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Mrs. Balfame

[Pg 66] <h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> There was a thin cry of life in the nursery of the Houston farm house. The mother slept and the new born was in competent hands. Mr. Houston, a farmer more prosperous and enterprising than his somewhat weedy appearance prefigured, beckoned Dr. Anna into the dining-room, where a sleepy but interested "hired girl" had brought hot coffee and sandwiches. The battle had lasted little over three hours, but every moment had been fraught with anxiety for the doctor and the husband. Mrs. Houston's heart had revealed an unsuspected weakness and the baby had not only neglected to head itself towards the gates of life as all proper little marathons should, but had exhibited a state of suspended animation for at least twenty minutes after its arrival at the goal. Dr. Anna dropped into a chair beside the table and covered her face with her hand. "I'm all in, I guess," she murmured, and the farmer put down the coffee pot and ran for the demijohn. "You drink this," he said peremptorily. His own hand was shaking, but he made no verbal attempt to release his strangled emotions until both he and the doctor had drunk of coffee as well as whiskey. Then, when half way through a thick sandwich made of slabs of bread and beef, he began to thank the doctor incoherently. "You are just it," he sputtered. "Just about it.[Pg 67] And your poor back must be broke. You doctors do beat me, particularly you women doctors. I'll never say nothin' against women doctors again, though I'll tell you now that although poor little Aggie was dead set on you, I opposed it for awhile—" Dr. Anna was sitting up and smiling. She waved his apologies and protestations aside. "I can't think what came over me to collapse like that. Once or twice lately I have thought I might be getting something. I'll have my blood taken to-morrow. Now, I'll go home and get to bed quick, although that coffee has made me feel as fine as a fiddle." "Well, I needed it too, and for more reasons than you. Say—" Mr. Houston had risen and was pulling nervously at his short and bosky beard. "I got a 'phone from Mrs. Gifning a while ago. You're wanted at the Balfames—bad." Dr. Anna sprang to her feet, her full cheeks pale again. "Enid! What has happened to her?" "Oh, she's all right, I guess. It's Dave—" "Oh, another gastric attack?" "Worse and more of it. He was shot—two or three hours ago, I guess. I didn't ask the time—was in too big a hurry to get back to Aggie—at his own gate, though, I think she said." "Who did it?" "Nobody knows." "Dead?" "No one'll ever be deader." "H'm!" The color had come back to Dr. Anna's tired face and she shrugged her shoulders. "I'm no hypocrite, and I guess you're not either." "I'm no more a hypocrite than I am a Democrat.[Pg 68] His yellow streak was gettin' wider every year. It's good riddance. Still I wish he'd died in his bed. I don't like the idea of a fellow citizen, good or bad, bein' shot down like that. It's against law and order, and if the murderer's caught and I'm drawn on the jury, and it's proved he done it, I'll vote for conviction." "Quite right," said Dr. Anna briskly, as she went out into the hall and put on her hat. "I suppose it's Mrs. Balfame who wants me?" "Yes, that's it. I remember. But you ought to go home and get sleep. There's enough women to sit up with her. The hull town likely." "But I know she wants me." Dr. Anna's face glowed softly. "I'll sleep there all right—on a sofa beside her bed—if she wants me to stay on." "Well, look out for yourself," he growled. "If you don't think about yourself a little more you'll soon have no show to think so much about other people. I'm goin' for the car." A few moments later he had brought the little runabout to the door, lighted the lamps, and given the doctor a hard grip of the hand. She returned the pressure in kind. "Now don't worry, Mr. Houston. She's all right, and that nurse is first rate. Don't talk to her. Aggie, I mean. See you to-morrow about ten." She drove rapidly out of the gate and into the road. There was a full moon shining and the drive was but ten miles between the farm and Elsinore. Her face was tired and grim. She had been in daily contact with typhoid fever in the poor and dirty quarter of the town. In her arduous life she had often [Pg 69]experienced healthy fatigue, but nothing like this. Could she be coming down? She swung her thoughts to Enid Balfame, and forgot herself. Free at last, and while still young and lovely! Would she marry Dwight Rush? He had leaped into her mind simultaneously with the announcement of Balfame's death. But was he good enough for Enid? Was any man? Why, now that she was