Chapter XXIX

Behind the judge stood his wife. Clancy immediately sensed a tenseness in the atmosphere. As she gently released herself from the judge's embrace and slipped into the arms of Mrs. Walbrough, what she sensed became absolute knowledge. For the lips that touched her cheek trembled, and in the eyes of Mrs. Walbrough stood tears.

Clancy drew away from her hostess. She looked at the judge, then back again at Mrs. Walbrough, and then once again at the judge.

"Well?" she demanded.

"It isn't well," said the judge.

"But I thought you knew," said Clancy. "Miss Henderson gave me your message. And that Spofford man saw me to-day, and told me that he didn't believe I had anything to do----" She paused, eyeing the judge keenly. She refused to be frightened. She wasn't going to be frightened again.

"Of course he doesn't! Spofford went to Vandervent this forenoon. But--the newspapers," said the judge.

Clancy's lips rounded with an unuttered "Oh." She sank down upon a chair; her hands dropped limply in her lap.

"What do they know?" she demanded.

The judge's reply was bitter.

"'Know?' Nothing! But a newspaper doesn't have to _know_ anything to make trouble! If it merely suspects, that's enough. Look!"

He unfolded an evening newspaper and handed it to Clancy. There, black as ink could make it, spreading the full length of the page, stood the damnable statement,

WOMAN SOUGHT IN BEINER MYSTERY

Her eyes closed. She leaned back in her chair. The full meaning of the head-line, its terrific import, seeped slowly into her consciousness. She knew that any scandal involving a woman is, from a newspaper standpoint, worth treble one without her. One needs to be no analyst to discover this--the fact presents itself too patently in every page of every newspaper. She knew, too, that newspapers relinquish spicy stories regretfully.

Her eyes opened slowly. It was with a physical effort that she lifted the paper in order that she might read. The story was brief. It merely stated that the _Courier_ had learned, through authentic sources, that the district attorney's office suspected that a woman had killed Beiner, and that it was running down the clues that had aroused its suspicions.

But it was a bold-face paragraph, set to the left of the main article, that drove the color from her cheeks. It was an editorial, transplanted, for greater effect, to the first page. Clancy read it through.

FIND THE WOMAN

Another murder engages the attention of police, the press, and the
public. The _Courier_, as set forth in another column, has learned
that the authorities possess evidence justifying the arrest of a
woman as the Beiner murderess. How long must the people of the
greatest city in the world feel that their Police Department is
incompetent? It has been New York's proudest boast that its police
are the most efficient in the world. That boast is flat and stale
now. Too many crimes of violence have been unsolved during the past
six months. Too many criminals wander at large. How long must this
continue?

It was, quite obviously, a partisan political appeal to the prejudices of the _Courier_'s readers. But Clancy did not care about that. The fact of publication, not its reason, interested her. She looked dully up at the judge.

"How did they find out?" she asked.

The judge shrugged.

"That's what Vandervent is trying to find out now. He's quizzing his staff this minute. He meant to be up here this evening. He was to dine with us. He just telephoned. Some one will be 'broken' for giving the paper the tip. But--that doesn't help us, does it?"

Clancy's lips tightened. Her eyes grew thoughtful.

"Still, if that's all the paper knows----"

"We can't be sure of that," interrupted Walbrough. "Suppose that whoever told the _Courier_ reporter what he's printed had happened to tell him a little more. The _Courier_ may want a 'beat.' It might withhold the fact that it knew the name of the woman in order that other newspapers might not find her first."

Slowly the color flowed back into Clancy's cheeks. She would not be frightened.

"But Spofford could never have found me if I hadn't gone to Mr. Vandervent's office," she said.

"Spofford may be the man who gave the paper the tip," said the judge.

Clancy sat bolt upright.

"Would he dare?"

The judge shrugged.

"He might. We don't know. The elevator-man might have told a reporter--papers pay well for tips like that, you know. It's not safe here."

The bottom fell out of the earth for Clancy. It was years since she'd had a home. One couldn't term aunt Hetty's boarding-house in Zenith a _home_, kindly and affectionate as aunt Hetty had been. She'd only been one night in the Walbroughs' house, had only known them four days. Yet, somehow, she had begun to feel a part of their _ménage_, had known in her heart, though of course nothing had been said about the matter, that the Walbroughs would argue against almost any reason she might advance for leaving them save one--marriage.

Security had enfolded her. And now she was to be torn from this security. Her mouth opened for argument. It closed without speech. For, after all, scandal didn't threaten her alone; it threatened the Walbroughs. If she were found here by a reporter, the gossip of tongue and print would smirch her benefactors.

"You're right. I'll go," she said. "I'll find a place----"

"'_Find_ a place!'" There was amazement in Mrs. Walbrough's voice; there was more, a hint of indignation. "Why, you're going to our place up in Hinsdale. And _I'm_ going with you."

