The Master of Mysteries/Miss Dalrymple's Locket
MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET
"OH, dear, she's come to see you again!" said Valeska, making a very pretty picture as she stood in the doorway, framed by the black velvet portières.
Astro the Seer followed his first indulgent look by a second questioning, curious glance. "Who is it?"
She put her head on one side and looked at him coquettishly. "A lady," she said, tossing her head archly, "whom, among all your fashionable clients, I believe you consider the most charming, most delicious, the prettiest, the sweetest, the most—"
Astro laughed and nodded. "Miss Dalrymple?"
"The same. She was here only last week. It is very suspicious! Beware!" She shook a saucy finger at him and disappeared.
The young woman who next entered assuredly justified Valeska's adjectives. Indeed, many more might have been applied to her, though the smile that appeared on Astro's own handsome face best testified to her witchery. She was scarcely twenty years old, and of that dark, winning, dimpled, innocent type that few know how to resist. To this, there was an appealing look that flattered men's vanity. Were her brown eyes or her delectable smiling mouth the more lovely to look upon? Astro himself could not tell. Was it her easy well-bred grace or her ingenuous, girlish candor that most delighted him? He remembered her dainty hands, perhaps the most exquisite he had ever seen. Now they were hidden in her sable muff. Her little rosy face shone like a flower under her picturesque veiled hat; her figure, slim and charmingly curved, was only partly modified by the smart lines of her black cloth suit.
She looked at him with big eyes and said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Astro. I hope you haven't forgotten me."
"Scarcely," was his reply. His tone was flattering.
She smiled with innocent roguery, her eyes exploring the curious decorations of the great studio. She sniffed daintily at the pleasant smell of myrrh that filled the air as she took the seat he offered her.
"I have come for help," she said. "I'm awfully puzzled about something, and you told me such wonderful things last time I came, that I thought I'd ask you." She showed a line of snow-white little teeth.
The Master rested his head negligently on one slender hand, and nodded gravely.
"It's about a locket," she continued.
"Ah! You have lost one?"
"No, not at all. I have found one!"
Astro raised his eyebrows.
"Oh, you're partly right, too; for it was lost a long time ago, and I have just got it back in a rather remarkable way. You see, it used to belong to my mother. She died last year. I returned only in time to see her for two hours before the end."
"When did you see this locket last?"
"Long before mother died. It disappeared mysteriously when I was abroad. Only yesterday it was returned to me by mail, addressed to me at my house in Yonkers, in a handwriting that I can't recognize."
"Well, I don't see what you are troubled about, then, if you have got it back."
Miss Dalrymple looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, her cheek resting on her white-gloved hand, as if not quite sure how to express what she meant. Finally she said impulsively, "Well, it's something so vague and silly it seems absurd to speak to you about it. But Fanny and I have been talking it over and wondering where it came from, and everything, and we both have a sort of queer feeling that it has something to do, perhaps, with a certain letter my mother once had."
"Wait a moment. Who is Fanny?"
"Oh, she's my maid—and she's a treasure. Indeed, she is more like a friend to me than a maid."
"How long have you had her?"
"Oh, ever since mother died."
The Seer frowned slightly. "Go on,—about the letter."
"You've heard about my father's will, and the lawsuit, haven't you? The papers have had a lot about it."
"Oh, yes, the Dalrymple will case. Let's see—your father was divorced from your mother, wasn't he?"
"Yes; but he wasn't at all happy with the woman he married afterward—she's a vixen—and he always regretted that he had left my mother. This Mrs. Dalrymple is contesting the will that father made in favor of my mother. She isn't satisfied with her widow's third."
"And, by that will, you are the legal heir to the rest of the estate?"
"Of course. But the other side has claimed that it was a forgery, and, as he left all his property to his divorced wife, they have a fair case, unless we can prove that the will was genuine. Unfortunately, though the will is in our possession, having been given to mother, both the witnesses to it are dead."
"I see," said Astro, "and the letter you mentioned?"
"Was from my father to my mother, telling her that he had left her all his property. You see how important it would be to our case; but I haven't been able to find it anywhere."
"Yes, but how does the locket come into it?"
