Kitabı oku: «Vicky Van», sayfa 12

Appearance! Ah, I hadn't yet thought of that.

"Why," I exclaimed, "the two are not in the least alike, physically!"

"Miss Van Allen wore a black wig," said Stone. "A most cleverly constructed one, and she rouged her cheeks, penciled her eyelashes and reddened her lips to produce the high coloring that marked her from Mrs. Schuyler."

I thought this over, dully. Yes, they were the same height and weight, they had the same slight figure, but it had never occurred to me to compare their physical effects. I was a bit near-sighted and I had never taken enough real personal interest in Vicky to learn to love her features as I had Ruth's.

"You see," Fleming Stone was saying, though I scarce listened, "you are the only person that I have been able to find who knows both Miss Van Allen and Mrs. Schuyler. No one else has testified who knows them both. So much depends on you."

"You'll get nothing from me!" I fairly shouted. "They're not the same woman at all. You're all wrong, you and your lying boy there!"

"Your vehemence stultifies your own words," said Stone, quietly; "it proves your own realization of the truth and your anger and fury at that realization. I don't blame you. I know your regard for Mrs. Schuyler, I know you have always been a friend of Miss Van Allen. It is not strange that one woman attracts you, since the other did. But you've got to face this thing, so be a man and look at it squarely. I'll help you all I can, but I assure you there's nothing to be gained by denial of the self-evident truth."

"But, man," I said, trying to be calm, "the whole thing is impossible! How could Mrs. Randolph Schuyler, a well-known society lady, live a double life and enact Miss Van Allen, a gay butterfly girl? How could she get from one house to the other unobserved? Why wouldn't her servants know of it, even if her family didn't? How could she hoodwink her husband, her sisters-in-law, and her friends? Why didn't people see her leaving one house and entering the other? Why wasn't she missed from one house when she was in the other?"

"All answerable questions," said Stone. "You know Miss Van Allen went away frequently on long trips, and was in and out of her home all the time. Here to-day and gone to-morrow, as every one testifies who knew her."

This was true enough. Vicky was never at home more than a few days at a time and then absent for a week or so. Where? In the Fifth Avenue house as Ruth Schuyler? Incredible! Preposterous! But as I began to believe at last, true.

"How?" I repeated; "how could she manage?"

"Walls have tongues," said Stone. "These walls and this house tell me all the story. That is, they tell me this wonderful woman did accomplish this seemingly impossible thing. They tell me how she accomplished it. But they do not tell me why."

"There's no question about the why," I returned. "If Ruth Schuyler did live two lives it's easily understood why. Because that brute of a man allowed her no gayety, no pleasure, no fun of any sort compatible with her youth and tastes. He let her do nothing, have nothing, save in the old, humdrum ways that appealed to his notion of propriety. But he himself was no Puritan! He ran his own gait, and, unknown to his wife and sisters, he was a roue and a rounder! Whatever Ruth Schuyler may have done, she was amply justified–"

"Even in killing him?"

"She didn't kill him! Look here, Mr. Stone, even if all you've said is true, you haven't convicted her of murder yet. And you shan't! I'll protect that woman from the breath of scandal or slander—and that's what it is when you accuse her of killing that man! She never did it!"

"That remains to be seen," and Fleming Stone's deep gray eyes showed a sad apprehension. "But nothing can be done to-night. Can there, Terence?"

"No, Mr. Stone, not to-night. No, by no means, not to-night! It wouldn't do!" The boy's earnestness seemed to me out of all proportion to his simple statement, but I could stand no more and I went home, to spend the night in a dazed wonder, a furious disbelief, and finally an enforced conviction that Vicky Van and Ruth Schuyler were one and the same.

CHAPTER XX
THE TRUTH FROM RUTH

Next morning I was conscious of but one desire, to get to Ruth and tell her of my love and faith in her, and assure her of my protection and assistance whatever happened.

Whatever happened! The thought struck me like a knell. What could happen but her arrest and trial?

But as I went out of my own door—I left the house early, for I couldn't face Aunt Lucy and Winnie—I suddenly decided it would be better to see Stone first and learn if anything had transpired since I left him.

