"Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three--"

She continued to count, while in the methodic unvarying note of her
voice there was a rasping reiteration that began to affect the company.
A slight gasping breath, uncontrollable, almost on the verge of
hysterics, was heard, and a man nervously clearing his throat.

"Forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven--"

Still nothing had happened. Mrs. Kildair did not vary her measure the
slightest, only the sound became more metallic.

"Sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine and seventy--"

Some one had sighed.

"Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six,
seventy-seven--"

All at once, clear, unmistakable, on the resounding plane of the table
was heard a slight metallic note.

"The ring!"

It was Maude Lille's quick voice that had spoken. Mrs. Kildair continued
to count.

"Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one--"

The tension became unbearable. Two or three voices protested against the
needless prolonging of the torture.

"Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine and one hundred."

A match sputtered in Mrs. Kildair's hand and on the instant the company
craned forward. In the center of the table was the sparkling sapphire
and diamond ring. Candles were lit, flaring up like searchlights on the
white accusing faces.

"Mr. Cheever, you may give it to me," said Mrs. Kildair. She held out
her hand without trembling, a smile of triumph on her face, which had in
it for a moment an expression of positive cruelty.

Immediately she changed, contemplating with amusement the horror of her
guests, staring blindly from one to another, seeing the indefinable
glance of interrogation that passed from Cheever to Mrs. Cheever, from
Mrs. Jackson to her husband, and then without emotion she said:

"Now that that is over we can have a very gay little supper."

When Peters had pushed back his chair, satisfied as only a trained
raconteur can be by the silence of a difficult audience, and had busied
himself with a cigar, there was an instant outcry.

"I say, Peters, old boy, that is not all!"

"Absolutely."

"The story ends there?"

"That ends the story."

"But who took the ring?"

Peters extended his hands in an empty gesture.

"What! It was never found out?"

"Never."

"No clue?"

"None."

"I don't like the story," said De Gollyer.

"It's no story at all," said Steingall.

"Permit me," said Quinny in a didactic way; "it is a story, and it is
complete. In fact, I consider it unique because it has none of the
banalities of a solution and leaves the problem even more confused than
at the start."

"I don't see--" began Rankin.

"Of course you don't, my dear man," said Quinny crushingly. "You do not
see that any solution would be commonplace, whereas no solution leaves
an extraordinary intellectual problem."

"How so?"

"In the first place," said Quinny, preparing to annex the topic,
"whether the situation actually happened or not, which is in itself a
mere triviality, Peters has constructed it in a masterly way, the proof
of which is that he has made me listen. Observe, each person present
might have taken the ring--Flanders, a broker, just come a cropper;
Maude Lille, a woman on the ragged side of life in desperate means;
either Mr. and Mrs. Cheever, suspected of being card sharps--very good
touch that, Peters, when the husband and wife glanced involuntarily at
each other at the end--Mr. Enos Jackson, a sharp lawyer, or his wife
about to be divorced; even Harris, concerning whom, very cleverly,
Peters has said nothing at all to make him quite the most suspicious of
all. There are, therefore, seven solutions, all possible and all
logical. But beyond this is left a great intellectual problem."

"How so?"

"Was it a feminine or a masculine action to restore the ring when
threatened with a search, knowing that Mrs. Kildair's clever expedient
of throwing the room in the dark made detection impossible? Was it a
woman who lacked the necessary courage to continue, or was it a man who
repented his first impulse? Is a man or is a woman the greater natural
criminal?"

"A woman took it, of course," said Rankin.

"On the contrary, it was a man," said Steingall, "for the second action
was more difficult than the first."

"A man, certainly," said De Gollyer. "The restoration of the ring was a
logical decision."

"You see," said Quinny triumphantly, "personally I incline to a woman
for the reason that a weaker feminine nature is peculiarly susceptible
to the domination of her own sex. There you are. We could meet and
debate the subject year in and year out and never agree."

