Kitabı oku: «Sundry Accounts», sayfa 12

The upshot was a lovely thing, almost foolproof and practically cop-proof. To be sure, a woman figured in it, but her part was that of the chosen prey, not the part of an accessory and accomplice. The greater simplicity of the device was attested by the fact that for its mounting, from beginning to end, only three active performers were needed. The chief rôle he would play. For his main supporting cast he needed two men, and knew moreover exactly where to find them. Of these two only one would show ever upon the stage. The other would bide out of sight behind the scenes, doing his share of the work, unsuspected, from under cover.

For the part which he intended her to take in his production – the part of dupe – Mrs. Justus Propbridge was, as one might say, made to order. Consider her qualifications: young, pretty, impressionable, vain and inexperienced; the second wife of a man who even in these times of suddenly inflated fortunes was reckoned to be rich; newly come out of the boundless West, bringing a bounding social ambition with her; spending money freely and having plenty more at command to spend when the present supply was gone; her name appearing frequently in those newspapers and those weekly and monthly magazines catering particularly to the so-called smart set, which is so called, one gathers, because it is not a set and is not particularly smart.

Young Mrs. Propbridge figured that her name was becoming tolerably well known along the Gold Coast of the North Atlantic Seaboard. It was too. For example, there was at least one person entirely unknown to her who kept a close tally of her comings and her goings, of her social activities, of her mode of daily life. This person was Vincent Marr. Thanks to the freedom with which a certain type of journal discusses the private and the public affairs of those men and women most commonly mentioned in its columns, he presently had in his mind a very clear picture of this lady, and he followed her movements, as reflected in print, with care and fidelity; it was as though he had a deep personal interest in her. For a matter of fact, he did; he had a very personal interest in her. He had been doing this for months; in his trade, as in many others, patience was not only a virtue but a necessity. For example, he knew that her determined and persistent but somewhat crudely engineered campaigning to establish herself in what New York calls – with a big S – Society was the subject in some quarters of a somewhat thinly veiled derision; he knew that her husband was rather an elemental, not to say a primitive creature, but genuine and aboveboard and generous, as elemental beings are likely to be. Marr figured him to be of the jealous type. He hoped he was; it might simplify matters tremendously.

On a certain summer morning a paragraph appeared in at least three daily papers to the effect that Mr. and Mrs. Justus Propbridge had gone down to Gulf Stream City, on the Maryland coast; they would be at the Churchill-Fontenay there for a week or ten days. It was at his breakfast that Marr read this information. At noon, having in the meantime done a considerable amount of telephoning, he was on his way to the seaside too. Mentally he was shaking hands with himself in a warmly congratulatory way. Gulf Stream City was a place seemingly designed, both by Nature and by man, for the serving of his purposes.

Residing there were persons of his own kidney and persuasion, on whom he might count for at least one detail of invaluable coöperation. For a certain act of his piece, a short but highly important one, he also must have a borrowed stage setting and a supernumerary actor or so.

Immediately upon his arrival he sought out certain dependable individuals and put them through a rough rehearsal. This he did before he claimed the room he had engaged by wire at the Hotel Crofter. The Hotel Crofter snuggled its lesser bulk under an imposing flank of the supposedly exclusive and admittedly expensive Churchill-Fontenay. From its verandas one might command a view of the main entrance of the greater hotel.

It was on a Tuesday that the Propbridges reached Gulf Stream City. It was on Wednesday afternoon that the husband received a telegram, signed with the name of a business associate, calling him to Toledo for a conference – so the wire stated – upon an urgent complication newly arisen. Mr. Propbridge, as all the world knew, was one of the heaviest stockholders and a member of the board of the Sonnesbein-Propbridge Tire Company, which, as the world likewise knew, had had tremendous dealings in contracts with the Government and now was having trouble closing up the loose ends of its wartime activities.

He packed a bag and caught a night train West. On the following morning, which would be Thursday, Mrs. Propbridge took a stroll on Gulf Stream City's famous boardwalk. It was rather a lonely stroll. She had no particular objective. It was too early in the day for a full display of vivid costumes among the bathers on the beach. She encountered no one she knew.

