THE WARNING
The four walls of Wade Terhune’s consulting-room had enclosed many and varied scenes in the years of his occupancy; scenes which ran the gamut of human emotion, but none more strange than on that July night when Stephen Quimby stood at bay before the girl he thought had lain for nearly a fortnight cold in death.
The seeming apparition shook even Terhune’s self-control, and he, too, bounded forward, then paused with every nerve tense.
“It was not I who was killed, you see.” The soft voice seemed to fill the room. “You were overready to put me in my grave since I frustrated your purpose, but I have come back to face you, and to see that justice is done.”
“Who are you?” demanded Terhune, for Quimby’s nerves were gone and he had collapsed in the chair, his face buried in his hands.
“He has already answered you, Mr. Terhune. I am Marion Rowntree, or, rather, that is the name the world knows; I am the wife of Anthony Leonard.”
“McCarty!” The detective turned almost helplessly to the curtained enclosure. “Mac, are you there? Will you come out and tell me what this means?”
The draperies parted once more, and a very sheepish McCarty appeared.
“You’ll forgive me for springing the surprise on you, sir?” he begged.” I didn’t want to spoil the little party you had planned for to-night, the way I did the last one; and ’tis a good thing that you can hear what the young lady has to say for herself, in the presence of him that would have done her as much harm as murder if he’d been left the chance.”
Quimby had gathered himself together by a supreme effort, and at McCarty’s words he sprang to his feet once more, his clenched fists upraised as if he would strike. down the slender figure which stood in his path.
“What damned trick is this?” he shouted, his voice thick with rage. “Who was the girl whose dead body you foisted off on us all as yours? How came she to be in your clothes? Are you a murderess? Your devilish crazed brain has brought trouble enough upon us, but I’ll put you now where you’ll do no further mischief!”
“Not so fast, Mr. Quimby.” McCarty stepped forward with a stern, hard light in his eyes. “It’s too late in the day to try that old game of yours, and I’ve a piece of paper in my pocket that if you’re sensible you’ll not compel me to produce. ’Tis a warrant for your arrest, charging you with conspiracy, fraud, and misappropriation of funds; and with a little more time I could dig up a few more counts to add to it, but it’ll be enough to hold you for a while as it stands. Only by the wish. of this young lady am I putting off serving you this minute. ’Tis not by slandering her you’ll help yourself now!”
“But the other—the girl who was killed!” exclaimed the detective. “She, then, was—”
“She was Ivy Collins.” Marion turned to him. “I never saw her in my life until a half-hour before—before that frightful thing happened. I was in the room with her, in the living-room of Mrs. Foxe’s apartment, when she was killed!”
“Then it was murder?”
“Yes, Mr. Terhune. But I don’t know by whom, it all came so suddenly! I owe you an explanation, and I shall be relieved to get the burden of what little I do know off my conscience. I have been in deep trouble all these days; I felt that it was not fair to the poor girl who had trusted me to keep silence when I might, perhaps, help you find the man who killed her, but I was afraid, not only of being accused of the crime myself, but of continued persecutions from my stepfather.
“My liberty was in far greater danger from him than from the police, and I was panic-stricken in my trouble. I thought only of myself. When Mr. McCarty found me out West, he said that if I would come to you and tell you the whole truth, you would join my husband in protecting me.”
McCarty carefully avoided the detective’s eye.
“Her husband,” he observed, “is the young man who lived in the next flat; the inventor, Mr. Antonio.”
“If I am under arrest on these preposterous charges you have brought, I demand to be taken where I can send for my attorneys and arrange my affairs.” Quimby’s voice was broken, but he held his head indomitably high. “If not, I will go. I have no desire to listen to a reiteration of the accusations of this girl, whom it would be more charitable to consider out of her mind than as wilfully insubordinate and undutiful as her own confession will show her to have been. Unless, of course, she chooses to claim I murdered the other girl.”
“Oh, no!” Marion said gently. “I didn’t even know you were in the apartment-house that night.”
