HN SPNL S
THE
WINDOWS
AT THE
WHITE
CAT
MARYROBERTS RINEHART


PZ 5797.94

VERDE
Tasty,
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY





THE WINDOW AT THE
WHITE CAT





AT THE WINDOW
THE WINDOW
AT THE WHITE CAT
By
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
Author of
THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
THE MAN IN LOWER TEN
WHEN A MAN MARRIES
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ARTHUR I. KELLER
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS


P25797.94
COPYRIGHT 1910
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIDITY
WAY 17 1901
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.


CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
·
.
.
. .
·
·
.
·
·
.
.
·
·
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I SentimENT AND CLUES . . .
II UNEASY APPREHENSIONS
III NINETY-Eight PEARLS
IV A THIEF IN THE NIGHT . .
V Little Miss JANE . . . .
VI A FOUNTAIN PEN . . . ..
VII CONCERNING MARGERY .
VIII Too LATE . . . . .
IX ONLY ONE Eye Closed . .
X BREAKING THE News . . .
XI A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME .
XII MY COMMISSION . . . .
XIII SIZZLING METAL . . . .
XIV A WALK IN THE PARK . . .
XV FIND THE WOMAN . . . .
XVI ELEVEN TWENTY-TWO AGAIN ,
XVII His SECOND WIFE . . . .
XVIII EDITH'S COUSIN
XIX BACK TO BELLWOOD . . .
XX ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS . . .
XXI A PROSCENium Box . . .
XXII IN THE ROOM OVER THE WAY
XXIII A Box OF CROWN DERBY
XXIV WARDROP'S STORY . . .
XXV MEASURE FOR MEASURE . .
XXVI LOVERS AND A LETTER . . .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 249
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
334
.
.
.
.
.
.
· 347
. 358
. 372





THE WINDOW AT THE
WHITE CAT





THE WINDOW
AT THE WHITE CAT
CHAPTER I
SENTIMENT AND CLUES
Ounce
N my criminal work anything that wears skirts is
a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From
the frayed and slovenly petticoats of the woman
who owns a poultry stand in the market and who
has grown wealthy by selling chickens at twelve
ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie
Tracy, whose diamonds have been stolen down
on the avenue, or the staidly respectable black
and middle-aged skirt of the client whose husband
has found an affinity partial to laces and fripperies,
and has run off with her-all the wearers are ladies,
and as such announced by Hawes. In fact, he car-
ries it to excess. He speaks of his wash lady, with
a husband who is an ash merchant, and he an-


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
nounced one day in some excitement, that the lady
who had just gone out had appropriated all the loose
change out of the pocket of his overcoat.
So when Hawes announced a lady, I took my feet
off my desk, put down the brief I had been reading,
and rose perfunctorily. With my first glance at my
visitor, however, I threw away my cigar, and I
have heard since, settled my tie. That this client
was different was borne in on me at once by the
way she entered the room. She had poise in spite
of embarrassment, and her face when she raised her
veil was white, refined, and young.
"I did not send in my name,” she said, when she
saw me glancing down for the card Hawes usually
puts on my table. “It was advice I wanted, and I-I
did not think the name would matter."
She was more composed, I think, when she found
me considerably older than herself. I saw her look-
ing furtively at the graying places over my ears. I
am only thirty-five, as far as that goes, but my fam-
ily, although it keeps its hair, turns gray early-a
business asset but a social handicap.
“Won't you sit down?" I asked, pushing out a


SENTIMENT AND CLUES
chair, so that she would face the light, while I re-
mained in shadow. Every doctor and every lawyer
knows that trick. “As far as the name goes, per-
haps you would better tell me the trouble first.
Then, if I think it indispensable, you can tell me.".
She acquiesced to this and sat for a moment
silent, her gaze absently on the windows of the
building across. In the morning light my first
impression was verified. Only too often the raising
of a woman's veil in my office reveals the ravages of
tears, or rouge, or dissipation. My new client turned
fearlessly to the window an unlined face, with a clear
skin, healthily pale. From where I sat, her profile
was beautiful, in spite of its drooping suggestion
of trouble; her first embarrassment gone, she had
forgotten herself and was intent on her errand.
“I hardly know how to begin,” she said, “but sup-
pose”-slowly—“suppose that a man, a well-known
man, should leave home without warning, not taking
any clothes except those he wore, and saying he was
coming home to dinner, and he-he-”
She stopped as if her voice had failed her.
"And he does not come?" I prompted.


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
She nodded, fumbling for her handkerchief in
her bag.
“How long has he been gone?" I asked. I had
heard exactly the same thing before, but to leave a
woman like that, hardly more than a girl, and
lovely!
“Ten days."
"I should think it ought to be looked into," I said
decisively, and got up. Somehow I couldn't sit
quietly. A lawyer who is worth anything is al-
ways a partisan, I suppose, and I never hear of a
man deserting his wife that I am not indignant,
the virtuous scorn of the unmarried man, perhaps.
“But you will have to tell me more than that. Did
this gentleman have any bad habits? That is, did he
-er-drink?"
"Not to excess. He had been forbidden anything
of that sort by his physician. He played bridge for
money, but I-believe he was rather lucky.” She
colored uncomfortably.
"Married, I suppose ?" I asked casually.
"He had been. His wife died when I—" She
stopped and bit her lip. Then it was not her hus-


SENTIMENT AND CLUES
band, after all! Oddly enough, the sun came out
just at that moment, spilling a pool of sunlight at
her feet, on the dusty rug with its tobacco-bitten
scars.
"It is my father,” she said simply. I was absurdly
relieved.
But with the realization that I had not a case of
desertion on my hands, I had to view the situation
from a new angle.
"You are absolutely at a loss to account for his
disappearance?”
"Absolutely.”
"You have had no word from him?”
“None.”
“He never went away before for any length of
time, without telling you?”
"No. Never. He was away a great deal, but I
always knew where to find him." Her voice broke
again and her chin quivered. I thought it wise to
reassure her.
“Don't let us worry about this until we are sure
it is serious," I said. "Sometimes the things that
seem most mysterious have the simplest explana-


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
tions. He may have written and the letter have mis-
carried or even a slight accident would account,”
I saw I was blundering; she grew white and wide-
eyed. “But, of course, that's unlikely too. He
would have papers to identify him.”
“His pockets were always full of envelopes and
things like that,” she assented eagerly.
"Don't you think I ought to know his name?” I
asked. “It need not be known outside of the office,
and this is a sort of confessional anyhow, or worse.
People tell things to their lawyer that they wouldn't
think of telling the priest.”
Her color was slowly coming back, and she
smiled.
“My name is Fleming, Margery Fleming," she
said after a second's hesitation, “and my father, Mr.
Allan Fleming, is the man. Oh, Mr. Knox, what
are we going to do? He has been gone for more
than a week!”
No wonder she had wished to conceal the identity
of the missing man. So Allan Fleming was lost!
A good many highly respectable citizens would hope
that he might never be found. Fleming, state treas-


SENTIMENT AND CLUES
urer, delightful companion, polished gentleman and
successful politician of the criminal type. Outside
in the corridor the office boy was singing under his
breath. "Oh once there was a miller,” he sang,
"who lived in a mill.” It brought back to my mind
instantly the reform meeting at the city hall a
year before, where for a few hours we had blown
the feeble spark of protest against machine domina-
tion to a flame. We had sung a song to that very
tune, and with this white-faced girl across from me,
its words came back with revolting truth. It had
been printed and circulated through the hall.
“Oh, once there was a capitol
That sat on a hill,
As it's too big to steal away
It's probably there still.
The ring's hand in the treasury
And Fleming with a sack.
They take it out in wagon loads
And never bring it back."
I put the song out of my mind with a shudder.
"I am more than sorry," I said. I was, too; what-
ever he may have been, he was her father. "And of


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
course there are a number of reasons why this ought
not to be known, for a time at least. After all, as
I say, there may be a dozen simple explanatijns, and
there are exigencies in politics—".
"I hate politics !" she broke in suddenly. “The
very name makes me ill. When I read of women
wanting to-to vote and all that, I wonder if they
know what it means to have to be polite to dreadful
people, people who have even been convicts, and all
that. Why, our last butler had been a prize fighter!"
She sat upright with her hands on the arms of the
chair. “That's another thing, too, Mr. Knox. The
day after father went away, Carter left. And he has
not come back.”
“Carter was the butler?"
“Yes."
“A white man?"
"Oh, yes.”
"And he left without giving you any warning?"
“Yes. He served luncheon the day after father
went away, and the maids say he went away im-
mediately after. He was not there that evening to
serve dinner, but-he came back late that night, and


SENTIMENT AND CLUES
got into the house, using his key to the servants'
entrance. He slept there, the maids said, but he was
gone before the servants were up and we have not
seen him since.”
I made a mental note of the butler.
“We'll go back to Carter again,” I said. “Your
father has not been ill, has he? I mean recently.”
She considered.
"I can not think of anything except that he had a
tooth pulled.” She was quick to resent my smile.
"Oh, I know I'm not helping you,” she exclaimed,
"but I have thought over everything until I can not
think any more. I always end where I begin.”
"You have not noticed any mental symptoms-
any lack of memory?”
Her eyes filled.
"He forgot my birthday, two weeks ago," she
said. "It was the first one he had ever forgotten, in
nineteen of them.”
Nineteen! Nineteen from thirty-five leaves six-
teen!
“What I meant was this,” I explained. "People
sometimes have sudden and unaccountable lapses of


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
memory and at those times they are apt to stray
away from home. Has your father been worried
lately?”
"He has not been himself at all. He has been ir-
ritable, even to me, and terrible to the servants.
Only to Carter-he was never ugly to Carter.
But I do not think it was a lapse of memory. When
I remember how he looked that morning, I believe
that he meant then to go away. It shows how he
had changed, when he could think of going away
without a word, and leaving me there alone.”
“Then you have no brothers or sisters?”
“None. I came to you—" there she stopped.
"Please tell me how you happened to come to me,”
I urged. “I think you know that I am both honored
and pleased.”
"I didn't know where to go," she confessed, "so
I took the telephone directory, the classified part
under 'Attorneys,' and after I shut my eyes, I put
my finger haphazard on the page. It pointed to your
name."
I am afraid I flushed at this, but it was a whole-
some douche. In a moment I laughed.
10


SENTIMENT AND CLUES
“We will take it as an omen,” I said, "and I will
do all that I can. But I am not a detective, Miss
Fleming. Don't you think we ought to have one?”
"Not the police !" she shuddered. “I thought you
could do something without calling in a detective."
"Suppose you tell me what happened the day your
father left, and how he went away. Tell me the
little things too. They may be straws that will point
in a certain direction.”
"In the first place,” she began, “we live on Mon-
mouth Avenue. There are just the two of us, and
the servants: a cook, two housemaids, a laundress,
a butler and a chauffeur. My father spends much
of his time at the capital, and in the last two years,
since my old governess went back to Germany, at
those times I usually go to mother's sisters at Bell-
wood-Miss Letitia and Miss Jane Maitland.”
I nodded: I knew the Maitland ladies well. I had
drawn four different wills for Miss Letitia in the
last year.
"My father went away on the tenth of May. You
say to tell you all about his going, but there is noth-
ing to tell. We have a machine, but it was being re-
II


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
paired. Father got up from breakfast, picked up
his hat and walked out of the house. He was irri-
tated at a letter he had read at the table ”
"Could you find that letter ?" I asked quickly.
“He took it with him. I knew he was disturbed,
for he did not even say he was going. He took a car,
and I thought he was on his way to his office. He
did not come home that night and I went to the office
the next morning. The stenographer said he had
not been there. He is not at Plattsburg, because
they have been trying to call him from there on the
long distance telephone every day.”
In spite of her candid face I was sure she was
holding something back.
"Why don't you tell me everything?" I asked.
"You may be keeping back the one essential point."
She fushed. Then she opened her pocket-book
and gave me a slip of rough paper. On it, in careless
figures, was the number “eleven twenty-two.” That
was all.
"I was afraid you would think it silly,” she said.
“It was such a meaningless thing. You see, the sec-
ond night after father left, I was nervous and could
12


SENTIMENT AND CLUES
not sleep. I expected him home at any time and I
kept listening for his step down-stairs. About three
o'clock I was sure I heard some one in the room
below mine—there was a creaking as if the person
were walking carefully. I felt relieved, for I thought
he had come back. But I did not hear the door into
his bedroom close, and I got more and more wake-
ful. Finally I got up and slipped along the hall to
his room. The door was open a few inches and I
reached in and switched on the electric lights. I had
a queer feeling before I turned on the light that
there was some one standing close to me, but the
room was empty, and the hall, too."
"And the paper ?"
“When I saw the room was empty I went in. The
paper had been pinned to a pillow on the bed. At
first I thought it had been dropped or had blown
there. When I saw the pin I was startled. I went
back to my room and rang for Annie, the second
housemaid, who is also a sort of personal maid of
mine. It was half-past three o'clock when Annie
came down. I took her into father's room and
showed her the paper. She was sure it was not there
Toom
13


when she folded back the bed clothes for the night
at nine o'clock.”
"Eleven twenty-two," I repeated. “Twice eleven
is twenty-two. But that isn't very enlightening."
“No,” she admitted. “I thought it might be a
telephone number, and I called up all the eleven
twenty-twos in the city.”
In spite of myself, I laughed, and after a moment
she smiled in sympathy.
“We are not brilliant, certainly," I said at last.
"In the first place, Miss Fleming, if I thought the
thing was very serious I would not laugh—but no
doubt a day or two will see everything straight.
But, to go back to this eleven twenty-two_did you
rouse the servants and have the house searched ?”
“Yes, Annie said Carter had come back and she
went to waken him, but although his door was
locked inside, he did not answer. Annie and I
switched on all the lights on the lower floor from
the top of the stairs. Then we went down together
and looked around. Every window and door was
locked, but in father's study, on the first floor, two
drawers of his desk were standing open. And in the
14


SENTIMENT AND CLUES
library, the little compartment in my writing-table,
where I keep my house money, had been broken
open and the money taken.”
“Nothing else was gone?"
"Nothing. The silver on the sideboard in the din-
ing-room, plenty of valuable things in the cabinet in
the drawing-room—nothing was disturbed.”
"It might have been Carter," I reflected. “Did
he know where you kept your house money?”
“It is possible, but I hardly think so. Besides, if
he was going to steal, there were so many more valu-
able things in the house. My mother's jewels as
well as my own were in my dressing-room, and the
door was not locked.”
“They were not disturbed ?"
She hesitated.
“They had been disturbed,” she admitted. “My
grandmother left each of her children some unstrung
pearls. They were a hobby with her. Aunt Jane
and Aunt Letitia never had theirs strung, but my
mother's were made into different things, all old-
fashioned. I left them locked in a drawer in my
sitting-room, where I have always kept them. The
15


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
following morning the drawer was unlocked and
partly open, but nothing was missing.”
"All your jewelry was there?”
"All but one ring, which I rarely remove from
my finger.” I followed her eyes. Under her glove
was the outline of a ring, a solitaire stone.
"Nineteen from—” I shook myself together and
got up.
"It does not sound like an ordinary burglary,” I
reflected. “But I am afraid I have no imagination.
No doubt what you have told me would be meat and
drink to a person with an analytical turn of mind.
I can't deduct. Nineteen from thirty-five leaves six-
teen, according to my mental process, although I
know men who could make the difference nothing."
I believe she thought I was a little mad, for her
face took on again its despairing look.
“We must find him, Mr. Knox," she insisted as
she got up. "If you know of a detective that you
can trust, please get him. But you can understand
that the unexplained absence of the state treasurer
must be kept secret. One thing I am sure of: he is
being kept away. You don't know what enemies he
16


SENTIMENT AND CLUES
✓
has! Men like Mr. Schwartz, who have no scruples,
no principle.”
"Schwartz!" I repeated in surprise. Henry
Schwartz was the boss of his party in the state;
the man of whom one of his adversaries had said,
with the distinct approval of the voting public, that
he was so low in the scale of humanity that it would
require a special dispensation of Heaven to raise him
to the level of total degradation. But he and Flem-
ing were generally supposed to be captain and first
mate of the pirate craft that passed with us for the
ship of state.
"Mr. Schwartz and my father are allies polit-
ically," the girl explained with heightened color,
"but they are not friends. My father is a gentle-
man."
The inference I allowed to pass unnoticed, and
as if she feared she had said too much, the girl rose.
When she left, a few minutes later, it was with the
promise that she would close the Monmouth Ave-
nue house and go to her aunts at Bellwood, at once.
For myself, I pledged a thorough search for her
father, and began it by watching the scarlet wing on
17


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
her hat through the top of the elevator cage until it
had descended out of sight. .
I am afraid it was a queer hodgepodge of clues
and sentiment that I poured out to Hunter, the de-
tective, when he came up late that afternoon.
Hunter was quiet when I finished my story.
“They're rotten clear through,” he reflected.
“This administration is worse than the last, and it
was a peach. There liave been more suicides than I
could count on my two hands, in the last ten years.
I warn you—you'd be better out of this mess."
“What do you think about the eleven twenty-
two?” I asked as he got up and buttoned his coat.
"Well, it might mean almost anything. It might
be that many dollars, or the time a train starts, or it
might be the eleventh and the twenty-second letters
of the alphabet-k-v."
: "K-v!" I repeated. “Why that would be the
Latin cave-beware."
Hunter smiled cheerfully.
“You'd better stick to the law, Mr. Knox," he
said from the door. “We don't use Latin in the de-
tective business."
18


CHAPTER II
UNEASY APPREHENSIONS
DLATTSBURG was not the name of the capital,
but it will do for this story. The state doesn't
matter either. You may take your choice, like the
story Mark Twain wrote, with all kinds of weather
at the beginning, so the reader could take his pick.
We will say that my home city is Manchester. I
live with my married brother, his wife and two boys.
Fred is older than I am, and he is an exceptional
brother. On the day he came home from his wed-
ding trip, I went down with my traps on a hansom,
in accordance with a prearranged schedule. Fred
and Edith met me inside the door.
"Here's your latch-key, Jack,” Fred said, as he
shook hands. “Only one stipulation-remember we
are strangers in the vicinity and try to get home be-
fore the neighbors are up. We have our reputations
to think of.”
19


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“There is no hour for breakfast," Edith said,
as she kissed me. “You have a bath of your pwn,
and don't smoke in the drawing-room.”
Fred was always a lucky devil.
I had been there now for six years. I had helped
to raise two young Knoxes—bully youngsters, too:
the oldest one could use boxing-gloves when he was
four—and the finest collie pup in our end of the
state. I wanted to raise other things—the boys liked
pets—but Edith was like all women, she didn't care
for animals.
I had a rabbit-hutch built and stocked in the laun-
dry, and a dove-cote on the roof. I used the general
bath, and gave up my tub to a young alligator I got
in Florida, and every Sunday the youngsters and I
had a great time trying to teach it to do tricks.
I have always taken it a little hard that Edith
took advantage of my getting the measles from
Billy, to clear out every animal in the house. She
broke the news to me gently, the day the rash began
to fade, maintaining that, having lost one cook
through the alligator escaping from his tub and be-
ing mistaken, in the gloom of the back-stairs, for a
20


UNEASY APPREHENSIONS
rubber boot, and picked up under the same misap-
prehension, she could not risk another cook.
On the day that Margery Fleming came to me
about her father, I went home in a state of mixed
emotion. Dinner was not a quiet meal: Fred and I
talked politics, generally, and as Fred was on one
side and I on the other there was always an argu-
ment on.
“What about Fleming?" I asked at last, when
Fred had declared that in these days of corruption,
no matter what the government was, he was "for-
ninst” it. "Hasn't he been frightened into reform??
"Bad egg," he said, jabbing his potato as if it had
been a politician, "and there's no way to improve a
bad egg except to hold your nose. That's what the
public is doing; holding its nose.”
"Hasn't he a daughter?” I asked casually.
"Yes—a lovely girl, too,” Edith assented. "It is
his only redeeming quality.”
"Fleming is a rascal, daughter or no daughter,"
Fred persisted. “Ever since he and his gang got
poor Butler into trouble and then left him to kill
himself as the only way out, I have felt that there
21


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
was something coming to all of them-Hansen,
Schwartz and the rest. I saw Fleming on the street
to-day."
“What !” I exclaimed, almost jumping out of my
chair.
Fred surveyed me quizzically over his coffee cup.
“ 'Hasn't he a daughter!'” he quoted. “Yes, I
saw him, Jack, this very day, in an unromantic four-
wheeler, and he was swearing at a policeman.”
"Where was it?"
“Chestnut and Union. His cab had been struck
by a car, and badly damaged, but the gentleman re-
fused to get out. No doubt you could get the details
from the corner-man.”
"Look here, Fred,” I said earnestly. "Keep that
to yourself, will you? And you too, Edith? It's a
queer story, and I'll tell you sometime.”
As we left the dining-room Edith put her hand on
my shoulder.
"Don't get mixed up with those people, Jack," she
advised. “Margery's a dear girl, but her father
practically killed Henry Butler, and Henry Butler
married my cousin.”
22


UNEASY APPREHENSIONS
"You needn't make it a family affair," I protested.
“I have only seen the girl once.”
But Edith smiled. “I know what I know," she
said. "How extravagant of you to send Bobby that
enormous hobby-horse !”
“The boy has to learn to ride sometime. In four
years he can have a pony, and I'm going to see that
he has it. He'll be eight by that time.”
Edith laughed.
“In four years !” she said, “Why, in four years
you'll—” then she stopped.
"I'll what?" I demanded, blocking the door to the
library.
“You'll be forty, Jack, and it's a mighty unat-
tractive man who gets past forty without being
sought and won by some woman. You'll be buy-
ing—”
"I will be thirty-nine,” I said with dignity, “and
as far as being sought and won goes, I am so over-
whelmed by Fred's misery that I don't intend to
marry at all. If I do—if I do-it will be to some
girl who turns and runs the other way every time
she sees me.”
23


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“The oldest trick in the box," Edith scoffed.
“What's that thing Fred's always quoting: 'A wom-
an is like a shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from
her, she follows.'”
"Upon my word!" I said indignantly. “And you
are a woman!"
"I'm different,” she retorted. “I'm only a wife
and mother."
In the library Fred got up from his desk and gath-
ered up his papers. "I can't think with you two
whispering there,” he said, “I'm going to the den."
As he slammed the door into his workroom Edith
picked up her skirts and scuttled after him.
"How dare you run away like that?" she called.
"You promised me—” The door closed behind her.
I went over and spoke through the panels.
“ 'Follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows'
oh, wife and mother!" I called.
“For Heaven's sake, Edith," Fred's voice rose
irritably. “If you and Jack are going to talk all
evening, go and sit on his knee and let me alone.
The way you two flirt under my nose is a scandal.
Do you hear that, Jack?".
24


UNEASY APPREHENSIONS
"Good night, Edith," I called, “I have left you a
kiss on the upper left hand panel of the door. And
I want to ask you one more question: what if I fly
from the woman and she doesn't follow ?”
"Thank your lucky stars," Fred called in a muffled
voice, and I left them to themselves.
I had some work to do at the office, work that the
interview with Hunter had interrupted, and half
past eight that night found me at my desk. But my.
mind strayed from the papers before me. After a
useless effort to concentrate, I gave it up as useless,
and by ten o'clock I was on the street again, my
evening wasted, the papers in the libel case of the
Star against the Eagle untouched on my desk, and
I the victim of an uneasy apprehension that took
me, almost without volition, to the neighborhood of
the Fleming house on Monmouth Avenue. For it
had occurred to me that Miss Fleming might not
have left the house that day as she had promised,
might still be there, liable to another intrusion by the
mysterious individual who had a key to the house.
It was a relief, consequently, when I reached its
corner, to find no lights in the building. The girl
25


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
CE
had kept her word. Assured of that, I looked at
the house curiously. It was one of the largest in
the city, not wide, but running far back along the
side street; a small yard with a low iron fence and a
garage, completed the property. The street lights
left the back of the house in shadow, and as I
stopped in the shelter of the garage, I was positive
that I heard some one working with a rear window
of the empty house. A moment later the sounds
ceased and muffled footsteps came down the cement
walk. The intruder made no attempt to open the
iron gate; against the light I saw him put a leg over
the low fence, follow it up with the other, and start
up the street, still with peculiar noiselessness of
stride. He was a short, heavy-shouldered fellow in
a cap, and his silhouette showed a prodigious length
of arm.
I followed, I don't mind saying in some excite-
ment. I had a vision of grabbing him from behind
and leading him—or pushing him, under the circum-
stances, in triumph to the police station, and another
mental picture, not so pleasant, of being found on
the pavement by some passer-by, with a small punc-
26


UNEASY APPREHENSIONS
tuation mark ending my sentence of life. But I was
not apprehensive. I even remember wondering
humorously if I should overtake him and press the
cold end of my silver mounted fountain pen into the
nape of his neck, if he would throw up his hands
and surrender. I had read somewhere of a burglar
held up in a similar way with a shoe-horn.
Our pace was easy. Once the man just ahead
stopped and lighted a cigarette, and the odor of a
very fair Turkish tobacco came back to me. He
glanced back over his shoulder at me and went on
without quickening his pace. We met no policemen,
and after perhaps five minutes walking, when the
strain was growing tense, my gentleman of the rub-
ber-soled shoes swung abruptly to the left, and-en-
tered the police station!
I had occasion to see Davidson many times after
that, during the strange development of the Fleming
case; I had the peculiar experience later of having
him follow me as I had trailed him that night, and
I had occasion once to test the strength of his long
arms when he helped to thrust me through the
transom at the White Cat, but I never met him with-
n-
27


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
out a recurrence of the sheepish feeling with which
I watched him swagger up to the night sergeant and
fall into easy conversation with the man behind the
desk. Standing in the glare from the open window,
I had much the lost pride and self contempt of a wet
cat sitting in the sun.
Two or three roundsmen were sitting against the
wall, lazily, helmets off and coats open against the
warmth of the early spring night. In a back room
others were playing checkers and disputing noisily.
Davidson's voice ca e distinctly through the open
windows.
"The house is closed," he reported. “But one of
the basement windows isn't shuttered and the lock
is bad. I couldn't find Shields. He'd better keep
an eye on it.” He stopped and fished in his pockets
with a grin. “This was tied to the knob of the
kitchen door,” he said, raising his voice for the ben-
efit of the room, and holding aloft a piece of paper.
“For Shields !” he explained, “and signed 'Delia.'”
The men gathered around him, even the sergeant
got up and leaned forward, his elbows on his desk.
28


UNEASY APPREHENSIONS
“Read it,” he said lazily. “Shields has got a wife,
and her name ain't Delia.”
"Dear Tom,” Davidson read, in a mincing fal-
setto, "We are closing up unexpected, so I won't be
here to-night. I am going to Mamie Brennan's and
if you want to talk to me you can get me by calling
up Anderson's drug-store. The clerk is a gentleman
friend of mine. Mr. Carter, the butler, told me be-
fore he left he would get me a place as parlor maid,
so I'll have another situation soon. Delia.”
The sergeant scowled. "I'm goin' to talk to
Tom,” he said, reaching out for the note. "He's got
a nice family, and things like that're bad for the
force.”
I lighted the cigar, which had been my excuse for
loitering on the pavement, and went on. It sounded
involved for a novice, but if I could find Anderson's
drug-store I could find Mamie Brennan; through
Mamie Brennan I would get Delia; and through
Delia I might find Carter. I was vague from that
point, but what Miss Fleming had said of Carter
had made me suspicious of him. Under an arc light
29


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
I made the first note in my new business of man-
Sunter and it was something like this:
Anderson's drug-store.
Ask for Mamie Brennan.
Find Delia.
Advise Delia that a policeman with a family is a
bad bet.
Locate Carter.
It was late when I reached the corner of Chestnut
and Union Streets, where Fred had said Allan Flem-
ing had come to grief in a cab. But the corner-man
had gone, and the night man on the beat knew noth-
ing, of course, of any particular collision.
“There's plinty of 'em every day at this corner,"
he said cheerfully. “The department sinds a wagon
here every night to gather up the pieces, autymobiles
mainly. That trolley pole over there has been sliced
off clean three times in the last month. They say a
fellow ain't a graduate of the autymobile school till
he can go around it on the sidewalk without hittin'
it !"
I left him looking reminiscently at the pole, and
went home to bed. 'I had made no headway, I
30


UNEASY APPREHENSIONS
had lost conceit with myself and a day and evening
at the office, and I had gained the certainty that
Margery Fleming was safe in Bellwood and the un-
certain address of a servant who might know some-
think about Mr. Fleming.
I was still awake at one o'clock and I got up im-
patiently and consulted the telephone directory.
There were twelve Andersons in the city who con-
ducted drug-stores.
When I finally went to sleep, I dreamed that I was
driving Margery Fleming along a street in a broken
taxicab, and that all the buildings were pharmacies
and numbered eleven twenty-two.
31


CHAPTER III
NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS
serv-
FTER such a night I slept late. Edith still
kept her honeymoon promise of no breakfast
hour and she had gone out with Fred when I came
down-stairs.
I have a great admiration for Edith, for her toler-
ance with my uncertain hours, for her cheery break-
fast-room, and the smiling good nature of the serv-
ants she engages. I have a theory that, show me a
sullen servant and I will show you a sullen mistress,
although Edith herself disclaims all responsibility
and lays credit for the smile with which Katie brings
in my eggs and coffee, to largess on my part. Be
that as it may, Katie is a smiling and personable
young woman, and I am convinced that had she
picked up the alligator on the back-stairs and lost
part of the end of her thumb, she would have told
Edith that she cut it off with the bread knife, and
thus have saved to us Bessie the Beloved and her
32


NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS
fascinating trick of taking the end of her tail in her
mouth and spinning.
On that particular morning, Katie also brought
me a letter, and I recognized the cramped and rather
uncertain writing of Miss Jane Maitland.
"DEAR MR. Knox:
"Sister Letitia wishes me to ask you if you can
dine with us to-night, informally. She has changed
her mind in regard to the Colored Orphans' Home,
and would like to consult you about it.
"Very truly yours,
"SUSAN JANE MAITLAND.”
It was a very commonplace note: I had had one
like it after every board-meeting of the orphans'
home, Miss Maitland being on principle an aggres-
sive minority. Also, having considerable mind,
changing it became almost as ponderous an opera-
tion as moving a barn, although not nearly so stable.
(Fred accuses me here of a very bad pun, and re-
minds me, quite undeservedly, that the pun is the
lowest form of humor.)
I came across Miss Jane's letter the other day,
33


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
when I was gathering the material for this narra-
tive, and I sat for a time with it in my hand thinking
over again the chain of events in which it had been
the first link, a series of strange happenings that be-
gan with my acceptance of the invitation, and that
led through ways as dark and tricks as vain as Bret
Harte's Heathen Chinee ever dreamed of, to the
final scene at the White Cat. With the letter I had
filed away a half dozen articles and I ranged them all
on the desk in front of me: the letter, the bit of paper
with eleven twenty-two on it, that Margery gave me
the first time I saw her; a note-book filled with jerky
characters that looked like Arabic and were news-
paper shorthand; a railroad schedule; a bullet, the
latter slightly flattened; a cube-shaped piece of
chalk which I put back in its box with a shudder, and
labeled 'poison,' and a small gold buckle from a
slipper, which I-at which I did not shudder.
I did not need to make the climaxes of my story.
They lay before me.
I walked to the office that morning, and on the
way I found and interviewed the corner-man at
Chestnut and Union. But he was of small assist-
34


NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS
ance. He remembered the incident, but the gentle-
man in the taxicab had not been hurt and refused to
give his name, saying he was merely passing through
the city from one railroad station to another, and did
not wish any notoriety.
At eleven o'clock Hunter called up; he said he was
going after the affair himself, but that it was hard
to stick a dip net into the political puddle without
pulling out a lot more than you went after, or than
it was healthy to get. He was inclined to be face-
tious, and wanted to know if I had come across any
more k. v's. Whereupon I put away the notes I
had made about Delia and Mamie Brennan and I
heard him chuckle as I rang off.
I went to Bellwood that evening. It was a sub-
urban town a dozen miles from the city, with a
picturesque station, surrounded by lawns and ce-
ment walks. Street-cars had so far failed to spoil
its tree-bordered streets, and it was exclusive to
the point of stagnation. The Maitland place was
at the head of the main street, which had at one
time been its drive. Miss Letitia, who was sev-
enty, had had sufficient commercial instinct, some
35


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
years before, to cut her ancestral acres—their an-
cestral acres, although Miss Jane hardly counted—
into building lots, except perhaps an acre which sur-
rounded the house. Thus, the Maitland ladies were
reputed to be extremely wealthy. And as they never
spent any money, no doubt they were.
The homestead as I knew it, was one of impec-
cable housekeeping and unmitigated gloom. There
was a chill that rushed from the old-fashioned center
hall to greet the new-comer on the porch, and that
seemed to freeze up whatever in him was spontan-
eous and cheerful.
I had taken dinner at Bellwood before, and the
memory was not hilarious. Miss Letitia was deaf,
but chose to ignore the fact. With superb indiffer-
ence she would break into the conversation with
some wholly alien remark that necessitated a reas-
sembling of one's ideas, making the meal a series of
-CO
I
W
tice, and because she only skimmed the surface of
conversation, took her cerebral flights easily, but I
am more unwieldy of mind.
Nor was Miss Letitia's dominance wholly conver-
36


NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS
rce
sational. Her sister Jane was her creature, alter-
nately snubbed and bullied. To Miss Letitia, Jane, in
spite of her sixty-five years, was still a child, and
sometimes a bad one. Indeed many a child of ten
is more sophisticated. Miss Letitia gave her expur-
gated books to read, and forbade her to read divorce
court proceedings in the newspapers. Once, a recre-
ant housemaid presenting the establishment with a
healthy male infant, Jane was sent to the country for
a month, and was only brought back when the house
had been fumigated throughout.
Poor Miss Jane! She met me with fluttering cor-
diality in the hall that night, safe in being herself
for once, with the knowledge that Miss Letitia al-
ways received me from a throne-like horsehair sofa
in the back parlor. She wore a new lace cap, and
was twitteringly excited.
"Our niece is here,” she explained, as I took off
my coat-everything was "ours" with Jane; “mine”
with Letitia—“and we are having an ice at dinner.
Please say that ices are not injurious, Mr. Knox.
My sister is so opposed to them and I had to beg for
this."


