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Vicky Van

<h2 id="id01571" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XVII</h2> <h5 id="id01572">THE GOLD-FRINGED GOWN</h5> After that night Fleming Stone became more desperately in earnest in his search for Vicky. It seemed as if the sight of her, the realization that she was a real woman and not a myth, had whetted his eagerness to discover her hiding place and bring her to book. He established himself in her house, and both he and Fibsy practically lived there, going out for their meals or picnicking in the basement room. This room became his headquarters, and a plain clothes man was on duty whenever Stone and Fibsy were both absent. "Though I don't think she'll ever come back again," Stone declared, gloomily. "She was desperately anxious for that address book, and so she got it, through my stupidity. I might have known she'd make a dash for the street door. I should have had that exit guarded. But I've seen her, and I'll get her yet! At any rate she hasn't left the country, or hadn't last night, whatever she may do to-day." It was the day after Vicky had given us the slip. It was midafternoon, and I had gone to see Stone, on my return from my office. I was sadly neglecting my own business nowadays, but Mr. Bradbury looked after it, and he sanctioned my devotion to the Schuyler cause. "Randolph Schuyler was an important citizen," he said, "and his murderer must be apprehended if possible. Do all you can, Calhoun, for humanity's sake and the law's. Take all the time you want to, I'll see to your important business." So, though I went downtown every morning, I came back at noon or soon after and plunged afresh into the work of finding Vicky Van. There was little I could do, but Stone consulted and questioned me continually as to Vicky's habits or pursuits, and I told him frankly all I knew. Also I managed to make business matters loom up so importantly as to necessitate frequent calls on Ruth Schuyler, and I spent most of my afternoon hours in the Fifth Avenue house. And Ruth was most kind to me. I couldn't say she showed affection or even especial interest, but she turned to me as a confidant and we had many long, pleasant conversations when the subject of the mystery was not touched upon. Though she never said a word against Randolph Schuyler, I couldn't help learning that, aside from the horror of it, his death was to her a blessed relief. He had not been a good man, nor had he been a good husband. On the contrary, he had blighted Ruth's whole life by thwarting her every innocent desire for gayety or pleasure. For instance, she spoke of her great enjoyment of light opera or farce comedy, but as Mr. Schuyler didn't care for such entertainment he had never allowed her to go. He had a box at the Grand Opera, and Ruth loved to go, but she liked lighter music also. This was not told complainingly, but transpired in the course of a conversation at which Fibsy chanced to be present. "Gee!" he said, looking at Ruth commiseratingly, "ain't you never heard 'The Jitney Girl' or 'The Prince of Peoria'?" Ruth shook her head, smiling at the boy's amazement. There was a subtle sympathy between these two that surprised me, for Ruth Schuyler was fastidious in her choice of friends. But he amused her, and he was never really impertinent—merely naive and unconventional. Well, on the day I speak of, Stone and I sat in the basement room awaiting Fibsy's return. He was out after certain information and we hoped much from it. "I gotta bunch o' dope," he announced, as he suddenly appeared before us. "Dunno 's it'll pan out much, but listen 'n' I'll spill a earful." I had learned that Fibsy, or Terence, as we ought to call him, was trying to discard his street slang, and was succeeding fairly well, save in moments of great excitement or importance. And so, I hoped from his slangy beginning, that he had found some fresh data. "I chased up that chore boy first," he related, "an' he didn't know anything at all. Said Miss Van Allen's a lovely lady, but he 'most never saw her, the Julie dame did all the orderin' an' payin' s'far's he was concerned. Good pay, but irregular work. She'd be here a day or two, an' then like's not go 'way for a week. Well, we knew that before. Then, next, I tracked to his lair the furnace man. Same story. Here to-day an' gone to-morrer, as the song says. 'Course, he ain't only a stoker, he's really an odd job man—ashes, sidewalks, an' such. Well, he didn't help none—any, I mean. But," and the shock of red hair seemed to bristle with triumph, "I loined one thing! That Julie has been to the sewing woman and the laundress lady and shut 'em up! Yes, sir! that's what she's done!" "Tell it all," said Stone, briefly. "Well, I struck the seamstress first. She wouldn't tell a thing, and I said, calmly, 'I know Julie paid you to keep your mouth shut, but if you don't tell, the law'll make you!' That scared her, and she owned up that Julie was to see her 'bout a week ago and give her fifty dollars not to tell anything at all whatsomever about Miss Van Allen! Some girl, that Vicky Van!" "Julie went there herself!" I cried. "Yep. The real Julie, gold teeth and all. But I quizzed the needle pusher good and plenty, and she don't know much of evidential value." It was always funny when Fibsy interlarded his talk with legal phrases, but he was unconscious of any incongruity and went on: "You see, as I dope it out, she's accustomed to sit in Miss Van Allen's boodore a-sewin' an' might have overheard some gossip or sumpum like that, an' Miss Van Allen