The House of Intrigue/Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
AS I stood with my face pressed flat against a panel of that hardwood door a shiver of excitement went through my stooping body. I had stumbled across a bigger movement than I had dreamed of. And that movement had taken on a turn which was plainly staggering to my two old friends in rusty black. For even through my door-panel I could feel the silence that struck them dumb, for a moment, at that massive doctor's unlooked-for message.
"But that girl can't be dead!" quaveringly protested one of the old brothers. "Why, she was as alive as I am, forty minutes ago!"
"More so, probably," amended the other brother tartly. "For instead of gasping over this—this calamity, we'd better try to find out what's best to be done!"
This was followed by a moment or two of unbroken silence.
"Who knows about this?" demanded the same voice that had spoken last. I knew It was the little old man who had followed me through the city.
"Nobody but the nurse—I'm positive of that," was the doctor's answer.
Again there was a silence.
"If Brother Ezra will take a suggestion from me," began one of the piping-voiced old conspirators. But Brother Ezra shut him off short.
"Please do not croak at me, Enoch, when I'm trying to think." And I could hear him abstractedly and meditatively repeat that final phrase: "Trying to think—trying to think."
"But we haven't got time for thinking," broke in the fat doctor. I could hear the quick and decisive snapping of a finger-knuckle.
"You're right, Klinger, you're right," announced the old boy whose name seemed to be Ezra. "But we're going to take time to act. And it's still not too late for that!"
"But a dead woman can't—"
"Never mind that," I heard the thinner voice retort. "It's the live woman we've got to count on.
"Do you mean that baby- faced thing you've got in there?" demanded the somewhat incredulous Doctor Klinger.
- T mean that baby-face!" was the old man's determined retort. "For this thing has got to go through!"
"It's gone through!" ground out the heavier voice.
"Not the way I intend it to," shrilly corrected the other. "And if the girl's dead the first thing we've got to do is to get her out of that bed!"
"Her? Who?"
"The body, of course!"
"But get it where?" demanded the other, apparently still dazed.
"Why, out of sight, up-stairs, on the roof, anywhere!"
"But how is that going to help us?"
That stodgy doctor, it was plain to see, had a tendency to travel by freight.
"Why, if that Ledwidge woman can be trusted, it's going to do more than help us. It's going to save the day for us."
"I'd trust that trained nurse with anything," announced the doctor. "She's been on our side from the moment she stepped into this house."
"We'll need her there," amended the little old man's voice. "We can't make a dead woman write her name. That's perfectly true. But if you're going to have a substitute for a sick woman, you may as well have a substitute for a dead one. And that's what we're going to get!"
The silence that followed led me to infer that the three of them were thinking this over. And it must have been a very interesting subject for thought. But certain inferences and aspects of it gave me a quavery feeling in the region of the midriff.
"Just a moment, until I see if this street-cat is getting inquisitive. Just a—"
I didn't wait for more.
By the time that old weasel had the door open I was once more sitting in my chair, with my knees crossed, and a rather bored look on my face. I even yawned as he poked his silver-haloed head in through the opening,
"Just a moment or two," he purred. Then he wagged his bony head with its silvery nimbus, wagged it vigorously and approvingly, and shut the door again. But inside of three seconds I had stolen a base and had my ear back against the panel.
"—And get her powdered up, and well covered in that four-poster. Your Ledwidge woman can help you out in this. Then have the lights lowered, and herd that string of hungry-eyed heirs, the whole tribe of 'em, right into the room. Let 'em see her, if they're so anxious to see her. Let 'em stand there while the will is read and signed. I want 'em to think they see her sign it. Let 'em stare their eyes out, so long as they keep their distance!"
The quavery old voice spoke with such bitterness that I surmised the walls about me temporarily sheltered a family somewhat divided by enmity. But I had little time to think this over, for the chest-tones of the big doctor once more vibrated through my shielding panel.
"But can we depend on that girl at such a time?"
"We've got to depend on her!"
"But supposing she kicks over the traces? Supposing she smells a rat and tries to queer the whole game by—"
"How?"
"Well, supposing she tried to escape?"
"Why should she?"
"About any girl of that type would. And we've got to figure on that."
"But Cacciata would sandbag her before she got to the first street corner." He's there on guard. You know that as well as I do. And we're not here to suppose things. She'll go through with this, by heaven, or there'll be more than one dead woman in this house before morning!"
