Chapter 21

Mr. B's taunting letter was a bitter dose for Jack's pride to swallow. Jack was young and very human, and it was only natural he should have been a little puffed up by his preliminary successes in a task that might well have daunted an experienced detective. And then to discover after all that his crafty adversary had only been playing with him, that he was aware of all his movements—well, Jack ground his teeth a bit. But the effect on the whole was salutary. The letter rebuked Jack's vanity, and steeled his resolution.

"I was a fool!" he told himself. "I didn't give the old boy credit for ordinary horse sense. Well, I won't make the same mistake again. I can't do anything more in my own character, that's certain. He has a perfect line on me as Bobo's secretary. But he doesn't know anything about Pitman yet—or young Henry Cassels, the student at Barbarossa's school. I'll get him yet."

The affair of the letter resulted in the swift break-up of Mrs. Cleaver's establishment. Jack did not see her again. He instructed the bank to pay her two hundred dollars weekly. She rented her house and departed—for an extensive trip through the South, it was given out.

Miriam disappeared too. Jack hoped that his mind would now be relieved of any further anxiety concerning her designs on Bobo. She would naturally suppose Jack thought, that in the general expose her connection with Mr. B. would be made known to Bobo, and she would scarcely have the effrontery to pursue him further. But Jack underrated that young lady's hardihood, as will be seen.

As a matter of fact Jack did not feel that it was necessary to explain to Bobo the whys and wherefors of what had happened. He had no confidence in Bobo's discretion. He ascribed Mrs. Cleaver's sudden departure to her well-known capriciousness. Bobo was a bit dazed by the change in the situation, and broken-hearted at the seeming loss of Miriam.

"Why don't I hear from her!" he cried a hundred times a day. "There wasn't any trouble the last time I saw her. You know, we went to the theater together, and you and Clara had dinner at home. When we got home Clara had gone to bed with a headache, but you were there waiting for us, and the three of us had a rabbit together, all as jolly as possible."

"The next day when I went back to lunch the whole house was upset. Miriam had gone out they said, and Clara wouldn't see me. The butler said she was packing. I hung around a couple of hours, and nobody so much as offered me a bite. At last I had to go away to get something to eat. When I got back Miriam had come in and gone again, gone for good the man said. He had had his wages, and was openly impudent. And she hadn't left me a line! The next day the whole house was closed up. I can't understand it! Did Clara write to you?"

"Just a line to say that she couldn't face the fag of a New York season, and was going South for a rest."

"Let me see the letter, will you?"

"Oh, I didn't keep it."

"What do you suppose has become of Miriam?"

"You can search me."

In his mind's eye Jack had a vivid picture of that final scene between Miriam and Clara. Figuratively the fur must have flown!

"I can't understand it!" said poor Bobo. "I didn't do anything to her. She has my address."

"Forget her!" said Jack.

"Oh, you never liked her!" said poor Bobo.

Bobo instituted a sort of footless search for her, which consisted mainly in mooning around the different places they had visited together. Jack let him alone. It could do no harm he thought, and it kept Bobo occupied.

Meanwhile the poor fellow's appetite suffered. He lost weight and no longer found any zest in spending money. He moaned in his sleep, and cried out Miriam's name. Jack somehow had not suspected that a fat man might be so subjected to love's torments.

And then one night when Jack returned to dinner, after having spent the afternoon with Anderson, he found a change. He first noticed it in the eagerness with which Bobo picked up the menu card. Finding Jack's sharp eyes on him, he dropped it again, and said with a sigh that he couldn't eat a thing. But he did—several things. Bobo had but an imperfect command over his facial muscles. The corners of his mouth would turn up.

"He has seen her," thought Jack. "I'll have to tell him the truth now."

"What'll we do to-night?" said Bobo casually.

"Stay home," suggested Jack.

"If you're tired you'd better turn in early," said Bobo with deceitful solicitude. "I'll go out for a little while. I want to look around one or two places."

"All right. I want to have a little talk with you first."

Bobo's face fell absurdly. "Oh, all right," he muttered.

When they were back in their own rooms Jack said without preamble: "So you saw her to-day."

"Saw who?" said Bobo with innocent wide open eyes.

"Come off! Who is it that makes your eyes shine, and your mouth purse up in a whistle?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"We're wasting time."

"If you are referring to Miss Culbreth," said Bobo on his dignity, "I have not seen her."

"What's the use of lying to me? You're as transparent as window glass!"

"Oh, if you've made up your mind that I'm a liar, what's the use of my saying anything?"

"Look here. Miriam is either what I think she is, or what you think she is. If she's all that's good and pure as you think——"

"As I know!" corrected Bobo.

Jack dryly accepted the correction. "As you know. It can't do her any harm to tell me the truth about what happened to-day."

"I can't!" said Bobo obstinately.

"I suppose she made you promise not to tell me."

Bobo was silent.

"Very well. Now listen. When you came with me the first condition of our agreement was that you should obey orders. Isn't that so?"

Bobo nodded sullenly.

