The Avalanche: A Mystery Story"The nuns, who, after all, knew their California, thought they smelt a rat, for the woman was extraordinarily handsome, magnificently dressed; the Mother Superior--who is a woman of the world, all right--read the newspapers, and had never seen the name of Dubois--and knew that only stars drew fat salaries. She asked some sharp questions about the father, and the woman replied readily that he was a scientific man, an inventor, and--well, it was natural, was it not? they did not get on very well. He disliked the stage, but she had been on it before she married him, and dullness and want of money for her own needs and her child's had driven her back. He had lived in Los Angeles for a time, but had recently gone East to take a high-salaried position. It was with his consent that she asked the nuns to take the child--possibly for two or three years. When she was a famous actress and could leave the road, she would keep house for her husband in New York, and make a home for the child.
"The Mother Superior, by this time, had made up her mind that the father wished the child removed from the mother's influence, and although she took the whole yarn with a bag of salt, the child was the most beautiful she had ever seen, and obviously healthy and amiable. Moreover, the convent was to receive two hundred dollars a month--"
"What?"
"Exactly. Can you beat it? The Mother Superior made up her mind it was her duty to bring up the little thing in the way it should go. As the woman was leaving she said something about a possible reconciliation with her family, who lived in France; they had not written her since she went on the stage. They were of a respectability!--of the old tradition! But if they came round she might take the child to them, if her husband would consent. She should like it to be brought up in France--
"Here the Mother Superior interrupted her sharply. Was her husband a Frenchman? And she answered, no doubt before she thought, for these people always forget something, that no, he was an American--her family, also, detested Americans. The Mother Superior once more interrupted her glibness. How, then, did he have a French name? Oh, but that was her stage name--she always went by it and had given it without thinking. What was her husband's name? After a second's hesitation she stupidly give the name Smith. I can see the mouth of the Mother Superior as it set in a grim line. 'Very well,' said she, 'the child's name is Helene Smith'; and although the woman made a wry face she was forced to submit.
"The child remained there four years, and the Mother Superior had some reason to believe that 'Madame Dubois' spent a good part of that time in San Francisco. She came at irregular intervals to see the child--always in vacation, when there were no pupils in the convent, and always at night. The Mother Superior, however, thought it best to make no investigations, for the child throve, they were all daffy about her, and the money came promptly on the first of every month. When the mother came she always brought a trunk full of fine underclothes, and left the money for a new uniform. Then, one day, Madame Dubois arrived in widow's weeds, said that her husband was dead, leaving her quite well off, and that she was returning to France."
"And Madame Delano's story is that he died on the way to j.a.pan--if it is the same woman--"
"Haven't a doubt of it myself. I did a little cabling before I left last night to a man I know in Paris to find out just when Madame Delano returned with her child to live with her family in Rouen. He got busy and here is his answer--just fifteen years ago almost to the minute."
"Then who was her husband?"
"There you've got me--so far. He was no 'scientist, who later accepted a high-salaried position.' A decent chap of that sort would have written to his child, paid her board himself, most likely taken it away from the mother--"
"But she may have kidnapped it--"
"People are too easy traced in this State--especially that sort. Nor do I believe she was an actress. There never was any actress of that name--not so you'd notice it, anyhow, and that woman would have been known for her looks and height even if she couldn't act. Moreover, if she was an actress there would be no sense in giving the nuns a false name, since she had admitted the fact. No, it's my guess that she was something worse."
"Well, I've prepared myself for anything."
"I figure out that she was the mistress of one of our rich highfliers, and that when he got tired of her he pensioned her off, and she made up her mind to reform on account of the kid, and went back to Rouen, and proceeded to identify herself with her cla.s.s by growing old and shapeless as quickly as possible. She must have adopted the name Delano in New York before she bought her steamer ticket, for although I've had a man on the hunt, the only Delanos of that time were eminently respectable--"
"Why are you sure she was not a--well--woman of the town?"
"Because, there again--there's no dame of that time either of that name or looks--neither Dubois nor Delano. Of course, they come and go, but there's every reason to think she stayed right on here in S.F. Of course, I've only had twenty-four hours--I'll find out in another twenty-four just what conspicuous women of fifteen to twenty years ago measure up to what she must have looked like--I got the Mother Superior to describe her minutely: nearly six feet, clear dark skin with a natural red color--no make-up; very small features, but well made--nose and mouth I'm talking about. The eyes were a good size, very black with rather thin eyelashes. Lots of black hair. Stunning figure. Rather large ears and hands and feet. She always dressed in black, the handsomest sort. They generally do."
"Well?" asked Ruyler through his teeth. He had no doubt the woman was his mother-in-law. "The Jameses? What of them?"
"That's the snag. Rest is easy in comparison. Innumerable Jameses must have died about that time, to say nothing of all the way along the line, but while some of the records were saved in 1906, most went up in smoke.
Moreover, there's just the chance that he didn't die here. But that's going on the supposition that the man died when she left California, which don't fit our theory. I still think he died not so very long before her return to California, and that she probably came to collect a legacy he had left her. Otherwise, I should think it's about the last place she would have come to. I put a man on the job before I left of collecting the Jameses who've died since the fire. Here they are."
He took a list from his pocket and read:
"James Hogg, bookkeeper--races, of course. James Fowler, saloon-keeper.