I began to realize that I had a very pleasant little time ahead of me. But I was more interested in what I was hearing, at that moment, than in what I was feeling. If about twenty-five hundred icy feet began to make a Jacob's ladder out of my spinal column, I didn't give that creepy sensation much thought, beyond surmising that I was getting into that game of theirs for keeps. For outside the door their talk was still going on, and I didn't want to miss any more of it than I had to.
"But how can you fool those people on the voice? Most of them must have heard that other girl's voice, and some of them must have known it for years."
The little old weasel, apparently, was not to be stumped by any such objections.
"We'll have our woman whisper—whisper, do you understand? She's a sick girl. Her voice is gone. Everything she says, every word, must be in a whisper. And the weaker she can make it the better—for in half an hour, don't you see, that girl's going to be dead!"
"Or our whole plan's going to be dead!" interpolated the none too optimistic doctor.
I couldn't help thinking, as I stood there, that these three worthies were accepting the death of a woman in a very sordid and matter-of-fact manner. It meant nothing more to them, apparently, than a punctured tire means to a motorist, or a broken teacup to a flat-dweller. Yet under that same roof, within the last few minutes, a human life had gone out—and all they were worrying about was how best to get rid of the remains!
My thoughts, however, soon came back to myself, for that strange trio were still gabbling away on the other side of the door.
"And here's another point," I could hear one of the old men say. "The moment the thing is over you'd better give that girl the needle. Give her enough of something to keep her under for a couple of hours."
"But what'll you do with her?" inquired the man of medicine. And I knew they were referring to me.
"We'll get her out of this house and stowed away in her sleeper for the West. If she's so anxious to travel, we're not going to detain her any!"
"Why couldn't Miss Ledwidge go with her—as far as Buffalo, at any rate—and make sure she's not going to double back and stir up trouble here?"
"She's not fool enough to wade back into this bon-fire!" was the little old weasel's retort. "And she's too small-minded to realize there's seven million dollars mixed up in what's going to happen!"
So I was small-minded, was I? And I was the sort of girl who'd goose-step away from a mystery that was tangled up with seven millions in money! And I was to be put casually to sleep while they carried me off the field, dead to the world, to wake up on the Wolverine somewhere west of the Great Lakes! Well, I decided, if I was going to do all that I was going to hand myself the surprise of my eventful young life. And as I heard a final muffled direction or two, and a hand begin to turn the door-knob, I scooted back to my seat.
I had my eyes closed when the door swung open.
"Did I dream it, or did you say you hadn't any time to waste?" I blandly inquired, as the weasel-faced old man sidled back into the room. And I tried to look as tired as I could.
His lips were pursed up, meditatively, as he stared at me with empty and ruminative eyes. But it was only for a moment or two.
"We'll be busy enough, my dear young lady, before the next quarter of an hour is gone. But there's one point I want to impress on you right now. If you have anything to say, it must be said before you leave this room!"
I resented his tone.
"Why?"
"For after that, remember, I want no sound out of you, not a sound beyond a whisper!"
His wrinkled old face took on an expression of ferocity which rather surprised me. Small as he was, I saw, he might prove about one part capsicum and three-parts puff-adder. And I stared at him with widened eyes as he shook a lean and bony forefinger at me. But I was calmer, inwardly, than when he had first spoken to me in Central Park.
"Then you'd better give me a tip about what you expect me to whisper," I ventured. "And another as to just what you're expecting from me anyway!"
He stared at me, once more in a sort of silent debate with himself.
"There's a trained nurse up-stairs who'll attend to all that," he explained. "A most estimable young woman!"
"You all seem to be that!" I said, sotto voce.
"We all seem to be which?" he barked back at me. And there was fire in his eye.
"What's that trained nurse's name?" I mildly inquired, remembering my part.
"Alicia Ledwidge, I believe," he told me, as he moved toward the door.
And a very estimable young person, indeed, I inwardly repeated—a regular young lily-white doe, to be acting in that sort of company, a snowy lambkin with a prune in her pocket, to be holding out in that sort of house! But I was compelled to keep my thoughts to myself, for my friend the weasel was already making impatient signs for me to follow him.
He first looked out along the hall (and his attitude was startlingly like that of a rodent peering from its burrow), apparently to make sure that the coast was clear. Then he led me to an automatic elevator with mother-of-pearl buttons, told me to step inside, and sent me sailing upward like a cash-bucket in a department-store.
