Part 11

A fresh terror shot out of her eyes, and again she sought to hide it under a towering anger. "What impudent nonsense is this?"

Jack went on imperturbably: "It is brought to you by a messenger in cash every Friday morning, and every Friday afternoon you carry it to the bank."

"You have been spying on me! And you talk about being my friend?"

"I do wish to be your friend. It is true I have been spying on you, as you call it. I was forced to it by my duty to an older friend. Are you going to answer my question?"

"Certainly not! What right have you to question me about my private affairs! A paid secretary! This is what I get for admitting you to my friendship!"

"To lose your temper and to insult me puts you in the worst possible light, you know. That is how a guilty conscience always acts."

"It's nothing to me what you think of me. You can go."

"I am not going," Jack said quietly. "You and I have got to have this out."

She had now worked herself up to a fine pitch of anger. She laughed, but there was little amusement in the sound. "I've got to have it out with you, have I? With _you_! Oh, this is rich! This is the perfection of impudence! Will you go, or must I call a servant to show you the door?"

She sprang up as she spoke, and her hand approached the bell button. Gone was her listlessness now.

"You will not do that," said Jack quietly.

Her thumb rested on the button. "Why won't I?" she demanded.

"Because you don't know yet how much I know."

Her hand dropped irresolutely. "What is it to me what you think you know. Are you trying to blackmail me?"

"I am not."

"What's your game then?"

"I'll tell you if you don't have me put out," said Jack, smiling dryly.

She agitatedly paced the room.

Jack went on: "I am doing you the credit of supposing that you do not know the true source of the money you spend."

"You are accusing me of dishonesty perhaps," she said haughtily.

"I don't know how honest you are," said Jack simply. "I am not acquainted with the terms of your agreement with Mr. B."

She stopped as if she had been transfixed. She went white to the lips. "Mr. B.!" she whispered. "You know him!"

"I know this much," said Jack slowly. "The thousand dollars a week which he sends you is the proceeds of blackmail--and murder!"

She staggered. He thought she was swooning, and sprang to catch her. But she fended him off, and sank in a chair unaided. It was a full minute before she could speak.

"You are just trying--to frighten me," she murmured huskily.

"I shall prove it before I go."

"What--what do you want of me?"

"I expect when I prove to you the truth of what I say, that you will repudiate Mr. B. and his generous allowance, and help me to hang him."

She did not answer at once, but only stared at him with big eyes.

"You will not accept anything further from him, of course."

Still she did not answer.

"Will you knowingly help to levy blackmail, and to bring about additional murders?"

She burst into tears. "How do I know what to do?" she wailed. "You haven't proved what you say! How do I know what your game is? I have nothing--not a sou! Where am I to go! How could I live?"

Notwithstanding her pretended astonishment, indignation, dismay, Jack saw that she had always been secretly conscious of living over a volcano. She had no doubt resolutely averted her face from it, but had dwelt in daily expectation of this dreadful scene.

"As to the means of existence, you need not worry," said Jack. "I shall take care of that."

"You?"

He saw that he had gone too far. "I mean Bobo of course. It is his game I am playing."

"Who was murdered?" she asked abruptly.

"Silas Gyde for one; Ames Benton for another."

"Anarchists committed those crimes."

"Two poor mad youths were used to carry out the purpose of a devilishly sane brain--our friend Mr. B. in fact."

For the last time she attempted to bluff it out. She yawned elaborately, though the hand with which she covered her pretty mouth still trembled. "Mercy! It sounds like a melodrama! You must excuse me if I cannot swallow it entire. I'm afraid you've been too faithful a student of the movies."

"Shall I describe Mr. B. to you?" said Jack. "His favorite disguise I mean: he probably has many disguises. He is a smallish man but rather heavy; not corpulent, but thick-set. He is always well dressed in a decent, sober style. He has piercing blue eyes, and wears a heavy gray mustache, and a little goatee or imperial. He has an old-fashioned look, due principally to the way he wears his hair; that is brushed forward of his ears in the manner popular fifty years ago. He has very courteous manners and is given to rather bookish, literary turns of speech."

