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THE GREEN JACKET


T H E


I §REEN JACKET
BY
JENNETTE _LEE
AUTHOR OF
THE UNFINISHED PORTRAIT,
AUNT JANE, ETC.


NEW YORK
GROSSET 6c DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS


Comment, 1917, I!
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

Published September, 1917 ‘


THE GREEN JACKET


THE GREEN JACKET
I
THE elevator-boy tossed her a kindly grin
as she stepped into the elevator. But she
seemed not to notice. She was a small woman
in gray—gray eyes and hair, and the close-ﬁt-
ting suit and small hat were of soft gray.
Any one passing her in a crowd would not
have noticed her. There might have been the
sense of something pleasant that had passed
——a subtle perfume that came elusively, but
nothing to recall. The only bit of color about
her was a knitted green-silk purse in her hand,
with curiously wrought gold ﬁttings. It went
oddly well with the gray dress and hat.
The elevator-boy looked back over his
shoulder.
“Good morning, Miss Newberry,” he said
quietly.
“Good morning, Joe. How goes the day P”
“All right—wow,” answered Joe with elab-
orate emphasis.
s


4 - THE GREEN JACKET
She smiled a little and stepped out at the
seventh floor. ‘ \
“You’ve been kissing the Blarney stone
again l” she said reprovingly.
He grinned and slammed the grated door
behind her. His head as it descended into
the abyss was turned admiringly to the
trim gray ﬁgure going down the corridor
to the left.
At the ﬁrst corner she turned sharp to
the right, and was facing a ground-glass
door at the end of the hall. The dark letters,
against the light in the room beyond, stood
out clearly:
THE MILLICENT NEWBERRY AGENCY
CONSULTATIONS FROM
10-12 AND 2-4
OR BY APPOINTMENT
She opened the green-silk purse and took
out a little key and inserted it in the lock
and opened the door.
The room was an ordinary small ofﬁce,
with a desk and three chairs. A rather
beautiful old rug covered the ﬂoor. The
walls were gray. The only color in the room


THE GREEN JACKET 5
besides the blended harmony of the rug
was the green shade at the window and a
green blotter on the desk. . . . As she
came in she lifted a small pasteboard box
from beside the door and carried it with her
to the desk.
The lifted cover revealed a few ﬂowers,
that she arranged in a light bunch and placed
in a glass on the desk.
She removed her hat and coat, hanging
them in the closet. And from the closet
she produced a pair of paper sleeve-pro-
tectors and a dustless duster, with which
she wiped the already spotless furniture.
She straightened the shade and returned the
duster and paper cuffs to the closet, and
seated herself by the desk, arranging the
ink-stand and pens, erasers and pencils in
exact order.
All her movements were deft and precise
and still—hardly more than a passing of
grayness. Yet there was nothing ethereal
about her. She was plump and healthy,
and a little stout. In her gray eye there
was a look of keenness as it glanced around
the spotless oﬂice. An artist might have


6 THE GREEN JACKET
liked to paint her as she sat beside her desk
—so perfect was the setting of the room for
her personality.
She opened a drawer at the right of the
desk and took out a soft bundle of green
wool and spread it out on her lap. It was
the beginning of a knitted garment. The
needles were amber.
She took them up, and dropping the ball
of wool into the half-open drawer, she began
to knit.
The sunlight, shining across the many-
colored rug, fell on the desk and lighted the
glass of ﬂowers and touched the gray ﬁg-
ure warmly. The needles moving swiftly
through her ﬁngers glowed with the warmth.
One could not have guessed, watching the
bent head and the thoughtful gray eyes that
followed the needles, what was the purpose
of the “Agency” on the ground-glass door.
Seen from this side it was meaningless.
YCNEGA YRREBWEN TNECILLIM EHT
MORF SNOXTATLUSNOC
4-2 DNA 21-01
TNEMTNIOPPA YB R0
A quick knock sounded on the door and


’ THE GREEN JACKET 7
she looked up. She tossed the knitted gar-
ment into the half-open drawer and closed
it with one hand as she turned a little.
“Come in.” She took up a pen from the
desk and examined the point casually and
glanced toward the opening door.
“Why—Tom!” There was a note of
pleasure in it.
“How are you, Milly?” He came forward
graciously, holding out a heavy hand.
“Sit down.” She pointed to the other
chair by the desk. “Your are the last person
I was expecting to see when the door
opened!” She studied the strong ﬁgure,
with its broad shoulders and well-set head.
He nodded back to her glance. “You i
haven’t seen me for some time.”
“Two years,” said Milly.
“Yes—it’s been a good while.” He sighed
a little and glanced about the quiet room.
“Nice coop you’Ve got up here—to think
in—I Wish I had anything half as good
Always somebody racketing around or want-
ing something!” He sighed again. Then
he seemed to relax to the quiet of the room.
He settled more comfortably in his chair.


8 THE GREEN JACKET
“How did you ﬁnd me?” asked Milly.
“Went to the down-town oﬁice. You’ve
got a ﬁrst-rate staff down there. It was
much as ten minutes before I could ﬁnd
out where to get you! That’s a good while
for me, you know.”
She smiled faintly.
“Then I got hold of that red-haired
’9
one——
“Esther.”
He nodded. “And she graciously per-
mitted me to have your address—after she’d
sized me up a bit. . . . They’re busy enough
down there—” He moved an expressive hand.
“Typewriters clack-clacking, call-boys run->
ning, everybody talk-talk—talking l”
Milly laughed softly. “You never exag-
gerate! . . . But I suppose they are busy.
That’s what we want—business.”
“Well, you’ve got it. . . . I don’t see
just how you’ve managed either.” He looked
at her. “I tell you frankly, I never thought
you’d turn the trick l”
“You told me that two years ago, didn’t
you?” '
“And I meant it.” He seemed to muse


THE GREEN JACKET 9
on it. “People don’t like women detectives
as a rule. Don’t trust ’em. Won’t hire
’em.”
“You hired me,” suggested Milly.
“Yes—but under me. That’s different!
You worked under my direction. Did as
I said.” He seemed to expand a little.
“I never said you weren’t a good detec-
tive,” he went on. “Only I didn’t believe
the public would stand for a woman—giv-
ing a case over to her entirely. . . . I’ve
missed you,” he added irrelevantly. -
“I’m glad of that,” said Milly. “How’s
the business?”
“Oh—so-so. You never ought to ’a’
left me,” he said almost petulantly.
“You wouldn’t let me have my own way,”
responded Milly.
“I never refused you anything, did I ?”
‘CNO',’
“What was it, then? I’ve puzzled about
it more than a little—what it was, you
wanted.”
“This,” said Milly. She moved her hand,
and his eye took in the quiet room.
“The room’s all right,” he nodded. “But


10 THE GREEN JACKET
there’s something behind the room, you
want—something I don’t understand.”
She made no reply.
He glanced at her placid face, almost ir-
ritably. “Isn’t there? Oh—bother! See
here, Milly. I’ve got a case I want your
help with. I’ve worked over it till I’m
blue— Nothing doing! . . . I’ve come to
you straight— Will you help me P”
They sat looking at each other for a min-
ute, his eyes, in the dark, stubborn face with
the little cynical line about the lips, staring
into the quiet gray ones.
She smiled a little and shook her head.
“You would not give me a free hand.”
He leaned forward. “What do you mean
by a free hand .P You’re always talking about
a free hand. That’s why you left me—far
as I make out—a free hand!” He spoke a
little contemptuously. “Well—take it!”
“You mean you will do as I say?” A
little light leaped into her face.
“I want you to catch this Jim Hudson
He slapped a paper he held in his hand. “I
know he’s guilty! But I can’t get at the
facts. If you can pin him down—— It’s a
'9,


THE GREEN JACKET 11
big case——big reward. . . . And there ‘are
others.’ . . . You’ll ﬁnd a dozen cases hung
up, waiting for- you.”
She seemed to hesitate. The room, in
the morning light, was very still. The hand-
ful of ﬂowers on the desk gave out a subtle
fragrance.
The man’s eye rested on them gloomily.
“I suppose you’d want to keep this ofﬁce.
But we can merge the down-town
ones. There’s big business for us if we join
forces. We’ll make New York sit up!”
“And you would let me have my own
way—keep on just as I am now .P”
“Anything in reason. I’ve told you that,
time and again. I’m willing to do anything
that’s reasonable.”
She shook her head a little. “You
wouldn’t call what I’m doing ‘reasonable.’ ”
“You tell me, and I’ll see,” said Tom
craftily.
She turned it over. “Yes—I’m going to
tell you ”
His face expanded.
“I wouldn’t tell you when I left—because
I did not know then whether it would work.


12 THE GREEN JACKET
§
I wanted a chance to try it out. Now, I
know!”
“Oh—it works all right!” said Tom
gloomily. “It works! I ought to have had
that Sargent case P” He turned to her.
“Ye-s-s?” said Milly. She was smiling
a little.
Tom nodded. “You did nothing with it
—quite out of your range.” His hands
swept a generous circle. Then his face
darkened. “And yet Sargent seems con-
tented. I met him the other day. He said
they’d dropped it—Weren’t going to pros-
ecute Tolman. Of course that means you
couldn’t get the evidence for them— And
yet everybody knows Tolman’s guilty.” He
glared at her a little.
“No—Tolman was not guilty,” said Milly
quietly, after a minute.
“ He—wasn’t I”
“No.”
“Who was, then— Do you know?”
“Mr. Sargent told you he was not going
to prosecute, didn’t he? That disposes of
the case.”
He took the rebuﬁt gracefully. “Well, if


THE GREEN JACKET I3
you’ll show me a way to lose a case and keep
a satisﬁed client, I’m willing to join forces
for anything you say!”
“They’re not always satisﬁed,” said Milly.
“You mustn’t expect that.”
“I don’t expect anything,” declared Tom.
“I never ‘expected’ to come to you and talk
like this. But you’ve got the business, and
I want it. I know you’re straight. . . . I’ve
got the grip!” He clinched his great hand
as he spoke. “But you’ve got something
else—” He looked at her meditatively.
“You can sit still in a chair—and know Who’s
guilty and where to look for him!”
“I wish I could!” said Milly softly.
“It’s something I haven’t got,” went on
Tom, “whatever it is—a kind of sixth sense,
I’d call it. They say women have it some-
times. Men tell me about things their wives
say—that they can’t make out how they
know ’em. But they’re so! . . . I’ve
thought of getting married,” he said ex-
pansively.
“Oh l” returned Milly.
He ignored the gentle irony. “I’ve made
up my mind to get you to go in with me.”


14 THE GREEN JACKET
“Instead of marrying me!”
“Instead of marrying any one!” retorted
Tom. “I can’t be bothered! Tell me what
you want, and we’ll draw up a contract to-
day.”
Milly’s hand reached out to the drawer
beside her. But before she could open it,
the telephone-bell rang sharply.
A look of vexation crossed her face. “I
forgot to cut off! I don’t mean to let them
call while any one is here. If a client breaks
off talking—you lose a week!”
He nodded understandingly. “There’s a
lot in it!” he said.
The bell rang again, imperiously, with a
little burr at the end, and Milly took up the
receiver and listened.
“Millicent Newberry, yes.” . . . A long .
silence, punctuated by the changing lights
in Milly’s face. . . . “Very well, I’ll come.”
She hung up, with a little sigh and a look
of reluctance. “I’ll have to go, Tom. It’s
the oﬂice—a case that can’t wait. When
shall I see you again?”
His face was a study. “If I didn’t know
you, Milly, I should think you were faking


THE GREEN JACKET 15
it—to get out of telling me! You’ve never
been willing to tell me straight.” His hands
were thrust into his pockets and his face
was a little grim.
She smiled at him. “Why, Tom—— There
isn’t anything I want so much as a good talk
with you !”
“Oh—all right!” The hands came out
of his pockets. “I’ll stay till you come
back.”
“I may be half an hour,” said Milly.
“I’ll wait,” responded Tom. “Can I
smoke?” He glanced dubiously about the
sunlit room.
She laughed out. “Open the window.
And sit rather near it!” She took her hat
and coat from the closet.
“What will you do—to amuse yourself?”
She was pinning on the gray hat, and her
eyes looked out at him inquiringly, under
the brim, as she thrust in the pins and
straightened it ﬁrmly in place.
“I’ve got the case,” said Tom. “The
one I came to you about. I’ve wanted just
such a quiet place as this—to think it over
—-nobody coming and going.”
/


16 THE GREEN JACKET
“Very well—in half an hour, then.”
She nodded to him and went out, and
Tom Corbin, the head of what had been till
two years ago the most important detective
agency in the State, was left alone in the
quiet oﬁ'ice, with the little bunch of ﬂowers
on the desk and the sunshine ﬁlling the
room.


II
HE went over and threw up the window
and stood looking out. Presently he lighted
his pipe and drew a whiff or two, and let it
out—free, grateful puffs.
His hands were thrust into his pockets.
By and by he strolled over to the desk and
stood looking down at it. One hand came
out of his pocket and tried the drawer at
the right. It was locked. He returned his
hand to his pocket. The action had been
almost automatic—at the most, curious
rather than intentional. Presently he
reached out and tried the drawer below. It
slid back into his hand, and he was gazing
down at the maze of green wool. He lifted
it gingerly. An amber needle slid from its
place and fell to the floor. Tom picked it
up hastily. He glanced at the green knitted
stuﬁE a little dubiously. It struck him there
was something wrong about one end of it.
‘ How was a man to tell! He replaced
it—with a little look of irritation, and laid
W...
11


18 THE GREEN JACKET
the amber needle on top of it and shut the
drawer.
He looked about him and crossed to a
ﬁle-case by the door. He knelt before
it, fussing at the lock, and reached into his
pocket for a key-ring, from which he selected
- a curious bit of stout wire with curious curves
in it and a little hook at the end. He in-
serted it in the keyhole, manipulating it
with a light touch, his other hand pulling
slightly on the upright bar that secured the
drawers. The bar gave a little in his hand
and a look of satisfaction crossed his face;
there was no guilt in the face as he pulled
open the drawer and looked in. He was only
playing a good game on Milly, paying her
out a bit for leaving him alone.
The drawer contained long iron rods strung
with indexedvcards, and his ﬁngers pushed
them apart. His puzzled gaze studied ﬁrst
one and then another—and another. He
shut the drawer with a motion of impatienCe
and opened the one above with the same
result. He stood and glared at the innocent
ﬁle-case, and reached to the upright bar
and drew it together. The lock snapped in


THE GREEN JACKET 19
place. Tom Corbin sauntered to the win-
dow and stood again with hands in pockets
looking down on the teeming city.
He was supposed to be thinking out the
Hudson case. But his mind was ﬁlled to
overﬂowing with Milly. . . . He found him-
self a little excited. He could not rid the
oﬂice of her presence. That green stuff
there in the drawer behind him was full of
her, and those ﬂowers on the desk— He
wheeled about, and looked at them medita-
tively. He had forgotten how Milly made
you feel. He knew he had missed her from
the business—but he had not remembered
she was just—like this!
He moved restlessly, and brought a chair
to the Window and sat down. The smoke
from his pipe drifted up against the blue of
the sky. . . ’. He was recalling Milly as
she appeared in his ofﬁce, that ﬁrst day,
ten years ago. He had been puzzling over
the Babcock case, he remembered— Every-
body called it suicide. He had had his sus-
picion that it was not suicide, but murder,
and somehow his suspicion must have leaked
out. There had been a mysterious hint in


THE GREEN JACKET 2!
this belief—nothing to support it—except
that she saw the woman once in a street-
car. . . . She knew, herself, that her com-
ing to him must seem foolish. But when
she had read in the morning’s paper that
Wendell Payson was suspected, she had put
on her hat and come straight to the Corbin
Agency. .
Tom Corbin, sitting by the open window
of Milly’s oﬂice, removed his pipe and blew
a trailing, meditative cloud of smoke. . . .
It had been a long road from that morning
and the girl’s half-frightened belief in what
she told him to the gray-haired woman who
had faced him so quietly this morning, and
who was now on her way to a busy ofﬁce
that handled quite half the business of the
city. Yes—quite half! Tom nodded a little
grimly and smoked on.
He had followed the clew she gave him
in the Babcock case at ﬁrst unbelievingly,
and then, as events developed, with keen
scent. The woman had confessed to it even-
tually. She was serving her term in State’s
prison to-day. The case had brought glory
to the Corbin Agency. It had been a baﬂling


22 THE GREEN JACKET
case and well-advertised. Tom knew he
had handled it well. But he also knew to
whom the real credit was due.
After the Babcock case he had employed
Milly at times—ﬁrst informally, for shop-
lifting cases or salesgirl thefts, or as seam-
stress or chambermaid in some place where
a man could not go without suspicion. Later,
she had become a regular member of the
force, and he had found himself depending
on her more and more—not so much for
facts and the combining of facts, as for a
theory that would ﬁt them. . . . And then,
just as he was congratulating himself that
he had a tool to his hand as ﬁne and keen-
tempered as Milly—and trusty—and that
she would not be always making extortionate
demands for salary or promotion—like a
man—she seemed to love the work for it-
self—just as he was settling down comfort-
ably to all this Milly had announced her
intention of setting up an ofﬁce of her
own. . . . Tom went back over it—the
things he had offered her—better pay, pro-
motion, half-time. And she had shaken her
head at him. No, she didn’t want them.


THE GREEN JACKET 23
What was it she had wanted, he won-
dered. . . . She had got it, sure—what-
ever it was! He glanced about the compact
little room Whew, he should suffocate
in a day of it! And yet there was some-
thing He looked around him again——
It was Milly herself. There was nobody
quite like Milly! He had found that out
in those early days when'she ﬁrst left him.
It was as if he had lost an eye or an ear—
both eyes, both ears—he thought savagely.
It seemed to him he had begun all over again,
getting at facts in the old, bungling way.
. And meantime Milly’spfﬁce had spread
from a room to four, and from four to
twelve.
And this morning he had suddenly come
to his decision to join forces with her. He
would offer her a partnership. It was the
one thing he had balked at. It had not
been mentioned; but he had a conviction
' that if he had said to Milly the morning
she left, “See here, Milly—we’ll go shares.
I’ll make you my partner,” he had a feel-
ing that if he had said this—Milly would
have done it. . . . Well, he had offered it


24 THE GREEN JACKET
now. The word partner had not been men-
tioned—but they both knew that was what
it would come to. Tom blew a placid cloud
of smoke. It ﬂoated from the window.
He had been long enough about it. He
could not understand now why he had waited
so long. This morning as soon as the idea
had come to him, he had not waited a second.
He had clapped on his hat and gone straight
to Milly’s ofﬁce—the down-town one. . . .
They were surely doing the business there!
His mind dwelt happily on the down-town
oﬂice, and the smoke from his pipe drifted
from the window and built castles in the
air.


III
AND in the down-town oﬂice, Milly, sit-
ting in a large chair drawn up before a
table, was confronting a thick-set, clumsily
built man—a Dane, it might be, from his
speech.
“I got-to go, Miss Newberry!” he was
saying stolidly. “My woman she say, all
time, ‘You take job.’ . . . She don’t know
I can’t go new place.” He stared at her al-
most resentfully, yet with a kind of defer-
ence in the slouching shoulders.
“Where is it, Mr. Bergman?” asked Milly
quietly.
“Milwaukee,” said the man. “Good work
~——big pay! My wife’s brother, he say,
‘Come quick—you lose big job!’ He don’t
know I can’t go Milwaukee. . . . I got-to
go, Miss Newberry!” The big hands that
had been shifting his old hat through nervous
ﬁngers gripped it suddenly, and his eyes
lifted themselves to her face with a dumb
look of insistence.
as


26 THE GREEN JACKET
She returned the look thoughtfully. “How
long has it been .P” she asked.
“Ten months,” said the man quickly.
“And you have been reporting to me
every two weeks for ten months P”
He nodded with a hopeless gesture.
“And if you went to Milwaukee—”
He started. A gleam came into his blue
eyes. “I be good man,” he said. “I keep
straight. I work hard! Big pay. I strong
man.” He stretched out his great arm.
“Yes, I know you’re strong. If you hadn’t
been strong, you wouldn’t have laid out
Sergeant McKay with one blow.”
“I didn’t know he police,” interpolated
the man eagerly. “I just hit—anybody—
all round !” He waved his great arm dramat-
ically. It swung past Milly’s head and the
hand descended with a thud on the table
between them.
“You know I good man,” he said impres-
sively.
Milly nodded. “But you struck down
the sergeant.”
“Ye-s-s.” The blue eyes dropped an in-
stant. Then they raised themselves trust-


THE GREEN JACKET 27
fully to her. “When you drunk, you hit—
all round!” he explained simply.
“So I understand,” returned Milly with
a smile. “Now suppose you get drunk in
Milwaukee—and hit all round—and are ar-
rested again?”
The man started a little.
“Yes,” said Milly quietly, “and then—
when you break jail and escape, and they
catch you again—in Milwaukee—it means
prison, six months, a year perhaps. . . .
Isn’t it better to stay here, and report to
me every other week—better than being in
prison in Milwaukee, and no one to earn
money for the children? How is Karl?”
she asked abruptly.
The man’s face was suffused with a quick
glow of pride. “He do grand!” he said.
“He bring home praise-card. They say
Karl make ﬁne boy!”
“He hasn’t had to stay out of school for
nearly a year now,” commented Milly. “But
when his father gets drunk and goes to jail,
or prison, and Karl has to stay out to earn
money, he can’t be the ﬁne boy you want
him to be. . . . Wasn’t that what you


28 THE GREEN JACKET
came to America for, Mr. Bergman—for
the sake of the children?” She asked it
slowly, watching his "face.
The blue eyes were studying the ﬂoor.
He was like a great overgrown boy, his
sturdy ﬁgure standing erect before her. But
when he raised the blue eyes shrewdly and
looked at her with straight glance, they sug-
gested Viking days and the strength of battle;
and the Danish forebears whose blood raced
in his veins seemed trying to speak in the
broken words that crowded to the clumsy
lips.
“I stop drink, Miss Newberry. I begin
new man, Milwaukee. When they say,
‘Have a drink,’ I shake head. I go ’way off.
My boy he stay school. My wife she have
:nice shawl!” He leaned forward with eager
gaze. “I try hard!” he said simply.
Milly’s gaze was non-committal.
“Why do you want to drink, Mr. Berg-
man?” she asked. “Why is it so hard for
you to stop? Is it the taste of it you
want ?”
His eyes sought the corners of the room
for answer, and his hand turned the old felt


THE GREEN JACKET 29
hat. His neck raised itself a little from the
blue shirt-band.
“I don’t like it—that stuff !” he an-
nounced.
“No?”
“Bad stufTr !” he went on slowly. “Bad—
in here!” He placed an appropriate hand.
“You drink it because you’re bored, I
believe,” said Milly, looking at him shrewdly.
He turned a grateful glance.
“Yes—” He heaved a sigh. “I get up.
I go work. I work hard. I mean be good
man. But all time I feel bad—in here! I
want laugh. I want sing. I want something
happen. I say: ‘Go take drink’——”
“And then things happen,” said Milly
dryly. “Listen, Mr. Bergman. I am going
to put you on a long parole—for six months.
You are to go to Milwaukee and take this
job.” He started eagerly. She held up a
hand. “At the end of six months, if you
have been drunk—even once—you are to
come back and report to me here.”
The man’s gaze was thoughtful. “That
take big money!” he said.
“It will take bigger money to get drunk,


THE GREEN JACKET 31
ward a little. “You are going to have more
money in Milwaukee-——”
“Big pay!” said the man expansively.
“Yes— Well, you must spend some of
the money for good times.” '
“Good times ?” He scratched his head.
Then he shook it—without enthusiasm.
“For all of you,” said Milly. “Things
for the children—and for your wife. Every
day be planning something to do when you
get home—or for Saturday afternoon or
Sunday. Make a garden for them, or take
them on a picnic. Think of things!” she
said energetically.
He gazed at her humbly. “You think
that good way?” he asked doubtfully.
“I know it is,” said Milly. “You keep
thinking about the children. Make them happy
and well, and you won’t want to drink!”
She rose and held out her hand. “Good-
by,” she said quietly. “I don’t think you
will come to see me again.”
Something like regret was in the man’s
face, striving to touch the thick lips; and
Milly looked at it with eyes that held a
quick light—as if some joy came to her.


32 THE GREEN JACKET
“Good-by,” she said. “Write to me some
day about the children. I shall want to hear
about them.”
He took the hand awkwardly, and dropped
it and moved to the door. At the door he
lo'oked back.
“Good-by,” he said.
“You’ll write to me,” said Milly, “about
the children.”
He held up a clumsy hand and looked at
it. “I don’t know it—to write,” he said
slowly. “But Karl he write. He learn in
the school already.” He looked at her, as
if the words were shaping in a deep place
and groping toward her. “I thank you,” he
said slowly. “You make good man for me.
I thank you.”
She nodded, and a little quick mist seemed
to come between her and the clumsy ﬁgure
passing through the door and closing it with
careful hand. . . . The man had kept
straight for ten months. She had little
fear for him now. And something passed
with him, out through the door, a kind of
grim will to keep straight that she had been
watching shape itself for ten months. He


THE GREEN JACKET 33
was stronger than he knew! She turned
with a little sigh and gathered up a handful
of papers from the table and went out. She
had suddenly remembered Tom Corbin in
the up-town ofﬁce—probably chaﬁng and
fuming at delay!
She went quickly toward the entrance of
the building, thinking only of Tom waiting
in the oﬁ‘ice, and Tom’s impatience. But
in the revolving outer door she paused.
A young man in the opposite compart-
ment had smiled to her and touched his hat.
They both moved forward, and the door
swung round and he was still in the opposite
compartment, begging her, with a little ges-
ture, to wait for him.
She stepped back into the hall, and when
the door swung round, bringing him to her
side, she greeted him with a smile.
“Did you want to see me ?”
“I thought you wanted to see me,” he
said half-whimsically. His shoulders straight-
ened a little as he said it, and he looked
down at her. “It’s my last day, isn’t it?”
he suggested with a quiet look.
“So it is!” Her face lighted. “I am


34 THE GREEN JACKET
sorry— But some one is waiting for me in
the up-town ofﬁce. I can’t ask you to come
again, of course.” She held out her hand.
“So thank you, and good luck to you!”
He took her hand slowly. “Thank you,”
he said, looking down at her a little quiz-
zieally. “But you don’t cheat me out of a
visit, like that! I shall come again.” The
words were deliberate and there was a quiet
intentness in his face.
“You want to come?” she asked. A little
ﬂush seemed to travel across her grayness.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” he
replied. The quiet glance did not leave
her face.
A little look of reserve touched its ﬂitting
color, and she spoke half-doubtingly.
“I am not sure when I———”
But he brushed it aside. “Oh—you can’t
put me oﬂE ! When a man has been calling
on you, regularly, for at least a year, he has
some rights, surely!” There was something
almost grave in the laughing protest of the
words, and she met it With a long, quiet
look.
“Very well.” She consulted the tablet-


THE GREEN JACKET 35
slip that she took from her green purse, and
he took a step forward, looking down at her
‘and at the slip almost with an air of propri-
etorship.
“Put it up, please, Miss Newberry,” he
said quickly. “I am not going to trouble
a busy woman like you with whims. . . .
Perhaps you Will let me call on you some
evening?” He was looking at her intently,
and she returned the look, the ﬂush ﬂitting
again in her face.
“Why, of course!” she said cordially.
“I shall be glad to see you any time. . . .
Only—~” She paused a moment. “I am
often away from home, you know.”
“Then I shall come again—if I ﬁnd you
out. You will not get rid of me so easily—
with an excuse!” And he touched his hat
and moved away through the swinging door.
Her eyes followed the tall ﬁgure passing
into the crowd. At the edge of the sidewalk
he turned and looked back and raised his
hat gravely to her, before he disappeared
in the crowd. There-was something almost
signiﬁcant in the gesture, and with a little
sigh she replaced the tablet in the green


36 THE GREEN JACKET
silk purse and snapped it thoughtfully. . . .
Then suddenly she remembered again Tom
Corbin, waiting in the ofﬁce up-town—and
she hurried out.


IV
HE looked up a little cynically.
“I hope you haven’t hurried!” he said
with stern politeness.
She smiled at the gesture that accom-
panied the words.
“I was detained.” She took off her hat
and put it in the closet and seated herself
by the desk, looking at him tranquilly.
“Now we can talk!” said Corbin with
satisfaction.
“Yes— Do you'mind if I knit .P”
“Not at all. Go ahead!” The response
was light, but his eye had a cautious, wait-
ing look, as she reached to the drawer beside
her and gazed into it
Her hand stayed itself and passed thought—
fully across the edge of the drawer before it
lifted the amber needle from the top of the
knitting and drew them both from the drawer.
She held up the maze of green wool and
looked at it with amused eyes, and at the
row of stitches that gaped helplessly along
the top.

