The Bartlett Mystery
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Steingall carefully chose a cigar from a box of fifty, all exactly alike, nipped the end off, and lighted it. Clancy’s fingers drummed impatiently on the table at which the three were seated. Evidently he expected the chief to play Sir Oracle. But the head of the Bureau contented himself with the comment that he was still interested in Winifred Bartlett’s history, and would be glad to have any definite particulars which Carshaw might gather.
Clancy sighed so heavily on hearing this “departmental” utterance that Carshaw was surprised.
“If I could please myself, I’d rush Winifred to the City Hall for a marriage license to-day,” he said, believing he had fathomed the other’s thought.
“I’m a bit of a Celt on the French and Irish sides,” snapped Clancy, “and that means an ineradicable vein of romance in my make-up. But I’m a New York policeman, too – a guy who has to mind his own business far more frequently than the public suspects.”
And there the subject dropped. Truth to tell, the department had to tread warily in stalking such big game as a Senator. Carshaw was a friend of the Towers, and “the yacht mystery” had been deliberately squelched by the highly influential persons most concerned. It was impolitic, it might be disastrous, if Senator Meiklejohn’s name were dragged into connection with that of the unsavory Voles on the flimsy evidence, or, rather, mere doubt, affecting Winifred Bartlett’s early life.
Winifred herself lived in a passive but blissful state of dreams during the three weeks. Perhaps, in her heart of hearts, she wondered if every young man who might be in love with a girl imposed such rigid restraint on himself as Rex Carshaw when he was in her company. The unspoken language of love was plain in every glance, in every tone, in the merest touch of their hands. But he spoke no definite word, and their lips had never met.
Miss Goodman, who took an interest in the pretty and amiable girl, spent many an hour of chat with her. Every morning there arrived a present of flowers from Carshaw; every afternoon Carshaw himself appeared as regularly as the clock and drank of Miss Goodman’s tea. They were weeks of Nirvana for Winifred, and, but for her fear of being found out and her continued lack of occupation, they were the happiest she had ever known. Meantime, however, she was living on “borrowed” money, and felt herself in a false position.
“Well, any news?” was always Carshaw’s first question as he placed his hat over his stick on a chair. And Winifred might reply:
“Not much. I saw such-and-such a stage manager, and went from such an agent to another, and had my voice tried, with the usual promises. I’m afraid that even your patience will soon be worn out. I am sorry now that I thought of singing instead of something else, for there are plenty of girls who can sing much better than I.”
“But don’t be so eager about the matter, Winifred,” he would say. “It is an anxious little heart that eats itself out and will not learn repose. Isn’t it? And it chafes at being dependent on some one who is growing weary of the duty. Doesn’t it?”
“No, I didn’t mean that,” said Winifred with a rueful and tender smile. “You are infinitely good, Rex.” They had soon come to the use of Christian names. Outwardly they were just good friends, while inwardly they resembled two active volcanoes.
“Now I am ‘infinitely good,’ which is really more than human if you think it out,” he laughed. “See how you run to extremes with nerves and things. No, you are not to care at all, Winnie. You have a more or less good voice. You know more music than is good for you, and sooner or later, since you insist on it, you will get what you want. Where is the hurry?”
“You don’t or won’t understand,” said Winifred. “I know what I want, and must get some work without delay.”
“Well, then, since it upsets you, you shall. I am not much of an authority about professional matters myself, but I know a lady who understands these things, and I’ll speak to her.”
“Who is this lady?” asked Winifred.
“Mrs. Ronald Tower.”
“Young – nice-looking?” asked Winifred, looking down at the crochet work in her lap. She was so taken up with the purely feminine aspect of affairs that she gave slight heed to a remarkable coincidence.
“Er – so-so,” said Carshaw with a smile borne of memories, which Winifred’s downcast eyes just noticed under their raised lids.
“What is she like?” she went on.
“Let me see! How shall I describe her? Well, you know Gainsborough’s picture of the Duchess of Devonshire? She’s like that, full-busted, with preposterous hats, dashing – rather a beauty!”
“Indeed!” said Winifred coldly. “She must be awfully attractive. A very old friend?”
“Oh, rather! I knew her when I was eighteen, and she was elancée then.”
“What does elancée mean?”
