The House of Intrigue/Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
THE moment the room was clear of that preoccupied quartet I saw my chance. It may not have been much of a chance, but I didn't intend to miss it.
I was out of that bed, in one jump. I ran to the still open hall door, to close and lock it, for I was figuring on at least a flying start. Before I locked that door, however, I stepped out into the hall in my stocking feet. The place was as still as a grave. Then something which I could not define caused me to stare upward.
High above I saw a woman's face, white as a tombstone, leaning over the stair-railing. It was a young face, but a troubled one. I knew, even in that uncertain light, that it was a face which I had never seen before. It was so thin and colorless that I could feel a stirring somewhere about the roots of my hair.
For one brief moment it stared wistfully down at me, and then it disappeared from sight. I decided, as I backed hurriedly away into my bedroom, not to go up those stairs if I could help it.
I promptly swung the door shut and locked it. The first thing I needed, I remembered, was clothes. And the next was open air, for I'd had about enough of that house of mysteries.
I made for the bathroom, remembering the passageway lined with clothes-presses somewhere on the other side of it. Those presses, I decided, ought to show up something better than a crêpe-de-chine nightgown for street wear.
I was, of course, still in my stocking feet, so that my flight through the bathroom was noiseless. I closed and locked its door behind me, to ward off any surprises from the rear. Then I crept on to the next door, opening it as quietly as I could.
Then I stood stock-still. For I found myself confronted by something which, for a minute or two, I could not quite comprehend.
Every light in that room with its massive furniture and its sumptuous yellow brocade was on full. But that was not the cause of my consternation, for on the far side of the room, directly under the added glow of a wall-light, I saw a woman in black, with a black hat, and a black veil rolled up around its brim. Beside her^ on her left, stood a black leather club-bag. On her right, on the rug where she knelt, lay an ugly-looking blue-barreled automatic.
But she was directly interested in neither of these things, at the moment. For before her stood the open door of a wall-safe, and the woman was intently engaged in investigating the contents of this safe.
There was something so businesslike about her movements that for a moment I thought she must be some official from an appraiser's office making out a list of the assets of the Bartlett estate. Yet as I stood there watching her I noticed that she kept dropping neatly banded papers into the club-bag beside her. Then came a drawerful of jewelry, stones of many colors, some in cases, some loose in the drawer, a string of pearls in a square of black velvet, a long and slender chained lavaliere wound about a pad of soft buckskin, and a diamond sun-burst in a little holder that looked like a chamois boodle-bag.
And all this loot, I saw as I stood there, was being dropped promptly and calmly into the open leather bag on the rug-end.
I didn't like the look of that woman and I didn't like the look of that automatic. But I had no time for taking chances.
I tiptoed silently across the room until I stood close behind the figure so intently stooping over a safe-drawer. I waited until she leaned forward to investigate the next compartment of that safe. Then I stooped and let my hand slip out to that automatic.
I felt better, once that gun was in my hand. It had a candlestick beaten seven ways for Sunday. And it was loaded with a full clip of cartridges.
The woman in front of the safe went serenely on with her work. Then she snapped the club-bag shut, sighed audibly and brushed the tips of her fingers together, as though knocking dust from them. I could see her carefully wipe the metal handles and the japanned surfaces of the drawer-fronts. This I knew was to brush away any tell-tale finger prints. Then she looked down to the rug on her right. I could see her frown of perplexity. She felt along the knee of her lisle-thread stocking, still frowning. And in the meantime I balanced the automatic in my hand and trained the barrel directly at the back of her head. Then I felt that my moment had come.
"Stand up!" I called out sharply.
She came to her feet, with a jump like a jack-in-the-box released on its spring. And as she rose she also twisted about, so that we stood face to face.
It was my turn to gasp. For the woman I stood staring at was Copperhead Kate herself.
"So you're sloughin' this beat too!" she said, before I had time to speak. There was something more than audacity on her face. It was more than antagonism; it was hatred. So I made it a point to keep the automatic still leveled in her direction.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded, with a hand-wave toward the club-bag on the rug-end.