"I recognize most of the characters," said De Gollyer with a little
confidential smile toward Peters. "Mrs. Kildair, of course, is all you
say of her--an extraordinary woman. The story is quite characteristic of
her. Flanders, I am not sure of, but I think I know him."

"Did it really happen?" asked Rankin, who always took the commonplace
point of view.

"Exactly as I have told it," said Peters.

"The only one I don't recognize is Harris," said De Gollyer pensively.

"Your humble servant," said Peters, smiling.

The four looked up suddenly with a little start.

"What!" said Quinny, abruptly confused. "You--you were there?"

"I was there."

The four continued to look at him without speaking, each absorbed in his
own thoughts, with a sudden ill ease.

A club attendant with a telephone slip on a tray stopped by Peters'
side. He excused himself and went along the porch, nodding from table to
table.

"Curious chap," said De Gollyer musingly.

"Extraordinary."

The word was like a murmur in the group of four, who continued watching
Peters' trim disappearing figure in silence, without looking at one
another--with a certain ill ease.




A COMEDY FOR WIVES


At half-past six o'clock from Wall Street, Jack Lightbody let himself
into his apartment, called his wife by name, and received no answer.

"Hello, that's funny," he thought, and, ringing, asked of the maid, "Did
Mrs. Lightbody go out?"

"About an hour ago, sir."

"That's odd. Did she leave any message?"

"No, sir."

"That's not like her. I wonder what's happened."

At this moment his eye fell on an open hat-box of mammoth proportions,
overshadowing a thin table in the living-room.

"When did that come?"

"About four o'clock, sir."

He went in, peeping into the empty box with a smile of satisfaction and
understanding.

"That's it, she's rushed off to show it to some one," he said, with a
half vindictive look toward the box. "Well, it cost $175, and I don't
get my winter suit; but I get a little peace."

He went to his room, rebelliously preparing to dress for the dinner and
theater to which he had been commanded.

"By George, if I came back late, wouldn't I catch it?" he said with some
irritation, slipping into his evening clothes and looking critically at
his rather subdued reflection in the glass. "Jim tells me I'm getting in
a rut, middle-aged, showing the wear. Perhaps." He rubbed his hand over
the wrinkled cheek and frowned. "I have gone off a bit--sedentary
life--six years. It does settle you. Hello! quarter of seven. Very
strange!"

He slipped into a lilac dressing-gown which had been thrust upon him on
his last birthday and wandered uneasily back into the dining-room.

"Why doesn't she telephone?" he thought; "it's her own party, one of
those infernal problem plays I abhor. I didn't want to go."

The door opened and the maid entered. On the tray was a letter.

"For me?" he said, surprised. "By messenger?"

"Yes, sir."

He signed the slip, glancing at the envelope. It was in his wife's
handwriting.

"Margaret!" he said suddenly.

"Yes, sir."

"The boy's waiting for an answer, isn't he?"

"No, sir."

He stood a moment in blank uneasiness, until, suddenly aware that she
was waiting, he dismissed her with a curt:

"Oh, very well."

Then he remained by the table, looking at the envelope which he did not
open, hearing the sound of the closing outer door and the passing of the
maid down the hall.

"Why didn't she telephone?" he said aloud slowly.

He looked at the letter again. He had made no mistake. It was from his
wife.

"If she's gone off again on some whim," he said angrily, "by George, I
won't stand for it."

Then carelessly inserting a finger, he broke the cover and glanced
hastily down the letter:

My dear Jackie:

When you have read this I shall have left you forever. Forget me and
try to forgive. In the six years we have lived together, you have
always been kind to me. But, Jack, there is something we cannot give
or take away, and because some one has come who has won that, I am
leaving you. I'm sorry, Jackie, I'm sorry.

Irene.

When he had read this once in unbelief, he read it immediately again,
approaching the lamp, laying it on the table and pressing his fists
against his temple, to concentrate all his mind.

