“Have you had any experience with rubeola?” she queried finally.
“Oh, yes – yes – yes, indeed,” the gardener stammered. “Yes.”
“And – alopecia?” pursued Miss Cornelia.
The young man seemed to fumble in his mind for the characteristics of such a flower or shrub.
“The dry weather is very hard on alopecia,” he asserted finally, and was evidently relieved to see Miss Cornelia receive the statement with a pleasant smile.
“What do you think is the best treatment for urticaria?” she propounded with a highly professional manner.
It appeared to be a catch-question. The young man knotted his brows. Finally a gleam of light seemed to come to him.
“Urticaria frequently needs – er – thinning,” he announced decisively.
“Needs scratching you mean!” Miss Cornelia rose with a snort of disdain and faced him. “Young man, urticaria is hives, rubeola is measles, and alopecia is baldness!” she thundered. She waited a moment for his defense. None came.
“Why did you tell me you were a professional gardener?” she went on accusingly. “Why have you come here at this hour of night pretending to be something you’re not?”
By all standards of drama the young man should have wilted before her wrath, Instead he suddenly smiled at her, boyishly, and threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat.
“I know I shouldn’t have done it!” he confessed with appealing frankness. “You’d have found me out anyhow! I don’t know anything about gardening. The to is,” his tone grew somber, “I was desperate! I HAD have work!”
The candor of his smile would have disarmed a stonier-hearted person than Miss Cornelia. But her suspicions were still awake.
“‘That’s all, is it?”
“That’s enough when you’re down and out.” His words had an unmistakable accent of finality. She couldn’t help wanting to believe him, and yet, he wasn’t what he had pretended to be – and this night of all nights was no time to take people on trust!
“How do I know you won’t steal the spoons?” she queried, her voice still gruff.
“Are they nice spoons?” he asked with absurd seriousness.
She couldn’t help smiling at his tone. “Beautiful spoons.
Again that engaging, boyish manner of his touched something in her heart.
“Spoons are a great temptation to me, Miss Van Gorder – but if you’ll take me, I’ll promise to leave them alone.”
“That’s extremely kind of you,” she answered with grim humor, knowing herself beaten. She went over to ring for Billy.
Lizzie took the opportunity to gain her ear.
“I don’t trust him, Miss Neily! He’s too smooth!” she whispered warningly.
Miss Cornelia stiffened. “I haven’t asked for your opinion, Lizzie,” she said.
But Lizzie was not to be put off by the Van Gorder manner.
“Oh,” she whispered, “you’re just as bad as all the rest of ’em. A good-looking man comes in the door and your brains fly out the window!”
Miss Cornelia quelled her with a gesture and turned back to the young man. He was standing just where she had left him, his cap in his hands – but, while her back had been turned, his eyes had made a stealthy survey of the living-room – a survey that would have made it plain to Miss Cornelia, if she had seen him, that his interest in the Fleming establishment was not merely the casual interest of a servant in his new place of abode. But she had not seen and she could have told nothing from his present expression.
“Have you had anything to eat lately?” she asked in a kindly voice.
He looked down at his cap. “Not since this morning,” he admitted as Billy answered the bell.
Miss Cornelia turned to the impassive Japanese. “Billy, give this man something to eat and then show him where he is to sleep.”
She hesitated. The gardener’s house was some distance from the main building, and with the night and the approaching storm she felt her own courage weakening. Into the bargain, whether this stranger had lied about his gardening or not, she was curiously attracted to him.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that I’ll have you sleep in the house here, at least for tonight. Tomorrow we can – the housemaid’s room, Billy,” she told the butler. And before their departure she held out a candle and a box of matches.
“Better take these with you, Brooks,” she said. “The local light company crawls under its bed every time there is a thunderstorm. Good night, Brooks.”
“Good night, ma’am,” said the young man smiling. Following Billy to the door, he paused. “You’re being mighty good to me,” he said diffidently, smiled again, and disappeared after Billy.
As the door closed behind them, Miss Cornelia found herself smiling too. “That’s a pleasant young fellow – no matter what he is,” she said to herself decidedly, and not even Lizzie’s feverish “Haven’t you any sense taking strange men into the house? How do you know he isn’t the Bat?” could draw a reply from her.
Again the thunder rolled as she straightened the papers and magazines on the table and Lizzie gingerly took up the ouija-board to replace it on the bookcase with the prayer book firmly on top of it. And this time, with the roll of the thunder, the lights in the living-room blinked uncertainly for an instant before they recovered their normal brilliance.
“There go the lights!” grumbled Lizzie, her fingers still touching the prayer book, as if for protection. Miss Cornelia did not answer her directly.
“We’ll put the detective in the blue room when he comes,” she said. “You’d better go up and see if it’s all ready.”
Lizzie started to obey, going toward the alcove to ascend to the second floor by the alcove stairs. But Miss Cornelia stopped her.
“Lizzie – you know that stair rail’s just been varnished. Miss Dale got a stain on her sleeve there this afternoon – and Lizzie – “
“Yes’m?”
“No one is to know that he is a detective. Not even Billy.” Miss Cornelia was very firm.
“Well, what’l1 I say he is?”
“It’s nobody’s business.”
“A detective,” moaned Lizzie, opening the hall door to go by the main staircase. “Tiptoeing around with his eye to all the keyholes. A body won’t be safe in the bathtub.” She shut the door with a little slap and disappeared. Miss Cornelia sat down – she had many things to think over – “if I ever get time really to think of anything again,” she thought, because with gardeners coming who aren’t gardeners – and Lizzie hearing yells in the grounds and –
She started slightly. The front door bell was ringing – a long trill, uncannily loud in the quiet house. She sat rigid in her chair, waiting. Billy came in.
“Front door key, please?” he asked urbanely. She gave him the key.
“Find out who it is before you unlock the door,” she said. He nodded. She heard him at the door, then a murmur of voices – Dale’s voice and another’s – “Won’t you come in for a few minutes? Oh, thank you.” She relaxed.
The door opened; it was Dale. “How lovely she looks in that evening wrap!” thought Miss Cornelia. But how tired, too. I wish I knew what was worrying her.
She smiled. “Aren’t you back early, Dale?”
Dale threw off her wrap and stood for a moment patting back into its smooth, smart bob, hair ruffled by the wind.
“I was tired,” she said, sinking into a chair.
“Not worried about anything?” Miss Cornelia’s eyes were sharp.
“No,” said Dale without conviction, “but I’ve come here to be company for you and I don’t want to run away all the time.” She picked up the evening paper and looked at it without apparently seeing it. Miss Cornelia heard voices in the hall – a man’s voice – affable – “How have you been, Billy?” – Billy’s voice in answer, “Very well, sir.”
“Who’s out there, Dale?” she queried.
Dale looked up from the paper. “Doctor Wells, darling,” she said in a listless voice. “He brought me over from the club; I asked him to come in for a few minutes. Billy’s just taking his coat.” She rose, threw the paper aside, came over and kissed Miss Cornelia suddenly and passionate1y – then before Miss Cornelia, a little startled, could return the kiss, went over and sat on the settee by the fireplace near the door of the billiard room.
Miss Cornelia turned to her with a thousand questions on her tongue, but before she could ask any of them, Billy was ushering in Doctor Wells.
As she shook hands with the Doctor, Miss Cornelia observed him with casual interest – wondering why such a good-looking man, in his early forties, apparently built for success, should be content with the comparative rustication of his local practice. That shrewd, rather aquiline face, with its keen gray eyes, would have found itself more at home in a wider sphere of action, she thought – there was just that touch of ruthlessness about it which makes or mars a captain in the world’s affairs. She found herself murmuring the usual conventionalities of greeting.
“Oh, I’m very well, Doctor, thank you. Well, many people at the country club?”
“Not very many,” he said, with a shake of his head. “This failure of the Union Bank has knocked a good many of the club members sky high.”
“Just how did it happen?” Miss Cornelia was making conversation.
“Oh, the usual thing.” The Doctor took out his cigarette case. “The cashier, a young chap named Bailey, looted the bank to the tune of over a million.”
Dale turned sharply toward them from her seat by the fireplace.
“How do you know the cashier did it?” she said in a low voice.
The Doctor laughed. “Well – he’s run away, for one thing. The bank examiners found the deficit. Bailey, the cashier, went out on an errand – and didn’t come back. The method was simple enough – worthless bonds substituted for good ones – with a good bond on the top and bottom of each package, so the packages would pass a casual inspection. Probably been going on for some time.”
