Mrs. De Peyster gave thanks when at last, toward one o'clock Jack and Mary and Judge Harvey went back to bed, leaving Matilda, Mr. Pyecroft, and herself. It had previously been settled that Mr. Pyecroft was to have Jack's old room, Matilda was, of course, to have her usual quarters, and Mrs. De Peyster was to have the room adjoining Matilda's, that formerly was occupied by Mrs. De Peyster's second maid.
"Say, that was certainly one close shave," Mr. Pyecroft whispered at the door of her room. "Perhaps we'd better beat it from here. If that Judge ever places me! And you, if those people ever get a fair look at your face, they'll see your likeness to Mrs. De Peyster and they'll guess what our game is—sure! You'll promise to be careful?"
Mrs. De Peyster promised.
Fifteen minutes later, having been undressed by Matilda, she was lying in the dark on a narrow bed, hard, very hard, as hard as Mrs. Gilbert's folding contrivance—and once more, after this her second move, she was studying the items of her situation.
She had daily to mix with, strive to avoid, Jackand Mary. And Jack had casually remarked that Judge Harvey would be frequently dropping in.
And there was that bland, incorrigible Pyecroft, whom she seemed to have become hopelessly tied to; Pyecroft, irresistibly insisting that she should swindle herself, and whom she saw no way of denying.
Suppose Pyecroft should find out? He might.
Suppose Jack and Mary should find out? They might.
Suppose Judge Harvey should find out? He might.
And suppose all this business of her not going to Europe, but staying in her shuttered house—her flight from home—her humiliating experiences in an ordinary boarding-house where she passed as a housekeeper—her being forced into a plan to rob herself—suppose Mrs. Allistair should find out? And Mrs. Allistair, she well knew, might somehow stumble upon all this; for she remembered how Mrs. Allistair had tried, and perhaps was still trying, to get some piquant bit of evidence against her in that Duke de Crécy affair. And if Mrs. Allistair did find out—
What a scandal!
And since her fate had become so inextricably tied up with the fates of others, and since the exposure of others might involve the exposure of her, there were yet further sources of danger. For—
There was that awful reporter watching the house, after Jack!
There were the police, after Pyecroft!
She shuddered. This was only the seventh day since her inspired idea had been born within her. And it was only that very day that she had landed at Cherbourg. Three months must pass before Olivetta, in the role of Mrs. De Peyster, would return, and she could be herself again—if they could ever, ever manage their expected re-exchange of personalities in this awful mess.
Only seven days thus far. Three more months of this!
Three ... more ... months!...
But at length she slept; slept deeply, for she had the gift of sleep in its perfection; slept a complete and flawless oblivion. So that when she awoke Saturday, refreshed, and glanced blinking about from her thin pillow she did not at first remember where she was. This low room, four by seven feet, with a narrow bed penitentially hard, a stationary wash-basin, a row of iron clothes-hooks, a foot-high oblong window above her head—what was it? How had she come here? And had any one ever before lived in such a cell?
Then memory came flooding back. This was her second maid's room. She was Angelica Simpson Jones, sister of Matilda, a poor, diffident creature with defective hearing and pitifully disfigured face. And in the house were Mr. Pyecroft, and Jack and Mary, and Judge Harvey was a frequent visitor. And besides these, there were all the other sources of danger!
She was now poignantly awake.
While she was still in this process of realization, there was a soft knock at her door and a whispered, "It's Matilda, ma'am," at her keyhole. She unlocked the door, admitted Matilda, and crept back into her second maid's bed. They gazed at each other a moment without speaking. Matilda's face was gray with awe and helpless woe.
They whispered about their predicament. What should they do? Should they flee again?—and how?—and where?—and what good would flight do them, especially since Mr. Pyecroft might once more follow? Twice they had leaped from the frying-pan, and each time had landed in a fire hotter than the one preceding. A third flight might drop them into a fire worse even than this in which they now sizzled.
And as for the specific plan which had brought them back—for Mrs. De Peyster to steal unnoticed into her suite and hide there—that seemed impossible of achievement with all these people circulating about the house, especially that all-observing Mr. Pyecroft. If Mr. Pyecroft should catch her in one suspicious move, then his quick mind would deduce the rest, and everything would be up—everything!