“On the loose.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well – a bit free and easy, doesn’t it? Something of that sort. Smart set, you know.”
“I see. Do you, then, belong to the smart set?”
“I? No. I dislike it rather. But one rubs with all sorts in the grinding of the mill.”
“And this Mrs. Ronald Tower, whom you knew at eighteen, how old was she then?”
“About twenty-two or so.”
“And she was – gay then?”
“As far as ever society would let her.”
“How – did you know?”
“I – well, weren’t we almost boy and girl together?”
“I wonder you can give yourself the pains to come to spend your precious minutes with me when that sort of woman is within – ”
“What, not jealous?” he cried joyously. “And of that passée creature? Why, she isn’t worthy to stoop and tie the latchets of your shoes, as the Scripture saith!”
“Still, I’d rather not be indebted to that lady for anything,” said Winifred.
“But why not? Don’t be excessive, little one. There is no reason, you know.”
“How does she come to know about singing and theatrical people?”
“I don’t know that she does. I only assume it. A woman of the world, cutting a great dash, yet hard up – that kind knows all sorts and conditions of men. I am sure she could help you, and I’ll have a try.”
“But is she the wife of the Ronald Tower who was dragged by the lasso into the river?”
“The same.”
“It is odd how that name keeps on occurring in my life,” said Winifred musingly. “A month ago I first heard it on Riverside Drive, and since then I hear it always. I prefer, Rex, that you do not say anything to that woman about me.”
“I shall!” said Rex playfully. “You mustn’t start at shadows.”
Winifred was silent. After a time she asked:
“Have you seen Mr. Steingall or Mr. Clancy lately?”
“Yes, a couple of days ago. We are always more or less in communication. But I have nothing to report. They’re keeping track of Voles and Mick the Wolf, but those are birds who don’t like salt on their tails. You know already that the Bureau never ceases to work at the mystery of your relation with your impossible ‘aunt,’ and I think they have information which they have not passed on to me.”
“Is my aunty still searching for me, I wonder?” asked Winifred.
“Oh, don’t call her aunty – call her your antipodes! It is more than that woman knows how to be your aunt. Of course, the whole crew of them are moving heaven and earth to find you! Clancy knows it. But let them try – they won’t succeed. And even if they do, please don’t forget that I’m here now!”
“But why should they be so terribly anxious to find me? My aunty always treated me fairly well, but in a cold sort of a way which did not betray much love. So love can’t be their motive.”
“Love!” And Carshaw breathed the word softly, as though it were pleasing to his ear. “No. They have some deep reason, but what that is is more than any one guesses. The same reason made them wish to take you far from New York, though what it all means is not very clear. Time, perhaps, will show.”
The same night Rex Carshaw sat among a set which he had not frequented much of late – in Mrs. Tower’s drawing-room. There were several tables surrounded with people of various American and foreign types playing bridge. The whole atmosphere was that of Mammon; one might have fancied oneself in the halls of a Florentine money-changer. At the same table with Carshaw were Mrs. Tower, another society dame, and Senator Meiklejohn, who ought to have been making laws at Washington.
Tower stood looking on, the most unimportant person present, and anon ran to do some bidding of his wife’s. Carshaw’s only relation with Helen Tower of late had been to allow himself to be cheated by her at bridge, for she did not often pay, especially if she lost to one who had been something more than a friend. When he did present himself at her house, she felt a certain gladness apart from the money which he would lose; women ever keep some fragment of the heart which the world is not permitted to scar and harden wholly.
She grew pensive, therefore, when he told her that he wished to place a girl on the concert stage, and wished to know from her how best to succeed. She thought dreamily of other days, and the slightest pin-prick of jealousy touched her, for Carshaw had suddenly become earnest in broaching this matter, and the other pair of players wondered why the game was interrupted for so trivial a cause.
“What is the girl’s name?” she asked.
“Her name is of no importance, but, if you must know, it is Winifred Bartlett,” he answered.
Senator Meiklejohn laid his thirteen cards face upward on the table. There had been no bidding, and his partner screamed in protest:
“Senator, what are you doing?”
He had revealed three aces and a long suit of spades.
“We must have a fresh deal,” smirked Mrs. Tower.
“Well, of all the wretched luck!” sighed the other woman. Meiklejohn pleaded a sudden indisposition, yet lingered while a servant summoned Ronald Tower to play in his stead.
