CHAPTER XMARIA ACCUSED“This,”said Dr. Crossett to Lola, as they sat together in the window, looking out at the river and the endless procession of automobiles below them, “this is good! It is not Paris, but it is good!”“The only reason you won’t admit it’s better than Paris,” laughed Lola, “is because you are cross about having had such a dreadfully bad dinner.”“Oh, no,” he replied politely. “It was a very good dinner. It is true that some hours ago it might have been better, but our appetites would not have been the same. Any food is good to a hungry man. Your father and I have often dined on bread and cheese, and pilsner, and thought it a feast.”“You were poor there at the University?” she inquired curiously. Somehow she found it difficult to think of him as ever having been poor; he was so completely marked with the stamp of worldly success.“Very poor,” he answered gayly, for it had been a long time ago, and poverty leaves few scars on the heart of a man who has conquered it. “So poor,” he continued, “that we owned nothing in all the world, not even a trouble. We lived together four, no, three years, wasn’t it, Martin?”“Three years, Paul.”“What we had we shared,” he turned again to Lola. “Books, clothes, money, tobacco, and happiness. I made much money later, because I had nothing better to do. Your father was wiser than I, but now Martin, when money is coming to you, you can do much for this little one.”“You mean his lecture to-morrow night?” asked Lola. “It is very flattering, of course, that the Medical Society should want to listen to him, but he isn’t going to be paid for it.”“It will bring fame, Lola, and fame, especially here in your country, means money. Have you much to do before to-morrow night, Martin?”“More than I like to think of,” replied the Doctor. “My mind should be fresh and clear, and how can it be if I must spend all to-morrow running errands?”“Could I help you?” asked John. “I could find an hour or so in the morning.”“I think not, and yet I am not sure. Would you be willing to call at Karn & Company’s, on Thirty-first Street, and pay my bill and see that my apparatus is sent to the Medical Society?”“Gladly,” replied John heartily.“It would save me half of the morning. Wait; I will give you the money now.”He stepped across the room to the wall safe. Lola, looking up idly at Dr. Crossett, who was standing beside her, saw him as he put out his hand and fumbled helplessly with the combination.“Lola,” he turned to her. “Would you mind opening this thing for me? I never can remember how to do it.”“You had better ask Maria, father. She is the only one who really understands it,” answered Lola quietly.“Very well.” He went to the door and called. “Maria! Maria!”“What a gorgeous night, Doctor,” said Lola to Dr. Crossett. “Don’t you envy those people out there in their automobiles?”“Hardly,” he replied, “but if you are so anxious as all that for a car, I fancy it won’t be long before your father can make you happy.”“Yes, Doctor?” Maria stood in the doorway.“Will you please open this safe for me, Maria?”“Yes, Doctor.” She went at once to the safe and turned the combination, then stepped back to allow him to approach it.Lola and Dr. Crossett were laughing now, laughing so merrily that John went over to them to join in their fun.“What is it, Lola? May I hear the Doctor’s story?”“I was telling her,” began Dr. Crossett, “of a queer——”“Lola!” Dr. Barnhelm interrupted nervously. “It is very strange, but I can’t find the money! You have not put it anywhere, have you?”“No, father. I haven’t opened the safe for days. Go on with your story, Doctor.” She turned to him expectantly.“I tell you,” repeated her father, “that the money is gone. I have been robbed!”“Impossible, Martin!” Dr. Crossett crossed the room to him anxiously.“You saw me put it there yourself! Look!” He pointed to the safe.“But, since you put it there,” exclaimed Dr. Crossett, “we have not left the room, excepting to our dinner. It must be there.”“It is not!” The Doctor spoke impatiently.“But, Martin, who could rob you? Who, besides ourselves here, knew of the money?”“What money?” inquired Lola. “Surely you do not mean that you had any large sum there?”“Eight hundred and fifty dollars,” replied her father bitterly.“This lock has not been tampered with,” announced Dr. Crossett. “The safe has been opened by someone who knew the combination. Who knew it?”He turned, facing them all. “You, Lola. Who else?”Lola’s eyes met his, quite calmly, then turned and rested upon Maria, and stopped there. One by one the others followed her look, until they were all looking at Maria, who grew uneasy under their gaze.