Afternoon Tea Mysteries, Volume Two: A Collection of Cozy Mysteries (Four thrilling novels in one volume!)

by Marion Bryce

  Embury’s eyes narrowed, and he surveyed his wife with a calm scrutiny. Then he smiled.

  “Stenography and typewriting?” he said; “or shall you take in plain sewing? Cut out the threats, Eunice; they won’t get you anywhere!”

  “They’ll get me where I want to arrive! Don’t say I didn’t warn you—I repeat, I shall get money for my personal use, and you will have no right to criticize my methods, since you refuse me a paltry sum by way of allowance.”

  Eunice was standing, her two hands tightly grasping a chair-back as she looked angrily at Embury, who still seated lazily, blew smoke rings toward her. She was magnificent in her anger, her cheeks burned crimson, her dark eyes had an ominous gleam in them and her curved lips straightened into a determined line of scarlet. Her muscles were strained and tense, her breath came quickly, yet she had full control of herself and her pose was that of a crouching, waiting tiger rather than a furious ode.

  Embury was full of admiration at the beautiful picture she made, but pursuant of his inexorable plan, he rose to “tame” her.

  “‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright,’” he quoted, “you must take back that speech—it is neither pretty nor tactful—”

  “I have no wish to be tactful! Why should I? I am not trying to coax or cajole you! You refuse my request—you have repeatedly refused me—now, I am at the end of my patience, and I shall take matters into my own hands!”

  “Lovely hands!” he murmured, taking them in his own. “You have unusually pretty hands, Eunice; it would be a pity to use them to earn money.”

  “Yet that is my intention. I shall get money by the work of these hands. It will be in a way that you will not approve, but you have forfeited your right to approve or disapprove.”

  “That I have not! I am your husband—you have promised to obey me—”

  “A mere form of words—it meant nothing!”

  “Our marriage ceremony meant nothing?”

  “If it did, remember that you endowed me with all your worldly goods—”

  “And I give them to you, too! Do you know that nine-tenths of my yearly expenditures are for your pleasure and benefit! I enjoy our home, too, but it would not be the elaborate, luxurious establishment that it is, but that it suits your taste to have it so! And then, you whine and fret for what you yourself call a paltry matter! Ingrate!”

  “Don’t you dare call me ingrate! I owe you no gratitude! Do you give me this home as a charity? As a gift, even! It is my right! And it is also my right to have a bank account of my own! It is my right to uphold my head among other women who laugh at me, who ridicule me, because, with all your wealth, I have no purse of my own! I will not stand it! I rebel! And you may rest assured things are going to be different hereafter. I will get money—”

  “You shall not!” Embury grasped the wrists of the hands he still held, and his face was fiercely frowning. “You are my wife, and whatever you may or may not owe to me, you owe it to our position, to our standing in the community to do nothing beneath your dignity or mine!”

  “You care nothing for my dignity, for my appearance before other women, so why should I consider your dignity? You force me to it, and it is therefore your fault if I—”

  “What is it you propose to do? How are you going to get this absurd paltry sum you are making such a fuss about?”

  “That I decline to tell you—”

  “Don’t you dare to do needlework or anything that would make me look foolish. I forbid it!”

  “And I scorn your forbidding! Make you look foolish, indeed! When you make me look foolish every day of my life, because I can’t do as other women do—can’t have what other wives have—”

  “Now, now, Tiger, don’t make such a row over nothing—let’s talk it over seriously—”

  “There’s nothing to talk over. I’ve asked you time and again for an allowance of money—real money, not charge accounts—and you always refuse—”

  “And always shall, if you are so ugly about it! Why must you fly into a rage over it? Your temper is—”

  “My temper is roused by your cruelty—”

  “Cruelty!”

  “Yes; it’s as much cruelty as if you struck me! You deny me my heart’s dearest wish for no reason whatever—”

  “It’s enough that I don’t approve of an allowance—”

  “It ought to be enough that I do!”

  “No, no, my lady! I love you, I adore you, but I am not the sort of man to lie down and let you walk over me! I give you everything you want and if I reserve the privilege of paying for it myself, it does not seem to me a crime!”

