Nothing But the Truth

Bob stared straight ahead. “How did you do it?” he said to the monocle-man. “What made you certain?”

“I saw him place the ring in your pocket. Feel here,” walking over to Bob. The latter felt where the other indicated. “A little vest-pocket camera!” said the monocle-man softly. “I photographed the act – the outstretched hand with the ring in it! – you, unsuspecting, half sprawling over the green felt of the table! your coat tails inviting the ring – Besides, one of my men took the place of that outside-operator and received a certain little article of jewelry that night you came blundering back to Mrs. Ralston’s. We nabbed the outside-operator and – well, he’s told certain things.” With satisfaction. “We have, in short, a clear case.”

Bob held his head. “It’s whirling,” he said. “I’ll get some things straightened out after a little, I suppose.”

“That’s right,” observed the monocle-man.

“There are some things you can’t straighten out,” said Dan in an ugly tone. “This is all very well for you, but what about us?”

Just at that moment there was a flutter of skirts at the door.

Gee-gee and Gid-up came in, the former in a state of great agitation.

“How dared you?” she gasped, going up to the monocle-man and standing with arms akimbo.

“Send you that note, commanding your presence here?” said the monocle-man. “I dared, my dear,” he added slowly, “because I hold the cards.”

“Don’t you ‘dear’ me,” she retorted stormily.

“I wouldn’t, seriously,” he returned. “It might be dangerous. Women like you are dangerous, you know. I fancy our friends here,” glancing toward the commodore and Clarence, “have found that out. But it will be a lesson. ‘We’ll never wander more from our own fireside,’” he hummed.

“Well,” said Gee-gee, shaking her auburn tresses, “those were pretty bold statements of what you could do to me, in that note you sent.”

“They were true, my dear.”

The green eyes flared. Gee-gee was shaking all over. Gid-up looked rather frightened.

“Take it easy,” said the monocle-man.

“I’d like to see you prove what you can do,” she returned. “You say I have framed-up a lot of false-hoods – a tissue of lies – in that affidavit the lawyer at Mrs. Ralston’s drew up. I tell you they’re all true.” Dan looked weak. “Everything I’ve told happened just at I said it did, and he knows it.” Pointing a finger at the commodore.

“I wonder if I ought not to put you in jail now?” said the monocle-man meditatively. “There’s a cell vacant next to the hammer-thrower. You would be congenial spirits.”

“It’s proofs I’m asking, Mr. Detective,” retorted Gee-gee, apparently not greatly abashed by this threat. She was accustomed to hitting back.

“Yes, it’s proofs,” said Gid-up, but in weaker accents.

The monocle-man shook a reproving finger at Gid-up. “You’re in bad company, my dear,” he observed. “You’re out of Gee-gee’s class. You’re just trying to be in it.”

“I don’t want any of your impertinence,” answered Gid-up with a faint imitation of Gee-gee’s manner. “He’s a proper bad one.” Pointing to Clarence who presented a picture of abject misery. “And when I tell all the things he done to me – ”

“But you won’t tell them.”

“I have.” Defiantly. “In that paper the lawyer drew up.”

“But you’re going to sign a little paper I have here, repudiating all that,” he answered her.

“Oh, am I?” Elevating her turned-up nose.

“You are.” Blandly.

“Guess again,” said Gid-up saucily.

“You can’t prove what we told in that affidavit isn’t true,” reaffirmed Gee-gee. Only she and Gid-up could know it was a “frame-up”; they had builded carefully and were sure of their ground. “We know our rights and we’re going to have them. We’re not afraid of you.”

“Then why are you here?” quietly.

“That lawyer at the house said we might as well see you, just to call your bluff. He said, since we had told the truth, we had nothing to fear.”

“I don’t think you’re quite so confident as you seem,” observed the monocle-man. “My note awoke a little uneasiness, or you wouldn’t be here. This young lady,” turning to Gid-up, “suffered a mild case of stage fright, if I am any judge of human nature.”

“Me?” said Gid-up. “I defy you.”

“Here’s the answer,” replied the monocle-man, taking another paper from his pocket.

“What’s that?” said Gee-gee scornfully. “I suppose it’s some lies from him.” Alluding to the commodore. “The lawyer told me to be prepared for them.”

