Two Flights Up by Mary Roberts Rinehart Page B

I don’t object so long as I’m not here. But you don’t need them any more. The shoe’s on the other foot, my girl. Let them have their pride; I’ve got mine too.”
    She had acquiesced. She loved Holly, but Annie Bayne had never more than tolerated her, and the house itself held only bitter memories.
    And now, when in answer to the furious ringing of the bell Holly opened the door, Margaret was there. A strange Margaret, a wild-eyed, disheveled Margaret, her nose red with weeping, her gloves a crumpled ball in her hand. Since when had Margaret forgotten that no lady appears on the street ungloved?
    Holly stood staring at her, and Margaret brushed past and into the hall with a sort of savage violence.
    “Where’s your mother?”
    “She’s asleep. She’s not well.”
    “I don’t believe it,” said Margaret sharply. “She’s hiding. Anyhow, I’m going up.”
    “No, you’re not,” said Holly. “You’re not going up like that. I’m not going to have her startled.”
    Suddenly Margaret collapsed. She dropped on one of the hall chairs and burst into quiet but unrestrained weeping. She sat there, her face turned up and screwed into the hideous contortions of grief. She did not even feel for her handkerchief; there was something shameless in her abandon, like the bared shoulders and backs Holly used to see on the staircase. It should have been discreetly covered.
    Holly, sadly puzzled, watched her and then put an arm around her.
    “Tell me,” she said. “Come into the drawing room and tell me.”
    Margaret got up, but she did not wipe her eyes. Tears fell to her worn black furs and hung there like beads; her bag had fallen open as it hung from her arm, and out of it protruded a damp handkerchief with a gay pink border. Holly drew it out and thrust it into her hand, but she did not use it.
    “Now,” she said, after closing the door into the Hall. “What has happened? Is it Mr. Cox?”
    The name brought Margaret to herself like an electric shock. She stopped crying and stared with red-rimmed hostile eyes at Holly.
    “You know perfectly well what it is. You must know.”
    “But I don’t. He isn’t hurt or sick, is he?”
    “Then your mother knows! It was like her, just when we were so happy, and no thanks to her for that, either. When did she ever think of anybody but herself? And to help that man, after the way he’s ruined her life!”
    “What man?”
    “Your father. Get away from that door, Holly. I don’t care whether she’s asleep or not. I’m not, and I’m going up.”
    “I’ll let you up, of course, but tell me first. You haven’t told me a thing.”
    Margaret gazed at her bitterly.
    “Oh, I’ll tell you, all right,” she said. “My James—my honest James, who never had a wrong thought in his life—has been arrested for receiving stolen goods.”
    Holly felt a vague sense of relief. Somehow, nothing but murder or sudden death had seemed to justify Margaret’s woe. She drew a long breath.
    “But of course it’s a mistake,” she said gently. “He’s been at the store too long for them to believe he’d do anything wrong now.”
    Suddenly Margaret laughed, a hysterical high-pitched laugh that ended in a wail.
    “At the store!” she said. “At his own home. In that suitcase your mother sent down.”
    “Oh, no,” said Holly. “Oh, no!”
    “Oh, yes,” sneered Margaret. “She was using me, as she’s always used me. I dare say your father was to call and get it and then abscond for Europe or some place. She’d do anything to get rid of him, even to—killing my husband. And it will kill him. If you could see him, sitting in the District Attorney’s office, with his poor head bowed, and not even knowing what it’s all about! And when I told them, they didn’t believe me!”
    She gave a vicious jerk at her hat and moved toward the door.
    “Sick or well,” she said, “she’s going to get out of bed and go down there. Let them jail her .”
    “Let them jail me,”