The peace and aristocratic calm of the Janney household was disrupted. Into its dignified quietude burnt an irruption of alien activity and the great white light of publicity. Kissam with his minions came that evening and reporters followed like bloodhounds on the scent. Scenes were enacted similar to those Mr. Janney had read in novels and witnessed at the theater, but which, in his most fevered imaginings, he had never thought could transpire in his own home. It was unreal, like a nightmare, a phantasmagoria of interviews with terrified servants, trampings up and down stairs, strange men all over the place, reporters on the steps, the telephone bell and the front door bell ringing ceaselessly. Everybody was in a state of tense excitement except Mr. Janney whose condition was that of still, frozen misery. There were moments when he was almost sorry he'd married again.

After introductory parleys with the heads of the house the searchlight of inquiry was turned on the servants. Their movements on the fateful night were subject of special attention. When Kissam elicited the fact that they had not returned from the village till nearly midnight he fell on it with ominous avidity. Dixon, however, had a satisfactory explanation, which he offered with a martyred air of forbearance. Mr. Price's man, Willitts, had that morning come up from town to Cedar Brook, the next station along the line. In the afternoon he had biked over to see them and, hearing of their plan to visit the movies, had arranged to meet them there. This he did, afterward taking them to the Mermaid Ice Cream Parlors where he had treated them to supper. They had left there about half past eleven, Willitts going back to Cedar Brook and the rest of them walking home to Grasslands.

From the women left in the house little was to be gathered. This was unfortunate as the natural supposition was that the burglary had been committed during the hours when they were alone there. Both, feeling ill, had retired early, Delia at about half-past eight, going immediately to bed and quickly falling asleep. Hannah was later; about nine, she thought. It was very quiet, not a sound, except that after she got to her room she heard the dogs barking. They made a great row at first, running down across the lawn, then they quieted, "easing off with sort of whines and yaps, like it was somebody they knew." She had not bothered to look out of the window because she thought it was one of the work people from the neighborhood, making a short cut through the grounds.

In the matter of the safe all was incomprehensible and mysterious. Five people in the house knew the combination – Mr. and Mrs. Janney, Dixon and Isaac and Miss Maitland. Mrs. Janney was as certain of the honesty of her servants and her Secretary as she was of her own. She rather resented the detectives' close questioning of the latter. But Miss Maitland showed no hesitation or annoyance, replying clearly and promptly to everything they asked. She kept the house money and some of her account books in the safe and on the second of the month – five days before the robbery – had taken out such money as she had there to pay the working people who did not receive checks. She managed the financial side of the establishment, she explained, paying the wages and bills and drawing the checks for Mrs. Janney's signature.

Questioned about her movements that afternoon, her answers showed the same intelligent frankness. She had spent the two hours after lunch altering the dress she was to wear that evening. As it was very warm in her room she had taken part of it to her study on the ground floor. When she had finished her work – about four – she had gone for a walk returning just before the storm. After that she had retired to her room and stayed there until she came down to go to Mr. Ferguson's dinner.

The safe and its surroundings were subjected to a minute inspection which revealed nothing. Neither window had been tampered with, the locks were intact, the sills unscratched, the floor showed no foot-mark. There were no traces of finger prints either upon the door or the metal-clamped boxes in which the jewel cases were kept. The mended chair was just as Mrs. Janney remembered it, set between the safe and the window, in the way of any one passing along the hall.

It was on Sunday afternoon – twenty-four hours after the discovery – that Dick Ferguson appeared with one of his gardeners, who had a story to tell. On Friday night the man had been to a card party in the garage of a neighboring estate and had come home late "across lots." His final short cut had been through Grasslands, where he had passed round by the back of the house. He thought the time would be on toward one-thirty. Skirting the kitchen wing he had seen a light in a ground floor window, a window which he was able to indicate. He described the light as not very strong and white, not yellow like a lamp or candle. As he looked at it he noticed that it diminished in brightness as if it was withdrawn, moved away down a hall or into a room. He could see no figure, simply the lit oblong of the window, with the pattern of a lace curtain over it, and anyway he hadn't noticed much, supposing it to be one of the servants coming home late like himself.