I rang the bell at Vicky Van's house with a terrible feeling of impending disaster, that might be worse than any yet known.

Fibsy let me in. I wanted to hate that boy and yet his very evident adoration of Ruth Schuyler made me love him. I knew all that he had discovered had been as iron entering his soul, but his duty led him on and he dared not pause or falter.

"We may as well tell him," he said to Stone, and the detective nodded.

"But come downstairs with us and have a cup of coffee first," Stone said; "you'll need it, as you say you've had no breakfast. Fibsy makes first-rate coffee, and I can tell you, Calhoun, you've a hard day before you."

"Have you learned anything further?" I managed to stammer out as we went down to the basement room that they used as a dining-room now.

"Yes; as I told you, walls have tongues, and the walls have given up the secret of how Mrs. Schuyler managed her two-sided existence."

But he would not tell me the secret until I had been fortified with two cups of steaming Mocha, which fully justified his praise of Fibsy's culinary prowess.

Fibsy himself said nothing beyond a brief "good morning," and the lad's eyes were red and his voice shook as he spoke.

"I knew," Stone said, as we finished breakfast, "that there must be some means, some secret means of communication between the two houses, the Schuyler house and this. You see, the Schuyler house, fronting on Fifth Avenue, three doors from the corner, runs back a hundred feet, and abuts on the rear rooms of this house, which runs back from the side street. In a word, the two houses form a right angle, and the back wall of the Schuyler house is directly against the side wall of the rear rooms of this house. Therefore, I felt sure there must be an entrance from one house to the other, not perceivable to an observer. And, of course, it must be in Mrs. Schuyler's own rooms; it couldn't be in their dining-room or halls. A few questions made me realize that Miss Van Allen's boudoir was separated from Mrs. Schuyler's bath room by only the partition wall of the houses. And I said that wall must speak to me. And it did."

We were now on our way upstairs, Stone ready at last to let me into the secret he had discovered.

We went to Vicky's boudoir, and he continued: "You know you found the strand of gilt beads caught in this mirror frame. We all assumed Miss Van Allen had flirted it there as she dressed for her party, but I reasoned that it might have caught there as she escaped to the Schuyler house the night of the murder. Yes, she did escape this way—look."

Stone touched a hidden spring and the mirror in the Florentine frame slid silently aside into the wall, leaving an aperture that without doubt led into the next house. The frame remained stationary, but the mirror slid away as a sliding door works, and so smoothly that there was absolutely no sound or jar.

I saw what was like a small closet, about two feet deep and perhaps three feet wide. At the back of it, that is, against the walls of the adjoining room in the other house, we could see the shape of a similar door, and the secret was out. There was no need to open that other door to know that it led to Ruth Schuyler's rooms. There was yet more telltale evidence. In the little cupboard between the houses was a small safe. This Stone had opened and in it was the black wig of Vicky Van and also a brown wig which I recognized at once as Julie's well-remembered plainly parted front hair.

"You see, Tibbetts is Julie," said Fibsy, in such a heart-broken and despairing voice that I felt the tears rush to my own eyes.

Vicky's wig! The loops of sleek black hair, the soft loose knot behind, the delicate part, all just as it crowned her little head—Ruth's head! Oh, I couldn't stand it! It was too fearful!

"This other door," Stone said, "opens into Mrs. Schuyler's bathroom. That I know. You see, she had to have this entrance from some room absolutely her own. Her bathroom was safe from interruption, and when she chose she slipped through from one house to the other and back at will."

"No, I can't understand it," I insisted, shaking my head. "If she came in here as Ruth Schuyler why wasn't she seen?"

"Because, before she was seen, she had made herself over into Victoria

Van Allen. She had donned wig and make-up, safe from interruption,

here in her boudoir. This make-up she removed before returning to the

Schuyler house in her role of Mrs. Schuyler."

"It is too unbelievable!"