  “Oh, do hush up, Sanford! You drive me frantic! You prate the same foolishness. over and over! I don’t want to hear any more about it. You said you had spoken the last word on the subject, now stop it! I, too, have said my final say. I shall do as I please, and I shall not consider myself accountable to you for my actions.”

  “Confound it! Do what you please, then! I wash my hands of your nonsense! But be careful how you carry the name I have given you!”

  “If you keep on, I may decide not to carry it at all—”

  Eunice was interrupted by the entrance of Ferdinand, announcing the arrival of Mason Elliott.

  Trained in the school of convention, both the Emburys became at once the courteous, cordial host and hostess.

  “Hello, Elliott,” sang out Sanford, “glad to see your bright and happy face. Come right along and chum in.”

  Eunice offered her hand with a welcoming smile.

  “Just the boy I was looking for,” she said, we’ve the jolliest game on for the afternoon. Haven’t we, San?”

  “Fool trick, if you ask me! Howsumever, everything goes. Interested in thought-transference bunk, Elliott?”

  “I know what you’re getting at.” Mason Elliott nodded his head understandingly. “Hendricks put me wise. So, I says to myself, s’posin’ I hop along and listen in. Yes, I am interested, sufficiently so not to mind your jeers about bunk and that.”

  “Oh, do you believe in it, Mason?” said Eunice, animatedly; “for this is a faked affair—or, rather, the explanation of one. It’s the Hanlon boy, you know—”

  “Yes; I know. But what’s the racket with you two turtle-doves? I come in, and find Eunice wearing the pet expression of a tragedy queen and Sanford, here, doing the irate husband. Going into the movies?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” and Eunice smiled bravely, although her lips still quivered from her recent turbulent quarrel, and a light, jaunty air was forced to conceal her lingering nervousness.

  “Irate husband is good!” laughed Embury, “considering we are yet honeymooners.”

  “Good dissemblers, both of you,” and Elliott settled himself in an easy chair, “but you don’t fool your old friend. Talk about thought-transference—it doesn’t take much of that commodity to read that you two were interrupted by my entrance in the middle of a real, honest-to-goodness, cats’-and-dogs’ quarrel.”

  “All right, have it your own way,” and Embury laughed shortly; “but it wasn’t the middle of it, it was about over.”

  “All but the making up! Shall I fade away for fifteen minutes?”

  “No,” protested Eunice. “It was only one of the little tiffs that happen in the best families! Now, listen, Mason—”

  “My dear lady, I live but on the chance of being permitted to listen to you—only in the hope that I may listen early and often—”

  “Oh, hush! What a silly you are!”

  “Silly, is it? Remember I was your childhood playmate. Would you have kept me on your string all these years if I were silly? And here’s another of my childhood friends! How do you do, most gracious lady?”

  With courtly deference Elliott rose to greet Aunt Abby, who came into the living-room from Eunice’s bedroom.

  Her black silk rustled and her old point lace fell yellowly round her slender old hands, for on Sunday afternoon Miss Ames dressed the part.

  “How are you, Mason,”
she said, but with a preoccupied air. “What time is Mr. Hanlon coming, Eunice?”

  “Soon now, I think,” and Eunice spoke with entire composure, her angry excitement all subdued. It was characteristic of her that after a fit of temper, she was more than usually soft and gentle. More considerate of others and even, more roguishly merry.

  “You know, Mason, that what we are to be told to-day is a most inviolable secret—that is, it is a secret until tomorrow.”

  “Never put off till to-morrow what you can tell to-night,” returned Elliott, but he listened attentively while Eunice and Aunt Abby described the performance of the young man Hanlon.

  “Of course,” Elliott observed, a little disappointedly, “if he says he hoaxed the crowd, of course he did; but in that case I’ve no interest in the thing. I’d like it better if he were honest.”

  “Oh, he’s honest enough,” corrected Embury; “he owns right up that it was a trick. Why, good heavens, man! if it hadn’t been, he couldn’t have done it at all. I’m rather keen to know just how he managed, though, for the yarn of Eunice and Aunt Abby is a bit mystifying.”

  “Don’t depend too much on the tale of interested spectators. They’re the worst possible witnesses! They see only what they wish to see.”