The fingers of Dale’s right hand drummed restlessly on the edge of her settee.
“Couldn’t somebody else have done it?” she queried tensely.
The Doctor smiled, a trifle patronizingly.
“Of course the president of the bank had access to the vaults,” he said. “But, as you know, Mr. Courtleigh Fleming, the late president, was buried last Monday.”
Miss Cornelia had seen her niece’s face light up oddly at the beginning of the Doctor’s statement – to relapse into lassitude again at its conclusion. Bailey – Bailey – she was sure she remembered that name – on Dale’s lips.
“Dale, dear, did you know this young Bailey?” she asked point-blank.
The girl had started to light a cigarette. The flame wavered in her fingers, the match went out.
“Yes – slightly,” she said. She bent to strike another match, averting her face. Miss Cornelia did not press her.
“What with bank robberies and communism and the income tax,” she said, turning the subject, “the only way to keep your money these days is to spend it.”
“Or not to have any – like myself!” the Doctor agreed.
“It seems strange,” Miss Cornelia went on, “living in Courtleigh Fleming’s house. A month ago I’d never even heard of Mr. Fleming – though I suppose I should have – and now – why, I’m as interested in the failure of his bank as if I were a depositor!”
The Doctor regarded the end of his cigarette.
“As a matter of fact,” he said pleasantly, “Dick Fleming had no right to rent you the property before the estate was settled. He must have done it the moment he received my telegram announcing his uncle’s death”
“Were you with him when he died?”
“Yes – in Colorado. He had angina pectoris and took me with him for that reason. But with care he might have lived a considerable time. The trouble was that he wouldn’t use ordinary care. He ate and drank more than he should, and so – “
“I suppose,” pursued Miss Cornelia, watching Dale out of the corner of her eye, “that there is no suspicion that Courtleigh Fleming robbed his own bank?”
“Well, if he did,” said the Doctor amicably, “I can testify that he didn’t have the loot with him.” His tone grew more serious. “No! He had his faults – but not that.”
Miss Cornelia made up her mind. She had resolved before not to summon the Doctor for aid in her difficulties, but now that chance had brought him here the opportunity seemed too good a one to let slip.
“Doctor,” she said, “I think I ought to tell you something. Last night and the night before, attempts were made to enter this house. Once an intruder actually got in and was frightened away by Lizzie at the top of that staircase.” She indicated the alcove stairs. “And twice I have received anonymous communications threatening my life if I did not leave the house and go back to the city.”
Dale rose from her settee, startled.
“I didn’t know that, Auntie! How dreadful!” she gasped.
Instantly Miss Cornelia regretted her impulse of confidence. She tried to pass the matter off with tart humor.
“Don’t tell Lizzie,” she said. “She’d yell like a siren. It’s the only thing she does like a siren, but she does it superbly!”
For a moment it seemed as if Miss Cornelia had succeeded. The Doctor smiled; Dale sat down again, her expression altering from one of anxiety to one of amusement. Miss Cornelia opened her lips to dilate further upon Lizzie’s eccentricities.
But just then there was a splintering crash of glass from one of the French windows behind her!
CHAPTER SIX
DETECTIVE ANDERSON TAKES CHARGE
“What’s that?”
“Somebody smashed a windowpane!”
“And threw in a stone!”
“Wait a minute, I’ll – ” The Doctor, all alert at once, ran into the alcove and jerked at the terrace door.
“It’s bolted at the top, too,” called Miss Cornelia. He nodded, without wasting words on a reply, unbolted the door and dashed out into the darkness of the terrace. Miss Cornelia saw him run past the French windows and disappear into blackness. Meanwhile Dale, her listlessness vanished before the shock of the strange occurrence, had gone to the broken window and picked up the stone. It was wrapped in paper; there seemed to be writing on the paper. She closed the terrace door and brought the stone to her aunt.
Miss Cornelia unwrapped the paper and smoothed out the sheet.
Two lines of coarse, round handwriting sprawled across it:
Take warning! Leave this house at once! It is threatened with disaster which will involve you if you remain!
There was no signature.
“Who do you think wrote it?” asked Dale breathlessly.
Miss Cornelia straightened up like a ramrod – indomitable.
“A fool – that’s who! If anything was calculated to make me stay here forever, this sort of thing would do it!”
She twitched the sheet of paper angrily.
“But – something may happen, darling!”
“I hope so! That’s the reason I – “
She stopped. The doorbell was ringing again – thrilling, insistent. Her niece started at the sound.
“Oh, don’t let anybody in!” she besought Miss Cornelia as Billy came in from the hall with his usual air of walking on velvet.
“Key, front door please – bell ring,” he explained tersely, taking the key from the table.
Miss Cornelia issued instructions.
“See that the chain is on the door, Billy. Don’t open it all the way. And get the visitor’s name before you let him in.”
She lowered her voice.
“If he says he is Mr. Anderson, let him in and take him to the library.”
Billy nodded and disappeared. Dale turned to her aunt, the color out of her cheeks.
“Anderson? Who is Mr. – “
Miss Cornelia did not answer. She thought for a moment. Then she put her hand on Dale’s shoulder in a gesture of protective affection.
“Dale, dear – you know how I love having you here – but it might be better if you went back to the city.”
“Tonight, darling?” Dale managed a wan smile. But Miss Cornelia seemed serious.
“There’s something behind all this disturbance – something I don’t understand. But I mean to.”
She glanced about to see if the Doctor was returning. She lowered her voice. She drew Dale closer to her.
“The man in the library is a detective from police headquarters,” she said.
She had expected Dale to show surprise – excitement – but the white mask of horror which the girl turned toward her appalled her. The young body trembled under her hand for a moment like a leaf in the storm.
“Not – the police!” breathed Dale in tones of utter consternation. Miss Cornelia could not understand why the news had stirred her niece so deeply. But there was no time to puzzle it out, she heard crunching steps on the terrace, the Doctor was returning.
“Ssh!” she whispered. “It isn’t necessary to tell the Doctor. I think he’s a sort of perambulating bedside gossip – and once it’s known the police are here we’ll NEVER catch the criminals!”
When the Doctor entered from the terrace, brushing drops of rain from his no longer immaculate evening clothes, Dale was back on her favorite settee and Miss Cornelia was poring over the mysterious missive that had been wrapped about the stone.
“He got away in the shrubbery,” said the Doctor disgustedly, taking out a handkerchief to fleck the spots of mud from his shoes.
Miss Cornelia gave him the letter of warning. “Read this,” she said.
The Doctor adjusted a pair of pince-nez – read the two crude sentences over – once – twice. Then he looked shrewdly at Miss Cornelia.
“Were the others like this?” he queried.
She nodded. “Practically.”
He hesitated for a moment like a man with an unpleasant social duty to face.
“Miss Van Gorder, may I speak frankly?”
“Generally speaking, I detest frankness,” said that lady grimly. “But – go on!”
The Doctor tapped the letter. His face was wholly serious.
“I think you ought to leave this house,” he said bluntly.
“Because of that letter? Humph!” His very seriousness, perversely enough, made her suddenly wish to treat the whole matter as lightly as possible.
The Doctor repressed the obvious annoyance of a man who sees a warning, given in all sobriety, unexpectedly taken as a quip.
“There is some deviltry afoot,” he persisted. “You are not safe here, Miss Van Gorder.”
But if he was persistent in his attitude, so was she in hers.
“I’ve been safe in all kinds of houses for sixty-odd years,” she said lightly. “It’s time I had a bit of a change. Besides,” she gestured toward her defenses, “this house is as nearly impregnable as I can make it. The window locks are sound enough, the doors are locked, and the keys are there,” she pointed to the keys lying on the table. “As for. the terrace door you just used,” she went on, “I had Billy put an extra bolt on it today. By the way, did you bolt that door again?” She moved toward the alcove.
“Yes, I did,” said the Doctor quickly, still seeming unconvinced of the wisdom of her attitude.
“Miss Van Gorder, I confess – I’m very anxious for you,” he continued. “This letter is – ominous. Have you any enemies?”
“Don’t insult me! Of course I have. Enemies are an indication of character.”
The Doctor’s smile held both masculine pity and equally masculine exasperation. He went on more gently.
“Why not accept my hospitality in the village to-night?” he proposed reasonably. “It’s a little house but I’ll make you comfortable. Or,” he threw out his hands in the gesture of one who reasons with a willful child, if you won’t come to me, let me stay here!”