“Mr. Quimby, I am afraid I must insist on your remaining. Miss Rowntree, will you tell us your own story of that night?” Terhune pulled forward an armchair and waved McCarty to another. “I think it will be to our several interests that Mr. Quimby shall hear what you have to say.”
Quimby sank down, sullen in his defeat, and his stepdaughter took the chair offered and turned her thoughtful, earnest eyes straight to Terhune’s.
“You have discovered something of our affairs,” she began, “but I am not sure how much you know, and I had best tell you the whole thing, so that you may understand the causes which led up to my action a week ago last Monday night. It would seem inexplicable, as crazy a proceeding as my stepfather would claim, unless you comprehend the entire situation.
“You know that when my mother died she left a large sum of money in trust for me with my stepfather, the principal and accrued interest, which exceeded my expenses, to be placed unreservedly in my hands when I became of age. I shall be twenty-one next week.”
She paused, but her glance never wavered.
“I would not accuse my stepfather; I would not even voice a suspicion of his motive, but it has been proven beyond possibility of denial. He was not prepared to make restitution of my property; he could not do so, for he had misappropriated it and lost the greater part!”
“It is a lie!” Quimby snarled. “A lie!”
“Silence, if you please!” exclaimed Terhune sharply. “Miss Rowntree, tell your story in your own way.”
“Two years ago, just after I graduated from school, there was a young man, the brother of one of my girl friends, who—who liked me. He was very attentive and, I thought, deeply serious, when all at once, for no reason, his visits ceased, and when we met casually he appeared confused and tried to shun me. I had not been particularly interested, although naturally my feelings were hurt by his defection, and I soon put it out of my thoughts.
“Last summer the incident was repeated with Mr. Sturtevant, only he had actually reached the point of asking me to marry him. I did not care for him in that way, but I was lonely and not any too happy at home, and I was undecided, when he came to me and wriggled out of his proposition as gracefully as he could. I was astounded; I felt there must be some tangible reason for a man of the world such as he was to act in the same unaccountable manner as the impetuous boy of the year before. I could not, of course, demand an explanation, but it worried me all summer.
“In the autumn I accidentally overheard a conversation between my stepfather and my aunt, Miss Beckwith, which revealed the truth to me; he—Mr. Quimby—had told each of the young men who had wished to marry me that I was of unsound mind. It was hideous, almost unbelievable! He claimed that I had inherited it from my own father, who died insane. That was a cruel perversion of the facts; my father was mentally incompetent when he died, but it was caused by an accident in the hunting field.
“I was dismayed, aghast that such a thing should be said of me. I could not understand his motive, and I was afraid. My aunt was always easily influenced, and he had made even her believe this dreadful thing, so that I felt I hadn’t a friend in the world whom I could trust.
“Then Anthony Leonard came to work for my stepfather. In my fear and trouble I had kept away from every one, and was thrown upon my own resources for a method of passing the time. I took long daily drives in the motor, and I—I became interested in Anthony. He was my ideal of what a real man should be; straight-forward, clean, honest, and sincere. I knew he cared, too, but he wouldn’t speak, Mr. Terhune; he is no fortune-hunter, please be assured of that, for I think it is a point my stepfather will try to raise against him, if he can. I actually had to propose to him myself!”
Again she paused, and this time a little smile curved her lips, and a flush rose almost to her starry eyes. In the deepest shadows of her trouble, her romance bloomed as a warm and lovely thing to her, as if the knowledge of it alone had saved her from utter despair.
“He wished to go openly to my stepfather and tell him how matters stood between us; but I was afraid, not that he would believe or even hesitate before the tale he would hear, but that my stepfather would find means to separate us. It was by my wish that we drove over to Jersey one afternoon in April and were quietly married. I had told Tony previously of my stepfather’s slander, but he scouted it, and could scarcely believe that I had heard aright.
“I felt sure, once we were married, that nothing could keep us apart, no efforts of my stepfather could harm me ever again, but I was undeceived when we told of our elopement, and it was then, too, that I first realized my stepfather’s reason for preventing my marriage before, and making every effort to hold me helpless in his control. To save himself from exposure and ruin, my acquiescence in his continued possession of the trust fund was imperative.
