Chapter 9

"And then she thought of you."

"I wonder why?"

"Because you were the only person in that room except Mrs. Gates, the lady who lost the purse, Mrs. Ramsay, and--eh?" "N--nothing. Mrs. Ramsay, you said?"

"Yes."

"Not Mrs. Edward Ramsay, of Philadelphia?"

"Oh, you know the name?"

"Oh, yes, I know it."

"It was printed, you know, in gold lettering on the inside flap and--"

"I don't know."

"Well, it was, and it contained three hundred dollars, Mrs. Ramsay says. She had slipped it under the fold of the spread at the top of the bed in the room where you took off your things in Mrs. Gates' presence, and put them on again when no one else was there."

"And you mean to tell me that this is all?" I raged at him; "that every bit of evidence you have to warrant your treating an innocent girl like--"

"You didn't behave like a very innocent girl, if you'll remember," he said dryly, "when I first came into the box. In fact, if that fellow hadn't just come in then I believe you'd 'a' confessed the whole job.... 'Tain't too late," he added.

I didn't answer. I put my head back against the cushions and closed my eyes. I could feel the scrutiny of his blue eyes on my naked face--your face is so unprotected with the eyes closed; like a fort whose battery is withdrawn. But I was tired--it tires you when you care. A year ago, Mag, this sort of thing--the risk, the nearness to danger, the chances one way or the other--would have intoxicated me. I used to feel as though I was dancing on a volcano and daring it to explode. The more twistings and turnings there were to the labyrinth, the greater glory it was to get out. Maggie darlin', you have before you a mournful spectacle--the degeneration of Nancy Olden. It isn't that she's lost courage. It's only that she used to be able to think of only one thing, and now--What do you suppose it is, Mag? If you know, don't you dare to tell me.

When we got to the flat Obermuller was already there. At the door I pulled out my key and opened it with a flourish.

"Won't you come in, gentlemen, and spend the evening?" I asked.

They followed me in. First to the parlor. The two fellows threw off their coats and searched that through and through--not a drawer did they miss, not a bit of furniture did they fail to move. Obermuller and I sat there guying them as they pried about in their shirt-sleeves. That Trust business has taken the life out of him of late. All their tricks, all their squeezings, their cheatings, their bossing and bragging and bullying have got on to his nerves till he looks like a chained bear getting a drubbing. And he swears that they're in a conspiracy to freeze him and a few others like him out; he believes there's actually a paper in existence that would prove it. But this affair of the purse seemed to excite him till he behaved like a bad school-boy.

And I? Well, Nance Olden was never far behind at the Cruelty when there was anything going on. We trailed after them, and when they'd finished with the bedrooms--yours and mine--I asked the big fellow to come into the kitchen with Mr. O. and me, while the blue-eyed detective tackled the dining-room, and I'd get up a lunch for us all.

Mag, you should have seen Fred Obermuller with a big apron on him, dressing the salad while I was making sandwiches. The Cruelty taught me how to cook, even if it did teach me other things. You wouldn't have believed that the Trust had got him by the throat, and was choking the last breath out of him. You wouldn't have believed that our salaries hadn't been paid for three weeks, that our houses were dwindling every night, that--

I was thinking about it all there in the back of my head, trying to see a way out of it--you know if there is such an agreement as Obermuller swears there is, it's against the law--while we rattled on, the two of us, like a couple of children on a picnic, when I heard a crash behind me.

The salad bowl had slipped from Obermuller's fingers. He stood with his back turned to me, his eyes fixed upon that searching detective.

But he wasn't searching any more, Mag. He was standing still as a pointer that's scented game. He had moved the lounge out from the wall, and there on the floor, spread open where it had fallen, lay a handsome elephant-skin purse, with gold corners. From where I stood, Mag, I could read the plain gold lettering on the dark leather. I didn't have to move. It was plain enough--quite plain.

Mrs. EDWARD RAMSAY

Hush, hush, Mag; if you take on so, how can I tell you the rest?

Obermuller got in front of me as I started to walk into the dining-room. I don't know what his idea was. I don't suppose he does exactly--if it wasn't to spare me the sight of that damned thing.

