Miss Maitland Private Secretary Part 21

"Of course, of course," came in Whitney's deep, bland voice, "we all understand Mrs. Price's feelings-quite natural under the circ.u.mstances.

And Miss Maitland's too." He rose and pressed a bell near the door. "Now if you've heard all you want I'll call in George and we'll talk this over. And Miss Maitland," he turned to her, urbanely kind and courteous, "could I trouble you to go back to Mr. Quincy's office; just for a little while? We won't keep you waiting very long this time."

A very dapper young man had answered the summons and under his escort Esther withdrew. Whitney went to a third door connecting with his son's rooms, opened it and said in a low voice:

"George, go and get Molly. We're ready for her now."

Coming back, he stood for a moment by the desk, and swept the faces of his clients with a meaning look:

"What you're going to hear from Mrs. Babbitts will be something of a shock. She's unearthed several rather startling facts that in my opinion bear on this present event and what led up to it. It's a peculiar situation and involves not only Price but Miss Maitland."

Mrs. Janney stared:

"Miss Maitland and Chapman! What sort of a situation?"

"At this stage I'll simply say mysterious. But I'm afraid, my dear friend, that your confidence in the young woman has been misplaced.

However, before I go any further I'll let you hear what Mrs. Babbitts has to say and draw your own conclusions."

What Mrs. Babbitts had to say came not as one shock but as a series.

Mrs. Janney could not at first believe it; she had to be shown the notes of the telephone message, and dropped them in her lap, staring from her husband to Wilbur Whitney in aghast question. Mr. Janney seemed stunned, shrunk in his clothes like a turtle in its sh.e.l.l. It was not until the lawyer, alluding to the loss of the jewels, mentioned Miss Maitland's possible partic.i.p.ation either as the actual thief or as an accomplice, that he displayed a suddenly vitalized interest. His body stretched forward, and his neck craned up from its collar gave him more than ever the appearance of a turtle reaching out of its sh.e.l.l, his voice coming with a stammering urgency:

"But-but-no one can be sure. We mustn't be too hasty. We can't condemn the girl without sufficient evidence. Some one else may have been there and-"

Mrs. Janney shut him off with an exasperated impatience:

"Oh, Sam, don't go back over all that. I don't care who took them; I don't care if I never see them again. It's only the child that matters."

Then to Whitney the inconsequential disposed of, "We must make a move at once, but we must do it quietly without anything getting into the papers."

Whitney nodded:

"That's my idea."

"What are you going to do-go directly to him?"

"No, not yet. Our first step will be made as you suggest, very quietly.

We're going to keep the matter out of the papers and away from the police. Keep it to ourselves-do it ourselves. And I think-I don't want to raise any false hopes-but I think we can lay our hands on Bebita to-night."

"How-where?" Mr. Janney's head was thrust forward, his blurred eyes alight.

"If you don't mind, I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to ask you to leave it to me and let me see if my surmises are correct. If Chapman has her where I think he has, I'll give her over to you by ten o'clock. If I'm mistaken it will only mean a short postponement. He can't keep her and he knows it."

"The blackguard!" groaned the old man in helpless wrath.

Mrs. Janney wasted neither time nor energy in futile pa.s.sion. She attacked another side of the situation.

"What are we to do with Miss Maitland? You can't arrest her."

"Certainly not. She's a very important person and we must have her under our eye. You must treat her as if you entirely exonerated her from all blame-maintain the att.i.tude you took just now when talking with her. If my immediate plan should fail our best chance of getting Bebita without publicity and an ugly scandal will be through her. She must have no hint of what we think, must believe herself unsuspected, and free to come and go as she pleases."

"You mean she's to stay on with us?" Mr. Janney's voice was high with indignant protest.

"Exactly-she remains the trusted employee with whose painful position you sympathize. It won't be difficult, for you won't see much of her.

You'll naturally stay here in town till Bebita is found. What I intend to do with her is to send her back to Gra.s.slands with a competent jailer-" he paused and pointed where Molly sat, silent and almost forgotten.

For a moment the Janneys eyed her, questioning and dubious, then Mrs.

Janney voiced their mutual thought:

"Is Mrs. Babbitts, alone, a sufficient guard?"

The lawyer smiled.

"Quite. Miss Maitland doesn't want to run away. She knows too much for that. No position could be better for our purpose than to leave her-apparently unsuspected-alone in that big house. She will be confident, possibly take chances." He turned on Molly, glowering at her from under his overhanging brows. "The safest and quickest means of communication with Gra.s.slands, when the family is in town and the servants ignorant of the situation, would be the telephone."

That ended the conference. Mrs. Janney went to get Suzanne and Molly received her final instructions. She was to return to Gra.s.slands with Miss Maitland, Ferguson could take them in his motor. She was to sit in the back seat with the lady and casually drop the information that she had come to town in answer to a wire from the Whitney office. She might have seen suspicious characters lurking about the grounds or in the woods. On no account was she to let her companion guess that Price was suspected, and any remarks which might place the young woman more completely at her ease, allay all sense of danger, would be valuable.

