Nobody

"Thank God!" she whispered, "I've found you at last. I've looked everywhere for the last half-hour. This is the second time I've been here. You just got in, of course. Where have you been?"

"Does it matter?" Sally fenced, maintaining a stony countenance. "I mean, I don't think it does, now you've run me to earth at last. What's the trouble?"

"You haven't seen Walter'? He hasn't told you?"

"No; I tried to speak to him half an hour ago, but he ran from me as if I were a ghost!"

"You know why!" The woman's voice trembled with restrained rage. "You impossible girl! Why, why did you let Aunt Abby go to meet him instead of you? It was fatal, it was criminal. Of course, he gave the whole show away to her, never guessing. Now it's all up with us; we'll never be asked here again; and the chances are she'll cut us out of her will as well. Why did you do it? Oh, I could shake you!"

"I know well you would if you could," Sally admitted calmly. "Only-better not try."

"But why-?"

"Well, if you must know, Mrs. Gosnold overheard you three plotting together out there just before I came on the scene. She was at the window overhead, listening through the shutters. I don't know what you were talking about-she didn't tell me-but it was enough to make her insist on my giving her my costume so that she might go and hear the rest of it."

Mrs. Standish bit her lip. And her eyes shifted uneasily from Sally's face.

"You haven't seen her since-"

"No," Sally answered bluntly. "Have you?"

"No. Walter and I have both been looking for her as well as you. That's why he ran when he knew about this terrible mistake; he wanted to find her and set things straight if he could. But she" – the woman stumbled and her eyes shifted again-"she's gone and hidden herself-plotting our humiliation and punishment, I dare say. I only wish I knew. Walter is still hunting everywhere for her. See here: I presume you understand you've got to go now?"

"Why?"

"For one good reason-if what has happened isn't enough to persuade you-because there will be a man here from New York by the first boat-seven o'clock to-morrow morning-with a warrant for the arrest of Sarah Manvers."

"Are you telling the truth, Mrs. Standish?"

"How dare you! No, I won't let you make me lose my temper with your insolence. The matter is too serious, and I've no wish to see you suffer, even if you have ruined everything for us. You must listen to me, Miss Manvers: be advised and go. I don't know what put them on your trail, what made them suspect you were here, but the burglary-insurance people had the warrant sworn out yesterday afternoon and started a man up by the evening boat. Walter got a telegram to that effect about ten o'clock. That's what he wanted to say to you-that, and to give you some money and directions for getting away."

"But why should I leave?"

"Do you want to go to jail?"

"Not much. But I don't see why I need. You can easily explain that my things in the bath-room were left there with your knowledge at the time when you took pity on me and gave me a change of clothing to travel in."

"It's too late. If we had explained it that way, to begin with, it would have been all right. But neither of us thought. And Walter bungled things frightfully in New York. Now if we come forward with any such story they'll think we're all in a conspiracy to defraud the company."

"Oh!" Sally exclaimed abruptly, with an accent of enlightenment that discountenanced the older woman.

With an effort, recovering, she sought to distract the girl.

"Surely you must see now, you have got to go! There's a boat to the mainland at six thirty. If you catch that, you'll have three hours' start; for the detective won't be able to get off the island before half past nine. And you ought to be able to lose yourself in that time somehow. Hurry; I'll help you pack a satchel. You'd better wear that blue serge; everybody wears blue serge, so it's inconspicuous. And here's some money for travelling expenses."

Sally ignored the little fold of bills held out to her.

"I'm not going," she declared firmly.

"Are you mad?"

"I would be to go with the situation what it is here. Don't you see that, unless those jewels are returned to Mrs. Gosnold to-night-yes, I mean the jewels you were so ready to accuse me of stealing a little while ago; but you seem to have forgotten that now-"

"I wish you would," Mrs. Standish replied, schooling her voice to accents of dulcet entreaty. "I was beside myself with anxiety-"

"Wait. If I go before those jewels are recovered-disappear, as you want me to-it will be equivalent to a confession that I myself stole them. And suppose I did."

"What!"

