Loe raamatut: «Miss Maitland, Private Secretary», lehekülg 14

CHAPTER XXIV – CARDS ON THE TABLE

In spite of Molly's excited certainty that Willitts was the thief, Ferguson was not convinced. He met her impetuous demand for the valet's arrest with a recommendation for a fuller knowledge of his activities on the night of the robbery. Willitts had gone to the movies with the Grasslands servants and if he had been with them the whole evening he was as innocent as Dixon or Isaac. She had to agree and promised to do nothing until she had satisfied herself that his movements tallied with their findings.

Ferguson had a restless night. There was matter on his mind to keep him awake; he was fearful that Suzanne might make some false step. She was at best a shifty, unstable creature, how much more so now strained to the breaking point. He felt he ought to be in town where he could keep her under his eye, and decided to motor in in the morning. Also he began to think that Molly was probably right; she was shrewd and experienced, knew more of such matters than he. He would go to the Whitney office and put the Willitts' affair in their hands, then run up to the St. Boniface, take a room, and have a look in at Suzanne.

He left the house at nine-thirty, telling the butler he was called to the city on business, and might be gone a day or two. At the Whitney office he was informed that Mr. and Mrs. Janney were in consultation with the heads of the firm, and, saying he would not disturb them, waited in an outer room from whence he telephoned to Suzanne, telling her he would be at the hotel later. When the Janneys had gone he was ushered into the old man's office where he found the air still vibrating with the clash of battle. A combined attack had been made on Mrs. Janney who, under its pressure and the slow undermining of her confidence by a week of failure, had given in and consented to a move on Price. It had been planned for that afternoon, when he was to be summoned to the office, charged with the kidnaping and commanded to render up the child.

Whitney and his son listened to Ferguson's story of the cigar band with unconcealed interest. George, however, was skeptical – it was ingenious and plausible, showed Molly's fine Italian hand; but his mind had accepted the theory of Esther's participation and was of the unelastic, unmalleable kind. His father was obviously impressed by it, admitting that his original conviction of the girl's guilt had been shaken. To George's indignant rehearsal of the evidence, he accorded a series of acquiescing nods, agreed that the facts were against him and maintained his stand. He would see Willitts as soon as possible and put him through a grilling examination. O'Malley could be sent to Council Oaks at once to bring him in, and his business could be disposed of before they got round to Price. As Ferguson rose to go George had the receiver of the desk telephone down and was giving low-voiced instructions to O'Malley to report immediately at the office.

It was nearly one when the young man found himself on the street level. There was no use going to the St. Boniface now as the family would be at lunch and speech alone with Suzanne impossible. On the way uptown he stopped at a restaurant, ordered food which he hardly touched, filling out the time with cigarettes. By half-past two he was on the move again, threading a slow way through the traffic, his eye lingering on the clock faces that loomed at intervals along the Avenue. Suzanne had told him that the old people always went for a drive after lunch and he scanned the motors that passed him, hoping to see them. He was in no mood for polite conversation – felt with the passing of the hours an increasing tension, a gathering of his forces for a leap and a struggle.

At the desk in the St. Boniface he heard that Mr. and Mrs. Janney had just gone out, and waited while Mrs. Price's room was called up. There was no response; Mrs. Price must be out too. The information made him uneasy; she had told him she went nowhere except to Larkin's. More than ever anxious to see her, he engaged a room and left the message that he would be there and to be called up when she came in. The door shut on him, his uneasiness increased; wondering what had taken her out, wondering if she had done anything foolish, cursing the fate that had placed so much in her feeble hands, perturbed and restless as a lion in a cage.

Suzanne had gone to Larkin's, called there by a telephone message. It had come almost on the heels of her parents' departure and was brief – a request to come to him as soon as she could. She had scrambled into her street clothes, and, shaking in every limb, slipped out of the hotel's side door and sped across town in a taxi to hear how Bébita was to be found.

She was hardly inside the door, her veil lifted from a face as pale as Cæsar's ghost, when Larkin answered her look of agonized question:

"Yes, the letter's come – what we expect, very clear and explicit. It was sent to me this time – came on the two o'clock delivery."

