CHAPTER XVIIIN WHICH THE PUZZLE FALLS INTO PLACE
While the colonel was trying to decipher his tragical puzzle, while Edwin Keatcham was busied with plans that affected empires and incidentally were to save and to extinguish some human lives, while Janet Smith had her own troubles, while Mrs. Rebecca Winter enjoyed a game more exciting and deadly than Penelope’s Web, Mrs. Millicent Winter and the younger people found the days full of joyous business. The household had fallen into normal ways of living. Although the secret patrol watched every rod of approach to the house, the espial was so unobtrusive that guests came and went, tradesmen rattled over the driveways; the policemen, themselves, slumbered by day and loitered majestically by night without the Casa Fuerte portals, never suspecting. Little Birdsall had his admirable points; they were now in evidence. To all outwardseeming, a pleasant house-party was enjoying the lavish Californian hospitality of Casa Fuerte; and Black Care was bundled off to the closet with the family skeleton, according to the traditions of mannerly people. Arnold had opened his garage and his stables. There was bridge of an evening; and the billiard-balls clinked on the pool-table. Archie could now back the electric motor into almost any predicament. The new Chinese chef was a wonder and Tracy was initiating him into the possibilities of the Fireless, despite a modest shrinking on the part of the oriental artist who considered it to be a new kind of bomb.
Millicent, encouraged by Arnold, had had Mrs. Wigglesworth and two errant Daughters, whose husbands were state regents for Melville’s university, to luncheon and to dinner; the versatile Kito donning a chauffeur’s livery and motoring them back to the city in the Limousine, on both occasions; all of which redounded to Millicent’s own proper glory and state.
Indeed, about this time, Millicent was in high good humor with her world. Even Janet Smith was no longer politely obliterated as “the nurse,” but became “our dear Miss Janet”; and was presentedwith two of Mrs. Melville’s last year’s Christmas gifts which she could not contrive to use; therefore carried about for general decorative generosity. One was a sage-green linen handkerchief case, quite fresh, on which was etched, in brown silk, the humorous inscription: “WIPE ME BUT DO NOT SWIPE ME!” The other was a white celluloid brush-broom holder bedecked with azure forget-me-nots enframing a complicated monogram which might just as well stand for J. B. B. S. (Janet Byrd Brandon Smith) as for M. S. W. (Millicent Sears Winter) or any other alphabetical herd. These unpretending but (considering their source) distinguished gifts she bestowed in the kindest manner. Janet was no doubt grateful; she embroidered half a dozen luncheon napkins with Mrs. Melville’s monogram and crest, in sign thereof; and very prettily, she being a skilful needle-woman. On her part, Mrs. Mellville was so pleased that she remarked to her brother-in-law, shortly after, that she believed Cousin Angela’s sisters hadn’t been just to Miss Smith; she was a nice girl; and if she married (which is quite possible, insinuated Mrs. Melville archly), she meant to give a tea in her honor.
“Now, that’s right decent of you, Millie,” cried the colonel; and he smiled gratefully after Mrs. Melville’s beautifully fitted back. Yet a scant five minutes before he had been pursuing that same charming back through the garden terraces, in a most unbrotherly frame, resolved to give his sister-in-law a “warning with a fog-horn.” The cause of said warning was his discovery of her acquaintance with Atkins. For days a bit of information had been blistering his mind. It came from the girl at the telegraph office at the Palace, not in a bee-line, but indirectly, through her chum, the girl who booked the theater tickets. It could not be analyzed properly because the telegraph girl was gone to Southern California. But before she went she told the theater girl that the lady who received Mr. Makers’ wires was one of Mrs. Winter’s party! This bit of information was like a live coal underfoot in the colonel’s mind; whenever he trod on it in his mental excursions he jumped.
“Who else but Janet?” he demanded. But by degrees he became first doubtful, then daring. He had Birdsall fetch the telegraph girl back to San Francisco. A ten minutes’ interview assured him that it was his brother’s wife who had called forMr. Makers’ messages, armed with Mr. Makers’ order.
Aunt Rebecca was not nearly so vehement as he when he told her. She listened to his angry criticism with a lurking smile and a little shrug of her shoulders.