Miss Cornelia hesitated for an instant. The proposition seemed logical enough – more than that – sensible, safe. And yet, some indefinable feeling – hardly strong enough to be called a premonition – kept her from accepting it. Besides, she knew what the Doctor did not, that help was waiting across the hall in the library.
“Thank you, no, Doctor,” she said briskly, before she had time to change her mind. “I’m not easily frightened. And tomorrow I intend to equip this entire house with burglar alarms on doors and windows!” she went on defiantly. The incident, as far as she was concerned, was closed. She moved on into the alcove. The Doctor stared at her, shaking his head.
She tried the terrace door. “There, I knew it!” she said triumphantly. “Doctor – you didn’t fasten that bolt!”
The Doctor seemed a little taken aback. “Oh – I’m sorry – ” he said.
“You only pushed it part of the way,” she explained. She completed the task and stepped back into the living-room. “The only thing that worries me now is that broken French window,” she said thoughtfully. “Anyone can reach a hand through it and open the latch.” She came down toward the settee where Dale was sitting. “Please, Doctor!”
“Oh – what are you going to do?” said the Doctor, coming out of a brown study.
“I’m going to barricade that window!” said Miss Cornelia firmly, already struggling to lift one end of the settee. But now Dale came to her rescue.
“Oh, darling, you’ll hurt yourself. Let me – ” and between them, the Doctor and Dale moved the heavy settee along until it stood in front of the window in question.
The Doctor stood up when the dusty task was finished, wiping his hands.
“It would take a furniture mover to get in there now!” he said airily.
Miss Cornelia smiled.
“Well, Doctor – I’ll say good night now – and thank you very much,” she said, extending her hand to the Doctor, who bowed over it silently. “Don’t keep this young lady up too late; she looks tired.” She flashed a look at Dale who stood staring out at the night.
“I’ll only smoke a cigarette,” promised the Doctor. Once again his voice had a note of plea in it. “You won’t change your mind?” he asked anew.
Miss Van Gorder’s smile was obdurate. “I have a great deal of mind,” she said. “It takes a long time to change it.”
Then, having exercised her feminine privilege of the last word, she sailed out of the room, still smiling, and closed the door behind her.
The Doctor seemed a little nettled by her abrupt departure.
“It may be mind,” he said, turning back toward Dale, “but forgive me if I say I think it seems more like foolhardy stubbornness!”
Dale turned away from the window. “Then you think there is really danger?”
The Doctor’s eyes were grave.
“Well – those letters – ” he dropped the letter on the table. “They mean something. Here you are – isolated the village two miles away – and enough shrubbery round the place to hide a dozen assassins – “
If his manner had been in the slightest degree melodramatic, Dale would have found the ominous sentences more easy to discount. But this calm, intent statement of fact was a chill touch at her heart. And yet –
“But what enemies can Aunt Cornelia have?” she asked helplessly.
“Any man will tell you what I do,” said the Doctor with increasing seriousness. He took a cigarette from his case and tapped it on the case to emphasize his words. “This is no place for two women, practically alone.”
Dale moved away from him restlessly, to warm her hands at the fire. The Doctor gave a quick glance around the room. Then, unseen by her, he stepped noiselessly over to the table, took the matchbox there off its holder and slipped it into his pocket. It seemed a curiously useless and meaningless gesture, but his next words evinced that the action had been deliberate.
“I don’t seem to be able to find any matches – ” he said with assumed carelessness, fiddling with the matchbox holder.
Dale turned away from the fire. “Oh, aren’t there any? I’ll get you some,” she said with automatic politeness, and departed to search for them.
The Doctor watched her go – saw the door close behind her. Instantly his face set into tense and wary lines. He glanced about – then ran lightly into the alcove and noiselessly unfastened the bolt on the terrace door which he had pretended to fasten after his search of the shrubbery. When Dale returned with the matches, he was back where he had been when she had left him, glancing at a magazine on the table.
He thanked her urbanely as she offered him the box. “So sorry to trouble you – but tobacco is the one drug every Doctor forbids his patients and prescribes for himself.”
Dale smiled at the little joke. He lit his cigarette and drew in the fragrant smoke with apparent gusto. But a moment later he had crushed out the glowing end in an ash tray.
“By the way, has Miss Van Gorder a revolver?” he queried casually, glancing at his wrist watch.
“Yes – she fired it off this afternoon to see if it would work.” Dale smiled at the memory.
The Doctor, too, seemed amused. “If she tries to shoot anything – for goodness’ sake stand behind her!” he advised. He glanced at the wrist watch again. “Well – I must be going – “
“If anything happens,” said Dale slowly, “I shall telephone you at once.”
Her words seemed to disturb the Doctor slightly – but only for a second. He grew even more urbane.
“I’ll be home shortly after midnight,” he said. “I’m stopping at the Johnsons’ on my way – one of their children is ill – or supposed to be.” He took a step toward the door, then he turned toward Dale again.
“Take a parting word of advice,” he said. “The thing to do with a midnight prowler is – let him alone. Lock your bedroom doors and don’t let anything bring you out till morning.” He glanced at Dale to see how she took the advice, his hand on the knob of the door.
“Thank you,” said Dale seriously. “Good night, Doctor – Billy will let you out, he has the key.”
“By Jove!” laughed the Doctor, “you are careful, aren’t you! The place is like a fortress! Well – good night, Miss Dale – “
“Good night.” The door closed behind him – Dale was left alone. Suddenly her composure left her, the fixed smile died. She stood gazing ahead at nothing, her face a mask of terror and apprehension. But it was like a curtain that had lifted for a moment on some secret tragedy and then fallen again. When Billy returned with the front door key she was as impassive as he was.
“Has the new gardener come yet?”
“He here,” said Billy stolidly. “Name Brook.”
She was entirely herself once more when Billy, departing, held the door open wide – to admit Miss Cornelia Van Gorder and a tall, strong-featured man, quietly dressed, with reticent, piercing eyes – the detective!
Dale’s first conscious emotion was one of complete surprise. She had expected a heavy-set, blue-jowled vulgarian with a black cigar, a battered derby, and stubby policeman’s shoes. “Why this man’s a gentleman!” she thought. “At least he looks like one – and yet – you can tell from his face he’d have as little mercy as a steel trap for anyone he had to – catch – ” She shuddered uncontrollably.
“Dale, dear,” said Miss Cornelia with triumph in her voice. “This is Mr. Anderson.”
The newcomer bowed politely, glancing at her casually and then looking away. Miss Cornelia, however, was obviously in fine feather and relishing to the utmost the presence of a real detective in the house.
“This is the room I spoke of,” she said briskly. “All the disturbances have taken place around that terrace door.”
The detective took three swift steps into the alcove, glanced about it searchingly. He indicated the stairs.
“That is not the main staircase?”
“No, the main staircase is out there,” Miss Cornelia waved her hand in the direction of the hall.
The detective came out of the alcove and paused by the French windows.
“I think there must be a conspiracy between the Architects’ Association and the Housebreakers’ Union these days,” he said grimly. “Look at all that glass. All a burglar needs is a piece of putty and a diamond-cutter to break in.”
“But the curious thing is,” continued Miss Cornelia, “that whoever got into the house evidently had a key to that door:” Again she indicated the terrace door, but Anderson did not seem to be listening to her.
“Hello – what’s this?” he said sharply, his eye lighting on the broken glass below the shattered French window. He picked up a piece of glass and examined it.
Dale cleared her throat. “It was broken from the outside a few minutes ago,” she said.
“The outside?” Instantly the detective had pulled aside a blind and was staring out into the darkness.
“Yes. And then that letter was thrown in.” She pointed to the threatening missive on the center table.
Anderson picked it up, glanced through it, laid it down. All his movements were quick and sure – each executed with the minimum expense of effort.
“H’m,” he said in a calm voice that held a glint of humor. “Curious, the anonymous letter complex! Apparently someone considers you an undesirable tenant!”
Miss Cornelia took up the tale.
“There are some things I haven’t told you yet,” she said. “This house belonged to the late Courtleigh Fleming.” He glanced at her sharply.
“The Union Bank?”
“Yes. I rented it for the summer and moved in last Monday. We have not had a really quiet night since I came. The very first night I saw a man with an electric flashlight making his way through the shrubbery!”
“You poor dear!” from Dale sympathetically. “And you were here alone!”
“Well, I had Lizzie. And,” said Miss Cornelia with enormous importance, opening the drawer of the center table, “I had my revolver. I know so little about these things, Mr. Anderson, that if I didn’t hit a burglar, I knew I’d hit somebody or something!” and she gazed with innocent awe directly down the muzzle of her beloved weapon, then waved it with an airy gesture beneath the detective’s nose.
