But there were other puzzling matters. Why had Spofford been so long in recollecting that Don Carey had roused the suspicions of the police because of the office he had maintained in the Heberworth Building? Apparently, it had only occurred to him at the end of his rather long conversation with Clancy.
Hadn't Spofford been a little too ingenuous? Could it be that he had some slight suspicion of Don Carey? As a matter of fact, looking at the matter as dispassionately as she could, hadn't Spofford dropped a strong circumstantial case against Clancy Deane on rather slight cause? Against the evidence of her presence in Beiner's office and her flight from the Napoli, Spofford had pitted his own alleged knowledge of human nature. Because Clancy had delayed flight until Wednesday, Spofford had decided that she was innocent. She didn't believe it.
It had all been convincing when Spofford hadsaid it. But now, in view of the fact that she had detected in his apparent sincerity one untruth, she wondered how many others there might be.
Would fear of the Vandervent and Walbrough influence cause him to drop the trail of a woman whom he believed to be a murderess? No, she decided; it would not. Then why had he dropped the belief in her guilt that had animated his actions yesterday?
The answer came clearly to her. Because he felt that he had evidence against some one else. Against Carey? She wondered. If against Carey, why had he gone in search of Clancy at Sally Henderson's office?
But she could answer that. He wanted to hear her story. Finding that she was at the very moment in Don Carey's house had been chance, coincidence. He had known that Garland had not come here to see her; he had known that Garland had come to see Carey. How much did he know? Whatwasthere to know?
Her brain became dizzy. Spofford had certainly not ceased to question the Heberworth Building elevator-man when the man had identified Clancy. Spofford had cunning, at the very lowest estimate of his mental ability. He would have cross-examined Garland. The man might have dropped some hint tying up Carey to the murder. She began to feel that Spofford was not entirely through with her.
There was a way, an almost certain way, now, though, to end her connection with the affair. If she told Philip Vandervent or Judge Walbrough the threat that she had heard Garland utter, the elevator-man would be under examination within a few hours.
Did she want that? Certainly not, just yet. She knew what scandal meant. She doubted if even Sophie Carey, with her apparently unchallenged artistic and social position, could live down the scandal of being the wife of a man accused of murder. She must be fair to Sophie. Indeed, if she were to live up to her own code—it was a code that demanded much but gave more—she must be more than fair to her. Sophie had gotten her work, had dressed her up. She did not like being under obligation to Mrs. Carey. But, having accepted so much, repayment must be made. It would be a shoddy requital of Sophie's generosity for Clancy Deane to run to the police and repeat the threats of a blackmailer.
How did she know that those threats were founded upon any truth? She had heard Garland say that Carey had possessed a key to Beiner's office; she had seen the expression of fright upon Carey's face as Garland made the charge. But fear didn't necessarily imply guilt. Clancy Deane had been a pretty scared young lady several times during the past week, and she was innocent. Don Carey might be just as guiltless.
Of course, Judge Walbrough and his wife had been unbelievably friendly, Vandervent had shown a chivalry that—Clancy sighed slightly—might mask something more personal.Noblesse oblige.But her first obligation was to Sophie Carey. Until her debts were settled to Sophie she need not consider the payment of others. Especially if the payment of those others meant betrayal of Sophie. And an accusation against her husband was, according to Clancy's lights, no less than that.
And so she couldn't make it. There was nothing to prevent her, though, from endeavoring to discover whether or not Don Carey were guilty. If he were—Clancy would pass that bridge when she came to it.
Meantime, she was supposed to be earning a salary of fifty dollars a week. A few minutes ago, she had told Sally Henderson that she had begun checking up the Carey household effects. She had not meant to deceive her employer. She'd work very hard to make up for the delay that her own affairs had caused.
The Careys' house was not "cluttered up," despite the artistic nature of its mistress. Clancy, who knew what good housekeeping meant—in Zenith, a dusty room means a soiled soul—pursed her lips with admiration as she passed from room to room. Two hours she spent, checking Sophie Carey's list. Then she let herself out of the house, locked the front door carefully behind her, and walked over to Sixth Avenue, into the restaurant where she had met Sophie Carey last Thursday morning.
Only that long ago! It was incredible. Whimsically ordering chicken salad, rolls, tea, and pastry, Clancy considered the past few days. It was the first time that she had been able to dwell upon them with any feeling of humor. Now, her analysis of Spofford's words, more than the words themselves, having given her confidence, she looked backward.
She wondered, had always wondered, exactly what was meant by the statement that certain people had "lived." She knew that many summer visitors from the great cities looked down upon the natives ofZenith and were not chary of their opinions to the effect that people merely existed in Zenith.
Yet she wondered if any of these supercilious ones had "lived" as much as had Clancy Deane in the last week. She doubted it. Life, in theargotof the cosmopolitan, meant more than breathing, eating, drinking, and sleeping. It meant experiencing sensation. Well, she had experienced a-plenty, as a Zenither would have said.
From what had meant wealth to her she had dropped to real poverty, to a bewilderment as to the source of to-morrow's dinner. From the quiet of a country town she had been tossed into a moving maze of metropolitan mystery. She, who had envied boys who dared to raid orchards, jealous of their fearlessness of pursuing farmers, had defied a police force, the press——
And she'dlikedit! This was the amazing thing that she discovered about herself. Not once could she remember having regretted her ambitions that had brought her to New York; not a single time had she wished herself back in Zenith. With scandal, jail, even worse, perhaps, waiting her, she'd not weakened.
Once only had she been tempted to flee the city, and then she'd not even thought of going back to Zenith. And she knew perfectly well that had Spofford failed to visit her this morning, and had some super-person guaranteed her against all molestation if she would but return to her Maine home, she would have refused scornfully.
Perhaps, she argued with herself, it was too much to say that she'd enjoyed these experiences, but—she was glad she'd had them. Life hereafter mightbecome a monotonous round of renting furnished apartments and houses; she'd have this week of thrills to look back upon.
She ate her salad hungrily. Paying her check, she walked to Eighth Street and took the street car to Sally Henderson's office. She learned that Judge Walbrough had telephoned once during the forenoon and left a message—which must have been cryptic to Sally Henderson—to the effect that he had met the enemy and they were his.
Clancy assumed that Philip Vandervent had seen Spofford and that the man had told of his visit to Clancy. She wished that Vandervent hadn't told the judge; she'd have liked to surprise him with the news that Spofford, the one person of all the police whom she dreaded, had called off the chase. Oddly, she assumed that the judge and his wife would be as thrilled over anything happening to her as if it had happened to themselves. This very assumption that people were interested in her, loved her, might have been one of the reasons that they were and did. But it is futile to attempt analysis of charm.