37


38 THE GREEN JACKET
Corbin ﬁdgeted a little.
“Funny thing—knitting!” he said.
She assented and inserted the needle care-
fully through the gaping row of stitches.
Her whole attention was absorbed in them.
“Anything wrong?” demanded Corbin ir-
ritably.
“No-o,” she replied. “It is better to hold
on to both needles when you take it up.”
A little smile ﬁnished the row and she held
it up with the needle in place.
“That’s the way it was,” she announced.
“Oh—bother!” said Corbin. “I was just
looking round,” he explained after a minute.
“Yes, I know. . . .” Her ﬁngers were
ﬂying nimbly through the wool, and her
gaze rested on him placidly. “Did you
ﬁnd anything that interested you?” she
asked kindly.
“Not much. I should have to work on
your cipher ﬁrst.”
“Yes?” She beamed on him. “It’s very
simple.”
“Everything about you is simple, Milly.”
He was tilting a little in his chair. “Even
the Sargent case was simple, I suppose—”
. :I


THE GREEN JACKET 39
His tone was thoughtful and his eye rested
on the ﬁle-case across the room. . . . “That
meant a whole lot of money for somebody,”
he said softly.
“Not for me,” returned Milly quickly.
He looked at her and whistled medita-
tively between his teeth.
“Why not?” he said.
She rested her knitting on her lap. “That’s
what I’m going to tell you, Tom. It’s my
method,” she added, “if you choose to call
it a method.”
She sat for a moment in silence, looking
at him.
“Go ahead!” suggested Torn.
She sighed a little and took up the knit-
ting. “I know you won’t like it,” she said
hesitatingly.
“I can’t tell till I hear, can I?” A little
impatience ﬂicked the words and she smiled.
“No—of course not! I’m only trying to
think of some way of saying it that won’t
sound so absurd to you. It’s like this—”
She drew out a needle and turned the row
of green wool and looked at it and smoothed
it a little. . . . “You see, Tom, you and I


40 THE GREEN JACKET
don’t want the same things—” She raised
her eyes.
He regarded her mildly.
“That is why I left you— I want a
chance to say what shall be done with the
criminals I catch.”
He stared a minute. “Maybe you’d like
to be justice of the supreme bench,” he
oﬂered.
She shook her head. “I’d rather be judge
of the criminal court,” she responded, smil-
ing.
“Oh—well. Have it your own way!”
The irony was magniﬁcent.
“I mean to. . . . I couldn’t have my ownv
way—and stay with you.”
He hedged a little. “Well ”
She smiled and shook her head. “You
couldn’t stand for it. . . . No, I want
something quite different, Tom. . . . It
isn’t common sense to go on catching folks
and locking them up forever, or for a little
while—and then letting them run loose. . . .
And the punishments we think up don’t
really punish them. We put a man in prison.
Of course, he doesn’t like it———”


THE GREEN JACKET 41
“Well, hardly,” said Tom dryly.
“But, after all, the worst punishment for
most of us is—living right along in the world
and knowing everybody has found you out
and despises you and thinks of it every time
they see you. That’s what his Wife and
daughters have to live through every day,
and his mother. They have to face the dis-
grace everywhere they go. I’d like to ﬁx
things so it wouldn’t come quite so hard
on them. . . . I want to say what shall
be done with the criminal I catch!” she
concluded.
“Send ’em ﬂowers, the way the ‘ladies’
do!” sneered Tom. “Sentimental bosh!
We’ve got to protect society. That’s our
work.”
“Yes—it’s part of it.”
He got up irritably and moved across the
room.
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
“No.”
He ﬁlled his pipe, crowding down the
tobacco with stem touch. He lighted it
and drew a whiff or two, and came back to
his place and sat down and looked at her.


42 THE GREEN JACKET
“G0 on,” he said. ’-
She glanced up. ‘
“Tell me the rest,” he nodded.
“There isn’t any rest,” said Milly, laugh-
ing. “That’s all!”
“I should judge so! What becomes of
’em after that?”
“Well— This is the part you particularly
won’t like,” she said hastily— “I decide
whether they are to have another chance—
or to go to prison.”
“You !”
She nodded. “I told you, you wouldn’t
like it. I wasn’t sure myself how it would
work—when I began. I only knew I was
tired of catching criminals to turn over to
the police, and the police handing them over
to the judge, and the judge handing them
over to the prison, and the prison— Well,
you know, Tom, what they are when they
come out of prison! It’s a little better now
under the new ideas—but not much! . . .
Why, you know, and I know, that half the
men in prison ought never to have been sent
there. It’s bad for them—bad for society.”
He stirred uneasily. “That isn’t our af-


THE GREEN JACKET 43
fair,” he said. “Our business is‘to catch
’em. What becomes of ’em after that doesn’t
concern us I”
“It concerns me !” said Milly. “I got so
I couldn’t sleep nights, thinking of men in
prison that would never have been there if
it hadn’t“ been for me! Men that I knew
weren’t really bad—drunk or mad or some-
thing! I made up my mind that if I did
the catching, I was going to have something
to say about the punishment.”
“The law takes care of that!” retorted
Torn.
“Not if it doesn’t get to the law—” She
smiled at him disarmingly. “That’s where
I come in.”
He made a little gesture. But she ignored
the scorn in it.
“It isn’t so hard as you think—if you
just try to see what’s right—and forget about
the law.”
He laughed shortly. “No doubt!”
“We all slip sometimes,” she went on.
“Everybody slips. You do and I do——”
He raised a protesting hand. \
She nodded. “And it isn’t fair, just be-


44 THE GREEN JACKET
_ cause somebody sees you go down—or hunts
around and ﬁnds out afterward about it—
that you should be punished, and another
man who isn’t found out goes free.”
“It’s the law,” said Tom feebly.
“It’s unjust!” said Milly. “And it isn’t
common sense! I’ve thought about it a
good deal,” she 'added mildly.
“Evidently,” murmured Tom. He was
smoking slowly and looking at her with
half-shut eyes.
“It seems to me,” she went on, “that
doing wrong is a good deal like the attrac-
tion of gravity. Everybody’s liable to take
a tumble some time. Of course if you sit
still like a lump of dough, you’re safe enough.
But folks that ﬂy around lively are liable
to slip, most any time.”
Tom chuckled.
“And perhaps just slipping is punish-
ment enough—for some folks,” she pursued.
“If they come down good and hard, maybe
they won’t slip again for a good while—per-
haps not ever.”
“Perhaps not,” sneered Tom. “But who
is going to tell?”


THE GREEN JACKET 4 5
“If a man tells a straight story, he ought
to have another chance,” said Milly ﬁrmly.
“And who’s going to judge whether he’s
straight P” persisted Tom.
Her color rose a little. “I told you I
judge that myself.”
He looked at her. “You think you are
competent to do it, I suppose?” The irony
was very gentle and she brushed it aside.
“Of course I am not competent, Tom!
Nobody is! But it’s better than shutting
them up in prison—at the expense of the
State—and all the shame and poverty for his
wife and children. . . . Besides,” she said
slowly, “you do know, pretty well, when a
man’s telling a straight story. You know,
better than you think you do, when a man’s
sincere. And they want to be straight!
Why, I’ve seen them sometimes, Tom”—
she leaned forward eagerly—“I’ve seen them
try—when they got the idea that all they
had to do was to tell a straight story—I’ve
seen them try till it was pathetic.
“They are pathetic!” she declared. “And
they are sick—some of them—they can’t
tell the truth, no matter how hard they try.


46 THE GREEN JACKET
“A man that can’t tell the truth ought
to be in prison just as much as if he had a
temperature. He’s got a germ—he needs
a cathartic or something!” She ﬁred it at
him, and his eyes twinkled. “He’s better
oﬁE in a hospital— Only they’re such pest-
houses, the prisons we have now,” she added
reluctantly. “But they’re the best we’ve
got; and you can’t leave a man with a small-
pox germ going around loose, nor a con-
ﬁrmed criminal—not one that lies,” she
concluded.
Tom laughed out shortly. “You make
out a good case, Milly. You ought to be
a lawyer!”
She ﬂushed. “You say that for a com-
pliment—but it isn’t!”
“How about your clients?” said Tom ab-
ruptly. “Don’t they kick?”
“They have to sign for it beforehand,”
said Milly.
He stared. “You mean—they agree—to
let you—” He broke off before the ab-
surdity of it.
“They have to,” she said tranquilly. She
rolled up her work and tossed it into the


*THE GREEN JACKET 47
drawer and opened another drawer, at the
right, and took out a paper.
“This is my form of agreement.” She
handed it to him and he read it through and
whistled softly.
“You mean they sign—for that!” He
held it up, shaking it a little.
She nodded. A smile broke across her
face. “I should ask you to sign it if we go
into partnership,” she said quietly.
He handed it back to her! with a quick,
negative gesture.
“Not for me, Milly!” he said decisively.
“I told you you wouldn’t stand for it,”
she replied. She replaced the paper in the
drawer and closed it. His eye followed the
movement. -
“I never dreamed of anything like that!”
he retorted sternly.
“Better try dreaming it for a while,” she
responded. “There’s more in it than you
think, perhaps!”
He nodded gloomily. “But not for me—
It’s a pipe-dream!” He removed the pipe
from his mouth and looked at its deadness
and knocked the ashes into the tray she


48 THE GREEN JACKET
pushed toward him. He stowed the pipe in
his pocket. “That’s done!” he said.
She was looking at him with half-amused
eyes.
His elbows rested on the chair-arms, and
his ﬁngers were crossed protectingly across
his person. He shook his head once or
twice.
“Simply absurd!” he murmured.
“I knew you would think so,” said Milly.
“You don’t want me for a partner, then?”
He gave her a slow look. “I want you——
yes. But not on those terms!” He nodded
toward the closed drawer.
“Those are my terms,” she said gently.
“Well—” He roused himself and got up
and reached for his hat. He turned to her.
“I’ll tell you what I will do,” he said mag-
nanimously. “I’ll sign you for a single
,!
case——
“The Hudson case?” asked Milly in sur-
prise. ,
He shook his head. “Not the Hudson
case—but one quite as important—one that
nobody will ever solve.” He said it with
a little cynical smile, and she hesitated a


THE GREEN JACKET 49
moment. Then she opened the drawer and
took out the paper and handed it to him.
He reached for a pen and ﬁlled in the blank
spaces and signed his name with ﬁrm hand.
“It’s for the Mason emeralds,” he said.
He pushed the paper toward her. “Find
out who took the Mason emeralds, and you
shall do what you like with the thief. The
reward we split even. It’s big money !”
“Very well.” She folded the paper in
slow ﬁngers. “When will you give me the
history?” she asked.
“This afternoon— Any time,” he said
promptly, “that you’ll come down to the
ofﬁce. We’re full of stuff on the case. I’ll
turn it over to you, and be glad to! We
gave up the case two years ago after some
of the hardest work the ofﬁce ever put in
on anything. I shelved it for good and all,
I thought. But this morning I happened to
come on a clipping in my mail announcing
the death of a woman whom we had sus-
pected.” He opened his purse and took it
out and handed it to her. “It’s only fair
to tell you, Milly, that you will never solve
the case.” His manner was kind as he


50 THE GREEN JACKET
handed it to her. “There is something
uncanny in the way the Mason emeralds
dropped out of the world!” And even as
he said it, the mystery seemed tagging at
him, beckoning him to follow it once more.
He shrugged his shoulders with a little
gesture of defeat and glanced about the
quiet ofﬁce, and then at Milly, standing
with the clipping in her ﬁngers, regarding
him with a smile. He shook his head slowly.
“You are making a mistake, Milly, not
to come in with me. We are made to work
together. You have a good mind for de-
tails, but you need me to handle the case
as a whole.” He spoke magnanimously and
she held out her hand.
“It’s good to see you again, Tom. Yes,
I’ll come this afternoon. I can’t tell, of
course, whether I will take the case until
I know more about it.”
He stared at her a minute. Then he
chuckled.
“No wonder you have the business!” he
said softly, “if you treat them all like that!”
A knock sounded on the door and she
turned to it with a motion of excuse.


THE GREEN JACKET 51
The man who stood in the hall lifted his
hat. “May I see Miss Newberry?” he
asked.
“I am Miss Newberry,” said Milly quietly.
“Will you come in?”
And as the stranger entered and Tom
passed out he was wondering about the
man. All the way down in the elevator, de-
scending to the street, he was wondering
what John Kingman wanted of Milly. Tom
knew the man. He was a big serum specialist.
He had heard him testify in a murder case
last week. Milly certainly had luck, and
she had the business!


V
“WILL you sit down?” said Milly. She
motioned to the chair by the desk.
He looked a little dubiously about the
room, and then at the quiet ﬁgure that con-
fronted him. “You are Miss Newberry?”
he asked doubtingly.
“Yes.” She smiled slightly.
He seated himself and drew a handful of
papers from his pocket. From among them
he selected a business-card and laid it on
the desk.
“That is my name.”
She glanced down at the minute script—
“Dr. John Kingman, Serum Specialist, Room
136, Caxton Building.” He was looking at
her hopefully.
“You know my name?” he asked doubt-
ingly.
A faint smile touched her lips. “I have
heard it. Is there something I can do for
you?” She pushed his card a little aside
with her ﬁnger and looked at the man.
5:


THE GREEN JACKET 53
He twisted in his seat, and stared! at the
window. “I want evidence collected fOr
me. You do that, don’t you .P” He turned
to her brusquely.
“I do it sometimes—yes.”
He glanced at her sharply. “I was told
you are the best detective in the State~for
difﬁcult cases.”
The ﬂattery seemed to slip past the gray
eyes. They were regarding him steadily.
“Is your‘case difﬁcult?” she asked. I
“Damned dif— I beg your pardon!” He
chewed at a corner of his mustache—it had a
short, cropped look as if it had been attacked
in moments of perplexity.
The woman’s hand reached the drawer
beside her, and it slid softly open. “Would-
you mind if I knit?” she said.
He stared at her. “Knit! Oh!” His eye
fell on the green wool with a condescending
glance. \
“Go ahead,” he granted.
He laughed with a little masculine ease,
and watched the needles as they moved
swiftly in her ﬁngers.
“Women like that sort of thing,” he com-


54 THE GREEN JACKET
mended. . . . “I believe if my wife had
knit things like that ”—-he moved his
hand to the green wool—“I’d never be
here!”
Her needles had come to the end of a
row and they turned it deftly. She did not
speak.
The man’s face relaxed a little. “I want
a divorce, you know!”
“Ye-s-s—” The word and the wool ran
together in quiet assent, and the man
stretched himself comfortably in his chair.
“My wife—~—”
She lifted her eyes. “You had better not
tell me about it,” she said. “I don’t handle
divorce cases.”
He stared, and sat up quickly. “You’re
too high-toned, I suppose!” It was a quick
sneer.
“Not high enough,” she returned. “I
should be glad to handle them if I knew
enough. Idon’t. They belong to avery high
grade of work.”
“You take murder cases, don’t you?”
he retorted.
“ Sometimes.”


56 THE GREEN JACKET
The man stared.
“Stop thinking about yourself and your
wrongs. . . . I don’t know what they are—
I’d rather not know. Whatever they are,
they are past. . . . If it is best for your wife
to leave you, then help her do it. Stop
thinking about yourself.”
The man’s narrow eyes widened a little
as they studied the quiet face before him.
She nodded. “Help her to get away
from you if you think she will be better
off.”
The man’s eyes continued to regard her
with a puzzled look.
“But I’d be pretty sure ﬁrst, if I were
you, that it’s best for her to leave you. . . .
It would be a silly sort of body, if its heart
went wrong, that went to work planning to
get rid of it—divorce it for good and all.
That’s a homely way of saying it. I’m a
homely woman, and when people are married
they seem to me one, just as truly as the
body is all one. I don’t divorce part of me
——unless it’s too bad to be made right. If
it is, I go to a good surgeon and tell him to
make quick work of it.” She paused with


THE GREEN JACKET 57
a thoughtful'look, and smiled. “But the
best surgeons now, they tell me, don’t be-
lieve in amputating. They bring their cases
to a serum specialist—don’t they?” She
nodded toward the card on the desk. “And
you ﬁnd out what’s wrong and give them
some more of the same kind—only different,
and they get well.”
The look in the man’s face darted and
broke in a little laugh.
“You think I’d better give Rose serum
treatment! Spiritual serum!” He chuckled.
His face had cleared.
“I wonder what kind?” he said thought-
fully. His voice had the keen note of the
scientist attacking a difﬁcult problem.
“Some brand of human kindness, I should
say,” responded Milly dryly.
The man laughed and got up. “I believe
you’ve been giving me serum treatment!”
He held out his hand. “If there is ever
anything I can do for you—” He motioned
to the card.
She glanced down at it and her face lighted.
“Some day I should like to come to you—
to study,” she said. “I want to know about
- '9


58 THE GREEN JACKET
this serum business. I think perhaps it
would help me to understand human nature
a little better.”
He laughed out. “More likely you would
tell me enough about people so I would un-
derstand my own serums better. I’ve been
staring at my cultures for years—never sus-
pecting what they might mean!” . . . He
looked at her curiously. “Do you know,
this is the ﬁrst time in six months that I
have laughed—”
She returned the look quietly. “It’s a
pity your wife couldn’t hear you.” She
said it in a matter-of-fact tone, and he laughed
out again.
“I am going home,” he said. “I came here
with the idea that I was a desperate ﬁgure
~a kind of modern Othello !—blighted life
and so on, due to inﬁdelity. . . . You’ve
made me see I’m sick—a kind of spiritual
invalid, that hasn’t sense enough to take
care of a common cold—just goes around
suffering with it!” He paused a minute
and looked at her thoughtfully.
“May I say that if divorce cases are dif-
ﬁcult, they ought to be your specialty. You


THE GREEN JACKET 459
may not know enough to handle them, but
you certainly have common sense!”
She shook her head. “Yes, I have com-
mon sense. But they require a higher kind
of sense. Some day I hope to have a little
of it. Only by that time”——-she turned to
him with a quick look—“marriage may be
out of date!” She said it a little whimsically
and motioned aside the check-book he had
drawn from his pocket.
“No—I do not want your money. The
advice may not be worth anything. Try it
and see.”
When he was gone she went to the window
and threw it up, and stood looking off at
the clouds. Her face had a tired look, and
now and then she passed her hands quietly
across her eyes and down her face, as if she
were freeing herself from something.
When she resumed her knitting there was
a little smile on her lips. . . . Her mind
had run back to the days when she ﬁrst
began work—the mistakes she had made
before she found herself and her work!
In those early days she had handled divorce
cases. Yes—even after she set up business


60 THE GREEN JACKET
for herself, there had been one or two before
she learned her lesson—that they were the
most diﬂicult work in the world for a detec-
tive who wanted what she wanted.
And all that she wanted grew with every
day of work. . . . Her eyes followed the
amber needles, and thoughts seemed to ﬂow
before them as if a pattern knitted itself in
the green wool. . . . At ﬁrst she had tried
to take notes while clients talked, but she
found they grew self-conscious and began
to embroider facts, or they ran dry and
stopped altogether. But the knitting seemed
to relax tongues, and she had fallen into a
way, when she wanted to remember a point
or reconsider it, of purling a double stitch in
her work. She even, as she grew more skil-
ful, made what might be called a rough little
pattern of the case in the stitches that slipped
so smoothly through her ﬁngers. Many of
her plans were wrought in wool, and the
knitting was always in her hands when she
was talking with a new client or thinking
out his case. But it was conﬁned to the
up-town ofﬁce, where the most important
business of the ﬁrm was transacted. Here,


THE GREEN JACKET 61
Whenever possible, Milly received clients for
the ﬁrst time. Many of her Clients did not
even guess of the existence of the busier
ofﬁce with its rows of typewriters and swing-
ing glass doors.


VI
A SHADOW fell on the ground-glass door,
and paused. Milly looked up quickly. She
half reached out to close the open drawer
with its ball of wool. Then she withdrew
her hand and went on knitting.
The shadow stirred a little and a timid
knock came on the door.
“Come in,” said Milly. She went on
counting stitches.
When she looked up a“: tall, gaunt ﬁgure
in black, heavily veiled, was standing hesi-
tatingly by the closed door.
“Will you sit down?” she said.
The woman moved forward, almost trem-
ulously, and came to the chair by the desk.
“Are you a detective?” she asked doubt-
ingly.
“I am Millicent Newberry—yes.”
With a little gasp of relief the woman sank
into the chair.
Milly went on with her knitting. Ap-
parently she had forgotten the woman by
62


THE GREEN JACKET 63
the desk. Her eyes following the line of
wool, gave no hint that they had taken in
each detail of the gaunt ﬁgure—even to
the hands folded in her lap.
The hands were large, and the knuckles
seen through the wrinkled black gloves were
slightly misshapen; the ﬁngers seemed to
clinch a little, as if to hold themselves steady.
Behind the veilthe dark eyes studied the
woman who was knitting.
She came to the end of the row before
she looked up. “Did you want to see me?”
she asked as she drew out the needle and
turned her work.
The woman’s lips moistened themselves
and she lifted a hand and threw back the
veil as if it suffocated her. The face re-
vealed was very pale. She gave a quick
glance about the room. . . . The ﬂowers
on the desk, the sunshine ﬁlling the room,
and the gray woman with her knitting
seemed to release some hidden spring and
she gave a quick, restful sigh. The pale
face turned to Milly with a look of relief.
“I thought you would be different!” she
said.


THE GREEN JACKET 65
talk freely with you. I am under a pledge. But a
great wrong is being done. You must not rest till
you know. The nurse has told me of Millicent New-
berry. I think she can help you—and she can keep
a secret. Go to her soon, dear Aunt. I am loving
you always. M ARI AN.
Milly read it through without comment
and folded itand returned it to her.
“Who is Marian?” she asked. “What is
her other name?”
“She was Marian Mason,” said the
woman.
Milly’s needles knit a double stitch before
she looked up.
“‘Was’?” she said slowly. “Then she
“She died,” said the woman. “The day
before this was mailed.” She touched the
letter. There was a little quiver in her voice.
“She called you ‘aunt’ ?” said Milly with
a motion toward the letter.
The woman hesitated an instant. “I am
not her aunt,” she said at last. “She chose
to call me aunt—but she was really my
adopted daughter. We adopted her when
she was twelve years old, and gave her our
own name—Mason.”

is


66 THE GREEN JACKET
Another double stitch slipped into the
wool, and the woman’s voice went quietly on.
“You see she tells me to come to you.”
She touched the letter again. “That means
I must tell you everything.” She seemed to
shrink a little.
“You need not be afraid.”
“No—” It was almost eager. “I want
to tell you! But I have suﬂered—and it
comes crowding back!” She raised a gaunt
hand to her breast and hurried on as if fear-
ful her purpose might fail her.
“I am Mrs. Oswald Mason. We live at
Lincoln. We have always lived there, and
Marian lived with us until two years ago.
Then she went away. I have not seen her
since—until two weeks ago when she wrote,
asking me to come to her. She said they
had told her she was dying, and she wanted
to see me—” She paused, wrestling with
herself.
“You went to her, did you?” The voige
was gentle, and she raised a grateful look.
“I went at once. I could not have kept
from going. . . . I always loved her dearly.
Even when the trouble came, I loved her


THE GREEN JACKET 67
——though I was very hard on her.” The
voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“What was the trouble?” asked Milly.
“A necklace of emeralds—they were mine,”
said the woman. “And they disappeared.”
Something in the words and voice knit a
swift, ﬂying stitch into the green wool. But
the quiet face was unmoved.
“And you thought she took them?”
“Oh—I didn’t know!” The woman’s
hands in the wrinkled gloves clasped them-
selves tightly. “I did not think—they were
gone!”
“'Was there any reason ?”
“She was in my room alone nearly all the
afternoon before they disappeared. She was
doing up some laces for me and we had been
looking over my jewels—cleaning some of
them.” She hesitated a minute. “I do not
look like a woman who would have ﬁne
jewels, do I?” She raised her hollow eyes.
“But my husband thinks I am beautiful.”
She said it softly and half-apologetically.
“He likes to give jewels to me.”
Something far within the woman’s face—
a certain wild beauty—seemed to shine out


68 THE GREEN JACKET
elusively, and Milly, over her knitting, had
a sense of truth in the words and a quick
curiosity about the man who had seen and
evoked the beauty in its uncouth setting.
“I am old now,” went on the woman slow-
ly. “It was when I was young he gave them
to me, most of them—but none so beautiful
as the emeralds—” She seemed lost in
thought, and Milly did not speak or move.
Already her mind was busy bringing order
out of the detached, chaotic words.
“I could not help seeing that Marian ad-
mired them—the emeralds—while we were
cleaning them. She held them up to the
light and played with them, and ﬁnally she
put them on and went over to the mirror
and looked at herself a long time.” The
woman seemed to hurry over the words as
if fearful of their import. “I put the neck-
lace in the case and left it, unlocked, on my
toilet-table when I went out. I did not
come in till just before dinner, and I had to
hurry and dress. But just before I went
down-stairs, I saw the case and locked it
and put it in the cabinet where I always
keep it.”


THE GREEN JACKET 69
She sat silent, looking before her. “I
did not look in it. I could not dream of
anything—I would sooner have suspected
myself!” The hands in the wrinkled gloves
were pressed tightly together. “I could not
suspect Marian!” she said under her breath.
“When did you miss them?” asked Milly.
The eyes returned to her swiftly. “It was
in the morning—next morning. Mr. Mason
was starting for New York, and I remembered
a pin I wanted him to take—to match a
stone that had been lost, and I ran up to
my room to get it. The minute I opened
the case I knew the emeralds were gone.”
She paused a minute. “It was curious I
should have discovered it so soon. Some-
times I did not open the box for days.”
“Did you tell your husband?”
“At once. I hurried down with the box
in my hand. I knew how valuable they
were and I was so thankful he had not gone
before I discovered it. He was terribly
startled. I could see from his face, when
I told him, that they must have been even
more valuable than I knew. But he made
light of it. He told me not to worry.


70 THE GREEN JACKET
He said I had mislaid them and would ﬁnd
them somewhere in the room. He made me
promise not to mention it to a soul. Then
he had to hurry to catch his train, and I
was left alone. . . . I hunted everywhere.”
“But you did not ﬁnd them?”
“No—they had been stolen.” The wom-
an’s voice was dull, but there was a quick
crimson spot in either check that gave a wild
glow to her face. “They have been a curse
to me!” she said almost ﬁercely. “There
has always been a curse on them—always !”
Milly was folding her‘work slowly. She
put it in the drawer and got up.
“You want me to take the case?” she
asked.
The woman nodded without speaking. She
seemed still wrestling with the emotion that
had caused her to cry out.
Milly opened the drawer at the right and
took out an agreement form and passed it
to her with a pen, indicating the line.
“If you will be kind enough to sign there,
I shall be glad to take the case.”
The woman received it with dazed look.
She read it through and glanced up quickly.


THE GREEN JACKET 7!
“But this gives you a great deal of power!”
she said protestingly.
“Yes, I do not take a case otherwise,” re-
plied Milly.
The woman dipped the pen slowly. “It
is strange,” she said. “But I had thought of
asking you to give me this power.” She
touched the paper.
“You wanted me to ﬁnd out who took
the emeralds—and then let you decide what
should be done with the thief?” Milly was
not looking at her. The question was al-
most careless.
“Yes.” The woman smiled wanly. “Of
course you would not do a thing like that!”
She traced her name on the paper and Milly
blotted it slowly.
“Yes, I should be quite willing to do it.
But you need not be afraid to trust me with
this. You and I want the same thing, I
think. . . . I will only keep it for safety
—-in case some one else tries to force my
hand.” She replaced the paper in the drawer
and turned to the woman.
“I want you to drop the case, and any
fear or responsibility you may have. Do


72 THE GREEN JACKET
not think of the emeralds again till I ask
you about them.”
“But I have not told you all!” protested
the woman? “Don’t you need to know more
than this?” She made a little gesture.
“Some time—not now,” said Milly. “You
are tired and nervous. Go home and rest.
Forget everything. To-morrow I shall come
to you as seamstress.”
“But I have not
“Your clothes need freshening.” She
glanced kindly at the dingy black garments,
and the woman’s face ﬂushed.
“This evening,” said Milly, “you will see
an advertisement in the paper—a ﬁrst-class
seamstress wanting work. You will call
your husband’s attention to it and say you
will telephone me—I shall come out to-
morrow. I shall, of course, sleep at the house.
I may not be able to stay more than three or
four days. If we have not found what we
want by that time, I may have to send some
one else to take my place for a while. . . .
But I think we Shall ﬁnd it.”
The woman’s face had grown subtly rested,
and in it was something of the elusive beauty
”


THE GREEN JACKET 73
that had startled Milly a little before. She
stood up and held out her hand.
“I cannot tell you what it means to trust
you—to trust any one!” she said slowly.
“I shall sleep to-night !”
“You are not to worry again, remember.
I only wish you had come to me sooner.”
“Oh, I could not!” A little shudder ran
through the words. “I could not have come
now—I should not have known about you
if it had not been for this—” She looked
down at the letter in her hand. “The nurse
told her you could be trusted, you see. That
was why I came.”
“What was the nurse’s name?” asked
Milly. “Did you see her?”
“Yes. She was Miss Stanton—Alice Stan-
ton. ,She said she knew you?” She glanced
at her inquiringly.
Milly nodded. “She was concerned in a
case I had last year. She is a ﬁne woman.”
“Yes—and Marian trusted her.” She held
out the letter. “I am going to leave this
with you.” But her ﬁngers seemed still to
retain their hold on it.
“Do you want to?” asked Milly.