"No; it is diabolically clever, but quite understandable. Julie and Tibbetts are the same. This confidential woman looked after her mistress' safety on both sides. She remained when Vicky Van disappeared. She looked after everything, took care of details, attended to tradesmen and all such matters, and when ready followed Mrs. Schuyler into the other house, or went from here to her rooms a few blocks away and later came from them. When there were to be parties, Julie left the Schuyler house early, came here and made preparations, and then as late as ten or eleven o'clock maybe, Mrs. Schuyler came in from her home, when her own household thought her abed and asleep. She could go back in the early morning hours, with no one the wiser. Or, if she chose and she did when her husband was out of town, she could pretend she had gone away for a visit and stay here for days at a time."

I began to see. Truly the wall's tongue had spoken. If this awful theory of Stone's were true, it could only be managed in this way. I remembered how long and how often Vicky Van was absent from her home. I remembered that sometimes she was late in arriving at her own parties, although she always came down from upstairs in her party regalia.

"How did you come to suspect Tibbetts?" I asked, suddenly.

"Her teeth," said Fibsy. "I saw that Tibbetts had false teeth, anyway, an' I says, why can't Julie's gold teeth be false, too? And they are. They're in the safe!"

What marvelous precautions they had taken! To think of having a set of teeth for the maid Julie that should appear so different from those of Tibbetts! Surely this thing was the result of long and careful planning.

"Her glasses, too," went on Fibsy. "You see, they made her different from Tibbetts in appearance. That was all the disguise Tibbs had, the gold teeth, the big rimmed specs and the brown scratch—wig, you know. But it was enough. Nobody notices a servant closely, and these things altered her looks sufficient. Miss Van Allen, now, she had a wig an' a lot of colorin' matter an' her giddy clothes. Nothin' left to reckernize but her eyes, an' they were so darkened by the long dark lashes and brows that she fixed up that it made her eyes seem darker. I got all this from the pitchers the artist lady made. You see, she caught the color likeness but not the actual features. So I sized up the resemblance of the real women. Oh, Mr. Stone, what are we going to do?"

"Our duty, Terence."

Then I put forth my plea, that I might be allowed to go and see Ruth first; that I might prepare her for the disclosures they would make, the discoveries they would announce.

But Stone denied me. He said they would do or say nothing that would unnecessarily hurt her feelings, but they must accompany me. Indeed, he implied, that it might be as well for me not to go.

But I insisted on going, and we three went on our terrible errand.

Ruth received us in the library. She saw at once that her secret was known, and she took it calmly.

"You know," she said, quietly, to Stone. "I am sorry. I hoped to hide my secret and let Victoria Van Allen forever remain a mystery. But it cannot be. I admit all—"

"Wait, Ruth," I cried out. "Admit nothing until you are accused."

"I am accused," she responded, with a sad smile. "I heard you talking in the passage between the rooms. In my bathroom I could hear you distinctly. There is there a mirror door also. It looks like an ordinary mirror and has a wide, flat nickel frame, matching the other fittings. Yes, I had the sliding doors built for the purposes which you have surmised. Shall I tell you my story?"

"Yes, and let us hear it, too," came from the doorway, and the two sisters appeared, agog with excitement and curiosity.

"Come in," said Ruth, quietly. "Sit down, please, I want you to hear it. Most of it you know, Sarah and Rhoda, but I will tell it briefly to Mr. Stone, for I want not leniency, but justice."

I seated myself at Ruth's side, and though I said no word I knew that she understood that my heart and life were at her disposal and that whatever she might be about to tell would not shake my love and devotion. It is not necessary to use words when a life crisis occurs.

