The Mystery of Mary by Grace Livingston Hill
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Grace Livingston Hill >> The Mystery of Mary
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"She's all right, Mother--good family and all. I really must hurry----"
"But what is her name, Tryon?"
"Say, Mother, I really must go. Ask Mrs. Parker Bowman what she thinks of
her. Good-by! Cheer up, it'll be all right."
"But, Tryon, her name----"
The receiver was hung up with a click, and Dunham looked at his watch
nervously. In two minutes his half-hour would be up, yet he must let Judge
Blackwell know. Perhaps he could still catch him at the office. He
sometimes stayed down-town late. Dunham rang up the office. The Judge was
still there, and in a moment his cheery voice was heard ringing out,
"Hello!"
"Hello, Judge! Is that you?... This is Dunham.... Chicago. Yes, the
business is all done, and I'm ready to come home, but I want to give you a
bit of news. Do you remember the young woman who dined with us at Mrs.
Bowman's and played the piano so well?... Yes, the night I met you....
Well, you half guessed that night how it was with us, I think. And now she
is here, and we are to be married at once, before I return. I am just
about to go to the church, but I wanted your blessing first."
"Blessings and congratulations on you both!" came in a hearty voice over
the phone. "Tell her she shall be at once taken into the firm as chief
consultant on condition that she plays for me whenever I ask her."
A great gladness entered the young man's heart as he again hung up the
receiver, at this glimpse into the bright vista of future possibilities.
He hurried into the street, forgetful of engravers. The half-hour was up
and one minute over.
In the meantime, the girl had slipped into her own garments once more with
a relief and joy she could scarcely believe were her own. Had it all been
an ugly dream, this life she had been living for the past few months, and
was she going back now to rest and peace and real life? Nay, not going
back, but going forward. The sweet color came into her beautiful face at
thought of the one who, though not knowing her, yet had loved her enough
to take her as she was, and lift her out of her trouble. It was like the
most romantic of fairy tales, this unexpected lover and the joy that had
come to her. How had it happened to her quiet, conventional life? Ah, it
was good and dear, whatever it was! She pressed her happy eyes with her
fluttering, nervous fingers, to keep the glad tears back, and laughed out
to herself a joyful ripple such as she had not uttered since her uncle's
death.
A knock at the door brought her back to realities again. Her heart
throbbed wildly. Had he come back to her already? Or had her enemy found
her out at last?
Tryon Dunham hurried up the steps of the Y.W.C.A. Building, nearly
knocking over a baggy individual in rubbers, who was lurking in the
entrance. The young man had seen a boy in uniform, laden with two enormous
boxes, run up the steps as he turned the last corner. Hastily writing a
few lines on one of his cards and slipping it into the largest box, he
sent them both up to the girl's room. Then he sauntered to the door to see
if the carriage had come. It was there. He glanced inside to see if his
orders about flowers had been fulfilled, and spoke a few words of
direction to the driver. Turning back to the door, he found the small, red
eyes of the baggy Irishman fixed upon him. Something in the slouch of the
figure reminded Dunham strongly now of the man he had noticed the night
before, and as he went back into the building he looked the man over well
and determined to watch him. As he sat in the office waiting, twice he saw
the bleary eyes of the baggy man applied to the glass panes in the front
door and as suddenly withdrawn. It irritated him, and finally he strode to
the door and asked the man if he were looking for some one.
"Just waitin' fer me sweetheart," whined the man, with a cringing
attitude. "She has a room in here, an' I saw her go in a while back."
"Well, you'd better move on. They don't care to have people hanging around
here."
The man slunk away with a vindictive glance, and Tryon Dunham went back to
the office, more perturbed at the little incident than he could
understand.
Upstairs the girl had dared to open her door and had been relieved to find
the elevator boy there with the two boxes.
"The gentleman's below, an' he says he'll wait, an' he sent these up,"
said the boy, depositing his burden and hurrying away.
She locked her door once more, for somehow a great fear had stolen over
her now that she was again dressed in her own garments and could easily be
recognized.
She opened the large box and read the card lying on the top:
These are my wedding gifts to you, dear. Put them on and come as
soon as possible to the one who loves you better than anything
else in life.