“I knew it, yes!” Maria’s voice was trembling. She had done nothing wrong, she was sure of that, but the look in their eyes troubled her. “Miss Lola taught it to me. I didn’t want to learn it, but she made me. What are you all lookin’ at me that way for? You know I ain’t a thief!”“Has any stranger been here while we were at dinner?” inquired Dr. Crossett gravely.“Yes,” cried Maria, eagerly. “There was! A woman; a Dago or something.”“I saw the woman,” said Lola quietly. “She called to see you, father. She was a collector for some Hospital fund. I did not leave the room while she was here.”“Miss Lola!” Maria turned to her. “Didn’t you go there for something? Didn’t you put the money somewhere to keep it safe? Didn’t you take it out, meaning to put it back, and forget?”“No, Maria. I did not.”“You are all lookin’ at me,” cried poor Maria, “as if you thought I was a thief! Why don’t you search me? Why don’t you search my things? What do youall stand there for, doin’ nothin’, and lookin’ at me like that?”“Maria!” Dr. Barnhelm spoke gravely, but very kindly. “We, all of us, are very fond of you. From the first you have been more like a friend to us than like a servant.”“Oh, don’t I know that? Didn’t Miss Lola pick me up out of a tenement, a dirty, ragged, hungry little kid? Ain’t you done for me what my own father and mother never did? Don’t you see that’s the very reason I couldn’t rob you? I couldn’t! I couldn’t!”“I blame myself,” said Dr. Barnhelm huskily, “for leaving so large a sum of money where a young girl could be tempted by it.”“I have it,” exclaimed Dr. Crossett. “Suppose that we, all of us, were to leave the room for a few moments, eh?” He turned from one to another, doing his very best to look smiling and unconcerned. “Maria, while we are gone, might hunt about a little, and if she found this money and put it back, no one would ever say a word. All would be as it was before.”“I never took it!” Maria’s voice was shrill now and in it there was a note of hopelessness.“Tell them I never took it, Miss Lola! Tell them.”“I have never known Maria to be dishonest, father.”“Maria,” Dr. Barnhelm went to her, distressed, appealing. “That money was borrowed by me to pay for the electrical apparatus that is to repay me for all the work of my whole life. You know, Maria, how, day and night, for months and years, I have gone on, changing, adding, destroying, working. I neglected everything and everybody for it. You know how much it means to me!”For a moment she could not answer, although they all stood there, waiting. At last her voice came slowly through the sobs that shook her from head to foot:“You’re killing me, that’s what you’re doing, killing me! Tearing my heart out of me. There ain’t a man, nor a woman, in all the world that I love like I love you! I’d rather be dead a million times than do what you think I’ve done. You are all the good I’ve ever known, you folks, but I wish to God I’d never seen you. I wish to God you’d left me where I was.”“Mon Dieu!” cried Dr. Crossett. “What is a man to think?”“You all believe I done it,” went on Maria, “don’tyou? You’ve all said so, all but just you.” She faced John squarely, but John dropped his head; he could not meet her eye. “You think so, too,” she continued. “You’ve got to think so, because,” she stepped close up to him, “because the awful part of it is that it was just me—or her!” She raised her hand slowly, pointing at Lola.“Lola,” John turned to her, a queer, hesitating, doubtful tone in his voice. “Maria is such a good girl, I—I——”“Well?”“There—there is no chance of—of a mistake is there—you—you did not——”“No,” replied Lola calmly, “I didn’t.”“Damn it, Doctor!” John turned to him almost roughly. “Let me pay the eight hundred and fifty, and let’s none of us ever think of this again.”“You don’t think I done it,” Maria cried out, “you don’t. But you are the only one. Well, Doctor,” she turned to Dr. Crossett desperately, “I’m done. I can’t say anything more. What are you going to do?”“Unless you restore that money to me at once,” repliedthe Doctor, sternly, “I must telephone for a police officer.”“Yes, sir.”“And I warn you that, if he comes, he will take you away with him.”