Miss Maitland Private Secretary Part 18

Suzanne screamed again, putting her hands against the sides of her head, her face, between them, a livid mask.

"Gone-gone where? Is she dead?"

The girl shook her head, swallowing on a throat dried to a leathern stiffness:

"No-no-nothing like that. But-the taxi-it went, disappeared while I was in Justin's. I was in there buying the candy and when I came out it was gone. I looked everywhere; I couldn't believe it; I thought she'd come back here-run away from me for a joke."

Suzanne, holding the sides of her head, stared like a mad woman, then gave a piercing cry, thin and high, a wild, dolorous sound. Only the solidity of the house prevented it from penetrating to the lower regions where Aggie McGee and her aunt were comfortably lunching.

"Listen, Mrs. Price." Esther took her hands and drew them down. "The driver may have made a mistake, taken her somewhere else-he couldn't-"

Suzanne shrieked in sudden frenzy:

"She's been stolen-my baby's been stolen!"

For a second they looked at one another, each pallid face confessing its conviction of the grisly thought. Esther tried to speak, the sentences dropping disconnected:

"If it's that then-then-it's some one who knows you're rich-some one-they'll want money. They'll give her up for money-Oh, Mrs. Price, I looked-I hunted-"

Suzanne's voice came in a suddenly strangled whisper:

"It's you-It's your fault! You've let them steal my baby. You've done it! You'll be put in jail."

With the words issuing from her mouth she staggered and crumpled into a limpness of fiberless flesh and trailing garments. Esther put an arm about her and drew her to the sofa. Here she collapsed amid the cus.h.i.+ons, her eyes open, moans coming from her shaking lips. Esther knelt beside her:

"Mrs. Price, it's horrible, but try to keep up, don't break down this way. No one would dare to do anything to her. If she's been stolen it's to the interest of the person who did it to keep her safe. We'll find her in a day or two. Your mother, her position, her power-she'll do something, she'll get her back."

Suzanne rolling her head on the cus.h.i.+on, groaned:

"Oh, my baby! Oh, Bebita!" Then burst into wild tears and disjointed sentences. She was almost unintelligible, cries to heaven, wails for her child, accusations of the woman at her feet broke from her in a torrent.

Once she struck at the girl with a feeble fist.

There was no help to be got from her and Esther rose. She spoke more to herself than the anguished creature on the sofa:

"We can't waste time this way. I'll call up Gra.s.slands and ask what to do."

The telephone was in the hall and, as she waited for the connection, she could hear the sounds of the mother's misery beating on the house's rich silence. Then Dixon's voice brought her faculties into quick order. She wanted to speak to Mrs. Janney herself, at once, it was important. There followed what seemed an endless wait, and then Mrs. Janney. When she had mastered it, her voice came, sharp and incisive:

"Hold the wire, I have to speak to Mr. Janney."

Another wait, through which, faint as the shadows of sound, Esther could hear the tiny echo of voices, then the jar of an approaching step and a man answered:

"h.e.l.lo, Miss Maitland, this is Ferguson. I've orders from Mrs. Janney-Go straight down to the Whitney office, tell them what's happened and put the thing in their hands. Say nothing to anybody else. Mr. and Mrs.

Janney are starting to go in. They'll be in town as quickly as they can get there and will meet you at the office. Got that straight? All right.

Good-by."

She cogitated a moment, then called up the Whitney office getting George. She gave him a brief outline of what had occurred and told him she would be there with Mrs. Price within a half hour.

Back in the reception room she tried to arouse Suzanne, but the distracted woman did not seem to have sense left to take in anything. At the sound of Esther's voice her sobs and wails rose hysterical, and the girl, finding it impossible to make her understand, set about preparing her for the drive. Any word of hers appeared to make Suzanne's state worse, so silently, as if she were dressing a manikin, she pinned the hat to the disordered blonde hair, draped a motor veil over it, composed the rumpled skirts, gathered up her purse and gloves, and finally, an arm crooked round one of Suzanne's, got her out to the motor.

