More Lives Than One/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
PEARL JANE
Not quite content with a second-hand yarn, Hutchins walked around by the caterer’s place on his way to Miss Vallon’s home.
He found Joe, the doorman, and asked him concerning the matter.
Joe told the tale just as the other man had repeated it.
“Did Mr. Locke seem at all flustered or flurried, Joe?”
“Not at all, sir. Might have been just going of an errand—as I thought he was. Maybe that’s what he did do, and met with some accident or foul play himself.”
“Maybe. You noticed nothing more of special interest—in the light of later affairs?”
“No, sir—that is, except this. Right after Mr. Locke went away—well—maybe five minutes after, a lady came running downstairs. She had on one of those fancy dresses, and a dark cloak over it.
“‘Let me out, please,’ she says—pretty like. ‘I’m late to keep an appointment.’”
“What did she look like?”
“Lord, sir, I couldn’t tell you. Those dressy ladies look all alike to me. Well, I let her out—I thought as she didn’t have an escort, she’d have a car. But, no, she walked—not fast, but brisk like, and went over east. I watched her till I couldn’t see her any more. Probably her appointment was near by.”
“Probably. Then she didn’t go the way Mr. Locke went?”
“Oh, no, sir, just the opposite way. He went toward the Avenue.”
“I see. Well, very likely the lady is in no way concerned in last night’s work.”
“That’s what I think, sir. Just a casual guest—going on to another party. That’s the way they do.”
“Who engaged you people, Joe? Mr. Locke?”
“No, sir. Mr. Post. He always does. Mr. Locke don’t have parties very often, leastways, not big ones—and when he does, Mr. Post and Miss Vallon, they do all the ordering. Mr. Locke, he likes it better that way. He’s no head for such details.”
“Do you know him?”
“Not so well, sir, but I’ve seen him. A pleasant-speaking man to-day, and to-morrow—well, sort of absent-minded.”
“He wasn’t absent-minded when he left the house last night?”
“Not a bit. Bright as could be. Just, back in a minute, and a pleasant smile, and he was off.”
“Do you suppose, Joe, that he could have—er—you know, committed a crime, and then gone off gay—like that?”
“Well, he wasn’t to say gay, sir. But—oh, well there’s no tellin’ with these artist folks. They’re not like real people. I know. I’ve opened doors to both sorts—to all sorts—and the people down here—they’re sort of touch and go, here to-day and gone to-morrow. I can’t seem to think that Mr. Locke would do such a thing—and I don’t think he did—but if he did—why, yes, I think he’d be quite up to skipping off like as if nothing was the matter. And isn’t the fact that he hasn’t come back, pretty good proof of his guilt?”
“So you suspect him, do you?”
“It isn’t for me to suspect, sir. But if he turns out to be the one, I shan’t be overly surprised.”
“You’ve no real reason to think him a criminal?”
“Oh, Lord, no, sir, not that. But when a man goes off and doesn’t come back, and in a few minutes a lady’s found dead, and nobody else on the premises so much as knows who she is—what else is there to think?”
“What, indeed?” said Hutchins. “Now, just one more question, my good man. That lady that went away soon after Mr. Locke, did more follow her?”
“Not till after the alarm was given. Not till folks wanted to get away from a house that had trouble coming to it.”
“But you said the alarm was given almost immediately after Mr. Locke went.”
“Yes—that’s so. Well, I may as well own up I can’t remember exactly. The lady I spoke of w^ent alone; then when the others went, they went more by twos and threes. And they wrent talking excited like in whispers, and seemin’ awful shocked, which wasn’t surprisin’. But the first lady, now, she couldn’t have known about it, for she was smiling and sweet.”
“Did she have on a mask?”
“No, she’d taken that off.”
“And you can’t remember her dress at all?”
“Well—it was white. What I could see of it. But all the ladies wore long, full cloaks or capes that covered up their rig. Specially those who walked.”
“A good many did walk?”
“Oh, yes. You see the Square people are neighborly, and most of ’em live only a few blocks off.”
Concluding he could learn no more from this man, Hutchins went to the task he dreaded, that of interviewing Miss Cutler.
He well knew Miss Vallon intended to shield the girl all she could from the least or slightest inconvenience.
And sure enough, when he arrived, Miss Vallon met him in the living room, which was the studio of her tiny apartment, with the word that Miss Cutler was not yet awake.