There was, of course, yet another way—to give up and disclose her identity herself. But she was now far, far too deeply involved: to confess and thus by her own act bring limitless and appalling humiliation on herself, this was unthinkable! She must go on, on, blindly on—with the desperate hope that in some manner now unseen she might in the enddisentangle herself and come out of the affair undiscovered and with dignity untarnished. The two were still whispering over their predicament, when at the door sounded another knock, loud and confident. They caught at each other. The knocking was repeated.
"Who's that?" Matilda asked, at Mrs. De Peyster's prompting.
"It's Archibald," answered a bland voice.
"Ma'am, shall I let him in?" breathed Matilda.
"We don't dare keep him out," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
Matilda admitted him. Even in the semi-darkness of the room, due to the green shutters being closed, Mrs. De Peyster could see that he was admirably transformed from the raven Mr. Pyecroft of the night before. He had on a gray modish suit, with lavender tie and socks to match; and looked natty and young and spirited and quite prepared for anything.
"Good morning, sisters," he greeted them pleasantly. "I see you are admiring my new spring outfit. Not at all bad, is it?" He turned slowly about, for their better observation; then grinned and lowered his voice: "It's young De Peyster's; found it in his room, and helped myself. Burned my clergyman's outfit in the kitchen range before any one was up; best to leave no clues lying around."
He, too, had come to talk plans, and quickly Mr. Pyecroft settled them. This was a dangerous placefor him, with Judge Harvey coming and going; but to stay here was a safer risk than to venture forth until the hue and cry of the police had quieted. It was a dangerous place also for his dear sister Angelica, but if on the plea of indisposition she would stay in this dusky room and would keep her disfigured face hidden when any member of the household chanced to come in (they would all understand, and sympathize with, her painful diffidence), why, there was an excellent chance of her pulling through without discovery. It was obvious that they dared not keep out Jack and Mary, and perhaps Judge Harvey, should these be inspired to make friendly calls. To forbid their visits would arouse suspicion. And if it were said Angelica was too ill to see any one, then they would demand that a doctor be called in—and a doctor would mean exposure. Their visits must be permitted; no doubt of that; but if dear Angelica were only careful, extremely careful, and kept her head, all would go well.
Yes, summarized Mr. Pyecroft, the best plan for them was to remain here for the present. Then when the safe and appropriate moment arrived, they could make their get-away.
From quite other reasons, Mrs. De Peyster accepted this plan. After the strain of the past week, particularly after the wild emotional oscillations of the preceding night, she wished just to lie there in the dusk, and breathe—and breathe—and breathe some more—and recover life.
Matilda suggested that she bring up breakfast for Mrs. De Peyster, and Mr. Pyecroft begged her to discover and set out something below for him, for his stomach was a torturing vacuum. Matilda went down, leaving Mr. Pyecroft behind in the room, discussing further details of their immediate campaign; and presently she returned, trembling, with a tray, Jack and Mary just behind her. Mrs. De Peyster did not need to be prompted to turn her face toward the wall, and into the deeper shadow that there prevailed. Mr. Pyecroft casually sat down upon the bed near its head, making an excellent further screen.
Mr. Pyecroft noted that Jack was observing his raiment. "I trust, Mr. De Peyster, you will pardon the liberty I have taken with your clothes. My own were still wet from last night."
"That's all right," said Jack. "But, say, Matilda, have your sister eat her breakfast. What we've come to talk about can wait."
But Matilda's sister, after all, wished no breakfast. And solicitation could not rouse in her an appetite.
"Very well," said Jack. "Then to the point. I thought we'd better all get together on the matter at once. It's about food."
"Food?" queried Mr. Pyecroft, a bit blankly.
"Yes, and it's some problem, you bet. Here's a house that is supposed to be empty. And within this empty house are five adults. Do you get me?"
"Isn't it terrible!" cried Mary.
"Five adults," repeated Jack. "How are we going to get food in here for them without exciting suspicion?"
"As you say," mused Mr. Pyecroft with a wry face, "that is certainly some problem. My own appetite is already one magnitudinous toothache."
Jack enlarged upon their situation.
"Since Judge Harvey tipped me off to the fact that the newspapers smelled a story, and since that reporter Mayfair and other reporters began to watch this house, I've had to give up going out. We two would have starved but for what Judge Harvey and William managed to slip in to us. Even with that, we've almost starved. In fact, we've been driven by hunger about to the point of giving in, going out, acknowledging our marriage and taking the consequences."
