The Bartlett Mystery

She drove to her lawyers. At her request a smart clerk was lent to her for a couple of hours. They consulted various records. The clerk made many notes on foolscap sheets in a large, round hand, and Mrs. Carshaw, seated in the train, read them many times through her gold-mounted lorgnette.

It was five o’clock when a taxi brought her to the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel, and Senator Meiklejohn was the most astonished man on the Jersey coast at the moment when she entered unannounced, for Mrs. Carshaw had simply said to the elevator-boy: “Take me to Senator Meiklejohn’s sitting-room.”

Undeniably he was startled; but playing desperately for high stakes had steadied him somewhat. Perhaps the example of his stronger brother had some value, too, for he rose with sufficient affability.

“What a pleasant rencontré, Mrs. Carshaw,” he said. “I had no notion you were within a hundred miles of the Board Walk.”

“That is not surprising,” she answered, sinking into a comfortable chair. “I have just arrived. Order me some sandwiches and a cup of tea. I’m famished.”

He obeyed.

“I take it you have come to see me?” he said, quietly enough, though aware of a queer fluttering about the region of his heart.

“Yes. I am so worried about Rex.”

“Dear me! The girl?”

“It is always a woman. How you men must loathe us in your sane moments, if you ever have any.”

“I flatter myself that I am sane, yet how could I say that I loathe your sex, Mrs. Carshaw?”

“I wonder if your flattery will bear analysis. But there! No serious talk until I am refreshed. Do ring for some biscuits; sandwiches are apt to be slow in the cutting.”

Thus by pretext she kept him from direct converse until a tea-tray, with a film of paté de fois coyly hidden in thin bread and butter, formed, as it were, a rampart between them.

“How did you happen on my address?” he asked smilingly.

It was the first shell of real warfare, and she answered in kind: “That was quite easy. The people at the detective bureau know it.”

The words hit him like a bullet.

“The Bureau!” he cried.

“Yes. The officials there are interested in the affairs of Winifred Marchbanks.”

He went ashen-gray, but essayed, nevertheless, to turn emotion into mere amazement. He was far too clever a man to pretend a blank negation. The situation was too strenuous for any species of ostrich device.

“I seem to remember that name,” he said slowly, moistening his lips with his tongue.

“Of course you do. You have never forgotten it. Let us have a friendly chat about her, Senator. My son is going to marry her. That is why I am here.”

She munched her sandwiches and sipped her tea. This experienced woman of the world, now boldly declared on the side of romance, was far too astute to force the man to desperation unless it was necessary. He must be given breathing-time, permitted to collect his wits. She was sure of her ground. Her case was not legally strong. Meiklejohn would discover that defect, and, indeed, it was not her object to act legally. If others could plot and scheme, she would have a finger in the pie – that was all. And behind her was the clear brain of Steingall, who had camped for days near the Senator in Atlantic City, and had advised the mother how to act for her son.

There was a long silence. She ate steadily.

“Perhaps you will be good enough to state explicitly why you are here, Mrs. Carshaw,” said Meiklejohn at last.

She caught the ring of defiance in his tone. She smiled. There was to be verbal sword-play, and she was armed cap-à-pie.

“Just another cup of tea,” she pleaded, and he wriggled uneasily in his chair. The delay was torturing him. She unrolled her big sheets of notes. He looked over at them with well-simulated indifference.

“I have an engagement – ” he began, looking at his watch.

“You must put it off,” she said, with sudden heat. “The most important engagement of your life is here, now, in this room, William Meiklejohn. I mentioned the detective bureau when I entered. Which do you prefer to encounter – me or an emissary of the police?”

He paled again. Evidently this society lady had claws, and would use them if annoyed.

“I do not think that I have said anything to warrant such language to me,” he murmured, striving to smile deprecatingly. He succeeded but poorly.

“You sent me to drive out into the world the girl whom my son loved,” was the retort. “You made a grave mistake in that. I recognized her, after a little while. I knew her mother. Now, am I to go into details?”

“I – really – I – ”

“Very well. Eighteen years ago your brother, Ralph Vane Meiklejohn, murdered a man named Marchbanks, who had discovered that you and your brother were defrauding his wife of funds held by your bank as her trustees. I have here the records of the crime. I do not say that your brother, who has since been a convict and is now assisting you under the name of Ralph Voles, could be charged with that crime. Maybe ‘murderer’ is too strong a word for him where Marchbanks was concerned; but I do say that any clever lawyer could send you and him to the penitentiary for robbing a dead woman and her daughter, the girl whom you and he have kidnapped within the last week.”

Here was a broadside with a vengeance. Meiklejohn could not have endured a keener agony were he facing a judge and jury. It was one thing to have borne this terrible secret gnawing at his vitals during long years, but it was another to find it pitilessly laid bare by a woman belonging to that very society for which he had dared so much in order to retain his footing.

He bent his head between his hands. For a few seconds thoughts of another crime danced in his surcharged brain. But Mrs. Carshaw’s well-bred syllables brought him back to sanity with chill deliberateness.

“Shall I go on?” she said. “Shall I tell you of Rachel Bartlett; of the scandal to be raised about your ears, not only by this falsified trust, but by the outrageous attack on Ronald Tower?”

He raised his pallid face. He was a proud man, and resented her merciless taunts.

“Of course,” he muttered, “I deny everything you have said. But, if it were true, you must have some ulterior motive in approaching me. What is it?”

“I am glad you see that. I am here to offer terms.”

“Name them.”

“You must place this girl, Winifred Marchbanks, under my care – where she will remain until my son marries her – and make restitution of her mother’s property.”

“No doubt you have a definite sum in your mind?”

“Most certainly. My lawyers tell me you ought to refund the interest as well, but Winifred may content herself with the principal. You must hand her half a million dollars!”

He sprang to his feet, livid. “Woman,” he yelled, “you are crazy!”

CHAPTER XXVI

THE BITER BIT

Mrs. Carshaw focused him again through her gold-rimmed eye-glasses. “Crazy?” she questioned calmly. “Not a bit of it – merely an old woman bargaining for her son. Rex would not have done it. After thrashing you he would have left you to the law, and, were the law to step in, you would surely be ruined. I, on the other hand, do not scruple to compound a felony – that is what my lawyers call it. My extravagance and carelessness have contributed to encumber Rex’s estates with a heavy mortgage. If I provide his wife with a dowry which pays off the mortgage and leaves her a nice sum as pin-money, I shall have done well.”

“Half a million! I – I repudiate your statements. Even if I did not, I have no such sum at command.”

“Yes, you have, or will have, which is the same thing. Shall I give you details of the Costa Rica cotton concession, arranged between you, and Jacob, and Helen Tower? They’re here. As for repudiation, perhaps I have hurried matters. Permit me to go through my story at some length, quoting chapter and verse.”

She spread open her papers again, after having folded them.