CHAPTER VIDEVELOPMENTS
SCURRYING footsteps caused Peter Burnham to stop unwrapping the bundle in his hand and dart to the door of his bedroom. From that vantage point he saw Evelyn cross the hall and disappear down the staircase. He took quick note of her well cut sport suit and the lovely bouquet of orchids pinned thereon. Evelyn, busily engaged in adjusting a stray curl under her smart tri-cornered hat, failed to observe her step-father standing well back in the shadow of his doorway. Burnham waited in indecision until the slam of the front door reached him, then going back to his bureau he closed its drawers and went swiftly to his wife’s boudoir.
Mrs. Burnham looked up at his approach and dropped her knitting in her lap.
“Don’t close the door, Peter,” she remonstrated. “It is very warm in here and the room is stuffy.”
“Then why not open this second window?” asked Burnham. Not waiting for an answer to his question, he threw up the sash and in the sudden currentof air admitted by the opening of the window, the papers on his wife’s desk blew about the room.
“There, Peter, see what you have done.” Mrs. Burnham’s vexation was betrayed by her heightened color. “And I have just tidied my desk. Be sure and put every letter back exactly where it was.”
It took Burnham some minutes to comply with her request, and she observed with silent, but growing irritation, that her correspondence was not being piled in neat little packages such as she had arranged with minute attention to detail earlier that morning.
“Don’t trouble to put the bills uppermost,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “That will do nicely, Peter; come and sit down, you look warm,” and her pointed knitting needle indicated the vacant arm chair, the mate to the one she was occupying, which, with her chair and a table, about filled the octagon-shaped wing of her boudoir.
Burnham sat down with a short, discontented sigh. “I can’t conceive why we closed the Lodge and came in town so early,” he grumbled, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. “Washington is unbearable.”
“The nights are not so bad, and if you would keep cool, Peter, you would not feel the heat so much.” Mrs. Burnham took up her knitting. “IfI remember correctly it was you who first suggested our returning this month.”
Burnham moved restlessly and pursed up his lips. “Well, what could we do with Evelyn taking the bit in her teeth?” he demanded. “You cannot detain a girl in a convent by force, and she could not remain in this city unchaperoned.”
“True.” Mrs. Burnham contented herself with the single word and knitted on in silence.
“It is a great pity, Lillian,” complained Burnham, growing restive under the short quick glances with which his wife favored him, “that your discipline was so lax; in consequence, Evelyn has grown up with the idea that her wish is law.”
“She comes of a headstrong race,” acknowledged Mrs. Burnham, with a half sigh. “Do not worry, Peter, Evelyn will consider herself madly in love a dozen times before she actually finds the man she will marry.”
Burnham leaned back in his chair and thrust his hands in his pockets. “René La Montagne is still in town,” he announced.
“Not really?” Mrs. Burnham laid aside her knitting. “I understood he had been detailed to one of the aviation training camps in the South.”
“He hasn’t gone yet for Maynard told me that he saw him at the Shoreham Tuesday night.” Mrs.Burnham made no comment and her husband added with suppressed vehemence, “Tough luck!”
Mrs. Burnham drummed her knitting needles up and down on the arm of her chair in troubled silence.
“I disapprove of international marriages,” she said finally. “I have seen too many unhappy results; take, for instance, Marian Van Ness——” Her needles clicked loudly in the still room, and there was a decided pause before she added: “I don’t really know the rights of the case as Marian was married in Europe and passed her brief matrimonial career away from Washington, but,” again Mrs. Burnham paused, “but I agree with the diplomat who said: ‘Those whom the Atlantic has put asunder, let no man join together.’”
“You will have a difficult task convincing Evelyn of your viewpoint,” retorted Burnham. “If I don’t mistake the signs you may face an elopement, if, as I strongly suspect, Evelyn and René are carrying on a clandestine correspondence.”
Mrs. Burnham stooped to retrieve her ball of yarn which had rolled to the floor before she asked: “Where did you get that idea?”
