Part 18

"Hundreds of women have that sort of hair," she said, presently. "Half the actresses in town"--

"He said it seemed to him natural."

"How should he know?" said Mrs. Bobby, contemptuously. "And why on earth should she choose a place like Brooklyn? I don't think she ever went there in her life."

"She seems," said Bobby, gently, "to have done a great many things that you--didn't think of, Eleanor." And again his wife fell silent.

"Have they any other evidence?" she asked, after thinking a moment, "or what they call evidence? I might as well know the worst."

"They have her letters, which were found among Halleck's papers--she told him to burn them, but he didn't. They were signed 'E. V. V.' One of them was about her engagement to Gerard--it seemed he had threatened her, and she offered him money to keep him quiet; the other was just a line, asking him to meet her in the Park. It's evident that she was afraid of him and had to keep him supplied with funds. She sold all her jewelry, they say, to do it."

"Ah--her jewelry!" Mrs. Bobby drew a long breath. "That is what she did with it, then," she remarked, involuntarily.

Bobby turned to her sharply. "You noticed, then," he said, "that she didn't have it?"

"Of course. There were her pearls, which she never wore last summer; the watch I gave her, too--I used to feel hurt that she never carried it, but I never suspected--Oh, what a fool I was--what a fool! And I who thought myself so clever in bringing about a match between her and Julian!" She stopped and suddenly burst into tears. "I made a nice failure of it all, didn't I?" she said. Then in a moment, her mood changed, and she turned upon Bobby indignantly. "Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

"I didn't want to tell you," said Bobby, slowly, "a moment sooner than was necessary. Personally, I don't see the use of having all this exploited--as a matter of fact, I'd pay a good deal to have it kept quiet; partly for your sake, and partly because--well, I like Elizabeth. She may not have behaved well, but I don't think she deserves to be made conspicuous in this way. I don't mind confessing that I've done what I could to arrest the zeal of the police, but I'm sorry to say, without success."

"You don't mean," she said incredulously, "that they refused money?"

"Well, the new District Attorney is very zealous," Bobby explained, "and, between ourselves, I think he wants the éclat of a sensational case. To put a young society woman in prison, against the efforts of all her friends, shows Roman stoicism,--or so he thinks."

"But you don't believe," said his wife, piteously, "you don't think it could come to that, Bobby?"

"To prison?" he said. "I don't know, Eleanor--upon my word I don't know." And he began again thoughtfully to pace up and down.

"What did Gerard say," he asked presently, "when he wrote to you before he sailed?"

"It was just a hurried note, hard to make out. He said the engagement was broken by her."

"Of course he'd _say_ that. What did she tell you?"

"That it was his wish, but he was not to blame, and she would tell me more some other time. She looked so unutterably wretched that I couldn't ask any questions just then."

"Ah," said Bobby, softly. "I don't believe, poor child! that it was her doing, Eleanor."

"If it was Julian's," she said, "he must have had some good reason." And with that they both fell into thoughtful silence.

"I don't see," was her next objection, uttered musingly, "I don't see how they ever thought of Elizabeth in the first place. It seems such a wildly improbable idea."

"It certainly does," Bobby agreed. "Then Elizabeth, poor child, as it happens, rather put the idea into their heads herself. It seems that she went to the studio the day after the poisoning and insisted upon seeing him. She said she was his wife. D'Hauteville saw her, I believe, but he said nothing about it. It was the elevator man who told the story--he took her up and he heard D'Hauteville call her by her name. He says that D'Hauteville took her into the studio, and when she came out she was crying. And the man vows he heard her say 'I didn't do it, don't think I did it,' or something of the kind."

"Why, I never," broke in Mrs. Bobby, "heard anything so extraordinary. The man must have been drinking. It's impossible that Elizabeth could have done such a thing. Why, it was that day--that day"--she paused and thought--"that day after the murder," she continued, triumphantly, "I remember distinctly going to see her in the afternoon, and she was ill in bed with grippe, and her temperature very high."

"I can believe that," said Bobby, rather grimly, "after what she went through in the morning. For I'm afraid there's not much doubt, Eleanor, that it's true. One of the detectives, too, saw her pass through the hall, and I don't think that D'Hauteville denies it. They want him to testify at the inquest, but so far, they can't get him to say one thing or another."