Mrs. De Peyster, face buried in the shadow, thrilled with a sudden rush of hope. If Jack and Mary should leave the house, then half her danger would be ended!
"But, you see, since that news yesterday about mother being so sick in Europe," Jack continued solicitously, "I feel that, in her weakened condition, the news of our marriage might be a very severe shock for her. So for her sake we're going to keep the thing secret for a while yet, and stick it out here."
Mrs. De Peyster could hardly keep back a groan.
"So, now," Jack again propounded, "what the dickens are the five of us going to do?"
Mr. Pyecroft rubbed his wide mouth for a meditative moment. Then he smiled upon Matilda.
"It seems to me, sister dear, that we'll have to put it up to you."
"Up to me?" cried Matilda.
"Yes, Matilda. You belong here; you can come and go as a matter of course. You have a sister visiting you; also a brother, but as I have requested, the less said about his being here the better. But you can go out and openly order provisions for yourself and our sister. And you can give a good large order for nourishing canned goods, casually mentioning that you are laying in a supply so that you will not have to bother again soon with staples. That, with what Judge Harvey and William can smuggle in, should keep us provided for."
Mr. Pyecroft's suggestion was approved by the majority. As an addendum to his proposal Matilda was ordered to answer the bell whenever rung; if she did not, with the knowledge abroad that she was in the house, a dangerous suspicion might be aroused. But she should be careful when she went to the door, very careful.
Matilda was driven forth to make the purchases; Mr. Pyecroft, under Jack's guidance, went below to forage for the anæsthetic of immediate crumbs; and Mary, tender-heartedly, remained behind to relieve the tedium of and give comfort to the invalid. She straightened up the room a bit; urged the patientto eat, to no avail; then went out of the room for a minute, and reappeared with a book.
"I'm going to read to you, Angelica," she announced, in a loud yet nursey voice. "I suppose your taste in books is about the same as your sister's. Here's a story I found in Matilda's room. It's called 'Wormwood.' I'm sure you'll like it."
So placed that she could get all of the dim light that slanted through the tiny shuttered window, Mary began, her voice raised to meet the need of Mrs. De Peyster's aural handicap. Now Marie Corelli may have been the favorite novelist of a certain amiable queen, who somehow managed to continue to the age of eighty-two despite her preference. But Mrs. De Peyster liked no fiction; and the noble platitudes, the resounding moralizings, the prodigious melodrama, the vast caverns of words of the queen's favorite made Mrs. De Peyster writhe upon her second maid's undentable bed. If only she actually did possess the divine gift of defective hearing with which Mr. Pyecroft had afflicted her! But in the same loud voice, trying to conceal her own boredom, Mary read on, on, on—patiently on.
At length Matilda returned. Mary closed the book with a sigh of relief, which on the instant she repressed.
"I'll read to you for a while two or three times a day," she promised. "I know what a comfort it is to a sick person to hear a story she likes."
Mrs. De Peyster did not even thank her.
The provisions arrived; Mr. Pyecroft proved himself agreeably competent and willing in the matter of their preparation; and such as had appetites gorged themselves. Also Mr. Pyecroft proved himself agreeably competent and willing to do his full share, and more, in the matter of cleaning up.
Later in the forenoon, Mary again called on Mrs. De Peyster. "I hope you don't mind a little praise directed at your family, Angelica," she said, in the loud voice she had adopted for that unfortunate. "At first Jack and I thought your brother Archibald was—well—too pompous. You know, clergymen are often that way. But the more we see of him, the better we like him. He's so pleasant, so helpful. I hope the little trouble he spoke of being in with the police isn't serious, for Jack and I think he's simply splendid!"
Archibald's sister seemed indifferent to this praise of her brother. At least she said nothing. So Mary took up "Wormwood" and half-shouted another installment.
The spirits of Jack and Mary, which during the previous evening and the earlier part of this morning had been subdued by concern over the illness of thedistant Mrs. De Peyster, had, an hour before Mary's second visit, become suddenly hilarious. While Mary read, Mrs. De Peyster wondered over this change. When the book was closed upon the installment, she hesitatingly asked concerning this mystery.
"It's news about Mrs. De Peyster," answered Mary. "But of course it could hardly interest you much, for you've never met her—at least I supposed not, Angelica."
