Elusive Isabel, by Jacques Futrelle (7 page)

“Senor,” he inquired pleasantly, “your daughter and Miss Thorne were in this room yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes,” replied the diplomatist as if surprised at the question.

“What time, please?”

“About three o’clock. They were going out driving. Why?”

“And just where, please, did you find that handkerchief?” continued Mr. Grimm.

“Handkerchief?” repeated the diplomatist. “You mean Miss Thorne’s handkerchief?” He paused and regarded Mr. Grimm keenly. “Senor, what am I to understand from that question?”

“It was plain enough,” replied Mr. Grimm. “Where did you find that handkerchief?” There was silence for an instant. “In this room?”

“Yes,” replied Senor Rodriguez at last.

“Near the safe?” Mr. Grimm persisted.

“Yes,” came the slow reply, again. “Just here,” and he indicated a spot a little to the left of the safe.

“And
when
did you find it? Yesterday afternoon? Last night? This morning?”

“This morning,” and without any apparent reason the diplomatist’s face turned deathly white.

“But, Senor—Senor, you are mistaken! There can be nothing—! A woman! Two hundred pounds of gold! Senor!”

Mr. Grimm was still pleasant about it; his curiosity was absolutely impersonal; his eyes, grown listless again, were turned straight into the other’s face.

“If that handkerchief had been there last night, Senor,” he resumed quietly, “wouldn’t you have noticed it when you placed the gold in the safe?”

Senor Rodriguez stared at him a long time.

“I don’t know,” he said, at last. He dropped back into a chair with his face in his hands. “Senor,” he burst out suddenly, impetuously, after a moment, “if the gold is not recovered I am ruined. You understand that better than I can tell you. It’s the kind of thing that could not be explained to my government.” He rose suddenly and faced the impassive young man, with merciless determination in his face. “You must find the gold, Senor,” he said.

“No matter who may be—who may suffer?” inquired Mr. Grimm.

“Find the gold, Senor!”

“Very well,” commented Mr. Grimm, without moving. “Do me the favor, please, to regain possession of the handkerchief you just returned to Miss Thorne, and to send to me here your secretary, Senor Diaz, and your servants, one by one. I shall question them alone. No, don’t be alarmed. Unless they know of the robbery they shall get no inkling of it from me. First, be good enough to replace the packet in the safe, and lock it.”

Senor Rodriguez replaced the packet without question, afterward locking the door, then went out. A moment later Senor Diaz appeared. He remained with Mr. Grimm for just eight minutes. Senor Rodriguez entered again as his secretary passed on, and laid a lace handkerchief on the desk. Mr. Grimm stared at it curiously for a long time.

“It’s the same handkerchief?”

“
Si, Senor
.”

“There’s no doubt whatever about it?”

“No, Senor, I got it by—!”

“It’s of no consequence,” interrupted Mr. Grimm. “Now the servants, please—the men first.”

The first of the men servants was in the room two minutes; the second—the butler—was there five minutes; one of the women was not questioned at all; the other remained ten minutes. Mr. Grimm followed her into the hall; Senor Rodriguez stood there helpless, impatient.

“Well?” he demanded eagerly.

“I’m going out a little while,” replied Mr. Grimm placidly. “No one has even an intimation of the affair—please keep the matter absolutely to yourself until I return.”

That was all. The door opened and closed, and he was gone.

At the end of an hour he returned, passed on through to the diplomatist’s private office, sat down in front of the locked safe again, and set the dial at thirty-six. Senor Rodriguez looked on, astonished, as Mr. Grimm pressed the soft rubber sounder of a stethoscope against the safe door and began turning the dial back toward ten, slowly, slowly. Thirty-five minutes later the lock clicked. Mr. Grimm rose, turned the handle, and pulled the safe door open.

“That’s how it was done,” he explained to the amazed diplomatist. “And now, please, have a servant hand my card to Miss Thorne.”

Still wearing the graceful, filmy morning gown, with an added touch, of scarlet in her hair—a single red rose—Miss Thorne came into the drawing-room where Mr. Grimm sat waiting. There was curiosity in her manner, thinly veiled, but the haunting smile still lingered about her lips. Mr. Grimm bowed low, and placed a chair for her, after which he stood for a time staring down at one slim, white hand at rest on the arm of the seat. At last, he, too, sat down.