74 THE GREEN JACKET
“1 want to leave everything with you!”
said the woman impulsively. Something
that was like a smile touched the dark face.
“I did not think when I came, I should
be saying that to you!” she added softly.
“Go home and rest,” said Milly. “And
to-morrow I shall come to you. I shall help
you in every way I can.”
When the woman was gone she unfolded
the letter she had placed in her hands and
read it slowly and thoughtfully, and carried
it to the case across the room and locked it
away.
Then she went to the telephone and called
the down-town Ofﬁce and gave directions
for an appointment to be made for her with
Daggett & Beals, the leading jewelry-ﬁrm
in the city, at eleven o’clock. She hesitated
a moment. Then she called the Corbin
Agency and asked for the manager.
After a minute’s delay a gruﬂ, important
voice came over the wire to her, and she
smiled a little as the importance reached
her.
“It is Milly, Tom. . . . I am at my oﬂice,
yes. I want to come in about twelve—to


THE GREEN JACKET 75
talk over the Mason case. Shall you be
there? . . . Yes. All right. Thank you.”
She hung up, and took her hat and coat
from the closet and left the ofﬁce.


VII
THE dingy window was cluttered with a
collection of strange objects, and dark smells
and secrets seemed to emerge from the low
doorway as Milly entered the shop. The old
man who hurried forward from a back room
greeted her with eager, .smiling face. He
rubbed his hands a little.
“It is long time we do not see you,” he
said slowly. The small eyes and the shrugged-
up shoulders regarded her kindly.
“How is business?” asked Milly.
“Oh—but bad!” Thevshoulders shrugged
themselves higher and the outspread palms
laid it before her.
She smiled a little. “Always bad, isn’t
it, Mr. Stransky?
“I am looking for emeralds.” She spoke
abruptly and a swift look crossed the man’s
face.
“Emeralds! S0?” The hands spread
themselves wider. He watched her face
humbly.
76


THE GREEN JACKET 77
“Listen!” she said. “I want to ﬁnd a
number of stones—or perhaps a whole neck-
lace.”
“Oh-ho!” The hands made a swift in-
telligent gesture, that passed quickly to the
face. “That would be the Mason emeralds !”
he said.
“Yes. Have you seen them?”
He shook his head with a long, knowing
smile. “If I see those stones, I rich man!”
he said quaintly.
“You have heard of them ?”
He nodded darkly. “Mr. Corbin, he offer
big money—two year ago. He say big re-
ward—no risk !” He shook his head slowly,
spreading his ﬁngers wide and touching one
in swift emphasis. “Not one emerald in all
two years!” he declared. “Not one!”
Milly looked at him thoughtfully. “Some-
times, you know, you have managed to ﬁnd
things for me—after every one else had
given up.” She spoke with a little slow
signiﬁcance. “I know you will do your best
for me,” she added casually.
A swift mask seemed to fall from the man’s
face. The small eyes regarded her with


78 THE GREEN JACKET
kindly glance, and the hands and shoulders
were quiet.
“I do all for you, Miss Newberry,” he de-
clared. “What comes in I tell you—ﬁrst.
But those emeralds”—he shook his head—
“I think they will not come!”
“No ?”
“No—a strange case!” said the man.
“One day safe in box—next day, gone!
And not one stone comes in!”
“How much did you know about them?”
asked Milly curiously.
“They tell us the number of stones and
the size—yes. Every pawn-shop in the city
has looked out—but not one stone!” he said
impressively.
“Why should they steal and not try sell?”
he demanded of her.
She shook her head. “That’s what I am
going to ﬁnd out—if I can.”
The man’s eyes regarded her trustingly.
“I think you ﬁnd them,” he said. “Yes, I
think it!” He nodded his head.
“Thank you. I wish you could help me.
How is Mrs. Stransky ?”
“Oh—Sarah !” He raised his voice to the


THE GREEN JACKET 79
back of the shop. “She want to see you,”
he conﬁded to the detective.
A little, shining-eyed woman came halt-
ingly from the dusk of the rear. When she
saw the gray ﬁgure by the door she hurried
forward.
“‘It is Miss Newberry !” she cried.
“Yes. And how is Jacob?” asked Milly,
taking the eager hand.
“Yes—~but ﬁne!” said the woman. “You
come in?”
“Not this morning,” Milly smiled. “I
came to ask Mr. Stransky to help me.”
“Yes?” The shining eyes consulted her
husband’s face.
He shook his head. “Nothing!” he replied.
“Oh—but too bad!” said the woman
briskly. “Not to help Miss Newberry!
When she need something! And she help
Jakey—and not tell police!” Her lifted
hands were full of grateful memory.
“He’s all right, is he?” asked Milly.
“Jacob got good job!” nodded the man.
“And always good boy!” broke in the
wife. “Always so good boy! He get mar-
ried now next fall!” she announced proudly.


80 THE GREEN JACKET
“I am glad!” said Milly. “Tell him to
come and see me some time.”
“He like come!” said the woman eagerly.
“Always when he go to you, he say it like
some good time to see Miss Newberry!
He sorry when you say not come any
more!”
Milly laughed out. “Well, tell him I
don’t say not come—I say come—next
week, or whenever he can. Only telephone
me ﬁrst. . . . I must go now and hunt
emeralds.”
The eyes of the two followed her from the
door of the shop. Then they turned and
regarded each other gravely.
“She good woman!” said the man.
“Like our Lady of the Water!” responded
his wife. “She hold big candle and look
everywhere !”
Something in the uplifted hand and ﬁxed
gaze of the tiny ﬁgure was not unlike the
great statue that stands guard at the door
of the nation, and Isaac’s face held it ad-
miringly.
The woman’s lips moved softly. “She
say: Come—all children—I give good


THE GREEN JACKET 81
chance!” she murmured under her breath.
The ﬁxed look broke.
A ﬁgure stood in the doorway and she
moved toward it.
“Jakey! It is Miss Newberry. One min-
ute now—she say: ‘Come’ l”
The youth stopped, with perplexed gaze.
“Now What have I done?” he muttered
quickly.
“Oh—but nuttin’, Jakey!” She was half-
laughing, half-crying, with the love and
admiration in her gaze. The worn ﬁngers
stroked his sleeve.
“It was little visit, she say—make call!”
“What for?” demanded the youth. “I’m
keeping straight!” His shoulders squared
themselves. “She can’t come back on me
for nothing!” he declared proudly.
His father’s hand made gentle passes across
the straightened shoulders, and his voice was
soothing.
“So-o!" he said. “She say make call,
like friend.”
“Oh—sure!” laughed the boy. “I’d like
to call on her, all right! She’s great!”
The shining mother-eyes regarded him,


82 THE GREEN JACKET
and the little ﬁgure drew itself erect. Some-
thing of the spirit of liberty touched it again
as she repeated softly, after Jakey, “She’s
great!” and again, softly: “She hold candle
high—look everywhere!”


VIII
TOM CORBIN got up quickly, with a smile.
“Well, it’s good to see you, Milly, coming
in that door! It’s like old times, you
know!”
She shook hands with him and glanced
about the ofﬁce.
“You haven’t changed things much, have
you P” A
“More dust! That’s about all!” said
Tom. He looked about the room critically,
as if he saw it with new eyes, and for the
ﬁrst time.
“Dust doesn’t hurt!” he declared. “Good
for ﬁnger-prints !” He laughed out.
“Bad for ﬁngers,” returned Milly. “Spoils
the touch.”
“Well—perhaps—you’ve decided to take
the Mason case, have you P” He was smiling
at her, a little cynically.
She nodded:, “If you will give me the
data.”
“Oh—I’ll give you data—all you want!
83


84 THE GREEN JACKET
They’ve been right here, waiting, some time !”
He laid his hand on a huge pile of papers on
the table.
“All those ?” asked Milly, incredulous.
“And more,” responded Tom. “These are
the siftings. You’d better draw up.”
He placed a chair for her and they bent
over the mass of papers, Tom explaining
and elaborating as she questioned and made
notes and laid aside such papers as she wished
to take with her.
It was evident that no pains had been
spared and no details overlooked. To a
mind trained as Milly’s had been under
Tom Corbin’s strenuous methods, the piled-
up papers represented an enormous amount
of faithful work. If it had been possible to
solve the case by hard work, the Corbin
Agency would already have been in pos-
session of the reward offered.
“Fifteen thousand dollars,” said Tom.
“Were the stones worth as much as that?”
asked Milly in surprise.
“Well——” He looked reﬂective. “They
were probably valuable. But I somehow
had an idea that the reward covered some-


THE GREEN JACKET 85
thing besides the worth of the jewels—some-
thing I could not put my ﬁnger on,” he added
awkwardly.
“Yes?” She was smiling.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I got into
the way of imagining things of that sort—~
working with you!” he declared. “There’s
nothing in it probably.”
“Probably not,” she murmured.
The situation as outlined was certainly
clear, and lacking in any element of mys-
tery that might explain its bafﬂing character.
It lay before Milly in methodical order—
each point carefully tabulated and arranged
with Tom Corbin’s usual skill:
The jewel-case was always kept locked
and Mrs. Mason wore the key on a little
chain. On May 3 Mrs. Mason and Marian,
her adopted daughter, a young woman about
nineteen, had been going over the jewels,
cleaning some of them. Mrs. Mason had
gone out for the afternoon, leaving the case
on the toilet-table, unlocked. There was
no one else at home, except the servants,
who were all in the rear of the house. Mr.
Mason, the husband, a broker in a small


88 THE GREEN JACKET
day. And he paid up everything—all the
debts—between the 3d and the 26th.”
“You found where he got the money, of
course?” said Milly. She was glancing
through the papers he gave her.
“Not a cent of it! Not a clew to it! He
must have had it in cash— No big deposit-
check turned in. Nothing. . . . Every-
body seems to have trusted him, down to
the ground. Besides”—he pointed to the date
—“he had the money before the jewels were
taken, you see !”
“Yes—unless they misrepresented the date
to shield him ?”
“I wish they had !” chuckled Tom. “That
would have been easy to check—like taking
candy from a child. . . . They’re simple
sort of folks.”
“Are they?” said Milly. And the gaunt
ﬁgure in it's black garments passed swiftly
before her. . . .
“Perfectly simple! If you go out there to
work, you’ll like them all.”
“All—?”
“By Jovwthat’s so! The son’s gone!”
“And the adopted daughter is dead,” said
Milly.


THE GREEN JACKET 89
“You’re right—there’s no one there now
but the two old folks!” He seemed struck
by it for the ﬁrst time.
“You did not suspect the daughter?”
asked Milly casually.
“Suspected everybody,” replied Torn.
“Do now! But absolutely no proof. We
shadowed her weeks after she went away.
Not a sign. And we shadowed the son, too—
nearly a year. He was perfection!” Tom
laughed cynically. “I wish I had half as
good a record as the men brought in for him.
Always home nights. Kind to his mother—
taking her out driving, watching over her like
a dutiful son. One of our men was put on
as chauffeur for a while. He said he never
saw anything like the fellow’s devotion to his
mother. . . . Well, I don’t know!” He
pushed the papers from him with a sigh.
“That case has bothered me more than a
little. I wake up in the night sometimes,
even now, thinking about it — though I
swore, six months ago, I’d never touch the
thing again!”
“How about the pawn-shops ?” asked
Milly.
“Worse than useless! ‘Bad year for
1.5%"!


90 THE GREEN JACKET
emeralds,’ they say.” He chuckled. “And
I guess they’re straight. They all have the
description of them. Of course a large part
of the value was in the gradation—color and
size. The separate stones would not be so
easy to identify, either. But nothing has
come in. . . . It almost looks as if that
necklace had not been broken up,” he said
thoughtfully.
“Well! Take it! And I wish you joy of
your ﬁndings!” he added almost savagely.
“I declare!” He looked down at the
piled-up papers before him. “If you can
put your ﬁnger on the right clew in these”
—he laid his hand on them—“I’m “almost
willing to say I’ll sign that paper of yours
for keeps. We’d go into partnership, and
you should do what you liked with all the
cases you handled!” It was magnanimous
and hearty, and Milly laughed out.
“Take care, Tom! I might take you at-
your word. Better wait. Besides, I may fail
worse than you have.”
“You couldn’t do that,” he said gen-
erously. “But to be perfectly frank with
you, I don’t think there’s much danger you


THE GREEN JACKET 91
9
will be able to take up my offer.’ He was
looking at her almost regretfully.
“Well, I can only try!” She gathered up
the papers she had selected, and placed them
in her portfolio.
“Was the necklace bought here in the
city P” she asked.
“Daggett & Beals,” responded Tom.
“I think I’ll ask them for a description,”
said Milly, taking up her portfolio.
“You’ve got it there,” he nodded to the
portfolio.
“The one Mrs. Mason gave—yes. But
sometimes a new description is a help—when
a case is bafﬂing.” _
“All right,” said Tom. He eyed the scat-
tered papers on the table, from which Milly
had made her selection. The mass seemed
scarcely reduced. “I don’t think you’ll ﬁnd
many facts we’ve overlooked,” he said dryly.
“I don’t expect to. It’s a splendid piece
of work! Well, good-by, Torn.” She held
out her hand. “I’ll come in and report when
I’ve made any progress.”
Tom took the hand and looked down on
her from his height.


92 THE GREEN JACKET
“You’re a good sport, Milly. But you’ll
ﬁnd you’re up against it this time!” He
said it almost apologetically and held her
hand as if loath to deceive her.
She drew the hand away with a ﬂitting
smile. “Good-by. You will see me again,
you know,” she nodded, and the door closed
behind her.
Torn looked at the closed door. He shook
his head. He looked at the scattered papers
on the table, and a shadow of irritation
crossed his face. He summoned a girl from
the adjoining room.
“Take them away,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir. Shall I ﬁle them again?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Do what
you like with them! . . . They’re mere
trash—to a woman!” he said savagely.
“Oh, yes, sir,” she murmured vaguely.
And she bore them away.


IX
THE clerk behind the glass case near the
door, in Daggett & Beals, looked up a
little cynically at the woman in gray, wait-
ing for an answer.
“Mr. Daggett is not at liberty,” he said
suavely. “Can I serve you in any other
way?” with the slightest emphasis on the
“other.”
She opened a green purse.
The clerk’s eyes rested on the curiously
wrought gold ﬁttings. It was an unusual
piece of workmanship, and his ﬁngers had
a trace of respect as he accepted the card
she gave him and bore it toward the inner
oﬁ'ice.
His air was more courteous—even a little
eager when he returned.
“Will you kindly step this way, madame.
Mr. Daggett will be pleased to see you,” he
said.
The door of the inner oﬂice closed behind
the gray ﬁgure, and the clerk passing through
the rows of cases holding jewels of fabulous
93


94 THE GREEN JACKET
price, wondered a little uncomfortably whether
he had possibly been a triﬂe rude to the woman
at ﬁrst. She had looked so unimpressive
when she asked for the head of the ﬁrm that
he had expected at best a curt refusal to the
card. But he knew his employer’s face well
——he had studied it for twenty-ﬁve years——
and he had seldom seen a keener look of
pleasure than passed across it swiftly when
he glanced down at the card.
“Show her in at once,” he had said
promptly. \
The door to the private ofﬁce remained
closed a long time. The clerk glanced at
it from time to time, and wondered again
whether he had possibly made a mistake,
and still the door remained closed. He
meditated bestowing a little courteous at-
tention on the gray ﬁgure, when it should
emerge, and he hovered near the outer door
in readiness for it.
The door of the private oﬂice at last
opened and the gray ﬁgure stepped out into
the main room. And close behind it followed
the proprietor himself, accompanying her
between the cases, stopping here and there


THE GREEN JACKET 95
to comment or explain, or lift some piece
for her inspection. In the most expensive
section, they paused by the case contain-
ing the most valuable gems in the store.
The proprietor took out a set of pearls and
held them toward the woman in gray.
The clerk, hovering with anxious ear, heard
plainly the words that accompanied the ges-
ture. . . . “The setting was like this—only
much more delicate. It was one of the ﬁnest
pieces of work we ever sent out.”
The woman in gray examined the pearls
closely. She took a glass from her purse
and ran it over the necklace carefully, as
if each detail of the exquisite fashioning of
the gold interested her. She returned it to
the proprietor with a little smile.
“Thank you,” she said.
The clerk retreated nearer to the door,
to take advantage of any favoring chance.
But the proprietor accompanied her even
to the very door, and opened it for her with
a little gesture of deference that the clerk
well knew was reserved for incomes of at
least ﬁve ﬁgures. He even stood for a mo-
ment by the great show-window watching the


96 THE GREEN JACKET
gray ﬁgure disappear in the crowd. There
was a thoughtful look on his face and a little
smile. And as he passed the case where
the pearls lay in royal isolation on their
velvet bed, he paused again and looked
down at them; it seemed to the clerk that
the look of approval he bestowed upon the
pearls was not more generous than the one
that had followed the gray ﬁgure disappear-
ing in the crowd a moment before.
The ﬁgure moved rapidly down the street
toward the busier portion of the town. The
green purse had been slipped inside her
gown and there was nothing to call the eye
even for a ﬂitting glance. No one who passed
the ﬁgure could have recalled it and no one
would have noted when it turned into the
down-town ofﬁce.
There were two or three pieces of work
she must put in shape before she could leave
for an absence of several days—it might
be even weeks, she thought, as she entered
her private ofﬁce. The case had taken hold
on her in a way she well recognized. Some-
times a case stood out from the others like
this, and her mind seized on it with a tenacity


THE GREEN JACKET 97
that nothing could shake. It was the bull-
dog grip, she told herself.
She was conscious of no reason why some
cases should pursue her, and compel her—
often to her own disadvantage—to follow
to the end. Often she wished for some one
who would forcibly detach her from a piece
of work that was absorbing her time and
strength apparently to no purpose. . . . A
partner? She thought of Tom and smiled.
Perhaps it was the thought of Tom and
his disbelief in her ability to succeed that
was setting her so grimly toward the solution
of the Mason case. Perhaps she had merely
a feminine desire to say some day, “I told
you so,” to the man who stood to her for
all the efficiency and masculine incredu-
lity in the world. . . . Then the face of
the woman who had sat in her ofﬁce ﬂashed
back to her—the unshapely black hands in
their wrinkled gloves, the strange, sad face—-
and she knew that Tom’s cynical disbelief
in her ability to succeed where he had failed,
was only a surface ripple on the deep-ﬂowing
purpose of her resolve to help the woman
who had come to her in trouble.


98 THE GREEN JACKET
She rang the bell and called in her private
secretary and went over the work for the
coming week. The secretary was a small,
nervous young man who wore glasses and
seemed perpetually stooping to something
that threatened to evade him. Milly re-
garded him as a treasure. She had tried
several women and had rejected them, one
after the other, for the lack of some quality
she herself could hardly deﬁne. She had
found it only in Teddy McClean. His mind
moved with her own—not parallel to it, or
following along on the same track—but leap-
ing to meet hers, almost in contest; and out
of the encounter she would ﬁnd her ideas
emerging in clear shape.
“I’ve got to be away a few days, Teddy,”
she said as he came in.
“The Dexter case will need you,” he re-
plied briskly.
“Not far enough along, is it?”
He looked stubborn. “Foster was in this
morning. He said they will be ready to re-
port to-morrow. They have everything safe
——no suspicion—all the parties where they
can lay their hands on them.”


THE GREEN JACKET 99
“Better keep them there.” She was think-
ing swiftly. “I want my mind free for a
few days, Teddy. You’ll have to brace
up and take more responsibility.”
He looked dejected.
She nodded. “You can handle the Dexter
case all right—till I get back.”
“How long are you going to be gone?”
He was peering down and making swift
notes.
“I don’t know,” she said shortly.
Teddy made another note and looked up.
“Shall I use my judgment about sending
for you P” he asked.
She hesitated. “If it’s necessary, ab-
solutely necessary, and you’re so stupid
you can’t handle it alone—” He smiled
wanly and made the note.
“If you have to get me, telegraph—Miss
Alice Brigham, Care of Mr. Oswald Mason,
Lincoln.”
He took it down swiftly. “That’s near
by? Can I telephone P”
“No. Telegraph.”
“Shall I use code?”
“Mercy, no! I’m a seamstress!” she


100 THE GREEN JACKET
said severely. “Telegraph, ‘Mother not well.
Old trouble. Please come.’ ”
“The Skelton girl’s making a lot of
trouble,” he said, looking over his papers.
“More’n she’s worth!”
“What is she doing now?” asked Milly.
“Keeps bothering the life out of us, say-
ing she’s got to see you.”
“Well, she can see me, can’t she?”
He looked at her cynically. “She isn’t
worth it. You made a mistake that time,
Miss Newberry.”
“Did I?” She looked thoughtful. “I’m
sorry I am not going to be here for a while.
Could you get her for me now, right 05, do
you suppose ?”
He looked a little bored. “I shan’t have
to try very hard. She’s probably out there
now, rattling the heads off ’em.”
“Send her in.”
He looked doubtfully at his notes.
“I wanted to ask————”
“No. Don’t ask me another thing. You
can take care of them yourself. If you get
stuck, telegraph me. I go out to-m0rrow
morning. Now send in Mollie Skelton if
you can ﬁnd her.”


THE GREEN JACKET 101
He departed, grinning. The next moment
the door opened on a girl with high heels,
short skirts, small hat-a little to one side,
and hands thrust into side-pockets as she
came forward with short, mincing steps. She
nodded brusquely.
“How’d do, Miss Newberry! They made
a high old time about letting me in!”
“You’re not due till Thursday, are you?”
“That’s the day!” said the girl. She
leaned her elbow on the desk and stared at
Milly with hard eyes. Her jaw shifted the
gum between her teeth and chewed on it a
little.
“Well, what is it?” asked Milly.
“I’d rather be sent up for good l” said the
girl.
“Why ?”
“I ain’t goin’ to be coming here every
Thursday, and all them guys out there”—
she waved a hand at the oﬂice—“ all knowin’
I’m on prob. I’d rather be locked up, and
done with it!”
Milly looked at her keenly. “They don’t
know what you come for,” she said. "‘No-
body knows—unless you’ve told them.”
The girl stared. “Didn’t you tell ’em?”


102 THE GREEN JACKET
“No.”
“Not that Johnnie with the glasses?”
“McClean? If he knows, it’s your own
fault. He may have guessed. I have not
told him, or any one. As far as the ofﬁce is
concerned, you may be a client for whom I
am handling a case or a detective coming
to make reports.”
The girl grinned slowly. She chewed for
a while. “Well”—she drew in her breath—
“that’s fair enough. Why didn’t you tell
me that before?” she demanded. She turned
on her swiftly.
“You didn’t ask me,” said Milly. “I
supposed you knew. I told you I should
be square with you, didn’t I ?”
“Yes.” The girl’s eyes dropped sullenly.
“But I don’t like it—this Sunday-school
business—trotting in here, and being told
what to do!”
Milly’s keen eyes were studying the re-
bellious face. “Who is your new friend?”
she asked quietly.
The girl ﬂashed up a look. “I don’t
know as that’s any of your business!” she
said deﬁantly.


THE GREEN JACKET 193
“Yes—I think it is my business. It’s
my business to help you keep straight, and
you’re trying to bluff me—for the ﬁrst time
since I’ve known you. . . . You don’t want
to go to ail. If I took you at your word and
told the police what I know——”
She glanced up furtively. “You wouldn’t
do it, Miss Newberry !” she said swiftly.
“No, I’m not going to do it. But I’m
not going to let you off from coming to me
either. The man who told you to come and
try to bluﬂE me was simply making a fool of
you. You are a silly child!”
The girl was staring at the wall of the
room, chewing swiftly. The weak lines of
her face sagged a little.
“I didn’t want to come,” she said slowly.
“But he kept at me—-—kept saying to do
lt—”
“Don’t blame the man!” said Milly
sharply. “Blame yourself!”
“Yes’m,” said the girl meekly. She looked
down at the toe of her shoe and dug it in
the leg of the table.
“How long have you known him P” asked
Milly.


104 THE GREEN JACKET
“Oh—’bout a week now.”
A look of relief crossed Milly’s face. “You
hadn’t seen him when you reported last
week ?”
“Well—I’d kind 0’ seen him,” she replied
soberly. “But I’m straight! Honest, Miss
Newberry, I’m straight!” The deﬁance hadv
left her face.
Milly knew that for to-day she had won.
The girl would be putty in her hands. But
she would be putty in the hands of the next
person, too. If she could see her every day
for a while, she could tide her over. But—a
week? She shook her head.
“See here, Mollie !”
The girl looked up.
“You’re a terrible bother to me! It’s
been over a year now—”
“Goin’ on two,” said the girl sullenly.
“And you let Sadie Batson off in three
months!”
“Yes. Sadie had a better start than you
have, Mollie.”
“What do you mean by that?” demanded
the girl.
“I mean her father and mother or her


THE GREEN JACKET 105
grandfather and grandmother put better stuff
into her.”
“They’re common folks—the Batsons,”
said Mollie sceptically. “Her mother works
out—she’s cook somewhere.”
“Yes. But she, or some one, gave Sadie
the power of holding out. You’ve got it,
too. But you’ve got to do more of the work
yourself. Nobody has done it for you ap-
parently. You’ve got to take a grip on-
yourself.”
“All right,” she said.
“I’ve got to be out of town for a While,”
said Milly. “Do you think I’d better send
you out of town, too? This man will try to
see you, I suppose?”
“Yep. He’ll see me, all right!” said the
girl with a weak ﬂourish of pride. “He’s
dead stuck on me.”
“What is \his name?” asked Milly.
“James Silliman, 346 Mill Street,” said
the girl glibly. She grinned as Milly took it
down. “You’ll catch him, easy! He’s done
things enough to land him in jail any day!”
“Do you know that?” asked Milly. “Or
are you just talking?”


106 THE GREEN JACKET
“I ain’t talking!” said the girl. “Jim
Silliman’s a bad one, if ever there was!”
“Well, we shall look out for him. I think
you would better be out of town for a while.”
“All right,” said the girl. “Will it be
pious ones? I didn’t like that minister’s
family you sent me to last time.” She
looked at her hopefully.
Milly smiled. Then she sighed. She rested
her head on her hand and looked down. She
was tired; the morning had been taxing, and
there was still a personal problem to solve
before she could get away. It would prob-
ably take most of the afternoon.
She looked at the girl doubtfully. “I
wonder if you could help me, Mollie?” she
said slowly.
“Help you— The girl turned quickly.
“What could I do?”
“I thought you might know of some one
——some reliable person I could get to stay
with my mother while I am away. Our
servant has the grippe. I need some one to
do the work and look after my mother’s
comfort. She is not very strong. You don’t
know any one—who is trustworthy, do you ?”
’9


THE GREEN JACKET 107
The girl looked at it. She shook her head
slowly. “Not unless it’s me,” she replied.
“Of course you wouldn’t call me—trust-
worthy.”
Milly looked at her.
“I’m always doing things!” she went on
half-wistfully, and Milly’s mind worked fast.
Her mother’s frail ﬁgure passed before her,
and the girl’s shabby jacket and hat and
the cheap, high-heeled shoes that waited
hopefully.
“I’m a kind 0’ good cook,” she volun-
teered.
“I believe it might work!” said Milly,
half to herself.
The girl nodded. “I’ll take good care of
her, Miss Newberry. You needn’t be a
mite afraid anything’ll happen to her while
you’re gone. I like takin’ care of folks——
doin’ for ’em !”
“Then that’s settled,” said Milly with a
look of relief. “Here is the address. Be sure
to be there not later than three o’clock this
afternoon. It’s out of the city a little way.
You take the Holley car at Broad Street
and get off at Chestnut.”


