Miss Maitland Private Secretary Part 17

"Oh," he said, in a tone containing a note of hostile comprehension, "so _you're_ in it, are you?"

"Yes; we're in it-only a little way so far. We've been rounding up every one that has, or has had, any dealings with the family and we've taken you in in the sweep."

"_Me?_" Price's voice showed an intense surprise. "What have I got to do with it?"

"Nothing, my dear boy, except that you _were_ a member of the household, and as I said, we're clearing up every one in sight. It's only a formality, a tagging and disposing of all unnecessary elements. You went for a motor ride that night-a long ride. You wouldn't mind telling us where, would you? It's just for the purpose of eliminating you along with the rest of the dead wood."

The young man's gaze dropped from Whitney's face to his own hat lying on the table. He looked at it with an absent stare.

"A motor ride?" he murmured.

"Yes, from eight-thirty till nearly two."

"Um," Price appeared to be considering. "Let me see-what was the date, I don't remember?"

George a.s.sisted his memory:

"July the seventh-a moonlight night."

"Ah," he had it now, nodding his head several times in restored recollection. "Of course, I remember perfectly. There was a heavy rain early in the evening and then a full moon." He turned to the elder man.

"I'm rather fond of ranging about at night, and couldn't quite place what especial ride you referred to. I took a long spin up the Island."

"Up?" said Whitney, "not being a Long Islander I don't know your directions. Would 'up' mean toward the city?"

"No, the other way, out along the Sound roads and on toward Peconic."

"Kept to the country, eh? Too fine a night to waste in town."

Price's face darkened. George watching him noticed a slight dilation of his nostrils, a slight squaring of the line of his jaw. His answer came in a tone hard and combative:

"Exactly. I get enough of town in the day. I rode, as I told you, out to the east, a long way-I can't give you the exact route if that's what you want." He suddenly leaned forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed his hat from the table.

Holding it against his side he made an ironical bow to his questioner said, "Does _that_ eliminate me as a suspect?"

Whitney laughed, a sound of lazy good humor rich with the tolerance of a vast experience:

"My dear Chapman, why use such sensational terms? Suspect is a word we haven't reached yet. Take this as it's meant-a form, merely a form."

"The form might have included a questioning of me before you took the trouble to look up what I did. Evidently my word wasn't thought sufficient."

His glance, darkly threatening, moved from one man to the other. George started to protest, but he cut in, his words directed at old Whitney:

"It's all I have to offer you now. It's what I say against what you've been told to believe. I can prove no alibi, for I was with no one, saw no one, started alone and stayed alone. That's all you'll get out of me, and you can take it or leave it as you d--n please."

He turned and walked toward the door, the elder Whitney's conciliatory phrases delivered to his back. The door k.n.o.b in his hand he wheeled round, the anger he had been struggling to subdue fierce in his face:

"Don't think for a moment you've fooled me. I was ignorant when I came in here, but I'm on to the whole dirty business now. I see through this p.u.s.s.y-footing round the divorce. It's the Janneys-the blow in the back I might have known was coming. They've got my child, set you on to wheedle her out of me. But that wasn't enough-they're going to try and finish the good work-put me out of business so there's no more trouble coming from me. Brand me as a thief-that's their game, is it? Well-they've gone too far. I've held my hand up to this but now I'll let loose. They'll see! By G.o.d, they'll see that I can hit back blow for blow."

CHAPTER XV-WHAT HAPPENED ON FRIDAY

The Friday morning when Suzanne was to go to town broke auspiciously bright and cloudless. As Annie was not the proper person to take Bebita to the oculist, and as Suzanne would be too busy to go herself, Miss Maitland had been impressed into the service. It had been decided two days earlier, and though she had received some instructions at the time, on the drive in, Mrs. Price went over her plans with a meticulous thoroughness. They would go first to the Fifth Avenue house, pick up there some clothes of Bebita's needing alteration, and then separate.