Anderson gave an involuntary start, then his eyes lit up with grim mirth.
“Would you mind putting that away?” he said suavely. “I like to get in the papers as much as anybody, but I don’t want to have them say – omit flowers.”
Miss Cornelia gave him a glare of offended pride, but he endured it with such quiet equanimity that she merely replaced the revolver in the drawer, with a hurt expression, and waited for him to open the next topic of conversation.
He finished his preliminary survey of the room and returned to her.
“Now you say you don’t think anybody has got upstairs yet?” he queried.
Miss Cornelia regarded the alcove stairs.
“I think not. I’m a very light sleeper, especially since the papers have been so full of the exploits of this criminal they call the Bat. He’s in them again tonight.” She nodded toward the evening paper.
The detective smiled faintly.
“Yes, he’s contrived to surround himself with such an air of mystery that it verges on the supernatural – or seems that way to newspapermen.”
“I confess,” admitted Miss Cornelia, “I’ve thought of him in this connection.” She looked at Anderson to see how he would take the suggestion but the latter merely smiled again, this time more broadly.
“That’s going rather a long way for a theory,” he said. “And the Bat is not in the habit of giving warnings.
“Nevertheless,” she insisted, “somebody has been trying to get into this house, night after night.”
Anderson seemed to be revolving a theory in his mind.
“Any liquor stored here?” he asked.
Miss Cornelia nodded. “Yes.”
“What?”
Miss Cornelia beamed at him maliciously. “Eleven bottles of home-made elderberry wine.”
“You’re safe.” The detective smiled ruefully. He picked up the evening paper, glanced at it, shook his head. “I’d forget the Bat in all this. You can always tell when the Bat has had anything to do with a crime. When he’s through, he signs his name to it.”
Miss Cornelia sat bolt upright. “His name? I thought nobody knew his name?”
The detective made a little gesture of apology. “That was a figure of speech. The newspapers named him the Bat because he moved with incredible rapidity, always at night, and by signing his name I mean he leaves the symbol of his identity – the Bat, which can see in the dark.”
“I wish I could,” said Miss Cornelia, striving to seem unimpressed. “These country lights are always going out.”
Anderson’s face grew stern. “Sometimes he draws the outline of a bat at the scene of the crime. Once, in some way, he got hold of a real bat, and nailed it to the wall.”
Dale, listening, could not repress a shudder at the gruesome picture – and Miss Cornelia’s hands gave an involuntary twitch as her knitting needles clicked together. Anderson seemed by no means unconscious of the effect he had created.
“How many people in this house, Miss Van Gorder?”
“My niece and myself.” Miss Cornelia indicated Dale, who had picked up her wrap and was starting to leave the room. “Lizzie Allen – who has been my personal maid ever since I was a child – the Japanese butler, and the gardener. The cook and the housemaid left this morning – frightened away.”
She smiled as she finished her description. Dale reached the door and passed slowly out into the hall. The detective gave her a single, sharp glance as she made her exit. He seemed to think over the factors Miss Cornelia had mentioned.
“Well,” he said, after a slight pause, “you can have a good night’s sleep tonight. I’ll stay right here in the dark and watch.”
“Would you like some coffee to keep you awake?”
Anderson nodded. “Thank you.” His voice sank lower. “Do the servants know who I am?”
“Only Lizzie, my maid.”
His eyes fixed hers. “I wouldn’t tell anyone I’m remaining up all night,” he said.
A formless fear rose in Miss Cornelia’s mind. “You don’t suspect my household?” she said in a low voice.
He spoke with emphasis – all the more pronounced because of the quietude of his tone.
“I’m not taking any chances,” he said determinedly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS
All unconscious of the slur just cast upon her forty years of single-minded devotion to the Van Gorder family, Lizzie chose that particular moment to open the door and make a little bob at her mistress and the detective.
“The gentleman’s room is ready,” she said meekly. In her mind she was already beseeching her patron saint that she would not have to show the gentleman to his room. Her ideas of detectives were entirely drawn from sensational magazines and her private opinion was that Anderson might have anything in his pocket from a set of terrifying false whiskers to a bomb!
Miss Cornelia, obedient to the detective’s instructions, promptly told the whitest of fibs for Lizzie’s benefit.
“The maid will show you to your room now and you can make yourself comfortable for the night.” There – that would mislead Lizzie, without being quite a lie.
“My toilet is made for an occasion like this when I’ve got my gun loaded,” answered Anderson carelessly. The allusion to the gun made Lizzie start nervously,, unhappily for her, for it drew his attention to her and he now transfixed her with a stare.
“This is the maid you referred to?” he inquired. Miss Cornelia assented. He drew nearer to the unhappy
Lizzie.
“What’s your name?” he asked, turning to her.
“E-Elizabeth Allen,” stammered Lizzie, feeling like a small and distrustful sparrow in the toils of an officious python.
Anderson seemed to run through a mental rogues gallery of other criminals named Elizabeth Allen that he had known.
“How old are you?” he proceeded.
Lizzie looked at her mistress despairingly. “Have I got to answer that?” she wailed. Miss Cornelia nodded – inexorably.
Lizzie braced herself. “Thirty-two,” she said, with an arch toss of her head.
The detective looked surprised and slightly amused.
“She’s fifty if she’s a day,” said Miss Cornelia treacherously in spite of a look from Lizzie that would have melted a stone.
The trace of a smile appeared and vanished on the detective’s face.
“Now, Lizzie,” he said sternly, “do you ever walk in your sleep?”
“I do not,” said Lizzie indignantly.
“Don’t care for the country, I suppose?”
“I do not!”
“Or detectives?” Anderson deigned to be facetious.
“I DO NOT!” There could be no doubt as to the sincerity of Lizzie’s answer.
“All right, Lizzie. Be calm. I can stand it,” said the detective with treacherous suavity. But he favored her with a long and careful scrutiny before he moved to the table and picked up the note that had been thrown through the window. Quietly he extended it beneath Lizzie’s nose.
“Ever see this before?” he said crisply, watching her face.
Lizzie read the note with bulging eyes, her face horror-stricken. When she had finished, she made a gesture of wild disclaimer that nearly removed a portion of Anderson’s left ear.
“Mercy on us!” she moaned, mentally invoking not only her patron saint but all the rosary of heaven to protect herself and her mistress.
But the detective still kept his eye on her.
“Didn’t write it yourself, did you?” he queried curtly.
“I did not!” said Lizzie angrily. “I did not!”
“And – you’re sure you don’t walk in your sleep?” The bare idea strained Lizzie’s nerves to the breaking point.
“When I get into bed in this house I wouldn’t put my feet out for a million dollars!” she said with heartfelt candor. Even Anderson was compelled to grin at this.
“Then I won’t ask you to,” he said, relaxing considerably; “That’s more money than I’m worth, Lizzie.”
“Well, I’ll say it is!” quoth Lizzie, now thoroughly aroused, and flounced out of the room in high dudgeon, her pompadour bristling, before he had time to interrogate her further.
He replaced the note on the table and turned back to Miss Cornelia. If he had found any clue to the mystery in Lizzie’s demeanor, she could not read it in his manner.
“Now, what about the butler?” he said.
“Nothing about him – except that he was Courtleigh Fleming’s servant.”
Anderson paused. “Do you consider that significant?”
A shadow appeared behind him deep in the alcove – a vague, listening figure – Dale – on tiptoe, conspiratorial, taking pains not to draw the attention of the others to her presence. But both Miss Cornelia and Anderson were too engrossed in their conversation to notice her.
Miss Cornelia hesitated.
“Isn’t it possible that there is a connection between the colossal theft at the Union Bank and these disturbances?” she said.
Anderson seemed to think over the question.
“What do you mean?” he asked as Dale slowly moved into the room from the alcove, silently closing the alcove doors behind her, and still unobserved.
“Suppose,” said Miss Cornelia slowly, “that Courtleigh Fleming took that money from his own bank and concealed it in this house?” The eavesdropper grew rigid.
“That’s the theory you gave headquarters, isn’t it?” said Anderson. “But I’ll tell you how headquarters figures it out. In the first place, the cashier is missing. In the second place, if Courtleigh Fleming did it and got as far as Colorado, he had it with him when he died, and the facts apparently don’t bear that out. In the third place, suppose he had hidden the money in or around this house. Why did he rent it to you?”
“But he didn’t” said Miss Cornelia obstinately, “I leased this house from his nephew, his heir.”