_108 THE GREEN JACKET
“All right.” The girl slipped the paper
into the pocket pf her ﬂaunting coat. “I’ll
go home and get my things together. I’ve
got some other togs. You needn’t be afraid
I’ll frighten the old lady with these! I’ll
take good care of her, Miss Newberry. You
see!” Her face was aglint with high resolve
as she marched from the room. She did
not even glance at the young man in eye-
glasses as she passed him at his desk.
The eye-glasses followed her reﬂectively.
“There goes some more of Miss Newberry’s
good time and strength!” he said resent-
fully under his breath.
And the girl, hurrying out of the building,
was saying over and over to herself: “You
got-to get a grip on, Mollie Skelton! You
got-to take a-hold. That’s what she said:
‘You got-t0 get a grip!’ ”
And Millicent Newberry, gathering up her
papers in the ofﬁce, went over what remained
to be done.


X
THE eight o’clock morning train to Lin-
coln was nearly empty. The woman in
gray seated by the rear door glanced over
the few people ahead of her in the car. They
wer’e the usual suburban characters—a cook
going out to a new engagement, in her best
hat, an old man with no particular occupa-
tion, 'a little boy and his grandmother, an
architect and his assistant, and a drummer
for laces.
Milly’s eye ran over them and her mind
settled down to the case that was taking
her to Lincoln. She had been at home the
evening before and received Mrs. Mason’s
call on the telephone for the seamstress who
had advertised for work in the evening
paper.
The voice had come hesitatingly over the
wire, and Milly had had a vision of the
woman in her black garments holding the
receiver in tense grasp and listening with
half-frightened face for the response to her
109


no THE GREEN JACKET
call. She had thrown into her reply all the
assurance and command the voice lacked,
and the next words had taken the cue and
become conventional and easy, and even a
little expectant.
“You will come in the morning, then?”
said the voice.
And Milly, keeping in mind other ears
that might be listening in convenient door-
ways, had replied: “I shall take the eight
o’clock out from the city. Is it far from the
station to your house?”
“About ﬁve miles,” said the woman. “You
cannot walk— Wait a minute, please.”
She had turned from the receiver, and
the murmur of voices, vague and a little
blurred, came to Milly’s ear. The man’s
voice seemed to demur a little, and yielded
at last half-grudgingly to the woman, and
she turned to the mouthpiece:
“Are you there? Yes. The car will meet
you. For the eight o’clock from town.”
Then she had hung up, and Milly had re-
mained a moment, almost fancying that
the surrounding atmosphere held something,
some hidden message to give to her, that


THE GREEN JACKET III
the two voices in rapid colloquy and the
woman’s half-hurried words had failed to
convey. Then she had put it all from her
and gone resolutely to bed. She must not
spoil the one good night’s sleep that re-
mained to her. For, once on the case, her
nights and days would belong to it; she must
be ready at any moment, night or day, to
follow a clew.
She glanced from the car-window at the
unfamiliar landscape that ﬂashed by. She
had never been on this road before. It was
not on the main line, and even as a sub-
urban line it was not important. A brake-
man in the doorway called out Curtisville,
and she looked at her watch—eight-twenty-
ﬁve. Lincoln was the next stop, and the
end of the line. . . . The houses began to
crowd close and run together. The architect
was rolling up a blue-print, and the grand-
mother buttoned the little boy’s coat with
trembling ﬁngers.
The station-platform, ﬁlled with people,
passed by Milly’s window. The brakeman
at the front end of the car was reversing
plush-covered seats. With a swift glance


112 THE GREEN JACKET
over the waiting crowd, she took up her
suitcase and moved toward the door. She
had noted a handsome car drawn up by the
outer platform, and a chauffeur with im-
passive face waiting beside it. She did not
move toward it at once, but struggled a
little in the crowd that surged toward the
train, and the chauﬂeur came forward. He
looked at her, and hesitated. And she lifted
a meek, seamstress glance to his face, and
straightened her hat, that the crowd had
somehow displaced. She was little and help-
less and inefﬁcient.
“Is there a car from Mr. Mason’s here?”
she asked.
“This way,” said the man. He reached
down for her suitcase and disposed it in the
car and sprang in beside it and waited, al-
most impatiently, it seemed, for her to get
in.
“May I sit in front ?” asked the seamstress
timidly.
“Oh—all right.” He moved over to make
room, and adjusted the suitcase a little, and
she stepped in beside him.
“We’re in a little hurry this morning,”


THE GREEN JACKET 113
he said apologetically. “Mr. Mason wants
the car for the next train in.”
“He goes in every day, I suppose?” said
the seamstress pleasantly.
“Well, pretty near every day. Skips a
day now and then.”
They were skimming through a pleasant
suburban district, and the man’s gaze was
ﬁxed ahead.
Milly noted that he had a clear, ruddy
complexion, and she liked the look in his
eye when it turned to her. But a wide ex-
perience in the complexion of criminals had
led her not to place too much conﬁdence in
signs that might be only skin-deep.
She glanced at the lining of the car and
made a little motion with her hand. “Has
it been relined ?” she asked. “I’ve seen this
make of car before, but not this lining.
It’s very pretty.”
“It’s this year’s model,” said the man.
“They bought it since I came.”
Milly’s nod and smile gave him a little
tribute of thanks for what his reply told
her. She settled comfortably in her seat,
watching the houses on either side. They


114 THE GREEN JACKET
were farther apart now, and stood well back
from the road, with driveways that wound
through pleasant lawns.
“That’s our place, on the right,” said the
man. The road curved sharply just ahead
and he nodded toward a house that showed
‘ dimly through the trees. They rounded the
curve and passed along a high wall of stone,
then he turned the car skilfully into a gate-
way in the high wall, and they were passing
through close-set shrubbery and high trees.
Beyond the trees the house came in view
again. It stood in the open sunshine, painted
white, with doors and windows open to the
air- It had a hospitable, waiting look, and
Milly had a swift sense of its dignity and
charm, and its incongruity with the black
garments and hunted look of the woman
who had sought her aid.
“Pretty place,” said the chauffeur, nod-
ding toward it.
“Very!” She leaned forward, scanning
the open windows and the wide terrace that
extended along the front and side of the
house; the terrace was brick-paved and
surrounded by a lOW parapet covered with


THE GREEN JACKET 1r 5
vines and ﬂowers. From an opening at the
front two wide steps led down to the drive-
way. The whole eﬂect was singularly gracious
and pleasing. The house rose from its setting
with a kind of restful dignity, and the vines
and ﬂowers gave to it the homelike beauty
that was its dominating note.
Milly’s eyes studied the graceful lines
with a touch of surprise and incredulity.
She had come expecting a gloomy, forbid-
ding place, and the house standing there in
the sun in the midst of its vines and ﬂowers
seemed the embodiment of homelike com-
fort. . . . A ﬁgure appeared in the doorway
and came rapidly across the brick-paved
terrace to the steps.
“It’s Mr. Mason !” said the man. “Would
you mind getting out here, please?” He
brought the car to a stop by a side path that
led to the terrace, and Milly climbed quickly
out.
“I’ll bring your bag later,” said the man.
But she reached up to it.
“I can take it, thank you.”
She went slowly up the path to a side
door, looking about her at the vines and
‘13!


116 THE GREEN JACKET
ﬂowers, and her glance passed carelessly
beyond the ﬂowers, and took in the tall,
dark ﬁgure running quickly down the wide
steps, and waiting in half-concealed im-
patience for the car that approached him
swiftly. He threw open the door, spoke a
quick word to the chauffeur, and the car
rolled oﬂ.
Milly’s eyes followed it a minute. Then
she turned leisurely toward the house. A
woman who had been standing behind the
screen-door watching her approach, surveyed
her through the meshes.
“Are you the new sewing-woman?” she
asked. And at Milly’s response she opened
the door half-grudgingly, it seemed, to admit
her. She led the way down the hall to a
small room at the left.
“You will work here,” she said, throwing
open the door.
Milly looked about the room with quick
glance. There was a low ﬁreplace at the
right, and at the left, two French windows
open to the terrace. Through a door op-
posite the one by which she entered she had
a glimpse of a breakfast-room, the table


118 THE GREEN JACKET
“Here’s where you sleep,” said the woman.
She threw open a door.
“Thank you. I can ﬁnd my way down
quite well now—if you will tell Mrs. Mason
I am here.”
“She knows you’re here,” said the woman.
“She saw you come.”
She turned away heavily, and Milly heard
the sound of her asthmatic breathing come
faintly back as she descended the stairs.
Milly stood for a moment, her hand on
the door, listening to the sound as it moved
along the hall below and passed out of hear-
ing. She closed the door and looked about
her with satisfaction. The room was per-
fectly located. To reach it she must pass
through corridors opening on all the rooms
at the rear of the house, and the sewing-
room below evidently gave her the range of
a large part of the front of the house. She
stepped to the window and looked out.
Below her lay the brick-paved terrace
gay with its vines and ﬂowers, and beyond
the terrace, sloped a wide lawn reaching to
the trees that guarded the entrance. Be-
yond the trees and the high surrounding wall,


THE GREEN JACKET 119
she caught a glimpse of distant hills. It
was a peaceful scene, ﬂooded in sunshine.
The sunshine poured in at the window where
she stood, and the little breeze that came
with it brought a hint of ﬂower-scents and
fresh-cut grass.
She turned away from the window and
unpacked her suitcase quickly, placing the
few articles it contained in the closet and
in the drawers of the empty bureau, where
they seemed lost in the generous space. . . .
The house below was very still; not a
sound broke its quiet as she moved about
her room. She poured water into the basin
and washed and dried her hands and returned
the towel to its rack. All her movements
were deft and swift, and all her ﬁner senses
were reaching out into the stillness of the
mysterious house, gathering up its impalpable
signs and testing them for the life that lay
behind them.
She cast a glance about the room and
took a Chintz-flowered bag from the bed;
from one side of its ribbon-hooped handles
the ends of two long amber needles protruded,
and through the opening at the top a bit


120 THE GREEN JACKET
of green-colored wool was visible. . . . She
slipped the hoops carelessly over her arm
and passed out to the hall, leaving the door
open behind her into the sun-ﬁlled room.
The doors to all the other rooms along
the upper corridor were closed. A large
window at the farther end let in a ﬂood of
light. Everything was cheerful and airy.
There was no hint of anything concealed
or mysterious that waited in the rooms be-
low. It was a comfortable country-house,
well-lighted and well-aired; its only anomaly
was the preternatural stillness that reigned
throughout it, above and below. As she
went slowly down the stairs, listening for
some sign of life, she saw through the rail-
ing that the hall of the ﬂoor below opened
into wide corridors, and when she reached the
junction of the corridors, the open doors on
either side revealed glimpses of chintz hang-
ings and the dark, polished surface of wood.
The house and all its furnishings were more
artistic and more important than the ap-
pearance of her client had led her to expect.
As she stood hesitating which way to go,
she caught sight, through one of the open


THE GREEN JACKET 121
doors, of the dark folds of a woman’s gown
moving hazily, and the next moment the
woman herself appeared in the door.
She held out her hands in a swift gesture,
almost of welcome, and Milly moved quickly
toward her, ignoring the outstretched hands.
“I am the sewing-woman,” she said re-
spectfully. “Are your dresses in here?”
She spoke very clearly and distinctly. A
faint sound of asthmatic breathing in the
distance, that had seemed to halt for a mo-
ment, moved softly away.
The woman in the doorway had retreated
a little, looking at Milly with puzzled eyes.
The outstretched hands dropped to her sides.
“I will get what you have ready,” said
Milly practically, “and take it with me
to the sewing-room.” She stepped quietly
into the room, leaving the door open behind
her.
“Show me your dresses ﬁrst,” she said.
“I will work on those to-day.”
The woman, after another puzzled glance,
went to the wardrobe and opened the large
door. “I have almost nothing,” she said
apologetically.


122 THE GREEN JACKET
The wardrobe was nearly empty. Two
or three handsome dresses in the style of
a year or two past dangled from the hooks.
There were no black garments. Milly glanced
toward the black gown the woman was wear-
ing.
She stood near by, waiting, her hands
clasped loosely before her. Seen without the
black hat and the ill-ﬁtting coat of the day
before, the ﬁgure was ﬁnely impressive. The
simple lines of the dress and the open neck
without ornament brought out a grace that
the clumsy outer garments had concealed.
She was gazing at Milly with the little puz-
zled bewilderment in her face.
“I wanted to talk to you,” she said in a
low voice. The words were scarcely audible.
“Yes. We shall have plenty of time to
talk by and by. Do you want these altered ?”
She indicated the dresses of outworn style
that hung pathetically from the wardrobe
poles.
“Oh—I don’t know!” The woman took
a step forward, looking at them doubtfully.
“I gave away the others—everything ex-'
cept these. But these were so expensive!”


THE GREEN JACKET 123
She regarded them uncertainly. “I don’t
want to wear colors,” she murmured.
“Very well.” Milly shut the door on the
dresses. “We will work on something else.
Perhaps you have some white work P”
The woman brought a handful of under-
garments and Milly selected those that
needed mending, going through them rapidly.
She noted that everything was of the ﬁnest
material and expensive, as if whatever came
near the woman must be exquisite of its
kind.
“These will do,” she said, gathering up
those she had selected. “I would rather
have a dress.” She looked attentively at
the black folds of the woman’s gown. “I
could alter that a little. It is loose here.”
She touched the shoulders.
“I have grown thin,” said the woman,
ﬂushing a little. “I will put on a kimono if
you would rather work on this. _I have no
other dress to put on.”
Milly nodded. “That will do very well.
Bring it to me—in the sewing-room, when
you are ready.” She moved toward the
door with the undergarments on her arm.


124 THE GREEN JACKET
There was no one in the wide corridors,
and no sound of faintly asthmatic breathing
came from the distant region beyond.
She turned back quickly. “Was this the
room where the jewel-case was kept?” She
asked. J
The woman’s hand moved to a toilet-
table between the windows. “It stood
there.”
“And where is it now?”
“In that cabinet.” She motioned to a
handsome ebony cabinet that stood by the
doon
“Unlocked ?”
“No. I have the key.” She lifted a hand
to the bosom of her gown.
Milly nodded. “Bring it to me with the
dress. I shall want to come here again later.
You will lay out work for me on the bed and
I shall come and go between this room and
the sewing-room for a while.”
The woman, who had unfastened the neck
of her dress and was pushing it back, paused.
“I forgot!” she said quickly. “I shall need
this dress to wear. I have no other, and
I promised my husband to go motoring with
him.”


THE GREEN JACKET 125
“When do you go ?”
“This afternoon. He will be home for
luncheon, he said, and then we start at
once.”
“No, that will hardly give me time,’ said
Milly thoughtfully. “I do not work very
fast.” She smiled a little.
Her eyes were on the woman’s neck. The
open gown revealed her throat, white and
fair as a girl’s, and from the neck a slender
gold chain hung down, the end lost in
the white folds below. Milly’s hand made
a gesture.
“Is that the key? Let me have it,
please.”
The woman lifted her hands to the chain
and unfastened and drew it off slowly. Two
small keys depended from it. She held them
out with a mute gesture.
“No, keep the chain.” Milly withdrew the
two keys swiftly and dropped them into the
bag on her arm. She handed back the chain.
“ Put it on again,” she said. “Some one might
miss it from your neck. We must be car :ful
not to put any one on guard.”
The woman replaced the chain with ﬁngers
that trembled a little.
,


126 THE GREEN JACKET
Milly’s eyes followed them quietly.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “Nothing shall
happen to you. And perhaps when the
case is unlocked the necklace will come back
to it.”
The woman shuddered a little. Her arms
dropped to her sides. “I would almost
rather never see it again!” she whispered.
“I am afraid!”
Milly placed a hand on her arm and held
it ﬁrmly. “You are not to be afraid. Trust
me. . . . And remember—nothing is to be
done that you and I do not both agree to.”
The look of fear in the woman’s face dis-
solved swiftly. “Oh, if I had only known
you before!” she cried softly. “If I had
known you—she might have been saved!”
She motioned to a photograph on the table '
by the window. She was looking at it with
moist eyes. Milly reached a hand to it.
“When was it taken?” she asked.
“Oh—three years ago, perhaps.” She
stood looking over Milly’s shoulder. “I
have had it a long time, but I only had it
framed the other day—when I came back
from seeing her.” She was gazing tenderly


THE GREEN JACKET 127
at the pictured face that seemed to return
‘ the look with one of wistfulness.
“It is all so diﬂerent now!” murmured
the woman. She motioned to the silent hall
Outside. “Sometimes I think I hear her
voice and I start up and hurry to the door
before I remember—even now.”
Milly put down the picture and turned
toward the door. “I must go,” she said.
“We must not talk together too long. The
servants will suspect.” .
“They are all at the back of the house,”
returned the woman.
“So much the better.” Milly stepped
into the wide hall.
At one end the sun poured in; at the
other the branches of a great elm showed
dark against the light. She turned toward
the front staircase and went slowly down,
passing through the intervening rooms to the
sewing-room. The door from the breakfast-
room had been closed by some one and she
opened it again. She placed her chair where
she could see into it, and out through the other
rooms to the hallway and the stairs leading
up from it.


128 THE GREEN JACKET
Sitting in the shaded quiet of the sewing-
room, the gray ﬁgure blended into the quiet
of the house. No one passing through the
halls, or outside along the terrace and seeing
it through the open French windows, would
have given a second thought to the new
seamstress. With her head a little bent to
the work in her hands and her swift needle
plying back and forth in the white garments,
she was a model of unobtrusive diligence.
One by one she ﬁnished the garments and
laid them on a chair beside her. The last
one was in her hand and she was rethreading
her needle to begin, when a horn sounded
among the trees, and the swift whir of an
approaching car came to her through the
open window. She glanced at the watch on
her wrist—twelve-forty-ﬁve. Sounds of prep-
aration for luncheon had already come to
her from a room beyond the hall—silver and
china handled with soft clearness, and a
subdued murmur of low voices.
She laid aside the garment and took up
the chintz bag and drew out her knitting.
She adjusted the needles with quick touch
and began to knit, looking now at the ﬂying


THE GREEN JACKET 129
stitches and now out through the French
window at, a car that was passing swiftly,
half-hidden by the trees. It emerged on the
open drive. The man sitting beside the
chauffeur was the one who had driven away
to take the train when she arrived. He had
much the same hurried air as when he left,
and when the Car stopped he sprang out
with a quick nod to the driver and passed
rapidly up the terrace.
Fromher place in the sewing-room Milly
had a glimpse of him crossing the hall with
swift stride and ascending the stairs; his
steps turned at the top and sounded along
the upper hall, and a door at the front of
the house closed with a muffled, resonant
sound.
As if the closing of the muffled door had
been a signal, the whole house woke to life.
Somewhere at the rear an echoing door
slammed, swift feet hurried along the cor-
ridors, voices came from the outer yard and
the garage, and presently the low notes of
a Chinese gong sounded through the house,
wooing the silence with long, pulsing roll,
and a black dress was seen descending the


130 THE GREEN JACKET
stairs. A minute later, the tall, thin ﬁgure
of a man hurried quickly down.
The unrest settled to silence, and Milly’s
needles held it and went back and forth and
knit it into the green wool. Her eyes fol-
lowed the needles with intent gaze. Pres-
ently she looked up.
The woman who had admitted her in the
morning stood in the doorway of the hall,
a large tray held before her. There had been
no sound of her approach.
“Here is your lunch,” she said. She placed
it on a side-table and went quickly out.
Milly moved the table nearer to the place
where she had been sitting, and where she
could see through the French window on-
to the lawn and along the winding driveway
beyond.
There were sounds of the ﬁnishing of
luncheon, and a little coming and going on
the stairs, and then she saw the car pass
swiftly down the drive. The chauffeur was
alone on the front seat. On the back seat
was the woman in her black hat and veil
and coat, and beside her the ﬁgure of the
man sitting protectingly near to her.


THE GREEN JACKET :3!
Milly ﬁnished her luncheon slowly, linger-
ing over the dessert of rice pudding and
dates. Before she had ﬁnished she was con-
scious again of the soft step without sound
and the quick, puffy breathing near by.
She did not turn or look up until she had
taken the last spoonful of the pudding. Then
she pushed the table a little from her.
“I’m through,” she said. “Thank you.”
Then for the ﬁrst time the woman came
within range of her eye.
“That is delicious pudding!” said Milly.
“Will you tell the cook it is the best I ever
ate? I always thought my mother made
the best rice pudding in the world. But
this beats it!”
The woman, who had bent to take up the
tray, paused, almost surlily, it seemed, yet
with a little relaxing of the glum face.
“I made the pudding,” she remarked dryly.
“Oh!” Milly stared a little at the face
so near her own. “Are you the cook?” she
asked doubtfully.
“I make the desserts,” replied the woman
with a note of reserve. “Miss Annie likes
me to.”


132 THE GREEN JACKET
“Miss Annie ?” Milly gazed questioningly.
“Mis’ Mason. She’s Miss Annie to me,”
replied the woman. She returned the gaze
of the sewing-woman, almost hostilely, and
lifted the tray from the table.
Milly watched the retreating back with
reﬂective eyes. “Can you tell me ”
The back paused, but did not turn.
“Do you know whether Mrs. Mason left
some things in her room—for me to mend?”
“If she did you’ll ﬁnd ’em where she left
’em,” responded the woman.
“I can go up, can I?” asked Milly.
- The woman turned. “Do you want me
to wait on ye?” she demanded.
“N0, indeed!” Milly glanced quickly at
the heavy tray. “I am afraidI have made
you too much trouble already!”
The woman’s face was a little molliﬁed.
“I don’t mind doing it for you.” Her glance
passed swiftly to the mended garments piled
on the chair. “I could ’a’ done them for
her—as well as you l”
Milly ignored the resentment, seeking only
some sign in the heavy face to guide her.
“I don’t think she wanted me to do them.”


THE GREEN JACKET 133
She laid her hand on the pile of clothes be-
side her. “She wanted me to alter the dress
she has on. But she hasn’t any other to. wear
while I am doing it. It is too large in the
shoulders.”
The woman rested her tray against the
side of the door, pressing upon it with her
bulk to ease the weight on her arms.
“She’s grown thin,” she said. But whether
there was sympathy or resentment or a kind
of fear in the wheezy voice, Milly could not
determine.
“I imagine there will be plenty for two
pair of hands.” She glanced at the pile of
sewing. “ So any time you are free to help
out, I can turn things over to you. The
faster we get on, the sooner I shall be done—
and can go home.”
The woman looked at her slowly with
eyes that were half-veiled, it seemed to
Milly.
“I am busy this afternoon,” she replied,
and she turned and went quietly down the
hall. . . . Only the sound of wheezy breath-
ing came faintly back, and grew fainter, and
died away.


XI
THE seamstress went to the French window
and stepped onto the terrace. Her arms
and back were stiﬂ from the unaccustomed
work, and she moved them gently, freeing
the muscles and drawing in deep breaths of
fresh air. She paced once or twice across
the terrace, thinking swiftly. The woman’s
look puzzled her; there had been something
almost hostile in it as she turned away. . . .
But perhaps it was only imagination—a
detective grew to think things signiﬁcant
that other people passed over as natural.
She returned to the sewing-room and
gathered up the pile of mending, and tak-
ing the chintz bag on her arm went softly
into the hall. There was no one in sight,
and after a moment’s hesitation she turned
toward the stairs at the back of the house.
She had decided to use sometimes one stair-
case, and sometimes the other. The servants
would soon become accustomed to seeing
her in different parts of the house. The
sooner she established her habits, the better.
134


THE GREEN JACKET 135
But she saw no one as she went up the
stairs and along the wide corridor toward
the front that led to Mrs. Mason’s room.
Through the open door she could see the pile
of work—stockings and sheets and pillow-slips
——laid out for her on the bed. But she passed
the open door and went leisurely on to the
big window at the end of the hall, and stood
for a minute looking out into the grounds.
When she turned back slowly her glance
fell on an open door at the right, and she
checked a swift start of surprise. Instead
of the chintz hangings and ﬂowered wall-
paper she expected to see, her gaze had en-
countered walls lined with books; leather
bindings covered the walls from ﬂoor to
ceiling, and books lay everywhere on tables
and chairs. On either side the ﬁreplace stood
two great leather chairs, and between them
a large writing-table. It was a man’s room
——the room of a man of scholarly and
msthetic taste.
The impression conveyed to her between
the two steps with which she passed the open
door could not have been more vivid had she
seen the owner of the room himself sitting


r 36 THE GREEN JACKET
\
in one of the deep chairs before the ﬁreplace.
The room revealed a personality of unusual
interest.
She passed down the hall, thinking swiftly.
Nothing in Mrs. Mason’s appearance had
prepared her for the character of the house
as a whole, and least of all for this room she
had just glimpsed into. It was evidently
the inmost possession of the man whose per-
sonality planned and dominated the whole.
She recalled the owner of the house. There
was something almost ascetic in the tall, thin
ﬁgure she had seen at a distance; but the
open door revealed a quiet charm and rich-
ness of interest in the life of the man who
possessed it.
At the door of Mrs. Mason’s room she
paused with a swift glance up and down the
hall. Then she stepped swiftly in, and crossed
to the bed and laid down the pile of garments
she carried on her arm. She looked back to
the door; the key was in the lock; and as
she stepped back and closed it, the lock shot
noiselessly in place while her other hand re-
leased the handle of the door. Not a sound
had broken the quiet, and her step on the


THE GREEN JACKET 137
ﬂoor was very light. She drew the two keys
from the Chintz bag on her arm and turned
to the cabinet by the door, stooping softly
to examine it. The lacquer-work about the
escutcheon of the keyhole was unmarred by
any scratch or any trace of tampering. Even
under the glass she applied to it only the per-
fect ﬁnish of its age-worn surface was re-
vealed. . . . It was a beautiful specimen of
early Japanese art, and her eye dwelt on it
appreciatively before her ﬁngers inserted the
key and the door swung open on the multi-
tude of drawers and little compartments with
which it was ﬁlled.
Her eye ran quickly over the surface of
the drawers. It paused at one on the right
that showed a little dull in the full light of
the window behind her. Her hand reached
to it and drew it out, revealing a bronze
jewel-case within. She lifted it noiselessly
and carried it to the window and unlocked
it. . . . Brilliance and color ﬂashed from
the lifted tray. Diamonds glittered in pins
and rings, and on one side a magniﬁcent
bracelet glowed with slumberous stones.
They darted red, gleaming eyes as she lifted


138 THE GREEN JACKET
it and turned it in the light. . . . She stood
looking down at the wealth shining out
from the box, thinking a little grimly of the
foolishness that led women to keep such
temptation for burglary always at hand,
close to the very place they slept.
She glanced toward the bed, where the
work for the new seamstress lay. She must
not waste time. She had assured herself
that what she expected was true—neither
the cabinet nor the box itself had been
tampered with. Whoever had removed the
necklace from the box had had access to it
at some time when the box was unlocked.
She removed the key, examining it care-
fully. It was a curious, foreign design—but
a duplicate could easily have been made.
She dropped it into the bag on her arm.
Without doubt the box was self-locking. She
reached her hand to the lid to close it, and
stayed the hand. . . . A sound light as air
had caught her ear. She turned from the
window and her glance ran quickly to the
cabinet and t0 the door beside it. . . . The
silvered knob of the door was turning slowly,
creeping breath by breath in a noiseless


THE GREEN JACKET 139
circle to the right. . . . It came to a stop
at last, and she could almost feel the ten-
sion and pressure of unseen ﬁngers upon it.
She held her breath, watching it retrace the
circle and come to rest. . . . She moved
silently to the cabinet and replaced the box,
locking the door upon it and dropping the
key in her bag. Then with a single swift
movement she had reached the door of the
room and unlocked and thrown it back,
stepping quickly into the hall.
There was no one in sight in either direc-
tion—no motion of drapery, no hint that
some one had hurried swiftly down the hall;
on either side the open doors led into vacant
rooms. What might lurk in them—con-
cealed by furniture, crouching behind the
ample folds of chintz, she had no means of
knowing and no time at present to deter-
mine. . . . She gathered up her work from
the bed and stepped into the hall, making
her way quickly past the open doors. She
did not glance into the rooms on either side
as she passed them, and. she did not return
again to the upper ﬂoor. Whatever sus-
picion had been roused against her must


140 THE GREEN JACKET
have time to subside. . . . And perhaps
there was no suspicion. A curious maid
may have seen the closed door, and tried
the knob and gone away. Or the woman
who had brought the tray to her
For the rest of the afternoon the seamstress
sewed quietly in the room off the terrace.
But her thoughts ranged the house, gather-
ing up and focussing the impressions that
had come to her out of its open, mysterious
quiet, and each time her thought returned
curiously to the woman who had admitted
her in the morning, and who had served her
luncheon, almost grudgingly, it seemed. . . .
Only once during the afternoon did she have
a glimpse of her——when she came down the
hall to the door at the end and stood for a
moment gazing out as if looking for the re-
turn of the car. Then she disappeared into
the back of the house, and Milly did not see
her again. But the thought of her remained
persistently, and at dinner-time when she
brought in the tray and placed it on a table,
Milly studied the downcast face with quick
glance. There was nothing in the heavy,
almost sullen, lines to reward her. The


THE GREEN JACKET 141
woman did not look at her or speak. . . .
Perhaps in the half-dimness, coming from the
lighted hall, she had not seen her where she
sat across the room. She went quickly out.
The gas was lighted through the lower
rooms and Milly could see occasional ﬁgures
come and go. A short, stout man, a little
bent and bald, and wearing evening clothes,
hovered in the distance. A trim maid came
now and then and received instructions from
him and went away on swift feet. . . . Sit-
ting in the dusk of her sewing-room, Milly
watched the byplay and pondered on the
ways of this strange household in which,
with a butler and maid, the woman who
had admitted her in the morning was detailed
to make desserts and to carry meals to a
sewing-woman who happened to be in the
house. . . . She glanced at the table where
her dinner stood waiting, and rose and put
away her work. She closed the doors into
the hall before she lighted the gas and sat
down to the ample dinner the woman had
provided for her. Evidently her distrust,
or dislike, of the new seamstress would not
take the form of starvation diet for her.


