CHAPTER XXV

THE LOCKED DOOR

Meantime Hester had crossed the lawn and entered the conservatory. She carried the golf bag by its supporting strap and walked quickly. She knew that the conservatory opened directly into the library where the Reverend Horatio Merle was reading the morning paper and her idea was to go straight to the curate and tell him the whole truth. In the absence of Miss Thompson this was the only thing to do. If Anton followed her, as might happen, Mr. Merle would be a protection, for, in his presence, the chauffeur would not dare make trouble. He would wait to get Hester alone, never suspecting that she would be capable, in her wildest dreams, of giving back this great sum of money. The girl paused to enjoy the warm fragrance of the lilies. It reminded her of something way back--something sad and strange. What was it? Oh, yes! Now she knew. It was the funeral of Billy Connor--"Diamond Billy," the confidence man, over in Brooklyn. She had gone with Maggie Connor and Rosalie. Poor old Billy. He drank himself to death after they shut down on horse-racing in New York State. How she cried when the organ played and they all knelt down! That was the only time she had ever been in a church or tried to pray.

"To be honest, to be kind.... To make amends for any wrong act. To ask God for strength against temptation."

Now, in her need, these words that the curate had taught her came back to her mind and comforted her. This had been a hard fight with Anton and she had won out. She had rescued the money and would give it back, as she had promised--that was something.

Hester smiled as she pictured Anton's face when he opened the purse. The nerve of the man to think he could get the best of her at a game like that, her own game! "Now put your two little hands outside your cloak and keep 'em there!" Silly Anton! Didn't he know that Hester Storm had worked that trick when she was a twelve-year-old kid sneaking leathers from shopping guys on Sixth avenue cars? Two little hands outside your cloak! Ha! Two little gloved hands--very innocent--and one of them a fake, joined onto a fake arm and the whole thing strapped from the shoulder! Then if the man gets gay and hugs you in the automobile, and pretty soon gets crazy and kisses you, while you wriggle and twist and keep him busy--and then get busy yourself with your real arm down in the golf bag--why, it was too easy! It was a wonder Anton didn't get wise when she stopped so long at the lodge. Those shoulder straps take time to fasten on.

With a thrill of professional pride and a sigh of half regret, Hester pressed her hand to the bosom of her dress, where the bundle of crisp banknotes crackled alluringly. Five thousand pounds! Twenty-five thousand dollars! And it must be given back! No fiddling around, either! It was not good for a girl like her to have twenty-five thousand dollars that belonged to somebody else in her clothes. Not good at all!

She walked straight to the wide double doors with their green portieres that separated the conservatory from the library, and, bracing herself for this ordeal with the Reverend Merle, she turned the knob.

"Rosalie will be glad," she thought, as she pressed against the door. To her surprise nothing moved or yielded, and the girl realized, with a sudden sinking of the heart, that the library door was locked.

Hester tapped lightly on the panel, then louder, but no one came. She listened, with her ear close to the door, but there was no sound from the adjoining room. Strange! Mr. Merle must have gone out. Ordinarily there would have been nothing alarming in this, but now to the agitated girl it assumed the proportions of a disaster. She had counted on giving this money immediately to the clergyman, but, with the clergyman absent----

Seized with alarm, Hester darted back to the door of the conservatory, the door, in the ground glass wall that led in from the lawn. She opened this door just a crack and looked out, then instantly closed it and turned the key. Not a hundred yards distant, Anton was hurrying toward this very spot.

In the presence of danger Hester's mind acted quickly. The essential thing now was to hide this money. But where? She looked wildly about her. In the center of the conservatory stood a small, low table covered with potted plants. There was a drawer in this table. Hester put down the golf bag and pulled the drawer open. Lengths of twine and wire, some gardener's tools and a lot of seed catalogues. She shook her head and pushed the drawer shut. Anton would look there at once. She must find, some simple place that he would not think of.

Perhaps she could bury the money in one of these big tubs that held the palm trees, but no, there wasn't time. It was maddening!

In this emergency the girl's eyes fell upon a small standard rose bush growing in a gilt basket. It was a plant that Lionel and the countess had purchased at the Progressive Mothers' bazaar. Hester bent down eagerly to see if there was a space between the basket and the flower pot and, in trying to move the latter, she caught the stem of the rose-bush, whereupon to her surprise the bush itself, with the earth about its roots, detached itself from the flower pot so that she was able to lift the plant and a cylinder of dry earth entirely out of the pot. Ah! This might do. And a moment later she had laid the banknotes in the bottom of the pot and replaced the cylinder of earth above them. To the casual glance there was not the slightest indication that the rose-bush had been tampered with.

