The Chase of the Golden Plate (7 page)

CHAPTER VI

Dick Herbert lay stretched lazily on a couch in his room with hands pressed to his eyes. He had just read the Sunday newspapers announcing the mysterious return of the Randolph plate, and naturally he had a headache. Somewhere in a remote recess of his brain mental pyrotechnics were at play; a sort of intellectual pinwheel spouted senseless ideas and suggestions of senseless ideas. The late afternoon shaded off into twilight, twilight into dusk, dusk into darkness, and still he lay motionless.

After a while, from below, he heard the tinkle of a bell and Blair entered with light tread:

“Beg pardon, sir, are you asleep?”

“Who is it, Blair?”

“Mr. Hatch, sir.”

“Let him come up.”

Dick arose, snapped on the electric lights, and stood blinkingly in the sudden glare. When Hatch entered they faced each other silently for a moment. There was that in the reporter's eyes that interested Dick immeasurably; there was that in Dick's eyes that Hatch was trying vainly to fathom. Dick relieved a certain vague tension by extending his left hand. Hatch shook it cordially.

“Well?” Dick inquired.

Hatch dropped into a chair and twirled his hat.

“Heard the news?” he asked.

“The return of the gold plate, yes,” and Dick passed a hand across his fevered brow. “It makes me dizzy.”

“Heard anything from Miss Meredith?”

“No. Why?”

“She returned to the Greytons last night.”

“Returned to the—” and Dick started up suddenly. “Well, there's no reason why she shouldn't have,” he added. “Do you happen to know where she was?”

The reporter shook his head.

“I don't know anything,” he said wearily, “except—” he paused.

Dick paced back and forth across the room several times with one hand pressed to his forehead. Suddenly he turned on his visitor.

“Except what?” he demanded.

“Except that Miss Meredith, by action and word, has convinced me that she either had a hand in the disappearance of the Randolph plate or else knows who was the cause of its disappearance.”

Dick glared at him savagely.

“You know she didn't take the plate?” he demanded.

“Certainly,” replied the reporter. “That's what makes it all the more astonishing. I talked to her this afternoon, and when I finished she seemed to think I had come to arrest her, and she wanted to go to jail. I nearly fainted.”

Dick glared incredulously, then resumed his nervous pacing. Suddenly he stopped.

“Did she mention my name?”

“I mentioned it. She wouldn't admit even that she knew you.”

There was a pause.

“I don't blame her,” Dick remarked enigmatically. “She must think me a cad.”

Another pause.

“Well, what about it all, anyhow?” Dick went on finally. “The plate has been returned, therefore the matter is at an end.”

“Now look here, Dick,” said Hatch. “I want to say something, and don't go crazy, please, until I finish. I know an awful lot about this affair—things the police never will know. I haven't printed anything much for obvious reasons.”

Dick looked at him apprehensively.

“Go on,” he urged.

“I could print things I know,” the reporter resumed; “swear out a warrant for you in connection with the gold plate affair and have you arrested and convicted on your own statements, supplemented by those of Miss Meredith. Yet, remember, please, neither your name nor hers has been mentioned as yet.”

Dick took it calmly; he only stared.

“Do you believe that I stole the plate?” he asked.

“Certainly I do not,” replied Hatch, “but I can prove that you
did
; prove it to the satisfaction of any jury in the world, and no denial of yours would have any effect.”

“Well?” asked Dick, after a moment.

“Further, I can, on information in my possession, swear out a warrant for Miss Meredith, prove she was in the automobile, and convict her as your accomplice. Now that's a silly state of affairs, isn't it?”

“But, man, you can't believe that she had anything to do with it! She's—she's not that kind.”

“I could take oath that she didn't have anything to do with it, but all the same I can prove that she did,” replied Hatch. “Now what I am getting at is this: if the police should happen to find out what I know they would send you up—both of you.”

“Well, you are decent about it, old man, and I appreciate it,” said Dick warmly. “But what can we do?”

“It behoves us—Miss Meredith and you and myself—to get the true facts in the case all together before you get pinched,” said the reporter judicially. “Suppose now, just suppose, that we three get together and tell each other the truth for a change, the whole truth, and see what will happen?”

“If I should tell you the truth,” said Dick dispassionately, “it would bring everlasting disgrace on Miss Meredith, and I'd be a beast for doing it; if she told you the truth she would unquestionably send me to prison for theft.”

“But here—” Hatch expostulated.

“Just a minute!” Dick disappeared into another room, leaving the reporter to chew on what he had, then returned in a little while, dressed for the street. “Now, Hatch,” he said, “I'm going to try to get to Miss Meredith, but I don't believe she'll see me. If she will, I may be able to explain several things that will clear up this affair in
your
mind, at any rate. If I don't see her— By the way, did her father arrive from Baltimore?”

