"I won't pay it!"
"Perhaps, then,"—apologetically,—"we'd better deal with Mrs. Allistair direct."
"Oh, well,—if you've got the letter, we won't scrap about the price. I'll come across."
"Cash?" shrewdly queried the doltish brother.
"Sure. I don't run no risks with checks."
"I—we—wouldn't let the letter go out of our hands until it's paid for. And we won't go to any office. You yourself can say whether it's what you want or not? And you can pay right here?"
"Sure. I'm the judge of what I want. And when I go for a big thing, I go prepared." Mr. Brown opened his coat, and significantly patted a bulge on the right side of his vest.
"Well, then, I'll go to my room and see if I have it. But you'll have to wait here, for"—again with the shrewd look of the ineffectual man—"you might follow me, and with some more detectives you might take the letter from me."
"Soon wait here as anywhere else. Anyhow, I'll want your sister's word," nodding at Matilda, "that the letter is the same. But don't worry—nobody's going to take anything from you."
Mr. Pyecroft started out, then paused.
"I just happened to remember; you said the letter might not be signed. Hadn't you better let me have one of the Duke de Crécy's letters, so I can verify the handwriting?"
"I don't mind; these don't tell much." And the detective handed over one letter.
"It may be an hour or two before I can get back; the letters are packed away and I've got to go through them and compare them."
He slipped out. Mr. Brown, as he watched him, could hardly conceal his contempt.
The detective sat heavily down. Mrs. De Peyster was sick with apprehension as to what that incomprehensible Mr. Pyecroft was about to do. She wanted to talk to Matilda. But the two dared not speak with this confident, omniscient, detectorial presence between them. Mr. Brown condescendingly tried to make conversation by complimenting Matilda on her shrewdness; he'd helped a lot of clever servants like her to snug little fortunes.
But Matilda proved a poor conversationalist.
Close upon two hours passed before Mr. Pyecroft returned. He drew a letter from his pocket, firmly gripped its edges with both hands, and held it out to Mr. Brown.
"Is this the one?"
"Didn't I tell you not to be afraid; no one's going to steal it from you."
He took the letter from Mr. Pyecroft's unwilling and untrustful hands and glanced it through. The next moment it was as though an arc light of excitement had been switched on within his ample person. With swift, expert fingers he compared the texture of the paper of the new letter and the earlier ones.
"Great God!" he exulted. "Same paper—same handwriting—and it says just what I expected—and signed 'De Crécy'!"
He held out the letter to Matilda.
"Of course, you identify this as the letter you found?"
But Matilda shrank away as though the letter was deadly poison.
"I never saw the thing before!"
"What's that?" cried the detective.
"She's trying to hold out for more money," explained Mr. Pyecroft. From behind the detective's broad back he gave Matilda a warning look; then said softly: "Of course, it's the letter, isn't it, sister?"
Matilda thought only of saving the hour. The day would have to save itself.
"Yes," she said.
"Might—might I see it?" huskily inquired Mrs. De Peyster.
"Sure. The more that corroborates it the better."
Her face to the wall, the faint light slanting across her shoulder, she glanced at the letter. The Duke's own handwriting! And a jilting letter!—politely worded—but a jilting letter!... Mrs. De Peyster jilted!... If that were ever to come out—
For a moment she lay enfeebled and overwhelmed with horror. Then convulsively she crushed the letter in her hands.
"See here—wha' d' you mean?" cried thestartled detective, springing forward; in a moment his powerful hands rescued the document.
"Both of my sisters think we ought to stand out for more money," apologized Mr. Pyecroft. "And I'm not so sure they're not right."
"We've made our bargain already," quickly returned Mr. Brown. "And that's just how we'll settle."
He started to slip the letter into a pocket. But Mr. Pyecroft caught hold of it.
"How about the money?"
"You mean you don't trust me?"
"I'm not saying that," apologized Mr. Pyecroft. "But this means a lot to us. We can't afford to run any risks."
"All right, then."
