The Girl at Central

Old Mr. Whitney spoke up as genial as if he was introducing us at a party.

"These ladies, Mr. Cokesbury, come from Longwood and its vicinity. Miss Morganthau is one of the operators in the Telephone Exchange, and Mrs. Cresset you've met before, I think, one night at Cresset's Farm."

Mrs. Cresset bowed very polite and made as if she was going to shake hands. But Cokesbury didn't meet her half or a quarter way. He turned to the men and – I guess he did it without knowing – looked like lightning from one to the other – a sort of wild glance. They never took their eyes off him, and there was something awful about their stare, for all both of them were behaving so pleasant. Under that stare he got as white as a sheet, but he tried to put up a bluff.

"Cresset," he said, "Cresset? There's some mistake. I never saw her before in my life."

"That's quite true," said Mr. Whitney, "you didn't see her nor she you. If you remember it was very dark. But you spoke to her and she's willing to swear that yours was the voice she heard. Aren't you, Mrs. Cresset?"

"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Cresset, as solid and sure as the Bartholdi statue. "This is the gentleman that asked me the way that night. I'd know his voice among a thousand."

"What night?" said Cokesbury. "I don't know what she's talking about."

It was pitiful to see him trying to keep it up with his face gray and his hands trembling.

Mr. Whitney went on as if he didn't notice anything.

"And Miss Morganthau here is also ready to swear to your voice as the one she overheard on the phone Saturday, November the twentieth, in a conversation with the late Miss Hesketh – a message you've probably seen a good deal about in the papers."

I saw one of those big, hairy hands make a grip at the back of the armchair. I thought he was going to fall and couldn't take my eyes off him till Mr. Whitney turned to me and said in that bland society way:

"Perhaps you'll be so good, Miss Morganthau, as to tell Mr. Cokesbury of your efforts during the past week to get him on the phone."

I told him the whole thing and ended up with the story of how I fooled him about the key. And, honest to God, though I thought I was talking to a murderer, I was sorry for him.

All the life seemed to leave him and he got as haggard as an old man, with his lips shaking and the perspiration in beads on his forehead. When I got through he suddenly gave a sort of groan, dropped back into his chair and put his hands over his face. I was glad it was hidden, and I was glad when Mr. Whitney turned to me and Mrs. Cresset and said quick and commanding:

"That'll do. You can go into the other room. Ring the bell, George."

We huddled out into the passage where we met that spry clerk coming up on the jump. He went into the office and shut the door, and we could hear a murmur of voices, we standing up against the wall not knowing what to do next.

Presently the clerk came out again, rounded us up and sent us into the room down the hall where Mr. Whitney had talked to us. He told us to wait there for a minute, then lit out as if he was in a great hurry. We stood stiff in the middle of the floor, expecting to hear the tramp of policemen and then Cokesbury being dragged off to jail. But it was all very still. I never supposed when you caught a criminal the proceedings would be so natural and dignified.

After a while the clerk came back. He said Mr. Whitney'd sent us his thanks for our kindness in coming – I never saw people waste so many words on politeness – and hoped we'd excuse him from thanking us in person, but he was just now very busy. He warned us not to say a word to anyone of what had transpired, and then a boy coming to the door and saying, "It's here," he told us a taxi was waiting below to take us to the Ferry.

If we couldn't talk to anyone else we could to each other and I guess we did more gabbing going down in the taxi and across in the boat than Mrs. Cresset had done for years. She told me about the night when Cokesbury had come to her house. It was wonderful to see how luck was with him – the way it sometimes is with sinners. Usually at that hour she was round in the kitchen and when he knocked would have opened the door and seen his face in the lamplight. But she'd gone upstairs early as her little daughter had a cold.

To go back over the small things that happened would make you sure some evil power was protecting him. That morning the little girl's cold wasn't bad and she'd gone to school as usual. But at the schoolhouse she heard that the dancing bear – the one I saw in Longwood which had been performing along the pike on its way back to Bloomington – had been at Jaycock's farm and might be round by Cresset's that afternoon. Like all children, she was crazy about the bear, and after school hours she and a chum slipped off and stood around in the damp, waiting. But the bear did not show up and when she came home, crying with disappointment, the cold was heavy on her. Her mother bundled her off to bed and went up early to sit with her. Only for that, Cokesbury would probably have been landed in jail weeks before, the State saved money and two innocent men saved shame and suffering.

