The Mystery of the Pink Pieces/Chapter 8

The fact that it is easier to make new friends than to break with them was a discovery that was causing Rose O'Hara many uncomfortable moments When one has achieved an intimacy with a chance acquaintance, and then finds it unsatisfactory, it is not so easy a matter gracefully to to evade its responsibilities, especially when the inclination is not shared by the other person, who sees no reason for the discontinuance of a pleasant relationship.

Miss O'Hara was realizing the unwisdom of indiscriminate feminine intimacies, and it was making her quite miserable. There are few things that can cause more unhappiness than the disillusionments of friendship, and Rose was suffering acutely from one of the keenest disappointments in that respect that she had ever known.

She could not yet bring herself to believe that Mrs. Darrell was really involved in this mélange of murder, anarchy, and theft, and at the same time she could not entirely ignore those damaging bits of evidence against her which circumstances had recently brought to light.

The morning after Gaines had told her of Monsieur Arnold's invasion of Mrs. Darrell's rooms, she felt a disinclination to meet this new friend, whom she had found both charming and congenial. So she decided to remain in her own rooms all day, although she was well aware what it entailed. The ubiquitous Miss Hodgkins would, she knew, insist upon her going over a lot of accounts, and would also urge her to outline the answers to various notes that should have been attended to long ago.

As she was wondering how she was to escape this, after an hour or two of it—borne, it must be said, with more or less impatience—her quick ear was attracted by the near-by sound of a piano touched by a practiced hand. Whoever it was was playing exquisitely, and Rose listened, enthralled, enchanted.

While she was questioning who the player might be, a maid entered the room with fresh towels, and in response to an inquiry told her that the music came from Miss MacKenzie's suite down the corridor.

Now, Rose was temperamental; and also, as she had been informing herself for days, she was desperately hungry for some good music; therefore, as usual, she followed her impulses, and, stepping along the hall, knocked upon the door.

The floodtide of music ceased abruptly, and the door was opened by Sonia MacKenzie herself. If she felt surprised at seeing the disdainful singer at the door, she gave no evidence of it, but politely urged her to enter.

“I haven't any errand, and I haven't any excuse,” said Rose, seating herself, and spreading out her hands with her winning smile—a faintly deprecating smile for the moment; “but I heard music—real music, too. One has that experience only once in a blue moon, you know, and so I couldn't resist the impulse to knock on the door and ask if I might please come in and hear more of it.”

“I am delighted that you did,” returned Miss MacKenzie, but without any particular enthusiasm.

“I had no idea that you were a musician,” went on Rose, undeterred. “I have been longing for days to hear some one play, and every night I have been dreaming of orchestras. One is starved in a place like this. But surely you are a professional?”

“No—only an amateur.” But now Miss MacKenzie seemed to thaw a little. “I once had dreams of being a professional, but nothing less than being among the stars would have satisfied me. I wished to occupy the same position as a pianist that you fill as a singer, but,” with a touch of bitterness in her voice, “I realized in time that I did not have the qualities. My technique is unassailable, of course, but I lack something in emotion, in poetic imagination, as you will soon discover.”

“Ah, then you are going to be good enough to play for me?” cried Rose, delighted. “And I should love to sing for you if you care to have me.”

A faint flush of pride and pleasure showed on Sonia MacKenzie's cheek.

“That is an honor that any one would prize,” she Lid with a quaint and rather stilted courtesy; and for the first time Rose noticed the trace of an accent in her voice, an accent that in some way did not suggest the Scotch burr. “I will play for you first, and then perhaps you will let me accompany you.”

She whirled about on the piano stool, and at once began to play.

For an hour Rose listened, enchanted; and then she sang, realizing as she did so that she had rarely been accompanied better.

“How can I thank you?” she cried at last, when they paused for rest. “You are an artist, and I think you underrate your own abilities.”

“No.” Sonia shook her head with an odd little smile. “Believe me, I judge them quite accurately. There are—other things I do better than playing.”

“Dear me—what?” asked Rose, in surprise. “You foreign women are so astonishingly cultivated that it is always a vast surprise to the rest of us.”

But Miss MacKenzie waived the subject. She was evidently in no mind to discuss her various accomplishments. Instead, she turned her direct and rather grave glance upon Rose. “I am glad,” she said, “that you consider yourself in my debt, because I may wish to ask a favor of you within the next day or so.”

