CHAPTER XVITHE PLANT
The very sharpness of the attack shocked Sally into such apparent calm as she might not have been able even to simulate had she been given more time to prepare herself.
After that first involuntary start of surprise and indignation she stood quite still, but with a defiant chin well elevated and her shoulders back, and if she had in her turn grown pale, it was less with fright than with the contained exasperation that lighted the fires in her eyes as they ranged from face to face of the four.
Lyttleton, she noticed, lingered uneasily near the door, hanging his head, avoiding her glance, almost frankly shamefaced.
The spinster posed herself with arms akimbo and smirked superciliously at the badgered girl, malicious spite agleam in her little black eyes.
Mrs. Standish had fallen back on the interruption and now half stood, half rested against the dressing-table, her passion of a moment ago sedulously dissembled. She arched an inquiring eyebrow and smiled an inscrutable smile, questioning the proceedings without altogether disapproving them.
Nearer Sally than any of these, the strange man confronted the girl squarely, appraising her with an unprejudiced gaze.
"If you please--" she appealed directly to him.
"Miss Manwaring, I believe?" he responded with a slight, semi-diffident nod.
Silently Sally inclined her head.
"That's the name she gave when she came here, at least," Mercedes commented.
Sally addressed Lyttleton. "Please shut the door," she said quietly, and as he obliged her, looked back to the stranger.
"Mason's my name, miss," he went on: "operative from Webb's Private Investigation Agency, Boston. Mrs. Gosnold sent for me by long-distance telephone this morning. I've been here all evening, working up this case on the quiet. The understanding was that I wasn't to take any steps without her permission; but she left it to me to use my best judgment in case her little plan for getting a confession didn't work. So I thought I'd better not wait any longer, seeing how late it is and how long after the time limit she set--and all."
"Do I understand Mrs. Gosnold gave you permission to break into my room with--these people?" Sally demanded.
"No, miss--not exactly. As I say, she told me to use my best judgment in case the jewels weren't returned. And, as I've said, it was getting late, and Mrs. Gosnold nowhere to be found, and I thought I'd better get busy."
"Mrs. Gosnold has disappeared?"
"Well, you might call it that. Anyway, we can't seem to find any trace of her. I've got an idea that maid of hers knows something, but if she does she won't talk to me. And considering that, and everything--the circumstances being so unusual all around--it seemed to be up to me to take some steps to make sure nothing was wrong."
He faltered, patently embarrassed by a distasteful task.
"Well?" Sally insisted coolly. "Still you've given me no reason for this outrageous intrusion and accusation."
"No, miss; I'm coming to that. You see, the first thing was to get that letter-box opened and examine those envelopes. I got several of the gentlemen to act as a sort of a committee, so as nobody could kick on the ground that everything wasn't done open and aboveboard."
"You found no confession, I gather?" Mrs. Standish interpolated.
"No, ma'am--no confession. All but two of the cards were blank. The two had something written on them--anonymous information, so to speak. I brought them along so that Miss Manwaring would understand, in case there was any mistake, it wasn't my fault."
He fumbled in a pocket, brought forth the cards, and with some hesitation handed them over to Sally.
Both bore messages laboriously printed in pencil, of much the same tenor:
"Suggest you look into Miss Manwaring's antecedents--also her actions between one and three o'clock last night."
"Ask Miss Manwaring what she was doing out of bed after one last night--search of her room might prove helpful."
Silently Sally returned the cards.
"You see," the detective apologised heavily, "after that, there wasn't anything for it but to ask you to explain."
"There is nothing to explain; the charge is preposterous."
"Yes, miss--that is, I hope so, for your sake. All the same, I had to ask you. Most of the gentlemen present when I opened the envelopes seemed to think I ought to do something at once. Personally, I'd rather have consulted Mrs. Gosnold before putting it up to you this way."
"I'm afraid you will find that would have been wiser."
"Yes, miss, perhaps. But she being absent and no way of finding out when she was liable to be back and the case left in my hands, to act on my discretion, providing no confession was made--"
"Still, I advise you to wait. If you think you must do something, why not employ your talents to find Mrs. Gosnold?"
"Well--that's so, too; and I would, only it was suggested that maybe she hadn't disappeared really, but was just keeping out of sight until this business was settled, preferring not to be around when anything unpleasant was pulled off. Like this."
Sally shrugged.
"Very well," she said indifferently. "What then?"
"I'd like to ask you some questions."
"Spare yourself the trouble. I shan't answer."
"You might make things easier for all of us, miss, yourself included."
"I promise faithfully," Sally said, "to answer any questions you may care to ask fully, freely, truthfully--in the presence of Mrs. Gosnold. Find her first. Until you do, I refuse to say a word."