"He would deny it, of course, if it were false," said Mrs. Bobby, in a low voice. Her husband bent his head. "Well," she said, rallying, "after all, I don't see anything in that. It would be pretty stupid, if she were really guilty, to defend herself before she was accused. No one but a fool would have done that, and the person who sent that poison couldn't have been a fool. And she wouldn't have gone near the studio; that's the last thing the real culprit would have done."

"That's what I say," said Bobby. "It doesn't seem on the face of it the act of a guilty woman. But they have some theory of hysterical remorse, and there is other evidence I haven't heard which fits into that. They say that when she heard that it had really happened she lost her head completely. There have been such cases, you know. Oh, and then another thing. They're comparing the handwriting on the package with the letters"--

"The letters?" broke in Mrs. Bobby, anxiously.

"Yes, that I told you of, you remember--written to him--they've got experts examining them now."

"Ah, well, if the experts have got hold of the case," said Mrs. Bobby, resignedly, "we might as well give up hope. They'd swear away any person's life to prove a theory."

"Well, at least," said Bobby, "it's the life of a young and beautiful girl. That really seemed to me, when I heard all this, the only hope. Even handwriting experts are human." But his wife only sighed despairingly.

"I think," she said, after awhile, "I must go to Elizabeth. I haven't seen her for several days, and she mustn't think that her friends are giving her up."

"You won't--tell her anything?" asked Bobby, anxiously.

"Do you think she doesn't know?"

"She would be the last person, in the natural order of events, to hear of it."

"Then I shall say nothing," said his wife, after a moment's reflection. "You wouldn't, would you?" she added, as she caught an odd look in her husband's eyes.

"I--I don't know." Bobby seemed to reflect. "If--if she were to go abroad just now," he said, doubtfully, "it might not be a bad plan."

"Bobby!" Mr. Van Antwerp's wife faced him indignantly. "You wouldn't have her--run away from all this? You wouldn't have her frightened by anything those people can threaten?" Eleanor Van Antwerp's dark eyes sparkled, she held her head proudly. Her husband looked at her half in doubt, half in admiration.

"You would face it?"

"Yes, if it cost me my life."

The look of admiration on Bobby's face brightened and then faded to despondency. "Ah, well, you are right--theoretically, of course, but--would Elizabeth, do you think, have the same courage? Or, if she had, could you, knowing what you do, take the responsibility of allowing her to face it?"

This was the doubt--the horrible doubt, which troubled Mrs. Bobby as she drove to Elizabeth's home, and at the thought of it her heart failed her. Her husband had judged her rightly--she could be braver for herself than for others. Would it not be better, after all, to suggest to the Misses Van Vorst the desirability of a trip abroad? She looked thoughtfully out of the carriage window. It was a bleak February day, and people in the street had their coat-collars turned up against the chill east wind. The climate of New York at this time is detestable; a change would do any one good. She would go herself to the Riviera and take Elizabeth with her.

Mrs. Bobby had hardly reached this conclusion before the carriage stopped in front of the quiet apartment house in Irving Place where the Van Vorsts were spending the winter. It was an old-fashioned house with an air of sober respectability, that seemed to make such wild thoughts as filled Mrs. Bobby's brain peculiarly strained and improbable, like the hallucinations of a fevered brain. It was a shock, keyed up as she was to the tragic point, to enter the peaceful little drawing-room with its bright coal fire and general air of comfort, and to find Elizabeth prosaically engaged in looking over visiting-cards and invitations. And yet Mrs. Bobby was shocked by the change in her appearance, which every day made more apparent. Her face was haggard, there was a deep purple flush in her cheeks; her lips were dry and feverish, there was an odd, strained look in her eyes. The hand she held out to her visitor burned like fire.

"I'm so glad you came in," she said, with a wan smile. "I've been looking over these stupid things and my head aches. You see, I've neglected my social duties shamefully--not sending cards, or even, I'm afraid, answering some of my invitations. People must think me horribly rude."