"I say, suppose I did, for the sake of argument. What right have you to assume that I didn't commit the theft? No more than you had to accuse me as you did. And until the theft is made good, what right have you to let me go and, possibly, get away with my loot? No!" Sally shook her head. "You're not logical, you're not honest with me. There's something behind all this. I'm not going to be made a scapegoat for you. I'm not going to run away now and hide simply to further your plans for swindling the burglary-insurance company. I'll see Mrs. Gosnold and advise with her before I stir a step."

"Oh, you are insufferable!" Mrs. Standish cried.

In a flash she lost control of her temper altogether. Her face grew ghastly with the pallor of her rage. And she trembled visibly.

But what else she might have said to the defiant girl was cut short by the sudden and unceremonious opening of the door to admit three persons.

The first and last of these were Mercedes Pride and Mr. Lyttleton. Between them entered a man unknown to Sally-a hard-featured citizen in very ordinary business clothing, cold of eye, uncompromising of manner.

Jubilation glowed in the witch's glance; anticipative relish of the flavour of triumph lent her voice a shriller note. She struck an attitude, singling out Sally with a denunciatory arm.

"There she is! That's the woman who calls herself Sara Manwaring. Now arrest her-make her confess what she's done with those jewels-pack her off to jail!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE PLANT

The very sharpness of the attack shocked Sally into such apparent calm as she might not have been able even to simulate had she been given more time to prepare herself.

After that first involuntary start of surprise and indignation she stood quite still, but with a defiant chin well elevated and her shoulders back, and if she had in her turn grown pale, it was less with fright than with the contained exasperation that lighted the fires in her eyes as they ranged from face to face of the four.

Lyttleton, she noticed, lingered uneasily near the door, hanging his head, avoiding her glance, almost frankly shamefaced.

The spinster posed herself with arms akimbo and smirked superciliously at the badgered girl, malicious spite agleam in her little black eyes.

Mrs. Standish had fallen back on the interruption and now half stood, half rested against the dressing-table, her passion of a moment ago sedulously dissembled. She arched an inquiring eyebrow and smiled an inscrutable smile, questioning the proceedings without altogether disapproving them.

Nearer Sally than any of these, the strange man confronted the girl squarely, appraising her with an unprejudiced gaze.

"If you please-" she appealed directly to him.

"Miss Manwaring, I believe?" he responded with a slight, semi-diffident nod.

Silently Sally inclined her head.

"That's the name she gave when she came here, at least," Mercedes commented.

Sally addressed Lyttleton. "Please shut the door," she said quietly, and as he obliged her, looked back to the stranger.

"Mason's my name, miss," he went on: "operative from Webb's Private Investigation Agency, Boston. Mrs. Gosnold sent for me by long-distance telephone this morning. I've been here all evening, working up this case on the quiet. The understanding was that I wasn't to take any steps without her permission; but she left it to me to use my best judgment in case her little plan for getting a confession didn't work. So I thought I'd better not wait any longer, seeing how late it is and how long after the time limit she set-and all."

"Do I understand Mrs. Gosnold gave you permission to break into my room with-these people?" Sally demanded.

"No, miss-not exactly. As I say, she told me to use my best judgment in case the jewels weren't returned. And, as I've said, it was getting late, and Mrs. Gosnold nowhere to be found, and I thought I'd better get busy."

"Mrs. Gosnold has disappeared?"

"Well, you might call it that. Anyway, we can't seem to find any trace of her. I've got an idea that maid of hers knows something, but if she does she won't talk to me. And considering that, and everything-the circumstances being so unusual all around-it seemed to be up to me to take some steps to make sure nothing was wrong."

He faltered, patently embarrassed by a distasteful task.

"Well?" Sally insisted coolly. "Still you've given me no reason for this outrageous intrusion and accusation."

"No, miss; I'm coming to that. You see, the first thing was to get that letter-box opened and examine those envelopes. I got several of the gentlemen to act as a sort of a committee, so as nobody could kick on the ground that everything wasn't done open and aboveboard."

"You found no confession, I gather?" Mrs. Standish interpolated.

"No, ma'am-no confession. All but two of the cards were blank. The two had something written on them-anonymous information, so to speak. I brought them along so that Miss Manwaring would understand, in case there was any mistake, it wasn't my fault."

He fumbled in a pocket, brought forth the cards, and with some hesitation handed them over to Sally.

