Miss Maitland Private Secretary Part 15

"Well," said Mr. Larkin, "now I've put you wise you can form your own conclusion as to what's in their minds."

"Is it in yours, too?"

The question came quick, shot out between the deep-drawn breaths. Mr.

Larkin was ready for it:

"I told you I hadn't got as far as that; I'm just feeling my way. But let me say something to you." He rose and, going to the steps, sat down beside Willitts, dropping his voice to a confidential key. "I'll be frank with you-I'll show you how I stand. I didn't intend to tell you what I was, but this fellow coming up here has forced my hand. He knows me, he'll be after you again, and you'd have found it out. Now, here's my position: I want to get this case; it's my first big one and it'll make me every way-professionally and financially."

He looked at the man beside him who, gazing into the street, nodded without speaking.

"There's ten thousand dollars offered for the restoration of the jewels.

If I could get them I'd share that money with the person who-who-er-helped."

Willitts repeated his silent nod.

"And even if I didn't get them I'd pay and pay well for any information that would be useful."

"I see," said the other, "'oever 'elps along in the good work gets 'is reward."

Mr. Larkin did not like the words or the tone, but went on, his confidential manner growing persuasive:

"I'm engaged on the side of law and order. All I'm trying to do is to restore stolen property to its owner. Any one that helps me is only doing his duty."

"A duty that gets its dues, as you might say."

"Exactly. The money made by such services is earned honestly and there's plenty of it to earn."

"Righto! When the Janneys want a thing they'll open the purse wide and generous."

"And here's a point worth noticing: What I'm hired for is to get the jewels, not the thief. The party behind me isn't out for vengeance or prosecution. If I could deliver the goods it would be all right and no questions asked. But the Whitneys wouldn't stop there-they're bloodhounds when it comes to the chase. If they got anything on Price they'd come down on him good and hard and Mrs. Janney'd stand in with them."

He was looking with anxious intentness at Willitts' profile. As he finished it turned slowly, until the face was offered in full to his watchful scrutiny. It was forbidding, the eyes sweeping him with a cold contempt:

"I can't 'elp understanding you, Larkin, and I'm sorry to 'ear you got your suspicions of my gentleman and of _me_. The first is too low to take notice of; the second is as bad, but I'll answer it to put us both straight. I'm not the kind you take me for; I'm not to be bought. Even if I did know anything that would be 'useful' as you say, wild 'orses wouldn't drag it out of me. And no more will filthy lucre. Filthy-it's the right name for it, you couldn't get a better." He rose, not so much angry as hurt and haughty. "I can't find it in me to sit 'ere any longer. I could talk of insults, but I won't. All I'll say is that I've 'ad a bit too much, and not wanting to 'ear more I'll bid you good-night."

Before the detective could find words to answer he had gone down the path and vanished in the darkness.

CHAPTER XIII-MOLLY'S STORY

One of the chief features of detective work is that you must be able to change your mind. That may not sound hard-especially when the owner of the mind happens to be a female-but believe me it's some stunt. You get pointed one way, and to have to s.h.i.+ft and face round in another is candy for a weather vane but bread for a sleuth.

Well, that's what happened to me. In the week that followed my visit to the Whitneys I had to start out fresh on a new line of thought. I'd left the office pretty certain, as the others were, that the bond between Esther Maitland and Chapman Price was love, and before those seven days were gone I'd thrown that theory into the discard, rolled up my sleeves, taken a cinch in my belt, and set forth to blaze a new trail.

I came round to it slow at first and I came round through Mr. Ferguson.

It was fine weather and when Bebita would go off with Annie, I'd curl up in my conning tower in the school room window and take observations. As I said before, it was a convenient place, just over Miss Maitland's study, deserted all afternoon, and with the Venetian blinds down against the sun, I could sit comfortable on my cus.h.i.+on and spy out between the slats.

The first thing that caught my attention was that Mr. Ferguson, who'd come over pretty nearly every day, wouldn't make straight for the front piazza which was the natural way to get there. Instead he'd take a slanting course across the garden, come up some steps to the terrace, and then walk slow past the study door. Sometimes he'd see Miss Maitland and stop for a chat, and sometimes she wouldn't be there and he'd go by.

But each and every time, thinking no one was watching, he'd let a look come on his face that's common to the whole male s.e.x when the one particular star is expected above the horizon. I guess the cave man got it when, club in hand, he was chasing the cave girl and Solomon with his six hundred wives must have had it stamped on his features so it came to be his habitual expression.

Though it was registered good and plain on Mr. Ferguson's countenance, I couldn't at first believe it. It was too like a novel, too like Cinderella and the Prince. Then, seeing it so frequent, I was convinced.

