Death Wears a Mask

by Thérèse Benson

  “And what did you say?” Alix looked away, refusing to meet his eyes.

  “I didn’t say anything. How could I? Probably it was good advice, but it was given too late.”

  “To be sure,” said Alix, rallying, “you were in love with Connie.”

  “Was I?” Sam’s tone was contemplative. “In my sane old age I’m inclined to doubt that. Naturally, I was fascinated. Who wasn’t? Even you found her irresistible at times.”

  Alix nodded an acquiescence.

  “I loved to watch her. She was so brilliant. Like a firefly on a dark night.”

  “A brilliance without warmth,” Sam cut in. “She knew her lack, did Connie. Do you remember her letter? ‘It’s hard for a girl to be born without a name—even harder to be born without a heart!’”

  “I’ll never forget it,” Alix assured him, with more than her usual thoughtful gravity, “because, to my mind, it was the proof of exactly what she denied. Probably she had fought it all her life, but Connie had a heart.”

  “Then it never was shown to me,” Sam said, without bitterness. “Not that I blame her, understand. I didn’t love her as I fancied I did or I’d have been more cut up when she threw me over. I don’t claim to be an actor, but I certainly dramatized my own situation to myself. The truth is, I took it damn’ philosophically. Now if I lost—Hang it, there’s the bell. I never have a chance to see you alone any more.”

  He went to the door to admit Miss Livingston and the faithful Eliza, backed up by the solid presence of Inspector Dolan and Detectives McCurdy and Knudsen, he of the kind blue eyes.

  The ladies were introduced and, with the detectives placed discreetly in the background, Miss Livingston at once got down to business.

  “Am I right when I say you are satisfied that when you find the present holder Of that emerald ring, Inspector Dolan, you will have come close to the perpetrator of the murder?” She raised her eyeglass and regarded the stout Inspector as she might an aspirant for social honors whose money was derived from dealing in second-hand clothing.

  “Yeah—I mean yes, Miss Livingston.” He wriggled under her inspection. “He’d have a lot of explaining to do, that much I’ll say.”

  “Then I suggest that you post your two men in the passage just inside the back door. They must seize Sing on his return.”

  The detectives sat forward on their chairs, gaping at her.

  “How—how—how do you know this?” Inspector Dolan sputtered.

  Instead of answering she turned to Sam. “Commissioner Mellon” (and was she mistaken or did Alix actually see her wink at Sam?), “please explain to Inspector Dolan that you are entirely willing that I should go anywhere I choose in your apartment.”

  “Absolutely,” said Sam, his own eyes twinkling. “If Miss Livingston wanted to borrow anything from the Encyclopedia Britannica to a yeast cake, all she had to do was to come and get it—or send Eliza. As the Spanish say, ‘my house is hers.’”

  (“Jus’ one great big fambly,” McCurdy murmured, skeptically, to Knudsen.)

  “I simply wished to have that understood before I told you that Eliza and I saw both the ring and the jade leaf in Sing’s room this evening.”

  The three police officers hardly waited to let Miss Livingston get the words out of her mouth before they were on their feet.

  “Where are you going?” she inquired, the eyeglass again coming into play.

  (“I’m going to get me one of them,” Knudsen whispered to his partner.)

  “To pick up the little things you mention,” Dolan said, with an elephantine attempt at either irony or playfulness, it was hard to tell which.

  “You can’t get in. Sing’s door is locked and he carries the key with him.”

  “And he won’t be here till the end of the first pickshurs,” Eliza volunteered, helpfully. “You got a good ten minutes yet.”

  “What made you suspect Sing, Miss Livingston?” Sam put this question. “It’s curious, because just when you rang up, Miss Ruland and I had decided that for certain reasons Sing would bear investigating.”

  His query remained unanswered. The bell rang once more, and while Sam went to open the front door, Dolan, who was taking no chances, sent the two officers to await Sing’s coming, with orders to bring him directly into the front room. He meant to be the one to explore Sing’s belongings himself to recover the stolen property. There might be other things, too, that would tell an officer of his experience much; exactly what he could not foretell, since they already had the weapon.