"I don't suppose you'd mind telling me how you came to get your job as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold."
True to her word, Sally kept her lips tight shut.
At this, Miss Pride felt called upon to volunteer: "Mrs. Standish ought to be able to tell you that, Mr. Mason. She brought Miss--Manwaring here."
"I'm sure," Mrs. Standish said with an elaborate air of indifference, "I know little or nothing about Miss Manwaring." But Sally's regard was ominous. She hesitated, apparently revising what she had at first intended to say. "She came to me last week--the day we left New York--with a letter of recommendation purporting to be from Mrs. English--Mrs. Cornwallis English, the social worker, who is now in Italy."
"Purporting?" iterated the detective.
"Oh, I have no reason to believe it wasn't genuine, I'm sure."
"Have you the letter handy'?"
"I don't think I have," Mrs. Standish replied dubiously. "Perhaps. I can't say. I'll have to look. I'm careless about such matters."
"That's all you know about her?"
"Practically. She seemed pleasant-spoken and intelligent. I took a fancy to her, gave her an outfit of clothing, brought her here and introduced her to my aunt, who personally engaged her, understanding all the circumstances. That is the limit of my responsibility for Miss Manwaring."
Sally drew a deep breath; at all events, the woman had not dared repeat any of her former abominable accusations; if she was unfriendly, she was also committed to a neutral attitude: no more talk of a forged letter, no more innuendo concerning Sally's "accomplice" of the night before.
There was a pause. The detective scratched his head in doubt.
"All this is very irregular," he deprecated vaguely.
Miss Pride opened her mouth to speak, but Lyttleton silenced her with a murmured word or two. She sniffed resentfully but held her peace.
"I can't accept your apology;" Sally returned with dignity. "But I'm sure you have no longer any excuse for annoying me."
But Mr. Mason held his ground. "The trouble is," he insisted, "after those cards had been read, one of the gentlemen said he had seen you out in the garden between two and three o'clock."
"Mr. Lyttleton!" Sally accused with a lip of scorn.
"Why, yes," the detective admitted.
Mrs. Standish made a furious gesture, but contrived to refrain from speech.
"I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned it," Lyttleton said blandly, looking Sally straight in the face. "But the circumstances were peculiar, to say the least, if not incriminating. I saw this cloaked figure from my window. I thought its actions suspicious. I dressed hurriedly and ran down in time to intercept Miss Manwaring at an appointment with a strange man. I didn't see his face. He turned and ran. While I was questioning Miss Manwaring Mr. Trego came up and misconstrued the situation. We had a bit of a row, and before it was cleared up Miss Manwaring had escaped."
Sally's sole comment was an "Oh!" that quivered with its burden of loathing.
"Sorry," Lyttleton finished cheerfully; "but I felt I had to mention it. I dare say the matter was innocent enough, but still Miss Manwaring hasn't explained it, so far as I know; I felt it my duty to speak."
To the inquiring attitude of the detective Sally responded simply: "Find Mrs. Gosnold."
"Yes, miss," he returned with the obstinacy of a slow-witted man. "Meantime, I guess you won't mind my looking round a bit, will you?"
"Looking round?"
"Your room, miss."
Sally gasped. "You have the insolence to suggest searching my room?"
"Well, miss--"
"I forbid you positively to do anything of sort without Mrs. Gosnold's permission."
"There!" Miss Pride interpolated with sour satisfaction. "If she has nothing to fear, why should she object?"
"Do be quiet, Mercedes," Mrs. Standish advised sweetly. "Miss Manwaring is quite right to object, even if innocent."
"You see, miss," Mason persisted, "I have Mrs. Gosnold's authority to make such investigation as I see fit."
"I forbid you to touch anything in this room."
"I'm sorry. I'd rather not. But it looks to me like my duty."
She perceived at length that he was stubbornly bent on this outrageous thing. For a breath she contemplated dashing madly from the place, seeking Trego, and demanding his protection.
But immediately, with a sharp pang, she was reminded that she might no longer depend even on Trego.
As the detective tentatively approached her dressing-table the girl swung a wicker armchair about so that it faced a corner of the room and threw herself angrily into it, her back to the four.
Immediately, as if nothing but her eye had prevented it theretofore, the search was instituted.
She heard drawers opened and closed, sounds of rummaging. She trembled violently with impotent exasperation. It was intolerable, yet it must be endured. There was one satisfaction: they would find nothing, and presently Mrs. Gosnold would reappear and their insolence be properly punished.
She could not believe that Mrs. Gosnold would let it pass unrebuked. And yet . . .