Youth is rarely ashamed of its judgments. Youth is conceited, and conceit and shame are rarely companions. But Clancy reddened now with shame. She had thought the Walbroughs capable of deserting her, or letting her shift for herself, when common decency should have made her await explanation. They would never know her momentary doubt of them, but she could never live long enough, to make up for it.

Yet she protested.

"I--I can't. You--you'll be involved."

The judge chuckled.

"Seems to me, young lady, that it's rather late for the Walbroughs to worry about being involved. We're in, my dear, up to our slim, proud throats. And if we were certain of open scandal, surely you don't think that would matter?" he asked, suddenly reproachful.

Clancy dissembled.

"I think that you both are the most wonderful, dearest---- You make me want to cry," she finished.

The judge squared his shoulders. A twinkle stood in his eye.

"It's a way I have. The women always weep over me."

His wife sniffed. She spoke to Clancy.

"The man never can remember his waist-measurement."

The judge fought hard against a grin.

"My wife marvels so at her good luck in catching me that she tries to make it appear that she didn't catch much, after all."

Mrs. Walbrough sniffed again.

"'Luck?' In catching you!"

The judge became urbane, bland, deprecatory.

"I beg pardon, my dear. Not luck--skill."

Mrs. Walbrough's assumption of scorn left her. Her laugh joined Clancy's. Clancy didn't realize just then how deftly the judge had steered her away from possible tears, and how superbly Mrs. Walbrough had played up to her husband's acting.

She put one hand in the big palm of the judge and let her other arm encircle Mrs. Walbrough's waist.

"If I should say, 'Thank you,'" she said, "it would sound so pitifully little----"

"So you'll just say nothing, young woman," thundered the judge. "You'll eat some dinner, pack a bag, and you and Maria'll catch the eight-twenty to Hinsdale. You won't be buried there. Lots of people winter there. Maria and I used to spend lots of time there before she grew too old to enjoy tobogganing. But I'm not too old. I'll be up to-morrow or the next day, to bring you home. For the real murderer _will_ be found. He _must_ be!"

Not merely then, but half a dozen times through the meal that followed, Clancy resisted the almost overpowering temptation to tell what she had overheard being said in the Carey dining-room. It wasn't fair to the Walbroughs to withhold information. On the other hand, she must be more than fair to Sophie. Before she spoke, she must know more.

But how, immured in some country home, was she to learn more? Yet she could not refuse flight without an explanation. And the only explanation would involve Don Carey, the husband of the woman who had been first in New York to befriend her.

She couldn't tell--yet. She must have time to think, to plan. And so she kept silence. Had she been able to read the future, perhaps she would have broken the seal of silence; perhaps not. One is inclined to believe that she would have been sensible enough to realize that even knowledge of the future cannot change it.

For millions of us can in a measure read the future, yet it is unchanged. We know that certain consequences inevitably follow certain actions. Yet we commit the actions. We know that result follows cause, yet we do not eliminate the cause. If we could be more specific in our reading than this, would our lives be much different? One is permitted doubts.

The train, due to the traffic disturbances caused by the blizzard, left the Grand Central several minutes behind its scheduled time. It lost more time _en route_, and the hour was close to midnight when Clancy and Mrs. Walbrough emerged from the Hinsdale station and entered a sleigh, driven by a sleepy countryman who, it transpired, was the Walbrough caretaker. It was after midnight, and after a bumpy ride, that the two women descended from the sleigh and tumbled up the stairs that led to a wide veranda. The house was ablaze in honor of their coming. It was warm, too, not merely from a furnace, but from huge open fires that burned down-stairs and in the bedroom to which Clancy was assigned.

The motherly wife of the caretaker had warm food and hot drink waiting them, but Clancy hardly tasted them. She was sleepy, and soon she left Mrs. Walbrough to gossip with her housekeeper while she tumbled into bed.

Sleep came instantly. Hardly, it seemed, had her eyes closed before they opened. Through the raised window streamed sunlight. But Clancy was more conscious of the cold air that accompanied it. It was as cold here as it was in Maine. At least, it seemed so this morning. She was quite normal. She was not the sort of person who leaps gayly from bed and performs calisthenics before an opened window in zero weather. Instead, she snuggled down under the bedclothes until her eyes and the tip of her nose were all that showed. One glimpse of her breath, smoky in the frosty air, had made a coward of her.

But sometimes hopes are realized. Just as she had made up her mind to brave the ordeal and arise and close the window, she heard a knock upon the door.

"Come in. Oh, _pul-lease_ come in!" she cried.

Mrs. Walbrough entered, followed by the housekeeper, who, Clancy had learned last night, was named Mrs. Hebron. Mrs. Walbrough closed the window, chaffing Clancy because a Maine girl should mind the cold, and Mrs. Hebron piled wood in the fireplace. By the time that Clancy emerged from the bathroom--she hated to leave it; the hot water in the tub made the whole room pleasantly steamy--her bedroom was warm. And Mrs. Walbrough had found somewhere a huge bath robe of the judge's which swamped Clancy in its woolen folds.

