Mrs. Balfame Part 20

The interview with Frieda, who became very wide awake when the unseemly intrusion was elucidated by the trustworthy Conrad, and bargained for five hundred dollars, explains why Mrs. Balfame spent Thursday night in the County Jail behind Dobton Courthouse.

CHAPTER XIX

When the Dobton sheriff and his deputies came to arrest Mrs. Balfame, the wife of their old comrade in arms, all they were able to tell her was that the District Attorney had applied for the warrant immediately after the testimony before the Grand Jury of Frieda Appel and of the Krauses, father and son. What that testimony had been they could not have told her if they would, but that it had been strong and corroborative enough to insure her indictment by the Grand Jury was as manifest as it was ominous.

They arrived just as Mrs. Balfame was about to leave the house to lunch with Mrs. c.u.mmack; Frieda had left long before it was time to prepare the midday meal. Mr. Cramb, the sheriff, shut the door behind him and in the faces of the indignant women reporters, who, less ruthless but equally loyal to their journals, wanted a "human interest" story for the stimulated public. Mrs. Balfame and her friends retreated before the posse into the parlour. Mrs. Battle wept loudly; Alys Crumley, who had come in with her mother a few moments since, fell suddenly on a chair in the corner and pressed her hands against her mouth, her horrified eyes staring at Mrs. Balfame. The other women shed tears as the equally doleful sheriff explained his errand and read the warrant. Mrs. Balfame alone was calm. She exerted herself supremely and sent so peremptory a message along her quaking nerves that it benumbed them for the moment.

She had only a faint sense of drama, but a very keen one of her own peculiar position in her little world, and she knew that in this grisly crisis of her destiny she was expected to behave as a brave and dignified woman should--a woman of whom her friends could continue to exult as head and shoulders above the common ma.s.s. She rose to the occasion.

"Don't you worry--just!" said Mr. Cramb, patting her shoulder, although he never had had the temerity to offer her his hand before, and had often "pitied Dave." "They lied, them Duytchers, for some reason or other, but they can't really have nothin' on you, and we'll find out what they're up to, double quick."

"I do not worry," said Mrs. Balfame coldly, "--although quite naturally I object to the humiliation of arrest, and of spending even a night in jail. Exactly what is the charge against me?"

The sheriff crumpled his features and cleared his throat. "Well, it's murder, I guess. It's an ugly word, but words don't mean nothin' when there's nothin' in them."

"In the first degree?" shrieked Mrs. Gifning.

Cramb nodded.

"And it don't admit of bail?" Mrs. Frew's eyes rolled wildly.

"Nothin' doin'."

Mrs. Balfame rose hurriedly. There was a horrid possibility of contagion in this room surcharged with emotion. She kissed each of her friends in turn. "It will be all right, of course," she reminded them gently. "Only men could be taken in by such a plot, and of course there are a lot of Germans on the Grand Jury--there are so many in this county. I shall have an excellent lawyer, Dave's friend, Mr. Rush. And I am sure that I shall be quite comfortable in the County Jail--it is so nice and new."

But she shuddered at the vision, in spite of her fine self-control.

"You'll be treated like a queen," interposed the sheriff hastily. He was proud of her, and immensely relieved that he was not to escort an hysterical prisoner five miles to the County Seat. "You'll have the Warden's own suite, and I guess you'll be able to see your friends right along. Guess we'd better be gettin' on."

As Mrs. Balfame was leaving the room, her eyes met the horrified and puzzled gaze of Alys Crumley, and one of those obscure instincts that dart out of the subconscious mind like memories of old experiences released under high mental pressure, made her put out her hand impulsively and draw the girl to her.

"I can always be sure of your trust," she whispered. "Won't you come up and help me pack?"

Alys followed unresisting: the blow had been so sudden; she had believed so little in the power of the law to touch a woman like Mrs. Balfame, and even less that she committed the crime; for the moment she forgot her jealous hostility, remembered only that the best friend of her mother and of her own childhood was in dire straits.

