The Frame Up
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Richard Harding Davis >> The Frame Up
He now saw that from the office in which he stood doors led to
rooms adjoining. These doors were shut, and he determined swiftly
that before the interview began he first must know what lay behind
them. Mrs. Earle had followed and, as she entered, closed the door.
"No!" said Wharton.
It was the first time he had spoken. For an instant the woman
hesitated, regarding him thoughtfully, and then without resentment
pulled the door open. She came toward him swiftly, and he was
conscious of the rustle of silk and the stirring of perfumes. At
the open door she cast a frown of disapproval and then, with her
face close to his, spoke hurriedly in a whisper.
"A man brought a girl here to lunch," she said; "they've been here
before. The girl claims the man told her he was going to marry her.
Last night she found out he has a wife already, and she came here
to-day meaning to make trouble. She brought a gun. They were in the
room at the far end of the hall. George, the water, heard the two
shots and ran down here to get me. No one else heard. These rooms
are fixed to keep out noise, and the piano was going. We broke in
and found them on the floor. The man was shot through the shoulder,
the girl through the body. His story is that after she fired, in
trying to get the gun from her, she shot herself-by accident.
That's right, I guess. But the girl says they came here to die
together--what the newspaper call a 'suicide pact'-- because they
couldn't marry, and that he first shot her, intending to kill her
and then himself. That's silly. She framed it to get him. She
missed him with the gun, so now she's trying to get him with this
murder charge. I know her. If she'd been sober she wouldn't have
shot him; she'd have blackmailed him. She's that sort. I know her,
and----"
With an exclamation the district attorney broke in upon her. "And
the man," he demanded eagerly; "was it HE killed Banf?"
In amazement the woman stared. "Certainly NOT!" she said.
"Then what HAS this to do with Banf?"
"Nothing!" Her tone was annoyed, reproachful. "That was only to
bring you here"
His disappointment was so keen that it threatened to exhibit itself
in anger. Recognizing this, before he spoke Wharton forced himself
to pause. Then he repeated her words quietly.
"Bring me here?" he asked. "Why?"
The woman exclaimed impatiently: "So you could beat the police to
it," she whispered. "So you could HUSH IT UP!"
The surprised laugh of the man was quite real. It bore no
resentment or pose. He was genuinely amused. Then the dignity of
his office, tricked and insulted, demanded to be heard. He stared
at her coldly; his indignation was apparent.
"You have done extremely ill," he told her. "You know perfectly
well you had no right to bring me up here; to drag me into a row in
your road-house. 'Hush it up!"' he exclaimed hotly. This time his
laugh was contemptuous and threatening. "I'll show you how I'll
hush it up!" He moved quickly to the open window.
"Stop!" commanded the woman. "You can't do that!" She ran to the
door.
Again he was conscious of the rustle of silk, of the stirring of
perfumes.
He heard the key turn in the lock. It had Come. It was a frame-up.
There would be a scandal. And to save himself from it they would
force him to "hush up" this other one. But, as to the outcome, in
no way was he concerned. Through the window, standing directly
below it, he had seen Nolan. In the sunlit yard the chauffeur, his
cap on the back of his head, his cigarette drooping from his lips,
was tossing the remnants of a sandwich to a circle of excited hens.
He presented a picture of bored indolence, of innocent
preoccupation. It was almost too well done.
Assured of a witness for the defense, he greeted the woman with a
smile. "Why can't I do it?" he taunted.
She ran close to him and laid her hands on his arm. Her eyes were
fixed steadily on his. "Because," she whispered, "the man who shot
that girl-is your brother-in-law, Ham Cutler!"
For what seemed a long time Wharton stood looking down into the
eyes of the woman, and the eyes never faltered. Later he recalled
that in the sudden silence many noises disturbed the lazy hush of
the Indian-summer afternoon: the rush of a motor-car on the Boston
Road, the tinkle of the piano and the voice of the youth with the
drugged eyes singing, "And you'll wear a simple gingham gown," from
the yard below the cluck- cluck of the chickens and the cooing of
pigeons.
His first thought was of his sister and of her children, and of
what this bomb, hurled from the clouds, would mean to her. He
thought of Cutler, at the height of his power and usefulness, by
this one disreputable act dragged into the mire, of what disaster
it might bring to the party, to himself.