"It's a joke," he said, speaking aloud.

He rose, stumbling a little and aiding himself with his arm, leaning
against the wall, went into her room, and opened the drawer where her
jewel case should be. It was gone.

"Then it's true," he said solemnly. "It's ended. What am I to do?"

He went to her wardrobe, looking at the vacant hooks, repeating:

"What am I to do?"

He went slowly back to the living-room to the desk by the lamp, where
the hateful thing stared up at him.

"What am I to do?"

All at once he struck the desk with his fist and a cry burst from him:

"Dishonored--I'm dishonored!"

His head flushed hot, his breath came in short, panting rage. He struck
the letter again and again, and then suddenly, frantically, began to
rush back and forth, repeating:

"Dishonored--dishonored!"

All at once a moment of clarity came to him with a chill of ice. He
stopped, went to the telephone and called up the Racquet Club, saying:

"Mr. De Gollyer to the 'phone."

Then he looked at his hand and found he was still clutching a forgotten
hair brush. With a cry at the grotesqueness of the thing, he flung it
from him, watching it go skipping over the polished floor. The voice of
De Gollyer called him.

"Is that you, Jim?" he said, steadying himself. "Come--come to me at
once--quick!"

He could have said no more. He dropped the receiver, overturning the
stand, and began again his caged pacing of the floor.

Ten minutes later De Gollyer nervously slipped into the room. He was a
quick, instinctive ferret of a man, one to whose eyes the hidden life of
the city held no mysteries; who understood equally the shadows that
glide on the street and the masks that pass in luxurious carriages. In
one glance he had caught the disorder in the room and the agitation in
his friend. He advanced a step, balanced his hat on the desk, perceived
the crumpled letter, and, clearing his throat, drew back, frowning and
alert, correctly prepared for any situation.

Lightbody, without seeming to perceive his arrival, continued his blind
traveling, pressing his fists from time to time against his throat to
choke back the excess of emotions which, in the last minutes, had dazed
his perceptions and left him inertly struggling against a shapeless
pain. All at once he stopped, flung out his arms and cried:

"She's gone!"

De Gollyer did not on the word seize the situation.

"Gone! Who's gone?" he said with a nervous, jerky fixing of his head,
while his glance immediately sought the vista through the door to assure
himself that no third person was present.

But Lightbody, unconscious of everything but his own utter grief, was
threshing back and forth, repeating mechanically, with increasing
_staccato_:

"Gone, gone!"

"Who? Where?"

With a sudden movement, De Gollyer caught his friend by the shoulder and
faced him about as a naughty child, exclaiming: "Here, I say, old chap,
brace up! Throw back your shoulders--take a long breath!"

With a violent wrench, Lightbody twisted himself free, while one hand
flung appealingly back, begged for time to master the emotion which
burst forth in the cry:

"Gone--forever!"

"By Jove!" said De Gollyer, suddenly enlightened, and through his mind
flashed the thought--"There's been an accident--something fatal.
Tough--devilish tough."

He cast a furtive glance toward the bedrooms and then an alarmed one
toward his friend, standing in the embrasure of the windows, pressing
his forehead against the panes.

Suddenly Lightbody turned and, going abruptly to the desk, leaned
heavily on one arm, raising the letter in two vain efforts. A spasm of
pain crossed his lips, which alone could not be controlled. He turned
his head hastily, half offering, half dropping the letter, and
wheeling, went to an armchair, where he collapsed, repeating
inarticulately:

"Forever!"

"Who? What? Who's gone?" exclaimed De Gollyer, bewildered by the
appearance of a letter. "Good heavens, dear boy, what has happened?
Who's gone?"

Then Lightbody, by an immense effort, answered:

"Irene--my wife!"

And with a rapid motion he covered his eyes, digging his fingers into
his flesh.

De Gollyer, pouncing upon the letter, read:

My dear Jackie: When you read this, I shall have left you forever--

Then he halted with an exclamation, and hastily turned the page for the
signature.