Oh, how I hated it, that purse! I hated it as if it had been something alive that could be glad of what it had done. I wished it was alive that I could tear and rend it and stamp on it and throw it in a fire, and drag it out again, with burned and bleeding nails, to tear it again and again. I wanted to fall on it and hide it; to push it far, far away out of sight; to stamp it down--down into the very bottom of the earth, where it could feel the hell it was making for me.

But I only stood there, stupidly looking at it, having pushed past Obermuller, as though I never wanted to see anything else.

And then I heard that blue-eyed fellow's words.

"Well," he said, pulling on his coat as though he'd done a good day's work, "I guess you'd just better come along with me."

XI.

"Don't you think you'd better get out of this?" I asked Obermuller, as he came into the station a few minutes after I got there.

"No."

"I do."

"Because?"

"Because it won't do you any good to have your name mixed up with a thing like this."

"But it might do you some good."

I didn't answer for a minute after that. I sat in my chair, my eyes bent on the floor. I counted the cracks between the chair and the floor of the office where the Chief was busy with another case. I counted them six times, back and forth, till my eyes were clear and my voice was steady.

"You're awfully good," I said, looking up at him as he stood by me. "You're the best fellow I ever knew. I didn't know men could be so good to women... But you'd better go--please. It'll be bad enough when the papers get hold of this, without having them lump you in with a bad lot like me."

He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a quick little shake.

"Don't say that about yourself. You're not a bad lot."

"But--you saw the purse."

"Yes, I saw it. But it hasn't proved anything to me but this: you're innocent, Nance, or you're crazy. If it's the first, I want to stand by you, little girl. If it's the second--good God! I've got to stand by you harder than ever."

Can you see me sitting there, Mag, in the bright, bare little room, with its electric lights, still in my white dress and big white hat, my pretty jacket fallen on the floor beside me? I could feel the sharp blue eyes of that detective Morris feeding on my miserable face. But I could feel, too, a warmth like wine poured into me from that big fellow's voice.

I put my hand up to him and he took it.

"If I'm innocent and can prove it, Fred Obermuller, I'll get even with you for--for this."

"Do you want to do something for me now?"

"Do I?"

"Well, if you want to help me, don't sit there looking like the criminal ghost of the girl I know."

The blood rushed to my face. Nance Olden, a sniveling coward! Me, showing the white feather--me, whimpering like a whipped puppy--me--Nance Olden!

"You know," I smiled up at him, "I never did enjoy getting caught."

"Hush! But that's better.... Tell me now--"

A buzzer sounded. The blue-eyed detective got up and came over to me.

"Chief's ready," he said. "This way."

They stopped Obermuller at the door. But he pushed past them.

"I want to say just a word to you, Chief," he said. "You remember me. I'm Obermuller, of the Vaudeville. If you'll send those fellows out and let me speak to you just a moment, I'll leave you alone with Miss Olden."

The Chief nodded to the blue-eyed detective, and he and the other fellow went out and shut the door behind them.

"I want simply to call your attention to the absurdity and unreasonableness of this thing," Obermuller said, leaning up against the Chief's desk, while he threw out his left hand with that big open gesture of his, "and to ask you to bear in mind, no matter what appearances may be, that Miss Olden is the most talented girl on the stage to-day; that in a very short time she will be at the top; that just now she is not suffering for lack of money; that she's not a high-roller, but a determined, hard-working little grind, and that if she did feel like taking a plunge, she knows that she could get all she wants from me even--"

"Even if you can't pay salaries when they're due, Obermuller." The Chief grinned under his white mustache.

"Even though the Trust is pushing me to the wall; going to such lengths that they're liable criminally as well as civilly, if I could only get my hands on proof of their rascality. It's true I can't pay salaries always when they're due, but I can still raise a few hundred to help a friend. And Miss Olden is a friend of mine. If you can prove that she took this money, you prove only that she's gone mad, but you don't--"

"All right, Obermuller. You're not the lawyer for the defense. That'll come later--if it does come. I'll be glad to bear in mind all you've said, and much that you haven't."

"Thank you. Good night.... I'll wait for you, Nance, outside."