She spent the afternoon with Miss Conover, the dressmaker. Business was temporarily slack with Sally Henderson. Until the effects of the blizzard had worn off, not so many persons would go house-hunting. And the kindly interior decorator insisted that Clancy yield herself to Miss Conover's ministrations.
Clancy had an eye for clothes. Although nothing had been completed, of course, she could tell, even in their unfinished state, that she was going to be dressed as she had never, in Zenith, dreamed. Heavenalone knew what it would all cost, but what woman cares what clothing cost? Clancy would have starved to obtain these garments. It is fashionable to jibe at the girl who lunches on a chocolate soda in order that she may dine in a silk dress. "She puts everything on her back," her plain sisters say. But understanding persons respect the girl. While marriage, for the mass, remains a market-place, she does well who best displays the thing she has for sale.
It was a delightful afternoon, even though Miss Conover lost her good nature as her back began to ache from so much bending and kneeling. Clancy went down Fifth Avenue toward the Walbroughs' home walking, not on snow, but on air.
Philip Vandervent had been attracted to her when he saw her in a borrowed frock. When he beheld her in one that fitted her perfectly, without the adventitious aid of pins—— Her smile was most adorable as she looked up at the judge, waiting for her at the head of the stairs. Quite naturally she held up her mouth to be kissed. Clancy unconsciously knew how to win and retain love. It is not done by kisses alone, but kisses play their delightful part. She had never granted them to young men; she had rarely withheld them from dear old men.
Behind the judge stood his wife. Clancy immediately sensed a tenseness in the atmosphere. As she gently released herself from the judge's embrace and slipped into the arms of Mrs. Walbrough, what she sensed became absolute knowledge. For the lips that touched her cheek trembled, and in the eyes of Mrs. Walbrough stood tears.
Clancy drew away from her hostess. She looked at the judge, then back again at Mrs. Walbrough, and then once again at the judge.
"Well?" she demanded.
"It isn't well," said the judge.
"But I thought you knew," said Clancy. "Miss Henderson gave me your message. And that Spofford man saw me to-day, and told me that he didn't believe I had anything to do——" She paused, eyeing the judge keenly. She refused to be frightened. She wasn't going to be frightened again.
"Of course he doesn't! Spofford went to Vandervent this forenoon. But—the newspapers," said the judge.
Clancy's lips rounded with an unuttered "Oh." She sank down upon a chair; her hands dropped limply in her lap.
"What do they know?" she demanded.
The judge's reply was bitter.
"'Know?' Nothing! But a newspaper doesn'thave toknowanything to make trouble! If it merely suspects, that's enough. Look!"
He unfolded an evening newspaper and handed it to Clancy. There, black as ink could make it, spreading the full length of the page, stood the damnable statement,
Her eyes closed. She leaned back in her chair. The full meaning of the head-line, its terrific import, seeped slowly into her consciousness. She knew that any scandal involving a woman is, from a newspaper standpoint, worth treble one without her. One needs to be no analyst to discover this—the fact presents itself too patently in every page of every newspaper. She knew, too, that newspapers relinquish spicy stories regretfully.
Her eyes opened slowly. It was with a physical effort that she lifted the paper in order that she might read. The story was brief. It merely stated that theCourierhad learned, through authentic sources, that the district attorney's office suspected that a woman had killed Beiner, and that it was running down the clues that had aroused its suspicions.
But it was a bold-face paragraph, set to the left of the main article, that drove the color from her cheeks. It was an editorial, transplanted, for greater effect, to the first page. Clancy read it through.
Another murder engages the attention of police, the press, and the public. TheCourier, as set forth in another column, has learned that the authorities possessevidence justifying the arrest of a woman as the Beiner murderess. How long must the people of the greatest city in the world feel that their Police Department is incompetent? It has been New York's proudest boast that its police are the most efficient in the world. That boast is flat and stale now. Too many crimes of violence have been unsolved during the past six months. Too many criminals wander at large. How long must this continue?
Another murder engages the attention of police, the press, and the public. TheCourier, as set forth in another column, has learned that the authorities possessevidence justifying the arrest of a woman as the Beiner murderess. How long must the people of the greatest city in the world feel that their Police Department is incompetent? It has been New York's proudest boast that its police are the most efficient in the world. That boast is flat and stale now. Too many crimes of violence have been unsolved during the past six months. Too many criminals wander at large. How long must this continue?
It was, quite obviously, a partisan political appeal to the prejudices of theCourier's readers. But Clancy did not care about that. The fact of publication, not its reason, interested her. She looked dully up at the judge.
"How did they find out?" she asked.
The judge shrugged.
"That's what Vandervent is trying to find out now. He's quizzing his staff this minute. He meant to be up here this evening. He was to dine with us. He just telephoned. Some one will be 'broken' for giving the paper the tip. But—that doesn't help us, does it?"
Clancy's lips tightened. Her eyes grew thoughtful.
"Still, if that's all the paper knows——"
"We can't be sure of that," interrupted Walbrough. "Suppose that whoever told theCourierreporter what he's printed had happened to tell him a little more. TheCouriermay want a 'beat.' It might withhold the fact that it knew the name of the woman in order that other newspapers might not find her first."
Slowly the color flowed back into Clancy's cheeks. She would not be frightened.
"But Spofford could never have found me if I hadn't gone to Mr. Vandervent's office," she said.
"Spofford may be the man who gave the paper the tip," said the judge.
Clancy sat bolt upright.
"Would he dare?"
The judge shrugged.
"He might. We don't know. The elevator-man might have told a reporter—papers pay well for tips like that, you know. It's not safe here."
The bottom fell out of the earth for Clancy. It was years since she'd had a home. One couldn't term aunt Hetty's boarding-house in Zenith ahome, kindly and affectionate as aunt Hetty had been. She'd only been one night in the Walbroughs' house, had only known them four days. Yet, somehow, she had begun to feel a part of theirménage, had known in her heart, though of course nothing had been said about the matter, that the Walbroughs would argue against almost any reason she might advance for leaving them save one—marriage.
Security had enfolded her. And now she was to be torn from this security. Her mouth opened for argument. It closed without speech. For, after all, scandal didn't threaten her alone; it threatened the Walbroughs. If she were found here by a reporter, the gossip of tongue and print would smirch her benefactors.
"You're right. I'll go," she said. "I'll find a place——"
"'Finda place!'" There was amazement in Mrs. Walbrough's voice; there was more, a hint of indignation. "Why, you're going to our place up in Hinsdale. AndI'mgoing with you."