The remnants of Clara Cleaver's courage oozed away. She sagged down in her chair white and shaken. "That is the man," she whispered. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Why does he send you all this money?" asked Jack.

"I don't know," she meekly replied.

"Well, I'll give you my guess. It is to secure your house as a base for the young birds of prey that hunt in society. These are the spies that furnish him with the information about rich people necessary to his blackmailing business."

"It can't be as bad as all that!" she murmured with weak horror.

"How else do you explain George Thatcher and Grace Marsden--and Miriam."

"You are not sure of what you say."

"You know in your heart it is true. As to Miriam, I am sure. Mr. Gyde left us a detailed account of how she tried to spy on him, and a faithful description of her. Ever notice the mole on her right forefinger?"

She shook her head. "Oh, there'll be a horrible public scandal!" she wailed fretfully. "I'll be disgraced forever--though I have done nothing!"

"Except take his money," Jack put in dryly.

"How did I know? Where am I to hide my head now! Oh, I wish I'd never laid eyes on you!"

Jack took a new tack. "Well, I see I can expect no help from you," he said, making as if to go.

"Wait!" she said quickly. "Don't leave me! I shall go out of my mind if I'm left alone! If I tell you everything I know, will you promise to save me from public disgrace?"

"I'll do my best."

"Sit down. I'll have to go back to the beginning. It's a long story."

19

"My father was a famous doctor here in New York," Mrs. Cleaver began. "He was what you call a self-made man; he had risen from obscurity and pulled my mother up with him. I was their only child. When I was growing up my father was making a princely income, and we lived like millionaires. The best people in New York were among his patients, and we went everywhere.

"I married at twenty--the usual fashionable marriage. Mr. Cleaver was the last of a fine old family of wealth and position, and I was considered to have done well for myself. But I loved him in a heedless, unthinking sort of way. He was young like myself, and extremely good-looking.

"My first real experience of life came with the death of my father, four years after my marriage. It was discovered that he had lived up to every cent of his great income. He left nothing but debts and an art collection. The proceeds of that went to purchase my mother a modest annuity. Even that was wasted, for she lived less than a year after my father.

"That left me with no one in the world to turn to but my husband. The tragedy of self-made people is that they have no lifelong friends. My husband was good to me in his way; we got along together well enough, but in his disappointment and chagrin at the disclosure of my father's affairs, I received my first suspicion that all was not well with our own.

"But I closed my eyes to it, and we continued to live as before, denying ourselves nothing. It was the only way I knew how to live. We had our big houses in town and in the country, a mob of servants, automobiles, horses. I knew nothing about business and my husband never spoke of it. One thing that helped to ease my mind was the fact that we were never bothered by creditors as I knew some of my friends were. My husband paid up everything on the nail. It was a point of pride with him.

"When he had spent his last dollar, literally his last, he shot himself.

"Well, there I was. Mr. Cleaver had no near relatives. His cousins had always frowned on our extravagance, and I could expect no aid from them. As for my so-called friends, at the first hint of disaster they began to melt away. I was so helpless I didn't even know how to close up my great house. I couldn't summon resolution enough to discharge the servants. I lived for a while on the proceeds of my dresses and jewels. It is tragic how much such things cost, and how little they bring!

"I was at the end of my rope, driven nearly frantic by worry. The unpaid servants were becoming impudent, and that seemed like the last straw. I have always been so dependent on servants! I was actually considering taking my husband's way out--when this man came to see me.

"He sent up no name. But in the frightful state I was in, one jumps at anything for a moment's distraction. I had him brought up. You have already described him; his silvery hair, brushed in an odd way, his sober, well-made clothes of no particular style. His old-fashioned manner prevented me from placing him socially; he might have been almost anybody. The piercing blue eyes were remarkable. His was most kind and courteous, fatherly one might say.

