Mrs. Balfame Part 16

"Well, I am sure I hope you will get it."

"I get it--from you."

Mrs. Balfame lifted her shoulders. "What next? I have contributed what little I can afford to the war funds. I am sorry, but I cannot accommodate you."

"You give me five hundert dollar," reiterated the thick even voice, "or I tell the police you come in the back door two minutes after Mr.

Balfame he was kilt at the front gate."

Obvious danger once more turned Mrs. Balfame into pure steel. "Oh, no; you will tell them nothing of the sort, for it is not true. I thought I heard some one on the back stairs when I went down to the kitchen. As you know I always drink a gla.s.s of filtered water before going to bed. I had forgotten the episode utterly, but I remember now, I heard a noise outside, even imagined that some one turned the k.n.o.b of the door, and called up to ask you if you also had heard. I did not know that anything had happened out in front until I returned to my room."

"I see you come in the kitchen door." But the voice was not quite so even, the s.h.i.+fty glance wavered. Frieda felt suddenly the European peasant in the presence of the superior by divine right. Mrs. Balfame followed up her advantage.

"You are lying--for purposes of blackmail. You did not see me come in the door, because I had not been outside of it. I do not even remember opening it to listen, although I may have done so. You saw nothing and cannot blackmail me. Nor would any one believe your word against mine."

"I hear you come in just after me--"

"Heard? Just now you said you saw."

"Ach--"

Mrs. Balfame had an inspiration. "My G.o.d!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet, "the murderer took refuge in the house, was hidden in the cellar or attic all night, all the next day! He may be here yet! You may be feeding him!"

She advanced upon the staring girl whose mouth stood open. "Of course.

Of course. You are a friend of Old Dutch. It was one of his gunmen who did it, and you are his accomplice. Or perhaps you killed him yourself.

Perhaps he treated you as he treated so many girls, and you killed him and are trying to blackmail me for money to get out of the country."

"It is a lie!" Frieda's voice was strangled with outraged virtue. "My man, he fight for the fatherland. Old Dutch, he will not hurt a fly. I would not have touch your pig of a husband. You know that, for you hate him yourself. I have see in the eye, in the hand. I know notings of who kill him, but--no, I have not see you come in the kitchen door, but I hear some one come in, the door shut, you call out in so strange voice--I believe before that you have kill him--now--now I do not know--"

"It would be wise to know nothing,"--Mrs. Balfame's voice was charged with meaning--"unless you wish to be arrested as the criminal, or as an accomplice--after confessing that you entered the house within a moment or two of the shooting. Who is to say exactly when you did come in?

Well, better keep your mouth shut. It is wise for innocent people to know as little about a crime as possible. Why did you testify before the coroner's jury that your tooth ached so you heard nothing? Why didn't you tell your story then?"

"I was frightened, and my tooth--I can tink of notings else."

"And now you think it quite safe to blackmail me?"

"I want to go back to Germany--to my man--and I hate this country what hates Germany."

"This country is neutral," said Mrs. Balfame severely. "It regards all the belligerents as barbarians tarred with the same brush. You Germans are so excitable that you imagine we hate when we merely don't care."

This was intended to be soothing, but Frieda's brow darkened and she thrust out her pugnacious lips.

"Germany, she is the greatest country in the whole world," she announced. "All the world--it muss know that."

"How familiar that sounds! Just a slight variation on the old American brag that is quite a relief." Mrs. Balfame spoke as lightly as if she merely had let down the bars of her dignity out of sympathy with a lacerated Teuton. "Well, go back to your Germany, Frieda, if you can get there, but don't try to blackmail me again. I have no five hundred dollars to give you if I would. If you choose, you may stay your month out, and spend your evenings taking up a collection among your German friends. You are excused."

She had achieved her purpose. The girl's practical mind was puzzled by the simple explanation of her mistress' presence in the kitchen, deeply impressed by the contemptuous refusal to be blackmailed. Her shoulders drooped and she slunk out of the room.

