Part 22 (2/2)

”Oh, come now, Win, not as bad as that.”

”They don't think it's bad. They're bound to track down the Van Allen girl, and they hold the opinion that everybody they get hold of may be an important witness. They go over the reports from the inquest all the time, and can hardly wait till tomorrow to see what will come out next.”

”Me for them,” I responded. ”I'd like a good chat on the subject.”

We went over to the Fifth Avenue house, and were admitted by the solemn and wise-eyed butler. I was shown to the library, while Winnie was directed to go to Mrs. Schuyler's room.

But it was not long before we were all together in the library--widow, sisters, and all, for Lowney had made a discovery and he proposed to tell the family of it.

Win and I were allowed to be present, and the detective showed his new find.

It seems he had been searching the papers and letters of the late Mr.

Schuyler. This had been not only permitted by the wife, but had been urged by the sisters, who hoped it might result in some further light on the mysterious Miss Van Allen. And it did. In the desk, in a secret compartment--which was not so secret but that the detective could open it--were a number of letters from feminine pens, and a number of receipted bills for jeweled trinkets, presumably sent to these or other ladies, for they were not of a sort affected by Ruth Schuyler or the two sisters. A blue enameled watch bracelet, and a rhinestone tiara were representative purchases entered on these bills.

But the pile of letters sank into insignificance, when we learned the fact that there was a letter from Vicky Van among them!

Regardless of Mrs. Schuyler's feelings, Lowney read the letter aloud.

This was it:

My Dear Mr. Schuyler:

I enjoyed your supper party, and it was good of you to give me inside information about the stocks. But I must beg of you to cease your further attentions to me, as I cannot number on my list of calling acquaintances the husband of another woman. I am, perhaps, rather prudish in my view of life, but this is one of my inviolable rules.

Very truly yours, Victoria Van Allen.

I knew that before. Vicky Van, living alone and unchaperoned, save for the ubiquitous Julie, flouted convention in many ways, but it was as she said, her inviolable rule to receive no married man without his wife at her parties. Nor was there often occasion for her to use this stipulation. The young people whom I had met at her house, had always been maids and bachelors, and now and then, a young married couple who playfully enacted a chaperon part. Mrs. Reeves, a widow, was probably the oldest of the crowd, but she was well under forty.

It was quite true, no married man, and indeed, no man of the type or age of Randolph Schuyler, had ever, to my knowledge, enjoyed the friends.h.i.+p of Vicky Van. But not for a minute, did I think that she would go so far as to kill him for daring to enter her house! That was unthinkable.

And yet, it seemed so to Lowney, and, apparently, to the sisters of the dead man.

She declared that the letter proved that Randolph had intruded on her acquaintance, and she had objected from coyness or coquetry; and that when he persisted, she was so enraged that she flew into a pa.s.sion and wilfully ended his life.

”I can't think that,” said Ruth Schuyler, wearily. ”It seems more to me as if that letter exculpates the girl. She was quite evidently not in love with my husband, and she honestly tried to make him understand her scruples. So I can't think she killed him. I did think so at first, of course, but on thinking things over, and in the light of this letter, I begin to believe her innocent. What date does the letter bear?”

”There's no date,” said Lowney, looking at the paper. ”It was not in an envelope--”

”Then how did it reach my husband?”

”Oh, of course, it came in an envelope, I suppose, but I found none with it. So we can't tell where it was sent, here or to one of his clubs or to his office address.”

”Not here, I'm sure,” said Mrs. Schuyler. ”Probably to his club. You are quite welcome to the letter, Mr. Lowney. Make what use you think best of it. If it serves to establish Miss Van Allen's innocence, I shall be rather glad. But if it seems to throw further suspicion on her, then justice must be done.”

”Of course, it throws suspicion on that woman!” declared Miss Rhoda Schuyler, with a vindictive glance at the letter in Lowney's hand.

”The hussy, to write to Randolph at all!”

”But,” I interposed, unable to stand this unjust speech, ”Mr. Schuyler must have made advances to her first.”

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