Dorothy Dixon and the Double Cousin

The woman’s back was turned, so Dorothy had no difficulty in watching her movements. Everything in the trunk was taken out, glanced at and put back exactly as it had been. This took some time, and it was fully half an hour before her hostess finished with the trunk. Next she overhauled the small travelling bag and the purse. Then the empty drawers of the dressing table and desk came under the woman’s eye. The pillows and cushions of the window seat were lifted. The rug was turned back. Every nook and cranny of the room and closet came under observation. Then she went into the bathroom.

“What under the shining canopy can she be looking for?” Dorothy marveled. “It can’t be the note I got tonight. She proposed the lemonade before that could have been written. I wonder if she’ll search the bed? She mustn’t find Flash – ”

When Laura Lawson returned to the bedroom, she saw that the sleeper had turned over and was now facing the wall. For a moment she gazed down on the girl, then her hand crept under the pillow. Finding nothing there, the covers were pulled back to the foot of the bed.

Dorothy felt the cold breeze from the open window blowing on her pajamaed body, but she did not move. Presently sheet, blankets and silk comfort were replaced and the woman left the bedside. Dorothy chuckled inwardly. Flash was still safe. She was lying on him.

Off went the light. Dorothy knew that Mrs. Lawson’s slippered feet would make no sound on the thick pile of the rug. She waited to hear the door open and close, but heard nothing. With her face to the wall, she could see nothing. The strain of lying motionless became nerve wracking. What was the woman doing anyhow? Slowly she rolled over again. So far as she could tell, the room was empty.

For what seemed an age Dorothy lay, listening. Except for the wind sighing through the bare trees outside her window, there was no other sound. She felt nervous and unpleasantly excited. She must know if the door had been left unlocked. Slipping out of bed she tiptoed across to it and tried the handle. The door did not give.

Suddenly she froze against the panels. A dim glow appeared on the opposite wall as the closet door swung slowly back, and outlined in the opening was the tall figure of Tunbridge.

Chapter X

SURPRISES

Dorothy’s experiences, since she had shopped for neckties for her father that morning had been quite enough to lay up the average girl for a week, and to wreck her nerves into the bargain. Laura Lawson’s appearance in her bedroom had strained tightened nerves to the breaking point.

The arrival of this second intruder was just too much. As the butler stepped out of the closet and started to close the door, Dorothy’s self-control snapped like a rubber band. She forgot that she was playing a part; that it might be suicidal to show her hand so early in the game. Fear gripped her throat. Had this man been sent to kill her? If not, then what was he doing, stealing into her room through a secret entrance like an assassin of the middle ages? Self-preservation bade her act. The consequences could take care of themselves.

“Stop!” The harsh whisper, as her hand dove for Flash, sounded like the voice of a stranger. “Move another step, and I’ll pin you to that door!” Flash was in her raised hand now, the extended blade reflecting the light in the closet as though the polished steel were glass.

She saw the man start in surprise and turn his head in her direction. As she was about to hurl the knife, Tunbridge found his voice.

“Ashton Sanborn sent me, Miss Dixon. Please don’t throw that knife.”

Gone was the English accent, and the pompous intonation of the British man servant. Tunbridge, if that were really his name, spoke the American Dorothy was accustomed to hear, the accents of the cultured New Englander. For the second time in her life, Dorothy fainted.

She awoke to find herself in bed. Tunbridge was beside it. She could just make out his tall, powerful figure in the darkness.

“Goodness – did I faint?” she said weakly.

“You certainly did, Miss Dixon.” His tone was little above a whisper. “Please don’t raise your voice – and drink this. I found the aromatic spirits of ammonia in the bathroom. You need something to steady you. No one is cast iron – you’ve been through a frightful lot today.”

Dorothy took the glass and drained it. Then she lay back on her pillow. “I got the scare of my life just now. Why didn’t Ashton Sanborn tell me about you, Mr. – ”

“Tunbridge is really my name, Miss Dixon. John Tunbridge, and very much at your service. I was afraid my rather abrupt appearance would startle you, and especially coming so soon after Mrs. Lawson’s – er – visit. I got a shock myself when I saw your white figure by the door just now, and all ready to split me with that knife, like – like a macaroon.” He chuckled, and removing the tray, sat down on the chair beside her bed.

“Oh, then you’ve seen Ashton Sanborn this evening, Mr. Tunbridge?”