Of a sudden it was borne in upon the girl that she had found this little island world a heartless, selfish place, that she had yet to meet one of its inhabitants by whom her faith and affection had not been betrayed, deceived and despised.
Remembering this, dared she count upon even Mrs. Gosnold in this hour of greatest need?
Had that lady not, indeed, already failed her protegee by indulging in the whim of this unaccountable disappearance?
Must one believe what had been suggested, that she, believing her confidence misplaced in Sally, was merely keeping out of the way until the unhappy business had been accomplished and the putative cause of it all removed from Gosnold House?
Behind her back the futile business of searching her room, so inevitably predestined to failure and confusion, was being vigorously prosecuted, to judge by the sounds that marked its progress. And from the shifting play of shadows upon the walls she had every reason to believe that Miss Pride was lending the detective a willing hand. If so, it was well in character; nothing could be more consistent with the spinster's disposition than this eagerness to believe the worst of the woman she chose to consider her rival in the affections of Mrs. Gosnold. A pitiful, impotent, jealousy-bitten creature: Sally was almost sorry for her, picturing the abashment of the woman when her hopes proved fruitless, her, fawning overtures toward forgiveness and reconciliation. Possibly she had been one of the two to accuse Sally on the cards.
The other? Not Mrs. Standish. She would hardly direct suspicion against the girl she despised when by so doing she would imperil her own schemes. She was too keenly selfish to cut off her nose to spite her face. Sally could imagine Mrs. Standish as remaining all this while conspicuously aloof, overseeing the search with her habitual manner of weary toleration, but inwardly more than a little tremulous with fear lest the detective or Mercedes chance upon that jewel-case and so upset her claim against the burglary-insurance concern.
Lyttleton, too, would in all likelihood be standing aside, posing with a nonchalant shoulder against the wall, his slender, nicely manicured fingers stroking his scrubby moustache (now that he had discarded the beard of Sir Francis, together with his mask) and not quite hiding the smirk of his contemptible satisfaction--the satisfaction of one who had lied needlessly, meanly, out of sheer spite, and successfully, since his lie, being manufactured out of whole cloth, could never be controverted save by the worthless word of the woman libelled.
More than probably Lyttleton had been the other anonymous informant.
And whatever the outcome of this sickening affair (Sally told herself with a shudder of disgust) she might thank her lucky stars for this blessing, that she had been spared the unspeakable ignominy of not finding Mr. Lyttleton out before it was too late.
Trego, too; though she could consider a little more compassionately the poor figure Trego cut, with his pretensions to sturdy common sense dissipated and exposing the sentimentalist so susceptible that he was unable to resist the blandishments of the first woman who chose to set her cap for him. Poor thing: he would suffer a punishment even beyond his deserts when Mrs. Artemas had consummated her purpose and bound him legally to her.
For all that, Sally felt constrained to admit, Trego had been in a measure right in his contention, though it had needed his folly to persuade her of his wisdom. She was out of her element here. And now she began to despair of ever learning to breathe with ease the rarefied atmosphere of the socially elect. The stifling midsummer air that stagnated in Huckster's Bargain Basement was preferable, heavy though it was with the smell of those to whom soap is a luxury and frequently a luxury uncoveted; there, at least, sincerity and charity did not suffocate and humbler virtues flourished.
Bitterly Sally begrudged the concession that she had been wrong. All along she had nourished her ambition for the society of her betters on the conviction that, with all her virtues, she was as good as anybody. To find that with all her faults she was better, struck a cruel blow at her pride.
A low whistle interrupted at once her morose reflections and the mute activity of the search.
Immediately she heard the detective exclaim: "What's this?"
Miss Pride uttered a shrill cry of satisfaction; Mrs. Standish said sharply: "Aunt Abby's solitaire!"
To this chorus Mr. Lyttleton added a drawl: "Well, I'm damned!"
Unable longer to contain her alarm and curiosity, Sally sprang from her chair and confronted four accusing countenances.
"What do you know about this?" the detective demanded.
Clipped between his thumb and forefinger a huge diamond coruscated in the light of the electrics.
Momentarily the earth quaked beneath Sally's feet.
Her eyes were fixed on the ring and blank with terror; her mouth dropped witlessly ajar; there was no more colour in her face than in this paper; never a countenance spelled guilt more damningly than hers.
"Yes!" Miss Pride chimed in triumphantly.
"Whathave you to say to this, young woman?"
Sally heard, as if remotely, her own voice ask hoarsely: "What--what is it'?"
"A diamond ring," Mason responded obviously.
"Aunt Abby's," Mrs. Standish repeated.
Mason glanced at this last: "You recognise it?"
The woman nodded.
"Where did you find the thing?" Sally demanded.
