The Green Jacket/Chapter 10
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The eight o'clock morning train to Lincoln was nearly empty. The woman in gray seated by the rear door glanced over the few people ahead of her in the car. They were the usual suburban characters—a cook going out to a new engagement, in her best hat, an old man with no particular occupation, a little boy and his grandmother, an architect and his assistant, and a drummer for laces.
Milly's eye ran over them and her mind settled down to the case that was taking her to Lincoln. She had been at home the evening before and received Mrs. Mason's call on the telephone for the seamstress who had advertised for work in the evening paper.
The voice had come hesitatingly over the wire, and Milly had had a vision of the woman in her black garments holding the receiver in tense grasp and listening with half-frightened face for the response to her call. She had thrown into her reply all the assurance and command the voice lacked, and the next words had taken the cue and become conventional and easy, and even a little expectant.
"You will come in the morning, then?" said the voice.
And Milly, keeping in mind other ears that might be listening in convenient door ways, had replied: "I shall take the eight o'clock out from the city. Is it far from the station to your house?"
"About five miles," said the woman. "You cannot walk— Wait a minute, please."
She had turned from the receiver, and the murmur of voices, vague and a little blurred, came to Milly's ear. The man's voice seemed to demur a little, and yielded at last half-grudgingly to the woman, and she turned to the mouthpiece:
"Are you there? Yes. The car will meet you. For the eight o'clock from town." Then she had hung up, and Milly had remained a moment, almost fancying that the surrounding atmosphere held something, some hidden message to give to her, that the two voices in rapid colloquy and the woman's half-hurried words had failed to convey. Then she had put it all from her and gone resolutely to bed. She must not spoil the one good night's sleep that remained to her. For, once on the case, her nights and days would belong to it; she must be ready at any moment, night or day, to follow a clew.
She glanced from the car-window at the unfamiliar landscape that flashed by. She had never been on this road before. It was not on the main line, and even as a sub urban line it was not important. A brakeman in the doorway called out Curtisville, and she looked at her watch—eight-twenty-five. Lincoln was the next stop, and the end of the line. . . . The houses began to crowd close and run together. The architect was rolling up a blue-print, and the grandmother buttoned the little boy's coat with trembling fingers.
The station-platform, filled with people, passed by Milly's window. The brakeman at the front end of the car was reversing plush-covered seats. With a swift glance over the waiting crowd, she took up her suitcase and moved toward the door. She had noted a handsome car drawn up by the outer platform, and a chauffeur with impassive face waiting beside it. She did not move toward it at once, but struggled a little in the crowd that surged toward the train, and the chauffeur came forward. He looked at her, and hesitated. And she lifted a meek, seamstress glance to his face, and straightened her hat, that the crowd had somehow displaced. She was little and helpless and inefficient.
"Is there a car from Mr. Mason's here?" she asked.
"This way," said the man. He reached down for her suitcase and disposed it in the car and sprang in beside it and waited, almost impatiently, it seemed, for her to get in.
"May I sit in front?" asked the seamstress timidly.
"Oh—all right." He moved over to make room, and adjusted the suitcase a little, and she stepped in beside him.
"We're in a little hurry this morning," he said apologetically. "Mr. Mason wants the car for the next train in."
"He goes in every day, I suppose?" said the seamstress pleasantly.
"Well, pretty near every day. Skips a day now and then."
They were skimming through a pleasant suburban district, and the man's gaze was fixed ahead.
Milly noted that he had a clear, ruddy complexion, and she liked the look in his eye when it turned to her. But a wide experience in the complexion of criminals had led her not to place too much confidence in signs that might be only skin-deep.
She glanced at the lining of the car and made a little motion with her hand. "Has it been relined?" she asked. "I've seen this make of car before, but not this lining. It's very pretty."
"It's this year's model," said the man. "They bought it since I came."
Milly's nod and smile gave him a little tribute of thanks for what his reply told her. She settled comfortably in her seat, watching the houses on either side. They were farther apart now, and stood well back from the road, with driveways that wound through pleasant lawns.
