it would be quite possible to return in that."
Utter admiration possessed Johnson Boller; yet Beatrice, as he knew, waswatching him narrowly.
"You--you contemptible scoundrel!" Johnson Boller said pleasantly.
Him, too, Anthony ignored.
"She took the bait, Dalton, just as I had planned. The man brought herto me at a point--er--outside this hotel, and she was dressed in herbrother's clothing, as it appears now. It was agreed between us that sheshould take the name of David Prentiss for the evening, and under thatname she was introduced to Hitchin here. After that she was brought tothis apartment."
Anthony paused and sighed heavily and impressively, an erring man bornedown by his guilt.
"Miss Dalton, even as a boy, did not look very much like a boy," hepursued. "It seemed better to me that she change to her own clothes, andI requested her to do so, on some pretext which, I am frank to say,slips my mind at the moment. She came into this room afterward and, as Ihad planned, a little luncheon was waiting for us. She drank a cup ofcoffee and--it had been drugged."
"Where was Johnson Boller all this time?" Beatrice asked.
Although Johnson Boller held his breath, Anthony Fry batted never aneyelash. Dignified, austere exponent of the rock-ribbed truth that hehad once been, all his sails were set now and the rudder lashed in placefor the sinful course. It would have been a downright effort just thenfor Anthony to have told the truth about anything whatever.
"Johnson never came until an hour after it was over," he said. "He wentto a prize fight, Mrs. Boller, and after that met some out-of-townpeople in the woolen trade and worked until nearly two this morningwinding up a contract."
"D'ye see?" said Johnson Boller, when his breath came back. "D'ye see?You had me down for everything that was worst in the world, kid, and nowyou hear the truth."
All unaware was Anthony Fry of the sharp start of Hobart Hitchin. Allunaware was he that the crime-student, rousing from his partially scaredstate, had smiled suddenly. All unaware, in fact, was Anthony, of theterrible slip he had just made.
"That is almost all of the story," he said, with a miserable littlesmile at Dalton. "The young lady was taken, in an automobile,half-stupefied, to--a certain town in New Jersey, Dalton. She isunharmed and has been unharmed; that at least I am able to guaranteeyou."
"And she's there now?" Dalton cried.
"She is there now and----"
"What town?"
"That I will not tell you, because it will involve several poor devilsI've hired in connection with this mad affair," said Anthony. "But ifyou will permit me, I will go for the young lady myself--stipulatingonly that I shall not be followed--and I will return her to your housebefore three o'clock this afternoo
n. After that, Dalton," said Anthony,drawing himself up, "I'm willing to take my medicine. I know that it'scoming and I'm willing----"
"You'll get it, never fear," snarled Mary's father. "But about Mary!Tell me the name of this town or----"
"I shall tell you nothing whatever!" Anthony said firmly. "I shall tellyou only that, under the conditions I have named, I will very gladly goto Jersey and get her."
"You're sure she's there now?" Robert said hoarsely.
"I am absolutely sure," said Anthony, "that she is now in New Jerseyunder guard."
And now, with Dalton's murderous impulses stilled at least, with manythings fairly well explained and new minutiae coming into his head everysecond should this, that or the other question be asked, just as Anthonyleaned back, two new quantities must needs enter. The first was HobartHitchin. The second was a strong breeze, which always came through theliving-room when Wilkins left open the door and the window of hispantry.
"Fry," said the crime-student, and if a snake owned a voice it would beas slithery and oily as the voice of Hobart Hitchin just then, "Fry, yousay that Boller came in several hours after you came in last night?Didn't I see you both downstairs?"
"Eh?" Anthony said.
"And Fry," the reptilian voice added, "you haven't told us what was inthe trunk you sent to Dalton's house, you know."
Anthony straightened up again. Two seconds were passed, and still he hadnot the answer; three, and he was still silent; four, and he had not yetspoken. And the playful breeze saved him all the trouble of speaking.The latch of Anthony's bedroom door was not caught, and the breeze,striking it squarely, sent it open suddenly and cleanly as if jerkedback by a wire!
And leaning forward in her chair, even now listening intently, MaryDalton was revealed!
Anthony Fry did not move; this was because he could not. But with asingle motion Theodore Dalton and Robert Vining, Johnson Boller andJohnson Boller's wife, were on their feet and staring at her. With asingle plunge, Dalton and Vining went forward, and the former winning,he snatched Mary to him and wrapped the great arms around her, mouthingand mumbling and shouting all at once!
Still Anthony did not move. He had not moved when, through the swirlthat was before his eyes, Mary and her father came into the room. Thegirl had disengaged herself and she was rather pale--ah, and she wasspeaking to her father.
"Dad," she said very quietly, "have I ever told you a lie?"
"You'd be no daughter of mine if you had," Dalton said simply.
"Then what happened is just this: I wanted to go to that fight lastnight and Bob wouldn't take me. He was so awfully uppish about it that Idecided to go myself; I like a good fight, you know. I didn't dare go asa girl, so I put on Dicky's fishing suit--the old one--and sneaked outthe back door, after you thought I was in bed. Then I got a messengerboy and managed to find a ticket for the fight. And I went," said Mary,"and I happened to sit next to Mr. Fry."
"You went alone to a prize fight?" her father gasped.