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
"On the contrary, the doctors have ordered ices
for my young nephews,” I said gravely, “and I dote
on them myself.”
Miss Jane beamed. Indeed, there was something
almost unnaturally gay about the little old lady all
that evening. Perhaps it was the new lace cap.
Later, I tried to analyze her manner, to recall ex-
actly what she had said, to remember anything that
could possibly help. But I could find no clue to what
followed.
Miss Letitia received me as usual, in the back par-
lor. Miss Fleming was there also, sewing by a
window, and in her straight white dress with her
hair drawn back and braided around her head, she
looked even younger than before. There was no
time for conversation. Miss Letitia launched at
once into the extravagance of both molasses and
butter on the colored orphans' bread and after a
glance at me, and a quick comprehension from my
face that I had no news for her, the girl at the win-
dow bent over her sewing again.
"Molasses breeds worms,” Miss Letitia said de-
cisively. “So does pork. And yet those children
"sam.
38


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
her black silk, her colored orphans and her majestic
presence out of the room. As the door closed, Miss
Fleming put down her sewing and rose. For the
first time I saw how weary she looked.
"I do not dare to tell them, Mr. Knox,” she said.
“They are old, and they hate him anyhow. I
couldn't sleep last night. Suppose he should have
gone back, and found the house closed !”
"He would telephone here at once, wouldn't he?"
I suggested.
“I suppose so, yes.” She took up her sewing from
the chair with a sigh. “But I'm afraid he won't
come-not soon. I have hemmed tea towels for
Aunt Letitia to-day until I am frantic, and all day
I have been wondering over something you said yes-
terday. You said, you remember, that you were not
a detective, that some men could take nineteen from
thirty-five and leave nothing. What did you mean?"
I was speechless for a moment.
"The fact is—I–you see,” I blundered, “it was
a-merely a figure of speech, a—speech of figures is
more accurate, —” And then dinner was announced
and I was saved. But although she said little or
40


NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS
nothing during the meal, I caught her looking across
at me once or twice in a bewildered, puzzled fashion.
I could fairly see her revolving my detestable figures
in her mind.
Miss Letitia presided over the table in garrulous
majesty. The two old ladies picked at their food,
and Miss Jane had a spot of pink in each withered
cheek. Margery Fleming made a brave pretense,
but left her plate almost untouched. As for me, I
ate a substantial masculine meal and half apologized
for my appetite, but Letitia did not hear. She tore
the board of managers to shreds with the roast, and
denounced them with the salad. But Jane was all
anxious hospitality.
"Please do eat your dinner,” she whispered. "I
made the salad myself. And I know what it takes
to keep a big man going. Harry eats more than
Letitia and I together. Doesn't he, Margery?"
"Harry?" I asked.
"Mrs. Stevens is an unmitigated fool. I said if
they elected her president I'd not leave a penny to
the home. That's why I sent for you, Knox.” And
to the maid, “Tell Heppie to wash those cups in
41


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
luke-warm water. They're the best ones. And not
to drink her coffee out of them. She let her teeth
slip and bit a piece out of one the last time.”
Miss Jane leaned forward to me after a smiling
glance at her niece across.
"Harry Wardrop, a cousin's son, and—” she
patted Margery's hand with its ring—“soon to be
something closer."
The girl's face colored, but she returned Miss
Jane's gentle pressure.
“They put up an iron fence,” Miss Letitia re-
verted somberly to her grievance, "when a wooden
one would have done. It was extravagance, ruinous
extravagance."
"Harry stays with us when he is in Manchester,”
Miss Jane went on, nodding brightly across at Le-
titia as if she, too, were damning the executive
board. “Lately, he has been almost all the time in
Plattsburg. He is secretary to Margery's father. It
is a position of considerable responsibility, and we
are very proud of him.”
I had expected something of the sort, but the re-
mainder of the meal had somehow lost its savor.
42


NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS
There was a lull in the conversation while dessert
was being brought in. Miss Jane sat quivering,
watching her sister's face for signs of trouble; the
latter had subsided into muttered grumbling, and
Miss Fleming sat, one hand on the table, staring ab-
sently at her engagement ring.
"You look like a fool in that cap, Jane," volun-
teered Letitia, while the plates were being brought
in. “What's for dessert?"
"Ice-cream,” called Miss Jane, over the table.
"Well, you needn't,” snapped Letitia, “I can hear
you well enough. You told me it was junket.”
"I said ice-cream, and you said it would be all
right," poor Jane shrieked. “If you drink a cup of
hot water after it, it won't hurt you.”
"Fiddle,” Letitia snapped unpleasantly. “I'm not
going to freeze my stomach and then thaw it out like
a drain pipe. Tell Heppie to put my ice-cream on
the stove."
So we waited until Miss Letitia's had been
heated, and was brought in, sicklied over with pale
hues, not of thought, but of confectioners' dyes.
Miss Letitia ate it resignedly. “Like as not I'll
e-cream on
43


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
break out, I did the last time," she said gloomily. “I
only hope I don't break out in colors.”
The meal was over finally, but if I had hoped for
another word alone with Margery Fleming that
evening, I was foredoomed to disappointment. Le-
titia sent the girl, not ungently, to bed, and ordered
Jane out of the room with a single curt gesture
toward the door.
“You'd better wash those cups yourself, Jane,”
she said. “I don't see any sense anyhow in getting
out the best china unless there's real company. Be-
sides, I'm going to talk business."
Poor, meek, spiritless Miss Jane! The situation
was absurd in spite of its pathos. She confided to
me once that never in her sixty-five years of life had
she bought herself a gown, or chosen the dinner. She
was snubbed with painstaking perseverance, and sent
out of the room when subjects requiring frank han-
dling were under discussion. She was as unsophis-
ticated as a child of ten, as unworldly as a baby, as
-well, poor Miss Jane, again.
When the door had closed behind her, Miss Letitia
listened for a moment, got up suddenly and crossing
44


NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS
the room with amazing swiftness for her years,
pounced on the knob and threw it open again. But
the passage was empty; Miss Jane's slim little figure
was disappearing into the kitchen. The older sister
watched her out of sight, and then returned to her
sofa without deigning explanation.
"I didn't want to see you about the will, Mr.
Knox,” she began without prelude. “The will can
wait. I ain't going to die just yet—not if I know
anything. But although I think you'd look a heap
better and more responsible if you wore some hair
on your face, still in most things I think you're a
man of sense. And you're not too young. That's
why I didn't send for Harry Wardrop; he's too
young.”
I winced at that. Miss Letitia leaned forward
and put her bony hand on my knee.
"I've been robbed,” she announced in a half whis-
per, and straightened to watch the effect of her
words.
“Indeed!” I said, properly thunderstruck. I was
surprised. I had always believed that only the use
of the fourth dimension in space would enable any
45


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
one, not desired, to gain access to the Maitland
house. “Of money?”
“Not money, although I had a good bit in the
house." This also I knew. It was said of Miss
Letitia that when money came into her possession it
went out of circulation.
“Not—the pearls ?" I asked.
She answered my question with another.
“When you had those pearls appraised for me at
the jewelers last year, how many were there?".
"Not quite one hundred. I think-yes, ninety-
eight."
"Exactly," she corroborated, in triumph. “They
belonged to my mother. Margery's mother got some
of them. That's a good many years ago, young
man. They are worth more than they were then-
a great deal more."
“Twenty-two thousand dollars," I repeated.
“You remember, Miss Letitia, that I protested vig-
orously at the time against your keeping them in the
house."
Miss Letitia ignored this, but before she went on
she repeated again her cat-like pouncing at the door,
46


NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS
only to find the hall empty as before. This time
when she sat down it was knee to knee with me.
“Yesterday morning,” she said gravely, "I got
down the box; they have always been kept in the
small safe in the top of my closet. When Jane
found a picture of my niece, Margery Fleming, in
Harry's room, I thought it likely there was some
truth in the gossip Jane heard about the two, and
if there was going to be a wedding—why, the pearls
were to go to Margery anyhow. But-I found the
door of the safe unlocked and a little bit open-and
ten of the pearls were gone!”
"Gone !" I echoed. “Ten of them! Why, it's
ridiculous! If ten, why not the whole ninety-
eight?”
“How do I know?" she replied with asperity.
"That's what I keep a lawyer for: that's why I sent
for you."
For the second time in two days I protested the
same thing.
"But you need a detective," I cried. "If you
can find the thief I will be glad to send him where
he ought to be, but I couldn't find him.”
47


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
"I will not have the police,” she persisted inflexi-
bly. "They will come around asking impertinent
questions, and telling the newspapers that a foolish
old woman had got what she deserved.”
“Then you are going to send them to a bank?”.
"You have less sense than I thought," she
snapped. “I am going to leave them where they
are, and watch. Whoever took the ten will be back
for more, mark my words.”
"I don't advise it,” I said decidedly. “You have
most of them now, and you might easily lose them
all; not only that, but it is not safe for you or your
sister."
"Stuff and nonsense!” the old lady said, with
spirit. “As for Jane, she doesn't even know they
are gone. I know who did it. It was the new
housemaid, Bella MacKenzie. Nobody else could
get in. I lock up the house myself at night, and
I'm in the habit of doing a pretty thorough job
of it. They went in the last three weeks, for I
counted them Saturday three weeks ago myself. The
only persons in the house in that time, except our-
selves, were Harry, Bella and Hepsibah, who's been
48


NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS
here for forty years and wouldn't know a pearl
from a pickled onion.”
"Then—what do you want me to do?" I asked.
“Have Bella arrested and her trunk searched ?”
I felt myself shrinking in the old lady's esteem
every minute. .
"Her trunk !” she said scornfully. "I turned it
inside out this morning, pretending I thought she
was stealing the laundry soap. Like as not she has
them buried in the vegetable garden. What I want
you to do is to stay here for three or four nights, to
be on hand. When I catch the thief, I want my
lawyer right by."
It ended by my consenting, of course. Miss Le-
titia was seldom refused. I telephoned to Fred that
I would not be home, listened for voices and de-
cided Margery Fleming had gone to bed. Miss
Jane lighted me to the door of the guest room, and
saw that everything was comfortable. Her thin
gray curls bobbed as she examined the water pitcher,
saw to the towels, and felt the bed linen for damp-
ness. At the door she stopped and turned around
timidly.


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“Has—has anything happened to disturb my sis-
ter ?” she asked. “She has been almost irritable
all day.”
Almost!
“She is worried about her colored orphans,” I
evaded. "She does not approve of fireworks for
them on the fourth of July.”
Miss Jane was satisfied. I watched her little, old,
black-robed figure go lightly down the hall. Then
I bolted the door, opened all the windows, and pro-
ceeded to a surreptitious smoke.


CHAPTER IV
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
THE windows being wide open, it was not long
before a great moth came whirring in. He
hurled himself at the light and then, dazzled and
singed, began to beat with noisy thumps against
the barrier of the ceiling. Finding no egress there,
he was back at the lamp again, whirling in dizzy
circles until at last, worn out, he dropped to the
table, where he lay on his back, kicking impotently.
The room began to fill with tiny winged crea-
tures that flung themselves headlong to destruction,
so I put out the light and sat down near the window,
with my cigar and my thoughts.
Miss Letitia's troubles I dismissed shortly. While
it was odd that only ten pearls should have been
taken, still-in every other way it bore the marks of
an ordinary theft. The thief might have thought
that by leaving the majority of the gems he could


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
On
postpone discovery indefinitely. But the Fleming
case was of a different order. Taken by itself, Flem-
ing's disappearance could have been easily accounted
for. There must be times in the lives of all unscrupu-
lous individuals when they feel the need of retiring
temporarily from the public eye. But the intrusion
into the Fleming home, the ransacked desk and the
broken money drawer—most of all, the bit of paper
with eleven twenty-two on it-here was a hurdle
my legal mind refused to take.
I had finished my second cigar, and was growing
more and more wakeful, when I heard a footstep on
the path around the house. It was black outside;
when I looked out, as I did cautiously, I could not
see even the gray-white of the cement walk. The
steps had ceased, but there was a sound of fumbling
at one of the shutters below. The catch clicked twice,
as if some thin instrument was being slipped under-
neath to raise it, and once I caught a muttered ex-
clamation.
I drew in my head and, puffing my cigar until it
was glowing, managed by its light to see that it was
a quarter to two. When I listened again, the
was
52


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
was
e was
house-breaker had moved to another window, and
was shaking it cautiously.
With Miss Letitia's story of the pearls fresh in
my mind, I felt at once that the thief, finding his
ten a prize, had come back for more. My first im-
pulse was to go to the head of my bed, where I am
accustomed to keep a revolver. With the touch of
the tall corner post, however, I remembered that I
was not at home, and that it was not likely there was
a weapon in the house.
Finally, after knocking over an ornament that
shattered on the hearth and sounded like the crash
of doom, I found on the mantel a heavy brass can-
dlestick, and with it in my hand I stepped into the
gloom of the hallway and felt my way to the stairs.
There were no night lights; the darkness was
total. I found the stairs before I expected to, and
came within an ace of pitching down, headlong. I
had kicked off my shoes—a fact which I regretted
later. Once down the stairs I was on more familiar
territory. I went at once into the library, which
was beneath my room, but the sounds at the window
had ceased. I thought I heard steps on the walk,
53


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
going toward the front of the house. I wheeled
quickly and started for the door, when something
struck me a terrific blow on the nose. I reeled back
and sat down, dizzy and shocked. It was only
when no second blow followed the first that I real-
ized what had occurred.
With my two hands out before me in the black-
ness, I had groped, one hand on either side of the
open door, which of course I had struck violently
with my nose. Afterward I found it had bled con-
siderably, and my collar and tie must have added to
my ghastly appearance.
My candlestick had rolled under the table, and
after crawling around on my hands and knees, I
found it. I had lost, I suppose, three or four min-
utes, and I was raging at my awkwardness and stu-
pidity. No one, however, seemed to have heard
the noise. For all her boasted watchfulness, Miss
Letitia must have been asleep. I got back into the
hall and from there to the dining-room. Some one
was fumbling at the shutters there, and as I looked
they swung open. It was so dark outside, with the
trees and the distance from the street, that only the
54


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
creaking of the shutter told it had opened. I stood
in the middle of the room, with one hand firmly
clutching my candlestick.
But the window refused to move. The burglar
seemed to have no proper tools; he got something
under the sash, but it snapped, and through the
heavy plate-glass I could hear him swearing. Then
he abruptly left the window and made for the front
of the house.
I blundered in the same direction, my unshod feet
striking on projecting furniture and causing me
agonies, even through my excitement. When I
reached the front door, however, I was amazed to
find it unlocked, and standing open perhaps an inch.
I stopped uncertainly. I was in a peculiar position;
not even the most ardent admirers of antique brass
candlesticks indorse them as weapons of offense or
defense. But, there seeming to be nothing else to
do, I opened the door quietly and stepped out into
the darkness.
The next instant I was flung heavily to the porch
floor. I am not a small man by any means, but un-
der the fury of that onslaught I was a child. It was
55


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
a porch chair, I think, that knocked me senseless;
I know I folded up like a jack-knife, and that was
all I did know for a few minutes.
When I came to I was lying where I had fallen,
and a candle was burning beside me on the porch
floor. It took me a minute to remember, and an-
other minute to realize that I was looking into the
barrel of a revolver. It occurred to me that I had
never seen a more villainous face than that of the
man who held it—which shows my state of mind-
and that my position was the reverse of comfortable.
Then the man behind the gun spoke.
“What did you do with that bag ?” he demanded,
and I felt his knee on my chest.
"What bag?" I inquired feebly. My head was
jumping, and the candle was a volcanic eruption of
sparks and smoke.
"Don't be a fool,” the gentleman with the re-
volver persisted. "If I don't get that bag within five
minutes, I'll fill you as full of holes as a cheese.”
"I haven't seen any bag,” I said stupidly. “What
sort of bag ?” I heard my own voice, drunk from the
shock. “Paper bag, laundry bag—"
56


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
“You've hidden it in the house,” he said, bringing
the revolver a little closer with every word. My
senses came back with a jerk and I struggled to free
myself.
“Go in and look," I responded. “Let me up
from here, and I'll take you in myself.”
The man's face was a study in amazement and
anger.
"You'll take me in! You!" He got up without
changing the menacing position of the gun. “You
walk in there—here, carry the candle--and take me
to that bag. Quick, do you hear?”
I was too bewildered to struggle. I got up diz-
zily, but when I tried to stoop for the candle I al-
most fell on it. My head cleared after a moment,
and when I had picked up the candle I had a good
chance to look at my assailant. He was staring at
me, too. He was a young fellow, well dressed, and
haggard beyond belief.
"I don't know anything about a bag,” I persisted,
"but if you will give me your word there was noth-
ing in it belonging to this house, I will take you in
and let you look for it.”


THE WINDOW, AT THE WHITE CAT
The next moment he had lowered the revolver
and clutched my arm.
“Who in the devil's name are you?” he asked
wildly.
I think the thing dawned on us both at the same
moment.
"My name is Knox," I said coolly, feeling for my
handkerchief—my head was bleeding from a cut
over the ear—"John Knox.”
“Knox!” Instead of showing relief, his manner
showed greater consternation than ever. He
snatched the candle from me and, holding it up,
searched my face. “Then-good God--where is
my traveling-bag?”
"I have something in my head where you hit me,”
I said. "Perhaps that is it.”
But my sarcasm was lost on him.
"I am Harry Wardrop," he said, “and I have been
robbed, Mr. Knox. I was trying to get in the house
without waking the family, and when I came back
here to the front door, where I had left my valise,
it was gone. I thought you were the thief when you
58


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
came out, and we've lost all this time. Somebody
has followed me and robbed me!”
"What was in the bag ?” I asked, stepping to the
edge of the porch and looking around, with the help
of the candle.
"Valuable papers,” he said shortly. He seemed
to be dazed and at a loss what to do next. We had
both instinctively kept our voices low.
“You are certain you left it here?" I asked. The
thing seemed incredible in the quiet and peace of that
neighborhood.
“Where you are standing."
Once more I began a desultory search, going
down the steps and looking among the cannas that
bordered the porch. Something glistened beside the
step, and stooping down I discovered a small brown
leather traveling-bag, apparently quite new.
"Here it is," I said, not so gracious as I might
have been; I had suffered considerably for that trav-
eling-bag. The sight of it restored Wardrop's poise
at once. His twitching features relaxed.
“By Jove, I'm glad to see it,” he said. "I can't
59


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
explain, but-tremendous things were depending
on that bag, Mr. Knox. I don't know how to apolo-
gize to you; I must have nearly brained you."
“You did," I said grimly, and gave him the bag.
The moment he took it I knew there was something
wrong; he hurried into the house and lighted the
library lamp. Then he opened the traveling-bag
with shaking fingers. It was empty!
He stood for a moment, staring incredulously into
it. Then he hurled it down on the table and turned
on me, as I stood beside him.
"It's a trick!” he said furiously. "You've hidden
it somewhere. This is not my bag. You've sub-
stituted one just like it.”
"Don't be a fool,” I retorted. “How could I sub-
stitute an empty satchel for yours when up to fifteen
minutes ago I had never seen you or your grip
either? Use a little common sense. Some place to-
night you have put down that bag, and some clever
thief has substituted a similar one. It's an old
trick."
He dropped into a chair and buried his face in his
hands.


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
mo
"It's impossible,” he said after a pause, while he
seemed to be going over, minute by minute, the
events of the night. "I was followed, as far as that
goes, in Plattsburg. Two men watched me from
the minute I got there, on Tuesday; I changed my
hotel, and for all of yesterday_Wednesday, that is
-I felt secure enough. But on my way to the train
I felt that I was under surveillance again, and by
turning quickly I came face to face with one of the
men."
“Would you know him?” I asked.
“Yes. I thought he was a detective; you know
I've had a lot of that sort of thing lately, with
election coming on. He didn't get on the train, how-
ever."
“But the other one may have done so."
"Yes, the other one may. The thing I don't un-
derstand is this, Mr. Knox. When we drew in at
Bellwood Station I distinctly remember opening the
bag and putting my newspaper and railroad schedule
inside. It was the right bag then; my clothing was
in it, and my brushes."
I had been examining the empty bag as he talked.
61


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“Where did you put your railroad schedule?" I
asked.
"In the leather pocket at the side."
“It is here,” I said, drawing out the yellow folder.
For a moment my companion looked almost haunt-
ed. He pressed his hands to his head and began to
pace the room like a crazy man.
"The whole thing is impossible. I tell you, that
valise was heavy when I walked up from the station.
I changed it from one hand to the other because of
the weight. When I got here I set it down on the
edge of the porch and tried the door. When I found
it locked—”
"But it wasn't locked," I broke in. “When I
came down-stairs to look for a burglar, I found it
open at least an inch.”
He stopped in his pacing up and down, and looked
at me curiously.
“We're both crazy, then,” he asserted gravely.
“I tell you, I tried every way I knew to unlock that
door, and could hear the chain rattling. Unlocked!
You don't know the way this house is fastened up
at night.”
62


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
“Nevertheless, it was unlocked when I came
down.”
We were so engrossed that neither of us had
heard steps on the stairs. The sound of a smoth-
ered exclamation from the doorway caused us both
to turn suddenly. Standing there, in a loose gown
of some sort, very much surprised and startled, was
Margery Fleming. Wardrop pulled himself to-
gether at once. As for me, I knew what sort of fig-
ure I cut, my collar stained with blood, a lump on
my forehead that felt as big as a door-knob, and no
shoes.
"What is the matter?” she asked uncertainly. “I
heard such queer noises, and I thought some one
had broken into the house."
“Mr. Wardrop was trying to break in,” I ex-
plained, “and I heard him and came down. On the
way I had a bloody encounter with an open door,
in which I came out the loser.”
I don't think she quite believed me. She looked
from my swollen head to the open bag, and then
to Wardrop's pale face. Then I think, woman-
like, she remembered the two great braids that hung
63


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
when bigger things developed, and Hunter's trained
senses were brought into play, did he do much bet-
ter. It was some time before we learned the true
inwardness of the events of that night.
At five o'clock in the morning Wardrop came
back exhausted and nerveless. No one had taken
the four-thirty; the contents of the bag were gone,
probably beyond recall. I put my dented candle-
stick back on the mantel, and prepared for a little
sleep, blessing the deafness of old age which had
enabled the Maitland ladies to sleep through it all.
I tried to forget the queer events of the night, but
the throbbing of my head kept me awake, and
through it all one question obtruded itself—who
had unlocked the front door and left it open ?


CHAPTER V.
LITTLE MISS JANE
I WAS almost unrecognizable when I looked at
I myself in the mirror the next morning, prepara-
tory to dressing for breakfast. My nose boasted a
new arch, like the back of an angry cat, making my
profile Roman and ferocious, and the lump on my
forehead from the chair was swollen, glassy and
purple. I turned my back to the mirror and dressed
in wrathful irritation and my yesterday's linen.
Miss Fleming was in the breakfast-room when I
got down, standing at a window, her back to me. I
have carried with me, during all the months since
that time, a mental picture of her as she stood there,
in a pink morning frock of some sort. But only the
other day, having mentioned this to her, she assured
me that the frock was blue, that she didn't have
a pink garment at the time this story opens and that
if she did she positively didn't have it on. And hav.
ing thus flouted my eye for color, she maintains that
66


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
the name of the maid who helped you search the
house that night?"
“Annie."
“What other maids did you say there were ?"
“Delia and Rose.”
“Do you know anything about them? Where they
came from, or where they went?”
She smiled a little.
“What does one know about new servants?" she
responded. “They bring you references, but refer-
ences are the price most women pay to get rid of
their servants without a fuss. Rose was fat and old,
but Delia was pretty. I thought she rather liked
Carter.”
Carter as well as Shields, the policeman. I put
Miss Delia down as a flirt.
“And you have no idea where Carter went ?”
“None."
Wardrop came in then, and we spoke of other
things. The two elderly ladies it seemed had tea and
toast in their rooms when they wakened, and the
three of us breakfasted together. But conversation
languished with Wardrop's appearance; he looked
68


LITTLE MISS JANE
haggard and worn, avoided Miss Fleming's eyes,
and after ordering eggs instead of his chop, looked
at his watch and left without touching anything.
"I want to get the nine-thirty, Margie,” he said,
coming back with his hat in his hand. "I may not
be out to dinner. Tell Miss Letitia, will you?" He
turned to go, but on second thought came back to me
and held out his hand.
"I may not see you again,” he began.
“Not if I see you first," I interrupted. He glanced
at my mutilated features and smiled.
"I have made you a Maitland,” he said. “I didn't
think that anything but a prodigal Nature could
duplicate Miss Letitia's nose! I'm honestly sorry,
Mr. Knox, and if you do not want Miss Jane at that
bump with a cold silver knife and some butter, you'd
better duck before she comes down. Good-by,
Margie.”
I think the girl was as much baffled as I was by
the change in his manner when he spoke to her. His
smile faded and he hardly met her eyes: I thought
that his aloofness puzzled rather than hurt her.
When the house door had closed behind him, she
69


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
dropped her chin in her hand and looked across the
table.
“You did not tell me the truth last night, Mr.
Knox,” she said. “I have never seen Harry look like
that. Something has happened to him.”
“He was robbed of his traveling-bag,”I explained,
on Fred's theory that half a truth is better than a
poor lie. “It's a humiliating experience, I believe. A
man will throw away thousands, or gamble them
away, with more equanimity than he'll see some one
making off with his hair brushes or his clean col-
lars.”
“His traveling-bag !” she repeated scornfully.
“Mr. Knox, something lias happened to my father,
and you and Harry are hiding it from me."
“On my honor, it is nothing of the sort,” I has-
tened to assure her. “I saw him for only a few min-
utes, just long enough for him to wreck my appear-
ance."
“He did not speak of father?”
"No."
She got up and crossing to the wooden mantel,
put her arms upon it and leaned her head against
70


LITTLE MISS JANE
them. “I wanted to ask him," she said drearily, "but
I am afraid to. Suppose he doesn't know and I
should tell him! He would go to Mr. Schwartz at
once, and Mr. Schwartz is treacherous. The papers
would get it, too."
Her eyes filled with tears, and I felt as awkward
as a man always does when a woman begins to cry.
If he knows her well enough he can go over and
pat her on the shoulder and assure her it is going to
be all right. If he does not know her, and there are
two maiden aunts likely to come in at any minute,
he sits still, as I did, and waits until the storm clears.
Miss Margery was not long in emerging from her
handkerchief.
"I didn't sleep much,” she explained, dabbing at
her eyes, "and I am nervous, anyhow. Mr. Knox,
are you sure it was only Harry trying to get into
the house last night?"
"Only Harry," I repeated. “If Mr. Wardrop's
attempt to get into the house leaves me in this con-
dition, what would a real burglar have done to me !"
She was too intent to be sympathetic over my dis-
figured face.


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
“There was some one moving about up-stairs not
long before I came down,” she said slowly.
“You heard me; I almost fell down the stairs."
"Did you brush past my door, and strike the
knob ?” she demanded.
“No, I was not near any door."
“Very well,” triumphantly. “Some one did. Not
only that, but they were in the store-room on the
floor above. I could hear one person and perhaps
two, going from one side of the room to the other
and back again."
"You heard a goblin quadrille. First couple for-
ward and back," I said facetiously.
"I heard real footsteps—unmistakable ones. The
maids sleep back on the second floor, and—don't
tell me it was rats. There are no rats in my Aunt
Letitia's house."
I was more impressed than I cared to show. I
found I had a half hour before train time, and as
we were neither of us eating anything, I suggested
that we explore the upper floor of the house. I did
it, I explained, not because I expected to find any-
thing, but because I was sure we would not.
72


LITTLE MISS JANE
We crept past the two closed doors behind which
the ladies Maitland were presumably taking out
their crimps and taking in their tea. Then up a
narrow, obtrusively clean stairway to the upper floor.
It was an old-fashioned, sloping-roofed attic, with
narrow windows and a bare floor. At one end a
door opened into a large room, and in there were
the family trunks of four generations of Mait-
lands. One on another they were all piled there-
little hair trunks, squab-topped trunks, huge Sara-
togas—of the period when the two maiden ladies
were in their late teens and there were handsome,
modern trunks, too. For Miss Fleming's satisfaction
I made an examination of the room, but it showed
nothing. There was little or no dust to have been
disturbed; the windows were closed and locked.
In the main attic were two step-ladders, some cur-
tains drying on frames and an old chest of drawers
with glass knobs and the veneering broken in places.
One of the drawers stood open, and inside could be
seen a red and white patchwork quilt, and a grayish
thing that looked like flannel and smelled to heaven
of camphor. We gave up finally, and started down.
73


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
Part way down the attic stairs Margery stopped,
her eyes fixed on the white-scrubbed rail. Follow-
ing her gaze, I stopped, too, and I felt a sort of chill
go over me. No spot or blemish, no dirty finger
print marked the whiteness of that stair rail, except
in one place. On it, clear and distinct, every line
of the palm showing, was the reddish imprint of a
hand!
Margery did not speak; she had turned very
white, and closed her eyes, but she was not faint.
When the first revulsion had passed, I reached over
and touched the stain. It was quite dry, of course,
but it was still reddish-brown; another hour or two
would see it black. It was evidently fresh—Hunter
said afterward it must have been about six hours
old, and as things transpired, he was right. The
stain showed a hand somewhat short and broad,
with widened finger-tips; marked in ink, it would
not have struck me so forcibly, perhaps, but there,
its ugly red against the white wood, it seemed to me
to be the imprint of a brutal, murderous hand.
Margery was essentially feminine.
“What did I tell you?” she asked. “Some one
74


LITTLE MISS JANE
was in this house last night; I heard them distinctly.
There must have been two, and they quarreled—”
she shuddered.
We went on down-stairs into the quiet and peace
of the dining-room again. I got some hot coffee for
Margery, for she looked shaken, and found I had
missed my train.
"I am beginning to think I am being pursued by
a malicious spirit,” she said, trying to smile. “I
came away from home because people got into the
house at night and left queer signs of their visits,
and now, here at Bellwood, where nothing ever
happens, the moment I arrive things begin to occur.
And—just as it was at home—the house was so
well locked last night."
I did not tell her of the open hall door, just as
I had kept from her the fact that only the contents
of Harry Wardrop's bag had been taken. That it
had all been the work of one person, and that that
person, having in some way access to the house, had
also stolen the pearls, was now my confident belief.
I looked at Bella—the maid—as she moved
around the dining-room; her stolid face was not
75


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
even intelligent; certainly not cunning. Heppie,
the cook and only other servant, was partly blind
and her horizon was the diameter of her largest ket-
tle. Nomit had not been a servant, this mysterious
intruder who passed the Maitland silver on the side-
board without an attempt to take it, and who floun-
dered around an attic at night, in search of nothing
more valuable than patchwork quilts and winter
flannels. It is strange to look back and think how
quietly we sat there; that we could see nothing but
burglary—or an attempt at it-in what we had
found..
It must have been after nine o'clock when Bella
came running into the room. Ordinarily a slow and
clumsy creature, she almost flew. She had a tray in
her hand, and the dishes were rattling and threaten-
ing overthrow at every step. She brought up
against a chair, and a cup went flying. The break-
ing of a cup must have been a serious offense in
Miss Letitia Maitland's house, but Bella took no
notice whatever of it.
"Miss Jane," she gasped, “Miss Jane, she's—
she's—"
76


LITTLE MISS JANE
"Hurt!” Margery exclaimed, rising and clutching
at the table for support.
"No. Gone—she's gone! She's been run off
with !”
“Nonsense!" I said, seeing Margery's horrified
face. “Don't come in here with such a story. If
Miss Jane is not in her room, she is somewhere else,
that's all.”
Bella stooped and gathered up the broken cup,
her lips moving Margery had recovered herself.
She made Bella straighten and explain.
"Do you mean—she is not in her room?" she
asked incredulously. “Isn't she somewhere around
the house?”
“Go up and look at the room,” the girl replied,
and, with Margery leading, we ran up the stairs.
Miss Jane's room was empty. From somewhere
near Miss Letitia could be heard lecturing Hepsibah
about putting too much butter on the toast. Her
high voice, pitched for Heppie's old ears, rasped
me. Margery closed the door, and we surveyed the
room together.
The bed had been occupied; its coverings had
77


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
been thrown back, as if its occupant had risen hur-
riedly. The room itself was in a state of con-
fusion; a rocker lay on its side, and Miss Jane's
clothing, folded as she had taken it off, had slid off
on to the floor. Her shoes stood neatly at the foot of
the bed, and a bottle of toilet vinegar had been up-
set, pouring a stream over the marble top of the
dresser and down on to the floor. Over the high
wooden mantel the Maitland who had been gov-
ernor of the state years ago hung at a waggish
angle, and a clock had been pushed aside and
stopped at half-past one.
Margery stared around her in bewilderment. Of
course, it was not until later in the day that I saw
all the details. My first impression was of confu-
sion and disorder: the room seemed to have been
the scene of a struggle. The overturned furniture,
the clothes on the floor, the picture, coupled with the
print of the hand on the staircase and Miss Jane's
disappearance, all seemed to point to one thing.
And as if to prove it conclusively, Margery picked
up Miss Jane's new lace cap from the floor. It was
crumpled and spotted with blood.
78



''She's gone! She's been run off with!"





