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Updated: April 30, 2025
As we turned the corner, a man jumped up from the shadow of the hedge where the Vandeman lawn joined the Gilbert place; there was a flash; the report of a gun; our watchers had flushed some one. I'd barely had time to say so to the others when there was a second sharp crack, then the whine of a ricochetting chunk of lead as it zipped from the asphalt to sing over our heads. "Beat it!" I yelled.
Quiet he had been before; but never considerate like this. When I rushed up to him with my triumph and congratulations, and he put them aside, it was with a curious gentleness. "Yes, yes, Jerry; I know. Vandeman turned out to be Clayte." Then, noticing my bewilderment, "You see, Jim let it slip that Barbara's hurt. Where is she?" And Edwards leaned around to explain.
I put my back against the door and asked, "Is Bronson Vandeman a fatuous fool; or does he take me for one?" "Some men defend their women one way, and some another. Let me out of this, Boyne, before that girl gets here." "She won't come in a hurry," I smiled. "Her husband's pretty free with his promises; but more than likely I'll have to go after her if I want her."
I must admit that when Worth and Barbara walked up and found me talking to Ina Vandeman, I felt caught dead to rights. The girl gave me one long, steady look. I was afraid of Barbara Wallace's eyes. Then and there I relinquished all idea of having her help in this inquiry. She could have done it much better than I, attracted less attention but no matter.
I remembered her moment of rebellion yesterday evening on the lawn, when she said so bitterly that if he asked it again, she'd do it again, as she finished, "Deduce here?" "Here and now." Worth's laconic answer sent the blood of healthy anger into her face, made her eyes shine. And it brought from Ina Vandeman a petulant, "Oh, Worth, please don't turn my dinner table into a side-show."
When Vandeman himself opened the door to us, explaining that he was his own butler for the day, I saw him quite other than he had ever appeared to me. For one thing, here in his own house and this was the first time I had ever been in it you got the man with his proper background, his suitable atmosphere.
"Ina, dear." Vandeman raised his eyes at her, then quite the cordial host urging a guest to display talent, "They say you're wonderful at that sort of thing, and I've never seen it." Barbara was mad for fair. "Oh, very well," she spoke pointedly to Vandeman, and left Worth out of it. "If you think you'd really enjoy seeing me make a side-show of Ina's dinner table " She stopped and waited.
"It was a change of manner and psychology for mine. As Edward Clayte and that's not my name, either, any more than Vandeman I was description-proof. I meant to be and I was. It took her the girl," his face darkened and he jerked at his cigar, "to deduce that a nonentity who could get away with nearly a million dollars and leave no trail was some man!"
He spoke fast as a man might with a drink ahead. But it was not alcohol that was loosening his tongue. "Why can't some one go up to my place and get me a decent suit of clothes? God knows I've plenty there closets full of them." "Time enough when th' Shurff gets here," Roll Winchell, the town marshall grunted at him. "I'm not taking any chances on you, Mr. Vandeman. You'll do me as you are."
What Edwards had said of the cold, contemptuous old man; what Vandeman told of the screaming girl; no answer to such a proposition of course but an attempted frame-up. To let the bridegroom get by would best serve my purpose. "All right, gentlemen," I said. "And now could you tell me what action you took, on this state of affairs?" "Action?" Vandeman gave me an uneasy look. "What was there to do?
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