"Oh, they know you've been ill," Mrs. Bobby answered vaguely. She sat down, all the wind taken out of her sails, and stared wonderingly at Elizabeth. How could she--how could she look over visiting-cards and talk about invitations, with this terrible danger hanging over her head? Was it possible that she had no suspicions? And yet--did not her eyes betray her? But Mrs. Bobby could not think of any way of introducing the subject of which her mind and heart were full, and there was silence till Elizabeth spoke again.

"It's odd, isn't it," she said languidly, "that Mrs. Lansdowne hasn't asked me to her ball. Have you cards for it?"

"I--I believe so."

"Well, she has left me out," said Elizabeth. Mrs. Bobby started and looked at her with some interest. "I suppose she thinks," Elizabeth went on, "I--I'm not much of an addition just now. I certainly am not, to look at." She laughed a little, in a feeble way. "Of course I shouldn't go," she added, "but it isn't nice to be--left out."

"Perhaps it's a mistake," suggested Mrs. Bobby, not very impressively. She was quite convinced to the contrary.

"Perhaps," Elizabeth acquiesced, "but if so, several other people have done the same thing. The Van Aldens never asked me to their dance, and I haven't had an invitation to a dinner for weeks. People forget one quickly in New York, don't they?" And she made another painful attempt at a laugh.

"I suppose," said Mrs. Bobby, "they think you don't want to go."

"I don't," said Elizabeth, "but they might at least give me the opportunity of refusing." And then there was a pause, in the midst of which Miss Joanna entered.

"Oh, Mrs. Van Antwerp," she said, "how glad I am to see you! Do tell Elizabeth that she ought to be in bed. You can see for yourself she has fever. It is the grippe, of course--she has never really got over it."

"Yes," said Mrs. Bobby, looking doubtfully at Elizabeth, "it is the grippe, of course."

"The grippe is a convenient disease," said Elizabeth, in a low tone, "it means--so many things." She took up a sheet of paper and began to write hastily. "It does me good," she said "to employ myself. And I can't stay in bed--it drives me wild." Miss Joanna, as if weary of expostulation, moved to the window.

"Yes, I declare," she announced, in the tone of one who makes a not unexpected discovery, "there are those men again. Every time I look out, one or other of them seems to be watching the house."

"Watching the house?" repeated Mrs. Bobby, startled.

"Yes, that's what it looks like, at least. And the other day, when I went out, one of them stared at me so--most impertinent. I declare, if it goes on, we shall have to make a complaint. And one of them followed Elizabeth--didn't he, my dear?"

"I thought he did," said Elizabeth, indifferently, "but I didn't notice much. I have thought several times lately that there were people following me. Perhaps it is because my head feels so queer."

"What do the men look like?" asked Mrs. Bobby.

"Oh, quite respectable," said Miss Joanna. "They don't look like beggars, certainly. Cornelia thought they looked rather like detectives--she said they made her feel nervous; but that, of course, is quite ridiculous."

"Quite ridiculous," echoed Mrs. Bobby. To herself she was saying, "Ah, that trip abroad!"

"Eleanor has an invitation for Mrs. Lansdowne's ball, auntie," said Elizabeth, suddenly changing the subject, which did not seem to interest her, by the introduction of one that evidently rankled in her mind. "She thinks it is odd I wasn't asked. I told you," she went on, with a bitter smile, "that people are giving me up since my engagement was broken off."

"But that is nonsense," remonstrated Miss Joanna, in distress. "Tell her," she said, turning pleadingly to Mrs. Bobby, "that that isn't so."

Mrs. Bobby started up and took Elizabeth's hand. "I don't know," she said, speaking with strange earnestness, "who gives you up, Elizabeth dear, and I don't care. I never will. Remember that, dear child. I will stand by you whatever happens." And then, as if conscious of having said too much, or fearful perhaps of saying more, Mrs. Bobby swept hastily from the room, leaving her hearers petrified.

Miss Joanna was the first to speak. "How very strange she was!" she said, in a low voice. "What--what do you think she meant?"

Elizabeth was staring vacantly at the door, but at her aunt's words she turned.

