Part 10

"Can't you imagine it? The big ship sailing through the night with the lights of farms and little towns sliding by far below, and above the sky muffled deep in black clouds. Poised between them the man and woman, each gripped by a different passion--suspended there like two naked souls in a sort of elemental battle of the sexes.

"He admits he was scared and if he could have spoken to her would have pacified her with all sorts of assurances. But speech was out of the question, and when she made a sudden lunge across him for the wheel he realized she would kill them both if he didn't bring her to earth. Throwing her back with a blow of his elbow, he yelled that he was coming down and as she felt the machine begin its glancing, downward glide she fell back into her place, suddenly quiet, then leaned forward scanning the country below them.

"A momentary break of the clouds let a little light spill through and by this he saw a bare, bold landscape darkened by woods, and with the gleam of a large body of water to the right, showing against the blackness like polished steel. He made a landing in an open space, an uncultivated field with a hillock in the center covered with grass and surrounded by trees. The water had drained off this and it was quite dry.

"She was hardly out on the ground and he was preparing for an explanation when to his surprise she curtly told him to follow her and led the way along a ridge that skirted the lake. This, too, was dry, a fact curiously in his favor, for their feet left no tracks, the grass closing on the trail they swept through it. She did not address him again till, the dim shape of a house appearing, he asked her if she was going there and she answered in the same, curt way: Yes; she was cold. A wharf jutted out in front of the house and in stepping from the grass to the planks he made a motion to help her, but she started away from him as if he was a snake, making two or three steps into the liquid mud that ran up to the wharf's edge. It was then he thought she dropped the glove. Once again on the planks she took a key from her purse, fitted it in the lock and opened the door.

"The room was pitch dark and Cokesbury stood in the doorway while she went in. She moved about as if she was accustomed to the place, lit a lamp, set a match to the fire already laid and gave him a copper kettle to fill with water from the lake. When he came back with it the table was set out with tea things and the fire was leaping up the chimney. She hung the kettle on a crane, swung it over the flames and then, turning to him, said:

"'Do you know where you are?' He said he didn't and she answered: 'You're in Jack Reddy's bungalow at Hochalaga Lake, the place where I've spent the happiest days of my life.'

"He looked at her in amazement and she smiled scornfully back at him. 'You fool!' she said, 'to think you could come blundering in and stop me from marrying the only man of all of you who's worth a heartbeat.'

"She made tea and then motioned him to sit down by the table, taking a seat at the other side. Facing each other in the lamplight they had a conversation that put an end to all his dreams. For the first time in his acquaintance with her he thought she spoke frankly. She told him of her friendship with Reddy from the start, and how the Doctor's senseless opposition had fanned a boy-and-girl flirtation into a passionate love affair.

"When the quarrels began at Mapleshade they found that they could meet without fear of detection at the Lake, she going out there in her car and he in his. She had her own key and often, during the autumn, she had gone to the bungalow in the morning, Reddy had joined her and they had spent the day together, canoeing and fishing on the lake, cooking a picnic meal over the fire, and driving home in the afternoon, the racer towing her car till they came to the turnpike.

"Cokesbury says he thinks at first it was only the spirit of romance and adventure which made her do such a rash thing, but that in the end Reddy's devotion and chivalrous attitude made a deep impression on her and she came as near loving him as she could any man. He says there is no doubt that the meetings were perfectly innocent and that Reddy had behaved from the start as a gentleman.

"'Whether she really loved him or not,' he said, 'he'd taught her to respect him.'

"They talked for over an hour, taking the tea she had made and Cokesbury smoking a cigar. He remembered leaving the butt in the saucer of his cup. It was half-past eight when they rose to go. Sylvia put out the lamp but the fire was still burning and the tea things were left on the table. Cokesbury says he promised to take her home, that he saw his case was hopeless, and he'd made up his mind to have done with her forever.

