The Girl at Central/Chapter 9

HE finding of the gold purse established the fact that part, anyway, of the Doctor's story was true—the woman who had gone down to the junction and then disappeared had disappeared in his auto. Was she Sylvia Hesketh?

The general verdict was yes—Sylvia Hesketh, for some unknown reason, running away from her lover and her home. All the world knew now that she was wild and unstable, a girl that might take any whim into her head and act on the spur of the moment. There were theories to burn why she should have thrown down Reddy and slipped away alone, but those that knew her said she was a law unto herself and let it go at that.

The morning after that supper in the Gilt Edge, Anne came in to do the marketing and stopped at the Exchange. The room was empty but even so I had to whisper:

"Are they going to arrest the Doctor?"

"He's waiting," she whispered back.

"What do you make of it?"

"What I always have. I think the woman was Virginie. I think she took Sylvia's things and lit out on her own account."

"What does Mrs. Fowler say?"

"She's going to offer a reward for the murderer. That's her way of answering. This last seems to have roused her. She knows now it's going to be a fight for her husband's liberty, perhaps his life. She's employing Mills and some other detectives and she keeps in close touch with them."

The next day the reward was made public. It was in all the papers and nailed up at the depot and in the post office, the words printed in black, staring letters:

Late that afternoon Babbitts came into the office. He was staying at the Longwood Inn, but it was the first time that day I'd seen him and after our supper together I'd begun to feel real chummy with him. Contrary to his usual custom he was short and preoccupied, giving me a number without more words and then banging shut the door of the booth. It got me a little riled and seeing he wasn't wasting any manners I didn't see why I should, so I lifted the cam and quietly listened in. Not that I expected to hear anything very private. The number he'd given was his paper.

The chap at the other end had a way of grunting, "I got you," no matter what was said. I'd heard him before and he had a most unnatural sort of patience about him, as if his spirit was broken forever taking messages off a wire.

"Say," says Babbitts, "I got a new lead—up country near Hines' place. I been there all morning. There's a farm up that way. Cresset's"—he spelled the name and the other one did his usual stunt—"Good people, years on the soil, self-respecting, stand high. Their house is about half a mile across woods and fields from the Wayside Arbor, lonely with a bad bit of road leading up from the pike. Do you hear?"

"Get on," said the voice.

"I stopped in there and had a séance with Mrs. Cresset, nice woman, fat with a white apron. I said I was a tourist thirsting for a drink of milk."

The other one seemed to rouse up. "Did you thirst that bad?"

"For information—and I got it. She's been scared of the notoriety and has held back something which seems important. Her husband's been prying her up to the point of going to the District Attorney and she's agreed, but tried it on me first. Do you hear?"

"I got you."

"The night of the murder, about nine, a man knocked at her door saying he'd lost his way and wanting to know where he was, and how to get to the turnpike. She spoke to him from an upper window and couldn't see his face, the night being dark. All she could make out was that he was large and wore an overcoat. He told her his auto was in the road back of him and he'd got mixed up in the country lanes. The thing's funny, as there are very few roads that side of the pike."

"Hold on—what's that about pike?"

Babbitts repeated it and went on:

"Doesn't appear to have been in the least drunk—perfectly sober and spoke like a gentleman. She gave him the direction and here's what caught me—describes his voice as very deep, rich and pleasant, almost the same words the Longwood telephone girl used to describe the voice she overheard speaking to Miss Hesketh Saturday noon."

"Any more?"

"Impossible to identify man but says she'd know the voice again. He thanked her very politely—she couldn't lay enough stress on how good his manners were—and she heard him walk away, splashing through the mud."

There were a few ending-up sentences that gave me time to pull out a novel and settle down over it. I seemed so buried in it that when Babbitts put down his money I never raised my eyes, just swept the coin into the drawer and turned a page. He didn't move, leaning against the switchboard and not saying a word. With him standing there so close I got nervous and had to look up, and as soon as I did it he made a motion with his hand for me to lift my headpiece.

"If two heads are better than one," he said, "two ears must be; and the words I am about to utter should be fully heard to be appreciated."

Of course I thought he was going to tell me what he'd found out at Cresset's. It made me feel proud, being confided in by a newspaper man, and I pushed up my headpiece, all smiling and ready to be smart and helpful. He didn't smile back but looked and spoke as solemn as an undertaker.