Both bore messages laboriously printed in pencil, of much the same tenor:

"Suggest you look into Miss Manwaring's antecedents-also her actions between one and three o'clock last night."

"Ask Miss Manwaring what she was doing out of bed after one last night-search of her room might prove helpful."

Silently Sally returned the cards.

"You see," the detective apologised heavily, "after that, there wasn't anything for it but to ask you to explain."

"There is nothing to explain; the charge is preposterous."

"Yes, miss-that is, I hope so, for your sake. All the same, I had to ask you. Most of the gentlemen present when I opened the envelopes seemed to think I ought to do something at once. Personally, I'd rather have consulted Mrs. Gosnold before putting it up to you this way."

"I'm afraid you will find that would have been wiser."

"Yes, miss, perhaps. But she being absent and no way of finding out when she was liable to be back and the case left in my hands, to act on my discretion, providing no confession was made-"

"Still, I advise you to wait. If you think you must do something, why not employ your talents to find Mrs. Gosnold?"

"Well-that's so, too; and I would, only it was suggested that maybe she hadn't disappeared really, but was just keeping out of sight until this business was settled, preferring not to be around when anything unpleasant was pulled off. Like this."

Sally shrugged.

"Very well," she said indifferently. "What then?"

"I'd like to ask you some questions."

"Spare yourself the trouble. I shan't answer."

"You might make things easier for all of us, miss, yourself included."

"I promise faithfully," Sally said, "to answer any questions you may care to ask fully, freely, truthfully-in the presence of Mrs. Gosnold. Find her first. Until you do, I refuse to say a word."

"I don't suppose you'd mind telling me how you came to get your job as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold."

True to her word, Sally kept her lips tight shut.

At this, Miss Pride felt called upon to volunteer: "Mrs. Standish ought to be able to tell you that, Mr. Mason. She brought Miss-Manwaring here."

"I'm sure," Mrs. Standish said with an elaborate air of indifference, "I know little or nothing about Miss Manwaring." But Sally's regard was ominous. She hesitated, apparently revising what she had at first intended to say. "She came to me last week-the day we left New York-with a letter of recommendation purporting to be from Mrs. English-Mrs. Cornwallis English, the social worker, who is now in Italy."

"Purporting?" iterated the detective.

"Oh, I have no reason to believe it wasn't genuine, I'm sure."

"Have you the letter handy'?"

"I don't think I have," Mrs. Standish replied dubiously. "Perhaps. I can't say. I'll have to look. I'm careless about such matters."

"That's all you know about her?"

"Practically. She seemed pleasant-spoken and intelligent. I took a fancy to her, gave her an outfit of clothing, brought her here and introduced her to my aunt, who personally engaged her, understanding all the circumstances. That is the limit of my responsibility for Miss Manwaring."

Sally drew a deep breath; at all events, the woman had not dared repeat any of her former abominable accusations; if she was unfriendly, she was also committed to a neutral attitude: no more talk of a forged letter, no more innuendo concerning Sally's "accomplice" of the night before.

There was a pause. The detective scratched his head in doubt.

"All this is very irregular," he deprecated vaguely.

Miss Pride opened her mouth to speak, but Lyttleton silenced her with a murmured word or two. She sniffed resentfully but held her peace.

"I can't accept your apology;" Sally returned with dignity. "But I'm sure you have no longer any excuse for annoying me."

But Mr. Mason held his ground. "The trouble is," he insisted, "after those cards had been read, one of the gentlemen said he had seen you out in the garden between two and three o'clock."

"Mr. Lyttleton!" Sally accused with a lip of scorn.

"Why, yes," the detective admitted.

Mrs. Standish made a furious gesture, but contrived to refrain from speech.

"I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned it," Lyttleton said blandly, looking Sally straight in the face. "But the circumstances were peculiar, to say the least, if not incriminating. I saw this cloaked figure from my window. I thought its actions suspicious. I dressed hurriedly and ran down in time to intercept Miss Manwaring at an appointment with a strange man. I didn't see his face. He turned and ran. While I was questioning Miss Manwaring Mr. Trego came up and misconstrued the situation. We had a bit of a row, and before it was cleared up Miss Manwaring had escaped."

Sally's sole comment was an "Oh!" that quivered with its burden of loathing.

