Title: Easy to Kill (1931)
Author: Hulbert Footner
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Title: Easy to Kill (1931)
Author: Hulbert Footner



Copyright, 1931, by Hulbert Footner
Printed in the U. S. A.
First Edition



Contents

I.       The Millionaire Racket
II.      The Hero of Newport
III.     The Dump
IV.      Attack from Within
V.       We Lose Our Job
VI.      The Boycott
VII.     A Letter
VIII.    Evelyn
IX.      The Typewriter
X.       Mr. Gibbs Cumberland
XI.      The Whip Cracks
XII.     The Law Moves
XIII.    In Jail
XIV.     A New Victim
XV.      Miss Betsy Again
XVI.     Murder in the Air
XVII.    At the Chowder Club
XVIII.   A Crowded Hour
XIX.     In the Balance
XX.      A Hitch to Town
XXI.     Red Flower in the Night
XXII.    The Hide out
XXIII.   Party of Four
XXIV.    A Voyage
XXV.     Our Hostess
XXVI.    Lying Low
XXVII.   The Trap Is Set
XXVIII.  The Trap Is Sprung




CHAPTER ONE - The Millionaire Racket


Mme. Storey drove her own car up to Newport. According to instructions,
we left it standing at the front door of the Van Tassel mansion, and
made our way by a path around to the rear. This was to avoid coming in
contact with the house servants.

In the darkness under the side windows our way was suddenly blocked by
an armed guard. The unexpectedness of his appearance almost fetched a
scream out of me. In a husky whisper he demanded to know our business.
Mme. Storey gave him the password that had been furnished
us--"Redwood"--and he drew back. I had the feeling that other men were
watching us from the shadows of the shrubbery. Who would want to be
rich, I thought, if you had to live in a state of siege like this.

At the back of the mansion, looking over the cliffs toward the sea,
there was a wide outdoors room that would have been called a porch in
any ordinary house, but at the Van Tassels', we learned, it was
dignified with the name of terrace. It was glassed in all around for bad
weather, and though now the June night was warm and sweet smelling, all
the sliding panels were closed. Here Mr. and Mrs. Van Tassel had
arranged to be waiting for us.

I glanced with strong curiosity at the bearers of so famous a name.
Neither was very impressive.

Howard Van Tassel was an old man suffering from some form of heart
trouble that forced him to keep his mouth always hanging open and to
breathe with difficulty. You were always uneasy in his presence because
he seemed likely to have a stroke at any moment. His wife had been a
beauty. Her faded hair was tricked out in the puffs and whorls and kinks
that went out of fashion years ago, and her faded cheeks were bright
with rouge. They showed little of the dignity you would expect from
people of their position.

But nobody appears to advantage, of course; when he is frightened. Both
old people were trembling. Indeed, the whole place seemed to be held in
a spell of fear. It infected me in spite of myself, and I kept glancing
around at the glass sides of the terrace, half expecting to see a
murderous face peering in from the dark.

Of the two, Mrs. Van Tassel had herself better in hand. "You are Madame
Storey, the detective?" she said.

"I prefer to call myself psychologist," said Mme. Storey, with a smile;
"but it doesn't matter."

Mrs. Van Tassel stared rudely. She was a stupid sort of woman in all her
finery. "And who is this person?" she asked, with a nod in my direction.

"My secretary, Miss Brickley."

"Can't she wait in the car?"

"She is my principal assistant," said Mme. Storey, politely and firmly.
"I depend on her for everything."

Nothing further was said about bouncing me.

Mrs. Van Tassel was so frightened and suspicious, it was difficult to
bring her to the point. Several times she seemed about to send us away
without telling us why we had been summoned. Finally she blurted out,
"My husband has been getting letters demanding large sums of money."

"For how long?" asked Mme. Storey, coolly. By her calm air she sought to
put them at their ease.

"The first one came last summer. It asked for twenty five thousand
dollars. During the fall and winter there were two more, each demanding
forty thousand..."

"These sums were paid?"

Mrs. Van Tassel nodded. "And now a fourth letter has come, demanding
fifty thousand dollars." Her voice scaled up hysterically. "This can't
go on!"

"Certainly not," said Mme. Storey. "You never should have paid
anything!"

"I never wanted to pay," said Mrs. Van Tassel, with a glance at her
husband, "but Mr. Van Tassel was afraid."

That shocking old wreck suddenly roused himself. "I have a bad heart
condition," he said, whiningly. "My doctor told me a shock would kill
me. I would rather pay than live in terror of my life!"

"What good does it do you?" snapped his wife. "You live in terror,
anyhow. And the demands are constantly increasing. It's got to stop
somewhere." She turned to Mme. Storey. "We are not as rich as people
suppose. And our expenses are enormous."

"Did these letters come through the mail?" asked Mme. Storey.

A shudder went through Mrs. Van Tassel's frame, causing her earrings to
tinkle. "No," she said, very low. "That is the worst of it. Somehow, a
way was found to introduce them into the house. In each case Mr. Van
Tassel found them on the desk in his study...Oh, it is awful, not to
feel safe even in your own house!"

"Surely," said Mme. Storey, sympathetically. "Have you saved the
letters?"

"Only the last one."

"May I see it?"

Mrs. Van Tassel glanced around her with haggard eyes. "I...I am
afraid," she stammered. "How do we know who may be spying on us from the
outside?"

"There are guards stationed in the grounds," muttered the old man.

"Where did you obtain these guards?" asked Mme. Storey.

"From the ---- Detective Agency."

Not wishing to increase their fears, Mme. Storey did not tell them that
this protection was little better than none. Such men are nearly always
to be bought. I knew it, and it did not make me feel any more
comfortable. We were making entirely too good a target sitting there in
the brightly lighted terrace.

"Let us go inside," suggested Mme. Storey.

"The servants..." objected the old man.

"We can go in through the French windows," said his wife, "and lock the
room door."

The upshot was that we adjourned to a room opening on the terrace that
they called the breakfast room. After carefully pulling the curtains
shut and locking the door, Mrs. Van Tassel produced a letter from the
little bag she carried. It was a brief typewritten letter on a single
plain white sheet. Mme. Storey read it, and afterward examined it
through the magnifying glass she always carries.

She finally said: "From the style of the type I see that this was
written on an Underwood. It was written by one who was not expert in
using the typewriter, because the keys were struck with varying degrees
of force. The machine has not been used very much, and the ribbon was a
new one."

She handed the letter to me to read. It began abruptly, without any form
of address:

'Get fifty thousand dollars from the bank in bills: 100s, 50s, 20s, no
higher, and keep it in the house until I send you instructions how to
hand it to me. If my instructions are not followed out to the letter, or
if you try to entrap me in any way, you will suffer the same fate that
lately overtook your old friend Kip Havemeyer. He was said to have died
of heart disease, but nobody saw him die. When I wish to strike, no
locks can keep me out of your house or guards keep me from your side.
Remember, old men are easy to kill!'

This was signed, "The Leveler."

I handed the letter back.

"Written by a man accustomed to the forms of good speech," said Mme.
Storey. Mr. and Mrs. Van Tassel exchanged a startled glance. "How did
Mr. Havemeyer die?"

"He was found dead in his garden," muttered Mr. Van Tassel. "They said
heart disease...but he had a terrible look on his face."

"You are prepared then, to hand over the money when a demand is made for
it?"

"I wouldn't," said Mrs. Van Tassel, with an ugly look at her husband.

"Certainly I am!" cried the old man, shrilly. "I'm not going to be
shocked to death like Havemeyer!"

"If you're going to pay, what can I do for you?" asked Mme. Storey.

"We want you to undertake a quiet investigation," said Mrs. Van Tassel.
"Find out where the money goes. It can be marked. Get evidence against
this scoundrel so that we can confront him with it, and make him stop!"

"Confront him with it?" echoed Mme. Storey, struck by this phrase.

Mrs. Van Tassel said nothing.

After a little thought my employer said: "I am willing to take the case.
But I ought to point out to you that if anything happens, I should not
be in as good a position to protect you as the police. The men you have
now are worthless. I advise you to consult the police."

Both became wildly agitated. "No! No! No!" they cried together.

"Why not?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Never mind," said Mrs. Van Tassel sharply. "You have your
instructions."

Nobody can talk to Mme. Storey like that and get away with it. Her smile
was like polished glassware. "I cannot serve you," she said, "unless you
furnish me with complete information."

"We have no information."

"You suspect somebody."

"No! No!" they muttered, wretchedly. "It is too terrible!"

"Then you had better let me retire," said Mme. Storey, gently. She was
sorry for the old pair, with all their wealth.

Mrs. Van Tassel weakened. "Why not tell her?" she said to her husband.
"It's her business to keep her mouth shut."

"All right," he mumbled, turning away his head.

Mrs. Van Tassel put her handkerchief to her lips.

I wondered what was coming. "We have no evidence," she stammered,
"but...but we suspect that Nicholas Van Tassel, my husband's nephew, is
behind it all."

Mme. Storey was surprised into an exclamation. "Good God! Nicholas Van
Tassel! I thought he was the head of the family and the richest of you
all.'"

Mrs. Van Tassel shook her head. "He was left a pauper," she murmured.

Some moments passed before we could get a coherent explanation out of
her. She finally said: "It is forgotten now, but my husband's father,
who was the fourth Nicholas Van Tassel, cut off his eldest son,
Nicholas, with six million dollars, and left the bulk of his fortune to
my husband. His eldest son had displeased him by marrying an actress.
This one, the fifth Nicholas, caused the story to be circulated that his
brothers had equalized their shares with him. This was untrue, but it
did not seem worth while to deny it. Later it was reported that he had
made a great fortune in Wall Street, but this was also untrue. As a
matter of fact, he spent every cent he possessed and committed suicide."

"Suicide?" said Mme. Storey. "I never heard of it."

"It was supposed to be an accident. When his money was all spent, he and
his wife drove their car over a cliff in Switzerland. Nobody outside the
family knows it, but the present Nicholas, the sixth of the name, was
left nothing but two big houses that were mortgaged to the limit...Yet
he is reputed to live at the rate of a million a year. It must come from
somewhere."

"Quite! It must come from somewhere!" murmured Mme. Storey.

There was a silence. My employer turned her brilliant eyes on me. Good
God! What a case! her expression said. As for me, I was staggered by the
prospect.

As we were leaving, Mrs. Van Tassel said, patronizingly--even in her
distress of mind she could not overcome the habit of arrogance: "Of
course expense is no object. We think you should live here in Newport
incognito, and conduct a quiet investigation."

Mme. Storey declined to be patronized. "Sorry," she said, smiling, "but
that would be impossible. I have a hundred acquaintances here in
Newport. I should be recognized the first time I went out...My arrival
must be publicly announced. I can let it be supposed that I am here for
the social season. My friend, Mrs. Lysaght, will sponsor me."

Mrs. Van Tassel ran up her aristocratic eyebrows at the notion of a mere
detective (as she thought) crashing the exclusive gates of Newport. She
had a lot to learn. She was not accustomed to having her wishes opposed,
and for a moment the two pairs of eyes contended; Mrs. Van Tassel's
haughty, Mme. Storey's smiling. It was the haughty eyes that bolted
first.

"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Van Tassel, with assumed indifference. "You
may communicate with me here by telephone at any time. I will see to it
that there can be no listening in at this end."

As Mme. Storey was starting her car, the guard who had stopped us on the
way in showed his brutal face at the window beside her.

"Say, sister," he said, with crude insolence, "if you enjoy life, you
better steer clear of this burg, see? I happen to know it's damned
unhealthy for you."

We drove away with the sound of his ugly chuckle in our ears. Mme.
Storey's answer to the threat was to stop in at the central telephone
office and summon six of her best men to Newport; the two Criders,
Stephens, Morrison, Scarfe, and Benny Abell. We then left a social note
at the office of the local newspaper stating that Madame Rosika Storey
was the guest of Mrs. George Lysaght at her cottage on Catherine Street,
and drove on to that lady's.

My brain was still spinning with what had happened. "It is scarcely
worth a hundred and fifty thousand a year to keep that old hulk alive,"
I remarked.

"Apparently Mrs. Van Tassel agrees with you," replied Mme. Storey,
dryly, "but he does not."



CHAPTER TWO - The Hero of Newport


THERE were half a dozen separate conversations going on around Mrs.
Lysaght's luncheon table--the usual things that women talk
about--clothes, tennis scores, the new play at the Casino, the latest
divorce--when Mrs. Beekman Alston was heard to say:

"Nick Van Tassel told me so himself."

The name seemed to lay a spell on all the women present. They stopped
talking, and every eye was turned toward the speaker. I looked, too, you
may be sure, and pricked up my ears for what might be coming. Mrs.
Alston, a very pretty woman, had to submit to a kind of cross
examination.

"Where did you see Nick'?"

"At the Chowder Club."

"Was he alone?"

"He was at that moment."

"Do you mean to say he danced with you?"

"We sat out one of the encores."

This was received with open expressions of disbelief by Mrs. Alston's
dear friends.

"You're only jealous!" she retorted.

The conversation became general and excited, and within a few minutes I
had received more information about the famous Nick than I could
possibly remember without a notebook. He could win the men's singles in
a walk over if he would stop drinking. He had contributed fifty thousand
to the building of the new cup defender. He could always be depended to
put his hand in his pocket for sport.

He had bought a trimotored Sikorski seating six.

He had brought a girl nobody knew to the Goadby dance. Mrs. Goadby was
furious, but what could she do? Nobody dared say anything to Nick.

A good deal of it I didn't get, because the places and the people
referred to were strange to me, but it was clear that their Nick was a
very high flyer indeed. There was a lot of talk about a place called
"the Dump," which I gathered must be Nick's own house. It was evident
that there were gay doings there, and it was equally evident that any
woman present would have given her best earrings for an invitation.

