Chapter V
He had arrived at the studio building and entered the lower vestibule before he was aware of the lateness of the hour. He pulled out his watch, and found that it was almost midnight.
“Good heavens!” he said, taking a step back. “I quite forgot the time.” He started to go, then turned to the switchboard. “Could I telephone up to Mrs. Kildair’s apartment?”
“Go right up, Mr. Beecher,” said the hallboy, rising.
“Are you certain?” he said doubtfully.
“Sure. Orders is to send up any one who calls.”
A little surprised, he entered the elevator. At that moment a ring sounded, and on the indicator the figure 4 dropped.
“That’s her floor now,” said the boy, starting up the elevator.
At the fourth he came face to face with Garraboy, who saw him with a start of surprise and a sudden look of malice. The two nodded, without cordiality.
“Hello,” said Garraboy, looking at him with a curious fixity which he remembered after. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you?” said Beecher abruptly.
“Some valuable information to volunteer?” persisted the other, with a deliberate accent of irony.
“Perhaps.”
“Indeed? Then you have come to assist in restoring the ring,” said Garraboy in a low voice; and on his young, wrinkled face was a faint glimmer of a smile.
“Perhaps,” said Beecher, flushing angrily. “Does that annoy you?”
“Not in the least,” said Garraboy drily. “On the contrary, I am interested—exceedingly so.” He lifted his hat slightly and stepped into the elevator.
“Now, what in the devil has he got in his mind?” thought Beecher angrily. “And what was his idea in coming back? Nice look he gave me. Thought he had such an all-fired important engagement that he had to hurry away!”
He tried the door absent-mindedly, and found it locked. A long moment after he had pressed a second time upon the bell, the door was opened by Rita Kildair herself, who drew back in evident astonishment.
“You?” she said, frowning.
“I was going to telephone,” he said, a little embarrassed; “but they told me downstairs to come up.”
“Quite right.”
“Look here, Rita,” he said, with a sudden feeling of intuition. “I know you probably think I’m a prime representative of the pinhead family, but I’m awfully broken up by what happened. Can’t I help out some way?”
“Is that why you’ve come?” she said slowly.
“Of course,” he said, meeting her scrutiny with a puzzled glance.
She considered a moment and then said abruptly:
“Go in and sit down. I’m busy at the telephone. I’ll be back in a moment.”
The studio was still blazing with the electric chandeliers, the dining-table still crowded with the untouched dinner, with that sense of desolation and fatigue which the aftermath of a banquet presents. Lighted up as it was, the studio had none of the mystery that charmed—rather, something of the cruel garishness of the white sun.
He moved about aimlessly, arms crossed, his imagination repeopling the room with the strongly accentuated personalities who had gathered there an hour before, saying to himself over and over:
“Now, why the deuce did Garraboy come back?”
He approached the table and abstractedly took an almond and began munching it. Then, perceiving the chafing-dish, reached over, with a smile, and lifted the cover. But, at the moment his hand was outstretched, his eyes, obeying some mysterious instinct, rose to a long Venetian mirror opposite. In the clear reflection that showed the balcony of the second floor, he distinctly beheld the head of a woman protruding a little beyond the curtain.
“What the deuce!” he said, covering the chafing-dish with a bang. “It can’t be Rita—who then?”
All at once he comprehended. If the ring had not been found in the search, it was because it had been concealed in the room, and the woman in the balcony was a detective set to watch the trap—if the real thief had the daring to return.
At this moment Rita Kildair entered from the bedroom.
“Good heavens, Rita!” he said directly. “You don’t mean to say you suspect me?”
“What do you mean?” she said, stopping short, her glance instinctively seeking the balcony.
“I mean you’ve stuck a detective up there to see what I do the moment I come into the studio. Good heavens! what do you think I came for?”
“My dear Teddy,” she said, frowning at the stupidity of her spy, “is there any one who can’t be suspected? Do you blame me?”
“No, I suppose not,” he blurted out. “Only, it gives a fellow a deuced creepy feeling to have a couple of eyes looking through him from behind the curtain. I say, why don’t you search the place? The ring must be here!”
“That is possible, of course,” she said thoughtfully, her lip between her little teeth, an impulsive movement when she was plunged in thought.