XII
DINNER over, Milly turned off the gas
and opened the doors again and sat for a while
in the half-dusk of the room knitting, won-
dering whether it would be well to make
some pretense of work serve as an oppor-
tunity for a little talk withfMrs. Mason
before going to bed.
The sounds of dinner whre long since over;
even the ﬁnal stir of clearing away had sub-
sided, and the butler’s stout ﬁgure hovering
through the lower rooms, turning off lights
here and there, had withdrawn. The house
had settled to quiet.
If she went up to Mrs. Mason’s room now,
she could speak with her before she went to
bed. . . . She wanted to know about the
woman who brought in her meals. The look
in the woman’s face teased and baﬂled her.
A few casual words with Mrs. Mason might
clear up the situation and leave her mind
free for better uses. She rolled up her knit-
ting and was putting it away, when steps
:42


“,4 THE GREEN JACKET
tionless. The sound grew to a woman’s
voice crying softly in little wheezy sobs: .
“I tell you, Miss Annie, I don’t like her!
I don’t like her looks!”
Then Mrs. Mason’s voice in gentle ex-
postulation, and the woman’s voice again, a
little higher:
“You know how I am, Miss Annie—how
I feel things—about folks! I don’t like that
woman in the house!” The voice rose higher
and shriller, and Mrs. Mason’s broke across
it sharply:
“Hush, Margaret!”
Then the voices dropped to a murmur.
Milly crossed the room quickly. The pile
of work on her arm must serve as an excuse
if they came out. . . . She must hear what
was being said in the low, rapid tones that
went on behind the half-closed door.
It was Mrs. Mason speaking, and the
tense words drove a little shock of surprise
to Milly’s listening car: “You must trust
me, Margaret, to do what is best! It is all
right. The woman is really a detective!”
“Oh—Miss Annie!” The voice wheezed
and gasped and was silent a little.


THE GREEN JACKET 14 5
“Can’t you send her away?” she pleaded
softly.
Her mistress’s voice was ﬁrm: “I do not
wish to send her away—I want her to ﬁnd
the necklace.”
“But, Miss Annie, suppose Silk” The
voice dropped to a long, low murmur.
“Be quiet!” said her mistress sternly,
and the voices dropped again to low, half-
whispered words that not even Milly’s trained
ear could distinguish.
She reached her hand to the door and
rapped sharply.
There was a sudden silence.
Then, after a minute, the door opened
slowly. Mrs. Mason stood in it, her loose
gown gathered up to her breast, a half-
frightened look on her pale face.
When she saw who it was, the look van-
ished—it gave way to quick relief.
“Oh—it is you!” She whispered the
words. “Come in!” She reached out a
hand and half drew the detective into the
room and closed the door upon them.
The other woman, across the room, stood
gazing sullenly at her under lowered lids.


146 THE GREEN JACKET
“Come here, Margaret!” said her mis-
tress. She spoke peremptorily. But when
the woman crossed to her she laid a hand
on the clumsy shoulder almost affectionately,
it seemed to the detective. ’
“Margaret Campbell,” she said quietly,
“cares for me more than for any one in the
world, I think.”
The woman’s face softened subtly under
Milly’s eye.
“She was afraid for me,” went on Mrs.
Mason, smiling and patting the thick shoul-
der gently. “And I have just been telling
her who you are. You need not mind her
knowing. She is true as steel.”
The woman lifted a quick glance to Milly’s
face. The hostility in it had given way and
a look almost of exaltation replaced it. The
dull eyes glowed a little.
“I knew you was something different!”
she cried. “I feel things—here!” She put
her ample hand on her wheezing chest and
nodded slowly. “I knew you was different!”
she said.
Milly looked at her quietly. “You knew
it when you tried the door this afternoon?”


THE GREEN JACKET 147
She motioned to the adjoining room, and the
woman’s quick eyes regarded her incred-
ulously.
“Did you hear that P” she demanded.
“I saw it,” corrected Milly. “I thought
then it might be you. . . . I hope you
can keep a secret P” She was looking at her
with direct glance.
“Margaret will not tell said her mis-
tress quickly. “I have known Margaret a
long time. I would trust her with—any-
thing.”
Something odd in the words caught Milly’s
ear—hardly a breath, nothing she could
deﬁne. The chief thing she was conscious
of, standing and looking at the two women
so unlike in every way, was that some hidden
bond existed between them, and that the
servant could be trusted to be loyal to her
mistress.
She turned to her. “You can help us,”
she said, “if you are trustworthy. I need
to know about the others in the house—the
other servants. You can tell me.”
“The other servants are all right,” said
the woman sullenly.
'7,


148 THE GREEN JACKET
“I do not doubt that. But I want to know
about them—what connections they have
outside the house. And I want to know
everything that has happened in the house
in the last three years.” She spoke with
slow emphasis. . . . Was it fancy, or did
a swift, half-frightened look ﬂit from the
woman to her mistress?
“You can go now,” said Mrs. Mason
quietly.
“I was going to help you,” protested the
woman.
“No. I do not need you any more to-
night. Go now.” Her eyes followed the
clumsy ﬁgure to the door. They turned to
Milly.
“She is the soul of devotion!” she mur-
muted.
“I can see that,” said Milly brieﬂy. “But
why did she suspect me?”
“She is Scotch. She has premonitions. I
suppose she is what is called psychic.”
They both smiled at the incongruous word
and at the clumsy ﬁgure so ill-suited to it.
But Mrs. Mason stayed her smile with a
half-gesture of reproach. “I am ashamed—


THE GREENv JACKET 149
to laugh at her! She is like some great
faithful animal. She stands guard over me,
and nothing will ever hurt me that Margaret
can prevent. She has been with me ever
since I was a child. When I married and
came here they could not keep her from
coming with me. . . . At ﬁrst she was cook
and general maid, and then, when we moved
to this house and there was more to do and
more servants, she became a kind of general
housekeeper for me. She does what she
chooses, practically. I depend on her en-
tirely. . . . I think if any danger or illness
were coming to me, she would know it long
before I should.”
“But she suspects good as well as ill, ap-
parently. She thought I was going to do
you harm.” She was looking intently at the
woman, who ﬂushed a little.
“She had the feeling, I suppose, that you
are not what you appear to be, and it troubled
her. . . . Yes. She made a mistake this
time.” She spoke a little wearily and put
up her hand to smooth back the hair that
had fallen over her forehead.
“I am very tired,” she said. “I have


150 THE GREEN JACKET
wanted so much all day to talk with you.
I keep thinking of things I must tell you.”
“To-morrow you shall tell me. You are
tired now. You must go to bed.”
“Very well.” The woman spoke wearily.
Then she leaned forward. Her manner
changed subtly. “You have not found any-
thing yet, have you?” She asked it almost
eagerly. And in her loose robe of wine-
red silk, the loosened hair drooping a little
about her face, and the quick light in her
eyes, there was something vivid and strange.
Milly had a sudden sense that a man
would care to give jewels to a woman like
this—ﬁne-grained, polished, dull-red stones
that would ﬂash with quick gleams when you
lifted them in the light.
“You did not ﬁnd anything?” said the
woman again.
And Milly shook her head. “It is not so
easy as that—ﬁnding things! I wish it were.
Sometimes I think it is as hard to catch
a thief—as to paint a picture, or write a
poem!” she said laughingly.
“A poem?” repeated the woman, with
puzzled eyes. “A—poem ?”


THE GREEN JACKET 151
“Yes. For days you think and feel and
look, and nothing happens, and then, all in
a minute, you have it in your head— And
your poem is done!” She laughed again.
A little sound like a sigh sped from the
woman’s lips. “I had not thought it was
like that!” she said. “I thought you mea-
sured foot-tracks and used a microscope and
took away pieces of dust to analyze. That
is what the others did.”
“Who were the others P” asked Milly.
“Mr. Corbin and his men. We had them
in, you know.”
“Yes. . . . Mr. Corbin is a skilful detec-
tive.” She added it almost defensively.
“That is what Mr. Mason said. He was
determined to have him. . . . But he did
not ﬁnd anything.”
Milly could have fancied there was some-
thing almost exultant in the look she cast
at her. But before she could question it,
the look had faded and the face in its loosened
hair was only very tired and a little wistful
and tragic above the dull-red robe.
“I will leave these,” said Milly. She
deposited the pile of mended garments she


152 THE GREEN JACKET
still carried on her arm, and the woman
looked at them almost helplessly.
“You work so fast!” she murmured. “I
cannot ﬁnd enough to keep you busy l”
“Don’t worry!” said Milly. “I shall not
work so hard to-morrow. I want to have a
good talk with you—if we can be by our-
selves without attracting attention.”
A look of relief crossed the woman’s face.
“I want so much to talk! There are things
I have not told you. It will be easy to-
morrow. My husband will be away all day.
We have only to go to his room.”
“His room?”
“The library—on this ﬂoor.” She moved
a hand toward the front of the house. “I
often sit there when he is away. It has
sound-proof walls and double doors. You
cannot hear a sound in it.”
The memory of the muﬂled resonance from
a closing door came back to Milly.
“Does your husband use the room when
he is here?”
“Always! He goes to it and shuts himself
in. . . . It has been like that for two years
now!” She held out her hands in a help-


XIII
SHE was down early at her work. But
early as she was, some one was before her.
The door to the breakfast-room was closed.
Through it she could hear faintly the sound
of dishes or the clink of a spoon, but no voices.
Mr. Mason was apparently breakfasting alone.
Margaret Campbell brought in her break-
fast and arranged the dishes on the tray.
Then she stood waiting, one hand on the
back of Milly’s chair, her friendly eyes sur-
veying the tray to see if anything were lack-
ing. '
Milly leaned back with a little motion of
her lips, and the woman bent her head.
Almost without sound Milly shaped the
words: “Will Mrs. Mason come down to
breakfast ?”
The woman made a gesture of assent
toward the closed door.
“I want it open,” said Milly softly. And
with a nod of comprehension the woman
passed to the door, moving with noiseless
154


THE GREEN JACKET 155
step and busying herself for a minute at the
sideboard. She came out, leaving the door
ajar behind her.
Through the crack Milly could see the
back and shoulders of the man at the table.
The room was ﬁlled with sunshine. . .
The man read his paper and turned it, and
stopped to take a drink from his coffee-cup,
and went on reading. All his movements were
quick and nervous.
Milly moved noiselessly from the table
where her own breakfast waited. She took
up her knitting and seated herself where
she could see more easily into the sun-ﬁlled
room. A mass of vines and ﬂowers in the
window made shadows on the white cloth,
and the kettle with its blue, ﬂickering ﬂame
steamed gently. . . . One could not fancy
anything harsh or unpleasant touching the
brightness of the room where the man read
his paper and the kettle hummed softly over
the blue ﬂame.
There was a little sound in the room be-
yond and the faint rustle of a woman’s dress.
The door opposite opened slowly.
She seemed a little haggard to Milly, in


156 THE GREEN JACKET
the morning light, as she glanced half-wist-
fully at her husband and moved toward the
table. He did not turn or look up.
When she had seated herself behind the
coffee-urn he turned his paper and glanced
at her absently, as if ﬁrst aware of her pres-
ence.
“Good morning,” she said. Her hands,
hovering over the cups and spoons, trembled
a little and she pressed the electric bell by
her plate, seeming to steady herself.
If the man responded to her greeting,
Milly did not hear the words. He laid down
his napkin a little deliberately and got up,
creasing his paper in quick folds.
She glanced up. “Are you through, Os-
wald?” Her voice had a note of surprise.
He nodded brusquely. “I have a busy
day.” He moved toward the door and
paused and looked back. “Bradley is going
to send out a car this morning—if you want
to see it?” He waited her answer, not look-
ing at her.
She was pouring cream into her cup and
she set down the pitcher quickly. “When
will it be here?” she asked.


THE GREEN JACKET 157
“About eleven.”
“And you are not going into town?”
Milly felt the anxiety that tinged the
question. But if the man felt it he gave no
sign.
“I shall go back with the car—after we’ve
looked it over.”
“And stay all day?”
“Probably.” He raised his eyes and
caught sight through the door of the sewing-
room of a woman knitting. Her eyes were
following the ﬂying needles and her head
was a little bent. . . .
He gave a gesture of surprise and turned
to his wife, moving his hand and lowering
his voice a little.
“Who is that—in there?”
He stood looking down, listening to the
hurried explanation. ‘
“How long will she be here?” he asked.
“A few days—you don’t mind, do you,
Oswald?”
“Of course not,” he said brusquely. He
went quickly out.
Milly put aside her knitting and brought
her tray to the table and began her breakfast.


158 THE GREEN JACKET
Through the half-open door she could see
Mrs. Mason giving directions to the maid
who had come in response to her bell.
When Mrs. Mason ﬁnished her breakfast
she paused on her way out, at the door of
the sewing-room. The maid in the room be-
hind could be heard clinking cups.
Milly made a little gesture and Mrs.
Mason stepped into the room.
“I am ready to work on your dress to-
day,” said Milly. The words were clear
and distinct and carried to the room be-
yond, but her glance made a little signal
and Mrs. Mason’s hand on the door drew
it together behind her as she came in.
“It is all right,” said Milly. The low,
even tone might have been proposing a new
pattern or discussing gores and seams.
“There will be plenty of time after eleven.
Meantime, I want to see the servants. Can
you manage for Margaret to be free if I
want her?”
“It is so annoying—this morning of all
others!” said the woman excitedly. “Why
should he stay at home?” The clinched
hands at her sides trembled a little. “Why
ﬂaw-E,


THE GREEN JACKET 159
should he stay? Does he suspect some-
thing?”
“Hush!” said Milly. “Your nerves are ’
unstrung. Isn’t it natural he should want
you to see the car before he buys it P”
“Oh—yes!” The voice stiﬂed with the
words. “Yes—I know I am foolish. But it
has been so long! And everything is so
different—you saw him!” She motioned
toward the closed door. “You saw how he
hurried, just now—to get away from me!”
Her hands made a little tragic gesture; then
they covered her eyes swiftly, and Milly saw
the tears pressing behind them.
“Listen! You will hamper me if you are
excited and nervous.” She spoke with de-
cision and the woman took down her hands.
She smiled a little wanly.
“I do not see why I should be like this!
I think it is because since you came I
am beginning to hope. And I am afraid,
too!” She spoke in a half-whisper with her
glance on the door, behind which they could
hear the maid moving about softly. She
turned to Milly:
“I shall be brave! You will see! I am


160 THE GREEN JACKET
going to tell Margaret to come at once for
_ your tray. I shall not be like this again!
You will see!”
She nodded brightly and went out.
Through the French window Milly could
see Mr. Mason crossing the terrace toward
the garage. In the adjoining room the maid
had ﬁnished her work and gone out. The
quiet and peace of the sunshine outside
seemed to pervade the house.
When Margaret Came for the tray she
motioned her to sit down. “I want to ask
you about one or two things,” she said.
“And this is a good time. Are the servants
in the house now the same ones who were
here two. years ago when the emeralds dis-
appeared?”
The woman’s face seemed suddenly to
pale. She sat down with a half-frightened
look and closed her lips ﬁrmly. But in spite
of the pressure of her will on them they
trembled a little.
“You need not be afraid,” said Milly
kindly. “Mrs. Mason wants you to tell me
anything you know. She will be happier
when we have solved this mystery than she


THE GREEN JACKET 161
has been for a long time. You must help
me, Margaret.”
The woman gulped a little and looked at
her without speaking. Then her eyes ﬁlled
slowly with tears. They had a grotesque,
pathetic look in the fat face.
“Tell me,” said Milly. “Was the butler
here then ?”
“Batson? Yes, Batson was here. And
Katie—she’s the parlor-maid—she was here.
And cook, Mrs. Batson, she was here—and
me. And that’s all.”
Milly checked them rapidly in her mind.
“Are there any new ones?”
“The scullery—she’s new.”
“And there are gardeners ?” Milly glanced
through the window toward the garden and
the lawn that stretched away to the trees.
A horse-driven lawn-mower was clicking busily
across it.
“There’s three of themébesides the head-
gardener, Simpson. And there’s the chauf-
feur—he’s new. But they all live outside.
They’re never in the house.”
“Could they slip in from the outside—
perhaps at meal-time—without being seen?”


162 THE GREEN JACKET
“It wouldn’t be easy—not with me
around!” said the woman proudly. “I’m
always somewhere. I guess they all know
that!” .
She smiled a little grimly. She was sitting
erect, a hand on either knee, and the hands
were clinched a little. “I’ve always took
care of Miss Annie and of Miss Annie’s
things!” she said. “No thief could get into
this house, from the outside, without me
knowing it!” She said the words slowly,
and she paled a little under Milly’s eye, as if
she had been carried further than she meant.
.“It was somebody inside, then,” said Milly
quietly.
“I didn’t say it!” cried the woman.
“No. And we won’t say it—yet.” Milly
was thinking swiftly. “How could I see
the butler—in some natural way?”
“Batson ?” Margaret considered it. “Well
—he’s around in the mornings—back and
forth.”
“He doesn’t serve breakfast?”
“No—that’s Katie.”
“Suppose I wanted another table for sew-
ing, would Batson be the one to bring it?”


THE GREEN JACKET 163
“If his rheumatism wasn’t too bad,” con-
ceded Margaret.
“How is his rheumatism to-dayP” asked
Milly, smiling.
“The last time I heard him complain was
week before last,” said Margaret. . . .
“Weather like this, he’s pretty comfortable,
I guess.”
The sound of the lawn-mower that had
been clicking busily ceased suddenly, and
Milly’s glance following it saw that it had
halted at the edge of the wide lawn. Mr.
Mason was standing beside it, talking with
the driver.
Margaret’s eye rested on them a minute,
and turned away. Something hostile in it
caught Milly’s glance.
“Mr. Mason is staying at home this morn-
ing,” she said casually.
“It’s no comfort to any one—if he stays—
or he don’t stay,” muttered the woman.
Milly looked at her keenly. “What do
I you mean by that, Margaret P”
The woman turned sullenly. “If you’d
seen my Miss Annie when we ﬁrst come
here—beautiful—and always laughing and


164 THE GREEN JACKET
happy!” Her tongue seemed suddenly loos-
ened and her heavy face became alive. “There
was never anybody like her, I tell you. . .
Just something about her made you feel as
if you wanted to lie down and let her walk
over you. . . . And he felt it!” She moved
her hand contemptuously to the distant
ﬁgure. “There wa’n’t anything he wouldn’t
do for Miss Annie then—or buy for her—
Jewels! You should see the things he bought
her—like a queen!” She sat looking at it,
a great rebellion smouldering in her eyes.
“And now?” said Milly softly.
The “look broke. “And now,” she blazed,
“he treats her like a dog!”
“Do you mean he is unkind to her’?”
“Not to speak to her—-not to notice if
she comes in or goes out. . . . Is that ‘un—
kind’ ?” she mimicked. “He goes to his
room—and locks the door on her. ‘Un-
kind’ !” she repeated scornfully.
“And yet he looks like a man who’has
suﬂered,” said Milly thoughtfully.
“Oh—suffered! And haven’t we all suf-
fered !” she cried. “And no one to tell what
the trouble is—or how to set it right!”


THE GREEN JACKET 165
“That is what I am here for, you know.
Perhaps before I go, Margaret, something
will come back to this house—something of
the old happiness and love.” I
“As it was when Miss Marian was home!”
said the woman eagerly, as if she saw it
again. “Always somebody coming and going,
running through the hall out there or calling
up the stairs—or maybe Miss Marian hurry-
ing up to her room and calling: ‘Come and
help me, Margaret. We’re going for a picnic !’
And many’s the time we’ve had the terrace
here thick with people, and tables for tea——
and Batson hurrying to serve them all. Or
maybe hampers carried out to the tennis—
court, there under the trees. . . . Every-
body was happy then!”
“Yes. And everybody will be happy
again!” said Milly cheeringly.
“Not Miss Marian l” A great tear rolled
down her cheek, and she did not lift her hand
to brush it aside. “She was the happiest!”
she said softly. “She had a way like sun-
shine with her.”
“No, we cannot bring her back to life. But
we can make Mrs. Mason less lonely, perhaps.”


166 THE GREEN JACKET
The woman’s face lighted and she lifted
a hand swiftly, brushing away the tears.
“If you can do that for her, I’ll bless you
—till the longest day I live!” she said
solemnly.
“And that will be a long while, I hope,”
responded Milly, laughing. “Now, can you
ﬁnd Batson for me? I think I’ll have him
move that secretary!” She eyed the heavy
piece of mahogany furniture that stood by
the side wall. “I want to put my sewing-
table there——to get a better light on it.”
Margaret looked at the massive piece of
furniture. She shook her head. “Batson
won’t like it,” she said. “He won’t like
doing it, and he won’t like the idea—a heavy
piece like that.”
“Well, send him in. We will see.” And
as she waited for Batson she was conscious
of a little feeling of thankfulness that Bat-
son was a man—~not only because he would
probably be strong and could move the
secretary for her, but because, whatever his
defects, he was not likely to weep.
She had a refreshing sense of the stolidity
of Batson’s ﬁgure seen through the distant


THE GREEN JACKET 167
doorway. . . . She would not need to keep
Batson long or question him closely. A few
minutes would probably suﬁice.


XIV
SHE heard a heavy tread in the hall and
she turned her back and stood surveying
the secretary.
Years ago she had come on the discovery
that nothing heartens a possible criminal
like the chance to look you over ﬁrst, and
nothing is more likely to throw him oﬂ his
guard. Whenever possible she presented a
view of herself for deliberate inspection. She
had learned, too, not to ﬂash too sudden a
look at a man when at last she turned to
him. She merely let her glance slide by him
casually. If later the glance returned and
dwelt on him for a minute, he did not seem
to think it necessary to arrange a rigid coun-
tenance for inspection. . . . One of the
curious things about people under suspicion
-——whether innocent or guiltywthat often
puzzled Milly, was this deep, instinctive
desire to present to her a countenance void
of all meaning. She did not understand it,
altogether; but she accepted and allowed
for it.
168


THE GREEN JACKET I71
laughing. “And if you get them by it, they’ll
run steady for a long time—perhaps till
they’re as old as you or me!”
Batson’s eye twinkled. “That’s what I
said to myself. Steer ’em by, I says, with
blinders, or most any way that comes handy,
and they’ll live straight forever after. Seems
as if most everybody had to have a time
like that sooner or later. It’s like the mumps
or measles—~and the sooner you’re over it,
the better.”
Milly laughed out. “You speak as if you
knew all about it, Batson. Did you ever
have an attack P”
“Well, ma’am, I won’t say I wasn’t once
there or thereabouts,” he replied modestly.
“Ellen will be wanting to see you,” he
added, as if by chance the two ideas lay
near together in his mind.
Milly put out a hand. “No. Don’t tell
Ellen I am here. Keep it secret for a little
while, please, and don’t forget that to Ellen
and the others I am Miss Brigham, who is
doing some sewing for Mrs. Mason.”
He looked at her keenly. “You’re here
for your old work?” he said. And after a


THE GREEN JACKET 173
ﬁrst minute you come. . . . When Ellen
,was making words about having to ﬁx up
ia tray three times a day, I said to her: ‘For
the Lord’s sake, Ellen, if there’s anything
Mis’ Mason takes an interest in, let her
have it.’ But I no more suspected than a
babe unborn when you sent for me, that
you was another one of them detectives!”
Batson relaxed to the delight of free speech. I
“You don’t know what I suffered with
’em, Miss Newberry, them detectives! Why,
some of ’em pretty near put me through the
third degree before they was done with me.
There was one spell there, I kind 0’ had to
make up things. Seems as if nothing else
would satisfy ’em, really!”
.f‘Well, I am not going to put you through
a third degree. And it will be a comfort to
know that I can trust you and rely on what
you say.”
“Same to you, ma’am,” said Batson.
“I’ve had a feeling some days here that you
couldn’t trust anybody. Why, there was
one day” I got to wondering if maybe Ellen
had done it !”
He looked at her askance and shook his


174 THE GREEN JACKET
head. “I don’t ever want to feel much worse
,than I felt that day, I guess!”
“Sit down,” said Milly, “and tell me
everything.”
Batson tiptoed to the window and looked
importantly out.
“We don’t want to be seen talking to-
gether,” he said cautiously, and Milly smiled
at the far-off echo of the Corbin methods
repeated with the muffled emphasis of Bat-
son’s expansive calm. . . . He looked to
right and to left and he leaned forward and
peered out through the window. _ A horn
sounded among the trees.
“Maybe the new car,” said Batson. Then
his face lost interest.
“It’s the mail, ma’am. Excuse me, please.
I’ll have to get it.”
He stepped out of the window and hur-
ried across the terrace, with bulky impor-
tance, and down the steps to the car, hold-
ing up his hands for the budget of mail
the postman doled out. When he turned
back, his hands overﬂowing with papers
and letters, he did not return to the sewing-
room, but passed directly to the front of the


THE GREEN JACKET 175
house; he deposited the mail on the hall-
table, bending over and arranging it in neat
little piles, and stopping now and then to
peer down at a letter or card before his ﬁn-
gers released it. One letter he held for a full
minute before he laid it on the pile. He
lifted his head and looked toward the stairs.
Mrs. Mason was coming swiftly down and he
handed her the letter he had just placed on
its pile. .
She tore it open with eager ﬁngers and
stood reading it breathlessly.
Batson went on sorting letters, glancing
now and then with a kind of respectful sym-
pathy at his mistress’s absorbed face. He
gathered up a small handful of the sorted
mail and departed to the back of the house.
Mrs. Mason, standing by the hall-table,
read on and turned a page hastily—and
broke away with a little gesture to seize a
parasol from the rack by the stairs. She
passed swiftly out of the open door.
Milly saw her cross the terrace and beckon
to her husband, who had ﬁnished talking
with the man on the machine and was coming
toward the terrace. The rapid clicking of


176 THE GREEN JACKET
the machine resuming its course across the
lawn came to Milly’s ear as she watched
the man and woman meet on the edge of
the terrace.
The woman held up the open page, speak-
ing rapidly, and the man reached his hand
to it.
From her place in the window Milly could
see thevlook of the wife bent upon him ea-
gerly, with waiting happiness. The reddish
glow cast by the parasol on her head and
shoulders gave her a radiant look. But the
glow in her face seemed to come as much
from some inner light as from without.
The man ﬁnished the letter and handed
it back to her and they stood a minute,
talking. Then she turned back to the house.
It seemed to Milly as she came toward her
that the face had lost a little of its warm
glow.
But when the woman looked up and saw
the seamstress through the window she nod-
ded with a little smile and came toward her,
holding up the letter.
“My boy is coming!” she called even
before she reached the window. “Stephen


THE GREEN JACKET 177
is coming! I have not seen him for a year!”
She stood outside the window, the parasol
behind her head and shoulders lighting her
radiantly. “I cannot believe it!” she said
softly.
“When does he come?” asked Milly.
She opened the letter in her hand. The
mere action seemed to give her pleasure.
“The 9th,” he says. “That’s to-morrow,
isn’t it? ‘I shall arrive the 9th’ . . . He
doesn’t say what train. . . . I must go and
tell Margaret. There will be so much to
do!” She nodded happily and moved away.
Even her step was different, it seemed to
Milly, watching her as she passed out of
sight. . . . And presently through the whole
house ran quickening life. Doors opened
and closed, feet hurried, voices rose—a little
excited and eager—and called to each other,
up and down the stairs.
The son of the house was coming home.
Milly sewed a little while. Then she took
up her knitting. She was glad of the ad—
vent of the son. . . . She had been gazing
into a deep, dusky pool, trying to pierce
through the obscurity to something that


THE GREEN JACKET 179
on her part, that the culprit when discovered
’should be hers to deal with.
The result had been Batson and his
daughter in the up-town office, Batson shiver-
ing with misery and possible disgrace, the
girl a little ﬂippant and deﬁant. That was
nearly two years ago. She had known that
the father and mother were in service in the
country; but she had not known where.
She had called in the father only because
something in the girl’s attitude when she
spoke of him suggested to her that the fear
of hurting her father might have inﬂuence
with her. The guess had proved a happy one.
The sight of her father’s abject humiliation
had seemed to steady the girl like a shock.
Milly had no fear that Batson would
not serve her in every way he was capable
of. If what he was able to tell her was of
little use, it would not be Batson’s fault.
She saw him through the distant rooms
hurrying about and giving directions, guid-
ing his staff with anxious and important air.
Presently he approached the door of the
sewing-room and looked in.
“I am free now, ma’am, for a little while
' ",1


180 THE GREEN JACKET
if you would like me to tell you—what we
were speaking of,” he said discreetly.
Milly nodded and he came in with deft
clumsiness, closing and locking the door,
and moving to the other doors and locking
them in swift succession. He crossed to the
window and looked out in either direction.
Milly, watching him, smiled at the elaborate
reminder of the Corbin method.
Batson spoke to her over his shoulder,
from his place at the Window. . . . “If
any one comes to the door, ma’am, I’ll slip
out here while you’re unlocking it, and no-
body can get at us this way without me see-
ing ’em.” He waved his hand across the
open space. “If anybody steps on the ter-
race, I’ll slip out o’ the door before they’re on -
to me.”
Milly nodded with amused eyes. “That
sounds safe! I was afraid you might not be
able to come—with all the preparation for
the son’s arrival.”
He turned to her. “You’ve heard, then?”
“Mrs. Mason told me.” She had taken
up her knitting and was absorbed in com-
plicated stitches.


