respectful crooks sometimes! But never mind; go on.”
“But really, Aunt Pat, I don’t know what you’ll think of me! I haven’t had time before this to think what a dreadful thing it was I did, a total stranger, but it didn’t seem so then. It seemed just a desperate spot in life. You’d let a stranger pull you out of the street when a mad dog was coming or something like that. I’m afraid you’ll be horrified at me. But he was really very kind. He offered to do anything in the world, said he was a stranger in town with the evening to pass, before he met a business appointment in the morning, and if there was any way at all he could help—”
“For mercy’s sake, child, stop apologizing and tell things as they happened. I’m not arraigning you.”
“Well, I let him come home with me. I knew it would be easier if there was someone that everybody didn’t know, and I let him come.”
“Hmm!” said the old lady with a thoughtful smile that the firelight showed off to perfection. “Well, he certainly was clever enough. But how did he get a dress coat?”
“Oh, we stopped at the hotel and got his suitcase. He’d been to a dinner the night before in Cleveland. I let him dress in the little room at the end of the back hall.
We came in up the fire escape just before the first car arrived.”
“Hmm! Clever pair!” commented the old lady as she took delicate bites of her creamed mushrooms. “Well, now, get back to your story. How long have you known about this other girl, Artie—was that her name?”
“Arla.”
“Silly name! But go on. How long has this double business been going on?”
“I don’t know,” said Sherrill wearily. “Always, I guess.”
“I mean, when did you find it out?”
“Just after you left the house for the church,” answered the girl with downcast eyes. Now she was at the beginning of the real story, and it suddenly seemed to her as if she could not possibly tell that part.
The old lady gave her a startled look. She knew that they were now come to the crux of the matter. Sherrill had been so brave up to this point and had carried matters off with such a spirit that she had somehow hoped that Sherrill was not so hard hit. Hoped against hope, perhaps, that the final discovery was but the culmination of long suspicions.
“You don’t say!” said the old lady, her usual seriocomic manner quite shaken. “But how? I don’t see what—How—!”
Sherrill shut her eyes and drew a quick deep breath, then began.
“I was all ready. So I made Gemmie hurry on to the church. I wanted her to be there to see it all, and I wanted to go and see Mary the cook. I’d promised her to come after I got dressed. I knew Gemmie would try to stop me, so I wouldn’t let her wait as she wanted to. As soon as she was gone, I unlocked my door into the next room and went softly through toward the back hall.” Sherrill had to stop for another deep breath. It seemed as though she was about to go through the whole terrible experience again.
“Well?” said the old lady sharply, laying down her fork with a click on the china plate.
“As I stepped into the end room, which was dark,” she began again, trying to steady her voice, “I saw that the door into the middle room was open and the light streaming across the floor. I listened for an instant but heard nothing. I was afraid some of those strange servants would be snooping about. Then I stepped softly forward and saw Carter standing before the long mirror arranging his tie.”
“Yes?” said the old lady breathlessly.
“I watched him just a second. I didn’t want to stir lest he would hear me, and I wanted him to see me first as I came up the aisle—”
Sherrill’s voice trailed away sorrowfully. Then she gathered strength again.
“But while I watched him, I saw the door beside the mirror open noiselessly, and that girl came in!”
“Hmm!” said Aunt Pat, allowing herself another bite of oyster patty but keeping her eyes speculatively on her niece. “She must have come up the fire escape or somebody would have seen her.”
“She did,” said Sherrill wearily, putting her head back and closing her eyes for an instant. Somehow the whole thing suddenly overwhelmed and sickened her again. It seemed she could