"Though it is three years ago, every detail of that interview is still fresh in my mind. He thanked me first for my indulgence in consenting to receive him incognito. I would agree, he said, when I had learned the object of his visit, that it were better he should remain unknown. He asked me to think of him simply as 'Mr. B.'

"He went on to say that through mutual friends he had learned of my difficult situation, and had been much moved thereby. It was the hardest case he had ever heard of, he said, and I had his sincerest sympathy. I was too desperate in my mind to even pretend to be indignant at the intrusion of a stranger into my affairs. Indeed I found his sympathy comforting. I hadn't received much. Most people had acted as if my misfortunes were due to my own fault. He soothed me like a nice old uncle.

"He said he was a very rich man, so rich in fact, that his money made him uneasy. He didn't want to die with it, he said, and he was looking around for some honorable way of getting rid of it. He used that very word, 'honorable'; it made me smile. He said it was easier to make a fortune than to get rid of it.

"Fancy how my heart began to beat at this. When one is desperate one cannot be particular. I could scarcely believe my ears. It seemed like the miracle I had been hoping for--like an answer to my prayer. He said that the more popular forms of philanthropy, such as colleges, hospitals, libraries, etc., were distasteful to him, as smacking too much of ostentation and publicity. He wanted to make his distribution in secret.

"'Everybody looks after the poor,' he said, 'and nobody thinks of the rich when they are overtaken by misfortune. They are the worthiest objects of help, and I intend to devote myself to the relief of the impoverished rich. You are my first case. Will a thousand dollars a week be sufficient?'

"I thought I was dreaming. I managed to stammer out a question about what conditions were attached to the loan or gift.

"'No conditions! No conditions!' he said,--'that is only one condition; that you will preserve absolute secrecy concerning it.'

"I promised of course. I scarcely knew what I was saying. I thought perhaps he was harmlessly insane. I certainly never expected anything to come of it. But when he had gone I found on the table a little packet containing a thousand dollars in bills.

"I still thought I had been visited by an amiable lunatic. I used the money to pay some of my most pressing obligations. I discharged the insolent servants, and got others. I didn't expect to hear from him again.

"But one week from that day a messenger boy brought me a packet containing a similar sum, and it has been coming ever since with absolute regularity.

"I can see that you are incredulous about there having been no conditions attached to the gift, but I have stated just what happened. I can see now that I was a fool, but then it was easy for me to believe that I had been relieved out of pure philanthropy. As if there was any such thing!

"At first the money came unaccompanied by any communication, but later, when he knew, I suppose, that I had become absolutely dependent on it, I began to receive instructions. In the beginning he still used the language of philanthropy--he wanted to help this young man or that young woman to gain a footing in good society--but latterly, feeling more sure of me, I suppose, he has become frankly peremptory. Oh! if I had only sent the money back in the first place!"

"What sort of instructions?" asked Jack.

"Principally for me to receive certain young people that he would send me, and introduce them to society; sometimes to introduce them to particular persons. This seemed harmless enough. People will do anything to get into society, you know."

"But when you saw these young people didn't you begin to be suspicious?"

"Oh, I didn't want to be suspicious! Their manners were good enough. They didn't shame me. And nowadays society is such a go-as-you-please affair, nobody held me responsible."

"What other kind of instructions did you get?"

"To ask certain people, generally some well-known rich man, to my house. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to go to the Madagascar and scrape acquaintance with Bobo in the corridor. I nearly died at that, but it was too late to turn back. I was terrified by the way the man always knew instantly when I had not obeyed him."

"The spies he had in your house would keep him informed," said Jack. "How did you know that day which of the two of us was Bobo?"

"He had described him to me."

"Does 'Mr. B.' still come here?"

"No, I have never seen him but the once. He writes to me, and very often he calls me up to learn if I have anything to report. I have no way of communicating with him unless he calls up."

"Now about Miriam?" said Jack.

Mrs. Cleaver sat up, and her tired eyes sparkled with hatred. "That woman!" she cried. "If you knew what I have had to put up with from her! I loathe her! Oh, I would like to see her brought low. What have you got against her? Tell me!"

