CHAPTER XIIQUICKSAND

CHAPTER XIIQUICKSAND

Mrs. Ogdenwas bored, and when bored her temper was apt to prove uncertain. Only Professor Norcross and her husband had appeared for breakfast, and the latter had persisted in discussing politics and the money market, two things which she abhorred, and she had seen them depart with a sense of relief. She had left the dining room shortly after to interview the florist’s assistant, who had come to decorate the house for her dinner that evening.

The interview was longer than she anticipated, and several times she called upon Julian Barclay, who had entered the reception hall while the discussion was still going on, to settle knotty points in the arrangement of palms and flowers.

“Do sit down, Julian,” Mrs. Ogden switched her comfortable arm chair back from the table. “You have been prancing up and down this hall until my nerves are quite on edge.”

“I beg your pardon, Cousin Jane,” exclaimed Barclay contritely. “I wasn’t aware that my restlessness bothered you.” He stopped before the carved mantel-piece. “I thought you had two Dresden jars on either side of the clock,” he remarked, raising the piece of china in his hand and glancing critically inside it.

“So I had, but that lazy, worthless parlor maid broke it when dusting this morning.”

“Broke it!” gasped Barclay, and the jar he held almost slipped from his grasp.

“Take care,” Mrs. Ogden jumped. “Do put down that jar, Julian; I cannot afford to lose both,” she entreated. “Yes, the maid broke the other, and had the audacity to say that it was cracked in the first place.” Mrs. Ogden sniffed. “I let her know I thought she was cracked.”

“Too bad!” murmured Barclay, looking regretfully at the jar, and not hearing her last remark. “It’s a shame to lose the pair. Perhaps I can cement the pieces together for you.”

“Oh, could you?” Mrs. Ogden spoke more hopefully. “I had them all collected and placed in this box.”

“Let me see them,” Barclay came over to the table and opening the box, spread the broken china before him; the smallest piece did not escape hisscrutiny. “Are these all?” and Mrs. Ogden actually started at the sharpness of his tone.

“I suppose so. Don’t they fit?”

“The big pieces do,” assembling them together as he spoke. “Was there, by chance, anything in the jar?”

“Anything in the jar?” repeated Mrs. Ogden. “No. Nothing was ever kept in either of them. Do stop fingering those pieces, Julian, you may cut your hand on the sharp edges.”

“No danger.” Barclay thoughtfully returned the china to the box. “I shall have to ask the maid if she picked up all the pieces.”

“You can’t do that because she has gone.”

“Gone?” staring blankly at his cousin.

“Certainly,” tartly. “You don’t think I’m going to keep a bull-in-the-china-shop in my employ do you, with all my valuable bric-a-brac? No, indeed; I gave her a week’s wages and sent her packing.”

Barclay replaced the cover on the box before speaking again.

“I can’t blame you for firing her,” he said. “There’s nothing more aggravating than losing an article you value—through carelessness—cursed carelessness,” he added with suppressed bitterness, and Mrs. Ogden stared at him in surprise.

“It’s good of you, Julian, to take so much interestin my jar,” she said, much pleased. “And sometime when you are not busy, if you will stick the jar together....”

“Surely, surely,” he broke in. “Could you give me the girl’s full name and address, Cousin Jane, she....”

“Don’t tell me she has stolen something from you,” exclaimed Mrs. Ogden, interrupting in her turn.

“No, no,” Barclay moved restlessly. “Quite the contrary, she laundered some handkerchiefs for me, and I’d like to send her a tip.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” commented Mrs. Ogden dryly. “She can take that tip out in my broken jar. Rose was a better laundress than a parlor maid, although Mrs. Leonard McLane gave her an excellent reference. Don’t you want any breakfast?”

“Breakfast? Have you had yours?”

“Ages ago,” and her tone implied the feeling of virtuous satisfaction which accompanies early rising. “Run along into the dining room, Julian; you must be starved. Why, it’s nearly ten o’clock.”

“I’m not hungry,” protested Barclay, turning nevertheless toward the entrance to the dining room. “Coming this way, Cousin Jane?”

“No, I’m going upstairs,” and gathering her belongings together Mrs. Ogden departed.

Barclay found the dining room deserted, and halfheartedly ate the tempting dishes set before him. Inquiry from the butler had elicited the news that Walter Ogden and Professor Norcross had breakfasted and gone down town some time before.

“Has Miss Ogden been down?” he finally asked the butler, who hovered behind his chair.

“No, sor, she is after breakfastin’ in her room. Another muffin, sor?” holding the bread plate coaxingly before him. Barclay was a favorite with the servants.

“No more, thanks.” Barclay pushed back his plate. “Has Rose, the parlor maid, left the house yet?”

“Yes, sor. I saw her go over an hour ago, sor.”

“Can you tell me her full name and address?”

“Rose O’Day, sor. She wint direct to the station, sor, an’ I understood her to say she was goin’ to her home in New York, but I dunno her exact address. I’ll ax the cook, sor, if you wish.”

