The Girl at Central Part 24

As we swung up the street he talked very kind to me, complimenting me something awful, and saying that if he ever could do anything for me to let him know and he'd do it if it was within the power of man.

"You see, Miss Morganthau," he said as we drew up in front of the Elite, "a man in my position feels pretty grateful to the person who's lifted off him the shadow of disgrace and death."

Up in my room I sat quiet for a long time thinking. The thing that phased me was why I'd changed so, come round to feel that while he was still a grand, strong man, I'd always look up to and do anything for, I'd quit having blind staggers and heart attacks when he came along.

Something had sidetracked me. I didn't know what. All I did know was that two months ago if he'd asked me to be his friend I'd not have known there was such a thing as food in the world. And that evening at half-past seven, being too lazy to go to the Gilt Edge, I was so hungry I had to go down to Mrs. Galway and beg the loan of three Uneedas and a hard boiled egg.

It was one evening, not long after, that Anne Hennessey came in to see me. Babbitts was coming that night and Mrs. Galway had given up the parlor again and was in bed with a novel and a kerosene lamp. Anne was quite excited, the reason being that Mrs. Fowler had given her a present. She took it careful out of a blue velvet case and held it up in the glow of the drop light. It was a diamond cross and the minute I set eyes on it I knew where I'd seen it before.

"Sylvia's," I said, low and sort of awed.

Anne nodded.

"Yes, the one she had on that night. Mrs. Fowler said she wanted to give me something that had been hers. I wouldn't have taken anything so handsome but I think the poor lady couldn't bear the sight of it, reminding her of her sorrow as it did."

She moved it about and the stones sparkled like bits of fire in the lamplight. I stretched out my hand and took it, for diamonds tempt me like meat the hungry-that's the Jew in me, I suppose.

"You won't call the King your cousin when you wear this," I said, and I held it against my chest, looking down at the brightness of it.

"That's just where Sylvia had it on," said Anne almost in a whisper, "where the front of her dress crossed. One of the police officers told me."

My mother was a Catholic and it's Catholic I was raised, for though my father was a Jew he loved my mother and let her have her way with me.

"Wouldn't you think," I said, "that when the murderer saw the cross on her it would have stayed his hand?"

"Wouldn't you," said Anne, "but to men as evil as that the cross means nothing. And then out in the dark that way, he probably never saw it."

Babbitts' knock sounding, I handed it back to her and let him in, feeling bashful before Anne, who didn't know how often Mrs. Galway was retiring at eight-thirty. She left soon after, saying Mrs. Fowler liked her to be round in the evening, which was news to me, as she'd told me that the Fowlers always sat in the sitting-room together, the Doctor reading aloud till Mrs. Fowler got sleepy.

After she'd gone, Babbitts and I drew up to the stove, cozy and cheerful, with our feet on the edge of it. We'd come to know each other so well now that we'd other topics beside "the case," but that night we worked around to it, me picking at the box of candy Babbitts had brought and rocking lazily as contented as a child.

Babbitts was still keen for that reward. He said to me:

"You had your fingers on it once, and it's my wish that you'll get your whole hand on it next time."

"What a n.o.ble character," said I, "calculating for little Molly to get it all! Where do _you_ come in?"

"Oh, don't bother about me," says he. "You've a bad habit of thinking too much where other people come in. You got to quit it-it isn't good business. Now what I want to arrange is for you and me to make an excursion out to the Wayside Arbor some afternoon."

"The Wayside Arbor-what'll we do there?"

"Take a look over the ground. You see, with the process of elimination that's been going on things have narrowed down to the vicinity of the crime. It's my opinion that the murder was not only committed but was planned round there. The police are losing heart and not doing much. As far as I can find out Fowler's detectives-Mills and his crowd-are getting their pay envelopes regular but not getting anything else.

Now-just for devilment-let _us_ combine our two giant intellects and see what we can see."

"Haven't they gone over every inch of it?"

"They have-with a fine-tooth comb. But that doesn't prevent us going over it and taking our fine-tooth combs along."

"Isn't Hines under surveillance?"

"Good Lord," says he laughing, "_everybody's_ under surveillance.

There's not one of the suspects but knows he's expected to stay put and is doing it. But who's getting anywhere? There's no reason why we shouldn't go out that way, call on Mrs. Cresset, and take a look in at the Wayside Arbor ourselves."

