It was not such a very large party as parties go, for Mrs. Hadley-Smith had a reputation for doing her entertaining on a small but an exceedingly smart scale. All told, there were not more than fifty on hand—and accounted for—by ten o'clock. A good many had come in costume—as zanies, Pantaloons, witches, Pierrots, Columbines, clowns and simples. For those who wore evening dress the hostess had provided a store of dunce caps and dominos of gay colours. Nearly everybody present already knew nearly everybody else. There were only five or six guests from out of town, and of these Mme. Josephine Ybanca, wife of the great South American diplomat, and Miss Evelyn Ballister, sister of the distinguished Western statesman, were by odds the handsomest. Of women there were more than men; there usually are more women than men in evidence at such affairs.
At about ten o'clock, Mrs. Hadley-Smith stood out on the floor under the arch connecting but not exactly separating the joined rooms.
"Listen, please, everybody!" she called, and the motley company, obeying the summons, clustered about her. "The musicians won't be here until midnight. After they have come and after we've had supper there will be dancing. But until midnight we are going to play games—old games, such as I'm told they played in England two hundred years ago on May Day and on All Fools' Day and on Halloween. There'll be no servants about and no one to bother us and we'll have these rooms to ourselves to do just as we please in."
A babble of politely enthusiastic exclamations rose. The good-looking widow could always be depended upon to provide something unusual when she entertained.
"I've asked my cousin, Mildred, to take charge of this part of our party," went on the hostess. "She has been studying up on the subject, I believe." She looked about her. "Oh, Mildred, where are you?"
"Here," answered Miss Smith, emerging from a corner, pretty Madame Ybanca coming with her. "Madame Ybanca has on such marvellous, fascinating old jewelry to-night; I was just admiring it. Are you ready to start?"
"Quite ready, if you are."
Crossing to the one table in sight Miss Smith took the party-coloured cover from a big square cardboard box. Seemingly the box was filled to the top with black silk handkerchiefs; thick, heavy black handkerchiefs they were.
"As a beginning," she announced, "we are going to play a new kind of Blind Man's Buff. That is to say, it may be new to us, though some of our remote ancestors no doubt played it a century or so back. In the game we played as children one person was blindfolded and was spun about three times and then had to lay hands upon one of the others, all of whom were duty bound to stand where they were, without moving or speaking—but you remember, I'm sure, all of you? In this version the rules are different, as you'll see.
"First we'll draw lots to see who's going to be It, as we used to say when we were kiddies. Wait a minute though—it will take too long to choose from among so many. I think I'll save time by finding a victim in this little crowd here." And she indicated ten or twelve who chanced to be clustered at her right.
"You, Mr. Polk, and you, Miss Vane, and you and you and you—and, oh yes, I'll take in Madame Ybanca too; she makes an even dozen. I shan't include myself, because I rather think I had better act as referee and general factotum until you learn the game."
The chosen group faced her while the others pressed up in anticipation. From a pocket in her red-and-white clown's blouse Miss Smith produced a sheaf of folded bits of tissue paper.
"One of these papers bears a number," she went on, as she made a selection of twelve slips from the handful. "All the others are blank. I know which one is marked, but no one else does. Now then, take a slip, each of you. The person who draws the numbered slip is It."
In mock solemnity each of the selected twelve in turn drew from between Miss Smith's fingers a colored scrap.
"Mine's a blank," called out Miss Vane, opening her bit of paper.
"Mine too."
"And mine."
"And mine is."
"Who has it, then?"
"I seem to have drawn the fatal number," said Madame Ybanca, holding up her slip for all to see the markings on it.
"So you have," agreed Miss Smith. "Now then, everybody pick out a black handkerchief from this box—they're all exactly alike. Not you, though, madame. I'll have to prepare you for your rôle myself." So saying, she took one of the handkerchiefs and folded it into a long flat strip.
"Now, madame, please put your arms back of you—so! You see, I'm going to tie your hands behind your back."