“Yes, sir, but it ain’t that I’m thinking of. It ain’t even that the news of me being called a thief has got to go to the man I love. I can’t even think of that right now. It’s that you believe it. I—I won’t try to run away, I’ll be in my room there, when you want me.”She left them, and went blindly down the hall and threw herself on her bed. No one could see her now; there was no need to fight back the sobs that were stifling her. Somewhere out on the ocean was a man who loved her. What would he think of her now? Under this same roof were the persons who had taught her all that she knew of the good things of life; to them she was a thief—to them—no—not to all of them! Lola! Lola! She sat up suddenly, dry-eyed; her own words came back to her, “It was just me, or her,” and again she said, this time to herself, “That’s the awful—awful part of it.”In the front room Dr. Barnhelm turned to John.“Doctor,” he said, “there is what they call a ‘plain-clothes man’ that comes every night to the Athletic Club, as soon as he goes off duty. I could get him here in ten minutes. He might succeed where we have failed, and he would keep quiet about it, if I asked him to.”“Get him.”“Shall I get him, Lola?” He turned to her with something like a warning in his voice.“Why yes, John. I am very fond of Maria, and I want you to make everything as easy for her as you can.”“I will be back in fifteen minutes.”He turned and left the room, and the house. He was stunned. Maria did not take that money! He was sure of that. He could not have told why, but he was sure. There could be no doubt. He had seen the truth in her eyes. If she did not take it—who did? To him also came back Maria’s words, “It was just me—or her.” He put that thought out of his mind, or tried to. He must know. If Maria did not do this thing she must not be allowed to suffer for it, of thatalone he was sure. They must know! He crossed to Broadway, almost running, and jumped on a downtown car. It was only a few blocks, but he must return as quickly as possible.“How are you, Dorris? Here’s a seat.”John looked up at the words and recognized Dr. Rupert.“Good evening, Doctor. Thank you.” He sat down beside the Doctor, keeping his eyes fixed on the passing street signs, anxious that he should not be taken past his corner.“It was very kind of your wife, Doctor,” he began pleasantly, more to make conversation than for any other reason, “to do so much to help Miss Barnhelm this afternoon. I hope that she did not tire herself.”“You haven’t been taking a drop too much, have you, John?” exclaimed Dr. Rupert, smiling broadly.“Why?”“My wife sailed for Europe, Tuesday.”
“This,”said Dr. Crossett to Lola, as they sat together in the window, looking out at the river and the endless procession of automobiles below them, “this is good! It is not Paris, but it is good!”
“The only reason you won’t admit it’s better than Paris,” laughed Lola, “is because you are cross about having had such a dreadfully bad dinner.”
“Oh, no,” he replied politely. “It was a very good dinner. It is true that some hours ago it might have been better, but our appetites would not have been the same. Any food is good to a hungry man. Your father and I have often dined on bread and cheese, and pilsner, and thought it a feast.”
“You were poor there at the University?” she inquired curiously. Somehow she found it difficult to think of him as ever having been poor; he was so completely marked with the stamp of worldly success.
“Very poor,” he answered gayly, for it had been a long time ago, and poverty leaves few scars on the heart of a man who has conquered it. “So poor,” he continued, “that we owned nothing in all the world, not even a trouble. We lived together four, no, three years, wasn’t it, Martin?”
“Three years, Paul.”
“What we had we shared,” he turned again to Lola. “Books, clothes, money, tobacco, and happiness. I made much money later, because I had nothing better to do. Your father was wiser than I, but now Martin, when money is coming to you, you can do much for this little one.”
“You mean his lecture to-morrow night?” asked Lola. “It is very flattering, of course, that the Medical Society should want to listen to him, but he isn’t going to be paid for it.”
“It will bring fame, Lola, and fame, especially here in your country, means money. Have you much to do before to-morrow night, Martin?”
“More than I like to think of,” replied the Doctor. “My mind should be fresh and clear, and how can it be if I must spend all to-morrow running errands?”
“Could I help you?” asked John. “I could find an hour or so in the morning.”
“I think not, and yet I am not sure. Would you be willing to call at Karn & Company’s, on Thirty-first Street, and pay my bill and see that my apparatus is sent to the Medical Society?”
“Gladly,” replied John heartily.
“It would save me half of the morning. Wait; I will give you the money now.”
He stepped across the room to the wall safe. Lola, looking up idly at Dr. Crossett, who was standing beside her, saw him as he put out his hand and fumbled helplessly with the combination.
