CHAPTER XXIV

WHAT SYBIL HAD HIDDEN

JIM BARRISON was dog tired. He felt as though the past twenty-four hours had been twenty-four months; it scarcely seemed possible that the murder had been committed only the night before! Nevertheless, weary as he was he called up Lowry and told him of his evening’s experience. The inspector made some cryptic grunts at the other end of the wire, and ended up with a curt “I’ll see about it. Good night!”

Barrison smiled, but felt slightly annoyed as he hung up the receiver. “‘I’ll see about it!’ As though he were Providence incarnate, and could wind up the moon and stars to go differently if he felt like it!”

He was past more than a fleeting flash of resentment, however, and lost no time in wending his way homeward and to bed. Tara made a dignified offering of Scotch and sandwiches, but he waved him away sleepily, and tumbled in.

So profound was the slumber into which he immediately fell, that the shrill ringing of the telephone hardly pierced his rest. If he heard it at all, it was only as a component part of his fitful dreams.

The voice which came to Tara over the wire was cool and crisp:

“Mr. Barrison, please.”

Tara glanced compassionately toward the bedroom where his master was already in deep repose.

“No, sir!” he responded, politely but firmly.

“What do you mean—no? Has he gone to bed?”

“Yes—please.” Tara was nothing if not deferential.

“Well, get him up. I want to speak to him.”

“Honorably excuse,” said Tara, with an instinctive bow to the instrument, “but—I not!”

“You won’t call him?”

“Please—I not!”

The voice at the end of the wire cursed him gently, and then continued:

“Well, will you take a message?”

“Oh, yes, please—I thank!”

The Jap hastily seized pencil and paper, and, after making sundry hieroglyphics in his own language, said good night humbly, hung up, and translated what he had noted into English. In the morning, when he carried coffee in to a refreshed but still drowsy Barrison, the message which that gentleman read was as follows: “Hon. gent. paper man say if you please call. Import.”

Barrison knew that this meant Teddy Lucas in all probability, but he also knew that it was too early to catch him at the newspaper office yet. He ate breakfast and hunted through the morning papers for matters of interest. In the Blaze, he found a picturesque little account of the spectacular exit of Mr. and Mrs. Blankley. It was toned down, however, a good deal, Dukane’s name not being mentioned, and nothing more sensational being suggested than that “Rita the Daredevil” lost her nerve after the narrow escape which had left her in a state of collapse when the Blaze representative was admitted to her presence. Her husband had urged her discontinuance of the engagement, et cetera. Barrison could not entirely understand, but he knew that the ways of newspapers were strange and devious. Later he would call up Lucas and find out more about it.

It was at this point that his eye caught sight of another item on the page given over to dramatic news. It was starred in a half column, and was headed:

Barrison shook his head, and smiled a wry, cynical smile.

“Not so prostrated that she can’t make capital out of it!” he commented to himself. “Lost no time, I must say. However, it’s no concern of mine.”

Refreshed by his sound sleep, he rushed through the process of dressing like a whirlwind, and went off to try the doubtful experiment of another call upon Mr. Dukane.

But before he went up to the great man’s office, he paused to take due thought. After all, was it the best thing to do? He considered, and before he had decided, the door of the elevator opened, and young Norman Crane came out. He looked fresh and wholesome as ever, but, Jim thought, a bit anxious. He greeted the detective cordially.

“Hello!” he said. “Beastly mess it all is, isn’t it? Were you going up to see the old man? Because you won’t. Not unless you’ve an awful drag at court! Every one in the world is waiting in the outer office, all the poor old ‘Boots-and-Saddles’ bunch, and everybody in town that’s left over.”

“I hadn’t made up my mind whether I was going up or not,” admitted Barrison. “Now I have, I think. I’ll walk along with you, if you’ve no objection?”

“Rather not! I’m——” He hesitated. “I’m going to inquire for Sybil.”

“How is Miss Merivale? I was sorry to hear that she was so ill.”

“Who told you? Oh, it would be Lowry, of course! I can’t get used to the idea of having Sybil watched and spied on by policemen. Beg pardon!” He flushed boyishly. “I don’t mean to be offensive, Mr. Barrison, and you never strike me like that quite, but—you must know what I mean?”