"I don't know," she said, "what she meant, but one thing I understand--that my social career is ended." With a little pale smile, she swept aside the cards of invitation, locked them into a drawer and left the room.

_Chapter XXXI_

Mrs. Bobby regained her carriage, and consulting her engagement book, she ordered her coachman to drive her to the house of one of her friends, whose "day at home" it was. It was a sudden resolution. She had gone about very little that winter, since she had no longer the incentive of chaperoning Elizabeth, and had not paid a visit for weeks, on the plea of mourning for an uncle. But now she set her teeth and said to herself that she must mingle with the world to find out, if possible, what the world was saying.

Was it fancy, or did she distinguish, as she stood in the hall of Mrs. Van Alden's house leaving cards, amidst the hum of voices in the drawing-room, words that bore upon her own fevered anxiety? "Shocking affair," and "so she is really involved in it"--surely she heard those sentences. And then the conversation ceased abruptly as the butler drew aside the portière and she stood for a moment on the threshold. Her eyes were bright, her head erect; she glanced around taking mental stock as it were of the company. Five or six women were seated about a blazing wood fire, with an air unusual at functions of this kind of having come to stay and of forming--or this again might have been her fancy--a sort of council of justice. There was Mrs. Lansdowne, to whose ball Elizabeth had not been invited; and there was Sibyl Hartington, and one or two others who knew Mrs. Bobby and did not, as it happened, love her very much. "Enemies," she thought, drawing her breath sharply, "and discussing Elizabeth and me! It's the same thing--I'm sure I feel as if it were I under suspicion." Eleanor Van Antwerp had certainly never known such a feeling before, but her bearing had never been more instinct with the nonchalant confidence of a woman who seems absolutely unconscious of her position, for the reason that it has never been questioned.

"I seem to have interrupted the conversation," she observed, lightly, after she had been rather nervously greeted and kissed by her hostess, and had taken her place in the circle. "Some one was telling a very interesting story--I caught fragments of it as I came in." She glanced her eye round the group. "It was you, Kitty, I think," she said. "Won't you--please--begin the story over again and tell it for my benefit?"

"Kitty," thus appealed to, colored and bit her lip. "Oh, the story isn't really worth repeating," she said, hastily. She had no wish to offend Mrs. Van Antwerp, and was heartily wishing that she had not spoken so loud. Sibyl Hartington helped her out by observing, with her placid smile:

"It's a story about a friend of yours, my dear Eleanor, so Kitty is afraid to tell it."

"About a friend of mine?" said Mrs. Bobby, and she opened her eyes very wide. "Then there's all the more reason," she said, decidedly, "why I should hear it."

Her glance challenged the group, but no one spoke and at last the hostess interposed. "My dear Eleanor, I'm sorry you should have heard anything about it. We were only talking about poor Elizabeth Van Vorst, and regretting that there is all this unfortunate gossip about her. For my part, I don't believe there is a word of truth in what they say, but it is certainly--uncomfortable."

"It makes it hard to know what to do," said Mrs. Lansdowne, a woman with a deep bass voice and an air of being not so much indifferent to, as unconscious of other people's feelings. "I couldn't for instance ask Miss Van Vorst to my ball while there are these queer rumors about her. I was sorry to leave out any friend of yours, Mrs. Van Antwerp; but if a young woman gets herself talked about, no matter how or why, I can't encourage her--it's against my principles. Let the girl behave herself, I say, and keep out of the papers. I'm sure that's simple enough."

"It's not always so simple," said Mrs. Bobby, and though the indignant color had rushed into her cheeks, her tone was seraphic, "not so simple for every one as it is for your daughters, Mrs. Lansdowne." A subdued smile as she spoke went the round of the circle. Fortunately Mrs. Lansdowne was not quick in her perceptions.

"No, it's true," she admitted, "my daughters have had unusual advantages. I can't expect every one to come up to the same standard. But one has to draw the line somewhere, and when a girl has done such queer things as Miss Van Vorst, there seems nothing for it but to drop her."

"But what--what has poor Elizabeth done?" asked Mrs. Bobby, with eyes of innocent wonder, and again there followed an awkward silence.