  “Only what Hanlon wished us to see,” corrected Eunice, gaily. And then Hanlon, himself, and Alvord Hendricks arrived together.

  “Met on the doorstep,” said Hendricks as he came in. “Mr. Hanlon is a little stage-struck, so it’s lucky I happened along.”

  Willy Hanlon, as he was called in the papers, came shyly forward and Eunice, with her ready tact, proceeded to put him at once at his ease.

  “You came just at the right minute to help me out,” she said, smiling at him. “They are saying women are no good at describing a scene! They say that we can’t be relied on for accuracy. So, now you’re here and you can tell what really happened.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” and Hanlon swallowed, a little embarrassedly; “that’s what I came for, ma’am. But first, are you all straight goods? Will you all promise not to tell what I tell you before tomorrow morning?”

  They all promised on their honor, and, satisfied, Hanlon began his tale.

  “You see, it’s a game that can’t be played too often or too close together,” he said; “I mean, if I put it over around here, I can’t risk it again nearer than some several states away. And even then it’s likely to get caught on to.”

  “Have you put it over often?” asked Hendricks, interestedly.

  “Yes, sir—well, say, about a dozen times altogether. Now I’m going to chuck it, for it’s too risky. And so, I’ve sold the story of how I do it to the newspaper syndicate for more than I’d make out of it in a dozen performances. You can read it all in to-morrow’s papers, but Mrs, Embury, she asked me to tell it here and I said yes—’cause—’cause—well, ’cause I wanted to!”

  The boyish outburst was so unmistakably one of admiration, of immediate capitulation to Eunice’s charm, that she blushed adorably, and the others laughed outright.

  “One more scalp, Euny,” said Elliott; “oh, you can’t help it, I know.”

  “Go on, Mr. Hanlon,” said Eunice, and he went on.

  “You see, to make you understand it rightly, I must go back a ways. I’ve done all sorts of magic stunts and I’m kinda fond of athletics. I’ve given exhibitions along both those lines in athletic clubs and in ladies’ parlors, too. Well, I had a natural talent for making my ears move—lots of fellows do that, I know; but I got pretty spry at it.”

  “What for?” asked Embury.

  “Nothing particular, sir, only one thing led to another. One day I read in an English magazine about somebody pulling off this trick—this blindfold chase, and I said to myself I b’lieved I could do it first rate and maybe make easy money. I don’t deny I’m out after the coin. I’ve got to get my living, and if I’d rather do it by gulling the public, why, it’s no more than many a better man does.”

  “Right you are,” said Elliott.

  “So’s I say, I read this piece that told just how to do it, and I set to work. You may think it’s funny, but the first step was working my forehead muscles.”

  “Whatever for?” cried Aunt Abby, who was listening, perhaps most intently of all.

  “I’ll tell you, in a jiffy, ma’am,” and Hanlon smiled respectfully at the eager old face.

  “You see, if you’ll take notice, the muscles of your forehead, just above your eyebrows, work whenever you shut or open your eyes. Yes, try it, ma’am,” as Aunt Abby wrinkled her forehead spasmodically. “Shut your eyes, ma’am. Now, cover them closely with the palm of your left hand. Press it close—so. Now, with your hand there, open your eyes slowly, and feel your forehead muscles go up. They have to, you can’t help it. Now, that’s the keynote of the whole thing.”

  “Clear as Erebus!” remarked Hendricks. “I don’t get you, Steve.”

  “Nor I,” and Eunice sat with her hand against her eyes, drawing her lovely brows into contortions.

  “Well, never mind trying; I’ll just tell you about it.” Hanlon laughed good-naturedly at the frantic attempts of all of them to open their eyes in accordance with his directions.

  “Anyhow, you gentleman know, for I know you all belong to a big athletic club, that if you exercise any set of muscles regularly and for a long time, they will develop and expand and become greatly increased in size and strength.”

  “Sure,” said Hendricks. “I once developed my biceps—”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. Well, sir, I worked at my forehead muscles some hours a day for months and I kept at it until I had those muscles not only developed and in fine working condition but absolutely under my control. Look!”