The detective smiled tolerantly.
“Well, I wouldn’t struggle like that for a theory,” he said, the professional note coming back to his voice. “The cashier’s missing – that’s the answer.”
Miss Cornelia resented his offhand demolition of the mental card-castle she had erected with such pride.
“I have read a great deal on the detection of crime,” she said hotly, “and – “
“Well, we all have our little hobbies,” he said tolerantly. “A good many people rather fancy themselves as detectives and run around looking for clues under the impression that a clue is a big and vital factor that sticks up like – well, like a sore thumb. The fact is that the criminal takes care of the big and important factors. It’s only the little ones he may overlook. To go back to your friend the Bat, it’s because of his skill in little things that he’s still at large.”
“Then you don’t think there’s a chance that the money from the Union Bank is in this house?” persisted Miss Cornelia.
“I think it very unlikely.”
Miss Cornelia put her knitting away and rose. She still clung tenaciously to her own theories but her belief in them had been badly shaken.
“If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you to your room,” she said a little stiffly. The detective stepped back to let her pass.
“Sorry to spoil your little theory,” he said, and followed her to the door. If either had noticed the unobtrusive listener to their conversation, neither made a sign.
The moment the door had closed on them Dale sprang into action. She seemed a different girl from the one who had left the room so inconspicuously such a short time before. There were two bright spots of color in her cheeks and she was obviously laboring under great excitement. She went quickly to the alcove doors – they opened softly – disclosing the young man who had said that he was Brooks the new gardener – and yet not the same young man – for his assumed air of servitude had dropped from him like a cloak, revealing him as a young fellow at least of the same general social class as Dale’s if not a fellow-inhabitant of the select circle where Van Gorders revolved about Van Gorders, and a man’s great-grandfather was more important than the man himself.
Dale cautioned him with a warning finger as he advanced into the room.
“Sh! Sh!” she whispered. “Be careful! That man’s a detective!”
Brooks gave a hunted glance at the door into the hall.
“Then they’ve traced me here,” he said in a dejected voice.
“I don’t think so.”
He made a gesture of helplessness.
“I couldn’t get back to my rooms,” he said in a whisper. “If they’ve searched them,” he paused, “as they’re sure to – they’ll find your letters to me.” He paused again. “Your aunt doesn’t suspect anything?”
“No, I told her I’d engaged a gardener – and that’s all there was about it.”
He came nearer to her. “Dale!” he murmured in a tense voice. “You know I didn’t take that money!” he said with boyish simplicity.
All the loyalty of first-love was in her answer.
“Of course! I believe in you absolutely!” she said. He caught her in his arms and kissed her – gratefully, passionately. Then the galling memory of the predicament in which he stood, the hunt already on his trail, came back to him. He released her gently, still holding one of her hands.
“But – the police here!” he stammered, turning away. “What does that mean?”
Dale swiftly informed him of the situation.
“Aunt Cornelia says people have been trying to break into this house for days – at night.”
Brooks ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of bewilderment. Then he seemed to catch at a hope.
“What sort of people?” he queried sharply.
Dale was puzzled. “She doesn’t know.”
The excitement in her lover’s manner came to a head. “That proves exactly what I’ve contended right along,” he said, thudding one fist softly in the palm of the other. “Through some underneath channel old Fleming has been selling those securities for months, turning them into cash. And somebody knows about it, and knows that that money is hidden here. Don’t you see? Your Aunt Cornelia has crabbed the game by coming here.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police that? Now they think, because you ran away – “
“Ran away! The only chance I had was a few hours to myself to try to prove what actually happened.”
“Why don’t you tell the detective what you think?” said Dale at her wits’ end. “That Courtleigh Fleming took the money and that it is still here?”
Her lover’s face grew somber.
“He’d take me into custody at once and I’d have no chance to search.”
He was searching now – his eyes roved about the living-room – walls – ceiling – hopefully – desperately – looking for a clue – the tiniest clue to support his theory.
“Why are you so sure it is here?” queried Dale.
Brooks explained. “You must remember Fleming was no ordinary defaulter and he had no intention of being exiled to a foreign country. He wanted to come back here and take his place in the community while I was in the pen.
“But even then – “
He interrupted her. “Listen, dear – ” He crossed to the billiard-room door, closed it firmly, returned.
“The architect that built this house was an old friend of mine,” he said in hushed accents. “We were together in France and you know the way fellows get to talking when they’re far away and cut off – ” He paused, seeing the cruel gleam of the flame throwers – two figures huddled in a foxhole, whiling away the terrible hours of waiting by muttered talk.
“Just an hour or two before – a shell got this friend of mine,” he resumed, “he told me he had built a hidden room in this house.”
“Where?” gasped Dale.
Brooks shook his head. “I don’t know. We never got to finish that conversation. But I remember what he said. He said, ‘You watch old Fleming. If I get mine over here it won’t break his heart. He didn’t want any living being to know about that room.'”
Now Dale was as excited as he.
“Then you think the money is in this hidden room?”
“I do,” said Brooks decidedly. “I don’t think Fleming took it away with him. He was too shrewd for that. No, he meant to come back all right, the minute he got the word the bank had been looted. And he’d fixed things so I’d be railroaded to prison – you wouldn’t understand, but it was pretty neat. And then the fool nephew rents this house the minute he’s dead, and whoever knows about the money – “
“Jack! Why isn’t it the nephew who is trying to break in?”
“He wouldn’t have to break in. He could make an excuse and come in any time.”
He clenched his hands despairingly.
“If I could only get hold of a blue-print of this place!” he muttered.
Dale’s face fell. It was sickening to be so close to the secret – and yet not find it. “Oh, Jack, I’m so confused and worried!” she confessed, with a little sob.
Brooks put his hands on her shoulders in an effort to cheer her spirits.
“Now listen, dear,” he said firmly, “this isn’t as hard as it sounds. I’ve got a clear night to work in – and as true as I’m standing here, that money’s in this house. Listen, honey – it’s like this.” He pantomimed the old nursery rhyme of The House that Jack Built, “Here’s the house that Courtleigh Fleming built – here, somewhere, is the Hidden Room in the house that Courtleigh Fleming built – and here – somewhere – pray Heaven – is the money – in the Hidden Room – in the house that Courtleigh Fleming built. When you’re low in your mind, just say that over!”
She managed a faint smile. “I’ve forgotten it already,” she said, drooping.
He still strove for an offhand gaiety that he did not feel.
“Why, look here!” and she followed the play of his hands obediently, like a tired child, “it’s a sort of game, dearest. ‘Money, money – who’s got the money?’ You know!” For the dozenth time he stared at the unrevealing walls of the room. “For that matter,” he added, “the Hidden Room may be behind these very walls.”
He looked about for a tool, a poker, anything that would sound the walls and test them for hollow spaces. Ah, he had it – that driver in the bag of golf clubs over in the corner. He got the driver and stood wondering where he had best begin. That blank wall above the fireplace looked as promising as any. He tapped it gently with the golf club – afraid to make too much noise and yet anxious to test the wall as thoroughly as possible. A dull, heavy reverberation answered his stroke – nothing hollow there apparently.
As he tried another spot, again thunder beat the long roll on its iron drum outside, in the night. The lights blinked – wavered – recovered.
“The lights are going out again,” said Dale dully, her excitement sunk into a stupefied calm.
“Let them go! The less light the better for me. The only thing to do is to go over this house room by room.” He pointed to the billiard room door. “What’s in there?”
“The billiard room.” She was thinking hard. “Jack! Perhaps Courtleigh Fleming’s nephew would know where the blue-prints are!”
He looked dubious. “It’s a chance, but not a very good one,” he said. “Well – ” He led the way into the billiard room and began to rap at random upon its walls while Dale listened intently for any echo that might betray the presence of a hidden chamber or sliding panel.
Thus it happened that Lizzie received the first real thrill of what was to prove to her – and to others – a sensational and hideous night. For, coming into the living-room to lay a cloth for Mr. Anderson’s night suppers not only did the lights blink threateningly and the thunder roll, but a series of spirit raps was certainly to be heard coming from the region of the billiard room.
“Oh, my God!” she wailed, and the next instant the lights went out, leaving her in inky darkness. With a loud shriek she bolted out of the room.
Thunder – lightning – dashing of rain on the streaming glass of the windows – the storm hallooing its hounds. Dale huddled close to her lover as they groped their way back to the living-room, cautiously, doing their best to keep from stumbling against some heavy piece of furniture whose fall would arouse the house.
