CHAPTER XXVI

With the remark that he had to go to his good lady or his good lady would have to come to him, Julius had taken his departure in a motor ambulance. He could as well have gone by taxi, but he expressed a preference for an ambulance. “One with a red cross,” he suggested. Diana had ’phoned a garage, and Julius Superbus made his exit dramatically, covered with blankets, flat on a stretcher, and smiling the smile of one who was not long for this world but wasn’t afraid to go.

“And what my missus will say when I come home short, I shudder to think,” he said pathetically. “I don’t know: the only satisfaction I’ve got is that it was done on dooty.”

This significantly. When he had gone, Diana asked:

“What is a toe worth, Bobbie? I must send the poor dear something. Would two hundred pounds be too little?”

“It was a little toe,” said Bobbie thoughtfully; “a big toe would have cost you more. Try him with two hundred.”

Diana wrote at once.

She felt in excellent humour despite the empty safe with its hanging door; despite the shadow of tragedy which had impinged upon the house. Eleanor and the cook had made an early return. She had told them to stay away until Tuesday. They had argued (so they said) as to whether she had said Monday or Tuesday, and, to be on the safe side, had returned on the earlier day. Cook’s triumph (she had supported the Tuesday view) was tempered by the chagrin of a lost twenty-four hours of well-paid idleness.

Heloise, from an upper window, saw the detective take his ceremonious departure. She had reason to be glad that Dempsi’s shots had done no greater mischief. She had been noticeably nervous all that morning, starting at every sound. Once Diana had found her hiding--there was no other word for it--in the little book-room and, detected, she had been so frightened and confused that Diana for a second was puzzled, till she remembered that the abrupt departure of Double Dan must have shocked the poor girl beyond understanding.

Diana had finished her letter when Heloise came aimlessly into the room and looked round. Dempsi was sitting on the sofa, his face in his hands, looking moodily into the fire. Bobbie was in his own room, engaged in some mysterious business of his own (he was writing frantic telegrams to Gordon, imploring him to return; these he addressed to every hotel in Paris where he was likely to be found).

Diana looked up with a smile, blotted the envelope and fixed a stamp.

“You must talk with Aunt--with Helosie--and amuse her,” she said.

“Huh?” Dempsi broke off his meditations with a start.

“You have met Heloise?”

So many unlikely things had happened in the past forty-eight hours that it was quite possible she had omitted an introduction. She would not have been surprised if Dempsi denied having ever met Aunt Lizzie.

“Oh yes, we have met,” he said awkwardly. “Did the shot waken you? I owe you ten thousand apologies if it did.”

She shook her head sadly.

“No, no. My mind was too full of--something else. Something that I cannot explain. Uncle--Uncle Isaac has really gone?”

Diana nodded.

“Gone! Out of my life! It doesn’t seem possible.”

Dempsi was vaguely interested, fixing her with a blank look; he also was thinking of something else.

“Dear lady, you seem very sad,” he said mildly.

Her tragic eyes moved till they rested on his.

“Sad! When I think of my old home and my dear father in Michigan----”

“I thought you said Connecticut,” interrupted Diana.

Heloise was a quick thinker.

“Mother lives there,” she said gently. “Poppa is in Michigan. They’re living apart.”

“I see,” said Diana helpfully, “happily separated. Most of one’s friends are. It is so convenient for everybody--it simply means if you keep on good terms with both, that you double the number of your friends. You must feel rather nice about returning to America--having two homes that will welcome you.”

Heloise looked hard at the girl. She was never quite sure whether she was being very serious or very sarcastic. Other people disliked Diana for the same reason.

“So you’re going home?” Dempsi roused himself to take a benevolent interest in Aunt Lizzie.

“Yes, I’m going back to a new life, thanks to Miss Ford,” she said quietly. “Some day this life will seem like a bad dream; I shall forget everything, except those who have robbed me of that which was dearer than life itself.”

The embarrassed Diana made her escape.

“You go to America?”

“Yes.”

“It is a beautiful country. A wonderful country!” mused Dempsi.

The click of the door as Diana disappeared brought him to his feet, and his expression had undergone a remarkable change. He looked down at Heloise keenly, as he rasped:

“Now, where is that money?”

Heloise glanced at the door, looked over her shoulder: the room was empty.

“You know where it is, Sally!” he said harshly. “Now come across!”

She was not sad any more; on the contrary, she was on the verge of fury. Hands on hips, she faced him.

“Say, Dan, you’re the cleverest thing in male impersonators I know,” she said shrilly. “I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to see you come into this room disguised as a performing flea. But the innocent child is outside your repertoire. You wouldn’t last three bars as Little Eva. Who took the money? You cheap skate! You’re not going to put that over on me! You took the money. You took it, and helped that poor fool make a getaway at the same time. I guess you were working on the safe when he came in.”

“You lie!” He was beside himself with wrath. “I came in after you’d got it out. I didn’t mean to shoot--I guess that was the maddest thing I ever did. But I saw this guy getting through the window, and I guessed what happened. He gave you the money to let him escape!”

She showed her white teeth in a grimace of fury.