TRYON
Her eyes shone brightly and her cheeks grew rosy red as she lifted out
from its tissue-paper wrappings a long, rich coat of Alaska seal, with
exquisite brocade lining. She put it on and stood a moment looking at
herself in the glass. She felt like one who had for a long time lost her
identity, and has suddenly had it restored. Such garments had been
ordinary comforts of her former life. She had not been warm enough in the
coarse black coat.
The other box contained a beautiful hat of fur to match the coat. It was
simply trimmed with one long, beautiful black plume, and in shape and
general appearance was like the hat he had borrowed for her use in the
fall. She smiled happily as she set it upon her head, and then laughed
outright as she remembered her shabby silk gloves. Never mind. She could
take them off when she reached the church.
She packed the little black dress into the suit-case, folded the felt hat
on the top with a tender pat, and, putting on her gloves, hurried down to
the one who waited for her.
The matron had gone upstairs to the linen closet and left the girl with
the discontented upper lip in charge in the office. The latter watched the
elegant lady in the rich furs come down the hall from the elevator, and
wondered who she was and why she had been upstairs. Probably to visit
some poor protegee, she thought. The girl caught the love-light in the
eyes of Tryon Dunham as he rose to meet his bride, and she recognized him
as the same man who had been in close converse with the cheaply dressed
girl in the parlor an hour before, and sneered as she wondered what the
fine lady in furs would think if she knew about the other girl. Then they
went out to the carriage, past the baggy, rubbered man, who shrank back
suddenly behind a stone column and watched them.
As Dunham shut the door, he looked back just in time to see a slight man,
with dark eyes and hair, hurry up and touch the baggy man on the shoulder.
The latter pointed toward their carriage.
"See!" said Dunham. "I believe those are the men who were hovering around
the house last night."
The girl leaned forward to look, and then drew back with an exclamation of
horror as the carriage started.
"Oh, that man is my cousin Richard," she cried.
"Are you sure?" he asked, and a look of determination settled into his
face.
"Perfectly," she answered, looking out again. "Do you suppose he has seen
me?"
"I suppose he has, but we'll soon turn the tables." He leaned out and
spoke a word to the driver, who drew up around the next corner in front of
a telephone pay-station.
"Come with me for just a minute, dear. I'll telephone to a detective
bureau where they know me and have that man watched. He is unsafe to have
at large." He helped her out and drew her arm firmly within his own.
"Don't be afraid any more. I will take care of you."
He telephoned a careful description of the two men and their whereabouts,
and before he had hung up the receiver a man had started post-haste for
the Y.W.C.A. Building.
Then Tryon Dunham put the girl tenderly into the carriage, and to divert
her attention he opened the box of flowers and put a great sheaf of white
roses and lilies-of-the-valley into the little gloved hands. Then, taking
her in his arms for the first time, he kissed her. He noticed the shabby
gloves, and, putting his hand in his breast pocket, drew out the white
gloves she had worn before, saying, "See! I have carried them there ever
since you sent them back! My sister never asked for them. I kept them for
your sake."
The color had come back into her cheeks when they reached the church, and
he thought her a beautiful bride as he led her into the dim aisle. Some
one up in the choir loft was playing the wedding march, and the minister's
wife and young daughter sat waiting to witness the ceremony.
The minister met them at the door with a welcoming smile and hand-shake,
and led them forward. As the music hushed for the words of the ceremony,
he leaned forward to the young man and whispered:
"I neglected to ask you her name, Tryon."
"Oh, yes." The young man paused in his dilemma and looked for an instant
at the sweet face of the girl beside him. But he could not let his friend
see that he did not know the name of his wife-to-be, and with quick
thought he answered, "Mary!"
The ceremony proceeded, and the minister's voice sounded out solemnly in
the empty church: "Do you, Tryon, take this woman whom you hold by the
hand to be your lawful wedded wife?"
The young man's fingers held the timid hand of the woman firmly as he
answered, "I do."
"Do you, Mary, take this man?" came the next question, and the girl looked
up with clear eyes and said, "I do."
Then the minister's wife, who knew and prized Tryon Dunham's friendship,
said to herself: "It's all right. She loves him."
When the solemn words were spoken that bound them together through life,
and they had thanked their kind friends and were once more out in the
carriage, Tryon said:
"Do you know you haven't told me your real name yet?"
She laughed happily as the carriage started on its way, and answered,
"Why, it is Mary!"
