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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1869-0.txt b/1869-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b1af06a --- /dev/null +++ b/1869-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8180 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Man in Lower Ten, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Man in Lower Ten + +Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Release Date: August, 1999 [eBook #1869] +[Most recently updated: May 28, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer and David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN LOWER TEN *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +The Man in Lower Ten + +by Mary Roberts Rinehart + + +Contents + + CHAPTER I. I GO TO PITTSBURG + CHAPTER II. A TORN TELEGRAM + CHAPTER III. ACROSS THE AISLE + CHAPTER IV. NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE + CHAPTER V. THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR + CHAPTER VI. THE GIRL IN BLUE + CHAPTER VII. A FINE GOLD CHAIN + CHAPTER VIII. THE SECOND SECTION + CHAPTER IX. THE HALCYON BREAKFAST + CHAPTER X. MISS WEST’S REQUEST + CHAPTER XI. THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN + CHAPTER XII. THE GOLD BAG + CHAPTER XIII. FADED ROSES + CHAPTER XIV. THE TRAP-DOOR + CHAPTER XV. THE CINEMATOGRAPH + CHAPTER XVI. THE SHADOW OF A GIRL + CHAPTER XVII. AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN + CHAPTER XVIII. A NEW WORLD + CHAPTER XIX. AT THE TABLE NEXT + CHAPTER XX. THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN + CHAPTER XXI. McKNIGHT’S THEORY + CHAPTER XXII. AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE + CHAPTER XXIII. A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS + CHAPTER XXIV. HIS WIFE’S FATHER + CHAPTER XXV. AT THE STATION + CHAPTER XXVI. ON TO RICHMOND + CHAPTER XXVII. THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS + CHAPTER XXVIII.ALISON’S STORY + CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE DINING-ROOM + CHAPTER XXX. FINER DETAILS + CHAPTER XXXI. AND ONLY ONE ARM + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE MAN IN LOWER TEN + + + + +CHAPTER I. +I GO TO PITTSBURG + + +McKnight is gradually taking over the criminal end of the business. I +never liked it, and since the strange case of the man in lower ten, I +have been a bit squeamish. Given a case like that, where you can build +up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three entirely +different people, only one of whom can be guilty, and your faith in +circumstantial evidence dies of overcrowding. I never see a shivering, +white-faced wretch in the prisoners’ dock that I do not hark back with +shuddering horror to the strange events on the Pullman car Ontario, +between Washington and Pittsburg, on the night of September ninth, +last. + +McKnight could tell the story a great deal better than I, although he +can not spell three consecutive words correctly. But, while he has +imagination and humor, he is lazy. + +“It didn’t happen to me, anyhow,” he protested, when I put it up to +him. “And nobody cares for second-hand thrills. Besides, you want the +unvarnished and ungarnished truth, and I’m no hand for that. I’m a +lawyer.” + +So am I, although there have been times when my assumption in that +particular has been disputed. I am unmarried, and just old enough to +dance with the grown-up little sisters of the girls I used to know. I +am fond of outdoors, prefer horses to the aforesaid grown-up little +sisters, am without sentiment (_am_ crossed out and _was_ +substituted.—Ed.) and completely ruled and frequently routed by my +housekeeper, an elderly widow. + +In fact, of all the men of my acquaintance, I was probably the most +prosaic, the least adventurous, the one man in a hundred who would be +likely to go without a deviation from the normal through the orderly +procession of the seasons, summer suits to winter flannels, golf to +bridge. + +So it was a queer freak of the demons of chance to perch on my +unsusceptible thirty-year-old chest, tie me up with a crime, ticket me +with a love affair, and start me on that sensational and not always +respectable journey that ended so surprisingly less than three weeks +later in the firm’s private office. It had been the most remarkable +period of my life. I would neither give it up nor live it again under +any inducement, and yet all that I lost was some twenty yards off my +drive! + +It was really McKnight’s turn to make the next journey. I had a +tournament at Chevy Chase for Saturday, and a short yacht cruise +planned for Sunday, and when a man has been grinding at statute law for +a week, he needs relaxation. But McKnight begged off. It was not the +first time he had shirked that summer in order to run down to Richmond, +and I was surly about it. But this time he had a new excuse. “I +wouldn’t be able to look after the business if I did go,” he said. He +has a sort of wide-eyed frankness that makes one ashamed to doubt him. +“I’m always car sick crossing the mountains. It’s a fact, Lollie. +See-sawing over the peaks does it. Why, crossing the Alleghany +Mountains has the Gulf Stream to Bermuda beaten to a frazzle.” + +So I gave him up finally and went home to pack. He came later in the +evening with his machine, the Cannonball, to take me to the station, +and he brought the forged notes in the Bronson case. + +“Guard them with your life,” he warned me. “They are more precious than +honor. Sew them in your chest protector, or wherever people keep +valuables. I never keep any. I’ll not be happy until I see Gentleman +Andy doing the lockstep.” + +He sat down on my clean collars, found my cigarettes and struck a match +on the mahogany bed post with one movement. + +“Where’s the Pirate?” he demanded. The Pirate is my housekeeper, Mrs. +Klopton, a very worthy woman, so labeled—and libeled—because of a +ferocious pair of eyes and what McKnight called a bucaneering nose. I +quietly closed the door into the hall. + +“Keep your voice down, Richey,” I said. “She is looking for the evening +paper to see if it is going to rain. She has my raincoat and an +umbrella waiting in the hall.” + +The collars being damaged beyond repair, he left them and went to the +window. He stood there for some time, staring at the blackness that +represented the wall of the house next door. + +“It’s raining now,” he said over his shoulder, and closed the window +and the shutters. Something in his voice made me glance up, but he was +watching me, his hands idly in his pockets. + +“Who lives next door?” he inquired in a perfunctory tone, after a +pause. I was packing my razor. + +“House is empty,” I returned absently. “If the landlord would put it in +some sort of shape—” + +“Did you put those notes in your pocket?” he broke in. + +“Yes.” I was impatient. “Along with my certificates of registration, +baptism and vaccination. Whoever wants them will have to steal my coat +to get them.” + +“Well, I would move them, if I were you. Somebody in the next house was +confoundedly anxious to see where you put them. Somebody right at that +window opposite.” + +I scoffed at the idea, but nevertheless I moved the papers, putting +them in my traveling-bag, well down at the bottom. McKnight watched me +uneasily. + +“I have a hunch that you are going to have trouble,” he said, as I +locked the alligator bag. “Darned if I like starting anything important +on Friday.” + +“You have a congenital dislike to start anything on any old day,” I +retorted, still sore from my lost Saturday. “And if you knew the owner +of that house as I do you would know that if there was any one at that +window he is paying rent for the privilege.” + +Mrs. Klopton rapped at the door and spoke discreetly from the hall. + +“Did Mr. McKnight bring the evening paper?” she inquired. + +“Sorry, but I didn’t, Mrs. Klopton,” McKnight called. “The Cubs won, +three to nothing.” He listened, grinning, as she moved away with little +irritated rustles of her black silk gown. + +I finished my packing, changed my collar and was ready to go. Then very +cautiously we put out the light and opened the shutters. The window +across was merely a deeper black in the darkness. It was closed and +dirty. And yet, probably owing to Richey’s suggestion, I had an uneasy +sensation of eyes staring across at me. The next moment we were at the +door, poised for flight. + +“We’ll have to run for it,” I said in a whisper. “She’s down there with +a package of some sort, sandwiches probably. And she’s threatened me +with overshoes for a month. Ready now!” + +I had a kaleidoscopic view of Mrs. Klopton in the lower hall, holding +out an armful of such traveling impedimenta as she deemed essential, +while beside her, Euphemia, the colored housemaid, grinned over a +white-wrapped box. + +“Awfully sorry—no time—back Sunday,” I panted over my shoulder. Then +the door closed and the car was moving away. + +McKnight bent forward and stared at the façade of the empty house next +door as we passed. It was black, staring, mysterious, as empty +buildings are apt to be. + +“I’d like to hold a post-mortem on that corpse of a house,” he said +thoughtfully. “By George, I’ve a notion to get out and take a look.” + +“Somebody after the brass pipes,” I scoffed. “House has been empty for +a year.” + +With one hand on the steering wheel McKnight held out the other for my +cigarette case. “Perhaps,” he said; “but I don’t see what she would +want with brass pipe.” + +“A woman!” I laughed outright. “You have been looking too hard at the +picture in the back of your watch, that’s all. There’s an experiment +like that: if you stare long enough—” + +But McKnight was growing sulky: he sat looking rigidly ahead, and he +did not speak again until he brought the Cannonball to a stop at the +station. Even then it was only a perfunctory remark. He went through +the gate with me, and with five minutes to spare, we lounged and smoked +in the train shed. My mind had slid away from my surroundings and had +wandered to a polo pony that I couldn’t afford and intended to buy +anyhow. Then McKnight shook off his taciturnity. + +“For heaven’s sake, don’t look so martyred,” he burst out; “I know +you’ve done all the traveling this summer. I know you’re missing a game +to-morrow. But don’t be a patient mother; confound it, I have to go to +Richmond on Sunday. I—I want to see a girl.” + +“Oh, don’t mind me,” I observed politely. “Personally, I wouldn’t +change places with you. What’s her name—North? South?” + +“West,” he snapped. “Don’t try to be funny. And all I have to say, +Blakeley, is that if you ever fall in love I hope you make an egregious +ass of yourself.” + +In view of what followed, this came rather close to prophecy. + +The trip west was without incident. I played bridge with a furniture +dealer from Grand Rapids, a sales agent for a Pittsburg iron firm and a +young professor from an eastern college. I won three rubbers out of +four, finished what cigarettes McKnight had left me, and went to bed at +one o’clock. It was growing cooler, and the rain had ceased. Once, +toward morning, I wakened with a start, for no apparent reason, and sat +bolt upright. I had an uneasy feeling that some one had been looking at +me, the same sensation I had experienced earlier in the evening at the +window. But I could feel the bag with the notes, between me and the +window, and with my arm thrown over it for security, I lapsed again +into slumber. Later, when I tried to piece together the fragments of +that journey, I remembered that my coat, which had been folded and +placed beyond my restless tossing, had been rescued in the morning from +a heterogeneous jumble of blankets, evening papers and cravat, had been +shaken out with profanity and donned with wrath. At the time, nothing +occurred to me but the necessity of writing to the Pullman Company and +asking them if they ever traveled in their own cars. I even formulated +some of the letter. + +“If they are built to scale, why not take a man of ordinary stature as +your unit?” I wrote mentally. “I can not fold together like the +traveling cup with which I drink your abominable water.” + +I was more cheerful after I had had a cup of coffee in the Union +Station. It was too early to attend to business, and I lounged in the +restaurant and hid behind the morning papers. As I had expected, they +had got hold of my visit and its object. On the first page was a +staring announcement that the forged papers in the Bronson case had +been brought to Pittsburg. Underneath, a telegram from Washington +stated that Lawrence Blakeley, of Blakeley and McKnight, had left for +Pittsburg the night before, and that, owing to the approaching trial of +the Bronson case and the illness of John Gilmore, the Pittsburg +millionaire, who was the chief witness for the prosecution, it was +supposed that the visit was intimately concerned with the trial. + +I looked around apprehensively. There were no reporters yet in sight, +and thankful to have escaped notice I paid for my breakfast and left. +At the cab-stand I chose the least dilapidated hansom I could find, and +giving the driver the address of the Gilmore residence, in the East +end, I got in. + +I was just in time. As the cab turned and rolled off, a slim young man +in a straw hat separated himself from a little group of men and hurried +toward us. + +“Hey! Wait a minute there!” he called, breaking into a trot. + +But the cabby did not hear, or perhaps did not care to. We jogged +comfortably along, to my relief, leaving the young man far behind. I +avoid reporters on principle, having learned long ago that I am an easy +mark for a clever interviewer. + +It was perhaps nine o’clock when I left the station. Our way was along +the boulevard which hugged the side of one of the city’s great hills. +Far below, to the left, lay the railroad tracks and the seventy times +seven looming stacks of the mills. The white mist of the river, the +grays and blacks of the smoke blended into a half-revealing haze, +dotted here and there with fire. It was unlovely, tremendous. Whistler +might have painted it with its pathos, its majesty, but he would have +missed what made it infinitely suggestive—the rattle and roar of iron +on iron, the rumble of wheels, the throbbing beat, against the ears, of +fire and heat and brawn welding prosperity. + +Something of this I voiced to the grim old millionaire who was +responsible for at least part of it. He was propped up in bed in his +East end home, listening to the market reports read by a nurse, and he +smiled a little at my enthusiasm. + +“I can’t see much beauty in it myself,” he said. “But it’s our badge of +prosperity. The full dinner pail here means a nose that looks like a +flue. Pittsburg without smoke wouldn’t be Pittsburg, any more than New +York without prohibition would be New York. Sit down for a few minutes, +Mr. Blakeley. Now, Miss Gardner, Westinghouse Electric.” + +The nurse resumed her reading in a monotonous voice. She read literally +and without understanding, using initials and abbreviations as they +came. But the shrewd old man followed her easily. Once, however, he +stopped her. + +“D-o is ditto,” he said gently, “not _do_.” + +As the nurse droned along, I found myself looking curiously at a +photograph in a silver frame on the bed-side table. It was the picture +of a girl in white, with her hands clasped loosely before her. Against +the dark background her figure stood out slim and young. Perhaps it was +the rather grim environment, possibly it was my mood, but although as a +general thing photographs of young girls make no appeal to me, this one +did. I found my eyes straying back to it. By a little finesse I even +made out the name written across the corner, “Alison.” + +Mr. Gilmore lay back among his pillows and listened to the nurse’s +listless voice. But he was watching me from under his heavy eyebrows, +for when the reading was over, and we were alone, he indicated the +picture with a gesture. + +“I keep it there to remind myself that I am an old man,” he said. “That +is my granddaughter, Alison West.” + +I expressed the customary polite surprise, at which, finding me +responsive, he told me his age with a chuckle of pride. More surprise, +this time genuine. From that we went to what he ate for breakfast and +did not eat for luncheon, and then to his reserve power, which at +sixty-five becomes a matter for thought. And so, in a wide circle, back +to where we started, the picture. + +“Father was a rascal,” John Gilmore said, picking up the frame. “The +happiest day of my life was when I knew he was safely dead in bed and +not hanged. If the child had looked like him, I—well, she doesn’t. +She’s a Gilmore, every inch. Supposed to look like me.” + +“Very noticeably,” I agreed soberly. + +I had produced the notes by that time, and replacing the picture Mr. +Gilmore gathered his spectacles from beside it. He went over the four +notes methodically, examining each carefully and putting it down before +he picked up the next. Then he leaned back and took off his glasses. + +“They’re not so bad,” he said thoughtfully. “Not so bad. But I never +saw them before. That’s my unofficial signature. I am inclined to +think—” he was speaking partly to himself—“to think that he has got +hold of a letter of mine, probably to Alison. Bronson was a friend of +her rapscallion of a father.” + +I took Mr. Gilmore’s deposition and put it into my traveling-bag with +the forged notes. When I saw them again, almost three weeks later, they +were unrecognizable, a mass of charred paper on a copper ashtray. In +the interval other and bigger things had happened: the Bronson forgery +case had shrunk beside the greater and more imminent mystery of the man +in lower ten. And Alison West had come into the story and into my life. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +A TORN TELEGRAM + + +I lunched alone at the Gilmore house, and went back to the city at +once. The sun had lifted the mists, and a fresh summer wind had cleared +away the smoke pall. The boulevard was full of cars flying countryward +for the Saturday half-holiday, toward golf and tennis, green fields and +babbling girls. I gritted my teeth and thought of McKnight at Richmond, +visiting the lady with the geographical name. And then, for the first +time, I associated John Gilmore’s granddaughter with the “West” that +McKnight had irritably flung at me. + +I still carried my traveling-bag, for McKnight’s vision at the window +of the empty house had not been without effect. I did not transfer the +notes to my pocket, and, if I had, it would not have altered the +situation later. Only the other day McKnight put this very thing up to +me. + +“I warned you,” he reminded me. “I told you there were queer things +coming, and to be on your guard. You ought to have taken your +revolver.” + +“It would have been of exactly as much use as a bucket of snow in +Africa,” I retorted. “If I had never closed my eyes, or if I had kept +my finger on the trigger of a six-shooter (which is novelesque for +revolver), the result would have been the same. And the next time you +want a little excitement with every variety of thrill thrown in, I can +put you by way of it. You begin by getting the wrong berth in a Pullman +car, and end—” + +“Oh, I know how it ends,” he finished shortly. “Don’t you suppose the +whole thing’s written on my spinal marrow?” + +But I am wandering again. That is the difficulty with the +unprofessional story-teller: he yaws back and forth and can’t keep in +the wind; he drops his characters overboard when he hasn’t any further +use for them and drowns them; he forgets the coffee-pot and the +frying-pan and all the other small essentials, and, if he carries a +love affair, he mutters a fervent “Allah be praised” when he lands +them, drenched with adventures, at the matrimonial dock at the end of +the final chapter. + +I put in a thoroughly unsatisfactory afternoon. Time dragged eternally. +I dropped in at a summer vaudeville, and bought some ties at a +haberdasher’s. I was bored but unexpectant; I had no premonition of +what was to come. Nothing unusual had ever happened to me; friends of +mine had sometimes sailed the high seas of adventure or skirted the +coasts of chance, but all of the shipwrecks had occurred after a woman +passenger had been taken on. “_Ergo_,” I had always said “no women!” I +repeated it to myself that evening almost savagely, when I found my +thoughts straying back to the picture of John Gilmore’s granddaughter. +I even argued as I ate my solitary dinner at a downtown restaurant. + +“Haven’t you troubles enough,” I reflected, “without looking for more? +Hasn’t Bad News gone lame, with a matinée race booked for next week? +Otherwise aren’t you comfortable? Isn’t your house in order? Do you +want to sell a pony in order to have the library done over in mission +or the drawing-room in gold? Do you want somebody to count the empty +cigarette boxes lying around every morning?” + +Lay it to the long idle afternoon, to the new environment, to anything +you like, but I began to think that perhaps I did. I was confoundedly +lonely. For the first time in my life its even course began to waver: +the needle registered warning marks on the matrimonial seismograph, +lines vague enough, but lines. + +My alligator bag lay at my feet, still locked. While I waited for my +coffee I leaned back and surveyed the people incuriously. There were +the usual couples intent on each other: my new state of mind made me +regard them with tolerance. But at the next table, where a man and +woman dined together, a different atmosphere prevailed. My attention +was first caught by the woman’s face. She had been speaking earnestly +across the table, her profile turned to me. I had noticed casually her +earnest manner, her somber clothes, and the great mass of odd, +bronze-colored hair on her neck. But suddenly she glanced toward me and +the utter hopelessness—almost tragedy—of her expression struck me with +a shock. She half closed her eyes and drew a long breath, then she +turned again to the man across the table. + +Neither one was eating. He sat low in his chair, his chin on his chest, +ugly folds of thick flesh protruding over his collar. He was probably +fifty, bald, grotesque, sullen, and yet not without a suggestion of +power. But he had been drinking; as I looked, he raised an unsteady +hand and summoned a waiter with a wine list. + +The young woman bent across the table and spoke again quickly. She had +unconsciously raised her voice. Not beautiful, in her earnestness and +stress she rather interested me. I had an idle inclination to advise +the waiter to remove the bottled temptation from the table. I wonder +what would have happened if I had? Suppose Harrington had not been +intoxicated when he entered the Pullman car Ontario that night! + +For they were about to make a journey, I gathered, and the young woman +wished to go alone. I drank three cups of coffee, which accounted for +my wakefulness later, and shamelessly watched the tableau before me. +The woman’s protest evidently went for nothing: across the table the +man grunted monosyllabic replies and grew more and more lowering and +sullen. Once, during a brief unexpected _pianissimo_ in the music, her +voice came to me sharply: + +“If I could only see him in time!” she was saying. “Oh, it’s terrible!” + +In spite of my interest I would have forgotten the whole incident at +once, erased it from my mind as one does the inessentials and +clutterings of memory, had I not met them again, later that evening, in +the Pennsylvania station. The situation between them had not visibly +altered: the same dogged determination showed in the man’s face, but +the young woman—daughter or wife? I wondered—had drawn down her veil +and I could only suspect what white misery lay beneath. + +I bought my berth after waiting in a line of some eight or ten people. +When, step by step, I had almost reached the window, a tall woman whom +I had not noticed before spoke to me from my elbow. She had a ticket +and money in her hand. + +“Will you try to get me a lower when you buy yours?” she asked. “I have +traveled for three nights in uppers.” + +I consented, of course; beyond that I hardly noticed the woman. I had a +vague impression of height and a certain amount of stateliness, but the +crowd was pushing behind me, and some one was standing on my foot. I +got two lowers easily, and, turning with the change and berths, held +out the tickets. + +“Which will you have?” I asked. “Lower eleven or lower ten?” + +“It makes no difference,” she said. “Thank you very much indeed.” + +At random I gave her lower eleven, and called a porter to help her with +her luggage. I followed them leisurely to the train shed, and ten +minutes more saw us under way. + +I looked into my car, but it presented the peculiarly unattractive +appearance common to sleepers. The berths were made up; the center +aisle was a path between walls of dingy, breeze-repelling curtains, +while the two seats at each end of the car were piled high with +suitcases and umbrellas. The perspiring porter was trying to be six +places at once: somebody has said that Pullman porters are black so +they won’t show the dirt, but they certainly show the heat. + +Nine-fifteen was an outrageous hour to go to bed, especially since I +sleep little or not at all on the train, so I made my way to the smoker +and passed the time until nearly eleven with cigarettes and a magazine. +The car was very close. It was a warm night, and before turning in I +stood a short time in the vestibule. The train had been stopping at +frequent intervals, and, finding the brakeman there, I asked the +trouble. + +It seemed that there was a hot-box on the next car, and that not only +were we late, but we were delaying the second section, just behind. I +was beginning to feel pleasantly drowsy, and the air was growing cooler +as we got into the mountains. I said good night to the brakeman and +went back to my berth. To my surprise, lower ten was already occupied—a +suit-case projected from beneath, a pair of shoes stood on the floor, +and from behind the curtains came the heavy, unmistakable breathing of +deep sleep. I hunted out the porter and together we investigated. + +“Are you asleep, sir?” asked the porter, leaning over deferentially. No +answer forthcoming, he opened the curtains and looked in. Yes, the +intruder was asleep—very much asleep—and an overwhelming odor of whisky +proclaimed that he would probably remain asleep until morning. I was +irritated. The car was full, and I was not disposed to take an upper in +order to allow this drunken interloper to sleep comfortably in my +berth. + +“You’ll have to get out of this,” I said, shaking him angrily. But he +merely grunted and turned over. As he did so, I saw his features for +the first time. It was the quarrelsome man of the restaurant. + +I was less disposed than ever to relinquish my claim, but the porter, +after a little quiet investigation, offered a solution of the +difficulty. “There’s no one in lower nine,” he suggested, pulling open +the curtains just across. “It’s likely nine’s his berth, and he’s made +a mistake, owing to his condition. You’d better take nine, sir.” + +I did, with a firm resolution that if nine’s rightful owner turned up +later I should be just as unwakable as the man opposite. I undressed +leisurely, making sure of the safety of the forged notes, and placing +my grip as before between myself and the window. + +Being a man of systematic habits, I arranged my clothes carefully, +putting my shoes out for the porter to polish, and stowing my collar +and scarf in the little hammock swung for the purpose. + +At last, with my pillows so arranged that I could see out comfortably, +and with the unhygienic-looking blanket turned back—I have always a +distrust of those much-used affairs—I prepared to wait gradually for +sleep. + +But sleep did not visit me. The train came to frequent, grating stops, +and I surmised the hot box again. I am not a nervous man, but there was +something chilling in the thought of the second section pounding along +behind us. Once, as I was dozing, our locomotive whistled a shrill +warning—“You keep back where you belong,” it screamed to my drowsy +ears, and from somewhere behind came a chastened “All-right-I-will.” + +I grew more and more wide-awake. At Cresson I got up on my elbow and +blinked out at the station lights. Some passengers boarded the train +there and I heard a woman’s low tones, a southern voice, rich and full. +Then quiet again. Every nerve was tense: time passed, perhaps ten +minutes, possibly half an hour. Then, without the slightest warning, as +the train rounded a curve, a heavy body was thrown into my berth. The +incident, trivial as it seemed, was startling in its suddenness, for +although my ears were painfully strained and awake, I had heard no step +outside. The next instant the curtain hung limp again; still without a +sound, my disturber had slipped away into the gloom and darkness. In a +frenzy of wakefulness, I sat up, drew on a pair of slippers and fumbled +for my bath-robe. + +From a berth across, probably lower ten, came that particular +aggravating snore which begins lightly, delicately, faintly soprano, +goes down the scale a note with every breath, and, after keeping the +listener tense with expectation, ends with an explosion that tears the +very air. I was more and more irritable: I sat on the edge of the berth +and hoped the snorer would choke to death. He had considerable +vitality, however; he withstood one shock after another and survived to +start again with new vigor. In desperation I found some cigarettes and +one match, piled my blankets over my grip, and drawing the curtains +together as though the berth were still occupied, I made my way to the +vestibule of the car. + +I was not clad for dress parade. Is it because the male is so +restricted to gloom in his every-day attire that he blossoms into gaudy +colors in his pajamas and dressing-gowns? It would take a Turk to feel +at home before an audience in my red and yellow bathrobe, a Christmas +remembrance from Mrs. Klopton, with slippers to match. + +So, naturally, when I saw a feminine figure on the platform, my first +instinct was to dodge. The woman, however, was quicker than I; she gave +me a startled glance, wheeled and disappeared, with a flash of two +bronze-colored braids, into the next car. + +Cigarette box in one hand, match in the other, I leaned against the +uncertain frame of the door and gazed after her vanished figure. The +mountain air flapped my bath-robe around my bare ankles, my one match +burned to the end and went out, and still I stared. For I had seen on +her expressive face a haunting look that was horror, nothing less. +Heaven knows, I am not psychological. Emotions have to be written large +before I can read them. But a woman in trouble always appeals to me, +and this woman was more than that. She was in deadly fear. + +If I had not been afraid of being ridiculous, I would have followed +her. But I fancied that the apparition of a man in a red and yellow +bath-robe, with an unkempt thatch of hair, walking up to her and +assuring her that he would protect her would probably put her into +hysterics. I had done that once before, when burglars had tried to +break into the house, and had startled the parlor maid into bed for a +week. So I tried to assure myself that I had imagined the lady’s +distress—or caused it, perhaps—and to dismiss her from my mind. Perhaps +she was merely anxious about the unpleasant gentleman of the +restaurant. I thought smugly that I could have told her all about him: +that he was sleeping the sleep of the just and the intoxicated in a +berth that ought, by all that was fair and right, to have been mine, +and that if I were tied to a man who snored like that I should have him +anæsthetized and his soft palate put where it would never again flap +like a loose sail in the wind. + +We passed Harrisburg as I stood there. It was starlight, and the great +crests of the Alleghanies had given way to low hills. At intervals we +passed smudges of gray white, no doubt in daytime comfortable farms, +which McKnight says is a good way of putting it, the farms being a lot +more comfortable than the people on them. + +I was growing drowsy: the woman with the bronze hair and the horrified +face was fading in retrospect. It was colder, too, and I turned with a +shiver to go in. As I did so a bit of paper fluttered into the air and +settled on my sleeve, like a butterfly on a gorgeous red and yellow +blossom. I picked it up curiously and glanced at it. It was part of a +telegram that had been torn into bits. + +There were only parts of four words on the scrap, but it left me +puzzled and thoughtful. It read, “—ower ten, car seve—.” + +“Lower ten, car seven,” was my berth—the one I had bought and found +preempted. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +ACROSS THE AISLE + + +No solution offering itself, I went back to my berth. The snorer across +had apparently strangled, or turned over, and so after a time I dropped +asleep, to be awakened by the morning sunlight across my face. + +I felt for my watch, yawning prodigiously. I reached under the pillow +and failed to find it, but something scratched the back of my hand. I +sat up irritably and nursed the wound, which was bleeding a little. +Still drowsy, I felt more cautiously for what I supposed had been my +scarf pin, but there was nothing there. Wide awake now, I reached for +my traveling-bag, on the chance that I had put my watch in there. I had +drawn the satchel to me and had my hand on the lock before I realized +that it was not my own! + +Mine was of alligator hide. I had killed the beast in Florida, after +the expenditure of enough money to have bought a house and enough +energy to have built one. The bag I held in my hand was a black one, +sealskin, I think. The staggering thought of what the loss of my bag +meant to me put my finger on the bell and kept it there until the +porter came. + +“Did you ring, sir?” he asked, poking his head through the curtains +obsequiously. McKnight objects that nobody can poke his head through a +curtain and be obsequious. But Pullman porters can and do. + +“No,” I snapped. “It rang itself. What in thunder do you mean by +exchanging my valise for this one? You’ll have to find it if you waken +the entire car to do it. There are important papers in that grip.” + +“Porter,” called a feminine voice from an upper berth near-by. “Porter, +am I to dangle here all day?” + +“Let her dangle,” I said savagely. “You find that bag of mine.” + +The porter frowned. Then he looked at me with injured dignity. “I +brought in your overcoat, sir. You carried your own valise.” + +The fellow was right! In an excess of caution I had refused to +relinquish my alligator bag, and had turned over my other traps to the +porter. It was clear enough then. I was simply a victim of the usual +sleeping-car robbery. I was in a lather of perspiration by that time: +the lady down the car was still dangling and talking about it: still +nearer a feminine voice was giving quick orders in French, presumably +to a maid. The porter was on his knees, looking under the berth. + +“Not there, sir,” he said, dusting his knees. He was visibly more +cheerful, having been absolved of responsibility. “Reckon it was taken +while you was wanderin’ around the car last night.” + +“I’ll give you fifty dollars if you find it,” I said. “A hundred. Reach +up my shoes and I’ll—” + +I stopped abruptly. My eyes were fixed in stupefied amazement on a coat +that hung from a hook at the foot of my berth. From the coat they +traveled, dazed, to the soft-bosomed shirt beside it, and from there to +the collar and cravat in the net hammock across the windows. + +“A hundred!” the porter repeated, showing his teeth. But I caught him +by the arm and pointed to the foot of the berth. + +“What—what color’s that coat?” I asked unsteadily. + +“Gray, sir.” His tone was one of gentle reproof. + +“And—the trousers?” + +He reached over and held up one creased leg. “Gray, too,” he grinned. + +“Gray!” I could not believe even his corroboration of my own eyes. “But +my clothes were blue!” The porter was amused: he dived under the +curtains and brought up a pair of shoes. “Your shoes, sir,” he said +with a flourish. “Reckon you’ve been dreaming, sir.” + +Now, there are two things I always avoid in my dress—possibly an +idiosyncrasy of my bachelor existence. These tabooed articles are red +neckties and tan shoes. And not only were the shoes the porter lifted +from the floor of a gorgeous shade of yellow, but the scarf which was +run through the turned over collar was a gaudy red. It took a full +minute for the real import of things to penetrate my dazed +intelligence. Then I gave a vindictive kick at the offending ensemble. + +“They’re not mine, any of them,” I snarled. “They are some other +fellow’s. I’ll sit here until I take root before I put them on.” + +“They’re nice lookin’ clothes,” the porter put in, eying the red tie +with appreciation. “Ain’t everybody would have left you anything.” + +“Call the conductor,” I said shortly. Then a possible explanation +occurred to me. “Oh, porter—what’s the number of this berth?” + +“Seven, sir. If you cain’t wear those shoes—” + +“Seven!” In my relief I almost shouted it. “Why, then, it’s simple +enough. I’m in the wrong berth, that’s all. My berth is nine. +Only—where the deuce is the man who belongs here?” + +“Likely in nine, sir.” The darky was enjoying himself. “You and the +other gentleman just got mixed in the night. That’s all, sir.” It was +clear that he thought I had been drinking. + +I drew a long breath. Of course, that was the explanation. This was +number seven’s berth, that was his soft hat, this his umbrella, his +coat, his bag. My rage turned to irritation at myself. + +The porter went to the next berth and I could hear his softly +insinuating voice. “Time to get up, sir. Are you awake? Time to get +up.” + +There was no response from number nine. I guessed that he had opened +the curtains and was looking in. Then he came back. + +“Number nine’s empty,” he said. + +“Empty! Do you mean my clothes aren’t there?” I demanded. “My valise? +Why don’t you answer me?” + +“You doan’ give me time,” he retorted. “There ain’t nothin’ there. But +it’s been slept in.” + +The disappointment was the greater for my few moments of hope. I sat up +in a white fury and put on the clothes that had been left me. Then, +still raging, I sat on the edge of the berth and put on the obnoxious +tan shoes. The porter, called to his duties, made little excursions +back to me, to offer assistance and to chuckle at my discomfiture. He +stood by, outwardly decorous, but with little irritating grins of +amusement around his mouth, when I finally emerged with the red tie in +my hand. + +“Bet the owner of those clothes didn’t become them any more than you +do,” he said, as he plied the ubiquitous whisk broom. + +“When I get the owner of these clothes,” I retorted grimly, “he will +need a shroud. Where’s the conductor?” + +The conductor was coming, he assured me; also that there was no bag +answering the description of mine on the car. I slammed my way to the +dressing-room, washed, choked my fifteen and a half neck into a fifteen +collar, and was back again in less than five minutes. The car, as well +as its occupants, was gradually taking on a daylight appearance. I +hobbled in, for one of the shoes was abominably tight, and found myself +facing a young woman in blue with an unforgettable face. (“Three women +already.” McKnight says: “That’s going some, even if you don’t count +the Gilmore nurse.”) She stood, half-turned toward me, one hand idly +drooping, the other steadying her as she gazed out at the flying +landscape. I had an instant impression that I had met her somewhere, +under different circumstances, more cheerful ones, I thought, for the +girl’s dejection now was evident. Beside her, sitting down, a small +dark woman, considerably older, was talking in a rapid undertone. The +girl nodded indifferently now and then. I fancied, although I was not +sure, that my appearance brought a startled look into the young woman’s +face. I sat down and, hands thrust deep into the other man’s pockets, +stared ruefully at the other man’s shoes. + +The stage was set. In a moment the curtain was going up on the first +act of the play. And for a while we would all say our little speeches +and sing our little songs, and I, the villain, would hold center stage +while the gallery hissed. + +The porter was standing beside lower ten. He had reached in and was +knocking valiantly. But his efforts met with no response. He winked at +me over his shoulder; then he unfastened the curtains and bent forward. +Behind him, I saw him stiffen, heard his muttered exclamation, saw the +bluish pallor that spread over his face and neck. As he retreated a +step the interior of lower ten lay open to the day. + +The man in it was on his back, the early morning sun striking full on +his upturned face. But the light did not disturb him. A small stain of +red dyed the front of his night clothes and trailed across the sheet; +his half-open eyes were fixed, without seeing, on the shining wood +above. + +I grasped the porter’s shaking shoulders and stared down to where the +train imparted to the body a grisly suggestion of motion. “Good Lord,” +I gasped. “The man’s been murdered!” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE + + +Afterwards, when I tried to recall our discovery of the body in lower +ten, I found that my most vivid impression was not that made by the +revelation of the opened curtain. I had an instantaneous picture of a +slender blue-gowned girl who seemed to sense my words rather than hear +them, of two small hands that clutched desperately at the seat beside +them. The girl in the aisle stood, bent toward us, perplexity and alarm +fighting in her face. + +With twitching hands the porter attempted to draw the curtains +together. Then in a paralysis of shock, he collapsed on the edge of my +berth and sat there swaying. In my excitement I shook him. + +“For Heaven’s sake, keep your nerve, man,” I said bruskly. “You’ll have +every woman in the car in hysterics. And if you do, you’ll wish you +could change places with the man in there.” He rolled his eyes. + +A man near, who had been reading last night’s paper, dropped it quickly +and tiptoed toward us. He peered between the partly open curtains, +closed them quietly and went back, ostentatiously solemn, to his seat. +The very crackle with which he opened his paper added to the bursting +curiosity of the car. For the passengers knew that something was amiss: +I was conscious of a sudden tension. + +With the curtains closed the porter was more himself; he wiped his lips +with a handkerchief and stood erect. + +“It’s my last trip in _this_ car,” he remarked heavily. “There’s +something wrong with that berth. Last trip the woman in it took an +overdose of some sleeping stuff, and we found her, jes’ like that, +dead! And it ain’t more’n three months now since there was twins born +in that very spot. No, sir, it ain’t natural.” + +At that moment a thin man with prominent eyes and a spare grayish +goatee creaked up the aisle and paused beside me. + +“Porter sick?” he inquired, taking in with a professional eye the +porter’s horror-struck face, my own excitement and the slightly gaping +curtains of lower ten. He reached for the darky’s pulse and pulled out +an old-fashioned gold watch. + +“Hm! Only fifty! What’s the matter? Had a shock?” he asked shrewdly. + +“Yes,” I answered for the porter. “We’ve both had one. If you are a +doctor, I wish you would look at the man in the berth across, lower +ten. I’m afraid it’s too late, but I’m not experienced in such +matters.” + +Together we opened the curtains, and the doctor, bending down, gave a +comprehensive glance that took in the rolling head, the relaxed jaw, +the ugly stain on the sheet. The examination needed only a moment. +Death was written in the clear white of the nostrils, the colorless +lips, the smoothing away of the sinister lines of the night before. +With its new dignity the face was not unhandsome: the gray hair was +still plentiful, the features strong and well cut. + +The doctor straightened himself and turned to me. “Dead for some time,” +he said, running a professional finger over the stains. “These are dry +and darkened, you see, and _rigor mortis_ is well established. A friend +of yours?” + +“I don’t know him at all,” I replied. “Never saw him but once before.” + +“Then you don’t know if he is traveling alone?” + +“No, he was not—that is, I don’t know anything about him,” I corrected +myself. It was my first blunder: the doctor glanced up at me quickly +and then turned his attention again to the body. Like a flash there had +come to me the vision of the woman with the bronze hair and the tragic +face, whom I had surprised in the vestibule between the cars, somewhere +in the small hours of the morning. I had acted on my first impulse—the +masculine one of shielding a woman. + +The doctor had unfastened the coat of the striped pajamas and exposed +the dead man’s chest. On the left side was a small punctured wound of +insignificant size. + +“Very neatly done,” the doctor said with appreciation. “Couldn’t have +done it better myself. Right through the intercostal space: no time +even to grunt.” + +“Isn’t the heart around there somewhere?” I asked. The medical man +turned toward me and smiled austerely. + +“That’s where it belongs, just under that puncture, when it isn’t +gadding around in a man’s throat or his boots.” + +I had a new respect for the doctor, for any one indeed who could crack +even a feeble joke under such circumstances, or who could run an +impersonal finger over that wound and those stains. Odd how a healthy, +normal man holds the medical profession in half contemptuous regard +until he gets sick, or an emergency like this arises, and then turns +meekly to the man who knows the ins and outs of his mortal tenement, +takes his pills or his patronage, ties to him like a rudderless ship in +a gale. + +“Suicide, is it, doctor?” I asked. + +He stood erect, after drawing the bed-clothing over the face, and, +taking off his glasses, he wiped them slowly. + +“No, it is not suicide,” he announced decisively. “It is murder.” + +Of course, I had expected that, but the word itself brought a shiver. I +was just a bit dizzy. Curious faces through the car were turned toward +us, and I could hear the porter behind me breathing audibly. A stout +woman in negligee came down the aisle and querulously confronted the +porter. She wore a pink dressing-jacket and carried portions of her +clothing. + +“Porter,” she began, in the voice of the lady who had “dangled,” “is +there a rule of this company that will allow a woman to occupy the +dressing-room for one hour and curl her hair with an alcohol lamp while +respectable people haven’t a place where they can hook their—” + +She stopped suddenly and stared into lower ten. Her shining pink cheeks +grew pasty, her jaw fell. I remember trying to think of something to +say, and of saying nothing at all. Then—she had buried her eyes in the +nondescript garments that hung from her arm and tottered back the way +she had come. Slowly a little knot of men gathered around us, silent +for the most part. The doctor was making a search of the berth when the +conductor elbowed his way through, followed by the inquisitive man, who +had evidently summoned him. I had lost sight, for a time, of the girl +in blue. + +“Do it himself?” the conductor queried, after a businesslike glance at +the body. + +“No, he didn’t,” the doctor asserted. “There’s no weapon here, and the +window is closed. He couldn’t have thrown it out, and he didn’t swallow +it. What on earth are you looking for, man?” + +Some one was on the floor at our feet, face down, head peering under +the berth. Now he got up without apology, revealing the man who had +summoned the conductor. He was dusty, alert, cheerful, and he dragged +up with him the dead man’s suit-case. The sight of it brought back to +me at once my own predicament. + +“I don’t know whether there’s any connection or not, conductor,” I +said, “but I am a victim, too, in less degree; I’ve been robbed of +everything I possess, except a red and yellow bath-robe. I happened to +be wearing the bath-robe, which was probably the reason the thief +overlooked it.” + +There was a fresh murmur in the crowd. Some body laughed nervously. The +conductor was irritated. + +“I can’t bother with that now,” he snarled. “The railroad company is +responsible for transportation, not for clothes, jewelry and morals. If +people want to be stabbed and robbed in the company’s cars, it’s their +affair. Why didn’t you sleep in your clothes? I do.” + +I took an angry step forward. Then somebody touched my arm, and I +unclenched my fist. I could understand the conductor’s position, and +beside, in the law, I had been guilty myself of contributory +negligence. + +“I’m not trying to make you responsible,” I protested as amiably as I +could, “and I believe the clothes the thief left are as good as my own. +They are certainly newer. But my valise contained valuable papers and +it is to your interest as well as mine to find the man who stole it.” + +“Why, of course,” the conductor said shrewdly. “Find the man who +skipped out with this gentleman’s clothes, and you’ve probably got the +murderer.” + +“I went to bed in lower nine,” I said, my mind full again of my lost +papers, “and I wakened in number seven. I was up in the night prowling +around, as I was unable to sleep, and I must have gone back to the +wrong berth. Anyhow, until the porter wakened me this morning I knew +nothing of my mistake. In the interval the thief—murderer, too, +perhaps—must have come back, discovered my error, and taken advantage +of it to further his escape.” + +The inquisitive man looked at me from between narrowed eyelids, +ferret-like. + +“Did any one on the train suspect you of having valuable papers?” he +inquired. The crowd was listening intently. + +“No one,” I answered promptly and positively. The doctor was +investigating the murdered man’s effects. The pockets of his trousers +contained the usual miscellany of keys and small change, while in his +hip pocket was found a small pearl-handled revolver of the type women +usually keep around. A gold watch with a Masonic charm had slid down +between the mattress and the window, while a showy diamond stud was +still fastened in the bosom of his shirt. Taken as a whole, the +personal belongings were those of a man of some means, but without any +particular degree of breeding. The doctor heaped them together. + +“Either robbery was not the motive,” he reflected, “or the thief +overlooked these things in his hurry.” + +The latter hypothesis seemed the more tenable, when, after a thorough +search, we found no pocketbook and less than a dollar in small change. + +The suit-case gave no clue. It contained one empty leather-covered +flask and a pint bottle, also empty, a change of linen and some collars +with the laundry mark, S. H. In the leather tag on the handle was a +card with the name Simon Harrington, Pittsburg. The conductor sat down +on my unmade berth, across, and made an entry of the name and address. +Then, on an old envelope, he wrote a few words and gave it to the +porter, who disappeared. + +“I guess that’s all I can do,” he said. “I’ve had enough trouble this +trip to last for a year. They don’t need a conductor on these trains +any more; what they ought to have is a sheriff and a _posse_.” + +The porter from the next car came in and whispered to him. The +conductor rose unhappily. + +“Next car’s caught the disease,” he grumbled. “Doctor, a woman back +there has got mumps or bubonic plague, or something. Will you come +back?” + +The strange porter stood aside. + +“Lady about the middle of the car,” he said, “in black, sir, with +queer-looking hair—sort of copper color, I think, sir.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. +THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR + + +With the departure of the conductor and the doctor, the group around +lower ten broke up, to re-form in smaller knots through the car. The +porter remained on guard. With something of relief I sank into a seat. +I wanted to think, to try to remember the details of the previous +night. But my inquisitive acquaintance had other intentions. He came up +and sat down beside me. Like the conductor, he had taken notes of the +dead man’s belongings, his name, address, clothing and the general +circumstances of the crime. Now with his little note-book open before +him, he prepared to enjoy the minor sensation of the robbery. + +“And now for the second victim,” he began cheerfully. “What is your +name and address, please?” I eyed him with suspicion. + +“I have lost everything but my name and address,” I parried. “What do +you want them for? Publication?” + +“Oh, no; dear, no!” he said, shocked at my misapprehension. “Merely for +my own enlightenment. I like to gather data of this kind and draw my +own conclusions. Most interesting and engrossing. Once or twice I have +forestalled the results of police investigation—but entirely for my own +amusement.” + +I nodded tolerantly. Most of us have hobbies; I knew a man once who +carried his handkerchief up his sleeve and had a mania for old colored +prints cut out of Godey’s _Lady’s Book_. + +“I use that inductive method originated by Poe and followed since with +such success by Conan Doyle. Have you ever read _Gaboriau?_ Ah, you +have missed a treat, indeed. And now, to get down to business, what is +the name of our escaped thief and probable murderer?” + +“How on earth do I know?” I demanded impatiently. “He didn’t write it +in blood anywhere, did he?” + +The little man looked hurt and disappointed. + +“Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that the pockets of those clothes are +entirely empty?” The pockets! In the excitement I had forgotten +entirely the sealskin grip which the porter now sat at my feet, and I +had not investigated the pockets at all. With the inquisitive man’s +pencil taking note of everything that I found, I emptied them on the +opposite seat. + +Upper left-hand waist-coat, two lead pencils and a fountain pen; lower +right waist-coat, match-box and a small stamp book; right-hand pocket +coat, pair of gray suede gloves, new, size seven and a half; left-hand +pocket, gun-metal cigarette case studded with pearls, half-full of +Egyptian cigarettes. The trousers pockets contained a gold penknife, a +small amount of money in bills and change, and a handkerchief with the +initial “S” on it. + +Further search through the coat discovered a card-case with cards +bearing the name Henry Pinckney Sullivan, and a leather flask with gold +mountings, filled with what seemed to be very fair whisky, and +monogrammed H. P. S. + +“His name evidently is Henry Pinckney Sullivan,” said the cheerful +follower of Poe, as he wrote it down. “Address as yet unknown. Blond, +probably. Have you noticed that it is almost always the blond men who +affect a very light gray, with a touch of red in the scarf? Fact, I +assure you. I kept a record once of the summer attire of men, and +ninety per cent, followed my rule. Dark men like you affect navy blue, +or brown.” + +In spite of myself I was amused at the man’s shrewdness. + +“Yes; the suit he took was dark—a blue,” I said. He rubbed his hands +and smiled at me delightedly. “Then you wore black shoes, not tan,” he +said, with a glance at the aggressive yellow ones I wore. + +“Right again,” I acknowledged. “Black low shoes and black embroidered +hose. If you keep on you’ll have a motive for the crime, and the +murderer’s present place of hiding. And if you come back to the smoker +with me, I’ll give you an opportunity to judge if he knew good whisky +from bad.” + +I put the articles from the pockets back again and got up. “I wonder if +there is a diner on?” I said. “I need something sustaining after all +this.” + +I was conscious then of some one at my elbow. I turned to see the young +woman whose face was so vaguely familiar. In the very act of speaking +she drew back suddenly and colored. + +“Oh,—I beg your pardon,” she said hurriedly, “I—thought you were—some +one else.” She was looking in a puzzled fashion at my coat. I felt all +the cringing guilt of a man who has accidentally picked up the wrong +umbrella: my borrowed collar sat tight on my neck. + +“I’m sorry,” I said idiotically. “I’m sorry, but—I’m not.” I have +learned since that she has bright brown hair, with a loose wave in it +that drops over her ears, and dark blue eyes with black lashes and—but +what does it matter? One enjoys a picture as a whole: not as the sum of +its parts. + +She saw the flask then, and her errand came back to her. “One of the +ladies at the end of car has fainted,” she explained. “I thought +perhaps a stimulant—” + +I picked up the flask at once and followed my guide down the aisle. Two +or three women were working over the woman who had fainted. They had +opened her collar and taken out her hairpins, whatever good that might +do. The stout woman was vigorously rubbing her wrists, with the idea, +no doubt, of working up her pulse! The unconscious woman was the one +for whom I had secured lower eleven at the station. + +I poured a little liquor in a bungling masculine fashion between her +lips as she leaned back, with closed eyes. She choked, coughed, and +rallied somewhat. + +“Poor thing,” said the stout lady. “As she lies back that way I could +almost think it was my mother; she used to faint so much.” + +“It would make anybody faint,” chimed in another. “Murder and robbery +in one night and on one car. I’m thankful I always wear my rings in a +bag around my neck—even if they do get under me and keep me awake.” + +The girl in blue was looking at us with wide, startled eyes. I saw her +pale a little, saw the quick, apprehensive glance which she threw at +her traveling companion, the small woman I had noticed before. There +was an exchange—almost a clash—of glances. The small woman frowned. +That was all. I turned my attention again to my patient. + +She had revived somewhat, and now she asked to have the window opened. +The train had stopped again and the car was oppressively hot. People +around were looking at their watches and grumbling over the delay. The +doctor bustled in with a remark about its being his busy day. The +amateur detective and the porter together mounted guard over lower ten. +Outside the heat rose in shimmering waves from the tracks: the very +wood of the car was hot to touch. A Camberwell Beauty darted through +the open door and made its way, in erratic plunges, great wings waving, +down the sunny aisle. All around lay the peace of harvested fields, the +quiet of the country. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +THE GIRL IN BLUE + + +I was growing more and more irritable. The thought of what the loss of +the notes meant was fast crowding the murder to the back of my mind. +The forced inaction was intolerable. + +The porter had reported no bag answering the description of mine on the +train, but I was disposed to make my own investigation. I made a tour +of the cars, scrutinizing every variety of hand luggage, ranging from +luxurious English bags with gold mountings to the wicker nondescripts +of the day coach at the rear. I was not alone in my quest, for the girl +in blue was just ahead of me. Car by car she preceded me through the +train, unconscious that I was behind her, looking at each passenger as +she passed. I fancied the proceeding was distasteful, but that she had +determined on a course and was carrying it through. We reached the end +of the train almost together—empty-handed, both of us. + +The girl went out to the platform. When she saw me she moved aside, and +I stepped out beside her. Behind us the track curved sharply; the early +sunshine threw the train, in long black shadow, over the hot earth. +Forward somewhere they were hammering. The girl said nothing, but her +profile was strained and anxious. + +“I—if you have lost anything,” I began, “I wish you would let me try to +help. Not that my own success is anything to boast of.” + +She hardly glanced at me. It was not flattering. “I have not been +robbed, if that is what you mean,” she replied quietly. “I +am—perplexed. That is all.” + +There was nothing to say to that. I lifted my hat—the other fellow’s +hat—and turned to go back to my car. Two or three members of the train +crew, including the conductor, were standing in the shadow talking. And +at that moment, from a farm-house near came the swift clang of the +breakfast bell, calling in the hands from barn and pasture. I turned +back to the girl. + +“We may be here for an hour,” I said, “and there is no buffet car on. +If I remember my youth, that bell means ham and eggs and country butter +and coffee. If you care to run the risk—” + +“I am not hungry,” she said, “but perhaps a cup of coffee—dear me, I +believe I _am_ hungry,” she finished. “Only—” She glanced back of her. + +“I can bring your companion,” I suggested, without enthusiasm. But the +young woman shook her head. + +“She is not hungry,” she objected, “and she is very—well, I know she +wouldn’t come. Do you suppose we could make it if we run?” + +“I haven’t any idea,” I said cheerfully. “Any old train would be better +than this one, if it does leave us behind.” + +“Yes. Any train would be better than this one,” she repeated gravely. I +found myself watching her changing expression. I had spoken two dozen +words to her and already I felt that I knew the lights and shades in +her voice,—I, who had always known how a woman rode to hounds, and who +never could have told the color of her hair. + +I stepped down on the ties and turned to assist her, and together we +walked back to where the conductor and the porter from our car were in +close conversation. Instinctively my hand went to my cigarette pocket +and came out empty. She saw the gesture. + +“If you want to smoke, you may,” she said. “I have a big cousin who +smokes all the time. He says I am ‘kippered.’” + +I drew out the gun-metal cigarette case and opened it. But this most +commonplace action had an extraordinary result: the girl beside me +stopped dead still and stood staring at it with fascinated eyes. + +“Is—where did you get that?” she demanded, with a catch in her voice; +her gaze still fixed on the cigarette case. + +“Then you haven’t heard the rest of the tragedy?” I asked, holding out +the case. “It’s frightfully bad luck for me, but it makes a good story. +You see—” + +At that moment the conductor and porter ceased their colloquy. The +conductor came directly toward me, tugging as he came at his bristling +gray mustache. + +“I would like to talk to you in the car,” he said to me, with a curious +glance at the young lady. + +“Can’t it wait?” I objected. “We are on our way to a cup of coffee and +a slice of bacon. Be merciful, as you are powerful.” + +“I’m afraid the breakfast will have to wait,” he replied. “I won’t keep +you long.” There was a note of authority in his voice which I resented; +but, after all, the circumstances were unusual. + +“We’ll have to defer that cup of coffee for a while,” I said to the +girl; “but don’t despair; there’s breakfast somewhere.” + +As we entered the car, she stood aside, but I felt rather than saw that +she followed us. I was surprised to see a half dozen men gathered +around the berth in which I had wakened, number seven. It had not yet +been made up. + +As we passed along the aisle, I was conscious of a new expression on +the faces of the passengers. The tall woman who had fainted was +searching my face with narrowed eyes, while the stout woman of the +kindly heart avoided my gaze, and pretended to look out the window. + +As we pushed our way through the group, I fancied that it closed around +me ominously. The conductor said nothing, but led the way without +ceremony to the side of the berth. + +“What’s the matter?” I inquired. I was puzzled, but not apprehensive. +“Have you some of my things? I’d be thankful even for my shoes; these +are confoundedly tight.” + +Nobody spoke, and I fell silent, too. For one of the pillows had been +turned over, and the under side of the white case was streaked with +brownish stains. I think it was a perceptible time before I realized +that the stains were blood, and that the faces around were filled with +suspicion and distrust. + +“Why, it—that looks like blood,” I said vacuously. There was an +incessant pounding in my ears, and the conductor’s voice came from far +off. + +“It is blood,” he asserted grimly. + +I looked around with a dizzy attempt at nonchalance. “Even if it is,” I +remonstrated, “surely you don’t suppose for a moment that I know +anything about it!” + +The amateur detective elbowed his way in. He had a scrap of transparent +paper in his hand, and a pencil. + +“I would like permission to trace the stains,” he began eagerly. +“Also”—to me—“if you will kindly jab your finger with a +pin—needle—anything—” + +“If you don’t keep out of this,” the conductor said savagely, “I will +do some jabbing myself. As for you, sir—” he turned to me. I was +absolutely innocent, but I knew that I presented a typical picture of +guilt; I was covered with cold sweat, and the pounding in my ears kept +up dizzily. “As for you, sir—” + +The irrepressible amateur detective made a quick pounce at the pillow +and pushed back the cover. Before our incredulous eyes he drew out a +narrow steel dirk which had been buried to the small cross that served +as a head. + +There was a chorus of voices around, a quick surging forward of the +crowd. So that was what had scratched my hand! I buried the wound in my +coat pocket. + +“Well,” I said, trying to speak naturally, “doesn’t that prove what I +have been telling you? The man who committed the murder belonged to +this berth, and made an exchange in some way after the crime. How do +you know he didn’t change the tags so I would come back to this berth?” +This was an inspiration; I was pleased with it. “That’s what he did, he +changed the tags,” I reiterated. + +There was a murmur of assent around. The doctor, who was standing +beside me, put his hand on my arm. “If this gentleman committed this +crime, and I for one feel sure he did not, then who is the fellow who +got away? And why did he go?” + +“We have only one man’s word for that,” the conductor snarled. “I’ve +traveled some in these cars myself, and no one ever changed berths with +_me_.” + +Somebody on the edge of the group asserted that hereafter he would +travel by daylight. I glanced up and caught the eye of the girl in +blue. + +“They are all mad,” she said. Her tone was low, but I heard her +distinctly. “Don’t take them seriously enough to defend yourself.” + +“I am glad you think I didn’t do it,” I observed meekly, over the +crowd. “Nothing else is of any importance.” + +The conductor had pulled out his note-book again. “Your name, please,” +he said gruffly. + +“Lawrence Blakeley, Washington.” + +“Your occupation?” + +“Attorney. A member of the firm of Blakeley and McKnight.” + +“Mr. Blakeley, you say you have occupied the wrong berth and have been +robbed. Do you know anything of the man who did it?” + +“Only from what he left behind,” I answered. “These clothes—” + +“They fit you,” he said with quick suspicion. “Isn’t that rather a +coincidence? You are a large man.” + +“Good Heavens,” I retorted, stung into fury, “do I look like a man who +would wear this kind of a necktie? Do you suppose I carry purple and +green barred silk handkerchiefs? Would any man in his senses wear a +pair of shoes a full size too small?” + +The conductor was inclined to hedge. “You will have to grant that I am +in a peculiar position,” he said. “I have only your word as to the +exchange of berths, and you understand I am merely doing my duty. Are +there any clues in the pockets?” + +For the second time I emptied them of their contents, which he noted. +“Is that all?” he finished. “There was nothing else?” + +“Nothing.” + +“That’s not all, sir,” broke in the porter, stepping forward. “There +was a small black satchel.” + +“That’s so,” I exclaimed. “I forgot the bag. I don’t even know where it +is.” + +The easily swayed crowd looked suspicious again. I’ve grown so +accustomed to reading the faces of a jury, seeing them swing from doubt +to belief, and back again to doubt, that I instinctively watch +expressions. I saw that my forgetfulness had done me harm—that +suspicion was roused again. + +The bag was found a couple of seats away, under somebody’s +raincoat—another dubious circumstance. Was I hiding it? It was brought +to the berth and placed beside the conductor, who opened it at once. + +It contained the usual traveling impedimenta—change of linen, collars, +handkerchiefs, a bronze-green scarf, and a safety razor. But the +attention of the crowd riveted itself on a flat, Russia leather wallet, +around which a heavy gum band was wrapped, and which bore in gilt +letters the name “Simon Harrington.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +A FINE GOLD CHAIN + + +The conductor held it out to me, his face sternly accusing. + +“Is this another coincidence?” he asked. “Did the man who left you his +clothes and the barred silk handkerchief and the tight shoes leave you +the spoil of the murder?” + +The men standing around had drawn off a little, and I saw the absolute +futility of any remonstrance. Have you ever seen a fly, who, in these +hygienic days, finding no cobwebs to entangle him, is caught in a sheet +of fly paper, finds himself more and more mired, and is finally quiet +with the sticky stillness of despair? + +Well, I was the fly. I had seen too much of circumstantial evidence to +have any belief that the establishing of my identity would weigh much +against the other incriminating details. It meant imprisonment and +trial, probably, with all the notoriety and loss of practice they would +entail. A man thinks quickly at a time like that. All the probable +consequences of the finding of that pocket-book flashed through my mind +as I extended my hand to take it. Then I drew my arm back. + +“I don’t want it,” I said. “Look inside. Maybe the other man took the +money and left the wallet.” + +The conductor opened it, and again there was a curious surging forward +of the crowd. To my intense disappointment the money was still there. + +I stood blankly miserable while it was counted out—five +one-hundred-dollar bills, six twenties, and some fives and ones that +brought the total to six hundred and fifty dollars. + +The little man with the note-book insisted on taking the numbers of the +notes, to the conductor’s annoyance. It was immaterial to me: small +things had lost their power to irritate. I was seeing myself in the +prisoner’s box, going through all the nerve-racking routine of a trial +for murder—the challenging of the jury, the endless cross-examinations, +the alternate hope and fear. I believe I said before that I had no +nerves, but for a few minutes that morning I was as near as a man ever +comes to hysteria. + +I folded my arms and gave myself a mental shake. I seemed to be the +center of a hundred eyes, expressing every shade of doubt and distrust, +but I tried not to flinch. Then some one created a diversion. + +The amateur detective was busy again with the seal-skin bag, +investigating the make of the safety razor and the manufacturer’s name +on the bronze-green tie. Now, however, he paused and frowned, as though +some pet theory had been upset. + +Then from a corner of the bag he drew out and held up for our +inspection some three inches of fine gold chain, one end of which was +blackened and stained with blood! + +The conductor held out his hand for it, but the little man was not +ready to give it up. He turned to me. + +“You say no watch was left you? Was there a piece of chain like that?” + +“No chain at all,” I said sulkily. “No jewelry of any kind, except +plain gold buttons in the shirt I am wearing.” + +“Where are your glasses?” he threw at me suddenly: instinctively my +hand went to my eyes. My glasses had been gone all morning, and I had +not even noticed their absence. The little man smiled cynically and +held out the chain. + +“I must ask you to examine this,” he insisted. “Isn’t it a part of the +fine gold chain you wear over your ear?” + +I didn’t want to touch the thing: the stain at the end made me shudder. +But with a baker’s dozen of suspicious eyes—well, we’ll say fourteen: +there were no one-eyed men—I took the fragment in the tips of my +fingers and looked at it helplessly. + +“Very fine chains are much alike,” I managed to say. “For all I know, +this may be mine, but I don’t know how it got into that sealskin bag. I +never saw the bag until this morning after daylight.” + +“He admits that he had the bag,” somebody said behind me. “How did you +guess that he wore glasses, anyhow?” to the amateur sleuth. + +That gentleman cleared his throat. “There were two reasons,” he said, +“for suspecting it. When you see a man with the lines of his face +drooping, a healthy individual with a pensive eye,—suspect astigmatism. +Besides, this gentleman has a pronounced line across the bridge of his +nose and a mark on his ear from the chain.” + +After this remarkable exhibition of the theoretical as combined with +the practical, he sank into a seat near-by, and still holding the +chain, sat with closed eyes and pursed lips. It was evident to all the +car that the solution of the mystery was a question of moments. Once he +bent forward eagerly and putting the chain on the window-sill, +proceeded to go over it with a pocket magnifying glass, only to shake +his head in disappointment. All the people around shook their heads +too, although they had not the slightest idea what it was about. + +The pounding in my ears began again. The group around me seemed to be +suddenly motionless in the very act of moving, as if a hypnotist had +called “Rigid!” The girl in blue was looking at me, and above the din I +thought she said she must speak to me—something vital. The pounding +grew louder and merged into a scream. With a grinding and splintering +the car rose under my feet. Then it fell away into darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE SECOND SECTION + + +Have you ever been picked up out of your three-meals-a-day life, +whirled around in a tornado of events, and landed in a situation so +grotesque and yet so horrible that you laugh even while you are +groaning, and straining at its hopelessness? McKnight says that is +hysteria, and that no man worthy of the name ever admits to it. + +Also, as McKnight says, it sounds like a tank drama. Just as the +revolving saw is about to cut the hero into stove lengths, the second +villain blows up the sawmill. The hero goes up through the roof and +alights on the bank of a stream at the feet of his lady love, who is +making daisy chains. + +Nevertheless, when I was safely home again, with Mrs. Klopton brewing +strange drinks that came in paper packets from the pharmacy, and that +smelled to heaven, I remember staggering to the door and closing it, +and then going back to bed and howling out the absurdity and the +madness of the whole thing. And while I laughed my very soul was sick, +for the girl was gone by that time, and I knew by all the loyalty that +answers between men for honor that I would have to put her out of my +mind. + +And yet, all the night that followed, filled as it was with the +shrieking demons of pain, I saw her as I had seen her last, in the +queer hat with green ribbons. I told the doctor this, guardedly, the +next morning, and he said it was the morphia, and that I was lucky not +to have seen a row of devils with green tails. + +I don’t know anything about the wreck of September ninth last. You who +swallowed the details with your coffee and digested the horrors with +your chop, probably know a great deal more than I do. I remember very +distinctly that the jumping and throbbing in my arm brought me back to +a world that at first was nothing but sky, a heap of clouds that I +thought hazily were the meringue on a blue charlotte russe. As the +sense of hearing was slowly added to vision, I heard a woman near me +sobbing that she had lost her hat pin, and she couldn’t keep her hat +on. + +I think I dropped back into unconsciousness again, for the next thing I +remember was of my blue patch of sky clouded with smoke, of a strange +roaring and crackling, of a rain of fiery sparks on my face and of +somebody beating at me with feeble hands. I opened my eyes and closed +them again: the girl in blue was bending over me. With that +imperviousness to big things and keenness to small that is the first +effect of shock, I tried to be facetious, when a spark stung my cheek. + +“You will have to rouse yourself!” the girl was repeating desperately. +“You’ve been on fire twice already.” A piece of striped ticking floated +slowly over my head. As the wind caught it its charring edges leaped +into flame. + +“Looks like a kite, doesn’t it?” I remarked cheerfully. And then, as my +arm gave an excruciating throb—“Jove, how my arm hurts!” + +The girl bent over and spoke slowly, distinctly, as one might speak to +a deaf person or a child. + +“Listen, Mr. Blakeley,” she said earnestly. “You _must_ rouse yourself. +There has been a terrible accident. The second section ran into us. The +wreck is burning now, and if we don’t move, we will catch fire. Do you +hear?” + +Her voice and my arm were bringing me to my senses. “I hear,” I said. +“I—I’ll sit up in a second. Are you hurt?” + +“No, only bruised. Do you think you can walk?” + +I drew up one foot after another, gingerly. + +“They seem to move all right,” I remarked dubiously. “Would you mind +telling me where the back of my head has gone? I can’t help thinking it +isn’t there.” + +She made a quick examination. “It’s pretty badly bumped,” she said. +“You must have fallen on it.” + +I had got up on my uninjured elbow by that time, but the pain threw me +back. “Don’t look at the wreck,” I entreated her. “It’s no sight for a +woman. If—if there is any way to tie up this arm, I might be able to do +something. There may be people under those cars!” + +“Then it is too late to help,” she replied solemnly. A little shower of +feathers, each carrying its fiery lamp, blew over us from some burning +pillow. A part of the wreck collapsed with a crash. In a resolute +endeavor to play a man’s part in the tragedy going on around, I got to +my knees. Then I realized what I had not noticed before: the hand and +wrist of the broken left arm were jammed through the handle of the +sealskin grip. I gasped and sat down suddenly. + +[Illustration] + +“You must not do that,” the girl insisted. I noticed now that she kept +her back to the wreck, her eyes averted. “The weight of the +traveling-bag must be agony. Let me support the valise until we get +back a few yards. Then you must lie down until we can get it cut off.” + +“Will it have to be cut off?” I asked as calmly as possible. There were +red-hot stabs of agony clear to my neck, but we were moving slowly away +from the track. + +“Yes,” she replied, with dumfounding coolness. “If I had a knife I +could do it myself. You might sit here and lean against this fence.” + +By that time my returning faculties had realized that she was going to +cut off the satchel, not the arm. The dizziness was leaving and I was +gradually becoming myself. + +“If you pull, it might come,” I suggested. “And with that weight gone, +I think I will cease to be five feet eleven inches of baby.” + +She tried gently to loosen the handle, but it would not move, and at +last, with great drops of cold perspiration over me, I had to give up. + +“I’m afraid I can’t stand it,” I said. “But there’s a knife somewhere +around these clothes, and if I can find it, perhaps you can cut the +leather.” + +As I gave her the knife she turned it over, examining it with a +peculiar expression, bewilderment rather than surprise. But she said +nothing. She set to work deftly, and in a few minutes the bag dropped +free. + +“That’s better,” I declared, sitting up. “Now, if you can pin my sleeve +to my coat, it will support the arm so we can get away from here.” + +“The pin might give,” she objected, “and the jerk would be terrible.” +She looked around, puzzled; then she got up, coming back in a minute +with a draggled, partly scorched sheet. This she tore into a large +square, and after she had folded it, she slipped it under the broken +arm and tied it securely at the back of my neck. + +The relief was immediate, and, picking up the sealskin bag, I walked +slowly beside her, away from the track. + +The first act was over: the curtain fallen. The scene was “struck.