  The newcomer was Louise, not altogether surprised, when she stopped to think, to find the assemblage.

  “Ed dropped me on his way to The Lambs,” she explained. “I had nothing to read and had sewed till my eyes were tired. You’re to take me home, Sammie darling.”

  Sam introduced his niece to Miss Livingston, who, however, boasted a royal memory and at once recalled having met Mrs. Harris before. Inwardly she was rather sorry for this girl. With a sound instinct for social distinctions, she acquitted her of any encouragement of the houseman’s infatuation and was ready to fly to her rescue if defense proved necessary. It was most unfortunate for the poor child that she had happened to come in at this crucial instant.

  “Why this gathering of the clans?” Louise asked Alix. “Has anything new cropped up?”

  “Yes,” Alix told her. “Miss Livingston has discovered the ring——”

  Sam and Dolan were talking to the distinguished lady guest, so the two girls were practically alone, and Louise, seizing Alix’s hand, pressed it convulsively.

  “Don’t let them arrest Sing,” she whispered, repenting too late, as is the way of womankind. “He means to accuse Sam.”

  “Impossible to stop it,” Alix returned, and a commotion at the back door told the rest.

  A moment later Sing was hustled into the room between the two officers.

  Dolan went close to him.

  “Key to your room,” he said, succinctly. “My room is my own,” Sing declared, haughtily. “I shall insist on preserving my privacy unless you can show me a search warrant.”

  “I don’t need a warrant.” Dolan’s tone was menacing. “Give up the key or we’ll take it from you. The choice is up to you.”

  Sing’s narrow eyes had at once discovered Louise’s presence and his heart was bitter within him. Thus did women keep their promises. Well might it be said that such were but writing on water.

  “You come for the ring, I presume,” he said, an unassailable pride in his gesture as he handed over the key to his door. “You may have it. It cost me nothing and I have no further use for it.”

  It cost him nothing? Sam and Alix exchanged glances. That was what Connie had said about that ring.

  “It’s liable to cost you a good long term in prison, if not your life,” Dolan snarled at him.

  “It was a free gift to me,” Sing returned, evidently surprised to find himself accused of anything ignoble. “If it is your idea that I stole it, inquire of the Legation of my country in Washington. They will tell you that I am a prince and have no need to steal.”

  Dolan smirked in entire disbelief.

  “An’ so you come here to take a job cookin’?” he sneered. “I’m afraid your story won’t washee-washee.”

  A dark Audi mounted to Sing’s forehead. “Commissioner Mellon, I appeal to you as a gentleman, and to Miss Livingston.” He bowed. “Am I to be insulted as well as forcibly restrained and humiliated? I am telling the truth. That ring and a small jade pin were given to me. As to my being poor—yes, I am poor in America. My honorable father cares only for the learning of our own philosophers. So long as I stay here in disobedience to his commands, I dare not ask him for funds; but once I set foot in China again, all that he has is also mine.”

  Miss Livingston nodded.

  “I am sure we can accept as true anything that Prince Sing tells us.” She ignored a stifled “Mercy on us!” from Eliza, who stood behind her chair. “Will you fetch the ring first, or
will you first hear his story?”

  “The ring ain’t goin’ to run away,” Dolan conceded after a moment of heavy thinking. “Shall we sit down?”

  “I prefer to stand.” Sing began his recital in the measured academic cadence of a lecturer addressing a class. “I came out of the butler’s lavatory after the murder was committed ——“

  Chapter XXII

  In an instant all in that room were on their feet. The utterance of that word had galvanized them into action.

  “You mean to say you saw the murderer?” Dolan rumbled, incredulously.

  Sing looked at him with great disfavor.

  “In my country there is a saying that ‘A lie in time saves nine,’” he remarked, icily. “But why should I waste even one lie on you when the truth will serve? Yes, I saw the murderer. I even talked with him. It was an interesting experience psychologically. I shall write a paper on it later. I never chanced to meet a murderer before, although we do not place an equal value on all human life as you seem to do in this less civilized and reasonable land.”