If, as the woman invited, he helped to "hush it up," and Tammany
learned the truth, it would make short work of him. It would say,
for the murderer of Banf he had one law and for the rich
brother-in-law, who had tried to kill the girl he deceived,
another. But before he gave voice to his thoughts he recognized
them as springing only from panic. They were of a part with the
acts of men driven by sudden fear, and of which acts in their sane
moments they would be incapable.
The shock of the woman's words had unsettled his traditions. Not
only was he condemning a man unheard, but a man who, though he
might dislike him, he had for years, for his private virtues,
trusted and admired. The panic passed and with a confident smile he
shook his head.
"I don't believe you," he said quietly.
The manner of the woman was equally calm, equally assured.
"Will you see her?" she asked.
"I'd rather see my brother-in-law," he answered
The woman handed him a card.
"Doctor Muir took him to his private hospital," she said. "I loaned
them my car because it's a limousine. The address is on that card.
But," she added, "both your brother and Sammy-- that's Sam Muir,
the doctor--asked you wouldn't use the telephone; they're afraid of
a leak."
Apparently Wharton did not hear her. As though it were "Exhibit A,"
presented in evidence by the defense, he was studying the card she
had given him. He stuck it in his pocket.
" I'll go to him at once," he said.
To restrain or dissuade him, the woman made no sudden move. In
level tones she said:
"Your brother-in-law asked especially that you wouldn't do that
until you'd fixed it with the girl. Your face is too well known.
He's afraid some one might find out where he is-- and for a day or
two no one must know that."
"This doctor knows it," retorted Wharton.
The suggestion seemed to strike Mrs. Earle as humorous. For the
first time she laughed. "Sammy!" she exclaimed. "He's a lobbygow of
mine. He's worked for me for years. I could send him up the river
if I liked. He knows it." Her tone was convincing. "They both
asked," she continued evenly, "you should keep off until the girl
is out of the country, and fixed." Wharton frowned thoughtfully.
And, observing this, the eyes of the woman showed that, so far,
toward the unfortunate incident the attitude of the district
attorney was to her most gratifying. Wharton ceased frowning. "How
fixed?" he asked. Mrs. Earle shrugged her shoulders.
"Cutler's idea is money," she said; "but, believe me, he's wrong.
This girl is a vampire. She'll only come back to you for more.
She'll keep on threatening to tell the wife, to tell the papers.
The way to fix her is to throw a scare into her. And there's only
one man can do that; there's only one man that can hush this thing
up--that's you."
"When can I see her?" asked Wharton.
"Now," said the woman. "I'll bring her." Wharton could not suppress
an involuntary "Here?" he exclaimed.
For the shade of a second Mrs. Earle exhibited the slightest
evidence of embarrassment.
"My room's in a mess," she explained; "and she's not hurt so much
as Sammy said. He told her she was in bad just to keep her quiet
until you got here."
Mrs. Earle opened one of the doors leading from the room. "I won't
be a minute," she said. Quietly she closed the door behind her.
Upon her disappearance the manner of the district attorney
underwent an abrupt change. He ran softly to the door opposite the
one through which Mrs. Earle had passed, and pulled it open. But,
if beyond it he expected to find an audience of eavesdroppers, he
was disappointed. The room was empty, and bore no evidence of
recent occupation. . He closed the door, and, from the roller-top
desk, snatching a piece of paper, scribbled upon it hastily.
Wrapping the paper around a coin, and holding it exposed to view,
he showed himself at the window. Below him, to an increasing circle
of hens and pigeons, Nolan was still scattering crumbs. Without
withdrawing his gaze from them, the chauffeur nodded. Wharton
opened his hand and the note fell into the yard. Behind him he
heard the murmur of voices, the sobs of a woman in pain, and the
rattle of a door-knob. As from the window he turned quickly, he saw
that toward the spot where his note had fallen Nolan was tossing
the last remnants of his sandwich.
The girl who entered with Mrs. Earle, leaning on her and supported
by her, was tall and fair. Around her shoulders her blond hair hung
in disorder, and around her waist, under the kimono Mrs. Earle had
thrown about her, were wrapped many layers of bandages. The girl
moved unsteadily and sank into a chair.