“Heard from him, Miss Dixon. As you must know by now, I am a secret service operative and I am working under Mr. Sanborn. There isn’t time to go into detail now, but a couple of months ago, our department received an anonymous letter saying that Doctor Winn would bear watching. Shortly before that the Doctor had engaged Mrs. Lawson, who is an expert chemist by the way, to take charge of his laboratory. Her husband has been Doctor Winn’s secretary since last spring. We thought at that time that Mrs. Lawson might be the mysterious letter writer. Since then we’ve altered our opinion. Mr. Sanborn decided that inasmuch as Doctor Winn was working for the government it would be well to have a secret service man in the house. We prevailed upon the butler here to resign and I took his place.”

“Then Doctor Winn knows you’re a government detective?”

“No one in this house knows that, except you, Miss Dixon. The whole matter was arranged through an employment agency. Doctor Winn and the others here have no idea that I, like you, am simply playing a part.”

“Well, you’re certainly a splendid actor, Mr. Tunbridge.”

“Thank you, Miss Dixon. As you’ve no doubt discovered, acting, convincing acting, often plays a large part in our profession. You are doing brilliantly in that respect yourself. Mr. Sanborn thought, however, that it would be better if you did not know about me until the necessity arose. Mrs. Lawson, he knew would be watching you like a hawk when you arrived. If you had been aware of my identity, your position would only have been more difficult. She might have had her suspicions aroused in some way, which would have given you a wrong start from the beginning. I think you will realize tomorrow how hard it will be to treat me as though I were merely Tunbridge the butler.”

“Oh, I think you’re right. Tell me, how did you find out about the lemonade?”

“I overheard the Lawsons talking, yesterday. Made it my business in fact. It seems that Mrs. Lawson has had the idea that if Janet Jordan was only shamming sleep at that meeting, she would do her best to communicate with her father in some way. The natural thing to do would be to write a note and slip it in his hand or his pocket, when he came to see her. Martin Lawson was sure he would detect anything of the kind when he brought Jordan to say goodbye to Janet tonight at the flat. If not, the plan was to drug the girl with hot lemonade so that Mrs. Lawson could search her belongings for the note tonight.”

Dorothy nodded. “I watched her closely while she was in here, and so far as I could make out she didn’t find anything that interested her particularly. The Lawsons must have guessed wrong about Janet writing her father.”

“Well, no, they didn’t,” declared her new ally. “Janet wrote a letter, just as they surmised.”

“But where could it be?” asked Dorothy in a startled whisper, and sat bold upright in bed.

“Probably destroyed by this time,” Mr. Tunbridge chuckled. “There’s no need to worry on that score, Miss Dixon. When Ashton Sanborn spoke to your cousin this afternoon by means of Howard Bright’s headphone set, he learned that Janet proposed doing just what this clever pair here figured upon. Of course she had already written the note, and as there was no safe way to get rid of it in her room, he told her to take it with her when she left. And now if you’ll be good enough, I wish you’d tell me what happened after you took her place in the flat.”

Dorothy gave him a short sketch of her encounter with her uncle and Martin Lawson in Janet’s room, and of the conversation between the two men in the corridor afterward. “All the way up here,” she ended, “I pretended I had a grouch. Mr. Lawson tried to start a conversation several times, but he soon found it wasn’t much fun talking to himself and he gave it up as a bad job.”

“Excellent,” applauded the secret service man, “and quite in keeping with your behavior in the flat. You have done most remarkably well, Miss Dixon. Only – you won’t mind if I warn you not to let first success make you careless.”

“Do you really believe that these people mean to do away with me if they discover I am not what I appear to be, Mr. Tunbridge? It sounds a bit too melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“These Lawsons, husband and wife, are playing for gigantic stakes.” The detective’s voice, though barely audible was extremely grave. “They will stop at nothing. When crooks have at least two murders behind them, they’re not likely to stop at a third.”

“Then – then they are not what they pretend?”

“Certainly not. They’re a pair of high class European crooks named du Val.”

Dorothy shuddered. “And murderers!”

“Undoubtedly. They’re wanted both in England and in Austria for their crimes.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Oh, you see I recognized them when I arrived here, Miss Dixon.”

“But – but I can’t see why – why you didn’t arrest them then and there! You knew that they were after the secret of Doctor Winn’s new explosive, or whatever it is he has invented.”

“Yes, we realized that the formula for Doctor Winn’s explosive gas was the magnet that drew the du Vals to this house; but until today we had no idea how they proposed to dispose of the formula after stealing it.”

