Mrs. Balfame: A Novel

  CHAPTER XV

  Mrs. Balfame, after she dismissed the newspaper men, went up to herbedroom and sat very still for a long while. She was apprehensive ratherthan frightened, but she felt very sober.

  She had accepted the assurance of the chief of the local police that hisinquiry regarding the pistol was a mere matter of routine, and hadmerely obeyed a normal instinct in concealing it. But she knew theintense interest of her community in the untimely and mysterious exit ofone of its most notorious members, an interest raised to the superlativedegree by the attentions of the metropolitan press; and she knew alsothat when a community is excited suspicions are rapidly translated intoproofs, and every clue feeds the appetite for a victim.

  The European war was a dazzling example on the grand scale of thecomplete breakdown of intellect before the primitive passions of hatred,greed, envy, and the recurrent desire of man to kill, combined with thatmonstrous dilation of the ego which consoles him with a childish beliefin his own impeccability.

  The newspapers of course pandered to the taste of their patrons formorbid vicarious excitement; she had glanced contemptuously at theheadlines of her own "Case," and had accepted her temporary notoriety asa matter of course, schooled herself to patience; the ordeal wasscarifying but of necessity brief.

  But these young men. They had insinuated--what had they not insinuated?Either they had extraordinary powers of divination, or they were ahighly specialised branch of the detective force. They had askedquestions and forced answers from her that made her start and shiver inthe retrospect.

  Was it possible they believed she had murdered David Balfame, or werethey merely seeking material for a few more columns before the case dieda natural death? She had never been interviewed before, save oncesuperficially as President of the Friday Club, but she knew one or twoof the county editors, and Alys Crumley had sometimes amused her withstories of her experiences as a New York reporter.

  These young men, so well-groomed, so urbane, so charming even, all ofthem no doubt generously equipped to love and marry and protect withtheir lives the girl of their choice, were they too but the soldiers ofan everlasting battlefield, often at bay and desperate in the trenches?No matter how good their work, how great their "killing," the strugglemust be renewed daily to maintain their own footing, to advance, or atleast to uphold, the power of their little autocracy. To them journalismwas the most important thing in the world, and mere persons likeherself, suddenly lifted from obscurity to the brassy peaks of notorietywere so much material for first page columns of the newspapers theyserved with all the loyalty of those deluded soldiers on the Europeanbattlefields. She understood them with an abrupt and complete clarity,but she hated them. They might like and even admire her, but they wouldshow her no mercy if they discovered that she had been in the yard thatnight. She felt as if a pack of wolves were at her heels.

  But finally her brow relaxed. She shrugged her shoulders and began tounbutton the dense black gown that had expressed the mood the worlddemands of a four-days' widow. Let them suspect, divine what they chose.Not a soul on earth but Anna Steuer knew that she had been out thatnight after her return home. Even had those lynx-eyed young men sat onthe box hedge they could not have seen her, for the avenue was welllighted, and the grove, the entire yard in fact, had been as black as amine. Even the person skulking among those trees could not have guessedwho she was.

  For a moment she had been tempted to tell them a little; that she hadlooked out and seen a moving shadow in the grove. But she had rememberedin time that they would ask why she had reserved this testimony at thecoroner's inquest. Her role was to know nothing. Indubitably the shothad been fired from the trees; nobody questioned that; why involveherself? They would discharge still another set of questions at her,among others why she had not telephoned for the police.

  As she hung up her gown she recognised the heavy footfalls of her maidof all work, and when Frieda knocked, bade her enter, employing thosecool impersonal tones so resented by the European servant after a briefsojourn on the dedicated American soil.

  As the girl closed the door behind her without speaking, Mrs. Balfameturned sharply. She felt at a disadvantage. As her figure was reasonablyslim, she wore a cheap corset which she washed once a month in the bathtub with her nailbrush; and her linen, although fresh, as ever, was ofstout longcloth, and unrelieved by the coquetry of ribbons. She wore aserviceable tight petticoat of black jersey, beyond which her well-shodfeet seemed to loom larger than her head. She was vaguely grateful thatshe had not been caught by Alys Crumley, so fond of sketching her, andwas about to order Frieda to untie her tongue and be gone, when shenoticed that the girl's face was no longer bound, and asked kindly:

  "Has the toothache gone? I hope you do not suffer any longer."

  Frieda lifted her small and crafty eyes and shot a suspicious glance atthe mistress who had been so indifferent to what she believed to be theworst of all pains.

  "It's out."

  "Too bad you didn't have it out at once." Mrs. Balfame hastily encasedherself in her bath robe and sat down. "I'll take my dinnerupstairs--why--what is it?"

  "I want to go home."

  "Home?"

  "To Germany."

  "But, of course you can't. There are a lot of German reservists in thecountry who would like to go home and fight, but they can't get past theBritish."

  "Some have. I could."

  "How? That is quite interesting."