"I've—seen her," corrected Angelica. "What—what news?"
"Why," cried Mary in her soft, happy contralto, "Judge Harvey just telephoned that the latest papers contain cables saying that Mrs. De Peyster has just left Paris on that long motor trip of hers to the Balkans. That means that Jack's mother must be quite well again. We all feel so relieved—so very, very relieved!"
Mrs. De Peyster also felt relief—and some badly needed courage flowed into her. Olivetta's part of the plan, at least, was working out as per schedule.
Finally Mary went, Matilda brought in her lunch, and the afternoon began to wear itself away, Mrs. De Peyster keeping most of the time to the hard, narrow bed of the second maid. Twice, however, she got up while Matilda guarded her door, stood at her high, cell-like window, and peered through the slats of the closed shutter, past the purple-and-lavender plumes of the wistaria that climbed on up to the roof,and out upon the soft, green, sunny spaces of Washington Square. The Square, which she had been proud to live upon but rarely walked in,—only children and nursemaids and the commoner people actually walked in it,—the Square looked so expansive, so free, so inviting. And this tiny cell—these days of early May were unseasonably, hot—seemed to grow more narrow and more stifling every moment. How had any one ever, ever voluntarily endured it!
Mrs. De Peyster learned that Jack was studying at home, and studying hard. With the return of Matilda to the house, Jack repeated his instruction concerning the piano: Matilda was to tell any inquisitive folk that Mrs. De Peyster had bought a player-piano shortly before she sailed, and that she, Matilda, was operating it to while away the tedious hours. This device made it possible for Mary to begin her neglected practice.
With the certainty of being bored, yet with an irrepressible curiosity, Mrs. De Peyster, piano-lover, awaited during the morning and early forenoon Mary's first assault upon the instrument. She would be crude, no doubt of it; no technique, no poetic suavity of touch, no sense of interpretation.
When from the rear drawing-room the grand piano sent upwards to Mrs. De Peyster its first strains, they were rapid, careless scales and runs. Quite as she'd expected. Then the player began Chopin's Balladein G Minor. Mrs. De Peyster listened contemptuously; then with rebellious interest; then with complete absorption. That person below could certainly play the piano—brilliantly, feelingly, with the touch and insight of an artist. Mrs. De Peyster's soul rose and fell with the soul of the song, and when the piano, after its uprushing, almost human closing cry, fell sharply into silence, she was for the moment that piano's vassal.
Then she remembered who was the player. Instinctively her emotions chilled; and she lay stiffly in bed, hostile, on guard, defying the charm of the further music.
Suddenly the piano broke off in the very middle of Liszt's Rhapsodic Number Twelve. The way the music snapped off startled her. There was something inexplicably ominous about it. Intuitively she felt that something was happening below. She wondered what it could be.
An hour passed; she continued wondering; then Matilda entered the attic room, behind her Mr. Pyecroft and Mary.
"Sister"—such familiarity was difficult to Matilda, even though she knew this familiarity was necessary to maintain the roles circumstances and Mr. Pyecroft had forced upon them—"sister," she quavered, "I thought you might be interested to know that the bell rang awhile ago, and I went down, and there was a man—with a note to me from—from Mrs. De Peyster."
"What!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster, in an almost natural tone.
"It—it's disturbed us all so much that I thought you might like to look at it. Here it is."
Shakingly, Matilda held out a sheet of paper. Shakingly, but without turning to face her visitors, Mrs. De Peyster took it. There was enough light to see that the letter was written on heavy paper embossed at the top with a flag and "S.S. Plutonia," and was dated the evening she had supposedly gone on board. The note read:—
DEAR MATILDA:—Just at this late moment I recall something which, in the hurry of getting off, I forgot to tell you about. This is that I left instructions with Mr. Howard, an expert cabinet-maker, who has previously done things for me under the supervision of the Tiffany Studios, to go over all my furniture while I am abroad and touch up and repair such pieces as may be out of order. I am sending this letter to Mr. Howard for him or his representative to present for identification to you when he is ready to undertake the work. See that he has every facility.
DEAR MATILDA:—
Just at this late moment I recall something which, in the hurry of getting off, I forgot to tell you about. This is that I left instructions with Mr. Howard, an expert cabinet-maker, who has previously done things for me under the supervision of the Tiffany Studios, to go over all my furniture while I am abroad and touch up and repair such pieces as may be out of order. I am sending this letter to Mr. Howard for him or his representative to present for identification to you when he is ready to undertake the work. See that he has every facility.
