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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/39443-8.txt b/39443-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e67535e --- /dev/null +++ b/39443-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10030 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mrs. Balfame, by Gertrude Franklin Horn +Atherton + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Mrs. Balfame + A Novel + + +Author: Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton + + + +Release Date: April 13, 2012 [eBook #39443] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. BALFAME*** + + +E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://archive.org/details/cu31924022059962 + + + + + +MRS. BALFAME + +A Novel + +by + +GERTRUDE ATHERTON + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Logo] + +New York +Frederick A. Stokes Company +Publishers + +Copyright, 1916, by +Gertrude Atherton + +All rights reserved, including that of translation into +foreign languages + +Fourth Printing + + + + _And woman, yea, woman, shall be terrible in story; + The tales too, meseemeth, shall be other than of yore. + For a fear there is that cometh out of woman and a glory, + And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more._ + --_The Medea._ + + + + +MRS. BALFAME + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Mrs. Balfame had made up her mind to commit murder. + +As she stared down at the rapt faces of the fifty-odd members of the +Friday Club, upturned to the distinguished speaker from New York, whom +she, as President, had introduced in those few words she so well knew +how to choose, it occurred to her with a faint shock that this momentous +resolution had been growing in her essentially refined and amiable mind +for months, possibly for years; for she was not an impetuous woman. + +While smiling and applauding, patting her large strong hands, freshly +gloved in virgin white, at precisely the right moment, as the sound and +escharotic speaker laid down the Woman's Law, she permitted herself to +wonder if the idea had not burrowed in her subconscious mind--that +mental antiquity shop of which she had lately read so much, that she +might expound it to the progressive ladies of the Friday Club--for at +least half the twenty-two years of her married life. + +It was only last night that awakening suddenly she had realised with no +further skirmishes and retreats of conscience or principle how she +hated the heavy mass of flesh sleeping heavily beside her. + +For at least eight years, ever since their fortunes had improved and she +had found leisure for the novels and plays of authors well-read in life, +she had longed for a room, a separate personal existence, of her own. +She was no dreamer, but this exclusive and ladylike apartment often had +floated before her mental vision, chastely papered and furnished in a +cold pale blue (she had an uneasy instinct that pink and lavender were +immoral); and by day it should look like a boudoir. She was too wise to +make a verbal assault upon this or any foreign word, for she found the +stage, her only guide, strangely casual or contradictory in these minor +details; but although her little world found no trouble in discovering +what Mrs. Balfame increasingly knew, what she did not know they +suspected so little that they never even discussed her limitations. +Handicapped by circumstances early and late she might be, but she had +managed to insinuate the belief that she was the superior in all things +of the women around her, their born and natural leader. + +Mrs. Balfame had never given expression to this desire for a delitescent +bedroom, being a woman who thought silently, spoke guardedly, and, both +patient and philosophical, rarely permitted what she called her +imagination to wander, or bitterness to enter her soul. + +The Balfames were by no means well enough off, even now, to refurnish +the old bedrooms long since denuded by a too economical parent after his +children had married and moved away, but a few mornings since she had +remarked casually that as the springs of the conjugal bed were sagging +she thought she should send it to the auction room and buy two single +beds. Last night, lying there in the dark, she had clenched her hands +and held her breath as she recalled David Balfame's purple flush, the +deliberate manner in which he had set down his thick coffee cup and +scrubbed his bristling moustache, then rolled up the stained napkin and +pushed it into the ring before replying. + +His first vocative expressed all, but he was a politician and used to +elaborating his mental processes for the benefit of befuddled +intellects. "You'll have them springs mended," he informed his wife, who +was smiling brilliantly and sweetly across the debris of ham and eggs, +salt mackerel, coffee and hot breads--"that is, if they need it, which I +haven't noticed, and I'm some heavier than you. But you'll introduce no +more of your damned new-fangled notions into this house. It was good +enough for my parents, and it's good enough for us. We lived for fifteen +years without art lampshades that hurt my eyes, and rugs that trip me +up; and these last eight or nine years, since you've been runnin' a club +when you ain't runnin' to New York, I've had too many cold suppers to +suit me; I've paid bills for 'teas' to that Club and I've put out money +for fine clothes for you that I could spend a long sight better at +election time. But I've stood all that, for I guess I'm as good a +husband as any in God's own country; I like to see you well dressed, for +you're still a looker--and it's good business, anyhow; and I've never +grudged you a hired girl. But there's a limit to every man's patience. I +draw the line at two beds. That's all there is to it." + +He had made a part of his speech standing, that being his accustomed +position when laying down the law, and he now left the room with the +heavy country slouch his wife had never been able to reform. He had no +authority in walk or bearing, being a man more obstinate than strong, +more cunning than firm. + +She was thankful that he did not bestow upon her the usual marital kiss; +the smell of coffee on his moustache had sickened her faintly ever since +she had ceased to love him. + +Or begun to hate him? She had wondered, as she lay there inhaling deeply +to draw the blood from her head, if she ever had loved him. When a man +and a maid are young! He had been a tall slim youth, with red cheeks and +bright eyes, the "catch" of the village; his habits were commendable and +he would inherit his father's store, his only brother having died a year +earlier and his sisters married and moved West. She was pretty, +empty-headed, as ill-educated as all girls of her class, but she kept +her father's house neatly, she was noted even at sixteen for her pies, +and at twenty for the dexterity and taste with which she made her own +clothes out of practically nothing. She was by no means the ordinary +fool of her age class and nation. But although she was incapable of +passion, she had a thin sentimental streak, a youthful desire for a +romance, and a cold dislike for an impending stepmother. + +David Balfame wooed her over the front gate and won her in the orchard; +and the year was in its springtime. It was all as natural and inevitable +as the measles and whooping-cough through which she nursed him during +the first year of their marriage. + +She had been happy with the happiness of youth ignorance and busy hands; +although there had been the common trials and quarrels, they had been +quickly forgotten, for she was a woman of a serene and philosophical +temperament; moreover, no children came, for which she felt a sort of +cold negative gratitude. She liked children, and even attracted them, +but she preferred that other women should bear and rear them. + +But all that comparative happiness was before the dawning of ambition +and the heavier trials that preceded it. + +A railroad expanded the sleepy village into a lively town of some three +thousand inhabitants, and although that meant wider interests for Mrs. +Balfame, and an occasional trip to New York, the more intimate +connection with a great city nearly wrecked her husband's business. His +father was dead and he had inherited the store which had supplied the +village with general merchandise for a generation. But by the time the +railroad came he had grown lazy and liked to sit on the sidewalk on fine +days, or before the stove in winter, his chair tilted back, talking +politics with other gentlemen of comparative leisure. He was popular, +for he had a bluff and hospitable manner; he was an authority on +politics, and possessed an eloquent if ungrammatical tongue. For a time, +as his business dwindled, he merely blasphemed, but just as he was +beginning to feel really uneasy, a brother-in-law who had been the chum +of his youth arrived from Montana and saved him from extinction and "the +old Balfame place" from mortgage. + +Mr. Cummack, the brother-in-law, turned out the loafers, put Dave into +politics, and himself called personally upon every housewife in the +community, agreeing to keep the best of all she needed, but none of +those articles which served as an excuse for a visit to New York or +tempted her to delightful hours with the mail-order catalogue. + +Mrs. Balfame detested this bustling common efficient brother-in-law, +although at the end of two years, the twelfth of her married life, she +was keeping a maid-of-all-work and manicuring her nails. She treated him +with an unswerving sweetness, a natural quality which later developed +into the full flower of graciousness, and even gave him a temperate +measure of gratitude. She was a just woman; and it was not long after +his advent that she began to realise the ambition latent in her strong +character and to enter upon a well defined plan for social leadership. + +She found it all astonishingly easy. Of course she never had met, +probably never would meet, the really wealthy families that owned large +estates in the county and haughtily entertained one another when not +entertaining equally exclusive New Yorkers. But Mrs. Balfame did not +waste time in envy of these people; there were old families in her own +and neighbouring villages, proud of their three or four generations on +the same farm, well-to-do but easy-going, democratic and, when not so +old as to be "moss-backs," hospitable to new notions. Many, indeed, had +built new homes in the expanding village, which bade fair to embrace +choice bits of the farms. + +Mrs. Balfame always had dominated these life-long neighbours and +associates, and the gradual newcomers were quick to recognise her power +and her superior mind; to realise that not to know Mrs. Balfame was to +be a commuter and no more. Everything helped her. Even the substantial +house, inherited from her father-in-law, and still surrounded by four +acres of land, stood at the head of the original street of the village, +a long wide street so thickly planted with maples as old as the farms +that from spring until Christmas the soft leafy boughs interlaced +overhead. She had a subtle but iron will, and a quite commonplace +personality disguised by the cold, sweet, stately and gracious manner so +much admired by women; and she was quite unhampered by the least of that +originality or waywardness which antagonises the orthodox. Moreover, she +dressed her tall slender figure with unerring taste. Of course she was +obliged to wear her smart tailored suits for two years, but they always +looked new and were worn with an air that quite doubled their not +insignificant price. By women she was thought very beautiful, but men, +for the most part, passed her by. + +For eight years now, Mrs. Balfame had been the acknowledged leader of +Elsinore. It was she who had founded the Friday Club, at first for +general cultivation of mind, of late to study the obsessing subject of +Woman. She cared not a straw for the privilege of voting; in fact, she +thought it would be an extremely unladylike thing to do; but a leader +must always be at the head of the procession, while discriminating +betwixt fad and fashion. + +It was she who had established a connection with a respectable club in +New York; it was she who had inveigled the substantial well-dressed and +radical personage on the rostrum beside her to come over and homilise +upon the subject of "The European War _vs._ Woman." + +The visitor had proved to her own satisfaction and that of the major +part of her audience that the bomb which had precipitated the war had +been made in Germany. She was proceeding complacently, despite the +hisses of several members with German forbears, and the President had +just exchanged a glance of amusement with a moderate neutral, who +believed that Russia's desire to thaw out her icy feet in warm water was +at the bottom of the mischief, when--spurred perhaps by a biting +allusion to the atrocities engaging the press at the moment--the idea of +murder took definite form in that clear unvisionary brain so justly +admired by the ladies of Elsinore. + +Mrs. Balfame's pure profile, the purer for the still smooth contours and +white skin of the face itself, the stately setting of the head, was +turned toward the audience below the platform, and one admiring young +member, who attended an art class in New York, was sketching it as a +study in St. Cecelia's, when those six letters of fire rose smoking from +the battle fields of Europe and took Mrs. Balfame's consciousness by +assault: six dark and murky letters, but with no vagueness of outline. + +The first faint shock of surprise over, as well as the few moments of +retrospect, she asked herself calmly: "Why not?" Over there men were +being torn and shot to pieces by wholesale, joking across the trenches +in their intervals of rest, to kill again when the signal was given with +as little compunction as she herself had often aimed at a target, or +wrung the neck of a chicken that had fed from her hand. And these were +men, the makers of law, the self-elected rulers of the world. + +Mrs. Balfame had respected men mightily in her youth. Even now, although +she both despised and hated her husband, she responded femininely to a +fine specimen of manhood with good manners and something to talk about +save politics and business. But these were few and infrequent in Brabant +County. The only man she had met for years who interested her in the +least was Dwight Rush, also a scion of one of the old farm families. + +Rush had been educated in the law at a northwestern university, but +after a few years of practice in Wisconsin had accepted an offer to +enter the most respectable law firm in his native township. He had been +employed several times by David Balfame, who had brought him home +informally to supper perhaps once a fortnight during the last six +months. But, although Mrs. Balfame frankly enjoyed his society and his +evident admiration for a beauty she knew had little attraction for his +sex, she had all a conventional woman's dislike for irregularities, +however innocent; and she had snubbed Mr. Rush's desire to "drop in of +an afternoon." + +He barely flitted through her mind when she asked herself what did man's +civilisation amount to, anyway, and why should women respect it? And, +compared with the stupendous slaughter in Europe, a slaughter that would +seem to be one of the periodicities of the world, since it is the +composite expression of the individual male's desire to fight somebody +just so often--what, in comparison with such a monstrous crime, would be +the offence of making way with one obnoxious husband? + +Something over two years ago--when liquor began to put a fiery edge upon +Mr. Balfame's temper--Mrs. Balfame had considered the question of +divorce; but after several weeks of cool calculation and the exercise +of her foresight upon the inevitable social consequences, she had put +the idea definitely aside. It was incompatible with her plan of life. +Only rich women, or women that were insignificant in great cities, or +who possessed conquering gifts, or who were so advanced as to be +indifferent, could afford the luxury of divorce. Her world was the +eastern division of Brabant County, and while it prided itself upon its +progressiveness, and even--among the younger women--had a gay set, and +although suppressed scandals slid about like slimy monsters in a marsh, +its foundations were inherited from the old Puritan stock, and it fairly +reeked with ancient prejudices. + +It was a typical middle-class community with traditions, some of its +blood too old, and made up of common human ingredients in varying +proportions. Mrs. Balfame, enlightened by much reading and many +matinées, applied the word _bourgeois_ to Elsinore with secret scorn, +but with a sigh: conscious that all its prejudices were hers and that +not for an instant could she continue to be its leader were she a +divorced woman. + +Mrs. Balfame indulged in no dreams of sudden wealth. Elsinore was her +world, and on the whole she was content, realising that life had not +equipped her to lead the society of New York City. She liked to shop in +Fifth Avenue--long since had she politely forgotten the mobs of +Sixth,--to occupy an orchestra chair with a friend at a matinée, and +take tea or chocolate at the fashionable retreats for such dissipations +before returning to provincial Elsinore. There was a tacit agreement +between herself and her husband that he should dine with his political +friends in a certain restaurant behind a bar in Dobton, the county seat, +on the Wednesday or Thursday evenings when she found it impossible to +return to Elsinore before seven o'clock; an arrangement which he +secretly approved of but invariably entered a protest against by coming +home at two in the morning extremely drunk. + +He never attended the theatre with her, his preference being for +vaudeville or a screaming musical comedy, for both of which +abnormalities she had a profound contempt. She saw only the "best plays" +herself, her choice being guided not so much by newspaper approval as by +length of run. It must be confessed that in the eight or nine years of +her comparative emancipation from the grinding duties of the home she +had learned a good deal of life from the plays she saw. On the whole, +however, she preferred sound American drama, particularly when it dealt +with Society; for the advanced (or decadent?) pictures of life as +presented in the imported drama, she had only a mild contempt; her first +curiosity satisfied, she thanked God that she was a plain American. + +Such was Mrs. Balfame when she made up her mind to remove David Balfame, +superfluous husband. She was quite content to reign in Elsinore, to live +out her life there, but as a dignified and irreproachable and well-to-do +widow. Divorce being out of the question, there was but one way to get +rid of him: his years were but forty-four, and although he "blew up" +with increasing frequency, to use his own choice vernacular, he was as +healthy as an ox, and the town drunkard was rising eighty. + +Mrs. Balfame's friend, Dr. Anna Steuer, was now replying to the lady +from New York. After reminding the Club that the President of the United +States had requested his docile subjects to curb their passions and +flaunt their neutrality, Dr. Steuer proceeded to demolish the +anti-German attitude of the guests by reciting the long list of +industrial, economic and scientific contributions to civilisation which +had distinguished the German Empire since the federation of its states. + +Dr. Steuer was of Dutch descent, and her gifts were not forensic, but +the key-note of her character was an intense and passionate loyalty. She +had spent some of the most impressionable years of her life in the +German clinics, and she cherished a romantic affection for a country +whose natural and historic beauties no man will deny. She had +steadfastly refused to read the "other side," pinning her faith to all +that was best in the country of her youthful dreams. In consequence, her +discourse, while informing, was somewhat beside the point; and had it +not been for the deep love borne her by almost every one present, there +would have been a polite but firm demand to give place. + +Mrs. Balfame was smiling encouragement when her musings took a sudden +and arbitrary twist. Being a person who never acted on impulse, her +decisions, after due processes of thought, were commonly irrevocable. +The moment she had made up her mind to pass her husband on, she had +committed herself to the act; and, even before Dr. Anna Steuer had +claimed her superficial attention, had already erected the question, +How? + +Mrs. Balfame was a woman who rarely bungled anything, and murder, she +well knew, was the last of all acts to bungle, did the perpetrator +desire to enjoy the freedom of his act. Being refined to her marrow, she +shrank from all forms of brutality, and rarely, if ever, read the +details of crime in the newspapers. The sight of blood disgusted her, +although it did not turn her faint. She kept a pistol in her bedroom; +burglars, particularly of late, had entered a large number of houses in +Brabant County; but nothing would have horrified her more than to empty +its contents into the worst of criminals. + +Mechanically she had run through the list of all the accepted forms of +removing human impedimenta and rejected them, when Dr. Anna's scientific +mind, playing along the surface of hers, shot in the arrow of suggestion +that she belonged naturally to the type of woman that poisoned if forced +to commit murder. It was bloodless, decent, and required no vulgar +expenditure of energy. + +But healthy people, suddenly dead, were excavated and the quarry +submitted to chemical tests; it was then--smiling brilliantly at her +ardent pro-German friend--that Mrs. Balfame recalled a rainy evening +some two years since. She and Dr. Anna had sat over the fire in the old +Steuer cottage, and the doctor, who before the war never had been +interested in anything but her friends, her science, and suffrage, had +discoursed upon certain untraceable poisons, had even risen and taken +down a vial from a secret cupboard above the mantel. During the same +conversation, which naturally drifted to crime, Dr. Anna had discoursed +upon the idiocy of doctors who poisoned with morphia, strychnine, or +prussic acid, when not only were these organic poisons known to all +scientific members of the profession, but they could easily remove the +barrier to their complete happiness with cholera, smallpox, or typhus +germs, sealed within the noncommittal capsule. + +Mrs. Balfame shuddered at the mere thought of any of these dreadful +diseases, having no desire to witness human sufferings, or to run the +risk of infection, but as she stared at Dr. Anna to-day, she made up her +mind to procure that vial of furtive poison. + +So sudden was this resolution and so grim its portent that it was +accompanied by unusual physical phenomena: she brought her sound white +teeth together and thrust out her strong chin; her eyes became fixed in +a hard stare and the muscles of her face seemed to menace her soft white +skin. + +Alys Crumley, the young woman who had been sketching Mrs. Balfame +instead of listening to the discussion, caught her breath and dropped +her pencil. For the moment the pretty, ultra-refined, elegant leader of +Elsinore society looked not like St. Cecelia but like Medea. Always +determined, resolute, smilingly dominant, never before had she betrayed +the secret possibilities of her nature. + +Miss Crumley cast a glance of startled apprehension about her, but the +debate was just finished, every one was commenting upon the splendid +self-control of the high participants, and repeating the New Yorker's +last phrase: that not civilisation but man was a failure. A moment later +Mrs. Balfame advanced to the edge of the platform, and, with her +inimitable graciousness, invited the members of the Club to come forward +and meet the distinguished guest. Little Miss Alys Crumley, watching +her, listening to her pleasant shallow voice, her amused quiet laugh, +came to the conclusion that the fearsome expression she had seen on her +model's face had been a mere effect of light. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The meeting of the Friday Club had been held in the Auditorium, a hall +which accommodated moving pictures, an occasional vaudeville +performance, political orators, and subscription balls of more than one +social stratum. It was particularly adapted to the growing needs of the +Friday Club, as it impressed visitors favorably, and there was a small +room in the rear where tea could be served. + +It was a crisp autumn evening when the President and her committee sped +the parting guest of this fateful day and walked briskly homeward, +either to cook supper themselves or to prod the languid "hired girl." +Starting in groups, they parted at successive corners, and finally Mrs. +Balfame and Dr. Anna were alone in the old street. The doctor's offices +were in Main Street under the Auditorium, between the Elsinore Bank and +the Emporium drug store, but she too had inherited a cottage in what was +now known as Elsinore Avenue, and almost at the opposite end from the +"Old Balfame Place." + +"Come in," she said hospitably, as she opened a gate set superfluously +into the low boxwood hedge. "You can 'phone to the Elks' and tell Dave +to try the new hotel. It's ages since I've seen you." + +"I will!" Mrs. Balfame's prompt reply was accompanied by what was known +in Elsinore as her inscrutable smile. "It is kind of you," she added +politely, for even with old friends she never forgot her manners. "I +long for a cup of your tea--if you will make it yourself. I really could +eat nothing after those sandwiches." + +"I'll make it myself, all right. First because it wouldn't be fit to +drink if I didn't, and second because it's Cassie's night out." + +She took the key from beneath the door-mat, and pressed an electric +button in the hall and another in a comfortable untidy sitting-room. In +her parents' day the sitting-room had been the front parlour, with an +atmosphere as rigid as the horsehair furniture, but in this era of more +elastic morals it was full of shabby comfortable furniture, a davenport +was close to the radiator, the desk and tables were littered with +magazines, medical reviews, and text books. + +"How warm and delicious," said Mrs. Balfame brightly, removing her hat +and wraps and laying them smoothly on a chair. "I'll telephone and then +close my eyes and think of nothing until tea is ready--I know you won't +have me in the kitchen. What a blessed relief it will be to hear you +sing in your funny old voice after that woman's strident tones." + +She made short work of telephoning. Mr. Balfame, having "just stepped +across the street," she merely left a message for him. Dr. Anna, out in +the kitchen, lighted the gas stove, rattled the aluminum ware, and sang +in a booming contralto. + +Mrs. Balfame went through no stage formalities; she neither tiptoed to +the door nor listened intently. From the telephone, which was on the +desk, she walked over to the strongest looking chair, carried it to the +discarded fireplace, mounted and peered into the little cupboard the +canny doctor had had built into the old chimney after the furnace was +installed. There Dr. Anna kept her experimental drugs, her mother's seed +pearls and diamond brooch, and a roll of what she called emergency +bills. + +The vial was almost in the middle of a row of bottles. Mrs. Balfame +recognised it at once. She secreted it in the little bag that still hung +on her arm, replaced it with another small bottle that had stood nearer +the end of the row, closed the door and restored the chair to its proper +place. Could anything be more simple? + +She was too careful of her best tailored suit to lie down, but she +arranged herself comfortably in a corner of the davenport and closed her +eyes. Soothed by the warmth of the room and the organ tones in the +kitchen she drifted into a happy state of somnolence, from which she was +aroused by the entrance of her hostess with a tray. She sprang up +guiltily. + +"I had no intention of falling asleep--I meant to set the table at +least--" + +"Those cat naps are what has kept you young and beautiful, while the +rest of us have traded complexions for hides." + +Mrs. Balfame gracefully insisted upon clearing and laying a corner of +the table, and the two friends sat down and chatted gaily over their tea +and toast and preserves. Dr. Anna's face--a square face with a snub nose +and kindly twinkling eyes--beamed as her friend complimented her upon +the erudition she had displayed in her reply to the Club guest and added +wistfully: + +"I feel as if I didn't know a thing about this war. Everybody +contradicts everybody else, and sometimes they contradict themselves. +I'm going over to-morrow" ("going over" meant New York in the Elsinore +tongue) "and get all the books that have been printed on the subject, +and read up. I do feel so ignorant." + +"That's a large order. When you've dug through them you'll know less +than you could get from the headlines of the 'anti' evening papers. I'll +hunt up a list that was given me by a patient who claims to be neutral, +if you really want it, and leave it at your house in the morning. It's +at the office." + +"Oh, please do!" Mrs. Balfame leaned eagerly across the table. "You +know, it is my turn to read a paper Friday week, and literally I can +think of nothing else except this terrible but most interesting war. Of +course, I must display some real knowledge and not deal merely in +adjectives and generalities. I'll read night and day--I suppose I can +get all those books from two or three New York libraries?" + +"Enid Balfame, you are a wonder! When you buckle down to a thing! Who +but you would take hold of a subject like that with the idea of +mastering it in two weeks--Oh, bother!" + +The telephone was ringing. Dr. Anna tilted back her chair and lifted the +receiver from the desk to her ear. She put it down almost immediately. +"Hurry call," she said briefly, an intense professional concentration +banishing the pleasant relaxation of a moment before. "Baby. Sorry. +Leave the key under the door mat. Don't hurry." She was putting on her +wraps in the hall as she called back her last words. The front door +banged simultaneously. + +Mrs. Balfame piled the dishes on the tray, carried them out into the +kitchen, washed and put them away. She was a very methodical woman and +exquisitely neat. Although she no longer did her own kitchen work, it +would have distressed her to leave her friend's little home at "sixes +and sevens"; the soiled dishes would have haunted her all night, or at +least until she fell asleep. + +After she had also arranged the publications on the sitting-room table +in neat rows she put on her coat and hat, turned off all the lights, +secreted the key as requested and walked briskly down the path. There +was a street lamp directly in front of the gate. Its light fell on the +face of a man emerging from the heavy shadow of the maple trees that +bordered the avenue. She recognised her husband's lawyer, Dwight Rush. + +"What luck!" he exclaimed boyishly. "Now I shall talk to you for at +least five minutes--ten, if you will walk slowly! What are you doing out +so late alone?" + +Mrs. Balfame glanced apprehensively up and down the street. All the +windows were alight, but it was too late in the season for loitering on +verandas; even if they met any one, recognition would hardly be possible +unless the encounter took place under a street lamp. Moreover, she was +one of those women who while rarely terrified when alone became +intensely feminine when a man appeared with his archaic right to shield +and protect. She smiled graciously. + +"You may see me to my gate," she said. + +"I should think I might! A pistol at my head wouldn't keep me from +walking these few blessed minutes with you. Seriously, it's not safe for +you to be out alone like this. There were three burglaries last week, +and you are just the woman to have her bag snatched." + +She drew closer to him, a faint accent of alarm in her voice. + +"I never thought of that. But Anna was called off in a hurry. I am so +glad you happened along. Although," primly, "it wouldn't do, you know, +for a woman of my age and position to be seen walking alone with a young +man at night." + +"What nonsense! You are like Cæsar's wife, I guess. Anything you did in +this town would seem about right. You've got them all hypnotised, +including myself. It's the ambition of my life to know you better," he +added in a more serious tone. "Why won't you let me call?" + +"It wouldn't do. If I have a nice position it's because I've always been +so particular. If I let young men call on me, people would say that I +was no better than that fast bunch that tangoes every night and goes to +road houses and things." Her voice trailed off vaguely; she really knew +very little of the doings of "gay sets," although much in the abstract +of a too temperamental world. + +She made up her mind to dispose of this misguided young man once for +all. She knew that she looked quite ten years younger than her age, and +she was well aware that although man's passion might be business his +pastime was the hunt. + +"I am thankful that I have no grown daughter to keep from running with +that bunch," she said playfully. "Of course I might have. I am quite old +enough." + +He laughed outright. Then he said the old thing which is ever new to +the woman, and with a perceptible softening in his hard energetic voice: +"I wonder if you really are as conventional--conventionised--as you +perhaps think you are? You always give me the impression of being two +women, one fast asleep deep down somewhere, the other not even +suspecting her existence." + +"How pretty!" She smiled with pleasure, and she felt a faint stirring of +coquetry, as if the ghost of her youth were rising--that far-off period +when she put on her best ribbons and made her best pies to allure the +marriageable swains of Elsinore. But she recalled herself quickly and +frowned. "You must not say such things to me," she said coldly. + +"But I shall, and I will add that I wish you were a widow, or had never +been married. I should propose to you this minute." + +"That is equivalent to saying that you wish my husband were dead. And he +is your friend, too!" + +"Your husband is not my friend; he is my employer--upon occasion. At the +moment I did not remember who was your husband. Let it go at that." + +"Very well." + +It was evident that he belonged to the type that found its amusement in +making love to married women; but--they were within the rays of a lamp, +and sauntering--she looked up at this pleasant exponent indulgently. She +was quite safe, and it was by no means detestable at the age of +forty-two to be coveted by the cleverest young man in Brabant County. + +The smile left her lips and she experienced a faint vibration of the +nerves as she met the unsmiling eyes bent close above her own. + +Rush was almost drab in colour, but the bones of his face were large +and his eyes were deeply set and well apart, intensely blue and +brilliant. It was one of those narrow rigid faces the exigencies of his +century and country have bred, the jaw long and almost as salient as +that of a consumptive, the brow bold, the mouth hard set, the cheeks +lean and cut with deep lines, the whole effect not only keen and clever +but stronger than any man has consistently been since the world began. +The curious contradiction about this type of American face is that it +almost invariably looks younger than the years that have contributed to +the modelling of it; such men, particularly if smoothly shaven as they +usually are, look thirty at forty; even at fifty, if they retain their +hair, appear but little older. When Rush's mouth was relaxed it could +smile charmingly, and the eyes fill with playfulness and vivacity, just +as his strident American voice could move a jury to tears by the tears +that were in it. + +At this moment all the intensity of which his striking features were +capable was concentrated in his eyes. + +"I'm not going to make love to you as matters stand," he said, his voice +dry with emotion. "But I want you to divorce Dave Balfame and marry me. +Sooner or later you will be driven to it--" + +"Never! I'll never be a divorced woman. Never! Never!" + +His steady gaze wavered and he sighed. "You said that as if you meant +it. You think you are intellectual, and you haven't outgrown one of the +prejudices of your Puritan grandmothers--who behaved themselves because +women were scarce and even better treated than they are now, and because +they would have been too mean to spend money on a divorce suit if +divorces had come into fashion elsewhere." + +"You are far from complimentary!" Mrs. Balfame raised her head stiffly, +not a little indignant at this natural display of sheer masculinity. She +would have withdrawn her arm and hastened her steps but he held her +back. + +"I don't mean to be uncomplimentary. Only, you ought to be so much more +advanced than you are. I repeat, I shall not make downright love to you, +for I intend to marry you one of these days. But I shall say what I +choose. How much longer do you think you can go on living like +this?--with a man you must despise and from whom you must suffer +indignities--and in this hole--" + +"You live here--" + +"I came back here because I had a good offer and I like the East better +than the West, but I have no intention of staying here. I have reason to +believe that I shall get into a New York firm next spring; and once +started on that race-course I purpose to come in a winner." + +"And you would saddle yourself with a wife many years your senior?" she +asked wonderingly. + +But she thrilled again, and unconsciously moderated her gait still +further; they were but a few steps from her home. + +"I am thirty-four. I am sorry that I have impressed you as looking too +young to be taken seriously, but you will admit that if a man doesn't +know his own mind when he is verging toward middle age, he never will. +But if I were only twenty-five, it would make no difference. I would +marry you like a shot. I never have given a thought to marrying before. +Girls don't interest me. They show their hand too plainly. I've always +had a sort of ideal and you fill it." + +It was characteristic of Mrs. Balfame's well-ordered mind that her +intention to murder her husband did not intrude itself into this unique +and provocative hour. She had never indulged in a passing desire to +marry again, and hers was not the order of mind that somersaults. But +she was willing to "let herself go," for the sake of the experience; for +the first time in her twenty odd years of married life to loiter in a +leafy shadowy street with a man who loved her and made no secret of it. + +"I wonder?" She stared up at him, curiosity in her eyes. + +"Wonder what?" + +"If it _is_ love?" + +He laughed unmusically. "I am not surprised that you ask that +question--you, who know no more of love than if you had been a castaway +on a desert island since the age of ten. Never mind. I've planted a +seed. It will sprout. Think and think again. You owe me that much--and +yourself. I know that six months hence you will have divorced Dave +Balfame, and that you will marry me as soon as the law allows." + +"Never! Never!" She was laughing now, but with all the gay coquetry of +youth, not merely the eidola of her own. + +They had arrived at the gate of the Balfame Place, which faced the +avenue and a large street lamp. She put the gate between them with a +quicker movement than she commonly indulged in and held out her hand. + +"No more nonsense! If I were young and free--who knows? +But--but--forty-two!" She choked but brought it out. "Now go home and +think over all the nice girls you know and select one quickly. I will +make the wedding cake." + +"Did you suppose I didn't know your age? This is Elsinore, and its +inhabitants are five thousand. When you and I were born--of respectably +eminent parentage--all Brabant County numbered few more." + +He made no attempt to open the gate, but he raised her hand to his lips. +Even in that rare moment he was conscious of a regret that it was such a +large hand, and his head jerked abruptly as he flung out the recreant +thought. + +"I never shall change," he said. "And you are to think and think. Now +go. I'll watch until you are indoors." + +"Good night." She ran up the path, wondering if her tall slight figure +looked as willowy as it felt. The mirror had often surprised her with +the information that she looked quite different from the image in her +mind. She also wondered, with some humour, why no one ever had +discovered her apparently obvious charms before. + +When she was in her bedroom and electricity replaced the mellow rays of +street lamps shining through soft and whispering leaves, Mrs. Balfame +forgot Dwight Rush and all men save her husband. + +She took the vial from her bag and stared at it. In a moment a frown +drew her serene brows together, her sweet, shallow, large grey eyes, so +consistently admired by her own sex at least, darkened with displeasure. +She was a bungler after all. How was the stuff to be administered? She +racked her memory, but the casual explanation of Dr. Anna, uttered at +least two years ago, had left not an echo. A drop in his eggs or coffee +might be too little; more, and he might detect the foreign quantity. + +She removed the cork and sniffed. It was odourless, but was it +tasteless? + +Obviously there was no immediate way of ascertaining save by experiment +on Mr. Balfame. And even if it were tasteless, it might cook his blood, +congest his face, burst his veins--she recalled snatches of Dr. Anna's +dissertations upon "interesting cases." On the other hand, one drop +might make him violently ill; the suspicions of any doctor might be +aroused. + +She must walk warily. Murder was one of the fine arts. Those that +cultivated it and failed followed the victim or spent the rest of their +lives within prison walls. Thousands, it was estimated, walked the earth +unsuspected, unapprehensive, serene and content--contemptuous of +failures and bunglers, as are the masters in any art. Mrs. Balfame was +proudly aware that her rôle in life was success. + +There was nothing to do but wait. She must have another cosy evening +with her scientific friend and draw her on to talk of the poison. Ah! +that made another precaution imperative. + +She went to the cupboard in the bathroom, rinsed a small bottle, +transferred the precious colorless fluid, refilled the vial with water +and returned it to her bag. To-morrow or next day she would slip into +Dr. Anna's house and restore it to its hiding place. The poison she +secreted on the top shelf of the bathroom cupboard. + +Reluctantly, for she was a prompt and methodical woman, she resigned +herself to the prospect of David Balfame's prolonged sojourn upon the +planet he had graced so ill. She went to bed, shrinking into the farther +corner, but falling asleep almost immediately. Then, her hands having +faltered, Fate borrowed the shuttle. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +A fortnight passed before Mrs. Balfame found the opportunity for a chat +with Dr. Anna. + +On Saturday afternoons it was the pleasant custom of the flower of +Elsinore to repair to the Country Club, a building of the bungalow type, +with wide verandas, a large central hall, several smaller rooms for +those that preferred cards to dancing, a secluded bar, a tennis +court--flooded in winter for skating--and a golf links. It was +charmingly situated about four miles from the town, with the woods +behind and a glimpse of the grey Atlantic from the higher knolls. + +The young unmarried set that danced at the Club or in the larger of the +home parlours every night would have monopolised the central hall of the +bungalow on Saturdays as well had it not been for the sweet but firm +resistance of Mrs. Balfame. Lacking in a proper sex vanity she might be, +but she was far too proud and just to permit her own generation to be +obliterated by mere youth. Having no children of her own, it shocked her +fine sense of the fitness of things to watch the subservience of parents +and the selfishness of offspring. One of the most notable results of her +quiet determination was that she and her friends enjoyed every privilege +of the Country Club when the mood was on them, and that a goodly number +of the men of their own generation did not confine their attentions +exclusively to the bar, but came out and danced with their neighbours' +wives. The young people sniffed, but as Mrs. Balfame had founded the +Country Club, and they were all helpless under her inflexible will and +skilful manipulation, they never dreamed of rebellion. + +During the fortnight Mrs. Balfame had cunningly replaced the vial, the +indifferent Cassie leaving the sitting-room at her disposal while she +wrote a note reminding Dr. Anna of the promised list of war books, +adding playfully that she had no time to waste in a busy doctor's +waiting-room. In truth Dr. Anna was a difficult person to see at this +time. There was an epidemic of typhoid in the county, and much illness +among children. + +However, on the third Saturday after the interrupted supper, as Mrs. +Balfame was motoring out to the Club with her friend, Mrs. Battle, wife +of the President of the Bank of Elsinore, she saw Dr. Anna driving her +little runabout down a branching road. With a graceful excuse she +deserted her hostess, sprang into the humbler machine, and gaily ordered +her friend to turn and drive to the Club. + +"You take a rest this afternoon," she said peremptorily. "Otherwise you +will be a wreck when your patients need you most. You look just about +fagged out. And I want a little of your society. I've been thinking of +taking to a sick bed to get it." + +Dr. Anna looked at her brilliant friend with an expression of dumb +gratitude and adoration. She was worth one hundred per cent. more than +this companion of her forty years, but she never would know it. She +regarded Enid Balfame as one of the superwomen of Earth, astray in the +little world of Elsinore. Even when Mrs. Balfame had done her own work +she had managed to look rare and lovely. Her hair was neatly arranged +for the day before descent to the lower regions, and her pretty print +frock was half covered by a white apron as immaculate as her round +uncovered arms. + +And since the leader of Elsinore had "learned things" she was of an +elegance whose differences from those of women born to grace a loftier +sphere were merely subtle. Her fine brown hair, waved in New York, and +coiled on the nape of her long neck, displayed her profile to the best +possible advantage; like all women's women she set great store by her +profile. Whenever possible it was framed in a large hat with a rolling +brim and drooping feathers. Her severely tailored frocks made her look +aloof and stately on the streets (and in the trains between Elsinore and +New York); and her trim white shirt waists and duck skirts, or "one +piece suits" for colder weather, gave her a sweet feminine appeal in the +house. At evening entertainments she invariably wore black, cut chastely +about the neck and draped with a floating scarf. + +Poor Dr. Anna, uncompromisingly plain from youth, worshipped beauty; +moreover, a certain mental pressure of which she was quite unaware +caused her to find in Enid Balfame her highest ideal of womanhood. She +herself was never trim; she was always in a hurry; and the repose and +serenity the calm and sweet dignity of this gifted being both fascinated +and rested her. That Mrs. Balfame took all her female adorers had to +offer and gave nothing but enhanced her worth. She knew the priceless +value of the pedestal, and although her wonderful smile descended at +discreet intervals her substantial feet did not. + +Dr. Anna, who had never been sought by men and had seen too many of +them sick in bed to have a romantic illusion left, gave to this friend +of her lifetime, whom the years touched only to improve--and who never +was ill--the dog-like fidelity and love that a certain type of man +offers at the shrine of the unattainable woman. Mrs. Balfame was +sometimes amused, always complacent; but it must be conceded that she +took no advantage of the blind devotion of either Dr. Anna or her +numerous other admirers. She was far too proud to "use" people. + +Mrs. Balfame seldom discussed her domestic trials even with Dr. Anna, +but this most intimate of her friends guessed that her life with her +husband was rapidly growing unendurable. She was, naturally, the family +doctor; she had nursed David Balfame through several gastric attacks, +whose cause was not far to seek. + +But despite much that was highly artificial in her personality, Enid +Balfame was elementally what would be called, in the vernacular of the +day, a regular female; for a fortnight she had longed to talk about +Dwight Rush. This was the time to gratify an innocent desire while +watching sharply for an opportunity to play for higher stakes. + +"Anna!" she said abruptly, as they sped along the fine road, "women like +and admire me so much, and I am passably good looking--young looking, +too--what do you suppose is the reason men don't fall in love with me? +Dave says that half the men in town are mixed up with those telephone +and telegraph girls, and they are pretty in the commonest kind of way--" + +"Enid Balfame!" Dr. Anna struggled to recover her scandalised breath. +"You! Do you put yourself in the class with those trollops? What's got +into you? Men are men. Naturally they let your sort alone." + +"But I have heard more than whispers about two or three of our good +friends--women of our age, not giddy young fools--and in our own set. +Why do Mary Frew and Lottie Gifning go over to New York so often? Dave +says it isn't only that women from these dull little towns go over to +New York to meet their lovers, but that some of them are the up-town +wives of millionaires, or the day-time wives of all sorts of men with +money enough to run two establishments. It is a hideous world and I +never ask for particulars, but the fact remains that Lottie and Mary and +a few others have as many partners among the young men at the dances as +the girls do; and I can recall hints they have thrown out that they +could go farther if they chose." + +"This is a busy country," remarked Dr. Anna drily. "Men don't waste time +chasing the prettiest of women when convinced there is nothing in it--to +borrow the classic form. Young chaps, urged on by natural law to find +their mate, will pursue the indifferent girl, but men looking for a +little play after business hours will not. Why, you--you look as cold +and chaste as Cæsar's wife. They couldn't waste five minutes on you." + +"That's what he said--that I was like Cæsar's wife--" + +"Enid!" Dr. Anna stopped the little machine and turned upon her friend, +her weary face compact and stern. "Enid Balfame! Have you been letting a +man make love to you?" + +"Well, I guess not." Mrs. Balfame tossed her head and bridled. "But the +other night, when I left your house, Mr. Rush was passing and saw me +home. He nearly took my breath away by asking me to get a divorce and +marry him, but he respected me too much to make love to me." + +"I should hope so. The young fool!" But Dr. Anna was unspeakably +relieved. She had turned faint at the thought that her idol might be as +many other women whose secrets she alone knew. "What did you say to +him?" she asked curiously, driving very slowly. + +"Why, that I would not be a divorced woman for anything in the world." + +"You're not the least bit in love with him?" asked Dr. Anna jealously. + +Mrs. Balfame gave her silvery shallow care-free laugh. It might have +come from any of the machines passing, laden with young girls. "Well, I +guess not! That sort of foolishness never did interest me. I guess my +vanity was tickled, but vanity isn't love--by a long sight." + +Dr. Anna looked at the pure cold profile, the wide cool grey eyes, and +laughed. "He did have courage, poor devil! It must have been--no, there +was no moonlight. Must have been the suggestion of that old Lovers' +Lane, Elsinore Avenue. But if you wanted men to make love to you, my +dear, you could have them by the dozen. Nothing easier--for pretty women +of any age who want to be made love to. As for Rush--" She hesitated, +then added generously, "he has a future, I think, and could take you +somewhere else." + +"I should be like a fish out of water anywhere but in Elsinore. I have +no delusions. Forty-two is not young--that is to say, it is long past +the adaptable age, unless a woman has spent her life on the move and +filling it with variety. I love Elsinore as a cat loves its hearth-rug. +And I can get to New York in an hour. I think this would be the ideal +life with about two thousand dollars more a year, and--and--" + +"Dave Balfame somewhere else! Pity Sam Cummack didn't turn him into a +travelling salesman instead of planting him here." + +"He's never been interested in anything in his life but politics. But I +don't really bother about him," she added lightly. "I have him well +trained. After all, he never comes home to lunch, he interferes with me +very little, he goes to the Elks every night soon after dinner, and he +falls asleep the minute he gets into bed. Why, he doesn't even snore. +And he carries his liquor pretty well. I guess you can't expect much +more than that after twenty-two years of matrimony. I notice that if it +isn't one thing it's another." + +"Good Lord! Well, I wish he'd break his neck." + +"Oh, Anna!" + +"Well, of course I didn't mean it. But I see so many good people die--so +many lovely children--I'm sort of callous, I guess. I make no bones of +wishing that he'd died of typhoid fever last week, instead of poor Joe +Morton, who had a wife and two children to support, and was the salt of +the earth--" + +"You might give Dave a few germs in a capsule!" Mrs. Balfame interrupted +in her lightest tones, although she turned her face away. "Or that +untraceable poison you once showed me. A bottle of that would finish +him!" + +"A drop and none the wiser." Dr. Anna's contralto tones were gloomy and +morose. "Unfortunately, I am not scientific enough for cold-blooded +murder. I'm a silly old Utopian who wishes that a plague would come and +sweep all the undesirables from the earth and let us start fair with our +modern wisdom. Then I suppose we'd bore one another to death until +original sin cropped out again. Better speed up, I guess. I've a full +evening ahead of me." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The "smart set" of Elsinore was composed of the twelve women that could +afford to lose most at bridge. Mrs. Balfame, who could ill afford to +lose anything, but who was both a scientific and a lucky player, +insisted upon moderate stakes. The other members of this inner exclusive +circle were the wives of two bankers, three contractors, two prosperous +merchants, one judge, one doctor, and two commuters who made their +incomes in New York and slept in Elsinore. These ladies made it a point +of honor to dine at seven, dress smartly and appropriately for all +occasions, attend everything worth while to which they could obtain +entrance in New York, pay an occasional visit to Europe, read the new +novels and attend the symphony concerts. It is superfluous to add that +the very foundation of the superior social status of each was a large +house of the affluent type peculiar to the prosperous annexes of old +communities, half brick and half wood, shallow, characterless, +impersonal; and a fine car with a limousine top. The house stood in the +midst of a lawn sloping to the street, unconfined by even the box hedge +and undivided from the neighbouring grounds. The garage, little less +pretentious than the mansion, also faced the street, for all to see. +There was hardly a horse left in Elsinore; taxi cabs awaited the +traveller at the station, and people that could not afford handsome cars +purchased and enjoyed the inexpensive runabout. + +Mrs. Balfame had segregated her smart set for strategic reasons, but +that did not mean that both she and they were not kindness itself to the +less favoured. Obviously, an imposing party cannot be given by twelve +families alone, especially when almost half their number are childless. +On all state occasions the list of invited numbered several hundred, in +that town of some five thousand inhabitants. + +It said much for the innate nobility of these wealthier dames of +Elsinore, who read the New York society papers quite as attentively as +they did the war news, that they submitted without a struggle to the +dominance of a woman who never had possessed a car and whose husband's +income was so often diverted from its natural course; but Mrs. Balfame +not only outclassed them in inflexibility of purpose, but her family was +as old as Brabant County; the Dawbarns had never been in what might be +called the cavalry regiment, consisting of those few chosen ones living +in old colonial houses set in large estates and with both roots and +branches in the city of New York; but no one disputed their right to be +called Captains of the infantry. And Mrs. Balfame, sole survivor in the +direct line, had two wealthy cousins in Brooklyn. + +Once in a while Dr. Anna, a privileged character, and born at least in +Brabant County, took a hand at bridge, but she was a poor player, and, +upon the rare occasions when she found time to spend a Saturday +afternoon at the Country Club, preferred to rest in a deep chair and +watch the young folks flirt and dance until the informal supper was +ready. Never had she tripped a step, but she loved youth, and it gave +her an acute old maid's delight to observe the children grow up; +snub-nosed, freckled-faced awkward school girls develop at a flying leap +into slim American prettiness, enhanced with every late exaggeration of +style. She also approved heartily, on hygienic grounds, of the friends +of her own generation dancing, even in public, if their partners were +not too young and their forms too cumbersome. + +Mrs. Balfame and Dr. Anna arrived at the Club shortly after four +o'clock. Young people swarmed everywhere, within and without; perhaps +twenty older matrons were sitting on the veranda knitting those +indeterminate toilette accessories for the Belgians which always seemed +to be about to halt at precisely the same stage of progress. + +Mrs. Balfame, who had set the fashion, had not brought her needles +to-day. She went directly to the card room; but her partner for the +tournament not having arrived, she entertained her impatient friends +with a recent domestic episode. + +"I have a German servant, you know," she said, removing her wraps and +taking her seat at the table. "A good creature and a hard worker, but +leaden-footed and dull beyond belief. Still, I suppose even the dullest +peasant has spite in her make-up. I have been reading tomes of books on +the war, as you learned from painful experience yesterday; most of them, +as it happened--a good joke on Anna that, as she gave me the list--quite +antagonistic to Germany. One day when Frieda should have been dusting I +caught her scowling over the chapter heads of one of them. Of course she +reads English--she has been here several years. Day before yesterday, +when I was knitting, she asked me whom I was knitting for, and I told +her--for the Belgians, of course. She asked me in a sort of growl why I +didn't knit for the homeless in East Prussia--it seems that is where she +comes from and she has been having letters full of horrors. I seldom +bandy words with a servant, for you can't permit the slightest +familiarity in this country if you want to get any work out of them. But +as she scowled as if she would like to explode a shrapnel under me, and +as she is the third I have had in the last five months, I said +soothingly that the newspaper correspondents had neglected the eastern +theatre of war, but had harrowed our feelings so about the Belgians that +we felt compelled to do what we could for them. Then I asked her--I was +really curious--if she had no sympathy for those thousands of afflicted +women and children, merely because they were the victims of the Germans. +She has a big soft face with thick lips, little eyes, and a rudimentary +nose; generally as expressionless as such a face is bound to be. But +when I asked her this question it suddenly seemed to turn to wood--not +actively cruel; it merely expressed the negation of all human sympathy. +She turned without a word and slumped--pardon the expression--out of the +room. But the breakfast was burned this morning--I had to cook another +for poor David--and I know she did it on purpose. I am afraid I shall +have to let her go." + +"I would," said Mrs. Battle, wisely. "She is probably a spy and quite +clever." + +"Yes, but such a worker!" Mrs. Balfame sighed reminiscently. "And when +you have but one servant--" + +The tardy partner bustled in and the game began. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +It was about six o'clock when Mrs. Balfame, steadily losing, contrary to +all precedent, her mind concentrated, her features, like those of the +rest of the players, as hard as the stone faces dug out of Egypt, her +breath escaping in hissing jets, became vaguely conscious of a +disturbance in the outer room. The young people were dancing, as was +usual in the hour before supper, but the piano and fiddles appeared to +be playing against the ribald interruptions of a man's voice. It was +some time before the narrow flow of thought in Mrs. Balfame's brain was +deflected by the powerful outer current, but suddenly she became aware +that her partners were holding their cards suspended, and that their +ears were cocked toward the door. Then she recognised her husband's +voice. + +For a moment she lost her breath and her blood ran chill. She had been +apprehensive for some time of a scene in public, but she had assumed +that it would occur in a friend's house of an evening; he attended her +nowhere else. The Club he had deserted long since; it was much too slow +for a man of his increasing proclivities, especially in a county +liberally provided with saloons and road houses. + +During the last month she had become sensible of a new hostility in his +attitude toward her; it was as if he had suddenly penetrated her hidden +aversion and all his masculine vanity had risen in revolt. Being a +woman of an almost excessive tact, she had sprayed this vanity for +twenty-two years with the delicately scented waters of flattery, but the +springs had gone suddenly dry on that morning when she had uttered her +simple and natural desire to bring the conjugal sleeping accommodations +up to date. + +And now he had come out here to disgrace her, she immediately concluded, +to make her a figure of fun, to destroy her social leadership. This +might also involve him in a loss, but when a man is both drunk and angry +his foresight grows dim and revenge is sweet. + +Only last night there had been an intensely disagreeable scene in +private; that is to say, she had been dignified and slightly +contemptuous, while he had shouted that her knitting got on his nerves, +and the sight of all those books on the war made him sick. When the +whole business of the country was held up by this accursed war, a man +would like to forget it when at home. And every man had the same story, +by God; his wife was knitting when she ought to be darning stockings; +trying to be intellectual by concerning herself with a subject that +concerned men alone. Mr. Balfame had always resented the Woman's Club, +and all talk of votes for a sex that would put him and his kind out of +business. Their intelligent interest in the war was a grievous personal +indignity. + +Being a woman of clear thought and firm purpose, and of a really high +order of moral courage, Mrs. Balfame was daunted for a moment only. She +laid down her cards, opened the door and entered the main room of the +club-house. There she saw, at the head of the room, a group of men +surrounding her husband; with one exception, almost as excited as he. +The exception was Dwight Rush who had a hand on one of Balfame's +shoulders and appeared to be addressing him in a low tone. Little Maude +Battle ran forward and grasped her arm. + +"Oh, dear Mrs. Balfame," she gasped, "do take him home. He is +so--so--queer. He snatched three girls away from their partners, and the +boys are so mad. And his language--oh, it was something awful." + +The women and girls were huddled in groups, all but Alys Crumley, who, +Mrs. Balfame vaguely realised, was sketching. Their eyes were fixed on +the group at the head of the room, where Rush was now trying to edge the +burly swaying figure toward the door. + +Mrs. Balfame walked directly up to her flushed and infuriated spouse. + +"You are not well, David," she said peremptorily. "In all the years of +our married life never have you acted like this. I am sure that you are +getting typhoid fever--" + +"To hell with typhoid fever!" shouted Mr. Balfame. "I'm drunk, that's +what. And I'll be drunker when they let me into the bar. You get out of +this." + +Mrs. Balfame turned to Dr. Anna, who had marched up the room beside her. +"I am sure it is fever," she said with decision, and the loyal Anna +nodded sagely. "You know that liquor never affects him. We must get him +home." + +"Huh!" jeered Balfame, "you two get me home! I'm not so drunk I can't +see the joke of that. The matter with you is you think I'm disgracin' +you, and you want to go on bein' the high cock-alorum of this bunch. +Well, I'm sick of it, and I'm sick of bein' told to eat out when you're +at matinées or that damned Woman's Club. Home's the place for women. +Knittin's all right." He laughed uproariously. "But stay at home by the +fire and knit your husband's socks. Smoke a pipe too, if you like it. +That's what my granny did. The whole lot of you women haven't got one +good man's brain between you, and yet you'd talk the head off the +President of the United States--" + +He was about to launch upon his opinion of Elsinore society when a +staccato cough interrupted the flow. Mrs. Balfame turned away with a +gesture of superb disdain, although her face was livid. + +"The sex jealousy we have so often discussed!" Her clear tones from the +first had carried all over the room. "He must be taken home." She looked +at Dwight Rush and said graciously: "I am sure he will go with you. And +he will apologise to the Club when he is himself again. I shall go back +to our game." + +She held her head very high as she swept down the long room, but her jaw +was set, her nostrils distended, a narrow strip of eye was fixed and +glaring. + +An unforeseen situation had blown to flame such fires of anger as +existed in her depths, and she was unable to extinguish them as quickly +as she would have wished. To the intense surprise of the bridge women +who had followed her out of the card-room and in again, she sank into a +chair and burst into tears. But she managed to cry quietly into her +handkerchief, and in a few moments had her voice under control. + +"He has disgraced me!" she exclaimed bitterly. "I must resign from the +Club." + +"Well, I guess not." The ladies had crowded about her sympathetically. +"We'll all stand up for you," cried Mrs. Battle. "The men will give him +a good talking-to, and he'll write an apology to the Club and that will +end it." + +These friends, old and more recent, were embarrassed in their genuine +sympathy, for no one had ever seen Mrs. Balfame in tears before. Vaguely +they regretted that, extreme as was the provocation, she should have +descended to the level of mere womanhood. It was as if they were present +at the opening of a new chapter in the life of Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore; +as, in truth, they were. + +Mrs. Balfame blew her nose. "Pardon me," she said. "I never believed I +should break down like this--but--but--" once more she set her teeth and +her eyes flashed. "I have a violent headache. I must go home. I cannot +finish the game." + +"I'll take you home," Dr. Anna spoke. "Oh, that beast!" + +The other women kissed Mrs. Balfame, straightened her hat, and escorted +her out to the runabout which Dr. Anna brought to the rear entrance of +the clubhouse. She smiled wearily at the group, touching her brow with a +finger. As soon as the little car had left the grounds and was beyond +the reach of peering eyes, she made no further attempt at self-control, +but poured forth her inmost soul to the one person she had ever fully +trusted. She told the doctor all the secret horror of her life, her +hatred and loathing of David Balfame; everything, in short, but her +determination to kill him, which in the novel excitement that had +invaded her nervous system, she forgot. + +Dr. Anna, who had heard many such confessions, but who obstinately had +hoped that her friend's case was not as bad as it appeared +superficially, was glad that she was not driving a horse; humane as she +was, she should have forgotten herself and lashed him to relieve her own +feelings. + +"You must get a divorce," she said through her teeth. "You really must. +I saw Rush looking at you. There is no mistaking that expression in a +man's eyes. You must--you must divorce that brute." + +"I'll not!" Mrs. Balfame's composure returned abruptly. "And please +forget that I gave way like this and--and said things." She wondered +what she really had said. "I know I need not ask you never to mention +it. But divorce! Oh, no. If I continue to live with him they'll be sorry +for me and stand by me, but if I divorced him--well, I'd just be one +more divorced woman and nothing more. Elsinore isn't Newport. Moreover, +they'd feel I'd no further need of their sympathy. In time they'd let me +pretty well alone." + +"I don't think much of your arguments," said Dr. Anna. "You could marry +Rush and go to New York." + +"But you know I mean what I say. And don't worry, Anna dear." She bent +over the astonished doctor and gave her a warm kiss. "And as I'm not +demonstrative, you know I mean that too. You are not to worry about me. +I've got the excuse I needed, and I'm going to buy some things at second +hand and refurnish one of the old bedrooms and live in it. He can't say +a word after this, and he'll be humble enough, for the men will make him +apologise to the Club. I'll threaten him with divorce, and that alone +will make him behave himself, for it would cost him a good deal more to +pay me alimony than to keep the old house going--" + +"That isn't an argument that will have much effect on a man, usually in +liquor. But women are queer cattle. Divorce is a great and beneficent +institution, and here you elect to go on living under the same roof with +a brute--Oh, well, it's your own funeral. Here we are. I've got to speed +up and practise medicine. Am expecting a call from out at Houston's any +minute. Baby. Good night." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Mrs. Balfame let herself into the dark house. Saturday was Frieda's +night out. + +Contrary to her economical habit, she lighted up the lower floor +recklessly, and opened the windows; she felt an overwhelming desire for +light and air. But as she wished to think and plan with her accustomed +clarity she went at once to the pantry in search of food; the blood was +still in her head. + +The morrow would be Sunday, and the Saturday luncheon was always +composed of the remains of the Friday dinner. On Saturday she dined at +the Country Club. Therefore Mrs. Balfame found nothing with which to +accomplish her deliberate scientific purpose but dry bread and a box of +sardines. She was opening this delectable when the front door bell rang. + +Her set face relaxed into a frown, but she went briskly to the door. The +poison might be transpirable after all, and her alibi must be perfect; +she had changed her mind about going to bed with a headache, and at ten +o'clock, when she knew that several of her childless friends would be at +home, she purposed to call them up and thank them sweetly and +cheerfully. + +When she saw Dwight Rush on the stoop, however, she almost closed the +door in his scowling face. + +"Let me in!" he commanded. + +"No!" She spoke with sweet severity. "I shall not. After such a scene? I +must be more careful than ever. Go right away. I, at least, shall +continue to be above reproach." + +"Oh!" He swallowed the natural expression of masculine irritation. "If +you won't let me in I'll say what I've got to say right here. Will you +divorce that brute and marry me? I can get you a divorce on half a dozen +grounds." + +"I'll have no divorce, now or ever." Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore spoke with +haughty finality. "I abominate the word." Then she added graciously: +"But don't think I am unappreciative of your kindness. Now you must go +away. The Gifnings live on the corner, and they always come home early." + +"A good many have left, including Balfame. He spoilt the evening." Rush +stared at her and ground his teeth. "By God! I wish the old duelling +days were back again. I'd call him out. If you say the word I'll pick a +quarrel with him anyhow. He carries a gun, and there isn't a jury in +Brabant County that wouldn't acquit me on the plea of self-defence. My +conscience would trouble me no more than if I had shot a mad dog." + +Mrs. Balfame gave a little gasp, which he mistook for horror. But +temptation had assailed her. Why not? Her own opportunity might be long +in coming. It would be like Dave Balfame to go away and stay for a +month. But the temptation passed swiftly. Human nature is too complex +for any mere mortal to reduce to the rule of three. While she could +dispose of her husband without a qualm, her conscience revolted from +turning an upright citizen like Dwight Rush into a murderer. + +She closed the door abruptly, knowing that no mere verbal refusal to +accept such an offer would be adequate, and he went slowly down the +steps. But in a moment he ran back and a few feet down the veranda, +thrusting his head through one of the open windows. + +"Just one minute!" + +She was passing the parlour door and paused. + +"Promise me that if you are in trouble you will send for me. For no one +else; no other man, that is, but me. You owe me that much." + +"Yes, I promise." She spoke more softly and smiled. + +"And close these windows. It is not safe to leave veranda windows open +at this hour." + +"I intended to close them before going up stairs. But--perhaps you will +understand--the house when I came in seemed to reek with tobacco and +liquor--with him!" + +His reply was inarticulate, but he pulled down the windows violently, +and she locked them, smiling once more before she turned out the light. + +She returned to the dining-room, thinking upon food with distaste, but +determined to eat until her head felt normal. She had no intention of +speaking to her husband should he return, for she purposed to sleep on a +sofa in the sewing-room and lock the door, but tones and brain must be +lightly poised when she telephoned to her friends. + +The telephone bell rang. Once more she frowned, but answered the summons +as promptly as she had opened the front door. To her amazement she heard +her husband's voice. + +"Say," it said thickly, "I'm sorry. Promise not to take another drink +for a month. Sorry, too, I've got to go to the house for a few minutes. +Didn't intend to go home to-night--thought I'd give you time to get over +bein' as mad as I guess you've got a right to be. But I got to go to +Albany--politics--got to go to-night--must go home and get my grip. +You--you--wouldn't pack it, would you? Then I needn't stay so long. Only +got to sort some papers myself." + +Mrs. Balfame replied in the old wifely tones that so often had caused +him to grit his teeth: "I never hold a man in your condition responsible +for anything. Of course I'll pack your suitcase. What is more, I'll have +a glass of lemonade ready, with aromatic spirits of ammonia in it. You +must sober up before you start on a journey." + +"That's the ticket. You're a corker! Put in a bromide, too. I'm at +Sam's, and I guess I'll walk over--need the air. You just go on bein' +sweet and I'll bring you something pretty from Albany." + +"I want one of those new chiffon-velvet bags, and you will please get it +in New York," she said practically. "I'll write an exact description of +it and put it in the suitcase." + +"All right. Go ahead." His accents breathed profound relief, and +although her brain was working at lightning speed, and her eyes were but +a pale bar of light, she curled her lip scornfully at the childishness +of man, as she hung up the receiver. + +She made the glass of lemonade, added the usual allowance of aromatic +spirits of ammonia and bromide--a bottle of each was kept in the +sideboard ready for instant use--then ran upstairs and returned with the +colourless liquid she had purloined from Dr. Anna's cupboard. + +Her scientific friend had remarked that one drop would suffice, but +being a mere female herself she doubled the dose to make sure; and then +set the glass conspicuously in the middle of the table. The half opened +can of sardines and the plate of bread were quite forgotten, and once +more she ran upstairs, this time to pack his useless clothes. + +She performed this wifely office with efficiency, forgetting nothing, +not even the hair tonic he was administering to a spreading bald spot, a +bottle of digestive tablets, a pair of the brown kid gloves he affected +when dressed up, and a volume of detective fiction. Then she wrote a +minute description of the newest fashion in hand bags and pinned it to +his dinner jacket. The suitcase was an alibi in itself. + +When she had packed it and strapped it and carried it down to the +dining-room, returned to her room and locked the door, she realised that +she had prolonged these commonplace duties in behalf of her nerves. +Those well-disciplined rebels of the human system were by no means +driven to cover, and this annoyed her excessively. + +She had no fear of not rising to precisely the proper pitch when she +heard her husband fall dead in the dining-room, for she always had risen +automatically to every occasion for which she was in any measure +prepared, and to many that had caught her unaware. It was the ordeal of +waiting for the climax that made her nerves jeer at her will, and she +found that a series of pictures was marching monotonously through her +mind, again, and again, and yet again: with that interior vision she saw +her husband walk unsteadily up the street, swing open the gate, slam it +defiantly, insert his latch-key; she saw his eye drawn to the light in +the dining-room at the end of the dark hall, saw him drink the lemonade, +drop to the floor with a fall that shook the house; she saw herself +running down, calling out his name, shattering the glass on the floor, +then running distractedly across the street to the Gifnings'--and again +and still again. + +She had been pacing the room. It occurred to her that she could vary the +monotony by watching for him, and she put out her light and drew aside +the sash curtain. In a moment she caught her breath. + +Her room was on a corner of the house and commanded not only the front +walk leading down to Elsinore Avenue, but the grounds on the left. In +these grounds was a large grove of ancient maples, where, dressed in +white, she passed many pleasant hours in summer with a book or her +friends. The trees, with their low thick branches still laden with +leaves, cast a heavy shade, but her gaze, moving unconsciously from the +empty street, suddenly saw a black and moving shadow in that black and +almost solid mass of shadows. + +She watched intently. A figure undoubtedly was moving from tree to tree, +as if selecting a point of vantage, or restless from one of several +conceivable causes. + +Could it be her husband, summoning his courage to enter and face her? +She had known him in that mood. But she dismissed the suggestion. He had +inferred from her voice that she was both weary and placated, and he was +far more likely to come swaggering down the avenue singing one of his +favourite tunes; he fancied his voice. + +Frieda never returned before midnight, and then, although she entered +by the rear hall door and stole quietly up the back stairs, she would be +quite without shame if confronted. + +Therefore, it must be a burglar. + +There could not have been a more welcome distraction. Mrs. Balfame was +cool and alert at once. As an antidote to rebellious nerves awaiting the +consummation of an unlawful act, a burglar may be recommended to the +most amateurish assassin. + +Mrs. Balfame put on her heavy automobile coat, wrapped her head and face +in a dark veil, transferred her pistol from the table drawer to a +pocket, and went softly down the stairs. She left the house by the +kitchen door, and, after edging round the corner stood still until her +eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Then, once, more, she saw that moving +shadow. + +She dared not risk crossing the lawn directly from the house to the +grove, but made a long détour at the back, keeping on the grass, +however, that her footsteps should make no noise. + +A moment or two and she was within the grove. She saw the shadow detach +itself again, but it was impossible to determine its size or sex, +although she inferred from its hard laboured breathing that the +potential thief was a man. + +He appeared to be making craftily for the house, no doubt with the +intention of opening one of the lower windows; and she stalked him with +a newly awakened instinct, her nostrils expanding. The original resolve +to kill her husband had induced no excitement at all; even Dwight Rush's +love-making had thrilled her but faintly; but this adventure in the +night, stalking a house-breaker, presently to confront him with the +command to raise his hands, cast a momentary light upon the emotional +moments experienced by the highly organised. + +Suddenly she heard her husband's voice. He was approaching Elsinore +Avenue from one of the nearby streets, and he was singing, with +physiological interruptions, "Tipperary," a song he had cultivated of +late to annoy his political rival, an American of German birth and +terrific German sympathies. He was walking quickly, as top-heavy men +sometimes will. + +She drew back and crouched. To make her presence known would be to turn +over the burglar to her husband and detain the essential victim from the +dining-room table. + +She saw the shadow dodge behind a tree. Balfame appeared almost abruptly +in the light shed by the street lamp in front of his gate; and then it +seemed to her that she had held her breath for a lifetime before her +ears were stunned by a sharp report, her eyes blinked at a spurt of +fire, before she heard David Balfame give a curious sound, half moan, +half hiccough, saw him clutch at the gate, then sink to the ground. + +She was hardly conscious of running, far more conscious that some one +else was running--through the orchard and toward the back fence. + +Hours later, it seemed to her, she was in the kitchen closing the door +behind her. Something curious had happened in her brain, so trained to +orderly routine that it seldom prompted an erratic course. + +She should have run at once to her husband, and here she was inside the +house, and once more listening intently. It was the fancied sound that +swung her consciousness back to its balance. She went to the front of +the back stairs and called sharply: + +"Frieda!" + +There was no answer. + +"Frieda," she called again. "Did you hear anything? I thought I heard +some one trying to open the back door." + +Again there was no answer. + +Then, her lip curling at the idea of Frieda's return on Saturday night +at eight o'clock, she went rapidly into the dining-room, carried the +glass containing the lemonade into the kitchen, rinsed it thoroughly, +and put it away. + +It was not until she reached her room that it occurred to her that she +should have ascertained whether or not the key was on the inside of the +rear hall door. + +But this was merely a flitting thought; there were loud and excited +voices down by the gate. In an instant she had hung up her automobile +cloak and veil, changed her dress for a wrapper, let down her hair and +thrown open the window. + +"What is the matter?" Her tone was peremptory but apprehensive. + +"Matter enough!" John Gifning's voice was rough and broken. "Don't come +out here. Mean to say you didn't hear a shot?" + +Two or three men were running about nearer the house. One paused under +her window, and looked up, waving his hand vaguely. + +"Shot? Shot? I heard--so many tires explode--What do you mean? What is +it?--Who--" + +"Here's the coroner!" cried one of the group at the gate. + +"Coroner?" + +She ran down stairs, threw open the front door and went as swiftly +toward the gate, her hair streaming behind her. + +"Who is it?" she demanded. + +"Now--now." Mr. Gifning intercepted her and clasped her shoulder firmly. +"You don't want to go down there--and don't take on--" + +She drew herself up haughtily. "I am not an hysterical woman. Who has +been shot down at my gate?" + +"Well," blurted out Gifning. "I guess you'll have to know. It's poor old +Dave." + +Mrs. Balfame drew herself still higher and stood quite rigid for a +moment; then the coroner, one of her husband's friends, came up the path +and said in a low tone to Gifning, "Take her upstairs. We're goin' to +bring him in. He's gone, for a fact." + +Mr. Gifning pushed her gently along the path, as the others lifted the +limp body and tramped slowly behind. "You go up and have a good cry," he +said. "I'll 'phone for the Cummacks. I guess it was bound to come. +There's been hot times in Dobton lately--" + +"Do you mean that he was deliberately murdered?" + +"Looks like it, seeing that he didn't do it himself. The damned hound +was skulking in the grove. Of course he's made off, but we'll get him +all right." + +Mrs. Balfame walked slowly up the stair, her head bowed, while the heavy +inert mass so lately abhorrent to his wife and several politicians was +laid on the sofa in the parlour whose evolutions had annoyed him. + +Mr. Gifning telephoned to the dead man's brother-in-law, then for the +police and the undertaker. + +Mrs. Balfame sat down and awaited the inevitable bombardment of her +privacy by her more intimate friends. Already shriller voices were +mingling with the heavier tones down on the lawn and out in the avenue. +The news seemed to have been flashed from one end of Elsinore to the +other. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Mrs. Balfame sat with Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning, Mrs. Frew, her +sister-in-law, Mrs. Cummack, and several of her other friends in her +quiet bed-chamber. It was an hour after the death of David Balfame and +she had, for the seventh time, told the story of packing her husband's +suit case, carrying it down stairs, returning to her room to undress, +hearing the commotion down by the gate. Yes, she had heard a report, but +Elsinore Avenue--automobiles--exploding tires--naturally, it had meant +nothing to her at the moment. No, he did not cry out--or if he did--her +window was closed; it was the side window she left open at night. + +She had accepted a bottle of smelling salts from Mrs. Battle, but sat +quite erect, looking stunned and frozen. Her voice was expressionless, +wearily reiterating a few facts to gratify the curiosity of these +well-meaning friends, as wearily listening to Lottie Gifning's +reiteration of her own story: As the night was warmer than usual she and +her husband and the two friends that had motored in with them had sat on +the porch for awhile; they had heard "Dave" come singing down Dawbarn +Street; two or three minutes later the shot. Of course the men ran over +at once, but for at least ten minutes she was too frightened to move. +One of the men ran for the coroner; if "poor Dave" wasn't dead they +wanted to take him at once where he would be comfortable. + +Mrs. Balfame's demeanour was all these solicitous friends could have +wished; although they enjoyed tears and emotional scenes as much as any +women, they were gratified to be reassured that their Mrs. Balfame was +not as other women; they still regretted her breakdown at the Club, +although resentfully conscious of loving her the more. And if they +wanted tears, here was Polly Cummack shedding them in abundance for the +brother she now reproached herself for having utterly despised. + +Below there was a subdued hum of voices, within and without. The police +had come tearing up in an automobile and ordered the amateur detectives +out of the grounds; their angry voices had been heard demanding how the +qualified fools expected the original footsteps to be detected after +such a piece of idiocy. + +Mrs. Balfame had shaken her head sadly. "They'll find nothing," she +said. "If only I had known, I could have called down to them to keep out +of the yard." + +"Now, who do you suppose that is?" Mrs. Battle, who was short and stout +and corseted to her knees, toddled over to the window and leaned out as +two automobiles raced each other down the avenue. They stopped at the +gate, and in a moment Mrs. Battle announced: "The New York newspaper +men!" + +"Already?" Mrs. Balfame glanced at the clock and stifled a yawn. "Why, +it's hardly an hour--" + +"Oh, a year or so from now they'll be coming over in bi-planes. Well, if +our poor old boobs of police don't unearth the murderer, they will. They +are the prize sleuths. They'll find a scent, or spin one out of their +brains as a spider spins his web out of his little tummy--" + +Mrs. Cummack interrupted: "Sam is sure it is Old Dutch. He's gone with +the constable to Dobton." + +Dobton, the county seat, and the centre of the political activities of +East Brabant, intimately connected with the various "towns" by trolley +and telephone, embraced the domicile of Mr. Konrad Kraus, amiably known +as "Old Dutch." His home was in the rear of his flourishing saloon, +which was the headquarters of the county Republicans. David Balfame had +patronised--rumour said financed--the saloon of an American sired by +Erin. + +Another automobile dashed up. "Sam, I think; yes, it is," cried Mrs. +Battle. + +A few moments later Mr. Cummack appeared upon the threshold. + +"Nothin' doin'," he said gruffly. "Old Dutch's got a perfect alibi. Been +behind the bar since six o'clock. It's up to us now to find out if he +hired a gunman; and we're on the trail of others too. Poor Dave had his +enemies all right." + +He paused and looked tentatively at his weary but heroic sister-in-law. +His own face was haggard, and the walrus moustache he had brought out of +the North-west was covered not only with dust but with little moist +islands made by furtive tears. With that exquisite sympathy and +comprehension that men have for the failings of other men, which far +surpasseth that of woman, he had loved his imperfect friend, but he had +a profound admiration for his sister-in-law, whom he neither loved nor +pretended to understand. He knew her surfaces, however, as well as any +one, and would have been deeply disappointed if she had carried herself +in this trying hour contrary to her usual high standard of conduct. Enid +Balfame, indeed, was almost a legend in Elsinore, and into this legend +she could retire as into a fortress, practically impregnable. + +"Say, Enid," he said hesitatingly. "These reporters--the New York +chaps--the local men wouldn't dare ask--want an interview. What do you +say?" + +Mrs. Balfame merely turned her haughty head and regarded him with icy +disdain. "Are they crazy? Or you?" + +"Well, not the way they look at it. You see, it's up to them to fill a +column or two every morning, and there's nothing touches a new crime +with a mystery. So far, they haven't got much out of this but the bare +fact that poor Dave was shot down at his own gate, presumably by some +one hid in the grove. An interview with the bereaved widow would make +what they call a corking story." + +"Tell them to go away at once." She leaned back against her chair and +closed her eyes. Mrs. Gifning flew to hold the salts to her nose. + +"Better see them," persisted Mr. Cummack. "They'll haunt the house till +you do. They're crazy about this case--hasn't been a decent murder for +months, nothin' much doin' in any line, and everybody sick of the war. +The Germans take a trench in the morning papers and lose it in the +evening--" + +"Sam Cummack! How dare you joke at a time like this?" His wife ran +forward and attempted to push him out of the room, and the other ladies +had risen and faced him with manifest indignation. + +Suddenly Mrs. Cummack put her arms about him and patted the top of his +head. He had burst into tears and was rubbing his eyes on his sleeve. +"Poor old Dave!" he sobbed. "I'm all in. But I'll find that low-down cur +who killed him, cut him off in his prime, if it takes the last cent I've +got." + +Mrs. Balfame rose and crossed to his side. She put her hand on his +shoulder. "I never should have suspected that you had such depth of +feeling, Sam," she said softly, "I am sure that the cowardly murderer +will be caught and that yours will be the glory. Send those +inconsiderate reporters away." + +Mr. Cummack shook his head. "As well talk of calling off the police. +They'll be round here day and night till the man is in Dobton +jail--longer, for they know the public will want an interview with the +widow. Better see them, Enid." + +"I shall not." Mrs. Balfame put her hand to her head and reeled. "Oh, I +am so tired! So tired! What a day. Oh, how I wish Anna were here." + +Three of the women caught her and led her to her chair. "Anna!" she +reiterated. "I must have something to make me sleep--" + +"I'll call her up!" volunteered Mrs. Gifning. "I do hope she is at +home--" + +"She was to go out to the Houston farm," interrupted Mrs. Cummack. "She +stopped at our house on the way out--Sammy has bronchitis--"; and Mrs. +Gifning, who was as nervous as the widow should have been, ran down to +the telephone, elated at being the one chosen to horrify poor Dr. Anna +while engaged in the everlasting battle for life. + +"I'll stay with Enid till Anna comes," volunteered Mrs. Cummack. "I +guess she'd better be quiet. One of you might make coffee for those that +are going to sit up--" + +"Frieda's doin' that," said Mr. Cummack. "They're all in the +dining-room--" + +Mrs. Balfame had left the shelter of Mrs. Cummack's arm and was sitting +very straight. "Frieda? This is her night out--" + +"She was in bed with a toothache, but I routed her out. Well, I'll put +the men off till to-morrow, but better make up your mind to see them +then." + +He left the room and when Mrs. Balfame was alone with her sister-in-law, +whom she had never admitted to the sacred inner circle, but who was a +kind forgiving soul, she smiled affectionately. "Don't be afraid that I +shall break down," she said. "But those women had got on my nerves. It +is too kind of you to have dismissed them, and to stay with me yourself +till Anna comes. It has all been so terrible--and coming so soon after +what happened at the Club. Thank heaven I did not permit myself to speak +severely to him, and even when he telephoned for his suit case I was not +cross--I never would hold a man who had been drinking to strict +account--" + +"Don't you worry your head. He was my brother, but I guess I know what a +trial he must have been. And if he hadn't been my brother I guess I'd +say we wouldn't have blamed you much if you had given him a dose of lead +yourself--" + +Mrs. Balfame raised her amazed eyes. But in a moment the weary ghost of +a smile flitted over her firm mouth, and she asked almost lightly: "Do +you then believe in removing offensive husbands?" + +"Well--of course I'd never have that much courage myself if Sam wasn't +any better than he should be--he's pretty decent as men go--but I know a +few husbands right here in Elsinore--well, if their wives gave them +prussic acid or hot lead they wouldn't lose _my_ friendship, and I guess +any jury would let them off." + +"I guess you're right." Mrs. Balfame was beginning to undress. "I think +I'll get into bed--But it requires a lot of nerve. And the risk is +pretty great, you know. Anna once told me of an untraceable and +tasteless poison she had--" + +"Oh, Lord!" Mrs. Cummack may have been too hopelessly without style and +ambition to be one of the arc lights of the Elsinore smart set, but she +possessed a sense of humour, and for the moment forgot the abrupt taking +off of her brother. "Don't let that get round. The poison wouldn't be +safe for an hour--nor a few husbands. I think I'll warn Anna anyhow--I'm +not sure I can keep it." + +The door opened softly and Mrs. Gifning's fluffy blonde head appeared. +"I couldn't get Anna herself," she whispered. "The baby hasn't come. But +Mr. Houston said he'd tell her as soon as it was over, and let her go. +He was terribly shocked, and sent you his love." + +"Thanks, dear," murmured Mrs. Balfame. "I'll try and sleep awhile, and +Polly has promised to sit with me till Anna comes. Good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +There was a thin cry of life in the nursery of the Houston farm house. +The mother slept and the new born was in competent hands. Mr. Houston, a +farmer more prosperous and enterprising than his somewhat weedy +appearance prefigured, beckoned Dr. Anna into the dining-room, where a +sleepy but interested "hired girl" had brought hot coffee and +sandwiches. + +The battle had lasted little over three hours, but every moment had been +fraught with anxiety for the doctor and the husband. Mrs. Houston's +heart had revealed an unsuspected weakness and the baby had not only +neglected to head itself towards the gates of life as all proper little +marathons should, but had exhibited a state of suspended animation for +at least twenty minutes after its arrival at the goal. + +Dr. Anna dropped into a chair beside the table and covered her face with +her hand. + +"I'm all in, I guess," she murmured, and the farmer put down the coffee +pot and ran for the demijohn. + +"You drink this," he said peremptorily. His own hand was shaking, but he +made no verbal attempt to release his strangled emotions until both he +and the doctor had drunk of coffee as well as whiskey. Then, when half +way through a thick sandwich made of slabs of bread and beef, he began +to thank the doctor incoherently. + +"You are just it," he sputtered. "Just about it. And your poor back +must be broke. You doctors do beat me, particularly you women doctors. +I'll never say nothin' against women doctors again, though I'll tell you +now that although poor little Aggie was dead set on you, I opposed it +for awhile--" + +Dr. Anna was sitting up and smiling. She waved his apologies and +protestations aside. "I can't think what came over me to collapse like +that. Once or twice lately I have thought I might be getting something. +I'll have my blood taken to-morrow. Now, I'll go home and get to bed +quick, although that coffee has made me feel as fine as a fiddle." + +"Well, I needed it too, and for more reasons than you. Say--" Mr. +Houston had risen and was pulling nervously at his short and bosky +beard. "I got a 'phone from Mrs. Gifning a while ago. You're wanted at +the Balfames--bad." + +Dr. Anna sprang to her feet, her full cheeks pale again. "Enid! What has +happened to her?" + +"Oh, she's all right, I guess. It's Dave--" + +"Oh, another gastric attack?" + +"Worse and more of it. He was shot--two or three hours ago, I guess. I +didn't ask the time--was in too big a hurry to get back to Aggie--at his +own gate, though, I think she said." + +"Who did it?" + +"Nobody knows." + +"Dead?" + +"No one'll ever be deader." + +"H'm!" The color had come back to Dr. Anna's tired face and she shrugged +her shoulders. "I'm no hypocrite, and I guess you're not either." + +"I'm no more a hypocrite than I am a Democrat. His yellow streak was +gettin' wider every year. It's good riddance. Still I wish he'd died in +his bed. I don't like the idea of a fellow citizen, good or bad, bein' +shot down like that. It's against law and order, and if the murderer's +caught and I'm drawn on the jury, and it's proved he done it, I'll vote +for conviction." + +"Quite right," said Dr. Anna briskly, as she went out into the hall and +put on her hat. "I suppose it's Mrs. Balfame who wants me?" + +"Yes, that's it. I remember. But you ought to go home and get sleep. +There's enough women to sit up with her. The hull town likely." + +"But I know she wants me." Dr. Anna's face glowed softly. "I'll sleep +there all right--on a sofa beside her bed--if she wants me to stay on." + +"Well, look out for yourself," he growled. "If you don't think about +yourself a little more you'll soon have no show to think so much about +other people. I'm goin' for the car." + +A few moments later he had brought the little runabout to the door, +lighted the lamps, and given the doctor a hard grip of the hand. + +She returned the pressure in kind. "Now don't worry, Mr. Houston. She's +all right, and that nurse is first rate. Don't talk to her. Aggie, I +mean. See you to-morrow about ten." + +She drove rapidly out of the gate and into the road. There was a full +moon shining and the drive was but ten miles between the farm and +Elsinore. Her face was tired and grim. She had been in daily contact +with typhoid fever in the poor and dirty quarter of the town. In her +arduous life she had often experienced healthy fatigue, but nothing +like this. Could she be coming down? + +She swung her thoughts to Enid Balfame, and forgot herself. Free at +last, and while still young and lovely! Would she marry Dwight Rush? He +had leaped into her mind simultaneously with the announcement of +Balfame's death. But was he good enough for Enid? Was any man? Why, now +that she was a real widow and in no need of a protector, should she +marry at all? At any rate she could afford to wait. There were greater +prizes to be captured by a beautiful and still girlish woman. + +She was glad for the first time that Enid had never had a child, for +there was a virgin and mystic appeal in the woman that had escaped the +common lot. Spinsters lost it, curiously enough, but a chaste and lovely +matron, who had ignored the book of experience so liberally offered her, +and with eyes as unalloyed as a girl's (save when flashing with +intellectual fires)--what more distracting anomaly could the world +offer? Only Mrs. Balfame's indifference had kept the men away--Dr. Anna +was convinced of that. Her future was in her own hands. + +Dr. Anna's mind wandered to the scene of the murder. It was not +difficult to construct, even from the meager details, and she shuddered. +Murder! What a hideous word it was! Horrid that it should even brush the +name of an exquisite creature like Enid Balfame. Would that Dave Balfame +could have fallen of apoplexy while disgracing himself at the Club! But +Anna frowned and shook the picture out of her mind. Doctors are too long +trained in death to be haunted by its phantoms in any form. + +A sharp turn and the road ran beside a salt marsh, a solemn grey +expanse that lost itself far away in the grey of the sea. Suddenly Dr. +Anna became aware of a man walking rapidly down the road toward her. He +carried his hat in his hand as if his head were hot on this cool autumn +night. There was no fear of man in Dr. Anna, even on lonely country +roads; nevertheless she had no mind to be detained, and was about to +increase her speed, when her curiosity was excited by something +pleasantly familiar in the tall loose figure, the almost stiffly upright +head. A moment later and the bright moonlight revealed the white face of +Dwight Rush. + +She brought the car to an abrupt halt as he too paused and nodded +recognition. + +"What's the matter?" she asked sharply. "You looked as if you were +walking to beat time itself--as if you saw a ghost to boot--" + +"Plenty of ghosts in my head. It aches like the dickens--" + +"Were you there when it happened?" + +"When what happened?" + +"What? You pretend you don't know--when all Elsinore must have known it +within five minutes--" + +"I don't know what you are talking about. I followed you in from the +Club and then took the train for Brooklyn, where I had to see a man. +When I got back to Elsinore--off the train--my head ached so I knew I +couldn't sleep--so I started out to walk it off--been walking for about +two hours." + +"Dave Balfame was shot down at his own gate three or four hours ago." + +"Good God! Who did it? Is he dead?" + +"He's dead, and that's about all I can tell you. Houston went to the +'phone but he was in such a state of mind about his wife that he didn't +stay for particulars. Enid wanted me--it was Lottie Gifning that +'phoned. I gathered, however, that they haven't caught the murderer +yet." + +"Jove!" Rush was shaking. "I feel as if I'd been hit in the pit of the +stomach. And I'm not one to go to pieces, either. But I've a good enough +reason." + +Dr. Anna continued to stare at him. He met her gaze and wonder grew in +his. Then the blood rushed into his face and he threw back his head. +"What do you mean? That I did it?" + +"No--I don't see you committing murder--" + +"Not in that damned skulking way--" + +"Exactly. But you kind of suggest that you might know something about +it. You might have been in the grove, or some other part of the +grounds--with some idea of protecting Enid--" + +"Why should you think that?" + +"She told me--I didn't think it a bad idea myself--that you asked her to +divorce Dave and marry you. But she said she wouldn't and I guess she +meant it. Now, get in," she added briskly. "I'll drive you home and +never say I met you. Met anybody else?" + +"No one." + +"Unless they get the right man at once, everybody who was known to have +any reason to wish Dave Balfame out of the way will come under +suspicion. For all you know, somebody may have guessed your secret; I +saw it in your eyes at the clubhouse when you were trying to get Dave +out of the room for her sake; but of course I was 'on.' Those New York +newspaper men, however--watch out for them. They'll fine-tooth-comb the +county for the man in the case." + +Rush had disposed his long legs in the little machine and it was once +more running swiftly on the smooth road. "My brain is still too hot to +theorise," he said. "May I smoke? What is your opinion?" + +"He had many political enemies; besides, these last two years he's been +growing more and more unbearable, so I guess he had more than one in his +own party. But it isn't unlikely that some girl did it. For some reason +the trollops liked him, and I've met him several times of late driving +with a red-headed minx that looks as if she could shoot on sight." + +"I don't mind telling you that I saw Mrs. Balfame a few minutes after +you left her. I was boiling. Instead of piloting Balfame out to Sam's +car I wished that I had run him behind the clubhouse and horsewhipped +him. We are too civilised these days. I merely went to his house and +asked his wife if she would divorce the brute and marry me. Two +centuries ago--maybe one--I'd have picked her up and flung her on my +horse and galloped off to the woods. We haven't improved; we've merely +substituted the long-winded and indirect method and called it +civilisation." + +"Just so. Did she let you in?" + +"Not she. You might know that without asking. Nor was she any nearer +divorce than before. When I offered to pick a quarrel with him, she +merely slammed the door in my face. But I went to the window and made +her promise that if she were ever in trouble I should be the first +person she would send for--" + +"But you weren't!" Dr. Anna's voice rang with jealous triumph. "I was +the first. But never mind me. I've adored her for forty years, and you +haven't known her as many weeks. Tell me, you didn't conceal yourself +anywhere in the grounds to watch over her? She must have been all alone. +Every servant in town takes Saturday night out." + +"I inferred that Sam would keep him at his house all night. Besides, I +knew she had a pistol. Balfame told me the day he bought her one in New +York; when those burglaries began." + +"Well, don't tell any one that you offered to dispose of her husband--a +few moments before he was killed! It might make unnecessary trouble for +a rising young lawyer." + +"I am quite able to do my own thinking and take care of myself," he said +haughtily, stung by her tone. "If you choose to think me guilty, do so. +And let me tell you that if I had done it I shouldn't put my head in the +ash barrel." + +"No, but you might do your best to avoid the chair. Small blame to you. +Well, as I said, you're safe as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't send a +dog to the chair. That is--" she looked at him threateningly, "if you +really do love Enid and want to marry her." + +"Love her? I'd marry her if she had done it herself and I'd caught her +red-handed." + +"That's the real thing, I guess." She patted his hand approvingly. "I'll +do what I can to help you. She's not a bit in love with you yet, but +that's because she's the purest creature on earth and never would let +herself even dream of a man she couldn't marry. She's one of the last +grand representatives of the old Puritan stock--and when you see as much +mean and secret infidelity, dose as many morbid hysterical women, as I +do--Oh, Lord! No wonder I see Enid Balfame shining with cold radiance in +the high heavens. I may idealise her a bit, but I don't care. It would +be a sad old world if you couldn't exalt at least one human above the +muck-ruck. Well, she likes you, and you have interested her. Just be on +hand when she wants you, needs you. When this excitement is over and she +is tired of female gabble, she'll turn to you naturally, if you manage +her properly and don't butt in too soon. Quiet persistence and tact; +that's your game. I'll put in a good word." + +"By George, you are a good fellow!" He leaned over and kissed her +impulsively. As Dr. Anna felt the pressure of those warm firm lips on +her faded cheek, she astonished herself and him by bursting into tears. +In an instant, however, she dashed them away and gave an odd gurgling +laugh. + +"Don't mind a silly old maid--who loves Enid Balfame more than life, I +guess. And I'm a country doctor, Dwight, who's had a hard night bringing +one more unfortunate female into the world. I feel better since I +cried--first time since you boys used to tease me at school because I +had cheeks like red pippins--you don't remember me over at school in +your village. Renselaerville. I lived there for a spell, and I remember +you. But this isn't the time for reminiscences. Where do you live? We'll +be in the outskirts in three minutes." + +"I have rooms at The Brabant." + +"Any night clerk?" + +"No; it's an apartment house." + +"Good. We're somewhere in the small hours all right." + +She drove swiftly through the sleeping town, slowing down on the corner +of Main Street and Atlantic Avenue. Rush sprang out with a word of +thanks and walked up the avenue to The Brabant. The trees here were +neither old nor close, for this was the quarter of the wealthy newcomers +and of the older residents that had prospered and rebuilt. But not a +soul was abroad, and he let himself into the bachelor apartment house +and mounted the two flights to his rooms unseen. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +As Rush closed his own door behind him, his troubled spirit shifted its +load. Indubitably, if Dr. Anna had not met him he should have walked +until exhausted, and then boarded a train somewhere down the line and +arrived in Elsinore dishevelled, haggard, altogether an object of +suspicion. None knew better than he that in a small community the +lightning of suspicion plays incessantly, throwing the faces of innocent +and guilty alike into distorted relief. And he had half expected to find +a newspaper man awaiting him in the hall below. + +Before turning on his lights he felt his way to the windows and drew the +curtains close. For all he knew there might be a detective or a reporter +sitting on the opposite fence. His legal mind, deeply versed in criminal +law, fully appreciated his danger and warned him to arm at every point. + +The district attorney, one of Balfame's men, clever, ambitious, but too +ill-educated to hope to graduate from Brabant County, or even, political +influence lacking, to climb into the first rank at home, hated the +brilliant newcomer who had beaten him twice during his brief term of +office. That Rush "hailed" originally from the county only added to the +grievance. If Brabant wasn't good enough for him in the first place, why +hadn't he stayed where he was wanted? + +But Rush dismissed him from his mind as he remembered uneasily that +Alys Crumley had been sketching out there at the Club while he had been +wrestling with David Balfame. He knew her ambition to get a position on +a New York newspaper as a sketch artist; but the possibility that she +might have guessed the secret of his interest in putting an end to the +scene, or intended to sell her drawing to one of the reporters, would +have given him little uneasiness had the artist not been a young woman +upon whom he had ceased to call some two months since. + +He had met Alys Crumley about eighteen months after he had returned to +Brabant County and some three months after he had moved from Dobton to +Elsinore, and at once had been attracted by her bright ambitious mind, +combined with a real personality and an appearance both smart and +artistic. + +Miss Crumley prided herself upon being unique in Elsinore, at least, and +although her thick well-groomed hair was dressed with classic severity, +and she wore soft gowns of an indescribable cut in the house, and at the +evening parties of her friends, she was far too astute to depart from +the fashion of the moment in the crucial test of street dress and hat. +In Park Row during her brief sojourn in the newspaper world, she had +commanded attention among the critical press women as a girl who knew +how to dress smartly and yet add that personal touch which, when +attempted by those lacking genius in dress, ruins the effect of the most +extravagant tailor. Miss Crumley by no means patronised these autocrats +of Fifth Avenue; she bought her tailored suits at the ready-made +establishments, but like many another American girl, she knew how to +buy, and above all, how to wear her clothes. + +She had taught for several years after graduating from the High School; +then, her nerves rebelling, had abandoned this most monotonous of +careers for newspaper work. To reporting her physique had not proved +equal, and although she would have made an admirable fashion editor +these enviable positions were adequately filled. On the advice of the +star reporter of her paper, Mr. James Broderick, who, with other +newspaper men had been entertained occasionally at tea of a Sunday +afternoon in her charming little home in Elsinore, she had developed her +talent for drawing during the past year; Mr. Broderick promising to +"find her a job" as staff artist when she had improved her technique. + +Then Dwight Rush appeared. + +Miss Crumley lived with her mother in the family cottage next door to +Dr. Anna's in Elsinore Avenue. Mrs. Crumley, who was the relict of a +G. A. R. had eked out her pension during the schooldays of her daughter +with fine sewing, finding most of her patrons among the newcomers. She +also had cooked for the Woman's Exchange of Brooklyn, besides catering +for public dinners and evening parties. For several years she enjoyed a +complete rest; therefore, when Alys retired temporarily from the office +of provider in order to study art, Mrs. Crumley willingly re-entered the +industrial field. As both the practical mother and the clever daughter +were amiable women it was a harmonious little household that Dwight Rush +found himself drifting toward intimacy with soon after he met the young +lady at a clubhouse dance. + +The living-room--Alys long since had abolished the word parlour from her +vocabulary--was furnished in various shades of green as harmonious as +the family temper; there was a low bookcase filled with fashionable +literature, English and American; the magazines and reviews on the table +were almost blatantly "highbrow," and the cool green walls were further +embellished with a few delicate water colours conceived in the back-yard +atelier by an individual mind if executed by a still somewhat halting +brush. + +For four months Rush had been a constant visitor at the cottage. Miss +Crumley, who was as progressively modern as an automobile factory, was +full of enthusiasm at the moment for the cult of sexless friendship +between a man and a maid. She had considered James Broderick at one time +as a likely partner for a philosophic romance (the adjective Platonic +was out of date; moreover, it implied that the cult was not as modern as +its devotees would wish it to appear); but the brilliant (and handsome) +young reporter not only was very busy but of a mercurial and uncertain +temperament. Nor did he appear to be a youth of lofty ideals; from +certain remarks, uttered casually, to make matters worse, Alys was +forced to conclude that he despised the man who "wasted his time" only +less than he despised the "chaser." If pretty, interesting, and +unnotional girls came his way and liked him enough, that was "all to the +good"; a busy newspaper man at the beck and call of a city editor had no +time for studying over the map of a girl's soul, the lord knew; but if a +girl wasn't a "dead game sport," then the sooner a man left the field to +some one with more time, or a yearning for matrimony, the better. These +remarks had been deliberately thrown out by the canny Mr. Broderick, who +liked "the kid" and didn't want her to "get in wrong" (particularly +with himself as he enjoyed both her society and the artistic +living-room--and Mrs. Crumley's confections) but who saw straight +through Alys' shifting modernities to the makings of a fine primitive +female. + +But Rush was no student in sex psychology. He took Miss Crumley on her +face value; delighted in finding a comfortable friend of the counter +sex, and was more than amenable to her desire to cultivate in him a +taste for modern literature; since his graduation he had hardly opened +anything but law books, legal reviews, and the daily newspaper. She read +aloud admirably--particularly plays--and he liked to listen; and as she +convinced him that he was missing a good part of life, it was not long +before he was buying for leisurely midnight consumption such work of the +fashionable writers as was stimulating and intellectual, and at the same +time sincere. + +She also took him over to several symphony concerts, and often played +classic selections to him in the twilight. He had no objection to music, +as it either spurred his mind into fresh activity upon problems +besetting it, or soothed him into slumber. He loved the little room with +the soft green shadows; it reminded him of the woods, of which he still +was passionately fond; and he found it both homelike and safe. Other +houses in Elsinore, larger and more luxurious, were homelike enough, but +too often were graced by marriageable daughters, who "showed their +hand." Rush was as little vain and conceited as a man may be, but he was +well aware that eligible men in Elsinore were few, and that everybody +must know that his intake, already large, must increase with the years. + +But--as the wise Mr. Broderick would have predicted had he not been +interested elsewhere during this period--the tension grew too strong for +Alys Crumley. Nervous and high-strung, with her reservoir of human +emotions undepleted by even a hard flirtation since her early youth, +idealistic, romantic, and imaginative, she began to realise that with +each long uninterrupted evening--Mrs. Crumley was the most tactful of +parents--she was growing more femininely sensitive to this man's +magnetism and charm, to his quick responsive mind, to the mobility under +the surface of his lean hard face, to the suggestion of indomitable +strength which was the chief characteristic of the new American race of +men. + +It was not long before she was exaggerating every attractive attribute +he possessed until he no longer seemed what he was, a fine specimen of +his type, but a glorified superbeing and the one desirable man on earth. +Her sense of superiority over this "rather crude Western specimen who +knew nothing but his job," and to whom she could teach so much, had +protected her for a time, held her femaleness and imagination in +abeyance, but insensibly his sheer masculinity swamped her, left her +without a rock but pride to cling to. + +It was then that she showed her hand. + +For a time after her discovery she was merely furious with herself; she +was twenty-six and no weakling, neither sentiment nor passion should +master her. But this phase was brief. Infatuation is not cast out either +by reason or pride, and very soon her mind opened to the insidious +whisper: "Why not?" What was the career of staff artist, full of +liberty, excitement, and good fellowship as it might be, to marriage +with an ambitious man capable of inspiring the wildest love? Sooner or +later had she not intended to make just such a marriage? + +From this inception her deductions followed in logical feminine +sequence. If she loved him with a completeness which was both preadamic +and neoteric, it was of course because he was consumed with a similar +passion; in other words he was her mate. He might be too comfortable and +content to have realised it so far, but only one awakening was possible, +and hers was the entrancing part to reveal him to himself. + +She knew that while by no means a beauty, she was as far from +commonplace in colouring at least as in style. Her eyes were an odd +opaque olive, their tint so pronounced that it seemed to invade the pale +ivory of her skin and the smooth masses of her hair. It was a far more +subtle face than American women as a rule possess, and the eyes in spite +of a curious inscrutability that might mean anything were capable of a +play of lights directed from a battery more archaic than modern; and +late one evening after she had read him an impassioned drama (ancient) +and there was a dusky rose in either cheek, she turned them on. + +Rush immediately took fright. She had not roused a responsive spark of +passion in him. Moreover, he was now haunted continually by the image of +a sweet, remote, and (to him) far more mysterious woman, whom he +worshipped as the ideal of all womanhood. + +There was none of the old time American suavity about Rush. He was +abrupt, forthright, and impatient. But he was kind and innately +chivalrous. He "let Miss Crumley down" as gently as he could; but he +let her down. No doubt of that. In less than a week she faced the +bewildering fact that a man could strike loose a woman's emotional +torrents while his own depths awaited the magical touch of another. It +was incredible, preposterous. + +For a time Alys, in the privacy of her atelier, raged like a fury. She +cursed Rush, particularly when engaged in a violent struggle with the +pride which alone held her from grovelling at his feet. + +She was further incensed that he had revealed her to herself as a mere +morbid unsatisfied girl, whose quarter of a century should be crowned by +a little family of three; and at last she doubted if she had ever loved +him at all. That she had been a mere female principle unable to escape +its impersonal destiny disgusted her with life, but it served to restore +her balance and philosophy. + +Being a girl of brains and character she emerged from the encounter with +pride still crested in the eyes of the man; and if his image was too +deeply stamped into her imagination to prevent a recurrence of wild +desire whenever she was so imprudent as to let her mind wander, she +remembered that all great physical upheavals are followed by many minor +shocks, and waited with what patience she could command for full +delivery. + +Of the sanguinary condition of the battle ground in his young friend's +soul Rush had a mere glimpse before she took heed and dissembled. He +assumed that she either had fallen in love with him after the fashion of +girls when they saw too much of a man, or that she was eager to marry +and improve her condition. He reproached himself for thoughtlessness, +renounced the long evenings in the pretty room with a sigh, and in his +bachelor quarters read the books of her choice. He had a very kindly +feeling for her, for he knew that he owed her a debt; if he had not met +the other woman--who could tell? Moreover, as he conceived it to be his +duty to shield her from spiteful comment, he danced with her in public +and joined her on the street whenever they met. + +But if he knew nothing of the intricate and interminable ramifications +of sex psychology, the infinite variety of moods peculiar to a woman in +love, he was well enough aware that love is easily turned to hate, +particularly when vanity has been deeply wounded; and although he had +conceived a high esteem for Alys Crumley's character during the weeks of +their intimacy, he knew that men had been mistaken in their estimate of +women before this, and that if she discovered that he loved another +woman she might be capable of taking the basest revenge. + +It was possible that she was the noblest of her sex, and he hoped she +was, but as he considered her that night, he realised that it behooved +him to walk warily nevertheless. By the time he could marry Enid +Balfame, or even betray his desire to marry her, this crime would have +passed into county history. Of the real danger he never thought. + +The vision evoked of Alys Crumley was accompanied by that of her home, +and he looked round his stark bachelor quarters with a sigh. + +The untidy sitting-room was crowded with law books and legal reviews; +the maid had given it up in despair long since, and only swept out the +ashes daily and dusted once a week. + +In the small bedroom was an iron bed like a soldier's; neckties hung +from the chandelier; on the bureau and table beside the bed were more +books, several by the young British authors of the moment for whom Miss +Crumley had communicated some of her rather perfunctory enthusiasm. + +He flung his clothes all over the room as he undressed. He hated +bachelor quarters. Six months hence he would be the master of a home as +exquisite as the woman he loved. Balfame! The man was dead, but as Rush +thought of him his face turned almost black and his hands tingled and +clenched. It would be long before he could hear that name mentioned +without a hot uprush of hatred and loathing. But it subsided and he took +a bath and "turned in." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +As Rush walked to the Elks' Club for breakfast a few hours later he felt +that suspicion was in the very air of Elsinore, the very leaves of the +quiet Sunday streets rustled with it. Even on Atlantic Avenue there were +knots of men discussing the murder, and in Main Street every man that +passed received a hard stare. + +Rush was thankful to observe that all looked as if they had gone to bed +late and slept little, and when he met Sam Cummack on the steps of the +clubhouse he realised the advantages of the habit of careful grooming to +which the deceased's brother-in-law was quite indifferent. + +"Oh, Dwight!" groaned Cummack, seizing his hand. "Where were you last +night? I'd have liked to have you round." + +"I was in Brooklyn and got back late. What's your opinion?" + +"I've had a dozen but they don't seem to hold water. I guess it was a +gunman, imported direct--though perhaps I'm just hoping it wasn't one of +them trollops did it--for the sake of the family as well as poor Dave's +name. I don't want a scandal like that. Murder's bad enough, the Lord +knows." + +"What sort of footsteps in the grounds?" + +"Every kind we've got in Elsinore, I guess. About forty people were +runnin' round the yard before the police came. Funny that Gifning didn't +think of that. But he says the breath was knocked out of him. Jimminy! I +never knew anything to upset the town like this before--the county, you +might say. The telephone's been buzzin' till the girls have threatened +to strike. An operator fainted this morning--wonder if Dave knew her?" + +"Well, I am rather surprised to learn that Balfame was so popular--" + +"'Tain't that only--though Dave still had lots of friends in spite of +that ugly temper he was growin'; but we've all got enemies--every last +one of us--and to be shot down at his own gate like that--Gee, it has +given every man in town the creeps. We must get the man quick and make +an example of him. I hope I'm drawn." + +"I hope he doesn't ask me to defend him. How is Mrs. Balfame bearing +up?" + +"Fine. She's as cool as they make 'em. I'd hate to be married to one of +them cucumbers myself, but they're damned convenient in times of +trouble. Maybe she cared a lot for Dave; who knows? At any rate we must +make people think she did. I don't want suspicion pointing to her." + +"What! It is incredible that you should think of such a thing." Rush, +always pale, had turned as white as chalk. "You can't mean that people +are saying--" + +"Not yet. But we've got to be prepared for anything, especially with +these New York newspapermen on the trail. Unless we catch the murderer +damned quick, every last one of us that was close to Dave that can't +prove an alibi will be suspected. Why, I walked with him for two blocks +after he left my house--thought he might not be able to make it alone, +and he wouldn't go in the car; then, I didn't go straight home, either. +I went to my office to straighten out something--Oh, Lord! don't let's +talk of it; I must have been there alone, not a soul to see me, when he +was shot. It gives me the horrors to think of it--" + +"Nonsense! It was well known that you were his best friend. No one would +think of you." + +"They might! They might!" + +"Well--about Mrs. Balfame?" + +"Oh, she's got the best alibi ever. She'd packed his suitcase and +carried it downstairs, and even written a note describing some bag or +other she wanted and pinned it to his coat. I was there when the police +examined it. They're not saying who they're suspectin', but they're +doin' a heap of thinkin'. Fact remains that she was alone in the front +of the house--that mutt of a hired girl she's got was way up in the back +part groanin' with a toothache when I routed her out. If she wasn't such +a fright that Dave wouldn't have looked at her--Well, the police know +that Dave wasn't what you might call a model husband; but Enid, so far +as we all know, never rowed him. That's the most tryin' sort, though, +and generally conceals the most hate. But she had her clubs and all the +rest of it. Maybe she didn't care. I'm only wonderin' what Phipps +thinks. That's the reason I want her to see the newspapermen. She might +throw them off the scent at least. Of course, they'd rather she'd done +it than any one--" + +"You won't even hint to her that she may be suspected?" interrupted +Rush, sharply. + +"Oh, Lord, no. I'd never dare. Just persuade her somehow. Guess Anna or +Polly can manage it." + +Rush turned and walked down the steps. "I'll go to the Elsinore to +breakfast. The reporters are likely to show up there. I know Jim +Broderick. We must be on the job all the time." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +To Dr. Anna alone Mrs. Balfame told the story of the night, although, +implicit as was her trust, with certain reservations. She omitted the +detail of the poisoned lemonade, but otherwise unburdened herself with +freedom and relief. + +"Before I knew where I was," she concluded, "there was the kitchen door +closed behind me. I can't understand why I lost my presence of mind. I +could easily have run through the back door and out the front, and +reached him about the time Gifning did." + +Dr. Anna was drinking strong coffee. It was eight o'clock, and she had +gone downstairs and made breakfast for her friend and herself, Frieda +having retired to her room and bolted the door. The doctor had heard the +whole story as soon as she arrived, but after an interval of sleep had +asked for it again. + +"I think it's better as it is," she said thoughtfully. "No one could +have seen you. The moon rose late; the night at that time must have been +pitch dark. The trees alone would have shielded you, even had any one +been watching. Suspicion never would fall on you anyhow; you are too far +above it, and Dave had been insulting people right and left the last +year. But you want to avoid blackmail. The only thing that disturbs me +is that that girl may have been on the back stairs when you came in. +I'll come in for lunch and talk to her then. You keep to your room. +Rest, and sleep if you can. I don't fancy you'll have early visitors. +Everybody'll sleep late. I wish I could!" + +"Will you stop in and see Dr. Lequeur about yourself--" + +"If I can find a minute. Don't worry about me. I'm tough, and the Lord +knows I ought to be immune." + +But she found no time to see a doctor in her own behalf and returned to +the Balfame house between twelve and one. Reporters were sitting on the +box hedge and on the doorstep. She evaded them good-naturedly, but it +was some time before she was admitted by the rebellious Frieda, who had +been summoned to the front door some sixteen times during the forenoon. + +When Dr. Anna finally found herself in the dark hall she saw that +Frieda's face was swollen and tied up in a towel. The spectacle gave the +doctor an instant opportunity. + +"The worst infliction on earth, bar none!" she announced, following the +maid into the kitchen. "Let me take a look at it? How long have you had +it?" + +"Two days," replied Frieda sullenly, unamenable to sympathy which +offered no immediate surcease of pain. + +"Abscess?" + +"Don't know." + +Frieda's mental processes were slow. Before she could follow the +doctor's the bandage was ripped off and a sharp eye was examining the +inflamed interior of her cavernous mouth. A moment later Dr. Anna had +opened her doctor's bag and was anointing the surroundings of the +tortured tooth with a brown liquid. + +"That won't cure it," she said, "but no dentist could do more until the +swelling is reduced. And it will save you a preliminary bill. Keep this. +As soon as you feel you can stand it, go to Dr. Meyers, Main Street. +Tell him I sent you. But why didn't you tell Mrs. Balfame last night? +Why endure pain? Kind mistresses always keep such alleviatives in the +house, and Mrs. Balfame is not the sort to mind being roused in the +middle of the night if some one were suffering." + +The pain had subsided under treatment, and Frieda was restored to such +civility as she knew. "It only got bad when I am dancing to the hall, +and I ran home. I had some drops in my room." + +"Oh, I see. Did they stop the pain?" + +"Nix. Ache like before, but I lie down and perhaps can sleep if those +men have not make me come downstairs to make the coffee. All night I am +up." And she glowered with self-pity. + +"But when you found that your drops were no good, why didn't you run at +once to Mrs. Balfame? You were braver than I should have been. It was +about eight o'clock, was it not, when Mr. Balfame was shot? Mrs. Balfame +was probably awake when you came in, even if she had gone to bed. Or +perhaps you didn't know that she came home early?" + +"On Saturday nights she come home after I do. How I am to know she is +here?" + +"But you might have gone to her medicine closet--in her bathroom." + +"When you have the pain like hot iron you think of all the good things +for it the next day." Frieda relapsed into sullen silence; Dr. Anna +hastily disposed of the lunch prepared for her and went upstairs. + +Mrs. Balfame was lying on the sofa. She had not dressed, but looked as +trim as usual in a blue and white bathrobe; never having been a woman to +"let herself go," she did not possess a wrapper. Her long hair hung in +two loose braids, and she looked very pale and lovely. + +"Put Frieda out of your head," said Dr. Anna hurriedly; familiar voices +ascended from the path below. "She heard nothing. You don't when you +have a jumping toothache." + +"Thank heaven!" + +A soft knock announced several of her friends. They were dressed for +motoring; this being Sunday, not even death must interfere with the +cross-country refreshment of the Elsinore husband. They kissed Mrs. +Balfame and congratulated her upon her appearance and her nerves. + +"But one thing must be settled right here," announced Mrs. Gifning, "and +that is the question of your mourning. I'll go over on the eight-ten in +the morning and see to it. But you never wear ready-made things and it +would be a pity to waste money that way. Are you going to wear a veil at +the inquest?" + +"Of course I am. Do you suppose I shall submit to being stared at by a +curious mob and snapshotted by reporters?" + +"That's just what I thought. I'll bring back a smart hat and a long +crêpe veil with me, and order your widow's outfit from one of the big +shops; they'll have it over in time for the funeral. And you can wear +your tailor suit to the inquest; it will be half covered by the veil." + +"What a good idea!" said Mrs. Balfame gratefully. "You are too kind." + +"Kind? Nothing! I just love to shop for other people. How lucky that +you hadn't bought your new winter suit. It might have been blue." + +"It was to have been blue." There was a note of regret in Mrs. Balfame's +voice. "Don't forget to buy me two black chiffon blouses. One very +simple for every day; the other, really good. And something white for +the neck. Of course I wouldn't wear it on the street; but in the +house--black is too trying!" + +"Rather. Trust me. Have you black gloves--undressed kid, I mean? You +don't want to look like an undertaker." Mrs. Balfame nodded. "That's +all, I think. Send me a line if you think of something else. I must run +and take Giffy for his ride. He's all broken up, poor darling. Wasn't he +just splendid last night?" She blew a kiss along the widow's forehead +and ran out with a light step that caused her more substantial friends +to sigh with envy. She, too, was in the manoeuvring forties, but she had +gone into training at thirty. + +"I guess we'd all better go." Mrs. Battle, with a sudden dexterous heave +of her armoured bulk, was out of the chair and on her feet. "Now, try to +sleep, dearie. You are just the bravest thing! But to-morrow will be +trying. Sam Cummack says the coroner won't hold the inquest before +afternoon, but if they do and your veil isn't here, I've got one of Ma's +packed away in camphor that I'll get out for you. I'll get it out +to-night and have it airing--we won't take any chances; and you sha'n't +be annoyed by the vulgar curious." + +"Oh, thank you! But that is not the only ordeal. It's even more trying +to stay in the house all these days--in this room! If I could walk in +the grounds. But I suppose those reporters are everywhere." + +"They are swarming, simply swarming. And the avenue is so packed with +automobiles you can't navigate. People have come from all over the +country--some from New York and Brooklyn." + +Mrs. Balfame curled her lip with disgust. Morbid curiosity, like other +vulgarities, was incomprehensible to her. Death, no matter how desired +or how accomplished, should inspire hush and respect, not provide +excitement for a Sunday afternoon. + +"Let us hope they will find the wretch to-day," she said impatiently. +"That will end it, for, of course, it is the element of mystery that has +made the case so notorious. Is there no clue?" + +"Not the ghost of one." Mrs. Cummack, too, was adjusting her automobile +veil. "Sam's on the job,--I'm only taking him out for an hour or two; +and so, of course, are the police--hot. But he's covered his tracks so +far." + +"If it is a he," whispered Mrs. Battle to Mrs. Frew, as they stole +softly down the stairs. "What about that red-head, or that telephone +girl who fainted? They say she had to go home--" + +"Can you imagine caring enough for Dave Balfame--Let's get out of this, +for heaven's sake, or I'll faint right here." + +The atmosphere was as depressing as the dark interior of the house, for +it was heavy laden with the scent of flowers and death. The parlour +doors, behind which lay David Balfame, embalmed and serene in his +casket, were closed, but hushed whisperings came forth like the rustling +of funeral wreaths disturbed by the vapours of decay. The devoted +friends of the widow burst out into the sunshine almost with a cry of +relief. + +Here all was as animated as a county fair. The grounds were void, save +by patrolling police, but the avenue and adjoining streets were packed +with every type of car from limousine to farmer's runabout, and many +more people were afoot, staring at the house, venturing as near the +hedge as they dared, to inspect the grove. They asked questions, +answered them, offered theories, all in a breath, and without the +slightest respect for any opinion save their own. A few children, +sucking peppermint sticks, sat on the hedge. + +"Did you ever?" murmured Mrs. Frew to Mrs. Battle. "_Did_ you ever?" She +shuddered with refined disgust, but felt thrilled to her marrow. "Just +Enid's luck!" was her auxiliary but silent reflection. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +At the inquest on the following day, Mrs. Balfame, circumvested in +crêpe, sat between Mr. and Mrs. Cummack, gracefully erect, and without +even a nervous flutter of the hands. + +When called upon to testify, she told in a clear low voice the meagre +story already known to her friends and by this time the common property +of Elsinore and all that read the newspapers of the State. + +The coroner released her as quickly as possible, and called her servant +to the stand. Although the swelling in Frieda's face had subsided +somewhat under Dr. Anna's repeated ministrations, the tooth still +throbbed; and she also was released after announcing resentfully that +she'd seen "notings," heard "notings," and "didn't know notings" about +the murder except having to get up and make coffee when she was like to +die with the ache in her tooth. + +There was no one else to testify, except Cummack, who gave the hour, +about a quarter or ten minutes to eight, when the deceased had left his +house, and Mr. Gifning and his two guests, who testified to hearing the +sound of Balfame's voice raised in song, followed a moment later by the +report of a pistol. They also described minutely the position of the +body when found. Indubitably the shot had been fired from the grove. + +The staff artists were forced to be content with a black sketch of a +very long widow, who held her head high and emanated an air of chill +repose. One reporter, camera set, forced his way to her side as she was +about to enter Mrs. Battle's limousine and begged her plaintively to +raise her veil; but he might as well as have addressed a somnambulist; +Mrs. Balfame did not even snub him. + +"Why should they want a picture of me?" she asked Mrs. Battle, +wonderingly. "It's poor Dave that is dead. Whoever heard of me outside +of Elsinore?" + +"I guess you haven't amused yourself reading the papers. You've been +written up as a beauty and the intellectual and social leader of +Elsinore. Some distinction, that! The public is mighty interested in you +all over the State and will be for several days yet, no doubt. Then +we'll find the man and they'll forget all about the whole affair until +the trial comes up." + +Mrs. Balfame, clad in full weeds, more dignified, stately and +unapproachable than ever, ran the gauntlet of staring eyes at the church +funeral, apparently unconscious of the immense crowd of women that had +driven over from every township in Brabant County. That the women did +not approve of her haughty head and tearless eyes, brilliant even behind +the heavy crêpe, would have concerned her little if she had known it. +Her mind was concentrated upon the future moment when this series of +hideous ordeals would be over and she could re-enter the decent +seclusion of private life. + +Mrs. Balfame may have had her faults, but a vulgar complaisance to +publicity was not among them. + +She had also made up her mind sternly not to feel happy, not to rejoice +in her freedom, not to make a plan for the future until her husband was +in his grave. But all during that long service, while the new parson +discoursed unctuously upon the virtues and eminence of the slain, she +had the sensation of holding her breath. + +It was four days from the night of the murder before she consented to +see the reporters. Meanwhile every suspected person had proved an alibi, +including the red-haired Miss Foxie Bell, and the indignant and highly +respectable Miss Mamie Russ, who officiated at the telephone. She had +known the deceased, yes, and once or twice she had driven out to one of +the roadhouses with him, where a number of her friends were indulging in +a quiet Sunday afternoon tango, but she had merely looked upon him as a +kind fatherly sort of person; and at the hour of his death she was +asleep, as her landlady could testify. + +Old Dutch had indignantly repudiated the charge of employing gunmen, and +had even attended the funeral and shed tears. Whatever the faults of the +deceased, they were not of a nature to antagonise permanently the erring +members of his own sex. Moreover, he had been an able politician, +respected of his enemies, and was now glorified by his cowardly and +untimely taking off. + +The local police had an uneasy suspicion that the assassin was one of +their "pals"--in that small and democratic community, where every man +was an Elk from the banker to the undertaker. They were quite ready to +drop the case, loudly ascribing the deed to an ordinary housebreaker, or +to some unknown enemy from out the impenetrable rabbit warrens of New +York City. + +The newspaper men were chagrined and desperate. The Balfame Case had +proved uncommonly magnetic to the New York public. They had done their +best to create this interest, and now were on their mettle to "make +good." But they were beginning to wish they had waited for at least a +lantern's ray at the end of the dark perspective before exciting the +public with descriptions of the winding picturesque old street of the +ancient village of Elsinore; the stately old-time residence at its head +which had housed (in more or less discomfort) three generations of +Balfames, the sinister grove of trees that had sheltered the dastardly +assassin, the prominence and political importance of David Balfame who +had inherited this ancestral estate, and played among those trees in +childhood; his unsuspecting and vocal return at an early hour to be shot +down at his own gate. + +All this appealed acutely to a public which makes the fortune of the +sentimental play, the "crook" play, and the "play with a punch and a +mystery." Here was the real thing, as rural as the childhood of many of +the Greater New York public--weary of black-hand murders and anarchist +bombs--with a mystery as deep as any ever invented by their favourite +authors, and in no remote district but at their very gates. + +If anything more were necessary to rivet their interest, there was the +handsome and elegant (if provincial) Mrs. Balfame, as austere as a Roman +matron, as chaste as Diana, as decently invisible in public during this +harrowing ordeal as imported crêpe could make her. The men reporters had +dismissed the widow with a paragraph of personal description, but the +newspaper women had filled half a page in each of the evening journals. + +The press had given the public at least two columns a day of the Balfame +murder; there had been a biography of every suspect in turn, and there +had been the thrilling episode of the bloodhounds turned loose upon that +trampled enclosure. But no road led anywhere, and the public, baffled +for the moment, but still hopeful, demanded an interview with the +interesting widow. + +Of course, her alibi was perfect, but all felt sure that she "knew +something about it." Her unhappy married life was now common property, +and if it only could be proved that she had had a lover--but the +newspapers as has been said were discouraging upon this point. Mrs. +Balfame (quoting the young men this time), while amiable and kind to +all, was cold and indifferent. Men were afraid of her. The New York +detectives had "fine-tooth-combed" Brabant County and reported +disgustedly to their chief that she was "just one of those club women; +no use for men at all." + +The reporters, however, had made up their minds to fix the crime, if +possible, upon her. They would have compromised upon the young servant, +but Frieda, especially with her face framed in a towel stained brown, +and her eyes swollen above the wrenching agonies of an ulcerated tooth, +was hopeless material. Moreover, they were convinced, after thorough +investigation, that the deceased's gallantries, while sufficiently +catholic, had not run to serving maids, and that of late particularly he +had loudly hated all things German. + +Regarding Mrs. Balfame they held their judgment in reserve until they +met and talked with her; but Broderick had extracted the miserable +details of her life from his friend, Alys Crumley, as well as a lively +description of the scene at the Country Club; they believed they could +bring to light enough to base a sensational trial upon, whatever the +verdict of the jury. + +It must not be inferred for a moment that these brilliant and +industrious young men were bloodthirsty. They knew that if Mrs. Balfame +had committed the crime and could be induced to make a defiant +confession, it was more than probable that she would go scot free; that +in no case was there more than a bare possibility of a woman of her age, +position and appearance being sent to the chair. But it is these alert, +resourceful, ruthless young men who make the newspapers we read with +such interest twice a day; it is they who write the columns of "news" +that we skip if dull (with a mental reservation to change our +newspaper), or devour without a thought of the tireless individual +activities that re-supply us daily with our strongest impersonal +interests. Sometimes a trifle more sparkle or vitality, or a deeper +note, will wring from us that facile comment, "How well written!" +without a pause to reflect that mere good writing never made a +newspaper, or to hazard a guess that behind the column that thrilled us +were hours, perhaps weeks, of incessant unravelling of clues, of +following a scent in the dark, with death at every turn. It is the +business of reporters to furnish news of vital interest to a pampered +public, and as so large a part of it is furnished to them by the +weaknesses and misdeeds of mankind, what wonder that the reporters grow +cynical and make no bones about providing clues that will lead, at the +least, to many columns charged with suspense and sensational human +interest! + +These young men knew the moment the Balfame case "broke" that it was big +with possibilities; they scented a mystery that would be cleared by the +arrest of no local politician; and they knew the interlocking social +relationships of these loyal old communities. It was "up to them" to +solve the mystery, and by a process of elimination, spurred by their own +desire to give the public the best the market afforded, they arrived at +Mrs. Balfame. + +Within forty-eight hours they were hot on her trail. Among other things, +they discovered that she was an expert shot at a target; but did she +keep a pistol in the house? She had used one, kept for target purpose, +out at the Country Club, and it was impossible to verify the rumor that +in common with many another, she had one in the house as a protection +against burglars and tramps. + +At their instigation, Phipps, the local chief of police, had reluctantly +consented to interrogate her on this point (a mere matter of form, he +assured her), and she had replied blandly that she never had possessed a +pistol. The chief apologised and withdrew. He was of a respectable +Brabant family himself, and was horrified that a member of the good old +order should even be brushed by the wing of suspicion. Being a quiet +family man and a Republican to boot, he had never approved of Dave +Balfame, and had only refrained from arresting him upon more than one +occasion--notably a week or two since when he had publicly blacked the +eye of Miss Billy Gump--out of deference to the good name of Elsinore; +and after all, they were both Elks and had spun many a yarn in the +comfortable clubrooms. Inheritance, circumstances, and a fine common +contempt for the inferior brands of whiskey, had made them "stand in +together, whatever happened." The chief had no love for Mrs. Balfame, +for she had frozen him too often, but she was the pride of Elsinore and +he was alert to defend her. + +It had never occurred to Mrs. Balfame that she would incur even a +passing suspicion, and she had left the pistol in the pocket of her +automobile coat. Immediately after the visit of the chief of police she +took the pistol into the sewing-room, locked the door, covered the +keyhole, and buried the weapon in the depths of an old sofa. As her +large strong fingers had mended furniture many times, no one would +suspect that this ancient piece (dating back to the first Balfame) had +been tampered with. She performed the operation with haughty reluctance, +but the instinct of self-preservation abides in the proudest souls, and +Mrs. Balfame had the wit to realise that it was by far the better part +of valour. + +The shooting occurred on Saturday night. By Wednesday all the horrors of +the criminal episode were over and she felt as young as she looked, and +at liberty to begin life again, a free and happy woman. Her mourning was +perfect. + +She made up her mind to see the newspaper men and have done with it. +They had haunted the grounds--no patrols could keep them out--sat on the +doorstep, forced their way into the kitchen, and rung the front +door-bell so frequently that hourly she expected the scowling Frieda to +give notice. Mr. Cummack told her repeatedly that she might as well give +in first as last and she finally agreed with him. + +It was five o'clock in the afternoon when they were admitted to the +spacious old-fashioned parlour with its incongruous modern notes. + +Like many women, Mrs. Balfame had an admirable taste in dress, so long +as she marched with the conventions, but neither the imagination nor the +training to create the notable room. Long since she had banished the old +"body brussels" carpet and substituted rugs subdued in colour if +commonplace in design. The plush "set" had not gone to the auction room, +however, but had been reupholstered with a serviceable "tapestry +covering." A what-not still stood in one corner, and both centre-table +and mantel were covered with marble, although the wax works that once +embellished them were now in the garret. The wall paper, which had been +put on the year before, was a neutral pale brown. Nevertheless, it was a +homelike room, for there were two rocking-chairs and three easy chairs; +and on a small side-table was Mrs. Balfame's workbasket. On the marble +centre-table was a most artistic lamp. The curtains matched the +furniture. + +There were ten reporters from New York, two from Brooklyn, three from +Brabant County, and four correspondents. Word had been passed during the +morning that Mrs. Balfame would see the newspaper men, and they were +there in force; those that were not "on the job all the time" having +loyally been notified by those that were. But they had stolen a march on +the women. Not a "sob-sister" was in that intent file, led by James +Broderick of _The New York Morning News_, that entered the Balfame house +and parlour on Wednesday at five o'clock. + +Frieda had announced that her mistress would be "down soon," and Mr. +Broderick immediately drew the curtains back from the four long windows, +and placed a comfortable chair for Mrs. Balfame in a position where she +would face both the light and her visitors. It was not the first stage +that the astute Mr. Broderick had set; and whenever he was on a case he +fell naturally into the position of leader; not only had he the most +alert and driving, the most resourceful and penetrative mind, but his +good looks and suave manner inspired confidence in the victim, and led +him insensibly into damaging admissions. He was a tall slim young man, a +graduate of Princeton, not yet thirty, with a regular face and warm +colouring, and an expression so pleasant that the keenness of his eyes +passed unnoted. In general equipment and dress he was typical of his +kind, unless they took to drink and grew slovenly; but his more emphatic +endowment enabled him to take the lead among a class of men whom he +respected too thoroughly to antagonise with arrogance. + +"Late--to make an impression!" he growled, but young Ryder Bruce of the +evening edition of his paper nudged him. Mrs. Balfame was on the +staircase opposite the parlour doors. + +The young men stood up and watched her as she slowly descended, her +black dress clinging to her tall rather rigid figure, her head high, her +profile as calm as marble, her eye as devoid of expression as if +awaiting the click of the camera. + +The reporters were prejudiced on the spot, so impatient are newspaper +men of any sort of pose or attempt to impress them. As she entered the +room she greeted them pleasantly, looking straight at them with her +large cold eyes, and allowed herself to be conducted to a chair by the +polite Mr. Broderick. + +She knew that in her high unrelieved black she looked older than common, +but this was a deliberately calculated effect. She was not as adroit as +she would have been after recurrent experiences with the press, but +instinct warned her to look the dignified middle-aged widow, quite above +the coquetry of the bare throat of fashion, or of tempering her weeds +with soft white lawn. + +As Mr. Broderick made a little speech of gratitude for her gracious +reception of the press, she appraised her guests. The greater number +were well-groomed, well-dressed, well-bred in effect, very sure of +themselves; altogether a striking contrast to the local reporters that +had come in on their heels. + +She answered Mr. Broderick diffidently: "I have never been interviewed. +I am afraid you will hardly find--what do you call it?--a story?--in +me." + +"We don't wish to be too personal," he said gently, "but the public is +tremendously interested in this case, and more particularly in you. It +isn't always that it takes an interest in the wife of a murdered +man--but--well, you see, you are such a personality in this community. +We really must have an interesting interview." He smiled at her with a +charming expression of masculine indulgence that made her own eyes +soften. "You see--don't you--we hate to intrude--but--we understand that +you had a serious quarrel with your husband on the last day of his life. +Would you mind telling us what you did after leaving the Country Club?" + +She gave him a frozen stare, but recalled Mr. Cummack's warning not to +take offence--"for remember that these men have their living to get, and +if they fall down on their job they don't get it. Blame their paper, not +them." + +"That is a surprising question," she said sweetly. "Do you expect me to +answer it?" + +"Why not? Of course you read the newspapers. You know we have told the +public of the scene at the clubhouse already--and with no detriment to +you! It was a very dramatic scene, and every moment that you passed from +that time until Mr. Balfame fell at his gate will be of the most +absorbing interest to the public. In fact, they will eat it up." + +Mrs. Balfame shrugged her shoulders. "As a matter of fact I have not +read a newspaper since the--" She set her lips and her eyes grew +hard--"the crime. I know you have written a great deal about it, but it +hasn't interested me. Well--Dr. Anna Steuer drove me home, and shortly +after I went up to my room--" + +"Pardon me; let us take things in their turn. You took a box of sardines +and some bread from the pantry, did you not?" + +"I did." Mrs. Balfame's tones were both puzzled and bored. + +"And then you were interrupted." As she raised her eyebrows, he +continued. "The appearance of the sardine can indicated that." + +She gave him a brilliant smile, her substitute for the average woman's +merry laugh. "You are teaching me how they write those intricate +detective tales my husband was so fond of. It is true that I was +interrupted, but it is equally true that I should probably have left the +can as you found it in any case, for I soon realised that I was not +hungry. I had had sandwiches at the club, and although I always think it +best to eat something before retiring, I was hardly hungry enough for +sardines--" + +"You ate sandwiches at the club? I have been out there once or twice +and never saw--I was under the impression that during the afternoon the +young people danced and the matrons played bridge before an early +dinner." + +"Did you?" Mrs. Balfame's eyes and tones abashed even Mr. Broderick, and +he tacked hastily: "Oh, well, that is immaterial, as the lawyers say. +And of course you ladies may have sandwiches served in the bridge rooms. +May I ask what interrupted you?" + +"My husband telephoned from Mr. Cummack's house that he was obliged to +go to Albany at once and asked me to pack his suitcase." + +"Yes, we have seen the suitcase. You suggested, did you not--over the +telephone--making him a glass of lemonade with aromatic and bromide in +it?" + +Mrs. Balfame experienced an obscure thrill of alarm, but her haughty +stare betrayed nothing. One of the reporters whose "job" it was to watch +her hands, noted that they curved rigidly. "And may I ask how you found +_that_ out? Really, I think I feel even more curiosity than you do." + +"He told it to Cummack and the other men present as a good joke, adding +that you knew your business." + +"I did. The matter had passed entirely out of my mind. More momentous +things have happened since! Well--I made the glass of lemonade and left +it on the dining-room table; then I went upstairs and packed his +suitcase--" + +"One moment. What became of that glass of lemonade? No one remembers +having seen it, although I have made very particular inquiries." + +Mrs. Balfame by this time was quite cold, but her brain was working +almost as quickly as Mr. Broderick's. She uncurved her fingers and +smiled. But her keen brain-sword had one edge only; the other was dull +with inexperience. She knew nothing of the vast practice of newspaper +men in detecting the lie. + +"Oh--I drank it myself." She had drawn her brows for a moment as if in +an effort of memory. "When I heard the noise outside--when I heard them +say 'coroner'--and realised that something dreadful had happened, I ran +downstairs. Then I suddenly felt faint and remembered the lemonade with +the aromatic spirits of ammonia and bromide in it. I ran into the +dining-room and drank it--fortunately!" + +"And what became of the glass?" + +"Oh!" Mrs. Balfame was now righteously indignant. "How do I know? Or any +one else? Frieda, soon after, began to make coffee by the quart--and I +don't doubt whisky was brought round from the Elks. Who could have +noticed a glass more or less?" + +"Frieda swears she never saw it." + +"She has the worst memory of any servant I ever had, and that is saying +a good deal." + +Mr. Broderick regarded her with admiration. He distrusted her more every +moment, but he had realised at once that he had no ordinary woman to +deal with, and he rejoiced in the clash of wits. + +The other young men were sitting forward, almost breathless, and Mrs. +Balfame was now fully alive to the danger of her position. But all +sensation of fear had left her. All the iron in her nature fused in the +crucible of those terrible moments and came forth finely tempered steel. + +"Anything more?" + +"Oh--ah--yes. Would you mind telling us what you did after you had +packed the suitcase and brought it downstairs?" + +"I went up to my room and began to undress for bed." + +"But that must have been quite fifteen minutes before Mr. Balfame's +return. He walked from Cummack's house, which is about a mile from here. +It was noticed that you merely had taken your dress off. Would you not +have had time to get into bed?" + +"If I were a man. But I had my hair to brush--with fifty strokes; and--a +little nightly massage, if you will have it. Besides, I had intended to +go down and lock the front door after my husband had left." + +"Ah!" The admiration of the young men mounted higher. They disliked her +coldly, if only for that lack of sex-magnetism, which men, particularly +young men, naïve in their extensive surface psychology, take as a +personal affront. They did not believe a word she said, and they did not +give her and her possible fate a throb of sympathy, but they generously +pronounced her "a wonder." + +Mr. Broderick took a chance shot. "And did you not during that time look +out of the window--toward the grove?" + +Mrs. Balfame hesitated the fraction of a minute, then wisely returned to +her know-nothing policy. "Why should I? Certainly not. I heard no sound +out there. I am not in the habit of examining the grounds from my window +at night. It is enough to go through the lower rooms before I lock up." + +"But your window was dark when the men ran over from Gifning's after +hearing the shot. They remember that. Do you brush your hair--and--and +massage in the dark?" + +Mrs. Balfame sat back in her chair with the resigned air of the victim +who expects an interview with inquisitive newspaper men to last all +night. "No. But I sometimes sit in the dark. I told you that I intended +to sit up--partly dressed--until my husband had gone. I did not feel +like reading, and my eyes were tired. As you know so much, you may have +guessed that I cried a little after that trying afternoon. I do not +often cry, and my eyes stung." + +"But you had forgiven your husband?" + +"I had forgiven him many times before. I infer that you know that also." + +"Mrs. Balfame, is it not true that about two years ago you contemplated +obtaining a divorce?" + +This time her eyes flashed with anger. "I see that my kind friends have +been gossiping. You would seem to have interviewed everybody in town." + +"Pretty nearly. But you don't seem to realise that Elsinore--Brabant +County, for that matter--has talked of nothing else but this case for +the last four days." + +"I did think of a divorce for a short time, but I never mentioned it to +him, and as soon as I thought it all out I dismissed the idea. In the +first place, divorce is against the principles of the school in which I +was brought up, and in the second Mr. Balfame was a good husband in his +way. Every woman has some sort of a heavy cross to bear, and I guess +mine was lighter than most. The trouble is, we American women expect +too much. I dismissed the subject so completely from my mind that I had +practically forgotten it." + +"Ah--yes--we thought you might have seen some one lurking in the grove +and gone down to investigate." This was another chance shot. He was +hoping for a "lead." + +Mrs. Balfame thought him inspired. + +For the moment the cold brilliant eyes of the woman and the keen +contracted eyes of the reporter met and clashed. Then Mrs. Balfame +displayed her teeth in her sweet and charming smile. "What a truly +masculine inference. You don't know me. If I had seen anything I should +have flown to the telephone and called the police." + +"You look indomitable," murmured Mr. Broderick. "But will you tell us +how it happened that you did not hear the shot? The men down at +Gifning's did." + +"They were standing on the porch, and I think now that I did hear the +shot. But my windows were closed. I hear tires burst constantly. And +that was Saturday night. The machines turn off just below our gate into +Dawbarn Street, especially if they are bound for Beryl Myrtle's road +house." + +"True." Broderick leaned forward, staring at the carpet. He permitted +the silence to last quite a minute. Even Mrs. Balfame, who had +congratulated herself that the inquisition must be nearly over, stirred +uneasily, so sinister was that silence. + +The other men knew the Broderick method too well to spoil one of his +designs; they sat in expectant stillness and turned upon Mrs. Balfame a +battery of eyes. + +Suddenly Broderick raised his head and his sharp boring gaze darted into +hers. "I had not fully intended to tell you of a discovery made by one +of us yesterday. We have told no one as yet--waiting for just the right +moment to publish it. But I think I'll tell you. There is evidence that +two revolvers were fired that night. One killed David Balfame, and a +bullet from the other penetrated the tree before the house and slightly +to the right of where he must have stood for a moment. Bruce here +dug it out. Now, not only did the men at Gifning's not hear two +shots--indicating that they were fired simultaneously--but one bullet +came from a .38 and the other from a .41." + +Mrs. Balfame stood up. "Really, gentlemen, I did not consent to see you +in order to help you solve riddles. But possibly you know better than I +that gunmen generally travel in pairs. I am convinced that my husband--" +(they applauded her for not saying "my poor husband") "was killed by one +of those creatures, hired by his political enemies. Unless I can tell +you something more of interest--if, indeed, you have found anything to +interest the great New York public in this interview--I will ask you to +excuse me." + +The young men were politely on their feet. "And you have no pistol--nor +ever had?" + +She laughed outright. "Are you trying to fasten the crime on me?" + +"Oh, no, indeed. Only, in a case like this, one leaves no stone +unturned--I hope you do not think we are rude." + +"I only just realise that quite the most polite young men I have ever +met have been hoping to make me incriminate myself. If I had not been so +dense I should have dismissed you long since. Good night." + +And, once more looking human in her just indignation, she lifted her +proud head and swept out of the room. + +The young men left the house and adjourned to a private room in the rear +of their favourite saloon. For twenty minutes they rehearsed the +interview carefully, those that had taken notes correcting any lapses of +memory on the part of those that had elected to watch as well as listen. + +Broderick and many of the men were firmly of the opinion that Mrs. +Balfame had committed the crime; others believed that she was shielding +some one else; the less experienced were equally positive that no guilty +woman taken off her guard repeatedly, as she had been, could "put it +over" like that. She had "talked and acted like an innocent woman." + +"She acted, all right," said Broderick. "I for one am convinced that she +did it. But whether she did or didn't, she's got to be indicted and +tried. This case, boys, is too big to throw away--too damned big; and +she's already a personality to the public. She's the only one we have +the ghost of a chance with; the only one whose arrest and trial would +keep the interest going--" + +"But say!" It was the youngest reporter that interrupted. "I call it +lowdown to fasten a crime on a possibly innocent woman--a lady--keep her +in jail for months; try her for murder! Why, even if she were acquitted, +she would carry the stigma through life." + +"Don't get sentimental, sonny," said Broderick patiently. "Sentiment is +to the vanquished in this game. When you've been it as long as the rest +of us you'll know that in nine cases out of ten the real solution of +any mystery is the simplest. Balfame drank. He had a violent temper when +drunk. He was a dog at best. She must have hated him. Look at her. We +have reason to believe that she did hate him and that her friends knew +it. She thought of divorce two years ago. Gave it up because she was +afraid of losing her leadership in this provincial hole. Look at her. +She is as proud as Lucifer. And as hard as nails. There had been an ugly +scene at the club that afternoon. He mortified her publicly. She was so +overcome she had to leave. I've a hunch she poisoned that lemonade and +got it out of the way in time. She's the sort that would think of nearly +everything. Not quite, of course. Otherwise she would never have +invented on the spur of the moment that story about drinking it herself; +she'd have had the assumption on tap that one of the neighbours had +drunk it. That complication, however, is yet to prove. It merely points +a finger at her--straight; what we've got to prove and prove quick is +that she was out of doors when that shot was fired--" + +"Would you like to see her in the chair?" gasped young Loring. + +"Good Lord, no. Not the least danger. Women of that sort don't go to the +chair. If she even got a term, I'd head a petition to let her out, for +she's a dead game sport, and I'm only after good front page stuff." He +turned to Ryder Bruce of the evening edition of his newspaper. "You make +love to that German hired girl. She hates us all, for we represent the +real American press--that hasn't a hyphen in it. I sensed that. And I +don't believe she's all the fool she looks. I believe she can tell +something--few servants that can't--and that she only pretended at the +inquest that she knew nothing because she was nearly dead with pain and +wanted it over. Well, she had the tooth out this morning, and at least +she isn't quite as hideous as she was; so go to it, old boy. Get 'round +her and do it quick. Use money if necessary. There's not a day to lose. +Find out what she wants most--probably it's to send her sweetheart at +the front something more substantial than mitts and bands. Got me?" + +"I get you," said young Bruce gloomily. "You've picked me out because +I'm blond and round faced and can pass myself off as a German. I wish +I'd been born an Italian. Nice job, making love to _that_. But I'll do +it." + +"Good boy. Well, s'long. I'm off on a trail of my own. I'll report +later. May be nothing in it." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Broderick walked slowly toward Elsinore Avenue, sounding his memory for +certain fugitive impressions, his active mind at the same time casting +about for the current which would connect them. + +He looked at his watch. He was to dine with the Crumleys at seven and it +lacked but ten minutes of the hour; nevertheless he walked more slowly +still, his eyes staring at the ground, his brow channeled. + +On Sunday afternoon he had spent two hours with Alys Crumley. At first +she had been reluctant to talk of any but the salient phases of the +murder, but being appealed to as a "good old pal" and reminded that real +newspaper people stood together, she finally had described the scene at +the Country Club on the afternoon preceding Balfame's death, and shown +him the drawing she had had the superior presence of mind to make. +Broderick had examined every detail of that rapid but demonstrative +sketch: the burly form at the head of the room, his condition indicated +by an angle of the shoulders and a deft exaggeration of feature which +recalled the facile art of the cartoonist; the strained forms of the men +surrounding him; Mrs. Balfame heading down the room, her face set and +terrible; the groups of women and girls in attitudes expressive of alarm +or disgust. + +But when he made as if to put the sketch in his pocket she had snatched +it from him, and he merely had shrugged his shoulders, confident that +he could induce her to give it up should he really need it. + +He had questioned her regarding the scene until its outlines were as +firm in his mind as in her own. But there had been something else--some +impression, not obviously linked with the case: It was for that +impression that he sounded his admirable memory; and in a moment he +found it and stopped with a smothered exclamation. + +He had complimented her on the excellent likeness of Dwight Rush, whom +he knew and liked, and remarked quite naturally that he might have sat +for her a number of times. The dusky pink had mounted to her hair, but +she had replied carelessly that Rush was "a common enough type." + +Possibly Broderick would have forgotten the blush had it not have been +for the swift change of expression in her eyes: a certain fear followed +by a concentrated renitence; and at the same moment he had remembered +that he had met Rush once or twice at the Crumleys' during the summer +and thought him quite the favoured guest. + +Driven only by a mild personal curiosity, he had asked her how she liked +Rush and if she saw much of him; he recalled that she had answered with +an elaboration of indifference that she hadn't seen him for ages and +took no interest in him whatever. + +Then Broderick had drawn her on to talk of Mrs. Balfame. Yes, in common +with all Elsinore that counted, she admired Mrs. Balfame, although she +believed that no one really knew her, that she unconsciously lived among +the surfaces of her nature. Her face as she marched down the clubroom +that day, and its curious sudden transformation on that other day at +the Friday Club when her thoughts so plainly had drifted far from the +platitudinous speakers, indicated to Miss Crumley's temperamental mind +"depths and possibly tragic possibilities." + +It was patent to Mr. Broderick's own mind that her suspicions had not +lighted for a moment on the dead man's widow, but it also transpired in +the course of the conversation that the young artist who had so "loved +to sketch" the Star of Elsinore had suffered a long drop in personal +enthusiasm. Pressed astutely, she had remarked that she guessed she was +as broad-minded as anybody, especially since her year on the New York +press, but she did not approve of married women claiming a right to +share in the Great Game designed by Nature for the young of both sexes. + +Then the story came out: Miss Crumley, afflicted with a headache +something over a fortnight since, and enjoying the cool night air just +behind her front gate, had seen Mrs. Balfame come out of Dr. Steuer's +garden next door and meet Dwight Rush face to face. He had begged to be +allowed to see her home. + +Mrs. Balfame had lovely manners, she couldn't help being sweet unless +she disliked a person, and no woman will elect to walk up a long dark +avenue alone if a man offer to escort her. + +Alys would have thought nothing of it--merely assumed that Rush, being a +comparative newcomer, had caught at the chance to make a favourable +impression on the leader of Elsinore society--(no, he was no snob, but +that idea just came to her), if they had not crawled, yes, _crawled_ all +the way up the avenue. + +Both were vigorous people with long legs; they could have covered the +distance to the Balfame place in three minutes. They had been more than +ten, and as they passed under the successive lamp posts she had noted +the man's bent head, the woman's tilted back--as she gazed up into his +eyes, no doubt. + +"In this town," Miss Crumley had announced, "a woman is fast or she +isn't. You know just where you are. There's a class that's sly about it, +but somehow you get 'on' in time. Mrs. Balfame has stood for the highest +and best. Mind you, I'm not saying that she ever saw Rush alone again, +or cared a snap of her finger for him--or he for her. No doubt she felt, +when the rare chance offered of taking a little flyer, that it was too +good to miss. But she shouldn't have done it; that's the point. I don't +like my idols to have feet of clay." + +Broderick had felt both sympathetic and amused. He knew that Alys +Crumley was not only sweet of temper and frank, if not candid, but that +in spite of all her desperate modernism she cherished high ideals of +conduct; and here she was turning loose the cat that skulks somewhere in +every commonplace female's nature. + +But the whole conversation had left his mind promptly. He had attached +no significance whatever to a ten minutes' walk between a polite man and +a woman returning alone from a friend's house on a dark night. + +Now every word of the conversation came back to him. Rush, he gathered, +had gone to the Crumley house several times a week for a while, and +then, for reasons known only to himself and Alys, had ceased his visits +abruptly. Had she fallen in love with him? Or was it only her vanity +that was wounded? And if Rush had dropped a girl as pretty and bright +and winning as Alys Crumley--who improved upon acquaintance, +moreover--what was the reason? Why had he not fallen in love with her? +Had he loved some one else? + +Broderick swung his mind to the morning following the murder, when he +had met Rush in the hall of the Elsinore Hotel. The lawyer professed +himself as delighted to "run up against him" and invited him to +breakfast. All this had been natural enough, and it was equally natural +that the conversation should have but one theme. + +Once more Broderick sought a fugitive impression and found it. Rush, who +was a master of words when verbal exactness was imperative, had created +an impression in his companion's mind of the impeccability of the +murdered man's widow. + +Broderick had wondered once or twice since whence came that mental +picture of Mrs. Balfame that rose clear-cut in his memory, in spite of +his deliberate conviction of her guilt. Other people had raved about her +and made no impression upon the young reporter's selective and somewhat +cynical mind; but Rush had almost accomplished his purpose! + +Why had he sought to accomplish it? + +Broderick had known Rush in and out of court for nearly two years. +Whenever he had been on an assignment in that part of Brabant County he +had made a point of seeking him out, and even of spending an evening +with him if he could afford the time. He liked the unique blend of East +and West in the man; to Broderick's keen appraising mind Rush reflected +the very best of the two great rival bisections of the nation. He liked +the mixture of frankness and subtlety, of simple unquestioning +patriotism--of assumption that no country but the United States of +America mattered in the very least--and the intense concentrated +individualism. Of hard-headed American determination to "get there" at +any honourable cost, of jealously hidden romanticism. + +Broderick was almost at the Crumley gate. He halted for a moment under +the dark maples and glanced up the long shadowy avenue, his own narrower +and still more jealously guarded "romantic streak" appreciating the +possibilities on a dusky evening with a girl whose face floated for a +moment before him. But he banished her promptly, searching his memory +for some salient trait in Rush that he instinctively knew would +establish the current he desired. + +He found it after a moment of intense concentration. Rush was the sort +of man that loves not woman but a woman. His very friendship for Alys +Crumley was evidence that he cared nothing for girls as girls. Only the +exceptional drew him, and mere youth left him unmoved. + +Knowing Rush as he did, he felt his way rapidly toward the facts. Alys, +woman-like, had succumbed to propinquity, and betrayed herself; Rush, +finding his mere masculine loneliness misinterpreted, and being +honourable to boot, had promptly withdrawn. + +But why? Alys would have made him a delightful and useful wife. She was +one of those too clever girls whom celibacy made neurotic and uncertain, +but out of whom matrimony and maternity knocked all the nonsense at once +and finally. She would make a splendid woman. + +He should have thought her just the girl to allure Rush, whom he also +knew to be fastidious and to set a high value on the good old Brabant +blood. Moreover, it was time that Rush would be wanting the permanent +companionship of a woman, a bright, progressive, but feminine woman. He +had observed certain signs. + +Alys, apparently, had not measured up to Rush's secret ideal of the +wholly desirable woman, nor appealed to that throbbing vein of +romanticism which he had striven to bury beneath the dusty tomes of the +law. What sort of woman, then, could satisfy all he desired? And had he +found her? + +Broderick recalled a certain knightly exaltation in Rush's blue eyes +which had come and gone as they discussed Mrs. Balfame, although not a +word of the adroit concept he had built remained in the reporter's +memory. But those eyes came back to Broderick there in the dark--the +eyes of a man young and ardent like himself--he almost fancied he had +seen the woman's image in them. + +He revived his impression of Mrs. Balfame, seen for the first time +to-day, and contemplated it impersonally: A beautiful, a fascinating +woman--to a man of Rush's limited experience and idealism; fastidious, +proud, gracious, supremely poised. + +Nor did she look a day over thirty, although she must be a good bit +more--he recalled the obituaries of the dead man: they had alluded to +his marital accomplishment as covering a term of some twenty years. +Perhaps she was his second wife--but no--nor did it matter. Rush was +just the sort of chap to fall in love with a woman older than himself, +if she were still young in appearance and as chastely lovely, as +unapproachable, as Mrs. Balfame. He would idealise her very years, +contrast them with that vague suggestion of virginity that Broderick +recalled, of deep untroubled tides. + +All romantic men believe in women's unfathomed depths when in love, +reflected the star reporter cynically, and Mrs. Balfame was just the +sort to go until forty before having the smashing love affair of her +life; and to inspire a similar passion in a hard-working idealist like +Dwight Rush. + +Mrs. Balfame and Dwight Rush! Broderick, who now stood quite still, a +few paces from the Crumley gate, whistled. + +Could Rush have fired that shot? Broderick recalled that the lawyer had +mentioned having spent Saturday evening in Brooklyn--on business. + +Broderick shook his head vigorously. So far as he was concerned, Rush +never should be asked to produce his alibi. He did not believe that Rush +had done it, did not propose to harbour the suggestion for a moment. +Rush was not the man to commit a cowardly murder, not even for a woman. +If he had wanted to kill the man he would have involved himself in an +election row, forced the bully to draw his gun, and then got in his own +fire double quick. Standards were standards. + +Broderick was more convinced than ever that Mrs. Balfame had committed +the deed, and he had established the current. His work was "cut out" for +the evening; and without further delay he presented himself at the Widow +Crumley's door. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Supper was over and Broderick and Miss Crumley sat in the back yard +studio; Mrs. Crumley had company of her own, and as Alys decried the +vulgarity of the legendary American daughter's attitude to the +poor-spirited American mother, she invariably retired to the background +whenever it would enhance Mrs. Crumley's self-respect to occupy not only +the foreground but (if her daughter had an interesting visitor) the +entire stage. Alys, since her humiliating failure with Dwight Rush, +clung the more passionately to her rules of conduct. They were not red +with the blood of life, but at least they served as an anchored buoy. + +The atelier was hung with olive green burlap and covered with an +artistic litter of sketches. Broderick, before settling himself into a +comfortable chair by the stove, examined the more recent and encouraged +her with a few words of discriminating praise. + +"Keep it up, Alicia. The _News_ for you next month if you are ready for +a job. You've improved marvellously in figures, which was where you were +weak. Miss Loys, our fashion artist, is marrying next month. You might +as well begin with that. You'll be on the paper and can jump into +something better when it offers." + +Alys nodded emphatically. "Give me work, and as soon as possible. I +don't care much what it is. But I want work and plenty of it. It isn't +only that I want to use my energies, but I've spent all I can afford on +lessons and the rest of it." + +"I'll see to it. Your sort doesn't go begging." + +Broderick clipped his cigar and watched her thin profile for a moment +without speaking. + +He noticed for the first time that she had lost the little flesh that +formerly had covered her small bones, and that the pink stained the pale +ivory of her cheeks only when conversation excited her. But if anything +she was prettier--no, more attractive--than ever, for there was more +depth in her face, which in spite of its subtle suggestions, had seemed +to his critical masculine taste to be too eager, too prone to pour out +her personality without reserve when the brain lighted up. Now there was +a slight droop of the eyelids which might mean fatigue, but gave length +and mystery to the strange olive eyes. Her pink mouth, with its short +upper lip, was too small for his taste, but the modelling of her +features in general seemed to him more cleanly defined, and the sweep of +jaw, almost as keen as a blade, must have delighted her own artist soul. +She was rather diminutive (to her sorrow), but the long lines she +cultivated in her house gowns made her figure very alluring, and the +limp and awkward grace of fashion singularly became her. She wore +to-night a "butterfly" gown of georgette (finding, as ever, admirable +effects in cotton since she could not afford the costly fabrics), the +colour of the American beauty rose, and a narrow band of olive velvet +around her thin ivory-white neck. For the moment of her absorption, as +she stared into the coals, her attitude would have been one of complete +repose had it not been for her restless hands. Broderick noticed, too, +that there were darkened hollows under her eyes. "Poor kid," he thought. +"She's been through it, all right, and put up a stiff fight. But what a +pity." + +As he struck a match she rose, and, opening a drawer in the table, took +out a box of Russian cigarettes. "I keep these here," she announced, +"because I don't want to shock mother; and I seldom indulge these days +in expensive habits. But I shall celebrate and smoke all evening. It is +jolly to have you like this again, Jimmy. I heard you were engaged. Is +it true? You would seem to have deserted every one else." + +Mr. Broderick coloured and looked as sheepish as a highly sophisticated +star reporter may. "Well, not quite," he admitted. "It's been heavy +running, and I don't have all the time there is on my hands. But--I +hope--well, I think now it'll be pretty plain sailing--" + +"Good, Jimmy, good!" + +For a moment he, too, gazed into the coals, his eyes softening; then +once more he banished the dainty image evoked; no nonsense for him in +Elsinore, with the Balfame tangle to unravel to the glory of the New +York _News_. + +"Alys," he said, stretching out his long legs and looking innocent and +comfortable, "I want to have a confidential talk with you about Mrs. +Balfame." He paused and then looked her straight in the eyes as he +launched his bolt. "I have come to the conclusion that she shot him--" + +"Jim Broderick!" Alys sprang to her feet, her eyes wide and full of +angry light. "Oh, you newspaper men!