LITTLE MISS JANE
vome
“She has been killed," Margery said, in a chok-
ing voice. “Killed, and she had not an enemy in
the world !”
"But where is she?" I asked stupidly.
Margery had more presence of mind than I had;
I suppose it is because woman's courage is men-
tal and man's physical, that in times of great
strain women always make the better showing.
While I was standing in the middle of the room,
staring at the confusion around me, Margery was
already on her knees, looking under the high, four-
post bed. Finding nothing there she went to the
closet. It was undisturbed. Pathetic rows of limp
black dresses and on the shelves two black crepe
bonnets were mute reminders of the little old lady.
But there was nothing else in the room.
“Call Robert, the gardener,” Margery said
quickly, "and have him help you search the grounds
and cellars. I will take Bella and go through the
house. Above everything, keep it from Aunt Le-
titia as long as possible.”
I locked the door into the disordered room, and
with my head whirling, I went to look for Robert.
79


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
It takes a short time to search an acre of lawn
and shrubbery. There was no trace of the missing
woman anywhere outside the house, and from Bella,
as she sat at the foot of the front stairs with her
apron over her head, I learned in a monosyllable
that nothing had been found in the house. Margery
was with Miss Letitia, and from the excited con-
versation I knew she was telling her—not harrow-
ing details, but that Miss Jane had disappeared dur-
ing the night.
The old lady was inclined to scoff at first.
“Look in the fruit closet in the store-room," I
heard her say. “She's let the spring lock shut on
her twice; she was black in the face the last time
we found her.”
“I did look; she's not there,” Margery screamed
at her.
"Then she's out looking for stump water to take
that wart off her neck. She said yesterday she was
going for some.”
“But her clothes are all here,” Margery persisted.
“We think some one must have got in the house.”'
"If all her clothes are there she's been sleep-
80


LITTLE MISS JANE
walking," Miss Letitia said calmly. “We used to
have to tie her by a cord around her ankle and fasten
it to the bedpost. When she tried to get up the cord
would pull and wake her."
I think after a time, however, some of Margery's
uneasiness communicated itself to the older woman.
She finished dressing, and fumed when we told her
we had locked Miss Jane's door and mislaid the
key. Finally, Margery got her settled in the back
parlor with some peppermints and her knitting; she
had a feeling, she said, that Jane had gone after the
stump water and lost her way, and I told Margery
to keep her in that state of mind as long as she
could.
I sent for Hunter that morning and he came at
three o'clock. I took him through the back entrance
to avoid Miss Letitia. I think he had been skeptical
until I threw open the door and showed him the up-
set chair, the old lady's clothing, and the blood-
stained lace cap. His examination was quick and
thorough. He took a crumpled sheet of note paper
out of the waste-basket and looked at it, then he
stuffed it in his pocket. He sniffed the toilet water,
81


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
called Margery and asked her if any clothing was
missing, and on receiving a negative answer asked
if any shawls or wraps were gone from the halls
or other rooms. Margery reported nothing missing.
Before he left the room, Hunter went back and
moved the picture which had been disturbed over
the mantel. What he saw made him get a chair
and, standing on it, take the picture from its nail.
Thus exposed, the wall showed an opening about a
foot square, and perhaps eighteen inches deep. A
metal door, opening in, was unfastened and ajar,
and just inside was a copy of a recent sentimental
novel and a bottle of some sort of complexion cream.
In spite of myself, I smiled; it was so typical of the
dear old lady, with the heart of a girl and a skin that
was losing its roses. But there was something else
in the receptacle, something that made Margery
Fleming draw in her breath sharply, and made
Hunter raise his eyebrows a little and glance at me.
The something was a scrap of unruled white paper,
and on it the figures eleven twenty-two!
X


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
drops of blood, and on the edge of the open drawer
there were traces of more. In the inner room two
trunks had been moved out nearly a foot, as he found
by the faint dust that had been under them. With
the stain on the stair rail, that was all he discovered,
and it was little enough. Then he took out his note-
book and there among the trunks we had a little
seance of our own, in which Hunter asked questions,
and whoever could do so answered them.
"Have you a pencil or pen, Mr. Knox?” he asked
me, but I had none. Wardrop felt his pockets, with
no better success.
“I have lost my fountain pen somewhere around
the house to-day," he said irritably. "Here's a pen-
cil—not much of one."
Hunter began his interrogations.
“How old was Miss Maitland-Miss Jane, I
mean?"
"Sixty-five," from Margery.
"She had always seemed rational? Not eccentric,
or childish ?”
“Not at all; the sanest woman I ever knew.”
This from Wardrop.


A FOUNTAIN PEN
"Has she ever, to your knowledge, received any
threatening letters?"
"Never in all her life,” from both of them
promptly.
"You heard sounds, you say, Miss Fleming. At
what time?"
"About half-past one or perhaps a few minutes
later. The clock struck two while I was still awake
and nervous.”
"This person who was walking through the attics
here—would you say it was a heavy person ? A
man, I mean?”
Margery stopped to think.
“Yes,” she said finally. “It was very stealthy,
but I think it was a man's step."
“You heard no sound of a struggle? No voices ?
No screams?”
"None at all,” she said positively. And I added
my quota.
"There could have been no such sounds,” I said.
“I sat in my room and smoked until a quarter to
two. I heard nothing until then, when I heard Mr.
Wardrop trying to get into the house. I went down
85


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
to admit him, and—I found the front door open
about an inch."
Hunter wheeled on Wardrop.
“A quarter to two?” he asked. “You were com-
ing home from—the city?".
“Yes, from the station.”
Hunter watched him closely.
"The last train gets in here at twelve-thirty," he
said slowly. “Does it always take you an hour and
a quarter to walk the three squares to the house?”
Wardrop flushed uneasily, and I could see Mar-
gery's eyes dilate with amazement. As for me, I
could only stare.
"I did not come directly home," he said, almost
defiantly.
Hunter's voice was as smooth as silk.
“Then—will you be good enough to tell me where
you did go?” he asked. “I have reasons for want-
ing to know.”
“Damn your reasons—I beg your pardon, Mar-
gery. Look here, Mr. Hunter, do you think I
would hurt a hair of that old lady's head? Do you
think I came here last night and killed her, or what-
86


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
“You are going to lie down, Margery," he said,
holding out his hand to help her up. “Mrs. Mellon
will come over to Aunt Letitia, and you must get
some sleep."
"Sleep!” she said with scorn, as he helped her to
her feet. “Sleep, when things like this are occur-
ring! Father first, and now dear old Aunt Jane !
Harry, do you know where my father is?”
He faced her, as if he had known the question
must come and was prepared for it.
“I know that he is all right, Margery. He has
been-out of town. If it had not been for something
unforeseen that—happened within the last few
hours, he would have been home to-day.”
She drew a long breath of relief.
“And Aunt Jane?" she asked Hunter, from the
head of the attic stairs, "you do not think she is
dead?”
"Not until we have found something more,” he
answered tactlessly. "It's like where there's smoke
there's fire; where there's murder there's a body."
When they had both gone, Hunter sat down on a
trunk and drew out a cigar that looked like a bomb.
88


A FOUNTAIN PEN
"What do you think of it?” I asked, when he
showed no disposition to talk.
"I'll be damned if I know,” he responded, looking
around for some place to expectorate and finding
none.
“The window," I suggested, and he went over
to it. When he came back he had a rather peculiar
expression. He sat down and puffed for a moment.
"In the first place,” he began, “we can take it for
granted that, unless she was crazy or sleep-walking,
she didn't go out in her night-clothes, and there's
nothing of hers missing. She wasn't taken in a car-
riage, providing she was taken at all. There's not
a mark of wheels on that drive newer than a week,
and besides, you say you heard nothing."
"Nothing,” I said positively.
“Then, unless she went away in a balloon, where
it wouldn't matter what she had on, she is still
around the premises. It depends on how badly she
was hurt."
"Are you sure it was she who was hurt?” I
asked. “That print of a hand—that is not Miss
Jane's.”
89


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
In reply Hunter led the way down the stairs to
the place where the stain on the stair rail stood out,
ugly and distinct. He put his own heavy hand on
the rail just below it.
"Suppose,” he said, “suppose you grip something
very hard, what happens to your hand ?”
"It spreads," I acknowledged, seeing what he
meant.
“Now, look at that stain. Look at the short
fingers—why, it's a child's hand beside mine. The
breadth is from pressure. It might be figured
out this way. The fingers, you notice, point down
the stairs. In some way, let us say, the burglar,
for want of a better name, gets into the house. He
used a ladder resting against that window by the
chest of drawers.”
"Ladder!" I exclaimed.
“Yes, there is a pruning ladder there. Now then-
he comes down these stairs, and he has a definite ob-
ject. He knows of something valuable in that cubby
hole over the mantel in Miss Jane's room. How does
he get in? The door into the upper hall is closed
and bolted, but the door into the bath-room is open.
90


A FOUNTAIN PEN
From there another door leads into the bedroom,
and it has no bolt-only a key. That kind of a lock
is only a three-minutes delay, or less. Now then,
Miss Maitland was a light sleeper. When she wak-
ened she was too alarmed to scream; she tried to
get to the door and was intercepted. Finally she
got out the way the intruder got in, and ran along
the hall. Every door was locked. In a frenzy she
ran up the attic stairs and was captured up there.
Which bears out Miss Margery's story of the foot-
steps back and forward.”
“Good heavens, what an awful thing!" I gasped.
"And I was sitting smoking just across the hall.”
"He brings her down the stairs again, probably
half dragging her. Once, she catches hold of the
stair rail, and holds desperately to it, leaving the
stain here."
"But why did he bring her down?” I asked bewil-
dered. “Why wouldn't he take what he was after
and get away?”
Hunter smoked and meditated.
“She probably had to get the key of the iron
door," he suggested. “It was hidden, and time was
91


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
valuable. If there was a scapegrace member of
the family, for instance, who knew where the old
lady kept money, and who needed it badly; who
knew all about the house, and who—"
"Fleming!" I exclaimed, aghast.
"Or even our young friend, Wardrop,” Hunter
said quietly. "He has an hour to account for. The
trying to get in may have been a blind, and how do
you know that what he says was stolen out of his
satchel was not what he had just got from the iron
box over the mantel in Miss Maitland's room?”
I was dizzy with trying to follow Hunter's facile
imagination. The thing we were trying to do was
to find the old lady, and, after all, here we brought
up against the same impasse.
“Then where is she now?" I asked. He medi-
tated. He had sat down on the narrow stairs,
and was rubbing his chin with a thoughtful fore-
finger. “One-thirty, Miss Margery says, when she
heard the noise. One-forty-five when you heard
Wardrop at the shutters. I tell you, Knox, it is
one of two things: either that woman is dead some-
where in this house, or she ran out of the hall door
92


A FOUNTAIN PEN
just before you went down-stairs, and in that case
the Lord only knows where she is. If there is a
room anywhere that we have not explored—”
"I am inclined to think there is,” I broke in, think-
ing of Wardrop's face a few minutes before. And
just then Wardrop himself joined us. He closed the
door at the foot of the boxed-in staircase, and came
quietly up.
"You spoke about an unused room or a secret
closet, Mr. Hunter," he said, without any resentment
in his tone. “We have nothing so sensational as that,
but the old house is full of queer nooks and crannies,
and perhaps, in one of them, we might find—” he
stopped and gulped. Whatever Hunter might think,
whatever I might have against Harry Wardrop, I
determined then that he had had absolutely nothing
to do with little Miss Maitland's strange disappear-'
ance.
The first place we explored was a closed and
walled-in wine-cellar, long unused, and to which
access was gained by a small window in the stone
foundation of the house. The cobwebs over the
window made it practically an impossible place, but
93


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
we put Robert, the gardener, through it, in spite of
his protests.
"There's nothin' there, I tell you,” he protested,
with one leg over the coping. “God only knows
what's down there, after all these years. I've been
livin' here with the Miss Maitlands for twenty
year, and I ain't never been put to goin' down into
cellars on the end of a rope.”
He went, because we were three to his one, but he
was up again in sixty seconds, with the announce-
ment that the place was as bare as the top of his
head.
We moved every trunk in the store-room, although
it would have been a moral impossibility for any
one to have done it the night before without rousing
the entire family, and were thus able to get to and
open a large closet, which proved to contain neatly
tied and labeled packages of religious weeklies, be-
ginning in the sixties.
The grounds had been gone over inch by inch,
without affording any clue, and now the three of us
faced one another. The day was almost gone, and we
were exactly where we started. Hunter had sent
94


A FOUNTAIN PEN
men through the town and the adjacent countryside,
but no word had come from them. Miss Letitia had
at last succumbed to the suspense and had gone to
bed, where she lay quietly enough, as is the way with
the old, but so mild that she was alarming.
At five o'clock Hawes called me up from the of-
fice and almost tearfully implored me to come back
and attend to my business. When I said it was im-
possible, I could hear him groan as he hung up the
receiver. Hawes is of the opinion that by keeping
fresh magazines in my waiting-room and by per-
suading me to the extravagance of Turkish rugs,
that he has built my practice to its present flourish-
ing state. When I left the telephone, Hunter was pre-
paring to go back to town and Wardrop was walk-
ing up and down the hall. Suddenly Wardrop
stopped his uneasy promenade and hailed the de-
tective on his way to the door.
"By George,” he exclaimed, “I forgot to show you
the closet under the attic stairs!”.
We hurried up and Wardrop showed us the panel
in the hall, which slid to one side when he pushed a
bolt under the carpet. The blackness of the closet
95


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
was horrible in its suggestion to me. I stepped back
while Hunter struck a match and looked in.
The closet was empty.
“Better not go in,” Wardrop said. “It hasn't been
used for years and it's black with dust. I found it
myself and showed it to Miss Jane. I don't believe
Miss Letitia knows it is here."
"It hasn't been used for years!" reflected Hunter,
looking around him curiously. “I suppose it has been
some time since you were in here, Mr. Wardrop ?"
"Several years," Wardrop replied carelessly. “I
used to keep contraband here in my college days,
cigarettes and that sort of thing. I haven't been in
it since then."
Hunter took his foot off a small object that lay
on the floor, and picking it up, held it out to War-
drop, with a grim smile.
"Here is the fountain pen you lost this morning,
Mr. Wardrop," he said quietly.
96


CHAPTER VII
CONCERNING MARGERY
W H EN Hunter had finally gone at six o'clock,
summoned to town on urgent business, we
were very nearly where we had been before he came.
He could only give us theories, and after all, what
we wanted was fact—and Miss Jane. Many things,
however, that he had unearthed puzzled me.
Why had Wardrop lied about so small a matter
as his fountain pen ? The closet was empty: what
object could he have had in saying he had not been
in it for years? I found that my belief in his sin-
cerity of the night before was going. If he had been
lying then, I owed him something for a lump on my
head that made it difficult for me to wear my hat.
It would have been easy enough for him to rob
himself, and, if he had an eye for the theatrical, to
work out just some such plot. It was even possible
that he had hidden for a few hours in the secret
closet the contents of the Russia leather bag. But,
.
97


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
whatever Wardrop might or might not be, he gave
me little chance to find out, for he left the house be-
fore Hunter did that afternoon, and it was later,
and under strange circumstances, that I met him
again.
Hunter had not told me what was on the paper he
had picked out of the basket in Miss Jane's room,
and I knew he was as much puzzled as I at the scrap
in the little cupboard, with eleven twenty-two on
it. It occurred to me that it might mean the twenty-
second day of the eleventh month, perhaps some-
thing that had happened on some momentous, long-
buried twenty-second of November. But this was
May, and the finding of two slips bearing the same
number was too unusual.
After Hunter left I went back to the closet under
the upper stairs, and with some difficulty got the
panel open again. The space inside, perhaps eight
feet high at one end and four at the other, was
empty. There was a row of hooks, as if at some
time clothing had been hung there, and a flat shelf
at one end, gray with dust.
I struck another match and examined the shelf.
98


CONCERNING MARGERY
On its surface were numerous scratchings in the
dust layer, but at one end, marked out as if drawn
on a blackboard, was a rectangular outline, appar-
ently that of a smallish box, and fresh.
My match burned my fingers and I dropped it
to the floor, where it expired in a sickly blue flame.
At the last, however, it died heroically-like an old
man to whom his last hours bring back some of the
glory of his prime, burning brightly for a second and
then fading into darkness. The last flash showed
me, on the floor of the closet and wedged between
two boards, a small white globule. It did not need
another match to tell me it was a pearl.
I dug it out carefully and took it to my room. In
the daylight there I recognized it as an unstrung
pearl of fair size and considerable value. There
could hardly be a doubt that I had stumbled on one
of the stolen gems; but a pearl was only a pearl to
me, after all. I didn't feel any of the inspirations
which fiction detectives experience when they hap-
pen on an important clue.
I lit a cigar and put the pearl on the table in front
of me. But no explanation formed itself in the
99


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
tobacco smoke. If Wardrop took the pearls, I kept
repeating over and over, if Wardrop took the pearls,
who took Miss Jane?
I tried to forget the pearls, and to fathom the
connection between Miss Maitland's disappearance
and the absence of her brother-in-law. The scrap
of paper, eleven twenty-two, must connect them,
but how? A family scandal? Dismissed on the
instant. There could be nothing that would touch
the virginal remoteness of that little old lady. In-
sanity? Well, Miss Jane might have had a sudden
aberration and wandered away, but that would leave
Fleming out, and the paper dragged him in. A com-
mon enemy?
I smoked and considered for some time over this.
An especially malignant foe might rob, or even mur-
der, but it was almost ludicrous to think of his car-
rying away by force Miss Jane's ninety pounds of
austere flesh. The solution, had it not been for the
blood-stains, might have been a peaceful one, leav-
ing out the pearls, altogether, but later develop-
ments showed that the pearls refused to be omitted.
To my mind, however, at that time, the issue seemed
100


CONCERNING MARGERY
a double one. I believed that some one, perhaps
Harry Wardrop, had stolen the pearls, hidden them
in the secret closet, and disposed of them later. I
made a note to try to follow up the missing
pearls.
Then–I clung to the theory that Miss Maitland
had been abducted and was being held for ransom.
If I could have found traces of a vehicle of any sort
near the house, I would almost have considered my
contention proved. That any one could have entered
the house, intimidated and even slightly injured the
old lady, and taken her quietly out the front door,
while I sat smoking in my room with the window
open, and Wardrop trying the shutters at the side
of the house, seemed impossible. Yet there were the
stains, the confusion, the open front door to prove
it.
But-and I stuck here—the abductor who would
steal an old woman, and take her out into the May
night without any covering—not even shoes-clad
only in her night-clothes, would run an almost cer-
tain risk of losing his prize by pneumonia. For a
second search had shown not an article of wearing
IOI


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
an
apparel missing from the house. Even the cedar
chests were undisturbed; not a blanket was gone.
Just before dinner I made a second round of the
grounds, this time looking for traces of wheels. I
found none near-by, and it occurred to me that the
boldest highwayman would hardly drive up to the
door for his booty. When I had extended my search
to cover the unpaved lane that separated the back of
the Maitland place from its nearest neighbor, I was
more fortunate.
The morning delivery wagons had made fresh
trails, and at first I despaired. I sauntered up the
lane to the right, however, and about a hun-
dred feet beyond the boundary hedge I found cir-
cular tracks, broad and deep, where an automobile
had backed and turned. The lane was separated by
high hedges of osage orange from the properties
on either side, and each house in that neighborhood
had a drive of its own, which entered from the main
street, circled the house and went out as it came.
There was no reason, or, so far as I could see, no
legitimate reason, why a car should have stopped
there, yet it had stopped and for some time. Deeper
102


CONCERNING MARGERY
Se
tracks in the sand at the side of the lane showed
that.
I felt that I had made some progress: I had found
where the pearls had been hidden after the theft,
and this put Bella out of the question. And I had
found—or thought I had—the way in which Miss
Jane had been taken away from Bellwood.
I came back past the long rear wing of the house
which contained, I presumed, the kitchen and the
other mysterious regions which only women and ar-
chitects comprehend. A long porch ran the length of
the wing, and as I passed I heard my name called.
"In here in the old laundry," Margery's voice
repeated, and I retraced my steps and went up on
the porch. At the very end of the wing, dismantled,
piled at the sides with firewood and broken fur-
niture, was an old laundry. Its tubs were rusty,
its walls mildewed and streaked, and it exhaled the
musty odor of empty houses. On the floor in the
middle of the room, undeniably dirty and dishev-
elled, sat Margery Fleming.
· "I thought you were never coming,” she said
petulantly. “I have been here alone for an hour."
103


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
n
“I'm sure I never guessed it," I apologized. “I
should have been only too glad to come and sit
with you."
She was fumbling with her hair, which threatened
to come down any minute, and which hung, loosely
knotted, over one small ear.
"I hate to look ridiculous,” she said sharply, “and
I detest being laughed at. I've been crying, and I
haven't any handkerchief.”
I proffered mine gravely, and she took it. She
wiped the dusty streaks off her cheeks and pinned
her hair in a funny knob on top of her head that
would have made any other woman look like a cari-
cature. But still she sat on the floor.
“Now,” she said, when she had jabbed the last
hair-pin into place and tucked my handkerchief into
her belt, "if you have been sufficiently amused, per-
haps you will help me out of here.”
“Out of where?”
“Do you suppose I'm sitting here because I like
it?”
"You have sprained your ankle,” I said, with sud-
den alarm.
104


CONCERNING MARGERY
In reply she brushed aside her gown, and for the
first time I saw what had occurred. She was sitting
half over a trap-door in the floor, which had closed
on her skirts and held her fast.
"The wretched thing !" she wailed. “And I have
called until I am hoarse. I could shake Heppie!
Then I tried to call you mentally. I fixed my mind
on you and said over and over, 'Come, please come.'
Didn't you feel anything at all?”
“Good old trap-door!” I said. “I know I was,
thinking about you, but I never suspected the reason.
And then to have walked past here twenty minutes
ago! Why didn't you call me then?” I was tug-
ging at the door, but it was fast, with the skirts to
hold it tight.
"I looked such a fright,” she explained. “Can't
you pry it up with something?”
I tried several things without success, while Mar-
gery explained her plight.
"I was sure Robert had not looked carefully in
the old wine cellar,” she said, "and then I remem-
bered this trap-door opened into it. It was the only
105


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
place we hadn't explored thoroughly. I put a lad-
der down and looked around. Ugh!”
"What did you find ?" I asked, as my third broom-
stick lever snapped.
"Nothing-only I know now where Aunt
Letitia's Edwin Booth went to. He was a cat,"
she explained, "and Aunt Letitia made the railroad
pay for killing him.”
I gave up finally and stood back.
"Couldn't you-er-get out of your garments,
and I could go out and close the door,” I suggested
delicately. "You see you are sitting on the trap-
door, and—”
But Margery scouted the suggestion with the
proper scorn, and demanded a pair of scissors. She
cut herself loose with vicious snips, while I para-
phrased the old nursery rhyme, "She cut her petti-
coats all around about.” Then she gathered up her
outraged garments and fled precipitately.
She was unusually dignified at dinner. Neither
of us cared to eat, and the empty places—Wardrop's
and Miss Letitia's–Miss Jane's had not been set-
were like skeletons at the board.
106


CONCERNING MARGERY
It was Margery who, after our pretense of a meal,
voiced the suspicion I think we both felt.
"It is a strange time for Harry to go away,” she
said quietly, from the library window.
"He probably has a reason.”
"Why don't you say it?" she said suddenly, turn-
ing on me. "I know what you think. You believe
he only pretended he was robbed !”
"I should be sorry to think anything of the kind,"
I began. But she did not allow me to finish.
"I saw what you thought,” she burst out bitterly.
“The detective almost laughed in his face. Oh, you
needn't think I don't know: I saw him last night,
and the woman too. He brought her right to the
gate. You treat me like a child, all of you!”
In sheer amazement I was silent. So a new char-
acter had been introduced into the play—a woman,
too!
"You were not the only person, Mr. Knox, who
could not sleep last night," she went on. "Oh, I
know a great many things. I know about the
more than that, 1”.
107


CONCERNING MARGERY
"She would hardly go in the middle of the night,”
I returned. “She was a very timid woman, wasn't
she?”
“She wasn't raised right,” Miss Letitia said with
a shake of her head. "She's the baby, and the young-
est's always spoiled.”
"Have you thought that this might be more than
it appears to be?” I was feeling my way: she was
a very old woman. “It-for instance, it might be
abduction, kidnapping-for a ransom.”
“Ransom!” Miss Letitia snapped. “Mr. Knox,
my father made his money by working hard for it:
I haven't wasted it—not that I know of. And if
Jane Maitland was fool enough to be abducted, she'll
stay a while before I pay anything for her. It looks
to me as if this detective business was going to be
expensive, anyhow."
My excuse for dwelling with such attention to
detail on the preliminary story, the disappearance
of Miss Jane Maitland and the peculiar circum-
stances surrounding it, will have to find its justifica-
tion in the events that followed it. Miss Jane her-
self, and the solution of that mystery, solved the even
109


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
more tragic one in which we were about to be in-
volved. I say we, because it was borne in on me
at about that time, that the things that concerned
Margery Fleming must concern me henceforth,
whether I willed it so or otherwise. For the first
time in my life a woman's step on the stair was
like no other sound in the world.
IIO


CHAPTER VIII
TOO LATE
T nine o'clock that night things remained
about the same. The man Hunter had sent
to investigate the neighborhood and the country
just outside of the town, came to the house about
eight, and reported "nothing discovered.” Miss
Letitia went to bed early, and Margery took her
up-stairs.
Hunter called me by telephone from town.
“Can you take the nine-thirty up?” he asked. I
looked at my watch.
“Yes, I think so. Is there anything new ?”
“Not yet; there may be. Take a cab at the station
and come to the corner of Mulberry Street and Park
Lane. You'd better dismiss your cab there and
wait for me.”
I sent word up-stairs by Bella, who was sitting in
the kitchen, her heavy face sodden with grief, and
taking my hat and raincoat-it was raining a light
III


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
spring drizzle--I hurried to the station. In twenty-
four minutes I was in the city, and perhaps twelve
minutes more saw me at the designated corner, with
my cab driving away and the rain dropping off the
rim of my hat and splashing on my shoulders.
I found a sort of refuge by standing under the
wooden arch of a gate, and it occurred to me that,
for all my years in the city, this particular reighbor-
hood was altogether strange to me. Two blocks
away, in any direction, I would have been in familiar
territory again.
Back of me a warehouse lifted six or seven
gloomy stories to the sky. The gate I stood in was
evidently the entrance to its yard, and in fact, some
uncomfortable movement of mine just then struck
the latch, and almost precipitated me backward by
its sudden opening. Beyond was a yard full of
shadowy wheels and packing cases; the street lights
did not penetrate there, and with an uneasy feeling
that almost anything, in this none too savory neigh-
borhood, might be waiting there, I struck a match
and looked at my watch. It was twenty min-
utes after ten. Once a man turned the corner and
II2


TOO LATE
came toward me, his head down, his long ulster
flapping around his legs. Confident that it was
Hunter, I stepped out and touched him on the arm.
He wheeled instantly, and in the light which shone
on his face, I saw my error.
"Excuse me," I mumbled, “I mistook my man."
He went on again without speaking, only pulling
his soft hat down lower over his face. I looked after
him until he turned the next corner, and I knew I
had not been mistaken; it was Wardrop.
The next minute Hunter appeared, from the same
direction, and we walked quickly together. I told
him who the man just ahead had been, and he nod-
ded without surprise. But before we turned the next
corner he stopped.
"Did you ever hear of the White Cat?” he asked.
“Little political club?”
"Never.”
"I'm a member of it,” he went on rapidly. "It's
run by the city ring, or rather it runs itself. Be a
good fellow while you're there, and keep your eyes
open. It's a queer joint.”
The corner we turned found us on a narrow, badly
113


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
paved street. The broken windows of the ware-
house still looked down on us, and across the street
was an ice factory, with two deserted wagons stand-
ing along the curb. As well as I could see for the
darkness, a lumber yard stretched beyond the ware-
house, its piles of boards giving off in the rain the
aromatic odor of fresh pine.
At a gate in the fence beyond the warehouse
Hunter stopped. It was an ordinary wooden gate
and it opened with a thumb latch. Beyond stretched
a long, narrow, brick-paved alleyway, perhaps three
feet wide, and lighted by the merest glimmer of a
light ahead. Hunter went on regardless of puddles
in the brick paving, and I stumbled after him. As
we advanced, I could see that the light was a single
electric bulb, hung over a second gate. While Hun-
ter fumbled for a key in his pocket, I had time to
see that this gate had a Yale lock, was provided,
at the side, with an electric bell button, and had a
letter slot cut in it.
Hunter opened the gate and preceded me through
it. The gate swung to and clicked behind me. After
the gloom of the passageway, the small brick-paved
114


TOO LATE
yard seemed brilliant with lights. Two wires were
strung its length, dotted with many electric lamps.
In a corner a striped tent stood out in grotesque
relief; it seemed to be empty, and the weather was
an easy explanation. From the two-story house
beyond there came suddenly a burst of piano music
and a none too steady masculine voice. Hunter
turned to me, with his foot on the wooden steps.
"Above everything else,” he warned, “keep your
temper. Nobody gives a hang in here whether
you're the mayor of the town, the champion pool-
player of the first ward, or the roundsman on the
beat.”
The door at the top of the steps was also Yale-
locked. We stepped at once into the kitchen, from
which I imagined that the house faced on another
street, and that for obvious reasons only its rear en-
trance was used. The kitchen was bright and clean;
it was littered, however, with half-cut loaves of
bread, glasses and empty bottles. Over the range a
man in his shirt sleeves was giving his whole atten-
tion to a slice of ham, sizzling on a skillet, and at a
table near-by a young fellow, with his hair cut in a
115


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
barber's oval over the back of his neck, was spread-
ing slices of bread and cheese with mustard.
"How are you, Mr. Mayor?” Hunter said, as he
shed his raincoat. “This is Mr. Knox, the man who's
engineering the Star-Eagle fight.”
The man over the range wiped one greasy hand
and held it out to me.
"The Cat is purring a welcome," he said, indicat-
ing the frying ham. “If my cooking turns out
right I'll ask you to have some ham with me. I don't
know why in thunder it gets black in the middle and
won't cook around the edges.”
I recognized the mayor. He was a big fellow,
handsome in a heavy way, and "Tommy” to every
one who knew him. It seemed I was about to see
my city government at play.
Hunter was thoroughly at home. He took my
coat and his own and hung them somewhere to
dry. Then he went into a sort of pantry opening off
the kitchen and came out with four bottles of beer.
“We take care of ourselves here,” he explained,
as the newly barbered youth washed some glasses.
"If you want a sandwich, there is cooked ham in the
116


TOO LATE
INIC
refrigerator and cheese—if our friend at the sink
has left any."
The boy looked up from his glasses. “It's rat-
trap cheese, that stuff,” he growled.
"The other ran out an hour ago and didn't come
back," put in the mayor, grinning. “You can kill
that with mustard, if it's too lively."
"Get some cigars, will you?” Hunter asked me.
“They're on a shelf in the pantry. I have my
hands full.”
I went for the cigars, remembering to keep my
eyes open. The pantry was a small room: it con-
tained an ice-box, stocked with drinkables, ham,
eggs and butter. On shelves above were cards,
cigars and liquors, and there, too, I saw a box with
an indorsement which showed the "honor system”
of the Cat Club.
"Sign checks and drop here,” it read, and I
thought about the old adage of honor among thieves
and politicians.
When I came out with the cigars Hunter was
standing with a group of new arrivals; they included
one of the city physicians, the director of public
TUD,
117


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
charities and a judge of a local court. The latter,
McFeely, a little, thin Irishman, knew me and ac-
costed me at once. The mayor was busy over the
range, and was almost purple with heat and un-
wonted anxiety.
When the three new-comers went up-stairs, in-
stead of going into the grill-room, I looked at
Hunter.
“Is this where the political game is played?” I
asked.
"Yes, if the political game is poker," he replied,
and led the way into the room which adjoined the
kitchen.
No one paid any attention to us. Bare tables, a
wooden floor, and almost as many cuspidors as
chairs, comprised the furniture of the long room.
In one corner was a battered upright piano, and
there were two fireplaces with old-fashioned mantels.
Perhaps a dozen men were sitting around, talking
loudly, with much scraping of chairs on the bare
floor. At one table they were throwing poker dice,
but the rest were drinking beer and talking in a
desultory way. At the piano a man with a red
118


TOO LATE
mustache was mimicking the sextette from Lucia
and a roar of applause met us as we entered the
room. Hunter led the way to a corner and put down
his bottles.
"It's fairly quiet to-night,” he said. "To-mor-
row's the big night-Saturday.”
"What time do they close up?" I asked. In an-
swer Hunter pointed to a sign over the door. It
was a card, neatly printed, and it said, “The White
Cat never sleeps.”
"There are only two rules here,” he explained.
“That is one, and the other is, 'If you get too noisy,
and the patrol wagon comes, make the driver take
you home.'”
The crowd was good-humored; it paid little or
no attention to us, and when some one at the piano
began to thump a waltz, Hunter, under cover of
the noise, leaned over to me.
"We traced Fleming here, through your corner-
man and the cabby," he said carefully. "I haven't
seen him, but it is a moral certainty he is skulking in
one of the up-stairs rooms. His precious private sec-
retary is here, too."
119


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
c
ome
I glanced around the room, but no one was pay-
ing any attention to us.
"I don't know Fleming by sight,” the detective
went on, "and the pictures we have of him were
taken a good while ago, when he wore a mustache.
When he was in local politics, before he went to the
legislature, he practically owned this place, paying
for favors with membership tickets. A man could
hide here for a year safely. The police never come
here, and a man's business is his own.”
“He is up-stairs now?”
“Yes. There are four rooms up there for cards,
and a bath-room. It's an old dwelling house. Would
Fleming know you ?”
“No, but of course Wardrop would.”
As if in answer to my objection, Wardrop ap-
peared at that moment. He ran down the painted
wooden stairs and hurried through the room with-
out looking to right or left. The piano kept on,
and the men at the tables were still engrossed with
their glasses and one another. Wardrop was very
pale; he bolted into a man at the door, and pushed
him aside without ceremony.
120


TOO LATE
"You might go up now,” Hunter said, rising. “I
will see where the young gentleman is making for.
Just open the door of the different rooms up-stairs,
look around for Fleming, and if any one notices you,
ask if Al Hunter is there. That will let you out."
He left me then, and after waiting perhaps a
minute, I went up-stairs alone. The second floor was
the ordinary upper story of a small dwelling house.
The doors were closed, but loud talking, smoke,
and the rattle of chips floated out through open
transoms. From below the noise of the piano came
up the staircase, unmelodious but rhythmical, and
from the street on which the house faced an auto-
mobile was starting its engine, with a series of shot-
like explosions.
The noise was confusing, disconcerting. I opened
two doors, to find only the usual poker table, with
the winners sitting quietly, their cards bunched in the
palms of their hands, and the losers, growing more
voluble as the night went on, buying chips recklessly,
drinking more than they should. The atmosphere
was reeking with smoke.
The third door I opened was that of a dingy bath-
121


