it was two o'clock in the afternoon of the next day before lyon found it possible to carry out his plan to interview miss elliott. as he approached the select school on locust avenue, he noticed a doctor's runabout fastened before the door, and, as he came up, a young physician whom he knew well. dr. barry, came down the steps. lyon had often found it useful to assume a curiosity when he had it not, and he at once seized his opportunity.
"how is your patient?" he asked with an assured air.
"what do you know about my patient?" barry asked in obvious surprise.
lyon in fact knew so little that he deemed it advisable to answer this question with another.
"will she be able to see me?"
"you newspaper men beat the devil! how did you find out she was here? she particularly wanted to keep it quiet. miss elliott called me in with as much secrecy and mystery as though her guest were a royalty traveling incog., and here i find you on the steps ready to interview her for the benefit of the whole public."
"you don't understand," said lyon quietly. "the only way to keep things out of the newspapers is to take the newspaper men into your confidence. by the way, is her ailment serious?"
"puzzling. disordered state of the nerves," said barry, frowning.
lyon laughed. "don't put on professional airs with me."
"that's straight. it looks very much like nervous shock. i don't at all approve of her seeing visitors."
"then why don't you forbid it?" fished lyon with curiosity.
"i'm too young and she's too important," laughed barry as he jumped into the runabout. "i haven't the nerve to give orders to the wife of a multimillionaire." and he drove rapidly off.
lyon rang the bell with a feeling of exhilaration. he was making progress.
"while the neat servant who answered his ring took his card to miss elliott, lyon waited in the reception room and hastily reviewed his facts. the wife of a multimillionaire traveling incog., and suffering from nervous shock. how could he surprise miss elliott into giving him her name? in a few minutes miss elliott stood before him, looking from his card to him with a severe and discouraging air. it was an air which lyon had encountered before when pursuing the elusive interview.
"i am not here in my professional capacity," he said with a disarming smile. "i wanted to make some personal inquiries about your school in behalf of a friend in cleveland."
miss elliott softened. "this is not a very good time to see the school," she said. "this is the thanksgiving vacation, you know, and the pupils and teachers have all gone home."
"i didn't think of that. when did they go?"
"the term closed last friday. the pupils all scattered on saturday. we resume class work next monday."
"then you have been practically alone in the building with your servants this week," lyon said blandly. this was significant. the murder had taken place on monday evening, and it was a big gain to know that he might eliminate a score of miss elliott's pupils from connection with the running girl. it seemed to make the problem much simpler.
"might i look over the building?" he asked as miss elliott responded to his last question with a somewhat chill bow. "my friend will be interested in knowing the general plan of the school rooms."
"i shall be glad to show them to you." said miss elliott.
lyon listened deferentially while miss elliott explained the uses of the various rooms through which she conducted him. the building was a large square old-fashioned house, the first floor of which contained miss elliott's own suite, several large school rooms, and, in the rear, some rooms into which she did not take him, and to which she vaguely referred as "my resident teachers' apartments." lyon guessed at once that this was where her distinguished guest was quartered,--a guess which was confirmed when the second story was thrown wholly open to him. he took special note of the window fastenings and saw at once that it would be the simplest thing in the world to throw open a window and slip out into the large inclosed yard.
"your high wall suggests a convent school," he said with a smile. "are your young ladles as carefully secluded as that wall would suggest?"
"that is one of the features of the school," miss elliott said, somewhat primly. "we aim to give the care and guidance of a home to our pupils. during lesson hours and at all other hours, they are safeguarded, and are never unattended. we know exactly where they are all the time, and what they are doing."
"a wise arrangement."
"during the school year, this large yard is our outdoor gymnasium. the girls take their exercise here free from all observation. there is no entrance to the grounds, except through the house."
"an admirable plan. in fact, your arrangements are all so admirable that i do not wonder at the reputation which your school has achieved. and the social atmosphere is, i know, of the best."
"we are exceedingly particular about whom we admit," conceded miss elliott, with modest gratification.
"oh, i am aware of that, and of your distinguished patronesses. the name of the lady whom you are at present entertaining is alone a sufficient guarantee. oh, don't be afraid that i am going to put an item about her in the paper! a newspaper man respects confidences, and i understand that she does not wish her presence here to be heralded abroad. in fact, i may say that professionally i am quite ignorant as to her presence here, but personally and privately,--you understand,--" and he smiled intelligently.
miss elliott bowed. "mrs. woods broughton is an old personal friend," she said simply. "she used to live in waynscott, you know, before her marriage. there are so many people here who used to know her that she would have no chance for a quiet rest if it became known that she was here, and she is very much in need of a quiet rest."
lyon looked sympathetic. "yes, a nervous shock i understand from dr. barry. i hope she is improving."
"i think she is in better spirits than when she came, though any nervous disturbance is hard to understand."
"will she remain after the school reopens?"
