Chapter XXVIII

Clancy was prepared to hear Spofford plead, argue, even threaten. Such action would have been quite consistent with his character as she understood it. But to her relief he accepted the situation. He rose stiffly from the chair.

"Well, I'll be moseyin' along. I'm gonna look into a coupla leads that may not mean anything. But y' never can tell in this business. Much obliged to you, Miss Deane. No hard feelings?"

"None at all," said Clancy. "I think--why I think it's _wonderful_ of you, Mr. Spofford, to be so--so friendly!"

Spofford blushed. It was probably the first time that a woman had brought the color to his cheeks--in anything save anger--for many years.

"Aw, now--why, Miss Deane--you know I--glad to meetcha," stammered Spofford. He made a stumbling, confused, and extremely light-hearted departure from the house. Somehow, he felt deeply obligated to Clancy Deane.

The door closed behind him, and Clancy sat down once again upon the stairs. She felt safe at last. Now that the danger was past, she did not know whether to laugh or cry. Was it past? Before yielding to either emotional impulse, why not analyze the situation? What had Spofford said? That until the murderer was captured, she would always be apprehensive. Until the murderer was caught----

She tapped her foot upon the lower stair. There was no questioning Spofford's sincerity. He did not believe her guilty. But---- The telephone-bell rang. It was Sally Henderson.

"Miss Deane?... Oh, is this you? This is Miss Henderson. Man named Randall telephoned a few minutes ago. Very urgent, he said. I don't like giving out telephone-numbers. Thought I'd call you. Want to talk with him?"

Like a flash Clancy replied,

"No."

No pique inspired her reply. Randall had not measured up. That the standard of measurement she applied was tremendously high made no difference to Clancy, abated no whit her judgment.

A week ago, she had met Randall. She had thought him kind. She had liked him. She had even debated within herself the advisability, the possibility of yielding to his evident regard. More than that, she had practically offered to marry him. And he had been cautious, had not leaped at the opportunity that, for one golden moment, had been his. Clancy did not phrase it exactly this way, but her failure to do so was not due to modesty. For never a woman walked to the altar but believed, in her heart of hearts, that she was giving infinitely more than she received.

"Probably," said Clancy, half aloud, "he's found out that the Walbroughs are still with me, and that Philip Vandervent isn't afraid of me----"

She thought of Vandervent's flowers, and the card that had accompanied them.

"What did you say?" demanded Sally Henderson. Clancy blushed furiously. She realized that she'd been holding on to the receiver. "I thought that you said something about Judge Walbrough."

"Lines must have been crossed," suggested Clancy.

"Rotten telephone service," said Miss Henderson. "Oh, and another man!"

Clancy felt pleasurably excited. Philip Vandervent----

"I didn't see him. Guernsey told him where you were. Guernsey is an ass! As if you'd have a brother almost fifty."

"What? I haven't any brother," cried Clancy.

"Lucky girl. When they weren't borrowing your money, they'd be getting you to help them out of scrapes or mind your sister-in-law's babies. Sorry. If you're frightened----"

"'Frightened?' Why?" demanded Clancy.

"Well, Guernsey told him where you were, and the man left here apparently headed for you."

Clancy's forehead wrinkled.

"What did he look like?" she asked.

"Oh, Guernsey couldn't describe him very well. Said he wore a mustache that looked dyed, and was short and stocky. That's all."

"Some mistake," said Clancy.

"Perhaps," said Miss Henderson dryly. "Anyway, you needn't let him in. Might be somebody from Zenith who wanted to borrow money."

"Probably," said Clancy.

"Getting ahead with the work?"

"Checking up the inventory now," said Clancy.

"All right; take your time."

And Miss Henderson hung up.

Once again, Clancy sat upon the stairs. Spofford had distinctly said that one of his men had followed Clancy down to this house. The description that Guernsey had given fitted Spofford exactly.

Spofford, then, not one of his men, had trailed Clancy down here. Why did he lie? Also, he must have known quite clearly who were the occupants of this house. Why had he expressed a certain surprise when Clancy had told him? He had said that, while he had been waiting outside, Garland had come out. But why had Spofford been waiting outside? Why hadn't he come right up and rung the door-bell? Could this delay have been because he knew that Garland was inside the house, and because he did not wish to encounter him? But how could he have known that Garland was inside with Carey? Well, that was easily answered. He might have arrived just as Garland was entering the house.

