The Second Latchkey Part 8

"They're not making this one. He never could manage that key properly.

n.o.body with ears could mistake the sound, with both my door and the baize door open between, as they are now.

"No! You aren't to run and let him in. I don't want him to think we spy on him. He's free to come and go as he pleases, but I wish he wasn't so fond of surprises. It's not fair to me, at my time of life. As I was sitting down to dinner he walked in. Of course I had to ask him to dine, though there wasn't enough food for two. However, he refused, saying he would drop in at the Archdeacon's----"

"Mr. Smith has come!" Annesley cried out, wildly, interrupting her mistress for the first time in all their years together. "Oh, he will go upstairs! I must stop him--I mean, speak to him! I----"

"You will do nothing of the kind!" Mrs. Ellsworth leaned out of bed and seized the girl's dress. Careless of any consequence save one, Annesley struggled to free herself. But the old hand with its lumpy knuckles was strong in spite of fat and rheumatism. It clung leechlike to chiffon of cloak and gown, and though Annesley tore at the yellow fingers, she could not loosen them.

Desperate, she cried out in a choked voice, "Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith!" then checked herself lest the wrong Mr. Smith should answer.

But her voice was like the voice of one who tries to scream in a nightmare. It was m.u.f.fled; and though the two intervening doors were ajar--the door of Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom and the baize door dividing the corridors old and new--her call did not reach even the real Mr.

Smith. To be sure, he was slightly deaf, and had to use an electric apparatus if he went to the theatre or opera; still, Annesley hoped that her choked cry might arrest him, that he might stop and listen for it to come again, thus giving time for the man upstairs to change his quarters after the grating of the latchkey in its lock.

"Wicked, wicked girl!" Mrs. Ellsworth was shrilling. "How dare you hurt my hand? Have you lost your _senses_? Out of my house you go to-morrow!"

But Annesley did not hear. Her mind, her whole self, had escaped from her body and rushed out into the hall to intercept Mr. Ruthven Smith. It seemed that he _must_ feel the influence and stop. If he did not, some terrible thing would happen--unless, indeed, the other man had heard and heeded the warning sound at the front door. What if those two met on the stairs, or in the room on the second floor? Her lover would believe that she had betrayed him!

"Mrs. Ellsworth," she said in a fierce, low voice utterly unlike her own, "you must let me go, or you will regret it. I don't want to hurt you, but--there's only one thing that matters. If----"

The words seemed to be beaten back against her lips with a blow. From somewhere above a sharp, dry explosion struck the girl's brain and shattered her thoughts like breaking gla.s.s.

Mrs. Ellsworth let go the chiffon cloak and dress so suddenly that Annesley almost lost her balance. The noise had dazed the girl. The world seemed full and echoing with it. She did not know what it was until she heard Mrs. Ellsworth gasp, "A pistol shot! In my house! _Thieves!

Murder!_"

CHAPTER VI

THE BEGINNING--OR THE END?

For one confused instant the girl stood statue-still, then, realizing that she was free, without a thought for Mrs. Ellsworth she ran out of the room. In the front corridor and in the dining room the electric light was still on; and as she reached the stairs Annesley saw Ruthven Smith standing near the top with a small pistol in his hand.

She feared that he would fire a second shot, and there was no time to reach him. Somehow, he must be stopped with a word--but what word?

Everything depended on that. Sheer desperation inspired her.

"Stop! He's my lover!" she cried. "Don't shoot!"

Ruthven Smith--a tall, lanky figure in a long over-coat--kept his weapon aimed at someone out of the girl's sight, but he jerked his head aside for a glance down at her. It was a brief glance, for the man who dreaded burglars would not be caught napping. He turned again instantly to face a possible antagonist, eyes as well as weapon ready.

But the light from below had lit up his features for a second; and Annesley realized that disgust and astonishment were the emotions her "confession" had inspired.

The fact that he was inclined to believe her statement showed how low was his opinion of women. Annesley knew that he did not think highly of her s.e.x, but he had liked her and she had liked him despite his eccentricities. His look said: "So you are the same as the rest! But in case you're lying, I sha'n't be thrown off guard."

The girl felt physically sick as she understood the irrevocability of what she had just said, and the way in which her words were construed. If she could have waited, "Nelson Smith" might have saved himself without compromising her, for he was above all things resourceful. In announcing that he was her "lover," she had committed him as well as herself. He would have to make the best of a situation she had recklessly created.

This she realized, but had no time to wonder how he would do it before he spoke.

"Mr. Ruthven Smith, what Miss Grayle says is the truth. We're engaged to be married. All I want is a chance to explain why you find me where I am.

I'm not armed, so you can safely give me that chance."

"You know my name?" exclaimed Ruthven Smith, suspiciously. He still covered the other with his pistol, as Annesley could see now, because "Nelson Smith" had coolly advanced within a yard of the Browning's small black muzzle, and, finding the electric switch, had flooded the upper corridor with light.

"I've heard your name from Miss Grayle," said the younger man. "I know it must be you, because no other person has a right to make himself at home in this house as you are doing. I certainly haven't. But bringing her home a few minutes ago, after dining out, we saw a light in what she said was your room. She was afraid some thief had got in, and I proposed to her that I should take a quiet look round while she went to see if Mrs.