Really, for a resort so extensively advertised, Gulf Stream City was not a particularly exciting place. For lack of anything better to do she had halted to view the contents of a shop window when an exclamation of happy surprise from someone immediately behind her caused Mrs. Propbridge to turn around.

Immediately it was her turn to register astonishment. A tall, well-dressed, gray-haired man, a stranger to her, was taking possession of her right hand and shaking it warmly.

"Why, my dear Mrs. Watrous," he was saying, "how do you do? Well, this is an unexpected pleasure! When did you come down from Wilmington? And who is with you? And how long are you going to stay? General Dunlap and his daughter Claire – you know, the second daughter – and Mrs. Gordon-Tracy and Freddy Urb will be here in a little while. They'll be delighted to see you! Why, we'll have a reunion! Well, well, well!"

He had said all this with scarcely a pause for breath and without giving her an opportunity to speak, as though surprise made him disregardful of labial punctuation of his sentences. Indeed, Mrs. Propbridge did not succeed in getting her hand free from his grasp until he had uttered the final "well."

"You have the advantage of me," she said. "I do not know you. I am sure I never saw you before."

At this his sudden shift from cordiality to a look half incredulous, half embarrassed was almost comic.

"What?" he demanded, falling back a pace. "Surely this is Mrs. Beeman Watrous of Wilmington? I can't be mistaken!"

"But you are mistaken," she insisted; "very much mistaken. My name is not Watrous; my name is Propbridge."

"Madam," he cried, "I beg ten thousand pardons! Really, though, this is one of the most remarkable things I ever saw in my life – one of the most remarkable cases of resemblance, I mean. I am sure anyone would be deceived by it; that is my apology. In my own behalf, madam, I must tell you that you are an exact counterpart of someone I know – of Mrs. Beeman Watrous, a very good friend of mine. Pardon me once more, but may I ask if you are related to Mrs. Beeman Watrous? Her cousin perhaps? It isn't humanly possible that two persons should look so much alike and not be related?"

"I don't think I ever heard of the lady," stated Mrs. Propbridge somewhat coldly.

"Again, madam, please excuse me," he said. "I am very, very sorry to have annoyed you." He bowed his bared head and turned away. Then quickly he swung on his heel and returned to her, his hat again in his left hand.

"Madam," he said, "I am fearful that you are suspecting me of being one of the objectionable breed of he-flirts who infest this place. At the risk of being tiresome I must repeat once more that your wonderful resemblance to another person led me into this awkward error. My name, madam, is Murrill – Valentine C. Murrill – and I am sure that if you only had the time and the patience to bear with me I could find someone here – some acquaintance of yours perhaps – who would vouch for me and make it plain to you that I am not addicted to the habit of forcing myself upon strangers on the pretext that I have met them somewhere."

His manner was disarming. It was more than that; it was outright engaging. He was carefully groomed, smartly turned out; he had the manner and voice of a well-bred person. To Mrs. Propbridge he seemed a candid, courteous soul unduly distressed over a small matter.

"Please don't concern yourself about it," she said. "I didn't suspect you of being a professional masher; I was only rather startled, that's all."

"Thank you for telling me so," he said. "You take a load off my mind, I assure you. Pardon me again, please – but did I understand you to say a moment ago that your name was Propbridge?"

"Yes."

"It isn't a very common name. Surely you are not the Mrs. Propbridge?"

Without being in the least presuming he somehow had managed to convey a subtle tribute.

"I am Mrs. Justus Propbridge, if that is what you mean," she said.

"Well, then," he said in tones of relief, "that simplifies matters. Is your husband about, madam? If he is I will do myself the honor of introducing myself to him and repeating to him the explanation I have just made to you. You see, I am by way of being one of the small fish who circulate on the outer edge of the big sea where the large financial whales swim, and it is possible that he may have heard my name and may know who I am."

"My husband isn't here," she explained. "He was called away last night on business."

"Again my misfortune," he said.

They were in motion now; he had fallen into step alongside her as she moved on back up the boardwalk. Plainly her amazing resemblance to someone else was once more the uppermost subject in his mind. He went back to it.