“Of course she has butted in, as you tersely express it, in the language of this mannerless generation; Millicent always butts in. How did she get acquainted with this unpleasant, assassinating, poor white trash? My dear child,shedidn’t probably; he made an acquaintance with her. He pumped her and lied to her. We know he wanted to find out Mr. Keatcham’s abode; he may have got his clue from her; she knew young Arnold had been to see him. There’s no telling. I only know that in the interest of keeping a roof over our heads and having our heads whole instead of in pieces from explosives, I butted in a few days ago when somebody wanted Mrs. Melville Winter on the telephone. I answered it. The person asked if I was Mrs. Melville Winter; it was a strange man’s voice. I don’t believe in Christian Science or theosophy or psychics, but I do believe I felt in my bones that here was an occasion to be canny rather than conscientious. You knowI can talk like Millicent—or anybody else; so I intoned through the telephone in her silken Anglican accents, ‘Do you want Mrs. Melville Winter or Aunt Rebecca,MadamWinter?’ I hate to be called Madam Winter, and she knows it, but Millicent is catty, you know, and she always calls me Madam Winter behind my back. The fellow fell into the trap at once—recognized the voice, I dare say, and announced that it was Mr. Makers; Mr. Atkins, who had left for Japan, had not been able to pay his respects and say good-by; but he had left with him an embroidered Chinese kimono for Professor Winter, whom he had admired so much; and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for her to pay a visit to her friend—one of those women she had to luncheon, who’s at the St. Francis—he would like to show her several left by Mr. Atkins, for her to select one. Then in the most casual way, he asked after Mr. Keatcham’s health. I believed he was improving; had had a very good night. I fancy it didn’t please him, but he made a good pretense. Then he went off into remarks about its being such a pity Mr. Atkins had left Mr. Keatcham; but he was so conscientious, a Southern gentleman I knew; yet he really thought a great deal still ofMr. Keatcham, who had many fine qualities; only on account of the unfortunate differences—Atkins was so proud and sensitive; he was anxious to hear, but not for the world would he have any one know that he had inquired; so would I be very careful not to let any one know he had asked. Of course I would be; I promised effusively; and said I quite understood. I think Ido, too.”
“They are keeping tab on us through Millicent,” fumed the colonel. “I dare say she gave it away that Arnold was visiting Keatcham at the hotel; and it wouldn’t take Atkins long to piece out a good deal more, especially if his spy overheard Tracy’s ’phone. Well, I shall warn Millicent—with a fog-horn!”
The way he warned Millicent has been related. But from Millicent he deflected to another subject—the impulse of confession being strong upon him. He freed his mind about the stains on Cary Mercer’s cuffs; and, when at last he sought Millicent he was in his soul praising his aunt for a wise old woman. After justice was disarmed by his miscomprehension of Millicent’s words, he took out his cigarette case and began pacing the garden walks, smoking and humming a littleSpanish love song, far older than the statehood of California.
La noche está serena, tranquilo el aquilon;Tu dulce centinella te guarda el corazon.Y en al as de los céfiros, que vagan par doquier,Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!De un corazon que te ama, recibe el tierno amor;No aumentes mas la llama, piedad, á an trobador.Y si te mueve á lastima eterno padecer,Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer!Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer![B]
La noche está serena, tranquilo el aquilon;Tu dulce centinella te guarda el corazon.Y en al as de los céfiros, que vagan par doquier,Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!De un corazon que te ama, recibe el tierno amor;No aumentes mas la llama, piedad, á an trobador.Y si te mueve á lastima eterno padecer,Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer!Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer![B]
La noche está serena, tranquilo el aquilon;Tu dulce centinella te guarda el corazon.Y en al as de los céfiros, que vagan par doquier,Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!
La noche está serena, tranquilo el aquilon;
Tu dulce centinella te guarda el corazon.
Y en al as de los céfiros, que vagan par doquier,
Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!
Volando van mis suplicas, á ti, bella mujer!
De un corazon que te ama, recibe el tierno amor;No aumentes mas la llama, piedad, á an trobador.Y si te mueve á lastima eterno padecer,Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer!Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer![B]
De un corazon que te ama, recibe el tierno amor;
No aumentes mas la llama, piedad, á an trobador.
Y si te mueve á lastima eterno padecer,
Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer!
Como te amo, amama, bellissima mujer![B]
The words belonged to the air which he had whistled a weary week ago. Young Tracy came along, and caught up the air, although he was innocent of Spanish; he had his mandolin on his arm; he proffered it to the colonel.
“Miss Janet has been singing coon-songs to his nibs, who is really getting almost human,” he observed affably; “well, a little patience and interest will reveal new possibilities of the Fireless Stove! In man or metal. Shall we get under his nibs’ window and give him theBedouin Love SongandI Picked Me a Lemon in the Garden of Loveand the Sextette fromLuciaand other choice selections? He seemed to be sitting up and taking notice; let’s lift him above the sordid thoughts of Wall Street and his plans for busting other financiers.”