Ellsworth was safe. No doubt she was all right, because I heard them talking together while I examined your premises. The next thing I knew, as I was coming down with the news that everything was quiet, you blazed away. It was quite a surprise."

"I fired in the air, not at you," Ruthven Smith excused himself, more or less convinced. Annesley clutched the banisters in the sudden weakness of a great revulsion from panic to relief. She might have known that _he_ would somehow rescue her, even from her own blundering.

The shamed red which had stained Annesley's cheeks at Ruthven Smith's contempt died away. Her "lover"--he was openly that now--had miraculously made his presence in the other Smith's room, after eleven o'clock at night in this early bed-going household, the most natural thing in the world. At least, Ruthven Smith's almost apologetic tone in answering proved that he had been persuaded to think it so.

With Mrs. Ellsworth, however, it would be different. There would lie the stumbling-block; but with all danger from the Browning ended, the girl was in no mood to borrow trouble for the future, even a future already rushing into the arms of the present.

"I should always fire the first shot in the air," Ruthven Smith went on, "unless directly threatened."

"Lucky for me," replied the other. "I don't want to die yet. And it would have been hard lines, as I was trying to do you a good turn: rid you of a thief if there were one. But I suppose you or some servant must have left the light on in your room."

"I'm pretty sure I didn't," said Ruthven Smith, still speaking with the nervousness of a suspicious man, yet at the same time slowly, half reluctantly, pocketing his pistol. "We must find out how this happened.

Perhaps there _has_ been a thief----"

"No sign of anything being disturbed in your room," the younger man a.s.sured him. "However, you'd best have a look round. If you like"--and he laughed a frank-sounding laugh--"I'm quite willing to be searched before I leave the house, so you can make sure I'm not going off with any booty."

"Certainly not! Nothing of the kind! I accept your explanation,"

protested Ruthven Smith. He laughed also, though stiffly and with an effort. "I have no valuables in my luggage--I have brought none with me.

It's not worth my while to open the boxes in my room, as there's nothing there to tempt a thief. Still, one gets a start coming to a quiet house, at this time of night, finding a light in one's windows that ought to be dark, and then seeing a man walk out of one's room. My nerves aren't over-strong. I confess I have a horror of night alarms. I travel a good deal, and have got in the habit of carrying a pistol. However, all's well that ends well. I apologize to you, and to Miss Grayle. When I know you better, I hope you'll allow me to make up by congratulating you both on your engagement."

As he spoke, in his prim, old-fashioned way, he began to descend the stairs, taking off his hat, as if to join the girl whom in thought he had wronged for an instant. "Nelson Smith" followed, smiling at Annesley over the elder man's high, narrow head spa.r.s.ely covered with lank hair of fading brown.

It was at this moment Mrs. Ellsworth chose to appear, habited once more in a hurriedly donned dressing gown, a white silk scarf subst.i.tuted in haste for a discarded nightcap. Panting with anger, and fierce with curiosity, she had forgotten her rheumatism and abandoned her martyred hobble for a waddling run.

Thus she pounced out at the foot of the stairway, and was upon the girl before the three absorbed actors in the scene had heard the shuffling feet in woollen slippers.

"What does this mean?" she quavered, so close to Annesley's ear that the girl wheeled with a start of renewed alarm. "Who's this strange man in my house? What's this talk about 'engagements'?"

"A strange man!" echoed Ruthven Smith, p.r.i.c.kling with suspicion again.

"Haven't you met him, Miss Grayle's fiance?"

"Miss Grayle's fiddlesticks!" shrilled the old woman. "The girl's a baggage, a worthless baggage! In my room just now she _struck_ me--beat my poor rheumatic knuckles! For five years I've sheltered her, given her the best of everything, even to the clothes she has on her back. This is the way she repays me--with insults and cruelty, and smuggles strange men secretly into my house at night, and pretends to be engaged to them!"

The dark young man in evening dress pa.s.sed the lean figure in travelling clothes without a word and, putting Annesley gently aside, stepped between her and Mrs. Ellsworth.

"There is no question of 'pretending'," he said, sternly. "Miss Grayle has promised to marry me. If our engagement has been kept a secret, it's only because the right moment hadn't come for announcing it. I entered your house for a few moments to-night, for the first time, on an errand which seemed important, as Mr. Ruthven Smith will explain. I don't feel called upon to apologize for my presence in the face of your att.i.tude to Miss Grayle. It was our intention that you should have plenty of notice before she left you, time to find someone for her place; but after what has happened, it's your own fault, madame, if we marry with a special licence, and I take her out of this house to-morrow. I only wish it might be now----"

"It _shall_ be now!" Mrs. Ellsworth screamed him down. "The girl doesn't darken my doors another hour. I don't know who you are, and I don't want to know. But with or without you, Annesley Grayle leaves my house to-night."

"Mrs. Ellsworth, surely you haven't stopped to think what you're saying!"

protested Ruthven Smith. "You can't turn a girl into the street in the middle of the night with a young man you don't know, even if she is engaged to him."

"I won't have her here, after the way she's treated me--after the way she's acted altogether," Mrs. Ellsworth insisted. "Let her go to your cousins' if you think they'd approve of her conduct. As for me, I doubt it. And I'm sure she lied when she said they'd asked her to dine with them to-night. I don't believe she went near them."