"That's our place, on the right," said the man. The road curved sharply just ahead and he nodded toward a house that showed dimly through the trees. They rounded the curve and passed along a high wall of stone, then he turned the car skilfully into a gate way in the high wall, and they were passing through close-set shrubbery and high trees. Beyond the trees the house came in view again. It stood in the open sunshine, painted white, with doors and windows open to the air. It had a hospitable, waiting look, and Milly had a swift sense of its dignity and charm, and its incongruity with the black garments and hunted look of the woman who had sought her aid.
"Pretty place," said the chauffeur, nodding toward it.
"Very!" She leaned forward, scanning the open windows and the wide terrace that extended along the front and side of the house; the terrace was brick-paved and surrounded by a low parapet covered with vines and flowers. From an opening at the front two wide steps led down to the drive way. The whole effect was singularly gracious and pleasing. The house rose from its setting with a kind of restful dignity, and the vines and flowers gave to it the homelike beauty that was its dominating note.
Milly's eyes studied the graceful lines with a touch of surprise and incredulity. She had come expecting a gloomy, forbidding place, and the house standing there in the sun in the midst of its vines and flowers seemed the embodiment of homelike com fort. . . . A figure appeared in the doorway and came rapidly across the brick-paved terrace to the steps.
"It's Mr. Mason!" said the man. "Would you mind getting out here, please?" He brought the car to a stop by a side path that led to the terrace, and Milly climbed quickly out.
"I'll bring your bag later," said the man. But she reached up to it.
"I can take it, thank you."
She went slowly up the path to a side door, looking about her at the vines and flowers, and her glance passed carelessly beyond the flowers, and took in the tall, dark figure running quickly down the wide steps, and waiting in half-concealed impatience for the car that approached him swiftly. He threw open the door, spoke a quick word to the chauffeur, and the car rolled off.
Milly's eyes followed it a minute. Then she turned leisurely toward the house. A woman who had been standing behind the screen-door watching her approach, surveyed her through the meshes.
"Are you the new sewing-woman?" she asked. And at Milly's response she opened the door half-grudgingly, it seemed, to admit her. She led the way down the hall to a small room at the left.
"You will work here," she said, throwing open the door.
Milly looked about the room with quick glance. There was a low fireplace at the right, and at the left, two French windows open to the terrace. Through a door opposite the one by which she entered she had a glimpse of a breakfast-room, the table still uncleared, and through another door at the right she could see the front hall and the long stairway leading from it to the floor above.
In the glance of the eye that took in her surroundings, she had turned to the woman with a smile. "What a pleasant room!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, it's pleasant enough," returned the woman. There was something almost defiant in the glance and tone.
"You sleep at the top. Do you want to go up?" she said.
Milly motioned to her suitcase. "I want to get out my sewing-things and wash my hands. Yes, I'd better go up now, then I shall not need to trouble you again."
The woman made no reply. She preceded her down the long cool hall and up a flight of stairs at the end. She set her foot firmly on each step and lifted herself by a little perceptible effort. She was middle-aged and bulky, and there was a look of obstinacy and reserve in the wide back that Milly regarded thoughtfully as she followed it up the two flights of stairs to a room at the top.
"Here's where you sleep," said the woman. She threw open a door.
"Thank you. I can find my way down quite well now—if you will tell Mrs. Mason I am here."
"She knows you're here," said the woman. "She saw you come."
She turned away heavily, and Milly heard the sound of her asthmatic breathing come faintly back as she descended the stairs.
Milly stood for a moment, her hand on the door, listening to the sound as it moved along the hall below and passed out of hearing. She closed the door and looked about her with satisfaction. The room was perfectly located. To reach it she must pass through corridors opening on all the rooms at the rear of the house, and the sewing-room below evidently gave her the range of a large part of the front of the house. She stepped to the window and looked out.
Below her lay the brick-paved terrace gay with its vines and flowers, and beyond the terrace, sloped a wide lawn reaching to the trees that guarded the entrance. Beyond the trees and the high surrounding wall, she caught a glimpse of distant hills. It was a peaceful scene, flooded in sunshine. The sunshine poured in at the window where she stood, and the little breeze that came with it brought a hint of flower-scents and fresh-cut grass.
