The Friday morning when Suzanne was to go to town broke auspiciously bright and cloudless. As Annie was not the proper person to take Bébita to the oculist, and as Suzanne would be too busy to go herself, Miss Maitland had been impressed into the service. It had been decided two days earlier, and though she had received some instructions at the time, on the drive in, Mrs. Price went over her plans with a meticulous thoroughness. They would go first to the Fifth Avenue house, pick up there some clothes of Bébita's needing alteration, and then separate. Esther would take a cab from the rank on the side street, and go with Bébita to the oculist, to the dressmaker with the clothes, and execute several minor commissions in shops along the Avenue. Bébita begged for a box of caramels from Justin's, the French confectioner, a request which was graciously acceded to by her mother, Miss Maitland jotting it down on her list. Mrs. Price would take the motor and go about her own affairs, which would occupy probably an hour. She would then return to the house and wait for them – for she would have finished before they did – and afterward they would go out to lunch somewhere. She said she thought it would be fully an hour and a half before they got back and Miss Maitland, eyeing the long list, said it might be even longer.

Aggie McGee had the clothes tied up in a box and Suzanne and Bébita stood on the steps waiting while Miss Maitland went for the cab. The rank was just round the corner and in a few minutes she came back with a taxi running along the curb behind her.

"Quite a piece of luck to find one," she said, as she took the box. "They're not always there in the dead season."

Bébita jumped in, settling herself with joyful prancings and waving a little white-gloved hand. Esther followed, snapped the door shut, and they glided away. Suzanne watched them go, then stepped into the big motor and was swept off in the opposite direction.

She came back before the hour was up. She had hurried as she wanted to have done with Larkin before they returned. It would be extremely uncomfortable if they found her in confab with the detective; it would necessitate boring explanations and the inventing of lies.

She sat down in the reception room close to the window, pulled up the blind and waited. Drawn back from the eyes of passers-by she could command the sidewalk and the street for some distance and if, by any evil chance, Larkin should be late, she could see him coming and tell Aggie McGee to say she was not there.

Up to now Larkin had been punctual to the dot, but on this, the one occasion when punctuality was vital, he was not on time. Twelve passed, then the quarter, and the sun-swept length of the great avenue gave up no masculine figure that bore any resemblance to him. She was growing nervous, wondering what she had better do, when he hove in sight walking quickly toward the house. A glance at her wrist watch told her it was twenty minutes past twelve – Miss Maitland and Bébita might not be back for another half hour yet. She would chance it, for she was extremely anxious to see him, and anyway, if they should come in before he left, she could tell him to go into the drawing room and slip out after they had gone. Relieved by the decision she rose and was turning toward the mirror, when she caught sight of a taxi scudding up the street with Esther Maitland's face in the window.

A word not generally used by ladies escaped Suzanne. There was nothing for it but to send him away. She ran into the hall and pressed the bell, listening in a fever for Aggie McGee's step on the kitchen stairs. Simultaneously with its first heavy thud came the peal of the front door bell. Suzanne, who had noticed that the taxi was moving fast and would make the steps before Larkin, called down on Aggie McGee's ascending head:

"That's Miss Maitland. A gentleman I expected is just behind her. I can't see him now, I haven't time. Tell him I've been here and gone."

She went back into the reception room and stood listening. She heard the door opening, Esther's step in the hall; it was all right, the detective would get his congé without being seen by any one but Aggie McGee. She drew a breath of relief and turned smiling to the girl in the doorway. Miss Maitland did not give back the smile; she sent a searching look over the room and said in a low, breathless voice as if she had been running:

"Is Bébita here?"

There was a moment of silence. Through it the heavy tread of Aggie McGee passing along the hall sounded unnaturally loud. As it went clump, clump, down the kitchen stairs Suzanne was aware of Miss Maitland's face, startlingly strange, ashen-colored. At first it was all she took in.

"Bébita – here?" she stammered. "How could she be? She's with you."

Miss Maitland made a step into the room, her hands went up clenched to her chest, her voice came again through the broken gasps of a runner:

"No – she isn't. I thought I'd find her with you – I thought she'd come back. Oh, Mrs. Price – " she stopped, her eyes, telling a message of disaster, fixed on the other.

Suzanne's answer came from opened lips, dropped apart in a sudden horror:

"What do you mean? Why should she be here?"

"Mrs. Price, something's happened!"

Suzanne screamed out:

"Where is she?"

"I don't know – but – but – I haven't got her – she's gone. Mrs. Price – "

Suzanne screamed again, putting her hands against the sides of her head, her face, between them, a livid mask.

"Gone – gone where? Is she dead?"

The girl shook her head, swallowing on a throat dried to a leathern stiffness:

"No – no – nothing like that. But – the taxi – it went, disappeared while I was in Justin's. I was in there buying the candy and when I came out it was gone. I looked everywhere; I couldn't believe it; I thought she'd come back here – run away from me for a joke."

