The Black Eagle Mystery

CHAPTER XVI

MOLLY TELLS THE STORY

As the taxi rolled up to her corner I saw that the windows of her floor were bright. She was still up, which would make things easier – much better than having to wake her from her sleep. In that sort of apartment they lock the outer doors at half-past ten and to get at the bells you have to wake the janitor, which I didn't want to do, as no one must know I'd been there. So before I rang the outside bell that connects with his lair in the basement, I tried the door, hoping some late comer had left it on the jar as they sometimes do. It opened – an immense piece of luck – which made me feel that fate was on my side and braced me like a tonic.

In the vestibule I pressed the button under her letter box and in a minute came the click, click of the inner latch and I entered. As I ascended the stairs I heard the door on the landing above softly open and looking up I saw a bright light illumine the dimness and then, through the balustrade, her figure standing on the threshold.

She must have been surprised for the person who mounted into her sight – a girl in a dark coat and hat – was someone she'd never seen before. She pushed the door wider, as if to let more light on me, looking puzzled at my face. The one electric bulb was just above her on the wall and its sickly gleam fell over her, tall and straight in a purple silk kimono. Her black hair curling back from her forehead stood out like a frame, and her neck, between the folds of the kimono, was as smooth and white as cream. The sight of her instead of weakening me gave me strength, for in that sort of careless rig, tired and pale, she was still handsome enough to make a fool of any man.

"Do you want to see me?" she said, "Miss Whitehall?"

"I do," I answered. "I want to see you on a matter of importance. It can't wait."

Without another word she drew back from the doorway and let me come in.

"Go in there," she said, pointing up the hall to the curtained entrance of the dining-room, and I went as she pointed.

The room was brightly lit, as was the parlor beyond, and on every side were the signs of moving – curtains piled below the windows, furniture in white covers, straw and bits of paper on the floor. Two trunks were standing in the middle of the parlor and on the chairs about were her clothes, all tumbled and mixed up, boots in one place, hats in another, lingerie heaped on the table. There was enough packing to keep her busy till morning, and I thought to myself that was what she intended to do – finish it up tonight and the next day make her move.

All this took only a minute to see and I was standing by the dining-table, clutching tight on my muff to hide the trembling of my hands, when she came in. In the brighter light I could see that she looked worn and weary, all her color gone except for the red of her lips, and her eyes sunken and dark underneath.

"What do you want with me?" she said, as the curtain fell behind her.

Her manner was abrupt and straight from the shoulder like a person's who's got past little pleasantnesses and politeness. The glance she fixed on me was steady and clear, but there was a sort of waiting expectation in it like she was ready for anything and braced to meet it.

"I came," I said, choosing my words as careful as I could, "to tell you of – of – something that's going to happen – to warn you."

She gave a start and her face changed, as if a spring inside her had snapped and sort of focussed her whole being into a still, breathless listening.

"Warn me," she repeated. "Of what?"

"Miss Whitehall," I said, clearing my throat, for it was dry, "I'm a person you don't know, but I know you. I've been employed by people here in New York who've been watching you for the past few weeks. They've got the evidence they want – I've been helping them – and they're ready to act."

As I had spoken she had never taken her eyes off me. Big and black and unwinking they stared and as I stared back I could see it wasn't surprise or fear they showed but a concentrated attention.

"What do you mean – act in what way?"

"Get you to their office tomorrow and question you about the Harland case and make you confess."

She was as still as a statue. You'd have thought she was turned to stone, but for the moving up and down of her chest.

"What am I to confess? What have I done?"

My hands gripped together in my muff and my voice went down to my boots for I couldn't say it aloud.

"Been a party to the murder of Hollings Harland."

When I said it I had an expectation that she'd say something, deny it in some violent way that would make me think she was innocent. Maybe Jack Reddy had influenced me, but I wanted it, I looked for it, I hoped for it – and I was disappointed. If it had been a shock to her, if shehadn't known there'd been a murder, she would never have behaved as she did. For she said not a word, standing stock still, her face chalk white, even the red fading from her lips, and her eyes fixed on the wall opposite, like the eyes of a sleep-walker.

"The murder of Hollings Harland," she whispered, and it was more as if she was speaking to herself than to me.

"Yes," I went on. "They've discovered it – a group of us have been working in secret, following the clues and gathering the evidence. Now we've got it all ready and tomorrow they expect to arrest you."

She suddenly sank down into a chair by the table, her hands braced against its edge, her eyes riveted in that strange, mesmerized stare on the fern plant in front of her.