"necessarily, for awhile. she is not in condition to travel."
lyon left the building in so abstracted a state of mind that he fairly ran into a man on the sidewalk. with a hastily muttered apology, he hurried on. the discovery that the mysterious woman was mrs. woods broughton was, in a way, staggering. as well connect any other national celebrity with small local affairs. mrs. woods broughton's name was known throughout the country, not only because of her husband's wealth and position, but because of the more or less romantic circumstances attending her marriage. she had been mrs. vanderburg when broughton met her and fell in love with her, and everybody knew that the divorce which she had procured shortly afterwards had been merely a preliminary to the brilliant wedding which had set the newspapers agog. it had been a very decorous and unsensational divorce, without a breath of scandal, for vanderburg had been an unknown quantity for so many years that no exception could be taken to the deserted wife's action in securing legal recognition of her practical and actual independence. still, the need of securing a divorce might never have occurred to her if woods broughton had not come into her life. lyon remembered the story in its general outline, though he had forgotten that the scene of it was waynscott. the papers had been featuring the wedding at the time he began his career as a reporter in cleveland, and the whole affair had taken on a special and personal interest to him from the fact that about six weeks later he had himself met the divorced husband, vanderburg, under dramatic circumstances. he had been traveling a long afternoon in ohio, and had struck up a traveling acquaintance with a clever, cynical, world-worn man in the smoking car. percy lyon's experiences at that time had been somewhat limited, and he had never before encountered the particular variety of liveliness which this sophisticated traveler afforded. he had apparently been in all quarters of the globe, and if his tales had something of a munchausen quality, they were none the less entertaining for that. the interruption of his last tale had been tragic. there had been a sudden grinding of the wheels on the rails, a tearing crash, and then confusion, horrible and soul-shaking. when lyon began to think consecutively again, he found that he was frantically tugging at the crushed seat which was pinning his companion to the floor of the overturned car. help answered promptly to his shout, and they soon had the man out, but he was unconscious and so badly hurt that the physician shook his head gravely.
"better telegraph for his friends, if you can find out who they are."
lyon, in the absence of any closer acquaintance, had searched the unconscious man's pockets for a clue to his identity, and in an inner pocket he found an old note-book with the name "william h. vanderburg" written on the fly-leaf. the name had suggested nothing to his mind at the moment, and while he was looking further for an address, the man's eyes had opened slowly and taken the situation in with full intelligence.
"you have nothing to do with that book," he said harshly. "if it's my name you are hunting for, enoch arden will do for my headstone. i have no friends to notify, and you will please me best if you bury me and forget about me, and particularly keep that name out of the papers. i have a right--" but the effort was too much. he gasped and fell back dead. lyon had been so impressed by the stranger's peculiarly commanding personality that he had respected his wish to be left unidentified. he considered that the bare accident that he had stumbled upon the man's real name did not justify him in disregarding the owner's wish to keep it concealed, and he did not change his view when he saw that a bunch of newspaper clippings which had fallen out of the note-book related to the divorce granted to grace vanderburg. lyon reviewed the situation as fully as it was known to him. mrs. vanderburg had secured a legal separation in the courts and had married again. the decree was based on the representation that william h. vanderburg had deserted his wife and had been unheard of for over twelve years. whether william vanderburg had intended to make difficulties or not, lyon had no means of guessing, but if he had, certainly his death had closed the incident for ever. the unintentional witness slipped the old note-book into his own pocket and allowed the railroad company to bury the body of "one unidentified man."
that was all three years in the past, or thereabouts, and now he had been brought most curiously across the path of that dead man's former wife. truly, the goddess of accident was throwing her shuttle with what almost looked like design. was his imagination running wild in suggesting to him a possible identity between this woman of uncommon experience, wealth, and social standing, and the woman who had fled in a panic from the scene of fullerton's murder? he felt that he was in danger of making himself absurd by harboring such a thought for a moment, but with the desire which was characteristic of him to get at the bottom facts, he went directly to the office of the clerk of the circuit court.
"i want to verify some dates in connection with that vanderburg divorce case," he said, to the lounging official in charge. "would it be possible for me to look at the record?"
"i have the papers right here, as it happens," the clerk answered. "curious you should call for them. i made a transcript of that case for warren fullerton a week or two ago."
"did you, really?" lyon exclaimed in surprise. "what did he want it for?"
"dunno. he was mrs. vanderburg's attorney, you know."
"i didn't remember," said lyon thoughtfully. it was beginning to look interesting. there was, then, an established relation of some sort between mrs. broughton and fullerton. just what did it mean?
he felt that he was on the way to finding out when he reached his rooms that evening, for he found awaiting him a special delivery letter containing the following somewhat imperiously worded invitation:
"mrs. woods broughton will be greatly indebted to mr. percy lyon if he can call upon her this evening. she appreciates his courtesy in respecting her wish that her visit should not be made a matter of public gossip. he will add to her obligations by giving her an opportunity for a personal interview."
lyon got into his evening clothes with a jubilation that does not always accompany an evening call. he felt that the fates were playing into his hands.
