The porcelain mask A detective story

between us--strictly confidential, y' understand--who do you think killed her?" Bates looked around cautiously, and then lowered his voice to a mere thread of a whisper. "Things began to be queer, sir, after Mr. Sarbella arrived. Mind you, I don't say that he did it, but----" His voice tailed off meaningly. Jimmy Price's ears moved rapidly--swift thinking. "Sarbella?" he said under his breath. "Sarbella? I've heard that name somewhere before." And then aloud: "Where is the doctor now?" "Upstairs with the constable; I think they are in the room where it happened. Who shall I tell him is here, sir?" "Oh, don't bother about that," Wiggly Price said carelessly. "I'll go right on up. No, don't bother. Which room?" "At the head of the stairs." "Gee, but I'm one lucky bird!" chuckled Wiggly, as he hurried up the steps. "Now what's going to happen? Get pitched out on my ear, most likely." Reaching the top of the stairway, there was no need for him to seek further directions. The door of the tragedy chamber was not fully closed, and there came to his ears the voice of Constable Griggs, badgeringly insistent, as he sought in vain to batter down Victor Sarbella's brief statement. The guest of Greenacres remained calm. "I have told you all that I can about the case--the murder, as you insist," he was saying. "I have nothing more to say." Wiggly edged closer to the crack of the door, peering within, and saw the face of the dead woman across which Griggs had not replaced the sheet. As he stared, his ears began to wiggle violently. Without any more hesitation he walked into the room. Ham Griggs looked up with a hostile and questioning frown. "Who're you?" he barked. "Where'd you come from?" "Price, Price of _The Star_," Wiggly murmured mechanically, as he continued staring at Helen Gilmore. Doctor Bushnell took an angry step forward. "Mr. Gilmore issued specific instructions that no newspaper men were to be admitted," he said. "I don't know how you managed to get in, but I know how you're going to get out." "Wait a minute!" muttered the reporter. "I've seen her somewhere. I never forget faces, and she----Wait a minute, I tell you, and I'll place her. Let a fellow think, can't you!" He moved a little closer, staring at the beautiful features. Victor Sarbella had strained forward in his chair, and there was something so tense in his attitude that Doctor Bushnell signaled to the constable that the intruding newspaper man was not to be interfered with for a moment. The constable did not notice that; he seemed little short of hypnotized by Price's animated ears. "She must have figured in some story that I worked on," went on Jimmy Price, hardly conscious that he was thinking aloud. "And it must have been some time ago, or I wouldn't have so much trouble remembering." The doctor made a suggestion that bore more fruit than he could have expected. "Take a look at this gentleman," he said, pointing to the artist; "you don't happen to remember him, I suppose?" Jimmy Price shook his head slowly and positively. "I am quite sure," he answered, "that I have never seen Mr.--Mr.----" "Mr. Sarbella," supplied the doctor. The effect of that name on Jimmy Price was startling. It seemed that his ears would surely work themselves loose from the side of his head. "Sarbella?" he exclaimed, turning swiftly and looking again at the dead woman. "Sarbella? Yes, I know her now; she was the girl--the girl in the Sarbella case!" A grunt of elation escaped Constable Griggs, as he stared triumphantly at the artist; this reporter had supplied the missing link between the dead woman and the suspect. Victor Sarbella's body stiffened and relaxed, as his shoulders moved with a sigh of weariness and defeat. The secret which he had guarded with his silence was out. CHAPTER XV SARBELLA SPEAKS No longer was Wiggly Price an interloper, an unwelcome intruder facing eviction; for, instead of asking for facts, he was supplying facts, and extremely vital facts they seemed to be. Both the constable and Doctor Bushnell, since the Sarbella case stirred no memories, were both eager for further enlightenment. "Yes," said Wiggly, "I am sure of it now; this woman was the girl in the Sarbella case. I think I must have written five or six columns about it; queer that I shouldn't have spotted her the minute I put eyes on her, but a fellow's memory does slip sometimes. The minute I heard the name just now it all came back to me with a rush." "I knew you was hidin' something," grunted Constable Griggs, fixing Victor Sarbella with a stern eye. "I had a feelin' that you was lyin' about never havin' set eyes on 'er until last night. I guess you killed her, all right--that was the reason you wouldn't talk. Guess you thought you was pretty slick." He turned to the newspaper man. "I guess it wasn't nothin' short of Providence that let you get into the house just now. Queer, ain't it, how things is always turnin' out?" "My statement," said Sarbella, his voice husky, "was entirely true. I had never seen the woman until last night--when my friend introduced her as--as hees wife. She--she the wife of my good friend!" "I guess you think we're a lotta country boobs to swaller a thin yarn like that. Never seen her before, huh? That's likely--I guess not." Doctor Bushnell looked eagerly at Wiggly Price, impatient to hear what was meant by "the Sarbella case." "Let's hear what he's got to say, Griggs," he urged. "Sure," nodded Ham Griggs; "talk right up, mister. I guess we're all wantin' to hear it--except Sarbella. You've put us on a hot trail, all right, young feller." "For all I know," said the reporter, "he may be telling the truth about never having seen the woman before. It sounds reasonable enough, as you shall see. "The Sarbella case