“I see. And now you realize that they probably intend to sell it to the organization of which my uncle is a member?”

“You are right, Miss Dixon.”

“Then why can’t you arrest the Lawsons now?”

“We can take the Lawsons at any time,” Tunbridge explained. “But we want to catch the ringleader of this organization. We know the group exists and for no good purpose, but what their definite object may be we still have no means of telling. We can’t arrest them on suspicion alone. Once they actually buy the formula from the Lawsons, it will be quite a different matter.”

She shook her head slowly. “But why hasn’t the formula been stolen before this? They’ve had plenty of opportunity, surely – ”

“Because it is not completed. At dinner tonight I heard the Doctor say that by tomorrow afternoon the work would be finished, and that he expected to take the formula to Washington the day after tomorrow.”

“Then you expect? – ”

“I expect that the Lawsons will make their attempt tomorrow night.”

“And where do I come in on this business, Mr. Tunbridge?”

“You are going to take the plans from Doctor Winn’s safe before the Lawsons get to it.”

She drew her breath sharply. “That’s a pretty large order – ”

“I know it, but – of course you’ll have the combination of the safe – ”

“Are you going to give it to me now?”

“Too dangerous. They are quite capable of searching your belongings again – or your person, for that matter – at any time. I’ll get it to you with exact instructions just as soon as the Doctor completes that blooming formula and locks it in the safe.”

“That’s all very well, Mr. Tunbridge. But has it occurred to you that if I steal this paper – I suppose it will be a paper? – ”

“Probably several of them – ”

“Well, if I take these papers before the Lawsons can get them, how are you going to arrest my uncle and the other men?”

“You,” directed Tunbridge, “will simply make a copy and replace the original documents where you found them. This is a safety-first move. We must have a copy in case the originals are destroyed.”

“It looks like a very complicated matter to me,” Dorothy admitted candidly. “Why not put the old gentleman wise? After all, it’s his formula, and if he made his own copy it would save us a possible run-in with the Lawsons, and – ”

Mr. Tunbridge stood up. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said, making a brave attempt to stifle a yawn, “but Doctor Winn would never agree to it. For a scientist who dabbles in high explosives, he’s the most nervous man I’ve ever met. He’d give the whole show away. No, that’s out of the question. Doctor Winn must be kept in ignorance of the whole proceeding. And now – ” a yawn got the better of him this time – “and now to bed. You need sleep even more than advice just now. Good night, or rather, good morning, Miss Dixon. Pleasant dreams, I hope.”

He started toward the door and Dorothy sprang out of bed and reached for her dressing gown.

“I want to see that secret passage, Mr. Tunbridge,” she said in a low tone.

“Oh, yes, come along.” He opened the door and stepped inside the closet. “It works this way. Press your foot on the board in the farthest right hand corner, like this, and a panel in the back wall slides up – like that – ”

Dorothy stared at the gaping black hole, then as the detective-butler snapped on his flashlight she saw that a narrow circular staircase led downward in the wall.

“That stair curves down to the ground floor,” he explained. “It comes out through the side wall inside the big fireplace in the hall. To open the panel down there you press a button under the left-hand corner of the mantel. To close either panel you simply put it down, once you’re inside.”

“Are there any more of these passages in the walls?”

“Very likely, but I haven’t found them yet. Winncote is an exact copy of the Doctor’s ancestral home in Wales. Those old houses were honeycombed with priest holes, secret passages and whatnot. And Doctor Winn had his architect copy the original Winncote across the water down to the last stone, with modern improvements such as bathrooms and steam heat, added.”

“Funny old fellow, isn’t he?” commented Dorothy sleepily. “Then I’m simply to carry on until I hear from you again?”

“That’s right. But whatever you do, watch your step with the Lawson woman. She is fully as heartless as she is beautiful. If you had never heard of that meeting in the Jordans’ flat, it would be much better for you. She will try to trap you, so please be on your guard continually. Well, good night, again.”

“Good night, Mr. Tunbridge.”

The panel in the back wall of the closet slid into place, and Dorothy went back to bed. She realized now that this matter of impersonating her cousin was not going to prove to be the easy job she had fancied. A slip on her part now would not only put her own life in danger, it would probably ruin all government plans to apprehend these desperate criminals.

At last she fell into a troubled sleep wherein she dreamed that a long circular staircase curved round and round her bedroom, and that Mrs. Lawson, dressed as a butler, had set her to watch every step of it.