Carshaw knew Winifred – that same Winifred whom he and his secret intimates had sought so vainly during three long weeks! Voles and his arm-fractured henchman were recuperating in Boston, but Rachel Craik and Fowle were hunting New York high and low for sight of the girl.
Fowle, though skilled in his trade, found well-paid loafing more to his choice, for Voles had sent Rachel to Fowle, guessing this man to be of the right kidney for underhanded dealings. Moreover, he knew Winifred, and would recognize her anywhere. Fowle, therefore, suddenly blossomed into a “private detective,” and had reported steady failure day after day. Rachel Craik had never ascertained Carshaw’s name, as it was not necessary that he should register in the Fairfield Inn, and Fowle, with a nose still rather tender to the touch, never spoke to her of the man who had smashed it.
So these associates in evil remained at cross-purposes until Senator Meiklejohn, when the bridge game was renewed and no further information was likely to ooze out, went away from Mrs. Tower’s house to nurse his sickness. He recovered speedily. A note was sent to Rachel by special messenger, and she, in turn, sought Fowle, whose mean face showed a blotchy red when he learned that Winifred could be traced by watching Carshaw.
“I’ll get her now, ma’am,” he chuckled. “It’ll be dead easy. I can make up as a parson. Did that once before when – well, just to fool a bunch of people. No one suspects a parson – see? I’ll get her – sure!”
CHAPTER XIV
A SUBTLE ATTACK
Voles was brought from Boston. Though Meiklejohn dreaded the man, conditions might arise which would call for a bold and ruthless rascality not quite practicable for a Senator.
The lapse of time, too, had lulled the politician’s suspicions of the police. They seemed to have ceased prying. He ascertained, almost by chance, that Clancy was hot on the trail of a gang of counterfeiters. “The yacht mystery” had apparently become a mere memory in the Bureau.
So Voles came, with him Mick the Wolf, carrying a left arm in splints, and the Senator thought he was taking no risk in calling at the up-town hotel where the pair occupied rooms the day after Carshaw blurted out Winifred’s name to Helen Tower. He meant paying another visit that day, so was attired de rigueur, a fact at which Voles, pipe in mouth and lounging in pajamas, promptly scoffed.
“Gee!” he cried. “Here’s the Senator mooching round again, dressed up to the nines – dust coat, morning suit, boots shining, all the frills – but visiting low companions all the same. Why doesn’t the man turn over a new leaf and become good?”
“Oh, hold your tongue!” said William. “We’ve got the girl, Ralph!”
“Got the girl, have we? Not the first girl you’ve said that about – is it, my wily William?”
“Listen, and drop that tone when you’re speaking to me, or I’ll cut you out for good and all!” said Meiklejohn in deadly earnest. “If ever you had need to be serious, it is now. I said we’ve got her, but that only means that we are about to get her address; and the trouble will be to get herself afterward.”
“Tosh! As to that, only tell me where she is, an’ I’ll go and grab her by the neck.”
“Don’t be such a fool. This is New York and not Mexico, though you insist on confounding the two. Even if the girl were without friends, you can’t go and seize people in that fashion over here, and she has at least one powerful friend, for the man who beat you hollow that night, and carried her off under your very nose, is Rex Carshaw, a determined youngster, and rich, though not so rich as he thinks he is. And there must be no failure a second time, Ralph. Remember that! Just listen to me carefully. This girl is thinking of going on the stage! Do you realize what that means, if she ever gets there? You have yourself said she is the living image of her mother. You know that her mother was well known in society. Think, then, of her appearing before the public, and of the certainty of her being recognized by some one, or by many, if she does. Fall down this time, and the game’s up!”
“The thing seems to be, then, to let daylight into Carshaw,” said Voles.
“Oh, listen, man! Listen! What we have to do is to place her in a lonely house – in the country – where, if she screams, her screams will not be heard; and the only possibility of bringing her there is by ruse, not by violence.”
“Well, and how get her there?”