He turned to the desk and took up a folded paper. Before he could offer it to her, she had leaned forward and snatched it out of his hand. Instantly her eyes were riveted on the lines:

"Mr. Horace Larkin,

"Dear Sir:

"In answer to the ad. in the Daily Record, we are dealing through you as the agent named by Mrs. Price. We do this as we realize that a lady of Mrs. Price's type and experience would be unable to handle alone so important a matter. Before we enter into details we must again repeat our warnings – not only the return of the child but her life is dependent on the actions of her mother and yourself. If you are wise to this and follow our instructions Bébita will be restored to her family on Saturday night.

"The plan of procedure must be as follows: At eight-thirty a roadster, containing only the driver and marked by a handkerchief fastened to the windshield, must leave the village of North Cresson by the Cresson turnpike, at a rate of speed not exceeding fifteen miles an hour. It must proceed eastward along the pike for a distance of ten miles. Somewhere during this run a car will pass it and from its tonneau flash an electric lantern twice. Follow this car. Make no attempt to hail or to overtake it. It will turn from the main road and proceed for some distance. When it stops the driver of the roadster must alight, place the money at a spot indicated, and submit, without parley, to being bound and gagged. When this is done the child will be left beside him. If agreed to insert following personal in The Daily Record of Saturday morning: 'James, meet you at the time and place specified. Tom.'

"(Signed) Clansmen."

The letter fluttered to the desk and Suzanne sank into a chair. Larkin looked at her; his glance showed some anxiety but his voice was hearty and encouraging:

"Well, you agree, of course?"

She nodded, swallowing on a throat too dry for speech.

He picked up the letter and ran a frowning eye over it:

"It simply confirms what I thought – old hands. It's about as secure as such a thing could be. I don't see a loose end."

She made no answer and he went on still studying the paper:

"I'm not familiar with this country, but they wouldn't have picked it out unless it offered every chance of escape."

"Escape!" she breathed. "They've got to escape."

It made him smile, the eye he turned on her showed a quizzical amusement:

"You're almost talking like an accomplice, Mrs. Price." But he quickly grew grave as he met her tragic glance. "Pardon me, I shouldn't have said that, but the fact is, with the climax in sight, I'm a bit on edge myself." Then with a brusque change of tone, "Do you know this section of Long Island?"

"Yes, well – I've driven over it often."

"Am I right in thinking there are numbers of roads leading from the Cresson Turnpike?"

"Lots of them, to the Sound and inland."

"Umph!" he threw the letter on the desk and sat down, "I don't think you need worry about their getting away. Now we must settle this up and then I'll go out and have the ad inserted. We've got to hustle – they've only given us a little over twenty-four hours."

She looked dazedly at him and murmured:

"What have we got to do?"

"Why – " he was very gentle as to a stupid and bewildered child – "we have to arrange about this car – our car, the one that gets the signal."

"We can hire it, can't we?"

"Well, we could hire the car, but the driver – we can't very well hire him. He must be some one upon whom we can rely."

She stared at him, her eyes dilating:

"Yes, yes, of course. I'd forgotten that."

"Is there any one you can suggest – any one that you know you could trust and who would be willing to undertake it?"

"Yes," the word came with a sudden decision. "I know some one." Larkin eyed her sharply. She looked more alive than she had done since her entrance, seemed to be vitalized into a roused, responsive intelligence. "I know exactly the person."

"Entirely trustworthy?"

"Absolutely. Mr. Ferguson – Dick Ferguson."

"Oh, yes, Ferguson of Council Oaks." He mused a moment under her hungry scrutiny. "Do you think he'd be willing to – er – agree to their demands as you have?"

"Yes, he'd do it to help me. He's an old friend; I know him through and through. He'd do it if I asked him."

The detective was silent for a moment, then said:

"Well, we have to have some one and if you're willing to vouch for him I'll abide by what you say. Before you came in I was thinking of offering to do it myself. But there are reasons against that. I don't mind helping you this way – quietly, on the side – but to be an actual participant in the final deal, handle the money, be more or less responsible for the person of the child – I'd rather not – I'd better not. And anyway I think I can be more useful as an observer, an unsuspected spectator who may see something worth while."

She gave a stifled scream and caught at his hand, resting on the edge of the desk:

"No, no, Mr. Larkin, please, I beg of you. You're not going to try and catch them."

Her fingers gripped like talons; he laid his free hand over them, soothingly patting them:

"Now, now, Mrs. Price, please have confidence in me. Am I likely, at this stage of the game, to do anything to queer it?"