“I believe,” he said slowly, without preliminaries, “this is your handkerchief?”

He offered the lacy trifle, odd in design, unique in workmanship, obviously of foreign texture, and she accepted it.

“Yes,” she agreed readily, “I must have dropped it again.”

“That is the one handed to you by Senor Rodriguez,” Mr. Grimm told her. “I think you said you lost it in his office yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes?” She nodded inquiringly.

“It may interest you to know that Senor Rodriguez’s butler positively identifies it as one he restored to you twice at dinner last evening, between seven and nine o’clock,” Mr. Grimm went on dispassionately.

“Indeed!” exclaimed Miss Thorne.

“The senor identifies it as one he found this morning in his office,” Mr. Grimm explained obligingly. “During the night fifty thousand dollars in gold were stolen from his safe.”

There was not the slightest change of expression in her face; the blue-gray eyes were still inquiring in their gaze, the white hands still at rest, the scarlet lips still curled slightly, an echo of a smile.

“No force was used in opening the safe,” Mr. Grimm resumed. “It was unlocked. It’s an old model and I have demonstrated how it could have been opened either with the assistance of a stethoscope, which catches the sound of the tumbler in the lock, or by a person of acute hearing.”

Miss Thorne sat motionless, waiting.

“All this means—what?” she inquired, at length.

“I’ll trouble you, please, to return the money,” requested Mr. Grimm courteously. “No reason appears why you should have taken it. But I’m not seeking reasons, nor am I seeking disagreeable publicity—only the money.”

“It seems to me you attach undue importance to the handkerchief,” she objected.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Mr. Grimm remarked. “It would be useless, even tedious, to attempt to disprove a burglar theory, but against it is the difficulty of entrance, the weight of the gold, the ingenious method of opening the safe, and the assumption that not more than six persons knew the money was in the safe; while a person in the house
might
have learned it in any of a dozen ways. And, in addition, is the fact that the handkerchief is odd, therefore noticeable. A lace expert assures me there’s probably not another like it in the world.”

He stopped. Miss Thorne’s eyes sparkled and a smile seemed to be tugging at the corners of her mouth. She spread out the handkerchief on her knees.

“You could identify this again, of course?” she queried.

“Yes.”

She thoughtfully crumpled up the bit of lace in both hands, then opened them. There were two handkerchiefs now—they were identical.

“Which is it, please?” she asked.

If Mr. Grimm was disappointed there was not a trace of it on his face. She laughed outright, gleefully, mockingly, then, demurely:

“Pardon me! You see, it’s absurd. The handkerchief the butler restored to me at dinner, after I lost one in the senor’s office, might have been either of these, or one of ten other duplicates in my room, all given to me by her Maj—I mean,” she corrected quickly, “by a friend in Europe.” She was silent for a moment. “Is that all?”

“No,” replied Mr. Grimm gravely, decisively. “I’m not satisfied. I shall insist upon the return of the money, and if it is not forthcoming I dare say Count di Rosini, the Italian ambassador, would be pleased to give his personal check rather than have the matter become public.” She started to interrupt; he went on. “In any event you will be requested to leave the country.”

Then, and not until then, a decided change came over Miss Thorne’s face. A deeper color leaped to her cheeks, the smile faded from her lips, and there was a flash of uneasiness in her eyes.

“But if I am innocent?” she protested.

“You must prove it,” continued Mr. Grimm mercilessly. “Personally, I am convinced, and Count di Rosini has practically assured me that—”

“It’s unjust!” she interrupted passionately. “It’s—it’s—you have proved nothing. It’s unheard of! It’s beyond—!”

Suddenly she became silent. A minute, two minutes, three minutes passed; Mr. Grimm waited patiently.

“Will you give me time and opportunity to prove my innocence?” she demanded finally. “And if I
do
convince you—?”

“I should be delighted to believe that I have made a mistake,” Mr. Grimm assured her. “How much time? One day? Two days?”

“I will let you know within an hour at your office,” she told him.

Mr. Grimm rose.

“And meanwhile, in case of accident, I shall look to Count di Rosini for adjustment,” he added pointedly. “Good morning.”