"I've heard before now of dual personalities," he said, "but this is my first actual experience with a case of it. When I first saw you standing there with your back to me and even when you turned round facing me after I spoke to you, I was ready to swear that you were Mrs. Beeman Watrous. Look, manner, size, voice, hair, eyes – all identical. I know her very well too. I've been a guest at one or two of her house parties. It's curious that you never heard of her, Mrs. Propbridge; she's the widow of one of the Wilmington Watrouses – the firearms people, you know – guns, rifles, all that sort of thing – and he left her more millions than she knows what to do with."

Now Mrs. Propbridge had never heard of any Wilmington Watrouses, but plainly, here in the East they were persons of consequence – persons who would be worth knowing.

She nodded as though to indicate that now she did faintly recall who it was this kindly stranger had meant.

He went on. It was evident that he was inclined to be talkative. The impression was conveyed to her that here was a well-meaning but rather shallow-minded gentleman who was reasonably fond of the sound of his own voice. Yet about him was nothing to suggest over-effusiveness or familiarity.

"I've a sort of favor to ask of you," he said. "I've some friends who're motoring over to-day from Philadelphia. I had to run on down ahead of them to see a man on business. They're to join me in about an hour from now" – he consulted his watch – "and we're all driving back together to-night. General Dunlap and Mrs. Claire Denton, his daughter – she's the amateur tennis champion, you know – and Mrs. Gordon-Tracy, of Newport, and Freddy Urb, the writer – they're all in the party. And the favor I'm asking is that I may have the pleasure of presenting them to you – that is, of course, unless you already know them – so that I may enjoy the looks on their faces when they find out that you are not Mrs. Beeman Watrous. I know they'll behave as I did. They won't believe it at first. May I?"

What could Mrs. Propbridge do except consent? Indeed, inwardly she rejoiced at the prospect. She did not know personally the four named by this Mr. Murrill, but she knew mighty well who they were. What person familiar with the Social Register could fail to know who they were? Another thing had impressed her: The stranger had mentioned these notables with no especial emphasis on the names; but instead, quite casually and in a manner which carried with it the impression that such noted folk as Mrs. Denton and her distinguished father, and Freddy Urb the court jester of the innermost holies of holies of Newport and Bar Harbor and Palm Beach, and Mrs. Gordon-Tracy, the famous beauty, were of the sort with whom customarily he associated. Plainly here was a gentleman who not only belonged to the who's-who but had a very clear perception of the what-was-what. So fluttered little Mrs. Propbridge promptly said yes – said it with a gratified sensation in her heart.

"That's fine of you!" said Murrill, visibly elated. It would appear that small favors were to him great pleasures. "That's splendid! Up until now the joke of this thing has been on me. I want to transfer it to them. I'm to meet them up here in the lounge of the Churchill-Fontenay."

"That's where I am stopping," said Mrs. Propbridge.

"Is it? Better and better! We might stroll along that way if you don't mind. By Jove, I've an idea! Suppose when they arrive they found us chatting together like old friends – suppose as they came up they were to overhear me calling you Mrs. Beeman Watrous. That would make the shock all the greater for them when they found out you really weren't Mrs. Watrous at all, but somebody they'd never seen before! Are you game for it?.. Capital! Only, if we mean to do that we'll have to kill the time, some way, for forty or fifty minutes or so. Do you mind letting me bore you for a little while? I know it's unconventional – but I like to do the unconventional things when they don't make one conspicuous."

Mrs. Propbridge did not in the least mind. So they killed the time and it died a very agreeable death, barring one small incident. On Mr. Murrill's invitation they took a short turn in a double-seated roller chair, Mr. Murrill chatting briskly all the while and savoring his conversation with offhand reference to this well-known personage and that. At his suggestion they quit the wheel chair at a point well down the boardwalk to drink orangeades in a small glass-fronted café which faced the sea. He had heard somewhere, he said, that they made famous orangeades in this shop. They might try for themselves and find out.

The experiment was not entirely a success. To begin with, a waiter person – Mr. Murrill referred to him as a waiter person – sat them down near the front at a small, round table whose enamel top was decorated with two slopped glasses and a bottle one-third filled with wine gone stale. At least the stuff looked and smelled like wine – like a poor quality of champagne.