"That's what I don't know myself. That's why I came to you," Miss Dalrymple exclaimed eagerly. "I can't describe why, but I do feel that the locket has something to do with it; for my mother was delirious just before she died, and talked about the letter and the locket. She kept saying that she had been robbed—or perhaps she only feared it. Then the locket was restored so providentially, just in time; for the case is to come to court next week. Then I remember that before I went away mother was very careful of it, and kept it locked up."
"Let me see it," said the Master of Mysteries.
She unbuttoned her coat and took it from a gold chain about her neck, a small oval gold locket such as was commonly worn in the sixties. The cover, being opened, disclosed a small photograph of a beautiful woman in an old-fashioned round bonnet with roses framing the calm serious face.
Astro inspected it admiringly.
"That's my mother," said Miss Dalrymple, looking over his shoulder.
"It is hardly necessary to explain that. I see now where you get your beauty." With a deft movement of his thumb nail, Astro opened the inner rim and removed the photograph. The back of the paper was covered with Greek letters written microscopically in ink, as follows:
Δαν σλεγ αρ θενα νδε οϛον σλεροϛ εβνχλεπ λνϛνε αρλε π ομ μιερ
"Oh!" the girl cried excitedly, "I knew it! I knew there was something to be found out! It's Greek, isn't it? Oh, I hope you read Greek! Do you?"
Astro smiled. "I read Greek as well as I do English; but this, unfortunately, isn't Greek at all."
"Why, isn't it? I know some of the letters myself. Look there—isn't that a Delta, and that Alpha and Pi?"
"Yes, the letters are Greek characters, but they are not Greek words. It's a cipher, Miss Dalrymple."
The girl's face fell. "Oh!" she breathed. In her excitement she was almost leaning on his shoulder. She clasped his arm unconsciously as she added, "Surely you can read it? You have solved so many mysteries; you have such wonderful occult power! I've heard that any cipher ever invented could be solved."
"And so it can. I have solved harder ones than this, I'm sure. Yes, your locket is certainly getting interesting. I'm sorry that I am too busy now to work on _-_p.183.jpg)
"I knew there was something to be found out!" "It's Greek, isn't it?"
"All right. I'll be dying of impatience; so I hope you'll hurry."
"I'll promise it some time to-morrow. But another question: Did your mother read Greek?"
"Oh, yes, she had a magnificent education."
"And how about the second Mrs. Dalrymple?"
The girl's lips curled. "I should say not! Why, she was an ordinary chorus girl when father married her!"
"Well," said the Seer, rising to assume a poetic attitude, "I shall consult my crystals and see what I can find out. If I am not mistaken, though, the will will be probated and you will come into your inheritance. And I shall be the first to congratulate you!"
After a quick friendly hand-shake, like a boy's, Miss Dalrymple walked gracefully out of the room.
As soon as she had left, Astro called his assistant and showed her the cipher. Valeska pored over it without speaking for some time. Finally she sighed and said pathetically, "What a pity I don't know Greek!"
"Cheer up!" said the Master, with a whimsical grimace. "You probably know as much about it as the one who composed this childish little cryptogram did. It has the mark of the tyro upon it."
"Why! how could you tell that?"
"Suppose a Fiji Islander attempted to copy a lot of English that is, the so-called Latin alphabet. Wouldn't you be able to tell instantly that he was ignorant of the English language? It's the same here. Any one who is used to writing Greek would form the letters easily and swiftly; would write, in short, a pure cursive hand. These Greek letters here are all laboriously copied from some school-book or dictionary."
"Well, who wrote it?"
"My dear Valeska," said Astro soberly, "the infinitesimal vibrations from this locket will, if I absorb myself in contemplation, set up sympathetic waves in my own aura. I am not yet ready to go into a psychic trance. Let us first read the message. It is ridiculously simple. I will first separate the message into words, for what here appears to be a set of words is merely letters run together with a few false spaces between them in order to baffle the first glance.
He took a pad of paper and wrote out the following in Greek characters:
Δανσ λε γαρθεν, ανδεοϛονσ λε ροϛε βνχ, λε πλνϛ νεαλ λε πομμιερ
When he had finished he looked up at her. "You surely know the Greek alphabet, at least?"
"Of course I know that much. We used to use it in boarding-school to write secret messages in. What girl that's ever had a 'frat' boy for a beau doesn't know the Greek alphabet?"