Esther would take a cab from the rank on the side street, and go with Bebita to the oculist, to the dressmaker with the clothes, and execute several minor commissions in shops along the Avenue. Bebita begged for a box of caramels from Justin's, the French confectioner, a request which was graciously acceded to by her mother, Miss Maitland jotting it down on her list. Mrs. Price would take the motor and go about her own affairs, which would occupy probably an hour. She would then return to the house and wait for them-for she would have finished before they did-and afterward they would go out to lunch somewhere. She said she thought it would be fully an hour and a half before they got back and Miss Maitland, eyeing the long list, said it might be even longer.

Aggie McGee had the clothes tied up in a box and Suzanne and Bebita stood on the steps waiting while Miss Maitland went for the cab. The rank was just round the corner and in a few minutes she came back with a taxi running along the curb behind her.

"Quite a piece of luck to find one," she said, as she took the box.

"They're not always there in the dead season."

Bebita jumped in, settling herself with joyful prancings and waving a little white-gloved hand. Esther followed, snapped the door shut, and they glided away. Suzanne watched them go, then stepped into the big motor and was swept off in the opposite direction.

She came back before the hour was up. She had hurried as she wanted to have done with Larkin before they returned. It would be extremely uncomfortable if they found her in confab with the detective; it would necessitate boring explanations and the inventing of lies.

She sat down in the reception room close to the window, pulled up the blind and waited. Drawn back from the eyes of pa.s.sers-by she could command the sidewalk and the street for some distance and if, by any evil chance, Larkin should be late, she could see him coming and tell Aggie McGee to say she was not there.

Up to now Larkin had been punctual to the dot, but on this, the one occasion when punctuality was vital, he was not on time. Twelve pa.s.sed, then the quarter, and the sun-swept length of the great avenue gave up no masculine figure that bore any resemblance to him. She was growing nervous, wondering what she had better do, when he hove in sight walking quickly toward the house. A glance at her wrist watch told her it was twenty minutes past twelve-Miss Maitland and Bebita might not be back for another half hour yet. She would chance it, for she was extremely anxious to see him, and anyway, if they should come in before he left, she could tell him to go into the drawing room and slip out after they had gone. Relieved by the decision she rose and was turning toward the mirror, when she caught sight of a taxi scudding up the street with Esther Maitland's face in the window.

A word not generally used by ladies escaped Suzanne. There was nothing for it but to send him away. She ran into the hall and pressed the bell, listening in a fever for Aggie McGee's step on the kitchen stairs.

Simultaneously with its first heavy thud came the peal of the front door bell. Suzanne, who had noticed that the taxi was moving fast and would make the steps before Larkin, called down on Aggie McGee's ascending head:

"That's Miss Maitland. A gentleman I expected is just behind her. I can't see him now, I haven't time. Tell him I've been here and gone."

She went back into the reception room and stood listening. She heard the door opening, Esther's step in the hall; it was all right, the detective would get his conge without being seen by any one but Aggie McGee. She drew a breath of relief and turned smiling to the girl in the doorway.

Miss Maitland did not give back the smile; she sent a searching look over the room and said in a low, breathless voice as if she had been running:

"Is Bebita here?"

There was a moment of silence. Through it the heavy tread of Aggie McGee pa.s.sing along the hall sounded unnaturally loud. As it went clump, clump, down the kitchen stairs Suzanne was aware of Miss Maitland's face, startlingly strange, ashen-colored. At first it was all she took in.

"Bebita-here?" she stammered. "How could she be? She's with you."

Miss Maitland made a step into the room, her hands went up clenched to her chest, her voice came again through the broken gasps of a runner:

"No-she isn't. I thought I'd find her with you-I thought she'd come back. Oh, Mrs. Price-" she stopped, her eyes, telling a message of disaster, fixed on the other.

Suzanne's answer came from opened lips, dropped apart in a sudden horror:

"What do you mean? Why should she be here?"

"Mrs. Price, something's happened!"

Suzanne screamed out:

"Where is she?"

"I don't know-but-but-I haven't got her-she's gone. Mrs. Price-"