The Crevice Part 27

"You are morbid, Miss Lawton--you must not allow such fancies to grow, or they will soon take possession of you, in your weakened state, and become an obsession. Tell me, have you heard anything from the club girls we established in your guardian's offices?"

"Oh, yes! I had forgotten completely in my excitement and joy over your news of Ramon, vague though it is, that there was something important which I wanted to tell you. Since Margaret Hefferman's dismissal, all my girls have been sent away from the positions I obtained for them--all except Fifine Dechaussee."

"And she resigned not an hour ago," remarked the detective rather grimly, supplementing the fact, with as many details as he thought necessary.

Anita listened in silence until he had finished.

"Poor girl! Poor Fifine! What a pity that she should fancy herself in love with such a man as you describe this Paddington to be! She must be persuaded to remain in the club, of course; we cannot allow her to leave us now. I feel responsible for her, and especially so since it was indirectly because of me, or while she was in my service, at any rate, that she met this man. If she is all that you say, she could never be happy if she married him."

"There's small chance of that. He has a wife already. She left him years ago, and runs a boarding-house somewhere on Hill Street, I believe," Blaine replied. "I don't fancy he'll add bigamy to the rest of his nefarious acts. But tell me of the other girls. They did not report to me."

"Poor little Agnes Olson was dismissed yesterday. She is a spineless sort of creature, you know, without much self-a.s.surance, or initiative, and I believe she had quite a scene with Mr. Carlis before she left. She was on the switchboard, if you remember, and as well as I was able to understand from her, he caught her listening in on his private connection. She reached the club in an hysterical condition, and I told them to put her to bed and care for her. I ought to be there myself now, at work, for I have lost my best helper, but I am too distraught over Ramon to think of anything else. My secretary--the girl you saw there at the club and asked me about, do you remember?--did not appear yesterday, but telephoned her resignation, saying she was leaving town. I cannot understand it, for I would have counted on her faithfulness before any of the rest, but so many things have happened lately which I can't comprehend, so many mysteries and disappointments and anxieties, that I can scarcely think or feel any more. It seems as if I were really dead, as if my emotions were all used up. I can't cry, even when I think of Ramon--I can only suffer."

"I know. I can imagine what you must be trying to endure just now, Miss Lawton, but please believe that it will not last much longer. And don't worry about your secretary; Emily Brunell will be with you again soon, I think."

"Emily Brunell!" repeated Anita, in surprise. "You know, then?"

"Yes. And, strange as it may seem, she is indirectly concerned in the conspiracy against you, but innocently so. You will understand everything some day. What about the Irish girl, Loretta Murfree?"

"President Mallowe's filing clerk? He dismissed her only this morning, on a trumped-up charge of incompetence. He has been systematically finding fault with her for several days, as if trying to discover a pretext for discharging her, so she wasn't unprepared. She's here now, having some lunch, up in my dressing-room. Would you like to talk with her?"

"I would, indeed," he a.s.sented, nodding as Anita pressed the bell.

"She seemed the brightest and most wide-awake young woman of the lot.

If anyone could have obtained information of value to us, I fancy she could. Did she have anything to say to you about Mr. Mallowe?"

"I would rather she told you herself," Anita replied, hesitatingly, with the ghost of a smile. "Whatever she said about him was strictly personal, and of a distinctly uncomplimentary nature. There is nothing spineless about Loretta!"

When the young Irish girl appeared in response to Anita's summons, her eyes and mouth opened wide in amazement at sight of the detective.

"Oh, sir, it's you!" she exclaimed. "I was going down to your office this afternoon, to tell you that I had been discharged. Mr. Mallowe himself turned me off this morning. I'm not saying this to excuse myself, but it was honestly through no fault of mine. The old man--gentleman--has been trying for days to get rid of me. I knew it, so I've been especially careful in my work, and cheerful and smiling whenever he appeared on the scene--like this!"

She favored them with a grimace which was more like the impishly derisive grin of a street urchin than a respectful smile, and continued:

"This morning I caught him mixing up the letters in the files with his own hands, and when he blamed me for it later, I saw that it was no use. He was bound to get rid of me in some way or another, so I didn't tell him what I thought of him, but came away peaceably--which is a lot to ask of anybody with a drop of Irish blood in their veins, in a case like that! However, I learned enough while I was in that office, of his manipulations of the street railway stock, to make me glad I've got a profession and am not sitting around waiting for dividends to be paid. If the people ever wake up, and the District Attorney indicts him, I hope to goodness they put me on the stand, that's all."

"Why has he tried to get rid of you? Do you think he suspected the motive for your being in his employ?" asked Blaine, when she paused for breath.

"No, he couldn't, for I never gave him a chance," she responded. "He's a sly one, too, padding around the offices like a cat, in his soft slippers; and he looks for all the world like a cat, with the sleek white whiskers of him! Excuse me, Miss Lawton, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but he's trying, the old gentleman is! I think he got suspicious of me when Margaret Hefferman made such a botch of her job with Mr. Rockamore, and yesterday afternoon when Mr. Carlis caught Agnes Olson listening in--oh, I know all about that, too!--he got desperate. That's why he mixed up the files this morning, for an excuse to discharge me."

"How did you know about Agnes Olson?" asked Blaine quickly. "Did she tell you?"

"No, I heard it from Mr. Carlis himself!" returned Loretta, with a reminiscent grin. "He came right straight around to Mr. Mallowe and told him all about it, and a towering rage he was in, too! 'Do you think the little devil's sold us?' he asked. Meaning no disrespect to you, Miss Lawton, it was you he was talking about, for he added: 'She gets her girls into our offices on a whining plea of charity, and they all turn out crooked, spying and listening in, and taking notes.