"I was an orphan," Ruth said, "brought up by a stern and Puritanical old aunt in New England. I had no joy or pleasures in my childhood or girlhood days. I ran away from home to become an actress. Tibbetts, my old nurse, who lived in the same village, followed me to keep an eye on me and protect me in need. I was a chorus girl for just one week when Randolph Schuyler discovered me and offered to marry me if I would renounce the stage and also gay life of any sort and become a dignified old-fashioned matron. I willingly accepted. I was only seventeen and knew nothing of the world or its ways. As soon as we were married he forbade me any sort of amusement or pleasure other than those practised by his elderly sisters. I submitted and lived a life of slavery to his whims and his cruelty for five years. He had agreed to let me have Tibbetts for my maid, as he deemed her a staid old woman who would not encourage me in wayward desires. Nor did she. But she realized my thraldom, my lonely, unhappy life, and knew that I was pining away for want of the simple innocent pleasures that my youth and light-hearted nature craved. I used to beg and plead for permission to have a few young friends or to be allowed to go to a few parties or plays. But Mr. Schuyler kept me as secluded as any woman in a harem. He gave me no liberty, no freedom in the slightest degree.

"I had been married about four years when I rebelled and began to think up a scheme of a dual existence. I had ample time in the long lonely hours to perfect my plans, and I had them arranged to the minutest detail long before I put them in operation. Why, I practised writing with my left hand and acquired a different speaking voice for a year before I needed such subterfuges. Had I been able to persuade my husband to give me even a little pleasure or happiness I would willingly have given up my wild scheme. But he wouldn't; so once when he was away on a long trip, I had the passage between the two houses made.

"I had previously bought the other house, under the name of Van Allen, for I had money of my own, left me by an uncle that Mr. Schuyler knew nothing about. Of course, this money came to me after I was married or I never should have wed Randolph Schuyler.

"Tibbetts' cousin, an expert carpenter, did the work, and, as he afterward went to England to live, I had no fear of discovery that way. Indeed, there was little fear of discovery in any way. I was expected to spend much of my time in my own rooms—and my bedroom, dressing room and bath form a little suite by themselves and can be locked off from the rest of the house. So, when I retired to my rooms for the night I could go through into the other house and become Vicky Van at my pleasure."

"I can't believe such baseness!" declared Rhoda Schuyler, "such ingratitude to a husband who was so good to you—"

"He wasn't good to me," said Ruth, quietly, "nor was I ungrateful. Randolph Schuyler spoiled my life; he denied me everything I asked for, every innocent pleasure and amusement. So, I found them for myself. I did nothing wrong. As Victoria Van Allen I had friends and pleasures that suited my age and my love of life, but there never was anything wrong or guilty in my house–"

"Until you killed your husband!" interrupted Sarah.

"Until the night of Randolph Schuyler's appearance at Vicky Van's house," Ruth went on. "I had been told of a Mr. Somers who wanted to know me, but I had no idea it was my husband masquerading under a false name. He came there with Mr. Steele. Of course, I recognized him, but he did not know me at once. I sat, playing bridge, and wondering how I could best make my escape. I saw that he didn't know me and then, suddenly as I sat, holding my cards, and he stood beside me, he noticed a tiny scar on my shoulder. He made that scar himself, one night, when he hit me with a hot curling iron."

"What!" I cried, unable to repress an exclamation of horror.

"Yes, I was curling my hair with the tongs and he became angry at me for some trivial reason, as he often did, and he snatched up the iron and hit my shoulder. It made a deep burn and he was very sorry.

"Whenever he saw it afterward he said, 'Never again!' meaning he would never strike me again. Then, when he noticed the scar that night, although I had put on a light scarf to cover it, he said 'Never again!' in that peculiar intonation, and I knew then that he knew Victoria Van Allen was his own wife.

"I ran out to the dining-room and he followed me."

"And you stabbed him!" cried Rhoda; "stabbed your husband! Murderess!"

"I don't deny it," said Ruth, slowly. "The jury must decide that. I must be tried, I suppose—"

"Don't, Ruth!" I cried, in agony. "Don't talk like that! You shall not be tried! You didn't kill Schuyler! If you did it was in self-defence. Wasn't it? Didn't he try to kill you?"

"Yes, he did. He snatched the little carver from the sideboard and attacked me,—and I—and I—"

"Don't say it, Ruth—keep still!" I ordered, beside myself with my whirling thoughts. The little carving-knife!

"And you defended yourself with the caterer's knife—" began Stone, but Fibsy wailed, "No! No! It wasn't Mrs. Schuyler! I've got the prints from the caterer's knife and they ain't Mrs. Schuyler's at all! She didn't kill him!"