"Then this should read easily. Kindly write it out, letter for letter."
Valeska studied a minute, and then scribbled out:
Dans le garden au dessous le rose buch le plus near le pommier.
"Partly in English', partly in French, you see," said Astro. "One word, 'buch', looks like German, but it's not: 'In the garden under the rose bush nearest to the apple tree!' The Greek character Chi was the nearest the writer could get to the English 'sh,' you see, and note the use of the Sigma's, too. How childish to consider this a hard puzzle!"
"It is the location of Mrs. Dalrymple's missing letter, I suppose," ventured Valeska. "I suppose she was afraid it would be stolen, and so buried it there."
"You forget, however, that, if Mrs. Dalrymple was a good Greek scholar, she wouldn't have written this so laboriously."
Valeska looked quickly up at him. "Could some one have found the letter and buried it there for his own purpose?"
"It is possible; but it seems an unnecessary thing to do. The most suspicious thing about the cipher is that it is so easy."
"Then I give it up." Valeska shook her head sadly.
"Don't give up, little girl. Simply keep your mind on the fact that there are clever brains at work upon this unsuspecting young woman." He edged his chair over closer and tapped with his finger on the table. "Look here! Who stole this locket in the first place? Why was it stolen? Was the person who took it the one who returned it? Or was the person who returned it a friend of Miss Dalrymple's? If he or she were, why should the action be done anonymously? Did this person know about the cipher? If so, why leave the cipher there where she could find it and dig up the letter? Several things look suspicious to me. I must go over every point and analyze it. We must, in beginning any case of this sort, cast about immediately and find out who are the actors in the drama, who are the ones who will suffer or be benefited by this chain of circumstances.
"Now," he straightened up abruptly, "we must know more about Miss Dalrymple's household. To-morrow morning you shall make the trip to Yonkers, ostensibly to return her this locket with our solution of the cipher, but actually to enable you to inspect the house, grounds, servants, family history, and the like."
At once Valeska became businesslike. "Anything else?"
"Yes," he said emphatically. "Tell her that on no account whatsoever is she to dig beneath the rose bush until she hears from me! Understand?"
Valeska returned next noon with the information that Miss Dalrymple was in high spirits over the solution of the secret message.
"Did you tell her not to dig up the place until I came?"
"Yes, and she promised to wait."
"Well, what else?"
Valeska sniffed. "I certainly do not like that maid of hers. I may be only a woman without any more analytical brain than a sand-snipe, but I can tell a sniveling hypocrite of my own sex as far as I can see her. There's too much goody-goody talk to suit me. It was 'Yes, dear Miss Dalrymple,' and 'Oh, certainly, Miss Dalrymple,' and, behind her back, 'Isn't Miss Dalrymple the sweetest thing!' When I hear that kind of talk, I look out for a cat."
"You think she's two-faced?"
"Oh, she's a snake in the grass! Tall, lantern-jawed, skinny, smirking thing! As luck would have it, she caught the same train back to town that I did, or rather she came down on the trolley-car just behind mine, and I sat about three seats behind her when we got the subway at Kingsbridge. I thought I'd see where she went. It was an express, and she got off at Brooklyn Bridge. That's what kept me so long. I followed her over to Brooklyn."
Astro started. "Brooklyn?" he ejaculated.
"Yes." Valeska was evidently pleased that at last she had made some sort of sensation. "I shadowed her to number 1435 Fulton Avenue, waited half an hour, and, when she didn't come out, hurried back to report."
"Well," Astro spoke with a curious expression, "did you find out who lives there?"
The girl was crestfallen. "No. I entirely forgot that."
He threw it at her pointblank. "Mrs. Myra Dalrymple!"
For a moment she could only gaze at him in astonishment. Then, "Oh!" she cried. "Oh!" Her eyes blazed. "Didn't I say she was a snake? Why, then, Fanny is undoubtedly in the pay of the second wife! Think of it! She's been spying on that sweet innocent girl ever since her mother died, and has carried the news to Mrs. Dalrymple number two. It's outrageous!
"Oh, but—" Valeska sprang up in consternation and faced her master with a look of horror. "I forgot! Why, I translated the cipher to Miss Dalrymple while the maid was in the room! What will happen?"