a real widow and in no need of a protector, should she marry at all? At any rate she could afford to wait. There were greater prizes to be captured by a beautiful and still girlish woman. She was glad for the first time that Enid had never had a child, for there was a virgin and mystic appeal in the woman that had escaped the common lot. Spinsters lost it, curiously enough, but a chaste and lovely matron, who had ignored the book of experience so liberally offered her, and with eyes as unalloyed as a girl's (save when flashing with intellectual fires)—what more distracting anomaly could the world offer? Only Mrs. Balfame's indifference had kept the men away—Dr. Anna was convinced of that. Her future was in her own hands. Dr. Anna's mind wandered to the scene of the murder. It was not difficult to construct, even from the meager details, and she shuddered. Murder! What a hideous word it was! Horrid that it should even brush the name of an exquisite creature like Enid Balfame. Would that Dave Balfame could have fallen of apoplexy while disgracing himself at the Club! But Anna frowned and shook the picture out of her mind. Doctors are too long trained in death to be haunted by its phantoms in any form. [Pg 70] A sharp turn and the road ran beside a salt marsh, a solemn grey expanse that lost itself far away in the grey of the sea. Suddenly Dr. Anna became aware of a man walking rapidly down the road toward her. He carried his hat in his hand as if his head were hot on this cool autumn night. There was no fear of man in Dr. Anna, even on lonely country roads; nevertheless she had no mind to be detained, and was about to increase her speed, when her curiosity was excited by something pleasantly familiar in the tall loose figure, the almost stiffly upright head. A moment later and the bright moonlight revealed the white face of Dwight Rush. She brought the car to an abrupt halt as he too paused and nodded recognition. "What's the matter?" she asked sharply. "You looked as if you were walking to beat time itself—as if you saw a ghost to boot—" "Plenty of ghosts in my head. It aches like the dickens—" "Were you there when it happened?" "When what happened?" "What? You pretend you don't know—when all Elsinore must have known it within five minutes—" "I don't know what you are talking about. I followed you in from the Club and then took the train for Brooklyn, where I had to see a man. When I got back to Elsinore—off the train—my head ached so I knew I couldn't sleep—so I started out to walk it off—been walking for about two hours." "Dave Balfame was shot down at his own gate three or four hours ago." [Pg 71] "Good God! Who did it? Is he dead?" "He's dead, and that's about all I can tell you. Houston went to the 'phone but he was in such a state of mind about his wife that he didn't stay for particulars. Enid wanted me—it was Lottie Gifning that 'phoned. I gathered, however, that they haven't caught the murderer yet." "Jove!" Rush was shaking. "I feel as if I'd been hit in the pit of the stomach. And I'm not one to go to pieces, either. But I've a good enough reason." Dr. Anna continued to stare at him. He met her gaze and wonder grew in his. Then the blood rushed into his face and he threw back his head. "What do you mean? That I did it?" "No—I don't see you committing murder—" "Not in that damned skulking way—" "Exactly. But you kind of suggest that you might know something about it. You might have been in the grove, or some other part of the grounds—with some idea of protecting Enid—" "Why should you think that?" "She told me—I didn't think it a bad idea myself—that you asked her to divorce Dave and marry you. But she said she wouldn't and I guess she meant it. Now, get in," she added briskly. "I'll drive you home and never say I met you. Met anybody else?" "No one." "Unless they get the right man at once, everybody who was known to have any reason to wish Dave Balfame out of the way will come under suspicion. For all you know, somebody may have guessed your secret; I saw it in your eyes at the clubhouse when you were[Pg 72] trying to get Dave out of the room for her sake; but of course I was 'on.' Those New York newspaper men, however—watch out for them. They'll fine-tooth-comb the county for the man in the case." Rush had disposed his long legs in the little machine and it was once more running swiftly on the smooth road. "My brain is still too hot to theorise," he said. "May I smoke? What is your opinion?" "He had many political enemies; besides, these last two years he's been growing more and more unbearable, so I guess he had more than one in his own party. But it isn't unlikely that some girl did it. For some reason the trollops liked him, and I've met him several times