"Persons Unknown". Virginia Tracy
he played the piano with the other?"
"Mr. Herrick, there couldn't have been any lady there!" He bridled. "It's against the rules—that time o' night! I wouldn't ever allow such a thing. There's never been a word against the Van Dam since I been running it. Why, Mr. Herrick, if there was to be that kind of talk, especially if she was to murder the gentleman and all like that, I'd be ruined. And so'd the house. It ain't one o' these cheap flat buildings. We got leases signed by—"
"Oh, I see!" Herrick felt his temper rising. But he tried to be reasonable while he added, "I'm very sorry for you. But there was a woman there. I've reported so already to the police. Even if I had not, I couldn't go in for perjury, Mr. Deutch."
"No, no! Of course not! Of course! I wouldn't ask you! You don't understand me! It's not to take back what you said already to the police. That'd get you into trouble. And it couldn't be done. I couldn't expect it. It's not facts you might go a little easy on, Mr. Herrick; it's your language!"
"What!"
"It's your descriptive language, Mr. Herrick. If only you wouldn't be quite so particular—"
"Look here!" said Herrick with his odd, brusk slowness. "I didn't know it myself last night. But Mr. Ingham wasn't altogether a stranger to me." Deutch stared at him. "He had friends in the town I come from and a good many people I know are going to be badly cut up about his death. I was to have met him on business this very day. Now you can see that I don't feel very leniently to the person—not even to the woman—who murdered him. I don't believe he killed himself. He had no reason to do it. If there's anything I can do to prove he didn't, that thing's going to be done. If there's any word of mine that's a clue to tell who killed him, I can't speak it often enough nor loud enough. Understand that, Mr. Deutch. And, good-morning."
"Oh, my God! Oh, dear! But my dear sir—"
"And let me give you a word of warning. If you keep on like this what people will really say is, that you knew there was a woman there and that it was you who connived at her escape!"
"All right!" cried Mr. Deutch, unexpectedly. "Let 'em say it! I got no kick coming if people tell lies about me, any. All I want stopped is the lies you're putting into people's heads about Miss Christina."
"Miss Christina!" Herrick exclaimed. He stared, wondering if the poor worried little soul had gone out of his head. "I never mentioned any woman's name. I didn't know any to mention. I never heard of any Miss Christina!"
"You told the policeman the way she made motions, moving around and all like that, it made you think maybe they were rehearsing something out of a play."
"Did I? Well?"
Mr. Deutch possessed himself of the newspaper which Herrick had dropped upon the bed, and pointed to the last line of the murder story. It ran: "About a year ago Mr. Ingham became engaged to be married to Christina Hope, the actress." And Herrick read the line with a strange thrill, as of prophecy realized. "Oh—ho!" he breathed.
"Oh—ho!" hysterically mocked the superintendent. "You see what it makes you think, all right. Even me!—that was what brought her first to my mind, poor lady. The police officers may have forgot it or not noticed, any. But if you say it again, at the inquest, you'll make everybody think the same thing. And it's not so!" he almost shrieked. "It's not so. It's a damn mean lie! And you got no right to say such a thing!"
"That's true," said Herrick, intently. After his impulsive whistle he had begun to furl his sails. He had heard vaguely of Christina Hope, as a promising young actress who had made her mark somewhere in the West, and was soon to attempt the same feat on Broadway. He knew nothing to her detriment.
"Ain't it hard enough for her, poor young lady, with him gone and all, but what she should have that said about her! And it wouldn't stop there, even! She was there alone with him at night, they'd say, with their nasty slurs. She'd never stand a chance. For there ain't any denying she's on the stage, and that's enough to make everybody think she's guilty—"
"Oh, come! Why—"
"Wasn't it enough for you, yourself?"
Herrick opened his lips for an indignant negative, but he closed them without speaking.
"The minute you seen that paragraph you felt 'She's just the person to be mixed up with things that way.' And then you grabbed hold of yourself and said, 'Why, no. She may be as nice as anybody. Give her the benefit of the doubt.' But there's the doubt, all right. You're an edjucated gennelman," said Mr. Deutch, sympathetically, "but all these prejudiced, old-fashioned farmers and low-brows like they got on juries—people like them, and Miss Christina—Oh! Good Lord! Ach, don't I know 'em! Mr. Herrick, it's my solemn word, if you say that at the inquest to turn them on to Miss Christina, you—"
"I shan't say it at the inquest," Herrick said. He was astonished at the completeness of the charge in his own mind. He was convinced, now, in every nerve, that Ingham had met death at the hands of his betrothed. But the very violence of his conviction warned him not to lay such a handicap upon other minds. His chance phrase, his chance impression, must color neither the popular nor the legal outlook. "I shall take very good care, you may be sure, to say nothing of the kind. Here!" he cried, "you want a drink!"
For Mr. Deutch, at this emphatic assurance, had put his plump elbows on his plump knees and hidden his moon face, his spaniel eyes, with plump and shaky fists. He drank the whiskey Herrick brought him and slowly got himself together; without embarrassment, but with a comfort in his relaxation which made Herrick guess how tight he had been strung. As he returned the glass he said, "If you knew what a lot we thought, Mr. Herrick, me and my wife, of the young lady, I wouldn't seem anywheres near so crazy to you."
Herrick sat down on the edge of the bed in his shirtsleeves and regarded his guest. Strict delicacy required that he ask no questions. But he was human. And he had been a reporter. He said, "You used to see her with Mr. Ingham?"
"Oh, great Scott, Mr. Herrick, we knew her long before that! Long before ever he set eyes on her. When she was a tiny little thing and her papa had money, he used to get his wine from my firm. He was such a pleasant-spoken, agreeable gentleman that when I went into business for myself I sent him my card. It wasn't the wine business, Mr. Herrick, it was oil paintings. I always was what you might call artistic; I got very refined feelings, and business ain't exactly in my line. I had as high-class a little shop as ever you set your eyes on; gold frames; plush draperies, electric lights; fine, beautiful oil paintings—oh, beautiful!—by expensive, high-class artists; everything elegant. But it wasn't a success. The public don't appreciate the artistic, Mr. Herrick, they got no edjucation. I lost my last dollar, and I don't know as I ever recovered exactly. I ain't ever been what you could call anyways successful, since."
"But you saw something of Mr. Hope—"
"Well, Mr. Hope was an edjucated gentleman, Mr. Herrick, like you are yourself. He had very up-to-date ideas; and when he'd buy a picture, once in a while I'd go up to the house to see it hung. Miss Christina was about eight years old, then, and I used to see her coming in from dancing school with her maid, or else she'd be just riding out with her groom behind her, like a little queen. When my shop failed; I went to manage my sister-in-law's restaurant. I was ashamed to let Mr. Hope know that time. But one Sunday night, my wife says to me, 'Ain't that little girl as pretty as the one you been telling me about?' And there in the door, with her long hair straight down from under her big hat and her little long legs in black silk stockings straight down from one o' them pleated skirts and her long, square, coat, was Miss Christina. Behind her was her papa and her mama. And after that they came pretty regular every week or two; we served her twelfth birthday party. My wife made a cake with twelve pink rosebuds, all herself. She was always the little lady, Miss Christina, but she made her own friends, and to people she liked she spoke as pretty as a princess. We got to feel such an affection for her, Mr. Herrick, we couldn't believe there was anybody like her in this world. We never had a child of our own, me and my wife, Mr. Herrick. It does knock out your faith in things to think a thing like that can happen, but it's what's happened to her and me. We was kind of cracked about all children, and Miss Christina was certainly the most stylish child I ever set eyes