"Rolled up inside this pair of stockings." Mason indicated the limp, black silk affairs which he had taken from a dresser-drawer. "Well, how about it?"
"I don't know anything about it. I tell you I never saw it before."
The detective grinned incredulously. "Not even on Mrs. Gosnold's finger?"
"No--never anywhere."
"Mrs. Gosnold seldom wears the ring." Mrs. Standish put in; "but it is none the less hers."
"Well, where's the rest of the stuff'?" Mason insisted.
"I don't know. I tell you, I know nothing about that ring. I have no idea how it got where you found it. Somebody must have put it there." Sally caught her distracted head between her hands and tried her best to compose herself. But it was useless; the evidence was too frightfully clear against her; hysteria threatened.
"Mrs. Standish gave me the stockings," she stammered wildly, "rolled up as you found them. Ask her."
"Oh, come, Miss Manwaring; you go too far!" Mrs. Standish told her coldly. "If you are possibly innocent, compose yourself and prove it. If you are guilty, you may as well confess and not strain our patience any longer. But don't try to drag me into the affair; I won't have it."
"I guess there isn't much question of innocence or guilt," Mason commented. "Here's evidence enough. It only remains to locate the rest of the loot. It'll be easier for you," he addressed Sally directly, "if you own up--come through with a straight story and save Mrs. Gosnold trouble and expense."
He paused encouragingly, but Sally shook her head.
"I can't tell you anything," she protested. "I don't know anything. It's some horrible mistake. Or else--it's a plant to throw suspicion on me and divert it from the real thief."
"Plant?" Miss Pride queried with a specious air of bewilderment.
"Thieves' jargon--manufactured evidence," Lyttleton explained.
"Ah, yes," said the old maid with a nod of satisfaction.
"If it's a plant, it's up to you to show us," Mason came back. "If it isn't, you may as well lead us to the rest of it quick."
"You've looked everywhere, I presume?" Lyttleton inquired casually.
"Everywhere I can think of in this room and the bath-room," the detective averred; "and I'm a pretty good little looker. That's my business, of course. I'm willing to swear there's no more jewelry concealed anywhere hereabouts."
"Unless, perhaps, she's got it on her person."
"That might be, of course," Mason allowed, eying the girl critically. "But somehow I don't think so. If she had, why would she have left this one piece buried here? No; you'll find she's hidden the rest of the stuff somewhere--about the house or grounds, maybe--or passed it on to a confederate, the guy you saw her talking to last night, as like as not and held out this ring to make sure of her bit when it comes to a split-up."
"Still," Lyttleton persisted, "ought you to take any chances?"
"Well . . ." The detective shuffled with embarrassment. "Of course," he said with brilliant inspiration, "if these ladies will undertake the job . . ."
Miss Pride stirred smartly. "It's not what I want to do," she insisted, "but if you insist, and on dear Abigail's account . . ."
With a tremendous effort Sally whipped her faculties together and temporarily reasserted the normal outward aspect of her forceful self.
"I will not be searched," she said with determination. "With Mrs. Gosnold present--yes, anything. Find her, and I'll submit to any indignity you can think of. But if Mrs. Standish and Miss Pride think I will permit them to search me in her absence . . ."
She laughed shortly. "They'd better not try it--that's all!" and on this vague threat turned away and threw herself back into the chair.
"I'm sure," Miss Pride agreed, "I'd much rather not, for my part. And dear Abigail is so peculiar. Perhaps it would be best to wait till she gets back."
"Or hunt her up," Lyttleton amended.
"I guess you're right," Mason agreed, a trace dubiously.
"But what will you do with the girl in the meantime? Take her to jail?"
"No; I guess not yet--not until we see what Mrs. Gosnold thinks, anyway. She ought to be safe enough here. That door locks; we'll take the key. She can't get out of the window without risking her neck--and if she did make a getaway uninjured, she can't leave the Island before morning. Let's move along, as you say, and see if we can't find Mrs. Gosnold."
Skirts rustled behind Sally's sullen back and feet shuffled. Then the door closed softly and she heard the key rattle in the lock.
She sat moveless, stunned, aghast.
Strangely, she did not weep; her spirit was bruised beyond the consolation of tears.
The wall upon which her vacant vision focused was not more blankly white than her despair was blankly black. She was utterly bereft of hope; no ray penetrated that bleak darkness which circumscribed her understanding.
Now the last frail prop had been knocked from under her precarious foothold in the faith and favour of Mrs. Gosnold.
As to the identity of the enemy who had done this thing Sally entertained not a shadow of doubt, though lacking this proof she could not have believed she owned one so vindictive, ruthless and fiendishly ingenious.