Mr. Brown released the letter, drew a leather wallet from inside his vest, counted off six five-hundred-dollar bills, returned the wallet and held out the bills. The exchange was made. The detective carefully put the letter into a thick manila envelope, which he licked and sealed and put inside his vest to keep company with the wallet.
Mr. Pyecroft counted the bills, slowly, three or four times; then looked up.
"I bet my sisters were right; you would have paid more," he said regretfully, greedily.
"Never you mind what I would have paid!" retorted the detective, buttoning his coat over the letter.
SAME PAPER—SAME HANDWRITING!"SAME PAPER—SAME HANDWRITING!"
"You'd have paid twice that!" Mr. Pyecroft exclaimed disappointedly.
The detective, triumphant, could not resist grinning confirmingly.
"We've been outwitted!" cried Mr. Pyecroft. He turned to the two woman contritely. "If I'd only heeded you—let you have managed the affair!"
"You people got a mighty good price," commented Detective Brown.
"Well—perhaps so," sighed Mr. Pyecroft. Chagrin gave way to curiosity in his face. "I wonder, now, how Mrs. Allistair is going to use the letter?"
"That's none of my business."
"She must think she can do a lot with it," mused Mr. Pyecroft. "If the letter, or its substance, were printed, say in 'Town Gossip,' I suppose it would mean the end of Mrs. De Peyster's social leadership, and Mrs. Allistair would then have things her own way."
"Can't say," said the detective. But he winked knowingly.
When he had gone Mr. Pyecroft stood listening until the descending tread had thinned into silence. Then he turned about to Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda, and his wide mouth twisted up and rightward into that pagan, delighted smile of his. He laughed without noise; but every cell of him was laughing.
"Well, sisters dear, we're cleaning up—eh! Ihad the devil's own time matching that letter-paper at Brentanos', and I ran a pretty big risk leaving the house—but, say, it was worth it!" For a moment he could only laugh. "First, let's split the pile. I told you I was always square with my pals. Here's a thousand for you, Angelica,"—slipping two bills under Mrs. De Peyster's pillow,—"and a thousand for you, Matilda,"—thrusting the amount into her hands,—"and a thousand for your dear brother Archibald,"—slipping his share into a vest pocket.
Neither of the two women dared refuse the money.
"But—but," Mrs. De Peyster gasped thickly, "it's an outrageous forgery!"
"A forgery, I grant you, my dear Angelica," Mr. Pyecroft said good-humoredly. "But if by outrageous you mean crude or obvious, I beg to correct you. Even if I must say it myself, that forgery was strictly first-class."
"But it's a forgery!" repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
"My dears, don't you worry about that," he reassured them soothingly. "There'll be no comeback. That detective and his agency, and Mrs. Allistair behind them, first tried robbery, then tried bribery. They're all in bad themselves. So stop worrying; you're in no danger at all from arrest for forgery or fraud. There'll never be a peep from any of them."
This seemed sound reasoning, but Mrs. De Peyster did not acknowledge herself comforted.
"Besides," Mr. Pyecroft went on, with a sudden flash of wrathful contempt, "if there's anybody under God's sun I like to slip something over on it's those damned vermin of private detectives! And the swells that employ them! I hope that Mrs. Allistair gets stung good and plenty!"
"But Mrs. De Peyster!" wailed that lady—she couldn't help it, though she tried to keep inarticulate her sense of complete annihilation. "When they publish that letter the damage will have been done. It's a forgery, but nobody will believe her when she says so, and she can't prove it! She'll be ruined!"
"Well," Mr. Pyecroft commented casually, "I don't see where that bothers us. She's pretty much of a stiff, too, and I wouldn't mind handing her one while we're at it. But, Lord, this won't hurt her a bit."
Mrs. De Peyster sat suddenly upright.
"Not hurt her?"
"Didn't I tell you?" chortled Mr. Pyecroft. "Why, when our excellent friend, Mr. Brown, presents the Duke's letter to-morrow morning to his chief, or to Mrs. Allistair's agent,—if he ever gets that far,—he will turn triumphantly over one sheet of Brentanos' very best notepaper—blank."
"Blank?" cried Mrs. De Peyster.
