Rex Stout - Her Forbidden Knight

“When did you tell her?” he demanded finally.

Dumain was silent, while his face reddened in confusion, and Sherman raised his hand to his mouth to conceal a smile.

“When did you tell her?” repeated the ex-prizefighter, more sternly than before.

“Tonight,” Dumain stammered. “You see, Knowlton had left so sudden, and I thought she ought to know. You see—”

“Yes, I see!” Dougherty roared. “You’re a darn Frenchman. That’s what you are; you’re a darn’ Frenchman! You can’t keep your mouth shut. You ought to be muzzled. If you wasn’t such a human shrimp I’d — Bartender, for the love of Mike, give us a drink.”

He drained a highball with two prodigious gulps.

Dumain took courage.

“But eet was best. She had to know sometime. So tell her at once, zat is what I theenk. Zen I tell her.”

“What did she say?” Dougherty demanded.

“Nozzing.” The little Frenchman shrugged his shoulders expressively. “I tell you she care leetle for heem. She lifted her eyes upward in surprise” — he rolled his own toward heaven — “and say, ‘Has he gone?’ like zat. Zen she say good night like any other time and went home.”

Dougherty grunted in disbelief.

Sherman had for some minutes been meditating on the question whether he should tell his companions what he knew — or, rather, what he had done. It would be in the nature of a triumph over them, but would it not be dangerous? He reflected, and could not resist the temptation.

He took up Dumain’s last words:

“And what makes you think she went home?”

The others stared at him — a stare that plainly meant:

“Where else should she go?”

“You evidently don’t know the lady very well,” Sherman continued. “You think she’s as innocent as she looks. She went straight from here to Knowlton’s rooms, and she seemed to know pretty well how to get there. You can guess as well as I can what she went after. And how many times—”

He stopped suddenly, though not of his own volition. The compelling cause was Dougherty’s fingers about his throat, in a grip of steel.

Dumain had hurriedly stepped aside, and the bartender was loudly expostulating in a tone of alarm, while three or four men who were standing at the bar a few feet away looked on with pleasurable expectations. They knew Dougherty.

The ex-prizefighter spoke no word — he never talked and acted at the same time. He pressed his fingers tighter and tighter, till the face of the man who had insulted Lila began to assume a hue of purple as he pawed helplessly at the wrists that seemed to be made of iron.

“You keel heem,” said Dumain quietly. “Let heem go, Tom.”

Dougherty did so, and Sherman stood erect. Then, with a single glance charged with malevolence and hatred, he turned to go.

“No, you don’t,” said the ex-prizefighter grimly, stepping in front of him. “You’ve said too much. Tell us what you meant.”

Sherman opened his lips to speak, but the words would not pass his throat. He gulped spasmodically.

“Here,” said the bartender, handing him a drink of brandy. “This’ll fix you.”

Sherman drained the glass at one swallow, with a grimace of pain.

“Now,” said Dougherty, “speak up.”

Sherman wanted to defy him, but dared not. He, too, knew Dougherty.

He began:

“I’ll even up for this, Dougherty. What I said was the truth.”

“Go on. I’ll take care of myself.”

Sherman spoke with difficulty, but in a tone of sneering satisfaction:

“Immediately after Dumain spoke to her tonight she went to Knowlton’s rooms. She was there when the cops came for Knowlton, and she crawled out somehow with a bundle of the queer and threw it in the middle of the Hudson. Knowlton’s in the Tombs, where he ought to be.”

The others were gazing at him speechless with surprise.

“That’s what your innocent Miss Williams has come to.” Sherman continued with a sneer. “And it’s your own fault. You wouldn’t listen to me. And now—”

The look in Dougherty’s eyes stopped him.

The ex-prizefighter’s tone was threatening:

“Who put them onto Knowlton?”

“How do I know?” Sherman retorted with an assumption of bravado.

“Maybe you don’t,” said Dougherty grimly, “but I do. Sherman, you’re a skunk. I don’t want to touch you. You’re too rotten. But I want to ask you some questions — and look here! No — look in my eyes. Now talk straight. Who peached on Knowlton?”

The answer was low but distinct:

“I did.”

“You say he’s in the Tombs?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the charge against him?”

“Passing counterfeit money.”

“Where is Miss Williams?”

“How do I know?”

