In And Out Part 39

"We'll settle Hitchin first," he smiled. "Come along!"

He lounged out of the flat and to the stairs, Boller hugging close to his side. He yawned again as he pressed the buzzer of the Hitchin apartment, and he even smiled condescendingly at the inscrutable j.a.panese who answered.

"Mr. Hitchin," said Anthony. "Say that Mr. Fry and Mr. Boller wish to see him, if you please."

The j.a.panese shook his head.

"He no home!"

"Out?" said Anthony in some astonishment.

"Yes, sir, li'l while ago," the Oriental said. "He go very quick."

"And he will be back--when?"

"Mr. Hitchin no say, sir!" the j.a.panese sighed.

Therefore they turned back to the stairs; and as they came to the foot of the flight Johnson Boller gripped his friend's arm suddenly and looked whitely at him.

"It's all over!" he said.

"What?"

"The trunk! The trunk she went out in! Didn't he say something about not sending out anything?"

"That has no connection with his going out!" Anthony snapped, although some of his insouciance fled.

"Hasn't it, though? Well, it has every connection! He's chased Wilkins and, long before this, he's called a cop and had him taken in! The whole thing's over, Anthony. That trunk's in a police station now and they've opened it--and your Dalton man's daughter is behind the bars as a suspicious character before this."

Anthony Fry's scowl turned black.

"Can't you see me peaceful, without trying to smash it by babbling a lot of rot like that?" he demanded angrily. "Wilkins must have the girl inside her home by this time and----"

"Why should you be peaceful and happy when my home's wrecked?" Johnson Boller asked hotly.

"We will not discuss it out here," said his host, leading the way upstairs again.

Dismally he trailed through the door he had left so cheerfully a moment ago. Johnson Boller trailed after him even more dismally, albeit with some grim satisfaction at his altered mien.

"We can sit down here and wait now," he stated. "We don't have to do anything more than that, Anthony. We can figure it all out. Either he has had the trunk and Wilkins taken in, or he's just determined that our guilt is cinched. If the former, all creation knows by this time that Dalton's daughter was up to something--queer. If there's a general alarm out for her, they'll recognize her when she comes out of that trunk. On the other hand, if Hitchin has let the trunk go, he's having warrants sworn out by this time and they're dusting off the seats in the nearest patrol-wagon. Either Dalton gets you and probably me, too, or the police get us. That's all that can happen and----"

"Stop!" Anthony barked. "I don't care a rap what happens, so long as the girl is not laid open to suspicion, and I don't believe Hitchin or anybody else is going to contrive that, once Wilkins started to deliver the trunk. That is my sole concern now--to shield her!"

Having delivered with commendable sentiment, Anthony demonstrated his entire calm by rising with a nervous jerk, by listening, and finally by striding to the door of his apartment, which he opened.

Thereafter he stepped back suddenly, for with one searing glance at him a woman had pa.s.sed.

She was in the living-room even now, and smiling horribly at Johnson Boller. She was, in a word, Johnson Boller's wife, and her black eyes snapped more ominously than before.

"Don't touch me!" she was saying, as Johnson Boller approached with hands outstretched. "I've come back, but only to tell you!"

"To tell me that you've changed your mind, little pigeon?" Johnson Boller cried brokenly. "You're going to let Pudgy-wudgy----"

"Faugh!" said the lady, and from her radiated the Spanish grandmother and all the strain implied--blood l.u.s.t, vengeance! "No, I've come to tell you that I mean to make that woman's name a scandal and a byword from end of town to the other. Not _some_ woman's name, but _the_ woman's name!"

"But----"

"How can I do it?" laughed the different Mrs. Boller. "I've found out who she is!"

CHAPTER XV

Thick and Fast

However faint the appeal it made to Johnson Boller, Anthony's statement had been the literal truth--his sole concern just now was the shielding of Mary Dalton.

More and more, these last calmer minutes, the ghastly aspect of the case as viewed from the woman's side had appealed to him. It is entirely possible that a little real mental suffering had rendered Anthony Fry less selfish and more considerate of the rest of the human race--Johnson Boller always excepted--than he had been for many years.

Whatever the cause, the weight of his own guilt was bearing down harder and harder, and he was prepared to go to extreme lengths if necessary in the way of keeping Mary's adventure an eternal secret.

But like many another plan and resolve of this bedeviled night and morning, the latest had been blasted to flinders!

Beatrice Boller, standing there with Mary's hat still clutched tight and partly broken, was not smiling the smile of a woman who fancied herself on the right track. She smiled the smile of one who knew exactly where she stood. Her lips curled now as she examined the worm that had been her husband, and she perched on the edge of the center-table.

"Unfortunate, isn't it, that you didn't pick some poor drab from the streets?" she asked, significantly and triumphantly. "Unfortunate for you and unfortunate for her!"

"Well, this--well, this----" Johnson Boller tried.

"Don't talk to me, please. I want to talk to you--oh, not for my sake or for your sake, to be sure. I don't know how much real man may be left in either of you; not very much, I imagine. But if you do want to save two innocent women from a good deal of embarra.s.sment, you shall have the chance."

She laughed again as she watched the effect of the cryptic statement.

She sat down, then, and having opened her hand-bag and drawn therefrom a little slip of paper, she resumed her inspection of the silent pair.

"You don't understand at all, do you? Well, you shall! Your lady friend made one mistake, gentlemen. Any young woman off on that sort of adventure should be cautious enough to destroy marks of identification.

This hat, as it happens, came from Mme. Altier, just uptown."

"The little blonde?" escaped from Johnson Boller.

"The little blonde," sneered his wife. "The little blonde is quite a friend of mine; I lent her the money that started her in business up this way, in fact, and I've been buying hats there for five years.

Therefore, I went and interviewed the little blonde, and her memory and her methods of bookkeeping are alike commendable. She might not have told another woman, but she was very glad to tell me."

Beatrice gazed at the slip briefly.

"Mrs. Henry Wales!" she said very suddenly indeed, and sent her eyes straight through both of them at once.