“And she is so worn out, I want her to sleep,” Kate purred on, pleasantly, “won’t I do? I can tell you all she could.”
Hutchins came to the conclusion that directness was best with this type of woman—so he said:
“Miss Vallon, you will do up to a certain pitch—and maybe past it. But if I find it necessary to question Miss Cutler personally let me assure you it will be far better for her to consent to see me than to continue to refuse.”
Kate Vallon paled a little, but she only said:
“Very well, question me.”
“I come to you, because I understand you and Miss Cutler and Mr. Post are Mr. Locke’s nearest friends, in this district, at least. I am told by the caterer’s people that you ordered the supper, and such things as that betoken intimacy. Now, Miss Vallon, do you know where Mr. Locke is?”
“I have not the faintest idea.”
Hutchins said nothing to that, but his thought was, “And you wouldn’t tell me if you had!”
“Do you think Miss Cutler or Mr. Post knows?”
“I am sure Miss Cutler does not, and I am sure Mr. Post did not when I last saw him, which was when he brought us home last night.”
“Does Mr. Post propose to try to find out?”
“That I don’t know. You would better ask him.”
“I intend to. Now, Miss Vallon, first of all, why are you in this distinctly antagonistic frame of mind? Don’t you know that you act as if you had something to conceal—or if there were something to be concealed, regarding Mr. Locke? Why is that?”
“You’re utterly absurd. As a matter of fact, I know very little about Mr. Locke. We are all good friends, but ours is not an intimate sort of a crowd. I know no more about his private or personal affairs than he knows about mine. I have no idea whether his disappearance is a purely casual one, or whether it is in any way connected with the distressing affair of last night. Indeed, Mr. Hutchins, I have no information that would be of the slightest use to you.”
Hutchins bowed slightly.
“Then I must ask for an interview with Miss Cutler. I am sorry to awaken her, but the law’s demands are inexorable. And she can go to sleep again. The lassitude of the day after a party is not a real malady. If you refuse further, you will make me think there is some other reason”
“Very well,” and Kate Vallon went to fetch Pearl Jane.
The suspiciously quick return of the pair made Hutchins smile inwardly at the story of the sleeping girl, but he made no allusion to that.
“I don’t want to worry or annoy you, Miss Cutler,” Hutchins said with almost kindness, for he saw at once she had doubtless passed a sleepless night. “But if you will tell me your own story—tell me all that is on your mind—it will be so much easier for both of us, than if I have to drag it out piecemeal.”
“I haven’t any story—I haven’t anything to tell,” and the girl gave him a piteous look.
“Let me help you,” and Hutchins was gentleness itself. “ When you hid in the closet what were you afraid of?”
“N-nothing in especial—but all the horrid things—the policeman, the dead woman”
“Had you seen the dead woman?” Hutchins shot this out, suddenly, and Pearl Jane gave a little scream.
“No, oh, no, I hadn’t seen her.”
“Yes, you had seen her. You had leaned down and looked at her—and, in doing so you touched her—and you made a stain of blood on the sleeve of your Dutch costume.”
To his surprise she suddenly changed her whole attitude. She sat up straight and seemed possessed of a new spirit of bravado.
“I didn’t do any such thing!” she said, and Kate chimed in with, “Of course she didn’t.”
“May I see the frock?” Hutchins asked, calmly.
“Certainly,” said Kate, and she left the room.
Hutchins took quick advantage.
“Miss Cutler,” he said, softly, “trust in me. Truly, it is the best and wisest course. I will help you all I can—and I’m sure you have nothing of any moment to confess.”
“Oh, I have! I have!” she moaned, and then Kate returned, and defiantly handed the pretty little costume to the detective.
Remembering just where he had seen the stain on the sleeve, he turned to it, but there was none there.
“You see!” cried Kate in triumph.
“Yes, I see,” he returned, “and so can you, the place where it has been washed out. You can see clearly the mark made by the water or whatever was used to cleanse it.”
“Nonsense,” said Kate, airily, “that’s where Miss Cutler chanced to stain her dress while eating a little supper after we came home. I persuaded her to try to nibble a bit of toast and drink some chocolate, and the chocolate spattered as I poured it from the pot.”
Hutchins looked at her in undisguised admiration.
“On the spur of the moment?” he asked, frankly, “or had you thought it up before?”