Mr. Pyecroft's right eyelid drooped in its remarkable wink; his mouth again tilted high to starboard in its impish smile.
"You see," he remarked, "the Duke's letter was written in an ink of my own invention. One trifling idiosyncracy of that ink is that it fades completely and permanently in exactly twelve hours."
Mr. Pyecroft's grin grew by degrees more delighted: became the smile of a whimsical genius of devil-may-care, of an exultantly mischievous Pan. But he offered not a word of comment upon his work. He was an artist who was, in the main, content to achieve his masterpieces and leave comment and blame and praise to his public and his critics.
He stood up.
"I believe I promised to peel the potatoes and put on the roast," he remarked, and went out.
"Matilda," breathed Mrs. De Peyster, numbed and awed, still aghast, "did you ever dream there could be such a man?"
"Oh, ma'am,—never!"—tragically, wildly.
"Whateverishe going to do next?"
"I'm sure I don't know, ma'am. Almost anything."
"And whatever is going to happen to us next?"
"Oh, ma'am, it's terrible to think about! I'm sure I can't even guess! Mr. Pyecroft, and all the others, and all these things happening—I'm sure they'll be the death of me, ma'am!"
Mrs. De Peyster sprang from her bed. DespiteMatilda's cheap dressing-gown which she wore as appropriate to her station, she made a splendid figure of raging majesty, hands clenched, eyes blazing, furiously erect.
"That man is outrageous!" she stormed. "I cannot, and shall not, stand him any longer! We must, and shall, get rid of him!" Her voice rang with its accustomed tone of all-conquering determination. "Matilda, we are going to do it! I say we are going to do it!"
Matilda gazed admiringly at her magnificently aroused mistress. "Of course, you'll do it, ma'am," she said with conviction.
"I cannot endure him another minute!" Mrs. De Peyster raged on. "At once, he goes out of this house! Or we do!"
"Of course, ma'am," repeated Matilda in her adoring voice. And then after a moment, she added quaveringly: "But please, ma'am,—how are we going to do it?"
The outraged and annihilatory Mrs. De Peyster gazed at Matilda, utterer of practical common-places. As she gazed the splendid flames within her seemed slowly to flicker out, and she sank back upon her bed. Yes, how were they going to do it?
In cooler mood they discussed that question, without discovering a solution; discussed it until it was time for Matilda to go downstairs to perform her share of the preparation of the communal dinner. Left alone, her fury now sunk to sober ashes, Mrs.De Peyster continued the exploration of possibilities, with the same negative result.
Matilda brought up her dinner on a tray, then returned to the kitchen; for though the others were all doing fair tasks, to Matilda of twenty years' experience fell the oversight of the thousand details of the house. Presently Mary appeared, on one of her visits of mercy—full of relief that the cabinet-maker had ended his work so soon, thus setting Jack free.
But before beginning the anodynous "Wormwood," she launched into another high-voltage eulogy of Angelica's brother. Even more than they had at first thought was he willing and competent and agreeable in the matter of their common household labor; he was not intrusive; he was rich with clever and well-informed talk when they all laid aside work to be sociable. In fact, as she had said before, he was simply splendid!
"Now, I do hope, Angelica, that you are going to forgive your brother," Mary insisted. "He really means well. I think he's what he is because he has never had a fair chance." And then more boldly: "I think the fault is largely yours and Matilda's. Matilda says your parents died when you were all young; and he admitted that he does not even remember them. And he also admitted, when I pressed him, that you and Matilda had not given him very much attention during his boyhood. You and Matilda are older; you should have brought him up more carefully; you are both seriously to blamefor what he is. So I hope," she concluded, "that both of you will forgive him and help him."
Once more Mrs. De Peyster did not feel called upon to make response.
"I have noted particularly that Matilda does not seem cordial and forgiving," Mary was continuing, when the prodigal brother himself dropped in. With her pretty, determined manner, Mary renewed her efforts at reconciliation in the estranged family. Mr. Pyecroft was penitent without being humble, and whenever a question was put directly to Mrs. De Peyster his was the tongue that answered; he was quite certain his sister Angelica would relent and receive him back into her respect and love once he had fully proved his worthiness.
