X.
There I was seated in a box all alone--Miss Nancy Olden, by courtesy ofthe management, come to listen to the leading lady sing coon-songs,that I might add her to my collection of take-offs.
She's a fat leading lady, very fair and nearly fifty, I guess. Butshe's got a rollicking, husky voice in her fat throat that's sung thedollars down deep into her pockets. They say she's planted them deeperstill--in the foundations of apartment houses--and that now she's therichest roly-poly on the Rialto.
Do you know, Maggie darlin', what I was saying to myself there in thebox, while I watched the stage and waited for Obermuller? He said he'ddrop in later, perhaps.
"Nance," I said, "I kind of fancy that apartment sort of idea myself.They tell you, Nancy, that when you've got the artistic temperament,that that's all you'll ever have. But there's a chance--one in ahundred--for a body to get that temperament mixed with a businessinstinct. It doesn't often happen. But when it does the resultis--dollars. It may be, Nance--I shrewdly suspect it is a fact thatyou've got that marvelous mixture. Your early successes, Miss Olden,in another profession that I needn't name, would encourage the ideathat you're not all heart and no head. I think, Nance, I shall haveyou mimic the artists during working hours and the business men whenyou're at play. I fancy apartment houses. They appeal to me. We'llcall one 'The Nancy' and another 'Olden Hall' and another..."
"What'll I call the third apartment house, Mr. O?" I asked aloud, as Iheard the rings on the portiere behind me click.
He didn't answer.
Without turning my head I repeated the question. Andyet--suddenly--before he could have answered, I knew something waswrong.
I turned. And in that moment a man took the seat beside me and anotherstood facing me, with his back against the portieres.
"Miss Olden?" the man beside me asked.
"Yes."
"Nance Olden, the mimic, who entertains at private houses?"
I nodded.
"You--you were at Mrs. Paul Gates' just a week ago, and you gave yourspecialties there?"
"Yes--yes, what is it you want?"
He was a little man, but very muscular. I could note the play of hismuscles even in the slight motion he made as he turned his body so asto get between me and the audience, while he leaned toward me, watchingme intently with his small, quick, blue eyes.
"We don't want to make any scene here," he said very low. "We want todo it up as quietly as we can. There might be some mistake, you know,and then you'd be sorry. So should we. I hope you'll be reasonableand it'll be all the better for you because--"
"What are you talk--what--" I looked from him to the other fellowbehind us.
He leaned a bit farther forward then, and pulling his coat partly open,he showed me a detective's badge. And the other man quickly did thesame.
I sat back in my chair. The fat star on the stage, with her big mouthand big baby-face, was doing a cake-walk up and down close to thefootlights, yelling the chorus of her song.
I'll never mimic that song, Mag, although I can see her and hear it asplain as though I'd listened and watched her all my life. But there'sno fun in it for me. I hate the very bars the orchestra plays beforeshe begins to sing. I can't bear even to think of the words. Thewhole of it is full of horrible things--it smells of the jail--it lookslike stripes--it ...
"You're not going to faint?" asked the man, moving closer to me.
"Me? I never fainted in my life... Where is he now--Tom Dorgan?"
"Tom Dorgan!"
"Yes. I was sure I saw him sail, but, of course, I was mistaken. Hehas sent you after me, has he? I can hardly believe it ofTom--even--even yet."
"I don't know anything that connects you with Dorgan. If he was inwith you on this, you'd better remember, before you say anything more,that it'll all be used against you."
The curtain had gone down and gone up again. I was watching the star.She has such a boyish way of nodding her head, instead of bowing, aftershe waddles out to the center; and every time she wipes her lips withher lace handkerchief, as though she'd just taken one of the cocktailsshe makes in the play with all the skill of a bartender. I foundmyself doing the same thing--wiping my lips with that very samegesture, as though I had a fat, bare forearm like a rolling-pin--whenall at once the thought came to me: "You needn't bother, Nancy. It'sall up. You won't have any use for it all."
"Just what is the charge?" I asked, turning to the man beside me.
"Stealing a purse containing three hundred dollars from Mrs. PaulGates' house on the night of April twenty-seventh."
"What!"
It was Obermuller. He had pushed the curtains aside; the crashing ofthe orchestra had prevented our hearing the clatter of the rings. Hehad pushed by the man standing there, had come in and--he had heard.
"Nance!" he cried. "I don't believe a word of it." He turned in hisquick way to the men. "What are your orders?"
"To take her to her flat and search it."