For a moment Mrs. Balfame clung, reeling, to the back of a chair. Then she went downstairs and telephoned to Dwight Rush.

CHAPTER XVI

The young lawyer was to call at eight o'clock. Mrs. Balfame put on her best black blouse in his honour; it was cut low about the throat and softened with a rolling collar of hemst.i.tched white lawn. This was as far in the art of s.e.x allurement as she was prepared to go; the bare idea of a negligee of white lace and silk, warmed by rose-colored shades, would have filled her with cold disgust. She was not a religious woman, but she had her standards.

At a quarter of eight she made a careful inspection of the lower rooms; sleuths, professional and amateur, would not hesitate to sneak into her house and listen at keyholes. She inferred that the house was under surveillance, for she had looked from her window several times and seen the same man sauntering up and down that end of the avenue. No doubt some one watched the back doors also.

Convinced that her home was still sacrosanct, she placed two chairs at a point in the parlour farthest from the doors leading into the hall, and into a room beyond which Mr. Balfame had used as an office. The doors, of course, would be open throughout the interview. No one should be able to say that she had shut herself up with a young man; on the other hand, it was the duty of the deceased husband's lawyer to call on the widow.

Even if those young devils discovered that she had telephoned for him, what more regular than that she should wish to consult her lawyer after such insinuations?

Rush arrived as the town clock struck eight. Frieda, who answered the door in her own good time, surveyed him suspiciously through a narrow aperture to which she applied one eye.

"What you want?" she growled. "Mrs. Balfame she have seen all the reporters already yet."

"Let the gentleman in," called Mrs. Balfame from the parlour. "This is a friend of my late husband."

Rush was permitted to enter. He was a full minute disposing of his hat and overcoat in the hall, while Frieda dragged her heelless slippers back to the kitchen and slammed the door. His own step was not brisk as he left the hall for the parlour, and his face, always colourless, looked thin and haggard. Mrs. Balfame, as she rose and gave him her hand, asked solicitously:

"Are you under the weather? How seedy you look. I wondered why you had not called--"

"A touch of the grippe. Felt all in for a day or two, but am all right now. And although I have been very anxious to see you, I had made up my mind not to call unless you sent for me."

"Well, I sent for you professionally," she retorted coolly. "You don't suppose I took your love making seriously."

He flushed dully, after the manner of men with thick fair skins, and his hard blue eyes lost their fire as he stared at her. It was incomprehensible that she could misunderstand him.

"It was serious enough to me. I merely stayed away, because, having spoken as I did, I--well, I cannot very well explain. You will remember that I made you promise to send for me if you were in trouble--"

"I remembered!" She felt his rebuke obscurely. "It never occurred to me to send for any one else."

"Thank you for that."

"Did you mean anything but politeness when you said that you had been anxious to see me?"

He hesitated, but he had already made up his mind that the time had come to put her on her guard. Besides, he inferred that she had begun herself to appreciate her danger.

"You have read the newspapers. You saw the reporters this afternoon. Of course you must have guessed that they hope for a sensational trial with you as the heroine."

"How can men--_men_--be such heartless brutes?"

"Ask the public. Even that element that believes itself to be select and would not touch a yellow paper devours a really interesting crime in high life. Never mind that now. Let us get down to bra.s.s tacks. They want to fix the crime on you. How are they going to manage it? That is the question for us. Tell me exactly what they said, what they made you say."

Mrs. Balfame gave him so circ.u.mstantial an account of the interview that he looked at her in admiration, although his rigid American face, that looked so strong, turned paler still.

"What a splendid witness you would make!" He stared at the carpet for a moment, then flashed his eyes upward much as Broderick had done. "Tell me," he said softly, "is there anything you withheld from them? You know how safe you are with me. But I must be in a position to advise you what to say and to leave unsaid--if the worst comes."

"You mean if I am arrested?" She had a moment of complete naturalness, and stared at him wildly. He leaned forward and patted her hand.