Now, in desperate haste, Hester flung off her scarlet cloak and, with a few deft movements, loosened the shoulder straps that held the false arm in place. Anton might search her and, if he found this--There! it was off! And none too soon, for at that very moment the loose-jointed figure of the chauffeur appeared, silhouetted in sinister black, against the ground glass wall of the conservatory. A moment later he was trying to open the door, clicking savagely at the lock.

Where could she hide the false arm? Anton would be here in a second. There was another door at the end of the conservatory where he could come in. She dared not lock this other door, for then he would know that she was guilty. But the false arm? High up along the wall, higher up than she could reach, ran a wide shelf ranged with tin cans and packages of seed and coils of rubber hose. It was the best she could do, and, with a quick movement, Hester flung the false member upward so that it touched the ceiling and then fell out of sight behind a rusty watering pot. As she did so she saw Anton's shadow nearing the other door. Well, she was ready for him. Wait! Her cloak! There!

And now, partly to hide her agitation, partly with a feminine idea of taking the aggressive in a bad cause, Hester stepped to a telephone fixed against the wall near the library door. What was the telephone number on that card she had picked up in the garage? Ah, yes! And in the very last second before the chauffeur entered she took up the receiver, placing her hand so that the little finger, unperceived, held down the hook and there was no communication.

Thus, when the chauffeur burst in, boiling with anger, Hester Storm, attired in her scarlet cloak and perfectly calm, was talking in a natural and business-like way to the unresponsive green-painted wall of the conservatory.

"Hello! Yes, Mr. Henderson," she was saying, apparently absorbed in her telephoning and quite unconscious that Anton was present. "I understand. I'll report to-morrow as usual. What? You don't want me to call up 724 Chelsea? Oh, I see."

As she pretended to listen, the girl held the transmitter so that she could watch her adversary's face in the nickel-plate surface. It was evident that his surprise and alarm were genuine.

"Very well, Mr. Henderson," she concluded. "I will telephone to the house. Good-by, sir." And, hanging up the receiver, she turned innocently toward Anton.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "When did you come?"

He strode toward her with an ugly look. "Who were you telephoning to?"

"No one in particular, a--a friend of mine," she answered with simulated embarrassment.

"A friend named Henderson?" he demanded.

She shook her head. "You've got your wires twisted. I don't know anyone by that name."

"You called up 724 Chelsea. I heard you."

"Well, what of it?"

"You said you were going to report there to-morrow? What do you mean by that?"

Hester looked him steadily in the eyes, then, going close to him, she spoke with a semblance of concentrated anger.

"If you think you can run me off on a side-track like this, little chauffeur boy, let me tell you you've got another guess coming. I want to know where is my part of that money?"

He swore violently. "You know ---- ---- well where it is."

"What?"

"You took the money, my share and yours."

"So that's your game! That's the kind of a cheap skate you are!" She seemed to tremble with rage. "Remember what I told you. You can't flimflam me. I--I won't stand for it."

Her bosom heaved, her nostrils dilated and her Spanish eyes burned on him so fiercely that the chauffeur hesitated. Was it possible she was on the level? Had someone else taken the money?

"There was nothing in that purse," he said sullenly.

"You mean there _is_ nothing in it," she sneered. "I suppose you'll show it to me--empty? Ha!"

"It is empty and it was empty. You got away with the stuff and I know it."

"How did I get away with it? You wouldn't let me touch the bag or move my hands. I suppose I took it with my feet?"

Anton scowled and was silent. "I don't know how you got it, but----"

Suddenly he caught her arm and drew her sharply to him.

"Leave me alone," she struggled.

He held her in his powerful grip and, with business-like thoroughness, proceeded to press his hands over her garments until he had satisfied himself that the banknotes were not concealed about her person.

"Little devil! You've hidden it somewhere," and he pushed her from him savagely, glaring at her.

"You--you----" she tried to brave him again, but her words failed her. He had hurt her and shamed her with his rough handling, and, frightened now, she sheltered herself in a woman's last defense, she burst into tears. Whereupon, Anton, man-like, began to weaken. After all, he did not know that she had taken the money from the purse. He had followed her quickly and found her telephoning--telephoning to Henderson. That was another queer thing, but, anyway, it always took him three or four minutes to get Henderson, so she wouldn't have had time to hide the money. Besides, how did she get it? He had watched her like a hawk, even while he was kissing her. And it was true the golf bag had been four days at the club house. Many things may happen to a golf bag in four days.

"Say, kid, don't cry," he relented. "I'm sore about the money, but--maybe you didn't take it."

Hester wept on inconsolable.

