Mrs. Balfame Part 10

"That won't cure it," she said, "but no dentist could do more until the swelling is reduced. And it will save you a preliminary bill. Keep this.

As soon as you feel you can stand it, go to Dr. Meyers, Main Street.

Tell him I sent you. But why didn't you tell Mrs. Balfame last night?

Why endure pain? Kind mistresses always keep such alleviatives in the house, and Mrs. Balfame is not the sort to mind being roused in the middle of the night if some one were suffering."

The pain had subsided under treatment, and Frieda was restored to such civility as she knew. "It only got bad when I am dancing to the hall, and I ran home. I had some drops in my room."

"Oh, I see. Did they stop the pain?"

"Nix. Ache like before, but I lie down and perhaps can sleep if those men have not make me come downstairs to make the coffee. All night I am up." And she glowered with self-pity.

"But when you found that your drops were no good, why didn't you run at once to Mrs. Balfame? You were braver than I should have been. It was about eight o'clock, was it not, when Mr. Balfame was shot? Mrs. Balfame was probably awake when you came in, even if she had gone to bed. Or perhaps you didn't know that she came home early?"

"On Sat.u.r.day nights she come home after I do. How I am to know she is here?"

"But you might have gone to her medicine closet--in her bathroom."

"When you have the pain like hot iron you think of all the good things for it the next day." Frieda relapsed into sullen silence; Dr. Anna hastily disposed of the lunch prepared for her and went upstairs.

Mrs. Balfame was lying on the sofa. She had not dressed, but looked as trim as usual in a blue and white bathrobe; never having been a woman to "let herself go," she did not possess a wrapper. Her long hair hung in two loose braids, and she looked very pale and lovely.

"Put Frieda out of your head," said Dr. Anna hurriedly; familiar voices ascended from the path below. "She heard nothing. You don't when you have a jumping toothache."

"Thank heaven!"

A soft knock announced several of her friends. They were dressed for motoring; this being Sunday, not even death must interfere with the cross-country refreshment of the Elsinore husband. They kissed Mrs.

Balfame and congratulated her upon her appearance and her nerves.

"But one thing must be settled right here," announced Mrs. Gifning, "and that is the question of your mourning. I'll go over on the eight-ten in the morning and see to it. But you never wear ready-made things and it would be a pity to waste money that way. Are you going to wear a veil at the inquest?"

"Of course I am. Do you suppose I shall submit to being stared at by a curious mob and snapshotted by reporters?"

"That's just what I thought. I'll bring back a smart hat and a long crepe veil with me, and order your widow's outfit from one of the big shops; they'll have it over in time for the funeral. And you can wear your tailor suit to the inquest; it will be half covered by the veil."

"What a good idea!" said Mrs. Balfame gratefully. "You are too kind."

"Kind? Nothing! I just love to shop for other people. How lucky that you hadn't bought your new winter suit. It might have been blue."

"It was to have been blue." There was a note of regret in Mrs. Balfame's voice. "Don't forget to buy me two black chiffon blouses. One very simple for every day; the other, really good. And something white for the neck. Of course I wouldn't wear it on the street; but in the house--black is too trying!"

"Rather. Trust me. Have you black gloves--undressed kid, I mean? You don't want to look like an undertaker." Mrs. Balfame nodded. "That's all, I think. Send me a line if you think of something else. I must run and take Giffy for his ride. He's all broken up, poor darling. Wasn't he just splendid last night?" She blew a kiss along the widow's forehead and ran out with a light step that caused her more substantial friends to sigh with envy. She, too, was in the manoeuvring forties, but she had gone into training at thirty.

"I guess we'd all better go." Mrs. Battle, with a sudden dexterous heave of her armoured bulk, was out of the chair and on her feet. "Now, try to sleep, dearie. You are just the bravest thing! But to-morrow will be trying. Sam c.u.mmack says the coroner won't hold the inquest before afternoon, but if they do and your veil isn't here, I've got one of Ma's packed away in camphor that I'll get out for you. I'll get it out to-night and have it airing--we won't take any chances; and you sha'n't be annoyed by the vulgar curious."

"Oh, thank you! But that is not the only ordeal. It's even more trying to stay in the house all these days--in this room! If I could walk in the grounds. But I suppose those reporters are everywhere."

"They are swarming, simply swarming. And the avenue is so packed with automobiles you can't navigate. People have come from all over the country--some from New York and Brooklyn."

Mrs. Balfame curled her lip with disgust. Morbid curiosity, like other vulgarities, was incomprehensible to her. Death, no matter how desired or how accomplished, should inspire hush and respect, not provide excitement for a Sunday afternoon.

"Let us hope they will find the wretch to-day," she said impatiently.

"That will end it, for, of course, it is the element of mystery that has made the case so notorious. Is there no clue?"

"Not the ghost of one." Mrs. c.u.mmack, too, was adjusting her automobile veil. "Sam's on the job,--I'm only taking him out for an hour or two; and so, of course, are the police--hot. But he's covered his tracks so far."

"If it is a he," whispered Mrs. Battle to Mrs. Frew, as they stole softly down the stairs. "What about that red-head, or that telephone girl who fainted? They say she had to go home--"

"Can you imagine caring enough for Dave Balfame--Let's get out of this, for heaven's sake, or I'll faint right here."