In a hostile tone Mrs. Earle addressed her.
"Rose," she said, "this is the district attorney." To him she
added: "She calls herself Rose Gerard."
One hand the girl held close against her side, with the other she
brushed back the hair from her forehead. From half-closed eyes she
stared at Wharton defiantly.
"Well," she challenged, what about it?"
Wharton seated himself in front of the roller-top desk.
"Are you strong enough to tell me?" he asked.
His tone was kind, and this the girl seemed to resent.
"Don't you worry," she sneered, " I'm strong enough. Strong enough
to tell all I know--to you, and to the papers, and to a jury--until
I get justice." She clinched her free hand and feebly shook it at
him. " THAT'S what I'm going to get," she cried, her voice breaking
hysterically, "justice."
From behind the arm-chair in which the girl half-reclined Mrs.
Earle caught the eye of the district attorney and shrugged her
shoulders.
"Just what DID happen?" asked Wharton.
Apparently with an effort the girl pulled herself together.
"I first met your brother-in-law----" she began.
Wharton interrupted quietly.
"Wait!" he said. "You are not talking to me as anybody's
brother-in-law, but as the district attorney."
The girl laughed vindictively.
"I don't wonder you're ashamed of him!" she jeered.
Again she began: "I first met Ham Cutler last May. He wanted to
marry me then. He told me he was not a married man."
As her story unfolded, Wharton did not again interrupt; and
speaking quickly, in abrupt, broken phrases, the girl brought her
narrative to the moment when, as she claimed, Cutler had attempted
to kill her. At this point a knock at the locked door caused both
the girl and her audience to start. Wharton looked at Mrs. Earle
inquiringly, but she shook her head, and with a look at him also of
inquiry, and of suspicion as well, opened the door.
With apologies her head waiter presented a letter.
"For Mr. Wharton," he explained, "from his chauffeur."
Wharton's annoyance at the interruption was most apparent. "What
the devil----" he began.
He read the note rapidly, and with a frown of irritation raised his
eyes to Mrs. Earle.
"He wants to go to New Rochelle for an inner tube," he said. "How
long would it take him to get there and back?"
The hard and distrustful expression upon the face of Mrs. Earle,
which was habitual, was now most strongly in evidence. Her eyes
searched those of Wharton.
"Twenty minutes, she said.
"He can't go," snapped Wharton.
"Tell him," he directed the waiter, to stay where he is. Tell him
I may want to go back to the office any minute." He turned eagerly
to the girl. "I'm sorry," he said. With impatience he crumpled the
note into a ball and glanced about him. At his feet was a
waste-paper basket. Fixed upon him he saw, while pretending not to
see, the eyes of Mrs. Earle burning with suspicion. If he destroyed
the note, he knew suspicion would become certainty. Without an
instant of hesitation, carelessly he tossed it intact into the
waste- paper basket. Toward Rose Gerard he swung the revolving
chair.
"Go on, Please," he commanded.
The girl had now reached the climax of her story, but the eyes of
Mrs. Earle betrayed the fact that her thoughts were elsewhere. With
an intense and hungry longing, they were concentrated upon her own
waste-paper basket.
The voice of the girl in anger and defiance recalled Mrs. Earle to
the business of the moment.
"He tried to kill me," shouted Miss Rose. "And his shooting himself
in the shoulder was a bluff. THAT'S my story; that's the story I'm
going to tell the judge "--her voice soared shrilly -- "that's the
story that's going to send your brother-in-law to Sing Sing!"
For the first time Mrs. Earle contributed to the general
conversation.
"You talk like a fish," she said.
The girl turned upon her savagely.
"If he don't like the way I talk," she cried, "he can come across!"
Mrs. Earle exclaimed in horror. Virtuously her hands were raised in
protest.
"Like hell he will!" she said. "You can't pull that under my roof!"
Wharton looked disturbed.
"Come across?" he asked.
"Come across?" mimicked the girl. "Send me abroad and keep me
there. And I'll swear it was an accident. Twenty-five thousand,
that's all I want. Cutler told me he was going to make you
governor. He can't make you governor if he's in Sing Sing, can he?