“Tony wanted me to relinquish all claim to it and go away with him; he had just patented and sold a motor device which would enable him to take care of me modestly. Besides that, he had other inventions on the way, and we would have been happy; but my stepfather realized that I was almost of age, and the day of reckoning close at hand.
“He tried to influence my husband at first to agree to a complete separation. He told him of my alleged insanity, but Tony laughed at him; then he attempted to buy him off, and there was a frightful scene. The result of it was that my husband was turned from the door, and I was made a virtual prisoner. I did succeed in communicating with him through our old seamstress, but that means was removed. My aunt, whether she really believed then in her heart that my mind was affected or not, felt that I had married beneath me and disgraced them all, and she was like putty in my stepfather’s hands.
“Of course, my husband could have compelled them to produce me in court, or taken the law in his own hands and rescued me by force, but my stepfather swore that if any such attempt was made, he would have me declared incompetent by specialists and unassailable witnesses and confined permanently in a sanatorium.
“The profusion and seeming weight of the false proof against me which he boasted he could bring was staggering, and we knew that we would be worse than helpless in the face of what the money and influence which my stepfather could command would do. Sane people have been railroaded to asylums before this, Mr. Terhune, and my stepfather would stop at nothing.
“The only thing to be done was for me to dissemble and allow him to believe that I was slowly realizing my mistake, and might in the future consent to annulment of my marriage. The instant that I became of age I could defy him, and Tony and I could fight him openly, if necessary.
“At that stage, too, my resentment was at white heat; I was burning with a sense of injustice, and I determined that my stepfather should not profit by his dastardly schemes against me; that he should account for what was mine to the uttermost farthing!
“I did not give a thought to the material side of the case; I have never considered money, because I have not known what it means to be without it, and Tony hated the idea. He would have been better pleased had I been penniless, I know. No matter what my stepfather may allege, Tony cares for me for myself alone!”
Again that rapt look stole over her childlike face, transfiguring yet maturing it, and Stephen Quimby’s cold, adamant gaze shifted and fell.
“We endured the separation, hard as it was, because we felt it was only temporary, and I tried to be docile. and patient, but my life was hideous! Pressure of all sorts was brought to bear on me; things that I have never dared tell Tony were attempted. I think he would kill my stepfather if he knew. But I would not yield and consent to an immediate annulment, and my stepfather realized what the near future would mean to him.
“I had not seen Tony in all these months, when two weeks ago yesterday I managed to elude my aunt at the dressmaker’s and slipped away to my husband. He had taken a tiny apartment at the Glamorgan under the name of Antonio, and was waiting there until he could claim me. It was there that I went to him, and had we known then what my stepfather was planning we would have run away together that afternoon. Tony wanted me to, but there still remained nearly three weeks before my birthday, and I was afraid my stepfather would find me and carry out his threat.
“In the last letter which Tony had been able to smuggle to me, he told me of his apartment and the number, but I did not dare ask for him openly there, for fear my aunt might succeed in following me. I pretended to be looking for an apartment, and the boy showed me several vacant ones. Then he was called away, and seizing my chance, I ran to Tony’s door.
“When I reached home, I made an excuse to my aunt for my absence, and whether she believed me or not, she was too much afraid of my stepfather’s anger to tell him that I had escaped her vigilance. I fancied that no harm was in store for me, but on Monday I learned the awful truth.
“Tony and I had one confidant—the aviator, Luke Edwards. He was a staunch friend, and we knew we could trust him. Oh, if we hadn’t I would now be in a far worse plight than that poor girl who is buried under my name!”
Her soft voice died in a shudder, and she bowed her head. For a moment the room was very still, and only Stephen Quimby’s breathing, convulsive and panting like a trapped animal’s, could be heard. Then the girl lifted her eyes once more to Terhune.