She laughed a hard and reckless laugh.
"Playing about the same game that you're trying to play," was her brazen retort as she viewed me and my flimsy apparel. "But still sleeping home!"
I didn't worry over her one-sided smile, for I never did possess one of those three-ring brains that could all keep busy at the same time. And I had considerable thinking to do at that particular moment.
"Well, I guess you can get ready to play my game for a little while," I told her quite casually. But I kept the gun where it was. I had reason enough for hating that woman. I couldn't help hating her. And this was the first time in my life I didn't have to play second fiddle to her.
"What game?" she demanded. Her smoky green eyes were staring at me sharply enough by this time.
"This sleeping sickness game," I retorted, "For I've had about my fill of it!"
"What d'you mean?" she asked, studying my face and plainly showing she didn't like the look of it.
"I mean you've got to take off that hat and dress," I told her without a quaver.
"When?"
"Right away."
"Why?"
"Because I need 'em in my business. So peel off, Katie, before the ugly side of my disposition gets to shooting off its fire-works."
"You're kiddin'!" protested Copperhead Kate, backing away a little.
I was right beside her in a jiffy and I had the gun-barrel close up between two of her corset-steels.
"You get off that dress!" I told her, and I said it as though I meant it. She stared into my face for several seconds. Then she looked sidewise at the club-bag.
"How about that?" she had the nerve to ask, with a movement toward her bagful of loot.
It was my turn at bat; and I let her know it.
"That's not what you're here to worry about. Your present trouble is whether you take that dress off while you're still warm or I take it off before you get cold!"
Once more she gave me the benefit of her studious green eyes.
"Then you get that gun away from my ribs," she said, for I had made my stare quite as belligerent as her own. And I had the hardware to back it up.
"Not on your life," I told her. But I let her back away a foot or two.
"And then what've I got to do?" she asked, as she took out her hat-pins and tossed the hat into a yellow brocaded chair beside her.
"You're going to put on this nice silk nightie and go to bed," I told her.
"To bed?"
"Yes, to bed."
"Where?" she demanded, with a blink of incredulity.
"In the swellest bedroom," I retorted, "that you ever stretched out in."
I wasn't sorry to see that she was beginning to unpeel.
"I didn't come here to stretch out in any bed," she protested with vigor. But she flung her black waist down beside the black hat on the chair.
I was outside of my flesh-colored nightie in one wriggle. And the next minute I had the satisfaction of beholding Copperhead Kate step sullenly out of her skirt.
It surprised me a little, to see her fall into line that easy. But I had no time to ask questions. I wanted to get away from that house, and get away in a hurry.
"Now climb into this night-dress," I commanded as I pounced on that precious pile of clothing and backed away until two-thirds of the room stood between us. For it's no easy thing to get into a skirt and handle an automatic at the same time.
But neither of us spoke until the last snap was done up. And a big wave of confidence came back to me as I felt that apparel once more about me, whether it fitted or not. It left me almost light-hearted.
"Now come and go by-by!" was my triumphant command to Copperhead Kate, as I backed away toward the door and unlocked it. But every moment of the time I kept my eye on that green-eyed lady with the undulatory body movements.
"You'll pay for this," she said very quietly, as I listened at the bathroom door for a moment before turning the key in the lock.
"I have paid for it!" I announced, ignoring the venom in her voice. For I had too many troubles, just then, to give much time to that green-eyed gim-moll's foolish threats.
The big rose and gold bedroom, I noticed as I stepped guardedly into it, was still empty. So I ushered the sullen-eyed and languid-moving lady in the crêpe-de-chine night-dress into its splendors.
She looked the room over with a hostile eye. Then she turned to me, frowning with perplexity.
"What are you trying to steer me into, anyway?" she demanded, as I pointed silently but meaningly toward the big four-poster. But she betrayed no immediate intention of climbing in between those crested sheets.
"Listen to me," I said, "for my time is short."