"Well, you know, Eleanor, they tell very queer stories," the hostess said at last, deprecatingly. "I never pay any attention to gossip, but these things are sometimes forced upon one. Haven't you seen that thing in _Scandal_?"

"I don't," said Mrs. Bobby, unmoved, "read '_Scandal_,' Mary."

"And _Chit Chat_," chimed in some one else. "There was a long paragraph in _Chit Chat_. It seems that she was mixed up in some way in that dreadful poisoning case. They say that she was actually married to that young Halleck."

"At the same time that she was engaged to Julian Gerard," said Mrs. Hartington, with her calm smile. "It's no wonder that he, poor man, when he found it out, got out of the affair as best he could."

Mrs. Bobby looked steadily at the speaker. "As a friend of Mr. Gerard's, Sibyl," she said, "I can state on his authority that the engagement was broken by Miss Van Vorst."

Sibyl Hartington's calm, faintly amused smile again rippled across her face. "I never doubted, my dear Eleanor," she said, "that Mr. Gerard is a gentleman."

The entrance of another visitor at that moment was not altogether unwelcome to Mrs. Bobby, who felt that she was being worsted; but the new-comer immediately continued the same subject.

"I've just been hearing the most extraordinary news," she exclaimed, sitting on the edge of her chair, and too much excited to notice Mrs. Bobby's presence, "I heard it at luncheon. They say that Elizabeth Van Vorst"--But here the speaker suddenly caught sight of Mrs. Bobby, and stopped short.

"Well, what do they say?" said Mrs. Bobby, with rather a bitter smile. "Don't keep us in suspense, Miss Dare, and above all, don't mind my feelings. I would rather know the worst of this."

"Well, I don't believe there is any truth in it. They say that she is really seriously implicated in that dreadful poisoning case; that the police have letters she wrote to Halleck, and all sorts of unpleasant things. But of course it's impossible--a girl like that, whom we all know!"

"Do we?" said Mrs. Hartington, softly. "Do you think that we, any of us, know much about her? You didn't, Eleanor, did you?"--turning to Mrs. Bobby--"You just took her up in that charming, impulsive way of yours--didn't you?--because people in the Neighborhood didn't have much to do with her, and you felt sorry for her?"

Mrs. Bobby made a scornful little gesture. "You flatter me, Sibyl," she said. "I'm afraid I'm not so charitable as all that. I 'took up' Elizabeth Van Vorst, as you say, because I liked her, and for no other reason. It was for my own pleasure entirely that I asked her to stay with me, and I have never regretted it."

Mrs. Hartington gave a barely perceptible shrug of the shoulders. "I congratulate you," she said. "It was a rash action, some people thought at the time. A girl whom you knew so slightly, whose mother was such an impossible person--or at least, so they say. I don't of course," she went on, in her soft, drawling tones, "know much about it myself, but it does make all this gossip seem less extraordinary--doesn't it?"

"Why, yes, of course, that accounts for it," said Mrs. Lansdowne, looking relieved. "That sort of thing runs in families. A girl who has a queer mother is sure to be queer herself and get herself talked about."

"I never thought her very good style," some one who had not yet spoken now found courage to observe. "Her hair is so conspicuous. I never could understand why men seemed to admire her."

Mrs. Hartington raised her eye-brows. "Ah, the men!" she said, with serene scorn. "She is exactly the sort of girl who would appeal to men."

Mrs. Bobby felt that she had stayed as long as the limit of human endurance would permit. She rose to her feet, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes brilliant, her voice rang out with crystal clearness. "It's hardly necessary for me to tell you," she said, "that Elizabeth Van Vorst is my most intimate friend. I love her very dearly and always shall. What her mother may have been is no affair of mine. But as for the men liking her"--she turned suddenly to Mrs. Hartington--"they do like her, Sibyl, and I think they show good taste. But if you mean the inference you seem to draw from that"--she paused and drew her breath quickly--"why, it's not very flattering, I think, to either men or women."

Mrs. Hartington gave a short little laugh. "My dear, I'm not drawing inferences one way or another. I merely stated a fact--complimentary, one might think, to your protegée. But you take things so seriously!"--She drew herself up with an air of some annoyance.