“There’s a candle on the table, Jack, if I can find the table.” Her outstretched hands touched a familiar object. “Here it is.” She fumbled for a moment. “Have you any matches?”
“Yes.” He struck one – another – lit the candle – set it down on the table. In the weak glow of the little taper, whose tiny flame illuminated but a portion of the living-room, his face looked tense and strained.
“It’s pretty nearly hopeless,” he said, “if all the walls are paneled like that.
As if in mockery of his words and his quest, a muffled knocking that seemed to come from the ceiling of the very room he stood in answered his despair.
“What’s that?” gasped Dale.
They listened. The knocking was repeated – knock – knock – knock – knock.
“Someone else is looking for the Hidden Room!” muttered Brooks, gazing up at the ceiling intently, as if he could tear from it the secret of this new mystery by sheer strength of will.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE GLEAMING EYE
“It’s upstairs!” Dale took a step toward the alcove stairs. Brooks halted her.
“Who’s in this house besides ourselves?” he queried.
“Only the detective, Aunt Cornelia, Lizzie, and Billy.”
“Billy’s the Jap?”
“Yes.”
Brooks paused an instant. “Does he belong to your aunt?”
“No. He was Courtleigh Fleming’s butler.”
Knock – knock – knock – knock the dull, methodical rapping on the ceiling of the living-room began again.
“Courtleigh Fleming’s butler, eh?” muttered Brooks. He put down his candle and stole noiselessly into the alcove. “It may be the Jap!” he whispered.
Knock – knock – knock – knock! This time the mysterious rapping seemed to come from the upper hall.
“If it is the Jap, I’ll get him!” Brooks’s voice was tense with resolution. He hesitated – made for the hall door – tiptoed out into the darkness around the main staircase, leaving Dale alone in the living-room beset by shadowy terrors.
Utter silence succeeded his noiseless departure. Even the storm lulled for a moment. Dale stood thinking, wondering, searching desperately for some way to help her lover.
At last a resolution formed in her mind. She went to the city telephone.
“Hello,” she said in a low voice, glancing over her shoulder now and then to make sure she was not overheard. “l-2-4 – please – yes, that’s right. Hello – is that the country club? Is Mr. Richard Fleming there? Yes, I’ll hold the wire.”
She looked about nervously. Had something moved in that corner of blackness where her candle did not pierce? No! How silly of her!
Buzz-buzz on the telephone. She picked up the receiver again.
“Hello – is this Mr. Fleming? This is Miss Ogden – Dale Ogden. I know it must seem odd my calling you this late, but – I wonder if you could come over here for a few minutes. Yes – tonight.” Her voice grew stronger. “I wouldn’t trouble you but – it’s awfully important. Hold the wire a moment.” She put down the phone and made another swift survey of the room, listened furtively at the door – all clear! She returned to the phone.
“Hello – Mr. Fleming – I’ll wait outside the house on the drive. It – it’s a confidential matter. Thank you so much.”
She hung up the phone, relieved – not an instant too soon, for, as she crossed toward the fireplace to add a new log to the dying glow of the fire, the hall door opened and Anderson, the detective, came softly in with an unlighted candle in his hand.
Her composure almost deserted her. How much had he heard? What deduction would he draw if he had heard? An assignation, perhaps! Well, she could stand that; she could stand anything to secure the next few hours of liberty for Jack. For that length of time she and the law were at war; she and this man were at war.
But his first words relieved her fears.
“Spooky sort of place in the dark, isn’t it?” he said casually.
“Yes – rather.” If he would only go away before Brooks came back or Richard Fleming arrived! But he seemed in a distressingly chatty frame of mind.
“Left me upstairs without a match,” continued Anderson. “I found my way down by walking part of the way and falling the rest. Don’t suppose I’ll ever find the room I left my toothbrush in!” He laughed, lighting the candle in his hand from the candle on the table.
“You’re not going to stay up all night, are you?” said Dale nervously, hoping he would take the hint. But he seemed entirely oblivious of such minor considerations as sleep. He took out a cigar.
“Oh, I may doze a bit,” he said. He eyed her with a certain approval. She was a darned pretty girl and she looked intelligent. “I suppose you have a theory of your own about these intrusions you’ve been having here? Or apparently having.”
“I knew nothing about them until tonight.”
“Still,” he persisted conversationally, “you know about them now.” But when she remained silent, “Is Miss Van Gorder usually – of a nervous temperament? Imagines she sees things, and all that?”
“I don’t think so.” Dale’s voice was strained. Where was Brooks? What had happened to him?
Anderson puffed on his cigar, pondering. “Know the Flemings?” he asked.
“I’ve met Mr. Richard Fleming once or twice.”
Something in her tone caused him to glance at her. “Nice fellow?”
“I don’t know him at all well.”
“Know the cashier of the Union Bank?” he shot at her suddenly.
“No!” She strove desperately to make the denial convincing but she could not hide the little tremor in her voice.
The detective mused.
“Fellow of good family, I understand,” he said, eyeing her. “Very popular. That’s what’s behind most of these bank embezzlements – men getting into society and spending more than they make.”
Dale hailed the tinkle of the city telephone with an inward sigh of relief. The detective moved to answer the house phone on the wall by the alcove, mistaking the direction of the ring. Dale corrected him quickly.
“No, the other one. That’s the house phone.” Anderson looked the apparatus over.
“No connection with the outside, eh?”
“No,” said Dale absent-mindedly. “Just from room to room in the house.”
He accepted her explanation and answered the other telephone.
“Hello – hello – what the – ” He moved the receiver hook up and down, without result, and gave it up. “This line sounds dead,” he said.
“It was all right a few minutes ago,” said Dale without thinking.
“You were using it a few minutes ago?”
She hesitated – what use to deny what she had already admitted, for all practical purposes.
“Yes.”
The city telephone rang again. The detective pounced upon it.
“Hello – yes – yes – this is Anderson – go ahead.” He paused, while the tiny voice in the receiver buzzed for some seconds. Then he interrupted it impatiently.
“You’re sure of that, are you? I see. All right. ‘By.”
He hung up the receiver and turned swiftly on Dale. “Did I understand you to say that you were not acquainted with the cashier of the Union Bank?” he said to her with a new note in his voice.
Dale stared ahead of her blankly. It had come! She did not reply.
Anderson went on ruthlessly.
“That was headquarters, Miss Ogden. They have found some letters in Bailey’s room which seem to indicate that you were not telling the entire truth just now.”
He paused, waiting for her answer. “What letters?” she said wearily.
“From you to Jack Bailey – showing that you had recently become engaged to him.”
Dale decided to make a clean breast of it, or as clean a one as she dared.
“Very well,” she said in an even voice, “that’s true.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” There was menace beneath his suavity.
She thought swiftly. Apparent frankness seemed to be the only resource left her. She gave him a candid smile.
“It’s been a secret. I haven’t even told my aunt yet.” Now she let indignation color her tones. “How can the police be so stupid as to accuse Jack Bailey, a young man and about to be married? Do you think he would wreck his future like that?”
“Some people wouldn’t call it wrecking a future to lay away a million dollars,” said Anderson ominously. He came closer to Dale, fixing her with his eyes. “Do you know where Bailey is now?” He spoke slowly and menacingly.
She did not flinch.
“No.”
The detective paused.
“Miss Ogden,” he said, still with that hidden threat in his voice, “in the last minute or so the Union Bank case and certain things in this house have begun to tie up pretty close together. Bailey disappeared this morning. Have you heard from him since?”
Her eyes met his without weakening, her voice was cool and composed.
“No.”
The detective did not comment on her answer. She could not tell from his face whether he thought she had told the truth or lied. He turned away from her brusquely.
“I’ll ask you to bring Miss Van Gorder here,” he said in his professional voice.
“Why do you want her?” Dale blazed at him rebelliously.
He was quiet. “Because this case is taking on a new phase.”
“You don’t think I know anything about that money?” she said, a little wildly, hoping that a display of sham anger might throw him off the trail he seemed to be following.
He seemed to accept her words, cynically, at their face value.
“No,” he said, “but you know somebody who does.” Dale hesitated, sought for a biting retort, found none. It did not matter; any respite, no matter how momentary, from these probing questions, would be a relief. She silently took one of the lighted candles and left the living-room to search for her aunt.
