Part 25 (1/2)
”Perfectly,” rejoined Warriner. ”As usual, the truth lay in the middle distance. Now you go on, Betty; this is your part of the story.”
”My part of the story!” echoed Betty deprecatingly. ”I'm not an author; I'm merely the amanuensis, the typist, if you please.”
”Mock modesty,” proclaimed Warriner. ”Even now we would still be standing before a closed door were it not for Betty and her master-key.”
”Yes, my master-key,” scoffed Betty. ”Only it doesn't seem very clever of me to have carried it all these months without ever thinking to use it.”
”Perhaps you couldn't find your pocket,” suggested Chalmers.
”Enough of this bush-beating and persiflage,” I commanded severely.
”Will you go on and tell me, Betty?”
”Well,” began my wife obediently, ”we had been warned away from the 'Hundred,' but you were obstinate and wouldn't budge; you had to be saved in spite of yourself.
”Of course I was right in going North immediately after the Midsummer Night's ball at 'Powersthorp.' Little Hugh really needed the change, and I wanted to be able to call at will on Chalmers for a.s.sistance in working out my problem. I couldn't do so if I stayed on at the 'Hundred,' even by means of correspondence. I don't suppose, Hugh, that I need to particularize any further in this direction?”
I mumbled something unintelligible, and, to add to my discomfiture, Warriner actually laughed. Never mind; I deserved it all.
”I could feel reasonably easy in my mind,” went on Betty, ”since I knew that the library had been dismantled and locked up. Besides, I had your solemn promise that you would not attempt to enter it for any purpose.”
”I forgot,” I murmured.
”That sounds like honest penitence, and I can forgive you--now. But I shall never be able to forget the afternoon your letter came with its calm announcement that you had been in the room to see about the damaged window; yes, and would probably have to go again.
”That letter reached Stockbridge at ten o'clock in the morning of Thursday, the twenty-first. Fifteen minutes later an express train left for New York, and Chalmers and I were the pa.s.sengers on it, leaving Hilda to follow with the nurse and the baby. At the first opportunity I sent you a telegram. Did you receive it?”
My thoughts went back to the yellow telegraphic sheet clutched in John Thaneford's black-knuckled hands, and held up before my helpless eyes.
”Yes, it came,” I answered slowly, ”but too late to be of any use.”
”I was afraid of that,” said Betty, ”but we were leaving no stone unturned. We were missing connections all the way down, and I knew that the trap was ready for springing. And someone else knew it, too--John Thaneford.”
”But,” I objected, ”Eunice expressly says that John Thaneford did not know the secret; except perhaps in part.”
”What did he mean then by stupefying you with whiskey, and placing you, bound and helpless, in the big swivel-chair?” put in Warriner.
I was silent.
”Finally,” continued Warriner, ”it seemed certain that something had gone wrong with the working of the machinery, whatever it was. Whereupon he started for you--you remember--with bare hands.”
Ah, yes, I remembered.
”Unquestionably, Thaneford was carrying out a perfectly definite plan of procedure. He knew what ought to have happened.”
”But it didn't happen,” I protested. ”I'm here and very much alive.”
”It did, and it didn't,” retorted Warriner. ”John Thaneford is dead.”
”You mean--you mean----” I boggled.