Mrs. c.u.mmack had run up ahead and was carrying two suitcases from the large closet to the bed as they entered. Her face was burning and tear-stained, but she was one of those highly efficient women of the home that rise automatically to every emergency and act while others consider. "Glad you've come too," she said to Alys. "Open those drawers in the bureau, and I'll pick out what's needed. Of course the ridiculous charge will be dismissed in a day or two--but still! Well, if they're all idiots down there at Dobton, we can come over here and pack a trunk later. To take it now would be nonsense, and Sam'll move heaven and earth to get them to accept bail. You just put on your best black, Enid, and wear your veil so they can't snapshot you."

While she was gasping on, Mrs. Balfame, whose brain had never worked more clearly, went into the bathroom and emptied the contents of an innocent looking medicine bottle into the drain of the wash-stand. She feared young Broderick more than she feared the district attorney, who, after all, had been her husband's friend--had, in fact, eaten all of his political crumbs out of that lavish but discriminating hand. She recalled that she had always been gracious to him (at her husband's request, for she regarded him as a mere worm) when he had dined at her table, and felt sure that he would favour her secretly, whatever his obvious duty. Moreover, he was of those that spat at the very mention of the powerful Kraus, and would gladly, especially since the outbreak of the war, have run him out of the community.

Mrs. Balfame, being a brilliant exponent of that type which enjoys the unwavering admiration and loyalty of its own s.e.x, had a corresponding belief in her friends, and rarely if ever had used the word _cat_ denotatively. She called out the best in women as they of a certainty called out the best in her. Therefore, it did not occur to her either to close the bathroom door or to glance behind her. Alys Crumley, standing before the bureau and happening to look into the mirror, saw her empty and rinse the bottle. The suspicions of Broderick regarding the gla.s.s of lemonade flashed into the young artist's mind; and from that moment she believed in the guilt of Mrs. Balfame.

Although her hands were shaking Alys lifted from the lavender-scented drawers the severely chaste underwear of the leader of Elsinore society, and as soon as the suitcases were packed, she made haste to adjust Mrs.

Balfame's veil and pin it so firmly that no more kisses could be exchanged. Of her ultimate purpose Alys had not the ghost of an idea, but kiss a woman whom she believed to be guilty of murder and whom she might possibly be driven to betray, she would not. Suddenly grown as secretive as if she had a crime of her own to conceal, she even walked out to the car with Mrs. Balfame and helped to drive away the crowding newspaper women, several of whom she recognised. They in turn bore her off, determined to get some sort of a story for the issues of the morrow.

CHAPTER XX

Mrs. Balfame was whirled to Dobton in ten minutes--herself, she fancied, the very centre of a whirlwind. The automobile was pursued by three cars containing members of the press, which shot past just before they reached Dobton Courthouse, that the occupants might leap out and fix their cameras. Other men and women of the press stood before the locked gate of the jail yard, several holding cameras. But once more the reading public was forced to be content with an appetising news-story ill.u.s.trated by a tall black mummy.

Mrs. Balfame walked past them holding her clenched hands under her veil, but to all appearance composed and indifferent. The sob-sisters were enthusiastic, and the men admired and disliked her more than ever. Your true woman always weeps when in trouble, just as she blushes and trembles when a man selects her to be his comforter through life.

The Warden and his wife, who but a few weeks since had moved into their new quarters, had moved out again without a murmur and with an unaccustomed thrill. What a blessed prospect after screaming drunks, drug-fiends and tame commercial sinners!

The doors clanged shut; Mrs. Balfame mounted the stairs hastily, and was still composed enough to exclaim with pleasure and to thank the Warden's wife, Mrs. Larks, when she saw that flowers were on the table and even on the window-sills.

"I guess you'll stand it all right," said Mrs. Larks proudly. "Just make yourself at home and I'll have your lunch up in a jiffy."

Mrs. c.u.mmack and Mrs. Gifning had come in the car with Mrs. Balfame, and c.u.mmack and several other men of standing arrived almost immediately to a.s.sure her, with pale disturbed faces, that they were doing their best to get her out on bail. While she was trying to eat her lunch, the telephone bell rang, and her set face became more animated as she recognised Rush's strong confident voice. He had read the news in the early edition of the afternoon papers, in New York, telephoned to Dobton and found that his immediate fear was realised and that she was in the County Jail. He commanded her to keep up her spirits and promised to be with her at four o'clock.

