So Lexie went home a trifle relieved, and wondered if she really ought to go out and scrub that porch. Of course Cinda would eventually do it, but she wanted to make things as easy as possible for Cinda. She decided that if there was no limousine parked before the door she would see that at least the jam was washed off the chair back and porch. She didn’t want even an obnoxious lawyer, nor a crook, to find things actually dirty.
So Lexie hurried into the house and was about to go in search of a pail and scrubbing brush and cloths, when she met Cinda coming in from the side door carrying them.
“I just been out to scrub her highness’ porch,” she said with a comical grimace. “I heard what the likes of her said, and I would not have lifted a finger to help, savin’ I knowed you would do it when you got back, and I didn’t want that to happen. So it’s done.”
“That was sweet of you, Cinda, but I think you have enough to do without that. Anyway, those two men she said were coming aren’t worth any effort. But thank you for your thought of me.” And Lexie went smiling into the house to make sure she hadn’t left her dust cloth in the living room.
But when she opened the door, she saw Elaine seated at the desk writing, and she was wearing a delicate white dress.
Lexie stared at her sister for an instant, and then she recognized the fine lace on the edge of the ruffles, and it all came over her. That was her commencement dress! Elaine had gone up and got it and put it on! Oh, and she would muss it all up! Lexie was suddenly very angry, so angry she was petrified. She couldn’t speak!
Then Elaine looked up from her writing; caught a glimpse of her sister’s face and was startled. She hadn’t expected Lexie to return so soon, and she wasn’t prepared for the look of utter anger and despair in Lexie’s eyes.
“Oh! So you did decide to come back in time to scrub that porch! Well, you needn’t have bothered. I made Cinda do it. She’s a lazy good-for-nothing anyway. She ought to do it without being told!”
But Lexie had no ears for anything about the porch just then. She was struggling to regain her composure and trying to speak in a pleasant, compelling manner.
“Oh Elaine! That’s my commencement dress!” she said in a cross between a wail and a protest. “Won’t you please go and take it off quick? And, please, be careful. I’ve nothing else to wear tonight! You had no right to go up and get my dress—!”
“Right? You talk of right? Why didn’t I have a right to do anything I wanted to do with what you claim as fortune and refuse to tell where it is?”
“Oh Elaine, please, please stop talking like that. You know I haven’t any fortune. And won’t you please get up quick and take that off? Let me help you off with it right away! Please be careful! Oh, if anything should happen to it I don’t know what I could do!”
“Get away from me, Lexie. Take your hands off my shoulder! No, I will not take the dress off. I’m expecting callers any minute and this is a perfect negligee. It’s nothing extraordinary anyway. Just a white nightgown affair. I have two old white dresses myself that will do well enough for you to march on a platform with a whole lot of other people. I intend to keep this on now; I haven’t time to change and you can rave all you want to, but it won’t do you a bit of good!”
Elaine waved her hand determinedly and her white arm swept out across the desk and took the ink bottle in its path, landing it directly in her own lap, where it turned over and spilled a large wide path of blue-black ink down the front of the cherished dress!
For an instant there was a dead silence in the room as both girls were horrified at what had happened, and then Elaine, gathering anger as she spoke, said: “There! Now see what you have made me do? Ruined my costume, and devastated your own dress! But that isn’t all,” she said as the enormity of what had happened came over her. “I had on my own best silk slip. The pink one that matches my only evening dress, and it’s ruined. And that’s all your fault! I know you can’t buy real silk things anymore and I never could match this again. Oh, what shall I do? Why don’t you help me get this terrible dress off quick. Take the scissors and cut it off. You can’t get it off any other way. There are the scissors over on the table. Cut it off quick before this vile ink gets all through my undergarments!”
True to her nature Lexie froze into composure with an emergency. She took charge of the frantic woman and made her obey just by the force of her own will.
“Stand up!” she said quietly, and took hold of her sister’s arm firmly. “Wait! Don’t stir! Let me get this waist unfastened.”