“That has to be carefully planned, and even more carefully executed. It seems to me that the mere fact of her wishing to go on the stage may be made a handle to serve our ends. If we can find a dramatic agent with whom she is in treaty, we must obtain a sheet of his office paper, and write her a letter in his name, making an appointment with her at an empty house in the country, some little distance from New York. None of the steps presents any great difficulty. In fact, all that part I undertake myself. It will be for you, your friend Mick, and Rachel Craik to receive her and keep her eternally when you once have her. You may then be able so to work upon her as to persuade her to go quietly with you to South America or England. In any case, we shall have shut her away from the world, which is our object.”
“Poor stuff! How about this Carshaw? Suppose he goes with her to keep the appointment, or learns from her beforehand of it? Carshaw must be wiped out.”
“He must certainly be dealt with, yes,” said Meiklejohn, “but in another manner. I think – I think I see my way. Leave him to me. I want this girl out of New York State in the first instance. Suppose you go to the Oranges, in New Jersey, pick out a suitable house, and rent it? Go to-day.”
Voles raised his shaggy eyebrows.
“What’s the rush?” he said amusedly. “After eighteen years – ”
“Will you never learn reason? Every hour, every minute, may bring disaster.”
“Oh, have it your way! I’ll fix Carshaw if he camps on my trail a second time.”
Meiklejohn returned to his car with a care-seamed brow. He was bound now for Mrs. Carshaw’s apartment.
If he was fortunate enough to find her in, and alone, he would take that first step in “dealing with” her son which he had spoken of to Voles. He made no prior appointment by phone. He meant catching her unawares, so that Rex could have no notion of his presence.
Mrs. Carshaw was a substantial lady of fifty, a society woman of the type to whom the changing seasons supply the whole duty of man and woman, and the world outside the orbit of the Four Hundred is a rumor of no importance.
She had met Senator Meiklejohn in so many places for so many years that they might be called comrades in the task of dining and making New York look elegant. She was pleased to see him. Their common fund of scandal and epigram would carry them safely over a cheerful hour.
“And as to the good old firm of Carshaw – prosperous as usual, I hope,” said Meiklejohn, balancing an egg-shell tea-cup.
Mrs. Carshaw shrugged.
“I don’t know much about it,” she said, “but I sometimes hear talk of bad times and lack of capital. I suppose it is all right. Rex does not seem concerned.”
“Ah! but the mischief may be just there,” said Meiklejohn. “The rogue may be throwing it all on the shoulders of his managers, and letting things slide.”
“He may – he probably is. I see very little of him, really, especially just lately.”
“Is it the same little influence at work upon him as some months ago?” asked Meiklejohn, bending nearer, a real confidential crony.
“Which same little influence?” asked the lady, agog with a sense of secrecy, and genuinely anxious as to anything affecting her son.
“Why, the girl, Winifred Bartlett.”
“Bartlett! As far as I know, I have never even heard her name.”
“Extraordinary! Why, it’s the talk of the club.”
“Tell me. What is it all about?”
“Ah, I must not be indiscreet. When I mentioned her, I took it for granted that you knew all about it, or I should not have told tales out of school.”
“Yes, but you and I are of a different generation than Rex. He belongs to the spring, we belong to the autumn. There is no question of telling tales out of school as between you and him. So now, please, you are going to tell me all.”
“Well, the usual story: A girl of lower social class; a young man’s head turned by her wiles; the conventions more or less defied; business yawned at; mother, friends, everything shelved for the time being, and nothing important but the one thing. It’s not serious, perhaps. So long as business is not too much neglected, and no financial consequences follow, society thinks not a whit worse of a young man on that account – on one condition, mark you! There must be no question of marriage. But in this case there is that question.”
“But this is merely ridiculous!” laughed Mrs. Carshaw shrilly. “Marriage! Can a son of mine be so quixotic?”
“It is commonly believed that he is about to marry her.”
“But how on earth has it happened that I never heard a whisper of this preposterous thing?”
“It is extraordinary. Sometimes the one interested is the last to hear what every one is talking about.”
“Well, I never was so – amused!” Yet Mrs. Carshaw’s wintry smile was not joyous. “Rex! I must laugh him out of it, if I meet him anywhere!”
“That you will not succeed in doing, I think.”
“Well, then I’ll frown him out of it. This is why – I see all now.”
“There you are hardly wise, to think of either laughing or frowning him out of it,” said Meiklejohn, offering her worldly wisdom. “No, in such cases there is a better way, take my word for it.”
“And that is?”