Chapter XI

GRETCHEN

Dorothy awoke from troubled dreams to find that it was another day. Through the open window she saw the swirl of snowflakes driven in a high wind. The bedroom was cold and in the grey light of the winter morning it had lost its cheerful air.

She heard a knock on the door.

“Who’s there?” she called drowsily.

“It’s the maid, miss. Mrs. Lawson thought you might be wanting your breakfast now.”

Dorothy looked at her wrist watch. The hands marked ten-thirty. She jumped out on the rug, which felt cold and clammy under her bare feet, went to the door and unlocked it. Then she scampered back to bed and snuggled under the warm covers.

In walked a trim little figure wearing the small white apron and gray uniform of a chambermaid. Dorothy saw a round merry face, and a pair of big blue eyes beneath the white lawn cap, and thick flaxen braids were coiled round the neat head. She was surprised and somehow pleased to discover that this attractive member of the household staff could not be much more than sixteen, just her own age.

The little maid shut the door softly, crossed to the window and closed it, turned on the steam heat and came to the bedside. “Good morning, Miss Jordan.” She smiled engagingly. “I’m Gretchen, miss. Will you have your breakfast in bed?”

“Why, thank you, Gretchen – that will be cozy. But if it’s going to give you any trouble, don’t bother.” With the covers drawn up to her eyes, Dorothy smiled back at the girl.

“Oh, no, miss – it’s no trouble at all.” Gretchen was insistent. “It’s all ready now. I’ll run down and bring it up.”

She whisked out of the room and Dorothy rolled over for another cat-nap.

“If you’ll be good enough to sit up now, Miss Jordan – I have your breakfast here.”

Dorothy awoke again, yawned and stretched luxuriously. Gretchen stood beside her bed with the breakfast tray.

“If you’ll be good enough to sit up, miss?” she repeated.

Dorothy punched the pillows into position behind her, slipped the quilted gown about her shoulders and leaned back. Gretchen moved nearer – then almost dropped the tray.

“Why – why – miss – ”

Dorothy leaned over and steadied the tray. “What’s the matter, Gretchen?” The little maid was staring at her open-mouthed, her big blue eyes as round as saucers.

“Oh, I – I beg your pardon, but it’s – it’s the resemblance, miss – Miss Jordan.” She set the tray over Dorothy’s knees and drew back still with that astonished look. “I couldn’t see you very well before, miss, with the covers up to your eyes. But when you sat up, it sure did give me a start.”

“What do you mean, Gretchen? The resemblance to whom?” Dorothy, outwardly calm, fingered her glass of orange juice, but her thoughts raced toward this new complication.

“Why, you look so much like Dorothy Dixon – the flyer, you know, miss. She’s my hero – I mean, heroine, Miss Jordan. I’ve read everything the newspapers printed about her and Bill Bolton. You must have read about them too, everybody has?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about them.” Dorothy hoped her tone sounded indifferent. “But you know, Gretchen, newspaper pictures are often very poor likenesses.”

The girl smiled and nodded. “I know that, Miss Jordan. I’ve got them all and there isn’t no two of the pictures that looks alike.”

“Then how – ?”

“You see, it wasn’t the newspaper pictures I was thinking of, miss, but Dorothy Dixon herself. You see I know Miss Dixon,” she went on proudly, “and you two are certainly the spittin’ images of each other, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Dorothy minded very much, but it was not consistent with the part she was playing to admit it. Here was a contretemps not even Ashton Sanborn had foreseen. Yet, of course, New Canaan was only ten miles away. She had many friends in Ridgefield, and she’d been there hundreds of times. But she simply couldn’t remember having seen Gretchen in any of their homes. Her answer was but a feeble stall for time.

“So you know her then?” she said lamely.

“Oh, yes, miss. Not well, you understand. I saw her and Mr. Bill Bolton first when they finished the endurance test on the Conway motor this fall. Then a few days later, I drove over to her house in our flivver – over to New Canaan, you know, and I called on Miss Dixon. I wanted her to autograph a picture of herself I’d cut out of the Sunday paper.”

“And you met her?” Dorothy remembered the incident perfectly now. But the maid’s uniform – and her hair – when she had seen her, Gretchen had worn two braids over her shoulders, very much the schoolgirl. No wonder she hadn’t recognized her. But now what should she do? Would it be possible to keep up this camouflage with a girl whom she had met and with whom she would come in daily contact? Gretchen was talking again.