No one noticed when Cinda came in, a basin of water in her hand and several large clean rags. She went quietly over to the excited, weeping Elaine.
“There, dearie,” crooned Cinda in perfect acting form. “We’ll fix ye all up in good shape before yer comp’ny comes. Just stand still and shut yer eyes. Hold out yer right arm. Yes, that’s right. Pull it off gently there. And now the other. There, the waist is off! Now we’re through the worst. Wait, suppose I take off yer pretty slippers. They’re too nice to get spoiled. Stand very still!”
Lexie knew enough to keep her own mouth shut and let Cinda carry on. She knew that her voice would only excite Elaine. So she worked with careful, quick, frightened fingers, unzipping and pulling off the skirt cautiously down over the slim angry hips, zealously guarding the back and sides of the skirt from all contact with the tainted front breadth until the skirt lay in a billowy circle about the feet of the distressed Elaine. Then suddenly Cinda rose and put her strong arms quickly about the slim waist of the young woman, lifting her body out from the dress and setting her down fully two yards away from it. As she did so, Lexie gathered the blackened front breadths closely in her hands and drew the whole skirt out of the room. It was deftly done, and perhaps no one who had not so much at stake could possibly have accomplished the feat, but there it was, out in the dining room, with sides and back unmarred. Now, what could be done next?
Lexie was quick and clever. She knew exactly the pattern of that dress, and even while she had been rescuing what part of it was still untouched by ink, she had been trying to contrive how she would yet wear it. So now as she laid it down on the floor for the moment, she knew just what she had to do. If only the ink did not reach too far, it might be possible to rip or cut out that marred front breadth and let out some of the gathering in the full skirt. But she must get rid first of that inky section or somehow it would contaminate the rest. The scissors were the quickest way.
She stepped to the kitchen and got the pair of shears that had always hung under the shelf by the dresser. Kneeling, she cut swiftly, ruthlessly, through that beautiful garment that only an hour before had been such an object of delight to her tired, worried young soul, really the prettiest dress she had ever had.
But she must not stop to think of that now. There was not a great deal of time in which to bring this garment into usefulness for her immediate need, and she must not waste a minute in useless repining. So with a steady hand, she cut from the hem straight up to the belt, on each side of the stain, and then with a glance at her hands to make sure they had no ink on them, she gathered up what was left and carried it up to her room, laying it on the bed and locking the door to make sure no intruder arrived to hinder her.
A quick examination showed the shirring around the waist was very full indeed, and surely it would do no harm to take one small piece out of all that fullness!
So she went to work trying to steady her trembling hands, trying not to think of what her ruthless sister had done to her as she carefully ripped the shirring loose from the belt, and then examined it again to calculate just how far she would need to rip out the shirring to make the skirt wide enough to go on the band again. How fortunate it was that the belt had not been touched by the ink!
And down in the living room, Cinda had a problem all her own. The angry, bewildered woman who had been so precipitately lifted out of her borrowed garments, and placed trembling in the corner wearing a ruined pink slip with a great black stain down its
front breadth, stood staring stupidly down at the devastation she had wrought, too bewildered to utter a word, which was a state to which she had seldom in her life been brought.
And just then, while Cinda wiped the small rivers of ink from the otherwise neat floor, they both heard that elegant limousine drive up to the door, and Elaine came sharply to her senses. Her callers had arrived, and she in a shocking pink slip with ink stains all down the front and over one white arm was standing unprotected in the opposite corner of the room from the door to her bedroom, and nothing between her and her callers but a worn old screen door!
Cinda was on her feet with the basin and rags in her hand. She gave a glance out the front door and saw the men getting out of the elegant car.
“Yer callers is here,” she announced grimly. “Ye better beat it an’ get some cloes on. I’ll open the door for ’em,” and she flung open the bedroom door. As Elaine scuttled across the room into her haven, Cinda went and stood guard before the screen door watching the two men come up the path.