"No, she didn't!" and Tibbetts appeared in the library doorway. "I did it myself."

"That's right!" and Fibsy's eyes gleamed satisfaction; "she did! It's her fingermarks on the knife that stabbed old Schuyler. They're plain as print! Nobody thought of matching up those marks with Tibbetts's mitt! But I'll bet she did it to save Mrs. Schuyler's life!"

"I did," and Tibbetts came into the room and stood facing us.

"Tell your story," said Stone, abruptly, as he looked at the white-faced woman.

"Here it is," and Tibbetts looked fondly at Ruth as the latter's piteous glance met hers. "I've loved and watched over Mrs. Schuyler all her life. I've protected her from her husband's brutality and helped her to bear his cruelty and unkindness. When she conceived the plan of the double life I helped her all I could, and I got my cousin to do the work on the houses that made it all possible. Then, I was Julie, and I devoted my life and energies to keeping the secret and allowing my mistress to have some pleasure out of her life. And she did." Tibbets looked affectionately, even proudly, at Ruth. "The hours she spent in that house as Victoria Van Allen were full of simple joys and happy occupation. She had the books and pictures and furniture that she craved. She had things to eat and things to wear that she wanted. She went to parties and she had parties; she went to the theatre and to the shops, and wherever she chose, without let or hindrance. It did my heart good to see her enjoy herself in those innocent ways.

"Then Mr. Schuyler came. I knew the man. I knew that he came because he had heard of the charm and beauty of Vicky Van. He had no idea he would find her his own wife! When he did discover it I knew he would kill her. Oh, I knew Randolph Schuyler! I knew nothing short of murder would satisfy the rage that possessed him at the discovery. I prepared for it. I got the little boning-knife from the pantry, and as Mr. Schuyler lifted the carver and aimed it at Ruth's breast I drove the little knife into his vile, wicked, murderer's heart. And I'm glad I did it! I glory in it! I saved Ruth's life and I rid the world of a scoundrel and a villain who had no right to live and breathe on God's earth! Now, you may take me and do with me as you will. I give myself up."

It was the truth. On the carving-knife appeared, plain as print, the finger marks of Randolph Schuyler, proved a hundred times by prints photographed from his own letters, toilet articles, and personal belongings in his own rooms. In his mad fury at the discovery of Ruth masquerading as Vicky Van, and in his sudden realization of all that it meant, he clutched the first weapon he saw, the little carver, to end her life and gratify his madness for revenge. Just in time, the watching Tibbets had intervened, stabbed Schuyler, and then ran upstairs, to escape through the hidden doors to the other house.

Ruth, stunned at the sight of the blow driven by Tibbetts, and dazed by her own narrow escape from a fearful death, picked up the carver that dropped from Schuyler's lifeless hand and ran upstairs, too.

She had, she explained afterward, a hazy idea that she was picking up the knife that Tibbetts had used, so bewildered was she at the swift turn of events. And as she stooped over Schuyler in her frenzy the waiter had seen her and assumed she was the murderer. This, too, explained the blood on the flounces of her gown—it had brushed the fallen figure of her husband and became stained at the touch.

The two women had, of course, slipped through the connecting mirror doors into the Schuyler house, and long before the alarm was brought there they were rehabilitated and ready to receive the news.

Then Ruth's quandary was a serious one. Innocent herself, she could not tell of her double life without making the whole affair public and incriminating Tibbetts, whom she loved almost as a mother and who had saved Ruth's life by a fraction of a second. An instant's delay and Schuyler's knife would have been driven into Ruth's heart.

So, for Tibbetts' sake, Ruth, perforce, kept the secret of Vicky Van.

"I was not ashamed of it," she told us, frankly. "There was nothing really wrong in my living two lives. My husband denied me the pleasure and joy that life owed me, so I found it for myself. I never had a friend or committed a deed or said a word as Victoria Van Allen that all the world mightn't hear or know of. And I should have owned up to the whole scheme at once except that it would bring out the knowledge of Tibbetts' act.