"Read!" said Lightbody in a stifled voice.

"I say, this is serious, devilishly serious," said De Gollyer, now
thoroughly amazed. Immediately he began to read, unconsciously
emphasizing the emphatic words--a little trick of his enunciation.

When Lightbody had heard from the voice of another the message that
stood written before his eyes, all at once all impulses in his brain
converged into one. He sprang up, speaking now in quick, distinct
syllables, sweeping the room with the fury of his arms.

"I'll find them; by God, I'll find them. I'll hunt them down. I'll
follow them. I'll track them--anywhere--to the ends of the earth--and
when I find them--"

De Gollyer, sensitively distressed at such a scene, vainly tried to stop
him.

"I'll find them, if I die for it! I'll shoot them down. I'll shoot them
down like dogs! I will, by all that's holy, I will! I'll butcher them!
I'll shoot them down, there at my feet, rolling at my feet!"

All at once he felt a weight on his arm, and heard De Gollyer saying,
vainly:

"Dear boy, be calm, be calm."

"Calm!" he cried, with a scream, his anger suddenly focusing on his
friend, "Calm! I won't be calm! What! I come back--slaving all day,
slaving for her--come back to take her out to dinner where she wants to
go--to the play she wants to see, and I find--nothing--this letter--this
bomb--this thunderbolt! Everything gone--my home broken up--my name
dishonored--my whole life ruined! And you say be calm--be calm--be
calm!"

Then, fearing the hysteria gaining possession of him, he dropped back
violently into an armchair and covered his face.

During this outburst, De Gollyer had deliberately removed his gloves,
folded them and placed them in his breast pocket. His reputation for
social omniscience had been attained by the simple expedient of never
being convinced. As soon as the true situation had been unfolded, a
slight, skeptical smile hovered about his thin, flouting lips, and,
looking at his old friend, he was not unpleasantly aware of something
comic in the attitudes of grief. He made one or two false starts,
buttoning his trim cutaway, and then said in a purposely higher key:

"My dear old chap, we must consider--we really must consider what is to
be done."

"There is only one thing to be done," cried Lightbody in a voice of
thunder.

"Permit me!"

"Kill them!"

"One moment!"

De Gollyer, master of himself, never abandoning his critical enjoyment,
softened his voice to that controlled note that is the more effective
for being opposed to frenzy.

"Sit down--come now, sit down!"

Lightbody resisted.

"Sit down, there--come--you have called me in. Do you want my advice? Do
you? Well, just quiet down. Will you listen?"

"I am quiet," said Lightbody, suddenly submissive. The frenzy of his
rage passed, but to make his resolution doubly impressive, he extended
his arm and said slowly:

"But remember, my mind is made up. I shall not budge. I shall shoot
them down like dogs! You see I say quietly--like dogs!"

"My dear old pal," said De Gollyer with a well-bred shrug of his
shoulders, "you'll do nothing of the sort. We are men of the world, my
boy, men of the world. Shooting is archaic--for the rural districts.
We've progressed way beyond that--men of the world don't shoot any
more."

"I said it quietly," said Lightbody, who perceived, not without
surprise, that he was no longer at the same temperature. However, he
concluded with normal conviction: "I shall kill them both, that's all. I
say it quietly."

This gave De Gollyer a certain hortatory moment of which he availed
himself, seeking to reduce further the dramatic tension.

"My dear old pal, as a matter of fact, all I say is, consider first and
shoot after. In the first place, suppose you kill one or both and you
are not yourself killed--for you know, dear boy, the deuce is that
sometimes does happen. What then? Justice is so languid nowadays.
Certainly you would have to inhabit for six, eight--perhaps ten
months--a drafty, moist jail, without exercise, most indigestible food
abominably cooked, limited society. You are brought to trial. A jury--an
emotional jury--may give you a couple of years. That's another risk. You
see you drink cocktails, you smoke cigarettes. You will be made to
appear a person totally unfit to live with."