"Oh, does everybody have to be tied?" demanded Miss Vane.
"No, but everybody excepting the madame must be blindfolded," stated Miss Smith. "I'll explain in just one minute when I'm done with the madame here." With fast-moving fingers she firmly drew the handkerchief about the young matron's crossed wrists. Madame Ybanca uttered a sharp little "Ouch!"
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Miss Smith. "Am I binding you too tightly?"
"No, not that; but I think you are making one of my bracelets press into my flesh. It's such a thick cumbersome thing anyway."
"Shall I slip it farther up your arm?" asked Miss Smith.
"No, take it off entirely, won't you, and keep it for me? It fastens with a little clasp."
So Miss Smith undid the bracelet, which was a band of curiously chased heavy gold, studded with big bosses containing blue stones, and dropped it into her handy blouse pocket.
Then swiftly she finished her task of knotting the handkerchief ends and Madame Ybanca, very securely bound, stood forth in the midst of a laughing ring, making a pretty and appealing picture, her face slightly flushed by embarrassment.
"One thing more for your adornment and you'll be ready," promised Miss Smith.
Burrowing beneath the remaining handkerchiefs in the box she produced a collarlike device of soft russet leather, all hung with fat silver sleigh bells which, being loosely sewed to the fabric by means of twisted wire threads, jingled constantly and busily. The slightest movement set the wires to quivering like antennae and the bells to making music. Miss Smith lifted the leather circlet down over Madame Ybanca's head so that it rested upon her shoulders, looping across just below the base of the throat.
"Take a step forward," she bade the madame, and as the latter obeyed, all the bells tinkled together with a constant merry clamour.
"Behold!" said Miss Smith. "The lady of the bells is caparisoned for her part. Now then, let each person blindfold his or her eyes with the handkerchief you have; but take care that you are well blinded.
"Oh, Miss Ballister, let me adjust your handkerchief, won't you? I'm afraid you might disarrange that lovely hair ornament of yours unless you have help. There! How's that! Can you see anything at all? How many fingers do I hold up?"
"Oh, I'm utterly in the dark," said Miss Ballister. "I can't see a thing."
"Are you all hooded?" called Miss Smith.
A chorus of assents went up.
"Good! Then listen a moment: It will be Madame Ybanca's task to catch hold of some one of you with her hands fastened as they are behind her. It is your task to keep out of her way; the bells are to warn you of her approach. Whoever is caught takes her place and becomes It.
"Ready—go!"
Standing a moment as though planning a campaign Madame Ybanca made a quick dash toward where the others were grouped the thickest. But her bells betrayed her. From before her they scattered and broke apart, stumbling, groping with outstretched hands to find the wall, jostling into one another, caroming off again, whooping with laughter. Fast as Madame Ybanca advanced, the rest all managed to evade her. She halted, laughing in admission of the handicap upon her, when before she had been so confident of a capture; then, changing her tactics, she undertook to stalk down some member of the blindfolded flock by stealthy, gentle forward steps. But softly though she might advance, the telltale bells gave ample notice of her whereabouts, and the troop fled. Moreover, even when she succeeded—as she soon did—in herding someone into a corner, the prospective victim, a man, managed to slip past her out of danger, being favoured by the fact that to grasp him with one of her fettered hands she must turn entirely about. So he was able to wriggle out of peril and her clutching fingers closed only on empty air.
"It's not so easy as it seemed," she confessed.
"Keep trying," counselled the referee, keeping pace with her. Miss Smith's eyes were darting everywhere at once, watching the hooded figures keenly, as though to detect any who might seek to cheat by lifting his or her mufflings. "You're sure to catch somebody presently. They can't dodge you every time, you know."
So Madame Ybanca tried again. Ahead of her the fugitives stampeded, milling about in uncertain circles, gliding past her along the walls, fleeing from one room to the other and back again—singly, by pairs and threes. They touched her often, but by reason of her hampered state she never could touch, with her hands, any of them in their flight.
