The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 29

"Some people call it so, you know," said Bobby. She was silent.

"Hundreds of women have that sort of hair," she said, presently. "Half the actresses in town"--

"He said it seemed to him natural."

"How should he know?" said Mrs. Bobby, contemptuously. "And why on earth should she choose a place like Brooklyn? I don't think she ever went there in her life."

"She seems," said Bobby, gently, "to have done a great many things that you--didn't think of, Eleanor." And again his wife fell silent.

"Have they any other evidence?" she asked, after thinking a moment, "or what they call evidence? I might as well know the worst."

"They have her letters, which were found among Halleck's papers--she told him to burn them, but he didn't. They were signed 'E. V. V.' One of them was about her engagement to Gerard--it seemed he had threatened her, and she offered him money to keep him quiet; the other was just a line, asking him to meet her in the Park. It's evident that she was afraid of him and had to keep him supplied with funds. She sold all her jewelry, they say, to do it."

"Ah--her jewelry!" Mrs. Bobby drew a long breath. "That is what she did with it, then," she remarked, involuntarily.

Bobby turned to her sharply. "You noticed, then," he said, "that she didn't have it?"

"Of course. There were her pearls, which she never wore last summer; the watch I gave her, too--I used to feel hurt that she never carried it, but I never suspected--Oh, what a fool I was--what a fool! And I who thought myself so clever in bringing about a match between her and Julian!" She stopped and suddenly burst into tears. "I made a nice failure of it all, didn't I?" she said. Then in a moment, her mood changed, and she turned upon Bobby indignantly. "Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

"I didn't want to tell you," said Bobby, slowly, "a moment sooner than was necessary. Personally, I don't see the use of having all this exploited--as a matter of fact, I'd pay a good deal to have it kept quiet; partly for your sake, and partly because--well, I like Elizabeth. She may not have behaved well, but I don't think she deserves to be made conspicuous in this way. I don't mind confessing that I've done what I could to arrest the zeal of the police, but I'm sorry to say, without success."

"You don't mean," she said incredulously, "that they refused money?"

"Well, the new District Attorney is very zealous," Bobby explained, "and, between ourselves, I think he wants the eclat of a sensational case. To put a young society woman in prison, against the efforts of all her friends, shows Roman stoicism,--or so he thinks."

"But you don't believe," said his wife, piteously, "you don't think it could come to that, Bobby?"

"To prison?" he said. "I don't know, Eleanor--upon my word I don't know." And he began again thoughtfully to pace up and down.

"What did Gerard say," he asked presently, "when he wrote to you before he sailed?"

"It was just a hurried note, hard to make out. He said the engagement was broken by her."

"Of course he'd _say_ that. What did she tell you?"

"That it was his wish, but he was not to blame, and she would tell me more some other time. She looked so unutterably wretched that I couldn't ask any questions just then."

"Ah," said Bobby, softly. "I don't believe, poor child! that it was her doing, Eleanor."

"If it was Julian's," she said, "he must have had some good reason."

And with that they both fell into thoughtful silence.

"I don't see," was her next objection, uttered musingly, "I don't see how they ever thought of Elizabeth in the first place. It seems such a wildly improbable idea."

"It certainly does," Bobby agreed. "Then Elizabeth, poor child, as it happens, rather put the idea into their heads herself. It seems that she went to the studio the day after the poisoning and insisted upon seeing him. She said she was his wife. D'Hauteville saw her, I believe, but he said nothing about it. It was the elevator man who told the story--he took her up and he heard D'Hauteville call her by her name. He says that D'Hauteville took her into the studio, and when she came out she was crying. And the man vows he heard her say 'I didn't do it, don't think I did it,' or something of the kind."

"Why, I never," broke in Mrs. Bobby, "heard anything so extraordinary.

The man must have been drinking. It's impossible that Elizabeth could have done such a thing. Why, it was that day--that day"--she paused and thought--"that day after the murder," she continued, triumphantly, "I remember distinctly going to see her in the afternoon, and she was ill in bed with grippe, and her temperature very high."

"I can believe that," said Bobby, rather grimly, "after what she went through in the morning. For I'm afraid there's not much doubt, Eleanor, that it's true. One of the detectives, too, saw her pa.s.s through the hall, and I don't think that D'Hauteville denies it. They want him to testify at the inquest, but so far, they can't get him to say one thing or another."

"He would deny it, of course, if it were false," said Mrs. Bobby, in a low voice. Her husband bent his head. "Well," she said, rallying, "after all, I don't see anything in that. It would be pretty stupid, if she were really guilty, to defend herself before she was accused.

