The Black Eagle Mystery Part 6

The door was opened by a young girl, very neat in a black dress and white ap.r.o.n. She was sure we couldn't speak to Miss Whitehall, but perhaps Mrs. Whitehall would see us and she showed us up the tiny little hall into the dining-room. I'd never have believed a room furnished so plain could be so elegant. There was a square of brown carpet on the floor and ecru linen curtains-no lace, just hemst.i.tched-at the windows and on the side table some silver; yet it had a refined, cla.s.sy look.

Two doors opened from it, one into the hall hung with a blue portiere and double ones that I guessed led into the parlor. We could hear voices coming from there, low and murmuring.

By this time Iola was that nervous she was licking her lips with her tongue like a baby that's had a sugar stick. I was just edging round to give her a dig and whisper, "Brace up," when the curtain into the hall was lifted and a lady came in.

As she was well along in years-near to fifty I'd say-I knew she was Mrs.

Whitehall. She was very dignified and gentle, with black hair turning gray and lots of lines on her forehead and round her eyes, which were dark like her hair and had a sad, weary expression. I guessed she'd been handsome once, but she looked as if she'd had her troubles, and when I heard her voice, low and so quiet, there was something in it that made me feel she was having them still.

I'd promised to be spokesman and not seeing any reason to waste time I went straight to the point. Mrs. Whitehall stood listening, her hands clasped on the back of a chair, her eyes on the little fern plant in the center of the table.

"Perhaps it would be best," she said, in that soft, faded sort of voice, "if Miss Barry were to see my daughter. I hardly know what to say to her."

She turned and left the room by the hall door and Iola gasped at me:

"Oh, Molly, it's true!"

"Don't cross your bridges till you come to them," I said, but all the same, I thought it looked bad.

"What'll I do if the business shuts down?"

"Shut up till you know if it does," I whispered back.

The double doors rolled back and Mrs. Whitehall stood between them. She looked at Iola.

"If you'll come in here, Miss Barry," she said, "my daughter will see you."

It was plain she didn't expect me, so I stood by the table without moving. As Mrs. Whitehall drew back and before Iola got to the doorway, there was a moment when I saw into the room. It looked real artistic, flowered cretonne curtains, wicker chairs with cus.h.i.+ons and low bookcases around the walls, the whole lit up by the yellow glow of lamps. But I wasn't interested in the furniture-what caught my eye was a couch just opposite the open door, on which a woman was lying.

There was a lamp on a stand beside her and its light fell full over her.

If I hadn't known Carol Whitehall was there I'd have guessed right off it was she from the likeness to her mother. She had just the same hair and deep, rich-looking eyes except in her the hair was black as night and the eyes were young. She had a newspaper in her hand and as the doors opened she'd looked up, intent and questioning, and I saw she was beautiful. She was like a picture, leaning forward with that inquiring expression, her features clear in the flood of soft light. I got an impression of her then that I've never forgotten-of force and strength.

It didn't come from anything especial in her face, but from something in her general makeup, something vivid and warm, like she was alive straight through.

They stayed in the room some time while I sat waiting. I'd sized up everything in sight, especially two little gla.s.s lamps on the sideboard that I thought would be a nice present for Babbitts to give me on my next birthday, when the doors slid back and Iola came in. She didn't say anything and seemed in a hurry to be off. Mrs. Whitehall showed us out, very polite but depressed, and when the door was shut on us and we stole down the stairs, I felt the worst had come. In the vestibule I looked at Iola and said: "Well?"

She was struggling with her umbrella, her face bent over it.

"Fired!" she answered in a husky voice.

The rain was coming down in torrents, and wanting to cuddle up comforting against her, I didn't raise my umbrella and we walked up the street, squeezed together, with the downpour spattering around us.