“You mean I’ve got it right now? In my pocket?”

“Sure I mean that,” he said doggedly.

She heaved up a long, impatient sigh.

“You’re going to hear from my husband’s lawyers! That’s what! And right here and now I’m telling you sump’n, you four-flushin’ dog! You took the money, and shot that poor boob when he came in to see who it was breaking the tin! What were you doing in the room all dressed up ready to jump the first train out of London--and leave me flat? You sneak! Haven’t I worked hard for you? Haven’t I sat for hours making an exhibition of my darned ego for that soul-lizard? Didn’t I get out of him the story of Diana, and give you the script and band parts and light cues? Didn’t I pump him till there was noth’n’ left but the squeak and the handle? And--do--you--dare--to turn me down?”

He dared nothing. Her victory was complete when he began to make excuses.

“There was fifty thousand dollars in that safe. All I’ve got is a crossed cheque that’s as useful as confetti at a funeral. It will take two days to clear: Selsbury will be back to-night.”

“Fifty thousand dollars!” she sneered. “You told me nothing about that. Maybe you forgot it? You said there wasn’t a thousand pounds in the job. Didn’t you? You said you’d be glad if you got back expenses. Am I lying? And what’s that cheque anyway? Money she owed Dempsi? Great snakes--the money Dempsi threw at her! I told you that, and I’d forgotten it!”

She ran her fingers through her hair. Her smile was fixed and terrifying. The smile of the Medusas was jocund by comparison.

“I forgot about it until I got a note from her enclosing the money,” he protested. “Why, when that cheque came along, you could have blown me down. It was then I saw big money in the proposition and decided to go after the rest of the stuff. It looked easy to me.”

Impolite scepticism showed in her eye, and his injured air only intensified her suspicions.

“Now, Dan, you’re a wonderful teller of tales and I guess if I were a bit younger I’d fall for it!” she said practically. “But you’re going to be a good little boy and ’fess up to Auntie that you took that money, and then you’ll say ‘Auntie, we’ll split it fifty-fifty.’ And if you don’t, Dan, why, it’s ‘Good morning, judge’ for yours!”

He tried blandishment.

“Honest, now, Sally, you’ve got it,” he said genially. “Let’s get right down to cases and----”

“Would I be here doing this act and allowing my emotions to destroy my beauty if I had it? Shouldn’t I be stepping on it? Would you be exchanging persiflage with anything but the dust of my trail?”

This point appeared logical.

“That’s true,” he said. “Then who opened the safe--not Selsbury?”

“You did,” she nodded, and he went purple.

“Curse you! I told you I didn’t take it....”

The door handle turned. Without looking round they knew it was Diana. She had omitted to enclose a cheque in her letter, she remarked at large, but they were too absorbed in their talk to heed her.

“I just love the country,” sighed Heloise. “To hear the old blue jays singing and watch the clouds coming up over the hill and feel the breeze in your face--why, there’s nothing quite like it, Mr. Dempsi.”

“I’ve never seen you two talking before,” said Diana with a smile. Which was true.

In a few seconds she was gone....

“Now see here, Sally, we haven’t time to act foolishly over this business. The stuff was taken, maybe by that guy Selsbury. What did you come here for, anyway?” It was a question that he had been seeking an opportunity to ask.

“I came here when I found you were trying to work the job as a one-man performance. I know you, Dan; you’ve got a mighty bad reputation amongst honest crooks.”

He laughed without merriment.

“I’m trying to live it down. Where has he gone--did he tell you he was leaving?”

“No; we’d given up confidences before he left. You said he would come back. I’ve got it in my bones that you’re right. I guess he got it.”

“But he couldn’t have worked a job like this single-handed,” said the other. “Why, your husband couldn’t have opened that safe more scientifically....”

She was not willing to be turned by gross flattery.

“Cut out the small talk and get right down to the grand facts of life,” she said briskly. “Did I find Selsbury and affinitize him or did I not? Did I....”

He snarled at her like an angry mongrel.

“‘Did I, didn’t I’--great Moses! Do I want all that stuff? Why did you allow him to come back here?”

“Let him come back?” she said scornfully. “I made him come back! When I got him into the house, I had him like that. I knew how you’d turn up. I knew there was money here, and I was going to stay with it. It’s a funny thing about me that, of all the affinities I’ve met, noth’n’ is quite so close as money. Noth’n’ understands me better or talks more like Governor George Demosthenes.”

The man was finished. He too was a philosopher.

“Well, there’s no help for it,” he said with a groan that he could not suppress. “We’ll have to share. The old terms, mind--none of your fifty-fifty stuff. Seventy-thirty.”

“Seventy-thirty! Well, I admire cold blood! It’s fifty-fifty or nothing with me, Dan. But there ain’t anything to share.”

Here he corrected her.

“She’s paying up. I’ve given her back the cheque. If you wait half-an-hour she’ll have it cashed. Now are you satisfied? Sixty-forty?”

“Fifty-fifty!” said Heloise firmly. “You’d never forgive yourself if you gave me less.”

They wrangled for ten minutes; in the end Heloise gained a victory for principle.