Miss Maitland Private Secretary Part 30

How did he get the rose? As far as I could see there was just one way.

Esther Maitland had spent part of the afternoon of July the seventh altering her evening dress. Ellen had pinned it up on her and she'd taken the waist down to her study to sew on as her room was too hot.

When she'd gone upstairs again-it was Ellen who gave me all this-she'd left part of the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g on the desk. The next morning the parlor maid had given it to Ellen-all cut and picked apart, some of the roses loose in a cardboard box-to put in Miss Maitland's room. It had lain on the desk all night and, in my opinion, the thief had either known it was there or found it, taken the rose, and made his "plant" with it.

Now one man who would be familiar to the dogs and might know Miss Maitland's privileges and habits, was Chapman Price. But it wasn't he, for at nine-thirty, the hour when the thief was busy, Mr. Price was crossing the Queensborough bridge, headed for New York. And anyway, if he hadn't been, you couldn't suspect him of trying to lay the blame on the girl who was his partner. No-Chapman Price was wiped off the map with all the rest of the Gra.s.slands crowd.

When I'd got this far I sat biting my pen handle and sizing it up. A thief, professional, had taken the jewels. He was some one unknown, having no connection with Mr. Price or Miss Maitland. The two crimes that had nearly shaken the Janney family off its throne had been committed by different parties. I was as sure of that as that the sun would rise to-morrow.

After dinner that evening I went out on the balcony and sat there, turning it all over in my head, and looking at the woods, black-edged and solid against the night sky. It was very still, not a breath, and presently, off across the garden, I heard the gravel crunch under a foot, a soft padding on the gra.s.s, and then a long, lean figure came into the brightness that shot out across the drive from the hall behind me-Ferguson.

He dropped down on the top step, settled his back against one of the roof posts, and took out a cigarette case. He was right where the light shone on him, and I could see he had a serious, glum look which made me think he still "had a mad on me" as they say on the east side. That didn't trouble me; people getting mad when they've a reason to never does, and he'd reason enough, poor dear.

Puffing out a long shoot of smoke, he said:

"I've come over to speak to you about that idea of mine-that cigar band I told you about."

"Oh," I answered, "you've got round to that, have you?"

"I have, or perhaps you might say half way around."

"Well, I'm the whole way. I've spent three days getting there."

"I thought you'd beat me to it. What have you arrived at?"

"The certainty that the man who dropped the band was the thief."

"We're agreed at last. Have you gone far enough round to come to a suspect?"

"No, I'm stuck there."

He blew out a ring, watched it float away into the darkness and said:

"So am I. But I've a small, single compartment brain that can't accommodate more than one idea at a time. And it's busy just now in another direction. If you'll put that forty horse-power one of yours on this we ought to get round the whole way." He glanced sideways at me, his eyes full of meaning. "You'll find I can be a very grateful person."

"Grat.i.tude's a kind of pay I like."

"Yes-it's stimulating and it can take more than one form." He flung away the cigarette, leaned back against the post and said: "The worst of it is that our main exhibit, the cigar band, is gone. I looked for it last night and found it was lost."

"Lost!" I sat up quick. He'd told me where he kept it and right off I thought it was funny. "Gone out of that box you had it in?"

"Yes. I wanted to see it when I came in-I'd been in town-and it wasn't in the box."

"Had it been there recently?"

"Um-I can't tell just how recently-perhaps a week ago."

"Did you ask about it?"

"Yes, I asked Willitts. He said he hadn't seen it."

"Didn't you tell me you kept studs and jewelry in that box?"

"I did; that's what it's for. I don't see how he could have helped seeing it. I daresay he did and, thinking it was of no use, threw it away and then, when he saw I wanted it, got scared and lied."

A thing like a zigzag of lightning went through me. It stabbed down from my head to my feet, giving my heart a whack as it pa.s.sed. My voice sounded queer as I spoke:

"He could have known, couldn't he, of that walk you and Miss Maitland took, that walk when you found the band?"

He had been looking, dreamy and indifferent, out into the darkness. Now he turned to me, a little surprised, as if he was wondering at my questions:

"I suppose so. He knew all my crowd up there; they're forever running back and forth from one place to the other. They know everything, and they're the greatest gossips and sn.o.bs in the country. I've no doubt he heard it talked threadbare-the boss walking home with Mrs. Janney's secretary. Probably gave their social sensibilities a jolt."

Something lifted me out of my chair, carried me across the balcony, plunked me down beside him on a lower step. I craned up my head near to his and I'll never forget the expression of his face, sort of blank, as if he wasn't sure whether I'd gone crazy or was going to kiss him.