--How utterly abominable!" + +"Why? Sit down, my dear. Somebody did it--not? as our friends the +Germans say. And undoubtedly that some one is the person most interested +in getting him out of the way." + +"But not Mrs. Balfame! Why--I've been brought up on Mrs. Balfame. I'd as +soon suspect my own mother." + +"No, my friend, you would not. Mrs. Crumley is adorable in her own way, +but she is frankly and comfortably in her fifties. She is not a +beautiful woman who looks fully ten years younger than she has any right +to look. See?" + +"Oh--but--" + +"Think it over. You said the other day that you believed Mrs. Balfame to +have unplumbed depths, or something equally popular with your sex. And +you were horrified at her singular facial transformations no less than +twice within a fortnight. Certainly the picture you drew of her stalking +down the Country Club room was that of a woman in a mood for anything--" + +"Of a lovely well-bred woman outraged by the conduct of a drunken brute +of a husband. But do you imagine that any woman goes through life +without being turned into a fury now and then by her husband?" + +"No doubt. But, you see, the death of the brute occurred so soon after +the transformation scene enacted behind the expressive face of the lady +you have immortalised on paper--and no new-made devil is so complete as +that which rises out of the debris of an angel. When your placid +sternly-controlled women do explode, they may patch themselves together +as swiftly as a cyclone passes, but one of the sinister faces of their +hidden collection has been flashed momentarily before the public eye--" + +"Oh! Oh!" + +"I have tracked down every suspect, several upon whom no suspicion has +alighted--as yet. To my mind there are only two people to whom the crime +could be brought home." + +"Who is the other?" + +"Dwight Rush." + +This time Alys did not sit up with flaming eyes. To the astute gaze of +the reporter she took herself visibly in hand. But she bit through the +long tube between her lips. "What makes you think that?" she asked, as +she tossed the bits into the fire and lighted another cigarette. "You +roam too far afield for me." + +"He is in love with her." + +"With whom?" + +"The lady who was so opportunely, if somewhat sensationally, made a +widow last Saturday night." + +"He is not! Why--how absurd you are to-night, Jim. She is a thousand +years older than he." + +"How old is she--" + +"Forty-two. Mother sent her a birthday cake last month." + +"Rush is thirty-four. Who cares for eight years on the wrong side these +days? She looks younger than he does, to say nothing of her own +inconsiderable age; and when a woman is as lovely as Mrs. Balfame, as +interesting as she must be with that astute mind, that subtle suggestion +of mystery--" + +"You are mad, simply mad. In the first place, he has had no chance to +find out whether she is interesting or not--if he had, all Elsinore +would have rung with it. And--ah--" + +"What?" + +"Nothing." + +"Come out with it. It's up to you to prove him innocent if you can." + +"He was in Brooklyn that evening. I met him at the Cummacks' the next +day, and heard him say so." + +"Yes, that is what he is at pains to tell every one. Perhaps he can +prove it, perhaps not. But that's not what was in your mind." + +"I was afraid of being misunderstood. But it is all right, for of course +he can prove that he was in Brooklyn. I happen to know that he went to +the Balfame house on his way back from the club Saturday evening, and +only stayed a few minutes. I left the club just after Mrs. Balfame did, +as I had been out there all afternoon and had promised mother to help +her during the evening. I came in on the trolley and got off at the +corner of Balfame and Dawbarn Streets, to finish an argument I was +having with Harriet Bell over the possibility of Mrs. Balfame losing her +social power through the scene out at the club--few of the members would +care to go through such a scene a second time. Moreover, some of these +newer rich women resent her supremacy and would like to force her to +take a back seat. + +"I only talked for a few minutes after I got off the car and then walked +quickly over to the avenue. Just as I turned the corner I saw Dwight +Rush slam the Balfame gate and almost run up the walk. He seemed in a +tearing hurry about something. I was standing on our porch only a few +minutes later when he strode past--no doubt hoping to catch the +seven-ten for Brooklyn. Now!" + +"Nobody would be happier than I to prove a first-class alibi for Rush--" + +"Who else suspects him?" + +"No one; and so far as I am concerned no one shall. If you want the +whole truth, what I'm as intent on just now as big news itself is +complete exoneration for my friend. But if he didn't do it, she did. And +if he butted in upon her at a time like that it was because he was +beside himself--no doubt he asked her to elope with him--get a +divorce--" + +"What utter nonsense!" + +"Perhaps. But if she saw her chance, I'm thinking she wouldn't have +hesitated a minute to put a bullet in Balfame. People don't turn as sick +at the mere thought of committing murder, when there's a good chance of +putting it over, as you may imagine. Most of us experience the impulse +some time or other. Cowardice or circumstances safeguard us. She did it, +take my word for it. She deliberately poisoned a glass of lemonade +first, for Balfame to drink when he came home on his way to take the +train for Albany. Then, something or other interfering--what, I can only +guess at as yet--she found her chance to shoot, and shot." + +"Why, if all that were true, she would be a fiend." + +"Not necessarily. Merely a highly exasperated woman. One, moreover, who +had locked herself up too long. Marital squabbles are safety valves, and +I understand she let him do the rowing. But I don't care about her +impulses. The act is enough for me. Psychology later, when I write a +page of Sunday stuff. But you can see for yourself that if she isn't +indicted, and pretty quick, Dwight Rush will be?" + +"But no one else suspects him." + +"Not yet. But the whole town thinks of nothing else. And as they've +about given up all hope of the political crowd, as well as gunmen and +tango girls, they'll veer presently toward the truth. But before they +settle down on their idol's lofty head, they'll root about for some man +who might easily be in love with her--although hopelessly, as a matter +of course. Then they'll recall a thousand trifles that no doubt you too +recall without effort." + +"It's true she turned to him out there, ignoring men she had known for +years--she saw him at the house that night, if only for a few +moments--Oh, it's too horrible! Mrs. Balfame. An Elsinore lady! And she +has been so good to us all these hard years, helped us over and over +again. Oh, I don't mind telling you, Jim, that I was a little bit +jealous of her--I rather liked Rush--he was interesting and a nice male +creature, and I was so lonely--and he stopped coming so suddenly--and +then seeing him so delighted to meet her that night--and both of them +dragging up the avenue as if each moment were a jewel--I've always +thought it hateful for married women to try to cut girls out--it's so +unnatural--but I can't hear her accused of murder--to go--Oh, it's too +awful to talk about!" + +"She'd get off. Don't let that worry you. Innocent or guilty. There's no +other way of saving Rush. Be more jealous, if that will help matters. +He'll marry her the moment he decently can." + +"I don't believe he cares a bit for her. And I don't believe she will +marry him or any one." + +"Oh, yes, she will. He's the sort to get what he wants--and, take it +from me, he is mad about her. And she's at the age to be carried off her +feet by an ardent determined lover. Make no mistake about that. Besides, +her's is a name that she'll want to drop as soon as possible." + +"Jim Broderick, you know that you are deliberately playing on my female +nature, on all the baseness you feel sure is in it. I'd always thought +you rather subtle, diplomatic. I don't thank you for the compliment of +frankness." + +"My dear girl, it is a compliment--my utter lack of diplomacy with you. +I want to pull this big thing off for my paper, for your paper. And I +want to save the friend of both of us. I have merely tried to prove to +you that Mrs. Balfame is a mere human being, not a goddess, and deserves +to pay some of the penalty of her crime, at least. Certainly, she isn't +worth the sacrifice of Dwight Rush--" + +"But if he can prove his alibi--" + +"Suppose he couldn't. It was Saturday night. What more likely than that +he failed to find the man he wanted? I have a dark suspicion that he +never went near Brooklyn that night, was in no mood to think of +business; although I don't for a moment believe he was near the Balfame +place, or knows who did it--unless Mrs. Balfame has confessed to him. +She is a very clever woman, not likely to linger on smugly in any fool's +paradise. She must know that suspicion will work round to her, and +knowing his infatuation, no doubt has consulted him." + +Broderick really thought nothing of the sort, but calculated his words; +and they produced their effect. The blood rose to the girl's hair, then +ebbed, leaving her ghastly. "He would hate her then," she whispered. + +"Not Rush. Another man, perhaps; but not only do things go too deep with +a man like that for anything but time to cure, but he's chock full of +romantic chivalry. And he's madly in love, remember; by that I mean in +the first flush. He'd look upon her as a martyr, and immediately set to +work to ward suspicion from her; if an alibi could not be proved for him +he'd take the crime on his own shoulders, if the worst came to worst." + +"Oh! Are men really so Quixotic in these days?" + +"Haven't changed fundamentally since they evolved from protoplasm." + +"But why should all that chivalry--that magnificent passion--the first +love of a man like that--be called out by a woman of Mrs. Balfame's age? +Why, it's some girl's right! I don't say mine. Don't think I'm a dog in +the manger. I'm trying not to be. But the world is full of girls--not +foolish young things only good enough for boys, but girls in their +twenties, bright, companionable, helpful, real mates for men--Why, it is +unnatural, damnable!" + +"Yes, it is," said Broderick sympathetically. "But if human nature +weren't a tangled wire fence electrified full of contradictions, life +wouldn't be interesting at all. Perhaps it's a mere case of affinity, +destiny--don't ever betray me. But there it is. As well try to explain +the abrupt taking off of useful men in their prime, of lovely children, +of needed mothers, of aged women who have lived exemplary lives, mainly +for others, spending their last years with the horrors of cancer. Don't +try to explain human passion. And she _is_ beautiful, and fresher to +look at than girls of eighteen that tango day and night. But he must be +saved from her as well as from arrest. Will you help me?" + +"What do you want me to do?" + +"Get further evidence about Mrs. Balfame." + +"I cannot, and would not if I could. Do you think I would be the means +of fastening the crime of murder on any woman?" + +"You would if you were a hardened--and good--newspaper woman." + +"Well, I'm not. And I won't. Do your own sleuthing." + +"More than I are on the job, but I want your help. I don't say you can +pick up fragments of her dress in the grove, or that you can--or +would--worm yourself into her confidence and extract a confession. But +you can set your wits to work and think up ways to put me on the track +of more evidence than I've got now. Can you think of anything off-hand?" + +"No." + +"Ah? What does that intonation mean?" + +"Your ears are off the key." + +"Not mine. Tell me at once--No,"--He rose and took up his hat--"never +mind now. Think it over. You will tell me in a day or two. Just remember +while watching all my little seeds sprout that you can help me save a +fine fellow and put my heel on a snake--a murderess! Paugh! There's +nothing so obscene. Good night." + +She did not rise as he let himself out, but sat beside her cold stove +thinking and crying until her mother called her to come in and go to +bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Mrs. Balfame, after she dismissed the newspaper men, went up to her +bedroom and sat very still for a long while. She was apprehensive rather +than frightened, but she felt very sober. + +She had accepted the assurance of the chief of the local police that his +inquiry regarding the pistol was a mere matter of routine, and had +merely obeyed a normal instinct in concealing it. But she knew the +intense interest of her community in the untimely and mysterious exit of +one of its most notorious members, an interest raised to the superlative +degree by the attentions of the metropolitan press; and she knew also +that when a community is excited suspicions are rapidly translated into +proofs, and every clue feeds the appetite for a victim. + +The European war was a dazzling example on the grand scale of the +complete breakdown of intellect before the primitive passions of hatred, +greed, envy, and the recurrent desire of man to kill, combined with that +monstrous dilation of the ego which consoles him with a childish belief +in his own impeccability. + +The newspapers of course pandered to the taste of their patrons for +morbid vicarious excitement; she had glanced contemptuously at the +headlines of her own "Case," and had accepted her temporary notoriety as +a matter of course, schooled herself to patience; the ordeal was +scarifying but of necessity brief. + +But these young men. They had insinuated--what had they not insinuated? +Either they had extraordinary powers of divination, or they were a +highly specialised branch of the detective force. They had asked +questions and forced answers from her that made her start and shiver in +the retrospect. + +Was it possible they believed she had murdered David Balfame, or were +they merely seeking material for a few more columns before the case died +a natural death? She had never been interviewed before, save once +superficially as President of the Friday Club, but she knew one or two +of the county editors, and Alys Crumley had sometimes amused her with +stories of her experiences as a New York reporter. + +These young men, so well-groomed, so urbane, so charming even, all of +them no doubt generously equipped to love and marry and protect with +their lives the girl of their choice, were they too but the soldiers of +an everlasting battlefield, often at bay and desperate in the trenches? +No matter how good their work, how great their "killing," the struggle +must be renewed daily to maintain their own footing, to advance, or at +least to uphold, the power of their little autocracy. To them journalism +was the most important thing in the world, and mere persons like +herself, suddenly lifted from obscurity to the brassy peaks of notoriety +were so much material for first page columns of the newspapers they +served with all the loyalty of those deluded soldiers on the European +battlefields. She understood them with an abrupt and complete clarity, +but she hated them. They might like and even admire her, but they would +show her no mercy if they discovered that she had been in the yard that +night. She felt as if a pack of wolves were at her heels. + +But finally her brow relaxed. She shrugged her shoulders and began to +unbutton the dense black gown that had expressed the mood the world +demands of a four-days' widow. Let them suspect, divine what they chose. +Not a soul on earth but Anna Steuer knew that she had been out that +night after her return home. Even had those lynx-eyed young men sat on +the box hedge they could not have seen her, for the avenue was well +lighted, and the grove, the entire yard in fact, had been as black as a +mine. Even the person skulking among those trees could not have guessed +who she was. + +For a moment she had been tempted to tell them a little; that she had +looked out and seen a moving shadow in the grove. But she had remembered +in time that they would ask why she had reserved this testimony at the +coroner's inquest. Her rôle was to know nothing. Indubitably the shot +had been fired from the trees; nobody questioned that; why involve +herself? They would discharge still another set of questions at her, +among others why she had not telephoned for the police. + +As she hung up her gown she recognised the heavy footfalls of her maid +of all work, and when Frieda knocked, bade her enter, employing those +cool impersonal tones so resented by the European servant after a brief +sojourn on the dedicated American soil. + +As the girl closed the door behind her without speaking, Mrs. Balfame +turned sharply. She felt at a disadvantage. As her figure was reasonably +slim, she wore a cheap corset which she washed once a month in the bath +tub with her nailbrush; and her linen, although fresh, as ever, was of +stout longcloth, and unrelieved by the coquetry of ribbons. She wore a +serviceable tight petticoat of black jersey, beyond which her well-shod +feet seemed to loom larger than her head. She was vaguely grateful that +she had not been caught by Alys Crumley, so fond of sketching her, and +was about to order Frieda to untie her tongue and be gone, when she +noticed that the girl's face was no longer bound, and asked kindly: + +"Has the toothache gone? I hope you do not suffer any longer." + +Frieda lifted her small and crafty eyes and shot a suspicious glance at +the mistress who had been so indifferent to what she believed to be the +worst of all pains. + +"It's out." + +"Too bad you didn't have it out at once." Mrs. Balfame hastily encased +herself in her bath robe and sat down. "I'll take my dinner +upstairs--why--what is it?" + +"I want to go home." + +"Home?" + +"To Germany." + +"But, of course you can't. There are a lot of German reservists in the +country who would like to go home and fight, but they can't get past the +British." + +"Some have. I could." + +"How? That is quite interesting." + +"I not tell. But I want to go." + +"Then go, by all means. But please wait a day or two until I get another +girl." + +"Plenty girls out of job. I want to go to-morrow." + +"Oh, very well. But you can't expect a full month's wages, as it is you +that is serving notice, not I." + +"I do not want a full month wage. I want five hundert dollar." + +Mrs. Balfame turned her amazed eyes upon the girl. Her first thought was +that the creature had been driven insane by her letters from home, and +wondered if she could overcome her if attacked. Then as she met those +small, sharp, crafty eyes, set high in the big stolid face like little +deadly guns in a fort, her heart missed a beat. But her own gaze, large +and cold, did not waver, and she said satirically: + +"Well, I am sure I hope you will get it." + +"I get it--from you." + +Mrs. Balfame lifted her shoulders. "What next? I have contributed what +little I can afford to the war funds. I am sorry, but I cannot +accommodate you." + +"You give me five hundert dollar," reiterated the thick even voice, "or +I tell the police you come in the back door two minutes after Mr. +Balfame he was kilt at the front gate." + +Obvious danger once more turned Mrs. Balfame into pure steel. "Oh, no; +you will tell them nothing of the sort, for it is not true. I thought I +heard some one on the back stairs when I went down to the kitchen. As +you know I always drink a glass of filtered water before going to bed. I +had forgotten the episode utterly, but I remember now, I heard a noise +outside, even imagined that some one turned the knob of the door, and +called up to ask you if you also had heard. I did not know that anything +had happened out in front until I returned to my room." + +"I see you come in the kitchen door." But the voice was not quite so +even, the shifty glance wavered. Frieda felt suddenly the European +peasant in the presence of the superior by divine right. Mrs. Balfame +followed up her advantage. + +"You are lying--for purposes of blackmail. You did not see me come in +the door, because I had not been outside of it. I do not even remember +opening it to listen, although I may have done so. You saw nothing and +cannot blackmail me. Nor would any one believe your word against mine." + +"I hear you come in just after me--" + +"Heard? Just now you said you saw." + +"Ach--" + +Mrs. Balfame had an inspiration. "My God!" she exclaimed, springing to +her feet, "the murderer took refuge in the house, was hidden in the +cellar or attic all night, all the next day! He may be here yet! You may +be feeding him!" + +She advanced upon the staring girl whose mouth stood open. "Of course. +Of course. You are a friend of Old Dutch. It was one of his gunmen who +did it, and you are his accomplice. Or perhaps you killed him yourself. +Perhaps he treated you as he treated so many girls, and you killed him +and are trying to blackmail me for money to get out of the country." + +"It is a lie!" Frieda's voice was strangled with outraged virtue. "My +man, he fight for the fatherland. Old Dutch, he will not hurt a fly. I +would not have touch your pig of a husband. You know that, for you hate +him yourself. I have see in the eye, in the hand. I know notings of who +kill him, but--no, I have not see you come in the kitchen door, but I +hear some one come in, the door shut, you call out in so strange +voice--I believe before that you have kill him--now--now I do not +know--" + +"It would be wise to know nothing,"--Mrs. Balfame's voice was charged +with meaning--"unless you wish to be arrested as the criminal, or as an +accomplice--after confessing that you entered the house within a moment +or two of the shooting. Who is to say exactly when you did come in? +Well, better keep your mouth shut. It is wise for innocent people to +know as little about a crime as possible. Why did you testify before the +coroner's jury that your tooth ached so you heard nothing? Why didn't +you tell your story then?" + +"I was frightened, and my tooth--I can tink of notings else." + +"And now you think it quite safe to blackmail me?" + +"I want to go back to Germany--to my man--and I hate this country what +hates Germany." + +"This country is neutral," said Mrs. Balfame severely. "It regards all +the belligerents as barbarians tarred with the same brush. You Germans +are so excitable that you imagine we hate when we merely don't care." +This was intended to be soothing, but Frieda's brow darkened and she +thrust out her pugnacious lips. + +"Germany, she is the greatest country in the whole world," she +announced. "All the world--it muss know that." + +"How familiar that sounds! Just a slight variation on the old American +brag that is quite a relief." Mrs. Balfame spoke as lightly as if she +merely had let down the bars of her dignity out of sympathy with a +lacerated Teuton. "Well, go back to your Germany, Frieda, if you can +get there, but don't try to blackmail me again. I have no five hundred +dollars to give you if I would. If you choose, you may stay your month +out, and spend your evenings taking up a collection among your German +friends. You are excused." + +She had achieved her purpose. The girl's practical mind was puzzled by +the simple explanation of her mistress' presence in the kitchen, deeply +impressed by the contemptuous refusal to be blackmailed. Her shoulders +drooped and she slunk out of the room. + +For a moment Mrs. Balfame clung, reeling, to the back of a chair. Then +she went downstairs and telephoned to Dwight Rush. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The young lawyer was to call at eight o'clock. Mrs. Balfame put on her +best black blouse in his honour; it was cut low about the throat and +softened with a rolling collar of hemstitched white lawn. This was as +far in the art of sex allurement as she was prepared to go; the bare +idea of a negligée of white lace and silk, warmed by rose-colored +shades, would have filled her with cold disgust. She was not a religious +woman, but she had her standards. + +At a quarter of eight she made a careful inspection of the lower rooms; +sleuths, professional and amateur, would not hesitate to sneak into her +house and listen at keyholes. She inferred that the house was under +surveillance, for she had looked from her window several times and seen +the same man sauntering up and down that end of the avenue. No doubt +some one watched the back doors also. + +Convinced that her home was still sacrosanct, she placed two chairs at a +point in the parlour farthest from the doors leading into the hall, and +into a room beyond which Mr. Balfame had used as an office. The doors, +of course, would be open throughout the interview. No one should be able +to say that she had shut herself up with a young man; on the other hand, +it was the duty of the deceased husband's lawyer to call on the widow. +Even if those young devils discovered that she had telephoned for him, +what more regular than that she should wish to consult her lawyer after +such insinuations? + +Rush arrived as the town clock struck eight. Frieda, who answered the +door in her own good time, surveyed him suspiciously through a narrow +aperture to which she applied one eye. + +"What you want?" she growled. "Mrs. Balfame she have seen all the +reporters already yet." + +"Let the gentleman in," called Mrs. Balfame from the parlour. "This is a +friend of my late husband." + +Rush was permitted to enter. He was a full minute disposing of his hat +and overcoat in the hall, while Frieda dragged her heelless slippers +back to the kitchen and slammed the door. His own step was not brisk as +he left the hall for the parlour, and his face, always colourless, +looked thin and haggard. Mrs. Balfame, as she rose and gave him her +hand, asked solicitously: + +"Are you under the weather? How seedy you look. I wondered why you had +not called--" + +"A touch of the grippe. Felt all in for a day or two, but am all right +now. And although I have been very anxious to see you, I had made up my +mind not to call unless you sent for me." + +"Well, I sent for you professionally," she retorted coolly. "You don't +suppose I took your love making seriously." + +He flushed dully, after the manner of men with thick fair skins, and his +hard blue eyes lost their fire as he stared at her. It was +incomprehensible that she could misunderstand him. + +"It was serious enough to me. I merely stayed away, because, having +spoken as I did, I--well, I cannot very well explain. You will remember +that I made you promise to send for me if you were in trouble--" + +"I remembered!" She felt his rebuke obscurely. "It never occurred to me +to send for any one else." + +"Thank you for that." + +"Did you mean anything but politeness when you said that you had been +anxious to see me?" + +He hesitated, but he had already made up his mind that the time had come +to put her on her guard. Besides, he inferred that she had begun herself +to appreciate her danger. + +"You have read the newspapers. You saw the reporters this afternoon. Of +course you must have guessed that they hope for a sensational trial with +you as the heroine." + +"How can men--_men_--be such heartless brutes?" + +"Ask the public. Even that element that believes itself to be select and +would not touch a yellow paper devours a really interesting crime in +high life. Never mind that now. Let us get down to brass tacks. They +want to fix the crime on you. How are they going to manage it? That is +the question for us. Tell me exactly what they said, what they made you +say." + +Mrs. Balfame gave him so circumstantial an account of the interview that +he looked at her in admiration, although his rigid American face, that +looked so strong, turned paler still. + +"What a splendid witness you would make!" He stared at the carpet for a +moment, then flashed his eyes upward much as Broderick had done. "Tell +me," he said softly, "is there anything you withheld from them? You know +how safe you are with me. But I must be in a position to advise you what +to say and to leave unsaid--if the worst comes." + +"You mean if I am arrested?" She had a moment of complete naturalness, +and stared at him wildly. He leaned forward and patted her hand. + +"Anything is possible in a case like this. But you have nothing to fear. +Now, will you tell me--" + +"Do you think I did it?" + +"I know that you did not. But I think you know something about it." + +"It would cast no light on the mystery. He was shot from that grove on a +pitch dark night, and that is all there is to it." + +"Let me be the judge of that." + +"Very well. I had put out my light--upstairs--and, as I was nervous, I +looked out of the window to see if Dave was coming. I so longed to have +him come--and go! Then I happened to glance in the direction of the +grove, and I saw some one sneaking about there--" + +"Yes!" He half rose, his eyes expanding, his nostrils dilating. "Go on. +Go on." + +"I told you I was nervous--wrought up from that dreadful scene at the +club. I just felt like an adventure! I slipped down stairs and out of +the house by the kitchen door--Frieda takes the key of the back hall +door on Saturday nights--thinking I would watch the burglar; of course +that was what I thought he must be; and I knew that Dave would be along +in a minute--" + +"How long was this after he telephoned? It would take him some time to +walk from Cummack's; and he didn't leave at once--" + +"Oh, quite a while after. I was sure then that he would be along in a +minute or two. Well--it may seem incredible to you, but I really felt +as if excitement of that dangerous sort would be a relief." + +"I understand perfectly." Rush spoke with the fatuousness of man who +believes that love and complete comprehension of the object beloved are +natural corollaries. "But--but that is not the sort of story that goes +down with a jury of small farmers and trades-people. They don't know +much about your sort of nerves. But go on." + +"Well, I managed to get into the grove without being either seen or +heard by that man. I am sure of that. He moved round a good deal, and I +thought he was feeling about for some point from which he could make a +dart for the house. Then I heard Dave in Dawbarn Street, singing. Then I +saw him under the lamp-post. After that it all happened so quickly I can +hardly recall it clearly enough to describe. The man near me crouched. I +can't tell you what I thought then--if I knew he was going to shoot--or +why I didn't cry out. Almost before I had time to think at all, he +fired, and Dave went down." + +"But what about that other bullet? Are you sure there was no one else in +the grove?" + +"There may have been a dozen. I heard some one running afterwards; there +may have been more than one." + +"Did you have a pistol?" He spoke very softly. "Don't be afraid to tell +me. It might easily have gone off accidentally--or something deeper than +your consciousness may have telegraphed an imperious message to your +hand." + +But Mrs. Balfame, like all artificial people, was intensely secretive, +and only delivered herself of the unvarnished truth when it served her +purpose best. She gave a little feminine shudder. "I never kept a pistol +in the house. If I had, it would have been empty--just something to +flourish at a burglar." + +"Ah--yes. I was going to say that I was glad of that, but I don't know +that it matters. If you had taken a revolver out that night, loaded or +otherwise, and confessed to it, you hardly could have escaped arrest by +this time, even if it were a .38. And if you confessed to going out into +the dark to stalk a man without one--that would make your adventure look +foolhardy and purposeless--" + +It was evident that he was thinking aloud. She interrupted him sharply: + +"But you believe me?" + +"I believe every word you say. The more differently you act from other +women, the more natural you seem to me. But I think you were dead right +in suppressing the episode. It leads nowhere and would incriminate you." + +"It may come out yet. That is why I sent for you, not because I was +afraid of those reporters. Frieda was on the backstairs that night when +I came in. I thought I heard a sound and called out. I told Anna that +night and she questioned Frieda indirectly and was satisfied that she +had heard nothing, for although she had come home early with a +toothache, she was suffering so intensely that she wouldn't have heard +if the shot had been fired under her window. So I dismissed such +misgivings as I had from my mind. But just after those reporters left +she came up to my room and told me that she saw me come in, and tried to +blackmail me for five hundred dollars. I soon made her admit that she +had not seen me; but she heard me, no doubt of that. I explained +logically why I was there--after a drink of water, and that I called out +to her because I thought I heard some one try the door--but if those +reporters get hold of her--" + +His face looked very grim. "That is bad, bad. By the way, why didn't you +run to Balfame? That would seem the natural thing--" + +"I was suddenly horribly afraid. I think I knew he was dead and I didn't +want to go near _that_. I ran like a dog back to its kennel." + +"It was a feminine enough thing to do." For the first time he smiled, +and his voice, which had insensibly grown inquisitorial, softened once +more. "It was a dreadful position to find oneself in and no mistake. +Your instinct was right. If you had been found bending over him--still, +as you had no weapon--" + +"I think on the whole it would have been better to have gone to him. Of +course that is what I should have done if I had loved him. As it was, I +ran as far from him as I could get--" + +"Well, don't let us waste time discussing the ought to have beens. +Unless some one can prove that you were out that night, the whole +incident must be suppressed. If you are arrested on any trumped up +charge--and the district attorney is keener than the reporters--you must +stick to your story. By the way, why didn't you tell the reporters that +Frieda was in the house about the time the shot was fired?" + +"I had forgotten. The house has been full of people; the neighbourhood +has lived here; I have noticed her no more than if she were as wooden as +she looks." + +"Do you think she did it?" + +"I wish I could. But she would not have had time to get into the house +before I did. And the footsteps were running toward the lane at the back +of the grounds." + +"She is one of the swiftest dancers down in that hall where she goes +with her crowd every Saturday night. I have been doing a little +sleuthing on my own account, but I can't connect her up with Balfame." + +"He wouldn't have looked at her." + +"You never can tell. A man will often look quite hard at whatever +happens to be handy. But she doesn't appear to have any sweetheart, +although she's been in the country for four years. She is intimate in +the home of Old Dutch and goes about with young Conrad, but he is +engaged to some one else. All the boys like to dance with her. She left +the hall suddenly and ran home--ostensibly wild with a toothache. If she +hid in the grove to kill Balfame she could have got into the house +before you did. What was she doing on the stair, anyway?" + +"I didn't ask her." + +"She may have been too out of breath to answer you. Or too wary. Those +other footsteps--they may have been those of an accomplice; the man who +fired the other pistol." + +"But I would have seen her running ahead of me." + +"Not necessarily. It was very dark. Your mind was stunned. You may have +hesitated longer than you know before making for the house. One is +liable to powerful inhibitions in great crises. Where is the girl? I +think I'll have her in." + +He walked the floor nervously while Mrs. Balfame went out to the +kitchen. Frieda was sitting by the stove knitting. Commanded to come to +the parlour, her little eyes almost closed, but she followed Mrs. +Balfame and confronted Rush, who stood in the middle of the room looking +tall and formidable. + +"I am Mrs. Balfame's lawyer," he said without preamble. "She sent for me +because you tried to blackmail her. What were you doing on the stairs +when you heard Mrs. Balfame in the kitchen? You left the dance hall +sometime before eight, and that could not have been more than five +minutes past." + +Frieda pressed her big lips together in a hard line. + +"Oh, you won't speak. Well, if you don't explain to me, you will to the +Grand Jury to-morrow. Or I shall get out a warrant to-night for your +arrest as the murderer of David Balfame." + +"Gott!" The girl's face was almost purple. She raised her knitting +needles with a threatening gesture that was almost dramatic. "I did not +do it. She has done it." + +"What were you doing on the stairs?" + +"I would heat water for my tooth." + +"Cold water is the thing for an ulcerated tooth." + +"I never have the toothache like that already. I am in my room many +minutes before I think I go down. Then, when I am on the stairs I hear +Mrs. Balfame come in." + +"She has explained what you heard." + +"No, she have not. I think so when we have talked this evening, but not +now. She is--was, I mean, all out of her breath." + +"I was terrified." Mrs. Balfame retorted so promptly that Rush flashed +her a glance of admiration. Here was a woman who could take care of +herself on the witness stand. "First I thought I heard some one trying +to get into the door, and then some one sneaking up the stairs." + +"Oh--yes." Frieda's tones expressed no conviction. "The educated lady +can think very quick. But I say that she have come in by the door, the +kitchen door. Always I take the key to the hall door. She know that, and +as she not know that I am in, she go out by the kitchen door. Always in +the daytime when she goes to the yard she go by the hall door." + +"What a pity you did not slam the door when you came in. It would have +been quite natural as you were in such agony." Rush spoke sarcastically, +but he was deeply perturbed. It was impossible to tell whether the girl +was telling the truth or a carefully rehearsed story. + +"Of course you know that if you tell that story to the police you will +get yourself into serious trouble." + +"I get her into trouble." + +"Mrs. Balfame is above suspicion. It is not my business to warn you, or +to defeat the ends of the law, of which apparently you know nothing--" + +"I know someting. Last night I have tell Herr Kraus; and he say that +since I have told the coroner I know notings, much better I touch the +lady for five hundert and go home." + +"O-h-h! That is the advice Old Dutch gave you! Splendid! I think the +best thing I can do is to have you arrested bright and early to-morrow +morning. Mrs. Balfame is cleared already. You may go." + +She stared at him for a moment out of eyes that spat fire like two +little guns in the top of a fort; then she swung herself about and +retreated to the kitchen. + +"That ought to make her disappear to-night. Her friends will hide her. +The mere fact of her disappearance will convince the police, as well as +the reporters, that she is guilty. You are all right." He spoke +boyishly, and his face, no longer rigid, was full of light. + +"But if she is innocent?" + +"No harm done. She'll be smuggled out of the country and suspicion +permanently diverted from you. That is all I care about." He caught her +hands impulsively in his. "I am glad, so glad! Oh!--It is too soon now, +but wait--" He was out of the house before she grasped the fact that he +had arrested himself on the brim of another declaration. + +Mrs. Balfame went up to bed, serene once more in the belief that her +future was her own, unclouded, full of attractive possibilities for a +woman of her position and intellectual attainments. + +She made up her mind to take a really deep course of reading, so that +the most spiteful should not call her superficial; moreover, she had +been conscious more than once of certain mental dissatisfactions, of +uneasy vacancies in a mind sufficiently awake to begin to realise the +cheapness of its furnishings. Perhaps she would take a course in history +at Columbia, another in psychology. + +As she put herself into a sturdy cotton night-gown and then brushed back +her hair from a rather large forehead before braiding it severely for +the night, she realised dimly that that way happiness might lie, that +the pleasures of the intellectual life might be very great indeed. She +wished regretfully that she could have been brilliantly educated in her +youth. In that case she would not have married a man who would incite +any spirited woman to seek the summary release, but would be to-day the +wife of a judge, perhaps--some fine fellow who had showed the early +promise that Dwight Rush must have done. If she could attract one man +like that, at the age of forty-two, she could have had a dozen in her +train when young if she had had the sense to appreciate them. + +But she was philosophical, and it was not her way to quarrel very deeply +with herself or with life. Her long braids were as evenly plaited as +ever. + +She sank into sleep, thinking of the disagreeable necessity of making +the kitchen fire in the morning and cooking her own breakfast. Frieda of +course would be gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The next morning, when Mrs. Balfame, running lightly down the back +stairs, entered the kitchen half an hour earlier than her usual +appearance in the dining-room, the front of her housefrock covered with +a large apron and her sleeves pinned to the elbow, she beheld Frieda +slicing potatoes. + +"Why!" The exclamation was impetuous, but her quick mind adapted itself. +"I woke up early and thought I would come down and help," she continued +evenly. "You have had so much to do of late." + +Frieda was regarding her with intense suspicion. "Never you have done +that before," she growled. "You will see if I have the dishes by the +dinner washed." + +"Nonsense. And everything is so different these days. I am hungry, too. +I thought it would be nice to hurry breakfast." + +"Breakfast always is by eight. You have told me that when I come. I get +up by half past six. First I air the house, and sweep the hall. Then I +make the fire and put the water to boil. Then I peel the potatoes. Then +I make the biscuit. Then I boil the eggs. Then I make the coffee--" + +"I know. You are marvellously systematic. But I thought you might make +the coffee at once." + +"Always the coffee come last." Frieda resumed her task. + +"But I don't eat potatoes for breakfast." + +"I eat the potatoes. When they fry in the pan, then I put the biscuit in +the oven. Then I boil the eggs and then I make the coffee. Breakfast is +by eight o'clock." + +Mrs. Balfame, with a good-humoured laugh, turned to leave the kitchen. +But her mind, alert with apprehension, cast up a memory, vague but far +from soothing. "By the way, I seem to remember that I woke up suddenly +in the night and heard voices down here. Did you have visitors?" + +Frieda flushed the deep and angry red of her infrequent moments of +embarrassment. "I have not visitors in the night." She turned on the +water tap, which made noise enough to discourage further attempts at +conversation; and Mrs. Balfame, to distract her mind, dusted the +parlour. She dared not go out into the yard and walk off her +restlessness, for there were now two sentinels preserving what they +believed to be a casual attitude before her gate. She would have given +much to know whether those men were watching her movements or those of +her servant. + +Immediately after breakfast, the systematic Frieda was persuaded to go +to the railway station and buy the New York papers when the train came +in. Frieda might be a finished product of the greatest machine shop the +world has ever known, but she was young and she liked the bustle of life +at the station, and the long walk down Main Street, so different from +the aristocratic repose of Elsinore Avenue. Mrs. Balfame, watching +behind the curtain, saw that one of the sentinels followed her. The +other continued to lean against the lamp-post whittling a stick. Both +she and Frieda were watched! + +But the disquiet induced by the not unnatural surveillance of premises +identified with a recent crime was soon forgotten in the superior powers +of the New York press to excite both disquiet and indignation. + +She had missed a photograph of herself while dusting the parlour and had +forgiven the loyal thief as it was a remarkably pretty picture and +portrayed a woman sweet, fashionable, and lofty. To her horror the +picture which graced the first page of the great dailies was that of a +hard defiant female, quite certain, without a line of letter press, to +prejudice a public anxious to believe the worst. + +Tears of outraged vanity blurred her vision for a few moments before the +full menace of that silent witness took possession of her. She knew that +most people deteriorated under the mysterious but always fatal encounter +of their photographs with the "staff artist," but she felt all the +sensations of the outraged novice. + +A moment after she had dashed her tears away she turned pale; and when +she finished reading the interviews the beautiful whiteness of her skin +was disfigured by a greenish pallor. + +The interviews were written with a devilish cunning that protected the +newspapers from danger of libel suit but subtly gave the public to +understand that its appetite for a towering figure in the Balfame case +was about to be gratified. + +There was no doubt that two shots had been fired from the grove +simultaneously, and from revolvers of different calibre (picture of tree +and gate). + +Was one of them--the smaller--fired by a woman? And if so, by what +woman? + +Not one of the females whose names had been linked at one time or +another with the versatile Mr. Balfame but had proved her alibi, and so +far as was known--although of course some one as yet unsuspected may +have climbed the back fence and hid in the grove--the only two women on +the premises were the widow and her extraordinarily plain servant. + +Balfame was shot with a .41 revolver. In one of the newspapers it was +casually and not too politely remarked that Mrs. Balfame had larger +hands and feet than one would expect from her general elegance of figure +and aristocratic features, and in the same rambling sentence (this was +written by the deeply calculating Mr. Broderick) the public was informed +that certain footprints might have been those of a large woman or of a +medium sized man. In the next paragraph but one Mrs. Balfame's stately +height was again commented upon, but as the public had already been +informed that she was an expert at target practice, reiteration of this +fact was astutely avoided. + +A great deal was said here and there of her composure, her large +studiously expressionless grey eyes, her nimble mind that so often +routed her inquisitors, but was allied to a temperament of ice and a +manifest power of cool and deliberate calculation. + +The dullest reader was quickened into the belief that he was the real +detective and that his unerring sense had carried him straight to the +woman who had hated the murdered man and had quarrelled with him in +public a few hours before his death. + +The episode of Mrs. Balfame's offer to make her husband a glass of +doctored lemonade and the disappearance of both beverage and glass was +not mentioned; presumably these bright young men did not believe in +digressions or in rousing a curiosity they might not be able to appease. +The interview concluded with a maddening hint at immediate developments. + +Mrs. Balfame let the papers drop to the floor one by one; when she had +finished the last she drew her breath painfully for several moments. The +room turned black, and it was cut by rows of bared and menacing teeth, +infinitely multiplied. + +But she was not the woman to give way to fear for long, or even to +bewilderment. There could be no real danger, and all that should concern +her was the outrageous, the intolerably vulgar publicity. A woman whose +good taste was both natural and cultivated, she felt this ruthless +tossing of her sacred person into the public maw much as the more +refined octoroons may have felt when they stood on the auction block in +the good old days down South. She shuddered and gritted her teeth; she +wished that she were a hysterical woman that she might find relief in +shrieking at the top of her voice and smashing the furniture. + +Why, oh why, could not David Balfame have been permitted by the fate +which had decreed his end on that particular night to enter the house +and drink the lemonade; to die decently, painlessly, bloodlessly (she +shrank aside when compelled to pass those blood stains on the brick +path), as any man might die when his overtaxed heart simply stopped? She +would have run down the moment she heard the fall, she would have +managed to get the glass out of the way if Frieda had condescended to +visit the scene, which was quite unlikely. She would have run over to +Doctor Lequer, who lived next door to the Gifnings, and he would have +sent for the coroner. Both inevitably would have pronounced the death +due to heart failure. It was fate that had bungled, not she. + +She mused, however, that she should have had a duplicate glass of +lemonade to leave half consumed on the table, as it would be recalled +that he had expected to imbibe a soothing draught immediately upon his +return; and adjacent liquids invariably induce suspicion in cases of +sudden death. But that did not matter now. + +She set her wits to work upon the identity of her companion in the +grove. Was it Frieda? Or an accomplice of the girl, who was already in +the house or on the alert to direct him out by the rear pathway? But why +Frieda? She knew the raging hate that had filled her husband since the +declaration of war, and she knew that his rivals in politics hated him +with increasing virulency; as they were beginning to hate everybody that +presumed to question the right and might of Germany. + +But she was a woman just and sensible. Nor for a moment could she +visualise Old Dutch or any of his tribe shooting David Balfame because +he cursed the Kaiser and sang Tipperary. The supposition was too shallow +to be entertained. + +The person in the grove had been either a bitter political rival too +intimate with the local police to be in danger of arrest, or some woman +who for a time may have believed herself to be his wife in the larger +village of New York. + +She could have sworn that that stealthy figure so close to her was a +man, but women's skirts were very narrow and silent these days, and +after all she herself was as tall as the average man. + +Before noon the house was filled with sympathising and indignant +friends. Cummack came up town to assure her that it was a shame; and he +would ask Rush if those New York papers couldn't be had up for libel. +He'd take the eleven-thirty for Dobton and consult with him. + +The ladies were knitting, no one more impersonally than Mrs. Balfame, +although she was wondering if these kind friends expected to stay to +lunch, when an automobile drove honking up to the door, and Mrs. Battle +teetered over to the window. + +"For the land's sake," she exclaimed. "If it isn't the deputy sheriff +from Dobton. Now, what do you suppose?" + +Mrs. Balfame stood up suddenly, and the other women sat with their +needles suspended as if suddenly overcome by a noxious gas, with the +exception of Mrs. Cummack, who ran over to her sister-in-law and put her +plump arm about that easily compassed waist. Mrs. Balfame drew away +haughtily. + +"I am not frightened," she said in her sweet cool voice. "I am prepared +for anything after those newspapers--that is all." + +The bell pealed, and Mrs. Gifning, too curious to wait upon the +hand-maiden, ran out and opened the front door. She returned a moment +later with her little blue eyes snapping with excitement. + +"What do you think?" she gasped. "It is Frieda they want. She is being +subpoenaed to Dobton to testify before the Grand Jury. The deputy +sheriff is going to take her with him." + +Mrs. Balfame returned to her chair with such composure that no one +suspected the sudden weakening of her knees. Instantly she realised the +meaning of the voices she had heard in the night. Frieda had been +"interviewed," either by the press or the police, and induced, probably +bribed, to talk. No wonder she had not run away. + +But she too resumed her knitting. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Young Bruce had had no appetite for his part in the Balfame drama. He +had presented himself at the back door, however, at eight o'clock on the +night of the interview with the heroine, assuming that Frieda would be +moving at her usual snail's pace from the day of work toward the evening +of leisure. She slammed the door in his face. + +When he persisted, thrusting his cherubic countenance through the +window, she threatened him with the hose. Neither failure daunted him, +and he was convinced that she knew more of the case than she was willing +to admit; but it was obvious that he was not the man to appeal to the +fragment of heart she had brought from East Prussia. The mere fact that +he looked rather German and yet was straight American--employed, +moreover, by a newspaper that made no secret of its hostility to her +country--satisfied him that he would not be permitted to approach her +closely enough to attempt any form of persuasion. He drew the long +breath of deliverance as he reached this conclusion; the bare idea that +he might have to bestow a kiss upon Frieda in the heroic pursuit of duty +had induced a sensation of nausea. He was an extremely fastidious young +man. But even as he accepted defeat with mingled relief and chagrin, the +brilliant alternative occurred to him. + +He had ascertained that Frieda was intimate in the home of Conrad +Kraus, otherwise "Old Dutch," of Dobton, the County seat. Conrad, Jr., +treated her as a brother should, and it was his habit to escort her home +from the popular dance-hall of Elsinore on Saturday nights. Bruce had no +difficulty in learning that the young German-American had been dancing +with his favourite partner when her dead nerve seemed to threaten +explosion and had fraternally run home with her. The energetic reporter +did not wait upon the next trolley for Dobton, but hired an automobile +and descended in front of Old Dutch's saloon fifteen minutes later. + +Young Kraus was busy; and Bruce, after ordering beer and cheese and +taking it to an occupied table, drew the information from a neighbour +that Conrad, Jr., would be on duty behind the bar until midnight. It was +the habit of Papa Kraus to retire promptly on the stroke of nine and +take his entire family, save Conrad, with him. The eldest of the united +family continued to assuage the thirst of the neighbourhood until twelve +o'clock, when he shut up the front of the house and went to bed in the +rear as quickly as possible; he must rise betimes and clerk in the +leading grocery-store of the town. He was only twenty-two, but thrifty +and hard-working and anxious to marry. + +Bruce caught the next train for New York, had a brief talk with his city +editor, and returned to Dobton a few moments before the closing hour of +the saloon. He hung about the bar until the opportunity came to speak to +Conrad unheard. + +"I want a word with you as soon as you have shut up," he said without +preamble. + +The young German scowled at the reporter. Although a native son of +Dobton, he resented the attitude of the American press as deeply as his +irascible old father, and he still more deeply resented the suspicion +that had hovered for a moment over the house of Kraus. + +"Don't get mad till you hear what I've got to say," whispered Bruce. +"There may be a cool five hundred in it for you." + +Conrad glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to twelve. He stood as +immobile as his duties would permit until the stroke of midnight, when +he turned out the last reluctant patron, locked the door and followed +the reporter down the still-illuminated street to a dark avenue in the +residence quarter. Then the two fell into step. + +"Now, what is it?" growled Conrad, who did not like to have his habits +disturbed. "I get up--" + +"That's all right. I won't keep you fifteen minutes. I want you to tell +me all you know about the night of the Balfame murder." + +He had taken the young German's arm and felt it stiffen. "I know +nothing," was the reply. + +"Oh, yes, you do. You took Frieda home and got there some little time +before the shooting. You went in the side entrance to the back yard, but +you could see the grove all right." + +"It was a black-dark night. I could see nothing in the grove." + +"Ah! You saw something else! You have been afraid to speak out, as there +had been talk of your father having employed gun-men--" + +"Such lies!" shrieked young Kraus. + +"Of course! I know that. So does the press. That was a wild dream of +the police. But all the same you thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to +keep clear of the whole business. That is true. Don't attempt to deny +it. You saw something that would put the law on the right track. Now, +what was it? There are five hundred dollars waiting for you if you will +tell the truth. I don't want anything but the truth, mind you. I don't +represent a paper that pays for lies, so your honour is quite safe. So +also are you." + +Conrad ruminated for a few moments. He was literal and honest and wanted +to be quite positive that he was not asked to do something which would +make him feel uncomfortable while investing those desirable five hundred +dollars in West Elsinore town lots, and could reassure himself that the +truth was always right whether commercially valuable or not. He balanced +the pro's and con's so long that Bruce was about to break out +impatiently just as he made up his mind. + +"Yes, I saw something. But I wished to say nothing. They might say that +I was in it, or that I lied to protect Frieda--" + +"That's all right. There was no possible connection between her and +Balfame--" + +Conrad went on exactly as if the reporter had not interrupted. "I had +seen Frieda through the back door. She was crying with the toothache, +and I heard her run upstairs. I thought I would wait a few moments. The +drops she said she had might not cure her, and she might want me to go +to a dentist's house with her. She had gone in the back-hall door. +Suddenly I saw the kitchen door open, and as I was starting forward, I +saw that it was not Frieda who came out. It was Mrs. Balfame. She closed +the door behind her, and then crept past me to the back of the kitchen +yard. I watched her and saw her turn suddenly and walk toward the grove. +She did not make a particle of noise--" + +"How do you know it was not Frieda?" + +"Frieda is five-feet-three, and this was a tall woman, taller than I, +and I am five-eight. I have seen Mrs. Balfame many times, and though I +couldn't see her face,--she had a dark veil or scarf round it,--I knew +her height and walk. Of course I watched to see what she was up to. A +few moments later I heard Balfame turn in from Dawbarn Street, singing, +like the fool he was, 'Tipperary,' and then I heard a shot. I guessed +that Balfame had got what was coming to him, and I didn't wait to see. I +tiptoed for a minute or two and then ran through the next four places at +the back, and then out toward Balfame Street, for the trolley. But +Frieda heard Mrs. Balfame when she came in. She was all out of breath, +and, when she heard a sound on the stairs, called out before she +thought, I guess, and asked Frieda if she had heard anything. But Frieda +is very cautious. She had heard the shot, but she froze stiff against +the wall when she heard Mrs. Balfame's voice, and said nothing. We told +her afterwards that she had better keep quiet for the present." + +"And you think Mrs. Balfame did it?" + +"Who else? I shall not be so sorry if she goes to the chair, for a woman +should always be punished the limit for killing a man, even such a man +as Balfame." + +"No fear of that, but we'll have a dandy case. You tell that story to +the Grand Jury to-morrow, and you get your five hundred before night. +Now you must come and get me a word with Frieda. She won't look at me, +and of course she is in bed anyhow. But I must tell her there are a +couple of hundred in this for her if she comes through--" + +"But she'll be arrested for perjury. She testified at the coroner's +inquest that she knew nothing." + +"An abscessed tooth will explain her reticence on any other subject." + +"Perhaps I should tell you that she came to see us to-night--last night +it is now, not?--and told my papa that Lawyer Rush had frightened her, +told her that she might be accused of the killing, that she had better +get out. But Papa advised her to go home and fear nothing, where there +was nothing to fear. He knew that if she ran away, he would be suspected +again, the girl being intimate in the family; and of course the police +would be hot on her trail at once. So, like the good sensible girl she +is, she took the advice and went home." + +"All right. Come along. I'm not on the morning paper, but I promised the +story to the boys if I could get it in time." + +He hired another automobile, and they left it at the corner of Dawbarn +and Orchard Streets, entering the Balfame place by the tradesmen's gate +on the left, and creeping to the rear of the house. The lane behind the +four acres of the little estate was full of ruts and too far away from +the house for adventuring on a dark night. They had been halted by the +detective on watch, but when their errand was hastily explained, he +joined forces with them and even climbed a lean-to in the endeavour to +rouse Miss Appel from her young and virtuous slumbers. Their combined +efforts covered three hours; and that explains why the tremendous +news-story appeared in the early edition of the afternoon papers instead +of whetting several million morning appetites. + +The interview with Frieda, who became very wide awake when the unseemly +intrusion was elucidated by the trustworthy Conrad, and bargained for +five hundred dollars, explains why Mrs. Balfame spent Thursday night in +the County Jail behind Dobton Courthouse. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +When the Dobton sheriff and his deputies came to arrest Mrs. Balfame, +the wife of their old comrade in arms, all they were able to tell her +was that the District Attorney had applied for the warrant immediately +after the testimony before the Grand Jury of Frieda Appel and of the +Krauses, father and son. What that testimony had been they could not +have told her if they would, but that it had been strong and +corroborative enough to insure her indictment by the Grand Jury was as +manifest as it was ominous. + +They arrived just as Mrs. Balfame was about to leave the house to lunch +with Mrs. Cummack; Frieda had left long before it was time to prepare +the midday meal. Mr. Cramb, the sheriff, shut the door behind him and in +the faces of the indignant women reporters, who, less ruthless but +equally loyal to their journals, wanted a "human interest" story for the +stimulated public. Mrs. Balfame and her friends retreated before the +posse into the parlour. Mrs. Battle wept loudly; Alys Crumley, who had +come in with her mother a few moments since, fell suddenly on a chair in +the corner and pressed her hands against her mouth, her horrified eyes +staring at Mrs. Balfame. The other women shed tears as the equally +doleful sheriff explained his errand and read the warrant. Mrs. Balfame +alone was calm. She exerted herself supremely and sent so peremptory a +message along her quaking nerves that it benumbed them for the moment. +She had only a faint sense of drama, but a very keen one of her own +peculiar position in her little world, and she knew that in this grisly +crisis of her destiny she was expected to behave as a brave and +dignified woman should--a woman of whom her friends could continue to +exult as head and shoulders above the common mass. She rose to the +occasion. + +"Don't you worry--just!" said Mr. Cramb, patting her shoulder, although +he never had had the temerity to offer her his hand before, and had +often "pitied Dave." "They lied, them Duytchers, for some reason or +other, but they can't really have nothin' on you, and we'll find out +what they're up to, double quick." + +"I do not worry," said Mrs. Balfame coldly, "--although quite naturally +I object to the humiliation of arrest, and of spending even a night in +jail. Exactly what is the charge against me?" + +The sheriff crumpled his features and cleared his throat. "Well, it's +murder, I guess. It's an ugly word, but words don't mean nothin' when +there's nothin' in them." + +"In the first degree?" shrieked Mrs. Gifning. + +Cramb nodded. + +"And it don't admit of bail?" Mrs. Frew's eyes rolled wildly. + +"Nothin' doin'." + +Mrs. Balfame rose hurriedly. There was a horrid possibility of contagion +in this room surcharged with emotion. She kissed each of her friends in +turn. "It will be all right, of course," she reminded them gently. "Only +men could be taken in by such a plot, and of course there are a lot of +Germans on the Grand Jury--there are so many in this county. I shall +have an excellent lawyer, Dave's friend, Mr. Rush. And I am sure that I +shall be quite comfortable in the County Jail--it is so nice and new." +But she shuddered at the vision, in spite of her fine self-control. + +"You'll be treated like a queen," interposed the sheriff hastily. He was +proud of her, and immensely relieved that he was not to escort an +hysterical prisoner five miles to the County Seat. "You'll have the +Warden's own suite, and I guess you'll be able to see your friends right +along. Guess we'd better be gettin' on." + +As Mrs. Balfame was leaving the room, her eyes met the horrified and +puzzled gaze of Alys Crumley, and one of those obscure instincts that +dart out of the subconscious mind like memories of old experiences +released under high mental pressure, made her put out her hand +impulsively and draw the girl to her. + +"I can always be sure of your trust," she whispered. "Won't you come up +and help me pack?" + +Alys followed unresisting: the blow had been so sudden; she had believed +so little in the power of the law to touch a woman like Mrs. Balfame, +and even less that she committed the crime; for the moment she forgot +her jealous hostility, remembered only that the best friend of her +mother and of her own childhood was in dire straits. + +Mrs. Cummack had run up ahead and was carrying two suitcases from the +large closet to the bed as they entered. Her face was burning and +tear-stained, but she was one of those highly efficient women of the +home that rise automatically to every emergency and act while others +consider. "Glad you've come too," she said to Alys. "Open those drawers +in the bureau, and I'll pick out what's needed. Of course the ridiculous +charge will be dismissed in a day or two--but still! Well, if they're +all idiots down there at Dobton, we can come over here and pack a trunk +later. To take it now would be nonsense, and Sam'll move heaven and +earth to get them to accept bail. You just put on your best black, Enid, +and wear your veil so they can't snapshot you." + +While she was gasping on, Mrs. Balfame, whose brain had never worked +more clearly, went into the bathroom and emptied the contents of an +innocent looking medicine bottle into the drain of the wash-stand. She +feared young Broderick more than she feared the district attorney, who, +after all, had been her husband's friend--had, in fact, eaten all of his +political crumbs out of that lavish but discriminating hand. She +recalled that she had always been gracious to him (at her husband's +request, for she regarded him as a mere worm) when he had dined at her +table, and felt sure that he would favour her secretly, whatever his +obvious duty. Moreover, he was of those that spat at the very mention of +the powerful Kraus, and would gladly, especially since the outbreak of +the war, have run him out of the community. + +Mrs. Balfame, being a brilliant exponent of that type which enjoys the +unwavering admiration and loyalty of its own sex, had a corresponding +belief in her friends, and rarely if ever had used the word _cat_ +denotatively. She called out the best in women as they of a certainty +called out the best in her. Therefore, it did not occur to her either to +close the bathroom door or to glance behind her. Alys Crumley, standing +before the bureau and happening to look into the mirror, saw her empty +and rinse the bottle. The suspicions of Broderick regarding the glass of +lemonade flashed into the young artist's mind; and from that moment she +believed in the guilt of Mrs. Balfame. + +Although her hands were shaking Alys lifted from the lavender-scented +drawers the severely chaste underwear of the leader of Elsinore society, +and as soon as the suitcases were packed, she made haste to adjust Mrs. +Balfame's veil and pin it so firmly that no more kisses could be +exchanged. Of her ultimate purpose Alys had not the ghost of an idea, +but kiss a woman whom she believed to be guilty of murder and whom she +might possibly be driven to betray, she would not. Suddenly grown as +secretive as if she had a crime of her own to conceal, she even walked +out to the car with Mrs. Balfame and helped to drive away the crowding +newspaper women, several of whom she recognised. They in turn bore her +off, determined to get some sort of a story for the issues of the +morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Mrs. Balfame was whirled to Dobton in ten minutes--herself, she fancied, +the very centre of a whirlwind. The automobile was pursued by three cars +containing members of the press, which shot past just before they +reached Dobton Courthouse, that the occupants might leap out and fix +their cameras. Other men and women of the press stood before the locked +gate of the jail yard, several holding cameras. But once more the +reading public was forced to be content with an appetising news-story +illustrated by a tall black mummy. + +Mrs. Balfame walked past them holding her clenched hands under her veil, +but to all appearance composed and indifferent. The sob-sisters were +enthusiastic, and the men admired and disliked her more than ever. Your +true woman always weeps when in trouble, just as she blushes and +trembles when a man selects her to be his comforter through life. + +The Warden and his wife, who but a few weeks since had moved into their +new quarters, had moved out again without a murmur and with an +unaccustomed thrill. What a blessed prospect after screaming drunks, +drug-fiends and tame commercial sinners! + +The doors clanged shut; Mrs. Balfame mounted the stairs hastily, and was +still composed enough to exclaim with pleasure and to thank the Warden's +wife, Mrs. Larks, when she saw that flowers were on the table and even +on the window-sills. + +"I guess you'll stand it all right," said Mrs. Larks proudly. "Just make +yourself at home and I'll have your lunch up in a jiffy." + +Mrs. Cummack and Mrs. Gifning had come in the car with Mrs. Balfame, and +Cummack and several other men of standing arrived almost immediately to +assure her, with pale disturbed faces, that they were doing their best +to get her out on bail. While she was trying to eat her lunch, the +telephone bell rang, and her set face became more animated as she +recognised Rush's strong confident voice. He had read the news in the +early edition of the afternoon papers, in New York, telephoned to Dobton +and found that his immediate fear was realised and that she was in the +County Jail. He commanded her to keep up her spirits and promised to be +with her at four o'clock. + +Then she begged her friends to go and let her rest and sleep if +possible; they knew just how serious that consultation with her lawyer +must be. When she was alone, however, she picked up the telephone, which +stood on a side table, and called up the office of Dr. Anna Steuer. Ever +since her arrest she had been dully conscious of her need of this oldest +and truest of her friends. It came to her with something of a shock as +she sat waiting for Central to connect, that she had leaned upon this +strong and unpretentious woman far more than her calm self-satisfied +mind had ever admitted. + +Dr. Anna's assistant answered the call, and when she heard Mrs. +Balfame's voice broke down and wept loudly. + +"Oh, do be quiet," said Mrs. Balfame impatiently. "I am in no danger +whatever. Connect me with the Doctor." + +"Oh, it ain't only that. Poor--poor Doctor! She's been all in for days, +and this morning she just collapsed, and I sent for Dr. Lequeur, and he +pronounced it typhoid and sent for the ambulance and had her taken out +to Brabant Hospital. The last thing she said--whispered--was to be sure +not to bother you, that you would hear it soon enough--" + +Mrs. Balfame hung up the receiver, which had almost fallen from her +shaking hand. She turned cold with terror. Anna ill! And when she most +wanted her! A little window in her brain opened reluctantly, and +superstition crept in. Beyond that open window she seemed to hear the +surge of a furious and irresistible tide. Had it been waiting all these +years to overleap the barriers about her well ordered life and sweep her +into chaos? She frowned and put her thoughts more colloquially. Had her +luck changed? Was Fate against her? When she thought of Dwight Rush, it +was only to shrink again. If anything happened to him--and why not? Men +were killed every day by automobiles, and he had an absentminded way of +walking-- + +She sprang to her feet and paced up and down the two rooms of the suite, +determined upon composure, and angry with herself. She recovered her +mental balance (so rarely disturbed by imaginative flights), but her +spirits were at zero; and she was sitting with her elbows on her knees, +her hands pressed to her face when Rush entered promptly at four +o'clock. He was startled at the face she lifted. It looked older but +indefinably more attractive. Her inviolable serenity had irritated even +him at times, although she was his innocent ideal of a great lady. + +The Warden, who had unlocked the door, left them alone, and Rush sat +down and took both her hands in his warm reassuring grasp. + +"You are not to be the least bit frightened," he said. "The great thing +for you to remember is that your husband's political crowd rules, and +simply laughs at your arrest. They are more positive than ever that some +political enemy did it. Balfame's temper was growing shorter and +shorter, and he had many enemies, even in his own party. But the crowd +will pull every wire to get you off, and they can pull wires, all +right--" + +"But on what evidence am I arrested? What did those abominable people +say to the Grand Jury? Am I never to know?" + +"Well, rather. It's all in the afternoon papers, for one of the +reporters got the evidence before the Grand Jury did." + +He had taken off his overcoat, and he crossed the room and took from a +pocket a copy of _The Evening News_. She glanced over it with her lips +drawn back from her teeth. It contained not only the story the +enterprising Mr. Bruce had managed to obtain from Frieda and Conrad Jr., +but a corroboration of the maid's assertion that, warned by the family +friend and lawyer, Mr. Dwight Rush, to disappear, she had gone to Papa +Kraus for advice. Not a word, however, of blackmail. + +"So the public believes already that I am a murderess! No doubt I should +be convinced as readily myself. It is all so adroit!" Mrs. Balfame +spoke quietly but with intense bitterness. "I suppose I must be +tried--more and still more publicity. No one will ever forget it. Do you +suppose it is true young Kraus saw me that night?" + +"God knows!" + +He got up again and moved nervously about the room. "I wish I could be +sure. That is the point to which I must give the deepest +consideration--whether you are to admit or not that you went out. The +Grand Jury and Gore believe it. Young Kraus has a very good name. Frieda +has always been well behaved. There are six Germans on the Grand Jury, +moreover. We must see that none get on the trial jury. Gore wants to +believe--" + +"But he was a friend of Dave's." + +"Exactly. He is making much of that point. Affects to be filled with +righteous wrath because you killed his dear old friend. Trust a district +attorney. All they care for is to win out, and he has his spurs to win, +in the bargain. I met him a few moments ago; he was about equally full +of gin fizzes and the 'indisputable fact' that you are the only person +in sight with a motive. Oh, don't! Don't!" + +Mrs. Balfame had broken down. She flung her arms over the table and her +head upon them. More than once in her life she had shed tears both +diplomatic and spontaneous, but for the first time since she was a child +she sobbed heavily. She felt forlorn, deserted, in awful straits. + +"Anna is ill," she articulated. "Anna! My one real friend--the only one +that has meant anything to me. Life has gone pretty well with me. Now +everything is changed. I know that terrible things are about to happen +to me." + +"Not while I am alive. I heard of Dr. Anna's illness on my way to New +York. Lequeur was on the train. You--you must let me take her place. I +am devoted to you heart and soul. You surely know that." + +"But you are not a woman. It's a woman friend I want now, a strong one +like Anna. Those other women--oh, yes, they're devoted to me--have been, +but they've suddenly ceased to count, somehow. Besides, they'll soon +believe me guilty. I hate them all. Only Anna would have understood--and +believed." + +Rush had been administering awkward little pats to the soft masses of +her hair. Suddenly he realised that his faith in her complete innocence +was by no means as stable as it had been; she had confessed to him that +she had been in the grove that night stalking the intruder. How absurd +to believe that she had gone out unarmed. He had read the circumstantial +details of the reporter's interviews with Frieda and young Kraus. While +the writers were careful not to make the downright assertion that Mrs. +Balfame had fired the fatal shot, the public saw her in the act of +levelling one of the pistols--so mighty is the power of the trained and +ruthless pen. + +As he stood looking down upon his unexpected surrender to emotional +excitement, he asked himself deliberately: What more natural, if she had +a pistol in her hand and that low-lived creature presented himself +abruptly and alone, than that it should go off of its own accord, so to +speak, whether hers had been the bullet to penetrate that loathsome +target or not? If so, what had she done with the pistol? + +He sat down and laid his hand firmly on her arm. + +"There is something I must tell you. It is something Frieda forgot to +tell the reporter, but she gave it to the Grand Jury. With the help of a +couple of extra gin fizzes, I extracted it from Gore. It is this: she +told the Grand Jury that several times when she did her weekly cleaning +upstairs she saw a pistol in the drawer of a table beside your bed. +Will--won't you tell me?" + +He felt the arm in his clasp grow rigid, but Mrs. Balfame answered +without a trace of her recent agitation: "I told you before that I never +had a pistol. It would be like her to be spying about among my things, +but I wonder she would admit it." + +"She is delighted with her new importance, and, I fancy, has been bribed +to tell all she knows." + +"In that case she wouldn't mind telling more. And no doubt she will +think of other sensational items before the trial. She will have +awakened in the night after the crime and heard me drop the pistol +between the walls, or she will have seen me loading it on the afternoon +of the shooting." + +"Yes, there is no knowing when those low-grade imaginations, once +started, will stop. Memory ceases to function in brains of that sort, +and its place is taken by a confused jumble of induced or auto +suggestions, which are carefully straightened out by the practised +lawyer in rehearsals. But I almost wish that you had taken a pistol out +that night and would tell me where to find it. I'd lose it somewhere out +in the marsh." + +"I had no pistol." Not yet could she take him into her confidence to +that extent, although she knew that he was about to stake his +professional reputation on her acquittal. + +He dismissed the subject abruptly. "By the way, I gave the story of +Frieda's attempt to blackmail you to Broderick and two other men just +before I left town--laying emphasis on the fact that you always drank a +glass of filtered water before going to bed. They made a wry face over +that, but it is news and they must publish it. There are many things in +your favour--particularly Frieda's assertion before the coroner that she +knew nothing of the case. She is a confessed perjurer. Also, why didn't +she answer when you called up to her, if she was on the back stairs? +There are things that satisfy a grand jury that will not go down with a +trial jury. Now you must, you must trust me." + +She looked up at him dully. But in a moment her eyes warmed and she +smiled faintly. All the female in her responded to the traditional +strength and power of the male. She also knew the sensitiveness of man's +vanity and the danger either of starving it or dealing it a sudden blow. +She sometimes felt sorry for men. It was their self-appointed task to +run the planet, and they must be reminded just so often how wonderful +they were, lest they lose courage; one of the several obliging +weaknesses of which women rarely scrupled to take advantage. + +As she put out her hand and took his, she looked very feminine and +sweet. Her face was flushed and tears had softened her large blue-grey +eyes that could look so virginal and cold. + +"I know you will get me off. Don't imagine for a moment I doubt that; it +is a sustaining faith that will carry me through the trial itself. But +it is this terrible ordeal in prison that I dread--and the publicity--my +good name dragged in the dust." + +"You can change that name for mine the day you are acquitted." + +It suddenly occurred to her that this might be a very sensible thing to +do, and simultaneously she appreciated the fact that he possessed what +was called charm and magnetism. Moreover, the complete devotion of even +a passably attractive member of the over-sex in alarming predicaments +was a very precious thing. Possibly for the first time in her life she +experienced a sensation of gratitude, and she smiled at him so radiantly +that he caught his breath. + +"No one but you could have consoled me for the loss of Anna, but you are +not to say one word of that sort to me until I am out of this dreadful +place. I couldn't stand the contrast! Will you promise?" + +"Very well." + +"Now will you really do something for me--get me a sleeping powder from +the druggist? To-morrow I shall be myself again, but I _must_ sleep +to-night." + +"I'll get it." His voice was matter of fact, for love made certain of +his instincts keen if it blunted others. "That is, if you will promise +to go to bed early and see none of these reporters, men or women. They +are camped all over the Courthouse yard." + +She gave an exclamation of disgust. "I'll never see another newspaper +person as long as I live. They are responsible for this, and I hate +them." + +"Good! You shall have the powder in ten minutes. Oh, by the way, will +you give me a written permit to pass the night in your house? I want to +go through your husband's papers and see if I can find any clue to +unknown enemies. He may have received threatening letters. I can obtain +the official permission without any difficulty." + +She wrote the permit unsuspiciously. At nine o'clock that night he let +himself into the Balfame house determined to find the pistol before +morning. He knew the police would get round to the inevitable search +some time on the following day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Alys Crumley entertained four of the newspaper women at a picnic lunch +in her studio. She was grateful for the distraction from her own +thoughts and diverted by their theories. None had seen Mrs. Balfame save +through the medium of the staff artist, and they were inclined to accept +the primâ facie evidence of her guilt. When Alys fetched a photograph +from the house, however, they immediately reversed their opinion, for +the pictured face was that of a lovely cold and well-bred woman without +a trace of hardness or predisposition to crime. They fell in love with +it and vowed to defend her to the best of their ability, Miss Crumley +promising to exert her influence with the accused to obtain an interview +for the new devotees. + +Before wrapping the photograph for its inevitable journey to New York, +Alys gave it a moment of study herself, wondering if she may not have +misinterpreted what she saw that morning. No one had worshipped at that +shrine more devoutly than she, even during these later years of +metropolitan concordance. + +"What is your theory?" asked Miss Austin of _The Evening News_. "They +say that a lot of those men at the Elks know, but never will come +through. Do you think it was any of those girls? It might have been some +woman he knew in New York who followed him here for the first time--who +would not have been recognised if seen, and got away in a waiting +automobile." + +"As likely as not," said Miss Crumley indifferently. "I have heard so +many theories advanced and rejected that I am almost as confused as the +police. Jim Broderick says that the simplest explanation is generally +the correct one, but while he believes Mrs. Balfame to be the natural +solution, I happen to know her better than he does, and a good deal more +of this community. Three or four men and one or two women would be still +simpler explanations. Possibly--" She turned cold and almost lost her +breath, but the impulse to put a maddening possibility into verbal form +was irresistible. "Perhaps some man that is in love with Mrs. Balfame +did it." And then she hated herself, for she felt as if she had thrown +Dwight Rush to the lions. + +"But who? Who?" the girls were demanding, more excited over this +picturesque solution than they had been since "the story broke." Even +Miss Austin, who disdained to write "sob stuff" and was a graduate of +the Columbia School of Journalism, was almost on her feet, while Miss +Lauretta Lea, who wept vicariously for fifty thousand women three times +a week, shrieked without shame. + +"Oh, fine!" "How truly enchanting!" "Dear Miss Crumley--Alys--who, who +is the man?" + +"Oh, as to that, I've not an idea. Mrs. Balfame always has rather +disdained men, and even if she were susceptible is far too +straight-laced to permit any man to pay her compromising attentions, or +to meet him secretly. But of course she is very pretty, still young to +look at, so there is the possibility--" + +"But just run over all the marriageable men in the community--" + +"Oh, he might be married, you know." Alys struggled to keep the alarm +out of her voice. + +"But in that case there would still be the wife to dispose of, and now, +at least, he'd never dare kill her, or even divorce her. No, I don't +hold to that theory. It's more like the reckless act of the unchastened +bachelor still young enough for illusions. You must have a theory, Alys. +Stand and deliver." Miss Austin spoke with quick insistence. She had +detected her hostess' suppressed excitement and was convinced that the +hint had not been thrown out at random. She also had been conscious of +an indefinable change in her old associate, and now she noticed it in +detail. She might be too self-respecting to dip her pen in bathos, but +she was nevertheless young, and her imagination began playing about +possibilities like lightning over a wire fence. + +The heat which confused Alys Crumley's brain was expressed by a dull +glow in her strange olive-colored eyes, but she made a desperate effort +to look impersonal and rather bored. + +"No, I have no theory: certainly it could not be any of the men +hereabouts. Mrs. Balfame has known all of them from infancy up. Perhaps +she met some one in New York; I don't know that she ever went to any of +the tea-tango places--she doesn't dance; but she might have gone with +Mrs. Gifning or Mrs. Frew, and just met some one that fell in love with +her--Oh, you mustn't take a mere idea of mine too seriously." + +"Hm!" said Miss Austin. "It doesn't sound plausible. A man she met now +and then at a tea-room! She's not the sort to drive men to distraction +in the casual meeting--not the type. And I can't see the men that +frequent afternoon tea-rooms working themselves up to the point of +murder. No, if there is a man in the case, he is here; if not in +Elsinore, then in the county; and it is some man who has known her long +enough and seen her often enough to descend from mere admiration for her +rather chilling type of beauty into the most desperate desire for +possession--" + +Alys burst into a ringing peal of laughter. "Really, Sarah, I wonder you +are not already famous as a fiction-story writer. How much longer do you +propose to stick to prosaic journalism?" + +"I've had two stories accepted by leading magazines this month, I'd have +you know; but your memory is short if you think journalism prosaic. It +germinates pretty nearly all the fiction microbes that later ravage the +popular magazines. That was what was the matter with the old +magazines--no modern symptoms, let alone fevers--only antidotes that +somehow didn't work. But if you won't tell, Alys, I'll find out for +myself. If I don't find out, Jim Broderick will, and I'd give my eyes to +get ahead of him. But we've got to catch our train, girls." + +They took the short cut through the hall of the dwelling, and as they +passed the open door of the living-room, Miss Lauretta Lea exclaimed +with pleasure at its conceit of a cool green wood. Alys could do no less +than invite them in. While the three other reporters were walking about +observing the charming room in detail and envying its owner, Miss Sarah +Austin walked directly over to a framed photograph of Dwight Rush that +stood on a side-table. He had given it to Mrs. Crumley; and Alys, who +spared her mother all unnecessary anxiety, had not yet conceived a +logical excuse for its removal. + +"Whom have we here?" demanded the searching young realist. "Don't tell +me, Alys, that here is the secret of your desertion of the New York +press. I'd forgive you, though, for he is precisely the type I most +admire. The modern Samson before Delilah cuts off what little hair his +barber leaves. But the same old Samson looking round for the same old +Delilah--" + +"Really, Sarah, are you insinuating that I am a Delilah? That is too +much!" Alys put her arm round Miss Austin's waist and smiled teasingly. +"No wonder your newspaper stories are so bitingly realistic; the +restraints you force upon your imagination must put it quite out of +commission for the time being. That is Mr. Dwight Rush, quite a well +known lawyer in Brabant already, although he has only been here about +two years." + +"I thought you said all your young men had grown up in the community." + +"I had quite forgotten him." + +"Ha! Is he married?" + +"Oh, no. And he was born and brought up over in Rennselaerville, by the +way, but went West to some college or university and practised out there +for several years." + +"How old is he?" + +"Oh, about thirty-three or thirty-four." + +"Must have been away a good many years. Would return quite fresh--must +have had a lot made over him here--looks clever and built for +success--that concentrated driving type that always gets there--" + +"He goes very little into society and no one possibly could lionise +him." + +"Is he interesting to talk to or just another specialist?" + +"That's about it. But he was more a friend of mother's than mine. That +is her picture." + +"Oh! He likes older women, then? Looks as if he might. Never would take +the trouble, that type, to adapt himself to girls, try to understand +them. Could it be--Alys, you must know if he knows Mrs. Balfame!" + +Alys was cold again but laid violent hands on her nerves. "No better +than he knew any one else, if as well, for Mrs. Balfame never talked to +the younger men. She doesn't attract them, anyhow. Do you realise, dear, +that you are asking if Mr. Rush committed murder?" + +"With that jaw and those nostrils, he could--oh, rather! And it is one +of those cast-iron, passionate faces; when those men do let go--" + +"Oh, really!" Alys dropped her arm, and her subtle face expressed +disdain. "Mr. Rush is quite too steel clad to be carried away even if he +were capable of committing a low and cowardly murder. He happens to be a +gentleman and about as astute and poised as they are made. Do please +send your romantic imagination off on another flight." + +"Not I. I'm going to account for every moment he spent that night." + +"Would you like to see Mr. Rush go to the chair?" asked Miss Crumley +sternly. + +"Oh, good Lord no." Miss Austin turned pale. "I don't believe in capital +punishment, anyhow. No, I'll not tell a thing if I find him out. But +how interesting to know! I'd write a corking story--fiction--about it. +Those deep glimpses into life--into those terrible abysses of the human +heart--no writer can become great without them." + +"Well, don't waste your time trying to find the criminal in this +excellent citizen. You might set some of the newspaper men on his trail +and blacken his name while you discovered nothing. Better get on the +track of the potential woman in New York." + +"Not half so interesting. Just one of those apartment-house +misalliances. No, I'm out for Mr. Rush, and when I have the proof, I'll +extract a confession; but I'll dig a little grave in my brain and bury +his secret--then when it has ripened, exhume and toss it into that +crucible through which facts pass and come out--fiction. Get me, dear?" + +"You talk like a literary ghoul. But I know you don't mean a word of it. +Good-bye, girls. Do drop in whenever you are over on the case." She +kissed them all, and Miss Lauretta Lea exclaimed innocently: + +"You've lost that lovely dusky colour you had awhile ago, dear. You look +more like old ivory than ever--old ivory and olive. I wonder all the +artists don't paint you. I suppose every young man in Elsinore is in +love with you. Marry, my dear, marry. I've been in this game twelve +years. Show me a willing would-be husband and I'd take him so quick he'd +never know what struck him. Give my hopes of being a man in the next +incarnation for ten babies to weep over when they had croup or got lost +in the woods of New York City. Hate sob stuff. Cut it out, kid, before +you begin it." + +She talked all the way to the gate and for several yards down the +avenue, waving a final farewell with a somewhat tragic smile. + +"Why doesn't that girl marry?" she asked as they walked rapidly to the +station. "Still fresh, if she is twenty-six. I'm only thirty-four and I +look like a hag beside her." + +"Maybe she can't get the man she wants," replied the potential novelist, +who was thinking deeply. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Alys borrowed a horse and cart from her cousin Mr. Phipps, Chief of +Police in Elsinore, who kept a livery stable, and took the shortest cut +into the country. She wanted to think out many things and think them out +alone. She drove rapidly until she came within sight and sound of the +sea. Then she let the lines lie loosely on the back of her old friend +Colonel Roosevelt, who had been named in his fiery colt-hood, but in +these days, save under compulsion, was as slow as American law. He +ambled along, and Alys, in the booming stillness and the fresh salt air, +felt the humid waves roll out of her brain. She saw clearly, but she was +aghast and depressed. + +Presented by nature with an odd and arresting exterior, in color and +feature as well as in subtlety of expression, sketched and flattered by +such artists as she met, she had, ever since old enough for +introspection, striven for uncommon personal developments that should +justify her obverse and set her still farther apart from mere woman. If +not born with an intense aversion from the commonplace (and it is safe +to say that no one is), she had conceived it early enough to train a +rarely plastic mind to striking viewpoints, while a natural tact saved +her from isolation. If she had been as original as she thought herself, +she would have antagonised many people. + +Assuredly a certain nobility of nature and a revulsion from all that +was base were innate; although, soon learning of the many pitfalls +yawning for humanity, she had assiduously cultivated these her higher +inclinations, an enterprise measurably assisted by the equable temper, +the feminine charm, the bright intelligence and the quick sympathies +that made her many friends. Moreover, her freedom from the usual +yearnings of her sex in the matter of riches and subservience to the +race, which wreck the lives of so many women, and her love of the arts +and delight in her own little talent, all served to deponderate the +burden of life. + +She had liked many men as friends, and was proud of the fact that only +the more intelligent were attracted to her, but she had arrived at the +age of twenty-six without even imagining herself seriously in love, so +intense was her idealism. This was another of her deliberate +cultivations, for here also was she resolute that as nature had done so +much for her, marking her as a girl apart, so should she insist upon +having an uncommon mate. It was to this end even more than for the +barren satisfaction of pleasing Mother Nature that she had tilled the +garden of her mind with both science and imagination. When she loved, it +should be like a woman, of course; she had no delusions about making +over human nature to suit passing fashions in woman; but while she never +ignored the vital passions that formed the basis of her unique +personality and strong will, she was determined that they should be +quickened only by a man who would make equal demands upon all that was +fine in her character and aspiring in her mind. + +The awful collapse of this cherished structure, her spiritual house, +under her hopeless and violent passion for Dwight Rush had almost +demoralised her. After she had won herself to reason once more, she +still had sat, stunned, among the ruins. It was true that Rush was all +that she had demanded of man and that he emanated a promise of happiness +along strictly modern lines--which was all she asked, being no romantic +fool; but not only had she loved him unasked, sacrificing the first and +perhaps the dearest of her dreams, to be wooed and awakened and +surprised, but, accepting the inevitable (the man being overburdened, +like most busy young Americans, and unselfconscious), she deliberately +had set herself to awaken _him_--and for nought. For worse than nought: +he had instantly taken fright and withdrawn. + +Of the terrific upheaval of that time, like some graveyard of the sea +flung putrid and phosphorescent to the surface by submarine vulcanism, +she had ceased to think as soon as her will was reinstated in command. +Immediately she had striven to rebuild her house lest she be swamped in +mere femaleness, so permanently demoralised that life would be quite +unendurable. She had cultivated the heights too long. She might tumble +off occasionally, but in no other atmosphere could she breathe deeply +and realise herself, find any measure of content. It had occurred to her +that if she had been born in the gutter and grown to adolescence with no +ennobling influence, she would have developed into a notable force for +evil. At all events, she liked to think so; many women of stainless +lives do. + +She guessed this, having a saving sense of humour, but did not expand +upon it, not being inclined to humour at the moment. Accompanying her +resolution to be finer and better than ever, to fortify herself against +life with some degree of satisfaction in herself, was the hope of +complete deliverance from what she called the Dwight Rush Idea. In due +course she had conquered the obsession, for pride and self-disgust +served her like first-aid surgeons on the battlefield; and although she +felt amputated and scarred, she had lost her sense of humiliation. But +her heart still accelerated its beats when she met Rush, and no will is +strong enough to prevent the recurrence of the mental image; only time +can dim it. But it was not until Broderick had left her alone in her +studio with the poisons of fear and jealousy implanted that she had +admitted she still loved him, probably must continue to love him for +years to come. + +In that hour she had hated Mrs. Balfame, although she neither believed +her guilty nor was tempted to the dastardly course of helping to force +the appearance of guilt upon her. And for a time that night she had +hoped she hated Dwight Rush also, so utterly disgusted and indignant was +she that he could prefer a faded woman of forty-odd to a unique and +beautiful girl like herself. + +But once more Miss Crumley's sense of proportion enforced itself, and +she reflected sternly that men had fallen in love with women older than +themselves since the world began, and that some of those +transcendent--and lasting--passions had made history. She was no green +village girl to be astounded at the least common phase of the sexual +adventure. It was then she had given way to tears, for although she +might be intelligent enough to admit this most unpardonable of nature's +informalities, she could regret it with bitterness and despair. + +Later had come her fear for Rush's safety. Not for a moment did she +suspect him of the crime, but if accused of it during the process of +elimination, there was the appalling doubt that he could prove an alibi. +As likely as not he had missed his man in Brooklyn--she knew that he had +expected to dine and spend the evening at the Country Club--or had not +gone there; knowing Balfame's ugly temper when drunk, what more natural +than that he should hide in the grounds to be near at hand in case the +man were disposed to wreak vengeance on his wife for his own +humiliation. It was Alys's theory that the murder was political. + +Until to-day! From the moment that she saw Mrs. Balfame empty and rinse +the vial, she was convinced that Broderick was right in his deductions +and that for some reason the terrible woman had changed her mind and +used the revolver. It was a stupider act than she would have expected of +Mrs. Balfame, for Dave was a man whose sudden death would excite little +suspicion, nor would Mrs. Balfame be the woman to use a common poison. +Her intimacy with Dr. Anna would put her on the track of one of those +organic potions that were too subtle for chemical analysis. She had +heard doctors talk of them herself. + +Then abruptly she recalled the sinister change in Mrs. Balfame's smiling +countenance on that day she sketched her at the Friday Club; her mind +opened and closed on the conviction that in that moment Mrs. Balfame had +conceived the purpose of murder. + +But why the change of method? She dismissed the riddle. It was not for +her to unravel. Nor did she care. The fact was enough. This good friend +of her family was an abominable creature from whom in even mental +contact she shuddered away with a spasm of spiritual nausea. + +But that was not her own problem. No doubt Mrs. Balfame would be +acquitted; Alys hoped so, at all events, for she wanted no such a stain +on Elsinore, where, she thanked God, she lived, although she sought +knowledge and income in the City of New York. For the same reason, she +had no desire that the guilty woman should pay her debt by even a brief +term in Auburn; but all that was beside the point. What Alys felt she +would give her soul to ravish from this thrice accursed woman, so +formidable in her peril, were the services of Dwight Rush. If he were +Mrs. Balfame's chief counsel he would see her constantly, and alone--for +hours on end, perhaps, for he must consult with her, rehearse her, +instruct her, keep up her spirits, console her. This might not be the +whole duty of counsel, but in the circumstances no doubt she had +underestimated, if anything. And even if he believed her guilty, he +might in that intimacy love her the more; not only would he pity her +profoundly and see himself her natural protector, but he would be heart +and soul in the great case, and it would not be long before the case and +the woman were one. + +If, however, Rush could be made to believe now that the woman was a +murderess, would he not decline to take the case? He was hardly the man +to defend man or woman whom from the outset he knew to be guilty, +although when immersed in the case he would keep on, whatever the +revelations. Alys believed that it was possible for her to convince him. +She could inform him of the needle-witted Mr. Broderick's suspicions and +of her own confirmations; and she could tell him of her certain +knowledge that Mrs. Balfame had a revolver; she had seen it eight months +ago, when Balfame brought it home from New York and told his wife to +discharge it in the air if, when alone, she heard a man breaking in. + +It had signified little to her at the moment that Mrs. Balfame had +denied to police and reporters that she possessed a revolver, for it +might by chance be a .41, and it was not to be expected that even an +innocent woman would challenge public doubt and possible arrest. But her +denial and probable concealment of the weapon were significant to Alys +now. She remembered that Dr. Anna had spent the early hours of Sunday +alone with Mrs. Balfame. No doubt the wicked woman had found both relief +and counsel in confessing to a friend like Anna Steuer, a creature so +strong and staunch that the secret would be as safe as in her own guilty +soul. Anna, of course, had taken the pistol and dropped it in the marsh +when she visited Farmer Houston's wife later in the day. If she could +but get Dr. Anna to speak. + +Alys raised her eyes under their bent and frowning brows and looked up +to where the Brabant Hospital stood on rising ground beside the sea. She +gave a gasp as she found herself turning the horse's head in that +direction. What did she intend to do? Denounce Mrs. Balfame to Dwight +Rush? She fancied she heard an inner crash. Could she do this and escape +final demoralisation? Heretofore she had at least committed no act +involving moral degradation; her upheavals had affected herself alone +and were her inviolate secret; but if she made a last desperate throw to +win Dwight Rush by first filling him with loathing of her rival, she +would be committed to a course of conduct from which there would be no +escape for months, perhaps years to come. For if she won him,--toward +which end she must plan with every female art she knew,--she never could +ease her soul with confession. Her only chance of keeping a man like +that, after the first effulgence had merged into the healthy +temperateness of practical married life, was to avoid the major +disillusions. + +And if she by her own deliberate act went to pieces morally, could she +play up? Should she even want to play up? Could one deliberately knock +the foundations from under one's cherished spiritual structure, reared +with infinite pains upon natural inclinations, and continue to be even a +pale reflection of one's higher self? She might, after the first +excitement of striving to achieve her immediate object was over, hate +herself too deeply to love or even to live. + +She drew her brows more closely and expelled her breath through her +teeth. For the moment, at least, she felt all female, ready to defy the +future and her own soul to obtain possession of her mate. That he was +her mate she obstinately believed, temporarily deflected from his +natural progress toward herself by one of those powerful delusions that +afflict every man in the course of his life. And if she did not open his +eyes at once, the temporary deflection would merge into the straight +course toward marriage with a she-demon.... + +She drove into the hospital yard, threw the reins over Colonel +Roosevelt's back and asked for the superintendent, Mrs. Dissosway, who +happened to be her aunt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +An hour later, Alys was driving through Elsinore, her mind a trifle less +personal, as it dwelt upon her brief interview with the superintendent +of the hospital. Mrs. Dissosway, who was devoted to her niece and +believed her to be as exceptional as Miss Crumley in her most aspiring +moments could have wished, had confided that she was sure poor dear Anna +knew something about that awful crime, for in her delirious moments she +kept uttering Enid Balfame's name in very odd tones indeed. She had +assured and reassured the patient that there was no clue to the +murderer; and if she kept on and asked to see Mrs. Balfame,--which, +significantly, she had not done,--they of course would tell her that the +friend who should have hastened to her bedside had suffered a nervous +breakdown or sprained her ankle. It was a blessing that she was in no +condition to testify against her idol, for it would kill her, just as it +might be fatal now if she knew that Enid was in the County Jail. + +After some delicate insistence, Mrs. Dissosway had admitted that Dr. +Anna must convince any one who listened attentively to her mutterings +that her belief in her friend's guilt was positive, whether she had +exact knowledge or not. + +"'Oh, Enid! Oh, _Enid_!' she kept repeating in such a tone of anguish +and reproach, and then muttered: 'Poor child! What a life!' She also +once said something about a pistol in a tone of dismay, but the other +words I couldn't make out. + +"The nurses on her case," Mrs. Dissosway had concluded, "will pay no +attention. They are too accustomed to fever patients to listen to +ravings, and the two she will have are from other parts of the State, +anyhow. They never heard of Mrs. Balfame before. But I have been in and +out all day, and I know she is worrying in her poor hot mind both over +her friend's crime and her danger--" + +"Then you believe Mrs. Balfame did it?" Miss Crumley had interrupted. + +"Yes, I do--now, anyhow; and I never was daffy about her. She barely +remembers I am alive, living out here for the last fifteen years as I +have done, and I am your mother's sister. I don't call her a snob; it's +just that she don't seem to take any interest in people that ain't in +her own set. But the Lord knows I'd never tell on her if I had the proof +in my hand, for I don't want any of our grand old families disgraced, +and she's been good to your mother. No, she can go free, and welcome, +but I wish poor Anna could have been spared the knowledge of her crime, +for it's going to be all the harder to nurse her well, and she has a bad +case. If she has to go, she shall go in peace. I'll see to that. But +when Enid Balfame is out, I'll take good care to let her know that she +has another crime to carry on her conscience--if she's got one." + +Alys had not asked to see the patient, knowing that it would be useless, +but Mrs. Dissosway had walked out to the cart with her, and pointing to +a window on the first floor of the wing devoted to paying patients, +remarked: "That's where she is, poor dear." Alys had wondered if she +should fall low enough before this accursed case were finished to +describe the position of that room to Broderick and insinuate what he +might find there if he chose to hide in the little balcony and enter the +room when the night nurse had gone out for the midnight supper. He was +quite capable of it. + +But not if she could win Rush from the case, nor unless, Mrs. Balfame +discharged, he were arrested and committed for the crime. She wished now +that he had been arrested instead of Mrs. Balfame, for then she could +have saved him from both punishment and the other woman without this +awful sense of sliding slowly down-hill to choke in a poisonous slime. +She might have been obliged to exercise a certain amount of sophistry +even then, but she could have stood it. + +She was driving slowly down Atlantic Avenue when she heard her name +called in accents of mystery and excitement. Her modest rig was passing +the imposing mansion of Elisha Battle, bank president, and like all the +newer homes of Elsinore the grounds were unconfined and the shallow lawn +ended at the pavement. From one of the drawing-room windows Lottie +Gifning slanted, and as she met Miss Crumley's eye, she beckoned +peremptorily. The desire for solitude was still strong upon Alys, but as +she had no excuse to advance, she wound the lines round the whip and +went slowly up the brick walk. + +Mrs. Gifning opened the front door and swept her into the drawing-room, +where six or seven other women with tense excited faces sat on the +expensive furniture. Mrs. Battle, herself upholstered in shining +black-and-white satin, and further clad in invisible armour, occupied a +stately and upright chair. This throne had been made to order; +consequently her small feet in their high-heeled pumps touched the +floor. The large room, upon which much money had been spent, was not +tasteless; it merely had no individuality whatever. Like many another in +Elsinore, it set Miss Crumley's teeth on edge, but compensated her +to-day as ever by inspiring her with a sense of remote superiority. + +"Dear Alys--so glad to see you!" Mrs. Battle did not rise. She was fond +of Alys, but thought her of no consequence whatever. "Lottie saw you and +called you in as you have always been such a friend of poor dear Enid's, +and you know those horrid reporters, and we want to impress upon you the +necessity of putting them off the track. We are talking the whole +dreadful business over and trying to decide what to do." + +"Do?" Alys, more interested, disposed her limber uncorseted young figure +into a low chair and for a moment diverted envious attention from the +momentous subject in hand. "What can we do? Has bail been accepted?" + +"No, nor likely to be. Isn't it too awful?" + +"Yes, it's awful." Alys stared at the floor, but although her words +might have been uttered by any of the ladies present, her tone was +almost conventional. No one noticed this defection, however, and Mrs. +Battle--after Mrs. Gifning had tiptoed to all the doors, opened them +suddenly and closed them again,--proceeded in so low a tone that there +was an immediate hitching of chairs over the Persian rug: + +"What we were debating when you came in, Alys, was whether--oh, it's too +awful!--she did it or not. Did she or didn't she? She has a perfectly +beautiful character--but the provocation! Few women have been tried +more severely. And we all know what human nature is under the influence +of sudden tremendous passion." Mrs. Battle, who never had been ruffled +by any sort of passion, leaned against the high back of her chair, and +elevated her eyebrows and one corner of her mouth. + +"Could such a crime have been unpremeditated?" asked Alys. "You forget +that whoever did it was waiting in the grove for Balfame to come home +from Sam's, and evidently timed to shoot as he reached the gate." + +"Passion, my dear child," said Mrs. Bascom, wife of the Justice for +Brabant, speaking softly and with some diffidence, for she disliked the +word, "can endure for quite a while once the blood is up and pounding in +the head. It would take a good deal to work up dear Enid, but when a +woman like that does rise to the pitch under many and abominable +provocations, well, I guess she could stay at that pitch a good bit +longer than all of us put together. I've thought of nothing else for +three days and nights,--the Judge won't discuss it with me,--and I feel +convinced that she did it." + +"So have and so am I," contributed Mrs. Battle, sepulchrally. + +"I'm afraid she did!" Mrs. Gifning heaved an abysmal sigh. "I suspected +it when I consulted her about her mourning. She was much too cool. A +woman who could think of two kinds of blouses she wanted the very +morning after the tragedy, and he not out of the house, must have been +exercising a suspicious restraint or else have reverted to the +cold-bloodedness with which she planned the deed." + +"Dear Lottie, you are so psychological," murmured Mrs. Frew admiringly; +but Mrs. Battle interrupted sharply: + +"I maintain that she did it in a moment of overwhelming passion. She +would be inexcusable if she had done it in cold blood." + +"Well, of course I didn't mean that!" said Mrs. Gifning with asperity. +"I guess I'm as fond of Enid Balfame as anybody in this room, and I +guess I know what she must have gone through. What I really meant was +that she has more courage than most folks." + +"Oh, that indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Lequer, who was quite happy with her +husband, the fashionable doctor of Brabant. "Matrimony is a terrible +trial at best, and it's a wonder more women don't--well, it's too +horrible to say. But I'm afraid--well, you know." + +There was no dissenting voice. Alys raised her eyes and glanced about +the room. Mrs. Cummack was not present. No doubt she had been carefully +omitted from the conference. So had four members of the inner twelve who +were comparative newcomers in Elsinore. All of these women had known +Enid Balfame from childhood, consistently admired her; when she was in a +position to make her social ambitions felt, had quite naturally fallen +into line. + +"Isn't it rather a hasty conclusion?" Alys asked. "There are a good many +others who might have done it, you know." + +"Everybody suspected has one grand alibi." Mrs. Gifning's sigh was +rather hypocritical this time. "We'd be only too glad to think there was +any one else likely to be arrested. No hope! No hope!" + +"I suppose"--Miss Crumley's tones were tentative, although the +irresistible words almost cost her her breath--"that there was no man in +love with Mrs. Balfame?" + +"Alys Crumley!" All the women had shrieked the name, and Mrs. Battle +swung herself to her pointed toes. "I'm most mad enough to put you right +out. The idea of insinuating--" + +"Dear me, Mrs. Battle, it never occurred to me that it was worse for a +married woman to have a man in love with her than to commit murder. I +did not insinuate or even imagine she cared for any man, or even +encouraged one. But such things have happened." + +"Not to her. And while I could forgive her for shooting a perfectly +loathsome husband under the influence of sudden passion, I'd never +forgive her--Enid Balfame!--if she had stooped to anything so paltry and +common and _sinful_ as philandering; for believe me, a man doesn't +commit murder for a woman's sake unless he is reasonably certain that he +will have his due rewards. That is life. And how _can_ he be certain, if +there has been no philandering. No!" Mrs. Battle was once more +magisterial in her chair, and in command of her best Friday Club +vocabulary. "But there is this much to be said: Enid did not necessarily +shoot to kill,--merely to wound perhaps,--for nothing would have +punished Dave Balfame more than a month or two in bed on gruel and +custard. Or maybe she just didn't know what she was doing--just fired to +relieve her feelings. I am sure it would have relieved mine after that +scene at the Club." + +"Oh--I apologise. Let us assume then that Mrs. Balfame did it. How do +you propose to act in the matter? Of course you will not accuse her, +but shall you cut her?" + +"Neither the one nor the other!" Mrs. Battle brought her plump little +hands down on the arms of the chair with a muffled but emphatic smack. +"Never outside of this room shall we breathe our convictions, or our +certain knowledge that she kept a revolver in her room--may I not speak +for all?" There was a hissing murmur caused by the letter _s_. "And it +will be no negative defence, either. We'll stand by her publicly, visit +her constantly, keep up her spirits, never give her a hint of our +suspicions, and attend the trial in a body. Our attitude cannot fail to +impress the world. We are the representative women of Elsinore; we have +known her all our lives; it is our duty to flaunt our faith in the eyes +of the public. The moral effect will be enormous--also on the jury." + +"It is very splendid of you." Alys sighed. Their motives were mixed, of +course, poor dears; brains were not their strong point, and they were +all feeling young again with their sense of participation in the great +local drama, but there was no questioning their loyalty, even that of +Mrs. Battle, who would inherit the reins of leadership were Mrs. Balfame +forced to retire. Alys wished she could be swept along with them, but +her indorsement of their programme was from the head alone. + +"What do the men think?" she asked. + +"I guess they don't know what to think," said Mrs. Battle complacently. +"They're not as clever as we are, and besides, they never could +understand that type of woman. Whatever they think, though,--that is to +say, if they do suspect her,--they'll never let on. They weren't any too +fond of Dave these last years, and they're no more anxious than we are +to have Elsinore disgraced--especially with all those lots on the edge +of the West End unsold. They're hoping for a boom every minute. The +trial will be bad enough. And those terrible reporters! They've been +here a dozen times." + +"That reminds me," interrupted Alys. "I promised four of the best of the +women reporters I would try to get them an interview with Mrs. Balfame. +Do you think you could manage it? She might not listen to me. +And--and--if she is a murderess, I don't think I can see her just yet." + +"Youth is so hard!" Mrs. Battle sighed. "But I suppose it is as well +that you, an unmarried young woman, and with your way to make, should +keep in the background. But why should she see those women? Answer me +that. It would be more dignified for her to ignore the press hereafter." + +"Perhaps. But they are predisposed in her favour, being women, and would +write her up in such a way as to make friends for her among the public. +It is important, if she is to be tried for her life, that she should not +be thought a monster, that she should make all the friends possible. The +jury might convict her, and it would then be necessary, appeals also +failing, to get up a petition." + +"You always did have brains, Alys!" It was Mrs. Frew who expressed +herself with emphasis. "I'll persuade her myself. Don't you really think +it would be wise, Letitia?" + +"I guess you're both right." Mrs. Battle stood up. "Now let's go out +and have tea. I ordered it for five-thirty. New York's got nothing on +us." + +But Alys, protesting that her mother was old-fashioned and still +prepared supper for half past six, excused herself and left the house. +She found that Colonel Roosevelt had gone home and was not sorry to +cover the half-mile to her own, briskly, on foot. What course she +eventually should take was still unformulated, but she was glad that she +had not parted with any of her deeper knowledge to those kindly women +who, perhaps, would have found it the straw too many. Let Enid Balfame +keep her friends if she could. Let her have the whole State on her side +if she could, so long as she lost Dwight Rush! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +The police, nettled by the sensational coup of the press, made a real +effort to discover the identity of the man or woman who had fired the +second pistol. For a time they devoted their efforts to implicating +Frieda and young Kraus, but the pair emerged triumphantly from a +grilling almost as severe as the third degree; furthermore, there was an +absolute lack of motive. Conrad had never evinced the least interest in +politics; and that Old Dutch should have commissioned the son of whom he +was so proud to commit murder when gun-men could be hired for +twenty-five dollars apiece was unthinkable to any one familiar with the +thoroughly decent home life of the family of Kraus. + +Old Dutch's establishment was more of a beer garden than a common +saloon, and responsible for a very small proportion of the inebriety of +the County Seat. He and his sons drank their beer at the family board, +but nothing whatever behind the bar. As for Conrad, Jr., industrious, +ambitious, persistent, but without a spark of initiative, obstinate and +quick-tempered but amiable and rather dull, his tastes and domestic +ideals as cautious as his expenditures, it was as easy to trump up a +charge of murder against him because he happened to have seen Mrs. +Balfame leave her house by the kitchen door a few moments before he +heard the shot that killed her husband, as it was to fasten the crime +upon the unlovely Frieda because she ran home untimely with a toothache. + +Frieda confessed imperturbably to her attempt to blackmail Mrs. Balfame, +adding (in free translation) that while she had no desire to see her +arrested and punished, she saw no reason why she should not turn the +situation to her own advantage. When Papa Kraus was asked if he had +counselled the girl to demand five hundred dollars as the price of her +silence, he repudiated the charge with indignation, but admitted that he +did remark in the course of conversation that no doubt a woman who had +killed her husband would be pleased to rid herself of a witness on such +easy terms, and that it was Frieda's pious intention--and his own--that +the blood-money should justify itself in the coffers of the German Red +Cross. + +All this was very reprehensible, of course; but an imperfect sense of +the minor social and legal immoralities was no argument that such +blundering tactics were the natural corollary of a specific murder. To +be sure, there were those that asserted with firm lips and pragmatical +eyes that "anybody who will blackmail will do anything," but the police +were accustomed to this line of ratiocination from the layman and knew +better. + +Their efforts in every direction were equally futile. Behind the Balfame +Place was a lane; Elsinore Avenue was practically the eastern boundary +of the town, which had grown to the south and west. There were two or +three lowly dwellers in this lane, and in due course the memory of one +old man was refreshed, and he guessed he remembered hearing somebody +crank up a machine that night, but at what time he couldn't say. It was +after seven-thirty, anyhow, for he turned in about then, and he had +heard the noise just before dropping off. That might have been any time +up to eight or nine, he couldn't say, as he slept with his windows shut +and couldn't hear the town clock. His cottage was directly across from a +point where the second assailant, running out of the grove and grounds, +would have climbed the fence to the lane if he had kept in a reasonably +straight line. But there had been heavy rains between the night of the +shooting and the awakening of the old man's memory, and not a track nor +a footstep was visible. + +The police also searched the Balfame house from top to bottom for the +pistol the prisoner indubitably had carried from the house to the grove; +nor did they neglect the garden, yard and orchard, or any of the old +wells in the neighbourhood. They even dragged a pond. Their zeal was but +a further waste of time. It was then they concluded that Mrs. Balfame +had gone out deliberately to meet a confederate and that he had carried +off both pistols. But who was the confederate and how did he know at +what hour Balfame would reach his front gate? It was as easily +ascertained that Mrs. Balfame had telephoned no message--from her own +house--that night as that she had received one from her husband which +would give her just the opportunity she wanted. But how had she advised +the other guilty one? The poor police felt as if they were lashed to a +hoop driven up and down hill by a mischievous little girl. All the men +who had been at Cummack's when Balfame called up his wife had left the +house before he did, and proved their alibis. Even Cummack, who had +"sweat blood" during the elimination process, had finally discovered +that the janitor of his office-building had seen him go in and come out +on that fatal night. Did Mrs. Balfame go forth some time after Dr. Anna +brought her home from the Country Club, find her partner in crime and +secrete him in the grove? If so, why did she not remain in the grove +with him instead of returning to the house to leave it again by the +devious route that delivered her almost into the arms of young Kraus? +Above all, who was the man? + +It was at this point that the police gave up, although they still +maintained a pretence of activity. Not so the press. Almost daily there +were interviews with public men, authors, dramatists, detectives, +headed: "Did Mrs. Balfame Do It?" "What Did She Do With the Pistol?" +"Was She Perchance Ambidexterous? Could She Have Fired Both Pistols at +Once?" "Will She Be Acquitted?" "Was It a German Plot?" "If Guilty, +Would She Be Wise to Confess And Plead Brain Storm?" The interviews and +symposiums that illuminated the Sunday issues were conducted by men, but +the evening papers had at least one interview or symposium a week on the +subject between a sister reporter and some woman of local or national +fame. Nothing could have been more intellectual than the questions asked +save, possibly, the answers given. + +Upon the subject of the defendant's guilt public opinion fluctuated, and +was not infrequently influenced by news from the seat of war: when it +looked as if the Germans were primed for a smashing victory, the +doubting centred firmly upon the family of Kraus and Miss Frieda Appel; +but when once more convinced that the Germans were fighting the long and +losing game, the hyphenated were banished in favour of that far more +interesting suspect, Mrs. Balfame. Certainly there was nothing more +amusing than trying and condemning a prisoner long before she had time +to reach judge and jury, and tearing her to shreds psychologically. In +Spain the people high and low still have the bull-fight; other countries +have the prize-ring, these being the sole objective outlets in times of +peace for that lust of blood and prey which held the spectators in a +Roman arena spellbound when youths and maidens were flung to the lions. +But in the vast majority of Earth's peoples this ancestral craving is +forced by Civilisation to gratify itself imaginatively, and it is this +cormorant in the human mind that the press feeds conscientiously and +often. + +In Elsinore the subject raged day and night, and the opinion of the man +in the street may be summed up in the words of one of them to Mr. James +Broderick of the _New York News_: + +"Brain storm, nothin'. She ain't that sort. She done it and done it as +deliberately as hell. I ain't sayin' that she didn't have some excuse, +for I despised Dave Balfame, and I guess most of us would let her off if +we served on the jury, if only because we don't want this county +disgraced, especially Elsinore. But that ain't got nothin' to do with +it. And there's an awful lot of men who think more of their consciences +than they do even of Brabant, let alone of Elsinore, where like as not +all of 'em won't have been born--the jurors, I mean. I'm just +wonderin'!" + +Mr. Broderick met Mrs. Phipps one afternoon at Alys Crumley's. She was +not a member of the inner twelve, but a staunch admirer of Mrs. Balfame, +although by no means sure of her innocence. + +"Maybe she did," she admitted, "since you are not interviewing me for +print. But it's yet to be proved, and if she does get off, I don't fancy +she'll lose many of her friends--she wouldn't anyhow, but then if she +went up, they'd have so much further to call! As for wars," she +continued with apparent irrelevance, "there's this much to be said: a +lot of good men may get killed, but when you think of the thousands of +detestable, tyrannical, stingy, boresome husbands--well, it is to be +imagined that a few widows will manage to bear up. If women all over the +world refuse to come forward in one grand concerted peace movement, +perhaps we can guess the reason why." + +None of these seditious arguments reached Mrs. Balfame's ears, but as +her friends' protestations waxed, she inferred that their doubts kept +pace with those of the public. But she was more deeply touched at this +unshaken loyalty than she once would have believed possible. She had +assumed they would drop off, as soon as the novelty of the affair had +worn thin; but not a day passed without a visit from one of them, or +offerings of flowers, fruit, books and bonbons. She knew that whatever +their private beliefs, the best return she could make for their +passionate loyalty was to maintain the calm and lofty attitude of a Mary +Stuart or Marie Antoinette awaiting decapitation. She shed not a tear in +their presence. Nor did she utter a protest. If she looked tired and +worn, what more natural in an active woman suddenly deprived of physical +exercise (save in the jail yard at night), of sunlight, of freedom--to +say nothing of mortification: she, Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore, shut up in +a common jail on the vulgar charge of murder? + +But in spite of the amiable devotion of her friends and their +assurances that no jury alive would convict her, and in spite of her +complete faith in Dwight Rush, the prospect of several months in jail +was almost insupportable to Mrs. Balfame, and haunted by horrid fears. +She made up her mind again and again not to read the newspapers, and she +read them morning and night. She knew what this terrible interest in her +meant. Not a talesman in the length and breadth of Brabant County who +could swear truthfully that he had formed no opinion on the case. Other +murder cases had been tossed aside after a few days' tepid sensation, +unnoticed thereafter save perfunctorily. It was her unhappy fate to +prove an irresistible magnet to that monster the Public and its keeper +the Press. Her hatred of both took form at times in a manner that +surprised herself. She sprang out of bed at night muttering curses and +pulling at her long braids of hair to relieve the congestion in her +brain. She tore up the newspapers and stamped on them. She beat the bars +before her windows and shook them, the while aware that if the doors of +the jail were left open and the guards slept, she would do nothing so +foolish as to attempt an escape. + +Sometimes she wondered, dull with reaction or quick with fear, if she +were losing her reason; or if she was, after all, a mere female whose +starved nerves were springing up in every part of her like poisonous +weeds after a long drought. Well, if that were the case, her admiring +friends should never be the wiser. + +But there were other moods. As time wore on, she grew to be humbly +grateful to these friends, a phenomenon more puzzling than her attacks +of furious rebellion. Even Sam Cummack, possibly the only person who +had sincerely loved the dead man and still stricken and indignant, but +carefully manipulated by his wife, maintained a loud faith in her, and +announced his intention to spend his last penny in bringing the real +culprit to justice. Left to himself, he would in time no doubt have +shared the opinion of the community, but his wife was a member of the +grand army of diplomatists of the home. She was by no means sure of her +sister-in-law's innocence, but she was determined that the family +scandal should go no further than a trial, if Mr. Cummack's considerable +influence on his fellow citizens could prevent it; and long practice +upon the non-complex instrument in Mr. Cummack's head enabled her to +strike whatever notes her will dictated. Mr. Cummack believed; and he +not only convinced many of his wavering friends, but talked "both ways" +to notable politicians in the late Mr. Balfame's party. Most of these +gentlemen were convinced that "Mrs. B. done it," and were inclined to +throw the weight of their influence against her if only to divert +suspicion from themselves, several having experienced acute discomfort; +but they agreed to "fix the jury" if Mr. Cummack and several other +eminent citizens whom they inferred were "with him" would "come through +in good shape." There the matter rested for the present. + +Above all was Mrs. Balfame deeply, almost--but not quite--humbly +grateful to Dwight Rush. Her interviews with him so far had been brief; +later he would have to coach her, but at present his time was taken up +with a thousand other aspects of the case, which promised to be a cause +celèbre. He made love to her no more, but not for an instant did she +doubt his intense personal devotion. He had, after consultation with +two eminent criminal lawyers whom he could trust, decided that she +should deny in toto the Kraus-Appel testimony, and stick to her original +story. After all, it was her word, the word of a lady of established +position in her community and of stainless character, against that of a +surly German servant and her friends, all of them seething with hatred +for those that were openly opposed to the cause of the Fatherland. He +knew that he could make them ridiculous on the witness stand and was +determined to secure a wholly American jury. + +It was some three weeks after Mrs. Balfame's arrest that another blow +fell. Dr. Anna's Cassie suddenly remembered that a fortnight or so +before the murder Mrs. Balfame had called at the cottage one morning and +asked permission to go into the living-room and write a note to the +doctor. A moment or two after she had shut herself in, Cassie had gone +out to the porch with her broom, and as she wore felt slippers and the +front door stood open, she had made no noise. It was quite by accident +that she had glanced through the window, and there she had seen Mrs. +Balfame standing on a chair before a little cupboard in the chimney +placing a bottle carefully between two other bottles. She had fully +intended to tell her mistress of this strange performance, but as the +doctor those days came home for but a few hours' sleep and too tired to +be spoken to, not even taking her meals there, Cassie had postponed her +little sensation and finally forgotten it. + +When she did recall the incident under the pressure of the general +obsession, she told it to a friend, who told it to another, who again +imparted it, so that in due course it reached the ears of the alert Mr. +Broderick. It was then he informed the public of the lost glass of +lemonade and all the incidents pertaining thereto that had come to his +knowledge. Mrs. Balfame's slightly "absurd explanation" was emphasised. + +Once more the police were "on the job." The restored bottle was analysed +and, ominously, found to contain plain water. Every bottle in the house +of Mrs. Balfame was carried to the chemist. Mrs. Balfame laughed grimly +at these sturdy efforts, but she knew that the story diminished her +chance of acquittal. The public now condemned her almost to a man. The +evidence would not be allowed in court,--Rush would see to that,--but +every juror would have read it and formed his own opinion. Somewhat to +her surprise Rush asked her for no explanation of this episode, and she +thought it best not to volunteer one. To her other friends she dismissed +the whole thing casually as a lie, no doubt inspired. + +As the skies grew blacker, however, her courage mounted higher. Knitting +calmed her nerves, and she had many long and lonely hours for +meditation. Her friends kept her supplied with all the new novels, but +her mind was more inclined to the war books, which she read seriously +for the first time. On the whole, however, she preferred to knit for the +wretched victims, and to think. + +No one can suffer such a sudden and extreme change in his daily habits +as a long sojourn in jail on the charge of murder without forming a new +and possibly an astonished acquaintance with his inner self, and without +undergoing what, superficially, appear to be strange changes, but are +merely developments along new-laid tracks in sections of the brain +hitherto regarded as waste lands. + +Mrs. Balfame of Brabant County Jail was surprised to discover that she +looked back upon Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore as a person of small aims, and +rather too smugly bourgeoise. The world of Elsinore! + +And all those artificial interests and occupations! How bored she really +must have been, playing with subjects that either should have interested +her profoundly or not at all. And for what purpose? Merely to keep a +step ahead of other women of greater wealth or possible ambitions. Her +astonishment at not finding herself all-sufficient, as well as her new +sense of gratitude, bred humility which in turn shed a warm rain upon a +frozen and discouraged sense of humour. While giving her friends all +credit for their noble loyalty, she was quite aware that they were +enjoying themselves solemnly and that no small proportion of their +loyalty was inspired by gratitude. She recalled their composite +expression in the hour of her arrest. They had fancied themselves deeply +agitated, but as a matter of fact they were dilated with pride. + +Why had she cared so much to lead these women in all things, to be Mrs. +Balfame of Elsinore? To return to such an existence was unthinkable. + +In spite of the fact that her own tragedy dwarfed somewhat her interest +in the great war, she saw life in something like its true proportions; +she knew that if acquitted she would be capable for the first time of a +broad impersonal outlook and of really developing her intellect. With +more than a remnant of the cold-blooded and inexorable will which had +condemned David Balfame to death by the medium of Dr. Anna's secret +poison, she seriously considered taking advantage of young Rush's +infatuation, changing her notorious name for his and receiving the +protection that her awakened femininity craved. At other times she was +equally convinced that she would marry no man again. She could live in +Europe on her small income, travel, improve her mind. Europe would be +vastly interesting after the war, if one avoided beggars and impromptu +graveyards. + +But although she was deeply interested in herself, and gratified that +she possessed real courage, and that it had come through the fire +tempered and hardened, there were moments, particularly in the night, +and if the profound stillness were rent with the shrieks of drunken +maniacs, when she was terribly frightened; and in spite of the American +tradition which has set at liberty so many guilty women, she would stare +at the awful vision of the electric chair and herself strapped in it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Rush wheeled and looked sharply behind him. For several weeks he had +experienced the recurrent sensation of being followed, but until +to-night he had been too absorbed to give a vague suspicion definite +form. He stood still, and was immediately aware that somebody else had +halted, after withdrawing into the shade of one of the trees that lined +Atlantic Avenue. He approached this figure swiftly, but almost at his +first step it detached itself and strolled forward. Rush saw that it was +a woman, and then recognised Miss Sarah Austin of the _New York Evening +News_. He recalled that she had approached him several times with the +request for an interview with Mrs. Balfame; and that she had taxed his +politeness by trying to draw him into a discussion of the case. + +"Oh, good evening," he said grimly. "I turned back because it occurred +to me that I was being followed." + +"I was following you," Miss Austin retorted coolly. "I saw you turn into +the Avenue two blocks up, and tried to overtake you--I don't like to be +out so late alone, especially in this haunted village. The knowledge +that everybody in it is thinking of that murder nearly all the time has +a curious psychological effect. Won't you walk as far as Alys Crumley's +with me?" + +"Certainly!" Rush, wondering if all women were liars, fell into step. + +"I've been given a roving commission in the Balfame case," continued +Miss Austin in her impersonal businesslike manner, which, combined with +her youth and good looks, had surprised guarded facts from men as wary +as Rush. "Not to hunt for additional evidence, of course, but stuff for +good stories. I've had a number of dandy interviews with prominent +Elsinore women, as you may have seen if you condescend to glance at the +Woman's Page. Isn't it wonderful how they stand by her?" + +"Why not? They believe her to be innocent, as of course she is." + +"How automatically you said that! I wonder if you really believe +it--unless, of course, you know who did do it. But in that case you +would produce the real culprit. What a tangle it is! A lawyer has to +believe in his client's innocence, I suppose, unless he's quite an +uncommon jury actor. I don't know what to believe, myself. But of one +thing I am convinced: Alys Crumley knows something--something positive." + +Rush, who had paid little attention to her chatter, which he rightly +assumed to be a mere verbal process of "leading up," turned to her +sharply. + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"That she knows something. She's over on the _News_ now, understudying +the fashion editor before taking charge, and we lunch together nearly +every day. She's so changed from what she was a year ago, when she was +the life of the crowd--so naïve in her eagerness to become a real +metropolitan, and yet so quick and keen she had us all on our mettle. +Great girl, Alys! At first, when I met her here again, I attributed the +change to the same old reason--a man. I still believe she has had some +heart-racking experience, but there's something else--I didn't notice it +so much that first day--but since--well, she's carrying a mental burden +of some sort. Alys has a damask cheek, as you may have noticed, but +nowadays there's a worm in the bud. And those olive eyes of hers have a +way of leaving you suddenly and travelling a thousand miles with an +expression that isn't just blank. They will look as grimly determined as +if she were about to turn her conscience loose, and in a moment this +will relax into an expression of curious irresolution--for her: Alys +always knows pretty well what she wants. So, as this mystery must be in +her consciousness pretty well all the time, when she is at home, at +least, I feel sure she knows something but is of two minds about telling +it to the police." + +"Have you any object in telling me this? I thought you modern women who +have deserted the mere home for the working world of men prided +yourselves upon a new code of loyalty to one another." + +"That's a nasty one! I'm not disloyal to Alys. Others have noticed that +there's something big and grim on her mind, as well as I. Jim Broderick +is always after her to open up. I have a very distinct reason for +telling you. In fact, I have tried to get a word with you for some +time." + +"Have you been following me? Were--were--you in Brooklyn yesterday?" + +"Yes, to both questions." Her voice shook, but her eyes challenged him +imperiously; they were under the bright lights of Main Street. "I'll +tell you what I believe Alys knows: that you killed David Balfame; and +she can't make up her mind to betray you even to liberate an innocent +woman." + +He was taken unawares, but she could detect no relaxation in his strong +face; on the contrary, it set more grimly. + +"And what are you up to?" he asked. + +"To find the proof for myself, and get ahead of Jim Broderick." + +"I know of no one so convinced of Mrs. Balfame's guilt as Broderick." + +"That's all right, but a man with as keen a scent as that is likely to +find the real trail any minute." + +"And you believe I did it?" + +"I think there are reasons for believing it." + +"I won't ask you for them. It doesn't matter, particularly. What +interests me is to know whether you believe that if I had committed the +crime of murder I would let a woman suffer in my stead." + +Miss Austin cerebrated. + +"No," she admitted unwillingly, "you don't strike one as that sort. But +then you might argue that she is reasonably sure of acquittal and you +would have scant hope of escaping the chair." + +Rush laughed aloud. It was a harsh sound, but there was no nervousness +in it, and he continued to look interrogatively at Miss Austin. He had +barely noticed her before, but he observed that she was a handsome girl +with a clean-cut honest face, a bright detecting eye, and the slim +well-set-up figure of an athletic boy. Her peculiar type of good looks +was displayed to its best advantage by the smartly tailored suit. + +"You hardly look the sort to run a man down," he murmured, and this time +he smiled. + +"One gets mighty keen on the chase in this business." They turned into +the deep shade of Elsinore Avenue, and she stood still and lowered her +voice. "If you would tell me," she said, "I'd swear never to betray +you." + +"Then why ask me to confess?" + +"Oh--it sounds rather banal--but I want to write fiction, big fiction, +and I want to come up against the big tragedies and secrets of the human +soul. If you would tell me the whole story, exactly how you have felt at +every stage and phase before and since, I feel almost sure that I could +write as big a book as Dostoiewsky's "Crime and Punishment"--not half so +long, of course. If we learn from other nations, we can teach them a +thing or two in return. You may ask what you are to expect in return for +a dangerous confidence. I not only never would betray you, but I'd make +it my study to divert suspicion from pointing your way. I could do it, +too. You are safe as far as Alys is concerned. The secret is oppressing +her terribly, and she's driven by the fear that her conscience will +suddenly revolt and force her to speak out--particularly if Mrs. Balfame +broke down in jail, to say nothing of a possible conviction--not that I +believe anything short of conviction would open her lips. You are the +last person on earth she would hand over to the law; it seems odd to me +you can't realise that for yourself." + +"Realise what?" + +"Oh, I've no patience with men! I never did share the platitudinous +belief in propinquity. Why, Alys has turned half the heads in Park Row. +Even the austere city editor is beginning to hover. How any man could +pass a live wire like Alys Crumley by--and distractingly pretty--for a +woman old enough to be her mother!" + +He caught his breath. + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"Mrs. Balfame." + +"And yet you accuse me of letting her lie in prison bearing the burden +of my crime?" + +"As the only way to possess her ultimately." + +"And how many, may I ask, are saying that I am in love with my client?" + +"Not a soul--save, possibly, Alys to herself. She doesn't seem to have +much enthusiasm for the Star of Elsinore. Provincial people are too +funny for words. Maybe we New Yorkers are also provincial in our +tendency to forget there is any other America. I intend to cultivate the +open mind; a writer must, I think. So you see just how in earnest I am. +Don't you believe you could trust me? All the world knows that a +newspaper person is the safest depository on earth for a secret." + +"Oh, I have the most touching confidence in your honour, and the most +profound admiration for your candour, and the deepest sympathy for +ambitions so natural to one afflicted with genius. I am only wondering +whether if I gave you the information you seem to need you would permit +Mrs. Balfame to remain in jail and stand trial for her life." + +"You are not to laugh at me! Yes, I should. Because I know that she has +ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to get off, and that if she were +condemned you would come forward at once and tell the truth." + +"And you really believe I did it?" His hands were in his pockets, and he +was balancing himself on his heels. There was certainly nothing tense +about his tall loose figure, but the light of the street lamp, filtered +through a low branch, threw shadows on his face that made it look pallid +and as darkly hollowed as the face of an elderly actress in a moving +picture. To Miss Sarah Austin he looked like a guilty man engaged in the +honourable art of bluffing, but her mounting irritation precluded pity. + +"Yes, Mr. Rush, I do. It is to my mind the one logical explanation--" + +"You mean the logical fictional--" + +"I'm no writer of detective stories--" + +"Just like a novel then?" + +"Ah! That I admit. The great novel is a logical transcript of life. The +incidents rise out of the characters, react upon them, are as inevitable +as the personal endowments, peculiarities, and contradictions. +Understand your characters, and you can't go wrong." + +"You are the cleverest young woman I ever met. For that reason I feel +convinced you need no such adventitious aid as confession from a +murderer. You will work it out--your premises being dead right--far +better by yourself. It's the contradictions you mentioned I am thinking +of, both in life and character." + +"You are laughing at me. It's no laughing matter!" + +"By God, it isn't. But you couldn't expect me to plump out a confession +like that without taking a night to think it over." + +"If you don't tell me, I warn you I'll find out for myself. And then +I'll give it to my newspaper. To begin with, I'll find out if you really +did see any one in Brooklyn that Saturday night. I'll discover the name +of everybody you know in Brooklyn." + +"That's a large order. I fear the case will be over." + +"I'll set the whole swarm on the case. But if you will tell me the +truth, you will be quite safe." + +"The cause of literature might influence me were it not that I fear to +be thought a coward--by my fair blackmailer." + +"Oh! How dare you? Why, I don't want your secret to use against you. I +thought I explained--how dare you!" + +"I humbly beg pardon. Perhaps as it is such a new and flattering +variety, it deserves a new name. I suppose the legal mind becomes +hopelessly automatic in its deductions--" + +"Oh, good night!" + +They were at the Crumley gate. Rush opened it and passed in behind her. +"I think I too will call on Miss Crumley," he said. "I have been too +busy to call on any one for weeks, but to-night I must take a rest, and +I can imagine no rest so complete as an evening in Miss Crumley's +studio. I see a light in there--let us go round and not disturb Mrs. +Crumley." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Miss Austin remained but a few moments in the studio. She was +embarrassed and angry, and Rush was not the sole object of her wrath: +she anathematised herself not only for permitting her literary +enthusiasm to carry her to the point of attempting coercion and running +the risk of being called bad names by an expert in crime, but for +speaking out impulsively in the first place and throwing her cards on +the table. It had been her intention to cultivate the wretch's +acquaintance and lead him on with excessive subtlety; but he had proved +impervious to her maidenly hints that she would like to know him better; +equally so to her boyish invitation to come over some evening and meet a +number of the newspaper girls who were all fighting for his client. +Fifteen minutes alone with him in the quiet streets of Elsinore at night +was an opportunity that might never come again, and she had surrendered +to impulse. + +She was now more deeply convinced than ever that he had killed David +Balfame, but although she had no intention of denouncing him even if she +found her proofs in the course of persistent sleuthing, she thought it +wise to "keep him guessing," as the uneasiness of mind caused by this +constant pressure from without might eventually drive him to her for +counsel and aid. Like all healthy young American writers of fiction, she +was an incurable optimist, and as yet untempered in the least by the +practical experiences of a New York reporter. + +After a few moments' desultory conversation, she announced that she +"must run," and as Alys opened the door, Miss Austin turned to the +lawyer, who had risen and stood by the stove. + +"Good night, Mr. Rush," she said sweetly. "So glad you are defending +poor Mrs. Balfame, but you know I never did believe she did it, and I +have good reason to hope that we shall all know the truth in about a +fortnight." + +Rush bowed politely, as she did not offer her hand. "You would save me +much trouble and Mrs. Balfame much expense. I wish you all good luck." + +Her brows met and her dark grey eyes turned black, but she swung on her +heel and marched out with her head in the air. Rush remained behind, as +it was evident the two girls wanted a last mysterious word together. + +Alys returned in a few moments, and with a swift step. Her face was +radiant. She too held her head high, but as if she lifted her face to +drink in some magic elixir of the night. This was the first time she had +seen Rush since he had immersed himself in the case, and now he had come +to her unasked, and as naturally as in the old days when weary with work +and the sordid revelations of the courts. Her mercurial spirits, which +had hung low in the scale for weeks, had gone up with a rush that filled +her with a reckless unreasoning happiness. Perhaps intimacy with Mrs. +Balfame had disillusioned him in little ways. Perhaps he had discovered +the truth for himself and despised her for a cold-blooded liar where he +might have forgiven her honest admission of the actual crime. It would +be just like his exaggerated idealism. There never was any love that +could not be killed by transgression of some pet prejudice, some +violation of secret fastidiousness. At all events, he was here and with +every appearance of spending a long evening. What did the rest matter? + +He was still standing as she entered, staring at a water colour of a bit +of the woods west of Elsinore. The trees were stately and old, the +shadows green and shot with the gold of some stray beam of the sun +dancing down through that heavy canopy with Puckish triumph. A rocky +brook crossed the glade, and behind was a subtle suggestion of the +uninterrupted forest, deserted and absolutely still. Rush had recognised +the spot. + +"My village, Rennselaerville, is on the other side," he said, turning a +boyish face to Alys. "I have been fourteen again for a few moments. Last +summer I only got a day off now and again to loaf in those woods. I wish +I had been with you when you painted this." + +She unhooked the picture and handed it to him. "Please let me give it to +you. I'd like so much if you would hang it in one of your rooms,--say +behind your desk,--so that when you are tired or puzzled you can wheel +about and lose yourself for a moment. I am sure it wouldn't be a bad +substitute for the real thing." + +She spoke with a shy eagerness and an entire absence of coquetry. He put +out both hands for the picture. + +"I should think it wouldn't. It is just like you to think of it. Indeed +I will accept it." And he remembered how many cases he had forgotten +under her kindly tact, both in this cool green studio and that other +room of woodland shades in the cottage. He was wondering if he had not +been a conceited ass and misconstrued an increasing warmth of friendship +in this fine impulsive creature, when he remembered Miss Austin's +insinuations and sat down abruptly, recalled to the object of his visit. + +Alys had invited him to smoke but had not produced her box of Russian +cigarettes. Miss Austin, who was determined to keep her nerves in order +and her efficiency at high-water mark, did not smoke, and Rush had his +prejudices. While he puffed away at his cigar and stretched his long +legs out to the fire, she leaned back against a mass of pillows on the +divan and congratulated herself that she had put on a charming +primrose-yellow gown in honour of her Aunt Dissosway and two other +guests entertained by her mother at supper. It was rhythmical in its +harmony with the olives of the room and of her own rare colouring. + +Rush, who had been studying his picture, looked up and smiled at the +other picture on the divan. In the soft lamplight Alys' smooth dark hair +looked as olive as her eyes, and there was a faint stain of pink on the +ivory of her cheeks. Beneath the lace that covered her slender bust was +a delicate note of ribbons and fine lawn, and the little feet in pointed +bronze slippers showed through transparent stockings. More by instinct +than calculated effect Alys on such occasions managed to create an aura +of fastidious and dainty femininity while stopping short of invitation. + +Rush scowled as his mind leaped to the substantial and sensibly clad +feet of his beautiful client, and to a pile of stout unribboned +underwear that had been brought into the jail sitting-room one day when +he awaited her tardy appearance. For the first time he wondered if such +things really counted in human happiness--not so much, perhaps, for the +artistic delight in them that a plain man like himself might be able to +feel as for all that they stood: the elusive but auspicious signal. + +He shook himself angrily and sat up. + +"Your young friend thinks I murdered Balfame," he announced. + +Alys started under this frontal attack, but smiled ironically. "I knew +she had conceived some such nonsensical theory, mainly because she +wanted to have it so. Sarah intends to be a novelist." + +"So she did me the honour to confide. She even promised me all the +immunity that lay within her jurisdiction if I would reward her with a +full confession." + +"Really, she is too absurd. Don't let it worry you. You have nothing to +fear." + +"I'm not so sure." + +Alys sat up as rigidly as if armoured like Mrs. Battle. "What do you +mean?" she breathed. + +"Miss Austin has arrived at the conclusion that I am in love with Mrs. +Balfame. She is an outsider with no data whatever to work on; it is +reasonable to suppose that sooner or later our good fellow citizens will +work round to the same theory." + +"That is just the one theory they never will conceive or accept. They +know better. That sort of thing never was in Mrs. Balfame's line. The +women know that if she doesn't exactly hate men, she has a quiet but +profound contempt for them. I wish you could have seen them--her +particular crowd--at Mrs. Battle's the day of the arrest. Just to draw +them out, I suggested that some man who was in love with her might have +fired the shot. They nearly annihilated me. Mrs. Balfame, guilty of the +crime of murder or not, is fairly screwed on her pedestal so far as the +women are concerned. As for the men, such a theory will never occur to +them for the simple reason that not one has ever been attracted by her; +she's the very last woman they would expect any man to commit murder +for." + +Rush, wondering if these observations were dictated by venom or a mere +regard for facts, shot a veiled glance at the divan; Miss Crumley's soft +carefully de-Americanised voice had not sharpened, but her face was very +mobile for all its reserve. She was looking almost aggressively +impersonal and had sunk back against the high pillows in a limp indolent +line. Facts, of course! + +"It is very like a political campaign," said he. "Nobody is quite sane +in this town just now, and the wildest conclusions are bound to be +jumped at. It is not only embryo novelists that have romantic +imaginations. Just reflect that I am Mrs. Balfame's counsel, that I am +still a young man and unmarried, and that she is a beautiful woman and +looks many years younger than her age. There you are." + +Alys made an abrupt change of position which in one less graceful would +have suggested a wriggle. However, her voice remained impersonal. "But +this community, including her friends, believe that she did it. They +want her to get off, but they have settled the question in their own +minds and are not looking around for any one else." + +"Cummack and several of the other men are, besides Balfame's old +political pals--and his enemies, for that matter. Old Dutch, who is far +shrewder than his son, is by no means certain of Mrs. Balfame's guilt +and has put a detective on the job--against her acquittal, having no +desire to see suspicion pointing at his house again. He is just the old +sentimentalist to settle on me." + +He saw the pink fade out of her cheeks, leaving her face like cold +ivory, but she answered steadily: "You have your alibi. You went to +Brooklyn that evening to keep an appointment." + +"I don't mind telling you that although I went to Brooklyn that night I +did not see the man I was after. I went on the spur of the moment, more +because I wanted to get out of Elsinore than anything else; I didn't +have time to telephone before catching the train, but when I left it in +Brooklyn, I telephoned and found that he had gone to New York. I gave no +name; it was a matter of no importance. Then as there was no one else I +cared to talk to I took the next train back, and as my head ached and I +felt as nervous as a cat--from overwork and other things--tramped for +hours until I met Dr. Anna out by the marsh and she drove me in--" + +"Dr. Anna?" + +"Yes, and I have reason to believe she thinks I shot Balfame, but she +would never denounce any one if she could help it." + +"Oh, you are all wrong. She believes--like everybody else--that Mrs. +Balfame did it. My Aunt Dissosway is superintendent out there and has +been listening to her delirious mutterings; she's never mentioned you. I +drove out there for the second time on Sunday. I haven't told Mother, +as she is one of the few that believe Mrs. Balfame innocent--but when +Dr. Anna is coherent at all, that is the impression my aunt +gets--but--Oh--of course she's only guessing like everybody else. She +couldn't know--she was out at the Houston farm--" + +Rush was sitting up very straight. + +"Has any one been permitted to see her?" + +"Of course not." + +"Not that it would matter. Delirious people all have insane fancies. But +I don't believe she had any such idea before she came down, and besides +it is not true. Mrs. Balfame is innocent." + +"Of course as her lawyer you must persuade yourself that she is." + +"If I had not believed in her, I would not have taken the case, great as +my desire would be to help her. I am no good at pleading against my +convictions; I'd fail with the jury. If I had believed her guilty, I +should have got her the best counsel possible and helped him all I +could." + +Alys had a curious sense of physical paralysis, or of spiritual +dissociation from her body, she made no attempt to decide which; but +that the cause was an intense nervous excitement she was well aware. As +she stared at him with dilated eyes, he was suddenly convinced that Miss +Austin was right in assuming that Alys had some secret and important +knowledge bearing upon the crime. Was her reticence due to the common +Elsinore loyalty? If so, why her reserve with him who would have parted +with his life rather than with any facts that still further would +incriminate Mrs. Balfame. + +Then in a flash he understood, for his keen faculties were on edge, +concentrated to one point, and as sensitive as magnets. He recalled his +high estimate of this girl during the weeks of their intimacy, and the +instinctive doubts that had assailed him in his rooms on the night of +the murder. And as he realised the fierce battle that was raging in that +passionate but disciplined soul, he knew that she loved him, and he +scorned himself for attributing her former tentative advances to +calculation or that compound of nerves and imagination which so many +women call love. She had given him her heart, and it had betrayed her. +But while the knowledge gave him an unexpected thrill, he ruthlessly +determined to try and to test her to the utmost. + +He stood up and walked about the room for a moment, and then halted +directly in front of her. + +"Do you know anything?" he asked abruptly. + +"About what? Do you think I suspect you?" + +"No, I don't. I mean Mrs. Balfame." + +"I told you we all believe she did it. We can't help ourselves." + +"I don't understand the attitude of any of you women who were her +friends, her intimates. You--they, rather--have let her lead this +community for years, believed her to be little short of perfection. And +now with one accord they accept her guilt as a matter of course." + +"I think they came to with a sort of shock and realised they never had +understood her at all. She had them hypnotised. I think she's one of +those Occidentals with terrible latent powers for whom new laws will +have to be made when they awake to consciousness of them and begin to +develop them with the power and skill of the Orientals--" + +"Beg pardon, but let's keep to the present." + +"Well, I mean it rather excites them to be able to believe, not so much +that she did it, as that she was capable of it, that while uniformly +sweet and serene, she had those terrible secreted depths. She reminds +one of Lucrezia Borgia, or Catherine de Medici--" + +"Why poisoners? You don't mean to say they take any stock in that story +of the poisoned lemonade?" + +And before Alys could collect her startled faculties she had stammered: +"Oh, of course, not. They laugh at that. Balfame was shot--what's the +use of--the water in the vial no doubt was put there to rinse it, and +Dr. Anna absently put it back in place. I merely mentioned the names of +the first wicked women that occurred to me. Somehow Mrs. Balfame +suggests that historic tribe to our friends. No doubt this crime in +their midst has irritated what little imagination they have." + +Her chest was rising under quick heartbeats, stirring the soft nest of +ribbon and lawn under the lace of her gown, a part of the picture that +he did not appreciate until later; at the moment he was observing her +dilated eyes, the strained muscles of her nostrils and mouth. He found +himself interested in feminine psychology for the first time in his +life; and as he hated a liar above all transgressors, he wondered why he +inconsistently delighted in not being able to comprehend this complex +little creature, and at the same time hoped, his own breathing almost as +irregular as hers, that she would continue to lie. But he pushed on. He +had a dim sense that far more tremendous issues were at stake than +further proof of his client's guilt, and deep in his soul was an ache to +feel reassured that staggering old ideals might yet be reinforced with +vitality. + +"Have you told Jim Broderick that Dr. Anna accuses Mrs. Balfame?" + +"Of course not. He would be climbing the porch the first dark night." + +"Have you been tempted to tell him?" + +She shrank farther back and looked up at him under lowered lids. +"Tempted? What--why should I? Well, I haven't told him, or any one. That +is all that matters." + +"Exactly. I only meant, of course, that I have a reprehensible masculine +disbelief in the ability of a woman to keep a secret. I might have known +you would be the exception, as you are to so many rules. And I mean +that. But Broderick is an old friend of yours and preternaturally keen +on the case." + +"Oh!" + +"You haven't told me why you in particular believe so firmly in my +client's guilt. You are the last person to be influenced by either the +ravings of a typhoid patient--hallucinations, generally--or any of the +sentimental and romantic theories of these half-baked women that spend +their leisure taking on flesh, playing bridge, and running over to New +York. If you believe Mrs. Balfame is guilty you must have some fairly +good reason--perhaps proof." + +She could not guess that he was trying her; she imagined his insistence +due to apprehension, a desire to know the worst. The hour she had +dreaded and desired had come--and she had almost let its opportunities +escape! These last weeks in New York filled with work and novel +distraction had repoised her, unconsciously. She had begun to doubt, +some time since, if she would be able to violate her old standards when +the test came; but not for a moment had she ceased with all the +concentrated forces of her being to long for his desertion of Mrs. +Balfame. And if she had rejoiced sometimes that she was incapable of a +demoralising act, she had at others been equally disgusted with her +failure in inexorable purpose. She told herself that the big brains were +ruthless, able to hold down and out of sight one side of the character +they governed while giving the hidden forces for evil full play; never +in wantonness, of course, but in sternly calculated necessity. She had a +suspicion that this was just the form of greatness Mrs. Balfame +possessed, and it increased her disesteem of self and inspired her with +a second form of jealousy. + +The bitter tides were welling to the surface once more. She asked +abruptly: "Is Sarah Austin's theory true? Are you in love with Mrs. +Balfame?" + +"What has that to do with it?" + +"It has its bearings." + +"I don't think I should be expected to answer that question. I can say +this, however: that as long as she is my client and in jail, I shall +have no time to think of personal matters--of love, above all. My job is +to get her off, and it occupies about sixteen hours out of the +twenty-four. I oughtn't to be here, but relief--distraction--is +imperative, now and again--" + +"It would be too delightful if you would come here when you wanted +both." Her tones were polite without being eager, but she found it +impossible to smile. + +"Yes, I will; but I shall ignore the subject we are discussing--rest +doesn't lie precisely that way! For that reason we'll finish up now. Why +do you believe Mrs. Balfame guilty?" + +"If I could prove to you that she was, would you throw over the case?" + +He hesitated and regarded her fixedly for a moment through narrowed +lids. "Yes," he said finally. "I would get one of the men whose firm I +expect to join the first of the year to take the case." + +She sat erect once more and twisted her hands together, but tried to +smile impersonally as she returned his gaze. "Would you then have time +to love her?" + +Again he hesitated, although he was beginning to hate himself; he felt +as if he had some beautiful wild thing of his woods in a trap, but an +imperious inner necessity urged him on. "Probably not. Now will you tell +me?" + +"Now?" + +She slipped to the floor and confronted him, holding her small head very +high. No doubt the upward movement was unconscious in its expression, +but he thought her very lovely and proud as she stood there, and for the +first time he took note of the subtlety in that delicate mobile face. + +"I really know nothing," she said lightly. "It is just this: if you or +any other innocent person were in danger, I should feel called upon to +unravel certain clues. Naturally I should make no move otherwise. Mrs. +Balfame is an old friend of ours--and then--well, our local pride may be +absurd, but there it is. We must watch Jim Broderick. He has discovered +the intimacy between Dr. Anna and Mrs. Balfame, and also--what all know +here--that they were alone together during those last morning hours +following the murder. I'll warn my aunt. He really couldn't get at +her--not now, at all events; what he is after, of course, is not so much +corroboration, but a new and sensational story to keep the case going. +And, of course, as it was the press that ran Mrs. Balfame to earth, a +statement from a woman of Dr. Anna's standing justifying it would be an +immense triumph." + +She had moved over to a table against the farther wall, and she struck a +match and applied it to the wick of an alcohol lamp. "I am going to make +you a cup of tea. It will rest without overstimulating you, and you must +go right from here to bed. I'm sorry Mother doesn't keep whisky in the +house--" + +"I don't drink when I'm on a case. That's one advantage I generally have +over the other side. It will be delightful to drink tea with you once +more, although I'm free to say that outside of this house I never drank +a cup of tea in my life." + +The atmosphere was as agreeably light as if ponderable clouds had +suddenly rolled out of the room. Two young people drew up to a smaller +table and drank several cups of tea that had stood three minutes, +nibbled excellent biscuit, and talked about the War. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Three days before the date set for the opening of the trial, Mrs. +Balfame deferred to the advice of her counsel and friends and received +the women reporters--not only the four depending upon Miss Crumley, but +a representative of every Woman's Page in New York and Brooklyn. + +They presented themselves in a body at three o'clock in the afternoon +and were conducted upstairs by the fluttered Mrs. Larks, who had +anticipated them with all the chairs in the jail. They crowded into the +little sitting-room, and were given time to dispose themselves before +the door leading into the bedroom opened and Mrs. Balfame entered. + +She bowed composedly and, with a slight diffident smile, walked to the +chair reserved for her. Her weeds were relieved by white crêpe at the +neck and wrists, but to two of the newspaper women who had interviewed +her a year since as the founder of the Friday and the Country clubs, she +had lost her haunting air of girlhood; there was not a line in her +beautiful skin nor a gleam of silver in her abundant brown hair, but she +had suddenly entered upon the full maturity of her years, and what she +may have lost in charm they decided she had gained in subtle force. The +other women agreed that she looked as cold and chaste as Diana, quite +incapable of any of those mortal passions that drive fallible Earthians +into crime. + +It was an ordeal, and she drew a long breath. + +"You--you wish to interview me?" + +Miss Sarah Austin, whose brilliant parts were generally recognised and +whose creative fervour was suspected by few, had been elected to the +office of spokeswoman and replied promptly: + +"Indeed we do, Mrs. Balfame, and before asking you any of the tiresome +questions without which there could be no interview, we should be glad +to know if you read the woman's pages in our newspapers and realise that +we are all friends and shout our belief in your innocence from the +housetops?" + +"Yes, oh yes," murmured Mrs. Balfame stiffly, but with a more +spontaneous smile. "That is the reason I finally consented to see you. I +do not like being interviewed. But you have been very kind, and I am +grateful." + +There was a deep murmur, and after Miss Austin had thanked her prettily +for her appreciation of their modest efforts, she continued in a brisk +and businesslike manner: "Now, Mrs. Balfame, what we should like is your +story. We have been warned by Mr. Rush that we cannot ask you whom you +suspect, much less the reasons upon which you found your +suspicions--ah!" + +Her final vocative was expressed in an angry gurgle. Rush had entered. +He was so close to panic at the prospect of facing a roomful of women +unsupported by a single male that his face was almost terrifying in its +strength, but it had suddenly occurred to him that although these girls +had agreed to write their interviews at the Dobton Inn and submit them +to his censorship, it was possible one or more would slip over to New +York, bent upon sheer sensationalism. + +"You must excuse me," he said with a valiant assault upon the lighter +mood, "but my client is in the witness box, you see, and must be +protected by counsel." + +Miss Austin swung about and faced him with a faint satiric smile. "Oh, +very well," she said. "You may stay; but I for one shall not adjust my +hat." + +It is a curious fact that newspaper women are seldom, if ever, of the +masculine type; their sheer femininity, indeed, is almost as invariable +as their air of physical weariness. Not one of the little company +laughed with a more than perfunctory appreciation of their captain's +wit, and several stared at Rush, fascinated by his harsh masculinity, +the peculiar atmosphere of tense-alertness in which he seemed to have +his being, the magnetism which was more an emanation from an almost +perpetual concentration of his mental forces than from any of the +lighter physical attributes. He folded his arms and leaned against the +door, and it is only fair to the cause of woman to state that hardly one +of these, whose ages ranged from twenty to thirty-six, was unwomanly +enough, despite the fact that she earned her bread in daily competition +with man, to give Mrs. Balfame her whole attention thereafter. While +keeping their business heads, they uncovered a corner of their hearts to +the sun, and quickened, however faintly, in its glow. + +"Now," Miss Austin resumed, "we will, counsel permitting, ask you to +give us your story of that night. As you have been misquoted and there +has been so much speculative stuff published about you, there surely can +be no objection to that." And she squared her shoulders upon Mr. Rush. + +Mrs. Balfame looked at her counsel with a gracious deference, and he +nodded. + +"No harm in that," he said curtly. "Tell them practically the story you +would tell if you took the stand. There's only one story to tell, and it +is as well the public should bear it in mind while reading the reports +of the witnesses for the prosecution." + +"That means he's rehearsed her," whispered Miss Lauretta Lea, who had +reported many trials, to Miss Tracy, who was a novice. "But that's all +right." + +"Well, I suppose I should begin with the scene at the Club--that is to +say, I do not care to speak of it in detail,--quite aside from a natural +regard for good taste,--but it seems to have been given a unique +importance." + +"Just so," said Miss Austin encouragingly. "Do let us have your version. +The public simply longs for it." + +"Well--I should tell you first that, although my husband was sometimes +irritable, he really was a good husband and we never had any vulgar +quarrels. It was only when he was not quite himself that he sometimes +said more than he meant, and he never quite forgot himself as he did +that day out at the Country Club. + +"I was playing bridge in one of the smaller rooms when I heard his voice +pitched in a very excited key. I knew that something unusual had +occurred, and went out into the large central room at once. There I saw +him at the upper end of the room surrounded by several of the men, who +were apparently trying to induce him to leave. He was shouting and +saying such extraordinary things that my first impression was that he +was ill or had lost his mind. + +"I reasoned with him, and as it did no good and as I was deeply hurt +and mortified, I left him to the men and returned to the bridge-room. +There, in spite of the kindness of my friends, I found I was too +overcome to play, and Dr. Anna Steuer offered to drive me home. That is +all, as far as the scene at the clubhouse is concerned, except that I +cannot sufficiently emphasise that he never had acted in a similar +manner before. If he had, I should not have continued to live with +him--not that I should have obtained a divorce, for I do not approve of +the institution; but I should have moved out. I have a little money of +my own, left me by my father." + +"Ah--yes. Thanks. And after you were in your own house? Do you mind? Of +course, we have read the story you told the men, but we should like our +own story. Perhaps you may have thought of some other points since." + +"Yes, there are one or two. I had entirely forgotten in the agitation of +that time that I went below, after packing my husband's suitcase, to get +a drink of filtered water and thought I heard some one try the kitchen +door. I also thought I heard some one upstairs, and called the name of +my maid. Of course, a good deal will be made of this omission, but +considering the terrible circumstances and the fact that I never had +been interviewed before, I do not find it in the least remarkable. + +"But, of course, you want me to begin at the beginning." And in her +pleasant shallow voice, she told the story she had immediately concocted +for her friends. + +As Miss Austin asked a few questions in the endeavour to inject some +essence of personality into the bald story, Rush permitted the +sensation of dismay with which he had listened to take implacable form. +He never had heard a less convincing story on the witness stand. Mrs. +Balfame had talked glibly, far too glibly. It was evident to the least +initiated that she had been rehearsed. Was her mind really as colourless +as her voice? Had she no sense of drama? He had hoped that the +excitement of this interview, coming after weeks of supreme monotony, +would kindle her to animation and a natural enrichment of vocabulary; +and, witnessing its effect upon these friendly women, she would be +encouraged to simulate both on the witness-stand. It was a pity, he +reflected bitterly, that a woman who could lie to her counsel with such +a fine front of innocence could not "put over" the large dramatic lie +that would help him so materially in his difficult task. + +Miss Austin, despairing of colour, made a shift with psychology. "Would +you mind telling us, Mrs. Balfame, if you feel a very great dread of the +trial? We realise that it must loom a terrible ordeal." + +"Oh, of course, the mere thought of all that publicity horrifies me +whenever I permit myself to think of it, but it has to be, and that is +the end of it, since the real culprit will not come forward. But I feel +confident I shall not break down under the strain. I might have done so +if the trial had followed immediately upon my arrest, but all these +weeks in jail have prepared me for anything." + +"But you are not terrified--of--of the outcome? We know and rejoice that +the chances are all in your favour, but men are so queer." + +"I am not in the least terrified. It is impossible to convict an +innocent woman in this country; and then"--inclining her head graciously +to the watchful Rush,--"I have the first criminal lawyer in Brabant +County to defend me. It is a detestable thought,--to be stared at in the +courtroom as if I were an object in a museum,--but I shall keep thinking +that in a few days at most it will be over and that I shall then return +to the private life I love." + +"Yes. And would you mind telling us something of your plans? Shall you +continue to live in Elsinore?" + +"I shall go far away, to Europe, if possible. I suppose I shall return +in time. Of course" (in hasty afterthought) "I should not be contented +for very long without my friends; they have grown to be doubly +valuable--and valued--during this long term of incarceration. But I must +travel for a while." + +"That is quite natural. How normal you are, dear Mrs. Balfame!" It was +Miss Lauretta Lea who spoke up with enthusiasm. "You are just a sweet, +serene, normal woman who couldn't commit a violent act if you tried. Be +sure the public shall see you as you are. I don't wonder your friends +adore you. Don't mind being stared at. The more people that see you, the +more friends you will have." + +Her eyes moved to Rush, and she was rewarded by a smile that expressed +relief. She was a very experienced reporter and knew exactly how he +felt. + +"And believe me," she said as they trooped down the stairs, having +passed before the Balfame throne and received a limp handshake of +dismissal, "that poor man's worried half to death. He'll get about as +much help from her on the stand as he would from a tired codfish. But +she really is a divinely sweet woman and lovely to look at, and so I'll +sob over her for all I'm worth and seclude from the cynical and the +sentimental that she has distilled crystal in her veins." + +"Did you ever know such a perfectly rotten interview!" Miss Austin was +scowling fiercely. "The men did a thousand times better because they +took her by surprise, but even they cursed her. I figure out she has +made up her Friday Club mind to look the marble goddess minus every +female instinct, including a natural desire to shoot a brute of a +husband. But I wish she had brain enough to put it over with some pep. +She was afraid to be dramatic,--or couldn't be,--and so she was trying +to be literary--" + +"I don't agree with you!" And arguing and scolding, they wended their +disapproving way over to the Dobton Inn and sat them down at tables to +make the most of their bare material. + +"No censorship needed here," growled Miss Austin. "She froze my very +imagination." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Rush walked up and down the room for a few moments in silence. Mrs. +Balfame sat back and folded her hands. She was haunted by a vague sense +of inefficiency, of having not quite risen to the occasion, but she felt +there could be no doubt that she not only had impressed the reporters as +an innocent woman but as a perfect lady. The rest didn't matter. + +"Are you really not a bit nervous?" demanded Rush, swinging on his heel +and confronting her. + +"I will not permit myself to be. And except that I hate publicity, I +really do not dread the trial. It means the beginning of the end of this +detestable prison life. I want to be out and free. A week in a courtroom +is not too heavy a price to pay." + +"Have you ever been to a murder trial?" + +"Of course not. Such a thing would never have occurred to me." + +Rush sighed. She had no imagination. But as her counsel he reminded +himself that he should be grateful for the lack; he wanted no scenes, +either in the courtroom or here in the imminent hours. But he would have +welcomed a little more feminine shrinking, appeal to his superior +strength. Even when he had worshipped her from afar, she had never moved +him so powerfully as on the day of her arrest when she had flung herself +over the table in an abandonment to despair as complete as the most +exacting male could wish. That incident had long since taken on the +shifting outlines of a dream. If she had felt any tremors since then +she had concealed them from him. + +"Tell me," he asked almost wistfully, "are you not terribly frightened +at times? You are alone here so much. And it has been an experience to +try even a strong man's nerves." + +"Women nowadays really have better nerves than men. We not only lead a +far fuller and more varied life than our predecessors, but you men work +at such a terrific strain that it is a wonder you retain any control of +your nerves at all. I will admit that I did have attacks of fear at +first. It was all so strange and odd. But I got over them. You can get +used to anything, I guess. And I have a strong will. I just made myself +think about something else. This war has been a godsend. Have you +noticed my new maps? I've really read about twenty war books, besides +all the editorials, and they have given me a distaste for lighter +reading, and really developed my--my--intellect. That seems such a big +word. And then I've knitted dozens of things for the children and +soldiers, and felt as if I were of some use for the first time in my +life." + +She glanced at him shyly, as he stared through the bars of one of the +windows. The suppressions of a lifetime made it impossible to betray any +depth of feeling save under terrible stress. She was ashamed of her +breakdown before him on the day of her arrest, but she was conscious of +the wish that she were able to infuse her cool even tones with warmth, +to make them tremulous at the right moment; but if she attempted to +betray something of her newer self even in her eyes, self-consciousness +overcame her and she dropped the lids almost in a panic. + +She wondered if love broke down those cliffs of ice that seemed to +encompass a new-born soul. Or was it merely that the other members of +her personal company, mature, jealous, self-sufficient, resented the +intrusion of this shrinking alien? They had got on quite well without +it; they felt no yearning for possible complications, readjustments. +With all their quiet force they discouraged the stranger. Before any of +the supreme experiences, including love, they might be routed, the new +force might spring up in an instant like a flower from the magic soils +of India--but not while the conventions bulwarked them. Their sum was +Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore, and not for a moment did they permit +themselves to forget it. + +Moreover, it was quite true that she had conquered her first +apprehensions and welcomed the trial as the initial step toward freedom. +Her poise had always been remarkable, the result in part of a +self-centred life and a will driven relentlessly in a narrow groove. +More than ever was she determined to sit through those long days in the +courtroom with the cold aloofness of the unfortunate women of history. +The very ascents she had made of secret and solitary heights alone would +have restored her poise, for she felt on far more friendly terms with +herself than when living with a wretch she loathed, and dreaming of no +higher altitudes then complete success in Elsinore. But she wished for +the first time that she were a younger woman, or had made those ascents +many years ago; she would have liked to reveal herself spontaneously to +this interesting young man who was so deeply in love with her. + +Suddenly she wondered if he were as ardently in love with her as in +that brief period when they had talked of themselves. Not loving him in +return, she had been content with lip-service, the sure knowledge that +all his fine abilities were at work upon the obstacles to her freedom; +and she would have been deeply annoyed if he had broken the pact made on +the day of her arrest and reiterated his devotion and his hopes. + +But significant happenings--omissions--a certain flatness.... She turned +her head sharply and looked at him. He was still staring moodily through +the bars. + +If far too diffident to show the best that was in her, she found it +comparatively simple to practice the feminine art of angling, albeit +with a somewhat heavy hand. + +She asked softly: "Don't you think I did the wise thing to tell them I +intended to travel as soon as I was acquitted? It surely would be in +better taste than to settle down here--in that house!" + +"Did you mean it? The intention would make a good impression on the +public, certainly." + +"Why, of course I meant it. I am not a good hand at saying things merely +for effect." + +"Where shall you go? Europe is rather impossible." + +"Oh, not altogether. There is always Italy. And there is no danger from +Zeppelins in the interior of Great Britain. And there is Spain--" + +"I think Europe a very good place for women to keep away from until the +war is over. Any of the nations may become involved at any +minute--ourselves, for that matter. Better follow the advice of +advertisers and see America first." + +"Yes, I could visit the Expositions in California, and camp for a while +in Glacier Park, and there are the Yellowstone and Grand Cañon--but all +that would only consume a few months--and then there is this winter to +think of. What I feel I should do is to stay away for a year, at +least--" + +"You could live very pleasantly in Southern California." + +"I should be very conspicuous in those small fashionable settlements. +The case has been telegraphed all over the country, and I have seen +dreadful pictures of myself in several Western papers." + +"Well, you might live quietly in New York until the war is over. There +is no better place to hide--if you avoid the restaurants and theatres. +And after all, even a _cause célèbre_ is quickly forgotten if there is +no aftermath. But I certainly advise against even sailing for Europe +until peace is declared. There is always the danger of mines and too +enthusiastic submarines." + +She turned quite cold and stared at her hands. They were well-shaped but +large, and they looked like blocks of white marble on her black gown. He +was still at the window, and his tone was listless. She had a curious +sense of panic in the region of her heart. But instantly she curled her +lip with defiant scorn. Was she the woman to fancy herself in love with +a man the moment she seemed to be in danger of losing him? Besides, no +doubt, the poor man was tired, and too absorbed in the case to have any +room in him for the moods of the lover. Only a foolish impulsive woman +would in conditions like the present try to rouse a dormant passion. +When she was free, and he as well, his heart would automatically take +precedence once more and he would plead ardently for the privilege of +marrying her. That was quite in order. + +She rose briskly. "Let me show you this map," she said. "It is the very +latest--Letitia Battle brought it to me two days ago. And do smoke." + +"Thanks, but I must go over and watch those girls. Yes, it is a fine +map. This war certainly is a godsend! Good luck. Keep up those splendid +spirits. You're all right." