Nothing But the Truth

“You were at that costume ball where she lost them?”

“Suppose I was?” he snapped. Yes, snapped! There is a limit to human endurance.

“And you were at Mrs. Benton Briscoe’s when a tiara mysteriously disappeared?”

“Well, I’m hanged!” said Bob, staring at her.

“Oh, I hope not – that is, I hope you won’t be, some day,” answered Dolly. “Are you going to ‘fess up?’ You’d better. Maybe I won’t betray you – yet. Maybe I won’t at all, if you’re real nice.”

“Oh!” said Bob. Whereupon she smiled at him sweetly, just as if to say it was nice and exciting to have a great, big, bold (and wildly handsome) society-highwayman in her power. Why, she could send him to jail, if she wanted to. She had but to lift a little finger and he would have to jump. The consciousness of guilty knowledge and power she possessed made her glow all over. She didn’t really know though, yet, whether she would be kind or severe.

“Do you operate alone, or with accomplices?” she asked, after a few moments’ pleasurable anticipations.

“I beg pardon?” Bob was again gazing uneasily toward the door.

“Got any pals?” She tried to talk the way they do in the thief-books.

“No, I haven’t,” snapped Bob. That truth pact made it necessary to answer the most silly questions.

“Well, I didn’t know but you had,” murmured the temperamental young thing. “I heard a dog barking and that made me think you might have them. You’re sure you didn’t let anybody into the house?”

“I didn’t.”

Miss Dolly snuggled herself together more cozily. She seemed about to ask some more questions. Perhaps she would want to know if he had let anybody out, and then he would have to tell her —

“Look here,” said Bob desperately. “Maybe it hasn’t occurred to you, but – this – this isn’t exactly proper. Me here, like this, and you – ”

“Oh, I’m not afraid,” answered Miss Dolly with wonderful assurance. “I can quite take care of myself.”

“But – but – ” more desperately – “if I should be discovered? – Can’t you see, for your own sake – ?”

“My own sake?” The big innocent eyes opened wider. “In that case, of course, I’d tell them the truth.”

“The truth!” How he hated the word! “You mean that I – ?” Glancing toward the brooch.

“Of course!” Tranquilly.

Bob tried to consider. He could see what would happen to him, if they were interrupted. It certainly was a most preposterous conversation, anyhow. Besides, it wasn’t the place or the time for a conversation of any kind. He had just about made up his mind that he would go, whether she screamed or not, and take the consequences, however disagreeable they might be, when —

“Well, trot along,” said Miss Dolly graciously. “I suppose you’ve got a lot of work to do to-night and it’s rather unkind to detain you. Only pick up the brooch before you go.” He obeyed. “Now put it on the dresser and leave it there. Hard to do that, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t.” Savagely.

“Well, you can go now. By the way, Mrs. Vanderpool has a big bronze-colored diamond surrounded by wonderful pink pearls. It’s an antique and – would adorn a connoisseur’s collection.”

“But I tell you I am not – ”

“My! How stupid, to keep on saying that! But, of course, you must really be very clever. Society-highwaymen always are. Good night. So glad I was thinking of something else and forgot to lock the door!”

Bob went to the door and she considerately waited until he had reached it; then she put out a hand and pushed a convenient button which shut off the light. Bob opened the door but closed it quickly again. He fancied he saw some one out there in the hall, a shadowy form in the distance, but was not absolutely sure.

“Aren’t you gone?” said the temperamental young thing.

“S-sh!” said Bob.

For some moments there was silence, thrilling enough, even for her. Then Bob gently opened the door once more, though very slightly, and peered out of the tiniest crack, but he failed to see any one now, so concluded he must have been mistaken. The shadows were most deceptive. Anyhow, there was more danger in staying than in going, so he slid out and closed the door. At the same moment he heard a very faint click. It seemed to come from the other side of the hall. He didn’t like that, he told himself, and waited to make sure no one was about. The ensuing silence reassured him somewhat; and the “click,” he argued, might have come from the door he himself had closed.