Believe me, the water fell under Iola's umbrella pretty nearly as heavy as it did outside it. Miss Whitehall was broke. Mr. Harland _had_ been her financial backer and now she was ruined and the business would close. The surprise and horror of the whole thing had prostrated her and as soon as she was better she'd wind up the Azalea Woods Estates and try and sublet her offices, on which she had still a six months' lease.

"She was awful sweet," Iola sobbed. "She gave me a full month's salary and said she'd meant to keep me forever. Oh, Molly, why did it have to happen?"

I squeezed her and said:

"That's all right, dearie. We'll all hustle and get you another job. I got lots of money and what's mine's yours-the way it always is between good and true friends."

But Iola wouldn't be comforted.

"I can't take your money. I never took a cent yet. And I thought I was fixed for life. I thought even if the business didn't pan out big she'd marry Mr. Barker and get a place for me."

"Marry Mr. Barker!" I cried out astonished.

"Yes-that's what I thought was coming."

Believe _me_, I was surprised. She'd never dropped a hint of it.

"Why didn't you tell me that before?" I asked.

"Because Tony Ford told me not to. He said I wasn't to tell anybody-that Barker being such a big bug it would get in the papers and that might break it all up."

"But are you _sure_? Did he act like he was in love with her?"

We were pa.s.sing one of those arc lights on Park Avenue, and the scornful look she cast at me, tears and all, was plain.

"Wouldn't you think a man was in love-even if he was a magnate-who'd buy a house and lot just for an excuse to _see_ a lady?"

"Did you ever _hear_ him making love to her?"

"No-but I didn't need to. I've been made love to enough myself to know the signs without hearing. First it was all business, and I believed it was only that. Then, one day when Mr. Ford was out, he came in and lingered round making conversation. You know the way they do it, and for all he was a magnate Mr. Barker was just the same as the errand boy.

That's the way it is with men-they got no variety. He wanted to know about her home and the farm and before that. Oh, Indiana, a fine state, Indiana! It made me laugh to see him with his hook nose and gray hair handing out the same line of talk that Billy Dunn gave me when I was in the linen envelope place."

"Did _she_ seem to care for him?"

"Not at first. She was very formal, just a bow and then right off about the bungalow. But _he_ had the symptoms from the start-looking at her like he couldn't take his eyes off and not caring whether the bungalow was as small as a hencoop or as big as the Waldorf.

"They went along that way for a while then something happened-a fight, I guess when Tony Ford and I weren't there. Anyhow, after it she was so cold and distant you'd wonder he had the nerve to come. Then one afternoon he came in and asked her low-I heard him-if he could have a few words with her in the private office. She hesitated but I guess she couldn't see her way to refusing, so in they went and had a long powwow.

Whatever it was they said to each other it smoothed out all the wrinkles. After that she was as different to him as summer is to winter.

In my own mind I thought they were engaged, for she'd brighten up when he came in and _smile_. I never saw her smile like that at anyone, and once when they thought I couldn't hear I heard him call her 'dear.'

They'd go into the private office and talk. Gee! how they talked! And always low like they were afraid Tony Ford and I might overhear. And on the top of all _that_ he disappears."

"Perhaps that's why she's been sick."

"Sure it is. It's bad enough to lose your own money, but wouldn't it make you sick to lose millions, let alone the man you're in love with, even if he has a nose you could hang an umbrella on?"

"Poor thing!" I said, for I could see now what the lady lying on the couch had been up against.

"We're all poor things," said Iola, beginning to get sorry for herself again. "Miss Whitehall, and the man that's dead, and Tony Ford who's lost his job, and me, poor unfortunate me, that I thought was on velvet for the rest of my days."

Babbitts didn't get home till late that night, but I was so full of what Iola had said that I waited up for him. When he did come, he hadn't but one kiss, when I pulled away from him and told him.

"Doesn't it seem to you, Soapy," I said, "that that story ought to go back to Mr. Whitney?"

He looked at me sideways with a sly, questioning glance.

"Why?" he asked.

"Why, if Barker's in love with her don't you think maybe he'll try and creep back or get in touch with her some way?"