Mme. Storey finally cut in with a smile. "What is there about this young
man that excites you all so much?"

"Don't you know Nick Van Tassel?" they cried.

"Well, of course I know who he is. Nick the son of Nick, the son of
Nick, and so on back almost to the Flood. There has always been a Nick
Van Tassel at Newport. I should think it would be an old story."

"There never was a Nick like this Nick," said Evelyn Suydam. "He's
unique!"

"How?" asked Mme. Storey. "What is the secret of his fascination for the
ladies?"

"The men are just as bad," retorted Evelyn. "Haven't you noticed how
they're all wearing the collars of their coats turned up, and their hats
bashed in in funny ways? Nick started it because he doesn't give a darn
how he looks, and now they're all doing it. If Nick came down Bellevue
Avenue walking on his hands, they'd all be following suit the next day."

"Is he handsome?" asked Mme. Storey.

They went into a huddle over this. The final verdict was, "No, not
exactly handsome."

"Clever?"

This was received with a laugh which spoke for itself.

"Ardent?"

"No, not ardent," they admitted with sighs. "Cool as headcheese" one
girl said, raising a laugh. "Hardboiled," said another.

"Then what is it?"

"It isn't anything in particular," said Evelyn helplessly. She was a
little person, blonde, with a smart tongue and over size, wistful blue
eyes. "It's just because he's Nick."

There was a handsome tall girl called Ann Livingston sitting next me,
and she said, with a gleam in her dark eyes: "I'll tell you the secret.
Nick Van Tassel grins and does just what he damn pleases always. And
Newport can take it or leave it."

"And Newport takes it?" said Mme. Storey.

"Of course!"

After the ladies had gone, Mrs. Lysaght, Mme. Storey, and I settled
ourselves for a comfortable gossip in our hostess's sitting room on the
second floor. You couldn't possibly find anybody better equipped than
Mrs. Lysaght to give you the lowdown on Newport. So secure was her
position, that when she was left a widow with very little money, she was
able to go into business without losing caste.

She was an interior decorator. She had no shop, but merely "consulted"
with her clients, and collected fees from both sides.

"I must meet Nick Van Tassel," said Mme. Storey.

Mrs. Lysaght threw up her hands. She is an ample woman, clever and good
natured. "My dear, I might as well ask the Prince of Wales to dinner!"

"Surely he would come here."

Mrs. Lysaght, since she has been on her own, has acquired such a
reputation for doing the smart and unusual that invitations to her
little house are greatly prized. Her own circle is considered one of the
most inner in Newport. But she shook her head.

"He wouldn't come," she said. "He won't go anywhere unless the fancy
happens to take him. He will tell you so to your face. He's the rudest
young man of them all...and the most attractive."

"Mercy!" murmured Mme. Storey, lazily. "We must have him over."

"He's a strange person," Mrs. Lysaght went on.

"Nobody can understand how the respectable run-of-the-mine Van Tassels
happened to produce such a one. Van Tassels are noted for their
dullness. That's how they've kept their money so long. But Nick..."

She was interrupted by the entrance of the parlormaid, who said, "Mr.
Nicholas Van Tassel is calling, madam."

"Well!" drawled Mme. Storey. "Here's a miracle!" But she had a good idea
what had brought him, and so had I.

Mrs. Lysaght was stunned for a moment. After thinking it over, she said:
"He must have come to see you, Rosika. You are a famous woman, my dear,
and your arrival was chronicled in the morning paper. Even the young
eagle stoops to give you the once over."

"Let's have him up," said Mme. Storey.

When I heard the heavier tread on the stairs my heart began to beat
fast. If what we had heard was true, this was one of the most remarkable
criminals of modern times.

Well, I saw a tall, energetic young man with miscellaneous American
features, not handsome, it is true, but with an electric quality about
him that instantly made you sit up and take notice. He had a bold nose
and a compelling glance that caused you to feel a little helpless when
it was turned on you. I learned later that he affected most women in the
same way. He subdued them in spite of themselves.

"Hello, Leonie!" he said, offhand, and marched up to my employer without
waiting for an introduction. "You must be Rosika Storey," he said, with
a mixture of boldness and deference that was very flattering. "It's
great to meet you. I have followed all your cases. It isn't often that
anybody like you comes to roost in the Newport hennery."

"Well!" said Mrs. Lysaght.

"Oh, I wasn't including you, Leonie," he said, with his impudent grin.
"You don't fly with these birds; you prey on them!"

Like you! I thought.

As a quite insignificant person he was prepared to overlook me entirely,
but Mme. Storey made him acknowledge an introduction. He made a
perfunctory bow, and immediately turned away. I should have liked to
slap his face, but if I had I should undoubtedly have burst into tears.
That was what he did to you.

Apparently he was completely outspoken. Such a person always creates
havoc in company. I say apparently because I never doubted but that
there were many secrets hidden behind his hard black eyes. He made no
bones of the fact that he had come to see my employer, and he devoted
himself exclusively to her. Mrs. Lysaght and I had to be content with an
occasional half cynical, half flattering remark flung to us like a bone
to a dog. Mrs. Lysaght was no better than the other women; she almost
fawned on him. As for me, I sat silently fuming, but I had a sinking
feeling that if he ever held up a finger to me I should have to go.

"How long are you going to stay?" he asked.

"As long as Leonie will have me."

"Whatever brought you to Newport?"

"Can't I have my little fling?"

"What can a woman like you, who does things, expect to get out of this
one ring circus?"

"I'm on my vacation."

"I don't believe it," he said, with his attractive grin. "I'll bet
you're after some gilt edged crook that's operating among us without our
knowing it."

"Why, of course I am.'" said Mme. Storey, facing him out with a smile.

"Gosh! I wish you'd let me in on it! Don't you need a brisk young
operative with a college education'? I'd like to do something for my
country, but nobody will give me a chance."

"Well, I'll think it over."

"I may not have much brains, but I know Newport like a book. Forward and
backward. If your man is here I'll ferret him out."

This dangerous fencing made me a little breathless. Mrs. Lysaght knew
nothing.

"When Leonie puts you out, come and stay at my place," he went on.

"It wouldn't be proper."

"I have a house on Ochre Point that you could have to yourself. I don't
use it."

"Why don't you rent it?"

"Well, 'Sans Souci' has never been rented, you see. Newport wouldn't
like the idea...Are you fond of flying?"

"I adore it."

"I have a little Moth that can do better than two hundred."

"Half of that would satisfy me."

He stayed for nearly an hour, which I understood as an unprecedented
thing. He made believe to fall hard for Mme. Storey. Or perhaps there
was something in it. I never knew. Mrs. Lysaght said she had never seen
him so struck by anybody.

When he arose to go he said: "Will you and Leonie dine at the Dump
tonight? We'll dance afterward, or what you will."

"The Dump?" said Mme. Storey, elevating her eyebrows.

"My farm on the Sakonnet River. Oh, it's got a perfectly good name;
Omega Farm--because nothing goes any farther. But Dump suits my style
better."

Mme. Storey looked at Mrs. Lysaght. "Of course we'll come," said the
latter, highly gratified.

"If I may bring Miss Brickley," said Mme. Storey.

"Sure!" he said, without looking at me. "Delighted!...Shall I send a
car for you?"

"Thanks, I have my car."

As soon as Mme. Storey and I were alone together my pent up feelings
broke out. "I won't go!" I cried, with the tears springing to my eyes.
"That young man is unbearable! I don't care how many Van Tassels he's
got to his name. Every time he looks at you it's an insult!"

Mme. Storey smiled at me in a way that smoothed my ruffled temper. "Oh,
Bella, what do you care, my dear? He's just an interesting specimen for
our museum."

"If he's the man we've got to run down, how can we accept his
hospitality?" I objected.

"If he's the man, he knows we're after him," said Mme. Storey, serenely.
"Because we were followed last night. If he dares us to come to
dinner--well, that lets us out, doesn't it?"

"Do I have to go?"

"I may need you tonight, my dear."



CHAPTER THREE - The Dump


DINNER at the Dump was a showy affair. About thirty people sat down at
the table, and many more came in afterward. Mme. Storey had the seat of
honor. It was such a meal as one might dream about. I was soon informed
that Nick Van Tassel employed a twenty five thousand a year chef, and
that he had a cellar of vintage wines and an acre or so of greenhouses
in orchids. All this represented the fastidious and blue blooded side of
Nick.

It was an astonishing house. We gathered in a royal salon filled with
priceless Louis XIV furnishings, and proceeded down a long corridor
across the front to a superb dining room paneled in English oak and hung
with rare sporting prints. After this, imagine the shock when I was
introduced later to a frontier dance hall of the days of '49. This room
represented Nick the rough neck.

Except for the corridor I have spoken of, it occupied the whole of the
central block of the house, a wide, low room lined with rough logs in
which little crooked windows had been set. There was a bar at one end,
and a rude stage at the other, with a gaudy painted curtain and a row of
footlights behind leaning tin reflectors. It all made a piquant
background for the elegant company of Nick's guests.

Not that all the company was elegant. The best looking and most
attractive of the sporting element mixed with the guests; jockeys,
airplane mechanics, vaudeville performers, and young pugilists. I saw
the aristocratic Mrs. Welch Goadby talking to a horse trainer in a fawn
colored topcoat. The smartest people in Newport angled for invitations
to the Dump because they thought they saw life there.

Nick Van Tassel naturally was the head and front of the show. He looked
princely in evening clothes.

He sat at our table, scornful and good humored. It made me savage every
time I looked at him. I could feel my finger nails growing. I wished
that I were beautiful so that I could put him in his place.

There was a black face jazz band all rigged out like old time minstrels
in striped satin suits and wing collars with points sticking out beyond
their ears. Their music was as smooth as egg nogg. At intervals girls
came out on the stage dressed like soubrettes of the period, and sang
exaggerated sentimental songs. The audience guyed them, but they didn't
mind. It was part of the comedy. A make believe sheriff acted as master
of ceremonies--an immensely tall man with a broad brimmed hat and a pair
of six shooters at his waist.

"Childish, isn't it?" drawled Nick to Mme. Storey; "but it seems to
amuse them."

And makes an effective blind for your real business, I thought.

"A little too realistic," murmured Mme. Storey, glancing at the guns.

"Property guns," said Nick. "Wooden."

I wondered.

Some friends of Mrs. Lysaght's presently joined us, and Nick drifted
away. I watched him moving among the tables with his insolent smile.
Everybody made room for him, but he passed on with a wisecrack. He was
never at a loss. After a somewhat aimless course around, he went through
the door. After a moment or two the tall, handsome Ann Livingston
followed him out, and I wondered if this had any significance. At the
dinner table they had seemed like good pals, ragging each other
unmercifully.

At this moment I happened to catch sight of the face of Evelyn Suydam,
the charming little blonde I had met at Mrs. Lysaght's. She was at the
next table but one, and I had picked her out as one of the gayest of the
gay. But now for a second I surprised her big blue eyes fixed on the
door with a desperate look. I pitied her. I could wish no worse fate to
a woman than to fall in love with Nick Van Tassel. Immediately afterward
she was laughing again.

A demon of restlessness seemed to possess the crowd. They milled around,
drifting in and out; nobody did one thing for long. Some danced, some
played faro or shot crap on the dancing floor; some merely made a
racket.

In a few minutes Nick was back again, bringing a young man to our table.
Mrs. Lysaght and her friends got up to dance. The newcomer was
introduced as Bill Kip. He was as lean and handsome as a race horse.
Nick left him at our table and went away again. Bill was every inch a
dancer, and I was a little surprised when Mme. Storey pleaded fatigue.

Bill sat down and made amusing conversation.

Presently Colonel Franklin, an old friend of Mme. Storey's, hove in the
offing, and she eagerly summoned him. "Run along. Bill," she said,
offhand. "I'll see you later." I suppose I betrayed my surprise in my
face. She shaped the word "spy" with her lips. Bill went away unabashed,
and sat down at the same table with Evelyn Suydam. He presently had them
all laughing there, but I noticed that he was watching our every move.

Colonel Franklin was a member of the Knickerbocker Club, and a
considerable figure in society.

"Dick, you're the very man I want," said Mme. Storey. "Stand by me, old
fellow. I need one like you to keep me in countenance in this madhouse."

He sat down obediently, but a little mystified. "Yours to a cinder,
Rosika."

"Talk to me," she said.

He was a nice man, but not very quick on the up take. "What about?" he
asked.

"Oh, Shakespeare and the musical glasses."

He laughed as if she had made a priceless joke.

Next to Nick Van Tassel, Mme. Storey was the chief attraction for all
the eyes in the room. Whenever new people came in you could see the
whispers go back and forth: "That's Rosika Storey, my dear."

"No!" The servants were no less impressed. This was shortly after the
Jacmer Touchon case, and every newspaper reader had followed that.

During the dancing a page from the front door came to the table, saying
that Mme. Storey was wanted on the phone. Bill Kip was watching us, and
she said, with a careless shrug: "Oh, I can't be bothered now"; adding,
in a lower tone, "Take the number and say that I will call up directly."

When the dancing stopped, two or three minutes later, she took advantage
of the confusion as people returned to their seats, and arose saying,
"Take us out for a breath of air, Dick."

We avoided meeting Mrs. Lysaght and her friends, who were heading back
to the table. I ought to say that Mrs. Lysaght knew we had not come to
Newport for the social season; but she was a wise woman and a good
friend to my employer; she preferred not to be told anything about our
real business.

As we left the dance hall a girl came out on the stage and started
singing "The Face on the Barroom Floor" amid hoots and catcalls from the
audience, and the banging of glasses on the tables.

In the corridor Mme. Storey whispered, "Wait for me out in front," and
disappeared.