“No; it isn’t that. It’s only a stenographic report of a conversation you and your friend had together in your room, the night you arrived at Mrs. Ralston’s.”

“A stenographic report? Nonsense!” Sharply. Gee-gee remembered all about that conversation. “How could you – ”

“There’s a dictograph in the room you occupied, my dear,” observed the monocle-man.

“A dic – ” Gee-gee seemed to turn green. “Good Gawd!” she said.

It wasn’t very long thereafter that Gee-gee and Gid-up departed.

“Back to the old life!” said Gee-gee wearily. “And just when I thought my ambition to be a star was coming true.”

“Life is sure tough,” observed Gid-up, abandoning her society manner.

“I’m sick of the whole thing. Got a mind to jump in the river.”

“Gas for me!” from poor Gid-up wearily.

“No, you won’t. And I won’t. We’ll just go on. Lord! how long.”

“Anyhow, that detective promised to introduce us to a real Russian grand duke who’s in old New York. Maybe we can get in the papers on that.”

“Perhaps.” More thoughtfully from Gee-gee. “It wasn’t so worse of the detective to promise that, after he’d got us down and walked on us.”

“You must make dukie drink out of your slipper,” suggested Gid-up. “The detective said he was mad after beautiful stage girls. Grand dukes always are.” Hopefully. “And if you do make him do that, it would be heralded from coast to coast.”

“It’s as good as done,” said Gee-gee confidently. “It’ll prove me a great actress, sure.” In a brighter tone.

“I always said you had talent,” remarked Gid-up.

“Cheese it,” retorted Gee-gee elegantly. “Ain’t you the fond flatterer!”

“Anyhow, I’m glad I don’t have to do society talk any more,” said Gid-up, and stuck a piece of gum in her mouth.

“Yes,” said Gee-gee, “my jaws is most broke.”

“Maybe you’d better tighten up your hobble a little for dukie,” suggested Gid-up.

“Have to stand still the rest of my life if I did,” observed Gee-gee, swishing along about six inches a step.

“You could divide it a little.”

“So I could.”

By this time they had forgotten about the river, or taking gas. The duke had already become a real person in their lives and they talked on, devising stunts for his Vivacious Greatness. By this time, too, the monocle-man seemed to them a real benefactor.

Meanwhile the “real benefactor” had been reading from that stenographic report to Dan and the others. The commodore nearly jumped out of his boots for joy.

“Read that again,” he said.

The monocle-man, reading: “‘This ain’t half bad enough. You think up something now, Gee-gee.’

“‘Doping a poor little thing is always good stuff to spring on a jury, Gid-up. And you could make yourself up young with your hair done up in a pigtail, with a cute little baby-blue bow on the end.’

“‘But that sounds old, Gee-gee. You can sure invent something new – ’” etc., etc.

The monocle-man finished reading and laid down the paper. “There you are, gentlemen,” he observed in a lively tone. “The stenographers will swear to that. They were dressed as house-maids, but at night and on certain occasions, they used one of the rooms Mrs. Ralston placed at my disposal as an office. When I came down here I didn’t expect to be involved in a domestic drama. It rather forced itself upon me. It came as part of the day’s work. I overheard your conversation with Miss Dolly that night.” Significantly to Bob. That young gentleman flushed.

“I have taken the liberty of destroying the report of that conversation, I may add. Miss Dolly is charming.” With a smile. “I, also, had a record of your conversation with these three gentlemen” – indicating Dan, Clarence and Dickie – “after they entered your room one night, via the trellis and the window. That conversation introduced me into the domestic drama. I became an actor in it whether I would or not. But for my whispered instructions to one of my assistants in the garden, you three gentlemen would have been arrested.” Dan stared at Clarence in momentary consternation. “You did not need the golf-club because my man removed the dog.”

“It seems,” said Dan effusively to the monocle-man, “you have been our good angel. If any remuneration – ?”

“No,” answered the monocle-man. “What I have done for you was only incidental and my reward was the enjoyment I got out of the affair – in watching how the threads crossed and recrossed, and how they tangled and untangled. It was better than going to a show. It made work a pleasure. Besides, I shall be well rewarded for what I have accomplished in another direction.” Looking toward the cell.