She did not reply, her eyes shifting from his, her teeth set tight on her quivering underlip. He waited a moment and then spoke with a new note, dominating, authoritative, as one in command:

"My dear lady, you've got to get hold of yourself. I can't go on with this if you don't trust me. We're launched on an enterprise by no means easy and if we don't pull together we'll fail, that's all."

That steadied her. She dropped his hand and broke into tremulous protestations:

"I do, I do, Mr. Larkin. It's only that I'm so terribly afraid, so upset and desperate. Of course I trust you. Would I be here, day after day, if I didn't?"

He was mollified, dropped back with the crisp, alert manner of the detective.

"All right, we'll let it go at that. Now as to Ferguson – you'll have to get word to him at once. Is he in the country?"

"No – he's here. I had a telephone from him this morning to say he was in town and would be at the hotel later in the day. He's probably there now, waiting for me."

"Um!" Larkin considered for a moment. "That's lucky. There's no time to waste. Get his consent and then 'phone me here. Just a word. And you understand he'll have to know the circumstances; he'll have to be wise to everything if he's to play his part."

Suzanne had lied so long and so variously that she did it with a natural ease. No one, having seen her as Larkin had, would have guessed the knowledge she hid. Her air of innocently comprehending his charge was a triumph of duplicity.

"Of course, I know, I understand. It'll be a dreadful surprise to him but he'll see it as I do. And he'll do what I ask – I'm as certain of that as I am of his secrecy."

She would have to have the letter to show him, and Larkin, after a last, careful perusal of it, handed it to her. Then she went, cutting off his heartening words of farewell, making her way out in a quick, noiseless rush. At the desk in the hotel she learned that Ferguson was there, asked to have him apprised of her return and sent at once to her sitting room.

CHAPTER XXV – MOLLY'S STORY

The morning after that talk with Ferguson I rose up "loaded for bar." At breakfast I led Dixon round to the old subject – we were good friends now and he'd drop his professional manner when we were alone and talk like a human being. Of course he remembered everything, and opened up as fluent as a gramophone. Willitts hadn't found them at the movies till nearly ten – been delayed on his way in from Cedar Brook, his landlady's little girl had been took bad with croup and he'd gone for the doctor – Dr. Bernard, who was off on a side road half way between Cedar Brook and Berkeley.

That ought to have been enough for me, but having started I thought I'd clear it all up, so I borrowed a bike off Ellen and set out on the double quick for Dr. Bernard's. I saw Mrs. Bernard and heard all I wanted. Willitts had been there on the night of July seventh, came on a bicycle, saw the doctor and gave his message about the sick child. She thought it was somewhere between eight and half-past – the storm was just stopping. I lit out for home; I'd got it all now. He'd gone straight from the doctor's to Grasslands, taken the jewels, and made a short cut back to the main road through the woods to where he'd hidden his wheel.

When you get this far on a case there comes over you a sort of terror that you may slip up. You have it all in your hand, your fingers are stretched to lay hold on the criminal, and an awful fear takes possession of you that right on the threshold of success you may lose. The cup and the lip – that's the idea.

This seized me on the ride back to Grasslands. Why was the cigar band gone if he wasn't wise to what it meant? It was a powerful hot day, smothering on the wood roads, but the way I made that machine shoot you'd suppose it was a hard frost and I was peddling to get up my circulation. He might be gone already, taken fright and skipped! I had a vision of telling the Chief and what he'd say, and the perspiration came out on me like the beads on a mint julep glass. I'd go to town right now – there was an express at eleven – but before I left I'd call up Council Oaks and find out if he was there.

As I ran up the piazza steps the hall clock chimed out a single note, half-past ten – I had plenty of time. I called to Dixon to order the motor – I was going to town – whisked into the telephone closet, and made the connection. The voice that answered lifted me up out of the depths – for I guessed it was Willitts by the dialect, English, with the "H's" hanging on sort of loose and wobbly. To make sure I asked, and it answered, smooth as a summer sea – yes, I was talking to Mr. Ferguson's valet, Willitts. Mr. Ferguson was not at 'ome, 'ed gone to the city to be away a day or two. Was there any message? There wasn't – you could bet on that – and I eased off in a high-class society drawl.