"The sky was clouded over and it was as dark as a pocket when they went back to the aeroplane. He had to direct the machine by guesswork, the country black below him and the sky black above. He swears that he intended to take her back to Mapleshade, and I believe him. No man--not even a bad egg like Cokesbury--wants to run away with a woman who hands out the line of talk that girl had in the bungalow.

"Anyway, we've only his word for the statement that he completely lost his bearings. He could see no lights and after making an exploratory circle, realized he hadn't the slightest idea which way to go. To make matters worse, he could hear from shouted remarks of hers that her suspicions were on the alert and that she was ready to flare up again. By this time there wasn't much of the lover left in him. According to his own words he was as anxious to get her home again as she was to be there. With his head clear and his blood cold he did not relish a second flight with a woman fighting like a wildcat.

"This was the situation--she, angry and disbelieving; he, scared and unable to conciliate her--when the twinkle of a light caught his eye and he decided to come down and ask his way. They dropped into a stretch of grass land among fields, with the light shining some way off through a screen of trees. Farther away, just a spark, he saw another light. He told her to wait while he went to inquire, and walked off toward the one that was nearest.

"It was Cresset's Farm. There he had the interview with Mrs. Cresset, telling her he had an auto in order to explain his presence. When he went back he found that Sylvia had disappeared. At first he didn't know what to do, realizing that if the story of their flight got abroad, there would be the devil to pay. He was certain she had disbelieved him and had taken the opportunity to get away from him. She was either hiding or had gone for the second light. This being the most plausible, he walked toward it--quite a distance across fields and through woods--and brought up at a ramshackle roadhouse--the Wayside Arbor.

"He stole round from the back to a side window and there, through a crack in the shutter, looked in and saw Sylvia talking to Hines. He says he stayed there for some minutes, afraid if he went in after her she would make a scene and start a scandal. Then his eyes fell on the telephone booth and he felt sure she had telephoned either to her own home or to Reddy. Her air of waiting--she was sitting by the stove with her feet on its lower edge--confirmed him in this and he decided to let her alone.

"He went back to the aeroplane, wondering what would be the outcome of the whole crazy escapade. He says he felt confident of her cleverness to hush the thing up, but he was uneasy. His discomfort wasn't lessened when he found that she had left her bag in the machine, and on his way home one of the things that preoccupied him was thinking up the best way of getting the bag back to her.

"Monday morning he went to town in a state of suspense. If she should tell there was no knowing what might happen and he was on the alert for a visit from the Doctor or even Reddy. But the day passed without any sign of trouble, and he was just calming down, thinking she had either found Reddy and gone with him or invented some story to quiet the Mapleshade people, when he read of the murder in the evening paper.

"_Then_, you better believe he was frightened. He knew the bag was hidden in his room at the Lodge and that as far as he could tell, not a soul had seen the airship. As to Mrs. Cresset, he felt safe for she couldn't possibly have made out a feature in the darkness."

"But," I cried out, "why if he hadn't done it----"

"That's all right," Babbitts interrupted. "He hadn't done it, but I tell you he was a coward. He was in a sweat for fear of being suspected, of being pulled in as a witness, of his reputation, his business, his position. He wanted to keep out of it at any cost."

"What a cur!" I said.

"Oh, he's that and more, and he's ready to admit it himself. But it wasn't as smooth sailing as he thought it would be. After the inquest he read of the overheard phone message and that brought him up with a jolt. He got in a state of terror, realizing too late that his silence was more incriminating than any confession.

"Every day his fears grew worse. He wouldn't answer any phone calls, faking up reasons to his clerks and his servants. Finally it got on his nerves so he couldn't stand it and he made ready to skip to Europe. The key was what tripped him up. Do you remember Mr. Whitney saying how criminals overlooked important details? Well, what he overlooked was the key of the garage. In his preoccupation on Monday morning he had put it in the pocket of the raincoat he was accustomed to leave in the auto and had simply forgotten it. Then when he went to pack his things he couldn't find it, hunted in a nervous frenzy and finally had his man telephone over to Miner's place. You and the key were the combination that beat him."