Youth is rarely ashamed of its judgments. Youth is conceited, and conceit and shame are rarely companions.But Clancy reddened now with shame. She had thought the Walbroughs capable of deserting her, or letting her shift for herself, when common decency should have made her await explanation. They would never know her momentary doubt of them, but she could never live long enough, to make up for it.
Yet she protested.
"I—I can't. You—you'll be involved."
The judge chuckled.
"Seems to me, young lady, that it's rather late for the Walbroughs to worry about being involved. We're in, my dear, up to our slim, proud throats. And if we were certain of open scandal, surely you don't think that would matter?" he asked, suddenly reproachful.
Clancy dissembled.
"I think that you both are the most wonderful, dearest—— You make me want to cry," she finished.
The judge squared his shoulders. A twinkle stood in his eye.
"It's a way I have. The women always weep over me."
His wife sniffed. She spoke to Clancy.
"The man never can remember his waist-measurement."
The judge fought hard against a grin.
"My wife marvels so at her good luck in catching me that she tries to make it appear that she didn't catch much, after all."
Mrs. Walbrough sniffed again.
"'Luck?' In catching you!"
The judge became urbane, bland, deprecatory.
"I beg pardon, my dear. Not luck—skill."
Mrs. Walbrough's assumption of scorn left her. Her laugh joined Clancy's. Clancy didn't realize just then how deftly the judge had steered her away from possible tears, and how superbly Mrs. Walbrough had played up to her husband's acting.
She put one hand in the big palm of the judge and let her other arm encircle Mrs. Walbrough's waist.
"If I should say, 'Thank you,'" she said, "it would sound so pitifully little——"
"So you'll just say nothing, young woman," thundered the judge. "You'll eat some dinner, pack a bag, and you and Maria'll catch the eight-twenty to Hinsdale. You won't be buried there. Lots of people winter there. Maria and I used to spend lots of time there before she grew too old to enjoy tobogganing. But I'm not too old. I'll be up to-morrow or the next day, to bring you home. For the real murdererwillbe found. Hemustbe!"
Not merely then, but half a dozen times through the meal that followed, Clancy resisted the almost overpowering temptation to tell what she had overheard being said in the Carey dining-room. It wasn't fair to the Walbroughs to withhold information. On the other hand, she must be more than fair to Sophie. Before she spoke, she must know more.
But how, immured in some country home, was she to learn more? Yet she could not refuse flight without an explanation. And the only explanation would involve Don Carey, the husband of the woman who had been first in New York to befriend her.
She couldn't tell—yet. She must have time to think, to plan. And so she kept silence. Had shebeen able to read the future, perhaps she would have broken the seal of silence; perhaps not. One is inclined to believe that she would have been sensible enough to realize that even knowledge of the future cannot change it.
For millions of us can in a measure read the future, yet it is unchanged. We know that certain consequences inevitably follow certain actions. Yet we commit the actions. We know that result follows cause, yet we do not eliminate the cause. If we could be more specific in our reading than this, would our lives be much different? One is permitted doubts.
The train, due to the traffic disturbances caused by the blizzard, left the Grand Central several minutes behind its scheduled time. It lost more timeen route, and the hour was close to midnight when Clancy and Mrs. Walbrough emerged from the Hinsdale station and entered a sleigh, driven by a sleepy countryman who, it transpired, was the Walbrough caretaker. It was after midnight, and after a bumpy ride, that the two women descended from the sleigh and tumbled up the stairs that led to a wide veranda. The house was ablaze in honor of their coming. It was warm, too, not merely from a furnace, but from huge open fires that burned down-stairs and in the bedroom to which Clancy was assigned.
The motherly wife of the caretaker had warm food and hot drink waiting them, but Clancy hardly tasted them. She was sleepy, and soon she left Mrs. Walbrough to gossip with her housekeeper while she tumbled into bed.
Sleep came instantly. Hardly, it seemed, had her eyes closed before they opened. Through the raisedwindow streamed sunlight. But Clancy was more conscious of the cold air that accompanied it. It was as cold here as it was in Maine. At least, it seemed so this morning. She was quite normal. She was not the sort of person who leaps gayly from bed and performs calisthenics before an opened window in zero weather. Instead, she snuggled down under the bedclothes until her eyes and the tip of her nose were all that showed. One glimpse of her breath, smoky in the frosty air, had made a coward of her.
But sometimes hopes are realized. Just as she had made up her mind to brave the ordeal and arise and close the window, she heard a knock upon the door.
"Come in. Oh,pul-leasecome in!" she cried.
Mrs. Walbrough entered, followed by the housekeeper, who, Clancy had learned last night, was named Mrs. Hebron. Mrs. Walbrough closed the window, chaffing Clancy because a Maine girl should mind the cold, and Mrs. Hebron piled wood in the fireplace. By the time that Clancy emerged from the bathroom—she hated to leave it; the hot water in the tub made the whole room pleasantly steamy—her bedroom was warm. And Mrs. Walbrough had found somewhere a huge bath robe of the judge's which swamped Clancy in its woolen folds.
There were orange juice and toast and soft-boiled eggs and coffee made as only country people can make it. It had been made, Clancy could tell from the taste, by puttingplentyof coffee in the bottom of a pot, by filling the pot with cold water, by letting it come to a boil, removing it after it had bubbled one minute, and serving it about ten seconds afterthat. All this was set upon a table drawn close to the fire.
"Why," said Clancy aloud, "did I ever imagine that I didn't care for the country in the winter?"
Mrs. Walbrough laughed.
"You're a little animal, Clancy Deane," she accused.
"I'll tell the world I am," said Clancy. She laughed at Mrs. Walbrough's expression of mock horror. "Oh, we can be slangy in Zenith," she said.
"What else can you be in Zenith?" asked Mrs. Walbrough.
Clancy drained her cup of coffee. She refused a second cup and pushed her chair away from the table. She put her feet, ridiculous in a huge pair of slippers that also belonged to the judge, upon the dogs in the fireplace. Luxuriously she inhaled the warmth of the room.
"What else can we be?" she said.
She had talked only, it seemed, about her troubles these past few days. Now, under the stimulus of an interested listener, she poured forth her history, her hopes, her ambitions. And, in return, Mrs. Walbrough told of her own life, of her husband's failure to inherit the vast fortune that he had expected, how, learning that speculation had taken it all from his father, he had buckled down to the law; how he had achieved tremendous standing; how he had served upon the bench; how he had resigned to accept a nomination for the Senate; how, having been defeated—it was not his party's year—he had resumed the practise of law, piling up a fortune that, though not vast to the sophisticated, loomed large to Clancy. They were still talking at luncheon, and throughit. After the meal Hebron announced that there would be good tobogganing outside after the course had been worn down a little. To Clancy's delighted surprise, Mrs. Walbrough declared that she had been looking forward to it. Together, wrapped in sweaters and with their feet encased in high moccasins—they were much too large for Clancy—they tried out the slide.