“The simple truth,” persisted Kate, but he saw her eyelids quiver, and he knew it was far from the simple truth.
He didn’t know exactly what to do. He suddenly remembered that the monk’s robe had been found in that same closet, and that the girl might have smeared her sleeve from that. For he felt sure the dark stain on Locke’s robe was blood. Did Pearl Jane know that?
But if Detective Hutchins’ thoughts were chaotic, and his conclusions contradictory, they were no more so than the conflicting theories that filled the troubled brain of Andrew Barham.
From the moment he stepped in his wife’s car to go back to his own home until he reached it, he was anxious and alarmed as to what the effect of the terrible news would be on Madeleine’s mother.
He had a strange feeling that she would think he was somehow to blame—that he had let this terrible thing come to them. Yet surely he had kept watch and guard over his wife as fully and carefully as she would let him.
His heart was full of grief, and the very fact that he and Madeleine had not been so congenial or happy as some married pairs, served to accentuate rather than mitigate his sorrow. For he had really loved his wife—loved her far more than she ever knew or appreciated. More than she cared, probably. Yet when such a thought came to him he put it away, it seemed a sort of disloyalty.
But, he thought, as he neared home, the first thing to do was tell Mrs. Selden. He was tempted to wait until morning, even strove to persuade himself that it would be better for her to have her night’s sleep in peace, but he soon realized this idea was born of his distaste for the ordeal he knew he must face.
So he dismissed the chauffeur, let himself in the house and went upstairs.
He went to Madeleine’s boudoir, and tapped softly, for he knew Claudine would be there awaiting her mistress.
The maid opened the door, and stared when she saw who was there.
“I will come in for a moment, Claudine,” he said; “I have something to tell you. But first, what did your mistress wear this evening?”
“Madame went to a Bal Masque,” came the reply. “She wore a beautiful costume of an Oriental Princess.”
“Where was the ball to be?”
“Madame did not say.”
“Did she say what time she would return?”
“Only to say that she would be late, but I must sit up for her. It is not yet late.”
“No; but—Claudine, your mistress will never return—she—she is dead.”
“Monsieur! Sir! What can you mean?”
“What I say. Have a care, Claudine, do not break into noisy weeping. I have all I can bear. Listen. My wife is dead—more, we have reason to think she was killed”
“Mon Dieu! Murder!” and the girl trembled pitifully.
“Hush!” said Barham, knowing he must be stern, even cruel, if she was to be of use to him. “Now, listen—it is not for you to take the center of the stage. I have to tell Madame Selden—think what that will mean. Go at once, Claudine, awaken her, and ask her to receive me. Do not tell her what I have told you—merely say I must see her at once. If she makes real objection, say it is on a gravely serious matter and is imperative.”
And then Andrew Barham paced Madeleine’s boudoir, until Claudine returned to tell him Mrs. Selden was ready to see him.
He found her sitting up in a chair, robed in peignoir and cap.
“What is it, Drew?” she asked. “Has anything happened? I’m sure you wouldn’t rout me out of bed otherwise.”
“Yes, Mother,” and Andrew Barham felt nearer her now than he ever had before. “Yes, something has happened—and we must bear it together, you and I. Something has happened to Madeleine—our little Maddy.”
“What is it? Tell me!”
She must have sensed it in part from his face, for her own countenance turned ashen, and she shook like a leaf.
“She was hurt—” he began—“badly hurt—and”
“And she is dead!” the mother said; “you needn’t say it, I know. How was she hurt?”
Relieved at her calmness, Barham began very gently to tell her the details, when, suddenly gleaning the whole truth, she gave a scream and flinging out her arms, slipped down in her chair, unconscious.
Hastily summoning Claudine, Barham lifted her back to her bed, and by the use of violet salts she soon recovered her wavering consciousness.
And then she became violently vituperative.
“My child!” she moaned, “my baby—my little Madeleine!” Then, with a wild shriek, “Don’t you sit there, sobbing. You never loved her! You never understood her! Leave me, Drew—I can’t bear to look at you now. No, come back here—tell me more—tell me all about my child—my baby. Where is she, where is she, I say! Where is she now?”
And he told her what he had done.