"I'm going to ask you a lot of questions, Miss Olden," the old Chief said, when we were alone. "Sit here, please. Morris tells me you've got more nerve than any woman that's ever come before me, so I needn't bother to reassure you. You don't look like a girl that's easily frightened. I have heard how you danced in the lobby of the Manhattan, how you guyed him at your flat, and were getting lunch and having a regular picnic of a time when--"

"When he found that purse."

"Exactly. Now, why did you do all that?"

"Why? Because I felt like it. I felt gay and excited and--"

"Not dreaming that that purse was sure to be found?"

"Not dreaming that there was such a purse in existence except from the detective's say--so, and never fancying for an instant that it would be found in my flat."

"Hm!" He looked at me from under his heavy, wrinkled old lids. You don't get nice eyes from looking on the nasty things in this world, Mag.

"Why," I cried, "what kind of a girl could cut up like that when she was on the very edge of discovery?"

"A very smart girl--an actress; a good one; a clever thief who's used to bluffing. Of course," he added softly, "you won't misunderstand me. I'm simply suggesting the different kinds of girl that could have done what you did. But, if you don't mind, I'll do the questioning. Nance Olden," he turned suddenly on me, his manner changed and threatening, "what has become of that three hundred dollars?"

"Mr. Chief, you know just as much about that as I do."

I threw up my head and looked him full in the face. It was over now--all the shivering and trembling and fearing. Nance Olden's not a coward when she's fighting for her freedom; and fighting alone without any sympathizing friend to weaken her.

He returned the look with interest.

"I may know more," he said insinuatingly.

"Possibly." I shrugged my shoulders.

No, it wasn't put on. There never yet was a man who bullied me that didn't rouse the fighter in me. I swore to myself that this old thief-catcher shouldn't rattle me.

"Doesn't it occur to you that under the circumstances a full confession might be the very best thing for you? I shouldn't wonder if these people would be inclined to be lenient with you if you'd return the money. Doesn't it occur--"

"It might occur to me if I had anything to confess--about this purse."

"How long since you've seen Mrs. Edward Ramsay?" He rushed the question at me.

I jumped.

"How do you know I've ever seen her?"

"I do know you have."

"I don't believe you."

"Thank you; neither do I believe you, which is more to the point. Come, answer the question: how long is it since you have seen the lady?"

I looked at him. And then I looked at my glove, and slowly pulled the fingers inside out, and then--then I giggled. Suddenly it came to me--that silly, little insane dodge of mine in the Bishop's carriage that day; the girl who had lost her name; and the use all that affair might be to me if ever--

"I'll tell you if you'll let me think a minute," I said sweetly. "It--it must be all of fifteen months."

"Ah! You see I did know that you've met the lady. If you're wise you'll draw deductions as to other things I know that you don't think I do.... And where did you see her?"

"In her own home."

"Called there," he sneered, "alone?"

"No," I said very gently. "I went there, to the best of my recollection, with the Bishop--yes, it was the Bishop, Bishop Van Wagenen."

"Indeed!"

I could see that he didn't believe a word I was saying, which made me happily eager to tell him more.

"Yes, we drove up to the Square one afternoon in the Bishop's carriage--the fat, plum-colored one, you know. We had tea there--at least, I did. I was to have spent the night, but--"

"That's enough of that."

I chuckled. Yes, Mag Monahan, I was enjoying myself. I was having a run for my money, even if it was the last run I was to have.

"So it's fifteen months since you've seen Mrs. Ramsay, eh?"

"Yes."

He turned on me with a roar.

"And yet it's only a week since you saw her at Mrs. Gates'."

"Oh, no."

"No? Take care!"

"That night at Mrs. Gates' it was dark, you know, in the front room. I didn't see Mrs. Ramsay that night. I didn't know she was there at all till--"

"Till?"

"Till later I was told."

"Who told you?"

"Her husband."

He threw down his pencil.

"Look here, this is no lark, young woman, and you needn't trouble yourself to weave any more fairy tales. Mr. Ramsay is in a--he's very ill. His own wife hasn't seen him since that night, so you see you're lying uselessly."

"Really!" So Edward didn't go back to Mrs. Gates' that night. Tut! tut! After his telephone message, too!