  They gazed, fascinated, while the strange visitor moved the skin of his forehead up and down and sideways, and in strange circular movements. He seemed distinctly proud of his accomplishment and paused for approbation.

  “Marvelous, Holmes, marvelous!” exclaimed Hendricks, who had discovered that Hanlon did not resent jocularity, “but—what for?”

  “Can’t you guess?” and the young man smiled mysteriously. “Try.”

  “Give it up,” and Hendricks shook his head. “I think it’s more wonderful to get thought-transference by wiggling your forehead than any other way I ever heard of, but I can’t guess how it helps.”

  “Can’t any of you?” and Hanlon looked around the circle.

  “Wait a minute,” said Aunt Abby, who was thinking hard. “Let me try. Is it because when the thought waves jump from the `guide’ to you they strike your forehead first—”

  “And it acts as a wireless receiving station? No, ma’am, that isn’t it. And, too, ma’am, I owned up, you know, that the whole thing was a fake, a trick. You see, there was no ‘thought-transference,’—not any—none at all.”

  “Then what do you accomplish with your forehead muscles?” asked Eunice, unable to restrain her impatience.

  CHAPTER V. THE EXPLANATION

  “Just this, Mrs. Embury, the impossibility of my being blindfolded. As a matter of fact, it is practically impossible to blindfold anybody, anyway.”

  “Why, what do you mean?” interrupted Hendricks. “Why is it?”

  “Because the natural formation of most people’s noses allows them to see straight down beneath an ordinary bandage. I doubt if one child out of a hundred who plays ‘Blind Man’s Buff’ is really unable to see at all.”

  “That’s so,” said Embury, “when I played it, as a kid, I could always see straight down—though not, of course, laterally.”

  “And noses are different,” went on Hanlon. “Some prominent beaks could never be blindfolded, but some small, flat noses might be. However, this refers to ordinary blindfolding with an ordinary handkerchief. When it comes to putting fat cotton pads in one’s eye sockets, before the thick bandage is added, it necessitates previous preparation. So, my powers of contracting and expanding my forehead muscles allow me to push the pa
ds out of the way, and enable me to see straight down the sides of my nose from under the bandage. Of course, I can see only the ground, and that but in a circumscribed area around my feet, but it’s enough.”

  “How?” asked Eunice, her piquant face eagerly turned to the speaker. “How did you know which way to turn?”

  “I don’t like it,” declared Aunt Abby. “I hate it—I’m absolutely disgusted with the whole performance! I detest practical jokes!”

  “Oh, come now, Miss Ames,” and Hendricks chuckled; “this isn’t exactly a joke—it’s a hoax, and a new one, but it’s a legitimate game. From the Davenport Brothers and Herrmann, on down through the line of lesser lights in the conjuring business—even our own Houdini—we know there is a trick somewhere; the fun is in finding it. Hanlon’s is a new one and a gem—I don’t even begin to see through it yet.”

  “Neither do I,” agreed Mason Eliott. “I think to do what he did by a trick is really more of a feat than to be led by real thought-transference.”

  “Except that the real thing isn’t available—and trick-work is.” Hanlon smiled genially as he said this, and Embury, a little impatiently, urged him to go on, and begged the others to cease their interruptions.

  “Well,” Hanlon resumed, “understand, then, that I cannot be really blindfolded. No committee of citizens, however determined, can bandage my eyes in such a manner that I can’t wiggle my forehead about sufficiently to get the pads up or down or one side or the other until I can see—all I want to.” Hanlon knotted up his frontal muscles to prove that a bandage tied tightly would become loose when he relaxed the strain.” Understand that I can see the ground only for a few inches directly at the front of me or very close to my sides. That is all.”

  “O.K.,” said Hendricks. “Now, with your sight assured for that very limited space, what is next?”

  “That, sir, is enough to explain the little game I put over in the newspaper office, before trying the out-of-door test. You remember, ladies, Mr. Mortimer told you how I followed a chalk line, drawn on the floor, and which led me up and down stairs, over chairs, under desks, and all that. Well, it was dead easy, because I could see the line on the floor all the time. Their confidence in their ‘secure’ blindfolding made them entirely unsuspicious of my ability to see. So, that was easy.”