Suzanne, holding the sides of her head, stared like a mad woman, then gave a piercing cry, thin and high, a wild, dolorous sound. Only the solidity of the house prevented it from penetrating to the lower regions where Aggie McGee and her aunt were comfortably lunching.

"Listen, Mrs. Price." Esther took her hands and drew them down. "The driver may have made a mistake, taken her somewhere else – he couldn't – "

Suzanne shrieked in sudden frenzy:

"She's been stolen – my baby's been stolen!"

For a second they looked at one another, each pallid face confessing its conviction of the grisly thought. Esther tried to speak, the sentences dropping disconnected:

"If it's that then – then – it's some one who knows you're rich – some one – they'll want money. They'll give her up for money – Oh, Mrs. Price, I looked – I hunted – "

Suzanne's voice came in a suddenly strangled whisper:

"It's you – It's your fault! You've let them steal my baby. You've done it! You'll be put in jail."

With the words issuing from her mouth she staggered and crumpled into a limpness of fiberless flesh and trailing garments. Esther put an arm about her and drew her to the sofa. Here she collapsed amid the cushions, her eyes open, moans coming from her shaking lips. Esther knelt beside her:

"Mrs. Price, it's horrible, but try to keep up, don't break down this way. No one would dare to do anything to her. If she's been stolen it's to the interest of the person who did it to keep her safe. We'll find her in a day or two. Your mother, her position, her power – she'll do something, she'll get her back."

Suzanne rolling her head on the cushion, groaned:

"Oh, my baby! Oh, Bébita!" Then burst into wild tears and disjointed sentences. She was almost unintelligible, cries to heaven, wails for her child, accusations of the woman at her feet broke from her in a torrent. Once she struck at the girl with a feeble fist.

There was no help to be got from her and Esther rose. She spoke more to herself than the anguished creature on the sofa:

"We can't waste time this way. I'll call up Grasslands and ask what to do."

The telephone was in the hall and, as she waited for the connection, she could hear the sounds of the mother's misery beating on the house's rich silence. Then Dixon's voice brought her faculties into quick order. She wanted to speak to Mrs. Janney herself, at once, it was important. There followed what seemed an endless wait, and then Mrs. Janney. When she had mastered it, her voice came, sharp and incisive:

"Hold the wire, I have to speak to Mr. Janney."

Another wait, through which, faint as the shadows of sound, Esther could hear the tiny echo of voices, then the jar of an approaching step and a man answered:

"Hello, Miss Maitland, this is Ferguson. I've orders from Mrs. Janney – Go straight down to the Whitney office, tell them what's happened and put the thing in their hands. Say nothing to anybody else. Mr. and Mrs. Janney are starting to go in. They'll be in town as quickly as they can get there and will meet you at the office. Got that straight? All right. Good-by."

She cogitated a moment, then called up the Whitney office getting George. She gave him a brief outline of what had occurred and told him she would be there with Mrs. Price within a half hour.

Back in the reception room she tried to arouse Suzanne, but the distracted woman did not seem to have sense left to take in anything. At the sound of Esther's voice her sobs and wails rose hysterical, and the girl, finding it impossible to make her understand, set about preparing her for the drive. Any word of hers appeared to make Suzanne's state worse, so silently, as if she were dressing a manikin, she pinned the hat to the disordered blonde hair, draped a motor veil over it, composed the rumpled skirts, gathered up her purse and gloves, and finally, an arm crooked round one of Suzanne's, got her out to the motor.

On the long drive downtown almost nothing was said. The roar of the surrounding traffic drowned the sounds of weeping that now and then rose from the veiled figure, which Esther held firm and upright by the pressure of her shoulder.

CHAPTER XVI – MOLLY'S STORY

That Friday – gee, shall I ever forget it! – opening so quiet and natural and suddenly bang, in the middle of it, the sort of thing you read in the yellow press.

It was a holiday for me and I was sitting in the upper hall alcove making a blouse and handy to the extension 'phone. Now and then it would ring and I'd pull it over with a weary sigh and hear a female voice full of cultivation and airs ask if Mrs. Janney'd take a hand at bridge, or a male one want to know what Mr. Janney thought about eighteen holes at golf.

It was on for one when it rang again and with a smothered groan – for I was putting on the collar – I jerked it over. Believe me, I forgot that blouse! Stiff, like I was turned to stone, I sat there listening, hearing them come, one after another, getting every word of it. When they were through I got up, feeling sort of gone in the middle, and lit out for the stairs. I couldn't have kept away – Bébita disappeared! "Kidnapped!" I said to myself as I ran along the hall. "Kidnapped! that's what it is – it's only poor children that get lost."