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +"Oyez, oyez, oyez! The Supreme Court of the State of New York County of +Brabant trial term is now in session all people having business with +this court may draw near and give their attention _and they shall be +heard_." + +The court crier delivered his morning oration in one breathless +sentence, the last five words of which only have ever been captured by +mortal ears. The roll of the jury was called. The first witness stood on +the step of the witness-stand and swore by the everlasting God that the +testimony he would give in the trial of the People of the State of New +York against the defendant would be the truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth, and then he seated himself in the chair. The +trial of Mrs. Balfame began. + +It had taken three days to select a jury. If Rush was determined to keep +out Germans, Mr. Gore, the district attorney, was equally reluctant to +admit to the box any man whom he suspected of being under commands from +his wife to get on that jury and acquit Mrs. Balfame, if he had to +imperil his immortal soul. He also harboured suspicions of felonious +activities on the part of Mr. Sam Cummack and certain other patriotic +citizens less devoted to the cause of justice than to Elsinore. In +consequence the questions were not only uncommonly searching, but both +the district attorney and the defendant's counsel exhausted their +peremptory challenges. + +The talesmen that had crowded the courtroom beyond the railing were for +the most part farmers and tradesmen, but there were not a few "prominent +residents," including rooted Brabantites and busy commuters. The last +answered without hesitation that they had followed the case closely from +the first and formed an unalterable opinion; then, dismissed, rushed off +and caught a late train for New York. Those of Mrs. Balfame's own class +would have been passed cheerfully by Mr. Rush, but in spite of their +careless avowals that they had been too busy to follow the case, or had +found it impossible to reach any conclusion, they were peremptorily +challenged by the district attorney. They, too, went to New York, not on +business, and returned to their hearthstones as late as possible. + +Finally a jury of almost excessively "plain men" were chosen after long +and weary hours of wrangling. They were all married; their ages ranged +from forty-five to fifty; not one looked as if he had an illusion left +in regard to the sex that had shared his burdens for a quarter of a +century, or, German or no German, he had any leniency in him for a woman +who had presumed to abbreviate the career of a man. But at least they +were real Americans, with reputations for straight dealing, and good +old-fashioned ideals of justice, irrespective of sex. Rush doubted if +any of them could be "fixed" by Mr. Cummack or the able politicians +whose services he had bespoken, although the sternest visages often hid +unsuspected weak spots; but after all his best chance was with honest +men whose soft spots were of another sort. + +So naïve had been the eagerness of the German-American talesmen to get +on the jury that Rush had had little difficulty in demonstrating their +unfitness for duty. These were too thrifty to go to New York and stood +in no fear of their wives, but they avoided the _gemütlich_ resort of +Old Dutch until the trial was over. + +Throughout this ordeal Mrs. Balfame sat immovable, impassive, her face a +white bas-relief against the heavy black crêpe of her veil, which hung +like a black panel between her profile and the western light. Her chair +was at the foot of the long table which stood beneath the two tiers of +the jury-box and was reserved for counsel, the district attorney, the +assistants and clerks. Her calm grey eyes looked straight ahead, +interested apparently in nothing but the empty witness-stand, on the +right of the jury and the left of the judge. She knew that the +reporters, and the few outsiders that had managed to crowd in with the +talesmen, scarcely took their eyes from her face, and that the staff +artists were sketching her. All her complacency had fled before certain +phases of this preliminary ordeal for which no one had thought to +prepare her. The constant reiteration of that question of horrid +significance: "Have you any objection to capital punishment as practised +in this State?" struck at the roots of her courage, enhanced her prison +pallor; and that immovable battery of eyes, hostile, or coldly +observant, critical, appraising, made her long to grind her teeth, to +rise in her chair and tell those men and women, insolent in their +freedom, what she thought of their vulgar insensibility. But not for +nothing had she schooled herself, and not for a moment did her nerves +really threaten revolt. She had taken her second sleeping powder on the +night preceding the opening of the trial, but on the third morning she +awakened with the momentary wish that she had preserved Dr. Anna's +poison, or could summon death in any form rather than go over to that +courthouse and be tried for her life. For the first time she understood +the full significance of her condition. + +But Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Cummack and Mrs. Gifning, when they bustled in to +"buck her up," congratulated her upon "not having a nerve in her body"; +and although she had felt she must surely faint at the end of the +underground tunnel between the jail and the rear of the courthouse, she +had walked into that room of dread import upstairs with her head erect, +her eyes level, and her hands steady. She may have built a fool's +paradise for herself, assisted by her well-meaning friends, during the +past ten weeks, and dwelt in it smugly; but as it fell about her ears +she stood erect with a real courage that strengthened her soul for any +further shocks and surprises this terrible immediate future of hers +might hold. + +On the first day, although she never glanced at a talesman, she had +listened eagerly to every question, every answer, every challenge. As +the third day wore on, she felt only weariness of mind, and gratitude +that she had a strong back. She was determined to sit erect and immobile +if the trial lasted a month. And not only was her personal pride +involved. Circumstances had delivered her to the public eye, therefore +should it receive an indelible impression of a worthy representative of +the middle-class American of the smaller town, so little unlike the +women of the wealthier class, and capable of gracing any position to +which fate might call her--a type the United States of America alone has +bred; also of a woman whose courage and dignity had never been surpassed +by any man brought to the bar of justice on the awful charge of murder. + +She knew that this attitude, as well as her statuesque appearance, would +antagonise the men reporters but enchant her loyal friends, the women. +Her estimate was very shrewd. The poor sob sisters, squeezed in wherever +they could find a vacant chair, or even a half of one (all the tables +being reserved for the men), surrendered in a body to her cold beauty, +her superb indifference, soul and pen. A unanimous verdict of guilty +brought in by that gum-chewing small-headed jury merely would petrify +these women's belief in her innocence. She was vicarious romance; for +women that write too much have little time to live and no impulse to +murder any one in the world but the city editor. + +On the morning of the fourth day, the space between the enclosure and +the walls of the courtroom was filled with spectators from all over the +county, many of them personal friends of Mrs. Balfame; but New York City +would not become vitally interested until the business of examining the +minor witnesses was concluded. Behind and at the left of Mrs. Balfame +were the members of her intimate circle. Occasionally they whispered to +her, and she smiled so sweetly and with such serene composure that even +the men reporters admitted she looked younger and more feminine--and +more handsome--than on that day of the interview which had proved her +undoing. + +"But she did it all right," they assured one another. They must believe +in her guilt or suffer twinges in that highly civilised and possibly +artificial section of the brain tabulated as conscience. Their fixed +theory was that she had mixed the poison for Balfame and then, being in +a highly nervous state, and apprehensive that he would capriciously +refuse to drink it, had snatched her pistol as she heard his voice in +the distance, dashed downstairs and out into the grove, and fired with +her established accuracy. + +She had had plenty of time between the crime and her arrest to pass the +pistol to one of her friends, or even to slip out at night and drop it +in the marsh. + +As to the shot that had missed Balfame and entered the tree: it was +either by one of those coincidences more frequent in fact than in +fiction that another enemy of Balfame's had been lurking in the grove, +intent upon murder; or the bullet hole was older than they had inferred. +The idea of a lover they scoffed at openly. And it was one of the +established facts, as they reminded their sisters of the press, that the +worst women in history had looked like angels, statues or babies; they +had also possessed powerful sex magnetism, and this the handsome +defendant wholly lacked. + +The theory of the women reporters was far simpler. She hadn't done it +and that was the end of it. + +The judge, a tall imposing man with inherited features and accumulated +flesh, very stately and remote in his flowing silk gown, looked +unspeakably bored for three days, but was visibly hopeful as he swept up +to his seat on the rostrum on Thursday morning. As the justice for +Brabant, Mr. Bascom, had not been on speaking terms with the deceased, +and as his wife was one of the defendant's closest friends, an eminent +Supreme Court justice from one of the large neighbouring cities had been +assigned to the case. + +The reporters of the evening newspapers, were packed closely about a +long table parallel with the one just below the jury-box, and behind +were four or five smaller tables dedicated to the morning stars. A large +number of favoured spectators had found seats within the railings, but a +passage was kept open for the boys who came up at regular intervals to +get copy from the "evening table" for the telegraph operator below +stairs. + +Broderick's seat beneath the rostrum commanded both the witness-box and +Mrs. Balfame. He had used his influence to have Alys Crumley assigned to +the position of artist for the Woman's Page of the _News_, and she and +Sarah Austin shared a chair. + +The trial began. Dr. Lequer established the fact of the death, described +the course of the bullet, demonstrating that it had been fired by some +one concealed in the grove. A surveyor followed and exhibited to the +jury a map of the house and grounds. Three of the younger members of the +Country Club, Mr. John Bradshaw Battle, cashier of the Elsinore Bank; +Mr. Lemuel Cummack, son of Elsinore's esteemed citizen, Mr. Sam Cummack; +and Mr. Leonard Corfine, a commuter, had been subpoenaed after a +matching of wits. Overawed by the solemnity of the oath, they gave a +circumstantial account of the quarrel which had preceded the murder but +a few hours--all, in spite of constant interruptions from the +defendant's counsel, conveying the impression, however unwillingly, that +Mrs. Balfame had been livid with wrath and the man who had been her +husband insufferable. It was a master-stroke of the district attorney +to open his case with the damaging testimony of two members of the loyal +Elsinore families. As for Mr. Corfine, although born and brought up +without the pale, he had been graciously received upon electing to build +his nest in Elsinore and his young wife was one of Mrs. Balfame's +meekest admirers. + +Mr. Broderick muttered, "H'm! H'm!" and Mr. Bruce squirmed round from +the "evening table" and jerked his eyebrows at his senior. "Bad! Bad!" +muttered Mr. Broderick's neighbour. "But watch her nerve. Can you beat +it? She hasn't batted an eyelash." + +Two former servants that had preceded Frieda in the Balfame menage +testified that the household consisted of three people only, the master +and mistress and the one in help. A gardener came three times a week in +the morning. No, none of the old spare rooms was now furnished, and the +Balfames never had had visitors overnight. + +The prosecution rested, and Mr. Rush approached the bar according to +usage and asked that the case be dismissed. The judge ruled that it +should proceed; and immediately after the noon recess the first witness +for the defence was called. This was Mr. Cummack, and he testified +vigorously to the harmonious relations of the deceased and his amiable +wife; that Mrs. Balfame--who was always pale--had treated the episode +out at the Club in the casual manner observed by all seasoned and +intelligent wives, the conversation over the telephone in his house +proving that the domestic heavens were swept clean of storm-clouds; and +that the deceased had departed for his home quite happy and singing at +the top of his lungs. He had often remarked jocularly (his was a cheery +and jocular temperament) that he expected to die with his boots on, +especially since he had taken to bawling Tipperary in the face of +American Germany. + +It is not to be imagined that Mr. Cummack was able to deliver himself of +this valuable testimony without frequent and indignant interruptions +from the district attorney, whose "irrelevant, incompetent and +immaterial" rang through the courtroom like the chorus of a Gilbert and +Sullivan opera. Mr. Gore, a wasp of a man with snapping black eyes and a +rasping voice emitted through his higher nasal passages, succeeded in +having much of this testimony stricken out, but not before the wily Mr. +Rush, who stood on tiptoe, as alert and nervous as a race horse at the +grandstand, had by his adroit swift questions fairly flung it into the +jury-box. It was of the utmost importance with an obstinate provincial +jury to establish at once a favourable general impression of the +prisoner. + +When, in the theatre, a trial scene is depicted, it is necessary to +interpose dramatic episodes, but no one misses these adventitious +incidents in a real trial for murder, so dramatic is the bare fact that +a human being is battling for his life. When the prisoner at the bar is +a woman reasonably young and good looking, the interest is so intense +and complete that the sudden intrusion of one of the incidents which +have become the staples of the theatre, such as the real culprit rushing +into the courtroom and confessing himself, a suicide in the witness-box, +or dramatic conduct on the part of the defendant, would be resented by +the spectators, as an anti-climax. Real drama is too logical and grimly +progressive to tolerate the extrinsic. + +The three other men who had been at Mr. Cummack's house that night were +called, and corroborated his story. They all wore an expression of +gentle amusement as if the bare idea of the stately and elegant Mrs. +Balfame descending to play even a passive rôle in a domestic row was as +unthinkable as that any woman could find aught in David Balfame to rouse +her to ire. + +"By Jove!" whispered Mr. Broderick to Mr. Wagstaff of the _Morning +Flag_, "just figure to yourself what the line would be if she had been +caught red-handed and was putting up a defence of temporary insanity +caused by the well-known proclivities of that beast. A good subject for +a cartoon would be Dave Balfame in heaven with a tin halo on, +whitewashing Mrs. B., weeds and all. The human mind is nothing but a +sewer." + +The afternoon session was also enlivened by the testimony of several of +the ladies who had been members of the bridge party on the day of Mr. +Balfame's unseemly conduct at the Club. They testified that although +Mrs. Balfame naturally dissolved upon her return to the card-room, there +had been nothing whatever in her demeanour to suggest seething passion. +Mrs. Battle, who was an imposing figure in the witness chair, her +greater bulk being above the waist, tossed her head and asseverated with +refined emphasis that Mrs. Balfame was one of those rare and exquisite +beings that are temperamentally incapable of passion of any sort. Her +immediate return to her home was prompted more by delicacy than even by +pain. Miss Crumley's pencil faltered as she listened. She could not +give a jeering public even a faithful outline of a woman as devoted to +the sacred cause of friendship and Elsinore as Mrs. Battle. + +The testimony of none of these ladies was more emphatic than that of +Mrs. Bascom, wife of the supplanted justice, and she added unexpectedly +that she had been so upset herself that she too had left the clubhouse +immediately, and, her swift car passing Dr. Anna Steuer's little +runabout, she had seen Mrs. Balfame chatting pleasantly and without a +trace of recent emotion. + +Mrs. Balfame almost relaxed the set curves of her mouth at this +surprising statement. She recalled that a car had passed and that she +had wondered at the time if any one had noticed her extreme agitation. +She kept her muscles in order, but unconsciously her eyes followed Mrs. +Bascom, as she left the witness-chair, with an expression of puzzled +gratitude. + +The District Attorney turned to the reporters with a short sardonic +laugh, and Mr. Broderick shook his head as he murmured to Mr. Wagstaff: + +"Can you beat that? And yet they say women don't stand by one another." + +"Good for the whole game, I guess," replied the young _Flag_ star, who +was enamoured of a very pretty suffragette. + +The Judge rose, and the afternoon session was over. The great case of +The People vs. Mrs. Balfame rested until the following morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Mrs. Balfame walked back through the now familiar tunnel more hopeful +and elated than any one in the courtroom would have inferred from her +chiselled manner. + +"I almost feel that I have the courage to look at the sketches of myself +in the papers," she said lightly to Rush, who escorted her. "I haven't +dared open a paper since Monday morning." + +"Better not." Rush also was in high spirits. "Keep your mental mercury +as high as possible. It doesn't matter, anyhow. You'll be clear in less +than a week. The impression all those splendid friends of yours created +knocked the prosecution silly." + +"I have not once glanced at the jury," said Mrs. Balfame proudly, "and I +never shall. All I was conscious of was that they were chewing gum, and +that the man above me snorts constantly." + +"That's Houston. He's likely to be predisposed in your favour on account +of your intimacy with Dr. Anna. And he's a just man, of some +intelligence. I fancy none of them is in the mood to be too hard on any +one, for they are having a fine vacation in the Paradise City Hotel. +Each has a big room with a soft bed and rich and delicate food three +times a day. If they don't get indigestion they will be inclined to +mercy on general principles. I engineered the housing of them. Gore was +all for putting them up at the Dobton Inn, where they would have grown +as vicious as starved dogs. I won my point by reminding him that certain +men of that sort try to get on a jury for the sake of having a rest and +a soft time, and if they aren't coddled, they are equal to falling ill +and forcing the court to begin the trial over again. You're all right." + +They were in the jail sitting-room, and she stood with her head thrown +back and her eyes shining. The moment they had entered she had removed +her heavy hat and veil and run her hands through her crushed hair. Rush, +who was very nervous and excited, made a swift motion forward as if to +seize her hands. But it was only later, when alone, that she realised +that possibly she had brushed aside an opportunity to rekindle a flame +which she alternately feared and doubted was burning low; she was not +thinking of him and exclaimed happily: + +"It is quite a wonderful sensation to feel that you have made friends +like that. My! how they did lie! And so convincingly! For a moment I was +quite the outsider and deeply impressed with the weakness of the case +against the accused. Here they come. I feel as if I never really loved +them before." And she ran to the door to admit the elated trio who that +day had made their noblest sacrifice to the cause of friendship. Mrs. +Balfame kissed them and embraced them, and dried their excited tears, +while Rush, his contemptible part in the day's drama forgotten, slunk +down the stairs and out of the jail. + +He met Alys Crumley as she was about to board the trolley for Elsinore, +and she stepped back and congratulated him warmly. + +"Your brain worked like blades of chain lightning," she said with real +enthusiasm. "I know you have only begun, but I can well imagine--wasn't +Mrs. Balfame delighted?" + +"With her friends' testimony," he replied gloomily. "I don't seem to +come in." + +There are some impulses, born of sudden opportunity, too strong for +mortal powers of resistance. "Come home to supper," said Miss Crumley, +with the same spontaneous warmth. "You look so tired, and Mother +promised me Maryland chicken and waffles. Besides, I want to show you my +drawings. I am so proud of being a staff artist." + +"I'll come," said Rush promptly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +The following day was also taken by the examination of witnesses for the +defence. Dr. Lequer, who had been called in occasionally by the Balfames +when Dr. Anna was unavailable, and who was also an old friend of the +family, asserted that so far as he knew there never had been a quarrel +between husband and wife. Mrs. Balfame, in fact, was unique in his +experience, inasmuch as she never looked depressed nor shed tears. + +He was followed by a woman who had been general housemaid in the Balfame +home for three years. She had left it to reward the devotion of a +plumber, and between her and Frieda there had been a long line of the +usual incompetents. Mrs. Figg testified with an enthusiasm which +triumphed over nerves and grammar that although she guessed Mr. Balfame +was about like other husbands, especially at breakfast, Mrs. Balfame was +too easy-going to mind. She'd never seen her mad. Yes, she was an +exacting mistress, all right, terrible particular, and she never sat +with the hired girl in the kitchen and gossiped, and you couldn't take a +liberty with her like you could with some; but that was just her way, +naturally proud and silent-like. She was terrible economical but a kind +mistress, as she didn't scold and follow up, once she was sure the girl +would suit, and not a bit mean about evenings and afternoons off. She +did up her own room and dusted the downstairs rooms, except for the +weekly cleaning. No, she never'd seen no pistol. It wasn't her way to +look in bureau drawers. No, she'd never seen or heard any jealousy, +tempers, and so forth, and had always taken it for granted that Mrs. +Balfame wasn't on to Mr. Balfame's doings--or if she was, she didn't +care. There was lots like that. + +The district attorney snarled and trumpeted throughout this placid +recital, but Mrs. Figg took no notice of him whatever. She had been +thoroughly drilled, and looked straight into the sparkling blue eyes of +Mr. Rush as if hypnotised. + +Other minor witnesses consumed the afternoon, and once more Mrs. Balfame +returned to the jail with glowing eyes. The women reporters were elated. +The men made no comment as they filed out of the courtroom, but their +whole bearing expressed a lofty and quiet scorn. + +"It's fine! fine!" exclaimed Cummack, sitting down beside Rush at the +table below the empty jury-box. "But I do wish Dr. Anna was available. +She stands head and shoulders above every one else in the estimation of +these jurymen; she doctored the children and confined the wives of +pretty near all of them. There's no stone she wouldn't leave unturned." + +"She's pretty bad, isn't she?" asked Rush. "Would there be any chance at +all of getting a deposition--in case things went wrong?" + +"Things ain't goin' wrong; but as for Anna, she's out of it, and +everything else, I guess. I was out to the hospital yesterday, for I've +had her in mind; but although she was better for a time, she's worse +again. But say--what do you think I discovered? Those damned newspaper +men have been hangin' round out there. That young devil Broderick--" + +Rush was sitting up very straight, his eyes glittering. "But he surely +hasn't been able to see her? I don't believe any sort of graft would get +by Mrs. Dissosway--" + +"You bet he hasn't been able to see Anna, and just now they're not +leaving her for a moment alone, like they did at first. But Broderick +seems to have the idea wedged in his brain that Mrs. Balfame confessed +to Anna and that poor old Doc lost the pistol somewhere out in the +marsh--" + +Rush made an exclamation of disgust. "I can't understand Broderick. He's +got his trial all right, and it isn't like him to hound a woman--" + +"I said as much to him, and though he wouldn't talk much, I just +gathered from something he let fall that he was afraid if the crime +wasn't well fixed onto Enid some innocent person he thought a lot more +of might come under suspicion. Can you guess who he had in mind?" + +Rush pushed back his chair and sprang to his feet. "Good Lord, no. One +case at a time is all my brain is equal to." He was almost out of the +empty courtroom when Cummack caught him firmly by the shoulder. + +"Say, Dwight," he said with evident embarrassment, "hold on a minute. +I've just got to tell you that somehow or other I sensed _you_ when +Broderick was trying to put me off. There are a good many things; +they've been comin' back--" + +Rush turned the hard glittering blue of his eyes full upon Mr. Cummack, +whose shrewd but kindly gaze faltered for a moment. "Do you believe I +did it?" demanded Rush. + +"Well, no, not exactly--that is, I'd know that if you had done it, it +would have been because you'd got the idea into your head that Enid was +having an awful row to hoe, or because he'd attacked her that night. It +wouldn't have been for no mean personal reason, and no one knows better +than I that the blood goes to the head terrible easy at your age and +when a beautiful woman is in question. If I'd guessed it before, I'm +free to say I'd have rushed your arrest in order to spare Enid, if for +no other reason. But as it's gone so far and she's sure to get off,--and +you wouldn't stand much show,--the matter had best stay where it is; +particularly--well, I may as well tell you Enid sort of confided to +Polly that you had offered to cover her name with yours as soon as she +got out; and if you've been in love with her all this time, as I guess +you have been--well, Dave can't be brought back. And--well, I've lived +out West and it isn't so uncommon there for a man to shoot on sight when +he's mad about a woman and a few other things at the same time. Dave was +my friend, but I guess I understand." + +Rush had withdrawn stiffly from the friendly hand laid on his shoulder. +"I have asked Mrs. Balfame to marry me," he said. "But she has by no +means consented." + +"But she means to. Don't let it worry you. Women are queer cattle. Nail +her the next time she's in the melting mood. She gets 'em oftener than +she ever did before, and I guess you see her alone often enough." + +"Oh, yes, I've seen her alone nearly every day for ten weeks." + +Cummack narrowed his eyes, and his face, generally relaxed and amiable, +grew stern and menacing. "You don't love her!" he exclaimed. "You don't! +Like many another damned fool, you've compromised your very life for a +woman, only to be disenchanted by seeing too much of her. But by God +you've got to marry her--" + +They were standing at the head of the winding stair in the rotunda, and +several of the reporters were still in front of the telephone booth +below. + +"Hush!" said the lawyer peremptorily. "I mean to marry Mrs. Balfame if +she accepts the proposal I made to her the day she was arrested. I have +said nothing to warrant your jumping to the conclusion that I no longer +wish to marry her. But by God! if you ever dare to threaten me again--" +And he raised his fist so menacingly, his set face was so tense and +white, his eyes bore such a painful resemblance to hot coals, that +Cummack retreated hastily. + +"All right! All right!" he called up from the first turning. "Don't +fancy I think I could. And what's passed between us is sacred. S'long." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +On the morrow the first witness called by the prosecution in rebuttal +was old Kraus, and now it was Mr. Rush's turn to shout "Immaterial, +Irrelevant and Incompetent," so that it was well-nigh impossible for the +jury to do more than guess what the choleric person with a strong German +accent was talking about. The district attorney fought valiantly to draw +forth the story of Frieda's nocturnal visit to the Kraus home in search +of advice after hearing Mrs. Balfame enter the kitchen from the yard, +but his efforts ended in a shouting contest between the prosecution and +the defence, both deserting their positions before the jury-box and +wrangling before the Judge like two angry school-boys. Alys Crumley +longed to laugh aloud, but not so the Judge. He asked them curtly how he +was to know what was their point of dispute if they both talked at once. +He then commanded Mr. Rush to state in as few words as possible what he +was objecting to; and when the counsel for the defence had stated his +purely legal reasons for blocking this purely hearsay testimony, the +Judge abruptly threw Mr. Kraus out of court. Rush, flushed and +triumphant, returned to his chair below the jury-box, and Mr. Gore +sulkily called the name of Miss Frieda Appel. + +There was no question of poor Frieda's making a good personal impression +upon spectators or jury, no matter how worthy her motives. She had saved +almost every penny of her wages since coming to America; it had been +her lover's intention to emigrate to Brabant County as soon as his term +of service was over, and her housewifely intention to greet him with a +furnished cottage. Since the war began, she had sent all her savings to +East Prussia lest her people starve. + +Dress in any circumstances would never tempt her. Economy was her +religion, and she cherished no illusions about her face and form. To-day +she wore a skirt of an old voluminous cut and a jacket with high +puckered sleeves. The colour had once been brown. Her coarse blonde hair +met her eyebrows in a thick bang, and its high knob was surmounted by a +sailor hat a size too small. Her thick-set body was uncorseted, and her +indeterminate features were lost in the width and flatness of her face. +Only the little eyes beneath the heavy thatch of hair alternately glowed +dully and spat fire. + +The Judge sternly suppressed the titter that ran over the court-room as +this caricature mounted the witness-stand, and the district attorney, in +spite of frequent interruptions, elicited a remarkably clear and +coherent statement. The Judge sustained him, for here was a real +witness, and Miss Appel not only had been as thoroughly rehearsed as +Mrs. Figg, but she had a neat precise little mind set with rows of +pigeonholes that ejected their contents in routine when her coach +pressed the cognate button. + +She had come home abruptly from the dance-hall as she had an +insupportable toothache--had run all the way, as she had some +toothache-drops in her room. She was in such agony she hardly had +noticed that her friend Conrad Kraus was behind her. When she reached +her room she had applied the drops, and to her horror they made the pain +worse. After walking the floor for perhaps ten minutes--she didn't know +or care whether it was ten or fifteen minutes--she was just starting to +go down-stairs and heat some water for her bag when she heard the +kitchen door open and shut. She held her breath and did not answer when +Mrs. Balfame called, as she feared she was wanted and was determined to +do nothing for anybody while her tooth ached like that. + +Mrs. Balfame's voice had sounded quite breathless, as if she had been +running. In a moment Frieda heard her go into the dining-room then back +to the kitchen, and turn on the tap,--not the filter, which made no +noise,--and then she heard one glass clink against another on the pantry +shelf. After that, Mrs. Balfame went upstairs from the front hall and +the witness returned to her room and threw herself on the bed, where she +remained until Mr. Cummack came and asked her to go downstairs and make +coffee. By this time her tooth ached so she didn't care what she did. + +Cross-questioned, she admitted that Mrs. Balfame was in the habit of +drinking a glass of filtered water the last thing at night. No, she had +not heard her go out, but only come in. But why, if Mrs. Balfame saw +nothing outside to frighten her, or if she hadn't been out, was she so +short of breath? As may be imagined, mere speculation on Miss Appel's +part was cut short by Mr. Rush, who interrupted her constantly. Yes, she +had heard what she now knew had been a shot but she had paid no +attention. Who would, with a red-hot iron forcing one's tooth down +through one's jaw? + +Even the scornful questions of counsel which forced her to admit that +she had lied to the coroner neither perturbed her nor made any +impression on jury, press, or spectators. Every one present had suffered +from toothache, and two farmers in the box showed their tusks in an +appreciative grin when she replied tartly that she didn't know or care +anything that day but tooth, tooth, tooth. It was manifest that she was +far too conservative to have had it out at once, to say nothing of the +cost. + +The only question she was not prepared for was the abrupt challenge of +Mr. Rush as to how she could prove that young Kraus had followed her if +she had neither seen nor spoken to him during that short run from Main +Street. But although she was visibly perturbed at being confronted with +a set of words to which no neat little pigeon-hole responded, it was so +evident she was firmly convinced her friend had accompanied her, that +for Rush to make too much of his solitary point would prejudice his +case, and he let her go. + +Conrad Jr. followed, and his story was equally straightforward. He also +made a good impression. True, he had a very small closely cropped head, +with eyes too small and ears too large, but he held himself with +arrogance, and he was well dressed in a new grey suit and pink shirt. +Born in the United States, it was manifest that he was proud not only of +being an American citizen but of the country's choicest vintage. He had +been sent to the public school until he was sixteen, had studied +conscientiously, and his grammar was quite as good as that of the +District Attorney, who in emotional moments confused his negatives. But, +even Rush, whose advantages had been as superior as his natural +equipment, became a good nasal American when excited, opened into +vowels, and freely translated _you_ into _yer_. It is these persistent +characteristics, so racy of the soil, which cheer us when apprehending +that our original Americanism may in time be obliterated by the foreign +influx. + +No, said young Kraus, he had no sentimental interest in Frieda. (He +smiled.) And he was engaged to a young lady to whom he had been +attentive for three years. But he felt like a brother to Frieda; she had +come to his father's house direct from Germany, their families having +been friends for generations. It was not only his duty but his pleasure +to dance with her, she being "the best of the bunch down at the hall." + +As he was dancing with her when her toothache became unendurable, it was +natural that he should see her home; in fact, he always saw her home +when it was convenient. Of course if he had to catch the last trolley +for Dobton in a hurry, that was another matter. + +When she had entered the house, he had waited, thinking she might want +some other drops or possibly a dentist. Once when he had had a +toothache, he had been obliged to go to a dentist's house at night. His +papa had sent him, and naturally he thought of it as a possibility in +Frieda's case. + +Then the kitchen door opened and a woman came out. + +At this point the interest in the court-room became intense. Even the +blasé young reporters sat forward, their pencils poised. The Judge +wheeled his chair to the right and stared down fixedly at the back of +young Kraus' head. The district attorney balanced himself on his heels, +his thumbs hooked in the sleeves of his vest, and Rush stood with his +back curved as if to spring down the witness' throat with a wild yell +of "Immaterial, irrelevant and incompetent." Only Mrs. Balfame sat like +a statue that had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear. + +Yes, Mr. Kraus recognised Mrs. Balfame's figure and walk. She was one in +a thousand for looks, and taller than many men. She had on a long dark +ulster and a black scarf round her head. The kitchen light was behind +her-- + +Here there was another furious contest between the chief counsel and the +district attorney, but the Judge ordered the young man (who had consumed +a toothpick imperturbably) to proceed with his story. Mrs. Balfame had +slipped round the corner of the house, listened intently, walked for a +minute toward the back of the grounds,--he could just see the moving +shadow in the darkness,--turned abruptly and entered the grove. +Naturally interested, he waited to see what she was up to; and +then--possibly three or four minutes later--he heard Balfame singing +"Tipperary," and a moment or two after that the shot,--one shot, not +two; he took no stock in the theory that there had been two +shots,--followed by loud voices from the other side of the avenue. + +Then he "beat it," that being his natural instinct at the moment. His +papa had taught him to be cautious and to keep clear of other people's +fights. He had never been close up against a crime, and he hoped he +never should be. He walked through the adjoining grounds at the back and +then into Balfame Street and took the next trolley home. He didn't feel +like dancing after what he guessed had happened. + +No, he had heard no sound of running footsteps, but he stood for a +moment near the back fence of the Lequer place; there were people in the +library until some man ran in calling for the doctor to come at +once--and he did see a car leave the lane behind the Balfame place. He +had thought nothing of it, however, as automobiles were everywhere all +the time. No, he hadn't tried to see whether the car was driven by a man +or woman or how many occupants it had. Not only was the night very dark +(as far as he remembered, the car had no lamps), but his one idea was to +get out of the neighbourhood. + +Rush put him through a grilling cross-examination, and although he could +not shake his testimony, he made use of all his practised arts to +exhibit the youth as a sorry coward who ran away when he heard a +revolver-shot instead of rushing with the common instinct of American +manhood to ascertain if it were the woman herself who had been the +victim. How much had he been paid to give this testimony withheld at the +coroner's inquest? Young Kraus' ruddy hues had deepened to purple some +time since, and he shouted back that he had come forward only when that +woman's lying friends were trying to fasten the crime upon his innocent +papa. Here he was sternly admonished by the Judge to confine his answers +to "Yes" and "No" unless he could control his temper. Rush forced him to +reiterate that he had not had a glimpse of Mrs. Balfame's face that +night, that he never had spoken to her at any time; and the lawyer +remarked crushingly that the young man's brain must have been in a +hopelessly confused state if he saw a car leave the lane so soon after +the shooting--a car, moreover, without lights--and failed to connect +this phenomenon with the immediately previous sound of a pistol-shot. +It was evident that his brain moved so slowly that it had taken him +almost a week to put a good story together. + +Young Kraus left the stand with his inborn sense of superiority over +mere Americans severely shaken, but although his small angry eyes +encountered more than one sneer, and many of those hostile spectators +looked as if they would laugh outright were it not for their awe of the +Judge, he had injured Mrs. Balfame far more than himself. Few believed +him to be lying or that he had seen a vision, not a real woman, leave +the Balfame house by the kitchen door. He was known to have been as +sober as usual on the night of the dance, and as the evidence against +his father had been regarded as fantastic from the first, there was no +conceivable cause for him to lie. + +Mr. Gifning, Mr. Battle and Mr. Carden, who were the first to reach +Balfame, after he fell, were forced by the district attorney to give +damning evidence against Mrs. Balfame. Her room was in the front of the +house; if in it, she could have heard the shot as plainly as they on Mr. +Gifning's veranda. But she did not come downstairs or manifest herself +in any way until they had had time to summon the coroner (who to be sure +lived round the corner) and Dr. Lequeur. It must have been quite six +minutes before she opened her window and demanded the reason for the +disturbance at her gate. At least, it had seemed that long. No, they +never confused a revolver-shot with a bursting tire. They had when cars +first came into use, but they had learned to differentiate long since. + +When Mr. Rush asked them sarcastically why one at least of the party had +not searched the grove and attempted to capture the murderer, they +replied they had by no means been sure that the shot had come from the +grove. It might have come from anywhere. It was only after the doctor's +examination that the direction of the bullet had been agreed upon. Later +they did search the grove with a dark-lantern brought from Mrs. +Gifning's house; in fact, they searched every inch of the grounds, and +their only reward was abuse from the police. + +These three witnesses, examined after the noon recess, occupied very +little time. It was at ten minutes to four that the district attorney +electrified every one in the courtroom by calling to the stand a man +whose name up to that moment had not been mentioned in the case. The +reporters looked deeply annoyed; even Mrs. Balfame raised her head a +trifle higher as if listening; Rush's pale face was paler, the lines in +it seemed deeper, as he sprang to his feet, alert at once, his nostrils +expanding. The district attorney balanced himself on his heels, his +thumbs in his waistcoat armholes, a grin of triumph on his sharp little +face. + +The name called was James Mott, and it was borne by a highly reputable +drummer who had made sales for many years to houses carrying general +merchandise, including that of Balfame & Cummack. Mr. Mott was as well +known in Brabant County as any of its inhabitants; in fact, he was +engaged to an estimable young lady of Elsinore, and hence, so it soon +transpired, had happened to be in town on the fatal night. For once the +acumen of the district attorney had proved more penetrating than that of +the brilliant counsel for the defence. + +Mr. Mott took the stand. He was a clean-shaven upstanding American with +the keen eye and grim mouth of the travelling salesman who knows that he +must do or die. He looked as honest as urbane, and for the first time +Mrs. Balfame's heart sank; and her hands, so the women reporters noted +for the benefit of the public, clenched for a full minute. + +Although Rush stood with his head stretched forward, he thought it wise +to let the man tell his story in his own way. Interruptions would have +been of little avail; the Judge would sustain the district attorney if +it were patent the witness were telling the truth; and as he was +completely in the dark himself it were better to wait until he got a +promising lead. He knew that no man's brain could work more quickly than +his. + +Mr. Mott being solemnly sworn, deposed that on the night of the shooting +he had been taking supper with his friend Miss Lacke, who lived at +Number 3 Dawbarn Street, just round the corner from Elsinore Avenue. He +left her house at a little before eight, as he was obliged to catch the +eight-ten for New York. As he closed the gate behind him, he saw David +Balfame walk unsteadily past, shouting "Tipperary"; and being a friend +of many years' standing, had concluded to follow and see Balfame safely +inside the house. He would lose but a minute or two, and it seemed to +him a decent act, for it was possible the man might fall and hurt +himself before he reached his home. Mott was so close behind him that he +must have just escaped the shot or shots himself, and although he jumped +backward he saw distinctly somebody run out of the grove and toward the +back of the house. Whether it was a man or a woman he had no idea, but +the figure was tall--yes far taller than either young Kraus or Frieda. +Then, he said, he doubled on his tracks and got back into Dawbarn Street +as quickly as he could. He blushed as he admitted this, but added that +he knew from the shouts on Gifning's veranda that men were hastening to +Balfame's aid, and he had to catch the eight-ten or lose his night train +to the West and a big piece of business. Moreover, he didn't like the +idea of giving testimony against anybody; he abhorred the institution of +capital punishment. For the same reason he did not come forward until +the District Attorney ferreted him out, as he was afraid the running +figure might have been Mrs. Balfame and she was the last person he +wished to harm, innocent or guilty. + +No one could doubt that he told the truth and hated to tell it. Nor +could any one jump to the conclusion that he was the assassin; he had as +little motive for killing Balfame as any of the other men of Brabant +County with whom he had been for years on the same cordial terms. + +All that Rush could do was to make him admit that perhaps he was +naturally confused by the flash, the report almost in his ear, the man +sinking at his feet, and only fancied he saw a running form; the +delusion would be natural in the circumstances, particularly as his +thoughts seemed to have been concentrated upon getting out of the way. +Mr. Mott admitted almost too eagerly that this might be true, but added +that when the district attorney, who was a cousin of Miss Lacke, as well +as an old friend of his own, had squeezed the story out of him bit by +bit (the form of extraction was supplied by Mr. Rush), that had been his +impression; he seemed to have that tall running figure imprinted upon +his retina, as it were. Of course it might be just imagination. He +wished to God he could swear it was. When asked sharply if even one of +his parents was German, he recovered his poise and replied haughtily +that he was straight American and as pro-Allies as the best man in the +country. He had never entered Old Dutch's beer garden; his choice was a +hotel bar, anyhow; he avoided saloons. + +Rush had a diabolical power of making a witness look ridiculous, but the +American mind is essentially a just mind, normally unemotional, and a +very magnet for facts. As the Judge adjourned the court until Monday the +sob-sisters trailed out dejectedly, after a vain endeavour to get close +to Mrs. Balfame; the young men sauntered forth with their heads in the +air, and Rush's lips were so closely pressed together that his face +looked pure granite. As a matter of fact, his heart felt like water. + +Mrs. Balfame, who had not permitted herself to show a flicker of +interest while Mott was on the stand, rose as the Judge left the room. +She smiled upon each of her friends separately and kissed the prominent +ladies of Elsinore who had sat beside her throughout that trying day. + +"Please don't come over to the jail," she said. "I know you are worn +out, and I have a bad headache. I must lie down. But do please come +to-morrow. You are all too good. Thank you so much." + +Then with a faint smile and a light step she followed the sheriff +through the long tunnel, a horrible vision dancing before her eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +When Rush arrived at the sitting-room of the jail's private suite he +found Mrs. Balfame, not in tears as he had nervously anticipated, but +distraught, pacing the room, her hands in her disordered hair. + +"I am done for! done for!" she cried as Rush hastily closed the door. +"It would have been better if I had told the truth in the +beginning--that I _had_ gone out that night. It was not such a bad +excuse,--that I thought I saw a burglar down there,--and it was God's +truth. Or I could have said I was walking about the grounds because I +had a headache--" + +"It never would have gone down. If I could have discovered who the other +person in the grove was--found him and his forty-one-calibre revolver, +well and good. Failing that, our line of defence is the best possible. I +will admit, though," he too was pacing the room,--"it looks bad to-day, +pretty bad. There isn't the ghost of a chance to prove Mott was the man. +Gore has the time to the minute he left Susie Lacke's; you must have +gone out some time before--" + +"Oh, he didn't do it. I've not thought it for a moment. No such luck. It +was some enemy who went straight to New York--in that car. But +I--I--Auburn--the electric chair--they all believed--Oh, my God! God!" + +She had tossed her arms above her head then flung herself down before +the table, her face upon them, rocking her body back and forth. Her +voice was deep with horror and despair, her abandonment far more +complete than on the day of her arrest; and wrought up himself, Rush was +stirred with the echo of all he had felt that day. In the semi-intimacy +of these past ten weeks, when he had talked with her for hours at a +time, she had disillusioned him in many ways, bored him, forced him to +admit that her lovely shell concealed an uninteresting mind, and that +the only depths in her personality that he was permitted to glimpse were +such as to make him shrink, by no means to excite that fascination even +in repulsion peculiar to the faults of a more passionate nature. He +still thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, however, +and if it was beauty which now left him cold, his admiration of her had +been renewed these last three days when her manner and appearance in +court had been beyond all praise. He had excoriated himself for his +fickleness, his contemptible failure as a lover; and the more he hated +himself the more grimly determined he was to behave precisely as if he +still loved and revered her as he had when ready to sacrifice life +itself for her sake. He was in such an _impasse_ that he cared little +what became of himself. + +He leaned over the table and pressed his hands hard on her arms. + +"Listen!" he said peremptorily. "You never will go to Auburn. You will +leave this jail not later than the middle of next week, a free woman. If +I cannot get you off by my address to the jury,--and it will be the +supreme effort of my life,--I'll take the stand and swear that I +committed the murder myself." + +"What?" She lifted her head and stared up at him. His face was set, but +his eyes glowed like blue coals. + +"Yes. I can put it over, all right. You remember I went to your house +from the Club that day. Nobody saw me go; no one saw me leave. From the +moment I left you, until the following morning, no one--no one that I +know of--saw me that night, except Dr. Anna. We met out on the road +leading to Houston's farm, and she drove me in. She believes I did it. +So does Cummack, and if necessary he will manage to get an affidavit +from her--" + +Mrs. Balfame had sprung to her feet. "Did you do it? Did you?" + +"Aha! I can make even you believe it. No, I did not, but I couldn't +prove an alibi if my life depended upon it. I can make the Judge and the +jury believe--" + +"And do you think I would permit--" + +"They will believe me. And Dr. Anna--who would doubt her testimony that +my appearance and conduct were highly suspicious that night on the marsh +road? And what could you disprove? There was a man in that grove, was +there not?" + +"Yes, but not you; I don't know why, but I could swear to that. I +shall--if you do anything so mad--tell the whole truth about myself." + +"What good would that do? Balfame was killed with a forty-one revolver. +Yours was a thirty-eight." + +"How do you know that?" + +"I found it the night I spent in your house--the night of your arrest. I +knew that you never would have gone out to head off a burglar without a +revolver--any more than the jury would have believed it. I found the +pistol. Never mind the long and many details of the search. It is in my +safe. I kept it on the off chance that it might be necessary to produce +it after all." + +"But I fired at him. I hardly knew that I was firing, until I felt the +revolver in my hand go off. Perhaps it was a suggestion from that tense +figure so close to me, intent upon murder. Perhaps I merely felt I +must--must--I have never been able to analyse what I did feel in those +terrible seconds. It doesn't matter. I did. And you? You know I fired +with intent to kill. Did you guess at once?" + +"Oh, yes. But it doesn't matter. You were not yourself, of course. You +had what is called an inhibition--as maddened people have when fighting +their way out of a burning theatre. I only wish you had told me. I--that +is to say, it is never fair to keep your counsel in the dark." + +"You mean you wish I had not lied!" She caught him up with swift +intuition. "Well, to-day I would not, but then--well, I was full of +pettiness, it seems to me now. But although I am far even yet from being +a fine woman,--I know that!--I am not a poor enough creature to let you +die for me. Oh, you are far too good for me. I never dreamed that a man +would go as far as that for a woman in these days. I thought it was only +in books--" + +"The veriest trash is inspired by the actual occurrences of life--which +is pretty much the same in books as out. And I guess men haven't changed +much since the world began, so far as making fools of themselves about a +woman is concerned." + +As she stood with one hand pressed hard against the table she was far +more deeply moved than a few moments since by fear, although outwardly +calm. She had climbed far out of her old self within these prison walls, +but she saw steeper heights before her, and she welcomed them. + +"Then," she said deliberately, "I must cure you. Before I went out, I +had prepared that glass of lemonade and put poison in it. I had planned +for several weeks to kill him when a favourable opportunity arrived. I +had stolen a secret poison from Anna--out of that chimney cupboard +Cassie described. You see that I am a potential murderer,--and a +cold-blooded one,--even if by a curious irony of fate some one else +committed the deed. Now do you think I am worth giving up your life +for--going to the electric chair--" + +"Suppose we postpone further argument until the necessity arises--if it +ever does. I fully expect you to be triumphantly acquitted. Tell me"--he +looked at her curiously, for he divined something of her inner +revolutions and hated himself the more that he was interested only as +every good lawyer must be in human nature,--"could you do that in cold +blood again?" + +"No--not that way--never. I might let a pistol go off under the same +provocation--that is bad enough." + +"Oh, no. Remove the restraints of a lifetime--or perhaps it is merely a +matter of vibration and striking the right key." + +"And do you mean that--you still want to marry me?" + +"Yes," he answered steadily. "Certainly I do." + +"Ah!" Once more she wondered if he still loved her. But she had been too +sure of him and of herself to harbour doubt for more than a passing +moment. She had come to the conclusion that he had merely taken her at +her word, and she knew the specialising instinct of the busy American. +She had, indeed, wondered if it were not the strongest instinct he +possessed. And in spite of her new humility, she had suffered no loss of +confidence in herself as a woman. She vaguely felt that she had lost +something of this man's esteem, but trusted to time and her own charm to +dim the impression. For she had made up her mind to marry him. Not only +would it be the wisest possible move after acquittal,--a decent time +after,--but during sleepless hours she had come to the conclusion that +she loved this brilliant knightly young man as deeply as it was in her +power to love any one. And after this terrible experience and the many +changes it had wrought within her, she wanted to be happy. + +He had taken up his hat. She crossed the room swiftly and laid her hand +on his arm. "I could not stand one word of love-making in jail," she +said, smiling up at him graciously, although her eyes were serious. "But +it is only fair to tell you now that if I am acquitted I will marry +you." + +And stabbed with a pang of bitter regret that he felt not the least +impulse to scout her authority and seize her in his arms, he bent over +her hand and kissed it with cold lips, but with an air of complete +gallantry. + +"Thank you," he said, and went out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Rush slept until two o'clock the next day, after a night passed at the +Paradise City Hotel in consultation with two of his future partners; +they had spent Saturday in the courtroom at Dobton. He had also +discovered that the jury enjoyed themselves in the winter garden after +dinner, and by no means in close formation. Although nominally under +guard, it would have been a simple matter to pass a note to any one of +them. Two, he further discovered, had been allowed to telephone and to +enter the booth alone. He had been told nothing further of the intention +of Cummack and other friends of his client to "fix" the jury--had, +indeed, discouraged such confidences promptly; but he saw that if the +enemy desired to employ the methods of corruption they need be no more +intricate than those of the men that had so much more to lose if +detected. + +The night had been devoted to discussion of the case; he even enjoyed a +friendly hour with the district attorney, who notably relaxed on +Saturdays after five o'clock; and when Rush awoke on the following +afternoon he immediately resolved to dismiss the whole affair from his +own mind until Monday morning. He would go into the woods and think his +own thoughts. They would be dreary thoughts and imbued no doubt with +cynicism, himself the target; and they had passed that problematical +stage in which the mind, no matter how harrowed, sips lingeringly at the +varied banquet of the ego; in fact, Rush's personal problems were almost +invariably settled in his subconsciousness, and rose automatically to +confront the reasoning faculties without an instant's warning. He was +too impatient for self-analysis; and he was the sum of his acts and of +the clear mental processes of his conscious life. + +The bright winter sun struck down through the close tree-tops and upon +the brilliant surfaces of a recent fall of snow. The ground was hard and +white; the branches of the trees were heavy laden. Not a sound broke the +winter stillness but his footsteps on the winter snow. He had put on a +heavy white sweater and cap, as he intended to walk for hours, and his +nervous hands were in his pockets. He believed he should have the woods +to himself, for in winter it was the Country Club and the roadhouses +that were patronised on Sundays; and the trolley-car which passed the +wood on the line about a quarter of a mile away had, save for himself, +been empty. + +His face remained grim and set until he was deep in the woods, and then +it relaxed to a wave of fury and disgust, finally settled into an +expression of profound despair. He was but thirty-two, and the prizes of +life were for such as he, and a week later he would either be in Sing +Sing or bound without hope to a woman for whom his brief sentimentalised +passion was dust. + +It was not execution he feared, for any clever lawyer could persuade a +jury into a certain degree of leniency, but long years in prison for the +sake of a dead ideal. In spite of his hard common sense and severely +practical life he would almost have welcomed the exaltation of soul +which must accompany a great sacrifice impelled by perfect love. But to +turn one's back on life for ever and walk deliberately into a dungeon, +change one's name for a number and become a thing, for the sake of +barren honour, to drag out his years with a dead soul, to despise +himself for a fool, too old and too tired to console himself with a +memory of a duty well done,--he felt such a sudden disgust for life and +for that ill-regulated product, human nature, that he struck a heavy +blow at a tree and brought a shower of snow about his head. + +If he could but have continued to love the woman and accept the grim and +bitter fate with joy in his soul! And if only that were the worst! If he +could turn his back on life with no regret save for its lost +opportunities for power and fame. + +He paused in his rapid irregular walk and pushed his cap up from his +ear. He half swung on his heel; then, his face settling into its +familiar lines, he walked slowly toward a faint crackling that had +arrested his attention. + +He came presently upon the glade Alys Crumley had painted in its summer +mood; the little picture hung facing his bed. The scene was white +to-day; all the lovely shades of green and gold had been rubbed out and +replaced with the bright sparkle of snow, and the brook was frozen. But +although Rush loved the winter woods and responded to their white appeal +as keenly as to their yearly renewal of verdant youth and gorgeous +maturity, they left him quite unmoved at this moment. Alys Crumley, as +he had half expected, stood in the little dell. + +Her face was more like old ivory than ever against the dazzling +whiteness of the snow and under her low fur turban. It looked both +pinched and nervous, but she kept her hands in her muff. Nor did Rush +remove his from his pockets, although his determination not to betray +himself was subconscious. At the moment, his mind, conquering a tendency +to race, informed itself merely that even in heavy winter clothes, with +but a deep pink rose in her stole for colour, she managed to look dainty +and alluring. It recalled visions of her on summer nights clad in the +soft transparencies of lawn, with ribbons somewhere that always brought +out the strange olive tints of her eyes and hair.... + +"I followed you," she said. + +"Did you?" + +"When I saw you pass in the trolley, I guessed. The Gifnings had invited +me to go out to the Club with them. I asked them to put me down at a +path near here." + +He made no reply but continued to stare at her, recalling other +pictures,--in the studio, in the green living-room,--marvelling at her +endless variety, and not only of effect. Yet she was always the same, +surcharged with the magnetism of youth and young womanhood. + +"I--that is--I had made up my mind I must have a talk with you about +certain things. You said you might go out to the Club to-day for an hour +or two of hand-ball, and I had hoped to induce you to come home with me +for supper. But Jack Battle told me that you had telephoned off--and +when I saw you in the trolley, and caught a glimpse of your face, I +guessed--" + +"Yes?" + +"You make it rather hard." + +"What does it all matter? You are here, and I am glad that you are." + +"Are you? But you intended to avoid me to-day!" + +"I never intended to see you alone again if I could help it." + +"I guessed that too. I met Polly Cummack this morning, and she told me +she spent last evening at the jail and Mrs. Balfame confided to her that +she had just definitely promised to marry you ... that you had proposed +to her on the day of her arrest, and although you had faithfully obeyed +her orders and not alluded to the subject since, she had thought it only +kind to put you out of suspense yesterday. She naïvely added that the +subject had not interested her when you first brought it up; but that +you had been so wonderful and devoted since.... She means to settle +quietly in New York, instead of travelling, so that she can be quite +near you, and she will marry you as soon as the case has been forgotten +by the public. Of course, Polly could not keep anything so interesting, +and no doubt it is all over town by now." + +Alys spoke steadily, with a faint ironic inflection, and she held her +head very high. But her face grew more pinched, and the delicate pink of +her lips faded. + +"Yes?" He had turned as white as chalk, but there was neither dismay nor +sarcasm in the hard stare of his eyes. His lips were folded so closely +that the word barely escaped. + +"I am going to say everything I have to say, if you never speak to me +again. I feel as if I were standing on the point of a high rock and +every side led sheer down into an abyss. It doesn't matter in the least +down which side I fall. There is a certain satisfaction in that. But you +shall listen." + +"There is nothing you cannot say to me." + +"And you'll not run away." + +"Oh, no, I'll not run away! I shall never see you again if I can help +it, but now that you are here I shall look at you and listen to the +sound of your voice." + +"And to what I have to say. You hate Mrs. Balfame. You are bored to +death with her. You are appalled. You have found her out for what she +is. You are going to marry her out of pity and because you are too +honourable to desert a woman who will always be under a cloud, even if +you had it in you to break your word; and because you have a twisted +romantic notion about being true to an old if mistaken ideal--one of a +set that has flourished like hardy old-fashioned annuals under the dry +soil of hustle and ambition and devotion to your profession. You had +fallen in love--or thought you had, which amounts to the same thing for +the moment--after so many years of dry spiritual celibacy, and it had +been a wonderful revelation--and an inner revolution that made you +immensely interested in yourself for the first time. You were exalted; +you lived for several months at a pitch above the normal, automatically +registering other impressions but only half cognisant of them. And +now--you feel that to the love born in delusion and slain by truth you +owe the greatest sacrifice a man can make." + +He had stared at the ground during the first part of her speech, and +then raised his eyes sharply, his glance changing to amazement and a +flush mounting to his hair. + +"Oh!" he exclaimed. But he would make no other answer, and once more he +dropped his glance to the snow. + +"Are you going to marry her?" + +"If she is acquitted." + +"And if not?" Her voice broke out of its even register. + +He made an abrupt movement, and she cried out: + +"I know! I know! Polly told me--Sam tells her everything. He suspects +you. He knows that Broderick does. But you don't intend to wait for his +denunciation. Mrs. Balfame told that to Polly too. You intend to say you +did it. She said she wouldn't let you--oh, wouldn't she!--but you had +told her that you would make up a plausible story and stick to it. And I +know that you can't prove an alibi. Tell me,"--she came closer and her +voice was almost threatening,--"do you really intend to take that crime +on your shoulders if she is convicted." + +"Yes." + +"Oh! Oh! Men will be sentimental fools until--well, so long as they are +born of fools and women. We are made all wrong!" She threw her muff on +the ground and beat her hands together. Her eyes were blazing. There was +a curious red glow in their olive depths. "Well, listen to me: You are +not going to do this thing, although I really believe you'd like to do +it as a sort of penance. She could not prevent such a monstrous +sacrifice if she would, but I can. Just bear that in mind. If you come +forward with any such insane proposition, I will make a fool of you +before all the world. If Mrs. Balfame is acquitted, well and good; but +if she is not, then I'll betray a confidence and run the risk of +killing some one myself--but I'll get the truth. Just remember that, and +keep off the witness-stand." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that I know where to get the truth." + +"You mean that Dr. Anna thinks Mrs. Balfame did it--that Mrs. Balfame +confessed to her and that you can make the poor woman betray her friend +while she is still too weak to resist. Well, you are all wrong. I know +that Mrs. Balfame did not kill Balfame. If you want the reason for my +knowledge,--and I know I can trust you,--Mrs. Balfame was out that +night, and she did take a revolver and fire it. I found it in the house +on the night following her arrest. It was a thirty-eight. There was one +bullet missing. It was found in the tree. Balfame was killed by a +forty-one. She did not go out to shoot Balfame, but because she thought +she saw a burglar in the grove. Her revolver went off accidentally--and +she is the best shot out at the Club. But you will readily understand my +reasons for suppressing these facts." + +Alys had turned her profile and was staring at a tree whose limbs +creaked now and again with their weight of snow, sending down a powdery +shower. Her thick short lashes were almost together before a gleaming +line of olive. + +"Oh! Who was her confederate?" + +"She hasn't the least idea as to the identity of the person beside her. +It was dark, and she was too much excited. Naturally, she would be very +glad to know." + +"Well, suppose we dismiss that part of it. We should never get anywhere. +Only--don't take the stand and make a dramatic confession." + +"Dramatic?" Once more the red tide rose. His blue eyes snapped. + +"Melodramatic would perhaps be the better word. Sarah and I are hot on +the trail of the right word. But tell me honestly--shouldn't you feel +rather a fool? It is such a very theatric--stagey--thing to do." + +"Oh!" He wheeled about and kicked a fallen log. "Do you suppose I have +given a thought to that aspect of it?" + +"No, more is the pity, but as you have a good sense of humour, I rather +wonder at it. However--these are not the only things I followed you into +the woods to say." + +"You had it in your mind, then, to find out if what Mrs. Balfame told +Mrs. Cummack was true--that I purposed to free her one way or another?" + +"Yes. I merely waited for the lead. I told you in the beginning that I +did not care what I might confess to, or how angry I made you. What does +it matter?" + +"You cannot make me angry, although there are some things I cannot +discuss with you." + +"Of course not. Let us ignore Possible Sacrifice Number Two, and assume +that Mrs. Balfame is acquitted,--which no doubt will be the case; few +are worrying; and further assume that you will marry her; that she will +marry you is the way she put it, not being an artist in words. Once more +we will dismiss both subjects. Yes?" + +She was stooping to recover her muff, and he noticed that her hands were +shaking and that the dusky pink was in her cheeks for the first time. + +"I am only too ready. But--there is little else for us to talk about!" + +"Yes, there is! When people are on their deathbeds they can afford to +be truthful, and you have dug your grave and mine." + +She was erect once more and she looked at him steadily, although her +breath was short and her cheeks blazing. + +"What do you mean by that?" His eyes no longer looked like blue steel. +They were flashing, and a curious wave of mobility passed over his face. + +"I mean that you love me now. I think you always loved me--when we spent +so many hours together in perfect companionship--when you found so much +in me that responded to so many of your own needs. But for the time +being this was only a surface impression. It was unable to strike down +to--to your soul, because between your outer and inner vision was the +delusion. You had cherished some sort of ideal since boyhood, and when +for the first time in your busy life you met a woman who seemed to +materialise it--you never once had a half-hour's conversation with +her!--you automatically rose to the opportunity to discharge a youthful +obligation. Isn't that true?" + +He would not answer, and she continued: + +"You passed me over because you had to be rid of the delusion first, bag +and baggage. There is only one way to get rid of an old delusion like +that, and unconsciously you took it! The pity of it is, in our case, +that you compromised yourself so promptly, instead of waiting--well, for +ten weeks!" + +"I had already asked Mrs. Balfame to get a divorce and marry me." + +"Oh! That night you walked home with her from Dr. Anna's cottage?" + +"You saw us? Yes, that was the time." + +"The first time you had ever talked alone with her? I know that you +dined there often, but didn't Dave usually do the talking?" + +"Yes." + +"And Mrs. Balfame smiled like St. Cecilia and attended to your wants." + +"Oh!" + +"It was like you to think you couldn't go back on even an Elsinore +Avenue flirtation. But once more--it is a terrible pity that you did not +delay your formal offer for ten weeks. Then you would have buried the +last and the supreme folly of your youth--with a sigh perhaps, but you +would have buried it. Isn't that true?" + +"It is true that something incredibly youthful seems to have persisted +in me beyond its proper limits, and then to have died abruptly. God +knows I have no youth in me to-day." + +"That may well be, but it need not have been. Youth does not die with +the earlier illusions. If all had gone well, you would have been reborn +into a saner and more conscious youth. Tell me--" Her voice trembled, +but she moved forward resolutely and laid her muff against his chest; he +could feel the working of her hands, and eyes and cheeks betrayed the +excitement that pride still suppressed. "Tell me,--if you had waited, if +you could have decently buried that old illusion and forgotten--and--and +married me,--should you have felt very old?" + +"I should have felt immortal." + +He caught her hands from her muff and flung them about his neck and +lifted her from the ground and kissed her as if they both stood on the +pinnacle and had but a moment before plunging down to mortal death. + +When he released her a trifle, his face was illuminated. It no longer +looked preternaturally strong; neither did it look as young as she had +seen it look in moments of mental relaxation. + +"Ah!" she whispered. "This is the fusing, not when that old illusion +died." + +The deep flush ebbed out of his face, leaving it grey, but he did not +relax the hard pressure of his arms. "Of what use," he asked bitterly, +"when we have only to-day?" + +"It is something to realise all of oneself if only for an hour. And you +have given me my supreme hour. That was my right, for I went down into +such depths as you have no knowledge of; and if I struggled out of them +alone, and always in terror of surrender and demoralisation at the last +moment, I have my claim on your help now, for the future is something I +have never dared to face. I guessed before Polly told me--oh, I guessed! +I knew you so well. In dreams, perhaps,--who knows?--our minds may have +become one. When I came up out of--got past the worst, it seemed to me +that I came into an extraordinary understanding of you. I can bear +anything now. In a way, you will always be mine. The life of the +imagination must have its satisfactions. There are worse things than +living alone." + +She drew down his head, but this time she put her lips to his ear. + +"Now I am going to tell you a terrible secret," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +There had been a crowd on the day of Frieda's and young Kraus' +testimony, but on Monday morning there was a mob. The road as well as +the open space before the Courthouse was as solid a mass of automobiles +as the police would permit, and within, even the wide staircase was +packed with people, many from New York City, waving cards and demanding +entrance to the Court-room, or at least the freedom to breathe. + +The sheriff and his assistants, soon after the doors were opened, +succeeded in forming a lane, and dragged the women reporters to the +upper landing. They found the young men at their tables, cool, +imperturbable, having entered through the library at the back of the +Court-room. All doors were closed before ten o'clock, and the crowd +without, save only the few that were fortunate enough to have come early +and obtain a vantage point against the glass, gradually dwindled away, +to renew the assault after luncheon. It was not only the brilliant +winter day that had enticed the curious over from New York, but the +rumour that Mrs. Balfame would take the stand. + +The morning droned along peacefully. Cummack and several others, +including Mr. Mott, were recalled and questioned further. Rush made no +interruptions whatever. The Judge yawned behind his hand. The women +reporters whispered to one another that Mrs. Balfame looked lovelier +than ever--only different, somehow. Even Mr. Broderick looked at her +uneasily once or twice and confided to Mr. Wagstaff that he believed she +and Rush had something up their sleeves; she no longer looked like a +marble effigy of herself, but like a woman who was sure of getting what +she wanted--much too sure. Her cheeks were almost pink. That was as +close as he could get to the upheavals and revolutions that had taken +place in Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore; and their causes. + +Immediately after luncheon, Rush showed the jury Defendant's Exhibit A: +the suitcase that Mrs. Balfame had packed for her husband after his +telephone message from the house of Mr. Cummack. He demonstrated that it +must have been packed by a firm hand guided by a clear head, a head as +far as possible from that cyclonic condition technically known as +"brainstorm." When he read them the explicit directions Mrs. Balfame had +written for the velvet handbag her generous husband had offered to bring +from Albany, the jury craned its neck and puckered its brows. This +suitcase had been examined on the night of the crime by police and +reporters, the cynical men of the press characterising it later as a +grand piece of bluff. But it looked very convincing in a court-room, and +its innocent appeal was thrown into high relief by the indisputable fact +that the murder had been committed at least half an hour later. + +On the other hand, there was reason to believe that Mrs. Balfame had +deliberately planned the shooting and in that case it was quite natural +for her to prepare something in the nature of an alibi--that is, if a +woman, and an amateur in crime, could exercise so much foresight. The +jury looked at the defendant out of the corner of its eye. Well, she, at +least, looked cool enough for anything. + +Then came the great moment for which the spectators had braved +discomfort, indignities, and even hunger. The counsel for the defence +asked Mrs. Balfame to take the stand. + +Everybody in the court-room save the Judge, the jury, and the cool young +reporters half rose as she walked rapidly behind the jury-box, mounted +the stand, took the oath, bowed to the Court and arranged herself, with +her usual dignified aloofness, in the witness-chair. She felt but a +slight quiver of the nerves, no apprehension whatever. She knew her +story too well to be disconcerted even by the sudden wasp-like assaults +of the district attorney, and she was sensible of the moral support of +practically all the women in the room. + +Rush asked her to tell her story in her own way to the jury, and for a +time the district attorney permitted her to talk without interruption. +Rush had warned her after the interview with the women reporters against +delivering herself with too tripping a tongue, and his assistant had +spent several hours with her in rehearsal of certain improvements upon a +too perfect style. In consequence, she told a clear coherent story, in +the simplest manner possible, with little dramatic breaks or hesitations +now and again, but with nothing stronger than a quaver in her sweet +shallow voice. When she had reached the episode of the filter and had +explained to the inquisitive district attorney why she had made no +mention at the coroner's inquest of the somewhat complicated episode of +which it was the pivot, so to speak, she gave the same credible +explanation the newspaper women had already offered to the public; and +then, quite unexpectedly, she related the story of Frieda's attempt to +blackmail her, and her indignant refusal to give the creature a dollar. +Mr. Gore shouted in vain. The Judge ordered him to keep quiet and +permitted the defendant to tell the story in her own way. + +Mrs. Balfame apologised to the jury for relating this incident out of +order, and then went on with her quiet plausible story. Her reason for +not running out at once was simplicity itself. She must have been in the +kitchen when the shot was fired; she had not made a point of regulating +her movements by the clock as some of the witnesses for the prosecution +appeared to have done, so that she was quite unable to give the jury +positive information upon the subject of the exact number of minutes she +had remained in the kitchen. She had washed and put away the glass, of +course; she was a very methodical woman. Then she had gone upstairs, +leisurely, and it was not until she was in her bedroom that she became +aware of some sort of excitement out in the Avenue. Even that conveyed +nothing to her, for it was Saturday night--she curled her fastidious +lip. But when she heard voices directly under her window, inside the +grounds, she threw it open at once and asked what had happened. Then of +course she ran downstairs and out to her husband. That was all. + +Even the district attorney was not able to interject a hint of the +lemonade story, and so, naturally, she ignored it. + +"Gemima!" whispered Mr. Broderick to his neighbour, "but she is a +wonder! I never heard it better done, and I've seen some of the boss +liars on the stand. She looks like an angel on toast, a poor, sweet, +patient, martyr angel. But I'll bet five dollars to a nickel that she +was just about three degrees too plausible for that jury. If she didn't +do it, who did? That's what they'll ask. And who else wanted him out of +the way? Have you given any thought to that proposition?" His voice was +almost as steady as his keen grey eyes, and he looked straight into the +wise and weary orbs of a brilliant but too inabstinent member of the +crack reporter regiment who had been missing for several days. The man +raised his sagging shoulders and dropped them listlessly. Then his heavy +eyes were invaded by a sudden gleam. + +"Say," he whispered, "that Rush is a good-looking chap--and she--I don't +like those ice-boxes myself, but some men do. It's crossed my mind more +than once to-day that he's got something on his--what's the matter?" + +"For God's sake, hush!" Broderick's low voice was savage, his face +white. "They're always likely to say that about a young lawyer when his +client is handsome enough and their imaginations are excited by a +mysterious murder case. He's a friend of mine, and I don't want him to +get into trouble. He might not be able to prove an alibi. But I know he +didn't do it because I happen to know that he is in love with another +woman. I was in the same trolley with them yesterday when they came back +from the woods. There was no mistaking how the land lay." + +"Oh! Just so!" The other man's eyes were glittering. He looked like a +hunter glancing down his gun-barrel. "I see he _is_ a friend of yours +and you've got his defence pat--well, I'm not going to bother my poor +head until Mrs. B. is acquitted or convicted. Ta! Ta!" And he slid +gently to the floor, laid his head against the infuriated Broderick's +knee and went to sleep. + +"I say," whispered Wagstaff, "she almost involved young Kraus, all +right. He's never been quite so close to the bull's-eye before. The very +fact that she didn't trump up a yarn--or Rush wouldn't let her--that she +saw him when she opened the door, or that he had turned the handle, is +one for her and one on him." + +The Judge, who had taken a few moments' rest, re-entered, and +conversation ceased. Conrad and Frieda were called in rebuttal, and +encouraged to fix the time of Mrs. Balfame's departure and return as +accurately as might be. Frieda asserted that Mrs. Balfame, after closing +the outer door, had not remained below-stairs for more than three +minutes, and Conrad declared that her exit must have been made three or +four before Mr. Mott left Miss Lacke's. Of course--with quiet scorn--he +had not looked at his watch. How could he in the dark? As he did not +smoke he had no matches in his pocket. + +That closed the day's session. The jury filed out, and no man could read +aught in their weather-beaten faces save the conviction that the +Paradise City Hotel was a haven of delights after a long day in the box, +and they were quite equal to the feat of enjoying the dinner served +there, with minds barren of the grim purpose behind this luxurious week. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +It was nearly six o'clock. The court-room with its round white ceiling +looked like a crypt in the soft glow of the artificial light, and the +Judge, in his black silk gown, with his handsome patrician face, +clean-cut but rather soft and flushed with good living, might have been +an abbot seated aloft in judgment upon a recalcitrant nun. Mrs. Balfame +in her crêpe completed the delusion--if the imaginative spectator +glanced no further. The district attorney, who was summing up, looked +more like a wasp than ever as he darted back and forth in front of the +jury-box, shouting and shaking his fists. Occasionally he would hook his +fingers in his waistcoat, balance himself on his heels and with a mere +moderation of his rasping tones, demonstrate a contemptuous faith in the +strength of his case. + +It is to be admitted that his arguments and expositions, his +denunciations and satirical refutations, were quite as convincing as +those of the counsel for the defence had been, such being the elasticity +of the law and of the legal mind; but although an able and powerful +speaker, he lacked the personal charm and magnetism, the almost tragical +enthusiasm and conviction, alternating with cold deliberate logic, that +had thrilled all present to the roots of their beings during the long +hours of the morning. Rush, whether he lost or won, had made his +reputation as one of the greatest pleaders ever heard at the bar of New +York State. He had finished at a quarter to one. Immediately after the +opening of the afternoon session Gore had darted into the breach, +speaking with a dramatic rapidity for four hours. He sat down at six +o'clock; and Mrs. Balfame felt as if turning to stone while the Judge, +standing, charged the jury and expounded the law covering the three +degrees of murder: first, second, manslaughter. It was their privilege +to convict the prisoner at the bar of any of these, unless convinced of +her innocence. + +He dwelt at length upon the degree called manslaughter, as if the idea +had occurred to him that Mrs. Balfame, justly indignant, had run out +when she heard her husband's voice raised in song, and had fired from +the grove by way of administering a rebuke to an erring and +inconsiderate man. The second bullet had been made much of by Rush, as +indicating that two people, possibly gun-men, had shot at once, but the +district attorney held no such theory and had ignored the bullet found +in the tree. It was apparent, however, that the Judge had given to this +second bullet a certain amount of judicial consideration. + +The jury filed out, not to their luxurious quarters in the Paradise City +Hotel, a mile away, but to a stark and ugly room in the Court-house +where they must remain in acute discomfort until they arrived at a +verdict. The Judge had his dinner brought to him in a private room +adjoining theirs, and even the reporters and spectators snatched a hasty +meal at the Dobton hostelry, so sure were they all that the jury would +return within the hour. Mrs. Balfame did not take off her hat with its +heavy veil, but sat in her quarters at the jail with several of her +friends, outwardly calm, but with her mind on the rack and unable to +share the dinner sent over from the Inn by Mr. Cummack for herself and +her guests. + +The hours passed, however, and the jury did not return. Once the head of +the foreman emerged, and the sheriff, misunderstanding his surly demand +for a pitcher of ice water, rushed over for Mrs. Balfame, the Judge was +summoned, and the reporters, men and women, raced one another up the +Court-house stairs. Mrs. Balfame, schooled to the awful ordeal of +hearing herself pronounced a murderess in one form or other, but bidden +by her friends to augur an acquittal from a mere three hours' +deliberation, walked in with her usual quiet remoteness and took her +seat. She was sent back at once. + +Rush paced the road in front of the Court-house. He had little hope. He +had studied their faces day by day and believed that several, at least, +were persuaded of Mrs. Balfame's guilt. Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning and +Mrs. Cummack sat with Mrs. Balfame, who found the effort to maintain the +high equilibrium demanded by her admiring friends as rasping an ordeal +to her nerves as waiting for that final summons whose menace grew with +every hour the jury wrangled. Finally she took off her hat and suggested +that they knit, and the needles clicked through the desultory +conversation until, after midnight, they all attempted to sleep. + +The Judge extended himself on a sofa in the private room devoted to his +use; he dared not leave the Courthouse. He told the district attorney +(who told it to the sheriff, who told it to the reporters) that the jury +quarrelled so persistently and so violently that he found it impossible +to sleep, and that the language they used was appalling. + +Midnight came and passed. The sob-sisters, worn out, went home. Miss +Sarah Austin and Miss Alys Crumley had not returned to the Court-house +after dinner. The sheriff appeared at the entrance of the courtroom and +announced that the last trolley would leave for Elsinore and +neighbouring towns within five minutes. Most of the spectators filed +sleepily out. A few of Mrs. Balfame's less intimate but equally devoted +friends remained in their seats near her empty chair, and shortly after +midnight the warden's wife brought them over hot coffee and sandwiches. + +The reporters, having long since consumed all the chocolate and peanuts +on sale below, strolled back and forth between the Court-house and the +bar of the Dobton Inn. They were bored and indignant and sought the only +consolation available. They returned periodically to the court-room, +growing, as the hours passed, more formal, polite, silent. One lost his +way in the jury-box and was steered by a court official to the +sympathetic haven of his brothers. + +The room itself, its floor littered with tinfoil, peanut-shells, and +newspapers, its tables and chairs out of place, looked like a Coney +Island excursion boat. Finally two reporters laid their heads down on a +table and went to sleep, but the rest continued to address one another +at long intervals, in distant tones, obeying the laws of etiquette, but +with a secret and scornful reluctance. + +Broderick, who was reasonably sober, had wandered in and out many times. +Occasionally he walked the road with Rush, and more than once he had +endeavoured to get Miss Crumley on the telephone. He had even +telephoned to the hospital to ascertain if she were there. A week ago +only he had accidentally discovered that Dr. Anna had been summoned by +Mrs. Balfame shortly after the murder and had passed many hours alone +with her; "it being the deuce and all to extract any information from +that closed corporation of Mrs. Balfame's friends." Broderick had +surprised it out of a group at the Elks' Club in the course of +conversation and then had set his phenomenal memory to work, with the +result that he was convinced Alys Crumley held the key to the whole +situation. He had gone to her house and pleaded with her to take him out +to the hospital and obtain a statement from the sick woman before it was +too late, representing in powerful and picturesque language the awful +peril of Rush. + +"I've reason to know," he had concluded, "that Cummack and two or three +others have their suspicions, and there isn't a question that if the +jury brings in a verdict of guilty in any degree--and they're a +pigheaded lot--Rush will be arrested at once. These devoted friends of +Mrs. Balfame have accumulated enough evidence to begin on. He may have +gone to Brooklyn that night, but he was seen to get off the train at +Elsinore about a quarter of an hour before the shooting. They've been +doing a lot of quiet sleuthing, but if Mrs. Balfame is acquitted they'll +let him off. They don't want any more scandal, and they like him, +anyhow. But I have a hunch she won't be acquitted; and then, innocent or +guilty, there'd be no saving him. So for heaven's sake, stir yourself." + +But Alys had replied: "I have besought my aunt, and she will not permit +Dr. Anna to be disturbed. She says her only chance for life is a +tranquil mind, and that the shock of hearing that Enid Balfame was on +trial for murder would kill her--let alone asking her to do her best to +send her to the chair. I've done _my_ best, but it seems hopeless." + +This conversation had taken place on Thursday. To-day was Tuesday. They +were very reticent at the hospital, but he had reason to believe that +Dr. Anna had taken a turn for the worse. Could Alys Crumley be out +there, and could she have taken that minx Sarah Austin with her? It +would be just like a girl to go back on a good pal like himself and hand +a signal triumph over to another girl, who would get out of the game the +minute some fellow with money enough offered to marry her. He ground his +teeth. + +He was standing near the doors of the court-room and staring at the +clock whose hands pointed to a quarter to one. Suddenly he heard his +name called from below. He sauntered out and leaned over the balustrade. +A weary page was ascending when he caught sight of the star reporter. + +"Brabant Hospital wants you on the 'phone," he announced, with supreme +indifference. + +Broderick leaped down the winding stair and into the booth. It seemed to +him that his very ears were quivering as he listened to Alys Crumley's +faint agitated voice. "Come out quickly and bring a stenographer," it +said. "And suppose you ask Mr. Rush to come too. Just tell the +sheriff--to--to postpone things a bit if the jury should be ready to +come in before you return. Hurry, Jim, hurry." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +It was two o'clock and ten minutes. The eleven remaining spectators, one +of them a woman in evening dress, were sound asleep. The sheriff was +pacing up and down with his hands behind his back, his perturbed glance +ranging between the clock and the door leading into the jury-room. +Occasionally he slipped on a bit of the debris and kicked it aside. The +reporters slumbered at their tables or stared moodily ahead. One gnawed +his pencil; another tore leaves of copy paper into morsels and +laboriously built something that looked like a child's house of blocks. +Outside it was deathly still. The snow was falling softly. It was too +early for a cock-crow. Occasionally some one snored. The footfalls of +the sheriff made no noise. + +Suddenly every reporter present sat up with the scent of blood in his +nostrils. Their ears twitched. The fumes blew out of their highly +organised brains like mist before a bracing wind. An automobile was +dashing down the road, its horn shrieking a series of brief peremptory +notes, which sounded like "Wait! Wait! Wait!" + +It came to an abrupt halt before the Court-house door, and almost +simultaneously Wagstaff, who had wandered forth once more, ran up the +stairs and into the court-room. + +"There's something in the wind, boys," he cried, smoothing his hair and +steering carefully for his chair. "Rush, Broderick, three other men, +Sarah Austin and Alys Crumley, were in that car. They've all gone +straight to the Judge. Something big is going to break, as sure as +death." + +The sheriff retired hastily to the region behind the court-room. + +The young men adjusted their chairs, arranged their copy-paper neatly, +and sharpened their pencils. Mrs. Balfame's friends went forward to the +door behind the jury-box which led to the tunnel. Even the sleepy +spectators sat up nervously. + +Ten minutes passed. Then the sheriff, his face now stolid and important, +bustled in and across to the jury-room, opened the door and summoned the +occupants. In every stage of dishabille they filed sullenly in; the +sheriff went through the tunnel for Mrs. Balfame. + +The Judge, without his gown and his hair ruffled, was in his seat when +the prisoner entered. She came hurriedly, her great repose broken, her +face grey. Rush, who had entered behind the Judge, met her and +whispered: + +"You are free. But you will need all your self-control. Don't let them +have a story in the morning papers of a breakdown at the last moment." + +Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning and Mrs. Cummack, who were far more excited +than she, took heart at his words, patted their dishevelled hair and +motioned to their husbands, summoned from the Dobton Inn, to draw +closer. Whatever the issue, they felt the need of masculine support, +albeit they scowled at the obvious form that masculine needs had taken. + +Mrs. Balfame had looked dully at Rush as he spoke. Between fatigue and +the nervous strain of maintaining the superwoman pitch for the benefit +of her friends, her mind was confused. She could only mutter, "I'll try. +Is--is--it really--all right?" + +"You'll be free and for ever exonerated in half an hour." + +Mrs. Balfame sank back in her chair, thinking that half an hour was a +long time, a terribly long time. How long did it usually take a jury to +pronounce a prisoner not guilty? + +Sitting before the table in front of her were two men whom she vaguely +recognised. Behind them was the man she hated most now that her husband +was dead, the reporter Broderick. And beside him were Alys Crumley and +Miss Austin. What did it all mean? She drew a sigh. It didn't matter +much. She was so tired, so tired. When it was over she would sleep for a +week and see no one--not even Dwight Rush. + +The district attorney was on his feet, his face as black as if in the +first stages of a poisonous fever. Neither he nor any one in the +court-room threw Mrs. Balfame a glance. All eyes were on the Judge, who +rose and made a short address to the jury. + +"New evidence has just been brought to the notice of the court," he +said. "It is of sufficient importance to warrant its immediate +consideration, and the case is therefore reopened for this purpose. It +is for you, however, to pass upon its worth. Mr. Rush will take the +stand." + +"May it please your honour," shrieked Mr. Gore, "I protest that this +case has already been submitted to the jury, and that it is altogether +out of order to reopen it." + +"That is a matter within the discretion of the court," replied the +Judge sharply; he had slept but fitfully and was not in his accustomed +mood of remote judicial calm. "Mr. Rush will take the stand and proceed +without interruption." + +Rush ascended to the witness-box and was sworn. Mrs. Balfame half rose, +dropped back into her chair with another sigh. There could be but one +explanation of this strange procedure. Rush had discovered that the jury +was hostile and was about to incriminate himself. She could do nothing. +She had brought up the subject only yesterday, and he had replied curtly +that he had taken the pistol from his safe and hidden it elsewhere. And +she was too tired to feel that anything mattered much but the prospect +of a week's rest. Later she could exonerate him in one way or another. + +The newspaper men were as sober and alert as if the hour were ten in the +morning. With their abnormal news-sense they anticipated a complete +surprise. To do them justice, they were quite indifferent to the +possibility of Mrs. Balfame's release. If it were news, Big News, that +was all that mattered. + +As Rush took the witness-chair, the lines in his pallid face looked as +if cut to the bone, but he addressed the jury in strong clear tones. He +told them that two days since he had been informed by Miss Alys Crumley +that Dr. Anna Steuer had positive knowledge bearing upon the crime for +which Mrs. Balfame had been unjustly arrested and thrust into jail, but +that they were afraid to tell her of her friend's tragic situation lest +it shatter her slender hold on life. She was very ill again after a +relapse, although quite conscious, and their only hope was in perfect +peace of mind. + +If she recovered, Mrs. Dissosway, in whom alone she had confided, had +felt sure she would give the testimony which must set Mrs. Balfame at +liberty if the jury convicted her. On the other hand, Mrs. Dissosway had +promised her niece that if the doctors agreed that Dr. Steuer's death +was but a matter of hours and there was a real danger of Mrs. Balfame's +conviction, she would tell the dying woman the truth and take the +consequences. + +Shortly after the case had gone to the jury, Miss Crumley and Miss Sarah +Austin had gone out to the hospital, satisfied that Dr. Anna had but a +few hours to live. But it was not until Miss Crumley had persuaded her +relative that the delayed verdict of the jury meant conviction for Mrs. +Balfame that the superintendent, who was a lifelong friend of Dr. Anna +Steuer, had given Miss Crumley permission to send for a stenographer and +the witnesses she desired. Miss Crumley had therefore telephoned at once +to Mr. Broderick, as she knew he would be sure to be in or near the +courtroom, and asked him to bring the witness and a stenographer. + +They had reached the hospital in fifteen minutes. Dr. MacDougal had met +them at the door of Dr. Steuer's room and informed them that the news of +her friend's predicament had been broken to the patient, after +administering stimulants, and that she had consented immediately to make +a statement. + +"It took her some time to make this statement," continued Mr. Rush. "She +was very weak, and stimulants had to be given repeatedly. But in due +course it was completed, signed, and witnessed by Mr. Broderick and the +two physicians present. I shall read it to you with the permission of +the court." + +He then read them the ante-mortem statement of Dr. Anna Steuer: + +"I shot David Balfame. + +"I make this statement at once lest I prove to be unable to add the +explanation of my motives, and I herewith sign it." + +Signed and witnessed. + +The statement continued: + +"I had known for a long time that my beloved friend's life with this +wretch was insupportable, but although I urged her repeatedly to divorce +him and she refused, it never entered my head to kill him nor any one +else. I had spent my life trying to heal, and to give comfort where my +patient's sufferings were of the mind as well as of the body. I had +carried Balfame through several gastric attacks, caused by his +disreputable life, with as much professional enthusiasm as if he had +been the best of husbands. To have removed him during one of these would +have been a simple matter. + +"But that day out at the Country Club when he insulted the loveliest and +most nearly perfect being on this earth, with the deliberate intent to +ruin her position--the little all she had in the world that +mattered--something snapped in my head. I almost struck him then and +there. And when, during the ride home, Enid for the first time told me +the hideous details of her life with that man all the blood in my body +seemed to surge up and through my brain. He deserved death, and only +death could free her. But how could this be accomplished? Too proud and +too obdurate in her principles for the divorce-court, she was also too +gentle and good and fastidious, in spite of her remarkable will, to +strike him down herself. + +"While waiting for a summons to the Houston farm, I paid several calls, +and the last was at the Cummacks', one of the children being ill. As I +came downstairs from the nursery I heard the conversation at the +telephone--Balfame's drunken compliment to his wife. He said he would +walk home. It was then that the definite impulse came to me, and I acted +without an instant's hesitation. I always carried a revolver, for I was +forced to take many long and lonely rides in my country practice. I +drove straight to the lane behind the Balfame place, left the car, put +out the lights, and climbed the back fence. It was very dark, but I had +been familiar with the grounds all my life and I had no difficulty in +finding the grove. I waited, moving about restlessly, for I wanted to +have it over and go out to the Houston farm. + +"He came after what had seemed to be hours of waiting, singing at the +top of his voice. Mr. Rush tells me there is talk of two pistols having +been fired that night, and that a bullet from a thirty-eight-calibre +pistol entered a tree just to the left of the gate. I heard no one else +in the grove. My revolver was a forty-one and can be found in the drawer +of my desk at home. I fired at Balfame the moment he reached the gate. I +vaguely remember seeing another figure almost beside him, but as Balfame +fell I ran for the lane and my car. I had no intention of giving myself +up. I knew that the crime would be laid to political enemies, who, no +doubt, could produce alibis. This proved to be the case, and when I +broke down and was carried to the hospital it was with the assurance of +public belief in gun-men as the perpetrators of the crime. That Enid +Balfame, that serene and splendid woman, whose life has been a miracle +of good taste and high sense of duty, would be accused never crossed my +mind. + +"No, it is impossible for me to say with truth that I repent. I might +have, once. But these last six months! Millions of men in the greatest +civilisations of earth are killing one another daily for no reason +whatever save that man, who seeks to direct the destinies of the world, +is a complete and pitiful failure. Why, pray, should a woman repent +having broken one of his laws and removed one of the most worthless and +abominable of his sex, who had made the life of a beloved friend past +enduring? Moreover, I have saved hundreds of lives at the risk of my +own. I die in peace. + +"This statement is made with full knowledge of impending death and +without hope of recovery." + +"This ante-mortem statement," concluded Mr. Rush, "was taken down in +longhand by the stenographer who sits below, and signed by Anna Steuer, +M.D., of Elsinore, Brabant County, State of New York. It was witnessed +by Drs. MacDougal and Meyers, who accompanied me from the hospital to +the Court-house. Mr. Broderick of the _New York News_, as I mentioned +before, also heard the confession and affixed his signature." + +He handed the sheets to the jury and stepped down. For a moment there +was no sound but the scratching of pencils on the opposite side of the +room and the faint rustle of paper in the jury-box. Mrs. Balfame had +drawn her veil across her face and sat huddled in her chair. + +The two doctors and Broderick took the stand briefly, the former +testifying that Dr. Steuer had been of clear and sound mind when she +made and signed her statement. Then the district attorney stood up, and +in lifeless tones--Dr. Anna had been his family's most cherished +friend--asked if there was any prospect of the self-confessed criminal +being examined further. Rush went over to Mrs. Balfame and pressed his +hand hard upon her shoulder. + +"May it please your honour," he said, "Dr. Anna Steuer expired before we +left the hospital." + +Again there was a furious scratching of pens. Not a reporter glanced at +Mrs. Balfame. They had forgotten her existence. The Judge asked the jury +if they wished to retire once more for deliberation. The foreman faced +about. The other eleven shook their heads with decision. + +The Judge dismissed them and congratulated the defendant, who had risen +and stood clutching the back of her chair. The reporters raced one +another down the stairs to the telegraph-offices and telephone-booths. + +It was physically impossible for Mrs. Balfame to faint, or to lose +self-control for more than a moment at a time. She drew away from the +friends that crowded about her, one or two of the women hysterical. + +"I shall ask Mr. Rush to take me over to the jail for a few moments," +she said in her clear cold voice. "I must put a few things together, and +I wish to have a few words alone with Mr. Rush." She turned to the dazed +Mr. Cummack. "Take Polly home," she said peremptorily. "Mr. Rush will +drive me over later." + +"All right, Enid." He tucked Mrs. Cummack under his arm. "Your room's +been ready for a week." + +As Rush was about to follow his client he turned abruptly and exchanged +a long look with Alys Crumley. Both faces were pallid and drawn with +fatigue but their eyes for that swift moment blazed with resentment and +despair. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +When Rush and Mrs. Balfame reached the jail sitting-room she +mechanically removed her heavy hat and veil and sank into a chair. + +"Is it true that Anna is dead?" + +Her voice was as toneless as the district attorney's had been. + +"Yes--and we can only be grateful." + +"And she did that for me--for _me_. How strange! How very, very +strange!" + +"It has been done before in the history of the world." Rush too was very +tired. + +"But a woman--" + +"I fancy you were the romance of poor Anna's life. She indulged in no +dreams of the usual sort, with her plain face and squat figure. No doubt +she had centred all her romantic yearnings and all her maternal cravings +on you. She thought you perfect--unequalled--" + +"I! I!" + +She sprang to her feet and thrust her head forward, her eyes coming to +life with resentment and wonder. + +"What--_what_ am I that two people--two people like you and Anna +Steuer--should be ready to die for me? Why, I have never thought of a +mortal being but myself! Anna must have been born with dotage in her +brain. She knew me all my life. She saw me organise charities, give to +the poor what I could afford, find work for the deserving now and +again, and she heard me read absurd compositions before the Friday Club +upon the duty of Women to Society; but she must have known that all were +mere details in my scheme of life and that I was the most selfish +creature that ever breathed." + +Rush shrugged his shoulders, although he was watching her with a +quickened interest. "Why try to analyse? The gift to inspire +devotion--fascination--is as determinate as the gift to write a poem or +compose a symphony. It has existed in some of the worst men and women +that have ever lived. You are not that--not by a long sight--" + +"Oh, no! I am not one of the worst women that have ever lived. Do you +know what I am, how I see myself to-night? I am merely a commonplace +woman everlastingly anxious to do the 'right thing.' That is the +beginning and the end of me, with the exception of a brief aberration--a +release under stress of those anti-social instincts that are deep in +every mortal and exhibited by every child that ever lived. Oh, I am one +of civilisation's proudest products, for I never had the slightest +difficulty with those inherited impulses before. Nor will they ever rise +again. I've even 'improved' during my long hours of solitude in this +room, but it's all of a piece. I've not changed. We none of us do that. +I shall live and die a commonplace woman trying to do the 'right +thing.'" + +"Oh--let us go now. You must rest. You are very tired." + +"I was. But it has passed. The shock of Anna's statement and death +brought me up standing. I shall sail for Europe to-morrow, if there is a +boat. It was Anna's constant regret that she could not go to the +battlefields and nurse, but she would not leave those that depended upon +her here. In some small measure I can take her place. They give a first +course in London I am told. And I am strong, very strong." + +She paused abruptly and moved forward and took his hand. + +"Good night and good-bye," she said. "I shall sleep here to-night. And +please understand that you are free." + +"What do you mean?" Rush's face set like a mask, but the colour mounted. +The grip of his hand was merely nervous, and when she withdrew hers his +unconsciously went to his hip and steadied itself. + +"I mean that so far as lies in my power I shall harm no one again as +long as I live. Moreover, I have seen how it was with you for some time, +although I would not admit it, for I intended to marry you. Perhaps I +should have done so if it had not been for Anna. It took that to lift me +quite out of myself and enable me to see myself and all things relating +to me in their true proportions--for once. It is my moment--If I am ever +to have one. You no longer love me, and if you did I should not marry +you. I say nothing of the injustice to yourself--I could not take the +risk of disillusioning you." She laughed a little nervously. "I fancy I +have done that already. But it does not matter. Go and marry some girl +near your own age who will be a companion, not an ideal with heart and +brain as well as feet of clay." + +"You are excited," said Rush brusquely, although his heart was +hammering, and singing youth poured through his veins. "I shall leave +you now--" + +"You will say good-bye to me now, and that is the last word. I'll +telephone my plans to Cummack in the morning. There is no reason for us +to meet again. To me you will always be a very wonderful and beautiful +memory, for it is something--be sure I appreciate just what it does +mean--to have embodied a romantic illusion if only for an hour. Now +good-bye once more; and find your real happiness as quickly as you can." + +She had opened the door. She pushed him gently out into the corridor, +closed the door and locked it. Mrs. Balfame was alone with the crushing +burden of her soul. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Mrs. Balfame</p> +<p> A Novel</p> +<p>Author: Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton</p> +<p>Release Date: April 13, 2012 [eBook #39443]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. BALFAME***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit,<br /> + and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> + from page images generously made available by<br /> + Internet Archive<br /> + (<a href="http://archive.org">http://archive.org</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" style="background-color: #dde;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + <a href="http://archive.org/details/cu31924022059962"> + http://archive.org/details/cu31924022059962</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<div class = "mynote"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:<br /><br /> +A Table of Contents has been added for the reader's convenience.<br /></p></div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1><span>MRS. BALFAME<br /><br /><span class="smaller"><i>A Novel</i></span></span><br /><span id="id1">BY</span> <span>GERTRUDE ATHERTON</span></h1> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/logo.jpg" width='163' height='200' alt="Logo" /></div> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">NEW YORK<br />FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1916, by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Gertrude Atherton</span></p> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved, including that of translation into<br /> +foreign languages</i></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">FOURTH PRINTING</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div><i>And woman, yea, woman, shall be terrible in story;</i></div> +<div class="i1"><i>The tales too, meseemeth, shall be other than of yore.</i></div> +<div><i>For a fear there is that cometh out of woman and a glory,</i></div> +<div class="i1"><i>And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more.</i></div> +<div><span class="s15"> </span>—<i>The Medea.</i></div> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<p class="bold2">MRS. BALFAME</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span>CONTENTS</span></h2> + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER I</td> + <td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER II</td> + <td><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER III</td> + <td><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER IV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER V</td> + <td><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER VI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER VII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER VIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER IX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER X</td> + <td><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XIV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XVI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XVII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XVIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XIX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXIV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXVI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXVII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXVIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXIX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXX</td> + <td><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_280">280</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXIII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_292">292</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXIV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXV</td> + <td><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXVI</td> + <td><a href="#Page_316">316</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXVII</td> + <td><a href="#Page_322">322</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">CHAPTER XXXVIII </td> + <td><a href="#Page_332">332</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>MRS. BALFAME</span></h2> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER I</span></h2> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had made up her mind to commit murder.</p> + +<p>As she stared down at the rapt faces of the fifty-odd members of the +Friday Club, upturned to the distinguished speaker from New York, whom +she, as President, had introduced in those few words she so well knew +how to choose, it occurred to her with a faint shock that this momentous +resolution had been growing in her essentially refined and amiable mind +for months, possibly for years; for she was not an impetuous woman.</p> + +<p>While smiling and applauding, patting her large strong hands, freshly +gloved in virgin white, at precisely the right moment, as the sound and +escharotic speaker laid down the Woman's Law, she permitted herself to +wonder if the idea had not burrowed in her subconscious mind—that +mental antiquity shop of which she had lately read so much, that she +might expound it to the progressive ladies of the Friday Club—for at +least half the twenty-two years of her married life.</p> + +<p>It was only last night that awakening suddenly she had realised with no +further skirmishes and retreats of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> conscience or principle how she +hated the heavy mass of flesh sleeping heavily beside her.</p> + +<p>For at least eight years, ever since their fortunes had improved and she +had found leisure for the novels and plays of authors well-read in life, +she had longed for a room, a separate personal existence, of her own. +She was no dreamer, but this exclusive and ladylike apartment often had +floated before her mental vision, chastely papered and furnished in a +cold pale blue (she had an uneasy instinct that pink and lavender were +immoral); and by day it should look like a boudoir. She was too wise to +make a verbal assault upon this or any foreign word, for she found the +stage, her only guide, strangely casual or contradictory in these minor +details; but although her little world found no trouble in discovering +what Mrs. Balfame increasingly knew, what she did not know they +suspected so little that they never even discussed her limitations. +Handicapped by circumstances early and late she might be, but she had +managed to insinuate the belief that she was the superior in all things +of the women around her, their born and natural leader.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had never given expression to this desire for a delitescent +bedroom, being a woman who thought silently, spoke guardedly, and, both +patient and philosophical, rarely permitted what she called her +imagination to wander, or bitterness to enter her soul.</p> + +<p>The Balfames were by no means well enough off, even now, to refurnish +the old bedrooms long since denuded by a too economical parent after his +children had married and moved away, but a few mornings since she had +remarked casually that as the springs of the conjugal bed were sagging +she thought she should send it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> to the auction room and buy two single +beds. Last night, lying there in the dark, she had clenched her hands +and held her breath as she recalled David Balfame's purple flush, the +deliberate manner in which he had set down his thick coffee cup and +scrubbed his bristling moustache, then rolled up the stained napkin and +pushed it into the ring before replying.</p> + +<p>His first vocative expressed all, but he was a politician and used to +elaborating his mental processes for the benefit of befuddled +intellects. "You'll have them springs mended," he informed his wife, who +was smiling brilliantly and sweetly across the debris of ham and eggs, +salt mackerel, coffee and hot breads—"that is, if they need it, which I +haven't noticed, and I'm some heavier than you. But you'll introduce no +more of your damned new-fangled notions into this house. It was good +enough for my parents, and it's good enough for us. We lived for fifteen +years without art lampshades that hurt my eyes, and rugs that trip me +up; and these last eight or nine years, since you've been runnin' a club +when you ain't runnin' to New York, I've had too many cold suppers to +suit me; I've paid bills for 'teas' to that Club and I've put out money +for fine clothes for you that I could spend a long sight better at +election time. But I've stood all that, for I guess I'm as good a +husband as any in God's own country; I like to see you well dressed, for +you're still a looker—and it's good business, anyhow; and I've never +grudged you a hired girl. But there's a limit to every man's patience. I +draw the line at two beds. That's all there is to it."</p> + +<p>He had made a part of his speech standing, that being his accustomed +position when laying down the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> law, and he now left the room with the +heavy country slouch his wife had never been able to reform. He had no +authority in walk or bearing, being a man more obstinate than strong, +more cunning than firm.</p> + +<p>She was thankful that he did not bestow upon her the usual marital kiss; +the smell of coffee on his moustache had sickened her faintly ever since +she had ceased to love him.</p> + +<p>Or begun to hate him? She had wondered, as she lay there inhaling deeply +to draw the blood from her head, if she ever had loved him. When a man +and a maid are young! He had been a tall slim youth, with red cheeks and +bright eyes, the "catch" of the village; his habits were commendable and +he would inherit his father's store, his only brother having died a year +earlier and his sisters married and moved West. She was pretty, +empty-headed, as ill-educated as all girls of her class, but she kept +her father's house neatly, she was noted even at sixteen for her pies, +and at twenty for the dexterity and taste with which she made her own +clothes out of practically nothing. She was by no means the ordinary +fool of her age class and nation. But although she was incapable of +passion, she had a thin sentimental streak, a youthful desire for a +romance, and a cold dislike for an impending stepmother.</p> + +<p>David Balfame wooed her over the front gate and won her in the orchard; +and the year was in its springtime. It was all as natural and inevitable +as the measles and whooping-cough through which she nursed him during +the first year of their marriage.</p> + +<p>She had been happy with the happiness of youth ignorance and busy hands; +although there had been the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> common trials and quarrels, they had been +quickly forgotten, for she was a woman of a serene and philosophical +temperament; moreover, no children came, for which she felt a sort of +cold negative gratitude. She liked children, and even attracted them, +but she preferred that other women should bear and rear them.</p> + +<p>But all that comparative happiness was before the dawning of ambition +and the heavier trials that preceded it.</p> + +<p>A railroad expanded the sleepy village into a lively town of some three +thousand inhabitants, and although that meant wider interests for Mrs. +Balfame, and an occasional trip to New York, the more intimate +connection with a great city nearly wrecked her husband's business. His +father was dead and he had inherited the store which had supplied the +village with general merchandise for a generation. But by the time the +railroad came he had grown lazy and liked to sit on the sidewalk on fine +days, or before the stove in winter, his chair tilted back, talking +politics with other gentlemen of comparative leisure. He was popular, +for he had a bluff and hospitable manner; he was an authority on +politics, and possessed an eloquent if ungrammatical tongue. For a time, +as his business dwindled, he merely blasphemed, but just as he was +beginning to feel really uneasy, a brother-in-law who had been the chum +of his youth arrived from Montana and saved him from extinction and "the +old Balfame place" from mortgage.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cummack, the brother-in-law, turned out the loafers, put Dave into +politics, and himself called personally upon every housewife in the +community, agreeing to keep the best of all she needed, but none of +those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> articles which served as an excuse for a visit to New York or +tempted her to delightful hours with the mail-order catalogue.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame detested this bustling common efficient brother-in-law, +although at the end of two years, the twelfth of her married life, she +was keeping a maid-of-all-work and manicuring her nails. She treated him +with an unswerving sweetness, a natural quality which later developed +into the full flower of graciousness, and even gave him a temperate +measure of gratitude. She was a just woman; and it was not long after +his advent that she began to realise the ambition latent in her strong +character and to enter upon a well defined plan for social leadership.</p> + +<p>She found it all astonishingly easy. Of course she never had met, +probably never would meet, the really wealthy families that owned large +estates in the county and haughtily entertained one another when not +entertaining equally exclusive New Yorkers. But Mrs. Balfame did not +waste time in envy of these people; there were old families in her own +and neighbouring villages, proud of their three or four generations on +the same farm, well-to-do but easy-going, democratic and, when not so +old as to be "moss-backs," hospitable to new notions. Many, indeed, had +built new homes in the expanding village, which bade fair to embrace +choice bits of the farms.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame always had dominated these life-long neighbours and +associates, and the gradual newcomers were quick to recognise her power +and her superior mind; to realise that not to know Mrs. Balfame was to +be a commuter and no more. Everything helped her. Even the substantial +house, inherited from her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> father-in-law, and still surrounded by four +acres of land, stood at the head of the original street of the village, +a long wide street so thickly planted with maples as old as the farms +that from spring until Christmas the soft leafy boughs interlaced +overhead. She had a subtle but iron will, and a quite commonplace +personality disguised by the cold, sweet, stately and gracious manner so +much admired by women; and she was quite unhampered by the least of that +originality or waywardness which antagonises the orthodox. Moreover, she +dressed her tall slender figure with unerring taste. Of course she was +obliged to wear her smart tailored suits for two years, but they always +looked new and were worn with an air that quite doubled their not +insignificant price. By women she was thought very beautiful, but men, +for the most part, passed her by.</p> + +<p>For eight years now, Mrs. Balfame had been the acknowledged leader of +Elsinore. It was she who had founded the Friday Club, at first for +general cultivation of mind, of late to study the obsessing subject of +Woman. She cared not a straw for the privilege of voting; in fact, she +thought it would be an extremely unladylike thing to do; but a leader +must always be at the head of the procession, while discriminating +betwixt fad and fashion.</p> + +<p>It was she who had established a connection with a respectable club in +New York; it was she who had inveigled the substantial well-dressed and +radical personage on the rostrum beside her to come over and homilise +upon the subject of "The European War <i>vs.</i> Woman."</p> + +<p>The visitor had proved to her own satisfaction and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> that of the major +part of her audience that the bomb which had precipitated the war had +been made in Germany. She was proceeding complacently, despite the +hisses of several members with German forbears, and the President had +just exchanged a glance of amusement with a moderate neutral, who +believed that Russia's desire to thaw out her icy feet in warm water was +at the bottom of the mischief, when—spurred perhaps by a biting +allusion to the atrocities engaging the press at the moment—the idea of +murder took definite form in that clear unvisionary brain so justly +admired by the ladies of Elsinore.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame's pure profile, the purer for the still smooth contours and +white skin of the face itself, the stately setting of the head, was +turned toward the audience below the platform, and one admiring young +member, who attended an art class in New York, was sketching it as a +study in St. Cecelia's, when those six letters of fire rose smoking from +the battle fields of Europe and took Mrs. Balfame's consciousness by +assault: six dark and murky letters, but with no vagueness of outline.</p> + +<p>The first faint shock of surprise over, as well as the few moments of +retrospect, she asked herself calmly: "Why not?" Over there men were +being torn and shot to pieces by wholesale, joking across the trenches +in their intervals of rest, to kill again when the signal was given with +as little compunction as she herself had often aimed at a target, or +wrung the neck of a chicken that had fed from her hand. And these were +men, the makers of law, the self-elected rulers of the world.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had respected men mightily in her youth. Even now, although +she both despised and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> hated her husband, she responded femininely to a +fine specimen of manhood with good manners and something to talk about +save politics and business. But these were few and infrequent in Brabant +County. The only man she had met for years who interested her in the +least was Dwight Rush, also a scion of one of the old farm families.</p> + +<p>Rush had been educated in the law at a northwestern university, but +after a few years of practice in Wisconsin had accepted an offer to +enter the most respectable law firm in his native township. He had been +employed several times by David Balfame, who had brought him home +informally to supper perhaps once a fortnight during the last six +months. But, although Mrs. Balfame frankly enjoyed his society and his +evident admiration for a beauty she knew had little attraction for his +sex, she had all a conventional woman's dislike for irregularities, +however innocent; and she had snubbed Mr. Rush's desire to "drop in of +an afternoon."</p> + +<p>He barely flitted through her mind when she asked herself what did man's +civilisation amount to, anyway, and why should women respect it? And, +compared with the stupendous slaughter in Europe, a slaughter that would +seem to be one of the periodicities of the world, since it is the +composite expression of the individual male's desire to fight somebody +just so often—what, in comparison with such a monstrous crime, would be +the offence of making way with one obnoxious husband?</p> + +<p>Something over two years ago—when liquor began to put a fiery edge upon +Mr. Balfame's temper—Mrs. Balfame had considered the question of +divorce; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> after several weeks of cool calculation and the exercise +of her foresight upon the inevitable social consequences, she had put +the idea definitely aside. It was incompatible with her plan of life. +Only rich women, or women that were insignificant in great cities, or +who possessed conquering gifts, or who were so advanced as to be +indifferent, could afford the luxury of divorce. Her world was the +eastern division of Brabant County, and while it prided itself upon its +progressiveness, and even—among the younger women—had a gay set, and +although suppressed scandals slid about like slimy monsters in a marsh, +its foundations were inherited from the old Puritan stock, and it fairly +reeked with ancient prejudices.</p> + +<p>It was a typical middle-class community with traditions, some of its +blood too old, and made up of common human ingredients in varying +proportions. Mrs. Balfame, enlightened by much reading and many +matinées, applied the word <i>bourgeois</i> to Elsinore with secret scorn, +but with a sigh: conscious that all its prejudices were hers and that +not for an instant could she continue to be its leader were she a +divorced woman.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame indulged in no dreams of sudden wealth. Elsinore was her +world, and on the whole she was content, realising that life had not +equipped her to lead the society of New York City. She liked to shop in +Fifth Avenue—long since had she politely forgotten the mobs of +Sixth,—to occupy an orchestra chair with a friend at a matinée, and +take tea or chocolate at the fashionable retreats for such dissipations +before returning to provincial Elsinore. There was a tacit agreement +between herself and her husband that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> he should dine with his political +friends in a certain restaurant behind a bar in Dobton, the county seat, +on the Wednesday or Thursday evenings when she found it impossible to +return to Elsinore before seven o'clock; an arrangement which he +secretly approved of but invariably entered a protest against by coming +home at two in the morning extremely drunk.</p> + +<p>He never attended the theatre with her, his preference being for +vaudeville or a screaming musical comedy, for both of which +abnormalities she had a profound contempt. She saw only the "best plays" +herself, her choice being guided not so much by newspaper approval as by +length of run. It must be confessed that in the eight or nine years of +her comparative emancipation from the grinding duties of the home she +had learned a good deal of life from the plays she saw. On the whole, +however, she preferred sound American drama, particularly when it dealt +with Society; for the advanced (or decadent?) pictures of life as +presented in the imported drama, she had only a mild contempt; her first +curiosity satisfied, she thanked God that she was a plain American.</p> + +<p>Such was Mrs. Balfame when she made up her mind to remove David Balfame, +superfluous husband. She was quite content to reign in Elsinore, to live +out her life there, but as a dignified and irreproachable and well-to-do +widow. Divorce being out of the question, there was but one way to get +rid of him: his years were but forty-four, and although he "blew up" +with increasing frequency, to use his own choice vernacular, he was as +healthy as an ox, and the town drunkard was rising eighty.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame's friend, Dr. Anna Steuer, was now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> replying to the lady +from New York. After reminding the Club that the President of the United +States had requested his docile subjects to curb their passions and +flaunt their neutrality, Dr. Steuer proceeded to demolish the +anti-German attitude of the guests by reciting the long list of +industrial, economic and scientific contributions to civilisation which +had distinguished the German Empire since the federation of its states.</p> + +<p>Dr. Steuer was of Dutch descent, and her gifts were not forensic, but +the key-note of her character was an intense and passionate loyalty. She +had spent some of the most impressionable years of her life in the +German clinics, and she cherished a romantic affection for a country +whose natural and historic beauties no man will deny. She had +steadfastly refused to read the "other side," pinning her faith to all +that was best in the country of her youthful dreams. In consequence, her +discourse, while informing, was somewhat beside the point; and had it +not been for the deep love borne her by almost every one present, there +would have been a polite but firm demand to give place.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame was smiling encouragement when her musings took a sudden +and arbitrary twist. Being a person who never acted on impulse, her +decisions, after due processes of thought, were commonly irrevocable. +The moment she had made up her mind to pass her husband on, she had +committed herself to the act; and, even before Dr. Anna Steuer had +claimed her superficial attention, had already erected the question, +How?</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame was a woman who rarely bungled anything, and murder, she +well knew, was the last of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> acts to bungle, did the perpetrator +desire to enjoy the freedom of his act. Being refined to her marrow, she +shrank from all forms of brutality, and rarely, if ever, read the +details of crime in the newspapers. The sight of blood disgusted her, +although it did not turn her faint. She kept a pistol in her bedroom; +burglars, particularly of late, had entered a large number of houses in +Brabant County; but nothing would have horrified her more than to empty +its contents into the worst of criminals.</p> + +<p>Mechanically she had run through the list of all the accepted forms of +removing human impedimenta and rejected them, when Dr. Anna's scientific +mind, playing along the surface of hers, shot in the arrow of suggestion +that she belonged naturally to the type of woman that poisoned if forced +to commit murder. It was bloodless, decent, and required no vulgar +expenditure of energy.</p> + +<p>But healthy people, suddenly dead, were excavated and the quarry +submitted to chemical tests; it was then—smiling brilliantly at her +ardent pro-German friend—that Mrs. Balfame recalled a rainy evening +some two years since. She and Dr. Anna had sat over the fire in the old +Steuer cottage, and the doctor, who before the war never had been +interested in anything but her friends, her science, and suffrage, had +discoursed upon certain untraceable poisons, had even risen and taken +down a vial from a secret cupboard above the mantel. During the same +conversation, which naturally drifted to crime, Dr. Anna had discoursed +upon the idiocy of doctors who poisoned with morphia, strychnine, or +prussic acid, when not only were these organic poisons known to all +scientific <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>members of the profession, but they could easily remove the +barrier to their complete happiness with cholera, smallpox, or typhus +germs, sealed within the noncommittal capsule.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame shuddered at the mere thought of any of these dreadful +diseases, having no desire to witness human sufferings, or to run the +risk of infection, but as she stared at Dr. Anna to-day, she made up her +mind to procure that vial of furtive poison.</p> + +<p>So sudden was this resolution and so grim its portent that it was +accompanied by unusual physical phenomena: she brought her sound white +teeth together and thrust out her strong chin; her eyes became fixed in +a hard stare and the muscles of her face seemed to menace her soft white +skin.</p> + +<p>Alys Crumley, the young woman who had been sketching Mrs. Balfame +instead of listening to the discussion, caught her breath and dropped +her pencil. For the moment the pretty, ultra-refined, elegant leader of +Elsinore society looked not like St. Cecelia but like Medea. Always +determined, resolute, smilingly dominant, never before had she betrayed +the secret possibilities of her nature.</p> + +<p>Miss Crumley cast a glance of startled apprehension about her, but the +debate was just finished, every one was commenting upon the splendid +self-control of the high participants, and repeating the New Yorker's +last phrase: that not civilisation but man was a failure. A moment later +Mrs. Balfame advanced to the edge of the platform, and, with her +inimitable graciousness, invited the members of the Club to come forward +and meet the distinguished guest. Little Miss Alys <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>Crumley, watching +her, listening to her pleasant shallow voice, her amused quiet laugh, +came to the conclusion that the fearsome expression she had seen on her +model's face had been a mere effect of light.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER II</span></h2> + +<p>The meeting of the Friday Club had been held in the Auditorium, a hall +which accommodated moving pictures, an occasional vaudeville +performance, political orators, and subscription balls of more than one +social stratum. It was particularly adapted to the growing needs of the +Friday Club, as it impressed visitors favorably, and there was a small +room in the rear where tea could be served.</p> + +<p>It was a crisp autumn evening when the President and her committee sped +the parting guest of this fateful day and walked briskly homeward, +either to cook supper themselves or to prod the languid "hired girl." +Starting in groups, they parted at successive corners, and finally Mrs. +Balfame and Dr. Anna were alone in the old street. The doctor's offices +were in Main Street under the Auditorium, between the Elsinore Bank and +the Emporium drug store, but she too had inherited a cottage in what was +now known as Elsinore Avenue, and almost at the opposite end from the +"Old Balfame Place."</p> + +<p>"Come in," she said hospitably, as she opened a gate set superfluously +into the low boxwood hedge. "You can 'phone to the Elks' and tell Dave +to try the new hotel. It's ages since I've seen you."</p> + +<p>"I will!" Mrs. Balfame's prompt reply was accompanied by what was known +in Elsinore as her inscrutable smile. "It is kind of you," she added<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +politely, for even with old friends she never forgot her manners. "I +long for a cup of your tea—if you will make it yourself. I really could +eat nothing after those sandwiches."</p> + +<p>"I'll make it myself, all right. First because it wouldn't be fit to +drink if I didn't, and second because it's Cassie's night out."</p> + +<p>She took the key from beneath the door-mat, and pressed an electric +button in the hall and another in a comfortable untidy sitting-room. In +her parents' day the sitting-room had been the front parlour, with an +atmosphere as rigid as the horsehair furniture, but in this era of more +elastic morals it was full of shabby comfortable furniture, a davenport +was close to the radiator, the desk and tables were littered with +magazines, medical reviews, and text books.</p> + +<p>"How warm and delicious," said Mrs. Balfame brightly, removing her hat +and wraps and laying them smoothly on a chair. "I'll telephone and then +close my eyes and think of nothing until tea is ready—I know you won't +have me in the kitchen. What a blessed relief it will be to hear you +sing in your funny old voice after that woman's strident tones."</p> + +<p>She made short work of telephoning. Mr. Balfame, having "just stepped +across the street," she merely left a message for him. Dr. Anna, out in +the kitchen, lighted the gas stove, rattled the aluminum ware, and sang +in a booming contralto.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame went through no stage formalities; she neither tiptoed to +the door nor listened intently. From the telephone, which was on the +desk, she walked over to the strongest looking chair, carried it to the +discarded fireplace, mounted and peered into the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> cupboard the +canny doctor had had built into the old chimney after the furnace was +installed. There Dr. Anna kept her experimental drugs, her mother's seed +pearls and diamond brooch, and a roll of what she called emergency +bills.</p> + +<p>The vial was almost in the middle of a row of bottles. Mrs. Balfame +recognised it at once. She secreted it in the little bag that still hung +on her arm, replaced it with another small bottle that had stood nearer +the end of the row, closed the door and restored the chair to its proper +place. Could anything be more simple?</p> + +<p>She was too careful of her best tailored suit to lie down, but she +arranged herself comfortably in a corner of the davenport and closed her +eyes. Soothed by the warmth of the room and the organ tones in the +kitchen she drifted into a happy state of somnolence, from which she was +aroused by the entrance of her hostess with a tray. She sprang up +guiltily.</p> + +<p>"I had no intention of falling asleep—I meant to set the table at +least—"</p> + +<p>"Those cat naps are what has kept you young and beautiful, while the +rest of us have traded complexions for hides."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame gracefully insisted upon clearing and laying a corner of +the table, and the two friends sat down and chatted gaily over their tea +and toast and preserves. Dr. Anna's face—a square face with a snub nose +and kindly twinkling eyes—beamed as her friend complimented her upon +the erudition she had displayed in her reply to the Club guest and added +wistfully:</p> + +<p>"I feel as if I didn't know a thing about this war.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> Everybody +contradicts everybody else, and sometimes they contradict themselves. +I'm going over to-morrow" ("going over" meant New York in the Elsinore +tongue) "and get all the books that have been printed on the subject, +and read up. I do feel so ignorant."</p> + +<p>"That's a large order. When you've dug through them you'll know less +than you could get from the headlines of the 'anti' evening papers. I'll +hunt up a list that was given me by a patient who claims to be neutral, +if you really want it, and leave it at your house in the morning. It's +at the office."</p> + +<p>"Oh, please do!" Mrs. Balfame leaned eagerly across the table. "You +know, it is my turn to read a paper Friday week, and literally I can +think of nothing else except this terrible but most interesting war. Of +course, I must display some real knowledge and not deal merely in +adjectives and generalities. I'll read night and day—I suppose I can +get all those books from two or three New York libraries?"</p> + +<p>"Enid Balfame, you are a wonder! When you buckle down to a thing! Who +but you would take hold of a subject like that with the idea of +mastering it in two weeks—Oh, bother!"</p> + +<p>The telephone was ringing. Dr. Anna tilted back her chair and lifted the +receiver from the desk to her ear. She put it down almost immediately. +"Hurry call," she said briefly, an intense professional concentration +banishing the pleasant relaxation of a moment before. "Baby. Sorry. +Leave the key under the door mat. Don't hurry." She was putting on her +wraps in the hall as she called back her last words. The front door +banged simultaneously.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Balfame piled the dishes on the tray, carried them out into the +kitchen, washed and put them away. She was a very methodical woman and +exquisitely neat. Although she no longer did her own kitchen work, it +would have distressed her to leave her friend's little home at "sixes +and sevens"; the soiled dishes would have haunted her all night, or at +least until she fell asleep.</p> + +<p>After she had also arranged the publications on the sitting-room table +in neat rows she put on her coat and hat, turned off all the lights, +secreted the key as requested and walked briskly down the path. There +was a street lamp directly in front of the gate. Its light fell on the +face of a man emerging from the heavy shadow of the maple trees that +bordered the avenue. She recognised her husband's lawyer, Dwight Rush.</p> + +<p>"What luck!" he exclaimed boyishly. "Now I shall talk to you for at +least five minutes—ten, if you will walk slowly! What are you doing out +so late alone?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame glanced apprehensively up and down the street. All the +windows were alight, but it was too late in the season for loitering on +verandas; even if they met any one, recognition would hardly be possible +unless the encounter took place under a street lamp. Moreover, she was +one of those women who while rarely terrified when alone became +intensely feminine when a man appeared with his archaic right to shield +and protect. She smiled graciously.</p> + +<p>"You may see me to my gate," she said.</p> + +<p>"I should think I might! A pistol at my head wouldn't keep me from +walking these few blessed minutes with you. Seriously, it's not safe for +you to be out alone like this. There were three burglaries last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> week, +and you are just the woman to have her bag snatched."</p> + +<p>She drew closer to him, a faint accent of alarm in her voice.</p> + +<p>"I never thought of that. But Anna was called off in a hurry. I am so +glad you happened along. Although," primly, "it wouldn't do, you know, +for a woman of my age and position to be seen walking alone with a young +man at night."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense! You are like Cæsar's wife, I guess. Anything you did in +this town would seem about right. You've got them all hypnotised, +including myself. It's the ambition of my life to know you better," he +added in a more serious tone. "Why won't you let me call?"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't do. If I have a nice position it's because I've always been +so particular. If I let young men call on me, people would say that I +was no better than that fast bunch that tangoes every night and goes to +road houses and things." Her voice trailed off vaguely; she really knew +very little of the doings of "gay sets," although much in the abstract +of a too temperamental world.</p> + +<p>She made up her mind to dispose of this misguided young man once for +all. She knew that she looked quite ten years younger than her age, and +she was well aware that although man's passion might be business his +pastime was the hunt.</p> + +<p>"I am thankful that I have no grown daughter to keep from running with +that bunch," she said playfully. "Of course I might have. I am quite old +enough."</p> + +<p>He laughed outright. Then he said the old thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> which is ever new to +the woman, and with a perceptible softening in his hard energetic voice: +"I wonder if you really are as conventional—conventionised—as you +perhaps think you are? You always give me the impression of being two +women, one fast asleep deep down somewhere, the other not even +suspecting her existence."</p> + +<p>"How pretty!" She smiled with pleasure, and she felt a faint stirring of +coquetry, as if the ghost of her youth were rising—that far-off period +when she put on her best ribbons and made her best pies to allure the +marriageable swains of Elsinore. But she recalled herself quickly and +frowned. "You must not say such things to me," she said coldly.</p> + +<p>"But I shall, and I will add that I wish you were a widow, or had never +been married. I should propose to you this minute."</p> + +<p>"That is equivalent to saying that you wish my husband were dead. And he +is your friend, too!"</p> + +<p>"Your husband is not my friend; he is my employer—upon occasion. At the +moment I did not remember who was your husband. Let it go at that."</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>It was evident that he belonged to the type that found its amusement in +making love to married women; but—they were within the rays of a lamp, +and sauntering—she looked up at this pleasant exponent indulgently. She +was quite safe, and it was by no means detestable at the age of +forty-two to be coveted by the cleverest young man in Brabant County.</p> + +<p>The smile left her lips and she experienced a faint vibration of the +nerves as she met the unsmiling eyes bent close above her own.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p>Rush was almost drab in colour, but the bones of his face were large +and his eyes were deeply set and well apart, intensely blue and +brilliant. It was one of those narrow rigid faces the exigencies of his +century and country have bred, the jaw long and almost as salient as +that of a consumptive, the brow bold, the mouth hard set, the cheeks +lean and cut with deep lines, the whole effect not only keen and clever +but stronger than any man has consistently been since the world began. +The curious contradiction about this type of American face is that it +almost invariably looks younger than the years that have contributed to +the modelling of it; such men, particularly if smoothly shaven as they +usually are, look thirty at forty; even at fifty, if they retain their +hair, appear but little older. When Rush's mouth was relaxed it could +smile charmingly, and the eyes fill with playfulness and vivacity, just +as his strident American voice could move a jury to tears by the tears +that were in it.</p> + +<p>At this moment all the intensity of which his striking features were +capable was concentrated in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to make love to you as matters stand," he said, his voice +dry with emotion. "But I want you to divorce Dave Balfame and marry me. +Sooner or later you will be driven to it—"</p> + +<p>"Never! I'll never be a divorced woman. Never! Never!"</p> + +<p>His steady gaze wavered and he sighed. "You said that as if you meant +it. You think you are intellectual, and you haven't outgrown one of the +prejudices of your Puritan grandmothers—who behaved themselves because +women were scarce and even better treated than they are now, and because +they would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> have been too mean to spend money on a divorce suit if +divorces had come into fashion elsewhere."</p> + +<p>"You are far from complimentary!" Mrs. Balfame raised her head stiffly, +not a little indignant at this natural display of sheer masculinity. She +would have withdrawn her arm and hastened her steps but he held her +back.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean to be uncomplimentary. Only, you ought to be so much more +advanced than you are. I repeat, I shall not make downright love to you, +for I intend to marry you one of these days. But I shall say what I +choose. How much longer do you think you can go on living like +this?—with a man you must despise and from whom you must suffer +indignities—and in this hole—"</p> + +<p>"You live here—"</p> + +<p>"I came back here because I had a good offer and I like the East better +than the West, but I have no intention of staying here. I have reason to +believe that I shall get into a New York firm next spring; and once +started on that race-course I purpose to come in a winner."</p> + +<p>"And you would saddle yourself with a wife many years your senior?" she +asked wonderingly.</p> + +<p>But she thrilled again, and unconsciously moderated her gait still +further; they were but a few steps from her home.</p> + +<p>"I am thirty-four. I am sorry that I have impressed you as looking too +young to be taken seriously, but you will admit that if a man doesn't +know his own mind when he is verging toward middle age, he never will. +But if I were only twenty-five, it would make no difference. I would +marry you like a shot. I never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> have given a thought to marrying before. +Girls don't interest me. They show their hand too plainly. I've always +had a sort of ideal and you fill it."</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of Mrs. Balfame's well-ordered mind that her +intention to murder her husband did not intrude itself into this unique +and provocative hour. She had never indulged in a passing desire to +marry again, and hers was not the order of mind that somersaults. But +she was willing to "let herself go," for the sake of the experience; for +the first time in her twenty odd years of married life to loiter in a +leafy shadowy street with a man who loved her and made no secret of it.</p> + +<p>"I wonder?" She stared up at him, curiosity in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Wonder what?"</p> + +<p>"If it <i>is</i> love?"</p> + +<p>He laughed unmusically. "I am not surprised that you ask that +question—you, who know no more of love than if you had been a castaway +on a desert island since the age of ten. Never mind. I've planted a +seed. It will sprout. Think and think again. You owe me that much—and +yourself. I know that six months hence you will have divorced Dave +Balfame, and that you will marry me as soon as the law allows."</p> + +<p>"Never! Never!" She was laughing now, but with all the gay coquetry of +youth, not merely the eidola of her own.</p> + +<p>They had arrived at the gate of the Balfame Place, which faced the +avenue and a large street lamp. She put the gate between them with a +quicker movement than she commonly indulged in and held out her hand.</p> + +<p>"No more nonsense! If I were young and free<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>—who knows? +But—but—forty-two!" She choked but brought it out. "Now go home and +think over all the nice girls you know and select one quickly. I will +make the wedding cake."</p> + +<p>"Did you suppose I didn't know your age? This is Elsinore, and its +inhabitants are five thousand. When you and I were born—of respectably +eminent parentage—all Brabant County numbered few more."</p> + +<p>He made no attempt to open the gate, but he raised her hand to his lips. +Even in that rare moment he was conscious of a regret that it was such a +large hand, and his head jerked abruptly as he flung out the recreant +thought.</p> + +<p>"I never shall change," he said. "And you are to think and think. Now +go. I'll watch until you are indoors."</p> + +<p>"Good night." She ran up the path, wondering if her tall slight figure +looked as willowy as it felt. The mirror had often surprised her with +the information that she looked quite different from the image in her +mind. She also wondered, with some humour, why no one ever had +discovered her apparently obvious charms before.</p> + +<p>When she was in her bedroom and electricity replaced the mellow rays of +street lamps shining through soft and whispering leaves, Mrs. Balfame +forgot Dwight Rush and all men save her husband.</p> + +<p>She took the vial from her bag and stared at it. In a moment a frown +drew her serene brows together, her sweet, shallow, large grey eyes, so +consistently admired by her own sex at least, darkened with displeasure. +She was a bungler after all. How was the stuff to be administered? She +racked her memory, but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> casual explanation of Dr. Anna, uttered at +least two years ago, had left not an echo. A drop in his eggs or coffee +might be too little; more, and he might detect the foreign quantity.</p> + +<p>She removed the cork and sniffed. It was odourless, but was it +tasteless?</p> + +<p>Obviously there was no immediate way of ascertaining save by experiment +on Mr. Balfame. And even if it were tasteless, it might cook his blood, +congest his face, burst his veins—she recalled snatches of Dr. Anna's +dissertations upon "interesting cases." On the other hand, one drop +might make him violently ill; the suspicions of any doctor might be +aroused.</p> + +<p>She must walk warily. Murder was one of the fine arts. Those that +cultivated it and failed followed the victim or spent the rest of their +lives within prison walls. Thousands, it was estimated, walked the earth +unsuspected, unapprehensive, serene and content—contemptuous of +failures and bunglers, as are the masters in any art. Mrs. Balfame was +proudly aware that her rôle in life was success.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to do but wait. She must have another cosy evening +with her scientific friend and draw her on to talk of the poison. Ah! +that made another precaution imperative.</p> + +<p>She went to the cupboard in the bathroom, rinsed a small bottle, +transferred the precious colorless fluid, refilled the vial with water +and returned it to her bag. To-morrow or next day she would slip into +Dr. Anna's house and restore it to its hiding place. The poison she +secreted on the top shelf of the bathroom cupboard.</p> + +<p>Reluctantly, for she was a prompt and methodical woman, she resigned +herself to the prospect of David<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> Balfame's prolonged sojourn upon the +planet he had graced so ill. She went to bed, shrinking into the farther +corner, but falling asleep almost immediately. Then, her hands having +faltered, Fate borrowed the shuttle.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER III</span></h2> + +<p>A fortnight passed before Mrs. Balfame found the opportunity for a chat +with Dr. Anna.</p> + +<p>On Saturday afternoons it was the pleasant custom of the flower of +Elsinore to repair to the Country Club, a building of the bungalow type, +with wide verandas, a large central hall, several smaller rooms for +those that preferred cards to dancing, a secluded bar, a tennis +court—flooded in winter for skating—and a golf links. It was +charmingly situated about four miles from the town, with the woods +behind and a glimpse of the grey Atlantic from the higher knolls.</p> + +<p>The young unmarried set that danced at the Club or in the larger of the +home parlours every night would have monopolised the central hall of the +bungalow on Saturdays as well had it not been for the sweet but firm +resistance of Mrs. Balfame. Lacking in a proper sex vanity she might be, +but she was far too proud and just to permit her own generation to be +obliterated by mere youth. Having no children of her own, it shocked her +fine sense of the fitness of things to watch the subservience of parents +and the selfishness of offspring. One of the most notable results of her +quiet determination was that she and her friends enjoyed every privilege +of the Country Club when the mood was on them, and that a goodly number +of the men of their own generation did not confine their attentions +exclusively to the bar, but came out and danced with their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>neighbours' +wives. The young people sniffed, but as Mrs. Balfame had founded the +Country Club, and they were all helpless under her inflexible will and +skilful manipulation, they never dreamed of rebellion.</p> + +<p>During the fortnight Mrs. Balfame had cunningly replaced the vial, the +indifferent Cassie leaving the sitting-room at her disposal while she +wrote a note reminding Dr. Anna of the promised list of war books, +adding playfully that she had no time to waste in a busy doctor's +waiting-room. In truth Dr. Anna was a difficult person to see at this +time. There was an epidemic of typhoid in the county, and much illness +among children.</p> + +<p>However, on the third Saturday after the interrupted supper, as Mrs. +Balfame was motoring out to the Club with her friend, Mrs. Battle, wife +of the President of the Bank of Elsinore, she saw Dr. Anna driving her +little runabout down a branching road. With a graceful excuse she +deserted her hostess, sprang into the humbler machine, and gaily ordered +her friend to turn and drive to the Club.</p> + +<p>"You take a rest this afternoon," she said peremptorily. "Otherwise you +will be a wreck when your patients need you most. You look just about +fagged out. And I want a little of your society. I've been thinking of +taking to a sick bed to get it."</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna looked at her brilliant friend with an expression of dumb +gratitude and adoration. She was worth one hundred per cent. more than +this companion of her forty years, but she never would know it. She +regarded Enid Balfame as one of the superwomen of Earth, astray in the +little world of Elsinore. Even when Mrs. Balfame had done her own work +she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> managed to look rare and lovely. Her hair was neatly arranged +for the day before descent to the lower regions, and her pretty print +frock was half covered by a white apron as immaculate as her round +uncovered arms.</p> + +<p>And since the leader of Elsinore had "learned things" she was of an +elegance whose differences from those of women born to grace a loftier +sphere were merely subtle. Her fine brown hair, waved in New York, and +coiled on the nape of her long neck, displayed her profile to the best +possible advantage; like all women's women she set great store by her +profile. Whenever possible it was framed in a large hat with a rolling +brim and drooping feathers. Her severely tailored frocks made her look +aloof and stately on the streets (and in the trains between Elsinore and +New York); and her trim white shirt waists and duck skirts, or "one +piece suits" for colder weather, gave her a sweet feminine appeal in the +house. At evening entertainments she invariably wore black, cut chastely +about the neck and draped with a floating scarf.</p> + +<p>Poor Dr. Anna, uncompromisingly plain from youth, worshipped beauty; +moreover, a certain mental pressure of which she was quite unaware +caused her to find in Enid Balfame her highest ideal of womanhood. She +herself was never trim; she was always in a hurry; and the repose and +serenity the calm and sweet dignity of this gifted being both fascinated +and rested her. That Mrs. Balfame took all her female adorers had to +offer and gave nothing but enhanced her worth. She knew the priceless +value of the pedestal, and although her wonderful smile descended at +discreet intervals her substantial feet did not.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p><p>Dr. Anna, who had never been sought by men and had seen too many of +them sick in bed to have a romantic illusion left, gave to this friend +of her lifetime, whom the years touched only to improve—and who never +was ill—the dog-like fidelity and love that a certain type of man +offers at the shrine of the unattainable woman. Mrs. Balfame was +sometimes amused, always complacent; but it must be conceded that she +took no advantage of the blind devotion of either Dr. Anna or her +numerous other admirers. She was far too proud to "use" people.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame seldom discussed her domestic trials even with Dr. Anna, +but this most intimate of her friends guessed that her life with her +husband was rapidly growing unendurable. She was, naturally, the family +doctor; she had nursed David Balfame through several gastric attacks, +whose cause was not far to seek.</p> + +<p>But despite much that was highly artificial in her personality, Enid +Balfame was elementally what would be called, in the vernacular of the +day, a regular female; for a fortnight she had longed to talk about +Dwight Rush. This was the time to gratify an innocent desire while +watching sharply for an opportunity to play for higher stakes.</p> + +<p>"Anna!" she said abruptly, as they sped along the fine road, "women like +and admire me so much, and I am passably good looking—young looking, +too—what do you suppose is the reason men don't fall in love with me? +Dave says that half the men in town are mixed up with those telephone +and telegraph girls, and they are pretty in the commonest kind of way—"</p> + +<p>"Enid Balfame!" Dr. Anna struggled to recover her scandalised breath. +"You! Do you put <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>yourself in the class with those trollops? What's got +into you? Men are men. Naturally they let your sort alone."</p> + +<p>"But I have heard more than whispers about two or three of our good +friends—women of our age, not giddy young fools—and in our own set. +Why do Mary Frew and Lottie Gifning go over to New York so often? Dave +says it isn't only that women from these dull little towns go over to +New York to meet their lovers, but that some of them are the up-town +wives of millionaires, or the day-time wives of all sorts of men with +money enough to run two establishments. It is a hideous world and I +never ask for particulars, but the fact remains that Lottie and Mary and +a few others have as many partners among the young men at the dances as +the girls do; and I can recall hints they have thrown out that they +could go farther if they chose."</p> + +<p>"This is a busy country," remarked Dr. Anna drily. "Men don't waste time +chasing the prettiest of women when convinced there is nothing in it—to +borrow the classic form. Young chaps, urged on by natural law to find +their mate, will pursue the indifferent girl, but men looking for a +little play after business hours will not. Why, you—you look as cold +and chaste as Cæsar's wife. They couldn't waste five minutes on you."</p> + +<p>"That's what he said—that I was like Cæsar's wife—"</p> + +<p>"Enid!" Dr. Anna stopped the little machine and turned upon her friend, +her weary face compact and stern. "Enid Balfame! Have you been letting a +man make love to you?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p><p>"Well, I guess not." Mrs. Balfame tossed her head and bridled. "But the +other night, when I left your house, Mr. Rush was passing and saw me +home. He nearly took my breath away by asking me to get a divorce and +marry him, but he respected me too much to make love to me."</p> + +<p>"I should hope so. The young fool!" But Dr. Anna was unspeakably +relieved. She had turned faint at the thought that her idol might be as +many other women whose secrets she alone knew. "What did you say to +him?" she asked curiously, driving very slowly.</p> + +<p>"Why, that I would not be a divorced woman for anything in the world."</p> + +<p>"You're not the least bit in love with him?" asked Dr. Anna jealously.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame gave her silvery shallow care-free laugh. It might have +come from any of the machines passing, laden with young girls. "Well, I +guess not! That sort of foolishness never did interest me. I guess my +vanity was tickled, but vanity isn't love—by a long sight."</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna looked at the pure cold profile, the wide cool grey eyes, and +laughed. "He did have courage, poor devil! It must have been—no, there +was no moonlight. Must have been the suggestion of that old Lovers' +Lane, Elsinore Avenue. But if you wanted men to make love to you, my +dear, you could have them by the dozen. Nothing easier—for pretty women +of any age who want to be made love to. As for Rush—" She hesitated, +then added generously, "he has a future, I think, and could take you +somewhere else."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p><p>"I should be like a fish out of water anywhere but in Elsinore. I have +no delusions. Forty-two is not young—that is to say, it is long past +the adaptable age, unless a woman has spent her life on the move and +filling it with variety. I love Elsinore as a cat loves its hearth-rug. +And I can get to New York in an hour. I think this would be the ideal +life with about two thousand dollars more a year, and—and—"</p> + +<p>"Dave Balfame somewhere else! Pity Sam Cummack didn't turn him into a +travelling salesman instead of planting him here."</p> + +<p>"He's never been interested in anything in his life but politics. But I +don't really bother about him," she added lightly. "I have him well +trained. After all, he never comes home to lunch, he interferes with me +very little, he goes to the Elks every night soon after dinner, and he +falls asleep the minute he gets into bed. Why, he doesn't even snore. +And he carries his liquor pretty well. I guess you can't expect much +more than that after twenty-two years of matrimony. I notice that if it +isn't one thing it's another."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord! Well, I wish he'd break his neck."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Anna!"</p> + +<p>"Well, of course I didn't mean it. But I see so many good people die—so +many lovely children—I'm sort of callous, I guess. I make no bones of +wishing that he'd died of typhoid fever last week, instead of poor Joe +Morton, who had a wife and two children to support, and was the salt of +the earth—"</p> + +<p>"You might give Dave a few germs in a capsule!" Mrs. Balfame interrupted +in her lightest tones, although she turned her face away. "Or that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>untraceable poison you once showed me. A bottle of that would finish +him!"</p> + +<p>"A drop and none the wiser." Dr. Anna's contralto tones were gloomy and +morose. "Unfortunately, I am not scientific enough for cold-blooded +murder. I'm a silly old Utopian who wishes that a plague would come and +sweep all the undesirables from the earth and let us start fair with our +modern wisdom. Then I suppose we'd bore one another to death until +original sin cropped out again. Better speed up, I guess. I've a full +evening ahead of me."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER IV</span></h2> + +<p>The "smart set" of Elsinore was composed of the twelve women that could +afford to lose most at bridge. Mrs. Balfame, who could ill afford to +lose anything, but who was both a scientific and a lucky player, +insisted upon moderate stakes. The other members of this inner exclusive +circle were the wives of two bankers, three contractors, two prosperous +merchants, one judge, one doctor, and two commuters who made their +incomes in New York and slept in Elsinore. These ladies made it a point +of honor to dine at seven, dress smartly and appropriately for all +occasions, attend everything worth while to which they could obtain +entrance in New York, pay an occasional visit to Europe, read the new +novels and attend the symphony concerts. It is superfluous to add that +the very foundation of the superior social status of each was a large +house of the affluent type peculiar to the prosperous annexes of old +communities, half brick and half wood, shallow, characterless, +impersonal; and a fine car with a limousine top. The house stood in the +midst of a lawn sloping to the street, unconfined by even the box hedge +and undivided from the neighbouring grounds. The garage, little less +pretentious than the mansion, also faced the street, for all to see. +There was hardly a horse left in Elsinore; taxi cabs awaited the +traveller at the station, and people that could not afford handsome cars +purchased and enjoyed the inexpensive runabout.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Balfame had segregated her smart set for strategic reasons, but +that did not mean that both she and they were not kindness itself to the +less favoured. Obviously, an imposing party cannot be given by twelve +families alone, especially when almost half their number are childless. +On all state occasions the list of invited numbered several hundred, in +that town of some five thousand inhabitants.</p> + +<p>It said much for the innate nobility of these wealthier dames of +Elsinore, who read the New York society papers quite as attentively as +they did the war news, that they submitted without a struggle to the +dominance of a woman who never had possessed a car and whose husband's +income was so often diverted from its natural course; but Mrs. Balfame +not only outclassed them in inflexibility of purpose, but her family was +as old as Brabant County; the Dawbarns had never been in what might be +called the cavalry regiment, consisting of those few chosen ones living +in old colonial houses set in large estates and with both roots and +branches in the city of New York; but no one disputed their right to be +called Captains of the infantry. And Mrs. Balfame, sole survivor in the +direct line, had two wealthy cousins in Brooklyn.</p> + +<p>Once in a while Dr. Anna, a privileged character, and born at least in +Brabant County, took a hand at bridge, but she was a poor player, and, +upon the rare occasions when she found time to spend a Saturday +afternoon at the Country Club, preferred to rest in a deep chair and +watch the young folks flirt and dance until the informal supper was +ready. Never had she tripped a step, but she loved youth, and it gave +her an acute old maid's delight to observe the children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> grow up; +snub-nosed, freckled-faced awkward school girls develop at a flying leap +into slim American prettiness, enhanced with every late exaggeration of +style. She also approved heartily, on hygienic grounds, of the friends +of her own generation dancing, even in public, if their partners were +not too young and their forms too cumbersome.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame and Dr. Anna arrived at the Club shortly after four +o'clock. Young people swarmed everywhere, within and without; perhaps +twenty older matrons were sitting on the veranda knitting those +indeterminate toilette accessories for the Belgians which always seemed +to be about to halt at precisely the same stage of progress.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame, who had set the fashion, had not brought her needles +to-day. She went directly to the card room; but her partner for the +tournament not having arrived, she entertained her impatient friends +with a recent domestic episode.</p> + +<p>"I have a German servant, you know," she said, removing her wraps and +taking her seat at the table. "A good creature and a hard worker, but +leaden-footed and dull beyond belief. Still, I suppose even the dullest +peasant has spite in her make-up. I have been reading tomes of books on +the war, as you learned from painful experience yesterday; most of them, +as it happened—a good joke on Anna that, as she gave me the list—quite +antagonistic to Germany. One day when Frieda should have been dusting I +caught her scowling over the chapter heads of one of them. Of course she +reads English—she has been here several years. Day before yesterday, +when I was knitting, she asked me whom I was knitting for, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> told +her—for the Belgians, of course. She asked me in a sort of growl why I +didn't knit for the homeless in East Prussia—it seems that is where she +comes from and she has been having letters full of horrors. I seldom +bandy words with a servant, for you can't permit the slightest +familiarity in this country if you want to get any work out of them. But +as she scowled as if she would like to explode a shrapnel under me, and +as she is the third I have had in the last five months, I said +soothingly that the newspaper correspondents had neglected the eastern +theatre of war, but had harrowed our feelings so about the Belgians that +we felt compelled to do what we could for them. Then I asked her—I was +really curious—if she had no sympathy for those thousands of afflicted +women and children, merely because they were the victims of the Germans. +She has a big soft face with thick lips, little eyes, and a rudimentary +nose; generally as expressionless as such a face is bound to be. But +when I asked her this question it suddenly seemed to turn to wood—not +actively cruel; it merely expressed the negation of all human sympathy. +She turned without a word and slumped—pardon the expression—out of the +room. But the breakfast was burned this morning—I had to cook another +for poor David—and I know she did it on purpose. I am afraid I shall +have to let her go."</p> + +<p>"I would," said Mrs. Battle, wisely. "She is probably a spy and quite +clever."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but such a worker!" Mrs. Balfame sighed reminiscently. "And when +you have but one servant—"</p> + +<p>The tardy partner bustled in and the game began.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER V</span></h2> + +<p>It was about six o'clock when Mrs. Balfame, steadily losing, contrary to +all precedent, her mind concentrated, her features, like those of the +rest of the players, as hard as the stone faces dug out of Egypt, her +breath escaping in hissing jets, became vaguely conscious of a +disturbance in the outer room. The young people were dancing, as was +usual in the hour before supper, but the piano and fiddles appeared to +be playing against the ribald interruptions of a man's voice. It was +some time before the narrow flow of thought in Mrs. Balfame's brain was +deflected by the powerful outer current, but suddenly she became aware +that her partners were holding their cards suspended, and that their +ears were cocked toward the door. Then she recognised her husband's +voice.</p> + +<p>For a moment she lost her breath and her blood ran chill. She had been +apprehensive for some time of a scene in public, but she had assumed +that it would occur in a friend's house of an evening; he attended her +nowhere else. The Club he had deserted long since; it was much too slow +for a man of his increasing proclivities, especially in a county +liberally provided with saloons and road houses.</p> + +<p>During the last month she had become sensible of a new hostility in his +attitude toward her; it was as if he had suddenly penetrated her hidden +aversion and all his masculine vanity had risen in revolt. Being a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +woman of an almost excessive tact, she had sprayed this vanity for +twenty-two years with the delicately scented waters of flattery, but the +springs had gone suddenly dry on that morning when she had uttered her +simple and natural desire to bring the conjugal sleeping accommodations +up to date.</p> + +<p>And now he had come out here to disgrace her, she immediately concluded, +to make her a figure of fun, to destroy her social leadership. This +might also involve him in a loss, but when a man is both drunk and angry +his foresight grows dim and revenge is sweet.</p> + +<p>Only last night there had been an intensely disagreeable scene in +private; that is to say, she had been dignified and slightly +contemptuous, while he had shouted that her knitting got on his nerves, +and the sight of all those books on the war made him sick. When the +whole business of the country was held up by this accursed war, a man +would like to forget it when at home. And every man had the same story, +by God; his wife was knitting when she ought to be darning stockings; +trying to be intellectual by concerning herself with a subject that +concerned men alone. Mr. Balfame had always resented the Woman's Club, +and all talk of votes for a sex that would put him and his kind out of +business. Their intelligent interest in the war was a grievous personal +indignity.</p> + +<p>Being a woman of clear thought and firm purpose, and of a really high +order of moral courage, Mrs. Balfame was daunted for a moment only. She +laid down her cards, opened the door and entered the main room of the +club-house. There she saw, at the head of the room, a group of men +surrounding her husband; with one exception, almost as excited as he. +The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>exception was Dwight Rush who had a hand on one of Balfame's +shoulders and appeared to be addressing him in a low tone. Little Maude +Battle ran forward and grasped her arm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear Mrs. Balfame," she gasped, "do take him home. He is +so—so—queer. He snatched three girls away from their partners, and the +boys are so mad. And his language—oh, it was something awful."</p> + +<p>The women and girls were huddled in groups, all but Alys Crumley, who, +Mrs. Balfame vaguely realised, was sketching. Their eyes were fixed on +the group at the head of the room, where Rush was now trying to edge the +burly swaying figure toward the door.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame walked directly up to her flushed and infuriated spouse.</p> + +<p>"You are not well, David," she said peremptorily. "In all the years of +our married life never have you acted like this. I am sure that you are +getting typhoid fever—"</p> + +<p>"To hell with typhoid fever!" shouted Mr. Balfame. "I'm drunk, that's +what. And I'll be drunker when they let me into the bar. You get out of +this."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame turned to Dr. Anna, who had marched up the room beside her. +"I am sure it is fever," she said with decision, and the loyal Anna +nodded sagely. "You know that liquor never affects him. We must get him +home."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" jeered Balfame, "you two get me home! I'm not so drunk I can't +see the joke of that. The matter with you is you think I'm disgracin' +you, and you want to go on bein' the high cock-alorum of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> bunch. +Well, I'm sick of it, and I'm sick of bein' told to eat out when you're +at matinées or that damned Woman's Club. Home's the place for women. +Knittin's all right." He laughed uproariously. "But stay at home by the +fire and knit your husband's socks. Smoke a pipe too, if you like it. +That's what my granny did. The whole lot of you women haven't got one +good man's brain between you, and yet you'd talk the head off the +President of the United States—"</p> + +<p>He was about to launch upon his opinion of Elsinore society when a +staccato cough interrupted the flow. Mrs. Balfame turned away with a +gesture of superb disdain, although her face was livid.</p> + +<p>"The sex jealousy we have so often discussed!" Her clear tones from the +first had carried all over the room. "He must be taken home." She looked +at Dwight Rush and said graciously: "I am sure he will go with you. And +he will apologise to the Club when he is himself again. I shall go back +to our game."</p> + +<p>She held her head very high as she swept down the long room, but her jaw +was set, her nostrils distended, a narrow strip of eye was fixed and +glaring.</p> + +<p>An unforeseen situation had blown to flame such fires of anger as +existed in her depths, and she was unable to extinguish them as quickly +as she would have wished. To the intense surprise of the bridge women +who had followed her out of the card-room and in again, she sank into a +chair and burst into tears. But she managed to cry quietly into her +handkerchief, and in a few moments had her voice under control.</p> + +<p>"He has disgraced me!" she exclaimed bitterly. "I must resign from the +Club."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess not." The ladies had crowded about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> her sympathetically. +"We'll all stand up for you," cried Mrs. Battle. "The men will give him +a good talking-to, and he'll write an apology to the Club and that will +end it."</p> + +<p>These friends, old and more recent, were embarrassed in their genuine +sympathy, for no one had ever seen Mrs. Balfame in tears before. Vaguely +they regretted that, extreme as was the provocation, she should have +descended to the level of mere womanhood. It was as if they were present +at the opening of a new chapter in the life of Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore; +as, in truth, they were.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame blew her nose. "Pardon me," she said. "I never believed I +should break down like this—but—but—" once more she set her teeth and +her eyes flashed. "I have a violent headache. I must go home. I cannot +finish the game."</p> + +<p>"I'll take you home," Dr. Anna spoke. "Oh, that beast!"</p> + +<p>The other women kissed Mrs. Balfame, straightened her hat, and escorted +her out to the runabout which Dr. Anna brought to the rear entrance of +the clubhouse. She smiled wearily at the group, touching her brow with a +finger. As soon as the little car had left the grounds and was beyond +the reach of peering eyes, she made no further attempt at self-control, +but poured forth her inmost soul to the one person she had ever fully +trusted. She told the doctor all the secret horror of her life, her +hatred and loathing of David Balfame; everything, in short, but her +determination to kill him, which in the novel excitement that had +invaded her nervous system, she forgot.</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna, who had heard many such confessions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> but who obstinately had +hoped that her friend's case was not as bad as it appeared +superficially, was glad that she was not driving a horse; humane as she +was, she should have forgotten herself and lashed him to relieve her own +feelings.</p> + +<p>"You must get a divorce," she said through her teeth. "You really must. +I saw Rush looking at you. There is no mistaking that expression in a +man's eyes. You must—you must divorce that brute."