The Million-Dollar Suitcase, Alice MacGowan [free ebooks romance novels .TXT] 📗

Sunday. Jim Edwards had dined informally at the Thornhills'. As he told it to me later, they were all sitting out on the side porch after dinner, and nobody noticed that Ina wasn't with them until they heard cries coming from somewhere over in the direction of the Gilbert place. At my house, I'd heard it, and we both ran for the garage, where the screams were repeated again and again. We got there about the same time, found the disturbance was in the study, and Edwards who was ahead of me rushed up and hammered on its door."

Again Jim Edwards stopped the nervous drumming of his fingers on the window-sill while he stared at the younger man as at some prodigy of nature. Finally he seemed unable to hold in any longer.

"Hammered on the door!" he repeated. "If you're going to turn out the whole damn' thing to Boyne, tell it straight; door was open; we couldn't have heard a yip out of Ina if it hadn't been. Tom there in full sight, sitting in his desk chair, cool as a cucumber, letting her scream."

"I'm telling this," Vandeman snapped. "Gilbert looked to me like an insane man. Jim, you're crazy as he was, to say anything else. Never supposed for a minute you thought otherwise—that poor girl there, dazed with fright, backed as far away from him as she could get, hair flying, eyes wild."

I looked from one to the other. What Edwards had said of the cold, contemptuous old man; what Vandeman told of the screaming girl; no answer to such a proposition of course but an attempted frame-up. To let the bridegroom get by would best serve my purpose.

"All right, gentlemen," I said. "And now could you tell me what action you took, on this state of affairs?"

"Action?" Vandeman gave me an uneasy look. "What was there to do? Told you I thought the man was crazy."

"And you, Edwards?"

"Let it go as Bronse says. I cut back to Mrs. Thornhill's, scouting to see what the chance was for getting Ina in without the family knowing anything."

"That's right," Vandeman said. "I stayed to fetch her. She was fine. To the last, she let Gilbert save his face—actually send her home as though she were the one to blame. Right then I knew I loved her—wanted her for my wife. On the way home, I asked her and was accepted."

"In spite of the fact that she was engaged to Worth Gilbert?"

"Boyne," he said impatiently, "what's the matter with you? Haven't I made you understand what happened there at the study? She had to break off with the son of a man like that. Ina Thornhill couldn't marry into such a breed."

"Slow up, Vandeman!" Edwards' tone was soft, but when I looked at him, I saw a tawny spark in his black eyes. Vandeman fronted him with the flamboyant embroidered monogram on his shirt sleeve, the carefully careless tie, the utterly good clothes, and, most of all, at the moment, the smug satisfaction in his face of social and human security. I thought of what that Frenchman says about there being nothing so enjoyable to us as the troubles of our friends. "Needn't think you can put it all over the boy when he's not here to defend himself—jump on him because he's down! Tell that your wife discarded him—cast him off—for disgraceful reasons! Damnitall! You and I both heard Tom giving her her orders to break with his son, she sniffling and hunting hairpins over the floor and promising that she would."

"Cut it out!" yelled Vandeman, as though some one had pinched him. "I saw nothing of the sort. I heard nothing of the sort. Neither did you."

I think they had forgotten me, and that they remembered at about the same instant that they were talking before a detective. They both turned, mum and startled looking, Edwards to his window, Vandeman to a nervous brushing of his trouser edges, from which he looked up, inquiring doubtfully,

"What next, Boyne? Jim's excited; but you understand that there's no animus; and my wife and I are entirely at your disposal in this matter."

"Thank you," I said.

"Would you like to talk to her?"

"I would."

"When?"

"Now."

"Where?"

"Here—or let the lady say."

Vandeman gave me a queer look and went out. When he was gone, I found Jim Edwards scrabbling for his hat where it had dropped over behind the desk. I put my back against the door and asked,

"Is Bronson Vandeman a fatuous fool; or does he take me for one?"

"Some men defend their women one way, and some another. Let me out of this, Boyne, before that girl gets here."

"She won't come in a hurry," I smiled. "Her husband's pretty free with his promises; but more than likely I'll have to go after her if I want her."

"Well?" he looked at me uncomfortably.

"Blackmail's a crime, you know, Edwards. A woman capable of it, might be capable of murder."

"You've got the wrong word there, Boyne. This wasn't exactly blackmail."

"What, then?"

"The girl—I never liked her—never thought she was good enough for Worth—but she was engaged to him, and—in this I think she was fighting for her hand."

He searched my face and went on cautiously,

"You read the diaries. They must have had complaints of her."

"They had," I assented.

"Anything about money?"

I shook my head.

"You said there were two entries gone; the first would have told you, I suppose—Before we go further, Boyne, let me make a little explanation to you—for the girl's sake."

"Shoot," I said.