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +THE HALCYON BREAKFAST + + +We were still dazed, I think, for we wandered like two troubled +children, our one idea at first to get as far away as we could from the +horror behind us. We were both bareheaded, grimy, pallid through the +grit. Now and then we met little groups of country folk hurrying to the +track: they stared at us curiously, and some wished to question us. But +we hurried past them; we had put the wreck behind us. That way lay +madness. + +Only once the girl turned and looked behind her. The wreck was hidden, +but the smoke cloud hung heavy and dense. For the first time I +remembered that my companion had not been alone on the train. + +“It is quiet here,” I suggested. “If you will sit down on the bank I +will go back and make some inquiries. I’ve been criminally thoughtless. +Your traveling companion—” + +She interrupted me, and something of her splendid poise was gone. +“Please don’t go back,” she said. “I am afraid it would be of no use. +And I don’t want to be left alone.” + +Heaven knows I did not want her to be alone. I was more than content to +walk along beside her aimlessly, for any length of time. Gradually, as +she lost the exaltation of the moment, I was gaining my normal +condition of mind. I was beginning to realize that I had lacked the +morning grace of a shave, that I looked like some lost hope of +yesterday, and that my left shoe pinched outrageously. A man does not +rise triumphant above such handicaps. The girl, for all her disordered +hair and the crumpled linen of her waist, in spite of her missing hat +and the small gold bag that hung forlornly from a broken chain, looked +exceedingly lovely. + +“Then I won’t leave you alone,” I said manfully, and we stumbled on +together. Thus far we had seen nobody from the wreck, but well up the +lane we came across the tall dark woman who had occupied lower eleven. +She was half crouching beside the road, her black hair about her +shoulders, and an ugly bruise over her eye. She did not seem to know +us, and refused to accompany us. We left her there at last, babbling +incoherently and rolling in her hands a dozen pebbles she had gathered +in the road. + +The girl shuddered as we went on. Once she turned and glanced at my +bandage. “Does it hurt very much?” she asked. + +“It’s growing rather numb. But it might be worse,” I answered +mendaciously. If anything in this world could be worse, I had never +experienced it. + +And so we trudged on bareheaded under the summer sun, growing parched +and dusty and weary, doggedly leaving behind us the pillar of smoke. I +thought I knew of a trolley line somewhere in the direction we were +going, or perhaps we could find a horse and trap to take us into +Baltimore. The girl smiled when I suggested it. + +“We will create a sensation, won’t we?” she asked. “Isn’t it queer—or +perhaps it’s my state of mind—but I keep wishing for a pair of gloves, +when I haven’t even a hat!” + +When we reached the main road we sat down for a moment, and her hair, +which had been coming loose for some time, fell over her shoulders in +little waves that were most alluring. It seemed a pity to twist it up +again, but when I suggested this, cautiously, she said it was +troublesome and got in her eyes when it was loose. So she gathered it +up, while I held a row of little shell combs and pins, and when it was +done it was vastly becoming, too. Funny about hair: a man never knows +he has it until he begins to lose it, but it’s different with a girl. +Something of the unconventional situation began to dawn on her as she +put in the last hair-pin and patted some stray locks to place. + +“I have not told you my name,” she said abruptly. “I forgot that +because I know who you are, you know nothing about me. I am Alison +West, and my home is in Richmond.” + +So that was it! This was the girl of the photograph on John Gilmore’s +bedside table. The girl McKnight expected to see in Richmond the next +day, Sunday! She was on her way back to meet him! Well, what difference +did it make, anyhow? We had been thrown together by the merest chance. +In an hour or two at the most we would be back in civilization and she +would recall me, if she remembered me at all, as an unshaven creature +in a red cravat and tan shoes, with a soiled Pullman sheet tied around +my neck. I drew a deep breath. + +“Just a twinge,” I said, when she glanced up quickly. “It’s very good +of you to let me know, Miss West. I have been hearing delightful things +about you for three months.” + +“From Richey McKnight?” She was frankly curious. + +“Yes. From Richey McKnight,” I assented. Was it any wonder McKnight was +crazy about her? I dug my heels into the dust. + +“I have been visiting near Cresson, in the mountains,” Miss West was +saying. “The person you mentioned, Mrs. Curtis, was my hostess. We—we +were on our way to Washington together.” She spoke slowly, as if she +wished to give the minimum of explanation. Across her face had come +again the baffling expression of perplexity and trouble I had seen +before. + +“You were on your way home, I suppose? Richey spoke about seeing you,” +I floundered, finding it necessary to say something. She looked at me +with level, direct eyes. + +“No,” she returned quietly. “I did not intend to go home. I—well, it +doesn’t matter; I am going home now.” + +A woman in a calico dress, with two children, each an exact duplicate +of the other, had come quickly down the road. She took in the situation +at a glance, and was explosively hospitable. + +“You poor things,” she said. “If you’ll take the first road to the left +over there, and turn in at the second pigsty, you will find breakfast +on the table and a coffee-pot on the stove. And there’s plenty of soap +and water, too. Don’t say one word. There isn’t a soul there to see +you.” + +We accepted the invitation and she hurried on toward the excitement and +the railroad. I got up carefully and helped Miss West to her feet. + +“At the second pigsty to the left,” I repeated, “we will find the +breakfast I promised you seven eternities ago. Forward to the pigsty!” + +We said very little for the remainder of that walk. I had almost +reached the limit of endurance: with every step the broken ends of the +bone grated together. We found the farm-house without difficulty, and I +remember wondering if I could hold out to the end of the old stone walk +that led between hedges to the door. + +“Allah be praised,” I said with all the voice I could muster. “Behold +the coffee-pot!” And then I put down the grip and folded up like a +jack-knife on the porch floor. + +When I came around something hot was trickling down my neck, and a +despairing voice was saying, “Oh, I don’t seem to be able to pour it +into your mouth. Please open your eyes.” + +“But I don’t want it in my eyes,” I replied dreamily. “I haven’t any +idea what came over me. It was the shoes, I think: the left one is a +red-hot torture.” I was sitting by that time and looking across into +her face. + +Never before or since have I fainted, but I would do it joyfully, a +dozen times a day, if I could waken again to the blissful touch of soft +fingers on my face, the hot ecstasy of coffee spilled by those fingers +down my neck. There was a thrill in every tone of her voice that +morning. Before long my loyalty to McKnight would step between me and +the girl he loved: life would develop new complexities. In those early +hours after the wreck, full of pain as they were, there was nothing of +the suspicion and distrust that came later. Shorn of our gauds and +baubles, we were primitive man and woman, together: our world for the +hour was the deserted farm-house, the slope of wheat-field that led to +the road, the woodland lot, the pasture. + +We breakfasted together across the homely table. Our cheerfulness, at +first sheer reaction, became less forced as we ate great slices of +bread from the granny oven back of the house, and drank hot fluid that +smelled like coffee and tasted like nothing that I have ever swallowed. +We found cream in stone jars, sunk deep in the chill water of the +spring house. And there were eggs, great yellow-brown ones,—a basket of +them. + +So, like two children awakened from a nightmare, we chattered over our +food: we hunted mutual friends, we laughed together at my feeble +witticisms, but we put the horror behind us resolutely. After all, it +was the hat with the green ribbons that brought back the strangeness of +the situation. + +All along I had had the impression that Alison West was deliberately +putting out of her mind something that obtruded now and then. It +brought with it a return of the puzzled expression that I had surprised +early in the day, before the wreck. I caught it once, when, breakfast +over, she was tightening the sling that held the broken arm. I had +prolonged the morning meal as much as I could, but when the wooden +clock with the pink roses on the dial pointed to half after ten, and +the mother with the duplicate youngsters had not come back, Miss West +made the move I had dreaded. + +“If we are to get into Baltimore at all we must start,” she said, +rising. “You ought to see a doctor as soon as possible.” + +“Hush,” I said warningly. “Don’t mention the arm, please; it is asleep +now. You may rouse it.” + +“If I only had a hat,” she reflected. “It wouldn’t need to be much of +one, but—” She gave a little cry and darted to the corner. “Look,” she +said triumphantly, “the very thing. With the green streamers tied up in +a bow, like this—do you suppose the child would mind? I can put five +dollars or so here—that would buy a dozen of them.” + +It was a queer affair of straw, that hat, with a round crown and a rim +that flopped dismally. With a single movement she had turned it up at +one side and fitted it to her head. Grotesque by itself, when she wore +it it was a thing of joy. + +Evidently the lack of head covering had troubled her, for she was +elated at her find. She left me, scrawling a note of thanks and pinning +it with a bill to the table-cloth, and ran up-stairs to the mirror and +the promised soap and water. + +I did not see her when she came down. I had discovered a bench with a +tin basin outside the kitchen door, and was washing, in a helpless, +one-sided way. I felt rather than saw that she was standing in the +door-way, and I made a final plunge into the basin. + +“How is it possible for a man with only a right hand to wash his left +ear?” I asked from the roller towel. I was distinctly uncomfortable: +men are more rigidly creatures of convention than women, whether they +admit it or not. “There is so much soap on me still that if I laugh I +will blow bubbles. Washing with rain-water and home-made soap is like +motoring on a slippery road. I only struck the high places.” + +Then, having achieved a brilliant polish with the towel, I looked at +the girl. + +She was leaning against the frame of the door, her face perfectly +colorless, her breath coming in slow, difficult respirations. The +erratic hat was pinned to place, but it had slid rakishly to one side. +When I realized that she was staring, not at me, but past me to the +road along which we had come, I turned and followed her gaze. There was +no one in sight: the lane stretched dust white in the sun,—no moving +figure on it, no sign of life. + + + + +CHAPTER X. +MISS WEST’S REQUEST + + +The surprising change in her held me speechless. All the animation of +the breakfast table was gone: there was no hint of the response with +which, before, she had met my nonsensical sallies. She stood there, +white-lipped, unsmiling, staring down the dusty road. One hand was +clenched tight over some small object. Her eyes dropped to it from the +distant road, and then closed, with a quick, indrawn breath. Her color +came back slowly. Whatever had caused the change, she said nothing. She +was anxious to leave at once, almost impatient over my deliberate +masculine way of getting my things together. Afterward I recalled that +I had wanted to explore the barn for a horse and some sort of a vehicle +to take us to the trolley, and that she had refused to allow me to +look. I remembered many things later that might have helped me, and did +not. At the time, I was only completely bewildered. Save the wreck, the +responsibility for which lay between Providence and the engineer of the +second section, all the events of that strange morning were logically +connected; they came from one cause, and tended unerringly to one end. +But the cause was buried, the end not yet in view. + +Not until we had left the house well behind did the girl’s face relax +its tense lines. I was watching her more closely than I had realized, +for when we had gone a little way along the road she turned to me +almost petulantly. “Please don’t stare so at me,” she said, to my +sudden confusion. “I know the hat is dreadful. Green always makes me +look ghastly.” + +“Perhaps it was the green.” I was unaccountably relieved. “Do you know, +a few minutes ago, you looked almost pallid to me!” + +She glanced at me quickly, but I was gazing ahead. We were out of sight +of the house, now, and with every step away from it the girl was +obviously relieved. Whatever she held in her hand, she never glanced at +it. But she was conscious of it every second. She seemed to come to a +decision about it while we were still in sight of the gate, for she +murmured something and turned back alone, going swiftly, her feet +stirring up small puffs of dust at every step. She fastened something +to the gate-post,—I could see the nervous haste with which she worked. +When she joined me again it was without explanation. But the clenched +fingers were free now, and while she looked tired and worn, the strain +had visibly relaxed. + +We walked along slowly in the general direction of the suburban trolley +line. Once a man with an empty wagon offered us a lift, but after a +glance at the springless vehicle I declined. + +“The ends of the bone think they are castanets as it is,” I explained. +“But the lady—” + +The young lady, however, declined and we went on together. Once, when +the trolley line was in sight, she got a pebble in her low shoe, and we +sat down under a tree until she found the cause of the trouble. + +“I—I don’t know what I should have done without you,” I blundered. +“Moral support and—and all that. Do you know, my first conscious +thought after the wreck was of relief that you had not been hurt?” + +She was sitting beside me, where a big chestnut tree shaded the road, +and I surprised a look of misery on her face that certainly my words +had not been meant to produce. + +“And my first thought,” she said slowly, “was regret that I—that I +hadn’t been obliterated, blown out like a candle. Please don’t look +like that! I am only talking.” + +But her lips were trembling, and because the little shams of society +are forgotten at times like this, I leaned over and patted her hand +lightly, where it rested on the grass beside me. + +“You must not say those things,” I expostulated. “Perhaps, after all, +your friends—” + +“I had no friends on the train.” Her voice was hard again, her tone +final. She drew her hand from under mine, not quickly, but decisively. +A car was in sight, coming toward us. The steel finger of civilization, +of propriety, of visiting cards and formal introductions was beckoning +us in. Miss West put on her shoe. + +We said little on the car. The few passengers stared at us frankly, and +discussed the wreck, emphasizing its horrors. The girl did not seem to +hear. Once she turned to me with the quick, unexpected movement that +was one of her charms. + +“I do not wish my mother to know I was in the accident,” she said. +“Will you please not tell Richey about having met me?” + +I gave my promise, of course. Again, when we were almost into +Baltimore, she asked to examine the gun-metal cigarette case, and sat +silent with it in her hands, while I told of the early morning’s events +on the Ontario. + +“So you see,” I finished, “this grip, everything I have on, belongs to +a fellow named Sullivan. He probably left the train before the +wreck,—perhaps just after the murder.” + +“And so—you think he committed the—the crime?” Her eyes were on the +cigarette case. + +“Naturally,” I said. “A man doesn’t jump off a Pullman car in the +middle of the night in another man’s clothes, unless he is trying to +get away from something. Besides the dirk, there were the stains that +you saw. Why, I have the murdered man’s pocket-book in this valise at +my feet. What does that look like?” + +I colored when I saw the ghost of a smile hovering around the corners +of her mouth. “That is,” I finished, “if you care to believe that I am +innocent.” + +The sustaining chain of her small gold bag gave way just then. She did +not notice it. I picked it up and slid the trinket into my pocket for +safekeeping, where I promptly forgot it. Afterwards I wished I had let +it lie unnoticed on the floor of that dirty little suburban car, and +even now, when I see a woman carelessly dangling a similar feminine +trinket, I shudder involuntarily: there comes back to me the memory of +a girl’s puzzled eyes under the brim of a flopping hat, the haunting +suspicion of the sleepless nights that followed. + +Just then I was determined that my companion should not stray back to +the wreck, and to that end I was determinedly facetious. + +“Do you know that it is Sunday?” she asked suddenly, “and that we are +actually ragged?” + +“Never mind that,” I retorted. “All Baltimore is divided on Sunday into +three parts, those who rise up and go to church, those who rise up and +read the newspapers, and those who don’t rise up. The first are +somewhere between the creed and the sermon, and we need not worry about +the others.” + +“You treat me like a child,” she said almost pettishly. “Don’t try so +hard to be cheerful. It—it is almost ghastly.” + +After that I subsided like a pricked balloon, and the remainder of the +ride was made in silence. The information that she would go to friends +in the city was a shock: it meant an earlier separation than I had +planned for. But my arm was beginning again. In putting her into a cab +I struck it and gritted my teeth with the pain. It was probably for +that reason that I forgot the gold bag. + +She leaned forward and held out her hand. “I may not have another +chance to thank you,” she said, “and I think I would better not try, +anyhow. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.” I muttered something +about the gratitude being mine: owing to the knock I was seeing two +cabs, and two girls were holding out two hands. + +“Remember,” they were both saying, “you have never met me, Mr. +Blakeley. And—if you ever hear anything about me—that is not—pleasant, +I want you to think the best you can of me. Will you?” + +The two girls were one now, with little flashes of white light playing +all around. “I—I’m afraid that I shall think too well for my own good,” +I said unsteadily. And the cab drove on. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN + + +I had my arm done up temporarily in Baltimore and took the next train +home. I was pretty far gone when I stumbled out of a cab almost into +the scandalized arms of Mrs. Klopton. In fifteen minutes I was in bed, +with that good woman piling on blankets and blistering me in +unprotected places with hot-water bottles. And in an hour I had a whiff +of chloroform and Doctor Williams had set the broken bone. + +I dropped asleep then, waking in the late twilight to a realization +that I was at home again, without the papers that meant conviction for +Andy Bronson, with a charge of murder hanging over my head, and with +something more than an impression of the girl my best friend was in +love with, a girl moreover who was almost as great an enigma as the +crime itself. + +“And I’m no hand at guessing riddles,” I groaned half aloud. Mrs. +Klopton came over promptly and put a cold cloth on my forehead. + +“Euphemia,” she said to some one outside the door, “telephone the +doctor that he is still rambling, but that he has switched from green +ribbons to riddles.” + +“There’s nothing the matter with me, Mrs. Klopton,” I rebelled. “I was +only thinking out loud. Confound that cloth: it’s trickling all over +me!” I gave it a fling, and heard it land with a soggy thud on the +floor. + +“Thinking out loud is delirium,” Mrs. Klopton said imperturbably. “A +fresh cloth, Euphemia.” + +This time she held it on with a firm pressure that I was too weak to +resist. I expostulated feebly that I was drowning, which she also laid +to my mental exaltation, and then I finally dropped into a damp sleep. +It was probably midnight when I roused again. I had been dreaming of +the wreck, and it was inexpressibly comforting to feel the stability of +my bed, and to realize the equal stability of Mrs. Klopton, who sat, +fully attired, by the night light, reading _Science and Health_. + +“Does that book say anything about opening the windows on a hot night?” +I suggested, when I had got my bearings. + +She put it down immediately and came over to me. If there is one time +when Mrs. Klopton is chastened—and it is the only time—it is when she +reads _Science and Health_. “I don’t like to open the shutters, Mr. +Lawrence,” she explained. “Not since the night you went away.” + +But, pressed further, she refused to explain. “The doctor said you were +not to be excited,” she persisted. “Here’s your beef tea.” + +“Not a drop until you tell me,” I said firmly. “Besides, you know very +well there’s nothing the matter with me. This arm of mine is only a +false belief.” I sat up gingerly. “Now—why don’t you open that window?” + +Mrs. Klopton succumbed. “Because there are queer goings-on in that +house next door,” she said. “If you will take the beef tea, Mr. +Lawrence, I will tell you.” + +The queer goings-on, however, proved to be slightly disappointing. It +seemed that after I left on Friday night, a light was seen flitting +fitfully through the empty house next door. Euphemia had seen it first +and called Mrs. Klopton. Together they had watched it breathlessly +until it disappeared on the lower floor. + +“You should have been a writer of ghost stories,” I said, giving my +pillows a thump. “And so it was fitting flitfully!” + +“That’s what it was doing,” she reiterated. “Fitting flitfully—I mean +flitting fitfully—how you do throw me out, Mr. Lawrence! And what’s +more, it came again!” + +“Oh, come now, Mrs. Klopton,” I objected, “ghosts are like lightning; +they never strike twice in the same night. That is only worth half a +cup of beef tea.” + +“You may ask Euphemia,” she retorted with dignity. “Not more than an +hour after, there was a light there again. We saw it through the chinks +of the shutters. Only—_this time it began at the lower floor and +climbed!_” + +“You oughtn’t to tell ghost stories at night,” came McKnight’s voice +from the doorway. “Really, Mrs. Klopton, I’m amazed at you. You old +duffer! I’ve got you to thank for the worst day of my life.” + +Mrs. Klopton gulped. Then realizing that the “old duffer” was meant for +me, she took her empty cup and went out muttering. + +“The Pirate’s crazy about me, isn’t she?” McKnight said to the closing +door. Then he swung around and held out his hand. + +“By Jove,” he said, “I’ve been laying you out all day, lilies on the +door-bell, black gloves, everything. If you had had the sense of a +mosquito in a snow-storm, you would have telephoned me.” + +“I never even thought of it.” I was filled with remorse. “Upon my word, +Rich, I hadn’t an idea beyond getting away from that place. If you had +seen what I saw—” + +McKnight stopped me. “Seen it! Why, you lunatic, I’ve been digging for +you all day in the ruins! I’ve lunched and dined on horrors. Give me +something to rinse them down, Lollie.” + +He had fished the key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my +shoe bag and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw—a +foundation of brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in +sight to give it snap. Now that I saw him clearly, he looked weary and +grimy. I hated to tell him what I knew he was waiting to hear, but +there was no use wading in by inches. I ducked and got it over. + +“The notes are gone, Rich,” I said, as quietly as I could. In spite of +himself his face fell. + +“I—of course I expected it,” he said. “But—Mrs. Klopton said over the +telephone that you had brought home a grip and I hoped—well, Lord knows +we ought not to complain. You’re here, damaged, but here.” He lifted +his glass. “Happy days, old man!” + +“If you will give me that black bottle and a teaspoon, I’ll drink that +in arnica, or whatever the stuff is; Rich,—the notes were gone before +the wreck!” + +He wheeled and stared at me, the bottle in his hand. “Lost, strayed or +stolen?” he queried with forced lightness. + +“Stolen, although I believe the theft was incidental to something +else.” + +Mrs. Klopton came in at that moment, with an egg-nog in her hand. She +glanced at the clock, and, without addressing any one in particular, +she intimated that it was time for self-respecting folks to be at home +in bed. McKnight, who could never resist a fling at her back, spoke to +me in a stage whisper. + +“Is she talking still? or again?” he asked, just before the door +closed. There was a second’s indecision with the knob, then, judging +discretion the better part, Mrs. Klopton went away. + +“Now, then,” McKnight said, settling himself in a chair beside the bed, +“spit it out. Not the wreck—I know all I want about that. But the +theft. I can tell you beforehand that it was a woman.” + +I had crawled painfully out of bed, and was in the act of pouring the +egg-nog down the pipe of the washstand. I paused, with the glass in the +air. + +“A woman!” I repeated, startled. “What makes you think that?” + +“You don’t know the first principles of a good detective yarn,” he said +scornfully. “Of course, it was the woman in the empty house next door. +You said it was brass pipes, you will remember. Well—on with the dance: +let joy be unconfined.” + +So I told the story; I had told it so many times that day that I did it +automatically. And I told about the girl with the bronze hair, and my +suspicions. But I did not mention Alison West. McKnight listened to the +end without interruption. When I had finished he drew a long breath. + +“Well!” he said. “That’s something of a mess, isn’t it? If you can only +prove your mild and child-like disposition, they couldn’t hold you for +the murder—which is a regular ten-twent-thirt crime, anyhow. But the +notes—that’s different. They are not burned, anyhow. Your man wasn’t on +the train—therefore, he wasn’t in the wreck. If he didn’t know what he +was taking, as you seem to think, he probably reads the papers, and +unless he is a fathead, he’s awake by this time to what he’s got. He’ll +try to sell them to Bronson, probably.” + +“Or to us,” I put in. + +We said nothing for a few minutes. McKnight smoked a cigarette and +stared at a photograph of Candida over the mantel. Candida is the best +pony for a heavy mount in seven states. + +“I didn’t go to Richmond,” he observed finally. The remark followed my +own thoughts so closely that I started. “Miss West is not home yet from +Seal Harbor.” + +Receiving no response, he lapsed again into thoughtful silence. Mrs. +Klopton came in just as the clock struck one, and made preparation for +the night by putting a large gaudy comfortable into an arm-chair in the +dressing-room, with a smaller, stiff-backed chair for her feet. She was +wonderfully attired in a dressing-gown that was reminiscent, in parts, +of all the ones she had given me for a half dozen Christmases, and she +had a purple veil wrapped around her head, to hide Heaven knows what +deficiency. She examined the empty egg-nog glass, inquired what the +evening paper had said about the weather, and then stalked into the +dressing-room, and prepared, with much ostentatious creaking, to sit up +all night. + +We fell silent again, while McKnight traced a rough outline of the +berths on the white table-cover, and puzzled it out slowly. It was +something like this: + +[Illustration] + +“You think he changed the tags on seven and nine, so that when you went +back to bed you thought you were crawling into nine, when it was really +seven, eh?” + +“Probably—yes.” + +“Then toward morning, when everybody was asleep, your theory is that he +changed the numbers again and left the train.” + +“I can’t think of anything else,” I replied wearily. + +“Jove, what a game of bridge that fellow would play! It was like +finessing an eight-spot and winning out. They would scarcely have +doubted your story had the tags been reversed in the morning. He +certainly left you in a bad way. Not a jury in the country would stand +out against the stains, the stiletto, and the murdered man’s +pocket-book in your possession.” + +“Then you think Sullivan did it?” I asked. + +“Of course,” said McKnight confidently. “Unless you did it in your +sleep. Look at the stains on his pillow, and the dirk stuck into it. +And didn’t he have the man Harrington’s pocket-book?” + +“But why did he go off without the money?” I persisted. “And where does +the bronze-haired girl come in?” + +“Search me,” McKnight retorted flippantly. “Inflammation of the +imagination on your part.” + +“Then there is the piece of telegram. It said lower ten, car seven. +It’s extremely likely that she had it. That telegram was about me, +Richey.” + +“I’m getting a headache,” he said, putting out his cigarette against +the sole of his shoe. “All I’m certain of just now is that if there +hadn’t been a wreck, by this time you’d be sitting in an eight by ten +cell, and feeling like the rhyme for it.” + +“But listen to this,” I contended, as he picked up his hat, “this +fellow Sullivan is a fugitive, and he’s a lot more likely to make +advances to Bronson than to us. We could have the case continued, +release Bronson on bail and set a watch on him.” + +“Not my watch,” McKnight protested. “It’s a family heirloom.” + +“You’d better go home,” I said firmly. “Go home and go to bed. You’re +sleepy. You can have Sullivan’s red necktie to dream over if you think +it will help any.” + +Mrs. Klopton’s voice came drowsily from the next room, punctuated by a +yawn. “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she called, with the suspicious lisp +which characterizes her at night, “somebody called up about noon, Mr. +Lawrence. It was long distance, and he said he would call again. The +name was”—she yawned—“Sullivan.” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +THE GOLD BAG + + +I have always smiled at those cases of spontaneous combustion which, +like fusing the component parts of a seidlitz powder, unite two people +in a bubbling and ephemeral ecstasy. But surely there is possible, with +but a single meeting, an attraction so great, a community of mind and +interest so strong, that between that first meeting and the next the +bond may grow into something stronger. This is especially true, I +fancy, of people with temperament, the modern substitute for +imagination. It is a nice question whether lovers begin to love when +they are together, or when they are apart. + +Not that I followed any such line of reasoning at the time. I would not +even admit my folly to myself. But during the restless hours of that +first night after the accident, when my back ached with lying on it, +and any other position was torture, I found my thoughts constantly +going back to Alison West. I dropped into a doze, to dream of touching +her fingers again to comfort her, and awoke to find I had patted a +teaspoonful of medicine out of Mrs. Klopton’s indignant hand. What was +it McKnight had said about making an egregious ass of myself? + +And that brought me back to Richey, and I fancy I groaned. There is no +use expatiating on the friendship between two men who have gone +together through college, have quarreled and made it up, fussed +together over politics and debated creeds for years: men don’t need to +be told, and women can not understand. Nevertheless, I groaned. If it +had been any one but Rich! + +Some things were mine, however, and I would hold them: the halcyon +breakfast, the queer hat, the pebble in her small shoe, the gold bag +with the broken chain—the bag! Why, it was in my pocket at that moment. + +I got up painfully and found my coat. Yes, there was the purse, bulging +with an opulent suggestion of wealth inside. I went back to bed again, +somewhat dizzy, between effort and the touch of the trinket, so lately +hers. I held it up by its broken chain and gloated over it. By careful +attention to orders, I ought to be out in a day or so. Then—I could +return it to her. I really ought to do that: it was valuable, and I +wouldn’t care to trust it to the mail. I could run down to Richmond, +and see her once—there was no disloyalty to Rich in that. + +I had no intention of opening the little bag. I put it under my +pillow—which was my reason for refusing to have the linen slips +changed, to Mrs. Klopton’s dismay. And sometimes during the morning, +while I lay under a virgin field of white, ornamented with strange +flowers, my cigarettes hidden beyond discovery, and _Science and +Health_ on a table by my elbow, as if by the merest accident, I slid my +hand under my pillow and touched it reverently. + +McKnight came in about eleven. I heard his car at the curb, followed +almost immediately by his slam at the front door, and his usual clamor +on the stairs. He had a bottle under his arm, rightly surmising that I +had been forbidden stimulant, and a large box of cigarettes in his +pocket, suspecting my deprivation. + +“Well,” he said cheerfully. “How did you sleep after keeping me up half +the night?” + +I slid my hand around: the purse was well covered. “Have it now, or +wait till I get the cork out?” he rattled on. + +“I don’t want anything,” I protested. “I wish you wouldn’t be so darned +cheerful, Richey.” He stopped whistling to stare at me. + +“‘I am saddest when I sing!’” he quoted unctuously. “It’s pure +reaction, Lollie. Yesterday the sky was low: I was digging for my best +friend. To-day—he lies before me, his peevish self. Yesterday I thought +the notes were burned: to-day—I look forward to a good cross-country +chase, and with luck we will draw.” His voice changed suddenly. +“Yesterday—she was in Seal Harbor. To-day—she is here.” + +“Here in Washington?” I asked, as naturally as I could. + +“Yes. Going to stay a week or two.” + +“Oh, I had a little hen and she had a wooden leg +And nearly every morning she used to lay an egg—” + + +“Will you stop that racket, Rich! It’s the real thing this time, I +suppose?” + +“She’s the best little chicken that we have on the farm +And another little drink won’t do us any harm—” + + +he finished, twisting out the corkscrew. Then he came over and sat down +on the bed. + +“Well,” he said judicially, “since you drag it from me, I think perhaps +it is. You—you’re such a confirmed woman-hater that I hardly knew how +you would take it.” + +“Nothing of the sort,” I denied testily. “Because a man reaches the age +of thirty without making maudlin love to every—” + +“I’ve taken to long country rides,” he went on reflectively, without +listening to me, “and yesterday I ran over a sheep; nearly went into +the ditch. But there’s a Providence that watches over fools and lovers, +and just now I know darned well that I’m one, and I have a sneaking +idea I’m both.” + +“You are both,” I said with disgust. “If you can be rational for one +moment, I wish you would tell me why that man Sullivan called me over +the telephone yesterday morning.” + +“Probably hadn’t yet discovered the Bronson notes—providing you hold to +your theory that the theft was incidental to the murder. May have +wanted his own clothes again, or to thank you for yours. Search me: I +can’t think of anything else.” The doctor came in just then. + +As I said before, I think a lot of my doctor—when I am ill. He is a +young man, with an air of breezy self-confidence and good humor. He +looked directly past the bottle, which is a very valuable +accomplishment, and shook hands with McKnight until I could put the +cigarettes under the bedclothes. He had interdicted tobacco. Then he +sat down beside the bed and felt around the bandages with hands as +gentle as a baby’s. + +“Pretty good shape,” he said. “How did you sleep?” + +“Oh, occasionally,” I replied. “I would like to sit up, doctor.” + +“Nonsense. Take a rest while you have an excuse for it. I wish to +thunder I could stay in bed for a day or so. I was up all night.” + +“Have a drink,” McKnight said, pushing over the bottle. + +“Twins!” The doctor grinned. + +“Have two drinks.” + +But the medical man refused. + +“I wouldn’t even wear a champagne-colored necktie during business +hours,” he explained. “By the way, I had another case from your +accident, Mr. Blakeley, late yesterday afternoon. Under the tongue, +please.” He stuck a thermometer in my mouth. + +I had a sudden terrible vision of the amateur detective coming to +light, note-book, cheerful impertinence and incriminating data. “A +small man?” I