This settled the hour of the robbery. It had not been committed when the place was almost deserted, but when all its occupants were housed and sleeping. The window, pointed out by the man, was directly opposite the safe door, the light as he described it could only have been made by an electric lantern or torch, its gradual diminishment caused by its removal into the recess of the safe.

If before this Mr. Janney's mental state was painful, it now became agonized. He was afraid to be with the detectives for fear of what he would hear, and he was afraid to leave them alone, for fear of what he might miss. When Mrs. Janney conferred with Kissam he sat by her side, swallowing on a dry throat, and trying to control the inner trembling that attacked him every time the man opened his lips. He gave way to secret, futile cursings of the jewels, distracted prayers that they never might be found. For if they were, the theft might be traced to its author – and then what? It would be the end of his wife, her proud head would be lowered forever, her strong heart broken. Sleep entirely forsook him and the people who came to call treated him with a soothing gentleness as if they thought he was dying.

His misery reached a climax when something he remembered, and every one else had forgotten, came to light. It was one day in the library when Kissam asked Mrs. Janney if there had ever been any one else in the house – a discharged employee or relation – who had known the combination. Mrs. Janney said no and then recollected that Chapman Price did, he had kept his tobacco in the safe as the damp spoiled it. Kissam showed no interest – he knew Chapman Price was her son-in-law and was no longer an inmate – and then suddenly asked what had been done with the written combination.

At that question Mr. Janney felt like a shipwrecked mariner deprived of the spar to which he has been clinging. He saw his wife's face charged with aroused interest – she'd forgotten it, it was in Mr. Janney's desk, had always been kept there. They went to the desk and found it under a sheaf of papers in a drawer that was unlocked. Kissam looked at it, felt and studied the papers, then put it back in a silence that made Mr. Janney feel sick.

After that he was prepared for anything to happen, but nothing did. He got some comfort from the papers, which assumed the robbery to have been an "outside job"; no one in the house fitting the character of a suspect. It was the work of experts, who had entered by the second story, and were of that class of burglar known as "tumblers" Mr. Janney, who had never heard of a "tumbler" save as a vessel from which to drink, now learned that it was a crackman, who from a sensitive touch and long training, could manipulate the locks and work out the combination. He found himself thanking heaven that such men existed.

When a week passed and nothing of moment came to the surface, the Janney jewel robbery slipped back to the inside page, and, save in the environs of Berkeley, ceased to occupy the public mind. Mr. Janney could once more walk in his own grounds without fear of reporters leaping on him from the shrubberies or emerging from behind statues and garden benches. His tense state relaxed, he began to breathe freely, and, in this restoration to the normal, he was able to think of what he ought to do. Somehow, some day, he would have to face Suzanne with his knowledge and get the jewels back. It would be a day of fearful reckoning; it was so appalling to contemplate that he shrank from it even in thought. He said he wasn't strong enough yet, would work up to it, get some more sleep and his nerves in better shape. And she might – there was always the hope – she might get frightened and return them herself.

So he rested in a sort of breathing spell between the first, grinding agony and the formidably looming future. But it was not to last – events were shaping to an end that he had never suspected and that came upon him like a bolt from the blue.

It happened one afternoon eight days after the robbery. Mrs. Janney and Suzanne had gone for a drive and he was alone in the library, listlessly going over the morning papers. His zest in the news had left him – the Chicago murder offered no interest, the stabbed policeman in desperate case from blood poisoning, his assailant still at large, could not conjure away his dark anxieties. With his glasses dangling from his finger, his eyes on the green sweep of the lawn, he was roused by a knock on the door. It was Dixon announcing Mr. Kissam, who had walked up from the village and wanted to see him.

Kissam, with a brief phrase of greeting, closed the door and sat down. Mr. Janney thought his manner, which was always hard and brusque, was softened by a suggestion of confidence, something of intimacy as one who speaks man to man. It made him nervous and his uneasiness was not relieved in the least by the detective's words.

"I'm glad to find you alone, Mr. Janney. I 'phoned up and heard from Dixon that the ladies were out and that's why I came. I want to consult you before I say anything to Mrs. Janney."

