Miss Maitland, Private Secretary

"No. Not if you tried your darndest."

Dick Ferguson's tongue did not lend itself readily to compliments. He gave forth this one with a seriousness that was almost solemn.

She laughed, the sound suggesting embarrassment, and looked away from him her eyes on the ground. Just in front of them the woodland roof showed a gap, and through it the light fell across the path in a glittering pool. As they advanced upon it she gave an exclamation, stayed him with an outflung arm, and bent to the moss at her feet:

"Oh, wait a minute – How exciting! I've found something."

She raised herself, illumined by the radiance, a small object that showed a golden glint in her hand. Then her voice came deprecating, disappointed:

"Oh, what a fraud! I thought it was a ring."

On her palm lay what looked like a heavy enameled ring. Ferguson took it up; it was of paper, a cigar band embossed in red and gold.

"Umph," he said, dropping it back, "I don't wonder you were fooled."

"It was right there on the moss shining in the moonlight. I thought I'd found something wonderful." She touched it with a careful finger. "It's new and perfectly dry. It's only been here since the storm."

"Some man taking a short cut through the woods. Better not tell Mrs. Janney, she doesn't like trespassers."

She held it up, moving it about so that the thick gold tracery shone:

"It's really very pretty. A ring like that wouldn't be at all bad. Look!" she slipped it on her finger and held the hand out studying it critically. It was a beautiful hand, like marble against the blackness of the trees, the band encircling the third finger.

Ferguson looked and then said slowly:

"You've got it on your engagement finger."

"Oh, so I have." Her laugh came quick as if to cover confusion and she drew the band off, saying, as she cast it daintily from her finger-tips, "There – away with it. I hate to be fooled," and started on at a brisk pace.

Ferguson bent and picked it up, then followed her. He said nothing for quite suddenly, at the sight of the ring on her finger, he had been invaded by a curious agitation, a gripping, upsetting, disturbing agitation. It was so sharp, so unexpected, so compelling in its rapid attack, that his outside consciousness seemed submerged by it and he trod the path unaware of his surroundings.

He had never thought of Esther Maitland being engaged, of ever marrying. He had accepted her as some one who would always be close at hand, always accessible, always in town or country to be found at the Janneys'. And the ring had brought to his mind with a startling clearness that some day she might marry. Some day a man would put a ring on that finger, put it on with vows and kisses, put it on as a sign and symbol of his ownership. Ferguson felt as if he had been shaken from an agreeable lethargy. He was filled with a surge of indignation, at what he could not exactly tell. He felt so many things that he did not know which he felt the most acutely, but a sense of grievance was mixed with jealousy and both were dominated by an angry certainty that any man who aspired to her would be unworthy.

When they emerged into the open he looked at her with a new expression – questioning, almost fierce and yet humble. Sauntering at her side across the lawn he was so obsessed with these conflicting emotions that he said not a word, and hardly heard hers. The Janneys were awaiting them on the balcony steps and after an exchange of good-nights he turned back to the wood trail and went home. In his room he threw himself on the sofa and lay there, his hands clasped behind his head, staring at the ceiling. It was long after midnight when he went to bed, and before he did so he put the cigar band in the jewel box with the crystal lid that stood on the bureau.

The Janney party trailed into the house, Sam stopping to lock the door as the ladies moved to the stair foot. Suzanne went up with a curt "good-night" to her mother, and no word or look for the Secretary. Esther did not appear to notice it and, pausing with her hand on the balustrade, proffered a request – could she have to-morrow, Saturday, to go to town? She was very apologetic; her day off was Thursday and she had no right to ask for another, but a friend had unexpectedly arrived in the city, would be there for a very short time and she was extremely anxious to see her. Mrs. Janney granted the favor with sleepy good-nature and Miss Maitland, very grateful, passed up the stairs, the old people dragging slowly in her wake, dropping remarks to one another between yawns.

A long hall crossed the upper floor, one side of which was given over to the Price household. Here were Suzanne's rooms, Chapman's empty habitation, and opposite them Bébita's nurseries. The other side was occupied on the front by Mrs. Janney and the Secretary with a line of guest chambers across the passage. In a small room between his wife's and his stepdaughter's Mr. Janney had ensconced himself. He liked the compact space, also his own little balcony where he had his steamer chair and could read and sun himself. As the place was much narrower than the apartments on either side a short branch of hall connected it with the main corridor. His door, at the end of this hall, commanded the head of the stairway.