“Do so,” and Barclay, picking up the morning paper left by Ogden, listlessly read its contents. Charles was back in a short time.

“She lives somewhere in Cohoes, near Troy, New York, sor; but the cook doesn’t know her house address.”

“Thanks,” Barclay, concealing his disappointment,slipped a tip in Charles’ ready hand. “Is luncheon to be at the usual hour?”

“Half an hour earlier, sor.” Charles started to clear the table as Barclay rose. “Mrs. Ogden has engaged extra help for the dinner tonight, and I have to show them the silver and things, sor.”

“I hope the new servants all come highly recommended,” remarked Barclay, with sarcastic emphasis which the man servant never saw. “Mrs. Ogden’s handsome silver and jewels would be a temptation, a grave temptation, to thieves.”

“Yes, sor.” The butler looked considerably startled. “The extra footmen come from the caterer, sor. Will you take the paper, sor?”

“No, I’ve read it,” and stuffing his hands in his pockets Barclay left the room. In the hall he went direct to the mantel and stared dully at the remaining Dresden jar. Inwardly he anathematized the absent-mindedness which had cost him the loss of his most precious possession.

Had Rose, the parlor maid, seen Ethel’s miniature before she broke the china jar, and stolen it, or had the miniature also been destroyed in the fall? The latter hardly seemed likely, for he had found no trace of broken glass or ivory among the china. She might have accidently broken the miniature and stolen the gold case, but even then there would havebeen some ivory or glass picked up in thedébris. Barclay sighed heavily. Undoubtedly the girl had stolen the miniature, for what reason he could not imagine, and his best plan was to go to Cohoes and try and find her.

On his way to his bedroom Barclay paused in front of Walter Ogden’s den and listened. Had Ethel taken up her customary post in the den? The tinkle of the telephone bell sounded behind the closed door, and he heard her voice answering the call. A great yearning to see her swept over him, and he raised his hand to knock at the closed door, but the muscles contracted at a sudden thought, and his knuckles touched the mahogany so lightly that no sound followed the contact. With a gesture of despair he continued his way down the corridor.

Barclay’s presence outside the door had not gone undetected. Ethel, one hand resting on the desk, waited breathlessly as his familiar footsteps sounded down the corridor and stopped before the den. Would he come in? Her sad eyes brightened at the thought. Instinctively she answered the telephone’s abrupt summons, and as she received the Central’s apologetic: “Wrong number, excuse me, please,” she heard Barclay’s receding footsteps and turned wearily back to her work.

As the morning wore on her attention wandered,and throwing down her pen in despair, she took from the top drawer of her typewriting desk a small object, and removing the chamois, looked at her miniature.

All through the sleepless night, when her tired brain refused to refute or accept the evidence of Julian Barclay’s complicity in the poisoning of Dwight Tilghman, and agonizing sobs shook her, the touch of the miniature under her pillow had brought a ray of comfort. Julian Barclay had treasured her miniature, had kissed it—Ethel had slipped the miniature out of its chamois covering, and fallen into fitful slumber holding it against her white cheek.

Ethel took a magnifying glass out of her drawer and examined the miniature. It was an exquisite piece of workmanship, and the likeness extraordinary. Her wonder grew. She had known Julian Barclay a little over two weeks; it hardly seemed possible that the miniature could have been painted and framed in that time. She studied the gold case with interest, but it bore no name or initials, and turning it this way and that, she attempted to open it. Finally convinced that it was tightly soldered in place, she laid the miniature down and toyed with her pencil in deep thought.

If, as she imagined, Julian Barclay had left the miniature in the jar that it might not be broken inhis window climbing, why had he not stopped on his return and looked for it in the jar? Instead, he had gone immediately upstairs. Could it be that he had seen her and Professor Norcross and dared not loiter in the hall?

The idea brought a lump to Ethel’s throat. If so, it was but one more evidence of his guilt. That he was guilty there would be no doubt—his own words to Ito at their clandestine meeting proved a secret understanding and bribery. Ito, a fugitive from justice, would not have risked exposure by entering the Ogden residence unless the matter had been one of desperate importance. Probably her appearance downstairs had frightened him away, and Julian Barclay, not having seen the cause of his flight, had gone in pursuit to tell the Japanese—what?—that “he had no more money to spare.” The inference was all too plain.

With slow, unwilling fingers, Ethel summed up the evidence against Julian Barclay on the paper pad before her. He was a passenger on the train with Dwight Tilghman; he was the last person known to have seen Dwight Tilghman alive; he had lied when stating that he had been sight-seeing about Atlanta at the time the crime was committed. A hand wearing a jade ring, the duplicate of one he had since given her, had been seen by her mother through a Pullmancar window holding a paper, which by its size and shape might easily have contained a powdered poison, at an angle which suggested the act of pouring something into a cup; and if that was not enough, only a few short hours before, she, Ethel, and Professor Norcross had seen him meet Yoshida Ito, the supposed murderer, clandestinely, and his words: “Nomoremoney to spare,” implied that he had furnished the Japanese with sums in the past. Hush money!

