Ainslee's Magazine, February 1913 — page 72: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

62 - AINSLEE’S our coming and going, the heavy veils we wore to escape a chance of recogni- tion. Really, it was all worthy of the most dreadful murder ever committed. I think we felt as if we were com- mitting murder; I don’t remember clearly because I’ve never dared. I know that, after an age of eternities, we found ourselves making our hys- terical way back to the limousine, which we had left three blocks away in front of a department store. It was all over, and I was clutching—exactly that—be- tween trembling fingers a roll of bills to be applied to the saving of Herbert Cal- laway’s life; it was all over, but I don’t think either of us dared breathe until we drew up at the Seymour Browns’. The morning passed in agony. Bar- bara conceived the idea that the mys- terious messenger would come from the shadow of the porte-cochere just as he had the night previously. She drove up and descended from the limousine surely a million times, without result. We always have had a wild desire to know what the chauffeur and the foot- man thought. Finally she could stand the suspense no longer. She took the stairs, two at a time, I’m sure, from the way she was breathing, fell limply across a rose divan in my rose boudoir, and burst into tears. That was the: beginning of the fire- works! I had started to go to Barbara, whis- pering meanwhile words of endearment, of courage, when Mrs. Brown, looking much as if the end of the world had come, suddenly appeared before us. “My dear child,” she said to me, ' “don’t faint, and, above all things, re- member that I have perfect confidence in you.” Above all things, I remembered to keep my mouth closed. I recall, now, that in my excitement I tucked a curl into place, and wanted to ask a ques- tion, but couldn’t think of one. “Two detectives are below,” she went on. “They—they have come to arrest I couldn't repeat “Arrest me!” The words just wouldn’t come. Barbara came to her feet with a little scream. “My God!” she exclaimed, terror- stricken, but the only emotion that pos- sessed me was a wild desire to laugh. “Of what am I accused?” I asked. “You have pawned something that has been stolen,” Mrs. Brown answered. “My dear child, I’m sure it’s all a hor- rible mistake, you can explain Barbara’s eyes met mine. The yel- low-diamond pendant! Herbert Calla- way had stolen it! Then she fainted! The next half hour was one mad jumble. If I had followed my <inclina- tion, I should have stood in the mid- dle of my rose boudoir and screamed. Instead, I very calmly doused Barbara, and the rose divan, telephoned for the doctor, telephoned for Billy, and sug- gested that Mrs. Brown telephone for her husband. And, indeed, we needed them all before that half hour was over, to say nothing of the two detectives who were already there. Well, it seems that the pendant, among other things, had been stolen from the Peter Dusens, of Lexington, and was part of a series of sensational robberies that had taken place there. By the mysterious process which de- tectives employ, which we read about, and never understand, the gang of thieves responsible for these robberies had been traced to our city. The pawnshops of the whole country were, of course, being watched, and when the pendant made its appearance in the shop where Barbara and I pawned it, it was immediately recognized. We _ were easily traced, for we had gone straight to the limousine and home. I had a highly exciting time explain- ing how the pendant came into my pos- session, it was such a ridiculous story; but Billy believed me, and, more won- derful than anything else, proved to the detectives how innocent I was. Things then looked terribly black for Herbert, especially when Barbara and I had to admit that our reason for pawning the pendant was to get money for him; that he was in America se- cretly, and had been shot. But just there, almost like a scene in a play, Mr. Brown produced a cable, referring to EORMICLOOOLK< (C@