“From Jones, whose mysterious manner when I met him carrying a box of flowers to Evelyn and delivering a note surreptitiously made me suspicious. I promptly told him to report to you hereafterwhenever letters and packages were given him for Evelyn.”
“Quite right.” Mrs. Burnham spoke with decision. “We want no elopements; but upon my word, Peter, I could not help but like René La Montagne. If it were not for the fact that he is a foreigner and that he is personally objectionable to you——” She hesitated and cast a penetrating look at her husband who sat staring moodily at the floor. “He is still objectionable to you?” she asked.
“Yes, but why go into that?” he answered sharply, then yawned. “Upon my word, Lillian, I have had very little sleep lately; I believe I’ll go and take a nap.” As he spoke he rose and stretched himself, then took several indolent steps toward the door, but his wife’s next remark halted him on its threshold.
“Any news from Coroner Penfield?”
“Not a word.” Burnham rubbed his chin reflectively. “The police, according to the morning newspapers, have failed to discover the man’s identity.”
“Strange!” mused Mrs. Burnham. “And haven’t they ascertained why he was killed in this house?”
Burnham shifted his weight first on one foot and then on the other, his hands clenched inside his coat pockets.
“My dear Lillian, you cannot establish a motivefor the crime—if crime it was,” he interpolated, “until you establish the man’s identity. See you later,” and smiling affectionately at her he turned and left the room.
Mrs. Burnham knitted on and the khaki sweater gained in size as her industrious fingers plied the needles. Finally she laid the half completed garment in her lap and looked about the boudoir. It was a pleasant room, light and airy, and its home-like atmosphere was borne out in its furniture still covered with summer chintz. The oddly shaped octagon wing added to its size and general appearance.
Mrs. Burnham stared thoughtfully down into the garden which the octagon windows overlooked, then turned her head and glanced through the side window diagonally across into Evelyn’s bedroom. From where she sat she viewed with displeasure the clothes thrown in a disorderly heap on Evelyn’s bed and started to call through the opened windows to the chambermaid whom she glimpsed in another part of the room, not to put away the clothes but to leave that task to Evelyn. Even as she made up her mind, the maid whisked out of the bedroom and Mrs. Burnham turned her attention to the room in which she was sitting.
Laying her knitting on the table she listened a moment. Only the twitter of birds and the distanthum of a motor disturbed the peaceful autumn stillness. Releasing her hold on the sweater, Mrs. Burnham picked up her large knitting bag and when she removed her hand from its capacious interior her fingers grasped a pair of shell spectacles and a book. Laying the latter in her lap she adjusted the spectacles on her nose, then she raised the book and scanned its title: “Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology.” She turned the leaves rapidly until she came to the heading “Detection of Poisons” and her eyes ran down the pages picking out the paragraphs opposite which she discerned faint pencil marks. When she again returned the book to its place in her knitting bag an hour had passed.
Blissfully unconscious that she had formed the chief topic of conversation between her step-father and mother, Evelyn Preston, on leaving the house, hurried to Dupont Circle and seeing a disengaged taxi waiting at the cab-stand she entered the machine and directed the chauffeur to take her to Potomac Park.
As the taxi-cab threaded its way among the vehicles filling Seventeenth Street below Pennsylvania Avenue, Evelyn gazed in wonder at the congested sidewalks. It was the noon hour and clerks from the immense Government buildings in the vicinity were hurrying to lunch rooms and cafeteriaswhich had sprung up like mushrooms to meet the demands of hungry humanity. Evelyn mentally contrasted the scene with that in the same locality six months before and shook her head in bewilderment; the once peaceful old-time residence district had been electrified into life by the iron hand of war.
The taxi-cab, narrowly missing an on-coming touring car which zig-zagged unpleasantly in its effort to make the turn into Seventeenth Street, swung into Potomac Drive and, following Evelyn’s directions, the chauffeur drove his car to the Aviation Field which had been formerly the polo grounds of the National Capital. The taxi-cab’s approach had been observed from the hangar, and one of the officers standing near the building crossed the turf and was at the roadside when the car drew up.
As Evelyn looked down into La Montagne’s happy upturned face all the doubts which had been tormenting her vanished. Without speaking he jerked open the cab door and seated himself by her side.
