Mrs. Balfame: A Novel

  CHAPTER XIX

  When the Dobton sheriff and his deputies came to arrest Mrs. Balfame,the wife of their old comrade in arms, all they were able to tell herwas that the District Attorney had applied for the warrant immediatelyafter the testimony before the Grand Jury of Frieda Appel and of theKrauses, father and son. What that testimony had been they could nothave told her if they would, but that it had been strong andcorroborative enough to insure her indictment by the Grand Jury was asmanifest as it was ominous.

  They arrived just as Mrs. Balfame was about to leave the house to lunchwith Mrs. Cummack; Frieda had left long before it was time to preparethe midday meal. Mr. Cramb, the sheriff, shut the door behind him and inthe faces of the indignant women reporters, who, less ruthless butequally loyal to their journals, wanted a "human interest" story for thestimulated public. Mrs. Balfame and her friends retreated before theposse into the parlour. Mrs. Battle wept loudly; Alys Crumley, who hadcome in with her mother a few moments since, fell suddenly on a chair inthe corner and pressed her hands against her mouth, her horrified eyesstaring at Mrs. Balfame. The other women shed tears as the equallydoleful sheriff explained his errand and read the warrant. Mrs. Balfamealone was calm. She exerted herself supremely and sent so peremptory amessage along her quaking nerves that it benumbed them for the moment.She had only a faint sense of drama, but a very keen one of her ownpeculiar position in her little world, and she knew that in this grislycrisis of her destiny she was expected to behave as a brave anddignified woman should--a woman of whom her friends could continue toexult as head and shoulders above the common mass. She rose to theoccasion.

  "Don't you worry--just!" said Mr. Cramb, patting her shoulder, althoughhe never had had the temerity to offer her his hand before, and hadoften "pitied Dave." "They lied, them Duytchers, for some reason orother, but they can't really have nothin' on you, and we'll find outwhat they're up to, double quick."

  "I do not worry," said Mrs. Balfame coldly, "--although quite naturallyI object to the humiliation of arrest, and of spending even a night injail. Exactly what is the charge against me?"

  The sheriff crumpled his features and cleared his throat. "Well, it'smurder, I guess. It's an ugly word, but words don't mean nothin' whenthere's nothin' in them."

  "In the first degree?" shrieked Mrs. Gifning.

  Cramb nodded.

  "And it don't admit of bail?" Mrs. Frew's eyes rolled wildly.

  "Nothin' doin'."

  Mrs. Balfame rose hurriedly. There was a horrid possibility of contagionin this room surcharged with emotion. She kissed each of her friends inturn. "It will be all right, of course," she reminded them gently. "Onlymen could be taken in by such a plot, and of course there are a lot ofGermans on the Grand Jury--there are so many in this county. I shallhave an excellent lawyer, Dave's friend, Mr. Rush. And I am sure that Ishall be quite comfortable in the County Jail--it is so nice and new."But she shuddered at the vision, in spite of her fine self-control.

  "You'll be treated like a queen," interposed the sheriff hastily. He wasproud of her, and immensely relieved that he was not to escort anhysterical prisoner five miles to the County Seat. "You'll have theWarden's own suite, and I guess you'll be able to see your friends rightalong. Guess we'd better be gettin' on."

  As Mrs. Balfame was leaving the room, her eyes met the horrified andpuzzled gaze of Alys Crumley, and one of those obscure instincts thatdart out of the subconscious mind like memories of old experiencesreleased under high mental pressure, made her put out her handimpulsively and draw the girl to her.

  "I can always be sure of your trust," she whispered. "Won't you come upand help me pack?"

  Alys followed unresisting: the blow had been so sudden; she had believedso little in the power of the law to touch a woman like Mrs. Balfame,and even less that she committed the crime; for the moment she forgother jealous hostility, remembered only that the best friend of hermother and of her own childhood was in dire straits.

  Mrs. Cummack had run up ahead and was carrying two suitcases from thelarge closet to the bed as they entered. Her face was burning andtear-stained, but she was one of those highly efficient women of thehome that rise automatically to every emergency and act while othersconsider. "Glad you've come too," she said to Alys. "Open those drawersin the bureau, and I'll pick out what's needed. Of course the ridiculouscharge will be dismissed in a day or two--but still! Well, if they'reall idiots down there at Dobton, we can come over here and pack a trunklater. To take it now would be nonsense, and Sam'll move heaven andearth to get them to accept bail. You just put on your best black, Enid,and wear your veil so they can't snapshot you."

  While she was gasping on, Mrs. Balfame, whose brain had never workedmore clearly, went into the bathroom and emptied the contents of aninnocent looking medicine bottle into the drain of the wash-stand. Shefeared young Broderick more than she feared the district attorney, who,after all, had been her husband's friend--had, in fact, eaten all of hispolitical crumbs out of that lavish but discriminating hand. Sherecalled that she had always been gracious to him (at her husband'srequest, for she regarded him as a mere worm) when he had dined at hertable, and felt sure that he would favour her secretly, whatever hisobvious duty. Moreover, he was of those that spat at the very mention ofthe powerful Kraus, and would gladly, especially since the outbreak ofthe war, have run him out of the community.

  Mrs. Balfame, being a brilliant exponent of that type which enjoys theunwavering admiration and loyalty of its own sex, had a correspondingbelief in her friends, and rarely if ever had used the word _cat_denotatively. She called out the best in women as they of a certaintycalled out the best in her. Therefore, it did not occur to her either toclose the bathroom door or to glance behind her. Alys Crumley, standingbefore the bureau and happening to look into the mirror, saw her emptyand rinse the bottle. The suspicions of Broderick regarding the glass oflemonade flashed into the young artist's mind; and from that moment shebelieved in the guilt of Mrs. Balfame.

  Although her hands were shaking Alys lifted from the lavender-scenteddrawers the severely chaste underwear of the leader of Elsinore society,and as soon as the suitcases were packed, she made haste to adjust Mrs.Balfame's veil and pin it so firmly that no more kisses could beexchanged. Of her ultimate purpose Alys had not the ghost of an idea,but kiss a woman whom she believed to be guilty of murder and whom shemight possibly be driven to betray, she would not. Suddenly grown assecretive as if she had a crime of her own to conceal, she even walkedout to the car with Mrs. Balfame and helped to drive away the crowdingnewspaper women, several of whom she recognised. They in turn bore heroff, determined to get some sort of a story for the issues of themorrow.