Ramshackle House. Footner Hulbert
been telephoned down from Baltimore. They came to Broome’s Point with the instinct of picking up the trail where it started, forgetting that water holds no tracks. One spot around the shores was as good as another to begin the search. Dr. Hance was not among them. Possibly the reward had put him off too. Others who had not the initiative to institute a search, merely came to hang around and stare and ask foolish questions. A little later Captain Spinney brought over a whole party of reporters from Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. These gentlemen undertook to interview Pen in a body. She liked them less than young Danner. She referred them to her father, and fled to her room.
Pendleton, enthroned on the porch, the center of interest for the crowd, was in his element. He graciously accepted the reporters’ excellent cigars, and little by little, without realizing it, embroidered on his tale. In an expansive moment he asked them to lunch en masse, and then in terror went to Pen to tell her what he had done.
She merely nodded. “There’s enough for one meal. But we’ll run short at supper.”
She gave the necessary orders for the meal, but declined to appear herself. Not until she knew the men were all gathered around the table did she venture to come down the back stairs and see to some of the things that had been left undone that distracted morning. Then she shut herself up again.
During the afternoon an automobile with a broken spring managed to win through by the road. It brought a load of New York reporters. These in asking their way had spread the news along the Neck, and the poor whites who lived there hidden in the woods began to straggle in in ox-carts, to share in the excitement.
Reporters made themselves at home all over the lower floor of the big house, even in the kitchen where they chaffed Aunt Maria and questioned her adroitly. This was a source of great uneasiness to Pen. She was divided between anxiety and indignation. There was something old English in Pen. Thus to have her castle invaded was the greatest outrage she could conceive of. But what could she do? She experienced a sickening loss of identity.
She could not stay in her room all the time. Whenever she went downstairs it was to be waylaid by one or half a dozen inquisitors who according to their natures tried to cajole her or to entrap her into answering their questions. Meanwhile the natives pressed their faces against the windows and stared in. Finally Pen sought her father.
“How long have I got to submit to this?” she demanded.
“To what, my dear?” he asked, sparring for time.
“To having my house overrun by strangers!”
“Patience, my child. They’re not doing any real harm.”
“But our house, our house? Have we no rights in it?”
“I know, I know. But what can I do?”
“Request them to leave. They can at least wait outside the fence.”
“But my dear!” said Pendleton aghast. “We’ve got to stand in well with the Press. Suppose they were to give the impression in their stories that we were concealing this fellow!” This was accompanied by his furtive glance of suspicion.
Pen thought in dismay: “One of them has put that idea into his head!” She said no more, but marched indignantly back to her room.
Worse trials were in store for her. About five, from her window she saw a new party of men come in by the drive. Even at the distance she could see that they differed subtly from the reporters, stupider looking men who carried themselves with the arrogance of conscious rectitude. After awhile Aunt Maria came to the door of her room, the whites of her eyes showing.
“Miss Penny, honey,” she gasped. “Yo’ Paw say, please to come downstairs.”
“What’s the matter, Aunt Maria?”
“Detecatifs, honey!” said Aunt Maria in an awe-struck whisper. “Detecatifs fum Noo Yawk!”
Without bestirring herself at all, Pen changed her dress and went slowly downstairs. As soon as she entered the drawing-room she regretted her dilatoriness, for they already had Aunt Maria on the carpet, and the old negress was sweating in agitation. Pen instantly conceived a violent dislike of her inquisitor. He was a bull-necked, ageing man with pendulous cheeks and dull, irascible blue eyes. He lolled in a chair by the window, with an arm over the back, and his fingers interlaced. He nodded to Pen and curtly requested her to be seated.
Pen flared up inwardly. (“Asking me to sit down in my own house!”) In order to show that she was still mistress there, she moved calmly about the room, setting things in order. They had presumed to shove her center table over to the fireplace to give themselves room. She shoved it back. The chief with an annoyed glance resumed his questioning of the scared negress.
The room was full of people. There were four lesser officers grouped around the chief’s chair. The reporters were gathered in a group under the arch that led to the back drawing-room. Pen soon learned that there was an excellent working agreement between these two parties, the reporters dependent on the detectives for news, and the detectives dependent on the reporters for public recognition of their efforts. Over by the other front window sat Pendleton, leaning back in an old swivel chair, trying to appear at his ease.
Aunt Maria was saying: “Soon as Mist’ Pendleton go out Ah undress Miss Penny and put her in baid. She done drap right off lak a kitten.”
“Then what did you do?” the man asked in the rasping voice inquisitors affect.
“Me? Ah didn’t do nuffin, suh. Ah jes sot.”
“Did you go to sleep too?”
“Ah reckon Ah did.”
“How long did you sleep?”
“’Deed I caint tell. I aint know nuffin else till Miss Penny wake me up again.”
“So she woke you up?”
Aunt Maria perceived that she had made a slip. “Yessuh! Yessuh!” she stammered. “Miss Penny done want a drink of watah.”
“How did she wake you?”
Again Aunt Maria’s tongue slipped. “She done shook mah ahm.”
“So she was out of bed?”
“No suh! No suh!” cried Aunt Maria in a panic. “I misrecollect that. She jes hollered at me.”
It would have been patent to a child that Aunt Maria was lying. The scene was intolerable to Pen’s pride.
“Aunt Maria, tell the truth,” she said sharply.
The poor old negress turned a face of complete dismay to her mistress. What was she to make of this? In her confusion she was unable to get anything else out.
To Pen the chief detective said harshly: “Please be silent, Miss. You will have a chance to tell your story in a minute.”
Pen’s eyes blazed. “You are not to suppose that you are entrapping me or my servant!” she said hotly. “I have no objection to your knowing that I went down to the beach last night and warned Mr. Counsell that he was liable to arrest!”
It had the effect of a bombshell there in the room. For a second all the men stared at Pen open-mouthed. Then of one accord the reporters made a rush out into the hall where the telephone was. He who first laid hand on it was allowed to get his call in first. Pen was too angry now to be terrified by further publicity. Their precipitancy merely disgusted her. Was there no such thing as human dignity?
Pendleton Broome’s swivel chair had come forward with a snap. He looked clownish. He was the only one really surprised by Pen’s disclosure. What astonished the others was that she should have admitted it. For a fleeting instant Pen felt sorry for the little man, but she had too much on her mind for the feeling to linger. The detective was not surprised, but he had counted on dragging out the admission, and it annoyed him excessively to have it flung in his face. He affected to be consulting with his subordinates while he recovered himself.
“You had