On the stairs I met Mrs. Janney coming up on the run. It wasn't the speed that made her breath short; but she was on the job, the grand old Roman, with her mouth as straight as the slit in a post box and her face as hard as if it was cut out of granite.

"Go down there," she said, giving a jerk of her head toward the hall below. "Sit there and wait. Something's happened and you may be useful."

I went on down and took a seat. Outside on the balcony I could see Mr. Janney, wandering about with a hunted look. From the telephone closet came Ferguson's voice telling his chauffeur to bring his car to Grasslands, now, this minute, and enough gasoline for a long run. Then he came out, hooked an armful of coats off the hall rack, and ran past me on to the balcony. He gave the coats to Mr. Janney, who stood holding them, looking after Ferguson wherever he went and quavering questions at him. I don't think Ferguson answered them, but he pulled one of the coats out of the old man's arms and put him into it, quick and efficient. When the motor came up he tried to make Mr. Janney get in, but he wouldn't, standing there, helpless and pitiful, and calling out for Mrs. Janney.

"I'm here, Sam," came her voice from the stairs and she scudded by where I was sitting, tying her motor veil over her hat. She seemed to have forgotten me and I followed her out on to the balcony, not knowing what she wanted me to do. As I stood there Ferguson's big car came shooting up the drive.

She climbed quickly into her own motor, waiting at the bottom of the steps, Mr. Janney scrambled in after her and Ferguson threw a rug over them. They were just starting when she looked up and saw me.

"Oh," she cried, leaning across the old man, "we'll want you – you must come."

Mr. Janney stared bewildered at her and said:

"Why – why should she come?"

"Keep quiet, Sam," then over her shoulder to Ferguson as the car began to move, "Bring Mrs. Babbitts, Dick. Take her with you."

The car glided off, Mr. Janney's voice floating back:

"But why, why – why do you want her?"

Ferguson's motor swung round the oval and came to a halt. The chauffeur jumped out, and, told he wasn't wanted, disappeared. The young man turned to me, not a smile out of him now.

"Come on, get in," he said and then giving a nod at one of the coats lying over a chair, "and bring that with you – it may blow up cold and it's a long run."

I did as I was told – there was something about him that made you do what he said – and jumped in. He came on my heels, snapped the door and we started. Before we got to the gates he speeded the machine up and in a few minutes we were close on the Janney motor which was flying along the woody road at a pace that would have strained the heart of a bicycle cop. Their dust came over us in a cloud, and Mr. Ferguson slowed down, and, his hand resting easy on the wheel, said:

"What does Mrs. Janney want you for?"

I'd hoped he hadn't noticed that, but in case he had I'd an answer ready.

"Maybe she thought I might have noticed if any one was hanging round lately – hanging round to size up the habits of the family and Bébita's movements."

"Oh," he said, looking at me very pointed, "then you know what's happened to Bébita."

I hadn't any answer ready for that. I had to get hold of something quick and as you will do when you're taken off your guard, I got hold of a lie:

"I met Mrs. Janney on the stairs and she told me."

"That's funny," he says, sort of thoughtful. "Before she went she told both Mr. Janney and myself that no one in the house must hear a word of it."

I began to get red, and for a moment, stared at my feet pressed side by side on the wood in front of me. It didn't make it any pleasanter to know that Ferguson was looking at me, intent and narrow, out of the tail of his eye.

"I guess she was so excited she forgot and just blabbed it out."

It was the best I could do, but it was poor stuff. If you knew Mrs. Janney you'd see why.

"Um," said Ferguson, and took a look ahead at the cloud of dust that hid the other car. Then he comes out with another:

"I wonder if that was the reason she called you Mrs. Babbitts?"

I took a good breath from the bottom of my lungs and said:

"I shouldn't be surprised. Having your grandchild lost is enough to mix up any woman."

He didn't answer and we ran on some way, out of the woods on to a long straight stretch of road. The motor in front was going at a tremendous clip, Mrs. Janney's veil lashing out like a wild hand beckoning us on.

"Look here," says Ferguson, soft and gentle right into my ear, "what are you, anyway?"

"Me?" I bounced round and gave him a baby stare. "I'm a governess. What do you think I am?"

"You may be a good governess but you're a poor liar. I was in the telephone closet and heard what Mrs. Janney said to you on the stairs. And I don't think you're a governess at all – you're a detective."

I thought a minute but what was the use, he had me. So I raised up my chin and met him, eye for eye:

"All right, I am. What of it?"

"Oh, lots of it. I've had my suspicions for some time. You tapped that 'phone message from New York?"

"I did – it's my job. I have to do it."

"Don't apologize – it wastes time and we haven't any to lose. Now just tell me Miss Rogers, or Mrs. Babbitts, what have you found out about the robbery; where were you getting to before this hideous mess to-day?"

"Well, you've got your nerve with you!" I snorted.