“Approach the girl. Avoid carefully saying one word to the young man, but approach the girl. That does it, if the girl is at all decent, and has any sensibility. Lay the facts plainly before her. Take her into your confidence – this flatters her. Invoke her love for the young man whom she is hurting by her intimacy with him – this puts her on her honor. Urge her to fly from him – this makes her feel herself a martyr, and turns her on the heroic tack. That is certainly what I should do if I were you, and I should do it without delay.”
“You’re right. I’ll do it,” said Mrs. Carshaw. “Do you happen to know where this girl is to be found?”
“No. I think I can tell, though, from whom you might get the address – Helen Tower. I heard your son talking to her last night about the girl. He was wanting to know whether Helen could put him in the way of placing her on the stage.”
“What! Is she one of those scheming chorus-girls?”
“It appears so.”
“But has he had the effrontery to mention her in this way to other ladies? It is rather amusing! Why, it used to be said that Helen Tower was his belle amie.”
“All the more reason, perhaps, why she may be willing to give you the address, if she knows it.”
“I’ll see her this very afternoon.”
“Then I must leave you at leisure now,” said Meiklejohn sympathetically.
An hour later Mrs. Carshaw was with Helen Tower, and the name of Winifred Bartlett arose between them.
“But he did not give me her address,” said Mrs. Tower. “Do you want it pressingly?”
“Why, yes. Have you not heard that there is a question of marriage?”
“Good gracious! Marriage?”
The two women laid their heads nearer together, enjoying the awfulness of the thing, though one was a mother and the other was pricked with jealousy in some secret part of her nature.
“Yes – marriage!” repeated the mother. Such an enormity was dreadful.
“It sounds too far-fetched! What will you do?”
“Senator Meiklejohn recommends me to approach the girl.”
“Well, perhaps that is the best. But how to get her address? Perhaps if I asked Rex he would tell it, without suspecting anything. On the other hand, he might take alarm.”
“Couldn’t you say you had secured her a place on the stage, and make him send her to you, to test her voice, or something? And then you could send her on to me,” said the elder woman.
“Yes, that might be done,” answered Helen Tower. “I’d like to see her, too. She must be extraordinarily pretty to capture Rex. Some of those common girls are, you know. It is a caprice of Providence. Anyway, I shall find her out, or have her here somehow within the next few days, and will let you know. First of all, I’ll write Rex and ask him to come for bridge to-night.”
She did this, but without effect, for Carshaw was engaged elsewhere, having taken Winifred to a theater.
However, Meiklejohn was again at the bridge party, and when he asked whether Mrs. Carshaw had paid a visit that afternoon, and the address of the girl had been given, Helen Tower answered:
“I don’t know it. I am now trying to find out.”
The Senator seemed to take thought.
“I hate interfering,” he said at last, “but I like young Carshaw, and have known his mother many a year. It’s a pity he should throw himself away on some chit of a girl, merely because she has a fetching pair of eyes or a slim ankle, or Heaven alone knows what else it is that first turns a young man’s mind to a young woman. I happen to have heard, however, that Winifred Bartlett lives in a boarding-house kept by Miss Goodman in East Twenty-seventh Street. Now, my name must not – ”
Helen Tower laughed in that dry way which often annoyed him.
“Surely by this time you regard me as a trustworthy person,” she said.
So Fowle had proven himself a capable tracker, and Winifred’s persecutors were again closing in on her. But who would have imagined that the worst and most deadly of them might be the mother of her Rex? That, surely, was something akin to steeping in poison the assassin’s dagger.
CHAPTER XV
THE VISITOR
“Are you Miss Winifred Bartlett?” asked Mrs. Carshaw the next afternoon in that remote part of East Twenty-seventh Street which for the first time bore the rubber tires of her limousine.
“Yes, madam,” said Winifred, who stood rather pale before that large and elegant presence. It was in the front room of the two which Winifred occupied.
“But – where have I seen you before?” asked Mrs. Carshaw suddenly, making play with a pair of mounted eye-glasses.
“I cannot say, madam. Will you be seated?”
“What a pretty girl you are!” exclaimed the visitor, wholly unconscious of the calm insolence which “society” uses to its inferiors. “I’m certain I have seen you somewhere, for your face is perfectly familiar, but for the life of me I cannot recall the occasion.”