"But Jack Reddy?" I said. "Was he going to slink off and let him be tried for the murder when he could have cleared it all up?"

"He _says_ not and I guess the fellow's not as yellow as to have stood by and let an innocent man go to his death. He says there wasn't enough evidence to convict Reddy and if things had gone badly he would have come out and told what he knew. And I think that's true--anyway, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt."

"How can you be so sure? How do you know he's _not_ the murderer after all?"

"Oh, there's no doubt. Everything fits in too well. The police were out at Cokesbury Lodge on Saturday and saw the aeroplane and found Miss Hesketh's bag. Both the Whitneys--father and son, who've had a vast experience in this sort of case--say there's no question of his innocence."

We sat silent for a spell, looking at the stove, then I said:

"We're back just where we were in the beginning."

Babbitts leaned forward and shook down some ashes.

"The case is, but we're not," he said.

"How do you make that out?" I asked.

"Six weeks ago we didn't know each other and now we're friends."

"That's so," I said, and we both sat staring thoughtfully at the red eye of the stove.

XV

Cokesbury's story made a great sensation. Even if it didn't bring us any nearer to finding the murderer, it explained the mystery of Sylvia's movements up to the time she appeared in the Wayside Arbor, and it cleared Jack Reddy. Babbitts told me that the Whitneys were doing some legal stunts--I won't tell what they were for I'd never get them straight--to have him liberated, and that they would soon issue a statement to the press.

When it came out everybody saw why he had said such contradictory things about those seven hours on the road.

Babbitts and I had guessed right when we thought he was holding something back and when I heard why I was grateful to him. Yes, grateful, that's the word. And I'll tell you why I use it. He was my hero and he stayed a hero, didn't fall down and disappoint me, but made me know there were people in the world who could stick to their standard no matter _what_ happened. Don't you think that's a thing to be grateful for?

The reason he didn't tell was to protect the memory of that poor dead girl, who couldn't rise up and protect herself. He knew what wicked lies would be told and believed and he was going to shield her in death as he would have in life.

That night after he had searched the roads, he suddenly thought that in some wild freak she had gone to the bungalow in her own car and phoned him from there. As soon as the idea entered his head he went out to the lake. One glance showed him someone had been there before him--the room was warm, the fire still smouldering on the hearth. He lit the light and saw the two teacups and the cigar butt on the saucer. He examined the doors and windows and found that they were locked and there was no sign of anyone having broken in. The only person beside himself who had a key to the bungalow was Sylvia.

Then he knew she had been there with another man and one of those fierce rages came on him.

For a spell he was outside himself. He thought of things that never happened, the way people do in a fury--imagined Sylvia sending him the phone message with the other man standing by and laughing. He tore her letters out of the desk and threw them in the fire and smashed the tea things against the side of the house. He was half crazy, thinking himself fooled and made a mock of by the woman he had loved.

When his rage quieted down he sat brooding over the fire for a long time. It was moonlight when he left, bright enough for him to fill the tank. He had never thought about any inquiries for the missing drum till at the inquest the question of the gasoline was sprung on him. Then he lied, feeling certain that no one would ever go out to the lake. It was his intention to go there himself, hide the drum and clear out the cottage, but he put it off, hating to go near the place. If Pat Donahue hadn't gone there to fish through the ice--a thing no one would have dreamed of--the secret of the bungalow would never have been discovered.

One of the features of the case that he couldn't understand and that he spent the days in jail speculating about, was how she had reached the lake. The mud showed the tracks of only one auto, his own. He could find no solution to this mystery and he could speak to no one about it. Whatever happened to him, he had made up his mind he would never give her up to the evil-minded and evil-tongued who would blacken and tear to pieces all that was left of her.

He was liberated, and, believe me, Longwood rejoiced. It was as if a king who had been banished had come back to his throne.