Left alone, the detective reflected for a moment, then picking up the one lighted candle that remained, commenced a systematic examination of the living-room. His methods were thorough, but if, when he came to the end of his quest, he had made any new discoveries, the reticent composure of his face did not betray the fact. When he had finished he turned patiently toward the billiard room – the little flame of his candle was swallowed up in its dark recesses – he closed the door of the living-room behind him. The storm was dying away now, but a few flashes of lightning still flickered, lighting up the darkness of the deserted living-room now and then with a harsh, brief glare.
A lightning flash – a shadow cast abruptly on the shade of one of the French windows, to disappear as abruptly as the flash was blotted out – the shadow of a man – a prowler – feeling his way through the lightning-slashed darkness to the terrace door. The detective? Brooks? The Bat? The lightning flash was too brief for any observer to have recognized the stealing shape – if any observer had been there.
But the lack of an observer was promptly remedied. Just as the shadowy shape reached the terrace door and its shadow-fingers closed over the knob, Lizzie entered the deserted living-room on stumbling feet. She was carrying a tray of dishes and food – some cold meat on a platter, a cup and saucer, a roll, a butter pat – and she walked slowly, with terror only one leap behind her and blank darkness ahead.
She had only reached the table and was preparing to deposit her tray and beat a shameful retreat, when a sound behind her made her turn. The key in the door from the terrace to the alcove had clicked. Paralyzed with fright she stared and waited, and the next moment a formless thing, a blacker shadow in a world of shadows, passed swiftly in and up the small staircase.
But not only a shadow. To Lizzie’s terrified eyes it bore an eye, a single gleaming eye, just above the level of the stair rail, and this eye was turned on her.
It was too much. She dropped the tray on the table with a crash and gave vent to a piercing shriek that would have shamed the siren of a fire engine.
Miss Cornelia and Anderson, rushing in from the hall and the billiard room respectively, each with a lighted candle, found her gasping and clutching at the table for support.
“For the love of heaven, what’s wrong?” cried Miss Cornelia irritatedly. The coffeepot she was carrying in her other hand spilled a portion of its boiling contents on Lizzie’s shoe and Lizzie screamed anew and began to dance up and down on the uninjured foot.
“Oh, my foot – my foot!” she squealed hysterically. “My foot!”
Miss Cornelia tried to shake her back to her senses.
“My patience! Did you yell like that because you stubbed your toe?”
“You scalded it!” cried Lizzie wildly. “It went up the staircase!”
“Your toe went up the staircase?”
“No, no! An eye – an eye as big as a saucer! It ran right up that staircase – ” She indicated the alcove with a trembling forefinger. Miss Cornelia put her coffeepot and her candle down on the table and opened her mouth to express her frank opinion of her factotum’s sanity. But here the detective took charge.
“Now see here,” he said with some sternness to the quaking Lizzie, “stop this racket and tell me what you saw!”
“A ghost!” persisted Lizzie, still hopping around on one leg. “It came right through that door and ran up the stairs – oh – ” and she seemed prepared to scream again as Dale, white-faced, came in from the hall, followed by Billy and Brooks, the latter holding still another candle.
“Who screamed?” said Dale tensely.
“I did!” Lizzie wailed, “I saw a ghost!” She turned to Miss Cornelia. “I begged you not to come here,” she vociferated. “I begged you on my bended knees. There’s a graveyard not a quarter of a mile away.”
“Yes, and one more scare like that, Lizzie Allen, and you’ll have me lying in it,” said her mistress unsympathetically. She moved up to examine the scene of Lizzie’s ghostly misadventure, while Anderson began to interrogate its heroine.
“Now, Lizzie,” he said, forcing himself to urbanity, “what did you really see?”
“I told you what I saw.”
His manner grew somewhat threatening.
“You’re not trying to frighten Miss Van Gorder into leaving this house and going back to the city?”
“Well, if I am,” said Lizzie with grim, unconscious humor, “I’m giving myself an awful good scare, too, ain’t I?”
The two glared at each other as Miss Cornelia returned from her survey of the alcove.
“Somebody who had a key could have got in here, Mr. Anderson,” she said annoyedly. “That terrace door’s been unbolted from the inside.”
Lizzie groaned. “I told you so,” she wailed. “I knew something was going to happen tonight. I heard rappings all over the house today, and the ouija-board spelled Bat!”
The detective recovered his poise. “I think I see the answer to your puzzle, Miss Van Gorder,” he said, with a scornful glance at Lizzie. “A hysterical and not very reliable woman, anxious to go back to the city and terrified over and over by the shutting off of the electric lights.”
If looks could slay, his characterization of Lizzie would have laid him dead at her feet at that instant. Miss Van Gorder considered his theory.
“I wonder,” she said.
The detective rubbed his hands together more cheerfully.
“A good night’s sleep and – ” he began, but the irrepressible Lizzie interrupted him.
“My God, we’re not going to bed, are we?” she said, with her eyes as big as saucers.
He gave her a kindly pat on the shoulder, which she obviously resented.
“You’ll feel better in the morning,” he said. “Lock your door and say your prayers, and leave the rest to me.”
Lizzie muttered something inaudible and rebellious, but now Miss Cornelia added her protestations to his.
“That’s very good advice,” she said decisively. “You take her, Dale.”
Reluctantly, with a dragging of feet and scared glances cast back over her shoulder, Lizzie allowed herself to be drawn toward the door and the main staircase by Dale. But she did not depart without one Parthian shot.
“I’m not going to bed!” she wailed as Dale’s strong young arm helped her out into the hall. “Do you think I want to wake up in the morning with my throat cut?” Then the creaking of the stairs, and Dale’s soothing voice reassuring her as she painfully clambered toward the third floor, announced that Lizzie, for some time at least, had been removed as an active factor from the puzzling equation of Cedarcrest.
Anderson confronted Miss Cornelia with certain relief.
“There are certain things I want to discuss with you, Miss Van Gorder,” he said. “But they can wait until tomorrow morning.”
Miss Cornelia glanced about the room. His manner was reassuring.
“Do you think all this – pure imagination?” she said.
“Don’t you?”
She hesitated. “I’m not sure.”
He laughed. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You go upstairs and go to bed comfortably. I’ll make a careful search of the house before I settle down, and if I find anything at all suspicious, I’ll promise to let you know.”
She agreed to that, and after sending the Jap out for more coffee prepared to go upstairs.
Never had the thought of her own comfortable bed appealed to her so much. But, in spite of her weariness, she could not quite resign herself to take Lizzie’s story as lightly as the detective seemed to.
“If what Lizzie says is true,” she said, taking her candle, “the upper floors of the house are even less safe than this one.”
“I imagine Lizzie’s account just now is about as reliable as her previous one as to her age,” Anderson assured her. “I’m certain you need not worry. Just go on up and get your beauty sleep; I’m sure you need it.”
On which ambiguous remark Miss Van Gorder took her leave, rather grimly smiling.
It was after she had gone that Anderson’s glance fell on Brooks, standing warily in the doorway.
“What are you? The gardener?”
But Brooks was prepared for him.
“Ordinarily I drive a car,” he said. “Just now I’m working on the place here.”
Anderson was observing him closely, with the eyes of a man ransacking his memory for a name – a picture. “I’ve seen you somewhere – ” he went on slowly. “And I’ll – place you before long.” There was a little threat in his shrewd scrutiny. He took a step toward Brooks.
“Not in the portrait gallery at headquarters, are you?”
“Not yet.” Brooks s voice was resentful. Then he remembered his pose and his back grew supple, his whole attitude that of the respectful servant.
“Well, we slip up now and then,” said the detective slowly. Then, apparently, he gave up his search for the name – the pictured face. But his manner was still suspicious.
“All right, Brooks,” he said tersely, “if you’re needed in the night, you’ll be called!”
Brooks bowed. “Very well, sir.” He closed the door softly behind him, glad to have escaped as well as he had.
But that he had not entirely lulled the detective’s watchfulness to rest was evident as soon as he had gone. Anderson waited a few seconds, then moved noiselessly over to the hall door – listened – opened it suddenly – closed it again. Then he proceeded to examine the alcove – the stairs, where the gleaming eye had wavered like a corpse-candle before Lizzie’s affrighted vision. He tested the terrace door and bolted it. How much truth had there been in her story? He could not decide, but he drew out his revolver nevertheless and gave it a quick inspection to see if it was in working order. A smile crept over his face – the smile of a man who has dangerous work to do and does not shrink from the prospect. He put the revolver back in his pocket and, taking the one lighted candle remaining, went out by the hall door, as the storm burst forth in fresh fury and the window-panes of the living-room rattled before a new reverberation of thunder.