Lightbody with a movement of irritation, shifted the clutch of his
fingers.

"As a matter of fact, suppose you are acquitted, what then? You emerge,
middle-aged, dyspeptic, possibly rheumatic--no nerves left. Your
photograph figures in every paper along with inventors of shoes and
corsets. You can't be asked to dinner or to house parties, can you? As a
matter of fact, you'll disappear somewhere or linger and get shot by the
brother, who in turn, as soon as he is acquitted, must be shot by your
brother, et cetera, et cetera! _Voila!_ What will you have gained?"

He ceased, well pleased--he had convinced himself.

Lightbody, who had had time to be ashamed of the emotion that he, as a
man, had shown to another of his sex, rose and said with dignity:

"I shall have avenged my honor."

De Gollyer, understanding at once that the battle had been won, took up
in an easy running attack his battery of words.

"By publishing your dishonor to Europe, Africa, Asia? That's logic,
isn't it? No, no, my dear old Jack--you won't do it. You won't be an
ass. Steady head, old boy! Let's look at it in a reasonable way--as men
of the world. You can't bring her back, can you? She's gone."

At this reminder, overcome by the vibrating sense of loss, Lightbody
turned abruptly, no longer master of himself, and going hastily toward
the windows, cried violently:

"Gone!"

Over the satisfied lips of De Gollyer the same ironical smile returned.

"I say, as a matter of fact I didn't suspect, you--you cared so much."

"I adored her!"

With a quick movement, Lightbody turned. His eyes flashed. He no longer
cared what he revealed. He began to speak incoherently, stifling a sob
at every moment.

"I adored her. It was wonderful. Nothing like it. I adored her from the
moment I met her. It was that--adoration--one woman in the world--one
woman--I adored her!"

The imp of irony continued to play about De Gollyer's eyes and slightly
twitching lips.

"Quite so--quite so," he said. "Of course you know, dear boy, you
weren't always so--so lonely--the old days--you surprise me."

The memory of his romance all at once washed away the bitterness in
Lightbody. He returned, sat down, oppressed, crushed.

"You know, Jim," he said solemnly, "she never did this, never in the
world, not of her own free will, never in her right mind. She's been
hypnotized, some one has gotten her under his power--some scoundrel.
No--I'll not harm her, I'll not hurt a hair of her head--but when I meet
_him_--"

"By the way, whom do you suspect?" said De Gollyer, who had long
withheld the question.

"Whom? Whom do I suspect?" exclaimed Lightbody, astounded. "I don't
know."

"Impossible!"

"How do I know? I never doubted her a minute."

"Yes, yes--still?"

"Whom do I suspect? I don't know." He stopped and considered. "It might
be--three men."

"Three men!" exclaimed De Gollyer, who smiled as only a bachelor could
smile at such a moment.

"I don't know which--how should I know? But when I do know--when I meet
him! I'll spare her--but--but when we meet--we two--when my hands are on
his throat--"

He was on his feet again, the rage of dishonor ready to flame forth. De
Gollyer, putting his arm about him, recalled him with abrupt, military
sternness.

"Steady, steady again, dear old boy. Buck up now--get hold of yourself."

"Jim, it's awful!"

"It's tough--very tough!"

"Out of a clear sky--everything gone!"

"Come, now, walk up and down a bit--do you good."

Lightbody obeyed, locking his arms behind his back, his eyes on the
floor.

"Everything smashed to bits!"

"You adored her?" questioned De Gollyer in an indefinable tone.

"I adored her!" replied Lightbody explosively.

"Really now?"

"I adored her. There's nothing left now--nothing--nothing."

"Steady."

Lightbody, at the window, made another effort, controlled himself and
said, as a man might renounce an inheritance:

"You're right, Jim--but it's hard."

"Good spirit--fine, fine, very fine!" commented De Gollyer in critical