"I have, right here handy. I'm a friend of the Janneys, I'm a – " he stopped. His nerve was handy all right but he hadn't enough to tell me it was because of Esther Maitland he was so keen.

"Go on," I said sarcastic. "I'm interested to hear what you are now you've found out what I am."

"I'm almost a member of the household. I can help. I want to help – and I want to know."

"Maybe you do," I said. "We often want things in this world that we can't get. Don't think you have the monopoly of that complaint."

The motor rose over the crest of a hill, flashed by a farm and slid down an incline. Before us stretched a white line of road, with the forward car racing along it in a blur of dust.

"You mean you won't tell me?"

"You got me."

We suddenly began to slow up, the car swung off sideways from the roadbed, ran toward the bushes on the right, and came to a halt. Ferguson dropped against the back of the seat, stretched his legs and said:

"This is a nice shady place to stop in."

"Stop!" I cried. "Forget it! What do you want to stop for?"

"I don't – it's you. I'm going to rest here quietly while you tell me."

"Young man," I said, fixing him with a cold eye, "this is no time to be funny."

"I entirely agree with you. Therefore as we're of the same mind it behooves you to get busy and give me the information I want."

The coolness of him would have riled a hen. It did me; I gave a stamp on the footboard and angrily said:

"Start up this machine. I was ordered to go to New York and I've got to get there."

"You will as soon as you tell me. But I won't move until you do. We'll stay here all day, all night if necessary. There's just one thing certain: we'll stay till I hear what I want to know."

I was beaten and it made me mad straight through. I was helpless too and that made me madder. If I'd had the least notion of how you started the dinged machine I was angry enough to have tried to do it, though it wouldn't have been any use with Ferguson there to frustrate me.

"You're losing time," said he. "There'll be trouble if you don't show up."

"Do you think it's a high class thing," I snapped out, "to put a girl in a position like this?"

"Don't you think you can trust me?" he answered very quiet.

I looked at him, a long, slow survey, and as I did it my anger simmered down. It's part of my business to read faces and what I saw in his made me say sort of reluctant:

"Well, maybe I can."

He leaned forward and put his hand on mine.

"Miss Rogers, if you'll stand in with me, trust me and let me help, you won't make any mistake. For I'll stand in with you, not now, not just for this thing, but for always. You've my word on it and I don't break my word."

That ended it – not what he said but the look of him while he said it. Almost without knowing it my hand turned under his and they clasped. Solemn as a pair of images we shook. Any one passing would have thought we were crazy, backed into the brushwood, side by side on the front seat, shaking hands as if we'd just been introduced.

I told him the whole story and he never said a word. When I came to Miss Maitland's part in it, I couldn't but look at him. He drew his eyebrows down in a frown and fiddled with his fingers on the wheel. Even when I told him what they thought about her and Chapman Price he didn't made a sound, but he straightened up, and drew a deep breath like he wanted more air in his lungs. I got it some way then – I can't exactly say how – that he was a good deal more of a person than I'd guessed – a lot more iron in his make-up than I'd thought when I liked his laugh and his boyish, jolly ways.

When I finished he said, easy and cool:

"Thank you – that gives me just what I wanted. You won't regret having told me. As for Whitney & Whitney, they won't say anything. They're my lawyers – known 'em all my life. I'll take care of that."

He took hold of the wheel and the car backed out into the road.

"Can we ever catch them up?" I asked.

"I guess so – this car can make seventy-five miles an hour. Are you game for a race?"

"I'm game for anything that'll land me where I belong."

"All right – hold on to your hat."

I guess the Lord protects those who are bent on His own business. Anyway I don't know why else we weren't killed. We ate up that road like a dago eating macaroni; it ran under the car like a white ribbon fastened to a spindle somewhere behind us. The woods were two green streaks on either side, and now and then a chuck hole would send me bouncing, landing anywhere – on the floor once.

"Hold on to something," he shouted at me. "I don't want to lose you."

And I shouted back:

"You couldn't. I'm wished on to this motor till death do us part or it lands me somewhere alive."

Through the villages we had to slow up. Gliding dignified along the tree-shaded streets put me into a fever and I guess it wore on him for more than once I heard him muttering to himself, and believe me, he wasn't saying his prayers. I glimpsed sideways at him, and saw his tanned face, with the hair loose and tousled by the wind, looking changed, hardened and older, all the gay expression gone. The news he'd forced out of me had hit him a body blow, struck him in the heart. And I was sorry, awfully sorry. You can hurt a mean person or a criminal and not care, but it's no lady's job to have to wound a decent man. That's why I'd never make a good professional – the people get as big as the case to me, and if you're the real thing it's only the case that counts.

We were almost in Long Island City when we caught up with the Janneys, Mrs. Janney's veil still waving like a hand beckoning us to hurry.