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
room, with a zinc tub and a slovenly wash-stand.
The next, however, was different. The light
streamed out through the transom as in the other
rooms, but there was no noise from within. With
my hand on the door, I hesitated—then, with
Hunter's injunction ringing in my ears, I opened it
and looked in.
A breath of cool night air from an open window
met me. There was no noise, no smoke, no sour
odor of stale beer. A table had been drawn to the
center of the small room, and was littered with
papers, pen and ink. At one corner was a tray,
containing the remnants of a meal; a pillow and a
pair of blankets on a couch at one side showed the
room had been serving as a bedchamber.
But none of these things caught my eye at first.
'At the table, leaning forward, his head on his arms,
was a man. I coughed, and receiving no answer,
stepped into the room.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, "but I am looking
for "
Then the truth burst on me, overwhelmed me. A
thin stream was spreading over the papers on the
122


TOO LATE
table, moving slowly, sluggishly, as is the way with
blood when the heart pump is stopped. I hurried
over and raised the heavy, wobbling, gray head. It
was Allan Fleming and he had been shot through the
forehead.
123


CHAPTER IX
ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED
Y FIRST impulse was to rouse the house;
1 my second, to wait for Hunter. To turn
loose that mob of half-drunken men in such a place
seemed profanation. There was nothing of the
majesty or panoply of death here, but the very sor-
didness of the surroundings made me resolve to
guard the new dignity of that figure. I was shocked,
of course; it would be absurd to say that I was emo-
tionally unstrung. On the contrary, I was conscious
of a distinct feeling of disappointment. Fleming
had been our key to the Bellwood affair, and he had
put himself beyond helping to solve any mystery.
I locked the door and stood wondering what to do
next. I should have called a doctor, no doubt, but
I had seen enough of death to know that the man
was beyond aid of any kind.
It was not until I had bolted the door that I dis-
covered the absence of any weapon. Everything
124


ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED
that had gone before had pointed to a position so
untenable that suicide seemed its natural and in-
evitable result. With the discovery that there was
no revolver on the table or floor, the thing was
more ominous. I decided at once to call the young
city physician in the room across the hall, and with
something approximating panic, I threw open the
door-to face Harry Wardrop, and behind him,
Hunter.
I do not remember that any one spoke. Hunter
jumped past me into the room and took in in a single
glance what I had labored to acquire in three min-
utes. As Wardrop came in, Hunter locked the door
behind him, and we three stood staring at the pros-
trate figure over the table.
I watched Wardrop: I have never seen so sud-
denly abject a picture. He dropped into a chair, and
feeling for his handkerchief, wiped his shaking lips;
every particle of color left his face, and he was limp,
unnerved.
“Did you hear the shot?” Hunter asked me. “It
has been a matter of minutes since it happened.”
“I don't know," I said, bewildered. "I heard a
125


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
lot of explosions, but I thought it was an automo-
bile, out in the street."
Hunter was listening while he examined the room,
peering under the table, lifting the blankets that had
trailed off the couch on to the floor. Some one out-
side tried the door-knob, and finding the door locked,
shook it slightly.
"Fleming!” he called under his breath. "Flem-
ing!"
We were silent, in response to a signal from
Hunter, and the steps retreated heavily down the
hall. The detective spread the blankets decently
over the couch, and the three of us moved the body
there. Wardrop was almost collapsing.
"Now," Hunter said quietly, "before I call in
Doctor Gray from the room across, what do you
know about this thing, Mr. Wardrop?"
Wardrop looked dazed.
"He was in a bad way when I left this morning,"
he said huskily. "There isn't much use now trying
to hide anything; God knows I've done all I could.
But he has been using cocaine for years, and to-day
he ran out of the stuff. When I got here, about half
126


ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED
an hour ago, he was on the verge of killing himself. I
got the revolver from him—he was like a crazy
man, and as soon as I dared to leave him, I went out
to try and find a doctor—"
“To get some cocaine?”
“Yes.”
“Not-because he was already wounded, and you
were afraid it was fatal ?"
Wardrop shuddered; then he pulled himself to-
gether, and his tone was more natural.
"What's the use of lying about it?” he said wear-
ily. "You won't believe me if I tell the truth, either,
but—he was dead when I got here. I heard some-
thing like the bang of a door as I went up-stairs, but
the noise was terrific down below, and I couldn't
tell. When I went in, he was just dropping forward,
and—” he hesitated.
“The revolver?” Hunter queried, lynx-eyed.
“Was in his hand. He was dead then.”
“Where is the revolver?”
"I will turn it over to the coroner.”
“You will give it to me,” Hunter replied sharply.
And after a little fumbling, Wardrop produced it
127


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
from his hip pocket. It was an ordinary thirty-
eight. The detective opened it and glanced at it.
Two chambers were empty.
“And you waited—say ten minutes, before you
called for help, and even then you went outside
hunting a doctor! What were you doing in those
ten minutes?”
Wardrop shut his lips and refused to reply.
"If Mr. Fleming shot himself,” the detective pur-
sued relentlessly, “there would be powder marks
around the wound. Then, too, he was in the act of
writing a letter. It was a strange impulse, this-
you see, he had only written a dozen words.”
I glanced at the paper on the table. The letter
had no superscription; it began abruptly: .
“I shall have to leave here. The numbers have
followed me. To-night—"
That was all.
“This is not suicide,” Hunter said gravely. “It is
murder, and I warn you, Mr. Wardrop, to be care-
ful what you say. Will you ask Doctor Gray to
come in, Mr. Knox?"
128


ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED
I went across the hall to the room where the noise
was loudest. Fortunately, Doctor Gray was out of
the game. He was opening a can of caviare at a
table in the corner and came out in response to a
gesture. He did not ask any questions, and I let
him go into the death chamber unprepared. The
presence of death apparently had no effect on him,
but the identity of the dead man almost stupefied
him.
"Fleming!” he said, awed, as he looked down at
the body. “Fleming, by all that's sacred! And a
suicide!”
Hunter watched him grimly.
“How long has he been dead ?” he asked.
The doctor glanced at the bullet wound in the
forehead, and from there significantly to the group
around the couch.
“Not an hour-probably less than half,” he said.
“It's strange we heard nothing, across the hall
there.”
Hunter took a clean folded handkerchief from his
pocket and opening it laid it gently over the dead
face. I think it was a relief to all of us. The doctor
129


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
got up from his kneeling posture beside the couch,
and looked at Hunter inquiringly.
“What about getting him away from here?” he
said. “There is sure to be a lot of noise about it,
and-you remember what happened when Butler
killed himself here."
"He was reported as being found dead in the lum-
ber yard,” Hunter said dryly. “Well, Doctor, this
body stays where it is, and I don't give a whoop if
the whole city government wants it moved. It won't
be. This is murder, not suicide.”
The doctor's expression was curious.
“Murder !” he repeated. “Why-who"
But Hunter had many things to attend to; he
broke in ruthlessly on the doctor's amazement.
"See if you can get the house empty, Doctor; just
tell them he is dead—the story will get out soon
enough.”
As the doctor left the room Hunter went to the
open window, through which a fresh burst of rain
was coming, and closed it. The window gave me an
idea, and I went over and tried to see through the
streaming pane. There was no shed or low building
130


ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED
outside, but not five yards away the warehouse
showed its ugly walls and broken windows.
"Look here, Hunter," I said, “why could he not
have been shot from the warehouse?”
"He could have been—but he wasn't,” Hunter
affirmed, glancing at Wardrop's drooping figure.
“Mr. Wardrop, I am going to send for the coroner,
and then I shall ask you to go with me to the office
and tell the chief what you know about this. Knox,
will you telephone to the coroner ?”
In an incredibly short time the club-house was
emptied, and before midnight the coroner himself
arrived and went up to the room. As for me, I had
breakfasted, lunched and dined on horrors, and I
sat in the deserted room down-stairs and tried to
think how I was to take the news to Margery.
At twelve-thirty Wardrop, Hunter and the cor-
oner came down-stairs, leaving a detective in charge
of the body until morning, when it could be taken
home. The coroner had a cab waiting, and he took
us at once to Hunter's chief. He had not gone to
bed, and we filed into his library sepulchrally.
Wardrop told his story, but it was hardly con-
131


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
vincing. The chief, a large man who said very
little, and leaned back with his eyes partly shut,
listened in silence, only occasionally asking a ques-
tion. The coroner, who was yawning steadily, left in
the middle of Wardrop's story, as if in his mind, at
least, the guilty man was as good as hanged.
"I am, I was—Mr. Allan Fleming's private sec-
retary,” Wardrop began. “I secured the position
through a relationship on his wife's side. I have
held the position for three years. Before that
I read law. For some time I have known that Mr.
Fleming used a drug of some kind. Until a week
ago I did not know what it was. On the ninth of
May, Mr. Fleming sent for me. I was in Platts-
burg at the time, and he was at home. He was in a
terrible condition—not sleeping at all, and he said
he was being followed by some person who meant
to kill him. Finally he asked me to get him some
cocaine, and when he had taken it he was more like
himself. I thought the pursuit was only in his own
head. He had a man named Carter on guard in his
house, and acting as butler.
“There was trouble of some sort in the organiza-
132


ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED
tion; I do not know just what. Mr. Schwartz came
here to meet Mr. Fleming, and it seemed there was
money needed. Mr. Fleming had to have it at once.
He gave me some securities to take to Plattsburg
and turn into money. I went on the tenth-".
"Was that the day Mr. Fleming disappeared ?”
the chief interrupted.
"Yes. He went to the White Cat, and stayed
there. No one but the caretaker and one other man
knew he was there. On the night of the twenty-first,
I came back, having turned my securities into
money. I carried it in a package in a small Russia
leather bag that never left my hand for a moment.
Mr. Knox here suggested that I had put it down,
and it had been exchanged for one just like it, but
I did not let it out of my hand on that journey
until I put it down on the porch at the Bellwood
house, while I tried to get in. I live at Bellwood,
with the Misses Maitland, sisters of Mr. Fleming's
deceased wife. I don't pretend to know how it hap-
pened, but while I was trying to get into the house
it was rifled. Mr. Knox will bear me out in that. I
found my grip empty.”
133


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
I affirmed it in a word. The chief was growing
interested.
“What was in the bag ?” he asked.
Waldrop tried to remember.
"A pair of pajamas,” he said, “two military
brushes and a clothes-brush, two or three soft-bos-
omed shirts, perhaps a half-dozen collars, and a suit
of underwear.”
"And all this was taken, as well as the money ?”
“The bag was left empty, except for my railroad
schedule."
The chief and Hunter exchanged significant
glances. Then-
“Go on, if you please,” the detective said cheer-
fully.
I think Wardrop realized the absurdity of trying
to make any one believe that part of the story. He
shut his lips and threw up his head as if he intended
to say nothing further.
“Go on," I urged. If he could clear himself he
must. I could not go back to Margery Fleming and
tell her that her father had been murdered and her
lover was accused of the crime
as accu
134


ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED
“The bag was empty,” he repeated. “I had not
been five minutes trying to open the shutters, and
yet the bag had been rifled. Mr. Knox here found it
among the flowers below the veranda, empty.”
The chief eyed me with awakened interest.
“You also live at Bellwood, Mr. Knox?"
“No, I am attorney to Miss Letitia Maitland, and
was there one night as her guest. I found the bag
as Mr. Wardrop described, empty.”
The chief turned back to Wardrop.
“How much money was there in it when you-
left it?”
"A hundred thousand dollars. I was afraid to
tell Mr. Fleming, but I had to do it. We had a
stormy scene, this morning. I think he thought
the natural thing—that I had taken it.”.
"He struck you, I believe, and knocked you
down?” asked Hunter smoothly.
Wardrop fushed.
"He was not himself; and, well, it meant a great
deal to him. And he was out of cocaine; I left him
raging, and when I went home I learned that Miss
Jane Maitland had disappeared, been abducted, at
135


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
the time my satchel had been emptied! It's no won-
der I question my sanity.”
"And then-to-night?” the chief persisted.
“To-night, I felt that some one would have to
look after Mr. Fleming; I was afraid he would kill
himself. It was a bad time to leave while Miss
Jane was missing. But—when I got to the White
Cat I found him dead. He was sitting with his
back to the door, and his head on the table."
"Was the revolver in his hand ?”
“Yes."
"You are sure?” from Hunter. “Isn't it a fact,
Mr. Wardrop, that you took Mr. Fleming's revolver
from him this morning when he threatened you
with it?"
Wardrop's face twitched nervously.
“You have been misinformed,” he replied, but no
one was impressed by his tone. It was wavering,
uncertain. From Hunter's face I judged it had
been a random shot, and had landed unexpectedly
well.
“How many people knew that Mr. Fleming had
been hiding at the White Cat?” from the chief.
136


ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED
“Very few—besides myself, only a man who looks
after the club-house in the mornings, and Clarkson,
the cashier of the Borough Bank, who met him
there once by appointment.”
The chief made no comment.
“Now, Mr. Knox, what about you?”
"I opened the door into Mr. Fleming's room,
perhaps a couple of minutes after Mr. Wardrop
went out," I said. "He was dead then, leaning on
his outspread arms over the table; he had been shot
in the forehead.”
"You heard no shot while you were in the hall ?”
“There was considerable noise; I heard two or
three sharp reports like the explosions of an auto-
mobile engine.”
“Did they seem close at hand?”
"Not particularly; I thought, if I thought at all,
that they were on the street.”
"You are right about the automobile,” Hunter
said dryly. “The mayor sent his car away as I left
to follow Mr. Wardrop. The sounds you heard
were not shots.”
"It is a strange thing," the chief reflected, "that
137


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
a revolver could be fired in the upper room of an
ordinary dwelling house, while that house was filled
with people—and nobody hear it. Were there any
powder marks on the body?”
“None,” Hunter said.
The chief got up stiffly.
"Thank you very much, gentlemen,” he spoke
quietly. "I think that is all. Hunter, I would like
to see you for a few minutes.”
I think Wardrop was dazed at finding himself,
free; he had expected nothing less than an immedi-
ate charge of murder. As we walked to the corner
for a car or cab, whichever materialized first, he
looked back.
“I thought so,” he said bitterly. A man was
loitering after us along the street. The police were
not asleep, they had only closed one eye.
The last train had gone. We took a night electric
car to Wynton, and walked the three miles to Bell-
wood. Neither of us was talkative, and I imagine
we were both thinking of Margery, and the news
she would have to hear.
It had been raining, and the roads were vile.
138


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
at his muddy clothes. “This thing is only a matter."
of form, anyhow.”
But he didn't lie down on the couch. He took a
chair in the hall near the foot of the stairs, and we
left him there, with the evening paper and a lamp.
It was a queer situation, to say the least.
as a
140


CHAPTER X
BREAKING THE NEWS
CARDROP looked so wretched that I asked
him into my room, and mixed him some
whisky and water. When I had given him a cigar
he began to look a little less hopeless.
"You've been a darned sight better to me than I
would have been to you, under the circumstances,”
he said gratefully.
“I thought we would better arrange about Miss
Margery before we try to settle down," I replied.
"What she has gone through in the last twenty-four
hours is nothing to what is coming to-morrow. Will
you tell her about her father?”
He took a turn about the room.
“I believe it would come better from you,” he said
finally. "I am in the peculiar position of having
been suspected by her father of robbing him, by you
of carrying away her aunt, and now by the police
and everybody else of murdering her father."
141


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
"I do not suspect you of anything,” I justified my-
self. “I don't think you are entirely open, that is
all, Wardrop. I think you are damaging yourself
to shield some one else.”
His expressive face was on its guard in a mo-
ment. He ceased his restless pacing, pausing im-
pressively before me.
“I give you my word as a gentleman–I do not
know who killed Mr. Fleming, and that when I first
saw him dead, my only thought was that he had
killed himself. He had threatened to, that day.
Why, if you think I killed him, you would have to
think I robbed him, too, in order to find a motive.”
I did not tell him that that was precisely what
Hunter did think. I evaded the issue.
"Mr. Wardrop, did you ever hear of the figures
eleven twenty-two?” I inquired.
"Eleven twenty-two?” he repeated. “No, never
in any unusual connection.”
"You never heard Mr. Fleming use them?” I per-
sisted.
He looked puzzled.
“Probably,” he said. “In the very nature of Mr.
142


BREAKING THE NEWS
Fleming's position, we used figures all the time.
Eleven twenty-two. That's the time the theater
train leaves the city for Bellwood. Not what you
want, eh?”
"Not quite,” I answered non-committally and be-
gan to wind my watch. He took the hint and pre-
pared to leave.
“I'll not keep you up any longer,” he said, picking
up his raincoat. He opened the door and stared rue-
fully down at the detective in the hall below. “The
old place is queer without Miss Jane,” he said irrel-
evantly. "Well, good night, and thanks.”
He went heavily along the hall and I closed my
door. I heard him pass Margery's room and then
go back and rap lightly. She was evidently awake.
"It's Harry,” he called. “I thought you wouldn't
worry if you knew I was in the house to-night.”
She asked him something, for-
“Yes, he is here,” he said. He stood there for a
moment, hesitating over something, but whatever it
was, he decided against it.
"Good night, dear,” he said gently and went
away.
mo
CIS
143


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
The little familiarity made me wince. Every un-
attached man has the same pang now and then. I
have it sometimes when Edith sits on the arm of
Fred's chair, or one of the youngsters leaves me to
run to “daddy.” And one of the sanest men I ever
met went to his office and proposed to his sten-
ographer in sheer craving for domesticity, after
watching the wife of one of his friends run her hand
over her husband's chin and give him a reproving
slap for not having shaved !
niy dripping coat, I went to the window and looked
out into the May night. It seemed incredible that
Jane had disappeared, had been taken bodily away
through the peace of the warm spring darkness, and
that I, as wide-awake as I was at that moment, acute
enough of hearing to detect Wardrop's careful steps
on the gravel walk below, had heard no struggle,
had permitted this thing to happen without raising
a finger in the old lady's defense. And she was gone
as completely as if she had stepped over some
psychic barrier into the fourth dimension!
544


BREAKING THE NEWS
ore
CUIT
I found myself avoiding the more recent occur-
rence at the White Cat. I was still too close to it
to have gained any perspective. On that subject I
was able to think clearly of only one thing: that I
would have to tell Margery in the morning, and that
I would have given anything I possessed for a little
of Edith's diplomacy with which to break the bad
news. It was Edith who broke the news to me
that the moths had got into my evening clothes while
I was hunting in the Rockies, by telling me that my
dress-coat made me look narrow across the shoulders
and persuading me to buy a new one and give the old
one to Fred. Then she broke the news of the moths
to Fred!
I was ready for bed when Wardrop came back
and rapped at my door. He was still dressed, and
he had the leather bag in his hand..
"Look here,” he said excitedly, when I had closed
the door, “this is not my bag at all. Fool that I
was. I never examined it carefully.”
He held it out to me, and I carried it to the light.
It was an ordinary eighteen-inch Russia leather
traveling-bag, tan in color, and with gold-plated
was
ve
145


BREAKING THE NEWS
“They'll be searching my room, I suppose, and I'd
like to have the bag for future reference."
He went for good that time, and I put out the
light. As an afterthought I opened my door per-
haps six inches, and secured it with one of the pink
conch-shells which flanked either end of the stone
hearth. I had failed the night before: I meant to
be on hand that night.
I went to sleep immediately, I believe. I have
no idea how much later it was that I roused. I
wakened suddenly and sat up in bed. There had
been a crash of some kind, for the shock was still
vibrating along my nerves. Dawn was close; the
window showed gray against the darkness inside,
and I could make out dimly the larger objects in
the room. I listened intently, but the house seemed
quiet. Still I was not satisfied. I got up and, lighting
the candle, got into my raincoat in lieu of a dressing-
gown, and prepared to investigate.
With the fatality that seemed to pursue my feet
in that house, with my first step I trod squarely on
top of the conch-shell, and I fell back on to the edge
of the bed swearing softly and holding the injured
147


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
member. Only when the pain began to subside did
I realize that I had left the shell on the door-sill, and
that it had moved at least eight feet while I slept !
When I could walk I put it on the mantel, its
mate from the other end of the hearth beside it.
Then I took my candle and went out into the hall.
My door, which I had left open, I found closed :
nothing else was disturbed. The leather bag sat just
inside, as Wardrop had left it. Through Miss Mait-
land's transom were coming certain strangled and ir-
regular sounds, now falsetto, now deep bass, that
showed that worthy lady to be asleep. A glance
down the staircase revealed Davidson, stretching in
his chair and looking up at me.
"I'm frozen," he called up cautiously. “Throw
me down a blanket or two, will you?”
I got a couple of blankets from my bed and took
them down. He was examining his chair ruefully.
“There isn't any grip to this horsehair stuff,” he
complained. “Every time I doze off I dream I'm
coasting down the old hill back on the farm, and
when I wake up I'm sitting on the floor, with the
end of my back bone bent like a hook.”
148


BREAKING THE NEWS
He wrapped himself in the blankets and sat down
again, taking the precaution this time to put his legs
on another chair and thus anchor himself. Then he
produced a couple of apples and a penknife and
proceeded to pare and offer me one.
"Found 'em in the pantry,” he said, biting into
one. “I belong to the apple society. Eat one apple
every day and keep healthy!” He stopped and stared
intently at the apple. “I reckon I got a worm that
time," he said, with less ardor.
"I'll get something to wash him down,” I offered,
rising, but he waved me back to my stair.
: on your life,” he said with dignity. “Let
him walk. How are things going up-stairs?”
"You didn't happen to be up there a little while
ago, did you?" I questioned in turn.
“No. I've been kept busy trying to sit tight where
I am. Why?”
"Some one came into my room and wakened me,"
I explained. “I heard a racket and when I got up I
found a shell that I had put on the door-sill to keep
the door open, in the middle of the room. I stepped
on it.”
149


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
He examined a piece of apple before putting it in
his mouth. Then he turned a pair of shrewd eyes
on me.
"That's funny,” he said. "Anything in the room
disturbed ?"
“Nothing."
“Where's the shell now?"
“On the mantel. I didn't want to step on it
again.”
He thought for a minute, but his next remark was
wholly facetious.
"No. I guess you won't step on it up there. Like
the old woman: she says, ‘Motorman, if I put my
foot on the rail will I be electrocuted?' And he
says, 'No, madam, not unless you put your other
foot on the trolley wire.'”
I got up impatiently. There was no humor in the
situation that night for me.
"Some one had been in the room,” I reiterated.
“The door was closed, although I had left it open."
He finished his apple and proceeded with great
gravity to drop the parings down the immaculate
register in the floor beside his chair. Then-
150


BREAKING THE NEWS
"I've only got one business here, Mr. Knox," he
said in an undertone, "and you know what that is.
But if it will relieve your mind of the thought that
there was anything supernatural about your visitor,
I'll tell you that it was Mr. Wardrop, and that to the
best of my belief he was in your room, not once, but
twice, in the last hour and a half. As far as that
shell goes, it was I that kicked it, having gone up
without my shoes.”
I stared at him blankly.
"What could he have wanted ?” I exclaimed. But
with his revelation, Davidson's interest ceased; he
drew the blanket up around his shoulders and shiv-
ered.
"Search me,” he said and yawned.
I went back to bed, but not to sleep. I deliber-
ately left the door wide open, but no intrusion oc-
curred. Once I got up and glanced down the stairs.
For all his apparent drowsiness, Davidson heard my
cautious movements, and saluted me in a husky
whisper.
"Have you got any quinine ?” he said. “I'm sneez-
ing my head off.”
151


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
But I had none. I gave him a box of cigarettes,
and after partially dressing, I threw myself across
the bed to wait for daylight. I was roused by the
sun beating on my face, to hear Miss Letitia's tones
from her room across.
"Nonsense,” she was saying querulously. “Don't
you suppose I can smell? Do you think because I'm
a little hard of hearing that I've lost my other
senses? Somebody's been smoking."
"It's me," Heppie shouted. "I—".
"You?" Miss Letitia snarled. “What are you
smoking for? That ain't my shirt; it's my~"
"I ain't smokin',” yelled Heppie. “You won't
let me tell you. I spilled vinegar on the stove; that's
what you smell.”
Miss Letitia's sardonic chuckle came through the
door.
"Vinegar," she said with scorn. “Next thing
you'll be telling me it's vinegar that Harry and Mr.
Knox carry around in little boxes in their pockets.
You've pinned my cap to my scalp."
I hurried down-stairs to find Davidson gone. My
blanket lay neatly folded, on the lower step, and the
152


BREAKING THE NEWS
horsehair chairs were ranged along the wall as be-
fore. I looked around anxiously for telltale ashes,
but there was none, save, at the edge of the spotless
register, a trace. Evidently they had followed the
apple parings. It grew cold a day or so later, and
Miss Letitia had the furnace fired, and although it
does not belong to . my story, she and Heppie
searched the house over to account for the odor of
baking apples—a mystery that was never explained.
Wardrop did not appear at breakfast. Margery
came down-stairs as Bella was bringing me my cof-
fee, and dropped languidly into her chair. She
looked tired and white.
"Another day!” she said wearily. “Did you ever
live through such an eternity as the last thirty-six
hours?"
I responded absently; the duty I had assumed
hung heavy over me. I had a frantic impulse to
shirk the whole thing: to go to Wardrop and tell
him it was his responsibility, not mine, to make this
sad-eyed girl sadder still. That as I had not his
privilege of comforting her, neither should I
shoulder his responsibility of telling her. But the
153


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
issue was forced on me sooner than I had expected,
for at that moment I saw the glaring head-lines of
the morning paper, laid open at Wardrop's plate.
She must have followed my eyes, for we reached
for it simultaneously. She was nearer than I, and
her quick eye caught the name. Then I put my hand
over the heading and she flushed with indignation.
“You are not to read it now,” I said, meeting her
astonished gaze as best I could. “Please let me have
it. I promise you I will give it to you—almost im-
mediately."
“You are very rude,” she said without relinquish-
ing the paper. “I saw a part of that; it is about my
father!"
“Drink your coffee, please," I pleaded. "I will
let you read it then. On my honor."
She looked at me; then she withdrew her hand
and sat erect.
“How can you be so childish!” she exclaimed. “If
there is anything in that paper that it--will hurt me
to learn, is a cup of coffee going to make it any
easier?”
I gave up then. I had always thought that people
154


BREAKING THE NEWS
heard bad news better when they had been fortified
with something to eat, and I had a very distinct
recollection that Fred had made Edith drink some-
thing—tea probably-before he told her that Billy
had fallen off the back fence and would have to have
a stitch taken in his lip. Perhaps I should have
offered Margery tea instead of coffee. But as it
was, she sat, stonily erect, staring at the paper, and
feeling that evasion would be useless, I told her what
had happened, breaking the news as gently as I
could.
I stood by her helplessly through the tearless
agony that followed, and cursed myself for a blun-
dering ass. I had said that he had been accidentally
shot, and I said it with the paper behind me, but she
put the evasion aside bitterly.
"Accidentally!" she repeated. The first storm of
grief over, she lifted her head from where it had
rested on her arms and looked at me, scorning my
subterfuge. "He was murdered. That's the word
I didn't have time to read! Murdered! And you sat
back and let it happen. I went to you in time and
you didn't do anything. No one did anything !"
155


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
I did not try to defend myself. How could I?
And afterward when she sat up and pushed back
the damp strands of hair from her eyes, she was
more reasonable.
"I did not mean what I said about your not having
done anything,” she said, almost childishly. “No
one could have done more. It was to happen, that's
ONIC
all.”
But even then I knew she had trouble in store that
she did not suspect. What would she do when she
heard that Wardrop was under grave suspicion?
Between her dead father and her lover, what? It
was to be days before I knew and in all that time, I,
who would have died, not cheerfully but at least
stoically, for her, had to stand back and watch the
struggle, not daring to hold out my hand to help,
lest by the very gesture she divine my wild longing
to hold her for myself.
She recovered bravely that morning from the
shock, and refusing to go to her room and lie down
-a suggestion, like the coffee, culled from my
vicarious domestic life—she went out to the veranda
and sat there in the morning sun, gazing across the
156


BREAKING THE NEWS
lawn. I left her there finally, and broke the news of
her brother-in-law's death to Miss Letitia. After
the first surprise, the old lady took the news with
what was nearer complacency than resignation.
"Shot!” she said, sitting up in bed, while Heppie
shook her pillows. “It's a queer death for Allan
Fleming; I always said he would be hanged.”
After that, she apparently dismissed him from her
mind, and we talked of her sister. Her mood had
changed and it was depressing to find that she spoke
of Jane always in the past tense. She could speak
of her quite calmly—I suppose the sharpness of our
emotions is in inverse ratio to our length of years,
and she regretted that, under the circumstances,
Jane would not rest in the family lot.
“We are all there,” she said, “eleven of us, count-
ing my sister Mary's husband, although he don't
properly belong, and I always said we would take
him out if we were crowded. It is the best lot in the
Hopedale Cemetery; you can see the shaft for two
miles in any direction."
We held a family council that morning around
Miss Letitia's bed: Wardrop, who took little part
157


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
in the proceedings, and who stood at a window look-
ing out most of the time, Margery on the bed, her
arm around Miss Letitia's shriveled neck, and Hep-
pie, who acted as interpreter and shouted into the
old lady's ear such parts of the conversation as she
considered essential.
"I have talked with Miss Fleming," I said, as
clearly as I could, “and she seems to shrink from
seeing people. The only friends she cares about are
in Europe, and she tells me there are no other rela-
tives."
Heppie condensed this into a vocal capsule, and
thrust it into Miss Letitia's ear. The old lady
nodded.
“No other relatives,” she corroborated. "God
be praised for that, anyhow.”
“And yet," I went on, “there are things to look
after, certain necessary duties that no one else can
attend to. I don't want to insist, but she ought, if
she is able, to go to the city house, for a few hours,
at least.”
"City house!” Heppie yelled in her ear.
"It ought to be cleaned," Miss Letitia acquiesced,
158


BREAKING THE NEWS
"and fresh curtains put up. Jane would have been
in her element; she was always handy at a funeral.
And don't let them get one of those let-down-at-the-
side coffins. They're leaky."
Luckily Margery did not notice this.
"I was going to suggest,” I put in hurriedly, “that
my brother's wife would be only too glad to help,
and if Miss Fleming will go into town with me, I
am sure Edith would know just what to do. She
isn't curious and she's very capable.”
Margery threw me a grateful glance, grateful, I
think, that I could understand how, under the cir-
cumstances, a stranger was more acceptable than cu-
rious friends could be.
“Mr. Knox's sister-in-law!" interpreted Heppie.
“When you have to say the letter 's,' turn your
head away,” Miss Letitia rebuked her. “Well, I
don't object, if Knox's sister-in-law don't.” She
had an uncanny way of expanding Heppie's tabloid
speeches. “You can take my white silk shawl to lay
over the body, but be sure to bring it back. We may
need it for Jane."
If the old lady's chin quivered a bit, while Mar-
159


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
gery threw her arms around her, she was mightily
ashamed of it. But Heppie was made of weaker
stuff. She broke into a sudden storm of sobs and
left the room, to stick her head in the door a moment
after.
“Kidneys or chops ?" she shouted almost belliger-
ently.
"Kidneys,” Miss Letitia replied in kind.
Wardrop went with us to the station at noon, but
he left us there, with a brief remark that he would
be up that night. After I had put Margery in a
seat, I went back to have a word with him alone.
He was standing beside the train, trying to light a
cigarette, but his hands shook almost beyond control,
and after the fourth match he gave it up. My min-
ute for speech was gone. As the train moved out
I saw him walking back along the platform, paying
no attention to anything around him. Also, I had
a fleeting glimpse of a man loafing on a baggage
truck, his hat over his eyes. He was paring an apple
with a penknife, and dropping the peelings with
careful accuracy through a crack in the floor of the
platform.
160


BREAKING THE NEWS
I had arranged over the telephone that Edith
should meet the train, and it was a relief to see that
she and Margery took to each other at once. We
drove to the house immediately, and after a few
tears when she saw the familiar things around her,
Margery rose to the situation bravely. Miss Le-
titia had sent Bella to put the house in order, and
it was evident that the idea of clean curtains for the
funeral had been drilled into her until it had become
an obsession. Not until Edith had concealed the
step-ladder were the hangings safe, and late in the
afternoon we heard a crash from the library, and
found Bella twisted on the floor, the result of put-
ting a teakwood tabouret on a table and from thence
attacking the lace curtains of the library windows.
Edith gave her a good scolding and sent her off
to soak her sprained ankle. Then she righted the
tabouret, sat down on it and began on me.
"Do you know that you have not been to the office
for two days?" she said severely. “And do you
know that Hawes had hysterics in our front hall
last night? You had a case in court yesterday,
didn't you?”
16I


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
"Nothing very much," I said, looking over her
head. “Anyhow, I'm tired. I don't know when I'm
going back. I need a vacation.”
She reached behind her and pulling the cord, sent
the window shade to the top of the window. At
the sight of my face thus revealed, she drew a long
sigh.
“The biggest case you ever had, Jack! The big-
gest retainer you ever had—”
"I've spent that,” I protested feebly.
"A vacation, and you only back from Pinehurst !"
“The girl was in trouble-is in trouble, Edith,"
I burst out. “Any one would have done the same
thing. Even Fred would hardly have deserted that
household. It's stricken, positively stricken.”
My remark about Fred did not draw her from
cover.
"Of course it's your own affair,” she said, not
looking at me, "and goodness knows I'm disinter-
ested about it, you ruin the boys, both stomachs and
dispositions, and I could use your room splendidly
as a sewing-room—"
"Edith! You abominable little liar!”
162


BREAKING THE NEWS
She dabbed at her eyes furiously with her hand-
kerchief, and walked with great dignity to the door.
Then she came back and put her hand on my arm.
“Oh, Jack, if we could only have saved you this !”
she said, and a minute later, when I did not speak:
“Who is the man, dear?”
“A distant relative, Harry Wardrop," I replied,
with what I think was very nearly my natural tone.
“Don't worry, Edith. It's all right. I've known it
right along."
"Pooh!" Edith returned sagely. “So do I know
I've got to die and be buried some day. Its being
inevitable doesn't make it any more cheerful.” She
went out, but she came back in a moment and stuck
her head through the door.
“That's the only inevitable thing there is,” she
said, taking up the conversation-an old habit of
hers—where she had left off.
"I don't know what you are talking about,” I
retorted, turning my back on her. “And anyhow, I
regard your suggestion as immoral.” But when I
turned again, she had gone.
That Saturday afternoon at four o'clock the body
163