demanded, “gray hair—” + +“Keep your mouth closed,” the doctor said peremptorily. “No. A woman, +with a fractured skull. Beautiful case. Van Kirk was up to his eyes and +sent for me. Hemorrhage, right-sided paralysis, irregular pupils—all +the trimmings. Worked for two hours.” + +“Did she recover?” McKnight put in. He was examining the doctor with a +new awe. + +“She lifted her right arm before I left,” the doctor finished cheerily, +“so the operation was a success, even if she should die.” + +“Good Heavens,” McKnight broke in, “and I thought you were just an +ordinary mortal, like the rest of us! Let me touch you for luck. Was +she pretty?” + +“Yes, and young. Had a wealth of bronze-colored hair. Upon my soul, I +hated to cut it.” + +McKnight and I exchanged glances. + +“Do you know her name, doctor?” I asked. + +“No. The nurses said her clothes came from a Pittsburg tailor.” + +“She is not conscious, I suppose?” + +“No; she may be, to-morrow—or in a week.” + +He looked at the thermometer, murmured something about liquid diet, +avoiding my eye—Mrs. Klopton was broiling a chop at the time—and took +his departure, humming cheerfully as he went down-stairs. McKnight +looked after him wistfully. + +“Jove, I wish I had his constitution,” he exclaimed. “Neither nerves +nor heart! What a chauffeur he would make!” + +But I was serious. + +“I have an idea,” I said grimly, “that this small matter of the murder +is going to come up again, and that your uncle will be in the deuce of +a fix if it does. If that woman is going to die, somebody ought to be +around to take her deposition. She knows a lot, if she didn’t do it +herself. I wish you would go down to the telephone and get the +hospital. Find out her name, and if she is conscious.” + +McKnight went under protest. “I haven’t much time,” he said, looking at +his watch. “I’m to meet Mrs. West and Alison at one. I want you to know +them, Lollie. You would like the mother.” + +“Why not the daughter?” I inquired. I touched the little gold bag under +the pillow. + +“Well,” he said judicially, “you’ve always declared against the +immaturity and romantic nonsense of very young women—” + +“I never said anything of the sort,” I retorted furiously. + +“‘There is more satisfaction to be had out of a good saddle horse!’” he +quoted me. “‘More excitement out of a polo pony, and as for the eternal +matrimonial chase, give me instead a good stubble, a fox, some decent +hounds and a hunter, and I’ll show you the real joys of the chase!’” + +“For Heaven’s sake, go down to the telephone, you make my head ache,” I +said savagely. + +I hardly know what prompted me to take out the gold purse and look at +it. It was an imbecile thing to do—call it impulse, sentimentality, +what you wish. I brought it out, one eye on the door, for Mrs. Klopton +has a ready eye and a noiseless shoe. But the house was quiet. +Down-stairs McKnight was flirting with the telephone central and there +was an odor of boneset tea in the air. I think Mrs. Klopton was +fascinated out of her theories by the “boneset” in connection with the +fractured arm. + +Anyhow, I held up the bag and looked at it. It must have been +unfastened, for the next instant there was an avalanche on the +snowfield of the counterpane—some money, a wisp of a handkerchief, a +tiny booklet with thin leaves, covered with a powdery substance—and a +necklace. I drew myself up slowly and stared at the necklace. + +It was one of the semi-barbaric affairs that women are wearing now, a +heavy pendant of gold chains and carved cameos, swung from a thin neck +chain of the same metal. The necklace was broken: in three places the +links were pulled apart and the cameos swung loose and partly detached. +But it was the supporting chain that held my eye and fascinated with +its sinister suggestion. Three inches of it had been snapped off, and +as well as I knew anything on earth, I knew that the bit of chain that +the amateur detective had found, blood-stain and all, belonged just +there. + +And there was no one I could talk to about it, no one to tell me how +hideously absurd it was, no one to give me a slap and tell me there are +tons of fine gold chains made every year, or to point out the long arm +of coincidence! + +With my one useful hand I fumbled the things back into the bag and +thrust it deep out of sight among the pillows. Then I lay back in a +cold perspiration. What connection had Alison West with this crime? Why +had she stared so at the gun-metal cigarette case that morning on the +train? What had alarmed her so at the farm-house? What had she taken +back to the gate? Why did she wish she had not escaped from the wreck? +And last, in Heaven’s name, how did a part of her necklace become torn +off and covered with blood? + +Down-stairs McKnight was still at the telephone, and amusing himself +with Mrs. Klopton in the interval of waiting. + +“Why did he come home in a gray suit, when he went away in a blue?” he +repeated. “Well, wrecks are queer things, Mrs. Klopton. The suit may +have turned gray with fright. Or perhaps wrecks do as queer stunts as +lightning. Friend of mine once was struck by lightning; he and the +caddy had taken refuge under a tree. After the flash, when they +recovered consciousness, there was my friend in the caddy’s clothes, +and the caddy in his. And as my friend was a large man and the caddy a +very small boy—” + +McKnight’s story was interrupted by the indignant slam of the +dining-room door. He was obliged to wait some time, and even his +eternal cheerfulness was ebbing when he finally got the hospital. + +“Is Doctor Van Kirk there?” he asked. “Not there? Well, can you tell me +how the patient is whom Doctor Williams, from Washington, operated on +last night? Well, I’m glad of that. Is she conscious? Do you happen to +know her name? Yes, I’ll hold the line.” There was a long pause, then +McKnight’s voice: + +“Hello—yes. Thank you very much. Good-by.” + +He came up-stairs, two steps at a time. + +“Look here,” he said, bursting into the room, “there may be something +in your theory, after all. The woman’s name—it may be a coincidence, +but it’s curious—her name is Sullivan.” + +“What did I tell you?” I said, sitting up suddenly in bed. “She’s +probably a sister of that scoundrel in lower seven, and she was afraid +of what he might do.” + +“Well, I’ll go there some day soon. She’s not conscious yet. In the +meantime, the only thing I can do is to keep an eye, through a +detective, on the people who try to approach Bronson. We’ll have the +case continued, anyhow, in the hope that the stolen notes will sooner +or later turn up.” + +“Confound this arm,” I said, paying for my energy with some +excruciating throbs. “There’s so much to be looked after, and here I +am, bandaged, splinted, and generally useless. It’s a beastly shame.” + +“Don’t forget that I am here,” said McKnight pompously. “And another +thing, when you feel this way just remember there are two less +desirable places where you might be. One is jail, and the other is—” He +strummed on an imaginary harp, with devotional eyes. + +But McKnight’s light-heartedness jarred on me that morning. I lay and +frowned under my helplessness. When by chance I touched the little gold +bag, it seemed to scorch my fingers. Richey, finding me unresponsive, +left to keep his luncheon engagement with Alison West. As he clattered +down the stairs, I turned my back to the morning sunshine and abandoned +myself to misery. By what strain on her frayed nerves was Alison West +keeping up, I wondered? Under the circumstances, would I dare to return +the bag? Knowing that I had it, would she hate me for my knowledge? Or +had I exaggerated the importance of the necklace, and in that case had +she forgotten me already? + +But McKnight had not gone, after all. I heard him coming back, his +voice preceding him, and I groaned with irritation. + +“Wake up!” he called. “Somebody’s sent you a lot of flowers. Please +hold the box, Mrs. Klopton; I’m going out to be run down by an +automobile.” + +I roused to feeble interest. My brother’s wife is punctilious about +such things; all the new babies in the family have silver rattles, and +all the sick people flowers. + +McKnight pulled up an armful of roses, and held them out to me. + +“Wonder who they’re from?” he said, fumbling in the box for a card. +“There’s no name—yes, here’s one.” + +He held it up and read it with exasperating slowness. + +“‘Best wishes for an early recovery. + A COMPANION IN MISFORTUNE.’ + + +“Well, what do you know about that!” he exclaimed. “That’s something +you didn’t tell me, Lollie.” + +“It was hardly worth mentioning,” I said mendaciously, with my heart +beating until I could hear it. She had not forgotten, after all. + +McKnight took a bud and fastened it in his button-hole. I’m afraid I +was not especially pleasant about it. They were her roses, and anyhow, +they were meant for me. Richey left very soon, with an irritating final +grin at the box. + +“Good-by, sir woman-hater,” he jeered at me from the door. + +So he wore one of the roses she had sent me, to luncheon with her, and +I lay back among my pillows and tried to remember that it was his game, +anyhow, and that I wasn’t even drawing cards. To remember that, and to +forget the broken necklace under my head! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +FADED ROSES + + +I was in the house for a week. Much of that time I spent in composing +and destroying letters of thanks to Miss West, and in growling at the +doctor. McKnight dropped in daily, but he was less cheerful than usual. +Now and then I caught him eying me as if he had something to say, but +whatever it was he kept it to himself. Once during the week he went to +Baltimore and saw the woman in the hospital there. From the description +I had little difficulty in recognizing the young woman who had been +with the murdered man in Pittsburg. But she was still unconscious. An +elderly aunt had appeared, a gaunt person in black, who sat around like +a buzzard on a fence, according to McKnight, and wept, in a mixed +figure, into a damp handkerchief. + +On the last day of my imprisonment he stopped in to thrash out a case +that was coming up in court the next day, and to play a game of double +solitaire with me. + +“Who won the ball game?” I asked. + +“We were licked. Ask me something pleasant. Oh, by the way, Bronson’s +out to-day.” + +“I’m glad I’m not on his bond,” I said pessimistically. “He’ll clear +out.” + +“Not he.” McKnight pounced on my ace. “He’s no fool. Don’t you suppose +he knows you took those notes to Pittsburg? The papers were full of it. +And he knows you escaped with your life and a broken arm from the +wreck. What do we do next? The Commonwealth continues the case. A deaf +man on a dark night would know those notes are missing.” + +“Don’t play so fast,” I remonstrated. “I have only one arm to your two. +Who is trailing Bronson? Did you try to get Johnson?” + +“I asked for him, but he had some work on hand.” + +“The murder’s evidently a dead issue,” I reflected. “No, I’m not +joking. The wreck destroyed all the evidence. But I’m firmly convinced +those notes will be offered, either to us or to Bronson very soon. +Johnson’s a blackguard, but he’s a good detective. He could make his +fortune as a game dog. What’s he doing?” + +McKnight put down his cards, and rising, went to the window. As he held +the curtain back his customary grin looked a little forced. + +“To tell you the truth, Lollie,” he said, “for the last two days he has +been watching a well-known Washington attorney named Lawrence Blakeley. +He’s across the street now.” + +It took a moment for me to grasp what he meant. + +“Why, it’s ridiculous,” I asserted. “What would they trail me for? Go +over and tell Johnson to get out of there, or I’ll pot at him with my +revolver.” + +“You can tell him that yourself.” McKnight paused and bent forward. +“Hello, here’s a visitor; little man with string halt.” + +“I won’t see him,” I said firmly. “I’ve been bothered enough with +reporters.” + +We listened together to Mrs. Klopton’s expostulating tones in the lower +hall and the creak of the boards as she came heavily up the stairs. She +had a piece of paper in her hand torn from a pocket account-book, and +on it was the name, “Mr. Wilson Budd Hotchkiss. Important business.” + +“Oh, well, show him up,” I said resignedly. “You’d better put those +cards away, Richey. I fancy it’s the rector of the church around the +corner.” + +But when the door opened to admit a curiously alert little man, +adjusting his glasses with nervous fingers, my face must have shown my +dismay. + +It was the amateur detective of the Ontario! + +I shook hands without enthusiasm. Here was the one survivor of the +wrecked car who could do me any amount of harm. There was no hope that +he had forgotten any of the incriminating details. In fact, he held in +his hand the very note-book which contained them. + +His manner was restrained, but it was evident he was highly excited. I +introduced him to McKnight, who has the imagination I lack, and who +placed him at once, mentally. + +“I only learned yesterday that you had been—er—saved,” he said rapidly. +“Terrible accident—unspeakable. Dream about it all night and think +about it all day. Broken arm?” + +“No. He just wears the splint to be different from other people,” +McKnight drawled lazily. I glared at him: there was nothing to be +gained by antagonizing the little man. + +“Yes, a fractured humerus, which isn’t as funny as it sounds.” + +“Humerus—humorous! Pretty good,” he cackled. “I must say you keep up +your spirits pretty well, considering everything.” + +“You seem to have escaped injury,” I parried. He was fumbling for +something in his pockets. + +“Yes, I escaped,” he replied abstractedly. “Remarkable thing, too. I +haven’t a doubt I would have broken my neck, but I landed on—you’ll +never guess what! I landed head first on the very pillow which was +under inspection at the time of the wreck. You remember, don’t you? +Where did I put that package?” + +He found it finally and opened it on a table, displaying with some +theatricalism a rectangular piece of muslin and a similar patch of +striped ticking. + +“You recognize it?” he said. “The stains, you see, and the hole made by +the dirk. I tried to bring away the entire pillow, but they thought I +was stealing it, and made me give it up.” + +Richey touched the pieces gingerly. “By George,” he said, “and you +carry that around in your pocket! What if you should mistake it for +your handkerchief?” + +But Mr. Hotchkiss was not listening. He stood bent somewhat forward, +leaning over the table, and fixed me with his ferret-like eyes. + +“Have you seen the evening papers, Mr. Blakeley?” he inquired. + +I glanced to where they lay unopened, and shook my head. + +“Then I have a disagreeable task,” he said with evident relish. “Of +course, you had considered the matter of the man Harrington’s death +closed, after the wreck. I did myself. As far as I was concerned, I +meant to let it remain so. There were no other survivors, at least none +that I knew of, and in spite of circumstances, there were a number of +points in your favor.” + +“Thank you,” I put in with a sarcasm that was lost on him. + +“I verified your identity, for instance, as soon as I recovered from +the shock. Also—I found on inquiring of your tailor that you invariably +wore dark clothing.” + +McKnight came forward threateningly. “Who are you, anyhow?” he +demanded. “And how is this any business of yours?” Mr. Hotchkiss was +entirely unruffled. + +“I have a minor position here,” he said, reaching for a visiting card. +“I am a very small patch on the seat of government, sir.” + +McKnight muttered something about certain offensive designs against the +said patch and retired grumbling to the window. Our visitor was opening +the paper with a tremendous expenditure of energy. + +“Here it is. Listen.” He read rapidly aloud: + +“The Pittsburg police have sent to Baltimore two detectives who are +looking up the survivors of the ill-fated Washington Flier. It has +transpired that Simon Harrington, the Wood Street merchant of that +city, was not killed in the wreck, but was murdered in his berth the +night preceding the accident. Shortly before the collision, John +Flanders, the conductor of the Flier, sent this telegram to the chief +of police: + +“‘Body of Simon Harrington found stabbed in his berth, lower ten, +Ontario, at six-thirty this morning. + JOHN FLANDERS, Conductor.’ + + +“It is hoped that the survivors of the wrecked car Ontario will be +found, to tell what they know of the discovery of the crime. + +“Mr. John Gilmore, head of the steel company for which Mr. Harrington +was purchasing agent, has signified his intention of sifting the matter +to the bottom.” + +“So you see,” Hotchkiss concluded, “there’s trouble brewing. You and I +are the only survivors of that unfortunate car.” + +I did not contradict him, but I knew of two others, at least: Alison +West, and the woman we had left beside the road that morning, babbling +incoherently, her black hair tumbling over her white face. + +“Unless we can find the man who occupied lower seven,” I suggested. + +“I have already tried and failed. To find him would not clear you, of +course, unless we could establish some connection between him and the +murdered man. It is the only thing I see, however. I have learned this +much,” Hotchkiss concluded: “Lower seven was reserved from Cresson.” + +Cresson! Where Alison West and Mrs. Curtis had taken the train! + +McKnight came forward and suddenly held out his hand. “Mr. Hotchkiss,” +he said, “I—I’m sorry if I have been offensive. I thought when you came +in, that, like the Irishman and the government, you were ‘forninst’ us. +If you will put those cheerful relics out of sight somewhere, I should +be glad to have you dine with me at the Incubator.” (His name for his +bachelor apartment.) “Compared with Johnson, you are the great original +protoplasm.” + +The strength of this was lost on Hotchkiss, but the invitation was +clear. They went out together, and from my window I watched them get +into McKnight’s car. It was raining, and at the corner the Cannonball +skidded. Across the street my detective, Johnson, looked after them +with his crooked smile. As he turned up his collar he saw me, and +lifted his hat. + +I left the window and sat down in the growing dusk. So the occupant of +lower seven had got on the car at Cresson, probably with Alison West +and her companion. There was some one she cared about enough to shield. +I went irritably to the door and summoned Mrs. Klopton. + +“You may throw out those roses,” I said without looking at her. “They +are quite dead.” + +“They have been quite dead for three days,” she retorted spitefully. +“Euphemia said you threatened to dismiss her if she touched them.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +THE TRAP-DOOR + + +By Sunday evening, a week after the wreck, my inaction had goaded me to +frenzy. The very sight of Johnson across the street or lurking, always +within sight of the house, kept me constantly exasperated. It was on +that day that things began to come to a focus, a burning-glass of +events that seemed to center on me. + +I dined alone that evening in no cheerful frame of mind. There had been +a polo game the day before and I had lent a pony, which is always a bad +thing to do. And she had wrenched her shoulder, besides helping to lose +the game. There was no one in town: the temperature was ninety and +climbing, and my left hand persistently cramped under its bandage. + +Mrs. Klopton herself saw me served, my bread buttered and cut in +tidbits, my meat ready for my fork. She hovered around me maternally, +obviously trying to cheer me. + +“The paper says still warmer,” she ventured. “The thermometer is +ninety-two now.” + +“And this coffee is two hundred and fifty,” I said, putting down my +cup. “Where is Euphemia? I haven’t seen her around, or heard a dish +smash all day.” + +“Euphemia is in bed,” Mrs. Klopton said gravely. “Is your meat cut +small enough, Mr. Lawrence?” Mrs. Klopton can throw more mystery into +an ordinary sentence than any one I know. She can say, “Are your sheets +damp, sir?” And I can tell from her tone that the house across the +street has been robbed, or that my left hand neighbor has appendicitis. +So now I looked up and asked the question she was waiting for. + +“What’s the matter with Euphemia?” I inquired idly. + +“Frightened into her bed,” Mrs. Klopton said in a stage whisper. “She’s +had three hot water bottles and she hasn’t done a thing all day but +moan.” + +“She oughtn’t to take hot water bottles,” I said in my severest tone. +“One would make me moan. You need not wait, I’ll ring if I need +anything.” + +Mrs. Klopton sailed to the door, where she stopped and wheeled +indignantly. “I only hope you won’t laugh on the wrong side of your +face some morning, Mr. Lawrence,” she declared, with Christian +fortitude. “But I warn you, I am going to have the police watch that +house next door.” + +I was half inclined to tell her that both it and we were under police +surveillance at that moment. But I like Mrs. Klopton, in spite of the +fact that I make her life a torment for her, so I refrained. + +“Last night, when the paper said it was going to storm, I sent Euphemia +to the roof to bring the rugs in. Eliza had slipped out, although it +was her evening in. Euphemia went up to the roof—it was eleven +o’clock—and soon I heard her running down-stairs crying. When she got +to my room she just folded up on the floor. She said there was a black +figure sitting on the parapet of the house next door—the empty +house—and that when she appeared it rose and waved long black arms at +her and spit like a cat.” + +I had finished my dinner and was lighting a cigarette. “If there was +any one up there, which I doubt, they probably sneezed,” I suggested. +“But if you feel uneasy, I’ll take a look around the roof to-night +before I turn in. As far as Euphemia goes, I wouldn’t be uneasy about +her—doesn’t she always have an attack of some sort when Eliza rings in +an extra evening on her?” + +So I made a superficial examination of the window locks that night, +visiting parts of the house that I had not seen since I bought it. Then +I went to the roof. Evidently it had not been intended for any purpose +save to cover the house, for unlike the houses around, there was no +staircase. A ladder and a trap-door led to it, and it required some +nice balancing on my part to get up with my useless arm. I made it, +however, and found this unexplored part of my domain rather attractive. +It was cooler than down-stairs, and I sat on the brick parapet and +smoked my final cigarette. The roof of the empty house adjoined mine +along the back wing, but investigation showed that the trap-door across +the low dividing wall was bolted underneath. + +There was nothing out of the ordinary anywhere, and so I assured Mrs. +Klopton. Needless to say, I did not tell her that I had left the +trap-door open, to see if it would improve the temperature of the +house. I went to bed at midnight, merely because there was nothing else +to do. I turned on the night lamp at the head of my bed, and picked up +a volume of Shaw at random (it was _Arms and the Man_, and I remember +thinking grimly that I was a good bit of a chocolate cream soldier +myself), and prepared to go to sleep. Shaw always puts me to sleep. I +have no apologies to make for what occurred that night, and not even an +explanation that I am sure of. I did a foolish thing under impulse, and +I have not been sorry. + +It was something after two when the door-bell rang. It rang quickly, +twice. I got up drowsily, for the maids and Mrs. Klopton always lock +themselves beyond reach of the bell at night, and put on a +dressing-gown. The bell rang again on my way down-stairs. I lit the +hall light and opened the door. I was wide-awake now, and I saw that it +was Johnson. His bald head shone in the light—his crooked mouth was +twisted in a smile. + +“Good Heavens, man,” I said irritably. “Don’t you ever go home and go +to bed?” + +He closed the vestibule door behind him and cavalierly turned out the +light. Our dialogue was sharp, staccato. + +“Have you a key to the empty house next door?” he demanded. “Somebody’s +in there, and the latch is caught.” + +“The houses are alike. The key to this door may fit. Did you see them +go in?” + +“No. There’s a light moving up from room to room. I saw something like +it last night, and I have been watching. The patrolman reported queer +doings there a week or so ago.” + +“A light!” I exclaimed. “Do you mean that you—” + +“Very likely,” he said grimly. “Have you a revolver?” + +“All kinds in the gun rack,” I replied, and going into the den, I came +back with a Smith and Wesson. “I’m not much use,” I explained, “with +this arm, but I’ll do what I can. There may be somebody there. The +servants here have been uneasy.” + +Johnson planned the campaign. He suggested on account of my familiarity +with the roof, that I go there and cut off escape in that direction. “I +have Robison out there now—the patrolman on the beat,” he said. “He’ll +watch below and you above, while I search the house. Be as quiet as +possible.” + +I was rather amused. I put on some clothes and felt my way carefully up +the stairs, the revolver swinging free in my pocket, my hand on the +rail. At the foot of the ladder I stopped and looked up. Above me there +was a gray rectangle of sky dotted with stars. It occurred to me that +with my one serviceable hand holding the ladder, I was hardly in a +position to defend myself, that I was about to hoist a body that I am +rather careful of into a danger I couldn’t see and wasn’t particularly +keen about anyhow. I don’t mind saying that the seconds it took me to +scramble up the ladder were among the most unpleasant that I recall. + +I got to the top, however, without incident. I could see fairly well +after the darkness of the house beneath, but there was nothing +suspicious in sight. The roofs, separated by two feet of brick wall, +stretched around me, unbroken save by an occasional chimney. I went +very softly over to the other trap, the one belonging to the suspected +house. It was closed, but I imagined I could hear Johnson’s footsteps +ascending heavily. Then even that was gone. A near-by clock struck +three as I stood waiting. I examined my revolver then, for the first +time, and found it was empty! + +I had been rather skeptical until now. I had had the usual tolerant +attitude of the man who is summoned from his bed to search for +burglars, combined with the artificial courage of firearms. With the +discovery of my empty gun, I felt like a man on the top of a volcano in +lively eruption. Suddenly I found myself staring incredulously at the +trap-door at my feet. I had examined it early in the evening and found +it bolted. Did I imagine it, or had it raised about an inch? Wasn’t it +moving slowly as I looked? No, I am not a hero: I was startled almost +into a panic. I had one arm, and whoever was raising that trap-door had +two. My knees had a queer inclination to bend the wrong way. + +Johnson’s footsteps were distinct enough, but he was evidently far +below. The trap, raised perhaps two inches now, remained stationary. +There was no sound from beneath it: once I thought I heard two or three +gasping respirations: I am not sure they were not my own. I wanted +desperately to stand on one leg at a time and hold the other up out of +focus of a possible revolver. + +I did not see the hand appear. There was nothing there, and then it was +there, clutching the frame of the trap. I did the only thing I could +think of; I put my foot on it! + +There was not a sound from beneath. The next moment I was kneeling and +had clutched the wrist just above the hand. After a second’s struggle, +the arm was still. With something real to face, I was myself again. + +“Don’t move, or I’ll stand on the trap and break your arm,” I panted. +What else could I threaten? I couldn’t shoot, I couldn’t even fight. +“Johnson!” I called. + +And then I realized the thing that stayed with me for a month, the +thing I can not think of even now without a shudder. The hand lay ice +cold, strangely quiescent. Under my fingers, an artery was beating +feebly. The wrist was as slender as—I held the hand to the light. Then +I let it drop. + +“Good Lord,” I muttered, and remained on my knees, staring at the spot +where the hand had been. It was gone now: there was a faint rustle in +the darkness below, and then silence. + +I held up my own hand in the starlight and stared at a long scratch in +the palm. “A woman!” I said to myself stupidly. “By all that’s +ridiculous, a woman!” + +Johnson was striking matches below and swearing softly to himself. “How +the devil do you get to the roof?” he called. “I think I’ve broken my +nose.” + +He found the ladder after a short search and stood at the bottom, +looking up at me. “Well, I suppose you haven’t seen him?” he inquired. +“There are enough darned cubbyholes in this house to hide a patrol +wagon load of thieves.” He lighted a fresh match. “Hello, here’s +another door!” + +By the sound of his diminishing footsteps I supposed it was a rear +staircase. He came up again in ten minutes or so, this time with the +policeman. + +“He’s gone, all right,” he said ruefully. “If you’d been attending to +your business, Robison, you’d have watched the back door.” + +“I’m not twins.” Robison was surly. + +“Well,” I broke in, as cheerfully as I could, “if you are through with +this jolly little affair, and can get down my ladder without having my +housekeeper ring the burglar alarm, I have some good Monongahela +whisky—eh?” + +They came without a second invitation across the roof, and with them +safely away from the house I breathed more freely. Down in the den I +fulfilled my promise, which Johnson drank to the toast, “Coming through +the rye.” He examined my gun rack with the eye of a connoisseur, and +even when he was about to go he cast a loving eye back at the weapons. + +“Ever been in the army?” he inquired. + +“No,” I said with a bitterness that he noticed but failed to +comprehend. “I’m a chocolate cream soldier—you don’t read Shaw, I +suppose, Johnson?” + +“Never heard of him,” the detective said indifferently. “Well, good +night, Mr. Blakeley. Much obliged.” At the door he hesitated and +coughed. + +“I suppose you understand, Mr. Blakeley,” he said awkwardly, “that +this—er—surveillance is all in the day’s work. I don’t like it, but +it’s duty. Every man to his duty, sir.” + +“Sometime when you are in an open mood, Johnson,” I returned, “you can +explain why I am being watched at all.” + + + + +CHAPTER XV. +THE CINEMATOGRAPH + + +On Monday I went out for the first time. I did not go to the office. I +wanted to walk. I thought fresh air and exercise would drive away the +blue devils that had me by the throat. McKnight insisted on a long day +in his car, but I refused. + +“I don’t know why not,” he said sulkily. “I can’t walk. I haven’t +walked two consecutive blocks in three years. Automobiles have made +legs mere ornaments—and some not even that. We could have Johnson out +there chasing us over the country at five dollars an hour!” + +“He can chase us just as well at five miles an hour,” I said. “But what +gets me, McKnight, is why I am under surveillance at all. How do the +police know _I_ was accused of that thing?” + +“The young lady who sent the flowers—she isn’t likely to talk, is she?” + +“No. That is, I didn’t say it was a lady.” I groaned as I tried to get +my splinted arm into a coat. “Anyhow, she didn’t tell,” I finished with +conviction, and McKnight laughed. + +It had rained in the early morning, and Mrs. Klopton predicted more +showers. In fact, so firm was her belief and so determined her eye that +I took the umbrella she proffered me. + +“Never mind,” I said. “We can leave it next door; I have a story to +tell you, Richey, and it requires proper setting.” + +McKnight was puzzled, but he followed me obediently round to the +kitchen entrance of the empty house. It was unlocked, as I had +expected. While we climbed to the upper floor I retailed the events of +the previous night. + +“It’s the finest thing I ever heard of,” McKnight said, staring up at +the ladder and the trap. “What a vaudeville skit it would make! Only +you ought not to have put your foot on her hand. They don’t do it in +the best circles.” + +I wheeled on him impatiently. + +“You don’t understand the situation at all, Richey!” I exclaimed. “What +would you say if I tell you it was the hand of a lady? It was covered +with rings.” + +“A lady!” he repeated. “Why, I’d say it was a darned compromising +situation, and that the less you say of it the better. Look here, +Lawrence, I think you dreamed it. You’ve been in the house too much. I +take it all back: you do need exercise.” + +“She escaped through this door, I suppose,” I said as patiently as I +could. “Evidently down the back staircase. We might as well go down +that way.” + +“According to the best precedents in these affairs, we should find a +glove about here,” he said as we started down. But he was more +impressed than he cared to own. He examined the dusty steps carefully, +and once, when a bit of loose plaster fell just behind him, he started +like a nervous woman. + +“What I don’t understand is why you let her go,” he said, stopping +once, puzzled. “You’re not usually quixotic.” + +“When we get out into the country, Richey,” I replied gravely, “I am +going to tell you another story, and if you don’t tell me I’m a fool +and a craven, on the strength of it, you are no friend of mine.” + +We stumbled through the twilight of the staircase into the blackness of +the shuttered kitchen. The house had the moldy smell of closed +buildings: even on that warm September morning it was damp and chilly. +As we stepped into the sunshine McKnight gave a shiver. + +“Now that we are out,” he said, “I don’t mind telling you that I have +been there before. Do you remember the night you left, and, the face at +the window?” + +“When you speak of it—yes.” + +“Well, I was curious about that thing,” he went on, as we started up +the street, “and I went back. The street door was unlocked, and I +examined every room. I was Mrs. Klopton’s ghost that carried a light, +and clumb.” + +“Did you find anything?” + +“Only a clean place rubbed on the window opposite your dressing-room. +Splendid view of an untidy interior. If that house is ever occupied, +you’d better put stained glass in that window of yours.” + +As we turned the corner I glanced back. Half a block behind us Johnson +was moving our way slowly. When he saw me he stopped and proceeded with +great deliberation to light a cigar. By hurrying, however, he caught +the car that we took, and stood unobtrusively on the rear platform. He +looked fagged, and absent-mindedly paid our fares, to McKnight’s +delight. + +“We will give him a run for his money,” he declared, as the car moved +countryward. “Conductor, let us off at the muddiest lane you can find.” + +At one o’clock, after a six-mile ramble, we entered a small country +hotel. We had seen nothing of Johnson for a half hour. At that time he +was a quarter of a mile behind us, and losing rapidly. Before we had +finished our luncheon he staggered into the inn. One of his boots was +under his arm, and his whole appearance was deplorable. He was coated +with mud, streaked with perspiration, and he limped as he walked. He +chose a table not far from us and ordered Scotch. Beyond touching his +hat he paid no attention to us. + +“I’m just getting my second wind,” McKnight declared. “How do you feel, +Mr. Johnson? Six or eight miles more and we’ll all enjoy our dinners.” +Johnson put down the glass he had raised to his lips without replying. + +The fact was, however, that I was like Johnson. I was soft from my +week’s inaction, and I was pretty well done up. McKnight, who was a +well spring of vitality and high spirits, ordered a strange concoction, +made of nearly everything in the bar, and sent it over to the +detective, but Johnson refused it. + +“I hate that kind of person,” McKnight said pettishly. “Kind of a +fellow that thinks you’re going to poison his dog if you offer him a +bone.” + +When we got back to the car line, with Johnson a draggled and drooping +tail to the kite, I was in better spirits. I had told McKnight the +story of the three hours just after the wreck; I had not named the +girl, of course; she had my promise of secrecy. But I told him +everything else. It was a relief to have a fresh mind on it: I had +puzzled so much over the incident at the farm-house, and the necklace +in the gold bag, that I had lost perspective. + +He had been interested, but inclined to be amused, until I came to the +broken chain. Then he had whistled softly. + +“But there are tons of fine gold chains made every year,” he said. “Why +in the world do you think that the—er—smeary piece came from that +necklace?” + +I had looked around. Johnson was far behind, scraping the mud off his +feet with a piece of stick. + +“I have the short end of the chain in the sealskin bag,” I reminded +him. “When I couldn’t sleep this morning I thought I would settle it, +one way or the other. It was hell to go along the way I had been doing. +And—there’s no doubt about it, Rich. It’s the same chain.” + +We walked along in silence until we caught the car back to town. + +“Well,” he said finally, “you know the girl, of course, and I don’t. +But if you like her—and I think myself you’re rather hard hit, old +man—I wouldn’t give a whoop about the chain in the gold purse. It’s +just one of the little coincidences that hang people now and then. And +as for last night—if she’s the kind of a girl you say she is, and you +think she had anything to do with that, you—you’re addled, that’s all. +You can depend on it, the lady of the empty house last week is the lady +of last night. And yet your train acquaintance was in Altoona at that +time.” + +Just before we got off the car, I reverted to the subject again. It was +never far back in my mind. + +“About the—young lady of the train, Rich,” I said, with what I suppose +was elaborate carelessness, “I don’t want you to get a wrong +impression. I am rather unlikely to see her again, but even if I do, +I—I believe she is already ‘bespoke,’ or next thing to it.” + +He made no reply, but as I opened the door with my latch-key he stood +looking up at me from the pavement with his quizzical smile. + +“Love is like the measles,” he orated. “The older you get it, the worse +the attack.” + +Johnson did not appear again that day. A small man in a raincoat took +his place. The next morning I made my initial trip to the office, the +raincoat still on hand. I had a short conference with Miller, the +district attorney, at eleven. Bronson was under surveillance, he said, +and any attempt to sell the notes to him would probably result in their +recovery. In the meantime, as I knew, the Commonwealth had continued +the case, in hope of such contingency. + +At noon I left the office and took a veterinarian to see Candida, the +injured pony. By one o’clock my first day’s duties were performed, and +a long Sahara of hot afternoon stretched ahead. McKnight, always glad +to escape from the grind, suggested a vaudeville, and in sheer _ennui_ +I consented. I could neither ride, drive