"When did they discover it?" she said in a low voice.

"Not long after it happened – but that doesn't matter. They've got everything in their hands. Even if you insist that you're innocent they've got enough to arrest you on. You've been under surveillance all along – they've been shadowing you. They followed you that time you tried to go to Toronto."

"I knew that," she said in the same low voice as if she was talking to herself.

"They know how you came out of the building that night – not by the elevator as you said, but by the stairs, and how you didn't get home till nearly eight. They know about you and Barker."

She lifted her head and said quickly:

"What do they know about me and Barker?"

"That he was in love with you and you with him."

"Oh, that!" Her tone was indifferent as if the point was a matter of no consequence.

"They know how the murder was done. How you and Barker did it."

"Barker and I – " She sank back in her chair, then suddenly leaning across the table, looked into my face and said, "Tell me how we did it. Let me see what they know."

I took the chair opposite and told her the whole plot and how we'd worked it out. While I was doing it she never said a word, but sat with her profile toward me and her eyes in that blank, motionless stare on the fern plant.

When I had finished there was a pause, then suddenly she drew a deep breath, turned toward me and said:

"What brought you here to me tonight?"

It came so unexpectedly I had no answer ready. What I'd looked for was a scene, terror, maybe hysterics and her breaking away as fast as she could put on her hat. Seeing me stupidly dumb she rose out of her chair, and moved away for a few steps, then stopped and seemed again to fall into that trance of thinking. It was like everything else in this nightmare – different to what I'd looked for, and a sickening thought came to me that maybe she was ready to throw up the sponge and go down and confess. And then – for all I knew – Jack Reddy might persuade her to marry him and go to prison with her. How can you be sure what a man crazy with love will do? If she got a life sentence he'd probably live at the gates of Sing Sing for the rest of his days. I was desperate and went round the table after her.

"Say," I implored. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm thinking," she muttered.

"For God's sake don't think," I wailed. "Get up and act. If I go back on the people that employ me and come here in the middle of the night to warn you, isn't it the least you can do to take advantage of it andgo?"

She wheeled round on me, her face all alight with a wonderful beaming look.

"That's the reason," she said. "That's what made you come – humanity – pity! You've risked everything to help me. Oh, you don't know what you've done – what courage you've put into me. And you don't know what my gratitude is."

Before I knew it she had seized hold of one of my hands and held it against her heart, with her head bowed over it as if she was praying.

Do you guess how I felt? Ashamed? – perishing with it, ready to sink down on the floor and pass away. A murderess no doubt but even if a murderess thinks you did her a good turn when you didn't it makes you feel like a snake's a high-class animal beside you.

"Oh, come on," I begged. "Let go of me and get out."

She dropped my hand and looked at me – Oh, so soft and sweet! – and I saw tears in her eyes. That pretty near finished me and I wailed out:

"Don't stop to cry. You don't know but what they might get uneasy and come tonight. Put on your things and go."

Hadn't I got to hurry her? If Jack made a quick trip he'd be back in town between two and three and he'd come as straight as wheels could take him to her door.

"Yes, I'll go," she said.

"Now," I urged, "as soon as you can get into your coat and hat. Don't bother about this," I pointed to the disorder round us – "They'll think you've had another message from Barker and gone to him."

A curious, slight smile came over her face.

"Yes," she said, "that's what they will think, I suppose."

"Of course it is, and they'll waste time looking for him which'll giveyou a good start. If there's no train now to the place you're going to, sit in the depot, ride round in a taxi, walk up and down Fifth Avenue, only get out of this place."

"I'll be gone in half an hour," she said, and moved between the trunks and piled up clothes to the bedroom beyond. I followed her and saw into the room, all confusion like the others, every gas in the chandelier blazing.

"Can I help you?" I said. "Can I pack a suitcase or anything?"

"No – " she halted in front of the mirror, letting the kimono slide off her to the floor, her arms and neck like shining marble under that blaze of light. "I'll only want a few things. There's a bag there I can throw them into. You'd better go now."

I was afraid she'd not be as quick as I wanted but I couldn't hang round urging any more after she'd told me to go. Besides I could see she was hurrying, grabbing a dress from the bed and getting into it so swiftly even I was satisfied.

"Well then I'm off," I said.

She looked up from the hooks she was snapping together and said:

"Before you go tell me who you are?"

"There's no need for that," I answered, thinking she'd probably never see me again. "I'm just someone that blew in tonight for a minute and who's going like she came."