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
of Allan Fleming was brought home, and placed in
state in the music-room of the house.
Miss Jane had been missing since Thursday night.
I called Hunter by telephone, and he had nothing to
report.
164


CHAPTER XI
Ä NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME
Cafen
HAD a tearful message from Hawes late that
afternoon, and a little after five I went to the
office. I found him offering late editions of the
evening paper to a couple of clients, who were edg-
ing toward the door. His expression when he saw
me was pure relief, the clients', relief strongly mixed
with irritation.
I put the best face on the matter that I could, saw
my visitors, and left alone, prepared to explain to
Hawes what I could hardly explain to myself.
"I've been unavoidably detained, Hawes,” I said,
“Miss Jane Maitland has disappeared from her
home.”
"So I understood you over the telephone." He
had brought my mail and stood by impassive.
“Also, her brother-in-law is dead.”
“The papers are full of it.”
“There was no one to do anything, Hawes. I was
165


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
obliged to stay,” I apologized. I was ostentatiously
examining my letters and Hawes said nothing. I
looked up at him sideways, and he looked down at
me. Not a muscle of his face quivered, save one
eye, which has a peculiar twitching of the lid when
he is excited. It gave him a sardonic appearance
of winking. He winked at me then.
"Don't wait, Hawes,” I said guiltily, and he took
his hat and went out. Every line of his back was ac-
cusation. The sag of his shoulders told me I had
let my biggest case go by default that day; the for-
ward tilt of his head, that I was probably insane;
the very grip with which he seized the door-knob,
his "good night" from around the door, that he
knew there was a woman at the bottom of it all.
As he closed the door behind him I put down my
letters and dropped my face in my hands. Hawes
was right. No amount of professional zeal could ac-
count for the interest I had taken. Partly through
force of circumstances, partly of my own volition, I
had placed myself in the position of first friend to
a family with which I had had only professional
relations; I had even enlisted Edith, when my ac-
166


A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME
quaintance with Margery Fleming was only three
days old! And at the thought of the girl, of War-
drop's inefficiency and my own hopelessness, I
groaned aloud.
I had not heard the door open.
"I forgot to tell you that a gentleman was here
half a dozen times to-day to see you. He didn't
give any name.”
I dropped my hands. From around the door
Hawes' nervous eye was winking wildly.
"You're not sick, Mr. Knox?”
"Never felt better."
“I thought I heard—”.
"I was singing,” I lied, looking him straight in
the eye.
He backed nervously to the door.
"I have a little sherry in my office, Mr. Knox-
twenty-six years in the wood. If you—"
"For God's sake, Hawes, there's nothing the mat-
ter with me!" I exclaimed, and he went. But I heard
him stand a perceptible time outside the door before
he tiptoed away.
Almost immediately after, some one entered the
167


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
waiting-room, and the next moment I was facing, in
the doorway, a man I had never seen before.
He was a tall man, with thin, colorless beard
trimmed to a Vandyke point, and pale eyes blinking
behind glasses. He had a soft hat crushed in his
hand, and his whole manner was one of subdued ex-
citement.
"Mr. Knox?” he asked, from the doorway.
“Yes. Come in.”
"I have been here six times since noon,” he said,
dropping rather than sitting in a chair. “My name
is Lightfoot. I am-was-Mr. Fleming's cashier.”
“Yes ?”
"I was terribly shocked at the news of his death,”
he stumbled on, getting no help from me. “I was in
town and if I had known in time I could have kept
some of the details out of the papers. Poor Flem-
ing to think he would end it that way.”
“End it?"
“Shoot himself.” He watched me closely.
“But he didn't,” I protested. "It was not suicide,
Mr. Lightfoot. According to the police, it was mur-
der."
168


A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME
His cold eyes narrowed like a cat's. “Murder is
an ugly word, Mr. Knox. Don't let us be sensa-
tional. Mr. Fleming had threatened to kill himself
more than once; ask young Wardrop. He was sick
and despondent; he left his home without a word,
which points strongly to emotional insanity. He
could have gone to any one of a half dozen large
clubs here, or at the capital. Instead, he goes to a
little third-rate political club, where, presumably, he
does his own cooking and hides in a dingy room. Is
that sane? Murder! It was suicide, and that puppy
Wardrop knows it well enough. I-I wish I had
him by the throat!"
He had worked himself into quite a respectable
rage, but now he calmed himself.
"I have seen the police,” he went on. “They
agree with me that it was suicide, and the party
newspapers will straighten it out to-morrow. It is
only unfortunate that the murder theory was given
so much publicity. The Times-Post, which is Dem-
ocratic, of course, I can not handle."
I sat stupefied.
"Suicide!” I said finally. "With no weapon, no
169


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
powder marks, and with a half-finished letter at his
elbow.”
He brushed my interruption aside.
"Mr. Fleming had been careless," he said. “I
can tell you in confidence, that some of the state
funds had been deposited in the Borough Bank of
Manchester, and—the Borough Bank closed its
doors at ten o'clock to-day.”
I was hardly surprised at that, but the whole trend
of events was amazing.
“I arrived here last night,” he said, “and I
searched the city for Mr. Fleming. This morning
I heard the news. I have just come from the house:
his daughter referred me to you. After all, what I
want is a small matter. Some papers-state docu-
ments—are missing, and no doubt are among Mr.
Fleming's private effects. I would like to go
through his papers, and leave to-night for the capi-
tal.”
"I have hardly the authority," I replied doubt-
fully. “Miss Fleming, I suppose, would have no
objection. His private secretary, Wardrop, would
be the one to superintend such a search.”
170


A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME
“Can you find Wardrop at once?"
Something in his eagerness put me on my guard.
"I will make an attempt," I said. “Let me have
the name of your hotel, and I will telephone you if
it can be arranged for to-night.”
He had to be satisfied with that, but his eagerness
seemed to me to be almost desperation. Oddly
enough, I could not locate Wardrop after all. I
got the Maitland house by telephone, to learn that
he had left there about three o'clock, and had not
come back.
I went to the Fleming house for dinner. Edith
was still there, and we both tried to cheer Margery,
a sad little figure in her black clothes. After the
meal, I called Lightfoot at his hotel, and told him
that I could not find Wardrop; that there were no
papers at the house, and that the office safe would
have to wait until Wardrop was found to open
it. He was disappointed and furious; like a good
many men who are physical cowards, he said a
great deal over the telephone that he would not
have dared to say to my face, and I cut him off by
hanging up the receiver. From that minute, in the
171


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
struggle that was coming, like Fred, I was "for-
ninst” the government.
It was arranged that Edith should take Mar-
gery home with her for the night. I thought it a
good idea; the very sight of Edith tucking in
her babies and sitting down beside the library lamp
to embroider me a scarfpin-holder for Christmas
would bring Margery back to normal again. Except
in the matter of Christmas gifts, Edith is the sanest
woman I know; I recognized it at the dinner table,
where she had the little girl across from her planning
her mourning hats before the dinner was half fin-
ished.
When we rose at last, Margery looked toward
the music-room, where the dead man lay in state.
But Edith took her by the arm and pushed her
toward the stairs.
"Get your hat on right away, while Jack calls a
cab,” she directed. “I must get home, or Fred will
keep the boys up until nine o'clock. He is absolutely
without principle.”
When Margery came down there was a little red
spot burning in each pale cheek, and she ran down
172


A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME
the stairs like a scared child. At the bottom she
clutched the newel-post and looked behind fearfully.
"What's the matter?" Edith demanded, glancing
uneasily over her shoulder.
"Some one has been up-stairs,” Margery panted.
"Somebody has been staying in the house while we
were away.”
"Nonsense,” I said, seeing that her fright was in-
fecting Edith. “What makes you think that?”
"Come and look,” she said, gaining courage, I
suppose, from a masculine presence. And so we
went up the long stairs, the two girls clutching
hands, and I leading the way and inclined to scoff.
At the door of a small room next to what had
been Allan Fleming's bedroom, we paused and I
turned on the light.
"Before we left," Margery said more quietly, “I
closed this room myself. It had just been done
over, and the pale blue soils so easily. I came in
the last thing, and saw covers put over everything.
Now look at it!”
It was a sort of boudoir, filled with feminine
knickknacks and mahogany lounging chairs. Wher-
173


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
ever possible, a pale brocade had been used, on the
empire couch, in panels in the wall, covering cush-
ions on the window-seat. It was evidently Mar-
gery's private sitting-room.
The linen cover that had been thrown over the
divan was folded back, and a pillow from the win-
dow-seat bore the imprint of a head. The table was
still covered, knobby protuberances indicating the
pictures and books beneath. On one corner of the
table, where the cover had been pushed aside, was a
cup, empty and clean-washed, and as if to prove her
contention, Margery picked up from the floor a
newspaper, dated Friday morning, the twenty-sec-
ond.
A used towel in the bath-room near-by completed
the inventory; Margery had been right; some one
had used the room while the house was closed.
“Might it not have been your-father?" Edith
asked, when we stood again at the foot of the stairs.
"He could have come here to look for something,
and lain down to rest.”
"I don't think so,” Margery said wanly. “I left
the door so he could get in with his key, but—he al-
174


A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME
ways used his study couch. I don't think he ever
spent five minutes in my sitting-room in his life.”
We had to let it go at that finally. I put them in
a cab, and saw them start away: then I went back
into the house. I had arranged to sleep there and
generally to look after things—as I said before.
Whatever scruples I had had about taking charge of
Margery Fleming and her affairs, had faded with
Wardrop's defection and the new mystery of the
blue boudoir.
The lower floor of the house was full of people
that night, local and state politicians, newspaper
men and the usual crowd of the morbidly curious.
The undertaker took everything in hand, and late
that evening I could hear them carrying in tropical
plants and stands for the flowers that were already
arriving. Whatever panoply the death scene had
lacked, Allan Fleming was lying in state now.
At midnight things grew quiet. I sat in the
library, reading, until then, when an undertaker's
assistant in a pink shirt and polka-dot cravat came
to tell me that everything was done.
“Is it customary for somebody to stay up, on oc-
175


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
casions like this?” I asked. “Isn't there an impres-
sion that wandering cats may get into the room, or
something of that sort?”
"I don't think it will be necessary, sir," he said,
trying to conceal a smile. "It's all a matter of taste.
Some people like to take their troubles hard. Since
they don't put money on their eyes any more, no-
body wants to rob the dead.”
He left with that cheerful remark, and I closed
and locked the house after him. I found Bella in
the basement kitchen with all the lights burning
full, and I stood at the foot of the stairs while she
scooted to bed like a scared rabbit. She was a
strange creature, Bella—not so stupid as she looked,
but sullen, morose—"smouldering" about ex-
presses it.
I closed the doors into the dining-room and, leav-
ing one light in the hall, went up to bed. A guest
room in the third story had been assigned me, and
I was tired enough to have slept on the floor. The
telephone bell rang just after I got into bed, and
grumbling at my luck, I went down to the lower
floor.
176


A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME
It was the Times-Post, and the man at the tele-
phone was in a hurry.
"This is the Times-Post. Is Mr. Wardrop
there?”
"No."
"Who is this?"
“This is John Knox.”
“The attorney?"
“Yes.”
"Mr. Knox, are you willing to put yourself on
record that Mr. Fleming committed suicide ?"
"I am not going to put myself on record at all."
"To-night's Star says you call it suicide, and that
you found him with the revolver in his hand.”
"The Star lies!" I retorted, and the man at the
other end chuckled.
"Many thanks,” he said, and rang off.
I went back to bed, irritated that I had betrayed
myself. Loss of sleep for two nights, however, had
told on me: in a short time I was sound asleep.
I wakened with difficulty. My head felt stupid
and heavy, and I was burning with thirst. I sat up
and wondered vaguely if I were going to be ill,
177


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
and I remember that I felt too weary to get a drink.
As I roused, however, I found that part of my dis-
comfort came from bad ventilation, and I opened
a window and looked out.
The window was a side one, opening on to a space
perhaps eight feet wide, which separated it from its
neighbor. Across from me was only a blank red
wall, but the night air greeted me refreshingly. The
wind was blowing hard, and a shutter was banging
somewhere below. I leaned out and looked down
into the well-like space beneath me. It was one of
those apparently chance movements that have vital
consequences, and that have always made me believe
in the old Calvinistic creed of foreordination.
Below me, on the wall across, was a rectangle of
yellow light, reflected from the library window of
the Fleming home. There was some one in the
house.
As I still stared, the light was slowly blotted out
-not as if the light had been switched off, but by a
gradual decreasing in size of the lighted area. The
library shade had been drawn.
My first thought was burglars: my second-
178


A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME
Lightfoot. No matter who it was, there was no one
who had business there. Luckily, I had brought my
revolver with me from Fred's that day, and it was
under my pillow; to get it, put out the light and open
the door quietly, took only a minute. I was in pa-
jamas, barefoot, as on another almost similar occa-
sion, but I was better armed than before.
I got to the second floor without hearing or see-
ing anything suspicious, but from there I could see
that the light in the hall had been extinguished. The
unfamiliarity of the house, the knowledge of the
silent figure in the drawing-room at the foot of the
stairs, and of whatever might be waiting in the
library beyond, made my position uncomfortable, to
say the least.
I don't believe in the man who is never afraid: he
doesn't deserve the credit he gets. It's the fellow
who is scared to death, whose knees knock together,
and who totters rather than walks into danger, who
is the real hero. Not that I was as bad as that, but
I would have liked to know where the electric switch
was, and to have seen the trap before I put my
head in.
179


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
The stairs were solidly built, and did not creak. I
felt my way down by the baluster, which required
my right hand, and threw my revolver to my left.
I got safely to the bottom, and around the newel-
post: there was still a light in the library, and the
door was not entirely closed. Then, with my usual
bad luck, I ran into a heap of folding chairs that
had been left by the undertaker, and if the crash
paralyzed me, I don't know what it did to the in-
truder in the library.
The light was out in an instant, and with conceal-
ment at an end, I broke for the door and threw it
open, standing there with my revolver leveled. We
--the man in the room, and I were both in absolute
darkness. He had the advantage of me. He knew
my location, and I could not guess his.
"Who is here?" I demanded.
Only silence, except that I seemed to hear rapid
breathing.
"Speak up, or I'll shoot !” I said, not without an
ugly feeling that he might be even probably was-
taking careful aim by my voice. The darkness was
intolerable: I reached cautiously to the left and
180


A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME
found, just beyond the door frame, the electric
switch. As I turned it the light flashed up. The
room was empty, but a portière in a doorway at my
right was still shaking.
I leaped for the curtain and dragged it aside, to
have a door just close in my face. When I had
jerked it open, I found myself in a short hall, and
there were footsteps to my left. I blundered along
in the semi-darkness, into a black void which must
have been the dining-room, for my outstretched
hand skirted the table. The footsteps seemed only
beyond my reach, and at the other side of the room
the swinging door into the pantry was still swaying
when I caught it..
I made a misstep in the pantry, and brought up
against a blank wall. It seemed to me I heard the
sound of feet running up steps, and when I found
a door at last, I threw it open and dashed in.
The next moment the solid earth slipped from un-
der my feet, I threw out my hand, and it met a cold
wall, smooth as glass. Then I fell—fell an incalcu-
lable distance, and the blackness of the night came
over me and smothered me.
181


CHAPTER XII
MY COMMISSION
W H EN I came to, I was lying in darkness,
. and the stillness was absolute. When I tried
to move, I found I was practically a prisoner: I
had fallen into an air shaft, or something of the
kind. I could not move my arms, where they were
pinioned to my sides, and I was half-lying, half-
crouching, in a semi-vertical position. I worked one
arm loose and managed to make out that my prison
was probably the dumb-waiter shaft to the basement
kitchen.
I had landed on top of the slide, and I seemed to
be tied in a knot. The revolver was under me, and
if it had exploded during the fall it had done no
damage. I can hardly imagine a more unpleasant
position. If the man I had been following had so
chosen, he could have made away with me in any
one of a dozen unpleasant ways—he could have
filled me as full of holes as a sieve, or scalded me, or
182


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
been pulled partly off its roller, a chair had been
drawn up to the long mahogany table in the center
of the room, with the electric dome overhead, and
everywhere, on chairs, over the floor, heaped in
stacks on the table, were papers.
After searching the lower floor, and finding every-
thing securely locked, I went up-stairs, convinced the
intruder was still in the house. I made a systematic
search of every room, looking into closets and under
beds. Several times I had an impression, as I turned
a corner, that some one was just ahead of me, but I
was always disappointed. I gave up at last, and,
going down to the library, made myself as comfort-
able as I could, and waited for morning.
I heard Bella coming down the stairs, after seven
sometime; she came slowly, with flagging footsteps,
as if the slightest sound would send her scurrying
to the upper regions again. A little later I heard
her rattling the range in the basement kitchen, and
I went up-stairs and dressed.
I was too tired to have a theory about the night
visitor; in fact, from that time on, I tried to have no
theories of any kind. I was impressed with only
184


MY COMMISSION
one thing—that the enemy or enemies of the late
Allan Fleming evidently carried their antagonism
beyond the grave. As I put on my collar I won-
dered how long I could stay in this game, as I now
meant to, and avoid lying in state in Edith's little
drawing-room, with flowers around and a gentleman
in black gloves at the door.
I had my ankle strapped with adhesive that morn-
ing by my doctor and it gave me no more trouble.
But I caught him looking curiously at the blue
bruise on my forehead where Wardrop had struck
me with the chair, and at my nose, no longer swollen,
but mustard-yellow at the bridge.
"Been doing any boxing lately,” he said, as I laced
up my shoe.
“Not for two or three years.”
“New machine?”
"No."
He smiled at me quizzically from his desk.
"How does the other fellow look?” he inquired,
and to my haltingly invented explanation of my
battered appearance, he returned the same enigmat-
ical smile.
585


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
That day was uneventful. Margery and Edith
came to the house for about an hour and went back
to Fred's again.
A cousin of the dead man, an elderly bachelor
named Parker, appeared that morning and signified
his willingness to take charge of the house during
that day. The very hush of his voice and his black
tie prompted Edith to remove Margery from him as
soon as she could, and as the girl dreaded the curious
eyes of the crowd that filled the house, she was glad
to go.
It was Sunday, and I went to the office only long
enough to look over my mail. I dined in the middle
of the day at Fred's, and felt heavy and stupid all
afternoon as a result of thus reversing the habits of
the week. In the afternoon I had my first conversa-
tion with Fred and Edith, while Margery and the
boys talked quietly in the nursery. They had taken
a great fancy to her, and she was almost cheerful
when she was with them.
Fred had the morning papers around him on the
floor, and was in his usual Sunday argumentative
mood.
186


MY COMMISSION
"Well," he said, when the nursery door up-stairs
had closed, "what was it, Jack? Suicide ?"
"I don't know," I replied bluntly.
"What do you think?” he insisted.
“How can I tell ?” irritably. "The police say it
was suicide, and they ought to know."
“The Times-Post says it was murder, and that
they will prove it. And they claim the police have
been called off.”
I said nothing of Mr. Lightfoot, and his visit to
the office, but I made a mental note to see the Times-
Post people and learn, if I could, what they knew.
“I can not help thinking that he deserved very
nearly what he got,” Edith broke in, looking much
less vindictive than her words. “When one thinks
of the ruin he brought to poor Henry Butler, and
that Ellen has been practically an invalid ever since,
I can't be sorry for him.”
“What was the Butler story?” I asked. But Fred
did not know, and Edith was as vague as women
usually are in politics.
"Henry Butler was treasurer of the state, and
Mr. Fleming was his cashier. I don't know just
187


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
what the trouble was. But you remember that
Henry Butler killed himself after he got out of the
penitentiary, and Ellen has been in one hospital after
another. I would like to have her come here for
a few weeks, Fred,” she said appealingly. “She is
in some sanatorium or other now, and we might
cheer her a little.”
Fred groaned.
"Have her if you like, petty," he said resignedly,
"but I refuse to be cheerful unless I feel like it.
What about this young Wardrop, Jack? It looks
to me as if the Times-Post reporter had a line on
him."
“Hush,” Edith said softly. “He is Margery's
fiancé, and she might hear you.”
“How do you know?” Fred demanded. “Did she
tell you?”
“Look at her engagement ring," Edith threw
back triumphantly. “And it's a perfectly beautiful
solitaire, too."
I caught Fred's eye on me, and the very speed
with which he shifted his gaze made me uncomfort-
able. I made my escape as soon as I could, on the
188


MY COMMISSION
plea of going out to Bellwood, and in the hall up-
stairs I met Margery.
"I saw Bella to-day,” she said. “Mr. Knox, will
you tell me why you stayed up last night? What
happened in the house?”
"I—thought I heard some one in the library," I
stammered, "but I found no one."
"Is that all the truth or only part of it?" she
asked. “Why do men always evade issues with a
woman?” Luckily, woman-like, she did not wait
for a reply. She closed the nursery door and stood
with her hand on the knob, looking down.
"I wonder what you believe about all this," she
said. "Do you think my father-killed himself?
You were there; you know. If some one would only
tell me everything!”
It seemed to me it was her right to know. The
boys were romping noisily in the nursery. Down-
stairs Fred and Edith were having their Sun-
day afternoon discussion of what in the world had
become of the money from Fred's latest book. Mar-
gery and I sat down on the stairs, and, as well as I
could remember the details, I told her what had
189


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
i
happened at the White Cat. She heard me through
quietly.
"And so the police have given up the case !" she
said despairingly. “And if they had not, Harry
would have been arrested. Is there nothing I can
do? Do I have to sit back with my hands folded ?”
“The police have not exactly given up the case,”
I told her, “but there is such a thing, of course, as
stirring up a lot of dust and then running to cover
like blazes before it settles. By the time the public
has wiped it out of its eyes and sneezed it out of its
nose and coughed it out of its larynx, the dust has
settled in a heavy layer, clues are obliterated, and
the public lifts its skirts and chooses another direc-
tion. The ‘no thoroughfare' sign is up."
She sat there for fifteen minutes, interrupted by
occasional noisy excursions from the nursery, which
resulted in her acquiring by degrees a lapful of
broken wheels, three-legged horses and a live water
beetle which the boys had found under the kitchen
sink and imprisoned in a glass topped box, where,
to its bewilderment, they were assiduously offering
it dead and mangled flies. But our last five minutes
190


MY COMMISSION
were undisturbed, and the girl brought out with an
effort the request she had tried to make all day.
"Whoever killed my father-and it was murder,
Mr. Knox-whoever did it is going free to save a
scandal. All my-friends”-she smiled bitterly-
“are afraid of the same thing. But I can not sit
quiet and think nothing can be done. I must know,
and you are the only one who seems willing to try to
find out.”
So it was, that, when I left the house a half hour
later, I was committed. I had been commissioned
by the girl I loved for it had come to that—to clear
her lover of her father's murder, and so give him
back to her—not in so many words, but I was to
follow up the crime, and the rest followed. And I
was morally certain of two things—first, that her
lover was not worthy of her, and second, and more
to the point, that innocent or guilty, he was indi-
rectly implicated in the crime.
I had promised her also to see Miss Letitia that
day if I could, and I turned over the events of the
preceding night as I walked toward the station, but
I made nothing of them. One thing occurred to me,
was
191


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
however. Bella had told Margery that I had been
up all night. Could Bella—? But I dismissed the
thought as absurd-Bella, who had scuttled to bed
in a panic of fright, would never have dared the
lower floor alone, and Bella, given all the courage in
the world, could never have moved with the swift-
ness and light certainty of my midnight prowler. It
had not been Bella.
But after all I did not go to Bellwood. I met
Hunter on my way to the station, and he turned
around and walked with me.
“So you've lain down on the case!” I said, when
we had gone a few steps without speaking.
He grumbled something unintelligible and prob-
ably unrepeatable.
"Of course,” I persisted, "being a simple and un-
complicated case of suicide, there was nothing in it
anyhow. If it had been a murder, under peculiar
circumstances,”
He stopped and gripped my arm.
“For ten cents,” he said gravely, “I would tell the
chief and a few others what I think of them. And
then I'd go out and get full.”
192


MY COMMISSION
"Not on ten cents !"
"I'm going out of the business," he stormed.
“I'm going to drive a garbage wagon: it's cleaner
than this job. Suicide! I never saw a cleaner case
of—” He stopped suddenly. “Do you know Bur-
ton—of the Times-Post?”
“No: I've heard of him.”
"Well, he's your man. They're dead against the
ring, and Burton's been given the case. He's as
sharp as a steel trap. You two get together.”
He paused at a corner. “Good-by,” he said de-
jectedly. "I'm off to hunt some boys that have been
stealing milk bottles. That's about my size, these
days.” He turned around, however, before he had
gone many steps and came back.
"Wardrop has been missing since yesterday after-
noon," he said. “That is, he thinks he's missing.
We've got him all right.”
I gave up my Bellwood visit for the time, and tak-
ing a car down-town, I went to the Times-Post
office. The Monday morning edition was already
under way, as far as the staff was concerned, and
from the waiting-room I could see three or four
193


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
men, with their hats on, most of them rattling type-
writers. Burton came in in a moment, a red-haired
young fellow, with a short thick nose and a muggy
skin. He was rather stocky in build, and the pug-
nacity of his features did not hide the shrewdness of
his eyes.
I introduced myself, and at my name his perfunc-
tory manner changed.
"Knox!” he said. “I called you last night over
the phone.”
"Can't we talk in a more private place?" I asked,
trying to raise my voice above the confusion of the
next room. In reply he took me into a tiny office,
containing a desk and two chairs, and separated by
an eight-foot partition from the other room.
“This is the best we have,” he explained cheer-
fully. “Newspapers are agents of publicity, not
privacy-if you don't care what you say.”
I liked Burton. There was something genuine
about him; after Wardrop's kid-glove finish, he was
a relief.
"Hunter, of the detective bureau, sent me here,"
I proceeded, "about the Fleming case.”
194


MY COMMISSION
He took out his note-book. “You are the fourth
to-day,” he said. “Hunter himself, Lightfoot from
Plattsburg, and McFeely here in town. Well, Mr.
Knox, are you willing now to put yourself on rec-
ord that Fleming committed suicide ?”
"No," I said firmly. “It is my belief that he was
murdered.”
“And that the secretary fellow, what's his name?
-Wardrop ?-that he killed him?"
“Possibly.”
In reply Burton fumbled in his pocket and
brought up a pasteboard box, filled with jeweler's
cotton. Underneath was a small object, which he
passed to me with care.
“I got it from the coroner's physician, who per-
formed the autopsy," he said casually. “You will
notice that it is a thirty-two, and that the revolver
they took from Wardrop was a thirty-eight. Ques-
tion, where's the other gun?"
I gave him back the bullet, and he rolled it around
on the palm of his liand.
"Little thing, isn't it?" he said. “We think we're
lords of creation, until we see a quarter-inch bi-
195


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
chloride tablet, or a bit of lead like this. Look here."
He dived into his pocket again and drew out a roll
of ordinary brown paper. When he opened it a bit
of white chalk fell on the desk.
“Look at that,” he said dramatically. "Kill an
army with it, and they'd never know what struck
them. Cyanide of potassium-and the druggist
that sold it ought to be choked.”
"Where did it come from?” I asked curiously.
Burton smiled his cheerful smile.
"It's a beautiful case, all around," he said, as he
got his hat. “I haven't had any Sunday dinner yet,
and it's five o'clock. Oh—the cyanide? Clarkson,
the cashier of the bank Fleming ruined, took a bite
off that corner right there, this morning.”
“Clarkson!” I exclaimed. "How is he ?”!
“God only knows," said Burton gravely, from
which I took it Clarkson was dead.
196


CHAPTER XIII
SIZZLING METAL
URTON listened while he ate, and his cheerful
comments were welcome enough after the
depression of the last few days. I told him, after
some hesitation, the whole thing, beginning with
the Maitland pearls and ending with my drop down
the dumb-waiter. I knew I was absolutely safe
in doing so: there is no person to whom I would
rather tell a secret than a newspaper man. He
will go out of his way to keep it: he will lock it
in the depths of his bosom, and keep it until seventy
times seven. Also, you may threaten the rack or
offer a larger salary, the seal does not come off his
lips until the word is given. If then he makes a
scarehead of it, and gets in three columns of space
and as many photographs, it is his just reward.
So—I told Burton everything, and he ate enough
beefsteak for two men, and missed not a word I said.
“The money Wardrop had in the grip-that's
197


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
easy enough explained,” he said. “Fleming used
the Borough Bank' to deposit state funds in. He
must have known it was rotten: he and Clarkson
were as thick as thieves. According to a time-hon-
ored custom in our land of the brave and home of
the free, a state treasurer who is crooked can, in
such a case, draw on such a bank without security,
on his personal note, which is usually worth its value
by the pound as old paper.”
"And Fleming did that?"
"He did. Then things got bad at the Borough
Bank. Fleming had had to divide with Schwartz
and the Lord only knows who all, but it was Flem-
ing who had to put in the money to avert a crash-
the word crash being synonymous with scandal in
this case. He scrapes together a paltry hundred thou-
sand, which Wardrop gets at the capital, and brings
on. Wardrop is robbed, or says he is: the bank
collapses and Clarkson, driven to the wall, kills him-
self, just after Fleming is murdered. What does
that sound like?”
"Like Clarkson!” I exclaimed. “And Clarkson
knew Fleming was hiding at the White Cat!”
198


SIZZLING METAL
“Now, then, take the other theory," he said, push-
ing aside his cup. “Wardrop goes in to Fleming
with a story that he has been robbed : Fleming gets
crazy and attacks him. All that is in the morning
-Friday. Now, then-Wardrop goes back there
that night. Within twenty minutes after he enters
the club he rushes out, and when Hunter follows
him, he says he is looking for a doctor, to get co-
caine for a gentleman up-stairs. He is white and
trembling. They go back together, and find you
there, and Fleming dead. Wardrop tells two
stories: first he says Fleming committed suicide just
before he left. Then he changes it and says he was
dead when he arrived there. He produces the
weapon with which Fleming is supposed to have
killed himself, and which, by the way, Miss Flem-
ing identified yesterday as her father's. But there
are two discrepancies. Wardrop practically ad-
mitted that he had taken that revolver from Flem-
ing, not that night, but the morning before, during
the quarrel.”
"And the other discrepancy?"
“The bullet. Nobody ever fired a thirty-two bullet
199


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
out of a thirty-eight caliber revolver-unless he was
trying to shoot a double-compound curve. Now,
then, who does it look like?"
"Like Wardrop,” I confessed. “By Jove, they
didn't both do it.”
“And he didn't do it himself for two good rea-
sons: he had no revolver that night, and there were
no powder marks."
"And the eleven twenty-two, and Miss Maitland's
disappearance?"
He looked at me with his quizzical smile.
"I'll have to have another steak, if I'm to settle
that,” he said. “I can only solve one murder on
one steak. But disappearances are my specialty;
perhaps, if I have a piece of pie and some cheese—”
But I got him away at last, and we walked to-
gether down the street.
"I can't quite see the old lady in it,” he confessed.
“She hadn't any grudge against Fleming, had she?
Wouldn't be likely to forget herself temporarily and
kill him?"
“Good Lord !” I said. “Why, she's sixty-five, and
as timid and gentle a little old lady as ever lived.”
200


SIZZLING METAL
“Curls ?” he asked, turning his bright blue eyes
on me.
“Yes," I admitted,
"Wouldn't be likely to have eloped with the min-
ister, or advertised for a husband, or anything like
that?"
“You would have to know her to understand," I
said resignedly. “But she didn't do any of those
things, and she didn't run off to join a theatrical
troupe. Burton, who do you think was in the Flem-
ing house last night ?".
"Lightfoot,” he said succinctly.
He stopped under a street lamp and looked at his
watch.
"I believe I'll run over to the capital to-night,"
he said. “While I'm gone—I'll be back to-morrow
night or the next morning—I wish you would do
two things. Find Rosie O'Grady, or whatever her
name is, and locate Carter. That's probably not his
name, but it will answer for a while. Then get your
friend Hunter to keep him in sight for a while, until
I come back anyhow. I'm beginning to enjoy this;
it's more fun than a picture puzzle. We're going
201


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
to make the police department look like a kinder-
garten playing jackstraws.”
"And the second thing I am to do?”
"Go to Bellwood and find out a few things. It's
all well enough to say the old lady was a meek and
timid person, but if you want to know her peculiari-
ties, go to her neighbors. When people leave the
beaten path, the neighbors always know it before
the families.”
He stopped before a drug-store.
"I'll have to pack for my little jaunt,” he said,
and purchased a tooth-brush, which proved to be the
extent of his preparations. We separated at the
station, Burton to take his red hair and his tooth-
brush to Plattsburg, I to take a taxicab, and armed
with a page torn from the classified directory to in-
quire at as many of the twelve Anderson's drug-
stores as might be necessary to locate Delia's gen-
tleman friend, "the clerk," through him Delia, and
through Delia, the mysterious Carter, “who was not
really a butler.”
It occurred to me somewhat tardily, that I knew
nothing of Delia but her given name. A telephone
eco
202


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
He walked around and surveyed my expense ac-
count, at the driver's elbow. Then he hit the meter
a smart slap, but the figures did not change.
“Nineteen dollars!” he repeated dazed. “Nineteen
dollars and look here,” he called to his driver, who
had brought the cab close, “it's only thirty cents
here. Your clock's ten cents fast.”
"But how—"I began.
“You back up to nineteen dollars and thirty
cents,” he persisted, ignoring me. “If you'll back up
to twelve dollars, I'll pay it. That's all I've got."
Then he turned on me irritably. “Good heavens,
man,” he exclaimed, “do you mean to tell me you've
been to eight drug-stores this Sunday evening and
spent nineteen dollars and thirty cents, and haven't
got a drink yet?"
“Do you think I'm after a drink?" I asked him.
"Now look here, Davidson, I rather think you know
what I am after. If you don't, it doesn't matter.
But since you are coming along anyhow, pay your
man off and come with me. I don't like to be fol-
lowed.”
He agreed without hesitation, borrowed eight dol-
204