She turned away from the window and unpacked her suitcase quickly, placing the few articles it contained in the closet and in the drawers of the empty bureau, where they seemed lost in the generous space. . . . The house below was very still; not a sound broke its quiet as she moved about her room. She poured water into the basin and washed and dried her hands and returned the towel to its rack. All her movements were deft and swift, and all her finer senses were reaching out into the stillness of the mysterious house, gathering up its impalpable signs and testing them for the life that lay behind them.
She cast a glance about the room and took a chintz-flowered bag from the bed; from one side of its ribbon-hooped handles the ends of two long amber needles protruded, and through the opening at the top a bit of green-colored wool was visible. . . . She slipped the hoops carelessly over her arm and passed out to the hall, leaving the door open behind her into the sun-filled room.
The doors to all the other rooms along the upper corridor were closed. A large window at the farther end let in a flood of light. Everything was cheerful and airy. There was no hint of anything concealed or mysterious that waited in the rooms be low. It was a comfortable country-house, well-lighted and well-aired; its only anomaly was the preternatural stillness that reigned throughout it, above and below. As she went slowly down the stairs, listening for some sign of life, she saw through the railing that the hall of the floor below opened into wide corridors, and when she reached the junction of the corridors, the open doors on either side revealed glimpses of chintz hangings and the dark, polished surface of wood. The house and all its furnishings were more artistic and more important than the appearance of her client had led her to expect.
As she stood hesitating which way to go, she caught sight, through one of the open doors, of the dark folds of a woman's gown moving hazily, and the next moment the woman herself appeared in the door.
She held out her hands in a swift gesture, almost of welcome, and Milly moved quickly toward her, ignoring the outstretched hands.
"I am the sewing-woman," she said respectfully. "Are your dresses in here?" She spoke very clearly and distinctly. A faint sound of asthmatic breathing in the distance, that had seemed to halt for a moment, moved softly away.
The woman in the doorway had retreated a little, looking at Milly with puzzled eyes. The outstretched hands dropped to her sides.
"I will get what you have ready," said Milly practically, "and take it with me to the sewing-room." She stepped quietly into the room, leaving the door open behind her.
"Show me your dresses first," she said. "I will work on those to-day."
The woman, after another puzzled glance, went to the wardrobe and opened the large door. "I have almost nothing," she said apologetically.
The wardrobe was nearly empty. Two or three handsome dresses in the style of a year or two past dangled from the hooks. There were no black garments. Milly glanced toward the black gown the woman was wearing.
She stood near by, waiting, her hands clasped loosely before her. Seen without the black hat and the ill-fitting coat of the day before, the figure was finely impressive. The simple lines of the dress and the open neck without ornament brought out a grace that the clumsy outer garments had concealed. She was gazing at Milly with the little puzzled bewilderment in her face.
"I wanted to talk to you," she said in a low voice. The words were scarcely audible.
"Yes. We shall have plenty of time to talk by and by. Do you want these altered?" She indicated the dresses of outworn style that hung pathetically from the wardrobe poles.
"Oh—I don't know!" The woman took a step forward, looking at them doubtfully. "I gave away the others—everything except these. But these were so expensive!" She regarded them uncertainly. "I don't want to wear colors," she murmured.
"Very well." Milly shut the door on the dresses. "We will work on something else. Perhaps you have some white work?"
The woman brought a handful of under-garments and Milly selected those that needed mending, going through them rapidly. She noted that everything was of the finest material and expensive, as if whatever came near the woman must be exquisite of its kind.
"These will do," she said, gathering up those she had selected. "I would rather have a dress." She looked attentively at the black folds of the woman's gown. "I could alter that a little. It is loose here." She touched the shoulders.
"I have grown thin," said the woman, flushing a little. "I will put on a kimono if you would rather work on this. I have no other dress to put on."
Milly nodded. "That will do very well. Bring it to me—in the sewing-room, when you are ready." She moved toward the door with the undergarments on her arm.
There was no one in the wide corridors, and no sound of faintly asthmatic breathing came from the distant region beyond.