The soldier gave this persiflage no answer; his own thoughts were far from gay. He stood drinking in the beauty of the April night. The air was wonderfully hushed and clear; and the play of the moonlight on the great heliotrope bushes and the rose-trees, which dangled their clusters of yellow and white over the stone parapets of the balconies, tinted the leafage and flickered delicately over the tracery of shadow on the graywalls. Not a cloud flecked the vast aërial landscape—only stars beyond stars, through unfathomable depths of dim violet, and beneath the stars a pale moon swimming low in the heavens; one could see it between the spandrels of the arches spanning the colonnade.
“Looks like a prize night-scene on the stage, doesn’t it?” said Tracy. “Jolly good shadows—and aren’t these walls bulging out at the bottom bully? I used to know the right name for such architectural stunts when I was taking Fine Arts Four—dreadful to neglect your educational advantages and then forget all the little you didn’t neglect, ain’t it? I say, get on to those balconies—that isn’t the right word for the mission style, I guess; but never mind; aren’t they stunning? Do you see the ladies up there? Is that Archie sniggering? What do you think of the haunted house,now, Colonel?”
Tracy’s gay eyes sought the other’s gaze to find it turn somber. Winter couldn’t have told why; but a sudden realization of the hideous peril dogging the warm, lighted, tenanted house, submerged him and suffocated him like a foul gas. Let their guards be vigilant as fear, let their wonderful new search-light flood rock and slopeand dusky Chaparral bush; and peer as it might through the forest aisles beyond; yet—yet—who could tell!
But he forced an equal smile in a second for the college boy; and chatted easily enough as they climbed up the stepped arches to the balcony and the little group looking seaward.
Aunt Rebecca in black lace and jewels was tilting with the world in general and Millicent Winter in particular; she displayed her most cynical mood. She had demolished democracy; had planted herself firmly on the basic doctrine that the virtues cultivated by slavery far outnumber its inseparable vices; and that most people, if not all, need a master; had been picturesquely and inaccurately eloquent on the subject of dynamite (which she pronounced the logical fourth dimension of liberty, fraternity and equality); had put the yellow rich where they belonged; and the red anarchists mainly under the sod; and she had abolished the Fourth of July to the last sputter of fire-cracker; thence by easy transitions she had extolled American art (which American patrons were too ignorant to appreciate), deplored American music (“The trouble isn’t that it iscanned,” says she, “but that it was spoiled beforethey canned it!”) and was now driving a chariot of fire through American literature; as for the Academics, they never said what they thought, but only what they thought they ought to think; and they always mistook anemia for refinement, as another school mistook yelling and perspiring for vigor.
Just as Winter modestly entered the arena, no less a personage than Henry James was under the wheels. Janet Smith had modestly confessed to believing him a consummate artist; and Millicent in an orotund voice declared that he went deep, deep down into the mysteries of life.
“I don’t deny it; heoughtto get down deep,” returned Aunt Rebecca in her gentlest, softest utterance; “he’s always boring.”
Mrs. Melville’s suppressed agitation made her stays creak.
“Do you really think that James is not a great artist?” she breathed.
“I think he is not worth while.”
“Wow!” cried Tracy. “Oh, I say—”
“Aunt Rebecca; you can not mean—” this was Mrs. Melville, choking with horror.
“His style,” repeated the unmoved iconoclast, “his style has the remains of great beauty; all hisseparate phrases, if you wish, are gems; and he is a literary lapidary; but his sentences are so subtle, so complex, so intricately compounded, and so discursive that I get a pain in the back of my neck before I find out what hemaymean; and then—I don’t agree with him! Now is it worth while to put in so much hard reading only to be irritated?”
“I beg pardon,” Winter interposed, with masculine pusillanimity evading taking sides in the question at issue, “I thought we were going to have some music; why don’t you boys give us some college songs? Here is a mandolin.”
Aunt Rebecca’s still luminous eyes went from the speaker to Janet Smith in the corner. She said something about hearing the music better from the other side of the balcony. Now (as Mrs. Millicent very truly explained) there was not a ha’pennyworth’s difference in favor of one side over the other; but she followed in the wake of her imperious aunt.
The colonel drew nearer to Janet Smith; in order to sink his voice below disturbing the music-lovers he found it necessary to sit on a pile of cushions at her feet.
“Did you know Mercer will be back to-night?” he began, a long way from his ultimate object.He noticed that leaning back in the shadow her ready smile had dropped from her face, which looked tired. “I want to tell you a little story about Mercer,” he continued; “may I? It won’t take long.”