When the door opened—and I noticed that it opened of itself—I stepped out into a dream of a room all done in green, with hangings and curtains of sea-green faintly threaded with silver. It had green brocaded chairs, and sconces of silver set in shields of paler green. It made me hold my breath for a moment, for I'd never seen anything like it in every-day life before. There was both grandeur and good taste there, in every corner of it, and it made the motion-picture sets of Fifth Avenue homes that I'd seen look like paper roses. And this was the real thing.
But even here I had little time taking things in, for at about the same moment that I stepped from the elevator a woman in the full uniform of a trained nurse stepped through a door in the opposite wall.
I looked her over with a good deal of care, for I felt that I might see considerable of her, before that night was over. And she, too, looked me over quickly and sharply, although her eyes were about as non-committal as anything I'd seen for some time. She was not as young a woman as I had expected. And the moment I clapped eyes on her I knew that she had a mind of her own and a brain that could work overtime if it had to. She was an inch or two taller than I was, and much better-looking. I suppose it was her uniform that made her seem so cool and calm and full of that cleared-for-action-and-what-comes-next air of hers.
"Are you Miss Ledwidge?" I meekly inquired.
Her nod told me that she was.
"Well, I was sent here for certain work which I was told you would explain to me," I announced.
"What is your name?" she asked. She spoke coolly, and with a note of authority. But there was something about her I couldn't help liking.
"Baddie Pretlow," I told her.
"And you have no idea of what you are to do?" she demanded.
"The main point seemed to be for me to keep my mouth shut!" I retorted. For one short second the faintest trace of a smile played about her clear-cut lips.
"I believe you are to be a patient of mine," she explained. It was clear that they'd also impressed on Alicia Ledwidge that the main point was for her to keep her mouth shut. So I decided to try her out.
"Excuse me, but are you a real trained nurse?" I asked her, as she crossed to a mahogany table on the right. She stopped and looked up quickly, but there was no change in her manner.
"Of course," was her quiet reply.
She seemed the right sort, that woman, and for the life of me I couldn't place her in that bunch of copperheads. She didn't look like the sort of woman who could be on their side. And I'd a feeling that she was the sort I'd rather have on my side.
"And as a patient, what am I supposed to do?" I inquired.
"What most patients do. Go to bed!"
She led me through to the next room, all done in yellow brocade. I'd seen enough French farces to feel sure that it was a boudoir. And it was a beautiful room to be in, if you were positive as to just when and how you were going to get out of it.
"And what do I have to do when I go to bed?" I asked, watching Miss Ledwidge as she carried in a flesh-colored night-gown of hand-embroidered crêpe-de-chine with a runway of French knots along the plaza and baby-runs down the side streets. It was a dream of a nightie, the sort of cobwebby thing every woman loves to slip into. The nurse must have noticed that hungry look on my face as I stared at it, for she smiled as she motioned for me to get off my street duds.
"Honest Injun, are you a professional nurse?" I asked her still again as I began to unpeel.
"Why shouldn't I be?" she parried, as she moved over to the dressing-table, without much show of interest in my question.
I laughed a little.
"Well, my idea of a professional nurse is a woman who's trying to make good by helping others when they need help. I kind of think of her as a person who's giving up her life to do what she can for the sick and the helpless."
"Well?" came curtly from the dressing-table.
"Well, I can't see the Carnegie Fund pinning any medals on you for the job you've taken up in this particular household," I deliberately announced, as I wormed my way into that cobweb of crêpe-de-chine. The smell of it reminded me of lilac-blossoms over a clover-field. By the time I had emerged Miss Ledwidge had turned slowly around and was staring at me.
"Perhaps," she slowly shot back at me, "I'm doing more in this house than you are aware of!"
And having smashed out that three-bagger she once more gave her attention to the cosmetic-jars on the dressing-table.
"Perhaps we all are!" I announced, just to keep her from being too contentedly sure of her ground.
But she paid no attention to that pin-prick. She didn't even seem interested. And still again I had the feeling of being flat up against a brick wall, when it came to the question of that woman's actual character.
"You'll have to take off those shoes," she announced as she came over to where I stood smoothing out my nightie. And off they came, though I stuck to my stockings, for I remembered that I had my six bank-notes cached there.
"You are thin!" remarked Miss Ledwidge, as she motioned me over to the dressing-tabie. And as I sat there putting on the white-wash she handed to me I felt for all the world like a leading-woman getting ready for a first night on Broadway. I rice-powdered my arms and shoulders and put little hollows under my eyes and liquid-whitened my face and softened the whole effect down with a blending-brush.
