Constance Dunlap Part 38

She had found out that it was a curious twist in feminine psychology that the lie under such circ.u.mstances was a virtue, that it showed that there was hope for such a woman. Admission of the truth, even to a friend, would have shown that the woman was hopelessly lost. Lie or not, Constance felt in her inmost heart that she approved of it.

"Still, it looks badly," she remarked.

"Perhaps it does--on the surface," persisted Anita.

"You poor dear creature," soothed Constance. "I don't say I blame you for your--indiscreet friendships. You are more sinned against than sinning."

Sympathy had its effect. Anita was now sobbing softly, as Constance stole her arm about her waist.

"The next question," she reasoned, considering aloud, "is, of course, what to do? If it was just one of these blackmailing detective cases it would be common, but still very hard to deal with. There's a lot of such blackmailing going on in New York. Next to business and political cases, I suppose, it is the private detective's most important graft.

Nearly everybody has a past--although few are willing to admit it. The graft lies in the fact that people talk so much, are so indiscreet, take such reckless chances. It's a wonder, really, that there isn't more of it."

"Yet there is the--evidence, as he called it--my letters to Lynn--and the reports that that woman must have made of our--our conversations,"

groaned Anita. "How they may distort it all!"

Constance was thinking rapidly.

"It is now after four o'clock," she said finally, looking at her wrist watch. "You say it was not half an hour ago that Drummond called on you. He must be downtown about now. Your husband will hardly have a chance more than to glance over the papers this afternoon."

Suddenly an idea seemed to occur to her. "What do you suppose he will do with them?" she asked.

Mrs. Douglas looked up through her tears, calmer. "He is very methodical," she answered slowly. "If I know him rightly, I think he will probably go out to Glenclair with them to-night, to look them over."

"Where will he keep them?" broke in Constance suddenly.

"He has a little safe in the library out there where he keeps all such personal papers. I shouldn't be surprised if he looked them over and locked them up there until he intends to use them at least until morning."

"I have a plan," exclaimed Constance excitedly. "Are you game?"

Anita Douglas looked at her friend squarely. In her face Constance read the desperation of a woman battling for life and honor.

"Yes," replied Anita in a low, tense tone, "for anything."

"Then meet me after dinner in the Terminal. We'll go out to Glenclair."

The two looked deeply into each other's eyes. Nothing was said, but what each read was a sufficient answer to a host of unspoken questions.

A moment after Mrs. Douglas had gone, Constance opened a cabinet. From the false back of a drawer she took two little vials of powder and a small bottle with a sponge.

Then she added a long steel bar, with a peculiar turn at the end, to her paraphernalia for the trip.

Nothing further occurred until they met at the Terminal, or, in fact, on the journey out. On most of the ride Mrs. Douglas kept her face averted, looking out of the window into the blackness of the night.

Perhaps she was thinking of other journeys out to Glenclair, perhaps she was afraid of meeting the curious gaze of any late sojourners who might suffer from acute suburban curiosity.

Quietly the two women alighted and quickly made their way from the station up the main street, then diverged to a darker and less frequented avenue.

"There's the house," pointed out Mrs. Douglas, halting Constance, with a little bitter exclamation.

Evidently she had reasoned well. He had gone out there early and there was a light in the library.

"He isn't much of a reader," whispered Mrs. Douglas. "Oh--it's clear to me that he has the stuff all right. He's devouring it, gloating over it."

The sound of footsteps approaching down the paved walk came to them.

Loitering on the streets of a suburban town always occasions suspicion, and instinctively Constance drew Anita with her into the shadow of a hedge that set off the house from that next to it.

There was no fence cutting it off from the sidewalk, but at the corner of the plot a large bush stood. In this bower they were perfectly hidden in the shadow.

Hour after hour they waited, watching that light in the library, speculating what it was he was reading, while Anita, half afraid to talk, wondered what it was that Constance had in mind.

Finally the light in the library winked out and the house was in darkness.

Midnight pa.s.sed, and with it the last belated suburbanite.

At last, when the moon had disappeared under some clouds, Constance pulled Anita gently along up the lawn.

There was no sign of life about the house, yet Constance observed all the caution she would have if it had been well guarded.

Quickly they advanced over the open s.p.a.ce to the cottage, approaching in the shadow as much as possible.

Tiptoeing over the porch, Constance tried a window, the window through which had shown the tantalizing light. It was fastened.

Without hesitation she pulled out the long steel bar with the twisted head, and began to insert the sharp end between the sashes.

"Aren't--you--afraid?" chattered her companion.

"No," she whispered, not looking up from her work. "You know, most persons don't know enough about jimmies. Against them an ordinary door lock or window catch is no protection at all. Why, with this jimmy, even a woman can exert a pressure of a ton or so. Not one catch in a thousand can stand it--certainly not this one."

Constance continued to work, m.u.f.fling the lever as much as possible in a piece of felt.

At last a quick wrench and the catch yielded.

The only thing wrong about it was the noise. There had been no wind, no pa.s.sing trolley, nothing to conceal it.

They shrank back into the shadow, and waited breathless. Had it been heard? Would a window open presently and an alarm be sounded?

There was not a sound, save the rustle of the leaves in the night wind.

A few minutes later Constance carefully raised the lower sash and they stepped softly into the house--once the house over which Anita Douglas had been mistress.

Cautiously Constance pressed the b.u.t.ton on a little pocket storage-battery lamp and flashed it slowly about the room.

All was quiet in the library. The library table was disordered, as if some one in great stress of mind had been working at it. Anita wondered what had been the grim thoughts of the man as he pondered on the ma.s.s of stuff, the tissue of falsehoods that the blackmailing detective had handed to him at such great cost.

At last the cone of light rested on a little safe at the opposite end.

"There it is," whispered Anita, pointing, half afraid even of the soft tones of her own voice.

Constance had pulled down all the shades quietly, and drew the curtains tightly between the room and the foyer.