"Yes," said Mrs. Schuyler, "send Cooper and Jepson both. Oh, go quickly—I cannot bear this suspense!" She turned to me, as the two men who had been hovering in the doorway, came in to take Mason's orders. "I thank you, Mr. Calhoun. It was truly kind of you to come. Tibbetts, get me a wrap, please."
This was Mrs. Schuyler's own maid, who went on the errand at once. More servants had gathered; one or two footmen, a silly French parlor-maid or waitress, and from downstairs I heard the hushed voices of others.
Tibbetts returned, and laid a fleecy white shawl about her mistress' shoulders. Mrs. Schuyler wore a house dress of dull blue. Her hair of an ash-blonde hue, was coiled on top of her head; and to my surprise, when I noticed it, she wore a string of large pearls round her throat, and on her hands were two rings, each set with an enormous pearl.
I must have been awkward enough to glance at the pearls, for Mrs. Schuyler remarked, "I dressed so hastily, I kept on my pearls. I wear them at night sometimes, to preserve their luster."
Then she apparently forgot them, for without self-consciousness she turned to the detective and began asking questions. Nervously she inquired concerning minutest details, and I surmised that side by side with her grief at the tragedy was a very human and feminine dismay at the thought of her husband, stabbed to death in another woman's house!
"Who is Miss Van Allen?" she asked over and over again, unsatisfied with the scant information Lowney could give.
"And she lives near here? Just down the side street? Who is she?"
"I don't think she is anyone you ever heard of," I said to her. "She is a pleasant young woman, and so far as I know, all that is correct and proper."
"Then why would she have Randolph Schuyler visiting her?" flashed the retort. "Is that correct and proper?"
"It may be so," I said, for I felt a sort of loyalty to Vicky Van. "You see, she was not acquainted with Mr. Schuyler until this evening."