"So are your manners!" promptly remarked my unwilling captive.
"Well, they may get worse, if they're tried too hard," I warned her, with a show of anger. "But if you're wise you'll climb into that bed without too much back-talk!"
"I prefer staying out of it," was her sullen retort.
"But I say you're going to get in it!"
"Why?"
"Because it's your only chance of a get-away," I tried to explain to her.
"One grand little way of hitting the pike, isn't it," she mocked, "going to bed and dreaming you're on a boat for Europe?"
"But I want you in that bed!"
"And how do I know what's going to walk in on me?" demanded that suspicious-minded visitor. But I knew from that question that she was beginning to give in.
"Nothing will walk in on you," I tried to assure her. "There's a sick woman supposed to be in that bed, and …"
"Well, that must be me," she cut in, "for this whole business makes me good and sick!"
"But if you throw the bluff of being asleep you can stay there until morning, if you want to, or at least until your chance of a get-away shows up."
"And what are you going to do?"
"That's my own business," I promptly told her, for I could see that we were only wasting precious time.
She suddenly started to laugh as she stared across the room at me. But that laugh of hers was about as warm as Christmas snow on a convent roof.
"I guess you didn't cruise with old Bud Griswold without learning a few of his lush-dip tricks!" she said with a shrug that was meant to be insulting.
"You needn't drag a dead man into this," I told her, and my voice shook a little as I said it.
"A dead man?" she echoed, staring at me with half closed eyes. Then she laughed again, remembering, I suppose, that I could never quite forget what had caused that death.
I could see that she was about to speak again, but she froze into sudden silence, arrested by the disturbing discovery that some one from the outside had plainly tried to open the door that led to the hall. I could see her green eyes fixed meditatively on the turning door-knob. But I didn't wait for more. I didn't wait to see if she unlocked that door, or if she got into the four-poster, or if she began to claw the tapestry from the walls. I retreated, when the way for retreat was still open. I slipped back into the bathroom, swung the door shut and locked it. Then I made for the next door, and repeated the operation.
When I got to the room done in yellow brocade, I crossed to the still open wall-safe, swung shut the door, and also the panel of carved mahogany that screened the metal safe-front.
The club-bag was still there. I paused long enough to open It and make sure that it still held Copperhead Kate's haul. Then I caught it up and made for the next room. I stopped only long enough in the passageway to swing open one of the press doors, snatch up a pair of suede slippers that stood there, and stick a foot into one of them to make sure they would fit. Then I tucked them away under my arm, for I knew better than to wear shoes during my transit over those polished hard- wood floors. I wanted my advance to be a silent one, for heaven alone knew what I might bump into before I got down to the street-entrance once more.
As I made my way on through those heavily furnished rooms, however, I found them empty. When I crept out to the hall, too, I was confronted by nothing but solitude. I didn't altogether like the sudden silence that had fallen over that house. It seemed ominous. I didn't like it any more than I liked the thought of that ghostly face which had stared down over the stair-railing at me. I had always prided myself on being a good, hard-headed, matter-of-fact, practical-minded girl. I was never strong on the spook stuff, as Bud had once acknowledged. But there were too many mysteries under that roof to keep me there any longer than I could help. I wanted to get where you could hear the rattle of a surface car and see decent every-day citizens go about on their decent every-day business.
So, with my suede shoes still under my arm, I stole along the stair-head, stopping every moment to listen and look back.
Then, tread by polished tread, I went down the flight of steps that lay before me, with the bag in my hand and my heart in my mouth.
But still I didn't see a sign of life. There wasn't a trace of house-maid, or footman, or butler in crimson-rambler get-up. It was like going down through the catacombs. And I realized, as I started on again, that I still had another flight of stairs to go down before I was on the street-level. It was a big house. And it may have been fitted up like a ducal palace with bells on. But I'd had all I wanted of it.
I got down the second flight of stairs, and was in what must have been a sort of reception-hall, When the first sound of life in all that descent came to my ears. Toward the front of this hall were heavy double doors of plate glass backed by panel curtains and grilled by scroll-work of wrought iron. And somebody was plainly coming in through those doors, from the street, with a pass-key.