Astro took up his water-pipe with perfect equanimity. "My dear, you seem to have made several very lucky blunders to-day."
She put her hands to her eyes. "Oh, I don't understand! What about this cipher message? Where did it come from?"
"Let us go at it analytically," he replied calmly. "For the sake of the argument, grant first that the cipher discloses the hiding-place of the lost letter, secreted by the first Mrs. Dalrymple. Very good. Let us suppose, also, as a second hypothesis, that the locket was sent by the second Mrs. Dalrymple, knowing of the cipher. Very good again. Now examine the two theories. Is it likely that such a person as this second wife would place a rival claimant to the estate in possession of the secret? No. Something is wrong, the first hypothesis, or the second. Take your pick. I say the first is wrong,—the cipher does not disclose the place of the letter, but the second is right: Mrs. Dalrymple sent it. We know that probably she knew Miss Dalrymple visited me, and believed in my power. She, therefore, intended Miss Dalrymple to dig in that spot, cleverly concealing her instrumentality in the matter. That's why the cipher was made so absurdly easy. Do you think it will be well for Miss Dalrymple to dig there? I don't."
He paused. "Now suppose the second hypothesis to be wrong,—that Mrs. Dalrymple did not send the locket. If any one else did, what reason could he have for making such a mystery of it? It would be absurd."
"I follow all that," said Valeska; "but I can't think why Mrs. Dalrymple would have any motive for inducing Miss Dalrymple to dig in the garden."
"I think you forget the second Mrs. Dalrymple's character. But you can study it out. What I intend to do is to call on Mrs. Dalrymple this evening and find out. I have a very good case against her, I think, and I intend to make her give up that letter, if she has it. Of course it may have been destroyed, but I don't quite believe it. It is common for criminals, especially women, to refrain from actually destroying the very evidence that may convict them. From some scruple or fear they seldom do it. At any rate, I shall frighten her with what I suspect of her actions in the past, and use my positive knowledge of Fanny's services."
"But what is hidden in the garden? Anything? And if so, how did it get there?"
"Was there no one besides Miss Dalrymple and Fanny living in the house? No other servants?"
Valeska shook her head, then reflected for an instant. "I did hear something about a gardener—" She stopped and stared at him.
He nodded. "I think that probably completes the last link of the chain. At any rate, I'm willing to risk it. Well, I'll go right over to Brooklyn and have it out. Meet me at the Grand Central Station to-night in time for the eleven-thirty-six train for Yonkers, and we'll see the whole thing through this very night."
Valeska's eyes danced. "I'll be there, with my own little revolver! I hope it will be exciting!"
She was at the station at eleven-thirty, and waited until the train had pulled out without seeing the Master. A half-hour and then a full hour passed without his appearance. She had begun to be alarmed seriously, when, at a quarter past one, she saw him walking rapidly across the great waiting-room toward her. She gave an exclamation of relief; but at once he took her arm and ran her toward the subway.
"Hurry!" he cried in a tense voice. "We can't wait for the one-thirty; so we'll have to make it by the subway and change to the trolley. We have no time to lose! It's serious!"
They caught the train with less than a minute's margin; and once settled in the car, Valeska turned to him anxiously.
"I was a fool to let Miss Dalrymple have the translation!" he said. "It was the only serious error I have made in a year. I hope to heaven I may save her yet; but it's a toss-up now!"
"What is it?" Valeska shouted above the shriek of the wheels.
Astro said nothing. Seeing that he was too deeply moved to explain, she pressed him no further, covertly watching his restless nervous gestures and his drawn expression all through the ride until the trolley slowed down at Yonkers and stopped on the main street. A solitary cab was standing beside the curb, its driver dozing on the box.
A fat man was waddling hurriedly ahead of them, signaling with his umbrella to the driver; but Astro, with a rough gesture, threw him aside, ran to the cab, and pushed Valeska quickly inside.
"To Miss Dalrymple's, out on Broadway, and drive like lightning!" he ordered. Then he jumped in himself, and slammed the door in the face of the enraged fat man who was in quick pursuit. The cab drove off at headlong speed.
Still Valeska kept silent; but now she shared the excitement of the Master, who bit his knuckles nervously as the horse galloped along the avenue high above the river. All she could hear besides the pounding of hoofs was the muttering of the dark man by her side. It seemed an hour's drive, so had the suspense wrought upon her,—tree by tree, lamp by lamp, house by house, they advanced. She was now prepared for anything,—for anything save what happened.