"Sorry," Lyttleton finished cheerfully; "but I felt I had to mention it. I dare say the matter was innocent enough, but still Miss Manwaring hasn't explained it, so far as I know; I felt it my duty to speak."

To the inquiring attitude of the detective Sally responded simply: "Find Mrs. Gosnold."

"Yes, miss," he returned with the obstinacy of a slow-witted man. "Meantime, I guess you won't mind my looking round a bit, will you?"

"Looking round?"

"Your room, miss."

Sally gasped. "You have the insolence to suggest searching my room?"

"Well, miss-"

"I forbid you positively to do anything of sort without Mrs. Gosnold's permission."

"There!" Miss Pride interpolated with sour satisfaction. "If she has nothing to fear, why should she object?"

"Do be quiet, Mercedes," Mrs. Standish advised sweetly. "Miss Manwaring is quite right to object, even if innocent."

"You see, miss," Mason persisted, "I have Mrs. Gosnold's authority to make such investigation as I see fit."

"I forbid you to touch anything in this room."

"I'm sorry. I'd rather not. But it looks to me like my duty."

She perceived at length that he was stubbornly bent on this outrageous thing. For a breath she contemplated dashing madly from the place, seeking Trego, and demanding his protection.

But immediately, with a sharp pang, she was reminded that she might no longer depend even on Trego.

As the detective tentatively approached her dressing-table the girl swung a wicker armchair about so that it faced a corner of the room and threw herself angrily into it, her back to the four.

Immediately, as if nothing but her eye had prevented it theretofore, the search was instituted.

She heard drawers opened and closed, sounds of rummaging. She trembled violently with impotent exasperation. It was intolerable, yet it must be endured. There was one satisfaction: they would find nothing, and presently Mrs. Gosnold would reappear and their insolence be properly punished.

She could not believe that Mrs. Gosnold would let it pass unrebuked. And yet.

Of a sudden it was borne in upon the girl that she had found this little island world a heartless, selfish place, that she had yet to meet one of its inhabitants by whom her faith and affection had not been betrayed, deceived and despised.

Remembering this, dared she count upon even Mrs. Gosnold in this hour of greatest need?

Had that lady not, indeed, already failed her protegee by indulging in the whim of this unaccountable disappearance?

Must one believe what had been suggested, that she, believing her confidence misplaced in Sally, was merely keeping out of the way until the unhappy business had been accomplished and the putative cause of it all removed from Gosnold House?

Behind her back the futile business of searching her room, so inevitably predestined to failure and confusion, was being vigorously prosecuted, to judge by the sounds that marked its progress. And from the shifting play of shadows upon the walls she had every reason to believe that Miss Pride was lending the detective a willing hand. If so, it was well in character; nothing could be more consistent with the spinster's disposition than this eagerness to believe the worst of the woman she chose to consider her rival in the affections of Mrs. Gosnold. A pitiful, impotent, jealousy-bitten creature: Sally was almost sorry for her, picturing the abashment of the woman when her hopes proved fruitless, her, fawning overtures toward forgiveness and reconciliation. Possibly she had been one of the two to accuse Sally on the cards.

The other? Not Mrs. Standish. She would hardly direct suspicion against the girl she despised when by so doing she would imperil her own schemes. She was too keenly selfish to cut off her nose to spite her face. Sally could imagine Mrs. Standish as remaining all this while conspicuously aloof, overseeing the search with her habitual manner of weary toleration, but inwardly more than a little tremulous with fear lest the detective or Mercedes chance upon that jewel-case and so upset her claim against the burglary-insurance concern.

Lyttleton, too, would in all likelihood be standing aside, posing with a nonchalant shoulder against the wall, his slender, nicely manicured fingers stroking his scrubby moustache (now that he had discarded the beard of Sir Francis, together with his mask) and not quite hiding the smirk of his contemptible satisfaction-the satisfaction of one who had lied needlessly, meanly, out of sheer spite, and successfully, since his lie, being manufactured out of whole cloth, could never be controverted save by the worthless word of the woman libelled.

More than probably Lyttleton had been the other anonymous informant.

And whatever the outcome of this sickening affair (Sally told herself with a shudder of disgust) she might thank her lucky stars for this blessing, that she had been spared the unspeakable ignominy of not finding Mr. Lyttleton out before it was too late.