was afraid she'd scatter it, an' so she sent Julie to shut her up. I don't believe the woman knows where Miss Van is now." "I must see her," said Stone. "Yes, sir. She won't get away. She's a regular citizen, an' respectable at that. Well, then, the laundress. To her also Julie had likewise went. An' to her also Julie had passed the spondulicks. Now, I don't understand that so well, for laundresses don't overhear the ladies talkin', but, anyway, Julie told her if she wouldn't answer a question to anybody, she'd give her half a century, too. And did." "Doubtless the laundress knew something Miss Van Allen wants kept secret." "Doubtless, sir," said Fibsy, gravely. "But I don't believe," mused Stone, "that it would help us any to learn all those women know. If Miss Van Allen thought they could help us find her, she would give them more than that for silence or get them out of the city altogether." "Where is Miss Van Allen, Mr. Stone?" Fibsy asked the question casually, as one expectant of an answer. "She's in the city, Fibs, living as somebody else." "Yep, that's so. Over on the West side, say, among the artist lady's studio gang?" "Maybe so. But she has full freedom of action and goes about as she likes. Julie also. They come here whenever they choose, though I don't think they'll come while we're here. It's a queer state of things, Calhoun. What do you make of it?" "I don't believe Vicky is disguised. Her personality is too pronounced and so is Julie's. I think some friend is caring for them. Not Ariadne Gale, of that I'm sure. But it may be Mrs. Reeves. She is very fond of Vicky and is clever enough to hide the girl all this time." "The police have searched her house—" "I know, but Mrs. Reeves and Vicky could connive a plan that would hoodwink the police, I'm pretty certain." "I'll look into that," and Stone made a note of it. "About that carving knife, Fibsy. Did the caterers take it away by mistake?" "No, sir; I 'vestergated that, an' they didn't." "That knife is an important thing, to my mind," the detective went on. "Yes, sir," eagerly agreed Fibsy. "It may yet cut the Gorgian knot! Why, Mr. Stone, the sewing lady knew that knife. She was here to lunching a few days before the moider, an' she says she always sat at the table in the dining room to eat, after Miss Van Allen got through. An' she says that knife was there, 'cos they had steak, an' she used it herself. I described the fork puffeckly, an' she reckernized it at onct." "You're a bright boy!" I exclaimed in involuntary tribute to this clever bit of work. "I'm 'ssociated with Mr. Stone," said Fibsy, with a quiet twinkle. "It was clever," agreed Stone. "I'm sure, myself, that the absence of that small carving knife means something, but I can't fit it in yet." We went up to the dining-room to look again at the carving fork, still in its place on the sideboard. I was always thrilled at a return to this room—always reminded of the awful tableau I had seen there. The long, slender fork lay in its place. Though it had been repeatedly examined and puzzled over, it had been carefully replaced. "But I can't see," I offered, "why a carving-knife should figure in the matter at all when the crime was committed with the little boning-knife." "That's why the missing carving-knife ought to be a clue," said Stone, "because its connection with the case is inexplicable. Now, where is that knife? Fibsy, where is it?" Fleming Stone's frequent appeals to the boy were often in a half-bantering tone, and yet, rather often, Terence returned an opinion or a bit of conjecture that turned Stone's cogitations in a fresh direction. "You see, sir," he said, this time, "that knife is in this house. It's gotter be. That lady left the house in a mighty hurry but all the same she didn't go out a brandishin' of a carvin'-knife! Nor did she take it along an drop it in the street or an ash can for it'd been found. So, she siccreted it summer, an' it's still in the house—unless—yes, unless she has taken it away since. You know, Mr. Stone, the Van Allen has been in this house more times than you'd think for. Yes, sir, she has." "How do you know?" "Lots o' ways. Frinst' on Sat'day, I noticed a clean squarish place in the dust on a table in the lady's bedroom, an' it's where a book was. That book disappeared durin' Friday night. I don't remember seein' the book, I didn't notice it, to know what book it was, but the clean place in the dust couldn't get there no other way. Well, all is, it shows Miss Vick comes an' goes pretty much as she likes—or did till you'n me camped out here." "Then you think she left the knife here that night, and has since returned and taken it away?" "I donno," Fibsy scowled in his effort to deduce the truth. "Let's look!" He darted from the room and up the stairs. Stone rose to follow. "That boy is uncanny at times," he said, seriously. "I'm only too glad to follow his intuitions, and not seldom; he's all right." We went upstairs, and then on up to the next floor. Fibsy was in Vicky Van's dressing room, staring about him. He stood in the middle of the floor, his hands in his pockets, wheeling round on one heel. "They say she ran upstairs 'fore she flew the coop," he murmured, not looking at us. "That Miss Weldon said that. Well, if she did, she natchelly came up here for a cloak an' bonnet. I'll never believe that level-headed young person went out into the cold woild in her glad rags, an' no coverin'. Well, then, say, she lef' that knife here, locked up good an' plenty. Where—where, I say, would she siccrete it?" He glared round the room, as if trying