But after what had happened it seemed most indisputable that Lyttleton, not content with avenging his overnight discomfiture by an unscrupulous lie, had deliberately plotted and planted this additional false evidence against the girl to the end that she might beat out her life against the stone walls of a penitentiary.
For who would not believe his word against hers? Lyttleton had stolen the jewels: what else had he carried so stealthily down to the beach? What else had those signals meant but that they had been left there in a prearranged spot? For what else had the boat put in from the yacht to the beach? As for the window of the signals, it might well have been Lyttleton's, which adjoined the row of three which Sally had settled upon; and she had delayed so long after seeing him disappear on the beach that he must have had ample time to return to his room, flash the electric lights, and come out again to trap the one he knew had been watching him.
And if he hadn't stolen the jewels, what else was that "private matter" which he had been so anxious to keep quiet that he was resigned to purchase Sally's silence even at the cost of making love to her? And if not he, who had been the thief whose identity Mrs. Gosnold was so anxious to conceal that she had invented her silly scheme for extracting an anonymous confession?--her statement to the contrary notwithstanding that Lyttleton had not stolen the jewels and that she knew positively who had! The man was a favourite of Mrs. Gosnold's; she had proved it too often by open indulgence of his nonsense. He amused her. And it seemed that in this milieu the virtue of being amusing outweighed all vices.
Why else had Mrs. Gosnold refused to listen to the story Sally was so anxious to tell her about her precious Don Lyttleton? She must have known, then, that Sally was under suspicion. Miss Pride had known it, or she would not have found the courage to accuse the girl under the guise of fortune-telling; and what Mercedes knew her dear Abigail unfailingly was made a party to. And knowing all this, still she had sought to protect the man at the girl's expense.
And all the while pretending to favour and protect the latter!
Now, doubtless, the truth of the matter would never come out.
In panic terror Sally envisaged the barred window of the spinster's prophecy.
To this, then, had discontent with her lowly lot in life brought her, to the threshold of a felon's cell.
Surely she was well paid out for her foolishness. . . .
After some time she found that she had left her chair and was ranging wildly to and fro between the door and window. She halted, and the mirror of her dressing-table mocked her with the counterfeit presentment of herself, pallid and distraught in all the petty prettiness of her borrowed finery.
In a sudden seizure of passion she fairly tore the frock from her body, wrecking it beyond repair.
Then, calmed somewhat by reaction from this transport, she reflected that presently they would be coming to drag her off to jail, and she must be dressed and ready.
Turning to her wardrobe, she selected its soberest garments--the blue serge tailleur advised by Mrs. Standish--and donned them.
This done, she packed a hand-bag with a few necessities, sat down, and waited.
The minutes of that vigil dragged like hours.
She began to realise that it was growing very late. The guests of the fete had all departed. The music had long since been silenced. Looking from her window, she saw the terrace and gardens cold and empty in the moonlight.
And at this sight temptation to folly assailed her and the counsels of despair prevailed.
There was none to prevent the attempt, and the drop from window-sill to turf was not more than twelve feet. She risked, it was true, a sprained ankle, but she ran a chance of escaping. And even if she had to limp down to the beach, there were boats to be found there--rowboats drawn up on the sand--and there was the bare possibility that she might be able to row across the strait to the mainland before her flight was discovered.
And even if overtaken, she could be no worse off than she was. Everyone believed her guilty; there was no way for her to prove her innocence.
She might better chance the adventure.
On frantic impulse, without giving herself time to weigh the dangers, Sally switched off her light, sat down on the window-sill, swung her legs over, and let herself down until she hung by both hands from the sill.
And then she repented. She was of a sudden terribly afraid. Remembering too late the high heels of her slippers, she discounted the certainty of a turned ankle--which would hurt frightfully even if it failed to incapacitate her totally. For the life of her she could not release her grasp, though all ready the drag of her weight was beginning to cause most perceptible aches in the muscles of her arms.
She panted with fright--and caught her breath on a sob to hear herself called softly from below.
"Miss Manwaring! For the love of Mike--!"
Trego!
She looked down and confirmed recognition of his voice with the sight of his upturned face of amazement. He stood almost immediately beneath her. Heaven--or the hell that had brewed her misadventures--alone knew where he had come from so inopportunely. Still, there he was.
"What are you doing? What's the matter?" he called again--and again softly, so that his voice did not carry far.
She wouldn't answer. For one thing, she couldn't think what to say. The explanation was at once obvious and unspeakably foolish.
Her hands were slipping. She ground her teeth and kicked convulsively, but decorously, seeking a foothold that wasn't there on the smooth face of the wall.
At this his tone changed. He came more nearly under and planted himself with wide-spread feet and outstretched arms.