“Answer!” Dougherty advanced a step. “You know, all right, you sneak. Where is she?”

“At home.”

“Who arrested Knowlton?”

“Detective Barrett, of the Secret Service.”

“Does he know anything about Miss Williams?”

Sherman opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again and was silent.

“Answer!” Dougherty’s voice trembled with his effort to control it. “And look at me! Don’t try to lie!”

There was no escape.

“He — he knows all about her,” Sherman stammered.

Then, at the look of uncontrollable fury that appeared on his questioner’s face, he sprang to one side, bounded to the door, and fled through the lobby and madly down the street.

Dougherty had started to pursue him, but thought better of it and halted.

He turned to Dumain and said shortly:

“Come on; get home and go to bed. We have work to do in the morning.”

Mrs. Amanda Berry paused at the head of the stairs and looked curiously at a closed door to the right.

“Now, I call that funny,” she remarked to herself. “I ain’t seen her go out, and it’s past nine o’clock. Surely she ain’t sick.”

She hesitated, glanced again at the door, and started to descend the stairs, then turned suddenly and reascended them, and knocked sharply on the door at which she had aimed her remark.

Mrs. Berry was a curious phenomenon — a rara avis. She owned and operated a rooming house on One Hundred and Fourth Street, New York, and she took a personal interest in her roomers. Not that she was inquisitive or — to put it vulgarly — nosy; she merely had a heart. This was so far from being resented by the roomers that they were all a little jealous of one of their number for whom Mrs. Berry had more than once betrayed a decided preference — Lila Williams.

Receiving no response to her knock, Mrs. Berry knocked again. After a long pause there was a faint “Come in.”

She entered.

Lila was sitting in a chair by the window. Her hat and coat lay on another chair near the door. The bed had not been slept in.

“Now what’s the matter?” Mrs. Berry sang out cheerily, crossing the room. “Another headache, I’ll bet a dollar. If you don’t — why, what’s the matter? Goodness sakes alive, just look at the girl’s face! No wonder you didn’t go to work! You just wait—”

“Now, please, Mrs. Berry,” Lila interrupted, rising to her feet and trying to smile, “don’t bother about me. I... I want to be alone. Really.”

Her face was deadly white, giving her eyes and cheeks a sunken appearance, and as she stood with one hand resting heavily on the back of the chair she was quivering from head to foot. Mrs. Berry stared at her in wrathful amazement.

“You want to be alone! Look at you! You get right in that bed — and look at it! You ain’t been in bed at all — and I know you come in early, because I heard you. So you ain’t sick. Then you’re in trouble.”

She looked at Lila keenly to confirm her diagnosis, and nodded her head. She knew the signs, and she knew the one thing that would help.

Mrs. Berry was a good-sized woman. She walked over to Lila, picked her up in her arms as though she were a baby, and seated herself in a chair.

Then she spoke grimly:

“You’re a little fool. If you keep on like this you’ll die. Don’t you know what tears is good for? Now go on and cry as hard as you can, and hurry up about it.”

Lila was motionless and silent. Mrs. Berry folded her arms tighter around her and continued:

“You know, if it’s any real trouble I’ll help you. Of course I ain’t like a mother, but I’ll do all I can. Look, dearie, look at me! What is it? Tell me. Tell me all about it. I’m your mother now, you know. Here, put your arm round my neck — that’s right. Now what is it, dearie; won’t you tell me?”

She felt the slender body tremble in her arms and something hot and wet on her hand that touched Lila’s cheek, but she pretended not to notice, and went on:

“You don’t need to be afraid to tell me, no matter what it is, because I can stand anything. Lord! I’ve been through it all. Of course it’s a man — it always is. There! That’s right. Now! There, dearie — never you mind me—”

Lila was sobbing, with great sighs and shakings of her frame, the sobs that come from the heart. Mrs. Berry held her in her arms, patting and soothing her, while the storm raged. Presently she rose and laid her, all bathed in tears, on the bed.

“There! That’ll do you good. You just keep it up as long as you can. Lord! To think you’ve had that in you all night!”

She moved busily about the room, hanging Lila’s hat and coat in the wardrobe, adjusting the window-shades, and moving chairs that were better off where they were. Finally she moved to the door. She started to speak, but thought better of it, and went out softly, closing the door behind her.