Mr. Janney had a restless night; he knew he would have for he had taken champagne and coffee and the combination was always disturbing. When he heard the clocks strike twelve he resigned himself to a nuit blancheand lay wide awake listening to the queer sounds that a house gives out in the silent hours. They were of all kinds, gurglings and creaks coming out of the walls, a series of small imperative taps which seemed to emerge from his chest of drawers, thrummings and thrillings as if winged things were shut in the closets.

Half-past twelve and one struck and he thought he was going off when he heard a new sound that made him listen – the creaking of a door. He craned up his old tousled head and gave ear, his eyes absently fixed on the strips and spots of moonlight that lay white on the carpet. It was very still, not a whisper, and then suddenly the dogs began to bark, a trail of yaps and yelps that advanced across the lawn. Close to the house they subsided, settling down into growls and conversational snufflings, and he sank back on his pillow. But he was full of nerves, and the idea suddenly occurred to him that Bébita might be sick, it might have been the nursery door that had opened – Annie going to fetch Mrs. Janney. He'd take a look to be sure – if anything was wrong there would be a light.

He climbed out of bed and stole into the hall. No light but the moon, throwing silvery slants across the passage and the stair-head, and relieved, he tiptoed back. It was while he was noiselessly closing his door that he heard something which made him stop, still as a statue, his faculties on the qui vive, his eye glued to the crack – a footstep was ascending the stairs. It was as soft as the fall of snow, so light, so stealthy that no one, unless attentive as he was, would have caught it. Yet it was there, now and then a muffled creak of the boards emphasizing its advance. The corridor at the head of the stairs was as bright as day and with his eye to the crack he waited, his heart beating high and hard.

Rising into the white wash of moonlight came Suzanne, moving with careful softness, her eyes sending piercing glances up and down the hall. Her expression was singular, slightly smiling, with something sly in its sharpened cautiousness. As she rose into full view he saw that she held her wrapper bunched against her waist with one hand and in the other carried Bébita's torch. He was so relieved that he made no move or sound, but, as she disappeared in the direction of her room, softly closed his door and went back to bed.

She had evidently left something downstairs, a book probably – he could not see what she had in the folds of the wrapper – and had gone to get it. If she was wakeful it was a good sign, indicated the condition of distressful unease her mother had hoped to create. Such alarm might lead to a salutory reform, a change, if not of heart, of behavior. Comforted by the thought, he turned on his pillow and at last slept.

CHAPTER V – ROBBERY IN HIGH PLACES

The next morning Mr. Janney had to read the papers to himself for Miss Maitland went to town on the 8:45. He sat on the balcony and missed her, for the Chicago murder had developed several new features and he had no one to talk them over with. Suzanne, who never came down to breakfast, appeared at twelve and said she was going to the Fairfax's to lunch with bridge afterward. Though she was not yet aware of Mrs. Janney's intention to once more come to her aid, her gloom and ill-humor had disappeared. She looked bright, almost buoyant, her eyes showing a lively gleam, her lips parting in ready smiles. She was going to the beach before lunch, and left with a large knitting bag slung from her arm, and a parasol tilted over her shoulder. It was not until she was half way across the lawn that old Sam remembered her nocturnal appearance which he had intended asking her about.

She was hardly out of sight when Bébita and Annie came into view on the drive, returning from the morning bath. Bébita had a trouble and raced up the steps to tell him – she had lost her torch. She was quite disconsolate over it; Annie had said they'd surely find it, but it wasn't anywhere, and she knew she'd left it on the nursery table when she went to bed. In the light of subsequent events Mr. Janney thought his answer to the child had been dictated by Providence. Why he didn't say, "Your mother knows; she had it last night," he never could explain; nor what prompted the words, "Ask your mother; she's probably seen it somewhere." Bébita accepted the suggestion with some hope and then, hearing that her mother would not be home until the afternoon, fell into momentary dejection.