Jack shook his head, smiling grimly. "All in good time," he said. "You're telling me your story now."

"Oh, Miriam's just another of them. She came the day before I received my instructions to get hold of Bobo. I was ordered to take her into my house, and give it out that she was a cousin. That was the final humiliation!"

"Is that all you can tell me about Miriam?"

She nodded. "We don't confide in each other," she said with tight lips.

There was a considerable silence between the two before the fire.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Mrs. Cleaver nervously at last.

"Just trying to dope out a plan to get him--with your help."

"Oh, I'm afraid!" she wailed. "When my income is cut off what shall I do?"

"I promised you--in Bobo's name--to take care of that."

"To the same amount?" she asked sharply.

Jack smiled dryly. "I'm afraid I'd hardly feel justified in recommending that Bobo keep up all this--but, say, ten thousand a year."

"Ten thousand!" she cried, aghast. "That's nothing!"

A grimmer tone crept into Jack's voice. "Sorry, but we don't owe you anything, you know. If you refuse to help me, I should have to have you arrested."

If she had defied him Jack's position would have been a little awkward, for he was not prepared to go as far as he had said. But Mrs. Cleaver's spirit was broken now. She only shuddered and wept the louder.

"Ten thousand!" she wailed. "I'll have to give up everything that makes life worth living!"

"You told me you were sick of all this."

"I'll have to move into a miserable apartment!"

"Come now, plenty of people have a whale of a time on ten thousand--or even the half of that."

"Suburbanites!" she said with the utmost scorn.

"Has 'Mr. B.' any regular time for calling up?" asked Jack.

"No. Every few days. I haven't heard in nearly a week. I shall probably hear to-morrow."

"Very good. Now listen. When he calls up, make out you're in great anxiety. But don't give him too many details over the 'phone. Suggest that it's not safe to do so. You can let him understand though that it has something to do with Bobo or me. Tell him that you think I am having you watched. Tell him that you must see him in order to find out how to act. Don't ask him to come here; that would surely excite his suspicions. Name some public place; a hotel would be the best."

"Will I have to face him?" she faltered. "I'm afraid."

"I'll be there," said Jack. "You may leave him to me."

20

Jack had no great confidence that Mrs. Cleaver would stand by him unless he were right there to assert his supremacy; she meant well, but she was as weak as water. Therefore he took care to be on hand early at her house next morning, and was prepared to hang around all day if necessary listening for the telephone.

By great good luck the call came while he was in the room with her, so that she had no opportunity to betray him, even if she were disposed to do so. By the instant change in her when she heard the voice over the wire, Jack knew that it was he whom they were expecting.

In dumb play Jack ordered her to hold the receiver an inch from her ear. Then by bringing his head close to hers he was able to hear practically all the man said.

"Good morning. Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Jack thrilled a little hearing the veritable voice of his adversary. It was the nearest he had yet come to him. A familiar quality in the sound tantalized him. But he could not place it.

"Yes," said Mrs. Cleaver. Her breathlessness seemed quite natural. "I'm so glad you called up. I can't explain very well. There's something queer. I'm afraid they may be listening at the switch down-stairs."

"Something in connection with our two young gentlemen?" asked the voice.

"Yes, one of them is acting so strangely."

"The principal one?"

"No, the other. He seems well--suspicious. I could explain better if I saw you. Can I see you?"

"Yes, if you wish," came the calm reply.

"Where?"

"Let me see--you'll have to come at once, because I am leaving town this afternoon. Suppose you come to the Hotel Bienvenu, and meet me in the main lobby."

"Half an hour," Jack whispered to Mrs. Cleaver.

"I'll come just as soon as I can dress," she said over the 'phone. "Can you give me half an hour?"

"Very well. I shall expect you in half an hour."

Jack's heart beat high with hope. He immediately called up police headquarters and got the Third Deputy Commissioner on the wire. After identifying himself to that individual, he asked to have a plainclothes man meet him in the bar of the Hotel Bienvenu in twenty minutes time, to make an arrest. The Deputy Commissioner said he would bring the man up himself, so there could be no possibility of missing Jack.