“Yes.”

“Good!” exclaimed Dick. “I'll see him, too—make a show-down of it, and when it's all over I'll let you know what happened.”

Hatch went back to his shop and threatened to kick the office boy into the wastebasket.

At just about that moment Mr. Meredith, in the Greyton home, was reading a card on which appeared the name, “Mr. Richard Hamilton Herbert.” Having read it, he snorted his indignation and went into the reception-room. Dick arose to greet him and offered a hand, which was promptly declined.

“I'd like to ask you, Mr. Meredith,” Dick began with a certain steely coldness in his manner, “just why you object to my attention to your daughter, Dorothy?”

“You know well enough!” raged the old man.

“It is because of the trouble I had in Harvard with your son, Harry. Well and good, but is that all? Is that to stand forever?”

“You proved then that you were not a gentleman,” declared the old man savagely. “You're a puppy, sir.”

“If you didn't happen to be the father of the girl I'm in love with I'd poke you in the nose,” Dick replied, almost cheerfully. “Where is your son now? Is there no way I can place myself right in your eyes?”

“No!” Mr. Meredith thundered. “An apology would only be a confession of your dishonour!”

Dick was nearly choking, but managed to keep his voice down.

“Does your daughter know anything of that affair?”

“Certainly not.”

“Where is your son?”

“None of your business, sir!”

“I don't suppose there's any doubt in your mind of my affection for your daughter?”

“I suppose you do admire her,” snapped the old man. “You can't help that, I suppose. No one can,” he added naïvely.

“And I suppose you know that she loves me, in spite of your objections?” went on the young man.

“Bah! Bah!”

“And that you are breaking her heart by your mutton-headed objection to me?”

“You—you—” sputtered Mr. Meredith.

Dick was still calm.

“May I see Miss Meredith for a few minutes?” he went on.

“She won't see you, sir,” stormed the irate parent. “She told me last night that she would never consent to see you again.”

“Will you give me your permission to see her here and now, if she will consent?” Dick insisted steadily.

“She won't see you, I say.”

“May I send a card to her?”

“She won't see you, sir,” repeated Mr. Meredith doggedly.

Dick stepped out into the hall and beckoned to the maid.

“Please take my card to Miss Meredith,” he directed.

The maid accepted the white square, with a little uplifting of her brows, and went up the stairs. Miss Meredith received it languidly, read it, then sat up indignantly.

“Dick Herbert!” she exclaimed incredulously. “How dare he come here? It's the most audacious thing I ever heard of! Certainly I will not see him again in any circumstances.” She arose and glared defiantly at the demure maid. “Tell Mr. Herbert,” she said emphatically, “tell him—that I'll be right down.”

CHAPTER VII

Mr. Meredith had stamped out of the room angrily, and Dick Herbert was alone when Dollie, in regal indignation, swept in. The general slant of her ruddy head radiated defiance, and a most depressing chilliness lay in her blue eyes. Her lips formed a scarlet line, and there was a how-dare-you-sir tilt to nose and chin. Dick started up quickly at her appearance.

“Dollie!” he exclaimed eagerly.

“Mr. Herbert,” she responded coldly. She sat down primly on the extreme edge of a chair, which yawned to embrace her. “What is it, please?”

Dick was a singularly audacious sort of person, but her manner froze him into sudden austerity. He regarded her steadily for a moment.

“I have come to explain why—”

Miss Dollie Meredith sniffed.

“I have come to explain,” he went on, “why I did not meet you at the Randolph masked ball, as we had planned.”

“Why you did
not
meet me?” inquired Dollie coldly, with a little surprised movement of her arched brows. “Why you did
not
meet me?” she repeated.

“I shall have to ask you to believe that, in the circumstances, it was absolutely impossible,” Dick continued, preferring not to notice the singular emphasis of her words. “Something occurred early that evening which—which left me no choice in the matter. I can readily understand your indignation and humiliation at my failure to appear, and I had no way of reaching you that evening or since. News of your return last night only reached me an hour ago. I knew you had disappeared.”

Dollie's blue eyes were opened to the widest and her lips parted a little in astonishment. For a moment she sat thus, staring at the young man, then she sank back into her chair with a little gasp.

“May I inquire,” she asked, after she recovered her breath, “the cause of this—this levity?”

“Dollie, dear, I am perfectly serious,” Dick assured her earnestly. “I am trying to make it plain to you, that's all.”

“Why you did
not
meet me?” Dollie repeated again. “Why you
did
meet me! And that's—that's what's the matter with everything!”

Whatever surprise or other emotion Dick might have felt was admirably repressed.