Mrs. De Peyster lay dizzily still. Such an order she had never given. But the writing was amazingly similar to her own.
"Well, Matilda?" she managed to inquire, in a voice she tried to make like the sickly Angelica's.
"When the man showed me the note, I tried to put him off; but he simply wouldn't go and he followed me in. His orders, he said. I showed the letter to Mary and Mr. Pyecroft. The man saw them. They said call up Judge Harvey and ask him what to do. I did and Judge Harvey came down and he examined the letter and said it was undoubtedly written by Mrs. De Peyster. And he called up the Tiffany Studios, and they said they'd had such a telephone order from Mrs. De Peyster."
"Jack and I never dreamed that his mother might have left orders to have people in here to renovate the house!" cried Mary in dismay.
"Then—then Judge Harvey asked the man to put off the work," Matilda went on. "The man was very polite, but he said his orders from Mrs. De Peyster had been strict, and if he wasn't allowed to go on with the work, he said, in order to protect himself, he'd have to cable Mrs. De Peyster that the people occupying her house wouldn't let him. Judge Harvey didn't want Mrs. De Peyster to find out about Mr. and Mrs. Jack, so he told the man to go ahead."
"And the man?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster. "Where is he?"
"He's down in the drawing-room, beginning on the tables."
"It seems to me," suggested Mr. Pyecroft, "that since this summer hotel is filling so rapidly, we might as well withdraw our advertisements from the papers."
"I wonder, ma'—" Matilda checked herself just in time. "I wonder, Angelica," she exclaimed desperately, "who it'll be next?"
"Isn't it simply awful!" cried Mary. "But Jack's gone into hiding and isn't going to stir—and the man didn't see him—and I'm your niece, you know. So Jack and I are in no danger. Anyhow, Judge Harvey gave the man a—a large fee not to mention any one being in the house besides Matilda, and the man promised. So I guess all of us are safe."
But no such sentiment of security comforted Mrs. De Peyster.
Who was the man?
What was he here for?
One thing was certain: he and those behind him had made clever and adequate preparations for his admission. And she dared not expose him, and order him out—for only that very morning she had left Paris on her motor trip! She could only lie on the second maid's narrow bed and await developments.
Matilda went out to attend to her domestic duties below; Mr. Pyecroft withdrew; and Mary, the sympathetic Mary,—Mary who had no worry, for the cabinet-maker below would in due time complete his routine work and take himself away,—Mary remained behind to apply to the invalid the soothing mental poultice of "Wormwood." But "Wormwood" did not torment Mrs. De Peyster as it had done in the forenoon. She did not hear it. She was thinking of the cabinet-maker below. But Maryfaithfully continued; she did not cease when Mr. Pyecroft reëntered. There was a slightly amused look in that gentleman's face, but he said nothing, and seated himself on the foot of the bed and gazed thoughtfully at the wall of scaling kalsomine—and Mary's loudly pitched voice went on, and on, and on.
They were thus engaged when Matilda returned. She was all a-tremble. Behind her, holding her arm, was a smallish, sharp-faced young man.
"He—he came in with the roast," Matilda stammered wildly.
Mr. Pyecroft had sprung up from the bed.
"And who ishe?"
"Mr. Mayfair, of the 'Record,'" answered the young man, loosing Matilda and stepping forward.
Mrs. De Peyster shivered frantically down beneath the bedclothes, her see-sawing hopes once more at the bottom. Mary leaned limply back in the shadow and hid her face.
"He tried to question me—and he made me bring him—" Matilda was chattering.
"May I inquire what it is you wish, Mr. Mayfair?" requested Mr. Pyecroft—and Matilda fled.
"You may," rapidly said the undeceivable Mr. Mayfair. Mr. Mayfair had learned and made his own one of the main tricks of that method of police inquisition known as the "third degree": to hurl a fact, or a suspicion with all the air of its being the truth, with bomb-like suddenness into the face ofthe unprepared suspect. "I know Jack De Peyster has made a runaway marriage! I know he and his wife are living secretly in this house!"
"Why, this news is simply astounding!" exclaimed Mr. Pyecroft.
"Come, now. Bluffing won't work with me. You see, I'm on to it all!"