nor golf, and my own company +bored me to distraction. + +“Coolest place in town these days,” he declared. “Electric fans, breezy +songs, airy costumes. And there’s Johnson just behind—the coldest +proposition in Washington.” + +He gravely bought three tickets and presented the detective with one. +Then we went in. Having lived a normal, busy life, the theater in the +afternoon is to me about on a par with ice-cream for breakfast. Up on +the stage a very stout woman in short pink skirts, with a smile that +McKnight declared looked like a slash in a roll of butter, was singing +nasally, with a laborious kick at the end of each verse. Johnson, two +rows ahead, went to sleep. McKnight prodded me with his elbow. + +“Look at the first box to the right,” he said, in a stage whisper. “I +want you to come over at the end of this act.” + +It was the first time I had seen her since I put her in the cab at +Baltimore. Outwardly I presume I was calm, for no one turned to stare +at me, but every atom of me cried out at the sight of her. She was +leaning, bent forward, lips slightly parted, gazing raptly at the +Japanese conjurer who had replaced what McKnight disrespectfully called +the Columns of Hercules. Compared with the draggled lady of the +farm-house, she was radiant. + +For that first moment there was nothing but joy at the sight of her. +McKnight’s touch on my arm brought me back to reality. + +“Come over and meet them,” he said. “That’s the cousin Miss West is +visiting, Mrs. Dallas.” + +But I would not go. After he went I sat there alone, painfully +conscious that I was being pointed out and stared at from the box. The +abominable Japanese gave way to yet more atrocious performing dogs. + +“How many offers of marriage will the young lady in the box have?” The +dog stopped sagely at ‘none,’ and then pulled out a card that said +eight. Wild shouts of glee by the audience. “The fools,” I muttered. + +After a little I glanced over. Mrs. Dallas was talking to McKnight, but +She was looking straight at me. She was flushed, but more calm than I, +and she did not bow. I fumbled for my hat, but the next moment I saw +that they were going, and I sat still. When McKnight came back he was +triumphant. + +“I’ve made an engagement for you,” he said. “Mrs. Dallas asked me to +bring you to dinner to-night, and I said I knew you would fall all over +yourself to go. You are requested to bring along the broken arm, and +any other souvenirs of the wreck that you may possess.” + +“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I declared, struggling against my +inclination. “I can’t even tie my necktie, and I have to have my food +cut for me.” + +“Oh, that’s all right,” he said easily. “I’ll send Stogie over to fix +you up, and Mrs. Dal knows all about the arm. I told her.” + +(Stogie is his Japanese factotum, so called because he is lean, a +yellowish brown in color, and because he claims to have been shipped +into this country in a box.) + +The Cinematograph was finishing the program. The house was dark and the +music had stopped, as it does in the circus just before somebody risks +his neck at so much a neck in the Dip of Death, or the hundred-foot +dive. Then, with a sort of shock, I saw on the white curtain the +announcement: + +THE NEXT PICTURE + + +IS THE DOOMED WASHINGTON FLIER, TAKEN A SHORT DISTANCE FROM THE SCENE +OF THE WRECK ON THE FATAL MORNING OF SEPTEMBER TENTH. TWO MILES FARTHER +ON IT MET WITH ALMOST COMPLETE ANNIHILATION. + + +I confess to a return of some of the sickening sensations of the wreck; +people around me were leaning forward with tense faces. Then the +letters were gone, and I saw a long level stretch of track, even the +broken stone between the ties standing out distinctly. Far off under a +cloud of smoke a small object was rushing toward us and growing larger +as it came. + +Now it was on us, a mammoth in size, with huge drivers and a colossal +tender. The engine leaped aside, as if just in time to save us from +destruction, with a glimpse of a stooping fireman and a grimy engineer. +The long train of sleepers followed. From a forward vestibule a porter +in a white coat waved his hand. The rest of the cars seemed still +wrapped in slumber. With mixed sensations I saw my own car, Ontario, +fly past, and then I rose to my feet and gripped McKnight’s shoulder. + +On the lowest step at the last car, one foot hanging free, was a man. +His black derby hat was pulled well down to keep it from blowing away, +and his coat was flying open in the wind. He was swung well out from +the car, his free hand gripping a small valise, every muscle tense for +a jump. + +“Good God, that’s my man!” I said hoarsely, as the audience broke into +applause. McKnight half rose: in his seat ahead Johnson stifled a yawn +and turned to eye me. + +I dropped into my chair limply, and tried to control my excitement. +“The man on the last platform of the train,” I said. “He was just about +to leap; I’ll swear that was my bag.” + +“Could you see his face?” McKnight asked in an undertone. “Would you +know him again?” + +“No. His hat was pulled down and his head was bent. I’m going back to +find out where that picture was taken. They say two miles, but it may +have been forty.” + +The audience, busy with its wraps, had not noticed. Mrs. Dallas and +Alison West had gone. In front of us Johnson had dropped his hat and +was stooping for it. + +“This way,” I motioned to McKnight, and we wheeled into the narrow +passage beside us, back of the boxes. At the end there was a door +leading into the wings, and as we went boldly through I turned the key. + +The final set was being struck, and no one paid any attention to us. +Luckily they were similarly indifferent to a banging at the door I had +locked, a banging which, I judged, signified Johnson. + +“I guess we’ve broken up his interference,” McKnight chuckled. + +Stage hands were hurrying in every direction; pieces of the side wall +of the last drawing-room menaced us; a switchboard behind us was +singing like a tea-kettle. Everywhere we stepped we were in somebody’s +way. At last we were across, confronting a man in his shirt sleeves, +who by dots and dashes of profanity seemed to be directing the chaos. + +“Well?” he said, wheeling on us. “What can I do for you?” + +“I would like to ask,” I replied, “if you have any idea just where the +last cinematograph picture was taken.” + +“Broken board—picnickers—lake?” + +“No. The Washington Flier.” + +He glanced at my bandaged arm. + +“The announcement says two miles,” McKnight put in, “but we should like +to know whether it is railroad miles, automobile miles, or policeman +miles.” + +“I am sorry I can’t tell you,” he replied, more civilly. “We get those +pictures by contract. We don’t take them ourselves.” + +“Where are the company’s offices?” + +“New York.” He stepped forward and grasped a super by the shoulder. +“What in blazes are you doing with that gold chair in a kitchen set? +Take that piece of pink plush there and throw it over a soap box, if +you haven’t got a kitchen chair.” + +I had not realized the extent of the shock, but now I dropped into a +chair and wiped my forehead. The unexpected glimpse of Alison West, +followed almost immediately by the revelation of the picture, had left +me limp and unnerved. McKnight was looking at his watch. + +“He says the moving picture people have an office down-town. We can +make it if we go now.” + +So he called a cab, and we started at a gallop. There was no sign of +the detective. “Upon my word,” Richey said, “I feel lonely without +him.” + +The people at the down-town office of the cinematograph company were +very obliging. The picture had been taken, they said, at M——, just two +miles beyond the scene of the wreck. It was not much, but it was +something to work on. I decided not to go home, but to send McKnight’s +Jap for my clothes, and to dress at the Incubator. I was determined, if +possible, to make my next day’s investigations without Johnson. In the +meantime, even if it was for the last time, I would see Her that night. +I gave Stogie a note for Mrs. Klopton, and with my dinner clothes there +came back the gold bag, wrapped in tissue paper. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. +THE SHADOW OF A GIRL + + +Certain things about the dinner at the Dallas house will always be +obscure to me. Dallas was something in the Fish Commission, and I +remember his reeling off fish eggs in billions while we ate our caviar. +He had some particular stunt he had been urging the government to for +years—something about forbidding the establishment of mills and +factories on river-banks—it seems they kill the fish, either the smoke, +or the noise, or something they pour into the water. + +Mrs. Dallas was there, I think. Of course, I suppose she must have +been; and there was a woman in yellow: I took her in to dinner, and I +remember she loosened my clams for me so I could get them. But the only +real person at the table was a girl across in white, a sublimated young +woman who was as brilliant as I was stupid, who never by any chance +looked directly at me, and who appeared and disappeared across the +candles and orchids in a sort of halo of radiance. + +When the dinner had progressed from salmon to roast, and the +conversation had done the same thing—from fish to scandal—the yellow +gown turned to me. “We have been awfully good, haven’t we, Mr. +Blakeley?” she asked. “Although I am crazy to hear, I have not said +‘wreck’ once. I’m sure you must feel like the survivor of Waterloo, or +something of the sort.” + +“If you want me to tell you about the wreck,” I said, glancing across +the table, “I’m sorry to be disappointing, but I don’t remember +anything.” + +“You are fortunate to be able to forget it.” It was the first word Miss +West had spoken directly to me, and it went to my head. + +“There are some things I have not forgotten,” I said, over the candles. +“I recall coming to myself some time after, and that a girl, a +beautiful girl—” + +“Ah!” said the lady in yellow, leaning forward breathlessly. Miss West +was staring at me coldly, but, once started, I had to stumble on. + +“That a girl was trying to rouse me, and that she told me I had been on +fire twice already.” A shudder went around the table. + +“But surely that isn’t the end of the story,” Mrs. Dallas put in +aggrievedly. “Why, that’s the most tantalizing thing I ever heard.” + +“I’m afraid that’s all,” I said. “She went her way and I went mine. If +she recalls me at all, she probably thinks of me as a weak-kneed +individual who faints like a woman when everything is over.” + +“What did I tell you?” Mrs. Dallas asserted triumphantly. “He fainted, +did you hear? when everything was over! He hasn’t begun to tell it.” + +I would have given a lot by that time if I had not mentioned the girl. +But McKnight took it up there and carried it on. + +“Blakeley is a regular geyser,” he said. “He never spouts until he +reaches the boiling point. And by that same token, although he hasn’t +said much about the Lady of the Wreck, I think he is crazy about her. +In fact, I am sure of it. He thinks he has locked his secret in the +caves of his soul, but I call you to witness that he has it nailed to +his face. Look at him!” + +I squirmed miserably and tried to avoid the startled eyes of the girl +across the table. I wanted to choke McKnight and murder the rest of the +party. + +“It isn’t fair,” I said as coolly as I could. “I have my fingers +crossed; you are five against one.” + +“And to think that there was a murder on that very train,” broke in the +lady in yellow. “It was a perfect crescendo of horrors, wasn’t it? And +what became of the murdered man, Mr. Blakeley?” + +McKnight had the sense to jump into the conversation and save my reply. + +“They say good Pittsburgers go to Atlantic City when they die,” he +said. “So—we are reasonably certain the gentleman did _not_ go to the +seashore.” + +The meal was over at last, and once in the drawing-room it was clear we +hung heavy on the hostess’ hands. “It is so hard to get people for +bridge in September,” she wailed, “there is absolutely nobody in town. +Six is a dreadful number.” + +“It’s a good poker number,” her husband suggested. + +The matter settled itself, however. I was hopeless, save as a dummy; +Miss West said it was too hot for cards, and went out on a balcony that +overlooked the Mall. With obvious relief Mrs. Dallas had the card-table +brought, and I was face to face with the minute I had dreaded and hoped +for for a week. + +Now it had come, it was more difficult than I had anticipated. I do not +know if there was a moon, but there was the urban substitute for it—the +arc light. It threw the shadow of the balcony railing in long black +bars against her white gown, and as it swung sometimes her face was in +the light. I drew a chair close so that I could watch her. + +“Do you know,” I said, when she made no effort at speech, “that you are +a much more formidable person to-night, in that gown, than you were the +last time I saw you?” + +The light swung on her face; she was smiling faintly. “The hat with the +green ribbons!” she said. “I must take it back; I had almost +forgotten.” + +“I have not forgotten—anything.” I pulled myself up short. This was +hardly loyalty to Richey. His voice came through the window just then, +and perhaps I was wrong, but I thought she raised her head to listen. + +“Look at this hand,” he was saying. “Regular pianola: you could play it +with your feet.” + +“He’s a dear, isn’t he?” Alison said unexpectedly. “No matter how +depressed and downhearted I am, I always cheer up when I see Richey.” + +“He’s more than that,” I returned warmly. “He is the most honorable +fellow I know. If he wasn’t so much that way, he would have a career +before him. He wanted to put on the doors of our offices, Blakeley and +McKnight, P. B. H., which is Poor But Honest.” + +From my comparative poverty to the wealth of the girl beside me was a +single mental leap. From that wealth to the grandfather who was +responsible for it was another. + +“I wonder if you know that I had been to Pittsburg to see your +grandfather when I met you?” I said. + +“You?” She was surprised. + +“Yes. And you remember the alligator bag that I told you was exchanged +for the one you cut off my arm?” She nodded expectantly. “Well, in that +valise were the forged Andy Bronson notes, and Mr. Gilmore’s deposition +that they were forged.” + +She was on her feet in an instant. “In that bag!” she cried. “Oh, why +didn’t you tell me that before? Oh, it’s so ridiculous, so—so hopeless. +Why, I could—” + +She stopped suddenly and sat down again. “I do not know that I am +sorry, after all,” she said after a pause. “Mr. Bronson was a friend of +my father’s. I—I suppose it was a bad thing for you, losing the +papers?” + +“Well, it was not a good thing,” I conceded. “While we are on the +subject of losing things, do you remember—do you know that I still have +your gold purse?” + +She did not reply at once. The shadow of a column was over her face, +but I guessed that she was staring at me. + +“_You_ have it!” She almost whispered. + +“I picked it up in the street car,” I said, with a cheerfulness I did +not feel. “It looks like a very opulent little purse.” + +Why didn’t she speak about the necklace? For just a careless word to +make me sane again! + +“You!” she repeated, horror-stricken. And then I produced the purse and +held it out on my palm. “I should have sent it to you before, I +suppose, but, as you know, I have been laid up since the wreck.” + +We both saw McKnight at the same moment. He had pulled the curtains +aside and was standing looking out at us. The tableau of give and take +was unmistakable; the gold purse, her outstretched hand, my own +attitude. It was over in a second; then he came out and lounged on the +balcony railing. + +“They’re mad at me in there,” he said airily, “so I came out. I suppose +the reason they call it bridge is because so many people get cross over +it.” + +The heat broke up the card group soon after, and they all came out for +the night breeze. I had no more words alone with Alison. + +I went back to the Incubator for the night. We said almost nothing on +the way home; there was a constraint between us for the first time that +I could remember. It was too early for bed, and so we smoked in the +living-room and tried to talk of trivial things. After a time even +those failed, and we sat silent. It was McKnight who finally broached +the subject. + +“And so she wasn’t at Seal Harbor at all.” + +“No.” + +“Do you know where she was, Lollie?” + +“Somewhere near Cresson.” + +“And that was the purse—her purse—with the broken necklace in it?” + +“Yes, it was. You understand, don’t you, Rich, that, having given her +my word, I couldn’t tell you?” + +“I understand a lot of things,” he said, without bitterness. + +We sat for some time and smoked. Then Richey got up and stretched +himself. “I’m off to bed, old man,” he said. “Need any help with that +game arm of yours?” + +“No, thanks,” I returned. + +I heard him go into his room and lock the door. It was a bad hour for +me. The first shadow between us, and the shadow of a girl at that. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. +AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN + + +McKnight is always a sympathizer with the early worm. It was late when +he appeared. Perhaps, like myself, he had not slept well. But he was +apparently cheerful enough, and he made a better breakfast than I did. +It was one o’clock before we got to Baltimore. After a half hour’s wait +we took a local for M——, the station near which the cinematograph +picture had been taken. + +We passed the scene of the wreck, McKnight with curiosity, I with a +sickening sense of horror. Back in the fields was the little farm-house +where Alison West and I had intended getting coffee, and winding away +from the track, maple trees shading it on each side, was the lane where +we had stopped to rest, and where I had—it seemed presumption beyond +belief now—where I had tried to comfort her by patting her hand. + +We got out at M——, a small place with two or three houses and a general +store. The station was a one-roomed affair, with a railed-off place at +the end, where a scale, a telegraph instrument and a chair constituted +the entire furnishing. + +The station agent was a young man with a shrewd face. He stopped +hammering a piece of wood over a hole in the floor to ask where we +wanted to go. + +“We’re not going,” said McKnight, “we’re coming. Have a cigar?” + +The agent took it with an inquiring glance, first at it and then at us. + +“We want to ask you a few questions,” began McKnight, perching himself +on the railing and kicking the chair forward for me. “Or, rather, this +gentleman does.” + +“Wait a minute,” said the agent, glancing through the window. “There’s +a hen in that crate choking herself to death.” + +He was back in a minute, and took up his position near a sawdust-filled +box that did duty as a cuspidor. + +“Now fire away,” he said. + +“In the first place,” I began, “do you remember the day the Washington +Flier was wrecked below here?” + +“Do I!” he said. “Did Jonah remember the whale?” + +“Were you on the platform here when the first section passed?” + +“I was.” + +“Do you recall seeing a man hanging to the platform of the last car?” + +“There was no one hanging there when she passed here,” he said with +conviction. “I watched her out of sight.” + +“Did you see anything that morning of a man about my size, carrying a +small grip, and wearing dark clothes and a derby hat?” I asked eagerly. + +McKnight was trying to look unconcerned, but I was frankly anxious. It +was clear that the man had jumped somewhere in the mile of track just +beyond. + +“Well, yes, I did.” The agent cleared his throat. “When the smash came +the operator at MX sent word along the wire, both ways. I got it here, +and I was pretty near crazy, though I knew it wasn’t any fault of mine. + +“I was standing on the track looking down, for I couldn’t leave the +office, when a young fellow with light hair limped up to me and asked +me what that smoke was over there. + +“‘That’s what’s left of the Washington Flier,’ I said, ‘and I guess +there’s souls going up in that smoke.’ + +“‘Do you mean the first section?’ he said, getting kind of +greenish-yellow. + +“‘That’s what I mean,’ I said; ‘split to kindling wood because +Rafferty, on the second section, didn’t want to be late.’ + +“He put his hand out in front of him, and the satchel fell with a bang. + +“‘My God!’ he said, and dropped right on the track in a heap. + +“I got him into the station and he came around, but he kept on groaning +something awful. He’d sprained his ankle, and when he got a little +better I drove him over in Carter’s milk wagon to the Carter place, and +I reckon he stayed there a spell.” + +“That’s all, is it?” I asked. + +“That’s all—or, no, there’s something else. About noon that day one of +the Carter twins came down with a note from him asking me to send a +long-distance message to some one in Washington.” + +“To whom?” I asked eagerly. + +“I reckon I’ve forgot the name, but the message was that this +fellow—Sullivan was his name—was at M——, and if the man had escaped +from the wreck would he come to see him.” + +“He wouldn’t have sent that message to me,” I said to McKnight, rather +crestfallen. “He’d have every object in keeping out of my way.” + +“There might be reasons,” McKnight observed judicially. “He might not +have found the papers then.” + +“Was the name Blakeley?” I asked. + +“It might have been—I can’t say. But the man wasn’t there, and there +was a lot of noise. I couldn’t hear well. Then in half an hour down +came the other twin to say the gentleman was taking on awful and didn’t +want the message sent.” + +“He’s gone, of course?” + +“Yes. Limped down here in about three days and took the noon train for +the city.” + +It seemed a certainty now that our man, having hurt himself somewhat in +his jump, had stayed quietly in the farm-house until he was able to +travel. But, to be positive, we decided to visit the Carter place. + +I gave the station agent a five-dollar bill, which he rolled up with a +couple of others and stuck in his pocket. I turned as we got to a bend +in the road, and he was looking curiously after us. + +It was not until we had climbed the hill and turned onto the road to +the Carter place that I realized where we were going. Although we +approached it from another direction, I knew the farm-house at once. It +was the one where Alison West and I had breakfasted nine days before. +With the new restraint between us, I did not tell McKnight. I wondered +afterward if he had suspected it. I saw him looking hard at the +gate-post which had figured in one of our mysteries, but he asked no +questions. Afterward he grew almost taciturn, for him, and let me do +most of the talking. + +We opened the front gate of the Carter place and went slowly up the +walk. Two ragged youngsters, alike even to freckles and squints, were +playing in the yard. + +“Is your mother around?” I asked. + +“In the front room. Walk in,” they answered in identical tones. + +As we got to the porch we heard voices, and stopped. I knocked, but the +people within, engaged in animated, rather one-sided conversation, did +not answer. + +“‘In the front room. Walk in,’” quoted McKnight, and did so. + +In the stuffy farm parlor two people were sitting. One, a +pleasant-faced woman with a checked apron, rose, somewhat embarrassed, +to meet us. She did not know me, and I was thankful. But our attention +was riveted on a little man who was sitting before a table, writing +busily. It was Hotchkiss! + +He got up when he saw us, and had the grace to look uncomfortable. + +“Such an interesting case,” he said nervously, “I took the liberty—” + +“Look here,” said McKnight suddenly, “did you make any inquiries at the +station?” + +“A few,” he confessed. “I went to the theater last night—I felt the +need of a little relaxation—and the sight of a picture there, a +cinematograph affair, started a new line of thought. Probably the same +clue brought you gentlemen. I learned a good bit from the station +agent.” + +“The son-of-a-gun,” said McKnight. “And you paid him, I suppose?” + +“I gave him five dollars,” was the apologetic answer. Mrs. Carter, +hearing sounds of strife in the yard, went out, and Hotchkiss folded up +his papers. + +“I think the identity of the man is established,” he said. “What number +of hat do you wear, Mr. Blakeley?” + +“Seven and a quarter,” I replied. + +“Well, it’s only piling up evidence,” he said cheerfully. “On the night +of the murder you wore light gray silk underclothing, with the second +button of the shirt missing. Your hat had ‘L. B.’ in gilt letters +inside, and there was a very minute hole in the toe of one black sock.” + +“Hush,” McKnight protested. “If word gets to Mrs. Klopton that Mr. +Blakeley was wrecked, or robbed, or whatever it was, with a button +missing and a hole in one sock, she’ll retire to the Old Ladies’ Home. +I’ve heard her threaten it.” + +Mr. Hotchkiss was without a sense of humor. He regarded McKnight +gravely and went on: + +“I’ve been up in the room where the man lay while he was unable to get +away, and there is nothing there. But I found what may be a possible +clue in the dust heap. + +“Mrs. Carter tells me that in unpacking his grip the other day she took +out of the coat of the pajamas some pieces of a telegram. As I figure +it, the pajamas were his own. He probably had them on when he effected +the exchange.” + +I nodded assent. All I had retained of my own clothing was the suit of +pajamas I was wearing and my bath-robe. + +“Therefore the telegram was his, not yours. I have pieces here, but +some are missing. I am not discouraged, however.” + +He spread out some bits of yellow paper, and we bent over them +curiously. It was something like this: + +Man with p— Get— + Br— + + +We spelled it out slowly. + +“Now,” Hotchkiss announced, “I make it something like this: The ‘p.—’ +is one of two things, pistol—you remember the little pearl-handled +affair belonging to the murdered man—or it is pocket-book. I am +inclined to the latter view, as the pocket-book had been disturbed and +the pistol had not.” + +I took the piece of paper from the table and scrawled four words on it. + +“Now,” I said, rearranging them, “it happens, Mr. Hotchkiss, that I +found one of these pieces of the telegram on the train. I thought it +had been dropped by some one else, you see, but that’s immaterial. +Arranged this way it almost makes sense. Fill out that ‘p.—’ with the +rest of the word, as I imagine it, and it makes ‘papers,’ and add this +scrap and you have: + +“‘Man with papers (in) lower ten, car seven. Get (them).’” + + +McKnight slapped Hotchkiss on the back. “You’re a trump,” he said. “Br— +is Bronson, of course. It’s almost too easy. You see, Mr. Blakeley here +engaged lower ten, but found it occupied by the man who was later +murdered there. The man who did the thing was a friend of Bronson’s, +evidently, and in trying to get the papers we have the motive for the +crime.” + +“There are still some things to be explained.” Mr. Hotchkiss wiped his +glasses and put them on. “For one thing, Mr. Blakeley, I am puzzled by +that bit of chain.” + +I did not glance at McKnight. I felt that the hand, with which I was +gathering up the bits of torn paper were shaking. It seemed to me that +this astute little man was going to drag in the girl in spite of me. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. +A NEW WORLD + + +Hotchkiss jotted down the bits of telegram and rose. + +“Well,” he said, “we’ve done something. We’ve found where the murderer +left the train, we know what day he went to Baltimore, and, most +important of all, we have a motive for the crime.” + +“It seems the irony of fate,” said McKnight, getting up, “that a man +should kill another man for certain papers he is supposed to be +carrying, find he hasn’t got them after all, decide to throw suspicion +on another man by changing berths and getting out, bag and baggage, and +then, by the merest fluke of chance, take with him, in the valise he +changed for his own, the very notes he was after. It was a bit of luck +for him.” + +“Then why,” put in Hotchkiss doubtfully, “why did he collapse when he +heard of the wreck? And what about the telephone message the station +agent sent? You remember they tried to countermand it, and with some +excitement.” + +“We will ask him those questions when we get him,” McKnight said. We +were on the unrailed front porch by that time, and Hotchkiss had put +away his notebook. The mother of the twins followed us to the steps. + +“Dear me,” she exclaimed volubly, “and to think I was forgetting to +tell you! I put the young man to bed with a spice poultice on his +ankle: my mother always was a firm believer in spice poultices. It’s +wonderful what they will do in croup! And then I took the children and +went down to see the wreck. It was Sunday, and the mister had gone to +church; hasn’t missed a day since he took the pledge nine years ago. +And on the way I met two people, a man and a woman. They looked half +dead, so I sent them right here for breakfast and some soap and water. +I always say soap is better than liquor after a shock.” + +Hotchkiss was listening absently: McKnight was whistling under his +breath, staring down across the field to where a break in the woods +showed a half dozen telegraph poles, the line of the railroad. + +“It must have been twelve o’clock when we got back; I wanted the +children to see everything, because it isn’t likely they’ll ever see +another wreck like that. Rows of—” + +“About twelve o’clock,” I broke in, “and what then?” + +“The young man up-stairs was awake,” she went on, “and hammering at his +door like all possessed. And it was locked on the outside!” She paused +to enjoy her sensation. + +“I would like to see that lock,” Hotchkiss said promptly, but for some +reason the woman demurred. + +“I will bring the key down,” she said and disappeared. When she +returned she held out an ordinary door key of the cheapest variety. + +“We had to break the lock,” she volunteered, “and the key didn’t turn +up for two days. Then one of the twins found the turkey gobbler trying +to swallow it. It has been washed since,” she hastened to assure +Hotchkiss, who showed an inclination to drop it. + +“You don’t think he locked the door himself and threw the key out of +the window?” the little man asked. + +“The windows are covered with mosquito netting, nailed on. The mister +blamed it on the children, and it might have been Obadiah. He’s the +quiet kind, and you never know what he’s about.” + +“He’s about to strangle, isn’t he,” McKnight remarked lazily, “or is +that Obadiah?” + +Mrs. Carter picked the boy up and inverted him, talking amiably all the +time. “He’s always doing it,” she said, giving him a shake. “Whenever +we miss anything we look to see if Obadiah’s black in the face.” She +gave him another shake, and the quarter I had given him shot out as if +blown from a gun. Then we prepared to go back to the station. + +From where I stood I could look into the cheery farm kitchen, where +Alison West and I had eaten our _al fresco_ breakfast. I looked at the +table with mixed emotions, and then, gradually, the meaning of +something on it penetrated my mind. Still in its papers, evidently just +opened, was a hat box, and protruding over the edge of the box was a +streamer of vivid green ribbon. + +On the plea that I wished to ask Mrs. Carter a few more questions, I +let the others go on. I watched them down the flagstone walk; saw +McKnight stop and examine the gate-posts and saw, too, the quick glance +he threw back at the house. Then I turned to Mrs. Carter. + +“I would like to speak to the young lady up-stairs,” I said. + +She threw up her hands with a quick gesture of surrender. “I’ve done +all I could,” she exclaimed. “She won’t like it very well, but—she’s in +the room over the parlor.” + +I went eagerly up the ladder-like stairs, to the rag-carpeted hall. Two +doors were open, showing interiors of four poster beds and high +bureaus. The door of the room over the parlor was almost closed. I +hesitated in the hallway: after all, what right had I to intrude on +her? But she settled my difficulty by throwing open the door and facing +me. + +“I—I beg your pardon, Miss West,” I stammered. “It has just occurred to +me that I am unpardonably rude. I saw the hat down-stairs and I—I +guessed—” + +“The hat!” she said. “I might have known. Does Richey know I am here?” + +“I don’t think so.” I turned to go down the stairs again. Then I +halted. “The fact is,” I said, in an attempt at justification, “I’m in +rather a mess these days, and I’m apt to do irresponsible things. It is +not impossible that I shall be arrested, in a day or so, for the murder +of Simon Harrington.” + +She drew her breath in sharply. “Murder!” she echoed. “Then they have +found you after all!” + +“I don’t regard it as anything more than—er—inconvenient,” I lied. +“They can’t convict me, you know. Almost all the witnesses are dead.” + +She was not deceived for a moment. She came over to me and stood, both +hands on the rail of the stair. “I know just how grave it is,” she said +quietly. “My grandfather will not leave one stone unturned, and he can +be terrible—terrible. But”—she looked directly into my eyes as I stood +below her on the stairs—“the time may come—soon—when I can help you. +I’m afraid I shall not want to; I’m a dreadful coward, Mr. Blakeley. +But—I will.” She tried to smile. + +“I wish you would let _me_ help _you_,” I said unsteadily. “Let us make +it a bargain: each help the other!” + +The girl shook her head with a sad little smile. “I am only as unhappy +as I deserve to be,” she said. And when I protested and took a step +toward her she retreated, with her hands out before her. + +“Why don’t you ask me all the questions you are thinking?” she +demanded, with a catch in her voice. “Oh, I know them. Or are you +afraid to ask?” + +I looked at her, at the lines around her eyes, at the drawn look about +her mouth. Then I held out my hand. “Afraid!” I said, as she gave me +hers. “There is nothing in God’s green earth I am afraid of, save of +trouble for you. To ask questions would be to imply a lack of faith. I +ask you nothing. Some day, perhaps, you will come to me yourself and +let me help you.” + +The next moment I was out in the golden sunshine: the birds were +singing carols of joy: I walked dizzily through rainbow-colored clouds, +past the twins, cherubs now, swinging on the gate. It was a new world +into which I stepped from the Carter farm-house that morning, for—I had +kissed her! + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. +AT THE TABLE NEXT + + +McKnight and Hotchkiss were sauntering slowly down the road as I caught +up with them. As usual, the little man was busy with some abstruse +mental problem. + +“The idea is this,” he was saying, his brows knitted in thought, “if a +left-handed man, standing in the position of the man in the picture, +should jump from a car, would he be likely to sprain his right ankle? +When a right-handed man prepares for a leap of that kind, my theory is +that he would hold on with his right hand, and alight at the proper +time, on his right foot. Of course—” + +“I imagine, although I don’t know,” interrupted McKnight, “that a man +either ambidextrous or one-armed, jumping from the Washington Flier, +would be more likely to land on his head.” + +“Anyhow,” I interposed, “what difference does it make whether Sullivan +used one hand or the other? One pair of handcuffs will put both hands +out of commission.” + +As usual when one of his pet theories was attacked, Hotchkiss looked +aggrieved. + +“My dear sir,” he expostulated, “don’t you understand what bearing this +has on the case? How was the murdered man lying when he was found?” + +“On his back,” I said promptly, “head toward the engine.” + +“Very well,” he retorted, “and what then? Your heart lies under your +fifth intercostal space, and to reach it a right-handed blow would have +struck either down or directly in. + +“But, gentleman, the point of entrance for the stiletto was below the +heart, striking up! As Harrington lay with his head toward the engine, +a person in the aisle must have used the left hand.” + +McKnight’s eyes sought mine and he winked at me solemnly as I +unostentatiously transferred the hat I was carrying to my right hand. +Long training has largely counterbalanced heredity in my case, but I +still pitch ball, play tennis and carve with my left hand. But +Hotchkiss was too busy with his theories to notice me. + +We were only just in time for our train back to Baltimore, but McKnight +took advantage of a second’s delay to shake the station agent warmly by +the hand. + +“I want to express my admiration for you,” he said beamingly. “Ability +of your order is thrown away here. You should have been a city +policeman, my friend.” + +The agent looked a trifle uncertain. + +“The young lady was the one who told me to keep still,” he said. + +McKnight glanced at me, gave the agent’s hand a final shake, and +climbed on board. But I knew perfectly that he had guessed the reason +for my delay. + +He was very silent on the way home. Hotchkiss, too, had little to say. +He was reading over his notes intently, stopping now and then to make a +penciled addition. Just before we left the train Richey turned to me. +“I suppose it was the key to the door that she tied to the gate?” + +“Probably. I did not ask her.” + +“Curious, her locking that fellow in,” he reflected. + +“You may depend on it, there was a good reason for it all. And I wish +you wouldn’t be so suspicious of motives, Rich,” I said warmly. + +“Only yesterday you were the suspicious one,” he retorted, and we +lapsed into strained silence. + +It was late when we got to Washington. One of Mrs. Klopton’s small +tyrannies was exacting punctuality at meals, and, like several other +things, I respected it. There are always some concessions that should +be made in return for faithful service. + +So, as my dinner hour of seven was long past, McKnight and I went to a +little restaurant down town where they have a very decent way of fixing +chicken _a la_ King. Hotchkiss had departed, economically bent, for a +small hotel where he lived on the American plan. + +“I want to think some things over,” he said in response to my +invitation to dinner, “and, anyhow, there’s no use dining out when I +pay the same, dinner or no dinner, where I am stopping.” + +The day had been hot, and the first floor dining-room was sultry in +spite of the palms and fans which attempted to simulate the verdure and +breezes of the country. + +It was crowded, too, with a typical summer night crowd, and, after +sitting for a few minutes in a sweltering corner, we got up and went to +the smaller dining-room up-stairs. Here it was not so warm, and we +settled ourselves comfortably by a window. + +Over in a corner half a dozen boys on their way back to school were +ragging a perspiring waiter, a proceeding so exactly to McKnight’s +taste that he insisted on going over to join them. But their table was +full, and somehow that kind of fun had lost its point for me. + +Not far from us a very stout, middle-aged man, apoplectic with the +heat, was elephantinely jolly