I'd say to myself "Why not-a girl's a girl if she is a plutocrat's social secretary, and all men are free and equal when it comes to disposing of their young affections." The romance of it got me, gripped at my heart. I'd sit with my eye to the crack in the blinds staring down at him as he'd send that look out for her-that wonderful look, that look which gives you chills and fever, blind staggers and heart failure and you'd rather have than a blank check drawn to your order and signed by John Rockefeller. Oh, gee-I was a girl once myself-don't I know! I'd have been interested if it was just an ordinary love story, but it wasn't. It was a love story with a mystery for good measure; it was a love story that had Mrs. Price thrown in to complicate the plot; it was a love story that was all tangled up with other elements; and it was a love story that I only could see one side of.

For I couldn't get at her feelings at all. This was mostly because I hardly ever saw her with him. If she did happen to be there when he pa.s.sed, she'd be either in her room or under the balcony roof and I couldn't see how she acted or hear what she said. Also she had such a hold on herself, had such a calm, reserved way with her, that you'd have to be a clairvoyant to get under her guard.

Any woman would have been thrilled but _me_, knowing what I did-can't you see my thoughts going round in wheels and whirligigs? If she reciprocated-and there's few that wouldn't or I don't know my own s.e.x-what was she doing with Price? Was she a siren playing the two of them? Was she Mrs. Price's secret rival with both men? Was she the kind of vampire heroine they have in plays who can break up a burglar-proof home with one hand tied behind her? You wouldn't think it to look at her-but the more I hit the high spots of society the more I feel you can't tell people by the ordinary trade-marks.

Then one afternoon toward the end of the week I saw a little scene right under my window that lightened up the darkness. It gave me what I call facts; what the Whitneys, anyway Mr. George-but that belongs farther on.

Mr. Ferguson came out of the wood path, across the garden and on his usual beat, up the terrace steps. He had a spray of lemon verbena in his hand and as he walked over the gra.s.s with his long, light stride, he kept his eyes on the balcony keen and expectant, his face all eager and serious. Suddenly it changed, brightened, softened, glowed like the sunlight had fallen on it-you didn't need to be a detective to know she'd come out of the study.

This time she came down the steps and went toward him. They met under my window and stood there, he facing me, brus.h.i.+ng his lips with the spray of lemon verbena and looking down at her, a lover if ever I saw one. He asked her what she was doing that afternoon, and she said going for a walk, and when he wanted to know where, she said through the woods to the beach. "A solitary walk?" he asked and she said yes, her walks were always solitary.

"By preference?"

She turned half away from him and I could see her profile. I'd hardly have known it for Miss Maitland's, soft, shy, the cheek pink. Her eyes were on the toe of her shoe, white against the green gra.s.s, and with her head drooping she was like a girl, bashful and blus.h.i.+ng before her beau.

"It generally is by preference," she said.

"Would it exclude me," he asked, "if I tried to b.u.t.t in?"

She didn't answer for a moment, then said very low:

"Not if you really wanted to come-didn't do it just to be kind to a lonesome lady."

"Lonesome lady be hanged," he exclaimed as joyful as if she'd given him a kiss, "it's just the other way round-kindness to a lonesome gentleman.

I'm terribly lonesome this afternoon."

But he wasn't going to be long-far from it. Round the corner of the house, walking soft as a cat, came Mrs. Price. She made me think of a cat every way, stepping so stealthy, her body so slim and lithe, a small, secret smile on her face as if she'd come on two nice little helpless mice. She was all in white, s.h.i.+ning and spotless, a tennis racket in one hand, a bunch of letters in the other. They didn't see her and she got quite close, then said, sweet and smooth as treacle:

"Good afternoon, d.i.c.k."

They weren't doing anything but planning a walk, but they both started like it had been a murder.

"Oh," says Mr. Ferguson, looking blankly disconcerted, "oh, Suzanne, I didn't see you. How do you do-good afternoon."

She came to a halt and stood softly swinging her racket, looking at him with that mean, cold smile.

"I was in my room and saw you so I came down at once. It's a splendid afternoon for our game, not a breath of wind."

I saw, and she saw, and I guess any but a blind man could have seen, he'd a date to play tennis with her and had forgotten it. Of course a woman would have scrambled out, had _something_ to offer that made a noise like an excuse; but that poor prune of a man-they're all alike when a quick lie's needed-couldn't think of a thing to say. He just stood between them, looking haunted and stammering out such gems of thought as, "Our game-of course our game-I hadn't noticed it but there _is_ no wind."

She had him; he couldn't throw her down after he'd made the engagement, and with her there he couldn't say what he wanted to Esther Maitland.

And neither of them helped him; Mrs. Price listened to his flounderings with the little smile, light and cool on her painted lips, and Miss Maitland stood by, not a word out of her. I noticed that Mrs. Price never looked at her, acted as if she wasn't there, and presently Ferguson, getting desperate, turns to her and says:

"How about taking our walk later-after Mrs. Price and I have finished our game?"