But there were other puzzling matters. Why had Spofford been so long in recollecting that Don Carey had roused the suspicions of the police because of the office he had maintained in the Heberworth Building? Apparently, it had only occurred to him at the end of his rather long conversation with Clancy.

Hadn't Spofford been a little too ingenuous? Could it be that he had some slight suspicion of Don Carey? As a matter of fact, looking at the matter as dispassionately as she could, hadn't Spofford dropped a strong circumstantial case against Clancy Deane on rather slight cause? Against the evidence of her presence in Beiner's office and her flight from the Napoli, Spofford had pitted his own alleged knowledge of human nature. Because Clancy had delayed flight until Wednesday, Spofford had decided that she was innocent. She didn't believe it.

It had all been convincing when Spofford had said it. But now, in view of the fact that she had detected in his apparent sincerity one untruth, she wondered how many others there might be.

Would fear of the Vandervent and Walbrough influence cause him to drop the trail of a woman whom he believed to be a murderess? No, she decided; it would not. Then why had he dropped the belief in her guilt that had animated his actions yesterday?

The answer came clearly to her. Because he felt that he had evidence against some one else. Against Carey? She wondered. If against Carey, why had he gone in search of Clancy at Sally Henderson's office?

But she could answer that. He wanted to hear her story. Finding that she was at the very moment in Don Carey's house had been chance, coincidence. He had known that Garland had not come here to see her; he had known that Garland had come to see Carey. How much did he know? What _was_ there to know?

Her brain became dizzy. Spofford had certainly not ceased to question the Heberworth Building elevator-man when the man had identified Clancy. Spofford had cunning, at the very lowest estimate of his mental ability. He would have cross-examined Garland. The man might have dropped some hint tying up Carey to the murder. She began to feel that Spofford was not entirely through with her.

There was a way, an almost certain way, now, though, to end her connection with the affair. If she told Philip Vandervent or Judge Walbrough the threat that she had heard Garland utter, the elevator-man would be under examination within a few hours.

Did she want that? Certainly not, just yet. She knew what scandal meant. She doubted if even Sophie Carey, with her apparently unchallenged artistic and social position, could live down the scandal of being the wife of a man accused of murder. She must be fair to Sophie. Indeed, if she were to live up to her own code--it was a code that demanded much but gave more--she must be more than fair to her. Sophie had gotten her work, had dressed her up. She did not like being under obligation to Mrs. Carey. But, having accepted so much, repayment must be made. It would be a shoddy requital of Sophie's generosity for Clancy Deane to run to the police and repeat the threats of a blackmailer.

How did she know that those threats were founded upon any truth? She had heard Garland say that Carey had possessed a key to Beiner's office; she had seen the expression of fright upon Carey's face as Garland made the charge. But fear didn't necessarily imply guilt. Clancy Deane had been a pretty scared young lady several times during the past week, and she was innocent. Don Carey might be just as guiltless.

Of course, Judge Walbrough and his wife had been unbelievably friendly, Vandervent had shown a chivalry that--Clancy sighed slightly--might mask something more personal. _Noblesse oblige._ But her first obligation was to Sophie Carey. Until her debts were settled to Sophie she need not consider the payment of others. Especially if the payment of those others meant betrayal of Sophie. And an accusation against her husband was, according to Clancy's lights, no less than that.

And so she couldn't make it. There was nothing to prevent her, though, from endeavoring to discover whether or not Don Carey were guilty. If he were--Clancy would pass that bridge when she came to it.

Meantime, she was supposed to be earning a salary of fifty dollars a week. A few minutes ago, she had told Sally Henderson that she had begun checking up the Carey household effects. She had not meant to deceive her employer. She'd work very hard to make up for the delay that her own affairs had caused.

The Careys' house was not "cluttered up," despite the artistic nature of its mistress. Clancy, who knew what good housekeeping meant--in Zenith, a dusty room means a soiled soul--pursed her lips with admiration as she passed from room to room. Two hours she spent, checking Sophie Carey's list. Then she let herself out of the house, locked the front door carefully behind her, and walked over to Sixth Avenue, into the restaurant where she had met Sophie Carey last Thursday morning.