With a deep breath I dropped back to normal, smoothed my feathers, powdered my nose, and when the motor came round looked like a shy little nursery governess, snitching a day off in town.

It was at the station that something happened which ended my peaceful state and gave me an experience I'll remember as long as I live.

Just as I was stepping on the train I took a glance back along the platform and there, close behind me, dressed as neat as a tailor's dummy, was Willitts with a bag in his hand. He didn't notice me, and if he had he wouldn't have known me, for I'd only passed him once in the village and then he wasn't looking my way. I mounted up the steps and went into the car. From the tail of my eye I saw him in the doorway and when he'd taken the seat in front of me, I dropped against the back of mine, saying to myself: "Hully Gee, he's going!"

All the way into town, I sat with my eyes on his hat, thinking what I'd better do. There was one thing certain – that stood out like the writing on the wall – I mustn't let him out of my sight. Where he went I'd have to go, tight as a barnacle I'd have to stick to that desperado. I tried to think how I could get a message to the Whitneys' office, but I didn't see how I was going to find the time or the opportunity. If the worst came to the worst I could call a cop, but if I knew anything of men like Willitts, he'd keep a watch out like a warship for periscopes, for anything that wore brass buttons and connected with the law.

The "Penn" station was as hot as a Turkish bath and through it you can imagine me, trying to trip light and airy, and keeping both eyes as tight as steel rivets on that man's back. I've never shadowed anybody – it's not been included in my college course – all I knew was I mustn't lose him and I mustn't get him suspicious, and if you're making away with a fortune in a handbag, suspicion ought to be your natural state. So I trailed after him as far in the rear as I dared, sometimes, a gang rushing for a train coming in between us, sometimes the space clear with him hurrying to the exit and me sort of loitering and gawking up at the maps on the ceiling.

Out in the street he turned and shot a glance like a searchlight round behind him. It swept over me and took no notice, which was considerable of an encouragement. If it was warm in the station, it was sizzling outside. Men were carrying their coats on their arms, some of them using palm leaf fans, careful ones keeping to the edge of shade along the house fronts. But Willitts didn't mind the sun; I guess when you're making off with a fortune you're indifferent to temperature – it's another proof of mind over matter.

After walking down Seventh Avenue for a few minutes he turned to the left and struck across a side street to Sixth. Half way down the block he went into a men's furnishing store, and sauntering slow past the window, I saw him looking at collars. There was a stationer's just beyond and I cast anchor there, by a counter near the door set out with magazines. A sales girl lounged up, chewing her gum like the heat had made her languid, and looking interested over my clothes.

"Awful warm, ain't it?" she said, and I answered, picking up a magazine:

"It's something fierce. I'll take this one."

"You got that one already," says she, pointing to the magazine I'd bought at Berkeley and was still clinging to. "Don't you wanna try something new?"

"Oh – it's the heat; the sun gets my head woozy." I picked out another and gave her a dollar, the smallest change I had. As she was walking to the cash register, Willitts passed the door and I was out on the sill, moving cautious to the sidewalk.

"Say," comes the girl's voice from behind me, "what are you doin'? You ain't got your change yet. You'd oughtn't to be let out in this sun."

"Keep it," I called back. "I was a working girl once myself."

At the corner of Fifth Avenue he stopped and, a bus coming along, he haled it. "Lord," thought I, "if he gets into that without me I'll have to run after it and they'll arrest me for a lunatic." Being quite a ways behind, I had to make a dash for it, waving my magazine and hollering like the rubes from the country. He was up on the roof, and the bus was moving when I lit on the step, and was hauled in friendly by the conductor.

We jolted downtown, me sitting sideways in a rear seat watching the stairs for Willitts' legs. It wasn't until we were below Twenty-third Street that they came into view, stepping lightly down. The bus heaved up against the curb and he swung off, me behind him. I was terribly scared that he'd begin to suspect me, and all I could think of that would look natural was to roll my eyes flirtatious at the conductor, who seemed to like it so much I was afraid he wouldn't let me off.

When I got down on the pavement Willitts was walking along the cross street back toward Sixth Avenue. Midway down the block, he stopped and disappeared through a doorway. I was quite a piece behind him and when I saw him fade out of sight I forgot everything and ran. At the door I came up short, panting and purple in the face – the place was a restaurant. It had a large plate glass window with white letters on it and a man making pancakes where he'd show plainest. Inside I could see Willitts seating himself at a littered up table.

