Ramshackle House - Footner Hulbert

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said.

      The sullen, hurt glance he bent on her seemed to say: “You’re charming but you’re very prickly!”

      That put the finish to their conservation. To the outward view they presented the spectacle of two normal young people slightly bored with each other and exchanging perfunctory remarks, but in reality each was suffering keenly. They couldn’t make it go. Pendleton returned to the dining-room where they could hear him rattling the newspaper, and they were even ready to wish that he would come in and separate them in their unhappiness. Finally Counsell got the idea that Pen wished to be rid of him. After all he’d been hanging about the place all day. He rose to go.

      Pen’s heart said: “This is the end!” But her face only showed a polite and wistful blank. She said quietly:

      “You’ll be moving on to-morrow, I suppose.”

      “I suppose so,” he said sullenly.

      Pen greatly wished to say: “Well don’t forget us,” or something of the sort, light and friendly, but she could not get the words out.

      And of course he took her silence to mean it was all one to her whether he went or stayed.

      But he could not go like that. He hung indecisively at the door of the room. Finally he blurted out like a boy:

      “I say, what’s the matter?”

      “Why, nothing!” answered Pen with a startled look.

      “This afternoon we were like pals.… What have I done to offend you?”

      “Nothing whatever,” said Pen.

      “Oh,” he said sorely, “then it’s just that you don’t fancy my style much anyhow.”

      “Oh, I wouldn’t say that!” said Pen with a teasing smile. Heaven knows what it cost her.

      “I quite understand,” he said with a man’s absurd injured vanity.

      “You understand nothing!” murmured Pen.

      He moved to the front door, and failed to hear her. For a moment or two they looked unhappily out at the night. The moon had risen behind the house and was casting long shadows athwart the lawn. Beyond the edge of the bank there was a mystical sea of subdued radiance.

      “Well…good-night…good-by,” he mumbled. “Thank you so much for your kindness…good-by.”

      “My kindness!” Pen’s heart cried. “Good-by,” she said aloud, without a suspicion of a shake or a tremor. “Father is in the dining-room.”

      “Please say good-night to him for me,” he said hurriedly… “Good-by.” He held out his hand.

      “Good-by,” said Pen, letting her cold fingers lie within his for a moment without any response to his pressure.

      He went slowly across the front porch and stepped down. She closed the door. She stood there, her arms hanging. Her thoughts were like a dialogue back and forth within her.

      “He didn’t want to go. Why did you send him?.… But what did he want to stay for? Just a summer night’s flirtation. That would have finished me. It’s better this way… Maybe he meant it… No! That sort of happiness is not for me! Might as well get used to it soon as late!… I’m not going to run upstairs and cry, either! There are the chickens to fasten up, the yeast to make and the milk to set out!” Her arms went up above her head and fell again. “Oh God! but life is dreary!”

      From the dining-room her father called her in a strange, agitated voice that sent the blood flying from her heart:

      “Pen! Pen! Come here, quickly!”

      THE STORY IN THE SUN-PAPER

      When Pen ran into the dining-room she found the little man seated at the table, his reading glasses on his nose and the newspaper spread before him. The face that he raised to her was pale and moist with excitement; his hands gripping the edge of the paper made it rattle with their trembling. Nevertheless in her first glance Pen was assured that no disaster threatened their house. There was even a sort of pleasure mixed with his horror. Her first reaction was to chagrin at having been frightened for nothing.

      “What’s the matter?” she asked sharply.

      “Look! Look!” he said, pointing to the paper.

      With her own swift, swimming motion she moved behind him, and looked down over his shoulder. She read staring headlines:

      WEALTHY NEW YORK STOCKBROKER FOUND MURDERED

      She was freshly annoyed by what seemed to be such ridiculous excitement. “What’s that got to do with you?” she demanded.

      “Read! Read!” he said hoarsely.

      She impatiently read what was under the headlines:

      “Collis Dongan of the old New York family, wealthy clubman and member of the Stock Exchange, was found dead in his apartment last night. Mr. Dongan, a widower without children resided at the exclusive Hotel Warrington. The body was found by his valet George Canfield who had been away on a vacation granted him by his master over the holiday. The revolver with which the deed was done was found lying near, and at first it was supposed to be a case of suicide. But Doctor Raymond Morsell the hotel physician who was quickly summoned by the frightened servant, instantly pronounced that the wound could not have been self-inflicted. The bullet had entered the base of the skull. The body was found lying in Mr. Dongan’s living-room. It was fully clothed. There were no signs of any struggle. Every indication pointed to the fact that he had been shot down from behind without warning. Apparently he had been dead three days. His blood was matted and dried in the rug on which he lay.”

      Pen looked up in disgust. “What do you want me to read this horrible stuff for?” she asked. “It’s like all the other cases.”

      “Read on!” said her father.

      “After having summoned the doctor, the valet’s next thought was to notify the dead man’s partner Donald Counsell who occupied an apartment on the same floor in another part of the hotel.…”

      Pen read this name without any sensation beyond a sudden quickening of interest. She needed no further urging to read on.

      “…but Counsell was not found in the hotel. Developments followed fast after that. The valet, Canfield, remembered that when he left his master on Friday night Counsell was with him, and the two men were quarrelling, apparently over business matters. He heard Counsell, who is a young man, violently abusing his senior. Dongan was not seen alive after that. Various persons living in the hotel testified to having heard a muffled sound which might have been a shot at 11.15 Friday night. At 11.20 the night clerk saw Counsell leaving the hotel, clearly in a state of agitation.

      “The dead man’s brother, Richard H. Dongan, vice-president of the Barrow Trust Company, was notified, and at his suggestion a hasty search of the books of Dongan and Counsell was conducted for the purpose of establishing a possible motive for the crime. The firm was found to be heavily involved owing to certain speculations of the junior partner on the exchange. By the break in Union Central last week Counsell stood to lose seventy-five thousand dollars, which apparently he had no means of raising. It is supposed that he appealed to his partner for help, and upon being indignantly refused, shot the elder man. The case against Counsell was made complete when Thomas Dittmars, bookkeeper to Dongan and Counsell, reluctantly identified the revolver as one belonging to Counsell, and pointed out Counsell’s initials scratched on the butt. The bookkeeper knew the weapon because more than once it had been loaned to him when he had a large amount of Liberty bonds to deliver for the firm. Dittmars knew nothing of the transactions in Union Central because they were entered in the firm’s private ledger to which only the partners had access. No trace of Counsell has been discovered since he left the hotel.”

      Thus far the summary of facts which heads all newspaper stories. Several columns of comment and hypothesis

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