SIZZLING METAL
lars from me to augment his twelve and crawled in
with me.
“The next address on the list is the right one,” he
said, as the man waited for directions. “I did the
same round yesterday, but not being a plutocrat, I
used the street-cars and my legs. And because you're
a decent fellow and don't have to be chloroformed
to have an idea injected, I'm going to tell you some-
thing. There were eleven roundsmen as well as the
sergeant who heard me read the note I found at the
Fleming house that night. You may have counted
them through the window. A dozen plain-clothes
men read it before morning. When the news of
Mr. Fleming's mur- death came out, I thought this
fellow Carter might know something, and I trailed
Delia through this Mamie Brennan. When I got
there I found Tom Brannigan and four other detect-
ives sitting in the parlor, and Miss Delia, in a blue silk
waist, making eyes at every mother's son of them.”
I laughed in spite of my disappointment. David-
son leaned forward and closed the window at the
driver's back. Then he squared around and faced
men
me.
205


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“Understand me, Mr. Knox," he said, "Mr. Flem-
ing killed himself. You and I are agreed on that.
Even if you aren't just convinced of it I'm telling
you, and—better let it drop, sir.” Under his quiet
manner I felt a threat: it served to rouse me.
"I'll let it drop when I'm through with it," I as-
serted, and got out my list of addresses.
“You'll let it drop because it's too hot to hold,” he
retorted, with the suspicion of a smile. "If you are
determined to know about Carter, I can tell you
everything that is necessary.”
The chauffeur stopped his engine with an exas-
perated jerk and settled down in his seat, every line
of his back bristling with irritation.
"I prefer learning from Carter himself.”
He leaned back in his seat and produced an apple
from the pocket of his coat.
"You'll have to travel some to do it, son," he said.
“Carter left for parts unknown last night, taking
with him enough money to keep him in comfort for
some little time."
“Until all this blows over,” I said bitterly.
“The trip was for the benefit of his health. He has
206


SIZZLING METAL
been suffering and is still suffering, from a curious
lapse of memory.” Davidson smiled at me engag-
ingly. “He has entirely forgotten everything that oc-
curred from the time he entered Mr. Fleming's em-
ployment, until that gentleman left home. I doubt
if he will ever recover.”
With Carter gone, his retreat covered by the
police, supplied with funds from some problematical
source, further search for him was worse than use-
less. In fact, Davidson strongly intimated that it
might be dangerous and would be certainly unpleas-
ant. I yielded ungraciously and ordered the cab to
take me home. But on the way I cursed my folly for
not having followed this obvious clue earlier, and I
wondered what this thing could be that Carter knew,
that was at least surmised by various headquarters
men, and yet was so carefully hidden from the world
at large.
The party newspapers had come out that day with
a signed statement from Mr. Fleming's physician in
Plattsburg that he had been in ill health and inclined
to melancholia for some time. The air was thick
with rumors of differences with his party: the dust
207


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
cloud covered everything; pretty soon it would set-
tie and hide the tracks of those who had hurried to
cover under its protection.
Davidson left me at a corner down-town. He
turned to give me a parting admonition.
"There's an old axiom in the mills around here,
'never sit down on a piece of metal until you spit on
it.' If it sizzles, don't sit.” He grinned. “Your best
position just now, young man, is standing, with your
hands over your head. Confidentially, there ain't
anything within expectorating distance just now that
ain't pretty well het up."
He left me with that, and I did not see him again
until the night at the White Cat, when he helped put
me through the transom. Recently, however, I have
met him several times. He invariably mentions the
eight dollars and his intention of repaying it. Un-
fortunately, the desire and the ability have not yet
happened to coincide.
I took the evening train to Bellwood, and got
there shortly after eight, in the midst of the Sunday
evening calm, and the calm of a place like Bellwood
208


SIZZLING METAL
is the peace of death without the hope of resurrec-
tion.
I walked slowly up the main street, which was
lined with residences; the town relegated its few
shops to less desirable neighborhoods. My first in-
tention had been to see the Episcopal minister, but
the rectory was dark, and a burst of organ music
from the church near reminded me again of the Sun-
day evening services.
Promiscuous inquiry was not advisable. So far,
Miss Jane's disappearance was known to very few,
and Hunter had advised caution. I wandered up the
street and turned at random to the right; a few
doors ahead a newish red brick building proclaimed
itself the post-office, and gave the only sign of life
in the neighborhood. It occurred to me that here
inside was the one individual who, theoretically at
least, in a small place always knows the idiosyncra-
sies of its people.
The door was partly open, for the spring night
was sultry. The postmaster proved to be a one-
armed veteran of the Civil War, and he was sorting
209


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
rapidly the contents of a mail-bag, emptied on the
counter.
“No delivery to-night,” he said shortly. “Sunday
delivery, two to three.”
"I suppose, then, I couldn't get a dollar's worth
of stamps," I regretted.
He looked up over his glasses.
“We don't sell stamps on Sunday nights,” he ex-
plained, more politely. “But if you're in a hurry
for them,”
"I am,” I lied. And after he had got them out,
counting them with a wrinkled finger, and tearing
them off the sheet with the deliberation of age, I
opened a general conversation.
“I suppose you do a good bit of business here?"
I asked. “It seems like a thriving place.”
"Not so bad; big mail here sometimes. First of
the quarter, when bills are coming round, we have a
rush, and holidays and Easter we've got to hire an
express wagon.”
It was when I asked him about his empty sleeve,
however, and he had told me that he lost his arm at
Chancellorsville, that we became really friendly.
210


SIZZLING METAL
When he said he had been a corporal in General
Maitland's command, my path was one of ease.
"The Maitland ladies! I should say I do," he
said warmly. “I've been fighting with Letitia Mait-
land as long as I can remember. That woman will
scrap with the angel Gabriel at the resurrection, if
he wakes her up before she's had her sleep out."
“Miss Jane is not that sort, is she?"
"Miss Jane? She's an angel-she is that. She
could have been married a dozen times when she
was a girl, but Letitia wouldn't have it. I was after
her myself, forty-five years ago. This was the Mait-
land farm in those days, and my father kept a coun-
try store down where the railroad station is now.”
"I suppose from that the Maitland ladies are
wealthy."
“Wealthy! They don't know what they're worth
—not that it matters a mite to Jane Maitland. She
hasn't called her soul her own for so long that I
guess the good Lord won't hold her responsible
for it.”
All of which was entertaining, but it was much
like an old-fashioned see-saw; it kept going, but it
211


SIZZLING METAL
He promised gravely.
"I was tellin' the missus the other day,” he said,
"that there is an old walled-up cellar under the Mait-
land place. Have you looked there?" He was disap-
pointed when I said we had, and I was about to go
when he called me back.
"Miss Jane didn't get her mail on Thursday, but
on Friday that niece of hers came for it-two let-
ters, one from the city and one from New York."
"Thanks," I returned, and went out into the quiet
street.
I walked past the Maitland place, but the windows
were dark and the house closed. Haphazard in-
quiry being out of the question, I took the ten o'clock
train back to the city. I had learned little enough,
and that little I was at a loss to know how to use.
For why had Margery gone for Miss Jane's mail
after the little lady was missing? And why did Miss
Jane carry on a clandestine correspondence ?
The family had retired when I got home except
Fred, who called from his study to ask for a rhyme
for mosque. I could not think of one and suggested
that he change the word to "temple.” At two o'clock
213


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
he banged on my door in a temper, said he had
changed the rhythm to fit, and now couldn't find a
rhyme for "temple!" I suggested "dimple” drowsily,
whereat he kicked the panel of the door and went to
bed.
214


CHAPTER XIV
A WALK IN THE PARK
THE funeral occurred on Monday. It was an
ostentatious affair, with a long list of honorary
pall-bearers, a picked corps of city firemen in uni-
form ranged around the casket, and enough money
wasted in floral pillows and sheaves of wheat tied
with purple ribbon, to have given all the hungry
children in town a square meal.
Amid all this state Margery moved, stricken and
isolated. She went to the cemetery with Edith, Miss
Letitia having sent a message that, having never
broken her neck to see the man living, she wasn't
going to do it to see him dead. The music was very
fine, and the eulogy spoke of this patriot who had
served his country so long and so well. "Following
the flag," Fred commented under his breath, “as
long as there was an appropriation attached to it.”
And when it was all over, we went back to Fred's
until the Fleming house could be put into order
215


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
again. It was the best place in the world for Mar-
gery, for, with the children demanding her attention
and applause every minute, she had no time to be
blue.
Mrs. Butler arrived that day, which made Fred
suspicious that Edith's plan to bring her, far ante-
dated his consent. But she was there when we got
home from the funeral, and after one glimpse at her
thin face and hollow eyes, I begged Edith to keep her
away from Margery, for that day at least.
Fortunately, Mrs. Butler was exhausted by her
journey, and retired to her room almost immedi-
ately. I watched her slender figure go up the stairs,
and, with her black trailing gown and colorless
face, she was an embodiment of all that is lonely
and helpless. Fred closed the door behind her and
stood looking at Edith and me.
“I tell you, honey,” he declared, "that brought into
a cheerful home is sufficient cause for divorce. Isn't
'it, Jack ?"
"She is ill,” Edith maintained valiantly. “She
is my cousin, too, which gives her some claim on
me, and my guest, which gives her more.”
IS
caus
216


A WALK IN THE PARK
"Lady-love," Fred said solemnly, "if you do not
give me the key to the cellarette, I shall have a chill.
And let me beg this of you: if I ever get tired of this
life, and shuffle off my mortality in a lumber yard,
or a political club, and you go around like that, I
shall haunt you. I swear it."
"Shuffle off," I dared him. “I will see that Edith
is cheerful and happy.”
From somewhere above, there came a sudden
crash, followed by the announcement, made by a
scared housemaid, that Mrs. Butler had fainted.
Fred sniffed as Edith scurried up-stairs.
"Hipped,” he said shortly. “For two cents I'd
go up and give her a good whiff of ammonia--not
this aromatic stuff, but the genuine article. That
would make her sit up and take notice. Upon my
word, I can't think what possessed Edith; these
spineless, soft-spoken, timid women are leeches on
one's sympathies.”
But Mrs. Butler was really ill, and Margery in-
sisted on looking after her. It was an odd coin-
cidence, the widow of one state treasurer and the
orphaned daughter of his successor; both men had
217


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
vere
died violent deaths, in each case when a boiling un-
der the political lid had threatened to blow it off.
The boys were allowed to have their dinner with
the family that evening, in honor of Mrs. Butler's
arrival, and it was a riotous meal. Margery got
back a little of her color. As I sat across from her,
and watched her expressions change, from sadness
to resignation, and even gradually to amusement at
the boys' antics, I wondered just how much she
knew, or suspected, that she refused to tell me.
I remembered a woman—a client of mine—who
said that whenever she sat near a railroad track and
watched an engine thundering toward her, she tor-
tured herself by picturing a child on the track, and
wondering whether, under such circumstances, she
would risk her life to save the child.
I felt a good bit that way; I was firmly embarked
on the case now, and I tortured myself with one
idea. Suppose I should find Wardrop guilty, and
I should find extenuating circumstances--what
would I do? Publish the truth, see him hanged
or imprisoned, and break Margery's heart? Or
keep back the truth, let her marry him, and try to
218


A WALK IN THE PARK
forget that I had had a hand in the whole wretched
business?
After all, I decided to try to stop my imaginary
train. Prove Wardrop innocent, I reasoned with
myself, get to the bottom of this thing, and then-
it would be man and man. A fair field and no favor.
I suppose my proper attitude, romantically taken,
was to consider Margery's engagement ring an in-
dissoluble barrier. But this was not romance; I
was fighting for my life happiness, and as to the
ring—well, I am of the opinion that if a man really
loves a woman, and thinks he can make her happy,
he will tell her so if she is strung with engagement
rings to the ends of her fingers. Dangerous doc-
trine? Well, this is not propaganda.
Tuesday found us all more normal. Mrs. Butler
had slept some, and very commendably allowed her-
self to be tea'd and toasted in bed. The boys were
started to kindergarten, after ten minutes of fren-
zied cap-hunting. Margery went with me along the
hall when I started for the office.
"You have not learned anything?" she asked
cautiously, glancing back to Edith, at the telephone
219


A WALK IN THE PARK
lose his own soul?' as the psalmist says. I like this
ten-to-four business.”
When we had gone into the inner office, and shut
out Miss Grant and the whooping-cough, he was
serious instantly.
"Well,” he said, sitting on the radiator and dan-
gling his foot, “I guess we've got Wardrop for
“Theft?" I inquired.
"Well, larceny, if you prefer legal terms. I found
where he sold the pearls—in Plattsburg, to a whole-
sale jeweler named, suggestively, Cashdollar.”
"Then,” I said conclusively, "if he took the pearls
and sold them, as sure as I sit here, he took the
money out of that Russia leather bag.”
Burton swung his foot rhythmically against the
pipes.
"I'm not so darned sure of it,” he said calmly.
If he had any reason, he refused to give it. I told
him, in my turn, of Carter's escape, aided by the po-
lice, and he smiled. "For a suicide it's causing a lot
of excitement,” he remarked. When I told him the
221


A WALK IN THE PARK
what she didn't wear. Lord, I wish I had that as-
signment! In forty-eight hours she will have been
seen in a hundred different places, and one of them
will be right. It will be a question of selection-
that is, if she is alive.”
In spite of his airy tone, I knew he was serious,
and I felt he was right. The publicity part of it I
left to him, and I sent a special delivery that morn-
ing to Bellwood, asking Miss Letitia to say noth-
ing and to refer reporters to me. I had already been
besieged with them, since my connection with the
Fleming case, and a few more made no difference.
Burton attended to the matter thoroughly. The
one o'clock edition of an afternoon paper contained
a short and vivid scarlet account of Miss Jane's dis-
appearance. The evening editions were full, and
while vague as to the manner of her leaving, were
minute as regarded her personal appearance and
characteristics.
To escape the threatened inundation of the morn-
ing paper men, I left the office early, and at four
o'clock Margery and I stepped from a hill car into
the park. She had been wearing a short, crepe-
sona
rance
a
223


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
edged veil, but once away from the gaze of the
curious, she took it off. I was glad to see she had
lost the air of detachment she had worn for the last
three days.
"Hold your shoulders well back," I directed,
when we had found an isolated path, "and take long
breaths. Try breathing in while I count ten.”
She was very tractable—unusually so, I imagined,
for her. We swung along together for almost a
half-hour, hardly talking. I was content merely to
be with her, and the sheer joy of the exercise after
her enforced confinement kept her silent. When
she began to flag a little I found a bench, and we sat
down together. The bench had been lately painted,
and although it seemed dry enough, I spread my
handkerchief for her to sit on. Whereupon she
called me “Sir Walter,” and at the familiar jest we
laughed like a pair of children.
I had made the stipulation that, for this one time,
her father's death and her other troubles should be
taboo, and we adhered to it religiously. A robin
in the path was industriously digging out a worm;
he had tackled a long one, and it was all he could
224


A WALK IN THE PARK
manage. He took the available end in his beak
and hopped back with the expression of one who
sets his jaws and determines that this which should
be, is to be. The worm stretched into a pinkish and
attenuated line, but it neither broke nor gave.
"Horrid thing !" Margery said. "That is a dis-
graceful, heartless exhibition.”
“The robin is a parent," I reminded her. "It is
precisely the same as Fred, who twists, jerks, dis-
torts and attenuates the English language in his
magazine work, in order to have bread and ice-
cream and jelly cake for his two blooming young-
sters.”
She had taken off her gloves, and sat with her
hands loosely clasped in her lap.
"I wish some one depended on me,” she said pen-
sively. “It's a terrible thing to feel that it doesn't
matter to any one—not vitally, 'anyhow—whether
one is around or not. To have all my responsibili-
ties taken away at once, and just to drift around,
like this—oh, it's dreadful.”
"You were going to be good," I reminded her.
"I didn't promise to be cheerful,” she returned.
225


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“Besides my father, there was only one person in the
world who cared about me, and I don't know where
she is. Dear Aunt Jane!"
The sunlight caught the ring on her engagement
finger, and she flushed suddenly as she saw me look-
ing at it. We sat there for a while saying nothing;
the long May afternoon was coming to a close. The
paths began to fill with long lines of hurrying home-
seekers, their day in office or factory at an end.
Margery got up at last and buttoned her coat.
Then impulsively she held out her hand to me.
"You have been more than kind to me,” she said
hurriedly. "You have taken me into your home-
and helped me through these dreadful days—and
I will never forget it; never."
"I am not virtuous," I replied, looking down at
her. “I couldn't help it. You walked into my life
when you came to my office-was it only last week?
The evil days are coming, I suppose, but just now
nothing matters at all, save that you are you, and
I am I.”
She dropped her veil quickly, and we went back
to the car. The prosaic world wrapped us around
226


A WALK IN THE PARK
again; there was a heavy odor of restaurant coffee
in the air; people bumped and jolted past us. To
me they were only shadows; the real world was a
girl in black and myself, and the girl wore a be-
trothal ring which was not mine.
227


CHAPTER XV
FIND THE WOMAN
M RS. BUTLER came down to dinner that
V night. She was more cheerful than I had
yet seen her, and she had changed her mournful
garments to something a trifle less depressing. With
her masses of fair hair dressed high, and her face
slightly animated, I realized what I had not done be-
fore—that she was the wreck of a very beautiful
woman. Frail as she was, almost shrinkingly timid
in her manner, there were times when she drew up
her tall figure in something like its former stateli-
ness. She had beautiful eyebrows, nearly black and
perfectly penciled ; they were almost incongruous in
her colorless face.
She was very weak; she used a cane when she
walked, and after dinner, in the library, she was
content to sit impassive, detached, propped with
cushions, while Margery read to the boys in their
night nursery and Edith embroidered.
228


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
Edith had risen and come over to her. But Mrs.
Butler was not fainting.
"I'm glad, glad," she said. Then she grew weak
and semi-hysterical, laughing and crying in the
same breath. When she had been helped up-stairs,
for in her weakened state it had been more of a
shock than we realized, Margery came down and
we tried to forget the scene we had just gone
through.
“I am glad Fred was not here," Edith con-
fided to me. “Ellen is a lovely woman, and as kind
as she is mild; but in one of her-attacks, she is a
little bit trying."
It was strange to contrast the way in which the
two women took their similar bereavements. Mar-
gery represented the best type of normal American
womanhood; Ellen Butler the neurasthenic; she
demanded everything by her very helplessness and
timidity. She was a constant drain on Edith's ready
sympathy. That night, while I closed the house-
Fred had not come in-I advised her to let Mrs.
Butler go back to her sanatorium.
At twelve-thirty I was still down-stairs; Fred was
230


FIND THE WOMAN
out, and I waited for him, being curious to know
the verdict on the play. The bell rang a few min-
utes before one, and I went to the door; some one
in the vestibule was tapping the foor impatiently
with his foot. When I opened the door, I was sur-
prised to find that the late visitor was Wardrop.
He came in quietly, and I had a chance to see him
well, under the hall light; the change three days had
made was shocking. His eyes were sunk deep in
his head, his reddened lids and twitching mouth
told of little sleep, of nerves ready to snap. He was
untidy, too, and a three days' beard hardly improved
him.
"I'm glad it's you," he said, by way of greeting.
"I was afraid you'd have gone to bed.”
"It's the top of the evening yet," I replied per-
functorily, as I led the way into the library. Once
inside, Wardrop closed the door and looked around
him like an animal at bay.
"I came here," he said nervously, looking at the
windows, “because I had an idea you'd keep your
head. Mine's gone; I'm either crazy, or I'm on my
way there.”
· 231


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
never
“Sit down, man," I pushed a chair to him. “You
don't look as if you have been in bed for a couple of
nights.”
He went to each of the windows and examined
the closed shutters before he answered me.
"I haven't. You wouldn't go to bed either, if you
thought you would never wake up."
“Nonsense.”
"Well, it's true enough. Knox, there are people
following me wherever I go; they eat where I eat;
if I doze in my chair they come into my dreams!"
He stopped there, then he laughed a little wildly.
"That last isn't sane, but it's true. There's a man
across the street now, eating an apple under a lamp-
post.”
“Suppose you are under surveillance," I said.
"It's annoying to have a detective following you
around, but it's hardly serious. The police say now
that Mr. Fleming killed himself; that was your own
contention."
He leaned forward in his chair and, resting his
hands on his knees, gazed at me somberly
“Suppose I say he didn't kill himself?” slowly.
232


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“But I tell you, Knox, he had no weapon. No one
came out of that room as I went in and yet he was
only swaying forward, as if I had shot him one mo-
ment, and caught him as he fell, the next. I was
dazed; I don't remember yet what I told the police.”
The expression of fear in his eyes was terrible to
see. A gust of wind shook the shutters, and he
jumped almost out of his chair.
“You will have to be careful,” I said. “There
have been cases where men confessed murders they
never committed, driven by Heaven knows what
method of undermining their mental resistance.
You expose your imagination to 'third degree' tor-
ture of your own invention, and in two days more
you will be able to add full details of the crime.”
"I knew you would think me crazy," he put in, a
little less somberly, “but just try it once: sit in a
room by yourself all day and all night, with detec-
tives watching you; sit there and puzzle over a mur-
der of a man you are suspected of killing ; you know
you felt like killing him, and you have a revolver,
and he is shot. Wouldn't you begin to think as I
do ?”
234


FIND THE WOMAN
"Wardrop," I asked, trying to fix his wavering
eyes with mine, “do you own a thirty-two caliber re-
volver?”
“Yes."
I was startled beyond any necessity, under the
circumstances. Many people have thirty-twos.
“That is, I had,” he corrected himself. “It was
in the leather bag that was stolen at Bellwood.”
"I can relieve your mind of one thing,” I said.
"If your revolver was stolen with the leather bag,
you had nothing to do with the murder. Fleming
was shot with a thirty-two." He looked first incred-
ulous, then relieved.
“Now, then," I pursued, “suppose Mr. Fleming
had an enemy, a relentless one who would stoop to
anything to compass his ruin. In his position he
would be likely to have enemies. This person, let us
say, knows what you carry in your grip, and steals
it, taking away the funds that would have helped
to keep the lid on Fleming's mismanagement for a
time. In the grip is your revolver ; would you know
it again?”
He nodded affirmatively.
235


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“This person—this enemy finds the revolver, pock-
ets it and at the first opportunity, having ruined
Fleming, proceeds humanely to put him out of his
suffering. Is it far-fetched ?”
"There were a dozen-a hundred-people who
would have been glad to ruin him." His gaze wa-
vered again suddenly. It was evident that I had
renewed an old train of thought.
"For instance?” I suggested, but he was on guard
again.
“You forget one thing, Knox,” he said, after a
moment. “There was nobody else who could have
shot him: the room was empty.'
“Nonsense,” I replied. “Don't forget the ware-
house."
“The warehouse!"
“There is no doubt in my mind that he was shot
from there. He was facing the open window, sit-
ting directly under the light, writing. A shot fired
through a broken pane of one of the warehouse
windows would meet every requirement of the case;
the empty room, the absence of powder marks-
even the fact that no shot was heard. There was a
236


FIND THE WOMAN
report, of course, but the noise in the club-house
and the thunder-storm outside covered it.”
"By George!” he exclaimed. “The warehouse,
of course. I never thought of it.” He was relieved,
for some reason.
“It's a question now of how many people knew
he was at the club, and which of them hated him
enough to kill him."
"Clarkson knew it," Wardrop said, "but he
didn't do it.”
“Why?”
"Because it was he who came to the door of the
room while the detective and you and I were inside,
and called Fleming.”
I pulled out my pocket-book and took out the
scrap of paper which Margery had found pinned to
the pillow in her father's bedroom. “Do you know
what that means?" I asked, watching Wardrop's
face. “That was found in Mr. Fleming's room two
days after he left home. A similar scrap was found
in Miss Jane Maitland's room when she disappeared.
When Fleming was murdered, he was writing a let-
ter; he said: 'The figures have followed me here.'
237


CHAPTER XVI
ELEVEN TWENTY-TWO AGAIN
D URTON'S idea of exploiting Miss Jane's dis-
appearance began to bear fruit the next morn-
ing. I went to the office early, anxious to get my
more pressing business out of the way, to have the
afternoon with Burton to inspect the warehouse. At
nine o'clock came a call from the morgue.
"Small woman, well dressed, gray hair?” I re-
peated. “I think I'll go up and see. Where was the
body found?”
“In the river at Monica Station," was the reply.
“There is a scar diagonally across the cheek to the
corner of the mouth."
"A fresh injury?"
"No, an old scar."
With a breath of relief I said it was not the per-
son we were seeking and tried to get down to work
again. But Burton's prophecy had been right. Miss
240


ELEVEN TWENTY-TWO AGAIN
Jane had been seen in a hundred different places:
one perhaps was right; which one?
A reporter for the Eagle had been working on the
case all night: he came in for a more detailed de-
scription of the missing woman, and he had a theory,
to fit which he was quite ready to cut and trim the
facts.
"It's Rowe,” he said confidently. "You can see
his hand in it right through. I was put on the Ben-
son kidnapping case, you remember, the boy who was
kept for three months in a deserted lumber camp in
the mountains? Well, sir, every person in the Ben-
son house swore that youngster was in bed at mid-
night, when the house was closed for the night.
Every door and window bolted in the morning, and
the boy gone. When we found Rowe-after the
mother had put on mourning—and found the kid,
ten pounds heavier than he had been before he was
abducted, and strutting around like a turkey cock,
Rowe told us that he and the boy took in the theater
that night, and were there for the first act. How did
he do it? He offered to take the boy to the show
if he would pretend to go to bed, and then slide
10
241


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
down a porch pillar and meet him. The boy didn't
want to go home when we found him.”
“There can't be any mistake about the time in this
case," I commented. "I saw her myself after eleven,
and said good night.”
The Eagle man consulted his note-book. “Oh,
yes,” he asked; "did she have a diagonal cut across
her cheek?"
"No," I said for the second time.
My next visitor was a cabman. On the night in
question he had taken a small and a very nervous old
woman to the Omega ferry. She appeared excited
and almost forgot to pay him. She carried a small
satchel, and wore a black veil. What did she look
like? She had gray hair, and she seemed to have a
scar on her face that drew the corner of her mouth.
At ten o'clock I telephoned Burton: "For Heav-
en's sake,” I said, “if anybody has lost a little old
lady in a black dress, wearing a black veil, carrying
a satchel, and with a scar diagonally across her
cheek from her eye to her mouth, I can tell them all
about her, and where she is now."
“That's funny," he said. “We're stirring up the
242


ELEVEN TWENTY-TWO AGAIN
pool and bringing up things we didn't expect. The
police have been looking for that woman quietly for
a week: she's the widow of a coal baron, and her
son-in-law's under suspicion of making away with
omai
her.”
"Well, he didn't," I affirmed. “She committed
suicide from an Omega ferry boat and she's at the
morgue this morning.”
“Bully," he returned. “Keep on; you'll get lots
of clues, and remember one will be right.”
It was not until noon, however, that anything
concrete developed. In the two hours between, I
had interviewed seven more people. I had followed
the depressing last hours of the coal baron's widow,
and jumped with her, mentally, into the black river
that night. I had learned of a small fairish-haired
girl who had tried to buy cyanide of potassium
at three drug-stores on the same street, and of a tall,
light woman who had taken a room for three days
at a hotel and was apparently demented.
At twelve, however, my reward came. Two men
walked in, almost at the same time: one was a mo-
torman, in his official clothes, brass buttons and
243


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
patches around the pockets. The other was a taxi-
cab driver. Both had the uncertain gait of men who
by occupation are unused to anything stationary
under them, and each eyed the other suspiciously.
The motorman claimed priority by a nose, so I
took him first into my private office. His story,
shorn of his own opinions at the time and later, was
as follows:
On the night in question, Thursday of the week
before, he took his car out of the barn for the eleven
o'clock run. Barney was his conductor. They went
from the barn, at Hays Street, down-town, and then
started out for Wynton. The controller blew out,
and two or three things went wrong: all told they
lost forty minutes. They got to Wynton at five
minutes after two; their time there was one-twenty-
five.
The car went to the bad again at Wynton, and he
and Barney tinkered with it until two-forty. They
got it in shape to go back to the barn, but that was
all. Just as they were ready to start, a passenger
got on, a woman, alone: a small woman with a
brown veil. She wore a black dress or a suit-he
was
244


ELEVEN TWENTY-TWO AGAIN
was vague about everything but the color, and he
noticed her especially because she was fidgety and
excited. Half a block farther a man boarded the
car, and sat across from the woman. Barney said
afterward that the man tried twice to speak to the
woman, but she looked away each time. No, he
hadn't heard what he said.
The man got out when the car went into the barn,
but the woman stayed on. He and Barney got an-
other car and took it out, and the woman went with
them. She made a complete round trip this time,
going out to Wynton and back to the end of the line
down-town. It was just daylight when she got off
at last, at First and Day Streets.
Asked if he had thought at the time that the
veiled woman was young or old, he said he had
thought she was probably middle-aged. Very
young or very old women would not put in the night
riding in a street-car. Yes, he had had men who
rode around a couple of times at night, mostly to
sober up before they went home. But he never saw
a woman do it before.
I took his name and address and thanked him.
245


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
oma
n-
The chauffeur came next, and his story was equally
pertinent.
On the night of the previous Thursday he had
been engaged to take a sick woman from a down-
town hotel to a house at Bellwood. The woman's
husband was with her, and they went slowly to
avoid jolting. It was after twelve when he drove
away from the house and started home. At a corner
- he did not know the names of the streets—a
woman hailed the cab and asked him if he belonged
in Bellwood or was going to the city. She had
missed the last train. When he told her he was go-
ing into town, she promptly engaged him, and
showed him where to wait for her, a narrow road
off the main street.
"I waited an hour,” he finished, “before she came;
I dropped to sleep or I would have gone without
her. About half-past one she came along, and a
gentleman with her. He put her in the cab, and I
took her to the city. When I saw in the paper that
a lady had disappeared from Bellwood that night, I
knew right off that it was my party.”
“Would you know the man again?"
246


ELEVEN TWENTY-TWO AGAIN
"I would know his voice, I expect, sir; I could
not see much: he wore a slouch hat and had a travel-
ing-bag of some kind.”
"What did he say to the woman?” I asked.
"He didn't say much. Before he closed the door,
he said, 'You have put me in a terrible position,' or
something like that. From the traveling-bag and
all, I thought perhaps it was an elopement, and the
lady had decided to throw him down."
"Was it a young woman or an old one,” I asked
again. This time the cabby's tone was assured.
"Young," he asserted, “slim and quick: dressed
in black, with a black veil. Soft voice. She got out
at Market Square, and I have an idea she took a
cross-town car there."
"I hardly think it was Miss Maitland,” I said.
"She was past sixty, and besides—I don't think she
went that way. Still it is worth following up. Is
that all?"
He fumbled in his pocket, and after a minute
brought up a small black pocket-book and held it out
to me. It was the small coin purse out of a leather
hand-bag.
247


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
"She dropped this in the cab, sir," he said. “I
took it home to the missus—not knowing what else
to do with it. It had no money in it-only that bit
of paper.”
I opened the purse and took out a small white
card, without engraving. On it was written in a
pencil the figures:
C 1122
248


CHAPTER XVII
HIS SECOND WIFE
W HEN the cabman had gone, I sat down and
tried to think things out. As I have said
many times in the course of this narrative, I lack
imagination: moreover, a long experience of wit-
nesses in court had taught me the unreliability of
average observation. The very fact that two men
swore to having taken solitary women away from
Bellwood that night, made me doubt if either one
had really seen the missing woman.
Of the two stories, the taxicab driver's was the
more probable, as far as Miss Jane was concerned.
Knowing her child-like nature, her timidity, her
shrinking and shamefaced fear of the dark, it was
almost incredible that she would walk the three miles
to Wynton, voluntarily, and from there lose herself
in the city. Besides, such an explanation would not
fit the blood-stains, or the fact that she had gone, as
far as we could find out, in her night-clothes.
249


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
Still—she had left the village that night, either by
cab or on foot. If the driver had been correct in his
time, however, the taxicab was almost eliminated; he
said the woman got into the cab at one-thirty. It
was between one-thirty and one-forty-five when
Margery heard the footsteps in the attic.
I think for the first time it came to me, that day,
that there was at least a possibility that Miss Jane
had not been attacked, robbed or injured: that she
had left home voluntarily, under stress of great
excitement. But if she had, why? The mystery
was hardly less for being stripped of its grue-
some details. Nothing in my knowledge of the
missing woman gave me a clue. I had a vague hope
that, if she had gone voluntarily, she would see the
newspapers and let us know where she was.
To my list of exhibits I added the purse with its
inclosure. The secret drawer of my desk now con-
tained, besides the purse, the slip marked eleven
twenty-two that had been pinned to Fleming's pil-
low; the similar scrap found over Miss Jane's man-
tel; the pearl I had found on the floor of the closet,
and the cyanide, which, as well as the bullet, Burton
250


HIS SECOND WIFE
he said as he gave it back, “from a book, chapter and
verse in the Bible to a prescription for rheumatism
at a drug-store. As to the lady in the cab, I think
perhaps you are right,” he said, examining the in-
terior of the bag, where Wardrop's name in ink
told its story. “Of course, we have only Wardrop's
word that he brought the bag to Bellwood; if we
grant that we can grant the rest—that he was
robbed, that the thief emptied the bag, and either
took it or shipped it to Boston.”
“How on earth did you get it?”
"It was a coincidence. There have been a shrewd
lot of baggage thieves in two or three eastern cities
lately, mostly Boston. The method, the police say,
was something like this—one of them, the chief of
the gang, would get a wagon, dress like an express-
man and go round the depots looking at baggage.
He would make a mental note of the numbers, go
away and forge a check to match, and secure the
pieces he had taken a fancy to. Then he merely
drove around to headquarters, and the trunk was ri-
fled. The police got on, raided the place, and found,
among others, our Russia leather bag. It was
SS-
253