"I must say, Mr. Simpson, that I think you have an admirably forgiving nature," declared Mary. It was clear, though she was silent on the matter, that she considered his sisters to have cold, hard, New England hearts.
Mr. Pyecroft withdrew; and Mary, in the high-pitched voice required by the invalid's misfortune, read "Wormwood" for an hour—until Jack came to the door and announced that Judge Harvey had again called on them. Alone, Mrs. De Peyster pondered her poignant problem, What should she do?—wishful that Matilda were present to talk the affair over with her. But Matilda was still busy in the kitchen with the odd jobs of night-end.
Toward ten o'clock Mr. Pyecroft came in again.He stood and gazed silently down upon her. The one electric light showed her an odd, dry smile on Mr. Pyecroft's face.
"What is it?" Mrs. De Peyster asked in fear.
"Really, Angelica, you're not half so clever as I believed you."
"What is it?" she repeated huskily.
"This pearl." And from a pocket he drew out the pendant he had appropriated the night before in Mrs. Gilbert's boarding-house. "I thought we ought to be prepared with more cash in hand for our get-away when we decide to make it. So an hour ago I slipped out the back way, and made for a safe pawnbroker I know of. Angelica, you're easy. This pearl is nothing but imitation. And you fell for it!" He shook his head sorrowingly, chidingly. "Here's one case where remorse might be highly proper—and safest; better just mail it back to the party you lifted it from."
With good-humored contempt he tossed the pendant upon the bed. Mrs. De Peyster clutched it and thrust it beneath her pillow.
"I believe, Angelica, my dear," he commented, "that in view of the capacity this pearl incident has revealed, it is strictly up to me to assume charge of every detail of our plan."
He sat down and in his fluent manner discussed the day's developments and their preparations for the future; and he was still talking when, fifteen minutes later, the door opened and Matilda entered.Her face, of late so often ashen, was ashen as though almost from habit.
"Oh, oh," she quavered, "the servants' bell rang—and I answered it, like I'd been told to do—and in stepped four men—two of them the policemen we let in last night, and two men I never saw before—and they asked if they might speak to my brother who was visiting me. And I—I promised to call him down. Oh, ma'—Angelica—"
"Mr. Pyecroft, what does this mean?" cried Mrs. De Peyster.
Mr. Pyecroft's usual perfect composure was gone. His face was gleamingly alert; sharp as a razor's edge.
"God knows how they've done it," he snapped out. "But it means they've tracked me here!"
"As—as Thomas Preston?"
"As Thomas Preston."
"And if they take you—they—they may find me, and—"
"Nothing more likely," grimly responded Mr. Pyecroft.
"Then escape!" Mrs. De Peyster cried with frantic energy. "Run! For heaven's sake, run! You still have time!"
"Running from the police is the surest way to get caught when they've got you trapped," he answered in quick, staccato tones. "They've got every door watched—sure. Anyhow—Listen! Hear those steps? They haven't trusted you, Matilda; they'vefollowed. Angelica, down with your face to the wall, and be sick! And while you're at it, be damned sick!"
Mrs. De Peyster obeyed. Mr. Pyecroft drew the room's one chair up beside the bed, sat down, picked up "Wormwood," and again, with the most natural manner in the world, he began to read in a loud voice. The next moment the two policemen of the previous night came in.
Mr. Pyecroft arose.
"I must beg your pardon, officers," he said pleasantly and with a slight tincture of his clerical manner. "My sister Matilda just told me you wished to see me, but I was almost at the end of a very interesting chapter which I was reading aloud to my other sister, who is ill, and so I thought I would conclude the scene before I came down. In what way can I serve you?"
Neither of the officers replied. One closed the doorway with his bulk, and the other thumped heavily down a flight or two of stairs, from whence his shout ascended:—
"We've got him up here, Lieutenant! Come on up!"
Within the tiny room of the second maid no one spoke. Presently heavy footfalls mounted; the second policeman entered, and presently two solid men in civilian dress pushed through the door. The foremost, a dark-visaged man with heavy jaw, and a black derby which he did not remove, fixed on Mr. Pyecroft a triumphant, domineering gaze.