But Lexie, upstairs, had no time to more than glance out the window, though she sensed what must be going on. Well, she had her work cut out for her, and she needn’t take time to go down unless Mr. Gordon came, in which case Cinda would surely tell her. Thank the Lord, Cinda, downstairs, let the two men in, scanned them thoroughly, classified them according to her wide knowledge and keen discernment, and then took her implements of service into the dining room, where she took care to leave the door open a crack, and where she had beforehand carefully set her stage so that she could come and go and get on with her work, and hear all that went on without seeming to do so.
She lumbered up the stairs and touched Lexie’s door with the tips of her fingers, giving a high sign, and Lexie softly unlocked the door and let her in.
“Them men is come!” she announced in a solemn whisper. “An’ ef one cud look worse’n t’ other, he does. Seem like I’ve seed him ‘afore, too, but I wouldn’t trust him with me dog’s bone!” Lexie managed a one-sided grin in the corner of her mouth that was not filled with pins.
“You’d oughtta seed her, scootin’ acrost the room in her inky slip. It was a sight fer sore eyes! How ya gettin’ on with the dress? Can ye do anythin’ with it?”
“Yes, I think so, but it will take time. Don’t call me down unless Mr. Gordon comes, though I’ll listen for him.”
“Okay! Well, is there any sewin’ I kin do fer ye?”
“Not yet, I guess, Cinda. By and by I’ll want you to see if it looks all right. I just took out a length in front and let out the shirring. That ought to look all right, don’t you think?”
“Sure thing!” said Cinda. “It sure was a shame I didn’t find out what that brat of a woman was doin’ ‘afore this happened, but I was tryin’ ta get things in order early so you wouldn’t do no work, an’ here look at what come!”
“Never mind,” said Lexie. “I guess I can wear it. There isn’t but one little blot on the waist, and that’s where I can cut the blot out and paste a bit of the organdie over it. I think I’ll get by all right.”
Lexie had run up the two seams of the skirt quickly, and adjusted the gathers about the waistline. She was just about to try it on when she heard a car drive down the street, and then another from the opposite direction, but when she looked out there was only one and it went on by and stopped across the street on the other side. Could that be Mr. Gordon’s car?
She opened the door and listened. There seemed to be several voices downstairs, but she didn’t hear Mr. Gordon’s yet, and she did not want to go down until Cinda called her. Elaine could make trouble enough without charging her with coming in where she was not wanted. So she closed the door and went back to her sewing, but she had an uneasy feeling that something was going on that she did not understand.
Then she went to her window again, and looking out toward the side of the house she saw a man going like a shadow, silently, and disappearing out behind the kitchen. Quietly she opened her door again and slipped down the hall to the little window that opened out toward the back, and there she saw two men standing, looking toward the house, talking in very low tones, more as if they were whispering or using sign language. A horror came with the memory that the lawyer had suggested they might arrest her. How dreadful if they were really going to try that on her, and Elaine was going to let them do it, the very day she was to graduate! Would Elaine be as mean as that?
Then she heard Cinda coming up the stairs and she slipped back to her own room, followed by Cinda, who came in after her and held the door closed while she whispered: “That there Mr. Gordon you was lookin’ for is in the kitchen. He says for you not to come down just yet till he sends you word. He’s brung a lotta cops and got ’em all standin’ around, an’ he says tell you you was right, that’s the man. An’ it’ll all be over in a few minutes, but you’re to stay up here till I come after you.”
Cinda vanished, and Lexie remained by her door listening.
She heard measured steps below the stairs. Through the dining room three figures passed showing up sharply against the sunlight in the opposite dining room window. They were policemen! In uniform! What could it mean? And did Cinda say that Mr. Gordon was down there, too? Or was he out in the kitchen? Oh, surely she ought to go down! But Cinda had been so sure that Mr. Gordon wanted her to stay upstairs until he called her. Then the door into the living room was swung open. She hadn’t noticed before that it had been shut. But it swung so silently as if a deft hand had swung it, and she could hear low talk, then Elaine’s rippling, apologetic laughter almost like a giggle. She did that when men were there, especially that outrageous lawyer of hers. And then—a sudden silence! A breathless silence it seemed, as if everyone in the room was suddenly suppressed, a frightened silence, though none had made a sound since the talking ceased.