As Mrs. Hadley-Smith, fleeing alone, came through the doorway with both her arms outstretched to fend off possible collisions, a sharp low whisper spoken right alongside of her made her halt. The whisperer was her cousin. Unobserved by the madame and unheard by any one else, Miss Smith spoke a word or two in her cousin's ear. The next instant almost Mrs. Hadley-Smith, apparently becoming confused as to the direction from which the sounds of bells approached, hesitated in indecision and was fairly trapped by the pursuer.
"Who's caught? Who's caught?" cried several together.
"You're not supposed to know—that makes the fun all the better," cried Miss Smith. "You may halt a bit to get your breath, but nobody is to touch his or her blindfold."
"I'm sure you took pity on me and let me tag you," said Madame Ybanca in an undertone to her victim as Miss Smith, deftly freeing the younger woman's hands, proceeded to bind the hostess' wrists at her back.
"Not at all," replied Mrs. Hadley-Smith, also under her breath. "I was stupid or awkward or perhaps both at once—that's all."
A moment later when the collar of bells had been shifted to the new wearer's shoulders, the madame, covering up her own eyes, moved away to join the ranks of the blindfolded.
Before taking up the chase Mrs. Hadley-Smith cast a quick look toward her cousin and the cousin replied with a nod and a significant glance toward a certain quarter of the same room in which they stood. Raising her eyebrows to show she understood the widow moved toward the place that had been indicated. From her path the gaily clad figures retreated, eddying and tacking in uncertain flight away from the jingle of the bells.
Had any third person there had the use of his or her eyes that person would have witnessed now a strange bit of byplay and—given a fair share of perception—would have realised that something more important than a petty triumph in the playing of a game was afoot. Having vision this third person would have seen how Mrs. Hadley-Smith, disregarding easier chances to make a capture, strove with all her power to touch one particular chosen quarry; would have seen how twice, by a quick twist of a graceful young body, the hunted one eluded those two tied hands outthrust to seize her; how at the third time of trying the huntress scored a victory and laid detaining hold upon a fold of the fugitive's costume; and how at this Miss Smith, so eagerly watching the chase, gave a gesture of assent and satisfaction over a thing accomplished, as she hurried toward the pair of them to render her self-appointed service upon the winner and the loser.
But having for the moment no eyes with which to see, no third person there witnessed these little interludes of stratagem and design, though it was by no means hard for them to sense that again a coup had been scored. What they did not know was that the newest victim was Evelyn Ballister.
"Oh, somebody else has been nabbed! Goody! Goody! I'm glad I got away," shouted Miss Vane, who was by nature exuberant and of a high spirit. "I wonder who it is now?" She threw back her head, endeavouring to peep out along her tilted nose. "I hope it's a man this time. It's more exciting—being pursued by a man."
"Don't forget—no one is to look," warned Miss Smith as keeper of the rules. "It would spoil the sport if you knew who'll be pursuing you next."
Already she had stripped the blindfold from about Miss Ballister's head and with a quick jerk at the master knot had freed her cousin from bondage. With flirting motions she twisted the folded kerchief into a rope. Practice in the work seemed to have given to her added deftness and speed, for in no more time than it takes to tell of it she had drawn Miss Ballister's smooth arms round behind their owner's back and was busied at the next step of her offices. Almost it seemed the girl surrendered reluctantly, as though she were loath to go through with the rôle that had fallen to her by penalty of being tagged. But if Miss Smith felt unwillingness in the sudden rebellious tensing of the limbs she touched, the only response on her part was an added quickness in her fingers as she placed one veined wrist upon the other and with double wraps made them snugly fast.
"It hurts—it pinches! You've bound me too tightly," murmured the prisoner, as involuntarily she strained against the pull of the trussings.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," whispered Miss Smith. "I'll ease you in just a second." But despite her promise she made no immediate move to do so. Instead she concerned herself with lifting the collaret of bells off over Mrs. Hadley-Smith's head and bestowing it upon the rounded shoulders of the girl. As she brought the jingling harness down in its place her hands lingered for one fleeting space where a heavy, quaint, old-fashioned gold locket—an heirloom that might have come down from a grandmother's days—was dangling from a gold chain that encircled the girl's neck. Apparently she caught a finger in the chain and before she could free it she had given a sharp tug at the chain, thereby lifting the locket from where it rested against the white flesh of its wearer's throat.