"That's the way it is with the Devil's own," I said. "I guess he takes care of them for a while; jollies them along the downward path."

"It looks like that was the case," said Mrs. Cresset, her kind, rosy face very solemn. "But the power of evil gets broke in the end. 'Murder will out' – that's true if anything is. Think of that man feeling so safe and every hour the cords tightening round him."

"And we did it," said I, awful proud. "We found the cords and then pulled on them."

"We did," says she. "I never thought to be the one to put a fellow-creature behind bars, but I have and my conscience tells me I've done right."

My, but we both felt chesty!

The next morning Babbitts phoned me to say he'd be over Sunday evening. The information of "Our Suspect" would be given to the press Sunday morning for the Monday papers and after it was in he'd come across and tell me about it.

Mr. Whitney had arranged for me not to go back to work till Tuesday and though I suppose the rest was good for me, the strain of waiting wore on me something dreadful. I kept wondering how Cokesbury had done it, and how he was going to explain this and account for that. Most of Sunday I lay on the bed trying to read a novel, but a great deal more interested in the hands of the clock than I was in the printed pages.

When it began to darken up for evening I told Mrs. Galway I was expecting a gentleman caller and asked for the loan of the parlor. She's a great one for love affairs and it always discouraged her that I had no regular company. Now she thought I'd got a steady at last and wanted to lend me her cameo pin, and decked up the parlor as if the minister was coming to call, with the hand-painted leather cushion and the punch-work tablecloth.

Long before Babbitts was due I was sitting by the stove, burning bright and clear, with the drop light throwing a glow over the center table. Upstairs I could hear Mrs. Galway tramping round as she went to bed, which was considerate of her as she was something of a night bird. When I heard his knock at the side door, I gave a sort of squeal of excitement and ran to let him in.

"Well?" I said, grabbing his arm, too worked up to say good evening, "has he confessed?"

"Yes," he said, "he has and he's told an uncommon queer story."

"He killed her?"

"That's the queerest part of it," said Babbitts slowly, "he didn't."

XIV

Now I don't believe if I gave you twenty guesses you'd know what I did when I heard those words – burst out crying.

It wasn't because I wanted Cokesbury to be executed; it wasn't because I wanted the reward; it wasn't even that I was so crazy to have Jack Reddy exonerated – it was just because I was so disappointed – so foiled– that I couldn't seem to bear it.

I cried so hard I didn't know what I was doing, and I suppose that's the reason I leaned on Babbitts' shoulder, it being the nearest thing handy. He brought me to my senses, patting me on the arm and saying sort of soothing as if he was comforting a child who'd broken her doll:

"There, there – don't cry – it'll be all right soon. We'll get the right man. Don't take it to heart that way."

Then I began to laugh, for it did seem so comical – me crying because Cokesbury wasn't a murderer, and Babbitts telling me not to take it to heart as if I'd been disappointed in not seeing the electrocution. The laughter and tears got mixed up together and I don't know where I'd have landed if I hadn't seen he was getting frightened and wanted to call Mrs. Galway. That pulled me up, and I got a hold on myself. In a few minutes we were sitting side by side in front of the stove, the storm over, all but a little hiccupy kind of sob, that came upon me unexpected at intervals.

For the next hour we sat there without moving while Babbitts told me Cokesbury's story.

I'll put down what he said as near his words as I can remember it. The way he told it was better than any of the newspaper accounts, even his, though he got a raise of salary for the way he'd handled it:

"Cokesbury says he didn't kill Sylvia Hesketh and I believe him and so do the Whitneys. Besides the corroborative evidence is absolutely convincing. He's not a murderer but he's a coward – no good at all – and that explains why he didn't come out after the crime and tell what he knew. Instead he got in a panic, lost what little nerve he had, and was skipping out to Europe when you nabbed him.