"Miss Morganthau, yours is a very sedentary occupation."

Believe me I got a jolt.

"If you're asking me to violate the rules for that," I answered, "you're taking more upon yourself than I'll overlook from a child reporter with a head of hair like the Fair Circassian in Barnum & Bailey's."

"I speak only as one concerned for your health. A walk after business hours should be the invariable practice of those whose work forbids exercise."

"Thank you for your interest," says I, very haughty, "but it's well to look at home before we search abroad. The man who spends all his time riding in autos at the expense of the Press would be better employed exercising his own limbs than directing those of others. So start right along and walk quick."

He didn't budge, but says slow and thoughtful:

"Your remarks, Miss Morganthau, are always to the point. I'm going to take a walk this evening—say about seven-thirty."

"I hope you'll enjoy it," says I. "As for me, I'm going straight home to rest. I need it, what with my work and the ginks that stand round here taking up my time and running the risk of getting me fired"—the door handle clicked. I looked over my shoulder and saw a man coming in. "Which way?" I says in a whisper.

"Down Maple Lane," he whispers back, and I was in front of my board with my headpiece in place when the man came in.

We walked up and down Maple Lane for an hour, and it may amuse you to know that what that simple guy wanted was to tell me to listen to every voice on my wires.

I looked at him calm and pitiful. Me, that had been listening till, if your ears grow with exercise, mine ought to have been long enough to tie in a true lover's knot on top of my head!

There's a wonderful innocence about men in some ways. It makes you feel sorry for them, like they were helpless children.

Then he capped the climax by telling me about Mrs. Cresset that morning—hadn't thought I'd heard a word. And as he told it, believing so honest that I didn't know, I began to feel kind of cheap as if I'd lied to someone who couldn't have thought I'd do such a thing. I didn't tell him the truth—I was too ashamed—but I made a vow no matter how sly I was to the others I'd be on the square with Babbitts. And I'll say right here that I've made good resolutions and broken them, but that one I've kept.

There's a little hill part way along the Lane where the road slopes down toward the entrance of Mapleshade. We stopped here and looked back at the house lying long and dark among its dark trees. The sky was bright with stars and by their light you could see the black patches of the woods and here and there a paler stretch where the land was bare and open. It was all shadowy and gloomy except where the windows shone out in bright orange squares. I pointed out to Babbitts where Sylvia's windows were, not a light in them; and then, at the end of the wing, four or five in a row that belonged to Mrs. Fowler's suite. Her sitting-room was one of them where Anne had told me she and the Doctor always sat in the evenings.

"They're there now," I said. "What do you suppose they're doing?"

"Search me," said Babbitts, "I can't answer for another man, but if I was in the Doctor's shoes I'd be pacing up and down, with my Circassian Beauty hair turning white while you waited."

"Yes," I said, nodding. "I'll bet that's what he's doing. I can see them, surrounded by their riches, jumping every time there's a knock on the door, thinking that the summons has come."

And that shows you how you never can tell. For at that hour in that room the Doctor and Mrs. Fowler were talking to Walter Mills, who had just come from Philadelphia, bringing them the first ray of hope they'd had since the tragedy. It was in the form of a diamond and ruby lavalliere that he had found the day before in a pawn shop and that Mrs. Fowler had identified as Sylvia's.

Four days later a piece of news ran like wildfire through Longwood: Virginie Dupont had been arrested and brought to Bloomington.

They put her in jail there and it didn't take any third degree to get the truth out of her. She made a clean breast of it, for she was caught with the goods, all the lost jewelry being found in the place where she was hiding. It sent her to the penitentiary, and her lover, too, for whom—anyway she said so—she had robbed Sylvia's Hesketh's room on the night that Sylvia Hesketh disappeared.

If her story threw no light on the murder it exonerated the Doctor, for it fitted at every point with what he had said.

I'll write it down here, not in her words, but as I got it from the papers.

For some time she had been planning to rob Sylvia, but was waiting for a good opportunity. This came, when the Doctor, being out of the house, she discovered that an elopement was on foot. She had read Sylvia's letters, which were thrown carelessly about, and knew of the affair with Jack Reddy, and when on Sunday morning she was sent to the village to get a letter from Reddy she guessed what it was. Before giving it to Sylvia she went to her own room, opened the envelope with steam from a kettle, and read it. Then she knew that her chance had come.