"I presume it's a newspaper story you're after?" Mr. Pyecroft inquired politely.
"Of course!"
"Then"—in the same polite tone—"if you know it all, why don't you print it?"
"I want the heart-story of the runaway lovers," declared Mr. Mayfair.
"I'm afraid, Mr. Mayfair," Mr. Pyecroft suggested gently, "that you are the one who is only bluffing. You have a suspicion, and are trying to find evidence to support it."
"I know, I tell you!"
"Then may I inquire to whom young Mr. De Peyster is married?"
"I know all right!"
"Ah, then, you don't really know," said Mr. Pyecroft mildly.
"I know, I tell you!" Mr. Mayfair repeated in his sharp, third-degree manner.
"Then why trouble us? Why not, as I have already suggested, print it?"
"I'm here to see them!" Mr. Mayfair said peremptorily. Then his tone became soft, diplomatic. "Thehousekeeper spoke about referring me to her brother. You are her brother, I suppose?"
"I am."
Mr. Mayfair smiled persuasively. "If you would tell me what you know about them, and lead me to where they are, my paper would be quite willing to be liberal. Say twenty dollars."
"I'd accept it gladly," said Mr. Pyecroft, "but I know nothing of the matter."
"One hundred," bid Mr. Mayfair.
"I would have done it for twenty, if I could. But I couldn't do it for a thousand. They are not here."
"I know better!" snapped Mr. Mayfair, his manner sharp again. "Who's that?" he demanded suspiciously, pointing at Mary's shadow-veiled figure.
"That? That is my niece. The daughter of my sister Angelica here."
"Is she your mother?" demanded Mr. Mayfair of Mary.
"Yes, sir," breathed Mary from her corner.
"Madam, is she your daughter?"
Mrs. De Peyster did not reply.
"Pardon me, my sister is ill, and somewhat deaf," put in Mr. Pyecroft. "Angelica, dear," he half shouted, "the gentleman wishes to know if this is your daughter."
"Yes," from Mrs. De Peyster in smothered voice.
"Well, I know they're here," doggedly insisted Mr. Mayfair, "and I'm going to see them! I have witnesses who saw them enter."
"Indeed!" Mr. Pyecroft looked surprised and puzzled. "The witnesses can swear to seeing young Mr. De Peyster come in?"
"They can swear to seeing a young man and woman come in. And I know they were Mr. De Peyster and his wife."
"That's strange." Suddenly Mr. Pyecroft's face cleared. "I think I begin to understand! It was at night, wasn't it, when the witnesses saw them come in?"
"At night, yes."
"I'm sorry you have been caused all this trouble, Mr. Mayfair,"—in a tone of very genuine regret. "But there has been a blunder—a perfectly natural one, I now see. Undoubtedly the young couple your witnesses saw were my niece and myself."
"What!" cried Mr. Mayfair. For a moment the undeflectable star reporter was all chagrin. Then he was all suspicion. "But why," he snapped out, "should you and your niece slip in at night? And why should you live here in hiding?"
"You force me into a disagreeable and humiliating admission. The fact is, our family is in severe financial straits. We simply had no money to live on, and no prospects in sight. To help us out temporarily, my sister Matilda invited us to stay here while Mrs. De Peyster is in Europe. But for Mrs. De Peyster to know of our being here might cost my sister Matilda her position, which accounts for our attempt to get in unseen and to live here secretly.We had to protect Matilda against the facts leaking out."
Mr. Mayfair stared searchingly at Mr. Pyecroft's face. It was confused, as was quite natural after the confession of a not very honorable, and certainly not very dignified, procedure. But it was candor itself.
"Hell!" he burst out irefully. "Some one has certainly given me a bum steer. But I'll get that young couple yet, you see!"
"I'm sorry about the story," said Mr. Pyecroft. And then with a slight smile, apologetic, as of one who knows he is taking liberties: "Perhaps, as compensation for the story you missed, you could write a society story about Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper entertaining for the summer her brother, sister, and niece."
Mr. Mayfair grinned, ever so little. "You've got some sense of humor, old top," he approved dryly.
"Thank you," said Mr. Pyecroft, with a gratified air.
He led Mr. Mayfair past the room within which Jack was hidden, down to the servants' door and courteously let him out. Two minutes later Mr. Pyecroft was again in the second maid's room. Mary eagerly sprang forward and caught his hand.
