Miss Maitland Private Secretary Part 26

"Suzanne, sit down."

But she went on, looking like a withered old witch, with her bird-like hands clutched on the chair back:

"I won't sit down, I won't keep quiet. I've sat here listening to all this and I've had enough. I'm crazy; my baby's gone; she's taken it, she's taken everything-" She turned to her mother. "She took your jewels-I know it."

Mr. Janney burst in like a bombsh.e.l.l. I never thought he could break loose that way, with his voice shrill and a shaking finger pointing into his stepdaughter's face.

"Stop this. I can't stand for it-I know something about that-I saw-"

But she wouldn't stop, no one could make her:

"I saw too, and I'm going to tell you. I don't care what you say, I don't care what you think of me-my heart's broken and I don't care for anything but to have my baby back." She addressed her mother again. "_I_ went to take your jewels that night. Yes, I did; I went to steal them-not all of them-just that long diamond chain you never wear. _You_ know why; you knew I hadn't any money and that I had to have it. I was going to sell it and put what I got in stocks and if I was lucky buy it back so you'd never know. It was _I_ who took Bebita's torch-that's why it was lost-and I went down to the safe. I'd found the combination in a drawer in the library and learnt it. And when I opened it everything was gone. Some one had been there before me, the cases were all together in their box but they were empty." She clawed at the embroidered purse hanging on her arm and began to jerk at the cord, pulling it open. "But I found something, something the thief had dropped, lying on the floor just inside the door." She drew out a twist of tissue paper, and unrolling it held it toward the Chief; "I found _that_."

He took it, scrutinizing it, puzzled, through his gla.s.ses. Every one of us except Miss Maitland, all standing now, craned forward to see. It was a pointed pink thing about as big as the end of my little finger. The Chief touched it and said:

"It looks like a small rose."

"Yes, a chiffon rosebud," Mrs. Price cried, "and she," pointing to Miss Maitland, "wore a dress that night trimmed with them."

We all turned, as if we were a piece of mechanism worked by the same spring, and stared at Miss Maitland. She sat in the chair, not moving, looking straight before her, weary and indifferent. The Chief held out toward her the piece of paper with the rose on the middle of it.

"Have you a dress trimmed with these?"

She moved her eyes so they rested on the rose, ran her tongue along her lips and said:

"Yes."

"Did you wear it on the night of the robbery?"

"Yes."

"Did you hear what Mrs. Price has just said?"

"Yes."

"What explanation do you make?"

"None-except that I don't know how it got there."

"You deny that you were there yourself that night?"

"Yes-I was never near the safe that night; I haven't the slightest idea how the rose came to be in it; I never took the jewels; I have had nothing to do with Bebita's disappearance; I haven't done any of the things you think I've done. But what's the good of my saying so-what's the good of answering at all?" She dropped her face into her hands, her elbows propped on her knees. The att.i.tude, the tone of her voice, everything about her, suggested an "Oh-what's-the-use!" feeling. From behind her hands the words came dull and listless. "Do anything you like with me; it doesn't make any difference. You think you've got me cornered; that being the case, I'll do whatever you say."

Mrs. Janney made a step toward her:

"Miss Maitland, I'll agree to let the whole matter drop-hush it up and let you go without a word-if you'll tell us where Bebita is."

Without moving her hands the girl answered:

"I can't tell, for I don't know."

Mrs. Price sank into her chair with a loud, sobbing wail. Some one took her away-Mr. George, I think. Then Mr. Janney had his say:

"If you're doing this to protect Price-"

She cut him off with a laugh, at least it was meant to be a laugh, but it was a horrible, harsh sound. As she gave it she lifted her head and cast a look at him, bitter and defiant:

"Protect him! I've no more desire to protect Mr. Price than I have to protect myself."

The Chief's voice fell deep as the church bell at a funeral:

"If you maintain this att.i.tude, Miss Maitland, there's nothing for us to do but let the law take its course. Theft and kidnaping! Those are pretty serious charges."

She nodded:

"I suppose they are. Let the law do whatever it wants; I'm certainly not standing in its way. But as for bribing and frightening me into admitting what isn't true, you can't do it. All your money," she looked at Mrs. Janney and then at the Chief, "and all _your_ threats won't influence me or make me change one word of what I've said."

No one spoke for a minute. She sat silent, her chin on her hands, her eyes staring past them out of the window. I had a feeling that in spite of the position she was in and what they had on her, in a sort of way she had them beaten. Their faces were glum and baffled, even the Chief had an abstracted expression like he was thinking what he ought to do with her. When he spoke it was to the Janneys:

"Since Miss Maitland persists in her present pose of ignorance and denial, the best thing for us is to get together and decide on our course of action." He glanced across at me. "We'll leave you here, Molly. Stay till we come back."

Away they went, a solemn procession, trailing across the room. When the door into the main office opened I could hear Mrs. Price crying, and I watched them, catching Mrs. Janney's words as she disappeared: "Oh, Suzanne, my poor, poor, girl! Don't give up-don't be discouraged-we'll find her!"

It gripped me, made a sort of p.r.i.c.kling come in my nose and a twisty feeling in my under lip. I never could have believed that stern old Roman could have spoken so tender and loving to any one.

When I looked at Miss Maitland I forgot all about suffering mothers.

She'd sunk down in the chair, her head resting against its back, her eyes closed. She was as white as a corpse, and I wheeled about looking round the room for some kind of first aid and muttering, "Gee, she's fainted!"

A whisper came out of her lips:

"Nothing-all right-in a minute."

There was a bottle of distilled water in a corner and I went to it, drew off a gla.s.s and brought it to her. She couldn't hold it and I took her round the shoulders and pulled her up, saying out of the inner depths of me, that's always mushy about anything hurt and forlorn:

"You, poor soul, here take this. I'm sorry for you, and I can't help being sorry that I had to give you away."

I held the gla.s.s to her lips and she drank a little. Then I let her fall back and stood watching her, and I felt mean. She raised her eyes and sent a look into mine that I'll never forget-it made me feel meaner than a yellow dog-for it was the look of a suffering soul.

"Thanks," was all she said.

CHAPTER XXI-SIGNED "CLANSMEN"

The consultation in the office resulted in Esther Maitland being taken to O'Malley's flat in Stuyvesant Square, where his wife and sister agreed to be responsible for her. This course had been decided upon after some heated argument. Suzanne had clamored for her arrest, but the others were still determined to keep the affair out of the public eye, which, if Esther was brought before a magistrate, would have been impossible. The Janneys were more than ever convinced that Price was the prime mover, and the girl's att.i.tude had been prompted by the combined motives of love and gain. George, who knew his father's every phase, noticed that the old man was reserved in his comments, and wondered if his conviction had been shaken by Miss Maitland's desperate denials. But if it was he said nothing, agreeing that with the girl hidden and unable to communicate with the outside world, they could concentrate their attention on Chapman and through him locate the child.