—that perhaps, beneath all his stage trappings, the man might even be competent. That's all."
Nervously Priscilla Luce leaned forward.
"Charles, obviously you don't know that Mary has been after me these past two weeks to go to Dmitri's with her. She hasn't asked me merely a few times; asked me incessantly. I've always refused—Gregory, as you know, would disapprove—and since last Friday she hasn't asked me once. But last Thursday evening she went again to Dmitri's. Did you know?"
Ethredge's mouth was grim. "I didn't, no."
Priscilla Luce leaned forward and put her hands pleadingly on Charles Ethredge's lean strong wrists.
"This is going to be hard, terribly hard, to tell you. And please, Charles, please understand that I have not come to you because you are Mary's fiancé; I am not as despicable as that. I have come to you because you are the Commissioner of Police, because, if anyone can, you can help her"
"In God's name." Ethredge whispered, "what is wrong? Tell me"
The woman's face was drawn with misery.
"Between Thursday last and last night Grandma Luce's brooch and tiara were stolen from my wall-safe. Only two persons know the combination to that safe, and of those two persons Gregory is automatically absolved"
"You suspect—Mary!" It was not a question; it was a statement—flat, lifeless. And in Ethredge's heart was a slow-growing horror, for this thing Mary could never have done; yet he knew, knew already that her hands had taken the jewels. . . .
"Yes. Gregory has had private detectives—from Philadelphia. Mary's fingerprints"
There was silence in that room, then, while Ethredge stared at Priscilla Luce's slender, patrician hands, still clasping his wrists.
"It was not in Mary to do this thing," he said at last, quietly. "There must be some other explanation, however incredible. Mary could never steal."
The small hands touching his wrists trembled.
"Perhaps I was wrong about you, and Mary," Priscilla Luce said softly. "I was arrogant—and ambitious for her. I am sorry."
Suddenly her eyes welled with tears, the great drops falling like glistening diamonds on Ethredge's hands. . . .
6. Ethredge Asks Help
"Peters, come to my apartment; I've got to talk to you."
Detective-Lieutenant Peters of the homicide squad, sitting with his square-toed boots outsplayed on the scarred top of his Detective-Bureau desk, listened, his face expressionless as stone, to the taut, nerve-racked voice of his chief. Calmly he spoke.
"O. K., Commissioner; I'll be right out." Carefully, leaning forward from his hips, he set the telephone down. For an instant he did not move; then he swung his feet to the floor and stood erect. His face, as he crossed the room toward the coat-rack, was still impassive.
Yet within his skull his thoughts were seething. Through an instinct born of long association and mutual trust he knew that the Commissioner had at last decided to confide in him; between the Commissioner and his subordinate there existed a peculiar—and by most persons unsuspected—friendship. . . .
W.T.—3