“My heart’s dearest,” he murmured in rapid French. “At last!” and his hands clasped hers and stooping he kissed her in the shelter of the closed cab. “Mrs. Van Ness explained——” he began a moment later.
“Indeed she did, bless her!” ejaculated Evelynhappily, in his native tongue which she spoke with barely an accent, and she touched her orchids with tender fingers. “These flowers came through her agency, as well as your dear note, René.”
“I followed her advice.” La Montagne’s face darkened. “But I like not to court you in secret, dear heart; surely your mother is one to see reason. I am not,” flushing, “objectionable; nor am I altogether without money.”
“I do not think it was mother who suppressed your letters,” exclaimed Evelyn. “I suspect my step-father——”
An exclamation interrupted her. “I cannot understand a nature so complex,” declared La Montagne. “Mr. Burnham on the surface, perhaps, is the most gracious host——” He paused abruptly. “But do not let us waste the precious hour talking of him; what of yourself?” and he scanned her with adoring eyes.
“I am very well and—” with a shy upward look—“happy, now that your silence is explained.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Ah, René, I was cruelly hurt by your apparent neglect.”
“Never think that of me again,” exclaimed La Montagne, deep feeling in voice and gesture. “You are my ideal, my love. I will marry you with or without your mother’s consent.”
Evelyn shook her head in dissent as she pressedhis hand. “We will marry, but it will be with mother’s approval,” she said. “Mr. Burnham is clever, but he cannot hoodwink mother all the time; and”—she nodded wisely—“I have a score to settle for what he made me suffer this summer.”
“Were you ill-treated, heart’s dearest?” demanded La Montagne.
“Oh, no. I chose the convent after a dispute with Mr. Burnham who insisted that I accept Mary Palmer’s invitation to spend the summer with her in the Adirondacks.” She hesitated, then in a sudden burst of confidence, added a trifle incoherently: “I didn’t care to accept because, you see, Mary’s brother, Jim Palmer, has—well, he—that is, he likes me.”
“I can well believe it,” acknowledged La Montagne and they laughed light-heartedly, but a shadow lurked in his handsome eyes as he glanced at her fresh young beauty. “And this Monsieur Jim, does he make love?”
“Well, he tries to,” admitted Evelyn, and a faint roguish dimple appeared in her cheek as a sudden recollection of a scene with Jim Palmer at the Chevy Chase Club brought a covert smile to her lips. “Mr. Palmer is my step-father’s most intimate friend, and so——”
“He favors the match; ah, I begin to see.” La Montagne straightened his slender figure to militaryerectness. “There is a motive then for Mr. Burnham’s animosity other than that suggested by our good friend, Madame Van Ness. But tell me, Evelyn,” and his tender voice caressed her name, “what is this I read in the newspapers of a dead man in your house?”
“I know no more about it than what you saw in the papers.” Evelyn’s blue eyes clouded. “It was a great shock to find him sitting there in the library—dead. Apparently the police are at as great a loss about the whole affair as I am.”
“I saw they had not decided the man’s identity.” The Frenchman paused and glanced doubtfully at Evelyn; he had been quick to observe her loss of color at mention of the tragedy and concluded with the intuitive sympathy of his nature that the subject distressed her, and the words which he had intended to say remained unspoken. “Let us discuss no more such gloomy matters. Will you not lunch with me at the Willard?”
Evelyn considered the invitation before she answered. “I wish I could accept,” she said, and her disappointment was evident. “But there is no use needlessly antagonizing mother. She is a great stickler for the conventions, and I know she would not permit me to lunch with you unchaperoned.”
He took out Marian’s package of papersHe took out Marian’s package of papers and placed them in Evelyn’s lap.
He took out Marian’s package of papers and placed them in Evelyn’s lap.
He took out Marian’s package of papers and placed them in Evelyn’s lap.
“But where can we meet?” demanded La Montagne; a glance at the hangar had shown him anorderly advancing toward the car and he rightly divined that his presence was required by a brother officer. “Heart’s dearest, do not let it be long before I see you again.”