She turned back quickly. "Was this the room where the jewel-case was kept?" She asked.
The woman's hand moved to a toilet-table between the windows. "It stood there."
"And where is it now?"
"In that cabinet." She motioned to a handsome ebony cabinet that stood by the door.
"Unlocked?"
"No. I have the key." She lifted a hand to the bosom of her gown.
Milly nodded. "Bring it to me with the dress. I shall want to come here again later. You will lay out work for me on the bed and I shall come and go between this room and the sewing-room for a while."
The woman, who had unfastened the neck of her dress and was pushing it back, paused. "I forgot!" she said quickly. "I shall need this dress to wear. I have no other, and I promised my husband to go motoring with him."
"When do you go?"
"This afternoon. He will be home for luncheon, he said, and then we start at once."
"No, that will hardly give me time," said Milly thoughtfully. "I do not work very fast." She smiled a little.
Her eyes were on the woman's neck. The open gown revealed her throat, white and fair as a girl's, and from the neck a slender gold chain hung down, the end lost in the white folds below. Milly's hand made a gesture.
"Is that the key? Let me have it, please."
The woman lifted her hands to the chain and unfastened and drew it off slowly. Two small keys depended from it. She held them out with a mute gesture.
"No, keep the chain." Milly withdrew the two keys swiftly and dropped them into the bag on her arm. She handed back the chain. "Put it on again," she said. "Some one might miss it from your neck. We must be careful not to put any one on guard."
The woman replaced the chain with fingers that trembled a little.
Milly's eyes followed them quietly. "Don't be afraid," she said. "Nothing shall happen to you. And perhaps when the case is unlocked the necklace will come back to it."
The woman shuddered a little. Her arms dropped to her sides. "I would almost rather never see it again!" she whispered. "I am afraid!"
Milly placed a hand on her arm and held it firmly. "You are not to be afraid. Trust me. . . . And remember—nothing is to be done that you and I do not both agree to."
The look of fear in the woman's face dissolved swiftly. "Oh, if I had only known you before!" she cried softly. "If I had known you—she might have been saved!" She motioned to a photograph on the table by the window. She was looking at it with moist eyes. Milly reached a hand to it.
"When was it taken?" she asked.
"Oh—three years ago, perhaps." She stood looking over Milly's shoulder. "I have had it a long time, but I only had it framed the other day—when I came back from seeing her." She was gazing tenderly at the pictured face that seemed to return the look with one of wistfulness.
"It is all so different now!" murmured the woman. She motioned to the silent hall outside. "Sometimes I think I hear her voice and I start up and hurry to the door before I remember—even now."
Milly put down the picture and turned toward the door. "I must go," she said. "We must not talk together too long. The servants will suspect."
"They are all at the back of the house," returned the woman.
"So much the better." Milly stepped into the wide hall.
At one end the sun poured in; at the other the branches of a great elm showed dark against the light. She turned toward the front staircase and went slowly down, passing through the intervening rooms to the sewing-room. The door from the breakfast-room had been closed by some one and she opened it again. She placed her chair where she could see into it, and out through the other rooms to the hallway and the stairs leading up from it.
Sitting in the shaded quiet of the sewing-room, the gray figure blended into the quiet of the house. No one passing through the halls, or outside along the terrace and seeing it through the open French windows, would have given a second thought to the new seamstress. With her head a little bent to the work in her hands and her swift needle plying back and forth in the white garments, she was a model of unobtrusive diligence.
One by one she finished the garments and laid them on a chair beside her. The last one was in her hand and she was rethreading her needle to begin, when a horn sounded among the trees, and the swift whir of an approaching car came to her through the open window. She glanced at the watch on her wrist—twelve-forty-five. Sounds of preparation for luncheon had already come to her from a room beyond the hall—silver and china handled with soft clearness, and a subdued murmur of low voices.
She laid aside the garment and took up the chintz bag and drew out her knitting. She adjusted the needles with quick touch and began to knit, looking now at the flying stitches and now out through the French window at a car that was passing swiftly, half-hidden by the trees. It emerged on the open drive. The man sitting beside the chauffeur was the one who had driven away to take the train when she arrived. He had much the same hurried air as when he left, and when the car stopped he sprang out with a quick nod to the driver and passed rapidly up the terrace.
