Produced by Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE AVALANCHE
A MYSTERY STORY
BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON
1919
TO CHARLES HANSON TOWNE
CHAPTER I
I
Price Ruyler knew that many secrets had been inhumed by the earthquakeand fire of San Francisco and wondered if his wife's had been one ofthem. After all, she had been born in this city of odd and whisperedpasts, and there were moments when his silent mother-in-law suggested apast of her own.
That there was a secret of some sort he had been progressively convincedfor quite six months. Moreover, he felt equally sure that this impalpablegray cloud had not drifted even transiently between himself and his wifeduring the first year and a half of their marriage. They had beenuncommonly happy; they were happy yet … the difference lay not in thequality of Hélène's devotion, enhanced always by an outspoken admirationfor himself and his achievements, but in subtle changes of temperamentand spirits.
She had been a gay and irresponsible young creature when he married her,so much so that he had found it expedient to put her on an allowance andask her not to ran up staggering bills in the fashionable shops; whichshe visited daily, as much for the pleasure of the informal encounterwith other lively and irresponsible young luminaries of San Franciscosociety as for the excitement of buying what she did not want.
He had broached the subject with some trepidation, for they had never hada quarrel; but she had shown no resentment whatever, merely an eagerdesire to please him. She even went directly down to the Palace Hotel andreproached her august parent for failing to warn her that a dollar wasnot capable of infinite expansion.
But no wonder she had been extravagant, she told Ruyler plaintively. Ithad been like a fairy tale, this sudden release from the rigideconomies of her girlhood, when she had rarely had a franc in herpocket, and they had lived in a suite of the old family villa on oneof the hills of Rouen, Madame Delano paying her brother for theirlodging, and dressing herself and Hélène with the aid of a halfparalyzed seamstress with a fiery red nose. Ma foi! It was thenightmare of her youth, that nose and that croaking voice. But thewoman had fingers, and a taste! And her mother could have concocted asmart evening frock out of an old window curtain.
But the petted little daughter was never asked to go out and buy a spoolof thread, much less was she consulted in the household economies. Allshe noticed was that her clothes were smarter than Cousin Marthe's, whohad a real dressmaker, and was subject to fits of jealous sulks. Nowonder that when money was poured into her lap out in this wonderfulCalifornia she had assumed that it was made only to spend.
But she would learn! She would learn! She would ask her mother that veryday to initiate her into the fascinating secrets of personal economies,teach her how to portion out her quarterly allowance between herwardrobe, club dues, charities, even her private automobile.
This last heroic suggestion was her own, and although her husbandprotested he finally agreed; it was well she should learn just what itcost to be a woman of fashion in San Francisco, and the allowance wasvery generous. His old steward, Mannings, ran the household, although ashe went through the form of laying