</p> + +<p>"I'll not!" Mrs. Balfame's composure returned abruptly. "And please +forget that I gave way like this and—and said things." She wondered +what she really had said. "I know I need not ask you never to mention +it. But divorce! Oh, no. If I continue to live with him they'll be sorry +for me and stand by me, but if I divorced him—well, I'd just be one +more divorced woman and nothing more. Elsinore isn't Newport. Moreover, +they'd feel I'd no further need of their sympathy. In time they'd let me +pretty well alone."</p> + +<p>"I don't think much of your arguments," said Dr. Anna. "You could marry +Rush and go to New York."</p> + +<p>"But you know I mean what I say. And don't worry, Anna dear." She bent +over the astonished doctor and gave her a warm kiss. "And as I'm not +demonstrative, you know I mean that too. You are not to worry about me. +I've got the excuse I needed, and I'm going to buy some things at second +hand and refurnish one of the old bedrooms and live in it. He can't say +a word after this, and he'll be humble enough, for the men will make him +apologise to the Club. I'll threaten him with divorce, and that alone +will make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> him behave himself, for it would cost him a good deal more to +pay me alimony than to keep the old house going—"</p> + +<p>"That isn't an argument that will have much effect on a man, usually in +liquor. But women are queer cattle. Divorce is a great and beneficent +institution, and here you elect to go on living under the same roof with +a brute—Oh, well, it's your own funeral. Here we are. I've got to speed +up and practise medicine. Am expecting a call from out at Houston's any +minute. Baby. Good night."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VI</span></h2> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame let herself into the dark house. Saturday was Frieda's +night out.</p> + +<p>Contrary to her economical habit, she lighted up the lower floor +recklessly, and opened the windows; she felt an overwhelming desire for +light and air. But as she wished to think and plan with her accustomed +clarity she went at once to the pantry in search of food; the blood was +still in her head.</p> + +<p>The morrow would be Sunday, and the Saturday luncheon was always +composed of the remains of the Friday dinner. On Saturday she dined at +the Country Club. Therefore Mrs. Balfame found nothing with which to +accomplish her deliberate scientific purpose but dry bread and a box of +sardines. She was opening this delectable when the front door bell rang.</p> + +<p>Her set face relaxed into a frown, but she went briskly to the door. The +poison might be transpirable after all, and her alibi must be perfect; +she had changed her mind about going to bed with a headache, and at ten +o'clock, when she knew that several of her childless friends would be at +home, she purposed to call them up and thank them sweetly and +cheerfully.</p> + +<p>When she saw Dwight Rush on the stoop, however, she almost closed the +door in his scowling face.</p> + +<p>"Let me in!" he commanded.</p> + +<p>"No!" She spoke with sweet severity. "I shall not. After such a scene? I +must be more careful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> than ever. Go right away. I, at least, shall +continue to be above reproach."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" He swallowed the natural expression of masculine irritation. "If +you won't let me in I'll say what I've got to say right here. Will you +divorce that brute and marry me? I can get you a divorce on half a dozen +grounds."</p> + +<p>"I'll have no divorce, now or ever." Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore spoke with +haughty finality. "I abominate the word." Then she added graciously: +"But don't think I am unappreciative of your kindness. Now you must go +away. The Gifnings live on the corner, and they always come home early."</p> + +<p>"A good many have left, including Balfame. He spoilt the evening." Rush +stared at her and ground his teeth. "By God! I wish the old duelling +days were back again. I'd call him out. If you say the word I'll pick a +quarrel with him anyhow. He carries a gun, and there isn't a jury in +Brabant County that wouldn't acquit me on the plea of self-defence. My +conscience would trouble me no more than if I had shot a mad dog."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame gave a little gasp, which he mistook for horror. But +temptation had assailed her. Why not? Her own opportunity might be long +in coming. It would be like Dave Balfame to go away and stay for a +month. But the temptation passed swiftly. Human nature is too complex +for any mere mortal to reduce to the rule of three. While she could +dispose of her husband without a qualm, her conscience revolted from +turning an upright citizen like Dwight Rush into a murderer.</p> + +<p>She closed the door abruptly, knowing that no mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> verbal refusal to +accept such an offer would be adequate, and he went slowly down the +steps. But in a moment he ran back and a few feet down the veranda, +thrusting his head through one of the open windows.</p> + +<p>"Just one minute!"</p> + +<p>She was passing the parlour door and paused.</p> + +<p>"Promise me that if you are in trouble you will send for me. For no one +else; no other man, that is, but me. You owe me that much."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I promise." She spoke more softly and smiled.</p> + +<p>"And close these windows. It is not safe to leave veranda windows open +at this hour."</p> + +<p>"I intended to close them before going up stairs. But—perhaps you will +understand—the house when I came in seemed to reek with tobacco and +liquor—with him!"</p> + +<p>His reply was inarticulate, but he pulled down the windows violently, +and she locked them, smiling once more before she turned out the light.</p> + +<p>She returned to the dining-room, thinking upon food with distaste, but +determined to eat until her head felt normal. She had no intention of +speaking to her husband should he return, for she purposed to sleep on a +sofa in the sewing-room and lock the door, but tones and brain must be +lightly poised when she telephoned to her friends.</p> + +<p>The telephone bell rang. Once more she frowned, but answered the summons +as promptly as she had opened the front door. To her amazement she heard +her husband's voice.</p> + +<p>"Say," it said thickly, "I'm sorry. Promise not to take another drink +for a month. Sorry, too, I've got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> to go to the house for a few minutes. +Didn't intend to go home to-night—thought I'd give you time to get over +bein' as mad as I guess you've got a right to be. But I got to go to +Albany—politics—got to go to-night—must go home and get my grip. +You—you—wouldn't pack it, would you? Then I needn't stay so long. Only +got to sort some papers myself."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame replied in the old wifely tones that so often had caused +him to grit his teeth: "I never hold a man in your condition responsible +for anything. Of course I'll pack your suitcase. What is more, I'll have +a glass of lemonade ready, with aromatic spirits of ammonia in it. You +must sober up before you start on a journey."</p> + +<p>"That's the ticket. You're a corker! Put in a bromide, too. I'm at +Sam's, and I guess I'll walk over—need the air. You just go on bein' +sweet and I'll bring you something pretty from Albany."</p> + +<p>"I want one of those new chiffon-velvet bags, and you will please get it +in New York," she said practically. "I'll write an exact description of +it and put it in the suitcase."</p> + +<p>"All right. Go ahead." His accents breathed profound relief, and +although her brain was working at lightning speed, and her eyes were but +a pale bar of light, she curled her lip scornfully at the childishness +of man, as she hung up the receiver.</p> + +<p>She made the glass of lemonade, added the usual allowance of aromatic +spirits of ammonia and bromide—a bottle of each was kept in the +sideboard ready for instant use—then ran upstairs and returned with the +colourless liquid she had purloined from Dr. Anna's cupboard.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p><p>Her scientific friend had remarked that one drop would suffice, but +being a mere female herself she doubled the dose to make sure; and then +set the glass conspicuously in the middle of the table. The half opened +can of sardines and the plate of bread were quite forgotten, and once +more she ran upstairs, this time to pack his useless clothes.</p> + +<p>She performed this wifely office with efficiency, forgetting nothing, +not even the hair tonic he was administering to a spreading bald spot, a +bottle of digestive tablets, a pair of the brown kid gloves he affected +when dressed up, and a volume of detective fiction. Then she wrote a +minute description of the newest fashion in hand bags and pinned it to +his dinner jacket. The suitcase was an alibi in itself.</p> + +<p>When she had packed it and strapped it and carried it down to the +dining-room, returned to her room and locked the door, she realised that +she had prolonged these commonplace duties in behalf of her nerves. +Those well-disciplined rebels of the human system were by no means +driven to cover, and this annoyed her excessively.</p> + +<p>She had no fear of not rising to precisely the proper pitch when she +heard her husband fall dead in the dining-room, for she always had risen +automatically to every occasion for which she was in any measure +prepared, and to many that had caught her unaware. It was the ordeal of +waiting for the climax that made her nerves jeer at her will, and she +found that a series of pictures was marching monotonously through her +mind, again, and again, and yet again: with that interior vision she saw +her husband walk unsteadily up the street, swing open the gate, slam it +defiantly, insert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> his latch-key; she saw his eye drawn to the light in +the dining-room at the end of the dark hall, saw him drink the lemonade, +drop to the floor with a fall that shook the house; she saw herself +running down, calling out his name, shattering the glass on the floor, +then running distractedly across the street to the Gifnings'—and again +and still again.</p> + +<p>She had been pacing the room. It occurred to her that she could vary the +monotony by watching for him, and she put out her light and drew aside +the sash curtain. In a moment she caught her breath.</p> + +<p>Her room was on a corner of the house and commanded not only the front +walk leading down to Elsinore Avenue, but the grounds on the left. In +these grounds was a large grove of ancient maples, where, dressed in +white, she passed many pleasant hours in summer with a book or her +friends. The trees, with their low thick branches still laden with +leaves, cast a heavy shade, but her gaze, moving unconsciously from the +empty street, suddenly saw a black and moving shadow in that black and +almost solid mass of shadows.</p> + +<p>She watched intently. A figure undoubtedly was moving from tree to tree, +as if selecting a point of vantage, or restless from one of several +conceivable causes.</p> + +<p>Could it be her husband, summoning his courage to enter and face her? +She had known him in that mood. But she dismissed the suggestion. He had +inferred from her voice that she was both weary and placated, and he was +far more likely to come swaggering down the avenue singing one of his +favourite tunes; he fancied his voice.</p> + +<p>Frieda never returned before midnight, and then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> although she entered +by the rear hall door and stole quietly up the back stairs, she would be +quite without shame if confronted.</p> + +<p>Therefore, it must be a burglar.</p> + +<p>There could not have been a more welcome distraction. Mrs. Balfame was +cool and alert at once. As an antidote to rebellious nerves awaiting the +consummation of an unlawful act, a burglar may be recommended to the +most amateurish assassin.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame put on her heavy automobile coat, wrapped her head and face +in a dark veil, transferred her pistol from the table drawer to a +pocket, and went softly down the stairs. She left the house by the +kitchen door, and, after edging round the corner stood still until her +eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Then, once, more, she saw that moving +shadow.</p> + +<p>She dared not risk crossing the lawn directly from the house to the +grove, but made a long détour at the back, keeping on the grass, +however, that her footsteps should make no noise.</p> + +<p>A moment or two and she was within the grove. She saw the shadow detach +itself again, but it was impossible to determine its size or sex, +although she inferred from its hard laboured breathing that the +potential thief was a man.</p> + +<p>He appeared to be making craftily for the house, no doubt with the +intention of opening one of the lower windows; and she stalked him with +a newly awakened instinct, her nostrils expanding. The original resolve +to kill her husband had induced no excitement at all; even Dwight Rush's +love-making had thrilled her but faintly; but this adventure in the +night, stalking a house-breaker, presently to confront him with the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>command to raise his hands, cast a momentary light upon the emotional +moments experienced by the highly organised.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she heard her husband's voice. He was approaching Elsinore +Avenue from one of the nearby streets, and he was singing, with +physiological interruptions, "Tipperary," a song he had cultivated of +late to annoy his political rival, an American of German birth and +terrific German sympathies. He was walking quickly, as top-heavy men +sometimes will.</p> + +<p>She drew back and crouched. To make her presence known would be to turn +over the burglar to her husband and detain the essential victim from the +dining-room table.</p> + +<p>She saw the shadow dodge behind a tree. Balfame appeared almost abruptly +in the light shed by the street lamp in front of his gate; and then it +seemed to her that she had held her breath for a lifetime before her +ears were stunned by a sharp report, her eyes blinked at a spurt of +fire, before she heard David Balfame give a curious sound, half moan, +half hiccough, saw him clutch at the gate, then sink to the ground.</p> + +<p>She was hardly conscious of running, far more conscious that some one +else was running—through the orchard and toward the back fence.</p> + +<p>Hours later, it seemed to her, she was in the kitchen closing the door +behind her. Something curious had happened in her brain, so trained to +orderly routine that it seldom prompted an erratic course.</p> + +<p>She should have run at once to her husband, and here she was inside the +house, and once more listening intently. It was the fancied sound that +swung her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> consciousness back to its balance. She went to the front of +the back stairs and called sharply:</p> + +<p>"Frieda!"</p> + +<p>There was no answer.</p> + +<p>"Frieda," she called again. "Did you hear anything? I thought I heard +some one trying to open the back door."</p> + +<p>Again there was no answer.</p> + +<p>Then, her lip curling at the idea of Frieda's return on Saturday night +at eight o'clock, she went rapidly into the dining-room, carried the +glass containing the lemonade into the kitchen, rinsed it thoroughly, +and put it away.</p> + +<p>It was not until she reached her room that it occurred to her that she +should have ascertained whether or not the key was on the inside of the +rear hall door.</p> + +<p>But this was merely a flitting thought; there were loud and excited +voices down by the gate. In an instant she had hung up her automobile +cloak and veil, changed her dress for a wrapper, let down her hair and +thrown open the window.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" Her tone was peremptory but apprehensive.</p> + +<p>"Matter enough!" John Gifning's voice was rough and broken. "Don't come +out here. Mean to say you didn't hear a shot?"</p> + +<p>Two or three men were running about nearer the house. One paused under +her window, and looked up, waving his hand vaguely.</p> + +<p>"Shot? Shot? I heard—so many tires explode—What do you mean? What is +it?—Who—"</p> + +<p>"Here's the coroner!" cried one of the group at the gate.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p><p>"Coroner?"</p> + +<p>She ran down stairs, threw open the front door and went as swiftly +toward the gate, her hair streaming behind her.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Now—now." Mr. Gifning intercepted her and clasped her shoulder firmly. +"You don't want to go down there—and don't take on—"</p> + +<p>She drew herself up haughtily. "I am not an hysterical woman. Who has +been shot down at my gate?"</p> + +<p>"Well," blurted out Gifning. "I guess you'll have to know. It's poor old +Dave."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame drew herself still higher and stood quite rigid for a +moment; then the coroner, one of her husband's friends, came up the path +and said in a low tone to Gifning, "Take her upstairs. We're goin' to +bring him in. He's gone, for a fact."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gifning pushed her gently along the path, as the others lifted the +limp body and tramped slowly behind. "You go up and have a good cry," he +said. "I'll 'phone for the Cummacks. I guess it was bound to come. +There's been hot times in Dobton lately—"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that he was deliberately murdered?"</p> + +<p>"Looks like it, seeing that he didn't do it himself. The damned hound +was skulking in the grove. Of course he's made off, but we'll get him +all right."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame walked slowly up the stair, her head bowed, while the heavy +inert mass so lately abhorrent to his wife and several politicians was +laid on the sofa in the parlour whose evolutions had annoyed him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gifning telephoned to the dead man's brother-in-law, then for the +police and the undertaker.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Balfame sat down and awaited the inevitable bombardment of her +privacy by her more intimate friends. Already shriller voices were +mingling with the heavier tones down on the lawn and out in the avenue. +The news seemed to have been flashed from one end of Elsinore to the other.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VII</span></h2> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame sat with Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning, Mrs. Frew, her +sister-in-law, Mrs. Cummack, and several of her other friends in her +quiet bed-chamber. It was an hour after the death of David Balfame and +she had, for the seventh time, told the story of packing her husband's +suit case, carrying it down stairs, returning to her room to undress, +hearing the commotion down by the gate. Yes, she had heard a report, but +Elsinore Avenue—automobiles—exploding tires—naturally, it had meant +nothing to her at the moment. No, he did not cry out—or if he did—her +window was closed; it was the side window she left open at night.</p> + +<p>She had accepted a bottle of smelling salts from Mrs. Battle, but sat +quite erect, looking stunned and frozen. Her voice was expressionless, +wearily reiterating a few facts to gratify the curiosity of these +well-meaning friends, as wearily listening to Lottie Gifning's +reiteration of her own story: As the night was warmer than usual she and +her husband and the two friends that had motored in with them had sat on +the porch for awhile; they had heard "Dave" come singing down Dawbarn +Street; two or three minutes later the shot. Of course the men ran over +at once, but for at least ten minutes she was too frightened to move. +One of the men ran for the coroner; if "poor Dave" wasn't dead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> they +wanted to take him at once where he would be comfortable.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame's demeanour was all these solicitous friends could have +wished; although they enjoyed tears and emotional scenes as much as any +women, they were gratified to be reassured that their Mrs. Balfame was +not as other women; they still regretted her breakdown at the Club, +although resentfully conscious of loving her the more. And if they +wanted tears, here was Polly Cummack shedding them in abundance for the +brother she now reproached herself for having utterly despised.</p> + +<p>Below there was a subdued hum of voices, within and without. The police +had come tearing up in an automobile and ordered the amateur detectives +out of the grounds; their angry voices had been heard demanding how the +qualified fools expected the original footsteps to be detected after +such a piece of idiocy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had shaken her head sadly. "They'll find nothing," she +said. "If only I had known, I could have called down to them to keep out +of the yard."</p> + +<p>"Now, who do you suppose that is?" Mrs. Battle, who was short and stout +and corseted to her knees, toddled over to the window and leaned out as +two automobiles raced each other down the avenue. They stopped at the +gate, and in a moment Mrs. Battle announced: "The New York newspaper +men!"</p> + +<p>"Already?" Mrs. Balfame glanced at the clock and stifled a yawn. "Why, +it's hardly an hour—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a year or so from now they'll be coming over in bi-planes. Well, if +our poor old boobs of police don't unearth the murderer, they will. They +are the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> prize sleuths. They'll find a scent, or spin one out of their +brains as a spider spins his web out of his little tummy—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cummack interrupted: "Sam is sure it is Old Dutch. He's gone with +the constable to Dobton."</p> + +<p>Dobton, the county seat, and the centre of the political activities of +East Brabant, intimately connected with the various "towns" by trolley +and telephone, embraced the domicile of Mr. Konrad Kraus, amiably known +as "Old Dutch." His home was in the rear of his flourishing saloon, +which was the headquarters of the county Republicans. David Balfame had +patronised—rumour said financed—the saloon of an American sired by +Erin.</p> + +<p>Another automobile dashed up. "Sam, I think; yes, it is," cried Mrs. +Battle.</p> + +<p>A few moments later Mr. Cummack appeared upon the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Nothin' doin'," he said gruffly. "Old Dutch's got a perfect alibi. Been +behind the bar since six o'clock. It's up to us now to find out if he +hired a gunman; and we're on the trail of others too. Poor Dave had his +enemies all right."</p> + +<p>He paused and looked tentatively at his weary but heroic sister-in-law. +His own face was haggard, and the walrus moustache he had brought out of +the North-west was covered not only with dust but with little moist +islands made by furtive tears. With that exquisite sympathy and +comprehension that men have for the failings of other men, which far +surpasseth that of woman, he had loved his imperfect friend, but he had +a profound admiration for his sister-in-law, whom he neither loved nor +pretended to understand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> He knew her surfaces, however, as well as any +one, and would have been deeply disappointed if she had carried herself +in this trying hour contrary to her usual high standard of conduct. Enid +Balfame, indeed, was almost a legend in Elsinore, and into this legend +she could retire as into a fortress, practically impregnable.</p> + +<p>"Say, Enid," he said hesitatingly. "These reporters—the New York +chaps—the local men wouldn't dare ask—want an interview. What do you +say?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame merely turned her haughty head and regarded him with icy +disdain. "Are they crazy? Or you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, not the way they look at it. You see, it's up to them to fill a +column or two every morning, and there's nothing touches a new crime +with a mystery. So far, they haven't got much out of this but the bare +fact that poor Dave was shot down at his own gate, presumably by some +one hid in the grove. An interview with the bereaved widow would make +what they call a corking story."</p> + +<p>"Tell them to go away at once." She leaned back against her chair and +closed her eyes. Mrs. Gifning flew to hold the salts to her nose.</p> + +<p>"Better see them," persisted Mr. Cummack. "They'll haunt the house till +you do. They're crazy about this case—hasn't been a decent murder for +months, nothin' much doin' in any line, and everybody sick of the war. +The Germans take a trench in the morning papers and lose it in the +evening—"</p> + +<p>"Sam Cummack! How dare you joke at a time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> like this?" His wife ran +forward and attempted to push him out of the room, and the other ladies +had risen and faced him with manifest indignation.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Mrs. Cummack put her arms about him and patted the top of his +head. He had burst into tears and was rubbing his eyes on his sleeve. +"Poor old Dave!" he sobbed. "I'm all in. But I'll find that low-down cur +who killed him, cut him off in his prime, if it takes the last cent I've +got."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame rose and crossed to his side. She put her hand on his +shoulder. "I never should have suspected that you had such depth of +feeling, Sam," she said softly, "I am sure that the cowardly murderer +will be caught and that yours will be the glory. Send those +inconsiderate reporters away."</p> + +<p>Mr. Cummack shook his head. "As well talk of calling off the police. +They'll be round here day and night till the man is in Dobton +jail—longer, for they know the public will want an interview with the +widow. Better see them, Enid."</p> + +<p>"I shall not." Mrs. Balfame put her hand to her head and reeled. "Oh, I +am so tired! So tired! What a day. Oh, how I wish Anna were here."</p> + +<p>Three of the women caught her and led her to her chair. "Anna!" she +reiterated. "I must have something to make me sleep—"</p> + +<p>"I'll call her up!" volunteered Mrs. Gifning. "I do hope she is at +home—"</p> + +<p>"She was to go out to the Houston farm," interrupted Mrs. Cummack. "She +stopped at our house on the way out—Sammy has bronchitis—"; and Mrs. +Gifning, who was as nervous as the widow should have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> been, ran down to +the telephone, elated at being the one chosen to horrify poor Dr. Anna +while engaged in the everlasting battle for life.</p> + +<p>"I'll stay with Enid till Anna comes," volunteered Mrs. Cummack. "I +guess she'd better be quiet. One of you might make coffee for those that +are going to sit up—"</p> + +<p>"Frieda's doin' that," said Mr. Cummack. "They're all in the +dining-room—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had left the shelter of Mrs. Cummack's arm and was sitting +very straight. "Frieda? This is her night out—"</p> + +<p>"She was in bed with a toothache, but I routed her out. Well, I'll put +the men off till to-morrow, but better make up your mind to see them +then."</p> + +<p>He left the room and when Mrs. Balfame was alone with her sister-in-law, +whom she had never admitted to the sacred inner circle, but who was a +kind forgiving soul, she smiled affectionately. "Don't be afraid that I +shall break down," she said. "But those women had got on my nerves. It +is too kind of you to have dismissed them, and to stay with me yourself +till Anna comes. It has all been so terrible—and coming so soon after +what happened at the Club. Thank heaven I did not permit myself to speak +severely to him, and even when he telephoned for his suit case I was not +cross—I never would hold a man who had been drinking to strict +account—"</p> + +<p>"Don't you worry your head. He was my brother, but I guess I know what a +trial he must have been. And if he hadn't been my brother I guess I'd +say we wouldn't have blamed you much if you had given him a dose of lead +yourself—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Balfame raised her amazed eyes. But in a moment the weary ghost of +a smile flitted over her firm mouth, and she asked almost lightly: "Do +you then believe in removing offensive husbands?"</p> + +<p>"Well—of course I'd never have that much courage myself if Sam wasn't +any better than he should be—he's pretty decent as men go—but I know a +few husbands right here in Elsinore—well, if their wives gave them +prussic acid or hot lead they wouldn't lose <i>my</i> friendship, and I guess +any jury would let them off."</p> + +<p>"I guess you're right." Mrs. Balfame was beginning to undress. "I think +I'll get into bed—But it requires a lot of nerve. And the risk is +pretty great, you know. Anna once told me of an untraceable and +tasteless poison she had—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lord!" Mrs. Cummack may have been too hopelessly without style and +ambition to be one of the arc lights of the Elsinore smart set, but she +possessed a sense of humour, and for the moment forgot the abrupt taking +off of her brother. "Don't let that get round. The poison wouldn't be +safe for an hour—nor a few husbands. I think I'll warn Anna anyhow—I'm +not sure I can keep it."</p> + +<p>The door opened softly and Mrs. Gifning's fluffy blonde head appeared. +"I couldn't get Anna herself," she whispered. "The baby hasn't come. But +Mr. Houston said he'd tell her as soon as it was over, and let her go. +He was terribly shocked, and sent you his love."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, dear," murmured Mrs. Balfame. "I'll try and sleep awhile, and +Polly has promised to sit with me till Anna comes. Good-night."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VIII</span></h2> + +<p>There was a thin cry of life in the nursery of the Houston farm house. +The mother slept and the new born was in competent hands. Mr. Houston, a +farmer more prosperous and enterprising than his somewhat weedy +appearance prefigured, beckoned Dr. Anna into the dining-room, where a +sleepy but interested "hired girl" had brought hot coffee and +sandwiches.</p> + +<p>The battle had lasted little over three hours, but every moment had been +fraught with anxiety for the doctor and the husband. Mrs. Houston's +heart had revealed an unsuspected weakness and the baby had not only +neglected to head itself towards the gates of life as all proper little +marathons should, but had exhibited a state of suspended animation for +at least twenty minutes after its arrival at the goal.</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna dropped into a chair beside the table and covered her face with +her hand.</p> + +<p>"I'm all in, I guess," she murmured, and the farmer put down the coffee +pot and ran for the demijohn.</p> + +<p>"You drink this," he said peremptorily. His own hand was shaking, but he +made no verbal attempt to release his strangled emotions until both he +and the doctor had drunk of coffee as well as whiskey. Then, when half +way through a thick sandwich made of slabs of bread and beef, he began +to thank the doctor incoherently.</p> + +<p>"You are just it," he sputtered. "Just about it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> And your poor back +must be broke. You doctors do beat me, particularly you women doctors. +I'll never say nothin' against women doctors again, though I'll tell you +now that although poor little Aggie was dead set on you, I opposed it +for awhile—"</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna was sitting up and smiling. She waved his apologies and +protestations aside. "I can't think what came over me to collapse like +that. Once or twice lately I have thought I might be getting something. +I'll have my blood taken to-morrow. Now, I'll go home and get to bed +quick, although that coffee has made me feel as fine as a fiddle."</p> + +<p>"Well, I needed it too, and for more reasons than you. Say—" Mr. +Houston had risen and was pulling nervously at his short and bosky +beard. "I got a 'phone from Mrs. Gifning a while ago. You're wanted at +the Balfames—bad."</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna sprang to her feet, her full cheeks pale again. "Enid! What has +happened to her?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's all right, I guess. It's Dave—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, another gastric attack?"</p> + +<p>"Worse and more of it. He was shot—two or three hours ago, I guess. I +didn't ask the time—was in too big a hurry to get back to Aggie—at his +own gate, though, I think she said."</p> + +<p>"Who did it?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows."</p> + +<p>"Dead?"</p> + +<p>"No one'll ever be deader."</p> + +<p>"H'm!" The color had come back to Dr. Anna's tired face and she shrugged +her shoulders. "I'm no hypocrite, and I guess you're not either."</p> + +<p>"I'm no more a hypocrite than I am a Democrat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> His yellow streak was +gettin' wider every year. It's good riddance. Still I wish he'd died in +his bed. I don't like the idea of a fellow citizen, good or bad, bein' +shot down like that. It's against law and order, and if the murderer's +caught and I'm drawn on the jury, and it's proved he done it, I'll vote +for conviction."</p> + +<p>"Quite right," said Dr. Anna briskly, as she went out into the hall and +put on her hat. "I suppose it's Mrs. Balfame who wants me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's it. I remember. But you ought to go home and get sleep. +There's enough women to sit up with her. The hull town likely."</p> + +<p>"But I know she wants me." Dr. Anna's face glowed softly. "I'll sleep +there all right—on a sofa beside her bed—if she wants me to stay on."</p> + +<p>"Well, look out for yourself," he growled. "If you don't think about +yourself a little more you'll soon have no show to think so much about +other people. I'm goin' for the car."</p> + +<p>A few moments later he had brought the little runabout to the door, +lighted the lamps, and given the doctor a hard grip of the hand.</p> + +<p>She returned the pressure in kind. "Now don't worry, Mr. Houston. She's +all right, and that nurse is first rate. Don't talk to her. Aggie, I +mean. See you to-morrow about ten."</p> + +<p>She drove rapidly out of the gate and into the road. There was a full +moon shining and the drive was but ten miles between the farm and +Elsinore. Her face was tired and grim. She had been in daily contact +with typhoid fever in the poor and dirty quarter of the town. In her +arduous life she had often <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>experienced healthy fatigue, but nothing +like this. Could she be coming down?</p> + +<p>She swung her thoughts to Enid Balfame, and forgot herself. Free at +last, and while still young and lovely! Would she marry Dwight Rush? He +had leaped into her mind simultaneously with the announcement of +Balfame's death. But was he good enough for Enid? Was any man? Why, now +that she was a real widow and in no need of a protector, should she +marry at all? At any rate she could afford to wait. There were greater +prizes to be captured by a beautiful and still girlish woman.</p> + +<p>She was glad for the first time that Enid had never had a child, for +there was a virgin and mystic appeal in the woman that had escaped the +common lot. Spinsters lost it, curiously enough, but a chaste and lovely +matron, who had ignored the book of experience so liberally offered her, +and with eyes as unalloyed as a girl's (save when flashing with +intellectual fires)—what more distracting anomaly could the world +offer? Only Mrs. Balfame's indifference had kept the men away—Dr. Anna +was convinced of that. Her future was in her own hands.</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna's mind wandered to the scene of the murder. It was not +difficult to construct, even from the meager details, and she shuddered. +Murder! What a hideous word it was! Horrid that it should even brush the +name of an exquisite creature like Enid Balfame. Would that Dave Balfame +could have fallen of apoplexy while disgracing himself at the Club! But +Anna frowned and shook the picture out of her mind. Doctors are too long +trained in death to be haunted by its phantoms in any form.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p><p>A sharp turn and the road ran beside a salt marsh, a solemn grey +expanse that lost itself far away in the grey of the sea. Suddenly Dr. +Anna became aware of a man walking rapidly down the road toward her. He +carried his hat in his hand as if his head were hot on this cool autumn +night. There was no fear of man in Dr. Anna, even on lonely country +roads; nevertheless she had no mind to be detained, and was about to +increase her speed, when her curiosity was excited by something +pleasantly familiar in the tall loose figure, the almost stiffly upright +head. A moment later and the bright moonlight revealed the white face of +Dwight Rush.</p> + +<p>She brought the car to an abrupt halt as he too paused and nodded +recognition.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" she asked sharply. "You looked as if you were +walking to beat time itself—as if you saw a ghost to boot—"</p> + +<p>"Plenty of ghosts in my head. It aches like the dickens—"</p> + +<p>"Were you there when it happened?"</p> + +<p>"When what happened?"</p> + +<p>"What? You pretend you don't know—when all Elsinore must have known it +within five minutes—"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you are talking about. I followed you in from the +Club and then took the train for Brooklyn, where I had to see a man. +When I got back to Elsinore—off the train—my head ached so I knew I +couldn't sleep—so I started out to walk it off—been walking for about +two hours."</p> + +<p>"Dave Balfame was shot down at his own gate three or four hours ago."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p><p>"Good God! Who did it? Is he dead?"</p> + +<p>"He's dead, and that's about all I can tell you. Houston went to the +'phone but he was in such a state of mind about his wife that he didn't +stay for particulars. Enid wanted me—it was Lottie Gifning that +'phoned. I gathered, however, that they haven't caught the murderer +yet."</p> + +<p>"Jove!" Rush was shaking. "I feel as if I'd been hit in the pit of the +stomach. And I'm not one to go to pieces, either. But I've a good enough +reason."</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna continued to stare at him. He met her gaze and wonder grew in +his. Then the blood rushed into his face and he threw back his head. +"What do you mean? That I did it?"</p> + +<p>"No—I don't see you committing murder—"</p> + +<p>"Not in that damned skulking way—"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. But you kind of suggest that you might know something about +it. You might have been in the grove, or some other part of the +grounds—with some idea of protecting Enid—"</p> + +<p>"Why should you think that?"</p> + +<p>"She told me—I didn't think it a bad idea myself—that you asked her to +divorce Dave and marry you. But she said she wouldn't and I guess she +meant it. Now, get in," she added briskly. "I'll drive you home and +never say I met you. Met anybody else?"</p> + +<p>"No one."</p> + +<p>"Unless they get the right man at once, everybody who was known to have +any reason to wish Dave Balfame out of the way will come under +suspicion. For all you know, somebody may have guessed your secret; I +saw it in your eyes at the clubhouse when you were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> trying to get Dave +out of the room for her sake; but of course I was 'on.' Those New York +newspaper men, however—watch out for them. They'll fine-tooth-comb the +county for the man in the case."</p> + +<p>Rush had disposed his long legs in the little machine and it was once +more running swiftly on the smooth road. "My brain is still too hot to +theorise," he said. "May I smoke? What is your opinion?"</p> + +<p>"He had many political enemies; besides, these last two years he's been +growing more and more unbearable, so I guess he had more than one in his +own party. But it isn't unlikely that some girl did it. For some reason +the trollops liked him, and I've met him several times of late driving +with a red-headed minx that looks as if she could shoot on sight."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind telling you that I saw Mrs. Balfame a few minutes after +you left her. I was boiling. Instead of piloting Balfame out to Sam's +car I wished that I had run him behind the clubhouse and horsewhipped +him. We are too civilised these days. I merely went to his house and +asked his wife if she would divorce the brute and marry me. Two +centuries ago—maybe one—I'd have picked her up and flung her on my +horse and galloped off to the woods. We haven't improved; we've merely +substituted the long-winded and indirect method and called it +civilisation."</p> + +<p>"Just so. Did she let you in?"</p> + +<p>"Not she. You might know that without asking. Nor was she any nearer +divorce than before. When I offered to pick a quarrel with him, she +merely slammed the door in my face. But I went to the window and made +her promise that if she were ever in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> trouble I should be the first +person she would send for—"</p> + +<p>"But you weren't!" Dr. Anna's voice rang with jealous triumph. "I was +the first. But never mind me. I've adored her for forty years, and you +haven't known her as many weeks. Tell me, you didn't conceal yourself +anywhere in the grounds to watch over her? She must have been all alone. +Every servant in town takes Saturday night out."</p> + +<p>"I inferred that Sam would keep him at his house all night. Besides, I +knew she had a pistol. Balfame told me the day he bought her one in New +York; when those burglaries began."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't tell any one that you offered to dispose of her husband—a +few moments before he was killed! It might make unnecessary trouble for +a rising young lawyer."</p> + +<p>"I am quite able to do my own thinking and take care of myself," he said +haughtily, stung by her tone. "If you choose to think me guilty, do so. +And let me tell you that if I had done it I shouldn't put my head in the +ash barrel."</p> + +<p>"No, but you might do your best to avoid the chair. Small blame to you. +Well, as I said, you're safe as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't send a +dog to the chair. That is—" she looked at him threateningly, "if you +really do love Enid and want to marry her."</p> + +<p>"Love her? I'd marry her if she had done it herself and I'd caught her +red-handed."</p> + +<p>"That's the real thing, I guess." She patted his hand approvingly. "I'll +do what I can to help you. She's not a bit in love with you yet, but +that's because she's the purest creature on earth and never would let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +herself even dream of a man she couldn't marry. She's one of the last +grand representatives of the old Puritan stock—and when you see as much +mean and secret infidelity, dose as many morbid hysterical women, as I +do—Oh, Lord! No wonder I see Enid Balfame shining with cold radiance in +the high heavens. I may idealise her a bit, but I don't care. It would +be a sad old world if you couldn't exalt at least one human above the +muck-ruck. Well, she likes you, and you have interested her. Just be on +hand when she wants you, needs you. When this excitement is over and she +is tired of female gabble, she'll turn to you naturally, if you manage +her properly and don't butt in too soon. Quiet persistence and tact; +that's your game. I'll put in a good word."</p> + +<p>"By George, you are a good fellow!" He leaned over and kissed her +impulsively. As Dr. Anna felt the pressure of those warm firm lips on +her faded cheek, she astonished herself and him by bursting into tears. +In an instant, however, she dashed them away and gave an odd gurgling +laugh.</p> + +<p>"Don't mind a silly old maid—who loves Enid Balfame more than life, I +guess. And I'm a country doctor, Dwight, who's had a hard night bringing +one more unfortunate female into the world. I feel better since I +cried—first time since you boys used to tease me at school because I +had cheeks like red pippins—you don't remember me over at school in +your village. Renselaerville. I lived there for a spell, and I remember +you. But this isn't the time for reminiscences. Where do you live? We'll +be in the outskirts in three minutes."</p> + +<p>"I have rooms at The Brabant."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p><p>"Any night clerk?"</p> + +<p>"No; it's an apartment house."</p> + +<p>"Good. We're somewhere in the small hours all right."</p> + +<p>She drove swiftly through the sleeping town, slowing down on the corner +of Main Street and Atlantic Avenue. Rush sprang out with a word of +thanks and walked up the avenue to The Brabant. The trees here were +neither old nor close, for this was the quarter of the wealthy newcomers +and of the older residents that had prospered and rebuilt. But not a +soul was abroad, and he let himself into the bachelor apartment house +and mounted the two flights to his rooms unseen.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER IX</span></h2> + +<p>As Rush closed his own door behind him, his troubled spirit shifted its +load. Indubitably, if Dr. Anna had not met him he should have walked +until exhausted, and then boarded a train somewhere down the line and +arrived in Elsinore dishevelled, haggard, altogether an object of +suspicion. None knew better than he that in a small community the +lightning of suspicion plays incessantly, throwing the faces of innocent +and guilty alike into distorted relief. And he had half expected to find +a newspaper man awaiting him in the hall below.</p> + +<p>Before turning on his lights he felt his way to the windows and drew the +curtains close. For all he knew there might be a detective or a reporter +sitting on the opposite fence. His legal mind, deeply versed in criminal +law, fully appreciated his danger and warned him to arm at every point.</p> + +<p>The district attorney, one of Balfame's men, clever, ambitious, but too +ill-educated to hope to graduate from Brabant County, or even, political +influence lacking, to climb into the first rank at home, hated the +brilliant newcomer who had beaten him twice during his brief term of +office. That Rush "hailed" originally from the county only added to the +grievance. If Brabant wasn't good enough for him in the first place, why +hadn't he stayed where he was wanted?</p> + +<p>But Rush dismissed him from his mind as he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>remembered uneasily that +Alys Crumley had been sketching out there at the Club while he had been +wrestling with David Balfame. He knew her ambition to get a position on +a New York newspaper as a sketch artist; but the possibility that she +might have guessed the secret of his interest in putting an end to the +scene, or intended to sell her drawing to one of the reporters, would +have given him little uneasiness had the artist not been a young woman +upon whom he had ceased to call some two months since.</p> + +<p>He had met Alys Crumley about eighteen months after he had returned to +Brabant County and some three months after he had moved from Dobton to +Elsinore, and at once had been attracted by her bright ambitious mind, +combined with a real personality and an appearance both smart and +artistic.</p> + +<p>Miss Crumley prided herself upon being unique in Elsinore, at least, and +although her thick well-groomed hair was dressed with classic severity, +and she wore soft gowns of an indescribable cut in the house, and at the +evening parties of her friends, she was far too astute to depart from +the fashion of the moment in the crucial test of street dress and hat. +In Park Row during her brief sojourn in the newspaper world, she had +commanded attention among the critical press women as a girl who knew +how to dress smartly and yet add that personal touch which, when +attempted by those lacking genius in dress, ruins the effect of the most +extravagant tailor. Miss Crumley by no means patronised these autocrats +of Fifth Avenue; she bought her tailored suits at the ready-made +establishments, but like many another American girl, she knew how to +buy, and above all, how to wear her clothes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p><p>She had taught for several years after graduating from the High School; +then, her nerves rebelling, had abandoned this most monotonous of +careers for newspaper work. To reporting her physique had not proved +equal, and although she would have made an admirable fashion editor +these enviable positions were adequately filled. On the advice of the +star reporter of her paper, Mr. James Broderick, who, with other +newspaper men had been entertained occasionally at tea of a Sunday +afternoon in her charming little home in Elsinore, she had developed her +talent for drawing during the past year; Mr. Broderick promising to +"find her a job" as staff artist when she had improved her technique.</p> + +<p>Then Dwight Rush appeared.</p> + +<p>Miss Crumley lived with her mother in the family cottage next door to +Dr. Anna's in Elsinore Avenue. Mrs. Crumley, who was the relict of a +G. A. R. had eked out her pension during the schooldays of her daughter +with fine sewing, finding most of her patrons among the newcomers. She +also had cooked for the Woman's Exchange of Brooklyn, besides catering +for public dinners and evening parties. For several years she enjoyed a +complete rest; therefore, when Alys retired temporarily from the office +of provider in order to study art, Mrs. Crumley willingly re-entered the +industrial field. As both the practical mother and the clever daughter +were amiable women it was a harmonious little household that Dwight Rush +found himself drifting toward intimacy with soon after he met the young +lady at a clubhouse dance.</p> + +<p>The living-room—Alys long since had abolished the word parlour from her +vocabulary—was furnished in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> various shades of green as harmonious as +the family temper; there was a low bookcase filled with fashionable +literature, English and American; the magazines and reviews on the table +were almost blatantly "highbrow," and the cool green walls were further +embellished with a few delicate water colours conceived in the back-yard +atelier by an individual mind if executed by a still somewhat halting +brush.</p> + +<p>For four months Rush had been a constant visitor at the cottage. Miss +Crumley, who was as progressively modern as an automobile factory, was +full of enthusiasm at the moment for the cult of sexless friendship +between a man and a maid. She had considered James Broderick at one time +as a likely partner for a philosophic romance (the adjective Platonic +was out of date; moreover, it implied that the cult was not as modern as +its devotees would wish it to appear); but the brilliant (and handsome) +young reporter not only was very busy but of a mercurial and uncertain +temperament. Nor did he appear to be a youth of lofty ideals; from +certain remarks, uttered casually, to make matters worse, Alys was +forced to conclude that he despised the man who "wasted his time" only +less than he despised the "chaser." If pretty, interesting, and +unnotional girls came his way and liked him enough, that was "all to the +good"; a busy newspaper man at the beck and call of a city editor had no +time for studying over the map of a girl's soul, the lord knew; but if a +girl wasn't a "dead game sport," then the sooner a man left the field to +some one with more time, or a yearning for matrimony, the better. These +remarks had been deliberately thrown out by the canny Mr. Broderick, who +liked "the kid" and didn't want her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> to "get in wrong" (particularly +with himself as he enjoyed both her society and the artistic +living-room—and Mrs. Crumley's confections) but who saw straight +through Alys' shifting modernities to the makings of a fine primitive +female.</p> + +<p>But Rush was no student in sex psychology. He took Miss Crumley on her +face value; delighted in finding a comfortable friend of the counter +sex, and was more than amenable to her desire to cultivate in him a +taste for modern literature; since his graduation he had hardly opened +anything but law books, legal reviews, and the daily newspaper. She read +aloud admirably—particularly plays—and he liked to listen; and as she +convinced him that he was missing a good part of life, it was not long +before he was buying for leisurely midnight consumption such work of the +fashionable writers as was stimulating and intellectual, and at the same +time sincere.</p> + +<p>She also took him over to several symphony concerts, and often played +classic selections to him in the twilight. He had no objection to music, +as it either spurred his mind into fresh activity upon problems +besetting it, or soothed him into slumber. He loved the little room with +the soft green shadows; it reminded him of the woods, of which he still +was passionately fond; and he found it both homelike and safe. Other +houses in Elsinore, larger and more luxurious, were homelike enough, but +too often were graced by marriageable daughters, who "showed their +hand." Rush was as little vain and conceited as a man may be, but he was +well aware that eligible men in Elsinore were few, and that everybody +must know that his intake, already large, must increase with the years.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>But—as the wise Mr. Broderick would have predicted had he not been +interested elsewhere during this period—the tension grew too strong for +Alys Crumley. Nervous and high-strung, with her reservoir of human +emotions undepleted by even a hard flirtation since her early youth, +idealistic, romantic, and imaginative, she began to realise that with +each long uninterrupted evening—Mrs. Crumley was the most tactful of +parents—she was growing more femininely sensitive to this man's +magnetism and charm, to his quick responsive mind, to the mobility under +the surface of his lean hard face, to the suggestion of indomitable +strength which was the chief characteristic of the new American race of +men.</p> + +<p>It was not long before she was exaggerating every attractive attribute +he possessed until he no longer seemed what he was, a fine specimen of +his type, but a glorified superbeing and the one desirable man on earth. +Her sense of superiority over this "rather crude Western specimen who +knew nothing but his job," and to whom she could teach so much, had +protected her for a time, held her femaleness and imagination in +abeyance, but insensibly his sheer masculinity swamped her, left her +without a rock but pride to cling to.</p> + +<p>It was then that she showed her hand.</p> + +<p>For a time after her discovery she was merely furious with herself; she +was twenty-six and no weakling, neither sentiment nor passion should +master her. But this phase was brief. Infatuation is not cast out either +by reason or pride, and very soon her mind opened to the insidious +whisper: "Why not?" What was the career of staff artist, full of +liberty, excitement, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> good fellowship as it might be, to marriage +with an ambitious man capable of inspiring the wildest love? Sooner or +later had she not intended to make just such a marriage?</p> + +<p>From this inception her deductions followed in logical feminine +sequence. If she loved him with a completeness which was both preadamic +and neoteric, it was of course because he was consumed with a similar +passion; in other words he was her mate. He might be too comfortable and +content to have realised it so far, but only one awakening was possible, +and hers was the entrancing part to reveal him to himself.</p> + +<p>She knew that while by no means a beauty, she was as far from +commonplace in colouring at least as in style. Her eyes were an odd +opaque olive, their tint so pronounced that it seemed to invade the pale +ivory of her skin and the smooth masses of her hair. It was a far more +subtle face than American women as a rule possess, and the eyes in spite +of a curious inscrutability that might mean anything were capable of a +play of lights directed from a battery more archaic than modern; and +late one evening after she had read him an impassioned drama (ancient) +and there was a dusky rose in either cheek, she turned them on.</p> + +<p>Rush immediately took fright. She had not roused a responsive spark of +passion in him. Moreover, he was now haunted continually by the image of +a sweet, remote, and (to him) far more mysterious woman, whom he +worshipped as the ideal of all womanhood.</p> + +<p>There was none of the old time American suavity about Rush. He was +abrupt, forthright, and impatient. But he was kind and innately +chivalrous. He "let Miss Crumley down" as gently as he could; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> he +let her down. No doubt of that. In less than a week she faced the +bewildering fact that a man could strike loose a woman's emotional +torrents while his own depths awaited the magical touch of another. It +was incredible, preposterous.</p> + +<p>For a time Alys, in the privacy of her atelier, raged like a fury. She +cursed Rush, particularly when engaged in a violent struggle with the +pride which alone held her from grovelling at his feet.</p> + +<p>She was further incensed that he had revealed her to herself as a mere +morbid unsatisfied girl, whose quarter of a century should be crowned by +a little family of three; and at last she doubted if she had ever loved +him at all. That she had been a mere female principle unable to escape +its impersonal destiny disgusted her with life, but it served to restore +her balance and philosophy.</p> + +<p>Being a girl of brains and character she emerged from the encounter with +pride still crested in the eyes of the man; and if his image was too +deeply stamped into her imagination to prevent a recurrence of wild +desire whenever she was so imprudent as to let her mind wander, she +remembered that all great physical upheavals are followed by many minor +shocks, and waited with what patience she could command for full +delivery.</p> + +<p>Of the sanguinary condition of the battle ground in his young friend's +soul Rush had a mere glimpse before she took heed and dissembled. He +assumed that she either had fallen in love with him after the fashion of +girls when they saw too much of a man, or that she was eager to marry +and improve her condition. He reproached himself for thoughtlessness, +renounced the long evenings in the pretty room with a sigh, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> his +bachelor quarters read the books of her choice. He had a very kindly +feeling for her, for he knew that he owed her a debt; if he had not met +the other woman—who could tell? Moreover, as he conceived it to be his +duty to shield her from spiteful comment, he danced with her in public +and joined her on the street whenever they met.</p> + +<p>But if he knew nothing of the intricate and interminable ramifications +of sex psychology, the infinite variety of moods peculiar to a woman in +love, he was well enough aware that love is easily turned to hate, +particularly when vanity has been deeply wounded; and although he had +conceived a high esteem for Alys Crumley's character during the weeks of +their intimacy, he knew that men had been mistaken in their estimate of +women before this, and that if she discovered that he loved another +woman she might be capable of taking the basest revenge.</p> + +<p>It was possible that she was the noblest of her sex, and he hoped she +was, but as he considered her that night, he realised that it behooved +him to walk warily nevertheless. By the time he could marry Enid +Balfame, or even betray his desire to marry her, this crime would have +passed into county history. Of the real danger he never thought.</p> + +<p>The vision evoked of Alys Crumley was accompanied by that of her home, +and he looked round his stark bachelor quarters with a sigh.</p> + +<p>The untidy sitting-room was crowded with law books and legal reviews; +the maid had given it up in despair long since, and only swept out the +ashes daily and dusted once a week.</p> + +<p>In the small bedroom was an iron bed like a soldier's;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> neckties hung +from the chandelier; on the bureau and table beside the bed were more +books, several by the young British authors of the moment for whom Miss +Crumley had communicated some of her rather perfunctory enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>He flung his clothes all over the room as he undressed. He hated +bachelor quarters. Six months hence he would be the master of a home as +exquisite as the woman he loved. Balfame! The man was dead, but as Rush +thought of him his face turned almost black and his hands tingled and +clenched. It would be long before he could hear that name mentioned +without a hot uprush of hatred and loathing. But it subsided and he took +a bath and "turned in."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER X</span></h2> + +<p>As Rush walked to the Elks' Club for breakfast a few hours later he felt +that suspicion was in the very air of Elsinore, the very leaves of the +quiet Sunday streets rustled with it. Even on Atlantic Avenue there were +knots of men discussing the murder, and in Main Street every man that +passed received a hard stare.</p> + +<p>Rush was thankful to observe that all looked as if they had gone to bed +late and slept little, and when he met Sam Cummack on the steps of the +clubhouse he realised the advantages of the habit of careful grooming to +which the deceased's brother-in-law was quite indifferent.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dwight!" groaned Cummack, seizing his hand. "Where were you last +night? I'd have liked to have you round."</p> + +<p>"I was in Brooklyn and got back late. What's your opinion?"</p> + +<p>"I've had a dozen but they don't seem to hold water. I guess it was a +gunman, imported direct—though perhaps I'm just hoping it wasn't one of +them trollops did it—for the sake of the family as well as poor Dave's +name. I don't want a scandal like that. Murder's bad enough, the Lord +knows."</p> + +<p>"What sort of footsteps in the grounds?"</p> + +<p>"Every kind we've got in Elsinore, I guess. About<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> forty people were +runnin' round the yard before the police came. Funny that Gifning didn't +think of that. But he says the breath was knocked out of him. Jimminy! I +never knew anything to upset the town like this before—the county, you +might say. The telephone's been buzzin' till the girls have threatened +to strike. An operator fainted this morning—wonder if Dave knew her?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I am rather surprised to learn that Balfame was so popular—"</p> + +<p>"'Tain't that only—though Dave still had lots of friends in spite of +that ugly temper he was growin'; but we've all got enemies—every last +one of us—and to be shot down at his own gate like that—Gee, it has +given every man in town the creeps. We must get the man quick and make +an example of him. I hope I'm drawn."</p> + +<p>"I hope he doesn't ask me to defend him. How is Mrs. Balfame bearing +up?"</p> + +<p>"Fine. She's as cool as they make 'em. I'd hate to be married to one of +them cucumbers myself, but they're damned convenient in times of +trouble. Maybe she cared a lot for Dave; who knows? At any rate we must +make people think she did. I don't want suspicion pointing to her."</p> + +<p>"What! It is incredible that you should think of such a thing." Rush, +always pale, had turned as white as chalk. "You can't mean that people +are saying—"</p> + +<p>"Not yet. But we've got to be prepared for anything, especially with +these New York newspapermen on the trail. Unless we catch the murderer +damned quick, every last one of us that was close to Dave that can't +prove an alibi will be suspected. Why, I walked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> with him for two blocks +after he left my house—thought he might not be able to make it alone, +and he wouldn't go in the car; then, I didn't go straight home, either. +I went to my office to straighten out something—Oh, Lord! don't let's +talk of it; I must have been there alone, not a soul to see me, when he +was shot. It gives me the horrors to think of it—"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! It was well known that you were his best friend. No one would +think of you."</p> + +<p>"They might! They might!"</p> + +<p>"Well—about Mrs. Balfame?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's got the best alibi ever. She'd packed his suitcase and +carried it downstairs, and even written a note describing some bag or +other she wanted and pinned it to his coat. I was there when the police +examined it. They're not saying who they're suspectin', but they're +doin' a heap of thinkin'. Fact remains that she was alone in the front +of the house—that mutt of a hired girl she's got was way up in the back +part groanin' with a toothache when I routed her out. If she wasn't such +a fright that Dave wouldn't have looked at her—Well, the police know +that Dave wasn't what you might call a model husband; but Enid, so far +as we all know, never rowed him. That's the most tryin' sort, though, +and generally conceals the most hate. But she had her clubs and all the +rest of it. Maybe she didn't care. I'm only wonderin' what Phipps +thinks. That's the reason I want her to see the newspapermen. She might +throw them off the scent at least. Of course, they'd rather she'd done +it than any one—"</p> + +<p>"You won't even hint to her that she may be suspected?" interrupted +Rush, sharply.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, Lord, no. I'd never dare. Just persuade her somehow. Guess Anna or +Polly can manage it."</p> + +<p>Rush turned and walked down the steps. "I'll go to the Elsinore to +breakfast. The reporters are likely to show up there. I know Jim +Broderick. We must be on the job all the time."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XI</span></h2> + +<p>To Dr. Anna alone Mrs. Balfame told the story of the night, although, +implicit as was her trust, with certain reservations. She omitted the +detail of the poisoned lemonade, but otherwise unburdened herself with +freedom and relief.</p> + +<p>"Before I knew where I was," she concluded, "there was the kitchen door +closed behind me. I can't understand why I lost my presence of mind. I +could easily have run through the back door and out the front, and +reached him about the time Gifning did."</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna was drinking strong coffee. It was eight o'clock, and she had +gone downstairs and made breakfast for her friend and herself, Frieda +having retired to her room and bolted the door. The doctor had heard the +whole story as soon as she arrived, but after an interval of sleep had +asked for it again.</p> + +<p>"I think it's better as it is," she said thoughtfully. "No one could +have seen you. The moon rose late; the night at that time must have been +pitch dark. The trees alone would have shielded you, even had any one +been watching. Suspicion never would fall on you anyhow; you are too far +above it, and Dave had been insulting people right and left the last +year. But you want to avoid blackmail. The only thing that disturbs me +is that that girl may have been on the back stairs when you came in. +I'll come in for lunch and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> talk to her then. You keep to your room. +Rest, and sleep if you can. I don't fancy you'll have early visitors. +Everybody'll sleep late. I wish I could!"</p> + +<p>"Will you stop in and see Dr. Lequeur about yourself—"</p> + +<p>"If I can find a minute. Don't worry about me. I'm tough, and the Lord +knows I ought to be immune."</p> + +<p>But she found no time to see a doctor in her own behalf and returned to +the Balfame house between twelve and one. Reporters were sitting on the +box hedge and on the doorstep. She evaded them good-naturedly, but it +was some time before she was admitted by the rebellious Frieda, who had +been summoned to the front door some sixteen times during the forenoon.</p> + +<p>When Dr. Anna finally found herself in the dark hall she saw that +Frieda's face was swollen and tied up in a towel. The spectacle gave the +doctor an instant opportunity.</p> + +<p>"The worst infliction on earth, bar none!" she announced, following the +maid into the kitchen. "Let me take a look at it? How long have you had +it?"</p> + +<p>"Two days," replied Frieda sullenly, unamenable to sympathy which +offered no immediate surcease of pain.</p> + +<p>"Abscess?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know."</p> + +<p>Frieda's mental processes were slow. Before she could follow the +doctor's the bandage was ripped off and a sharp eye was examining the +inflamed interior of her cavernous mouth. A moment later Dr. Anna had +opened her doctor's bag and was anointing the surroundings of the +tortured tooth with a brown liquid.</p> + +<p>"That won't cure it," she said, "but no dentist could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> do more until the +swelling is reduced. And it will save you a preliminary bill. Keep this. +As soon as you feel you can stand it, go to Dr. Meyers, Main Street. +Tell him I sent you. But why didn't you tell Mrs. Balfame last night? +Why endure pain? Kind mistresses always keep such alleviatives in the +house, and Mrs. Balfame is not the sort to mind being roused in the +middle of the night if some one were suffering."</p> + +<p>The pain had subsided under treatment, and Frieda was restored to such +civility as she knew. "It only got bad when I am dancing to the hall, +and I ran home. I had some drops in my room."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see. Did they stop the pain?"</p> + +<p>"Nix. Ache like before, but I lie down and perhaps can sleep if those +men have not make me come downstairs to make the coffee. All night I am +up." And she glowered with self-pity.</p> + +<p>"But when you found that your drops were no good, why didn't you run at +once to Mrs. Balfame? You were braver than I should have been. It was +about eight o'clock, was it not, when Mr. Balfame was shot? Mrs. Balfame +was probably awake when you came in, even if she had gone to bed. Or +perhaps you didn't know that she came home early?"</p> + +<p>"On Saturday nights she come home after I do. How I am to know she is +here?"</p> + +<p>"But you might have gone to her medicine closet—in her bathroom."</p> + +<p>"When you have the pain like hot iron you think of all the good things +for it the next day." Frieda relapsed into sullen silence; Dr. Anna +hastily disposed of the lunch prepared for her and went upstairs.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame was lying on the sofa. She had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> dressed, but looked as +trim as usual in a blue and white bathrobe; never having been a woman to +"let herself go," she did not possess a wrapper. Her long hair hung in +two loose braids, and she looked very pale and lovely.</p> + +<p>"Put Frieda out of your head," said Dr. Anna hurriedly; familiar voices +ascended from the path below. "She heard nothing. You don't when you +have a jumping toothache."</p> + +<p>"Thank heaven!"</p> + +<p>A soft knock announced several of her friends. They were dressed for +motoring; this being Sunday, not even death must interfere with the +cross-country refreshment of the Elsinore husband. They kissed Mrs. +Balfame and congratulated her upon her appearance and her nerves.</p> + +<p>"But one thing must be settled right here," announced Mrs. Gifning, "and +that is the question of your mourning. I'll go over on the eight-ten in +the morning and see to it. But you never wear ready-made things and it +would be a pity to waste money that way. Are you going to wear a veil at +the inquest?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I am. Do you suppose I shall submit to being stared at by a +curious mob and snapshotted by reporters?"</p> + +<p>"That's just what I thought. I'll bring back a smart hat and a long +crêpe veil with me, and order your widow's outfit from one of the big +shops; they'll have it over in time for the funeral. And you can wear +your tailor suit to the inquest; it will be half covered by the veil."</p> + +<p>"What a good idea!" said Mrs. Balfame gratefully. "You are too kind."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p><p>"Kind? Nothing! I just love to shop for other people. How lucky that +you hadn't bought your new winter suit. It might have been blue."</p> + +<p>"It was to have been blue." There was a note of regret in Mrs. Balfame's +voice. "Don't forget to buy me two black chiffon blouses. One very +simple for every day; the other, really good. And something white for +the neck. Of course I wouldn't wear it on the street; but in the +house—black is too trying!"</p> + +<p>"Rather. Trust me. Have you black gloves—undressed kid, I mean? You +don't want to look like an undertaker." Mrs. Balfame nodded. "That's +all, I think. Send me a line if you think of something else. I must run +and take Giffy for his ride. He's all broken up, poor darling. Wasn't he +just splendid last night?" She blew a kiss along the widow's forehead +and ran out with a light step that caused her more substantial friends +to sigh with envy. She, too, was in the manœuvring forties, but she +had gone into training at thirty.</p> + +<p>"I guess we'd all better go." Mrs. Battle, with a sudden dexterous heave +of her armoured bulk, was out of the chair and on her feet. "Now, try to +sleep, dearie. You are just the bravest thing! But to-morrow will be +trying. Sam Cummack says the coroner won't hold the inquest before +afternoon, but if they do and your veil isn't here, I've got one of Ma's +packed away in camphor that I'll get out for you. I'll get it out +to-night and have it airing—we won't take any chances; and you sha'n't +be annoyed by the vulgar curious."</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you! But that is not the only ordeal. It's even more trying +to stay in the house all these days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>—in this room! If I could walk in +the grounds. But I suppose those reporters are everywhere."</p> + +<p>"They are swarming, simply swarming. And the avenue is so packed with +automobiles you can't navigate. People have come from all over the +country—some from New York and Brooklyn."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame curled her lip with disgust. Morbid curiosity, like other +vulgarities, was incomprehensible to her. Death, no matter how desired +or how accomplished, should inspire hush and respect, not provide +excitement for a Sunday afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Let us hope they will find the wretch to-day," she said impatiently. +"That will end it, for, of course, it is the element of mystery that has +made the case so notorious. Is there no clue?"</p> + +<p>"Not the ghost of one." Mrs. Cummack, too, was adjusting her automobile +veil. "Sam's on the job,—I'm only taking him out for an hour or two; +and so, of course, are the police—hot. But he's covered his tracks so +far."</p> + +<p>"If it is a he," whispered Mrs. Battle to Mrs. Frew, as they stole +softly down the stairs. "What about that red-head, or that telephone +girl who fainted? They say she had to go home—"</p> + +<p>"Can you imagine caring enough for Dave Balfame—Let's get out of this, +for heaven's sake, or I'll faint right here."</p> + +<p>The atmosphere was as depressing as the dark interior of the house, for +it was heavy laden with the scent of flowers and death. The parlour +doors, behind which lay David Balfame, embalmed and serene in his +casket, were closed, but hushed whisperings came forth like the rustling +of funeral wreaths disturbed by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> vapours of decay. The devoted +friends of the widow burst out into the sunshine almost with a cry of +relief.</p> + +<p>Here all was as animated as a county fair. The grounds were void, save +by patrolling police, but the avenue and adjoining streets were packed +with every type of car from limousine to farmer's runabout, and many +more people were afoot, staring at the house, venturing as near the +hedge as they dared, to inspect the grove. They asked questions, +answered them, offered theories, all in a breath, and without the +slightest respect for any opinion save their own. A few children, +sucking peppermint sticks, sat on the hedge.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever?" murmured Mrs. Frew to Mrs. Battle. "<i>Did</i> you ever?" She +shuddered with refined disgust, but felt thrilled to her marrow. "Just +Enid's luck!" was her auxiliary but silent reflection.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XII</span></h2> + +<p>At the inquest on the following day, Mrs. Balfame, circumvested in +crêpe, sat between Mr. and Mrs. Cummack, gracefully erect, and without +even a nervous flutter of the hands.</p> + +<p>When called upon to testify, she told in a clear low voice the meagre +story already known to her friends and by this time the common property +of Elsinore and all that read the newspapers of the State.</p> + +<p>The coroner released her as quickly as possible, and called her servant +to the stand. Although the swelling in Frieda's face had subsided +somewhat under Dr. Anna's repeated ministrations, the tooth still +throbbed; and she also was released after announcing resentfully that +she'd seen "notings," heard "notings," and "didn't know notings" about +the murder except having to get up and make coffee when she was like to +die with the ache in her tooth.</p> + +<p>There was no one else to testify, except Cummack, who gave the hour, +about a quarter or ten minutes to eight, when the deceased had left his +house, and Mr. Gifning and his two guests, who testified to hearing the +sound of Balfame's voice raised in song, followed a moment later by the +report of a pistol. They also described minutely the position of the +body when found. Indubitably the shot had been fired from the grove.</p> + +<p>The staff artists were forced to be content with a black sketch of a +very long widow, who held her head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> high and emanated an air of chill +repose. One reporter, camera set, forced his way to her side as she was +about to enter Mrs. Battle's limousine and begged her plaintively to +raise her veil; but he might as well as have addressed a somnambulist; +Mrs. Balfame did not even snub him.</p> + +<p>"Why should they want a picture of me?" she asked Mrs. Battle, +wonderingly. "It's poor Dave that is dead. Whoever heard of me outside +of Elsinore?"</p> + +<p>"I guess you haven't amused yourself reading the papers. You've been +written up as a beauty and the intellectual and social leader of +Elsinore. Some distinction, that! The public is mighty interested in you +all over the State and will be for several days yet, no doubt. Then +we'll find the man and they'll forget all about the whole affair until +the trial comes up."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame, clad in full weeds, more dignified, stately and +unapproachable than ever, ran the gauntlet of staring eyes at the church +funeral, apparently unconscious of the immense crowd of women that had +driven over from every township in Brabant County. That the women did +not approve of her haughty head and tearless eyes, brilliant even behind +the heavy crêpe, would have concerned her little if she had known it. +Her mind was concentrated upon the future moment when this series of +hideous ordeals would be over and she could re-enter the decent +seclusion of private life.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame may have had her faults, but a vulgar complaisance to +publicity was not among them.</p> + +<p>She had also made up her mind sternly not to feel happy, not to rejoice +in her freedom, not to make a plan for the future until her husband was +in his grave. But all during that long service, while the new parson +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>discoursed unctuously upon the virtues and eminence of the slain, she +had the sensation of holding her breath.</p> + +<p>It was four days from the night of the murder before she consented to +see the reporters. Meanwhile every suspected person had proved an alibi, +including the red-haired Miss Foxie Bell, and the indignant and highly +respectable Miss Mamie Russ, who officiated at the telephone. She had +known the deceased, yes, and once or twice she had driven out to one of +the roadhouses with him, where a number of her friends were indulging in +a quiet Sunday afternoon tango, but she had merely looked upon him as a +kind fatherly sort of person; and at the hour of his death she was +asleep, as her landlady could testify.</p> + +<p>Old Dutch had indignantly repudiated the charge of employing gunmen, and +had even attended the funeral and shed tears. Whatever the faults of the +deceased, they were not of a nature to antagonise permanently the erring +members of his own sex. Moreover, he had been an able politician, +respected of his enemies, and was now glorified by his cowardly and +untimely taking off.</p> + +<p>The local police had an uneasy suspicion that the assassin was one of +their "pals"—in that small and democratic community, where every man +was an Elk from the banker to the undertaker. They were quite ready to +drop the case, loudly ascribing the deed to an ordinary housebreaker, or +to some unknown enemy from out the impenetrable rabbit warrens of New +York City.</p> + +<p>The newspaper men were chagrined and desperate. The Balfame Case had +proved uncommonly magnetic to the New York public. They had done their +best to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> create this interest, and now were on their mettle to "make +good." But they were beginning to wish they had waited for at least a +lantern's ray at the end of the dark perspective before exciting the +public with descriptions of the winding picturesque old street of the +ancient village of Elsinore; the stately old-time residence at its head +which had housed (in more or less discomfort) three generations of +Balfames, the sinister grove of trees that had sheltered the dastardly +assassin, the prominence and political importance of David Balfame who +had inherited this ancestral estate, and played among those trees in +childhood; his unsuspecting and vocal return at an early hour to be shot +down at his own gate.</p> + +<p>All this appealed acutely to a public which makes the fortune of the +sentimental play, the "crook" play, and the "play with a punch and a +mystery." Here was the real thing, as rural as the childhood of many of +the Greater New York public—weary of black-hand murders and anarchist +bombs—with a mystery as deep as any ever invented by their favourite +authors, and in no remote district but at their very gates.</p> + +<p>If anything more were necessary to rivet their interest, there was the +handsome and elegant (if provincial) Mrs. Balfame, as austere as a Roman +matron, as chaste as Diana, as decently invisible in public during this +harrowing ordeal as imported crêpe could make her. The men reporters had +dismissed the widow with a paragraph of personal description, but the +newspaper women had filled half a page in each of the evening journals.</p> + +<p>The press had given the public at least two columns a day of the Balfame +murder; there had been a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>biography of every suspect in turn, and there +had been the thrilling episode of the bloodhounds turned loose upon that +trampled enclosure. But no road led anywhere, and the public, baffled +for the moment, but still hopeful, demanded an interview with the +interesting widow.</p> + +<p>Of course, her alibi was perfect, but all felt sure that she "knew +something about it." Her unhappy married life was now common property, +and if it only could be proved that she had had a lover—but the +newspapers as has been said were discouraging upon this point. Mrs. +Balfame (quoting the young men this time), while amiable and kind to +all, was cold and indifferent. Men were afraid of her. The New York +detectives had "fine-tooth-combed" Brabant County and reported +disgustedly to their chief that she was "just one of those club women; +no use for men at all."</p> + +<p>The reporters, however, had made up their minds to fix the crime, if +possible, upon her. They would have compromised upon the young servant, +but Frieda, especially with her face framed in a towel stained brown, +and her eyes swollen above the wrenching agonies of an ulcerated tooth, +was hopeless material. Moreover, they were convinced, after thorough +investigation, that the deceased's gallantries, while sufficiently +catholic, had not run to serving maids, and that of late particularly he +had loudly hated all things German.</p> + +<p>Regarding Mrs. Balfame they held their judgment in reserve until they +met and talked with her; but Broderick had extracted the miserable +details of her life from his friend, Alys Crumley, as well as a lively +description of the scene at the Country Club; they believed they could +bring to light enough to base a sensational trial upon, whatever the +verdict of the jury.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p><p>It must not be inferred for a moment that these brilliant and +industrious young men were bloodthirsty. They knew that if Mrs. Balfame +had committed the crime and could be induced to make a defiant +confession, it was more than probable that she would go scot free; that +in no case was there more than a bare possibility of a woman of her age, +position and appearance being sent to the chair. But it is these alert, +resourceful, ruthless young men who make the newspapers we read with +such interest twice a day; it is they who write the columns of "news" +that we skip if dull (with a mental reservation to change our +newspaper), or devour without a thought of the tireless individual +activities that re-supply us daily with our strongest impersonal +interests. Sometimes a trifle more sparkle or vitality, or a deeper +note, will wring from us that facile comment, "How well written!" +without a pause to reflect that mere good writing never made a +newspaper, or to hazard a guess that behind the column that thrilled us +were hours, perhaps weeks, of incessant unravelling of clues, of +following a scent in the dark, with death at every turn. It is the +business of reporters to furnish news of vital interest to a pampered +public, and as so large a part of it is furnished to them by the +weaknesses and misdeeds of mankind, what wonder that the reporters grow +cynical and make no bones about providing clues that will lead, at the +least, to many columns charged with suspense and sensational human +interest!</p> + +<p>These young men knew the moment the Balfame case "broke" that it was big +with possibilities; they scented a mystery that would be cleared by the +arrest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> of no local politician; and they knew the interlocking social +relationships of these loyal old communities. It was "up to them" to +solve the mystery, and by a process of elimination, spurred by their own +desire to give the public the best the market afforded, they arrived at +Mrs. Balfame.</p> + +<p>Within forty-eight hours they were hot on her trail. Among other things, +they discovered that she was an expert shot at a target; but did she +keep a pistol in the house? She had used one, kept for target purpose, +out at the Country Club, and it was impossible to verify the rumor that +in common with many another, she had one in the house as a protection +against burglars and tramps.</p> + +<p>At their instigation, Phipps, the local chief of police, had reluctantly +consented to interrogate her on this point (a mere matter of form, he +assured her), and she had replied blandly that she never had possessed a +pistol. The chief apologised and withdrew. He was of a respectable +Brabant family himself, and was horrified that a member of the good old +order should even be brushed by the wing of suspicion. Being a quiet +family man and a Republican to boot, he had never approved of Dave +Balfame, and had only refrained from arresting him upon more than one +occasion—notably a week or two since when he had publicly blacked the +eye of Miss Billy Gump—out of deference to the good name of Elsinore; +and after all, they were both Elks and had spun many a yarn in the +comfortable clubrooms. Inheritance, circumstances, and a fine common +contempt for the inferior brands of whiskey, had made them "stand in +together, whatever happened." The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> chief had no love for Mrs. Balfame, +for she had frozen him too often, but she was the pride of Elsinore and +he was alert to defend her.</p> + +<p>It had never occurred to Mrs. Balfame that she would incur even a +passing suspicion, and she had left the pistol in the pocket of her +automobile coat. Immediately after the visit of the chief of police she +took the pistol into the sewing-room, locked the door, covered the +keyhole, and buried the weapon in the depths of an old sofa. As her +large strong fingers had mended furniture many times, no one would +suspect that this ancient piece (dating back to the first Balfame) had +been tampered with. She performed the operation with haughty reluctance, +but the instinct of self-preservation abides in the proudest souls, and +Mrs. Balfame had the wit to realise that it was by far the better part +of valour.</p> + +<p>The shooting occurred on Saturday night. By Wednesday all the horrors of +the criminal episode were over and she felt as young as she looked, and +at liberty to begin life again, a free and happy woman. Her mourning was +perfect.</p> + +<p>She made up her mind to see the newspaper men and have done with it. +They had haunted the grounds—no patrols could keep them out—sat on the +doorstep, forced their way into the kitchen, and rung the front +door-bell so frequently that hourly she expected the scowling Frieda to +give notice. Mr. Cummack told her repeatedly that she might as well give +in first as last and she finally agreed with him.</p> + +<p>It was five o'clock in the afternoon when they were admitted to the +spacious old-fashioned parlour with its incongruous modern notes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p><p>Like many women, Mrs. Balfame had an admirable taste in dress, so long +as she marched with the conventions, but neither the imagination nor the +training to create the notable room. Long since she had banished the old +"body brussels" carpet and substituted rugs subdued in colour if +commonplace in design. The plush "set" had not gone to the auction room, +however, but had been reupholstered with a serviceable "tapestry +covering." A what-not still stood in one corner, and both centre-table +and mantel were covered with marble, although the wax works that once +embellished them were now in the garret. The wall paper, which had been +put on the year before, was a neutral pale brown. Nevertheless, it was a +homelike room, for there were two rocking-chairs and three easy chairs; +and on a small side-table was Mrs. Balfame's workbasket. On the marble +centre-table was a most artistic lamp. The curtains matched the +furniture.</p> + +<p>There were ten reporters from New York, two from Brooklyn, three from +Brabant County, and four correspondents. Word had been passed during the +morning that Mrs. Balfame would see the newspaper men, and they were +there in force; those that were not "on the job all the time" having +loyally been notified by those that were. But they had stolen a march on +the women. Not a "sob-sister" was in that intent file, led by James +Broderick of <i>The New York Morning News</i>, that entered the Balfame house +and parlour on Wednesday at five o'clock.</p> + +<p>Frieda had announced that her mistress would be "down soon," and Mr. +Broderick immediately drew the curtains back from the four long windows, +and placed a comfortable chair for Mrs. Balfame in a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>position where she +would face both the light and her visitors. It was not the first stage +that the astute Mr. Broderick had set; and whenever he was on a case he +fell naturally into the position of leader; not only had he the most +alert and driving, the most resourceful and penetrative mind, but his +good looks and suave manner inspired confidence in the victim, and led +him insensibly into damaging admissions. He was a tall slim young man, a +graduate of Princeton, not yet thirty, with a regular face and warm +colouring, and an expression so pleasant that the keenness of his eyes +passed unnoted. In general equipment and dress he was typical of his +kind, unless they took to drink and grew slovenly; but his more emphatic +endowment enabled him to take the lead among a class of men whom he +respected too thoroughly to antagonise with arrogance.</p> + +<p>"Late—to make an impression!" he growled, but young Ryder Bruce of the +evening edition of his paper nudged him. Mrs. Balfame was on the +staircase opposite the parlour doors.</p> + +<p>The young men stood up and watched her as she slowly descended, her +black dress clinging to her tall rather rigid figure, her head high, her +profile as calm as marble, her eye as devoid of expression as if +awaiting the click of the camera.</p> + +<p>The reporters were prejudiced on the spot, so impatient are newspaper +men of any sort of pose or attempt to impress them. As she entered the +room she greeted them pleasantly, looking straight at them with her +large cold eyes, and allowed herself to be conducted to a chair by the +polite Mr. Broderick.</p> + +<p>She knew that in her high unrelieved black she looked older than common, +but this was a deliberately <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>calculated effect. She was not as adroit as +she would have been after recurrent experiences with the press, but +instinct warned her to look the dignified middle-aged widow, quite above +the coquetry of the bare throat of fashion, or of tempering her weeds +with soft white lawn.</p> + +<p>As Mr. Broderick made a little speech of gratitude for her gracious +reception of the press, she appraised her guests. The greater number +were well-groomed, well-dressed, well-bred in effect, very sure of +themselves; altogether a striking contrast to the local reporters that +had come in on their heels.</p> + +<p>She answered Mr. Broderick diffidently: "I have never been interviewed. +I am afraid you will hardly find—what do you call it?—a story?—in +me."</p> + +<p>"We don't wish to be too personal," he said gently, "but the public is +tremendously interested in this case, and more particularly in you. It +isn't always that it takes an interest in the wife of a murdered +man—but—well, you see, you are such a personality in this community. +We really must have an interesting interview." He smiled at her with a +charming expression of masculine indulgence that made her own eyes +soften. "You see—don't you—we hate to intrude—but—we understand that +you had a serious quarrel with your husband on the last day of his life. +Would you mind telling us what you did after leaving the Country Club?"</p> + +<p>She gave him a frozen stare, but recalled Mr. Cummack's warning not to +take offence—"for remember that these men have their living to get, and +if they fall down on their job they don't get it. Blame their paper, not +them."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p><p>"That is a surprising question," she said sweetly. "Do you expect me to +answer it?"</p> + +<p>"Why not? Of course you read the newspapers. You know we have told the +public of the scene at the clubhouse already—and with no detriment to +you! It was a very dramatic scene, and every moment that you passed from +that time until Mr. Balfame fell at his gate will be of the most +absorbing interest to the public. In fact, they will eat it up."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame shrugged her shoulders. "As a matter of fact I have not +read a newspaper since the—" She set her lips and her eyes grew +hard—"the crime. I know you have written a great deal about it, but it +hasn't interested me. Well—Dr. Anna Steuer drove me home, and shortly +after I went up to my room—"</p> + +<p>"Pardon me; let us take things in their turn. You took a box of sardines +and some bread from the pantry, did you not?"</p> + +<p>"I did." Mrs. Balfame's tones were both puzzled and bored.</p> + +<p>"And then you were interrupted." As she raised her eyebrows, he +continued. "The appearance of the sardine can indicated that."</p> + +<p>She gave him a brilliant smile, her substitute for the average woman's +merry laugh. "You are teaching me how they write those intricate +detective tales my husband was so fond of. It is true that I was +interrupted, but it is equally true that I should probably have left the +can as you found it in any case, for I soon realised that I was not +hungry. I had had sandwiches at the club, and although I always think it +best to eat something before retiring, I was hardly hungry enough for +sardines—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p><p>"You ate sandwiches at the club? I have been out there once or twice +and never saw—I was under the impression that during the afternoon the +young people danced and the matrons played bridge before an early +dinner."</p> + +<p>"Did you?" Mrs. Balfame's eyes and tones abashed even Mr. Broderick, and +he tacked hastily: "Oh, well, that is immaterial, as the lawyers say. +And of course you ladies may have sandwiches served in the bridge rooms. +May I ask what interrupted you?"</p> + +<p>"My husband telephoned from Mr. Cummack's house that he was obliged to +go to Albany at once and asked me to pack his suitcase."</p> + +<p>"Yes, we have seen the suitcase. You suggested, did you not—over the +telephone—making him a glass of lemonade with aromatic and bromide in +it?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame experienced an obscure thrill of alarm, but her haughty +stare betrayed nothing. One of the reporters whose "job" it was to watch +her hands, noted that they curved rigidly. "And may I ask how you found +<i>that</i> out? Really, I think I feel even more curiosity than you do."</p> + +<p>"He told it to Cummack and the other men present as a good joke, adding +that you knew your business."</p> + +<p>"I did. The matter had passed entirely out of my mind. More momentous +things have happened since! Well—I made the glass of lemonade and left +it on the dining-room table; then I went upstairs and packed his +suitcase—"</p> + +<p>"One moment. What became of that glass of lemonade? No one remembers +having seen it, although I have made very particular inquiries."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Balfame by this time was quite cold, but her brain was working +almost as quickly as Mr. Broderick's. She uncurved her fingers and +smiled. But her keen brain-sword had one edge only; the other was dull +with inexperience. She knew nothing of the vast practice of newspaper +men in detecting the lie.</p> + +<p>"Oh—I drank it myself." She had drawn her brows for a moment as if in +an effort of memory. "When I heard the noise outside—when I heard them +say 'coroner'—and realised that something dreadful had happened, I ran +downstairs. Then I suddenly felt faint and remembered the lemonade with +the aromatic spirits of ammonia and bromide in it. I ran into the +dining-room and drank it—fortunately!"</p> + +<p>"And what became of the glass?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Mrs. Balfame was now righteously indignant. "How do I know? Or any +one else? Frieda, soon after, began to make coffee by the quart—and I +don't doubt whisky was brought round from the Elks. Who could have +noticed a glass more or less?"</p> + +<p>"Frieda swears she never saw it."</p> + +<p>"She has the worst memory of any servant I ever had, and that is saying +a good deal."</p> + +<p>Mr. Broderick regarded her with admiration. He distrusted her more every +moment, but he had realised at once that he had no ordinary woman to +deal with, and he rejoiced in the clash of wits.</p> + +<p>The other young men were sitting forward, almost breathless, and Mrs. +Balfame was now fully alive to the danger of her position. But all +sensation of fear had left her. All the iron in her nature fused in the +crucible of those terrible moments and came forth finely tempered steel.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p><p>"Anything more?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—ah—yes. Would you mind telling us what you did after you had +packed the suitcase and brought it downstairs?"</p> + +<p>"I went up to my room and began to undress for bed."</p> + +<p>"But that must have been quite fifteen minutes before Mr. Balfame's +return. He walked from Cummack's house, which is about a mile from here. +It was noticed that you merely had taken your dress off. Would you not +have had time to get into bed?"</p> + +<p>"If I were a man. But I had my hair to brush—with fifty strokes; and—a +little nightly massage, if you will have it. Besides, I had intended to +go down and lock the front door after my husband had left."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" The admiration of the young men mounted higher. They disliked her +coldly, if only for that lack of sex-magnetism, which men, particularly +young men, naïve in their extensive surface psychology, take as a +personal affront. They did not believe a word she said, and they did not +give her and her possible fate a throb of sympathy, but they generously +pronounced her "a wonder."</p> + +<p>Mr. Broderick took a chance shot. "And did you not during that time look +out of the window—toward the grove?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame hesitated the fraction of a minute, then wisely returned to +her know-nothing policy. "Why should I? Certainly not. I heard no sound +out there. I am not in the habit of examining the grounds from my window +at night. It is enough to go through the lower rooms before I lock up."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p><p>"But your window was dark when the men ran over from Gifning's after +hearing the shot. They remember that. Do you brush your hair—and—and +massage in the dark?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame sat back in her chair with the resigned air of the victim +who expects an interview with inquisitive newspaper men to last all +night. "No. But I sometimes sit in the dark. I told you that I intended +to sit up—partly dressed—until my husband had gone. I did not feel +like reading, and my eyes were tired. As you know so much, you may have +guessed that I cried a little after that trying afternoon. I do not +often cry, and my eyes stung."</p> + +<p>"But you had forgiven your husband?"</p> + +<p>"I had forgiven him many times before. I infer that you know that also."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Balfame, is it not true that about two years ago you contemplated +obtaining a divorce?"</p> + +<p>This time her eyes flashed with anger. "I see that my kind friends have +been gossiping. You would seem to have interviewed everybody in town."</p> + +<p>"Pretty nearly. But you don't seem to realise that Elsinore—Brabant +County, for that matter—has talked of nothing else but this case for +the last four days."</p> + +<p>"I did think of a divorce for a short time, but I never mentioned it to +him, and as soon as I thought it all out I dismissed the idea. In the +first place, divorce is against the principles of the school in which I +was brought up, and in the second Mr. Balfame was a good husband in his +way. Every woman has some sort of a heavy cross to bear, and I guess +mine was lighter than most. The trouble is, we American women expect +too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> much. I dismissed the subject so completely from my mind that I had +practically forgotten it."</p> + +<p>"Ah—yes—we thought you might have seen some one lurking in the grove +and gone down to investigate." This was another chance shot. He was +hoping for a "lead."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame thought him inspired.</p> + +<p>For the moment the cold brilliant eyes of the woman and the keen +contracted eyes of the reporter met and clashed. Then Mrs. Balfame +displayed her teeth in her sweet and charming smile. "What a truly +masculine inference. You don't know me. If I had seen anything I should +have flown to the telephone and called the police."</p> + +<p>"You look indomitable," murmured Mr. Broderick. "But will you tell us +how it happened that you did not hear the shot? The men down at +Gifning's did."</p> + +<p>"They were standing on the porch, and I think now that I did hear the +shot. But my windows were closed. I hear tires burst constantly. And +that was Saturday night. The machines turn off just below our gate into +Dawbarn Street, especially if they are bound for Beryl Myrtle's road +house."</p> + +<p>"True." Broderick leaned forward, staring at the carpet. He permitted +the silence to last quite a minute. Even Mrs. Balfame, who had +congratulated herself that the inquisition must be nearly over, stirred +uneasily, so sinister was that silence.</p> + +<p>The other men knew the Broderick method too well to spoil one of his +designs; they sat in expectant stillness and turned upon Mrs. Balfame a +battery of eyes.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Broderick raised his head and his sharp boring gaze darted into +hers. "I had not fully <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>intended to tell you of a discovery made by one +of us yesterday. We have told no one as yet—waiting for just the right +moment to publish it. But I think I'll tell you. There is evidence that +two revolvers were fired that night. One killed David Balfame, and a +bullet from the other penetrated the tree before the house and slightly +to the right of where he must have stood for a moment. Bruce here dug it +out. Now, not only did the men at Gifning's not hear two +shots—indicating that they were fired simultaneously—but one bullet +came from a .38 and the other from a .41."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame stood up. "Really, gentlemen, I did not consent to see you +in order to help you solve riddles. But possibly you know better than I +that gunmen generally travel in pairs. I am convinced that my husband—" +(they applauded her for not saying "my poor husband") "was killed by one +of those creatures, hired by his political enemies. Unless I can tell +you something more of interest—if, indeed, you have found anything to +interest the great New York public in this interview—I will ask you to +excuse me."</p> + +<p>The young men were politely on their feet. "And you have no pistol—nor +ever had?"</p> + +<p>She laughed outright. "Are you trying to fasten the crime on me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, indeed. Only, in a case like this, one leaves no stone +unturned—I hope you do not think we are rude."</p> + +<p>"I only just realise that quite the most polite young men I have ever +met have been hoping to make me incriminate myself. If I had not been so +dense I should have dismissed you long since. Good night."</p> + +<p>And, once more looking human in her just <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>indignation, she lifted her +proud head and swept out of the room.</p> + +<p>The young men left the house and adjourned to a private room in the rear +of their favourite saloon. For twenty minutes they rehearsed the +interview carefully, those that had taken notes correcting any lapses of +memory on the part of those that had elected to watch as well as listen.</p> + +<p>Broderick and many of the men were firmly of the opinion that Mrs. +Balfame had committed the crime; others believed that she was shielding +some one else; the less experienced were equally positive that no guilty +woman taken off her guard repeatedly, as she had been, could "put it +over" like that. She had "talked and acted like an innocent woman."</p> + +<p>"She acted, all right," said Broderick. "I for one am convinced that she +did it. But whether she did or didn't, she's got to be indicted and +tried. This case, boys, is too big to throw away—too damned big; and +she's already a personality to the public. She's the only one we have +the ghost of a chance with; the only one whose arrest and trial would +keep the interest going—"</p> + +<p>"But say!" It was the youngest reporter that interrupted. "I call it +lowdown to fasten a crime on a possibly innocent woman—a lady—keep her +in jail for months; try her for murder! Why, even if she were acquitted, +she would carry the stigma through life."</p> + +<p>"Don't get sentimental, sonny," said Broderick patiently. "Sentiment is +to the vanquished in this game. When you've been it as long as the rest +of us you'll know that in nine cases out of ten the real solution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> of +any mystery is the simplest. Balfame drank. He had a violent temper when +drunk. He was a dog at best. She must have hated him. Look at her. We +have reason to believe that she did hate him and that her friends knew +it. She thought of divorce two years ago. Gave it up because she was +afraid of losing her leadership in this provincial hole. Look at her. +She is as proud as Lucifer. And as hard as nails. There had been an ugly +scene at the club that afternoon. He mortified her publicly. She was so +overcome she had to leave. I've a hunch she poisoned that lemonade and +got it out of the way in time. She's the sort that would think of nearly +everything. Not quite, of course. Otherwise she would never have +invented on the spur of the moment that story about drinking it herself; +she'd have had the assumption on tap that one of the neighbours had +drunk it. That complication, however, is yet to prove. It merely points +a finger at her—straight; what we've got to prove and prove quick is +that she was out of doors when that shot was fired—"</p> + +<p>"Would you like to see her in the chair?" gasped young Loring.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, no. Not the least danger. Women of that sort don't go to the +chair. If she even got a term, I'd head a petition to let her out, for +she's a dead game sport, and I'm only after good front page stuff." He +turned to Ryder Bruce of the evening edition of his newspaper. "You make +love to that German hired girl. She hates us all, for we represent the +real American press—that hasn't a hyphen in it. I sensed that. And I +don't believe she's all the fool she looks. I believe she can tell +something—few servants that can't—and that she only pretended at the +inquest that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> knew nothing because she was nearly dead with pain and +wanted it over. Well, she had the tooth out this morning, and at least +she isn't quite as hideous as she was; so go to it, old boy. Get 'round +her and do it quick. Use money if necessary. There's not a day to lose. +Find out what she wants most—probably it's to send her sweetheart at +the front something more substantial than mitts and bands. Got me?"</p> + +<p>"I get you," said young Bruce gloomily. "You've picked me out because +I'm blond and round faced and can pass myself off as a German. I wish +I'd been born an Italian. Nice job, making love to <i>that</i>. But I'll do +it."</p> + +<p>"Good boy. Well, s'long. I'm off on a trail of my own. I'll report +later. May be nothing in it."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XIII</span></h2> + +<p>Broderick walked slowly toward Elsinore Avenue, sounding his memory for +certain fugitive impressions, his active mind at the same time casting +about for the current which would connect them.</p> + +<p>He looked at his watch. He was to dine with the Crumleys at seven and it +lacked but ten minutes of the hour; nevertheless he walked more slowly +still, his eyes staring at the ground, his brow channeled.</p> + +<p>On Sunday afternoon he had spent two hours with Alys Crumley. At first +she had been reluctant to talk of any but the salient phases of the +murder, but being appealed to as a "good old pal" and reminded that real +newspaper people stood together, she finally had described the scene at +the Country Club on the afternoon preceding Balfame's death, and shown +him the drawing she had had the superior presence of mind to make. +Broderick had examined every detail of that rapid but demonstrative +sketch: the burly form at the head of the room, his condition indicated +by an angle of the shoulders and a deft exaggeration of feature which +recalled the facile art of the cartoonist; the strained forms of the men +surrounding him; Mrs. Balfame heading down the room, her face set and +terrible; the groups of women and girls in attitudes expressive of alarm +or disgust.</p> + +<p>But when he made as if to put the sketch in his pocket she had snatched +it from him, and he merely had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> shrugged his shoulders, confident that +he could induce her to give it up should he really need it.</p> + +<p>He had questioned her regarding the scene until its outlines were as +firm in his mind as in her own. But there had been something else—some +impression, not obviously linked with the case: It was for that +impression that he sounded his admirable memory; and in a moment he +found it and stopped with a smothered exclamation.</p> + +<p>He had complimented her on the excellent likeness of Dwight Rush, whom +he knew and liked, and remarked quite naturally that he might have sat +for her a number of times. The dusky pink had mounted to her hair, but +she had replied carelessly that Rush was "a common enough type."</p> + +<p>Possibly Broderick would have forgotten the blush had it not have been +for the swift change of expression in her eyes: a certain fear followed +by a concentrated renitence; and at the same moment he had remembered +that he had met Rush once or twice at the Crumleys' during the summer +and thought him quite the favoured guest.</p> + +<p>Driven only by a mild personal curiosity, he had asked her how she liked +Rush and if she saw much of him; he recalled that she had answered with +an elaboration of indifference that she hadn't seen him for ages and +took no interest in him whatever.</p> + +<p>Then Broderick had drawn her on to talk of Mrs. Balfame. Yes, in common +with all Elsinore that counted, she admired Mrs. Balfame, although she +believed that no one really knew her, that she unconsciously lived among +the surfaces of her nature. Her face as she marched down the clubroom +that day, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> its curious sudden transformation on that other day at +the Friday Club when her thoughts so plainly had drifted far from the +platitudinous speakers, indicated to Miss Crumley's temperamental mind +"depths and possibly tragic possibilities."</p> + +<p>It was patent to Mr. Broderick's own mind that her suspicions had not +lighted for a moment on the dead man's widow, but it also transpired in +the course of the conversation that the young artist who had so "loved +to sketch" the Star of Elsinore had suffered a long drop in personal +enthusiasm. Pressed astutely, she had remarked that she guessed she was +as broad-minded as anybody, especially since her year on the New York +press, but she did not approve of married women claiming a right to +share in the Great Game designed by Nature for the young of both sexes.</p> + +<p>Then the story came out: Miss Crumley, afflicted with a headache +something over a fortnight since, and enjoying the cool night air just +behind her front gate, had seen Mrs. Balfame come out of Dr. Steuer's +garden next door and meet Dwight Rush face to face. He had begged to be +allowed to see her home.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had lovely manners, she couldn't help being sweet unless +she disliked a person, and no woman will elect to walk up a long dark +avenue alone if a man offer to escort her.</p> + +<p>Alys would have thought nothing of it—merely assumed that Rush, being a +comparative newcomer, had caught at the chance to make a favourable +impression on the leader of Elsinore society—(no, he was no snob, but +that idea just came to her), if they had not crawled, yes, <i>crawled</i> all +the way up the avenue.</p> + +<p>Both were vigorous people with long legs; they could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> have covered the +distance to the Balfame place in three minutes. They had been more than +ten, and as they passed under the successive lamp posts she had noted +the man's bent head, the woman's tilted back—as she gazed up into his +eyes, no doubt.</p> + +<p>"In this town," Miss Crumley had announced, "a woman is fast or she +isn't. You know just where you are. There's a class that's sly about it, +but somehow you get 'on' in time. Mrs. Balfame has stood for the highest +and best. Mind you, I'm not saying that she ever saw Rush alone again, +or cared a snap of her finger for him—or he for her. No doubt she felt, +when the rare chance offered of taking a little flyer, that it was too +good to miss. But she shouldn't have done it; that's the point. I don't +like my idols to have feet of clay."</p> + +<p>Broderick had felt both sympathetic and amused. He knew that Alys +Crumley was not only sweet of temper and frank, if not candid, but that +in spite of all her desperate modernism she cherished high ideals of +conduct; and here she was turning loose the cat that skulks somewhere in +every commonplace female's nature.</p> + +<p>But the whole conversation had left his mind promptly. He had attached +no significance whatever to a ten minutes' walk between a polite man and +a woman returning alone from a friend's house on a dark night.</p> + +<p>Now every word of the conversation came back to him. Rush, he gathered, +had gone to the Crumley house several times a week for a while, and +then, for reasons known only to himself and Alys, had ceased his visits +abruptly. Had she fallen in love with him? Or was it only her vanity +that was wounded? And if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> Rush had dropped a girl as pretty and bright +and winning as Alys Crumley—who improved upon acquaintance, +moreover—what was the reason? Why had he not fallen in love with her? +Had he loved some one else?</p> + +<p>Broderick swung his mind to the morning following the murder, when he +had met Rush in the hall of the Elsinore Hotel. The lawyer professed +himself as delighted to "run up against him" and invited him to +breakfast. All this had been natural enough, and it was equally natural +that the conversation should have but one theme.</p> + +<p>Once more Broderick sought a fugitive impression and found it. Rush, who +was a master of words when verbal exactness was imperative, had created +an impression in his companion's mind of the impeccability of the +murdered man's widow.</p> + +<p>Broderick had wondered once or twice since whence came that mental +picture of Mrs. Balfame that rose clear-cut in his memory, in spite of +his deliberate conviction of her guilt. Other people had raved about her +and made no impression upon the young reporter's selective and somewhat +cynical mind; but Rush had almost accomplished his purpose!</p> + +<p>Why had he sought to accomplish it?</p> + +<p>Broderick had known Rush in and out of court for nearly two years. +Whenever he had been on an assignment in that part of Brabant County he +had made a point of seeking him out, and even of spending an evening +with him if he could afford the time. He liked the unique blend of East +and West in the man; to Broderick's keen appraising mind Rush reflected +the very best of the two great rival bisections of the nation. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> liked +the mixture of frankness and subtlety, of simple unquestioning +patriotism—of assumption that no country but the United States of +America mattered in the very least—and the intense concentrated +individualism. Of hard-headed American determination to "get there" at +any honourable cost, of jealously hidden romanticism.</p> + +<p>Broderick was almost at the Crumley gate. He halted for a moment under +the dark maples and glanced up the long shadowy avenue, his own narrower +and still more jealously guarded "romantic streak" appreciating the +possibilities on a dusky evening with a girl whose face floated for a +moment before him. But he banished her promptly, searching his memory +for some salient trait in Rush that he instinctively knew would +establish the current he desired.</p> + +<p>He found it after a moment of intense concentration. Rush was the sort +of man that loves not woman but a woman. His very friendship for Alys +Crumley was evidence that he cared nothing for girls as girls. Only the +exceptional drew him, and mere youth left him unmoved.</p> + +<p>Knowing Rush as he did, he felt his way rapidly toward the facts. Alys, +woman-like, had succumbed to propinquity, and betrayed herself; Rush, +finding his mere masculine loneliness misinterpreted, and being +honourable to boot, had promptly withdrawn.</p> + +<p>But why? Alys would have made him a delightful and useful wife. She was +one of those too clever girls whom celibacy made neurotic and uncertain, +but out of whom matrimony and maternity knocked all the nonsense at once +and finally. She would make a splendid woman.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p><p>He should have thought her just the girl to allure Rush, whom he also +knew to be fastidious and to set a high value on the good old Brabant +blood. Moreover, it was time that Rush would be wanting the permanent +companionship of a woman, a bright, progressive, but feminine woman. He +had observed certain signs.</p> + +<p>Alys, apparently, had not measured up to Rush's secret ideal of the +wholly desirable woman, nor appealed to that throbbing vein of +romanticism which he had striven to bury beneath the dusty tomes of the +law. What sort of woman, then, could satisfy all he desired? And had he +found her?</p> + +<p>Broderick recalled a certain knightly exaltation in Rush's blue eyes +which had come and gone as they discussed Mrs. Balfame, although not a +word of the adroit concept he had built remained in the reporter's +memory. But those eyes came back to Broderick there in the dark—the +eyes of a man young and ardent like himself—he almost fancied he had +seen the woman's image in them.</p> + +<p>He revived his impression of Mrs. Balfame, seen for the first time +to-day, and contemplated it impersonally: A beautiful, a fascinating +woman—to a man of Rush's limited experience and idealism; fastidious, +proud, gracious, supremely poised.</p> + +<p>Nor did she look a day over thirty, although she must be a good bit +more—he recalled the obituaries of the dead man: they had alluded to +his marital accomplishment as covering a term of some twenty years. +Perhaps she was his second wife—but no—nor did it matter. Rush was +just the sort of chap to fall in love with a woman older than himself, +if she were still young in appearance and as chastely lovely, as +unapproachable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> as Mrs. Balfame. He would idealise her very years, +contrast them with that vague suggestion of virginity that Broderick +recalled, of deep untroubled tides.</p> + +<p>All romantic men believe in women's unfathomed depths when in love, +reflected the star reporter cynically, and Mrs. Balfame was just the +sort to go until forty before having the smashing love affair of her +life; and to inspire a similar passion in a hard-working idealist like +Dwight Rush.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame and Dwight Rush! Broderick, who now stood quite still, a +few paces from the Crumley gate, whistled.</p> + +<p>Could Rush have fired that shot? Broderick recalled that the lawyer had +mentioned having spent Saturday evening in Brooklyn—on business.</p> + +<p>Broderick shook his head vigorously. So far as he was concerned, Rush +never should be asked to produce his alibi. He did not believe that Rush +had done it, did not propose to harbour the suggestion for a moment. +Rush was not the man to commit a cowardly murder, not even for a woman. +If he had wanted to kill the man he would have involved himself in an +election row, forced the bully to draw his gun, and then got in his own +fire double quick. Standards were standards.</p> + +<p>Broderick was more convinced than ever that Mrs. Balfame had committed +the deed, and he had established the current. His work was "cut out" for +the evening; and without further delay he presented himself at the Widow +Crumley's door.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XIV</span></h2> + +<p>Supper was over and Broderick and Miss Crumley sat in the back yard +studio; Mrs. Crumley had company of her own, and as Alys decried the +vulgarity of the legendary American daughter's attitude to the +poor-spirited American mother, she invariably retired to the background +whenever it would enhance Mrs. Crumley's self-respect to occupy not only +the foreground but (if her daughter had an interesting visitor) the +entire stage. Alys, since her humiliating failure with Dwight Rush, +clung the more passionately to her rules of conduct. They were not red +with the blood of life, but at least they served as an anchored buoy.</p> + +<p>The atelier was hung with olive green burlap and covered with an +artistic litter of sketches. Broderick, before settling himself into a +comfortable chair by the stove, examined the more recent and encouraged +her with a few words of discriminating praise.</p> + +<p>"Keep it up, Alicia. The <i>News</i> for you next month if you are ready for +a job. You've improved marvellously in figures, which was where you were +weak. Miss Loys, our fashion artist, is marrying next month. You might +as well begin with that. You'll be on the paper and can jump into +something better when it offers."</p> + +<p>Alys nodded emphatically. "Give me work, and as soon as possible. I +don't care much what it is. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> I want work and plenty of it. It isn't +only that I want to use my energies, but I've spent all I can afford on +lessons and the rest of it."</p> + +<p>"I'll see to it. Your sort doesn't go begging."</p> + +<p>Broderick clipped his cigar and watched her thin profile for a moment +without speaking.</p> + +<p>He noticed for the first time that she had lost the little flesh that +formerly had covered her small bones, and that the pink stained the pale +ivory of her cheeks only when conversation excited her. But if anything +she was prettier—no, more attractive—than ever, for there was more +depth in her face, which in spite of its subtle suggestions, had seemed +to his critical masculine taste to be too eager, too prone to pour out +her personality without reserve when the brain lighted up. Now there was +a slight droop of the eyelids which might mean fatigue, but gave length +and mystery to the strange olive eyes. Her pink mouth, with its short +upper lip, was too small for his taste, but the modelling of her +features in general seemed to him more cleanly defined, and the sweep of +jaw, almost as keen as a blade, must have delighted her own artist soul. +She was rather diminutive (to her sorrow), but the long lines she +cultivated in her house gowns made her figure very alluring, and the +limp and awkward grace of fashion singularly became her. She wore +to-night a "butterfly" gown of georgette (finding, as ever, admirable +effects in cotton since she could not afford the costly fabrics), the +colour of the American beauty rose, and a narrow band of olive velvet +around her thin ivory-white neck. For the moment of her absorption, as +she stared into the coals, her attitude would have been one of complete +repose had it not been for her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>restless hands. Broderick noticed, too, +that there were darkened hollows under her eyes. "Poor kid," he thought. +"She's been through it, all right, and put up a stiff fight. But what a pity."</p> + +<p>As he struck a match she rose, and, opening a drawer in the table, took +out a box of Russian cigarettes. "I keep these here," she announced, +"because I don't want to shock mother; and I seldom indulge these days +in expensive habits. But I shall celebrate and smoke all evening. It is +jolly to have you like this again, Jimmy. I heard you were engaged. Is +it true? You would seem to have deserted every one else."</p> + +<p>Mr. Broderick coloured and looked as sheepish as a highly sophisticated +star reporter may. "Well, not quite," he admitted. "It's been heavy +running, and I don't have all the time there is on my hands. But—I +hope—well, I think now it'll be pretty plain sailing—"</p> + +<p>"Good, Jimmy, good!"</p> + +<p>For a moment he, too, gazed into the coals, his eyes softening; then +once more he banished the dainty image evoked; no nonsense for him in +Elsinore, with the Balfame tangle to unravel to the glory of the New +York <i>News</i>.</p> + +<p>"Alys," he said, stretching out his long legs and looking innocent and +comfortable, "I want to have a confidential talk with you about Mrs. +Balfame." He paused and then looked her straight in the eyes as he +launched his bolt. "I have come to the conclusion that she shot him—"</p> + +<p>"Jim Broderick!" Alys sprang to her feet, her eyes wide and full of +angry light. "Oh, you newspaper men!—How utterly abominable!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p><p>"Why? Sit down, my dear. Somebody did it—not? as our friends the +Germans say. And undoubtedly that some one is the person most interested +in getting him out of the way."</p> + +<p>"But not Mrs. Balfame! Why—I've been brought up on Mrs. Balfame. I'd as +soon suspect my own mother."</p> + +<p>"No, my friend, you would not. Mrs. Crumley is adorable in her own way, +but she is frankly and comfortably in her fifties. She is not a +beautiful woman who looks fully ten years younger than she has any right +to look. See?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—but—"</p> + +<p>"Think it over. You said the other day that you believed Mrs. Balfame to +have unplumbed depths, or something equally popular with your sex. And +you were horrified at her singular facial transformations no less than +twice within a fortnight. Certainly the picture you drew of her stalking +down the Country Club room was that of a woman in a mood for anything—"</p> + +<p>"Of a lovely well-bred woman outraged by the conduct of a drunken brute +of a husband. But do you imagine that any woman goes through life +without being turned into a fury now and then by her husband?"</p> + +<p>"No doubt. But, you see, the death of the brute occurred so soon after +the transformation scene enacted behind the expressive face of the lady +you have immortalised on paper—and no new-made devil is so complete as +that which rises out of the debris of an angel. When your placid +sternly-controlled women do explode, they may patch themselves together +as swiftly as a cyclone passes, but one of the sinister faces of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +hidden collection has been flashed momentarily before the public eye—"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh!"</p> + +<p>"I have tracked down every suspect, several upon whom no suspicion has +alighted—as yet. To my mind there are only two people to whom the crime +could be brought home."</p> + +<p>"Who is the other?"</p> + +<p>"Dwight Rush."</p> + +<p>This time Alys did not sit up with flaming eyes. To the astute gaze of +the reporter she took herself visibly in hand. But she bit through the +long tube between her lips. "What makes you think that?" she asked, as +she tossed the bits into the fire and lighted another cigarette. "You +roam too far afield for me."</p> + +<p>"He is in love with her."</p> + +<p>"With whom?"</p> + +<p>"The lady who was so opportunely, if somewhat sensationally, made a +widow last Saturday night."</p> + +<p>"He is not! Why—how absurd you are to-night, Jim. She is a thousand +years older than he."</p> + +<p>"How old is she—"</p> + +<p>"Forty-two. Mother sent her a birthday cake last month."</p> + +<p>"Rush is thirty-four. Who cares for eight years on the wrong side these +days? She looks younger than he does, to say nothing of her own +inconsiderable age; and when a woman is as lovely as Mrs. Balfame, as +interesting as she must be with that astute mind, that subtle suggestion +of mystery—"</p> + +<p>"You are mad, simply mad. In the first place, he has had no chance to +find out whether she is interesting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> or not—if he had, all Elsinore +would have rung with it. And—ah—"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"Come out with it. It's up to you to prove him innocent if you can."</p> + +<p>"He was in Brooklyn that evening. I met him at the Cummacks' the next +day, and heard him say so."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is what he is at pains to tell every one. Perhaps he can +prove it, perhaps not. But that's not what was in your mind."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid of being misunderstood. But it is all right, for of course +he can prove that he was in Brooklyn. I happen to know that he went to +the Balfame house on his way back from the club Saturday evening, and +only stayed a few minutes. I left the club just after Mrs. Balfame did, +as I had been out there all afternoon and had promised mother to help +her during the evening. I came in on the trolley and got off at the +corner of Balfame and Dawbarn Streets, to finish an argument I was +having with Harriet Bell over the possibility of Mrs. Balfame losing her +social power through the scene out at the club—few of the members would +care to go through such a scene a second time. Moreover, some of these +newer rich women resent her supremacy and would like to force her to +take a back seat.</p> + +<p>"I only talked for a few minutes after I got off the car and then walked +quickly over to the avenue. Just as I turned the corner I saw Dwight +Rush slam the Balfame gate and almost run up the walk. He seemed in a +tearing hurry about something. I was standing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> on our porch only a few +minutes later when he strode past—no doubt hoping to catch the +seven-ten for Brooklyn. Now!"</p> + +<p>"Nobody would be happier than I to prove a first-class alibi for Rush—"</p> + +<p>"Who else suspects him?"</p> + +<p>"No one; and so far as I am concerned no one shall. If you want the +whole truth, what I'm as intent on just now as big news itself is +complete exoneration for my friend. But if he didn't do it, she did. And +if he butted in upon her at a time like that it was because he was +beside himself—no doubt he asked her to elope with him—get a +divorce—"</p> + +<p>"What utter nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. But if she saw her chance, I'm thinking she wouldn't have +hesitated a minute to put a bullet in Balfame. People don't turn as sick +at the mere thought of committing murder, when there's a good chance of +putting it over, as you may imagine. Most of us experience the impulse +some time or other. Cowardice or circumstances safeguard us. She did it, +take my word for it. She deliberately poisoned a glass of lemonade +first, for Balfame to drink when he came home on his way to take the +train for Albany. Then, something or other interfering—what, I can only +guess at as yet—she found her chance to shoot, and shot."</p> + +<p>"Why, if all that were true, she would be a fiend."</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily. Merely a highly exasperated woman. One, moreover, who +had locked herself up too long. Marital squabbles are safety valves, and +I understand she let him do the rowing. But I don't care about her +impulses. The act is enough for me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> Psychology later, when I write a +page of Sunday stuff. But you can see for yourself that if she isn't +indicted, and pretty quick, Dwight Rush will be?"</p> + +<p>"But no one else suspects him."</p> + +<p>"Not yet. But the whole town thinks of nothing else. And as they've +about given up all hope of the political crowd, as well as gunmen and +tango girls, they'll veer presently toward the truth. But before they +settle down on their idol's lofty head, they'll root about for some man +who might easily be in love with her—although hopelessly, as a matter +of course. Then they'll recall a thousand trifles that no doubt you too +recall without effort."</p> + +<p>"It's true she turned to him out there, ignoring men she had known for +years—she saw him at the house that night, if only for a few +moments—Oh, it's too horrible! Mrs. Balfame. An Elsinore lady! And she +has been so good to us all these hard years, helped us over and over +again. Oh, I don't mind telling you, Jim, that I was a little bit +jealous of her—I rather liked Rush—he was interesting and a nice male +creature, and I was so lonely—and he stopped coming so suddenly—and +then seeing him so delighted to meet her that night—and both of them +dragging up the avenue as if each moment were a jewel—I've always +thought it hateful for married women to try to cut girls out—it's so +unnatural—but I can't hear her accused of murder—to go—Oh, it's too +awful to talk about!"</p> + +<p>"She'd get off. Don't let that worry you. Innocent or guilty. There's no +other way of saving Rush. Be more jealous, if that will help matters. +He'll marry her the moment he decently can."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p><p>"I don't believe he cares a bit for her. And I don't believe she will +marry him or any one."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, she will. He's the sort to get what he wants—and, take it +from me, he is mad about her. And she's at the age to be carried off her +feet by an ardent determined lover. Make no mistake about that. Besides, +her's is a name that she'll want to drop as soon as possible."</p> + +<p>"Jim Broderick, you know that you are deliberately playing on my female +nature, on all the baseness you feel sure is in it. I'd always thought +you rather subtle, diplomatic. I don't thank you for the compliment of +frankness."</p> + +<p>"My dear girl, it is a compliment—my utter lack of diplomacy with you. +I want to pull this big thing off for my paper, for your paper. And I +want to save the friend of both of us. I have merely tried to prove to +you that Mrs. Balfame is a mere human being, not a goddess, and deserves +to pay some of the penalty of her crime, at least. Certainly, she isn't +worth the sacrifice of Dwight Rush—"</p> + +<p>"But if he can prove his alibi—"</p> + +<p>"Suppose he couldn't. It was Saturday night. What more likely than that +he failed to find the man he wanted? I have a dark suspicion that he +never went near Brooklyn that night, was in no mood to think of +business; although I don't for a moment believe he was near the Balfame +place, or knows who did it—unless Mrs. Balfame has confessed to him. +She is a very clever woman, not likely to linger on smugly in any fool's +paradise. She must know that suspicion will work round to her, and +knowing his infatuation, no doubt has consulted him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p><p>Broderick really thought nothing of the sort, but calculated his words; +and they produced their effect. The blood rose to the girl's hair, then +ebbed, leaving her ghastly. "He would hate her then," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Not Rush. Another man, perhaps; but not only do things go too deep with +a man like that for anything but time to cure, but he's chock full of +romantic chivalry. And he's madly in love, remember; by that I mean in +the first flush. He'd look upon her as a martyr, and immediately set to +work to ward suspicion from her; if an alibi could not be proved for him +he'd take the crime on his own shoulders, if the worst came to worst."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Are men really so Quixotic in these days?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't changed fundamentally since they evolved from protoplasm."</p> + +<p>"But why should all that chivalry—that magnificent passion—the first +love of a man like that—be called out by a woman of Mrs. Balfame's age? +Why, it's some girl's right! I don't say mine. Don't think I'm a dog in +the manger. I'm trying not to be. But the world is full of girls—not +foolish young things only good enough for boys, but girls in their +twenties, bright, companionable, helpful, real mates for men—Why, it is +unnatural, damnable!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," said Broderick sympathetically. "But if human nature +weren't a tangled wire fence electrified full of contradictions, life +wouldn't be interesting at all. Perhaps it's a mere case of affinity, +destiny—don't ever betray me. But there it is. As well try to explain +the abrupt taking off of useful men in their prime, of lovely children, +of needed mothers, of aged women who have lived exemplary lives, mainly +for others, spending their last years with the horrors of cancer. Don't +try to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> explain human passion. And she <i>is</i> beautiful, and fresher to +look at than girls of eighteen that tango day and night. But he must be +saved from her as well as from arrest. Will you help me?"</p> + +<p>"What do you want me to do?"</p> + +<p>"Get further evidence about Mrs. Balfame."</p> + +<p>"I cannot, and would not if I could. Do you think I would be the means +of fastening the crime of murder on any woman?"</p> + +<p>"You would if you were a hardened—and good—newspaper woman."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not. And I won't. Do your own sleuthing."</p> + +<p>"More than I are on the job, but I want your help. I don't say you can +pick up fragments of her dress in the grove, or that you can—or +would—worm yourself into her confidence and extract a confession. But +you can set your wits to work and think up ways to put me on the track +of more evidence than I've got now. Can you think of anything off-hand?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Ah? What does that intonation mean?"</p> + +<p>"Your ears are off the key."</p> + +<p>"Not mine. Tell me at once—No,"—He rose and took up his hat—"never +mind now. Think it over. You will tell me in a day or two. Just remember +while watching all my little seeds sprout that you can help me save a +fine fellow and put my heel on a snake—a murderess! Paugh! There's +nothing so obscene. Good night."</p> + +<p>She did not rise as he let himself out, but sat beside her cold stove +thinking and crying until her mother called her to come in and go to bed.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XV</span></h2> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame, after she dismissed the newspaper men, went up to her +bedroom and sat very still for a long while. She was apprehensive rather +than frightened, but she felt very sober.</p> + +<p>She had accepted the assurance of the chief of the local police that his +inquiry regarding the pistol was a mere matter of routine, and had +merely obeyed a normal instinct in concealing it. But she knew the +intense interest of her community in the untimely and mysterious exit of +one of its most notorious members, an interest raised to the superlative +degree by the attentions of the metropolitan press; and she knew also +that when a community is excited suspicions are rapidly translated into +proofs, and every clue feeds the appetite for a victim.</p> + +<p>The European war was a dazzling example on the grand scale of the +complete breakdown of intellect before the primitive passions of hatred, +greed, envy, and the recurrent desire of man to kill, combined with that +monstrous dilation of the ego which consoles him with a childish belief +in his own impeccability.</p> + +<p>The newspapers of course pandered to the taste of their patrons for +morbid vicarious excitement; she had glanced contemptuously at the +headlines of her own "Case," and had accepted her temporary notoriety as +a matter of course, schooled herself to patience; the ordeal was +scarifying but of necessity brief.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p><p>But these young men. They had insinuated—what had they not insinuated? +Either they had extraordinary powers of divination, or they were a +highly specialised branch of the detective force. They had asked +questions and forced answers from her that made her start and shiver in +the retrospect.</p> + +<p>Was it possible they believed she had murdered David Balfame, or were +they merely seeking material for a few more columns before the case died +a natural death? She had never been interviewed before, save once +superficially as President of the Friday Club, but she knew one or two +of the county editors, and Alys Crumley had sometimes amused her with +stories of her experiences as a New York reporter.</p> + +<p>These young men, so well-groomed, so urbane, so charming even, all of +them no doubt generously equipped to love and marry and protect with +their lives the girl of their choice, were they too but the soldiers of +an everlasting battlefield, often at bay and desperate in the trenches? +No matter how good their work, how great their "killing," the struggle +must be renewed daily to maintain their own footing, to advance, or at +least to uphold, the power of their little autocracy. To them journalism +was the most important thing in the world, and mere persons like +herself, suddenly lifted from obscurity to the brassy peaks of notoriety +were so much material for first page columns of the newspapers they +served with all the loyalty of those deluded soldiers on the European +battlefields. She understood them with an abrupt and complete clarity, +but she hated them. They might like and even admire her, but they would +show her no mercy if they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> discovered that she had been in the yard that +night. She felt as if a pack of wolves were at her heels.</p> + +<p>But finally her brow relaxed. She shrugged her shoulders and began to +unbutton the dense black gown that had expressed the mood the world +demands of a four-days' widow. Let them suspect, divine what they chose. +Not a soul on earth but Anna Steuer knew that she had been out that +night after her return home. Even had those lynx-eyed young men sat on +the box hedge they could not have seen her, for the avenue was well +lighted, and the grove, the entire yard in fact, had been as black as a +mine. Even the person skulking among those trees could not have guessed +who she was.</p> + +<p>For a moment she had been tempted to tell them a little; that she had +looked out and seen a moving shadow in the grove. But she had remembered +in time that they would ask why she had reserved this testimony at the +coroner's inquest. Her rôle was to know nothing. Indubitably the shot +had been fired from the trees; nobody questioned that; why involve +herself? They would discharge still another set of questions at her, +among others why she had not telephoned for the police.</p> + +<p>As she hung up her gown she recognised the heavy footfalls of her maid +of all work, and when Frieda knocked, bade her enter, employing those +cool impersonal tones so resented by the European servant after a brief +sojourn on the dedicated American soil.</p> + +<p>As the girl closed the door behind her without speaking, Mrs. Balfame +turned sharply. She felt at a disadvantage. As her figure was reasonably +slim, she wore a cheap corset which she washed once a month<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> in the bath +tub with her nailbrush; and her linen, although fresh, as ever, was of +stout longcloth, and unrelieved by the coquetry of ribbons. She wore a +serviceable tight petticoat of black jersey, beyond which her well-shod +feet seemed to loom larger than her head. She was vaguely grateful that +she had not been caught by Alys Crumley, so fond of sketching her, and +was about to order Frieda to untie her tongue and be gone, when she +noticed that the girl's face was no longer bound, and asked kindly:</p> + +<p>"Has the toothache gone? I hope you do not suffer any longer."</p> + +<p>Frieda lifted her small and crafty eyes and shot a suspicious glance at +the mistress who had been so indifferent to what she believed to be the +worst of all pains.</p> + +<p>"It's out."</p> + +<p>"Too bad you didn't have it out at once." Mrs. Balfame hastily encased +herself in her bath robe and sat down. "I'll take my dinner +upstairs—why—what is it?"</p> + +<p>"I want to go home."</p> + +<p>"Home?"</p> + +<p>"To Germany."</p> + +<p>"But, of course you can't. There are a lot of German reservists in the +country who would like to go home and fight, but they can't get past the +British."</p> + +<p>"Some have. I could."</p> + +<p>"How? That is quite interesting."</p> + +<p>"I not tell. But I want to go."</p> + +<p>"Then go, by all means. But please wait a day or two until I get another +girl."</p> + +<p>"Plenty girls out of job. I want to go to-morrow."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, very well. But you can't expect a full month's wages, as it is you +that is serving notice, not I."</p> + +<p>"I do not want a full month wage. I want five hundert dollar."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame turned her amazed eyes upon the girl. Her first thought was +that the creature had been driven insane by her letters from home, and +wondered if she could overcome her if attacked. Then as she met those +small, sharp, crafty eyes, set high in the big stolid face like little +deadly guns in a fort, her heart missed a beat. But her own gaze, large +and cold, did not waver, and she said satirically:</p> + +<p>"Well, I am sure I hope you will get it."</p> + +<p>"I get it—from you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame lifted her shoulders. "What next? I have contributed what +little I can afford to the war funds. I am sorry, but I cannot +accommodate you."</p> + +<p>"You give me five hundert dollar," reiterated the thick even voice, "or +I tell the police you come in the back door two minutes after Mr. +Balfame he was kilt at the front gate."</p> + +<p>Obvious danger once more turned Mrs. Balfame into pure steel. "Oh, no; +you will tell them nothing of the sort, for it is not true. I thought I +heard some one on the back stairs when I went down to the kitchen. As +you know I always drink a glass of filtered water before going to bed. I +had forgotten the episode utterly, but I remember now, I heard a noise +outside, even imagined that some one turned the knob of the door, and +called up to ask you if you also had heard. I did not know that anything +had happened out in front until I returned to my room."</p> + +<p>"I see you come in the kitchen door." But the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> voice was not quite so +even, the shifty glance wavered. Frieda felt suddenly the European +peasant in the presence of the superior by divine right. Mrs. Balfame +followed up her advantage.</p> + +<p>"You are lying—for purposes of blackmail. You did not see me come in +the door, because I had not been outside of it. I do not even remember +opening it to listen, although I may have done so. You saw nothing and +cannot blackmail me. Nor would any one believe your word against mine."</p> + +<p>"I hear you come in just after me—"</p> + +<p>"Heard? Just now you said you saw."</p> + +<p>"Ach—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had an inspiration. "My God!" she exclaimed, springing to +her feet, "the murderer took refuge in the house, was hidden in the +cellar or attic all night, all the next day! He may be here yet! You may +be feeding him!"</p> + +<p>She advanced upon the staring girl whose mouth stood open. "Of course. +Of course. You are a friend of Old Dutch. It was one of his gunmen who +did it, and you are his accomplice. Or perhaps you killed him yourself. +Perhaps he treated you as he treated so many girls, and you killed him +and are trying to blackmail me for money to get out of the country."</p> + +<p>"It is a lie!" Frieda's voice was strangled with outraged virtue. "My +man, he fight for the fatherland. Old Dutch, he will not hurt a fly. I +would not have touch your pig of a husband. You know that, for you hate +him yourself. I have see in the eye, in the hand. I know notings of who +kill him, but—no, I have not see you come in the kitchen door, but I +hear some one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> come in, the door shut, you call out in so strange +voice—I believe before that you have kill him—now—now I do not +know—"</p> + +<p>"It would be wise to know nothing,"—Mrs. Balfame's voice was charged +with meaning—"unless you wish to be arrested as the criminal, or as an +accomplice—after confessing that you entered the house within a moment +or two of the shooting. Who is to say exactly when you did come in? +Well, better keep your mouth shut. It is wise for innocent people to +know as little about a crime as possible. Why did you testify before the +coroner's jury that your tooth ached so you heard nothing? Why didn't +you tell your story then?"</p> + +<p>"I was frightened, and my tooth—I can tink of notings else."</p> + +<p>"And now you think it quite safe to blackmail me?"</p> + +<p>"I want to go back to Germany—to my man—and I hate this country what +hates Germany."</p> + +<p>"This country is neutral," said Mrs. Balfame severely. "It regards all +the belligerents as barbarians tarred with the same brush. You Germans +are so excitable that you imagine we hate when we merely don't care." +This was intended to be soothing, but Frieda's brow darkened and she +thrust out her pugnacious lips.</p> + +<p>"Germany, she is the greatest country in the whole world," she +announced. "All the world—it muss know that."</p> + +<p>"How familiar that sounds! Just a slight variation on the old American +brag that is quite a relief." Mrs. Balfame spoke as lightly as if she +merely had let down the bars of her dignity out of sympathy with a +lacerated Teuton. "Well, go back to your Germany, Frieda, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> you can +get there, but don't try to blackmail me again. I have no five hundred +dollars to give you if I would. If you choose, you may stay your month +out, and spend your evenings taking up a collection among your German +friends. You are excused."</p> + +<p>She had achieved her purpose. The girl's practical mind was puzzled by +the simple explanation of her mistress' presence in the kitchen, deeply +impressed by the contemptuous refusal to be blackmailed. Her shoulders +drooped and she slunk out of the room.</p> + +<p>For a moment Mrs. Balfame clung, reeling, to the back of a chair. Then +she went downstairs and telephoned to Dwight Rush.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XVI</span></h2> + +<p>The young lawyer was to call at eight o'clock. Mrs. Balfame put on her +best black blouse in his honour; it was cut low about the throat and +softened with a rolling collar of hemstitched white lawn. This was as +far in the art of sex allurement as she was prepared to go; the bare +idea of a negligée of white lace and silk, warmed by rose-colored +shades, would have filled her with cold disgust. She was not a religious +woman, but she had her standards.</p> + +<p>At a quarter of eight she made a careful inspection of the lower rooms; +sleuths, professional and amateur, would not hesitate to sneak into her +house and listen at keyholes. She inferred that the house was under +surveillance, for she had looked from her window several times and seen +the same man sauntering up and down that end of the avenue. No doubt +some one watched the back doors also.</p> + +<p>Convinced that her home was still sacrosanct, she placed two chairs at a +point in the parlour farthest from the doors leading into the hall, and +into a room beyond which Mr. Balfame had used as an office. The doors, +of course, would be open throughout the interview. No one should be able +to say that she had shut herself up with a young man; on the other hand, +it was the duty of the deceased husband's lawyer to call on the widow. +Even if those young devils discovered that she had telephoned for him, +what more regular than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> that she should wish to consult her lawyer after +such insinuations?</p> + +<p>Rush arrived as the town clock struck eight. Frieda, who answered the +door in her own good time, surveyed him suspiciously through a narrow +aperture to which she applied one eye.</p> + +<p>"What you want?" she growled. "Mrs. Balfame she have seen all the +reporters already yet."</p> + +<p>"Let the gentleman in," called Mrs. Balfame from the parlour. "This is a +friend of my late husband."</p> + +<p>Rush was permitted to enter. He was a full minute disposing of his hat +and overcoat in the hall, while Frieda dragged her heelless slippers +back to the kitchen and slammed the door. His own step was not brisk as +he left the hall for the parlour, and his face, always colourless, +looked thin and haggard. Mrs. Balfame, as she rose and gave him her +hand, asked solicitously:</p> + +<p>"Are you under the weather? How seedy you look. I wondered why you had +not called—"</p> + +<p>"A touch of the grippe. Felt all in for a day or two, but am all right +now. And although I have been very anxious to see you, I had made up my +mind not to call unless you sent for me."</p> + +<p>"Well, I sent for you professionally," she retorted coolly. "You don't +suppose I took your love making seriously."</p> + +<p>He flushed dully, after the manner of men with thick fair skins, and his +hard blue eyes lost their fire as he stared at her. It was +incomprehensible that she could misunderstand him.</p> + +<p>"It was serious enough to me. I merely stayed away, because, having +spoken as I did, I—well, I cannot very well explain. You will remember +that I made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> you promise to send for me if you were in trouble—"</p> + +<p>"I remembered!" She felt his rebuke obscurely. "It never occurred to me +to send for any one else."</p> + +<p>"Thank you for that."</p> + +<p>"Did you mean anything but politeness when you said that you had been +anxious to see me?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated, but he had already made up his mind that the time had come +to put her on her guard. Besides, he inferred that she had begun herself +to appreciate her danger.</p> + +<p>"You have read the newspapers. You saw the reporters this afternoon. Of +course you must have guessed that they hope for a sensational trial with +you as the heroine."</p> + +<p>"How can men—<i>men</i>—be such heartless brutes?"</p> + +<p>"Ask the public. Even that element that believes itself to be select and +would not touch a yellow paper devours a really interesting crime in +high life. Never mind that now. Let us get down to brass tacks. They +want to fix the crime on you. How are they going to manage it? That is +the question for us. Tell me exactly what they said, what they made you +say."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame gave him so circumstantial an account of the interview that +he looked at her in admiration, although his rigid American face, that +looked so strong, turned paler still.</p> + +<p>"What a splendid witness you would make!" He stared at the carpet for a +moment, then flashed his eyes upward much as Broderick had done. "Tell +me," he said softly, "is there anything you withheld from them? You know +how safe you are with me. But I must be in a position to advise you what +to say and to leave unsaid—if the worst comes."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p><p>"You mean if I am arrested?" She had a moment of complete naturalness, +and stared at him wildly. He leaned forward and patted her hand.</p> + +<p>"Anything is possible in a case like this. But you have nothing to fear. +Now, will you tell me—"</p> + +<p>"Do you think I did it?"</p> + +<p>"I know that you did not. But I think you know something about it."</p> + +<p>"It would cast no light on the mystery. He was shot from that grove on a +pitch dark night, and that is all there is to it."</p> + +<p>"Let me be the judge of that."</p> + +<p>"Very well. I had put out my light—upstairs—and, as I was nervous, I +looked out of the window to see if Dave was coming. I so longed to have +him come—and go! Then I happened to glance in the direction of the +grove, and I saw some one sneaking about there—"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" He half rose, his eyes expanding, his nostrils dilating. "Go on. +Go on."</p> + +<p>"I told you I was nervous—wrought up from that dreadful scene at the +club. I just felt like an adventure! I slipped down stairs and out of +the house by the kitchen door—Frieda takes the key of the back hall +door on Saturday nights—thinking I would watch the burglar; of course +that was what I thought he must be; and I knew that Dave would be along +in a minute—"</p> + +<p>"How long was this after he telephoned? It would take him some time to +walk from Cummack's; and he didn't leave at once—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, quite a while after. I was sure then that he would be along in a +minute or two. Well—it may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> seem incredible to you, but I really felt +as if excitement of that dangerous sort would be a relief."</p> + +<p>"I understand perfectly." Rush spoke with the fatuousness of man who +believes that love and complete comprehension of the object beloved are +natural corollaries. "But—but that is not the sort of story that goes +down with a jury of small farmers and trades-people. They don't know +much about your sort of nerves. But go on."</p> + +<p>"Well, I managed to get into the grove without being either seen or +heard by that man. I am sure of that. He moved round a good deal, and I +thought he was feeling about for some point from which he could make a +dart for the house. Then I heard Dave in Dawbarn Street, singing. Then I +saw him under the lamp-post. After that it all happened so quickly I can +hardly recall it clearly enough to describe. The man near me crouched. I +can't tell you what I thought then—if I knew he was going to shoot—or +why I didn't cry out. Almost before I had time to think at all, he +fired, and Dave went down."</p> + +<p>"But what about that other bullet? Are you sure there was no one else in +the grove?"</p> + +<p>"There may have been a dozen. I heard some one running afterwards; there +may have been more than one."</p> + +<p>"Did you have a pistol?" He spoke very softly. "Don't be afraid to tell +me. It might easily have gone off accidentally—or something deeper than +your consciousness may have telegraphed an imperious message to your +hand."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Balfame, like all artificial people, was intensely secretive, +and only delivered herself of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>unvarnished truth when it served her +purpose best. She gave a little feminine shudder. "I never kept a pistol +in the house. If I had, it would have been empty—just something to +flourish at a burglar."</p> + +<p>"Ah—yes. I was going to say that I was glad of that, but I don't know +that it matters. If you had taken a revolver out that night, loaded or +otherwise, and confessed to it, you hardly could have escaped arrest by +this time, even if it were a .38. And if you confessed to going out into +the dark to stalk a man without one—that would make your adventure look +foolhardy and purposeless—"</p> + +<p>It was evident that he was thinking aloud. She interrupted him sharply:</p> + +<p>"But you believe me?"</p> + +<p>"I believe every word you say. The more differently you act from other +women, the more natural you seem to me. But I think you were dead right +in suppressing the episode. It leads nowhere and would incriminate you."</p> + +<p>"It may come out yet. That is why I sent for you, not because I was +afraid of those reporters. Frieda was on the backstairs that night when +I came in. I thought I heard a sound and called out. I told Anna that +night and she questioned Frieda indirectly and was satisfied that she +had heard nothing, for although she had come home early with a +toothache, she was suffering so intensely that she wouldn't have heard +if the shot had been fired under her window. So I dismissed such +misgivings as I had from my mind. But just after those reporters left +she came up to my room and told me that she saw me come in, and tried to +blackmail me for five hundred dollars. I soon made her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> admit that she +had not seen me; but she heard me, no doubt of that. I explained +logically why I was there—after a drink of water, and that I called out +to her because I thought I heard some one try the door—but if those +reporters get hold of her—"</p> + +<p>His face looked very grim. "That is bad, bad. By the way, why didn't you +run to Balfame? That would seem the natural thing—"</p> + +<p>"I was suddenly horribly afraid. I think I knew he was dead and I didn't +want to go near <i>that</i>. I ran like a dog back to its kennel."</p> + +<p>"It was a feminine enough thing to do." For the first time he smiled, +and his voice, which had insensibly grown inquisitorial, softened once +more. "It was a dreadful position to find oneself in and no mistake. +Your instinct was right. If you had been found bending over him—still, +as you had no weapon—"</p> + +<p>"I think on the whole it would have been better to have gone to him. Of +course that is what I should have done if I had loved him. As it was, I +ran as far from him as I could get—"</p> + +<p>"Well, don't let us waste time discussing the ought to have beens. +Unless some one can prove that you were out that night, the whole +incident must be suppressed. If you are arrested on any trumped up +charge—and the district attorney is keener than the reporters—you must +stick to your story. By the way, why didn't you tell the reporters that +Frieda was in the house about the time the shot was fired?"</p> + +<p>"I had forgotten. The house has been full of people; the neighbourhood +has lived here; I have noticed her no more than if she were as wooden as +she looks."</p> + +<p>"Do you think she did it?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p><p>"I wish I could. But she would not have had time to get into the house +before I did. And the footsteps were running toward the lane at the back +of the grounds."</p> + +<p>"She is one of the swiftest dancers down in that hall where she goes +with her crowd every Saturday night. I have been doing a little +sleuthing on my own account, but I can't connect her up with Balfame."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't have looked at her."</p> + +<p>"You never can tell. A man will often look quite hard at whatever +happens to be handy. But she doesn't appear to have any sweetheart, +although she's been in the country for four years. She is intimate in +the home of Old Dutch and goes about with young Conrad, but he is +engaged to some one else. All the boys like to dance with her. She left +the hall suddenly and ran home—ostensibly wild with a toothache. If she +hid in the grove to kill Balfame she could have got into the house +before you did. What was she doing on the stair, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't ask her."</p> + +<p>"She may have been too out of breath to answer you. Or too wary. Those +other footsteps—they may have been those of an accomplice; the man who +fired the other pistol."</p> + +<p>"But I would have seen her running ahead of me."</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily. It was very dark. Your mind was stunned. You may have +hesitated longer than you know before making for the house. One is +liable to powerful inhibitions in great crises. Where is the girl? I +think I'll have her in."</p> + +<p>He walked the floor nervously while Mrs. Balfame went out to the +kitchen. Frieda was sitting by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> stove knitting. Commanded to come to +the parlour, her little eyes almost closed, but she followed Mrs. +Balfame and confronted Rush, who stood in the middle of the room looking +tall and formidable.</p> + +<p>"I am Mrs. Balfame's lawyer," he said without preamble. "She sent for me +because you tried to blackmail her. What were you doing on the stairs +when you heard Mrs. Balfame in the kitchen? You left the dance hall +sometime before eight, and that could not have been more than five +minutes past."</p> + +<p>Frieda pressed her big lips together in a hard line.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you won't speak. Well, if you don't explain to me, you will to the +Grand Jury to-morrow. Or I shall get out a warrant to-night for your +arrest as the murderer of David Balfame."</p> + +<p>"Gott!" The girl's face was almost purple. She raised her knitting +needles with a threatening gesture that was almost dramatic. "I did not +do it. She has done it."</p> + +<p>"What were you doing on the stairs?"</p> + +<p>"I would heat water for my tooth."</p> + +<p>"Cold water is the thing for an ulcerated tooth."</p> + +<p>"I never have the toothache like that already. I am in my room many +minutes before I think I go down. Then, when I am on the stairs I hear +Mrs. Balfame come in."</p> + +<p>"She has explained what you heard."</p> + +<p>"No, she have not. I think so when we have talked this evening, but not +now. She is—was, I mean, all out of her breath."</p> + +<p>"I was terrified." Mrs. Balfame retorted so promptly that Rush flashed +her a glance of admiration. Here was a woman who could take care of +herself on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> the witness stand. "First I thought I heard some one trying +to get into the door, and then some one sneaking up the stairs."</p> + +<p>"Oh—yes." Frieda's tones expressed no conviction. "The educated lady +can think very quick. But I say that she have come in by the door, the +kitchen door. Always I take the key to the hall door. She know that, and +as she not know that I am in, she go out by the kitchen door. Always in +the daytime when she goes to the yard she go by the hall door."</p> + +<p>"What a pity you did not slam the door when you came in. It would have +been quite natural as you were in such agony." Rush spoke sarcastically, +but he was deeply perturbed. It was impossible to tell whether the girl +was telling the truth or a carefully rehearsed story.</p> + +<p>"Of course you know that if you tell that story to the police you will +get yourself into serious trouble."</p> + +<p>"I get her into trouble."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Balfame is above suspicion. It is not my business to warn you, or +to defeat the ends of the law, of which apparently you know nothing—"</p> + +<p>"I know someting. Last night I have tell Herr Kraus; and he say that +since I have told the coroner I know notings, much better I touch the +lady for five hundert and go home."</p> + +<p>"O-h-h! That is the advice Old Dutch gave you! Splendid! I think the +best thing I can do is to have you arrested bright and early to-morrow +morning. Mrs. Balfame is cleared already. You may go."</p> + +<p>She stared at him for a moment out of eyes that spat fire like two +little guns in the top of a fort; then she swung herself about and +retreated to the kitchen.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p><p>"That ought to make her disappear to-night. Her friends will hide her. +The mere fact of her disappearance will convince the police, as well as +the reporters, that she is guilty. You are all right." He spoke +boyishly, and his face, no longer rigid, was full of light.</p> + +<p>"But if she is innocent?"</p> + +<p>"No harm done. She'll be smuggled out of the country and suspicion +permanently diverted from you. That is all I care about." He caught her +hands impulsively in his. "I am glad, so glad! Oh!—It is too soon now, +but wait—" He was out of the house before she grasped the fact that he +had arrested himself on the brim of another declaration.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame went up to bed, serene once more in the belief that her +future was her own, unclouded, full of attractive possibilities for a +woman of her position and intellectual attainments.</p> + +<p>She made up her mind to take a really deep course of reading, so that +the most spiteful should not call her superficial; moreover, she had +been conscious more than once of certain mental dissatisfactions, of +uneasy vacancies in a mind sufficiently awake to begin to realise the +cheapness of its furnishings. Perhaps she would take a course in history +at Columbia, another in psychology.</p> + +<p>As she put herself into a sturdy cotton night-gown and then brushed back +her hair from a rather large forehead before braiding it severely for +the night, she realised dimly that that way happiness might lie, that +the pleasures of the intellectual life might be very great indeed. She +wished regretfully that she could have been brilliantly educated in her +youth. In that case she would not have married a man who would incite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +any spirited woman to seek the summary release, but would be to-day the +wife of a judge, perhaps—some fine fellow who had showed the early +promise that Dwight Rush must have done. If she could attract one man +like that, at the age of forty-two, she could have had a dozen in her +train when young if she had had the sense to appreciate them.</p> + +<p>But she was philosophical, and it was not her way to quarrel very deeply +with herself or with life. Her long braids were as evenly plaited as +ever.</p> + +<p>She sank into sleep, thinking of the disagreeable necessity of making +the kitchen fire in the morning and cooking her own breakfast. Frieda of +course would be gone.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XVII</span></h2> + +<p>The next morning, when Mrs. Balfame, running lightly down the back +stairs, entered the kitchen half an hour earlier than her usual +appearance in the dining-room, the front of her housefrock covered with +a large apron and her sleeves pinned to the elbow, she beheld Frieda +slicing potatoes.</p> + +<p>"Why!" The exclamation was impetuous, but her quick mind adapted itself. +"I woke up early and thought I would come down and help," she continued +evenly. "You have had so much to do of late."</p> + +<p>Frieda was regarding her with intense suspicion. "Never you have done +that before," she growled. "You will see if I have the dishes by the +dinner washed."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. And everything is so different these days. I am hungry, too. +I thought it would be nice to hurry breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Breakfast always is by eight. You have told me that when I come. I get +up by half past six. First I air the house, and sweep the hall. Then I +make the fire and put the water to boil. Then I peel the potatoes. Then +I make the biscuit. Then I boil the eggs. Then I make the coffee—"</p> + +<p>"I know. You are marvellously systematic. But I thought you might make +the coffee at once."</p> + +<p>"Always the coffee come last." Frieda resumed her task.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p><p>"But I don't eat potatoes for breakfast."</p> + +<p>"I eat the potatoes. When they fry in the pan, then I put the biscuit in +the oven. Then I boil the eggs and then I make the coffee. Breakfast is +by eight o'clock."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame, with a good-humoured laugh, turned to leave the kitchen. +But her mind, alert with apprehension, cast up a memory, vague but far +from soothing. "By the way, I seem to remember that I woke up suddenly +in the night and heard voices down here. Did you have visitors?"</p> + +<p>Frieda flushed the deep and angry red of her infrequent moments of +embarrassment. "I have not visitors in the night." She turned on the +water tap, which made noise enough to discourage further attempts at +conversation; and Mrs. Balfame, to distract her mind, dusted the +parlour. She dared not go out into the yard and walk off her +restlessness, for there were now two sentinels preserving what they +believed to be a casual attitude before her gate. She would have given +much to know whether those men were watching her movements or those of +her servant.</p> + +<p>Immediately after breakfast, the systematic Frieda was persuaded to go +to the railway station and buy the New York papers when the train came +in. Frieda might be a finished product of the greatest machine shop the +world has ever known, but she was young and she liked the bustle of life +at the station, and the long walk down Main Street, so different from +the aristocratic repose of Elsinore Avenue. Mrs. Balfame, watching +behind the curtain, saw that one of the sentinels followed her. The +other continued to lean against the lamp-post whittling a stick. Both +she and Frieda were watched!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p><p>But the disquiet induced by the not unnatural surveillance of premises +identified with a recent crime was soon forgotten in the superior powers +of the New York press to excite both disquiet and indignation.</p> + +<p>She had missed a photograph of herself while dusting the parlour and had +forgiven the loyal thief as it was a remarkably pretty picture and +portrayed a woman sweet, fashionable, and lofty. To her horror the +picture which graced the first page of the great dailies was that of a +hard defiant female, quite certain, without a line of letter press, to +prejudice a public anxious to believe the worst.</p> + +<p>Tears of outraged vanity blurred her vision for a few moments before the +full menace of that silent witness took possession of her. She knew that +most people deteriorated under the mysterious but always fatal encounter +of their photographs with the "staff artist," but she felt all the +sensations of the outraged novice.</p> + +<p>A moment after she had dashed her tears away she turned pale; and when +she finished reading the interviews the beautiful whiteness of her skin +was disfigured by a greenish pallor.</p> + +<p>The interviews were written with a devilish cunning that protected the +newspapers from danger of libel suit but subtly gave the public to +understand that its appetite for a towering figure in the Balfame case +was about to be gratified.</p> + +<p>There was no doubt that two shots had been fired from the grove +simultaneously, and from revolvers of different calibre (picture of tree +and gate).</p> + +<p>Was one of them—the smaller—fired by a woman? And if so, by what +woman?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p><p>Not one of the females whose names had been linked at one time or +another with the versatile Mr. Balfame but had proved her alibi, and so +far as was known—although of course some one as yet unsuspected may +have climbed the back fence and hid in the grove—the only two women on +the premises were the widow and her extraordinarily plain servant.</p> + +<p>Balfame was shot with a .41 revolver. In one of the newspapers it was +casually and not too politely remarked that Mrs. Balfame had larger +hands and feet than one would expect from her general elegance of figure +and aristocratic features, and in the same rambling sentence (this was +written by the deeply calculating Mr. Broderick) the public was informed +that certain footprints might have been those of a large woman or of a +medium sized man. In the next paragraph but one Mrs. Balfame's stately +height was again commented upon, but as the public had already been +informed that she was an expert at target practice, reiteration of this +fact was astutely avoided.</p> + +<p>A great deal was said here and there of her composure, her large +studiously expressionless grey eyes, her nimble mind that so often +routed her inquisitors, but was allied to a temperament of ice and a +manifest power of cool and deliberate calculation.</p> + +<p>The dullest reader was quickened into the belief that he was the real +detective and that his unerring sense had carried him straight to the +woman who had hated the murdered man and had quarrelled with him in +public a few hours before his death.</p> + +<p>The episode of Mrs. Balfame's offer to make her husband a glass of +doctored lemonade and the disappearance of both beverage and glass was +not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>mentioned; presumably these bright young men did not believe in +digressions or in rousing a curiosity they might not be able to appease. +The interview concluded with a maddening hint at immediate developments.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame let the papers drop to the floor one by one; when she had +finished the last she drew her breath painfully for several moments. The +room turned black, and it was cut by rows of bared and menacing teeth, +infinitely multiplied.</p> + +<p>But she was not the woman to give way to fear for long, or even to +bewilderment. There could be no real danger, and all that should concern +her was the outrageous, the intolerably vulgar publicity. A woman whose +good taste was both natural and cultivated, she felt this ruthless +tossing of her sacred person into the public maw much as the more +refined octoroons may have felt when they stood on the auction block in +the good old days down South. She shuddered and gritted her teeth; she +wished that she were a hysterical woman that she might find relief in +shrieking at the top of her voice and smashing the furniture.</p> + +<p>Why, oh why, could not David Balfame have been permitted by the fate +which had decreed his end on that particular night to enter the house +and drink the lemonade; to die decently, painlessly, bloodlessly (she +shrank aside when compelled to pass those blood stains on the brick +path), as any man might die when his overtaxed heart simply stopped? She +would have run down the moment she heard the fall, she would have +managed to get the glass out of the way if Frieda had condescended to +visit the scene, which was quite unlikely. She would have run over to +Doctor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> Lequer, who lived next door to the Gifnings, and he would have +sent for the coroner. Both inevitably would have pronounced the death +due to heart failure. It was fate that had bungled, not she.</p> + +<p>She mused, however, that she should have had a duplicate glass of +lemonade to leave half consumed on the table, as it would be recalled +that he had expected to imbibe a soothing draught immediately upon his +return; and adjacent liquids invariably induce suspicion in cases of +sudden death. But that did not matter now.</p> + +<p>She set her wits to work upon the identity of her companion in the +grove. Was it Frieda? Or an accomplice of the girl, who was already in +the house or on the alert to direct him out by the rear pathway? But why +Frieda? She knew the raging hate that had filled her husband since the +declaration of war, and she knew that his rivals in politics hated him +with increasing virulency; as they were beginning to hate everybody that +presumed to question the right and might of Germany.</p> + +<p>But she was a woman just and sensible. Nor for a moment could she +visualise Old Dutch or any of his tribe shooting David Balfame because +he cursed the Kaiser and sang Tipperary. The supposition was too shallow +to be entertained.</p> + +<p>The person in the grove had been either a bitter political rival too +intimate with the local police to be in danger of arrest, or some woman +who for a time may have believed herself to be his wife in the larger +village of New York.</p> + +<p>She could have sworn that that stealthy figure so close to her was a +man, but women's skirts were very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> narrow and silent these days, and +after all she herself was as tall as the average man.</p> + +<p>Before noon the house was filled with sympathising and indignant +friends. Cummack came up town to assure her that it was a shame; and he +would ask Rush if those New York papers couldn't be had up for libel. +He'd take the eleven-thirty for Dobton and consult with him.</p> + +<p>The ladies were knitting, no one more impersonally than Mrs. Balfame, +although she was wondering if these kind friends expected to stay to +lunch, when an automobile drove honking up to the door, and Mrs. Battle +teetered over to the window.</p> + +<p>"For the land's sake," she exclaimed. "If it isn't the deputy sheriff +from Dobton. Now, what do you suppose?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame stood up suddenly, and the other women sat with their +needles suspended as if suddenly overcome by a noxious gas, with the +exception of Mrs. Cummack, who ran over to her sister-in-law and put her +plump arm about that easily compassed waist. Mrs. Balfame drew away +haughtily.</p> + +<p>"I am not frightened," she said in her sweet cool voice. "I am prepared +for anything after those newspapers—that is all."</p> + +<p>The bell pealed, and Mrs. Gifning, too curious to wait upon the +hand-maiden, ran out and opened the front door. She returned a moment +later with her little blue eyes snapping with excitement.</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" she gasped. "It is Frieda they want. She is being +subpœnaed to Dobton to testify before the Grand Jury. The deputy +sheriff is going to take her with him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Balfame returned to her chair with such composure that no one +suspected the sudden weakening of her knees. Instantly she realised the +meaning of the voices she had heard in the night. Frieda had been +"interviewed," either by the press or the police, and induced, probably +bribed, to talk. No wonder she had not run away.</p> + +<p>But she too resumed her knitting.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XVIII</span></h2> + +<p>Young Bruce had had no appetite for his part in the Balfame drama. He +had presented himself at the back door, however, at eight o'clock on the +night of the interview with the heroine, assuming that Frieda would be +moving at her usual snail's pace from the day of work toward the evening +of leisure. She slammed the door in his face.</p> + +<p>When he persisted, thrusting his cherubic countenance through the +window, she threatened him with the hose. Neither failure daunted him, +and he was convinced that she knew more of the case than she was willing +to admit; but it was obvious that he was not the man to appeal to the +fragment of heart she had brought from East Prussia. The mere fact that +he looked rather German and yet was straight American—employed, +moreover, by a newspaper that made no secret of its hostility to her +country—satisfied him that he would not be permitted to approach her +closely enough to attempt any form of persuasion. He drew the long +breath of deliverance as he reached this conclusion; the bare idea that +he might have to bestow a kiss upon Frieda in the heroic pursuit of duty +had induced a sensation of nausea. He was an extremely fastidious young +man. But even as he accepted defeat with mingled relief and chagrin, the +brilliant alternative occurred to him.</p> + +<p>He had ascertained that Frieda was intimate in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> home of Conrad +Kraus, otherwise "Old Dutch," of Dobton, the County seat. Conrad, Jr., +treated her as a brother should, and it was his habit to escort her home +from the popular dance-hall of Elsinore on Saturday nights. Bruce had no +difficulty in learning that the young German-American had been dancing +with his favourite partner when her dead nerve seemed to threaten +explosion and had fraternally run home with her. The energetic reporter +did not wait upon the next trolley for Dobton, but hired an automobile +and descended in front of Old Dutch's saloon fifteen minutes later.</p> + +<p>Young Kraus was busy; and Bruce, after ordering beer and cheese and +taking it to an occupied table, drew the information from a neighbour +that Conrad, Jr., would be on duty behind the bar until midnight. It was +the habit of Papa Kraus to retire promptly on the stroke of nine and +take his entire family, save Conrad, with him. The eldest of the united +family continued to assuage the thirst of the neighbourhood until twelve +o'clock, when he shut up the front of the house and went to bed in the +rear as quickly as possible; he must rise betimes and clerk in the +leading grocery-store of the town. He was only twenty-two, but thrifty +and hard-working and anxious to marry.</p> + +<p>Bruce caught the next train for New York, had a brief talk with his city +editor, and returned to Dobton a few moments before the closing hour of +the saloon. He hung about the bar until the opportunity came to speak to +Conrad unheard.</p> + +<p>"I want a word with you as soon as you have shut up," he said without +preamble.</p> + +<p>The young German scowled at the reporter. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>Although a native son of +Dobton, he resented the attitude of the American press as deeply as his +irascible old father, and he still more deeply resented the suspicion +that had hovered for a moment over the house of Kraus.</p> + +<p>"Don't get mad till you hear what I've got to say," whispered Bruce. +"There may be a cool five hundred in it for you."</p> + +<p>Conrad glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to twelve. He stood as +immobile as his duties would permit until the stroke of midnight, when +he turned out the last reluctant patron, locked the door and followed +the reporter down the still-illuminated street to a dark avenue in the +residence quarter. Then the two fell into step.</p> + +<p>"Now, what is it?" growled Conrad, who did not like to have his habits +disturbed. "I get up—"</p> + +<p>"That's all right. I won't keep you fifteen minutes. I want you to tell +me all you know about the night of the Balfame murder."</p> + +<p>He had taken the young German's arm and felt it stiffen. "I know +nothing," was the reply.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you do. You took Frieda home and got there some little time +before the shooting. You went in the side entrance to the back yard, but +you could see the grove all right."</p> + +<p>"It was a black-dark night. I could see nothing in the grove."</p> + +<p>"Ah! You saw something else! You have been afraid to speak out, as there +had been talk of your father having employed gun-men—"</p> + +<p>"Such lies!" shrieked young Kraus.</p> + +<p>"Of course! I know that. So does the press.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> That was a wild dream of +the police. But all the same you thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to +keep clear of the whole business. That is true. Don't attempt to deny +it. You saw something that would put the law on the right track. Now, +what was it? There are five hundred dollars waiting for you if you will +tell the truth. I don't want anything but the truth, mind you. I don't +represent a paper that pays for lies, so your honour is quite safe. So +also are you."