Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood (10 page)

"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.

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—"