"Ugh!" said Mr. Murrill, tasting the air. "Somebody evidently couldn't wait until lunch time before he started his tippling. And I didn't suspect either that this place might be a bootlegging place in disguise. Well, since prohibition came in it's hard to find a resort shop anywhere where you can't buy bad liquor – if only you go about it the right way."

When the waiter person brought their order he bade him remove the bottle and the slopped glasses, and the waiter person obliged, but so sulkily and with such slowness of movement that Mr. Murrill was moved to speak to him rather sharply. Even so, the sullen functionary took his time about the thing. Nor did the orangeade prove particularly appetizing. Mr. Murrill barely tasted his.

"Shall we clear out?" he asked, making a fastidious little grimace.

At the door, on the way out, he made excuses.

"Sorry I suggested coming into this place," he said, sinking his voice. "Either it is a shop which has gone off badly or its merits have been overadvertised by its loving friends. To me the whole atmosphere of the establishment seemed rather dubious, eh, what? Well, what shall we do next? I see a few bathers down below. Shall we go down on the beach and find a place to sit and watch them for a bit?"

They went; and he found a bench in a quiet place under the shorings of the boardwalk close up alongside one of the lesser bathing pavilions, and they sat there, and he talked and she listened. The man had an endless fund of gossip about amusing and noted people; most of them, it would seem, were his intimates. Telling one or two incidents in which these distinguished friends had figured, he felt it expedient to sink his voice to a discreet undertone. There was plainly apparent a delicacy of feeling in this; one did not shout out the names of such persons for any curious passer-by to hear. It developed that there was one specially close bond between him and the members of General Dunlap's family, an attachment partly based upon old acquaintance and partly upon the fact that the Dunlaps thought he once upon a time had saved the life of the general's youngest daughter, Millicent.

"Really, though, it was nothing," he said deprecatingly, as befitted a modest and a mannerly man. "The thing came about like this: It was once when we were all out West together. We were spending a week at the Grand Cañon. One morning we took the Rim Drive over to Mohave Point. No doubt you know the spot? I was standing with Millicent on the outer edge of the cliff and we were looking down together into that tremendous void when all of a sudden she fainted dead away. Her heart isn't very strong – she isn't athletic as Claire, her older sister, and the other Dunlap girls are – and I suppose the altitude got her. Luckily I was as close to her as I am to you now, and I saw her totter and I threw out my arms – pardon me – like this." He illustrated with movements of his arms. "And luckily I managed to catch her about the waist as she fell forward. I held on and dragged her back out of danger. Otherwise she would have dropped for no telling how many hundreds of feet. Of course it was only a chance that I happened to be touching elbows with the child, and naturally I only did what anyone would have done in the same circumstances, but the whole family were tremendously grateful and made a great pother over it. By the way, speaking of rescues, have you heard about the thing that happened to the two Van Norden girls at Bailey's Beach last week? I must tell you about that."

Presently they both were surprised to find that forty-five minutes had passed. Mr. Murrill said they had better be getting along; he made so bold as to venture the suggestion that possibly Mrs. Propbridge might want to go to her rooms before the automobile party arrived, to change her frock or something. Not that he personally thought she should change it. If he might be pardoned for saying so, he thought it a most becoming frock; but women were curious about such things, now honestly weren't they? And Mrs. Propbridge was constrained to confess that about such things women were curious. She had a conviction that if all things moved smoothly she presently would be urged to waive formality and join the party at luncheon. Mr. Murrill had not exactly put the idea into words yet, but she sensed that the thought of offering the invitation was in his mind. In any event the impending meeting called for efforts on her part to appear at her best.

"I believe I will run up to our rooms for a few minutes before your friends arrive," she said as they arose from the bench. "I want to freshen up a bit."

"Quite so," he assented.

He left her at the doors of the Churchill-Fontenay, saying he would idle about and watch for the others in case they should arrive ahead of time.