“I tried to get him in England and failed. In France, the story was the same. He is rather a remarkable personality. A born criminal and an actor, as well! Of good family, he wedged his way into society, through the all-round amateur athletic route. He was generally well liked.” Bob thought of Miss Gerald and looked down. He couldn’t help wondering if she would not greatly have preferred his (Bob’s) occupying that cell, instead of the other man who had seemed to interest her so much.

“Now for Mrs. Dan,” observed the commodore, jubilantly waving the stenographic report. “This will bring her to time.”

“And my wife, too!” said Clarence with equal joy.

“I thought I would save you gentlemen some trouble and so have already placed the report in the ladies’ hands,” said the monocle-man affably. “Indeed, they came to me afterward and told me they had been shamefully deceived. Mrs. Dan looked as if she had had a good cry – from joy, no doubt. Mrs. Clarence’s voice was tremulous. Same cause, I am sure. I think you will find them contrite and anxious to make up.”

“This is great,” said Dan.

“Glorious!” observed Clarence.

“Think of it! No public disgrace!”

“No being held up as monsters in the press!”

“It’s too good to be true.” The commodore threw out his arms and advanced toward the monocle-man.

But the latter waved him away. “Save your embraces for your wives,” he observed.

“I love all the world,” said Dan.

“Me, too!” from Clarence.

“I presume I am free to take my departure, gentlemen?” said Bob, rising.

“You are free as the birds of the air for all of me,” answered the monocle-man.

“Hold on one moment,” begged the commodore. “No; I’m not going to detain you forcibly. As a friend I ask you to wait.” Bob paused. “I’m a good fellow,” said Dan effusively, “and I don’t wish the world harm. I don’t want you to go wandering around any more as you are. Why, you’re a regular Frankenstein. You’re an iron automaton that goes about trampling on people. After all I’ve gone through, I have charity toward others. I won’t have you treading on people’s finer sensibilities and smashing connubial peace and comfort all to splinters.”

“But what can I do?” suggested Bob. He meant the three weeks weren’t yet up.

“Here’s what I propose to Clarence and Dickie. I see now you’ll win, anyhow. You’ve got the grit and the nerve. So as long as we have simply got to pay in the end, why not do so at once and so spare others? That’ll be the way I’ll pay him.” Alluding to the monocle-man. “It’s my way of showing my gratitude for what he’s done. And now I think of it, I can’t see that I ought to blame you so much, Bob, for all that has transpired.”

“Oh, you don’t?” With faint irony.

“No; you only did what you had to, and maybe we were a little rough. Forget it.” The commodore extended his hand.

The act melted Bob. He took it. “Good friends, once more!” chirped Dan, and extended an arm to include Clarence. “You’ve won. The money’s fairly yours, Bob. Only as a personal favor, I ask you to be, at once, as you were. Be your old natural self immediately.”

“I’ll pay my share to have him that way again,” said Clarence heartily. “I want to spare the world too. Besides, he’s won all right enough.”

“It’s three weeks or nothing from me,” said Dickie. “You chaps may want to spare the world, but I don’t want to spare him.”

“I’ll pay for Dickie,” replied good old Dan. “And gladly!”

Dickie shrugged. Dan wrote out a check. “Congratulations!” he said. “And for us, too!” Turning to Clarence. “Think of the thousands in alimony it might have cost us!”

“We’ve simply got to call a halt on old Bob,” said Clarence fervently. “Bet’s off! We lose.”

Bob took the check. “I believe I am entitled to it, for I certainly would have stuck it out now. I am sure I wouldn’t do it all over again, though, for ten times the amount. Nevertheless, I thank you.” He shook himself. “Free! Isn’t it great? Will you do something for me?” To the monocle-man.

“Gladly,” was the reply. “I was secretly informed of that wager of yours and I was immensely interested in your little social experiment. You see I make my living by prevarication and subterfuges. And that” – with a laugh – “is more than a man can make by telling the truth. It’s a wicked world. Fraud and humbug are trumps.”

“What I want you to do,” said Bob, ignoring this homily, “is to express my grip to New York. Also, tell Miss Gerald that I’ve gone and kindly thank Mrs Ralston and Miss Gerald for asking me down.”

“Why don’t you thank them yourself?”

“I think they would be more pleased if I complied with the formalities by proxy.”

“Shall I add you had a charming time?”

“You may use your own judgment.”

Bob walked to the door.

“I guess it’s I who am crazy,” said the maniac-doctor, again waking up.