Only that long ago! It was incredible. Whimsically ordering chicken salad, rolls, tea, and pastry, Clancy considered the past few days. It was the first time that she had been able to dwell upon them with any feeling of humor. Now, her analysis of Spofford's words, more than the words themselves, having given her confidence, she looked backward.

She wondered, had always wondered, exactly what was meant by the statement that certain people had "lived." She knew that many summer visitors from the great cities looked down upon the natives of Zenith and were not chary of their opinions to the effect that people merely existed in Zenith.

Yet she wondered if any of these supercilious ones had "lived" as much as had Clancy Deane in the last week. She doubted it. Life, in the _argot_ of the cosmopolitan, meant more than breathing, eating, drinking, and sleeping. It meant experiencing sensation. Well, she had experienced a-plenty, as a Zenither would have said.

From what had meant wealth to her she had dropped to real poverty, to a bewilderment as to the source of to-morrow's dinner. From the quiet of a country town she had been tossed into a moving maze of metropolitan mystery. She, who had envied boys who dared to raid orchards, jealous of their fearlessness of pursuing farmers, had defied a police force, the press----

And she'd _liked_ it! This was the amazing thing that she discovered about herself. Not once could she remember having regretted her ambitions that had brought her to New York; not a single time had she wished herself back in Zenith. With scandal, jail, even worse, perhaps, waiting her, she'd not weakened.

Once only had she been tempted to flee the city, and then she'd not even thought of going back to Zenith. And she knew perfectly well that had Spofford failed to visit her this morning, and had some super-person guaranteed her against all molestation if she would but return to her Maine home, she would have refused scornfully.

Perhaps, she argued with herself, it was too much to say that she'd enjoyed these experiences, but--she was glad she'd had them. Life hereafter might become a monotonous round of renting furnished apartments and houses; she'd have this week of thrills to look back upon.

She ate her salad hungrily. Paying her check, she walked to Eighth Street and took the street car to Sally Henderson's office. She learned that Judge Walbrough had telephoned once during the forenoon and left a message--which must have been cryptic to Sally Henderson--to the effect that he had met the enemy and they were his.

Clancy assumed that Philip Vandervent had seen Spofford and that the man had told of his visit to Clancy. She wished that Vandervent hadn't told the judge; she'd have liked to surprise him with the news that Spofford, the one person of all the police whom she dreaded, had called off the chase. Oddly, she assumed that the judge and his wife would be as thrilled over anything happening to her as if it had happened to themselves. This very assumption that people were interested in her, loved her, might have been one of the reasons that they were and did. But it is futile to attempt analysis of charm.

She spent the afternoon with Miss Conover, the dressmaker. Business was temporarily slack with Sally Henderson. Until the effects of the blizzard had worn off, not so many persons would go house-hunting. And the kindly interior decorator insisted that Clancy yield herself to Miss Conover's ministrations.

Clancy had an eye for clothes. Although nothing had been completed, of course, she could tell, even in their unfinished state, that she was going to be dressed as she had never, in Zenith, dreamed. Heaven alone knew what it would all cost, but what woman cares what clothing cost? Clancy would have starved to obtain these garments. It is fashionable to jibe at the girl who lunches on a chocolate soda in order that she may dine in a silk dress. "She puts everything on her back," her plain sisters say. But understanding persons respect the girl. While marriage, for the mass, remains a market-place, she does well who best displays the thing she has for sale.

It was a delightful afternoon, even though Miss Conover lost her good nature as her back began to ache from so much bending and kneeling. Clancy went down Fifth Avenue toward the Walbroughs' home walking, not on snow, but on air.

Philip Vandervent had been attracted to her when he saw her in a borrowed frock. When he beheld her in one that fitted her perfectly, without the adventitious aid of pins---- Her smile was most adorable as she looked up at the judge, waiting for her at the head of the stairs. Quite naturally she held up her mouth to be kissed. Clancy unconsciously knew how to win and retain love. It is not done by kisses alone, but kisses play their delightful part. She had never granted them to young men; she had rarely withheld them from dear old men.