Mrs. Janney was to take her accustomed drive at four and her husband said he would go with her. Some time before the hour he appeared on the balcony, cool and calm, his poise restored after the trials of the previous day and the disturbed night, and sat down to wait. Inside the house his wife was busy. Several important papers had come on the morning mail and these, with the opals, she decided to put in the safe before starting. After they were stored in their shelves and the opals back in their box she could not resist a look at her emeralds, of all her material possessions the dearest. She lifted the purple velvet case and opened it – the emeralds were not there.

She stood motionless, experiencing an inner sense of upheaval, her heart leaping and then sinking down, her body shaken by a tremor such as the earth feels when rocked by a seismic throe. She tried to hold herself steady and opened the other cases – the two pearl necklaces, the sapphire rivière, the diamond and ruby tiara. As each revealed its emptiness her hands began to tremble until, when she reached the white suède box of the black pearl pendant, they shook so she could hardly find the clasp. Everything was gone – a clean sweep had been made of the Janney jewels.

Moving with a firm step, she went to the balcony. In the doorway she came to a halt and said quietly to her husband:

"Sam, my jewels have been stolen."

Mr. Janney squared round, stared at her, and ejaculated in feeble denial:

"Oh no!"

"Oh yes," she answered with the same note of grim control, "Come and see."

When he saw, his old veined hands shaking as they dropped the rifled cases, he turned and blankly faced his wife who was watching him with a level scrutiny.

"Mary!" was all he could falter. "Mary, my dear!"

"Last night," she nodded, "when we were out. The place was almost empty. I'll call the servants."

She went to the foot of the stairs and called Elspeth, old Sam, bewildered by this sudden catastrophe, emerging from the safe, as pale and shaken as if he was the burglar.

"Last night, of course last night," he murmured, trying to think. "They were here at eight. I saw them, we saw them, anybody could have seen them."

Elspeth appeared on the stairs and came running down, Mrs. Janney's orders delivered like pistol shots upon her advance:

"I've been robbed. The safe's been opened and all the jewels are gone. Go and call the servants, every one of them. Tell them to come here at once."

Elspeth knew enough to make no reply, and, with a terrified face, scudded past her mistress to the kitchen. Mrs. Janney, her attention attracted by sounds of distracted amazement from her husband, mobilized him:

"Go and get Miss Maitland. We'll have to send for detectives. She can do it – she doesn't lose her head."

Mr. Janney, too stunned to be anything but meekly obedient, trotted off down the hall to Miss Maitland's study, then stopped and came back:

"She's in town; she hasn't got back yet."

"Tch!" Mrs. Janney gave a sound of exasperation. "I'd forgotten it. How maddening! You'll have to do it. Go in there to the 'phone" – she indicated the telephone closet at the end of the hall. "Call up the Kissam Agency – that's the best. We had them when the bell boy at Atlantic City stole my sables. Get Kissam himself and tell him what's happened and to take hold at once – to come now, not to waste a minute. And don't you either – hurry! – "

Mr. Janney hasted away and shut himself in the telephone closet, as the servants, marshaled by Dixon and Elspeth, entered in a scared group. They had been taking tea in their own dining room when Elspeth burst in with the direful news. Eight of them were old employees – had been years in Mrs. Janney's service. Hannah, the cook, had been with her nearly as long as Dixon; Isaac, the footman, was her nephew. Dixon's large, heavy-jowled face was stamped with aghast concern; the kitchen maid was in tears.

Mrs. Janney addressed them like what she was – a general in command of her forces:

"My jewels have been stolen. Some time last night the safe was opened and they were taken. It is my order that every one of you stay in the house, not holding communication with any one outside, until the police have been here and made a thorough investigation. Your rooms and your trunks will have to be searched and I expect you to submit to it willingly with no grumbling."

Dixon answered her:

"It's what we'd expect, Madam. Me and Isaac both know the combination and we'd want to have our own characters cleared as much as we'd want you to get back your valuables."

Hannah spoke:

"We'd welcome it, Mrs. Janney. There's none of us wants any suspicion restin' on 'em."

Delia, the housemaid with the inflamed eye, took it up. She was a newcomer in the household, and in her fright her brogue acquired an unaccustomed richness:

"God knows I was in my room at nine, and not a move out of me till sivin the nixt mornin' and that's to-day."