He was aware, and it gave him a twinge of pain to see it, that she sat up a little straighter, like one on guard; and oh, how tired her face was and how sweet! He told her of all his suspicions of her brother-in-law; of the blood-stains and the changing of clothes; she did not interrupt him by a question, hardly by a motion, until he told of the conversation with Keatcham and the note signed “The Black Hand.” At this her eyes lighted; she exclaimed impetuously: “Cary Mercer neverdidsend that letter!” She drew a deep intake of breath. “I don’t believe he touched Mr. Keatcham!”
“Neither do I,” said the colonel, “but wait!” He went on to the theater girl’s report of the receiver of the telegrams. Her hands, which clasped her knee, fell apart; her lips parted and closed firmly.
“Did I think it was you?” said he. “Why, yes, I confess I did fear it might be and that you might be trying to shield Atkins.”
“I!” she exclaimed hotly; “that detestable villain!”
“Isn’the?” cried the colonel. “But—well, I couldn’t tell how he might strike a lady,” he ended lamely.
“I reckon hewouldstrike a lady if she were silly enough to marry him and he got tired of her. He is the kind of man who will persecute a girl to marry him, follow her around and importune her and flatter her and then, if he should prevail, never forgive her for the bother she has given him. Oh, I neverdidlike him; I’m afraid of him—awfully.”
“Not you?”—the colonel’s voice was cheerful, as if he had not shivered over his own foreboding vision. “I’ve seen you in action already, you know.”
“Not fighting bombs. I hate bombs. There are so many pieces to hit you. You can’t run away.”
“Well, you’ll find them not so bad; besides, youdidfight one this very morning, and you were cool as peppermint!”
“That was quite different; I had time to think, and the danger was more to me than to any one else; but to think of Mrs. Winter and Archie and y—all of you; that scares me.”
“Now, don’t let it get on your nerves,” he soothed—of course it is necessary to take a girl’s hand to soothe her when she is frightened. But Miss Smith calmly released her hand, only reddening a little; and she laughed. “Where—where were we at?” she asked in her unconscious Southern phraseology.
“Somewhere around Atkins, I think,” said the colonel; he laughed in his turn,—he found it easy to laugh, now that he knew how she felt toward Atkins. “You see, after I talked with Keatcham I couldn’t make anything but Atkins out of the whole business. But there were those stained cuffs and his changing his clothes—”
“Yes,” said she.
“How explain? There was only one explanation: that was, that perhaps Mercer had discovered Keatcham before we did, unconsciously spotted his cuffs, been alarmed by our approach and hidden, lest it should be the murderers returning. He might have wanted a chance to draw his revolver. Say he did that way, he might foolishly pretend to enter for the first time. If he made that mistake and then discovered the condition of his cuffs and the spots on his knee, what would be his natural first impulse? Why, tochange them, trusting that they hadn’t been noticed. Maybe, then, he would wash them out—”
“No,” murmured Miss Smith meekly, with a little twinkle of her eye; “Idid that; he hid them. How ridiculous of me to get in such a fright! But you know how Cary hated Mr. Keatcham; and you—no, you don’t know the lengths that such a temperament as his will go. I did another silly thing: I found a dagger, one of those Moorish stilettoes that hang in the library; it was lying in the doorway. When no one was looking I hid it and carried it off. I stuck it in one of the flower-beds; I stuck it in the ferns; I have stuck that wretched thing all over this yard. I didn’t dare carry it back and put it in the empty place with the others because some one might have noticed the place. And I didn’t dare say anything to Cary; I was right miserable.”
“So was I,” said the colonel, “thinking you were trying to protect the murderer. But do you know what I had sense to do?”
“Go to Mrs. Winter? Oh, Iwantedto!”
“Exactly; and do you know what that dead game sport said to me? She said she found those washed and ironed cuffs and the trousers neatlycleaned with milka—what’s milka?—and the milka cleaned the spots so much cleaner than the rest that she had her own suspicions started. But says she, ‘Not being a plumb idiot, I went straight to Cary and he told me the whole story—’”
“Which was likeyourstory?”
“Very near. And you see it would belikeAtkins to leave incriminating testimony round loose. That is, incriminating testimony against Mercer and Tracy. The dagger, Tracy remembers, was not in the library; it was in thepatio. Right to hand. Atkins must have got in and found Mr. Keatcham on the floor in a faint. Whether he meant to make a bargain with him or to kill him, perhaps we shall never know; but when he saw him helpless before him he believed his chance was come to kill him and get the cipher key, removing his enemy and making his fortune at a blow, as the French say.Voilà tout!”