"He was in love with Sylvia Hesketh, if you call that sort of thing love. Anyway, instead of being simply what you might describe as a beau of hers, he was mad about her. I fancy even she, poor girl, didn't realize the passion she'd kindled, but was like a child playing with a dynamite bomb. It appears she saw more of him than anybody guessed. After the first flirtation at Bar Harbor, he came down to Cokesbury Lodge nearly every Sunday and used to meet her in the woods and on the side roads, and make dates with her for theaters and concerts in town. He kept it quiet for he knew without being told that the Doctor wouldn't stand for it. His hope was that, willful and unstable as he knew her to be, he'd eventually win her by his persistence and devotion.

"It was one of those situations that may end in nothing or may end as this one did in a tragedy. The girl was foolhardy and flirtatious; the man infatuated. Very quickly he got on to the fact that he was not the only victim of her beauty and her wiles. He watched and questioned and found out about the other men. Of them he soon saw that Reddy was the favored one and a deadly jealousy seized him, for Reddy might have attracted any woman.

"When he tried to find out from her how she stood with Reddy he could get no satisfaction. She'd tell him one thing one day and another the next. She kept them all guessing, but it didn't mean to any of the others what it meant to Cokesbury. All through October he spied and queried, and learnt that she was meeting Reddy in his car and going off for long jaunts with him. He says he was half mad with jealousy and fear, but he hid it from her.

"That's the way things were when he sent the phone message that you caught. You sized him up just right. When she told him she had a date that was a secret, he got a premonition of the truth, the way a man does when his reason is under the dominion of his emotions. He felt certain she was going off with Reddy, and the brakes that he'd kept down till then were lifted. He determined he'd find out and if it was true stop them if the skies fell.

"And now here comes the queer part of the story. If anybody'd guessed it a lot of things that were dark would have been as clear as daylight. Hedid keep the date you heard him make on the phone."

"How could he? He had no car, or horse, or anything."

"Only part of that's true – he had no car, or horse, but he did have something."

"What?"

"An aeroplane."

I fell back staring at him.

"An aeroplane – in Cokesbury Lodge?"

"In the garage there. That's why he wouldn't rent the house; that'swhy he kept going down over Sunday all summer. The year he was in France he'd done a lot of flying and was fascinated by it. Before he left there he was an expert aviator, but his wife hated it and it was one of their grounds of dissension. After she died he had a machine brought down in sections, set it up himself, and kept it in the garage. Not a soul knew it. He only flew at night for he wanted it kept a secret."

"Why – what for?"

"Because – here's the best thing I've heard about him – he carried a heavy life insurance policy secured to his children. Cokesbury's not a rich man, though he has a good business, and if he died his children would have had to live on what their mother left them, which wasn't much. If it was known that he was aviating the policy would have been invalidated, so he indulged his secret passion at night. The isolated position of the house made it easy to escape detection and his machine was equipped with a very silent muffler. No one had a glimmering of it, not even Sylvia.

"The phone message you heard was sent from the station at Jersey City and when he sent it he did intend coming to Mapleshade in his motor. When he got to Azalea and found the car unmended in the garage he flew into a rage, as he thought his plans were blocked. Alone in the Lodge, ravaged by jealousy, he lost all caution and decided to take out the aeroplane.

"You remember that there was a moon that night, but that in the evening the skies were clouded and the air breathless. The darkness and the weather were on his side and he came down in a field about ten minutes walk from the house, closing the cut-out as he descended. He was early and hid himself among some trees where he could watch the front door. He says it was while he was waiting there for her that the idea came to him of frustrating an elopement by carrying her off.

"He was laying round in his mind how he would get the truth from her, when he saw her come out and gave a low whistle. She heard it and came toward him. It was not till she was close to him and he could see the outlines of her figure through the dark, that he made out a bag in her hand. Then he knew for certain she was going and decided on his course.

"In all his other dealings with her he had found her subtle and evasive. Now, perhaps because for the first time in her life she had decided on a positive action, she went straight to the point. Without any preamble she told him what she was going to do and that within a half-hour Reddy would be waiting for her in the Lane.