The atmosphere was as depressing as the dark interior of the house, for it was heavy laden with the scent of flowers and death. The parlour doors, behind which lay David Balfame, embalmed and serene in his casket, were closed, but hushed whisperings came forth like the rustling of funeral wreaths disturbed by the vapours of decay. The devoted friends of the widow burst out into the suns.h.i.+ne almost with a cry of relief.

Here all was as animated as a county fair. The grounds were void, save by patrolling police, but the avenue and adjoining streets were packed with every type of car from limousine to farmer's runabout, and many more people were afoot, staring at the house, venturing as near the hedge as they dared, to inspect the grove. They asked questions, answered them, offered theories, all in a breath, and without the slightest respect for any opinion save their own. A few children, sucking peppermint sticks, sat on the hedge.

"Did you ever?" murmured Mrs. Frew to Mrs. Battle. "_Did_ you ever?" She shuddered with refined disgust, but felt thrilled to her marrow. "Just Enid's luck!" was her auxiliary but silent reflection.

CHAPTER XII

At the inquest on the following day, Mrs. Balfame, circ.u.mvested in crepe, sat between Mr. and Mrs. c.u.mmack, gracefully erect, and without even a nervous flutter of the hands.

When called upon to testify, she told in a clear low voice the meagre story already known to her friends and by this time the common property of Elsinore and all that read the newspapers of the State.

The coroner released her as quickly as possible, and called her servant to the stand. Although the swelling in Frieda's face had subsided somewhat under Dr. Anna's repeated ministrations, the tooth still throbbed; and she also was released after announcing resentfully that she'd seen "notings," heard "notings," and "didn't know notings" about the murder except having to get up and make coffee when she was like to die with the ache in her tooth.

There was no one else to testify, except c.u.mmack, who gave the hour, about a quarter or ten minutes to eight, when the deceased had left his house, and Mr. Gifning and his two guests, who testified to hearing the sound of Balfame's voice raised in song, followed a moment later by the report of a pistol. They also described minutely the position of the body when found. Indubitably the shot had been fired from the grove.

The staff artists were forced to be content with a black sketch of a very long widow, who held her head high and emanated an air of chill repose. One reporter, camera set, forced his way to her side as she was about to enter Mrs. Battle's limousine and begged her plaintively to raise her veil; but he might as well as have addressed a somnambulist; Mrs. Balfame did not even snub him.

"Why should they want a picture of me?" she asked Mrs. Battle, wonderingly. "It's poor Dave that is dead. Whoever heard of me outside of Elsinore?"

"I guess you haven't amused yourself reading the papers. You've been written up as a beauty and the intellectual and social leader of Elsinore. Some distinction, that! The public is mighty interested in you all over the State and will be for several days yet, no doubt. Then we'll find the man and they'll forget all about the whole affair until the trial comes up."

Mrs. Balfame, clad in full weeds, more dignified, stately and unapproachable than ever, ran the gauntlet of staring eyes at the church funeral, apparently unconscious of the immense crowd of women that had driven over from every towns.h.i.+p in Brabant County. That the women did not approve of her haughty head and tearless eyes, brilliant even behind the heavy crepe, would have concerned her little if she had known it.

Her mind was concentrated upon the future moment when this series of hideous ordeals would be over and she could re-enter the decent seclusion of private life.

Mrs. Balfame may have had her faults, but a vulgar complaisance to publicity was not among them.

She had also made up her mind sternly not to feel happy, not to rejoice in her freedom, not to make a plan for the future until her husband was in his grave. But all during that long service, while the new parson discoursed unctuously upon the virtues and eminence of the slain, she had the sensation of holding her breath.

It was four days from the night of the murder before she consented to see the reporters. Meanwhile every suspected person had proved an alibi, including the red-haired Miss Foxie Bell, and the indignant and highly respectable Miss Mamie Russ, who officiated at the telephone. She had known the deceased, yes, and once or twice she had driven out to one of the roadhouses with him, where a number of her friends were indulging in a quiet Sunday afternoon tango, but she had merely looked upon him as a kind fatherly sort of person; and at the hour of his death she was asleep, as her landlady could testify.

Old Dutch had indignantly repudiated the charge of employing gunmen, and had even attended the funeral and shed tears. Whatever the faults of the deceased, they were not of a nature to antagonise permanently the erring members of his own s.e.x. Moreover, he had been an able politician, respected of his enemies, and was now glorified by his cowardly and untimely taking off.

The local police had an uneasy suspicion that the a.s.sa.s.sin was one of their "pals"--in that small and democratic community, where every man was an Elk from the banker to the undertaker. They were quite ready to drop the case, loudly ascribing the deed to an ordinary housebreaker, or to some unknown enemy from out the impenetrable rabbit warrens of New York City.

The newspaper men were chagrined and desperate. The Balfame Case had proved uncommonly magnetic to the New York public. They had done their best to create this interest, and now were on their mettle to "make good." But they were beginning to wish they had waited for at least a lantern's ray at the end of the dark perspective before exciting the public with descriptions of the winding picturesque old street of the ancient village of Elsinore; the stately old-time residence at its head which had housed (in more or less discomfort) three generations of Balfames, the sinister grove of trees that had sheltered the dastardly a.s.sa.s.sin, the prominence and political importance of David Balfame who had inherited this ancestral estate, and played among those trees in childhood; his unsuspecting and vocal return at an early hour to be shot down at his own gate.