"You can't hold on there any longer," he insisted. "Let go. Drop. I'll catch you."
Only the mortification of that prospect nerved her aching fingers to retain their grip as long as they did--which, however, was not overlong.
She felt herself slipping, remembered that she mustn't scream, whatever happened, experienced an instant of shuddering suspense, then an instantaneous eternity wherein, paradoxically, part of her seemed still to be clinging to the window-ledge while most of her was spinning giddily down through a bottomless pit, saw the grinning moon reel dizzily in the blue vault of heaven--and with a little shock landed squarely in the arms of Mr. Trego.
He staggered widely, for she was a solidly constructed young person, but he recovered cleverly--and had the impudence to seem amused. Sally's first impression on regaining grasp of her wits was of his smiling face, bent over hers, of a low chuckle, and then--to her complete stupefaction--that she was being kissed.
He went about that business, having committed himself to it, in a most business-like fashion; he kissed (as he would have said) for keeps, kissed her lips hungrily, ardently, and most thoroughly; he had been wanting to for a long time, and now that his time was come he made the most of it.
She was at first too stunned and shocked to resist. And for another moment a curious medley of emotions kept her inert in his arms, of which the most coherent was a lunatic notion that she, too, had been wanting just this to happen, just this way, for the longest time. And when at length she remembered and felt her anger mounting and was ready to struggle, he disappointingly set her down upon her feet.
"There!" he said with satisfaction. "Now that's settled--and a good job, too!"
She turned on him furiously.
"How dared you-!"
"Didn't I deserve it, catching you the way I did?" he asked, opening his eyes in mock wonder. "And didn't you deserve it for being so silly as to try anything like that?" He jerked his head too ward that window. "What on earth possessed you--?"
"Don't you know? Don't you understand?" she stormed. "I'm accused of stealing Mrs. Gosnold's jewels--locked up. You knew that surely!"
"What an infernal outrage!" he cried indignantly. "No, I didn't know it. How would I? I"--he faltered--"I've been having troubles of my own."
That drove in like a knife-thrust the memory of the scene in the garden with Mrs. Artemas. The girl recoiled from him as from something indescribably loathsome.
"Oh!" she cried in disgust, "you are too contemptible!"
A third voice cut short his retort, a hail from above. "Hello, down there!"
With a start Sally looked up. Her window was alight again, and somebody was leaning head and shoulders out.
"Hello, I say! Is that the Manwaring woman '? Stop her; she's escaping arrest!"
Trego barred the way to the gardens; and that was as well (she thought in a flash) for now the only hope for her was to lose herself temporarily in the shadows of the shrubbery.
The thought of the trees that stood between the grounds and the highway was vaguely in her mind with its invitation to shelter when she turned and darted like a hunted rabbit around the corner of the house.
Before Trego regained sight of her she was on the lawns. Crossing them like the shadow of a wind-sped cloud, she darted into the obscurity of the trees and vanished. And Mr. Trego, observing Mr. Lyttleton emerge from under the porte-cochere and start in pursuit, paused long enough deftly to trip up that gentleman with all the good will imaginable and sent him sprawling.
Frantic with fright, her being wholly obsessed by the one thought of escape, Sally flew on down the drive until, on the point of leaving the grounds by the gate to the highway, she pulled up perforce and jumped back in the nick of time to avoid disaster beneath the wheels of a motor-car swinging inward at a reckless pace.
Involuntarily she threw a forearm across her eyes to shield them from the blinding glare of the headlamps. In spite of this she was recognised and heard Mrs. Gosnold's startled voice crying out: "Miss Manwaring! Stop! Stop, I say!"
With grinding brakes the car lurched to a sudden halt.
Weak, spent, and weary, the girl made no effort to consummate her escape, realising that it had been a forlorn hope at best.
CHAPTER XVIIEXPOSE
Some little time later there filed into the boudoir of the hostess of Gosnold House a small but select troupe of strangely various tempers.
Mrs. Gosnold herself led the way, portentous countenance matching well her tread of inexorable purpose but in odd contrast to the demure frivolity of her Quaker costume.
Sally followed, nervously sullen of bearing toward all save her employer.
Mr. Walter Arden Savage came next, but at a respectable distance, a very hang-dog Harlequin indeed, a cigarette drooping disconsolately from the corner of his mouth.
At the door he stood aside to give precedence to his sister, no longer Columbine, but a profoundly distressed and apprehensive blonde person in a particularly fetching negligee.
Miss Pride alone wore her accustomed mien--of sprightly spinsterhood--unruffled.
Mr. Lyttleton was almost too much at ease; Mr. Mason was exceedingly dubious; Mr. Trego was, for him, almost abnormally grave.
