Part 40 (2/2)
”He wasn't good to me,” said Ruth, quietly, ”nor was I ungrateful.
Randolph Schuyler spoiled my life; he denied me everything I asked for, every innocent pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt. So, I found them for myself. I did nothing wrong. As Victoria Van Allen I had friends and pleasures that suited my age and my love of life, but there never was anything wrong or guilty in my house---”
”Until you killed your husband!” interrupted Sarah.
”Until the night of Randolph Schuyler's appearance at Vicky Van's house,” Ruth went on. ”I had been told of a Mr. Somers who wanted to know me, but I had no idea it was my husband masquerading under a false name. He came there with Mr. Steele. Of course, I recognized him, but he did not know me at once. I sat, playing bridge, and wondering how I could best make my escape. I saw that he didn't know me and then, suddenly as I sat, holding my cards, and he stood beside me, he noticed a tiny scar on my shoulder. He made that scar himself, one night, when he hit me with a hot curling iron.”
”What!” I cried, unable to repress an exclamation of horror.
”Yes, I was curling my hair with the tongs and he became angry at me for some trivial reason, as he often did, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the iron and hit my shoulder. It made a deep burn and he was very sorry.
”Whenever he saw it afterward he said, 'Never again!' meaning he would never strike me again. Then, when he noticed the scar that night, although I had put on a light scarf to cover it, he said 'Never again!' in that peculiar intonation, and I knew then that he knew Victoria Van Allen was his own wife.
”I ran out to the dining-room and he followed me.”
”And you stabbed him!” cried Rhoda; ”stabbed your husband! Murderess!”
”I don't deny it,” said Ruth, slowly. ”The jury must decide that. I must be tried, I suppose--”
”Don't, Ruth!” I cried, in agony. ”Don't talk like that! You shall not be tried! You didn't kill Schuyler! If you did it was in self-defence.
Wasn't it? Didn't he try to kill you?”
”Yes, he did. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the little carver from the sideboard and attacked me,--and I--and I--”
”Don't say it, Ruth--keep still!” I ordered, beside myself with my whirling thoughts. The little carving-knife!
”And you defended yourself with the caterer's knife--” began Stone, but Fibsy wailed, ”No! No! It wasn't Mrs. Schuyler! I've got the prints from the caterer's knife and they ain't Mrs. Schuyler's at all!
She didn't kill him!”
”No, she didn't!” and Tibbetts appeared in the library doorway. ”I did it myself.”
”That's right!” and Fibsy's eyes gleamed satisfaction; ”she did! It's her fingermarks on the knife that stabbed old Schuyler. They're plain as print! n.o.body thought of matching up those marks with Tibbetts's mitt! But I'll bet she did it to save Mrs. Schuyler's life!”
”I did,” and Tibbetts came into the room and stood facing us.
”Tell your story,” said Stone, abruptly, as he looked at the white-faced woman.
”Here it is,” and Tibbetts looked fondly at Ruth as the latter's piteous glance met hers. ”I've loved and watched over Mrs. Schuyler all her life. I've protected her from her husband's brutality and helped her to bear his cruelty and unkindness. When she conceived the plan of the double life I helped her all I could, and I got my cousin to do the work on the houses that made it all possible. Then, I was Julie, and I devoted my life and energies to keeping the secret and allowing my mistress to have some pleasure out of her life. And she did.” Tibbets looked affectionately, even proudly, at Ruth. ”The hours she spent in that house as Victoria Van Allen were full of simple joys and happy occupation. She had the books and pictures and furniture that she craved. She had things to eat and things to wear that she wanted. She went to parties and she had parties; she went to the theatre and to the shops, and wherever she chose, without let or hindrance. It did my heart good to see her enjoy herself in those innocent ways.
”Then Mr. Schuyler came. I knew the man. I knew that he came because he had heard of the charm and beauty of Vicky Van. He had no idea he would find her his own wife! When he did discover it I knew he would kill her. Oh, I knew Randolph Schuyler! I knew nothing short of murder would satisfy the rage that possessed him at the discovery. I prepared for it. I got the little boning-knife from the pantry, and as Mr. Schuyler lifted the carver and aimed it at Ruth's breast I drove the little knife into his vile, wicked, murderer's heart. And I'm glad I did it! I glory in it! I saved Ruth's life and I rid the world of a scoundrel and a villain who had no right to live and breathe on G.o.d's earth! Now, you may take me and do with me as you will. I give myself up.”
It was the truth. On the carving-knife appeared, plain as print, the finger marks of Randolph Schuyler, proved a hundred times by prints photographed from his own letters, toilet articles, and personal belongings in his own rooms. In his mad fury at the discovery of Ruth masquerading as Vicky Van, and in his sudden realization of all that it meant, he clutched the first weapon he saw, the little carver, to end her life and gratify his madness for revenge. Just in time, the watching Tibbets had intervened, stabbed Schuyler, and then ran upstairs, to escape through the hidden doors to the other house.
Ruth, stunned at the sight of the blow driven by Tibbetts, and dazed by her own narrow escape from a fearful death, picked up the carver that dropped from Schuyler's lifeless hand and ran upstairs, too.
She had, she explained afterward, a hazy idea that she was picking up the knife that Tibbetts had used, so bewildered was she at the swift turn of events. And as she stooped over Schuyler in her frenzy the waiter had seen her and a.s.sumed she was the murderer. This, too, explained the blood on the flounces of her gown--it had brushed the fallen figure of her husband and became stained at the touch.
The two women had, of course, slipped through the connecting mirror doors into the Schuyler house, and long before the alarm was brought there they were rehabilitated and ready to receive the news.
Then Ruth's quandary was a serious one. Innocent herself, she could not tell of her double life without making the whole affair public and incriminating Tibbetts, whom she loved almost as a mother and who had saved Ruth's life by a fraction of a second. An instant's delay and Schuyler's knife would have been driven into Ruth's heart.
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