"I waited to thank you—you were simply superb!" she cried enthusiastically. "I've been telling your sister how wonderful you are. She's got to forgive you—I'll make her! And Jack will die laughingwhen I tell him." She herself burst into excited merriment that half-choked her. "Just think of it—all the while he was looking—looking a big story straight in the face!"
She was off to tell Jack.
"One might add, looking two big stories straight in the face, eh, Angelica, my dear?" chuckled Mr. Pyecroft,aliasMr. Preston.
One might add, three big stories, shivered Mrs. De Peyster.
But she did not add this aloud.
The amused smile which Mr. Pyecroft had worn when he had entered, and which he had subdued to thoughtful sobriety while "Wormwood" was assuaging the invalid's tribulations, began now to reappear. It grew. Mrs. De Peyster could but notice it, for he was smiling straight at her—that queer, whimsical, twisted smile of his.
"What is it?" she felt forced to ask.
"We three are not the only ones, my dear Angelica," he replied, "who are trying to slip one across on Mrs. De Peyster. Our friend the cabinet-maker is on the same job. I might remark, that he's about as much a cabinet-maker as yourself."
"What is he?"
"A detective, my dear."
"A detective!"
"The variety known as 'private,'" enlarged Mr. Pyecroft.
"What—what makes you think so?"
"Well, I felt it my duty to keep an eye on our new guest—unobtrusively, of course. When I slipped out a little while ago it was to watch him. He was working in the library; entirely by accident, my dear Angelica, my eye chanced to be at the keyhole. Hewas examining the drawers of the big writing-table; and not paying so much attention to the drawers as to the letters in them. And from the rapidity with which he was examining the letters it was plain the cabinet-maker knew exactly what he was after."
"What—do you think—it means?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
"Some person is trying to get something on Mrs. De Peyster," returned Mr. Pyecroft. "What, I don't know. But the detective party, I've got sized up. He's one of those gracious and indispensable noblest-works-of-God who dig up evidence for divorce trials—lay traps for the so-called 'guilty-parties,' ransack waste-paper baskets for incriminating scraps of letters, bribe servants—and if they find anything, willing to blackmail either side; remarkably impartial and above prejudice in this respect, one must admit. Altogether a most delectable breed of gentlemen. What would our best society do without them? And then again, what would they do without our best society?"
Mrs. De Peyster did not attempt an answer to this conjectural dilemma.
"Twin and interdependent pillars of America's shining morality," continued Mr. Pyecroft. "Now, like you, Angelica," he mused, "I wonder what the detective party is after; what the lofty Lady De Peyster can have been doing that is spicy? However," smiling at her, "Angelica, my dear, in the words of the great and good poet, 'We should worry.'"
It was only a moment later that Matilda burst into the room and closed the door behind her. She was almost breathless.
"He asked me for the key to"—"your" almost escaped Matilda—"to Mrs. De Peyster's suite. He'd been particularly ordered to touch up Mrs. De Peyster's private desk, he said."
"And you gave him the key?" inquired Mr. Pyecroft, asking the very question that was struggling at Mrs. De Peyster's lips.
"I told him I didn't have a key," said Matilda.
"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
"But," continued Matilda, "he said it didn't matter, for he said he'd been brought up a locksmith. And he picked the lock right before my eyes."
"That's one accomplishment of gentlemanliness I was never properly instructed in," said Mr. Pyecroft regretfully, almost plaintively. "I never could pick a lock."
"And where—is he now?" inquired Mrs. De Peyster.
"In Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room, retouching her desk."
"He's certainly after something, and after it hot—and probably something big," mused Mr. Pyecroft. "Any idea what it can be, Matilda?"
Matilda had none.
"Any idea, Angelica?"
Mrs. De Peyster was beginning to have an idea, and a terrified idea; but she likewise said she had none.
Mrs. De Peyster wished Mr. Pyecroft would go, so she could give way to her feelings, talk with Matilda. But Mr. Pyecroft stretched out his legs, settled back, clasped his hands behind his head, and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. He had an intellectual interest in some imaginary escapade of the far-distant Mrs. De Peyster; but no more; and he was obviously comfortable where he was.
Matilda started out, but was recalled by a glance of imperative appeal from Mrs. De Peyster. And so the three sat on in silence for a time, Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda taut with expectant fear, Mr. Pyecroft loungingly unconcerned.