At last the carriage slowed down and came to a stop. Before the driver had a chance to dismount, Astro had dashed out without paying the least attention to his assistant. She hurried after him.
The Dalrymple house stood on the side of the hill, overlooking the quiet moonlit Hudson. It was surrounded by a high wall, over the tops of which showed the thick limbs of a few apple trees. The house loomed beyond, a brick edifice of two stories. The iron gate in the wall was locked, and Astro jerked viciously at the bell.
At this moment, as if he himself had set it off, a loud explosion reverberated through the night. A woman's scream was next heard, rising in a piercing staccato. Then all was silence again. At length a shutter was thrown open at one of the front windows of the house, and a shaft of light made a brilliant path through the deep shadow. A woman's head appeared.
"What is it?" cried Valeska in terror. "Is Miss Dalrymple shot?"
"God knows!" Astro muttered grimly. "Help me over the wall. Give me a foot up, Valeska. We're too late, as I feared; but I must find out what has happened. Driver," he yelled back over his shoulder, "go for a doctor as quick as you can!"
In an instant he had mounted the top of the wall and dropped to the other side. Valeska heard his footsteps running up the gravel walk. After that she waited some time in silence. The cab had driven off with a clatter.
When, after a wait that seemed interminable, Astro returned, Valeska's eyes stared to see him with Miss Dalrymple, who was apparently unharmed. She wore a long mackintosh cape, covering her night dress, and her hair was disordered. A look of horror on her pretty face made her seem a woman almost for the first time. She unlocked the gate and put her slender white arms about Valeska.
"What has happened?" exclaimed the latter.
"What I feared; only, thank heaven, not to Miss Dalrymple!" was Astro's solemn response. "Come this way and you'll see."
He led the way past an apple tree at the side of the house. A few paces beyond this a great hole was torn in the earth, and, by its jagged appearance and slanting sides, it was evident that it had been made by some explosive. Behind a rose bush lay a woman's body.
"Fanny," said Astro.
Miss Dalrymple sank beside her maid and began to weep silently.
"Do you understand now?" said Astro to his assistant.
"What a fiend!" she cried. "Her stepmother meant this trap for Miss Dalrymple! She buried an infernal machine here! But how was it exploded?"
Astro pointed to the motionless body. "The reason why I did not caution Miss Dalrymple not to show her maid the translation of the cipher was because I wanted the second Mrs. Dalrymple to believe that her hellish trick was going to be successful. I was afraid Miss Dalrymple's curiosity would induce her to dig under the rose bush before I came. To-night I wrung a confession from her stepmother revealing this whole frightful business. That's why I hurried. But I had no idea of Fanny's duplicity. Evidently, though she was a spy for the Brooklyn woman, she did not have her complete confidence. Fanny thought she would get the letter before Miss Dalrymple dug it up, and use it to extort money. You see how well she has succeeded."
"Oh! is she dead?" whispered Valeska.
"Luckily, no; only stunned. Mrs. Myra Dalrymple probably won't have to go to the electric chair for it, though she deserves it richly. But, at least, there will be no more contest over the will. In the first place, I got the letter from her to-night; in the second, if I hadn't, we could prevent her opposition by our knowledge of this crime. She'll leave the country to-morrow."
The cab was now heard. It stopped, and the driver, with a physician, came running up the walk.
"There has been a little accident here," said Astro suavely. "A buried gasoline tank exploded, and this woman was injured, doctor. Carry her into the house and do what you can for her."
Miss Dalrymple, who had been listening wide-eyed to the conversation, a ravishing figure in the moonlight in her charmingly disheveled state, now put her hand on Astro's arm.
"But I don't understand at all," she said, "except that Fanny has been deceiving me for a year. Do you mean to say that Mrs. Dalrymple put that cipher in the locket herself and sent it to me?"
"Certainly," said Astro, "and a very clever trick it was."
"But why did she do it that way?" the young girl inquired, still baffled. "Why was she so elaborate about it?"
"Because," replied the Master of Mysteries, with a lurking smile, "she knew a great deal more about human nature than you do, and a good deal less than I, that's all!"