</p> + +<p>Conrad ruminated for a few moments. He was literal and honest and wanted +to be quite positive that he was not asked to do something which would +make him feel uncomfortable while investing those desirable five hundred +dollars in West Elsinore town lots, and could reassure himself that the +truth was always right whether commercially valuable or not. He balanced +the pro's and con's so long that Bruce was about to break out +impatiently just as he made up his mind.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I saw something. But I wished to say nothing. They might say that +I was in it, or that I lied to protect Frieda—"</p> + +<p>"That's all right. There was no possible connection between her and +Balfame—"</p> + +<p>Conrad went on exactly as if the reporter had not interrupted. "I had +seen Frieda through the back door. She was crying with the toothache, +and I heard her run upstairs. I thought I would wait a few moments. The +drops she said she had might not cure her, and she might want me to go +to a dentist's house with her. She had gone in the back-hall door. +Suddenly I saw the kitchen door open, and as I was starting forward, I +saw that it was not Frieda who came out. It was Mrs. Balfame. She closed +the door behind her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> and then crept past me to the back of the kitchen +yard. I watched her and saw her turn suddenly and walk toward the grove. +She did not make a particle of noise—"</p> + +<p>"How do you know it was not Frieda?"</p> + +<p>"Frieda is five-feet-three, and this was a tall woman, taller than I, +and I am five-eight. I have seen Mrs. Balfame many times, and though I +couldn't see her face,—she had a dark veil or scarf round it,—I knew +her height and walk. Of course I watched to see what she was up to. A +few moments later I heard Balfame turn in from Dawbarn Street, singing, +like the fool he was, 'Tipperary,' and then I heard a shot. I guessed +that Balfame had got what was coming to him, and I didn't wait to see. I +tiptoed for a minute or two and then ran through the next four places at +the back, and then out toward Balfame Street, for the trolley. But +Frieda heard Mrs. Balfame when she came in. She was all out of breath, +and, when she heard a sound on the stairs, called out before she +thought, I guess, and asked Frieda if she had heard anything. But Frieda +is very cautious. She had heard the shot, but she froze stiff against +the wall when she heard Mrs. Balfame's voice, and said nothing. We told +her afterwards that she had better keep quiet for the present."</p> + +<p>"And you think Mrs. Balfame did it?"</p> + +<p>"Who else? I shall not be so sorry if she goes to the chair, for a woman +should always be punished the limit for killing a man, even such a man +as Balfame."</p> + +<p>"No fear of that, but we'll have a dandy case. You tell that story to +the Grand Jury to-morrow, and you get your five hundred before night. +Now you must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> come and get me a word with Frieda. She won't look at me, +and of course she is in bed anyhow. But I must tell her there are a +couple of hundred in this for her if she comes through—"</p> + +<p>"But she'll be arrested for perjury. She testified at the coroner's +inquest that she knew nothing."</p> + +<p>"An abscessed tooth will explain her reticence on any other subject."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I should tell you that she came to see us to-night—last night +it is now, not?—and told my papa that Lawyer Rush had frightened her, +told her that she might be accused of the killing, that she had better +get out. But Papa advised her to go home and fear nothing, where there +was nothing to fear. He knew that if she ran away, he would be suspected +again, the girl being intimate in the family; and of course the police +would be hot on her trail at once. So, like the good sensible girl she +is, she took the advice and went home."</p> + +<p>"All right. Come along. I'm not on the morning paper, but I promised the +story to the boys if I could get it in time."</p> + +<p>He hired another automobile, and they left it at the corner of Dawbarn +and Orchard Streets, entering the Balfame place by the tradesmen's gate +on the left, and creeping to the rear of the house. The lane behind the +four acres of the little estate was full of ruts and too far away from +the house for adventuring on a dark night. They had been halted by the +detective on watch, but when their errand was hastily explained, he +joined forces with them and even climbed a lean-to in the endeavour to +rouse Miss Appel from her young and virtuous slumbers. Their combined +efforts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>covered three hours; and that explains why the tremendous +news-story appeared in the early edition of the afternoon papers instead +of whetting several million morning appetites.</p> + +<p>The interview with Frieda, who became very wide awake when the unseemly +intrusion was elucidated by the trustworthy Conrad, and bargained for +five hundred dollars, explains why Mrs. Balfame spent Thursday night in +the County Jail behind Dobton Courthouse.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XIX</span></h2> + +<p>When the Dobton sheriff and his deputies came to arrest Mrs. Balfame, +the wife of their old comrade in arms, all they were able to tell her +was that the District Attorney had applied for the warrant immediately +after the testimony before the Grand Jury of Frieda Appel and of the +Krauses, father and son. What that testimony had been they could not +have told her if they would, but that it had been strong and +corroborative enough to insure her indictment by the Grand Jury was as +manifest as it was ominous.</p> + +<p>They arrived just as Mrs. Balfame was about to leave the house to lunch +with Mrs. Cummack; Frieda had left long before it was time to prepare +the midday meal. Mr. Cramb, the sheriff, shut the door behind him and in +the faces of the indignant women reporters, who, less ruthless but +equally loyal to their journals, wanted a "human interest" story for the +stimulated public. Mrs. Balfame and her friends retreated before the +posse into the parlour. Mrs. Battle wept loudly; Alys Crumley, who had +come in with her mother a few moments since, fell suddenly on a chair in +the corner and pressed her hands against her mouth, her horrified eyes +staring at Mrs. Balfame. The other women shed tears as the equally +doleful sheriff explained his errand and read the warrant. Mrs. Balfame +alone was calm. She exerted herself supremely and sent so peremptory a +message along her quaking nerves that it benumbed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> them for the moment. +She had only a faint sense of drama, but a very keen one of her own +peculiar position in her little world, and she knew that in this grisly +crisis of her destiny she was expected to behave as a brave and +dignified woman should—a woman of whom her friends could continue to +exult as head and shoulders above the common mass. She rose to the +occasion.</p> + +<p>"Don't you worry—just!" said Mr. Cramb, patting her shoulder, although +he never had had the temerity to offer her his hand before, and had +often "pitied Dave." "They lied, them Duytchers, for some reason or +other, but they can't really have nothin' on you, and we'll find out +what they're up to, double quick."</p> + +<p>"I do not worry," said Mrs. Balfame coldly, "—although quite naturally +I object to the humiliation of arrest, and of spending even a night in +jail. Exactly what is the charge against me?"</p> + +<p>The sheriff crumpled his features and cleared his throat. "Well, it's +murder, I guess. It's an ugly word, but words don't mean nothin' when +there's nothin' in them."</p> + +<p>"In the first degree?" shrieked Mrs. Gifning.</p> + +<p>Cramb nodded.</p> + +<p>"And it don't admit of bail?" Mrs. Frew's eyes rolled wildly.</p> + +<p>"Nothin' doin'."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame rose hurriedly. There was a horrid possibility of contagion +in this room surcharged with emotion. She kissed each of her friends in +turn. "It will be all right, of course," she reminded them gently. "Only +men could be taken in by such a plot, and of course there are a lot of +Germans on the Grand Jury<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>—there are so many in this county. I shall +have an excellent lawyer, Dave's friend, Mr. Rush. And I am sure that I +shall be quite comfortable in the County Jail—it is so nice and new." +But she shuddered at the vision, in spite of her fine self-control.</p> + +<p>"You'll be treated like a queen," interposed the sheriff hastily. He was +proud of her, and immensely relieved that he was not to escort an +hysterical prisoner five miles to the County Seat. "You'll have the +Warden's own suite, and I guess you'll be able to see your friends right +along. Guess we'd better be gettin' on."</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Balfame was leaving the room, her eyes met the horrified and +puzzled gaze of Alys Crumley, and one of those obscure instincts that +dart out of the subconscious mind like memories of old experiences +released under high mental pressure, made her put out her hand +impulsively and draw the girl to her.</p> + +<p>"I can always be sure of your trust," she whispered. "Won't you come up +and help me pack?"</p> + +<p>Alys followed unresisting: the blow had been so sudden; she had believed +so little in the power of the law to touch a woman like Mrs. Balfame, +and even less that she committed the crime; for the moment she forgot +her jealous hostility, remembered only that the best friend of her +mother and of her own childhood was in dire straits.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cummack had run up ahead and was carrying two suitcases from the +large closet to the bed as they entered. Her face was burning and +tear-stained, but she was one of those highly efficient women of the +home that rise automatically to every emergency and act while others +consider. "Glad you've come too,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> she said to Alys. "Open those drawers +in the bureau, and I'll pick out what's needed. Of course the ridiculous +charge will be dismissed in a day or two—but still! Well, if they're +all idiots down there at Dobton, we can come over here and pack a trunk +later. To take it now would be nonsense, and Sam'll move heaven and +earth to get them to accept bail. You just put on your best black, Enid, +and wear your veil so they can't snapshot you."</p> + +<p>While she was gasping on, Mrs. Balfame, whose brain had never worked +more clearly, went into the bathroom and emptied the contents of an +innocent looking medicine bottle into the drain of the wash-stand. She +feared young Broderick more than she feared the district attorney, who, +after all, had been her husband's friend—had, in fact, eaten all of his +political crumbs out of that lavish but discriminating hand. She +recalled that she had always been gracious to him (at her husband's +request, for she regarded him as a mere worm) when he had dined at her +table, and felt sure that he would favour her secretly, whatever his +obvious duty. Moreover, he was of those that spat at the very mention of +the powerful Kraus, and would gladly, especially since the outbreak of +the war, have run him out of the community.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame, being a brilliant exponent of that type which enjoys the +unwavering admiration and loyalty of its own sex, had a corresponding +belief in her friends, and rarely if ever had used the word <i>cat</i> +denotatively. She called out the best in women as they of a certainty +called out the best in her. Therefore, it did not occur to her either to +close the bathroom door or to glance behind her. Alys Crumley, standing +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>before the bureau and happening to look into the mirror, saw her empty +and rinse the bottle. The suspicions of Broderick regarding the glass of +lemonade flashed into the young artist's mind; and from that moment she +believed in the guilt of Mrs. Balfame.</p> + +<p>Although her hands were shaking Alys lifted from the lavender-scented +drawers the severely chaste underwear of the leader of Elsinore society, +and as soon as the suitcases were packed, she made haste to adjust Mrs. +Balfame's veil and pin it so firmly that no more kisses could be +exchanged. Of her ultimate purpose Alys had not the ghost of an idea, +but kiss a woman whom she believed to be guilty of murder and whom she +might possibly be driven to betray, she would not. Suddenly grown as +secretive as if she had a crime of her own to conceal, she even walked +out to the car with Mrs. Balfame and helped to drive away the crowding +newspaper women, several of whom she recognised. They in turn bore her +off, determined to get some sort of a story for the issues of the morrow.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XX</span></h2> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame was whirled to Dobton in ten minutes—herself, she fancied, +the very centre of a whirlwind. The automobile was pursued by three cars +containing members of the press, which shot past just before they +reached Dobton Courthouse, that the occupants might leap out and fix +their cameras. Other men and women of the press stood before the locked +gate of the jail yard, several holding cameras. But once more the +reading public was forced to be content with an appetising news-story +illustrated by a tall black mummy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame walked past them holding her clenched hands under her veil, +but to all appearance composed and indifferent. The sob-sisters were +enthusiastic, and the men admired and disliked her more than ever. Your +true woman always weeps when in trouble, just as she blushes and +trembles when a man selects her to be his comforter through life.</p> + +<p>The Warden and his wife, who but a few weeks since had moved into their +new quarters, had moved out again without a murmur and with an +unaccustomed thrill. What a blessed prospect after screaming drunks, +drug-fiends and tame commercial sinners!</p> + +<p>The doors clanged shut; Mrs. Balfame mounted the stairs hastily, and was +still composed enough to exclaim with pleasure and to thank the Warden's +wife, Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> Larks, when she saw that flowers were on the table and even +on the window-sills.</p> + +<p>"I guess you'll stand it all right," said Mrs. Larks proudly. "Just make +yourself at home and I'll have your lunch up in a jiffy."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cummack and Mrs. Gifning had come in the car with Mrs. Balfame, and +Cummack and several other men of standing arrived almost immediately to +assure her, with pale disturbed faces, that they were doing their best +to get her out on bail. While she was trying to eat her lunch, the +telephone bell rang, and her set face became more animated as she +recognised Rush's strong confident voice. He had read the news in the +early edition of the afternoon papers, in New York, telephoned to Dobton +and found that his immediate fear was realised and that she was in the +County Jail. He commanded her to keep up her spirits and promised to be +with her at four o'clock.</p> + +<p>Then she begged her friends to go and let her rest and sleep if +possible; they knew just how serious that consultation with her lawyer +must be. When she was alone, however, she picked up the telephone, which +stood on a side table, and called up the office of Dr. Anna Steuer. Ever +since her arrest she had been dully conscious of her need of this oldest +and truest of her friends. It came to her with something of a shock as +she sat waiting for Central to connect, that she had leaned upon this +strong and unpretentious woman far more than her calm self-satisfied +mind had ever admitted.</p> + +<p>Dr. Anna's assistant answered the call, and when she heard Mrs. +Balfame's voice broke down and wept loudly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, do be quiet," said Mrs. Balfame impatiently. "I am in no danger +whatever. Connect me with the Doctor."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it ain't only that. Poor—poor Doctor! She's been all in for days, +and this morning she just collapsed, and I sent for Dr. Lequeur, and he +pronounced it typhoid and sent for the ambulance and had her taken out +to Brabant Hospital. The last thing she said—whispered—was to be sure +not to bother you, that you would hear it soon enough—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame hung up the receiver, which had almost fallen from her +shaking hand. She turned cold with terror. Anna ill! And when she most +wanted her! A little window in her brain opened reluctantly, and +superstition crept in. Beyond that open window she seemed to hear the +surge of a furious and irresistible tide. Had it been waiting all these +years to overleap the barriers about her well ordered life and sweep her +into chaos? She frowned and put her thoughts more colloquially. Had her +luck changed? Was Fate against her? When she thought of Dwight Rush, it +was only to shrink again. If anything happened to him—and why not? Men +were killed every day by automobiles, and he had an absentminded way of +walking—</p> + +<p>She sprang to her feet and paced up and down the two rooms of the suite, +determined upon composure, and angry with herself. She recovered her +mental balance (so rarely disturbed by imaginative flights), but her +spirits were at zero; and she was sitting with her elbows on her knees, +her hands pressed to her face when Rush entered promptly at four +o'clock. He was startled at the face she lifted. It looked older but +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>indefinably more attractive. Her inviolable serenity had irritated even +him at times, although she was his innocent ideal of a great lady.</p> + +<p>The Warden, who had unlocked the door, left them alone, and Rush sat +down and took both her hands in his warm reassuring grasp.</p> + +<p>"You are not to be the least bit frightened," he said. "The great thing +for you to remember is that your husband's political crowd rules, and +simply laughs at your arrest. They are more positive than ever that some +political enemy did it. Balfame's temper was growing shorter and +shorter, and he had many enemies, even in his own party. But the crowd +will pull every wire to get you off, and they can pull wires, all +right—"</p> + +<p>"But on what evidence am I arrested? What did those abominable people +say to the Grand Jury? Am I never to know?"</p> + +<p>"Well, rather. It's all in the afternoon papers, for one of the +reporters got the evidence before the Grand Jury did."</p> + +<p>He had taken off his overcoat, and he crossed the room and took from a +pocket a copy of <i>The Evening News</i>. She glanced over it with her lips +drawn back from her teeth. It contained not only the story the +enterprising Mr. Bruce had managed to obtain from Frieda and Conrad Jr., +but a corroboration of the maid's assertion that, warned by the family +friend and lawyer, Mr. Dwight Rush, to disappear, she had gone to Papa +Kraus for advice. Not a word, however, of blackmail.</p> + +<p>"So the public believes already that I am a murderess! No doubt I should +be convinced as readily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>myself. It is all so adroit!" Mrs. Balfame +spoke quietly but with intense bitterness. "I suppose I must be +tried—more and still more publicity. No one will ever forget it. Do you +suppose it is true young Kraus saw me that night?"</p> + +<p>"God knows!"</p> + +<p>He got up again and moved nervously about the room. "I wish I could be +sure. That is the point to which I must give the deepest +consideration—whether you are to admit or not that you went out. The +Grand Jury and Gore believe it. Young Kraus has a very good name. Frieda +has always been well behaved. There are six Germans on the Grand Jury, +moreover. We must see that none get on the trial jury. Gore wants to +believe—"</p> + +<p>"But he was a friend of Dave's."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. He is making much of that point. Affects to be filled with +righteous wrath because you killed his dear old friend. Trust a district +attorney. All they care for is to win out, and he has his spurs to win, +in the bargain. I met him a few moments ago; he was about equally full +of gin fizzes and the 'indisputable fact' that you are the only person +in sight with a motive. Oh, don't! Don't!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had broken down. She flung her arms over the table and her +head upon them. More than once in her life she had shed tears both +diplomatic and spontaneous, but for the first time since she was a child +she sobbed heavily. She felt forlorn, deserted, in awful straits.</p> + +<p>"Anna is ill," she articulated. "Anna! My one real friend—the only one +that has meant anything to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> me. Life has gone pretty well with me. Now +everything is changed. I know that terrible things are about to happen +to me."</p> + +<p>"Not while I am alive. I heard of Dr. Anna's illness on my way to New +York. Lequeur was on the train. You—you must let me take her place. I +am devoted to you heart and soul. You surely know that."</p> + +<p>"But you are not a woman. It's a woman friend I want now, a strong one +like Anna. Those other women—oh, yes, they're devoted to me—have been, +but they've suddenly ceased to count, somehow. Besides, they'll soon +believe me guilty. I hate them all. Only Anna would have understood—and +believed."</p> + +<p>Rush had been administering awkward little pats to the soft masses of +her hair. Suddenly he realised that his faith in her complete innocence +was by no means as stable as it had been; she had confessed to him that +she had been in the grove that night stalking the intruder. How absurd +to believe that she had gone out unarmed. He had read the circumstantial +details of the reporter's interviews with Frieda and young Kraus. While +the writers were careful not to make the downright assertion that Mrs. +Balfame had fired the fatal shot, the public saw her in the act of +levelling one of the pistols—so mighty is the power of the trained and +ruthless pen.</p> + +<p>As he stood looking down upon his unexpected surrender to emotional +excitement, he asked himself deliberately: What more natural, if she had +a pistol in her hand and that low-lived creature presented himself +abruptly and alone, than that it should go off of its own accord, so to +speak, whether hers had been the bullet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> to penetrate that loathsome +target or not? If so, what had she done with the pistol?</p> + +<p>He sat down and laid his hand firmly on her arm.</p> + +<p>"There is something I must tell you. It is something Frieda forgot to +tell the reporter, but she gave it to the Grand Jury. With the help of a +couple of extra gin fizzes, I extracted it from Gore. It is this: she +told the Grand Jury that several times when she did her weekly cleaning +upstairs she saw a pistol in the drawer of a table beside your bed. +Will—won't you tell me?"</p> + +<p>He felt the arm in his clasp grow rigid, but Mrs. Balfame answered +without a trace of her recent agitation: "I told you before that I never +had a pistol. It would be like her to be spying about among my things, +but I wonder she would admit it."</p> + +<p>"She is delighted with her new importance, and, I fancy, has been bribed +to tell all she knows."</p> + +<p>"In that case she wouldn't mind telling more. And no doubt she will +think of other sensational items before the trial. She will have +awakened in the night after the crime and heard me drop the pistol +between the walls, or she will have seen me loading it on the afternoon +of the shooting."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is no knowing when those low-grade imaginations, once +started, will stop. Memory ceases to function in brains of that sort, +and its place is taken by a confused jumble of induced or auto +suggestions, which are carefully straightened out by the practised +lawyer in rehearsals. But I almost wish that you had taken a pistol out +that night and would tell me where to find it. I'd lose it somewhere out +in the marsh."</p> + +<p>"I had no pistol." Not yet could she take him into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> her confidence to +that extent, although she knew that he was about to stake his +professional reputation on her acquittal.</p> + +<p>He dismissed the subject abruptly. "By the way, I gave the story of +Frieda's attempt to blackmail you to Broderick and two other men just +before I left town—laying emphasis on the fact that you always drank a +glass of filtered water before going to bed. They made a wry face over +that, but it is news and they must publish it. There are many things in +your favour—particularly Frieda's assertion before the coroner that she +knew nothing of the case. She is a confessed perjurer. Also, why didn't +she answer when you called up to her, if she was on the back stairs? +There are things that satisfy a grand jury that will not go down with a +trial jury. Now you must, you must trust me."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him dully. But in a moment her eyes warmed and she +smiled faintly. All the female in her responded to the traditional +strength and power of the male. She also knew the sensitiveness of man's +vanity and the danger either of starving it or dealing it a sudden blow. +She sometimes felt sorry for men. It was their self-appointed task to +run the planet, and they must be reminded just so often how wonderful +they were, lest they lose courage; one of the several obliging +weaknesses of which women rarely scrupled to take advantage.</p> + +<p>As she put out her hand and took his, she looked very feminine and +sweet. Her face was flushed and tears had softened her large blue-grey +eyes that could look so virginal and cold.</p> + +<p>"I know you will get me off. Don't imagine for a moment I doubt that; it +is a sustaining faith that will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> carry me through the trial itself. But +it is this terrible ordeal in prison that I dread—and the publicity—my +good name dragged in the dust."</p> + +<p>"You can change that name for mine the day you are acquitted."</p> + +<p>It suddenly occurred to her that this might be a very sensible thing to +do, and simultaneously she appreciated the fact that he possessed what +was called charm and magnetism. Moreover, the complete devotion of even +a passably attractive member of the over-sex in alarming predicaments +was a very precious thing. Possibly for the first time in her life she +experienced a sensation of gratitude, and she smiled at him so radiantly +that he caught his breath.</p> + +<p>"No one but you could have consoled me for the loss of Anna, but you are +not to say one word of that sort to me until I am out of this dreadful +place. I couldn't stand the contrast! Will you promise?"</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>"Now will you really do something for me—get me a sleeping powder from +the druggist? To-morrow I shall be myself again, but I <i>must</i> sleep +to-night."</p> + +<p>"I'll get it." His voice was matter of fact, for love made certain of +his instincts keen if it blunted others. "That is, if you will promise +to go to bed early and see none of these reporters, men or women. They +are camped all over the Courthouse yard."</p> + +<p>She gave an exclamation of disgust. "I'll never see another newspaper +person as long as I live. They are responsible for this, and I hate +them."</p> + +<p>"Good! You shall have the powder in ten minutes. Oh, by the way, will +you give me a written permit to pass the night in your house? I want to +go through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> your husband's papers and see if I can find any clue to +unknown enemies. He may have received threatening letters. I can obtain +the official permission without any difficulty."</p> + +<p>She wrote the permit unsuspiciously. At nine o'clock that night he let +himself into the Balfame house determined to find the pistol before +morning. He knew the police would get round to the inevitable search +some time on the following day.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXI</span></h2> + +<p>Alys Crumley entertained four of the newspaper women at a picnic lunch +in her studio. She was grateful for the distraction from her own +thoughts and diverted by their theories. None had seen Mrs. Balfame save +through the medium of the staff artist, and they were inclined to accept +the primâ facie evidence of her guilt. When Alys fetched a photograph +from the house, however, they immediately reversed their opinion, for +the pictured face was that of a lovely cold and well-bred woman without +a trace of hardness or predisposition to crime. They fell in love with +it and vowed to defend her to the best of their ability, Miss Crumley +promising to exert her influence with the accused to obtain an interview +for the new devotees.</p> + +<p>Before wrapping the photograph for its inevitable journey to New York, +Alys gave it a moment of study herself, wondering if she may not have +misinterpreted what she saw that morning. No one had worshipped at that +shrine more devoutly than she, even during these later years of +metropolitan concordance.</p> + +<p>"What is your theory?" asked Miss Austin of <i>The Evening News</i>. "They +say that a lot of those men at the Elks know, but never will come +through. Do you think it was any of those girls? It might have been some +woman he knew in New York who followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> him here for the first time—who +would not have been recognised if seen, and got away in a waiting +automobile."</p> + +<p>"As likely as not," said Miss Crumley indifferently. "I have heard so +many theories advanced and rejected that I am almost as confused as the +police. Jim Broderick says that the simplest explanation is generally +the correct one, but while he believes Mrs. Balfame to be the natural +solution, I happen to know her better than he does, and a good deal more +of this community. Three or four men and one or two women would be still +simpler explanations. Possibly—" She turned cold and almost lost her +breath, but the impulse to put a maddening possibility into verbal form +was irresistible. "Perhaps some man that is in love with Mrs. Balfame +did it." And then she hated herself, for she felt as if she had thrown +Dwight Rush to the lions.</p> + +<p>"But who? Who?" the girls were demanding, more excited over this +picturesque solution than they had been since "the story broke." Even +Miss Austin, who disdained to write "sob stuff" and was a graduate of +the Columbia School of Journalism, was almost on her feet, while Miss +Lauretta Lea, who wept vicariously for fifty thousand women three times +a week, shrieked without shame.</p> + +<p>"Oh, fine!" "How truly enchanting!" "Dear Miss Crumley—Alys—who, who +is the man?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to that, I've not an idea. Mrs. Balfame always has rather +disdained men, and even if she were susceptible is far too +straight-laced to permit any man to pay her compromising attentions, or +to meet him secretly. But of course she is very pretty, still young to +look at, so there is the possibility—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p><p>"But just run over all the marriageable men in the community—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he might be married, you know." Alys struggled to keep the alarm +out of her voice.</p> + +<p>"But in that case there would still be the wife to dispose of, and now, +at least, he'd never dare kill her, or even divorce her. No, I don't +hold to that theory. It's more like the reckless act of the unchastened +bachelor still young enough for illusions. You must have a theory, Alys. +Stand and deliver." Miss Austin spoke with quick insistence. She had +detected her hostess' suppressed excitement and was convinced that the +hint had not been thrown out at random. She also had been conscious of +an indefinable change in her old associate, and now she noticed it in +detail. She might be too self-respecting to dip her pen in bathos, but +she was nevertheless young, and her imagination began playing about +possibilities like lightning over a wire fence.</p> + +<p>The heat which confused Alys Crumley's brain was expressed by a dull +glow in her strange olive-colored eyes, but she made a desperate effort +to look impersonal and rather bored.</p> + +<p>"No, I have no theory: certainly it could not be any of the men +hereabouts. Mrs. Balfame has known all of them from infancy up. Perhaps +she met some one in New York; I don't know that she ever went to any of +the tea-tango places—she doesn't dance; but she might have gone with +Mrs. Gifning or Mrs. Frew, and just met some one that fell in love with +her—Oh, you mustn't take a mere idea of mine too seriously."</p> + +<p>"Hm!" said Miss Austin. "It doesn't sound plausible. A man she met now +and then at a tea-room!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> She's not the sort to drive men to distraction +in the casual meeting—not the type. And I can't see the men that +frequent afternoon tea-rooms working themselves up to the point of +murder. No, if there is a man in the case, he is here; if not in +Elsinore, then in the county; and it is some man who has known her long +enough and seen her often enough to descend from mere admiration for her +rather chilling type of beauty into the most desperate desire for +possession—"</p> + +<p>Alys burst into a ringing peal of laughter. "Really, Sarah, I wonder you +are not already famous as a fiction-story writer. How much longer do you +propose to stick to prosaic journalism?"</p> + +<p>"I've had two stories accepted by leading magazines this month, I'd have +you know; but your memory is short if you think journalism prosaic. It +germinates pretty nearly all the fiction microbes that later ravage the +popular magazines. That was what was the matter with the old +magazines—no modern symptoms, let alone fevers—only antidotes that +somehow didn't work. But if you won't tell, Alys, I'll find out for +myself. If I don't find out, Jim Broderick will, and I'd give my eyes to +get ahead of him. But we've got to catch our train, girls."</p> + +<p>They took the short cut through the hall of the dwelling, and as they +passed the open door of the living-room, Miss Lauretta Lea exclaimed +with pleasure at its conceit of a cool green wood. Alys could do no less +than invite them in. While the three other reporters were walking about +observing the charming room in detail and envying its owner, Miss Sarah +Austin walked directly over to a framed photograph of Dwight Rush that +stood on a side-table. He had given it to Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> Crumley; and Alys, who +spared her mother all unnecessary anxiety, had not yet conceived a +logical excuse for its removal.</p> + +<p>"Whom have we here?" demanded the searching young realist. "Don't tell +me, Alys, that here is the secret of your desertion of the New York +press. I'd forgive you, though, for he is precisely the type I most +admire. The modern Samson before Delilah cuts off what little hair his +barber leaves. But the same old Samson looking round for the same old +Delilah—"</p> + +<p>"Really, Sarah, are you insinuating that I am a Delilah? That is too +much!" Alys put her arm round Miss Austin's waist and smiled teasingly. +"No wonder your newspaper stories are so bitingly realistic; the +restraints you force upon your imagination must put it quite out of +commission for the time being. That is Mr. Dwight Rush, quite a well +known lawyer in Brabant already, although he has only been here about +two years."</p> + +<p>"I thought you said all your young men had grown up in the community."</p> + +<p>"I had quite forgotten him."</p> + +<p>"Ha! Is he married?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. And he was born and brought up over in Rennselaerville, by the +way, but went West to some college or university and practised out there +for several years."</p> + +<p>"How old is he?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, about thirty-three or thirty-four."</p> + +<p>"Must have been away a good many years. Would return quite fresh—must +have had a lot made over him here—looks clever and built for +success—that concentrated driving type that always gets there—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p><p>"He goes very little into society and no one possibly could lionise +him."</p> + +<p>"Is he interesting to talk to or just another specialist?"</p> + +<p>"That's about it. But he was more a friend of mother's than mine. That +is her picture."</p> + +<p>"Oh! He likes older women, then? Looks as if he might. Never would take +the trouble, that type, to adapt himself to girls, try to understand +them. Could it be—Alys, you must know if he knows Mrs. Balfame!"</p> + +<p>Alys was cold again but laid violent hands on her nerves. "No better +than he knew any one else, if as well, for Mrs. Balfame never talked to +the younger men. She doesn't attract them, anyhow. Do you realise, dear, +that you are asking if Mr. Rush committed murder?"</p> + +<p>"With that jaw and those nostrils, he could—oh, rather! And it is one +of those cast-iron, passionate faces; when those men do let go—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, really!" Alys dropped her arm, and her subtle face expressed +disdain. "Mr. Rush is quite too steel clad to be carried away even if he +were capable of committing a low and cowardly murder. He happens to be a +gentleman and about as astute and poised as they are made. Do please +send your romantic imagination off on another flight."</p> + +<p>"Not I. I'm going to account for every moment he spent that night."</p> + +<p>"Would you like to see Mr. Rush go to the chair?" asked Miss Crumley +sternly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, good Lord no." Miss Austin turned pale. "I don't believe in capital +punishment, anyhow. No,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> I'll not tell a thing if I find him out. But +how interesting to know! I'd write a corking story—fiction—about it. +Those deep glimpses into life—into those terrible abysses of the human +heart—no writer can become great without them."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't waste your time trying to find the criminal in this +excellent citizen. You might set some of the newspaper men on his trail +and blacken his name while you discovered nothing. Better get on the +track of the potential woman in New York."</p> + +<p>"Not half so interesting. Just one of those apartment-house +misalliances. No, I'm out for Mr. Rush, and when I have the proof, I'll +extract a confession; but I'll dig a little grave in my brain and bury +his secret—then when it has ripened, exhume and toss it into that +crucible through which facts pass and come out—fiction. Get me, dear?"</p> + +<p>"You talk like a literary ghoul. But I know you don't mean a word of it. +Good-bye, girls. Do drop in whenever you are over on the case." She +kissed them all, and Miss Lauretta Lea exclaimed innocently:</p> + +<p>"You've lost that lovely dusky colour you had awhile ago, dear. You look +more like old ivory than ever—old ivory and olive. I wonder all the +artists don't paint you. I suppose every young man in Elsinore is in +love with you. Marry, my dear, marry. I've been in this game twelve +years. Show me a willing would-be husband and I'd take him so quick he'd +never know what struck him. Give my hopes of being a man in the next +incarnation for ten babies to weep over when they had croup or got lost +in the woods of New York City. Hate sob stuff. Cut it out, kid, before +you begin it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p><p>She talked all the way to the gate and for several yards down the +avenue, waving a final farewell with a somewhat tragic smile.</p> + +<p>"Why doesn't that girl marry?" she asked as they walked rapidly to the +station. "Still fresh, if she is twenty-six. I'm only thirty-four and I +look like a hag beside her."</p> + +<p>"Maybe she can't get the man she wants," replied the potential novelist, +who was thinking deeply.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXII</span></h2> + +<p>Alys borrowed a horse and cart from her cousin Mr. Phipps, Chief of +Police in Elsinore, who kept a livery stable, and took the shortest cut +into the country. She wanted to think out many things and think them out +alone. She drove rapidly until she came within sight and sound of the +sea. Then she let the lines lie loosely on the back of her old friend +Colonel Roosevelt, who had been named in his fiery colt-hood, but in +these days, save under compulsion, was as slow as American law. He +ambled along, and Alys, in the booming stillness and the fresh salt air, +felt the humid waves roll out of her brain. She saw clearly, but she was +aghast and depressed.</p> + +<p>Presented by nature with an odd and arresting exterior, in color and +feature as well as in subtlety of expression, sketched and flattered by +such artists as she met, she had, ever since old enough for +introspection, striven for uncommon personal developments that should +justify her obverse and set her still farther apart from mere woman. If +not born with an intense aversion from the commonplace (and it is safe +to say that no one is), she had conceived it early enough to train a +rarely plastic mind to striking viewpoints, while a natural tact saved +her from isolation. If she had been as original as she thought herself, +she would have antagonised many people.</p> + +<p>Assuredly a certain nobility of nature and a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>revulsion from all that +was base were innate; although, soon learning of the many pitfalls +yawning for humanity, she had assiduously cultivated these her higher +inclinations, an enterprise measurably assisted by the equable temper, +the feminine charm, the bright intelligence and the quick sympathies +that made her many friends. Moreover, her freedom from the usual +yearnings of her sex in the matter of riches and subservience to the +race, which wreck the lives of so many women, and her love of the arts +and delight in her own little talent, all served to deponderate the +burden of life.</p> + +<p>She had liked many men as friends, and was proud of the fact that only +the more intelligent were attracted to her, but she had arrived at the +age of twenty-six without even imagining herself seriously in love, so +intense was her idealism. This was another of her deliberate +cultivations, for here also was she resolute that as nature had done so +much for her, marking her as a girl apart, so should she insist upon +having an uncommon mate. It was to this end even more than for the +barren satisfaction of pleasing Mother Nature that she had tilled the +garden of her mind with both science and imagination. When she loved, it +should be like a woman, of course; she had no delusions about making +over human nature to suit passing fashions in woman; but while she never +ignored the vital passions that formed the basis of her unique +personality and strong will, she was determined that they should be +quickened only by a man who would make equal demands upon all that was +fine in her character and aspiring in her mind.</p> + +<p>The awful collapse of this cherished structure, her spiritual house, +under her hopeless and violent passion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> for Dwight Rush had almost +demoralised her. After she had won herself to reason once more, she +still had sat, stunned, among the ruins. It was true that Rush was all +that she had demanded of man and that he emanated a promise of happiness +along strictly modern lines—which was all she asked, being no romantic +fool; but not only had she loved him unasked, sacrificing the first and +perhaps the dearest of her dreams, to be wooed and awakened and +surprised, but, accepting the inevitable (the man being overburdened, +like most busy young Americans, and unselfconscious), she deliberately +had set herself to awaken <i>him</i>—and for nought. For worse than nought: +he had instantly taken fright and withdrawn.</p> + +<p>Of the terrific upheaval of that time, like some graveyard of the sea +flung putrid and phosphorescent to the surface by submarine vulcanism, +she had ceased to think as soon as her will was reinstated in command. +Immediately she had striven to rebuild her house lest she be swamped in +mere femaleness, so permanently demoralised that life would be quite +unendurable. She had cultivated the heights too long. She might tumble +off occasionally, but in no other atmosphere could she breathe deeply +and realise herself, find any measure of content. It had occurred to her +that if she had been born in the gutter and grown to adolescence with no +ennobling influence, she would have developed into a notable force for +evil. At all events, she liked to think so; many women of stainless +lives do.</p> + +<p>She guessed this, having a saving sense of humour, but did not expand +upon it, not being inclined to humour at the moment. Accompanying her +resolution to be finer and better than ever, to fortify herself against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +life with some degree of satisfaction in herself, was the hope of +complete deliverance from what she called the Dwight Rush Idea. In due +course she had conquered the obsession, for pride and self-disgust +served her like first-aid surgeons on the battlefield; and although she +felt amputated and scarred, she had lost her sense of humiliation. But +her heart still accelerated its beats when she met Rush, and no will is +strong enough to prevent the recurrence of the mental image; only time +can dim it. But it was not until Broderick had left her alone in her +studio with the poisons of fear and jealousy implanted that she had +admitted she still loved him, probably must continue to love him for +years to come.</p> + +<p>In that hour she had hated Mrs. Balfame, although she neither believed +her guilty nor was tempted to the dastardly course of helping to force +the appearance of guilt upon her. And for a time that night she had +hoped she hated Dwight Rush also, so utterly disgusted and indignant was +she that he could prefer a faded woman of forty-odd to a unique and +beautiful girl like herself.</p> + +<p>But once more Miss Crumley's sense of proportion enforced itself, and +she reflected sternly that men had fallen in love with women older than +themselves since the world began, and that some of those +transcendent—and lasting—passions had made history. She was no green +village girl to be astounded at the least common phase of the sexual +adventure. It was then she had given way to tears, for although she +might be intelligent enough to admit this most unpardonable of nature's +informalities, she could regret it with bitterness and despair.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p><p>Later had come her fear for Rush's safety. Not for a moment did she +suspect him of the crime, but if accused of it during the process of +elimination, there was the appalling doubt that he could prove an alibi. +As likely as not he had missed his man in Brooklyn—she knew that he had +expected to dine and spend the evening at the Country Club—or had not +gone there; knowing Balfame's ugly temper when drunk, what more natural +than that he should hide in the grounds to be near at hand in case the +man were disposed to wreak vengeance on his wife for his own +humiliation. It was Alys's theory that the murder was political.</p> + +<p>Until to-day! From the moment that she saw Mrs. Balfame empty and rinse +the vial, she was convinced that Broderick was right in his deductions +and that for some reason the terrible woman had changed her mind and +used the revolver. It was a stupider act than she would have expected of +Mrs. Balfame, for Dave was a man whose sudden death would excite little +suspicion, nor would Mrs. Balfame be the woman to use a common poison. +Her intimacy with Dr. Anna would put her on the track of one of those +organic potions that were too subtle for chemical analysis. She had +heard doctors talk of them herself.</p> + +<p>Then abruptly she recalled the sinister change in Mrs. Balfame's smiling +countenance on that day she sketched her at the Friday Club; her mind +opened and closed on the conviction that in that moment Mrs. Balfame had +conceived the purpose of murder.</p> + +<p>But why the change of method? She dismissed the riddle. It was not for +her to unravel. Nor did she care. The fact was enough. This good friend +of her family was an abominable creature from whom in even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> mental +contact she shuddered away with a spasm of spiritual nausea.</p> + +<p>But that was not her own problem. No doubt Mrs. Balfame would be +acquitted; Alys hoped so, at all events, for she wanted no such a stain +on Elsinore, where, she thanked God, she lived, although she sought +knowledge and income in the City of New York. For the same reason, she +had no desire that the guilty woman should pay her debt by even a brief +term in Auburn; but all that was beside the point. What Alys felt she +would give her soul to ravish from this thrice accursed woman, so +formidable in her peril, were the services of Dwight Rush. If he were +Mrs. Balfame's chief counsel he would see her constantly, and alone—for +hours on end, perhaps, for he must consult with her, rehearse her, +instruct her, keep up her spirits, console her. This might not be the +whole duty of counsel, but in the circumstances no doubt she had +underestimated, if anything. And even if he believed her guilty, he +might in that intimacy love her the more; not only would he pity her +profoundly and see himself her natural protector, but he would be heart +and soul in the great case, and it would not be long before the case and +the woman were one.</p> + +<p>If, however, Rush could be made to believe now that the woman was a +murderess, would he not decline to take the case? He was hardly the man +to defend man or woman whom from the outset he knew to be guilty, +although when immersed in the case he would keep on, whatever the +revelations. Alys believed that it was possible for her to convince him. +She could inform him of the needle-witted Mr. Broderick's suspicions and +of her own confirmations; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> she could tell him of her certain +knowledge that Mrs. Balfame had a revolver; she had seen it eight months +ago, when Balfame brought it home from New York and told his wife to +discharge it in the air if, when alone, she heard a man breaking in.</p> + +<p>It had signified little to her at the moment that Mrs. Balfame had +denied to police and reporters that she possessed a revolver, for it +might by chance be a .41, and it was not to be expected that even an +innocent woman would challenge public doubt and possible arrest. But her +denial and probable concealment of the weapon were significant to Alys +now. She remembered that Dr. Anna had spent the early hours of Sunday +alone with Mrs. Balfame. No doubt the wicked woman had found both relief +and counsel in confessing to a friend like Anna Steuer, a creature so +strong and staunch that the secret would be as safe as in her own guilty +soul. Anna, of course, had taken the pistol and dropped it in the marsh +when she visited Farmer Houston's wife later in the day. If she could +but get Dr. Anna to speak.</p> + +<p>Alys raised her eyes under their bent and frowning brows and looked up +to where the Brabant Hospital stood on rising ground beside the sea. She +gave a gasp as she found herself turning the horse's head in that +direction. What did she intend to do? Denounce Mrs. Balfame to Dwight +Rush? She fancied she heard an inner crash. Could she do this and escape +final demoralisation? Heretofore she had at least committed no act +involving moral degradation; her upheavals had affected herself alone +and were her inviolate secret; but if she made a last desperate throw to +win Dwight Rush by first filling him with loathing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> of her rival, she +would be committed to a course of conduct from which there would be no +escape for months, perhaps years to come. For if she won him,—toward +which end she must plan with every female art she knew,—she never could +ease her soul with confession. Her only chance of keeping a man like +that, after the first effulgence had merged into the healthy +temperateness of practical married life, was to avoid the major +disillusions.</p> + +<p>And if she by her own deliberate act went to pieces morally, could she +play up? Should she even want to play up? Could one deliberately knock +the foundations from under one's cherished spiritual structure, reared +with infinite pains upon natural inclinations, and continue to be even a +pale reflection of one's higher self? She might, after the first +excitement of striving to achieve her immediate object was over, hate +herself too deeply to love or even to live.</p> + +<p>She drew her brows more closely and expelled her breath through her +teeth. For the moment, at least, she felt all female, ready to defy the +future and her own soul to obtain possession of her mate. That he was +her mate she obstinately believed, temporarily deflected from his +natural progress toward herself by one of those powerful delusions that +afflict every man in the course of his life. And if she did not open his +eyes at once, the temporary deflection would merge into the straight +course toward marriage with a she-demon....</p> + +<p>She drove into the hospital yard, threw the reins over Colonel +Roosevelt's back and asked for the superintendent, Mrs. Dissosway, who +happened to be her aunt.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXIII</span></h2> + +<p>An hour later, Alys was driving through Elsinore, her mind a trifle less +personal, as it dwelt upon her brief interview with the superintendent +of the hospital. Mrs. Dissosway, who was devoted to her niece and +believed her to be as exceptional as Miss Crumley in her most aspiring +moments could have wished, had confided that she was sure poor dear Anna +knew something about that awful crime, for in her delirious moments she +kept uttering Enid Balfame's name in very odd tones indeed. She had +assured and reassured the patient that there was no clue to the +murderer; and if she kept on and asked to see Mrs. Balfame,—which, +significantly, she had not done,—they of course would tell her that the +friend who should have hastened to her bedside had suffered a nervous +breakdown or sprained her ankle. It was a blessing that she was in no +condition to testify against her idol, for it would kill her, just as it +might be fatal now if she knew that Enid was in the County Jail.</p> + +<p>After some delicate insistence, Mrs. Dissosway had admitted that Dr. +Anna must convince any one who listened attentively to her mutterings +that her belief in her friend's guilt was positive, whether she had +exact knowledge or not.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, Enid! Oh, <i>Enid</i>!' she kept repeating in such a tone of anguish +and reproach, and then muttered: 'Poor child! What a life!' She also +once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> said something about a pistol in a tone of dismay, but the other +words I couldn't make out.</p> + +<p>"The nurses on her case," Mrs. Dissosway had concluded, "will pay no +attention. They are too accustomed to fever patients to listen to +ravings, and the two she will have are from other parts of the State, +anyhow. They never heard of Mrs. Balfame before. But I have been in and +out all day, and I know she is worrying in her poor hot mind both over +her friend's crime and her danger—"</p> + +<p>"Then you believe Mrs. Balfame did it?" Miss Crumley had interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do—now, anyhow; and I never was daffy about her. She barely +remembers I am alive, living out here for the last fifteen years as I +have done, and I am your mother's sister. I don't call her a snob; it's +just that she don't seem to take any interest in people that ain't in +her own set. But the Lord knows I'd never tell on her if I had the proof +in my hand, for I don't want any of our grand old families disgraced, +and she's been good to your mother. No, she can go free, and welcome, +but I wish poor Anna could have been spared the knowledge of her crime, +for it's going to be all the harder to nurse her well, and she has a bad +case. If she has to go, she shall go in peace. I'll see to that. But +when Enid Balfame is out, I'll take good care to let her know that she +has another crime to carry on her conscience—if she's got one."</p> + +<p>Alys had not asked to see the patient, knowing that it would be useless, +but Mrs. Dissosway had walked out to the cart with her, and pointing to +a window on the first floor of the wing devoted to paying patients, +remarked: "That's where she is, poor dear." Alys<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> had wondered if she +should fall low enough before this accursed case were finished to +describe the position of that room to Broderick and insinuate what he +might find there if he chose to hide in the little balcony and enter the +room when the night nurse had gone out for the midnight supper. He was +quite capable of it.</p> + +<p>But not if she could win Rush from the case, nor unless, Mrs. Balfame +discharged, he were arrested and committed for the crime. She wished now +that he had been arrested instead of Mrs. Balfame, for then she could +have saved him from both punishment and the other woman without this +awful sense of sliding slowly down-hill to choke in a poisonous slime. +She might have been obliged to exercise a certain amount of sophistry +even then, but she could have stood it.</p> + +<p>She was driving slowly down Atlantic Avenue when she heard her name +called in accents of mystery and excitement. Her modest rig was passing +the imposing mansion of Elisha Battle, bank president, and like all the +newer homes of Elsinore the grounds were unconfined and the shallow lawn +ended at the pavement. From one of the drawing-room windows Lottie +Gifning slanted, and as she met Miss Crumley's eye, she beckoned +peremptorily. The desire for solitude was still strong upon Alys, but as +she had no excuse to advance, she wound the lines round the whip and +went slowly up the brick walk.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gifning opened the front door and swept her into the drawing-room, +where six or seven other women with tense excited faces sat on the +expensive furniture. Mrs. Battle, herself upholstered in shining +black-and-white satin, and further clad in invisible armour, occupied a +stately and upright chair. This throne had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> made to order; +consequently her small feet in their high-heeled pumps touched the +floor. The large room, upon which much money had been spent, was not +tasteless; it merely had no individuality whatever. Like many another in +Elsinore, it set Miss Crumley's teeth on edge, but compensated her +to-day as ever by inspiring her with a sense of remote superiority.</p> + +<p>"Dear Alys—so glad to see you!" Mrs. Battle did not rise. She was fond +of Alys, but thought her of no consequence whatever. "Lottie saw you and +called you in as you have always been such a friend of poor dear Enid's, +and you know those horrid reporters, and we want to impress upon you the +necessity of putting them off the track. We are talking the whole +dreadful business over and trying to decide what to do."</p> + +<p>"Do?" Alys, more interested, disposed her limber uncorseted young figure +into a low chair and for a moment diverted envious attention from the +momentous subject in hand. "What can we do? Has bail been accepted?"</p> + +<p>"No, nor likely to be. Isn't it too awful?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's awful." Alys stared at the floor, but although her words +might have been uttered by any of the ladies present, her tone was +almost conventional. No one noticed this defection, however, and Mrs. +Battle—after Mrs. Gifning had tiptoed to all the doors, opened them +suddenly and closed them again,—proceeded in so low a tone that there +was an immediate hitching of chairs over the Persian rug:</p> + +<p>"What we were debating when you came in, Alys, was whether—oh, it's too +awful!—she did it or not. Did she or didn't she? She has a perfectly +beautiful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> character—but the provocation! Few women have been tried +more severely. And we all know what human nature is under the influence +of sudden tremendous passion." Mrs. Battle, who never had been ruffled +by any sort of passion, leaned against the high back of her chair, and +elevated her eyebrows and one corner of her mouth.</p> + +<p>"Could such a crime have been unpremeditated?" asked Alys. "You forget +that whoever did it was waiting in the grove for Balfame to come home +from Sam's, and evidently timed to shoot as he reached the gate."</p> + +<p>"Passion, my dear child," said Mrs. Bascom, wife of the Justice for +Brabant, speaking softly and with some diffidence, for she disliked the +word, "can endure for quite a while once the blood is up and pounding in +the head. It would take a good deal to work up dear Enid, but when a +woman like that does rise to the pitch under many and abominable +provocations, well, I guess she could stay at that pitch a good bit +longer than all of us put together. I've thought of nothing else for +three days and nights,—the Judge won't discuss it with me,—and I feel +convinced that she did it."</p> + +<p>"So have and so am I," contributed Mrs. Battle, sepulchrally.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid she did!" Mrs. Gifning heaved an abysmal sigh. "I suspected +it when I consulted her about her mourning. She was much too cool. A +woman who could think of two kinds of blouses she wanted the very +morning after the tragedy, and he not out of the house, must have been +exercising a suspicious restraint or else have reverted to the +cold-bloodedness with which she planned the deed."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p><p>"Dear Lottie, you are so psychological," murmured Mrs. Frew admiringly; +but Mrs. Battle interrupted sharply:</p> + +<p>"I maintain that she did it in a moment of overwhelming passion. She +would be inexcusable if she had done it in cold blood."</p> + +<p>"Well, of course I didn't mean that!" said Mrs. Gifning with asperity. +"I guess I'm as fond of Enid Balfame as anybody in this room, and I +guess I know what she must have gone through. What I really meant was +that she has more courage than most folks."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Lequer, who was quite happy with her +husband, the fashionable doctor of Brabant. "Matrimony is a terrible +trial at best, and it's a wonder more women don't—well, it's too +horrible to say. But I'm afraid—well, you know."</p> + +<p>There was no dissenting voice. Alys raised her eyes and glanced about +the room. Mrs. Cummack was not present. No doubt she had been carefully +omitted from the conference. So had four members of the inner twelve who +were comparative newcomers in Elsinore. All of these women had known +Enid Balfame from childhood, consistently admired her; when she was in a +position to make her social ambitions felt, had quite naturally fallen +into line.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it rather a hasty conclusion?" Alys asked. "There are a good many +others who might have done it, you know."</p> + +<p>"Everybody suspected has one grand alibi." Mrs. Gifning's sigh was +rather hypocritical this time. "We'd be only too glad to think there was +any one else likely to be arrested. No hope! No hope!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p><p>"I suppose"—Miss Crumley's tones were tentative, although the +irresistible words almost cost her her breath—"that there was no man in +love with Mrs. Balfame?"</p> + +<p>"Alys Crumley!" All the women had shrieked the name, and Mrs. Battle +swung herself to her pointed toes. "I'm most mad enough to put you right +out. The idea of insinuating—"</p> + +<p>"Dear me, Mrs. Battle, it never occurred to me that it was worse for a +married woman to have a man in love with her than to commit murder. I +did not insinuate or even imagine she cared for any man, or even +encouraged one. But such things have happened."</p> + +<p>"Not to her. And while I could forgive her for shooting a perfectly +loathsome husband under the influence of sudden passion, I'd never +forgive her—Enid Balfame!—if she had stooped to anything so paltry and +common and <i>sinful</i> as philandering; for believe me, a man doesn't +commit murder for a woman's sake unless he is reasonably certain that he +will have his due rewards. That is life. And how <i>can</i> he be certain, if +there has been no philandering. No!" Mrs. Battle was once more +magisterial in her chair, and in command of her best Friday Club +vocabulary. "But there is this much to be said: Enid did not necessarily +shoot to kill,—merely to wound perhaps,—for nothing would have +punished Dave Balfame more than a month or two in bed on gruel and +custard. Or maybe she just didn't know what she was doing—just fired to +relieve her feelings. I am sure it would have relieved mine after that +scene at the Club."</p> + +<p>"Oh—I apologise. Let us assume then that Mrs. Balfame did it. How do +you propose to act in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> matter? Of course you will not accuse her, +but shall you cut her?"</p> + +<p>"Neither the one nor the other!" Mrs. Battle brought her plump little +hands down on the arms of the chair with a muffled but emphatic smack. +"Never outside of this room shall we breathe our convictions, or our +certain knowledge that she kept a revolver in her room—may I not speak +for all?" There was a hissing murmur caused by the letter <i>s</i>. "And it +will be no negative defence, either. We'll stand by her publicly, visit +her constantly, keep up her spirits, never give her a hint of our +suspicions, and attend the trial in a body. Our attitude cannot fail to +impress the world. We are the representative women of Elsinore; we have +known her all our lives; it is our duty to flaunt our faith in the eyes +of the public. The moral effect will be enormous—also on the jury."</p> + +<p>"It is very splendid of you." Alys sighed. Their motives were mixed, of +course, poor dears; brains were not their strong point, and they were +all feeling young again with their sense of participation in the great +local drama, but there was no questioning their loyalty, even that of +Mrs. Battle, who would inherit the reins of leadership were Mrs. Balfame +forced to retire. Alys wished she could be swept along with them, but +her indorsement of their programme was from the head alone.</p> + +<p>"What do the men think?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I guess they don't know what to think," said Mrs. Battle complacently. +"They're not as clever as we are, and besides, they never could +understand that type of woman. Whatever they think, though,—that is to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +say, if they do suspect her,—they'll never let on. They weren't any too +fond of Dave these last years, and they're no more anxious than we are +to have Elsinore disgraced—especially with all those lots on the edge +of the West End unsold. They're hoping for a boom every minute. The +trial will be bad enough. And those terrible reporters! They've been +here a dozen times."</p> + +<p>"That reminds me," interrupted Alys. "I promised four of the best of the +women reporters I would try to get them an interview with Mrs. Balfame. +Do you think you could manage it? She might not listen to me. +And—and—if she is a murderess, I don't think I can see her just yet."</p> + +<p>"Youth is so hard!" Mrs. Battle sighed. "But I suppose it is as well +that you, an unmarried young woman, and with your way to make, should +keep in the background. But why should she see those women? Answer me +that. It would be more dignified for her to ignore the press hereafter."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. But they are predisposed in her favour, being women, and would +write her up in such a way as to make friends for her among the public. +It is important, if she is to be tried for her life, that she should not +be thought a monster, that she should make all the friends possible. The +jury might convict her, and it would then be necessary, appeals also +failing, to get up a petition."</p> + +<p>"You always did have brains, Alys!" It was Mrs. Frew who expressed +herself with emphasis. "I'll persuade her myself. Don't you really think +it would be wise, Letitia?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p><p>"I guess you're both right." Mrs. Battle stood up. "Now let's go out +and have tea. I ordered it for five-thirty. New York's got nothing on us."</p> + +<p>But Alys, protesting that her mother was old-fashioned and still +prepared supper for half past six, excused herself and left the house. +She found that Colonel Roosevelt had gone home and was not sorry to +cover the half-mile to her own, briskly, on foot. What course she +eventually should take was still unformulated, but she was glad that she +had not parted with any of her deeper knowledge to those kindly women +who, perhaps, would have found it the straw too many. Let Enid Balfame +keep her friends if she could. Let her have the whole State on her side +if she could, so long as she lost Dwight Rush!</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXIV</span></h2> + +<p>The police, nettled by the sensational coup of the press, made a real +effort to discover the identity of the man or woman who had fired the +second pistol. For a time they devoted their efforts to implicating +Frieda and young Kraus, but the pair emerged triumphantly from a +grilling almost as severe as the third degree; furthermore, there was an +absolute lack of motive. Conrad had never evinced the least interest in +politics; and that Old Dutch should have commissioned the son of whom he +was so proud to commit murder when gun-men could be hired for +twenty-five dollars apiece was unthinkable to any one familiar with the +thoroughly decent home life of the family of Kraus.</p> + +<p>Old Dutch's establishment was more of a beer garden than a common +saloon, and responsible for a very small proportion of the inebriety of +the County Seat. He and his sons drank their beer at the family board, +but nothing whatever behind the bar. As for Conrad, Jr., industrious, +ambitious, persistent, but without a spark of initiative, obstinate and +quick-tempered but amiable and rather dull, his tastes and domestic +ideals as cautious as his expenditures, it was as easy to trump up a +charge of murder against him because he happened to have seen Mrs. +Balfame leave her house by the kitchen door a few moments before he +heard the shot that killed her husband, as it was to fasten the crime<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +upon the unlovely Frieda because she ran home untimely with a toothache.</p> + +<p>Frieda confessed imperturbably to her attempt to blackmail Mrs. Balfame, +adding (in free translation) that while she had no desire to see her +arrested and punished, she saw no reason why she should not turn the +situation to her own advantage. When Papa Kraus was asked if he had +counselled the girl to demand five hundred dollars as the price of her +silence, he repudiated the charge with indignation, but admitted that he +did remark in the course of conversation that no doubt a woman who had +killed her husband would be pleased to rid herself of a witness on such +easy terms, and that it was Frieda's pious intention—and his own—that +the blood-money should justify itself in the coffers of the German Red +Cross.</p> + +<p>All this was very reprehensible, of course; but an imperfect sense of +the minor social and legal immoralities was no argument that such +blundering tactics were the natural corollary of a specific murder. To +be sure, there were those that asserted with firm lips and pragmatical +eyes that "anybody who will blackmail will do anything," but the police +were accustomed to this line of ratiocination from the layman and knew +better.</p> + +<p>Their efforts in every direction were equally futile. Behind the Balfame +Place was a lane; Elsinore Avenue was practically the eastern boundary +of the town, which had grown to the south and west. There were two or +three lowly dwellers in this lane, and in due course the memory of one +old man was refreshed, and he guessed he remembered hearing somebody +crank up a machine that night, but at what time he couldn't say. It was +after seven-thirty, anyhow, for he turned in about then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> and he had +heard the noise just before dropping off. That might have been any time +up to eight or nine, he couldn't say, as he slept with his windows shut +and couldn't hear the town clock. His cottage was directly across from a +point where the second assailant, running out of the grove and grounds, +would have climbed the fence to the lane if he had kept in a reasonably +straight line. But there had been heavy rains between the night of the +shooting and the awakening of the old man's memory, and not a track nor +a footstep was visible.</p> + +<p>The police also searched the Balfame house from top to bottom for the +pistol the prisoner indubitably had carried from the house to the grove; +nor did they neglect the garden, yard and orchard, or any of the old +wells in the neighbourhood. They even dragged a pond. Their zeal was but +a further waste of time. It was then they concluded that Mrs. Balfame +had gone out deliberately to meet a confederate and that he had carried +off both pistols. But who was the confederate and how did he know at +what hour Balfame would reach his front gate? It was as easily +ascertained that Mrs. Balfame had telephoned no message—from her own +house—that night as that she had received one from her husband which +would give her just the opportunity she wanted. But how had she advised +the other guilty one? The poor police felt as if they were lashed to a +hoop driven up and down hill by a mischievous little girl. All the men +who had been at Cummack's when Balfame called up his wife had left the +house before he did, and proved their alibis. Even Cummack, who had +"sweat blood" during the elimination process, had finally discovered +that the janitor of his office-building had seen him go in and come out +on that fatal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> night. Did Mrs. Balfame go forth some time after Dr. Anna +brought her home from the Country Club, find her partner in crime and +secrete him in the grove? If so, why did she not remain in the grove +with him instead of returning to the house to leave it again by the +devious route that delivered her almost into the arms of young Kraus? +Above all, who was the man?</p> + +<p>It was at this point that the police gave up, although they still +maintained a pretence of activity. Not so the press. Almost daily there +were interviews with public men, authors, dramatists, detectives, +headed: "Did Mrs. Balfame Do It?" "What Did She Do With the Pistol?" +"Was She Perchance Ambidexterous? Could She Have Fired Both Pistols at +Once?" "Will She Be Acquitted?" "Was It a German Plot?" "If Guilty, +Would She Be Wise to Confess And Plead Brain Storm?" The interviews and +symposiums that illuminated the Sunday issues were conducted by men, but +the evening papers had at least one interview or symposium a week on the +subject between a sister reporter and some woman of local or national +fame. Nothing could have been more intellectual than the questions asked +save, possibly, the answers given.</p> + +<p>Upon the subject of the defendant's guilt public opinion fluctuated, and +was not infrequently influenced by news from the seat of war: when it +looked as if the Germans were primed for a smashing victory, the +doubting centred firmly upon the family of Kraus and Miss Frieda Appel; +but when once more convinced that the Germans were fighting the long and +losing game, the hyphenated were banished in favour of that far more +interesting suspect, Mrs. Balfame. Certainly there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> was nothing more +amusing than trying and condemning a prisoner long before she had time +to reach judge and jury, and tearing her to shreds psychologically. In +Spain the people high and low still have the bull-fight; other countries +have the prize-ring, these being the sole objective outlets in times of +peace for that lust of blood and prey which held the spectators in a +Roman arena spellbound when youths and maidens were flung to the lions. +But in the vast majority of Earth's peoples this ancestral craving is +forced by Civilisation to gratify itself imaginatively, and it is this +cormorant in the human mind that the press feeds conscientiously and +often.</p> + +<p>In Elsinore the subject raged day and night, and the opinion of the man +in the street may be summed up in the words of one of them to Mr. James +Broderick of the <i>New York News</i>:</p> + +<p>"Brain storm, nothin'. She ain't that sort. She done it and done it as +deliberately as hell. I ain't sayin' that she didn't have some excuse, +for I despised Dave Balfame, and I guess most of us would let her off if +we served on the jury, if only because we don't want this county +disgraced, especially Elsinore. But that ain't got nothin' to do with +it. And there's an awful lot of men who think more of their consciences +than they do even of Brabant, let alone of Elsinore, where like as not +all of 'em won't have been born—the jurors, I mean. I'm just +wonderin'!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Broderick met Mrs. Phipps one afternoon at Alys Crumley's. She was +not a member of the inner twelve, but a staunch admirer of Mrs. Balfame, +although by no means sure of her innocence.</p> + +<p>"Maybe she did," she admitted, "since you are not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> interviewing me for +print. But it's yet to be proved, and if she does get off, I don't fancy +she'll lose many of her friends—she wouldn't anyhow, but then if she +went up, they'd have so much further to call! As for wars," she +continued with apparent irrelevance, "there's this much to be said: a +lot of good men may get killed, but when you think of the thousands of +detestable, tyrannical, stingy, boresome husbands—well, it is to be +imagined that a few widows will manage to bear up. If women all over the +world refuse to come forward in one grand concerted peace movement, +perhaps we can guess the reason why."</p> + +<p>None of these seditious arguments reached Mrs. Balfame's ears, but as +her friends' protestations waxed, she inferred that their doubts kept +pace with those of the public. But she was more deeply touched at this +unshaken loyalty than she once would have believed possible. She had +assumed they would drop off, as soon as the novelty of the affair had +worn thin; but not a day passed without a visit from one of them, or +offerings of flowers, fruit, books and bonbons. She knew that whatever +their private beliefs, the best return she could make for their +passionate loyalty was to maintain the calm and lofty attitude of a Mary +Stuart or Marie Antoinette awaiting decapitation. She shed not a tear in +their presence. Nor did she utter a protest. If she looked tired and +worn, what more natural in an active woman suddenly deprived of physical +exercise (save in the jail yard at night), of sunlight, of freedom—to +say nothing of mortification: she, Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore, shut up in +a common jail on the vulgar charge of murder?</p> + +<p>But in spite of the amiable devotion of her friends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> and their +assurances that no jury alive would convict her, and in spite of her +complete faith in Dwight Rush, the prospect of several months in jail +was almost insupportable to Mrs. Balfame, and haunted by horrid fears. +She made up her mind again and again not to read the newspapers, and she +read them morning and night. She knew what this terrible interest in her +meant. Not a talesman in the length and breadth of Brabant County who +could swear truthfully that he had formed no opinion on the case. Other +murder cases had been tossed aside after a few days' tepid sensation, +unnoticed thereafter save perfunctorily. It was her unhappy fate to +prove an irresistible magnet to that monster the Public and its keeper +the Press. Her hatred of both took form at times in a manner that +surprised herself. She sprang out of bed at night muttering curses and +pulling at her long braids of hair to relieve the congestion in her +brain. She tore up the newspapers and stamped on them. She beat the bars +before her windows and shook them, the while aware that if the doors of +the jail were left open and the guards slept, she would do nothing so +foolish as to attempt an escape.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she wondered, dull with reaction or quick with fear, if she +were losing her reason; or if she was, after all, a mere female whose +starved nerves were springing up in every part of her like poisonous +weeds after a long drought. Well, if that were the case, her admiring +friends should never be the wiser.</p> + +<p>But there were other moods. As time wore on, she grew to be humbly +grateful to these friends, a phenomenon more puzzling than her attacks +of furious rebellion. Even Sam Cummack, possibly the only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>person who +had sincerely loved the dead man and still stricken and indignant, but +carefully manipulated by his wife, maintained a loud faith in her, and +announced his intention to spend his last penny in bringing the real +culprit to justice. Left to himself, he would in time no doubt have +shared the opinion of the community, but his wife was a member of the +grand army of diplomatists of the home. She was by no means sure of her +sister-in-law's innocence, but she was determined that the family +scandal should go no further than a trial, if Mr. Cummack's considerable +influence on his fellow citizens could prevent it; and long practice +upon the non-complex instrument in Mr. Cummack's head enabled her to +strike whatever notes her will dictated. Mr. Cummack believed; and he +not only convinced many of his wavering friends, but talked "both ways" +to notable politicians in the late Mr. Balfame's party. Most of these +gentlemen were convinced that "Mrs. B. done it," and were inclined to +throw the weight of their influence against her if only to divert +suspicion from themselves, several having experienced acute discomfort; +but they agreed to "fix the jury" if Mr. Cummack and several other +eminent citizens whom they inferred were "with him" would "come through +in good shape." There the matter rested for the present.</p> + +<p>Above all was Mrs. Balfame deeply, almost—but not quite—humbly +grateful to Dwight Rush. Her interviews with him so far had been brief; +later he would have to coach her, but at present his time was taken up +with a thousand other aspects of the case, which promised to be a cause +celèbre. He made love to her no more, but not for an instant did she +doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> his intense personal devotion. He had, after consultation with +two eminent criminal lawyers whom he could trust, decided that she +should deny in toto the Kraus-Appel testimony, and stick to her original +story. After all, it was her word, the word of a lady of established +position in her community and of stainless character, against that of a +surly German servant and her friends, all of them seething with hatred +for those that were openly opposed to the cause of the Fatherland. He +knew that he could make them ridiculous on the witness stand and was +determined to secure a wholly American jury.</p> + +<p>It was some three weeks after Mrs. Balfame's arrest that another blow +fell. Dr. Anna's Cassie suddenly remembered that a fortnight or so +before the murder Mrs. Balfame had called at the cottage one morning and +asked permission to go into the living-room and write a note to the +doctor. A moment or two after she had shut herself in, Cassie had gone +out to the porch with her broom, and as she wore felt slippers and the +front door stood open, she had made no noise. It was quite by accident +that she had glanced through the window, and there she had seen Mrs. +Balfame standing on a chair before a little cupboard in the chimney +placing a bottle carefully between two other bottles. She had fully +intended to tell her mistress of this strange performance, but as the +doctor those days came home for but a few hours' sleep and too tired to +be spoken to, not even taking her meals there, Cassie had postponed her +little sensation and finally forgotten it.</p> + +<p>When she did recall the incident under the pressure of the general +obsession, she told it to a friend, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> told it to another, who again +imparted it, so that in due course it reached the ears of the alert Mr. +Broderick. It was then he informed the public of the lost glass of +lemonade and all the incidents pertaining thereto that had come to his +knowledge. Mrs. Balfame's slightly "absurd explanation" was emphasised.</p> + +<p>Once more the police were "on the job." The restored bottle was analysed +and, ominously, found to contain plain water. Every bottle in the house +of Mrs. Balfame was carried to the chemist. Mrs. Balfame laughed grimly +at these sturdy efforts, but she knew that the story diminished her +chance of acquittal. The public now condemned her almost to a man. The +evidence would not be allowed in court,—Rush would see to that,—but +every juror would have read it and formed his own opinion. Somewhat to +her surprise Rush asked her for no explanation of this episode, and she +thought it best not to volunteer one. To her other friends she dismissed +the whole thing casually as a lie, no doubt inspired.</p> + +<p>As the skies grew blacker, however, her courage mounted higher. Knitting +calmed her nerves, and she had many long and lonely hours for +meditation. Her friends kept her supplied with all the new novels, but +her mind was more inclined to the war books, which she read seriously +for the first time. On the whole, however, she preferred to knit for the +wretched victims, and to think.</p> + +<p>No one can suffer such a sudden and extreme change in his daily habits +as a long sojourn in jail on the charge of murder without forming a new +and possibly an astonished acquaintance with his inner self, and without +undergoing what, superficially, appear to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> strange changes, but are +merely developments along new-laid tracks in sections of the brain +hitherto regarded as waste lands.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame of Brabant County Jail was surprised to discover that she +looked back upon Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore as a person of small aims, and +rather too smugly bourgeoise. The world of Elsinore!</p> + +<p>And all those artificial interests and occupations! How bored she really +must have been, playing with subjects that either should have interested +her profoundly or not at all. And for what purpose? Merely to keep a +step ahead of other women of greater wealth or possible ambitions. Her +astonishment at not finding herself all-sufficient, as well as her new +sense of gratitude, bred humility which in turn shed a warm rain upon a +frozen and discouraged sense of humour. While giving her friends all +credit for their noble loyalty, she was quite aware that they were +enjoying themselves solemnly and that no small proportion of their +loyalty was inspired by gratitude. She recalled their composite +expression in the hour of her arrest. They had fancied themselves deeply +agitated, but as a matter of fact they were dilated with pride.</p> + +<p>Why had she cared so much to lead these women in all things, to be Mrs. +Balfame of Elsinore? To return to such an existence was unthinkable.</p> + +<p>In spite of the fact that her own tragedy dwarfed somewhat her interest +in the great war, she saw life in something like its true proportions; +she knew that if acquitted she would be capable for the first time of a +broad impersonal outlook and of really developing her intellect. With +more than a remnant of the cold-blooded and inexorable will which had +condemned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> David Balfame to death by the medium of Dr. Anna's secret +poison, she seriously considered taking advantage of young Rush's +infatuation, changing her notorious name for his and receiving the +protection that her awakened femininity craved. At other times she was +equally convinced that she would marry no man again. She could live in +Europe on her small income, travel, improve her mind. Europe would be +vastly interesting after the war, if one avoided beggars and impromptu +graveyards.</p> + +<p>But although she was deeply interested in herself, and gratified that +she possessed real courage, and that it had come through the fire +tempered and hardened, there were moments, particularly in the night, +and if the profound stillness were rent with the shrieks of drunken +maniacs, when she was terribly frightened; and in spite of the American +tradition which has set at liberty so many guilty women, she would stare +at the awful vision of the electric chair and herself strapped in it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXV</span></h2> + +<p>Rush wheeled and looked sharply behind him. For several weeks he had +experienced the recurrent sensation of being followed, but until +to-night he had been too absorbed to give a vague suspicion definite +form. He stood still, and was immediately aware that somebody else had +halted, after withdrawing into the shade of one of the trees that lined +Atlantic Avenue. He approached this figure swiftly, but almost at his +first step it detached itself and strolled forward. Rush saw that it was +a woman, and then recognised Miss Sarah Austin of the <i>New York Evening +News</i>. He recalled that she had approached him several times with the +request for an interview with Mrs. Balfame; and that she had taxed his +politeness by trying to draw him into a discussion of the case.</p> + +<p>"Oh, good evening," he said grimly. "I turned back because it occurred +to me that I was being followed."</p> + +<p>"I was following you," Miss Austin retorted coolly. "I saw you turn into +the Avenue two blocks up, and tried to overtake you—I don't like to be +out so late alone, especially in this haunted village. The knowledge +that everybody in it is thinking of that murder nearly all the time has +a curious psychological effect. Won't you walk as far as Alys Crumley's +with me?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly!" Rush, wondering if all women were liars, fell into step.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p><p>"I've been given a roving commission in the Balfame case," continued +Miss Austin in her impersonal businesslike manner, which, combined with +her youth and good looks, had surprised guarded facts from men as wary +as Rush. "Not to hunt for additional evidence, of course, but stuff for +good stories. I've had a number of dandy interviews with prominent +Elsinore women, as you may have seen if you condescend to glance at the +Woman's Page. Isn't it wonderful how they stand by her?"</p> + +<p>"Why not? They believe her to be innocent, as of course she is."</p> + +<p>"How automatically you said that! I wonder if you really believe +it—unless, of course, you know who did do it. But in that case you +would produce the real culprit. What a tangle it is! A lawyer has to +believe in his client's innocence, I suppose, unless he's quite an +uncommon jury actor. I don't know what to believe, myself. But of one +thing I am convinced: Alys Crumley knows something—something positive."</p> + +<p>Rush, who had paid little attention to her chatter, which he rightly +assumed to be a mere verbal process of "leading up," turned to her +sharply.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"That she knows something. She's over on the <i>News</i> now, understudying +the fashion editor before taking charge, and we lunch together nearly +every day. She's so changed from what she was a year ago, when she was +the life of the crowd—so naïve in her eagerness to become a real +metropolitan, and yet so quick and keen she had us all on our mettle. +Great girl, Alys! At first, when I met her here again, I attributed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> the +change to the same old reason—a man. I still believe she has had some +heart-racking experience, but there's something else—I didn't notice it +so much that first day—but since—well, she's carrying a mental burden +of some sort. Alys has a damask cheek, as you may have noticed, but +nowadays there's a worm in the bud. And those olive eyes of hers have a +way of leaving you suddenly and travelling a thousand miles with an +expression that isn't just blank. They will look as grimly determined as +if she were about to turn her conscience loose, and in a moment this +will relax into an expression of curious irresolution—for her: Alys +always knows pretty well what she wants. So, as this mystery must be in +her consciousness pretty well all the time, when she is at home, at +least, I feel sure she knows something but is of two minds about telling +it to the police."</p> + +<p>"Have you any object in telling me this? I thought you modern women who +have deserted the mere home for the working world of men prided +yourselves upon a new code of loyalty to one another."</p> + +<p>"That's a nasty one! I'm not disloyal to Alys. Others have noticed that +there's something big and grim on her mind, as well as I. Jim Broderick +is always after her to open up. I have a very distinct reason for +telling you. In fact, I have tried to get a word with you for some +time."</p> + +<p>"Have you been following me? Were—were—you in Brooklyn yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, to both questions." Her voice shook, but her eyes challenged him +imperiously; they were under the bright lights of Main Street. "I'll +tell you what I believe Alys knows: that you killed David Balfame; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +she can't make up her mind to betray you even to liberate an innocent +woman."</p> + +<p>He was taken unawares, but she could detect no relaxation in his strong +face; on the contrary, it set more grimly.</p> + +<p>"And what are you up to?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"To find the proof for myself, and get ahead of Jim Broderick."</p> + +<p>"I know of no one so convinced of Mrs. Balfame's guilt as Broderick."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, but a man with as keen a scent as that is likely to +find the real trail any minute."</p> + +<p>"And you believe I did it?"</p> + +<p>"I think there are reasons for believing it."</p> + +<p>"I won't ask you for them. It doesn't matter, particularly. What +interests me is to know whether you believe that if I had committed the +crime of murder I would let a woman suffer in my stead."</p> + +<p>Miss Austin cerebrated.</p> + +<p>"No," she admitted unwillingly, "you don't strike one as that sort. But +then you might argue that she is reasonably sure of acquittal and you +would have scant hope of escaping the chair."</p> + +<p>Rush laughed aloud. It was a harsh sound, but there was no nervousness +in it, and he continued to look interrogatively at Miss Austin. He had +barely noticed her before, but he observed that she was a handsome girl +with a clean-cut honest face, a bright detecting eye, and the slim +well-set-up figure of an athletic boy. Her peculiar type of good looks +was displayed to its best advantage by the smartly tailored suit.</p> + +<p>"You hardly look the sort to run a man down," he murmured, and this time +he smiled.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p><p>"One gets mighty keen on the chase in this business." They turned into +the deep shade of Elsinore Avenue, and she stood still and lowered her +voice. "If you would tell me," she said, "I'd swear never to betray +you."</p> + +<p>"Then why ask me to confess?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—it sounds rather banal—but I want to write fiction, big fiction, +and I want to come up against the big tragedies and secrets of the human +soul. If you would tell me the whole story, exactly how you have felt at +every stage and phase before and since, I feel almost sure that I could +write as big a book as Dostoiewsky's "Crime and Punishment"—not half so +long, of course. If we learn from other nations, we can teach them a +thing or two in return. You may ask what you are to expect in return for +a dangerous confidence. I not only never would betray you, but I'd make +it my study to divert suspicion from pointing your way. I could do it, +too. You are safe as far as Alys is concerned. The secret is oppressing +her terribly, and she's driven by the fear that her conscience will +suddenly revolt and force her to speak out—particularly if Mrs. Balfame +broke down in jail, to say nothing of a possible conviction—not that I +believe anything short of conviction would open her lips. You are the +last person on earth she would hand over to the law; it seems odd to me +you can't realise that for yourself."</p> + +<p>"Realise what?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've no patience with men! I never did share the platitudinous +belief in propinquity. Why, Alys has turned half the heads in Park Row. +Even the austere city editor is beginning to hover. How any man could +pass a live wire like Alys Crumley by—and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>distractingly pretty—for a +woman old enough to be her mother!"</p> + +<p>He caught his breath.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Balfame."</p> + +<p>"And yet you accuse me of letting her lie in prison bearing the burden +of my crime?"</p> + +<p>"As the only way to possess her ultimately."</p> + +<p>"And how many, may I ask, are saying that I am in love with my client?"</p> + +<p>"Not a soul—save, possibly, Alys to herself. She doesn't seem to have +much enthusiasm for the Star of Elsinore. Provincial people are too +funny for words. Maybe we New Yorkers are also provincial in our +tendency to forget there is any other America. I intend to cultivate the +open mind; a writer must, I think. So you see just how in earnest I am. +Don't you believe you could trust me? All the world knows that a +newspaper person is the safest depository on earth for a secret."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I have the most touching confidence in your honour, and the most +profound admiration for your candour, and the deepest sympathy for +ambitions so natural to one afflicted with genius. I am only wondering +whether if I gave you the information you seem to need you would permit +Mrs. Balfame to remain in jail and stand trial for her life."</p> + +<p>"You are not to laugh at me! Yes, I should. Because I know that she has +ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to get off, and that if she were +condemned you would come forward at once and tell the truth."</p> + +<p>"And you really believe I did it?" His hands were in his pockets, and he +was balancing himself on his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> heels. There was certainly nothing tense +about his tall loose figure, but the light of the street lamp, filtered +through a low branch, threw shadows on his face that made it look pallid +and as darkly hollowed as the face of an elderly actress in a moving +picture. To Miss Sarah Austin he looked like a guilty man engaged in the +honourable art of bluffing, but her mounting irritation precluded pity.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Rush, I do. It is to my mind the one logical explanation—"</p> + +<p>"You mean the logical fictional—"</p> + +<p>"I'm no writer of detective stories—"</p> + +<p>"Just like a novel then?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! That I admit. The great novel is a logical transcript of life. The +incidents rise out of the characters, react upon them, are as inevitable +as the personal endowments, peculiarities, and contradictions. +Understand your characters, and you can't go wrong."</p> + +<p>"You are the cleverest young woman I ever met. For that reason I feel +convinced you need no such adventitious aid as confession from a +murderer. You will work it out—your premises being dead right—far +better by yourself. It's the contradictions you mentioned I am thinking +of, both in life and character."</p> + +<p>"You are laughing at me. It's no laughing matter!"</p> + +<p>"By God, it isn't. But you couldn't expect me to plump out a confession +like that without taking a night to think it over."</p> + +<p>"If you don't tell me, I warn you I'll find out for myself. And then +I'll give it to my newspaper. To begin with, I'll find out if you really +did see any one in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> Brooklyn that Saturday night. I'll discover the name +of everybody you know in Brooklyn."</p> + +<p>"That's a large order. I fear the case will be over."</p> + +<p>"I'll set the whole swarm on the case. But if you will tell me the +truth, you will be quite safe."</p> + +<p>"The cause of literature might influence me were it not that I fear to +be thought a coward—by my fair blackmailer."</p> + +<p>"Oh! How dare you? Why, I don't want your secret to use against you. I +thought I explained—how dare you!"</p> + +<p>"I humbly beg pardon. Perhaps as it is such a new and flattering +variety, it deserves a new name. I suppose the legal mind becomes +hopelessly automatic in its deductions—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, good night!"</p> + +<p>They were at the Crumley gate. Rush opened it and passed in behind her. +"I think I too will call on Miss Crumley," he said. "I have been too +busy to call on any one for weeks, but to-night I must take a rest, and +I can imagine no rest so complete as an evening in Miss Crumley's +studio. I see a light in there—let us go round and not disturb Mrs. Crumley."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXVI</span></h2> + +<p>Miss Austin remained but a few moments in the studio. She was +embarrassed and angry, and Rush was not the sole object of her wrath: +she anathematised herself not only for permitting her literary +enthusiasm to carry her to the point of attempting coercion and running +the risk of being called bad names by an expert in crime, but for +speaking out impulsively in the first place and throwing her cards on +the table. It had been her intention to cultivate the wretch's +acquaintance and lead him on with excessive subtlety; but he had proved +impervious to her maidenly hints that she would like to know him better; +equally so to her boyish invitation to come over some evening and meet a +number of the newspaper girls who were all fighting for his client. +Fifteen minutes alone with him in the quiet streets of Elsinore at night +was an opportunity that might never come again, and she had surrendered +to impulse.</p> + +<p>She was now more deeply convinced than ever that he had killed David +Balfame, but although she had no intention of denouncing him even if she +found her proofs in the course of persistent sleuthing, she thought it +wise to "keep him guessing," as the uneasiness of mind caused by this +constant pressure from without might eventually drive him to her for +counsel and aid. Like all healthy young American writers of fiction, she +was an incurable optimist, and as yet untempered in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> least by the +practical experiences of a New York reporter.</p> + +<p>After a few moments' desultory conversation, she announced that she +"must run," and as Alys opened the door, Miss Austin turned to the +lawyer, who had risen and stood by the stove.</p> + +<p>"Good night, Mr. Rush," she said sweetly. "So glad you are defending +poor Mrs. Balfame, but you know I never did believe she did it, and I +have good reason to hope that we shall all know the truth in about a +fortnight."</p> + +<p>Rush bowed politely, as she did not offer her hand. "You would save me +much trouble and Mrs. Balfame much expense. I wish you all good luck."</p> + +<p>Her brows met and her dark grey eyes turned black, but she swung on her +heel and marched out with her head in the air. Rush remained behind, as +it was evident the two girls wanted a last mysterious word together.</p> + +<p>Alys returned in a few moments, and with a swift step. Her face was +radiant. She too held her head high, but as if she lifted her face to +drink in some magic elixir of the night. This was the first time she had +seen Rush since he had immersed himself in the case, and now he had come +to her unasked, and as naturally as in the old days when weary with work +and the sordid revelations of the courts. Her mercurial spirits, which +had hung low in the scale for weeks, had gone up with a rush that filled +her with a reckless unreasoning happiness. Perhaps intimacy with Mrs. +Balfame had disillusioned him in little ways. Perhaps he had discovered +the truth for himself and despised her for a cold-blooded liar where he +might have forgiven her honest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> admission of the actual crime. It would +be just like his exaggerated idealism. There never was any love that +could not be killed by transgression of some pet prejudice, some +violation of secret fastidiousness. At all events, he was here and with +every appearance of spending a long evening. What did the rest matter?</p> + +<p>He was still standing as she entered, staring at a water colour of a bit +of the woods west of Elsinore. The trees were stately and old, the +shadows green and shot with the gold of some stray beam of the sun +dancing down through that heavy canopy with Puckish triumph. A rocky +brook crossed the glade, and behind was a subtle suggestion of the +uninterrupted forest, deserted and absolutely still. Rush had recognised +the spot.</p> + +<p>"My village, Rennselaerville, is on the other side," he said, turning a +boyish face to Alys. "I have been fourteen again for a few moments. Last +summer I only got a day off now and again to loaf in those woods. I wish +I had been with you when you painted this."</p> + +<p>She unhooked the picture and handed it to him. "Please let me give it to +you. I'd like so much if you would hang it in one of your rooms,—say +behind your desk,—so that when you are tired or puzzled you can wheel +about and lose yourself for a moment. I am sure it wouldn't be a bad +substitute for the real thing."</p> + +<p>She spoke with a shy eagerness and an entire absence of coquetry. He put +out both hands for the picture.</p> + +<p>"I should think it wouldn't. It is just like you to think of it. Indeed +I will accept it." And he remembered how many cases he had forgotten +under her kindly tact, both in this cool green studio and that other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +room of woodland shades in the cottage. He was wondering if he had not +been a conceited ass and misconstrued an increasing warmth of friendship +in this fine impulsive creature, when he remembered Miss Austin's +insinuations and sat down abruptly, recalled to the object of his visit.</p> + +<p>Alys had invited him to smoke but had not produced her box of Russian +cigarettes. Miss Austin, who was determined to keep her nerves in order +and her efficiency at high-water mark, did not smoke, and Rush had his +prejudices. While he puffed away at his cigar and stretched his long +legs out to the fire, she leaned back against a mass of pillows on the +divan and congratulated herself that she had put on a charming +primrose-yellow gown in honour of her Aunt Dissosway and two other +guests entertained by her mother at supper. It was rhythmical in its +harmony with the olives of the room and of her own rare colouring.</p> + +<p>Rush, who had been studying his picture, looked up and smiled at the +other picture on the divan. In the soft lamplight Alys' smooth dark hair +looked as olive as her eyes, and there was a faint stain of pink on the +ivory of her cheeks. Beneath the lace that covered her slender bust was +a delicate note of ribbons and fine lawn, and the little feet in pointed +bronze slippers showed through transparent stockings. More by instinct +than calculated effect Alys on such occasions managed to create an aura +of fastidious and dainty femininity while stopping short of invitation.</p> + +<p>Rush scowled as his mind leaped to the substantial and sensibly clad +feet of his beautiful client, and to a pile of stout unribboned +underwear that had been brought into the jail sitting-room one day when +he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> awaited her tardy appearance. For the first time he wondered if such +things really counted in human happiness—not so much, perhaps, for the +artistic delight in them that a plain man like himself might be able to +feel as for all that they stood: the elusive but auspicious signal.</p> + +<p>He shook himself angrily and sat up.</p> + +<p>"Your young friend thinks I murdered Balfame," he announced.</p> + +<p>Alys started under this frontal attack, but smiled ironically. "I knew +she had conceived some such nonsensical theory, mainly because she +wanted to have it so. Sarah intends to be a novelist."</p> + +<p>"So she did me the honour to confide. She even promised me all the +immunity that lay within her jurisdiction if I would reward her with a +full confession."</p> + +<p>"Really, she is too absurd. Don't let it worry you. You have nothing to +fear."</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure."</p> + +<p>Alys sat up as rigidly as if armoured like Mrs. Battle. "What do you +mean?" she breathed.</p> + +<p>"Miss Austin has arrived at the conclusion that I am in love with Mrs. +Balfame. She is an outsider with no data whatever to work on; it is +reasonable to suppose that sooner or later our good fellow citizens will +work round to the same theory."</p> + +<p>"That is just the one theory they never will conceive or accept. They +know better. That sort of thing never was in Mrs. Balfame's line. The +women know that if she doesn't exactly hate men, she has a quiet but +profound contempt for them. I wish you could have seen them—her +particular crowd—at Mrs. Battle's the day of the arrest. Just to draw +them out,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> I suggested that some man who was in love with her might have +fired the shot. They nearly annihilated me. Mrs. Balfame, guilty of the +crime of murder or not, is fairly screwed on her pedestal so far as the +women are concerned. As for the men, such a theory will never occur to +them for the simple reason that not one has ever been attracted by her; +she's the very last woman they would expect any man to commit murder +for."</p> + +<p>Rush, wondering if these observations were dictated by venom or a mere +regard for facts, shot a veiled glance at the divan; Miss Crumley's soft +carefully de-Americanised voice had not sharpened, but her face was very +mobile for all its reserve. She was looking almost aggressively +impersonal and had sunk back against the high pillows in a limp indolent +line. Facts, of course!</p> + +<p>"It is very like a political campaign," said he. "Nobody is quite sane +in this town just now, and the wildest conclusions are bound to be +jumped at. It is not only embryo novelists that have romantic +imaginations. Just reflect that I am Mrs. Balfame's counsel, that I am +still a young man and unmarried, and that she is a beautiful woman and +looks many years younger than her age. There you are."</p> + +<p>Alys made an abrupt change of position which in one less graceful would +have suggested a wriggle. However, her voice remained impersonal. "But +this community, including her friends, believe that she did it. They +want her to get off, but they have settled the question in their own +minds and are not looking around for any one else."</p> + +<p>"Cummack and several of the other men are, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>besides Balfame's old +political pals—and his enemies, for that matter. Old Dutch, who is far +shrewder than his son, is by no means certain of Mrs. Balfame's guilt +and has put a detective on the job—against her acquittal, having no +desire to see suspicion pointing at his house again. He is just the old +sentimentalist to settle on me."</p> + +<p>He saw the pink fade out of her cheeks, leaving her face like cold +ivory, but she answered steadily: "You have your alibi. You went to +Brooklyn that evening to keep an appointment."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind telling you that although I went to Brooklyn that night I +did not see the man I was after. I went on the spur of the moment, more +because I wanted to get out of Elsinore than anything else; I didn't +have time to telephone before catching the train, but when I left it in +Brooklyn, I telephoned and found that he had gone to New York. I gave no +name; it was a matter of no importance. Then as there was no one else I +cared to talk to I took the next train back, and as my head ached and I +felt as nervous as a cat—from overwork and other things—tramped for +hours until I met Dr. Anna out by the marsh and she drove me in—"</p> + +<p>"Dr. Anna?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I have reason to believe she thinks I shot Balfame, but she +would never denounce any one if she could help it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are all wrong. She believes—like everybody else—that Mrs. +Balfame did it. My Aunt Dissosway is superintendent out there and has +been listening to her delirious mutterings; she's never mentioned you. I +drove out there for the second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> time on Sunday. I haven't told Mother, +as she is one of the few that believe Mrs. Balfame innocent—but when +Dr. Anna is coherent at all, that is the impression my aunt +gets—but—Oh—of course she's only guessing like everybody else. She +couldn't know—she was out at the Houston farm—"</p> + +<p>Rush was sitting up very straight.</p> + +<p>"Has any one been permitted to see her?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not."</p> + +<p>"Not that it would matter. Delirious people all have insane fancies. But +I don't believe she had any such idea before she came down, and besides +it is not true. Mrs. Balfame is innocent."</p> + +<p>"Of course as her lawyer you must persuade yourself that she is."</p> + +<p>"If I had not believed in her, I would not have taken the case, great as +my desire would be to help her. I am no good at pleading against my +convictions; I'd fail with the jury. If I had believed her guilty, I +should have got her the best counsel possible and helped him all I +could."</p> + +<p>Alys had a curious sense of physical paralysis, or of spiritual +dissociation from her body, she made no attempt to decide which; but +that the cause was an intense nervous excitement she was well aware. As +she stared at him with dilated eyes, he was suddenly convinced that Miss +Austin was right in assuming that Alys had some secret and important +knowledge bearing upon the crime. Was her reticence due to the common +Elsinore loyalty? If so, why her reserve with him who would have parted +with his life rather than with any facts that still further would +incriminate Mrs. Balfame.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p><p>Then in a flash he understood, for his keen faculties were on edge, +concentrated to one point, and as sensitive as magnets. He recalled his +high estimate of this girl during the weeks of their intimacy, and the +instinctive doubts that had assailed him in his rooms on the night of +the murder. And as he realised the fierce battle that was raging in that +passionate but disciplined soul, he knew that she loved him, and he +scorned himself for attributing her former tentative advances to +calculation or that compound of nerves and imagination which so many +women call love. She had given him her heart, and it had betrayed her. +But while the knowledge gave him an unexpected thrill, he ruthlessly +determined to try and to test her to the utmost.</p> + +<p>He stood up and walked about the room for a moment, and then halted +directly in front of her.</p> + +<p>"Do you know anything?" he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"About what? Do you think I suspect you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't. I mean Mrs. Balfame."</p> + +<p>"I told you we all believe she did it. We can't help ourselves."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand the attitude of any of you women who were her +friends, her intimates. You—they, rather—have let her lead this +community for years, believed her to be little short of perfection. And +now with one accord they accept her guilt as a matter of course."</p> + +<p>"I think they came to with a sort of shock and realised they never had +understood her at all. She had them hypnotised. I think she's one of +those Occidentals with terrible latent powers for whom new laws will +have to be made when they awake to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>consciousness of them and begin to +develop them with the power and skill of the Orientals—"</p> + +<p>"Beg pardon, but let's keep to the present."</p> + +<p>"Well, I mean it rather excites them to be able to believe, not so much +that she did it, as that she was capable of it, that while uniformly +sweet and serene, she had those terrible secreted depths. She reminds +one of Lucrezia Borgia, or Catherine de Medici—"</p> + +<p>"Why poisoners? You don't mean to say they take any stock in that story +of the poisoned lemonade?"</p> + +<p>And before Alys could collect her startled faculties she had stammered: +"Oh, of course, not. They laugh at that. Balfame was shot—what's the +use of—the water in the vial no doubt was put there to rinse it, and +Dr. Anna absently put it back in place. I merely mentioned the names of +the first wicked women that occurred to me. Somehow Mrs. Balfame +suggests that historic tribe to our friends. No doubt this crime in +their midst has irritated what little imagination they have."</p> + +<p>Her chest was rising under quick heartbeats, stirring the soft nest of +ribbon and lawn under the lace of her gown, a part of the picture that +he did not appreciate until later; at the moment he was observing her +dilated eyes, the strained muscles of her nostrils and mouth. He found +himself interested in feminine psychology for the first time in his +life; and as he hated a liar above all transgressors, he wondered why he +inconsistently delighted in not being able to comprehend this complex +little creature, and at the same time hoped, his own breathing almost as +irregular as hers, that she would continue to lie. But he pushed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> on. He +had a dim sense that far more tremendous issues were at stake than +further proof of his client's guilt, and deep in his soul was an ache to +feel reassured that staggering old ideals might yet be reinforced with +vitality.</p> + +<p>"Have you told Jim Broderick that Dr. Anna accuses Mrs. Balfame?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. He would be climbing the porch the first dark night."</p> + +<p>"Have you been tempted to tell him?"</p> + +<p>She shrank farther back and looked up at him under lowered lids. +"Tempted? What—why should I? Well, I haven't told him, or any one. That +is all that matters."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. I only meant, of course, that I have a reprehensible masculine +disbelief in the ability of a woman to keep a secret. I might have known +you would be the exception, as you are to so many rules. And I mean +that. But Broderick is an old friend of yours and preternaturally keen +on the case."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"You haven't told me why you in particular believe so firmly in my +client's guilt. You are the last person to be influenced by either the +ravings of a typhoid patient—hallucinations, generally—or any of the +sentimental and romantic theories of these half-baked women that spend +their leisure taking on flesh, playing bridge, and running over to New +York. If you believe Mrs. Balfame is guilty you must have some fairly +good reason—perhaps proof."</p> + +<p>She could not guess that he was trying her; she imagined his insistence +due to apprehension, a desire to know the worst. The hour she had +dreaded and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> desired had come—and she had almost let its opportunities +escape! These last weeks in New York filled with work and novel +distraction had repoised her, unconsciously. She had begun to doubt, +some time since, if she would be able to violate her old standards when +the test came; but not for a moment had she ceased with all the +concentrated forces of her being to long for his desertion of Mrs. +Balfame. And if she had rejoiced sometimes that she was incapable of a +demoralising act, she had at others been equally disgusted with her +failure in inexorable purpose. She told herself that the big brains were +ruthless, able to hold down and out of sight one side of the character +they governed while giving the hidden forces for evil full play; never +in wantonness, of course, but in sternly calculated necessity. She had a +suspicion that this was just the form of greatness Mrs. Balfame +possessed, and it increased her disesteem of self and inspired her with +a second form of jealousy.</p> + +<p>The bitter tides were welling to the surface once more. She asked +abruptly: "Is Sarah Austin's theory true? Are you in love with Mrs. +Balfame?"</p> + +<p>"What has that to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"It has its bearings."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I should be expected to answer that question. I can say +this, however: that as long as she is my client and in jail, I shall +have no time to think of personal matters—of love, above all. My job is +to get her off, and it occupies about sixteen hours out of the +twenty-four. I oughtn't to be here, but relief—distraction—is +imperative, now and again—"</p> + +<p>"It would be too delightful if you would come here when you wanted +both." Her tones were polite <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>without being eager, but she found it +impossible to smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I will; but I shall ignore the subject we are discussing—rest +doesn't lie precisely that way! For that reason we'll finish up now. Why +do you believe Mrs. Balfame guilty?"</p> + +<p>"If I could prove to you that she was, would you throw over the case?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated and regarded her fixedly for a moment through narrowed +lids. "Yes," he said finally. "I would get one of the men whose firm I +expect to join the first of the year to take the case."</p> + +<p>She sat erect once more and twisted her hands together, but tried to +smile impersonally as she returned his gaze. "Would you then have time +to love her?"</p> + +<p>Again he hesitated, although he was beginning to hate himself; he felt +as if he had some beautiful wild thing of his woods in a trap, but an +imperious inner necessity urged him on. "Probably not. Now will you tell +me?"</p> + +<p>"Now?"</p> + +<p>She slipped to the floor and confronted him, holding her small head very +high. No doubt the upward movement was unconscious in its expression, +but he thought her very lovely and proud as she stood there, and for the +first time he took note of the subtlety in that delicate mobile face.</p> + +<p>"I really know nothing," she said lightly. "It is just this: if you or +any other innocent person were in danger, I should feel called upon to +unravel certain clues. Naturally I should make no move otherwise. Mrs. +Balfame is an old friend of ours—and then—well, our local pride may be +absurd, but there it is. We must watch Jim Broderick. He has discovered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +the intimacy between Dr. Anna and Mrs. Balfame, and also—what all know +here—that they were alone together during those last morning hours +following the murder. I'll warn my aunt. He really couldn't get at +her—not now, at all events; what he is after, of course, is not so much +corroboration, but a new and sensational story to keep the case going. +And, of course, as it was the press that ran Mrs. Balfame to earth, a +statement from a woman of Dr. Anna's standing justifying it would be an +immense triumph."</p> + +<p>She had moved over to a table against the farther wall, and she struck a +match and applied it to the wick of an alcohol lamp. "I am going to make +you a cup of tea. It will rest without overstimulating you, and you must +go right from here to bed. I'm sorry Mother doesn't keep whisky in the +house—"</p> + +<p>"I don't drink when I'm on a case. That's one advantage I generally have +over the other side. It will be delightful to drink tea with you once +more, although I'm free to say that outside of this house I never drank +a cup of tea in my life."</p> + +<p>The atmosphere was as agreeably light as if ponderable clouds had +suddenly rolled out of the room. Two young people drew up to a smaller +table and drank several cups of tea that had stood three minutes, +nibbled excellent biscuit, and talked about the War.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXVII</span></h2> + +<p>Three days before the date set for the opening of the trial, Mrs. +Balfame deferred to the advice of her counsel and friends and received +the women reporters—not only the four depending upon Miss Crumley, but +a representative of every Woman's Page in New York and Brooklyn.</p> + +<p>They presented themselves in a body at three o'clock in the afternoon +and were conducted upstairs by the fluttered Mrs. Larks, who had +anticipated them with all the chairs in the jail. They crowded into the +little sitting-room, and were given time to dispose themselves before +the door leading into the bedroom opened and Mrs. Balfame entered.</p> + +<p>She bowed composedly and, with a slight diffident smile, walked to the +chair reserved for her. Her weeds were relieved by white crêpe at the +neck and wrists, but to two of the newspaper women who had interviewed +her a year since as the founder of the Friday and the Country clubs, she +had lost her haunting air of girlhood; there was not a line in her +beautiful skin nor a gleam of silver in her abundant brown hair, but she +had suddenly entered upon the full maturity of her years, and what she +may have lost in charm they decided she had gained in subtle force. The +other women agreed that she looked as cold and chaste as Diana, quite +incapable of any of those mortal passions that drive fallible Earthians +into crime.</p> + +<p>It was an ordeal, and she drew a long breath.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p><p>"You—you wish to interview me?"</p> + +<p>Miss Sarah Austin, whose brilliant parts were generally recognised and +whose creative fervour was suspected by few, had been elected to the +office of spokeswoman and replied promptly:</p> + +<p>"Indeed we do, Mrs. Balfame, and before asking you any of the tiresome +questions without which there could be no interview, we should be glad +to know if you read the woman's pages in our newspapers and realise that +we are all friends and shout our belief in your innocence from the +housetops?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, oh yes," murmured Mrs. Balfame stiffly, but with a more +spontaneous smile. "That is the reason I finally consented to see you. I +do not like being interviewed. But you have been very kind, and I am +grateful."</p> + +<p>There was a deep murmur, and after Miss Austin had thanked her prettily +for her appreciation of their modest efforts, she continued in a brisk +and businesslike manner: "Now, Mrs. Balfame, what we should like is your +story. We have been warned by Mr. Rush that we cannot ask you whom you +suspect, much less the reasons upon which you found your +suspicions—ah!"</p> + +<p>Her final vocative was expressed in an angry gurgle. Rush had entered. +He was so close to panic at the prospect of facing a roomful of women +unsupported by a single male that his face was almost terrifying in its +strength, but it had suddenly occurred to him that although these girls +had agreed to write their interviews at the Dobton Inn and submit them +to his censorship, it was possible one or more would slip over to New +York, bent upon sheer sensationalism.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p><p>"You must excuse me," he said with a valiant assault upon the lighter +mood, "but my client is in the witness box, you see, and must be +protected by counsel."</p> + +<p>Miss Austin swung about and faced him with a faint satiric smile. "Oh, +very well," she said. "You may stay; but I for one shall not adjust my +hat."</p> + +<p>It is a curious fact that newspaper women are seldom, if ever, of the +masculine type; their sheer femininity, indeed, is almost as invariable +as their air of physical weariness. Not one of the little company +laughed with a more than perfunctory appreciation of their captain's +wit, and several stared at Rush, fascinated by his harsh masculinity, +the peculiar atmosphere of tense-alertness in which he seemed to have +his being, the magnetism which was more an emanation from an almost +perpetual concentration of his mental forces than from any of the +lighter physical attributes. He folded his arms and leaned against the +door, and it is only fair to the cause of woman to state that hardly one +of these, whose ages ranged from twenty to thirty-six, was unwomanly +enough, despite the fact that she earned her bread in daily competition +with man, to give Mrs. Balfame her whole attention thereafter. While +keeping their business heads, they uncovered a corner of their hearts to +the sun, and quickened, however faintly, in its glow.</p> + +<p>"Now," Miss Austin resumed, "we will, counsel permitting, ask you to +give us your story of that night. As you have been misquoted and there +has been so much speculative stuff published about you, there surely can +be no objection to that." And she squared her shoulders upon Mr. Rush.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Balfame looked at her counsel with a gracious deference, and he +nodded.</p> + +<p>"No harm in that," he said curtly. "Tell them practically the story you +would tell if you took the stand. There's only one story to tell, and it +is as well the public should bear it in mind while reading the reports +of the witnesses for the prosecution."</p> + +<p>"That means he's rehearsed her," whispered Miss Lauretta Lea, who had +reported many trials, to Miss Tracy, who was a novice. "But that's all +right."</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose I should begin with the scene at the Club—that is to +say, I do not care to speak of it in detail,—quite aside from a natural +regard for good taste,—but it seems to have been given a unique +importance."</p> + +<p>"Just so," said Miss Austin encouragingly. "Do let us have your version. +The public simply longs for it."</p> + +<p>"Well—I should tell you first that, although my husband was sometimes +irritable, he really was a good husband and we never had any vulgar +quarrels. It was only when he was not quite himself that he sometimes +said more than he meant, and he never quite forgot himself as he did +that day out at the Country Club.</p> + +<p>"I was playing bridge in one of the smaller rooms when I heard his voice +pitched in a very excited key. I knew that something unusual had +occurred, and went out into the large central room at once. There I saw +him at the upper end of the room surrounded by several of the men, who +were apparently trying to induce him to leave. He was shouting and +saying such extraordinary things that my first impression was that he +was ill or had lost his mind.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p><p>"I reasoned with him, and as it did no good and as I was deeply hurt +and mortified, I left him to the men and returned to the bridge-room. +There, in spite of the kindness of my friends, I found I was too +overcome to play, and Dr. Anna Steuer offered to drive me home. That is +all, as far as the scene at the clubhouse is concerned, except that I +cannot sufficiently emphasise that he never had acted in a similar +manner before. If he had, I should not have continued to live with +him—not that I should have obtained a divorce, for I do not approve of +the institution; but I should have moved out. I have a little money of +my own, left me by my father."</p> + +<p>"Ah—yes. Thanks. And after you were in your own house? Do you mind? Of +course, we have read the story you told the men, but we should like our +own story. Perhaps you may have thought of some other points since."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there are one or two. I had entirely forgotten in the agitation of +that time that I went below, after packing my husband's suitcase, to get +a drink of filtered water and thought I heard some one try the kitchen +door. I also thought I heard some one upstairs, and called the name of +my maid. Of course, a good deal will be made of this omission, but +considering the terrible circumstances and the fact that I never had +been interviewed before, I do not find it in the least remarkable.</p> + +<p>"But, of course, you want me to begin at the beginning." And in her +pleasant shallow voice, she told the story she had immediately concocted +for her friends.</p> + +<p>As Miss Austin asked a few questions in the endeavour to inject some +essence of personality into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> bald story, Rush permitted the +sensation of dismay with which he had listened to take implacable form. +He never had heard a less convincing story on the witness stand. Mrs. +Balfame had talked glibly, far too glibly. It was evident to the least +initiated that she had been rehearsed. Was her mind really as colourless +as her voice? Had she no sense of drama? He had hoped that the +excitement of this interview, coming after weeks of supreme monotony, +would kindle her to animation and a natural enrichment of vocabulary; +and, witnessing its effect upon these friendly women, she would be +encouraged to simulate both on the witness-stand. It was a pity, he +reflected bitterly, that a woman who could lie to her counsel with such +a fine front of innocence could not "put over" the large dramatic lie +that would help him so materially in his difficult task.</p> + +<p>Miss Austin, despairing of colour, made a shift with psychology. "Would +you mind telling us, Mrs. Balfame, if you feel a very great dread of the +trial? We realise that it must loom a terrible ordeal."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, the mere thought of all that publicity horrifies me +whenever I permit myself to think of it, but it has to be, and that is +the end of it, since the real culprit will not come forward. But I feel +confident I shall not break down under the strain. I might have done so +if the trial had followed immediately upon my arrest, but all these +weeks in jail have prepared me for anything."</p> + +<p>"But you are not terrified—of—of the outcome? We know and rejoice that +the chances are all in your favour, but men are so queer."</p> + +<p>"I am not in the least terrified. It is impossible to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> convict an +innocent woman in this country; and then"—inclining her head graciously +to the watchful Rush,—"I have the first criminal lawyer in Brabant +County to defend me. It is a detestable thought,—to be stared at in the +courtroom as if I were an object in a museum,—but I shall keep thinking +that in a few days at most it will be over and that I shall then return +to the private life I love."</p> + +<p>"Yes. And would you mind telling us something of your plans? Shall you +continue to live in Elsinore?"</p> + +<p>"I shall go far away, to Europe, if possible. I suppose I shall return +in time. Of course" (in hasty afterthought) "I should not be contented +for very long without my friends; they have grown to be doubly +valuable—and valued—during this long term of incarceration. But I must +travel for a while."</p> + +<p>"That is quite natural. How normal you are, dear Mrs. Balfame!" It was +Miss Lauretta Lea who spoke up with enthusiasm. "You are just a sweet, +serene, normal woman who couldn't commit a violent act if you tried. Be +sure the public shall see you as you are. I don't wonder your friends +adore you. Don't mind being stared at. The more people that see you, the +more friends you will have."</p> + +<p>Her eyes moved to Rush, and she was rewarded by a smile that expressed +relief. She was a very experienced reporter and knew exactly how he +felt.</p> + +<p>"And believe me," she said as they trooped down the stairs, having +passed before the Balfame throne and received a limp handshake of +dismissal, "that poor man's worried half to death. He'll get about as +much help from her on the stand as he would from a tired codfish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> But +she really is a divinely sweet woman and lovely to look at, and so I'll +sob over her for all I'm worth and seclude from the cynical and the +sentimental that she has distilled crystal in her veins."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever know such a perfectly rotten interview!" Miss Austin was +scowling fiercely. "The men did a thousand times better because they +took her by surprise, but even they cursed her. I figure out she has +made up her Friday Club mind to look the marble goddess minus every +female instinct, including a natural desire to shoot a brute of a +husband. But I wish she had brain enough to put it over with some pep. +She was afraid to be dramatic,—or couldn't be,—and so she was trying +to be literary—"</p> + +<p>"I don't agree with you!" And arguing and scolding, they wended their +disapproving way over to the Dobton Inn and sat them down at tables to +make the most of their bare material.</p> + +<p>"No censorship needed here," growled Miss Austin. "She froze my very +imagination."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXVIII</span></h2> + +<p>Rush walked up and down the room for a few moments in silence. Mrs. +Balfame sat back and folded her hands. She was haunted by a vague sense +of inefficiency, of having not quite risen to the occasion, but she felt +there could be no doubt that she not only had impressed the reporters as +an innocent woman but as a perfect lady. The rest didn't matter.</p> + +<p>"Are you really not a bit nervous?" demanded Rush, swinging on his heel +and confronting her.</p> + +<p>"I will not permit myself to be. And except that I hate publicity, I +really do not dread the trial. It means the beginning of the end of this +detestable prison life. I want to be out and free. A week in a courtroom +is not too heavy a price to pay."</p> + +<p>"Have you ever been to a murder trial?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. Such a thing would never have occurred to me."</p> + +<p>Rush sighed. She had no imagination. But as her counsel he reminded +himself that he should be grateful for the lack; he wanted no scenes, +either in the courtroom or here in the imminent hours. But he would have +welcomed a little more feminine shrinking, appeal to his superior +strength. Even when he had worshipped her from afar, she had never moved +him so powerfully as on the day of her arrest when she had flung herself +over the table in an abandonment to despair as complete as the most +exacting male could wish. That incident had long since taken on the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>shifting outlines of a dream. If she had felt any tremors since then +she had concealed them from him.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," he asked almost wistfully, "are you not terribly frightened +at times? You are alone here so much. And it has been an experience to +try even a strong man's nerves."</p> + +<p>"Women nowadays really have better nerves than men. We not only lead a +far fuller and more varied life than our predecessors, but you men work +at such a terrific strain that it is a wonder you retain any control of +your nerves at all. I will admit that I did have attacks of fear at +first. It was all so strange and odd. But I got over them. You can get +used to anything, I guess. And I have a strong will. I just made myself +think about something else. This war has been a godsend. Have you +noticed my new maps? I've really read about twenty war books, besides +all the editorials, and they have given me a distaste for lighter +reading, and really developed my—my—intellect. That seems such a big +word. And then I've knitted dozens of things for the children and +soldiers, and felt as if I were of some use for the first time in my +life."</p> + +<p>She glanced at him shyly, as he stared through the bars of one of the +windows. The suppressions of a lifetime made it impossible to betray any +depth of feeling save under terrible stress. She was ashamed of her +breakdown before him on the day of her arrest, but she was conscious of +the wish that she were able to infuse her cool even tones with warmth, +to make them tremulous at the right moment; but if she attempted to +betray something of her newer self even in her eyes, self-consciousness +overcame her and she dropped the lids almost in a panic.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p><p>She wondered if love broke down those cliffs of ice that seemed to +encompass a new-born soul. Or was it merely that the other members of +her personal company, mature, jealous, self-sufficient, resented the +intrusion of this shrinking alien? They had got on quite well without +it; they felt no yearning for possible complications, readjustments. +With all their quiet force they discouraged the stranger. Before any of +the supreme experiences, including love, they might be routed, the new +force might spring up in an instant like a flower from the magic soils +of India—but not while the conventions bulwarked them. Their sum was +Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore, and not for a moment did they permit +themselves to forget it.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it was quite true that she had conquered her first +apprehensions and welcomed the trial as the initial step toward freedom. +Her poise had always been remarkable, the result in part of a +self-centred life and a will driven relentlessly in a narrow groove. +More than ever was she determined to sit through those long days in the +courtroom with the cold aloofness of the unfortunate women of history. +The very ascents she had made of secret and solitary heights alone would +have restored her poise, for she felt on far more friendly terms with +herself than when living with a wretch she loathed, and dreaming of no +higher altitudes then complete success in Elsinore. But she wished for +the first time that she were a younger woman, or had made those ascents +many years ago; she would have liked to reveal herself spontaneously to +this interesting young man who was so deeply in love with her.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she wondered if he were as ardently in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> love with her as in +that brief period when they had talked of themselves. Not loving him in +return, she had been content with lip-service, the sure knowledge that +all his fine abilities were at work upon the obstacles to her freedom; +and she would have been deeply annoyed if he had broken the pact made on +the day of her arrest and reiterated his devotion and his hopes.</p> + +<p>But significant happenings—omissions—a certain flatness.... She turned +her head sharply and looked at him. He was still staring moodily through +the bars.</p> + +<p>If far too diffident to show the best that was in her, she found it +comparatively simple to practice the feminine art of angling, albeit +with a somewhat heavy hand.</p> + +<p>She asked softly: "Don't you think I did the wise thing to tell them I +intended to travel as soon as I was acquitted? It surely would be in +better taste than to settle down here—in that house!"</p> + +<p>"Did you mean it? The intention would make a good impression on the +public, certainly."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course I meant it. I am not a good hand at saying things merely +for effect."</p> + +<p>"Where shall you go? Europe is rather impossible."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not altogether. There is always Italy. And there is no danger from +Zeppelins in the interior of Great Britain. And there is Spain—"</p> + +<p>"I think Europe a very good place for women to keep away from until the +war is over. Any of the nations may become involved at any +minute—ourselves, for that matter. Better follow the advice of +advertisers and see America first."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I could visit the Expositions in California,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> and camp for a while +in Glacier Park, and there are the Yellowstone and Grand Cañon—but all +that would only consume a few months—and then there is this winter to +think of. What I feel I should do is to stay away for a year, at +least—"</p> + +<p>"You could live very pleasantly in Southern California."</p> + +<p>"I should be very conspicuous in those small fashionable settlements. +The case has been telegraphed all over the country, and I have seen +dreadful pictures of myself in several Western papers."</p> + +<p>"Well, you might live quietly in New York until the war is over. There +is no better place to hide—if you avoid the restaurants and theatres. +And after all, even a <i>cause célèbre</i> is quickly forgotten if there is +no aftermath. But I certainly advise against even sailing for Europe +until peace is declared. There is always the danger of mines and too +enthusiastic submarines."</p> + +<p>She turned quite cold and stared at her hands. They were well-shaped but +large, and they looked like blocks of white marble on her black gown. He +was still at the window, and his tone was listless. She had a curious +sense of panic in the region of her heart. But instantly she curled her +lip with defiant scorn. Was she the woman to fancy herself in love with +a man the moment she seemed to be in danger of losing him? Besides, no +doubt, the poor man was tired, and too absorbed in the case to have any +room in him for the moods of the lover. Only a foolish impulsive woman +would in conditions like the present try to rouse a dormant passion. +When she was free, and he as well, his heart would automatically take +precedence once more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> and he would plead ardently for the privilege of +marrying her. That was quite in order.</p> + +<p>She rose briskly. "Let me show you this map," she said. "It is the very +latest—Letitia Battle brought it to me two days ago. And do smoke."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, but I must go over and watch those girls. Yes, it is a fine +map. This war certainly is a godsend! Good luck. Keep up those splendid +spirits. You're all right."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXIX</span></h2> + +<p>"Oyez, oyez, oyez! The Supreme Court of the State of New York County of +Brabant trial term is now in session all people having business with +this court may draw near and give their attention <i>and they shall be +heard</i>."</p> + +<p>The court crier delivered his morning oration in one breathless +sentence, the last five words of which only have ever been captured by +mortal ears. The roll of the jury was called. The first witness stood on +the step of the witness-stand and swore by the everlasting God that the +testimony he would give in the trial of the People of the State of New +York against the defendant would be the truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth, and then he seated himself in the chair. The +trial of Mrs. Balfame began.</p> + +<p>It had taken three days to select a jury. If Rush was determined to keep +out Germans, Mr. Gore, the district attorney, was equally reluctant to +admit to the box any man whom he suspected of being under commands from +his wife to get on that jury and acquit Mrs. Balfame, if he had to +imperil his immortal soul. He also harboured suspicions of felonious +activities on the part of Mr. Sam Cummack and certain other patriotic +citizens less devoted to the cause of justice than to Elsinore. In +consequence the questions were not only uncommonly searching, but both +the district <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>attorney and the defendant's counsel exhausted their +peremptory challenges.</p> + +<p>The talesmen that had crowded the courtroom beyond the railing were for +the most part farmers and tradesmen, but there were not a few "prominent +residents," including rooted Brabantites and busy commuters. The last +answered without hesitation that they had followed the case closely from +the first and formed an unalterable opinion; then, dismissed, rushed off +and caught a late train for New York. Those of Mrs. Balfame's own class +would have been passed cheerfully by Mr. Rush, but in spite of their +careless avowals that they had been too busy to follow the case, or had +found it impossible to reach any conclusion, they were peremptorily +challenged by the district attorney. They, too, went to New York, not on +business, and returned to their hearthstones as late as possible.</p> + +<p>Finally a jury of almost excessively "plain men" were chosen after long +and weary hours of wrangling. They were all married; their ages ranged +from forty-five to fifty; not one looked as if he had an illusion left +in regard to the sex that had shared his burdens for a quarter of a +century, or, German or no German, he had any leniency in him for a woman +who had presumed to abbreviate the career of a man. But at least they +were real Americans, with reputations for straight dealing, and good +old-fashioned ideals of justice, irrespective of sex. Rush doubted if +any of them could be "fixed" by Mr. Cummack or the able politicians +whose services he had bespoken, although the sternest visages often hid +unsuspected weak spots; but after all his best chance was with honest +men whose soft spots were of another sort.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p><p>So naïve had been the eagerness of the German-American talesmen to get +on the jury that Rush had had little difficulty in demonstrating their +unfitness for duty. These were too thrifty to go to New York and stood +in no fear of their wives, but they avoided the <i>gemütlich</i> resort of +Old Dutch until the trial was over.</p> + +<p>Throughout this ordeal Mrs. Balfame sat immovable, impassive, her face a +white bas-relief against the heavy black crêpe of her veil, which hung +like a black panel between her profile and the western light. Her chair +was at the foot of the long table which stood beneath the two tiers of +the jury-box and was reserved for counsel, the district attorney, the +assistants and clerks. Her calm grey eyes looked straight ahead, +interested apparently in nothing but the empty witness-stand, on the +right of the jury and the left of the judge. She knew that the +reporters, and the few outsiders that had managed to crowd in with the +talesmen, scarcely took their eyes from her face, and that the staff +artists were sketching her. All her complacency had fled before certain +phases of this preliminary ordeal for which no one had thought to +prepare her. The constant reiteration of that question of horrid +significance: "Have you any objection to capital punishment as practised +in this State?" struck at the roots of her courage, enhanced her prison +pallor; and that immovable battery of eyes, hostile, or coldly +observant, critical, appraising, made her long to grind her teeth, to +rise in her chair and tell those men and women, insolent in their +freedom, what she thought of their vulgar insensibility. But not for +nothing had she schooled herself, and not for a moment did her nerves +really threaten revolt. She had taken her second sleeping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> powder on the +night preceding the opening of the trial, but on the third morning she +awakened with the momentary wish that she had preserved Dr. Anna's +poison, or could summon death in any form rather than go over to that +courthouse and be tried for her life. For the first time she understood +the full significance of her condition.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Cummack and Mrs. Gifning, when they bustled in to +"buck her up," congratulated her upon "not having a nerve in her body"; +and although she had felt she must surely faint at the end of the +underground tunnel between the jail and the rear of the courthouse, she +had walked into that room of dread import upstairs with her head erect, +her eyes level, and her hands steady. She may have built a fool's +paradise for herself, assisted by her well-meaning friends, during the +past ten weeks, and dwelt in it smugly; but as it fell about her ears +she stood erect with a real courage that strengthened her soul for any +further shocks and surprises this terrible immediate future of hers +might hold.</p> + +<p>On the first day, although she never glanced at a talesman, she had +listened eagerly to every question, every answer, every challenge. As +the third day wore on, she felt only weariness of mind, and gratitude +that she had a strong back. She was determined to sit erect and immobile +if the trial lasted a month. And not only was her personal pride +involved. Circumstances had delivered her to the public eye, therefore +should it receive an indelible impression of a worthy representative of +the middle-class American of the smaller town, so little unlike the +women of the wealthier class, and capable of gracing any position to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +which fate might call her—a type the United States of America alone has +bred; also of a woman whose courage and dignity had never been surpassed +by any man brought to the bar of justice on the awful charge of murder.</p> + +<p>She knew that this attitude, as well as her statuesque appearance, would +antagonise the men reporters but enchant her loyal friends, the women. +Her estimate was very shrewd. The poor sob sisters, squeezed in wherever +they could find a vacant chair, or even a half of one (all the tables +being reserved for the men), surrendered in a body to her cold beauty, +her superb indifference, soul and pen. A unanimous verdict of guilty +brought in by that gum-chewing small-headed jury merely would petrify +these women's belief in her innocence. She was vicarious romance; for +women that write too much have little time to live and no impulse to +murder any one in the world but the city editor.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the fourth day, the space between the enclosure and +the walls of the courtroom was filled with spectators from all over the +county, many of them personal friends of Mrs. Balfame; but New York City +would not become vitally interested until the business of examining the +minor witnesses was concluded. Behind and at the left of Mrs. Balfame +were the members of her intimate circle. Occasionally they whispered to +her, and she smiled so sweetly and with such serene composure that even +the men reporters admitted she looked younger and more feminine—and +more handsome—than on that day of the interview which had proved her +undoing.</p> + +<p>"But she did it all right," they assured one another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> They must believe +in her guilt or suffer twinges in that highly civilised and possibly +artificial section of the brain tabulated as conscience. Their fixed +theory was that she had mixed the poison for Balfame and then, being in +a highly nervous state, and apprehensive that he would capriciously +refuse to drink it, had snatched her pistol as she heard his voice in +the distance, dashed downstairs and out into the grove, and fired with +her established accuracy.</p> + +<p>She had had plenty of time between the crime and her arrest to pass the +pistol to one of her friends, or even to slip out at night and drop it +in the marsh.</p> + +<p>As to the shot that had missed Balfame and entered the tree: it was +either by one of those coincidences more frequent in fact than in +fiction that another enemy of Balfame's had been lurking in the grove, +intent upon murder; or the bullet hole was older than they had inferred. +The idea of a lover they scoffed at openly. And it was one of the +established facts, as they reminded their sisters of the press, that the +worst women in history had looked like angels, statues or babies; they +had also possessed powerful sex magnetism, and this the handsome +defendant wholly lacked.</p> + +<p>The theory of the women reporters was far simpler. She hadn't done it +and that was the end of it.</p> + +<p>The judge, a tall imposing man with inherited features and accumulated +flesh, very stately and remote in his flowing silk gown, looked +unspeakably bored for three days, but was visibly hopeful as he swept up +to his seat on the rostrum on Thursday morning. As the justice for +Brabant, Mr. Bascom, had not been on speaking terms with the deceased, +and as his wife was one of the defendant's closest friends, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> eminent +Supreme Court justice from one of the large neighbouring cities had been +assigned to the case.</p> + +<p>The reporters of the evening newspapers, were packed closely about a +long table parallel with the one just below the jury-box, and behind +were four or five smaller tables dedicated to the morning stars. A large +number of favoured spectators had found seats within the railings, but a +passage was kept open for the boys who came up at regular intervals to +get copy from the "evening table" for the telegraph operator below +stairs.</p> + +<p>Broderick's seat beneath the rostrum commanded both the witness-box and +Mrs. Balfame. He had used his influence to have Alys Crumley assigned to +the position of artist for the Woman's Page of the <i>News</i>, and she and +Sarah Austin shared a chair.</p> + +<p>The trial began. Dr. Lequer established the fact of the death, described +the course of the bullet, demonstrating that it had been fired by some +one concealed in the grove. A surveyor followed and exhibited to the +jury a map of the house and grounds. Three of the younger members of the +Country Club, Mr. John Bradshaw Battle, cashier of the Elsinore Bank; +Mr. Lemuel Cummack, son of Elsinore's esteemed citizen, Mr. Sam Cummack; +and Mr. Leonard Corfine, a commuter, had been subpœnaed after a +matching of wits. Overawed by the solemnity of the oath, they gave a +circumstantial account of the quarrel which had preceded the murder but +a few hours—all, in spite of constant interruptions from the +defendant's counsel, conveying the impression, however unwillingly, that +Mrs. Balfame had been livid with wrath and the man who had been her +husband insufferable. It was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> master-stroke of the district attorney +to open his case with the damaging testimony of two members of the loyal +Elsinore families. As for Mr. Corfine, although born and brought up +without the pale, he had been graciously received upon electing to build +his nest in Elsinore and his young wife was one of Mrs. Balfame's +meekest admirers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Broderick muttered, "H'm! H'm!" and Mr. Bruce squirmed round from +the "evening table" and jerked his eyebrows at his senior. "Bad! Bad!" +muttered Mr. Broderick's neighbour. "But watch her nerve. Can you beat +it? She hasn't batted an eyelash."</p> + +<p>Two former servants that had preceded Frieda in the Balfame menage +testified that the household consisted of three people only, the master +and mistress and the one in help. A gardener came three times a week in +the morning. No, none of the old spare rooms was now furnished, and the +Balfames never had had visitors overnight.</p> + +<p>The prosecution rested, and Mr. Rush approached the bar according to +usage and asked that the case be dismissed. The judge ruled that it +should proceed; and immediately after the noon recess the first witness +for the defence was called. This was Mr. Cummack, and he testified +vigorously to the harmonious relations of the deceased and his amiable +wife; that Mrs. Balfame—who was always pale—had treated the episode +out at the Club in the casual manner observed by all seasoned and +intelligent wives, the conversation over the telephone in his house +proving that the domestic heavens were swept clean of storm-clouds; and +that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> deceased had departed for his home quite happy and singing at +the top of his lungs. He had often remarked jocularly (his was a cheery +and jocular temperament) that he expected to die with his boots on, +especially since he had taken to bawling Tipperary in the face of +American Germany.</p> + +<p>It is not to be imagined that Mr. Cummack was able to deliver himself of +this valuable testimony without frequent and indignant interruptions +from the district attorney, whose "irrelevant, incompetent and +immaterial" rang through the courtroom like the chorus of a Gilbert and +Sullivan opera. Mr. Gore, a wasp of a man with snapping black eyes and a +rasping voice emitted through his higher nasal passages, succeeded in +having much of this testimony stricken out, but not before the wily Mr. +Rush, who stood on tiptoe, as alert and nervous as a race horse at the +grandstand, had by his adroit swift questions fairly flung it into the +jury-box. It was of the utmost importance with an obstinate provincial +jury to establish at once a favourable general impression of the +prisoner.</p> + +<p>When, in the theatre, a trial scene is depicted, it is necessary to +interpose dramatic episodes, but no one misses these adventitious +incidents in a real trial for murder, so dramatic is the bare fact that +a human being is battling for his life. When the prisoner at the bar is +a woman reasonably young and good looking, the interest is so intense +and complete that the sudden intrusion of one of the incidents which +have become the staples of the theatre, such as the real culprit rushing +into the courtroom and confessing himself, a suicide in the witness-box, +or dramatic conduct on the part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> the defendant, would be resented by +the spectators, as an anti-climax. Real drama is too logical and grimly +progressive to tolerate the extrinsic.</p> + +<p>The three other men who had been at Mr. Cummack's house that night were +called, and corroborated his story. They all wore an expression of +gentle amusement as if the bare idea of the stately and elegant Mrs. +Balfame descending to play even a passive rôle in a domestic row was as +unthinkable as that any woman could find aught in David Balfame to rouse +her to ire.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" whispered Mr. Broderick to Mr. Wagstaff of the <i>Morning +Flag</i>, "just figure to yourself what the line would be if she had been +caught red-handed and was putting up a defence of temporary insanity +caused by the well-known proclivities of that beast. A good subject for +a cartoon would be Dave Balfame in heaven with a tin halo on, +whitewashing Mrs. B., weeds and all. The human mind is nothing but a +sewer."</p> + +<p>The afternoon session was also enlivened by the testimony of several of +the ladies who had been members of the bridge party on the day of Mr. +Balfame's unseemly conduct at the Club. They testified that although +Mrs. Balfame naturally dissolved upon her return to the card-room, there +had been nothing whatever in her demeanour to suggest seething passion. +Mrs. Battle, who was an imposing figure in the witness chair, her +greater bulk being above the waist, tossed her head and asseverated with +refined emphasis that Mrs. Balfame was one of those rare and exquisite +beings that are temperamentally incapable of passion of any sort. Her +immediate return to her home was prompted more by delicacy than even by +pain. Miss Crumley's pencil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> faltered as she listened. She could not +give a jeering public even a faithful outline of a woman as devoted to +the sacred cause of friendship and Elsinore as Mrs. Battle.</p> + +<p>The testimony of none of these ladies was more emphatic than that of +Mrs. Bascom, wife of the supplanted justice, and she added unexpectedly +that she had been so upset herself that she too had left the clubhouse +immediately, and, her swift car passing Dr. Anna Steuer's little +runabout, she had seen Mrs. Balfame chatting pleasantly and without a +trace of recent emotion.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame almost relaxed the set curves of her mouth at this +surprising statement. She recalled that a car had passed and that she +had wondered at the time if any one had noticed her extreme agitation. +She kept her muscles in order, but unconsciously her eyes followed Mrs. +Bascom, as she left the witness-chair, with an expression of puzzled +gratitude.</p> + +<p>The District Attorney turned to the reporters with a short sardonic +laugh, and Mr. Broderick shook his head as he murmured to Mr. Wagstaff:</p> + +<p>"Can you beat that? And yet they say women don't stand by one another."</p> + +<p>"Good for the whole game, I guess," replied the young <i>Flag</i> star, who +was enamoured of a very pretty suffragette.</p> + +<p>The Judge rose, and the afternoon session was over. The great case of +The People vs. Mrs. Balfame rested until the following morning.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXX</span></h2> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame walked back through the now familiar tunnel more hopeful +and elated than any one in the courtroom would have inferred from her +chiselled manner.</p> + +<p>"I almost feel that I have the courage to look at the sketches of myself +in the papers," she said lightly to Rush, who escorted her. "I haven't +dared open a paper since Monday morning."</p> + +<p>"Better not." Rush also was in high spirits. "Keep your mental mercury +as high as possible. It doesn't matter, anyhow. You'll be clear in less +than a week. The impression all those splendid friends of yours created +knocked the prosecution silly."</p> + +<p>"I have not once glanced at the jury," said Mrs. Balfame proudly, "and I +never shall. All I was conscious of was that they were chewing gum, and +that the man above me snorts constantly."</p> + +<p>"That's Houston. He's likely to be predisposed in your favour on account +of your intimacy with Dr. Anna. And he's a just man, of some +intelligence. I fancy none of them is in the mood to be too hard on any +one, for they are having a fine vacation in the Paradise City Hotel. +Each has a big room with a soft bed and rich and delicate food three +times a day. If they don't get indigestion they will be inclined to +mercy on general principles. I engineered the housing of them. Gore was +all for putting them up at the Dobton<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> Inn, where they would have grown +as vicious as starved dogs. I won my point by reminding him that certain +men of that sort try to get on a jury for the sake of having a rest and +a soft time, and if they aren't coddled, they are equal to falling ill +and forcing the court to begin the trial over again. You're all right."</p> + +<p>They were in the jail sitting-room, and she stood with her head thrown +back and her eyes shining. The moment they had entered she had removed +her heavy hat and veil and run her hands through her crushed hair. Rush, +who was very nervous and excited, made a swift motion forward as if to +seize her hands. But it was only later, when alone, that she realised +that possibly she had brushed aside an opportunity to rekindle a flame +which she alternately feared and doubted was burning low; she was not +thinking of him and exclaimed happily:</p> + +<p>"It is quite a wonderful sensation to feel that you have made friends +like that. My! how they did lie! And so convincingly! For a moment I was +quite the outsider and deeply impressed with the weakness of the case +against the accused. Here they come. I feel as if I never really loved +them before." And she ran to the door to admit the elated trio who that +day had made their noblest sacrifice to the cause of friendship. Mrs. +Balfame kissed them and embraced them, and dried their excited tears, +while Rush, his contemptible part in the day's drama forgotten, slunk +down the stairs and out of the jail.</p> + +<p>He met Alys Crumley as she was about to board the trolley for Elsinore, +and she stepped back and congratulated him warmly.</p> + +<p>"Your brain worked like blades of chain lightning,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> she said with real +enthusiasm. "I know you have only begun, but I can well imagine—wasn't +Mrs. Balfame delighted?"</p> + +<p>"With her friends' testimony," he replied gloomily. "I don't seem to come in."</p> + +<p>There are some impulses, born of sudden opportunity, too strong for +mortal powers of resistance. "Come home to supper," said Miss Crumley, +with the same spontaneous warmth. "You look so tired, and Mother +promised me Maryland chicken and waffles. Besides, I want to show you my +drawings. I am so proud of being a staff artist."</p> + +<p>"I'll come," said Rush promptly.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXI</span></h2> + +<p>The following day was also taken by the examination of witnesses for the +defence. Dr. Lequer, who had been called in occasionally by the Balfames +when Dr. Anna was unavailable, and who was also an old friend of the +family, asserted that so far as he knew there never had been a quarrel +between husband and wife. Mrs. Balfame, in fact, was unique in his +experience, inasmuch as she never looked depressed nor shed tears.</p> + +<p>He was followed by a woman who had been general housemaid in the Balfame +home for three years. She had left it to reward the devotion of a +plumber, and between her and Frieda there had been a long line of the +usual incompetents. Mrs. Figg testified with an enthusiasm which +triumphed over nerves and grammar that although she guessed Mr. Balfame +was about like other husbands, especially at breakfast, Mrs. Balfame was +too easy-going to mind. She'd never seen her mad. Yes, she was an +exacting mistress, all right, terrible particular, and she never sat +with the hired girl in the kitchen and gossiped, and you couldn't take a +liberty with her like you could with some; but that was just her way, +naturally proud and silent-like. She was terrible economical but a kind +mistress, as she didn't scold and follow up, once she was sure the girl +would suit, and not a bit mean about evenings and afternoons off. She +did up her own room and dusted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> the downstairs rooms, except for the +weekly cleaning. No, she never'd seen no pistol. It wasn't her way to +look in bureau drawers. No, she'd never seen or heard any jealousy, +tempers, and so forth, and had always taken it for granted that Mrs. +Balfame wasn't on to Mr. Balfame's doings—or if she was, she didn't +care. There was lots like that.</p> + +<p>The district attorney snarled and trumpeted throughout this placid +recital, but Mrs. Figg took no notice of him whatever. She had been +thoroughly drilled, and looked straight into the sparkling blue eyes of +Mr. Rush as if hypnotised.</p> + +<p>Other minor witnesses consumed the afternoon, and once more Mrs. Balfame +returned to the jail with glowing eyes. The women reporters were elated. +The men made no comment as they filed out of the courtroom, but their +whole bearing expressed a lofty and quiet scorn.</p> + +<p>"It's fine! fine!" exclaimed Cummack, sitting down beside Rush at the +table below the empty jury-box. "But I do wish Dr. Anna was available. +She stands head and shoulders above every one else in the estimation of +these jurymen; she doctored the children and confined the wives of +pretty near all of them. There's no stone she wouldn't leave unturned."</p> + +<p>"She's pretty bad, isn't she?" asked Rush. "Would there be any chance at +all of getting a deposition—in case things went wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Things ain't goin' wrong; but as for Anna, she's out of it, and +everything else, I guess. I was out to the hospital yesterday, for I've +had her in mind; but although she was better for a time, she's worse +again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> But say—what do you think I discovered? Those damned newspaper +men have been hangin' round out there. That young devil Broderick—"</p> + +<p>Rush was sitting up very straight, his eyes glittering. "But he surely +hasn't been able to see her? I don't believe any sort of graft would get +by Mrs. Dissosway—"</p> + +<p>"You bet he hasn't been able to see Anna, and just now they're not +leaving her for a moment alone, like they did at first. But Broderick +seems to have the idea wedged in his brain that Mrs. Balfame confessed +to Anna and that poor old Doc lost the pistol somewhere out in the +marsh—"</p> + +<p>Rush made an exclamation of disgust. "I can't understand Broderick. He's +got his trial all right, and it isn't like him to hound a woman—"</p> + +<p>"I said as much to him, and though he wouldn't talk much, I just +gathered from something he let fall that he was afraid if the crime +wasn't well fixed onto Enid some innocent person he thought a lot more +of might come under suspicion. Can you guess who he had in mind?"</p> + +<p>Rush pushed back his chair and sprang to his feet. "Good Lord, no. One +case at a time is all my brain is equal to." He was almost out of the +empty courtroom when Cummack caught him firmly by the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Say, Dwight," he said with evident embarrassment, "hold on a minute. +I've just got to tell you that somehow or other I sensed <i>you</i> when +Broderick was trying to put me off. There are a good many things; +they've been comin' back—"</p> + +<p>Rush turned the hard glittering blue of his eyes full<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> upon Mr. Cummack, +whose shrewd but kindly gaze faltered for a moment. "Do you believe I +did it?" demanded Rush.</p> + +<p>"Well, no, not exactly—that is, I'd know that if you had done it, it +would have been because you'd got the idea into your head that Enid was +having an awful row to hoe, or because he'd attacked her that night. It +wouldn't have been for no mean personal reason, and no one knows better +than I that the blood goes to the head terrible easy at your age and +when a beautiful woman is in question. If I'd guessed it before, I'm +free to say I'd have rushed your arrest in order to spare Enid, if for +no other reason. But as it's gone so far and she's sure to get off,—and +you wouldn't stand much show,—the matter had best stay where it is; +particularly—well, I may as well tell you Enid sort of confided to +Polly that you had offered to cover her name with yours as soon as she +got out; and if you've been in love with her all this time, as I guess +you have been—well, Dave can't be brought back. And—well, I've lived +out West and it isn't so uncommon there for a man to shoot on sight when +he's mad about a woman and a few other things at the same time. Dave was +my friend, but I guess I understand."</p> + +<p>Rush had withdrawn stiffly from the friendly hand laid on his shoulder. +"I have asked Mrs. Balfame to marry me," he said. "But she has by no +means consented."</p> + +<p>"But she means to. Don't let it worry you. Women are queer cattle. Nail +her the next time she's in the melting mood. She gets 'em oftener than +she ever did before, and I guess you see her alone often enough."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, yes, I've seen her alone nearly every day for ten weeks."</p> + +<p>Cummack narrowed his eyes, and his face, generally relaxed and amiable, +grew stern and menacing. "You don't love her!" he exclaimed. "You don't! +Like many another damned fool, you've compromised your very life for a +woman, only to be disenchanted by seeing too much of her. But by God +you've got to marry her—"</p> + +<p>They were standing at the head of the winding stair in the rotunda, and +several of the reporters were still in front of the telephone booth +below.</p> + +<p>"Hush!" said the lawyer peremptorily. "I mean to marry Mrs. Balfame if +she accepts the proposal I made to her the day she was arrested. I have +said nothing to warrant your jumping to the conclusion that I no longer +wish to marry her. But by God! if you ever dare to threaten me again—" +And he raised his fist so menacingly, his set face was so tense and +white, his eyes bore such a painful resemblance to hot coals, that +Cummack retreated hastily.</p> + +<p>"All right! All right!" he called up from the first turning. "Don't +fancy I think I could. And what's passed between us is sacred. S'long."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXII</span></h2> + +<p>On the morrow the first witness called by the prosecution in rebuttal +was old Kraus, and now it was Mr. Rush's turn to shout "Immaterial, +Irrelevant and Incompetent," so that it was well-nigh impossible for the +jury to do more than guess what the choleric person with a strong German +accent was talking about. The district attorney fought valiantly to draw +forth the story of Frieda's nocturnal visit to the Kraus home in search +of advice after hearing Mrs. Balfame enter the kitchen from the yard, +but his efforts ended in a shouting contest between the prosecution and +the defence, both deserting their positions before the jury-box and +wrangling before the Judge like two angry school-boys. Alys Crumley +longed to laugh aloud, but not so the Judge. He asked them curtly how he +was to know what was their point of dispute if they both talked at once. +He then commanded Mr. Rush to state in as few words as possible what he +was objecting to; and when the counsel for the defence had stated his +purely legal reasons for blocking this purely hearsay testimony, the +Judge abruptly threw Mr. Kraus out of court. Rush, flushed and +triumphant, returned to his chair below the jury-box, and Mr. Gore +sulkily called the name of Miss Frieda Appel.</p> + +<p>There was no question of poor Frieda's making a good personal impression +upon spectators or jury, no matter how worthy her motives. She had saved +almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> every penny of her wages since coming to America; it had been +her lover's intention to emigrate to Brabant County as soon as his term +of service was over, and her housewifely intention to greet him with a +furnished cottage. Since the war began, she had sent all her savings to +East Prussia lest her people starve.</p> + +<p>Dress in any circumstances would never tempt her. Economy was her +religion, and she cherished no illusions about her face and form. To-day +she wore a skirt of an old voluminous cut and a jacket with high +puckered sleeves. The colour had once been brown. Her coarse blonde hair +met her eyebrows in a thick bang, and its high knob was surmounted by a +sailor hat a size too small. Her thick-set body was uncorseted, and her +indeterminate features were lost in the width and flatness of her face. +Only the little eyes beneath the heavy thatch of hair alternately glowed +dully and spat fire.</p> + +<p>The Judge sternly suppressed the titter that ran over the court-room as +this caricature mounted the witness-stand, and the district attorney, in +spite of frequent interruptions, elicited a remarkably clear and +coherent statement. The Judge sustained him, for here was a real +witness, and Miss Appel not only had been as thoroughly rehearsed as +Mrs. Figg, but she had a neat precise little mind set with rows of +pigeonholes that ejected their contents in routine when her coach +pressed the cognate button.</p> + +<p>She had come home abruptly from the dance-hall as she had an +insupportable toothache—had run all the way, as she had some +toothache-drops in her room. She was in such agony she hardly had +noticed that her friend Conrad Kraus was behind her. When she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> reached +her room she had applied the drops, and to her horror they made the pain +worse. After walking the floor for perhaps ten minutes—she didn't know +or care whether it was ten or fifteen minutes—she was just starting to +go down-stairs and heat some water for her bag when she heard the +kitchen door open and shut. She held her breath and did not answer when +Mrs. Balfame called, as she feared she was wanted and was determined to +do nothing for anybody while her tooth ached like that.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame's voice had sounded quite breathless, as if she had been +running. In a moment Frieda heard her go into the dining-room then back +to the kitchen, and turn on the tap,—not the filter, which made no +noise,—and then she heard one glass clink against another on the pantry +shelf. After that, Mrs. Balfame went upstairs from the front hall and +the witness returned to her room and threw herself on the bed, where she +remained until Mr. Cummack came and asked her to go downstairs and make +coffee. By this time her tooth ached so she didn't care what she did.</p> + +<p>Cross-questioned, she admitted that Mrs. Balfame was in the habit of +drinking a glass of filtered water the last thing at night. No, she had +not heard her go out, but only come in. But why, if Mrs. Balfame saw +nothing outside to frighten her, or if she hadn't been out, was she so +short of breath? As may be imagined, mere speculation on Miss Appel's +part was cut short by Mr. Rush, who interrupted her constantly. Yes, she +had heard what she now knew had been a shot but she had paid no +attention. Who would, with a red-hot iron forcing one's tooth down +through one's jaw?</p> + +<p>Even the scornful questions of counsel which forced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> her to admit that +she had lied to the coroner neither perturbed her nor made any +impression on jury, press, or spectators. Every one present had suffered +from toothache, and two farmers in the box showed their tusks in an +appreciative grin when she replied tartly that she didn't know or care +anything that day but tooth, tooth, tooth. It was manifest that she was +far too conservative to have had it out at once, to say nothing of the +cost.</p> + +<p>The only question she was not prepared for was the abrupt challenge of +Mr. Rush as to how she could prove that young Kraus had followed her if +she had neither seen nor spoken to him during that short run from Main +Street. But although she was visibly perturbed at being confronted with +a set of words to which no neat little pigeon-hole responded, it was so +evident she was firmly convinced her friend had accompanied her, that +for Rush to make too much of his solitary point would prejudice his +case, and he let her go.</p> + +<p>Conrad Jr. followed, and his story was equally straightforward. He also +made a good impression. True, he had a very small closely cropped head, +with eyes too small and ears too large, but he held himself with +arrogance, and he was well dressed in a new grey suit and pink shirt. +Born in the United States, it was manifest that he was proud not only of +being an American citizen but of the country's choicest vintage. He had +been sent to the public school until he was sixteen, had studied +conscientiously, and his grammar was quite as good as that of the +District Attorney, who in emotional moments confused his negatives. But, +even Rush, whose advantages had been as superior as his natural +equipment, became a good nasal American when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> excited, opened into +vowels, and freely translated <i>you</i> into <i>yer</i>. It is these persistent +characteristics, so racy of the soil, which cheer us when apprehending +that our original Americanism may in time be obliterated by the foreign +influx.</p> + +<p>No, said young Kraus, he had no sentimental interest in Frieda. (He +smiled.) And he was engaged to a young lady to whom he had been +attentive for three years. But he felt like a brother to Frieda; she had +come to his father's house direct from Germany, their families having +been friends for generations. It was not only his duty but his pleasure +to dance with her, she being "the best of the bunch down at the hall."</p> + +<p>As he was dancing with her when her toothache became unendurable, it was +natural that he should see her home; in fact, he always saw her home +when it was convenient. Of course if he had to catch the last trolley +for Dobton in a hurry, that was another matter.</p> + +<p>When she had entered the house, he had waited, thinking she might want +some other drops or possibly a dentist. Once when he had had a +toothache, he had been obliged to go to a dentist's house at night. His +papa had sent him, and naturally he thought of it as a possibility in +Frieda's case.</p> + +<p>Then the kitchen door opened and a woman came out.</p> + +<p>At this point the interest in the court-room became intense. Even the +blasé young reporters sat forward, their pencils poised. The Judge +wheeled his chair to the right and stared down fixedly at the back of +young Kraus' head. The district attorney balanced himself on his heels, +his thumbs hooked in the sleeves of his vest, and Rush stood with his +back curved as if to spring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> down the witness' throat with a wild yell +of "Immaterial, irrelevant and incompetent." Only Mrs. Balfame sat like +a statue that had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear.</p> + +<p>Yes, Mr. Kraus recognised Mrs. Balfame's figure and walk. She was one in +a thousand for looks, and taller than many men. She had on a long dark +ulster and a black scarf round her head. The kitchen light was behind +her—</p> + +<p>Here there was another furious contest between the chief counsel and the +district attorney, but the Judge ordered the young man (who had consumed +a toothpick imperturbably) to proceed with his story. Mrs. Balfame had +slipped round the corner of the house, listened intently, walked for a +minute toward the back of the grounds,—he could just see the moving +shadow in the darkness,—turned abruptly and entered the grove. +Naturally interested, he waited to see what she was up to; and +then—possibly three or four minutes later—he heard Balfame singing +"Tipperary," and a moment or two after that the shot,—one shot, not +two; he took no stock in the theory that there had been two +shots,—followed by loud voices from the other side of the avenue.</p> + +<p>Then he "beat it," that being his natural instinct at the moment. His +papa had taught him to be cautious and to keep clear of other people's +fights. He had never been close up against a crime, and he hoped he +never should be. He walked through the adjoining grounds at the back and +then into Balfame Street and took the next trolley home. He didn't feel +like dancing after what he guessed had happened.</p> + +<p>No, he had heard no sound of running footsteps, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> he stood for a +moment near the back fence of the Lequer place; there were people in the +library until some man ran in calling for the doctor to come at +once—and he did see a car leave the lane behind the Balfame place. He +had thought nothing of it, however, as automobiles were everywhere all +the time. No, he hadn't tried to see whether the car was driven by a man +or woman or how many occupants it had. Not only was the night very dark +(as far as he remembered, the car had no lamps), but his one idea was to +get out of the neighbourhood.</p> + +<p>Rush put him through a grilling cross-examination, and although he could +not shake his testimony, he made use of all his practised arts to +exhibit the youth as a sorry coward who ran away when he heard a +revolver-shot instead of rushing with the common instinct of American +manhood to ascertain if it were the woman herself who had been the +victim. How much had he been paid to give this testimony withheld at the +coroner's inquest? Young Kraus' ruddy hues had deepened to purple some +time since, and he shouted back that he had come forward only when that +woman's lying friends were trying to fasten the crime upon his innocent +papa. Here he was sternly admonished by the Judge to confine his answers +to "Yes" and "No" unless he could control his temper. Rush forced him to +reiterate that he had not had a glimpse of Mrs. Balfame's face that +night, that he never had spoken to her at any time; and the lawyer +remarked crushingly that the young man's brain must have been in a +hopelessly confused state if he saw a car leave the lane so soon after +the shooting—a car, moreover, without lights—and failed to connect +this phenomenon with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> the immediately previous sound of a pistol-shot. +It was evident that his brain moved so slowly that it had taken him +almost a week to put a good story together.</p> + +<p>Young Kraus left the stand with his inborn sense of superiority over +mere Americans severely shaken, but although his small angry eyes +encountered more than one sneer, and many of those hostile spectators +looked as if they would laugh outright were it not for their awe of the +Judge, he had injured Mrs. Balfame far more than himself. Few believed +him to be lying or that he had seen a vision, not a real woman, leave +the Balfame house by the kitchen door. He was known to have been as +sober as usual on the night of the dance, and as the evidence against +his father had been regarded as fantastic from the first, there was no +conceivable cause for him to lie.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gifning, Mr. Battle and Mr. Carden, who were the first to reach +Balfame, after he fell, were forced by the district attorney to give +damning evidence against Mrs. Balfame. Her room was in the front of the +house; if in it, she could have heard the shot as plainly as they on Mr. +Gifning's veranda. But she did not come downstairs or manifest herself +in any way until they had had time to summon the coroner (who to be sure +lived round the corner) and Dr. Lequeur. It must have been quite six +minutes before she opened her window and demanded the reason for the +disturbance at her gate. At least, it had seemed that long. No, they +never confused a revolver-shot with a bursting tire. They had when cars +first came into use, but they had learned to differentiate long since.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Rush asked them sarcastically why one at least of the party had +not searched the grove and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>attempted to capture the murderer, they +replied they had by no means been sure that the shot had come from the +grove. It might have come from anywhere. It was only after the doctor's +examination that the direction of the bullet had been agreed upon. Later +they did search the grove with a dark-lantern brought from Mrs. +Gifning's house; in fact, they searched every inch of the grounds, and +their only reward was abuse from the police.</p> + +<p>These three witnesses, examined after the noon recess, occupied very +little time. It was at ten minutes to four that the district attorney +electrified every one in the courtroom by calling to the stand a man +whose name up to that moment had not been mentioned in the case. The +reporters looked deeply annoyed; even Mrs. Balfame raised her head a +trifle higher as if listening; Rush's pale face was paler, the lines in +it seemed deeper, as he sprang to his feet, alert at once, his nostrils +expanding. The district attorney balanced himself on his heels, his +thumbs in his waistcoat armholes, a grin of triumph on his sharp little +face.