"Well, Preston," he said, "so we've landed you at last."
Mr. Pyecroft, his left forefinger still keeping the place in "Wormwood," stared at the speaker in bewilderment.
"Pardon me, sir, but I completely fail to understand what you are talking about."
"Don't try that con stuff on us; we won't fall for it," advised the lieutenant. He smiled with satiric satisfaction; he was something of a wit in the department. "But if you ain't sure who you are, I'll put you wise: Mr. Thomas Preston, forger of the Jefferson letters, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to yourself. Shake hands, gents."
Mr. Pyecroft continued his puzzled stare. Then a smile began to break through his bewilderment. Then he laughed.
"So that's it, is it! You take me for that Thomas Preston. I've read about him. He must be a clever fellow, in his own way."
He sobered. "But, gentlemen, if I had the clever qualities attributed to Mr. Preston, I am sure I could apply those qualities to some more useful, and even more profitable, occupation."
"You don't do it bad at all, Preston," observed the lieutenant. "Only, you see, it don't go down."
"I trust," Mr. Pyecroft said good-humoredly, "that it isn't going to be necessary to explain to you that I am not Thomas Preston."
"No, that won't be necessary at all," replied thewaggish lieutenant. "Not necessary at all. For you can't."
Mr. Pyecroft raised his eyebrows.
"Gentlemen, you really seem to be taking this matter seriously! Why, you two officers in uniform saw me only last night here with my two sisters, and any one in the neighborhood can tell you my sister Matilda has been housekeeper in this house for twenty years."
That tone was most plausible. The two uniformed policemen looked at their superior dubiously.
"Never you mind what they seen last night," the lieutenant commented dryly. "And never you mind about Matilda."
"But you are forgetting that I am Matilda's brother," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Matilda, I am your brother, am I not?"
"Y—yes," testified Matilda, who by the corpulent pressure of four crowded officers was almost being bisected against the edge of the stationary wash-bowl.
"And you, Angelica; I'm your brother, am I not?"
"Yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster from beneath the bedclothes.
Mr. Pyecroft turned in polite triumph to the lieutenant.
"There, now, you see."
"But, I don't see," returned that officer. "I know you're Thomas Preston. Jim, just slip the nipperson him. And there's something queer about these women. Just slip the bracelets on Matilda, too, and carry downstairs the party in bed. We'll call the police ambulance for her, and take the whole bunch over to the station."
The party in bed suddenly stiffened as if from a stroke of some kind, and Matilda fairly wilted away. Mr. Pyecroft alone did not change by so much as a hair.
"One moment, gentlemen," he interposed in his even voice, "before you go to regrettable extremes. I believe that an even better witness to my identity can easily be secured."
"And who's that, Tommie?"
"I refer to Judge Harvey."
"Judge Harvey!" The lieutenant was startled out of his ironic exultation. "You mean the guy that was stung by them forged letters—the complainant who's making it so damned hot for Preston?"
"The same," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey is at this moment in this house."
"In this house!"
"I believe he is downstairs some place going over some bills Mrs. De Peyster asked him to examine. Matilda, you doubtless know in what room the Judge is working. Will you kindly knock at his door and ask him to step up here for a moment?"
The lieutenant frowned doubtfully at Mr. Pyecroft, hesitated, then nodded to Matilda. The latter,relieved of the pressure of much policial avoirdupois, slipped from the room. The lieutenant turned and silently held a penetrating gaze upon the empty clothes-hooks. Mr. Pyecroft continued to look imperturbably and pleasantly upon the four officers. And under the bedclothes Mrs. De Peyster saw wild visions of Mr. Pyecroft being the next moment exposed, and herself dragged forth to shame.
Thus for a minute or two. Then Judge Harvey appeared in the doorway.
"Lieutenant Sullivan! See here, what's the meaning of this?" he demanded sternly.