Ain't it worth twenty-five thousand to you to be governor? Come
on," she jeered, "kick in!"
With a grave but untroubled voice Wharton addressed Mrs. Earle.
"May I use your telephone?" he asked. He did not wait for her
consent, but from the desk lifted the hand telephone.
"Spring, three one hundred!" he said. He sat with his legs
comfortably crossed, the stand of the instrument balanced on his
knee, his eyes gazing meditatively at the yellow tree- tops.
If with apprehension both women started, if the girl thrust herself
forward, and by the hand of Mrs. Earle was dragged back, he did not
appear to know it.
"Police headquarters?" they heard him ask. "I want to speak to the
commissioner. This is the district attorney"
In the pause that followed, as though to torment her, the pain, in
her side apparently turned, for the girl screamed sharply.
"Be still!" commanded the older woman. Breathless, across the top
of the arm-chair, she was leaning forward. Upon the man at the
telephone her eyes were fixed in fascination.
"Commissioner," said the district attorney, "this is Wharton
speaking. A woman has made a charge of attempted murder to me
against my brother-in-law, Hamilton Cutler. On account of our
relationship, I want you to make the arrest. If there were any
slip, and he got away, it might be said I arranged it. You will
find him at the Winona apartments on the Southern Boulevard, in the
private hospital of a Doctor Samuel Muir. Arrest them both. The
girl who makes the charge is at Kessler's Cafe, on the Boston Post
Road, just inside the city line. Arrest her too. She tried to
blackmail me. I'll appear against her."
Wharton rose and addressed himself to Mrs. Earle.
"I'm, sorry," he said, "but I had to do it. You might have known I
could not hush it up. I am the only man who can't hush it up. The
people of New York elected me to enforce the laws." Wharton's voice
was raised to a loud pitch. It seemed unnecessarily loud. It was
almost as though he were addressing another and more distant
audience. "And," he continued, his voice still soaring, "even if my
own family suffer, even if I suffer, even if I lose political
promotion, those laws I will enforce!" In the more conventional
tone of every-day politeness, he added: "May I speak to you
outside, Mrs. Earle?"
But, as in silence that lady descended the stairs, the district
attorney seemed to have forgotten what it was he wished to say.
It was not until he had seen his chauffeur arouse himself from
apparently deep slumber and crank the car that he addressed her.
"That girl," he said, "had better go back to bed. My men are all
around this house and, until the police come, will detain her."
He shook the jewelled fingers of Mrs. Earle warmly. "I thank you,"
he said; "I know you meant well. I know you wanted to help me,
but"--he shrugged his shoulders--"my duty!"
As he walked down the driveway to his car his shoulders continued
to move.
But Mrs. Earle did not wait to observe this phenomenon. Rid of his
presence, she leaped, rather than ran, up the stairs and threw open
the door of her office.
As she entered, two men followed her. One was a young man who held
in his hand an open note-book, the other was Tim Meehan, of
Tammany. The latter greeted her with a shout.
"We heard everything he said " he cried. His voice rose in torment.
"An' we can't use a word of it! He acted just like we'd oughta
knowed he'd act. He's HONEST! He's so damned honest he ain't human;
he's a -- gilded saint!"
Mrs. Earle did not heed him. On her knees she was tossing to the
floor the contents of the waste-paper basket. From them she
snatched a piece of crumpled paper.
"Shut up!" she shouted. "Listen! His chauffeur brought him this."
In a voice that quivered with indignation, that sobbed with anger,
she read aloud:
" 'As directed by your note from the window, I went to the booth
and called up Mrs. Cutler's house and got herself on the phone.
Your brother-in-law lunched at home to-day with her and the
children and they are now going to the Hippodrome.
"Stop, look, and listen! Back of the bar I see two men in a room,
but they did not see me. One is Tim Meehan, the other is a
stenographer. He is taking notes. Each of them has on the ear-muffs
of a dictagraph. Looks like you'd better watch your step and not
say nothing you don't want Tammany to print.'" The voice of Mrs.
Earle rose in a shrill shriek.
"Him--a gilded saint?" she screamed; "you big stiff! He knew he was
talking into a dictagraph all the time, and he double- crossed us!"