"Now, assuming your innocence of the theft, Miss Olden, what is your theory; how do you account for the presence of that purse in your flat?"

"Now, you've hit the part of it that really puzzles me. How do you account for it; what is your theory?"

He got to his feet, pushing his chair back sharply.

"My theory, if you want to know it, is that you stole the purse; that your friend Obermuller believes you did; that you got away with the three hundred, or hid it away, and--"

"And what a stupid thief I must be, then, to leave the empty purse under my lounge!"

"How do you know it was empty?" he demanded sharply.

"You said so... Well, you gave me to understand that it was, then. What difference does it make? It would be a still stupider thief who'd leave a full purse instead of an empty one under his own lounge."

"Yes; and you're not stupid, Miss Olden."

"Thank you. I'm sorry I can't say as much for you."

I couldn't help it. He was such a stupid. The idea of telling me that Fred Obermuller believed me guilty! The idea of thinking me such a fool as to believe that! Such men as that make criminals. They're so fat-witted you positively ache--they so tempt you to pull the wool over their eyes. O Mag, if the Lord had only made men cleverer, there'd be fewer Nancy Oldens.

The Chief blew a blast at his speaking-tube that made his purple cheeks seem about to burst. My shoulders shook as I watched him, he was so wrathy.

And I was still laughing when I followed the detective out into the waiting-room, where Obermuller was pacing the floor. At the sight of my smiling face he came rushing to me.

"Nance!" he cried.

"Orders are, Morris," came in a bellow from the Chief at his door, "that no further communication be allowed between the prisoner and--"

Phew! All the pertness leaked out of me. Oh, Mag, I don't like that word. It stings--it binds--it cuts.

I don't know what I looked like then; I wasn't thinking of me. I was watching Obermuller's face. It seemed to grow old and thin and haggard before my eyes, as the blood drained out of it. He turned with an exclamation to the Chief and--

And just then there came a long ring at the telephone.

Why did I stand there? O Mag, when you're on your way to the place I was bound for, when you know that before you'll set foot in this same bright little room again, the hounds in half a dozen cities will have scratched clean every hiding-place you've had, when your every act will be known and--and--oh, then, you wait, Mag, you wait for anything--anything in the world; even a telephone call that may only be bringing in another wretch like yourself; bound, like yourself, for the Tombs.

The Chief himself went to answer it.

"Yes--what?" he growled. "Well, tell Long Distance to get busy. What's that? St. Francis--that's the jag ward, isn't it? Who is it? Who? Ramsay!"

I caught Obermuller's hand.

"I don't hear you," the Chief roared. "Oh--yes? Yes, we've got the thief, but the money--no, we haven't got the money. The deuce you say! Took it yourself? Out of your wife's purse--yes.... Yes. But we've got the--What? Don't remember where you--"

"Steady, Nance," whispered Obermuller, grabbing my other hand.

I tried to stand steady, but everything swayed and I couldn't hear the rest of what the Chief was saying, though all my life seemed condensed into a listening. But I did hear when he jammed the receiver on the hook and faced us.

"Well, they've got the money. Ramsay took the purse himself, thinking it wasn't safe there under the spread where any servant might be tempted who chanced to uncover it. You'll admit the thing looked shady. The reason Mrs. Ramsay didn't know of it is because the old man's just come to his senses in a hospital and been notified that the purse was missing."

"I want to apologize to you, Chief," I mumbled.

"For thinking me stupid? Oh, we were both--"

"No, for thinking me not stupid. I am stupid--stupid--stupid. The old fellow I told you about, Mr. O., and the way I telephoned him out of the flat that night--it was--"

"Ramsay!"

I nodded, and then crumbled to the floor.

It was then that they sent for you, Mag.

Why didn't I tell it straight at the first, you dear old Mag? Because I didn't know the straight of it, then, myself. I was so heavy-witted I never once thought of Edward. He must have taken the bills out of the purse and then crammed them in his pocket while he was waiting there on the lounge and I was pretending to telephone and--

But it's best as it is--oh, so best! Think, Mag! Two people who knew her--who knew her, mind--believed in Nancy Olden, in spite of appearances: Obermuller, while we were in the thick of it, and; you, you dear girl, while I was telling you of it.