As the carriage rounded the first corner beyond the church, two breathless
individuals hurried up from the other direction. One was short and baggy,
and the sole of one rubber flopped dismally as he struggled to keep up
with the alert strides of the other man, who was slim and angry. They had
been detained by an altercation with the matron of the Y.W.C.A. Building,
and puzzled by the story of the plainly dressed girl who had taken the
room, and the fine lady who had left the building in company with a
gentleman, until it was settled by the elevator boy, who declared the two
women to be one and the same.
A moment later a man in citizen's clothing, who had keen eyes, and who was
riding a motor-cycle, rounded the corner and puffed placidly along near
the two. He appeared to be looking at the numbers on the other side of the
street, but he heard every word that they said as they caught sight of the
disappearing carriage and hurried after it. He had been standing in the
entrance of the Y.W.C.A. Building, an apparently careless observer, while
the elevator boy gave his evidence.
The motor-cycle shot ahead a few rods, passed the carriage, and discovered
by a keen glance who were the occupants. Then it rounded the block and
came almost up to the two pursuers again.
When the carriage stopped at the side entrance of a hotel the man on the
motor-cycle was ahead of the pursuers and discovered it first, long enough
to see the two get out and go up the marble steps. The carriage was
driving away when the thin man came in sight, with the baggy man
struggling along half a block behind, his padded feet coming down in
heavy, dragging thuds, like a St. Bernard dog in bedroom slippers.
One glimpse the pursuers had of their prey as the elevator shot upward.
They managed to evade the hotel authorities and get up the wide staircase
without observation. By keeping on the alert, they discovered that the
elevator had stopped at the second floor, so the people they were tracking
must have apartments there. Lurking in the shadowy parts of the hall, they
watched, and soon were rewarded by seeing Dunham come out of a room and
hurry to the elevator. He had remembered his promise to his mother about
the engravers. As soon as he was gone, they presented themselves boldly at
the door.
Filled with the joy that had come to her and feeling entirely safe now in
the protection of her husband, Mary Dunham opened the door. She supposed,
of course, it was the bell-boy with a pitcher of ice-water, for which she
had just rung.
"Ah, here you are at last, my pretty cousin!" It was the voice of Richard
that menaced her, with all the stored-up wrath of his long-baffled search.
At that moment the man from the motor-cycle stepped softly up the top
stair and slid unseen into the shadows of the hall.
For an instant it seemed to Mary Dunham that she was going to faint, and
in one swift flash of thought she saw herself overpowered and carried into
hiding before her husband should return. But with a supreme effort she
controlled herself, and faced her tormentor with unflinching gaze. Though
her strength had deserted her at first, every faculty was now keen and
collected. As if nothing unusual were happening, she put out her cold,
trembling fingers, and laid them firmly over the electric button on the
wall. Then with new strength coming from the certainty that some one would
soon come to her aid, she opened her lips to speak.
"What are you doing here, Richard?"
"I've come after you, my lady. A nice chase you've led me, but you shall
pay for it now."
The cruelty in his face eclipsed any lines of beauty which might have been
there. The girl's heart froze within her as she looked once more into
those eyes, which had always seemed to her like sword-points.
"I shall never go anywhere with you," she answered steadily.
He seized her delicate wrist roughly, twisting it with the old wrench with
which he had tormented her in their childhood days. None of them saw the
stranger who was quietly walking down the hall toward them.
"Will you go peaceably, or shall I have to gag and bind you?" said
Richard. "Choose quickly. I'm in no mood to trifle with you any longer."
Although he hurt her wrist cruelly, she threw herself back from him and
with her other hand pressed still harder against the electric button. The
bell was ringing furiously down in the office, but the walls were thick
and the halls lofty. It could not be heard above.
"Catch that other hand, Mike," commanded Richard, "and stuff this in her
mouth, while I tie her hands behind her back."
It was then that Mary screamed. The man in the shadow stepped up behind
and said in a low voice:
"What does all this mean?"
The two men, startled, dropped the girl's hands for the instant. Then
Richard, white with anger at this interference, answered insolently: "It
means that this girl's an escaped lunatic, and we're sent to take her
back. She's dangerous, so you'd better keep out of the way."
Then Mary Dunham's voice, clear and penetrating, rang through the halls:
"Tryon, Tryon! Come quick! Help! Help!"
As if in answer to her call, the elevator shot up to the second floor, and
Tryon Dunham stepped out in time to see the two men snatch Mary's hands
again and attempt to bind them behind her back.