THE GREEN JACKET 181
Batson sighed. “I hope it’s a good thing
—his coming.” He sighed again and looked
at her a little askance.
“Sit down, won’t you?” said Milly.
He sat down, half-facing the window, his
glance free to cover the range outside. He
placed his hands across the amplitude of
his stomach, as far as it permitted, and
leaned back and sighed again reﬂectively.
“I don’t hardly know where to begin!”
he said.
“Why not begin at the beginning?”
“Well—I guess the beginning was about ﬁve
years back when me and Ellen ﬁrst come
here. . . . Mis’ Mason had seen us at the
employment ofﬁce, and she liked us—and
we liked her.
“We knew there was four in the family we
was coming to work for—a son and a daugh-
ter. We didn’t know till we got here that
the daughter was adopted—and we shouldn’t
’a’ known then except for the other ser-
vants. The father and mother treated her
more like their own than most folks do.
She had her little riding horse and clothes
and about everything a girl could have.”


182 THE GREEN JACKET
“Jewelry?” asked Milly quietly. She had
just turned the row and was adjusting her
needle. She was not noticing him.
Batson regarded her slowly. “I don’t
know as I ever thought of that before—I
don’t believe she did have manytjules. Mr.
Mason was always buying ’em and giving
’em to his wife. She’d be wearing a new
ring or pin or something every day or two.
But I don’t seem to remember as Miss
Marian ever had more’n one or two little trin-
kets.” He seemed to consider it aiminute.
“It couldn’t ’a’ been because they" stinted
her. She had everything—and more, too. I
reckon it might ’a’ been because he wanted
to keep something special for his wife. He
was always fond of his wife.”
“ ‘Was’? ” repeated Milly.
Batson looked a little embarrassed. “Well,
ma’am, it seems a queer thing to say about
the folks you’re working for—and not being
supposed to notice anything that goes on—-—
but it does seem as if Mr. Mason had changed
a good deal ”
“How has he changed? What do you
call changed?” asked Milly.


THE GREEN JACKET 183
“Going to his room and shutting himself
up—hours at a time,” said Batson, “that’s
what I’d call changed. Why, it used to be—
he couldn’t bear to let her out of his sight,
not hardly.”
“When did he begin to change—~could
you tell that P”
“It was along about the time the trouble
come on, I guess.” He spoke slowly, as if
trying to place the things he recalled. . . .
“Pretty soon after we heard there’d been a
robbery in the house, it must have been,
that I ﬁrst begun to notice anything queer.”
“And when was that P”
“Two years ago—justabout this time of
year, it was. . . . Mis’ Mason called me
up to her room one day. She was sitting by
the window and I could see she had been
crying. Things was all kind of tumbled up,
as if folks had been hunting and mussing
around the room. And she said to me, she
says: ‘Batson, something very unhappy has
come to us.’ Them was just her words,
ma’am. ‘My emerald necklace has disap-
peared,’ she said. . . . I just stood with
my mouth open, looking at her.”


I84. THE GREEN JACKET
Batson shook his head slowly. “I didn’t
mistrust anythingIthen; but afterward I see
that the detective must ’a’ been watching me
all the time from the dressing-room door.”
He smiled shrewdly. “Well, he didn’t
see anything but me standing there looking
like a dum fool!”
“Then, after a minute, Mis’ Mason told
me the detectives was there in the next
room searching, and that they wanted to
talk with me when they was through. She’d
told them they’d better question me, but I
was not to tell the others. . . . I reckon
she always trusted me—whether the detec-
tives did or not. . . . Well, when they
come out, they questioned me, up hill and
down. And after that, as I told you, they
kep’ it up—having me in every day or two
and tackling me. Of course the other ser-
vants got wind of, it. You can’t have men
in, ripping up your carpets and measuring
windows and running up and down stairs,
without folks getting to know something is
UPI”
“But they did not discover anything?”
“Not so far as I know,” said Batson. “I


186 THE GREEN JACKET
“I reckon he tried all he could. But he
couldn’t seem to stand it any longer.
“I don’t know as I blame him, either,” he
added after a little pause in which he seemed
to turn it over.
“Why not?” asked Milly curiously.
“Well, I felt some that way myself,” said
Batson. “As if somebody was always
watchin’ and suspectin’ me—and always wait-
ing for something that was going to happen—
only it never did! It wa’n’t any real thing
either—just the way things felt when you
went around the house. . . . Of course
I’ve got used to it now. Some days I don’t
hardly know I’m feeling that way. . . . But
this morning when the news come—and see—
ing Mis’ Mason’s look and the way she went
stepping around the house so light, it brought
it all back to me somehow. . . . And then
knowing you was here on the same old busi-
ness, I’ve been remembering how things
used to be.”
“You’ve made me see it very clearly,
Batson. I thank you,” said Milly.
’ “You’re welcome, I’m sure. It seems as
if I’d kind of jumbled things together, telling


THE GREEN JACKET 187
’em; but that’s the way they seem to me in
my mind—all kind of jumbled up. I never
c0uld see straight what it was happened.
It seemed as if there was always some little
thing that was hid, that I couldn’t see, and
if I could see it, it would make a difference.”
“You have given me just what I wanted,”
said Milly. “I don’t need to keep you any
longer. I know you are busy to-day.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He got to his feet.
“I heard a car just now. I shouldn’t wonder
if it’s the new one they’re talking about
buying.” He looked at his watch and off
through the trees—and a beautiful car ﬂashed
into sight, speeding noiselessly up the drive.
“I guess I’ll’go out and have a look at
her,” said Batson. He stepped softly through
the window. Then he turned and looked
back.
“Better unlock them doors,” he said with
a gesture of mysterious and ClﬁCISI‘lt caution
as he moved away.


XV
IT was nearly an hour before the new car
passed swiftly down the driveway, with Mr.
Mason on the back seat. Milly watched it
out of sight and turned to the door. Mar-
garet stood in it, looking at her signiﬁ-
cantly.
“Miss Annie says, will you please to come
up now and see about her dress.” She said
it circumspectly and stepped a little into
the room to make way for the parlor-maid,
who was passing through the hall behind
her.
“She’d like it if you’d come right away,
please,” she added. And the seamstress
rose, dropping her knitting into the bag on
her arm, and followed her into the hall.
“She’s up in her room,” said Margaret;
“I’m going up, too.” She moved aside and
allowed the sewing-woman to precede her.
In the upper hallway, Mrs. Mason, wait-
ing by the door of her room, a look of eager
impatience in her face, reached out to Milly
188


THE GREEN JACKET 189
as she came up, and drew her swiftly along
the hall toward the front of the house.
“Margaret will keep watch,” she said.
“Come in here.”
She had entered the library, drawing the
seamstress with her, and she closed both
doors carefully behind them. Milly noted
that the doors were of oak and highly pol-
ished and very thick. The bookcases built in-
to the room allowed a generous space between
the outer and inner door.
The woman moved softly across the thick
rug to the ﬁre that blazed on the hearth.
“Sit down,” she said quickly. She drew
one of the large leather chairs nearer to the
ﬁre. But she did not seat herself in it, but
stood with one hand on the mantel, looking
down at Milly. . . . Her face was ﬂushed
and her eyes were ﬁlled with a little light of
trembling happiness. The hand on the man-
tel seemed to press on it, as if to steady
itself.
“Oh, I thought he would never go!” she
said breathlessly. “And I have so much
to say to you. I want to talk to you before
Stephen comes. Think of it—to-morrow!”


190 THE GREEN JACKET
Her eyes, gazing deep into Milly’s, had a
strange look, almost of apprehension. “To-
morrowl” she repeated softly.
“Yes. I am glad for you.”
“Oh—you cannot know!” She spoke hur-
riedly. “No one can know—what it has
been—day after day, month after month—
and never to see him!”
Milly looked from the woman’s ﬂushed
face to a picture that stood near it on the
mantel. She made a little motion to it,
with a look of question, and the woman
turned to it swiftly. She took it in her hands
and gazed at it, and handed it to her quickly.
“Can you imagine what it would be—to
have a son like that and not see him—not
even to know—l” She stopped abruptly
and pressed her lips together.
Milly looked at her gently. “You need
not hide from me,” she said.
“No. I shall tell you everything,” as-
sented the woman. “I want to.”
Milly studied the photograph a minute
and placed it on the table beside her where
she could see it as she leaned back in her
chair. She would have the son’s face before
her while the mother told her story.


THE GREEN JACKET 191
“He has an open face,” she said half to
herself.
The woman relaxed subtly to it. A little
sob stole to her lips and broke through in
quick words: “Oh, he is true! He is true——
No one who knows him could doubt it!”
“No—I am sure of that. How long has
he been away from home P”
“A year last month. Think of it—a whole
year! And he had scarcely been away in
his life. We were always together and al-
ways such friends. Even when he was a child
we talked over our plans with him. We
called him ‘little brother.’ There was no
other child, you know.” A shadow ﬂitted
in her face and she went on quickly. “Then
we adopted Marian, and we were four chil-
dren, instead of three. I think we kept
younger than most fathers and mothers. . . .
I was not old two years ago.” She leaned
against the mantel and her shoulders seemed
to droop a little, as if she were suddenly
tired.
“Sit down,” said Milly, motioning to the
chair across the hearth.
But she shook her head impatiently,
annoyed to break the thread that was


192 THE GREEN JACKET
recalling the past to her. . . . “It was
when Marian left us,” she went on intently,
“it was then everything changed, I think.
My husband grew so strange to Ink” She
halted a minute and then went swiftly on,
as if fearing to stop. “He shut me out of
his life. He is a stranger to me—here in
our home!” She moved her hand with a
little gesture of ﬁerceness.
“Are you sure the change came then—
when she went away?” asked Milly.
She paused, as if the idea arrested her.
Then she shook her head. “It was then I
ﬁrst knew.” She seemed to hold it. . . .
“Perhaps he was different before that—a
little different. Everything was changed by
the robbery—the detectives in and out.
The home-sense was gone. Yes—our home
was really broken up before she went.” She
said it consideringly. “Yet I always think
of the change as having come the day she
left. I remember so well that morning. My
husband shut himself alone—in his room.
All day I did not see him. Stephen had gone
with Marian into town to see her off, and I
was alone.” She shuddered a little. “I


THE GREEN JACKET 193
had never been alone in my life. I do not
mean physically alone, you understand—
but in my heart. There had always been
my mother—and then Oswald. But that
day there was no one in the world. I thought
my heart would break!” She looked at
Milly and there was a strange passion in her
eyes, as if the memory of the day haunted
them.
“I know they say hearts do not break,”
she said. “But sometimes there is a pain—”
Her hand clutched the black dress" on her
bosom. “Sometimes it is like a consuming
ﬂame here,” she said swiftly.
“Then you do wrong to think of it, said
Milly practically. “Sit down. I want you
to tell me everything you can remember
about the necklace—how your husband came
to give it to you, and when it was—where—
everything about it. There may be some-
thing important—some little thing that will
give me the clew I want—if you can re-
member.”
“If I can ‘remember,’” repeated the
woman with a wan smile. “I cannot for-
get!” She sank into the chair and covered
3’


194 THE GREEN JACKET
her eyes a minute. Then she looked up
wearily.
“You are right,” she said, “in thinking
there was something important in his giving
it to me—though many people would not
think it so. . . . But Oswald and I have
always been close in spirit and we both knew
his giving it meant something signiﬁcant in
our life—though we did not put it into words.
The emeralds were his words, I think.
My husband chose to speak in jewels instead
of words.” She said it with a faint smile.
“He is not an ordinary man. He is like a
poet.” She glanced about the walls crowded
with books—every shelf and table ﬁlled
with them.
“This room has been our life,” she said
slowly. “When we built the house he planned
this room—for us both. It must be on this
ﬂoor, he said, where I could come to it easily,
instead of down below where other people
have libraries. He wanted me to be always
near him—and when he was away I sat here
with my work, or my book. . . . Then
the baby came, and my husband brought
a new chair and placed it for me there where


THE GREEN JACKET 195
you are sitting. It was low and roomy, with
little rockers, and I always nursed the baby
in it and sat here and played with him. He
was a part of our life in this room.”
She sat staring before her—seeing the
distant picture of the baby in the room, and
Milly was touched with a strange wonder
at the poetry and the life her words revealed.
She wondered' a little whether all men and
women have this sealed fountain of poetry
and longing, that only wells up to the light
when some harsh blow breaks the seal and
it gushes out.
They sat in silence, looking into the ﬁre,
and after a little the woman’s voice went on:
“I was sitting there one day, with Stephen
in my arms, crooning to him. He had been
nursing, and had fallen asleep and I had not
disturbed him. I was looking down at his
little head. You know how soft and beau-
tiful they are!” She cast a sweet look at
the other woman. “And I was ﬁlled with
happiness. Not thinking—but just looking
down at him and happy——when I heard a
step at the door. And then his voice, ‘Don’t
move!’ . . . He came over here to the


196 THE GREEN JACKET
ﬁrelight with something in his hands and
held it up, and the glints in the stones struck
out and startled me. He stood there play-
ing with it and making it shine toward me
and the child. It seemed as if the colors
ﬂashed back and forth across us when he
turned it in his hands.
“He was like a child himself,” she said
with a sigh. Her voice had grown half-ten-
der. . . . “And then at last he came over
to me and stood above me and dropped it
down on my neck—and the lowest link came
down to my breast, close to the child’s head.
I could see it gleam there when I looked down.
But he said again, ‘Don’t move—-
don’t touch!’ and he went across and sat
down and looked at us—a long time. Just
looked, with his eyes half-closed—till it seemed
as if I were wrapped in a ﬂame of light!”
The eyes in the gaunt face raised themselves
slowly and looked at Milly.
“You have never been married?” she
asked gently. And when Milly made a
quiet, gray gesture of negation, the woman’s
eyes held her thoughtfully, as if her memory
spoke in them.


THE GREEN JACKET 197
“It is very wonderful—all that part of
life!” she said. The words seemed remote
and untouched, and she looked down at the
slightly reddened knuckles in her lap and
rubbed them a little and clasped her hands.
“I did not dream then that the jewels
would one day make me suffer! I saw only
my husband’s eyes and felt the child’s head
against my breast. . . . And by and by
he came over and knelt by me and gathered
us to him almost ﬁercely, and whispered to
me that he would keep me always like that.
Nothing should change—there should be only
the child and me. He would give me every-
thing in the world. We would travel, and I
should always be close to him. . . . He
wanted nothing in the world but me—as I
looked with the ﬁrelight shining on me and
on the jewels!” She shivered a little. “I
shall never forget the words—a woman
could not forget them—with his low voice,
and his eyes on me. They seemed to pierce
me till I shrivelled under them. Something
strange and unhappy seemed close to me.
I wanted to tear off the jewels, throw
them away! But he would not let me. He


THE GREEN JACKET 199
ferent tone. . . . “I did not wear it often
in society. It was far too expensive for us—
more expensive than we had any right to.
I often put it on at home when we were
alone—or we held it in our hands here in
the ﬁrelight and watched it sparkle and
change. My husband justiﬁed his extrav-
agance—he said it was an inVestment—in-
stead of stocks and bonds. . . . I think we
enjoyed it more than most people enjoy their
stocks and bonds,” she added with a little
smile.
She sat looking dreamily into the ﬁre.
Perhaps the stones still gleamed there for
her, faintly.
“And this necklace was stolen?” asked
Milly quietly.
She started from her dream. “It disap-
peared—I told you.”
Her eyes turned to the photograph on
the table. She looked at it a long time in-
tently—and the eyes of the picture seemed
to return the look. . . . She glanced away
from them with a little helpless gesture. . . .
“There is something I have not told you,”
she said.
“Yes?” The word waited without com-


200 THE GREEN JACKET
ment. But the woman seemed to ﬁnd it
impossible to speak.
“It is—Stephen!” she said at last. She
motioned to the picture. “But you must not
think—you must not suspect—if I tell you.
Nobody can be certain!” She threw
it out defensively.
“I shall not suspect,” said Milly. “That
is not my business. I only want to know
the facts.”
“But this fact does not mean what it
seems to. That is why I have been so fright-
ened and anxious.” She leaned forward.
“You know that Stephen was in a bank in
town—before he left home?” She whis-
pered the words. .
“Yes. Was there trouble?”
She shook her head. “Nothing that was
ever known. But my son overran his salary.
He was extravagant—like his father,” she
added with a little sad smile. “He had
debts and—~he borrowed three thousand
dollars from the bank.” She said the last
words quickly and stared at the detective
as if challenging her thought.
Milly returned the look with a smile.


THE GREEN JACKET 201
“No, I am not thinking anything! Go on—
who knew of his ‘borrowing’ the money?”
“Only me—and Marian,” she said softly.
She looked at her again, still with the little
defensive glance.
“Did he tell you both of it?”
“He did not tell any one. He expected,
of course, to return it in a day or two—”
“Of course,” assented Milly dryly.
“But Marian came to know. She called
at the bank one night to drive him home.
She came in quietly. At ﬁrst she thought
there was no one there. And then she saw
Stephen—in the safe with his back to her-—
he was taking out some bills. She saw him
crowd them down into his pocket and reach
again—and then she turned and hurried
out. She was in a panic that he might hear
her or see her. But she got out safely. And
in a few minutes she went back for him. . .
She said he looked so happy and innocent
when she came back, that she thought it
must be a bad dream. . . . She worried
about it till she was nearly ill—and then at
last she told me———” The mother sat star-
ing before her.


202 THE GREEN JACKET
“And then—?” said Milly.
She moved and lifted her eyes. “A week
later,” she said slowly, “the necklace dis-
appeared.”
They waited a minute in silence.
“And you believe Marian stole the neck-
lace and got the money for your son?” said
Milly.
The woman hesitated. “I have always
believed she took it,” she said. . . . There
was a soft tapping sound somewhere in the
room—and they started.
The woman cowered in her chair, looking
behind her with frightened eyes.
“It is some one at the door,” said Milly.
She motioned to the inner door with its
heavy polished surface, and the tapping
came again—a little louder.
The color ﬂashed back to the woman’s face.
“It is Margaret!” she said swiftly. “She
would not let any one else come to the door
——excep_t over her dead body!” She laughed
a little tremulously and hurried to the door
and opened it. “Luncheon, Margaret ? Very
well. We did not hear the gong. I will
come.”


THE GREEN JACKET 293
She turned back to Milly in her chair by
the hearth.
“Could you have your luncheon with
me P” she asked almost pleadingly. “I dread
to sit down there—alone—with all the mem-
ories I have called up!”
“You must be brave!” said Milly. She
touched her arm, soothing her. “Be brave
a little longer! The servants would think
- it strange for you to have the sewing-woman
in to luncheon. Go and eat your luncheon,
and then come to the sewing-room and we
will get to work on the dress and make
it ﬁt you.” She smoothed the wrinkles on
the black shoulder gently. “We must not
wait too long,” she remarked, “or happi-
ness may get ahead of us—and it will not
need to be changed!” ‘
The woman looked at her gratefully a
minute. Then she left the room with quiet
step.
When she had gone Milly took the photo-
graph from the table. She studied it, hold-
ing it from her, and placed it on the mantel
and looked at it again. The open, boyish
face looked back to her, revealing nothing.
I


XVI
IT was Margaret who brought the black
dress when luncheon was over, with the
message: “Miss Annie is lying down. She’s
going to get a little nap if she can.”
“That’s good,” replied Milly. She took
the dress and ripped the shoulder-seams and '
laid it aside to wait for Mrs. Mason. When,
a little later, she appeared in the doorway,
wearing the dark-red robe, herfface was pale.
“I could not sleep,” she said. “It will
rest me to be with you.” She watched Milly’s
ﬁngers adjusting the folds of the dress.
“How skilful you are! And yoii are not
really a dressmaker ?”
Milly smiled. “Oh, yes. I am a dress-
maker. I learned the trade. I thought then
I should always make dresses. . . . Now it
is ready to try on.”
She slipped it over the woman’s head and
drew the folds in place and pinned them skil-
fully.
“There—that is much better!” She stood
._,_g
204


206 THE GREEN JACKET
“Were any of the young people in the
neighborhood intimate with her?” asked
Milly. “Did they come and go in the
house?”
“Not in the house. They lived out-of-
doors—on the terrace here, and on the tennis-
court; and there were drives and picnics
often—and dances in the winter.”
“But no one who ran in and out of the
house—more intimately than the others?”
pursued Milly.
The woman hesitated. “Yes. Elise Mar-
shall was here often. She was almost like
a daughter in the house.” The words were
low, and Milly caught a hidden tone in them.
“Perhaps you hoped she might be—some
day?” she said gently. '
“I did hope it—yes. . . . I tried one
day to say something to Stephen about it,
but he turned away.”
“And did not say anything?”
“He said: ‘I shall get married when my
debts are paid.’ We never spoke of it again.”
“Was he so deeply in debt?”
“Nearly ten thousand dollars,” said the
woman.


THE GREEN fJACKET 207
Milly held the work in her hands and
stared at her. “But how could it be so much !
—living at home, with no establishment to
keep up! He had a good salary P”
“Yes—I don’t think it ever occurred to
Stephen that he could deny himself any-
thing he wanted. His father was generous
with him, too! That was his way—the boy
and I must have everything always. . . .
That was the way he ruined us, I think!”
She spoke softly.
“But even so—” Milly spoke thought-
fully. “He was hardly more than a boy?”
“Twenty-three,” said his mother. “The
picture I showed you was taken on his twenty-
third birthday. . . .” She seemed to hesi-
tate a little. She looked down at the bit of
sewing on her lap and smoothed it with her
ﬁngers. “He came to me one morning, very
excited. . . . He had a great roll of bills
in his hand. He told me he had found ﬁve
thousand dollars in the pocket of his coat
that morning. The coat had been at the
tailor’s, being pressed, and had just come
home the day before.”
“But who could have——”


208 THE GREEN JACKET
“There was a note with it,” went on the
mother quickly. “He showed it to me. It
was typewritten, not signed, and only said
a friend wanted him to pay his debts and
settle down—become the man his friends
believed him capable of becoming. The
giver did not wish to be known. He did not
want the money to come between their friend-
ship. It was a free gift. . . . We talked it
over and I advised Stephen to do it. . . .”
“When did this money come to him?”
“It was Wednesday, May 3; I have reason
to remember the date.”
“Why?”
“It was the next day that the necklace
disappeared.”
“Then it was taken after he had the
money!”
“Yes—that is what makes it so puzzling.”
A little click registered itself in Milly’s
mind.
“What did you do when you found it was
gone?”
“At ﬁrst, as I told you, I tried to keep
it quiet. My husband thought that was
best. He said I was almost sure to ﬁnd it


THE GREEN JACKET 2!;
She touched it lightly as Milly looked up.
“That is what you have done for me!”
she said. “I put it on to thank you.”
She led the way to the terrace, talking
happily, and arranged the cups, chatting
with the seamstress as if she were a casual
guest of the day.
Milly, who had brought her knitting and
was seated opposite her in the low wicker
chair, regarded her over her needles with a
quiet smile. The conversation in the sew-
ing-room had lighted up many things that
had puzzled her, and the woman’s attitude
revealed more than the words she had spoken.
Milly, recalling the conversation, gath-
ered up the words and knit them carelessly
into the ﬂying wool as it passed through her
ﬁngers. The pattern was growing almost in-
tricate.
The woman, leaning back in her chair,
watched the swift-moving needles that knit
the pattern.
“What is it you are making?” she asked.
Milly laid down the green knitted meshes
and spread them a little on her lap, looking
at them reﬂectively.
“I think__"it will be a jacket,” she said.


THE GREEN JACKET 213
be a kimono!” She laughed out. “A knitted
kimono! . . . And suppose it is never ﬁn-
ished !” she cried.
“Then I put it away,” said Milly, “and
it is nothing.”
The woman looked at her curiously. f‘Did
you ever have one like that?” she asked
softly.
“Yes. There is a very long one in a drawer
at home. It has lain there for years. Per-
haps it will never be ﬁnished. But I shake
it out now and then, to be sure the moths
have not got at it!” She laughed and the
other’s face lightened and smiled at her wist-
fully.
“I hope this one will not be shut away in
a drawer,” she murmured. She moved her
hand to the ﬂying needles.
“This one? Oh, this one will be ﬁnished
soon. It will not be as short as some I have
made—mere shoulder-capes, some of them,
hardly more than scarfs, you know! But
this will be quite a presentable jacket.” She
spread it out again and looked up with an
assuring smile.
A laugh broke from the woman’s lips.


214 THE GREEN JACKET
Then it held itself. She turned quickly. A
shadow had fallen on the table.
Her hand gripped the arm of her chair.
The man had come upon them suddenly
around an angle of the house. He could not
have seen them till he was close upon them.
For a long moment he stood staring down
at his wife and at the look of happiness in
her face. Then his glance travelled to the
gray ﬁgure in the wicker chair and to the
amber needles that had not paused in their
ﬂight. He lifted his hat courteously.
“I did not mean to disturb you.” He
turned away and entered the house by an-
other door.
Slowly the woman’s hand relaxed its grip
on the chair. She sank back with a sigh.
Milly’s needles went on with even touch;
her eyes followed the retreating ﬁgure thought-
fully. The man’s gaze had seemed to her
inﬁnitely sad as it tested on them—a look
of loneliness and hopeless regret.
The woman’s hands lay relaxed in her
lap. Her eyes were half veiled. But to
Milly the glance behind the veiling lids was
ﬁxed on her intently.