Mr. Janney, issuing from the telephone closet, here interrupted them. He addressed his wife:

"It's all right. I got Kissam himself. He'll be here on the 5:30."

She answered with a nod and was turning for further instructions to Dixon when Suzanne entered from the balcony. Up to that moment Mr. Janney had forgotten all about his nocturnal vision; now it came back upon him with a shattering impact.

He felt his knees turn to water and his heart sink down to inner, unplumbed depths in his anatomy. He grasped at the back of a chair and for once his manners deserted him, for he dropped into it though his wife was standing.

"What's all this?" said Suzanne, coming to a halt, her glance shifting from her mother to the group of solemn servants. She looked very pretty, her face flushed, the blue tint of her linen dress harmonizing graciously with her pink cheeks and corn-colored hair.

Mrs. Janney explained. As she did so old Sam, his face as gray as his beard, watched his stepdaughter with a furtive eye. Suzanne appeared amazed, quite horror-stricken. She too sank into a chair, and listened, open-mouthed, her feet thrust out before her, the high heels planted on the rug.

"Why, what an awful thing!" was her final comment. Then as if seized by a sudden thought she turned on Dixon.

"Were all the windows and doors locked last night?"

"All on the lower floor, Mrs. Price. Me and Isaac went round them before we started for the village, and there's not a night – "

Suzanne cut him off brusquely:

"Then how could any one get in to do it?"

There was a curious, surging movement among the servants, a mutter of protest. Mr. Janney intervened:

"You'd better let matters alone, Suzanne. Detectives are coming and they'll inquire into all that sort of thing."

"I suppose I can ask a question if I like," she said pertly, then suddenly; looking about the hall, "Where's Miss Maitland?"

"In town," said her mother.

"Oh – she went in, did she? I thought her day off was Thursday."

"She asked for to-day – what does it matter?" Mrs. Janney was irritated by these irrelevancies and turned to the servants: "Now I've instructed you and for your own sakes obey what I've said. Not a man or woman leaves the house till after the police have made their search. That applies to the garage men and the gardeners. Dixon, you can tell them – " she stopped, the crunch of motor wheels on the gravel had caught her ear. "There's some one coming. I'm not at home, Dixon."

The servants huddled out to their own domain and Dixon, with a resumption of his best hall-door manner, went to ward off the visitor. But it was only Miss Maitland returning from town. She had several small packages in her hands and looked pale and tired.

The news that greeted her – Mrs. Janney was her informant – left her as blankly amazed as it had the others. She was shocked, asked questions, could hardly believe it. Old Sam found the opportunity a good one to study Suzanne, who appeared extremely interested in the Secretary's remarks. Once, when Miss Maitland spoke of keeping some of her books and the house-money in the safe, he saw his stepdaughter's eyelids flutter and droop over the bird-bright fixity of her glance.

It was at this stage that Bébita ran into the hall and made a joyous rush for her mother:

"Oh, Mummy, I've waited and waited for you," – she flung herself against Suzanne's side in soft collision. "I've lost my torch and I've asked everybody and nobody's seen it. Do you know where it is?"

Suzanne arched her eyebrows in playful surprise, then putting a finger under the rounded chin, lifted her daughter's face and kissed her, softly, sweetly, tenderly.

"Darling, I'm so sorry, but I haven't seen it anywhere. If you can't find it I'll buy you another."

CHAPTER VI – POOR MR. JANNEY!

The peace and aristocratic calm of the Janney household was disrupted. Into its dignified quietude burnt an irruption of alien activity and the great white light of publicity. Kissam with his minions came that evening and reporters followed like bloodhounds on the scent. Scenes were enacted similar to those Mr. Janney had read in novels and witnessed at the theater, but which, in his most fevered imaginings, he had never thought could transpire in his own home. It was unreal, like a nightmare, a phantasmagoria of interviews with terrified servants, trampings up and down stairs, strange men all over the place, reporters on the steps, the telephone bell and the front door bell ringing ceaselessly. Everybody was in a state of tense excitement except Mr. Janney whose condition was that of still, frozen misery. There were moments when he was almost sorry he'd married again.

