Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood (8 page)

"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'll 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
passionately—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!

"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.