to wrest the secret from its inanimate contents. "Mr. Stone says that walls have tongues. I believe it, an' I know these walls are jest yellin' the truth at me, an' yet, I'm so soul-deef I can't make out their lingo! Well, let's make a stab at it. Mr. Stone, I'll lay you that knife is in some drawer or cubbid in this here very room." "Maybe, Fibsy," said Stone, cheerfully. "Where shall we look first?" "All over." And Fibsy darted to a wardrobe and began feeling among the gowns and wraps hanging there. With a touch as light as a pickpocket's he slid his lightning-like fingers through the folds of silk and tulle, and turned back with a disappointed air. "Frisked the whole pack; nothin' doin'," he grumbled. "But don't give up the ship." We didn't. Having something definite to do, we did it thoroughly, and two men and a boy fingered every one of Vicky Van's available belongings in an amazingly short space of time. "Now for this chest," said Fibsy, indicating a large low box on rollers that he pulled out from under the couch. It was locked, but Stone picked it open, and threw back the cover. At the bottom of it, beneath several other gowns, we found the costume Vicky had worn the night of the murder! "My good land!" ejaculated Fibsy, "the gold-fringed rig! Ain't it classy!" Stone lifted out the dress, heavy with its weight of gold beads, and held it up to view. On the flounces were stains of blood! And from the wrinkled folds fell, with a clatter to the floor, the missing carving-knife! I stooped to pick up the knife. "'Scuse me, Mr. Calhoun," cried Fibsy, grasping my hand, "don't touch it! Finger prints, you know!" "Right, boy!" and Stone nodded, approvingly. "Pick it up, Fibsy." "Yessir," and taking from his pocket a pair of peculiar shaped tongs, Terence carefully lifted the knife and laid it on the glass-topped dressing table. "Probly all smudged anyway," he muttered, squinting closely at the knife. "But there's sure some marks on it! Gee, Mr. Stone, there's sumpum doin'!" His eyes shone and his skinny little fingers trembled with excitement of the chase. Stone studied the gold-fringed dress. The blood stains on the flounces, though dried and brown, were unmistakable. "Wonderful woman!" he exclaimed. "Now, we've got this dress, and what of it? She put it here, not caring whether we got it or not. She's gone for good. She'll never be taken. This proves it to my mind." "And the knife?" I asked, thrilling with interest. "There you are again. If Miss Van Allen put that there for us to discover, the marks on it are of no use. Perhaps some she had put there purposely. You see, I'm inclined to grant her any degree of cleverness from what I know of her ability so far. She is a witch. She can hoodwink anybody." "Except F. Stone, Esquire," amended Fibsy. "You pussieve, Mr. Calhoun, the far-famed detective, is already onto her coives!" Stone looked up to smile at the boy's speech, but he returned his gaze to the golden-trimmed gown. "Of course," he said, "it is improbable that she took this off before she left the house that night. I opine she threw a big cloak round her and rushed out to the house of some friend. Likely she found a taxicab or even commandeered some waiting private car for her flight. You know, we are dealing with no ordinary criminal. Now, if I am right, she brought this gown back here on some of her subsequent trips. As to the knife, I don't know. I see no explanation as yet. Since she stabbed her victim with another knife—why in the world hide this one up here? What say, Fibsy?" "'Way past me. Maybe she was usin' both knives, an' the other one turned the trick, an' when she got up here she seen she had this one still in her grip, an' she slung it in this here chest to hide it. I ain't sure that's the c'reck answer, but it'll do temp'rar'ly. I say, Mr. Stone, I got an awful funny thing to ask you." "It won't be the first funny thing you've asked me, Terence. What is it?" "Well, it's pretty near eatin' time, an'—aw, pshaw, I jest can't dare to say it." "Go ahead, old chap, I can't do more than annihilate you." "Well, I wanna go to the Schuylerses to dinner." "To dinner!" "Yes, sir. An' not to the kitchen eats, neither. I wanta set up to their gran' table with their butlerses an' feetmen, an' be a nonnerd guest. Kin I, Mr. Stone? Say, kinni?" Fleming Stone looked at the eager, flushed face. He knew and I did, too, that there was something back of this request. But it couldn't be anything of vital importance to our mystery. "Oh, I understand," said Stone, suddenly. "You've taken a desperate fancy to Mrs. Schuyler and you want to further the acquaintance. But it isn't often done that way, my boy." "Aw, now, don't kid me, Mr. Stone. Either lemme go or shut down on it, one o' the six! But it's most nessary, I do assure you." "Maybe she won't have you. Why should those grand ladies allow a boy of your age at their dinner-table?" "Because you ask 'em, sir." Fibsy's tone was full of a quiet dignity. "Very well, I'll ask them," and Stone went away to the telephone. Fibsy stood, looking raptly at the gold gown, and now and then his eyes turned toward the knife on the dressing-table. The table was covered with silver toilet implements, and save for its unfitting suggestion, the knife was unnoticeable among the other trinkets. "It's all right," said Stone, returning. "Mrs. Schuyler sends a cordial invitation for all three of us to dine with her." "Much obliged, I'll be there," said Fibsy, unsmilingly. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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