Outside the front door there was a brick paved terrace with a
balustrade. Below, Nick's landing field stretched with a gentle slope
down to the Sakonnet, which was not a true river here, but a wide arm of
the sea. The riding lights of many little yachts gleamed against the
dark water. After the uproar and the tobacco smoke inside, the starry
night was as peaceful as a benediction.

We were not permitted to enjoy it long. Mme. Storey rejoined us,
sniffing appreciatively. "What good cigars you smoke, Dick! Have you
plenty in your pocket?"

"Yes, my dear, but..."

She urged us toward the steps. "I want you to do something for me, old
fellow. Walk up and down the drive, out of sight of everybody, smoking
your cigars until we come back. It is twenty minutes to eleven. We'll be
back at eleven twenty if all goes well. You need not wait longer than
that. I want you for an alibi, my dear. A man like you is above
suspicion."

"Certainly, Rosika"--the gallant colonel's voice sounded a little
flabbergasted--"but, my dear girl..."

"Can't stop to explain now. Later, perhaps."

We had left the crowd behind us. Taking my arm, she fairly raced me to
the spot where we had left the car parked. Benny Abell, dressed up in a
chauffeur's uniform, was in the driver's seat. Benny was a small man
with an admirable poker face and nerves of steel.

"Back to Newport, Benny," she said. "And step on it!"

It was about ten minutes' drive to town. As we sped along the road she
said, both for Benny's benefit and mine: "The telephone call was from
Mrs. Howard Van Tassel. She said they had just received a command over
the telephone to do up the money in a paper packet, and give it to
Dickerman, Mr. Van Tassel's valet, on the stroke of eleven. Dickerman is
to carry it down the drive to the front gates and hand it in the window
of a car that will pass in the road outside."

"Do you think this Dickerman is in with the gang?" I asked.

"It is unlikely. He has been waiting on Mr. Van Tassel for thirty five
years, and every circumstance of his life is known to the family.
However, we'll see." Switching on the dome light for a moment, she
consulted her watch. "Quarter to. We have lost a precious ten minutes.
Unfortunately, I don't know which way the car will be heading, so I must
lay a trap for it at each side of the house...Did you rent the cars as
I told you, Benny?"

"Yes, madam. Three cars. They are parked in Mount Vernon Street with
Crider, Stephens, and Scarfe at the wheels."

"Two will be enough. But let the men double up on the front seats. Let
Crider take his brother, and Morrison go with Stephens...Are you all
thoroughly familiar with the neighborhood of the Van Tassel place?"

"Yes, madam. I spent the afternoon walking about. Borrowed a dining room
girl from the Perry House to make it look more natural. But there are
plenty of rubber necks in Newport. I didn't attract no notice.
Afterwards, I passed it all on to the boys, and drew them a map."

"Good!"

"The Howard Van Tassel place is called Balmoral and the entrance is on
Ochre Point Avenue, a quiet street," he went on. "The grounds are
extensive, above five acres I should say, and run to the edge of the
cliffs behind the house. Just below the level of the grounds, at the
back, a public walk runs along. They call it the cliff walk. On either
side of the Van Tassel place there's another big house in its own
grounds--the Lawrence mansion to the south, and the Bleeckers' to the
north."

"Are those houses occupied at present?"

"Yes, madam; both occupied for the season."

"I noticed some handsome ornamental gates directly opposite the Van
Tassels'. Who lives there?"

"J. Warner Van Zile."

"Is the family in residence?"

"Yes, madam."

"Is the Van Zile house visible from the street?"

"No, madam; the driveway winds in behind the shrubbery."

"Good!...No streets cross Ochre Point Avenue, but several run into it
from the west. What are the streets to the north and to the south of the
Van Tassel place?"

"Leroy Avenue and Shepard Avenue, madam."

"Let Crider wait in Leroy and Stephens in Shepard, each near the corner
of Ochre Point Avenue with his car heading east. Their instructions are
exactly the same. Let them wait in front of a house, if possible, and
shut off their engines. At three or four minutes past eleven a car will
pass along Ochre Point Avenue toward the Van Tassels'. Whichever man it
passes will follow it. He is to obtain the license number, to find out
where it goes if he can, and he must get a good look at the man who
drives and the man who rides in the rear if it is a sedan. Make sure
that all our men have flashlights."

"Suppose there is a chase, madam, and the police interfere?"

"Let our men call on the police to help them, and continue the chase.
They can trump up some charge against the man ahead, and then make
believe to be mistaken when they overtake him. I don't want anybody
arrested, but my men must be able to identify the racketeers when
confronted with them later."

"Yes, madam; and what's my job?"

"Everything will be over at the Van Tassel place by ten minutes past
eleven. Leave this car parked in Mount Vernon Street, and bring the
third hired car through Ochre Point Avenue to pick up Bella and me."

"Yes, madam."

In the center of Newport we alighted from our car--we made sure we were
not followed into town--and engaged a taxi. Mme. Storey told the driver
to take us to the Warner Van Zile residence. She paid him at the foot of
the steps, and let him drive away before she rang the bell. To the
manservant who opened the door she said:

"Is this Mr. Howard Van Tassel's residence?"

"Why, no, madam. Mr. Van Tassel lives on the other side of the avenue.
The gates are opposite our gates."

Mme. Storey affected great surprise. "The taxi driver brought us here."

"I can't understand it, madam. They all know the Van Tassel place."

"He must have been drunk."

"Shall I call another taxi for you?"

"Oh no, thank you! If it's just across the way it isn't worth while."

We returned down the steps, and the door was closed. It was perfectly
dark in the grounds. We had a minute or two to spare, and we concealed
ourselves in the shadow of the shrubbery until we heard a church clock
strike eleven. Then we proceeded toward the gates.

When they came into view, we separated, Mme. Storey taking one side of
the driveway, and I the other. We walked on the grass and took care not
to expose ourselves to the rays of an electric light hanging in the
avenue between the two pairs of gates. Mme. Storey concealed herself
behind one great stone post at the entrance, and I behind the other. My
particular job would be to watch Dickerman, the valet, when he appeared
opposite. If he did not appear, we would know that he had pocketed the
money.

This was not the kind of task that I enjoyed. The beating of my heart
nearly suffocated me while I stood there waiting. Less than a minute
perhaps. It was as still as if we were buried in a forest. Suddenly I
heard a slight click behind me, and whirling around, was just in time to
see a flashlight thrown across the road on Mme. Storey. She turned
instinctively, and her face was strongly illumined in the light. It was
then thrown on me. Just a flash and darkness. A shrill whistle pierced
the silence.

Mme. Storey came running across the drive.

"Seize him! Seize him!" she cried, for I was the nearer.

In the actual presence of danger all fear left me. I sprang, and
succeeded in grasping an arm in the dark, but it was wrenched away with
such violence that I was thrown full length on the grass.

And so he got away. He must have been familiar with every bush and tree,
because he made not a sound.

My employer's chagrin was deep and bitter. "No car will come now," she
said. "They have beaten us at our own game. Did you get a glimpse of
this man?"

"Just a vague shape in the darkness," I said. "A slender figure, fairly
tall. It was a man's rough coat that I grasped, but the arm inside felt
like a woman's."

"Very likely," she said.

Nothing happened, of course. The valet, Dickerman, appeared through the
gates opposite with the packet in his hand, and hung around, waiting. He
was still there when Benny Abell came through the street to pick us up.
Dickerman was prepared to pass the packet through the window of our car,
but Mme. Storey, sticking her head out of the window, told him to take
it back to his master. He was one astonished valet.

"Take us back to our car in Mount Vernon Street," said Mme. Storey to
Benny.

She was bitterly silent as we rode. Thinking to cheer her, I said,
"Well, anyhow, we saved the Van Tassels fifty thousand dollars."

"Quite," she said, dryly. "But suppose the letter writer carries out his
threat?"

"Surely he wouldn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs," I said,
with a sinking heart.

"I don't know. It depends on how many geese he has on his string. He may
be compelled to sacrifice this one to keep the others in line."

I shivered inwardly. This was a possibility I didn't want to face.

Ten minutes later we arrived at the Dump, having been gone just three
quarters of an hour. The smooth syncopation of the jazz band was coming
through the open windows, and the tall figure of Colonel Franklin with
his cigar waited in the drive.

"Thank God!" he said, fervently, as we got out. I'm sure I don't know
what he thought we had been up to. "You are all right, Rosika?"

"Quite," she said dryly. "Please take us back to the dance."

He gave us each an arm. He was a nice man.

As we entered the foggy, noisy dance hall with the black face musicians
cutting capers in their satin suits. Nick Van Tassel hastened to meet us
with his infernal grin. So much self assurance seemed inhuman. "Here you
are!" he said to Mme. Storey. "I've been looking for you everywhere!"

Liar! I thought. You haven't been back here long!

"Won't you dance?" he said.

"Charmed!" said Mme. Storey, with a serene smile.

She floated away on his arm, and I danced with Colonel Franklin.



CHAPTER FOUR - Attack from Within


AT THE earliest possible hour next morning Mme. Storey and I went openly
to the Howard Van Tassels' house. It would have been foolish to go on
making believe we were not working for them after we had been surprised
and identified at the gates.

We found the old couple in a pitiable state of consternation. Mrs. Van
Tassel's social training prevented her from crying and carrying on in
any vulgar fashion, but in spite of the aid of make up she looked like
an old, old woman. Her husband seemed to be nearer than ever to the
point of dissolution. He shook as if palsied and was unable to get his
breath. I thought how much better for all of them if he could only die
and have done with it; but you couldn't suggest that to a man worth a
hundred million dollars.

They received us in the library at Balmoral. The door of the room was
locked, and an armed servant was stationed outside. The Van Tassels had
complete confidence in their servants, and it is only fair to say that
it was never betrayed. Dickerman, the valet, was in the room with us.
They put their chief trust in him, and he did everything for them. A
plain, sober sort of man, he was devoted to his master; but he was too
much softened by years of house service to be of much service in an
emergency.

Mr. Van Tassel was in such dread of assassination that he kept in the
darkest part of the room, farthest from the windows. His wife, observing
this, said, bitterly: "There is no danger of pistol or knife, because
such crimes can be proved. He will strike invisibly!"

Nevertheless, the old man turned his chair with its back to the windows.
He took little part in the discussion which followed.

Mme. Storey told them bluntly that the detectives they were employing
were little better than crooks, and that one of them at least was in the
pay of the man who signed himself "The Leveler."

It was therefore arranged that Dickerman should pay them off at once
with a bonus, and ship them back to New York, whence they had come. We
had six dependable men in Newport and as many more were to arrive at
noon. These were to report to Dickerman one by one during the day. Some
were to patrol the grounds, and others who could wear evening dress like
gentlemen were to mix among the guests that night. Crider was already in
the house.

"Can you handle a gun?" Mme. Storey asked Dickerman.

His pale, meek face turned whiter still. "No, madam," he said,
helplessly. "I've never had any occasion."

"Then you won't mind if we give Mr. Van Tassel an additional body
guard," she said. "It won't be any reflection on you. A young man with a
steady nerve and quick on the draw. I recommend Crider. He won't shame
your guests tonight. He'll be instructed to keep within a yard of Mr.
Van Tassel under all circumstances."

They welcomed this suggestion.

The party they were giving that night complicated matters very much.
Mme. Storey asked if it couldn't be postponed, but neither of them would
hear of it. World famous singers had been engaged and were already on
their way to Newport. For many years this musical party had opened the
season at Newport, and it would create a scandal to cancel it at the
last moment.

"But on the score of Mr. Van Tassel's health?"

"Everybody knows he's no worse than usual," said his wife.

She agitatedly suggested that they might cause Word to be sent to Nick
Van Tassel that he wasn't wanted in the house. But this roused the old
man to a tremulous passion of protest.

"No! No! No! We can't be sure yet that he's back of it. And he'd come,
anyhow. He'd force a scandal."

It was clear he feared scandal no less than death.

"I don't see that anything is to be gained by forbidding him the house,"
said Mme. Storey, soothingly. "We can watch him as well here as any
place else. I'll detail my keenest man for that purpose."

Dickerman hastened to give the shaken old man his drops.

"Wouldn't it be less of an ordeal if you remained in your room tonight?"
suggested Mme. Storey, kindly.

He still shook his head. "It would make too much talk if I didn't
receive."

Mrs. Van Tassel nodded approvingly, and I began to see that these people
regarded themselves as equivalent to royalty. They felt that it was up
to them to show themselves to the people, whatever might happen.

"As soon as I have spoken to everybody I will go upstairs," he added.

I need hardly say that the party at Balmoral was completely different
from that at the Dump. For twenty five years the Howard Van Tassels had
given a series of musicales during each season, and it had come to be
regarded as a Newport institution. Dull as ditch water, Mrs. Lysaght
said, but the invitations were prized like bids to the king's levee. To
be seen at Balmoral constituted complete social recognition. In other
words, this was big time stuff as compared with the continuous at the
Dump.

The immense old fashioned drawing rooms were thrown together, and
lighted with thousands of bulbs sparkling in crystal chandeliers. The
hundred and fifty guests did not make a crush, of course; that would
have been vulgar. Ponselle and Martinelli were to sing, and there was a
string quartette.

It was gossiped around town that the talent was costing ten thousand
dollars. Newport rolled this item over its tongue with as much gusto as
any other small town.

The mellow light was flattering to Mrs. Van Tassel. In a marvelously
draped black velvet gown with her famous diamonds hung all over her, she
looked quite superb. In fact, she had ceased to be a mere woman; she was
a show piece. Her old husband, too, though he could not keep his mouth
closed, looked almost impressive. The aura of a hundred millions
surrounded him. One could never have guessed from their pleasant talk
and laughter what a hell of fear they were living through. They were
game in their way. Crider, bland and good looking in his evening
clothes, was never far from the old man's side. All the family jewels in
Newport were given an airing, it seemed--mostly decorating the bodies of
dowagers that they could do very little for. There were, however, a
number of young people present also; all of the bluest blood. Some
exquisite young creatures. But I heard several people remark that Mme.
Storey was the handsomest woman present.