Then a strange voice spoke. “Harry Perrine, alias Waddie Dager, alias Mike Gilkie, you are under arrest for forgery. I must beg your pardon, madam, for interrupting your conversation, but this man has been wanted by the state for more than a year and we can’t take chances! Handcuff him, Officer!”
Elaine gave a little childish scream. Lexie could almost envision how she would be shrugged down in her chair with her pretty, slender, manicured fingers pressing over her eyes.
Lexie could hear the other two men step forward to someone who sat in a chair just inside the living room door, and then a well-remembered voice that she had always disliked came tremblingly out: “But, Officer, you have made a mistake. I am not the man you are looking for. My name is not any of those names you spoke. I am James Bradwell, and I’m a respectable citizen. I have never been in any criminal trouble.” “No, Jimmy Brady, we haven’t made any mistake. You can call yourself Bradwell, or Brady, or Tanzey Brown if you like, or any one of a dozen other aliases that I have on my list, but you’re still the same old Harry Perrine you used to be when you got away with that big forgery game, and we’re not running any chances.”
“But I’m a respectable citizen,” whined the culprit. “I can prove that I am innocent of any crime. These people are merely my friends and I was making a business call, offering them an investment that is worth its weight—”
“Oh yes?” said the officer. “Your friends are fortunate that I met up with you before they signed any of your rotten papers. Come, Harry Perrine, let’s get going. You arrived in a limousine but you will be going away in a police car. You’re sure none of the rest of you feel you’d like to go with us?” Lexie could well imagine his glance at Lawyer Thomas as he said it.
But there was only an ominous silence, and then the policemen marched away to their car with their reluctant prisoner in their midst.
Lexie remained at her door, wondering what would happen next, wondering if the next thing would be a call for herself to come down and see Mr. Gordon, but after the police cars had gone she heard another car going away, and stealing into her own room she saw it was the car that had been parked across the road a little wh
ile before. Yet she lingered, uneasily, and then she heard Lawyer Thomas say: “Well, Elaine, I guess that about finishes our interview for the morning. You can readily see that I’ve got to go at once and see what can be done to release our star witness.”
“But I thought you were going to tell me this morning where that money is to be found. That is the point I was so anxious about,” wailed Elaine.
“Well, of course I was not anticipating any such happening as has just occurred. I can’t understand this. Just who did you tell about this witness? You don’t suppose that sister of yours has found it out and told the police, do you? You didn’t tell her about this witness, did you?”
“Certainly not!” lied Elaine firmly. “And if I had, my sister wouldn’t think of going to the police. She is not that kind of a girl.”
“Oh, isn’t she?” queried the lawyer. “I understood that you felt she would stoop to almost anything to carry her point and keep this money. And besides, I’m afraid you’re going to have to let me have a little more money right at once. It is going to cost quite a sum to get this witness free, I’m afraid. And you know it is essential that we get him. If you could spare, say, fifty dollars, right away I’ll hurry down and see if I can get him off. You know he is really the only one who can tell you where that money is. If you’ll get the money, I’ll go at once and see if I can set him free.”
“But I haven’t any money. I couldn’t possibly give you any today.”
“What about that tightwad of a sister of yours? Can’t you work something on her?”
“Oh no!” groaned Elaine. “I can’t do a thing with her. Not now, especially. Oh, this has been an awful day!” And Elaine burst into loud weeping.
“Well, there, there! Don’t cry. We’ll manage somehow for a day or two, but I really must go at once. I shouldn’t care to have these police get me mixed up in this sort of thing! Good-bye. I really must hurry!”