of late driving with a red-headed minx that looks as if she could shoot on sight." "I don't mind telling you that I saw Mrs. Balfame a few minutes after you left her. I was boiling. Instead of piloting Balfame out to Sam's car I wished that I had run him behind the clubhouse and horsewhipped him. We are too civilised these days. I merely went to his house and asked his wife if she would divorce the brute and marry me. Two centuries ago—maybe one—I'd have picked her up and flung her on my horse and galloped off to the woods. We haven't improved; we've merely substituted the long-winded and indirect method and called it civilisation." "Just so. Did she let you in?" "Not she. You might know that without asking. Nor was she any nearer divorce than before. When I offered to pick a quarrel with him, she merely slammed the door in my face. But I went to the window and made her promise that if she were ever in[Pg 73] trouble I should be the first person she would send for—" "But you weren't!" Dr. Anna's voice rang with jealous triumph. "I was the first. But never mind me. I've adored her for forty years, and you haven't known her as many weeks. Tell me, you didn't conceal yourself anywhere in the grounds to watch over her? She must have been all alone. Every servant in town takes Saturday night out." "I inferred that Sam would keep him at his house all night. Besides, I knew she had a pistol. Balfame told me the day he bought her one in New York; when those burglaries began." "Well, don't tell any one that you offered to dispose of her husband—a few moments before he was killed! It might make unnecessary trouble for a rising young lawyer." "I am quite able to do my own thinking and take care of myself," he said haughtily, stung by her tone. "If you choose to think me guilty, do so. And let me tell you that if I had done it I shouldn't put my head in the ash barrel." "No, but you might do your best to avoid the chair. Small blame to you. Well, as I said, you're safe as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't send a dog to the chair. That is—" she looked at him threateningly, "if you really do love Enid and want to marry her." "Love her? I'd marry her if she had done it herself and I'd caught her red-handed." "That's the real thing, I guess." She patted his hand approvingly. "I'll do what I can to help you. She's not a bit in love with you yet, but that's because she's the purest creature on earth and never would let[Pg 74] herself even dream of a man she couldn't marry. She's one of the last grand representatives of the old Puritan stock—and when you see as much mean and secret infidelity, dose as many morbid hysterical women, as I do—Oh, Lord! No wonder I see Enid Balfame shining with cold radiance in the high heavens. I may idealise her a bit, but I don't care. It would be a sad old world if you couldn't exalt at least one human above the muck-ruck. Well, she likes you, and you have interested her. Just be on hand when she wants you, needs you. When this excitement is over and she is tired of female gabble, she'll turn to you naturally, if you manage her properly and don't butt in too soon. Quiet persistence and tact; that's your game. I'll put in a good word." "By George, you are a good fellow!" He leaned over and kissed her impulsively. As Dr. Anna felt the pressure of those warm firm lips on her faded cheek, she astonished herself and him by bursting into tears. In an instant, however, she dashed them away and gave an odd gurgling laugh. "Don't mind a silly old maid—who loves Enid Balfame more than life, I guess. And I'm a country doctor, Dwight, who's had a hard night bringing one more unfortunate female into the world. I feel better since I cried—first time since you boys used to tease me at school because I had cheeks like red pippins—you don't remember me over at school in your village. Renselaerville. I lived there for a spell, and I remember you. But this isn't the time for reminiscences. Where do you live? We'll be in the outskirts in three minutes." "I have rooms at The Brabant." [Pg 75] "Any night clerk?" "No; it's an apartment house." "Good. We're somewhere in the small hours all right." She drove swiftly through the sleeping town, slowing down on the corner of Main Street and Atlantic Avenue. Rush sprang out with a word of thanks and walked up the avenue to The Brabant. The trees here were neither old nor close, for this was the quarter of the wealthy newcomers and of the older residents that had prospered and rebuilt. But not a soul was abroad, and he let himself into the bachelor apartment house and mounted the two flights to his rooms unseen. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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