They left the room and went into the entrance hall where Esther, and presently Mrs. Janney, joined them. Whitney struck the note of a rea.s.suring friendliness in his manner to the girl, and the old people, rather reservedly chimed in. She seemed grateful, thanked them, reiterating her distress. In the elevator, going down, Molly noticed that she fell into a staring abstraction, starting nervously as the iron gate swung back at the ground floor.

Ferguson, waiting on the curb, saw them as they emerged from the doorway. His eyes leaped at the girl, and, as she crossed the sidewalk, were riveted on her. Their expression was plain, yearning and pa.s.sion no longer disguised. If she saw the look she gave no sign, nodded to him, and, leaving Molly to explain, climbed into the back seat and sunk in a corner. Though the afternoon was hot she picked up the cloak lying on the floor and drew it round her shoulders.

The drive home was very silent. Molly gave the prescribed reasons for her presence and heard them answered with the brief comments of inattention. She also touched on the other matters and found her companion so unresponsive that she desisted. It was evident that Esther Maitland wanted to be left to her own thoughts. Huddled in the cloak, her eyes fixed on the road in front, she sat as silent and enigmatic as a sphinx.

CHAPTER XVIII-THE HOUSE IN GAYLE STREET

The Janney party left the office soon after Molly and Esther. They had decided to stay at the St. Boniface hotel where rooms had already been engaged, and, with Suzanne swathed in veils and clinging to her mother's arm, they were escorted to the elevator and cheered on their way by the two Whitneys. When the car slid out of sight the father and the son went back into the old man's room.

It was now late afternoon, the sun, sinking in a fiery glow, glazed the waters of the bay, seen from these high windows like a golden floor. The day, which had opened fresh and cool, had grown unbearably hot; even here, far above the street's stifling level, the air was breathless. The men, starting the electric fans, sat down to talk things over and wait.

For the machinery of "the move" spoken of by Wilbur Whitney already had been set in motion.

Immediately after Esther's telephone message O'Malley had been called up and, with an a.s.sistant, dispatched to watch the Gayle Street house. As Whitney had told his clients, the news of the child's disappearance had hardly surprised him. Chapman's anger and threats portended some violent action of reprisal, and, even as the lawyer had questioned what form it might take, came the answer. Chapman had stolen his own child and had a hiding place prepared and waiting for her reception. It was undoubtedly only a temporary refuge, he would hardly keep her in such sordid surroundings. The Whitneys saw it as a night's bivouac before a longer flight. And that flight would never take place; every exit was under surveillance, there was no possibility of escape. The two men, smoking tranquilly under the breath of the electric fans, were quietly confident. They would bring Chapman's vengeance to an abrupt end and avert an ignominious family scandal. Meantime they awaited O'Malley-who was to return to the office for George-and as they waited discussed the kidnapping, knowledge supplemented by deductions.

When Chapman had decided on it he had instructed Esther, telling her to inform him when the opportunity offered. This she could do by letter, or, if time pressed, by telephone from a booth in the village. The trip to New York had been planned several days in advance and he had been advised of it, its details probably telephoned in the day before. He-or some one in his pay-had driven the taxi. It had been stationed in the rank near the house, where in the dead season there were few vehicles and from whence the extra one needed by Suzanne would naturally be taken. That Esther, with a long list of commissions to execute, should leave the child in the cab was an entirely natural proceeding. Her explanation of her subsequent actions was also disarmingly plausible, and the minutes thus expended gave the time necessary for the driver to make his get-away. Before she had acquainted Suzanne with the news, the child was hidden in the room at 76 Gayle Street.

Whether the room was taken for this purpose was a question. If it was then the idea had been in Chapman's mind for weeks-it was the "coming back" he had hinted at when he left Gra.s.slands. If, however, it had been hired as a place of rendezvous with his confederate, it had a.s.sisted them in the carrying out of their plot-might indeed have suggested it.

For as a lair in which to lie low it offered every advantage-secluded, inconspicuous, the rest of the floor untenanted. They could keep the child there without rousing a suspicion, for if Chapman was with her-and they took for granted that he was-she would be contented and make no outcry. She loved him and was happy in his society.

"Poor devil!" growled the old man. "You can't help being sorry for him, even if he did do it to hit back. It's his child and he's fond of her."

George gave a short laugh:

"I fancy it's more the hitting back than the fondness. Chapman's not shown up lately in a very sentimental light. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd ransom in the back of his mind. But we'll put an end to his ambitions or parental longings or whatever's inspiring him." He looked at his watch, then rose. "It's a quarter past seven and O'Malley's due at the half hour. It's understood we're to bring the child here first?"

His father gave an a.s.senting grunt and hitched his chair into the current of air from the fan.

George turned on the lights, their tempered radiance flooding the room, the windows starting out as black squares sewn with stars.

"I don't quite see what I'm going to say to him," he muttered, a sidelong eye on his father.