She was wearing a Fortuny gown of crushed velvet, dyed in such a manner
as to make it appear iridescent. Colonel Franklin was her cavalier.

It was a swell show and one that I was never likely to see again. I
could have enjoyed every minute of it, sitting in a corner, had it not
been for the heavy feeling of anxiety that dragged me down.

Certainly we had taken every precaution that was humanly possible, short
of calling in the police, which Mme. Storey had urged from the first.
Just the same, to us who were in the know there was a sense of
foreboding in the air.

I was aware of Nick's entrance some moments before I saw him. His
arrival anywhere always caused a certain kind of stir that you could not
mistake.

For me tonight his coming was almost unbearable.

He entered the room with a smile that suggested he was perfectly well
aware of the fear and hatred he inspired in that house--and enjoyed it.

He was very much the fine gentleman tonight, moving through the rooms,
conversing agreeably, and occasionally kissing the hand of a bediamonded
dowager. The silly old fools fairly purred with gratification. Once,
seeing me watch him, he winked at me out of a perfectly grave face, and
I--I grinned back at him in a silly, lallygagging fashion. I couldn't
help it, though I despised myself for it. I hated to look at his high
colored, confident face, but when he was out of sight it was worse,
wondering what he was up to.

A little later I was standing in the hall, waiting for a word with Mme.
Storey, when I heard whispered voices coming through a bank of ferns at
my back.

A woman's voice: "I can't stand it, Nick!"

And his voice roughly replying: "What the hell, Evelyn. You know the
compact.'"

"You don't keep it!" she retorted. "With Ann."

"Oh, hell!"

They moved away.

While I was talking with Mme. Storey he came up from the other side
alone. He must have guessed now what he had to expect from us, but it
only seemed to stimulate him. "By the Lord, Rosika," he cried, (It had
come to that!) "you are kaleidoscopic tonight! You shimmer like a
pomegranate skin!"

"A seedy fruit," she murmured. He was going to kiss her hand, but she
drew it away. "Be American," she said good naturedly. "It suits you
better."

He passed on, laughing. "He knows we are watching him," I whispered.
"Surely he would never dare try anything here!"

"I can't tell how far vanity may carry him," she answered, somberly. "He
has a Jehovah complex."

Benny Abell passed by, looking quite the little gentleman. It was his
job not to let Nick Van Tassel out of his sight as long as he remained
in the house.

When all the guests had arrived, old Mr. Van Tassel and Crider quietly
slipped into the elevator, and a load was lifted from my mind. Surely
nothing could happen to him in his own room, I thought, with both Crider
and Dickerman in attendance. These two were to remain with him until
morning.

The concert was opened by the string quartette. From their expressions I
judged that most of the people present were more impressed by the sense
of their own importance than the music of Beethoven.

The seats were not arranged in rows like a concert hall; people sat
about easily and naturally as in any drawing room, only a little more
crowded than usual. I heard an elderly Peter Arno type near me murmur to
her friend, "The Van Tassels do everything so nicely and simply, you
would never suppose that..." She left her sentence in the air.

Simple! at ten thousand dollars a throw!

I had taken a seat near one of the doors into the hall. A highly
finished young man named Reggie Mygatt attached himself to me, but he
was much too ornamental to have fallen naturally to the share of plain
me, and I suspected he was another sleuth of Nick's. However, I made the
most of him. It was flattering to be singled out by such a one.

As the program proceeded I noticed that some of the young people were
slipping out, couple by couple, through the French windows at the rear.
The roofed terrace or porch lay outside these windows. Evelyn Suydam and
Bill Kip; Ann Livingston with a man I did not know; and many others.
Finally Nick Van Tassel strolled out, with his cousin Cornelia hanging
to his arm. She was the Howard Van Tassels' youngest child. Her obvious
fondness for the hardboiled Nick must have been an added drop of
bitterness in her parents' cup.

By and by I noticed that somebody had turned out the lights on the
terrace. This seemed natural enough.

I saw Benny Abell standing by the rear windows, and I suspected he was
in rather a difficulty. As an unattached male he would have been too
conspicuous out on the porch among all the couples. I couldn't help him
out without betraying the fact that he was one of our men. However,
Benny was a person of great resource. He succeeded in picking up one of
the young lady guests--a not very attractive one, and they went out
together.

The concert went on. Madame Rosa Ponselle finished singing a brilliant
aria from one of the operas, and a little storm of well bred applause
swept through the rooms. As the famous prima donna stepped down from the
low dais between the front windows, Mrs. Van Tassel, meeting her,
graciously shook her hand, thanking her as if she were not paying her a
cent. Never will I forget the fatuous pleased smile on all faces,
everybody putting on their best company manners--and how those faces
suddenly went blank with horror.

For as quiet settled on the room, the sound of heavy dull blows echoed
through the house--frantic repeated blows. From upstairs.

For a moment everybody remained as still as if paralyzed. Mrs. Van
Tassel's face became ghastly under her rouge, and her clenched hands
went to her breast. A low cry broke from her, she staggered a step or
two toward the door, and suddenly went down full length on the floor in
her velvet and diamonds. Everybody near was too much stunned to catch
her.

The dull blows went on; there was the sound of splintering wood; and a
panic seized the well dressed crowd. It was all the more dreadful
because they made no loud noise; only breathless gasps, low cries, and
pushing for the door. I was in the back drawing room. When I sprang up
my companion caught hold of me.

"Sit still!" he commanded, in a strained whisper. "It's the only thing
to do.'"

But I wrenched myself free and ran out into the hall. Quick as I was,
many people had already pushed out of the front room and formed a dense
mass, cutting me off from the stairs. It is strange what one takes note
of at such moments. I cannot forget one little man all doubled up who
ran back and forth behind this crowd like a rat seeking a way of escape.

Poor little Cornelia Van Tassel ran in from the back, screaming: "What's
the matter? Oh, mother! ...Mother!" Those awful blows continued.

Several men started up the stairs. In the excitement the elevator was
forgotten. It was right beside me. While I stood there at a loss, my arm
was grasped and I was whisked inside, and the door closed before I knew
what was happening. It was Mme. Storey. She pressed a button, and we
reached the second floor as soon as those on the stairs.

We were thoroughly familiar with the plan of the house. We ran directly
into Mr. Van Tassel's study, and through it into his bedroom. Every
detail of that picture is bitten on my memory--the luxurious old
fashioned room; the heavy carved bedstead, covers neatly turned down,
awaiting its occupant; Dickerman crying and wringing his hands together;
Crider beating on a further door with a small, heavy chair. The legs of
the chair had broken off. Crider's face was crimson with his efforts,
and his dress coat had split right down the back.

As we entered, the door went in. There was a bathroom beyond. I saw
immediately that the window was open and the screen raised. A narrow
window, but wide enough to admit the body of a man.

Howard Van Tassel lay huddled in a dressing gown on the tiled floor. His
eyes were open, his face fixed in ghastly lines of terror. A glance
showed that he was beyond aid.

"Keep everybody out," Mme. Storey murmured over her shoulder to
Dickerman.

In obedience to a nod from her I pulled down the window screen.



CHAPTER FIVE - We Lose Our Job


IT WAS given out that Howard Van Tassel had been seized with a heart
attack while locked in his bathroom. This was true, of course, but it
was not the whole truth. The family was desperately anxious to avoid the
least whisper of scandal, and this accorded very well with Mme. Storey's
plans.

"They ought to have consulted the police in the beginning," she said to
me. "Publicity might have saved them. But it will not bring the old man
back to life now. And the only chance we have of catching a murderer of
this sort is to let him think he has beaten us to a standstill."

The frightened guests lost no time in getting out of the house. It fell
to Nick Van Tassel's part, as the nearest male relative of the deceased
among those present, to circulate among them, telling them what had
happened and receiving their condolences. I watched him with a kind of
horrible fascination, he did it so well. I noticed, however, that he
never tried to approach his aunt. Very likely he feared she might forget
all discretion in the first frenzy of her grief.

Most of the guests had to walk home, since the cars had been ordered for
one o'clock. It must have been years since Newport had seen such a sight
as that concourse of portly matrons in their gorgeous evening wraps
tottering through the quiet streets in their tight slippers.

In order to avoid exciting comment, Mme. Storey and I had immediately
returned downstairs to mix with the other guests. Nick Van Tassel had a
car outside, and with perfect effrontery he offered to give Mme. Storey,
Mrs. Lysaght, and me a lift home. My employer accepted with a bland
smile.

In the car Nick was quiet and grave. He was too good an artist to throw
about any hypocritical expressions of grief. He said: "Poor Uncle
Howard! Of course it was terrible to have it happen at such a moment,
but, after all, he's better off. He had become a burden both to himself
and to his family."

We gave him five minutes to get out of the way, and then Mme. Storey and
I returned to the scene of the murder in her car. No doubt all our
movements were observed, but it scarcely mattered now.

The big house was already dark and quiet. The valet, Dickerman, was
waiting for us in the hall.

Mrs. Van Tassel and Cornelia were in seclusion, and everything depended
on the valet. He led us into the library to wait until the medical
examiner should have completed his task and left the house.

That took only a few minutes. The cause of death was obvious, and there
was no question of an autopsy.

"I won't telephone for the undertaker until you have finished your
examination," murmured Dickerman.

When we got upstairs the body had been laid on the bed. I was thankful
to see that the awful expression of terror had faded from the dead man's
face. The body yielded no evidence--nor did we expect it to; neither was
there anything to be found in the bathroom where he had died. In this
case Mme. Storey was faced by the unique task of solving a murder in
which there was no evidence that murder had been committed.

Crider, naturally, was terribly distressed by what had happened. He
said: "When we came upstairs I locked the door of the study behind us by
Mr. Van Tassel's orders. The door from his bedroom into the hall was
always locked. After Dickerman had got the old gentleman ready for bed
he went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him."

"You were told not to let him out of your sight," Mme. Storey reminded
him.

"I couldn't follow him into the bathroom," protested Crider.

"I suppose not. Go on."

"He had not been in there more than a second or two when I heard a low
cry and a fall. I sprang for the door, but before I could open it I
heard the key turn in the lock. I snatched up a chair to break in the
door, and called to Dickerman to throw up one of the screens and look
out to see if anybody was escaping from the bathroom window."

Mme. Storey turned to the valet. "Did you do that?"

"I tried to, madam, but the screens stuck. Both of them. I had nothing
to cut the wire with."

Mme. Storey went to the window and showed us how each of the screens had
been fastened at the top with tiny wooden wedges. I was struck with
amazement.

"He thinks of everything!" I murmured.

"Why shouldn't he," she said, coolly, "if he had the run of the house
and all the time he needed."

"Except for the cry and the fall there wasn't a sound from the
bathroom," said Crider. "There couldn't have been any struggle."

"It wasn't necessary," said Mme. Storey. "The murderer had only to show
himself. His victim was already at the point of collapse from fear."

A shiver went through me at the picture called up by her words. That
infernal smile!

We next interviewed the various guards stationed about the grounds.
These were our own trusted men. All insisted there could have been no
prowlers outside. George Stephens, who had been specially detailed to
patrol a stretch of walk under the windows of Mr. Van Tassel's suite,
had seen nothing moving.

"Did you ever look up?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Yes, madam, but I couldn't see much because of the branches of an elm
tree on that side."

Immediately under the bathroom window there was a bank of evergreen
shrubbery. A close examination of it revealed no broken branches, and
certainly no ladder had rested in the soft earth between the plants. I
glanced at Stephens, at a loss. If the man had not come from inside the
house, and had not come from outside the house, what was left?

Mme. Storey said, "Let us go up to the third floor."

There was another bathroom immediately above the one used by Mr. Van
Tassel, with a similar window. It opened off a bedroom that had been
allotted to one of the string quartette for the night.

This room would have been empty, of course, at the moment of the old
man's death. Mme. Storey pointed to two marks on the bathroom window
sill that seemed to have been made by hooks caught there.

"Rope ladder," she said. "It can't be far away."

Our man must have worn gloves, for he had left no fingerprints in either
of the bathrooms.

We found the rope ladder concealed behind a pile of towels in a linen
closet on the third floor. It was a thin, light, well made affair about
twelve feet long.

"Knotted by sailors," remarked Mme. Storey, adding that the cordage was
of a superior sort used in rigging racing yachts. It had a red thread
woven in it, evidently to designate the brand.

We next took Benny Abell out on the rear terrace or porch to try to
piece out with his help what had happened there.

"Nick came out on the porch with his cousin, Miss Cornelia," said Benny.
"I lost a couple of minutes before I could pick up a girl and follow him
out. When I came out he was sitting on a little sofa at the extreme left
of the terrace as you faced the sea."

"Still with Cornelia?" asked Mme. Storey.

"No, madam; he was then sitting with Miss Evelyn Suydam. Miss Cornelia
was with another man, across the porch."

"But you are sure it was Nick Van Tassel?"

"Yes, madam. I went up close to him, making out I was looking for a
vacant seat. There were none near, and I had to take my girl to two
chairs about twenty feet away. But I could still make out a vague
outline of Nick."

"Can you swear that he remained sitting there up to the time that all
the excitement arose in the house?"

Benny looked at her, startled. "I never doubted it until you put it to
me that way," he said. "No, I couldn't swear to it. Because he called
some of his friends over--Miss Ann Livingston, Bill Kip, and a girl I
don't know. They made a sort of group together and I couldn't
distinguish which was which. Afterward they went back, and I thought
that Nick and Evelyn Suydam were still sitting there."

"But it is possible that Nick had slipped away and Bill was substituting
for him?" suggested Mme. Storey.