The temperamental young thing, holding her breath, heard him now move softly but swiftly away. She listened, nothing happened. Then she stretched her young form luxuriously and pondered on the delirious secret that was all hers. A secret that made Bob her slave! Abjectly her slave! Like the servant of the lamp! She could compel him to turn somersaults if she wanted to.

Bob awoke with a slight headache, which, however, didn’t surprise him any. He only wondered his head didn’t ache more. People came down to breakfast almost any time, and sometimes they didn’t come down at all but sipped coffee in their rooms, continental-fashion. It was late when Bob got up, so a goodly number of the guests – the exceptions including Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence – were down by the time he sauntered into the big sun-room, where breakfast was served to all with American appetites.

The temperamental little thing managed accidentally (?) to encounter him at the doorway before he got into the room with the others. He shivered slightly when he saw her, though she looked most attractive in her rather bizarre way. Bob gazed beyond her, however, to a vision in the window. “Vision!” That just described what Miss Gwendoline looked like, with the sunlight on her and making an aureole of her glorious fair hair. Of course one could put an adjective or two, before the “vision” – such as “beautiful,” or something even stronger – without being accused of extravagance.

The little dark thing, uttering some platitude, followed Bob’s look, but she didn’t appear jealous. She hadn’t quite decided how much latitude to give Bob. That young gentleman noticed that the hammer-thrower, looking like one of those stalwart, masculine tea-passers in an English novel, was not far from Miss Gwendoline. His big fingers could apparently handle delicate china as well as mighty iron balls or sledges. He comported himself as if his college education had included a course at Tuller’s in Oxford Street, in London, where six-foot guardsmen are taught to maneuver among spindle-legged tables and to perform almost impossible feats without damage to crockery.

Miss Dolly now maneuvered so as to draw Bob aside in the hall to have a word or two before he got to bacon and eggs. What she said didn’t improve his appetite.

“I’m so disappointed in you,” she began in a low voice.

He asked why, though not because he really cared to know.

“After that hint of mine!” she explained reproachfully. “About Mrs. Vanderpool’s bronze diamond, I mean!”

“I fear I do not understand you,” said Bob coldly.

She bent nearer. “Of course I thought it would disappear,” she murmured. “I expected you to execute one of those clever coups, and so I went purposely to Mrs. Vanderpool’s room on some pretext this morning to learn if it was gone. But it wasn’t. I cleverly led the conversation up to it and she showed it to me.”

“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “Did you think she wouldn’t have it to show you? That it had found its way to my pockets?”

“Of course,” she answered. “And you are quite sure you haven’t it, after all?” she asked suspiciously.

“How could I, when you saw – ”

“Oh, you might have substituted a counterfeit brooch just like it for – ”

Bob groaned. “You certainly have absorbed those plays,” he remarked.

“I expected a whole lot of things would be gone,” she went on, “and, apparently,” with disappointment, “no one has missed anything. It’s quite tame. Did you get discouraged because you failed to land the ‘loot’ – is that the word? – in my case? And did you then just go prosaically to bed?”

“I certainly went to bed, though there was nothing prosaic about the procedure.”

“And yet what a dull night it must have been for you!”

“I shouldn’t call it that.”

“No?” She shifted the conversation. “Who do you suppose has come? Dickie Donnelly. Said he had arrived in town on some business and took advantage of the opportunity to make a little call on me. Incidentally, he seems interested in you. Said he would make it a point to see you after you got down. He’s out on the veranda smoking now, I guess. He wanted to talk to me but I made an excuse to shoo him away. He isn’t half so exciting as you are, you know. I’m quite positive now I couldn’t marry him and annex his old chimneys to ours, for all the world. Chimneys are such commonplace means to a livelihood, Mr. Bennett, don’t you think? They are so ugly and dependable. Not at all romantic and precarious! They just smoke and you get richer. There isn’t a single thrill in a whole forest of chimneys. But I mustn’t really keep you from your breakfast any longer,” she added with sudden sedulousness. “I’ve quite planned what we’re going to do to-day.”

“You have?” With a slight accent on the first word.