"Lunch!" I said to myself. "He's going to eat, the cool devil. Now's my chance!"

Almost directly opposite was a drug store with telephone booths close to the window. I could get a message to the office, and if I caught the chief or Mr. George, I could have a man up in twenty minutes. If they weren't there I'd try headquarters, but I was afraid of that – they'd ask questions, waste time, want to know who I was and what it was all about. If only Willitts was hungry, if he'd only eat enough to last till I got some one, if he'd only order pancakes. As I waited for the connection I found myself sort of praying "Pancakes – make him order pancakes. They're made in the window and they take quite a while. Please make him eat pancakes!"

Right in the midst of my prayer came the voice of Miss Quinn, the switchboard girl in the office, and for me it was:

"Quick, Miss Quinn – it's Mrs. Babbitts. Is Mr. Whitney or Mr. George there? Give 'em to me – on the jump – if they are."

She didn't waste a word, and in a minute Mr. George's voice came sharp:

"Hello, who is it?"

"Molly, Mr. George. And I've got Willitts – and I've got enough on him to know he's the thief – I can't tell you now but – "

He cut in with:

"I know, I know, Ferguson's told us. O'Malley's here now going to Council Oaks for him."

I almost screamed:

"Send him here. Willitts is off; he's left and I've trailed him. I'm waiting at the door and he's inside."

"Inside what, where the devil are you?"

I gave him the directions and then:

"It's a restaurant; he's eating. But it may only be a doughnut and a glass of milk. If it's pancakes we're safe, but a man lighting out with a fortune in a handbag don't generally want anything so filling. I'll follow him until I drop, but I don't want to travel round with a jewel thief unless I have to."

"I'll send O'Malley now. You stay right there and if Willitts finishes before he comes, hold him any way you can. Get a cop. I'll 'phone to headquarters for a warrant. So long."

Of course I thought of the cop, but spying out from the doorway, there wasn't one in sight. And by this time I was considerably worked up, afraid to move in any direction, afraid to take my eyes from the restaurant entrance. I pulled up one of the chairs they have for people getting prescriptions filled, and sat down by the doorway, watching the place opposite, like a cat camped in front of a mouse hole.

Ten minutes had passed. If the traffic wasn't too thick on Broadway O'Malley could make it in less than twenty. But the traffic wasthick – it was the middle of the day; if he was stalled or had to make a detour it might run toward half an hour. He might be – The door of the restaurant opened and out crept the mouse.

The cat rose up, soft and stealthy, with her claws ready. As I crossed the street I sent a look both ways – not a taxi in sight, not a cop, only the whole thoroughfare tangled up with drays and delivery wagons. There was nothing for it but to stop him, first put out the velvet paw and then shoot the claws. Jumping quick on the curb I came up alongside of him, a smile on my face that felt like the grin you get when you make a joke that no one sees.

"Why, hullo," I said, going at him with my hand out, "I couldn't at first believe it – but it is you."

He drew up quick, all on the alert, looking at me with hard, ferret eyes.

"Who are you?" he said, fierce and forbidding. "What do you want?"

I put my head sideways, and tried to take the curse off the smile, changing it to a sort of trembly sweetness.

"Why, don't you know me? I can't be changed that bad. It's Rosie."

I didn't know what his Christian name was and anyway, if I had it wouldn't have helped – a man like Willitts changes his name as often as he does his address. But I had to call him something, so when I saw the anger rising in his eyes, I said, all broken and tender like the deserted wife in the last act:

"Dearie, don't pretend you don't remember me – it's Rosie from the old country."

He began to look savage, also alarmed:

"I don't know what you're talking about. I never saw you before in my life."

He made a movement to pass on, but I drew up close, wiped off the smile, and put on the look of true love that won't let go.

"Oh, dearie, don't say that. Haven't I worn the soles off my shoes hunting for you ever since, ever since – " Gee, I didn't know how to finish it, then it came in a flash. I moaned out, "ever since we parted."

"Look 'ere, young woman," he said, low, with a face on him like a meat ax, "this doesn't go with me. Now get out; get off or I'll 'ave you run in."

I knew he wouldn't do that; he'd hand over the jewels first. I raised up my voice in a wail and said:

"Oh, dearie, you're faking; I won't believe it. You can't have forgot – back in the old country, me and you."