"It was this way," he sighed. "Thornhill, Ina's father, made fifteen or twenty thousand a year I would say, and the family lived it up. He had a stroke and died in a week's time. Left Mrs. Thornhill with her daughters, her big house, her fine social position—and mighty little to keep it up on. Ina is the eldest. She got the worst of it, because at the first of her being a young lady she was used to having all the money she wanted to spend. The twins were right on her heels; the thing for her to do was to make a good marriage, and make it quick. But she got engaged to Worth; then he went to France. There you were. He might never come back. Tom always hated her; watched her like a hawk; got onto something she—about—"

"Out with it," I said. "What? Come down to cases."

"Money." He uttered the one word and stood silent.

I made a long shot, with,

"Mr. Gilbert found she'd been getting money from other men—"

"Borrowing, Boyne—they used the word 'borrowed,'" Edwards put in. "It was always Tom's way to summon people as though he had a little private judgment bar, haul them up and lecture them; I suppose he thought he had a special license in her case."

"And she went prepared to frame him and bluff him to a standoff. Is that the way you saw it?"

"My opinion—what I might think," said Mr. James Edwards of Sunnyvale ranch, "wouldn't be testimony in a court of law. You don't want it, Boyne."

"Maybe not," I grunted. "Perhaps I could make as good a guess as you could at what young Mrs. Vandeman's capable of; a dolly face, and behind it the courage of hell."

"Boyne," he said, as I left the door free to him, "quit making war on women."

"Can't," I grinned and waved him on out. "The detective business would be a total loss without 'em."

CHAPTER XXII A DINNER INVITATION

"Look what's after you, man," Skeet warned me from her lofty perch as I went out through the big room in quest of Ina Vandeman. "Better you stay here. I gif you a yob. Lots safer—only run the risk of getting your neck broken."

I grinned up into her jolly, freckled face, and waited for the woman who came toward me with that elastic, swinging movement of hers, the well-opened eyes studying me, keeping all their secrets behind them.

"Mr. Boyne," a hand on my arm guided me to a side door; we stepped together out on to a small balcony that led to the lawn. "My husband brought me your message. Nobody over by the tennis court; let's go and walk up and down there."

Her fingers remained on my sleeve as we moved off; she emphasized her points from time to time by a slight pressure.

"Such a relief to have a man like you in charge of this investigation." She gave me an intimate smile; tall as she was, her face was almost on a level with my own, yet I still found her eyes unreadable, none of those quick tremors under the skin that register the emotions of excitable humanity. She remained a handsome, perfectly groomed, and entirely unruffled young woman.

"Thank you," was all I said.

"Mr. Vandeman and I understand how very, very serious this is. Of course, now, neighbors and intimates of Mr. Gilbert are under inspection. Everybody's private affairs are liable to be turned out. We've all got to take our medicine. No use feeling personal resentment."

Fine; but she'd have done better to keep her hands off me. An old police detective knows too much of the class of women who use that lever. I looked at them now, white, delicate, many-ringed, much more expressive than her face, and I thought them capable of anything.

"Here are the names you'll want," she fumbled in the girdle of her gown, brought out a paper and passed it over. "These are the ones who stayed after the reception, went up to my room with me, and helped me change—or rather, hindered me."

"The ones," I didn't open the paper yet, just looked at her across it, "who were with you all the time from the reception till you left the house for San Francisco?"

"It's like this," again she smiled at me, "the five whose names are on that paper might any one of them have been in and out of my room during the time. I can't say as to that. But they can swear that I wasn't out of the room—because I wasn't dressed. As soon as I changed from my wedding gown to my traveling suit, I went down stairs and we were all together till we drove to San Francisco and supper at Tait's, where I had the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Boyne."

"I understand," I said. "They could all speak for you—but you couldn't speak for them." Then I opened and looked. Some list! The social and financial elect of Santa Ysobel: bankers' ladies; prune kings' daughters; persons you couldn't doubt, or buy. But at the top of all was Laura Bowman's name.

We had halted for the turn at the end of the court. I held the paper before her.

"How about this one? Do you think she was in the room all the time? Or have you any recollection?"

The bride moved a little closer and spoke low.

"Laura and the doctor were in the middle of one of their grand rows. She's a bunch of temperament. Mamma was ill; the girls were having to start out with only Laura for chaperone; she said something about going somewhere, and it wouldn't take her long—she'd be back in plenty of time. But whether she went or not—Mr. Boyne, you don't want us to tell you our speculations and guesses? That wouldn't be fair, would it?"

"It wouldn't hurt anything," I countered. "I'll only make use of what can be proven. Anything you say is safe with me."

"Well, then, of course you know all about the situation between Laura and Jim Edwards. Laura was determined she wouldn't go up to San Francisco with her husband—or if she did, he must drive her back the same night. She wouldn't even leave our house to get her things from home; the doctor, poor man, packed some sort of bag for her