"That's quite right," said Mr. Janney, then added with a feeble attempt at lightness, "Are you, as the children say, getting any warmer?"

"We're very warm. In fact I think we've almost got there. But it's rather a ticklish situation."

Mr. Janney did not answer; he glanced at his shoes, then at the silver on the desk. For the moment he was too perturbed to look at Kissam's shrewd, attentive face.

"It's so out of the ordinary run," the man went on, "and so much is involved that I decided not to move without first telling you. The family being so prominent – "

"The family!" Mr. Janney spoke before he thought, his limp hands suddenly clenching on the arms of the chair.

The detective's eyes steadied on the gripped fingers.

"What do you mean? Let me have it straight," said the old man huskily.

Kissam put his hand in his hip pocket and drew out an electric torch which he put on the desk.

"This torch I myself found two days ago in a desk in Mrs. Price's room. It was pushed back in a drawer which was full of letters and papers. It fits the description of the torch that was lost by Mrs. Price's little girl."

Mr. Janney's head sunk forward on his breast, and Kissam knew now that his suspicions were correct and that the old man had known all along. He was sorry for him:

"Mrs. Price not being your daughter, Mr. Janney, I decided to come to you. I suspected her after the second day and I'll tell you why. I had a private interview with that woman Elspeth, Mrs. Janney's maid, and she told me of a quarrel she had overheard between Mrs. Janney and her daughter. The subject of the quarrel was money, Mrs. Price asking for a large sum to meet certain debts and losses in the stock market which Mrs. Janney refused to give her. That supplied the motive and gave me the lead. The loss of the torch was also significant. The child was confident – and children are very accurate – that she had left it on the table in her nursery when she went to bed. The proximity of the two rooms made the theft of the torch an easy matter. What puzzled me was how Mrs. Price had gained access to the safe, but that was cleared up when the written combination was found in your desk here; and finally I ran across what I should call perfectly conclusive evidence in Mrs. Price's room. I don't refer only to the torch, but to the fact that a wrapper that was hanging in the back of one of the closets showed a smudge of varnish on the skirt."

Mr. Janney leaned forward over his clasped hands, feeling wan and shriveled.

"If your surmise is right," he said, "where has she put them?"

"If!" echoed the other. "I don't see any if about it. You can't suspect either of the men servants – reliable people of established character – nor Miss Maitland. A girl in her position – even if she happened to be dishonest, which I don't for a moment think she is – wouldn't tackle a job as big as that. Come, Mr. Janney, we don't need to dodge around the stump. As soon as I'd spoken I saw you thought Mrs. Price had done it."

The old man nodded and said sadly:

"I did."

"Would you mind telling me why you did?"

There was nothing for it but to tell, and he told, the detective suppressing a grin of triumph. It cleared up everything, was as conclusive as if they'd seen her commit the act.

"As for where she put them," he said, "she may have a hiding place in the house that we haven't discovered, or cached them outside. In matters like this women sometimes show a remarkable cunning. I've looked up her movements on the Saturday and it's possible she hid them somewhere in the woods. She left the house at twelve, carrying a silk work bag, walked past Ferguson's place and talked there with him in the garden for about fifteen minutes, went on to the beach, sat there a while, and then walked to the Fairfax house on the bluff, where she stayed to lunch, coming back here about half-past four. She had ample opportunity during that time and in the places she passed through to find a cache for them."

Mr. Janney raised a gray, pitiful face:

"Mr. Kissam, if Mrs. Janney knew this it would kill her."

Kissam gave back an understanding look:

"That's why I came to you."

"Then it must stop here – with me." The old man spoke with a sudden, fierce vehemence. "It can't go further. The girl's been a torment and a trouble for years. I won't let her end by breaking her mother's heart, bringing her gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Good God, I'd rather say I did it myself."

"There's no need for that. We can let it fizzle out, die down gradually." He gave a slight, sardonic smile. "I've happened on this sort of thing before, Mr. Janney. The rich have their skeletons in the closet, and I've helped to keep 'em there, shut in tight."