Rose had difficulty in concealing her surprise. What could this excessively self-contained young woman have to ask of her?

“Yes?” politely. Was this odd little creature going to ask: “Please may I have your Mr. Willy Gaines?” Rose could think of nothing else, unless, indeed, she were the agent of some kind of face powder or new perfume, and wanted Rose's recommendation of it. “I shall be very glad,” she said, mindful of her manners in that she had brought this thing upon herself—she had accepted, and she must give—“if there is anything that I can do.”

Sonia continued to gaze at her gravely. There was a moment or two of what Rose felt to be rather an awkward pause; then she rose, saying as lightly as possible: “Whatever it is, do not hesitate to remind me when the time comes.”

She nodded smilingly, and, turning toward the door that she thought led into the corridor, opened it, and was about to step out, when she realized that she had made a mistake, and that instead of opening the door into the hall she had turned the handle of the one that connected Miss MacKenzie's bedroom with her sitting room.

Near the door sat the Scotch maid, with a skirt in her hand which she was no doubt repairing; but at the sight of Rose hesitating upon the threshold she threw a quick, half-frightened glance about her, and endeavored awkwardly enough to conceal her work.

Miss MacKenzie was across the room and at Rose's elbow like a flash, and Rose had the immediate impression of having seriously annoyed her. It was a purely momentary one, however, for the next second Sonia was smilingly deprecating Rose's apologies, and leading her to the right exit.

Nevertheless, Rose left with the impression that she had in some way committed a faux pas that both of the women—Sonia and her maid—regarded as serious. And why? She did not believe that Miss MacKenzie had objected to her entering her bedroom, where that austere and angular maid sat placidly sewing. No, her disturbance had something to do with the skirt of that Rose was convinced. And why? Again she asked herself that question as she sat down in her own sitting room and attempted to arrive at some explanation of the matter that had puzzled her.

Of one thing she was certain, and that was that the maid had tried to hide the skirt when she looked up and saw her—Rose—standing upon the threshold. Also, checking off these conclusions on her long, slender fingers, she was equally sure that the little MacKenzie, although not frightened, was—to put it mildly—disturbed when she had opened the wrong door. Therefore the mistress and the maid had common cause for disturbance, and that cause must be the skirt.

But the more she thought about that garment the more puzzled she became, for she was perfectly certain that somewhere, some when, she had seen it before. Not that that meant anything in particular; there might have been dozens like it, for it was merely an ordinary walking skirt. If it belonged to Miss MacKenzie, she had not worn it during the time she had been stopping at the hotel, for during the day she had never appeared in anything but blue serge—different frocks, it is true, but always of the same dark shade of blue, and always of serge.

Rose was equally sure that it did not belong to the Scotch maid, for she never wore anything but black. Could it possibly be her own? She went into a large closet, and began looking carefully over all of her day gowns. That sort of skirt would inevitably have a jacket, but there was nothing resembling that skirt of Scotch tweed, a gray mixture. Well, it was odd. And if circumstantial evidence did not seem to point so definitely to Mrs. Darrell she would be inclined to regard this matter of the skirt as a valuable piece of evidence against Miss MacKenzie.

But this was destined to be her crowded day. She had barely returned to her sitting room, and ordered her luncheon served in her room, when Ernestine, to whom Rose had forgotten to give instructions regarding a possible visit from Mrs. Darrell, announced her; and before Rose, in pale dismay, could frame an excuse, that lovely and mysterious person stood before her.

And then Rose's frigid and confused welcome died upon her lips, for this was no pale image of guilt that confronted her, ready with a broken confession, and imploring Rose's aid in helping her to escape before it was too late. On the contrary, she seemed more lovely and youthful and charming than Rose had ever seen her.

There was a sort of radiance about her, a spontaneous joy. Her eyes were starry, her cheeks softly flushed. She caught up the sleepy and sulky Ahmed from his basket, and hugged him, to the great detriment of a bunch of violet and white orchids that she wore upon her breast.

“I see that you are awfully busy.” The patient figure of Miss Hodgkins had just appeared in the doorway, notebook in hand. “But I have something to tell you. I have been waiting for you all morning,” reproachfully; “but you never came, so I simply had to find you.”