Ten minutes later, while she was still trying to make a choice between three frocks, her telephone rang. She answered the ring; it was Mr. Murrill, who was at the other end of the line. He was distressed to have to tell her that word had just reached him that on the way down from Philadelphia General Dunlap had been taken suddenly ill – an attack of acute indigestion, perhaps, or possibly a touch of the sun – and the motor trip had been halted at a small town on the mainland fifteen miles back of Gulf Stream City. He was starting immediately for the town in a car with a physician. He trusted the general's indisposition was not really serious but of course the party would be called off; and the invalid would return to Philadelphia as soon as he felt well enough to move. He was awfully sorry – Mr. Murrill was – terribly put out, and all that sort of thing; hoped that another opportunity might be vouchsafed him of meeting Mrs. Propbridge; he had enjoyed tremendously meeting her under these unconventional circumstances; and now he must go.

It was not to be denied that young Mrs. Propbridge felt distinctly disappointed. The start of the little adventure had had promise in it. She had forecast all manner of agreeable contingencies as the probable outcome.

For some reason, though, or perhaps for no definite reason at all, she said nothing to her husband, on his return from Toledo, of her encounter with the agreeable Mr. Murrill. Anyway, he arrived in no very affable state of mind. As a matter of fact he was most terrifically out of temper. Somebody or other – presumably some ass of a practical joker, he figured, or possibly a person with a grudge against him who had curious methods of taking vengeance – had lured him into taking a hot, dusty, tiresome and entirely useless trip. There was no business conference on out at Toledo; no need for his presence there. If he could lay hands on the idiot who had sent him that forged telegram – well, the angered Mr. Propbridge indicated with a gesture of a large and knobby fist what he would do to the aforesaid idiot.

The next time Mr. Propbridge was haled to the broiling Corn Belt he made very sure that the warrant was genuine. One of these wild-goose chases a summer was quite enough for a man with a size-nineteen collar and a forty-six-inch waistband.

The next time befell some ten days after the Propbridges returned from the shore to their thirty-thousand-dollars-a-year apartment on Upper Park Avenue. The very fact that they did live in an apartment and that they did spend a good part of their time there would stamp them for what they were – persons not yet to be included among the really fashionable group. The really fashionable maintained large homes which they occupied when they came to town to have dental work done or to launch a débutante daughter into society; the rest of the year they usually were elsewhere. It was the thing.

Business of importance sent Mr. Propbridge to Detroit, and then on to Chicago and Des Moines. On a certain afternoon he caught the Wolverine Limited. Almost before his train had passed One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street Mrs. Propbridge had a caller. She was informed that a member of the staff of that live paper, People You Know, desired to see her for a few minutes. Persons of social consequence or persons who craved to be of social consequence did not often deny themselves to representatives of People You Know. Mrs. Propbridge told the switchboard girl downstairs to tell the hallman to invite the gentleman to come up.

He proved to be a somewhat older man than she had expected to see. He was well dressed enough, but about him was something hard and forbidding, almost formidable in fact. Yet there was a soothing, conciliatory tone in his voice when he spoke.

"Mrs. Propbridge," he began, "my name is Townsend. I am one of the editors of People You Know. I might have sent one of our reporters to see you, but in a matter so important – and so delicate as this one is – I felt it would be better if I came personally to have a little talk with you and get your side of the affair for publication."

"My side of what affair?" she asked, puzzled.

He lifted one lip in a cornerwise smile.

"Let me give you a little advice, Mrs. Propbridge," he said. "I've had a lot of experience in such matters as these. The interested parties will be better off if they're perfectly frank in talking to the press. Then all misunderstandings are avoided and everybody gets a fair deal in print. Don't you agree with me that I am right?"

"You may be right," she said, "but I haven't the least idea what you are talking about."

"I mean your trouble with your husband – if you force me to speak plainly; I'd like to have your statement, that's all."

"But I haven't had any trouble with my husband!" she said. Her amazement made her voice shrill. "My husband and I are living together in perfect happiness. You've made a mistake."

"No chance," he said, and suddenly his manner changed from the sympathetic to the accusing. "Mrs. Propbridge, we have exclusive advance information from reliable sources – a straight tip – that the proof against you is about to be turned over to your husband and we've every reason to believe that when he gets it in his hands he's going to sue you for divorce, naming as corespondent a certain middle-aged man. Do you mean to tell me you don't know anything about that?"