"It was horribly tame," said Mary, "but some men started a fight behindus, because Mr. Fry spoke to me, I think, and that wasn't tame at all.For a minute it scared my wits out, because I thought we were all goingto be arrested. So when Mr. Fry and Mr. Boller decided to escape in ataxicab, I was mighty glad to go with them. After that Mr. Fry--turnedqueer," Mary dimpled. "He thought I was a boy and he wanted to offer methe opportunity of a lifetime.
"I don't know just what it meant, but I was curious enough to come uphere and listen; and when I didn't appreciate what he was offering, Mr.Fry got mad. He told me he'd keep me here until I did, so I--I just wentto bed and counted on getting out overnight, somehow. I tried it and Imissed fire, and this morning he discovered that I was a girl. That'sthe whole story; we've all been trying to get me out of here eversince--and I'm still here!"
"But the trunk----" Hobart Hitchin put in doggedly.
"I was in the trunk," said Mary. "We thought I could get to Felice'sroom that way, but Felice was gone, so Wilkins brought me back." Shelooked at her father steadily and almost confidently. "That weird taleabout having me drugged was just to save me, dad, and maybe if the doorhadn't blown open I'd have been home about three and swearing to it.That's all. Mr. Fry--Mr. Boller, too--have been too nice for words,"concluded Mary, stretching a point. "There isn't a thing to blame themfor--and I never could have believed that Mr. Fry was capable of alovely lie like that."
Since seven that morning, at which time Mary's absence had beendiscovered, Theodore Dalton had been breathing in terrible, spasmodicgasps. Now, as he faced Anthony, he breathed deeply--breathed deeplyagain--and turned Anthony's tottering world quite upside down bysuddenly thrusting out his hand.
"Well, by gad, Fry!" he bellowed. "I knew you were crazy, but I neversuspected you were man enough for that! I'd swallowed that tale almostwhole and I'd made up my mind to wipe you and your bottled mess off themap together."
"I know," said Anthony.
"But if there's one thing that hits me right where I live," vociferatedDalton, "it's a man who will chuck his own every earthly interest asideto save a woman's name and--put it there, Fry! You're a man!"
A little uncertainly, because he was dazed and dizzy, Anthony graspedthe hairy hand. It was not so, because it was impossible, but--he andDalton were friends!
Beatrice was within a yard of her husband.
"Then there was--was nothing----" she faltered.
"There was nothing to get excited about--no," Johnson Boller saidstiffly. "Not at any time."
"Pudgy!" Beatrice said chokily, because her volatile nature was whizzingbreathlessly down from the exalted murder-state to the depths ofcontrition.
"Well? What?" Johnson Boller said coldly.
"Pudgy-wudgy, can you ever forgive me?" Beatrice cried, burying her headon his shoulder.
"I don't know," Johnson Boller said frigidly, and did not even put anarm around her. "I don't know, Beatrice. You have wounded me more deeplythis day than I have ever been wounded in all my life before. I shalltry in time to forgive you, but--I do not know."
* * * * *
They were all gone now, all but Anthony and his old friend, JohnsonBoller.
It was in fact nearly noon, for with the tension removed Mary had goneinto the details of last night; and after a little even Robert Vininghad laughed. He at least knew Anthony Fry and he believed Johnson Bollerto be one of the most harmless fat men in existence, so that when he hadheard it all even Robert fell to chuckling.
And now they were gone with Mary, leaving behind a conviction inAnthony's bosom that Mary was really a very charming young girl; leavingan impression, too, that, could twenty years have been swept from hisforty-five, he might even have undertaken to win her away from Robert!This last impression was transitory in the extreme, however; it enduredfor perhaps forty-five seconds.
Hobart Hitchin was gone; he had vanished somewhere about the middle ofthe session, leaving Richard's trousers, and for a long time nobody evennoticed that he was among the missing. To the best of Johnson Boller'smemory, he left just after Richard answered the long distance call andassured his father that all was well.
Beatrice was gone, too. She had left all wreathed in smiles, since theidiot that was her husband could not maintain his chilliness for morethan five minutes. In a dusky corner, Johnson and his cyclonic lady hadkissed eighteen times, lingeringly, and then she had left him to pack upand follow, while she went personally to the five-thousand-dollarapartment to prepare the things he most liked for luncheon.
And now Johnson Boller had packed the grip, while Anthony lounged, tiredout, weak in knees and hands, trembling every now and then and gazinginto the blue cigar smoke above him.
"The next time I come to stay with you I'm going to bring a chaperon,"Boller mused.
"Do."
"You came pretty near wrecking my home that time, Anthony."
"Pah!" snarled Anthony.
Johnson Boller pursued the strain no further. Instead, wit
h a shrug ofthe shoulders, he picked up a book from the top of the case and turnedits pages idly. After which he smiled suddenly and said, with the utmostalertness.
"You have a lot of poetry, haven't you?"
"I'm fond of it," said Anthony, absently.
"Here's a pretty little thing," Johnson Boller pursued in his verygentlest voice. "This is awful pretty. Listen:
"Master of human destinies am I; Fame, love and fortune on----"
Here he ceased abruptly. He shrieked gleefully, did Johnson Boller, andducked almost down to the floor.
This was as well, because Anthony's little blue vase, for which he hadpaid sixty dollars in Canton, had splintered on the wall, just whereJohnson Boller's head had been!
THE END.
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