"'Evening, Judge Harvey," began the lieutenant, for the first time since his entrance removing his derby. "It's like this—"
"Pardon me," interrupted Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey, these gentlemen here have been upon the point of making a blunder that would be ludicrous did it not have its serious side. That's why I had you called. The fact is, they desire to arrest me."
"Arrest you!" exclaimed the Judge.
"Yes, arrest me," Mr. Pyecroft went on, easily, yet under his easy words trying to suggest certain definite contingencies. "That would be bad enough in itself. But, as you know, Judge Harvey, my arrest would unfortunately but necessarily involve the arrest of several other quite innocent persons—bring about a great public scandal—and create a situation that would be deplorable in every particular. You see that, Judge?"
Judge Harvey got the covered meaning.
"I see. But what do they want to arrest you for?"
"On a most absurd charge," answered Mr. Pyecroft, smiling,—but eyes straight into Judge Harvey's eyes. "They seem to think I am Thomas Preston."
"Thomas Preston!" cried the Judge.
"Yes, the man that forged those Jefferson letters you bought."
Mr. Pyecroft saw the puzzled semi-recognition that he had observed in the Judge's face the night before flash into amazed, full recognition. Quickly but without appearance of haste, he stepped forward diverting attention from the Judge's face, and made himself the center of the party's eyes.
"You see, lieutenant and officers," he said easily, filling in time to give Judge Harvey opportunity to recover and think—and still aiming his meaning at the Judge, "you see, I have here summoned before you the best possible witness to my identity. You threaten to arrest and expose me and two other persons in this house. Judge Harvey knows, as well as I know, how unfortunate it would be for these parties, and how displeasing to Mrs. De Peyster, if you should make the very great blunder of arresting me as Thomas Preston. Now, Judge Harvey,"—with a joking smile,—"you know who I am. Will you please inform the lieutenant whether I am the man you wish to have arrested?"
Judge Harvey stared, silent, his face twitching.
"Is what he says O.K., Judge?" queried Lieutenant Sullivan. "He ain't the man you want arrested?"
"He is not," the Judge managed to get out.
"From the way you hesitated—"
"The Judge's hesitation, Lieutenant," Mr. Pyecroft interrupted in his pleasant tone, "was due to his amazement at the utter grotesqueness of the situation. He was for a moment utterly taken aback. That's it, isn't it, Judge?"
"Yes," said Judge Harvey.
The lieutenant twisted his derby in chagrined, ireful hands.
"Some of my men have been damned fools again!" he exploded. He got himself back under control. "Judge Harvey, I hope you'll excuse our buttin' in like this—and—and won't find it necessary to mention it to the heads of the department."
"It's—it's all right," said the Judge.
"And you, Mr.—Mr.—"
"Simpson—Archibald Simpson," supplied Mr. Pyecroft.
"Mr. Simpson, I hope you don't mind this too much?"
"No ill feeling at all, Lieutenant," Mr. Pyecroft said graciously. "Such little mistakes must occasionally occur in the most careful police work."
"And—and—there's another thing," said Lieutenant Sullivan with a note of gruff pleading. "You know how the papers are roasting the departmentjust now. For every little slip, we get the harpoon or the laugh. I'll be obliged to you if you don't say anything that'll let this thing get into the papers."
"Believe me, Lieutenant, I shall do everything in my power to protect you," Mr. Pyecroft assured him. "And now, since the matter is settled," he added pleasantly, "perhaps you'd like to have Matilda show you the way out. These upper hallways are really very confusing. Matilda, my dear,—if you don't mind."
Wordlessly, Matilda obeyed, and four sets of policemen's feet went heavily down the stairs. Beneath her bedclothes Mrs. De Peyster began faintly, ever so faintly, to return to life. Judge Harvey glared at Mr. Pyecroft, hands spasmodically clutching and unclutching; his look grew darker and darker. Respectful, regretful, Mr. Pyecroft stood waiting.
His left forefinger had not lost the place in "Wormwood."
The storm broke.
"You are a scoundrel, sir!" thundered the Judge.
"I fear, sir, you are right," respectfully assented Mr. Pyecroft.
"And what's more, you've made me lie to the police!"