  (‘“Less civilized,’ by gosh!” McCurdy muttered to Knudsen. “Give me the chance and I’ll wring his civilized yellow neck for him.”)

  Sing was going on, monotonously now, yet as if he were not averse to accepting the opportunity afforded him of taking the center of the stage and meant to keep it as long as possible.

  “It occurred in this way——”

  For some time Louise had been desperate. She had seen at once that he must guess she had betrayed him, although she had made her peace with her conscience by insisting that she had kept the sole promise she had given. If Sing blamed her, Sam was in danger and she was the only person who could help him. She must convince the Chinese that she had kept faith. She had edged along the divan until she was close to Dolan, and now touched his arm. He turned with a start, then, seeing that she wished to whisper to him, bent his head to listen.

  “It strikes me that Sing is stringing this out purposely,” she murmured. “Hadn’t you better secure the ring? He may be giving a confederate time to take it out of harm’s way.”

  This was a suggestion admirably suited to appeal to Dolan’s crafty mind, and he growled back at her as he lumbered to his feet, entirely forgetting that this was the elegant Mrs. Edwards Harris whose pictures often graced the society pages, “You’re right at that, kid.” His rising had silenced Sing, and he added a command. “Wait,” he said, “this seems likely to he a long story. I think the C’missioner an’ I’d better go an’ gather in that ring before we listen to it, after all.”

  Sam was surprised at this change of plan, but he had no objection to it other than his natural desire to reach the bottom of the tragedy that had culminated in his quiet apartment. He rose willingly enough, determined, as always, to interfere in no way in an officer’s execution of his duty, and the two passed out through the pantry together.

  Louise drew a long breath. She knew her respite would be short and she saw no mercy in those obsidian eyes that followed her every movement from a face that looked as if molded in brass. There was one thing that might soften him—one only—if he could be convinced that she had not broken the letter of her promise. She turned to Miss Livingston in desperation and played her last card.

  “Alix tells me it was you, Miss Livingston, who discovered that Sing had Mrs. Thorne’s ring,” she began, careful to enunciate each word clearly. “How in the world did that occur to you?” She did not look at Sing, aware that even if he had relented his expression might be inscrutable to her, and she was risking something. It might be that Miss Livingston would recognize the voice that had whispered hurriedly to her over the wire and would tax her openly with being the informer.

  She need not have feared. The old New Yorker was ready and willing to repay to Sam’s niece her obligation to Sam. Moreover, her quick wits had told her that this girl’s question was in reality a signal for help.

  “I can hardly say, my dear.”

  (“‘Twas the pickshurs,” Eliza prompted her, hoarsely, to be disregarded by her mistress, who had decided on her own line.)

  “A process of elimination, I suppose. Harvey Thorne was the logical suspect, all things considered, and since I knew it was impossible for him to have done it——”

  “Harvey Thorne? The skirt’s husband?” McCurdy interrupted, regardless of what etiquette books would have taught him. “Was he here? Where’s he at now? And what makes you sure he didn’t do it?”

  Miss Livingston looked him over through her monocle, but disdained to reply to such truculent questioning, and McCurdy turned to Dolan and Sam, who were just entering.

  “It’s the ring, all right,” Dolan announced, beaming on all; but McCurdy insisted on his attention.

  “Listen here, Inspector,” he commenced, hurriedly. “Everybody’s been holding out on us.” He cast an especially venomous glance at Miss Livingston, who received it serenely. “I’m not so sure this Chink done the murder, after all. He swiped the ring, all right, but what’s his motive for the killing? If the dame’s husband was here that night, an’, mind you, I’ve found out that he was, I got to tell you it’s goin’ to take some showing to make me believe he didn’t rub her out.”

  “Exactly,” said Sam, “only you can’t expect the District Attorney to be as dumb as you are, McCurdy, or as wedded to barking up the wrong tree. We didn’t tell you because we hoped to see you expend your efforts profitably. And since Harvey Thorne is quite out of your reach for the time, suppose we hear the rest of Sing Lo’s story?” He went to the waste-paper basket and dropped into it a crumpled fragment of newspaper cut from a rotogravure section, then seated himself beside Miss Livingston as before.