I didn't wait to see who that visitor might be. I made an Annette Kellernian dive through a narrower door on my right, into what proved to be a cloak-room. I swung the door shut after me, and didn't even dare to look out. But I could hear the steps hurry by, loud on the hardwood floor and soft on the rugs.
I knew it was a man who had come in, and come in in a hurry. So while I waited there until the house was quiet again, an idea came to me, and I began to explore that cloak-room. I did it entirely by the sense of touch. I felt and padded about amongst the clothing hanging there until I discovered a fur coat of Hudson seal. I took it down and tried it on. It at least fitted a little better than did Copperhead Kate's black skirt. And a box coat of Hudson seal, I told myself, could cover a multitude of sins. So I put on the suede shoes, took up my bag, and crept out into the hall. There was nothing in sight, and not a sound to be heard.
I tried to move without noise, but my heart was once more in my throat as I slipped out to the street door, opened it, and once more felt the fresh air on my face.
It was so uncommonly good to feel that I scarcely noticed the fact that a fine rain was falling. For as I swung that grilled door softly shut behind me I knew that I was back in the world of realities, back in the land of sane and sensible people engaged on their sane and sensible ends. It seemed like emerging from a nightmare, a distorted and tangled nightmare of wizened old misers and white-faced ghosts and missing bodies and ravished wall-safes and yellow-faced lawyers with undulating Adam's apples.
Yet I stood there for a minute or two on the house steps, making sure that the coast was clear. Then I carefully stowed Copperhead Kate's blue-barreled automatic in the over-ample bosom of her black waist, where it promptly seemed to hang like a mill-stone about my neck. I still wanted that gun where I could get at it, however, for I had not forgotten what I had overheard as to the possibilities of a certain Cacciata and his persuasive sand-bag.
But there was plainly no Cacciata in sight, so I took a deep breath, dropped the veil about my hat-rim, and started down the wide stone steps.
I reached the sidewalk and turned eastward. I was more excited I suppose than I imagined. But I was not excited enough to expect what happened to me before I had taken twenty steps along that wet sidewalk. For as I faced the driving rain and squinted up through my veil to make sure of my bearings, I saw a ghost.
I saw that ghost there in front of me, as plainly as though it had been a real man, a man of flesh and blood. And it was the ghost of Bud Griswold not the old Bud as I had known him, but a sunken-eyed and spectral and shadow-like vision of him.
For one brief moment, as he passed under a street-lamp, those sunken eyes looked at me hesitatingly, accusingly, even reproachfully. And that was about all I remembered.
For I knew, then, that that somewhat busy night had been a little too much for me. I found myself shying off across the pooled asphalt of the open street, without knowing I was doing it, the same as a frightened colt shies at a shadow.
"I'm getting 'em!" I gasped out loud. "I'm seeing things!"
I tried to laugh. But my throat was too tight. So I did the next best thing. I began to run.
I don't think I'd gone fifty feet before I woke up to the fact that one of my suede shoes was missing. It had fitted none too well. And even a two-legged colt, in a panic, can sometimes cast a shoe.
I turned back, to see where that shoe was. As I stood there blinking through the rain, a closed car shuddered to a stop beside me.
"Hello, Cinderella!" I heard a man's voice call out, as the door of this car swung open.
I still stood there on one foot, like a wet crane, staring in at the shadowy figure. But I did not speak.
"Are you going far?" the same voice asked me. It was plainly a polite question, politely put. But this time it was not the question, but something in the timbre of the voice itself, that caused me to lean forward and stare in over the running-board so close to my bedraggled coat of Hudson seal. For it was my Hero-Man himself who had spoken to me.
I continued to stare at him, a little relieved and at the same time a little puzzled.
"I don't know yet," I told him, with a curt laugh. "But I'm on my way." And I noticed, for the first time, that he was holding a rather soggy-looking suede shoe in his hand.