“Naturally I do,” said Jim, who liked the lad. “And, if you don’t mind, I’ll come with you when you go to inquire—not in a professional capacity!” he added hastily, seeing the glint of suspicion in the other’s transparent eyes.

Crane laughed a little awkwardly. “I’d be very glad to have you,” he said frankly, “and, for that matter, in your professional capacity, too! Mr. Barrison, am I right in thinking that—that man suspects Sybil?”

“Suspects is rather a plain term and rather a strong one. I don’t think he absolutely suspects her; but there are things that will need a bit of clearing up.”

“I thought so!” The young man’s manner expressed a sort of angry triumph. “Now, Mr. Barrison, you must come. Sybil must talk to you, whether she feels like it or not! You know, the whole idea is too absurd——”

“I think it is absurd myself!” said Barrison kindly. “But you know it’s just those ridiculous things that make such a lot of bother in the world! Miss Merivale, I’m convinced, is the last person in the world to have committed any sort of a crime.”

“Heavens! I should say so!”

“And yet—what was it that she hid in her dress that night?”

Norman stopped and stared at him. “Why should you think she hid anything in her dress?” he demanded in unfeigned astonishment.

“I’ll tell you by and by,” said Barrison evasively. He saw that Crane was really surprised by this, and he was debating with himself just how far it was politic and wise to go in this direction.

In another few minutes they were at the boarding house where Sybil lived—a quiet house in the upper Forties, kept by a gentle, gray-haired woman who seemed of another day and generation, and who called Norman “my dear boy,” with a soft Southern drawl.

Miss Merivale was better, she said; so much so, in fact, that she had had her removed into her own parlor at the front of the house, where she could have more cheerful surroundings and see her friends, the sweet lady added, smiling, if she felt strong enough. If the gentlemen would take the trouble to walk upstairs, she was sure they would do Miss Merivale good. She was better, but not so bright as one could wish.

The boarding-house keeper and Norman Crane ascended first, and shortly after the former came back to tell Barrison that they were expecting him, if he would go up.

“I thought,” she added softly, “that they would want to see each other, and so I had her couch fixed in my place, where I can be in and out, so to speak. Not that I’d have the time,” she added, gently humorous, “but it’s the idea, you know! I’m from the So’th, sir, and I have my funny notions about the proprieties!”

Sybil, on the landlady’s old-fashioned sofa, looked rather pathetically wan, but she made an effort to greet Jim with some animation and cordiality. It was plain that she was still very shaken and depressed, and that her fiancé was much worried about her.

She went at once to the matters that were in all their minds. It was characteristic of the girl that she did not shrink from approaching even the subjects responsible for her recent collapse. And she was very fair to look at, in her soft blue dressing gown lying back among the faded chintz cushions, with her ash-blond hair in two long braids upon her shoulders. Kitty Legaye should have seen her now!

“Mr. Barrison,” she said at once, “it is awfully good of you to have called. Norman and I know that you are here as a friend, and not as an officer of the law, and we are both grateful. Mr. Barrison, you surely don’t think I had anything to do with—with that horror the other night?”

“No, I don’t,” said Barrison, speaking as briefly and frankly as she was speaking herself.

“Well, will you tell me on what grounds they are—are watching me?”

“You are sure they are?” he said, to gain time.

“Sure! Of course, I am sure! Look at that man over there, reading the paper and occasionally glancing up at the sky to see if it is going to rain. Isn’t he watching this house?”

Barrison smiled. “Probably he is,” he admitted. He had noticed the man himself as he came in, but he had not imagined that the girl herself knew of her situation.

“Well,” she insisted, and a faint spot of feverish color came into either cheek, “what is it that they expect to find out? What is it? I know that I was there, on the scene, but—but—surely that man would not have let me go if he had thought I had—done it!”

Barrison was convinced of her innocence; but he was also convinced that the wisest course would be to enlighten her as to the points wherein her position was open to question by the law. He had hesitated because his connection with the case, while unofficial, more or less tied his hands; but, after all, the inspector had given him leave to use his own judgment.

He spoke straightforwardly. “What did you hide in your dress, just before the last act, the night before last, Miss Merivale?”

She started upright on the couch, and looked at him with wide eyes of amazement. “How did you know that?” she asked blankly.