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
shipped back, empty, to the address inside, at Bell-
wood.”
“At Bellwood? Then how—".
"It came while I was lunching with Miss Letitia,"
he said easily. “We're very chummy—thick as
thieves. What I want to know is”-disregarding
my astonishment—"where is the hundred thou-
sand?”
“Find the woman."
"Did you ever hear of Anderson, the nerve spe-
cialist ?” he asked, without apparent relevancy.
"I have been thinking of him," I answered. "If
we could get Wardrop there, on some plausible ex-
cuse, it would take Anderson about ten minutes
with his instruments and experimental psychology,
to know everything Wardrop ever forgot.”
"I'll go on one condition,” Burton said, preparing
to leave. “I'll promise to get Wardrop and have
him on the spot at two o'clock to-morrow, if you'll
promise me one thing: if Anderson fixes me with his
eye, and I begin to look dotty and tell about my past
life, I want you to take me by the flap of my ear
and lead me gently home.”
254


HIS SECOND WIFE
"I promise,” I said, and Burton left.
The recovery of the bag was only one of the many
astonishing things that happened that day and the
following night. Hawes, who knew little of what
it all meant, and disapproved a great deal, ended that
afternoon by locking himself, blinking furiously,
in his private office. To Hawes any practice that
was not lucrative was bad practice. About four
o'clock, when I had shut myself away from the
crowd in the outer office, and was letting Miss Grant
take their depositions as to when and where they had
seen a little old lady, probably demented, wandering
around the streets, a woman came who refused to
be turned away.
"Young woman,” I heard her say, speaking to
Miss Grant, "he may have important business, but
I guess mine's just a little more so."
I interfered then, and let her come in. She was a
woman of medium height, quietly dressed, and fair-
ly handsome. My first impression was favorable;
she moved with a certain dignity, and she was not
laced, crimped or made up. I am more sophisticated
now; The Lady Who Tells Me Things says that the
Woman
255


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
respectable women nowadays, out-rouge, out-crimp
and out-lace the unrespectable.
However, the illusion was gone the moment she
began to speak. Her voice was heavy, throaty, ex-
pressionless. She threw it like a weapon: I am per-
fectly honest in saying that for a moment the sur-
prise of her voice outweighed the remarkable thing
she was saying.
"I am Mrs. Allan Fleming,” she said, with a cer-
tain husky defiance.
"I beg your pardon,” I said, after a minute. "You
mean—the Allan Fleming who has just died ?"
She nodded. I could see she was unable, just
then, to speak. She had nerved herself to the inter-
view, but it was evident that there was a real grief.
She fumbled for a black-bordered handkerchief, and
her throat worked convulsively. I saw now that she
was in mourning.
“Do you mean," I asked incredulously, "that Mr.
Fleming married a second time?”
"He married me three years ago, in Plattsburg.
.I came from there last night. I—couldn't leave be-
fore."
256


HIS SECOND WIFE
“Does Miss Fleming know about this second
marriage?”
"No. Nobody knew about it. I have had to put
up with a great deal, Mr. Knox. It's a hard thing
for a woman to know that people are talking about
her, and all the time she's married as tight as ring
and book can do it.”
"I suppose,” I hazarded, "if that is the case, you
have come about the estate.”
"Estate!” Her tone was scornful. "I guess I'll
take what's coming to me, as far as that goes—and
it won't be much. No, I came to ask what they
mean by saying Allan Fleming killed himself.”
"Don't you think he did?”
"I know he did not,” she said tensely. "Not only
that: I know who did it. It was Schwartz—Henry
Schwartz.”
"Schwartz! But what on earth”
“You don't know Schwartz,” she said grimly. "I
was married to him for fifteen years. I took him
when he had a saloon in the Fifth Ward, at Platts-
burg. The next year he was alderman: I didn't ex-
pect in those days to see him riding around in an au-
257


HIS SECOND WIFE
idly. “I have letters from Mr. Fleming telling me
what to do in case he was shot down; I have papers
-canceled notes—that would put Schwartz in the
penitentiary—that is,” she said cunningly, “I did
have them. Mr. Fleming took them away."
“Aren't you afraid for yourself?" I asked.
“Yes, I'm afraid-afraid he'll get me back yet.
It would please him to see me crawl back on my
knees."
“But—he can not force you to go back to him."
“Yes, he can,” she shivered. From which I knew
she had told me only a part of her story.
After all she had nothing more to tell. Fleming
had been shot; Schwartz had been in the city about
the Borough Bank; he had threatened Fleming be-
fore, but a political peace had been patched;
Schwartz knew the White Cat. That was all.
Before she left she told me something I had not
known.
“I know a lot about inside politics,” she said, as
she got up. “I have seen the state divided up with
the roast at my table, and served around with the
dessert, and I can tell you something you don't
259


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
know about your White Cat. A back staircase leads
to one of the up-stairs rooms, and shuts off with a
locked door. It opens below, out a side entrance,
not supposed to be used. Only a few know of it.
Henry Butler was found dead at the foot of that
staircase."
“He shot himself, didn't he?"
“The police said so,” she replied, with her grim
smile. "There is such a thing as murdering a man
by driving him to suicide."
She wrote an address on a card and gave it to me.
“Just a minute," I said, as she was about to go.
"Have you ever heard Mr. Fleming speak of the
Misses Maitland ?”
“They were—his first wife's sisters. No, he
never talked of them, but I believe, just before he
left Plattsburg, he tried to borrow some money from
them.”
“And failed?”
"The oldest one telegraphed the refusal, collect,"
she said, smiling faintly.
"There is something else,” I said. “Did you ever
hear of the number eleven twenty-two?"
260


HIS SECOND WIFE
"No-or—why, yes,” she said. “It is the num-
ber of my house."
It seemed rather ridiculous, when she had gone,
and I sat down to think it over. It was anticlimax,
to say the least. If the mysterious number meant
only the address of this very ordinary woman, then
-it was probable her story of Schwartz was true
enough. But I could not reconcile myself to it, nor
could I imagine Schwartz, with his great bulk, skulk-
ing around pinning scraps of paper to pillows.
It would have been more like the fearlessness and
passion of the man to have shot Fleming down in
the state house corridor, or on the street, and to
have trusted to his influence to set him free. For
the first time it occurred to me that there was some-
thing essentially feminine in the revenge of the fig-
ures that had haunted the dead man.
I wondered if Mrs. Fleming had told me all, or
only half the truth.
That night, at the most peaceful spot I had ever
known, Fred's home, occurred another inexplicable
affair, one that left us all with racked nerves and
listening, fearful ears.
261


EDITH'S COUSIN
If it is more than that it ceases to be poetry and be-
comes verse."
Edith yawned.
"I'm afraid I'm getting old,” she said, "I'm get-
ting the nap habit after dinner. Fred, run up, will
you, and see if Katie put blankets over the boys?".
Fred stuffed his poem in his pocket and went re-
signedly up-stairs. Edith yawned again, and pre-
pared to retire to the den for forty winks.
“If Ellen decides to come down-stairs,” she called
back over her shoulder, "please come and wake me.
She said she felt better and might come down.”
At the door she turned, behind Margery's back,
and made me a sweeping and comprehensive signal.
She finished it off with a double wink, Edith having
never been able to wink one eye alone, and crossing
the hall, closed the door of the den with an obtrusive
bang
Margery and I were alone. The girl looked at
me, smiled a little, and drew a long breath.
"It's queer about Edith,” I said; “I never before
knew her to get drowsy after dinner. If she were
not beyond suspicion, I would think it a deep-laid
263


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
scheme, and she and Fred sitting and holding hands
in a corner somewhere.”
"But why—a scheme?” She had folded her
hands in her lap, and the eternal ring sparkled ma-
lignantly.
"They might think I wanted to talk to you,” I
suggested.
“To me?”
“To you— The fact is, I do."
Perhaps I was morbid about the ring: it seemed
to me she lifted her hand and looked at it.
"It's drafty in here: don't you think so?" she
asked suddenly, looking back of her. Probably she
had not meant it, but I got up and closed the door
into the hall. When I came back I took the chair
next to her, and for a moment we said nothing. The
log threw out tiny red devil sparks, and the clock
chimed eight, very slowly.
"Harry Wardrop was here last night," I said,
poking down the log with my heel.
“Here?"
“Yes. I suppose I was wrong, but I did not say
you were here.”
264


EDITH'S COUSIN
She turned and looked at me closely, out of the
most beautiful eyes I ever saw.
"I'm not afraid to see him,” she said proudly,
"and he ought not to be afraid to see me."
"I want to tell you something before you see him.
Last night, before he came, I thought that—well,
that at least he knew something of—the things we
want to know."
“Yes?"
"In justice to him, and because I want to fight
fair, I tell you to-night that I don't believe he knows
anything about your father's death, and that I be-
lieve he was robbed that night at Bellwood.”
"What about the pearls he sold at Plattsburg ?”
she asked suddenly.
"I think when the proper time comes, he will tell
about that too, Margery." I did not notice my use
of her name until too late. If she heard, she failed
to resent it. “After all, if you love him, hardly any-
thing else matters, does it? How do we know
but that he was in trouble, and that Aunt Jane her-
self gave them to him?"
She looked at me with a little perplexity.
265


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
"You plead his cause very well,” she said. “Did
he ask you to speak to me?”
“I won't run a race with a man who is lame," I
said quietly. “Ethically, I ought to go away and
leave you to your dreams, but I am not going to do
it. If you love Wardrop as a woman ought to love
the man she marries, then marry him and I hope
you will be happy. If you don't-no, let me finish.
I have made up my mind to clear him if I can: to
bring him to you with a clear slate. Then, I know
it is audacious, but I am going to come, too, and-
I'm going to plead for myself then, unless you send
me away.”
She sat with her head bent, her color coming and
going nervously. Now she looked up at me with
what was the ghost of a smile.
"It sounds like a threat,” she said in a low voice.
“And you—I wonder if you always get what you
want?"
Then, of course, Fred came in, and fell over a
hassock looking for matches. Edith opened the
door of the den and called him to her irritably, but
Fred declined to leave the wood fire, and settled
266


EDITH'S COUSIN
down in his easy chair. After a while Edith came
over and joined us, but she snubbed Fred the entire
evening, to his bewilderment. And when conversa-
tion lagged, during the evening that followed, I tried
to remember what I had said, and knew I had done
very badly. Only one thing cheered me: she had
not been angry, and she had understood. Blessed
be the woman that understands!
We broke up for the night about eleven. Mrs.
Butler had come down for a while, and had even
played a little, something of Tschaikovsky's, a sing-
ing, plaintive theme that brought sadness back into
Margery's face, and made me think, for no reason,
of a wet country road and a plodding, back-burdened
peasant.
Fred and I sat in the library for a while after the
rest had gone, and I told him a little of what I had
learned that afternoon.
"A second wife!” he said, "and a primitive type,
eh? Well, did she shoot him, or did Schwartz?
The Lady or the Democratic Tiger?”
"The Tiger," I said firmly.
"The Lady," Fred, with equal assurance.
267


EDITH'S COUSIN
sery wing, so they would be near the children. In
the square upper hall there was a big reading table,
a lamp, and some comfortable chairs. Here, when
they were alone, Fred read aloud the evening paper,
or his latest short story, and Edith's sewing basket
showed how she put in what women miscall their
leisure.
I did not go to sleep at once: naturally the rather
vital step I had taken in the library insisted on be-
ing considered and almost regretted. I tried read-
ing myself to sleep, and when that failed, I tried
the soothing combination of a cigarette and a book.
That worked like a charm; the last thing I remem-
ber is of holding the cigarette in a death grip as I
lay with my pillows propped back of me, my head to
the light, and a delightful languor creeping over me.
I was wakened by the pungent acrid smell of
smoke, and I sat up and blinked my eyes open. The
side of the bed was sending up a steady column of
gray smoke, and there was a smart crackle of fire
under me somewhere. I jumped out of bed and saw
the trouble instantly. My cigarette had dropped
from my hand, still lighted, and as is the way with
269


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
cigarettes, determined to burn to the end. In so
doing it had fired my bed, the rug under the bed
and pretty nearly the man on the bed.
It took some sharp work to get it all out without
rousing the house. Then I stood amid the wreckage
and looked ruefully at Edith's pretty room. I
could see, mentally, the spot of water on the library
ceiling the next morning, and I could hear Fred's
strictures on the heedlessness and indifference to
property of bachelors in general and me in particu-
lar.
Three pitchers of water on the bed had made it
an impossible couch. I put on a dressing-gown, and,
with a blanket over my arm, I went out to hunt some
sort of place to sleep. I decided on the davenport
in the hall just outside, and as quietly as I could, I
put a screen around it and settled down for the
night.
I was wakened by the touch of a hand on my face.
I started, I think, and the hand was jerked away—
I am not sure: I was still drowsy. I lay very quiet,
listening for footsteps, but none came. With the
feeling that there was some one behind the screen, I
270


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
his assistant, and the latter had a black eye. Then,
suddenly, I knew. The sickly odor was chloroform!
I had the light on in a moment, and was rapping
at Margery's door. It was locked, and I got no an-
swer. A pale light shone over the transom, but
everything was ominously quiet, beyond the door. I
went to Mrs. Butler's door, next; it was unlocked
and partly open. One glance at the empty bed and
the confusion of the place, and I rushed without
ceremony through the connecting door into Mar-
gery's room.
The atmosphere was reeking with chloroform.
The girl was in bed, apparently sleeping quietly.
One arm was thrown up over her head, and the
other lay relaxed on the white cover. A folded
towel had been laid across her face, and when I
jerked it away I saw she was breathing very slowly,
stertorously, with her eyes partly open and fixed.
I threw up all the windows, before I roused the
family, and as soon as Edith was in the room I
telephoned for the doctor. I hardly remember what
I did until he came: I know we tried to rouse Mar-
gery and failed, and I know that Fred went down-
SO01
272


EDITH'S COUSIN
stairs and said the silver was intact and the back
kitchen door open. And then the doctor came, and
I was put out in the hall, and for an eternity, I
walked up and down, eight steps one way, eight
steps back, unable to think, unable even to hope.
Not until the doctor came out to me, and said she
was better, and would I call a maid to make some
strong black coffee, did I come out of my stupor.
The chance of doing something, anything, made me
determine to make the coffee myself. They still
speak of that coffee at Fred's.
It was Edith who brought Mrs. Butler to my
mind. Fred had maintained that she had fled before
the intruders, and was probably in some closet or
corner of the upper floor. I am afraid our solicitude
was long in coming. It was almost an hour before
we organized a searching party to look for her. Fred
went up-stairs, and I took the lower floor.
It was I who found her, after all, lying full length
on the grass in the little square yard back of the
house. She was in a dead faint, and she was a much
more difficult patient than Margery.
We could get no story from either of them that
273


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
night. The two rooms had been ransacked, but ap-
parently nothing had been stolen. Fred vowed he
had locked and bolted the kitchen door, and that it
had been opened from within.
It was a strange experience, that night intrusion
into the house, without robbery as a motive. If
Margery knew or suspected the reason for the out-
rage, she refused to say. As for Mrs. Butler, to men-
tion the occurrence put her into hysteria. It was
Fred who put forth the most startling theory of the
lot.
“By George," he said the next morning when we
had failed to find tracks in the yard, and Edith
had reported every silver spoon in its place, “by
George, it wouldn't surprise me if the lady in the
grave clothes did it herself. There isn't anything
a hysterical woman won't do to rouse your interest
in her, if it begins to flag. How did any one get in
through that kitchen door, when it was locked in-
side and bolted ? I tell you, she opened it herself.”
I did not like to force Margery's confidence, but
I believed that the outrage was directly for the pur-
pose of searching her room, perhaps for papers that
274


EDITH'S COUSIN
had been her father's. Mrs. Butler came around
enough by morning, to tell a semi-connected story
in which she claimed that two men had come in
from a veranda roof, and tried to chloroform her.
That she had pretended to be asleep and had taken
the first opportunity, while they were in the other
room, to run down-stairs and into the yard. Edith
thought it likely enough, being a credulous person.
As it turned out, Edith's intuition was more relia-
ble than my skepticism,-or Fred's.
275


CHAPTER XIX
BACK TO BELLWOOD
NHE inability of Margery Fleming to tell who
I had chloroformed her, and Mrs. Butler's white
face and brooding eyes made a very respectable mys-
tery out of the affair. Only Fred, Edith and I came
down to breakfast that morning. Fred's expression
was half amused, half puzzled. Edith fluttered un-
easily over the coffee machine, her cheeks as red as
the bow of ribbon at her throat. I was preoccupied,
and, like Fred, I propped the morning paper in front
of me and proceeded to think in its shelter.
“Did you find anything, Fred ?" Edith asked. Fred
did not reply, so she repeated the question with some
emphasis.
"Eh—what?" Fred inquired, peering around the
corner of the paper.
“Did-you-find-any-clue?”
"Yes, dear—that is, no. Nothing to amount to
anything. Upon my soul, Jack, if I wrote the edito-
276


BACK TO BELLWOOD
rials of this paper, I'd say something." He subsided
into inarticulate growls behind the paper, and every-
thing was quiet. Then I heard a sniffle, distinctly. I
looked up. Edith was crying—pouring cream into
a coffee cup, and feeling blindly for the sugar, with
her pretty face twisted and her pretty eyes obscured.
In a second I was up, had crumpled the newspapers,
including Fred's, into a ball, and had lifted him
bodily out of his chair.
"When I am married,” I said fiercely, jerking him
around to Edith and pushing him into a chair beside
her, "if I ever read the paper at breakfast when my
wife is bursting for conversation, may I have some
good and faithful friend who will bring me back to a
sense of my duty." I drew a chair to Edith's other
side. “Now, let's talk," I said.
She wiped her eyes shamelessly with her table nap-
kin. “There isn't a soul in this house I can talk to,"
she wailed. “All kinds of awful things happening
—and we had to send for coffee this morning, Jack.
You must have used four pounds last night-and
nobody will tell me a thing. There's no use asking
Margery—she's sick at her stomach from the chloro-
277


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
last night and when I commiserated her she said,
dear me, the lamp's out and the coffee is cold !”
“Remarkable speech, under the circumstances,"
said Fred.
Edith rang the bell and seemed to be thinking.
"Perhaps we'd better make it four small rugs instead
of one large one,” she said.
"Not a rug until you have told me what Margery
said," firmly.
“Oh, that! Why, she said it really didn't matter
about the ring. She had never cared much about it
anyway."
“But that's only a matter of taste,” I protested,
somewhat disappointed. But Edith got up and
patted me on the top of my head.
“Silly,” she said. "If the right man came along
and gave her a rubber teething ring, she'd be crazy
about it for his sake.”
"Edith!” Fred said, shocked. But Edith had
gone.
She took me up-stairs before I left for the office
to measure for the Shirvan, Edith being a person
who believes in obtaining a thing while the desire for
280


BACK TO BELLWOOD
Som.
ne
it is in its first bloom. Across the hall Fred was
talking to Margery through the transom.
"Mustard leaves are mighty helpful,” he was say-
ing. "I always take 'em on shipboard. And cheer
up: land's in sight.”
I would have given much for Fred's ease of man-
ner when, a few minutes later, Edith having decided
on four Shirvans and a hall runner, she took me to
the door of Margery's room.
She was lying very still and pale in the center
of the white bed, and she tried bravely to smile at
us.
"I hope you are better," I said. “Don't let Edith
convince you that my coffee has poisoned you."
She said she was a little better, and that she didn't
know she had had any coffee. That was the extent
of the conversation. I, who have a local reputation
of a sort before a jury, I could not think of another
word to say. I stood there for a minute uneasily,
with Edith poking me with her finger to go inside
the door and speak and act like an intelligent human
being. But I only muttered something about a busy
day before me and fled. It was a singular thing, but
281


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
kill him, the likelihood was that Schwartz was at
least implicated.
If Wardrop knew that, why had he not denounced
him? Was I to believe that, after all the mystery,
the number eleven twenty-two was to resolve itself
into the number of a house? Would it be typical of
the Schwartz I knew to pin bits of paper to a man's
pillow? On the other hand, if he had reason to think
that Fleming had papers that would incriminate him,
it would be like Schwartz to hire some one to search
for them, and he would be equal to having Wardrop
robbed of the money he was taking to Fleming.
Granting that Schwartz had killed Fleming-
then who was the woman with Wardrop the night
he was robbed? Why did he take the pearls and
sell them? How did the number eleven twenty-two
come into Aunt Jane's possession? How did the
leather bag get to Boston? Who had chloroformed
Margery? Who had been using the Fleming house
while it was closed? Most important of all now-
where was Aunt Jane?
The house at Bellwood looked almost cheerful in
284


BACK TO BELLWOOD
the May sunshine, as I went up the walk. Nothing
ever changed the straight folds of the old-fashioned
lace curtains; no dog ever tracked the porch, or
buried sacrilegious and odorous bones on the level
lawn; the birds were nesting in the trees, well above
the reach of Robert's ladder, but they were de-
corous, well-behaved birds, whose prim courting
never partook of the exuberance of their neighbors',
bursting their little throats in an elm above the baby
perambulator in the next yard.
When Bella had let me in, and I stood once more
in the straight hall, with the green rep chairs and
the Japanese umbrella stand, involuntarily I listened
for the tap of Miss Jane's small feet on the stairs.
Instead came Bella's heavy tread, and a request
from Miss Letitia that I go up-stairs.
The old lady was sitting by a window of her bed-
room, in a chintz upholstered chair. She did not
appear to be feeble; the only change I noticed was
a relaxation in the severe tidiness of her dress. I
guessed that Miss Jane's exquisite neatness had
been responsible for the white ruchings, the soft
285


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
caps, and the spotless shoulder shawls which had
made lovely their latter years.
“You've taken your own time about coming,
haven't you?” Miss Letitia asked sourly. "If it
hadn't been for that cousin of yours you sent here,
Burton, I'd have been driven to sending for Amelia
Miles, and when I send for Amelia Miles for com-
pany, I'm in a bad way.”
"I have had a great deal to attend to," I said as
loud as I could. "I came some days ago to tell you
Mr. Fleming was dead; after that we had to bury
him, and close the house. It's been a very sad—”.
“Did he leave anything?" she interrupted. "It
isn't sad at all unless he didn't leave anything."
"He left very little. The house, perhaps, and I
regret to have to tell you that a woman came to me
yesterday who claims to be a second wife.”
She took off her glasses, wiped them and put them
on again.
“Then,” she said with a snap, "there's one other
woman in the world as big a fool as my sister
Martha was. I didn't know there were two of 'em.
What do you hear about Jane?"
286


BACK TO BELLWOOD
“The last time I was here," I shouted, "you
thought she was dead; have you changed your
mind?”
"The last time you were here,” she said with dig-
nity, "I thought a good many things that were
wrong. I thought I had lost some of the pearls, but
I hadn't.”
"What!" I exclaimed incredulously. She put her
hands on the arms of her chair, and leaning forward,
shot the words at me viciously.
"I—said—I-had-lost-some-of-the-pearls
-well—I-haven't.”
She didn't expect me to believe her, any more
than she believed it herself. But why on earth she
had changed her attitude about the pearls was be-
yond me. I merely nodded comprehensively.
"Very well," I said, "I'm glad to know it was a
mistake. Now, the next thing is to find Miss Jane.”
“We have found her,” she said tartly. “That's
what I sent for you about.”
"Found her!" This time I did get out of my
chair. “What on earth do you mean, Miss Letitia ?
Why, we've been scouring the country for her.”
m
287


BACK TO BELLWOOD
“What do you think of it?" she asked, looking at
me over her glasses. "If she was fool enough to be
carried away by a man that spells cemetery with
one m, she deserves what she's got. And I won't
pay five thousand, anyhow, it's entirely too much.”
"It doesn't sound quite genuine to me,” I said,
reading it over. "I should certainly not leave any
money until we had tried to find who left this.”
"I'm not so sure but what she'd better stay a while
anyhow," Miss Letitia pursued. "Now that we
know she's living, I ain't so particular when she
gets back. She's been notionate lately anyhow.”
I had been reading the note again. “There's one
thing here that makes me doubt the whole story,” I
said. “What's this about her reading the papers ?
I thought her reading glasses were found in the
library.”
Miss Letitia snatched the paper from me and read
it again.
“Reading the paper!" she sniffed. “You've got
more sense than I've been giving you credit for,
Knox. Her glasses are here this minute; without
them she can't see to scratch her nose."
289


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
It was a disappointment to me, although the ex-
planation was simple enough. It was surprising
that we had not had more attempts to play on our
fears. But the really important thing bearing on
Miss Jane's departure was when Heppie came into
the room, with her apron turned up like a pocket
and her dust cap pushed down over her eyes like the
slouch hat of a bowery tough.
When she got to the middle of the room she
stopped and abruptly dropped the corners of her
apron. There rolled out a heterogeneous collec-
tion of things: a white muslin garment which
proved to be a nightgown, with long sleeves and
high collar; a half-dozen hair curlers—I knew
those; Edith had been seen, in midnight emer-
gencies, with her hair twisted around just such in-
struments of torture—a shoe buttoner; a railroad
map, and one new and unworn black kid glove.
Miss Letitia changed her glasses deliberately, and
took a comprehensive survey of the things on the
floor.
"Where did you get 'em?” she said, fixing Hep-
pie with an awful eye.
290


BACK TO BELLWOOD
she now. What was eleven twenty-two? And why
did Miss Letitia deny that she had lost the pearls,
when I already knew that nine of the ten had been
sold, who had bought them, and approximately how
much he had paid ?
293


ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS
“That's strange. And you didn't hear me when
I fell down the dumb-waiter shaft?"
"Holy saints !” she ejaculated. "Was that where
you fell!”
She stopped herself abruptly.
“You heard that?" I asked gently, “and yet you
slept all night? Bella, there's a hitch somewhere.
You didn't sleep that night, at all; you told Miss
Fleming I had been up all night. How did you
know that? If I didn't know that you couldn't
| as fast as the-person in the
house that night, I would say you had been in Mr.
Fleming's desk, looking for—let us say, postage
stamps. May I have another cup of coffee?”.
She turned a sickly yellow white, and gathered up
my cup and saucer with trembling hands. When the
coffee finally came back it was brought grumblingly
by old Heppie. “She says she's turned her ankle,” she
sniffed. “Turned it on a lathe, like a table leg, I
should say, from the shape of it.” Before I left the
dining-room I put another line in my note-book:
“What does Bella know?”
I got back to the city somewhat late for my ap-
295


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
pointment with Burton. I found Wardrop waiting
for me at the office, and if I had been astonished at
the change in him two nights before, I was shocked
now. He seemed to have shrunk in his clothes; his
eyeballs were bloodshot from drinking, and his fair
hair had dropped, neglected, over his forehead. He
was sitting in his familiar attitude, his elbows on his
knees, his chin on his palms.
He looked at me with dull eyes, when I went in.
I did not see Burton at first. He was sitting on my
desk, holding a flat can in his hand, and digging
out with a wooden toothpick one sardine after an-
other and bolting them whole.
“Your good health,” he said, poising one in the
air, where it threatened oily tears over the carpet.
“As an appetite-quencher and thirst-producer, give
me the festive sardine. How lovely it would be if
we could eat 'em without smelling 'em!”
"Don't you do anything but eat?” Wardrop asked,
without enthusiasm.
Burton eyed him reproachfully. "Is that what I
get for doing without lunch, in order to prove to
you that you are not crazy?” He appealed to me.
296


ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS
e
a
“He says he's crazy_lost his think works. Now, I
ask you, Knox, when I go to the trouble to find out
for him that he's got as many convolutions as any-
body, and that they've only got a little convolved, is
it fair, I ask you, for him to reproach me about my
food ?"
"I didn't know you knew each other," I put in,
while Burton took another sardine.
"He says we do," Wardrop said wearily; "says
he used to knock me around at college."
Burton winked at me solemnly.
“He doesn't remember me, but he will,” he said.
"It's his nerves that are gone, and we'll have him
restrung with new wires, like an old piano, in a
week.”
Wardrop had that after-debauch suspicion of all
men, but I think he grasped at me as a depend-
ability.
"He wants me to go to a doctor," he said. "I'm
not sick; it's only—” He was trying to light a
cigarette, but the match dropped from his shaking
fingers.
“Better see one, Wardrop," I urged and I felt
297


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
mean enough about doing it. “You need something
to brace you up."
Burton gave him a very small drink, for he could
scarcely stand, and we went down in the elevator.
My contempt for the victim between us was as great
as my contempt for myself. That Wardrop was in
a bad position there could be no doubt; there might
be more men than Fleming who had known about
the money in the leather bag, and who thought he
had taken it and probably killed Fleming to hide the
theft.
It seemed incredible that an innocent man would
collapse as he had done, and yet—at this minute I
can name a dozen men who, under the club of public
disapproval, have fallen into paresis, insanity and
the grave. We are all indifferent to our fellow-men
until they are against us.
Burton knew the specialist very well—in fact,
there seemed to be few people he did not know.
And considering the way he had got hold of Miss
Letitia and Wardrop, it was not surprising. He
had evidently arranged with the doctor, for the wait-
ing-room was empty and we were after hours.
298


ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS
The doctor was a large man, his size emphasized
by the clothes he wore, very light in color, and un-
professional in cut. He was sandy-haired, inclined
to be bald, and with shrewd, light blue eyes behind
his glasses. Not particularly impressive, except as
to size, on first acquaintance; a good fellow, with a
brisk voice, and an amazingly light tread.
He began by sending Wardrop into a sort of ex-
amining room in the rear of the suite somewhere, to
take off his coat and collar. When he had gone the
doctor looked at a slip of paper in his hand.
"I think I've got it all from Mr. Burton,” he said.
“Of course, Mr. Knox, this is a little out of my line;
a nerve specialist has as much business with psycho-
therapy as a piano tuner has with musical technique.
But the idea is Munsterburg's, and I've had some
good results. I'll give him a short physical examin-
ation, and when I ring the bell one of you may come
in. Are you a newspaper man, Mr. Knox?”
"An attorney," I said briefly.
“Press man, lawyer, or doctor,” Burton broke in,
"we all fatten on the other fellow's troubles, don't
we?"
299


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
"We don't fatten very much,” I corrected. “We
live."
The doctor blinked behind his glasses.
"I never saw a lawyer yet who would admit he
was making money,” he said. “Look at the way a
doctor grinds for a pittance! He's just as capable
as the lawyer; he works a damn sight harder, and
he makes a tenth the income. A man will pay his
lawyer ten thousand dollars for keeping him out of
jail for six months, and he'll kick like a steer if his
doctor charges him a hundred to keep him out of
hell for life! Which of you will come in? I'm afraid
two would distract him.”
“I guess it is Knox's butt-in," Burton conceded,
"but I get it later, Doctor; you promised.”
The physical examination was very brief; when
I was called in Wardrop was standing at the win-
dow looking down into the street below, and the
doctor was writing at his desk. Behind Wardrop's
back he gave me the slip he had written.
“Test is for association of ideas. Watch length
of time between word I give and his reply. I often
300


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
do the same with mine. And when I give you a
word, speak as quickly as possible the association it
brings to your mind. For instance, I say 'noise.'
Your first association might be 'street,' 'band,'
'drum,' almost anything associated with the word.
As quickly as possible, please.”
The first few words went simply enough. War-
drop's replies came almost instantly. To “light” he
replied “lamp;" "touch" brought the response
“hand;" "eat” brought "Burton,” and both the doc-
tor and I smiled. Wardrop was intensely serious.
Then,
"Taxicab," said the doctor, and, after an almost
imperceptible pause, "road" came the association.
All at once I began to see the possibilities.
"Desk.” “Pen.”
“Pipe.” “Smoke." .
“Head.” After a perceptible pause the answer
came uncertainly. "Hair.” But the association of
ideas would not be denied, for in answer to the next
word, which was "ice,” he gave "blood,” evidently
following up the previous word "head.”
I found myself gripping the arms of my chair.
Cat
asso
ca
302


ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS
The dial on the doctor's clock-like instrument was
measuring the interval; I could see that now. The
doctor took a record of every word and its response.
Wardrop's eyes were shifting nervously.
“Hot." "Cold.”
“White.” “Black.”
“Whisky.” “Glass," all in less than a second.
“Pearls." A little hesitation, then "box.”
“Taxicab” again. “Night."
“Silly.” “Wise.”
"Shot.” After a pause, “revolver."
"Night.” “Dark.”
“Blood." "Head.”
"Water.” “Drink.”
“Traveling-bag.” He brought out the word
“train” after an evident struggle, but in answer to
the next word “lost," instead of the obvious
"found,” he said "woman." He had not had suf-
ficient mental agility to get away from the associa-
tion with "bag.” The “woman" belonged there.
“Murder” brought "dead,” but “shot,” following
immediately after, brought "staircase.”
I think Wardrop was on his guard by that time,
303


THE WINDOW, AT THE WHITE CAT
suco
USC
came
but the conscious effort to hide truths that might
be 'damaging made the intervals longer, from that
time on. Already I felt sure that Allan Fleming's
widow had been right; he had been shot from the
locked back staircase. But by whom?
“Blow” brought "chair.”
“Gone." "Bag" came like a flash.
In quick succession, without pause, came the
words—
“Bank.” “Note.”
“Door.” “Bolt.”
"Money.” “Letters,” without any apparent con-
nection.
Wardrop was going to the bad. When, to the
next word, “staircase," again, he said “scar,” his
demoralization was almost complete. As for me,
the scene in Wardrop's mind was already in mine
Schwartz, with the scar across his ugly forehead,
and the bolted door to the staircase open!
On again with the test.
"Flour,” after perhaps two seconds, from the pre-
ceding shock, brought “bread.”
“Trees.” “Leaves."
304


ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS
"Night.” “Dark.”
“Gate.” He stopped here so long, I thought he
was not going to answer at all. Presently, with
an effort, he said "wood,” but as before, the asso-
ciation idea came out in the next word; for “electric
light" he gave "letters."
“Attic" brought "trunks” at once.
“Closet.” After perhaps a second and a half
came “dust,” showing what closet was in his mind,
and immediately after, to "match” he gave “pen."
A long list of words followed which told nothing,
to my mind, although the doctor's eyes were snap-
ping with excitement. Then “traveling-bag” again,
and instead of his previous association, “woman,"
this time he gave "yellow.” But, to the next word,
“house,” he gave “guest.” It came to me that in
his mental processes I was the guest, the substitute
bag was in his mind, as being in my possession.
Quick as a flash the doctor followed up
“Guest.” And Wardrop fell. "Letters," he said.
To a great many words, as I said before, I could
attach no significance. Here and there I got a ray.
“Elderly" brought "black.”
305