"Yes, madam," said Benny, unhappily. "But if he had left the porch
wouldn't the men in the grounds have spotted him?"

"He didn't enter the grounds. He could have gone through a door under
the porch that leads to a service room in the basement. That way he
would have run the risk of meeting servants. Or he could have stood on
the rail of the porch and hauled himself up to the roof. From the roof
he could enter a window leading to the second floor corridor. There
would be nobody upstairs in the house. It is pretty safe to assume he
went that way. We'll examine the window...What happened when the
uproar arose in the house?"

"Everybody jumped up," said Benny. "It was useless to try to get to
Nick, because I couldn't tell who was who then. So I made for the
electric light switch just inside the hall--I had marked it on the way
out. But I couldn't reach that, either."

"Why not?"

"A girl fainted right at my feet. I think it was Evelyn Suydam."

"Evelyn again," murmured Mme. Storey.

"Ann Livingston was trying to help her, and Bill Kip. Others ran up and
I was completely blocked from the door. In the end it was Nick Van
Tassel himself who switched on the lights. I was relieved when I saw him
standing there. It never occurred to me that he...All I thought of was,
he had the only cool head in the crowd."

"He had need of it," said Mme. Storey, very dryly.

Before we left the house we were summoned to Mrs. Van Tassel's boudoir.
We found the old lady, clad in an exquisite lavender negligee of chiffon
and swansdown, reclining in a chaise longue with a bottle of smelling
salts in her hand. She was prostrated, as was quite natural; however, by
this time her mind was working clearly and her face had been freshly
made up. When we entered she dismissed her maid from the room.

"What must I do?" she asked, faintly.

Mme. Storey was, as always, plain and outspoken with her. "Well, Mrs.
Van Tassel," she said, "I feel as if you ought to tell me that. After
what has happened, I don't know if you wish me to go on..."

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" she wailed. "You must protect me!"

"It doesn't appear that you are in any special danger," Mme. Storey
said, honestly. "You appear to be in good health and you certainly are
not a woman who could be shocked to death. That seems to be the
murderer's line."

"He will find some other way of torturing me," she said, hysterically.
"We are his special marks because we inherited the money he thinks ought
to have been his. He is an unnatural fiend! He will never leave us
alone!...Get evidence against him," she went on, more quietly. "Spare
no expense! Conclusive evidence that we can hold to protect ourselves.
But no publicity! I must think of my children!"

"Very well" said Mme. Storey, gravely. "I will do my best to get the
evidence you desire. I ought to tell you, though, that I have reason to
believe you are not this man's only victims. It may become necessary for
me to go to the police in order to protect others."

"Oh, I don't care about other people so long as you keep our name out of
it," said Mrs. Van Tassel.

This arrangement lasted only until the day of the funeral.

Mme. Storey and I did not go to the house, of course, but we were in Old
Trinity with the rest of the world. Many consider it the most beautiful
church in America. Like everything connected with the Van Tassels, the
funeral was a big show; banks and banks of flowers; the whole social
register turned out en masse, some of the richest men in America for
honorary pall bearers. The widow was a pathetic figure, drooping on the
arm of her eldest son, swathed in crepe from head to foot. Little
Cornelia walked with the second son.

I was in an aisle seat near the back of the church, and I had the weird
emotional experience of seeing Nick Van Tassel serving as actual pall
bearer. I suppose it was not the first time that a murderer has helped
to carry his victim's body to the grave, but it brought goose flesh out
all over me. He paced down the aisle alongside the casket, a tall, lithe
figure, with his confident head lowered and his bold eyes demurely cast
on the ground. He passed within a foot of me, and I had to turn away my
head, but even so his nearness made the back of my neck prickle.

Mrs. Van Tassel drove home from the church, and it had been arranged
that we should follow her for a further consultation while everybody
else was at the grave. She was still in the hall when we entered the
house. She asked us to excuse her while she removed her veil, and we
were shown into the library. She went up in the elevator.

We had scarcely taken our seats when a piercing scream rang through the
house. After what had already taken place there, it was too much. I lost
control of my muscles and shook as if palsied. Mme. Storey ran out of
the room, and I followed her blindly up the stairs. She could not wait
for the elevator.

Mrs. Van Tassel's boudoir corresponded to her husband's study across the
corridor. When we ran in we saw her huddled face down on the chaise
longue, all tangled in her long crepe veil, beating her head on the
cushions and kicking her feet like any woman rich or poor in the grip of
hysteria. Two distracted maids were bending over her.

My employer and I, looking around the room to discover the cause of her
collapse, simultaneously perceived a torn envelope on her desk between
the windows, and a letter spread open beside it. Even from across the
room we recognized the plain typewritten sheet and the signature of two
words--"The Leveler." Mme. Storey, naturally, started to get it.

Mrs. Van Tassel, all distraught as she was, divined her intention and
sprang to her feet. Forgetting her age, she thrust the maids aside and,
running to the desk, snatched up the letter under my employer's
astonished nose and crumpled it into a ball.

"You shan't read it! You shan't read it!" she cried, wildly.

Mme. Storey stared at her dumfounded.

"Go! Go!" cried Mrs. Van Tassel, shrilly. With her veil all askew and
her dyed hair flying, she looked like a witch. "I don't want to have
anything more to do with you!" she screamed. "Leave the house! You have
only brought more trouble on me.'"

She turned away, sobbing and rocking her arms. "O God! whatever I do, I
can't escape him!...Go! Go!"

"Why, certainly," said Mme. Storey, coldly. "You engaged me and you can
dismiss me. There's no occasion for all this fuss about it."

"You shall be paid for what you have done," cried Mrs. Van Tassel; "but
I never want to see you again! Leave me!"

We turned around without another word, walked downstairs and out of the
house. The car was waiting and we drove away.

Mme. Storey's face was white with anger, but I could see she was
struggling with herself. Presently she shrugged it away, saying, "Poor
soul! one must make allowances for her!"

"If we could only have seen that letter!" I murmured.

"Not difficult to guess what was in it," she said, with a hard smile.
"Mrs. Van Tassel was ordered to get rid of me."

"What do you suppose he threatened her with?" I murmured, turning cold.


"What does it matter? She has obeyed his orders."

She was silent during the rest of the drive, thinking hard, with
compressed lips and drawn brows. When we had almost reached Mrs.
Lysaght's I felt obliged to break in on her thoughts.

"Hadn't you better tell me what line we are going to take before we meet
Mrs. Lysaght? So I'll know how to act?"

"What line we're going to take?" she repeated, with the same smile.

"How much shall we tell her?"

"Tell her nothing. She prefers it."

"Are we going back to New York?"

Mme. Storey began to look more like herself.

"Did you ever know me to take a dare?" she asked.

My heart sank. I should gladly have given up the case then.

"On the whole, it's just as well that Mrs. Van Tassel bounced me," she
added, serenely. "It frees my hands. I can go after my man now without
consulting anybody."

"Think of the horrible danger," I faltered.

"That lends spice to it."

"Where is the money coming from?"

"Money? When did we ever think of money when our blood was up? If
necessary I am prepared to spend the last dollar I own to bring this man
to book!"



CHAPTER SIX - The Boycott


WITHIN an hour Mme. Storey had laid down an entirely new plan of
campaign and was putting out her lines.

Then things began to happen which suggested that somebody else was busy,
too. Just before tea we were sitting with Mrs. Lysaght in her living
room, when our hostess was called to the telephone.

We could hear her side of the conversation.

"Hello?...Oh, hello, Amy darling!...Yes?...Why, no, Mme. Storey is
not leaving Newport...I'm sure I don't know who could have started it.
She is staying with me indefinitely..."

Here there followed a lengthy explanation from the other end. When Mrs.
Lysaght spoke again her voice was chilly. "Well, my dear, you must do as
you think best, of course. Mme. Storey compliments you by going to your
luncheon...Yes, that's what I said, pays you a compliment by going to
your house, and if she doesn't have to go, she will no doubt be
relieved. Count me out too, darling. You know that luncheons mean little
in my life...Yes...Good by."

She came from the telephone, fuming. "These women are impossible! Each
one acts as if her stuffy lunch were the season's event!"

"Who was it, Leonie?" asked Mme. Storey, smiling.

"Amy Prentiss. A mere nobody. Said she had heard you were leaving
Newport tonight, and had ventured to fill your place at her table
tomorrow, as the time was so short. You heard what I said to her. Told
her the hell with her luncheon as near as I could without being rude."

We laughed.

Soon afterward Mrs. Goadby called up. This was a much grander lady who
lived on the cliffs. Mrs. Goadby said she was most awfully sorry, but
she was obliged to recall her invitations to Mrs. Lysaght and Mme.
Storey for dinner the next night. Two relatives of Mr. Goadby had
arrived in Newport whom she was obliged to include, and she had only a
certain number of places. She was sure dear Mrs. Lysaght would
understand, etc., etc.

Mrs. Lysaght came away from the telephone, looking rather blank. "This
is very queer," she said.

Mrs. Van Zile's butler called up to say that he had been instructed to
inform Mrs. Lysaght that Mrs. Van Zile's luncheon and bridge on Thursday
had been postponed indefinitely. Mrs. Lysaght, out of curiosity,
immediately called up a mutual friend and learned that the entertainment
was not being postponed, but that additional invitations had been
issued.

"There is some underhand work going on!" said Mrs. Lysaght, darkly.

"Obviously," agreed Mme. Storey, smiling; "but it is directed against
me, not you, my dear. Somebody has started the tale that I am engaged in
my nefarious work of snooping in Newport, and naturally nobody wants to
include a detective in company."

"Who could have started such a story?"

"Well, I have quarreled with Mrs. Van Tassel."

"That explains it!" cried Mrs. Lysaght. "All these women follow the lead
of a Van Tassel like sheep...What about, my dear?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"No, not if it concerns your work," said Mrs. Lysaght, hastily. "They
can all go to the devil. Mrs. Van Tassel, too. You and I will see this
through together."

Mme. Storey shook her head. "You're a dear loyal friend, Leonie, but
that wouldn't do me any good, and it would seriously harm you. I know
that you don't think any more of these social pranks than I do, but you
make your living out of these people. I will go to a hotel."

"You'll do no such thing!"

They were still quarreling about it when the bell rang. My heart sank
unaccountably. From somewhere out of the blue I received a premonition
of what was coming. The parlormaid appeared in the doorway, saying:

"Mr. Nicholas Van Tassel is calling, madam."

"Show him up," said Mrs. Lysaght. She looked at my employer. "What on
earth brings him here today?"

"Well, I could make a guess," said Mme. Storey, smiling.

"What is it?"

"He has come to offer me his support against the boycott that has been
declared against me."

Mrs. Lysaght stared.

"Don't give him a lead," added Mme. Storey.

"Let us make him open the subject."

Nick breezed in with his usual energy and humor. He had changed from the
funereal blacks into comfortable gray flannels.

"Gosh! what an inviting room!" he said. "So human! I needed this to take
the taste of that ghastly parade out of my mouth. I can't abide
funerals. Only another excuse for showing off."

"You played your part well," remarked Mme. Storey.

"Sure! Even I have to yield to the pressure of the herd at such times."

"We're having tea," said Mrs. Lysaght. "Will you join us?"

"Watch me.'" he said. "I brought along a flask of rum just in case. Real
Saint Croix."

After a pleasant visit of half an hour or so, during which they
discussed everything under the sun except what had brought him, he arose
to go, and for once I thought Mme. Storey was about to be proved wrong.
But he paused at the door.

"By God.'" he said, "I almost forgot what I came for...Of course I
could have telephoned," he added, with his disarming grin, "but I wanted
an excuse to look at Rosika's lovely face again."

"What was the excuse?" asked Mrs. Lysaght, dryly.

"I came to tell you I couldn't take you to Mrs. Goadby's dinner tomorrow
night. As the nephew of my uncle I'm supposed to go into seclusion for a
while. But Bill Kip is going in my place, and he'll call for you."

"Very kind of you to think of us," said Mme. Storey. "And Bill. But
we're not going to Mrs. Goadby's."

"Why not?" he asked, in seeming surprise.

"Mrs. Goadby needed our places for some relatives of her husband's."

"But that's ridiculous! At least six Van Tassels have sent their
regrets. She has places to fill."

Mme. Storey shrugged.

"Then it must be true!" he cried. "I wouldn't have believed it
possible!"

"What?"

"I heard a rumor awhile ago that my aunt had been telephoning to her
dear friends, suggesting that it was disgraceful a detective should have
crashed our gates as you have done, and expressing the hope that all who
had the true interests of Newport at heart would set their faces against
it...I didn't pay any attention. Why, she invited you to her musical
party!"

"Nevertheless, it appears to be true," said Mrs. Lysaght. "In addition
to Mrs. Goadby, Mrs. Prentiss and Mrs. Van Zile have already let us
out."

"Oh, this is damnable!" cried Nick, angrily. "I don't know what's the
matter with my aunt. The kindest thing you can say is that the death of
her husband must have unhinged her. As for these other women, Lord! the
way they fawn on her makes me sick! They don't know how the big world
laughs at them. Why, a woman like Rosika puts their silly little town on
the map!" He interrupted his tirade to ask, eagerly, "You're not going
to let them drive you away, are you?"

"No," said Mme. Storey, demurely. "I was thinking of going to a hotel."

"I know a better bet than that," he cried. "Come and stay at the Dump!"

My spirits went down to zero, for I saw dearly enough what the outcome
would be.

"I have influence here, too," he went on. "My aunt and her circle of old
women may consider themselves the Supreme Court and the Privy Council;
they don't know it, but they're living in the dark ages. The young
people only tolerate them out of good nature. What the hell! I'm a Van
Tassel, too. In fact, I'm the Van Tassel. Not that I give a damn myself,
but it enables me to meet them on their own ground. I'll give them a
fight if they want it. Come to my place, and I swear I'll have them all
eating out of your hand before I'm through."

