Part 19 (1/2)
”You remember me?” Dundee panted. ”Dundee of the district attorney's office. I questioned you this afternoon--”
The woman closed the single eye that had escaped the accident which had marred her face so hideously. ”I--remember.... I'm sick.... I told you all I know--”
”Lydia, why didn't you tell me that it was your mistress, Mrs. Selim who did--that?” Dundee demanded sternly, pointing to the woman's sightless left eye and ruined cheek.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lydia Carr, still clothed in the black cotton dress and white ap.r.o.n of her maid's uniform, struggled to a sitting position on the edge of her bas.e.m.e.nt room bed.
”No, no! That's a lie! It was an accident, I tell you--my own fault!... Who dared to say Nita--Miss Nita--did it?”
”Better lie down, Lydia,” Dundee suggested gently. ”I won't want you fainting. You've had a hard day with the abscessed tooth, the dope the dentist gave you, and--other things. I don't wonder that you lost your head, went a little crazy, perhaps--”
The detective's sinister implication seemed to make no impression at all upon the woman with the scarred face.
”I asked you--” she gasped, her single eye glaring at him, ”who dared say Nita burned me?”
”It was Nita herself who told me,” Dundee answered softly. ”Just a few minutes ago.”
”Holy Mother!” the maid gasped, and crossed herself dazedly.
Let her think the dead woman had appeared to him in a vision, Dundee told himself. Perhaps her confession would come the quicker--
The maid began to rock her gaunt body, her arms crossed over her flat chest. ”My poor little girl! Even in death she thinks of me, she's sorry--. She sent me a message, didn't she? Tell me! She was always trying to comfort me, sir! The poor little thing couldn't believe I'd forgiven her as soon as she done it--. Tell me!”
”Yes,” Dundee agreed, his eyes watching her keenly. ”She sent you a message--of a sort.... But I can't give it to you until you have told me all about the--accident in which you were burned.”
”I'll tell,” Lydia promised eagerly. Gone were the harshness and secretiveness with which she had met his earlier questioning.... ”You see, sir, I loved Miss Nita--I called her Nita, if you don't mind, sir.
I loved her like she was my own child. And she was fond of me, too, fonder of me than of anybody in the world, she used to tell me, when some man had hurt her bad.... And there was always some man or other, she was so sweet and so pretty.... Well, I found her in the bathroom one day, just ready to drink carbolic acid, to kill her poor little self--”
”When was that, Lydia?” Dundee interrupted.
”It was in February--Sunday, the ninth of February,” Lydia went on, still rocking in an agony of grief. ”I tried to take the gla.s.s out of her hands. She'd poured a lot of the stuff out of the bottle.... You see, she was already in a fit of hysterics, or she'd never have tried to kill herself.... It was my own fault, trying to take the gla.s.s away from her, like I did--”
”She flung the acid into your face?” Dundee asked, shuddering.
”She didn't know what she was doing!” the woman cried, glaring at him.
”Nearly went out of her mind, they told me at the hospital, because she'd hurt me.... A private room in the best hospital in New York she got for me, trained nurses night and day, and so many doctors fussing around me I wanted to fire the whole outfit and save some of my poor girl's money--which I don't know till this day how she got hold of--”
Dundee let her sob and rock her arms for a while unmolested. In February Nita Selim had had to borrow money to pay doctor and hospital bills. Had borrowed it or ”gold-dug” it.... And in May she had been rich enough to have $9,000 to invest!
”Lydia, you never forgave Nita Selim for ruining your life as well as your face!” Dundee charged her suddenly.
”You're a liar!” she cried pa.s.sionately. ”I know what I felt. It's _my_ face and _my_ life, ain't it? I tell you I didn't even bear a grudge against her--the poor little thing! Eating her heart out with sorrow for what she'd done--till the very day of her death! Always trying to make it up to me--paying me too much money for the handful of work I had to do, what with her eating out nearly all the time and throwing away stockings the minute they got a run in 'em--. Forgive her? I'd have crawled from here to New York on my hands and knees for Nita Leigh!”
Dundee studied her horribly scarred face, made more horrible now by what looked like genuine grief.
”Lydia, who was the man over whom your mistress wanted to commit suicide?”