Nothing But the Truth

“What was that last word?” he observed combatively.

“Elope! elope! elope!” she whispered dreamily, her slim, young feminine figure close to his big masculine bulk.

“So you think you’re eloping with me?” said Bob ominously.

“I know I am.” In that musical die-away tone. “We’re headed straight for old New York and we’re going to get married in the little church around the corner. Then” – with a happy laugh – “we may have to disguise ourselves and flee.”

“May I kindly inquire – that is, if I have any voice in our future operations —why we may have to disguise ourselves?”

“In case they should want to capture you. The police, I mean.”

“Police?” he said.

“Didn’t I just tell you they were coming for you?”

“Indeed?” He looked down in her eyes to see if she was in earnest. He believed she was. “For what?”

“Oh, you know.” She raised her lips. “Say, that was a real stingy one, under the oak.”

“You say all has been discovered?” went on Bob, disregarding her last remark.

“I say that was a real stingy – ”

“Hang it!” But he had to. He knew he had to get that idea out of her head, before he could get any more real information from her.

“And think how you deceived poor little me, about it!” she purred contentedly. After all, thought Bob, it didn’t take “much of a one” to satisfy her. She had only wanted “it,” perhaps, because “it” fitted in; “it” went with eloping. Perhaps “it” would have to happen about once so often. Bob hoped not. She was a dainty little tyrant who let him see plainly she had sharp claws. She could scratch as well as purr. Somehow, he felt that he was doubly in her power – that he was doubly her slave now – that something had happened which made him so. He could not imagine what it was.

“They’re keeping it very quiet, though,” she went on. “The robbery, I mean!”

“There has been a robbery at Mrs. Ralston’s?”

“Of course. And you didn’t know a thing about it?” she mocked him.

“I certainly did not.”

“You say that just as if it were so,” she observed admiringly. “I don’t suppose you are aware that some one did really substitute a counterfeit brooch for Mrs. Vanderpool’s wonderful pink pearl and bronze diamond brooch, after all? Oh, no, you don’t know that. You’re only a poor little ignorant dear. Bless its innocent little heart! It didn’t know a thing. Not it!” She was talking baby-talk now, the while her fingers were playing with Bob’s ear. He was so interested in what she was saying, however, that he failed to note the baby-talk and overlooked the liberties she was taking with his hearing apparatus.

“By jove!” he exclaimed. “That accounts for what I thought I saw in the hall that night when I left your room. Imagined I saw some one! Believe now it was some one, after all. And that door I heard click? Whose door is that on the other side of the hall from your room and about twenty-five feet nearer the landing?” Excitedly.

“Gwendoline Gerald’s,” was the unexpected answer.

Bob caught his breath. He was becoming bewildered. “But nothing was missing from Miss Gerald’s room, was there?” he asked.

“Don’t you know?” said she.

“I do not.”

“My! aren’t you the beautiful fibber! I’m wondering if you ever tell the truth?”

“I don’t tell anything else.” Indignantly. “And that’s the trouble.”

“And how well you stick to it!” Admiringly. “If you tell such ones before, how will it be after?”

“After what?” he demanded.

“The church ceremony,” she giggled.

“Don’t you worry about that. There isn’t going to be any.”

“It’s perfectly lovely of you to say there isn’t. It will be such fun to see you change your mind.” She spoke in that regular on-to-Washington tone. “I can just see you walking up the aisle. Won’t you look handsome? And poor, demure little me! I shan’t look like hardly anything.”

Bob pretended not to hear.

“You say they are keeping it very quiet about the robbery at the Ralston house. How, then, did you come to know?”

“Eavesdropping.” Shamelessly. “Thought it was necessary you should know the ‘lay of the land.’ But never mind the ‘how.’ It is sufficient that I managed to overhear Lord Stanfield say he was going to send for you. Gwendoline Gerald knows about the robbery and so does her aunt and Lord Stanfield, but it’s being kept from all the other guests for the present. Even Mrs. Vanderpool doesn’t know. She still thinks the brooch she is wearing is the real one, poor dear! Lord Stanfield discovered it wasn’t. He asked her one day to let him see it. Then, he just said: ‘Aw! How interesting!’ – that is, to her. But to Mrs. Ralston he said it was an imitation and that some guest had substituted the false brooch for the real. Mrs. Vanderpool is not to know because Lord Stanfield says the thief must not dream he is suspected. He wants to give him full swing yet a while – ‘enough rope to hang himself with,’ were the words he used. It seems Lord Stanfield anticipated things would be missing. He said he knew when a certain person – he didn’t say whom” – gazing up at Bob adoringly – “appeared on the scene, things just went. That’s why Lord Stanfield got asked to the Ralston house. Then when he said he was coming after you, I thought it would be such a joke if you weren’t there to receive him. And that’s why I came to elope with you. And isn’t it all too romantic for anything? I am sure none of those plays comes up to it. Maybe you’ll dramatize our little romance some day – that is – ”

Miss Dolly suddenly stopped. “Isn’t that a car coming up behind?”

Bob looked around, too, and in the far distance saw a light. “Believe it is,” he answered.

She leaned forward and spoke to the driver. They were traveling with only one lamp lighted; the driver now put that out. Then he went on until he came to a private roadway, leading into some one’s estate, when quickly turning, he ran along a short distance and finally stopped the car in a dark shaded spot. Bob gazed back and in a short time saw a big car whir by. Idly he wondered whether it contained the police, or the managing medico and some of his staff. Between them, he was promised a right lively time – altogether too lively. He wondered which ones would get him first? It was a kind of a competition and he would be first prize to the winners. Well, it was well to have the enemy – or half of the enemy – in front of him. Of course, the other half might come up any moment behind. He would have to take that chance, he thought, as they now returned to the highway. Meanwhile Miss Dolly’s eyes were bright with excitement. She was enjoying herself very much.

CHAPTER XIV – MUTINY

They resumed the conversation where they had left off.

“It seems to me,” said Bob, “from all you say, that monocle-man has been a mighty busy person.”

“Of course you knew right along what he is. You didn’t need any information from poor little me about him. He couldn’t fool great big You!” she affirmed admiringly.

“I can imagine what he is – now,” observed Bob meditatively. He was turning over in his mind what she had said about that substituted brooch. The some one Bob had imagined he had seen in the hall, after leaving Miss Dolly’s room, might not have been the real thief, after all; it might have been the monocle-man on the lookout for the thief. And perhaps the monocle-man had seen Bob. That was the reason he was “coming for him.” Bob could imagine dear old dad’s feelings, if he (Bob) got sent to Sing Sing. What if, instead of rustling and rising to the occasion, in that fine, old honorable Japanese way, Bob should bring irretrievable disgrace on an eminently respectable family name?

He could see himself in stripes now, with his head shaved, and doing the lock-step. Perhaps, even at that moment, descriptions of him were being sent broadcast. And if so, it would look as if he were running away from the officers of the law, which would be tantamount to a confession of guilt. Bob shivered. The temperamental young thing did not share his apprehensions.

“Of course, Lord Stanfield only thinks he has evidence enough to convict you,” she said confidently. “But you’ll meet him at every point and turn the laugh on him.”

“Oh, will I?” said Bob ironically.

“And you’ll make him feel so cheap! Of course, you’ve got something up your sleeve – ”

“Wish I had,” he muttered.

“Something deep and mysterious,” she went on in that confident tone. “That’s why you acted so queer toward some people. You had a purpose. It was a ruse. Wasn’t it now?” she concluded triumphantly.

“It was not.” Gruffly.

“Fibber! every time you fib, you’ve got to – ” She put up her lips.