"What do you think, Leonie?" asked Mme. Storey, slyly.

Mrs. Lysaght shook her head. "Heaven knows I'm a liberal minded woman,"
she said, "but one must draw the line somewhere. You're too young and
attractive."

"Oh, fudge! Leonie," he said, impatiently. "Nobody thinks of that
nowadays. And, anyhow, the Dump is like a hotel--a fresh crowd going and
coming every day. I can supply Rosika with half a dozen chaperons, if
necessary, but it would be insulting even to suggest such a thing."

"Thanks, Nick," she murmured.

"What's the matter with the admirable Miss Brickley?" he asked,
sarcastically. "Isn't she dragon enough?"

This remark filled me with a perfect fury of hatred. I expect my green
eyes glittered, for he laughed wickedly and immediately forgot me.

"You'll come?" he asked, eagerly.

"Delighted," said Mme. Storey.

"Okay!" he said, making for the door again. "Come in time for dinner.
Only a small party tonight, thanks to my dear dead nunky. Better fun.
Shall I send a car?"

"Thanks. I have my car."

"So long!" he cried from the stairs. The front door slammed.

"You don't really mind my going there, do you?" asked Mme. Storey.

"Bless your heart, no!" returned Mrs. Lysaght.

"I only made the obvious answer when you asked me...Rosika, you are a
kind of witch!" she went on, with grim affectionateness. "Nobody else
could ever foretell what Nick Van Tassel would do under any given
circumstance."

"Well, I'm a practicing psychologist, my dear," she answered, smiling.
"I must occasionally give a demonstration of my skill."


Later I rebelled against the proposed move. "I can't face it!" I said.
"You don't know what this man does to me! I am helpless in his presence.
I seem to fly to pieces."

"You hide it well, my dear," said Mme. Storey, good naturedly. "I was
watching you."

"First he tries to drive us out of town, and when he sees that isn't
going to work, he asks us to his house, where he can watch us better."

"Why, of course! But think how well we can watch him there!"

"I'm afraid!" I faltered.

"So am I...But cheer up. He could not afford to allow anything to
happen to us at the Dump. It is really the safest place we could be."

"The idea of going there makes me tremble."

"You will find your courage on the spot...I need you, Bella."

That silenced me, of course.



CHAPTER SEVEN - A Letter


I MUST hold up my story for a moment at this point to introduce Miss
Betsy Pryor, who was later to play such an important part in the case.

As with all celebrities, Mme. Storey's fan mail is a considerable factor
in her life. Whenever we are getting any newspaper publicity it reaches
enormous proportions. Some time or another it all has to be read. When
we came to Newport I was hoping we had escaped it for a while, since
only important letters were to be forwarded; but the mere notice in the
Newport paper of her arrival produced a fresh supply from local sources.

As I was skimming over these letters all so much alike and so tiresome,
I came upon one which forced me to sit up and take notice, because it
struck a fresh note.

'DEAR MADAME STOREY:

'I have just read of your coming to Newport. My principal amusement is
reading the newspapers, because the spectacle of the folly of my fellow
men sets me up in my own opinion. Thus I have followed your career--or
at least as much of it as the newspapers dare to print. I know you
cannot be the marvelous creature that the silly newspapers try to make
you out--at least, I hope you've got more sense; but I confess to a
great curiosity to find out.

'I wonder if, before you leave Newport, you could find half an hour to
come call on an old woman who is neither handsome nor clever, and not at
all good tempered. You may well ask: well, why should you, then, and
there is no answer, except that I have a foolish notion you and I share
something in common in this mad world. If I am mistaken, there's no harm
done.

'I would come and see you, but my appearance on the street would create
such a sensation I fear it would be embarrassing to you. Besides, it
would destroy a fiction that I have been building up for forty years.

'Sincerely yours,

'BETSY PRYOR.'

"Well!" said Mme. Storey, smiling broadly when I showed her this letter.
"Either the old lady is slightly cracked or she is one of those crusted
characters that are the salt of the earth. There are too few of them in
America."

"Shall you answer the letter?" I asked.

"Most certainly! But wait! Let's try to find out something about her
first. She is no ordinary person. Ask Crider to make inquiries."

Crider's report ran: 'Miss Betsy Pryor is a rich old maid who lives in a
big house on Brenton's Cove. The whole place has a wall around it nine
feet high, with broken bottles on top, and nobody is allowed past the
lodge house at the entrance. The old lady herself has not been seen in
forty years, and I couldn't find anybody who remembered what she looked
like. She's become a regular myth. Some say all her folks are dead and
she's quarreled with all her friends. Some say she was crossed in love,
and still sits in the parlor in her wedding dress, waiting for the
bridegroom. Some say she has warts all over her face and a flowing
beard, and that's why she won't show herself. There's no doubt but what
she's queer. Won't see anybody and won't have a telephone in the house,
but writes to the newspapers, giving everybody hell.'

Mme. Storey laughed out loud when she read this.

"Bully for Betsy!" she said. "Fancy having the courage in these days to
chuck out the telephone. Take a letter to her."

'DEAR MISS PRYOR:

'I like your style. I instantly felt as you say, that we shared
something in common, though I fear you were only flattering me in an
underhand way. Unfortunately, at the moment I am entangled in a
multitude of affairs that seem to become more and more complicated. I
lack the resolution to cut free as you have done, and insist on leading
a free life. However, before I leave Newport I shall certainly come to
see you. I would not miss it on any account.

'Sincerely yours,

'ROSIKA STOREY.'



CHAPTER EIGHT - Evelyn


THE last thing Mme. Storey said to me before we entered Nick Van
Tassel's house was: "Remember always to play a passive part here, Bella.
Don't try to steer the conversation and never ask a leading question.
Keep your eyes, your ears, and your mind open, and let Nick make the
running."

She was right in saying that I would forget my fears when we arrived.
Once inside the house, the sense of danger roused my faculties to such a
state of activity I could not stop to be afraid.

We were shown to a perfectly beautiful suite in the north wing--a corner
sitting room and a large bedroom for Mme. Storey; a smaller bedroom for
me adjoining. Mme. Storey's sitting room was decorated in the Japanese
style. By keeping our eyes open and watching the servants we learned
that a door just beyond my door gave on a service stairway, and that the
servants' entrance to the house was at the foot of this stair. A useful
bit of knowledge.

Apparently we were the only overnight guests; but while we were dressing
several cars rolled up, bringing dinner guests. Eight of us sat down in
the paneled dining room. ("Just my intimate friends," Nick said.) It was
a handsome little company. Other things being equal, Nick seemed to pick
his gang for their good looks.

But say what you like, it was an error of judgment on Nick's part to ask
Mme. Storey and me to dinner on the very night of the funeral. He could
depend on his own iron nerve, but it was too great an ordeal to impose
on his gang; particularly on the three exquisite, delicately bred girls.
The usual rattle of talk and laughter went around the table, but from
the first it had a strained sound.

There were Ann and Evelyn, of course. The third girl was Mary Bourne. I
had seen her at the Van Tassels' fatal party. She was little more than a
child, eighteen, perhaps, and in looks the loveliest of the three, with
flaming red hair, eyes as blue as the tropic sea, and a pearly skin. Red
hair may be either a curse or a crown, as I knew. Hers was of the latter
sort. It was all fluffed out around her small head like a child's.
Ordinarily she was a completely hardboiled young person, but tonight she
was rather quiet and a little sulky. Something was bothering her and she
resented it.

Of the men, Bill Kip was tall, slim, and hard; a slightly inferior copy
of the dashing Nick. He frankly formed himself on Nick. No doubt he was
a useful tool, but one saw he would have been entirely insignificant
without a Nick to supply the impetus.

Reggie Mygatt, on the other hand, had plenty of character--of the wrong
sort. I suspected he was the brains of the organization. He was the type
of young man who would become fat at thirty, and whose features would
run together at forty; but he was good looking now; smooth all over,
with big brown eyes both languishing and guarded. He had a flat, reedy
voice. He didn't care about girls, and the girls detested him.

Of the girls it was always Evelyn Suydam who interested me most. She was
older, twenty nine or thirty I should have said, but Time had put no
marks on her as yet. Whereas the other two seemed well able to look out
for themselves, there was a softness in Evelyn's big blue, slightly hazy
eyes that made one feel sorry for her. She had a fairy like figure, and
a head that seemed just a little too big for her body. I wondered how
she had been drawn into that cagy crowd. No doubt it was owing to her
infatuation for Nick.

Evelyn was the wittiest of the bunch, and tonight she was at her best.
But while she laughed I could see her face twitch; and once or twice a
truly dreadful expression came into her eyes and was immediately gone
again. I imagine she saw the ghost of a broken old man with his mouth
hanging open. I saw Mme. Storey glance at her speculatively, and I knew
she was thinking the same as I: If we could separate Evelyn from the
others, she was ripe to blow the works!

All through the meal a little unacknowledged duel was going on between
Ann Livingston and Evelyn. In a contest of this sort the one who feels
the most is always at a disadvantage, and Ann was generally able to
plant her little sting and get away unharmed. I noticed, too, that Mary
Bourne was not averse to pushing in the barb when she saw her chance.
Evelyn was no prettier than the others, but they both resented her
sweetness. These were only pin pricks, perhaps, but to one in Evelyn's
overwrought state a pin prick may be the finishing stroke. I doubt if
any of the men noticed what was going on.

Nick said: "How long do you go into mourning for an uncle? I should
think a fortnight would be plenty. We must signalize our coming out by
throwing a bigger and better party. We haven't been talked about enough
lately. This must be unique. Any suggestions?"

"All the possible kinds of parties have been given," said Ann, "from
baby parades to pagan routs."

"Let's give a marine fete," said Evelyn. "We could hire the Constitution
and tow her around into the river. Throw searchlights on her and set off
fire works. And Nick walking the deck in a cocked hat with his spyglass
under his arm, like Sir Joseph Porter. 'And now I am the ruler of the
King's Navee!'"

"Splendid.'" cried Mme. Storey, who was always ready to exchange wise
cracks with a Nick Van Tassel or to discuss philosophy with a Bertrand
Russell. "And we are his sisters and his cousins and his aunts; his
sisters and his cousins and his aunts!"

"No.'" cried Nick. "Rosika must be a siren sitting on the rocks with a
special searchlight to herself."

"I don't mind," said Mme. Storey, "if there's plenty of seaweed."

"Evelyn can be Little Buttercup," said Ann, with a slight smile.

"I don't know what you're all talking about," said Mary Bourne, who was
as ignorant as a coalheaver's child. "Who was Little Buttercup?"

"The bumboat woman," said Ann.

I didn't think it was very funny, but a great laugh went round, Nick
making himself heard above the rest. Evelyn was stung by the sound. She
didn't mind the others.

"And what's a bumboat woman?" persisted Mary.

"Oh, a sort of female short change artist," said Ann. "Wheedles the
sailors out of their pay."

There was another laugh in which Evelyn joined gayly. She waited a
moment, and then asked, offhand: "Nick, did I ever short change you?"

He could not resist the temptation to raise another laugh. "Oh, not to
say short, exactly," he drawled; "but I have to keep my eye peeled for
lead nickels and plugged dimes."

She laughed with the others, but her eyelids fluttered like a wounded
bird's and fell. Slight as the gesture was, it seemed to me to have a
quality of desperation in it. As if Nick's silly joke was the last
straw. The talk passed to other things.

When we arose from the table, Ann slipped her hand familiarly under
Nick's arm, and he pressed it instinctively. Evelyn did not miss the
act. That lost look appeared in her eyes and fled again. I suppose she
felt like one who had sold herself to the devil and been cheated of her
pay.

We adjourned to the 'Forty nine saloon next door. The jazz band and the
vaudeville performers had been given a night off, but the bartender was
on duty, yawning in front of his bottles. Nick, it seems, had passed the
word along that he couldn't give a regular party, but that the house
would be open as usual. However, nobody came. His friends had more
feeling for the occasion than Nick had.

The pioneer bar needed a big crowd and a deafening racket to get away
with it. When it was quiet it was like the morning after; horrible! Our
eight little selves were lost in the place. There were ghosts in the
corners. Or rather, one ghost that came between us and whatever we
looked at. I saw Mary, the adorable little red head, shiver, and
wondered how much she knew.

"This is fierce!" cried Nick. "Let's take up the big Sikorsky for a try
out."

"Count me out," said Mme. Storey. "I can't imagine anything stupider
than riding in a cabin plane at night."

"Well, let's go out aboard the Cynara then." (His steam yacht.) "I've
got a man who can play the concertina like a whole brass band. We can
dance on deck."

"It would start a scandal," said Ann.

"Nonsense! Nobody will know we're aboard. If they hear anything they'll
think it's the crew making merry."

There was a general move toward the door.

"I'll slide home," said Evelyn. "Don't feel like dancing. There are too
many girls, anyhow."

As soon as she spoke, others began to make objections.

"Concertina music, I ask you!" said Mary, scornfully.

"The hell with dancing," grumbled Reggie.

Nick turned on Evelyn with an ugly scowl. "Must you always be a wet
smack?" he said.

She raised her eyes to his in unfathomable reproach and quickly lowered
them again. I think he was a little ashamed of himself, for he said,
cajolingly: "Aw, come on, Eve! You're always full of ideas. Propose
something."

She turned away.

"Let's drive up to Providence and go to a public dance hall," said Mary.
"Nobody would know us there."

"Oh, wouldn't they!"

While they were discussing what to do, Bill and Reggie dropped to their
knees on the dance floor, and started shooting crap. Mme. Storey joined
them, and presently greenbacks were flying through the air like
snowflakes. One after another was drawn into the game until only Evelyn
and I were left. I didn't know how to play, and she didn't care to. She
was very still and kept her eyes hidden.