  “Fire away, Sing.” He gave the signal.

  “It is not an especially interesting narrative,” Sing began. “I had better relate it exactly as it happened in order to miss nothing that might be serviceable to those of weighty brain.” His ironical glance swept the faces of the men assembled in judgment over him, and the contempt he held them in was abundantly plain. “On the night of that masquerade I had been told that I was free to go out. That did not mean that I must go. Simply that I was at liberty to go if it appealed to me as desirable. There was to be a lecture at the Town Hall. It was recommended to his students by one of my illustrious professors. There was also, if it is recalled, a storm of some proportions, and the evening newspapers had stated that trains from the West were delayed. Such being the case, I decided to call up the box-office before venturing forth. A logical precaution, you will grant, since the lecture was postponed sine die.” He paused. “May I have a glass of water? I am unused to so much public speaking. No. Do not fear suicide of any type. The Chinese do not commit hara-kiri, and if it is necessary to rid the world of an unworthy member of my rank, he is given the red silk cord with which to strangle himself or is publicly beheaded.”

  Knudsen brought the water and he drank deeply, returning the glass with courteous words of thanks. Then he resumed his story without urging.

  “I had already seen the pictures at the nearest house. Strange travesties on life.”

  (“They was beautiful,” Eliza murmured, rebelliously, to herself, hardly understanding his words yet aware that the opinion expressed was not complimentary.)

  “So I determined, for that and other reasons, to stay indoors. How to occupy my time profitably was the question.”

  (It was Knudsen who nudged McCurdy now. “I’ll say it was profitable, with that ring worth five grand,” he whispered.)

  Sing went on, unheeding.

  “I had some thought of going to the party in the penthouse. ‘Crashing,’ the boys at college call it.”

  “A most reprehensible breach of decorum, Prince Sing,” Miss Livingston interposed. “I should be sorry to learn that you were guilty of it.”

  “In this strange land, actions derogatory to the dignity seem frequently to be usual.” Sing regarded her with what almost amounted to a smile. “I had a mandar
in costume. No one would expect to find a Chinese in the dress of his own country. However, my presence was too great an honor to bestow on that bourgeois gathering,” he said, and obviously meant it. “Only, I am soon going back to China and it occurred to me that I was wasting time when I should be observing the customs and manners of the great middle class, so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to observe Commissioner Mellon and his guests.”

  “How did you know that there would be any guests?” was on the tip of Sam’s tongue. He bit it hack. Louise had told him that she had telephoned, and finding her picture enshrined (a picture which he had at once destroyed with Dolan’s connivance) had supplied him with a clue to Sing’s infatuation.

  “So you see, there I was in the lavatory. The door’s catches and hinges were well oiled and I could slip into the passage to listen and even peep out when I so desired...Mrs. Harris was the first to arrive. That is, after Mr. Thorne, who had had coffee with Mr. Mellon, had left. Then came Mrs. Thorne, very gay, very happy, though about what she would not say, and demanding a cocktail. Her host went to make it, not too willingly, and I amused myself by thinking how he would curse poor Sing Lo, who had left no materials prepared, as indeed was his duty. The ladies talked for a few minutes, then Mrs. Harris, for all she was dressed in fancy dress, said she was not going to the party. She had a severe pain of the head that grew steadily worse. She was leaving just as Miss Ruland came into the foyer.”

  “Did they speak?” Dolan asked.

  “Yes, things without meaning, like ‘Hello, darling,’ and about the headache and how stupid the learned doctors who could do nothing to cure it.”

  “I can tell you all about that,” Alix said. “I should have told it before, only Connie was alive and well and alone when I left her, and I couldn’t see what value such a statement could have.”

  (‘“Alive and well and alone with the C’missioner!” McCurdy said, excitedly, out of the corner of his mouth to his;mate.)