for the benefit of a bored-looking girl +across the table from him, and at the next table a newspaper woman ate +alone, the last edition propped against the water-bottle before her, +her hat, for coolness, on the corner of the table. It was a motley +Bohemian crowd. + +I looked over the room casually, while McKnight ordered the meal. Then +my attention was attracted to the table next to ours. Two people were +sitting there, so deep in conversation that they did not notice us. The +woman’s face was hidden under her hat, as she traced the pattern of the +cloth mechanically with her fork. But the man’s features stood out +clear in the light of the candles on the table. It was Bronson! + +“He shows the strain, doesn’t he?” McKnight said, holding up the wine +list as if he read from it. “Who’s the woman?” + +“Search me,” I replied, in the same way. + +When the chicken came, I still found myself gazing now and then at the +abstracted couple near me. Evidently the subject of conversation was +unpleasant. Bronson was eating little, the woman not at all. Finally he +got up, pushed his chair back noisily, thrust a bill at the waiter and +stalked out. + +The woman sat still for a moment; then, with an apparent resolution to +make the best of it, she began slowly to eat the meal before her. + +But the quarrel had taken away her appetite, for the mixture in our +chafing-dish was hardly ready to serve before she pushed her chair back +a little and looked around the room. + +I caught my first glimpse of her face then, and I confess it startled +me. It was the tall, stately woman of the Ontario, the woman I had last +seen cowering beside the road, rolling pebbles in her hand, blood +streaming from a cut over her eye. I could see the scar now, a little +affair, about an inch long, gleaming red through its layers of powder. + +And then, quite unexpectedly, she turned and looked directly at me. +After a minute’s uncertainty, she bowed, letting her eyes rest on mine +with a calmly insolent stare. She glanced at McKnight for a moment, +then back to me. When she looked away again I breathed easier. + +“Who is it?” asked McKnight under his breath. + +“Ontario.” I formed it with my lips rather than said it. McKnight’s +eyebrows went up and he looked with increased interest at the +black-gowned figure. + +I ate little after that. The situation was rather bad for me, I began +to see. Here was a woman who could, if she wished, and had any motive +for so doing, put me in jail under a capital charge. A word from her to +the police, and polite surveillance would become active interference. + +Then, too, she could say that she had seen me, just after the wreck, +with a young woman from the murdered man’s car, and thus probably bring +Alison West into the case. + +It is not surprising, then, that I ate little. The woman across seemed +in no hurry to go. She loitered over a demi-tasse, and that finished, +sat with her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, looking darkly +at the changing groups in the room. + +The fun at the table where the college boys sat began to grow a little +noisy; the fat man, now a purplish shade, ambled away behind his slim +companion; the newspaper woman pinned on her business-like hat and +stalked out. Still the woman at the next table waited. + +It was a relief when the meal was over. We got our hats and were about +to leave the room, when a waiter touched me on the arm. + +“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “but the lady at the table near the +window, the lady in black, sir, would like to speak to you.” + +I looked down between the rows of tables to where the woman sat alone, +her chin still resting on her hand, her black eyes still insolently +staring, this time at me. + +“I’ll have to go,” I said to McKnight hurriedly. “She knows all about +that affair and she’d be a bad enemy.” + +“I don’t like her lamps,” McKnight observed, after a glance at her. +“Better jolly her a little. Good-by.” + + + + +CHAPTER XX. +THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN + + +I went back slowly to where the woman sat alone. + +She smiled rather oddly as I drew near, and pointed to the chair +Bronson had vacated. + +“Sit down, Mr. Blakeley,” she said, “I am going to take a few minutes +of your valuable time.” + +“Certainly.” I sat down opposite her and glanced at a cuckoo clock on +the wall. “I am sorry, but I have only a few minutes. If you—” She +laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and opening a small black fan +covered with spangles, waved it slowly. + +“The fact is,” she said, “I think we are about to make a bargain.” + +“A bargain?” I asked incredulously. “You have a second advantage of me. +You know my name”—I paused suggestively and she took the cue. + +“I am Mrs. Conway,” she said, and flicked a crumb off the table with an +over-manicured finger. + +The name was scarcely a surprise. I had already surmised that this +might be the woman whom rumor credited as being Bronson’s common-law +wife. Rumor, I remembered, had said other things even less pleasant, +things which had been brought out at Bronson’s arrest for forgery. + +“We met last under less fortunate circumstances,” she was saying. “I +have been fit for nothing since that terrible day. And you—you had a +broken arm, I think.” + +“I still have it,” I said, with a lame attempt at jocularity; “but to +have escaped at all was a miracle. We have much, indeed, to be thankful +for.” + +“I suppose we have,” she said carelessly, “although sometimes I doubt +it.” She was looking somberly toward the door through which her late +companion had made his exit. + +“You sent for me—” I said. + +“Yes, I sent for you.” She roused herself and sat erect. “Now, Mr. +Blakeley, have you found those papers?” + +“The papers? What papers?” I parried. I needed time to think. + +“Mr. Blakeley,” she said quietly, “I think we can lay aside all +subterfuge. In the first place let me refresh your mind about a few +things. The Pittsburg police are looking for the survivors of the car +Ontario; there are three that I know of—yourself, the young woman with +whom you left the scene of the wreck, and myself. The wreck, you will +admit, was a fortunate one for you.” + +I nodded without speaking. + +“At the time of the collision you were in rather a hole,” she went on, +looking at me with a disagreeable smile. “You were, if I remember, +accused of a rather atrocious crime. There was a lot of corroborative +evidence, was there not? I seem to remember a dirk and the murdered +man’s pocket-book in your possession, and a few other things that +were—well, rather unpleasant.” + +I was thrown a bit off my guard. + +“You remember also,” I said quickly, “that a man disappeared from the +car, taking my clothes, papers and everything.” + +“I remember that you _said_ so.” Her tone was quietly insulting, and I +bit my lip at having been caught. It was no time to make a defense. + +“You have missed one calculation,” I said coldly, “and that is, the +discovery of the man who left the train.” + +“You have found him?” She bent forward, and again I regretted my hasty +speech. “I knew it; I said so.” + +“We are going to find him,” I asserted, with a confidence I did not +feel. “We can produce at any time proof that a man left the Flier a few +miles beyond the wreck. And we can find him, I am positive.” + +“But you have not found him yet?” She was clearly disappointed. “Well, +so be it. Now for our bargain. You will admit that I am no fool.” + +I made no such admission, and she smiled mockingly. + +“How flattering you are!” she said. “Very well. Now for the premises. +You take to Pittsburg four notes held by the Mechanics’ National Bank, +to have Mr. Gilmore, who is ill, declare his indorsement of them +forged. + +“On the journey back to Pittsburg two things happen to you: you lose +your clothing, your valise and your papers, including the notes, and +you are accused of murder. In fact, Mr. Blakeley, the circumstances +were most singular, and the evidence—well, almost conclusive.” + +I was completely at her mercy, but I gnawed my lip with irritation. + +“Now for the bargain.” She leaned over and lowered her voice. “A fair +exchange, you know. The minute you put those four notes in my hand—that +minute the blow to my head has caused complete forgetfulness as to the +events of that awful morning. I am the only witness, and I will be +silent. Do you understand? They will call off their dogs.” + +My head was buzzing with the strangeness of the idea. + +“But,” I said, striving to gain time, “I haven’t the notes. I can’t +give you what I haven’t got.” + +“You have had the case continued,” she said sharply. “You expect to +find them. Another thing,” she added slowly, watching my face, “if you +don’t get them soon, Bronson will have them. They have been offered to +him already, but at a prohibitive price.” + +“But,” I said, bewildered, “what is your object in coming to me? If +Bronson will get them anyhow—” + +She shut her fan with a click and her face was not particularly +pleasant to look at. + +“You are dense,” she said insolently. “I want those papers—for myself, +not for Andy Bronson.” + +“Then the idea is,” I said, ignoring her tone, “that you think you have +me in a hole, and that if I find those papers and give them to you you +will let me out. As I understand it, our friend Bronson, under those +circumstances, will also be in a hole.” + +She nodded. + +“The notes would be of no use to you for a limited length of time,” I +went on, watching her narrowly. “If they are not turned over to the +state’s attorney within a reasonable time there will have to be a +_nolle pros_—that is, the case will simply be dropped for lack of +evidence.” + +“A week would answer, I think,” she said slowly. “You will do it, +then?” + +I laughed, although I was not especially cheerful. + +“No, I’ll not do it. I expect to come across the notes any time now, +and I expect just as certainly to turn them over to the state’s +attorney when I get them.” + +She got up suddenly, pushing her chair back with a noisy grating sound +that turned many eyes toward us. + +“You’re more of a fool than I thought you,” she sneered, and left me at +the table. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. +McKNIGHT’S THEORY + + +I confess I was staggered. The people at the surrounding tables, after +glancing curiously in my direction, looked away again. + +I got my hat and went out in a very uncomfortable frame of mind. That +she would inform the police at once of what she knew I never doubted, +unless possibly she would give a day or two’s grace in the hope that I +would change my mind. + +I reviewed the situation as I waited for a car. Two passed me going in +the opposite direction, and on the first one I saw Bronson, his hat +over his eyes, his arms folded, looking moodily ahead. Was it +imagination? or was the small man huddled in the corner of the rear +seat Hotchkiss? + +As the car rolled on I found myself smiling. The alert little man was +for all the world like a terrier, ever on the scent, and scouring about +in every direction. + +I found McKnight at the Incubator, with his coat off, working with +enthusiasm and a manicure file over the horn of his auto. + +“It’s the worst horn I ever ran across,” he groaned, without looking +up, as I came in. “The blankety-blank thing won’t blow.” + +He punched it savagely, finally eliciting a faint throaty croak. + +“Sounds like croup,” I suggested. “My sister-in-law uses camphor and +goose greese for it; or how about a spice poultice?” + +But McKnight never sees any jokes but his own. He flung the horn +clattering into a corner, and collapsed sulkily into a chair. + +“Now,” I said, “if you’re through manicuring that horn, I’ll tell you +about my talk with the lady in black.” + +“What’s wrong?” asked McKnight languidly. “Police watching her, too?” + +“Not exactly. The fact is, Rich, there’s the mischief to pay.” + +Stogie came in, bringing a few additions to our comfort. When he went +out I told my story. + +“You must remember,” I said, “that I had seen this woman before the +morning of the wreck. She was buying her Pullman ticket when I did. +Then the next morning, when the murder was discovered, she grew +hysterical, and I gave her some whisky. The third and last time I saw +her, until to-night, was when she crouched beside the road, after the +wreck.” + +McKnight slid down in his chair until his weight rested on the small of +his back, and put his feet on the big reading table. + +“It is rather a facer,” he said. “It’s really too good a situation for +a commonplace lawyer. It ought to be dramatized. You can’t agree, of +course; and by refusing you run the chance of jail, at least, and of +having Alison brought into publicity, which is out of the question. You +say she was at the Pullman window when you were?” + +“Yes; I bought her ticket for her. Gave her lower eleven.” + +“And you took ten?” + +“Lower ten.” + +McKnight straightened up and looked at me. + +“Then she thought you were in lower ten.” + +“I suppose she did, if she thought at all.” + +“But listen, man.” McKnight was growing excited. “What do you figure +out of this? The Conway woman knows you have taken the notes to +Pittsburg. The probabilities are that she follows you there, on the +chance of an opportunity to get them, either for Bronson or herself. + +“Nothing doing during the trip over or during the day in Pittsburg; but +she learns the number of your berth as you buy it at the Pullman ticket +office in Pittsburg, and she thinks she sees her chance. No one could +have foreseen that that drunken fellow would have crawled into your +berth. + +“Now, I figure it out this way: She wanted those notes desperately—does +still—not for Bronson, but to hold over his head for some purpose. In +the night, when everything is quiet, she slips behind the curtains of +lower ten, where the man’s breathing shows he is asleep. Didn’t you say +he snored?” + +“He did!” I affirmed. “But I tell you—” + +“Now keep still and listen. She gropes cautiously around in the +darkness, finally discovering the wallet under the pillow. Can’t you +see it yourself?” + +He was leaning forward, excitedly, and I could almost see the gruesome +tragedy he was depicting. + +“She draws out the wallet. Then, perhaps she remembers the alligator +bag, and on the possibility that the notes are there, instead of in the +pocket-book, she gropes around for it. Suddenly, the man awakes and +clutches at the nearest object, perhaps her neck chain, which breaks. +She drops the pocket-book and tries to escape, but he has caught her +right hand. + +“It is all in silence; the man is still stupidly drunk. But he holds +her in a tight grip. Then the tragedy. She must get away; in a minute +the car will be aroused. Such a woman, on such an errand, does not go +without some sort of a weapon, in this case a dagger, which, unlike a +revolver, is noiseless. + +“With a quick thrust—she’s a big woman and a bold one—she strikes. +Possibly Hotchkiss is right about the left-hand blow. Harrington may +have held her right hand, or perhaps she held the dirk in her left hand +as she groped with her right. Then, as the man falls back, and his +grasp relaxes, she straightens and attempts to get away. The swaying of +the car throws her almost into your berth, and, trembling with terror, +she crouches behind the curtains of lower ten until everything is +still. Then she goes noiselessly back to her berth.” + +I nodded. + +“It seems to fit partly, at least,” I said. “In the morning when she +found that the crime had been not only fruitless, but that she had +searched the wrong berth and killed the wrong man; when she saw me +emerge, unhurt, just as she was bracing herself for the discovery of my +dead body, then she went into hysterics. You remember, I gave her some +whisky. + +“It really seems a tenable theory. But, like the Sullivan theory, there +are one or two things that don’t agree with the rest. For one thing, +how did the remainder of that chain get into Alison West’s possession?” + +“She may have picked it up on the floor.” + +“We’ll admit that,” I said; “and I’m sure I hope so. Then how did the +murdered man’s pocket-book get into the sealskin bag? And the dirk, how +account for that, and the blood-stains?” + +“Now what’s the use,” asked McKnight aggrievedly, “of my building up +beautiful theories for you to pull down? We’ll take it to Hotchkiss. +Maybe he can tell from the blood-stains if the murderer’s finger nails +were square or pointed.” + +“Hotchkiss is no fool,” I said warmly. “Under all his theories there’s +a good hard layer of common sense. And we must remember, Rich, that +neither of our theories includes the woman at Doctor Van Kirk’s +hospital, that the charming picture you have just drawn does not +account for Alison West’s connection with the case, or for the bits of +telegram in the Sullivan fellow’s pajamas pocket. You are like the man +who put the clock together; you’ve got half of the works left over.” + +“Oh, go home,” said McKnight disgustedly. “I’m no Edgar Allan Poe. +What’s the use of coming here and asking me things if you’re so +particular?” + +With one of his quick changes of mood, he picked up his guitar. + +“Listen to this,” he said. “It is a Hawaiian song about a fat lady, oh, +ignorant one! and how she fell off her mule.” + +But for all the lightness of the words, the voice that followed me down +the stairs was anything but cheery. + +“There was a Kanaka in Balu did dwell, +Who had for his daughter a monstrous fat girl— + + +he sang in his clear tenor. I paused on the lower floor and listened. +He had stopped singing as abruptly as he had begun. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. +AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE + + +I had not been home for thirty-six hours, since the morning of the +preceding day. Johnson was not in sight, and I let myself in quietly +with my latchkey. It was almost midnight, and I had hardly settled +myself in the library when the bell rang and I was surprised to find +Hotchkiss, much out of breath, in the vestibule. + +“Why, come in, Mr. Hotchkiss,” I said. “I thought you were going home +to go to bed.” + +“So I was, so I was.” He dropped into a chair beside my reading lamp +and mopped his face. “And here it is almost midnight, and I’m wider +awake than ever. I’ve seen Sullivan, Mr. Blakeley.” + +“You have!” + +“I have,” he said impressively. + +“You were following Bronson at eight o’clock. Was that when it +happened?” + +“Something of the sort. When I left you at the door of the restaurant, +I turned and almost ran into a plain clothes man from the central +office. I know him pretty well; once or twice he has taken me with him +on interesting bits of work. He knows my hobby.” + +“You know him, too, probably. It was the man Arnold, the detective whom +the state’s attorney has had watching Bronson.” + +Johnson being otherwise occupied, I had asked for Arnold myself. + +I nodded. + +“Well, he stopped me at once; said he’d been on the fellow’s tracks +since early morning and had had no time for luncheon. Bronson, it +seems, isn’t eating much these days. I at once jotted down the fact, +because it argued that he was being bothered by the man with the +notes.” + +“It might point to other things,” I suggested. “Indigestion, you know.” + +Hotchkiss ignored me. “Well, Arnold had some reason for thinking that +Bronson would try to give him the slip that night, so he asked me to +stay around the private entrance there while he ran across the street +and got something to eat. It seemed a fair presumption that, as he had +gone there with a lady, they would dine leisurely, and Arnold would +have plenty of time to get back.” + +“What about your own dinner?” I asked curiously. + +“Sir,” he said pompously, “I have given you a wrong estimate of Wilson +Budd Hotchkiss if you think that a question of dinner would even +obtrude itself on his mind at such a time as this.” + +He was a frail little man, and to-night he looked pale with heat and +over-exertion. + +“Did you have any luncheon?” I asked. + +He was somewhat embarrassed at that. + +“I—really, Mr. Blakeley, the events of the day were so engrossing—” + +“Well,” I said, “I’m not going to see you drop on the floor from +exhaustion. Just wait a minute.” + +I went back to the pantry, only to be confronted with rows of locked +doors and empty dishes. Downstairs, in the basement kitchen, however, I +found two unattractive looking cold chops, some dry bread and a piece +of cake, wrapped in a napkin, and from its surreptitious and generally +hang-dog appearance, destined for the coachman in the stable at the +rear. Trays there were none—everything but the chairs and tables seemed +under lock and key, and there was neither napkin, knife nor fork to be +found. + +The luncheon was not attractive in appearance, but Hotchkiss ate his +cold chops and gnawed at the crusts as though he had been famished, +while he told his story. + +“I had been there only a few minutes,” he said, with a chop in one hand +and the cake in the other, “when Bronson rushed out and cut across the +street. He’s a tall man, Mr. Blakeley, and I had had work keeping +close. It was a relief when he jumped on a passing car, although being +well behind, it was a hard run for me to catch him. He had left the +lady. + +“Once on the car, we simply rode from one end of the line to the other +and back again. I suppose he was passing the time, for he looked at his +watch now and then, and when I did once get a look at his face it made +me—er—uncomfortable. He could have crushed me like a fly, sir.” + +I had brought Mr. Hotchkiss a glass of wine, and he was looking better. +He stopped to finish it, declining with a wave of his hand to have it +refilled, and continued: + +“About nine o’clock or a little later he got off somewhere near +Washington Circle. He went along one of the residence streets there, +turned to his left a square or two, and rang a bell. He had been +admitted when I got there, but I guessed from the appearance of the +place that it was a boarding-house. + +“I waited a few minutes and rang the bell. When a maid answered it, I +asked for Mr. Sullivan. Of course there was no Mr. Sullivan there. + +“I said I was sorry; that the man I was looking for was a new boarder. +She was sure there was no such boarder in the house; the only new +arrival was a man on the third floor—she thought his name was Stuart. + +“‘My friend has a cousin by that name,’ I said. ‘I’ll just go up and +see.’ + +“She wanted to show me up, but I said it was unnecessary. So after +telling me it was the bedroom and sitting-room on the third floor +front, I went up. + +“I met a couple of men on the stairs, but neither of them paid any +attention to me. A boarding-house is the easiest place in the world to +enter.” + +“They’re not always so easy to leave,” I put in, to his evident +irritation. + +“When I got to the third story, I took out a bunch of keys and posted +myself by a door near the ones the girl had indicated. I could hear +voices in one of the front rooms, but could not understand what they +said. + +“There was no violent dispute, but a steady hum. Then Bronson jerked +the door open. If he had stepped into the hall he would have seen me +fitting a key into the door before me. But he spoke before he came out. + +“‘You’re acting like a maniac,’ he said. ‘You know I can get those +things some way; I’m not going to threaten you. It isn’t necessary. You +know me.’ + +“‘It would be no use,’ the other man said. ‘I tell you, I haven’t seen +the notes for ten days.’ + +“‘But you will,’ Bronson said savagely. ‘You’re standing in your own +way, that’s all. If you’re holding out expecting me to raise my figure, +you’re making a mistake. It’s my last offer.’ + +“‘I couldn’t take it if it was for a million,’ said the man inside the +room. ‘I’d do it, I expect, if I could. The best of us have our price.’ + +“Bronson slammed the door then, and flung past me down the hall. + +“After a couple of minutes I knocked at the door, and a tall man about +your size, Mr. Blakeley, opened it. He was very blond, with a smooth +face and blue eyes—what I think you would call a handsome man. + +“‘I beg your pardon for disturbing you,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me which +is Mr. Johnson’s room? Mr. Francis Johnson?’ + +“‘I can not say,’ he replied civilly. ‘I’ve only been here a few days.’ + +“I thanked him and left, but I had had a good look at him, and I think +I’d know him readily any place.” + +I sat for a few minutes thinking it over. “But what did he mean by +saying he hadn’t seen the notes for ten days? And why is Bronson making +the overtures?” + +“I think he was lying,” Hotchkiss reflected. “Bronson hasn’t reached +his figure.” + +“It’s a big advance, Mr. Hotchkiss, and I appreciate what you have done +more than I can tell you,” I said. “And now, if you can locate any of +my property in this fellow’s room, we’ll send him up for larceny, and +at least have him where we can get at him. I’m going to Cresson +to-morrow, to try to trace him a little from there. But I’ll be back in +a couple of days, and we’ll begin to gather in these scattered +threads.” + +Hotchkiss rubbed his hands together delightedly. + +“That’s it,” he said. “That’s what we want to do, Mr. Blakeley. We’ll +gather up the threads ourselves; if we let the police in too soon, +they’ll tangle it up again. I’m not vindictive by nature; but when a +fellow like Sullivan not only commits a murder, but goes to all sorts +of trouble to put the burden of guilt on an innocent man—I say _hunt +him down_, sir!” + +“You are convinced, of course, that Sullivan did it?” + +“Who else?” He looked over his glasses at me with the air of a man +whose mental attitude is unassailable. “Well, listen to this,” I said. + +Then I told him at length of my encounter with Bronson in the +restaurant, of the bargain proposed by Mrs. Conway, and finally of +McKnight’s new theory. But, although he was impressed, he was far from +convinced. + +“It’s a very vivid piece of imagination,” he said drily; “but while it +fits the evidence as far as it goes, it doesn’t go far enough. How +about the stains in lower seven, the dirk, and the wallet? Haven’t we +even got motive in that telegram from Bronson?” + +“Yes,” I admitted, “but that bit of chain—” + +“Pooh,” he said shortly. “Perhaps, like yourself, Sullivan wore glasses +with a chain. Our not finding them does not prove they did not exist.” + +And there I made an error; half confidences are always mistakes. I +could not tell of the broken chain in Alison West’s gold purse. + +It was one o’clock when Hotchkiss finally left. We had by that time +arranged a definite course of action—Hotchkiss to search Sullivan’s +rooms and if possible find evidence to have him held for larceny, while +I went to Cresson. + +Strangely enough, however, when I entered the train the following +morning, Hotchkiss was already there. He had bought a new note-book, +and was sharpening a fresh pencil. + +“I changed my plans, you see,” he said, bustling his newspaper aside +for me. “It is no discredit to your intelligence, Mr. Blakeley, but you +lack the professional eye, the analytical mind. You legal gentlemen +call a spade a spade, although it may be a shovel.” + +“‘A primrose by the river’s brim +A yellow primrose was to him, +And nothing more!’” + + +I quoted as the train pulled out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. +A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS + + +I slept most of the way to Cresson, to the disgust of the little +detective. Finally he struck up an acquaintance with a kindly-faced old +priest on his way home to his convent school, armed with a roll of +dance music and surreptitious bundles that looked like boxes of candy. +From scraps of conversation I gleaned that there had been mysterious +occurrences at the convent,—ending in the theft of what the reverend +father called vaguely, “a quantity of undermuslins.” I dropped asleep +at that point, and when I roused a few moments later, the conversation +had progressed. Hotchkiss had a diagram on an envelope. + +“With this window bolted, and that one inaccessible, and if, as you +say, the—er—garments were in a tub here at X, then, as you hold the key +to the other door,—I think you said the convent dog did not raise any +disturbance? Pardon a personal question, but do you ever walk in your +sleep?” + +The priest looked bewildered. + +“I’ll tell you what to do,” Hotchkiss said cheerfully, leaning forward, +“look around a little yourself before you call in the police. +Somnambulism is a queer thing. It’s a question whether we are most +ourselves sleeping or waking. Ever think of that? Live a saintly life +all day, prayers and matins and all that, and the subconscious mind +hikes you out of bed at night to steal undermuslins! Subliminal theft, +so to speak. Better examine the roof.” + +I dozed again. When I wakened Hotchkiss sat alone, and the priest, from +a corner, was staring at him dazedly, over his breviary. + +It was raining when we reached Cresson, a wind-driven rain that had +forced the agent at the newsstand to close himself in, and that beat +back from the rails in parallel lines of white spray. As he went up the +main street, Hotchkiss was cheerfully oblivious of the weather, of the +threatening dusk, of our generally draggled condition. _My_ draggled +condition, I should say, for he improved every moment,—his eyes +brighter, his ruddy face ruddier, his collar newer and glossier. +Sometime, when it does not encircle the little man’s neck, I shall test +that collar with a match. + +I was growing steadily more depressed: I loathed my errand and its +necessity. I had always held that a man who played the spy on a woman +was beneath contempt. Then, I admit I was afraid of what I might learn. +For a time, however, this promised to be a negligible quantity. The +streets of the straggling little mountain town had been clean-washed of +humanity by the downpour. Windows and doors were inhospitably shut, and +from around an occasional drawn shade came narrow strips of light that +merely emphasized our gloom. When Hotchkiss’ umbrella turned inside +out, I stopped. + +“I don’t know where you are going,” I snarled, “I don’t care. But I’m +going to get under cover inside of ten seconds. I’m not amphibious.” + +I ducked into the next shelter, which happened to be the yawning +entrance to a livery stable, and shook myself, dog fashion. Hotchkiss +wiped his collar with his handkerchief. It emerged gleaming and +unwilted. + +“This will do as well as any place,” he said, raising his voice above +the rattle of the rain. “Got to make a beginning.” + +I sat down on the usual chair without a back, just inside the door, and +stared out at the darkening street. The whole affair had an air of +unreality. Now that I was there, I doubted the necessity, or the value, +of the journey. I was wet and uncomfortable. Around me, with Cresson as +a center, stretched an irregular circumference of mountain, with +possibly a ten-mile radius, and in it I was to find the residence of a +woman whose first name I did not know, and a man who, so far, had been +a purely chimerical person. + +Hotchkiss had penetrated the steaming interior of the cave, and now his +voice, punctuated by the occasional thud of horses’ hoofs, came to me. + +“Something light will do,” he was saying. “A runabout, perhaps.” He +came forward rubbing his hands, followed by a thin man in overalls. +“Mr. Peck says,” he began,—“this is Mr. Peck of Peck and Peck,—says +that the place we are looking for is about seven miles from the town. +It’s clearing, isn’t it?” + +“It is not,” I returned savagely. “And we don’t want a runabout, Mr. +Peck. What we require is an hermetically sealed diving suit. I suppose +there isn’t a machine to be had?” Mr. Peck gazed at me, in silence: +machine to him meant other things than motors. “Automobile,” I +supplemented. His face cleared. + +“None but private affairs. I can give you a good buggy with a rubber +apron. Mike, is the doctor’s horse in?” + +I am still uncertain as to whether the raw-boned roan we took out that +night over the mountains was the doctor’s horse or not. If it was, the +doctor may be a good doctor, but he doesn’t know anything about a +horse. And furthermore, I hope he didn’t need the beast that miserable +evening. + +While they harnessed the horse, Hotchkiss told me what he had learned. + +“Six Curtises in the town and vicinity,” he said. “Sort of family name +around here. One of them is telegraph operator at the station. Person +we are looking for is—was—a wealthy widow with a brother named +Sullivan! Both supposed to have been killed on the Flier.” + +“Her brother,” I repeated stupidly. + +“You see,” Hotchkiss went on, “three people, in one party, took the +train here that night, Miss West, Mrs. Curtis and Sullivan. The two +women had the drawing-room, Sullivan had lower seven. What we want to +find out is just who these people were, where they came from, if +Bronson knew them, and how Miss West became entangled with them. She +may have married Sullivan, for one thing.” + +I fell into gloom after that. The roan was led unwillingly into the +weather, Hotchkiss and I in eclipse behind the blanket. The liveryman +stood in the doorway and called directions to us. “You can’t miss it,” +he finished. “Got the name over the gate anyhow, ‘The Laurels.’ The +servants are still there: leastways, we didn’t bring them down.” He +even took a step into the rain as Hotchkiss picked up the lines. “If +you’re going to settle the estate,” he bawled, “don’t forget us, Peck +and Peck. A half-bushel of name and a bushel of service.” + +Hotchkiss could not drive. Born a clerk, he guided the roan much as he +would drive a bad pen. And the roan spattered through puddles and +splashed ink—mud, that is—until I was in a frenzy of irritation. + +“What are we going to say when we get there?” I asked after I had +finally taken the reins in my one useful hand. “Get out there at +midnight and tell the servants we have come to ask a few questions +about the family? It’s an idiotic trip anyhow; I wish I had stayed at +home.” + +The roan fell just then, and we had to crawl out and help him up. By +the time we had partly unharnessed him our matches were gone, and the +small bicycle lamp on the buggy was wavering only too certainly. We +were covered with mud, panting with exertion, and even Hotchkiss showed +a disposition to be surly. The rain, which had lessened for a time, +came on again, the lightning flashes doing more than anything else to +reveal our isolated position. + +Another mile saw us, if possible, more despondent. The water in our +clothes had had time to penetrate: the roan had sprained his shoulder, +and drew us along in a series of convulsive jerks. And then through the +rain-spattered window of the blanket, I saw a light. It was a small +light, rather yellow, and it lasted perhaps thirty seconds. Hotchkiss +missed it, and was inclined to doubt me. But in a couple of minutes the +roan hobbled to the side of the road and stopped, and I made out a +break in the pines and an arched gate. + +It was a small gate, too narrow for the buggy. I pulled the horse into +as much shelter as possible under the trees, and we got out. Hotchkiss +tied the beast and we left him there, head down against the driving +rain, drooping and dejected. Then we went toward the house. + +It was a long walk. The path bent and twisted, and now and then we lost +it. We were climbing as we went. Oddly there were no lights ahead, +although it was only ten o’clock,—not later. Hotchkiss kept a little +ahead of me, knocking into trees now and then, but finding the path in +half the time I should have taken. Once, as I felt my way around a tree +in the blackness, I put my hand unexpectedly on his shoulder, and felt +a shudder go down my back. + +“What do you expect me to do?” he protested, when I remonstrated. “Hang +out a red lantern? What was that? Listen.” + +We both stood peering into the gloom. The sharp patter of the rain on +leaves had ceased, and from just ahead there came back to us the +stealthy padding of feet in wet soil. My hand closed on Hotchkiss’ +shoulder, and we listened together, warily. The steps were close by, +unmistakable. The next flash of lightning showed nothing moving: the +house was in full view now, dark and uninviting, looming huge above a +terrace, with an Italian garden at the side. Then the blackness again. +Somebody’s teeth were chattering: I accused Hotchkiss but he denied it. + +“Although I’m not very comfortable, I’ll admit,” he confessed; “there +was something breathing right at my elbow here a moment ago.” + +“Nonsense!” I took his elbow and steered him in what I made out to be +the direction of the steps of the Italian garden. “I saw a deer just +ahead by the last flash; that’s what you heard. By Jove, I hear +wheels.” + +We paused to listen and Hotchkiss put his hand on something close to +us. “Here’s your deer,” he said. “Bronze.” + +As we neared the house the sense of surveillance we had had in the park +gradually left us. Stumbling over flower beds, running afoul of a +sun-dial, groping our way savagely along hedges and thorny banks, we +reached the steps finally and climbed the terrace. + +It was then that Hotchkiss fell over one of the two stone urns which, +with tall boxwood trees in them, mounted guard at each side of the +door. He didn’t make any attempt to get up. He sat in a puddle on the +brick floor of the terrace and clutched his leg and swore softly in +Government English. + +The occasional relief of the lightning was gone. I could not see an +outline of the house before me. We had no matches, and an instant’s +investigation showed that the windows were boarded and the house +closed. Hotchkiss, still recumbent, was ascertaining the damage, +tenderly peeling down his stocking. + +“Upon my soul,” he said finally, “I don’t know whether this moisture is +blood or rain. I think I’ve broken a bone.” + +“Blood is thicker than water,” I suggested. “Is it sticky? See if you +can move your toes.” + +There was a pause: Hotchkiss moved his toes. By that time I had found a +knocker and was making the night hideous. But there was no response +save the wind that blew sodden leaves derisively in our faces. Once +Hotchkiss declared he heard a window-sash lifted, but renewed violence +with the knocker produced no effect. + +“There’s only one thing to do,” I said finally. “I’ll go back and try +to bring the buggy up for you. You can’t walk, can you?” + +Hotchkiss sat back in his puddle and said he didn’t think he could +stir, but for me to go back to town and leave him, that he didn’t have +any family dependent on him, and that if he was going to have pneumonia +he had probably got it already. I left him there, and started back to +get the horse. + +If possible, it was worse than before. There was no lightning, and only +by a miracle did I find the little gate again. I drew a long breath of +relief, followed by another, equally long, of dismay. For I had found +the hitching strap and there was nothing at the end of it! In a lull of +the wind I seemed to hear, far off, the eager thud of stable-bound +feet. So for the second time I climbed the slope to the Laurels, and on +the way I thought of many things to say. + +I struck the house at a new angle, for I found a