"I—I'm afraid I can't play," Miss Ballister almost gasped out the words; then drawing in her breath with a sharp catch: "This room—it's so warm. I feel a bit faint, really I do. Please untie me. I shan't be able to go on." Her voice, though pitched still in a low key, was sharpened with a nervous entreaty.
"I will of course if you really do feel badly," said Miss Smith. Then an inspiration seemed to come to her. Her eyes sparkled.
"Oh," she said, "I've a beautiful idea! We'll play an April Fools' joke on them. We'll make them all think you still are here and while they're dodging about trying to keep away from you we'll slip away together and be at the other end of the house." By a gesture of one hand and with a finger of the other across her lips to impress the need of secrecy, she brought Mrs. Hadley-Smith into the little conspiracy.
"Don't blindfold yourself, Claire," she whispered. "You must help Miss Ballister and me to play a joke on the others. You are to keep the bells rattling after we are gone. See? This way."
With that she shifted the leathern loop from about Miss Ballister's neck and replaced it over Mrs. Hadley-Smith's head which bent forward to receive it. Smiling in appreciation of the proposed hoax the widow took a step or two.
"Watch!" whispered Miss Smith in Miss Ballister's ear. "See how well the trick works. There—what did I tell you?"
For instantly all the players, deceived by the artifice, were falling back, huddling away from the fancied danger zone as Mrs. Hadley-Smith went toward them. In the same instant Miss Smith silently had opened the nearest door and, beckoning to Miss Ballister to follow her, was tiptoeing softly out into the empty hall. The door closed gently behind them.
Miss Ballister laughed a forced little laugh. She turned, presenting her back to Miss Smith.
"Now untie me, please do." In her eagerness to be free she panted out the words.
"Surely," agreed Miss Smith. "But I think we should get entirely away, out of sight, before the bells stop ringing and the hoax begins to dawn on them. There's a little study right here at the end of the hall. Shall we go there and hide from them? I'll relieve you of that handkerchief then."
"Yes, yes; but quickly, please!" Miss Ballister's note was insistent; you might call it pleading, certainly it was agitated. "Being tied this way gives one such a trapped sort of feeling—it's horrid, really it is. I'll never let any one tie my hands again so long as I live. It's enough to give one hysterics—honestly it is.
"I understand. Come on, then."
With one hand slipped inside the curve of the other's elbow Miss Smith hurried her to the study door masked beneath the broad stairs, and opening it, ushered her into the inner room.
It contained an occupant: a smallish man with mild-looking gray eyes, who at their entrance rose up from where he sat, staring steadily at them. At sight of the unexpected stranger Miss Ballister halted. She uttered a shocked little exclamation and recoiled, pulling away from her escort as though she meant to flee back across the threshold. But her shoulders came against the solid panels.
The door so soon had been shut behind her, cutting off retreat.
"Well?" said the stranger.
Miss Smith stood away from the shrinking figure, leaving it quite alone.
"This is the woman," she said, and suddenly her voice was accusing and hard. "The stolen paper is in that necklace she is wearing round her neck."
For proof of the truth of the charge Mullinix had only to look into their captive's face. Her first little fit of distress coming on her so suddenly while she was being bound had made her pale. Now her pallor was ghastly. Little blemishes under the skin stood out in blotches against its dead white, and out of the mask her eyes glared in a dumb terror. She made no outcry, but her lips, stiff with fright, twisted to form words that would not come. Her shoulders heaved as—futilely—she strove to wrench her arms free. Then quickly her head sank forward and her knees began to bend under her.
"Mind—she's going to faint!" warned Mullinix.