“I thought perhaps there was some mistake somewhere,” he said at last. “Now, Dollie, listen to me. No, wait a minute please! I did not go to the Randolph ball. You did. You eloped from that ball, as you and I had planned, in an automobile, but not with me. You went with some other man—the man who really stole the gold plate.”

Dollie opened her mouth to exclaim, then shut it suddenly.

“Now just a moment, please,” pleaded Dick. “You spoke to some other man under the impression that you were speaking to me. For a reason, which does not appear now, he fell in with your plans. Therefore, you ran away with him—in the automobile, which carried the gold plate. What happened after that I cannot even surmise. I only know that you are the mysterious woman who disappeared with the Burglar.”

Dollie gasped and nearly choked with her emotions. A flame of scarlet leaped into her face and the glare of the blue eyes was pitiless.

“Mr. Herbert,” she said deliberately at last, “I don't know whether you think I am a fool or only a child. I know that no rational human being can accept that as true. I know I left Seven Oaks with you in the auto; I know you are the man who stole the gold plate; I know how you received the shot in your right shoulder; I know how you afterward fainted from loss of blood. I know how I bound up your wound and—and—I know a lot of things else!”

The sudden rush of words left her breathless for an instant. Dick listened quietly. He started to say something—to expostulate—but she got a fresh start and hurried on:

“I recognised you in that silly disguise by the cleft in your chin. I called you Dick and you answered me. I asked if you had received the little casket and you answered yes. I left the ballroom as you directed and climbed into the automobile. I know that horrid ride we had, and how I took the gold plate in the bag and walked—walked through the night until I was exhausted. I know it all—how I lied and connived, and told silly stories—but I did it all to save you from yourself, and now you dare face me with a denial!”

Dollie suddenly burst into tears. Dick now attempted no further denial. There was no anger in his face—only a deeply troubled expression. He arose and walked over to the window, where he stood staring out.

“I know it all,” Dollie repeated gurglingly—“all, except what possible idea you had in stealing the miserable, wretched old plate, anyway!” There was a pause and Dollie peered through teary fingers. “How—how long,” she asked, “have you been a—a—a—kleptomaniac?”

Dick shrugged his sturdy shoulders a little impatiently.

“Did your father ever happen to tell you
why
he objects to my attentions to you?” he asked.

“No, but I know now.” And there was a new burst of tears. “It's because—because you are a—a—you take things.”

“You will not believe what I tell you?”

“How can I when I helped you run away with the horrid stuff?”

“If I pledge you my word of honour that I told you the truth?”

“I can't believe it, I can't!” wailed Dollie desolately. “No one could believe it. I never suspected—never dreamed—of the possibility of such a thing even when you lay wounded out there in the dark woods. If I had, I should certainly have never—have never—kissed you.”

Dick wheeled suddenly.

“Kissed me?” he exclaimed.

“Yes, you horrid thing!” sobbed Dollie. “If there had previously been the slightest doubt in my mind as to your identity, that would have convinced me that it was you, because—because—just because! And besides, if it wasn't you I kissed, you ought to have told me!”

Dollie leaned forward suddenly on the arm of the chair with her face hidden in her hands. Dick crossed the room softly toward her and laid a hand caressingly about her shoulders. She shook it off angrily.

“How dare you, sir?” she blazed.

“Dollie, don't you love me?” he pleaded.

“No!” was the prompt reply.

“But you did love me—once?”

“Why—yes, but I—I—”

“And couldn't you ever love me again?”

“I—I don't ever want to again.”

“But couldn't you?”

“If you had only told me the truth, instead of making such a silly denial,” she blubbered. “I don't know why you took the plate unless—unless it is because you—you couldn't help it. But you didn't tell me the truth.”

Dick stared down at the ruddy head moodily for a moment. Then his manner changed and he dropped on his knees beside her.

“Suppose,” he whispered, “suppose I should confess that I did take it?”

Dollie looked up suddenly with a new horror in her face.

“Oh, you
did
do it then?” she demanded. This was worse than ever!

“Suppose I should confess that I did?”

“Oh, Dick!” she sobbed. And her arms went suddenly around his neck. “You are breaking my heart. Why? Why?”

“Would you be satisfied?” he insisted.

“What could have caused you to do such a thing?”

The love-light glimmered again in her blue eyes; the red lips trembled.

“Suppose it had been just a freak of mine, and I had intended to—to return the stuff, as has been done?” he went on.

Dollie stared deeply into the eyes upturned to hers.

“Silly boy,” she said. Then she kissed him. “But you must never, never do it again.”

“I never will,” he promised solemnly.

Five minutes later Dick was leaving the house, when he met Mr. Meredith in the hall.

“I'm going to marry your daughter,” he said quite calmly.

Mr. Meredith raved at him as he went down the steps.