veranda, destitute of +chairs and furnishings, but dry and evidently roofed. It was better +than the terrace, and so, by groping along the wall, I tried to make my +way to Hotchkiss. That was how I found the open window. I had passed +perhaps six, all closed, and to have my hand grope for the next one, +and to find instead the soft drapery of an inner curtain, was +startling, to say the least. + +I found Hotchkiss at last around an angle of the stone wall, and told +him that the horse was gone. He was disconcerted, but not abased; +maintaining that it was a new kind of knot that couldn’t slip and that +the horse must have chewed the halter through! He was less enthusiastic +than I had expected about the window. + +“It looks uncommonly like a trap,” he said. “I tell you there was some +one in the park below when we were coming up. Man has a sixth sense +that scientists ignore—a sense of the nearness of things. And all the +time you have been gone, some one has been watching me.” + +“Couldn’t see you,” I maintained; “I can’t see you now. And your sense +of contiguity didn’t tell you about that flower crock.” + +In the end, of course, he consented to go with me. He was very lame, +and I helped him around to the open window. He was full of moral +courage, the little man: it was only the physical in him that quailed. +And as we groped along, he insisted on going through the window first. + +“If it is a trap,” he whispered, “I have two arms to your one, and, +besides, as I said before, life holds much for you. As for me, the +government would merely lose an indifferent employee.” + +When he found I was going first he was rather hurt, but I did not wait +for his protests. I swung my feet over the sill and dropped. I made a +clutch at the window-frame with my good hand when I found no floor +under my feet, but I was too late. I dropped probably ten feet and +landed with a crash that seemed to split my ear-drums. I was thoroughly +shaken, but in some miraculous way the bandaged arm had escaped injury. + +“For Heaven’s sake,” Hotchkiss was calling from above, “have you broken +your back?” + +“No,” I returned, as steadily as I could, “merely driven it up through +my skull. This is a staircase. I’m coming up to open another window.” + +It was eerie work, but I accomplished it finally, discovering, not +without mishap, a room filled with more tables than I had ever dreamed +of, tables that seemed to waylay and strike at me. When I had got a +window open, Hotchkiss crawled through, and we were at last under +shelter. + +Our first thought was for a light. The same laborious investigation +that had landed us where we were, revealed that the house was lighted +by electricity, and that the plant was not in operation. By accident I +stumbled across a tabouret with smoking materials, and found a half +dozen matches. The first one showed us the magnitude of the room we +stood in, and revealed also a brass candle-stick by the open fireplace, +a candle-stick almost four feet high, supporting a candle of similar +colossal proportions. It was Hotchkiss who discovered that it had been +recently lighted. He held the match to it and peered at it over his +glasses. + +“Within ten minutes,” he announced impressively, “this candle has been +burning. Look at the wax! And the wick! Both soft.” + +“Perhaps it’s the damp weather,” I ventured, moving a little nearer to +the circle of light. A gust of wind came in just then, and the flame +turned over on its side and threatened demise. There was something +almost ridiculous in the haste with which we put down the window and +nursed the flicker to life. + +The peculiarly ghost-like appearance of the room added to the +uncanniness of the situation. The furniture was swathed in white covers +for the winter; even the pictures wore shrouds. And in a niche between +two windows a bust on a pedestal, similarly wrapped, one arm extended +under its winding sheet, made a most life-like ghost, if any ghost can +be life-like. + +In the light of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were objects +for mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and preparing to +make himself comfortable, while I hung my muddy raincoat over the ghost +in the corner. Thus habited, he presented a rakish but distinctly more +comfortable appearance. + +“When these people built,” Hotchkiss said, surveying the huge +dimensions of the room, “they must have bought a mountain and built all +over it. What a room!” + +It seemed to be a living-room, although Hotchkiss remarked that it was +much more like a dead one. It was probably fifty feet long and +twenty-five feet wide. It was very high, too, with a domed ceiling, and +a gallery ran around the entire room, about fifteen feet above the +floor. The candle light did not penetrate beyond the dim outlines of +the gallery rail, but I fancied the wall there hung with smaller +pictures. + +Hotchkiss had discovered a fire laid in the enormous fireplace, and in +a few minutes we were steaming before a cheerful blaze. Within the +radius of its light and heat, we were comfortable again. But the +brightness merely emphasized the gloom of the ghostly corners. We +talked in subdued tones, and I smoked, a box of Russian cigarettes +which I found in a table drawer. We had decided to stay all night, +there being nothing else to do. I suggested a game of double-dummy +bridge, but did not urge it when my companion asked me if it resembled +euchre. Gradually, as the ecclesiastical candle paled in the firelight, +we grew drowsy. I drew a divan into the cheerful area, and stretched +myself out for sleep. Hotchkiss, who said the pain in his leg made him +wakeful, sat wide-eyed by the fire, smoking a pipe. + +I have no idea how much time had passed when something threw itself +violently on my chest. I roused with a start and leaped to my feet, and +a large Angora cat fell with a thump to the floor. The fire was still +bright, and there was an odor of scorched leather through the room, +from Hotchkiss’ shoes. The little detective was sound asleep, his dead +pipe in his fingers. The cat sat back on its haunches and wailed. + +The curtain at the door into the hallway bellied slowly out into the +room and fell again. The cat looked toward it and opened its mouth for +another howl. I thrust at it with my foot, but it refused to move. +Hotchkiss stirred uneasily, and his pipe clattered to the floor. + +The cat was standing at my feet, staring behind me. Apparently it was +following with its eyes, an object unseen to me, that moved behind me. +The tip of its tail waved threateningly, but when I wheeled I saw +nothing. + +I took the candle and made a circuit of the room. Behind the curtain +that had moved the door was securely closed. The windows were shut and +locked, and everywhere the silence was absolute. The cat followed me +majestically. I stooped and stroked its head, but it persisted in its +uncanny watching of the corners of the room. + +When I went back to my divan, after putting a fresh log on the fire, I +was reassured. I took the precaution, and smiled at myself for doing +it, to put the fire tongs within reach of my hand. But the cat would +not let me sleep. After a time I decided that it wanted water, and I +started out in search of some, carrying the candle without the stand. I +wandered through several rooms, all closed and dismantled, before I +found a small lavatory opening off a billiard room. The cat lapped +steadily, and I filled a glass to take back with me. The candle +flickered in a sickly fashion that threatened to leave me there lost in +the wanderings of the many hallways, and from somewhere there came an +occasional violent puff of wind. The cat stuck by my feet, with the +hair on its back raised menacingly. I don’t like cats; there is +something psychic about them. + +Hotchkiss was still asleep when I got back to the big room. I moved his +boots back from the fire, and trimmed the candle. Then, with sleep gone +from me, I lay back on my divan and reflected on many things: on my +idiocy in coming; on Alison West, and the fact that only a week before +she had been a guest in this very house; on Richey and the constraint +that had come between us. From that I drifted back to Alison, and to +the barrier my comparative poverty would be. + +The emptiness, the stillness were oppressive. Once I heard footsteps +coming, rhythmical steps that neither hurried nor dragged, and seemed +to mount endless staircases without coming any closer. I realized +finally that I had not quite turned off the tap, and that the lavatory, +which I had circled to reach, must be quite close. + +The cat lay by the fire, its nose on its folded paws, content in the +warmth and companionship. I watched it idly. Now and then the green +wood hissed in the fire, but the cat never batted an eye. Through an +unshuttered window the lightning flashed. Suddenly the cat looked up. +It lifted its head and stared directly at the gallery above. Then it +blinked, and stared again. I was amused. Not until it had got up on its +feet, eyes still riveted on the balcony, tail waving at the tip, the +hair on its back a bristling brush, did I glance casually over my head. + +From among the shadows a face gazed down at me, a face that seemed a +fitting tenant of the ghostly room below. I saw it as plainly as I +might see my own face in a mirror. While I stared at it with horrified +eyes, the apparition faded. The rail was there, the Bokhara rug still +swung from it, but the gallery was empty. + +The cat threw back its head and wailed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. +HIS WIFE’S FATHER + + +I jumped up and seized the fire tongs. The cat’s wail had roused +Hotchkiss, who was wide-awake at once. He took in my offensive +attitude, the tongs, the direction of my gaze, and needed nothing more. +As he picked up the candle and darted out into the hall, I followed +him. He made directly for the staircase, and part way up he turned off +to the right through a small door. We were on the gallery itself; below +us the fire gleamed cheerfully, the cat was not in sight. There was no +sign of my ghostly visitant, but as we stood there the Bokhara rug, +without warning, slid over the railing and fell to the floor below. + +“Man or woman?” Hotchkiss inquired in his most professional tone. + +“Neither—that is, I don’t know. I didn’t notice anything but the eyes,” +I muttered. “They were looking a hole in me. If you’d seen that cat you +would realize my state of mind. That was a traditional graveyard yowl.” + +“I don’t think you saw anything at all,” he lied cheerfully. “You dozed +off, and the rest is the natural result of a meal on a buffet car.” + +Nevertheless, he examined the Bokhara carefully when we went down, and +when I finally went to sleep he was reading the only book in +sight—_Elwell on Bridge_. The first rays of daylight were coming +mistily into the room when he roused me. He had his finger on his lips, +and he whispered sibilantly while I tried to draw on my distorted +boots. + +“I think we have him,” he said triumphantly. “I’ve been looking around +some, and I can tell you this much. Just before we came in through the +window last night, another man came. Only—he did not drop, as you did. +He swung over to the stair railing, and then down. The rail is +scratched. He was long enough ahead of us to go into the dining-room +and get a decanter out of the sideboard. He poured out the liquor into +a glass, left the decanter there, and took the whisky into the library +across the hall. Then—he broke into a desk, using a paper knife for a +jimmy.” + +“Good Lord, Hotchkiss,” I exclaimed; “why, it may have been Sullivan +himself! Confound your theories—he’s getting farther away every +minute.” + +“It was Sullivan,” Hotchkiss returned imperturbably. “And he has not +gone. His boots are by the library fire.” + +“He probably had a dozen pairs where he could get them,” I scoffed. +“And while you and I sat and slept, the very man we want to get our +hands on leered at us over that railing.” + +“Softly, softly, my friend,” Hotchkiss said, as I stamped into my other +shoe. “I did not say he was gone. Don’t jump at conclusions. It is +fatal to reasoning. As a matter of fact, he didn’t relish a night on +the mountains any more than we did. After he had unintentionally +frightened you almost into paralysis, what would my gentleman naturally +do? Go out in the storm again? Not if I know the Alice-sit-by-the-fire +type. He went up-stairs, well up near the roof, locked himself in and +went to bed.” + +“And he is there now?” + +“He is there now.” + +We had no weapons. I am aware that the traditional hero is always +armed, and that Hotchkiss as the low comedian should have had a +revolver that missed fire. As a fact, we had nothing of the sort. +Hotchkiss carried the fire tongs, but my sense of humor was too strong +for me; I declined the poker. + +“All we want is a little peaceable conversation with him,” I demurred. +“We can’t brain him first and converse with him afterward. And anyhow, +while I can’t put my finger on the place, I think your theory is weak. +If he wouldn’t run a hundred miles through fire and water to get away +from us, then he is not the man we want.” + +Hotchkiss, however, was certain. He had found the room and listened +outside the door to the sleeper’s heavy breathing, and so we climbed +past luxurious suites, revealed in the deepening daylight, past long +vistas of hall and boudoir. And we were both badly winded when we got +there. It was a tower room, reached by narrow stairs, and well above +the roof level. Hotchkiss was glowing. + +“It is partly good luck, but not all,” he panted in a whisper. “If we +had persisted in the search last night, he would have taken alarm and +fled. Now—we have him. Are you ready?” + +He gave a mighty rap at the door with the fire tongs, and stood +expectant. Certainly he was right; some one moved within. + +“Hello! Hello there!” Hotchkiss bawled. “You might as well come out. We +won’t hurt you, if you’ll come peaceably.” + +“Tell him we represent the law,” I prompted. “That’s the customary +thing, you know.” + +But at that moment a bullet came squarely through the door and +flattened itself with a sharp _pst_ against the wall of the tower +staircase. We ducked unanimously, dropped back out of range, and +Hotchkiss retaliated with a spirited bang at the door with the tongs. +This brought another bullet. It was a ridiculous situation. Under the +circumstances, no doubt, we should have retired, at least until we had +armed ourselves, but Hotchkiss had no end of fighting spirit, and as +for me, my blood was up. + +“Break the lock,” I suggested, and Hotchkiss, standing at the side, out +of range, retaliated for every bullet by a smashing blow with the +tongs. The shots ceased after a half dozen, and the door was giving, +slowly. One of us on each side of the door, we were ready for almost +any kind of desperate resistance. As it swung open Hotchkiss poised the +tongs; I stood, bent forward, my arm drawn back for a blow. + +Nothing happened. + +There was not a sound. Finally, at the risk of losing an eye which I +justly value, I peered around and into the room. There was no desperado +there: only a fresh-faced, trembling-lipped servant, sitting on the +edge of her bed, with a quilt around her shoulders and the empty +revolver at her feet. + +We were victorious, but no conquered army ever beat such a retreat as +ours down the tower stairs and into the refuge of the living-room. +There, with the door closed, sprawled on the divan, I went from one +spasm of mirth into another, becoming sane at intervals, and suffering +relapse again every time I saw Hotchkiss’ disgruntled countenance. He +was pacing the room, the tongs still in his hand, his mouth pursed with +irritation. Finally he stopped in front of me and compelled my +attention. + +“When you have finished cackling,” he said with dignity, “I wish to +justify my position. Do you think the—er—young woman up-stairs put a +pair of number eight boots to dry in the library last night? Do you +think she poured the whisky out of that decanter?” + +“They have been known to do it,” I put in, but his eye silenced me. + +“Moreover, if she had been the person who peered at you over the +gallery railing last night, don’t you suppose, with her—er—belligerent +disposition, she could have filled you as full of lead as a window +weight?” + +“I do,” I assented. “It wasn’t Alice-sit-by-the-fire. I grant you that. +Then who was it?” + +Hotchkiss felt certain that it had been Sullivan, but I was not so +sure. Why would he have crawled like a thief into his own house? If he +had crossed the park, as seemed probable, when we did, he had not made +any attempt to use the knocker. I gave it up finally, and made an +effort to conciliate the young woman in the tower. + +We had heard no sound since our spectacular entrance into her room. I +was distinctly uncomfortable as, alone this time, I climbed to the +tower staircase. Reasoning from before, she would probably throw a +chair at me. I stopped at the foot of the staircase and called. + +“Hello up there,” I said, in as debonair a manner as I could summon. +“Good morning. _Wie geht es bei ihnen?_” + +No reply. + +“_Bon jour, mademoiselle_,” I tried again. This time there was a +movement of some sort from above, but nothing fell on me. + +“I—we want to apologize for rousing you so—er—unexpectedly this +morning,” I went on. “The fact is, we wanted to talk to you, and +you—you were hard to waken. We are travelers, lost in your mountains, +and we crave a breakfast and an audience.” + +She came to the door then. I could feel that she was investigating the +top of my head from above. “Is Mr. Sullivan with you?” she asked. It +was the first word from her, and she was not sure of her voice. + +“No. We are alone. If you will come down and look at us you will find +us two perfectly harmless people, whose horse—curses on him—departed +without leave last night and left us at your gate.” + +She relaxed somewhat then and came down a step or two. “I was afraid I +had killed somebody,” she said. “The housekeeper left yesterday, and +the other maids went with her.” + +When she saw that I was comparatively young and lacked the earmarks of +the highwayman, she was greatly relieved. She was inclined to fight shy +of Hotchkiss, however, for some reason. She gave us a breakfast of a +sort, for there was little in the house, and afterward we telephoned to +the town for a vehicle. While Hotchkiss examined scratches and replaced +the Bokhara rug, I engaged Jennie in conversation. + +“Can you tell me,” I asked, “who is managing the estate since Mrs. +Curtis was killed?” + +“No one,” she returned shortly. + +“Has—any member of the family been here since the accident?” + +“No, sir. There was only the two, and some think Mr. Sullivan was +killed as well as his sister.” + +“You don’t?” + +“No,” with conviction. + +“Why?” + +She wheeled on me with quick suspicion. + +“Are you a detective?” she demanded. + +“No.” + +“You told him to say you represented the law.” + +“I am a lawyer. Some of them misrepresent the law, but I—” + +She broke in impatiently. + +“A sheriff’s officer?” + +“No. Look here, Jennie; I am all that I should be. You’ll have to +believe that. And I’m in a bad position through no fault of my own. I +want you to answer some questions. If you will help me, I will do what +I can for you. Do you live near here?” + +Her chin quivered. It was the first sign of weakness she had shown. + +“My home is in Pittsburg,” she said, “and I haven’t enough money to get +there. They hadn’t paid any wages for two months. They didn’t pay +anybody.” + +“Very well,” I returned. “I’ll send you back to Pittsburg, Pullman +included, if you will tell me some things I want to know.” + +She agreed eagerly. Outside the window Hotchkiss was bending over, +examining footprints in the drive. + +“Now,” I began, “there has been a Miss West staying here?” + +“Yes.” + +“Mr. Sullivan was attentive to her?” + +“Yes. She was the granddaughter of a wealthy man in Pittsburg. My aunt +has been in his family for twenty years. Mrs. Curtis wanted her brother +to marry Miss West.” + +“Do you think he did marry her?” I could not keep the excitement out of +my voice. + +“No. There were reasons”—she stopped abruptly. + +“Do you know anything of the family? Are they—were they New Yorkers?” + +“They came from somewhere in the south. I have heard Mrs. Curtis say +her mother was a Cuban. I don’t know much about them, but Mr. Sullivan +had a wicked temper, though he didn’t look it. Folks say big, +light-haired people are easy going, but I don’t believe it, sir.” + +“How long was Miss West here?” + +“Two weeks.” + +I hesitated about further questioning. Critical as my position was, I +could not pry deeper into Alison West’s affairs. If she had got into +the hands of adventurers, as Sullivan and his sister appeared to have +been, she was safely away from them again. But something of the +situation in the car Ontario was forming itself in my mind: the +incident at the farmhouse lacked only motive to be complete. Was +Sullivan, after all, a rascal or a criminal? Was the murderer Sullivan +or Mrs. Conway? The lady or the tiger again. + +Jennie was speaking. + +“I hope Miss West was not hurt?” she asked. “We liked her, all of us. +She was not like Mrs. Curtis.” + +I wanted to say that she was not like anybody in the world. +Instead—“She escaped with some bruises,” I said. + +She glanced at my arm. “You were on the train?” + +“Yes.” + +She waited for more questions, but none coming, she went to the door. +Then she closed it softly and came back. + +“Mrs. Curtis is dead? You are sure of it?” she asked. + +“She was killed instantly, I believe. The body was not recovered. But I +have reasons for believing that Mr. Sullivan is living.” + +“I knew it,” she said. “I—I think he was here the night before last. +That is why I went to the tower room. I believe he would kill me if he +could.” As nearly as her round and comely face could express it, +Jennie’s expression was tragic at that moment. I made a quick +resolution, and acted on it at once. + +“You are not entirely frank with me, Jennie,” I protested. “And I am +going to tell you more than I have. We are talking at cross purposes.” + +“I was on the wrecked train, in the same car with Mrs. Curtis, Miss +West and Mr. Sullivan. During the night there was a crime committed in +that car and Mr. Sullivan disappeared. But he left behind him a chain +of circumstantial evidence that involved me completely, so that I may, +at any time, be arrested.” + +Apparently she did not comprehend for a moment. Then, as if the meaning +of my words had just dawned on her, she looked up and gasped: + +“You mean—Mr. Sullivan committed the crime himself?” + +“I think he did.” + +“What was it?” + +“It was murder,” I said deliberately. + +Her hands clenched involuntarily, and she shrank back. “A woman?” She +could scarcely form her words. + +“No, a man; a Mr. Simon Harrington, of Pittsburg.” + +Her effort to retain her self-control was pitiful. Then she broke down +and cried, her head on the back of a tall chair. + +“It was my fault,” she said wretchedly, “my fault, I should not have +sent them the word.” + +After a few minutes she grew quiet. She seemed to hesitate over +something, and finally determined to say it. + +“You will understand better, sir, when I say that I was raised in the +Harrington family. Mr. Harrington was Mr. Sullivan’s wife’s father!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. +AT THE STATION + + +So it had been the tiger, not the lady! Well, I had held to that theory +all through. Jennie suddenly became a valuable person; if necessary she +could prove the connection between Sullivan and the murdered man, and +show a motive for the crime. I was triumphant when Hotchkiss came in. +When the girl had produced a photograph of Mrs. Sullivan, and I had +recognized the bronze-haired girl of the train, we were both well +satisfied—which goes to prove the ephemeral nature of most human +contentments. + +Jennie either had nothing more to say, or feared she had said too much. +She was evidently uneasy before Hotchkiss. I told her that Mrs. +Sullivan was recovering in a Baltimore hospital, but she already knew +it, from some source, and merely nodded. She made a few preparations +for leaving, while Hotchkiss and I compared notes, and then, with the +cat in her arms, she climbed into the trap from the town. I sat with +her, and on the way down she told me a little, not much. + +“If you see Mrs. Sullivan,” she advised, “and she is conscious, she +probably thinks that both her husband and her father were killed in the +wreck. She will be in a bad way, sir.” + +“You mean that she—still cares about her husband?” + +The cat crawled over on to my knee, and rubbed its head against my hand +invitingly. Jennie stared at the undulating line of the mountain +crests, a colossal sun against a blue ocean of sky. “Yes, she cares,” +she said softly. “Women are made like that. They say they are cats, but +Peter there in your lap wouldn’t come back and lick your hand if you +kicked him. If—if you have to tell her the truth, be as gentle as you +can, sir. She has been good to me—that’s why I have played the spy here +all summer. It’s a thankless thing, spying on people.” + +“It is that,” I agreed soberly. + +Hotchkiss and I arrived in Washington late that evening, and, rather +than arouse the household, I went to the club. I was at the office +early the next morning and admitted myself. McKnight rarely appeared +before half after ten, and our modest office force some time after +nine. I looked over my previous day’s mail and waited, with such +patience as I possessed, for McKnight. In the interval I called up Mrs. +Klopton and announced that I would dine at home that night. What my +household subsists on during my numerous absences I have never +discovered. Tea, probably, and crackers. Diligent search when I have +made a midnight arrival, never reveals anything more substantial. +Possibly I imagine it, but the announcement that I am about to make a +journey always seems to create a general atmosphere of depression +throughout the house, as though Euphemia and Eliza, and Thomas, the +stableman, were already subsisting, in imagination, on Mrs. Klopton’s +meager fare. + +So I called her up and announced my arrival. There was something +unusual in her tone, as though her throat was tense with indignation. +Always shrill, her elderly voice rasped my ear painfully through the +receiver. + +“I have changed the butcher, Mr. Lawrence,” she announced portentously. +“The last roast was a pound short, and his mutton-chops—any +self-respecting sheep would refuse to acknowledge them.” + +As I said before, I can always tell from the voice in which Mrs. +Klopton conveys the most indifferent matters, if something of real +significance has occurred. Also, through long habit, I have learned how +quickest to bring her to the point. + +“You are pessimistic this morning,” I returned. “What’s the matter, +Mrs. Klopton? You haven’t used that tone since Euphemia baked a pie for +the iceman. What is it now? Somebody poison the dog?” + +She cleared her throat. + +“The house has been broken into, Mr. Lawrence,” she said. “I have lived +in the best families, and never have I stood by and seen what I saw +yesterday—every bureau drawer opened, and my—my most sacred +belongings—” she choked. + +“Did you notify the police?” I asked sharply. + +“Police!” she sniffed. “Police! It was the police that did it—two +detectives with a search warrant. I—I wouldn’t dare tell you over the +telephone what one of them said when he found the whisky and rock candy +for my cough.” + +“Did they take anything?” I demanded, every nerve on edge. + +“They took the cough medicine,” she returned indignantly, “and they +said—” + +“Confound the cough medicine!” I was frantic. “Did they take anything +else? Were they in my dressing-room?” + +“Yes. I threatened to sue them, and I told them what you would do when +you came back. But they wouldn’t listen. They took away that black +sealskin bag you brought home from Pittsburg with you!” + +I knew then that my hours of freedom were numbered. To have found +Sullivan and then, in support of my case against him, to have produced +the bag, _minus_ the bit of chain, had been my intention. But the +police had the bag, and, beyond knowing something of Sullivan’s +history, I was practically no nearer his discovery than before. +Hotchkiss hoped he had his man in the house off Washington Circle, but +on the very night he had seen him Jennie claimed that Sullivan had +tried to enter the Laurels. Then—suppose we found Sullivan and proved +the satchel and its contents his? Since the police had the bit of chain +it might mean involving Alison in the story. I sat down and buried my +face in my hands. There was no escape. I figured it out despondingly. + +Against me was the evidence of the survivors of the Ontario that I had +been accused of the murder at the time. There had been blood-stains on +my pillow and a hidden dagger. Into the bargain, in my possession had +been found a traveling-bag containing the dead man’s pocket-book. + +In my favor was McKnight’s theory against Mrs. Conway. She had a motive +for wishing to secure the notes, she believed I was in lower ten, and +she had collapsed at the discovery of the crime in the morning. + +Against both of these theories, I accuse a purely chimerical person +named Sullivan, who was not seen by any of the survivors—save one, +Alison, whom I could not bring into the case. I could find a motive for +his murdering his father-in-law, whom he hated, but again—I would have +to drag in the girl. + +And not one of the theories explained the telegram and the broken +necklace. + +Outside the office force was arriving. They were comfortably ignorant +of my presence, and over the transom floated scraps of dialogue and the +stenographer’s gurgling laugh. McKnight had a relative, who was reading +law with him, in the intervals between calling up the young women of +his acquaintance. He came in singing, and the office boy joined in with +the uncertainty of voice of fifteen. I smiled grimly. I was too busy +with my own troubles to find any joy in opening the door and startling +them into silence. I even heard, without resentment, Blobs of the +uncertain voice inquire when “Blake” would be back. + +I hoped McKnight would arrive before the arrest occurred. There were +many things to arrange. But when at last, impatient of his delay, I +telephoned, I found he had been gone for more than an hour. Clearly he +was not coming directly to the office, and with such resignation as I +could muster I paced the floor and waited. + +I felt more alone than I have ever felt in my life. “Born an orphan,” +as Richey said, I had made my own way, carved out myself such success +as had been mine. I had built up my house of life on the props of law +and order, and now some unknown hand had withdrawn the supports, and I +stood among ruins. + +I suppose it is the maternal in a woman that makes a man turn to her +when everything else fails. The eternal boy in him goes to have his +wounded pride bandaged, his tattered self-respect repaired. If he loves +the woman, he wants her to kiss the hurt. + +The longing to see Alison, always with me, was stronger than I was that +morning. It might be that I would not see her again. I had nothing to +say to her save one thing, and that, under the cloud that hung over me, +I did not dare to say. But I wanted to see her, to touch her hand—as +only a lonely man can crave it, I wanted the comfort of her, the peace +that lay in her presence. And so, with every step outside the door a +threat, I telephoned to her. + +She was gone! The disappointment was great, for my need was great. In a +fury of revolt against the scheme of things, I heard that she had +started home to Richmond—but that she might still be caught at the +station. + +To see her had by that time become an obsession. I picked up my hat, +threw open the door, and, oblivious of the shock to the office force of +my presence, followed so immediately by my exit, I dashed out to the +elevator. As I went down in one cage I caught a glimpse of Johnson and +two other men going up in the next. I hardly gave them a thought. There +was no hansom in sight, and I jumped on a passing car. Let come what +might, arrest, prison, disgrace, I was going to see Alison. + +I saw her. I flung into the station, saw that it was empty—empty, for +she was not there. Then I hurried back to the gates. She was there, a +familiar figure in blue, the very gown in which I always thought of +her, the one she had worn when, Heaven help me—I had kissed her, at the +Carter farm. And she was not alone. Bending over her, talking +earnestly, with all his boyish heart in his face, was Richey. + +They did not see me, and I was glad of it. After all, it had been +McKnight’s game first. I turned on my heel and made my way blindly out +of the station. Before I lost them I turned once and looked toward +them, standing apart from the crowd, absorbed in each other. They were +the only two people on earth that I cared about, and I left them there +together. Then I went back miserably to the office and awaited arrest. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. +ON TO RICHMOND + + +Strangely enough, I was not disturbed that day. McKnight did not appear +at all. I sat at my desk and transacted routine business all afternoon, +working with feverish energy. Like a man on the verge of a critical +illness or a hazardous journey, I cleared up my correspondence, paid +bills until I had writer’s cramp from signing checks, read over my +will, and paid up my life insurance, made to the benefit of an elderly +sister of my mother’s. I no longer dreaded arrest. After that morning +in the station, I felt that anything would be a relief from the +tension. I went home with perfect openness, courting the warrant that I +knew was waiting, but I was not molested. The delay puzzled me. The +early part of the evening was uneventful. I read until late, with +occasional lapses, when my book lay at my elbow, and I smoked and +thought. Mrs. Klopton closed the house with ostentatious caution, about +eleven, and hung around waiting to enlarge on the outrageousness of the +police search. I did not encourage her. + +“One would think,” she concluded pompously, one foot in the hall, “that +you were something you oughtn’t to be, Mr. Lawrence. They acted as +though you had committed a crime.” + +“I’m not sure that I didn’t, Mrs. Klopton,” I said wearily. “Somebody +did, the general verdict seems to point my way.” + +She stared at me in speechless indignation. Then she flounced out. She +came back once to say that the paper predicted cooler weather, and that +she had put a blanket on my bed, but, to her disappointment, I refused +to reopen the subject. + +At half past eleven McKnight and Hotchkiss came in. Richey has a habit +of stopping his car in front of the house and honking until some one +comes out. He has a code of signals with the horn, which I never +remember. Two long and a short blast mean, I believe, “Send out a box +of cigarettes,” and six short blasts, which sound like a police call, +mean “Can you lend me some money?” To-night I knew something was up, +for he got out and rang the door-bell like a Christian. + +They came into the library, and Hotchkiss wiped his collar until it +gleamed. McKnight was aggressively cheerful. + +“Not pinched yet!” he exclaimed. “What do you think of that for luck! +You always were a fortunate devil, Lawrence.” + +“Yes,” I assented, with some bitterness, “I hardly know how to contain +myself for joy sometimes. I suppose you know”—to Hotchkiss—“that the +police were here while we were at Cresson, and that they found the bag +that I brought from the wreck?” + +“Things are coming to a head,” he said thoughtfully “unless a little +plan that I have in mind—” he hesitated. + +“I hope so; I am pretty nearly desperate,” I said doggedly. “I’ve got a +mental toothache, and the sooner it’s pulled the better.” + +“Tut, tut,” said McKnight, “think of the disgrace to the firm if its +senior member goes up for life, or—” he twisted his handkerchief into a +noose, and went through an elaborate pantomime. + +“Although jail isn’t so bad, anyhow,” he finished, “there are fellows +that get the habit and keep going back and going back.” He looked at +his watch, and I fancied his cheerfulness was strained. Hotchkiss was +nervously fumbling my book. + +“Did you ever read _The Purloined Letter_, Mr. Blakeley?” he inquired. + +“Probably, years ago,” I said. “Poe, isn’t it?” + +He was choked at my indifference. “It is a masterpiece,” he said, with +enthusiasm. “I re-read it to-day.” + +“And what happened?” + +“Then I inspected the rooms in the house off Washington Circle. I—I +made some discoveries, Mr. Blakeley. For one thing, our man there is +left-handed.” He looked around for our approval. “There was a small +cushion on the dresser, and the scarf pins in it had been stuck in with +the left hand.” + +“Somebody may have twisted the cushion,” I objected, but he looked +hurt, and I desisted. + +“There is only one discrepancy,” he admitted, “but it troubles me. +According to Mrs. Carter, at the farmhouse, our man wore gaudy pajamas, +while I found here only the most severely plain night-shirts.” + +“Any buttons off?” McKnight inquired, looking again at his watch. + +“The buttons were there,” the amateur detective answered gravely, “but +the buttonhole next the top one was torn through.” + +McKnight winked at me furtively. + +“I am convinced of one thing,” Hotchkiss went on, clearing his throat, +“the papers are not in that room. Either he carries them with him, or +he has sold them.” + +A sound on the street made both my visitors listen sharply. Whatever it +was it passed on, however. I was growing curious and the restraint was +telling on McKnight. He has no talent for secrecy. In the interval we +discussed the strange occurrence at Cresson, which lost nothing by +Hotchkiss’ dry narration. + +“And so,” he concluded, “the woman in the Baltimore hospital is the +wife of Henry Sullivan and the daughter of the man he murdered. No +wonder he collapsed when he heard of the wreck.” + +“Joy, probably,” McKnight put in. “Is that clock right, Lawrence? Never +mind, it doesn’t matter. By the way, Mrs. Conway dropped in the office +yesterday, while you were away.” + +“What!” I sprang from my chair. + +“Sure thing. Said she had heard great things of us, and wanted us to +handle her case against the railroad.” + +“I would like to know what she is driving at,” I reflected. “Is she +trying to reach me through you?” + +Richey’s flippancy is often a cloak for deeper feeling. He dropped it +now. “Yes,” he said, “she’s after the notes, of course. And I’ll tell +you I felt like a poltroon—whatever that may be—when I turned her down. +She stood by the door with her face white, and told me contemptuously +that I could save you from a murder charge and wouldn’t do it. She made +me feel like a cur. I was just as guilty as if I could have obliged +her. She hinted that there were reasons and she laid my attitude to +beastly motives.” + +“Nonsense,” I said, as easily as I could. Hotchkiss had gone to the +window. “She was excited. There are no ‘reasons,’ whatever she