XII.

When Obermuller sent for me I thought he wanted to see me about that play he's writing in which I'm to star--when the pigs begin to fly.

Funniest thing in the world about that man, Mag. He knows he can't get bookings for any play on earth; that if he did they'd be canceled and any old excuse thrown at him, as soon as Tausig heard of it and could put on the screws. He knows that there isn't an unwatched hole in theatrical America through which he can crawl and pull me and the play in after him. And yet he just can't let go working on it. He loves it, Mag; he loves it as Molly loved that child of hers that kept her nursing it all the years of its life, and left her feeling that the world had been robbed of everything there was for a woman to do when it died.

Obermuller has told me all the plot. In fact, he's worked it out on me. I know it as it is, as he wanted it to be, and as it's going to be. He tells me he's built it up about me; that it will fit me as never a comedy fitted a player yet, and that we'll make such a hit--the play and I together--that ...

And then he remembers that there's no chance; not the ghost of one; and he falls to swearing at the Trust.

"Don't you think, Mr. O.," I said, as he began again when I came into his office, "that it might be as well to quit cursing the Syndicate till you've got something new to say or something different to rail about? It seems to me a man's likely to get daffy if he keeps harping on--"

"Oh, I've got it all right, Nance, be sure of that! I've got something different to say of them and something new to swear about. They've done me up; that's all. Just as they've fixed Iringer and Gaffney and Howison."

"Tell me."

He threw out his arms and then let them fall to his side.

"Oh, it's easy," he cried, "so easy that I never thought of it. They've just bought the Vaudeville out of hand and served notice on me that when my lease expires next month they'll not be able to renew it, 'unfortunately'! That's all. No; not quite. In order to kill all hope of a new plan in me they've just let it get to be understood that any man or woman that works for Obermuller needn't come round to them at any future time."

"Phew! A blacklist."

"Not anything so tangible. It's just a hint, you know, but it works all right. It works like--"

"What are you going to do; what can you do?"

"Shoot Tausig or myself, or both of us."

"Nonsense!"

"Yes, of course, it's nonsense, or rather it's only what I'd like to do.... But that's not the question. Never mind about me. It's what are you going to do?"

He looked straight at me, waiting. But I didn't answer. I was thinking.

"You don't realize, Nance, what those fellows are capable of. When Gaffney told me, before he gave up and went West, that there was a genuine signed conspiracy among them to crush out us independents, I laughed at him. 'It's a dream, Gaffney,' I said. 'Forget it.' 'It's no dream, as you'll find out when your turn comes in time,' he shouted. 'It's a fact, and what's more, Iringer once taxed Tausig to his face with it; told him he knew there was such a document in existence, signed by the great Tausig himself, by Heffelfinger of the Pacific circuit; by Dixon of Chicago, and Weinstock of New Orleans, binding themselves to force us fellows to the wall, and specifying the per cent. of profit each one of 'em should get on any increase of business; to blacklist every man and woman that worked for us; to buy up our debts and even bring false attachments, when--'"

"Now, weren't there enough real debts to satisfy 'em? They're hard to please, if you haven't creditors enough to suit 'em!"

He looked grim, but he didn't speak.

"I don't believe it, anyway, Mr. O; and 'tisn't good for you to keep thinking about just one thing. You'll land where Iringer did, if you don't look out. How did he know about it, anyway?"

"There was a leak in Tausig's office. Iringer used to be in with them, and he had it from a clerk who--but never mind that. It's the blacklisting I'm talking about now. Gray's just been in to see me, to let me know that she quits at the end of the season. And his Lordship, too, of course. You're not burdened with a contract, Nance. Perhaps you'd better think it over seriously for a day or two and decide if it wouldn't be best--"

"I don't have to," I interrupted then.

"Nance!" he cried, jumping up, as though he'd been relieved of half his troubles.

"I don't have to think it over," I went on slowly, not looking at the hand he held out to me. "It doesn't take long to know that when you're between the devil and the deep sea, you'd better try--the devil rather than be forced out into the wet."

"What?--you don't mean--"

I knew he was looking at me incredulously, but I just wouldn't meet his eye.