"Then for heaven's sake do it in this case – help me hide this skeleton. Keep up the search for a while so that Mrs. Janney won't suspect anything; play your part. Mr. Kissam, if you'll aid me in keeping this dark there's nothing I wouldn't do to repay you."

Kissam disclaimed all desire for reward. His professional pride was justified; he had made good to his own satisfaction. And, as he had said, the case presented no startling novelty to his seasoned experience. Many times he had helped distracted families to suppress ugly revelations, presented an impregnable front to the press, and seen, with a cynical amusement, columns shrink to paragraphs and the public's curiosity fade to the vanishing point. He promised he would aid in the slow quenching of the Janney sensation, gradually let it flicker out, keep his men on the job for a while longer for Mrs. Janney's benefit, and finally let the matter decline to the status of an "unsolved mystery."

As to the restoration of the jewels he gave advice. Say nothing for a time, sit quiet and give no sign. If she was as thoroughly scared as she ought to be, she would probably return them – they would wake one fine morning and find everything back in the safe. If, however, she tried to realize on them it would be easy to trace them – he would be on the watch – and then Mr. Janney could confront her with his knowledge and have her under his thumb forever.

Mr. Janney was extremely grateful – not at the prospect of having Suzanne under his thumb, that was too complete a reversal of positions to be comfortable – but at the detective's kindly comprehension and aid. With tears in his eyes he wrung Kissam's hand and honored him by a personal escort to the front door.

CHAPTER VII – CONCERNING DETECTIVES

Kissam kept his word and the interest in the Janney robbery began to languish. Detectives still came and went, morning trains still disgorged reporters, but it was not as it had been. The first, fine careless rapture of the chase was over; nothing new was discovered, nothing old developed. The house settled back to its methodical régime, the faces of its inmates lost their looks of harassed distress.

Mr. Janney, though much pacified, was not yet restored to his normal poise. His wife was now the object of his secret attention, for he knew her to be a very sharp and observant person, and the fear that she might "catch on" haunted him. It was therefore very upsetting when she remarked one morning at breakfast that "those men didn't seem to be doing much. They were just where they had been ten days ago."

He tried to reassure her – it would be a long slow affair – didn't she remember the James case, where a year after the theft the jewels were found under the skin of a ham hanging in the cellar? Mrs. Janney was not appeased, she scoffed at the ham, and said the detectives were the stupidest body of men in the country outside Congress. She was going to offer a reward, ten thousand dollars – and then she muttered something about "taking a hand herself." In answer to Mr. Janney's alarmed questions she quieted down, laughed, and said she didn't mean anything.

She did, however, and had Mr. Janney known it wakeful nights would again have been his portion. But she had no intention of telling him. She had seen that he was worn out, a mere bundle of nerves, and what she intended to do would be done without his knowledge or connivance. This was to start a private inquiry of her own. The written combination, loose in an unlocked drawer, had influenced her; it was possible some one in the house had found it. She felt that she owed it to her dependents and herself to make sure. And the best way to do this was to have a detective on the spot – but a detective whose profession would be unknown. Fortunately the plan was workable; there was a vacancy in the household staff. For the past month she had been advocating the engagement of a nursery governess for Bébita.

Two days after her slip to Mr. Janney an opportunity came for broaching the subject. They were at lunch when Suzanne announced that she intended going to town the next morning. It was about Bébita – the child's eyes, which had troubled her in the spring, were again inflamed and she had complained of pain in them. Suzanne wanted to consult the oculist; she hoped a prescription would be sufficient, but of course if he insisted on seeing the child she would have to be taken in for an examination.

Mrs. Janney thought it the right thing to do and said she would accompany her daughter. Suzanne, who was eating her lunch, paused with suspended fork and sidelong eye; – why was that necessary, she was perfectly competent to attend to the matter. Mrs. Janney agreed and said she was going on another errand – to see about the nursery governess they had spoken of so often. It was time something was done, Bébita was running wild, forgetting all she had learned last winter. Mrs. Janney had heard of several women who might answer and would spend the day looking them up and interviewing them. Suzanne returned to her food. "Oh, very well, it might be a good thing, only please get some one young and cheerful who didn't put on airs and want to be a member of the family."