“Yes indeed, I met her. And she was just darling to me, Miss Jordan. She even gave me one of her own photographs and wrote on it, too. You see, us Schmidts came over from Germany about a hundred years ago, but we’re honest-to-goodness Americans just the same. Father was in the American army during the war. He was an aviation mechanic. He found one of them Iron Crosses of the Germans on some battlefield in France and kept it for a mascot. And would you believe it, miss, Father never even got wounded once, the whole time he was over there! Perhaps it was the little Iron Cross, and perhaps it wasn’t. Anyway, he thought a lot of his mascot. When I was ten years old, he had it fixed on a thin gold chain for me to wear around my neck, and gave it to me on my birthday. Well, when I went to see Miss Dixon this fall, I took it with me. She goes up in her airplane so much and does so many other exciting things, I wanted her to have it. She didn’t want to take the cross at first, but I persuaded her to, just the same. And you don’t know how nice she was to me, Miss! Took me out to see Will-o-the-Wisp – that’s her plane, you know – she calls it Wispy for short. And I had a perfectly grand time. She’s my heroine, all right. And you, miss – I hope you’ll excuse me for talking so much about it – but you look exactly like her, and your voices are just the same, too. It’s wonderful!”

“So you are Margaret Schmidt,” Dorothy said slowly.

“Yes, miss, that is so, though everybody calls me Gretchen. How did you know my given name, Miss Jordan? Is Miss Dixon a friend of yours? Did she tell you about me? But that’s silly – she wouldn’t remember me.”

Dorothy looked the little maid straight in the eyes. “She remembers you, Gretchen. Would you be willing to do something for her – to keep a secret, a very important and maybe a dangerous one? Do you think you could do it?”

Gretchen looked awestruck, then she smiled. “Mother says I’m the closest-mouthed girl she ever saw, miss. They could cut me in pieces before I ever let out any secret of Dorothy Dixon’s. I’d never tell – not me! You can trust me, Miss Jordan.”

“I’m sure I can, Gretchen. And I’m going to.” Dorothy slipped her hand into the V-neck of her pajamas. “Remember this?”

“Why – it’s – it’s my Iron Cross – that I gave Dorothy Dixon. How in the world – ?”

“I am Dorothy Dixon.” Dorothy broke into laughter at the bewildered expression on the girl’s face.

“But – but I don’t understand!” Gretchen stammered as though her tongue was half-paralyzed. “I knew the resemblance was wonderful – but – they said you were Miss Janet Jordan – and – ”

“You sit down on the end of the bed,” said Dorothy, “I’ll go on with my breakfast before it gets cold, and explain at the same time. We won’t be disturbed, will we?”

“Oh, no, miss.”

“How about your work, Gretchen? Will you be wanted downstairs?”

“Mr. Tunbridge told me to unpack your trunk, miss – Miss Dixon – and to make myself generally useful.”

“Fine,” smiled Dorothy, pouring out a cup of coffee. “But keep on calling me Miss Jordan – otherwise you’ll be making slips in the name in front of other people and that would be fatal.”

“Yes, Miss Jordan,” Gretchen grinned happily.

“After this beastly business is over,” Dorothy went on, “we’ll be Gretchen and Dorothy to each other.”

The other girl looked a trifle embarrassed. “But I’m only a chambermaid, Miss Jordan,” she said shyly.

“Don’t be silly!” Dorothy waved away the argument with a sweep of her spoon. “You’re proving yourself a real friend – and that’s that.”

“Very well, Miss Jordan.”

“Now pin back your ears, Gretchen.” Dorothy lifted the cover from her scrambled eggs. “I am taking my cousin, Janet Jordan’s place as Mrs. Lawson’s secretary. Nobody in this house knows who I am except Mr. Tunbridge, nor must they be given the slightest hint that I am anybody but Janet Jordan. As you’ve probably guessed, Janet and I look almost exactly alike. Our mothers were twins and that probably accounts for it.”

“Gee – ” breathed Gretchen. “It’s just like a story in a book!”

Dorothy bit into a slice of buttered toast. “Maybe it is,” she admitted, speaking with her mouth full. “But the point is that you and I are living this story and it may come to a very abrupt and unpleasant ending unless we’re both terribly careful. Let’s see – where was I? Oh, yes. Mr. Tunbridge and I are working together on this case, working for the United States Government.”