Part 34 (1/2)
Mrs. Cunningham was a pretty, frivolous-looking woman, with appealing blue eyes, and a manner half-childish, half-apologetic.
I smiled involuntarily to see how nearly her appearance coincided with the picture in my mind, and I greeted her almost as if she were a previous acquaintance.
”I know I've done very wrong,” she began, with a nervous little flutter of her pretty hands; ”but I'm ready now to 'fess up, as the children say.”
She looked at me, so sure of an answering smile, that I gave it, and said,
”Let us hear your confession, Mrs. Cunningham; I doubt if it's a very dreadful one.”
”Well, you see,” she went on, ”that gold bag is mine.”
”Yes,” I said; ”how did it get here?”
”I've no idea,” she replied, and I could see that her shallow nature fairly exulted in the sensation she was creating. ”I went to New York that night, to the theatre, and I carried my gold bag, and I left it in the train when I got out at the station.”
”West Sedgwick?” I asked.
”No; I live at Marathon Park, the next station to this.”
”Next on the way to New York?”
”Yes. And when I got out of the train--I was with my husband and some other people--we had been to a little theatre party--I missed the bag. But I didn't tell Jack, because I knew he'd scold me for being so careless. I thought I'd get it back from the Lost and Found Department, and then, the very next day, I read in the paper about the--the--awful accident, and it told about a gold bag being found here.”
”You recognized it as yours?”
”Of course; for the paper described everything in it--even to the cleaner's advertis.e.m.e.nt that I'd just cut out that very day.”
”Why didn't you come and claim it at once?”
”Oh, Mr. Burroughs, you must know why I didn't! Why, I was scared 'most to death to read the accounts of the terrible affair; and to mix in it, myself--ugh! I couldn't dream of anything so horrible.”
It was absurd, but I had a desire to shake the silly little bundle of femininity who told this really important story, with the twitters and simpers of a silly school-girl.
”And you would not have come, if I had not written you?”
She hesitated. ”I think I should have come soon, even without your letter.”
”Why, Mrs. Cunningham?”
”Well, I kept it secret as long as I could, but yesterday Jack saw that I had something on my mind. I couldn't fool him any longer.”
”As to your having a mind!” I said to myself, but I made no comment aloud.
”So I told him all about it, and he said I must come at once and tell Miss Lloyd, because, you see, they thought it was her bag all the time.”
”Yes,” I said gravely; ”it would have been better if you had come at first, with your story. Have you any one to substantiate it, or any proofs that it is the truth?”
The blue eyes regarded me with an injured expression. Then she brightened again.
”Oh, yes, I can 'prove property'; that's what you mean, isn't it? I can tell you which glove finger is ripped, and just how much money is in the bag, and--and here's a handkerchief exactly like the one I carried that night. Jack said if I told you all these things, you'd know it's my bag, and not Miss Lloyd's.”
”And then, there was a card in it.”