In an instant he had seized Richard by the collar and landed him on the
hall carpet, while a well directed blow sent the flabby Irishman sprawling
at the feet of the detective, who promptly sat on him and pinioned his
arms behind him.
"How dare you lay a finger upon this lady?" said Tryon Dunham, as he
stepped to the side of his wife and put a strong arm about her, where she
stood white and frightened in the doorway.
No one had noticed that the bell-boy had come to the head of the stairs
and received a quiet order from the detective.
In sudden fear, the discomfited Richard arose and attempted to bluff the
stranger who had so unwarrantly interfered just as his fingers were about
to close over the golden treasure of his cousin's fortune.
"Indeed, sir, you wholly misunderstand the situation," he said to Dunham,
with an air of injured innocence, "though perhaps you can scarcely be
blamed. This girl is an escaped lunatic. We have been searching for her
for days, and have just traced her. It is our business to take her back at
once. Her friends are in great distress about her. Moreover, she is
dangerous and a menace to every guest in this house. She has several times
attempted murder----"
"Stop!" roared Dunham, in a thunderous voice of righteous anger. "She is
my wife. And you are her cousin. I know all about your plot to shut her up
in an insane asylum and steal her fortune. I have found you sooner than I
expected, and I intend to see that the law takes its full course with
you."
Two policemen now arrived on the scene, with a number of eager bell-boys
and porters in their wake, ready to take part in the excitement.
Richard had turned deadly white at the words, "She is my wife!" It was the
death-knell of his hopes of securing the fortune for which he had not
hesitated to sacrifice every particle of moral principle. When he turned
and saw impending retribution in the shape of the two stalwart
representatives of the law, a look of cunning came into his face, and with
one swift motion he turned to flee up the staircase close at hand.
"Not much you don't," said an enterprising bell-boy, flinging himself in
the way and tripping up the scoundrel in his flight.
The policemen were upon him and had him handcuffed in an instant. The
Irishman now began to protest that he was but an innocent tool, hired to
help discover the whereabouts of an escaped lunatic, as he supposed. He
was walked off to the patrol wagon without further ceremony.
It was all over in a few minutes. The elevator carried off the detective,
the policemen, and their two prisoners. The door closed behind Dunham and
his bride, and the curious guests who had peered out, alarmed by the
uproar, saw nothing but a few bell-boys standing in the hall, describing
to one another the scene as they had witnessed it.
"He stood here and I stood right there," said one, "and the policeman, he
come----"
The guests could not find out just what had happened, but supposed there
had been an attempted robbery, and retired behind locked doors to see that
their jewels were safely hidden.
Dunham drew the trembling girl into his arms and tried to soothe her. The
tears rained down the white cheeks as her head lay upon his breast, and he
kissed them away.
"Oh!" she sobbed, shuddering. "If you had not come! It was terrible,
_terrible_! I believe he would have killed me rather than have let me go
again."
Gradually his tender ministrations calmed her, but she turned troubled
eyes to his face.
"You do not know yet that I am all I say. You have nothing to prove it. Of
course, by and by, when I can get to my guardians, and with your help
perhaps make them understand, you will know, but I don't see how you can
trust me till then."
For answer he brought his hand up in front of her face and turned the
flashing diamond--her diamond--so that its glory caught the single ray of
setting sun that filtered into the hotel window.
"See, darling," he said. "It is your ring. I have worn it ever since as an
outward sign that I trusted you."
"You are taking me on trust, though, in spite of all you say, and it is
beautiful."
He laid his lips against hers. "Yes," he said; "it is beautiful, and it is
best."
It was very still in the room for a moment while she nestled close to him
and his eyes drank in the sweetness of her face.
"See," said he, taking a tiny velvet case from his pocket and touching the
spring that opened it. "I have amused myself finding a mate to your stone.
I thought perhaps you would let me wear your ring always, while you wear
mine."
He lifted the jewel from its white velvet bed and showed her the
inscription inside: "Mary, from Tryon." Then he slipped it on her finger
to guard the wedding ring he had given her at the church. His arm that
encircled her clasped her left wrist, and the two diamonds flashed side by
side. The last gleam of the setting sun, ere it vanished behind the tall
buildings on the west, glanced in and blazed the gems into tangled beams
of glory, darting out in many colored prisms to light the vision of the
future of the man and the woman. He bent and kissed her again, and their
eyes met like other jewels, in which gleamed the glory of their love and
trust.
THE END.
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