Obermuller came over to me then, and took my hand for a minute.
"It's a pity they don't know about the Gray rose diamond," hewhispered, helping me on with my jacket. "They'd see how silly thislittle three-hundred dollar business is.... Brace up, Nance Olden!"
Oh, Mag, Mag, to hear a man like that talk to you as though you werehis kind, when you have the feel of the coarse prison stripes betweenyour dry, shaking fingers, and the close prison smell is alreadypoisoning your nostrils!
"I don't see--" my voice shook--"how you can believe--in me."
"Don't you?" he laughed. "That's easy. You've got brains, Nance, andthe most imbecile thing you could do just now, when your foot isalready on the ladder, would be just this--to get off in order to pickup a trinket out of the mud, when there's a fortune up at the topwaiting for you. Clever people don't do asinine things. And otherclever people know that they don't. You're clever, but so am I--in myweak, small way. Come along, little girl."
He pulled my hand in his arm and we walked out, followed by the two men.
Oh, no! It was all very quiet and looked just like a little theaterparty that had an early supper engagement. Obermuller nodded to themanager out in the deserted lobby, who stopped us and asked me what Ithought of the star.
You'll think me mad, Mag. Those fellows with the badges were sure Iwas, but Obermuller's eyes only twinkled, and the manager's grin grewbroad when, catching up the end of my skirt and cake-walking up anddown, I sang under my breath that coon-song that was trailing over andover through my head.
"Bravo! bravo!" whispered the manager, hoarsely, clapping his handssoftly.
I gave one of those quick, funny, boyish nods the star inside affectsand wiped my lips with my handkerchief.
That brought down my house. Even the biggest fellow with the badgegiggled recognizingly, and then put his hand quickly in front of hismouth and tried to look severe and official.
The color had come back to Obermuller's face; it was worth dancingfor--that.
"Be patient, Mag; let me tell it my way."
There wasn't room in the coupe waiting out in front for more than two.So Obermuller couldn't come in it. But he put me in--Mag, dear, dearMag--he put me in as if I was a lady--not like Gray; a real one. Athing like that counts when two detectives are watching. It countedafterward in the way they treated me.
The big man climbed up on the seat with the driver. The blue-eyedfellow got in and sat beside me, closing the door.
"I'll be out there almost as soon as you are," Obermuller said,standing a moment beside the lowered window.
"You good fellow!" I said, and then, trying to laugh: "I'll do as muchfor you some day."
He shook his fist laughingly at me, and I waved my hand as we drove of.
"You know, Miss, there may be some mistake about this," said the mannext to me, "and--"
"Yes, there may be. In fact, there is."
"I'm sure I'll be very glad if it is a mistake. They do happen--thoughnot often. You
spoke of Dorgan--"
"Did I?"
"Yes, Tom Dorgan, who busted out of Sing Sing the other day."
"Surely you're mistaken," I said, smiling right into his blue eyes."The Tom Dorgan I mentioned is a sleight-of-hand performer at theVaudeville. Ever see him?"
"N--no."
"Clever fellow. You ought to. Perhaps you don't recognize him underthat name. On the bills he's Professor Haughwout. Stage people haveso many names, you know."
"Yes, so have--some other people."
I laughed, and he grinned back at me.
"Now that's mean of you," I said; "I never had but one. It was all Ineeded."
It flashed through me then what a thing like this might do to a name.You know, Mag, every bit of recognition an actress steals from theworld is so much capital. It isn't like the old graft when you had tobegin new every time you took up a piece of work. And your name--thename the world knows--and its knowing it makes it worth having likeeverything--that name is the sum of every scheme you've planned, ofevery time you've got away with the goods, of every laugh you'velifted, of every bit of cleverness you've thought out and embodied, ofeverything that's in you, of everything you are.
But I didn't dare think long of this. I turned to him.
"Tell me about this charge," I said. "Where was the purse? Whose wasit? And why haven't they missed it till after a week?"
"They missed it all right that night, but Mrs. Gates wanted it keptquiet till the servants had been shadowed and it was positively provedthat they hadn't got away with it."
"And then she thought of me?"
"And then she thought of you."
"I wonder why?"
"Because you were the only person in that room except Mrs. Gates, thelady who lost the purse, Mrs. Ramsay, and--eh?" "N--nothing. Mrs.Ramsay, you said?"
"Yes."
"Not Mrs. Edward Ramsay, of Philadelphia?"
"Oh, you know the name?"
"Oh, yes, I know it."
