CHAPTER XXIDENTIFICATION
MARIAN VAN NESS turned restlessly away from the window as her old servant came into the sitting room.
“Are you quite sure no telephone call has come for me, Mammy?” she asked with gentle insistence. Mammy’s antipathy to the telephone was known to her; on occasions she had not answered it in Marian’s absence, having confided to the cook in the next apartment that it was little short of uncanny and she wanted nothing to do with the “devil’s works.”
“Aint been no call at all,” Mammy assured her with conviction. “I jes’ sat in my kitchen wif de do’ open alistenin’ fo’ dat and de do’ bell, as yo’ said yo’ was ’spectin’ company; aint eben been in hyar to tidy up.”
As she spoke Mammy proceeded to “set to rights,” as she termed it, the mass of books, electric light paraphernalia and torches which littered the window ledge and to put each chair in orderly array. Marian, who had kept a luncheon engagement ofsome days’ standing and returned afterward as promptly as possible to her apartment, moved away so that her old servant would not see the keen disappointment her statement of no callers and no telephone calls had given her.
Marian bitterly regretted the almost insane impulse which had prompted her to seek out Dan Maynard the night before, to even leave a note—a note he had ignored and left unanswered. Her cheeks burned at the thought.
The bang of a heavy book which Mammy inadvertently let fall startled her so that she dropped her ball of worsted which she was winding with the aid of a chair back. Mammy’s rheumatic joints cracked as she stooped over, but Marian was before her.
“Don’t bother, I’ll pick it up,” she said, and retrieving her ball, which had rolled under a table, she sat back somewhat flushed from her exertions, the book balanced open in her lap.
Looking more closely she saw it was an edition of “Who’s Who,” and in sheer idleness turned over its leaves as she continued winding the ball. Suddenly her eyes, traveling listlessly down one page, stopped, arrested by Dan Maynard’s name. Putting aside the worsted, she lifted up the book and read the long paragraph devoted to his accomplishments, his stage career, and his place of birth—Berlin.
Mammy finished her work and seeing Marian sitting staring in absorbed attention at an open book, concluded not to interrupt her reading, and hobbled from the room. In the kitchen she paused to ruminate before putting on her spotlessly clean white apron, her “Sunday best.”
“’Pears like Miss Marian aint herself no mo’,” she muttered, sorrowfully. “Why dat man got ter com’ back an’ torment her mo’? I s’pose de good Lord knows His business, but thar’s times when us mortals could give Him p’ints. Laws! who dat?” The sudden clang of the front door gong startling her into dropping her apron. Mammy’s heart sank, when on opening the door a moment later, she gazed up into Dan Maynard’s handsome face; and it was only with much self-restraint that she managed to answer with any civility his inquiry for her beloved “Miss Marian.”
Marian made no motion to rise as he entered and her frigid bow was far from cordial. An awkward pause followed.
“Won’t you sit down?” she asked, finally, and Maynard with suppressed indignation quietly took the chair next to hers; in doing so he dislodged the worsted which she had carefully stretched across the chair back.
“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed contritely. “I never noticed the worsted; very stupid of me.”
“Don’t bother, please.” Marian turned about and rested one hand on her desk. “Have you brought back my blotter?”
Maynard sat upright, the neglected worsted at his feet.
“Your blotter?” he echoed. “What blotter is that?”
“The one you took from here Friday night.”
Maynard stared at her. “I am an absent-minded beggar,” he said, and his smile was whimsical. “If I accidentally walked off with your blotter that night I apologize and will bring you another one to-morrow.”
Marian stiffened. “I allude to the blotter I unfortunately used when decoding a message from the State Department; the message on it was very clear;” her voice stumbled as she met his astonished gaze. “The blotter was missing the morning after your call.”
Slowly her meaning dawned on Maynard.
“Good God! Marian, do I understand you accuse me of stealing a blotter with the imprint of a decoded message from the State Department on it?” he demanded.
“Yes.” The monosyllable cost her an effort which Maynard’s indignation blinded him to.
“You think me a spy, a traitor—you?” he stammered, his face gone white.
“What else am I to think?” she retorted drearily. “Your unexpected and unexplained return—oh, I know ‘war work’; war work, these days, like charity sometimes covers a multitude of sins.”
“My war work——” began Maynard hotly, and stopped short.
“Your war work,” she repeated. “Well, is it for Uncle Sam or for the Kaiser?”
Maynard held up a protesting hand. “Let us talk reasonably,” he said. “There is no occasion for excitement. What induces you to think I am working for the Kaiser?”
“Your fondness of the German people;” she stopped and spoke more slowly. “Were you not born in Germany?”
“Surely.” Maynard’s smile showed his strong white teeth. “Accidents do happen, Marian, even in the selection of a birth-place. My parents were Americans, and my ancestors were Norman-French and Anglo-Saxon. You cannot question my loyalty to Uncle Sam on those grounds.”
“Were you not decorated by the Kaiser?” demanded Marian, her blood tingling at his faintly humorous manner of taking her serious accusation.
“I was, several years ago.” Maynard’s smile disappeared. “Suppose I answer what must come next in your ‘questionnaire’,” he suggested and a certain sternness crept into voice and manner. “Ican give you no account of my whereabouts during the past twelve months, or——” He paused—“my occupation. Come, Marian, old comrade, take me on faith?” and he flung out both hands, his voice soft and winning.
“If I only could!” He caught the look that flamed her eyes and the next instant she was in his arms, his voice dangerously sweet as he murmured loving, adoring words in her ear, and then holding her close he kissed her passionately. Suddenly she broke from his embrace.
“No, no,” she cried. “I sent you away once and I must do so again. It was madness on your part to break down the barrier——”
“The barrier, Marian, no longer exists,” he stated softly, and she sprang up.
“What do you mean?” she demanded breathlessly.
He answered her question with another: “Did you see the unidentified dead man whom Evelyn found Tuesday afternoon in the Burnham library?”
“I? See him?” His eyes never left her white strained face, but she was unconscious of his scrutiny. “No, I did not see the man. Why?”
For reply Maynard unbuttoned his coat and took from an inner pocket a photograph and handed it to her. In silence she stared at the dead mansitting in the library chair; in silence she looked up at Maynard.
“He’s dead,” she stammered. “Really dead?”
“Yes—thank God!” answered Maynard, and at the look which crept into his eyes she turned and with a low cry pillowed her head on her arms across the desk and lay as one dead.
Maynard waited in silence for fully five minutes, then he called her softly.
“Can I be of service?” he asked. A shake of her head was the only sign that he heard.
“Do you wish me to stay?” he asked, and had to stoop to catch her muffled: “No.”
Picking up his hat in the hall he paused in uncertainty; then recollection of Mammy’s presence in the apartment convinced him that he was not leaving Marian alone, and opening the door he went slowly down the corridor to the elevator shaft.
He had been gone a scant three minutes when Mammy’s black face peered out from Marian’s bedroom; a second later she was by Marian’s side. At her loving touch Marian sat up and Mammy’s glance strayed from her blanched face to the photograph lying face up on the desk.
“I heerd all,” she said in a husky whisper. “An’ he’s daid,” touching the photograph. “’Peers like de Lord do know His business, but de debble mustasent Marse Dan to de Burnham house on Monday night.”
“H—h—ush!” And Marian clasped her in an agonizing grip as her terrified eyes swept the pretty room. “Hush!”