With a sigh, Miss Hodgkins departed discreetly, and Rose leaned forward with a gasp. She didn't know much about criminals, but she understood that there was a certain variety of them labeled brazen. Was this the way the brazen criminal carried off imminent discovery?

The moment the door closed upon Miss Hodgkins, Mrs. Darrell showed the most unaccountable shyness. She buried her laughing face in Ahmed's fur, and then looked up at Rose, flushing more deeply than ever. “I have come,” she said, “to tell you about Monsieur Arnold and myself.”

Rose's brain whirled. “About—about Monsieur Arnold and yourself?” she faltered.

“Yes,” laughing a little, and ruffling Ahmed's fur—a familiarity that he rarely permitted. “A woman can keep her sorrows to herself, but she must have a confidant for her joys.”

Joys! What kind of a woman was this? Was she going to confess that she had in some way outwitted this French detective? Rose looked about her desperately, as if seeking some way to escape this confidence.

But Mrs. Darrell was so occupied with this matter of so much importance to herself that she failed to notice Rose's embarrassment.

“Well, to begin,” still with that lilting note of happiness in her voice, “my name is not Darrell at all.”

She made the announcement without a blush, even triumphantly. Rose writhed. Willy was quite right, and this attractive woman was, after all, merely a clever adventuress

“The Danvers part of it is all right, and so is the Darrell, too, in a way,” went on her companion, “in that I was christened Danvers Darrell. Danvers is a family name, and, according to an old Southern custom, the family name is given to the daughter if she is the first born. And I inherited not only the name—being all the daughters of my father's house, and all the sons, too—but a great fortune as well; not an unmixed blessing, by any means, I assure you.”

She sighed, and gently smoothed Ahmed's fur—the right way now—and he testified his appreciation by purring loudly.

“It goes without saying that I was terribly spoiled, and that I grew up a most detestable young person, self-sufficient, arrogant, and more than ordinarily capricious and exacting. My father died when I was quite young, and my mother took me abroad to complete my education. I was barely eighteen when I married a young Frenchman of excellent family and considerable wealth. We were sincerely in love with one another, but—picture the situation!”

She sighed pensively, and shook her head. “We were both young and undisciplined, reared in different environments, and with differing ideals, and misunderstandings arose almost immediately. Being young, neither of us understood the art of compromise, or of making allowance for the other's point of view; and finally our quarrels became so frequent and so painful that we parted.

“Two or three years of unhappiness and regret followed, and last week, as you know, I came to this country, and stopped at this inn, expecting to find friends of mine—the Ashleys—already here; but instead found letters awaiting me containing the unpleasant news that a serious illness in the family would prevent my friends joining me at once; so I have been waiting here from day to day until their plans were more definite.

Imagine, then, my surprise, my emotion, when I saw Monsieur Arnold here. I spent two or three days in a state of suspense. I did not know why he had come. It seemed to me that he must have followed me expressly to arrange the details of a final separation, and the thought broke my heart.

“But yesterday”—her face was irradiated, and she hugged Ahmed so closely that he squeaked—“when I came home from my ride to Slipping Rock I found a great, beautiful bunch of orchids on my dressing table. Oh, you do not understand! That does not mean anything to you. Let me explain. After he and I had had one of our quarrels in the past, it was his custom—a charming one, I think—to show his desire for a reconciliation by laying a bunch of flowers upon my dressing table; and I, in token of a willingness to forgive and be forgiven, would wear them.”

“Oh!” cried Rose, with a great sigh of relief. “So that is it? How utterly sweet!” And she and Mrs. Darrell and the cat were all entangled in one embrace.

And now Rose was more radiant even than Madame Arnold, thereby deeply touching the latter by her sympathetic reception of her news. Little did she dream how large a proportion of that enthusiastic pleasure was due to the triumph of Rose's vaunted intuitions over Willy Gaines' carefully built-up theories.

“Of course,” continued Madame Arnold, smiling through the tears that had risen to her eyes, ““we are anxious to avoid any discussion of our affairs in the hotel; consequently there will be no open appearance of any reconciliation between us, and as these stolen interviews are not to our taste we are leaving on the early train day after to-morrow morning. I cannot arrange to leave sooner, as I promised my maid a week ago that she should have this afternoon, and it will take her all day to-morrow to pack. And you will not mention it, dear Miss O'Hara, will you?”

“No,” agreed Rose reluctantly; “not until you say I may.”