Persons Unknown Part 3

We got leases signed by--"

"Oh, I see!" Herrick felt his temper rising. But he tried to be reasonable while he added, "I'm very sorry for you. But there was a woman there. I've reported so already to the police. Even if I had not, I couldn't go in for perjury, Mr. Deutch."

"No, no! Of course not! Of course! I wouldn't ask you! You don't understand me! It's not to take back what you said already to the police. That'd get you into trouble. And it couldn't be done. I couldn't expect it. It's not facts you might go a little easy on, Mr. Herrick; it's your language!"

"What!"

"It's your descriptive language, Mr. Herrick. If only you wouldn't be quite so particular--"

"Look here!" said Herrick with his odd, brusk slowness. "I didn't know it myself last night. But Mr. Ingham wasn't altogether a stranger to me." Deutch stared at him. "He had friends in the town I come from and a good many people I know are going to be badly cut up about his death. I was to have met him on business this very day. Now you can see that I don't feel very leniently to the person--not even to the woman--who murdered him. I don't believe he killed himself. He had no reason to do it. If there's anything I can do to prove he didn't, that thing's going to be done. If there's any word of mine that's a clue to tell who killed him, I can't speak it often enough nor loud enough. Understand that, Mr.

Deutch. And, good-morning."

"Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, dear! But my dear sir--"

"And let me give you a word of warning. If you keep on like this what people will really say is, that you knew there was a woman there and that it was you who connived at her escape!"

"All right!" cried Mr. Deutch, unexpectedly. "Let 'em say it! I got no kick coming if people tell lies about me, any. All I want stopped is the lies you're putting into people's heads about Miss Christina."

"Miss Christina!" Herrick exclaimed. He stared, wondering if the poor worried little soul had gone out of his head. "I never mentioned any woman's name. I didn't know any to mention. I never heard of any Miss Christina!"

"You told the policeman the way she made motions, moving around and all like that, it made you think maybe they were rehearsing something out of a play."

"Did I? Well?"

Mr. Deutch possessed himself of the newspaper which Herrick had dropped upon the bed, and pointed to the last line of the murder story. It ran: "About a year ago Mr. Ingham became engaged to be married to Christina Hope, the actress." And Herrick read the line with a strange thrill, as of prophecy realized. "Oh--ho!" he breathed.

"Oh--ho!" hysterically mocked the superintendent. "You see what it makes you think, all right. Even me!--that was what brought her first to my mind, poor lady. The police officers may have forgot it or not noticed, any. But if you say it again, at the inquest, you'll make everybody think the same thing. And it's not so!" he almost shrieked. "It's not so. It's a d.a.m.n mean lie! And you got no right to say such a thing!"

"That's true," said Herrick, intently. After his impulsive whistle he had begun to furl his sails. He had heard vaguely of Christina Hope, as a promising young actress who had made her mark somewhere in the West, and was soon to attempt the same feat on Broadway. He knew nothing to her detriment.

"Ain't it hard enough for her, poor young lady, with him gone and all, but what she should have that said about her! And it wouldn't stop there, even! She was there alone with him at night, they'd say, with their nasty slurs. She'd never stand a chance. For there ain't any denying she's on the stage, and that's enough to make everybody think she's guilty--"

"Oh, come! Why--"

"Wasn't it enough for you, yourself?"

Herrick opened his lips for an indignant negative, but he closed them without speaking.

"The minute you seen that paragraph you felt 'She's just the person to be mixed up with things that way.' And then you grabbed hold of yourself and said, 'Why, no. She may be as nice as anybody. Give her the benefit of the doubt.' But there's the doubt, all right. You're an edjucated gennelman," said Mr. Deutch, sympathetically, "but all these prejudiced, old-fas.h.i.+oned farmers and low-brows like they got on juries--people like them, and Miss Christina--Oh! Good Lord! Ach, don't I know 'em! Mr.

Herrick, it's my solemn word, if you say that at the inquest to turn them on to Miss Christina, you--"

"I shan't say it at the inquest," Herrick said. He was astonished at the completeness of the charge in his own mind. He was convinced, now, in every nerve, that Ingham had met death at the hands of his betrothed.

But the very violence of his conviction warned him not to lay such a handicap upon other minds. His chance phrase, his chance impression, must color neither the popular nor the legal outlook. "I shall take very good care, you may be sure, to say nothing of the kind. Here!" he cried, "you want a drink!"