"Then you'll surely let me give you a lift," he said, as cool as a cucumber.
I heard footsteps behind me, and that decided the thing. I gathered up my box coat tails and the over-full black skirts, and climbed into the car. He closed the door as the car started forward.
"You don't remember me, perhaps?" he said. looking down at the black club-bag which I was nursing on my lap.
"Oh, yes, I do," I said, resenting the touch of mockery that seemed to be in his voice. "For I've just been trying to will you a quarter of a million dollars!"
That made him sit up. I imagined that it would.
"And I hope you succeeded," he said, with a queer little laugh.
"It wasn't my fault that I didn't," I told him, realizing for the first time that I was both tired and hungry. I began to see for the first time, too, what a strain I'd been under, for the last two or three hours. I felt like a whale who'd come up to breathe. And it was pretty comfortable in that big padded seat, purring safely through the city streets close beside a man you weren't a bit afraid of.
"And having failed in that charitable effort, what was your next to be?" he inquired.
"I was going to lope for a lunchery," I told him, still again finding a sort of perverse joy in keying my English as close to the talk of the underworld as I could.
He laughed again, easily and lazily.
"Then why not take pity on my desolation and have supper with me?" he asked.
"I'll answer that question when you answer one of mine," I told him.
"Agreed," he said. "But it would be better, perhaps, if you put this on!"
He was holding my shoe in his hand.
"What were you doing on that street when you stopped there beside me?" I asked, as I took the suede shoe from him and slipped my foot into it.
He laughed again. I couldn't help envying him his ease and coolness, though I couldn't quite fathom the source of his amusement.
"I was decorously on my way to the Harraton, where my present apartment happens to be, and whither we are at this moment duly proceeding."
"And you think I make a habit of eating supper with men in their apartments?" I inquired, with dignity.
"Why not, if duly chaperoned?" he asked, with a pointed stare at the black bag which I held on my knees.
"Who's the chaperon?" I asked.
He stiffened a little at the curtness of my tone.
"I may be outrageous, you know, but my family really consider themselves irreproachable."
I felt that he was making fun of me, in some manner, but I couldn't see any way of getting back at him. It puzzled me a good deal, not that I gave him something to laugh at, but that I was satisfied to sit there beside him, and have him talk to me in his cool and careless tone. The solemn truth of the matter was I knew that I liked it.
Then I suddenly remembered my clothes. I'd make a hit with that irreproachable family, I knew, in Copperhead Kate's waist that fitted too soon and a skirt with a three-inch hike. And I had a great deal more to say to my Hero-Man. So I began to hedge.
"That family rather frightens me," I told him. "They might not care for my going-away get-up."
"Then we immediately eliminate the family," he announced, "since, as you intimate, familiarity may possibly breed contempt." And still again he laughed. "And abjuring one's family always tends to make it more interesting, and much less embarrassing, don't you think?"
I couldn't quite see what he was drifting at, but, luckily, we had no time for more talk, for we had pulled up at the Harraton and a uniformed doorman was touching his cap and at the same time trying to take the club-bag out of my hand. But I hung on to the bag.
"Shall we go up?" my Hero-Man asked, as he stood studying my face in the strong light of that apartment-hotel foyer. Then his eye traveled down over my outfit. I noticed his perplexed look as he took it in, box coat and shoes and all. I could feel my face turning pink, in spite of myself. I wasn't worrying about where those clothes came from; I was worrying more over the fact that it wasn't the sort of get-up that went with onyx pillars and plush carpets. And on that first day we had met, I remembered, I'd been at some pains to tell him about my weakness for nice things.
"Shall we go up?" he asked me for the second time.
"Sure," I said, making a bluff at putting on as bold a face as I could.
He tried to take my club-bag, and the elevator man tried to take my club-bag, and a Jap who opened the door for us tried to take my club-bag. But I kept that club-bag right in my own hand. And I wondered, as I stepped into Wendy Washburn's apartment, what would be the outcome of my next adventure that night.