"He showed no anger or surprise, apparently accepting the situation in the most friendly spirit. He says he thought she was relieved, having expected a scene with him. When he had disarmed her of her suspicions, he told her of the airship and asked her if she wouldn't like to come up for a spin before Reddy arrived. They had over half an hour and he could take her for a short flight and would bring her down in ten or fifteen minutes.

"Everybody agrees that she was a bold, venturesome girl, and the idea appealed to her, as she had never been up. They walked quickly through the fields and bit of woodland to the aeroplane. She was in high spirits as she tucked herself in; he could hear her laughter as he took his seat, and then, closing the cut-out, they soared up.

"They rose high – about two thousand feet, he thought – and then he headed East. They were winging their way over Cokesbury Lodge on toward the hills in the distance when Reddy must have sighted the lights of Longwood as he came down the Firehill Road.

"Cokesbury swears he had no intention of kidnapping her. He says he had no definite idea of where he was going, that his plan was simply to get her away from Reddy and put an end to the marriage. Personally, I don't believe him. I think he had a perfectly clear idea of carrying her off to Cokesbury Lodge, and that his chivalrous scheme was to put her into such a compromising position she would be willing to marry him. Maybe I'm wrong – I don't know. Anyway, he very soon saw you can't abduct a high-spirited, hot-tempered girl against her will.

"After about fifteen or twenty minutes he was conscious of her getting uneasy and speaking to him – words that he couldn't hear but that he knew to be at first startled questions, then angry commands. He shouted replies, but the great machine kept steadily on its way, neither turning nor dipping downward. Then she realized and broke into a fury, turning upon him in the dark, putting her face close to his and screaming for him to bring her down. The noise made it impossible to argue with her, and fearful of what she might do, he held her off with his elbow, the delicately balanced machine swaying as she seized his arm and shook it, lunging up against him, her cries of rage rising above the thunder of the screw.

"Can't you imagine it? The big ship sailing through the night with the lights of farms and little towns sliding by far below, and above the sky muffled deep in black clouds. Poised between them the man and woman, each gripped by a different passion – suspended there like two naked souls in a sort of elemental battle of the sexes.

"He admits he was scared and if he could have spoken to her would have pacified her with all sorts of assurances. But speech was out of the question, and when she made a sudden lunge across him for the wheel he realized she would kill them both if he didn't bring her to earth. Throwing her back with a blow of his elbow, he yelled that he was coming down and as she felt the machine begin its glancing, downward glide she fell back into her place, suddenly quiet, then leaned forward scanning the country below them.

"A momentary break of the clouds let a little light spill through and by this he saw a bare, bold landscape darkened by woods, and with the gleam of a large body of water to the right, showing against the blackness like polished steel. He made a landing in an open space, an uncultivated field with a hillock in the center covered with grass and surrounded by trees. The water had drained off this and it was quite dry.

"She was hardly out on the ground and he was preparing for an explanation when to his surprise she curtly told him to follow her and led the way along a ridge that skirted the lake. This, too, was dry, a fact curiously in his favor, for their feet left no tracks, the grass closing on the trail they swept through it. She did not address him again till, the dim shape of a house appearing, he asked her if she was going there and she answered in the same, curt way: Yes; she was cold. A wharf jutted out in front of the house and in stepping from the grass to the planks he made a motion to help her, but she started away from him as if he was a snake, making two or three steps into the liquid mud that ran up to the wharf's edge. It was then he thought she dropped the glove. Once again on the planks she took a key from her purse, fitted it in the lock and opened the door.

"The room was pitch dark and Cokesbury stood in the doorway while she went in. She moved about as if she was accustomed to the place, lit a lamp, set a match to the fire already laid and gave him a copper kettle to fill with water from the lake. When he came back with it the table was set out with tea things and the fire was leaping up the chimney. She hung the kettle on a crane, swung it over the flames and then, turning to him, said:

"'Do you know where you are?' He said he didn't and she answered: 'You're in Jack Reddy's bungalow at Hochalaga Lake, the place where I've spent the happiest days of my life.'