For a moment, in the living-room, except for the thunder, all was silence. Then the creak of surreptitious footsteps broke the stillness – light footsteps descending the alcove stairs where the gleaming eye had passed.
It was Dale slipping out of the house to keep her appointment with Richard Fleming. She carried a raincoat over her arm and a pair of rubbers in one hand. Her other hand held a candle. By the terrace door she paused, unbolted it, glanced out into the streaming night with a shiver. Then she came into the living-room and sat down to put on her rubbers.
Hardly had she begun to do so when she started up again. A muffled knocking sounded at the terrace door. It was ominous and determined, and in a panic of terror she rose to her feet. If it was the law, come after Jack, what should she do? Or again, suppose it was the Unknown who had threatened them with death? Not coherent thoughts these, but chaotic, bringing panic with them. Almost unconscious of what she was doing, she reached into the drawer beside her, secured the revolver there and leveled it at the door.
CHAPTER NINE
A SHOT IN THE DARK
A key clicked in the terrace door – a voice swore muffledly at the rain. Dale lowered her revolver slowly. It was Richard Fleming – come to meet her here, instead of down by the drive.
She had telephoned him on an impulse. But now, as she looked at him in the light of her single candle, she wondered if this rather dissipated, rather foppish young man about town, in his early thirties, could possibly understand and appreciate the motives that had driven her to seek his aid. Still, it was for Jack! She clenched her teeth and resolved to go through with the plan mapped out in her mind. It might be a desperate expedient but she had nowhere else to turn!
Fleming shut the terrace door behind him and moved down from the alcove, trying to shake the rain from his coat.
“Did I frighten you?”
“Oh, Mr. Fleming – yes!” Dale laid her aunt’s revolver down on the table. Fleming perceived her nervousness and made a gesture of apology.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I rapped but nobody seemed to hear me, so I used my key.”
“You’re wet through – I’m sorry,” said Dale with mechanical politeness.
He smiled. “Oh, no.” He stripped off his cap and raincoat and placed them on a chair, brushing himself off as he did so with finicky little movements of his hands.
“Reggie Beresford brought me over in his car,” he said. “He’s waiting down the drive.”
Dale decided not to waste words in the usual commonplaces of social greeting.
“Mr. Fleming, I’m in dreadful trouble!” she said, facing him squarely, with a courageous appeal in her eyes.
He made a polite movement. “Oh, I say! That’s too bad.”
She plunged on. “You know the Union Bank closed today.”
He laughed lightly.
“Yes, I know it! I didn’t have anything in it – or any other bank for that matter,” he admitted ruefully, “but I hate to see the old thing go to smash.”
Dale wondered which angle was best from which to present her appeal.
“Well, even if you haven’t lost anything in this bank failure, a lot of your friends have – surely?” she went on.
“I’ll say so!” said Fleming, debonairly. “Beresford is sitting down the road in his Packard now writhing with pain!”
Dale hesitated; Fleming’s lightness seemed so incorrigible that, for a moment, she was on the verge of giving her project up entirely. Then, “Waster or not – he’s the only man who can help us!” she told herself and
continued.
“Lots of awfully poor people are going to suffer, too,” she said wistfully.
Fleming chuckled, dismissing the poor with a wave of his hand.
“Oh, well, the poor are always in trouble,” he said with airy heartlessness. “They specialize in suffering.”
He extracted a monogrammed cigarette from a thin gold case.
“But look here,” he went on, moving closer to Dale, “you didn’t send for me to discuss this hypothetical poor depositor, did you? Mind if I smoke?”
“No.” He lit his cigarette and puffed at it with enjoyment while Dale paused, summoning up her courage. Finally the words came in a rush.
“Mr. Fleming, I’m going to say something rather brutal. Please don’t mind. I’m merely – desperate! You see, I happen to be engaged to the cashier, Jack Bailey – “
Fleming whistled. “I see! And he’s beat it!”
Dale blazed with indignation.
“He has not! I’m going to tell you something. He’s here, now, in this house – ” she continued fierily, all her defenses thrown aside. “My aunt thinks he’s a new gardener. He is here, Mr. Fleming, because he knows he didn’t take the money, and the only person who could have done it was – your uncle!”
Dick Fleming dropped his cigarette in a convenient ash tray and crushed it out there, absently, not seeming to notice whether it scorched his fingers or not. He rose and took a turn about the room. Then he came back to Dale.
“That’s a pretty strong indictment to bring against a dead man,” he said slowly, seriously.
“It’s true!” Dale insisted stubbornly, giving him glance for glance.
Fleming nodded. “All right.”
He smiled – a smile that Dale didn’t like.
“Suppose it’s true – where do I come in?” he said. “You don’t think I know where the money is?”
“No,” admitted Dale, “but I think you might help to find it.”
She went swiftly over to the hall door and listened tensely for an instant. Then she came back to Fleming.
“If anybody comes in – you’ve just come to get something of yours,” she said in a low voice. He nodded understandingly. She dropped her voice still lower.
“Do you know anything about a Hidden Room in this house?” she asked.
Dick Fleming stared at her for a moment. Then he burst into laughter.
“A Hidden Room – that’s rich!” he said, still laughing. “Never heard of it! Now, let me get this straight. The idea is – a Hidden Room – and the money is in it – is that it?”
Dale nodded a “Yes.”
“The architect who built this house told Jack Bailey that he had built a Hidden Room in it,” she persisted.
For a moment Dick Fleming stared at her as if he could not believe his ears. Then, slowly, his expression changed. Beneath the well-fed, debonair mask of the clubman about town, other lines appeared – lines of avarice and calculation – wolf-marks, betokening the craft and petty ruthlessness of the small soul within the gentlemanly shell. His eyes took on a shifty, uncertain stare – they no longer looked at Dale – their gaze seemed turned inward, beholding a visioned treasure, a glittering pile of gold. And yet, the change in his look was not so pronounced as to give Dale pause – she felt a vague uneasiness steal over her, true – but it would have taken a shrewd and long-experienced woman of the world to read the secret behind Fleming’s eyes at first glance – and Dale, for all her courage and common sense, was a young and headstrong girl.
She watched him, puzzled, wondering why he made no comment on her last statement.
“Do you know where there are any blue-prints of the house?” she asked at last.
An odd light glittered in Fleming’s eyes for a moment. Then it vanished – he held himself in check – the casual idler again.
“blue-prints?” He seemed to think it over. “Why – there may be some. Have you looked in the old secretary in the library? My uncle used to keep all sorts of papers there,” he said with apparent helpfulness.
“Why, don’t you remember – you locked it when we took the house.”
“So I did.” Fleming took out his key ring, selected a key. “Suppose you go and Look,” he said. “Don’t you think I’d better stay here?”
“Oh, yes – ” said Dale, blinded to everything else by the rising hope in her heart. “Oh, I can hardly thank you enough!” and before he could even reply, she had taken the key and was hurrying toward the hall door.
He watched her leave the room, a bleak smile on his face. As soon as she had closed the door behind her, his languor dropped from him. He became a hound – a ferret – questing for its prey. He ran lightly over to the bookcase by the hall door – a moment’s inspection – he shook his head. Perhaps the other bookcase near the French windows – no – it wasn’t there. Ah, the bookcase over the fireplace! He remembered now! He made for it, hastily swept the books from the top shelf, reached groping fingers into the space behind the second row of books. There! A dusty roll of three blue-prints! He unrolled them hurriedly and tried to make out the white tracings by the light of the fire – no – better take them over to the candle on the table.
He peered at them hungrily in the little spot of light thrown by the candle. The first one – no – nor the second – but the third – the bottom one – good heavens! He took in the significance of the blurred white lines with greedy eyes, his lips opening in a silent exclamation of triumph. Then he pondered for an instant, the blue-print itself -was an awkward size – bulky – good, he had it! He carefully tore a small portion from the third blue-print and was about to stuff it in the inside pocket of his dinner jacket when Dale, returning, caught him before he had time to conceal his find. She took in the situation at once.
“Oh, you found it!” she said in tones of rejoicing, giving him back the key to the secretary. Then, as he still made no move to transfer the scrap of blue paper to her, “Please let me have it, Mr. Fleming. I know that’s it.”
Dick Fleming’s lips set in a thin line. “Just a moment,” he said, putting the table between them with a swift movement. Once more he stole a glance at the scrap of paper in his hand by the flickering light of the candle. Then he faced Dale boldly.
“Do you suppose, if that money is actually here, that I can simply turn this over to you and let you give it to Bailey?” he said. “Every man has his price. How do I know that Bailey’s isn’t a million dollars?”