James Despard, called 'Frenchy,' a clever crook who lived on blackmail--said to have a gift for getting hold of secrets of men and women in high society and squeezing them good and plenty--"
He paused. "Of course, that might be the man. There are points. I'll have his life looked into, but somehow I don't believe it. I have a hunch the man was a higher-up. The sort of woman the Mother Superior described can get the best, and they take it. To proceed: James Dillingworth, lawyer, died in the odor of sanct.i.ty, but you never can tell; I'll have him investigated, too. James Maston--I haven't had time to have had the private lives of any of these men looked into, but I knew some of them, and Maston, who was a journalist, left a wife and three children and was little, if any, over thirty. James Cobham, broker--he was getting on to fifty, left about a million, came near being indicted during the Graft Prosecutions, and although his wife has been in the newspapers as a society leader for the last twenty years, and he was one of the founders of Burlingame, and then was active in changing the name of the high part to Hillsboro when the swells felt they couldn't be identified with the village any longer, and he handed out wads the first of every year to charity, there are stories that he came near being divorced by his haughty wife about fifteen years ago. Of course, those men don't parade their mistresses openly like they did thirty years ago--I mean men with any social position to keep up. But now and again the wife finds a note, or receives an anonymous letter, and gets busy. Then it's the divorce court, unless he can smooth her down, and promises reform. Cobham seems to me the likeliest man, and I'm going to start a thorough investigation to-morrow. These other Jameses don't hold out any promise at all--grocers, clerks, butchers. It's the list in hand I'll go by, and if nothing pans out--well, we'll have to take the other cue she threw out and try Los Angeles."
"Do you know anything about a man named Nicolas Doremus?" asked Ruyler abruptly.
"The society chap? Nothing much except that he don't do much business on the street but is supposed to be pretty lucky at poker and bridge. But he runs with the crowd the police can't or don't raid. I've never seen or heard of him anywhere he shouldn't be except with swell slumming or roadhouse parties. He's never interested me. If Society can stand that sort of bloodsucking tailor's model, I guess I can. Why do you ask? Got anything to do with this case?"
"I have an idea he has found out the truth and is blackmailing my wife.
You might watch him."
"Good point. I will. And if he's found out the truth I guess I can."
CHAPTER VII
I
Helene, as Ruyler had antic.i.p.ated, refused positively to accept Mrs.
Thornton's invitation.
"Do you think I'd leave you--to come home to a dreary house every night?
Even if I don't see much of you, at least you know I'm there; and that if you have an evening off you have only to say the word and I'll break any engagement--you have always known that!"
Ruyler had not, but she looked so eager and sweet--she was lunching with him at the Palace Hotel on the day following his interview with Spaulding--that he hastened to a.s.sure her affectionately that the certainty of his wife's desire for his constant companionship was both his torment and his consolation.
Helene continued radiantly:
"Besides, darling, Polly Roberts is staying on. Rex can't get away yet."
"Polly Roberts is not nearly good enough for you. She hasn't an idea in her head and lives on excitement--"
Helene laughed merrily. "You are quite right, but there's no harm in her.
After all, unless one goes in for charities (and I can't, Price, yet; besides the charities here are wonderfully looked after), plays bridge, has babies, takes on suffrage--what is there to do but play? I suppose once life was serious for young women of our cla.s.s; but we just get into the habit of doing nothing because there's nothing to do. Take to-morrow as an example: I suppose Polly and I will wander down to The Louvre in the morning and buy something or look at the new gowns M. Dupont has just brought from Paris.
"Then we'll lunch where there's lots of life and everybody is chatting gayly about nothing.
"Then we'll go to the Moving Pictures unless there is a matinee, and then we'll motor out to the Boulevard, and then back and have tea somewhere.
"Or, perhaps, we'll motor down to the Club at Burlingame for lunch and chatter away the day on the veranda, or dance. This afternoon we'll probably ring up a few that are still in town, and dance in Polly's parlor at the Fairmont."
Helene's lip curled, her voice had risen. With, all her young enjoyment of wealth and position, she had been bred in a cla.s.s where to idle is a crime. "Just putting in time--time that ought to be as precious as youth and high spirits and ease and popularity! But what is one to do?
I have no talents, and I'd lose caste in my set if I had. I don't wonder the Socialists hate us and want to put us all to work. No doubt we should be much happier. But now--even if you retired from business, you'd spend most of your time on the links. We poor women wouldn't be much better off."
"It does seem an abnormal state of affairs; I've barely given it a thought, it has always been such a pleasure to find you, after a hard day's work, looking invariably dainty, and pretty, and eloquently suggestive of leisure and repose. But--to the student of history--I suppose it is a condition that cannot last. There must be some sort of upheaval due. Well, I hope it will give me more of your society."
They smiled at each other across the little table in perfect confidence.
They were lunching in the court, and after she had blown him a kiss over her gla.s.s of red wine, her eyes happened to travel in the direction of the large dining-room. She gave a little exclamation of distaste.
"There is maman lunching with that hateful old Mr. Lawton. He was in her sitting-room when I ran in to call on her yesterday, and nearly snapped my head off when I asked him if he wouldn't buy my electric for Aileen.
He said it was time she began to learn a few economies instead of more extravagances. Poor darling Aileen. She has to stay in town, too, for he won't open the house in Atherton until he is ready to go down himself every night."
"Is he an old friend of your mother's?"
"She and Papa met him when they were here, and Mrs. Lawton was very kind when I was born. It's too bad Mrs. Lawton's dead. She'd be a nice friend for maman."
"Perhaps your mother is asking Mr. Lawton's advice about the investment of money."