"Well, I order you to tell me what happened to-day. That lets you out of any promise you may have made."

Poor Bobo was quite unable to stand out against a stronger nature. "Oh, since you put it that way, I have seen her."

"Where?"

"In the Park. On a bench near that fountain down the steps at the end of the Mall. We used to sit there sometimes in the sun. And I just went back on a chance—well you know!"

"Sure, I know how you feel," said Jack more sympathetically. "I'm sorry to see so much good feeling wasted."

"It's not wasted. While I was sitting there a woman came by heavily veiled. I didn't know her at first, but when she saw me she gave a little cry. It was forced from her. She didn't mean to let me recognize her. She tried to get away, but I stopped her."

Jack concealed his smile.

"It was Miriam," Bobo went on. "And what do you think! Just like me she had been attracted to the spot where we had been happy! Wasn't that wonderful!"

"Very wonderful!" said Jack drily.

"She was so overcome she had to sit down for a moment," Bobo continued. "When I reproached her for not sending me word, she said she had been so shocked at the discovery of Mrs. Cleaver's wickedness, she hadn't known what she was doing. Her one idea was to escape from that woman's house. Why didn't you tell me what she had been up to?"

"Never mind that now. Go on with your story."

"When she collected her wits, she said she didn't think it was any use her writing to me, because she was sure I would think she was mixed up in it too."

"Well that was pretty near the truth," Jack put in.

"She said she was sure you would never let such a chance go by of turning me against her."

"But I didn't use it against her, did I?"

"Oh, I expect you had your own reasons. I didn't know what Miriam was talking about. I begged her to tell me what Mrs. Cleaver had been up to, but she refused to believe that I had not been told. Even when I had convinced her I knew nothing she wouldn't tell me because she didn't want to betray her cousin. Bad as she was, she was still her cousin, Miriam said."

"Bosh!" said Jack scornfully. "No more her cousin than you are!"

"Oh, you never believe anything Miriam says," complained Bobo.

"Let that go for the present. What else happened?"

"Nothing much. She was relieved to find out that I didn't think wrong of her. We talked—but we didn't say much." Bobo got red. "Hang it all, I don't have to tell you everything I say to a girl, do I?"

"No," said Jack grinning.

"In the end I promised her I wouldn't tell you I'd seen her. That's all."

"And you're going to see her again, to-night?"

"Y-yes."

"Where?"

"She's stopping temporarily at the Bienvenu."

"Now let's try and let a little light on this subject," said Jack. "She's always saying that I'm trying to turn you against her, isn't she?"

"Yes, and it's true."

"What reason does she give for my actions?"

"Why—I don't know."

"Think a little. Her idea is that I am afraid of her influence over you, because it may threaten mine, isn't it?"

"Well—yes."

"And that's ridiculous, isn't it?"

But Bobo was obstinately silent.

"Good God!" cried Jack. "Are you my boss or aren't you?"

"No," muttered Bobo.

"Then what possible motive could I have for wishing to turn you against her?"

"I don't know," said Bobo sullenly. "I can't read your mind."

Jack threw up his hands. "You're so stuck on your role of multi-millionaire, that you're always forgetting it's only a role you're playing. Now listen. I'm going to tell you the whole truth about Mrs. Cleaver and Miriam. It's all I can do for you. In the first place Mrs. Cleaver has been in the pay of the old man for three years. It was he who supplied the coin to keep up that house. I caught her with the goods."

"Impossible!" gasped Bobo. "A society woman like that! You're sure you are not mistaken?"

"Read that," said Jack, handing him Mr. B.'s letter to Mrs. Cleaver.

Bobo's hair almost stood on end as he recognized the handwriting, and appreciated the significance of what he read.

"But—but Miriam didn't know anything about this. She said she was stunned when she learned of what her cousin——"

"Please don't give me any more of that stuff. Mrs. Cleaver was only the old man's catspaw, but Miriam is a confidential insider."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, for one thing Mrs. Cleaver told me the old man had sent Miriam to her."

"But you've just said the woman was a crook. That's no proof."

"Oh, that's not all I have against Miriam. It appears that she was practicing her wiles on Silas Gyde before he was killed."

From his desk Jack got the unfinished letter that the dead millionaire had left behind him. To Bobo he read that part of it which referred to Miriam.

Bobo was shaken but unconvinced. "That description might fit dozens of girls," he said.

"Sure," said Jack, "all except the peculiar mole on the inside of her right forefinger. Ever noticed that?"

"N-no."

"Well, I have. If you're going to see her again, I recommend that you look for it."

Bobo was now weakening fast "What do you suppose her game is?"

"That's easy. To marry you and get a strangle hold on your supposed millions. Now I didn't want to tell you all this because it endangers the game I'm playing. But I got you into it, and I don't want your blood on my conscience either."

"My b-blood!" stammered Bobo, white as a sheet.

Jack said simply: "If you let yourself be inveigled into marrying that girl, when she finds out you haven't got a sou, she'll kill you. She's that kind."

Bobo shook as with an ague. "I'll never see her again," he whispered. "I swear it!"