A Husband by Proxy Part 9

Yet there was nothing she could say or do to prevent his immediate retreat.

Young Robinson, made aware that Garrison would soon be departing, appeared to be slightly excited.

"I'll go down and 'phone for my suit-case," he said, and he left the room at once.

Aunt Jill and old Robinson sat down. It was quite impossible for Garrison to ask them again to retire. Dorothy crossed the room and seated herself before the piano. Garrison followed, and stood there at her side.

She had no spirit for music, and no inclination to play, nevertheless she permitted her hands to wander up and down the keys, calling forth a sweetly sad bit of Hungarian song that took a potent hold on Garrison's emotions.

"Is there anything I can do but go?" he murmured, his voice well masked by the melody. "Do you think you may need me very soon?"

"I do not know. I hope not," she answered, for him alone to hear.

"I'm sorry it's been so disagreeable. Do you really have to go away from town?"

"Yes."

"To-day you said you had no employment."

"It was true. Employment came within ten minutes of your leaving. I took it. For you know you hardly expected to require my services so soon."

She played a trifle louder, and asked him:

"Where are you going?"

"To Branchville and Hickwood."

The playing suddenly ceased. She looked up at him swiftly. In nervous haste she resumed her music.

"Not on detective work? You mentioned insurance."

"It concerns insurance."

She was silent for a moment.

"When do you return?"

"I hardly know," he answered. "And I suppose I've got to start at once in order to maintain our little fiction."

"Don't forget to write," she said, blushing, as she had before; and she added: "for appearances." She rose from her seat.

Garrison pulled out his watch and remarked, for the Robinsons to hear: "Well, I've got to be off."

"Wait a minute, please," said Dorothy, as if possessed by a sudden impulse, and she ran from the room like a child.

With nothing particularly pleasant to say to the Robinsons, Garrison approached a center-table and turned the pages of a book.

Dorothy was back in a moment.

"I'll go down to the door," she said.

Garrison said good-night to the Robinsons, who answered curtly. He closed the door upon them as he left the room.

Dorothy had hastened to the stairs before him, and continued down to the hall. Her face was intensely white again as she turned about, drawing from her dress a neat, flat parcel, wrapped in paper.

"I told you to-day that I trust you absolutely," she said, in a nervous undertone. "I wish you'd take care of this package."

Garrison took it, finding it heavy in his hand. "What is it?" he said.

"Don't try to talk--they'll listen," she cautioned. "Just hurry and go."

"If you need me, write or wire," he said.

"Good-night!"

She retreated a little way from him, as if she felt he might exact a husband's right of farewell, which the absence of witnesses made quite unessential.

"Good-night," she answered, adding wistfully; "I am very grateful, believe me."

She gave him her hand, and his own hand trembled as he took it.

A moment later he was out upon the street, a wild, sweet pleasure in his veins.

Across the way a man's dark figure detached itself from the darkness of a doorstep and followed where Garrison went.

Shadowed to his very door, Garrison came to his humble place of abode with his mind in a region of dreams.

It was not until he stood in his room, and his hand lay against his pocket, that he thought again of Dorothy's parcel surrendered to his keeping. He took it out. He felt he had a right to know its contents.

It had not been sealed.

He removed the paper, disclosing a narrow, shallow box, daintily covered with leather. It was merely snapped shut with a catch.

He opened it, and an exclamation of astonishment escaped his lips.

It contained two necklaces--one of diamonds and one of pearls, the gems of both marvelously fine.

CHAPTER V

THE "SHADOW"

Nothing more disquieting than this possession of the necklaces could possibly have happened to Garrison. He was filled with vague suspicions and alarms. The thing was wholly baffling.

What it signified he could not conjecture. His mind went at once to that momentary scene at the house he had entered by mistake, and in which he had been confronted by the masked young woman, with the jewels on her throat, she who had patted his face and familiarly called him by name.

He could not possibly doubt the two ropes of gems were the same. The fact that Dorothy's cousin, in the garb of Satan, had undoubtedly partic.i.p.ated in the masking party, aroused disturbing possibilities in Garrison's mind.