The Walbrough house was perched upon the top of a wind-swept hill. The view was gorgeous. On all sides hills that could not be termed mountains but that, nevertheless, were some hundreds of feet high, surrounded the Walbrough hill. A hundred yards from the front veranda, at the foot of a steep slope, was a good-sized pond. Across this the toboggan course ended. And because the wind had prevented the snow from piling too deeply, the toboggan, after a few trials, slid smoothly, and at a great pace, clear across the pond.
It was dusk before they were too tired to continue. Breathlessly, Mrs. Walbrough announced that she would give a house-party as soon as—— She paused. It was the first reference to the cause of their being there that had passed the lips of either to-day. Both had tacitly agreed not to talk about it.
"Let's hope it won't be long," said Clancy. "To drag you away from the city——"
"Tush, tush, my child," said Mrs. Walbrough.
Clancy tushed.
It was at their early dinner that the telephone-bell rang. Clancy answered it. It was Vandervent. He was brisk to the point of terseness.
"Got to see you. Want to ask a few questions.I'll take the eight-twenty. Ask Mrs. Walbrough if she can put me up?"
Mrs. Walbrough, smiling, agreed that she could. Clancy told Vandervent so. He thanked her. His voice lost its briskness.
"Are you—eh—enjoying yourself?"
Clancy demurely replied that she was. "I wish you had time for some tobogganing," she ventured.
"Do you really?" Vandervent was eager. "I'll make time—I—I'll see you to-night, Miss Deane."
Clancy smiled with happy confidence at the things that Vandervent had not said. She played double solitaire with her hostess until eleven o'clock. Then Mrs. Hebron entered with the information that her husband had developed a sudden chest-cold, accompanied by fever, and that she really dreaded letting him meet the train.
Clancy leaped to the occasion. She pooh-poohed Mrs. Walbrough's protests. As if, even in these motorful days, a Zenith girl couldn't hitch an old nag to a sleigh and drive a few rods. And she wouldn't permit Mrs. Walbrough to accompany her, either. Alone, save for a brilliant moon, a most benignant moon, she drove down the hill and over the snow-piled road to the Hinsdale station.
It was a dreamy ride; she was going to meet a man whose voice trembled as he spoke to her, a man who was doing all in his power to save her from dangers, a man who was a Vandervent, one of the greatpartisof America. Yet it was as a man, rather than as a Vandervent, that she thought of him.
So, engrossed with thoughts of him, thoughts that submerged the memory of yesterday's paper, that made her forget that she had seen no paper to-day,she gave the old horse his head, and let him choose his own path. Had she been alert, she would have seen the men step out from the roadside, would have been able to whip up her horse and escape their clutch. As it was, one of them seized the bridle. The other advanced to her side.
"So you've followed me up here," he said. "Spying on me, eh?"
The moonlight fell upon the face of the man who held the horse's head. It was Garland. The man who spoke to her was Donald Carey. She had not known before that Hinsdale was in Dutchess County.
Clancy was afraid—like every one else—of the forces of law and order. She was afraid of that menacing thing which we call "society." To feel that society has turned against one, and is hunting one down—that is the most terrible fear of all. Clancy had undergone that fear during the past week. Panic had time and again assailed her.
But the panic that gripped her now was different. It was the fear of bodily injury. And, because Clancy had real courage, the color came back into her cheeks as swiftly as it had departed. More swiftly, because, with returning courage, came anger.
Clancy was not a snob; she would never be one. Yet there is a feeling, born of legitimate pride, that makes one consciously superior to others. Clancy held herself highly. A moment ago, she had been dreaming, triumphantly, of a man immeasurably superior in all ways to these two men who detained her. That this man should anticipate seeing her—and she knew that he did—raised her in her own self-esteem. That these two men here dared stop her progress, for any reason whatsoever, lowered her.
She was decent. These two men were not. Yet one of them held her horse's head, and the other hand was stretched out toward her. They dared, by deed and verbal implication, to threaten her. Her pride, just and well founded, though based on no record of material achievement, would have made her brave,even though she had lacked real courage. Although, as a matter of fact, it is hard to conceive of real courage in a character that has no pride.
Carey's left hand was closing over her right forearm. With the edge of her right hand, Clancy struck the contaminating touch away. She was a healthy girl. Hours of tobogganing to-day had not exhausted her. The blow had vigor behind it. Carey's hand dropped away from her. With her left hand, Clancy jerked the reins taut. A blow of the whip would have made Garland relinquish his grasp of the animal. But Clancy did not deliver it then.
No man, save Beiner, had ever really frightened her. And it had not been fear of hurt that had animated her sudden resistance toward the theatrical agent; it had been dread of contamination. She had been born and bred in the country. In Zenith, the kerosene street-lamps were not lighted on nights when the moon was full. Sometimes it rained, and then the town was dark. Yet Clancy had never been afraid to walk home from a neighbor's house.
So now, indignant, and growing more indignant with each passing second, she made no move toward flight. Instead, she asked the immemorial question of the woman whose pride is outraged.
"How dare you?" she demanded.
Carey stared at her. He rubbed his forearm where the hard edge of her palm had descended upon it. His forehead, Clancy could vaguely discern, in the light that the snow reflected from a pale moon, was wrinkled, as though with worry.
"Some wallop you have!" he said. "No need of getting mad, is there?"
Had Clancy been standing, she would have stamped her foot.
"'Mad?' What do you mean by stopping me?" she cried.
"'Mean?'" Behind his blond mustache the weakness of Carey's mouth was patent. "'Mean?' Why—" He drew himself up with sudden dignity. "Any reason," he asked, "why I shouldn't stop and speak to a friend of my wife's?"
Suddenly Clancy wished that she had lashed Garland with the whip, struck the horse with it, and fled away. She realized that Carey was drunk. He was worse than drunk; he was poisoned by alcohol. The eyes that finally met hers were not the eyes of a drunkard temporarily debauched; they were the eyes of a maniac.
Her impulse to indignation died away. She knew that she must temporize, must outwit the man who stood so close to where she sat. For she realized that she was in as great danger as probably she would ever be again.
Danger dulls the mind of the coward. It quickens the wit of the brave. The most consummate actress would have envied Clancy the laugh that rang as merrily true as though Carey, in a ballroom, had reminded her of their acquaintance and had begged a dance.
"Why, it'syou, Mr. Carey! How silly of me!"
Carey stepped back a trifle. His hat swung down in his right hand, and he bowed, exaggeratedly.
"'Course it is. Didn't you know me?"