One of Suzanne's fads was a fear of the Pennsylvania Tunnel. Whether it was a pose or genuine she absolutely refused to go through it, declaring that on her one trip she had nearly died of fright and the pressure on her ears. Since that alarming experience she always went to the city either by the old Long Island Ferry route, or by motor across the Queensborough Bridge.

It being a fine morning they decided to drive in – about an hour's run – and at ten they started forth. They chatted amicably, for Suzanne, since the robbery and the knowledge that her debts were paid, had been unusually gay and good-humored. They separated at Altman's, Mrs. Janney keeping the motor, Suzanne taking a taxi. At four they would meet at a tea room and drive home together.

Mrs. Janney's first point of call was a strange place in which to look for a nursery governess. It was the office of Whitney & Whitney, her lawyers, far downtown near Wall Street. She was at once conducted into Mr. Whitney's sanctum, for besides being an important client she was a personal friend. He moved forward to meet her – a large, slightly stooped, heavily built man with a shock of thick gray hair, and eyes, singularly clear and piercing, overshadowed by bushy brows. His son, George, was sent for, and after greetings, jolly and intimate, they settled down to talk over Mrs. Janney's business.

She told them the situation and her needs – could they find the sort of person she wanted. She knew they employed detectives of all sorts and Kissam's men had been so lacking in energy and so stupid that she wanted no more of that kind. She had to have a woman of whose character they were assured, and sufficiently presentable to pass muster with the master and the servants. Mr. Whitney gave a look at his son and they exchanged a smile.

"Go and see if you can get her on the wire, George," he said, "and if she's willing tell her to come down right now." Then as the young man left the room he turned to Mrs. Janney. "I know the very person, the best in New York, if she'll undertake it."

"Some one who's thoroughly reliable and can fit into the place?"

"My dear friend, she's as reliable as you are and that's saying a good deal. As to fitting in, leave that to her. In her natural state there are still some rough edges, but when she's playing a part they don't show. She's smart enough to hide them."

"Who is she – a detective?"

"Not a real one, not a professional. She was a telephone girl and then she made a good marriage – fellow named Babbitts, star reporter on the Despatch. She's in love and happy and prosperous, but now and again she'll do work for us. It's partly for old sakes' sake and partly because she has the passion of the artist – can't resist if the call comes to her. She came to our notice during the Hesketh case – did some of the cleverest work I ever saw and got Reddy out of prison. The Reddys are among her best friends – can't do too much for her."

Mrs. Janney, who knew the beautiful Mrs. Reddy, was impressed.

"Do you think she'll come?" she asked anxiously.

He gave her a meaning look and nodded;

"Yes. It's an unusually interesting case."

Half an hour later Mrs. Janney met Molly Morgenthau Babbitts and laid the situation before her. She found the much-vaunted young woman, a pretty, slender girl, with crisply curly black hair, honest brown eyes, and a pleasantly simple manner. Mrs. Janney liked what she said and liked her. There was no doubt about her intelligence and as to rousing any suspicions in the household – she would have deceived Mr. Janney – she even would have deceived Dixon. As the case was outlined she could not hide her kindling interest and, when she agreed to undertake the work, Mrs. Janney felt that the nursery governess idea had been an inspiration. The interview ended with practical details: Mrs. Babbitts would make her reports to the Whitneys, who would figure as her employers and would hand on her findings to Mrs. Janney. She would arrive by the twelve-thirty train on the following day and be known at Grasslands as Miss Rodgers. As they were separating she asked if there was a branch telephone on the upper floor and, being told that there was in an alcove off the main hall, requested that her room might be near it as the telephone played an important part in her work.

Suzanne's course had a curious resemblance to her mother's, though her plan of procedure was different.

From the day after the robbery she had developed an interest in the telephone "Red Book." She had taken it to her room and turning to the D's studied the list of detective agencies. After much comparison and cogitation she had copied down the name of one Horace Larkin, who appeared to be in business by himself and whose office was in a central and accessible part of the city.