"Not exactly, sir," Mr. Pyecroft corrected mildly. "I was careful about that. I did not ask you to deny that I was Thomas Preston. I merely asked you if I was the man you wished arrested. You answered that you did not want me arrested; under the circumstances I am certain you spoke the truth. And in explaining your hesitation to the lieutenant, when you said it was due to your utter amazement at the grotesqueness of the situation, I am certain you there also spoke the truth."
"You are a quibbler!" fumed the outraged Judge. "You made me lie to the police!"
"Well, even if I did," returned Mr. Pyecroft in his same mild tone, "is there any one else you would rather lie to?"
The Judge glared, almost choking. "Have you no respect, man, for common decency—for order—for the law?"
"For order and decency, yes,—but as for ordinary law, I fear I have no more respect than your honor has," Mr. Pyecroft admitted gravely. "And I acquired my irreverence toward law just as your honor did—from studying it."
Judge Harvey stared.
"What! You're a lawyer?"
"I have been admitted to the bar, and have been a law clerk, but have never practiced for myself."
"But last night you said you were a clergyman!"
"I have gone no deeper into theology, sir, than the price of a clerical suit. And that was for its moral effect on the police."
"Sir," exploded the Judge, "you are utterly incorrigible!"
"I trust that I am not, sir," submitted Mr. Pyecroft gravely, hopefully.
At that moment Jack and Mary appeared on tiptoe in the doorway, alive with curiosity; and directly behind them came Matilda. Upon the latter Judge Harvey turned.
"Well, Matilda, I certainly want to compliment you on your brother!" he exclaimed with irate sarcasm.
"My bro—bro—yes, sir, thank you," weakly returned poor Matilda.
"No wonder, Mr. Simpson," the outraged Judge continued, "that your family disowned you!"
"They were justified, certainly, as I told you at the very first," soberly conceded Mr. Pyecroft.
Jack and Mary demanded enlightenment. To them Judge Harvey told of the visit of the four police officers, scathingly expounded the character of Matilda's brother, and explained how he, Judge Harvey, had been forced to protect the outrageous scape-grace. Through this recital, Mr. Pyecroft, though unbowed by shame, continued to wear his respectful, regretful look.
"Perhaps you will not believe me, Judge Harvey," he returned courteously, and with the ring of sincerity, when the indictment was ended, "and even if you do believe me, perhaps my statement will mean nothing to you; but I desire none the less to state that I am sorry that you were the person to be deceived by those Jefferson letters. Of course, I had no idea to whom they were to be sold. I did them for the autograph dealer, so much for the job—and did them partly as a lark, though, of course, I do not expect you to appreciate the humor of the affair. It may be some consolation to you, however, to know that I profited very little from the transaction; the dealer got over ninety per cent of the price you paid."
The Judge snorted, and stalked incredulously and wrathfully out, Jack and Mary behind him; and Mrs. De Peyster was left alone in the bosom of her family. Mr. Pyecroft sat silent on the foot of the bed for a space, grave but composed, gazing at a particular scale of the flaking kalsomine. Then he remarked something about its having been a somewhattrying day and that he believed that he'd be off to bed.
When he was gone Mrs. De Peyster lay wordless, limp, all a-shiver. Beside her sat the limp and voiceless Matilda, gasping and staring wildly. How long Mrs. De Peyster lay in that condition she never knew. All her faculties were reeling. These crowding events seemed the wildest series of unrealities; seemed the frenzied, feverish phantasms of a nightmare. They never, never could possibly-have happened!
But then ... they had happened! And this hard, narrow bed was real. And this low, narrow room was real. And Mr. Pyecroft was real. And so were Jack, and Mary, and Judge Harvey.
These things could never have happened. But, then, they had. And would they ever, ever stop happening?
This was only the eighth day since her promulgated sailing. Three more months, ninety days of twenty-four hours each, before Olivetta—
"Matilda," she burst out in a despairing whisper, "I can't stand this another minute!"
"Oh, ma'am!" wailed Matilda.
"That Mr. Pyecroft—" Words failed her. "I've simply got to get out of this somehow!"
