The Paternoster Ruby Part 29

"Where is Miss Cooper?" I asked at last.

She abruptly clutched the hand that held the keys, so that they clicked together.

"Never mind," she flared at me, with a stamp of her foot. "Obey me."

"And if I don't?"

And now she levelled the pistol at me. She threw back her head and her lips curved.

"I 'll shoot," she announced, in a tense tone. "So help me, I 'll shoot."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I 'll shoot," she announced in a tense tone, "so help me, I 'll shoot."]

For a moment we confronted each other, I utterly nonplussed, every line of the girl's figure breathing relentless determination.

"Miss Fluette," I tried to reason with her, "you are beside yourself.

Pray don't do anything you 'll regret."

But she stopped me. Her voice was harsh and strained.

"Get up out of that chair. Do as I say."

Should I continue to humor her?--for further parleying was wholly out of the question. And if I wrote anything at all, it would doubtless have to pa.s.s her critical inspection--and also into her possession--before she would yield an inch.

I had to decide quickly. I started to shake my head, and _bang!_--the pistol blazed right into my face.

Heaven knows where the bullet went; I only know that it missed me.

Next instant I was too busy to think about how narrow had been my escape. I sprang up agilely enough now, and was only just in time to catch the drooping figure before it fell. As I pa.s.sed a supporting arm round her, her hair tumbled about her face and over her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, her brow was gathered in a frown, her lips were pinched and livid.

I acted rapidly. She had not fainted--was not wholly unconscious--for she was still putting forth a feeble effort to help herself. I eased her into the chair, behind which she had been standing and into which she now sank limp and silent. Her chin fell forward upon her bosom, and now and then her shoulders rose in a racking, gasping sob.

She let the still smoking pistol drop into my hand. Somewhere below I could hear Genevieve calling wildly and some one pounding away upon a door.

Next I got the keys from Miss Belle's yielding fingers, and soon had the door to the room open. The cries and pounding had ceased, and I surmised that the troop of maids and other servants chattering on the lower stairs and in the second story hall had been attracted to their source. Then a hope came to me that the shot had pa.s.sed unnoticed.

Well, it transpired that Genevieve was locked in a room on the second floor, much to the amazement of the servants, none of whom, I was thankful to learn, had heard the shot. Genevieve had, though, or I was very much mistaken in the cause of her vigorous effort to attract attention and her present frenzied appeals for some one to break down the door.

"Oh, please, please, don't wait for the key," she was importuning them.

"Break in the door--only hurry!"

"Everything's all right, Miss Cooper," I called. A little cry of relief came from beyond the closed portal. "I have the key," I added.

The second key which Miss Fluette had held was the one, and I had the bolt shot in a jiffy. Genevieve ran straight to me and threw herself into my arms.

Whatever it was she meant to say in her first overjoyed transport, remained unsaid; for I unceremoniously clapped a hand over her mouth, picked her up and carried her bodily back into the room, and slammed the door upon the gaping servants.

"They don't know," I said. "Go up-stairs to Belle; she has fainted.

The explosion was accidental, and no one was hurt." I was still holding her close in my arms. "G.o.d bless you!" I whispered at her ear.

And then--

Well, even the exigencies of a memoir do not require that I should set down what occurred then. Genevieve, her cheeks aflame, broke from my embrace and ran out of the room. I heard her light steps upon the stairs, and then the door to the room which had come near being the scene of a tragedy, opened and closed.

CHAPTER XX

GENEVIEVE'S MISSION

Almost at once a summons came from the up-stairs room for Miss Belle's maid. The rest of the servants were dismissed, and Genevieve signalled over the bal.u.s.ters for me to wait.

A very old man, cheerfully garrulous, who announced that he was the butler, took me downstairs.

"The drawing-room--living-room--or if you're of a mind to smoke, sir, Mr. Fluette's study." He indicated each of the rooms mentioned with a little flourish of the hand.

Although I am not a smoker, the word "study" arrested my attention. I indicated my preference. The old man instantly clapped a hand to one ear, and, leaning toward me, shouted into my face, "Hey?" So I decided the matter for myself by striding down the hall to where a door stood invitingly open.

Now perhaps you may consider it to have been the first duty of a traditional detective to take advantage of this opportunity, and perhaps you may be right. However, I believe I can a.s.sert, with some measure of authority, that a man in my profession may be a man of principle and honor and still succeed. I believe I may go even further: honest, straightforward conduct and upright dealing, by winning the confidence and respect of those with whom he holds intercourse, will carry a detective farther along the road to success in a given undertaking than any other means he may adopt. Honesty, in my calling as in all others, is the best policy.

But there are certain subtle impressions, often difficult to define, which are more potent than foot-prints and thumb-marks. A man's words, for example, are often of far less importance than his manner of uttering them. A man's personality is the stamp by which he declares his status among his fellows, and everybody is ent.i.tled to scan it that he may weigh and consider and judge. Hence a man's surroundings bear a thousand tokens of his character; for him to try to obliterate them, to keep them hid, is not to be frank and open, and that in itself invites suspicion.

My sole object in entering Alfred Fluette's study, therefore, was prompted by a hope that I might absorb something of its atmosphere. I did not know the man. Here was the place where he spent his leisure hours, where he unbent and became his normal self. It were indeed strange if I failed to gain some concept of his character.

I leaned against a window-casing, and surveyed the room with much interest. From the appearance of the books on the shelves--they were worn from use, but their coating of dust evidenced neglect--I gathered the idea that the master of the house had once been a bookish man, but that of late he had grown away from such pursuits. Here and there on the wide-topped writing-table were letters and papers in neat piles, while other letters and papers were heaped up and scattered about in the most careless disorder. The ink-well and blotting-pad were scrupulously tidy, but he never troubled to clean his pens after using them, or even to place them in the pen receiver.

To me, all this argued a man whose moral forces were undergoing a slow but certain deterioration; and with a man in Alfred Fluette's position, and with his responsibilities, the possibilities were manifold and ominous. His conscience still had a voice to raise in protest against meddling with his niece's heritage; but he remained deaf to the voice.

He could stoop to villainy; but he was not so callous to wrongdoing but that the stooping hurt. Alfred Fluette needed a jolt--somebody to bring him up with a short turn--and I resolved, having the means, to be the one to do it.

As my glance roved hither and thither about the room, it was suddenly arrested and held.

On the writing-table, among a thousand and one odds and ends, was a memorandum calendar. It was in nowise different from scores of other calendars; the date displayed was to-day's, and in the blank s.p.a.ce below, written in a large, firm handy appeared a notation.

But this memorandum contained a most peculiar word. Somehow, as my eye encountered it, a thrill ran through me. I could not define it; the thrill was without perceptible meaning, but I felt that the odd word should tell me something. The word was so odd, in fact, that I feared I could not remember it. So I copied it upon the back of an envelope, thus:

TSHEN-BYO-YEN.

Immediately under it had been written: "10 o'clock."

Further speculation on the matter was interrupted by Genevieve coming down-stairs. I stepped into the hall when I heard her, and she at once joined me. We went into the living-room.

Her beautiful eyes were round with wonder, her sweet face filled with concern; but before I entered into any explanations, I turned to her and held out my arms.

"First," I whispered, "I want to know whether it is real."

She caught her breath sharply; the color came quickly to her cheeks, a tender light to the blue eyes. She put her hands confidently into mine.

"What has happened to you?" she asked, standing away from me and staring with perplexed solicitude at the testimony of Stodger's barbarous surgery. I had forgotten all about the red-hot poker.