THE GREEN JACKET 215
“ Mr. Mason came home early,” said Milly.
She glanced at the watch on her wrist.
“Twenty minutes to six.”
“Yes. . . . He must have walked across
the ﬁelds from the station. It is only two
miles that way. He often used to do it—
before we had the car.” All the animation
had gone from her face. It had a tense look
of being on guard—as if the sudden appear-
ance of her husband had recalled some con-
stant sense of danger, that might withdraw
for a minute, but never wholly left her.
Milly looked across at her. “There is
one more thing I want to ask you,” she
said slowly.
“Yes.” The ﬁgure in the chair stirred
slightly and seemed to stiffen a little.
“You told me the other day,” said Milly,
“that the amount your son ‘borrowed’ from
the bank was three thousand dollars. Were
the emeralds worth as much as that P” She
leaned forward, speaking the words low.
They could not have been heard beyond the
other chair.
The woman sat up. A swift ﬂush spread
over her face. She lifted it quickly. “You


216 THE GREEN JACKET
U
!
must not think she cried under her
breath.
“I do not think,” said Milly. “But were
they—worth as much as that?”
“Oh, more—much more !” cried the woman.
She covered her face for a moment. “I do
not know how valuable they were,” she said
at last in a low voice. “I only know my hus-
band said we should not come to want as
long as I had my necklace.” She hesitated.
“I shall never forget his face the morning
I discovered they were gone. I had not
realized till then what the jewels meant to
him. . . . They had always seemed to me
like playthings—to do what I liked with !”
“You say it was he who insisted on having
in the detectives?”
“Yes.”
“You did not want them?”
“No—— Oh, no!” She clasped her hands
quickly.
“Why did you not want them?” The
question was very gentle.
“I was—afraid. It was all so bewildering!
I could not be sure who was guilty! It might
be—” She broke off.


THE GREEN JACKET 217
“Your own son.”
Her lip was trembling. Two tears were
rolling down her cheek.
Milly got up and put away her knitting,
stabbing the needles through the ball.
“You must be brave. . . . I think we
shall ﬁnd out who took your jewels and
where they are.” /
The woman’s hand reached out. “But
suppose—”
Milly shook her head. “You need not
fear—whatever we discover. I am going
now for a little walk and you must rest be-
fore dinner.”
As she passed her she touched her shoulder
gently. “Do not think of anything while
you rest, except that your son is coming in
the morning.” '


XVII
THE house was astir with expectation.
Even at early daylight, while Milly went
about her room dressing in leisurely fashion,
sounds of activity came from the house be-
low, and through her window came the whir-
ring click of the lawn-mower going back and
forth, and a subdued murmur of voices.
She went to the window and looked out.
A phalanx of men in orderly rank was
moving along the paths and borders, weeding
and hoeing and pruning—the scissors and
hoes and trowels and rakes ﬂicked in the
light with a little, irregular tattoo of sound,
and the bent backs of the men had an in-
tent, absorbed look.
When she descended the stairs a battle
and bustle of eagerness pervaded the house.
Batson was everywhere, urging and direct-
ing his forces with solicitous presence.
To Milly the house and grounds had seemed
in perfect condition the day before. But out
of this movement and stir of preparation
218


THE GREEN JACKET 219
something new seemed to emerge. Even
before she reached the lower hall she felt its
presence. . . . Freshness everywhere—new
muslin curtains at the great windows at
either end of the upper hall, fresh sash-
curtains glimpsed through open doors, and
ﬂowers in every room. . . . The dark pool
had become a rippling pond in the morning
sunshine and the little running waves glinted
in the freshening breeze that blew across it.
Down-stairs the doors at either end of
the long hall stood open and a little wind
drew back and forth through the house.
She felt it gratefully on her face as she passed
into the sewing-room. Through the door
to the breakfast-room she caught a glimpse
of Mrs. Mason standing by the sideboard
arranging a mass of crimson roses in a great
silver bowl.
When she saw Milly she nodded to her
almost gayly, and lifted the bowl of roses
for her to see. She carried them to the table
and adjusted them a little and moved back
to survey them fondly.
She moved to the door.
“It is a wonderful day!” she said happily.


222 THE \GREEN JACKET
speaking into the tube—“Is that you,
Elise? Stephen is coming this morning!
Did you know? Yes—this morning! And
we want to come over to tea—if you are
going to be home. . . . What is it? Yes,
we are all coming! I have not seen you in
an age, dear. . . . Yes, I know.” The
voice grew tender and seemed to follow inau-
dible words with murmuring assent—“I know,
dear. But that is past. We are coming
now—yes. Good-by.”
She returned with radiant face. “She
will be at home!” she said.
“I think that was unwise!” said her hus-
band swiftly. The haggard look he turned
to her was almost stern.
She regarded it with puzzled eyes. “But
Stephen—it will please him 1” she cried.
“You do not know what will please
Stephen,” he said softly.
“Why, Oswald !—Stephen !” She held the
name with a little beseeching hurt and ten-
derness. “You speak as if he were a stranger
to us !”
“Perhapsfhe is a stranger
a long time,” said the man.
“Oh—-— A year!” She clasped her hands

A year is


THE GREEN JACKET 223
tensely, gripping the misery of the year,
crushing it back between them. “Stephen
will not have changed!” she said softly.
He waited a moment. He seemed to
hesitate to hurt her—and the words when
they came were not harsh, only a little sad.
“He had changed before he went away,”
said the man.
She was looking at him with mute eyes.
The brightness had gone from her face.
He got up. “It is time to go. I have an
errand at the bank—before he comes.” He
took out his watch and looked at it hastily
and moved to the door.
Milly saw him passing through the rooms'
and up the stairs, and it came to her sud-
denly to question whether Mr. Mason was
a much older man than she had supposed.
The ﬁgure going up the stairs stooped a
little, and moved uncertainly, as if with an
effort. . . . And in the adjoining room, the
wife, with the little look of contented ab-
straction that had come back to her face,
sipped her coffee and triﬂed with the toast.
She seemed a young woman—twenty years ‘
younger, at least, than the bent ﬁgure going
up the stairs.


THE GREEN JACKET 225
few of them fell from her ﬁngers, unheeded,
and she trod on them as she came forward.
She approached the French window and
looked in.
“They will be here soon!” she said.
Milly looked up. “Yes—wouldn’t you
better rest a little?”
“Rest!” She laughed and reached out
her arms in a careless gesture. The ﬂowers
slipped through her ﬁngers. “Rest! I am
resting. . . . The road off there rests me,
and the sun, and every little sound! . . .
They all say he is coming home!” She
stopped with a catch in her voice.
Milly looked at her critically. She put
down her work and came over to the window
and stood beside her. The woman was mo-
tionless. Her eyes were ﬁxed on the curving
driveway. Milly put out a hand and touched
her gently.
“See—you are crushing the ﬂowers—you
are spoiling them !” She removed them from
her ﬁngers. “Give them to me!” she com-
manded.
The woman relinquished them, looking
dully at the bruised petals.


226 THE GREEN JACKET
“Now we will get some water for them.
Come!” Milly drew her into the room and
sent her for a vase and stood over her while
she arranged the ﬂowers and placed them in
the water.
She looked up with a faint smile and
nodded.
“Thank you! I needed just that. . . . I
understand. I will be quiet now.”
She left the ﬂowers on the table and got
up. “I am going to lie down till they come.
I will be good!” she said.
Then the house droned in quiet again and
Milly went on with her sewing, glancing off
now and then to the curving drive, or across
to the distant hills. . . . A car came round
the curve and she leaned forward a little
eagerly to scan the younger of the two men
on the back seat. He was shorter than his
father, but there waslthe same look of alert
poise in his bearing as the car swept up the
curve and paused at the foot of the steps. . . .
Almost before it had ceased running, his
foot was on the step and he had crossed the
terrace and was at the foot of the stairs,
holding his mother in his arms. . . . Through


228 THE GREEN JACKET
son appeared on the terrace outside her
window where the shadow of the house fell
across the bricks. They paced back and
forth in the shade, talking quietly. Their
words came to her—indistinctly at ﬁrst—
then a little louder, the son’s voice in pro-
test, it seemed to her.
“But, mother—I cannot! . . . Let me have
a little time at home ﬁrst—with you !”
“But it will seem strange, Stephen—and
unfriendly!” The voice was pleading. “We
do not want to hurt Elise,” she added after
a minute. ._
“It will not hurt Elise,” he replied ﬁrmly.
“Elise has always understood.” The words
had a secure ring.
“Come, mother—you must lie down and
rest. I must take care of you just as I used
to!” He bent over her tenderly, and she
lifted her face for a kiss. . . .
Then she turned and moved blindly toward
the window of the sewing-room. She stepped
in, facing the seamstress. Outside on the
terrace, Milly could see the son lighting his
cigar and placing it to his lips.
The mother’s face was helpless and dis-


XIX
STEPHEN MASON ﬁnished his cigar and
tossed away the end and entered the house.
A little later Milly heard him talking with
his father; the voices were relaxed and
easy, the little note of constraint seemed to
have vanished. Then the car appeared and
they went toward the steps. The son looked
back and saw the mother in the doorway
and sprang to escort her to the car. There
was something very winning in the air of
devotion with which he led her across the
terrace. Her hand on his arm seemed to
rest with a little weight, and the ﬁgure bend-
ing to her was full Of affectionate care.
He placed her in the car and stood waiting
for his father, one hand on the door of the
car, the other thrust carelessly into his pocket,
laughing and talking with her. Mr. Mason,
who had turned back to the house for a min-
ute, came quickly down the steps and got in.
The son closed the door upon them and stood
back, watching them drive away. He waved
his hand to them and returned it to his pock-
231


232 THE GREEN JACKET
et and watched the car out of sight. Then he
turned and came slowly up the steps. . . .
On the terrace near the French windows,
at the side of the house, a gray ﬁgure was
seated in a wicker chair, knitting busily.
He scanned it with "a little start of sur-
prise. Then he crossed the terrace and stood
looking off. Presently he turned and strolled
toward the front of the house.
The woman who was knitting looked up
from her work and bowed slightly and beck-
oned him with a little motion of her hand.
He returned the bow formally and came
forward with a puzzled look, smiling a little.
“I am wondering who you:are,” he said cour-
teously. “You look so at home sitting there
with your knitting! I could almost fancy
you had always been there—~and I had never
seen you till now.”
“An invisible lady!” she laughed. “Oh,
no! I weigh a hundred and thirty-two. . . .
I wanted to speak to you-will you sit down,
please ?”
He took the chair she motioned to, and
the little look of bewilderment and half-
amusement waited on her wishes.


THE GREEN JACKET 23 5
He stared.
“I help people who are in trouble—they
often come to me. . . . I am a detective.”
The hand on the arm of his chair gripped
it suddenly. He sat looking off across the
hills, the little smile on his lips regarding
them slowly.
Her hurrying needles purled a double
stitch, and another, and ﬁnished the row
before she looked up. “I am very glad you
came just now. I think you can help—more
than any one in the world, perhaps, to solve
the trouble.” ‘
He turned and looked at her. “Yes P” he
said inquiringly.
“You are very near to your mother in
spirit, I think, and you will have seen things
that no one else, perhaps, would have no-
ticed—or remembered.”
He threw out a hand with a quick ges-
ture. “I know nothing!” he said with em-
phasis. “I wish to; God Idid!” The last
. words were under his breath.
“You know your mother is not well P”
He looked away, as if he would not have
her see the pain her words caused him.


THE GREEN JACKET 237
trust me. Your mother did not tell you,
because she has given everything into my
hands.” 7
“May I speak to her about it, later?”
“If you like. But I advise you not to.
If you will all go on living as if I were not
here—as if nothing had happened—or were
going to happen, I can ﬁnish my work sooner
—and go away.” Her ﬁngers adjusted the
ﬂying wool and shook it free, and the man’s
eyes followed it thoughtfully.
“It is hard to begin,” he said, “because
nothing happened. We simply became un-
happy. Two years ago we were the happiest
family in the world—father and mother and
Marian—”, He turned with a swift look.
“You knew there was an adopted daughter,
my—sister ?”
“Yes. Your mother spoke of her. But
tell me whatever comes to you. I want to
see it all through your eyes. . . . What
was she like?”
“Marian?” He seemed to hold the name
a moment, as if it echoed a little sadly to
him. “She was beautiful!” he said slowly.
“The most beautiful woman in the world,


238 THE GREEN JACKET
I think. . . .” The sadness lingered in the
words. He turned to her. “You know she
is dead ?”
“Yes.”
He remained lost in thought, looking down
at the brick pavement, and the sadness in
his face deepened to sternness. He roused
himself and shook his head impatiently.
“The strange thing is, I do not know what
happened!” he said. “We were all happy
together—always planning things, never away
from each other, never a thought we did not
all share, and then—something changed. . . .”
“What was it?” ' J
He hesitated, and went on. “I think it
was my mother’s feeling for—my adopted
sister. She became almost harsh to her.
My mother!” He seemed to‘dwell on
it wonderingly. “My mother would not harm
the smallest thing in the world! Yet she
suddenly became harsh with Marian—cruel
almost!”
“And there was no reason for it?” The
question was searching and gentle. And
again he hesitated slightly.
“Yes—there was a reason. But it seemed


THE GREEN JACKET 239
incredible to me—I have never been able
to believe it! . . . I loved Marian,” he
said slowly, “and my mother discovered it.
From that moment, it seemed to me, every-
thing changed.”
“But why did she Object?” The ques-
tion pressed home again; but he shook his
head, and the puzzled look between his eyes
deepened.
“I do not know. I have never been able
to solve it. I only know she fought it bit-
terly. . . . She had thought I would marry
some one else,” he said half reluctantly.
“Elise Marshall—where they have gone this
afternoon. But I never cared for Elise—
except as a jolly good friend. There has
been no one but Marian for me—always.”
He sat looking at something irrevocable, and
again the stern lines settled in his face.
“And there was nothing else that hap-
pened P” asked Milly gently.
He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said
conﬁdently, “ absolutely nothing !”
“Nothing about you that might have
worried her P”
A little disconcerted look crossed his face.


240 THE GREEN JACKET
“There was something,” he admitted, “but
nothing that worried her. She did not know
it, in fact, until it was practically over.” He
spoke'with an case that even to Milly’s watch-
ful sense had no note of concealment. His
mind seemed running back to the events of
that time, gathering them up.
“I’d been in debt, you know. I had to
borrow a lot of money from diﬂerent friends.
I ﬁnally borrowed from the bank I was in—
three thousand dollars.”
“ Borrowed it ?”
“Yes.” He looked at her.
“Did you give security?”
He turned as if startled that she should
ask him. He hesitated—then he laughed a
little. “The truth is, no one knew that I
had borrowed it. It was only a temporary
loan. I expected to pay it back in two
days.”
“Of course,” said Milly. He smiled at
the dryness of her tone.
“You understand,” he assented. “I was
caught. But it would have been all right—
if things had gone as I expected.”
“You did not make the money, you
mean?” . ~


THE GREEN JACKET 243
I have some, he’ll own up to it. He’s coming
out to-morrow, I hope.”
The swift-ﬂying needles made a sudden
little jump and click, and settled again to
even rhythm.
“Did he know you had ‘borrowed’ the
three thousand from the bank P”
“No.” The tone was sober.
“Did any one know P”
“No one in the world but my father. I
went to him as soon as I found I might need
the money.”
“You expected he would get it for you P”
He laughed shortly. “I did not expect
—-I knew! There is no one in the world
like my father!” he added. His shoulders
straightened a little.
“You didn’t dread to tell him then P”
He shook his head proudly. “There is
nothing I would mind telling him. . . . He
is not like other men,” he added slowly.
And through Milly’s mind there ﬂashed
another voice. “My husband is not like
other men. He is a poet.”
“How is he different?” she asked curi-
ously.


THE GREEN JACKET 245
and the look of sadness returned to his
face.
Milly glanced at it and then at the hand
that half reached to his breast-pocket and
drew back.
“You may smoke,” she said quietly. He
smiled gratefully and drew the cigar from
his pocket. He lighted it and sat watching
the smoke drift away.
“What happened then—after you had the
money?”
“Nothing that I expected,” he said bit-
terly. “I had thought we should all be
happy again. I had made up my mind to
give up my extravagances and cut out spec-
ulating. I was going to marry Marian and
settle down. I thought we should be happier
than we had ever been. . . . I seemed to
see things in a clear light. All life seemed
larger and things opened out. I began to
notice children on the street, and to think
of them here in the old house—scampering
through the halls and calling out when I
came home. I could always see my mother
with them—she worships children!” he said
wistfully. . . . “I got to seeing the house


246 THE GREEN JACKET
like that—ﬁlled with children and new life
and happiness. . . . And now—~” He mo-
tioned to the empty rooms behind them. He
sat smoking in silence.
The landscape stretched away, serene in
the late sunshine. And behind them rose
the gracious house—with the secret in its
empty rooms. The man stirred a little and
glanced at the gray ﬁgure knitting with
quiet ﬁngers.
“It’s curious I should be telling you all
this!” he said consideringly. “They are
things I have never said, even to myself,
before. I shut the door on them and locked
it—when I went away from home.”
“Why did you go?” asked Milly. She did
not tell him that many doors that had been
shut and locked on secrets, had opened to
her touch, and that conﬁdences gave them-
selves almost as freely to her as the wool
that was slipping quietly by her needles, and
weaving its strange little pattern in the
stitches of green wool. Instead, she turned
as she withdrew the amber needle from a last
stitch, and glanced at him. He was lost in
thought.


THE GREEN JACKET 247
“Why did you go away?” she repeated
gently.
He roused himself. “I was restless—
afraid I would slip back into my Old ways.
The house was too lonely after Marian
went. I got the bank to transfer me to their
branch house in Brockton. I told my mother
it was a better opportunity. . . . It was.
But I really went because of Marian. She
was never out of my thoughts.” He looked
down at the [cigar between his ﬁngers and
knocked a bit of ash from its tip.
“I could not understand mother’s feeling
about Marian. It was almost as if she were
afraid to have me marry her——some taint in
the blood. She never spoke openly, only
in vague hints. We did not know what kind
of people she came from, she said. We did
not know what she might do some day.”
“Did she say this to Marian?”
“Not in words,” he said quickly. “But
Marian knew that in some way she was
standing between my mother and me. . . .
I have tried to think it was only a kind of
mother' jealousy,” he said slowly. He raised
his glance to her. “Do you think a mother
could be like that P”


THE GREEN JACKET 249
words nor the look in his face as he said
them. ‘There is no jOy in life like that of a
happy marriage, with mutual love and trust,
and no hell on earth like marriage without it.’
He said it with such intense bitterness that I
was startled. . . . I left home a few days
later and joined Marian. She was my wife
for nearly a year before she died.” He
glanced about him, and off to the distant
hills, and moved his shoulders a little, as if a
burden rested on them.
“I cannot tell you how strange it seems
to be here—just as when I was a boy—alone
with my father and mother—and that year
of happiness between. It almost seems like
a dream to me. . . .
“It was dream-like in its perfect happiness
—and in its awakening,” he added under his
breath. “There was not a shadow on it—ex-
cept Marian’s longing to be friends with my
mother—and even that came, just before she
died.” He glanced at her.
“Yes, your mother told me—-and how
happy it made her.”
“Marian was devoted to her. She would
never let me be depressed about the trouble.


250 THE GREEN JACKET
She said it would all come right some day.
She was always saying: ‘You will be with
them again, and happier than you have ever
been.’ Even when she was dying, she said
it, and she made me promise to come home
soon.
“So I am here.” He looked about him
a little wearily. “But she is not here—she
will never be here again!”
“Are you sure?” said Milly gently.
He tossed away his cigar a little impa-
tiently. “Oh, I have thought and wondered
——till I am not sure of anything!” he cried.
“We burn out and are tossed aside!” He
motioned to the bit of cigar smouldering at
the edge of the bricks. He reached into his
pocket for another and cut the end with a
grim look on his lips.
“Yet even I have felt her presence in the
house,” returned Milly.
He looked at her under his lowered brows,
and the hand that was lighting the cigar
trembled a little.
“My mother said something like that
this morning.” He threw away the match.
“Perhaps it is true. I would give a great


THE GREEN JACKET 251 ‘
deal to believe it. . . . And yet you, who
never saw her—are the one!” He stared at
it, and put his cigar to his lips and blew away
a cloud of smoke. “I cannot believe it!”
he’said.
There was a faint, burring sound’in the
distance. He bent his head to listen—and
looked toward the drive.
“They are coming!” He got up. Milly
reached a quick hand to him.
“I must see you again,” she said swiftly.
“What you have told me is very important.
Will you make an excuse to see me again,
as soon as you can—when your father is
not here?”
He glanced at her keenly and nodded.
Then he turned and moved toward the steps
and stood smoking and looking off at the
approaching car. As it drew near he ran
down the steps and opened the door. He
came up the steps between the two, laugh-
ing and talking gayly.
In the open sunshine, the great house be-
fore them, the car driving rapidly away,
vines and ﬂowers all about, the little group
made a pretty picture. No one could have


252 THE GREEN JACKET
fancied that a shadow rested on them or on
the house, as they passed within the gracious
doorway open to receive them.
After dinner they all sat on the terrace
for a while, the father and son smoking,
the mother resting back in her chair and
looking at them contentedly. Presently she
left them and went into the house. Milly
saw her enter the doorway and hesitate a
moment, and then go slowly up the stairs.
In the half-dusk of the sewing-room, she
sat listening to the voices of the two men.
She could not hear the words, but the voices
had a friendly, relaxed sound, and there
were long spaces of companionable silence.
She watched the stars come out above
the two ﬁgures and the ends of the cigars
gleam in little points of light through the
dusk. She did not light the gas in the sew-
ing-room, but sat knitting and waiting, on the
chance that the son would make an oppor-
tunity to come to her.
Up-stairs she could hear Margaret’s foot-
steps going through the hall and her wheezy
voice, and then at last Mrs. Mason’s voice


THE GREEN JACKET 255
look Of trust—a trust that gave itself and
everything it held into the unquestioned
care of the woman before her.


XX
MILLY slept soundly, with a sense of deep
refreshment. But suddenly she found her-
self awake, the moonlight streaming into the
room. She got up and went to the window.
The whole landscape lay in the softened
light—like some other world. The terrace
was vacant—only the two chairs where the
smokers had sat, stood near together in
friendly relation. There was no sign of life
in the world. The very ﬂowers on the terrace
seemed asleep. . . . She looked at her watch
on the table—ﬁve minutes to two. For a
minute longer she stood looking out on the
magic night. Its quietness soothed her spirit.
The burden she had undertaken to
lift seemed lighter, and her thought travelling
swiftly to the three people who were sleeping
in the quiet house below, dwelt on them with
a little feeling almost of tenderness. They
seemed to her so helpless, caught in a tangle
that only her patient skill could release—and
they trusted her! . . . The mood that was
\
256


THE GREEN JACKET 257
on her-was at once a triumph and a scourge
to her spirit. She knew that she would ac-
complish her purpose for them—~already she
saw the happiness that was coming to the
three who lay asleep. But she saw, too, the
effort that must be made, and she felt the
gathering concentration of her whole being
that must lose itself for a time in these
other lives—become a part of the mystery it
sought to solve, almost of the bone and
tissue of these three people of whose exist-
ence, a week ago, she had known nothing.
No poet brooding on his lines was
ever smitten with ﬁercer ﬁre or shrank with
keener sensitiveness from the ﬁnal effort of
concentration, the ﬁnal uniting of himself
with the mysterious forces of life, than this
woman whose work lay in the shadow land
of crime. . . .
Only by the intuition that guides all crea-
tive life and work did she know she was
coming close to a moment when she must
yield herself, and at the same time must
guide with steady hand forces more power-
ful than herself to a successful issue. . .
She did not say these things to herself; she


258 THE GREEN JACKET
did not think them. She only stood in the
moonlight, looking down at the quiet world
and steadying herself to it. . . . Something
that was not sound or breath passed swiftly
across her vision, and her gaze rested on
the brick pavement below—a block of light,
faint, but deeper than the moonlight, lay
there. She glanced along the windows of
the ﬂoor beneath—it was as she had guessed.
The library window was lighted and the
curtains were not drawn. ~
She threw on a wrapper and went swiftly
down the stairs, her feet noiseless in the soft
slippers she wore. . . . The Wide hall lay
in the moonlight—no sign of life, and the
library door was closed. She moved to it
Without sound and stood listening. The
thick doors gave no hint of what was hap-
pening in the room behind them. She re-
traced her steps quickly to her room. She
would dress and go down outside. Perhaps
from a distance she could determine what
was happening in the room with its deadened
walls. . . . She entered her room and crossed
to the window and looked out, and turned
away. The block of light was gone from


THE GREEN JACKET 2 59
the pavement. Whoever was in the library
had drawn the curtains together or had
turned Off the light. . . . The door had not
been opened. Of that she felt sure. How-
ever quietly it might have been done, her
car would have caught the sound. She left
her door ajar and lay down on the outside
of the bed in her wrapper and slippers. When
the library door opened she would see from
the turning of the landing who it was that
had called her from her sleep.
And when she opened her eyes, the sun
was shining full into the room and resting
on the bed. She got up, blinking a little,
censuring herself for having fallen asleep.
Signs of life were astir below.
She went to the window and looked out
into a daylight world—no mystery, no subtle
sense of solution almost at hand—clear,
shining daylight, with the sun well up in the
sky. A step sounded on the pavement be—
low. She looked down, drawing the curtain
with its thin folds across the window. On
the terrace the son of the house, his hands
in his pockets, stood whistling softly—almost


260 THE GREEN JACKET
happily, it seemed to her—and looking OH:
on the landscape.
She dressed hastily and hurried down. In
the adjoining room the family were already
at breakfast. Through the closed door she
could hear faint sounds. Presently the door
opened. Mrs. Mason stood in it. She stepped
into the room.
“I have to go away!” she said with a little
vexation. “I told Elise Marshall I would
help with the Red Cross work, and she has
telephoned that they want me this morn-
ing—I did not mean to be away to-day!
Shall you need me?”
“No. I have plenty of work to do.” She
said it without emphasis. But the woman
started and looked at her almost suspiciously.
Milly waited while the eyes searched her
face.
“Are you satisﬁed?” she asked, smiling.
The woman bent her head. “Yes. I
know everything will be right. But I am
anxious. I cannot help it. I had a dream
in the night!” She spoke in a low, hurried
voice. “I dreamed we found the emeralds!”
“We shall ﬁnd them,” said Milly.


262 THE GREEN JACKET
“Good! That will be ﬁne!” He bent
and kissed her and returned to his place at
table.
His father, who had just ﬁnished, and was
on his feet, looked at him, smiling. “I am
sorry to leave you. But Jackson has just
sent word from the garden—some more of his
blunders, I suppose. I had hoped we could
walk to the links by and by. But you’re
going to be busy, you say?”
The little moment of hesitation in the
son’s manner gave way to quick response.
“It will not take long, I hope. I’ll try to
be ready, sir.”
He waited till his father’s step had died
away. Then he stepped quickly to the half-
open door.
“You wanted me to see you,” he said.
“But my father—”
“I know,” responded Milly. “And I
shall not keep you long. . . . I only wanted
to ask you whether anything in your wife’s
manner ever gave you reason to suppose
she knew why your mother had changed
toward her?”
He shook his head. “She could not have


264. THE GREEN JACKET
a little and was looking off to the hills—as
if beyond them lay something his vision
could not penetrate.
“You know she wrote a letter to your
mother ?”
He bowed. “I mailed it myself after she
died.”
“Did you know what was in it?”
‘SNOI”
She took a copy of the letter from her
dress and handed it to him.
As he read it, she saw the tears in his eyes.
He brushed them away.
“She did not think of herself, even then,”
he said. . . . “What was it she would not
tell?” His face was thoughtful. “Can you
imagine,” he broke out, “why she would
not tell—whatever it was?”
She pointed to the note. “She was ‘under
a pledge.’ ”
“But who—what ?” He started and
turned. His father was in the French window.
He regarded the .young man for a moment.
“Did you want me, father?”
“I always want you, Stephen,” said the
man gently, with a smile.


THE GREEN JACKET 265
He stepped quickly to his father’s side.
“I am ready, sir.” He slipped a hand
through his arm, affectionately, and side by
side the father and son walked away.


