The Window at the White Cat

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXI

  A PROSCENIUM BOX

  I was very late for dinner. Fred and Edith were getting ready for aconcert, and the two semi-invalids were playing pinochle in Fred's den.Neither one looked much the worse for her previous night's experience;Mrs. Butler was always pale, and Margery had been so since her father'sdeath.

  The game was over when I went into the den. As usual, Mrs. Butler leftthe room almost immediately, and went to the piano across the hall. Ihad grown to accept her avoidance of me without question. Fred said itwas because my overwhelming vitality oppressed her. Personally, I thinkit was because the neurasthenic type of woman is repulsive to me. Nodoubt Mrs. Butler deserved sympathy, but her open demand for it found mecold and unresponsive.

  I told Margery briefly of my visit to Bellwood that morning. She was aspuzzled as I was about the things Heppie had found in the chest. Shewas relieved, too.

  "I am just as sure, now, that she is living, as I was a week ago thatshe was dead," she said, leaning back in her big chair. "But whatterrible thing took her away? Unless--"

  "Unless what?"

  "She had loaned my father a great deal of money," Margery said, withheightened color. "She had not dared to tell Aunt Letitia, and the moneywas to be returned before she found it out. Then--things went wrong withthe Borough Bank, and--the money did not come back. If you know AuntJane, and how afraid she is of Aunt Letitia, you will understand howterrible it was for her. I have wondered if she would go--to Plattsburg,and try to find father there."

  "The _Eagle_ man is working on that theory now," I replied. "Margery, ifthere was a letter 'C' added to eleven twenty-two, would you know whatit meant?"

  She shook her head in the negative.

  "Will you answer two more questions?" I asked.

  "Yes, if I can."

  "Do you know why you were chloroformed last night, and who did it?"

  "I think I know who did it, but I don't understand. I have been tryingall day to think it out. I'm afraid to go to sleep to-night."

  "You need not be," I assured her. "If necessary, we will have the citypolice in a ring around the house. If you know and don't tell, Margery,you are running a risk, and more than that, you are protecting a personwho ought to be in jail."

  "I'm not sure," she persisted. "Don't ask me about it, please."

  "What does Mrs. Butler say?"

  "Just what she said this morning. And she says valuable papers weretaken from under her pillow. She was very ill--hysterical, allafternoon."

  The gloom and smouldering fire of the _Sonata Apassionata_ came to usfrom across the hall. I leaned over and took Margery's small handbetween my two big ones.

  "Why don't you tell me?" I urged. "Or--you needn't tell me, I know whatyou think. But there isn't any motive that I can see, and why would shechloroform you?"

  "I don't know," Margery shuddered. "Sometimes--I wonder--do you thinkshe is altogether sane?"

  The music ended with the crash of a minor chord. Fred and Edith camedown the stairs, and the next moment we were all together, and thechance for a quiet conversation was gone. At the door Fred turned andcame back.

  "Watch the house," he said. "And by the way, I guess"--he lowered hisvoice--"the lady's story was probably straight. I looked around againthis afternoon, and there are fresh scratches on the porch roof underher window. It looks queer, doesn't it?"

  It was a relief to know that, after all, Mrs. Butler was an enemy and adangerous person to nobody but herself. She retired to her room almostas soon as Fred and Edith had gone. I was wondering whether or not totell Margery about the experiment that afternoon; debating how to askher what letters she had got from the postmaster at Bellwood addressedto Miss Jane, and what she knew of Bella. At the same time--bear withme, oh masculine reader, the gentle reader will, for she cares a greatdeal more for the love story than for all the crime and mystery puttogether--bear with me, I say, if I hold back the account of theterrible events that came that night, to tell how beautiful Margerylooked as the lamplight fell on her brown hair and pure profile, and howthe impulse came over me to kiss her as she sat there; and how I didn't,after all--poor gentle reader!--and only stooped over and kissed thepink palm of her hand.

  She didn't mind it; speaking as nearly as possible from an impersonalstandpoint, I doubt if she was even surprised. You see, the ring wasgone and--it had only been an engagement ring anyhow, and everybodyknows how binding they are!

  And then an angel with a burning sword came and scourged me out of myEden. And the angel was Burton, and the sword was a dripping umbrella.

  "I hate to take you out," he said. "The bottom's dropped out of the sky;but I want you to make a little experiment with me." He caught sight ofMargery through the portieres, and the imp of mischief in him promptedhis next speech. "She said she must see you," he said, very distinctly,and leered at me.

  "Don't be an ass," I said angrily. "I don't know that I care to go outto-night."

  He changed his manner then.

  "Let's go and take a look at the staircase you fellows have been talkingabout," he said. "I don't believe there is a staircase there, except themain one. I have hounded every politician in the city into or out ofthat joint, and I have never heard of it."

  I felt some hesitation about leaving the house--and Margery--after theevents of the previous night. But Margery had caught enough of theconversation to be anxious to have me to go, and when I went in toconsult her she laughed at my fears.

  "Lightning never strikes twice in the same place," she said bravely. "Iwill ask Katie to come down with me if I am nervous, and I shall wait upfor the family."

  I went without enthusiasm. Margery's departure had been delayed for aday only, and I had counted on the evening with her. In fact, I had sentthe concert tickets to Edith with an eye single to that idea. ButBurton's plan was right. It was, in view of what we knew, to go over theground at the White Cat again, and Saturday night, with the place fullof men, would be a good time to look around, unnoticed.

  "I don't hang so much to this staircase idea," Burton said, "and I havea good reason for it. I think we will find it is the warehouse, yet."