"I'm game," I said, "though I can't see what good it's going to do."

"It'll give us a half-day together," said he. "I don't know how you feel about it but that looks worth while to me."

We made a date for the following Monday, my holiday, just eight weeks from the murder.

The next morning I had a surprise-a kind that hasn't often come my way.

It was a letter directed in typewriting with a half-sheet of paper inside it inclosing a fifty-dollar bill. On the paper, also typed, was written:

For Miss Morganthau-A small return for her recent good work in the Hesketh Murder Case.

That was all-no name, no date, no handwriting. I don't know what made me think right off of Mr. Whitney, unless it was because there was no one else who knew of what I'd done and could have afforded to send that much. The only other person it could have been was Jack Reddy, and somehow or other, after he'd asked me to be his friend, I felt certain he wouldn't send me money, no matter what I'd done for him. Friends don't pay each other.

I guess there wasn't a more elated person in Longwood that morning than yours truly. I'd had that much before-saved it-but I'd never had it fall out of the sky that way in one beautiful, crisp, new bill.

The Jew and the Irish in me had some tussle, one wanting to salt it down in the bank and the other to blow it in. But that time the Irish had a walk-over, probably because I was limp and weary with all the excitement of the last two months and felt the need of doing something foolish to tone me up. When I thought of the clothes I could buy with it, the Jew just lay down without a murmur and you'd have supposed I was all County Galway if you'd seen me writing a list of things on the back of the envelope. If it'll make you think better of me I'll confess that I wanted to look nice on that trip with Babbitts, the first real jaunt we'd ever taken, for I didn't count those times in New York when we were sleuthing after c.o.kesbury. Just once in my life I was going to have a real blowout, and I wanted the chap who was taking me to feel he'd some lady with him.

With three of us in the office I fixed things so I got Sat.u.r.day afternoon and I hiked over to town with that bill burning in my purse like a live coal. And, my it was great spending it! I was cool on the outside, looking haughty at the goods and casting them aside contemptuous on chairs, but inside I was drunk with the feeling of riches.

I bought a one-piece silk dress that fitted me like every measure was mine and a long black plush coat, rich fine plush like satin, that was draped something elegant and fastened in front with a novelty ornament.

For a hat I selected a small dark felt, nothing flashy, no tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, just a rosette at one side. And with the last three dollars a purse, black striped silk, oval shaped with a ribbon to hang it to your wrist.

It was six when I got home, carrying the boxes myself-all but the coat; that I _had_ to wear-pretty nearly dead with the weight of them, but not regretting-neither the Jew nor the Irish-one nickel of it.

Midday Monday, when I came down to the parlor where Babbitts was waiting, he put his hand over his eyes like the Indians in front of cigar stores and pretended to stagger.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _I came down to the parlor where Babbitts was waiting_]

"What good deed have I ever done," says he, "that I'm allowed to walk the world with such a queen!"

Then I felt certain that to break loose now and again is a healthy change.

XVI

It was a long ride to Cresset's Crossing, first on the main line to the Junction and then just time to make a close connection with the branch line to the Crossing.

It was three when we reached there and started out to walk to Cresset's Farm. There'd been rain the day before and the road was muddy, with water standing here and there in the ruts. The weather was still overcast, the sky covered with clouds, heavy and leaden colored. It was cold, a raw, piercing air, and we walked fast, I-careful of my new dress-picking my steps on the edge of the road and Babbitts tramping along in the mud beside me.

I'd never been up there at that season and I thought it was a gloomy, lonesome spot. The land rolled away with fences creeping across it like gray snakes. Here and there were clumps of woods, purplish against the sky, and between them the brown stretches of plowed land, that in the springtime would be green with the grain. Now, under those dark, low-hanging clouds with the naked trees and the bare, empty fields, it looked forlorn and dreary. It was as still as a picture, not a thing moving, but one man, someways off, walking along the top of a hill. You could see him like a silhouette, going slow, with a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and a bit of red round his neck. When he got to the highest point he stopped and looked down on the road. He couldn't see us-the trees interfered-and he seemed, as Babbitts said, like the spirit of the landscape-sort of desolate and lonely, plodding along there, solitary and slow, between the earth and the sky. Then presently even he was gone, disappearing over the brow of the hill.