When evening drew on she hung about the halls and saw Sylvia leave at a few minutes past six, carrying the fitted bag. The coast being clear, she went to her room, took an old black bag of her own and stole back. It was while she was getting this bag that the idea came to her of impersonating her mistress, as in that way she could steal some clothes. She secured the jewelry in a pocket hanging from her waist, took some false hair that Sylvia wore when the weather was damp, and covered her head with it, and selected a little automobile hat of which there were several, over all tying a figured black lace veil.

What she particularly wanted was a new Hudson seal coat that had been delivered a few days before. No one but herself and Miss Hesketh knew of this coat as there had been so much quarreling about Sylvia's extravagance, that the girl often bought clothes without telling. After putting it on she filled her bag with things from the bureau drawers, and just as she was leaving saw the gold mesh purse on the dresser and snatched it up.

All this was done like lightning and she thinks she left the house not more than twenty or twenty-five minutes after Sylvia. To catch the train she had to hurry and she ran up Maple Lane behind the hedge. She was nearing the village when she heard the whirr of an auto and through the hedge saw the two big headlights of a car, coming slowly down the Lane. For a moment she paused, peeking through the branches and made out that there was only one person in it, Jack Reddy.

She reached the station only a few minutes before the train came in. As she had a ticket, she stood at the dark end of the platform, not moving into the light till the engine was drawing near. Then Jim Donahue saw her and came up, addressing her as Miss Hesketh. She had often tried to imitate Sylvia's voice and accent which she thought very elegant, and she did so now, speaking carefully and seeing that Jim had no doubt of her identity. On the ride to the Junction she had only murmured "Good evening" to Sands, being afraid to say more.

At the Junction she was going to get off, take the branch line to Hazelmere and transfer there to the Philadelphia Express. In the women's waiting-room, which would probably be deserted at that hour, she intended taking off Sylvia's coat and hair and reappearing as the modest and insignificant lady's maid. She had thought this out in the afternoon, deciding that Sylvia would probably communicate with her mother in the morning and that the theft would then be discovered. Inquiries started for the woman who had been seen on the train would lead to nothing, as that woman would have dropped out of sight at the Junction.

Everything worked without a hitch. The waiting-room was empty and she had ample time to take off the hair and put it in the bag, hang the coat over her arm with the lining turned out, and even pinch the small, soft hat into another shape. No one would have thought the woman who went into the waiting-room was the woman who came out.

And then came the first mishap—as she opened the door she stepped almost into Dr. Fowler. She was terror stricken, but even then neither her luck nor her wits left her, for almost the first sentence he uttered showed her that he knew of the elopement and gave her a lead what to say. She must have been a pretty nervy woman the way she jumped at that lead. Right off the bat she invented the story about being sent by Sylvia to Philadelphia—to wait there at the Bellevue-Stratford.

The Doctor was furious and ordered her into his auto. There was nothing for it but to obey and in she got, sitting in the back. As she was stepping up, he close beside her, she remembered the gold mesh purse plain in her hand. Like a flash she bent forward and jammed it down between the back and seat.

The ride up the Riven Rock Road was just as the Doctor described it. It was after the lamp had been broken and he was back in the car starting it up, that she slipped out. She was determined to get away with all her loot and took the bag and coat with her, but between the hurry and fear of the moment forgot the purse.

She wandered through the woods till she saw a small scattering of lights which she took for one of the branch line stations. When the dawn came she had lost some of her nerve and felt it was too risky to carry the extra things. So she hid them at the root of a tree, took off the hat, tying the veil over her head, and walked across the fields to the station. As it was Monday morning there were a lot of laborers, men and women, on the platform. She mingled with them, looking like them in her muddy clothes and tied up head, and got away to Hazelmere without being noticed.

She was feeling safe in her furnished room in Philadelphia when she read of the murder in the papers. That scared her almost to death and she lay as close as a rabbit in a burrow, afraid to go out and cooking her food on a gas ring. It was the man she had stolen for who gave her away. When she refused to raise money on the jewels, he stole the lavalliere and pawned it.

Under the trees where she said she'd left them, the police found the coat and hat. Beside them was the bag stuffed full of lingerie, gloves and silk stockings, and with the false hair crowded down into the inside pocket.

Besides clearing the Doctor her confession threw light on two important points—one that Sylvia had left the house at a little after six, and the other that Reddy had been at the meeting place at the time he said.