Ramshackle House. Footner Hulbert
detective faced each other. The man cleared his throat and settled his collar, gave attention to his finger nails, and glanced carelessly out of the window—all time-honored devices to break up the composure of one’s opponent. Pen merely looked at him. Suddenly he rasped at her:
“So you assisted this murderer to escape?”
“Don’t speak to me like that,” said Pen quietly, with heightened color. “He is not yet proved a murderer.” Meanwhile her inner voice was saying despairingly: “You should not antagonize him! You should not antagonize him!” But it was impossible for her to act otherwise towards this great, stupid bully.
He smiled disagreeably; nevertheless he modified his tone. “What did you do it for?” he asked.
“He had had dinner and supper with us,” said Pen. “I differed with my father as to its being our duty to inform against him.”
“Where did he go from here?”
“I don’t know.”
“What! It was a bright moonlight night. Didn’t you have interest enough to watch which way he went after having warned him?”
“He paddled straight out from the shore. I didn’t wait. The motor-boat was coming back.”
“Why didn’t they see your tracks in the sand?”
“I walked at the edge of the water.”
“What did you want to deceive your father for?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Pen with her chin up. “That is between my father and me.”
The detective abandoned this line of questioning. “Didn’t Counsell tell you where he was going?” he demanded.
“No.”
“Didn’t you talk down on the beach?”
“Certainly.”
“What about?”
“I had to tell him what was in the newspaper.”
“Didn’t he know already?”
“He did not.”
The detective looked around at his subordinates with a leer, and they all laughed. Instead of disconcerting Pen it had the effect of stiffening her. She looked at one after another so steadily that their eyes suddenly found business elsewhere.
The chief said suddenly with the air of one springing a disagreeable surprise: “Had you ever seen Counsell before yesterday?”
“Never,” said Pen.
“Are you sure of that?”
Pen merely looked at him.
“Answer my question, please!”
“I have already answered it.”
“Do you expect me to believe that you undertook to save a total stranger from the law?”
“I have stated the facts.”
The detective sprang to his feet and shook a violent forefinger at Pen—the old trick of the inquisitor. “You have seen this man before!”
“Don’t shout at me,” said Pen coolly. “I am not a criminal.”
“As to that we’ll see,” he said ominously. “Did you ever hear of accessory after the fact.”
“Well, if I am a criminal,” said Pen, “I don’t have to testify against myself.”
“Don’t argue with me if you please,” he said. “Just answer my questions.”
“Answer me a question if you please,” said Pen clearly.
He stared. He was not accustomed to having the tables turned like this.
Before he could explode Pen asked her question: “You are from New York, aren’t you?”
“What of it?”
“What are your rights in Maryland?”
His face turned ugly. “You’ll see!” He addressed one of his men. “Keesing, you have heard this young woman’s admissions. There’s a justice of the peace over on the Island. Go to him and make the necessary affidavit to secure a warrant for her arrest.”
The man left the room. Pen believed this to be a bluff, and scornfully smiled. Her father was impressed though. He wilted down in his chair, and put out an imploring hand towards his daughter. He was incapable of speaking.
“Do you want anything else of me?” Pen coolly asked her questioner.
Seeing that his threat had failed of effect, the detective judged it prudent not to prolong this scene. “That is all for the present,” he said loftily. “You will please not leave the house.”
“Thank you,” said Pen, “but until I am arrested I shall do just what I am accustomed to do.”
She left the room with her head up and went on up the stairs. She was not at all pleased with herself though. That inner voice said remorselessly: “You have only angered him without doing Don any good.” To be sure, she had seen sympathy in the eyes of some of the reporters, but they could not say anything of course that might endanger their working agreement with the detectives. At the thought of danger to herself Pen smiled. She was in the frame of mind that welcomes persecution. But her heart was full of terror for Don. She had not foreseen that the place would be overrun like this. He was so near! And the detective’s order to remain in the house suggested that they suspected he might still be on the place.
On her knees at her front window she watched the men leave the house in a body. Some shrubbery cut off her view of the gate, and she could not tell which way they turned after passing through it. Fortunately but an hour or two of daylight remained.
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