“Sent her off alone—to a terrible place! I said you never loved her! I knew you hated her”
“Listen, mother—don’t misjudge me. It was necessary—the authorities wouldn’t let me bring her home”
Mrs. Selden sat straight up in bed. Still handsome, she looked like some avenging goddess. Her white hair had become disordered, her dark eyes shone like coals of fire, and her sharp features seemed sharper still in her wild frenzy.
“The authorities! What have they to say about my child?”
In vain Barham tried to make her understand. He felt it would be best to get the whole scene over at once—and perhaps firmness was the wisest course.
Claudine stood by, now adjusting a pillow, now offering the salts bottle, and now breaking down herself.
“Try to understand, Mother,” Barham said, gently, but holding her by both hands and gazing into her eyes. “Madeleine has been killed—murdered. We have to do many things in that case, that we would not in case of an ordinary death. We have”
“Where was she?” she said. “Where did this happen? At Emmy Gardner’s?”
“No; Mother, have you any idea where Madeleine started out for to-night?”
“No; but she said she was going somewhere else before she went to Emmy Gardner’s.”
“Yes, she did. She went to a house in Washington Square.”
“Washington Square! Who in the world lives there?”
“A Mr. Locke. Did she ever speak to you of him?”
In spite of himself the man’s voice trembled.
“No, never. Rosamond Sayre was here this evening—just after dinner.” Mrs. Selden said.
“Madame Sayre said she would meet Madame at Madame Gardner’s at eleven,” Claudine volunteered.
“And what time did she leave home?” Barham asked.
“About nine-thirty,” the maid answered.
The reports all tallied as to time. There could be no doubt that Madeleine had gone to Locke’s from her own home and of her own accord. But why?—why?”
“Who is Mr. Locke?” Mrs. Selden said, quietly enough now.
“He’s an artist. I wish, Mother, you’d try to sleep now—may Claudine perhaps give you a little chloral? You know you must be brave to-morrow—we have hard times before us—you and I.”
The man felt so drawn to her through their common tragedy that he showed an affection he had rarely if ever shown before.
But it had small effect on the half-crazed woman.
“You and I!” she cried, with a burst of hysterical laughter. “You pretend to weep for Madeleine—my beautiful Madeleine! You! You ruined her whole life!”
“How?” cried the man, stung by this injustice.
“Because you wouldn’t give her money! You, rolling in wealth, denied that precious baby a few paltry hundreds”
“I never did, Mother. Madeleine never asked me for a dollar and was refused.”
“She didn’t dare ask! She was afraid of you! You cowed her spirit—her beautiful spirit”
“What did Maddy want money for—more than I allowed her?” he asked, a strange wonder clutching at his heart.
“For her Bridge games—her only pleasure. She had bad luck, poor child—she lost—oh, she lost thousands—”
“Mother! What are you saying? Madeleine lost thousands at Bridge!”
“Yes—time and again. I gave her all I had”
“There, there, dear, don’t let’s talk about this now. Let us both try to get some rest.”
“No! I don’t want to rest! I want to talk! Tell me more—tell me all—everything—just as if I had been there. What was this place? Was it a right place?”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure they were all charming people”
The man was nearly beside himself, and said what he thought most likely to soothe her.
“Was it a musicale?”
“No”
But his very voice failed him, and Claudine took up the burden. “It was a Bal Masque, Madame Selden. And Madame, she looked so ravishing in a costume of silks and sequins and jewels”
Mrs. Selden again sat bolt upright and pointed her finger at Barham.
“And you sent her—my child—to the—oh, to the terrible funeral place, in that gewgaw costume!”
It was the first time Barham had realized this. It was terrible! Madeleine in her casket, in that gaudy robe! But he had been so engrossed in other and to him graver matters, he hadn’t even thought of that.
“How horrible!” Mrs. Selden broke out again. “How ghastly! You care nothing for my sensibilities. Go—go at once, and take proper clothing.”
“I will, mother,” the distressed man said, humbly. “What shall it be? A little white gown?”
“Yes—” and then Mrs. Selden broke down and sobbed.
Yet in a moment another outbreak seemed imminent, and Barham feeling he could stand no more, and thinking he had done his duty, rose and left the room.
“Do all you can for her, Claudine,” he said, “and if she gets violent, call up the doctor. I can do no more. But I will get a gown and send down for Mrs. Barham. No, don’t come, I’ll find it. Stay with Madame Selden.”
And at last Andrew Barham closed the door upon the haven of his own room, alone.