"It was printed, you know, in gold lettering on the inside flap and--"
"I don't know."
"Well, it was, and it contained three hundred dollars, Mrs. Ramsaysays. She had slipped it under the fold of the spread at the top ofthe bed in the room where you took off your things in Mrs. Gates'presence, and put them on again when no one else was there."
"And you mean to tell me that this is all?" I raged at him; "that everybit of evidence you have to warrant your treating an innocent girllike--"
"You didn't behave like a very innocent girl, if you'll remember," hesaid dryly, "when I first came into the box. In fact, if that fellowhadn't just come in then I believe you'd 'a' confessed the wholejob.... 'Tain't too late," he added.
I didn't answer. I put my head back against the cushions and closed myeyes. I could feel the scrutiny of his blue eyes on my nakedface--your face is so unprotected with the eyes closed; like a fortwhose battery is withdrawn. But I was tired--it tires you when youcare. A year ago, Mag, this sort of thing--the risk, the nearness todanger, the chances one way or the other--would have intoxicated me. Iused to feel as though I was dancing on a volcano and daring it toexplode. The more twistings and turnings there were to the labyrinth,the greater glory it was to get out. Maggie darlin', you have beforeyou a mournful spectacle--the degeneration of Nancy Olden. It isn'tthat she's lost courage. It's only that she used to be able to think ofonly one thing, and now--What do you suppose it is, Mag? If you know,don't you dare to tell me.
When we got to the flat Obermuller was already there. At the door Ipulled out my key and opened it with a flourish.
"Won't you come in, gentlemen, and spend the evening?" I asked.
They followed me in. First to the parlor. The two fellows threw offtheir coats and searched that through and through--not a drawer didthey miss, not a bit of furniture did they fail to move. Obermullerand I sat there guying them as they pried about in their shirt-sleeves.That Trust business has taken the life out of him of late. All theirtricks, all their squeezings, their cheatings, their bossing andbragging and bullying have got on to his nerves till he looks like achained bear getting a drubbing. And he swears that they're in aconspiracy to freeze him and a few others like him out; he believesthere's actually a paper in existence that would prove it. But thisaffair of the purse seemed to excite him till he behaved like a badschool-boy.
And I? Well, Nance Olden was never far behind at the Cruelty whenthere was anything going on. We trailed after them, and when they'dfinished with the bedrooms--yours and mine--I asked the big fellow tocome into the kitchen with Mr. O. and me, while the blue-eyeddetective tackled the dining-room, and I'd get up a lunch for us all.
Mag, you should have seen Fred Obermuller with a big apron on him,dressing the salad while I was making sandwiches. The Cruelty taughtme how to cook, even if it did teach me other things. You wouldn'thave believed that the Trust had got him by the throat, and was chokingthe last breath out of him. You wouldn't have believed that oursalaries hadn't been paid for three weeks, that our houses weredwindling every night, that--
I was thinking about it all there in the back of my head, trying to seea way out of it--you know if there is such an agreement as Obermullerswears there is, it's against the law--while we rattled on, the two ofus, like a couple of children on a picnic, when I heard a crash behindme.
The salad bowl had slipped from Obermuller's fingers. He stood withhis back turned to me, his eyes fixed upon that searching detective.
But he wasn't searching any more, Mag. He was standing still as apointer that's scented game. He had moved the lounge out from thewall, and there on the floor, spread open where it had fallen, lay ahandsome elephant-skin purse, with gold corners. From where I stood,Mag, I could read the plain gold lettering on the dark leather. Ididn't have to move. It was plain enough--quite plain.
Mrs. EDWARD RAMSAY
Hush, hush, Mag; if you take on so, how can I tell you the rest?
Obermuller got in front of me as I started to walk into thedining-room. I don't know what his idea was. I don't suppose he doesexactly--if it wasn't to spare me the sight of that damned thing.
Oh, how I hated it, that purse! I hated it as if it had been somethingalive that could be glad of what it had done. I wished it was alivethat I could tear and rend it and stamp on it and throw it in a fire,and drag it out again, with burned and bleeding nails, to tear it againand again. I wanted to fall on it and hide it; to push it far, faraway out of sight; to stamp it down--down into the very bottom of theearth, where it could feel the hell it was making for me.
But I only stood there, stupidly looking at it, having pushed pastObermuller, as though I never wanted to see anything else.
And then I heard that blue-eyed fellow's words.
"Well," he said, pulling on his coat as though he'd done a good day'swork, "I guess you'd just better come along with me."
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