"He looked at her in amazement and she smiled scornfully back at him. 'You fool!' she said, 'to think you could come blundering in and stop me from marrying the only man of all of you who's worth a heartbeat.'

"She made tea and then motioned him to sit down by the table, taking a seat at the other side. Facing each other in the lamplight they had a conversation that put an end to all his dreams. For the first time in his acquaintance with her he thought she spoke frankly. She told him of her friendship with Reddy from the start, and how the Doctor's senseless opposition had fanned a boy-and-girl flirtation into a passionate love affair.

"When the quarrels began at Mapleshade they found that they could meet without fear of detection at the Lake, she going out there in her car and he in his. She had her own key and often, during the autumn, she had gone to the bungalow in the morning, Reddy had joined her and they had spent the day together, canoeing and fishing on the lake, cooking a picnic meal over the fire, and driving home in the afternoon, the racer towing her car till they came to the turnpike.

"Cokesbury says he thinks at first it was only the spirit of romance and adventure which made her do such a rash thing, but that in the end Reddy's devotion and chivalrous attitude made a deep impression on her and she came as near loving him as she could any man. He says there is no doubt that the meetings were perfectly innocent and that Reddy had behaved from the start as a gentleman.

"'Whether she really loved him or not,' he said, 'he'd taught her to respect him.'

"They talked for over an hour, taking the tea she had made and Cokesbury smoking a cigar. He remembered leaving the butt in the saucer of his cup. It was half-past eight when they rose to go. Sylvia put out the lamp but the fire was still burning and the tea things were left on the table. Cokesbury says he promised to take her home, that he saw his case was hopeless, and he'd made up his mind to have done with her forever.

"The sky was clouded over and it was as dark as a pocket when they went back to the aeroplane. He had to direct the machine by guesswork, the country black below him and the sky black above. He swears that he intended to take her back to Mapleshade, and I believe him. No man – not even a bad egg like Cokesbury – wants to run away with a woman who hands out the line of talk that girl had in the bungalow.

"Anyway, we've only his word for the statement that he completely lost his bearings. He could see no lights and after making an exploratory circle, realized he hadn't the slightest idea which way to go. To make matters worse, he could hear from shouted remarks of hers that her suspicions were on the alert and that she was ready to flare up again. By this time there wasn't much of the lover left in him. According to his own words he was as anxious to get her home again as she was to be there. With his head clear and his blood cold he did not relish a second flight with a woman fighting like a wildcat.

"This was the situation – she, angry and disbelieving; he, scared and unable to conciliate her – when the twinkle of a light caught his eye and he decided to come down and ask his way. They dropped into a stretch of grass land among fields, with the light shining some way off through a screen of trees. Farther away, just a spark, he saw another light. He told her to wait while he went to inquire, and walked off toward the one that was nearest.

"It was Cresset's Farm. There he had the interview with Mrs. Cresset, telling her he had an auto in order to explain his presence. When he went back he found that Sylvia had disappeared. At first he didn't know what to do, realizing that if the story of their flight got abroad, there would be the devil to pay. He was certain she had disbelieved him and had taken the opportunity to get away from him. She was either hiding or had gone for the second light. This being the most plausible, he walked toward it – quite a distance across fields and through woods – and brought up at a ramshackle roadhouse – the Wayside Arbor.

"He stole round from the back to a side window and there, through a crack in the shutter, looked in and saw Sylvia talking to Hines. He says he stayed there for some minutes, afraid if he went in after her she would make a scene and start a scandal. Then his eyes fell on the telephone booth and he felt sure she had telephoned either to her own home or to Reddy. Her air of waiting – she was sitting by the stove with her feet on its lower edge – confirmed him in this and he decided to let her alone.

"He went back to the aeroplane, wondering what would be the outcome of the whole crazy escapade. He says he felt confident of her cleverness to hush the thing up, but he was uneasy. His discomfort wasn't lessened when he found that she had left her bag in the machine, and on his way home one of the things that preoccupied him was thinking up the best way of getting the bag back to her.