</p> + +<p>The name called was James Mott, and it was borne by a highly reputable +drummer who had made sales for many years to houses carrying general +merchandise, including that of Balfame & Cummack. Mr. Mott was as well +known in Brabant County as any of its inhabitants; in fact, he was +engaged to an estimable young lady of Elsinore, and hence, so it soon +transpired, had happened to be in town on the fatal night. For once the +acumen of the district attorney had proved more penetrating than that of +the brilliant counsel for the defence.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mott took the stand. He was a clean-shaven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> upstanding American with +the keen eye and grim mouth of the travelling salesman who knows that he +must do or die. He looked as honest as urbane, and for the first time +Mrs. Balfame's heart sank; and her hands, so the women reporters noted +for the benefit of the public, clenched for a full minute.</p> + +<p>Although Rush stood with his head stretched forward, he thought it wise +to let the man tell his story in his own way. Interruptions would have +been of little avail; the Judge would sustain the district attorney if +it were patent the witness were telling the truth; and as he was +completely in the dark himself it were better to wait until he got a +promising lead. He knew that no man's brain could work more quickly than +his.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mott being solemnly sworn, deposed that on the night of the shooting +he had been taking supper with his friend Miss Lacke, who lived at +Number 3 Dawbarn Street, just round the corner from Elsinore Avenue. He +left her house at a little before eight, as he was obliged to catch the +eight-ten for New York. As he closed the gate behind him, he saw David +Balfame walk unsteadily past, shouting "Tipperary"; and being a friend +of many years' standing, had concluded to follow and see Balfame safely +inside the house. He would lose but a minute or two, and it seemed to +him a decent act, for it was possible the man might fall and hurt +himself before he reached his home. Mott was so close behind him that he +must have just escaped the shot or shots himself, and although he jumped +backward he saw distinctly somebody run out of the grove and toward the +back of the house. Whether it was a man or a woman he had no idea, but +the figure was tall—yes far taller than either young Kraus or Frieda.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +Then, he said, he doubled on his tracks and got back into Dawbarn Street +as quickly as he could. He blushed as he admitted this, but added that +he knew from the shouts on Gifning's veranda that men were hastening to +Balfame's aid, and he had to catch the eight-ten or lose his night train +to the West and a big piece of business. Moreover, he didn't like the +idea of giving testimony against anybody; he abhorred the institution of +capital punishment. For the same reason he did not come forward until +the District Attorney ferreted him out, as he was afraid the running +figure might have been Mrs. Balfame and she was the last person he +wished to harm, innocent or guilty.</p> + +<p>No one could doubt that he told the truth and hated to tell it. Nor +could any one jump to the conclusion that he was the assassin; he had as +little motive for killing Balfame as any of the other men of Brabant +County with whom he had been for years on the same cordial terms.</p> + +<p>All that Rush could do was to make him admit that perhaps he was +naturally confused by the flash, the report almost in his ear, the man +sinking at his feet, and only fancied he saw a running form; the +delusion would be natural in the circumstances, particularly as his +thoughts seemed to have been concentrated upon getting out of the way. +Mr. Mott admitted almost too eagerly that this might be true, but added +that when the district attorney, who was a cousin of Miss Lacke, as well +as an old friend of his own, had squeezed the story out of him bit by +bit (the form of extraction was supplied by Mr. Rush), that had been his +impression; he seemed to have that tall running figure imprinted upon +his retina, as it were. Of course it might be just imagination.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> He +wished to God he could swear it was. When asked sharply if even one of +his parents was German, he recovered his poise and replied haughtily +that he was straight American and as pro-Allies as the best man in the +country. He had never entered Old Dutch's beer garden; his choice was a +hotel bar, anyhow; he avoided saloons.</p> + +<p>Rush had a diabolical power of making a witness look ridiculous, but the +American mind is essentially a just mind, normally unemotional, and a +very magnet for facts. As the Judge adjourned the court until Monday the +sob-sisters trailed out dejectedly, after a vain endeavour to get close +to Mrs. Balfame; the young men sauntered forth with their heads in the +air, and Rush's lips were so closely pressed together that his face +looked pure granite. As a matter of fact, his heart felt like water.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame, who had not permitted herself to show a flicker of +interest while Mott was on the stand, rose as the Judge left the room. +She smiled upon each of her friends separately and kissed the prominent +ladies of Elsinore who had sat beside her throughout that trying day.</p> + +<p>"Please don't come over to the jail," she said. "I know you are worn +out, and I have a bad headache. I must lie down. But do please come +to-morrow. You are all too good. Thank you so much."</p> + +<p>Then with a faint smile and a light step she followed the sheriff +through the long tunnel, a horrible vision dancing before her eyes.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXIII</span></h2> + +<p>When Rush arrived at the sitting-room of the jail's private suite he +found Mrs. Balfame, not in tears as he had nervously anticipated, but +distraught, pacing the room, her hands in her disordered hair.</p> + +<p>"I am done for! done for!" she cried as Rush hastily closed the door. +"It would have been better if I had told the truth in the +beginning—that I <i>had</i> gone out that night. It was not such a bad +excuse,—that I thought I saw a burglar down there,—and it was God's +truth. Or I could have said I was walking about the grounds because I +had a headache—"</p> + +<p>"It never would have gone down. If I could have discovered who the other +person in the grove was—found him and his forty-one-calibre revolver, +well and good. Failing that, our line of defence is the best possible. I +will admit, though," he too was pacing the room,—"it looks bad to-day, +pretty bad. There isn't the ghost of a chance to prove Mott was the man. +Gore has the time to the minute he left Susie Lacke's; you must have +gone out some time before—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he didn't do it. I've not thought it for a moment. No such luck. It +was some enemy who went straight to New York—in that car. But +I—I—Auburn—the electric chair—they all believed—Oh, my God! God!"</p> + +<p>She had tossed her arms above her head then flung herself down before +the table, her face upon them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> rocking her body back and forth. Her +voice was deep with horror and despair, her abandonment far more +complete than on the day of her arrest; and wrought up himself, Rush was +stirred with the echo of all he had felt that day. In the semi-intimacy +of these past ten weeks, when he had talked with her for hours at a +time, she had disillusioned him in many ways, bored him, forced him to +admit that her lovely shell concealed an uninteresting mind, and that +the only depths in her personality that he was permitted to glimpse were +such as to make him shrink, by no means to excite that fascination even +in repulsion peculiar to the faults of a more passionate nature. He +still thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, however, +and if it was beauty which now left him cold, his admiration of her had +been renewed these last three days when her manner and appearance in +court had been beyond all praise. He had excoriated himself for his +fickleness, his contemptible failure as a lover; and the more he hated +himself the more grimly determined he was to behave precisely as if he +still loved and revered her as he had when ready to sacrifice life +itself for her sake. He was in such an <i>impasse</i> that he cared little +what became of himself.</p> + +<p>He leaned over the table and pressed his hands hard on her arms.</p> + +<p>"Listen!" he said peremptorily. "You never will go to Auburn. You will +leave this jail not later than the middle of next week, a free woman. If +I cannot get you off by my address to the jury,—and it will be the +supreme effort of my life,—I'll take the stand and swear that I +committed the murder myself."</p> + +<p>"What?" She lifted her head and stared up at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> him. His face was set, but +his eyes glowed like blue coals.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I can put it over, all right. You remember I went to your house +from the Club that day. Nobody saw me go; no one saw me leave. From the +moment I left you, until the following morning, no one—no one that I +know of—saw me that night, except Dr. Anna. We met out on the road +leading to Houston's farm, and she drove me in. She believes I did it. +So does Cummack, and if necessary he will manage to get an affidavit +from her—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had sprung to her feet. "Did you do it? Did you?"</p> + +<p>"Aha! I can make even you believe it. No, I did not, but I couldn't +prove an alibi if my life depended upon it. I can make the Judge and the +jury believe—"</p> + +<p>"And do you think I would permit—"</p> + +<p>"They will believe me. And Dr. Anna—who would doubt her testimony that +my appearance and conduct were highly suspicious that night on the marsh +road? And what could you disprove? There was a man in that grove, was +there not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but not you; I don't know why, but I could swear to that. I +shall—if you do anything so mad—tell the whole truth about myself."</p> + +<p>"What good would that do? Balfame was killed with a forty-one revolver. +Yours was a thirty-eight."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"I found it the night I spent in your house—the night of your arrest. I +knew that you never would have gone out to head off a burglar without a +revolver—any more than the jury would have believed it. I found the +pistol. Never mind the long and many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>details of the search. It is in my +safe. I kept it on the off chance that it might be necessary to produce +it after all."</p> + +<p>"But I fired at him. I hardly knew that I was firing, until I felt the +revolver in my hand go off. Perhaps it was a suggestion from that tense +figure so close to me, intent upon murder. Perhaps I merely felt I +must—must—I have never been able to analyse what I did feel in those +terrible seconds. It doesn't matter. I did. And you? You know I fired +with intent to kill. Did you guess at once?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. But it doesn't matter. You were not yourself, of course. You +had what is called an inhibition—as maddened people have when fighting +their way out of a burning theatre. I only wish you had told me. I—that +is to say, it is never fair to keep your counsel in the dark."</p> + +<p>"You mean you wish I had not lied!" She caught him up with swift +intuition. "Well, to-day I would not, but then—well, I was full of +pettiness, it seems to me now. But although I am far even yet from being +a fine woman,—I know that!—I am not a poor enough creature to let you +die for me. Oh, you are far too good for me. I never dreamed that a man +would go as far as that for a woman in these days. I thought it was only +in books—"</p> + +<p>"The veriest trash is inspired by the actual occurrences of life—which +is pretty much the same in books as out. And I guess men haven't changed +much since the world began, so far as making fools of themselves about a +woman is concerned."</p> + +<p>As she stood with one hand pressed hard against the table she was far +more deeply moved than a few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>moments since by fear, although outwardly +calm. She had climbed far out of her old self within these prison walls, +but she saw steeper heights before her, and she welcomed them.</p> + +<p>"Then," she said deliberately, "I must cure you. Before I went out, I +had prepared that glass of lemonade and put poison in it. I had planned +for several weeks to kill him when a favourable opportunity arrived. I +had stolen a secret poison from Anna—out of that chimney cupboard +Cassie described. You see that I am a potential murderer,—and a +cold-blooded one,—even if by a curious irony of fate some one else +committed the deed. Now do you think I am worth giving up your life +for—going to the electric chair—"</p> + +<p>"Suppose we postpone further argument until the necessity arises—if it +ever does. I fully expect you to be triumphantly acquitted. Tell me"—he +looked at her curiously, for he divined something of her inner +revolutions and hated himself the more that he was interested only as +every good lawyer must be in human nature,—"could you do that in cold +blood again?"</p> + +<p>"No—not that way—never. I might let a pistol go off under the same +provocation—that is bad enough."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. Remove the restraints of a lifetime—or perhaps it is merely a +matter of vibration and striking the right key."</p> + +<p>"And do you mean that—you still want to marry me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered steadily. "Certainly I do."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Once more she wondered if he still loved her. But she had been too +sure of him and of herself to harbour doubt for more than a passing +moment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> She had come to the conclusion that he had merely taken her at +her word, and she knew the specialising instinct of the busy American. +She had, indeed, wondered if it were not the strongest instinct he +possessed. And in spite of her new humility, she had suffered no loss of +confidence in herself as a woman. She vaguely felt that she had lost +something of this man's esteem, but trusted to time and her own charm to +dim the impression. For she had made up her mind to marry him. Not only +would it be the wisest possible move after acquittal,—a decent time +after,—but during sleepless hours she had come to the conclusion that +she loved this brilliant knightly young man as deeply as it was in her +power to love any one. And after this terrible experience and the many +changes it had wrought within her, she wanted to be happy.</p> + +<p>He had taken up his hat. She crossed the room swiftly and laid her hand +on his arm. "I could not stand one word of love-making in jail," she +said, smiling up at him graciously, although her eyes were serious. "But +it is only fair to tell you now that if I am acquitted I will marry +you."</p> + +<p>And stabbed with a pang of bitter regret that he felt not the least +impulse to scout her authority and seize her in his arms, he bent over +her hand and kissed it with cold lips, but with an air of complete gallantry.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he said, and went out.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXIV</span></h2> + +<p>Rush slept until two o'clock the next day, after a night passed at the +Paradise City Hotel in consultation with two of his future partners; +they had spent Saturday in the courtroom at Dobton. He had also +discovered that the jury enjoyed themselves in the winter garden after +dinner, and by no means in close formation. Although nominally under +guard, it would have been a simple matter to pass a note to any one of +them. Two, he further discovered, had been allowed to telephone and to +enter the booth alone. He had been told nothing further of the intention +of Cummack and other friends of his client to "fix" the jury—had, +indeed, discouraged such confidences promptly; but he saw that if the +enemy desired to employ the methods of corruption they need be no more +intricate than those of the men that had so much more to lose if +detected.</p> + +<p>The night had been devoted to discussion of the case; he even enjoyed a +friendly hour with the district attorney, who notably relaxed on +Saturdays after five o'clock; and when Rush awoke on the following +afternoon he immediately resolved to dismiss the whole affair from his +own mind until Monday morning. He would go into the woods and think his +own thoughts. They would be dreary thoughts and imbued no doubt with +cynicism, himself the target; and they had passed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> that problematical +stage in which the mind, no matter how harrowed, sips lingeringly at the +varied banquet of the ego; in fact, Rush's personal problems were almost +invariably settled in his subconsciousness, and rose automatically to +confront the reasoning faculties without an instant's warning. He was +too impatient for self-analysis; and he was the sum of his acts and of +the clear mental processes of his conscious life.</p> + +<p>The bright winter sun struck down through the close tree-tops and upon +the brilliant surfaces of a recent fall of snow. The ground was hard and +white; the branches of the trees were heavy laden. Not a sound broke the +winter stillness but his footsteps on the winter snow. He had put on a +heavy white sweater and cap, as he intended to walk for hours, and his +nervous hands were in his pockets. He believed he should have the woods +to himself, for in winter it was the Country Club and the roadhouses +that were patronised on Sundays; and the trolley-car which passed the +wood on the line about a quarter of a mile away had, save for himself, +been empty.</p> + +<p>His face remained grim and set until he was deep in the woods, and then +it relaxed to a wave of fury and disgust, finally settled into an +expression of profound despair. He was but thirty-two, and the prizes of +life were for such as he, and a week later he would either be in Sing +Sing or bound without hope to a woman for whom his brief sentimentalised +passion was dust.</p> + +<p>It was not execution he feared, for any clever lawyer could persuade a +jury into a certain degree of leniency, but long years in prison for the +sake of a dead ideal. In spite of his hard common sense and severely +practical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> life he would almost have welcomed the exaltation of soul +which must accompany a great sacrifice impelled by perfect love. But to +turn one's back on life for ever and walk deliberately into a dungeon, +change one's name for a number and become a thing, for the sake of +barren honour, to drag out his years with a dead soul, to despise +himself for a fool, too old and too tired to console himself with a +memory of a duty well done,—he felt such a sudden disgust for life and +for that ill-regulated product, human nature, that he struck a heavy +blow at a tree and brought a shower of snow about his head.</p> + +<p>If he could but have continued to love the woman and accept the grim and +bitter fate with joy in his soul! And if only that were the worst! If he +could turn his back on life with no regret save for its lost +opportunities for power and fame.</p> + +<p>He paused in his rapid irregular walk and pushed his cap up from his +ear. He half swung on his heel; then, his face settling into its +familiar lines, he walked slowly toward a faint crackling that had +arrested his attention.</p> + +<p>He came presently upon the glade Alys Crumley had painted in its summer +mood; the little picture hung facing his bed. The scene was white +to-day; all the lovely shades of green and gold had been rubbed out and +replaced with the bright sparkle of snow, and the brook was frozen. But +although Rush loved the winter woods and responded to their white appeal +as keenly as to their yearly renewal of verdant youth and gorgeous +maturity, they left him quite unmoved at this moment. Alys Crumley, as +he had half expected, stood in the little dell.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p><p>Her face was more like old ivory than ever against the dazzling +whiteness of the snow and under her low fur turban. It looked both +pinched and nervous, but she kept her hands in her muff. Nor did Rush +remove his from his pockets, although his determination not to betray +himself was subconscious. At the moment, his mind, conquering a tendency +to race, informed itself merely that even in heavy winter clothes, with +but a deep pink rose in her stole for colour, she managed to look dainty +and alluring. It recalled visions of her on summer nights clad in the +soft transparencies of lawn, with ribbons somewhere that always brought +out the strange olive tints of her eyes and hair....</p> + +<p>"I followed you," she said.</p> + +<p>"Did you?"</p> + +<p>"When I saw you pass in the trolley, I guessed. The Gifnings had invited +me to go out to the Club with them. I asked them to put me down at a +path near here."</p> + +<p>He made no reply but continued to stare at her, recalling other +pictures,—in the studio, in the green living-room,—marvelling at her +endless variety, and not only of effect. Yet she was always the same, +surcharged with the magnetism of youth and young womanhood.</p> + +<p>"I—that is—I had made up my mind I must have a talk with you about +certain things. You said you might go out to the Club to-day for an hour +or two of hand-ball, and I had hoped to induce you to come home with me +for supper. But Jack Battle told me that you had telephoned off—and +when I saw you in the trolley, and caught a glimpse of your face, I +guessed—"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p><p>"You make it rather hard."</p> + +<p>"What does it all matter? You are here, and I am glad that you are."</p> + +<p>"Are you? But you intended to avoid me to-day!"</p> + +<p>"I never intended to see you alone again if I could help it."</p> + +<p>"I guessed that too. I met Polly Cummack this morning, and she told me +she spent last evening at the jail and Mrs. Balfame confided to her that +she had just definitely promised to marry you ... that you had proposed +to her on the day of her arrest, and although you had faithfully obeyed +her orders and not alluded to the subject since, she had thought it only +kind to put you out of suspense yesterday. She naïvely added that the +subject had not interested her when you first brought it up; but that +you had been so wonderful and devoted since.... She means to settle +quietly in New York, instead of travelling, so that she can be quite +near you, and she will marry you as soon as the case has been forgotten +by the public. Of course, Polly could not keep anything so interesting, +and no doubt it is all over town by now."</p> + +<p>Alys spoke steadily, with a faint ironic inflection, and she held her +head very high. But her face grew more pinched, and the delicate pink of +her lips faded.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" He had turned as white as chalk, but there was neither dismay nor +sarcasm in the hard stare of his eyes. His lips were folded so closely +that the word barely escaped.</p> + +<p>"I am going to say everything I have to say, if you never speak to me +again. I feel as if I were standing on the point of a high rock and +every side led sheer down into an abyss. It doesn't matter in the least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> +down which side I fall. There is a certain satisfaction in that. But you +shall listen."</p> + +<p>"There is nothing you cannot say to me."</p> + +<p>"And you'll not run away."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I'll not run away! I shall never see you again if I can help +it, but now that you are here I shall look at you and listen to the +sound of your voice."</p> + +<p>"And to what I have to say. You hate Mrs. Balfame. You are bored to +death with her. You are appalled. You have found her out for what she +is. You are going to marry her out of pity and because you are too +honourable to desert a woman who will always be under a cloud, even if +you had it in you to break your word; and because you have a twisted +romantic notion about being true to an old if mistaken ideal—one of a +set that has flourished like hardy old-fashioned annuals under the dry +soil of hustle and ambition and devotion to your profession. You had +fallen in love—or thought you had, which amounts to the same thing for +the moment—after so many years of dry spiritual celibacy, and it had +been a wonderful revelation—and an inner revolution that made you +immensely interested in yourself for the first time. You were exalted; +you lived for several months at a pitch above the normal, automatically +registering other impressions but only half cognisant of them. And +now—you feel that to the love born in delusion and slain by truth you +owe the greatest sacrifice a man can make."</p> + +<p>He had stared at the ground during the first part of her speech, and +then raised his eyes sharply, his glance changing to amazement and a +flush mounting to his hair.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p><p>"Oh!" he exclaimed. But he would make no other answer, and once more he +dropped his glance to the snow.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to marry her?"</p> + +<p>"If she is acquitted."</p> + +<p>"And if not?" Her voice broke out of its even register.</p> + +<p>He made an abrupt movement, and she cried out:</p> + +<p>"I know! I know! Polly told me—Sam tells her everything. He suspects +you. He knows that Broderick does. But you don't intend to wait for his +denunciation. Mrs. Balfame told that to Polly too. You intend to say you +did it. She said she wouldn't let you—oh, wouldn't she!—but you had +told her that you would make up a plausible story and stick to it. And I +know that you can't prove an alibi. Tell me,"—she came closer and her +voice was almost threatening,—"do you really intend to take that crime +on your shoulders if she is convicted."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh! Men will be sentimental fools until—well, so long as they are +born of fools and women. We are made all wrong!" She threw her muff on +the ground and beat her hands together. Her eyes were blazing. There was +a curious red glow in their olive depths. "Well, listen to me: You are +not going to do this thing, although I really believe you'd like to do +it as a sort of penance. She could not prevent such a monstrous +sacrifice if she would, but I can. Just bear that in mind. If you come +forward with any such insane proposition, I will make a fool of you +before all the world. If Mrs. Balfame is acquitted, well and good; but +if she is not, then I'll betray a confidence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> and run the risk of +killing some one myself—but I'll get the truth. Just remember that, and +keep off the witness-stand."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I mean that I know where to get the truth."</p> + +<p>"You mean that Dr. Anna thinks Mrs. Balfame did it—that Mrs. Balfame +confessed to her and that you can make the poor woman betray her friend +while she is still too weak to resist. Well, you are all wrong. I know +that Mrs. Balfame did not kill Balfame. If you want the reason for my +knowledge,—and I know I can trust you,—Mrs. Balfame was out that +night, and she did take a revolver and fire it. I found it in the house +on the night following her arrest. It was a thirty-eight. There was one +bullet missing. It was found in the tree. Balfame was killed by a +forty-one. She did not go out to shoot Balfame, but because she thought +she saw a burglar in the grove. Her revolver went off accidentally—and +she is the best shot out at the Club. But you will readily understand my +reasons for suppressing these facts."</p> + +<p>Alys had turned her profile and was staring at a tree whose limbs +creaked now and again with their weight of snow, sending down a powdery +shower. Her thick short lashes were almost together before a gleaming +line of olive.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Who was her confederate?"</p> + +<p>"She hasn't the least idea as to the identity of the person beside her. +It was dark, and she was too much excited. Naturally, she would be very +glad to know."</p> + +<p>"Well, suppose we dismiss that part of it. We should never get anywhere. +Only—don't take the stand and make a dramatic confession."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p><p>"Dramatic?" Once more the red tide rose. His blue eyes snapped.</p> + +<p>"Melodramatic would perhaps be the better word. Sarah and I are hot on +the trail of the right word. But tell me honestly—shouldn't you feel +rather a fool? It is such a very theatric—stagey—thing to do."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" He wheeled about and kicked a fallen log. "Do you suppose I have +given a thought to that aspect of it?"</p> + +<p>"No, more is the pity, but as you have a good sense of humour, I rather +wonder at it. However—these are not the only things I followed you into +the woods to say."</p> + +<p>"You had it in your mind, then, to find out if what Mrs. Balfame told +Mrs. Cummack was true—that I purposed to free her one way or another?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I merely waited for the lead. I told you in the beginning that I +did not care what I might confess to, or how angry I made you. What does +it matter?"</p> + +<p>"You cannot make me angry, although there are some things I cannot +discuss with you."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. Let us ignore Possible Sacrifice Number Two, and assume +that Mrs. Balfame is acquitted,—which no doubt will be the case; few +are worrying; and further assume that you will marry her; that she will +marry you is the way she put it, not being an artist in words. Once more +we will dismiss both subjects. Yes?"</p> + +<p>She was stooping to recover her muff, and he noticed that her hands were +shaking and that the dusky pink was in her cheeks for the first time.</p> + +<p>"I am only too ready. But—there is little else for us to talk about!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p><p>"Yes, there is! When people are on their deathbeds they can afford to +be truthful, and you have dug your grave and mine."</p> + +<p>She was erect once more and she looked at him steadily, although her +breath was short and her cheeks blazing.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?" His eyes no longer looked like blue steel. +They were flashing, and a curious wave of mobility passed over his face.</p> + +<p>"I mean that you love me now. I think you always loved me—when we spent +so many hours together in perfect companionship—when you found so much +in me that responded to so many of your own needs. But for the time +being this was only a surface impression. It was unable to strike down +to—to your soul, because between your outer and inner vision was the +delusion. You had cherished some sort of ideal since boyhood, and when +for the first time in your busy life you met a woman who seemed to +materialise it—you never once had a half-hour's conversation with +her!—you automatically rose to the opportunity to discharge a youthful +obligation. Isn't that true?"</p> + +<p>He would not answer, and she continued:</p> + +<p>"You passed me over because you had to be rid of the delusion first, bag +and baggage. There is only one way to get rid of an old delusion like +that, and unconsciously you took it! The pity of it is, in our case, +that you compromised yourself so promptly, instead of waiting—well, for +ten weeks!"</p> + +<p>"I had already asked Mrs. Balfame to get a divorce and marry me."</p> + +<p>"Oh! That night you walked home with her from Dr. Anna's cottage?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p><p>"You saw us? Yes, that was the time."</p> + +<p>"The first time you had ever talked alone with her? I know that you +dined there often, but didn't Dave usually do the talking?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Balfame smiled like St. Cecilia and attended to your wants."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"It was like you to think you couldn't go back on even an Elsinore +Avenue flirtation. But once more—it is a terrible pity that you did not +delay your formal offer for ten weeks. Then you would have buried the +last and the supreme folly of your youth—with a sigh perhaps, but you +would have buried it. Isn't that true?"</p> + +<p>"It is true that something incredibly youthful seems to have persisted +in me beyond its proper limits, and then to have died abruptly. God +knows I have no youth in me to-day."</p> + +<p>"That may well be, but it need not have been. Youth does not die with +the earlier illusions. If all had gone well, you would have been reborn +into a saner and more conscious youth. Tell me—" Her voice trembled, +but she moved forward resolutely and laid her muff against his chest; he +could feel the working of her hands, and eyes and cheeks betrayed the +excitement that pride still suppressed. "Tell me,—if you had waited, if +you could have decently buried that old illusion and forgotten—and—and +married me,—should you have felt very old?"</p> + +<p>"I should have felt immortal."</p> + +<p>He caught her hands from her muff and flung them about his neck and +lifted her from the ground and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> kissed her as if they both stood on the +pinnacle and had but a moment before plunging down to mortal death.</p> + +<p>When he released her a trifle, his face was illuminated. It no longer +looked preternaturally strong; neither did it look as young as she had +seen it look in moments of mental relaxation.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she whispered. "This is the fusing, not when that old illusion +died."</p> + +<p>The deep flush ebbed out of his face, leaving it grey, but he did not +relax the hard pressure of his arms. "Of what use," he asked bitterly, +"when we have only to-day?"</p> + +<p>"It is something to realise all of oneself if only for an hour. And you +have given me my supreme hour. That was my right, for I went down into +such depths as you have no knowledge of; and if I struggled out of them +alone, and always in terror of surrender and demoralisation at the last +moment, I have my claim on your help now, for the future is something I +have never dared to face. I guessed before Polly told me—oh, I guessed! +I knew you so well. In dreams, perhaps,—who knows?—our minds may have +become one. When I came up out of—got past the worst, it seemed to me +that I came into an extraordinary understanding of you. I can bear +anything now. In a way, you will always be mine. The life of the +imagination must have its satisfactions. There are worse things than +living alone."</p> + +<p>She drew down his head, but this time she put her lips to his ear.</p> + +<p>"Now I am going to tell you a terrible secret," she said.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXV</span></h2> + +<p>There had been a crowd on the day of Frieda's and young Kraus' +testimony, but on Monday morning there was a mob. The road as well as +the open space before the Courthouse was as solid a mass of automobiles +as the police would permit, and within, even the wide staircase was +packed with people, many from New York City, waving cards and demanding +entrance to the Court-room, or at least the freedom to breathe.</p> + +<p>The sheriff and his assistants, soon after the doors were opened, +succeeded in forming a lane, and dragged the women reporters to the +upper landing. They found the young men at their tables, cool, +imperturbable, having entered through the library at the back of the +Court-room. All doors were closed before ten o'clock, and the crowd +without, save only the few that were fortunate enough to have come early +and obtain a vantage point against the glass, gradually dwindled away, +to renew the assault after luncheon. It was not only the brilliant +winter day that had enticed the curious over from New York, but the +rumour that Mrs. Balfame would take the stand.</p> + +<p>The morning droned along peacefully. Cummack and several others, +including Mr. Mott, were recalled and questioned further. Rush made no +interruptions whatever. The Judge yawned behind his hand. The women +reporters whispered to one another that Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> Balfame looked lovelier +than ever—only different, somehow. Even Mr. Broderick looked at her +uneasily once or twice and confided to Mr. Wagstaff that he believed she +and Rush had something up their sleeves; she no longer looked like a +marble effigy of herself, but like a woman who was sure of getting what +she wanted—much too sure. Her cheeks were almost pink. That was as +close as he could get to the upheavals and revolutions that had taken +place in Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore; and their causes.</p> + +<p>Immediately after luncheon, Rush showed the jury Defendant's Exhibit A: +the suitcase that Mrs. Balfame had packed for her husband after his +telephone message from the house of Mr. Cummack. He demonstrated that it +must have been packed by a firm hand guided by a clear head, a head as +far as possible from that cyclonic condition technically known as +"brainstorm." When he read them the explicit directions Mrs. Balfame had +written for the velvet handbag her generous husband had offered to bring +from Albany, the jury craned its neck and puckered its brows. This +suitcase had been examined on the night of the crime by police and +reporters, the cynical men of the press characterising it later as a +grand piece of bluff. But it looked very convincing in a court-room, and +its innocent appeal was thrown into high relief by the indisputable fact +that the murder had been committed at least half an hour later.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, there was reason to believe that Mrs. Balfame had +deliberately planned the shooting and in that case it was quite natural +for her to prepare something in the nature of an alibi—that is, if a +woman, and an amateur in crime, could exercise so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> much foresight. The +jury looked at the defendant out of the corner of its eye. Well, she, at +least, looked cool enough for anything.</p> + +<p>Then came the great moment for which the spectators had braved +discomfort, indignities, and even hunger. The counsel for the defence +asked Mrs. Balfame to take the stand.</p> + +<p>Everybody in the court-room save the Judge, the jury, and the cool young +reporters half rose as she walked rapidly behind the jury-box, mounted +the stand, took the oath, bowed to the Court and arranged herself, with +her usual dignified aloofness, in the witness-chair. She felt but a +slight quiver of the nerves, no apprehension whatever. She knew her +story too well to be disconcerted even by the sudden wasp-like assaults +of the district attorney, and she was sensible of the moral support of +practically all the women in the room.</p> + +<p>Rush asked her to tell her story in her own way to the jury, and for a +time the district attorney permitted her to talk without interruption. +Rush had warned her after the interview with the women reporters against +delivering herself with too tripping a tongue, and his assistant had +spent several hours with her in rehearsal of certain improvements upon a +too perfect style. In consequence, she told a clear coherent story, in +the simplest manner possible, with little dramatic breaks or hesitations +now and again, but with nothing stronger than a quaver in her sweet +shallow voice. When she had reached the episode of the filter and had +explained to the inquisitive district attorney why she had made no +mention at the coroner's inquest of the somewhat complicated episode of +which it was the pivot, so to speak, she gave the same credible +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>explanation the newspaper women had already offered to the public; and +then, quite unexpectedly, she related the story of Frieda's attempt to +blackmail her, and her indignant refusal to give the creature a dollar. +Mr. Gore shouted in vain. The Judge ordered him to keep quiet and +permitted the defendant to tell the story in her own way.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame apologised to the jury for relating this incident out of +order, and then went on with her quiet plausible story. Her reason for +not running out at once was simplicity itself. She must have been in the +kitchen when the shot was fired; she had not made a point of regulating +her movements by the clock as some of the witnesses for the prosecution +appeared to have done, so that she was quite unable to give the jury +positive information upon the subject of the exact number of minutes she +had remained in the kitchen. She had washed and put away the glass, of +course; she was a very methodical woman. Then she had gone upstairs, +leisurely, and it was not until she was in her bedroom that she became +aware of some sort of excitement out in the Avenue. Even that conveyed +nothing to her, for it was Saturday night—she curled her fastidious +lip. But when she heard voices directly under her window, inside the +grounds, she threw it open at once and asked what had happened. Then of +course she ran downstairs and out to her husband. That was all.</p> + +<p>Even the district attorney was not able to interject a hint of the +lemonade story, and so, naturally, she ignored it.</p> + +<p>"Gemima!" whispered Mr. Broderick to his neighbour, "but she is a +wonder! I never heard it better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> done, and I've seen some of the boss +liars on the stand. She looks like an angel on toast, a poor, sweet, +patient, martyr angel. But I'll bet five dollars to a nickel that she +was just about three degrees too plausible for that jury. If she didn't +do it, who did? That's what they'll ask. And who else wanted him out of +the way? Have you given any thought to that proposition?" His voice was +almost as steady as his keen grey eyes, and he looked straight into the +wise and weary orbs of a brilliant but too inabstinent member of the +crack reporter regiment who had been missing for several days. The man +raised his sagging shoulders and dropped them listlessly. Then his heavy +eyes were invaded by a sudden gleam.</p> + +<p>"Say," he whispered, "that Rush is a good-looking chap—and she—I don't +like those ice-boxes myself, but some men do. It's crossed my mind more +than once to-day that he's got something on his—what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, hush!" Broderick's low voice was savage, his face +white. "They're always likely to say that about a young lawyer when his +client is handsome enough and their imaginations are excited by a +mysterious murder case. He's a friend of mine, and I don't want him to +get into trouble. He might not be able to prove an alibi. But I know he +didn't do it because I happen to know that he is in love with another +woman. I was in the same trolley with them yesterday when they came back +from the woods. There was no mistaking how the land lay."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Just so!" The other man's eyes were glittering. He looked like a +hunter glancing down his gun-barrel. "I see he <i>is</i> a friend of yours +and you've<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> got his defence pat—well, I'm not going to bother my poor +head until Mrs. B. is acquitted or convicted. Ta! Ta!" And he slid +gently to the floor, laid his head against the infuriated Broderick's +knee and went to sleep.</p> + +<p>"I say," whispered Wagstaff, "she almost involved young Kraus, all +right. He's never been quite so close to the bull's-eye before. The very +fact that she didn't trump up a yarn—or Rush wouldn't let her—that she +saw him when she opened the door, or that he had turned the handle, is +one for her and one on him."</p> + +<p>The Judge, who had taken a few moments' rest, re-entered, and +conversation ceased. Conrad and Frieda were called in rebuttal, and +encouraged to fix the time of Mrs. Balfame's departure and return as +accurately as might be. Frieda asserted that Mrs. Balfame, after closing +the outer door, had not remained below-stairs for more than three +minutes, and Conrad declared that her exit must have been made three or +four before Mr. Mott left Miss Lacke's. Of course—with quiet scorn—he +had not looked at his watch. How could he in the dark? As he did not +smoke he had no matches in his pocket.</p> + +<p>That closed the day's session. The jury filed out, and no man could read +aught in their weather-beaten faces save the conviction that the +Paradise City Hotel was a haven of delights after a long day in the box, +and they were quite equal to the feat of enjoying the dinner served +there, with minds barren of the grim purpose behind this luxurious week.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXVI</span></h2> + +<p>It was nearly six o'clock. The court-room with its round white ceiling +looked like a crypt in the soft glow of the artificial light, and the +Judge, in his black silk gown, with his handsome patrician face, +clean-cut but rather soft and flushed with good living, might have been +an abbot seated aloft in judgment upon a recalcitrant nun. Mrs. Balfame +in her crêpe completed the delusion—if the imaginative spectator +glanced no further. The district attorney, who was summing up, looked +more like a wasp than ever as he darted back and forth in front of the +jury-box, shouting and shaking his fists. Occasionally he would hook his +fingers in his waistcoat, balance himself on his heels and with a mere +moderation of his rasping tones, demonstrate a contemptuous faith in the +strength of his case.</p> + +<p>It is to be admitted that his arguments and expositions, his +denunciations and satirical refutations, were quite as convincing as +those of the counsel for the defence had been, such being the elasticity +of the law and of the legal mind; but although an able and powerful +speaker, he lacked the personal charm and magnetism, the almost tragical +enthusiasm and conviction, alternating with cold deliberate logic, that +had thrilled all present to the roots of their beings during the long +hours of the morning. Rush, whether he lost or won, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> made his +reputation as one of the greatest pleaders ever heard at the bar of New +York State. He had finished at a quarter to one. Immediately after the +opening of the afternoon session Gore had darted into the breach, +speaking with a dramatic rapidity for four hours. He sat down at six +o'clock; and Mrs. Balfame felt as if turning to stone while the Judge, +standing, charged the jury and expounded the law covering the three +degrees of murder: first, second, manslaughter. It was their privilege +to convict the prisoner at the bar of any of these, unless convinced of +her innocence.</p> + +<p>He dwelt at length upon the degree called manslaughter, as if the idea +had occurred to him that Mrs. Balfame, justly indignant, had run out +when she heard her husband's voice raised in song, and had fired from +the grove by way of administering a rebuke to an erring and +inconsiderate man. The second bullet had been made much of by Rush, as +indicating that two people, possibly gun-men, had shot at once, but the +district attorney held no such theory and had ignored the bullet found +in the tree. It was apparent, however, that the Judge had given to this +second bullet a certain amount of judicial consideration.</p> + +<p>The jury filed out, not to their luxurious quarters in the Paradise City +Hotel, a mile away, but to a stark and ugly room in the Court-house +where they must remain in acute discomfort until they arrived at a +verdict. The Judge had his dinner brought to him in a private room +adjoining theirs, and even the reporters and spectators snatched a hasty +meal at the Dobton hostelry, so sure were they all that the jury would +return within the hour. Mrs. Balfame did not take off her hat with its +heavy veil, but sat in her quarters at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> the jail with several of her +friends, outwardly calm, but with her mind on the rack and unable to +share the dinner sent over from the Inn by Mr. Cummack for herself and +her guests.</p> + +<p>The hours passed, however, and the jury did not return. Once the head of +the foreman emerged, and the sheriff, misunderstanding his surly demand +for a pitcher of ice water, rushed over for Mrs. Balfame, the Judge was +summoned, and the reporters, men and women, raced one another up the +Court-house stairs. Mrs. Balfame, schooled to the awful ordeal of +hearing herself pronounced a murderess in one form or other, but bidden +by her friends to augur an acquittal from a mere three hours' +deliberation, walked in with her usual quiet remoteness and took her +seat. She was sent back at once.</p> + +<p>Rush paced the road in front of the Court-house. He had little hope. He +had studied their faces day by day and believed that several, at least, +were persuaded of Mrs. Balfame's guilt. Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning and +Mrs. Cummack sat with Mrs. Balfame, who found the effort to maintain the +high equilibrium demanded by her admiring friends as rasping an ordeal +to her nerves as waiting for that final summons whose menace grew with +every hour the jury wrangled. Finally she took off her hat and suggested +that they knit, and the needles clicked through the desultory +conversation until, after midnight, they all attempted to sleep.</p> + +<p>The Judge extended himself on a sofa in the private room devoted to his +use; he dared not leave the Courthouse. He told the district attorney +(who told it to the sheriff, who told it to the reporters) that the jury +quarrelled so persistently and so violently that he found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> it impossible +to sleep, and that the language they used was appalling.</p> + +<p>Midnight came and passed. The sob-sisters, worn out, went home. Miss +Sarah Austin and Miss Alys Crumley had not returned to the Court-house +after dinner. The sheriff appeared at the entrance of the courtroom and +announced that the last trolley would leave for Elsinore and +neighbouring towns within five minutes. Most of the spectators filed +sleepily out. A few of Mrs. Balfame's less intimate but equally devoted +friends remained in their seats near her empty chair, and shortly after +midnight the warden's wife brought them over hot coffee and sandwiches.</p> + +<p>The reporters, having long since consumed all the chocolate and peanuts +on sale below, strolled back and forth between the Court-house and the +bar of the Dobton Inn. They were bored and indignant and sought the only +consolation available. They returned periodically to the court-room, +growing, as the hours passed, more formal, polite, silent. One lost his +way in the jury-box and was steered by a court official to the +sympathetic haven of his brothers.</p> + +<p>The room itself, its floor littered with tinfoil, peanut-shells, and +newspapers, its tables and chairs out of place, looked like a Coney +Island excursion boat. Finally two reporters laid their heads down on a +table and went to sleep, but the rest continued to address one another +at long intervals, in distant tones, obeying the laws of etiquette, but +with a secret and scornful reluctance.</p> + +<p>Broderick, who was reasonably sober, had wandered in and out many times. +Occasionally he walked the road with Rush, and more than once he had +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>endeavoured to get Miss Crumley on the telephone. He had even +telephoned to the hospital to ascertain if she were there. A week ago +only he had accidentally discovered that Dr. Anna had been summoned by +Mrs. Balfame shortly after the murder and had passed many hours alone +with her; "it being the deuce and all to extract any information from +that closed corporation of Mrs. Balfame's friends." Broderick had +surprised it out of a group at the Elks' Club in the course of +conversation and then had set his phenomenal memory to work, with the +result that he was convinced Alys Crumley held the key to the whole +situation. He had gone to her house and pleaded with her to take him out +to the hospital and obtain a statement from the sick woman before it was +too late, representing in powerful and picturesque language the awful +peril of Rush.</p> + +<p>"I've reason to know," he had concluded, "that Cummack and two or three +others have their suspicions, and there isn't a question that if the +jury brings in a verdict of guilty in any degree—and they're a +pigheaded lot—Rush will be arrested at once. These devoted friends of +Mrs. Balfame have accumulated enough evidence to begin on. He may have +gone to Brooklyn that night, but he was seen to get off the train at +Elsinore about a quarter of an hour before the shooting. They've been +doing a lot of quiet sleuthing, but if Mrs. Balfame is acquitted they'll +let him off. They don't want any more scandal, and they like him, +anyhow. But I have a hunch she won't be acquitted; and then, innocent or +guilty, there'd be no saving him. So for heaven's sake, stir yourself."</p> + +<p>But Alys had replied: "I have besought my aunt, and she will not permit +Dr. Anna to be disturbed. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> says her only chance for life is a +tranquil mind, and that the shock of hearing that Enid Balfame was on +trial for murder would kill her—let alone asking her to do her best to +send her to the chair. I've done <i>my</i> best, but it seems hopeless."</p> + +<p>This conversation had taken place on Thursday. To-day was Tuesday. They +were very reticent at the hospital, but he had reason to believe that +Dr. Anna had taken a turn for the worse. Could Alys Crumley be out +there, and could she have taken that minx Sarah Austin with her? It +would be just like a girl to go back on a good pal like himself and hand +a signal triumph over to another girl, who would get out of the game the +minute some fellow with money enough offered to marry her. He ground his teeth.</p> + +<p>He was standing near the doors of the court-room and staring at the +clock whose hands pointed to a quarter to one. Suddenly he heard his +name called from below. He sauntered out and leaned over the balustrade. +A weary page was ascending when he caught sight of the star reporter.</p> + +<p>"Brabant Hospital wants you on the 'phone," he announced, with supreme indifference.</p> + +<p>Broderick leaped down the winding stair and into the booth. It seemed to +him that his very ears were quivering as he listened to Alys Crumley's +faint agitated voice. "Come out quickly and bring a stenographer," it +said. "And suppose you ask Mr. Rush to come too. Just tell the +sheriff—to—to postpone things a bit if the jury should be ready to +come in before you return. Hurry, Jim, hurry."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXVII</span></h2> + +<p>It was two o'clock and ten minutes. The eleven remaining spectators, one +of them a woman in evening dress, were sound asleep. The sheriff was +pacing up and down with his hands behind his back, his perturbed glance +ranging between the clock and the door leading into the jury-room. +Occasionally he slipped on a bit of the debris and kicked it aside. The +reporters slumbered at their tables or stared moodily ahead. One gnawed +his pencil; another tore leaves of copy paper into morsels and +laboriously built something that looked like a child's house of blocks. +Outside it was deathly still. The snow was falling softly. It was too +early for a cock-crow. Occasionally some one snored. The footfalls of +the sheriff made no noise.</p> + +<p>Suddenly every reporter present sat up with the scent of blood in his +nostrils. Their ears twitched. The fumes blew out of their highly +organised brains like mist before a bracing wind. An automobile was +dashing down the road, its horn shrieking a series of brief peremptory +notes, which sounded like "Wait! Wait! Wait!"</p> + +<p>It came to an abrupt halt before the Court-house door, and almost +simultaneously Wagstaff, who had wandered forth once more, ran up the +stairs and into the court-room.</p> + +<p>"There's something in the wind, boys," he cried,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> smoothing his hair and +steering carefully for his chair. "Rush, Broderick, three other men, +Sarah Austin and Alys Crumley, were in that car. They've all gone +straight to the Judge. Something big is going to break, as sure as +death."</p> + +<p>The sheriff retired hastily to the region behind the court-room.</p> + +<p>The young men adjusted their chairs, arranged their copy-paper neatly, +and sharpened their pencils. Mrs. Balfame's friends went forward to the +door behind the jury-box which led to the tunnel. Even the sleepy +spectators sat up nervously.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes passed. Then the sheriff, his face now stolid and important, +bustled in and across to the jury-room, opened the door and summoned the +occupants. In every stage of dishabille they filed sullenly in; the +sheriff went through the tunnel for Mrs. Balfame.</p> + +<p>The Judge, without his gown and his hair ruffled, was in his seat when +the prisoner entered. She came hurriedly, her great repose broken, her +face grey. Rush, who had entered behind the Judge, met her and +whispered:</p> + +<p>"You are free. But you will need all your self-control. Don't let them +have a story in the morning papers of a breakdown at the last moment."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning and Mrs. Cummack, who were far more excited +than she, took heart at his words, patted their dishevelled hair and +motioned to their husbands, summoned from the Dobton Inn, to draw +closer. Whatever the issue, they felt the need of masculine support, +albeit they scowled at the obvious form that masculine needs had taken.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame had looked dully at Rush as he spoke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> Between fatigue and +the nervous strain of maintaining the superwoman pitch for the benefit +of her friends, her mind was confused. She could only mutter, "I'll try. +Is—is—it really—all right?"</p> + +<p>"You'll be free and for ever exonerated in half an hour."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balfame sank back in her chair, thinking that half an hour was a +long time, a terribly long time. How long did it usually take a jury to +pronounce a prisoner not guilty?</p> + +<p>Sitting before the table in front of her were two men whom she vaguely +recognised. Behind them was the man she hated most now that her husband +was dead, the reporter Broderick. And beside him were Alys Crumley and +Miss Austin. What did it all mean? She drew a sigh. It didn't matter +much. She was so tired, so tired. When it was over she would sleep for a +week and see no one—not even Dwight Rush.</p> + +<p>The district attorney was on his feet, his face as black as if in the +first stages of a poisonous fever. Neither he nor any one in the +court-room threw Mrs. Balfame a glance. All eyes were on the Judge, who +rose and made a short address to the jury.</p> + +<p>"New evidence has just been brought to the notice of the court," he +said. "It is of sufficient importance to warrant its immediate +consideration, and the case is therefore reopened for this purpose. It +is for you, however, to pass upon its worth. Mr. Rush will take the +stand."</p> + +<p>"May it please your honour," shrieked Mr. Gore, "I protest that this +case has already been submitted to the jury, and that it is altogether +out of order to reopen it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p><p>"That is a matter within the discretion of the court," replied the +Judge sharply; he had slept but fitfully and was not in his accustomed +mood of remote judicial calm. "Mr. Rush will take the stand and proceed +without interruption."</p> + +<p>Rush ascended to the witness-box and was sworn. Mrs. Balfame half rose, +dropped back into her chair with another sigh. There could be but one +explanation of this strange procedure. Rush had discovered that the jury +was hostile and was about to incriminate himself. She could do nothing. +She had brought up the subject only yesterday, and he had replied curtly +that he had taken the pistol from his safe and hidden it elsewhere. And +she was too tired to feel that anything mattered much but the prospect +of a week's rest. Later she could exonerate him in one way or another.</p> + +<p>The newspaper men were as sober and alert as if the hour were ten in the +morning. With their abnormal news-sense they anticipated a complete +surprise. To do them justice, they were quite indifferent to the +possibility of Mrs. Balfame's release. If it were news, Big News, that +was all that mattered.</p> + +<p>As Rush took the witness-chair, the lines in his pallid face looked as +if cut to the bone, but he addressed the jury in strong clear tones. He +told them that two days since he had been informed by Miss Alys Crumley +that Dr. Anna Steuer had positive knowledge bearing upon the crime for +which Mrs. Balfame had been unjustly arrested and thrust into jail, but +that they were afraid to tell her of her friend's tragic situation lest +it shatter her slender hold on life. She was very ill again after a +relapse, although quite conscious, and their only hope was in perfect +peace of mind.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p><p>If she recovered, Mrs. Dissosway, in whom alone she had confided, had +felt sure she would give the testimony which must set Mrs. Balfame at +liberty if the jury convicted her. On the other hand, Mrs. Dissosway had +promised her niece that if the doctors agreed that Dr. Steuer's death +was but a matter of hours and there was a real danger of Mrs. Balfame's +conviction, she would tell the dying woman the truth and take the +consequences.</p> + +<p>Shortly after the case had gone to the jury, Miss Crumley and Miss Sarah +Austin had gone out to the hospital, satisfied that Dr. Anna had but a +few hours to live. But it was not until Miss Crumley had persuaded her +relative that the delayed verdict of the jury meant conviction for Mrs. +Balfame that the superintendent, who was a lifelong friend of Dr. Anna +Steuer, had given Miss Crumley permission to send for a stenographer and +the witnesses she desired. Miss Crumley had therefore telephoned at once +to Mr. Broderick, as she knew he would be sure to be in or near the +courtroom, and asked him to bring the witness and a stenographer.</p> + +<p>They had reached the hospital in fifteen minutes. Dr. MacDougal had met +them at the door of Dr. Steuer's room and informed them that the news of +her friend's predicament had been broken to the patient, after +administering stimulants, and that she had consented immediately to make +a statement.</p> + +<p>"It took her some time to make this statement," continued Mr. Rush. "She +was very weak, and stimulants had to be given repeatedly. But in due +course it was completed, signed, and witnessed by Mr. Broderick and the +two physicians present.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> I shall read it to you with the permission of +the court."</p> + +<p>He then read them the ante-mortem statement of Dr. Anna Steuer:</p> + +<p>"I shot David Balfame.</p> + +<p>"I make this statement at once lest I prove to be unable to add the +explanation of my motives, and I herewith sign it."</p> + +<p>Signed and witnessed.</p> + +<p>The statement continued:</p> + +<p>"I had known for a long time that my beloved friend's life with this +wretch was insupportable, but although I urged her repeatedly to divorce +him and she refused, it never entered my head to kill him nor any one +else. I had spent my life trying to heal, and to give comfort where my +patient's sufferings were of the mind as well as of the body. I had +carried Balfame through several gastric attacks, caused by his +disreputable life, with as much professional enthusiasm as if he had +been the best of husbands. To have removed him during one of these would +have been a simple matter.</p> + +<p>"But that day out at the Country Club when he insulted the loveliest and +most nearly perfect being on this earth, with the deliberate intent to +ruin her position—the little all she had in the world that +mattered—something snapped in my head. I almost struck him then and +there. And when, during the ride home, Enid for the first time told me +the hideous details of her life with that man all the blood in my body +seemed to surge up and through my brain. He deserved death, and only +death could free her. But how could this be accomplished? Too proud and +too obdurate in her principles for the divorce-court, she was also too +gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> and good and fastidious, in spite of her remarkable will, to +strike him down herself.</p> + +<p>"While waiting for a summons to the Houston farm, I paid several calls, +and the last was at the Cummacks', one of the children being ill. As I +came downstairs from the nursery I heard the conversation at the +telephone—Balfame's drunken compliment to his wife. He said he would +walk home. It was then that the definite impulse came to me, and I acted +without an instant's hesitation. I always carried a revolver, for I was +forced to take many long and lonely rides in my country practice. I +drove straight to the lane behind the Balfame place, left the car, put +out the lights, and climbed the back fence. It was very dark, but I had +been familiar with the grounds all my life and I had no difficulty in +finding the grove. I waited, moving about restlessly, for I wanted to +have it over and go out to the Houston farm.</p> + +<p>"He came after what had seemed to be hours of waiting, singing at the +top of his voice. Mr. Rush tells me there is talk of two pistols having +been fired that night, and that a bullet from a thirty-eight-calibre +pistol entered a tree just to the left of the gate. I heard no one else +in the grove. My revolver was a forty-one and can be found in the drawer +of my desk at home. I fired at Balfame the moment he reached the gate. I +vaguely remember seeing another figure almost beside him, but as Balfame +fell I ran for the lane and my car. I had no intention of giving myself +up. I knew that the crime would be laid to political enemies, who, no +doubt, could produce alibis. This proved to be the case, and when I +broke down and was carried to the hospital it was with the assurance of +public belief in gun-men as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> the perpetrators of the crime. That Enid +Balfame, that serene and splendid woman, whose life has been a miracle +of good taste and high sense of duty, would be accused never crossed my +mind.</p> + +<p>"No, it is impossible for me to say with truth that I repent. I might +have, once. But these last six months! Millions of men in the greatest +civilisations of earth are killing one another daily for no reason +whatever save that man, who seeks to direct the destinies of the world, +is a complete and pitiful failure. Why, pray, should a woman repent +having broken one of his laws and removed one of the most worthless and +abominable of his sex, who had made the life of a beloved friend past +enduring? Moreover, I have saved hundreds of lives at the risk of my +own. I die in peace.</p> + +<p>"This statement is made with full knowledge of impending death and +without hope of recovery."</p> + +<p>"This ante-mortem statement," concluded Mr. Rush, "was taken down in +longhand by the stenographer who sits below, and signed by Anna Steuer, +M.D., of Elsinore, Brabant County, State of New York. It was witnessed +by Drs. MacDougal and Meyers, who accompanied me from the hospital to +the Court-house. Mr. Broderick of the <i>New York News</i>, as I mentioned +before, also heard the confession and affixed his signature."</p> + +<p>He handed the sheets to the jury and stepped down. For a moment there +was no sound but the scratching of pencils on the opposite side of the +room and the faint rustle of paper in the jury-box. Mrs. Balfame had +drawn her veil across her face and sat huddled in her chair.</p> + +<p>The two doctors and Broderick took the stand briefly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> the former +testifying that Dr. Steuer had been of clear and sound mind when she +made and signed her statement. Then the district attorney stood up, and +in lifeless tones—Dr. Anna had been his family's most cherished +friend—asked if there was any prospect of the self-confessed criminal +being examined further. Rush went over to Mrs. Balfame and pressed his +hand hard upon her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"May it please your honour," he said, "Dr. Anna Steuer expired before we +left the hospital."</p> + +<p>Again there was a furious scratching of pens. Not a reporter glanced at +Mrs. Balfame. They had forgotten her existence. The Judge asked the jury +if they wished to retire once more for deliberation. The foreman faced +about. The other eleven shook their heads with decision.</p> + +<p>The Judge dismissed them and congratulated the defendant, who had risen +and stood clutching the back of her chair. The reporters raced one +another down the stairs to the telegraph-offices and telephone-booths.</p> + +<p>It was physically impossible for Mrs. Balfame to faint, or to lose +self-control for more than a moment at a time. She drew away from the +friends that crowded about her, one or two of the women hysterical.</p> + +<p>"I shall ask Mr. Rush to take me over to the jail for a few moments," +she said in her clear cold voice. "I must put a few things together, and +I wish to have a few words alone with Mr. Rush." She turned to the dazed +Mr. Cummack. "Take Polly home," she said peremptorily. "Mr. Rush will +drive me over later."</p> + +<p>"All right, Enid." He tucked Mrs. Cummack under his arm. "Your room's +been ready for a week."</p> + +<p>As Rush was about to follow his client he turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> abruptly and exchanged +a long look with Alys Crumley. Both faces were pallid and drawn with +fatigue but their eyes for that swift moment blazed with resentment and despair.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXVIII</span></h2> + +<p>When Rush and Mrs. Balfame reached the jail sitting-room she +mechanically removed her heavy hat and veil and sank into a chair.</p> + +<p>"Is it true that Anna is dead?"</p> + +<p>Her voice was as toneless as the district attorney's had been.</p> + +<p>"Yes—and we can only be grateful."</p> + +<p>"And she did that for me—for <i>me</i>. How strange! How very, very +strange!"</p> + +<p>"It has been done before in the history of the world." Rush too was very +tired.</p> + +<p>"But a woman—"</p> + +<p>"I fancy you were the romance of poor Anna's life. She indulged in no +dreams of the usual sort, with her plain face and squat figure. No doubt +she had centred all her romantic yearnings and all her maternal cravings +on you. She thought you perfect—unequalled—"</p> + +<p>"I! I!"</p> + +<p>She sprang to her feet and thrust her head forward, her eyes coming to +life with resentment and wonder.</p> + +<p>"What—<i>what</i> am I that two people—two people like you and Anna +Steuer—should be ready to die for me? Why, I have never thought of a +mortal being but myself! Anna must have been born with dotage in her +brain. She knew me all my life. She saw me organise charities, give to +the poor what I could afford,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> find work for the deserving now and +again, and she heard me read absurd compositions before the Friday Club +upon the duty of Women to Society; but she must have known that all were +mere details in my scheme of life and that I was the most selfish +creature that ever breathed."</p> + +<p>Rush shrugged his shoulders, although he was watching her with a +quickened interest. "Why try to analyse? The gift to inspire +devotion—fascination—is as determinate as the gift to write a poem or +compose a symphony. It has existed in some of the worst men and women +that have ever lived. You are not that—not by a long sight—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! I am not one of the worst women that have ever lived. Do you +know what I am, how I see myself to-night? I am merely a commonplace +woman everlastingly anxious to do the 'right thing.' That is the +beginning and the end of me, with the exception of a brief aberration—a +release under stress of those anti-social instincts that are deep in +every mortal and exhibited by every child that ever lived. Oh, I am one +of civilisation's proudest products, for I never had the slightest +difficulty with those inherited impulses before. Nor will they ever rise +again. I've even 'improved' during my long hours of solitude in this +room, but it's all of a piece. I've not changed. We none of us do that. +I shall live and die a commonplace woman trying to do the 'right +thing.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh—let us go now. You must rest. You are very tired."</p> + +<p>"I was. But it has passed. The shock of Anna's statement and death +brought me up standing. I shall sail for Europe to-morrow, if there is a +boat. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> Anna's constant regret that she could not go to the +battlefields and nurse, but she would not leave those that depended upon +her here. In some small measure I can take her place. They give a first +course in London I am told. And I am strong, very strong."</p> + +<p>She paused abruptly and moved forward and took his hand.</p> + +<p>"Good night and good-bye," she said. "I shall sleep here to-night. And +please understand that you are free."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" Rush's face set like a mask, but the colour mounted. +The grip of his hand was merely nervous, and when she withdrew hers his +unconsciously went to his hip and steadied itself.</p> + +<p>"I mean that so far as lies in my power I shall harm no one again as +long as I live. Moreover, I have seen how it was with you for some time, +although I would not admit it, for I intended to marry you. Perhaps I +should have done so if it had not been for Anna. It took that to lift me +quite out of myself and enable me to see myself and all things relating +to me in their true proportions—for once. It is my moment—If I am ever +to have one. You no longer love me, and if you did I should not marry +you. I say nothing of the injustice to yourself—I could not take the +risk of disillusioning you." She laughed a little nervously. "I fancy I +have done that already. But it does not matter. Go and marry some girl +near your own age who will be a companion, not an ideal with heart and +brain as well as feet of clay."</p> + +<p>"You are excited," said Rush brusquely, although his heart was +hammering, and singing youth poured through his veins. "I shall leave +you now—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p><p>"You will say good-bye to me now, and that is the last word. I'll +telephone my plans to Cummack in the morning. There is no reason for us +to meet again. To me you will always be a very wonderful and beautiful +memory, for it is something—be sure I appreciate just what it does +mean—to have embodied a romantic illusion if only for an hour. Now +good-bye once more; and find your real happiness as quickly as you can."</p> + +<p>She had opened the door. She pushed him gently out into the corridor, +closed the door and locked it. Mrs. Balfame was alone with the crushing +burden of her soul.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/39443-h/images/logo.jpg b/39443-h/images/logo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad68ee6 --- /dev/null +++ b/39443-h/images/logo.jpg diff --git a/39443.txt b/39443.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bc3274f --- /dev/null +++ b/39443.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10030 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mrs. Balfame, by Gertrude Franklin Horn +Atherton + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Mrs. Balfame + A Novel + + +Author: Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton + + + +Release Date: April 13, 2012 [eBook #39443] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. BALFAME*** + + +E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://archive.org/details/cu31924022059962 + + + + + +MRS. BALFAME + +A Novel + +by + +GERTRUDE ATHERTON + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Logo] + +New York +Frederick A. Stokes Company +Publishers + +Copyright, 1916, by +Gertrude Atherton + +All rights reserved, including that of translation into +foreign languages + +Fourth Printing + + + + _And woman, yea, woman, shall be terrible in story; + The tales too, meseemeth, shall be other than of yore. + For a fear there is that cometh out of woman and a glory, + And the hard hating voices shall encompass her no more._ + --_The Medea._ + + + + +MRS. BALFAME + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Mrs. Balfame had made up her mind to commit murder. + +As she stared down at the rapt faces of the fifty-odd members of the +Friday Club, upturned to the distinguished speaker from New York, whom +she, as President, had introduced in those few words she so well knew +how to choose, it occurred to her with a faint shock that this momentous +resolution had been growing in her essentially refined and amiable mind +for months, possibly for years; for she was not an impetuous woman. + +While smiling and applauding, patting her large strong hands, freshly +gloved in virgin white, at precisely the right moment, as the sound and +escharotic speaker laid down the Woman's Law, she permitted herself to +wonder if the idea had not burrowed in her subconscious mind--that +mental antiquity shop of which she had lately read so much, that she +might expound it to the progressive ladies of the Friday Club--for at +least half the twenty-two years of her married life. + +It was only last night that awakening suddenly she had realised with no +further skirmishes and retreats of conscience or principle how she +hated the heavy mass of flesh sleeping heavily beside her. + +For at least eight years, ever since their fortunes had improved and she +had found leisure for the novels and plays of authors well-read in life, +she had longed for a room, a separate personal existence, of her own. +She was no dreamer, but this exclusive and ladylike apartment often had +floated before her mental vision, chastely papered and furnished in a +cold pale blue (she had an uneasy instinct that pink and lavender were +immoral); and by day it should look like a boudoir. She was too wise to +make a verbal assault upon this or any foreign word, for she found the +stage, her only guide, strangely casual or contradictory in these minor +details; but although her little world found no trouble in discovering +what Mrs. Balfame increasingly knew, what she did not know they +suspected so little that they never even discussed her limitations. +Handicapped by circumstances early and late she might be, but she had +managed to insinuate the belief that she was the superior in all things +of the women around her, their born and natural leader. + +Mrs. Balfame had never given expression to this desire for a delitescent +bedroom, being a woman who thought silently, spoke guardedly, and, both +patient and philosophical, rarely permitted what she called her +imagination to wander, or bitterness to enter her soul. + +The Balfames were by no means well enough off, even now, to refurnish +the old bedrooms long since denuded by a too economical parent after his +children had married and moved away, but a few mornings since she had +remarked casually that as the springs of the conjugal bed were sagging +she thought she should send it to the auction room and buy two single +beds. Last night, lying there in the dark, she had clenched her hands +and held her breath as she recalled David Balfame's purple flush, the +deliberate manner in which he had set down his thick coffee cup and +scrubbed his bristling moustache, then rolled up the stained napkin and +pushed it into the ring before replying. + +His first vocative expressed all, but he was a politician and used to +elaborating his mental processes for the benefit of befuddled +intellects. "You'll have them springs mended," he informed his wife, who +was smiling brilliantly and sweetly across the debris of ham and eggs, +salt mackerel, coffee and hot breads--"that is, if they need it, which I +haven't noticed, and I'm some heavier than you. But you'll introduce no +more of your damned new-fangled notions into this house. It was good +enough for my parents, and it's good enough for us. We lived for fifteen +years without art lampshades that hurt my eyes, and rugs that trip me +up; and these last eight or nine years, since you've been runnin' a club +when you ain't runnin' to New York, I've had too many cold suppers to +suit me; I've paid bills for 'teas' to that Club and I've put out money +for fine clothes for you that I could spend a long sight better at +election time. But I've stood all that, for I guess I'm as good a +husband as any in God's own country; I like to see you well dressed, for +you're still a looker--and it's good business, anyhow; and I've never +grudged you a hired girl. But there's a limit to every man's patience. I +draw the line at two beds. That's all there is to it." + +He had made a part of his speech standing, that being his accustomed +position when laying down the law, and he now left the room with the +heavy country slouch his wife had never been able to reform. He had no +authority in walk or bearing, being a man more obstinate than strong, +more cunning than firm. + +She was thankful that he did not bestow upon her the usual marital kiss; +the smell of coffee on his moustache had sickened her faintly ever since +she had ceased to love him. + +Or begun to hate him? She had wondered, as she lay there inhaling deeply +to draw the blood from her head, if she ever had loved him. When a man +and a maid are young! He had been a tall slim youth, with red cheeks and +bright eyes, the "catch" of the village; his habits were commendable and +he would inherit his father's store, his only brother having died a year +earlier and his sisters married and moved West. She was pretty, +empty-headed, as ill-educated as all girls of her class, but she kept +her father's house neatly, she was noted even at sixteen for her pies, +and at twenty for the dexterity and taste with which she made her own +clothes out of practically nothing. She was by no means the ordinary +fool of her age class and nation. But although she was incapable of +passion, she had a thin sentimental streak, a youthful desire for a +romance, and a cold dislike for an impending stepmother. + +David Balfame wooed her over the front gate and won her in the orchard; +and the year was in its springtime. It was all as natural and inevitable +as the measles and whooping-cough through which she nursed him during +the first year of their marriage. + +She had been happy with the happiness of youth ignorance and busy hands; +although there had been the common trials and quarrels, they had been +quickly forgotten, for she was a woman of a serene and philosophical +temperament; moreover, no children came, for which she felt a sort of +cold negative gratitude. She liked children, and even attracted them, +but she preferred that other women should bear and rear them. + +But all that comparative happiness was before the dawning of ambition +and the heavier trials that preceded it. + +A railroad expanded the sleepy village into a lively town of some three +thousand inhabitants, and although that meant wider interests for Mrs. +Balfame, and an occasional trip to New York, the more intimate +connection with a great city nearly wrecked her husband's business. His +father was dead and he had inherited the store which had supplied the +village with general merchandise for a generation. But by the time the +railroad came he had grown lazy and liked to sit on the sidewalk on fine +days, or before the stove in winter, his chair tilted back, talking +politics with other gentlemen of comparative leisure. He was popular, +for he had a bluff and hospitable manner; he was an authority on +politics, and possessed an eloquent if ungrammatical tongue. For a time, +as his business dwindled, he merely blasphemed, but just as he was +beginning to feel really uneasy, a brother-in-law who had been the chum +of his youth arrived from Montana and saved him from extinction and "the +old Balfame place" from mortgage. + +Mr. Cummack, the brother-in-law, turned out the loafers, put Dave into +politics, and himself called personally upon every housewife in the +community, agreeing to keep the best of all she needed, but none of +those articles which served as an excuse for a visit to New York or +tempted her to delightful hours with the mail-order catalogue. + +Mrs. Balfame detested this bustling common efficient brother-in-law, +although at the end of two years, the twelfth of her married life, she +was keeping a maid-of-all-work and manicuring her nails. She treated him +with an unswerving sweetness, a natural quality which later developed +into the full flower of graciousness, and even gave him a temperate +measure of gratitude. She was a just woman; and it was not long after +his advent that she began to realise the ambition latent in her strong +character and to enter upon a well defined plan for social leadership. + +She found it all astonishingly easy. Of course she never had met, +probably never would meet, the really wealthy families that owned large +estates in the county and haughtily entertained one another when not +entertaining equally exclusive New Yorkers. But Mrs. Balfame did not +waste time in envy of these people; there were old families in her own +and neighbouring villages, proud of their three or four generations on +the same farm, well-to-do but easy-going, democratic and, when not so +old as to be "moss-backs," hospitable to new notions. Many, indeed, had +built new homes in the expanding village, which bade fair to embrace +choice bits of the farms. + +Mrs. Balfame always had dominated these life-long neighbours and +associates, and the gradual newcomers were quick to recognise her power +and her superior mind; to realise that not to know Mrs. Balfame was to +be a commuter and no more. Everything helped her. Even the substantial +house, inherited from her father-in-law, and still surrounded by four +acres of land, stood at the head of the original street of the village, +a long wide street so thickly planted with maples as old as the farms +that from spring until Christmas the soft leafy boughs interlaced +overhead. She had a subtle but iron will, and a quite commonplace +personality disguised by the cold, sweet, stately and gracious manner so +much admired by women; and she was quite unhampered by the least of that +originality or waywardness which antagonises the orthodox. Moreover, she +dressed her tall slender figure with unerring taste. Of course she was +obliged to wear her smart tailored suits for two years, but they always +looked new and were worn with an air that quite doubled their not +insignificant price. By women she was thought very beautiful, but men, +for the most part, passed her by. + +For eight years now, Mrs. Balfame had been the acknowledged leader of +Elsinore. It was she who had founded the Friday Club, at first for +general cultivation of mind, of late to study the obsessing subject of +Woman. She cared not a straw for the privilege of voting; in fact, she +thought it would be an extremely unladylike thing to do; but a leader +must always be at the head of the procession, while discriminating +betwixt fad and fashion. + +It was she who had established a connection with a respectable club in +New York; it was she who had inveigled the substantial well-dressed and +radical personage on the rostrum beside her to come over and homilise +upon the subject of "The European War _vs._ Woman." + +The visitor had proved to her own satisfaction and that of the major +part of her audience that the bomb which had precipitated the war had +been made in Germany. She was proceeding complacently, despite the +hisses of several members with German forbears, and the President had +just exchanged a glance of amusement with a moderate neutral, who +believed that Russia's desire to thaw out her icy feet in warm water was +at the bottom of the mischief, when--spurred perhaps by a biting +allusion to the atrocities engaging the press at the moment--the idea of +murder took definite form in that clear unvisionary brain so justly +admired by the ladies of Elsinore. + +Mrs. Balfame's pure profile, the purer for the still smooth contours and +white skin of the face itself, the stately setting of the head, was +turned toward the audience below the platform, and one admiring young +member, who attended an art class in New York, was sketching it as a +study in St. Cecelia's, when those six letters of fire rose smoking from +the battle fields of Europe and took Mrs. Balfame's consciousness by +assault: six dark and murky letters, but with no vagueness of outline. + +The first faint shock of surprise over, as well as the few moments of +retrospect, she asked herself calmly: "Why not?" Over there men were +being torn and shot to pieces by wholesale, joking across the trenches +in their intervals of rest, to kill again when the signal was given with +as little compunction as she herself had often aimed at a target, or +wrung the neck of a chicken that had fed from her hand. And these were +men, the makers of law, the self-elected rulers of the world. + +Mrs. Balfame had respected men mightily in her youth. Even now, although +she both despised and hated her husband, she responded femininely to a +fine specimen of manhood with good manners and something to talk about +save politics and business. But these were few and infrequent in Brabant +County. The only man she had met for years who interested her in the +least was Dwight Rush, also a scion of one of the old farm families. + +Rush had been educated in the law at a northwestern university, but +after a few years of practice in Wisconsin had accepted an offer to +enter the most respectable law firm in his native township. He had been +employed several times by David Balfame, who had brought him home +informally to supper perhaps once a fortnight during the last six +months. But, although Mrs. Balfame frankly enjoyed his society and his +evident admiration for a beauty she knew had little attraction for his +sex, she had all a conventional woman's dislike for irregularities, +however innocent; and she had snubbed Mr. Rush's desire to "drop in of +an afternoon." + +He barely flitted through her mind when she asked herself what did man's +civilisation amount to, anyway, and why should women respect it? And, +compared with the stupendous slaughter in Europe, a slaughter that would +seem to be one of the periodicities of the world, since it is the +composite expression of the individual male's desire to fight somebody +just so often--what, in comparison with such a monstrous crime, would be +the offence of making way with one obnoxious husband? + +Something over two years ago--when liquor began to put a fiery edge upon +Mr. Balfame's temper--Mrs. Balfame had considered the question of +divorce; but after several weeks of cool calculation and the exercise +of her foresight upon the inevitable social consequences, she had put +the idea definitely aside. It was incompatible with her plan of life. +Only rich women, or women that were insignificant in great cities, or +who possessed conquering gifts, or who were so advanced as to be +indifferent, could afford the luxury of divorce. Her world was the +eastern division of Brabant County, and while it prided itself upon its +progressiveness, and even--among the younger women--had a gay set, and +although suppressed scandals slid about like slimy monsters in a marsh, +its foundations were inherited from the old Puritan stock, and it fairly +reeked with ancient prejudices. + +It was a typical middle-class community with traditions, some of its +blood too old, and made up of common human ingredients in varying +proportions. Mrs. Balfame, enlightened by much reading and many +matinees, applied the word _bourgeois_ to Elsinore with secret scorn, +but with a sigh: conscious that all its prejudices were hers and that +not for an instant could she continue to be its leader were she a +divorced woman. + +Mrs. Balfame indulged in no dreams of sudden wealth. Elsinore was her +world, and on the whole she was content, realising that life had not +equipped her to lead the society of New York City. She liked to shop in +Fifth Avenue--long since had she politely forgotten the mobs of +Sixth,--to occupy an orchestra chair with a friend at a matinee, and +take tea or chocolate at the fashionable retreats for such dissipations +before returning to provincial Elsinore. There was a tacit agreement +between herself and her husband that he should dine with his political +friends in a certain restaurant behind a bar in Dobton, the county seat, +on the Wednesday or Thursday evenings when she found it impossible to +return to Elsinore before seven o'clock; an arrangement which he +secretly approved of but invariably entered a protest against by coming +home at two in the morning extremely drunk. + +He never attended the theatre with her, his preference being for +vaudeville or a screaming musical comedy, for both of which +abnormalities she had a profound contempt. She saw only the "best plays" +herself, her choice being guided not so much by newspaper approval as by +length of run. It must be confessed that in the eight or nine years of +her comparative emancipation from the grinding duties of the home she +had learned a good deal of life from the plays she saw. On the whole, +however, she preferred sound American drama, particularly when it dealt +with Society; for the advanced (or decadent?) pictures of life as +presented in the imported drama, she had only a mild contempt; her first +curiosity satisfied, she thanked God that she was a plain American. + +Such was Mrs. Balfame when she made up her mind to remove David Balfame, +superfluous husband. She was quite content to reign in Elsinore, to live +out her life there, but as a dignified and irreproachable and well-to-do +widow. Divorce being out of the question, there was but one way to get +rid of him: his years were but forty-four, and although he "blew up" +with increasing frequency, to use his own choice vernacular, he was as +healthy as an ox, and the town drunkard was rising eighty. + +Mrs. Balfame's friend, Dr. Anna Steuer, was now replying to the lady +from New York. After reminding the Club that the President of the United +States had requested his docile subjects to curb their passions and +flaunt their neutrality, Dr. Steuer proceeded to demolish the +anti-German attitude of the guests by reciting the long list of +industrial, economic and scientific contributions to civilisation which +had distinguished the German Empire since the federation of its states. + +Dr. Steuer was of Dutch descent, and her gifts were not forensic, but +the key-note of her character was an intense and passionate loyalty. She +had spent some of the most impressionable years of her life in the +German clinics, and she cherished a romantic affection for a country +whose natural and historic beauties no man will deny. She had +steadfastly refused to read the "other side," pinning her faith to all +that was best in the country of her youthful dreams. In consequence, her +discourse, while informing, was somewhat beside the point; and had it +not been for the deep love borne her by almost every one present, there +would have been a polite but firm demand to give place. + +Mrs. Balfame was smiling encouragement when her musings took a sudden +and arbitrary twist. Being a person who never acted on impulse, her +decisions, after due processes of thought, were commonly irrevocable. +The moment she had made up her mind to pass her husband on, she had +committed herself to the act; and, even before Dr. Anna Steuer had +claimed her superficial attention, had already erected the question, +How? + +Mrs. Balfame was a woman who rarely bungled anything, and murder, she +well knew, was the last of all acts to bungle, did the perpetrator +desire to enjoy the freedom of his act. Being refined to her marrow, she +shrank from all forms of brutality, and rarely, if ever, read the +details of crime in the newspapers. The sight of blood disgusted her, +although it did not turn her faint. She kept a pistol in her bedroom; +burglars, particularly of late, had entered a large number of houses in +Brabant County; but nothing would have horrified her more than to empty +its contents into the worst of criminals. + +Mechanically she had run through the list of all the accepted forms of +removing human impedimenta and rejected them, when Dr. Anna's scientific +mind, playing along the surface of hers, shot in the arrow of suggestion +that she belonged naturally to the type of woman that poisoned if forced +to commit murder. It was bloodless, decent, and required no vulgar +expenditure of energy. + +But healthy people, suddenly dead, were excavated and the quarry +submitted to chemical tests; it was then--smiling brilliantly at her +ardent pro-German friend--that Mrs. Balfame recalled a rainy evening +some two years since. She and Dr. Anna had sat over the fire in the old +Steuer cottage, and the doctor, who before the war never had been +interested in anything but her friends, her science, and suffrage, had +discoursed upon certain untraceable poisons, had even risen and taken +down a vial from a secret cupboard above the mantel. During the same +conversation, which naturally drifted to crime, Dr. Anna had discoursed +upon the idiocy of doctors who poisoned with morphia, strychnine, or +prussic acid, when not only were these organic poisons known to all +scientific members of the profession, but they could easily remove the +barrier to their complete happiness with cholera, smallpox, or typhus +germs, sealed within the noncommittal capsule. + +Mrs. Balfame shuddered at the mere thought of any of these dreadful +diseases, having no desire to witness human sufferings, or to run the +risk of infection, but as she stared at Dr. Anna to-day, she made up her +mind to procure that vial of furtive poison. + +So sudden was this resolution and so grim its portent that it was +accompanied by unusual physical phenomena: she brought her sound white +teeth together and thrust out her strong chin; her eyes became fixed in +a hard stare and the muscles of her face seemed to menace her soft white +skin. + +Alys Crumley, the young woman who had been sketching Mrs. Balfame +instead of listening to the discussion, caught her breath and dropped +her pencil. For the moment the pretty, ultra-refined, elegant leader of +Elsinore society looked not like St. Cecelia but like Medea. Always +determined, resolute, smilingly dominant, never before had she betrayed +the secret possibilities of her nature. + +Miss Crumley cast a glance of startled apprehension about her, but the +debate was just finished, every one was commenting upon the splendid +self-control of the high participants, and repeating the New Yorker's +last phrase: that not civilisation but man was a failure. A moment later +Mrs. Balfame advanced to the edge of the platform, and, with her +inimitable graciousness, invited the members of the Club to come forward +and meet the distinguished guest. Little Miss Alys Crumley, watching +her, listening to her pleasant shallow voice, her amused quiet laugh, +came to the conclusion that the fearsome expression she had seen on her +model's face had been a mere effect of light. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The meeting of the Friday Club had been held in the Auditorium, a hall +which accommodated moving pictures, an occasional vaudeville +performance, political orators, and subscription balls of more than one +social stratum. It was particularly adapted to the growing needs of the +Friday Club, as it impressed visitors favorably, and there was a small +room in the rear where tea could be served. + +It was a crisp autumn evening when the President and her committee sped +the parting guest of this fateful day and walked briskly homeward, +either to cook supper themselves or to prod the languid "hired girl." +Starting in groups, they parted at successive corners, and finally Mrs. +Balfame and Dr. Anna were alone in the old street. The doctor's offices +were in Main Street under the Auditorium, between the Elsinore Bank and +the Emporium drug store, but she too had inherited a cottage in what was +now known as Elsinore Avenue, and almost at the opposite end from the +"Old Balfame Place." + +"Come in," she said hospitably, as she opened a gate set superfluously +into the low boxwood hedge. "You can 'phone to the Elks' and tell Dave +to try the new hotel. It's ages since I've seen you." + +"I will!" Mrs. Balfame's prompt reply was accompanied by what was known +in Elsinore as her inscrutable smile. "It is kind of you," she added +politely, for even with old friends she never forgot her manners. "I +long for a cup of your tea--if you will make it yourself. I really could +eat nothing after those sandwiches." + +"I'll make it myself, all right. First because it wouldn't be fit to +drink if I didn't, and second because it's Cassie's night out." + +She took the key from beneath the door-mat, and pressed an electric +button in the hall and another in a comfortable untidy sitting-room. In +her parents' day the sitting-room had been the front parlour, with an +atmosphere as rigid as the horsehair furniture, but in this era of more +elastic morals it was full of shabby comfortable furniture, a davenport +was close to the radiator, the desk and tables were littered with +magazines, medical reviews, and text books. + +"How warm and delicious," said Mrs. Balfame brightly, removing her hat +and wraps and laying them smoothly on a chair. "I'll telephone and then +close my eyes and think of nothing until tea is ready--I know you won't +have me in the kitchen. What a blessed relief it will be to hear you +sing in your funny old voice after that woman's strident tones." + +She made short work of telephoning. Mr. Balfame, having "just stepped +across the street," she merely left a message for him. Dr. Anna, out in +the kitchen, lighted the gas stove, rattled the aluminum ware, and sang +in a booming contralto. + +Mrs. Balfame went through no stage formalities; she neither tiptoed to +the door nor listened intently. From the telephone, which was on the +desk, she walked over to the strongest looking chair, carried it to the +discarded fireplace, mounted and peered into the little cupboard the +canny doctor had had built into the old chimney after the furnace was +installed. There Dr. Anna kept her experimental drugs, her mother's seed +pearls and diamond brooch, and a roll of what she called emergency +bills. + +The vial was almost in the middle of a row of bottles. Mrs. Balfame +recognised it at once. She secreted it in the little bag that still hung +on her arm, replaced it with another small bottle that had stood nearer +the end of the row, closed the door and restored the chair to its proper +place. Could anything be more simple? + +She was too careful of her best tailored suit to lie down, but she +arranged herself comfortably in a corner of the davenport and closed her +eyes. Soothed by the warmth of the room and the organ tones in the +kitchen she drifted into a happy state of somnolence, from which she was +aroused by the entrance of her hostess with a tray. She sprang up +guiltily. + +"I had no intention of falling asleep--I meant to set the table at +least--" + +"Those cat naps are what has kept you young and beautiful, while the +rest of us have traded complexions for hides." + +Mrs. Balfame gracefully insisted upon clearing and laying a corner of +the table, and the two friends sat down and chatted gaily over their tea +and toast and preserves. Dr. Anna's face--a square face with a snub nose +and kindly twinkling eyes--beamed as her friend complimented her upon +the erudition she had displayed in her reply to the Club guest and added +wistfully: + +"I feel as if I didn't know a thing about this war. Everybody +contradicts everybody else, and sometimes they contradict themselves. +I'm going over to-morrow" ("going over" meant New York in the Elsinore +tongue) "and get all the books that have been printed on the subject, +and read up. I do feel so ignorant." + +"That's a large order. When you've dug through them you'll know less +than you could get from the headlines of the 'anti' evening papers. I'll +hunt up a list that was given me by a patient who claims to be neutral, +if you really want it, and leave it at your house in the morning. It's +at the office." + +"Oh, please do!" Mrs. Balfame leaned eagerly across the table. "You +know, it is my turn to read a paper Friday week, and literally I can +think of nothing else except this terrible but most interesting war. Of +course, I must display some real knowledge and not deal merely in +adjectives and generalities. I'll read night and day--I suppose I can +get all those books from two or three New York libraries?" + +"Enid Balfame, you are a wonder! When you buckle down to a thing! Who +but you would take hold of a subject like that with the idea of +mastering it in two weeks--Oh, bother!" + +The telephone was ringing. Dr. Anna tilted back her chair and lifted the +receiver from the desk to her ear. She put it down almost immediately. +"Hurry call," she said briefly, an intense professional concentration +banishing the pleasant relaxation of a moment before. "Baby. Sorry. +Leave the key under the door mat. Don't hurry." She was putting on her +wraps in the hall as she called back her last words. The front door +banged simultaneously. + +Mrs. Balfame piled the dishes on the tray, carried them out into the +kitchen, washed and put them away. She was a very methodical woman and +exquisitely neat. Although she no longer did her own kitchen work, it +would have distressed her to leave her friend's little home at "sixes +and sevens"; the soiled dishes would have haunted her all night, or at +least until she fell asleep. + +After she had also arranged the publications on the sitting-room table +in neat rows she put on her coat and hat, turned off all the lights, +secreted the key as requested and walked briskly down the path. There +was a street lamp directly in front of the gate. Its light fell on the +face of a man emerging from the heavy shadow of the maple trees that +bordered the avenue. She recognised her husband's lawyer, Dwight Rush. + +"What luck!" he exclaimed boyishly. "Now I shall talk to you for at +least five minutes--ten, if you will walk slowly! What are you doing out +so late alone?" + +Mrs. Balfame glanced apprehensively up and down the street. All the +windows were alight, but it was too late in the season for loitering on +verandas; even if they met any one, recognition would hardly be possible +unless the encounter took place under a street lamp. Moreover, she was +one of those women who while rarely terrified when alone became +intensely feminine when a man appeared with his archaic right to shield +and protect. She smiled graciously. + +"You may see me to my gate," she said. + +"I should think I might! A pistol at my head wouldn't keep me from +walking these few blessed minutes with you. Seriously, it's not safe for +you to be out alone like this. There were three burglaries last week, +and you are just the woman to have her bag snatched." + +She drew closer to him, a faint accent of alarm in her voice. + +"I never thought of that. But Anna was called off in a hurry. I am so +glad you happened along. Although," primly, "it wouldn't do, you know, +for a woman of my age and position to be seen walking alone with a young +man at night." + +"What nonsense! You are like Caesar's wife, I guess. Anything you did in +this town would seem about right. You've got them all hypnotised, +including myself. It's the ambition of my life to know you better," he +added in a more serious tone. "Why won't you let me call?" + +"It wouldn't do. If I have a nice position it's because I've always been +so particular. If I let young men call on me, people would say that I +was no better than that fast bunch that tangoes every night and goes to +road houses and things." Her voice trailed off vaguely; she really knew +very little of the doings of "gay sets," although much in the abstract +of a too temperamental world. + +She made up her mind to dispose of this misguided young man once for +all. She knew that she looked quite ten years younger than her age, and +she was well aware that although man's passion might be business his +pastime was the hunt. + +"I am thankful that I have no grown daughter to keep from running with +that bunch," she said playfully. "Of course I might have. I am quite old +enough." + +He laughed outright. Then he said the old thing which is ever new to +the woman, and with a perceptible softening in his hard energetic voice: +"I wonder if you really are as conventional--conventionised--as you +perhaps think you are? You always give me the impression of being two +women, one fast asleep deep down somewhere, the other not even +suspecting her existence." + +"How pretty!" She smiled with pleasure, and she felt a faint stirring of +coquetry, as if the ghost of her youth were rising--that far-off period +when she put on her best ribbons and made her best pies to allure the +marriageable swains of Elsinore. But she recalled herself quickly and +frowned. "You must not say such things to me," she said coldly. + +"But I shall, and I will add that I wish you were a widow, or had never +been married. I should propose to you this minute." + +"That is equivalent to saying that you wish my husband were dead. And he +is your friend, too!" + +"Your husband is not my friend; he is my employer--upon occasion. At the +moment I did not remember who was your husband. Let it go at that." + +"Very well." + +It was evident that he belonged to the type that found its amusement in +making love to married women; but--they were within the rays of a lamp, +and sauntering--she looked up at this pleasant exponent indulgently. She +was quite safe, and it was by no means detestable at the age of +forty-two to be coveted by the cleverest young man in Brabant County. + +The smile left her lips and she experienced a faint vibration of the +nerves as she met the unsmiling eyes bent close above her own. + +Rush was almost drab in colour, but the bones of his face were large +and his eyes were deeply set and well apart, intensely blue and +brilliant. It was one of those narrow rigid faces the exigencies of his +century and country have bred, the jaw long and almost as salient as +that of a consumptive, the brow bold, the mouth hard set, the cheeks +lean and cut with deep lines, the whole effect not only keen and clever +but stronger than any man has consistently been since the world began. +The curious contradiction about this type of American face is that it +almost invariably looks younger than the years that have contributed to +the modelling of it; such men, particularly if smoothly shaven as they +usually are, look thirty at forty; even at fifty, if they retain their +hair, appear but little older. When Rush's mouth was relaxed it could +smile charmingly, and the eyes fill with playfulness and vivacity, just +as his strident American voice could move a jury to tears by the tears +that were in it. + +At this moment all the intensity of which his striking features were +capable was concentrated in his eyes. + +"I'm not going to make love to you as matters stand," he said, his voice +dry with emotion. "But I want you to divorce Dave Balfame and marry me. +Sooner or later you will be driven to it--" + +"Never! I'll never be a divorced woman. Never! Never!" + +His steady gaze wavered and he sighed. "You said that as if you meant +it. You think you are intellectual, and you haven't outgrown one of the +prejudices of your Puritan grandmothers--who behaved themselves because +women were scarce and even better treated than they are now, and because +they would have been too mean to spend money on a divorce suit if +divorces had come into fashion elsewhere." + +"You are far from complimentary!" Mrs. Balfame raised her head stiffly, +not a little indignant at this natural display of sheer masculinity. She +would have withdrawn her arm and hastened her steps but he held her +back. + +"I don't mean to be uncomplimentary. Only, you ought to be so much more +advanced than you are. I repeat, I shall not make downright love to you, +for I intend to marry you one of these days. But I shall say what I +choose. How much longer do you think you can go on living like +this?--with a man you must despise and from whom you must suffer +indignities--and in this hole--" + +"You live here--" + +"I came back here because I had a good offer and I like the East better +than the West, but I have no intention of staying here. I have reason to +believe that I shall get into a New York firm next spring; and once +started on that race-course I purpose to come in a winner." + +"And you would saddle yourself with a wife many years your senior?" she +asked wonderingly. + +But she thrilled again, and unconsciously moderated her gait still +further; they were but a few steps from her home. + +"I am thirty-four. I am sorry that I have impressed you as looking too +young to be taken seriously, but you will admit that if a man doesn't +know his own mind when he is verging toward middle age, he never will. +But if I were only twenty-five, it would make no difference. I would +marry you like a shot. I never have given a thought to marrying before. +Girls don't interest me. They show their hand too plainly. I've always +had a sort of ideal and you fill it." + +It was characteristic of Mrs. Balfame's well-ordered mind that her +intention to murder her husband did not intrude itself into this unique +and provocative hour. She had never indulged in a passing desire to +marry again, and hers was not the order of mind that somersaults. But +she was willing to "let herself go," for the sake of the experience; for +the first time in her twenty odd years of married life to loiter in a +leafy shadowy street with a man who loved her and made no secret of it. + +"I wonder?" She stared up at him, curiosity in her eyes. + +"Wonder what?" + +"If it _is_ love?" + +He laughed unmusically. "I am not surprised that you ask that +question--you, who know no more of love than if you had been a castaway +on a desert island since the age of ten. Never mind. I've planted a +seed. It will sprout. Think and think again. You owe me that much--and +yourself. I know that six months hence you will have divorced Dave +Balfame, and that you will marry me as soon as the law allows." + +"Never! Never!" She was laughing now, but with all the gay coquetry of +youth, not merely the eidola of her own. + +They had arrived at the gate of the Balfame Place, which faced the +avenue and a large street lamp. She put the gate between them with a +quicker movement than she commonly indulged in and held out her hand. + +"No more nonsense! If I were young and free--who knows? +But--but--forty-two!" She choked but brought it out. "Now go home and +think over all the nice girls you know and select one quickly. I will +make the wedding cake." + +"Did you suppose I didn't know your age? This is Elsinore, and its +inhabitants are five thousand. When you and I were born--of respectably +eminent parentage--all Brabant County numbered few more." + +He made no attempt to open the gate, but he raised her hand to his lips. +Even in that rare moment he was conscious of a regret that it was such a +large hand, and his head jerked abruptly as he flung out the recreant +thought. + +"I never shall change," he said. "And you are to think and think. Now +go. I'll watch until you are indoors." + +"Good night." She ran up the path, wondering if her tall slight figure +looked as willowy as it felt. The mirror had often surprised her with +the information that she looked quite different from the image in her +mind. She also wondered, with some humour, why no one ever had +discovered her apparently obvious charms before. + +When she was in her bedroom and electricity replaced the mellow rays of +street lamps shining through soft and whispering leaves, Mrs. Balfame +forgot Dwight Rush and all men save her husband. + +She took the vial from her bag and stared at it. In a moment a frown +drew her serene brows together, her sweet, shallow, large grey eyes, so +consistently admired by her own sex at least, darkened with displeasure. +She was a bungler after all. How was the stuff to be administered? She +racked her memory, but the casual explanation of Dr. Anna, uttered at +least two years ago, had left not an echo. A drop in his eggs or coffee +might be too little; more, and he might detect the foreign quantity. + +She removed the cork and sniffed. It was odourless, but was it +tasteless? + +Obviously there was no immediate way of ascertaining save by experiment +on Mr. Balfame. And even if it were tasteless, it might cook his blood, +congest his face, burst his veins--she recalled snatches of Dr. Anna's +dissertations upon "interesting cases." On the other hand, one drop +might make him violently ill; the suspicions of any doctor might be +aroused. + +She must walk warily. Murder was one of the fine arts. Those that +cultivated it and failed followed the victim or spent the rest of their +lives within prison walls. Thousands, it was estimated, walked the earth +unsuspected, unapprehensive, serene and content--contemptuous of +failures and bunglers, as are the masters in any art. Mrs. Balfame was +proudly aware that her role in life was success. + +There was nothing to do but wait. She must have another cosy evening +with her scientific friend and draw her on to talk of the poison. Ah! +that made another precaution imperative. + +She went to the cupboard in the bathroom, rinsed a small bottle, +transferred the precious colorless fluid, refilled the vial with water +and returned it to her bag. To-morrow or next day she would slip into +Dr. Anna's house and restore it to its hiding place. The poison she +secreted on the top shelf of the bathroom cupboard. + +Reluctantly, for she was a prompt and methodical woman, she resigned +herself to the prospect of David Balfame's prolonged sojourn upon the +planet he had graced so ill. She went to bed, shrinking into the farther +corner, but falling asleep almost immediately. Then, her hands having +faltered, Fate borrowed the shuttle. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +A fortnight passed before Mrs. Balfame found the opportunity for a chat +with Dr. Anna. + +On Saturday afternoons it was the pleasant custom of the flower of +Elsinore to repair to the Country Club, a building of the bungalow type, +with wide verandas, a large central hall, several smaller rooms for +those that preferred cards to dancing, a secluded bar, a tennis +court--flooded in winter for skating--and a golf links. It was +charmingly situated about four miles from the town, with the woods +behind and a glimpse of the grey Atlantic from the higher knolls. + +The young unmarried set that danced at the Club or in the larger of the +home parlours every night would have monopolised the central hall of the +bungalow on Saturdays as well had it not been for the sweet but firm +resistance of Mrs. Balfame. Lacking in a proper sex vanity she might be, +but she was far too proud and just to permit her own generation to be +obliterated by mere youth. Having no children of her own, it shocked her +fine sense of the fitness of things to watch the subservience of parents +and the selfishness of offspring. One of the most notable results of her +quiet determination was that she and her friends enjoyed every privilege +of the Country Club when the mood was on them, and that a goodly number +of the men of their own generation did not confine their attentions +exclusively to the bar, but came out and danced with their neighbours' +wives. The young people sniffed, but as Mrs. Balfame had founded the +Country Club, and they were all helpless under her inflexible will and +skilful manipulation, they never dreamed of rebellion. + +During the fortnight Mrs. Balfame had cunningly replaced the vial, the +indifferent Cassie leaving the sitting-room at her disposal while she +wrote a note reminding Dr. Anna of the promised list of war books, +adding playfully that she had no time to waste in a busy doctor's +waiting-room. In truth Dr. Anna was a difficult person to see at this +time. There was an epidemic of typhoid in the county, and much illness +among children. + +However, on the third Saturday after the interrupted supper, as Mrs. +Balfame was motoring out to the Club with her friend, Mrs. Battle, wife +of the President of the Bank of Elsinore, she saw Dr. Anna driving her +little runabout down a branching road. With a graceful excuse she +deserted her hostess, sprang into the humbler machine, and gaily ordered +her friend to turn and drive to the Club. + +"You take a rest this afternoon," she said peremptorily. "Otherwise you +will be a wreck when your patients need you most. You look just about +fagged out. And I want a little of your society. I've been thinking of +taking to a sick bed to get it." + +Dr. Anna looked at her brilliant friend with an expression of dumb +gratitude and adoration. She was worth one hundred per cent. more than +this companion of her forty years, but she never would know it. She +regarded Enid Balfame as one of the superwomen of Earth, astray in the +little world of Elsinore. Even when Mrs. Balfame had done her own work +she had managed to look rare and lovely. Her hair was neatly arranged +for the day before descent to the lower regions, and her pretty print +frock was half covered by a white apron as immaculate as her round +uncovered arms. + +And since the leader of Elsinore had "learned things" she was of an +elegance whose differences from those of women born to grace a loftier +sphere were merely subtle. Her fine brown hair, waved in New York, and +coiled on the nape of her long neck, displayed her profile to the best +possible advantage; like all women's women she set great store by her +profile. Whenever possible it was framed in a large hat with a rolling +brim and drooping feathers. Her severely tailored frocks made her look +aloof and stately on the streets (and in the trains between Elsinore and +New York); and her trim white shirt waists and duck skirts, or "one +piece suits" for colder weather, gave her a sweet feminine appeal in the +house. At evening entertainments she invariably wore black, cut chastely +about the neck and draped with a floating scarf. + +Poor Dr. Anna, uncompromisingly plain from youth, worshipped beauty; +moreover, a certain mental pressure of which she was quite unaware +caused her to find in Enid Balfame her highest ideal of womanhood. She +herself was never trim; she was always in a hurry; and the repose and +serenity the calm and sweet dignity of this gifted being both fascinated +and rested her. That Mrs. Balfame took all her female adorers had to +offer and gave nothing but enhanced her worth. She knew the priceless +value of the pedestal, and although her wonderful smile descended at +discreet intervals her substantial feet did not. + +Dr. Anna, who had never been sought by men and had seen too many of +them sick in bed to have a romantic illusion left, gave to this friend +of her lifetime, whom the years touched only to improve--and who never +was ill--the dog-like fidelity and love that a certain type of man +offers at the shrine of the unattainable woman. Mrs. Balfame was +sometimes amused, always complacent; but it must be conceded that she +took no advantage of the blind devotion of either Dr. Anna or her +numerous other admirers. She was far too proud to "use" people. + +Mrs. Balfame seldom discussed her domestic trials even with Dr. Anna, +but this most intimate of her friends guessed that her life with her +husband was rapidly growing unendurable. She was, naturally, the family +doctor; she had nursed David Balfame through several gastric attacks, +whose cause was not far to seek. + +But despite much that was highly artificial in her personality, Enid +Balfame was elementally what would be called, in the vernacular of the +day, a regular female; for a fortnight she had longed to talk about +Dwight Rush. This was the time to gratify an innocent desire while +watching sharply for an opportunity to play for higher stakes. + +"Anna!" she said abruptly, as they sped along the fine road, "women like +and admire me so much, and I am passably good looking--young looking, +too--what do you suppose is the reason men don't fall in love with me? +Dave says that half the men in town are mixed up with those telephone +and telegraph girls, and they are pretty in the commonest kind of way--" + +"Enid Balfame!" Dr. Anna struggled to recover her scandalised breath. +"You! Do you put yourself in the class with those trollops? What's got +into you? Men are men. Naturally they let your sort alone." + +"But I have heard more than whispers about two or three of our good +friends--women of our age, not giddy young fools--and in our own set. +Why do Mary Frew and Lottie Gifning go over to New York so often? Dave +says it isn't only that women from these dull little towns go over to +New York to meet their lovers, but that some of them are the up-town +wives of millionaires, or the day-time wives of all sorts of men with +money enough to run two establishments. It is a hideous world and I +never ask for particulars, but the fact remains that Lottie and Mary and +a few others have as many partners among the young men at the dances as +the girls do; and I can recall hints they have thrown out that they +could go farther if they chose." + +"This is a busy country," remarked Dr. Anna drily. "Men don't waste time +chasing the prettiest of women when convinced there is nothing in it--to +borrow the classic form. Young chaps, urged on by natural law to find +their mate, will pursue the indifferent girl, but men looking for a +little play after business hours will not. Why, you--you look as cold +and chaste as Caesar's wife. They couldn't waste five minutes on you." + +"That's what he said--that I was like Caesar's wife--" + +"Enid!" Dr. Anna stopped the little machine and turned upon her friend, +her weary face compact and stern. "Enid Balfame! Have you been letting a +man make love to you?" + +"Well, I guess not." Mrs. Balfame tossed her head and bridled. "But the +other night, when I left your house, Mr. Rush was passing and saw me +home. He nearly took my breath away by asking me to get a divorce and +marry him, but he respected me too much to make love to me." + +"I should hope so. The young fool!" But Dr. Anna was unspeakably +relieved. She had turned faint at the thought that her idol might be as +many other women whose secrets she alone knew. "What did you say to +him?" she asked curiously, driving very slowly. + +"Why, that I would not be a divorced woman for anything in the world." + +"You're not the least bit in love with him?" asked Dr. Anna jealously. + +Mrs. Balfame gave her silvery shallow care-free laugh. It might have +come from any of the machines passing, laden with young girls. "Well, I +guess not! That sort of foolishness never did interest me. I guess my +vanity was tickled, but vanity isn't love--by a long sight." + +Dr. Anna looked at the pure cold profile, the wide cool grey eyes, and +laughed. "He did have courage, poor devil! It must have been--no, there +was no moonlight. Must have been the suggestion of that old Lovers' +Lane, Elsinore Avenue. But if you wanted men to make love to you, my +dear, you could have them by the dozen. Nothing easier--for pretty women +of any age who want to be made love to. As for Rush--" She hesitated, +then added generously, "he has a future, I think, and could take you +somewhere else." + +"I should be like a fish out of water anywhere but in Elsinore. I have +no delusions. Forty-two is not young--that is to say, it is long past +the adaptable age, unless a woman has spent her life on the move and +filling it with variety. I love Elsinore as a cat loves its hearth-rug. +And I can get to New York in an hour. I think this would be the ideal +life with about two thousand dollars more a year, and--and--" + +"Dave Balfame somewhere else! Pity Sam Cummack didn't turn him into a +travelling salesman instead of planting him here." + +"He's never been interested in anything in his life but politics. But I +don't really bother about him," she added lightly. "I have him well +trained. After all, he never comes home to lunch, he interferes with me +very little, he goes to the Elks every night soon after dinner, and he +falls asleep the minute he gets into bed. Why, he doesn't even snore. +And he carries his liquor pretty well. I guess you can't expect much +more than that after twenty-two years of matrimony. I notice that if it +isn't one thing it's another." + +"Good Lord! Well, I wish he'd break his neck." + +"Oh, Anna!" + +"Well, of course I didn't mean it. But I see so many good people die--so +many lovely children--I'm sort of callous, I guess. I make no bones of +wishing that he'd died of typhoid fever last week, instead of poor Joe +Morton, who had a wife and two children to support, and was the salt of +the earth--" + +"You might give Dave a few germs in a capsule!" Mrs. Balfame interrupted +in her lightest tones, although she turned her face away. "Or that +untraceable poison you once showed me. A bottle of that would finish +him!" + +"A drop and none the wiser." Dr. Anna's contralto tones were gloomy and +morose. "Unfortunately, I am not scientific enough for cold-blooded +murder. I'm a silly old Utopian who wishes that a plague would come and +sweep all the undesirables from the earth and let us start fair with our +modern wisdom. Then I suppose we'd bore one another to death until +original sin cropped out again. Better speed up, I guess. I've a full +evening ahead of me." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The "smart set" of Elsinore was composed of the twelve women that could +afford to lose most at bridge. Mrs. Balfame, who could ill afford to +lose anything, but who was both a scientific and a lucky player, +insisted upon moderate stakes. The other members of this inner exclusive +circle were the wives of two bankers, three contractors, two prosperous +merchants, one judge, one doctor, and two commuters who made their +incomes in New York and slept in Elsinore. These ladies made it a point +of honor to dine at seven, dress smartly and appropriately for all +occasions, attend everything worth while to which they could obtain +entrance in New York, pay an occasional visit to Europe, read the new +novels and attend the symphony concerts. It is superfluous to add that +the very foundation of the superior social status of each was a large +house of the affluent type peculiar to the prosperous annexes of old +communities, half brick and half wood, shallow, characterless, +impersonal; and a fine car with a limousine top. The house stood in the +midst of a lawn sloping to the street, unconfined by even the box hedge +and undivided from the neighbouring grounds. The garage, little less +pretentious than the mansion, also faced the street, for all to see. +There was hardly a horse left in Elsinore; taxi cabs awaited the +traveller at the station, and people that could not afford handsome cars +purchased and enjoyed the inexpensive runabout. + +Mrs. Balfame had segregated her smart set for strategic reasons, but +that did not mean that both she and they were not kindness itself to the +less favoured. Obviously, an imposing party cannot be given by twelve +families alone, especially when almost half their number are childless. +On all state occasions the list of invited numbered several hundred, in +that town of some five thousand inhabitants. + +It said much for the innate nobility of these wealthier dames of +Elsinore, who read the New York society papers quite as attentively as +they did the war news, that they submitted without a struggle to the +dominance of a woman who never had possessed a car and whose husband's +income was so often diverted from its natural course; but Mrs. Balfame +not only outclassed them in inflexibility of purpose, but her family was +as old as Brabant County; the Dawbarns had never been in what might be +called the cavalry regiment, consisting of those few chosen ones living +in old colonial houses set in large estates and with both roots and +branches in the city of New York; but no one disputed their right to be +called Captains of the infantry. And Mrs. Balfame, sole survivor in the +direct line, had two wealthy cousins in Brooklyn. + +Once in a while Dr. Anna, a privileged character, and born at least in +Brabant County, took a hand at bridge, but she was a poor player, and, +upon the rare occasions when she found time to spend a Saturday +afternoon at the Country Club, preferred to rest in a deep chair and +watch the young folks flirt and dance until the informal supper was +ready. Never had she tripped a step, but she loved youth, and it gave +her an acute old maid's delight to observe the children grow up; +snub-nosed, freckled-faced awkward school girls develop at a flying leap +into slim American prettiness, enhanced with every late exaggeration of +style. She also approved heartily, on hygienic grounds, of the friends +of her own generation dancing, even in public, if their partners were +not too young and their forms too cumbersome. + +Mrs. Balfame and Dr. Anna arrived at the Club shortly after four +o'clock. Young people swarmed everywhere, within and without; perhaps +twenty older matrons were sitting on the veranda knitting those +indeterminate toilette accessories for the Belgians which always seemed +to be about to halt at precisely the same stage of progress. + +Mrs. Balfame, who had set the fashion, had not brought her needles +to-day. She went directly to the card room; but her partner for the +tournament not having arrived, she entertained her impatient friends +with a recent domestic episode. + +"I have a German servant, you know," she said, removing her wraps and +taking her seat at the table. "A good creature and a hard worker, but +leaden-footed and dull beyond belief. Still, I suppose even the dullest +peasant has spite in her make-up. I have been reading tomes of books on +the war, as you learned from painful experience yesterday; most of them, +as it happened--a good joke on Anna that, as she gave me the list--quite +antagonistic to Germany. One day when Frieda should have been dusting I +caught her scowling over the chapter heads of one of them. Of course she +reads English--she has been here several years. Day before yesterday, +when I was knitting, she asked me whom I was knitting for, and I told +her--for the Belgians, of course. She asked me in a sort of growl why I +didn't knit for the homeless in East Prussia--it seems that is where she +comes from and she has been having letters full of horrors. I seldom +bandy words with a servant, for you can't permit the slightest +familiarity in this country if you want to get any work out of them. But +as she scowled as if she would like to explode a shrapnel under me, and +as she is the third I have had in the last five months, I said +soothingly that the newspaper correspondents had neglected the eastern +theatre of war, but had harrowed our feelings so about the Belgians that +we felt compelled to do what we could for them. Then I asked her--I was +really curious--if she had no sympathy for those thousands of afflicted +women and children, merely because they were the victims of the Germans. +She has a big soft face with thick lips, little eyes, and a rudimentary +nose; generally as expressionless as such a face is bound to be. But +when I asked her this question it suddenly seemed to turn to wood--not +actively cruel; it merely expressed the negation of all human sympathy. +She turned without a word and slumped--pardon the expression--out of the +room. But the breakfast was burned this morning--I had to cook another +for poor David--and I know she did it on purpose. I am afraid I shall +have to let her go." + +"I would," said Mrs. Battle, wisely. "She is probably a spy and quite +clever." + +"Yes, but such a worker!" Mrs. Balfame sighed reminiscently. "And when +you have but one servant--" + +The tardy partner bustled in and the game began. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +It was about six o'clock when Mrs. Balfame, steadily losing, contrary to +all precedent, her mind concentrated, her features, like those of the +rest of the players, as hard as the stone faces dug out of Egypt, her +breath escaping in hissing jets, became vaguely conscious of a +disturbance in the outer room. The young people were dancing, as was +usual in the hour before supper, but the piano and fiddles appeared to +be playing against the ribald interruptions of a man's voice. It was +some time before the narrow flow of thought in Mrs. Balfame's brain was +deflected by the powerful outer current, but suddenly she became aware +that her partners were holding their cards suspended, and that their +ears were cocked toward the door. Then she recognised her husband's +voice. + +For a moment she lost her breath and her blood ran chill. She had been +apprehensive for some time of a scene in public, but she had assumed +that it would occur in a friend's house of an evening; he attended her +nowhere else. The Club he had deserted long since; it was much too slow +for a man of his increasing proclivities, especially in a county +liberally provided with saloons and road houses. + +During the last month she had become sensible of a new hostility in his +attitude toward her; it was as if he had suddenly penetrated her hidden +aversion and all his masculine vanity had risen in revolt. Being a +woman of an almost excessive tact, she had sprayed this vanity for +twenty-two years with the delicately scented waters of flattery, but the +springs had gone suddenly dry on that morning when she had uttered her +simple and natural desire to bring the conjugal sleeping accommodations +up to date. + +And now he had come out here to disgrace her, she immediately concluded, +to make her a figure of fun, to destroy her social leadership. This +might also involve him in a loss, but when a man is both drunk and angry +his foresight grows dim and revenge is sweet. + +Only last night there had been an intensely disagreeable scene in +private; that is to say, she had been dignified and slightly +contemptuous, while he had shouted that her knitting got on his nerves, +and the sight of all those books on the war made him sick. When the +whole business of the country was held up by this accursed war, a man +would like to forget it when at home. And every man had the same story, +by God; his wife was knitting when she ought to be darning stockings; +trying to be intellectual by concerning herself with a subject that +concerned men alone. Mr. Balfame had always resented the Woman's Club, +and all talk of votes for a sex that would put him and his kind out of +business. Their intelligent interest in the war was a grievous personal +indignity. + +Being a woman of clear thought and firm purpose, and of a really high +order of moral courage, Mrs. Balfame was daunted for a moment only. She +laid down her cards, opened the door and entered the main room of the +club-house. There she saw, at the head of the room, a group of men +surrounding her husband; with one exception, almost as excited as he. +The exception was Dwight Rush who had a hand on one of Balfame's +shoulders and appeared to be addressing him in a low tone. Little Maude +Battle ran forward and grasped her arm. + +"Oh, dear Mrs. Balfame," she gasped, "do take him home. He is +so--so--queer. He snatched three girls away from their partners, and the +boys are so mad. And his language--oh, it was something awful." + +The women and girls were huddled in groups, all but Alys Crumley, who, +Mrs. Balfame vaguely realised, was sketching. Their eyes were fixed on +the group at the head of the room, where Rush was now trying to edge the +burly swaying figure toward the door. + +Mrs. Balfame walked directly up to her flushed and infuriated spouse. + +"You are not well, David," she said peremptorily. "In all the years of +our married life never have you acted like this. I am sure that you are +getting typhoid fever--" + +"To hell with typhoid fever!" shouted Mr. Balfame. "I'm drunk, that's +what. And I'll be drunker when they let me into the bar. You get out of +this." + +Mrs. Balfame turned to Dr. Anna, who had marched up the room beside her. +"I am sure it is fever," she said with decision, and the loyal Anna +nodded sagely. "You know that liquor never affects him. We must get him +home." + +"Huh!" jeered Balfame, "you two get me home! I'm not so drunk I can't +see the joke of that. The matter with you is you think I'm disgracin' +you, and you want to go on bein' the high cock-alorum of this bunch. +Well, I'm sick of it, and I'm sick of bein' told to eat out when you're +at matinees or that damned Woman's Club. Home's the place for women. +Knittin's all right." He laughed uproariously. "But stay at home by the +fire and knit your husband's socks. Smoke a pipe too, if you like it. +That's what my granny did. The whole lot of you women haven't got one +good man's brain between you, and yet you'd talk the head off the +President of the United States--" + +He was about to launch upon his opinion of Elsinore society when a +staccato cough interrupted the flow. Mrs. Balfame turned away with a +gesture of superb disdain, although her face was livid. + +"The sex jealousy we have so often discussed!" Her clear tones from the +first had carried all over the room. "He must be taken home." She looked +at Dwight Rush and said graciously: "I am sure he will go with you. And +he will apologise to the Club when he is himself again. I shall go back +to our game." + +She held her head very high as she swept down the long room, but her jaw +was set, her nostrils distended, a narrow strip of eye was fixed and +glaring. + +An unforeseen situation had blown to flame such fires of anger as +existed in her depths, and she was unable to extinguish them as quickly +as she would have wished. To the intense surprise of the bridge women +who had followed her out of the card-room and in again, she sank into a +chair and burst into tears. But she managed to cry quietly into her +handkerchief, and in a few moments had her voice under control. + +"He has disgraced me!" she exclaimed bitterly. "I must resign from the +Club." + +"Well, I guess not." The ladies had crowded about her sympathetically. +"We'll all stand up for you," cried Mrs. Battle. "The men will give him +a good talking-to, and he'll write an apology to the Club and that will +end it." + +These friends, old and more recent, were embarrassed in their genuine +sympathy, for no one had ever seen Mrs. Balfame in tears before. Vaguely +they regretted that, extreme as was the provocation, she should have +descended to the level of mere womanhood. It was as if they were present +at the opening of a new chapter in the life of Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore; +as, in truth, they were. + +Mrs. Balfame blew her nose. "Pardon me," she said. "I never believed I +should break down like this--but--but--" once more she set her teeth and +her eyes flashed. "I have a violent headache. I must go home. I cannot +finish the game." + +"I'll take you home," Dr. Anna spoke. "Oh, that beast!" + +The other women kissed Mrs. Balfame, straightened her hat, and escorted +her out to the runabout which Dr. Anna brought to the rear entrance of +the clubhouse. She smiled wearily at the group, touching her brow with a +finger. As soon as the little car had left the grounds and was beyond +the reach of peering eyes, she made no further attempt at self-control, +but poured forth her inmost soul to the one person she had ever fully +trusted. She told the doctor all the secret horror of her life, her +hatred and loathing of David Balfame; everything, in short, but her +determination to kill him, which in the novel excitement that had +invaded her nervous system, she forgot. + +Dr. Anna, who had heard many such confessions, but who obstinately had +hoped that her friend's case was not as bad as it appeared +superficially, was glad that she was not driving a horse; humane as she +was, she should have forgotten herself and lashed him to relieve her own +feelings. + +"You must get a divorce," she said through her teeth. "You really must. +I saw Rush looking at you. There is no mistaking that expression in a +man's eyes. You must--you must divorce that brute." + +"I'll not!" Mrs. Balfame's composure returned abruptly. "And please +forget that I gave way like this and--and said things." She wondered +what she really had said. "I know I need not ask you never to mention +it. But divorce! Oh, no. If I continue to live with him they'll be sorry +for me and stand by me, but if I divorced him--well, I'd just be one +more divorced woman and nothing more. Elsinore isn't Newport. Moreover, +they'd feel I'd no further need of their sympathy. In time they'd let me +pretty well alone." + +"I don't think much of your arguments," said Dr. Anna. "You could marry +Rush and go to New York." + +"But you know I mean what I say. And don't worry, Anna dear." She bent +over the astonished doctor and gave her a warm kiss. "And as I'm not +demonstrative, you know I mean that too. You are not to worry about me. +I've got the excuse I needed, and I'm going to buy some things at second +hand and refurnish one of the old bedrooms and live in it. He can't say +a word after this, and he'll be humble enough, for the men will make him +apologise to the Club. I'll threaten him with divorce, and that alone +will make him behave himself, for it would cost him a good deal more to +pay me alimony than to keep the old house going--" + +"That isn't an argument that will have much effect on a man, usually in +liquor. But women are queer cattle. Divorce is a great and beneficent +institution, and here you elect to go on living under the same roof with +a brute--Oh, well, it's your own funeral. Here we are. I've got to speed +up and practise medicine. Am expecting a call from out at Houston's any +minute. Baby. Good night." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Mrs. Balfame let herself into the dark house. Saturday was Frieda's +night out. + +Contrary to her economical habit, she lighted up the lower floor +recklessly, and opened the windows; she felt an overwhelming desire for +light and air. But as she wished to think and plan with her accustomed +clarity she went at once to the pantry in search of food; the blood was +still in her head. + +The morrow would be Sunday, and the Saturday luncheon was always +composed of the remains of the Friday dinner. On Saturday she dined at +the Country Club. Therefore Mrs. Balfame found nothing with which to +accomplish her deliberate scientific purpose but dry bread and a box of +sardines. She was opening this delectable when the front door bell rang. + +Her set face relaxed into a frown, but she went briskly to the door. The +poison might be transpirable after all, and her alibi must be perfect; +she had changed her mind about going to bed with a headache, and at ten +o'clock, when she knew that several of her childless friends would be at +home, she purposed to call them up and thank them sweetly and +cheerfully. + +When she saw Dwight Rush on the stoop, however, she almost closed the +door in his scowling face. + +"Let me in!" he commanded. + +"No!" She spoke with sweet severity. "I shall not. After such a scene? I +must be more careful than ever. Go right away. I, at least, shall +continue to be above reproach." + +"Oh!" He swallowed the natural expression of masculine irritation. "If +you won't let me in I'll say what I've got to say right here. Will you +divorce that brute and marry me? I can get you a divorce on half a dozen +grounds." + +"I'll have no divorce, now or ever." Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore spoke with +haughty finality. "I abominate the word." Then she added graciously: +"But don't think I am unappreciative of your kindness. Now you must go +away. The Gifnings live on the corner, and they always come home early." + +"A good many have left, including Balfame. He spoilt the evening." Rush +stared at her and ground his teeth. "By God! I wish the old duelling +days were back again. I'd call him out. If you say the word I'll pick a +quarrel with him anyhow. He carries a gun, and there isn't a jury in +Brabant County that wouldn't acquit me on the plea of self-defence. My +conscience would trouble me no more than if I had shot a mad dog." + +Mrs. Balfame gave a little gasp, which he mistook for horror. But +temptation had assailed her. Why not? Her own opportunity might be long +in coming. It would be like Dave Balfame to go away and stay for a +month. But the temptation passed swiftly. Human nature is too complex +for any mere mortal to reduce to the rule of three. While she could +dispose of her husband without a qualm, her conscience revolted from +turning an upright citizen like Dwight Rush into a murderer. + +She closed the door abruptly, knowing that no mere verbal refusal to +accept such an offer would be adequate, and he went slowly down the +steps. But in a moment he ran back and a few feet down the veranda, +thrusting his head through one of the open windows. + +"Just one minute!" + +She was passing the parlour door and paused. + +"Promise me that if you are in trouble you will send for me. For no one +else; no other man, that is, but me. You owe me that much." + +"Yes, I promise." She spoke more softly and smiled. + +"And close these windows. It is not safe to leave veranda windows open +at this hour." + +"I intended to close them before going up stairs. But--perhaps you will +understand--the house when I came in seemed to reek with tobacco and +liquor--with him!" + +His reply was inarticulate, but he pulled down the windows violently, +and she locked them, smiling once more before she turned out the light. + +She returned to the dining-room, thinking upon food with distaste, but +determined to eat until her head felt normal. She had no intention of +speaking to her husband should he return, for she purposed to sleep on a +sofa in the sewing-room and lock the door, but tones and brain must be +lightly poised when she telephoned to her friends. + +The telephone bell rang. Once more she frowned, but answered the summons +as promptly as she had opened the front door. To her amazement she heard +her husband's voice. + +"Say," it said thickly, "I'm sorry. Promise not to take another drink +for a month. Sorry, too, I've got to go to the house for a few minutes. +Didn't intend to go home to-night--thought I'd give you time to get over +bein' as mad as I guess you've got a right to be. But I got to go to +Albany--politics--got to go to-night--must go home and get my grip. +You--you--wouldn't pack it, would you? Then I needn't stay so long. Only +got to sort some papers myself." + +Mrs. Balfame replied in the old wifely tones that so often had caused +him to grit his teeth: "I never hold a man in your condition responsible +for anything. Of course I'll pack your suitcase. What is more, I'll have +a glass of lemonade ready, with aromatic spirits of ammonia in it. You +must sober up before you start on a journey." + +"That's the ticket. You're a corker! Put in a bromide, too. I'm at +Sam's, and I guess I'll walk over--need the air. You just go on bein' +sweet and I'll bring you something pretty from Albany." + +"I want one of those new chiffon-velvet bags, and you will please get it +in New York," she said practically. "I'll write an exact description of +it and put it in the suitcase." + +"All right. Go ahead." His accents breathed profound relief, and +although her brain was working at lightning speed, and her eyes were but +a pale bar of light, she curled her lip scornfully at the childishness +of man, as she hung up the receiver. + +She made the glass of lemonade, added the usual allowance of aromatic +spirits of ammonia and bromide--a bottle of each was kept in the +sideboard ready for instant use--then ran upstairs and returned with the +colourless liquid she had purloined from Dr. Anna's cupboard. + +Her scientific friend had remarked that one drop would suffice, but +being a mere female herself she doubled the dose to make sure; and then +set the glass conspicuously in the middle of the table. The half opened +can of sardines and the plate of bread were quite forgotten, and once +more she ran upstairs, this time to pack his useless clothes. + +She performed this wifely office with efficiency, forgetting nothing, +not even the hair tonic he was administering to a spreading bald spot, a +bottle of digestive tablets, a pair of the brown kid gloves he affected +when dressed up, and a volume of detective fiction. Then she wrote a +minute description of the newest fashion in hand bags and pinned it to +his dinner jacket. The suitcase was an alibi in itself. + +When she had packed it and strapped it and carried it down to the +dining-room, returned to her room and locked the door, she realised that +she had prolonged these commonplace duties in behalf of her nerves. +Those well-disciplined rebels of the human system were by no means +driven to cover, and this annoyed her excessively. + +She had no fear of not rising to precisely the proper pitch when she +heard her husband fall dead in the dining-room, for she always had risen +automatically to every occasion for which she was in any measure +prepared, and to many that had caught her unaware. It was the ordeal of +waiting for the climax that made her nerves jeer at her will, and she +found that a series of pictures was marching monotonously through her +mind, again, and again, and yet again: with that interior vision she saw +her husband walk unsteadily up the street, swing open the gate, slam it +defiantly, insert his latch-key; she saw his eye drawn to the light in +the dining-room at the end of the dark hall, saw him drink the lemonade, +drop to the floor with a fall that shook the house; she saw herself +running down, calling out his name, shattering the glass on the floor, +then running distractedly across the street to the Gifnings'--and again +and still again. + +She had been pacing the room. It occurred to her that she could vary the +monotony by watching for him, and she put out her light and drew aside +the sash curtain. In a moment she caught her breath. + +Her room was on a corner of the house and commanded not only the front +walk leading down to Elsinore Avenue, but the grounds on the left. In +these grounds was a large grove of ancient maples, where, dressed in +white, she passed many pleasant hours in summer with a book or her +friends. The trees, with their low thick branches still laden with +leaves, cast a heavy shade, but her gaze, moving unconsciously from the +empty street, suddenly saw a black and moving shadow in that black and +almost solid mass of shadows. + +She watched intently. A figure undoubtedly was moving from tree to tree, +as if selecting a point of vantage, or restless from one of several +conceivable causes. + +Could it be her husband, summoning his courage to enter and face her? +She had known him in that mood. But she dismissed the suggestion. He had +inferred from her voice that she was both weary and placated, and he was +far more likely to come swaggering down the avenue singing one of his +favourite tunes; he fancied his voice. + +Frieda never returned before midnight, and then, although she entered +by the rear hall door and stole quietly up the back stairs, she would be +quite without shame if confronted. + +Therefore, it must be a burglar. + +There could not have been a more welcome distraction. Mrs. Balfame was +cool and alert at once. As an antidote to rebellious nerves awaiting the +consummation of an unlawful act, a burglar may be recommended to the +most amateurish assassin. + +Mrs. Balfame put on her heavy automobile coat, wrapped her head and face +in a dark veil, transferred her pistol from the table drawer to a +pocket, and went softly down the stairs. She left the house by the +kitchen door, and, after edging round the corner stood still until her +eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Then, once, more, she saw that moving +shadow. + +She dared not risk crossing the lawn directly from the house to the +grove, but made a long detour at the back, keeping on the grass, +however, that her footsteps should make no noise. + +A moment or two and she was within the grove. She saw the shadow detach +itself again, but it was impossible to determine its size or sex, +although she inferred from its hard laboured breathing that the +potential thief was a man. + +He appeared to be making craftily for the house, no doubt with the +intention of opening one of the lower windows; and she stalked him with +a newly awakened instinct, her nostrils expanding. The original resolve +to kill her husband had induced no excitement at all; even Dwight Rush's +love-making had thrilled her but faintly; but this adventure in the +night, stalking a house-breaker, presently to confront him with the +command to raise his hands, cast a momentary light upon the emotional +moments experienced by the highly organised. + +Suddenly she heard her husband's voice. He was approaching Elsinore +Avenue from one of the nearby streets, and he was singing, with +physiological interruptions, "Tipperary," a song he had cultivated of +late to annoy his political rival, an American of German birth and +terrific German sympathies. He was walking quickly, as top-heavy men +sometimes will. + +She drew back and crouched. To make her presence known would be to turn +over the burglar to her husband and detain the essential victim from the +dining-room table. + +She saw the shadow dodge behind a tree. Balfame appeared almost abruptly +in the light shed by the street lamp in front of his gate; and then it +seemed to her that she had held her breath for a lifetime before her +ears were stunned by a sharp report, her eyes blinked at a spurt of +fire, before she heard David Balfame give a curious sound, half moan, +half hiccough, saw him clutch at the gate, then sink to the ground. + +She was hardly conscious of running, far more conscious that some one +else was running--through the orchard and toward the back fence. + +Hours later, it seemed to her, she was in the kitchen closing the door +behind her. Something curious had happened in her brain, so trained to +orderly routine that it seldom prompted an erratic course. + +She should have run at once to her husband, and here she was inside the +house, and once more listening intently. It was the fancied sound that +swung her consciousness back to its balance. She went to the front of +the back stairs and called sharply: + +"Frieda!" + +There was no answer. + +"Frieda," she called again. "Did you hear anything? I thought I heard +some one trying to open the back door." + +Again there was no answer. + +Then, her lip curling at the idea of Frieda's return on Saturday night +at eight o'clock, she went rapidly into the dining-room, carried the +glass containing the lemonade into the kitchen, rinsed it thoroughly, +and put it away. + +It was not until she reached her room that it occurred to her that she +should have ascertained whether or not the key was on the inside of the +rear hall door. + +But this was merely a flitting thought; there were loud and excited +voices down by the gate. In an instant she had hung up her automobile +cloak and veil, changed her dress for a wrapper, let down her hair and +thrown open the window. + +"What is the matter?" Her tone was peremptory but apprehensive. + +"Matter enough!" John Gifning's voice was rough and broken. "Don't come +out here. Mean to say you didn't hear a shot?" + +Two or three men were running about nearer the house. One paused under +her window, and looked up, waving his hand vaguely. + +"Shot? Shot? I heard--so many tires explode--What do you mean? What is +it?--Who--" + +"Here's the coroner!" cried one of the group at the gate. + +"Coroner?" + +She ran down stairs, threw open the front door and went as swiftly +toward the gate, her hair streaming behind her. + +"Who is it?" she demanded. + +"Now--now." Mr. Gifning intercepted her and clasped her shoulder firmly. +"You don't want to go down there--and don't take on--" + +She drew herself up haughtily. "I am not an hysterical woman. Who has +been shot down at my gate?" + +"Well," blurted out Gifning. "I guess you'll have to know. It's poor old +Dave." + +Mrs. Balfame drew herself still higher and stood quite rigid for a +moment; then the coroner, one of her husband's friends, came up the path +and said in a low tone to Gifning, "Take her upstairs. We're goin' to +bring him in. He's gone, for a fact." + +Mr. Gifning pushed her gently along the path, as the others lifted the +limp body and tramped slowly behind. "You go up and have a good cry," he +said. "I'll 'phone for the Cummacks. I guess it was bound to come. +There's been hot times in Dobton lately--" + +"Do you mean that he was deliberately murdered?" + +"Looks like it, seeing that he didn't do it himself. The damned hound +was skulking in the grove. Of course he's made off, but we'll get him +all right." + +Mrs. Balfame walked slowly up the stair, her head bowed, while the heavy +inert mass so lately abhorrent to his wife and several politicians was +laid on the sofa in the parlour whose evolutions had annoyed him. + +Mr. Gifning telephoned to the dead man's brother-in-law, then for the +police and the undertaker. + +Mrs. Balfame sat down and awaited the inevitable bombardment of her +privacy by her more intimate friends. Already shriller voices were +mingling with the heavier tones down on the lawn and out in the avenue. +The news seemed to have been flashed from one end of Elsinore to the +other. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Mrs. Balfame sat with Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning, Mrs. Frew, her +sister-in-law, Mrs. Cummack, and several of her other friends in her +quiet bed-chamber. It was an hour after the death of David Balfame and +she had, for the seventh time, told the story of packing her husband's +suit case, carrying it down stairs, returning to her room to undress, +hearing the commotion down by the gate. Yes, she had heard a report, but +Elsinore Avenue--automobiles--exploding tires--naturally, it had meant +nothing to her at the moment. No, he did not cry out--or if he did--her +window was closed; it was the side window she left open at night. + +She had accepted a bottle of smelling salts from Mrs. Battle, but sat +quite erect, looking stunned and frozen. Her voice was expressionless, +wearily reiterating a few facts to gratify the curiosity of these +well-meaning friends, as wearily listening to Lottie Gifning's +reiteration of her own story: As the night was warmer than usual she and +her husband and the two friends that had motored in with them had sat on +the porch for awhile; they had heard "Dave" come singing down Dawbarn +Street; two or three minutes later the shot. Of course the men ran over +at once, but for at least ten minutes she was too frightened to move. +One of the men ran for the coroner; if "poor Dave" wasn't dead they +wanted to take him at once where he would be comfortable. + +Mrs. Balfame's demeanour was all these solicitous friends could have +wished; although they enjoyed tears and emotional scenes as much as any +women, they were gratified to be reassured that their Mrs. Balfame was +not as other women; they still regretted her breakdown at the Club, +although resentfully conscious of loving her the more. And if they +wanted tears, here was Polly Cummack shedding them in abundance for the +brother she now reproached herself for having utterly despised. + +Below there was a subdued hum of voices, within and without. The police +had come tearing up in an automobile and ordered the amateur detectives +out of the grounds; their angry voices had been heard demanding how the +qualified fools expected the original footsteps to be detected after +such a piece of idiocy. + +Mrs. Balfame had shaken her head sadly. "They'll find nothing," she +said. "If only I had known, I could have called down to them to keep out +of the yard." + +"Now, who do you suppose that is?" Mrs. Battle, who was short and stout +and corseted to her knees, toddled over to the window and leaned out as +two automobiles raced each other down the avenue. They stopped at the +gate, and in a moment Mrs. Battle announced: "The New York newspaper +men!" + +"Already?" Mrs. Balfame glanced at the clock and stifled a yawn. "Why, +it's hardly an hour--" + +"Oh, a year or so from now they'll be coming over in bi-planes. Well, if +our poor old boobs of police don't unearth the murderer, they will. They +are the prize sleuths. They'll find a scent, or spin one out of their +brains as a spider spins his web out of his little tummy--" + +Mrs. Cummack interrupted: "Sam is sure it is Old Dutch. He's gone with +the constable to Dobton." + +Dobton, the county seat, and the centre of the political activities of +East Brabant, intimately connected with the various "towns" by trolley +and telephone, embraced the domicile of Mr. Konrad Kraus, amiably known +as "Old Dutch." His home was in the rear of his flourishing saloon, +which was the headquarters of the county Republicans. David Balfame had +patronised--rumour said financed--the saloon of an American sired by +Erin. + +Another automobile dashed up. "Sam, I think; yes, it is," cried Mrs. +Battle. + +A few moments later Mr. Cummack appeared upon the threshold. + +"Nothin' doin'," he said gruffly. "Old Dutch's got a perfect alibi. Been +behind the bar since six o'clock. It's up to us now to find out if he +hired a gunman; and we're on the trail of others too. Poor Dave had his +enemies all right." + +He paused and looked tentatively at his weary but heroic sister-in-law. +His own face was haggard, and the walrus moustache he had brought out of +the North-west was covered not only with dust but with little moist +islands made by furtive tears. With that exquisite sympathy and +comprehension that men have for the failings of other men, which far +surpasseth that of woman, he had loved his imperfect friend, but he had +a profound admiration for his sister-in-law, whom he neither loved nor +pretended to understand. He knew her surfaces, however, as well as any +one, and would have been deeply disappointed if she had carried herself +in this trying hour contrary to her usual high standard of conduct. Enid +Balfame, indeed, was almost a legend in Elsinore, and into this legend +she could retire as into a fortress, practically impregnable. + +"Say, Enid," he said hesitatingly. "These reporters--the New York +chaps--the local men wouldn't dare ask--want an interview. What do you +say?" + +Mrs. Balfame merely turned her haughty head and regarded him with icy +disdain. "Are they crazy? Or you?" + +"Well, not the way they look at it. You see, it's up to them to fill a +column or two every morning, and there's nothing touches a new crime +with a mystery. So far, they haven't got much out of this but the bare +fact that poor Dave was shot down at his own gate, presumably by some +one hid in the grove. An interview with the bereaved widow would make +what they call a corking story." + +"Tell them to go away at once." She leaned back against her chair and +closed her eyes. Mrs. Gifning flew to hold the salts to her nose. + +"Better see them," persisted Mr. Cummack. "They'll haunt the house till +you do. They're crazy about this case--hasn't been a decent murder for +months, nothin' much doin' in any line, and everybody sick of the war. +The Germans take a trench in the morning papers and lose it in the +evening--" + +"Sam Cummack! How dare you joke at a time like this?" His wife ran +forward and attempted to push him out of the room, and the other ladies +had risen and faced him with manifest indignation. + +Suddenly Mrs. Cummack put her arms about him and patted the top of his +head. He had burst into tears and was rubbing his eyes on his sleeve. +"Poor old Dave!" he sobbed. "I'm all in. But I'll find that low-down cur +who killed him, cut him off in his prime, if it takes the last cent I've +got." + +Mrs. Balfame rose and crossed to his side. She put her hand on his +shoulder. "I never should have suspected that you had such depth of +feeling, Sam," she said softly, "I am sure that the cowardly murderer +will be caught and that yours will be the glory. Send those +inconsiderate reporters away." + +Mr. Cummack shook his head. "As well talk of calling off the police. +They'll be round here day and night till the man is in Dobton +jail--longer, for they know the public will want an interview with the +widow. Better see them, Enid." + +"I shall not." Mrs. Balfame put her hand to her head and reeled. "Oh, I +am so tired! So tired! What a day. Oh, how I wish Anna were here." + +Three of the women caught her and led her to her chair. "Anna!" she +reiterated. "I must have something to make me sleep--" + +"I'll call her up!" volunteered Mrs. Gifning. "I do hope she is at +home--" + +"She was to go out to the Houston farm," interrupted Mrs. Cummack. "She +stopped at our house on the way out--Sammy has bronchitis--"; and Mrs. +Gifning, who was as nervous as the widow should have been, ran down to +the telephone, elated at being the one chosen to horrify poor Dr. Anna +while engaged in the everlasting battle for life. + +"I'll stay with Enid till Anna comes," volunteered Mrs. Cummack. "I +guess she'd better be quiet. One of you might make coffee for those that +are going to sit up--" + +"Frieda's doin' that," said Mr. Cummack. "They're all in the +dining-room--" + +Mrs. Balfame had left the shelter of Mrs. Cummack's arm and was sitting +very straight. "Frieda? This is her night out--" + +"She was in bed with a toothache, but I routed her out. Well, I'll put +the men off till to-morrow, but better make up your mind to see them +then." + +He left the room and when Mrs. Balfame was alone with her sister-in-law, +whom she had never admitted to the sacred inner circle, but who was a +kind forgiving soul, she smiled affectionately. "Don't be afraid that I +shall break down," she said. "But those women had got on my nerves. It +is too kind of you to have dismissed them, and to stay with me yourself +till Anna comes. It has all been so terrible--and coming so soon after +what happened at the Club. Thank heaven I did not permit myself to speak +severely to him, and even when he telephoned for his suit case I was not +cross--I never would hold a man who had been drinking to strict +account--" + +"Don't you worry your head. He was my brother, but I guess I know what a +trial he must have been. And if he hadn't been my brother I guess I'd +say we wouldn't have blamed you much if you had given him a dose of lead +yourself--" + +Mrs. Balfame raised her amazed eyes. But in a moment the weary ghost of +a smile flitted over her firm mouth, and she asked almost lightly: "Do +you then believe in removing offensive husbands?" + +"Well--of course I'd never have that much courage myself if Sam wasn't +any better than he should be--he's pretty decent as men go--but I know a +few husbands right here in Elsinore--well, if their wives gave them +prussic acid or hot lead they wouldn't lose _my_ friendship, and I guess +any jury would let them off." + +"I guess you're right." Mrs. Balfame was beginning to undress. "I think +I'll get into bed--But it requires a lot of nerve. And the risk is +pretty great, you know. Anna once told me of an untraceable and +tasteless poison she had--" + +"Oh, Lord!" Mrs. Cummack may have been too hopelessly without style and +ambition to be one of the arc lights of the Elsinore smart set, but she +possessed a sense of humour, and for the moment forgot the abrupt taking +off of her brother. "Don't let that get round. The poison wouldn't be +safe for an hour--nor a few husbands. I think I'll warn Anna anyhow--I'm +not sure I can keep it." + +The door opened softly and Mrs. Gifning's fluffy blonde head appeared. +"I couldn't get Anna herself," she whispered. "The baby hasn't come. But +Mr. Houston said he'd tell her as soon as it was over, and let her go. +He was terribly shocked, and sent you his love." + +"Thanks, dear," murmured Mrs. Balfame. "I'll try and sleep awhile, and +Polly has promised to sit with me till Anna comes. Good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +There was a thin cry of life in the nursery of the Houston farm house. +The mother slept and the new born was in competent hands. Mr. Houston, a +farmer more prosperous and enterprising than his somewhat weedy +appearance prefigured, beckoned Dr. Anna into the dining-room, where a +sleepy but interested "hired girl" had brought hot coffee and +sandwiches. + +The battle had lasted little over three hours, but every moment had been +fraught with anxiety for the doctor and the husband. Mrs. Houston's +heart had revealed an unsuspected weakness and the baby had not only +neglected to head itself towards the gates of life as all proper little +marathons should, but had exhibited a state of suspended animation for +at least twenty minutes after its arrival at the goal. + +Dr. Anna dropped into a chair beside the table and covered her face with +her hand. + +"I'm all in, I guess," she murmured, and the farmer put down the coffee +pot and ran for the demijohn. + +"You drink this," he said peremptorily. His own hand was shaking, but he +made no verbal attempt to release his strangled emotions until both he +and the doctor had drunk of coffee as well as whiskey. Then, when half +way through a thick sandwich made of slabs of bread and beef, he began +to thank the doctor incoherently. + +"You are just it," he sputtered. "Just about it. And your poor back +must be broke. You doctors do beat me, particularly you women doctors. +I'll never say nothin' against women doctors again, though I'll tell you +now that although poor little Aggie was dead set on you, I opposed it +for awhile--" + +Dr. Anna was sitting up and smiling. She waved his apologies and +protestations aside. "I can't think what came over me to collapse like +that. Once or twice lately I have thought I might be getting something. +I'll have my blood taken to-morrow. Now, I'll go home and get to bed +quick, although that coffee has made me feel as fine as a fiddle." + +"Well, I needed it too, and for more reasons than you. Say--" Mr. +Houston had risen and was pulling nervously at his short and bosky +beard. "I got a 'phone from Mrs. Gifning a while ago. You're wanted at +the Balfames--bad." + +Dr. Anna sprang to her feet, her full cheeks pale again. "Enid! What has +happened to her?" + +"Oh, she's all right, I guess. It's Dave--" + +"Oh, another gastric attack?" + +"Worse and more of it. He was shot--two or three hours ago, I guess. I +didn't ask the time--was in too big a hurry to get back to Aggie--at his +own gate, though, I think she said." + +"Who did it?" + +"Nobody knows." + +"Dead?" + +"No one'll ever be deader." + +"H'm!" The color had come back to Dr. Anna's tired face and she shrugged +her shoulders. "I'm no hypocrite, and I guess you're not either." + +"I'm no more a hypocrite than I am a Democrat. His yellow streak was +gettin' wider every year. It's good riddance. Still I wish he'd died in +his bed. I don't like the idea of a fellow citizen, good or bad, bein' +shot down like that. It's against law and order, and if the murderer's +caught and I'm drawn on the jury, and it's proved he done it, I'll vote +for conviction." + +"Quite right," said Dr. Anna briskly, as she went out into the hall and +put on her hat. "I suppose it's Mrs. Balfame who wants me?" + +"Yes, that's it. I remember. But you ought to go home and get sleep. +There's enough women to sit up with her. The hull town likely." + +"But I know she wants me." Dr. Anna's face glowed softly. "I'll sleep +there all right--on a sofa beside her bed--if she wants me to stay on." + +"Well, look out for yourself," he growled. "If you don't think about +yourself a little more you'll soon have no show to think so much about +other people. I'm goin' for the car." + +A few moments later he had brought the little runabout to the door, +lighted the lamps, and given the doctor a hard grip of the hand. + +She returned the pressure in kind. "Now don't worry, Mr. Houston. She's +all right, and that nurse is first rate. Don't talk to her. Aggie, I +mean. See you to-morrow about ten." + +She drove rapidly out of the gate and into the road. There was a full +moon shining and the drive was but ten miles between the farm and +Elsinore. Her face was tired and grim. She had been in daily contact +with typhoid fever in the poor and dirty quarter of the town. In her +arduous life she had often experienced healthy fatigue, but nothing +like this. Could she be coming down? + +She swung her thoughts to Enid Balfame, and forgot herself. Free at +last, and while still young and lovely! Would she marry Dwight Rush? He +had leaped into her mind simultaneously with the announcement of +Balfame's death. But was he good enough for Enid? Was any man? Why, now +that she was a real widow and in no need of a protector, should she +marry at all? At any rate she could afford to wait. There were greater +prizes to be captured by a beautiful and still girlish woman. + +She was glad for the first time that Enid had never had a child, for +there was a virgin and mystic appeal in the woman that had escaped the +common lot. Spinsters lost it, curiously enough, but a chaste and lovely +matron, who had ignored the book of experience so liberally offered her, +and with eyes as unalloyed as a girl's (save when flashing with +intellectual fires)--what more distracting anomaly could the world +offer? Only Mrs. Balfame's indifference had kept the men away--Dr. Anna +was convinced of that. Her future was in her own hands. + +Dr. Anna's mind wandered to the scene of the murder. It was not +difficult to construct, even from the meager details, and she shuddered. +Murder! What a hideous word it was! Horrid that it should even brush the +name of an exquisite creature like Enid Balfame. Would that Dave Balfame +could have fallen of apoplexy while disgracing himself at the Club! But +Anna frowned and shook the picture out of her mind. Doctors are too long +trained in death to be haunted by its phantoms in any form. + +A sharp turn and the road ran beside a salt marsh, a solemn grey +expanse that lost itself far away in the grey of the sea. Suddenly Dr. +Anna became aware of a man walking rapidly down the road toward her. He +carried his hat in his hand as if his head were hot on this cool autumn +night. There was no fear of man in Dr. Anna, even on lonely country +roads; nevertheless she had no mind to be detained, and was about to +increase her speed, when her curiosity was excited by something +pleasantly familiar in the tall loose figure, the almost stiffly upright +head. A moment later and the bright moonlight revealed the white face of +Dwight Rush. + +She brought the car to an abrupt halt as he too paused and nodded +recognition. + +"What's the matter?" she asked sharply. "You looked as if you were +walking to beat time itself--as if you saw a ghost to boot--" + +"Plenty of ghosts in my head. It aches like the dickens--" + +"Were you there when it happened?" + +"When what happened?" + +"What? You pretend you don't know--when all Elsinore must have known it +within five minutes--" + +"I don't know what you are talking about. I followed you in from the +Club and then took the train for Brooklyn, where I had to see a man. +When I got back to Elsinore--off the train--my head ached so I knew I +couldn't sleep--so I started out to walk it off--been walking for about +two hours." + +"Dave Balfame was shot down at his own gate three or four hours ago." + +"Good God! Who did it? Is he dead?" + +"He's dead, and that's about all I can tell you. Houston went to the +'phone but he was in such a state of mind about his wife that he didn't +stay for particulars. Enid wanted me--it was Lottie Gifning that +'phoned. I gathered, however, that they haven't caught the murderer +yet." + +"Jove!" Rush was shaking. "I feel as if I'd been hit in the pit of the +stomach. And I'm not one to go to pieces, either. But I've a good enough +reason." + +Dr. Anna continued to stare at him. He met her gaze and wonder grew in +his. Then the blood rushed into his face and he threw back his head. +"What do you mean? That I did it?" + +"No--I don't see you committing murder--" + +"Not in that damned skulking way--" + +"Exactly. But you kind of suggest that you might know something about +it. You might have been in the grove, or some other part of the +grounds--with some idea of protecting Enid--" + +"Why should you think that?" + +"She told me--I didn't think it a bad idea myself--that you asked her to +divorce Dave and marry you. But she said she wouldn't and I guess she +meant it. Now, get in," she added briskly. "I'll drive you home and +never say I met you. Met anybody else?" + +"No one." + +"Unless they get the right man at once, everybody who was known to have +any reason to wish Dave Balfame out of the way will come under +suspicion. For all you know, somebody may have guessed your secret; I +saw it in your eyes at the clubhouse when you were trying to get Dave +out of the room for her sake; but of course I was 'on.' Those New York +newspaper men, however--watch out for them. They'll fine-tooth-comb the +county for the man in the case." + +Rush had disposed his long legs in the little machine and it was once +more running swiftly on the smooth road. "My brain is still too hot to +theorise," he said. "May I smoke? What is your opinion?" + +"He had many political enemies; besides, these last two years he's been +growing more and more unbearable, so I guess he had more than one in his +own party. But it isn't unlikely that some girl did it. For some reason +the trollops liked him, and I've met him several times of late driving +with a red-headed minx that looks as if she could shoot on sight." + +"I don't mind telling you that I saw Mrs. Balfame a few minutes after +you left her. I was boiling. Instead of piloting Balfame out to Sam's +car I wished that I had run him behind the clubhouse and horsewhipped +him. We are too civilised these days. I merely went to his house and +asked his wife if she would divorce the brute and marry me. Two +centuries ago--maybe one--I'd have picked her up and flung her on my +horse and galloped off to the woods. We haven't improved; we've merely +substituted the long-winded and indirect method and called it +civilisation." + +"Just so. Did she let you in?" + +"Not she. You might know that without asking. Nor was she any nearer +divorce than before. When I offered to pick a quarrel with him, she +merely slammed the door in my face. But I went to the window and made +her promise that if she were ever in trouble I should be the first +person she would send for--" + +"But you weren't!" Dr. Anna's voice rang with jealous triumph. "I was +the first. But never mind me. I've adored her for forty years, and you +haven't known her as many weeks. Tell me, you didn't conceal yourself +anywhere in the grounds to watch over her? She must have been all alone. +Every servant in town takes Saturday night out." + +"I inferred that Sam would keep him at his house all night. Besides, I +knew she had a pistol. Balfame told me the day he bought her one in New +York; when those burglaries began." + +"Well, don't tell any one that you offered to dispose of her husband--a +few moments before he was killed! It might make unnecessary trouble for +a rising young lawyer." + +"I am quite able to do my own thinking and take care of myself," he said +haughtily, stung by her tone. "If you choose to think me guilty, do so. +And let me tell you that if I had done it I shouldn't put my head in the +ash barrel." + +"No, but you might do your best to avoid the chair. Small blame to you. +Well, as I said, you're safe as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't send a +dog to the chair. That is--" she looked at him threateningly, "if you +really do love Enid and want to marry her." + +"Love her? I'd marry her if she had done it herself and I'd caught her +red-handed." + +"That's the real thing, I guess." She patted his hand approvingly. "I'll +do what I can to help you. She's not a bit in love with you yet, but +that's because she's the purest creature on earth and never would let +herself even dream of a man she couldn't marry. She's one of the last +grand representatives of the old Puritan stock--and when you see as much +mean and secret infidelity, dose as many morbid hysterical women, as I +do--Oh, Lord! No wonder I see Enid Balfame shining with cold radiance in +the high heavens. I may idealise her a bit, but I don't care. It would +be a sad old world if you couldn't exalt at least one human above the +muck-ruck. Well, she likes you, and you have interested her. Just be on +hand when she wants you, needs you. When this excitement is over and she +is tired of female gabble, she'll turn to you naturally, if you manage +her properly and don't butt in too soon. Quiet persistence and tact; +that's your game. I'll put in a good word." + +"By George, you are a good fellow!" He leaned over and kissed her +impulsively. As Dr. Anna felt the pressure of those warm firm lips on +her faded cheek, she astonished herself and him by bursting into tears. +In an instant, however, she dashed them away and gave an odd gurgling +laugh. + +"Don't mind a silly old maid--who loves Enid Balfame more than life, I +guess. And I'm a country doctor, Dwight, who's had a hard night bringing +one more unfortunate female into the world. I feel better since I +cried--first time since you boys used to tease me at school because I +had cheeks like red pippins--you don't remember me over at school in +your village. Renselaerville. I lived there for a spell, and I remember +you. But this isn't the time for reminiscences. Where do you live? We'll +be in the outskirts in three minutes." + +"I have rooms at The Brabant." + +"Any night clerk?" + +"No; it's an apartment house." + +"Good. We're somewhere in the small hours all right." + +She drove swiftly through the sleeping town, slowing down on the corner +of Main Street and Atlantic Avenue. Rush sprang out with a word of +thanks and walked up the avenue to The Brabant. The trees here were +neither old nor close, for this was the quarter of the wealthy newcomers +and of the older residents that had prospered and rebuilt. But not a +soul was abroad, and he let himself into the bachelor apartment house +and mounted the two flights to his rooms unseen. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +As Rush closed his own door behind him, his troubled spirit shifted its +load. Indubitably, if Dr. Anna had not met him he should have walked +until exhausted, and then boarded a train somewhere down the line and +arrived in Elsinore dishevelled, haggard, altogether an object of +suspicion. None knew better than he that in a small community the +lightning of suspicion plays incessantly, throwing the faces of innocent +and guilty alike into distorted relief. And he had half expected to find +a newspaper man awaiting him in the hall below. + +Before turning on his lights he felt his way to the windows and drew the +curtains close. For all he knew there might be a detective or a reporter +sitting on the opposite fence. His legal mind, deeply versed in criminal +law, fully appreciated his danger and warned him to arm at every point. + +The district attorney, one of Balfame's men, clever, ambitious, but too +ill-educated to hope to graduate from Brabant County, or even, political +influence lacking, to climb into the first rank at home, hated the +brilliant newcomer who had beaten him twice during his brief term of +office. That Rush "hailed" originally from the county only added to the +grievance. If Brabant wasn't good enough for him in the first place, why +hadn't he stayed where he was wanted? + +But Rush dismissed him from his mind as he remembered uneasily that +Alys Crumley had been sketching out there at the Club while he had been +wrestling with David Balfame. He knew her ambition to get a position on +a New York newspaper as a sketch artist; but the possibility that she +might have guessed the secret of his interest in putting an end to the +scene, or intended to sell her drawing to one of the reporters, would +have given him little uneasiness had the artist not been a young woman +upon whom he had ceased to call some two months since. + +He had met Alys Crumley about eighteen months after he had returned to +Brabant County and some three months after he had moved from Dobton to +Elsinore, and at once had been attracted by her bright ambitious mind, +combined with a real personality and an appearance both smart and +artistic. + +Miss Crumley prided herself upon being unique in Elsinore, at least, and +although her thick well-groomed hair was dressed with classic severity, +and she wore soft gowns of an indescribable cut in the house, and at the +evening parties of her friends, she was far too astute to depart from +the fashion of the moment in the crucial test of street dress and hat. +In Park Row during her brief sojourn in the newspaper world, she had +commanded attention among the critical press women as a girl who knew +how to dress smartly and yet add that personal touch which, when +attempted by those lacking genius in dress, ruins the effect of the most +extravagant tailor. Miss Crumley by no means patronised these autocrats +of Fifth Avenue; she bought her tailored suits at the ready-made +establishments, but like many another American girl, she knew how to +buy, and above all, how to wear her clothes. + +She had taught for several years after graduating from the High School; +then, her nerves rebelling, had abandoned this most monotonous of +careers for newspaper work. To reporting her physique had not proved +equal, and although she would have made an admirable fashion editor +these enviable positions were adequately filled. On the advice of the +star reporter of her paper, Mr. James Broderick, who, with other +newspaper men had been entertained occasionally at tea of a Sunday +afternoon in her charming little home in Elsinore, she had developed her +talent for drawing during the past year; Mr. Broderick promising to +"find her a job" as staff artist when she had improved her technique. + +Then Dwight Rush appeared. + +Miss Crumley lived with her mother in the family cottage next door to +Dr. Anna's in Elsinore Avenue. Mrs. Crumley, who was the relict of a +G. A. R. had eked out her pension during the schooldays of her daughter +with fine sewing, finding most of her patrons among the newcomers. She +also had cooked for the Woman's Exchange of Brooklyn, besides catering +for public dinners and evening parties. For several years she enjoyed a +complete rest; therefore, when Alys retired temporarily from the office +of provider in order to study art, Mrs. Crumley willingly re-entered the +industrial field. As both the practical mother and the clever daughter +were amiable women it was a harmonious little household that Dwight Rush +found himself drifting toward intimacy with soon after he met the young +lady at a clubhouse dance. + +The living-room--Alys long since had abolished the word parlour from her +vocabulary--was furnished in various shades of green as harmonious as +the family temper; there was a low bookcase filled with fashionable +literature, English and American; the magazines and reviews on the table +were almost blatantly "highbrow," and the cool green walls were further +embellished with a few delicate water colours conceived in the back-yard +atelier by an individual mind if executed by a still somewhat halting +brush. + +For four months Rush had been a constant visitor at the cottage. Miss +Crumley, who was as progressively modern as an automobile factory, was +full of enthusiasm at the moment for the cult of sexless friendship +between a man and a maid. She had considered James Broderick at one time +as a likely partner for a philosophic romance (the adjective Platonic +was out of date; moreover, it implied that the cult was not as modern as +its devotees would wish it to appear); but the brilliant (and handsome) +young reporter not only was very busy but of a mercurial and uncertain +temperament. Nor did he appear to be a youth of lofty ideals; from +certain remarks, uttered casually, to make matters worse, Alys was +forced to conclude that he despised the man who "wasted his time" only +less than he despised the "chaser." If pretty, interesting, and +unnotional girls came his way and liked him enough, that was "all to the +good"; a busy newspaper man at the beck and call of a city editor had no +time for studying over the map of a girl's soul, the lord knew; but if a +girl wasn't a "dead game sport," then the sooner a man left the field to +some one with more time, or a yearning for matrimony, the better. These +remarks had been deliberately thrown out by the canny Mr. Broderick, who +liked "the kid" and didn't want her to "get in wrong" (particularly +with himself as he enjoyed both her society and the artistic +living-room--and Mrs. Crumley's confections) but who saw straight +through Alys' shifting modernities to the makings of a fine primitive +female. + +But Rush was no student in sex psychology. He took Miss Crumley on her +face value; delighted in finding a comfortable friend of the counter +sex, and was more than amenable to her desire to cultivate in him a +taste for modern literature; since his graduation he had hardly opened +anything but law books, legal reviews, and the daily newspaper. She read +aloud admirably--particularly plays--and he liked to listen; and as she +convinced him that he was missing a good part of life, it was not long +before he was buying for leisurely midnight consumption such work of the +fashionable writers as was stimulating and intellectual, and at the same +time sincere. + +She also took him over to several symphony concerts, and often played +classic selections to him in the twilight. He had no objection to music, +as it either spurred his mind into fresh activity upon problems +besetting it, or soothed him into slumber. He loved the little room with +the soft green shadows; it reminded him of the woods, of which he still +was passionately fond; and he found it both homelike and safe. Other +houses in Elsinore, larger and more luxurious, were homelike enough, but +too often were graced by marriageable daughters, who "showed their +hand." Rush was as little vain and conceited as a man may be, but he was +well aware that eligible men in Elsinore were few, and that everybody +must know that his intake, already large, must increase with the years. + +But--as the wise Mr. Broderick would have predicted had he not been +interested elsewhere during this period--the tension grew too strong for +Alys Crumley. Nervous and high-strung, with her reservoir of human +emotions undepleted by even a hard flirtation since her early youth, +idealistic, romantic, and imaginative, she began to realise that with +each long uninterrupted evening--Mrs. Crumley was the most tactful of +parents--she was growing more femininely sensitive to this man's +magnetism and charm, to his quick responsive mind, to the mobility under +the surface of his lean hard face, to the suggestion of indomitable +strength which was the chief characteristic of the new American race of +men. + +It was not long before she was exaggerating every attractive attribute +he possessed until he no longer seemed what he was, a fine specimen of +his type, but a glorified superbeing and the one desirable man on earth. +Her sense of superiority over this "rather crude Western specimen who +knew nothing but his job," and to whom she could teach so much, had +protected her for a time, held her femaleness and imagination in +abeyance, but insensibly his sheer masculinity swamped her, left her +without a rock but pride to cling to. + +It was then that she showed her hand. + +For a time after her discovery she was merely furious with herself; she +was twenty-six and no weakling, neither sentiment nor passion should +master her. But this phase was brief. Infatuation is not cast out either +by reason or pride, and very soon her mind opened to the insidious +whisper: "Why not?" What was the career of staff artist, full of +liberty, excitement, and good fellowship as it might be, to marriage +with an ambitious man capable of inspiring the wildest love? Sooner or +later had she not intended to make just such a marriage? + +From this inception her deductions followed in logical feminine +sequence. If she loved him with a completeness which was both preadamic +and neoteric, it was of course because he was consumed with a similar +passion; in other words he was her mate. He might be too comfortable and +content to have realised it so far, but only one awakening was possible, +and hers was the entrancing part to reveal him to himself. + +She knew that while by no means a beauty, she was as far from +commonplace in colouring at least as in style. Her eyes were an odd +opaque olive, their tint so pronounced that it seemed to invade the pale +ivory of her skin and the smooth masses of her hair. It was a far more +subtle face than American women as a rule possess, and the eyes in spite +of a curious inscrutability that might mean anything were capable of a +play of lights directed from a battery more archaic than modern; and +late one evening after she had read him an impassioned drama (ancient) +and there was a dusky rose in either cheek, she turned them on. + +Rush immediately took fright. She had not roused a responsive spark of +passion in him. Moreover, he was now haunted continually by the image of +a sweet, remote, and (to him) far more mysterious woman, whom he +worshipped as the ideal of all womanhood. + +There was none of the old time American suavity about Rush. He was +abrupt, forthright, and impatient. But he was kind and innately +chivalrous. He "let Miss Crumley down" as gently as he could; but he +let her down. No doubt of that. In less than a week she faced the +bewildering fact that a man could strike loose a woman's emotional +torrents while his own depths awaited the magical touch of another. It +was incredible, preposterous. + +For a time Alys, in the privacy of her atelier, raged like a fury. She +cursed Rush, particularly when engaged in a violent struggle with the +pride which alone held her from grovelling at his feet. + +She was further incensed that he had revealed her to herself as a mere +morbid unsatisfied girl, whose quarter of a century should be crowned by +a little family of three; and at last she doubted if she had ever loved +him at all. That she had been a mere female principle unable to escape +its impersonal destiny disgusted her with life, but it served to restore +her balance and philosophy. + +Being a girl of brains and character she emerged from the encounter with +pride still crested in the eyes of the man; and if his image was too +deeply stamped into her imagination to prevent a recurrence of wild +desire whenever she was so imprudent as to let her mind wander, she +remembered that all great physical upheavals are followed by many minor +shocks, and waited with what patience she could command for full +delivery. + +Of the sanguinary condition of the battle ground in his young friend's +soul Rush had a mere glimpse before she took heed and dissembled. He +assumed that she either had fallen in love with him after the fashion of +girls when they saw too much of a man, or that she was eager to marry +and improve her condition. He reproached himself for thoughtlessness, +renounced the long evenings in the pretty room with a sigh, and in his +bachelor quarters read the books of her choice. He had a very kindly +feeling for her, for he knew that he owed her a debt; if he had not met +the other woman--who could tell? Moreover, as he conceived it to be his +duty to shield her from spiteful comment, he danced with her in public +and joined her on the street whenever they met. + +But if he knew nothing of the intricate and interminable ramifications +of sex psychology, the infinite variety of moods peculiar to a woman in +love, he was well enough aware that love is easily turned to hate, +particularly when vanity has been deeply wounded; and although he had +conceived a high esteem for Alys Crumley's character during the weeks of +their intimacy, he knew that men had been mistaken in their estimate of +women before this, and that if she discovered that he loved another +woman she might be capable of taking the basest revenge. + +It was possible that she was the noblest of her sex, and he hoped she +was, but as he considered her that night, he realised that it behooved +him to walk warily nevertheless. By the time he could marry Enid +Balfame, or even betray his desire to marry her, this crime would have +passed into county history. Of the real danger he never thought. + +The vision evoked of Alys Crumley was accompanied by that of her home, +and he looked round his stark bachelor quarters with a sigh. + +The untidy sitting-room was crowded with law books and legal reviews; +the maid had given it up in despair long since, and only swept out the +ashes daily and dusted once a week. + +In the small bedroom was an iron bed like a soldier's; neckties hung +from the chandelier; on the bureau and table beside the bed were more +books, several by the young British authors of the moment for whom Miss +Crumley had communicated some of her rather perfunctory enthusiasm. + +He flung his clothes all over the room as he undressed. He hated +bachelor quarters. Six months hence he would be the master of a home as +exquisite as the woman he loved. Balfame! The man was dead, but as Rush +thought of him his face turned almost black and his hands tingled and +clenched. It would be long before he could hear that name mentioned +without a hot uprush of hatred and loathing. But it subsided and he took +a bath and "turned in." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +As Rush walked to the Elks' Club for breakfast a few hours later he felt +that suspicion was in the very air of Elsinore, the very leaves of the +quiet Sunday streets rustled with it. Even on Atlantic Avenue there were +knots of men discussing the murder, and in Main Street every man that +passed received a hard stare. + +Rush was thankful to observe that all looked as if they had gone to bed +late and slept little, and when he met Sam Cummack on the steps of the +clubhouse he realised the advantages of the habit of careful grooming to +which the deceased's brother-in-law was quite indifferent. + +"Oh, Dwight!" groaned Cummack, seizing his hand. "Where were you last +night? I'd have liked to have you round." + +"I was in Brooklyn and got back late. What's your opinion?" + +"I've had a dozen but they don't seem to hold water. I guess it was a +gunman, imported direct--though perhaps I'm just hoping it wasn't one of +them trollops did it--for the sake of the family as well as poor Dave's +name. I don't want a scandal like that. Murder's bad enough, the Lord +knows." + +"What sort of footsteps in the grounds?" + +"Every kind we've got in Elsinore, I guess. About forty people were +runnin' round the yard before the police came. Funny that Gifning didn't +think of that. But he says the breath was knocked out of him. Jimminy! I +never knew anything to upset the town like this before--the county, you +might say. The telephone's been buzzin' till the girls have threatened +to strike. An operator fainted this morning--wonder if Dave knew her?" + +"Well, I am rather surprised to learn that Balfame was so popular--" + +"'Tain't that only--though Dave still had lots of friends in spite of +that ugly temper he was growin'; but we've all got enemies--every last +one of us--and to be shot down at his own gate like that--Gee, it has +given every man in town the creeps. We must get the man quick and make +an example of him. I hope I'm drawn." + +"I hope he doesn't ask me to defend him. How is Mrs. Balfame bearing +up?" + +"Fine. She's as cool as they make 'em. I'd hate to be married to one of +them cucumbers myself, but they're damned convenient in times of +trouble. Maybe she cared a lot for Dave; who knows? At any rate we must +make people think she did. I don't want suspicion pointing to her." + +"What! It is incredible that you should think of such a thing." Rush, +always pale, had turned as white as chalk. "You can't mean that people +are saying--" + +"Not yet. But we've got to be prepared for anything, especially with +these New York newspapermen on the trail. Unless we catch the murderer +damned quick, every last one of us that was close to Dave that can't +prove an alibi will be suspected. Why, I walked with him for two blocks +after he left my house--thought he might not be able to make it alone, +and he wouldn't go in the car; then, I didn't go straight home, either. +I went to my office to straighten out something--Oh, Lord! don't let's +talk of it; I must have been there alone, not a soul to see me, when he +was shot. It gives me the horrors to think of it--" + +"Nonsense! It was well known that you were his best friend. No one would +think of you." + +"They might! They might!" + +"Well--about Mrs. Balfame?" + +"Oh, she's got the best alibi ever. She'd packed his suitcase and +carried it downstairs, and even written a note describing some bag or +other she wanted and pinned it to his coat. I was there when the police +examined it. They're not saying who they're suspectin', but they're +doin' a heap of thinkin'. Fact remains that she was alone in the front +of the house--that mutt of a hired girl she's got was way up in the back +part groanin' with a toothache when I routed her out. If she wasn't such +a fright that Dave wouldn't have looked at her--Well, the police know +that Dave wasn't what you might call a model husband; but Enid, so far +as we all know, never rowed him. That's the most tryin' sort, though, +and generally conceals the most hate. But she had her clubs and all the +rest of it. Maybe she didn't care. I'm only wonderin' what Phipps +thinks. That's the reason I want her to see the newspapermen. She might +throw them off the scent at least. Of course, they'd rather she'd done +it than any one--" + +"You won't even hint to her that she may be suspected?" interrupted +Rush, sharply. + +"Oh, Lord, no. I'd never dare. Just persuade her somehow. Guess Anna or +Polly can manage it." + +Rush turned and walked down the steps. "I'll go to the Elsinore to +breakfast. The reporters are likely to show up there. I know Jim +Broderick. We must be on the job all the time." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +To Dr. Anna alone Mrs. Balfame told the story of the night, although, +implicit as was her trust, with certain reservations. She omitted the +detail of the poisoned lemonade, but otherwise unburdened herself with +freedom and relief. + +"Before I knew where I was," she concluded, "there was the kitchen door +closed behind me. I can't understand why I lost my presence of mind. I +could easily have run through the back door and out the front, and +reached him about the time Gifning did." + +Dr. Anna was drinking strong coffee. It was eight o'clock, and she had +gone downstairs and made breakfast for her friend and herself, Frieda +having retired to her room and bolted the door. The doctor had heard the +whole story as soon as she arrived, but after an interval of sleep had +asked for it again. + +"I think it's better as it is," she said thoughtfully. "No one could +have seen you. The moon rose late; the night at that time must have been +pitch dark. The trees alone would have shielded you, even had any one +been watching. Suspicion never would fall on you anyhow; you are too far +above it, and Dave had been insulting people right and left the last +year. But you want to avoid blackmail. The only thing that disturbs me +is that that girl may have been on the back stairs when you came in. +I'll come in for lunch and talk to her then. You keep to your room. +Rest, and sleep if you can. I don't fancy you'll have early visitors. +Everybody'll sleep late. I wish I could!" + +"Will you stop in and see Dr. Lequeur about yourself--" + +"If I can find a minute. Don't worry about me. I'm tough, and the Lord +knows I ought to be immune." + +But she found no time to see a doctor in her own behalf and returned to +the Balfame house between twelve and one. Reporters were sitting on the +box hedge and on the doorstep. She evaded them good-naturedly, but it +was some time before she was admitted by the rebellious Frieda, who had +been summoned to the front door some sixteen times during the forenoon. + +When Dr. Anna finally found herself in the dark hall she saw that +Frieda's face was swollen and tied up in a towel. The spectacle gave the +doctor an instant opportunity. + +"The worst infliction on earth, bar none!" she announced, following the +maid into the kitchen. "Let me take a look at it? How long have you had +it?" + +"Two days," replied Frieda sullenly, unamenable to sympathy which +offered no immediate surcease of pain. + +"Abscess?" + +"Don't know." + +Frieda's mental processes were slow. Before she could follow the +doctor's the bandage was ripped off and a sharp eye was examining the +inflamed interior of her cavernous mouth. A moment later Dr. Anna had +opened her doctor's bag and was anointing the surroundings of the +tortured tooth with a brown liquid. + +"That won't cure it," she said, "but no dentist could do more until the +swelling is reduced. And it will save you a preliminary bill. Keep this. +As soon as you feel you can stand it, go to Dr. Meyers, Main Street. +Tell him I sent you. But why didn't you tell Mrs. Balfame last night? +Why endure pain? Kind mistresses always keep such alleviatives in the +house, and Mrs. Balfame is not the sort to mind being roused in the +middle of the night if some one were suffering." + +The pain had subsided under treatment, and Frieda was restored to such +civility as she knew. "It only got bad when I am dancing to the hall, +and I ran home. I had some drops in my room." + +"Oh, I see. Did they stop the pain?" + +"Nix. Ache like before, but I lie down and perhaps can sleep if those +men have not make me come downstairs to make the coffee. All night I am +up." And she glowered with self-pity. + +"But when you found that your drops were no good, why didn't you run at +once to Mrs. Balfame? You were braver than I should have been. It was +about eight o'clock, was it not, when Mr. Balfame was shot? Mrs. Balfame +was probably awake when you came in, even if she had gone to bed. Or +perhaps you didn't know that she came home early?" + +"On Saturday nights she come home after I do. How I am to know she is +here?" + +"But you might have gone to her medicine closet--in her bathroom." + +"When you have the pain like hot iron you think of all the good things +for it the next day." Frieda relapsed into sullen silence; Dr. Anna +hastily disposed of the lunch prepared for her and went upstairs. + +Mrs. Balfame was lying on the sofa. She had not dressed, but looked as +trim as usual in a blue and white bathrobe; never having been a woman to +"let herself go," she did not possess a wrapper. Her long hair hung in +two loose braids, and she looked very pale and lovely. + +"Put Frieda out of your head," said Dr. Anna hurriedly; familiar voices +ascended from the path below. "She heard nothing. You don't when you +have a jumping toothache." + +"Thank heaven!" + +A soft knock announced several of her friends. They were dressed for +motoring; this being Sunday, not even death must interfere with the +cross-country refreshment of the Elsinore husband. They kissed Mrs. +Balfame and congratulated her upon her appearance and her nerves. + +"But one thing must be settled right here," announced Mrs. Gifning, "and +that is the question of your mourning. I'll go over on the eight-ten in +the morning and see to it. But you never wear ready-made things and it +would be a pity to waste money that way. Are you going to wear a veil at +the inquest?" + +"Of course I am. Do you suppose I shall submit to being stared at by a +curious mob and snapshotted by reporters?" + +"That's just what I thought. I'll bring back a smart hat and a long +crepe veil with me, and order your widow's outfit from one of the big +shops; they'll have it over in time for the funeral. And you can wear +your tailor suit to the inquest; it will be half covered by the veil." + +"What a good idea!" said Mrs. Balfame gratefully. "You are too kind." + +"Kind? Nothing! I just love to shop for other people. How lucky that +you hadn't bought your new winter suit. It might have been blue." + +"It was to have been blue." There was a note of regret in Mrs. Balfame's +voice. "Don't forget to buy me two black chiffon blouses. One very +simple for every day; the other, really good. And something white for +the neck. Of course I wouldn't wear it on the street; but in the +house--black is too trying!" + +"Rather. Trust me. Have you black gloves--undressed kid, I mean? You +don't want to look like an undertaker." Mrs. Balfame nodded. "That's +all, I think. Send me a line if you think of something else. I must run +and take Giffy for his ride. He's all broken up, poor darling. Wasn't he +just splendid last night?" She blew a kiss along the widow's forehead +and ran out with a light step that caused her more substantial friends +to sigh with envy. She, too, was in the manoeuvring forties, but she had +gone into training at thirty. + +"I guess we'd all better go." Mrs. Battle, with a sudden dexterous heave +of her armoured bulk, was out of the chair and on her feet. "Now, try to +sleep, dearie. You are just the bravest thing! But to-morrow will be +trying. Sam Cummack says the coroner won't hold the inquest before +afternoon, but if they do and your veil isn't here, I've got one of Ma's +packed away in camphor that I'll get out for you. I'll get it out +to-night and have it airing--we won't take any chances; and you sha'n't +be annoyed by the vulgar curious." + +"Oh, thank you! But that is not the only ordeal. It's even more trying +to stay in the house all these days--in this room! If I could walk in +the grounds. But I suppose those reporters are everywhere." + +"They are swarming, simply swarming. And the avenue is so packed with +automobiles you can't navigate. People have come from all over the +country--some from New York and Brooklyn." + +Mrs. Balfame curled her lip with disgust. Morbid curiosity, like other +vulgarities, was incomprehensible to her. Death, no matter how desired +or how accomplished, should inspire hush and respect, not provide +excitement for a Sunday afternoon. + +"Let us hope they will find the wretch to-day," she said impatiently. +"That will end it, for, of course, it is the element of mystery that has +made the case so notorious. Is there no clue?" + +"Not the ghost of one." Mrs. Cummack, too, was adjusting her automobile +veil. "Sam's on the job,--I'm only taking him out for an hour or two; +and so, of course, are the police--hot. But he's covered his tracks so +far." + +"If it is a he," whispered Mrs. Battle to Mrs. Frew, as they stole +softly down the stairs. "What about that red-head, or that telephone +girl who fainted? They say she had to go home--" + +"Can you imagine caring enough for Dave Balfame--Let's get out of this, +for heaven's sake, or I'll faint right here." + +The atmosphere was as depressing as the dark interior of the house, for +it was heavy laden with the scent of flowers and death. The parlour +doors, behind which lay David Balfame, embalmed and serene in his +casket, were closed, but hushed whisperings came forth like the rustling +of funeral wreaths disturbed by the vapours of decay. The devoted +friends of the widow burst out into the sunshine almost with a cry of +relief. + +Here all was as animated as a county fair. The grounds were void, save +by patrolling police, but the avenue and adjoining streets were packed +with every type of car from limousine to farmer's runabout, and many +more people were afoot, staring at the house, venturing as near the +hedge as they dared, to inspect the grove. They asked questions, +answered them, offered theories, all in a breath, and without the +slightest respect for any opinion save their own. A few children, +sucking peppermint sticks, sat on the hedge. + +"Did you ever?" murmured Mrs. Frew to Mrs. Battle. "_Did_ you ever?" She +shuddered with refined disgust, but felt thrilled to her marrow. "Just +Enid's luck!" was her auxiliary but silent reflection. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +At the inquest on the following day, Mrs. Balfame, circumvested in +crepe, sat between Mr. and Mrs. Cummack, gracefully erect, and without +even a nervous flutter of the hands. + +When called upon to testify, she told in a clear low voice the meagre +story already known to her friends and by this time the common property +of Elsinore and all that read the newspapers of the State. + +The coroner released her as quickly as possible, and called her servant +to the stand. Although the swelling in Frieda's face had subsided +somewhat under Dr. Anna's repeated ministrations, the tooth still +throbbed; and she also was released after announcing resentfully that +she'd seen "notings," heard "notings," and "didn't know notings" about +the murder except having to get up and make coffee when she was like to +die with the ache in her tooth. + +There was no one else to testify, except Cummack, who gave the hour, +about a quarter or ten minutes to eight, when the deceased had left his +house, and Mr. Gifning and his two guests, who testified to hearing the +sound of Balfame's voice raised in song, followed a moment later by the +report of a pistol. They also described minutely the position of the +body when found. Indubitably the shot had been fired from the grove. + +The staff artists were forced to be content with a black sketch of a +very long widow, who held her head high and emanated an air of chill +repose. One reporter, camera set, forced his way to her side as she was +about to enter Mrs. Battle's limousine and begged her plaintively to +raise her veil; but he might as well as have addressed a somnambulist; +Mrs. Balfame did not even snub him. + +"Why should they want a picture of me?" she asked Mrs. Battle, +wonderingly. "It's poor Dave that is dead. Whoever heard of me outside +of Elsinore?" + +"I guess you haven't amused yourself reading the papers. You've been +written up as a beauty and the intellectual and social leader of +Elsinore. Some distinction, that! The public is mighty interested in you +all over the State and will be for several days yet, no doubt. Then +we'll find the man and they'll forget all about the whole affair until +the trial comes up." + +Mrs. Balfame, clad in full weeds, more dignified, stately and +unapproachable than ever, ran the gauntlet of staring eyes at the church +funeral, apparently unconscious of the immense crowd of women that had +driven over from every township in Brabant County. That the women did +not approve of her haughty head and tearless eyes, brilliant even behind +the heavy crepe, would have concerned her little if she had known it. +Her mind was concentrated upon the future moment when this series of +hideous ordeals would be over and she could re-enter the decent +seclusion of private life. + +Mrs. Balfame may have had her faults, but a vulgar complaisance to +publicity was not among them. + +She had also made up her mind sternly not to feel happy, not to rejoice +in her freedom, not to make a plan for the future until her husband was +in his grave. But all during that long service, while the new parson +discoursed unctuously upon the virtues and eminence of the slain, she +had the sensation of holding her breath. + +It was four days from the night of the murder before she consented to +see the reporters. Meanwhile every suspected person had proved an alibi, +including the red-haired Miss Foxie Bell, and the indignant and highly +respectable Miss Mamie Russ, who officiated at the telephone. She had +known the deceased, yes, and once or twice she had driven out to one of +the roadhouses with him, where a number of her friends were indulging in +a quiet Sunday afternoon tango, but she had merely looked upon him as a +kind fatherly sort of person; and at the hour of his death she was +asleep, as her landlady could testify. + +Old Dutch had indignantly repudiated the charge of employing gunmen, and +had even attended the funeral and shed tears. Whatever the faults of the +deceased, they were not of a nature to antagonise permanently the erring +members of his own sex. Moreover, he had been an able politician, +respected of his enemies, and was now glorified by his cowardly and +untimely taking off. + +The local police had an uneasy suspicion that the assassin was one of +their "pals"--in that small and democratic community, where every man +was an Elk from the banker to the undertaker. They were quite ready to +drop the case, loudly ascribing the deed to an ordinary housebreaker, or +to some unknown enemy from out the impenetrable rabbit warrens of New +York City. + +The newspaper men were chagrined and desperate. The Balfame Case had +proved uncommonly magnetic to the New York public. They had done their +best to create this interest, and now were on their mettle to "make +good." But they were beginning to wish they had waited for at least a +lantern's ray at the end of the dark perspective before exciting the +public with descriptions of the winding picturesque old street of the +ancient village of Elsinore; the stately old-time residence at its head +which had housed (in more or less discomfort) three generations of +Balfames, the sinister grove of trees that had sheltered the dastardly +assassin, the prominence and political importance of David Balfame who +had inherited this ancestral estate, and played among those trees in +childhood; his unsuspecting and vocal return at an early hour to be shot +down at his own gate. + +All this appealed acutely to a public which makes the fortune of the +sentimental play, the "crook" play, and the "play with a punch and a +mystery." Here was the real thing, as rural as the childhood of many of +the Greater New York public--weary of black-hand murders and anarchist +bombs--with a mystery as deep as any ever invented by their favourite +authors, and in no remote district but at their very gates. + +If anything more were necessary to rivet their interest, there was the +handsome and elegant (if provincial) Mrs. Balfame, as austere as a Roman +matron, as chaste as Diana, as decently invisible in public during this +harrowing ordeal as imported crepe could make her. The men reporters had +dismissed the widow with a paragraph of personal description, but the +newspaper women had filled half a page in each of the evening journals. + +The press had given the public at least two columns a day of the Balfame +murder; there had been a biography of every suspect in turn, and there +had been the thrilling episode of the bloodhounds turned loose upon that +trampled enclosure. But no road led anywhere, and the public, baffled +for the moment, but still hopeful, demanded an interview with the +interesting widow. + +Of course, her alibi was perfect, but all felt sure that she "knew +something about it." Her unhappy married life was now common property, +and if it only could be proved that she had had a lover--but the +newspapers as has been said were discouraging upon this point. Mrs. +Balfame (quoting the young men this time), while amiable and kind to +all, was cold and indifferent. Men were afraid of her. The New York +detectives had "fine-tooth-combed" Brabant County and reported +disgustedly to their chief that she was "just one of those club women; +no use for men at all." + +The reporters, however, had made up their minds to fix the crime, if +possible, upon her. They would have compromised upon the young servant, +but Frieda, especially with her face framed in a towel stained brown, +and her eyes swollen above the wrenching agonies of an ulcerated tooth, +was hopeless material. Moreover, they were convinced, after thorough +investigation, that the deceased's gallantries, while sufficiently +catholic, had not run to serving maids, and that of late particularly he +had loudly hated all things German. + +Regarding Mrs. Balfame they held their judgment in reserve until they +met and talked with her; but Broderick had extracted the miserable +details of her life from his friend, Alys Crumley, as well as a lively +description of the scene at the Country Club; they believed they could +bring to light enough to base a sensational trial upon, whatever the +verdict of the jury. + +It must not be inferred for a moment that these brilliant and +industrious young men were bloodthirsty. They knew that if Mrs. Balfame +had committed the crime and could be induced to make a defiant +confession, it was more than probable that she would go scot free; that +in no case was there more than a bare possibility of a woman of her age, +position and appearance being sent to the chair. But it is these alert, +resourceful, ruthless young men who make the newspapers we read with +such interest twice a day; it is they who write the columns of "news" +that we skip if dull (with a mental reservation to change our +newspaper), or devour without a thought of the tireless individual +activities that re-supply us daily with our strongest impersonal +interests. Sometimes a trifle more sparkle or vitality, or a deeper +note, will wring from us that facile comment, "How well written!" +without a pause to reflect that mere good writing never made a +newspaper, or to hazard a guess that behind the column that thrilled us +were hours, perhaps weeks, of incessant unravelling of clues, of +following a scent in the dark, with death at every turn. It is the +business of reporters to furnish news of vital interest to a pampered +public, and as so large a part of it is furnished to them by the +weaknesses and misdeeds of mankind, what wonder that the reporters grow +cynical and make no bones about providing clues that will lead, at the +least, to many columns charged with suspense and sensational human +interest! + +These young men knew the moment the Balfame case "broke" that it was big +with possibilities; they scented a mystery that would be cleared by the +arrest of no local politician; and they knew the interlocking social +relationships of these loyal old communities. It was "up to them" to +solve the mystery, and by a process of elimination, spurred by their own +desire to give the public the best the market afforded, they arrived at +Mrs. Balfame. + +Within forty-eight hours they were hot on her trail. Among other things, +they discovered that she was an expert shot at a target; but did she +keep a pistol in the house? She had used one, kept for target purpose, +out at the Country Club, and it was impossible to verify the rumor that +in common with many another, she had one in the house as a protection +against burglars and tramps. + +At their instigation, Phipps, the local chief of police, had reluctantly +consented to interrogate her on this point (a mere matter of form, he +assured her), and she had replied blandly that she never had possessed a +pistol. The chief apologised and withdrew. He was of a respectable +Brabant family himself, and was horrified that a member of the good old +order should even be brushed by the wing of suspicion. Being a quiet +family man and a Republican to boot, he had never approved of Dave +Balfame, and had only refrained from arresting him upon more than one +occasion--notably a week or two since when he had publicly blacked the +eye of Miss Billy Gump--out of deference to the good name of Elsinore; +and after all, they were both Elks and had spun many a yarn in the +comfortable clubrooms. Inheritance, circumstances, and a fine common +contempt for the inferior brands of whiskey, had made them "stand in +together, whatever happened." The chief had no love for Mrs. Balfame, +for she had frozen him too often, but she was the pride of Elsinore and +he was alert to defend her. + +It had never occurred to Mrs. Balfame that she would incur even a +passing suspicion, and she had left the pistol in the pocket of her +automobile coat. Immediately after the visit of the chief of police she +took the pistol into the sewing-room, locked the door, covered the +keyhole, and buried the weapon in the depths of an old sofa. As her +large strong fingers had mended furniture many times, no one would +suspect that this ancient piece (dating back to the first Balfame) had +been tampered with. She performed the operation with haughty reluctance, +but the instinct of self-preservation abides in the proudest souls, and +Mrs. Balfame had the wit to realise that it was by far the better part +of valour. + +The shooting occurred on Saturday night. By Wednesday all the horrors of +the criminal episode were over and she felt as young as she looked, and +at liberty to begin life again, a free and happy woman. Her mourning was +perfect. + +She made up her mind to see the newspaper men and have done with it. +They had haunted the grounds--no patrols could keep them out--sat on the +doorstep, forced their way into the kitchen, and rung the front +door-bell so frequently that hourly she expected the scowling Frieda to +give notice. Mr. Cummack told her repeatedly that she might as well give +in first as last and she finally agreed with him. + +It was five o'clock in the afternoon when they were admitted to the +spacious old-fashioned parlour with its incongruous modern notes. + +Like many women, Mrs. Balfame had an admirable taste in dress, so long +as she marched with the conventions, but neither the imagination nor the +training to create the notable room. Long since she had banished the old +"body brussels" carpet and substituted rugs subdued in colour if +commonplace in design. The plush "set" had not gone to the auction room, +however, but had been reupholstered with a serviceable "tapestry +covering." A what-not still stood in one corner, and both centre-table +and mantel were covered with marble, although the wax works that once +embellished them were now in the garret. The wall paper, which had been +put on the year before, was a neutral pale brown. Nevertheless, it was a +homelike room, for there were two rocking-chairs and three easy chairs; +and on a small side-table was Mrs. Balfame's workbasket. On the marble +centre-table was a most artistic lamp. The curtains matched the +furniture. + +There were ten reporters from New York, two from Brooklyn, three from +Brabant County, and four correspondents. Word had been passed during the +morning that Mrs. Balfame would see the newspaper men, and they were +there in force; those that were not "on the job all the time" having +loyally been notified by those that were. But they had stolen a march on +the women. Not a "sob-sister" was in that intent file, led by James +Broderick of _The New York Morning News_, that entered the Balfame house +and parlour on Wednesday at five o'clock. + +Frieda had announced that her mistress would be "down soon," and Mr. +Broderick immediately drew the curtains back from the four long windows, +and placed a comfortable chair for Mrs. Balfame in a position where she +would face both the light and her visitors. It was not the first stage +that the astute Mr. Broderick had set; and whenever he was on a case he +fell naturally into the position of leader; not only had he the most +alert and driving, the most resourceful and penetrative mind, but his +good looks and suave manner inspired confidence in the victim, and led +him insensibly into damaging admissions. He was a tall slim young man, a +graduate of Princeton, not yet thirty, with a regular face and warm +colouring, and an expression so pleasant that the keenness of his eyes +passed unnoted. In general equipment and dress he was typical of his +kind, unless they took to drink and grew slovenly; but his more emphatic +endowment enabled him to take the lead among a class of men whom he +respected too thoroughly to antagonise with arrogance. + +"Late--to make an impression!" he growled, but young Ryder Bruce of the +evening edition of his paper nudged him. Mrs. Balfame was on the +staircase opposite the parlour doors. + +The young men stood up and watched her as she slowly descended, her +black dress clinging to her tall rather rigid figure, her head high, her +profile as calm as marble, her eye as devoid of expression as if +awaiting the click of the camera. + +The reporters were prejudiced on the spot, so impatient are newspaper +men of any sort of pose or attempt to impress them. As she entered the +room she greeted them pleasantly, looking straight at them with her +large cold eyes, and allowed herself to be conducted to a chair by the +polite Mr. Broderick. + +She knew that in her high unrelieved black she looked older than common, +but this was a deliberately calculated effect. She was not as adroit as +she would have been after recurrent experiences with the press, but +instinct warned her to look the dignified middle-aged widow, quite above +the coquetry of the bare throat of fashion, or of tempering her weeds +with soft white lawn. + +As Mr. Broderick made a little speech of gratitude for her gracious +reception of the press, she appraised her guests. The greater number +were well-groomed, well-dressed, well-bred in effect, very sure of +themselves; altogether a striking contrast to the local reporters that +had come in on their heels. + +She answered Mr. Broderick diffidently: "I have never been interviewed. +I am afraid you will hardly find--what do you call it?--a story?--in +me." + +"We don't wish to be too personal," he said gently, "but the public is +tremendously interested in this case, and more particularly in you. It +isn't always that it takes an interest in the wife of a murdered +man--but--well, you see, you are such a personality in this community. +We really must have an interesting interview." He smiled at her with a +charming expression of masculine indulgence that made her own eyes +soften. "You see--don't you--we hate to intrude--but--we understand that +you had a serious quarrel with your husband on the last day of his life. +Would you mind telling us what you did after leaving the Country Club?" + +She gave him a frozen stare, but recalled Mr. Cummack's warning not to +take offence--"for remember that these men have their living to get, and +if they fall down on their job they don't get it. Blame their paper, not +them." + +"That is a surprising question," she said sweetly. "Do you expect me to +answer it?" + +"Why not? Of course you read the newspapers. You know we have told the +public of the scene at the clubhouse already--and with no detriment to +you! It was a very dramatic scene, and every moment that you passed from +that time until Mr. Balfame fell at his gate will be of the most +absorbing interest to the public. In fact, they will eat it up." + +Mrs. Balfame shrugged her shoulders. "As a matter of fact I have not +read a newspaper since the--" She set her lips and her eyes grew +hard--"the crime. I know you have written a great deal about it, but it +hasn't interested me. Well--Dr. Anna Steuer drove me home, and shortly +after I went up to my room--" + +"Pardon me; let us take things in their turn. You took a box of sardines +and some bread from the pantry, did you not?" + +"I did." Mrs. Balfame's tones were both puzzled and bored. + +"And then you were interrupted." As she raised her eyebrows, he +continued. "The appearance of the sardine can indicated that." + +She gave him a brilliant smile, her substitute for the average woman's +merry laugh. "You are teaching me how they write those intricate +detective tales my husband was so fond of. It is true that I was +interrupted, but it is equally true that I should probably have left the +can as you found it in any case, for I soon realised that I was not +hungry. I had had sandwiches at the club, and although I always think it +best to eat something before retiring, I was hardly hungry enough for +sardines--" + +"You ate sandwiches at the club? I have been out there once or twice +and never saw--I was under the impression that during the afternoon the +young people danced and the matrons played bridge before an early +dinner." + +"Did you?" Mrs. Balfame's eyes and tones abashed even Mr. Broderick, and +he tacked hastily: "Oh, well, that is immaterial, as the lawyers say. +And of course you ladies may have sandwiches served in the bridge rooms. +May I ask what interrupted you?" + +"My husband telephoned from Mr. Cummack's house that he was obliged to +go to Albany at once and asked me to pack his suitcase." + +"Yes, we have seen the suitcase. You suggested, did you not--over the +telephone--making him a glass of lemonade with aromatic and bromide in +it?" + +Mrs. Balfame experienced an obscure thrill of alarm, but her haughty +stare betrayed nothing. One of the reporters whose "job" it was to watch +her hands, noted that they curved rigidly. "And may I ask how you found +_that_ out? Really, I think I feel even more curiosity than you do." + +"He told it to Cummack and the other men present as a good joke, adding +that you knew your business." + +"I did. The matter had passed entirely out of my mind. More momentous +things have happened since! Well--I made the glass of lemonade and left +it on the dining-room table; then I went upstairs and packed his +suitcase--" + +"One moment. What became of that glass of lemonade? No one remembers +having seen it, although I have made very particular inquiries." + +Mrs. Balfame by this time was quite cold, but her brain was working +almost as quickly as Mr. Broderick's. She uncurved her fingers and +smiled. But her keen brain-sword had one edge only; the other was dull +with inexperience. She knew nothing of the vast practice of newspaper +men in detecting the lie. + +"Oh--I drank it myself." She had drawn her brows for a moment as if in +an effort of memory. "When I heard the noise outside--when I heard them +say 'coroner'--and realised that something dreadful had happened, I ran +downstairs. Then I suddenly felt faint and remembered the lemonade with +the aromatic spirits of ammonia and bromide in it. I ran into the +dining-room and drank it--fortunately!" + +"And what became of the glass?" + +"Oh!" Mrs. Balfame was now righteously indignant. "How do I know? Or any +one else? Frieda, soon after, began to make coffee by the quart--and I +don't doubt whisky was brought round from the Elks. Who could have +noticed a glass more or less?" + +"Frieda swears she never saw it." + +"She has the worst memory of any servant I ever had, and that is saying +a good deal." + +Mr. Broderick regarded her with admiration. He distrusted her more every +moment, but he had realised at once that he had no ordinary woman to +deal with, and he rejoiced in the clash of wits. + +The other young men were sitting forward, almost breathless, and Mrs. +Balfame was now fully alive to the danger of her position. But all +sensation of fear had left her. All the iron in her nature fused in the +crucible of those terrible moments and came forth finely tempered steel. + +"Anything more?" + +"Oh--ah--yes. Would you mind telling us what you did after you had +packed the suitcase and brought it downstairs?" + +"I went up to my room and began to undress for bed." + +"But that must have been quite fifteen minutes before Mr. Balfame's +return. He walked from Cummack's house, which is about a mile from here. +It was noticed that you merely had taken your dress off. Would you not +have had time to get into bed?" + +"If I were a man. But I had my hair to brush--with fifty strokes; and--a +little nightly massage, if you will have it. Besides, I had intended to +go down and lock the front door after my husband had left." + +"Ah!" The admiration of the young men mounted higher. They disliked her +coldly, if only for that lack of sex-magnetism, which men, particularly +young men, naive in their extensive surface psychology, take as a +personal affront. They did not believe a word she said, and they did not +give her and her possible fate a throb of sympathy, but they generously +pronounced her "a wonder." + +Mr. Broderick took a chance shot. "And did you not during that time look +out of the window--toward the grove?" + +Mrs. Balfame hesitated the fraction of a minute, then wisely returned to +her know-nothing policy. "Why should I? Certainly not. I heard no sound +out there. I am not in the habit of examining the grounds from my window +at night. It is enough to go through the lower rooms before I lock up." + +"But your window was dark when the men ran over from Gifning's after +hearing the shot. They remember that. Do you brush your hair--and--and +massage in the dark?" + +Mrs. Balfame sat back in her chair with the resigned air of the victim +who expects an interview with inquisitive newspaper men to last all +night. "No. But I sometimes sit in the dark. I told you that I intended +to sit up--partly dressed--until my husband had gone. I did not feel +like reading, and my eyes were tired. As you know so much, you may have +guessed that I cried a little after that trying afternoon. I do not +often cry, and my eyes stung." + +"But you had forgiven your husband?" + +"I had forgiven him many times before. I infer that you know that also." + +"Mrs. Balfame, is it not true that about two years ago you contemplated +obtaining a divorce?" + +This time her eyes flashed with anger. "I see that my kind friends have +been gossiping. You would seem to have interviewed everybody in town." + +"Pretty nearly. But you don't seem to realise that Elsinore--Brabant +County, for that matter--has talked of nothing else but this case for +the last four days." + +"I did think of a divorce for a short time, but I never mentioned it to +him, and as soon as I thought it all out I dismissed the idea. In the +first place, divorce is against the principles of the school in which I +was brought up, and in the second Mr. Balfame was a good husband in his +way. Every woman has some sort of a heavy cross to bear, and I guess +mine was lighter than most. The trouble is, we American women expect +too much. I dismissed the subject so completely from my mind that I had +practically forgotten it." + +"Ah--yes--we thought you might have seen some one lurking in the grove +and gone down to investigate." This was another chance shot. He was +hoping for a "lead." + +Mrs. Balfame thought him inspired. + +For the moment the cold brilliant eyes of the woman and the keen +contracted eyes of the reporter met and clashed. Then Mrs. Balfame +displayed her teeth in her sweet and charming smile. "What a truly +masculine inference. You don't know me. If I had seen anything I should +have flown to the telephone and called the police." + +"You look indomitable," murmured Mr. Broderick. "But will you tell us +how it happened that you did not hear the shot? The men down at +Gifning's did." + +"They were standing on the porch, and I think now that I did hear the +shot. But my windows were closed. I hear tires burst constantly. And +that was Saturday night. The machines turn off just below our gate into +Dawbarn Street, especially if they are bound for Beryl Myrtle's road +house." + +"True." Broderick leaned forward, staring at the carpet. He permitted +the silence to last quite a minute. Even Mrs. Balfame, who had +congratulated herself that the inquisition must be nearly over, stirred +uneasily, so sinister was that silence. + +The other men knew the Broderick method too well to spoil one of his +designs; they sat in expectant stillness and turned upon Mrs. Balfame a +battery of eyes. + +Suddenly Broderick raised his head and his sharp boring gaze darted into +hers. "I had not fully intended to tell you of a discovery made by one +of us yesterday. We have told no one as yet--waiting for just the right +moment to publish it. But I think I'll tell you. There is evidence that +two revolvers were fired that night. One killed David Balfame, and a +bullet from the other penetrated the tree before the house and slightly +to the right of where he must have stood for a moment. Bruce here +dug it out. Now, not only did the men at Gifning's not hear two +shots--indicating that they were fired simultaneously--but one bullet +came from a .38 and the other from a .41." + +Mrs. Balfame stood up. "Really, gentlemen, I did not consent to see you +in order to help you solve riddles. But possibly you know better than I +that gunmen generally travel in pairs. I am convinced that my husband--" +(they applauded her for not saying "my poor husband") "was killed by one +of those creatures, hired by his political enemies. Unless I can tell +you something more of interest--if, indeed, you have found anything to +interest the great New York public in this interview--I will ask you to +excuse me." + +The young men were politely on their feet. "And you have no pistol--nor +ever had?" + +She laughed outright. "Are you trying to fasten the crime on me?" + +"Oh, no, indeed. Only, in a case like this, one leaves no stone +unturned--I hope you do not think we are rude." + +"I only just realise that quite the most polite young men I have ever +met have been hoping to make me incriminate myself. If I had not been so +dense I should have dismissed you long since. Good night." + +And, once more looking human in her just indignation, she lifted her +proud head and swept out of the room. + +The young men left the house and adjourned to a private room in the rear +of their favourite saloon. For twenty minutes they rehearsed the +interview carefully, those that had taken notes correcting any lapses of +memory on the part of those that had elected to watch as well as listen. + +Broderick and many of the men were firmly of the opinion that Mrs. +Balfame had committed the crime; others believed that she was shielding +some one else; the less experienced were equally positive that no guilty +woman taken off her guard repeatedly, as she had been, could "put it +over" like that. She had "talked and acted like an innocent woman." + +"She acted, all right," said Broderick. "I for one am convinced that she +did it. But whether she did or didn't, she's got to be indicted and +tried. This case, boys, is too big to throw away--too damned big; and +she's already a personality to the public. She's the only one we have +the ghost of a chance with; the only one whose arrest and trial would +keep the interest going--" + +"But say!" It was the youngest reporter that interrupted. "I call it +lowdown to fasten a crime on a possibly innocent woman--a lady--keep her +in jail for months; try her for murder! Why, even if she were acquitted, +she would carry the stigma through life." + +"Don't get sentimental, sonny," said Broderick patiently. "Sentiment is +to the vanquished in this game. When you've been it as long as the rest +of us you'll know that in nine cases out of ten the real solution of +any mystery is the simplest. Balfame drank. He had a violent temper when +drunk. He was a dog at best. She must have hated him. Look at her. We +have reason to believe that she did hate him and that her friends knew +it. She thought of divorce two years ago. Gave it up because she was +afraid of losing her leadership in this provincial hole. Look at her. +She is as proud as Lucifer. And as hard as nails. There had been an ugly +scene at the club that afternoon. He mortified her publicly. She was so +overcome she had to leave. I've a hunch she poisoned that lemonade and +got it out of the way in time. She's the sort that would think of nearly +everything. Not quite, of course. Otherwise she would never have +invented on the spur of the moment that story about drinking it herself; +she'd have had the assumption on tap that one of the neighbours had +drunk it. That complication, however, is yet to prove. It merely points +a finger at her--straight; what we've got to prove and prove quick is +that she was out of doors when that shot was fired--" + +"Would you like to see her in the chair?" gasped young Loring. + +"Good Lord, no. Not the least danger. Women of that sort don't go to the +chair. If she even got a term, I'd head a petition to let her out, for +she's a dead game sport, and I'm only after good front page stuff." He +turned to Ryder Bruce of the evening edition of his newspaper. "You make +love to that German hired girl. She hates us all, for we represent the +real American press--that hasn't a hyphen in it. I sensed that. And I +don't believe she's all the fool she looks. I believe she can tell +something--few servants that can't--and that she only pretended at the +inquest that she knew nothing because she was nearly dead with pain and +wanted it over. Well, she had the tooth out this morning, and at least +she isn't quite as hideous as she was; so go to it, old boy. Get 'round +her and do it quick. Use money if necessary. There's not a day to lose. +Find out what she wants most--probably it's to send her sweetheart at +the front something more substantial than mitts and bands. Got me?" + +"I get you," said young Bruce gloomily. "You've picked me out because +I'm blond and round faced and can pass myself off as a German. I wish +I'd been born an Italian. Nice job, making love to _that_. But I'll do +it." + +"Good boy. Well, s'long. I'm off on a trail of my own. I'll report +later. May be nothing in it." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Broderick walked slowly toward Elsinore Avenue, sounding his memory for +certain fugitive impressions, his active mind at the same time casting +about for the current which would connect them. + +He looked at his watch. He was to dine with the Crumleys at seven and it +lacked but ten minutes of the hour; nevertheless he walked more slowly +still, his eyes staring at the ground, his brow channeled. + +On Sunday afternoon he had spent two hours with Alys Crumley. At first +she had been reluctant to talk of any but the salient phases of the +murder, but being appealed to as a "good old pal" and reminded that real +newspaper people stood together, she finally had described the scene at +the Country Club on the afternoon preceding Balfame's death, and shown +him the drawing she had had the superior presence of mind to make. +Broderick had examined every detail of that rapid but demonstrative +sketch: the burly form at the head of the room, his condition indicated +by an angle of the shoulders and a deft exaggeration of feature which +recalled the facile art of the cartoonist; the strained forms of the men +surrounding him; Mrs. Balfame heading down the room, her face set and +terrible; the groups of women and girls in attitudes expressive of alarm +or disgust. + +But when he made as if to put the sketch in his pocket she had snatched +it from him, and he merely had shrugged his shoulders, confident that +he could induce her to give it up should he really need it. + +He had questioned her regarding the scene until its outlines were as +firm in his mind as in her own. But there had been something else--some +impression, not obviously linked with the case: It was for that +impression that he sounded his admirable memory; and in a moment he +found it and stopped with a smothered exclamation. + +He had complimented her on the excellent likeness of Dwight Rush, whom +he knew and liked, and remarked quite naturally that he might have sat +for her a number of times. The dusky pink had mounted to her hair, but +she had replied carelessly that Rush was "a common enough type." + +Possibly Broderick would have forgotten the blush had it not have been +for the swift change of expression in her eyes: a certain fear followed +by a concentrated renitence; and at the same moment he had remembered +that he had met Rush once or twice at the Crumleys' during the summer +and thought him quite the favoured guest. + +Driven only by a mild personal curiosity, he had asked her how she liked +Rush and if she saw much of him; he recalled that she had answered with +an elaboration of indifference that she hadn't seen him for ages and +took no interest in him whatever. + +Then Broderick had drawn her on to talk of Mrs. Balfame. Yes, in common +with all Elsinore that counted, she admired Mrs. Balfame, although she +believed that no one really knew her, that she unconsciously lived among +the surfaces of her nature. Her face as she marched down the clubroom +that day, and its curious sudden transformation on that other day at +the Friday Club when her thoughts so plainly had drifted far from the +platitudinous speakers, indicated to Miss Crumley's temperamental mind +"depths and possibly tragic possibilities." + +It was patent to Mr. Broderick's own mind that her suspicions had not +lighted for a moment on the dead man's widow, but it also transpired in +the course of the conversation that the young artist who had so "loved +to sketch" the Star of Elsinore had suffered a long drop in personal +enthusiasm. Pressed astutely, she had remarked that she guessed she was +as broad-minded as anybody, especially since her year on the New York +press, but she did not approve of married women claiming a right to +share in the Great Game designed by Nature for the young of both sexes. + +Then the story came out: Miss Crumley, afflicted with a headache +something over a fortnight since, and enjoying the cool night air just +behind her front gate, had seen Mrs. Balfame come out of Dr. Steuer's +garden next door and meet Dwight Rush face to face. He had begged to be +allowed to see her home. + +Mrs. Balfame had lovely manners, she couldn't help being sweet unless +she disliked a person, and no woman will elect to walk up a long dark +avenue alone if a man offer to escort her. + +Alys would have thought nothing of it--merely assumed that Rush, being a +comparative newcomer, had caught at the chance to make a favourable +impression on the leader of Elsinore society--(no, he was no snob, but +that idea just came to her), if they had not crawled, yes, _crawled_ all +the way up the avenue. + +Both were vigorous people with long legs; they could have covered the +distance to the Balfame place in three minutes. They had been more than +ten, and as they passed under the successive lamp posts she had noted +the man's bent head, the woman's tilted back--as she gazed up into his +eyes, no doubt. + +"In this town," Miss Crumley had announced, "a woman is fast or she +isn't. You know just where you are. There's a class that's sly about it, +but somehow you get 'on' in time. Mrs. Balfame has stood for the highest +and best. Mind you, I'm not saying that she ever saw Rush alone again, +or cared a snap of her finger for him--or he for her. No doubt she felt, +when the rare chance offered of taking a little flyer, that it was too +good to miss. But she shouldn't have done it; that's the point. I don't +like my idols to have feet of clay." + +Broderick had felt both sympathetic and amused. He knew that Alys +Crumley was not only sweet of temper and frank, if not candid, but that +in spite of all her desperate modernism she cherished high ideals of +conduct; and here she was turning loose the cat that skulks somewhere in +every commonplace female's nature. + +But the whole conversation had left his mind promptly. He had attached +no significance whatever to a ten minutes' walk between a polite man and +a woman returning alone from a friend's house on a dark night. + +Now every word of the conversation came back to him. Rush, he gathered, +had gone to the Crumley house several times a week for a while, and +then, for reasons known only to himself and Alys, had ceased his visits +abruptly. Had she fallen in love with him? Or was it only her vanity +that was wounded? And if Rush had dropped a girl as pretty and bright +and winning as Alys Crumley--who improved upon acquaintance, +moreover--what was the reason? Why had he not fallen in love with her? +Had he loved some one else? + +Broderick swung his mind to the morning following the murder, when he +had met Rush in the hall of the Elsinore Hotel. The lawyer professed +himself as delighted to "run up against him" and invited him to +breakfast. All this had been natural enough, and it was equally natural +that the conversation should have but one theme. + +Once more Broderick sought a fugitive impression and found it. Rush, who +was a master of words when verbal exactness was imperative, had created +an impression in his companion's mind of the impeccability of the +murdered man's widow. + +Broderick had wondered once or twice since whence came that mental +picture of Mrs. Balfame that rose clear-cut in his memory, in spite of +his deliberate conviction of her guilt. Other people had raved about her +and made no impression upon the young reporter's selective and somewhat +cynical mind; but Rush had almost accomplished his purpose! + +Why had he sought to accomplish it? + +Broderick had known Rush in and out of court for nearly two years. +Whenever he had been on an assignment in that part of Brabant County he +had made a point of seeking him out, and even of spending an evening +with him if he could afford the time. He liked the unique blend of East +and West in the man; to Broderick's keen appraising mind Rush reflected +the very best of the two great rival bisections of the nation. He liked +the mixture of frankness and subtlety, of simple unquestioning +patriotism--of assumption that no country but the United States of +America mattered in the very least--and the intense concentrated +individualism. Of hard-headed American determination to "get there" at +any honourable cost, of jealously hidden romanticism. + +Broderick was almost at the Crumley gate. He halted for a moment under +the dark maples and glanced up the long shadowy avenue, his own narrower +and still more jealously guarded "romantic streak" appreciating the +possibilities on a dusky evening with a girl whose face floated for a +moment before him. But he banished her promptly, searching his memory +for some salient trait in Rush that he instinctively knew would +establish the current he desired. + +He found it after a moment of intense concentration. Rush was the sort +of man that loves not woman but a woman. His very friendship for Alys +Crumley was evidence that he cared nothing for girls as girls. Only the +exceptional drew him, and mere youth left him unmoved. + +Knowing Rush as he did, he felt his way rapidly toward the facts. Alys, +woman-like, had succumbed to propinquity, and betrayed herself; Rush, +finding his mere masculine loneliness misinterpreted, and being +honourable to boot, had promptly withdrawn. + +But why? Alys would have made him a delightful and useful wife. She was +one of those too clever girls whom celibacy made neurotic and uncertain, +but out of whom matrimony and maternity knocked all the nonsense at once +and finally. She would make a splendid woman. + +He should have thought her just the girl to allure Rush, whom he also +knew to be fastidious and to set a high value on the good old Brabant +blood. Moreover, it was time that Rush would be wanting the permanent +companionship of a woman, a bright, progressive, but feminine woman. He +had observed certain signs. + +Alys, apparently, had not measured up to Rush's secret ideal of the +wholly desirable woman, nor appealed to that throbbing vein of +romanticism which he had striven to bury beneath the dusty tomes of the +law. What sort of woman, then, could satisfy all he desired? And had he +found her? + +Broderick recalled a certain knightly exaltation in Rush's blue eyes +which had come and gone as they discussed Mrs. Balfame, although not a +word of the adroit concept he had built remained in the reporter's +memory. But those eyes came back to Broderick there in the dark--the +eyes of a man young and ardent like himself--he almost fancied he had +seen the woman's image in them. + +He revived his impression of Mrs. Balfame, seen for the first time +to-day, and contemplated it impersonally: A beautiful, a fascinating +woman--to a man of Rush's limited experience and idealism; fastidious, +proud, gracious, supremely poised. + +Nor did she look a day over thirty, although she must be a good bit +more--he recalled the obituaries of the dead man: they had alluded to +his marital accomplishment as covering a term of some twenty years. +Perhaps she was his second wife--but no--nor did it matter. Rush was +just the sort of chap to fall in love with a woman older than himself, +if she were still young in appearance and as chastely lovely, as +unapproachable, as Mrs. Balfame. He would idealise her very years, +contrast them with that vague suggestion of virginity that Broderick +recalled, of deep untroubled tides. + +All romantic men believe in women's unfathomed depths when in love, +reflected the star reporter cynically, and Mrs. Balfame was just the +sort to go until forty before having the smashing love affair of her +life; and to inspire a similar passion in a hard-working idealist like +Dwight Rush. + +Mrs. Balfame and Dwight Rush! Broderick, who now stood quite still, a +few paces from the Crumley gate, whistled. + +Could Rush have fired that shot? Broderick recalled that the lawyer had +mentioned having spent Saturday evening in Brooklyn--on business. + +Broderick shook his head vigorously. So far as he was concerned, Rush +never should be asked to produce his alibi. He did not believe that Rush +had done it, did not propose to harbour the suggestion for a moment. +Rush was not the man to commit a cowardly murder, not even for a woman. +If he had wanted to kill the man he would have involved himself in an +election row, forced the bully to draw his gun, and then got in his own +fire double quick. Standards were standards. + +Broderick was more convinced than ever that Mrs. Balfame had committed +the deed, and he had established the current. His work was "cut out" for +the evening; and without further delay he presented himself at the Widow +Crumley's door. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Supper was over and Broderick and Miss Crumley sat in the back yard +studio; Mrs. Crumley had company of her own, and as Alys decried the +vulgarity of the legendary American daughter's attitude to the +poor-spirited American mother, she invariably retired to the background +whenever it would enhance Mrs. Crumley's self-respect to occupy not only +the foreground but (if her daughter had an interesting visitor) the +entire stage. Alys, since her humiliating failure with Dwight Rush, +clung the more passionately to her rules of conduct. They were not red +with the blood of life, but at least they served as an anchored buoy. + +The atelier was hung with olive green burlap and covered with an +artistic litter of sketches. Broderick, before settling himself into a +comfortable chair by the stove, examined the more recent and encouraged +her with a few words of discriminating praise. + +"Keep it up, Alicia. The _News_ for you next month if you are ready for +a job. You've improved marvellously in figures, which was where you were +weak. Miss Loys, our fashion artist, is marrying next month. You might +as well begin with that. You'll be on the paper and can jump into +something better when it offers." + +Alys nodded emphatically. "Give me work, and as soon as possible. I +don't care much what it is. But I want work and plenty of it. It isn't +only that I want to use my energies, but I've spent all I can afford on +lessons and the rest of it." + +"I'll see to it. Your sort doesn't go begging." + +Broderick clipped his cigar and watched her thin profile for a moment +without speaking. + +He noticed for the first time that she had lost the little flesh that +formerly had covered her small bones, and that the pink stained the pale +ivory of her cheeks only when conversation excited her. But if anything +she was prettier--no, more attractive--than ever, for there was more +depth in her face, which in spite of its subtle suggestions, had seemed +to his critical masculine taste to be too eager, too prone to pour out +her personality without reserve when the brain lighted up. Now there was +a slight droop of the eyelids which might mean fatigue, but gave length +and mystery to the strange olive eyes. Her pink mouth, with its short +upper lip, was too small for his taste, but the modelling of her +features in general seemed to him more cleanly defined, and the sweep of +jaw, almost as keen as a blade, must have delighted her own artist soul. +She was rather diminutive (to her sorrow), but the long lines she +cultivated in her house gowns made her figure very alluring, and the +limp and awkward grace of fashion singularly became her. She wore +to-night a "butterfly" gown of georgette (finding, as ever, admirable +effects in cotton since she could not afford the costly fabrics), the +colour of the American beauty rose, and a narrow band of olive velvet +around her thin ivory-white neck. For the moment of her absorption, as +she stared into the coals, her attitude would have been one of complete +repose had it not been for her restless hands. Broderick noticed, too, +that there were darkened hollows under her eyes. "Poor kid," he thought. +"She's been through it, all right, and put up a stiff fight. But what a +pity." + +As he struck a match she rose, and, opening a drawer in the table, took +out a box of Russian cigarettes. "I keep these here," she announced, +"because I don't want to shock mother; and I seldom indulge these days +in expensive habits. But I shall celebrate and smoke all evening. It is +jolly to have you like this again, Jimmy. I heard you were engaged. Is +it true? You would seem to have deserted every one else." + +Mr. Broderick coloured and looked as sheepish as a highly sophisticated +star reporter may. "Well, not quite," he admitted. "It's been heavy +running, and I don't have all the time there is on my hands. But--I +hope--well, I think now it'll be pretty plain sailing--" + +"Good, Jimmy, good!" + +For a moment he, too, gazed into the coals, his eyes softening; then +once more he banished the dainty image evoked; no nonsense for him in +Elsinore, with the Balfame tangle to unravel to the glory of the New +York _News_. + +"Alys," he said, stretching out his long legs and looking innocent and +comfortable, "I want to have a confidential talk with you about Mrs. +Balfame." He paused and then looked her straight in the eyes as he +launched his bolt. "I have come to the conclusion that she shot him--" + +"Jim Broderick!" Alys sprang to her feet, her eyes wide and full of +angry light. "Oh, you newspaper men!--How utterly abominable!" + +"Why? Sit down, my dear. Somebody did it--not? as our friends the +Germans say. And undoubtedly that some one is the person most interested +in getting him out of the way." + +"But not Mrs. Balfame! Why--I've been brought up on Mrs. Balfame. I'd as +soon suspect my own mother." + +"No, my friend, you would not. Mrs. Crumley is adorable in her own way, +but she is frankly and comfortably in her fifties. She is not a +beautiful woman who looks fully ten years younger than she has any right +to look. See?" + +"Oh--but--" + +"Think it over. You said the other day that you believed Mrs. Balfame to +have unplumbed depths, or something equally popular with your sex. And +you were horrified at her singular facial transformations no less than +twice within a fortnight. Certainly the picture you drew of her stalking +down the Country Club room was that of a woman in a mood for anything--" + +"Of a lovely well-bred woman outraged by the conduct of a drunken brute +of a husband. But do you imagine that any woman goes through life +without being turned into a fury now and then by her husband?" + +"No doubt. But, you see, the death of the brute occurred so soon after +the transformation scene enacted behind the expressive face of the lady +you have immortalised on paper--and no new-made devil is so complete as +that which rises out of the debris of an angel. When your placid +sternly-controlled women do explode, they may patch themselves together +as swiftly as a cyclone passes, but one of the sinister faces of their +hidden collection has been flashed momentarily before the public eye--" + +"Oh! Oh!" + +"I have tracked down every suspect, several upon whom no suspicion has +alighted--as yet. To my mind there are only two people to whom the crime +could be brought home." + +"Who is the other?" + +"Dwight Rush." + +This time Alys did not sit up with flaming eyes. To the astute gaze of +the reporter she took herself visibly in hand. But she bit through the +long tube between her lips. "What makes you think that?" she asked, as +she tossed the bits into the fire and lighted another cigarette. "You +roam too far afield for me." + +"He is in love with her." + +"With whom?" + +"The lady who was so opportunely, if somewhat sensationally, made a +widow last Saturday night." + +"He is not! Why--how absurd you are to-night, Jim. She is a thousand +years older than he." + +"How old is she--" + +"Forty-two. Mother sent her a birthday cake last month." + +"Rush is thirty-four. Who cares for eight years on the wrong side these +days? She looks younger than he does, to say nothing of her own +inconsiderable age; and when a woman is as lovely as Mrs. Balfame, as +interesting as she must be with that astute mind, that subtle suggestion +of mystery--" + +"You are mad, simply mad. In the first place, he has had no chance to +find out whether she is interesting or not--if he had, all Elsinore +would have rung with it. And--ah--" + +"What?" + +"Nothing." + +"Come out with it. It's up to you to prove him innocent if you can." + +"He was in Brooklyn that evening. I met him at the Cummacks' the next +day, and heard him say so." + +"Yes, that is what he is at pains to tell every one. Perhaps he can +prove it, perhaps not. But that's not what was in your mind." + +"I was afraid of being misunderstood. But it is all right, for of course +he can prove that he was in Brooklyn. I happen to know that he went to +the Balfame house on his way back from the club Saturday evening, and +only stayed a few minutes. I left the club just after Mrs. Balfame did, +as I had been out there all afternoon and had promised mother to help +her during the evening. I came in on the trolley and got off at the +corner of Balfame and Dawbarn Streets, to finish an argument I was +having with Harriet Bell over the possibility of Mrs. Balfame losing her +social power through the scene out at the club--few of the members would +care to go through such a scene a second time. Moreover, some of these +newer rich women resent her supremacy and would like to force her to +take a back seat. + +"I only talked for a few minutes after I got off the car and then walked +quickly over to the avenue. Just as I turned the corner I saw Dwight +Rush slam the Balfame gate and almost run up the walk. He seemed in a +tearing hurry about something. I was standing on our porch only a few +minutes later when he strode past--no doubt hoping to catch the +seven-ten for Brooklyn. Now!" + +"Nobody would be happier than I to prove a first-class alibi for Rush--" + +"Who else suspects him?" + +"No one; and so far as I am concerned no one shall. If you want the +whole truth, what I'm as intent on just now as big news itself is +complete exoneration for my friend. But if he didn't do it, she did. And +if he butted in upon her at a time like that it was because he was +beside himself--no doubt he asked her to elope with him--get a +divorce--" + +"What utter nonsense!" + +"Perhaps. But if she saw her chance, I'm thinking she wouldn't have +hesitated a minute to put a bullet in Balfame. People don't turn as sick +at the mere thought of committing murder, when there's a good chance of +putting it over, as you may imagine. Most of us experience the impulse +some time or other. Cowardice or circumstances safeguard us. She did it, +take my word for it. She deliberately poisoned a glass of lemonade +first, for Balfame to drink when he came home on his way to take the +train for Albany. Then, something or other interfering--what, I can only +guess at as yet--she found her chance to shoot, and shot." + +"Why, if all that were true, she would be a fiend." + +"Not necessarily. Merely a highly exasperated woman. One, moreover, who +had locked herself up too long. Marital squabbles are safety valves, and +I understand she let him do the rowing. But I don't care about her +impulses. The act is enough for me. Psychology later, when I write a +page of Sunday stuff. But you can see for yourself that if she isn't +indicted, and pretty quick, Dwight Rush will be?" + +"But no one else suspects him." + +"Not yet. But the whole town thinks of nothing else. And as they've +about given up all hope of the political crowd, as well as gunmen and +tango girls, they'll veer presently toward the truth. But before they +settle down on their idol's lofty head, they'll root about for some man +who might easily be in love with her--although hopelessly, as a matter +of course. Then they'll recall a thousand trifles that no doubt you too +recall without effort." + +"It's true she turned to him out there, ignoring men she had known for +years--she saw him at the house that night, if only for a few +moments--Oh, it's too horrible! Mrs. Balfame. An Elsinore lady! And she +has been so good to us all these hard years, helped us over and over +again. Oh, I don't mind telling you, Jim, that I was a little bit +jealous of her--I rather liked Rush--he was interesting and a nice male +creature, and I was so lonely--and he stopped coming so suddenly--and +then seeing him so delighted to meet her that night--and both of them +dragging up the avenue as if each moment were a jewel--I've always +thought it hateful for married women to try to cut girls out--it's so +unnatural--but I can't hear her accused of murder--to go--Oh, it's too +awful to talk about!" + +"She'd get off. Don't let that worry you. Innocent or guilty. There's no +other way of saving Rush. Be more jealous, if that will help matters. +He'll marry her the moment he decently can." + +"I don't believe he cares a bit for her. And I don't believe she will +marry him or any one." + +"Oh, yes, she will. He's the sort to get what he wants--and, take it +from me, he is mad about her. And she's at the age to be carried off her +feet by an ardent determined lover. Make no mistake about that. Besides, +her's is a name that she'll want to drop as soon as possible." + +"Jim Broderick, you know that you are deliberately playing on my female +nature, on all the baseness you feel sure is in it. I'd always thought +you rather subtle, diplomatic. I don't thank you for the compliment of +frankness." + +"My dear girl, it is a compliment--my utter lack of diplomacy with you. +I want to pull this big thing off for my paper, for your paper. And I +want to save the friend of both of us. I have merely tried to prove to +you that Mrs. Balfame is a mere human being, not a goddess, and deserves +to pay some of the penalty of her crime, at least. Certainly, she isn't +worth the sacrifice of Dwight Rush--" + +"But if he can prove his alibi--" + +"Suppose he couldn't. It was Saturday night. What more likely than that +he failed to find the man he wanted? I have a dark suspicion that he +never went near Brooklyn that night, was in no mood to think of +business; although I don't for a moment believe he was near the Balfame +place, or knows who did it--unless Mrs. Balfame has confessed to him. +She is a very clever woman, not likely to linger on smugly in any fool's +paradise. She must know that suspicion will work round to her, and +knowing his infatuation, no doubt has consulted him." + +Broderick really thought nothing of the sort, but calculated his words; +and they produced their effect. The blood rose to the girl's hair, then +ebbed, leaving her ghastly. "He would hate her then," she whispered. + +"Not Rush. Another man, perhaps; but not only do things go too deep with +a man like that for anything but time to cure, but he's chock full of +romantic chivalry. And he's madly in love, remember; by that I mean in +the first flush. He'd look upon her as a martyr, and immediately set to +work to ward suspicion from her; if an alibi could not be proved for him +he'd take the crime on his own shoulders, if the worst came to worst." + +"Oh! Are men really so Quixotic in these days?" + +"Haven't changed fundamentally since they evolved from protoplasm." + +"But why should all that chivalry--that magnificent passion--the first +love of a man like that--be called out by a woman of Mrs. Balfame's age? +Why, it's some girl's right! I don't say mine. Don't think I'm a dog in +the manger. I'm trying not to be. But the world is full of girls--not +foolish young things only good enough for boys, but girls in their +twenties, bright, companionable, helpful, real mates for men--Why, it is +unnatural, damnable!" + +"Yes, it is," said Broderick sympathetically. "But if human nature +weren't a tangled wire fence electrified full of contradictions, life +wouldn't be interesting at all. Perhaps it's a mere case of affinity, +destiny--don't ever betray me. But there it is. As well try to explain +the abrupt taking off of useful men in their prime, of lovely children, +of needed mothers, of aged women who have lived exemplary lives, mainly +for others, spending their last years with the horrors of cancer. Don't +try to explain human passion. And she _is_ beautiful, and fresher to +look at than girls of eighteen that tango day and night. But he must be +saved from her as well as from arrest. Will you help me?" + +"What do you want me to do?" + +"Get further evidence about Mrs. Balfame." + +"I cannot, and would not if I could. Do you think I would be the means +of fastening the crime of murder on any woman?" + +"You would if you were a hardened--and good--newspaper woman." + +"Well, I'm not. And I won't. Do your own sleuthing." + +"More than I are on the job, but I want your help. I don't say you can +pick up fragments of her dress in the grove, or that you can--or +would--worm yourself into her confidence and extract a confession. But +you can set your wits to work and think up ways to put me on the track +of more evidence than I've got now. Can you think of anything off-hand?" + +"No." + +"Ah? What does that intonation mean?" + +"Your ears are off the key." + +"Not mine. Tell me at once--No,"--He rose and took up his hat--"never +mind now. Think it over. You will tell me in a day or two. Just remember +while watching all my little seeds sprout that you can help me save a +fine fellow and put my heel on a snake--a murderess! Paugh! There's +nothing so obscene. Good night." + +She did not rise as he let himself out, but sat beside her cold stove +thinking and crying until her mother called her to come in and go to +bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Mrs. Balfame, after she dismissed the newspaper men, went up to her +bedroom and sat very still for a long while. She was apprehensive rather +than frightened, but she felt very sober. + +She had accepted the assurance of the chief of the local police that his +inquiry regarding the pistol was a mere matter of routine, and had +merely obeyed a normal instinct in concealing it. But she knew the +intense interest of her community in the untimely and mysterious exit of +one of its most notorious members, an interest raised to the superlative +degree by the attentions of the metropolitan press; and she knew also +that when a community is excited suspicions are rapidly translated into +proofs, and every clue feeds the appetite for a victim. + +The European war was a dazzling example on the grand scale of the +complete breakdown of intellect before the primitive passions of hatred, +greed, envy, and the recurrent desire of man to kill, combined with that +monstrous dilation of the ego which consoles him with a childish belief +in his own impeccability. + +The newspapers of course pandered to the taste of their patrons for +morbid vicarious excitement; she had glanced contemptuously at the +headlines of her own "Case," and had accepted her temporary notoriety as +a matter of course, schooled herself to patience; the ordeal was +scarifying but of necessity brief. + +But these young men. They had insinuated--what had they not insinuated? +Either they had extraordinary powers of divination, or they were a +highly specialised branch of the detective force. They had asked +questions and forced answers from her that made her start and shiver in +the retrospect. + +Was it possible they believed she had murdered David Balfame, or were +they merely seeking material for a few more columns before the case died +a natural death? She had never been interviewed before, save once +superficially as President of the Friday Club, but she knew one or two +of the county editors, and Alys Crumley had sometimes amused her with +stories of her experiences as a New York reporter. + +These young men, so well-groomed, so urbane, so charming even, all of +them no doubt generously equipped to love and marry and protect with +their lives the girl of their choice, were they too but the soldiers of +an everlasting battlefield, often at bay and desperate in the trenches? +No matter how good their work, how great their "killing," the struggle +must be renewed daily to maintain their own footing, to advance, or at +least to uphold, the power of their little autocracy. To them journalism +was the most important thing in the world, and mere persons like +herself, suddenly lifted from obscurity to the brassy peaks of notoriety +were so much material for first page columns of the newspapers they +served with all the loyalty of those deluded soldiers on the European +battlefields. She understood them with an abrupt and complete clarity, +but she hated them. They might like and even admire her, but they would +show her no mercy if they discovered that she had been in the yard that +night. She felt as if a pack of wolves were at her heels. + +But finally her brow relaxed. She shrugged her shoulders and began to +unbutton the dense black gown that had expressed the mood the world +demands of a four-days' widow. Let them suspect, divine what they chose. +Not a soul on earth but Anna Steuer knew that she had been out that +night after her return home. Even had those lynx-eyed young men sat on +the box hedge they could not have seen her, for the avenue was well +lighted, and the grove, the entire yard in fact, had been as black as a +mine. Even the person skulking among those trees could not have guessed +who she was. + +For a moment she had been tempted to tell them a little; that she had +looked out and seen a moving shadow in the grove. But she had remembered +in time that they would ask why she had reserved this testimony at the +coroner's inquest. Her role was to know nothing. Indubitably the shot +had been fired from the trees; nobody questioned that; why involve +herself? They would discharge still another set of questions at her, +among others why she had not telephoned for the police. + +As she hung up her gown she recognised the heavy footfalls of her maid +of all work, and when Frieda knocked, bade her enter, employing those +cool impersonal tones so resented by the European servant after a brief +sojourn on the dedicated American soil. + +As the girl closed the door behind her without speaking, Mrs. Balfame +turned sharply. She felt at a disadvantage. As her figure was reasonably +slim, she wore a cheap corset which she washed once a month in the bath +tub with her nailbrush; and her linen, although fresh, as ever, was of +stout longcloth, and unrelieved by the coquetry of ribbons. She wore a +serviceable tight petticoat of black jersey, beyond which her well-shod +feet seemed to loom larger than her head. She was vaguely grateful that +she had not been caught by Alys Crumley, so fond of sketching her, and +was about to order Frieda to untie her tongue and be gone, when she +noticed that the girl's face was no longer bound, and asked kindly: + +"Has the toothache gone? I hope you do not suffer any longer." + +Frieda lifted her small and crafty eyes and shot a suspicious glance at +the mistress who had been so indifferent to what she believed to be the +worst of all pains. + +"It's out." + +"Too bad you didn't have it out at once." Mrs. Balfame hastily encased +herself in her bath robe and sat down. "I'll take my dinner +upstairs--why--what is it?" + +"I want to go home." + +"Home?" + +"To Germany." + +"But, of course you can't. There are a lot of German reservists in the +country who would like to go home and fight, but they can't get past the +British." + +"Some have. I could." + +"How? That is quite interesting." + +"I not tell. But I want to go." + +"Then go, by all means. But please wait a day or two until I get another +girl." + +"Plenty girls out of job. I want to go to-morrow." + +"Oh, very well. But you can't expect a full month's wages, as it is you +that is serving notice, not I." + +"I do not want a full month wage. I want five hundert dollar." + +Mrs. Balfame turned her amazed eyes upon the girl. Her first thought was +that the creature had been driven insane by her letters from home, and +wondered if she could overcome her if attacked. Then as she met those +small, sharp, crafty eyes, set high in the big stolid face like little +deadly guns in a fort, her heart missed a beat. But her own gaze, large +and cold, did not waver, and she said satirically: + +"Well, I am sure I hope you will get it." + +"I get it--from you." + +Mrs. Balfame lifted her shoulders. "What next? I have contributed what +little I can afford to the war funds. I am sorry, but I cannot +accommodate you." + +"You give me five hundert dollar," reiterated the thick even voice, "or +I tell the police you come in the back door two minutes after Mr. +Balfame he was kilt at the front gate." + +Obvious danger once more turned Mrs. Balfame into pure steel. "Oh, no; +you will tell them nothing of the sort, for it is not true. I thought I +heard some one on the back stairs when I went down to the kitchen. As +you know I always drink a glass of filtered water before going to bed. I +had forgotten the episode utterly, but I remember now, I heard a noise +outside, even imagined that some one turned the knob of the door, and +called up to ask you if you also had heard. I did not know that anything +had happened out in front until I returned to my room." + +"I see you come in the kitchen door." But the voice was not quite so +even, the shifty glance wavered. Frieda felt suddenly the European +peasant in the presence of the superior by divine right. Mrs. Balfame +followed up her advantage. + +"You are lying--for purposes of blackmail. You did not see me come in +the door, because I had not been outside of it. I do not even remember +opening it to listen, although I may have done so. You saw nothing and +cannot blackmail me. Nor would any one believe your word against mine." + +"I hear you come in just after me--" + +"Heard? Just now you said you saw." + +"Ach--" + +Mrs. Balfame had an inspiration. "My God!" she exclaimed, springing to +her feet, "the murderer took refuge in the house, was hidden in the +cellar or attic all night, all the next day! He may be here yet! You may +be feeding him!" + +She advanced upon the staring girl whose mouth stood open. "Of course. +Of course. You are a friend of Old Dutch. It was one of his gunmen who +did it, and you are his accomplice. Or perhaps you killed him yourself. +Perhaps he treated you as he treated so many girls, and you killed him +and are trying to blackmail me for money to get out of the country." + +"It is a lie!" Frieda's voice was strangled with outraged virtue. "My +man, he fight for the fatherland. Old Dutch, he will not hurt a fly. I +would not have touch your pig of a husband. You know that, for you hate +him yourself. I have see in the eye, in the hand. I know notings of who +kill him, but--no, I have not see you come in the kitchen door, but I +hear some one come in, the door shut, you call out in so strange +voice--I believe before that you have kill him--now--now I do not +know--" + +"It would be wise to know nothing,"--Mrs. Balfame's voice was charged +with meaning--"unless you wish to be arrested as the criminal, or as an +accomplice--after confessing that you entered the house within a moment +or two of the shooting. Who is to say exactly when you did come in? +Well, better keep your mouth shut. It is wise for innocent people to +know as little about a crime as possible. Why did you testify before the +coroner's jury that your tooth ached so you heard nothing? Why didn't +you tell your story then?" + +"I was frightened, and my tooth--I can tink of notings else." + +"And now you think it quite safe to blackmail me?" + +"I want to go back to Germany--to my man--and I hate this country what +hates Germany." + +"This country is neutral," said Mrs. Balfame severely. "It regards all +the belligerents as barbarians tarred with the same brush. You Germans +are so excitable that you imagine we hate when we merely don't care." +This was intended to be soothing, but Frieda's brow darkened and she +thrust out her pugnacious lips. + +"Germany, she is the greatest country in the whole world," she +announced. "All the world--it muss know that." + +"How familiar that sounds! Just a slight variation on the old American +brag that is quite a relief." Mrs. Balfame spoke as lightly as if she +merely had let down the bars of her dignity out of sympathy with a +lacerated Teuton. "Well, go back to your Germany, Frieda, if you can +get there, but don't try to blackmail me again. I have no five hundred +dollars to give you if I would. If you choose, you may stay your month +out, and spend your evenings taking up a collection among your German +friends. You are excused." + +She had achieved her purpose. The girl's practical mind was puzzled by +the simple explanation of her mistress' presence in the kitchen, deeply +impressed by the contemptuous refusal to be blackmailed. Her shoulders +drooped and she slunk out of the room. + +For a moment Mrs. Balfame clung, reeling, to the back of a chair. Then +she went downstairs and telephoned to Dwight Rush. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The young lawyer was to call at eight o'clock. Mrs. Balfame put on her +best black blouse in his honour; it was cut low about the throat and +softened with a rolling collar of hemstitched white lawn. This was as +far in the art of sex allurement as she was prepared to go; the bare +idea of a negligee of white lace and silk, warmed by rose-colored +shades, would have filled her with cold disgust. She was not a religious +woman, but she had her standards. + +At a quarter of eight she made a careful inspection of the lower rooms; +sleuths, professional and amateur, would not hesitate to sneak into her +house and listen at keyholes. She inferred that the house was under +surveillance, for she had looked from her window several times and seen +the same man sauntering up and down that end of the avenue. No doubt +some one watched the back doors also. + +Convinced that her home was still sacrosanct, she placed two chairs at a +point in the parlour farthest from the doors leading into the hall, and +into a room beyond which Mr. Balfame had used as an office. The doors, +of course, would be open throughout the interview. No one should be able +to say that she had shut herself up with a young man; on the other hand, +it was the duty of the deceased husband's lawyer to call on the widow. +Even if those young devils discovered that she had telephoned for him, +what more regular than that she should wish to consult her lawyer after +such insinuations? + +Rush arrived as the town clock struck eight. Frieda, who answered the +door in her own good time, surveyed him suspiciously through a narrow +aperture to which she applied one eye. + +"What you want?" she growled. "Mrs. Balfame she have seen all the +reporters already yet." + +"Let the gentleman in," called Mrs. Balfame from the parlour. "This is a +friend of my late husband." + +Rush was permitted to enter. He was a full minute disposing of his hat +and overcoat in the hall, while Frieda dragged her heelless slippers +back to the kitchen and slammed the door. His own step was not brisk as +he left the hall for the parlour, and his face, always colourless, +looked thin and haggard. Mrs. Balfame, as she rose and gave him her +hand, asked solicitously: + +"Are you under the weather? How seedy you look. I wondered why you had +not called--" + +"A touch of the grippe. Felt all in for a day or two, but am all right +now. And although I have been very anxious to see you, I had made up my +mind not to call unless you sent for me." + +"Well, I sent for you professionally," she retorted coolly. "You don't +suppose I took your love making seriously." + +He flushed dully, after the manner of men with thick fair skins, and his +hard blue eyes lost their fire as he stared at her. It was +incomprehensible that she could misunderstand him. + +"It was serious enough to me. I merely stayed away, because, having +spoken as I did, I--well, I cannot very well explain. You will remember +that I made you promise to send for me if you were in trouble--" + +"I remembered!" She felt his rebuke obscurely. "It never occurred to me +to send for any one else." + +"Thank you for that." + +"Did you mean anything but politeness when you said that you had been +anxious to see me?" + +He hesitated, but he had already made up his mind that the time had come +to put her on her guard. Besides, he inferred that she had begun herself +to appreciate her danger. + +"You have read the newspapers. You saw the reporters this afternoon. Of +course you must have guessed that they hope for a sensational trial with +you as the heroine." + +"How can men--_men_--be such heartless brutes?" + +"Ask the public. Even that element that believes itself to be select and +would not touch a yellow paper devours a really interesting crime in +high life. Never mind that now. Let us get down to brass tacks. They +want to fix the crime on you. How are they going to manage it? That is +the question for us. Tell me exactly what they said, what they made you +say." + +Mrs. Balfame gave him so circumstantial an account of the interview that +he looked at her in admiration, although his rigid American face, that +looked so strong, turned paler still. + +"What a splendid witness you would make!" He stared at the carpet for a +moment, then flashed his eyes upward much as Broderick had done. "Tell +me," he said softly, "is there anything you withheld from them? You know +how safe you are with me. But I must be in a position to advise you what +to say and to leave unsaid--if the worst comes." + +"You mean if I am arrested?" She had a moment of complete naturalness, +and stared at him wildly. He leaned forward and patted her hand. + +"Anything is possible in a case like this. But you have nothing to fear. +Now, will you tell me--" + +"Do you think I did it?" + +"I know that you did not. But I think you know something about it." + +"It would cast no light on the mystery. He was shot from that grove on a +pitch dark night, and that is all there is to it." + +"Let me be the judge of that." + +"Very well. I had put out my light--upstairs--and, as I was nervous, I +looked out of the window to see if Dave was coming. I so longed to have +him come--and go! Then I happened to glance in the direction of the +grove, and I saw some one sneaking about there--" + +"Yes!" He half rose, his eyes expanding, his nostrils dilating. "Go on. +Go on." + +"I told you I was nervous--wrought up from that dreadful scene at the +club. I just felt like an adventure! I slipped down stairs and out of +the house by the kitchen door--Frieda takes the key of the back hall +door on Saturday nights--thinking I would watch the burglar; of course +that was what I thought he must be; and I knew that Dave would be along +in a minute--" + +"How long was this after he telephoned? It would take him some time to +walk from Cummack's; and he didn't leave at once--" + +"Oh, quite a while after. I was sure then that he would be along in a +minute or two. Well--it may seem incredible to you, but I really felt +as if excitement of that dangerous sort would be a relief." + +"I understand perfectly." Rush spoke with the fatuousness of man who +believes that love and complete comprehension of the object beloved are +natural corollaries. "But--but that is not the sort of story that goes +down with a jury of small farmers and trades-people. They don't know +much about your sort of nerves. But go on." + +"Well, I managed to get into the grove without being either seen or +heard by that man. I am sure of that. He moved round a good deal, and I +thought he was feeling about for some point from which he could make a +dart for the house. Then I heard Dave in Dawbarn Street, singing. Then I +saw him under the lamp-post. After that it all happened so quickly I can +hardly recall it clearly enough to describe. The man near me crouched. I +can't tell you what I thought then--if I knew he was going to shoot--or +why I didn't cry out. Almost before I had time to think at all, he +fired, and Dave went down." + +"But what about that other bullet? Are you sure there was no one else in +the grove?" + +"There may have been a dozen. I heard some one running afterwards; there +may have been more than one." + +"Did you have a pistol?" He spoke very softly. "Don't be afraid to tell +me. It might easily have gone off accidentally--or something deeper than +your consciousness may have telegraphed an imperious message to your +hand." + +But Mrs. Balfame, like all artificial people, was intensely secretive, +and only delivered herself of the unvarnished truth when it served her +purpose best. She gave a little feminine shudder. "I never kept a pistol +in the house. If I had, it would have been empty--just something to +flourish at a burglar." + +"Ah--yes. I was going to say that I was glad of that, but I don't know +that it matters. If you had taken a revolver out that night, loaded or +otherwise, and confessed to it, you hardly could have escaped arrest by +this time, even if it were a .38. And if you confessed to going out into +the dark to stalk a man without one--that would make your adventure look +foolhardy and purposeless--" + +It was evident that he was thinking aloud. She interrupted him sharply: + +"But you believe me?" + +"I believe every word you say. The more differently you act from other +women, the more natural you seem to me. But I think you were dead right +in suppressing the episode. It leads nowhere and would incriminate you." + +"It may come out yet. That is why I sent for you, not because I was +afraid of those reporters. Frieda was on the backstairs that night when +I came in. I thought I heard a sound and called out. I told Anna that +night and she questioned Frieda indirectly and was satisfied that she +had heard nothing, for although she had come home early with a +toothache, she was suffering so intensely that she wouldn't have heard +if the shot had been fired under her window. So I dismissed such +misgivings as I had from my mind. But just after those reporters left +she came up to my room and told me that she saw me come in, and tried to +blackmail me for five hundred dollars. I soon made her admit that she +had not seen me; but she heard me, no doubt of that. I explained +logically why I was there--after a drink of water, and that I called out +to her because I thought I heard some one try the door--but if those +reporters get hold of her--" + +His face looked very grim. "That is bad, bad. By the way, why didn't you +run to Balfame? That would seem the natural thing--" + +"I was suddenly horribly afraid. I think I knew he was dead and I didn't +want to go near _that_. I ran like a dog back to its kennel." + +"It was a feminine enough thing to do." For the first time he smiled, +and his voice, which had insensibly grown inquisitorial, softened once +more. "It was a dreadful position to find oneself in and no mistake. +Your instinct was right. If you had been found bending over him--still, +as you had no weapon--" + +"I think on the whole it would have been better to have gone to him. Of +course that is what I should have done if I had loved him. As it was, I +ran as far from him as I could get--" + +"Well, don't let us waste time discussing the ought to have beens. +Unless some one can prove that you were out that night, the whole +incident must be suppressed. If you are arrested on any trumped up +charge--and the district attorney is keener than the reporters--you must +stick to your story. By the way, why didn't you tell the reporters that +Frieda was in the house about the time the shot was fired?" + +"I had forgotten. The house has been full of people; the neighbourhood +has lived here; I have noticed her no more than if she were as wooden as +she looks." + +"Do you think she did it?" + +"I wish I could. But she would not have had time to get into the house +before I did. And the footsteps were running toward the lane at the back +of the grounds." + +"She is one of the swiftest dancers down in that hall where she goes +with her crowd every Saturday night. I have been doing a little +sleuthing on my own account, but I can't connect her up with Balfame." + +"He wouldn't have looked at her." + +"You never can tell. A man will often look quite hard at whatever +happens to be handy. But she doesn't appear to have any sweetheart, +although she's been in the country for four years. She is intimate in +the home of Old Dutch and goes about with young Conrad, but he is +engaged to some one else. All the boys like to dance with her. She left +the hall suddenly and ran home--ostensibly wild with a toothache. If she +hid in the grove to kill Balfame she could have got into the house +before you did. What was she doing on the stair, anyway?" + +"I didn't ask her." + +"She may have been too out of breath to answer you. Or too wary. Those +other footsteps--they may have been those of an accomplice; the man who +fired the other pistol." + +"But I would have seen her running ahead of me." + +"Not necessarily. It was very dark. Your mind was stunned. You may have +hesitated longer than you know before making for the house. One is +liable to powerful inhibitions in great crises. Where is the girl? I +think I'll have her in." + +He walked the floor nervously while Mrs. Balfame went out to the +kitchen. Frieda was sitting by the stove knitting. Commanded to come to +the parlour, her little eyes almost closed, but she followed Mrs. +Balfame and confronted Rush, who stood in the middle of the room looking +tall and formidable. + +"I am Mrs. Balfame's lawyer," he said without preamble. "She sent for me +because you tried to blackmail her. What were you doing on the stairs +when you heard Mrs. Balfame in the kitchen? You left the dance hall +sometime before eight, and that could not have been more than five +minutes past." + +Frieda pressed her big lips together in a hard line. + +"Oh, you won't speak. Well, if you don't explain to me, you will to the +Grand Jury to-morrow. Or I shall get out a warrant to-night for your +arrest as the murderer of David Balfame." + +"Gott!" The girl's face was almost purple. She raised her knitting +needles with a threatening gesture that was almost dramatic. "I did not +do it. She has done it." + +"What were you doing on the stairs?" + +"I would heat water for my tooth." + +"Cold water is the thing for an ulcerated tooth." + +"I never have the toothache like that already. I am in my room many +minutes before I think I go down. Then, when I am on the stairs I hear +Mrs. Balfame come in." + +"She has explained what you heard." + +"No, she have not. I think so when we have talked this evening, but not +now. She is--was, I mean, all out of her breath." + +"I was terrified." Mrs. Balfame retorted so promptly that Rush flashed +her a glance of admiration. Here was a woman who could take care of +herself on the witness stand. "First I thought I heard some one trying +to get into the door, and then some one sneaking up the stairs." + +"Oh--yes." Frieda's tones expressed no conviction. "The educated lady +can think very quick. But I say that she have come in by the door, the +kitchen door. Always I take the key to the hall door. She know that, and +as she not know that I am in, she go out by the kitchen door. Always in +the daytime when she goes to the yard she go by the hall door." + +"What a pity you did not slam the door when you came in. It would have +been quite natural as you were in such agony." Rush spoke sarcastically, +but he was deeply perturbed. It was impossible to tell whether the girl +was telling the truth or a carefully rehearsed story. + +"Of course you know that if you tell that story to the police you will +get yourself into serious trouble." + +"I get her into trouble." + +"Mrs. Balfame is above suspicion. It is not my business to warn you, or +to defeat the ends of the law, of which apparently you know nothing--" + +"I know someting. Last night I have tell Herr Kraus; and he say that +since I have told the coroner I know notings, much better I touch the +lady for five hundert and go home." + +"O-h-h! That is the advice Old Dutch gave you! Splendid! I think the +best thing I can do is to have you arrested bright and early to-morrow +morning. Mrs. Balfame is cleared already. You may go." + +She stared at him for a moment out of eyes that spat fire like two +little guns in the top of a fort; then she swung herself about and +retreated to the kitchen. + +"That ought to make her disappear to-night. Her friends will hide her. +The mere fact of her disappearance will convince the police, as well as +the reporters, that she is guilty. You are all right." He spoke +boyishly, and his face, no longer rigid, was full of light. + +"But if she is innocent?" + +"No harm done. She'll be smuggled out of the country and suspicion +permanently diverted from you. That is all I care about." He caught her +hands impulsively in his. "I am glad, so glad! Oh!--It is too soon now, +but wait--" He was out of the house before she grasped the fact that he +had arrested himself on the brim of another declaration. + +Mrs. Balfame went up to bed, serene once more in the belief that her +future was her own, unclouded, full of attractive possibilities for a +woman of her position and intellectual attainments. + +She made up her mind to take a really deep course of reading, so that +the most spiteful should not call her superficial; moreover, she had +been conscious more than once of certain mental dissatisfactions, of +uneasy vacancies in a mind sufficiently awake to begin to realise the +cheapness of its furnishings. Perhaps she would take a course in history +at Columbia, another in psychology. + +As she put herself into a sturdy cotton night-gown and then brushed back +her hair from a rather large forehead before braiding it severely for +the night, she realised dimly that that way happiness might lie, that +the pleasures of the intellectual life might be very great indeed. She +wished regretfully that she could have been brilliantly educated in her +youth. In that case she would not have married a man who would incite +any spirited woman to seek the summary release, but would be to-day the +wife of a judge, perhaps--some fine fellow who had showed the early +promise that Dwight Rush must have done. If she could attract one man +like that, at the age of forty-two, she could have had a dozen in her +train when young if she had had the sense to appreciate them. + +But she was philosophical, and it was not her way to quarrel very deeply +with herself or with life. Her long braids were as evenly plaited as +ever. + +She sank into sleep, thinking of the disagreeable necessity of making +the kitchen fire in the morning and cooking her own breakfast. Frieda of +course would be gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The next morning, when Mrs. Balfame, running lightly down the back +stairs, entered the kitchen half an hour earlier than her usual +appearance in the dining-room, the front of her housefrock covered with +a large apron and her sleeves pinned to the elbow, she beheld Frieda +slicing potatoes. + +"Why!" The exclamation was impetuous, but her quick mind adapted itself. +"I woke up early and thought I would come down and help," she continued +evenly. "You have had so much to do of late." + +Frieda was regarding her with intense suspicion. "Never you have done +that before," she growled. "You will see if I have the dishes by the +dinner washed." + +"Nonsense. And everything is so different these days. I am hungry, too. +I thought it would be nice to hurry breakfast." + +"Breakfast always is by eight. You have told me that when I come. I get +up by half past six. First I air the house, and sweep the hall. Then I +make the fire and put the water to boil. Then I peel the potatoes. Then +I make the biscuit. Then I boil the eggs. Then I make the coffee--" + +"I know. You are marvellously systematic. But I thought you might make +the coffee at once." + +"Always the coffee come last." Frieda resumed her task. + +"But I don't eat potatoes for breakfast." + +"I eat the potatoes. When they fry in the pan, then I put the biscuit in +the oven. Then I boil the eggs and then I make the coffee. Breakfast is +by eight o'clock." + +Mrs. Balfame, with a good-humoured laugh, turned to leave the kitchen. +But her mind, alert with apprehension, cast up a memory, vague but far +from soothing. "By the way, I seem to remember that I woke up suddenly +in the night and heard voices down here. Did you have visitors?" + +Frieda flushed the deep and angry red of her infrequent moments of +embarrassment. "I have not visitors in the night." She turned on the +water tap, which made noise enough to discourage further attempts at +conversation; and Mrs. Balfame, to distract her mind, dusted the +parlour. She dared not go out into the yard and walk off her +restlessness, for there were now two sentinels preserving what they +believed to be a casual attitude before her gate. She would have given +much to know whether those men were watching her movements or those of +her servant. + +Immediately after breakfast, the systematic Frieda was persuaded to go +to the railway station and buy the New York papers when the train came +in. Frieda might be a finished product of the greatest machine shop the +world has ever known, but she was young and she liked the bustle of life +at the station, and the long walk down Main Street, so different from +the aristocratic repose of Elsinore Avenue. Mrs. Balfame, watching +behind the curtain, saw that one of the sentinels followed her. The +other continued to lean against the lamp-post whittling a stick. Both +she and Frieda were watched! + +But the disquiet induced by the not unnatural surveillance of premises +identified with a recent crime was soon forgotten in the superior powers +of the New York press to excite both disquiet and indignation. + +She had missed a photograph of herself while dusting the parlour and had +forgiven the loyal thief as it was a remarkably pretty picture and +portrayed a woman sweet, fashionable, and lofty. To her horror the +picture which graced the first page of the great dailies was that of a +hard defiant female, quite certain, without a line of letter press, to +prejudice a public anxious to believe the worst. + +Tears of outraged vanity blurred her vision for a few moments before the +full menace of that silent witness took possession of her. She knew that +most people deteriorated under the mysterious but always fatal encounter +of their photographs with the "staff artist," but she felt all the +sensations of the outraged novice. + +A moment after she had dashed her tears away she turned pale; and when +she finished reading the interviews the beautiful whiteness of her skin +was disfigured by a greenish pallor. + +The interviews were written with a devilish cunning that protected the +newspapers from danger of libel suit but subtly gave the public to +understand that its appetite for a towering figure in the Balfame case +was about to be gratified. + +There was no doubt that two shots had been fired from the grove +simultaneously, and from revolvers of different calibre (picture of tree +and gate). + +Was one of them--the smaller--fired by a woman? And if so, by what +woman? + +Not one of the females whose names had been linked at one time or +another with the versatile Mr. Balfame but had proved her alibi, and so +far as was known--although of course some one as yet unsuspected may +have climbed the back fence and hid in the grove--the only two women on +the premises were the widow and her extraordinarily plain servant. + +Balfame was shot with a .41 revolver. In one of the newspapers it was +casually and not too politely remarked that Mrs. Balfame had larger +hands and feet than one would expect from her general elegance of figure +and aristocratic features, and in the same rambling sentence (this was +written by the deeply calculating Mr. Broderick) the public was informed +that certain footprints might have been those of a large woman or of a +medium sized man. In the next paragraph but one Mrs. Balfame's stately +height was again commented upon, but as the public had already been +informed that she was an expert at target practice, reiteration of this +fact was astutely avoided. + +A great deal was said here and there of her composure, her large +studiously expressionless grey eyes, her nimble mind that so often +routed her inquisitors, but was allied to a temperament of ice and a +manifest power of cool and deliberate calculation. + +The dullest reader was quickened into the belief that he was the real +detective and that his unerring sense had carried him straight to the +woman who had hated the murdered man and had quarrelled with him in +public a few hours before his death. + +The episode of Mrs. Balfame's offer to make her husband a glass of +doctored lemonade and the disappearance of both beverage and glass was +not mentioned; presumably these bright young men did not believe in +digressions or in rousing a curiosity they might not be able to appease. +The interview concluded with a maddening hint at immediate developments. + +Mrs. Balfame let the papers drop to the floor one by one; when she had +finished the last she drew her breath painfully for several moments. The +room turned black, and it was cut by rows of bared and menacing teeth, +infinitely multiplied. + +But she was not the woman to give way to fear for long, or even to +bewilderment. There could be no real danger, and all that should concern +her was the outrageous, the intolerably vulgar publicity. A woman whose +good taste was both natural and cultivated, she felt this ruthless +tossing of her sacred person into the public maw much as the more +refined octoroons may have felt when they stood on the auction block in +the good old days down South. She shuddered and gritted her teeth; she +wished that she were a hysterical woman that she might find relief in +shrieking at the top of her voice and smashing the furniture. + +Why, oh why, could not David Balfame have been permitted by the fate +which had decreed his end on that particular night to enter the house +and drink the lemonade; to die decently, painlessly, bloodlessly (she +shrank aside when compelled to pass those blood stains on the brick +path), as any man might die when his overtaxed heart simply stopped? She +would have run down the moment she heard the fall, she would have +managed to get the glass out of the way if Frieda had condescended to +visit the scene, which was quite unlikely. She would have run over to +Doctor Lequer, who lived next door to the Gifnings, and he would have +sent for the coroner. Both inevitably would have pronounced the death +due to heart failure. It was fate that had bungled, not she. + +She mused, however, that she should have had a duplicate glass of +lemonade to leave half consumed on the table, as it would be recalled +that he had expected to imbibe a soothing draught immediately upon his +return; and adjacent liquids invariably induce suspicion in cases of +sudden death. But that did not matter now. + +She set her wits to work upon the identity of her companion in the +grove. Was it Frieda? Or an accomplice of the girl, who was already in +the house or on the alert to direct him out by the rear pathway? But why +Frieda? She knew the raging hate that had filled her husband since the +declaration of war, and she knew that his rivals in politics hated him +with increasing virulency; as they were beginning to hate everybody that +presumed to question the right and might of Germany. + +But she was a woman just and sensible. Nor for a moment could she +visualise Old Dutch or any of his tribe shooting David Balfame because +he cursed the Kaiser and sang Tipperary. The supposition was too shallow +to be entertained. + +The person in the grove had been either a bitter political rival too +intimate with the local police to be in danger of arrest, or some woman +who for a time may have believed herself to be his wife in the larger +village of New York. + +She could have sworn that that stealthy figure so close to her was a +man, but women's skirts were very narrow and silent these days, and +after all she herself was as tall as the average man. + +Before noon the house was filled with sympathising and indignant +friends. Cummack came up town to assure her that it was a shame; and he +would ask Rush if those New York papers couldn't be had up for libel. +He'd take the eleven-thirty for Dobton and consult with him. + +The ladies were knitting, no one more impersonally than Mrs. Balfame, +although she was wondering if these kind friends expected to stay to +lunch, when an automobile drove honking up to the door, and Mrs. Battle +teetered over to the window. + +"For the land's sake," she exclaimed. "If it isn't the deputy sheriff +from Dobton. Now, what do you suppose?" + +Mrs. Balfame stood up suddenly, and the other women sat with their +needles suspended as if suddenly overcome by a noxious gas, with the +exception of Mrs. Cummack, who ran over to her sister-in-law and put her +plump arm about that easily compassed waist. Mrs. Balfame drew away +haughtily. + +"I am not frightened," she said in her sweet cool voice. "I am prepared +for anything after those newspapers--that is all." + +The bell pealed, and Mrs. Gifning, too curious to wait upon the +hand-maiden, ran out and opened the front door. She returned a moment +later with her little blue eyes snapping with excitement. + +"What do you think?" she gasped. "It is Frieda they want. She is being +subpoenaed to Dobton to testify before the Grand Jury. The deputy +sheriff is going to take her with him." + +Mrs. Balfame returned to her chair with such composure that no one +suspected the sudden weakening of her knees. Instantly she realised the +meaning of the voices she had heard in the night. Frieda had been +"interviewed," either by the press or the police, and induced, probably +bribed, to talk. No wonder she had not run away. + +But she too resumed her knitting. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Young Bruce had had no appetite for his part in the Balfame drama. He +had presented himself at the back door, however, at eight o'clock on the +night of the interview with the heroine, assuming that Frieda would be +moving at her usual snail's pace from the day of work toward the evening +of leisure. She slammed the door in his face. + +When he persisted, thrusting his cherubic countenance through the +window, she threatened him with the hose. Neither failure daunted him, +and he was convinced that she knew more of the case than she was willing +to admit; but it was obvious that he was not the man to appeal to the +fragment of heart she had brought from East Prussia. The mere fact that +he looked rather German and yet was straight American--employed, +moreover, by a newspaper that made no secret of its hostility to her +country--satisfied him that he would not be permitted to approach her +closely enough to attempt any form of persuasion. He drew the long +breath of deliverance as he reached this conclusion; the bare idea that +he might have to bestow a kiss upon Frieda in the heroic pursuit of duty +had induced a sensation of nausea. He was an extremely fastidious young +man. But even as he accepted defeat with mingled relief and chagrin, the +brilliant alternative occurred to him. + +He had ascertained that Frieda was intimate in the home of Conrad +Kraus, otherwise "Old Dutch," of Dobton, the County seat. Conrad, Jr., +treated her as a brother should, and it was his habit to escort her home +from the popular dance-hall of Elsinore on Saturday nights. Bruce had no +difficulty in learning that the young German-American had been dancing +with his favourite partner when her dead nerve seemed to threaten +explosion and had fraternally run home with her. The energetic reporter +did not wait upon the next trolley for Dobton, but hired an automobile +and descended in front of Old Dutch's saloon fifteen minutes later. + +Young Kraus was busy; and Bruce, after ordering beer and cheese and +taking it to an occupied table, drew the information from a neighbour +that Conrad, Jr., would be on duty behind the bar until midnight. It was +the habit of Papa Kraus to retire promptly on the stroke of nine and +take his entire family, save Conrad, with him. The eldest of the united +family continued to assuage the thirst of the neighbourhood until twelve +o'clock, when he shut up the front of the house and went to bed in the +rear as quickly as possible; he must rise betimes and clerk in the +leading grocery-store of the town. He was only twenty-two, but thrifty +and hard-working and anxious to marry. + +Bruce caught the next train for New York, had a brief talk with his city +editor, and returned to Dobton a few moments before the closing hour of +the saloon. He hung about the bar until the opportunity came to speak to +Conrad unheard. + +"I want a word with you as soon as you have shut up," he said without +preamble. + +The young German scowled at the reporter. Although a native son of +Dobton, he resented the attitude of the American press as deeply as his +irascible old father, and he still more deeply resented the suspicion +that had hovered for a moment over the house of Kraus. + +"Don't get mad till you hear what I've got to say," whispered Bruce. +"There may be a cool five hundred in it for you." + +Conrad glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to twelve. He stood as +immobile as his duties would permit until the stroke of midnight, when +he turned out the last reluctant patron, locked the door and followed +the reporter down the still-illuminated street to a dark avenue in the +residence quarter. Then the two fell into step. + +"Now, what is it?" growled Conrad, who did not like to have his habits +disturbed. "I get up--" + +"That's all right. I won't keep you fifteen minutes. I want you to tell +me all you know about the night of the Balfame murder." + +He had taken the young German's arm and felt it stiffen. "I know +nothing," was the reply. + +"Oh, yes, you do. You took Frieda home and got there some little time +before the shooting. You went in the side entrance to the back yard, but +you could see the grove all right." + +"It was a black-dark night. I could see nothing in the grove." + +"Ah! You saw something else! You have been afraid to speak out, as there +had been talk of your father having employed gun-men--" + +"Such lies!" shrieked young Kraus. + +"Of course! I know that. So does the press. That was a wild dream of +the police. But all the same you thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to +keep clear of the whole business. That is true. Don't attempt to deny +it. You saw something that would put the law on the right track. Now, +what was it? There are five hundred dollars waiting for you if you will +tell the truth. I don't want anything but the truth, mind you. I don't +represent a paper that pays for lies, so your honour is quite safe. So +also are you." + +Conrad ruminated for a few moments. He was literal and honest and wanted +to be quite positive that he was not asked to do something which would +make him feel uncomfortable while investing those desirable five hundred +dollars in West Elsinore town lots, and could reassure himself that the +truth was always right whether commercially valuable or not. He balanced +the pro's and con's so long that Bruce was about to break out +impatiently just as he made up his mind. + +"Yes, I saw something. But I wished to say nothing. They might say that +I was in it, or that I lied to protect Frieda--" + +"That's all right. There was no possible connection between her and +Balfame--" + +Conrad went on exactly as if the reporter had not interrupted. "I had +seen Frieda through the back door. She was crying with the toothache, +and I heard her run upstairs. I thought I would wait a few moments. The +drops she said she had might not cure her, and she might want me to go +to a dentist's house with her. She had gone in the back-hall door. +Suddenly I saw the kitchen door open, and as I was starting forward, I +saw that it was not Frieda who came out. It was Mrs. Balfame. She closed +the door behind her, and then crept past me to the back of the kitchen +yard. I watched her and saw her turn suddenly and walk toward the grove. +She did not make a particle of noise--" + +"How do you know it was not Frieda?" + +"Frieda is five-feet-three, and this was a tall woman, taller than I, +and I am five-eight. I have seen Mrs. Balfame many times, and though I +couldn't see her face,--she had a dark veil or scarf round it,--I knew +her height and walk. Of course I watched to see what she was up to. A +few moments later I heard Balfame turn in from Dawbarn Street, singing, +like the fool he was, 'Tipperary,' and then I heard a shot. I guessed +that Balfame had got what was coming to him, and I didn't wait to see. I +tiptoed for a minute or two and then ran through the next four places at +the back, and then out toward Balfame Street, for the trolley. But +Frieda heard Mrs. Balfame when she came in. She was all out of breath, +and, when she heard a sound on the stairs, called out before she +thought, I guess, and asked Frieda if she had heard anything. But Frieda +is very cautious. She had heard the shot, but she froze stiff against +the wall when she heard Mrs. Balfame's voice, and said nothing. We told +her afterwards that she had better keep quiet for the present." + +"And you think Mrs. Balfame did it?" + +"Who else? I shall not be so sorry if she goes to the chair, for a woman +should always be punished the limit for killing a man, even such a man +as Balfame." + +"No fear of that, but we'll have a dandy case. You tell that story to +the Grand Jury to-morrow, and you get your five hundred before night. +Now you must come and get me a word with Frieda. She won't look at me, +and of course she is in bed anyhow. But I must tell her there are a +couple of hundred in this for her if she comes through--" + +"But she'll be arrested for perjury. She testified at the coroner's +inquest that she knew nothing." + +"An abscessed tooth will explain her reticence on any other subject." + +"Perhaps I should tell you that she came to see us to-night--last night +it is now, not?--and told my papa that Lawyer Rush had frightened her, +told her that she might be accused of the killing, that she had better +get out. But Papa advised her to go home and fear nothing, where there +was nothing to fear. He knew that if she ran away, he would be suspected +again, the girl being intimate in the family; and of course the police +would be hot on her trail at once. So, like the good sensible girl she +is, she took the advice and went home." + +"All right. Come along. I'm not on the morning paper, but I promised the +story to the boys if I could get it in time." + +He hired another automobile, and they left it at the corner of Dawbarn +and Orchard Streets, entering the Balfame place by the tradesmen's gate +on the left, and creeping to the rear of the house. The lane behind the +four acres of the little estate was full of ruts and too far away from +the house for adventuring on a dark night. They had been halted by the +detective on watch, but when their errand was hastily explained, he +joined forces with them and even climbed a lean-to in the endeavour to +rouse Miss Appel from her young and virtuous slumbers. Their combined +efforts covered three hours; and that explains why the tremendous +news-story appeared in the early edition of the afternoon papers instead +of whetting several million morning appetites. + +The interview with Frieda, who became very wide awake when the unseemly +intrusion was elucidated by the trustworthy Conrad, and bargained for +five hundred dollars, explains why Mrs. Balfame spent Thursday night in +the County Jail behind Dobton Courthouse. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +When the Dobton sheriff and his deputies came to arrest Mrs. Balfame, +the wife of their old comrade in arms, all they were able to tell her +was that the District Attorney had applied for the warrant immediately +after the testimony before the Grand Jury of Frieda Appel and of the +Krauses, father and son. What that testimony had been they could not +have told her if they would, but that it had been strong and +corroborative enough to insure her indictment by the Grand Jury was as +manifest as it was ominous. + +They arrived just as Mrs. Balfame was about to leave the house to lunch +with Mrs. Cummack; Frieda had left long before it was time to prepare +the midday meal. Mr. Cramb, the sheriff, shut the door behind him and in +the faces of the indignant women reporters, who, less ruthless but +equally loyal to their journals, wanted a "human interest" story for the +stimulated public. Mrs. Balfame and her friends retreated before the +posse into the parlour. Mrs. Battle wept loudly; Alys Crumley, who had +come in with her mother a few moments since, fell suddenly on a chair in +the corner and pressed her hands against her mouth, her horrified eyes +staring at Mrs. Balfame. The other women shed tears as the equally +doleful sheriff explained his errand and read the warrant. Mrs. Balfame +alone was calm. She exerted herself supremely and sent so peremptory a +message along her quaking nerves that it benumbed them for the moment. +She had only a faint sense of drama, but a very keen one of her own +peculiar position in her little world, and she knew that in this grisly +crisis of her destiny she was expected to behave as a brave and +dignified woman should--a woman of whom her friends could continue to +exult as head and shoulders above the common mass. She rose to the +occasion. + +"Don't you worry--just!" said Mr. Cramb, patting her shoulder, although +he never had had the temerity to offer her his hand before, and had +often "pitied Dave." "They lied, them Duytchers, for some reason or +other, but they can't really have nothin' on you, and we'll find out +what they're up to, double quick." + +"I do not worry," said Mrs. Balfame coldly, "--although quite naturally +I object to the humiliation of arrest, and of spending even a night in +jail. Exactly what is the charge against me?" + +The sheriff crumpled his features and cleared his throat. "Well, it's +murder, I guess. It's an ugly word, but words don't mean nothin' when +there's nothin' in them." + +"In the first degree?" shrieked Mrs. Gifning. + +Cramb nodded. + +"And it don't admit of bail?" Mrs. Frew's eyes rolled wildly. + +"Nothin' doin'." + +Mrs. Balfame rose hurriedly. There was a horrid possibility of contagion +in this room surcharged with emotion. She kissed each of her friends in +turn. "It will be all right, of course," she reminded them gently. "Only +men could be taken in by such a plot, and of course there are a lot of +Germans on the Grand Jury--there are so many in this county. I shall +have an excellent lawyer, Dave's friend, Mr. Rush. And I am sure that I +shall be quite comfortable in the County Jail--it is so nice and new." +But she shuddered at the vision, in spite of her fine self-control. + +"You'll be treated like a queen," interposed the sheriff hastily. He was +proud of her, and immensely relieved that he was not to escort an +hysterical prisoner five miles to the County Seat. "You'll have the +Warden's own suite, and I guess you'll be able to see your friends right +along. Guess we'd better be gettin' on." + +As Mrs. Balfame was leaving the room, her eyes met the horrified and +puzzled gaze of Alys Crumley, and one of those obscure instincts that +dart out of the subconscious mind like memories of old experiences +released under high mental pressure, made her put out her hand +impulsively and draw the girl to her. + +"I can always be sure of your trust," she whispered. "Won't you come up +and help me pack?" + +Alys followed unresisting: the blow had been so sudden; she had believed +so little in the power of the law to touch a woman like Mrs. Balfame, +and even less that she committed the crime; for the moment she forgot +her jealous hostility, remembered only that the best friend of her +mother and of her own childhood was in dire straits. + +Mrs. Cummack had run up ahead and was carrying two suitcases from the +large closet to the bed as they entered. Her face was burning and +tear-stained, but she was one of those highly efficient women of the +home that rise automatically to every emergency and act while others +consider. "Glad you've come too," she said to Alys. "Open those drawers +in the bureau, and I'll pick out what's needed. Of course the ridiculous +charge will be dismissed in a day or two--but still! Well, if they're +all idiots down there at Dobton, we can come over here and pack a trunk +later. To take it now would be nonsense, and Sam'll move heaven and +earth to get them to accept bail. You just put on your best black, Enid, +and wear your veil so they can't snapshot you." + +While she was gasping on, Mrs. Balfame, whose brain had never worked +more clearly, went into the bathroom and emptied the contents of an +innocent looking medicine bottle into the drain of the wash-stand. She +feared young Broderick more than she feared the district attorney, who, +after all, had been her husband's friend--had, in fact, eaten all of his +political crumbs out of that lavish but discriminating hand. She +recalled that she had always been gracious to him (at her husband's +request, for she regarded him as a mere worm) when he had dined at her +table, and felt sure that he would favour her secretly, whatever his +obvious duty. Moreover, he was of those that spat at the very mention of +the powerful Kraus, and would gladly, especially since the outbreak of +the war, have run him out of the community. + +Mrs. Balfame, being a brilliant exponent of that type which enjoys the +unwavering admiration and loyalty of its own sex, had a corresponding +belief in her friends, and rarely if ever had used the word _cat_ +denotatively. She called out the best in women as they of a certainty +called out the best in her. Therefore, it did not occur to her either to +close the bathroom door or to glance behind her. Alys Crumley, standing +before the bureau and happening to look into the mirror, saw her empty +and rinse the bottle. The suspicions of Broderick regarding the glass of +lemonade flashed into the young artist's mind; and from that moment she +believed in the guilt of Mrs. Balfame. + +Although her hands were shaking Alys lifted from the lavender-scented +drawers the severely chaste underwear of the leader of Elsinore society, +and as soon as the suitcases were packed, she made haste to adjust Mrs. +Balfame's veil and pin it so firmly that no more kisses could be +exchanged. Of her ultimate purpose Alys had not the ghost of an idea, +but kiss a woman whom she believed to be guilty of murder and whom she +might possibly be driven to betray, she would not. Suddenly grown as +secretive as if she had a crime of her own to conceal, she even walked +out to the car with Mrs. Balfame and helped to drive away the crowding +newspaper women, several of whom she recognised. They in turn bore her +off, determined to get some sort of a story for the issues of the +morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Mrs. Balfame was whirled to Dobton in ten minutes--herself, she fancied, +the very centre of a whirlwind. The automobile was pursued by three cars +containing members of the press, which shot past just before they +reached Dobton Courthouse, that the occupants might leap out and fix +their cameras. Other men and women of the press stood before the locked +gate of the jail yard, several holding cameras. But once more the +reading public was forced to be content with an appetising news-story +illustrated by a tall black mummy. + +Mrs. Balfame walked past them holding her clenched hands under her veil, +but to all appearance composed and indifferent. The sob-sisters were +enthusiastic, and the men admired and disliked her more than ever. Your +true woman always weeps when in trouble, just as she blushes and +trembles when a man selects her to be his comforter through life. + +The Warden and his wife, who but a few weeks since had moved into their +new quarters, had moved out again without a murmur and with an +unaccustomed thrill. What a blessed prospect after screaming drunks, +drug-fiends and tame commercial sinners! + +The doors clanged shut; Mrs. Balfame mounted the stairs hastily, and was +still composed enough to exclaim with pleasure and to thank the Warden's +wife, Mrs. Larks, when she saw that flowers were on the table and even +on the window-sills. + +"I guess you'll stand it all right," said Mrs. Larks proudly. "Just make +yourself at home and I'll have your lunch up in a jiffy." + +Mrs. Cummack and Mrs. Gifning had come in the car with Mrs. Balfame, and +Cummack and several other men of standing arrived almost immediately to +assure her, with pale disturbed faces, that they were doing their best +to get her out on bail. While she was trying to eat her lunch, the +telephone bell rang, and her set face became more animated as she +recognised Rush's strong confident voice. He had read the news in the +early edition of the afternoon papers, in New York, telephoned to Dobton +and found that his immediate fear was realised and that she was in the +County Jail. He commanded her to keep up her spirits and promised to be +with her at four o'clock. + +Then she begged her friends to go and let her rest and sleep if +possible; they knew just how serious that consultation with her lawyer +must be. When she was alone, however, she picked up the telephone, which +stood on a side table, and called up the office of Dr. Anna Steuer. Ever +since her arrest she had been dully conscious of her need of this oldest +and truest of her friends. It came to her with something of a shock as +she sat waiting for Central to connect, that she had leaned upon this +strong and unpretentious woman far more than her calm self-satisfied +mind had ever admitted. + +Dr. Anna's assistant answered the call, and when she heard Mrs. +Balfame's voice broke down and wept loudly. + +"Oh, do be quiet," said Mrs. Balfame impatiently. "I am in no danger +whatever. Connect me with the Doctor." + +"Oh, it ain't only that. Poor--poor Doctor! She's been all in for days, +and this morning she just collapsed, and I sent for Dr. Lequeur, and he +pronounced it typhoid and sent for the ambulance and had her taken out +to Brabant Hospital. The last thing she said--whispered--was to be sure +not to bother you, that you would hear it soon enough--" + +Mrs. Balfame hung up the receiver, which had almost fallen from her +shaking hand. She turned cold with terror. Anna ill! And when she most +wanted her! A little window in her brain opened reluctantly, and +superstition crept in. Beyond that open window she seemed to hear the +surge of a furious and irresistible tide. Had it been waiting all these +years to overleap the barriers about her well ordered life and sweep her +into chaos? She frowned and put her thoughts more colloquially. Had her +luck changed? Was Fate against her? When she thought of Dwight Rush, it +was only to shrink again. If anything happened to him--and why not? Men +were killed every day by automobiles, and he had an absentminded way of +walking-- + +She sprang to her feet and paced up and down the two rooms of the suite, +determined upon composure, and angry with herself. She recovered her +mental balance (so rarely disturbed by imaginative flights), but her +spirits were at zero; and she was sitting with her elbows on her knees, +her hands pressed to her face when Rush entered promptly at four +o'clock. He was startled at the face she lifted. It looked older but +indefinably more attractive. Her inviolable serenity had irritated even +him at times, although she was his innocent ideal of a great lady. + +The Warden, who had unlocked the door, left them alone, and Rush sat +down and took both her hands in his warm reassuring grasp. + +"You are not to be the least bit frightened," he said. "The great thing +for you to remember is that your husband's political crowd rules, and +simply laughs at your arrest. They are more positive than ever that some +political enemy did it. Balfame's temper was growing shorter and +shorter, and he had many enemies, even in his own party. But the crowd +will pull every wire to get you off, and they can pull wires, all +right--" + +"But on what evidence am I arrested? What did those abominable people +say to the Grand Jury? Am I never to know?" + +"Well, rather. It's all in the afternoon papers, for one of the +reporters got the evidence before the Grand Jury did." + +He had taken off his overcoat, and he crossed the room and took from a +pocket a copy of _The Evening News_. She glanced over it with her lips +drawn back from her teeth. It contained not only the story the +enterprising Mr. Bruce had managed to obtain from Frieda and Conrad Jr., +but a corroboration of the maid's assertion that, warned by the family +friend and lawyer, Mr. Dwight Rush, to disappear, she had gone to Papa +Kraus for advice. Not a word, however, of blackmail. + +"So the public believes already that I am a murderess! No doubt I should +be convinced as readily myself. It is all so adroit!" Mrs. Balfame +spoke quietly but with intense bitterness. "I suppose I must be +tried--more and still more publicity. No one will ever forget it. Do you +suppose it is true young Kraus saw me that night?" + +"God knows!" + +He got up again and moved nervously about the room. "I wish I could be +sure. That is the point to which I must give the deepest +consideration--whether you are to admit or not that you went out. The +Grand Jury and Gore believe it. Young Kraus has a very good name. Frieda +has always been well behaved. There are six Germans on the Grand Jury, +moreover. We must see that none get on the trial jury. Gore wants to +believe--" + +"But he was a friend of Dave's." + +"Exactly. He is making much of that point. Affects to be filled with +righteous wrath because you killed his dear old friend. Trust a district +attorney. All they care for is to win out, and he has his spurs to win, +in the bargain. I met him a few moments ago; he was about equally full +of gin fizzes and the 'indisputable fact' that you are the only person +in sight with a motive. Oh, don't! Don't!" + +Mrs. Balfame had broken down. She flung her arms over the table and her +head upon them. More than once in her life she had shed tears both +diplomatic and spontaneous, but for the first time since she was a child +she sobbed heavily. She felt forlorn, deserted, in awful straits. + +"Anna is ill," she articulated. "Anna! My one real friend--the only one +that has meant anything to me. Life has gone pretty well with me. Now +everything is changed. I know that terrible things are about to happen +to me." + +"Not while I am alive. I heard of Dr. Anna's illness on my way to New +York. Lequeur was on the train. You--you must let me take her place. I +am devoted to you heart and soul. You surely know that." + +"But you are not a woman. It's a woman friend I want now, a strong one +like Anna. Those other women--oh, yes, they're devoted to me--have been, +but they've suddenly ceased to count, somehow. Besides, they'll soon +believe me guilty. I hate them all. Only Anna would have understood--and +believed." + +Rush had been administering awkward little pats to the soft masses of +her hair. Suddenly he realised that his faith in her complete innocence +was by no means as stable as it had been; she had confessed to him that +she had been in the grove that night stalking the intruder. How absurd +to believe that she had gone out unarmed. He had read the circumstantial +details of the reporter's interviews with Frieda and young Kraus. While +the writers were careful not to make the downright assertion that Mrs. +Balfame had fired the fatal shot, the public saw her in the act of +levelling one of the pistols--so mighty is the power of the trained and +ruthless pen. + +As he stood looking down upon his unexpected surrender to emotional +excitement, he asked himself deliberately: What more natural, if she had +a pistol in her hand and that low-lived creature presented himself +abruptly and alone, than that it should go off of its own accord, so to +speak, whether hers had been the bullet to penetrate that loathsome +target or not? If so, what had she done with the pistol? + +He sat down and laid his hand firmly on her arm. + +"There is something I must tell you. It is something Frieda forgot to +tell the reporter, but she gave it to the Grand Jury. With the help of a +couple of extra gin fizzes, I extracted it from Gore. It is this: she +told the Grand Jury that several times when she did her weekly cleaning +upstairs she saw a pistol in the drawer of a table beside your bed. +Will--won't you tell me?" + +He felt the arm in his clasp grow rigid, but Mrs. Balfame answered +without a trace of her recent agitation: "I told you before that I never +had a pistol. It would be like her to be spying about among my things, +but I wonder she would admit it." + +"She is delighted with her new importance, and, I fancy, has been bribed +to tell all she knows." + +"In that case she wouldn't mind telling more. And no doubt she will +think of other sensational items before the trial. She will have +awakened in the night after the crime and heard me drop the pistol +between the walls, or she will have seen me loading it on the afternoon +of the shooting." + +"Yes, there is no knowing when those low-grade imaginations, once +started, will stop. Memory ceases to function in brains of that sort, +and its place is taken by a confused jumble of induced or auto +suggestions, which are carefully straightened out by the practised +lawyer in rehearsals. But I almost wish that you had taken a pistol out +that night and would tell me where to find it. I'd lose it somewhere out +in the marsh." + +"I had no pistol." Not yet could she take him into her confidence to +that extent, although she knew that he was about to stake his +professional reputation on her acquittal. + +He dismissed the subject abruptly. "By the way, I gave the story of +Frieda's attempt to blackmail you to Broderick and two other men just +before I left town--laying emphasis on the fact that you always drank a +glass of filtered water before going to bed. They made a wry face over +that, but it is news and they must publish it. There are many things in +your favour--particularly Frieda's assertion before the coroner that she +knew nothing of the case. She is a confessed perjurer. Also, why didn't +she answer when you called up to her, if she was on the back stairs? +There are things that satisfy a grand jury that will not go down with a +trial jury. Now you must, you must trust me." + +She looked up at him dully. But in a moment her eyes warmed and she +smiled faintly. All the female in her responded to the traditional +strength and power of the male. She also knew the sensitiveness of man's +vanity and the danger either of starving it or dealing it a sudden blow. +She sometimes felt sorry for men. It was their self-appointed task to +run the planet, and they must be reminded just so often how wonderful +they were, lest they lose courage; one of the several obliging +weaknesses of which women rarely scrupled to take advantage. + +As she put out her hand and took his, she looked very feminine and +sweet. Her face was flushed and tears had softened her large blue-grey +eyes that could look so virginal and cold. + +"I know you will get me off. Don't imagine for a moment I doubt that; it +is a sustaining faith that will carry me through the trial itself. But +it is this terrible ordeal in prison that I dread--and the publicity--my +good name dragged in the dust." + +"You can change that name for mine the day you are acquitted." + +It suddenly occurred to her that this might be a very sensible thing to +do, and simultaneously she appreciated the fact that he possessed what +was called charm and magnetism. Moreover, the complete devotion of even +a passably attractive member of the over-sex in alarming predicaments +was a very precious thing. Possibly for the first time in her life she +experienced a sensation of gratitude, and she smiled at him so radiantly +that he caught his breath. + +"No one but you could have consoled me for the loss of Anna, but you are +not to say one word of that sort to me until I am out of this dreadful +place. I couldn't stand the contrast! Will you promise?" + +"Very well." + +"Now will you really do something for me--get me a sleeping powder from +the druggist? To-morrow I shall be myself again, but I _must_ sleep +to-night." + +"I'll get it." His voice was matter of fact, for love made certain of +his instincts keen if it blunted others. "That is, if you will promise +to go to bed early and see none of these reporters, men or women. They +are camped all over the Courthouse yard." + +She gave an exclamation of disgust. "I'll never see another newspaper +person as long as I live. They are responsible for this, and I hate +them." + +"Good! You shall have the powder in ten minutes. Oh, by the way, will +you give me a written permit to pass the night in your house? I want to +go through your husband's papers and see if I can find any clue to +unknown enemies. He may have received threatening letters. I can obtain +the official permission without any difficulty." + +She wrote the permit unsuspiciously. At nine o'clock that night he let +himself into the Balfame house determined to find the pistol before +morning. He knew the police would get round to the inevitable search +some time on the following day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Alys Crumley entertained four of the newspaper women at a picnic lunch +in her studio. She was grateful for the distraction from her own +thoughts and diverted by their theories. None had seen Mrs. Balfame save +through the medium of the staff artist, and they were inclined to accept +the prima facie evidence of her guilt. When Alys fetched a photograph +from the house, however, they immediately reversed their opinion, for +the pictured face was that of a lovely cold and well-bred woman without +a trace of hardness or predisposition to crime. They fell in love with +it and vowed to defend her to the best of their ability, Miss Crumley +promising to exert her influence with the accused to obtain an interview +for the new devotees. + +Before wrapping the photograph for its inevitable journey to New York, +Alys gave it a moment of study herself, wondering if she may not have +misinterpreted what she saw that morning. No one had worshipped at that +shrine more devoutly than she, even during these later years of +metropolitan concordance. + +"What is your theory?" asked Miss Austin of _The Evening News_. "They +say that a lot of those men at the Elks know, but never will come +through. Do you think it was any of those girls? It might have been some +woman he knew in New York who followed him here for the first time--who +would not have been recognised if seen, and got away in a waiting +automobile." + +"As likely as not," said Miss Crumley indifferently. "I have heard so +many theories advanced and rejected that I am almost as confused as the +police. Jim Broderick says that the simplest explanation is generally +the correct one, but while he believes Mrs. Balfame to be the natural +solution, I happen to know her better than he does, and a good deal more +of this community. Three or four men and one or two women would be still +simpler explanations. Possibly--" She turned cold and almost lost her +breath, but the impulse to put a maddening possibility into verbal form +was irresistible. "Perhaps some man that is in love with Mrs. Balfame +did it." And then she hated herself, for she felt as if she had thrown +Dwight Rush to the lions. + +"But who? Who?" the girls were demanding, more excited over this +picturesque solution than they had been since "the story broke." Even +Miss Austin, who disdained to write "sob stuff" and was a graduate of +the Columbia School of Journalism, was almost on her feet, while Miss +Lauretta Lea, who wept vicariously for fifty thousand women three times +a week, shrieked without shame. + +"Oh, fine!" "How truly enchanting!" "Dear Miss Crumley--Alys--who, who +is the man?" + +"Oh, as to that, I've not an idea. Mrs. Balfame always has rather +disdained men, and even if she were susceptible is far too +straight-laced to permit any man to pay her compromising attentions, or +to meet him secretly. But of course she is very pretty, still young to +look at, so there is the possibility--" + +"But just run over all the marriageable men in the community--" + +"Oh, he might be married, you know." Alys struggled to keep the alarm +out of her voice. + +"But in that case there would still be the wife to dispose of, and now, +at least, he'd never dare kill her, or even divorce her. No, I don't +hold to that theory. It's more like the reckless act of the unchastened +bachelor still young enough for illusions. You must have a theory, Alys. +Stand and deliver." Miss Austin spoke with quick insistence. She had +detected her hostess' suppressed excitement and was convinced that the +hint had not been thrown out at random. She also had been conscious of +an indefinable change in her old associate, and now she noticed it in +detail. She might be too self-respecting to dip her pen in bathos, but +she was nevertheless young, and her imagination began playing about +possibilities like lightning over a wire fence. + +The heat which confused Alys Crumley's brain was expressed by a dull +glow in her strange olive-colored eyes, but she made a desperate effort +to look impersonal and rather bored. + +"No, I have no theory: certainly it could not be any of the men +hereabouts. Mrs. Balfame has known all of them from infancy up. Perhaps +she met some one in New York; I don't know that she ever went to any of +the tea-tango places--she doesn't dance; but she might have gone with +Mrs. Gifning or Mrs. Frew, and just met some one that fell in love with +her--Oh, you mustn't take a mere idea of mine too seriously." + +"Hm!" said Miss Austin. "It doesn't sound plausible. A man she met now +and then at a tea-room! She's not the sort to drive men to distraction +in the casual meeting--not the type. And I can't see the men that +frequent afternoon tea-rooms working themselves up to the point of +murder. No, if there is a man in the case, he is here; if not in +Elsinore, then in the county; and it is some man who has known her long +enough and seen her often enough to descend from mere admiration for her +rather chilling type of beauty into the most desperate desire for +possession--" + +Alys burst into a ringing peal of laughter. "Really, Sarah, I wonder you +are not already famous as a fiction-story writer. How much longer do you +propose to stick to prosaic journalism?" + +"I've had two stories accepted by leading magazines this month, I'd have +you know; but your memory is short if you think journalism prosaic. It +germinates pretty nearly all the fiction microbes that later ravage the +popular magazines. That was what was the matter with the old +magazines--no modern symptoms, let alone fevers--only antidotes that +somehow didn't work. But if you won't tell, Alys, I'll find out for +myself. If I don't find out, Jim Broderick will, and I'd give my eyes to +get ahead of him. But we've got to catch our train, girls." + +They took the short cut through the hall of the dwelling, and as they +passed the open door of the living-room, Miss Lauretta Lea exclaimed +with pleasure at its conceit of a cool green wood. Alys could do no less +than invite them in. While the three other reporters were walking about +observing the charming room in detail and envying its owner, Miss Sarah +Austin walked directly over to a framed photograph of Dwight Rush that +stood on a side-table. He had given it to Mrs. Crumley; and Alys, who +spared her mother all unnecessary anxiety, had not yet conceived a +logical excuse for its removal. + +"Whom have we here?" demanded the searching young realist. "Don't tell +me, Alys, that here is the secret of your desertion of the New York +press. I'd forgive you, though, for he is precisely the type I most +admire. The modern Samson before Delilah cuts off what little hair his +barber leaves. But the same old Samson looking round for the same old +Delilah--" + +"Really, Sarah, are you insinuating that I am a Delilah? That is too +much!" Alys put her arm round Miss Austin's waist and smiled teasingly. +"No wonder your newspaper stories are so bitingly realistic; the +restraints you force upon your imagination must put it quite out of +commission for the time being. That is Mr. Dwight Rush, quite a well +known lawyer in Brabant already, although he has only been here about +two years." + +"I thought you said all your young men had grown up in the community." + +"I had quite forgotten him." + +"Ha! Is he married?" + +"Oh, no. And he was born and brought up over in Rennselaerville, by the +way, but went West to some college or university and practised out there +for several years." + +"How old is he?" + +"Oh, about thirty-three or thirty-four." + +"Must have been away a good many years. Would return quite fresh--must +have had a lot made over him here--looks clever and built for +success--that concentrated driving type that always gets there--" + +"He goes very little into society and no one possibly could lionise +him." + +"Is he interesting to talk to or just another specialist?" + +"That's about it. But he was more a friend of mother's than mine. That +is her picture." + +"Oh! He likes older women, then? Looks as if he might. Never would take +the trouble, that type, to adapt himself to girls, try to understand +them. Could it be--Alys, you must know if he knows Mrs. Balfame!" + +Alys was cold again but laid violent hands on her nerves. "No better +than he knew any one else, if as well, for Mrs. Balfame never talked to +the younger men. She doesn't attract them, anyhow. Do you realise, dear, +that you are asking if Mr. Rush committed murder?" + +"With that jaw and those nostrils, he could--oh, rather! And it is one +of those cast-iron, passionate faces; when those men do let go--" + +"Oh, really!" Alys dropped her arm, and her subtle face expressed +disdain. "Mr. Rush is quite too steel clad to be carried away even if he +were capable of committing a low and cowardly murder. He happens to be a +gentleman and about as astute and poised as they are made. Do please +send your romantic imagination off on another flight." + +"Not I. I'm going to account for every moment he spent that night." + +"Would you like to see Mr. Rush go to the chair?" asked Miss Crumley +sternly. + +"Oh, good Lord no." Miss Austin turned pale. "I don't believe in capital +punishment, anyhow. No, I'll not tell a thing if I find him out. But +how interesting to know! I'd write a corking story--fiction--about it. +Those deep glimpses into life--into those terrible abysses of the human +heart--no writer can become great without them." + +"Well, don't waste your time trying to find the criminal in this +excellent citizen. You might set some of the newspaper men on his trail +and blacken his name while you discovered nothing. Better get on the +track of the potential woman in New York." + +"Not half so interesting. Just one of those apartment-house +misalliances. No, I'm out for Mr. Rush, and when I have the proof, I'll +extract a confession; but I'll dig a little grave in my brain and bury +his secret--then when it has ripened, exhume and toss it into that +crucible through which facts pass and come out--fiction. Get me, dear?" + +"You talk like a literary ghoul. But I know you don't mean a word of it. +Good-bye, girls. Do drop in whenever you are over on the case." She +kissed them all, and Miss Lauretta Lea exclaimed innocently: + +"You've lost that lovely dusky colour you had awhile ago, dear. You look +more like old ivory than ever--old ivory and olive. I wonder all the +artists don't paint you. I suppose every young man in Elsinore is in +love with you. Marry, my dear, marry. I've been in this game twelve +years. Show me a willing would-be husband and I'd take him so quick he'd +never know what struck him. Give my hopes of being a man in the next +incarnation for ten babies to weep over when they had croup or got lost +in the woods of New York City. Hate sob stuff. Cut it out, kid, before +you begin it." + +She talked all the way to the gate and for several yards down the +avenue, waving a final farewell with a somewhat tragic smile. + +"Why doesn't that girl marry?" she asked as they walked rapidly to the +station. "Still fresh, if she is twenty-six. I'm only thirty-four and I +look like a hag beside her." + +"Maybe she can't get the man she wants," replied the potential novelist, +who was thinking deeply. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Alys borrowed a horse and cart from her cousin Mr. Phipps, Chief of +Police in Elsinore, who kept a livery stable, and took the shortest cut +into the country. She wanted to think out many things and think them out +alone. She drove rapidly until she came within sight and sound of the +sea. Then she let the lines lie loosely on the back of her old friend +Colonel Roosevelt, who had been named in his fiery colt-hood, but in +these days, save under compulsion, was as slow as American law. He +ambled along, and Alys, in the booming stillness and the fresh salt air, +felt the humid waves roll out of her brain. She saw clearly, but she was +aghast and depressed. + +Presented by nature with an odd and arresting exterior, in color and +feature as well as in subtlety of expression, sketched and flattered by +such artists as she met, she had, ever since old enough for +introspection, striven for uncommon personal developments that should +justify her obverse and set her still farther apart from mere woman. If +not born with an intense aversion from the commonplace (and it is safe +to say that no one is), she had conceived it early enough to train a +rarely plastic mind to striking viewpoints, while a natural tact saved +her from isolation. If she had been as original as she thought herself, +she would have antagonised many people. + +Assuredly a certain nobility of nature and a revulsion from all that +was base were innate; although, soon learning of the many pitfalls +yawning for humanity, she had assiduously cultivated these her higher +inclinations, an enterprise measurably assisted by the equable temper, +the feminine charm, the bright intelligence and the quick sympathies +that made her many friends. Moreover, her freedom from the usual +yearnings of her sex in the matter of riches and subservience to the +race, which wreck the lives of so many women, and her love of the arts +and delight in her own little talent, all served to deponderate the +burden of life. + +She had liked many men as friends, and was proud of the fact that only +the more intelligent were attracted to her, but she had arrived at the +age of twenty-six without even imagining herself seriously in love, so +intense was her idealism. This was another of her deliberate +cultivations, for here also was she resolute that as nature had done so +much for her, marking her as a girl apart, so should she insist upon +having an uncommon mate. It was to this end even more than for the +barren satisfaction of pleasing Mother Nature that she had tilled the +garden of her mind with both science and imagination. When she loved, it +should be like a woman, of course; she had no delusions about making +over human nature to suit passing fashions in woman; but while she never +ignored the vital passions that formed the basis of her unique +personality and strong will, she was determined that they should be +quickened only by a man who would make equal demands upon all that was +fine in her character and aspiring in her mind. + +The awful collapse of this cherished structure, her spiritual house, +under her hopeless and violent passion for Dwight Rush had almost +demoralised her. After she had won herself to reason once more, she +still had sat, stunned, among the ruins. It was true that Rush was all +that she had demanded of man and that he emanated a promise of happiness +along strictly modern lines--which was all she asked, being no romantic +fool; but not only had she loved him unasked, sacrificing the first and +perhaps the dearest of her dreams, to be wooed and awakened and +surprised, but, accepting the inevitable (the man being overburdened, +like most busy young Americans, and unselfconscious), she deliberately +had set herself to awaken _him_--and for nought. For worse than nought: +he had instantly taken fright and withdrawn. + +Of the terrific upheaval of that time, like some graveyard of the sea +flung putrid and phosphorescent to the surface by submarine vulcanism, +she had ceased to think as soon as her will was reinstated in command. +Immediately she had striven to rebuild her house lest she be swamped in +mere femaleness, so permanently demoralised that life would be quite +unendurable. She had cultivated the heights too long. She might tumble +off occasionally, but in no other atmosphere could she breathe deeply +and realise herself, find any measure of content. It had occurred to her +that if she had been born in the gutter and grown to adolescence with no +ennobling influence, she would have developed into a notable force for +evil. At all events, she liked to think so; many women of stainless +lives do. + +She guessed this, having a saving sense of humour, but did not expand +upon it, not being inclined to humour at the moment. Accompanying her +resolution to be finer and better than ever, to fortify herself against +life with some degree of satisfaction in herself, was the hope of +complete deliverance from what she called the Dwight Rush Idea. In due +course she had conquered the obsession, for pride and self-disgust +served her like first-aid surgeons on the battlefield; and although she +felt amputated and scarred, she had lost her sense of humiliation. But +her heart still accelerated its beats when she met Rush, and no will is +strong enough to prevent the recurrence of the mental image; only time +can dim it. But it was not until Broderick had left her alone in her +studio with the poisons of fear and jealousy implanted that she had +admitted she still loved him, probably must continue to love him for +years to come. + +In that hour she had hated Mrs. Balfame, although she neither believed +her guilty nor was tempted to the dastardly course of helping to force +the appearance of guilt upon her. And for a time that night she had +hoped she hated Dwight Rush also, so utterly disgusted and indignant was +she that he could prefer a faded woman of forty-odd to a unique and +beautiful girl like herself. + +But once more Miss Crumley's sense of proportion enforced itself, and +she reflected sternly that men had fallen in love with women older than +themselves since the world began, and that some of those +transcendent--and lasting--passions had made history. She was no green +village girl to be astounded at the least common phase of the sexual +adventure. It was then she had given way to tears, for although she +might be intelligent enough to admit this most unpardonable of nature's +informalities, she could regret it with bitterness and despair. + +Later had come her fear for Rush's safety. Not for a moment did she +suspect him of the crime, but if accused of it during the process of +elimination, there was the appalling doubt that he could prove an alibi. +As likely as not he had missed his man in Brooklyn--she knew that he had +expected to dine and spend the evening at the Country Club--or had not +gone there; knowing Balfame's ugly temper when drunk, what more natural +than that he should hide in the grounds to be near at hand in case the +man were disposed to wreak vengeance on his wife for his own +humiliation. It was Alys's theory that the murder was political. + +Until to-day! From the moment that she saw Mrs. Balfame empty and rinse +the vial, she was convinced that Broderick was right in his deductions +and that for some reason the terrible woman had changed her mind and +used the revolver. It was a stupider act than she would have expected of +Mrs. Balfame, for Dave was a man whose sudden death would excite little +suspicion, nor would Mrs. Balfame be the woman to use a common poison. +Her intimacy with Dr. Anna would put her on the track of one of those +organic potions that were too subtle for chemical analysis. She had +heard doctors talk of them herself. + +Then abruptly she recalled the sinister change in Mrs. Balfame's smiling +countenance on that day she sketched her at the Friday Club; her mind +opened and closed on the conviction that in that moment Mrs. Balfame had +conceived the purpose of murder. + +But why the change of method? She dismissed the riddle. It was not for +her to unravel. Nor did she care. The fact was enough. This good friend +of her family was an abominable creature from whom in even mental +contact she shuddered away with a spasm of spiritual nausea. + +But that was not her own problem. No doubt Mrs. Balfame would be +acquitted; Alys hoped so, at all events, for she wanted no such a stain +on Elsinore, where, she thanked God, she lived, although she sought +knowledge and income in the City of New York. For the same reason, she +had no desire that the guilty woman should pay her debt by even a brief +term in Auburn; but all that was beside the point. What Alys felt she +would give her soul to ravish from this thrice accursed woman, so +formidable in her peril, were the services of Dwight Rush. If he were +Mrs. Balfame's chief counsel he would see her constantly, and alone--for +hours on end, perhaps, for he must consult with her, rehearse her, +instruct her, keep up her spirits, console her. This might not be the +whole duty of counsel, but in the circumstances no doubt she had +underestimated, if anything. And even if he believed her guilty, he +might in that intimacy love her the more; not only would he pity her +profoundly and see himself her natural protector, but he would be heart +and soul in the great case, and it would not be long before the case and +the woman were one. + +If, however, Rush could be made to believe now that the woman was a +murderess, would he not decline to take the case? He was hardly the man +to defend man or woman whom from the outset he knew to be guilty, +although when immersed in the case he would keep on, whatever the +revelations. Alys believed that it was possible for her to convince him. +She could inform him of the needle-witted Mr. Broderick's suspicions and +of her own confirmations; and she could tell him of her certain +knowledge that Mrs. Balfame had a revolver; she had seen it eight months +ago, when Balfame brought it home from New York and told his wife to +discharge it in the air if, when alone, she heard a man breaking in. + +It had signified little to her at the moment that Mrs. Balfame had +denied to police and reporters that she possessed a revolver, for it +might by chance be a .41, and it was not to be expected that even an +innocent woman would challenge public doubt and possible arrest. But her +denial and probable concealment of the weapon were significant to Alys +now. She remembered that Dr. Anna had spent the early hours of Sunday +alone with Mrs. Balfame. No doubt the wicked woman had found both relief +and counsel in confessing to a friend like Anna Steuer, a creature so +strong and staunch that the secret would be as safe as in her own guilty +soul. Anna, of course, had taken the pistol and dropped it in the marsh +when she visited Farmer Houston's wife later in the day. If she could +but get Dr. Anna to speak. + +Alys raised her eyes under their bent and frowning brows and looked up +to where the Brabant Hospital stood on rising ground beside the sea. She +gave a gasp as she found herself turning the horse's head in that +direction. What did she intend to do? Denounce Mrs. Balfame to Dwight +Rush? She fancied she heard an inner crash. Could she do this and escape +final demoralisation? Heretofore she had at least committed no act +involving moral degradation; her upheavals had affected herself alone +and were her inviolate secret; but if she made a last desperate throw to +win Dwight Rush by first filling him with loathing of her rival, she +would be committed to a course of conduct from which there would be no +escape for months, perhaps years to come. For if she won him,--toward +which end she must plan with every female art she knew,--she never could +ease her soul with confession. Her only chance of keeping a man like +that, after the first effulgence had merged into the healthy +temperateness of practical married life, was to avoid the major +disillusions. + +And if she by her own deliberate act went to pieces morally, could she +play up? Should she even want to play up? Could one deliberately knock +the foundations from under one's cherished spiritual structure, reared +with infinite pains upon natural inclinations, and continue to be even a +pale reflection of one's higher self? She might, after the first +excitement of striving to achieve her immediate object was over, hate +herself too deeply to love or even to live. + +She drew her brows more closely and expelled her breath through her +teeth. For the moment, at least, she felt all female, ready to defy the +future and her own soul to obtain possession of her mate. That he was +her mate she obstinately believed, temporarily deflected from his +natural progress toward herself by one of those powerful delusions that +afflict every man in the course of his life. And if she did not open his +eyes at once, the temporary deflection would merge into the straight +course toward marriage with a she-demon.... + +She drove into the hospital yard, threw the reins over Colonel +Roosevelt's back and asked for the superintendent, Mrs. Dissosway, who +happened to be her aunt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +An hour later, Alys was driving through Elsinore, her mind a trifle less +personal, as it dwelt upon her brief interview with the superintendent +of the hospital. Mrs. Dissosway, who was devoted to her niece and +believed her to be as exceptional as Miss Crumley in her most aspiring +moments could have wished, had confided that she was sure poor dear Anna +knew something about that awful crime, for in her delirious moments she +kept uttering Enid Balfame's name in very odd tones indeed. She had +assured and reassured the patient that there was no clue to the +murderer; and if she kept on and asked to see Mrs. Balfame,--which, +significantly, she had not done,--they of course would tell her that the +friend who should have hastened to her bedside had suffered a nervous +breakdown or sprained her ankle. It was a blessing that she was in no +condition to testify against her idol, for it would kill her, just as it +might be fatal now if she knew that Enid was in the County Jail. + +After some delicate insistence, Mrs. Dissosway had admitted that Dr. +Anna must convince any one who listened attentively to her mutterings +that her belief in her friend's guilt was positive, whether she had +exact knowledge or not. + +"'Oh, Enid! Oh, _Enid_!' she kept repeating in such a tone of anguish +and reproach, and then muttered: 'Poor child! What a life!' She also +once said something about a pistol in a tone of dismay, but the other +words I couldn't make out. + +"The nurses on her case," Mrs. Dissosway had concluded, "will pay no +attention. They are too accustomed to fever patients to listen to +ravings, and the two she will have are from other parts of the State, +anyhow. They never heard of Mrs. Balfame before. But I have been in and +out all day, and I know she is worrying in her poor hot mind both over +her friend's crime and her danger--" + +"Then you believe Mrs. Balfame did it?" Miss Crumley had interrupted. + +"Yes, I do--now, anyhow; and I never was daffy about her. She barely +remembers I am alive, living out here for the last fifteen years as I +have done, and I am your mother's sister. I don't call her a snob; it's +just that she don't seem to take any interest in people that ain't in +her own set. But the Lord knows I'd never tell on her if I had the proof +in my hand, for I don't want any of our grand old families disgraced, +and she's been good to your mother. No, she can go free, and welcome, +but I wish poor Anna could have been spared the knowledge of her crime, +for it's going to be all the harder to nurse her well, and she has a bad +case. If she has to go, she shall go in peace. I'll see to that. But +when Enid Balfame is out, I'll take good care to let her know that she +has another crime to carry on her conscience--if she's got one." + +Alys had not asked to see the patient, knowing that it would be useless, +but Mrs. Dissosway had walked out to the cart with her, and pointing to +a window on the first floor of the wing devoted to paying patients, +remarked: "That's where she is, poor dear." Alys had wondered if she +should fall low enough before this accursed case were finished to +describe the position of that room to Broderick and insinuate what he +might find there if he chose to hide in the little balcony and enter the +room when the night nurse had gone out for the midnight supper. He was +quite capable of it. + +But not if she could win Rush from the case, nor unless, Mrs. Balfame +discharged, he were arrested and committed for the crime. She wished now +that he had been arrested instead of Mrs. Balfame, for then she could +have saved him from both punishment and the other woman without this +awful sense of sliding slowly down-hill to choke in a poisonous slime. +She might have been obliged to exercise a certain amount of sophistry +even then, but she could have stood it. + +She was driving slowly down Atlantic Avenue when she heard her name +called in accents of mystery and excitement. Her modest rig was passing +the imposing mansion of Elisha Battle, bank president, and like all the +newer homes of Elsinore the grounds were unconfined and the shallow lawn +ended at the pavement. From one of the drawing-room windows Lottie +Gifning slanted, and as she met Miss Crumley's eye, she beckoned +peremptorily. The desire for solitude was still strong upon Alys, but as +she had no excuse to advance, she wound the lines round the whip and +went slowly up the brick walk. + +Mrs. Gifning opened the front door and swept her into the drawing-room, +where six or seven other women with tense excited faces sat on the +expensive furniture. Mrs. Battle, herself upholstered in shining +black-and-white satin, and further clad in invisible armour, occupied a +stately and upright chair. This throne had been made to order; +consequently her small feet in their high-heeled pumps touched the +floor. The large room, upon which much money had been spent, was not +tasteless; it merely had no individuality whatever. Like many another in +Elsinore, it set Miss Crumley's teeth on edge, but compensated her +to-day as ever by inspiring her with a sense of remote superiority. + +"Dear Alys--so glad to see you!" Mrs. Battle did not rise. She was fond +of Alys, but thought her of no consequence whatever. "Lottie saw you and +called you in as you have always been such a friend of poor dear Enid's, +and you know those horrid reporters, and we want to impress upon you the +necessity of putting them off the track. We are talking the whole +dreadful business over and trying to decide what to do." + +"Do?" Alys, more interested, disposed her limber uncorseted young figure +into a low chair and for a moment diverted envious attention from the +momentous subject in hand. "What can we do? Has bail been accepted?" + +"No, nor likely to be. Isn't it too awful?" + +"Yes, it's awful." Alys stared at the floor, but although her words +might have been uttered by any of the ladies present, her tone was +almost conventional. No one noticed this defection, however, and Mrs. +Battle--after Mrs. Gifning had tiptoed to all the doors, opened them +suddenly and closed them again,--proceeded in so low a tone that there +was an immediate hitching of chairs over the Persian rug: + +"What we were debating when you came in, Alys, was whether--oh, it's too +awful!--she did it or not. Did she or didn't she? She has a perfectly +beautiful character--but the provocation! Few women have been tried +more severely. And we all know what human nature is under the influence +of sudden tremendous passion." Mrs. Battle, who never had been ruffled +by any sort of passion, leaned against the high back of her chair, and +elevated her eyebrows and one corner of her mouth. + +"Could such a crime have been unpremeditated?" asked Alys. "You forget +that whoever did it was waiting in the grove for Balfame to come home +from Sam's, and evidently timed to shoot as he reached the gate." + +"Passion, my dear child," said Mrs. Bascom, wife of the Justice for +Brabant, speaking softly and with some diffidence, for she disliked the +word, "can endure for quite a while once the blood is up and pounding in +the head. It would take a good deal to work up dear Enid, but when a +woman like that does rise to the pitch under many and abominable +provocations, well, I guess she could stay at that pitch a good bit +longer than all of us put together. I've thought of nothing else for +three days and nights,--the Judge won't discuss it with me,--and I feel +convinced that she did it." + +"So have and so am I," contributed Mrs. Battle, sepulchrally. + +"I'm afraid she did!" Mrs. Gifning heaved an abysmal sigh. "I suspected +it when I consulted her about her mourning. She was much too cool. A +woman who could think of two kinds of blouses she wanted the very +morning after the tragedy, and he not out of the house, must have been +exercising a suspicious restraint or else have reverted to the +cold-bloodedness with which she planned the deed." + +"Dear Lottie, you are so psychological," murmured Mrs. Frew admiringly; +but Mrs. Battle interrupted sharply: + +"I maintain that she did it in a moment of overwhelming passion. She +would be inexcusable if she had done it in cold blood." + +"Well, of course I didn't mean that!" said Mrs. Gifning with asperity. +"I guess I'm as fond of Enid Balfame as anybody in this room, and I +guess I know what she must have gone through. What I really meant was +that she has more courage than most folks." + +"Oh, that indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Lequer, who was quite happy with her +husband, the fashionable doctor of Brabant. "Matrimony is a terrible +trial at best, and it's a wonder more women don't--well, it's too +horrible to say. But I'm afraid--well, you know." + +There was no dissenting voice. Alys raised her eyes and glanced about +the room. Mrs. Cummack was not present. No doubt she had been carefully +omitted from the conference. So had four members of the inner twelve who +were comparative newcomers in Elsinore. All of these women had known +Enid Balfame from childhood, consistently admired her; when she was in a +position to make her social ambitions felt, had quite naturally fallen +into line. + +"Isn't it rather a hasty conclusion?" Alys asked. "There are a good many +others who might have done it, you know." + +"Everybody suspected has one grand alibi." Mrs. Gifning's sigh was +rather hypocritical this time. "We'd be only too glad to think there was +any one else likely to be arrested. No hope! No hope!" + +"I suppose"--Miss Crumley's tones were tentative, although the +irresistible words almost cost her her breath--"that there was no man in +love with Mrs. Balfame?" + +"Alys Crumley!" All the women had shrieked the name, and Mrs. Battle +swung herself to her pointed toes. "I'm most mad enough to put you right +out. The idea of insinuating--" + +"Dear me, Mrs. Battle, it never occurred to me that it was worse for a +married woman to have a man in love with her than to commit murder. I +did not insinuate or even imagine she cared for any man, or even +encouraged one. But such things have happened." + +"Not to her. And while I could forgive her for shooting a perfectly +loathsome husband under the influence of sudden passion, I'd never +forgive her--Enid Balfame!