On the long drive downtown almost nothing was said. The roar of the surrounding traffic drowned the sounds of weeping that now and then rose from the veiled figure, which Esther held firm and upright by the pressure of her shoulder.

CHAPTER XVI-MOLLY'S STORY

That Friday-gee, shall I ever forget it!-opening so quiet and natural and suddenly bang, in the middle of it, the sort of thing you read in the yellow press.

It was a holiday for me and I was sitting in the upper hall alcove making a blouse and handy to the extension 'phone. Now and then it would ring and I'd pull it over with a weary sigh and hear a female voice full of cultivation and airs ask if Mrs. Janney'd take a hand at bridge, or a male one want to know what Mr. Janney thought about eighteen holes at golf.

It was on for one when it rang again and with a smothered groan-for I was putting on the collar-I jerked it over. _Believe me_, I forgot that blouse! Stiff, like I was turned to stone, I sat there listening, hearing them come, one after another, getting every word of it. When they were through I got up, feeling sort of gone in the middle, and lit out for the stairs. I couldn't have kept away-Bebita disappeared!

"Kidnapped!" I said to myself as I ran along the hall. "Kidnapped!

that's what it is-it's only poor children that get lost."

On the stairs I met Mrs. Janney coming up on the run. It wasn't the speed that made her breath short; but she was on the job, the grand old Roman, with her mouth as straight as the slit in a post box and her face as hard as if it was cut out of granite.

"Go down there," she said, giving a jerk of her head toward the hall below. "Sit there and wait. Something's happened and you may be useful."

I went on down and took a seat. Outside on the balcony I could see Mr.

Janney, wandering about with a hunted look. From the telephone closet came Ferguson's voice telling his chauffeur to bring his car to Gra.s.slands, now, this minute, and enough gasoline for a long run. Then he came out, hooked an armful of coats off the hall rack, and ran past me on to the balcony. He gave the coats to Mr. Janney, who stood holding them, looking after Ferguson wherever he went and quavering questions at him. I don't think Ferguson answered them, but he pulled one of the coats out of the old man's arms and put him into it, quick and efficient. When the motor came up he tried to make Mr. Janney get in, but he wouldn't, standing there, helpless and pitiful, and calling out for Mrs. Janney.

"I'm here, Sam," came her voice from the stairs and she scudded by where I was sitting, tying her motor veil over her hat. She seemed to have forgotten me and I followed her out on to the balcony, not knowing what she wanted me to do. As I stood there Ferguson's big car came shooting up the drive.

She climbed quickly into her own motor, waiting at the bottom of the steps, Mr. Janney scrambled in after her and Ferguson threw a rug over them. They were just starting when she looked up and saw me.

"Oh," she cried, leaning across the old man, "we'll want you-you must come."

Mr. Janney stared bewildered at her and said:

"Why-why should _she_ come?"

"Keep quiet, Sam," then over her shoulder to Ferguson as the car began to move, "Bring Mrs. Babbitts, d.i.c.k. Take her with you."

The car glided off, Mr. Janney's voice floating back:

"But why, why-why do you want _her_?"

Ferguson's motor swung round the oval and came to a halt. The chauffeur jumped out, and, told he wasn't wanted, disappeared. The young man turned to me, not a smile out of him now.

"Come on, get in," he said and then giving a nod at one of the coats lying over a chair, "and bring that with you-it may blow up cold and it's a long run."

I did as I was told-there was something about him that made you do what he said-and jumped in. He came on my heels, snapped the door and we started. Before we got to the gates he speeded the machine up and in a few minutes we were close on the Janney motor which was flying along the woody road at a pace that would have strained the heart of a bicycle cop. Their dust came over us in a cloud, and Mr. Ferguson slowed down, and, his hand resting easy on the wheel, said:

"What does Mrs. Janney want you for?"

I'd hoped he hadn't noticed that, but in case he had I'd an answer ready.