The stakes were doubled and redoubled, and the game became fast and
furious. The players' eyes were glued to the dice. It was exciting even
to look on. But Mme. Storey never loses herself, however she may appear
to do so. It was a look from her that recalled me to myself. I saw that
Evelyn was no longer at my side. I slipped out into the corridor to look
for her.

She was not in sight, and I went on out to the terrace. If she was going
home I intended to intercept her when she came out with her wrap. There
were several cars standing in the drive, but no chauffeurs about. And
then I saw her light dress just before it was swallowed in the darkness,
and started after her. She had not waited to fetch her wrap.

Beyond the necessity of keeping her in sight, I scarcely knew what I had
better do. She was crossing the landing field in the direction of the
river, and, remembering the desperate look in her eyes, I was filled
with apprehension. But she was walking slowly and aimlessly. I didn't
know what to think. I would not cry out nor run after her, thinking I
might bring about the very thing I feared. I just kept her in sight.

Sometimes she stopped in the middle of the field, and stood there with
her head hanging. Then she'd start slowly forward, or perhaps run a few
steps and come to a stand again. This piteous uncertainty told me more
of the torment she was suffering than any cry could have done. True, the
evidence suggested she was an accessory to the murder, and one might say
she deserved no sympathy. But she was so pretty and sweet, and so
desperately in love with Nick, I couldn't help myself. And I was in a
position to understand her feelings. One part of me hated and despised
the man, but he could break me up at any moment with a look.

At the same time I was paralyzed with embarrassment because I was a
stranger to the girl. If she had been my friend, easy enough to throw my
arms around her and try to comfort her; but coming from a stranger she
would naturally resent it. It made me feel guilty even to be a witness
to her distress. Yet it was my duty to keep her in sight.

On the river side the flying field was bounded by a macadam road. Across
the road a concrete pier ran out into the water, with a landing float at
the end of it. At the shore end of the pier rose a little pavilion
containing bathhouses and showers. Further upstream were the airplane
hangars and the yacht rigging sheds. The whole shore was deserted at
this hour. A single electric light hung over the gangway leading from
the pier to the float.

Evelyn passed through the open pavilion and out on the pier. There she
stood outlined against the hanging light, staring down at the water with
her hands pressed to her breast. I remained under the shadow of the
roof, not knowing what to do.

She began to walk uncertainly up and down the pier, and I realized that
she was crying softly and murmuring to herself. When she came near me I
could hear a word or two: "I can't! I can't! I can't!...I must do it!
There is nothing else!"

I couldn't stand any more. I stepped out into view, speaking her name:
"Evelyn!"

She caught her breath sharply, and turning, ran like a deer down the
pier. I sprang after her, and caught her before she reached the end. How
pitifully small and slender she was within my arms.

"Let me go! Let me go!" she gasped, twisting her body around and beating
me with her childish fists.

"Oh, think what you're doing!" I said. "This wouldn't settle anything!"

"What do you know about it!" she cried.

She was no match for me, of course. She suddenly went slack in my arms
and burst into a tempest of weeping. I made haste to guide her back to
the shore.

"Oh, what did you stop me for?" she mourned. "I'm nothing to you!"

"You would have done the same if it had been me," I said.

"No! No! No! Nobody can do anything for anybody!...How can I face
tomorrow? And all the tomorrows of my life?"

I just pressed her closer to me and urged her on. There was nothing you
could say to one in such a state. To have tried to comfort her would
only have sounded insincere.

When we were halfway across the field, to my unbounded relief we met
Mme. Storey coming toward us. Taking in the situation at a glance, she
said in a quite ordinary voice: "Here you are! We couldn't imagine what
had become of you."

"Where are they?" murmured Evelyn.

"Scattered around, looking for you. We thought you'd gone home until we
found your cloak in the coatroom and your car outside. Then we didn't
know what to think."

"Just wanted a breath of air," muttered Evelyn.

Mme. Storey took one of her arms and I the other, and we went across the
dark field. On the other side of it the big house was lighted up like a
hotel. In a moment or two the little thing said like a frightened child,
"What are you going to do with me?"

"Take you home," said Mme. Storey, cheerfully.

"I don't want to see the others."

"You don't have to. I moved my car down the drive a piece, so we could
get into it without going to the house."

"Why are you kind to me?" she whimpered. "I'm afraid of you!"

"That's only because you're in wrong," said Mme. Storey, in a
comfortable, friendly voice. "You're in terribly wrong, my dear. You're
too good for this outfit. You can't keep it up. Why not come across with
the whole thing and get square with yourself?"

I could feel the slender frame shaken through and through. "No!" she
stammered, "There's nothing to tell!"

"You'll find friends everywhere, then."

The girl's voice ran up hysterically. "Leave me alone, can't you? It's
not fair! Oh, it tempts me like a drug!"

"It's not a drug you want, but a good night's sleep," said Mme. Storey.
"That's what tempts you. Sleep and peace.'"

Evelyn began to cry again. "If I only had somebody...!"

"I will be your friend," said Mme. Storey, gravely.

The girl was unable to stand out against the friendly voice. "Oh, take
me away from here.'" she sobbed. "Take me away, and I'll tell you
everything!"

We hurried her on across the grass.

Mme. Storey had left her car parked in the drive about a furlong from
the house, with the lights turned off. It was very dark under the trees.
We had almost reached it when suddenly out of the stillness came the
sound of a human whistle. It was a certain call twice repeated, like a
bird call, the meadowlark perhaps.

At the sound Evelyn stopped dead. An instant later she jerked free of
us. I instinctively reached for her, but Mme. Storey, with surer wisdom,
held me back. She said, gravely:

"This is up to you, Evelyn. If you answer it you're a goner!"

There was a moment's silence. We could hear the girl breathing fast, but
we could not see her face. One could imagine the painful struggle there.

Then the wistful lilting call was repeated. She instantly threw up her
head and answered it, whistling as crisply as a boy. A moment later Nick
ran up in the drive.

"Here you are!" he cried.

Reaching inside the car, he turned on the headlights, and in the
reflected glow we were all revealed to one another. Nick bareheaded in
his evening clothes, his confident smile unchanged. "What on earth did
you leave the car here for?"

"I was looking for Evelyn in the drive," said Mme. Storey, coolly. "I
heard voices and I got out. I found the girls walking in the field."

"Oh, Eve, what a scare you gave me!" he said, in a warm and softened
voice. He was so sure of his power! "Is anything wrong, baby?"

She tried to save a little self respect by speaking scornfully, but her
face became irradiated with happiness at his changed tone. "A fat lot
you care!"

"Care!" he said, affectionate and teasing. "Come here, infant child!"

She went to him. I turned away my head because I could not bear to see
another woman so fooled. And before us, too. The worst of it was I knew
in my heart he could have made just as big a fool of me.

When I looked at them again they were standing happily by the car, arm
linked in arm, Mme. Storey looking at them with a bland smile. At any
rate, Nick wasn't getting any change out of her. Evelyn was saying: "It
was nothing, only the heat and the tobacco smoke made me feel a little
ill. I just wanted air."

"I'll take you right home," said Nick, fondly. "Maybe Rosika will lend
us her car. We can drive them back to the house first."

Mme. Storey knows her own sex thoroughly. Also she instantly recognizes
when she is checked, and never risks further reverses by disputing lost
ground.

"What nonsense!" she said, gayly. "Bella and I can walk a couple of
hundred yards without falling dead. Take the car and welcome."



CHAPTER NINE - The Typewriter


WHILE I was lying only half awake in my charming bedroom next morning,
suddenly the thought came to me like a cold hand laid on my breast: Here
I am in Nick Van Tassel's house, completely at his mercy! I am lucky to
wake up at all!

I sprang out of bed to drive it away, and went to the window. It was my
first sight of the place by daylight. I had a view to the west over the
polo field and race track, with the uplands beyond. Nick's "farm," of
course, was only a farm by courtesy; sporting headquarters would have
been a better name for it. It was a lovely day, and the whole scene was
gilded with sunshine.

I breakfasted with Mme. Storey in her Japanese sitting room while it was
still early--that is to say, early for the Dump, where breakfast
frequently merged into lunch. Afterward we strolled out of the house and
around to the edge of the track, where we sat down to watch the slender
legged thoroughbreds being exercised; there is no prettier sight. To the
north of the track stretched a long row of stables, and I was amused to
see that each of Nick's horses had his own glassed in porch where he
could move around and enjoy the sun in winter weather.

"We have a good chance to look around while our host sleeps," I
suggested.

"Quite," said my employer; "but, unfortunately, we must not betray any
curiosity."

By and by a car spun around the house and Nick himself leaped out of it
behind us. Like most sportsmen he hated to walk a yard. In white
flannels and blazer, shirt collar open to reveal his shapely throat, he
looked his best at ten o'clock in the morning. Everything about him was
instinct with vigor and energy--ruddy skin, crisp thick hair, and bright
eyes. Just to look at him made me sore.

"Well, you are around early!" he cried. "How in thunder shall I keep
such energetic guests amused all day?"

"We don't have to be amused," said Mme. Storey.

"I reckon you think I'm just a waster," he went on, "and so I am. But on
the level, I have a hundred things to see to around the place this
morning. I was saving this afternoon to show you everything."

"We can wait."

"Not at all! Mosey around and look at everything for yourselves. I'll
furnish a guide if you want."

"No guides, thanks," said Mme. Storey.

"All right! I've already passed the word that you're the star guests
here. Every man on the place is yours to command...Meet me in the den
at quarter to one for a cocktail." He jumped in the car and was gone
again.

"Our getting up early seems to have upset his plans a little," I
suggested.

"Not a bit of it," said Mme. Storey, smiling. "That scene was staged.
What he meant to say was, 'Poke your nose into everything as far as you
like; I'm not afraid of you.'...You can't help admiring such a bold
player," she added.

Yes, damn him! I thought.

When we had done justice to the horses we strolled on and, since we had
been given full leave, we looked into everything. There was a garage
which held actually dozens of cars. "Mr. Nick" (that was their name for
him) "never trades in a car," the foreman explained, proudly. "He lets
everybody around the place use them or he gives them away."

These cars were of every make, style and year, from a brand new Rolls
shining with chromium steel to a disreputable model T Ford, but every
one of them, we suspected, in first class mechanical order. Mme. Storey
strolled through the garage once, and remembered every car there. She
did not bother about the license numbers, because those could always be
changed when the cars were sent out on business.

Next came the machine shop where the cars and the planes were serviced.
The principal activity here centered about a new type of helicopter that
was being constructed under the direction of its inventor, a wild haired
youth with eyes that saw visions. Nick, we were informed, had told him
to go ahead and build his machine regardless of the cost.

"What he takes with one hand he gives away with the other," Mme. Storey
murmured after we had passed on; "like another famous crook who lived in
Sherwood Forest years ago."

In these various departments at the Dump, Nick, I suppose, employed
upward of two hundred men, nearly all of them young, all keen, and all
absolutely devoted to him. "What does he care what scraps of evidence we
may pick up," said Mme. Storey, "with the whole weight of popular
opinion like this to set off against it?"

Nick had employed first class architects, and all the work buildings
fitted into the early American picture. The last we visited was the
yacht rigging shed on the river shore. Among the craft moored outside I
saw a beautiful ninety footer sloop, and a whole row of star boats
exactly alike, that Nick and his friends raced against one another. This
is not to mention the Cynara which was almost as big as an ocean liner,
and the Bonito, an express cruiser, said to be capable of forty miles an
hour.

Inside the shed we came upon a weatherbeaten sailor (the oldest man we
had seen) who was engaged in splicing rope rings with incredible
neatness. I noticed that the cordage he was using contained a scarlet
thread like that in the rope ladder we had found in Howard Van Tassel's
house. This was interesting, but hardly conclusive, since it was
possible every yacht rigger in Newport used the same.

Mme. Storey got into talk with the old tar, and it was not long before
she had him illustrating for her all the beautiful and intricate knots
that sailors use. I could not follow the convolutions of the rope, but
my employer's eye was unerring. She recognized a knot that she had seen
in the rope ladder, and said, casually: "That would be a good way to
knot a rope ladder, wouldn't it, because the crosspiece couldn't slip,
no matter what weight was put upon it."

"Aye, miss, you've got a sharp eye for a lady," he replied. "It ain't a
week since I made a ladder for Mr. Nick, using them very knots."

My heart skipped a beat upon hearing this, and when we got outside I
said, "Anyhow, there is one convincing piece of evidence."

"Convincing to us," said Mme. Storey, serenely; "but do you suppose for
a moment that we could ever get him into court with it?"

"I suppose not," I said, gloomily.

"Every little bit helps," she went on, cheerfully, "as the old woman
said when she beat up a dead fly in her currant cake; but we will need a
lot more than that to make a case."

We returned to the house a few minutes before the time set, hoping that
we might get a look at the "den" before the master returned. This was a
long room on the second floor in the front of the house, that served
Nick as office library living room. It was empty when we entered; a most
attractive room that, unlike most of the rooms of the very rich, really
looked well used and lived in. In the middle was a beautiful Colonial
window with a balcony outside overlooking the flying field; at one end
was an immense fireplace, and at the other Nick's wide, flat topped
desk.

Mme. Storey, giving a single glance at the desk, said: "There's a
typewriter in that. I must have a look at it. You stand near the door,
Bella, and if you hear anybody coming make a remark about the pictures."

I took up my stand with a fast beating heart, and she glided to the
desk. There was but the one door, which we had left open behind us, so
we could not be taken by surprise. Moving aside an elaborate desk
blotter, she lifted up the center panel of the desk top, and a
typewriter rose into view.