XXI
WHEN Mrs. Mason returned a little before
luncheon she was accompanied by a young
girl who seemed to be very much at home,
and very happy in the place. As she stepped
from the car she glanced about her with a
wonted look, and on the steps of the terrace
she stopped to gather a rose from beside the
steps. She held it in her hand as they came
toward the house.
In the hallway, Milly saw her turn toward
the room on the left, as if she were accus-
tomed to the house, and Mrs. Mason, with
a word and a little smile to her, passed di-
rectly up the stairs.
A little later, Stephen Mason came quickly
down and entered the room on the left. There
was a sound of laughing greeting, with mur-
mured words; and a little later, their low
voices in earnest conversation.
Milly laid aside her work and went into
the hall and toward the rooms at the back
of the house. She had not been in this part
of the house before, and she opened doors
266


268 THE GREEN JACKET
“Now I’m through!” She dusted a little
ﬂour from her fat ﬁngers and came out,
closing the door carefully behind her and
following Milly through the kitchen to the
outer hall.
“I’ve left it on the shelf to the right,” she
remarked as she passed the cook.
Ellen’s grunt of response was curt, almost
inaudible. Margaret closed the door and
stood facing Milly in the narrow passage.
“Was there something you wanted, Miss
Brigham? I’m through now.” She puffed
a little, as if the steam of concentration gen-
erated by desserts changed slowly to the re-
laxed breathing of common things. She looked
at Milly with approval. To no one had the
change in her mistress been more apparent
than to Margaret; and Margaret was in a
position to know who was responsible for the
look of relieved and quiet happiness that was
coming back to her face.
“I was just going up to Miss Annie——
when I had ﬁnished,” she explained. “But
I can wait if you want something.”
“No. I only wanted her to come to the
sewing-room a minute or two before she goes


THE GREEN JACKET 271
“Oh, but we shall know!” said Milly con-
ﬁdently. “Every hour that I am here I feel
more sure of it and more thankful that I
came to you. vWe shall let a ﬂood of light
in on this house.”
The' woman turned away. “I must hurry !”
she said. The voices had come into the front
hall, and Milly, returning to her seat at the
table, saw Mr. Mason descending the stair.
He took the young girl’s hand in his and bent
above it, with an air of almost courtly de-
votion. He placed it in his arm playfully, as
if the little attention were a form of com-
radeship, and led her toward the dining-
room. Milly saw the mother join the son,
and they passed out of sight in the wake of '
the Others.
When she had ﬁnished luncheon she went
up to her room for a little rest. She must
make herself presentable if she were to be
asked to join the party on the terrace. She
had no other gown except the gray one she
was wearing. But when she had rearranged
her hair and tucked a bit of white mull into the
open neck of the gray gown, she had a sense,
as she turned away from the mirror, that


272 THE GREEN JACKET
there was something almost festive about
her. It might be the little touch of color
in her cheeks. She turned again doubtfully
to the mirror and surveyed the color, and
brushed the powder-puff across it, and drew
her hair into more discreet lines, and nodded
to the gray ﬁgure. She had subdued every-
thing except a little light in the eyes whose
clear ﬁre seemed to shine from some hidden
source Within the grayness.
When she reached the sewing-room the
others were already assembled on the terrace
by her window, laughing and talking; and
Batson, moving with discreet, happy steps
about the table, was arranging the kettle
to his mistress’s hand and giving a last, sharp
scrutiny to the wick. He adjusted the wind-
shield to guard the ﬂame, and withdrew on
important feet.
The party about the table gathered closer,
talking gayly and helping each other with
the familiar happiness of friends who have
been long separated. If any memory of the
girl who had once been the merriest of the
party came to them, no sign of it touched
the laughing group. Each one gave without
stint—and if the giving urged itself a little


THE GREEN JACKET 273
beyond the note of spontaneous happiness—
for the sake of the rest—perhaps no one but
the quiet woman in the room beyond the
open window noted or felt it.
The hostess glanced about her with con-
tented, happy look. “Is every one served?”
she asked.
She beckoned to her son.
“Ask Miss Brigham to come out,” she
said in a low voice, glancing at the open
window near by. “It is lonely for her here.”
He moved toward the window and she
turned the lowered voice to the young man
sitting beside her. “I have a delightful seam-
stress!” she said. “It is a shame to keep
her shut up in there, such a beautiful day l”
The gray ﬁgure had appeared in the win-
dow, and the young man whose head was
bent carelessly to his hostess’s murmured
words looked up, and sprang to his feet with
a little exclamation of pleasure.
He came toward her with outstretched
hand. “Why, Miss ”
“Brigham,” she ﬁnished quietly, nodding
with a little smile. “You did not expect to
' meet Miss Brigham here, did you?”
“I certainly did not!” he said slowly.


THE GREEN JACKET 275
friendly interest. They had given her the
moment’s courteous welcome and turned
again to each other and their mutual affairs,
oblivious to the gray presence that reached
out and surrounded them, little guessing
that they were living more vividly in its
searching consciousness than they had ever
lived in their own experience.
The seamstress ﬁnished her tea and set
down the cup and drew her knitting from its
bag, and passed into complete obscurity.
Only now and then she lifted her glance to
the young girl who sat a little distance from
her, leaning back in her chair and talking
with Stephen Mason. . . . To her surprise
the girl was not frivolous, or petty; there
was a poise about her that Milly had not
been prepared for—and when Stephen Mason
moved to the table and the girl’s eyes fol-
lowed him a minute, a sudden ﬂash of un-
derstanding came to the seamstress over her
needles. The girl was not only in love with
him—that had been obvious to her from the
ﬁrst—but she was inﬁnitely sorry for the
man whom her eyes followed with a look of
deep pity. The girl knew everything! Milly’s


THE GREEN JACKET 277
“How long are you going to be here?”
he asked.
Her hand touched the knitting in her lap.
“Till I ﬁnish this.” The words carried a
little smile, and he recognized her meaning
with a start.
He gave a quick glance from the knitting
to her face—and then to the group near the
table. A little low whistle broke from his
lips—so low that it might have been only
fancy that the lips shaped it—before they
returned to the whimsical smile. . . . Alan
Sargent was himself the proud possessor of a
sweater—made of heavy wool, dark gray in
color, and man’s size. It had been presented
to him on the day of its completion—the day
he made his ﬁrst visit to Milly’s office—nearly
a year ago.
He regarded the green jacket respectfully
and turned and glanced again at the happy
group about the table.
“Is it nearly done?” he asked soberly.
“You never can tell,” replied Milly. “I
hope so.”
He set the plate of cakes on a little table at
hand and thrust his hands into his pockets—


278 THE GREEN JACKET
and stared down at her, and glanced almost
imperceptibly at Stephen Mason, who was
chatting with the girl beside him, a care-
free look in his face. He glanced back to
the gray ﬁgure drinking its tea.
“Who is going to have it—when it is
done?” he asked.
She handed him her cup and took up the
work from her lap. She lifted her eye and
ran it over the group about the table—the
young man and the girl chatting happily,
the woman leaning back in her chair and
looking at them with rested eyes, and the
tall, distinguished man who had risen from
his place and was speaking to her as he turned
away. . . .
Milly’s eyes returned to her needles. “I
think I shall keep it myself,” she said quietly.
“That means you will fail!” said the man.
He gave a quick look at her.
“No, I shall not fail.” Her eye was on
the older man, who was stopping for a minute
to speak to Elise.
“I shall not fail—but I think I shall keep
the jacket for myself. . . . Aren’t you neg-
lecting Miss Marshall ?” she inquired politely.


THE GREEN JACKET 2;9
He smiled, with a nod of assent, and reached
for the plate of cakes. He was used to being
managed by Milly.
The older man had left the others as Sar-
gent crossed to them, and was approaching
the seamstress with a glance of kindly re-
gard.
“You are always busy!” He motioned to
the work in her hands.
“I have to be,” she said with a little smile.
“A woman’s work is never done, you know.”
She was having a moment of quick satis-
faction in the approach of this man. . . .
She had almost fancied he resented her pres-
ence in the house—and surely in this friendly
group. But nothing could have been kinder
than the glance he bent on her; and the
gray eyes smiled at her without pretense—
only with sadness far back in them, it seemed
to her, that did not change. He took the
chair beside her and they sat a moment in
companionable silence. He glanced at her.
“I want to thank you for what you have
done for my wife,” he said courteously. “I
have not seen her so happy in a long time.”
He looked across to his wife as he spoke.


280 THE GREEN JACKET
She was sitting looking down at the hands
in her lap, a little smile on her lips, and there
was something singularly beautiful in the
smile and in the downcast face with its al-
most angular outline.
“You have done her a world of good !” he
said in a low voice. She was almost startled
at the intensity of the tone and its friend-
liness.
“Mrs. Mason is glad to have her son at
home,” she responded quickly. '
“It is more than that l” he rejoined. There
was a puzzled note in the words. He seemed
to dismiss it with a little sigh, and glanced
again at her work.
“When you are not sewing, you knit, and
when you are not knitting, you sew!” he said
lightly.
“Yes.” The needles went quietly on.
“Have you always been a seamstress?”
he ,asked after a minute.
“That depends on what you mean by al-
ways,” she parried. “I learned the trade
when I was eighteen.”
“Not so long ago,” he returned politely.
“Fourteen years,” she replied.


THE GREEN JACKET 281
He sat a few minutes longer chatting with
her, and then, with a word to his wife, he
excused himself from the group, only turn-
ing back at the door to speak again to the
young girl by the table.
“We will drive you home, Elise, when you
are ready. We will all go!” He made a
little gesture that included the group, and
looked at them inquiringly. “That will be
pleasant? Yes. And just back in time for
dinner. You will stay Alan?” He glanced
toward the young man, who took out his
watch with an inquiring glance, and replaced
it almost impatiently, it seemed.
“Thank you—I will see—” His voice hesi-
tated. His glance had rested for a ﬂitting
moment on the gray ﬁgure absorbed in its
work.
Mr. Mason nodded cordially. “Better
stay,” he urged. He entered the house and
the two young men resumed their talk with
the girl.
Milly watching the byplay with absorbed,
inattentive eyes, over the mazes of her knit-
ting, was making sure of two things—the
girl was not vain; she had no overweening


THE GREEN JACKET 283
not see more of you.” Then she hurried
after the others, and Milly saw Alan Sargent,
who had waited to place her in the car, close
the door upon them.
He stood shaking his head and smiling
at objections from within the car as it started
slowly off. He turned and came quickly up
the steps and crossed to her side.
The car was out of sight.
“Well l”, he said.
“Very well!” she responded.
“Don’t fence l” he replied quickly. “What
is it? Who is it? Why are you here?”
“Sit down,” said Milly. She pointed to a
chair.
He drew it up reluctantly.
“I am glad you stayed,” she said.
He laughed shortly. “Nothing could have
dragged me away! You could not have
pried me off. Is it something wrong—with
Stephen P” he asked quickly.
She looked down at the green jacket and
then up at the questioner.
“I don’t think you have quite the right
to ask that, have you P”
“These people are my friends! Stephen


THE GREEN JACKET 285
He looked at her intently.
“Why do you say that?”
She still held the needle and regarded him
reﬂectively, her eyes full of the friendliest,
kindest feeling.
He leaned forward. “You' do love me!”
he said swiftly.
“Not in the least l” she replied promptly.
“Not in the way you mean.”
“But you’re fond of me.”
“Very l” She said it incisively, with a
little laugh.
“Then why—” A look came to his face.
“Is there some one else?” He wheeled on
her, searching the look in her face.
She inserted the needles and bent to them.
The slightest possible ﬂush came to her face
——and receded swiftly.
He watched it with jealous eye.
“Is it Stephen?” he said incredulously.
“Stephen Mason l”
She laughed out. “Don’t be foolish, Mr.
Sargent l”
“Alan,” he corrected.
“Alan,” she assented easily.
“There’s nothing foolish about marrying


286 THE GREEN JACKET
Stephen Mason!” he reCurred. “He’s a
ﬁne fellow !”
“You trust him, do you?” She lifted a
quiet glance, and something keen waited
behind the questioning look.
“Trust him! I’d trust Stephen Mason
sooner than I’d trust myself!”
A look of relief crossed the waiting glance.
“I hoped you would say that.”
“So you are thinking ”
“I’m thinking of nothing—that you are
thinking of!” she said decisively. She gave
a swift glance. “Have I given you good
advice this last year or so i? ”
“You have saved me—body and soul—
and such as it is, I am offering it to you.
Will you take it?”
There was a little, humorous smile in the
face that turned to her, and she surveyed
him with quiet eyes—the strong, eager face
with the little smile on it, the vigorous ﬁgure
and well-ﬁtting clothes. And she shook her
head.
“I only asked that because I want you to
understand that what I am going to say is
true.” She surveyed him again.
M


288 THE GREEN JACKET
The curious look in his face deepened, as
if searching itself.
“You will be hard on your sons,” she went
on softly, “if they are the least bit wild.
You will want to save them from what you
have been through. . . . You will never
quite understand.” She looked at him
thoughtfully again. “You will never quite
understand that whom the Lord loveth, he
lets slip!” She smiled a little to his quick
look. “You will be everything that is strong
and good, and I want you for a friend always,
but not for a husband.” She held out her
hand with a gentle laugh.
He took it slowly. “You’re a brick,
Milly!”
“And you mustn’t marry a brick!” she
responded.
The curious look in his eyes still regarded
her. “SO you want to marry some one who
isn’t as good as I am?” he said a little cyn-
ically. '
“Who is not as strong,” corrected Milly.
“Some one that blunders”—-she hesitated—
“and who needs me—and doesn’t know it,
perhaps.”


THE GREEN JACKET 289
“Well”-—he got up slowly—“it will not
be hard to ﬁnd a man like that—the woods
are full of ’em.” He looked down at her
quickly.
“I won’t pretend to say I am broken- "
hearted. I admire you more than any woman
I’ve ever known. So much”—he laughed
shortly—“that when you tell me it is not
wise to marry you, I believe you 1”
He held out his hand.
“Good-by.”
She took it and held it—as a man might.
“It is good-by for to-day. I shall see you
in town.”
He nodded and turned away. “You won’t
get rid of me merely by refusing to marry
me l”
“Have you called a cab?” She was prac-
tical and friendly.
“I’m going to walk. I often walk over
to catch the six-ten.” He lifted his hat and
turned away.
And Milly, her knitting in her lap and her
hands folded on it, watched the strong, well-
knit ﬁgure striding swiftly across the ﬁelds,
receding (in the distance till it became a mere


294 THE GREEN JACKET
gleamed and shirnmered in his ﬁngers. The
ﬁrelight that touched them lighted up the
face bent over them. It was full of sadness,
and yet as if held by the 'charm of the green
ﬁre that darted and shirnmered in the stones
as he turned the necklace slowly in his ﬁn-
gers. . . . Could he be insane? The watch-
ful eyes behind the screening door noted
every movement keenly—a kleptomaniac—
“possessed” by the jewels? . . . The neck-
lace was very beautiful in the ﬁrelight—more
beautiful than anything the detective had
imagined. And the man who held it and
turned it this way and that, in the light of
the ﬂames, seemed in some subtle way to
possess it by an inner right, almost as if the
green ﬁre his hands wrought spread from
the moving ﬁnger-tips that ran along the
jewels and drew it forth from its hidden
place.
The detective reached back a hand and
drew to the outer door softly, turning the
key noiselessly in its lock, and dropping it
into her pocket. Then she pushed open the
inner door, without sound, and stepped into
the room and crossed to the ﬁgure that bent


THE GREEN JACKET 295
forward caressing the jewels with intent
look. The back of his chair was toward her,
and as she came up she laid one hand on it
lightly and touched his shoulder.
The ﬁgure remained, for a single moment,
immovable. Then it turned~the necklace
slipped with a clatter to the ﬂoor and his
startled glance raised itself to the bending
face. It changed to relief.
“Oh, it is you !” He looked quickly toward
the door. “I did not lock it?” he said in-
credulously.
“No.” Her voice was very quiet. She
moved to the chair on the opposite side of
the hearth.
Something in the movement seemed to
reassure him, and he bent to the necklace
and picked it up and laid it on the table
between them—as if it were a triﬂe of no
interest.
She did not look at it.
His ﬁngers, almost of themselves, stole out
along the surface of the table and regained
the necklace, and he sank back in his chair
with a slight sigh.
“I am glad you have come,” he said


296 THE GREEN JACKET
quietly. He was silent a minute, looking
broodingly into the ﬁre. . . . “I do not
know why you came. But now you are here,
I think I should like to talk with you a
little.”
“Yes—I saw your open door. I thought
some one was in trouble—perhaps Mrs.
Mason.”
His face lighted a little. “You have done
something for her I cannot understand. . . .
I told you how you have helped her. . . .”
His eyes lifted themselves and studied her
face.
“There is something restful about you,”
he said softly. “I could trust your face.
I need some one to trust.”
“Yes. You can trust me. . . . I shall
never tell any one whatever you may care
to tell me.”
He turned the necklace slowly. “This is
all wrought in with what I want to tell you.”
He held it up. Her eyes sought the stones
as if for the ﬁrst time.
“It is a very beautiful thing!” she said
wonderingly.
“Yes.” The word was a breath of sigh.
He held it toward her.


THE GREEN JACKET 299
care-worn face, looked out at her with mys-
terious ﬂaming glance. “It seemed to me
a wonderful thing had been given into my
hands—the happiness of a beautiful nature.”
His hands were gripping the necklace a little.
He held it up. “This necklace I clasped about
her throat was not more beautiful! They
were mine—to guard and keep safe. The
two were somehow linked in my mind.”
He looked at her questioningly. “Can you
understand how I might come to think of
it—of the necklace like that? It was not
merely an ornament I had bought for her—
it was her happiness and her beauty, that
nothing must harm. Can you understand
that I could feel like that about a chain of
jewels?”
“Perfectly,” said Milly. “She must have
been very beautiful.”
“Ah! And I said she should never
change!” he said ﬁercely. “And‘you have
seen her!” The mockery in the words
touched her.
“The necklace is not changed,” she said
gently. “Perhaps ”
“Wait!”—he held up a hand—“wait till


300 THE GREEN JACKET
I tell you the whole. You shall hear the
whole ﬁrst, before you judge!”
“But she is still beautiful,” said Milly
quickly. “As I know her better, I am com-
ing to think she is the most beautiful woman
I have ever seen—though I did not think so
at ﬁrst. . . . I thought her plain and there
was something inﬁnitely sad in her face—
but now it seems to me rarely beautiful !”
He looked at her gratefully. “You see
it, too!” he said. “I thank God that you
say that to me! I have not seen it for a
long time.” The deep, glowing eyes looked
into space—beyond her, beyond the room—
back through time. . . . “Yet for years her
beauty was the only thing in the world to
me. Wherever we went people turned to
look at her. And I would think: ‘Mine,
mine!’ I was like a miser with his gold——
only I wanted all the world to see my gold,
and to know it was mine!”
He sank back in his chair, as if watching
the illusion—as if its very evanescence were
precious to him.
“I did not dream then that anything
could ever touch the security of my pride


THE GREEN JACKET 391
I
in her—that utter possession of her soul
that knew her mine!” His voice sank to a
low note. He roused himself. “I do not
need to go over it—the happiness we lived;
her beauty and her sweetness. It is all
bound up in this—it all comes back to this
at lastl” He shook the necklace lightly in
his hand and the stones shirnmered in his
trembling touch.
“Until two years ago there ’was not a cloud
in our life. . . . Then one day my son came
to me, telling me he was in difficulties—”
He paused, as if thinking swiftly. “I do not
need to tell you what the trouble was. It
was nothing vitally wrong”—he glanced at
her hurriedly—“though you might think so.
He told me he was in debt, and might need
money—three thousand dollars. Of course
I promised it to him. I did not happen to
have it in hand, nor any collateral I wanted
to tie up. I would have to sell something
and I planned to let a parcel of real estate
go. But it was rising in value, and I ran
over everything available, and the idea of
the necklace ﬂashed to me. My wife had
not worn it for months. She would not miss


302 THE GREEN JACKET
it. . . , I made up my mind to use the
stones for collateral. But I hesitated for a
day or two. The necklace had a special
meaning for us. Then Stephen came the
next day and said he must have the money
at once, and I decided what to do.”
He looked down at the necklace, handling
it softly, passing it through his ﬁngers with
wistful look.
“I could not bear to tell my wife, and at
last I decided to have false stones substituted.
She need never know. I should replace them
soon. The stones would be as safe in Me-
Andrews’s hands as in her jewel-box, and I
could have them reset when the emergency
was past—I fancied I could do it per-
fectly—I could deceive her!” He smiled
wanly.
“She always wore the key on a little chain
, on her neck. She kept guard on precious
things!” he said, and in the low words
there was a little touch of bitter scorn.
“I unlocked the case and took out the
necklace and hid it safely in my travelling-
bag, and returned the key to its chain while
she slept.”


THE GREEN JACKET 395
did not touch it as he went rapidly on. “I
gave the emeralds to Greenwald and told
him what I wanted. They were glad to do
it. I had not bought it there—but I did
not want to take it back where I had bought
it. I had a feeling of pride perhaps—or it
may have been a fear that my wife would
come to know. I did not want a shadow to
touch the beauty of the necklace in our lives.
So I gave it into Greenwald’s hands
and he took it to an inner room to have the
stones appraised. He took it away from
me!”
His ﬁgure seemed to shrink a little—~and
he paused and lifted the necklace and placed
it on the table between them. His hollow
eyes looked across at her.
\ “He told me these were falsel” He
touched the stones and pushed the necklace
toward her. They sent out little gleams of
light.
Milly leaned toward them. “But they
are very beautiful l” she said wonderingly.
“They are a damned good imitation!” he
replied under his breath and almost ﬁercely.
“They deceived me! That says some-


306 THE GREEN JACKET
thing! . . . I could have sworn they were
genuine—as true as her smile!” ' He said it
bitterly. “As true as the life she must have
been living!” He struck his hand on the
table. “For how long?” he cried. “When
was it done? Why? . . . She knew that
. all I had was hers—t0 spend as she liked!
My money? My soul was hers! She could
have cut it in little bits to trim her gown
and I would not havei'cried out! But this!”
He looked at the little blinking stones where
they lay. “How can I know why she
needed the money?” . . . His voice sank to
a whisper. “And she wore it—close to the
child’s head—our child!” His hand clinched
suddenly. “How do I know even that—that
the child was mine!”
His head dropped forward to the table.
He was sobbing in deep breaths that strove
to hold themselves, and his outstretched
ﬁngers touched the necklace and pushed it
from him. His breath grew quiet. . . .
The woman leaned forward to the neck-
lace and took it in her ﬁngers. She held it
thoughtfully, her eyes full of deep compas-
sion.


310 THE GREEN JACKET
change!” he whispered. . . . “And I loved
a mirage. It was only a mock love!”
“Why did you never ask for the truth?”
she demanded. “You could have forced
her to tell you.” She stopped at the little
cynical smile in the eyes turned to her.
“You have never loved any one?” he said
quietly.
"Why——I—” She ﬂushed a little.
“Never!” he returned. “Or——you would
know! . . . I wanted to keep the sem-
blance of love.” His hand moved to the green
stones. “I had these, at least, and some-
times, with the ﬁrelight on them—I have
been almost deceived!” He shook his head.
“No, you must not rob me of my mock
jewels.” He reached out a hand. “I will
keep at least the semblance of love.” He
turned to her almost ﬁercely.
“Suppose I’did compel her—strip the secret
bare—exposed 'her, shivering, to the truth.
What have I gained? What have I gained?”
he repeated brokenly.
She mused on it. “But suppose you give
the false ones up—yield them once for all,
asking nothing in return?”


THE GREEN JACKET 3 r 1
He regarded her intently. “What do you
mean P” he asked almost breathlessly.
“Suppose you restored the jewels to her
case?”
He stared at her. “But they are worth-
less!”
“Suppose you try it. Put the case on her
toilet-table. Leave it in plain sight, and the
emeralds in it—where they Were before.”
She got up and laid the necklace beside him
on the table.
“Try it,” she said. “You have nothing
to lose—~but mock jewels. You may have
everything to gain!” She moved from him
with quiet step. At the door she looked
back. He had lifted the necklace and was
looking at it with half-wistful eyes, and the
stones seemed to glimmer mockingly in the
ﬁrelight.


316 THE GREEN JACKET
She lifted her face at last. A quiet shudder
went_through her and she laid her hand on
the box, and, lifting the stones, held them
toward him.
“They are false !” she said quietly.
He did not speak. His hand held itself
tense and waited.
She looked down at the jewels, speaking
hurriedly, as if urged by some inner need.
“I sold the others—our emeralds. I pawned
them—~to get the money for Stephen—-—”
The son started with quick motion, but
again his father’s hand restrained him.
“Wait,” he said quietly.
Her voice was very low. “I pawned them
——and I thought Marian was a thief!” She
said the ugly word clearly, and seemed to
stare at it. “Marian—a thief! how could
I!”
Her liusband bent to her—as if the low
voice must deceive him. He searched her
face swiftly.
“You thought that Marian took your
emeralds!” he cried.
‘KShe__—!,
“Why—it was 1—1 who took them,” he
said gently.


THE GREEN JACKET 321
She smiled a little wearily.
“If it’s really a disease, we ought to be
able to cure it,” he said thoughtfully.
“We can.”
“And prevent it,” he added.
She sat up. The tired look left her face.
“We can, Tom l” she said swiftly. “And it’s
better worth doing than anything in the
world l”
“Yes. How would you begin?” he asked
cautiously.
“I’d like to begin with their ancestors!”
she laughed. “Most of them come of lying
and thieving stock—or, anyway, from an-
cestors that have a taint of white lies in their
blood. . . . All this experirnentingwith white
mice and black mice is well enough,” she
said quickly. “But what if two white liars
marry and all of the descendants with black
hair are black liars?”
Tom laughed out. “Go onl” he said.
She nodded. “Why don’t we take hold
of things a little nearer by? We clear up the
slums, but we don’t touch the slums of their
minds. We’re cowards. We don’t dare
teach morals in the schools. . . . What


THE GREEN JACKET 323
“It’s a little stupid, I think”—Milly was
threshing it out—“not to use a thing a boy
is as keen about as he is about lying to help
educate him with. Can’t you see a class of
boys that haVe been going to sleep over
fractions, just come all alive over an exercise
in practical lying?”
Tom chuckled.
“Let ’em try it for a While,” said Milly.
“Let them watch out for lies for a day——see
how many examples, different kinds, they
can bring to class—the way they bring ﬂowers.
The one that brings the largest collection has
his name on the board—or has a badge to
wear home.”
“I say!” said Tom. His face considered
it. “Watch folks around ’em—their fathers
and mothers P”
Milly nodded. “Everybody—the minister,
the grocer, the newspaper reporter—”
“Whew !” whistled Tom.
“That’s their real education, isn’t it P”
said Milly. “That’s what they’re doing every
day, blundering along by themselves, while
we teach them how many bricks it takes to
build a wall six feet high—allowing a quarter


324 THE GREEN JACKET
of an inch for mortar, and ten bricks to a
row!” Her voice was ﬁlled with the scorn
of it.
Tom laughed out.
“We spank them for telling lies and hush
them up. So they learn to lie in secret. It’s
disease,” said Milly, “shut up inside ’em!
We ought to air it, bring it into the light and
put truth alongside it. Show them the big
and beautiful things that men have done
together by being square. Send a class down
to study that bridge on \Vater Street that
was put up by jobbery ten years ago. There
isn’t a boy seven years old that can’t see
what is happening to it. Instead of having
them work out how many tons of concrete
it takes for the foundation, let them ask a
few questions as to how much concrete can
be adulterated and stand up, and how it
feels to live in a city where everybody cheats
all he can. Talk about lying!” she said
with a quick ﬂash of indignation. “Boys
love the truth. Look how they play their
own games on the square! They have to
——bless them! They save their lies for
grown-ups, most of them—they watch us


328 THE GREEN JACKET
hurled forward, borne in a mighty rush of
desire to protect and care for the fragile
ﬁgure sitting so quietly before him.
Tom Corbin gripped the arms of his chair
and little beads of perspiration came to his
forehead. He took out his handkerchief
and removed them softly. He glanced at
the gray ﬁgure almost hostilely.
But the softness of the pose and the tired
lines of the ﬁgure melted him like wax.
He leaned forward.
“Milly!” he said.
She opened her eyes. She seemed to have
been half dreaming. It was very restful in
Tom’s ofﬁce, in spite of the clatter in the
rooms beyond and the noise of the street.
Her open eyes gazed at him inquiringly.
“Yes?” she said.
He got up and went to the window and
stood for a minute looking down on the
hurrying street. He wheeled and came
straight to her and stood before her ﬁrmly.
“Will you marry me, Milly?—I want you
to.” He said it simply.
She sat up and pushed back her hair a
little.


THE GREEN JACKET 329
“Tom l” s'he said—almost in vexation.
He nodded. “That’s what it’s come to!
I did not expect it!” He laughed a little
grimly.
She got up from her chair. “I must go l”
she said hurriedly.
“Not till you give me my answer.” He
moved between her and the exit, and she
looked at him with eyes in which the tears
were very near the surface.
“Tom l” she said protestingly. “I am
so tired l”
He nodded. “That’s why I asked you. I
want to take care of you! ‘Don’t you see,
Milly?” He held out his arms in an awk-
ward, tender gesture. “Don’t you know
how you need me?”
She looked at him severely, almost sternly,
and after a moment the arms dropped to his
sides.
“But you do need me,” he said stub-
bornly.
She moved toward the door.
He no longer stayed her. His glance fol-
lowed her quietly.
“When may I come and see you, Milly?


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