“I am dining to-night with Marian, why not come to her apartment this evening?”
“Excellent!” La Montagne nodded to the orderly who stood at salute beside the car. “I will be with the colonel at once,” he said addressing him and as the soldier moved away, he turned again to Evelyn and kissed her hand passionately before he sprang from the car. “Ah, I just remember—you will see Mrs. Van Ness before I do, therefore will you hand her these papers which I was so forgetful as to carry away in my pocket when I left her yesterday?” As he spoke he took out Marian’s package of papers and placed them in Evelyn’s lap.
Evelyn’s chauffeur, finding that she and La Montagne were too absorbed in each other to pay attention to him, had wandered over to the hangar, keeping a watchful eye on his car. He had overheard the dispatch of the orderly for La Montagne, and had promptly hurried back to the car, reaching it just as the Frenchman strode away.
“Where to, Miss?” he asked. Evelyn, absorbed in watching La Montagne, actually jumped as his harsh voice recalled her attention. She gazed at him blankly for a moment.
“To Woodward and Lothrop’s,” she directed, and added as he prepared to slip into the driver’s seat, “Haven’t I seen you before?”
“Yes, Miss.” He half turned, his freckles and red hair showing distinctly in the glare of the sunlight. “I took you home from the Union Station on Tuesday morning.”
“Oh, surely, I remember now,” and Evelyn settled back in the car.
She was some time in doing her numerous errands and it was two hours before the taxi-cab swung into her street and stopped with such abruptness in front of her door that her many packages which partly filled the seat by her side were deposited on the floor of the car. With the aid of the apologetic chauffeur she was engaged in picking them up when a voice behind her caused her to turn around.
“Let me help,” exclaimed Dan Maynard, and reaching past her he retrieved a skein of worsted which eluded her grasp. “Your mother was quite worried when you didn’t return for luncheon. In fact,” and his charming smile was contagious, “I believe I stopped her from sending the town crier after you.”
“And who is he?” asked Evelyn laughing.
“Burnham, perhaps.” Maynard laughed also.“Let me pay the man, your hands are full,” as she fumbled for her purse.
“No, no,” she protested, but Maynard, paying no attention, turned back to question the chauffeur and before Evelyn could reach them Maynard handed the man a bank note.
“We can settle it later, Evelyn,” he said. “Now, don’t let us squabble over a trifle.”
“A trifle!” Evelyn laughed gayly. “I don’t call a three hour taxi bill a trifle; however, we’ll let Mother arbitrate the dispute. What is it?” as the chauffeur ran up to her.
“Another package, Miss,” and touching his hat he placed the bundle of papers on top of the packages she carried and retired.
“Take care, you will drop them,” cautioned Maynard, putting a steadying hand on the packages. He had just succeeded in readjusting their balance when his sleeve button caught in a string, and as he drew back his hand several papers from the package entrusted to her care by La Montagne fluttered to the ground.
“Very awkward of me,” exclaimed Maynard, annoyed by his carelessness, and he stooped to pick up the papers and returned them to Evelyn. Then his hand sought the door bell and Evelyn, her eyes following his motion, saw the string still dangling from his sleeve button. The string, ofwoven red and green strands, stood out in bold relief against the white woodwork of the doorway.
Where had she seen such a string before? Slowly Evelyn’s thoughts returned to the scene in the library on Tuesday afternoon, and again she saw a similar string removed from the dead man’s pocket and twirled about in the coroner’s fingers.
Maynard’s glance had followed hers; his finger pressed the button of the door bell hard, then was removed as he held up his hand.
“From which bundle did I pull off this string?” he asked.
Evelyn looked at the packages in her hand in uncertainty; Marian’s bundle of papers was untied, a box of candy, and some stationery were also minus their strings due to the careless handling they had received while she carried them about with her on her shopping tour.
“I really don’t know,” she replied. “Oh, Jones,” as that worthy opened the front door. “Do get me something to eat, I am famished.”
She turned back inside the hall to address Maynard, but he had stopped just outside the door and was carefully pocketing the red and green string.