After she had parted from her mother she went to a department store, shut herself in a telephone booth, and called up Mr. Larkin. A masculine voice, that of Larkin himself, had answered, and explaining her desire to see him on important business, he had made an appointment to meet her that afternoon at the Janney house on Fifth Avenue.

This was an excellent place for Suzanne's purpose, closed for the summer, its porch boarded up, its blue-blinded windows proclaiming its desertion. An ancient caretaker occupied the basement with her niece, Aggie McGee, to help and be company. Mrs. Janney never went there, but now and then Suzanne did, generally on a quest for some needed garment, so that her presence in the house was in no way remarkable.

The appointment was for two and, after telling Aggie McGee that a gentleman would call and to show him into the reception room, she retired to the long Louis Quinze salon and threw herself on a sofa. She was a little scared at what she had planned but she did not let her uneasiness interfere with her intention, for, her mind once set on a goal, she was as determined as her mother. Stretched comfortably on the sofa, her glance traveling over the covered walls, the chandelier, a misshapen bulging whiteness below the frescoed ceiling, she carefully thought out what she would say to Mr. Larkin.

A ring of the bell brought her to a sitting position, her hands pushing in loosened hairpins. She waited listening, heard the opening and closing of doors and then Aggie McGee's head appeared between the shrouded portières and announced, "The gentleman to see you, ma'am."

Her first impression of him was as a tall, broad-shouldered shape, detailless against the light of the window. Then, as she sunk into a chair, motioning him to one opposite, a nearer view showed him as a fine-looking man, on to forty, with a fresh-colored, rounded face, its expression smilingly good-humored. After the unkempt and slouchy detectives she had seen at Grasslands his appearance, natty, smart, almost that of a man of fashion, surprised and pleased her. She had an instinctive distaste for all ungroomed and ill-dressed people and seeing him so like the members of her own world, she felt a rising confidence and reassurance. Also his manners were good, respectful, businesslike. The one thing about him that suggested the wily sleuth were his eyes, very light colored in his ruddy face, small, shrewd and piercing.

He came to the matter of the moment without any preamble. Yes, he knew of the robbery and knew who she was; he supposed she had called him up to consult him about the case.

"Of course, Mr. Larkin," she said, "that's what I wanted. But before I say anything it must be understood between us that this – er – sending for you – is entirely my affair. I want to employ you myself independently of the others."

He nodded, showing no surprise;

"You want to put your own detective on the case."

"Exactly. You're to be employed by me but no one must know you are or know what you're doing."

He smothered a smile and said:

"I see."

"I don't think the men that are working over it now are very clever or interested. They just poke about and ask the same questions over and over. The way they're going I should say we'd never get anything back. So I decided I'd start an inquiry of my own and in a direction no one else had thought of."

Mr. Larkin gave a slight movement an almost imperceptible straightening up of his body:

"Do you mean that you suspect some one?"

Suzanne looked at the arm of her chair and then smoothed its linen cover with delicate finger tips. A very slight color deepened the artificial rose of her cheek.

"I'm afraid I do," she murmured.

"Afraid?"

She nodded, closing her eyes with the movement. She had the appearance of a person distressed but resolute.

"I can't help suspecting some one that I don't like to suspect. And that's why I want your assistance."

"I don't quite understand, Mrs. Price."

"This is the explanation. If it were known that this person was guilty it would ruin and destroy them. My idea is to be sure that they did it – have evidence – and then tell my mother. We could keep quiet about it, get the jewels back and not have the thief disgraced and sent to jail."

"Oh, I see. You want to face the party with a knowledge of their guilt, have them restore the jewels, and let the matter drop."

"Precisely. And I don't want to say anything until I'm sure, can come out with everything all clear and proved. That's where I expect you to help, put things together, find out, work up the case."

"Who is the person?"

Her color burned to a deep flush; she leaned toward him, urgent, almost pleading:

"Mr. Larkin, I hardly like to say it even to you, but I must. It's my mother's secretary, Miss Maitland."

He looked stolidly unmoved:

"She lives in the house?"

"Yes, for over a year now. My mother thinks everything of her, wouldn't believe it unless it was proved past a doubt."