No one but a fool would have done that, and the person who sent that poison couldn't have been a fool. And she wouldn't have gone near the studio; that's the last thing the real culprit would have done."

"That's what I say," said Bobby. "It doesn't seem on the face of it the act of a guilty woman. But they have some theory of hysterical remorse, and there is other evidence I haven't heard which fits into that. They say that when she heard that it had really happened she lost her head completely. There have been such cases, you know. Oh, and then another thing. They're comparing the handwriting on the package with the letters"--

"The letters?" broke in Mrs. Bobby, anxiously.

"Yes, that I told you of, you remember--written to him--they've got experts examining them now."

"Ah, well, if the experts have got hold of the case," said Mrs. Bobby, resignedly, "we might as well give up hope. They'd swear away any person's life to prove a theory."

"Well, at least," said Bobby, "it's the life of a young and beautiful girl. That really seemed to me, when I heard all this, the only hope.

Even handwriting experts are human." But his wife only sighed despairingly.

"I think," she said, after awhile, "I must go to Elizabeth. I haven't seen her for several days, and she mustn't think that her friends are giving her up."

"You won't--tell her anything?" asked Bobby, anxiously.

"Do you think she doesn't know?"

"She would be the last person, in the natural order of events, to hear of it."

"Then I shall say nothing," said his wife, after a moment's reflection. "You wouldn't, would you?" she added, as she caught an odd look in her husband's eyes.

"I--I don't know." Bobby seemed to reflect. "If--if she were to go abroad just now," he said, doubtfully, "it might not be a bad plan."

"Bobby!" Mr. Van Antwerp's wife faced him indignantly. "You wouldn't have her--run away from all this? You wouldn't have her frightened by anything those people can threaten?" Eleanor Van Antwerp's dark eyes sparkled, she held her head proudly. Her husband looked at her half in doubt, half in admiration.

"You would face it?"

"Yes, if it cost me my life."

The look of admiration on Bobby's face brightened and then faded to despondency. "Ah, well, you are right--theoretically, of course, but--would Elizabeth, do you think, have the same courage? Or, if she had, could you, knowing what you do, take the responsibility of allowing her to face it?"

This was the doubt--the horrible doubt, which troubled Mrs. Bobby as she drove to Elizabeth's home, and at the thought of it her heart failed her. Her husband had judged her rightly--she could be braver for herself than for others. Would it not be better, after all, to suggest to the Misses Van Vorst the desirability of a trip abroad? She looked thoughtfully out of the carriage window. It was a bleak February day, and people in the street had their coat-collars turned up against the chill east wind. The climate of New York at this time is detestable; a change would do any one good. She would go herself to the Riviera and take Elizabeth with her.

Mrs. Bobby had hardly reached this conclusion before the carriage stopped in front of the quiet apartment house in Irving Place where the Van Vorsts were spending the winter. It was an old-fashioned house with an air of sober respectability, that seemed to make such wild thoughts as filled Mrs. Bobby's brain peculiarly strained and improbable, like the hallucinations of a fevered brain. It was a shock, keyed up as she was to the tragic point, to enter the peaceful little drawing-room with its bright coal fire and general air of comfort, and to find Elizabeth prosaically engaged in looking over visiting-cards and invitations. And yet Mrs. Bobby was shocked by the change in her appearance, which every day made more apparent. Her face was haggard, there was a deep purple flush in her cheeks; her lips were dry and feverish, there was an odd, strained look in her eyes.

The hand she held out to her visitor burned like fire.

"I'm so glad you came in," she said, with a wan smile. "I've been looking over these stupid things and my head aches. You see, I've neglected my social duties shamefully--not sending cards, or even, I'm afraid, answering some of my invitations. People must think me horribly rude."

"Oh, they know you've been ill," Mrs. Bobby answered vaguely. She sat down, all the wind taken out of her sails, and stared wonderingly at Elizabeth. How could she--how could she look over visiting-cards and talk about invitations, with this terrible danger hanging over her head? Was it possible that she had no suspicions? And yet--did not her eyes betray her? But Mrs. Bobby could not think of any way of introducing the subject of which her mind and heart were full, and there was silence till Elizabeth spoke again.

"It's odd, isn't it," she said languidly, "that Mrs. Lansdowne hasn't asked me to her ball. Have you cards for it?"

"I--I believe so."

"Well, she has left me out," said Elizabeth. Mrs. Bobby started and looked at her with some interest. "I suppose she thinks," Elizabeth went on, "I--I'm not much of an addition just now. I certainly am not, to look at." She laughed a little, in a feeble way. "Of course I shouldn't go," she added, "but it isn't nice to be--left out."