Clancy laughed again.
"Why should I? I never expected to find you walking along a road like this."
"Why shouldn't you?" Carey's voice was suddenly suspicious. "Y' knew I was coming up here, didn't you?"
"Why, no," Clancy assured him. "You see Dutchess County doesn't mean anything to me. Mrs. Carey said that you were going to Dutchess County, but that might as well have been Idaho for all it meant to me. Where is Mrs. Carey?" he asked.
"Oh, she's all right. Nev' min' about her." He swayed a trifle, and seized the edge of the sleigh for support. "Point is"—and he brought his face nearer to hers, staring at her with inflamed eyes—"what are you doin' up here if you didn't know I was here?"
"Visiting the Walbroughs," said Clancy. She pretended to ignore his tone.
"Huh! Tell me somethin' I don't know," said Carey. "Don't you suppose I knowthat? Ain't Sam and I been watchin' you tobogganing with that fat old Walbrough dame all afternoon?"
"Why didn't you join us?" asked Clancy.
"Join you? Join you?" Carey's eyes attempted cunning; they succeeded in crossing. "Thass justit! Didn't want to join you. Didn't want you to sus—suspect—" His hand shook the sleigh. "You come right now and tell me what you doin' here?"
"Why, I've told you!" said Clancy.
"Yes; you'vetoldme," said Carey scornfully. "But that doesn't mean that I believe you. Where you going now?"
"To the railroad station," Clancy answered.
"What for?" demanded Carey.
Clancy's muscles tightened; she sat bolt upright. Nogrande dame's tones could have been icier.
"You are impertinent, Mr. Carey."
"'Impertinent!'" cried Carey. "I asked you a question; answer it!"
"To meet Mr. Vandervent," Clancy told him. She could have bitten her tongue for the error of her judgment.
Carey's hand let go of the side of the seat. He stepped uncertainly back a pace.
"What's he doing up here? What you meeting him for? D'ye hear that, Garland?" he cried.
The elevator-man of the Heberworth Building still stood at the horse's head. He was smoking a cigarette now, and Clancy could see his crafty eyes as he sucked his breath inward and the tip of the cigarette glowed.
"Ain't that what I been tellin' you?" he retorted. "Didn't Spofford go into your house yesterday and stay there with her an hour or so? Wasn't I watchin' outside? And ain't he laid off her? Didn't he tell me to keep my trap closed about seein' her go to Beiner's office? Ain't he workin' hand in glove with her?"
Carey wheeled toward Clancy.
"You hear that?" he demanded shrilly. "And still you try to fool me. You think I killed Beiner, and—" His voice ceased. He licked his lips a moment. When he spoke again, there was infinite cunning in his tone.
"You don't think anything foolish like that, now, do you?" He came a little closer to the sleigh. His left hand groped, almost blindly, it seemed to Clancy, for the edge of the seat again. "Why, even if Morris and I did have a little row, any one that knows me knows I'm a gentleman and wouldn't kill him for a little thing like his saying he——"
"Lay off what he said and you said," came the snarling voice of Garland. "Stick to what you intended saying."
"Don't use that tone, Garland," snapped Carey. "Don't you forget, either, that I'm a—I'm a—gentleman. I don't want any gutter-scum dicta—dictating to me." He spoke again to Clancy. "You're a friend of my wife," he said. "Just wanted to tell you, in friendly way, that friend of my wife don't mean a single thing to me. I want to be friendly with every one, but any one tries to put anything over on me going to get theirs. 'Member that!"
"Aw, get down to cases!" snarled Garland. There was something strange in the voice of the man at the horse's head. There was a snarling quaver in it that was not like the drunken menace of Carey.
Suddenly Clancy knew; she had never met a drug fiend in her life—and yet she knew. Also, she knew that what Don Carey, even maniacally drunk, might not think of doing, the undersized elevator-man from the Heberworth Building would not hesitate to attempt.
Common sense told her that these two men had stopped her only for a purpose. They had watched her to-day. They knew that she was on her way to meet Philip Vandervent. They were reading into that meeting verification of their suspicions.
And they were suspicious, because—she knew why. Carey had killed Beiner. Garland knew of the crime. Garland had blackmailed Carey; Garland feared that exposure of Carey would also expose himself as cognizant of the crime. So they were crazed, one from drink, the other from some more evil cause. No thought of risk would deter them. It was incrediblethat they would attack her, and yet——
"Now, listen, lady," came the voice of Garland: "We don't mean no harm to you. Get me?"
Incredibly, crazed though the man's voice was, Clancy believed him.
"What do you mean?" she demanded.
"We just want a little time, Carey and me. We want you to promise to keep your mouth shut for a week or so; that's all. Your word'll be good with us."
Again Clancy believed him. But now she was able to reason. She believed Garland, because he meant what he said. But—would he mean what he said five minutes from now? And, then, it didn't matter to her whether or not the man would mean it five years from now. He was attempting to dictate to her, Clancy Deane, who was on her way to meet Philip Vandervent, she who had received flowers from Philip Vandervent only yesterday.
Vandervent was a gentleman. Would he temporize? Would he give a promise that in honor he should not give?
Where there had been only suspicion, there was now certainty. Sheknewthat Don Carey had killed Morris Beiner. On some remote day, she would ponder on the queer ways of fate, on the strange coincidences that make for what we call "inevitability." With, so far as she knew, no evidence against him, Don Carey had convicted himself.
He was a murderer. By all possible implication, Carey had confessed, and Garland had corroborated the confession. And they asked her to become party to a murder!
She would never again be as angry as she wasnow. It seemed to her inflamed senses that they were insulting not merely herself but Vandervent also. They were suggesting that she was venal, capable of putting bodily safety above honesty. And, in belittling her, they belittled the man who had, of all the women in the world, selected her. For now, in the stress of the moment, it was as though Vandervent's flowers had been a proposal. She fought not merely for herself, but, by some queer quirk of reasoning, for the man that she loved.
Her left hand held whip and reins. She dropped the reins, she rose to her feet and lashed savagely at Garland's head. She heard him scream as the knotted leather cut across his face. She saw him stagger back, relinquishing his hold of the bridle. She turned. Carey's two hands sought for her; his face was but a yard away, and into it she drove the butt of the whip. He, too, reeled back.
Her hand went above her head and the lash descended, swishingly, upon the side of the horse. There was a jerk forward that sat her heavily down upon the seat. A sidewise twist, as the animal leaped ahead, almost threw her out of the sleigh. She gripped at the dashboard and managed to right herself. And then the sleigh went round a bend in the road.