Trego, too; though she could consider a little more compassionately the poor figure Trego cut, with his pretensions to sturdy common sense dissipated and exposing the sentimentalist so susceptible that he was unable to resist the blandishments of the first woman who chose to set her cap for him. Poor thing: he would suffer a punishment even beyond his deserts when Mrs. Artemas had consummated her purpose and bound him legally to her.

For all that, Sally felt constrained to admit, Trego had been in a measure right in his contention, though it had needed his folly to persuade her of his wisdom. She was out of her element here. And now she began to despair of ever learning to breathe with ease the rarefied atmosphere of the socially elect. The stifling midsummer air that stagnated in Huckster's Bargain Basement was preferable, heavy though it was with the smell of those to whom soap is a luxury and frequently a luxury uncoveted; there, at least, sincerity and charity did not suffocate and humbler virtues flourished.

Bitterly Sally begrudged the concession that she had been wrong. All along she had nourished her ambition for the society of her betters on the conviction that, with all her virtues, she was as good as anybody. To find that with all her faults she was better, struck a cruel blow at her pride.

A low whistle interrupted at once her morose reflections and the mute activity of the search.

Immediately she heard the detective exclaim: "What's this?"

Miss Pride uttered a shrill cry of satisfaction; Mrs. Standish said sharply: "Aunt Abby's solitaire!"

To this chorus Mr. Lyttleton added a drawl: "Well, I'm damned!"

Unable longer to contain her alarm and curiosity, Sally sprang from her chair and confronted four accusing countenances.

"What do you know about this?" the detective demanded.

Clipped between his thumb and forefinger a huge diamond coruscated in the light of the electrics.

Momentarily the earth quaked beneath Sally's feet.

Her eyes were fixed on the ring and blank with terror; her mouth dropped witlessly ajar; there was no more colour in her face than in this paper; never a countenance spelled guilt more damningly than hers.

"Yes!" Miss Pride chimed in triumphantly.

"What have you to say to this, young woman?"

Sally heard, as if remotely, her own voice ask hoarsely: "What-what is it'?"

"A diamond ring," Mason responded obviously.

"Aunt Abby's," Mrs. Standish repeated.

Mason glanced at this last: "You recognise it?"

The woman nodded.

"Where did you find the thing?" Sally demanded.

"Rolled up inside this pair of stockings." Mason indicated the limp, black silk affairs which he had taken from a dresser-drawer. "Well, how about it?"

"I don't know anything about it. I tell you I never saw it before."

The detective grinned incredulously. "Not even on Mrs. Gosnold's finger?"

"No-never anywhere."

"Mrs. Gosnold seldom wears the ring." Mrs. Standish put in; "but it is none the less hers."

"Well, where's the rest of the stuff'?" Mason insisted.

"I don't know. I tell you, I know nothing about that ring. I have no idea how it got where you found it. Somebody must have put it there." Sally caught her distracted head between her hands and tried her best to compose herself. But it was useless; the evidence was too frightfully clear against her; hysteria threatened.

"Mrs. Standish gave me the stockings," she stammered wildly, "rolled up as you found them. Ask her."

"Oh, come, Miss Manwaring; you go too far!" Mrs. Standish told her coldly. "If you are possibly innocent, compose yourself and prove it. If you are guilty, you may as well confess and not strain our patience any longer. But don't try to drag me into the affair; I won't have it."

"I guess there isn't much question of innocence or guilt," Mason commented. "Here's evidence enough. It only remains to locate the rest of the loot. It'll be easier for you," he addressed Sally directly, "if you own up-come through with a straight story and save Mrs. Gosnold trouble and expense."

He paused encouragingly, but Sally shook her head.

"I can't tell you anything," she protested. "I don't know anything. It's some horrible mistake. Or else-it's a plant to throw suspicion on me and divert it from the real thief."

"Plant?" Miss Pride queried with a specious air of bewilderment.

"Thieves' jargon-manufactured evidence," Lyttleton explained.

"Ah, yes," said the old maid with a nod of satisfaction.

"If it's a plant, it's up to you to show us," Mason came back. "If it isn't, you may as well lead us to the rest of it quick."