"Some one who knew the family, some one who knew it was out that night, some one who knew Miss Maitland had the combination, some one who could have got a key to the front door, some one _the dogs were friendly with_!"

He was staring at me as if he was hypnotized-getting a gleam of it but not the full light. I put my hands on his shoulders and gave them a shake.

"You simp, wake up. It's Willitts!"

CHAPTER XXIV-CARDS ON THE TABLE

In spite of Molly's excited certainty that Willitts was the thief, Ferguson was not convinced. He met her impetuous demand for the valet's arrest with a recommendation for a fuller knowledge of his activities on the night of the robbery. Willitts had gone to the movies with the Gra.s.slands servants and if he had been with them the whole evening he was as innocent as Dixon or Isaac. She had to agree and promised to do nothing until she had satisfied herself that his movements tallied with their findings.

Ferguson had a restless night. There was matter on his mind to keep him awake; he was fearful that Suzanne might make some false step. She was at best a s.h.i.+fty, unstable creature, how much more so now strained to the breaking point. He felt he ought to be in town where he could keep her under his eye, and decided to motor in in the morning. Also he began to think that Molly was probably right; she was shrewd and experienced, knew more of such matters than he. He would go to the Whitney office and put the Willitts' affair in their hands, then run up to the St.

Boniface, take a room, and have a look in at Suzanne.

He left the house at nine-thirty, telling the butler he was called to the city on business, and might be gone a day or two. At the Whitney office he was informed that Mr. and Mrs. Janney were in consultation with the heads of the firm, and, saying he would not disturb them, waited in an outer room from whence he telephoned to Suzanne, telling her he would be at the hotel later. When the Janneys had gone he was ushered into the old man's office where he found the air still vibrating with the clash of battle. A combined attack had been made on Mrs. Janney who, under its pressure and the slow undermining of her confidence by a week of failure, had given in and consented to a move on Price. It had been planned for that afternoon, when he was to be summoned to the office, charged with the kidnaping and commanded to render up the child.

Whitney and his son listened to Ferguson's story of the cigar band with unconcealed interest. George, however, was skeptical-it was ingenious and plausible, showed Molly's fine Italian hand; but his mind had accepted the theory of Esther's partic.i.p.ation and was of the unelastic, unmalleable kind. His father was obviously impressed by it, admitting that his original conviction of the girl's guilt had been shaken. To George's indignant rehearsal of the evidence, he accorded a series of acquiescing nods, agreed that the facts were against him and maintained his stand. He would see Willitts as soon as possible and put him through a grilling examination. O'Malley could be sent to Council Oaks at once to bring him in, and his business could be disposed of before they got round to Price. As Ferguson rose to go George had the receiver of the desk telephone down and was giving low-voiced instructions to O'Malley to report immediately at the office.

It was nearly one when the young man found himself on the street level.

There was no use going to the St. Boniface now as the family would be at lunch and speech alone with Suzanne impossible. On the way uptown he stopped at a restaurant, ordered food which he hardly touched, filling out the time with cigarettes. By half-past two he was on the move again, threading a slow way through the traffic, his eye lingering on the clock faces that loomed at intervals along the Avenue. Suzanne had told him that the old people always went for a drive after lunch and he scanned the motors that pa.s.sed him, hoping to see them. He was in no mood for polite conversation-felt with the pa.s.sing of the hours an increasing tension, a gathering of his forces for a leap and a struggle.

At the desk in the St. Boniface he heard that Mr. and Mrs. Janney had just gone out, and waited while Mrs. Price's room was called up. There was no response; Mrs. Price must be out too. The information made him uneasy; she had told him she went nowhere except to Larkin's. More than ever anxious to see her, he engaged a room and left the message that he would be there and to be called up when she came in. The door shut on him, his uneasiness increased; wondering what had taken her out, wondering if she had done anything foolish, cursing the fate that had placed so much in her feeble hands, perturbed and restless as a lion in a cage.

Suzanne had gone to Larkin's, called there by a telephone message. It had come almost on the heels of her parents' departure and was brief-a request to come to him as soon as she could. She had scrambled into her street clothes, and, shaking in every limb, slipped out of the hotel's side door and sped across town in a taxi to hear how Bebita was to be found.

She was hardly inside the door, her veil lifted from a face as pale as Caesar's ghost, when Larkin answered her look of agonized question:

"Yes, the letter's come-what we expect, very clear and explicit. It was sent to me this time-came on the two o'clock delivery."

He turned to the desk and took up a folded paper. Before he could offer it to her, she had leaned forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of his hand.

Instantly her eyes were riveted on the lines: