Isham Frederic Stewart
Nothing But the Truth

Of course, the young ladies would not appear on the scene as Gee-gee and Gid-up, in all probability. No doubt, they would assume other and more appropriate cognomens (non equine). The last show they had played in, had just closed, so a little society engagement, with strong publicity possibilities, on the side, could not be anything but appealing, especially to Gee-gee with her practical tendencies. Of course, they would have to make a brave effort to put on their society manners, but Gid-up had once had a home and Gee-gee knew how people talked in the society novels. Trust Gee-gee to adapt herself!

Bob felt he could figure it all out. Their coming so late would seem to indicate they had been sent for in haste. Mrs. Dan, perhaps, had become alarmed and wasn’t going to take any more chances with the commodore who was capable of sequestering her witnesses, of inveigling them on board one of his friend’s yachts, for example, and then marooning them on a desert isle, or transporting them to one of those cafe chantants of Paris. Besides, with that after-midnight “hug” and “grizzly” going on, Mrs. Dan knew it wouldn’t much matter how late the pair arrived.

By the time Bob had argued this out, he was a long way from the village. He had been walking mechanically toward the Ralston house and now found himself on the verge of the grounds. After a moment’s hesitation, he went in and walked up to the house. The dancing had, at length, ceased and the big edifice was now almost dark. The inmates, or most of them, seemed to have retired. A few of the men might yet be lingering in the smoking-room or over billiards. For a minute or two Bob stood in silent meditation. Then his glance swept toward a certain trellis, and a sudden thought smote him.

Wasn’t he still Mrs. Ralston’s guest? The period for which he had been invited hadn’t expired and he hadn’t, as yet, been asked to vacate the premises. True, some people had forcibly, and in a most highhanded manner, removed him for a brief period, but they had not been acting for Mrs. Ralston, or by her orders. He was, therefore, legitimately still a guest and it was obviously his duty not to waive the responsibility. He might not want to come back but he had to. That even-tenor-of-his-way condition demanded it. Besides, manhood revolted against retreat under fire. To run away, as he had told himself in the car with Miss Dolly, was a confession of guilt. He must face them once more – even Miss Gerald and the hammer-thrower. He could in fancy, see himself handcuffed in her presence, but he couldn’t help it. Better that, than to be hunted in the byways and hovels of New York! Oddly, too, the idea of a big comfortable bed appealed to him.

He climbed up the trellis and stood on the balcony upon which his room opened. Pushing up a window, he entered and feeling around in the darkness he came upon his grip where he had left it. He drew the curtains, turned on the lights and undressed. He acted just as if nothing had happened. Then, donning his pajamas, he turned out the lights, drew back the curtains once more, and tumbled into the downy.

CHAPTER XV – AN EXTRAORDINARY INTERVIEW

But he could not sleep; his brain was too busy. He wondered in what part of the house Gee-gee and Gid-up were domiciled? He wondered if Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence were drawing up affidavits? He wondered if that taxicab man had yet come to town and if he would get out a warrant, charging him (Bob) with assault? He wondered if Dan and Clarence knew Gee-gee and Gid-up were here, and if so, what would they do about it? Would they, too, come prancing on the scene? He wondered if Miss Gerald were engaged to the hammer-man? He wondered if the maniac-medico would think of looking for him (Bob) here? He wondered where the police were looking for him and who was the thief, anyway? This last mental query led him to consider the guests, one by one.

He began with the bishop. Suspicion, of course, could not point in that direction. Still, there was that play, Deacon Brodie– a very good man was a thief in it. But a deacon wasn’t a bishop. Besides, Bob had great respect for the cloth. He dismissed the bishop with an inward apology. He next considered the judge, but the judge was too portly for those agile sleight-of-hand feats and the deft foot-work required. He passed on to the doctor. The doctor had delicate little hands, adapted for filching work, but he was too much absorbed in cutting up little dogs and cats to care for such insensible trifles as glittering gee-gaws. The doctor might be capable of absconding with a Fido or somebody’s pet Meow, but an inanimate Kooh-i-nor would hold for him no temptations. So from Doc, Bob passed on to Mrs. Van. But she wouldn’t surreptitiously appropriate her own brooch. He even considered the temperamental young thing whose interest in crime and criminals was really shocking.

He had got about this far in thrashing things over in his mind when a rather startling realization that he wasn’t alone in the room smote him. Some one was over there – at the window, and that some one had softly crossed the room. Bob made an involuntary movement, turning in bed to see plainer, when with a slight sound of suppressed surprise, the some one almost magically disappeared. Bob couldn’t tell whether he had gone out of the window, or had sprung back into the room and was now concealing himself behind the heavy curtains. The young man made a sudden rush for the window and grab for the curtain, only to discover there was no one there; nor could he see any one on the balcony, or climbing down. He did see below, however, a skulking figure fast vanishing among the shrubbery. A moment, the thought of the commodore insinuated itself in the young man’s bewildered brain, but the commodore would not again be trying to see him (Bob) here, for the very good reason that Dan could not know Bob was here. No one yet knew Bob had returned to Mrs. Ralston’s house. The commodore and Clarence no doubt still believed Bob to be shut up in a cute little cubby-hole with bars.

The skulking figure below, then, could be dissociated from the complicated domestic tangle; his proper place was in that other silent drama, dealing with mysterious peculations. Should Bob climb down, follow and attempt to capture him? Bob had on only his pajamas and already the fellow was far away. He would lead any one a fine chase and Bob hadn’t any special desire to go romping over hills in his present attire, or want of attire. If any one caught him doing it, what excuse could he make? That he was chasing an accomplice of a thief inside the house who had probably dropped his glittering booty for his pal to take away? But he (Bob) was supposed to be that inside-operator, himself, and he wouldn’t be chasing his own pal. Or again, if he were detected in that sprinting performance by those who didn’t know he was supposed to be an inside-operator, but who thought him only a plain crazy man, wouldn’t the necessity for his reincarceration be but emphasized? Maybe this latter contingent of his enemies would consider a plain, public insane asylum, without flowers in the window, good enough for him. They, undoubtedly, would so conclude if they knew the state of Bob’s private fortune, which certainly did not justify private institutions.

A slight noise behind him drove all these considerations from Bob’s mind. He dove at once in the direction of the sound, only to fall over his grip, and as he sprawled, not heroically, in the dark, his door was opened and closed almost noiselessly. Exasperated, he gathered himself together and made for the door. Throwing it back, he gazed down the hall, only to see a figure swiftly vanishing around a dimly-lighted corner. Bob couldn’t make out whether it was a man or a woman, but seeing no one else in the hall, he impetuously and recklessly darted after it. When he reached the corner, however, the figure was gone.

Bob stood in a quandary. There were a good many different doors around that corner. Through which one had his mysterious visitor vanished? If he but knew, he felt certain he could place his hand on the much wanted individual who was making such a nuisance of himself in social circles. He might be able to rid society of one of those essentially modern pests, and at the same time lift the mantle of suspicion from himself. At least, he would be partly rehabilitated. Later, he might complete the process. And oh, to have her once more see him as he was.

He was sorely tempted to try a door. He even put his hand on the knob of the door nearest the corner. The figure must have turned in here; he couldn’t have gone farther without Bob’s having caught sight of him. At least, Bob felt almost sure of this conclusion, having attained that corner with considerable celerity, himself.

Almost on the point of turning the knob, prudence bade Bob to pause. Suppose he made a mistake? Suppose, for example, he stumbled upon Gee-gee’s room, or Gid-up’s? The perspiration started on Bob’s brow. Gee-gee would be quite capable of hanging on to him and then raising a row, just for publicity purposes. She would make “copy” out of anything, that girl would. Then, if it wasn’t Gee-gee’s room, it might be Mrs. Van’s. Fancy his invading the privacy of that austere lady’s boudoir! Bob’s hand shook slightly and the knob rattled a trifle; he hastily released it. To his horror a voice called out.

“Any one there?”

It was Gee-gee. Bob stood still, not daring to stir, lest Gee-gee, with senses alert, should hear him and come out and find him. He prayed devoutly not to be “found.” It was bad enough to be crazy, and to be a social buccaneer, without having Miss Gerald look upon him as an intrigant, a Don Juan and a Jonathan Wild all rolled into one. Bob wanted to flee the worst way, but still he thought it better to contain himself and stand there like a wooden man a few moments longer.

“Any one there?” repeated Gee-gee.

A neighboring door opened and one of the last men Bob wanted to see, under the circumstances, looked out. It was the hammer-thrower and his honest face expressed a world of wonder, incredulity and reproach, as he beheld and recognized Bob, who didn’t know what to do, or to say. He certainly didn’t want to say anything though, having no desire to agitate Miss Gee-gee any further. Fortunately, the hammer-thrower seemed too amazed for words. He just kept looking and looking. “Where on earth did you come from?” his glance seemed to say. “Are you the ghost of Bob Bennett? And if you aren’t, what are you doing here, before a lady’s door, at this time of night?”

Disapproval now became mixed with indecision in the hammer-thrower’s glance. He seemed trying to make up his mind whether or not it was a case demanding forcible measures on his part. Was it his duty to spring upon Bob, then and there, and “show him up” before the world? Bob read the thought. In another moment Gee-gee might come to the door, and then – ? Bob suddenly and desperately determined to throw himself upon the mercy of the hammer-thrower. Indeed, he had no choice.

Quickly he moved to the door where his hated rival stood and as quickly pushed by him and entered that person’s room. At the same moment Gee-gee unlocked her door. Bob couldn’t see her, though, as he was now thankfully swallowed up in the depths of a recess in the hammer-thrower’s room. Gee-gee peeked out. She met the eye of the hammer-thrower who had modestly withdrawn most of his person back into his apartment and who now suffered only a fraction of his face to be revealed to Gee-gee at that unseemly hour and place, and under such unseemly circumstances.

“I beg your pardon,” said the hammer-thrower deferentially, and in a very low tone, “but did you call out?”

“Yes, I thought I heard some one at my door.”

Bob hardly breathed. Would the hammer-thrower hale him forth? Would he toss him – or try to – right out into the hall at Gee-gee’s feet?

“I – I don’t see any one,” said the hammer-thrower hesitatingly, and still in a very low tone. His hesitation, however, told Bob he had considered or was still considering that forcible policy.

“I certainly thought I did hear some one,” observed Gee-gee, matching the other’s tones. His voice seemed to imply that it might be as well not to arouse any others of the household and Gee-gee involuntarily fell in with the suggestion.

“You – ” Again, however, that awful hesitation! The hammer-thrower had no reason to like Bob, for did he not know that young gentleman had the presumption to adore Miss Gerald? Still the apparently more successful suitor for Gwendoline’s hand had a sportsmanlike instinct. He’d been brought up to be conscientious. He had been educated to be gentlemanly and considerate. Perhaps he was asking himself now if it might not be more sportsmanlike not to denounce Bob, then and there, but to give him, at least, a chance to explain? “You – you must be mistaken,” said the hammer-thrower, after a pause, in a low tense whisper.

“You’re sure it wasn’t you?” murmured Gee-gee softly but suspiciously and eying the other’s open and trustworthy countenance.

“I?” For a moment Bob thought now, indeed, had come the time to eject him, but – “Is that a reasonable conjecture?” the other murmured back.

Gee-gee pondered. “No, it ain’t,” she confessed, at length. Locked double-doors separated her room and the hammer-thrower’s. He would surely have used a skeleton key on those doors were he the guilty party, instead of going out into the hall to try to get in that way. “I got to thinking of that swell burglar who is going the rounds, before I went to sleep,” murmured Gee-gee, “and I may have been dreaming of him! Sorry to have disturbed you.” And Gee-gee closed her door very quietly.