Remember Rockamore's experience with the one he took? Do you suppose that innocent, big-eyed, mealy-mouthed brat of Pennington Lawton's suspects us?'

"'Hold your tongue, for G.o.d's sake!' old Mr. Mallowe growled at him.

'I've got one of them in there, a filing clerk.'"

"'Then you'd better get rid of her before she tries any tricks,'

Mr. Carlis said. 'I believe that girl is deeper than she looks, for all her trusting way. I always did think she took the news of her father's bankruptcy too d--n' calmly to be natural, even under the circ.u.mstances. Kick her protegee out, Mallowe, unless you're looking for more trouble. I'm not.'"

"What did Mr. Mallowe reply?" Blaine asked.

"I don't know. His private secretary came into the office where I was just then, and I had to pretend to be busy to head off any suspicion from him. Mr. Carlis left soon after, and I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my neck as he pa.s.sed through the room. Mr. Mallowe sent for me almost immediately, to find an old letter for him, from one of the files of two years ago, and it was funny, the suspicious, worried way he kept watching me!"

"There is nothing else you can tell us?" the detective inquired.

"Nothing out of the usual run happened while you were there?"

"Nothing, except that a couple of days ago, he had an awful row with a man who called on him. It was about money matters, I think, and the old gentleman got very much excited. 'Not a cent!' he kept repeating, louder and louder, until he fairly shouted. 'Not one more cent will you get from me. This systematic extortion of yours must come to an end here and now! I've done all I'm going to, and you'd better understand that clearly.' Then the other man, the visitor, got angry, too, and they went at it hammer and tongs. At last, Mr. Mallowe must have lost his head completely, for he accused the other man of robbing his safe. At that, the visitor got calm and cool as a cuc.u.mber, all of a sudden, and began to question Mr. Mallowe. It seems from what I heard--I can't recall the exact words--that not very long ago, the night watchman in the offices was chloroformed and the safe ransacked, but nothing was taken except a letter.

"'You're mad!' the strange man said. 'Why in h--l should anybody take a letter, and leave packets of gilt-edged bonds and other securities lying about untouched?'

"'Because the letter happens to be one you would very much like to have in your possession, Paddington,' the old gentleman said. Oh, I forgot to tell you that the visitor's name was Paddington, but that doesn't matter, does it? 'Do you know what it was?' Mr. Mallowe went on. 'It was a certain letter which Pennington Lawton wrote to me from Long Bay two years ago. Now do you understand?'"

"'You fool!' said Paddington. 'You fool, to keep it! You gave your word that you would destroy it! Why didn't you?'

"'Because, I thought it might come in useful some day, just as it has now,' the old gentleman fairly whined. 'It was good circ.u.mstantial evidence.'

"'Yes--fine!' Paddington said, with a bitter kind of a laugh. 'Fine evidence, for whoever's got it now!'

"'You know very well who's got it!' cried Mr. Mallowe. 'You don't pull the wool over my eyes! And I don't mean to buy it back from you, either, if that's your game. You can keep it, for all I care; it's served its purpose now, and you won't get another penny from me!'

"Well, I wish you could have heard them, then!" Loretta continued, with gusto. "They carried on terribly; the whole office could hear them. It was as good as a play--the strange man, Paddington denying right up to the last that he knew anything about the robbery, and Mr.

Mallowe accusing him, and threatening and bluffing it out for all he was worth! But in the end, he paid the man some money, for I remember he insisted on having the check certified, and the secretary himself took it over to the bank. I don't know for what amount it was drawn."

"Why didn't you tell me that before, Loretta?" asked Anita, reproachfully. "I mean, about the--the names Mr. Carlis called me, and his suspicions. I wish I'd known it half an hour ago, when he telephoned to me!"

"That's just why I didn't tell you, Miss Lawton!" responded Loretta, with a flash of her white teeth.

"Mr. Blaine told me to report to him this afternoon, and I meant to, but he didn't tell me to talk to anyone else, even you. When you asked me to undertake this for you, you said I was to do just what Mr.

Blaine directed, and I've tried to. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell you, but I thought I'd better not, at least until I had seen Mr.

Blaine. I was sure that if I said anything to you about it, you would let Mr. Carlis see your resentment the next time he called, and then he and Old Mr. Mallowe would get their heads together, and find out that their suspicions of all of us girls were correct. You wouldn't want that."

"Miss Murfree is quite right," Blaine interposed. "You must be very careful, Miss Lawton, not to allow Mr. Carlis to discover that you know anything whatever of that conversation--at least just yet."

"I'll try, but it will be difficult, I am afraid," Anita murmured. "I am not accustomed to--to accepting insults. Ah! if Ramon were only here!"

Wilkes, the butler, appeared at the door just then, with a card, and Anita read it aloud.

"Mr. Mallowe."

"Oh, gracious, let me go, Miss Lawton!" exclaimed Loretta. "I've told you everything that I can think of, and if he sees me, it will spoil Mr. Blaine's plans, maybe?"

"Yes, he must not find you here!" the detective agreed hurriedly.

"I'll communicate with you at the club if I need you again, Miss Murfree. You have been of great service to both Miss Lawton and myself."

When they were alone for the moment before the street-railway president appeared, Blaine turned to Anita.

"You will try to be very courageous, and follow whatever lead I give you?" he asked. "This interview may prove trying for you."