A messenger boy, slouching by, heard me and drew up, hopeful of some fun. Willitts saw him and began to look like murder would be added to his other offenses. I gave a glance up the street – still only drays and wagons, not a taxi in sight. Fatima with Sister Anne reporting from the tower, had nothing over me for watchful waiting.

"It's Rosie," I whined, "it's your own little Rosie. If I don't look the same it's the suffering you've caused me and Gawd knows it."

I laid my hand on his arm. With a movement of fury he shook it off and began to back away from me. Another boy had come up against the messenger and lodged there like a leaf in a stream, caught in an eddy. I heard him say, "What's on?" and the other answered:

"Don't know but I guess it's the movies."

And they both looked round for the camera man.

I don't think Willitts heard them. His back was that way and his face to me, hard as iron and savage as a hungry wolf's. He tried to speak low and soothing:

"Now 'old your tongue, don't make such a fuss. I'll give you something and you go off quiet and respectable." His hand felt in his pocket and I raised a loud, tearful howl:

"Money! Is it money you're offering? What's money to me whose heart you've broken?"

"I don't see no camera man," came the messenger boy's voice.

"Aw, he's in one of them wagons," said the other. "I've seen 'em in wagons."

The perspiration was on Willitts' forehead in beads, he was whitening round the mouth. Putting his face close down to mine he breathed out through his teeth:

"What in 'ell do you want?"

"You!" I cried and out of the tail of my eye I saw a taxi shoot round the corner from Fifth Avenue. Willitts drew away from me, shrunk together for a race. I saw it and I knew even now, with O'Malley plunging through the traffic, it might be too late. Embracing is not my strong suit, no man but my lawful husband ever felt my arms about him. But duty's a strong word with me and then my sporting blood was up. So with my teeth set, I just made a lunge at that crook and clasped him like an octopus.

I didn't know a man was so much stronger than a woman. Willitts wasn't much taller than I and he was a thin little shrimp, but believe me, he was as tough as leather and as slippery as an eel. I could see the two boys, delighted, drinking it in, and a dray man in a jumper, drop a crate and come up on the run, bawling: "Say, you feller, let the lady alone," The boys chorused out: "Aw, keep out – it's the movies!" Willitts must have heard too, and I guess he saw his chance, for he suddenly squirmed one arm loose, and whang! came a blow on the side of my head. It might have seemed part of the play but he did it too hard – calculated wrong in his excitement. I let go, seeing everything – the houses, the sky, the crowd that seemed to start up out of the pavements – whirling round and shot over with zigzags. There was a roaring noise in my ears and all about, and I dropped over into somebody's arms, things getting swimmy and dark.

When I came out of it I was sitting on a packing box with a man fanning me and O'Malley, red as a tomato and Willitts the color of ashes in the middle of a mob. There was a terrible hubbub, people jamming together, the wagons stopped and the drivers yelling to know what was up, heads out of every window, and then two policemen, fighting their way through. I felt queer, sickish, and as if the muscles of my face were all slack so my mouth wouldn't stay shut. But the gentleman fanning me acted awful kind and a clerk came out of a store with ice water and a wet handkerchief that he patted soft on the side of my head.

I could see O'Malley and the policeman (they'd come from headquarters I heard afterward) go off into a vestibule with Willitts and the crowd that couldn't get a look-in came squeezing round me, heads peering up over heads. They'd got the idea that Willitts was my husband, seeming to think only a lawful spouse would dare to hit a woman before witnesses in the public street. The guys in the front were explaining it to the guys in the back and calling Willitts names I couldn't put down in these refined pages.

It got me laughing, especially when an old Jew who had been sizing me up like a piece of goods nodded slow and solemn and said: "And she ain'd zo bad lookin' neither." I burst right out at that and the man with the fan waved his arms at them, shouting:

"Give way there – back – back! She wants air – she's hysterical. She's gone through more than she can bear."

Gee, how I laughed!

Presently in the center of a surging mass we crowded our way to the taxi, the policemen going in front and hitting round light with their clubs. O'Malley with Willitts handcuffed to him got in the back seat, me opposite, with my hat off, holding the handkerchief against my head. As we pulled out I looked back over the sea of faces and caught the eye of one of the policemen. He straightened up, very serious and dignified, and saluted.