"Maybe somebody got away with it at the club house," he continued.

"You--you don't believe anything I say," she sobbed.

"Well, you don't believe anything I say, do you? You think I took the stuff myself, don't you?" he retorted.

This seemed to Hester the moment for a more conciliatory attitude and she agreed, still sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, that it was barely possible someone at the club had stolen the money.

"But there's one thing I want to know, girlie, and I want it straight," the chauffeur insisted. "How did you happen to be telephoning Henderson just now?"

Hester dried her tears and smiled faintly. Now she was the victim of her own mystification. What plausible reason could she invent for telephoning to a man about whom she knew absolutely nothing?

"What do you care about Henderson?" she laughed.

"I care a good deal. Come, now!" It was plain that Anton took this telephone incident very seriously.

"Henderson is a--a party I'm working for," she ventured.

"Then you do know someone by that name? You just said you didn't."

She looked at him reproachfully. "I don't have to know him personally to work for him, do I?"

"What kind of work do you do?"

She hesitated, biting her lips, first the lower, then the full upper one, until they were red like cherries, and all the time trying to imagine what kind of work it could be that she was doing for Henderson. If she only had some faint idea who Henderson was! What a fool she had been to get herself into this tangle!

"You know what the work is, boy, or you can come pretty near to guessing," she answered, with a wise dropping of the eyelids.

"You're making reports to Henderson? Is that it? Don't lie. I heard you on the phone."

Hester clutched at this guiding straw. "Well, what of it? When I came to Ippingford I--I didn't know you and--it was a--a chance to pick up some easy money." She was feeling her way, wondering where this glib improvisation would lead her.

"You didn't know me?" he scowled. "What's that got to do with it?"

She leaned forward and patted his hand playfully. "Now don't you be cross, Anton. You know the little fat man with the brown derby hat?"

"No."

"Yes, you do. The one who does business for Henderson, the one who stutters."

"Never saw him."

"You didn't? Well, I saw him. The day after I came here he got hold of me at the lodge and--we had a walk and--he said there was a party named Henderson who wanted to get a line on Baxter's chauffeur--that's you--and--the end of it was I agreed to telephone 724 Chelsea every day."

"The devil you did!" Anton was so disturbed by this that he thrust both hands into his mane of black hair and sat silent.

A moment later an electric bell echoed through the house.

"Someone at the front door, some caller," muttered Anton. Then, looking at his watch. "I've got to get out of here. Young Baxter wants the car."

"And I must take this golf bag to Miss Thompson's room," she remembered.

"No hurry about that. Leave it in the library. We don't care what becomes of the old bag now." Anton walked slowly toward the door, biting at his mustache.

"All right, boy."

He stepped out on the lawn, but turned back. "Oh! About Henderson! If it's all the same to you----"

"I know what you want," she anticipated. "I'll talk to you before I telephone him again, and--buck up, boy, I'll give him reports after this that'll boost your game. See?"

"Good girl!" And with a wave of his hand, the chauffeur disappeared.

Hester drew a long sigh of relief. Talk about excitement! And now what should she do with the money? It was out of the question to leave five thousand pounds in the bottom of a flower pot without even a purse to protect it. The golf bag was better than that, but--

She started at the sound of voices and footsteps in the library. Presently there came a rattling at the door and the turning of a key in the lock and a moment later the Reverend Horatio Merle appeared, followed by Ferdinand Spooner, secretary of the Progressive Mothers' Society.

"My dear Mr. Spooner, I'm extremely sorry. I thought they might be in the conservatory," said the curate, peering about. "Ah, my child!" he beamed, as he saw Hester, who, on the instant, had caught up the golf bag.

"Mr. Robert Baxter told me to put this bag away," the girl explained. "It belongs to Miss Thompson."

"Quite so," approved Mr. Merle. "And would you see if you can find the Countess Clendennin and Mr. Fitz-Brown. Say to them that Mr. Spooner has called."

"Mr. Ferdinand Spooner, secretary of the Progressive Mothers' Society," put in the latter, puffing out his red cheeks and blowing himself up with stiff self-importance. "You may add that I have called in regard to various articles purchased by Mr. Fitz-Brown and the Countess Clendennin at the recent fair given by the Progressive Mothers. Ah, there is one of the articles!" He pointed to the rose bush. "That beautiful rose bush in the gilt basket. Is it not exquisite, Mr. Merle?"

"Exquisite!" murmured Merle, rubbing his hands devotionally. "Hurry, my child! Tell them Mr. Ferdinand Spooner has called in regard to the rose bush and the other articles."

Hester stared for a moment in dismay and then went slowly from the room.