“Lola,” he turned to her. “Would you mind opening this thing for me? I never can remember how to do it.”
“You had better ask Maria, father. She is the only one who really understands it,” answered Lola quietly.
“Very well.” He went to the door and called. “Maria! Maria!”
“What a gorgeous night, Doctor,” said Lola to Dr. Crossett. “Don’t you envy those people out there in their automobiles?”
“Hardly,” he replied, “but if you are so anxious as all that for a car, I fancy it won’t be long before your father can make you happy.”
“Yes, Doctor?” Maria stood in the doorway.
“Will you please open this safe for me, Maria?”
“Yes, Doctor.” She went at once to the safe and turned the combination, then stepped back to allow him to approach it.
Lola and Dr. Crossett were laughing now, laughing so merrily that John went over to them to join in their fun.
“What is it, Lola? May I hear the Doctor’s story?”
“I was telling her,” began Dr. Crossett, “of a queer——”
“Lola!” Dr. Barnhelm interrupted nervously. “It is very strange, but I can’t find the money! You have not put it anywhere, have you?”
“No, father. I haven’t opened the safe for days. Go on with your story, Doctor.” She turned to him expectantly.
“I tell you,” repeated her father, “that the money is gone. I have been robbed!”
“Impossible, Martin!” Dr. Crossett crossed the room to him anxiously.
“You saw me put it there yourself! Look!” He pointed to the safe.
“But, since you put it there,” exclaimed Dr. Crossett, “we have not left the room, excepting to our dinner. It must be there.”
“It is not!” The Doctor spoke impatiently.
“But, Martin, who could rob you? Who, besides ourselves here, knew of the money?”
“What money?” inquired Lola. “Surely you do not mean that you had any large sum there?”
“Eight hundred and fifty dollars,” replied her father bitterly.
“This lock has not been tampered with,” announced Dr. Crossett. “The safe has been opened by someone who knew the combination. Who knew it?”
He turned, facing them all. “You, Lola. Who else?”
Lola’s eyes met his, quite calmly, then turned and rested upon Maria, and stopped there. One by one the others followed her look, until they were all looking at Maria, who grew uneasy under their gaze.
“I knew it, yes!” Maria’s voice was trembling. She had done nothing wrong, she was sure of that, but the look in their eyes troubled her. “Miss Lola taught it to me. I didn’t want to learn it, but she made me. What are you all lookin’ at me that way for? You know I ain’t a thief!”
“Has any stranger been here while we were at dinner?” inquired Dr. Crossett gravely.
“Yes,” cried Maria, eagerly. “There was! A woman; a Dago or something.”
“I saw the woman,” said Lola quietly. “She called to see you, father. She was a collector for some Hospital fund. I did not leave the room while she was here.”
“Miss Lola!” Maria turned to her. “Didn’t you go there for something? Didn’t you put the money somewhere to keep it safe? Didn’t you take it out, meaning to put it back, and forget?”
“No, Maria. I did not.”
“You are all lookin’ at me,” cried poor Maria, “as if you thought I was a thief! Why don’t you search me? Why don’t you search my things? What do youall stand there for, doin’ nothin’, and lookin’ at me like that?”
“Maria!” Dr. Barnhelm spoke gravely, but very kindly. “We, all of us, are very fond of you. From the first you have been more like a friend to us than like a servant.”
“Oh, don’t I know that? Didn’t Miss Lola pick me up out of a tenement, a dirty, ragged, hungry little kid? Ain’t you done for me what my own father and mother never did? Don’t you see that’s the very reason I couldn’t rob you? I couldn’t! I couldn’t!”
“I blame myself,” said Dr. Barnhelm huskily, “for leaving so large a sum of money where a young girl could be tempted by it.”
“I have it,” exclaimed Dr. Crossett. “Suppose that we, all of us, were to leave the room for a few moments, eh?” He turned from one to another, doing his very best to look smiling and unconcerned. “Maria, while we are gone, might hunt about a little, and if she found this money and put it back, no one would ever say a word. All would be as it was before.”
“I never took it!” Maria’s voice was shrill now and in it there was a note of hopelessness.
“Tell them I never took it, Miss Lola! Tell them.”
“I have never known Maria to be dishonest, father.”