To Mrs. Cleaver Jack said: "I will go to the Bienvenu now and wait for my men. You leave here in precisely twenty-five minutes. Have your chauffeur let you out at the side door of the Bienvenu, and then walk around by the street to the front door. This will bring you past the windows of the bar, and will give me a chance to point you out to my policeman. Then I'll send him up into the lobby, and I can remain in the background. He will arrive in the lobby at the same moment with you."

All the preliminaries passed off as Jack had planned. The Deputy Commissioner and the plainclothes man turned up in the bar of the Bienvenu at the very moment of the time appointed. They took up their post at a window, and sure enough in five minutes Mrs. Cleaver swam past their ken, regal and languid in her silver fox furs.

"That's the woman," Jack said to the policeman. "Mark her well. Now go up into the lobby. As you get there she will just be coming in the front door. Watch who approaches her. Arrest the man with whom she gets in conversation. He's supposed to be an elderly man, short, stocky, with gray hair brushed forward of his ears, gray mustache and Imperial. But he may be disguised. Arrest any man that goes up to her and engages her in conversation. Watch yourself well, for he's a desperate character."

"We'll wait down here," added the Deputy Commissioner. "If you need help blow your whistle."

The policeman departed upstairs, and Jack ordered the Deputy Commissioner a drink. Jack thought he was perfectly cool, until he became aware of a curious little fluttering in his veins. It became increasingly difficult to sit still. When the drink was brought he forgot all about it. He could not keep his imagination within bounds. He tasted the great glory that would be his when it became known that he, single-handed, had broken up the amazing traffic in blackmail. He saw himself taking his rightful place as John Farrow Norman, and enjoying his riches with an easy mind. He saw Kate relenting at last. Meanwhile his eyes were glued to the dragging minute hand of the clock.

"Something must be the matter with that clock!" he cried. "Oh, this is fierce! If I could only go up there and see what is going on!"

"Give him time," said the Deputy Commissioner soothingly. "He hasn't been gone three minutes yet. Your man may be late."

In five minutes the plainclothes man was back in the bar. One look in his perplexed face told Jack that things had not gone off as he had planned. The bright bubble of his dreams burst.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

The man shrugged. "She wants you, the lady. Told me to bring you quick."

"But the man?" asked Jack as he followed him back.

"Never came. She hadn't any more than sat down when a bell-hop begun paging her. Mrs. Cleaver, he was calling. He had a letter for her. She begun to read it, and jumped up and sat down again quick. I thought she was going to faint, and hung around like. She sees me looking at her and says: 'Are you the policeman?' I nods, and she says: 'Bring Mr. Robinson quick.' That's all."

They entered the lobby, and Jack saw Mrs. Cleaver sitting in one of the big chairs. The brave air with which she had sailed past the window was in eclipse. She looked limp and white. As he came to her she held out an open letter without speaking. He read:

"_Dear Mrs. Cleaver:_

"_So you have decided to turn against me--after spending a hundred and fifty thousand of my money. Well, that's your affair of course. I hope you know where you're going to get more. This was a clumsy trap to expect to take the old fox in. Tell the young secretary he will have to do better than this if he expects to make that great reputation he is dreaming of. Like most young men he is prone to go of at half cock. Tell him that he had better be sure that he has anything against me before he calls in the police. But give him and the Third Deputy Commissioner my regards. They are waiting in the bar._

"_Cordially yours,_ "_Mr. B._"

21

Mr. B's taunting letter was a bitter dose for Jack's pride to swallow. Jack was young and very human, and it was only natural he should have been a little puffed up by his preliminary successes in a task that might well have daunted an experienced detective. And then to discover after all that his crafty adversary had only been playing with him, that he was aware of all his movements--well, Jack ground his teeth a bit. But the effect on the whole was salutary. The letter rebuked Jack's vanity, and steeled his resolution.