Then I stared at myself in the dresser mirror. I looked like a Bernhardt in the last act of Camille. I was the sickest-looking scarecrow that ever escaped the morgue. And when that little old weasel had picked my bag of bones, I inwardly remarked, he had surely selected something to suit his own ends.
Then I suddenly stopped smiling at myself. For already I saw I was stumbling into barb-wire entanglements.
I looked around just in time to behold Miss Ledwidge go to the door and hand my clothes, about every blessed rag and stitch I'd worn into that house, to somebody waiting for them out in the hall.
I was out of that chair in one jump. But the lady in the blue and white uniform barred my way.
"What are you doing with those clothes of mine?" I demanded, staring at her. But she never even winced.
"It was Mr. Bartlett's orders," she quietly explained.
"What do I care for Mr. Bartlett's orders?" I exploded. "I—"
"But Mr. Bartlett's orders are usually carried out in this house," she cut in. And she said it in a tone that reminded me of the bite of a rat-trap.
I could feel a hot wave go over me and by the time that wave had cooled off I could see what their dodge stood for. They weren't putting any too much faith in their street-cat, and they were cutting her claws for her. They were tying me down to that house until they got ready to let me go. They were deciding to keep me a prisoner there, until I carried out what they intended me to carry out.
But if they thought they had me trapped, by any cheap trick like that, they were going to find out they'd trapped a tartar.
So I stood there, waiting for my sense of humor to come back. It came, but it came by freight.
"Tell them to be sure and fumigate 'em!" I announced, as I sat down in front of the dressing-table again. "That's the procedure in most pens, I believe!"
"It is much safer, you know, to have them out of sight," explained the altogether too artful lady in the uniform. But she kept watching me, with a rather curious look in her eyes. And several times, later on, I caught her studying my face, when she thought I wasn't noticing her. Yet something about her attitude, all the while, tended to make me uncomfortable. It seemed to remind me that I was no longer a free agent. And I was right enough in this, for you can't go out and look up a cop without even a corset-cover on!
I was just deciding that I'd have to engineer that night's adventure without the help of the law when Miss Ledwidge, with a touch of impatience, reminded me that my bedroom was all ready and waiting.
"Just a minute!" I responded, as soft as silk. For as I sat there, pretending to be sniffing the faint odor of Apres l'ondee—at about six dollars an ounce—floating up from that nightie of mine, I decided I wasn't going to lie down in the shafts just because they had the check-rein over my nose.
On the dressing-table stood two tall and antique-looking candlesticks of Sheffield plate. They were very handsome, and also very heavy. Each of them was a good eighteen inches in height.
So I calmly reached over, pulled the ivory tinted candle out of its socket, wiped the head of the candlestick off with a face chamois that lay on the table-top, and meditatively weighed the column of metal in my hand. It felt the way a well-balanced bat must feel to a league player when he plants his heels down beside the home-plate.
"What are you doing with that?" asked the startled Miss Ledwidge, as she stepped back from the open door to see what had been keeping me.
I didn't answer her for a moment, for my attention was otherwise engaged. It was engaged in recovering from the rug at my feet a finger-ring that had fallen from that hollow candlestick as I so menacingly waved it up and down. It was a remarkable ring, made up of a large-sized pigeon-blood ruby surrounded by black pearls. That it should be hidden away in such a place struck me as odd. So I slipped it on my finger, stones in, until I had a better chance to look it over.
"That," I calmly explained to Miss Ledwidge, as I took up my candlestick again, "is going to stay right with me in bed. And if any one tries to spring any second little surprise on me, I'm going to spring this on them!"
That trained nurse laughed openly, for the first time. She didn't want to, apparently, but she couldn't help it. And while she stepped back into the other room again I had time for a look at my ring. On the inside of it I found an inscription. It said, "From Wendy, Christmas, 1912."
That "Wendy" jumped out at me like a jack-in-the-box. It was not a common name, and the only other time I'd ever heard of it, outside of Wendy Washburn, was in a play called Peter Pan which Myrtle and I had seen one Christmas week. But could this Wendy, I asked myself, in any way be the same Wendy as my Hero-Man! And if they were the same, these two Wendies, what was a ring which he had given to some unknown woman doing in this house of midnight mysteries?