  "I not tell. But I want to go."

  "Then go, by all means. But please wait a day or two until I get anothergirl."

  "Plenty girls out of job. I want to go to-morrow."

  "Oh, very well. But you can't expect a full month's wages, as it is youthat is serving notice, not I."

  "I do not want a full month wage. I want five hundert dollar."

  Mrs. Balfame turned her amazed eyes upon the girl. Her first thought wasthat the creature had been driven insane by her letters from home, andwondered if she could overcome her if attacked. Then as she met thosesmall, sharp, crafty eyes, set high in the big stolid face like littledeadly guns in a fort, her heart missed a beat. But her own gaze, largeand cold, did not waver, and she said satirically:

  "Well, I am sure I hope you will get it."

  "I get it--from you."

  Mrs. Balfame lifted her shoulders. "What next? I have contributed whatlittle I can afford to the war funds. I am sorry, but I cannotaccommodate you."

  "You give me five hundert dollar," reiterated the thick even voice, "orI tell the police you come in the back door two minutes after Mr.Balfame he was kilt at the front gate."

  Obvious danger once more turned Mrs. Balfame into pure steel. "Oh, no;you will tell them nothing of the sort, for it is not true. I thought Iheard some one on the back stairs when I went down to the kitchen. Asyou know I always drink a glass of filtered water before going to bed. Ihad forgotten the episode utterly, but I remember now, I heard a noiseoutside, even imagined that some one turned the knob of the door, andcalled up to ask you if you also had heard. I did not know that anythinghad happened out in front until I returned to my room."

  "I see you come in the kitchen door." But the voice was not quite soeven, the shifty glance wavered. Frieda felt suddenly the Europeanpeasant in the presence of the superior by divine right. Mrs. Balfamefollowed up her advantage.

  "You are lying--for purposes of blackmail. You did not see me come inthe door, because I had not been outside of it. I do not even rememberopening it to listen, although I may have done so. You saw nothing andcannot blackmail me. Nor would any one believe your word against mine."

  "I hear you come in just after me--"

  "Heard? Just now you said you saw."

  "Ach--"

  Mrs. Balfame had an inspiration. "My God!" she exclaimed, springing toher feet, "the murderer took refuge in the house, was hidden in thecellar or attic all night, all the next day! He may be here yet! You maybe feeding him!"

  She advanced upon the staring girl whose mouth stood open
. "Of course.Of course. You are a friend of Old Dutch. It was one of his gunmen whodid it, and you are his accomplice. Or perhaps you killed him yourself.Perhaps he treated you as he treated so many girls, and you killed himand are trying to blackmail me for money to get out of the country."

  "It is a lie!" Frieda's voice was strangled with outraged virtue. "Myman, he fight for the fatherland. Old Dutch, he will not hurt a fly. Iwould not have touch your pig of a husband. You know that, for you hatehim yourself. I have see in the eye, in the hand. I know notings of whokill him, but--no, I have not see you come in the kitchen door, but Ihear some one come in, the door shut, you call out in so strangevoice--I believe before that you have kill him--now--now I do notknow--"

  "It would be wise to know nothing,"--Mrs. Balfame's voice was chargedwith meaning--"unless you wish to be arrested as the criminal, or as anaccomplice--after confessing that you entered the house within a momentor two of the shooting. Who is to say exactly when you did come in?Well, better keep your mouth shut. It is wise for innocent people toknow as little about a crime as possible. Why did you testify before thecoroner's jury that your tooth ached so you heard nothing? Why didn'tyou tell your story then?"

  "I was frightened, and my tooth--I can tink of notings else."

  "And now you think it quite safe to blackmail me?"

  "I want to go back to Germany--to my man--and I hate this country whathates Germany."

  "This country is neutral," said Mrs. Balfame severely. "It regards allthe belligerents as barbarians tarred with the same brush. You Germansare so excitable that you imagine we hate when we merely don't care."This was intended to be soothing, but Frieda's brow darkened and shethrust out her pugnacious lips.

  "Germany, she is the greatest country in the whole world," sheannounced. "All the world--it muss know that."

  "How familiar that sounds! Just a slight variation on the old Americanbrag that is quite a relief." Mrs. Balfame spoke as lightly as if shemerely had let down the bars of her dignity out of sympathy with alacerated Teuton. "Well, go back to your Germany, Frieda, if you canget there, but don't try to blackmail me again. I have no five hundreddollars to give you if I would. If you choose, you may stay your monthout, and spend your evenings taking up a collection among your Germanfriends. You are excused."

  She had achieved her purpose. The girl's practical mind was puzzled bythe simple explanation of her mistress' presence in the kitchen, deeplyimpressed by the contemptuous refusal to be blackmailed. Her shouldersdrooped and she slunk out of the room.

  For a moment Mrs. Balfame clung, reeling, to the back of a chair. Thenshe went downstairs and telephoned to Dwight Rush.