Then she begged her friends to go and let her rest and sleep if possible; they knew just how serious that consultation with her lawyer must be. When she was alone, however, she picked up the telephone, which stood on a side table, and called up the office of Dr. Anna Steuer. Ever since her arrest she had been dully conscious of her need of this oldest and truest of her friends. It came to her with something of a shock as she sat waiting for Central to connect, that she had leaned upon this strong and unpretentious woman far more than her calm self-satisfied mind had ever admitted.

Dr. Anna's a.s.sistant answered the call, and when she heard Mrs.

Balfame's voice broke down and wept loudly.

"Oh, do be quiet," said Mrs. Balfame impatiently. "I am in no danger whatever. Connect me with the Doctor."

"Oh, it ain't only that. Poor--poor Doctor! She's been all in for days, and this morning she just collapsed, and I sent for Dr. Lequeur, and he p.r.o.nounced it typhoid and sent for the ambulance and had her taken out to Brabant Hospital. The last thing she said--whispered--was to be sure not to bother you, that you would hear it soon enough--"

Mrs. Balfame hung up the receiver, which had almost fallen from her shaking hand. She turned cold with terror. Anna ill! And when she most wanted her! A little window in her brain opened reluctantly, and superst.i.tion crept in. Beyond that open window she seemed to hear the surge of a furious and irresistible tide. Had it been waiting all these years to overleap the barriers about her well ordered life and sweep her into chaos? She frowned and put her thoughts more colloquially. Had her luck changed? Was Fate against her? When she thought of Dwight Rush, it was only to shrink again. If anything happened to him--and why not? Men were killed every day by automobiles, and he had an absentminded way of walking--

She sprang to her feet and paced up and down the two rooms of the suite, determined upon composure, and angry with herself. She recovered her mental balance (so rarely disturbed by imaginative flights), but her spirits were at zero; and she was sitting with her elbows on her knees, her hands pressed to her face when Rush entered promptly at four o'clock. He was startled at the face she lifted. It looked older but indefinably more attractive. Her inviolable serenity had irritated even him at times, although she was his innocent ideal of a great lady.

The Warden, who had unlocked the door, left them alone, and Rush sat down and took both her hands in his warm rea.s.suring grasp.

"You are not to be the least bit frightened," he said. "The great thing for you to remember is that your husband's political crowd rules, and simply laughs at your arrest. They are more positive than ever that some political enemy did it. Balfame's temper was growing shorter and shorter, and he had many enemies, even in his own party. But the crowd will pull every wire to get you off, and they can pull wires, all right--"

"But on what evidence am I arrested? What did those abominable people say to the Grand Jury? Am I never to know?"

"Well, rather. It's all in the afternoon papers, for one of the reporters got the evidence before the Grand Jury did."

He had taken off his overcoat, and he crossed the room and took from a pocket a copy of _The Evening News_. She glanced over it with her lips drawn back from her teeth. It contained not only the story the enterprising Mr. Bruce had managed to obtain from Frieda and Conrad Jr., but a corroboration of the maid's a.s.sertion that, warned by the family friend and lawyer, Mr. Dwight Rush, to disappear, she had gone to Papa Kraus for advice. Not a word, however, of blackmail.

"So the public believes already that I am a murderess! No doubt I should be convinced as readily myself. It is all so adroit!" Mrs. Balfame spoke quietly but with intense bitterness. "I suppose I must be tried--more and still more publicity. No one will ever forget it. Do you suppose it is true young Kraus saw me that night?"

"G.o.d knows!"

He got up again and moved nervously about the room. "I wish I could be sure. That is the point to which I must give the deepest consideration--whether you are to admit or not that you went out. The Grand Jury and Gore believe it. Young Kraus has a very good name. Frieda has always been well behaved. There are six Germans on the Grand Jury, moreover. We must see that none get on the trial jury. Gore wants to believe--"

"But he was a friend of Dave's."

"Exactly. He is making much of that point. Affects to be filled with righteous wrath because you killed his dear old friend. Trust a district attorney. All they care for is to win out, and he has his spurs to win, in the bargain. I met him a few moments ago; he was about equally full of gin fizzes and the 'indisputable fact' that you are the only person in sight with a motive. Oh, don't! Don't!"

Mrs. Balfame had broken down. She flung her arms over the table and her head upon them. More than once in her life she had shed tears both diplomatic and spontaneous, but for the first time since she was a child she sobbed heavily. She felt forlorn, deserted, in awful straits.