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
"Warehouse.” “Yard,” for no apparent reason.
“Eleven twenty-two.” “C” was the answer,
given without a second's hesitation.
Eleven twenty-two C! He gave no evidence of
having noticed any peculiarity in what he said; I
doubt if he realized his answer. To me, he gave the
impression of repeating something he had appar-
ently forgotten. As if a number and its association
had been subconscious, and brought to the surface
by the psychologist; as if, for instance, some one
prompted a—b, and the corollary “e” came without
summoning.
The psychologist took the small mouthpiece from
his lips, and motioned Wardrop to do the same.
The test was over.
"I don't call that bad condition, Mr.-Wardrop,"
the doctor said. “You are nervous, and you need
a little more care in your habits. You want to exer-
cise, regularly, and you will have to cut out every-
thing in the way of stimulants for a while. Oh,
yes, a couple of drinks a day at first, then one a day,
and then none. And you are to stop worrying-
when trouble comes round, and stares at you, don't
306


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
course I am not a detective. Things looked black
for Mr. Wardrop, in view of the money lost, the
quarrel with Fleming that morning at the White
Cat, and the circumstance of his leaving the club
and hunting a doctor outside, instead of raising
the alarm. Still, no two men ever act alike in
an emergency. Psychology is as exact a science as
mathematics; it gets information from the source,
and a man can not lie in four-fifths of a second.
'Head,' you noticed, brought 'hair' in a second and
three quarters, and the next word, 'ice,' brought
the 'blood' that he had held back before. That
doesn't show anything. He tried to avoid whať
was horrible to him.
"But I gave him 'traveling-bag;' after a pause, he
responded with 'train.' The next word, 'lost,'
showed what was in his mind; instead of 'found,'
he said 'woman. Now then, I believe he was either
robbed by a woman, or he thinks he was. After
all, we can only get what he believes himself.
“ 'Money_letters,'—another slip
“'Shot-staircase'—where are the stairs at the
White Cat?"
308


ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS
“I learned yesterday of a back staircase that leads
into one of the upper rooms,” I said. “It opens on
a side entrance, and is used in emergency."
The doctor smiled confidently.
"We look there for our criminal,” he said.
"Nothing hides from the chronoscope. Now then,
'staircase-scar.' Isn't that significant? The asso-
ciation is clear: a scar that is vivid enough, disfigur-
ing enough, to be the first thing that enters his
mind.”
"Schwartz!" Burton said with awe. "Doctor,
what on earth does ‘eleven twenty-two C' mean?".
“I think that is up to you, gentlemen. The C
belongs there, without doubt. Briefly, looking over
these slips, I make it something like this: Wardrop
thinks a woman took his traveling-bag. Three
times he gave the word 'letters,' in response to
'gate,' 'guest' and 'money.' Did he have a guest at
the time all this happened at Bellwood ?”
"I was a guest in the house at the time.”
"Did you offer him money for letters?"
"No."
"Did he give you any letters to keep for him ?”
309


CHAPTER XXI
A PROSCENIUM BOX
I WAS very late for dinner. Fred and Edith
were getting ready for a concert, and the two
semi-invalids were playing pinochle in Fred's den.
Neither one looked much the worse for her previous
night's experience; Mrs. Butler was always pale,
and Margery had been so since her father's death.
The game was over when I went into the den.
As usual, Mrs. Butler left the room almost immedi-
ately, and went to the piano across the hall. I had
grown to accept her avoidance of me without ques-
tion. Fred said it was because my overwhelming
vitality oppressed her. Personally, I think it was
because the neurasthenic type of woman is repulsive
to me. No doubt Mrs. Butler deserved sympathy,
but her open demand for it found me cold and un-
responsive.
I told Margery briefly of my visit to Bellwood
that morning. She was as puzzled as I was about
312


A PROSCENIUM BOX
the things Heppie had found in the chest. She was
relieved, too.
"I am just as sure, now, that she is living, as I
was a week ago that she was dead," she said, leaning
back in her big chair. “But what terrible thing
took her away? Unless”
“Unless what?”
“She had loaned my father a great deal of
money,” Margery said, with heightened color. “She
had not dared to tell Aunt Letitia, and the money
was to be returned before she found it out. Then
-things went wrong with the Borough Bank, and
the money did not come back. If you know Aunt
Jane, and how afraid she is of Aunt Letitia, you
will understand how terrible it was for her. I have
wondered if she would go-to Plattsburg, and try
to find father there.”
"The Eagle man is working on that theory
now," I replied. “Margery, if there was a letter
'C' added to eleven twenty-two, would you know
what it meant?”
She shook her head in the negative.
"Will you answer two more questions?" I asked.
313


A PROSCENIUM BOX
isn't any motive that I can see, and why would she
chloroform you?”
"I don't know,” Margery shuddered. “Sometimes
-I wonder-do you think she is altogether sane?”
The music ended with the crash of a minor chord.
Fred and Edith came down the stairs, and the
next moment we were all together, and the chance
for a quiet conversation was gone. At the door
Fred turned and came back.
“Watch the house,” he said. “And by the way,
I guess"-he lowered his voice-“the lady's story
was probably straight. I looked around again this
afternoon, and there are fresh scratches on the porch
roof under her window. It looks queer, doesn't it?"
It was a relief to know that, after all, Mrs. Butler
was an enemy and a dangerous person to nobody
but herself. She retired to her room almost as soon
as Fred and Edith had gone. I was wondering
whether or not to tell Margery about the experi-
ment that afternoon; debating how to ask her what
letters she had got from the postmaster at Bellwood
addressed to Miss Jane, and what she knew of
Bella. At the same time-bear with me, oh mascu-
315


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
ver
line reader, the gentle reader will, for she cares a
great deal more for the love story than for all the
crime and mystery put together—bear with me, I
say, if I hold back the account of the terrible events
that came that night, to tell how beautiful Margery
looked as the lamplight fell on her brown hair and
pure profile, and how the impulse came over me to
kiss her as she sat there; and how I didn't, after all
-poor gentle reader !--and only stooped over and
kissed the pink palm of her hand.
She didn't mind it; speaking as nearly as possible
from an impersonal standpoint, I doubt if she was
even surprised. You see, the ring was gone and-
it had only been an engagement ring anyhow, and
everybody knows how binding they are!
And then an angel with a burning sword came
and scourged me out of my Eden. And the angel
was Burton, and the sword was a dripping umbrella.
"I hate to take you out,” he said. “The bottom's
dropped out of the sky; but I want you to make a
little experiment with me.” He caught sight of
Margery through the portières, and the imp of mis-
chief in him prompted his next speech. “She said
316


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
concert tickets to Edith with an eye single to
that idea. But Burton's plan was right. It was, in
view of what we knew, to go over the ground at
the White Cat again, and Saturday night, with the
place full of men, would be a good time to look
around, unnoticed.
"I don't hang so much to this staircase idea,”
Burton said, “and I have a good reason for it. I
think we will find it is the warehouse, yet.”
"You can depend on it, Burton," I maintained,
"that the staircase is the place to look. If you had
seen Wardrop's face to-day, and his agony of mind
when he knew he had associated 'staircase' with
‘shot,' you would think just as I do. A man like
Schwartz, who knew the ropes, could go quietly up
the stairs, unbolt the door into the room, shoot
Fleming and get out. Wardrop suspects Schwartz,
and he's afraid of him. If he opened the door just
in time to see Schwartz, we will say, backing out the
door and going down the stairs, or to see the door
closing and suspect who had just gone, we would
have the whole situation, as I see it, including the
two motives of deadly hate and jealousy."
318


A PROSCENIUM BOX
"Suppose the stairs open into the back of the
room? He was sitting facing the window. Do
you think Schwartz would go in, walk around the
table and shoot him from in front? Pooh! Fudge!"
"He had a neck,” I retorted. "I suppose he might
have turned his head to look around.”
We had been walking through the rain. The
White Cat, as far off as the poles socially, was only
a half-dozen blocks actually from the best residence
portion of the city. At the corner of the warehouse,
Burton stopped and looked up at it.
"I always get mad when I look at this building,"
he said. “My great grandfather had a truck gar-
den on this exact spot seventy years ago, and the
old idiot sold out for three hundred dollars and a
pair of mules! How do you get in?”
“What are you going in for?” I asked.
"I was wondering if I had a grudge—I have, for
that matter-against the mayor, and I wanted to
shoot him, how I would go about it. I think I should
find a point of vantage, like an overlooking window
in an empty building like this, and I would wait for
a muggy night, also like this, when the windows
319


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
were up and the lights going. I could pot him with
a thirty-eight at a dozen yards, with my eyes
crossed."
We had stopped near the arched gate where I had
stood and waited for Hunter, a week before. Sud-
denly Burton darted away from me and tried the
gate. It opened easily, and I heard him splashing
through a puddle in the gloomy yard.
“Come in,” he called softly. “The water's fine."
The gate swung to behind me, and I could not see
six inches from my nose. Burton caught my elbow
and steered me, by touching the fence, toward the
building.
"If it isn't locked too tight,” he was saying, "we
can get in, perhaps through a window, and get up-
stairs. From there we ought to be able to see down
into the club. What the devil's that?”
It was a rat, I think, and it scrambled away among
the loose boards in a frenzy of excitement. Burton
struck a match; it burned faintly in the dampness,
and in a moment went out, having shown us only
the approximate location of the heavy, arched double
doors. A second match showed us a bar and a rusty
320


A PROSCENIUM BOX
padlock; there was no entrance to be gained in that
way.
The windows were of the eight-paned variety,
and in better repair than the ones on the upper
floors. By good luck, we found one unlocked and
not entirely closed; it shrieked hideously as we pried
it up, but an opportune clap of thunder covered the
sound.
By this time I was ready for anything that came;
I was wet to my knees, muddy, disreputable. While
Burton held the window I crawled into the ware-
house, and turned to perform the same service for
him. At first I could not see him, outside. Then I
heard his voice, a whisper, from beyond the sill.
"Duck,” he said. “Cop!"
I dropped below the window, and above the rain
I could hear the squash of the watchman's boots in
the mud. He flashed a night lamp in at the window
next to ours, but he was not very near, and the open
window escaped his notice. I felt all the nervous
dread of a real malefactor, and when I heard the
gate close behind him, and saw Burton put a leg
over the sill, I was almost as relieved as I would
321


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
have been had somebody's family plate, tied up in
a tablecloth, been reposing at my feet.
Burton had an instinct for getting around in the
dark. I lighted another match as soon as he had
closed the window, and we made out our general
direction toward where the stairs ought to be.
When the match went out, we felt our way in the
dark; I had only one box of wax matches, and Bur-
ton had dropped his in a puddle.
We got to the second floor, finally, and without
any worse mishap than Burton banging his arm
against a wheel of some sort. Unlike the first floor,
the second was subdivided into rooms; it took a
dozen precious matches to find our way to the side
of the building overlooking the club, and another
dozen to find the window we wanted. When we
were there at last, Burton leaned his elbows on the
sill, and looked down and across.
"Could anything be better!” he said. “There's
our theater, and we've got a proscenium box. That
room over there stands out like a spot-light."
He was right. Not more than fifteen feet away,
and perhaps a foot lower than our window, was
322


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
In reply Burton got out his revolver, and exam-
ined it by holding it against the light from across
the way.
"I'll tell you what I'll do,” he said. "Everybody
down there knows me; I'll drop in for a bottle of
beer, and you fire a shot into the floor here, or into
somebody across, if you happen to see any one you
don't care for. I suggest that you stay and fire the
shot, because if you went, my friend, and nobody
heard it, you would accuse me of shooting from the
back of the building somewhere."
He gave me the revolver and left me with a final
injunction.
"Wait for ten minutes," he said. "It will take
five for me to get out of here, and five more to get
into the club-house. Perhaps you'd better make it
fifteen.”
324


IN THE ROOM OVER THE WAY
tain papers, throwing the charred fragments on the
table. With the same glance that told me that, I
knew the man. It was Schwartz.
I was so engrossed in watching him that when
he turned and came directly to the window, I stood
perfectly still, staring at him. With the light at his
back, I felt certain I had been discovered, but I was
wrong. He shook the newspaper which had held
the fragments, out of the window, lighted a cigarette
and Aung the match out also, and turned back into
the room. As a second thought, he went back and
jerked at the cord of the window-shade, but it re-
fused to move.
He was not alone, for from the window he turned
and addressed some one in the room behind.
“You are sure you got them all?" he said.
The other occupant of the room came within
range of vision. It was Davidson.
"All there were, Mr. Schwartz,” he replied. “We
were nearly finished before the woman made a bolt."
He was fumbling in his pockets. I think I expected
him to produce an apple and a penknife, but he held
out a small object on the palm of his hand.
327


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“I would rather have done it alone, Mr.
Schwartz,” he said. “I found this ring in Brigg's
pocket this morning. It belongs to the girl.”
Schwartz swore, and picking up the ring, held it to
the light. Then he made an angry motion to throw
it out of the window, but his German cupidity got
the better of him. He slid it into his vest pocket in-
stead.
"You're damned poor stuff, Davidson,” he said,
with a snarl. "If she hasn't got them, then Wardrop
has. You'll bungle this job and there'll be hell to
pay. Tell McFeely I want to see him.”
Davidson left, for I heard the door close.
Schwartz took the ring out and held it to the light.
I looked at my watch. The time was almost up.
A fresh burst of noise came from below. I leaned
out cautiously and looked down at the lower win-
dows; they were still closed and shuttered. When
I raised my eyes again to the level of the room
across, I was amazed to see a second figure in the
room—a woman, at that.
Schwartz had not seen her. He stood with his
back to her, looking at the ring in his hand. The
328



As he struck her hand aside the explosion came





THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
up-stairs quietly. I didn't fire any shot. There's a
woman dead up there."
With characteristic poise, the three reporters took
the situation quietly. We filed through the grill-
room as casually as we could; with the door closed,
however, we threw caution aside. I led the way up
the stairs to the room where I had found Fleming's
body, and where I expected to find another.
On the landing at the top of the stairs I came face
to face with Davidson, the detective, and behind him
Judge McFeely. Davidson was trying to open the
door of the room where Fleming had been shot,
with a skeleton key. But it was bolted inside. There
was only one thing to do: I climbed on the shoulders
of one of the men, a tall fellow, whose face to this
day I don't remember, and by careful maneuvering
and the assistance of Davidson's long arms, I got
through the transom and dropped into the room.
I hardly know what I expected. I was in total
darkness. I know that when I had got the door open
at last, when the cheerful light from the hall
streamed in, and I had not felt Schwartz's heavy
hand at my throat, I drew a long breath of relief.
was
332


IN THE ROOM OVER THE WAY
Burton found the electric light switch and turned it
on. And then I could hardly believe my senses.
The room was empty.
One of the men laughed a little.
"Stung!” he said lightly. "What sort of a story
have you and your friend framed up, Burton ?”.
But I stopped at that minute and picked up a
small nickel-plated revolver from the floor. I held
it out, on my palm, and the others eyed it respect-
fully.
Burton, after all, was the quickest-witted of the
lot. He threw open one of the two doors in the
room, revealing a shallow closet, with papered walls
and a row of hooks. The other door stuck tight.
One of the men pointed to the floor; a bit of black
cloth had wedged it, from the other side. Our com-
bined efforts got it open at last, and we crowded in
the doorway, looking down a flight of stairs.
Huddled just below us, her head at our feet, was
the body of the missing woman.
"My God,” Burton said hoarsely, “who is it?":
333


THE WINDOW. AT THE WHITE CAT
stay up and watch the place while we were away.
Then, not finding a cab, I took a car and rode to the
hospital.
The building was appallingly quiet. The elevator
cage, without a light, crept spectrally up and down;
my footsteps on the tiled floor echoed and reëchoed
above my head. A night watchman, in felt shoes,
admitted me, and took me up-stairs.
There was another long wait while the surgeon
finished his examination, and a nurse with a basin
of water and some towels came out of the room,
and another one with dressings went in. And then
the surgeon came out, in a white coat with the
sleeves rolled above his elbows, and said I might
go in.
The cover was drawn up to the injured woman's
chin, where it was folded neatly back. Her face
was bloodless, and her fair hair had been gathered
up in a shaggy knot. She was breathing slowly, but
regularly, and her expression was relaxed-more
restful than I had ever seen it. As I stood at the
foot of the bed and looked down at her, I knew that
as surely as death was coming, it would be welcome.
336


A BOX OF CROWN DERBY
Edith had been calm, before, but when she saw me
she lost her self-control. She put her head on my
shoulder, and sobbed out the shock and the horror
of the thing. As for Fred, his imaginative tempera-
ment made him particularly sensitive to suffering in
others. As he sat there beside the bed I knew by his
face that he was repeating and repenting every un-
kind word he had said about Ellen Butler.
She was conscious; we realized that after a time.
Once she asked for water, without opening her eyes,
and Fred slipped a bit of ice between her white lips.
Later in the night she looked up for an instant, at
me.
"He-struck my-hand,” she said with difficulty,
and closed her eyes again.
During the long night hours I told the story, as I
knew it, in an undertone, and there was a new kindli-
ness in Fred's face as he looked at her.
She was still living by morning, and was rallying
a little from the shock. I got Fred to take Edith
home, and I took her place by the bed. Some one
brought me coffee about eight, and at nine o'clock
I was asked to leave the room, while four surgeons
337


A BOX OF CROWN DERBY
She did not connect the two, and I let the thing
rest at that. Once, on the train, she turned to me
suddenly, after she had been plunged in thought for
several minutes.
"Don't you think,” she asked, "that she had a sort
of homicidal mania, and that she tried to kill me
with chloroform?”.
"I hardly think so," I returned evasively. “I am
inclined to think some one actually got in over the
porch roof.”
"I am afraid,” she said, pressing her gloved hands
tight together. “Wherever I go, something happens
that I can not understand. I never wilfully hurt any
one, and yet—these terrible things follow me. I am
afraid—to go back to Bellwood, with Aunt Jane
still gone, and you—in the city.”
"A lot of helf I have been to you,” I retorted bit-
terly. "Can you think of a single instance where I
have been able to save you trouble or anxiety?
Why, I allowed you to be chloroformed within an
inch of eternity, before I found you.”
"But you did find me," she cheered me. “And
just to know that you are doing all you can—"
339


A BOX OF CROWN DERBY
Slowly, too-it was a new business for me-I
was forming a theory of my own. It was a strange
one, but it seemed to fit the facts as I knew them.
With the story Wardrop told that afternoon came
my first glimmer of light.
He was looking better than he had when I saw
him before, but the news of Mrs. Butler's ap-
proaching death and the manner of her injury af-
fected him strangely. He had seen the paper, like
Bella, and he turned on me almost fiercely when I
entered the library. Margery was in her old posi-
tion at the window, looking out, and I knew the de-
spondent droop of her shoulders.
"Is she conscious?” Wardrop asked eagerly, indi-
cating the article in the paper.
"No, not now—at least, it is not likely.”
He looked relieved at that, but only for a mo-
ment. Then he began to pace the room nervously,
evidently debating some move. His next action
showed the development of a resolution, for he
pushed forward two chairs for Margery and myself.
"Sit down, both of you,” he directed. “I've got
a lot to say, and I want you both to listen. When
345


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
Margery has heard the whole story, she will prob-
ably despise me for the rest of her life. I can't help
it. I've got to tell all I know, and it isn't so much
after all. You didn't fool me yesterday, Knox; I
knew what that doctor was after. But he couldn't
make me tell who killed Mr. Fleming, because, be-
fore God, I didn't know."
346


CHAPTER XXIV
WARDROP'S STORY
“T HAVE to go back to the night Miss Jane dis-
appeared and that's another thing that has
driven me desperate. Will you tell me why I
should be suspected of having a hand in that, when
she had been a mother to me? If she is dead, she
can't exonerate me; if she is living, and we find
her, she will tell you what I tell you—that I know
nothing of the whole terrible business.”
"I am quite certain of that, Wardrop," I inter-
posed. “Besides, I think I have got to the bottom
of that mystery.”
Margery looked at me quickly, but I shook my
head. It was too early to tell my suspicions.
“The things that looked black against me were
bad enough, but they had nothing to do with Miss
Jane. I will have to go back to before the night
she-went away, back to the time Mr. Butler was
347


WARDROP'S STORY
"Mr. Fleming came back here when the Borough
Bank threatened failure, and tried to get money
enough to tide over the trouble. A half million
would have done it, but he couldn't get it. He was
in Butler's position exactly, only he was guilty and
Butler was innocent. He raised a little money here,
and I went to Plattsburg with securities and letters.
It isn't necessary to go over the things I suffered
there; I brought back one hundred and ten thousand
dollars, in a package in my Russia leather bag.
And I had something else.”
He wavered for the first time in his recital. He
went on more rapidly, and without looking at either
of us.
“I carried, not in the valise, a bundle of letters,
five in all, which had been written by Henry Butler
to Mr. Fleming, letters that showed what a dupe
Butler had been, that he had been negligent, but not
criminal; accusing Fleming of having ruined him,
and demanding certain notes that would have proved
it. If Butler could have produced the letters at the
time of his trial, things would have been different."
351


WARDROP'S STORY
DI
was
"I kept them with me that night, and the next
morning hid them in the secret closet. That was
when I dropped my fountain pen!"
"And the pearls ?" Margery asked suddenly.
"When did you get them, Harry?”
To my surprise his face did not change. He ap-
peared to be thinking.
"Two days before I left," he said. “We were
using every method to get money, and your father
said to sacrifice them, if necessary.”
"My father!"
He wheeled on us both.
"Did you think I stole them?” he demanded. And
I confess that I was ashamed to say I had thought
precisely that.
“Your father gave me nine unmounted pearls to
sell,” he reiterated. “I got about a thousand dol-
lars for them-eleven hundred and something, I be-
lieve.”
Margery looked at me. I think she was fairly
stunned. To learn that her father had married
again, that he had been the keystone in an arch of
villainy that, with him gone, was now about to fall,
353


CHAPTER XXV
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
M ISS JANE MAITLAND had been missing
1 for ten days. In that time not one word had
come from her. The reporter from the Eagle had
located her in a dozen places, and was growing thin
and haggard following little old ladies along the
street—and being sent about his business tartly
when he tried to make inquiries.
Some things puzzled me more than ever in the
light of Wardrop's story. For the third time I
asked myself why Miss Letitia denied the loss of the
pearls. There was nothing in what we had learned,
either, to tell why Miss Jane had gone away—to as-
cribe a motive.
How she had gone, in view of Wardrop's story of
the cab, was clear. She had gone by street-car,
walking the three miles to Wynton alone at two
o'clock in the morning, although she had never
stirred around the house at night without a candle,
358


MEASURE FOR MEASURE
and was privately known to sleep with a light when
Miss Letitia went to bed first, and could not see it
through the transom.
The theory I had formed seemed absurd at first,
but as I thought it over, its probabilities grew on
me. I took dinner at Bellwood and started for town
almost immediately after.
Margery had gone to Miss Letitia's room, and
Wardrop was pacing up and down the veranda,
smoking. He looked dejected and anxious, and he
welcomed my suggestion that he walk down to the
station with me. As we went, a man emerged from
the trees across and came slowly after us.
"You see, I am only nominally a free agent,” he
said morosely. “They'll poison me yet; I know too
much."
We said little on the way to the train. Just be-
fore it came thundering along, however, he spoke
again.
"I am going away, Knox. There isn't anything
in this political game for me, and the law is too
long. I have a chum in Mexico, and he wants me
to go down there."
· 359


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
“Permanently?”
“Yes. There's nothing to hold me here now," he
said.
I turned and faced him in the glare of the station
lights.
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
"I mean that there isn't any longer a reason why
one part of the earth is better than another. Mexico
or Alaska, it's all the same to me.”
He turned on his heel and left me. I watched
him swing up the path, with his head down; I saw
the shadowy figure of the other man fall into line
behind him. Then I caught the platform of the
last car as it passed, and that short ride into town
was a triumphal procession with the wheels beating
time and singing: "It's all the same-the same
to me—to me.”
I called Burton by telephone, and was lucky
enough to find him at the office. He said he had
just got in, and, as usual, he wanted something to
eat. We arranged to meet at a little Chinese res-
taurant, where at that hour, nine o'clock, we would
be almost alone. Later on, after the theater, I knew
wa
360


MEASURE FOR MEASURE
that the place would be full of people, and conversa-
tion impossible.
Burton knew the place well, as he did every res-
taurant in the city.
"Hello, Mike,” he said to the unctuous Chinaman
who admitted us. And “Mike” smiled a slant-eyed
welcome. The room was empty; it was an unpre-
tentious affair, with lace curtains at the windows
and small, very clean tables. At one corner a cable
and slide communicated through a hole in the ceiling
with the floor above, and through the aperture, Bur-
ton's order for chicken and rice, and the inevitable
tea, was barked.
Burton listened attentively to Wardrop's story; as
I repeated it.
"So Schwartz did it, after all!” he said regret-
fully, when I finished. "It's a tame ending. It
had all the elements of the unusual, and it resolves
itself into an ordinary, every-day, man-to-man feud.
I'm disappointed; we can't touch Schwartz.”
"I thought the Times-Post was hot after him.”
"Schwartz bought the Times-Post at three o'clock
this afternoon," Burton said, with repressed rage.
361


MEASURE FOR MEASURE
about daylight sometime, and she died very quietly
shortly after Edith arrived at eight.
To give her story as she gave it would be impos-
sible; the ramblings of a sick mind, the terrible
pathos of it all, is impossible to repeat. She lay
there, her long, thin body practically dead, fighting
the death rattle in her throat. There were pauses
when for five minutes she would lie in a stupor, only
to rouse and go forward from the very word where
she had stopped.
She began with her married life, and to under-
stand the beauty of it is to understand the things
that came after. She was perfectly, ideally, illogi-
cally happy. Then one day Henry Butler accepted
the nomination for state treasurer, and with that
things changed. During his term in office he altered
greatly; his wife could only guess that things were
wrong, for he refused to talk.
The crash came, after all, with terrible sudden-
ness. There had been an all-night conference at the
Butler home, and Mr. Butler, in a frenzy at find-
ing himself a dupe, had called the butler from bed
and forcibly ejected Fleming and Schwartz from the
nes
363


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
house. Ellen Butler had been horrified, sickened
by what she regarded as the vulgarity of the occur-
rence. But her loyalty to her husband never wav-
ered.
Butler was one honest man against a complete
organization of unscrupulous ones. His disgrace,
imprisonment and suicide at the White Cat had
followed in rapid succession. With his death, all
that was worth while in his wife died. Her health
was destroyed; she became one of the wretched
army of neurasthenics, with only one idea: to re-
taliate, to pay back in measure full and running
over, her wrecked life, her dead husband, her grief
and her shame.
She laid her plans with the caution and absolute
recklessness of a diseased mentality. Normally ą
shrinking, nervous woman, she became cold, pas-
sionless, deliberate in her revenge. To disgrace
Schwartz and Fleming was her original intention.
But she could not get the papers.
She resorted to hounding Fleming, meaning to
drive him to suicide. And she chose a method that
had more nearly driven him to madness. Wherever
364


MEASURE FOR MEASURE
he turned he found the figures eleven twenty-two C.
Sometimes just the number, without the letter. It
had been Henry Butler's cell number during his im-
prisonment, and if they were graven on his wife's
soul, they burned themselves in lines of fire on
Fleming's brain. For over a year she pursued this
course—sometimes through the mail, at other times
in the most unexpected places, wherever she could
bribe a messenger to carry the paper. Sane? No,
hardly sane, but inevitable as fate.
The time came when other things went badly
with Fleming, as I had already heard from War-
drop. He fled to the White Cat, and for a week
Ellen Butler hunted him vainly. She had decided
to kill him, and on the night Margery Fleming had
found the paper on the pillow, she had been in the
house. She was not the only intruder in the house
that night. Some one-presumably Fleming him-
self-had been there before her. She found a
ladies' desk broken open and a small drawer empty.
Evidently Fleming, unable to draw a check while
in hiding, had needed ready money. As to the jew-
els that had been disturbed in Margery's boudoir,
365


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
I could only surmise the impulse that, after prompt-
ing him to take them, had failed at the sight of his
dead wife's jewels. Surprised by the girl's appear-
ance, she had crept to the upper floor and concealed
herself in an empty bedroom. It had been almost
dawn before she got out. No doubt this was the
room belonging to the butler, Carter, which Mar-
gery had reported as locked that night.
She took a key from the door of a side en-
trance, and locked the door behind her when she
left. Within a couple of nights she had learned
that Wardrop was coming home from Plattsburg,
and she met him at Bellwood. We already knew
the nature of that meeting. She drove back to
town, half maddened by her failure to secure the
letters that would have cleared her husband's mem-
ory, but the wiser by one thing: Wardrop had in-
advertently told her where Fleming was hiding.
The next night she went to the White Cat and
tried to get in. She knew from her husband of the
secret staircase, for many a political meeting of the
deepest significance had been possible by its use.
But the door was locked, and she had no key.
366


MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Above her the warehouse raised its empty height,
and it was not long before she decided to see what
she could learn from its upper windows. She went
in at the gate and felt her way, through the rain, to
the windows. At that moment the gate opened sud-
denly, and a man muttered something in the dark-
ness. The shock was terrible.
I had no idea, that night, of what my innocent
stumbling into the warehouse yard had meant to a
half-crazed woman just beyond my range of vision.
After a little she got her courage again, and she
pried up an unlocked window.
The rest of her progress must have been much as
ours had been, a few nights later. She found
a window that commanded the club, and with three
possibilities that she would lose, and would see the
wrong room, she won the fourth. The room lay
directly before her, distinct in every outline, with
Fleming seated at the table, facing her and sorting
some papers.
She rested her revolver on the sill and took ab-
solutely deliberate aim. Her hands were cold, and
she even rubbed them together, to make them
367


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
steady. Then she fired, and a crash of thunder at
the very instant covered the sound.
Fleming sat for a moment before he swayed for-
ward. On that instant she realized that there was
some one else in the room-a man who took an un-
certain step or two forward into view, threw up
his hands and disappeared as silently as he had
come. It was Schwartz. Then she saw the door
into the hall open, saw Wardrop come slowly in
and close it, watched his sickening realization of
what had occurred; then a sudden panic seized her.
Arms seemed to stretch out from the darkness be-
hind her, to draw her into it. She tried to get away,
to run, even to scream—then she fainted. It was
gray dawn when she recovered her senses and got
back to the hotel room she had taken under an as-
sumed name.
By night she was quieter. She read the news of
Fleming's death in the papers, and she gloated over
it. But there was more to be done; she was only
beginning. She meant to ruin Schwartz, to kill his
credit, to fell him with the club of public disfavor.
Wardrop had told her that her husband's letters
368


CHAPTER XXVI
LOVERS AND A LETTER
| T noon that day I telephoned to Margery.
1 “Come up," I said, “and bring the keys to
the Monmouth Avenue house. I have some things
to tell you, and—some things to ask you."
I met her at the station with Lady Gray and the
trap. My plans for that afternoon were compre-
hensive; they included what I hoped to be the solu-
tion of the Aunt Jane mystery; also, they included
a little drive through the park, and a—well, I shall
tell about that, all I am going to tell, at the proper
time.
To play propriety, Edith met us at the house.
It was still closed, and even in the short time that
had elapsed it smelled close and musty.
At the door into the drawing-room I stopped
them.
"Now, this is going to be a sort of game," I ex.
plained. "It's a sort of button, button, who's got
372


LOVERS AND A LETTER
the button, without the button. We are looking
for a drawer, receptacle or closet, which shall con-
tain, bunched together, and without regard to
whether they should be there or not, a small re-
volver, two military brushes and a clothes brush,
two or three soft bosomed shirts, perhaps a half-
dozen collars, and a suit of underwear. Also a small
flat package about eight inches long and three wide.”
"What in the world are you talking about ?”
Edith asked.
"I am not talking, I am theorizing," I explained.
“I have a theory, and according to it the things
should be here. If they are not, it is my misfortune,
not my fault.”
I think Margery caught my idea at once, and as
Edith was ready for anything, we commenced the
search. Edith took the top floor, being accustomed,
she said, to finding unexpected things in the serv-
ants' quarters; Margery took the lower floor, and
for certain reasons I took the second.
For ten minutes there was no result. At the end
of that time I had finished two rooms, and com-
menced on the blue boudoir. And here, on the top
373


LOVERS AND A LETTER
a cup of tea out of one of your lovely cups, and a
nap on your pretty couch, and just as soon as it is
dark I am going to take the train for Boston. When
you get this, I will be on the ocean, the ocean, my
dear, that I have read about, and dreamed about, and
never seen.
"I am going to realize a dream of forty years—
more than twice as long as you have lived. Your
dear mother saw the continent before she died, but
the things I have wanted have always been denied
me. I have been of those that have eyes to see and
see not. So I have run away. I am going to Lon-
don and Paris, and even to Italy, if the money your
father gave me for the pearls will hold out. For a
year now I have been getting steamship circulars,
and I have taken a little French through a corre-
spondence school. That was why I always made you
sing French songs, dearie: I wanted to learn the ac-
cent. I think I should do very well if I could only
"I am afraid that Sister Letitia discovered that I
had taken some of the pearls. But-half of them
were mine, from our mother, and although I had
wanted a pearl ring all my life, I have never had one.
I am going to buy me a hat, instead of a bonnet, and
375


THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT
with her new independence and her sixty-five-year-
old, romantic, starved heart!
Then we opened the packet, which was a sadder
business, for it had represented Allan Fleming's
last clutch at his waning public credit.
Edith ran to the telephone with the news for
Fred, and for the first time that day Margery and
I were alone. She was standing with one hand on
the library table; in the other she held Aunt Jane's
letter, half tremulous, wholly tender. I put my
hand over hers, on the table.
“Margery!" I said. She did not stir.
"Margery, I want my answer, dear. I love you
-love you; it isn't possible to tell you how much.
There isn't enough time in all existence to tell you.
You are mine, Margery—mine. You can't get
away from that.”
She turned, very slowly, and looked at me with
her level eyes. “Yours!” she replied softly, and I
took her in my arms.
Edith was still at the telephone.
"I don't know," she was saying. "Just wait until
I see."
378








This book should be returned to
the Library on or before the last date
stamped below.
A fine is incurred by retaining it
beyond the specified time.
Please return promptly.
DUE OCT '66 H
၃ ၂ ၁ ) -
MAY
77H
၃
DUE JAN 72 H