And thus they were still sitting when there was a knock, which Mr. Pyecroft answered. The cabinet-maker entered. He wore a slouching, ready-made suit and a celluloid collar with ready-made bow tie snapped by an elastic over his collar-button—the conventional garb of the artisan who aspires for the air of gentlemanliness while at work. His face, though fresh-shaven, was dark with the sub-cutaneous stubble of a heavy beard; his eyes were furtive, with that masked gleam of Olympian all-confidence which a detective can never entirely mask.
"How are you, Miss Simpson?" he said to Matilda. "Your niece told me I'd find you here, so I came right up. Could I have a word with you outside?"
"Couldn't you have it here just as well," suggested Mr. Pyecroft—who somehow hadimperceptibly taken on an air of mediocrity. "We're all in the family, you know."
"Mebbe it'd be better to have it here," agreed the cabinet-maker. "You other two are living in the house, so I understand, because you're hard up; so your needing money may help what I'm after." He suddenly and visibly expanded with importance. "When the time comes to put my cards on the table, I don't waste a minute in showing my hand. That cabinet-maker business was all con. I'm an officer of the law."
"You don't say!" cried Mr. Pyecroft with a startled air.
"A detective. Brown's my name. I'm here hunting for something. I got part of what I wanted, but not all. What I want isn't here, or I'd have found it; there's only three or four places it'd have been locked up. I know," he ended, with driving confidence, "that a letter was written to Mrs. De Peyster by the Duke de Crécy saying he couldn't marry her. That letter is what I'm after."
"Oh!" breathed Mr. Pyecroft. And then with his wide-eyed mediocrity, "I wonder whom you represent."
"Mrs. Allistair!" exclaimed Matilda.
Mrs. De Peyster long since had been silently exclaiming the same.
"Why, what could Mrs. Allistair want it for?" queried the futile-looking brother.
"Never mind who I represent, or the reasons of the party," said Mr. Brown. "That letter is what I'm after, and I'm willing to pay for it. That's what ought to concern you folks."
"But if there ever was such a letter," commented Mr. Pyecroft with his simple-minded manner, "perhaps Mrs. de Peyster destroyed it."
"Perhaps she did. But I found two others he wrote her. And if she didn't tear it up or burn it, I'm going to have it!"
He directed himself at Matilda, and spoke slowly, suggestively, impressively. "Confidential servants, who think a bit of number one, should be on the lookout for documents and letters that may be of future value to themselves. I guess you get me. For the original of the letter I'm willing to come across with five hundred dollars."
"But I have no such letter!" cried Matilda.
"I might make it a thousand," conceded the detective. "And," he added, "the money might come in very handy for your sick sister there."
"But I tell you I have no such letter!"
"Say fifteen hundred, then."
"But I haven't got it!" cried Matilda.
"Perhaps you may have it without knowing what it is. Some of his letters he signed only with an initial. Here is a sample of the Duke's handwriting—one of his letters I found."
"I tell you I have—"
"Pardon me, Mr. Brown," interrupted theineffectual-looking Mr. Pyecroft. "May I see the handwriting, please?"
Firmly holding it in his own hands, the detective displayed the letter to Mr. Pyecroft—an odd, foreign hand, the paper of superfine quality, but without crest or any other embossing. Mr. Pyecroft studied it closely; his look grew puzzled; then he turned to Matilda.
"I don't exactly remember, Matilda, but it seems to me that there was handwriting like this among the letters you sent to me to keep for you."
Matilda gaped at Mr. Pyecroft. Mrs. De Peyster, half-rising on an elbow, peered in amazed stupefaction at her incalculable young man of the sea.
"Why, of course, she'd have turned it over to some one else for safe-keeping!" the detective cried triumphantly. "Where is it?" he demanded of Mr. Pyecroft.
"I'm not so sure I have it," said the shallow Mr. Pyecroft apologetically. "It just seems to me that I saw writing like this. If I have, it's over in a little room I keep. But if I really do have it"—with the shrewd look of a small mind—"we couldn't sell it for fifteen hundred."
"How much d'you want?"
"Well"—Mr. Pyecroft hesitated—"say—say three thousand."
"Good God, that's plain blackmail!"
"It may be, but poor people like us don't often get a chance like this."