There were orange juice and toast and soft-boiled eggs and coffee made as only country people can make it. It had been made, Clancy could tell from the taste, by putting _plenty_ of coffee in the bottom of a pot, by filling the pot with cold water, by letting it come to a boil, removing it after it had bubbled one minute, and serving it about ten seconds after that. All this was set upon a table drawn close to the fire.

"Why," said Clancy aloud, "did I ever imagine that I didn't care for the country in the winter?"

Mrs. Walbrough laughed.

"You're a little animal, Clancy Deane," she accused.

"I'll tell the world I am," said Clancy. She laughed at Mrs. Walbrough's expression of mock horror. "Oh, we can be slangy in Zenith," she said.

"What else can you be in Zenith?" asked Mrs. Walbrough.

Clancy drained her cup of coffee. She refused a second cup and pushed her chair away from the table. She put her feet, ridiculous in a huge pair of slippers that also belonged to the judge, upon the dogs in the fireplace. Luxuriously she inhaled the warmth of the room.

"What else can we be?" she said.

She had talked only, it seemed, about her troubles these past few days. Now, under the stimulus of an interested listener, she poured forth her history, her hopes, her ambitions. And, in return, Mrs. Walbrough told of her own life, of her husband's failure to inherit the vast fortune that he had expected, how, learning that speculation had taken it all from his father, he had buckled down to the law; how he had achieved tremendous standing; how he had served upon the bench; how he had resigned to accept a nomination for the Senate; how, having been defeated--it was not his party's year--he had resumed the practise of law, piling up a fortune that, though not vast to the sophisticated, loomed large to Clancy. They were still talking at luncheon, and through it. After the meal Hebron announced that there would be good tobogganing outside after the course had been worn down a little. To Clancy's delighted surprise, Mrs. Walbrough declared that she had been looking forward to it. Together, wrapped in sweaters and with their feet encased in high moccasins--they were much too large for Clancy--they tried out the slide.

The Walbrough house was perched upon the top of a wind-swept hill. The view was gorgeous. On all sides hills that could not be termed mountains but that, nevertheless, were some hundreds of feet high, surrounded the Walbrough hill. A hundred yards from the front veranda, at the foot of a steep slope, was a good-sized pond. Across this the toboggan course ended. And because the wind had prevented the snow from piling too deeply, the toboggan, after a few trials, slid smoothly, and at a great pace, clear across the pond.

It was dusk before they were too tired to continue. Breathlessly, Mrs. Walbrough announced that she would give a house-party as soon as---- She paused. It was the first reference to the cause of their being there that had passed the lips of either to-day. Both had tacitly agreed not to talk about it.

"Let's hope it won't be long," said Clancy. "To drag you away from the city----"

"Tush, tush, my child," said Mrs. Walbrough.

Clancy tushed.

It was at their early dinner that the telephone-bell rang. Clancy answered it. It was Vandervent. He was brisk to the point of terseness.

"Got to see you. Want to ask a few questions. I'll take the eight-twenty. Ask Mrs. Walbrough if she can put me up?"

Mrs. Walbrough, smiling, agreed that she could. Clancy told Vandervent so. He thanked her. His voice lost its briskness.

"Are you--eh--enjoying yourself?"

Clancy demurely replied that she was. "I wish you had time for some tobogganing," she ventured.

"Do you really?" Vandervent was eager. "I'll make time--I--I'll see you to-night, Miss Deane."

Clancy smiled with happy confidence at the things that Vandervent had not said. She played double solitaire with her hostess until eleven o'clock. Then Mrs. Hebron entered with the information that her husband had developed a sudden chest-cold, accompanied by fever, and that she really dreaded letting him meet the train.

Clancy leaped to the occasion. She pooh-poohed Mrs. Walbrough's protests. As if, even in these motorful days, a Zenith girl couldn't hitch an old nag to a sleigh and drive a few rods. And she wouldn't permit Mrs. Walbrough to accompany her, either. Alone, save for a brilliant moon, a most benignant moon, she drove down the hill and over the snow-piled road to the Hinsdale station.

It was a dreamy ride; she was going to meet a man whose voice trembled as he spoke to her, a man who was doing all in his power to save her from dangers, a man who was a Vandervent, one of the great _partis_ of America. Yet it was as a man, rather than as a Vandervent, that she thought of him.

So, engrossed with thoughts of him, thoughts that submerged the memory of yesterday's paper, that made her forget that she had seen no paper to-day, she gave the old horse his head, and let him choose his own path. Had she been alert, she would have seen the men step out from the roadside, would have been able to whip up her horse and escape their clutch. As it was, one of them seized the bridle. The other advanced to her side.

"So you've followed me up here," he said. "Spying on me, eh?"

The moonlight fell upon the face of the man who held the horse's head. It was Garland. The man who spoke to her was Donald Carey. She had not known before that Hinsdale was in Dutchess County.