For Mr. Deutch, at this emphatic a.s.surance, had put his plump elbows on his plump knees and hidden his moon face, his spaniel eyes, with plump and shaky fists. He drank the whiskey Herrick brought him and slowly got himself together; without embarra.s.sment, but with a comfort in his relaxation which made Herrick guess how tight he had been strung. As he returned the gla.s.s he said, "If you knew what a lot we thought, Mr.

Herrick, me and my wife, of the young lady, I wouldn't seem anywheres near so crazy to you."

Herrick sat down on the edge of the bed in his s.h.i.+rtsleeves and regarded his guest. Strict delicacy required that he ask no questions.

But he was human. And he had been a reporter. He said, "You used to see her with Mr. Ingham?"

"Oh, great Scott, Mr. Herrick, we knew her long before that! Long before ever _he_ set eyes on her. When she was a tiny little thing and her papa had money, he used to get his wine from my firm. He was such a pleasant-spoken, agreeable gentleman that when I went into business for myself I sent him my card. It wasn't the wine business, Mr. Herrick, it was oil paintings. I always was what you might call artistic; I got very refined feelings, and business ain't exactly in my line. I had as high-cla.s.s a little shop as ever you set your eyes on; gold frames; plush draperies, electric lights; fine, beautiful oil paintings--oh, beautiful!--by expensive, high-cla.s.s artists; everything elegant. But it wasn't a success. The public don't appreciate the artistic, Mr. Herrick, they got no edjucation. I lost my last dollar, and I don't know as I ever recovered exactly. I ain't ever been what you could call anyways successful, since."

"But you saw something of Mr. Hope--"

"Well, Mr. Hope was an edjucated gentleman, Mr. Herrick, like you are yourself. He had very up-to-date ideas; and when he'd buy a picture, once in a while I'd go up to the house to see it hung. Miss Christina was about eight years old, then, and I used to see her coming in from dancing school with her maid, or else she'd be just riding out with her groom behind her, like a little queen. When my shop failed; I went to manage my sister-in-law's restaurant. I was ashamed to let Mr. Hope know that time. But one Sunday night, my wife says to me, 'Ain't that little girl as pretty as the one you been telling me about?' And there in the door, with her long hair straight down from under her big hat and her little long legs in black silk stockings straight down from one o' them pleated skirts and her long, square, coat, was Miss Christina. Behind her was her papa and her mama. And after that they came pretty regular every week or two; we served her twelfth birthday party. My wife made a cake with twelve pink rosebuds, all herself. She was always the little lady, Miss Christina, but she made her own friends, and to people she liked she spoke as pretty as a princess. We got to feel such an affection for her, Mr. Herrick, we couldn't believe there was anybody like her in this world. We never had a child of our own, me and my wife, Mr. Herrick. It does knock out your faith in things to think a thing like that can happen, but it's what's happened to her and me. We was kind of cracked about all children, and Miss Christina was certainly the most stylish child I ever set eyes on!"

"Father living?" Herrick prompted.

"No, Mr. Herrick, no. And before he died, he got into business difficulties himself, and he didn't leave enough to keep a bird alive. I helped Mrs. Hope dispose of all the bric-a-brac, my paintings and all, everything that wasn't mortgaged, and they put it in with an aunt of Mr.

Hope's, a catamaran, and went to keeping a high-cla.s.s boarding-house.

We're all apt to fall, Mr. Herrick. I've fallen myself."

"The boarding-house didn't succeed either, then?"

"I ask you, how could it, with that battle-ax? She cheated my poor ladies, and she bullied Miss Christina, and used to take the books she was always reading and burn 'em up, and say nasty common things to her, when she got older, about the young gentlemen that were always on her heels even then, and that she'd like well enough, one day, and the next she couldn't stand the sight of. If there's one thing Miss Christina has, more than another, it's a high spirit; she has what I'd call a plenty of it. They had fierce fights. Often, when she'd come to me with a little breastpin or other to p.a.w.n for her, so her and her mama'd have a mite o' cash, she'd put her pretty head down on my wife's shoulder and cry; and my wife'd make her a cup o' tea. She'd say then she was going to run away and be an actress. And, when she was sixteen yet, she ran.

Two years afterward, her and her mama turned up in my first little flat-house; a cheap one, down Eighth Avenue, in the twenties. She was on the stage, all right, and what a time she'd had! It'd been cruel, Mr.

Herrick; cruel hard work and, just at the first, cruel little of it. But now she's a leading lady. And this fall she's going to open in New York, in a big part. It's the play they call 'The Victors'; I guess you've heard. Mr. Wheeler, he's the star, and Miss Christina's part's better than what his is. But now--"

There was a pause. Mr. Deutch mopped his face, and Herrick, cogitating, bit his lip.

