The Bartlett Mystery Part 28

"We are at loggerheads, you see," he said, almost cheerfully. "Just let us sit down and have a quiet talk. Tell me everything you know, and in the order in which things happened. Tell me facts, and if you are guessing at probabilities, tell me you are guessing. Then we shall soon unravel the tangled threads."

Thus rea.s.sured, Miss Goodman took him through the records of the past forty-eight hours, so far as she knew them. After the first few words he required no explanations of his mother's presence in that middle-cla.s.s section of Manhattan. She had gone there in her stately limousine to awe and bewilder a poor little girl--to frighten an innocent out of loving her son and thus endangering her own grandiose projects for his future.

It was pardonable, perhaps, from a worldly woman's point of view. That there were other aspects of it she should soon see, with a certain definiteness, the cold outlines of which already made his mouth stern, and sent little lines to wrinkle his forehead. He had spared her hitherto--had hoped to keep on sparing her--yet she had not spared Winifred! But who had prompted her to this heartless deed? He loved his mother. Her faults were those of society, her virtues were her own. She had lived too long in an atmosphere of artificiality not to have lost much of the fine American womanliness that was her birthright. That could be cured--he alone knew how. The puzzling query, for a little while, was the ident.i.ty of the cruel, calculating, ruthless enemy who struck by her hand.

There was less light shed on Winifred's own behavior. He recalled her words: "You want to know if I love you--yes, yes--I want you to stay a long time this afternoon--don't ask me why I told you that awful fib--"

And then her confession to Miss Goodman: "I am going away to-morrow--for always, I'm afraid."

What did that portend? Ah, yes; she was going to some place where he could not find her, to bury herself away from his love and because of her love for him. It was no new idea in woman's heart, this. For long ages in India sorrowing wives burned themselves to death on the funeral pyres of their lords. Poor Winifred only reversed the method of the sacrifice--its result would be the same.

"But 'to-morrow'--to-day, that is. You are quite sure of her words?" he persisted.

"Oh, yes, sir; quite sure. Besides she has left her clothes and letters, and little knick-knacks of jewelry. Would you care to see them?"

For an instant he hesitated, for he was a man of refinement, and he hated the necessity of prying into the little secrets of his dear one.

Then he agreed, and Miss Goodman took him from her own sitting-room to that tenanted by Winifred. Her presence seemed to linger in the air.

His eyes traveled to the chair from which she rose with that glad crooning cry when he came to her so few hours earlier.

On the table lay her tiny writing-case. In it, unopened, and hidden by the discouraging missive from the bookbinder's, rested the note from the dramatic agent, with the thrice-important clue of its plain statement: "I have made no appointment for you at any house near East Orange."

But Miss Goodman had already thrown open the door which led to Winifred's bedroom.

"You can see for yourself, sir," she said, "the room was not occupied last night. Nor that she could be in the house without me knowing it, poor thing. There are her clothes in the wardrobe, and the dressing-table is tidy. She's extraordinarily neat in her ways, is Miss Bartlett--quite different from the empty-headed creatures girls mostly are nowadays."

Miss Goodman spoke bitterly. She was fifty, gray-haired, and a hopeless old maid. This point of view sours the appearance of saucy eighteen with the sun shining in its tresses.

Carshaw swallowed something in his throat. The sanct.i.ty of this inner room of Winifred's overwhelmed him. He turned away hastily.

"All right, Miss Goodman," he said; "we can learn nothing here. Let us go back to your apartment, and I'll tell you what I want you to do now."

Pa.s.sing the writing-desk again he looked more carefully at its contents.

A small packet of bills caught his eye. There were the receipts for such simple articles as Winifred had bought with his money. Somehow, the mere act of examining such a list struck him with a sense of profanation. He could not do it.

His eyes glazed. Hardly knowing what the words meant, he glanced through the typed doc.u.ment from the bookbinder. It was obviously a business letter. He committed no breach of the etiquette governing private correspondence by reading it. So great was his delicacy in this respect that he did not even lift the letter from the table, but noted the address and the curt phraseology. Here, then, was a little explanation.

He would inquire at that place.

"I want you to telegraph me each morning and evening," he said to the landlady. "Don't depend on the phone. If you have news, of course you will give it, but if nothing happens say that there is no news. Here is my address and a five-dollar bill for expenses. Did Miss Bartlett owe you anything?"

"No, sir. She paid me yesterday when she gave me notice."

"Ah! Kindly retain her rooms. I don't wish any other person to occupy them."

"Do you think, sir, she will not come back to-day?"

"I fear so. She is detained by force. She has been misled by some one. I am going now to find out who that some one else is."

He drove his car, now rejuvenated, with the preoccupied gaze of one who seeks to pierce a dark and troubled future. From the garage he called up the Long Island estate where his hacks and polo ponies were housed for the winter. He gave some instructions which caused the man in charge to blink with astonishment.

"Selling everything, Mr. Carshaw!" he said. "D'ye really mean it?"

"Does my voice sound as if I were joking, Bates?"

"No-no, sir; I can't say it does. But--"

"Start on the catalogue now, this evening. I'll look after you. Mr. Van Hofen wants a good man. Stir yourself, and that place is yours."

He found his mother at home. She glanced at him as he entered her boudoir. She saw, with her ready tact, that questions as to his state of worry would be useless.

"Will you be dining at home, Rex?" she asked.

"Yes. And you?"

"I--have almost promised to dine _en famille_ with the Towers."

"Better stop here. We have a lot of things to arrange."

"Arrange! What sort of things?"

"Business affairs for the most part."

"Oh, business! Any discussion of--"

"I said nothing about discussion, mother. For some years past I have been rather careless in my ways. Now I am going to stop all that. A good business maxim is to always choose the word that expresses one's meaning exactly."

"Rex, you speak queerly."

"That shows I'm doing well. Your ears have so long been accustomed to falsity, mother, that the truth sounds strangely."

"My son, do not be so bitter with me. I have never in my life had other than the best of motives in any thought or action that concerned you."

He looked at her intently. He read in her words an admission and a defense.

"Let us avoid tragedy, mother, at least in words. Who sent you to Winifred?"

"Then she has told you?"

"She has not told me. Women are either angels or fiends. This harmless little angel has been driven out of her Paradise in the hope that her b.u.t.terfly wings may be soiled by the rain and mud of Manhattan. Who sent you to her?"

"Senator Meiklejohn," said Mrs. Carshaw defiantly.

"What, that smug Pharisee! What was his excuse?"

"He said you were the talk of the clubs--that Helen Tower--"

"She, too! Thank you. I see the drift of things now. It was heartless of you, mother. Did not Winifred's angel face, twisted into misery by your lies, cause you one pang of remorse?"

Mrs. Carshaw rose unsteadily. Her face was ghastly in its whiteness.