One hour and ten minutes later he received this note, unsigned:

“Closed carriage will stop for you at southeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fourteenth Street to-night at one.”

He was there; the carriage was on time; and my lady of mystery was inside. He stepped in and they swung out into Pennsylvania Avenue, noiselessly over the asphalt.

“Should the gold be placed in your hands now, within the hour,” she queried solicitously, “would it be necessary for you to know who was the—the thief?”

“It would,” Mr. Grimm responded without hesitation.

“Even if it destroyed a reputation?” she pleaded.

“The Secret Service rarely destroys a reputation, Miss Thorne, although it holds itself in readiness to do so. I dare say in this case there would be no arrest or prosecution, because of—of reasons which appear to be good.”

“There wouldn’t?” and there was a note of eagerness in her voice. “The identity of the guilty person would never appear?”

“It would become a matter of record in our office, but beyond that I think not—at least in this one instance.”

Miss Thorne sat silent for a block or more.

“You’ll admit, Mr. Grimm, that you have forced me into a most remarkable position. You seemed convinced of my guilt, and, if you’ll pardon me, without reason; then you made it compulsory upon me to establish my innocence. The only way for me to do that was to find the guilty one. I have done it, and I’m sorry, because it’s a little tragedy.”

Mr. Grimm waited.

“It’s a girl high in diplomatic society. Her father’s position is an honorable rather than a lucrative one; he has no fortune. This girl moves in a certain set devoted to bridge, and stakes are high. She played and won, and played and won, and on and on, until her winnings were about eight thousand dollars. Then luck turned. She began to lose. Her money went, but she continued to play desperately. Finally some old family jewels were pawned without her father’s knowledge, and ultimately they were lost. One day she awoke to the fact that she owed some nine or ten thousand dollars in bridge debts. They were pressing and there was no way to meet them. This meant exposure and utter ruin, and women do strange things, Mr. Grimm, to postpone such an ending to social aspirations. I know this much is true, for she related it all to me herself.

“At last, in some way—a misplaced letter, perhaps, or a word overheard—she learned that fifty thousand dollars would be in the legation safe overnight, and evidently she learned the precise night.” She paused a moment. “Here is the address of a man in Baltimore, Thomas Q. Griswold,” and she passed a card to Mr. Grimm, who sat motionless, listening. “About four years ago the combination on the legation safe was changed. This man was sent here to make the change, therefore some one besides Senor Rodriguez
does
know the combination. I have communicated with this man to-day, for I saw the possibility of just such a thing as this instead of your stethoscope. By a trick and a forged letter this girl obtained the combination from this man.”

Mr. Grimm drew a long breath.

“She intended to take, perhaps, only what she desperately needed—but at sight of it all—do you see what must have been the temptation then? We get out here.”

There were many unanswered questions in Mr. Grimm’s mind. He repressed them for the time, stepped out and assisted Miss Thorne to alight. The carriage had turned out of Pennsylvania Avenue, and at the moment he didn’t quite place himself. A narrow passageway opened before them—evidently the rear entrance to a house possibly in the next street. Miss Thorne led the way unhesitatingly, cautiously unlocked the door, and together they entered a hall. Then there was a short flight of stairs, and they stepped into a room, one of a suite. She closed the door and turned on the lights.

“The bags of gold are in the next room,” she said with the utmost composure.

Mr. Grimm dragged them out of a dark closet, opened one—there were ten—and allowed the coins to dribble through his fingers. Finally he turned and stared at Miss Thorne, who, pallid and weary, stood looking on.

“Where are we?” he asked. “What house is this?”

“The Venezuelan legation,” she answered. “We are standing less than forty feet from the safe that was robbed. You see how easy—!”

“And whose room?” inquired Mr. Grimm slowly.

“Must I answer?” she asked appealingly.

“You must!”

“Senorita Rodriguez—my hostess! Don’t you see what you’ve made me do? She and Mr. Cadwallader made the trip to Baltimore in his automobile, and—and—!” She stopped. “He knows nothing of it,” she added.

“Yes, I know,” said Mr. Grimm.

He stood looking at her in silence for a moment, staring deeply into the pleading eyes; and a certain tense expression about his lips passed. For an instant her hand trembled on his arm, and he caught the fragrance of her hair.