got into the newspapers a little over two years ago. There was a young chap--handsome kid he was--a violinist. Born in Italy--forget what place--and came to New York in concert work. His first name"--he frowned meditatively--"I think it was Andrea." "Yes, it was Andrea," muttered Victor Sarbella. "Poor Andrea! And that woman--death was too good for her!" "He fell in with a girl, a beautiful girl, with bronze hair. The attraction of opposites, I suppose; he was dark--naturally, being Italian. But this girl's past wasn't as pretty as her face. A lot of it is coming back to me now--the details. She'd been raised on the fringe of the underworld. Maybe you know what I mean. Her father and her brother had served time. Oh, not her; she tried to pull away from that sort of thing. "Anyhow, the young violinist fell in love with this girl, madly in love with her. I think they were planning to be married, and then he found out the truth about her. How? I can't tell you that, but he did. The note he left behind him told that--how she had lied to him, deceived him. "He went into the bathroom of his hotel and shot himself through the heart. You see, this young Sarbella came of a very proud family--his father related to the nobility and all that sort of thing. He couldn't marry a girl like that, and he couldn't give her up. There was only one way he could forget her, and he took that way. "In brief, gentlemen, that's the Sarbella case. The girl disappeared; the police didn't hold her, since it was so obviously a suicide. I saw her at the inquest; she seemed pretty badly cut up over it, but--well, you can't always tell about that." "My word!" whispered Doctor Bushnell, aghast. "Kirklan Gilmore's wife was that woman, a woman of the underworld? It seems incredible, preposterous!" "Sarbella," went on Wiggly Price, looking steadily at the guest of Greenacres, "had a brother who was in Italy at the time of the suicide. This brother caught the first boat to New York with the avowed intention----" "I think that I am the best qualified person to finish your narrative," the voice of Victor Sarbella broke in. "So you've decided to start your tongue workin'," crowed Constable Griggs; his chest bulged importantly. "It is my official duty to warn you that anything you may say will be used against you." Sarbella waved his hand impatiently. "This is an explanation, not a confession," he retorted. "My first statement to you remains true, although I admit that I did not tell you all the truth--for two reasons. "Yes, this dead woman," his voice dripped with bitterness, "was the girl in the Sarbella case. It is necessary for me to tell you that Andrea, my younger brother, and I were born and reared in Florence. Our mother was American, our father Italian. "I came to America where I could find a better market for my drawings, and I brought with me Andrea, who was a violinist and expected to earn a great deal of money with his playing. He had wonderful talent, Andrea; even so young, his playing was attracting attention. Would to Heaven that I had left him in Italy. Then that woman would never have set his brain on fire, driven him mad with the madness of infatuation. "It was the first winter that we were in New York, and I returned to Florence that I might accompany my mother back to America. She, too, was to make her home in New York, my father having died. It was while I was away that Andrea met this devil of a woman. How? I do not know, but he loved her madly; the letter he left behind for me told me the intensity of his passion for her. "Andrea was young, idealistic; he thought her everything that was good, noble. And then there came to him a man; a low, common person, who was the woman's husband! "You see how she had tricked him? She was not the innocent, lovely girl she had led my brother to believe. He had thought to marry her--soon. The shock of the truth dethroned reason; he could not have her, and he could not give her up. There seemed to him only one way that he could forget. "If I could but show you his farewell letter to me, the letter that he wrote a few minutes before he fired the bullet through his heart!" Tears came into Victor Sarbella's eyes, and his voice trembled and broke. "Could you read that letter of Andrea's you would understand better. "He was my brother, my only brother, and I loved him devotedly. News of his death was cabled to me, but it was not until the boat docked in New York that I knew how he had died--and why. "My mother--Andrea was her very life. She--it killed her. This woman, this vampire, killed both of them--Andrea and our mother--as surely as though she had driven daggers into their hearts. And that--that would have been a kindlier way." He pointed a dramatically accusing finger to the couch. "There she is, a murderess, a moral murderess, and she has reaped as she had sown!" Victor Sarbella's voice came to a pause. "All right," said Constable Griggs, "let's have the rest of it. You killed her for revenge!" "A life for a life!" murmured Wiggly Price, his ears twitching again, as he thought of a dramatic line for this amazing story that he was to write for _The Star_. "'The code of Latin vengeance!' Wow! What a whale of a yarn!" Victor Sarbella shook his head slowly. "Time passes, and the deepest of wounds heal--although there may be a scar," he said. "It is futile for me to deny that in my first grief and rage against this woman I made bitter threats, that I said I would hound her down and make her pay. I do not deny that I meant it--at the moment; I do not deny that I sought her in vain." "But you did find her yesterday," exclaimed Constable Griggs. "I've heard tell of them Eyetalian vendettas. You hadda wait most three years, but you got 'er all right. Ain't no use holdin' out on me no