"I wished not to go back to the other house at all and should not have done so for myself. But I had reasons—connected with other people. A friend, whom I love, had asked the privilege of having certain letters sent her in my care, that is, in care of Miss Van Allen, and I had to go in once or twice to rescue those and so prevent a scandal that would ensue upon their discovery. For her sake I risked going back there at night. Also, I wanted my address book, for it has in it many addresses of people who are my charity beneficiaries. Mr. Schuyler never allowed me to contribute to any charitable cause, and I have enjoyed giving help to some who need and deserve it. These addresses I had to have, and I have them.

"Mr. Stone was right. The walls had tongues. He first noticed a little defect in the green paint in the living room, which I had retouched. Winnie told me of this, and I realized how clever Mr. Stone is. So, I threw away the paint I had used, which was in here, and I carefully thought out what else was incriminating and removed all I could from the other house. Fibsy noticed when I took a book from a table, but that book I wanted, because—" she blushed—"because Mr. Calhoun had given it to me and I wasn't sure I could get it any other way.

"But the walls told all, and at the last I knew it was only a question of time when Mr. Stone or Terence would discover the doors. I suppose the strand of beads that caught as I escaped that night gave a hint, but they would have found them anyway. They are wonderful doors—in their working, I mean. No complicated mechanism, but merely so well made and adjusted that a touch opens or closes them, and absolutely silently. No one in this house ever dreamed the bathroom mirror was anything but a mirror. And in the other house the elaborate Florentine frame precluded all idea of a secret contrivance. The two feet of thickness of the house walls made a tiny cupboard, where I had that small safe installed, that we might put our wigs and such definitely incriminating bits of evidence in hiding, also Vicky's jewelry. But I always changed my costumes from one character to the other in Vicky Van's dressing-room, and so ran little or no chance of discovery.

"In a futile endeavor to distract attention from Victoria Van Allen I wrote a note to Ruth Schuyler and also wrote the one found in Mr. Schuyler's desk. I did these things in hopes that the detectives would cease to watch for the return of Miss Van Allen, but it turned out differently. I assumed, of course, if search could be diverted from that house into other channels there would be a possibility of Tibbetts never being suspected. I am sorry she has confessed. I do not want her to be tried. She saved my life, and I would do anything to keep her from harm."

But Tibbetts was tried and was acquitted. A just jury, knowing all of the facts, declared it was a case of justifiable homicide, and the verdict was "Not guilty!"

The Schuyler sisters were finally convinced that Ruth's life had been endangered by their brother's rage, and, though they condemned Tibbetts in their hearts, they said little in the face of public opinion.

As for me, I couldn't wait until a conventional time had elapsed before telling my darling of my love for her own sweet self and, as I now realized, for Vicky Van also. I spent hours listening to the details of her double life; of the narrow escapes from discovery, and the frequent occasions of danger to her scheme. But Tibbetts' watchful eyes and Ruth's own cleverness had made the plan feasible for two years, and it was only because Ruth had found her dear heart was inclining too greatly toward me that she had begun to think it her duty to give up her double life. She had recently decided to do so, for she was not willing to let our mutual interest ripen into love while she was the wife of another man.

And so, if it hadn't all happened just as it did, I should never have won my darling, for she was about to give up the Van Allen house and I never should have had occasion to meet Mrs. Randolph Schuyler.

It is all past history now, and Ruth and I are striving to forget even the memories of it. We live in another city, and Tibbetts is our faithful and beloved housekeeper.

And often Ruth says to me: "I know you love me, Chet, but sometimes I can't help feeling a little jealous of the girl you cared for—that, what's her name? Oh, yes, Vicky Van!"

"Vicky Van was all right," I stoutly maintain. "I never knew a more charming, sweeter, prettier, dearer little girl than Vicky!"

"But she was awfully made up!"

"Yes, that's where you score an advantage. The only thing about Vicky I disapproved of was her paint and powder. Thank heaven, my wife has a complexion that's all her own." And I kissed the soft, pale cheek of my own Ruth.