After introductory parleys with the heads of the house the searchlight of inquiry was turned on the servants. Their movements on the fateful night were subject of special attention. When Kissam elicited the fact that they had not returned from the village till nearly midnight he fell on it with ominous avidity. Dixon, however, had a satisfactory explanation, which he offered with a martyred air of forbearance. Mr. Price's man, Willitts, had that morning come up from town to Cedar Brook, the next station along the line. In the afternoon he had biked over to see them and, hearing of their plan to visit the movies, had arranged to meet them there. This he did, afterward taking them to the Mermaid Ice Cream Parlors where he had treated them to supper. They had left there about half past eleven, Willitts going back to Cedar Brook and the rest of them walking home to Grasslands.

From the women left in the house little was to be gathered. This was unfortunate as the natural supposition was that the burglary had been committed during the hours when they were alone there. Both, feeling ill, had retired early, Delia at about half-past eight, going immediately to bed and quickly falling asleep. Hannah was later; about nine, she thought. It was very quiet, not a sound, except that after she got to her room she heard the dogs barking. They made a great row at first, running down across the lawn, then they quieted, "easing off with sort of whines and yaps, like it was somebody they knew." She had not bothered to look out of the window because she thought it was one of the work people from the neighborhood, making a short cut through the grounds.

In the matter of the safe all was incomprehensible and mysterious. Five people in the house knew the combination – Mr. and Mrs. Janney, Dixon and Isaac and Miss Maitland. Mrs. Janney was as certain of the honesty of her servants and her Secretary as she was of her own. She rather resented the detectives' close questioning of the latter. But Miss Maitland showed no hesitation or annoyance, replying clearly and promptly to everything they asked. She kept the house money and some of her account books in the safe and on the second of the month – five days before the robbery – had taken out such money as she had there to pay the working people who did not receive checks. She managed the financial side of the establishment, she explained, paying the wages and bills and drawing the checks for Mrs. Janney's signature.

Questioned about her movements that afternoon, her answers showed the same intelligent frankness. She had spent the two hours after lunch altering the dress she was to wear that evening. As it was very warm in her room she had taken part of it to her study on the ground floor. When she had finished her work – about four – she had gone for a walk returning just before the storm. After that she had retired to her room and stayed there until she came down to go to Mr. Ferguson's dinner.

The safe and its surroundings were subjected to a minute inspection which revealed nothing. Neither window had been tampered with, the locks were intact, the sills unscratched, the floor showed no foot-mark. There were no traces of finger prints either upon the door or the metal-clamped boxes in which the jewel cases were kept. The mended chair was just as Mrs. Janney remembered it, set between the safe and the window, in the way of any one passing along the hall.

It was on Sunday afternoon – twenty-four hours after the discovery – that Dick Ferguson appeared with one of his gardeners, who had a story to tell. On Friday night the man had been to a card party in the garage of a neighboring estate and had come home late "across lots." His final short cut had been through Grasslands, where he had passed round by the back of the house. He thought the time would be on toward one-thirty. Skirting the kitchen wing he had seen a light in a ground floor window, a window which he was able to indicate. He described the light as not very strong and white, not yellow like a lamp or candle. As he looked at it he noticed that it diminished in brightness as if it was withdrawn, moved away down a hall or into a room. He could see no figure, simply the lit oblong of the window, with the pattern of a lace curtain over it, and anyway he hadn't noticed much, supposing it to be one of the servants coming home late like himself.

This settled the hour of the robbery. It had not been committed when the place was almost deserted, but when all its occupants were housed and sleeping. The window, pointed out by the man, was directly opposite the safe door, the light as he described it could only have been made by an electric lantern or torch, its gradual diminishment caused by its removal into the recess of the safe.

If before this Mr. Janney's mental state was painful, it now became agonized. He was afraid to be with the detectives for fear of what he would hear, and he was afraid to leave them alone, for fear of what he might miss. When Mrs. Janney conferred with Kissam he sat by her side, swallowing on a dry throat, and trying to control the inner trembling that attacked him every time the man opened his lips. He gave way to secret, futile cursings of the jewels, distracted prayers that they never might be found. For if they were, the theft might be traced to its author – and then what? It would be the end of his wife, her proud head would be lowered forever, her strong heart broken. Sleep entirely forsook him and the people who came to call treated him with a soothing gentleness as if they thought he was dying.