I don't think he was home two days when he telephoned in asking me if he could come to see me and thank me for what I'd done. Wasn't that like him? Most men would have been so glad to get out of jail they'd have forgotten the hello girl who'd helped to free them, but not Jack Reddy.

He came in the late afternoon, at the time I got off. I'll never forget it. Katie Reilly was at the switchboard and I was standing at the window, watching, when I saw the two lights of the gray racer coming down the street.

I ran and opened the door--I wasn't bashful a bit--and when I saw him I gave a little cry, for he looked so changed, pale and haggard and older, a good many years older. But his smile was the same, and so was the kind, honest look of his face. Before he said a word he just held out his hand and mine went into it and I felt the clasp of his fingers warm and strong. And--strange it is, but true--I wasn't any more like the girl who used to tremble at the mere sight of him, but was calm and quiet, looking deep and steady into his eyes as if we'd got to be friends, the way a man might be friends with a boy.

"Miss Morganthau," he said, "I've heard what you've done, and I want to thank you."

"You needn't have taken all the trouble to come in from Firehill, Mr. Reddy," I answered. "You could have said it over the wire."

"Could I have done this over the wire?" he said, giving my hand a shake and a squeeze. "You know I couldn't. And that's what I wanted to do--take a grip of the hand that helped me out of prison."

I said some fool words about its being nothing and he went on smiling down at me, yet with something grave in his face.

"I want to do more--ask a favor of you. I hope it won't be hard to grant for I've set my heart on it. Can I be your friend?"

"Oh, Mr. Reddy," I stammered out, "you make me proud," and suddenly tears came into my eyes. I don't know why unless it was seeing him so changed and hearing him speak so humble to a common guy like me.

"Oh, come now," he said, "don't do anything like that. You'll make me think you don't like the idea."

I sniffed, wanting to kick Katie Reilly, who was gaping round in her chair, and I guess getting mad that way dried up my tears.

"It's your friend I'll be till the end of my life, Mr. Reddy," I answered. "And the only thing I'm sorry for is that I didn't get the right man the way I thought I'd done."

"Never mind about that," said he, his face hardening up, "we'll get him yet. Don't let's think of that now. It's the end of your day, isn't it? If you're going home will you let me take you there in my car?"

There was a time when if I'd thought I'd ever ride beside Jack Reddy in that racer I'd have had chills and fever for a week in advance.

But now I sat calm and still beside him as he rode me through Longwood to Mrs. Galway's door.

As we swung up the street he talked very kind to me, complimenting me something awful, and saying that if he ever could do anything for me to let him know and he'd do it if it was within the power of man.

"You see, Miss Morganthau," he said as we drew up in front of the Elite, "a man in my position feels pretty grateful to the person who's lifted off him the shadow of disgrace and death."

Up in my room I sat quiet for a long time thinking. The thing that phased me was why I'd changed so, come round to feel that while he was still a grand, strong man, I'd always look up to and do anything for, I'd quit having blind staggers and heart attacks when he came along.

Something had sidetracked me. I didn't know what. All I did know was that two months ago if he'd asked me to be his friend I'd not have known there was such a thing as food in the world. And that evening at half-past seven, being too lazy to go to the Gilt Edge, I was so hungry I had to go down to Mrs. Galway and beg the loan of three Uneedas and a hard boiled egg.

It was one evening, not long after, that Anne Hennessey came in to see me. Babbitts was coming that night and Mrs. Galway had given up the parlor again and was in bed with a novel and a kerosene lamp. Anne was quite excited, the reason being that Mrs. Fowler had given her a present. She took it careful out of a blue velvet case and held it up in the glow of the drop light. It was a diamond cross and the minute I set eyes on it I knew where I'd seen it before.

"Sylvia's," I said, low and sort of awed.

Anne nodded.