  "You can depend on it, Burton," I maintained, "that the staircase is theplace to look. If you had seen Wardrop's face to-day, and his agony ofmind when he knew he had associated 'staircase' with 'shot,' you wouldthink just as I do. A man like Schwartz, who knew the ropes, could goquietly up the stairs, unbolt the door into the room, shoot Fleming andget out. Wardrop suspects Schwartz, and he's afraid of him. If he openedthe door just in time to see Schwartz, we will say, backing out the doorand going down the stairs, or to see the door closing and suspect whohad just gone, we would have the whole situation, as I see it, includingthe two motives of deadly hate and jealousy."

  "Suppose the stairs open into the back of the room? He was sittingfacing the window. Do you think Schwartz would go in, walk around thetable and shoot him from in front? Pooh! Fudge!"

  "He had a neck," I retorted. "I suppose he might have turned his head tolook around."

  We had been walking through the rain. The White Cat, as far off as thepoles socially, was only a half-dozen blocks actually from the bestresidence portion of the city. At the corner of the warehouse, Burtonstopped and looked up at it.

  "I always get mad when I look at this building," he said. "My greatgrandfather had a truck garden on this exact spot seventy years ago, andthe old idiot sold out for three hundred dollars and a pair of mules!How do you get in?"

  "What are you going in for?" I asked.

  "I was wondering if I had a grudge--I have, for that matter--against themayor, and I wanted to shoot him, how I would go about it. I think Ishould find a point of vantage, like an overlooking window in an emptybuilding like this, and I would wait for a muggy night, also like this,when the windows were up and the lights going. I could pot him with athirty-eight at a dozen yards, with my eyes crossed."

  We had stopped near the arched gate where I had stood and waited forHunter, a week be
fore. Suddenly Burton darted away from me and tried thegate. It opened easily, and I heard him splashing through a puddle inthe gloomy yard.

  "Come in," he called softly. "The water's fine."

  The gate swung to behind me, and I could not see six inches from mynose. Burton caught my elbow and steered me, by touching the fence,toward the building.

  "If it isn't locked too tight," he was saying, "we can get in, perhapsthrough a window, and get up-stairs. From there we ought to be able tosee down into the club. What the devil's that?"

  It was a rat, I think, and it scrambled away among the loose boards in afrenzy of excitement. Burton struck a match; it burned faintly in thedampness, and in a moment went out, having shown us only the approximatelocation of the heavy, arched double doors. A second match showed us abar and a rusty padlock; there was no entrance to be gained in thatway.

  The windows were of the eight-paned variety, and in better repair thanthe ones on the upper floors. By good luck, we found one unlocked andnot entirely closed; it shrieked hideously as we pried it up, but anopportune clap of thunder covered the sound.

  By this time I was ready for anything that came; I was wet to my knees,muddy, disreputable. While Burton held the window I crawled into thewarehouse, and turned to perform the same service for him. At first Icould not see him, outside. Then I heard his voice, a whisper, frombeyond the sill.

  "Duck," he said. "Cop!"

  I dropped below the window, and above the rain I could hear the squashof the watchman's boots in the mud. He flashed a night lamp in at thewindow next to ours, but he was not very near, and the open windowescaped his notice. I felt all the nervous dread of a real malefactor,and when I heard the gate close behind him, and saw Burton put a legover the sill, I was almost as relieved as I would have been hadsomebody's family plate, tied up in a tablecloth, been reposing at myfeet.

  Burton had an instinct for getting around in the dark. I lighted anothermatch as soon as he had closed the window, and we made out our generaldirection toward where the stairs ought to be. When the match went out,we felt our way in the dark; I had only one box of wax matches, andBurton had dropped his in a puddle.

  We got to the second floor, finally, and without any worse mishap thanBurton banging his arm against a wheel of some sort. Unlike the firstfloor, the second was subdivided into rooms; it took a dozen preciousmatches to find our way to the side of the building overlooking theclub, and another dozen to find the window we wanted. When we were thereat last, Burton leaned his elbows on the sill, and looked down andacross.

  "Could anything be better!" he said. "There's our theater, and we've gota proscenium box. That room over there stands out like a spot-light."

  He was right. Not more than fifteen feet away, and perhaps a foot lowerthan our window, was the window of the room where Fleming had beenkilled. It was empty, as far as we could see; the table, neat enoughnow, was where it had been before, directly under the light. Any one whosat there would be an illuminated target from our window. Not only that,but an arm could be steadied on the sill, allowing for an almost perfectaim.

  "Now, where's your staircase?" Burton jeered.

  The club was evidently full of men, as he had prophesied. Above therattle of the rain came the thump--thump of the piano, and a half-dozenmale voices. The shutters below were closed; we could see nothing.

  I think it was then that Burton had his inspiration.

  "I'll bet you a five-dollar bill," he said, "that if I fire off myrevolver here, now, not one of those fellows down there would pay theslightest attention."

  "I'll take that bet," I returned. "I'll wager that every time anybodydrops a poker, since Fleming was shot, the entire club turns out toinvestigate."

  In reply Burton got out his revolver, and examined it by holding itagainst the light from across the way.

  "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "Everybody down there knows me;I'll drop in for a bottle of beer, and you fire a shot into the floorhere, or into somebody across, if you happen to see any one you don'tcare for. I suggest that you stay and fire the shot, because if youwent, my friend, and nobody heard it, you would accuse me of shootingfrom the back of the building somewhere."

  He gave me the revolver and left me with a final injunction.

  "Wait for ten minutes," he said. "It will take five for me to get out ofhere, and five more to get into the club-house. Perhaps you'd bettermake it fifteen."