From her place in the sewing-room Milly had a glimpse of him crossing the hall with swift stride and ascending the stairs; his steps turned at the top and sounded along the upper hall, and a door at the front of the house closed with a muffled, resonant sound.
As if the closing of the muffled door had been a signal, the whole house woke to life. Somewhere at the rear an echoing door slammed, swift feet hurried along the corridors, voices came from the outer yard and the garage, and presently the low notes of a Chinese gong sounded through the house, wooing the silence with long, pulsing roll, and a black dress was seen descending the stairs. A minute later, the tall, thin figure of a man hurried quickly down.
The unrest settled to silence, and Milly's needles held it and went back and forth and knit it into the green wool. Her eyes fol lowed the needles with intent gaze. Presently she looked up.
The woman who had admitted her in the morning stood in the doorway of the hall, a large tray held before her. There had been no sound of her approach.
"Here is your lunch," she said. She placed it on a side-table and went quickly out.
Milly moved the table nearer to the place where she had been sitting, and where she could see through the French window on to the lawn and along the winding driveway beyond.
There were sounds of the finishing of luncheon, and a little coming and going on the stairs, and then she saw the car pass swiftly down the drive. The chauffeur was alone on the front seat. On the back seat was the woman in her black hat and veil and coat, and beside her the figure of the man sitting protectingly near to her.
Milly finished her luncheon slowly, lingering over the dessert of rice pudding and dates. Before she had finished she was conscious again of the soft step without sound and the quick, puffy breathing near by.
She did not turn or look up until she had taken the last spoonful of the pudding. Then she pushed the table a little from her.
"I'm through," she said. "Thank you."
Then for the first time the woman came within range of her eye.
"That is delicious pudding!" said Milly. "Will you tell the cook it is the best I ever ate? I always thought my mother made the best rice pudding in the world. But this beats it!"
The woman, who had bent to take up the tray, paused, almost surlily, it seemed, yet with a little relaxing of the glum face.
"I made the pudding," she remarked dryly.
"Oh!" Milly stared a little at the face so near her own. "Are you the cook?" she asked doubtfully.
"I make the desserts," replied the woman with a note of reserve. "Miss Annie likes me to."
"Miss Annie?" Milly gazed questioningly.
"Mis' Mason. She's Miss Annie to me," replied the woman. She returned the gaze of the sewing-woman, almost hostilely, and lifted the tray from the table.
Milly watched the retreating back with reflective eyes. "Can you tell me"
The back paused, but did not turn.
"Do you know whether Mrs. Mason left some things in her room—for me to mend?"
"If she did you'll find 'em where she left 'em," responded the woman.
"I can go up, can I?" asked Milly.
The woman turned. "Do you want me to wait on ye?" she demanded.
"No, indeed!" Milly glanced quickly at the heavy tray. "I am afraid I have made you too much trouble already!"
The woman's face was a little mollified. "I don't mind doing it for you." Her glance passed swiftly to the mended garments piled on the chair. "I could 'a' done them for her—as well as you!"
Milly ignored the resentment, seeking only some sign in the heavy face to guide her. "I don't think she wanted me to do them." She laid her hand on the pile of clothes beside her. "She wanted me to alter the dress she has on. But she hasn't any other to wear while I am doing it. It is too large in the shoulders."
The woman rested her tray against the side of the door, pressing upon it with her bulk to ease the weight on her arms.
"She's grown thin," she said. But whether there was sympathy or resentment or a kind of fear in the wheezy voice, Milly could not determine.
"I imagine there will be plenty for two pair of hands." She glanced at the pile of sewing. "So any time you are free to help out, I can turn things over to you. The faster we get on, the sooner I shall be done—and can go home."
The woman looked at her slowly with eyes that were half-veiled, it seemed to Milly.
"I am busy this afternoon," she replied, and she turned and went quietly down the hall. . . . Only the sound of wheezy breathing came faintly back, and grew fainter, and died away.