This last, bringing up the rear of the procession, closed the hall door at a sign from Mrs. Gosnold. The company found seats conspicuously apart, with the exception of Mrs. Standish and Savage, likewise Mercedes, who stuck to her dear Abigail as per invariable custom. Sally, on her part, found an aloof corner where she could observe without being conspicuous.
"So," said Mrs. Gosnold, taking her place beside the desk and raking the gathering with a forbidding eye. "Now if you will all be good enough to humour me without interruption, I have some announcements to make, some news to impart, and perhaps a question or two to ask. It's late, and I'm tired and short of temper, so you needn't be afraid I won't make the proceedings as brief as possible. But there are certain matters that must be settled before we go to bed to-night."
She managed a dramatic pause very effectively, and then: "I've been kidnapped," she announced.
Murmurs of astonishment rewarding her, she smiled grimly.
"Kidnapped," she iterated with a sort of ferocious relish. "At my age, too. I don't wonder you're surprised. I was. So were my kidnappers, when they found out who they were making off with. For, of course, it was a mistake. They were conventional kidnappers, with not. an ounce of originality to bless themselves with, so naturally they had meant to kidnap a good-looking youngster--Miss Manwaring, in fact."
She nodded vigorous affirmation of the statement. "So I'm told, at least; so Walter tells me; and he ought to know; he claims to have been the moving spirit in the affair. When he found out his mistake, of course, he posted off after me to rectify the hideous error, and arrived just in time to effect a dramatic rescue. And then he had to confess. . . .
"The whole business," she went on, "from beginning to end, was very simple, childishly simple. In fact, ridiculous. And sickening. You're not going, Adele?" she interrupted herself as Mrs. Standish rose.
Without answer her niece moved haughtily too ward the door. Mrs. Gosnold nodded to Trego.
"Oh, yes, let her go. I'm sure I've no more use for her. But half a minute, Adele; the car will be ready to take you and Walter to the nine-thirty boat to-morrow morning."
There was no answer. The door closed behind Mrs. Standish, and her aunt calmly continued:
"It seems that Adele's notorious extravagance got her into hot water shortly after she divorced Standish and had only her private means to support her insane passion for clothes and ostentation in general. She went to money-lenders--usurers, in fact. And, of course, that only made it worse. Then Walter, who has never been overscrupulous, conceived the brilliant notion of squaring everything up for a new start by swindling the burglary-insurance people. Adele has always carried heavy insurance on her jewelry--almost the only sensible habit she ever contracted. And so they conspired, like the two near-sighted idiots they were. . . .
"On the afternoon of the day they were to start for the Island they gave all the servants a night off, and contrived to miss connection with the Sound steamer. Then they went to the Biltmore for dinner, and when it was dark Walter sneaked back home to burglarise the safe. I understand he made a very amateurish job of it. Into the bargain, he was observed. It seems that the servants had carelessly left the scuttle open to the roof, and Miss Manwaring, caught in a thunder-storm, had taken shelter in the house--which was quite the natural thing, and no blame to her. In addition, a real burglar presently jimmied his way in, caught Walter in the act of rifling his own safe, and forthwith assaulted him. Walter and the jewels were only saved by the intervention of Miss Manwaring, who very bravely pointed a pistol at the real burglar's head, and then, having aided Walter to turn the tables, ran away. So far, good; Walter booted the burglar out of the house, loaded up with the jewels, and left to rejoin Adele. But fate would have it that he should meet Miss Manwaring again in the Grand Central Station."
She paused for breath, then summed up with an amused smile: "There was a most embarrassing contretemps: a broken desk and empty safe at home to be accounted for, whether or not they attempted to swindle the insurance company; and if they did make the attempt--and remember, they were desperate for money--a witness to be taken care of. They couldn't let Miss Manwaring go and tell the story of her adventure promiscuously, as she had every right to if she chose, for if it got to the ears of the insurance people their plot would fail, and they were none too sure that they were not liable to be sent to jail for conspiracy with intent to defraud. So they cooked up a story to account for Miss Manwaring and brought her here, knowing that I had recently dismissed Miss Matring. And immediately, as was quite right and proper, everything began to go wrong.
"To begin with, the insurance people proved sceptical, largely through Walter's stupidity. It seems that certain evidences had been left in the house of Miss Manwaring's presence there with what we may call, I presume, Walter's permission, the fatal night. The servants who discovered the burglary noticed these evidences and mentioned them in their telegram. Walter hurried back to New York to hush the servants up. He wasn't successful, and the fact that he had endeavoured to cover something came to the attention of the police, and, inevitably, through them to the insurance company.