The snow was piled on the left-hand side. The horse, urged into the first display of spirits that, probably, he had shown in years, bore to the left. The left runner shot into the air. Clancy picked herself out of a snow-drift on the right-hand side as the horse and sleigh careened round another turn.
For a moment, she was too bewildered to move. Then she heard behind her the curses of the twomen. She heard them plunging along the heavy roadway, calling to each other to make haste.
She was not panicky. Before her was a narrow roadway, branching away from the main highway. Up it she ran, as swiftly as her heavily-shod feet—she wore overshoes that Mrs. Hebron had pressed upon her—could carry her over the rough track.
Round a corner she glimpsed lights. A house stood before her. She raced toward it, her pace slackening as a backward glance assured her that Garland and Carey must be pursuing the empty sleigh, for they certainly were not following her.
But the horse might stop at any moment. He was an aged animal, probably tired of his freedom already. Then the two men would turn, would find her tracks leading up this road. She refused to consider what might happen then. One thing only she knew—that she had justified herself by refusing to treat with them. It was an amazingly triumphant heart that she held within her bosom. She felt strangely proud of herself.
Across a wide veranda she made her way. She rang a door-bell, visible under the veranda-light. She heard footsteps. Now she breathed easily. She was safe. Carey and Garland, even though they discovered her tracks, would hardly follow her into this house.
Then the door opened and she stood face to face with Sophie Carey.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Mrs. Carey held out her hand.
"Why, Miss Deane!" she gasped.
Perfunctorily Clancy took the extended fingers. She stepped inside.
"Lock the door!" she ordered.
Sophie Carey stared at her. Mechanically she obeyed. She stared at her guest.
"Why—why—what's wrong?" she demanded. Her voice shook, and her eyes were frightened.
Clancy's eyes clouded. She wanted to weep. Not because of any danger that had menaced her—that might still menace her—not because of any physical reaction. But Sophie Carey had befriended her, and Sophie Carey was in the shadow of disgrace. And she, Clancy Deane,musttell the authorities.
"Your husband——" she began.
Mrs. Carey's face hardened. Into her eyes came a flame.
"He—he's dared to——"
There was a step on the veranda outside. Before Clancy could interfere, Sophie had strode by her and thrown open the door. Through the entrance came Carey, his bloodshot eyes roving. In his hand he held a revolver.
Until she died, Clancy would hold vividly, in memory, the recollection of this scene. Just beyond the threshold Carey stopped. His wife, wild-eyed, leaned against the door which she had closed, her hand still on the knob.
For a full minute, there was silence. Clancy forgot her own danger. She was looking upon the most dramatic thing in life, the casting-off by a woman of a man whom she had loved, because she has found him unworthy.
Not that Sophie Carey, just now—or later on, for that matter—stooped to any melodramatic utterance. But her eyes were as expressive as spoken sentences. Into them first crept fear—a fear that was different from the alarm that she had shown when Clancy had mentioned her husband. But the fear vanished, was banished by the fulness of her contempt. Her eyes, that had been wide, now narrowed, hardened, seemed to emit sparks of ice.
Contemptuous anger heightened her beauty. Rather, it restored it. For, when Clancy had staggered into the house, the beauty of Sophie Carey, always a matter of coloring and spirits rather than of feature, had been a memory. She had been haggard, wan, sunken of cheek, so pale that her rouge had made her ghastly by contrast.
But now a normal color crept into her face. Not really normal, but, induced by the emotions that swayed her, it was the color that should alwayshave been hers. It took years from her age. Her figure had seemed heavy, matronly, a moment ago. But now, as her muscles stiffened, it took on again that litheness which, despite her plumpness, made her seem more youthful than she was.
But it was the face of her husband that fascinated Clancy. Below his left eye, a bruise stood out, crimson. Clancy knew that it was from the blow that she had struck with the butt of the whip. She felt a certain vindictive pleasure at the sight of it. Carey's mouth twitched. His blond mustache looked more like straw than anything else. Ordinarily, it was carefully combed, but now the hairs that should have been trained to the right stuck over toward the left, rendering him almost grotesque. Below it, his mouth was twisted in a sort of sneer that made its weakness more apparent than ever.
His hat was missing; snow was on his shoulders, as though, in his pursuit, he had stumbled headlong into the drifts. And his tie was undone, his collar opened, as though he had found difficulty in breathing. The hand that held the revolver shook.
Before the gaze of the two women, his air of menace vanished. The intoxication that, combined with fear, had made him almost insane, left him.
"Why—why—musta scared you," he stammered.
Sophie Carey stepped close to him. Her fingers touched the revolver in his hand. Her husband jerked it away. Its muzzle, for a wavering moment, pointed at Clancy. She did not move. She was not frightened; she was fascinated. She marveled at Sophie's cool courage. For Mrs. Carey reached again for the weapon. This time, Carey did not resist; he surrendered it to her. Then Clancy understoodhow tremendous had been the strain, not merely for her but for Sophie. The older woman would have fallen but for the wall against which her shoulders struck. But her voice was steady when she spoke.
"I suppose that there's some explanation, Don?"
Clancy wondered if she would ever achieve Sophie's perfect poise. She wondered if it could be acquired, or if people were born with it. It was not pretense in Sophie Carey's case, at any rate. The casualness of her tone was not assumed. Somehow, she made Clancy think of thosegrandes damesof the French Revolution who played cards as the summons to the tumbrils came, and who left the game as jauntily as though they went to the play.
For Clancy knew that Sophie Carey had forgiven her husband the other day for the last time; that hope, so far as he was concerned, was now ashes in her bosom forever. To a woman of Mrs. Carey's type, this present humiliation must make her suffer as nothing else in the world could do. Yet, because she was herself, her voice held no trace of pain.
"'Explanation?'" Carey was mastered by her self-control. "Why—course there is! Why——" He took the refuge of the weak. He burst into temper. "'Course there is!" he cried again. "Dirty little spy! Trying to get me in bad. Stopped her—wanted to scare her——"
"Don!" His wife's voice stopped his shrill utterance.
She straightened up, no longer leaning against the wall for support. "You stopped her? Why?" She raised her hand, quelling his reply. "No lies, Don; I want the truth."
Carey's mouth opened; it shut again. He looked hastily about him, as though seeking some road for flight. He glanced toward the revolver that his wife held. For a moment Clancy thought that he would spring for it. But if he held such thought, he let it go, conquered by his wife's spirit.
"'The truth?'" He tried to laugh. "Why—why, Miss Deane's got some fool idea that I killed Morris Beiner, and I wanted to—I wanted to——"
"'Beiner?' 'Morris Beiner?'" Sophie was bewildered.