“Sunday my stepfather went out to the aviation field. Another man met him there, seemingly by appointment, and a flight was attempted, but the wind was too uncertain. Luke recognized the stranger as a physician of questionable reputation who maintained a sort of sanatorium near by for so-called nervous cases, and he happened to overhear a few words, which made him deliberately listen. He heard just enough to gather that I was to be a patient there, and he realized that it must be a part of some plan to separate me from Tony.
“He had learned a great deal about the establishment from one of the female nurses there whom he knew, and that evening he went over and took her motoring. She told him all the details of the horrible plan my stepfather had made, and after he left her, he drove straight into the city, hunted up my manicurist and paid her to slip a little note to me when she came to do my nails in the morning. He didn’t know where to find Tony.
“Monday morning, right before Aunt Pauline’s eyes, the manicurist pushed a tiny wad of paper into my palm. As soon as I could make an excuse to be alone I smoothed it out. It was just a line, but it frightened me almost to death:
“Awful danger for you. Meet me sure Manhattan Bridge, five to-day.
“LUKE.”
“I shall never forget it, every word seemed burned into my brain!
“You know how I managed to escape from my aunt, and reach him. He drove me out around Steinway, where no one would be likely to recognize me, and told me that the physician was to call for me at my home at half-past nine that evening and remove me in a limousine to the private asylum. My stepfather had arranged to be out; I believe he wanted to avoid a possible scene with my aunt, for he knew she would object to such a scheme, but the physician would bring the necessary papers authorizing him to take me away. Aunt Pauline would not have the courage to take any active steps on my behalf, at least before my stepfather’s return, and he was sure that his influence over her was great enough to prevent her from openly defying him.
“Luke would have taken me at once to Tony, but he had gone out of town over Sunday to see the manufacturer who had his patent and would not return before eight o’clock, and I had no means of getting into his apartment.
“Besides, I did not know whether my stepfather knew where Tony lived or not, and was afraid he would look there for me. For the same reason I dared not stay away from home for those intervening hours, fearing that if my stepfather discovered my absence he would do something to Tony. I realized at last how desperate he was.
“I don’t know how I ever had the courage to go back to that house, but I did, and made a pretense of dining with Aunt Pauline. I was tempted to throw myself on her mercy, but I realized it would be useless and I thought that awful hour would never end. I made an excuse to retire almost immediately after dinner, and just before nine o’clock I managed to slip out of the house.
“Luke was waiting for me near the corner with his little car to take me to Tony, but the limousine drew up at the door just as I ran down the steps. I couldn’t help crying out in my terror, and the physician heard and understood.
“I managed to reach Luke and he pulled me into the car and raced off. The physician chased us in the limousine—a great high-powered one—and we had to drive around for an hour or more to try to elude them. They evidently didn’t dare to have us halted in the street for fear of publicity. My stepfather’s plan had been to keep Tony in absolute ignorance of my whereabouts until they had forced me, by the isolation and horrors in that awful place, to agree to an annulment.
“We threw them off finally, as we thought, and Luke brought the car to a stop a little way down the street from the Glamorgan. No one was in the entrance hall but the boy, and he was asleep at the telephone. I slipped past him and had started up the stairs when I heard Luke’s horn. I ran down and peered around the elevator shaft, to see the limousine drive up, some men’s faces at the window; we hadn’t been able to shake them off, after all!
“In a panic I turned and rushed back up the stairs, but I was weak from fright and my knees gave under me. Just before I reached the third floor I heard some one coming up behind me. I collapsed, but when I saw it was just a maid my courage came back to me. She asked if I was ill, but I put her off induced her to pass me.
“When she had gone I wished that I could call her back and bargain with her to lend or sell me some other clothes. I realized all at once in a wave of despair that I never could escape dressed as I was. That doctor would be waiting outside and if I reappeared with Tony he would recognize me and take me away by force, while if we stayed there we would be trapped.
“I had to go on, anyway, and I managed to drag myself to the fourth floor. There, coming out of the apartment next door to Tony’s was a girl. That girl was Ivy Collins, and then began a more terrible experience than anything that had gone before!”