"Then Miss Manwaring turned out to be a young woman of uncommon character, less gullible than they had reckoned; also, I may say without undue self-conceit, they had underestimated me. I grew suspicious, and questioned Miss Manwaring; she was too honest to want to lie to me and too sensible to try.
"Meantime the need of money grew daily more urgent. They decided that Walter must pawn the jewels in Boston. They could be redeemed piece by piece when money was more plentiful. But the jewels were here, and Walter in New York, and it would be insane for him to come here and get them and then take them to Boston. In his emergency Adele went Walter one better in the matter of stupidity. She took Mr. Lyttleton into her confidence--and, crowning blunder! took his advice. Mr. Lyttleton conceived a magnificently romantic scheme. Walter was to come to New Bedford, secretly hire a motor-boat, and be off the harbour here at a certain hour of night. Mr. Lyttleton was to leave the jewels in a designated spot at the foot of the cliffs. At an agreed signal between the yacht and Adele's window Walter was to come in, at dead of night, and get the jewels, return to the mainland, discharge his boat, go to Boston, pawn the jewels, and be here in good time the next day.
"Walter, notified of this arrangement by letter to New York, fell in with it heart and soul. More stupidity, you see. Worse yet, he put it into effect. The arrangement was actually carried out last night. And again their luck turned against them. It so happened that both Miss Manwaring and Mr. Trego were sleepless last night and observed certain details of the conspiracy; and to make matters worse, it was the very night chosen by the thief to stealmyjewels.
"When that came out they were all in panic--Walter, Adele, and Mr. Lyttleton. They put their empty heads together to think what was best to be done to avert suspicion from themselves. Miss Manwaring was the real stumbling-block. She knew far too much, and had proved rather difficult to manage. Among them they evolved another brilliant scheme: Miss Manwaring must be kidnapped and hidden away in a safe place until the trouble had blown over. Miss Manwaring having ostensibly confessed her guilt by flight, suspicion of complicity in the theft would be diverted from Walter, Adele, and Lyttleton; though they had positively no hand in the thing, they lacked the courage of their innocence, and they argued that, when in their own good time they set the girl at liberty, she would be wanted by the police and would never again dare show her face where it might be recognised. Not only stupid, you see, but cold-bloodedly selfish as well.
"Walter undertook to manage the business. He hired a rascally chauffeur of his acquaintance and commandeered a closed car from my own garage, figuring that the kidnapping would be an accomplished fact long before the machine could be wanted, while its absence would never arouse comment on a fete night. He then induced Miss Manwaring to consent to meet him in a conveniently secluded spot near the gates. I overheard something, enough to lead me to suspect there was something wrong afoot, and therefore persuaded Miss Manwaring to lend me this costume of hers and went to meet Walter in her stead. Before I guessed what was up a bag was thrown over my head, my hands and feet were bound, and I was lifted into the body of the car and driven away at such speed that Walter, who found out his mistake almost immediately, was unable to overtake me before I arrived at the spot chosen for Miss Manwaring's prison--a deserted shooting-lodge on the South Shore."
"Meantime, when it was found that I had been kidnapped instead of the girl, and while Walter was going to fetch me and make what amends he could, Adele and Mr. Lyttleton lost their heads entirely. Adele rushed round looking for Miss Manwaring, and when finally she found her, endeavoured to induce her to run away on her own account. And Mr. Lyttleton (who, by the by, will be leaving with Adele and Walter in the morning) on his own behalf arranged to direct suspicion of the robbery to Miss Manwaring, induced Mr. Mason to exceed my instructions and open the envelopes in my absence, and led Mr. Mason to Miss Manwaring's room, where, to his own stupendous surprise, there was found hidden one of the rings that had been stolen."
"What makes you think he was so much surprised?" Mr. Trego cut in, who had turned in his chair to eye Mr. Lyttleton in a most unpleasantly truculent fashion.
"Because he didn't know it was there."
"But somebody must have made the plant," Trego argued. "There's no question, I take it, of Miss Manwaring's innocence?"
"None whatever!" Mrs. Gosnold affirmed.
"Then why not Lyttleton as well as another?"
"That," Mrs. Gosnold said slowly, indeed reluctantly, "brings me to the fact that no confession has been made, as I had hoped it might be. That is to say, the jewels have not been restored. I am sorry. I have done all I could to protect the thief."
"You know--?" Trego inquired.
"I saw the theft committed," said Mrs. Gosnold. "It was done not for gain, but for the sole purpose of securing Miss Manwaring's discharge--"
A short, sharp cry interrupted her, and in the momentary silence of astonishment that followed Mercedes Pride shut her eyes, sighed gently, slipped from her chair, and subsided to the floor in a dead faint.