“But you didn’t, did you, dear?” struck in Norman Crane, taking her hand in his. “What could you have put in your dress? It’s absurd, as I told Mr. Barrison!”

She thought for a moment, and then said quietly: “I put into my dress something that I wanted to hide, chiefly from you, Norman. I knew that if you saw it, you would be angry.”

Norman Crane looked as though she had struck him.

“You did hide something, then?” he exclaimed.

“I certainly did, and would again, under the same conditions. Only, I can’t see how any one knew of the fact. Who was it, Mr. Barrison?”

“Your dresser, the woman Parry.”

“Of course!” She nodded slowly. “She was always a meddlesome old thing! And I know that she was consumed with curiosity when I got the package and the note that night.”

“The package and the note!” repeated Norman Crane. “Sybil, you are crazy! What are you talking about?”

“I know what the note was,” put in Barrison, smiling at her reassuringly. “At least, I know part of it, and I was daring enough to make up the rest of it in Lowry’s office last night!”

Sybil looked up at him with a flash of laughter in her eyes, though poor Crane was still dazed.

“And what did you make of it?” she asked, in a tone that tried for raillery and only achieved a certain piteous bravado.

“I made of it a sort of love letter, if you can call it so,” said Barrison gently, “which might have accompanied a present, something which could be considered in the light of a test—no, that is not the word, a proof of——”

“A proof,” she broke in passionately, “of my willingness to do something, and to be something that I could not do and could not be! And you made that out of it, with only those torn scraps to go by! Oh, you understand. I see that you do understand!”

She hid her face in her hands and cried. In a moment, however, she put aside her own emotion, and explained:

“He—Mr. Mortimer—had tried to make love to me many times; you both know that. Norman was furious with him, and I was always afraid that there would be trouble between them. Of my part of it—well, it is much harder to speak. Being men, perhaps you will not understand the sort of power of fascination that a man can have over a woman, even when she does not love him. I shall always believe that Alan Mortimer had some hypnotic power—however, that is not the point. Though I had always repulsed him, he could not help knowing that he had influence over me; a man always knows. You see, I don’t try to lie; I tell you the truth, even though it isn’t a pleasant sort of truth to tell.”

“I know it is most painful to tell,” Barrison said, feeling indeed profoundly sorry for her, and most respectful of her courage in speaking as she did. Norman Crane said nothing.

“That night—the first night,” Sybil went on, “Alan Mortimer made it especially—hard for me. He had chosen an ornament for me, a splendid jeweled thing, but I had refused it several times. That night, he sent it to me with a note, and told me that he expected me to wear it that evening, after the play was over.”

“Have you got it now?” asked Barrison.

She reached out to a small table near by and took it from a hand bag. “I have never been separated from it,” she said simply. “It is too valuable, and—until to-day—I did not know just what to do with it.”

In another moment it lay before them—the case “as long as a hand,” which Mrs. Parry had seen the girl hide in the front of her dress. In yet another instant the case was open, and the splendid piece of jewelry that was within flashed in the morning sunshine. It was a pendant of sapphires and diamonds, and it was the sort of thing that would be extremely becoming to Sybil Merivale.

Crane suppressed with difficulty a sound of rage as he saw it.

Barrison cut it off quickly by saying: “You told us you did not know what to do with it until to-day. Why to-day?”

“Because”—Sybil took up a morning paper, looked at a particular place, and dropped it again—“because to-day I know that Miss Legaye was engaged to him, and that, therefore, anything that he had, when he died, belongs to her. I am going to send the pendant to Miss Legaye.”

She closed the case with an air of finality. “Isn’t that what I ought to do?” she asked, half anxiously, looking from one to the other.

Norman Crane, who had been sitting moodily staring at the floor, suddenly lifted his head and bent to kiss her hand.

“My darling,” he said honestly and generously, “I don’t understand everything you’ve been talking about, but I understand that you’re my dear girl—my fine girl—always. And—and whatever you say—must be right!”

“And you, Mr. Barrison?” she persisted, looking at him wistfully, as she left her hand in Norman’s.

Jim rose to go, and, standing, smiled down upon her. “I think your notion is an inspiration!” he declared. “I would give something to see Miss Legaye when she gets that pendant!”

After which he departed, wondering how he was going to convince Lowry that the trail to Sybil was, professionally speaking, “cold.”