“Maria,” Dr. Barnhelm went to her, distressed, appealing. “That money was borrowed by me to pay for the electrical apparatus that is to repay me for all the work of my whole life. You know, Maria, how, day and night, for months and years, I have gone on, changing, adding, destroying, working. I neglected everything and everybody for it. You know how much it means to me!”
For a moment she could not answer, although they all stood there, waiting. At last her voice came slowly through the sobs that shook her from head to foot:
“You’re killing me, that’s what you’re doing, killing me! Tearing my heart out of me. There ain’t a man, nor a woman, in all the world that I love like I love you! I’d rather be dead a million times than do what you think I’ve done. You are all the good I’ve ever known, you folks, but I wish to God I’d never seen you. I wish to God you’d left me where I was.”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Dr. Crossett. “What is a man to think?”
“You all believe I done it,” went on Maria, “don’tyou? You’ve all said so, all but just you.” She faced John squarely, but John dropped his head; he could not meet her eye. “You think so, too,” she continued. “You’ve got to think so, because,” she stepped close up to him, “because the awful part of it is that it was just me—or her!” She raised her hand slowly, pointing at Lola.
“Lola,” John turned to her, a queer, hesitating, doubtful tone in his voice. “Maria is such a good girl, I—I——”
“Well?”
“There—there is no chance of—of a mistake is there—you—you did not——”
“No,” replied Lola calmly, “I didn’t.”
“Damn it, Doctor!” John turned to him almost roughly. “Let me pay the eight hundred and fifty, and let’s none of us ever think of this again.”
“You don’t think I done it,” Maria cried out, “you don’t. But you are the only one. Well, Doctor,” she turned to Dr. Crossett desperately, “I’m done. I can’t say anything more. What are you going to do?”
“Unless you restore that money to me at once,” repliedthe Doctor, sternly, “I must telephone for a police officer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I warn you that, if he comes, he will take you away with him.”
“Yes, sir, but it ain’t that I’m thinking of. It ain’t even that the news of me being called a thief has got to go to the man I love. I can’t even think of that right now. It’s that you believe it. I—I won’t try to run away, I’ll be in my room there, when you want me.”
She left them, and went blindly down the hall and threw herself on her bed. No one could see her now; there was no need to fight back the sobs that were stifling her. Somewhere out on the ocean was a man who loved her. What would he think of her now? Under this same roof were the persons who had taught her all that she knew of the good things of life; to them she was a thief—to them—no—not to all of them! Lola! Lola! She sat up suddenly, dry-eyed; her own words came back to her, “It was just me, or her,” and again she said, this time to herself, “That’s the awful—awful part of it.”
In the front room Dr. Barnhelm turned to John.
“Doctor,” he said, “there is what they call a ‘plain-clothes man’ that comes every night to the Athletic Club, as soon as he goes off duty. I could get him here in ten minutes. He might succeed where we have failed, and he would keep quiet about it, if I asked him to.”
“Get him.”
“Shall I get him, Lola?” He turned to her with something like a warning in his voice.
“Why yes, John. I am very fond of Maria, and I want you to make everything as easy for her as you can.”
“I will be back in fifteen minutes.”
He turned and left the room, and the house. He was stunned. Maria did not take that money! He was sure of that. He could not have told why, but he was sure. There could be no doubt. He had seen the truth in her eyes. If she did not take it—who did? To him also came back Maria’s words, “It was just me—or her.” He put that thought out of his mind, or tried to. He must know. If Maria did not do this thing she must not be allowed to suffer for it, of thatalone he was sure. They must know! He crossed to Broadway, almost running, and jumped on a downtown car. It was only a few blocks, but he must return as quickly as possible.
“How are you, Dorris? Here’s a seat.”
John looked up at the words and recognized Dr. Rupert.
“Good evening, Doctor. Thank you.” He sat down beside the Doctor, keeping his eyes fixed on the passing street signs, anxious that he should not be taken past his corner.
“It was very kind of your wife, Doctor,” he began pleasantly, more to make conversation than for any other reason, “to do so much to help Miss Barnhelm this afternoon. I hope that she did not tire herself.”
“You haven’t been taking a drop too much, have you, John?” exclaimed Dr. Rupert, smiling broadly.
“Why?”
“My wife sailed for Europe, Tuesday.”