"Of course, ma'am. But—but our changes haven't helped us much yet. If we tried to leave the house, that Mr. Pyecroft might follow and we might find ourselves even in a worse way than we are, ma'am."
"Nothing can be worse than this!"
"I'm not so sure, ma'am," tremulously doubted Matilda. "We never dreamed anything could be so bad as this, but here this is."
There was a vague logic in what Matilda said; but logic none the less. Unbelievable, and yet so horribly actual as this was,—was what had thus far happened only thelegatoandpianissimopassages of their adventure, withcrescendoandfortissimostill ahead? Mrs. De Peyster closed her eyes, and did not speak. She strove to regain some command over her routed faculties.
Matilda waited.
Presently Mrs. De Peyster's eyes opened. "It would be some relief"—weak hope was in her voice—"if only I could manage to get down into my own suite."
"But, ma'am, with that Mr. Pyecroft—"
"He's a risk we've got to run," Mrs. De Peyster cried desperately. "We've somehow got to manage to get me there without his knowing it."
Suddenly she sat up. The hope that a moment before had shone faintly in her face began to become a more confident glow. Matilda saw that her mistress was thinking; therefore she remained silent, expectant.
"Matilda, I think there's a chance!" Mrs. De Peyster exclaimed after a moment. "I'll get into my suite—I'll live there quiet as death. Since they believe the suite empty, since they know it islocked, they may never suspect any one is in it. Matilda, it's the only way!"
"Yes—but, ma'am, how am I to explain your sudden disappearance?"
"Say that your sister became homesick," said Mrs. De Peyster with mounting hope, "and decided suddenly, in the middle of the night, to return at once to her home in Syracuse."
"That may satisfy all but Mr. Pyecroft, ma'am. But Mr. Pyecroft won't believe it."
"Mr. Pyecroft will have to believe whatever he likes. It's the only way, and we're going to do it. And do it at once! Matilda, go down and see if they're all asleep yet, particularly Mr. Pyecroft."
Matilda took off her shoes and in her stocking-feet went scouting forth; and stocking-footed presently returned, with the news that all seemed asleep, particularly Mr. Pyecroft.
Five minutes later, in Matilda's dress, and likewise in stocking-feet, Mrs. De Peyster stepped out of her second maid's room. Breathless, she listened. Not a sound. Then, Matilda at her heels, she began to creep down the stairway—slowly—slowly—putting each foot down with the softness of a closing lip—pausing with straining ears on every tread. With up-pressing feet she glided by the door within which Mr. Pyecroft lay in untroubled sleep, then started by the room that homed Jack and Mary, creeping with the footsteps of a disembodied spirit,fearful every second lest some door might spring open and wild alarms ring out.
But she got safely by. Then, more rapidly, yet still as noiseless as a shadow's shadow, she crept on down—down—until she came to her own door. Here the attending Matilda silently vanished. With velvet touch Mrs. De Peyster slipped her key into the lock, stepped inside, noiselessly closed and locked the door behind her.
Then she sank into a chair, and breathed. Just breathed ... back once more in the spacious suite wherein nine days ago—or was it nine thousand years?—inspiration had flowered within her and her great idea had been born.
When she awoke, it was with a sweet, languorous sense of perfect comfort. Heavy-lidded, she glanced about her. Ah! Once more she was in her own wide, gracious bed—of a different caste, of an entirely different race, from the second maid's paving-stone pallet, from that folding, punitive contrivance from whose output of anguish Mrs. Gilbert managed to extract a profit. Also she was in sweet, ingratiating linen—the first fresh personal linen that had touched her in nine days.
It was all as though she were enfolded deep in the embrace of a not too fervent benediction.
About her were the large, dignified spaces of her bedroom, and beyond were the yet greater spaces of her sitting-room; and from where she lay she could see the gleaming white of her large tiled bathroom. And there were drawers and drawers of freshlingerie; and there were her closets filled with comfortable gowns that would be a thousand times more grateful after a week of Matilda's unchanged and oppressive black. And there on her dressing-table were the multitudinous implements of silver that had to do with her toilet.