"Yes, the one she had on that night. Mrs. Fowler said she wanted to give me something that had been hers. I wouldn't have taken anything so handsome but I think the poor lady couldn't bear the sight of it, reminding her of her sorrow as it did."

She moved it about and the stones sparkled like bits of fire in the lamplight. I stretched out my hand and took it, for diamonds tempt me like meat the hungry--that's the Jew in me, I suppose.

"You won't call the King your cousin when you wear this," I said, and I held it against my chest, looking down at the brightness of it.

"That's just where Sylvia had it on," said Anne almost in a whisper, "where the front of her dress crossed. One of the police officers told me."

My mother was a Catholic and it's Catholic I was raised, for though my father was a Jew he loved my mother and let her have her way with me.

"Wouldn't you think," I said, "that when the murderer saw the cross on her it would have stayed his hand?"

"Wouldn't you," said Anne, "but to men as evil as that the cross means nothing. And then out in the dark that way, he probably never saw it."

Babbitts' knock sounding, I handed it back to her and let him in, feeling bashful before Anne, who didn't know how often Mrs. Galway was retiring at eight-thirty. She left soon after, saying Mrs. Fowler liked her to be round in the evening, which was news to me, as she'd told me that the Fowlers always sat in the sitting-room together, the Doctor reading aloud till Mrs. Fowler got sleepy.

After she'd gone, Babbitts and I drew up to the stove, cozy and cheerful, with our feet on the edge of it. We'd come to know each other so well now that we'd other topics beside "the case," but that night we worked around to it, me picking at the box of candy Babbitts had brought and rocking lazily as contented as a child.

Babbitts was still keen for that reward. He said to me:

"You had your fingers on it once, and it's my wish that you'll get your whole hand on it next time."

"What a noble character," said I, "calculating for little Molly to get it all! Where do _you_ come in?"

"Oh, don't bother about me," says he. "You've a bad habit of thinking too much where other people come in. You got to quit it--it isn't good business. Now what I want to arrange is for you and me to make an excursion out to the Wayside Arbor some afternoon."

"The Wayside Arbor--what'll we do there?"

"Take a look over the ground. You see, with the process of elimination that's been going on things have narrowed down to the vicinity of the crime. It's my opinion that the murder was not only committed but was planned round there. The police are losing heart and not doing much. As far as I can find out Fowler's detectives--Mills and his crowd--are getting their pay envelopes regular but not getting anything else. Now--just for devilment--let _us_ combine our two giant intellects and see what we can see."

"Haven't they gone over every inch of it?"

"They have--with a fine-tooth comb. But that doesn't prevent us going over it and taking our fine-tooth combs along."

"Isn't Hines under surveillance?"

"Good Lord," says he laughing, "_everybody's_ under surveillance. There's not one of the suspects but knows he's expected to stay put and is doing it. But who's getting anywhere? There's no reason why we shouldn't go out that way, call on Mrs. Cresset, and take a look in at the Wayside Arbor ourselves."

"I'm game," I said, "though I can't see what good it's going to do."

"It'll give us a half-day together," said he. "I don't know how you feel about it but that looks worth while to me."

We made a date for the following Monday, my holiday, just eight weeks from the murder.

The next morning I had a surprise--a kind that hasn't often come my way. It was a letter directed in typewriting with a half-sheet of paper inside it inclosing a fifty-dollar bill. On the paper, also typed, was written:

For Miss Morganthau--A small return for her recent good work in the Hesketh Murder Case.

That was all--no name, no date, no handwriting. I don't know what made me think right off of Mr. Whitney, unless it was because there was no one else who knew of what I'd done and could have afforded to send that much. The only other person it could have been was Jack Reddy, and somehow or other, after he'd asked me to be his friend, I felt certain he wouldn't send me money, no matter what I'd done for him. Friends don't pay each other.

I guess there wasn't a more elated person in Longwood that morning than yours truly. I'd had that much before--saved it--but I'd never had it fall out of the sky that way in one beautiful, crisp, new bill.