“Or are you waiting for the thief to come back here and try to recover it? Of course, that’s the plan.”
“There’s one thing,” she said, with a quick, imperative gesture, looking at him closely, “I want you to remember. There is nothing public to be known. Whatever is done must be done quietly.”
“Oh, of course,” he said hastily. “I say, Rita, let me try to work this out with you—give me your confidence! I wish you would.”
She considered a moment, as though puzzled by his offer.
“I don’t think it will ever be found,” she said, shaking her head and looking at him.
“But you suspect some one,” he persisted.
She hesitated a moment, and then shook her head.
“No.”
The second’s delay convinced him.
“Man or woman?”
“It is only a speculation,” she answered slowly, “but I believe it was a woman.”
“Both times?”
“Both times.”
He took a turn, moodily disturbed, and came back.
“Tell me this, Rita,” he said. “Who else came back here tonight?”
“Garraboy,” she answered slowly, “and—Mrs. Cheever.”
“Mrs. Cheever!” he exclaimed, astonished. “Why, she was on the verge of prostration.”
Mrs. Kildair smiled a thin, elusive smile, and was about to reply when there came a ring at the door.
Instantly her manner changed. Placing her finger on her lips, at the same time sending him a glance that commanded the utmost silence, she took his hand and led him softly from the studio, through her bedroom into the further obscurity of the dining-room, which was lit only by the weak reflection which filtered through from the hall.
“Sit here, and not a sound,” she said, placing her lips so close to his ear that he felt the warm contact of her cheek. She gave him a slight pressure of her fingers, and went back into the studio by way of her bedroom, closing both doors.
Beecher, left in the darkness, strained every nerve to catch the sound that would reveal the identity of the new arrival. It seemed to him that he heard the sound of another woman’s voice, and then presently, as a shadow came to him through the twilight of the hall, he heard Mrs. Kildair saying:
“—to telephone. Be back in a moment.”
The next instant she was at his side, pressing his hand to prevent the whisper that was on his lips. They sat thus side by side for what seemed a full five minutes before she rose and silently passed into the hall again. Beecher remained in complete bewilderment, unable to detect the slightest sound of the conversation that was taking place. That the same test was being applied to the new-comer which he himself had detected, he understood; but which one of the many guests it might be, he could not discover.
At the end of an interminable interval, he heard a few faint sounds, the closing of the outer door, and presently the rustle of Mrs. Kildair’s approach.
“Come now,” she said, waiting for him in the hall.
“Who came back then?” he asked eagerly.
She shook her head.
“I can not tell you—at least, not now. There are reasons why it would not be quite fair,” she said. Then, seeing his irritation, she tapped him on the arm and added: “Listen, Teddy. It is too late to talk over things. Run away now. Come in tomorrow at five.”
“I want to help, you know,” he said, taking her hand, guiltily conscious of the smile with which she examined him—a smile that seemed to convict him of treason. For the moment, however, the memory of the younger woman was dimmed. He was conscious only of the indefinite lure of mystery which Rita Kildair always exerted over his curiosity the moment they were alone.
“Look here, Rita,” he said impulsively, “I should think, in a case like this, you’d want all the help you can get!”
Her smile disappeared. She looked at him a moment with almost a masculine penetration, and then, her smile returning, said quietly:
“It’s curious, but each person who came back here tonight came back just to—help.”
Not only her words, but her manner, struck him with a sense of discomfort.
“Come in tomorrow,” she said, pushing him gently toward the door. She made a quick little motion with her fingers, looked at him with a penetrating seriousness, and disappeared, leaving him thoroughly confused and irritable.
“Why, she acts as though she suspected me!” he said, remembering her continual examination. “Who the deuce came back then? What’s Garraboy in all this? Does he suspect me, too, and has he been saying anything to Rita? What is terrible in such a situation is that any one may be suspected.” Suddenly he perceived that he had repeated the very words that Nan Charters had used in the coupé.
“By George, what a rotten mess! I feel like a pickpocket already,” he said, with a sudden cold horror in his back. “Why shouldn’t Rita suspect me as well as any one else? This is no pleasure party; this is serious—dead serious. I’ve got to work it out!”