She thought she must have been mistaken about the intruder. Anyhow, there wasn’t much excitement for an actress any more, in being robbed. That advertising stunt had been so overworked that even the provincial dramatic critics yawned and tossed the advance man’s little yarn of “jewels lost” right into an unsympathetic waste-basket. A scandal in high life was always more efficacious. No one ever got tired of scandals and city editors simply clamored for “more.” So Gee-gee composed herself for sleep again. She had reason to be satisfied, for had not she and Gid-up, who roomed with her, sat up late and arranged final details before retiring?

Gid-up would say: “We’ll make it like this.” And Gee-gee would answer: “No, like this.” Of course, Gee-gee’s way was better. Upon a slender thread of fact she fashioned, as Dickie had feared, a most wonderful edifice of fancy. She had mapped out a case that would startle even dear old New York. “Better do it good, if we’re going to do it at all,” she had said. Gid-up had been a little doubtful at first, but she always did what Gee-gee told her to in the end. And Gee-gee knew she could depend upon Gid-up’s memory, for once the latter had had a small part. She had to say: “Send for the doctor” and she had never been known to get mixed up and say: “Send for the police,” or for the undertaker, or anything equally ridiculous. Having thoroughly rehearsed her lines, she would stick to them like a major. When Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence and the two G’s should get together on the morrow, the largest anticipations of the two former ladies would be realized. Gee-gee wouldn’t have Mrs. Dan disappointed for the world. Gid-up was rather afraid of Mrs. Clarence; however, she had been batted about by so many rough stage-managers and cranky musical-directors, she could stand almost anything.

But what about Bob?

That young gentleman, now seated in the hammer-thrower’s room, had frankly revealed what had happened to bring him out in the hall. In a low tone he told why he had approached Gee-gee’s door and what had been in his mind when he had placed his hand on the knob. The hammer-thrower, if not appearing particularly impressed by Bob’s story, listened gravely; occasionally he shook his head. It wasn’t, on the whole, a very reasonable-sounding yarn. Truth certainly sounded stranger than fiction in this instance. Bob couldn’t very well blame the other for not believing. Still he (Bob) owed him that explanation. Though he (Bob) might detest him as the man who would probably rob him of Miss Gerald’s hand, still the fact remained that the hammer-thrower appeared at present in the guise of his (Bob’s) savior. Bob couldn’t get away from this unpleasant conclusion. He didn’t want to have anything to do with the other and yet here he was in his room, actually being shielded by him. The situation was, indeed, well-nigh intolerable.

The hammer-thrower studied Bob with quiet earnest eyes, and the latter had to acknowledge to himself that the man’s face was strong and capable. If Miss Gerald married him – as seemed not unlikely – she would, at any rate, not get a weak man. He was about as big as Bob, though not so reckless-looking. Bob was handsomer, in his dashing way, but some girls, sensibly inclined, would prefer what might appear a more reliable type. The hammer-thrower looked so sure of himself and his ground he inspired confidence. He looked too sure of his ground now, as regards Bob.

“It won’t do,” he said with his usual directness to Bob, when the latter had finished explaining. “Sounds a little fishy! I’m sorry, old chap, but I shall have to have time to think it all over. And then I’ll try to decide what is best to be done. You say you were unjustly incarcerated in a private sanatorium.” Bob hadn’t explained the circumstances – who had “incarcerated” him and why. “That you were incarcerated at all is a matter of regret.”

“To you?” said Bob cynically.

“Of course.” Firmly, but with faint surprise. “You didn’t think I rejoiced at your misfortune, did you?”

“I didn’t know. I thought it possible.”

The hammer-thrower’s heavy brows drew together. “You seem to have a little misconception of my character,” he observed with a trace of formality. “You were incarcerated, apparently, pro bono publico. I had no hand in it. If I had been consulted, I should have hesitated some time before expressing an opinion.”

“Thanks,” said Bob curtly. Such generous reserve was rather galling, coming from this quarter.

“I’m afraid you don’t mean that,” replied the other. “And it’s a bad habit to say what you don’t mean. However, we are drifting from the subject. You will pardon me for not swallowing, a capite ad calcem, that little Münchhausen explanation of yours.”

“I don’t care whether you swallow it head, neck and breeches, or not,” returned Bob. The other had taken a classical course at college, and Bob conceived he was ponderously trying to show off, just to be annoying. He was adopting a doubly irritating and classical manner of calling Bob a liar. And that young man was not accustomed to being called that – at least, of yore! Maybe he would have to stand it now. It seemed so. “You’re like a good many other people I’ve met lately,” said Bob, not without a touch of weariness as well as bitterness. “You don’t know the truth when you hear it.”

The hammer-thrower drew up his heavy shoulders. “No use abusing me, old chap,” he said in even well-poised tones. “Am I at fault for your unpopularity? Indeed” – as if arguing with himself in his slow heavy fashion – “I fail to understand why you have made yourself unpopular. You seem to have proceeded with deliberate intention. However, that is irrelevant. You say there was some one in your room, or rather the room you were supposed to have vacated; but to which you have unaccountably returned – not, I imagine, by way of the front door.” Severely. “And after entering in burglarious fashion you pursued a phantom. The phantom vanished, leaving you in a compromising position. You expect people to believe that?” Shaking his head.

“I should be surprised if they did,” answered Bob gloomily. “I suppose you’ll tell everybody to-morrow.”

“That’s the question,” said the other seriously. “What is my duty in the matter? I don’t want to do you an irreparable injury, yet appearances certainly seem to indicate that you – ” He hesitated.

“Never mind the Latin for it,” said Bob. “Plain Anglo-Saxon will do. Call me a thief.”

“It’s an ugly word,” said the other reluctantly, “and – well, I don’t wish to be hasty. My father always told me to help a man whenever I could; not to shove him down. And maybe – ” He paused. There was really a nice expression on his strong face.

“Oh, you think I may be only a young offender – a juvenile in crime?” exclaimed Bob bitterly.

“The words are your own,” observed the other. “To tell you the truth,” seriously, “I hardly know what to think. It is all too extraordinary – too unexpected. I’ll have to ponder on it. The profs, at college always said I had the champion slow brain. The peculiar part to me is,” that puzzled look returning to his heavy features, “I can’t understand why you’re making people think what they do of you? Frankly, I don’t believe you’re ‘dippy.’ You were always rather – just what is the word? – ‘mercurial’ – yes; that will do. But your head looks right enough to me.”

“What’s the Latin for ‘Thank you’?” said Bob.

“Do you really think this is a trivial matter?” asked the other, bending a stronger glance upon his visitor. “I believe you are somewhat obligated to me. Please bear that in mind.” With quiet dignity. “As I was saying, your conduct since coming here, seems to baffle explanation – that is, the right one. I wonder what is your ‘lay,’ anyhow? What’s the idea? I like to be able to grasp people.” Forcefully. “And you escape me. I can’t get at the tangible in you. Nor” – with a sudden quick glance – “can Miss Gerald – ”

“Suppose we leave her name out,” said Bob sharply. “You’ve done me a favor which I ought not to have accepted. And I tell you frankly I’d rather have accepted it from any one else in the world.”

“I think I understand,” replied the other quietly, with no show of resentment on his heavy features. “Have a cigar?” Indicating a box on the table.

“I’d rather not.”

“Very well!”

For some moments Bob sat in moody silence. Then suddenly he got up.

“Am I to be permitted to return to my room?” he asked.

“I believe I told you I would consider your case,” said the hammer-thrower.

And Bob passed out. He regained his room without mishap, which rather surprised him. He almost expected to be intercepted by the monocle-man but nothing of the kind happened.