"Theatrical man. You read about it in the papers." Again Carey tried to laugh, to seem nonchalantly amused. "Because I had an office in the same building, she got the idea that I killed him. I just wanted her to quit telling people about me. Just a friendly little talk—that's all I wanted with her."
"'Friendly?' With this?" Mrs. Carey glanced down at the weapon in her hand.
"Well, I just thought maybe that she'd scare easy, and——"
"Don!" The name burst explosively from his wife's lips. Her breath sucked in audibly through her parted lips.
Carey stepped back, away from her.
"Why—why——"
"A murderer," cried Mrs. Carey.
"It's a lie!" said Carey. "We had a li'l fight, but——"
Mrs. Carey glanced at Clancy.
"How did you know?" she whispered.
Clancy shook her head. She made no reply. Sophie Carey didn't want one. She spoke only asone who has seen the universe shattered might utter some question.
"Why?" demanded Mrs. Carey.
"He butted in on some business of——"
"I don't mean that," she interrupted. "I mean—isn't there anything of a man left in you, Donald? I don't care why you killed this man Beiner. But why, having done something for which a price must be paid, you attack a woman——"
She slumped against the wall again. The hand holding the revolver dangled limply at her side. So it was that it was easily snatched from her hand.
Clancy had been too absorbed in the scene to remember Garland. Sophie Carey, apparently, knew nothing of the man. The snow had been swept from the veranda only in front of the door. It muffled the elevator-man's approach to one of the French windows in the living-room, off the hall, in which the three stood. Garland crept to the door, sized up the situation, and, with a bound, was at Sophie's side. He leaped away from her, flourishing the weapon.
"'S all right, Carey! We got 'em!" he shouted.
Clancy had become used to the unexpected. Yet Carey's action surprised her. In a moment when danger menaced as never before, danger passed away. Carey had been born a gentleman. He had spent his life trying to forget the fact. But instinct is stronger than our will. He could lie, could murder even, could kill a woman. But a gutter-rat like Garland could not lay a hand on his wife.
The elevator-man, never having known the spark of breeding, could not have anticipated Carey's move. The revolver was wrested from him, and he was on hands and knees, hurled there by Carey's punch,without quite knowing what had happened, or why.
Carey handed the revolver to his wife. She accepted it silently. The husband turned to Garland.
"Get out," he said.
His voice was quiet. All the hysteria, all the madness had disappeared from it. It had the ring of command that might always have been there had the man run true to his creed. He was a weakling, but weakness might have been conquered.
Garland scrambled to his feet. Sidewise, fearful lest Carey strike him again, his opened mouth expressing more bewilderment than anger, he sidled past Carey to the door, which the latter opened. He bounded swiftly through, and Carey closed the door. The patter of the man's feet was heard for a moment on the veranda. Then he was gone.
"Thank you, Don," said Sophie quietly.
It was, Clancy felt, like a scene from some play. It was unreal, unbelievable, only—it was also dreadfully real.
"Don't suppose the details interest you, Sophie?" said Carey.
She shook her head.
"I'm sorry, Don."
He shrugged. "That's more than I have any right to expect from you, Sophie."
His enunciation was no longer thick; it was extremely clear. His wife's lower lip trembled slightly.
"There—there isn't any way——"
He shook his head.
"I've been drinking like a fish, and thought there was. I—I'm not a murderer, Sophie. I almost was—a few minutes ago. But Beiner—just a rat who interfered with me. I—I—you deserved something decent,Sophie. You got me. I deserved something rotten, and—I got you. And didn't appreciate— Oh, well, you aren't interested. And it's too late, anyway."
He smiled debonairly. His lips, Clancy noticed, did not tremble in the least. Though she only vaguely comprehended what was going on, less she realized that, in some incomprehensible fashion, Don Carey was coming into his own, that whatever indecencies, wickednesses, had been in the man, they were leaving him now. Later on, when she analyzed the scene, she would understand that Carey had spiritually groveled before his wife, and that, though she could not love him, could not respect him, despite all the shame he had inflicted upon her, she had forgiven him. But of this there was no verbal hint. Carey turned to her.
"Insanity covers many things, Miss Deane. It would be kind of you, if you are able, to think of me as insane."
He stepped toward his wife. She shrank away from him.
"I'm not going to be banal, Sophie," he told her. "Just let me have this." From her unresisting fingers he took the revolver. He put it in his coat pocket. He shrugged his shoulders. "I've had lucid moments, even in the past week," he said, "and in one of them I knew what lay ahead. It's all written down—in the steel box up-stairs, Sophie. It—it will save any one else—from being suspected." He turned and his hand was on the door-knob.
"Don!" Sophie's voice rose in a scream. The aplomb that had been hers deserted her. Strangely, Carey seemed the dominating figure of the two, andthis despite the fact that he was beaten—beaten by his wife's own sheer stark courage.
He turned back. The smile that he gave to his wife was reminiscent of charm. Clancy could understand how, some years ago, the brilliant and charming Sophie Carey had succumbed to that smile. Slowly he shook his head.
"Sophie, you've been the bravest thing in the world. You aren't going to be a coward now."
He was through the door, and it slammed behind him before his wife moved. Then she started for the door. She made only one stride, and then she slumped, to lie, a huddled heap, upon the hallway floor.
How long Clancy stood there she couldn't have told. Probably not more than a few seconds, yet, in her numbed state, it seemed hours before she moved toward the unconscious woman. For she thought that Sophie Carey was dead. It was a ridiculous thought, nevertheless it was with dread that she finally bent over the prostrate figure. Then, seeing the bosom move she screamed.
From up-stairs Ragan, the chauffeur, Jack-of-all-trades whom she had seen at the Carey house in New York the other day, came running. His wife followed. Together they lifted Mrs. Carey and bore her to a couch in the living-room. But no restoratives were needed. Her eyes opened almost immediately. They cleared swiftly and she sat up.
"Ragan!"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Mr. Don!"
"Yes, ma'am."
"He—he—has a revolver. He's—outside—somewhere——"
"I'll find him, ma'am."
There seemed to be no need for explanation. Ragan's white face showed that he understood. And now Clancy, amazed that she had not comprehended before, also understood. Her hands went swiftly up over her eyes as though to shut out some horrible sight. The fact that Don Carey had pursued her half an hour ago with murderous intent was of no importance now.
She heard Ragan's heavy feet racing across the room and out of the house. She heard the piteous wail from Mrs. Ragan's mouth. Then, amazed, as she removed her hands from her eyes, she saw Sophie Carey, mistress of herself again, leap from the couch and race to a window, throwing it open.
"Ragan," she called. "Ragan!"
"Ma'am?" faintly, from the darkness, Ragan answered.
"Come here." Firm, commanding, Sophie Carey's voice brooked no refusal.