“Do you think”—her voice sank lower; she glanced over her shoulder—“do you reckonAtkinshad anything to do with that train robbery? Was it a mere pretext to give a chance to murder Mr. Keatcham, fixing the blame on ordinary bandits?”
“By Jove! it might be.”
“I don’t suppose we shall ever know. But, Colonel Winter, do you mind explaining to me just what Brother Cary’s scheme with Mr. Keatcham was? Mrs. Winter told me you would.”
“She toldme,” mused the colonel, “that you didn’t know anything about this big game which has netted them millions. They’ve closed out their deals and have the cash. No paper profits for Auntie! She said that she would not risk your being mixed up in it; so kept you absolutely in the dark. I’m there, too. Didn’t you know Mercer had kidnapped Archie?”
“No; I didn’t know he was with Mr. Keatcham at the hotel. It would have saved me a heap of suffering; but she didn’t dare let me know for fear, if anything should happen, I would be mixed up in it. It was out of kindness, Colonel Winter, truly it was. Afterward when she saw that I was worried she gave me hints that I need not worry, Archie was quite safe.”
“And the note-paper?”
“I suppose she gave it to them,” answered Miss Smith.
“And the voice I heard in the telephone?” He explained how firmly she had halted the conversationthe time Archie would have reassured him. “You weren’t there, of course?” said he.
“No, I was down-stairs in the ladies’ entrance of the court in the hotel; I had come in a little while before, having carried an advertisement to the paper; I wonder why she—maybe it was to communicate with them without risking a letter.”
“But how didyourvoice get into my ’phone?” he asked.
She looked puzzled only a second, then laughed as he had not heard her laugh in San Francisco—a natural, musical, merry peal, a girlish laugh that made his heart bound.
“Why, of course,” said she, “it is so easy! There was a reporter who insisted on interviewing Mrs. Winter about her jewelry; and I was shooing him away. Somehow the wires must have crossed.”
“Do you remember—this is very, very pretty, don’t you think? Just like a puzzle falling into place. Do you remember coming here on the day Archie was returned?”
“I surely do; my head was swimming, for Mrs. Winter sent me and I began then to suspect. She told me Brother Cary was in danger; of course I wanted to do anything to help him; and I carrieda note to him. I didn’t go in, merely gave the note and saw him.”
“Isaw you.”
“You? How?”
“Birdsall and I; we were here, in thepatio; we, my dear Miss Janet, were the Danger! You had on a brown checked silk dress and you were holding a wire clipper in your hand.”
“Yes, sir. I saw it on the grass and picked it up.”
She laughed a little; but directly her cheeks reddened. “What must you have thought of me!” she murmured under her breath; and bit the lip that would have quivered.
“I should like to tell you—dear,” he answered, “if you will—O Lord, forgive young men for living! If they are not all coming back to ask me to sing! But, Janet, dear, let me say it in Spanish—yes,yesif you really won’t be bored; throw me that mandolin.”
Aunt Rebecca leaned back in the arm-chair, faintly smiling, while the old, old words that thousands of lovers have thrilled with pain and hopes and dreams beyond their own power of speech and offered to their sweethearts, rose, winged by the eternal longing:
“Y si te mueve á lastima mi eterno padecer,Como te amo, amame, bellissima mujer!Como te amo, amame, bellissima mujer!”
“Y si te mueve á lastima mi eterno padecer,Como te amo, amame, bellissima mujer!Como te amo, amame, bellissima mujer!”
“Y si te mueve á lastima mi eterno padecer,
Como te amo, amame, bellissima mujer!
Como te amo, amame, bellissima mujer!”
“And what does it mean in English, Bertie?” said Mrs. Melville. “Can’t you translate it?”
“Shall I?” said the colonel, his voice was careless enough, but not so the eyes which looked up at Janet Smith.
“Not to-night, please,” said she. “I—I think Mr. Keatcham is expecting me to read to him a little. Good night. Thank you, Colonel Winter.”
She was on her feet as she spoke; and Winter did not try to detain her; he had held her hand; and he had felt its shy pressure and caught a fleeting, frightened, very beautiful glance. His dark face paled with the intensity of his emotion.
Janet moved away, quietly and lightly, with no break in her composure; but as she passed Mrs. Winter she bent and kissed her. And when Archie would have run after her a delicate jeweled hand was laid on his arm. “Not to-night, laddie; I want you to help me down the steps.”
With her hand on the boy’s shoulder she came up to Rupert, and inclined her handsome head in Janet’s direction. “I think, by rights, that kiss belonged to you,mon enfant,” said she.