"Someone I'll never forget," she said, "and that some day, if all goes well, I'll be able to pay back."

I was afraid she was going to get grateful again and I couldn't stand any more of that. So with a quick "good-bye" away I went, up the hall, opening the door without a sound, and stealing down the stairs as soft as a robber.

Out in the street I stopped and reconnoitered. There was no one in sight except a policeman lounging dreary on the next corner. Across from the apartment was the entrance of a little shop – tobacco and light literature – and into that I crept, squeezing back against the glass door. I couldn't be at peace till I saw her leave and for fifteen or twenty minutes I stood there watching the lights in her windows. Then suddenly they began to go out, across the front and along down the side, till every pane was black. A few minutes later, she came down the steps carrying a bag. She stopped close to where I was, and hailed a car, and not till I saw it start with her sitting by the door, did I steal out of my hiding place and sprint up the street to Madison Avenue.

When I reached home I was shivering and wild-eyed, for if Babbitts was there what could I say to him? He wasn't – thank Heaven! – and cold as ice, feeling as if I'd been through a mangle, I crawled into bed.

There wasn't much sleep for me that night. About all I could say to myself was that I'd saved Jack. But the others – Oh, the others! I couldn't get them out of my mind. They'd come in a procession across the dark and look at me sad and reproachful. Mr. Whitney, who'd done everything in the world for me, and Mr. George, who could put on such side, but had always been so kind and cordial, and O'Mally, who'd told Babbitts the case was going to make him, and Babbitts – Oh, Babbitts!

I rolled over on the pillow and cried scalding, bitter tears. It wasn't only the scoop – it was that I'd have a secret from him forever – him that up to now had known every thought in my mind, had been like the other half of me. They say virtue is its own reward, and I've always believed it. But that night I had the awful thought that maybe I'd done wrong, for all the reward I got was to feel like an outcast with a stone for a heart.

CHAPTER XVII

JACK TELLS THE STORY

That night when I left Molly there was only one thought in my mind – to reach Carol and help her get away. If the figure of Barker had not stood between us I would have then and there implored her to marry me and give me the right to fight for her. But I knew that was hopeless. As things stood, all I could do was to tell her the situation and give her a chance to escape.

I suppose it's a pretty damaging confession but the office, my duty to my work and my associates, cut no ice at all. Heretofore I'd rather patted myself on the back as a man who stood by his obligations. That night only one obligation existed for me – to protect from disgrace the woman I loved.

I knew the trains to Azalea – it was on the road to Firehill – and though one left at midnight, the last train on the branch line to the Azalea Woods Estates had long gone. The shortest and quickest way for me to get there was to take out my own car. This would also insure the necessary secrecy. I could bring her back with me and let her slip away in the crowds at one of the big stations.

It was a wild, windy night, a waning moon showing between long streamers of clouds. By the time I struck the New Jersey shore – after maddening delays in the garage and at the ferry – it was getting on for one, and the clouds had spread black over the sky. It was a fiendish ride for a man on fire as I was. For miles the road looped through a country as dark as a pocket, broken with ice-skimmed pools and deep-driven ruts. In the daylight I could have made the whole distance inside an hour, but it was after two when I came to the branch line junction and turned up the long winding road that led over the hills to the Azalea Woods Estates.

As I sighted the little red-roofed station and the houses dotted over the tract, the moon came out and I slowed up, having no idea where the cottage was or what it looked like. The place was quiet as the grave, the light sleeping on the pale walls of the stucco villas backed by the wooded darkness of the hills.

I was preparing to get out and rouse one of the slumbering inhabitants when I heard the voices of women. They were coming down a side road and looking up it I saw three figures moving toward me, their shadows slanting black in front of them. At the gate of a large, white-walled house, two of them turned in, their good-nights clear on the frosty air, and the third advanced in my direction. I could see her skirts, light-colored below her long dark coat, and her head tied up in some sort of scarf. By their clothes and voices I judged them to be servant girls coming back from a party.

As she approached I hailed her with a careful question:

"I beg your pardon, but I think I'm lost. Can you tell me where I am?"

"I can," she said, drawing up by the car. "You're in the Azalea Woods Estates."

"Oh, I am a bit out of my way. The Azalea Woods Estates," I surveyed the scattered houses and wide-cut avenues, "I've heard of them but never seen them before. Doesn't a Mrs. Whitehall live here?"

The girl smiled; she had a pleasant, good-natured face.

