Vicky Van. Wells Carolyn

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СКАЧАТЬ them, as gently as I could, the bare facts, deeming it wise to make no prevarication.

      So raptly did they listen and so earnestly did I try to omit horrible details, and yet tell the truth, that I did not hear Mrs. Schuyler enter the room. But she did come in, and heard also, the story as I told it.

      "Can it not be," I heard a soft voice behind me say, "can it not yet be there is some mistake? Who says that man is my husband?"

      I turned to see the white face and clenched hands of Randolph Schuyler's widow. She was holding herself together, and trying to get a gleam of hope from uncertainty.

      If I had felt pity and sorrow for her before I saw her, it was doubly poignant now.

      Ruth Schuyler was one of those gentle, appealing women, helplessly feminine in emergency. Her frightened, grief-stricken eyes looked out of a small, pale face, and her bloodless lips quivered as she caught them between her teeth in an effort to preserve her self-control.

      "I am Chester Calhoun," I said, and she bowed in acknowledgment. "I am junior partner in the firm of Bradbury and Calhoun. Mr. Bradbury is one of your husband's lawyers and also a friend, so, as circumstances brought it about, I came here, with Inspector Mason, to tell you—to tell you—"

      Mrs. Schuyler sank into a seat. Still with that air of determination to be calm, she gripped the chair arms and said, "I heard you tell Miss Schuyler that Randolph has been killed. I ask you, may it not be some one else? Why should he be at a house where people called him by a name not his own?"

      She had heard, then, all I had told the older ladies. For Mrs. Schuyler was not old. She must be, I thought at once, years younger than her husband. Perhaps a second wife. I was glad she had heard, for it saved repeating the awful narrative.

      "He has not been identified, Mrs. Schuyler," I said, "except by the policeman of this precinct, who declares he knows him well."

      I was glad to give her this tiny loophole of possibility of mistaken identity, and she eagerly grasped at it.

      "You must make sure," she said, looking at Inspector Mason.

      "I'm afraid there's no room for doubt, ma'am, but I'm about to send the man, the valet, over to see him. Do you wish any one else to go—from the house?"

      Mrs. Schuyler shuddered. "Don't ask me to go," she said, piteously.

      "For I can't think it is really Mr. Schuyler—and if it should be—"

      "Oh, no ma'am, you needn't go. None of the family, I should say."

      Mason looked at the elder ladies.

      "No, no," cried Miss Sarah, "we couldn't think of it! But let Jepson go. He is a most reliable man."

      "Yes," said Mrs. Schuyler, "send Cooper and Jepson both. Oh, go quickly—I cannot bear this suspense!" She turned to me, as the two men who had been hovering in the doorway, came in to take Mason's orders. "I thank you, Mr. Calhoun. It was truly kind of you to come. Tibbetts, get me a wrap, please."

      This was Mrs. Schuyler's own maid, who went on the errand at once. More servants had gathered; one or two footmen, a silly French parlor-maid or waitress, and from downstairs I heard the hushed voices of others.

      Tibbetts returned, and laid a fleecy white shawl about her mistress' shoulders. Mrs. Schuyler wore a house dress of dull blue. Her hair of an ash-blonde hue, was coiled on top of her head; and to my surprise, when I noticed it, she wore a string of large pearls round her throat, and on her hands were two rings, each set with an enormous pearl.

      I must have been awkward enough to glance at the pearls, for Mrs. Schuyler remarked, "I dressed so hastily, I kept on my pearls. I wear them at night sometimes, to preserve their luster."

      Then she apparently forgot them, for without self-consciousness she turned to the detective and began asking questions. Nervously she inquired concerning minutest details, and I surmised that side by side with her grief at the tragedy was a very human and feminine dismay at the thought of her husband, stabbed to death in another woman's house!

      "Who is Miss Van Allen?" she asked over and over again, unsatisfied with the scant information Lowney could give.

      "And she lives near here? Just down the side street? Who is she?"

      "I don't think she is anyone you ever heard of," I said to her. "She is a pleasant young woman, and so far as I know, all that is correct and proper."

      "Then why would she have Randolph Schuyler visiting her?" flashed the retort. "Is that correct and proper?"

      "It may be so," I said, for I felt a sort of loyalty to Vicky Van. "You see, she was not acquainted with Mr. Schuyler until this evening."

      "Why did he go there, then?"

      "Steele brought him—Norman Steele."

      "I don't know any Mr. Steele."

      I began to think that Randolph Schuyler had possessed many acquaintances of whom his wife knew nothing, and I concluded to see Bradbury before I revealed any more of Schuyler's affairs.

      And then, Lowney began adroitly to put questions instead of answering them.

      He inquired concerning Mr. Schuyler's habits and pursuits, his recreations and his social life.

      All three of the women gave responses to these queries, and I learned many things.

      First, that Randolph Schuyler was one manner of man at home and another abroad. The household, it was plain to be seen, was one of most conservative customs and rigidly straightbacked in its conventions.

      Mrs. Schuyler was not a second wife. She had been married about seven years, and had lived the last five of them in the house we were now in. She was much younger than her husband, and he had, I could see, kept her from all knowledge of or participation in his Bohemian tastes. They were the sort of people who have a box at the opera and are patrons of the best and most exclusive functions of the highest society. Mrs. Schuyler, after the first shock, recovered her poise, and though now and then a tremor shook her slight frame, she bore herself with dignity and calm.

      The two maiden ladies also grew quieter, but we all nervously awaited the return of the butler.

      At last he came.

      "It's the master, Madame," he said, simply, to his mistress as he entered the room. "He is dead."

      The deferential gravity of his tone impressed me anew with the man's worth, and I felt that the stricken wife had a tower of strength in the faithful servitor.

      "I left Cooper there, Madame," he went on. "They—they will not bring Mr. Schuyler home tonight. In the morning, perhaps. And now, Madame, will you not go to rest? I will be at the service of these gentlemen."

      It seemed cruel to torture them further that night, and the three ladies were dismissed by Lowney, and, attended by their maids, they left us.

      "Now, Jepson," Lowney began, "tell us all you know about Mr.

      Schuyler's doings. I daresay you know as much as the valet does. Was

      Mr. Schuyler as a man of the world, different from his life in this

      house?"

      Jepson looked perturbed. "That's СКАЧАТЬ