Ethel, through a blur of tears, stared before her, then in a sudden revulsion of feeling, she tore the paper on which she had been writing into tiny bits. Where she had given her love she had given her loyalty. Evidence might be against Julian Barclay, but a motive for the crime was missing.

Dashing the tears from her eyes, she again examined the miniature by aid of the magnifying glass. Suddenly her conversation with Barclay at the Japanese Embassy reception flashed into her mind; had that inspired him to have her miniature painted? She knew of no one else who would have gone to the expense, except possibly James Patterson, and she felt confident that he would not have done it without first speaking to her. No, Julian Barclay must have had the painting executed, the act itself fitted in with his romantic, quixotic courtship of her.There only remained the question of time—could the miniature have been painted in the short time she had known him?

Carrying the miniature over to the light Ethel almost stared her painted prototype out of countenance; then wrinkled her forehead in a puzzled frown. She had discovered another startling fact—every detail of the gown she was wearing in the miniature was unfamiliar; she had never owned or worn one like it!

A loud knock at the door awoke her from her bewilderment.

“Luncheon is served, Miss Ethel,” announced Charles, opening the door in response to her call.

“I’ll be right down; tell Mrs. Ogden not to wait for me,” and as she spoke, Ethel replaced the chamois about the miniature and laid it in her desk drawer, alongside Julian Barclay’s jade ring. Pausing only long enough to arrange her curly hair and pinch some color in her cheeks she hastened down to the dining room.

“Just a light lunch, Ethel,” said Mrs. Ogden, as Professor Norcross rose and pulled back her chair. “Walter telephoned he would not be back from the Capitol, and Julian hasn’t shown up.”

“He’s comin’ now, Mrs. Ogden,” volunteered the butler, and Barclay appeared a second later.

Barclay’s words of apology were addressed to Mrs. Ogden, but his eyes sought Ethel as a needle seeks its magnet. The dining room was not well lighted, and he failed to catch her expression as she returned his greeting, but under cover of Mrs. Ogden’s incessant talk his glance stole again and again to the silent girl on his right. Mrs. Ogden at last awoke to the increasing darkness as wind clouds obscured the sunshine, and directed Charles to switch on the electric lights, to Barclay’s secret satisfaction. He never wearied of looking at Ethel.

“By the way, Julian, why did you disappear so mysteriously last night?” inquired Mrs. Ogden. “You did not come to my supper party.”

“I owe you a thousand apologies,” exclaimed Barclay flushing. “I confess I never gave it a thought, Cousin Jane,” and at sight of her offended look, he added hastily, “I hope that you will pardon my absent-mindedness when I tell you that among the crowd leaving the theater I saw Yoshida Ito.”

“Who is he?” asked Mrs. Ogden. “Oh, now I recollect; the Jap who poisoned Dwight Tilghman.”

“Exactly. And wishing to hand him over to the police, I gave chase.”

“And did you catch him?” demanded his cousin breathlessly.

“No, worse luck! He eluded me in the crowd and disappeared in the direction of the Mall.”

“Did you find any further trace of the Jap?” inquired Ethel, breaking her long silence, and her voice sounded unnatural in her own ears.

“No.” Barclay moved a tall glass compote containing nuts, so that he could look directly at her. “No. I wandered about that part of the city, questioned the policemen on duty there, and came home. Do you know, Cousin Jane,” helping himself to a walnut, “that you had a burglar here last night?”

“What!” Mrs. Ogden’s fork fell with a clatter into her plate, and her usually rosy cheeks turned pale.

“Fact.” Barclay’s serene smile widened at seeing the concentrated attention which Ethel and Professor Norcross were giving him. “I suppose my sudden and unexpected glimpse of the Jap, Ito, excited me, for I could not sleep and sat up reading. I thought I heard a window open, and stole downstairs just in time to see a man vault through the hall window.”

“Good heavens! We might all have been murdered in our beds!” Mrs. Ogden turned a stricken face to the agitated butler. “Any silver missing, Charles?”

“No, madam, not a piece; I’ve just been after acountin’ of it,” he stammered. “I locked up thehouse as usual, last night, madam, but this mornin’ I did find the pantry window unlocked.”

“Probably that girl, Rose, was a confederate,” Mrs. Ogden shuddered at the thought. “That was why she was so agitated this morning. I’ll notify the police. Could you identify the burglar, Julian?”

Barclay cracked a nut before answering.

“I couldn’t see very well in the half light,” he said. “But do you know, the man, in size and quickness, reminded me of the Jap, Ito——”

Ethel and Norcross exchanged glances across the table.

“Didn’t you see the intruder face to face?” asked Norcross, breaking the pause.

“No, I did not catch up with him,” answered Barclay lightly, and only Ethel’s look of agony stayed the rejoinder on Norcross’ lips.

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