"This engagement to Ingham--"

"She met him about two years ago, when she had her first leading part, and they went right off their heads about each other. I never expected I should see Miss Christina act so regular loony over any man. But she refused him time and again. She said she'd always been a curse to herself and she wasn't going to bring her curse on him. In the end, of course, she gave in. She said she'd marry him this winter, if he'd go away for the summer and leave her alone. You knew it was only day before yesterday he got back from Europe?"

"Yes. I know."

"My wife and me have seen a lot more of her this summer than since she was a little girl. There's been years at a time, all the while she was on the road, that we wouldn't know if she was alive or dead. And then some day I'd come home, and find her sitting in our apartment--it's a bas.e.m.e.nt apartment, Mr. Herrick!--as easy as if she'd just stepped across the street. But I wouldn't like you should think it's Miss Christina's talked to us very much about her engagement. She's a pretty close-mouthed girl, in her way, and a simply elegant lady. Not but what Mrs. Hope is an elegant lady, too. But still she is--if you know what I mean--gabby! Miss Christina's always been a puzzle to her; and she's a great hand to sit and make guesses at her with my wife. Mr. Ingham left a key with Miss Christina when he went abroad so she could come and play his piano and read his books whenever it suited her, and she'd have a quiet place to study her part. Every once in a while Mrs. Hope would take a notion it wasn't quite the proper thing she should come by herself. But after she'd seen her inside, she'd drop down our way and wait. She wasn't just exactly gone on Mr. Ingham, and my wife wasn't either."

Herrick lifted his head with a flash of interest. "Mrs. Hope opposed the marriage?"

"Well, not opposed. She never opposed the young lady in anything, when you came down to it. But he wanted she should leave the stage. And he wasn't ever faithful to her, Mr. Herrick! For all he was so crazy about her and so wild-animal jealous of the very air she had to breathe, he wasn't ever faithful to her--and if ever you'd seen her, that'd make your blood boil! She'd hear things; and he'd lie. And she'd believe him, and believe him! If it wasn't for his money, she'd be well rid of him, to my mind."

He sat nursing his wrath. And Herrick, still watching him, felt sorry.

For, in Herrick's mind it was now all so clear; so pitiably clear! Poor little chap!--he didn't know how scanty was the rea.s.surance in his portrait of his Miss Christina! The indulged, imperious child, choosing "her own" friends; the unhappy, bold, bedeviled girl, already with young men at her heels, whom she encouraged one day and flouted the next; p.a.w.ning her trinkets at sixteen and plunging alone into the world, the world of the stage; the ambitious, adventurous woman capable of holding such a devotion as that of the good Deutch by so capricious and high-handed a return, snaring such a man of the world as Ingham by an adroit blending of abandon and retreat, putting up with the humiliations of his flagrant inconstancies only, perhaps, to find herself, after her stipulated summer alone, on the verge of losing him through his insensate jealousy--were there no materials here for tragic quarrel? Was not this the very figure that last night he had seen fling out an arm in unexampled pa.s.sion and grace? In his heart he saw Christina Hope, while her betrothed, whether as accuser or accused, taunted her from the piano, kill James Ingham. And he profoundly knew that he had almost seen this with his eyes. His pulse beat high; but it was with a sobered mind that he beheld Mr. Deutch preparing to depart.

"Well, you see how I had to ask you, Mr. Herrick, not to say that lady's shadow made you think any of an actress?"

"I do, indeed."

"There isn't any language can express how I thank you. But I know if only you was acquainted with her--" He had turned, in rising, to get his hat, and he now stopped short and exclaimed with bewildered reproach, "Oh, well, now, Mr. Herrick! Why wouldn't you tell me?"

"Tell you?" Herrick's eyes followed his. They led to the likeness of his Evadne, of his dear Heroine. "Tell you what?"

"Why, that you _was_ acquainted with--" said Mr. Deutch, extending his hat, as if in a magnificence of introduction, "Christina Hope."

Herrick could not speak. And Deutch added, "You was acquainted with her, all along! It's a real old picture--'bout five years ago. You knew her then? You knew her--And you--saw--" His voice died away. His glance turned from Herrick's and traveled unwillingly to where, upon the blinds drawn down again, across the street, it seemed to both men the shadow must start forth. And, as he slowly withdrew his gaze, Herrick saw, looking out at him from those soft, spaniel eyes, the eyes of fear.

Deutch bowed bruskly and withdrew. Herrick was alone, as he had been these many months, with the young challenge of his Heroine; the familiar face, long learned by heart, asking its innocent questions about life, shone softly out on him, in pride. And, on that August morning, he felt his blood go cold.