--if she had stooped to anything so paltry and +common and _sinful_ as philandering; for believe me, a man doesn't +commit murder for a woman's sake unless he is reasonably certain that he +will have his due rewards. That is life. And how _can_ he be certain, if +there has been no philandering. No!" Mrs. Battle was once more +magisterial in her chair, and in command of her best Friday Club +vocabulary. "But there is this much to be said: Enid did not necessarily +shoot to kill,--merely to wound perhaps,--for nothing would have +punished Dave Balfame more than a month or two in bed on gruel and +custard. Or maybe she just didn't know what she was doing--just fired to +relieve her feelings. I am sure it would have relieved mine after that +scene at the Club." + +"Oh--I apologise. Let us assume then that Mrs. Balfame did it. How do +you propose to act in the matter? Of course you will not accuse her, +but shall you cut her?" + +"Neither the one nor the other!" Mrs. Battle brought her plump little +hands down on the arms of the chair with a muffled but emphatic smack. +"Never outside of this room shall we breathe our convictions, or our +certain knowledge that she kept a revolver in her room--may I not speak +for all?" There was a hissing murmur caused by the letter _s_. "And it +will be no negative defence, either. We'll stand by her publicly, visit +her constantly, keep up her spirits, never give her a hint of our +suspicions, and attend the trial in a body. Our attitude cannot fail to +impress the world. We are the representative women of Elsinore; we have +known her all our lives; it is our duty to flaunt our faith in the eyes +of the public. The moral effect will be enormous--also on the jury." + +"It is very splendid of you." Alys sighed. Their motives were mixed, of +course, poor dears; brains were not their strong point, and they were +all feeling young again with their sense of participation in the great +local drama, but there was no questioning their loyalty, even that of +Mrs. Battle, who would inherit the reins of leadership were Mrs. Balfame +forced to retire. Alys wished she could be swept along with them, but +her indorsement of their programme was from the head alone. + +"What do the men think?" she asked. + +"I guess they don't know what to think," said Mrs. Battle complacently. +"They're not as clever as we are, and besides, they never could +understand that type of woman. Whatever they think, though,--that is to +say, if they do suspect her,--they'll never let on. They weren't any too +fond of Dave these last years, and they're no more anxious than we are +to have Elsinore disgraced--especially with all those lots on the edge +of the West End unsold. They're hoping for a boom every minute. The +trial will be bad enough. And those terrible reporters! They've been +here a dozen times." + +"That reminds me," interrupted Alys. "I promised four of the best of the +women reporters I would try to get them an interview with Mrs. Balfame. +Do you think you could manage it? She might not listen to me. +And--and--if she is a murderess, I don't think I can see her just yet." + +"Youth is so hard!" Mrs. Battle sighed. "But I suppose it is as well +that you, an unmarried young woman, and with your way to make, should +keep in the background. But why should she see those women? Answer me +that. It would be more dignified for her to ignore the press hereafter." + +"Perhaps. But they are predisposed in her favour, being women, and would +write her up in such a way as to make friends for her among the public. +It is important, if she is to be tried for her life, that she should not +be thought a monster, that she should make all the friends possible. The +jury might convict her, and it would then be necessary, appeals also +failing, to get up a petition." + +"You always did have brains, Alys!" It was Mrs. Frew who expressed +herself with emphasis. "I'll persuade her myself. Don't you really think +it would be wise, Letitia?" + +"I guess you're both right." Mrs. Battle stood up. "Now let's go out +and have tea. I ordered it for five-thirty. New York's got nothing on +us." + +But Alys, protesting that her mother was old-fashioned and still +prepared supper for half past six, excused herself and left the house. +She found that Colonel Roosevelt had gone home and was not sorry to +cover the half-mile to her own, briskly, on foot. What course she +eventually should take was still unformulated, but she was glad that she +had not parted with any of her deeper knowledge to those kindly women +who, perhaps, would have found it the straw too many. Let Enid Balfame +keep her friends if she could. Let her have the whole State on her side +if she could, so long as she lost Dwight Rush! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +The police, nettled by the sensational coup of the press, made a real +effort to discover the identity of the man or woman who had fired the +second pistol. For a time they devoted their efforts to implicating +Frieda and young Kraus, but the pair emerged triumphantly from a +grilling almost as severe as the third degree; furthermore, there was an +absolute lack of motive. Conrad had never evinced the least interest in +politics; and that Old Dutch should have commissioned the son of whom he +was so proud to commit murder when gun-men could be hired for +twenty-five dollars apiece was unthinkable to any one familiar with the +thoroughly decent home life of the family of Kraus. + +Old Dutch's establishment was more of a beer garden than a common +saloon, and responsible for a very small proportion of the inebriety of +the County Seat. He and his sons drank their beer at the family board, +but nothing whatever behind the bar. As for Conrad, Jr., industrious, +ambitious, persistent, but without a spark of initiative, obstinate and +quick-tempered but amiable and rather dull, his tastes and domestic +ideals as cautious as his expenditures, it was as easy to trump up a +charge of murder against him because he happened to have seen Mrs. +Balfame leave her house by the kitchen door a few moments before he +heard the shot that killed her husband, as it was to fasten the crime +upon the unlovely Frieda because she ran home untimely with a toothache. + +Frieda confessed imperturbably to her attempt to blackmail Mrs. Balfame, +adding (in free translation) that while she had no desire to see her +arrested and punished, she saw no reason why she should not turn the +situation to her own advantage. When Papa Kraus was asked if he had +counselled the girl to demand five hundred dollars as the price of her +silence, he repudiated the charge with indignation, but admitted that he +did remark in the course of conversation that no doubt a woman who had +killed her husband would be pleased to rid herself of a witness on such +easy terms, and that it was Frieda's pious intention--and his own--that +the blood-money should justify itself in the coffers of the German Red +Cross. + +All this was very reprehensible, of course; but an imperfect sense of +the minor social and legal immoralities was no argument that such +blundering tactics were the natural corollary of a specific murder. To +be sure, there were those that asserted with firm lips and pragmatical +eyes that "anybody who will blackmail will do anything," but the police +were accustomed to this line of ratiocination from the layman and knew +better. + +Their efforts in every direction were equally futile. Behind the Balfame +Place was a lane; Elsinore Avenue was practically the eastern boundary +of the town, which had grown to the south and west. There were two or +three lowly dwellers in this lane, and in due course the memory of one +old man was refreshed, and he guessed he remembered hearing somebody +crank up a machine that night, but at what time he couldn't say. It was +after seven-thirty, anyhow, for he turned in about then, and he had +heard the noise just before dropping off. That might have been any time +up to eight or nine, he couldn't say, as he slept with his windows shut +and couldn't hear the town clock. His cottage was directly across from a +point where the second assailant, running out of the grove and grounds, +would have climbed the fence to the lane if he had kept in a reasonably +straight line. But there had been heavy rains between the night of the +shooting and the awakening of the old man's memory, and not a track nor +a footstep was visible. + +The police also searched the Balfame house from top to bottom for the +pistol the prisoner indubitably had carried from the house to the grove; +nor did they neglect the garden, yard and orchard, or any of the old +wells in the neighbourhood. They even dragged a pond. Their zeal was but +a further waste of time. It was then they concluded that Mrs. Balfame +had gone out deliberately to meet a confederate and that he had carried +off both pistols. But who was the confederate and how did he know at +what hour Balfame would reach his front gate? It was as easily +ascertained that Mrs. Balfame had telephoned no message--from her own +house--that night as that she had received one from her husband which +would give her just the opportunity she wanted. But how had she advised +the other guilty one? The poor police felt as if they were lashed to a +hoop driven up and down hill by a mischievous little girl. All the men +who had been at Cummack's when Balfame called up his wife had left the +house before he did, and proved their alibis. Even Cummack, who had +"sweat blood" during the elimination process, had finally discovered +that the janitor of his office-building had seen him go in and come out +on that fatal night. Did Mrs. Balfame go forth some time after Dr. Anna +brought her home from the Country Club, find her partner in crime and +secrete him in the grove? If so, why did she not remain in the grove +with him instead of returning to the house to leave it again by the +devious route that delivered her almost into the arms of young Kraus? +Above all, who was the man? + +It was at this point that the police gave up, although they still +maintained a pretence of activity. Not so the press. Almost daily there +were interviews with public men, authors, dramatists, detectives, +headed: "Did Mrs. Balfame Do It?" "What Did She Do With the Pistol?" +"Was She Perchance Ambidexterous? Could She Have Fired Both Pistols at +Once?" "Will She Be Acquitted?" "Was It a German Plot?" "If Guilty, +Would She Be Wise to Confess And Plead Brain Storm?" The interviews and +symposiums that illuminated the Sunday issues were conducted by men, but +the evening papers had at least one interview or symposium a week on the +subject between a sister reporter and some woman of local or national +fame. Nothing could have been more intellectual than the questions asked +save, possibly, the answers given. + +Upon the subject of the defendant's guilt public opinion fluctuated, and +was not infrequently influenced by news from the seat of war: when it +looked as if the Germans were primed for a smashing victory, the +doubting centred firmly upon the family of Kraus and Miss Frieda Appel; +but when once more convinced that the Germans were fighting the long and +losing game, the hyphenated were banished in favour of that far more +interesting suspect, Mrs. Balfame. Certainly there was nothing more +amusing than trying and condemning a prisoner long before she had time +to reach judge and jury, and tearing her to shreds psychologically. In +Spain the people high and low still have the bull-fight; other countries +have the prize-ring, these being the sole objective outlets in times of +peace for that lust of blood and prey which held the spectators in a +Roman arena spellbound when youths and maidens were flung to the lions. +But in the vast majority of Earth's peoples this ancestral craving is +forced by Civilisation to gratify itself imaginatively, and it is this +cormorant in the human mind that the press feeds conscientiously and +often. + +In Elsinore the subject raged day and night, and the opinion of the man +in the street may be summed up in the words of one of them to Mr. James +Broderick of the _New York News_: + +"Brain storm, nothin'. She ain't that sort. She done it and done it as +deliberately as hell. I ain't sayin' that she didn't have some excuse, +for I despised Dave Balfame, and I guess most of us would let her off if +we served on the jury, if only because we don't want this county +disgraced, especially Elsinore. But that ain't got nothin' to do with +it. And there's an awful lot of men who think more of their consciences +than they do even of Brabant, let alone of Elsinore, where like as not +all of 'em won't have been born--the jurors, I mean. I'm just +wonderin'!" + +Mr. Broderick met Mrs. Phipps one afternoon at Alys Crumley's. She was +not a member of the inner twelve, but a staunch admirer of Mrs. Balfame, +although by no means sure of her innocence. + +"Maybe she did," she admitted, "since you are not interviewing me for +print. But it's yet to be proved, and if she does get off, I don't fancy +she'll lose many of her friends--she wouldn't anyhow, but then if she +went up, they'd have so much further to call! As for wars," she +continued with apparent irrelevance, "there's this much to be said: a +lot of good men may get killed, but when you think of the thousands of +detestable, tyrannical, stingy, boresome husbands--well, it is to be +imagined that a few widows will manage to bear up. If women all over the +world refuse to come forward in one grand concerted peace movement, +perhaps we can guess the reason why." + +None of these seditious arguments reached Mrs. Balfame's ears, but as +her friends' protestations waxed, she inferred that their doubts kept +pace with those of the public. But she was more deeply touched at this +unshaken loyalty than she once would have believed possible. She had +assumed they would drop off, as soon as the novelty of the affair had +worn thin; but not a day passed without a visit from one of them, or +offerings of flowers, fruit, books and bonbons. She knew that whatever +their private beliefs, the best return she could make for their +passionate loyalty was to maintain the calm and lofty attitude of a Mary +Stuart or Marie Antoinette awaiting decapitation. She shed not a tear in +their presence. Nor did she utter a protest. If she looked tired and +worn, what more natural in an active woman suddenly deprived of physical +exercise (save in the jail yard at night), of sunlight, of freedom--to +say nothing of mortification: she, Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore, shut up in +a common jail on the vulgar charge of murder? + +But in spite of the amiable devotion of her friends and their +assurances that no jury alive would convict her, and in spite of her +complete faith in Dwight Rush, the prospect of several months in jail +was almost insupportable to Mrs. Balfame, and haunted by horrid fears. +She made up her mind again and again not to read the newspapers, and she +read them morning and night. She knew what this terrible interest in her +meant. Not a talesman in the length and breadth of Brabant County who +could swear truthfully that he had formed no opinion on the case. Other +murder cases had been tossed aside after a few days' tepid sensation, +unnoticed thereafter save perfunctorily. It was her unhappy fate to +prove an irresistible magnet to that monster the Public and its keeper +the Press. Her hatred of both took form at times in a manner that +surprised herself. She sprang out of bed at night muttering curses and +pulling at her long braids of hair to relieve the congestion in her +brain. She tore up the newspapers and stamped on them. She beat the bars +before her windows and shook them, the while aware that if the doors of +the jail were left open and the guards slept, she would do nothing so +foolish as to attempt an escape. + +Sometimes she wondered, dull with reaction or quick with fear, if she +were losing her reason; or if she was, after all, a mere female whose +starved nerves were springing up in every part of her like poisonous +weeds after a long drought. Well, if that were the case, her admiring +friends should never be the wiser. + +But there were other moods. As time wore on, she grew to be humbly +grateful to these friends, a phenomenon more puzzling than her attacks +of furious rebellion. Even Sam Cummack, possibly the only person who +had sincerely loved the dead man and still stricken and indignant, but +carefully manipulated by his wife, maintained a loud faith in her, and +announced his intention to spend his last penny in bringing the real +culprit to justice. Left to himself, he would in time no doubt have +shared the opinion of the community, but his wife was a member of the +grand army of diplomatists of the home. She was by no means sure of her +sister-in-law's innocence, but she was determined that the family +scandal should go no further than a trial, if Mr. Cummack's considerable +influence on his fellow citizens could prevent it; and long practice +upon the non-complex instrument in Mr. Cummack's head enabled her to +strike whatever notes her will dictated. Mr. Cummack believed; and he +not only convinced many of his wavering friends, but talked "both ways" +to notable politicians in the late Mr. Balfame's party. Most of these +gentlemen were convinced that "Mrs. B. done it," and were inclined to +throw the weight of their influence against her if only to divert +suspicion from themselves, several having experienced acute discomfort; +but they agreed to "fix the jury" if Mr. Cummack and several other +eminent citizens whom they inferred were "with him" would "come through +in good shape." There the matter rested for the present. + +Above all was Mrs. Balfame deeply, almost--but not quite--humbly +grateful to Dwight Rush. Her interviews with him so far had been brief; +later he would have to coach her, but at present his time was taken up +with a thousand other aspects of the case, which promised to be a cause +celebre. He made love to her no more, but not for an instant did she +doubt his intense personal devotion. He had, after consultation with +two eminent criminal lawyers whom he could trust, decided that she +should deny in toto the Kraus-Appel testimony, and stick to her original +story. After all, it was her word, the word of a lady of established +position in her community and of stainless character, against that of a +surly German servant and her friends, all of them seething with hatred +for those that were openly opposed to the cause of the Fatherland. He +knew that he could make them ridiculous on the witness stand and was +determined to secure a wholly American jury. + +It was some three weeks after Mrs. Balfame's arrest that another blow +fell. Dr. Anna's Cassie suddenly remembered that a fortnight or so +before the murder Mrs. Balfame had called at the cottage one morning and +asked permission to go into the living-room and write a note to the +doctor. A moment or two after she had shut herself in, Cassie had gone +out to the porch with her broom, and as she wore felt slippers and the +front door stood open, she had made no noise. It was quite by accident +that she had glanced through the window, and there she had seen Mrs. +Balfame standing on a chair before a little cupboard in the chimney +placing a bottle carefully between two other bottles. She had fully +intended to tell her mistress of this strange performance, but as the +doctor those days came home for but a few hours' sleep and too tired to +be spoken to, not even taking her meals there, Cassie had postponed her +little sensation and finally forgotten it. + +When she did recall the incident under the pressure of the general +obsession, she told it to a friend, who told it to another, who again +imparted it, so that in due course it reached the ears of the alert Mr. +Broderick. It was then he informed the public of the lost glass of +lemonade and all the incidents pertaining thereto that had come to his +knowledge. Mrs. Balfame's slightly "absurd explanation" was emphasised. + +Once more the police were "on the job." The restored bottle was analysed +and, ominously, found to contain plain water. Every bottle in the house +of Mrs. Balfame was carried to the chemist. Mrs. Balfame laughed grimly +at these sturdy efforts, but she knew that the story diminished her +chance of acquittal. The public now condemned her almost to a man. The +evidence would not be allowed in court,--Rush would see to that,--but +every juror would have read it and formed his own opinion. Somewhat to +her surprise Rush asked her for no explanation of this episode, and she +thought it best not to volunteer one. To her other friends she dismissed +the whole thing casually as a lie, no doubt inspired. + +As the skies grew blacker, however, her courage mounted higher. Knitting +calmed her nerves, and she had many long and lonely hours for +meditation. Her friends kept her supplied with all the new novels, but +her mind was more inclined to the war books, which she read seriously +for the first time. On the whole, however, she preferred to knit for the +wretched victims, and to think. + +No one can suffer such a sudden and extreme change in his daily habits +as a long sojourn in jail on the charge of murder without forming a new +and possibly an astonished acquaintance with his inner self, and without +undergoing what, superficially, appear to be strange changes, but are +merely developments along new-laid tracks in sections of the brain +hitherto regarded as waste lands. + +Mrs. Balfame of Brabant County Jail was surprised to discover that she +looked back upon Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore as a person of small aims, and +rather too smugly bourgeoise. The world of Elsinore! + +And all those artificial interests and occupations! How bored she really +must have been, playing with subjects that either should have interested +her profoundly or not at all. And for what purpose? Merely to keep a +step ahead of other women of greater wealth or possible ambitions. Her +astonishment at not finding herself all-sufficient, as well as her new +sense of gratitude, bred humility which in turn shed a warm rain upon a +frozen and discouraged sense of humour. While giving her friends all +credit for their noble loyalty, she was quite aware that they were +enjoying themselves solemnly and that no small proportion of their +loyalty was inspired by gratitude. She recalled their composite +expression in the hour of her arrest. They had fancied themselves deeply +agitated, but as a matter of fact they were dilated with pride. + +Why had she cared so much to lead these women in all things, to be Mrs. +Balfame of Elsinore? To return to such an existence was unthinkable. + +In spite of the fact that her own tragedy dwarfed somewhat her interest +in the great war, she saw life in something like its true proportions; +she knew that if acquitted she would be capable for the first time of a +broad impersonal outlook and of really developing her intellect. With +more than a remnant of the cold-blooded and inexorable will which had +condemned David Balfame to death by the medium of Dr. Anna's secret +poison, she seriously considered taking advantage of young Rush's +infatuation, changing her notorious name for his and receiving the +protection that her awakened femininity craved. At other times she was +equally convinced that she would marry no man again. She could live in +Europe on her small income, travel, improve her mind. Europe would be +vastly interesting after the war, if one avoided beggars and impromptu +graveyards. + +But although she was deeply interested in herself, and gratified that +she possessed real courage, and that it had come through the fire +tempered and hardened, there were moments, particularly in the night, +and if the profound stillness were rent with the shrieks of drunken +maniacs, when she was terribly frightened; and in spite of the American +tradition which has set at liberty so many guilty women, she would stare +at the awful vision of the electric chair and herself strapped in it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Rush wheeled and looked sharply behind him. For several weeks he had +experienced the recurrent sensation of being followed, but until +to-night he had been too absorbed to give a vague suspicion definite +form. He stood still, and was immediately aware that somebody else had +halted, after withdrawing into the shade of one of the trees that lined +Atlantic Avenue. He approached this figure swiftly, but almost at his +first step it detached itself and strolled forward. Rush saw that it was +a woman, and then recognised Miss Sarah Austin of the _New York Evening +News_. He recalled that she had approached him several times with the +request for an interview with Mrs. Balfame; and that she had taxed his +politeness by trying to draw him into a discussion of the case. + +"Oh, good evening," he said grimly. "I turned back because it occurred +to me that I was being followed." + +"I was following you," Miss Austin retorted coolly. "I saw you turn into +the Avenue two blocks up, and tried to overtake you--I don't like to be +out so late alone, especially in this haunted village. The knowledge +that everybody in it is thinking of that murder nearly all the time has +a curious psychological effect. Won't you walk as far as Alys Crumley's +with me?" + +"Certainly!" Rush, wondering if all women were liars, fell into step. + +"I've been given a roving commission in the Balfame case," continued +Miss Austin in her impersonal businesslike manner, which, combined with +her youth and good looks, had surprised guarded facts from men as wary +as Rush. "Not to hunt for additional evidence, of course, but stuff for +good stories. I've had a number of dandy interviews with prominent +Elsinore women, as you may have seen if you condescend to glance at the +Woman's Page. Isn't it wonderful how they stand by her?" + +"Why not? They believe her to be innocent, as of course she is." + +"How automatically you said that! I wonder if you really believe +it--unless, of course, you know who did do it. But in that case you +would produce the real culprit. What a tangle it is! A lawyer has to +believe in his client's innocence, I suppose, unless he's quite an +uncommon jury actor. I don't know what to believe, myself. But of one +thing I am convinced: Alys Crumley knows something--something positive." + +Rush, who had paid little attention to her chatter, which he rightly +assumed to be a mere verbal process of "leading up," turned to her +sharply. + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"That she knows something. She's over on the _News_ now, understudying +the fashion editor before taking charge, and we lunch together nearly +every day. She's so changed from what she was a year ago, when she was +the life of the crowd--so naive in her eagerness to become a real +metropolitan, and yet so quick and keen she had us all on our mettle. +Great girl, Alys! At first, when I met her here again, I attributed the +change to the same old reason--a man. I still believe she has had some +heart-racking experience, but there's something else--I didn't notice it +so much that first day--but since--well, she's carrying a mental burden +of some sort. Alys has a damask cheek, as you may have noticed, but +nowadays there's a worm in the bud. And those olive eyes of hers have a +way of leaving you suddenly and travelling a thousand miles with an +expression that isn't just blank. They will look as grimly determined as +if she were about to turn her conscience loose, and in a moment this +will relax into an expression of curious irresolution--for her: Alys +always knows pretty well what she wants. So, as this mystery must be in +her consciousness pretty well all the time, when she is at home, at +least, I feel sure she knows something but is of two minds about telling +it to the police." + +"Have you any object in telling me this? I thought you modern women who +have deserted the mere home for the working world of men prided +yourselves upon a new code of loyalty to one another." + +"That's a nasty one! I'm not disloyal to Alys. Others have noticed that +there's something big and grim on her mind, as well as I. Jim Broderick +is always after her to open up. I have a very distinct reason for +telling you. In fact, I have tried to get a word with you for some +time." + +"Have you been following me? Were--were--you in Brooklyn yesterday?" + +"Yes, to both questions." Her voice shook, but her eyes challenged him +imperiously; they were under the bright lights of Main Street. "I'll +tell you what I believe Alys knows: that you killed David Balfame; and +she can't make up her mind to betray you even to liberate an innocent +woman." + +He was taken unawares, but she could detect no relaxation in his strong +face; on the contrary, it set more grimly. + +"And what are you up to?" he asked. + +"To find the proof for myself, and get ahead of Jim Broderick." + +"I know of no one so convinced of Mrs. Balfame's guilt as Broderick." + +"That's all right, but a man with as keen a scent as that is likely to +find the real trail any minute." + +"And you believe I did it?" + +"I think there are reasons for believing it." + +"I won't ask you for them. It doesn't matter, particularly. What +interests me is to know whether you believe that if I had committed the +crime of murder I would let a woman suffer in my stead." + +Miss Austin cerebrated. + +"No," she admitted unwillingly, "you don't strike one as that sort. But +then you might argue that she is reasonably sure of acquittal and you +would have scant hope of escaping the chair." + +Rush laughed aloud. It was a harsh sound, but there was no nervousness +in it, and he continued to look interrogatively at Miss Austin. He had +barely noticed her before, but he observed that she was a handsome girl +with a clean-cut honest face, a bright detecting eye, and the slim +well-set-up figure of an athletic boy. Her peculiar type of good looks +was displayed to its best advantage by the smartly tailored suit. + +"You hardly look the sort to run a man down," he murmured, and this time +he smiled. + +"One gets mighty keen on the chase in this business." They turned into +the deep shade of Elsinore Avenue, and she stood still and lowered her +voice. "If you would tell me," she said, "I'd swear never to betray +you." + +"Then why ask me to confess?" + +"Oh--it sounds rather banal--but I want to write fiction, big fiction, +and I want to come up against the big tragedies and secrets of the human +soul. If you would tell me the whole story, exactly how you have felt at +every stage and phase before and since, I feel almost sure that I could +write as big a book as Dostoiewsky's "Crime and Punishment"--not half so +long, of course. If we learn from other nations, we can teach them a +thing or two in return. You may ask what you are to expect in return for +a dangerous confidence. I not only never would betray you, but I'd make +it my study to divert suspicion from pointing your way. I could do it, +too. You are safe as far as Alys is concerned. The secret is oppressing +her terribly, and she's driven by the fear that her conscience will +suddenly revolt and force her to speak out--particularly if Mrs. Balfame +broke down in jail, to say nothing of a possible conviction--not that I +believe anything short of conviction would open her lips. You are the +last person on earth she would hand over to the law; it seems odd to me +you can't realise that for yourself." + +"Realise what?" + +"Oh, I've no patience with men! I never did share the platitudinous +belief in propinquity. Why, Alys has turned half the heads in Park Row. +Even the austere city editor is beginning to hover. How any man could +pass a live wire like Alys Crumley by--and distractingly pretty--for a +woman old enough to be her mother!" + +He caught his breath. + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"Mrs. Balfame." + +"And yet you accuse me of letting her lie in prison bearing the burden +of my crime?" + +"As the only way to possess her ultimately." + +"And how many, may I ask, are saying that I am in love with my client?" + +"Not a soul--save, possibly, Alys to herself. She doesn't seem to have +much enthusiasm for the Star of Elsinore. Provincial people are too +funny for words. Maybe we New Yorkers are also provincial in our +tendency to forget there is any other America. I intend to cultivate the +open mind; a writer must, I think. So you see just how in earnest I am. +Don't you believe you could trust me? All the world knows that a +newspaper person is the safest depository on earth for a secret." + +"Oh, I have the most touching confidence in your honour, and the most +profound admiration for your candour, and the deepest sympathy for +ambitions so natural to one afflicted with genius. I am only wondering +whether if I gave you the information you seem to need you would permit +Mrs. Balfame to remain in jail and stand trial for her life." + +"You are not to laugh at me! Yes, I should. Because I know that she has +ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to get off, and that if she were +condemned you would come forward at once and tell the truth." + +"And you really believe I did it?" His hands were in his pockets, and he +was balancing himself on his heels. There was certainly nothing tense +about his tall loose figure, but the light of the street lamp, filtered +through a low branch, threw shadows on his face that made it look pallid +and as darkly hollowed as the face of an elderly actress in a moving +picture. To Miss Sarah Austin he looked like a guilty man engaged in the +honourable art of bluffing, but her mounting irritation precluded pity. + +"Yes, Mr. Rush, I do. It is to my mind the one logical explanation--" + +"You mean the logical fictional--" + +"I'm no writer of detective stories--" + +"Just like a novel then?" + +"Ah! That I admit. The great novel is a logical transcript of life. The +incidents rise out of the characters, react upon them, are as inevitable +as the personal endowments, peculiarities, and contradictions. +Understand your characters, and you can't go wrong." + +"You are the cleverest young woman I ever met. For that reason I feel +convinced you need no such adventitious aid as confession from a +murderer. You will work it out--your premises being dead right--far +better by yourself. It's the contradictions you mentioned I am thinking +of, both in life and character." + +"You are laughing at me. It's no laughing matter!" + +"By God, it isn't. But you couldn't expect me to plump out a confession +like that without taking a night to think it over." + +"If you don't tell me, I warn you I'll find out for myself. And then +I'll give it to my newspaper. To begin with, I'll find out if you really +did see any one in Brooklyn that Saturday night. I'll discover the name +of everybody you know in Brooklyn." + +"That's a large order. I fear the case will be over." + +"I'll set the whole swarm on the case. But if you will tell me the +truth, you will be quite safe." + +"The cause of literature might influence me were it not that I fear to +be thought a coward--by my fair blackmailer." + +"Oh! How dare you? Why, I don't want your secret to use against you. I +thought I explained--how dare you!" + +"I humbly beg pardon. Perhaps as it is such a new and flattering +variety, it deserves a new name. I suppose the legal mind becomes +hopelessly automatic in its deductions--" + +"Oh, good night!" + +They were at the Crumley gate. Rush opened it and passed in behind her. +"I think I too will call on Miss Crumley," he said. "I have been too +busy to call on any one for weeks, but to-night I must take a rest, and +I can imagine no rest so complete as an evening in Miss Crumley's +studio. I see a light in there--let us go round and not disturb Mrs. +Crumley." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Miss Austin remained but a few moments in the studio. She was +embarrassed and angry, and Rush was not the sole object of her wrath: +she anathematised herself not only for permitting her literary +enthusiasm to carry her to the point of attempting coercion and running +the risk of being called bad names by an expert in crime, but for +speaking out impulsively in the first place and throwing her cards on +the table. It had been her intention to cultivate the wretch's +acquaintance and lead him on with excessive subtlety; but he had proved +impervious to her maidenly hints that she would like to know him better; +equally so to her boyish invitation to come over some evening and meet a +number of the newspaper girls who were all fighting for his client. +Fifteen minutes alone with him in the quiet streets of Elsinore at night +was an opportunity that might never come again, and she had surrendered +to impulse. + +She was now more deeply convinced than ever that he had killed David +Balfame, but although she had no intention of denouncing him even if she +found her proofs in the course of persistent sleuthing, she thought it +wise to "keep him guessing," as the uneasiness of mind caused by this +constant pressure from without might eventually drive him to her for +counsel and aid. Like all healthy young American writers of fiction, she +was an incurable optimist, and as yet untempered in the least by the +practical experiences of a New York reporter. + +After a few moments' desultory conversation, she announced that she +"must run," and as Alys opened the door, Miss Austin turned to the +lawyer, who had risen and stood by the stove. + +"Good night, Mr. Rush," she said sweetly. "So glad you are defending +poor Mrs. Balfame, but you know I never did believe she did it, and I +have good reason to hope that we shall all know the truth in about a +fortnight." + +Rush bowed politely, as she did not offer her hand. "You would save me +much trouble and Mrs. Balfame much expense. I wish you all good luck." + +Her brows met and her dark grey eyes turned black, but she swung on her +heel and marched out with her head in the air. Rush remained behind, as +it was evident the two girls wanted a last mysterious word together. + +Alys returned in a few moments, and with a swift step. Her face was +radiant. She too held her head high, but as if she lifted her face to +drink in some magic elixir of the night. This was the first time she had +seen Rush since he had immersed himself in the case, and now he had come +to her unasked, and as naturally as in the old days when weary with work +and the sordid revelations of the courts. Her mercurial spirits, which +had hung low in the scale for weeks, had gone up with a rush that filled +her with a reckless unreasoning happiness. Perhaps intimacy with Mrs. +Balfame had disillusioned him in little ways. Perhaps he had discovered +the truth for himself and despised her for a cold-blooded liar where he +might have forgiven her honest admission of the actual crime. It would +be just like his exaggerated idealism. There never was any love that +could not be killed by transgression of some pet prejudice, some +violation of secret fastidiousness. At all events, he was here and with +every appearance of spending a long evening. What did the rest matter? + +He was still standing as she entered, staring at a water colour of a bit +of the woods west of Elsinore. The trees were stately and old, the +shadows green and shot with the gold of some stray beam of the sun +dancing down through that heavy canopy with Puckish triumph. A rocky +brook crossed the glade, and behind was a subtle suggestion of the +uninterrupted forest, deserted and absolutely still. Rush had recognised +the spot. + +"My village, Rennselaerville, is on the other side," he said, turning a +boyish face to Alys. "I have been fourteen again for a few moments. Last +summer I only got a day off now and again to loaf in those woods. I wish +I had been with you when you painted this." + +She unhooked the picture and handed it to him. "Please let me give it to +you. I'd like so much if you would hang it in one of your rooms,--say +behind your desk,--so that when you are tired or puzzled you can wheel +about and lose yourself for a moment. I am sure it wouldn't be a bad +substitute for the real thing." + +She spoke with a shy eagerness and an entire absence of coquetry. He put +out both hands for the picture. + +"I should think it wouldn't. It is just like you to think of it. Indeed +I will accept it." And he remembered how many cases he had forgotten +under her kindly tact, both in this cool green studio and that other +room of woodland shades in the cottage. He was wondering if he had not +been a conceited ass and misconstrued an increasing warmth of friendship +in this fine impulsive creature, when he remembered Miss Austin's +insinuations and sat down abruptly, recalled to the object of his visit. + +Alys had invited him to smoke but had not produced her box of Russian +cigarettes. Miss Austin, who was determined to keep her nerves in order +and her efficiency at high-water mark, did not smoke, and Rush had his +prejudices. While he puffed away at his cigar and stretched his long +legs out to the fire, she leaned back against a mass of pillows on the +divan and congratulated herself that she had put on a charming +primrose-yellow gown in honour of her Aunt Dissosway and two other +guests entertained by her mother at supper. It was rhythmical in its +harmony with the olives of the room and of her own rare colouring. + +Rush, who had been studying his picture, looked up and smiled at the +other picture on the divan. In the soft lamplight Alys' smooth dark hair +looked as olive as her eyes, and there was a faint stain of pink on the +ivory of her cheeks. Beneath the lace that covered her slender bust was +a delicate note of ribbons and fine lawn, and the little feet in pointed +bronze slippers showed through transparent stockings. More by instinct +than calculated effect Alys on such occasions managed to create an aura +of fastidious and dainty femininity while stopping short of invitation. + +Rush scowled as his mind leaped to the substantial and sensibly clad +feet of his beautiful client, and to a pile of stout unribboned +underwear that had been brought into the jail sitting-room one day when +he awaited her tardy appearance. For the first time he wondered if such +things really counted in human happiness--not so much, perhaps, for the +artistic delight in them that a plain man like himself might be able to +feel as for all that they stood: the elusive but auspicious signal. + +He shook himself angrily and sat up. + +"Your young friend thinks I murdered Balfame," he announced. + +Alys started under this frontal attack, but smiled ironically. "I knew +she had conceived some such nonsensical theory, mainly because she +wanted to have it so. Sarah intends to be a novelist." + +"So she did me the honour to confide. She even promised me all the +immunity that lay within her jurisdiction if I would reward her with a +full confession." + +"Really, she is too absurd. Don't let it worry you. You have nothing to +fear." + +"I'm not so sure." + +Alys sat up as rigidly as if armoured like Mrs. Battle. "What do you +mean?" she breathed. + +"Miss Austin has arrived at the conclusion that I am in love with Mrs. +Balfame. She is an outsider with no data whatever to work on; it is +reasonable to suppose that sooner or later our good fellow citizens will +work round to the same theory." + +"That is just the one theory they never will conceive or accept. They +know better. That sort of thing never was in Mrs. Balfame's line. The +women know that if she doesn't exactly hate men, she has a quiet but +profound contempt for them. I wish you could have seen them--her +particular crowd--at Mrs. Battle's the day of the arrest. Just to draw +them out, I suggested that some man who was in love with her might have +fired the shot. They nearly annihilated me. Mrs. Balfame, guilty of the +crime of murder or not, is fairly screwed on her pedestal so far as the +women are concerned. As for the men, such a theory will never occur to +them for the simple reason that not one has ever been attracted by her; +she's the very last woman they would expect any man to commit murder +for." + +Rush, wondering if these observations were dictated by venom or a mere +regard for facts, shot a veiled glance at the divan; Miss Crumley's soft +carefully de-Americanised voice had not sharpened, but her face was very +mobile for all its reserve. She was looking almost aggressively +impersonal and had sunk back against the high pillows in a limp indolent +line. Facts, of course! + +"It is very like a political campaign," said he. "Nobody is quite sane +in this town just now, and the wildest conclusions are bound to be +jumped at. It is not only embryo novelists that have romantic +imaginations. Just reflect that I am Mrs. Balfame's counsel, that I am +still a young man and unmarried, and that she is a beautiful woman and +looks many years younger than her age. There you are." + +Alys made an abrupt change of position which in one less graceful would +have suggested a wriggle. However, her voice remained impersonal. "But +this community, including her friends, believe that she did it. They +want her to get off, but they have settled the question in their own +minds and are not looking around for any one else." + +"Cummack and several of the other men are, besides Balfame's old +political pals--and his enemies, for that matter. Old Dutch, who is far +shrewder than his son, is by no means certain of Mrs. Balfame's guilt +and has put a detective on the job--against her acquittal, having no +desire to see suspicion pointing at his house again. He is just the old +sentimentalist to settle on me." + +He saw the pink fade out of her cheeks, leaving her face like cold +ivory, but she answered steadily: "You have your alibi. You went to +Brooklyn that evening to keep an appointment." + +"I don't mind telling you that although I went to Brooklyn that night I +did not see the man I was after. I went on the spur of the moment, more +because I wanted to get out of Elsinore than anything else; I didn't +have time to telephone before catching the train, but when I left it in +Brooklyn, I telephoned and found that he had gone to New York. I gave no +name; it was a matter of no importance. Then as there was no one else I +cared to talk to I took the next train back, and as my head ached and I +felt as nervous as a cat--from overwork and other things--tramped for +hours until I met Dr. Anna out by the marsh and she drove me in--" + +"Dr. Anna?" + +"Yes, and I have reason to believe she thinks I shot Balfame, but she +would never denounce any one if she could help it." + +"Oh, you are all wrong. She believes--like everybody else--that Mrs. +Balfame did it. My Aunt Dissosway is superintendent out there and has +been listening to her delirious mutterings; she's never mentioned you. I +drove out there for the second time on Sunday. I haven't told Mother, +as she is one of the few that believe Mrs. Balfame innocent--but when +Dr. Anna is coherent at all, that is the impression my aunt +gets--but--Oh--of course she's only guessing like everybody else. She +couldn't know--she was out at the Houston farm--" + +Rush was sitting up very straight. + +"Has any one been permitted to see her?" + +"Of course not." + +"Not that it would matter. Delirious people all have insane fancies. But +I don't believe she had any such idea before she came down, and besides +it is not true. Mrs. Balfame is innocent." + +"Of course as her lawyer you must persuade yourself that she is." + +"If I had not believed in her, I would not have taken the case, great as +my desire would be to help her. I am no good at pleading against my +convictions; I'd fail with the jury. If I had believed her guilty, I +should have got her the best counsel possible and helped him all I +could." + +Alys had a curious sense of physical paralysis, or of spiritual +dissociation from her body, she made no attempt to decide which; but +that the cause was an intense nervous excitement she was well aware. As +she stared at him with dilated eyes, he was suddenly convinced that Miss +Austin was right in assuming that Alys had some secret and important +knowledge bearing upon the crime. Was her reticence due to the common +Elsinore loyalty? If so, why her reserve with him who would have parted +with his life rather than with any facts that still further would +incriminate Mrs. Balfame. + +Then in a flash he understood, for his keen faculties were on edge, +concentrated to one point, and as sensitive as magnets. He recalled his +high estimate of this girl during the weeks of their intimacy, and the +instinctive doubts that had assailed him in his rooms on the night of +the murder. And as he realised the fierce battle that was raging in that +passionate but disciplined soul, he knew that she loved him, and he +scorned himself for attributing her former tentative advances to +calculation or that compound of nerves and imagination which so many +women call love. She had given him her heart, and it had betrayed her. +But while the knowledge gave him an unexpected thrill, he ruthlessly +determined to try and to test her to the utmost. + +He stood up and walked about the room for a moment, and then halted +directly in front of her. + +"Do you know anything?" he asked abruptly. + +"About what? Do you think I suspect you?" + +"No, I don't. I mean Mrs. Balfame." + +"I told you we all believe she did it. We can't help ourselves." + +"I don't understand the attitude of any of you women who were her +friends, her intimates. You--they, rather--have let her lead this +community for years, believed her to be little short of perfection. And +now with one accord they accept her guilt as a matter of course." + +"I think they came to with a sort of shock and realised they never had +understood her at all. She had them hypnotised. I think she's one of +those Occidentals with terrible latent powers for whom new laws will +have to be made when they awake to consciousness of them and begin to +develop them with the power and skill of the Orientals--" + +"Beg pardon, but let's keep to the present." + +"Well, I mean it rather excites them to be able to believe, not so much +that she did it, as that she was capable of it, that while uniformly +sweet and serene, she had those terrible secreted depths. She reminds +one of Lucrezia Borgia, or Catherine de Medici--" + +"Why poisoners? You don't mean to say they take any stock in that story +of the poisoned lemonade?" + +And before Alys could collect her startled faculties she had stammered: +"Oh, of course, not. They laugh at that. Balfame was shot--what's the +use of--the water in the vial no doubt was put there to rinse it, and +Dr. Anna absently put it back in place. I merely mentioned the names of +the first wicked women that occurred to me. Somehow Mrs. Balfame +suggests that historic tribe to our friends. No doubt this crime in +their midst has irritated what little imagination they have." + +Her chest was rising under quick heartbeats, stirring the soft nest of +ribbon and lawn under the lace of her gown, a part of the picture that +he did not appreciate until later; at the moment he was observing her +dilated eyes, the strained muscles of her nostrils and mouth. He found +himself interested in feminine psychology for the first time in his +life; and as he hated a liar above all transgressors, he wondered why he +inconsistently delighted in not being able to comprehend this complex +little creature, and at the same time hoped, his own breathing almost as +irregular as hers, that she would continue to lie. But he pushed on. He +had a dim sense that far more tremendous issues were at stake than +further proof of his client's guilt, and deep in his soul was an ache to +feel reassured that staggering old ideals might yet be reinforced with +vitality. + +"Have you told Jim Broderick that Dr. Anna accuses Mrs. Balfame?" + +"Of course not. He would be climbing the porch the first dark night." + +"Have you been tempted to tell him?" + +She shrank farther back and looked up at him under lowered lids. +"Tempted? What--why should I? Well, I haven't told him, or any one. That +is all that matters." + +"Exactly. I only meant, of course, that I have a reprehensible masculine +disbelief in the ability of a woman to keep a secret. I might have known +you would be the exception, as you are to so many rules. And I mean +that. But Broderick is an old friend of yours and preternaturally keen +on the case." + +"Oh!" + +"You haven't told me why you in particular believe so firmly in my +client's guilt. You are the last person to be influenced by either the +ravings of a typhoid patient--hallucinations, generally--or any of the +sentimental and romantic theories of these half-baked women that spend +their leisure taking on flesh, playing bridge, and running over to New +York. If you believe Mrs. Balfame is guilty you must have some fairly +good reason--perhaps proof." + +She could not guess that he was trying her; she imagined his insistence +due to apprehension, a desire to know the worst. The hour she had +dreaded and desired had come--and she had almost let its opportunities +escape! These last weeks in New York filled with work and novel +distraction had repoised her, unconsciously. She had begun to doubt, +some time since, if she would be able to violate her old standards when +the test came; but not for a moment had she ceased with all the +concentrated forces of her being to long for his desertion of Mrs. +Balfame. And if she had rejoiced sometimes that she was incapable of a +demoralising act, she had at others been equally disgusted with her +failure in inexorable purpose. She told herself that the big brains were +ruthless, able to hold down and out of sight one side of the character +they governed while giving the hidden forces for evil full play; never +in wantonness, of course, but in sternly calculated necessity. She had a +suspicion that this was just the form of greatness Mrs. Balfame +possessed, and it increased her disesteem of self and inspired her with +a second form of jealousy. + +The bitter tides were welling to the surface once more. She asked +abruptly: "Is Sarah Austin's theory true? Are you in love with Mrs. +Balfame?" + +"What has that to do with it?" + +"It has its bearings." + +"I don't think I should be expected to answer that question. I can say +this, however: that as long as she is my client and in jail, I shall +have no time to think of personal matters--of love, above all. My job is +to get her off, and it occupies about sixteen hours out of the +twenty-four. I oughtn't to be here, but relief--distraction--is +imperative, now and again--" + +"It would be too delightful if you would come here when you wanted +both." Her tones were polite without being eager, but she found it +impossible to smile. + +"Yes, I will; but I shall ignore the subject we are discussing--rest +doesn't lie precisely that way! For that reason we'll finish up now. Why +do you believe Mrs. Balfame guilty?" + +"If I could prove to you that she was, would you throw over the case?" + +He hesitated and regarded her fixedly for a moment through narrowed +lids. "Yes," he said finally. "I would get one of the men whose firm I +expect to join the first of the year to take the case." + +She sat erect once more and twisted her hands together, but tried to +smile impersonally as she returned his gaze. "Would you then have time +to love her?" + +Again he hesitated, although he was beginning to hate himself; he felt +as if he had some beautiful wild thing of his woods in a trap, but an +imperious inner necessity urged him on. "Probably not. Now will you tell +me?" + +"Now?" + +She slipped to the floor and confronted him, holding her small head very +high. No doubt the upward movement was unconscious in its expression, +but he thought her very lovely and proud as she stood there, and for the +first time he took note of the subtlety in that delicate mobile face. + +"I really know nothing," she said lightly. "It is just this: if you or +any other innocent person were in danger, I should feel called upon to +unravel certain clues. Naturally I should make no move otherwise. Mrs. +Balfame is an old friend of ours--and then--well, our local pride may be +absurd, but there it is. We must watch Jim Broderick. He has discovered +the intimacy between Dr. Anna and Mrs. Balfame, and also--what all know +here--that they were alone together during those last morning hours +following the murder. I'll warn my aunt. He really couldn't get at +her--not now, at all events; what he is after, of course, is not so much +corroboration, but a new and sensational story to keep the case going. +And, of course, as it was the press that ran Mrs. Balfame to earth, a +statement from a woman of Dr. Anna's standing justifying it would be an +immense triumph." + +She had moved over to a table against the farther wall, and she struck a +match and applied it to the wick of an alcohol lamp. "I am going to make +you a cup of tea. It will rest without overstimulating you, and you must +go right from here to bed. I'm sorry Mother doesn't keep whisky in the +house--" + +"I don't drink when I'm on a case. That's one advantage I generally have +over the other side. It will be delightful to drink tea with you once +more, although I'm free to say that outside of this house I never drank +a cup of tea in my life." + +The atmosphere was as agreeably light as if ponderable clouds had +suddenly rolled out of the room. Two young people drew up to a smaller +table and drank several cups of tea that had stood three minutes, +nibbled excellent biscuit, and talked about the War. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Three days before the date set for the opening of the trial, Mrs. +Balfame deferred to the advice of her counsel and friends and received +the women reporters--not only the four depending upon Miss Crumley, but +a representative of every Woman's Page in New York and Brooklyn. + +They presented themselves in a body at three o'clock in the afternoon +and were conducted upstairs by the fluttered Mrs. Larks, who had +anticipated them with all the chairs in the jail. They crowded into the +little sitting-room, and were given time to dispose themselves before +the door leading into the bedroom opened and Mrs. Balfame entered. + +She bowed composedly and, with a slight diffident smile, walked to the +chair reserved for her. Her weeds were relieved by white crepe at the +neck and wrists, but to two of the newspaper women who had interviewed +her a year since as the founder of the Friday and the Country clubs, she +had lost her haunting air of girlhood; there was not a line in her +beautiful skin nor a gleam of silver in her abundant brown hair, but she +had suddenly entered upon the full maturity of her years, and what she +may have lost in charm they decided she had gained in subtle force. The +other women agreed that she looked as cold and chaste as Diana, quite +incapable of any of those mortal passions that drive fallible Earthians +into crime. + +It was an ordeal, and she drew a long breath. + +"You--you wish to interview me?" + +Miss Sarah Austin, whose brilliant parts were generally recognised and +whose creative fervour was suspected by few, had been elected to the +office of spokeswoman and replied promptly: + +"Indeed we do, Mrs. Balfame, and before asking you any of the tiresome +questions without which there could be no interview, we should be glad +to know if you read the woman's pages in our newspapers and realise that +we are all friends and shout our belief in your innocence from the +housetops?" + +"Yes, oh yes," murmured Mrs. Balfame stiffly, but with a more +spontaneous smile. "That is the reason I finally consented to see you. I +do not like being interviewed. But you have been very kind, and I am +grateful." + +There was a deep murmur, and after Miss Austin had thanked her prettily +for her appreciation of their modest efforts, she continued in a brisk +and businesslike manner: "Now, Mrs. Balfame, what we should like is your +story. We have been warned by Mr. Rush that we cannot ask you whom you +suspect, much less the reasons upon which you found your +suspicions--ah!" + +Her final vocative was expressed in an angry gurgle. Rush had entered. +He was so close to panic at the prospect of facing a roomful of women +unsupported by a single male that his face was almost terrifying in its +strength, but it had suddenly occurred to him that although these girls +had agreed to write their interviews at the Dobton Inn and submit them +to his censorship, it was possible one or more would slip over to New +York, bent upon sheer sensationalism. + +"You must excuse me," he said with a valiant assault upon the lighter +mood, "but my client is in the witness box, you see, and must be +protected by counsel." + +Miss Austin swung about and faced him with a faint satiric smile. "Oh, +very well," she said. "You may stay; but I for one shall not adjust my +hat." + +It is a curious fact that newspaper women are seldom, if ever, of the +masculine type; their sheer femininity, indeed, is almost as invariable +as their air of physical weariness. Not one of the little company +laughed with a more than perfunctory appreciation of their captain's +wit, and several stared at Rush, fascinated by his harsh masculinity, +the peculiar atmosphere of tense-alertness in which he seemed to have +his being, the magnetism which was more an emanation from an almost +perpetual concentration of his mental forces than from any of the +lighter physical attributes. He folded his arms and leaned against the +door, and it is only fair to the cause of woman to state that hardly one +of these, whose ages ranged from twenty to thirty-six, was unwomanly +enough, despite the fact that she earned her bread in daily competition +with man, to give Mrs. Balfame her whole attention thereafter. While +keeping their business heads, they uncovered a corner of their hearts to +the sun, and quickened, however faintly, in its glow. + +"Now," Miss Austin resumed, "we will, counsel permitting, ask you to +give us your story of that night. As you have been misquoted and there +has been so much speculative stuff published about you, there surely can +be no objection to that." And she squared her shoulders upon Mr. Rush. + +Mrs. Balfame looked at her counsel with a gracious deference, and he +nodded. + +"No harm in that," he said curtly. "Tell them practically the story you +would tell if you took the stand. There's only one story to tell, and it +is as well the public should bear it in mind while reading the reports +of the witnesses for the prosecution." + +"That means he's rehearsed her," whispered Miss Lauretta Lea, who had +reported many trials, to Miss Tracy, who was a novice. "But that's all +right." + +"Well, I suppose I should begin with the scene at the Club--that is to +say, I do not care to speak of it in detail,--quite aside from a natural +regard for good taste,--but it seems to have been given a unique +importance." + +"Just so," said Miss Austin encouragingly. "Do let us have your version. +The public simply longs for it." + +"Well--I should tell you first that, although my husband was sometimes +irritable, he really was a good husband and we never had any vulgar +quarrels. It was only when he was not quite himself that he sometimes +said more than he meant, and he never quite forgot himself as he did +that day out at the Country Club. + +"I was playing bridge in one of the smaller rooms when I heard his voice +pitched in a very excited key. I knew that something unusual had +occurred, and went out into the large central room at once. There I saw +him at the upper end of the room surrounded by several of the men, who +were apparently trying to induce him to leave. He was shouting and +saying such extraordinary things that my first impression was that he +was ill or had lost his mind. + +"I reasoned with him, and as it did no good and as I was deeply hurt +and mortified, I left him to the men and returned to the bridge-room. +There, in spite of the kindness of my friends, I found I was too +overcome to play, and Dr. Anna Steuer offered to drive me home. That is +all, as far as the scene at the clubhouse is concerned, except that I +cannot sufficiently emphasise that he never had acted in a similar +manner before. If he had, I should not have continued to live with +him--not that I should have obtained a divorce, for I do not approve of +the institution; but I should have moved out. I have a little money of +my own, left me by my father." + +"Ah--yes. Thanks. And after you were in your own house? Do you mind? Of +course, we have read the story you told the men, but we should like our +own story. Perhaps you may have thought of some other points since." + +"Yes, there are one or two. I had entirely forgotten in the agitation of +that time that I went below, after packing my husband's suitcase, to get +a drink of filtered water and thought I heard some one try the kitchen +door. I also thought I heard some one upstairs, and called the name of +my maid. Of course, a good deal will be made of this omission, but +considering the terrible circumstances and the fact that I never had +been interviewed before, I do not find it in the least remarkable. + +"But, of course, you want me to begin at the beginning." And in her +pleasant shallow voice, she told the story she had immediately concocted +for her friends. + +As Miss Austin asked a few questions in the endeavour to inject some +essence of personality into the bald story, Rush permitted the +sensation of dismay with which he had listened to take implacable form. +He never had heard a less convincing story on the witness stand. Mrs. +Balfame had talked glibly, far too glibly. It was evident to the least +initiated that she had been rehearsed. Was her mind really as colourless +as her voice? Had she no sense of drama? He had hoped that the +excitement of this interview, coming after weeks of supreme monotony, +would kindle her to animation and a natural enrichment of vocabulary; +and, witnessing its effect upon these friendly women, she would be +encouraged to simulate both on the witness-stand. It was a pity, he +reflected bitterly, that a woman who could lie to her counsel with such +a fine front of innocence could not "put over" the large dramatic lie +that would help him so materially in his difficult task. + +Miss Austin, despairing of colour, made a shift with psychology. "Would +you mind telling us, Mrs. Balfame, if you feel a very great dread of the +trial? We realise that it must loom a terrible ordeal." + +"Oh, of course, the mere thought of all that publicity horrifies me +whenever I permit myself to think of it, but it has to be, and that is +the end of it, since the real culprit will not come forward. But I feel +confident I shall not break down under the strain. I might have done so +if the trial had followed immediately upon my arrest, but all these +weeks in jail have prepared me for anything." + +"But you are not terrified--of--of the outcome? We know and rejoice that +the chances are all in your favour, but men are so queer." + +"I am not in the least terrified. It is impossible to convict an +innocent woman in this country; and then"--inclining her head graciously +to the watchful Rush,--"I have the first criminal lawyer in Brabant +County to defend me. It is a detestable thought,--to be stared at in the +courtroom as if I were an object in a museum,--but I shall keep thinking +that in a few days at most it will be over and that I shall then return +to the private life I love." + +"Yes. And would you mind telling us something of your plans? Shall you +continue to live in Elsinore?" + +"I shall go far away, to Europe, if possible. I suppose I shall return +in time. Of course" (in hasty afterthought) "I should not be contented +for very long without my friends; they have grown to be doubly +valuable--and valued--during this long term of incarceration. But I must +travel for a while." + +"That is quite natural. How normal you are, dear Mrs. Balfame!" It was +Miss Lauretta Lea who spoke up with enthusiasm. "You are just a sweet, +serene, normal woman who couldn't commit a violent act if you tried. Be +sure the public shall see you as you are. I don't wonder your friends +adore you. Don't mind being stared at. The more people that see you, the +more friends you will have." + +Her eyes moved to Rush, and she was rewarded by a smile that expressed +relief. She was a very experienced reporter and knew exactly how he +felt. + +"And believe me," she said as they trooped down the stairs, having +passed before the Balfame throne and received a limp handshake of +dismissal, "that poor man's worried half to death. He'll get about as +much help from her on the stand as he would from a tired codfish. But +she really is a divinely sweet woman and lovely to look at, and so I'll +sob over her for all I'm worth and seclude from the cynical and the +sentimental that she has distilled crystal in her veins." + +"Did you ever know such a perfectly rotten interview!" Miss Austin was +scowling fiercely. "The men did a thousand times better because they +took her by surprise, but even they cursed her. I figure out she has +made up her Friday Club mind to look the marble goddess minus every +female instinct, including a natural desire to shoot a brute of a +husband. But I wish she had brain enough to put it over with some pep. +She was afraid to be dramatic,--or couldn't be,--and so she was trying +to be literary--" + +"I don't agree with you!" And arguing and scolding, they wended their +disapproving way over to the Dobton Inn and sat them down at tables to +make the most of their bare material. + +"No censorship needed here," growled Miss Austin. "She froze my very +imagination." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Rush walked up and down the room for a few moments in silence. Mrs. +Balfame sat back and folded her hands. She was haunted by a vague sense +of inefficiency, of having not quite risen to the occasion, but she felt +there could be no doubt that she not only had impressed the reporters as +an innocent woman but as a perfect lady. The rest didn't matter. + +"Are you really not a bit nervous?" demanded Rush, swinging on his heel +and confronting her. + +"I will not permit myself to be. And except that I hate publicity, I +really do not dread the trial. It means the beginning of the end of this +detestable prison life. I want to be out and free. A week in a courtroom +is not too heavy a price to pay." + +"Have you ever been to a murder trial?" + +"Of course not. Such a thing would never have occurred to me." + +Rush sighed. She had no imagination. But as her counsel he reminded +himself that he should be grateful for the lack; he wanted no scenes, +either in the courtroom or here in the imminent hours. But he would have +welcomed a little more feminine shrinking, appeal to his superior +strength. Even when he had worshipped her from afar, she had never moved +him so powerfully as on the day of her arrest when she had flung herself +over the table in an abandonment to despair as complete as the most +exacting male could wish. That incident had long since taken on the +shifting outlines of a dream. If she had felt any tremors since then +she had concealed them from him. + +"Tell me," he asked almost wistfully, "are you not terribly frightened +at times? You are alone here so much. And it has been an experience to +try even a strong man's nerves." + +"Women nowadays really have better nerves than men. We not only lead a +far fuller and more varied life than our predecessors, but you men work +at such a terrific strain that it is a wonder you retain any control of +your nerves at all. I will admit that I did have attacks of fear at +first. It was all so strange and odd. But I got over them. You can get +used to anything, I guess. And I have a strong will. I just made myself +think about something else. This war has been a godsend. Have you +noticed my new maps? I've really read about twenty war books, besides +all the editorials, and they have given me a distaste for lighter +reading, and really developed my--my--intellect. That seems such a big +word. And then I've knitted dozens of things for the children and +soldiers, and felt as if I were of some use for the first time in my +life." + +She glanced at him shyly, as he stared through the bars of one of the +windows. The suppressions of a lifetime made it impossible to betray any +depth of feeling save under terrible stress. She was ashamed of her +breakdown before him on the day of her arrest, but she was conscious of +the wish that she were able to infuse her cool even tones with warmth, +to make them tremulous at the right moment; but if she attempted to +betray something of her newer self even in her eyes, self-consciousness +overcame her and she dropped the lids almost in a panic. + +She wondered if love broke down those cliffs of ice that seemed to +encompass a new-born soul. Or was it merely that the other members of +her personal company, mature, jealous, self-sufficient, resented the +intrusion of this shrinking alien? They had got on quite well without +it; they felt no yearning for possible complications, readjustments. +With all their quiet force they discouraged the stranger. Before any of +the supreme experiences, including love, they might be routed, the new +force might spring up in an instant like a flower from the magic soils +of India--but not while the conventions bulwarked them. Their sum was +Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore, and not for a moment did they permit +themselves to forget it. + +Moreover, it was quite true that she had conquered her first +apprehensions and welcomed the trial as the initial step toward freedom. +Her poise had always been remarkable, the result in part of a +self-centred life and a will driven relentlessly in a narrow groove. +More than ever was she determined to sit through those long days in the +courtroom with the cold aloofness of the unfortunate women of history. +The very ascents she had made of secret and solitary heights alone would +have restored her poise, for she felt on far more friendly terms with +herself than when living with a wretch she loathed, and dreaming of no +higher altitudes then complete success in Elsinore. But she wished for +the first time that she were a younger woman, or had made those ascents +many years ago; she would have liked to reveal herself spontaneously to +this interesting young man who was so deeply in love with her. + +Suddenly she wondered if he were as ardently in love with her as in +that brief period when they had talked of themselves. Not loving him in +return, she had been content with lip-service, the sure knowledge that +all his fine abilities were at work upon the obstacles to her freedom; +and she would have been deeply annoyed if he had broken the pact made on +the day of her arrest and reiterated his devotion and his hopes. + +But significant happenings--omissions--a certain flatness.... She turned +her head sharply and looked at him. He was still staring moodily through +the bars. + +If far too diffident to show the best that was in her, she found it +comparatively simple to practice the feminine art of angling, albeit +with a somewhat heavy hand. + +She asked softly: "Don't you think I did the wise thing to tell them I +intended to travel as soon as I was acquitted? It surely would be in +better taste than to settle down here--in that house!" + +"Did you mean it? The intention would make a good impression on the +public, certainly." + +"Why, of course I meant it. I am not a good hand at saying things merely +for effect." + +"Where shall you go? Europe is rather impossible." + +"Oh, not altogether. There is always Italy. And there is no danger from +Zeppelins in the interior of Great Britain. And there is Spain--" + +"I think Europe a very good place for women to keep away from until the +war is over. Any of the nations may become involved at any +minute--ourselves, for that matter. Better follow the advice of +advertisers and see America first." + +"Yes, I could visit the Expositions in California, and camp for a while +in Glacier Park, and there are the Yellowstone and Grand Canyon--but all +that would only consume a few months--and then there is this winter to +think of. What I feel I should do is to stay away for a year, at +least--" + +"You could live very pleasantly in Southern California." + +"I should be very conspicuous in those small fashionable settlements. +The case has been telegraphed all over the country, and I have seen +dreadful pictures of myself in several Western papers." + +"Well, you might live quietly in New York until the war is over. There +is no better place to hide--if you avoid the restaurants and theatres. +And after all, even a _cause celebre_ is quickly forgotten if there is +no aftermath. But I certainly advise against even sailing for Europe +until peace is declared. There is always the danger of mines and too +enthusiastic submarines." + +She turned quite cold and stared at her hands. They were well-shaped but +large, and they looked like blocks of white marble on her black gown. He +was still at the window, and his tone was listless. She had a curious +sense of panic in the region of her heart. But instantly she curled her +lip with defiant scorn. Was she the woman to fancy herself in love with +a man the moment she seemed to be in danger of losing him? Besides, no +doubt, the poor man was tired, and too absorbed in the case to have any +room in him for the moods of the lover. Only a foolish impulsive woman +would in conditions like the present try to rouse a dormant passion. +When she was free, and he as well, his heart would automatically take +precedence once more and he would plead ardently for the privilege of +marrying her. That was quite in order. + +She rose briskly. "Let me show you this map," she said. "It is the very +latest--Letitia Battle brought it to me two days ago. And do smoke." + +"Thanks, but I must go over and watch those girls. Yes, it is a fine +map. This war certainly is a godsend! Good luck. Keep up those splendid +spirits. You're all right." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +"Oyez, oyez, oyez! The Supreme Court of the State of New York County of +Brabant trial term is now in session all people having business with +this court may draw near and give their attention _and they shall be +heard_." + +The court crier delivered his morning oration in one breathless +sentence, the last five words of which only have ever been captured by +mortal ears. The roll of the jury was called. The first witness stood on +the step of the witness-stand and swore by the everlasting God that the +testimony he would give in the trial of the People of the State of New +York against the defendant would be the truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth, and then he seated himself in the chair. The +trial of Mrs. Balfame began. + +It had taken three days to select a jury. If Rush was determined to keep +out Germans, Mr. Gore, the district attorney, was equally reluctant to +admit to the box any man whom he suspected of being under commands from +his wife to get on that jury and acquit Mrs. Balfame, if he had to +imperil his immortal soul. He also harboured suspicions of felonious +activities on the part of Mr. Sam Cummack and certain other patriotic +citizens less devoted to the cause of justice than to Elsinore. In +consequence the questions were not only uncommonly searching, but both +the district attorney and the defendant's counsel exhausted their +peremptory challenges. + +The talesmen that had crowded the courtroom beyond the railing were for +the most part farmers and tradesmen, but there were not a few "prominent +residents," including rooted Brabantites and busy commuters. The last +answered without hesitation that they had followed the case closely from +the first and formed an unalterable opinion; then, dismissed, rushed off +and caught a late train for New York. Those of Mrs. Balfame's own class +would have been passed cheerfully by Mr. Rush, but in spite of their +careless avowals that they had been too busy to follow the case, or had +found it impossible to reach any conclusion, they were peremptorily +challenged by the district attorney. They, too, went to New York, not on +business, and returned to their hearthstones as late as possible. + +Finally a jury of almost excessively "plain men" were chosen after long +and weary hours of wrangling. They were all married; their ages ranged +from forty-five to fifty; not one looked as if he had an illusion left +in regard to the sex that had shared his burdens for a quarter of a +century, or, German or no German, he had any leniency in him for a woman +who had presumed to abbreviate the career of a man. But at least they +were real Americans, with reputations for straight dealing, and good +old-fashioned ideals of justice, irrespective of sex. Rush doubted if +any of them could be "fixed" by Mr. Cummack or the able politicians +whose services he had bespoken, although the sternest visages often hid +unsuspected weak spots; but after all his best chance was with honest +men whose soft spots were of another sort. + +So naive had been the eagerness of the German-American talesmen to get +on the jury that Rush had had little difficulty in demonstrating their +unfitness for duty. These were too thrifty to go to New York and stood +in no fear of their wives, but they avoided the _gemuetlich_ resort of +Old Dutch until the trial was over. + +Throughout this ordeal Mrs. Balfame sat immovable, impassive, her face a +white bas-relief against the heavy black crepe of her veil, which hung +like a black panel between her profile and the western light. Her chair +was at the foot of the long table which stood beneath the two tiers of +the jury-box and was reserved for counsel, the district attorney, the +assistants and clerks. Her calm grey eyes looked straight ahead, +interested apparently in nothing but the empty witness-stand, on the +right of the jury and the left of the judge. She knew that the +reporters, and the few outsiders that had managed to crowd in with the +talesmen, scarcely took their eyes from her face, and that the staff +artists were sketching her. All her complacency had fled before certain +phases of this preliminary ordeal for which no one had thought to +prepare her. The constant reiteration of that question of horrid +significance: "Have you any objection to capital punishment as practised +in this State?" struck at the roots of her courage, enhanced her prison +pallor; and that immovable battery of eyes, hostile, or coldly +observant, critical, appraising, made her long to grind her teeth, to +rise in her chair and tell those men and women, insolent in their +freedom, what she thought of their vulgar insensibility. But not for +nothing had she schooled herself, and not for a moment did her nerves +really threaten revolt. She had taken her second sleeping powder on the +night preceding the opening of the trial, but on the third morning she +awakened with the momentary wish that she had preserved Dr. Anna's +poison, or could summon death in any form rather than go over to that +courthouse and be tried for her life. For the first time she understood +the full significance of her condition. + +But Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Cummack and Mrs. Gifning, when they bustled in to +"buck her up," congratulated her upon "not having a nerve in her body"; +and although she had felt she must surely faint at the end of the +underground tunnel between the jail and the rear of the courthouse, she +had walked into that room of dread import upstairs with her head erect, +her eyes level, and her hands steady. She may have built a fool's +paradise for herself, assisted by her well-meaning friends, during the +past ten weeks, and dwelt in it smugly; but as it fell about her ears +she stood erect with a real courage that strengthened her soul for any +further shocks and surprises this terrible immediate future of hers +might hold. + +On the first day, although she never glanced at a talesman, she had +listened eagerly to every question, every answer, every challenge. As +the third day wore on, she felt only weariness of mind, and gratitude +that she had a strong back. She was determined to sit erect and immobile +if the trial lasted a month. And not only was her personal pride +involved. Circumstances had delivered her to the public eye, therefore +should it receive an indelible impression of a worthy representative of +the middle-class American of the smaller town, so little unlike the +women of the wealthier class, and capable of gracing any position to +which fate might call her--a type the United States of America alone has +bred; also of a woman whose courage and dignity had never been surpassed +by any man brought to the bar of justice on the awful charge of murder. + +She knew that this attitude, as well as her statuesque appearance, would +antagonise the men reporters but enchant her loyal friends, the women. +Her estimate was very shrewd. The poor sob sisters, squeezed in wherever +they could find a vacant chair, or even a half of one (all the tables +being reserved for the men), surrendered in a body to her cold beauty, +her superb indifference, soul and pen. A unanimous verdict of guilty +brought in by that gum-chewing small-headed jury merely would petrify +these women's belief in her innocence. She was vicarious romance; for +women that write too much have little time to live and no impulse to +murder any one in the world but the city editor. + +On the morning of the fourth day, the space between the enclosure and +the walls of the courtroom was filled with spectators from all over the +county, many of them personal friends of Mrs. Balfame; but New York City +would not become vitally interested until the business of examining the +minor witnesses was concluded. Behind and at the left of Mrs. Balfame +were the members of her intimate circle. Occasionally they whispered to +her, and she smiled so sweetly and with such serene composure that even +the men reporters admitted she looked younger and more feminine--and +more handsome--than on that day of the interview which had proved her +undoing. + +"But she did it all right," they assured one another. They must believe +in her guilt or suffer twinges in that highly civilised and possibly +artificial section of the brain tabulated as conscience. Their fixed +theory was that she had mixed the poison for Balfame and then, being in +a highly nervous state, and apprehensive that he would capriciously +refuse to drink it, had snatched her pistol as she heard his voice in +the distance, dashed downstairs and out into the grove, and fired with +her established accuracy. + +She had had plenty of time between the crime and her arrest to pass the +pistol to one of her friends, or even to slip out at night and drop it +in the marsh. + +As to the shot that had missed Balfame and entered the tree: it was +either by one of those coincidences more frequent in fact than in +fiction that another enemy of Balfame's had been lurking in the grove, +intent upon murder; or the bullet hole was older than they had inferred. +The idea of a lover they scoffed at openly. And it was one of the +established facts, as they reminded their sisters of the press, that the +worst women in history had looked like angels, statues or babies; they +had also possessed powerful sex magnetism, and this the handsome +defendant wholly lacked. + +The theory of the women reporters was far simpler. She hadn't done it +and that was the end of it. + +The judge, a tall imposing man with inherited features and accumulated +flesh, very stately and remote in his flowing silk gown, looked +unspeakably bored for three days, but was visibly hopeful as he swept up +to his seat on the rostrum on Thursday morning. As the justice for +Brabant, Mr. Bascom, had not been on speaking terms with the deceased, +and as his wife was one of the defendant's closest friends, an eminent +Supreme Court justice from one of the large neighbouring cities had been +assigned to the case. + +The reporters of the evening newspapers, were packed closely about a +long table parallel with the one just below the jury-box, and behind +were four or five smaller tables dedicated to the morning stars. A large +number of favoured spectators had found seats within the railings, but a +passage was kept open for the boys who came up at regular intervals to +get copy from the "evening table" for the telegraph operator below +stairs. + +Broderick's seat beneath the rostrum commanded both the witness-box and +Mrs. Balfame. He had used his influence to have Alys Crumley assigned to +the position of artist for the Woman's Page of the _News_, and she and +Sarah Austin shared a chair. + +The trial began. Dr. Lequer established the fact of the death, described +the course of the bullet, demonstrating that it had been fired by some +one concealed in the grove. A surveyor followed and exhibited to the +jury a map of the house and grounds. Three of the younger members of the +Country Club, Mr. John Bradshaw Battle, cashier of the Elsinore Bank; +Mr. Lemuel Cummack, son of Elsinore's esteemed citizen, Mr. Sam Cummack; +and Mr. Leonard Corfine, a commuter, had been subpoenaed after a +matching of wits. Overawed by the solemnity of the oath, they gave a +circumstantial account of the quarrel which had preceded the murder but +a few hours--all, in spite of constant interruptions from the +defendant's counsel, conveying the impression, however unwillingly, that +Mrs. Balfame had been livid with wrath and the man who had been her +husband insufferable. It was a master-stroke of the district attorney +to open his case with the damaging testimony of two members of the loyal +Elsinore families. As for Mr. Corfine, although born and brought up +without the pale, he had been graciously received upon electing to build +his nest in Elsinore and his young wife was one of Mrs. Balfame's +meekest admirers. + +Mr. Broderick muttered, "H'm! H'm!" and Mr. Bruce squirmed round from +the "evening table" and jerked his eyebrows at his senior. "Bad! Bad!" +muttered Mr. Broderick's neighbour. "But watch her nerve. Can you beat +it? She hasn't batted an eyelash." + +Two former servants that had preceded Frieda in the Balfame menage +testified that the household consisted of three people only, the master +and mistress and the one in help. A gardener came three times a week in +the morning. No, none of the old spare rooms was now furnished, and the +Balfames never had had visitors overnight. + +The prosecution rested, and Mr. Rush approached the bar according to +usage and asked that the case be dismissed. The judge ruled that it +should proceed; and immediately after the noon recess the first witness +for the defence was called. This was Mr. Cummack, and he testified +vigorously to the harmonious relations of the deceased and his amiable +wife; that Mrs. Balfame--who was always pale--had treated the episode +out at the Club in the casual manner observed by all seasoned and +intelligent wives, the conversation over the telephone in his house +proving that the domestic heavens were swept clean of storm-clouds; and +that the deceased had departed for his home quite happy and singing at +the top of his lungs. He had often remarked jocularly (his was a cheery +and jocular temperament) that he expected to die with his boots on, +especially since he had taken to bawling Tipperary in the face of +American Germany. + +It is not to be imagined that Mr. Cummack was able to deliver himself of +this valuable testimony without frequent and indignant interruptions +from the district attorney, whose "irrelevant, incompetent and +immaterial" rang through the courtroom like the chorus of a Gilbert and +Sullivan opera. Mr. Gore, a wasp of a man with snapping black eyes and a +rasping voice emitted through his higher nasal passages, succeeded in +having much of this testimony stricken out, but not before the wily Mr. +Rush, who stood on tiptoe, as alert and nervous as a race horse at the +grandstand, had by his adroit swift questions fairly flung it into the +jury-box. It was of the utmost importance with an obstinate provincial +jury to establish at once a favourable general impression of the +prisoner. + +When, in the theatre, a trial scene is depicted, it is necessary to +interpose dramatic episodes, but no one misses these adventitious +incidents in a real trial for murder, so dramatic is the bare fact that +a human being is battling for his life. When the prisoner at the bar is +a woman reasonably young and good looking, the interest is so intense +and complete that the sudden intrusion of one of the incidents which +have become the staples of the theatre, such as the real culprit rushing +into the courtroom and confessing himself, a suicide in the witness-box, +or dramatic conduct on the part of the defendant, would be resented by +the spectators, as an anti-climax. Real drama is too logical and grimly +progressive to tolerate the extrinsic. + +The three other men who had been at Mr. Cummack's house that night were +called, and corroborated his story. They all wore an expression of +gentle amusement as if the bare idea of the stately and elegant Mrs. +Balfame descending to play even a passive role in a domestic row was as +unthinkable as that any woman could find aught in David Balfame to rouse +her to ire. + +"By Jove!" whispered Mr. Broderick to Mr. Wagstaff of the _Morning +Flag_, "just figure to yourself what the line would be if she had been +caught red-handed and was putting up a defence of temporary insanity +caused by the well-known proclivities of that beast. A good subject for +a cartoon would be Dave Balfame in heaven with a tin halo on, +whitewashing Mrs. B., weeds and all. The human mind is nothing but a +sewer." + +The afternoon session was also enlivened by the testimony of several of +the ladies who had been members of the bridge party on the day of Mr. +Balfame's unseemly conduct at the Club. They testified that although +Mrs. Balfame naturally dissolved upon her return to the card-room, there +had been nothing whatever in her demeanour to suggest seething passion. +Mrs. Battle, who was an imposing figure in the witness chair, her +greater bulk being above the waist, tossed her head and asseverated with +refined emphasis that Mrs. Balfame was one of those rare and exquisite +beings that are temperamentally incapable of passion of any sort. Her +immediate return to her home was prompted more by delicacy than even by +pain. Miss Crumley's pencil faltered as she listened. She could not +give a jeering public even a faithful outline of a woman as devoted to +the sacred cause of friendship and Elsinore as Mrs. Battle. + +The testimony of none of these ladies was more emphatic than that of +Mrs. Bascom, wife of the supplanted justice, and she added unexpectedly +that she had been so upset herself that she too had left the clubhouse +immediately, and, her swift car passing Dr. Anna Steuer's little +runabout, she had seen Mrs. Balfame chatting pleasantly and without a +trace of recent emotion. + +Mrs. Balfame almost relaxed the set curves of her mouth at this +surprising statement. She recalled that a car had passed and that she +had wondered at the time if any one had noticed her extreme agitation. +She kept her muscles in order, but unconsciously her eyes followed Mrs. +Bascom, as she left the witness-chair, with an expression of puzzled +gratitude. + +The District Attorney turned to the reporters with a short sardonic +laugh, and Mr. Broderick shook his head as he murmured to Mr. Wagstaff: + +"Can you beat that? And yet they say women don't stand by one another." + +"Good for the whole game, I guess," replied the young _Flag_ star, who +was enamoured of a very pretty suffragette. + +The Judge rose, and the afternoon session was over. The great case of +The People vs. Mrs. Balfame rested until the following morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Mrs. Balfame walked back through the now familiar tunnel more hopeful +and elated than any one in the courtroom would have inferred from her +chiselled manner. + +"I almost feel that I have the courage to look at the sketches of myself +in the papers," she said lightly to Rush, who escorted her. "I haven't +dared open a paper since Monday morning." + +"Better not." Rush also was in high spirits. "Keep your mental mercury +as high as possible. It doesn't matter, anyhow. You'll be clear in less +than a week. The impression all those splendid friends of yours created +knocked the prosecution silly." + +"I have not once glanced at the jury," said Mrs. Balfame proudly, "and I +never shall. All I was conscious of was that they were chewing gum, and +that the man above me snorts constantly." + +"That's Houston. He's likely to be predisposed in your favour on account +of your intimacy with Dr. Anna. And he's a just man, of some +intelligence. I fancy none of them is in the mood to be too hard on any +one, for they are having a fine vacation in the Paradise City Hotel. +Each has a big room with a soft bed and rich and delicate food three +times a day. If they don't get indigestion they will be inclined to +mercy on general principles. I engineered the housing of them. Gore was +all for putting them up at the Dobton Inn, where they would have grown +as vicious as starved dogs. I won my point by reminding him that certain +men of that sort try to get on a jury for the sake of having a rest and +a soft time, and if they aren't coddled, they are equal to falling ill +and forcing the court to begin the trial over again. You're all right." + +They were in the jail sitting-room, and she stood with her head thrown +back and her eyes shining. The moment they had entered she had removed +her heavy hat and veil and run her hands through her crushed hair. Rush, +who was very nervous and excited, made a swift motion forward as if to +seize her hands. But it was only later, when alone, that she realised +that possibly she had brushed aside an opportunity to rekindle a flame +which she alternately feared and doubted was burning low; she was not +thinking of him and exclaimed happily: + +"It is quite a wonderful sensation to feel that you have made friends +like that. My! how they did lie! And so convincingly! For a moment I was +quite the outsider and deeply impressed with the weakness of the case +against the accused. Here they come. I feel as if I never really loved +them before." And she ran to the door to admit the elated trio who that +day had made their noblest sacrifice to the cause of friendship. Mrs. +Balfame kissed them and embraced them, and dried their excited tears, +while Rush, his contemptible part in the day's drama forgotten, slunk +down the stairs and out of the jail. + +He met Alys Crumley as she was about to board the trolley for Elsinore, +and she stepped back and congratulated him warmly. + +"Your brain worked like blades of chain lightning," she said with real +enthusiasm. "I know you have only begun, but I can well imagine--wasn't +Mrs. Balfame delighted?" + +"With her friends' testimony," he replied gloomily. "I don't seem to +come in." + +There are some impulses, born of sudden opportunity, too strong for +mortal powers of resistance. "Come home to supper," said Miss Crumley, +with the same spontaneous warmth. "You look so tired, and Mother +promised me Maryland chicken and waffles. Besides, I want to show you my +drawings. I am so proud of being a staff artist." + +"I'll come," said Rush promptly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +The following day was also taken by the examination of witnesses for the +defence. Dr. Lequer, who had been called in occasionally by the Balfames +when Dr. Anna was unavailable, and who was also an old friend of the +family, asserted that so far as he knew there never had been a quarrel +between husband and wife. Mrs. Balfame, in fact, was unique in his +experience, inasmuch as she never looked depressed nor shed tears. + +He was followed by a woman who had been general housemaid in the Balfame +home for three years. She had left it to reward the devotion of a +plumber, and between her and Frieda there had been a long line of the +usual incompetents. Mrs. Figg testified with an enthusiasm which +triumphed over nerves and grammar that although she guessed Mr. Balfame +was about like other husbands, especially at breakfast, Mrs. Balfame was +too easy-going to mind. She'd never seen her mad. Yes, she was an +exacting mistress, all right, terrible particular, and she never sat +with the hired girl in the kitchen and gossiped, and you couldn't take a +liberty with her like you could with some; but that was just her way, +naturally proud and silent-like. She was terrible economical but a kind +mistress, as she didn't scold and follow up, once she was sure the girl +would suit, and not a bit mean about evenings and afternoons off. She +did up her own room and dusted the downstairs rooms, except for the +weekly cleaning. No, she never'd seen no pistol. It wasn't her way to +look in bureau drawers. No, she'd never seen or heard any jealousy, +tempers, and so forth, and had always taken it for granted that Mrs. +Balfame wasn't on to Mr. Balfame's doings--or if she was, she didn't +care. There was lots like that. + +The district attorney snarled and trumpeted throughout this placid +recital, but Mrs. Figg took no notice of him whatever. She had been +thoroughly drilled, and looked straight into the sparkling blue eyes of +Mr. Rush as if hypnotised. + +Other minor witnesses consumed the afternoon, and once more Mrs. Balfame +returned to the jail with glowing eyes. The women reporters were elated. +The men made no comment as they filed out of the courtroom, but their +whole bearing expressed a lofty and quiet scorn. + +"It's fine! fine!" exclaimed Cummack, sitting down beside Rush at the +table below the empty jury-box. "But I do wish Dr. Anna was available. +She stands head and shoulders above every one else in the estimation of +these jurymen; she doctored the children and confined the wives of +pretty near all of them. There's no stone she wouldn't leave unturned." + +"She's pretty bad, isn't she?" asked Rush. "Would there be any chance at +all of getting a deposition--in case things went wrong?" + +"Things ain't goin' wrong; but as for Anna, she's out of it, and +everything else, I guess. I was out to the hospital yesterday, for I've +had her in mind; but although she was better for a time, she's worse +again. But say--what do you think I discovered? Those damned newspaper +men have been hangin' round out there. That young devil Broderick--" + +Rush was sitting up very straight, his eyes glittering. "But he surely +hasn't been able to see her? I don't believe any sort of graft would get +by Mrs. Dissosway--" + +"You bet he hasn't been able to see Anna, and just now they're not +leaving her for a moment alone, like they did at first. But Broderick +seems to have the idea wedged in his brain that Mrs. Balfame confessed +to Anna and that poor old Doc lost the pistol somewhere out in the +marsh--" + +Rush made an exclamation of disgust. "I can't understand Broderick. He's +got his trial all right, and it isn't like him to hound a woman--" + +"I said as much to him, and though he wouldn't talk much, I just +gathered from something he let fall that he was afraid if the crime +wasn't well fixed onto Enid some innocent person he thought a lot more +of might come under suspicion. Can you guess who he had in mind?" + +Rush pushed back his chair and sprang to his feet. "Good Lord, no. One +case at a time is all my brain is equal to." He was almost out of the +empty courtroom when Cummack caught him firmly by the shoulder. + +"Say, Dwight," he said with evident embarrassment, "hold on a minute. +I've just got to tell you that somehow or other I sensed _you_ when +Broderick was trying to put me off. There are a good many things; +they've been comin' back--" + +Rush turned the hard glittering blue of his eyes full upon Mr. Cummack, +whose shrewd but kindly gaze faltered for a moment. "Do you believe I +did it?" demanded Rush. + +"Well, no, not exactly--that is, I'd know that if you had done it, it +would have been because you'd got the idea into your head that Enid was +having an awful row to hoe, or because he'd attacked her that night. It +wouldn't have been for no mean personal reason, and no one knows better +than I that the blood goes to the head terrible easy at your age and +when a beautiful woman is in question. If I'd guessed it before, I'm +free to say I'd have rushed your arrest in order to spare Enid, if for +no other reason. But as it's gone so far and she's sure to get off,--and +you wouldn't stand much show,--the matter had best stay where it is; +particularly--well, I may as well tell you Enid sort of confided to +Polly that you had offered to cover her name with yours as soon as she +got out; and if you've been in love with her all this time, as I guess +you have been--well, Dave can't be brought back. And--well, I've lived +out West and it isn't so uncommon there for a man to shoot on sight when +he's mad about a woman and a few other things at the same time. Dave was +my friend, but I guess I understand." + +Rush had withdrawn stiffly from the friendly hand laid on his shoulder. +"I have asked Mrs. Balfame to marry me," he said. "But she has by no +means consented." + +"But she means to. Don't let it worry you. Women are queer cattle. Nail +her the next time she's in the melting mood. She gets 'em oftener than +she ever did before, and I guess you see her alone often enough." + +"Oh, yes, I've seen her alone nearly every day for ten weeks." + +Cummack narrowed his eyes, and his face, generally relaxed and amiable, +grew stern and menacing. "You don't love her!" he exclaimed. "You don't! +Like many another damned fool, you've compromised your very life for a +woman, only to be disenchanted by seeing too much of her. But by God +you've got to marry her--" + +They were standing at the head of the winding stair in the rotunda, and +several of the reporters were still in front of the telephone booth +below. + +"Hush!" said the lawyer peremptorily. "I mean to marry Mrs. Balfame if +she accepts the proposal I made to her the day she was arrested. I have +said nothing to warrant your jumping to the conclusion that I no longer +wish to marry her. But by God! if you ever dare to threaten me again--" +And he raised his fist so menacingly, his set face was so tense and +white, his eyes bore such a painful resemblance to hot coals, that +Cummack retreated hastily. + +"All right! All right!" he called up from the first turning. "Don't +fancy I think I could. And what's passed between us is sacred. S'long." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +On the morrow the first witness called by the prosecution in rebuttal +was old Kraus, and now it was Mr. Rush's turn to shout "Immaterial, +Irrelevant and Incompetent," so that it was well-nigh impossible for the +jury to do more than guess what the choleric person with a strong German +accent was talking about. The district attorney fought valiantly to draw +forth the story of Frieda's nocturnal visit to the Kraus home in search +of advice after hearing Mrs. Balfame enter the kitchen from the yard, +but his efforts ended in a shouting contest between the prosecution and +the defence, both deserting their positions before the jury-box and +wrangling before the Judge like two angry school-boys. Alys Crumley +longed to laugh aloud, but not so the Judge. He asked them curtly how he +was to know what was their point of dispute if they both talked at once. +He then commanded Mr. Rush to state in as few words as possible what he +was objecting to; and when the counsel for the defence had stated his +purely legal reasons for blocking this purely hearsay testimony, the +Judge abruptly threw Mr. Kraus out of court. Rush, flushed and +triumphant, returned to his chair below the jury-box, and Mr. Gore +sulkily called the name of Miss Frieda Appel. + +There was no question of poor Frieda's making a good personal impression +upon spectators or jury, no matter how worthy her motives. She had saved +almost every penny of her wages since coming to America; it had been +her lover's intention to emigrate to Brabant County as soon as his term +of service was over, and her housewifely intention to greet him with a +furnished cottage. Since the war began, she had sent all her savings to +East Prussia lest her people starve. + +Dress in any circumstances would never tempt her. Economy was her +religion, and she cherished no illusions about her face and form. To-day +she wore a skirt of an old voluminous cut and a jacket with high +puckered sleeves. The colour had once been brown. Her coarse blonde hair +met her eyebrows in a thick bang, and its high knob was surmounted by a +sailor hat a size too small. Her thick-set body was uncorseted, and her +indeterminate features were lost in the width and flatness of her face. +Only the little eyes beneath the heavy thatch of hair alternately glowed +dully and spat fire. + +The Judge sternly suppressed the titter that ran over the court-room as +this caricature mounted the witness-stand, and the district attorney, in +spite of frequent interruptions, elicited a remarkably clear and +coherent statement. The Judge sustained him, for here was a real +witness, and Miss Appel not only had been as thoroughly rehearsed as +Mrs. Figg, but she had a neat precise little mind set with rows of +pigeonholes that ejected their contents in routine when her coach +pressed the cognate button. + +She had come home abruptly from the dance-hall as she had an +insupportable toothache--had run all the way, as she had some +toothache-drops in her room. She was in such agony she hardly had +noticed that her friend Conrad Kraus was behind her. When she reached +her room she had applied the drops, and to her horror they made the pain +worse. After walking the floor for perhaps ten minutes--she didn't know +or care whether it was ten or fifteen minutes--she was just starting to +go down-stairs and heat some water for her bag when she heard the +kitchen door open and shut. She held her breath and did not answer when +Mrs. Balfame called, as she feared she was wanted and was determined to +do nothing for anybody while her tooth ached like that. + +Mrs. Balfame's voice had sounded quite breathless, as if she had been +running. In a moment Frieda heard her go into the dining-room then back +to the kitchen, and turn on the tap,--not the filter, which made no +noise,--and then she heard one glass clink against another on the pantry +shelf. After that, Mrs. Balfame went upstairs from the front hall and +the witness returned to her room and threw herself on the bed, where she +remained until Mr. Cummack came and asked her to go downstairs and make +coffee. By this time her tooth ached so she didn't care what she did. + +Cross-questioned, she admitted that Mrs. Balfame was in the habit of +drinking a glass of filtered water the last thing at night. No, she had +not heard her go out, but only come in. But why, if Mrs. Balfame saw +nothing outside to frighten her, or if she hadn't been out, was she so +short of breath? As may be imagined, mere speculation on Miss Appel's +part was cut short by Mr. Rush, who interrupted her constantly. Yes, she +had heard what she now knew had been a shot but she had paid no +attention. Who would, with a red-hot iron forcing one's tooth down +through one's jaw? + +Even the scornful questions of counsel which forced her to admit that +she had lied to the coroner neither perturbed her nor made any +impression on jury, press, or spectators. Every one present had suffered +from toothache, and two farmers in the box showed their tusks in an +appreciative grin when she replied tartly that she didn't know or care +anything that day but tooth, tooth, tooth. It was manifest that she was +far too conservative to have had it out at once, to say nothing of the +cost. + +The only question she was not prepared for was the abrupt challenge of +Mr. Rush as to how she could prove that young Kraus had followed her if +she had neither seen nor spoken to him during that short run from Main +Street. But although she was visibly perturbed at being confronted with +a set of words to which no neat little pigeon-hole responded, it was so +evident she was firmly convinced her friend had accompanied her, that +for Rush to make too much of his solitary point would prejudice his +case, and he let her go. + +Conrad Jr. followed, and his story was equally straightforward. He also +made a good impression. True, he had a very small closely cropped head, +with eyes too small and ears too large, but he held himself with +arrogance, and he was well dressed in a new grey suit and pink shirt. +Born in the United States, it was manifest that he was proud not only of +being an American citizen but of the country's choicest vintage. He had +been sent to the public school until he was sixteen, had studied +conscientiously, and his grammar was quite as good as that of the +District Attorney, who in emotional moments confused his negatives. But, +even Rush, whose advantages had been as superior as his natural +equipment, became a good nasal American when excited, opened into +vowels, and freely translated _you_ into _yer_. It is these persistent +characteristics, so racy of the soil, which cheer us when apprehending +that our original Americanism may in time be obliterated by the foreign +influx. + +No, said young Kraus, he had no sentimental interest in Frieda. (He +smiled.) And he was engaged to a young lady to whom he had been +attentive for three years. But he felt like a brother to Frieda; she had +come to his father's house direct from Germany, their families having +been friends for generations. It was not only his duty but his pleasure +to dance with her, she being "the best of the bunch down at the hall." + +As he was dancing with her when her toothache became unendurable, it was +natural that he should see her home; in fact, he always saw her home +when it was convenient. Of course if he had to catch the last trolley +for Dobton in a hurry, that was another matter. + +When she had entered the house, he had waited, thinking she might want +some other drops or possibly a dentist. Once when he had had a +toothache, he had been obliged to go to a dentist's house at night. His +papa had sent him, and naturally he thought of it as a possibility in +Frieda's case. + +Then the kitchen door opened and a woman came out. + +At this point the interest in the court-room became intense. Even the +blase young reporters sat forward, their pencils poised. The Judge +wheeled his chair to the right and stared down fixedly at the back of +young Kraus' head. The district attorney balanced himself on his heels, +his thumbs hooked in the sleeves of his vest, and Rush stood with his +back curved as if to spring down the witness' throat with a wild yell +of "Immaterial, irrelevant and incompetent." Only Mrs. Balfame sat like +a statue that had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear. + +Yes, Mr. Kraus recognised Mrs. Balfame's figure and walk. She was one in +a thousand for looks, and taller than many men. She had on a long dark +ulster and a black scarf round her head. The kitchen light was behind +her-- + +Here there was another furious contest between the chief counsel and the +district attorney, but the Judge ordered the young man (who had consumed +a toothpick imperturbably) to proceed with his story. Mrs. Balfame had +slipped round the corner of the house, listened intently, walked for a +minute toward the back of the grounds,--he could just see the moving +shadow in the darkness,--turned abruptly and entered the grove. +Naturally interested, he waited to see what she was up to; and +then--possibly three or four minutes later--he heard Balfame singing +"Tipperary," and a moment or two after that the shot,--one shot, not +two; he took no stock in the theory that there had been two +shots,--followed by loud voices from the other side of the avenue. + +Then he "beat it," that being his natural instinct at the moment. His +papa had taught him to be cautious and to keep clear of other people's +fights. He had never been close up against a crime, and he hoped he +never should be. He walked through the adjoining grounds at the back and +then into Balfame Street and took the next trolley home. He didn't feel +like dancing after what he guessed had happened. + +No, he had heard no sound of running footsteps, but he stood for a +moment near the back fence of the Lequer place; there were people in the +library until some man ran in calling for the doctor to come at +once--and he did see a car leave the lane behind the Balfame place. He +had thought nothing of it, however, as automobiles were everywhere all +the time. No, he hadn't tried to see whether the car was driven by a man +or woman or how many occupants it had. Not only was the night very dark +(as far as he remembered, the car had no lamps), but his one idea was to +get out of the neighbourhood. + +Rush put him through a grilling cross-examination, and although he could +not shake his testimony, he made use of all his practised arts to +exhibit the youth as a sorry coward who ran away when he heard a +revolver-shot instead of rushing with the common instinct of American +manhood to ascertain if it were the woman herself who had been the +victim. How much had he been paid to give this testimony withheld at the +coroner's inquest? Young Kraus' ruddy hues had deepened to purple some +time since, and he shouted back that he had come forward only when that +woman's lying friends were trying to fasten the crime upon his innocent +papa. Here he was sternly admonished by the Judge to confine his answers +to "Yes" and "No" unless he could control his temper. Rush forced him to +reiterate that he had not had a glimpse of Mrs. Balfame's face that +night, that he never had spoken to her at any time; and the lawyer +remarked crushingly that the young man's brain must have been in a +hopelessly confused state if he saw a car leave the lane so soon after +the shooting--a car, moreover, without lights--and failed to connect +this phenomenon with the immediately previous sound of a pistol-shot. +It was evident that his brain moved so slowly that it had taken him +almost a week to put a good story together. + +Young Kraus left the stand with his inborn sense of superiority over +mere Americans severely shaken, but although his small angry eyes +encountered more than one sneer, and many of those hostile spectators +looked as if they would laugh outright were it not for their awe of the +Judge, he had injured Mrs. Balfame far more than himself. Few believed +him to be lying or that he had seen a vision, not a real woman, leave +the Balfame house by the kitchen door. He was known to have been as +sober as usual on the night of the dance, and as the evidence against +his father had been regarded as fantastic from the first, there was no +conceivable cause for him to lie. + +Mr. Gifning, Mr. Battle and Mr. Carden, who were the first to reach +Balfame, after he fell, were forced by the district attorney to give +damning evidence against Mrs. Balfame. Her room was in the front of the +house; if in it, she could have heard the shot as plainly as they on Mr. +Gifning's veranda. But she did not come downstairs or manifest herself +in any way until they had had time to summon the coroner (who to be sure +lived round the corner) and Dr. Lequeur. It must have been quite six +minutes before she opened her window and demanded the reason for the +disturbance at her gate. At least, it had seemed that long. No, they +never confused a revolver-shot with a bursting tire. They had when cars +first came into use, but they had learned to differentiate long since. + +When Mr. Rush asked them sarcastically why one at least of the party had +not searched the grove and attempted to capture the murderer, they +replied they had by no means been sure that the shot had come from the +grove. It might have come from anywhere. It was only after the doctor's +examination that the direction of the bullet had been agreed upon. Later +they did search the grove with a dark-lantern brought from Mrs. +Gifning's house; in fact, they searched every inch of the grounds, and +their only reward was abuse from the police. + +These three witnesses, examined after the noon recess, occupied very +little time. It was at ten minutes to four that the district attorney +electrified every one in the courtroom by calling to the stand a man +whose name up to that moment had not been mentioned in the case. The +reporters looked deeply annoyed; even Mrs. Balfame raised her head a +trifle higher as if listening; Rush's pale face was paler, the lines in +it seemed deeper, as he sprang to his feet, alert at once, his nostrils +expanding. The district attorney balanced himself on his heels, his +thumbs in his waistcoat armholes, a grin of triumph on his sharp little +face. + +The name called was James Mott, and it was borne by a highly reputable +drummer who had made sales for many years to houses carrying general +merchandise, including that of Balfame & Cummack. Mr. Mott was as well +known in Brabant County as any of its inhabitants; in fact, he was +engaged to an estimable young lady of Elsinore, and hence, so it soon +transpired, had happened to be in town on the fatal night. For once the +acumen of the district attorney had proved more penetrating than that of +the brilliant counsel for the defence. + +Mr. Mott took the stand. He was a clean-shaven upstanding American with +the keen eye and grim mouth of the travelling salesman who knows that he +must do or die. He looked as honest as urbane, and for the first time +Mrs. Balfame's heart sank; and her hands, so the women reporters noted +for the benefit of the public, clenched for a full minute. + +Although Rush stood with his head stretched forward, he thought it wise +to let the man tell his story in his own way. Interruptions would have +been of little avail; the Judge would sustain the district attorney if +it were patent the witness were telling the truth; and as he was +completely in the dark himself it were better to wait until he got a +promising lead. He knew that no man's brain could work more quickly than +his. + +Mr. Mott being solemnly sworn, deposed that on the night of the shooting +he had been taking supper with his friend Miss Lacke, who lived at +Number 3 Dawbarn Street, just round the corner from Elsinore Avenue. He +left her house at a little before eight, as he was obliged to catch the +eight-ten for New York. As he closed the gate behind him, he saw David +Balfame walk unsteadily past, shouting "Tipperary"; and being a friend +of many years' standing, had concluded to follow and see Balfame safely +inside the house. He would lose but a minute or two, and it seemed to +him a decent act, for it was possible the man might fall and hurt +himself before he reached his home. Mott was so close behind him that he +must have just escaped the shot or shots himself, and although he jumped +backward he saw distinctly somebody run out of the grove and toward the +back of the house. Whether it was a man or a woman he had no idea, but +the figure was tall--yes far taller than either young Kraus or Frieda. +Then, he said, he doubled on his tracks and got back into Dawbarn Street +as quickly as he could. He blushed as he admitted this, but added that +he knew from the shouts on Gifning's veranda that men were hastening to +Balfame's aid, and he had to catch the eight-ten or lose his night train +to the West and a big piece of business. Moreover, he didn't like the +idea of giving testimony against anybody; he abhorred the institution of +capital punishment. For the same reason he did not come forward until +the District Attorney ferreted him out, as he was afraid the running +figure might have been Mrs. Balfame and she was the last person he +wished to harm, innocent or guilty. + +No one could doubt that he told the truth and hated to tell it. Nor +could any one jump to the conclusion that he was the assassin; he had as +little motive for killing Balfame as any of the other men of Brabant +County with whom he had been for years on the same cordial terms. + +All that Rush could do was to make him admit that perhaps he was +naturally confused by the flash, the report almost in his ear, the man +sinking at his feet, and only fancied he saw a running form; the +delusion would be natural in the circumstances, particularly as his +thoughts seemed to have been concentrated upon getting out of the way. +Mr. Mott admitted almost too eagerly that this might be true, but added +that when the district attorney, who was a cousin of Miss Lacke, as well +as an old friend of his own, had squeezed the story out of him bit by +bit (the form of extraction was supplied by Mr. Rush), that had been his +impression; he seemed to have that tall running figure imprinted upon +his retina, as it were. Of course it might be just imagination. He +wished to God he could swear it was. When asked sharply if even one of +his parents was German, he recovered his poise and replied haughtily +that he was straight American and as pro-Allies as the best man in the +country. He had never entered Old Dutch's beer garden; his choice was a +hotel bar, anyhow; he avoided saloons. + +Rush had a diabolical power of making a witness look ridiculous, but the +American mind is essentially a just mind, normally unemotional, and a +very magnet for facts. As the Judge adjourned the court until Monday the +sob-sisters trailed out dejectedly, after a vain endeavour to get close +to Mrs. Balfame; the young men sauntered forth with their heads in the +air, and Rush's lips were so closely pressed together that his face +looked pure granite. As a matter of fact, his heart felt like water. + +Mrs. Balfame, who had not permitted herself to show a flicker of +interest while Mott was on the stand, rose as the Judge left the room. +She smiled upon each of her friends separately and kissed the prominent +ladies of Elsinore who had sat beside her throughout that trying day. + +"Please don't come over to the jail," she said. "I know you are worn +out, and I have a bad headache. I must lie down. But do please come +to-morrow. You are all too good. Thank you so much." + +Then with a faint smile and a light step she followed the sheriff +through the long tunnel, a horrible vision dancing before her eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +When Rush arrived at the sitting-room of the jail's private suite he +found Mrs. Balfame, not in tears as he had nervously anticipated, but +distraught, pacing the room, her hands in her disordered hair. + +"I am done for! done for!" she cried as Rush hastily closed the door. +"It would have been better if I had told the truth in the +beginning--that I _had_ gone out that night. It was not such a bad +excuse,--that I thought I saw a burglar down there,--and it was God's +truth. Or I could have said I was walking about the grounds because I +had a headache--" + +"It never would have gone down. If I could have discovered who the other +person in the grove was--found him and his forty-one-calibre revolver, +well and good. Failing that, our line of defence is the best possible. I +will admit, though," he too was pacing the room,--"it looks bad to-day, +pretty bad. There isn't the ghost of a chance to prove Mott was the man. +Gore has the time to the minute he left Susie Lacke's; you must have +gone out some time before--" + +"Oh, he didn't do it. I've not thought it for a moment. No such luck. It +was some enemy who went straight to New York--in that car. But +I--I--Auburn--the electric chair--they all believed--Oh, my God! God!" + +She had tossed her arms above her head then flung herself down before +the table, her face upon them, rocking her body back and forth. Her +voice was deep with horror and despair, her abandonment far more +complete than on the day of her arrest; and wrought up himself, Rush was +stirred with the echo of all he had felt that day. In the semi-intimacy +of these past ten weeks, when he had talked with her for hours at a +time, she had disillusioned him in many ways, bored him, forced him to +admit that her lovely shell concealed an uninteresting mind, and that +the only depths in her personality that he was permitted to glimpse were +such as to make him shrink, by no means to excite that fascination even +in repulsion peculiar to the faults of a more passionate nature. He +still thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, however, +and if it was beauty which now left him cold, his admiration of her had +been renewed these last three days when her manner and appearance in +court had been beyond all praise. He had excoriated himself for his +fickleness, his contemptible failure as a lover; and the more he hated +himself the more grimly determined he was to behave precisely as if he +still loved and revered her as he had when ready to sacrifice life +itself for her sake. He was in such an _impasse_ that he cared little +what became of himself. + +He leaned over the table and pressed his hands hard on her arms. + +"Listen!" he said peremptorily. "You never will go to Auburn. You will +leave this jail not later than the middle of next week, a free woman. If +I cannot get you off by my address to the jury,--and it will be the +supreme effort of my life,--I'll take the stand and swear that I +committed the murder myself." + +"What?" She lifted her head and stared up at him. His face was set, but +his eyes glowed like blue coals. + +"Yes. I can put it over, all right. You remember I went to your house +from the Club that day. Nobody saw me go; no one saw me leave. From the +moment I left you, until the following morning, no one--no one that I +know of--saw me that night, except Dr. Anna. We met out on the road +leading to Houston's farm, and she drove me in. She believes I did it. +So does Cummack, and if necessary he will manage to get an affidavit +from her--" + +Mrs. Balfame had sprung to her feet. "Did you do it? Did you?" + +"Aha! I can make even you believe it. No, I did not, but I couldn't +prove an alibi if my life depended upon it. I can make the Judge and the +jury believe--" + +"And do you think I would permit--" + +"They will believe me. And Dr. Anna--who would doubt her testimony that +my appearance and conduct were highly suspicious that night on the marsh +road? And what could you disprove? There was a man in that grove, was +there not?" + +"Yes, but not you; I don't know why, but I could swear to that. I +shall--if you do anything so mad--tell the whole truth about myself." + +"What good would that do? Balfame was killed with a forty-one revolver. +Yours was a thirty-eight." + +"How do you know that?" + +"I found it the night I spent in your house--the night of your arrest. I +knew that you never would have gone out to head off a burglar without a +revolver--any more than the jury would have believed it. I found the +pistol. Never mind the long and many details of the search. It is in my +safe. I kept it on the off chance that it might be necessary to produce +it after all." + +"But I fired at him. I hardly knew that I was firing, until I felt the +revolver in my hand go off. Perhaps it was a suggestion from that tense +figure so close to me, intent upon murder. Perhaps I merely felt I +must--must--I have never been able to analyse what I did feel in those +terrible seconds. It doesn't matter. I did. And you? You know I fired +with intent to kill. Did you guess at once?" + +"Oh, yes. But it doesn't matter. You were not yourself, of course. You +had what is called an inhibition--as maddened people have when fighting +their way out of a burning theatre. I only wish you had told me. I--that +is to say, it is never fair to keep your counsel in the dark." + +"You mean you wish I had not lied!" She caught him up with swift +intuition. "Well, to-day I would not, but then--well, I was full of +pettiness, it seems to me now. But although I am far even yet from being +a fine woman,--I know that!--I am not a poor enough creature to let you +die for me. Oh, you are far too good for me. I never dreamed that a man +would go as far as that for a woman in these days. I thought it was only +in books--" + +"The veriest trash is inspired by the actual occurrences of life--which +is pretty much the same in books as out. And I guess men haven't changed +much since the world began, so far as making fools of themselves about a +woman is concerned." + +As she stood with one hand pressed hard against the table she was far +more deeply moved than a few moments since by fear, although outwardly +calm. She had climbed far out of her old self within these prison walls, +but she saw steeper heights before her, and she welcomed them. + +"Then," she said deliberately, "I must cure you. Before I went out, I +had prepared that glass of lemonade and put poison in it. I had planned +for several weeks to kill him when a favourable opportunity arrived. I +had stolen a secret poison from Anna--out of that chimney cupboard +Cassie described. You see that I am a potential murderer,--and a +cold-blooded one,--even if by a curious irony of fate some one else +committed the deed. Now do you think I am worth giving up your life +for--going to the electric chair--" + +"Suppose we postpone further argument until the necessity arises--if it +ever does. I fully expect you to be triumphantly acquitted. Tell me"--he +looked at her curiously, for he divined something of her inner +revolutions and hated himself the more that he was interested only as +every good lawyer must be in human nature,--"could you do that in cold +blood again?" + +"No--not that way--never. I might let a pistol go off under the same +provocation--that is bad enough." + +"Oh, no. Remove the restraints of a lifetime--or perhaps it is merely a +matter of vibration and striking the right key." + +"And do you mean that--you still want to marry me?" + +"Yes," he answered steadily. "Certainly I do." + +"Ah!" Once more she wondered if he still loved her. But she had been too +sure of him and of herself to harbour doubt for more than a passing +moment. She had come to the conclusion that he had merely taken her at +her word, and she knew the specialising instinct of the busy American. +She had, indeed, wondered if it were not the strongest instinct he +possessed. And in spite of her new humility, she had suffered no loss of +confidence in herself as a woman. She vaguely felt that she had lost +something of this man's esteem, but trusted to time and her own charm to +dim the impression. For she had made up her mind to marry him. Not only +would it be the wisest possible move after acquittal,--a decent time +after,--but during sleepless hours she had come to the conclusion that +she loved this brilliant knightly young man as deeply as it was in her +power to love any one. And after this terrible experience and the many +changes it had wrought within her, she wanted to be happy. + +He had taken up his hat. She crossed the room swiftly and laid her hand +on his arm. "I could not stand one word of love-making in jail," she +said, smiling up at him graciously, although her eyes were serious. "But +it is only fair to tell you now that if I am acquitted I will marry +you." + +And stabbed with a pang of bitter regret that he felt not the least +impulse to scout her authority and seize her in his arms, he bent over +her hand and kissed it with cold lips, but with an air of complete +gallantry. + +"Thank you," he said, and went out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Rush slept until two o'clock the next day, after a night passed at the +Paradise City Hotel in consultation with two of his future partners; +they had spent Saturday in the courtroom at Dobton. He had also +discovered that the jury enjoyed themselves in the winter garden after +dinner, and by no means in close formation. Although nominally under +guard, it would have been a simple matter to pass a note to any one of +them. Two, he further discovered, had been allowed to telephone and to +enter the booth alone. He had been told nothing further of the intention +of Cummack and other friends of his client to "fix" the jury--had, +indeed, discouraged such confidences promptly; but he saw that if the +enemy desired to employ the methods of corruption they need be no more +intricate than those of the men that had so much more to lose if +detected. + +The night had been devoted to discussion of the case; he even enjoyed a +friendly hour with the district attorney, who notably relaxed on +Saturdays after five o'clock; and when Rush awoke on the following +afternoon he immediately resolved to dismiss the whole affair from his +own mind until Monday morning. He would go into the woods and think his +own thoughts. They would be dreary thoughts and imbued no doubt with +cynicism, himself the target; and they had passed that problematical +stage in which the mind, no matter how harrowed, sips lingeringly at the +varied banquet of the ego; in fact, Rush's personal problems were almost +invariably settled in his subconsciousness, and rose automatically to +confront the reasoning faculties without an instant's warning. He was +too impatient for self-analysis; and he was the sum of his acts and of +the clear mental processes of his conscious life. + +The bright winter sun struck down through the close tree-tops and upon +the brilliant surfaces of a recent fall of snow. The ground was hard and +white; the branches of the trees were heavy laden. Not a sound broke the +winter stillness but his footsteps on the winter snow. He had put on a +heavy white sweater and cap, as he intended to walk for hours, and his +nervous hands were in his pockets. He believed he should have the woods +to himself, for in winter it was the Country Club and the roadhouses +that were patronised on Sundays; and the trolley-car which passed the +wood on the line about a quarter of a mile away had, save for himself, +been empty. + +His face remained grim and set until he was deep in the woods, and then +it relaxed to a wave of fury and disgust, finally settled into an +expression of profound despair. He was but thirty-two, and the prizes of +life were for such as he, and a week later he would either be in Sing +Sing or bound without hope to a woman for whom his brief sentimentalised +passion was dust. + +It was not execution he feared, for any clever lawyer could persuade a +jury into a certain degree of leniency, but long years in prison for the +sake of a dead ideal. In spite of his hard common sense and severely +practical life he would almost have welcomed the exaltation of soul +which must accompany a great sacrifice impelled by perfect love. But to +turn one's back on life for ever and walk deliberately into a dungeon, +change one's name for a number and become a thing, for the sake of +barren honour, to drag out his years with a dead soul, to despise +himself for a fool, too old and too tired to console himself with a +memory of a duty well done,--he felt such a sudden disgust for life and +for that ill-regulated product, human nature, that he struck a heavy +blow at a tree and brought a shower of snow about his head. + +If he could but have continued to love the woman and accept the grim and +bitter fate with joy in his soul! And if only that were the worst! If he +could turn his back on life with no regret save for its lost +opportunities for power and fame. + +He paused in his rapid irregular walk and pushed his cap up from his +ear. He half swung on his heel; then, his face settling into its +familiar lines, he walked slowly toward a faint crackling that had +arrested his attention. + +He came presently upon the glade Alys Crumley had painted in its summer +mood; the little picture hung facing his bed. The scene was white +to-day; all the lovely shades of green and gold had been rubbed out and +replaced with the bright sparkle of snow, and the brook was frozen. But +although Rush loved the winter woods and responded to their white appeal +as keenly as to their yearly renewal of verdant youth and gorgeous +maturity, they left him quite unmoved at this moment. Alys Crumley, as +he had half expected, stood in the little dell. + +Her face was more like old ivory than ever against the dazzling +whiteness of the snow and under her low fur turban. It looked both +pinched and nervous, but she kept her hands in her muff. Nor did Rush +remove his from his pockets, although his determination not to betray +himself was subconscious. At the moment, his mind, conquering a tendency +to race, informed itself merely that even in heavy winter clothes, with +but a deep pink rose in her stole for colour, she managed to look dainty +and alluring. It recalled visions of her on summer nights clad in the +soft transparencies of lawn, with ribbons somewhere that always brought +out the strange olive tints of her eyes and hair.... + +"I followed you," she said. + +"Did you?" + +"When I saw you pass in the trolley, I guessed. The Gifnings had invited +me to go out to the Club with them. I asked them to put me down at a +path near here." + +He made no reply but continued to stare at her, recalling other +pictures,--in the studio, in the green living-room,--marvelling at her +endless variety, and not only of effect. Yet she was always the same, +surcharged with the magnetism of youth and young womanhood. + +"I--that is--I had made up my mind I must have a talk with you about +certain things. You said you might go out to the Club to-day for an hour +or two of hand-ball, and I had hoped to induce you to come home with me +for supper. But Jack Battle told me that you had telephoned off--and +when I saw you in the trolley, and caught a glimpse of your face, I +guessed--" + +"Yes?" + +"You make it rather hard." + +"What does it all matter? You are here, and I am glad that you are." + +"Are you? But you intended to avoid me to-day!" + +"I never intended to see you alone again if I could help it." + +"I guessed that too. I met Polly Cummack this morning, and she told me +she spent last evening at the jail and Mrs. Balfame confided to her that +she had just definitely promised to marry you ... that you had proposed +to her on the day of her arrest, and although you had faithfully obeyed +her orders and not alluded to the subject since, she had thought it only +kind to put you out of suspense yesterday. She naively added that the +subject had not interested her when you first brought it up; but that +you had been so wonderful and devoted since.... She means to settle +quietly in New York, instead of travelling, so that she can be quite +near you, and she will marry you as soon as the case has been forgotten +by the public. Of course, Polly could not keep anything so interesting, +and no doubt it is all over town by now." + +Alys spoke steadily, with a faint ironic inflection, and she held her +head very high. But her face grew more pinched, and the delicate pink of +her lips faded. + +"Yes?" He had turned as white as chalk, but there was neither dismay nor +sarcasm in the hard stare of his eyes. His lips were folded so closely +that the word barely escaped. + +"I am going to say everything I have to say, if you never speak to me +again. I feel as if I were standing on the point of a high rock and +every side led sheer down into an abyss. It doesn't matter in the least +down which side I fall. There is a certain satisfaction in that. But you +shall listen." + +"There is nothing you cannot say to me." + +"And you'll not run away." + +"Oh, no, I'll not run away! I shall never see you again if I can help +it, but now that you are here I shall look at you and listen to the +sound of your voice." + +"And to what I have to say. You hate Mrs. Balfame. You are bored to +death with her. You are appalled. You have found her out for what she +is. You are going to marry her out of pity and because you are too +honourable to desert a woman who will always be under a cloud, even if +you had it in you to break your word; and because you have a twisted +romantic notion about being true to an old if mistaken ideal--one of a +set that has flourished like hardy old-fashioned annuals under the dry +soil of hustle and ambition and devotion to your profession. You had +fallen in love--or thought you had, which amounts to the same thing for +the moment--after so many years of dry spiritual celibacy, and it had +been a wonderful revelation--and an inner revolution that made you +immensely interested in yourself for the first time. You were exalted; +you lived for several months at a pitch above the normal, automatically +registering other impressions but only half cognisant of them. And +now--you feel that to the love born in delusion and slain by truth you +owe the greatest sacrifice a man can make." + +He had stared at the ground during the first part of her speech, and +then raised his eyes sharply, his glance changing to amazement and a +flush mounting to his hair. + +"Oh!" he exclaimed. But he would make no other answer, and once more he +dropped his glance to the snow. + +"Are you going to marry her?" + +"If she is acquitted." + +"And if not?" Her voice broke out of its even register. + +He made an abrupt movement, and she cried out: + +"I know! I know! Polly told me--Sam tells her everything. He suspects +you. He knows that Broderick does. But you don't intend to wait for his +denunciation. Mrs. Balfame told that to Polly too. You intend to say you +did it. She said she wouldn't let you--oh, wouldn't she!--but you had +told her that you would make up a plausible story and stick to it. And I +know that you can't prove an alibi. Tell me,"--she came closer and her +voice was almost threatening,--"do you really intend to take that crime +on your shoulders if she is convicted." + +"Yes." + +"Oh! Oh! Men will be sentimental fools until--well, so long as they are +born of fools and women. We are made all wrong!" She threw her muff on +the ground and beat her hands together. Her eyes were blazing. There was +a curious red glow in their olive depths. "Well, listen to me: You are +not going to do this thing, although I really believe you'd like to do +it as a sort of penance. She could not prevent such a monstrous +sacrifice if she would, but I can. Just bear that in mind. If you come +forward with any such insane proposition, I will make a fool of you +before all the world. If Mrs. Balfame is acquitted, well and good; but +if she is not, then I'll betray a confidence and run the risk of +killing some one myself--but I'll get the truth. Just remember that, and +keep off the witness-stand." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that I know where to get the truth." + +"You mean that Dr. Anna thinks Mrs. Balfame did it--that Mrs. Balfame +confessed to her and that you can make the poor woman betray her friend +while she is still too weak to resist. Well, you are all wrong. I know +that Mrs. Balfame did not kill Balfame. If you want the reason for my +knowledge,--and I know I can trust you,--Mrs. Balfame was out that +night, and she did take a revolver and fire it. I found it in the house +on the night following her arrest. It was a thirty-eight. There was one +bullet missing. It was found in the tree. Balfame was killed by a +forty-one. She did not go out to shoot Balfame, but because she thought +she saw a burglar in the grove. Her revolver went off accidentally--and +she is the best shot out at the Club. But you will readily understand my +reasons for suppressing these facts." + +Alys had turned her profile and was staring at a tree whose limbs +creaked now and again with their weight of snow, sending down a powdery +shower. Her thick short lashes were almost together before a gleaming +line of olive. + +"Oh! Who was her confederate?" + +"She hasn't the least idea as to the identity of the person beside her. +It was dark, and she was too much excited. Naturally, she would be very +glad to know." + +"Well, suppose we dismiss that part of it. We should never get anywhere. +Only--don't take the stand and make a dramatic confession." + +"Dramatic?" Once more the red tide rose. His blue eyes snapped. + +"Melodramatic would perhaps be the better word. Sarah and I are hot on +the trail of the right word. But tell me honestly--shouldn't you feel +rather a fool? It is such a very theatric--stagey--thing to do." + +"Oh!" He wheeled about and kicked a fallen log. "Do you suppose I have +given a thought to that aspect of it?" + +"No, more is the pity, but as you have a good sense of humour, I rather +wonder at it. However--these are not the only things I followed you into +the woods to say." + +"You had it in your mind, then, to find out if what Mrs. Balfame told +Mrs. Cummack was true--that I purposed to free her one way or another?" + +"Yes. I merely waited for the lead. I told you in the beginning that I +did not care what I might confess to, or how angry I made you. What does +it matter?" + +"You cannot make me angry, although there are some things I cannot +discuss with you." + +"Of course not. Let us ignore Possible Sacrifice Number Two, and assume +that Mrs. Balfame is acquitted,--which no doubt will be the case; few +are worrying; and further assume that you will marry her; that she will +marry you is the way she put it, not being an artist in words. Once more +we will dismiss both subjects. Yes?" + +She was stooping to recover her muff, and he noticed that her hands were +shaking and that the dusky pink was in her cheeks for the first time. + +"I am only too ready. But--there is little else for us to talk about!" + +"Yes, there is! When people are on their deathbeds they can afford to +be truthful, and you have dug your grave and mine." + +She was erect once more and she looked at him steadily, although her +breath was short and her cheeks blazing. + +"What do you mean by that?" His eyes no longer looked like blue steel. +They were flashing, and a curious wave of mobility passed over his face. + +"I mean that you love me now. I think you always loved me--when we spent +so many hours together in perfect companionship--when you found so much +in me that responded to so many of your own needs. But for the time +being this was only a surface impression. It was unable to strike down +to--to your soul, because between your outer and inner vision was the +delusion. You had cherished some sort of ideal since boyhood, and when +for the first time in your busy life you met a woman who seemed to +materialise it--you never once had a half-hour's conversation with +her!--you automatically rose to the opportunity to discharge a youthful +obligation. Isn't that true?" + +He would not answer, and she continued: + +"You passed me over because you had to be rid of the delusion first, bag +and baggage. There is only one way to get rid of an old delusion like +that, and unconsciously you took it! The pity of it is, in our case, +that you compromised yourself so promptly, instead of waiting--well, for +ten weeks!" + +"I had already asked Mrs. Balfame to get a divorce and marry me." + +"Oh! That night you walked home with her from Dr. Anna's cottage?" + +"You saw us? Yes, that was the time." + +"The first time you had ever talked alone with her? I know that you +dined there often, but didn't Dave usually do the talking?" + +"Yes." + +"And Mrs. Balfame smiled like St. Cecilia and attended to your wants." + +"Oh!" + +"It was like you to think you couldn't go back on even an Elsinore +Avenue flirtation. But once more--it is a terrible pity that you did not +delay your formal offer for ten weeks. Then you would have buried the +last and the supreme folly of your youth--with a sigh perhaps, but you +would have buried it. Isn't that true?" + +"It is true that something incredibly youthful seems to have persisted +in me beyond its proper limits, and then to have died abruptly. God +knows I have no youth in me to-day." + +"That may well be, but it need not have been. Youth does not die with +the earlier illusions. If all had gone well, you would have been reborn +into a saner and more conscious youth. Tell me--" Her voice trembled, +but she moved forward resolutely and laid her muff against his chest; he +could feel the working of her hands, and eyes and cheeks betrayed the +excitement that pride still suppressed. "Tell me,--if you had waited, if +you could have decently buried that old illusion and forgotten--and--and +married me,--should you have felt very old?" + +"I should have felt immortal." + +He caught her hands from her muff and flung them about his neck and +lifted her from the ground and kissed her as if they both stood on the +pinnacle and had but a moment before plunging down to mortal death. + +When he released her a trifle, his face was illuminated. It no longer +looked preternaturally strong; neither did it look as young as she had +seen it look in moments of mental relaxation. + +"Ah!" she whispered. "This is the fusing, not when that old illusion +died." + +The deep flush ebbed out of his face, leaving it grey, but he did not +relax the hard pressure of his arms. "Of what use," he asked bitterly, +"when we have only to-day?" + +"It is something to realise all of oneself if only for an hour. And you +have given me my supreme hour. That was my right, for I went down into +such depths as you have no knowledge of; and if I struggled out of them +alone, and always in terror of surrender and demoralisation at the last +moment, I have my claim on your help now, for the future is something I +have never dared to face. I guessed before Polly told me--oh, I guessed! +I knew you so well. In dreams, perhaps,--who knows?--our minds may have +become one. When I came up out of--got past the worst, it seemed to me +that I came into an extraordinary understanding of you. I can bear +anything now. In a way, you will always be mine. The life of the +imagination must have its satisfactions. There are worse things than +living alone." + +She drew down his head, but this time she put her lips to his ear. + +"Now I am going to tell you a terrible secret," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +There had been a crowd on the day of Frieda's and young Kraus' +testimony, but on Monday morning there was a mob. The road as well as +the open space before the Courthouse was as solid a mass of automobiles +as the police would permit, and within, even the wide staircase was +packed with people, many from New York City, waving cards and demanding +entrance to the Court-room, or at least the freedom to breathe. + +The sheriff and his assistants, soon after the doors were opened, +succeeded in forming a lane, and dragged the women reporters to the +upper landing. They found the young men at their tables, cool, +imperturbable, having entered through the library at the back of the +Court-room. All doors were closed before ten o'clock, and the crowd +without, save only the few that were fortunate enough to have come early +and obtain a vantage point against the glass, gradually dwindled away, +to renew the assault after luncheon. It was not only the brilliant +winter day that had enticed the curious over from New York, but the +rumour that Mrs. Balfame would take the stand. + +The morning droned along peacefully. Cummack and several others, +including Mr. Mott, were recalled and questioned further. Rush made no +interruptions whatever. The Judge yawned behind his hand. The women +reporters whispered to one another that Mrs. Balfame looked lovelier +than ever--only different, somehow. Even Mr. Broderick looked at her +uneasily once or twice and confided to Mr. Wagstaff that he believed she +and Rush had something up their sleeves; she no longer looked like a +marble effigy of herself, but like a woman who was sure of getting what +she wanted--much too sure. Her cheeks were almost pink. That was as +close as he could get to the upheavals and revolutions that had taken +place in Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore; and their causes. + +Immediately after luncheon, Rush showed the jury Defendant's Exhibit A: +the suitcase that Mrs. Balfame had packed for her husband after his +telephone message from the house of Mr. Cummack. He demonstrated that it +must have been packed by a firm hand guided by a clear head, a head as +far as possible from that cyclonic condition technically known as +"brainstorm." When he read them the explicit directions Mrs. Balfame had +written for the velvet handbag her generous husband had offered to bring +from Albany, the jury craned its neck and puckered its brows. This +suitcase had been examined on the night of the crime by police and +reporters, the cynical men of the press characterising it later as a +grand piece of bluff. But it looked very convincing in a court-room, and +its innocent appeal was thrown into high relief by the indisputable fact +that the murder had been committed at least half an hour later. + +On the other hand, there was reason to believe that Mrs. Balfame had +deliberately planned the shooting and in that case it was quite natural +for her to prepare something in the nature of an alibi--that is, if a +woman, and an amateur in crime, could exercise so much foresight. The +jury looked at the defendant out of the corner of its eye. Well, she, at +least, looked cool enough for anything. + +Then came the great moment for which the spectators had braved +discomfort, indignities, and even hunger. The counsel for the defence +asked Mrs. Balfame to take the stand. + +Everybody in the court-room save the Judge, the jury, and the cool young +reporters half rose as she walked rapidly behind the jury-box, mounted +the stand, took the oath, bowed to the Court and arranged herself, with +her usual dignified aloofness, in the witness-chair. She felt but a +slight quiver of the nerves, no apprehension whatever. She knew her +story too well to be disconcerted even by the sudden wasp-like assaults +of the district attorney, and she was sensible of the moral support of +practically all the women in the room. + +Rush asked her to tell her story in her own way to the jury, and for a +time the district attorney permitted her to talk without interruption. +Rush had warned her after the interview with the women reporters against +delivering herself with too tripping a tongue, and his assistant had +spent several hours with her in rehearsal of certain improvements upon a +too perfect style. In consequence, she told a clear coherent story, in +the simplest manner possible, with little dramatic breaks or hesitations +now and again, but with nothing stronger than a quaver in her sweet +shallow voice. When she had reached the episode of the filter and had +explained to the inquisitive district attorney why she had made no +mention at the coroner's inquest of the somewhat complicated episode of +which it was the pivot, so to speak, she gave the same credible +explanation the newspaper women had already offered to the public; and +then, quite unexpectedly, she related the story of Frieda's attempt to +blackmail her, and her indignant refusal to give the creature a dollar. +Mr. Gore shouted in vain. The Judge ordered him to keep quiet and +permitted the defendant to tell the story in her own way. + +Mrs. Balfame apologised to the jury for relating this incident out of +order, and then went on with her quiet plausible story. Her reason for +not running out at once was simplicity itself. She must have been in the +kitchen when the shot was fired; she had not made a point of regulating +her movements by the clock as some of the witnesses for the prosecution +appeared to have done, so that she was quite unable to give the jury +positive information upon the subject of the exact number of minutes she +had remained in the kitchen. She had washed and put away the glass, of +course; she was a very methodical woman. Then she had gone upstairs, +leisurely, and it was not until she was in her bedroom that she became +aware of some sort of excitement out in the Avenue. Even that conveyed +nothing to her, for it was Saturday night--she curled her fastidious +lip. But when she heard voices directly under her window, inside the +grounds, she threw it open at once and asked what had happened. Then of +course she ran downstairs and out to her husband. That was all. + +Even the district attorney was not able to interject a hint of the +lemonade story, and so, naturally, she ignored it. + +"Gemima!" whispered Mr. Broderick to his neighbour, "but she is a +wonder! I never heard it better done, and I've seen some of the boss +liars on the stand. She looks like an angel on toast, a poor, sweet, +patient, martyr angel. But I'll bet five dollars to a nickel that she +was just about three degrees too plausible for that jury. If she didn't +do it, who did? That's what they'll ask. And who else wanted him out of +the way? Have you given any thought to that proposition?" His voice was +almost as steady as his keen grey eyes, and he looked straight into the +wise and weary orbs of a brilliant but too inabstinent member of the +crack reporter regiment who had been missing for several days. The man +raised his sagging shoulders and dropped them listlessly. Then his heavy +eyes were invaded by a sudden gleam. + +"Say," he whispered, "that Rush is a good-looking chap--and she--I don't +like those ice-boxes myself, but some men do. It's crossed my mind more +than once to-day that he's got something on his--what's the matter?" + +"For God's sake, hush!" Broderick's low voice was savage, his face +white. "They're always likely to say that about a young lawyer when his +client is handsome enough and their imaginations are excited by a +mysterious murder case. He's a friend of mine, and I don't want him to +get into trouble. He might not be able to prove an alibi. But I know he +didn't do it because I happen to know that he is in love with another +woman. I was in the same trolley with them yesterday when they came back +from the woods. There was no mistaking how the land lay." + +"Oh! Just so!" The other man's eyes were glittering. He looked like a +hunter glancing down his gun-barrel. "I see he _is_ a friend of yours +and you've got his defence pat--well, I'm not going to bother my poor +head until Mrs. B. is acquitted or convicted. Ta! Ta!" And he slid +gently to the floor, laid his head against the infuriated Broderick's +knee and went to sleep. + +"I say," whispered Wagstaff, "she almost involved young Kraus, all +right. He's never been quite so close to the bull's-eye before. The very +fact that she didn't trump up a yarn--or Rush wouldn't let her--that she +saw him when she opened the door, or that he had turned the handle, is +one for her and one on him." + +The Judge, who had taken a few moments' rest, re-entered, and +conversation ceased. Conrad and Frieda were called in rebuttal, and +encouraged to fix the time of Mrs. Balfame's departure and return as +accurately as might be. Frieda asserted that Mrs. Balfame, after closing +the outer door, had not remained below-stairs for more than three +minutes, and Conrad declared that her exit must have been made three or +four before Mr. Mott left Miss Lacke's. Of course--with quiet scorn--he +had not looked at his watch. How could he in the dark? As he did not +smoke he had no matches in his pocket. + +That closed the day's session. The jury filed out, and no man could read +aught in their weather-beaten faces save the conviction that the +Paradise City Hotel was a haven of delights after a long day in the box, +and they were quite equal to the feat of enjoying the dinner served +there, with minds barren of the grim purpose behind this luxurious week. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +It was nearly six o'clock. The court-room with its round white ceiling +looked like a crypt in the soft glow of the artificial light, and the +Judge, in his black silk gown, with his handsome patrician face, +clean-cut but rather soft and flushed with good living, might have been +an abbot seated aloft in judgment upon a recalcitrant nun. Mrs. Balfame +in her crepe completed the delusion--if the imaginative spectator +glanced no further. The district attorney, who was summing up, looked +more like a wasp than ever as he darted back and forth in front of the +jury-box, shouting and shaking his fists. Occasionally he would hook his +fingers in his waistcoat, balance himself on his heels and with a mere +moderation of his rasping tones, demonstrate a contemptuous faith in the +strength of his case. + +It is to be admitted that his arguments and expositions, his +denunciations and satirical refutations, were quite as convincing as +those of the counsel for the defence had been, such being the elasticity +of the law and of the legal mind; but although an able and powerful +speaker, he lacked the personal charm and magnetism, the almost tragical +enthusiasm and conviction, alternating with cold deliberate logic, that +had thrilled all present to the roots of their beings during the long +hours of the morning. Rush, whether he lost or won, had made his +reputation as one of the greatest pleaders ever heard at the bar of New +York State. He had finished at a quarter to one. Immediately after the +opening of the afternoon session Gore had darted into the breach, +speaking with a dramatic rapidity for four hours. He sat down at six +o'clock; and Mrs. Balfame felt as if turning to stone while the Judge, +standing, charged the jury and expounded the law covering the three +degrees of murder: first, second, manslaughter. It was their privilege +to convict the prisoner at the bar of any of these, unless convinced of +her innocence. + +He dwelt at length upon the degree called manslaughter, as if the idea +had occurred to him that Mrs. Balfame, justly indignant, had run out +when she heard her husband's voice raised in song, and had fired from +the grove by way of administering a rebuke to an erring and +inconsiderate man. The second bullet had been made much of by Rush, as +indicating that two people, possibly gun-men, had shot at once, but the +district attorney held no such theory and had ignored the bullet found +in the tree. It was apparent, however, that the Judge had given to this +second bullet a certain amount of judicial consideration. + +The jury filed out, not to their luxurious quarters in the Paradise City +Hotel, a mile away, but to a stark and ugly room in the Court-house +where they must remain in acute discomfort until they arrived at a +verdict. The Judge had his dinner brought to him in a private room +adjoining theirs, and even the reporters and spectators snatched a hasty +meal at the Dobton hostelry, so sure were they all that the jury would +return within the hour. Mrs. Balfame did not take off her hat with its +heavy veil, but sat in her quarters at the jail with several of her +friends, outwardly calm, but with her mind on the rack and unable to +share the dinner sent over from the Inn by Mr. Cummack for herself and +her guests. + +The hours passed, however, and the jury did not return. Once the head of +the foreman emerged, and the sheriff, misunderstanding his surly demand +for a pitcher of ice water, rushed over for Mrs. Balfame, the Judge was +summoned, and the reporters, men and women, raced one another up the +Court-house stairs. Mrs. Balfame, schooled to the awful ordeal of +hearing herself pronounced a murderess in one form or other, but bidden +by her friends to augur an acquittal from a mere three hours' +deliberation, walked in with her usual quiet remoteness and took her +seat. She was sent back at once. + +Rush paced the road in front of the Court-house. He had little hope. He +had studied their faces day by day and believed that several, at least, +were persuaded of Mrs. Balfame's guilt. Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning and +Mrs. Cummack sat with Mrs. Balfame, who found the effort to maintain the +high equilibrium demanded by her admiring friends as rasping an ordeal +to her nerves as waiting for that final summons whose menace grew with +every hour the jury wrangled. Finally she took off her hat and suggested +that they knit, and the needles clicked through the desultory +conversation until, after midnight, they all attempted to sleep. + +The Judge extended himself on a sofa in the private room devoted to his +use; he dared not leave the Courthouse. He told the district attorney +(who told it to the sheriff, who told it to the reporters) that the jury +quarrelled so persistently and so violently that he found it impossible +to sleep, and that the language they used was appalling. + +Midnight came and passed. The sob-sisters, worn out, went home. Miss +Sarah Austin and Miss Alys Crumley had not returned to the Court-house +after dinner. The sheriff appeared at the entrance of the courtroom and +announced that the last trolley would leave for Elsinore and +neighbouring towns within five minutes. Most of the spectators filed +sleepily out. A few of Mrs. Balfame's less intimate but equally devoted +friends remained in their seats near her empty chair, and shortly after +midnight the warden's wife brought them over hot coffee and sandwiches. + +The reporters, having long since consumed all the chocolate and peanuts +on sale below, strolled back and forth between the Court-house and the +bar of the Dobton Inn. They were bored and indignant and sought the only +consolation available. They returned periodically to the court-room, +growing, as the hours passed, more formal, polite, silent. One lost his +way in the jury-box and was steered by a court official to the +sympathetic haven of his brothers. + +The room itself, its floor littered with tinfoil, peanut-shells, and +newspapers, its tables and chairs out of place, looked like a Coney +Island excursion boat. Finally two reporters laid their heads down on a +table and went to sleep, but the rest continued to address one another +at long intervals, in distant tones, obeying the laws of etiquette, but +with a secret and scornful reluctance. + +Broderick, who was reasonably sober, had wandered in and out many times. +Occasionally he walked the road with Rush, and more than once he had +endeavoured to get Miss Crumley on the telephone. He had even +telephoned to the hospital to ascertain if she were there. A week ago +only he had accidentally discovered that Dr. Anna had been summoned by +Mrs. Balfame shortly after the murder and had passed many hours alone +with her; "it being the deuce and all to extract any information from +that closed corporation of Mrs. Balfame's friends." Broderick had +surprised it out of a group at the Elks' Club in the course of +conversation and then had set his phenomenal memory to work, with the +result that he was convinced Alys Crumley held the key to the whole +situation. He had gone to her house and pleaded with her to take him out +to the hospital and obtain a statement from the sick woman before it was +too late, representing in powerful and picturesque language the awful +peril of Rush. + +"I've reason to know," he had concluded, "that Cummack and two or three +others have their suspicions, and there isn't a question that if the +jury brings in a verdict of guilty in any degree--and they're a +pigheaded lot--Rush will be arrested at once. These devoted friends of +Mrs. Balfame have accumulated enough evidence to begin on. He may have +gone to Brooklyn that night, but he was seen to get off the train at +Elsinore about a quarter of an hour before the shooting. They've been +doing a lot of quiet sleuthing, but if Mrs. Balfame is acquitted they'll +let him off. They don't want any more scandal, and they like him, +anyhow. But I have a hunch she won't be acquitted; and then, innocent or +guilty, there'd be no saving him. So for heaven's sake, stir yourself." + +But Alys had replied: "I have besought my aunt, and she will not permit +Dr. Anna to be disturbed. She says her only chance for life is a +tranquil mind, and that the shock of hearing that Enid Balfame was on +trial for murder would kill her--let alone asking her to do her best to +send her to the chair. I've done _my_ best, but it seems hopeless." + +This conversation had taken place on Thursday. To-day was Tuesday. They +were very reticent at the hospital, but he had reason to believe that +Dr. Anna had taken a turn for the worse. Could Alys Crumley be out +there, and could she have taken that minx Sarah Austin with her? It +would be just like a girl to go back on a good pal like himself and hand +a signal triumph over to another girl, who would get out of the game the +minute some fellow with money enough offered to marry her. He ground his +teeth. + +He was standing near the doors of the court-room and staring at the +clock whose hands pointed to a quarter to one. Suddenly he heard his +name called from below. He sauntered out and leaned over the balustrade. +A weary page was ascending when he caught sight of the star reporter. + +"Brabant Hospital wants you on the 'phone," he announced, with supreme +indifference. + +Broderick leaped down the winding stair and into the booth. It seemed to +him that his very ears were quivering as he listened to Alys Crumley's +faint agitated voice. "Come out quickly and bring a stenographer," it +said. "And suppose you ask Mr. Rush to come too. Just tell the +sheriff--to--to postpone things a bit if the jury should be ready to +come in before you return. Hurry, Jim, hurry." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +It was two o'clock and ten minutes. The eleven remaining spectators, one +of them a woman in evening dress, were sound asleep. The sheriff was +pacing up and down with his hands behind his back, his perturbed glance +ranging between the clock and the door leading into the jury-room. +Occasionally he slipped on a bit of the debris and kicked it aside. The +reporters slumbered at their tables or stared moodily ahead. One gnawed +his pencil; another tore leaves of copy paper into morsels and +laboriously built something that looked like a child's house of blocks. +Outside it was deathly still. The snow was falling softly. It was too +early for a cock-crow. Occasionally some one snored. The footfalls of +the sheriff made no noise. + +Suddenly every reporter present sat up with the scent of blood in his +nostrils. Their ears twitched. The fumes blew out of their highly +organised brains like mist before a bracing wind. An automobile was +dashing down the road, its horn shrieking a series of brief peremptory +notes, which sounded like "Wait! Wait! Wait!" + +It came to an abrupt halt before the Court-house door, and almost +simultaneously Wagstaff, who had wandered forth once more, ran up the +stairs and into the court-room. + +"There's something in the wind, boys," he cried, smoothing his hair and +steering carefully for his chair. "Rush, Broderick, three other men, +Sarah Austin and Alys Crumley, were in that car. They've all gone +straight to the Judge. Something big is going to break, as sure as +death." + +The sheriff retired hastily to the region behind the court-room. + +The young men adjusted their chairs, arranged their copy-paper neatly, +and sharpened their pencils. Mrs. Balfame's friends went forward to the +door behind the jury-box which led to the tunnel. Even the sleepy +spectators sat up nervously. + +Ten minutes passed. Then the sheriff, his face now stolid and important, +bustled in and across to the jury-room, opened the door and summoned the +occupants. In every stage of dishabille they filed sullenly in; the +sheriff went through the tunnel for Mrs. Balfame. + +The Judge, without his gown and his hair ruffled, was in his seat when +the prisoner entered. She came hurriedly, her great repose broken, her +face grey. Rush, who had entered behind the Judge, met her and +whispered: + +"You are free. But you will need all your self-control. Don't let them +have a story in the morning papers of a breakdown at the last moment." + +Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning and Mrs. Cummack, who were far more excited +than she, took heart at his words, patted their dishevelled hair and +motioned to their husbands, summoned from the Dobton Inn, to draw +closer. Whatever the issue, they felt the need of masculine support, +albeit they scowled at the obvious form that masculine needs had taken. + +Mrs. Balfame had looked dully at Rush as he spoke. Between fatigue and +the nervous strain of maintaining the superwoman pitch for the benefit +of her friends, her mind was confused. She could only mutter, "I'll try. +Is--is--it really--all right?" + +"You'll be free and for ever exonerated in half an hour." + +Mrs. Balfame sank back in her chair, thinking that half an hour was a +long time, a terribly long time. How long did it usually take a jury to +pronounce a prisoner not guilty? + +Sitting before the table in front of her were two men whom she vaguely +recognised. Behind them was the man she hated most now that her husband +was dead, the reporter Broderick. And beside him were Alys Crumley and +Miss Austin. What did it all mean? She drew a sigh. It didn't matter +much. She was so tired, so tired. When it was over she would sleep for a +week and see no one--not even Dwight Rush. + +The district attorney was on his feet, his face as black as if in the +first stages of a poisonous fever. Neither he nor any one in the +court-room threw Mrs. Balfame a glance. All eyes were on the Judge, who +rose and made a short address to the jury. + +"New evidence has just been brought to the notice of the court," he +said. "It is of sufficient importance to warrant its immediate +consideration, and the case is therefore reopened for this purpose. It +is for you, however, to pass upon its worth. Mr. Rush will take the +stand." + +"May it please your honour," shrieked Mr. Gore, "I protest that this +case has already been submitted to the jury, and that it is altogether +out of order to reopen it." + +"That is a matter within the discretion of the court," replied the +Judge sharply; he had slept but fitfully and was not in his accustomed +mood of remote judicial calm. "Mr. Rush will take the stand and proceed +without interruption." + +Rush ascended to the witness-box and was sworn. Mrs. Balfame half rose, +dropped back into her chair with another sigh. There could be but one +explanation of this strange procedure. Rush had discovered that the jury +was hostile and was about to incriminate himself. She could do nothing. +She had brought up the subject only yesterday, and he had replied curtly +that he had taken the pistol from his safe and hidden it elsewhere. And +she was too tired to feel that anything mattered much but the prospect +of a week's rest. Later she could exonerate him in one way or another. + +The newspaper men were as sober and alert as if the hour were ten in the +morning. With their abnormal news-sense they anticipated a complete +surprise. To do them justice, they were quite indifferent to the +possibility of Mrs. Balfame's release. If it were news, Big News, that +was all that mattered. + +As Rush took the witness-chair, the lines in his pallid face looked as +if cut to the bone, but he addressed the jury in strong clear tones. He +told them that two days since he had been informed by Miss Alys Crumley +that Dr. Anna Steuer had positive knowledge bearing upon the crime for +which Mrs. Balfame had been unjustly arrested and thrust into jail, but +that they were afraid to tell her of her friend's tragic situation lest +it shatter her slender hold on life. She was very ill again after a +relapse, although quite conscious, and their only hope was in perfect +peace of mind. + +If she recovered, Mrs. Dissosway, in whom alone she had confided, had +felt sure she would give the testimony which must set Mrs. Balfame at +liberty if the jury convicted her. On the other hand, Mrs. Dissosway had +promised her niece that if the doctors agreed that Dr. Steuer's death +was but a matter of hours and there was a real danger of Mrs. Balfame's +conviction, she would tell the dying woman the truth and take the +consequences. + +Shortly after the case had gone to the jury, Miss Crumley and Miss Sarah +Austin had gone out to the hospital, satisfied that Dr. Anna had but a +few hours to live. But it was not until Miss Crumley had persuaded her +relative that the delayed verdict of the jury meant conviction for Mrs. +Balfame that the superintendent, who was a lifelong friend of Dr. Anna +Steuer, had given Miss Crumley permission to send for a stenographer and +the witnesses she desired. Miss Crumley had therefore telephoned at once +to Mr. Broderick, as she knew he would be sure to be in or near the +courtroom, and asked him to bring the witness and a stenographer. + +They had reached the hospital in fifteen minutes. Dr. MacDougal had met +them at the door of Dr. Steuer's room and informed them that the news of +her friend's predicament had been broken to the patient, after +administering stimulants, and that she had consented immediately to make +a statement. + +"It took her some time to make this statement," continued Mr. Rush. "She +was very weak, and stimulants had to be given repeatedly. But in due +course it was completed, signed, and witnessed by Mr. Broderick and the +two physicians present. I shall read it to you with the permission of +the court." + +He then read them the ante-mortem statement of Dr. Anna Steuer: + +"I shot David Balfame. + +"I make this statement at once lest I prove to be unable to add the +explanation of my motives, and I herewith sign it." + +Signed and witnessed. + +The statement continued: + +"I had known for a long time that my beloved friend's life with this +wretch was insupportable, but although I urged her repeatedly to divorce +him and she refused, it never entered my head to kill him nor any one +else. I had spent my life trying to heal, and to give comfort where my +patient's sufferings were of the mind as well as of the body. I had +carried Balfame through several gastric attacks, caused by his +disreputable life, with as much professional enthusiasm as if he had +been the best of husbands. To have removed him during one of these would +have been a simple matter. + +"But that day out at the Country Club when he insulted the loveliest and +most nearly perfect being on this earth, with the deliberate intent to +ruin her position--the little all she had in the world that +mattered--something snapped in my head. I almost struck him then and +there. And when, during the ride home, Enid for the first time told me +the hideous details of her life with that man all the blood in my body +seemed to surge up and through my brain. He deserved death, and only +death could free her. But how could this be accomplished? Too proud and +too obdurate in her principles for the divorce-court, she was also too +gentle and good and fastidious, in spite of her remarkable will, to +strike him down herself. + +"While waiting for a summons to the Houston farm, I paid several calls, +and the last was at the Cummacks', one of the children being ill. As I +came downstairs from the nursery I heard the conversation at the +telephone--Balfame's drunken compliment to his wife. He said he would +walk home. It was then that the definite impulse came to me, and I acted +without an instant's hesitation. I always carried a revolver, for I was +forced to take many long and lonely rides in my country practice. I +drove straight to the lane behind the Balfame place, left the car, put +out the lights, and climbed the back fence. It was very dark, but I had +been familiar with the grounds all my life and I had no difficulty in +finding the grove. I waited, moving about restlessly, for I wanted to +have it over and go out to the Houston farm. + +"He came after what had seemed to be hours of waiting, singing at the +top of his voice. Mr. Rush tells me there is talk of two pistols having +been fired that night, and that a bullet from a thirty-eight-calibre +pistol entered a tree just to the left of the gate. I heard no one else +in the grove. My revolver was a forty-one and can be found in the drawer +of my desk at home. I fired at Balfame the moment he reached the gate. I +vaguely remember seeing another figure almost beside him, but as Balfame +fell I ran for the lane and my car. I had no intention of giving myself +up. I knew that the crime would be laid to political enemies, who, no +doubt, could produce alibis. This proved to be the case, and when I +broke down and was carried to the hospital it was with the assurance of +public belief in gun-men as the perpetrators of the crime. That Enid +Balfame, that serene and splendid woman, whose life has been a miracle +of good taste and high sense of duty, would be accused never crossed my +mind. + +"No, it is impossible for me to say with truth that I repent. I might +have, once. But these last six months! Millions of men in the greatest +civilisations of earth are killing one another daily for no reason +whatever save that man, who seeks to direct the destinies of the world, +is a complete and pitiful failure. Why, pray, should a woman repent +having broken one of his laws and removed one of the most worthless and +abominable of his sex, who had made the life of a beloved friend past +enduring? Moreover, I have saved hundreds of lives at the risk of my +own. I die in peace. + +"This statement is made with full knowledge of impending death and +without hope of recovery." + +"This ante-mortem statement," concluded Mr. Rush, "was taken down in +longhand by the stenographer who sits below, and signed by Anna Steuer, +M.D., of Elsinore, Brabant County, State of New York. It was witnessed +by Drs. MacDougal and Meyers, who accompanied me from the hospital to +the Court-house. Mr. Broderick of the _New York News_, as I mentioned +before, also heard the confession and affixed his signature." + +He handed the sheets to the jury and stepped down. For a moment there +was no sound but the scratching of pencils on the opposite side of the +room and the faint rustle of paper in the jury-box. Mrs. Balfame had +drawn her veil across her face and sat huddled in her chair. + +The two doctors and Broderick took the stand briefly, the former +testifying that Dr. Steuer had been of clear and sound mind when she +made and signed her statement. Then the district attorney stood up, and +in lifeless tones--Dr. Anna had been his family's most cherished +friend--asked if there was any prospect of the self-confessed criminal +being examined further. Rush went over to Mrs. Balfame and pressed his +hand hard upon her shoulder. + +"May it please your honour," he said, "Dr. Anna Steuer expired before we +left the hospital." + +Again there was a furious scratching of pens. Not a reporter glanced at +Mrs. Balfame. They had forgotten her existence. The Judge asked the jury +if they wished to retire once more for deliberation. The foreman faced +about. The other eleven shook their heads with decision. + +The Judge dismissed them and congratulated the defendant, who had risen +and stood clutching the back of her chair. The reporters raced one +another down the stairs to the telegraph-offices and telephone-booths. + +It was physically impossible for Mrs. Balfame to faint, or to lose +self-control for more than a moment at a time. She drew away from the +friends that crowded about her, one or two of the women hysterical. + +"I shall ask Mr. Rush to take me over to the jail for a few moments," +she said in her clear cold voice. "I must put a few things together, and +I wish to have a few words alone with Mr. Rush." She turned to the dazed +Mr. Cummack. "Take Polly home," she said peremptorily. "Mr. Rush will +drive me over later." + +"All right, Enid." He tucked Mrs. Cummack under his arm. "Your room's +been ready for a week." + +As Rush was about to follow his client he turned abruptly and exchanged +a long look with Alys Crumley. Both faces were pallid and drawn with +fatigue but their eyes for that swift moment blazed with resentment and +despair. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +When Rush and Mrs. Balfame reached the jail sitting-room she +mechanically removed her heavy hat and veil and sank into a chair. + +"Is it true that Anna is dead?" + +Her voice was as toneless as the district attorney's had been. + +"Yes--and we can only be grateful." + +"And she did that for me--for _me_. How strange! How very, very +strange!" + +"It has been done before in the history of the world." Rush too was very +tired. + +"But a woman--" + +"I fancy you were the romance of poor Anna's life. She indulged in no +dreams of the usual sort, with her plain face and squat figure. No doubt +she had centred all her romantic yearnings and all her maternal cravings +on you. She thought you perfect--unequalled--" + +"I! I!" + +She sprang to her feet and thrust her head forward, her eyes coming to +life with resentment and wonder. + +"What--_what_ am I that two people--two people like you and Anna +Steuer--should be ready to die for me? Why, I have never thought of a +mortal being but myself! Anna must have been born with dotage in her +brain. She knew me all my life. She saw me organise charities, give to +the poor what I could afford, find work for the deserving now and +again, and she heard me read absurd compositions before the Friday Club +upon the duty of Women to Society; but she must have known that all were +mere details in my scheme of life and that I was the most selfish +creature that ever breathed." + +Rush shrugged his shoulders, although he was watching her with a +quickened interest. "Why try to analyse? The gift to inspire +devotion--fascination--is as determinate as the gift to write a poem or +compose a symphony. It has existed in some of the worst men and women +that have ever lived. You are not that--not by a long sight--" + +"Oh, no! I am not one of the worst women that have ever lived. Do you +know what I am, how I see myself to-night? I am merely a commonplace +woman everlastingly anxious to do the 'right thing.' That is the +beginning and the end of me, with the exception of a brief aberration--a +release under stress of those anti-social instincts that are deep in +every mortal and exhibited by every child that ever lived. Oh, I am one +of civilisation's proudest products, for I never had the slightest +difficulty with those inherited impulses before. Nor will they ever rise +again. I've even 'improved' during my long hours of solitude in this +room, but it's all of a piece. I've not changed. We none of us do that. +I shall live and die a commonplace woman trying to do the 'right +thing.'" + +"Oh--let us go now. You must rest. You are very tired." + +"I was. But it has passed. The shock of Anna's statement and death +brought me up standing. I shall sail for Europe to-morrow, if there is a +boat. It was Anna's constant regret that she could not go to the +battlefields and nurse, but she would not leave those that depended upon +her here. In some small measure I can take her place. They give a first +course in London I am told. And I am strong, very strong." + +She paused abruptly and moved forward and took his hand. + +"Good night and good-bye," she said. "I shall sleep here to-night. And +please understand that you are free." + +"What do you mean?" Rush's face set like a mask, but the colour mounted. +The grip of his hand was merely nervous, and when she withdrew hers his +unconsciously went to his hip and steadied itself. + +"I mean that so far as lies in my power I shall harm no one again as +long as I live. Moreover, I have seen how it was with you for some time, +although I would not admit it, for I intended to marry you. Perhaps I +should have done so if it had not been for Anna. It took that to lift me +quite out of myself and enable me to see myself and all things relating +to me in their true proportions--for once. It is my moment--If I am ever +to have one. You no longer love me, and if you did I should not marry +you. I say nothing of the injustice to yourself--I could not take the +risk of disillusioning you." She laughed a little nervously. "I fancy I +have done that already. But it does not matter. Go and marry some girl +near your own age who will be a companion, not an ideal with heart and +brain as well as feet of clay." + +"You are excited," said Rush brusquely, although his heart was +hammering, and singing youth poured through his veins. "I shall leave +you now--" + +"You will say good-bye to me now, and that is the last word. I'll +telephone my plans to Cummack in the morning. There is no reason for us +to meet again. To me you will always be a very wonderful and beautiful +memory, for it is something--be sure I appreciate just what it does +mean--to have embodied a romantic illusion if only for an hour. Now +good-bye once more; and find your real happiness as quickly as you can." + +She had opened the door. She pushed him gently out into the corridor, +closed the door and locked it. Mrs. Balfame was alone with the crushing +burden of her soul. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. 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