Both of them sprang forward and together they eased the limp shape down upon the rug. She lay there at their feet, a pitiable little bundle. But there was no compassion, no mercifulness in their faces as they looked down at her.
Alongside the slumped form Miss Smith knelt down and felt for the clasp of the slender chain and undid it. She pressed the catch of the locket and opened it, and from the small receptacle revealed within, where a miniature might once have been, she took forth a tightly folded half sheet of yellow parchment paper, which had it been wadded into a ball would have made a sphere about the size of the kernel of a fair-sized filbert.
Mullinix grasped it eagerly, pressed it out flat and took one glance at the familiar signature, written below the close-set array of seemingly meaningless and unrelated letters.
"You win, young lady," he said, and there was thanksgiving and congratulation in the way he said it. "But how did you do it? How was it done?"
She looked up from where she was casting off the binding about the relaxed hands of the unconscious culprit.
"It wasn't hard—after the hints you gave me. I made up my mind yesterday that the paper would probably be hidden in a piece of jewelry—in a bracelet or under the setting of a ring possibly; or in a hair ornament possibly; and I followed that theory. Two tests that I made convinced me that Madame Ybanca was innocent; they quite eliminated Madame Ybanca from the equation. So I centred my efforts on this girl and she betrayed herself soon enough."
"Betrayed herself, how?"
"An individual who has been temporarily deprived of sight will involuntarily keep his or her hands upon any precious object that is concealed about the person—I suppose you know that. And as I watched her after I had blindfolded her–"
"After you had what?"
"Blindfolded her. Oh, I kept my promise," she added, reading the expression on his face. "There was no force used, and no violence. She suffered herself to be blindfolded—indeed, I did the blinding myself. Well, after she had been blindfolded with a thick silk handkerchief I watched her, and I saw that while with one hand she groped her way about, she kept the other hand constantly clutched upon this locket, as though to make sure of the safety of something there. So then I was sure; but I was made doubly sure by her actions while I was tying her hands behind her. And then, after I had her tied and helpless, I could experiment further—and I did—and again my experiment convinced me I was on the right track."
"Yes—but tying her hands—didn't she resist that?"
"No; you see, she let me tie her hands too. It was a part of a game. They all played it."
"Some of the others were blinded, eh?"
"All of them were; every single one of them was. They still are, I imagine, providing my cousin is doing her part—and I am sure she is. There'll be no suspicion of the truth, even after their eyes are unhooded. Claire has her explanations all ready. They'll miss this girl of course and wonder what has become of her, but the explanation provides for that: She was taken with a sudden indisposition and slipped away with me, not wishing to spoil the fun by staying on after she began to feel badly. That's the story they'll be told, and there's no reason why they shouldn't accept it as valid either. See! She's coming to."
"Then I'll get out and leave you to attend to her. Keep her here in this room until she's better, and then you may send her back to her hotel. You might tell her that there is to be no prosecution and no unpleasant notoriety for her if only she keeps her mouth shut about all that's happened. Probably she'll be only too glad to do that, for I figure she has learned a lesson."
"You won't want to question her, then, after she has been revived?"
"It's quite unnecessary. I have the other ends of the case in my hands. And besides I must go outside to meet our dear friend Geltmann when he arrives. He should be driving up to the house pretty soon—I had a telephone message five minutes ago telling me to expect him shortly. So I'm going out to break some sad news to him on the sidewalk. He doesn't know it yet, but he's starting to-night on a long, long trip; a trip that will take him clear out of this country—and he won't ever, ever be coming back.
"But I'll call on you to-morrow, if I may—after I've seen to getting him off for the West. I want to thank you again in behalf of the Service for the wonderful thing you've done so wonderfully well. And I want to hear more from you about that game you played."
"I'll do better than that," she promised: "I'll let you read about it in a book—an old secondhand book, it is; you saw it yesterday. Maybe I can convert you to reading old books; they're often full of things that people in your line should know."
"Lady," he said reverently, "you've made a true believer of me already."