"Of course I mean to! Why, you're crazy! You're – "

"Wait just one minute please," he interrupted the distressed lady. "Wait until I get through telling you how much I know already; then you'll see that denials won't help you any. As a matter of fact we're ready now to go ahead and spring the story in next week's issue, but I thought it was only fair to come to you and give you a chance to make your defense in print – if you care to make one."

"I still tell you that you've made a terrible mistake," she declared. Her anger began to stir within her, as indignation succeeded to astonishment. "How dare you come here accusing me of doing anything wrong!"

"I'm accusing you of nothing. I'm only going by the plain evidence. I might be lying to you. Other people might lie to you. But, madam, photographs don't lie. That's why they're the best possible evidence in a divorce court. And I've seen the evidence. I've got it in my pocket right now."

"Evidence against me? Photographs of me?"

"Sure. Photographs of you and the gray-haired party." He reached in a breast pocket and brought out a thin sheaf of unmounted photographs and handed them to her. "Mrs. Propbridge, just take a look at these and then tell me if you blame me for assuming that there's bound to be trouble when your husband sees them?"

She looked, and her twirling brain told her it was all a nightmare, but her eyes told her it was not. Here were five photographs, enlarged snapshots apparently: One, a profile view, showing her standing on a boardwalk, her hand held in the hand of the man she had known as Valentine C. Murrill; one, a quartering view, revealing them riding together in a wheel chair, their heads close together, she smiling and he apparently whispering something of a pleasing and confidential nature to her, the posture of both almost intimate; one, a side view, showing the pair of them emerging from an open-fronted café – she recognized the façade of the place where they had found the orangeades so disappointing – and in this picture Mr. Murrill had been caught by the camera as he was saying something of seeming mutual interest, for she was glancing up sidewise at him and he had lowered his head until his lips almost touched her ear; one, showing them sitting at a small round table with a wine bottle and glasses in front of them and behind them a background suggesting the interior of a rather shabby drinking place, a distinct impression of sordidness somehow conveyed; and one, a rear view, showing them upon a bench alongside a seemingly deserted wooden structure of some sort, and in this one the man had been snapped in the very act of putting his arms about her and drawing her toward him.

That was all – merely five oblong slips of chemically printed paper, and yet on the face of them they told a damning and a condemning story.

She stared at them, she who was absolutely innocent of thought or intent of wrong-doing, and could feel the fabric of her domestic life trembling before it came crashing down.

"Oh, but this is too horrible for words!" the distressed lady cried out. "How could anybody have been so cruel, so malicious, as to follow us and waylay us and catch us in these positions? It's monstrous!"

"Somebody did catch you, then, in compromising attitudes – you admit that?"

"You twist my words to give them a false meaning!" she exclaimed. "You are trying to trap me into saying something that would put me in a wrong light. I can explain – why, the whole thing is so simple when you understand."

"Suppose you do explain, then. Get me right, Mrs. Propbridge – I'm all for you in this affair. I want to give you the best of it from every standpoint."

So she explained, her words pouring forth in a torrent. She told him in such details as she recalled the entire history of her meeting with the vanished Mr. Murrill – how a doctored telegram sent her husband away and left her alone, how Murrill had accosted her, and why and what followed – all of it she told him, withholding nothing.

He waited until she was through. Then he sped a bolt, watching her closely, for upon the way she took it much, from his viewpoint, depended.

"Well," he said, "if that's the way this thing happened and if you've told your husband about it" – he dragged his words just a trifle – "why should you be so worried, even if these pictures should reach him?"

Her look told him the shot had struck home. Inwardly he rejoiced, knowing, before she answered, what her answer would be.

"But I didn't tell him," she confessed, stricken with a new cause for concern. "I – I forgot to tell him."

"Oh, you forgot to tell him?" he repeated. Now suddenly he became a cross-examiner, snapping his questions at her, catching her up sharply in her replies. "And you say you never saw this Mr. Murrill – as you call him – before in all your life?"

"No."

"And you've never seen the mysterious stranger since?"

"There was nothing mysterious about him, I tell you. He was merely interesting."