No. 13 Washington Square Part 33

"They can swear to seeing a young man and woman come in. And I know they were Mr. De Peyster and his wife."

"That's strange." Suddenly Mr. Pyecroft's face cleared. "I think I begin to understand! It was at night, wasn't it, when the witnesses saw them come in?"

"At night, yes."

"I'm sorry you have been caused all this trouble, Mr. Mayfair,"--in a tone of very genuine regret. "But there has been a blunder--a perfectly natural one, I now see. Undoubtedly the young couple your witnesses saw were my niece and myself."

"What!" cried Mr. Mayfair. For a moment the undeflectable star reporter was all chagrin. Then he was all suspicion. "But why," he snapped out, "should you and your niece slip in at night? And why should you live here in hiding?"

"You force me into a disagreeable and humiliating admission. The fact is, our family is in severe financial straits. We simply had no money to live on, and no prospects in sight. To help us out temporarily, my sister Matilda invited us to stay here while Mrs. De Peyster is in Europe. But for Mrs. De Peyster to know of our being here might cost my sister Matilda her position, which accounts for our attempt to get in unseen and to live here secretly. We had to protect Matilda against the facts leaking out."

Mr. Mayfair stared searchingly at Mr. Pyecroft's face. It was confused, as was quite natural after the confession of a not very honorable, and certainly not very dignified, procedure. But it was candor itself.

"h.e.l.l!" he burst out irefully. "Some one has certainly given me a b.u.m steer. But I'll get that young couple yet, you see!"

"I'm sorry about the story," said Mr. Pyecroft. And then with a slight smile, apologetic, as of one who knows he is taking liberties: "Perhaps, as compensation for the story you missed, you could write a society story about Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper entertaining for the summer her brother, sister, and niece."

Mr. Mayfair grinned, ever so little. "You've got some sense of humor, old top," he approved dryly.

"Thank you," said Mr. Pyecroft, with a gratified air.

He led Mr. Mayfair past the room within which Jack was hidden, down to the servants' door and courteously let him out. Two minutes later Mr. Pyecroft was again in the second maid's room. Mary eagerly sprang forward and caught his hand.

"I waited to thank you--you were simply superb!" she cried enthusiastically. "I've been telling your sister how wonderful you are. She's got to forgive you--I'll make her! And Jack will die laughing when I tell him." She herself burst into excited merriment that half-choked her. "Just think of it--all the while he was looking--looking a big story straight in the face!"

She was off to tell Jack.

"One might add, looking two big stories straight in the face, eh, Angelica, my dear?" chuckled Mr. Pyecroft, _alias_ Mr. Preston.

One might add, three big stories, shivered Mrs. De Peyster.

But she did not add this aloud.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MAN IN THE CELLULOID COLLAR

The amused smile which Mr. Pyecroft had worn when he had entered, and which he had subdued to thoughtful sobriety while "Wormwood" was a.s.suaging the invalid's tribulations, began now to reappear. It grew.

Mrs. De Peyster could but notice it, for he was smiling straight at her--that queer, whimsical, twisted smile of his.

"What is it?" she felt forced to ask.

"We three are not the only ones, my dear Angelica," he replied, "who are trying to slip one across on Mrs. De Peyster. Our friend the cabinet-maker is on the same job. I might remark, that he's about as much a cabinet-maker as yourself."

"What is he?"

"A detective, my dear."

"A detective!"

"The variety known as 'private,'" enlarged Mr. Pyecroft.

"What--what makes you think so?"

"Well, I felt it my duty to keep an eye on our new guest--un.o.btrusively, of course. When I slipped out a little while ago it was to watch him. He was working in the library; entirely by accident, my dear Angelica, my eye chanced to be at the keyhole. He was examining the drawers of the big writing-table; and not paying so much attention to the drawers as to the letters in them. And from the rapidity with which he was examining the letters it was plain the cabinet-maker knew exactly what he was after."

"What--do you think--it means?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.

"Some person is trying to get something on Mrs. De Peyster," returned Mr. Pyecroft. "What, I don't know. But the detective party, I've got sized up. He's one of those gracious and indispensable n.o.blest-works-of-G.o.d who dig up evidence for divorce trials--lay traps for the so-called 'guilty-parties,' ransack waste-paper baskets for incriminating sc.r.a.ps of letters, bribe servants--and if they find anything, willing to blackmail either side; remarkably impartial and above prejudice in this respect, one must admit. Altogether a most delectable breed of gentlemen. What would our best society do without them? And then again, what would they do without our best society?"

Mrs. De Peyster did not attempt an answer to this conjectural dilemma.

"Twin and interdependent pillars of America's shining morality,"

continued Mr. Pyecroft. "Now, like you, Angelica," he mused, "I wonder what the detective party is after; what the lofty Lady De Peyster can have been doing that is spicy? However," smiling at her, "Angelica, my dear, in the words of the great and good poet, 'We should worry.'"

It was only a moment later that Matilda burst into the room and closed the door behind her. She was almost breathless.

"He asked me for the key to"--"your" almost escaped Matilda--"to Mrs.

De Peyster's suite. He'd been particularly ordered to touch up Mrs. De Peyster's private desk, he said."

"And you gave him the key?" inquired Mr. Pyecroft, asking the very question that was struggling at Mrs. De Peyster's lips.

"I told him I didn't have a key," said Matilda.

"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.

"But," continued Matilda, "he said it didn't matter, for he said he'd been brought up a locksmith. And he picked the lock right before my eyes."

"That's one accomplishment of gentlemanliness I was never properly instructed in," said Mr. Pyecroft regretfully, almost plaintively. "I never could pick a lock."

"And where--is he now?" inquired Mrs. De Peyster.

"In Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room, retouching her desk."

"He's certainly after something, and after it hot--and probably something big," mused Mr. Pyecroft. "Any idea what it can be, Matilda?"

Matilda had none.

"Any idea, Angelica?"

Mrs. De Peyster was beginning to have an idea, and a terrified idea; but she likewise said she had none.

Mrs. De Peyster wished Mr. Pyecroft would go, so she could give way to her feelings, talk with Matilda. But Mr. Pyecroft stretched out his legs, settled back, clasped his hands behind his head, and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. He had an intellectual interest in some imaginary escapade of the far-distant Mrs. De Peyster; but no more; and he was obviously comfortable where he was.

Matilda started out, but was recalled by a glance of imperative appeal from Mrs. De Peyster. And so the three sat on in silence for a time, Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda taut with expectant fear, Mr. Pyecroft loungingly unconcerned.