"Just as I expected," she murmured, "a new Underwood of the latest
model, with a black ribbon. It's a fair guess that The Leveler wrote his
letters on this machine."

"How can you prove it?" I whispered.

"I can't--yet," she answered, calmly. "There are thousands of such
machines in use."

Just at this moment I heard a quick, firm step below, and I said,
hastily, "This is a remarkable picture."

Without making a sound, Mme. Storey lowered the machine into the desk
and replaced the blotter.

She strolled toward me, opening her cigarette case as she came. Nick
breezed in. I was completely breathless; fortunately I was not required
to say anything.

"Hello!" said Nick. "Am I late?"

"No," said Mme. Storey, "but we're thirsty."

He pressed a button, laughing, and cocktails appeared as if by magic.
While we were sipping them the telephone rang. He went to the desk to
answer it, and Mme. Storey sauntered to the other end of the room, as if
moved by a polite desire to avoid hearing the conversation. Taking down
a book from the shelves, she presently said: "Look at this, Bella."

When I joined her I saw that she was holding a pair of small steel
pliers against the page of the open book. She must have picked them up
in the machine shop as we passed through.

"Take them and hide them," she whispered.

I did so. They were small enough to be concealed within my hand. Our
backs were turned toward Nick.

"If I can get him out of the room," she whispered, "I want you to raise
up the typewriter and change the alignment of some of the type bars.
Take the letters of my name--s t o r e y. You must be careful to twist
them only the tiniest bit, or he will discover it the next time he uses
the machine."

Nick finished his talk and put down the phone.

"What have you found?" he asked.

"Jorrocks with the Cruikshank illustrations," she instantly answered. It
was the book she held in her hand. "Most amusing."

"Cruikshank, is he good?" he asked, coming toward us.

"Rather!"

They looked at the pictures together, laughing, while I fell a little
behind them, trying to get together all my forces for what was before
me. Would I ever be able to do it? I thought, and my tongue stuck to the
roof of my mouth. I've got to do it, I told myself, and set about
planning every move in advance, so I would be ready when the moment
came.

They moved on around the shelves together, talking about his books, and
especially the illustrations.

I heard Nick say: "All I want to do is to get together a first class
sporting library. Of course I know nothing about art, and I have to take
what the booksellers tell me."

"You've done very well as far as the library goes," said Mme. Storey.
"But in my sitting room I noticed something they had put over on you."

"What's that?"

"Among the beautiful old Japanese prints there's one that is only a
cheap reproduction."

This touched his pride. "Show it to me," he said at once, "and I'll fire
it out of the house!"

They went down the corridor.

I set about my job. Of course I had fooled enough with the insides of a
typewriter to know exactly what I had to do. I could not allow myself to
be afraid. I knew Mme. Storey would keep Nick out of the way, but I had
no protection against the entrance of somebody else, a servant perhaps.
However, the raised lid of the desk concealed what my hands were doing
from anyone who might look in the door.

With my pliers I twisted the e bar a hair's breadth, no more; the r, the
t, the y, the o. Then I heard Mme. Storey's musical laugh down the
corridor. This was a signal to me, of course, and I had to leave the s.
I had planned every move in advance, and my hands worked like
automatons; down with the cover; over with the blotter; tuck the pliers
in the top of my stocking, catching the handle around my garter so they
could not slip down.

When they came in I was sitting in a chair, reading. The worst time came
after the danger was over. I rested the book on my knees to keep it from
shaking. Nick never noticed me at all.

"I'm going to make you pass on every picture I own," he said to Mme.
Storey.

In a moment or two a manservant came to the door to announce luncheon.



CHAPTER TEN - Mr. Gibbs Cumberland


EVERY hour the lines of our case were spreading out wider, and it was no
easy task for Mme. Storey to direct them all and at the same time play
the part of a lady with nothing in the world to do but be amused. I
began to appreciate Nick's cleverness in installing us in his own house.
It had about as much privacy as a railway station. My employer
transacted her business over the phone in Mrs. Lysaght's house. Her
friend, who was busy with an estimate at the time, good naturedly
allowed it to be given out that she was indisposed. This supplied a
sufficient excuse for our frequent calls.

On the night of our first day as guests at Omega Farm, alias the Dump, I
remember there was to be a dance at the smart Chowder Club. Nick himself
was prevented from going by the exigencies of mourning, but he was bent
on having the rest of the gang attend. Bill Kip and Reggie Mygatt were
to be our escorts.

"I'm sorry," said Mme. Storey when she first heard of this arrangement,
"but I must drive in to town tonight to see Leonie."

"You saw her this afternoon," grumbled Nick.

"I know, and the poor soul was so low in her mind I promised to come
back after dinner. She is my oldest friend, you know."

"Well, let Bill and Reggie go with you and wait outside in the car until
you have finished your visit."

My employer shook her head with smiling firmness. "Leonie would see them
from her window, and it would make her feel badly...No, Bella and I
can go see her, and join the others later at the club."

He was obliged to be content with this.

As a matter of fact we had very different plans.

We drove into Newport in Mme. Storey's car, and left it parked in front
of Mrs. Lysaght's. We walked straight through Mrs. Lysaght's house, out
of her back door, across her back yard, and across the back yard of the
house fronting on the next street. All the back fences in that block had
been removed in carrying out a garden project. In the next street Crider
was waiting with one of the hired cars. The ruse was so simple and easy
it didn't seem possible that we could be followed.

We were on our way to call on the famous Mr. Gibbs Cumberland.
Immediately following the murder, Mme. Storey through her banking
connections had caused inquiries to be made with a view to discovering
other victims of the millionaire racket. She wanted to know what
individuals had drawn large sums in cash lately. Among the names turned
up was that of Gibbs Cumberland. He was very rich and very old; in other
words, a perfect subject for the exercise of the Leveler's talents. On
June 6th he had ordered forty thousand dollars in currency sent up from
New York by special messenger.

"Gibbs Cumberland!" laughed Mrs. Lysaght, when she was appealed to for
information. "He's one of the museum pieces of Newport! Our most
precious antique, my dear. Surely you know all about him."

"I've heard a good deal," said Mme. Storey, "but give me the latest
dope."

"When I was a girl he was sixty years old," said Mrs. Lysaght; "now he
confesses to a coy fifty nine. All his contemporaries have died off, you
see, and he thinks there's no check on him. He forgets the collateral
sources of evidence. He's eighty one, my dear, and his motto is 'no
surrender!'"

"Eighty one!"

"Absolutely! He dandled my mother on his knee when she was a little
girl. He started his career as a cotillion leader, and from that he rose
to be the grand vizier of society. He is the one who decides whether you
belong or not. If your name is not down in his little book there is no
appeal. I understand there are about a hundred and fifty of the chosen
at present."

"And do people still stand for that sort of thing?"

"Oh, everybody laughs at old Gibbsy, but they still kowtow to him. He's
immensely powerful simply because he's so old. He remembers everything
that ever happened."

"And does he still go about?"

"Rather! Dines out every night of his life during the season, except
when he is giving a dinner himself. They say it takes his servants all
day long to jazz him up sufficiently to appear. Nights when there is
dancing at the Chowder Club he remains in seclusion until eleven, and
then makes a triumphant appearance for an hour."

"Does he dance?"

"You can bet your life he does! And how! It's an experience never to be
forgotten!"

Mr. Cumberland lived in an immense old fashioned house standing in
extensive grounds on Bellevue Avenue. Inside, it was as crowded with
expensive furniture and knickknacks as an auction room. It was about
10:36 when we got there. Mme. Storey was counting on finding him dressed
and ready for the dance. The butler looked dubious when we inquired for
his master.

"Is Mr. Cumberland expecting you?" he asked.

"No," said Mme. Storey, sweetly. "My card."

"Mr. Cumberland sees nobody without an appointment. But I will ask,
madam."

There proved to be no difficulty. We had not been seated in the drawing
room for more than five minutes when a little aged manikin in a
swallowtail coat came skipping into the room. Yes, skipping is the word.
He had been steamed and kneaded and vibrated up to the nines, and he
felt great. Conscious of the support of an excellent pair of corsets, he
curveted like a two year old. He was a comic figure, if you like, but so
unique and extraordinary there was a quality of greatness about him. It
was difficult not to burst out laughing at the sight.

"So good of you to receive me," murmured Mme. Storey.

"Good of me, not at all!" he cried, roguishly. "I heard that you were
one of the beauties of the day, and I am just being good to myself. And
it's true, dear lady! You are lovely!" He kissed her hand.

"My secretary, Miss Brickley."

Mr. Cumberland snapped his little heels together and bowed from the
waist--but made no move toward my hand.

"But I heard you had left Newport," he said to my employer. "Where are
you staying?" His dim eyes sharpened with curiosity.

"At Omega Farm."

"Aha! Trust Nick Van Tassel to garner the fairest flowers! Confound his
black head!"

"I expect you have heard that I am under a cloud socially," said Mme.
Storey, smiling.

"Ah, one pays little attention to such things," he said, shrugging.
"Alida Van Tassel is a dear creature and one of my oldest friends, but,
there! she is frequently prejudiced." His face became comically
lugubrious. "One must bear with her in the great loss she has suffered."
The sharp look of curiosity returned--like a monkey. "What did you
quarrel about?"

Mme. Storey did not answer him directly. "May I have quarter of an
hour's serious conversation with you?" she asked.

His face fell. "Oh, don't tell me you've come for a subscription to
something. That's not fair."

She shook her head, smiling. "On the contrary, I want to save you a
great deal of money."

"Oh dear! That's how they all begin!"

"This is not quite the same," said Mme. Storey.

"My real business in Newport is to catch the man who is collecting great
sums of money from rich men under threat of personal injury--or worse."

No muscle of his face moved, because he was conscious we were both
looking at him, but a ghastly change took place in it from within. He
looked sick with fear and incredibly old; yet his lips remained fixed in
the artificial smile.

"Bless me, this is like something you read in the newspapers!" he said.
"Why do you come to me about it?"

It was obvious that he would have to be handled with gloves. "For your
help," said Mme. Storey, simply.

"Why me?" he persisted.

"Well, you have the reputation of being a courageous man," she said,
slyly, "and you arc powerful here in Newport."

He looked anything but the character she had given him. "Is it money you
want?" he demanded.

"No. I am paying all the expenses of this investigation out of my own
pocket."

"Why?"

"It is a point of pride with me to catch this man because he has defied
me."

Mr. Cumberland took a turn across the room and back. All the steam had
gone out of him. His old body sagged in spite of the corsets. "Perhaps
you think I am one of the victims," he said, with a cunning look.

Mme. Storey made no answer.

"Maybe you have stumbled on the fact that I drew forty thousand in cash
a few weeks ago."

Still she said nothing. He tried to laugh in his usual manner, but it
was a sad cackle that came out. "A very natural mistake," he said. "That
money was wanted for my private benefactions. When one gives a check it
lets the cat out of the bag, you see; so one keeps a fund of cash on
hand."

Mme. Storey disregarded all this. "Won't you help me?" she asked,
earnestly.

A fit of peevish irritation seized him. "What can I do? What can I do?"
he snarled. "I never paid any tribute." And then in the same breath he
asked, "If I had, what could I do?"

"Refuse his next demand," she said, promptly.

A strong shudder went through him; I thought he would never have done
shaking. "Yes, and follow Howard Van Tassel to the cemetery," he
muttered, low.

"I would take every measure to protect you."

"You couldn't save him," he fired back at her.

"True," she said, calmly, "but Mr. and Mrs. Van Tassel refused to follow
my advice."

"What did you advise?"

"Full publicity."

There was a silence. He stood looking at the ground, pressing his lips
together to hide their trembling.

"But what I am hoping," Mme. Storey went on, persuasively, "is to find a
man brave enough to take a certain chance; so that working together we
can lead the scoundrel on and entrap him."

Mr. Cumberland's dim eyes looked at her pathetically. It was as if they
were asking, How can a man as old as I be brave? Finally he began to
speak: "I can't..."

"If his victims gained any peace of mind by paying, it would be another
thing," interrupted Mme. Storey. "But it does them no good. Their lives
are poisoned with fear just as before. The demands are always
increasing. They dare not think of the future."

He shivered. "I can't..." he began again.

"Don't answer me now," said Mme. Storey, quickly. "Sleep on it tonight,
and I'll come to see you again. It is possible I may be able to get
others to go in with you. If three or four of you combined to resist
this fellow, he would be helpless."

"Don't you dare to suggest to anybody that I have been paying
tribute..." Mr. Cumberland began, excitedly.

"Don't worry," she said, with a soothing smile. "I shall proceed most
prudently...May I come to see you tomorrow just before dinner--say at
half past seven?"

He tried to recover his gallant air, but it was only pathetic. "Always
happy to see you, dear lady, but..."

"We're going on to the Chowder Club," she said as we started for the
door. "Shall we see you there?"

"Surely, surely!" he said, with his cackling laugh. "I never miss an
opportunity to dance.'" If he could have seen himself! Then he turned
partly aside from us, and I saw him anxiously regarding his outstretched
hand. It was trembling violently, and a feeling of pity came over me.
What strange people there are in the world! "No, I think I won't go to
the dance tonight," he said, dejectedly. "I'll go to bed."



CHAPTER ELEVEN - The Whip Cracks


THAT night Benny Abell was posted in the flying field to watch Nick's
movements while everybody was at the dance. He reported next day that
Nick had taken off in his Moth plane at 10:45, and had flown southwest
as well as he could judge. He had returned at 4 A.M. just as it was
growing light.

"Out of town collections," said Mme. Storey, dryly.

When we came downstairs at ten o'clock next morning, nobody was
stirring. Mme. Storey ordered her car, and we drove into Mrs. Lysaght's,
where there was a pile of letters, telegrams, and phone messages
awaiting attention. A girl named Madge Caswell, who had worked for us
before, had been secretly brought