"She surely does – in the Regan cottage over beyond the crest there. I'm living with her, doing the heavy work, until she gets settled. I belong on the big farm, but as she was lonesome and had no girl I said I'd come over and stay till her daughter joined her."

I smothered a start —could Molly have made a mistake?

"Her daughter, eh? Isn't her daughter with her now?"

"No, sir. She's coming tomorrow afternoon, then I'm going home. We'll have the cottage all ready for her. She's not expected till the 2.40 from town. Do you know the ladies?"

I bent over the wheel, afraid even by that pale light my face might show too much. Molly had made a mistake, sent me out here on a fruitless quest, wasted three or four precious hours. I could have wrung her neck. I heard my voice veiled and husky as I answered:

"Only by hearsay. I knew Miss Whitehall was the head of the enterprise, that's all. Er – er – it's Azalea I'm aiming for. How do I get there?"

She laughed.

"Well you are out of your way. You'll have to go back to the Junction on the main line. Then follow the road straight ahead and you'll strike Azalea – about twenty miles farther on."

"Thank you," I said and began to back the car for the turn.

"No thanks," she answered and as I swung around called out a cheery "Good night."

That ride back – shall I ever forget it! It was as if an evil genius was halting me by every means malevolence could devise. Before I reached the highway the moon disappeared and the darkness settled down like a blanket. The wind was in my face this way and it stung till the water ran out of my eyes. Squinting through tears I had to make out the line of the road, black between black hedges and blacker fields. I went as fast as I dared – nothing must happen to me that night for if I failed her, Carol was lost. With the desire to let the car out as if I was competing in the Vanderbilt Cup Race, I had to slow down for corners and creep through the long winding ways that threaded the woods.

And finally – in a barren stretch without a light or a house in sight a tire blew out! I won't write about it – what's the use? It's enough to say it was nearly six, and the East pale with the new day, when I rushed into Jersey City. I was desperate then, and police or no police, flashed like a gray streak through the town to the ferry.

On the boat I had time to think. I decided to phone her, tell her I was coming and to be dressed and ready. I could still get her off three or four hours ahead of them. I stopped at the first drug store and called her up. The wait seemed endless, then a drawling, nasal voice said, "I can't raise the number. Lenox 1360 don't answer." I got back in the car with my teeth set – sleeping so sound on this morning of all mornings! Poor, unsuspecting Carol!

The day was bright, the slanting sun rays touching roofs and chimneys, when I ran up along the curb at her door. An old man in a dirty jumper who was sweeping the sidewalk, stopped as he saw me leap out and run up the steps. The outer door was shut and as I turned I almost ran into him, standing at my heels with his broom in his hand. He said he was the janitor, took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door, fastening the two leaves back as I pressed her bell.

There was no answering click of the latch and I tried the inner door – fast, and all my shaking failed to budge it.

"Isn't Miss Whitehall here?" I said, turning on the man who was watching me interestedly.

"Sure," he answered. "Anyways she was last night. She talked to me down the dumbwaiter at seven and told me she wasn't going till this afternoon."

"Open the door," I ordered, speaking as quietly as I could. "She's probably asleep – I've an important message for her, and I want to give it now before I go downtown."

He did as I told him and I ran up the stairs, and pressed the electric button at her door. As I waited I heard the janitor's slow steps pounding up behind me, but from the closed apartment there was not a sound.

"She ain't there, I guess," he said as he gained the landing. "She must have gone last night."

I turned on him:

"Have you a key for this apartment?"

"I've a key for every apartment," he answered, holding out the bunch in his hand.

"Then open the door. If she's not here I've got to know it."

He inserted a key in the lock and in a minute we were inside. The morning light filtered in through drawn blinds, showing a deserted place, left in the chaos of a hasty move. Everything was in disorder, trunks open, furniture stacked and covered. The curtains to the front bedroom that I'd always seen closed were pulled back, revealing the evidences of a hurried packing, clothes on the bed, bureau drawers half out, a purple silk thing lying in a heap on the floor.

She was gone, gone in wild haste, gone like one who leaves on a summons as imperative as the call of death – or love!

"She's evidently gone to her mother or some friend for the night," I said carelessly. "She'll be back again to finish it up."

The janitor agreed and asked if I'd leave a message. No, I'd phone up later. I cautioned him to keep my visit quiet and he nodded understandingly – took me for a desperate lover, which Heaven knows I was. But in order to run no risks of his speaking to those who would follow me, I sealed his lips with a bill that left him speechless and bowing to the ground.