"Coming, ma'am," called Ragan.
A moment later he was in the living-room again.
"Ragan, go up-stairs," commanded his mistress.
The man looked his surprise.
"But, ma'am, Mr. Donald——"
"Must be given his chance, Ragan," she interrupted.
"'His chance,' ma'am? Him carryin' a revolver?"
"There are worse things than revolvers, Ragan," said his mistress.
"Oh, my darlin' Miss Sophie," cried his wife.
She turned on them both.
"They'll capture him. They'll put him in jail. They'll sentence him— It's his way out. It mustn't—itmustn'tbe taken from him!" Her voice rose to a scream. She held out her arms to Clancy. "Don't let them—don't let them—" She could not finish; once again she tumbled to the floor.
Uncertainly, the servants looked at Clancy. It was the first time in her life that Clancy had come face to face with a great problem. Her own problem of the past week seemed a minor thing compared with this.
She knew that what Don Carey purposed doing was wrong, hideously wrong. It was the act of a coward. Yet, in this particular case, was there not something of heroism in it? To save his wife from the long-drawn-out humiliation of a trial— Sophie Carey had appealed to her. Yet Sophie Carey had not appealed because of cowardice, because she feared humiliation; Sophie appealed to her because she wished to spare her husband a felon's fate.
Exquisitely she suffered during the few seconds that she faced the servants. Right or wrong? Yet what was right and what was wrong? Are there times when the end justifies the means? Does right sometimes masquerade in the guise of wrong? Does wrong sometimes impersonate right? Nice problems in ethics are not solved when one is at high emotional pitch. It takes the philosopher, secluded in his study, to classify those abstractions which are solved, in real life, on impulse.
And then decision was taken from her. In later life, when faced with problems difficult of solution, she would remember this moment, not merely because of its tragic associations, but because she had notbeen forced to decide a question involving right and wrong. Life would not always be so easy for her.
But now— Somewhere out in the darkness sounded a revolver shot. Whether or not it was right to take one's life to save another added shame no longer mattered. Whether or not it was right to stand by and permit the taking of that life no longer mattered. The problem had been solved, for right or wrong, by Carey himself.
For the second time in a week, for the second time in her life, Clancy Deane fainted.
She was still in the living-room when she came to her senses. Sophie Carey was gone; the Ragans were also gone. Clancy guessed that they were attending to their mistress. As for herself, she felt the need of no attention. For her first conscious thought was that the cloud that had hung over her so steadily for the past week, which had descended so low that its foggy breath had chilled her heart, was forever lifted.
She was not selfish—merely human. Not to have drawn in her breath in a great sigh of relief would have indicated that Clancy Deane was too angelic for this world. And she was not; she was better than an angel because she was warmly human.
And so her first thought was of herself. But her second was of the woman up-stairs—the woman who had shown her, in so brief a time, so many kindnesses, and who now lay stricken. What a dreadful culmination to a life of humiliation! She closed her eyes a moment, as though to shut out the horror of it all.
When she opened them, it was to look gravely at the two men in the room. Randall she looked at first; her eyes swept him coolly, but she was not cool. She was fighting against something that she did not wish to show upon her countenance. When she thought that it was under control, she transferred her grave glance to Vandervent.
As on that day last week when she had fainted in his office he held a glass of water in his hand. Also, his hand shook, and the water slopped over the rim of the tumbler.
She was sitting in a chair. She wondered which one of these two men had carried her there. She wanted to know at once. And so, because she was a woman, she set herself to find out.
"Mrs. Carey—she's—all right?"
She addressed the question to both. And it was Randall who replied.
"I think so—I hope so. I helped Mrs. Ragan carry her up-stairs, while Ragan waited—outside."
Clancy shuddered. She knew why Ragan waited outside, and over what he kept watch. Nevertheless, if Randall had carried Sophie up-stairs, Vandervent must have deposited herself, Clancy Deane, in this chair. An unimportant matter, perhaps, but—it had been Vandervent who picked her up. She looked at Vandervent.
"I—couldn't meet you at the train," she said.
Vandervent colored.
"I—so I see," he said. That his remark was banal meant nothing to Clancy. She was versed enough in the ways of a man with a maid to be glad that Vandervent was not too glib of speech with her.
Vandervent set down the glass. He looked at her.
"If you don't care to talk, Miss Deane——"
"I do," said Clancy.
Vandervent glanced toward the window.
"Then——"
"He killed Morris Beiner," said Clancy. Vandervent started. "He confessed," said Clancy, "and then——"
There was no need to finish. Vandervent nodded. Carey had done the only possible thing.
"But you—how does it happen you're here?"
Swiftly Clancy told them. Silently they listened, although she could tell, by his expression, that, time and again, Vandervent wanted to burst into speech, that only the fact that Carey lay dead in the snow outside prevented him from characterizing the actions of the man who had killed Morris Beiner.
"And Garland?" he asked finally.
Clancy shrugged.
"I don't know. He left, as I've told you."
Vandervent's jaws set tightly. Then they parted as he spoke.
"He'll explain it all. He'll be caught," he said.
"Mr.—Mr. Carey said that it was all written down. It's up-stairs," said Clancy.
Vandervent nodded.
"That simplifies it." He rose and walked uncertainly across the room. "If we could catch Garland right away and—shut his mouth——"
Clancy knew what he meant. He was thinking of how to protect her from possible scandal.
"How did you happen to know that I was here?" asked Clancy. After all, murder was murder and death was death. But love was life, and Clancy was in love. The most insignificant actions of a loved one are of more importance, in the first flush of love's discovery, than the fall of empires.
"We came upon the horse, down by the station. I—I guessed that it must be yours." Vandervent colored. So did Clancy. He could not have more clearly confessed that he feared for her; and people frequently love those for whom they are fearful.
"So Randall and I— We met in the train——
"Mrs. Carey 'phoned me this afternoon. She—said that she was frightened," said Randall.
"I see," said Clancy. Despite herself, she could not keep her tone from being dry. How quickly, and how easily, Randall had returned to Sophie Carey! Safety first! It was his motto, undoubtedly. And now, of course, that Mrs. Carey was a widow— Months from now, Clancy would find that her attitude toward Randall was slightly acidulous. She'd always be friendly, but with reservations. And as for Sophie Carey, she'd come to the final conclusion that she didn't really want Sophie as her dearest and closest friend. But just now she put from her, ashamed, the slight feeling of contempt that she had for Randall. After all, there are degrees in love. Some men will pay a woman's bills but refuse to die for her. Others would cheerfully die for her rather than pay her bills. Randall would never feel any ecstasy of devotion. He would love with his head more than with his heart. He was well out of her scheme of things.