means.” + +Richey put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ve been together too long to +let any ‘reasons’ or ‘unreasons’ come between us, old man,” he said, +not very steadily. Hotchkiss, who had been silent, here came forward in +his most impressive manner. He put his hands under his coat-tails and +coughed. + +“Mr. Blakeley,” he began, “by Mr. McKnight’s advice we have arranged a +little interview here to-night. If all has gone as I planned, Mr. Henry +Pinckney Sullivan is by this time under arrest. Within a very few +minutes—he will be here.” + +“I wanted to talk to him before he was locked up,” Richey explained. +“He’s clever enough to be worth knowing, and, besides, I’m not so +cocksure of his guilt as our friend the Patch on the Seat of +Government. No murderer worthy of the name needs six different motives +for the same crime, beginning with robbery, and ending with an +unpleasant father-in-law.” + +We were all silent for a while. McKnight stationed himself at a window, +and Hotchkiss paced the floor expectantly. “It’s a great day for modern +detective methods,” he chirruped. “While the police have been guarding +houses and standing with their mouths open waiting for clues to fall in +and choke them, we have pieced together, bit by bit, a fabric—” + +The door-bell rang, followed immediately by sounds of footsteps in the +hall. McKnight threw the door open, and Hotchkiss, raised on his toes, +flung out his arm in a gesture of superb eloquence. + +“Behold—your man!” he declaimed. + +Through the open doorway came a tall, blond fellow, clad in light gray, +wearing tan shoes, and followed closely by an officer. + +“I brought him here as you suggested, Mr. McKnight,” said the +constable. + +But McKnight was doubled over the library table in silent convulsions +of mirth, and I was almost as bad. Little Hotchkiss stood up, his +important attitude finally changing to one of chagrin, while the blond +man ceased to look angry, and became sheepish. + +It was Stuart, our confidential clerk for the last half dozen years! + +McKnight sat up and wiped his eyes. + +“Stuart,” he said sternly, “there are two very serious things we have +learned about you. First, you jab your scarf pins into your cushion +with your left hand, which is most reprehensible; second, you +wear—er—night-shirts, instead of pajamas. Worse than that, perhaps, we +find that one of them has a buttonhole torn out at the neck.” + +Stuart was bewildered. He looked from McKnight to me, and then at the +crestfallen Hotchkiss. + +“I haven’t any idea what it’s all about,” he said. “I was arrested as I +reached my boarding-house to-night, after the theater, and brought +directly here. I told the officer it was a mistake.” + +Poor Hotchkiss tried bravely to justify the fiasco. “You can not deny,” +he contended, “that Mr. Andrew Bronson followed you to your rooms last +Monday evening.” + +Stuart looked at us and flushed. + +“No, I don’t deny it,” he said, “but there was nothing criminal about +it, on my part, at least. Mr. Bronson has been trying to induce me to +secure the forged notes for him. But I did not even know where they +were.” + +“And you were not on the wrecked Washington Flier?” persisted +Hotchkiss. But McKnight interfered. + +“There is no use trying to put the other man’s identity on Stuart, Mr. +Hotchkiss,” he protested. “He has been our confidential clerk for six +years, and has not been away from the office a day for a year. I am +afraid that the beautiful fabric we have pieced out of all these scraps +is going to be a crazy quilt.” His tone was facetious, but I could +detect the undercurrent of real disappointment. + +I paid the constable for his trouble, and he departed. Stuart, still +indignant, left to go back to Washington Circle. He shook hands with +McKnight and myself magnanimously, but he hurled a look of utter hatred +at Hotchkiss, sunk crestfallen in his chair. + +“As far as I can see,” said McKnight dryly, “we’re exactly as far along +as we were the day we met at the Carter place. We’re not a step nearer +to finding our man.” + +“We have one thing that may be of value,” I suggested. “He is the +husband of a bronze-haired woman at Van Kirk’s hospital, and it is just +possible we may trace him through her. I hope we are not going to lose +your valuable co-operation, Mr. Hotchkiss?” I asked. + +He roused at that to feeble interest, “I—oh, of course not, if you +still care to have me, I—I was wondering about—the man who just went +out, Stuart, you say? I—told his landlady to-night that he wouldn’t +need the room again. I hope she hasn’t rented it to somebody else.” + +We cheered him as best we could, and I suggested that we go to +Baltimore the next day and try to find the real Sullivan through his +wife. He left sometime after midnight, and Richey and I were alone. + +He drew a chair near the lamp and lighted a cigarette, and for a time +we were silent. I was in the shadow, and I sat back and watched him. It +was not surprising, I thought, that she cared for him: women had always +loved him, perhaps because he always loved them. There was no +disloyalty in the thought: it was the lad’s nature to give and crave +affection. Only—I was different. I had never really cared about a girl +before, and my life had been singularly loveless. I had fought a lonely +battle always. Once before, in college, we had both laid ourselves and +our callow devotions at the feet of the same girl. Her name was +Dorothy—I had forgotten the rest—but I remembered the sequel. In a +spirit of quixotic youth I had relinquished my claim in favor of Richey +and had gone cheerfully on my way, elevated by my heroic sacrifice to a +somber, white-hot martyrdom. As is often the case, McKnight’s first +words showed our parallel lines of thought. + +“I say, Lollie,” he asked, “do you remember Dorothy Browne?” _Browne_, +that was it! + +“Dorothy Browne?” I repeated. “Oh—why yes, I recall her now. Why?” + +“Nothing,” he said. “I was thinking about her. That’s all. You remember +you were crazy about her, and dropped back because she preferred me.” + +“I got out,” I said with dignity, “because you declared you would shoot +yourself if she didn’t go with you to something or other!” + +“Oh, why yes, I recall now!” he mimicked. He tossed his cigarette in +the general direction of the hearth and got up. We were both a little +conscious, and he stood with his back to me, fingering a Japanese vase +on the mantel. + +“I was thinking,” he began, turning the vase around, “that, if you feel +pretty well again, and—and ready to take hold, that I should like to go +away for a week or so. Things are fairly well cleaned up at the +office.” + +“Do you mean—you are going to Richmond?” I asked, after a scarcely +perceptible pause. He turned and faced me, with his hands thrust in his +pockets. + +“No. That’s off, Lollie. The Seiberts are going for a week’s cruise +along the coast. I—the hot weather has played hob with me and the +cruise means seven days’ breeze and bridge.” + +I lighted a cigarette and offered him the box, but he refused. He was +looking haggard and suddenly tired. I could not think of anything to +say, and neither could he, evidently. The matter between us lay too +deep for speech. + +“How’s Candida?” he asked. + +“Martin says a month, and she will be all right,” I returned, in the +same tone. He picked up his hat, but he had something more to say. He +blurted it out, finally, half way to the door. + +“The Seiberts are not going for a couple of days,” he said, “and if you +want a day or so off to go down to Richmond yourself—” + +“Perhaps I _shall_,” I returned, as indifferently as I could. “Not +going yet, are you?” + +“Yes. It is late.” He drew in his breath as if he had something more to +say, but the impulse passed. “Well, good night,” he said from the +doorway. + +“Good night, old man.” + +The next moment the outer door slammed and I heard the engine of the +Cannonball throbbing in the street. Then the quiet settled down around +me again, and there in the lamplight I dreamed dreams. I was going to +see her. + +Suddenly the idea of being shut away, even temporarily, from so great +and wonderful a world became intolerable. The possibility of arrest +before I could get to Richmond was hideous, the night without end. + +I made my escape the next morning through the stable back of the house, +and then, by devious dark and winding ways, to the office. There, after +a conference with Blobs, whose features fairly jerked with excitement, +I double-locked the door of my private office and finished off some +imperative work. By ten o’clock I was free, and for the twentieth time +I consulted my train schedule. At five minutes after ten, with McKnight +not yet in sight, Blobs knocked at the door, the double rap we had +agreed upon, and on being admitted slipped in and quietly closed the +door behind him. His eyes were glistening with excitement, and a purple +dab of typewriter ink gave him a peculiarly villainous and stealthy +expression. + +“They’re here,” he said, “two of ’em, and that crazy Stuart wasn’t on, +and said you were somewhere in the building.” + +A door slammed outside, followed by steps on the uncarpeted outer +office. + +“This way,” said Blobs, in a husky undertone, and, darting into a +lavatory, threw open a door that I had always supposed locked. Thence +into a back hall piled high with boxes and past the presses of a +bookbindery to the freight elevator. + +Greatly to Blobs’ disappointment, there was no pursuit. I was +exhilarated but out of breath when we emerged into an alleyway, and the +sharp daylight shone on Blobs’ excited face. + +“Great sport, isn’t it?” I panted, dropping a dollar into his palm, +inked to correspond with his face. “Regular walk-away in the +hundred-yard dash.” + +“Gimme two dollars more and I’ll drop ’em down the elevator shaft,” he +suggested ferociously. I left him there with his blood-thirsty schemes, +and started for the station. I had a tendency to look behind me now and +then, but I reached the station unnoticed. The afternoon was hot, the +train rolled slowly along, stopping to pant at sweltering stations, +from whose roofs the heat rose in waves. But I noticed these things +objectively, not subjectively, for at the end of the journey was a girl +with blue eyes and dark brown hair, hair that could—had I not seen +it?—hang loose in bewitching tangles or be twisted into little coils of +delight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. +THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS + + +I telephoned as soon as I reached my hotel, and I had not known how +much I had hoped from seeing her until I learned that she was out of +town. I hung up the receiver, almost dizzy with disappointment, and it +was fully five minutes before I thought of calling up again and asking +if she was within telephone reach. It seemed she was down on the bay +staying with the Samuel Forbeses. + +Sammy Forbes! It was a name to conjure with just then. In the old days +at college I had rather flouted him, but now I was ready to take him to +my heart. I remembered that he had always meant well, anyhow, and that +he was explosively generous. I called him up. + +“By the fumes of gasoline!” he said, when I told him who I was. +“Blakeley, the Fount of Wisdom against Woman! Blakeley, the Great +Unkissed! Welcome to our city!” + +Whereupon he proceeded to urge me to come down to the Shack, and to say +that I was an agreeable surprise, because four times in two hours +youths had called up to ask if Alison West was stopping with him, and +to suggest that they had a vacant day or two. “Oh—Miss West!” I shouted +politely. There was a buzzing on the line. “Is she there?” Sam had no +suspicions. Was not I in his mind always the Great Unkissed?—which +sounds like the Great Unwashed and is even more of a reproach. He asked +me down promptly, as I had hoped, and thrust aside my objections. + +“Nonsense,” he said. “Bring yourself. The lady that keeps my +boarding-house is calling to me to insist. You remember Dorothy, don’t +you, Dorothy Browne? She says unless you have lost your figure you can +wear my clothes all right. All you need here is a bathing suit for +daytime and a dinner coat for evening.” + +“It sounds cool,” I temporized. “If you are sure I won’t put you +out—very well, Sam, since you and your wife are good enough. I have a +couple of days free. Give my love to Dorothy until I can do it myself.” + +Sam met me himself and drove me out to the Shack, which proved to be a +substantial house overlooking the water. On the way he confided to me +that lots of married men thought they were contented when they were +merely resigned, but that it was the only life, and that Sam, Junior, +could swim like a duck. Incidentally, he said that Alison was his +wife’s cousin, their respective grandmothers having, at proper +intervals, married the same man, and that Alison would lose her good +looks if she was not careful. + +“I say she’s worried, and I stick to it,” he said, as he threw the +lines to a groom and prepared to get out. “You know her, and she’s the +kind of girl you think you can read like a book. But you can’t; don’t +fool yourself. Take a good look at her at dinner, Blake; you won’t lose +your head like the other fellows—and then tell me what’s wrong with +her. We’re mighty fond of Allie.” + +He went ponderously up the steps, for Sam had put on weight since I +knew him. At the door he turned around. “Do you happen to know the +MacLures at Seal Harbor?” he asked irrelevantly, but Mrs. Sam came into +the hall just then, both hands out to greet me, and, whatever Forbes +had meant to say, he did not pick up the subject again. + +“We are having tea in here,” Dorothy said gaily, indicating the door +behind her. “Tea by courtesy, because I think tea is the only beverage +that isn’t represented. And then we must dress, for this is hop night +at the club.” + +“Which is as great a misnomer as the tea,” Sam put in, ponderously +struggling out of his linen driving coat. “It’s bridge night, and the +only hops are in the beer.” + +He was still gurgling over this as he took me upstairs. He showed me my +room himself, and then began the fruitless search for evening raiment +that kept me home that night from the club. For I couldn’t wear Sam’s +clothes. That was clear, after a perspiring seance of a half hour. + +“I won’t do it, Sam,” I said, when I had draped his dress-coat on me +toga fashion. “Who am I to have clothing to spare, like this, when many +a poor chap hasn’t even a cellar door to cover him. I won’t do it; I’m +selfish, but not that selfish.” + +“Lord,” he said, wiping his face, “how you’ve kept your figure! I can’t +wear a belt any more; got to have suspenders.” + +He reflected over his grievance for some time, sitting on the side of +the bed. “You _could_ go as you are,” he said finally. “We do it all +the time, only to-night happens to be the annual something or other, +and—” he trailed off into silence, trying to buckle my belt around him. +“A good six inches,” he sighed. “I never get into a hansom cab any more +that I don’t expect to see the horse fly up into the air. Well, Allie +isn’t going either. She turned down Granger this afternoon, the +Annapolis fellow you met on the stairs, pigeon-breasted chap—and she +always gets a headache on those occasions.” + +He got up heavily and went to the door. “Granger is leaving,” he said, +“I may be able to get his dinner coat for you. How well do you know +her?” he asked, with his hand on the knob. + +“If you mean Dolly—?” + +“Alison.” + +“Fairly well,” I said cautiously. “Not as well as I would like to. I +dined with her last week in Washington. And—I knew her before that.” + +Forbes touched the bell instead of going out, and told the servant who +answered to see if Mr. Granger’s suitcase had gone. If not, to bring it +across the hall. Then he came back to his former position on the bed. + +“You see, we feel responsible for Allie—near relation and all that,” he +began pompously. “And we can’t talk to the people here at the house—all +the men are in love with her, and all the women are jealous. +Then—there’s a lot of money, too, or will be.” + +“Confound the money!” I muttered. “That is—nothing. Razor slipped.” + +“I can tell you,” he went on, “because you don’t lose your head over +every pretty face—although Allie is more than that, of course. But +about a month ago she went away—to Seal Harbor, to visit Janet MacLure. +Know her?” + +“She came home to Richmond yesterday, and then came down here—Allie, I +mean. And yesterday afternoon Dolly had a letter from Janet—something +about a second man—and saying she was disappointed not to have had +Alison there, that she had promised them a two weeks’ visit! What do +you make of that? And that isn’t the worst. Allie herself wasn’t in the +room, but there were eight other women, and because Dolly had put +belladonna in her eyes the night before to see how she would look, and +as a result couldn’t see anything nearer than across the room, some one +read the letter aloud to her, and the whole story is out. One of the +cats told Granger and the boy proposed to Allie to-day, to show her he +didn’t care a tinker’s dam where she had been.” + +“Good boy!” I said, with enthusiasm. I liked the Granger fellow—since +he was out of the running. But Sam was looking at me with suspicion. + +“Blake,” he said, “if I didn’t know you for what you are, I’d say you +were interested there yourself.” + +Being so near her, under the same roof, with even the tie of a dubious +secret between us, was making me heady. I pushed Forbes toward the +door. + +“I interested!” I retorted, holding him by the shoulders. “There isn’t +a word in your vocabulary to fit my condition. I am an island in a +sunlit sea of emotion, Sam, a—an empty place surrounded by longing—a—” + +“An empty place surrounded by longing!” he retorted. “You want your +dinner, that’s what’s the matter with you—” + +I shut the door on him then. He seemed suddenly sordid. Dinner, I +thought! Although, as matter of fact, I made a very fair meal when, +Granger’s suitcase not having gone, in his coat and some other man’s +trousers, I was finally fit for the amenities. Alison did not come down +to dinner, so it was clear she would not go over to the club-house +dance. I pled my injured arm and a ficticious, vaguely located sprain +from the wreck, as an excuse for remaining at home. Sam regaled the +table with accounts of my distrust of women, my one love affair—with +Dorothy; to which I responded, as was expected, that only my failure +there had kept me single all these years, and that if Sam should be +mysteriously missing during the bathing hour to-morrow, and so on. + +And when the endless meal was over, and yards of white veils had been +tied over pounds of hair—or is it, too, bought by the yard?—and some +eight _ensembles_ with their abject complements had been packed into +three automobiles and a trap, I drew a long breath and faced about. I +had just then only one object in life—to find Alison, to assure her of +my absolute faith and confidence in her, and to offer my help and my +poor self, if she would let me, in her service. + +She was not easy to find. I searched the lower floor, the verandas and +the grounds, circumspectly. Then I ran into a little English girl who +turned out to be her maid, and who also was searching. She was +concerned because her mistress had had no dinner, and because the tray +of food she carried would soon be cold. I took the tray from her, on +the glimpse of something white on the shore, and that was how I met the +Girl again. + +She was sitting on an over-turned boat, her chin in her hands, staring +out to sea. The soft tide of the bay lapped almost at her feet, and the +draperies of her white gown melted hazily into the sands. She looked +like a wraith, a despondent phantom of the sea, although the adjective +is redundant. Nobody ever thinks of a cheerful phantom. Strangely +enough, considering her evident sadness, she was whistling softly to +herself, over and over, some dreary little minor air that sounded like +a Bohemian dirge. She glanced up quickly when I made a misstep and my +dishes jingled. All considered, the tray was out of the picture: the +sea, the misty starlight, the girl, with her beauty—even the sad little +whistle that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though it +fought against the odds of a trembling lip. And then I came, +accompanied by a tray of little silver dishes that jingled and an +unmistakable odor of broiled chicken! + +“Oh!” she said quickly; and then, “Oh! I thought you were Jenkins.” + +“_Timeo Danaos_—what’s the rest of it?” I asked, tendering my offering. +“You didn’t have any dinner, you know.” I sat down beside her. “See, +I’ll be the table. What was the old fairy tale? ‘Little goat bleat: +little table appear!’ I’m perfectly willing to be the goat, too.” + +She was laughing rather tremulously. + +“We never _do_ meet like other people, do we?” she asked. “We really +ought to shake hands and say how are you.” + +“I don’t want to meet you like other people, and I suppose you always +think of me as wearing the other fellow’s clothes,” I returned meekly. +“I’m doing it again: I don’t seem to be able to help it. These are +Granger’s that I have on now.” + +She threw back her head and laughed again, joyously, this time. + +“Oh, it’s so ridiculous,” she said, “and you have never seen me when I +was not eating! It’s too prosaic!” + +“Which reminds me that the chicken is getting cold, and the ice warm,” +I suggested. “At the time, I thought there could be no place better +than the farmhouse kitchen—but this is. I ordered all this for +something I want to say to you—the sea, the sand, the stars.” + +“How alliterative you are!” she said, trying to be flippant. “You are +not to say anything until I have had my supper. Look how the things are +spilled around!” + +But she ate nothing, after all, and pretty soon I put the tray down in +the sand. I said little; there was no hurry. We were together, and time +meant nothing against that age-long wash of the sea. The air blew her +hair in small damp curls against her face, and little by little the +tide retreated, leaving our boat an oasis in a waste of gray sand. + +“If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year +Do you suppose, the walrus said, that they could get it clear?” + + +she threw at me once when she must have known I was going to speak. I +held her hand, and as long as I merely held it she let it lie warm in +mine. But when I raised it to my lips, and kissed the soft, open palm, +she drew it away without displeasure. + +“Not that, please,” she protested, and fell to whistling softly again, +her chin in her hands. “I can’t sing,” she said, to break an awkward +pause, “and so, when I’m fidgety, or have something on my mind, I +whistle. I hope you don’t dislike it?” + +“I love it,” I asserted warmly. I did; when she pursed her lips like +that I was mad to kiss them. + +“I saw you—at the station,” she said, suddenly. “You—you were in a +hurry to go.” I did not say anything, and after a pause she drew a long +breath. “Men are queer, aren’t they?” she said, and fell to whistling +again. + +After a while she sat up as if she had made a resolution. “I am going +to confess something,” she announced suddenly. “You said, you know, +that you had ordered all this for something you—you wanted to say to +me. But the fact is, I fixed it all—came here, I mean, because—I knew +you would come, and I had something to tell you. It was such a +miserable thing I—needed the accessories to help me out.” + +“I don’t want to hear anything that distresses you to tell,” I assured +her. “I didn’t come here to force your confidence, Alison. I came +because I couldn’t help it.” She did not object to my use of her name. + +“Have you found—your papers?” she asked, looking directly at me for +almost the first time. + +“Not yet. We hope to.” + +“The—police have not interfered with you?” + +“They haven’t had any opportunity,” I equivocated. “You needn’t +distress yourself about that, anyhow.” + +“But I do. I wonder why you still believe in me? Nobody else does.” + +“I wonder,” I repeated, “why I do!” + +“If you produce Harry Sullivan,” she was saying, partly to herself, +“and if you could connect him with Mr. Bronson, and get a full account +of why he was on the train, and all that, it—it would help, wouldn’t +it?” + +I acknowledged that it would. Now that the whole truth was almost in my +possession, I was stricken with the old cowardice. I did not want to +know what she might tell me. The yellow line on the horizon, where the +moon was coming up, was a broken bit of golden chain: my heel in the +sand was again pressed on a woman’s yielding fingers: I pulled myself +together with a jerk. + +“In order that what you might tell me may help me, if it will,” I said +constrainedly, “it would be necessary, perhaps, that you tell it to the +police. Since they have found the end of the necklace—” + +“The end of the necklace!” she repeated slowly. “What about the end of +the necklace?” + +I stared at her. “Don’t you remember”—I leaned forward—“the end of the +cameo necklace, the part that was broken off, and was found in the +black sealskin bag, stained with—with blood?” + +“Blood,” she said dully. “You mean that _you_ found the broken end? And +then—you had my gold pocket-book, and you saw the necklace in it, and +you—must have thought—” + +“I didn’t think anything,” I hastened to assure her. “I tell you, +Alison, I never thought of anything but that you were unhappy, and that +I had no right to help you. God knows, I thought you didn’t want me to +help you.” + +She held out her hand to me and I took it between both of mine. No word +of love had passed between us, but I felt that she knew and understood. +It was one of the moments that come seldom in a lifetime, and then only +in great crises, a moment of perfect understanding and trust. + +Then she drew her hand away and sat, erect and determined, her fingers +laced in her lap. As she talked the moon came up slowly and threw its +bright pathway across the water. Back of us, in the trees beyond the +sea wall, a sleepy bird chirruped drowsily, and a wave, larger and +bolder than its brothers, sped up the sand, bringing the moon’s silver +to our very feet. I bent toward the girl. + +“I am going to ask just one question.” + +“Anything you like.” Her voice was almost dreary. “Was it because of +anything you are going to tell me that you refused Richey?” + +She drew her breath in sharply. + +“No,” she said, without looking at me. “No. That was not the reason.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. +ALISON’S STORY + + +She told her story evenly, with her eyes on the water, only now and +then, when I, too, sat looking seaward, I thought she glanced at me +furtively. And once, in the middle of it, she stopped altogether. + +“You don’t realize it, probably,” she protested, “but you look like a—a +war god. Your face is horrible.” + +“I will turn my back, if it will help any,” I said stormily, “but if +you expect me to look anything but murderous, why, you don’t know what +I am going through with. That’s all.” + +The story of her meeting with the Curtis woman was brief enough. They +had met in Rome first, where Alison and her mother had taken a villa +for a year. Mrs. Curtis had hovered on the ragged edges of society +there, pleading the poverty of the south since the war as a reason for +not going out more. There was talk of a brother, but Alison had not +seen him, and after a scandal which implicated Mrs. Curtis and a young +attaché of the Austrian embassy, Alison had been forbidden to see the +woman. + +“The women had never liked her, anyhow,” she said. “She did +unconventional things, and they are very conventional there. And they +said she did not always pay her—her gambling debts. I didn’t like them. +I thought they didn’t like her because she was poor—and popular. +Then—we came home, and I almost forgot her, but last spring, when +mother was not well—she had taken grandfather to the Riviera, and it +always uses her up—we went to Virginia Hot Springs, and we met them +there, the brother, too, this time. His name was Sullivan, Harry +Pinckney Sullivan.” + +“I know. Go on.” + +“Mother had a nurse, and I was alone a great deal, and they were very +kind to me. I—I saw a lot of them. The brother rather attracted me, +partly—partly because he did not make love to me. He even seemed to +avoid me, and I was piqued. I had been spoiled, I suppose. Most of the +other men I knew had—had—” + +“I know that, too,” I said bitterly, and moved away from her a trifle. +I was brutal, but the whole story was a long torture. I think she knew +what I was suffering, for she showed no resentment. + +“It was early and there were few people around—none that I cared about. +And mother and the nurse played cribbage eternally, until I felt as +though the little pegs were driven into my brain. And when Mrs. Curtis +arranged drives and picnics, I—I slipped away and went. I suppose you +won’t believe me, but I had never done that kind of thing before, and +I—well, I have paid up, I think.” + +“What sort of looking chap was Sullivan?” I demanded. I had got up and +was pacing back and forward on the sand. I remember kicking savagely at +a bit of water-soaked board that lay in my way. + +“Very handsome—as large as you are, but fair, and even more erect.” + +I drew my shoulders up sharply. I am straight enough, but I was fairly +sagging with jealous rage. + +“When mother began to get around, somebody told her that I had been +going about with Mrs. Curtis and her brother, and we had a dreadful +time. I was dragged home like a bad child. Did anybody ever do that to +you?” + +“Nobody ever cared. I was born an orphan,” I said, with a cheerless +attempt at levity. “Go on.” + +“If Mrs. Curtis knew, she never said anything. She wrote me charming +letters, and in the summer, when they went to Cresson, she asked me to +visit her there. I was too proud to let her know that I could not go +where I wished, and so—I sent Polly, my maid, to her aunt’s in the +country, pretended to go to Seal Harbor, and really went to Cresson. +You see I warned you it would be an unpleasant story.” + +I went over and stood in front of her. All the accumulated jealousy of +the last few weeks had been fired by what she told me. If Sullivan had +come across the sands just then, I think I would have strangled him +with my hands, out of pure hate. + +“Did you marry him?” I demanded. My voice sounded hoarse and strange in +my ears. “That’s all I want to know. Did you marry him?” + +“No.” + +I drew a long breath. + +“You—cared about him?” + +She hesitated. + +“No,” she said finally. “I did not care about him.” + +I sat down on the edge of the boat and mopped my hot face. I was +heartily ashamed of myself, and mingled with my abasement was a great +relief. If she had not married him, and had not cared for him, nothing +else was of any importance. + +“I was sorry, of course, the moment the train had started, but I had +wired I was coming, and I could not go back, and then when I got there, +the place was charming. There were no neighbors, but we fished and rode +and motored, and—it was moonlight, like this.” + +I put my hand over both of hers, clasped in her lap. “I know,” I +acknowledged repentantly, “and—people do queer things when it is +moonlight. The moon has got me to-night, Alison. If I am a boor, +remember that, won’t you?” + +Her fingers lay quiet under mine. “And so,” she went on with a little +sigh, “I began to think perhaps I cared. But all the time I felt that +there was something not quite right. Now and then Mrs. Curtis would say +or do something that gave me a queer start, as if she had dropped a +mask for a moment. And there was trouble with the servants; they were +almost insolent. I couldn’t understand. I don’t know when it dawned on +me that the old Baron Cavalcanti had been right when he said they were +not my kind of people. But I wanted to get away, wanted it +desperately.” + +“Of course, they were not your kind,” I cried. “The man was married! +The girl Jennie, a housemaid, was a spy in Mrs. Sullivan’s employ. If +he had pretended to marry you I would have killed him! Not only that, +but the man he murdered, Harrington, was his wife’s father. And I’ll +see him hang by the neck yet if it takes every energy and every penny I +possess.” + +I could have told her so much more gently, have broken the shock for +her; I have never been proud of that evening on the sand. I was +alternately a boor and a ruffian—like a hurt youngster who passes the +blow that has hurt him on to his playmate, that both may bawl together. +And now Alison sat, white and cold, without speech. + +“Married!” she said finally, in a small voice. “Why, I don’t think it +is possible, is it? I—I was on my way to Baltimore to marry him myself, +when the wreck came.” + +“But you said you didn’t care for him!” I protested, my heavy masculine +mind unable to jump the gaps in her story. And then, without the +slightest warning, I realized that she was crying. She shook off my +hand and fumbled for her handkerchief, and failing to find it, she +accepted the one I thrust into her wet fingers. + +Then, little by little, she told me from the handkerchief, a sordid +story of a motor trip in the mountains without Mrs. Curtis, of a lost +road and a broken car, and a rainy night when they—she and Sullivan, +tramped eternally and did not get home. And of Mrs. Curtis, when they +got home at dawn, suddenly grown conventional and deeply shocked. Of +her own proud, half-disdainful consent to make possible the hackneyed +compromising situation by marrying the rascal, and then—of his +disappearance from the train. It was so terrible to her, such a +Heaven-sent relief to me, in spite of my rage against Sullivan, that I +laughed aloud. At which she looked at me over the handkerchief. + +“I know it’s funny,” she said, with a catch in her breath. “When I +think that I nearly married a murderer—and didn’t—I cry for sheer joy.” +Then she buried her face and cried again. + +“Please don’t,” I protested unsteadily. “I won’t be responsible if you +keep on crying like that. I may forget that I have a capital charge +hanging over my head, and that I may be arrested at any moment.” + +That brought her out of the handkerchief at once. “I meant to be so +helpful,” she said, “and I’ve thought of nothing but myself! There were +some things I meant to tell you. If Jennie was—what you say, then I +understand why she came to me just before I left. She had been packing +my things and she must have seen what condition I was in, for she came +over to me when I was getting my wraps on, to leave, and said, ‘Don’t +do it, Miss West, I beg you won’t do it; you’ll be sorry ever after.’ +And just then Mrs. Curtis came in and Jennie slipped out.” + +“That was all?” + +“No. As we went through the station the telegraph operator gave Har—Mr. +Sullivan a message. He read it on the platform, and it excited him +terribly. He took his sister aside and they talked together. He was +white with either fear or anger—I don’t know which. Then, when we +boarded the train, a woman in black, with beautiful hair, who was +standing on the car platform, touched him on the arm and then drew +back. He looked at her and glanced away again, but she reeled as if he +had struck her.” + +“Then what?” The situation was growing clearer. + +“Mrs. Curtis and I had the drawing-room. I had a dreadful night, just +sleeping a little now and then. I dreaded to see dawn come. It was to +be my wedding-day. When we found Harry had disappeared in the night, +Mrs. Curtis was in a frenzy. Then—I saw his cigarette case in your +hand. I had given it to him. You wore his clothes. The murder was +discovered and you were accused of it! What could I do? And then, +afterward, when I saw him asleep at the farmhouse, I—I was +panic-stricken. I locked him in and ran. I didn’t know why he did it, +but—he had killed a man.” + +Some one was calling Alison through a megaphone, from the veranda. It +sounded like Sam. “_All-ee_,” he called. “_All-ee!_ I’m going to have +some anchovies on toast! _All-ee!_” Neither of us heard. + +“I wonder,” I reflected, “if you would be willing to repeat a part of +that story—just from the telegram on—to a couple of detectives, say on +Monday. If you would tell that, and—how the end of your necklace got +into the sealskin bag—” + +“My necklace!” she repeated. “But it isn’t mine. I picked it up in the +car.” + +“_All-ee!_” Sam again. “I see you down there. I’m making a julep!” + +Alison turned and called through her hands. “Coming in a moment, Sam,” +she said, and rose. “It must be very late: Sam is home. We would better +go back to the house.” + +“Don’t,” I begged her. “Anchovies and juleps and Sam will go on for +ever, and I have you such a little time. I suppose I am only one of a +dozen or so, but—you are the only girl in the world. You know I love +you, don’t you, dear?” + +Sam was whistling, an irritating bird call, over and over. She pursed +her red lips and answered him in kind. It was more than I could endure. + +“Sam or no Sam,” I said firmly, “I am going to kiss you!” + +But Sam’s voice came strident through the megaphone. “Be good, you +two,” he bellowed, “I’ve got the binoculars!” And so, under fire, we +walked sedately back to the house. My pulses were throbbing—the little +swish of her dress beside me on the grass was pain and ecstasy. I had +but to put out my hand to touch her, and I dared not. + +Sam, armed with a megaphone and field glasses, bent over the rail and +watched us with gleeful malignity. + +“Home early, aren’t you?” Alison called, when we reached the steps. + +“Led a club when my partner had doubled no-trumps, and she fainted. +Damn the heart convention!” he said cheerfully. “The others are not +here yet.” + +Three hours later I went up to bed. I had not seen Alison alone again. +The noise was at its height below, and I glanced down into the garden, +still bright in the moonlight. Leaning against a tree, and staring +interestedly into the billiard room, was Johnson. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. +IN THE DINING-ROOM + + +That was Saturday night, two weeks after the wreck. The previous five +days had been full of swift-following events—the woman in the house +next door, the picture in the theater of a man about to leap from the +doomed train, the dinner at the Dallases’, and Richey’s discovery that +Alison was the girl in the case. In quick succession had come our visit +to the Carter place, the finding of the rest of the telegram, my seeing +Alison there, and the strange interview with Mrs. Conway. The Cresson +trip stood out in my memory for its serio-comic horrors and its one +real thrill. Then—the discovery by the police of the seal-skin bag and +the bit of chain; Hotchkiss producing triumphantly Stuart for Sullivan +and his subsequent discomfiture; McKnight at the station with Alison, +and later the confession that he was out of the running. + +And yet, when I thought it all over, the entire week and its events +were two sides of a triangle that was narrowing rapidly to an apex, a +point. And the said apex was at that moment in the drive below my +window, resting his long legs by sitting on a carriage block, and +smoking a pipe that made the night hideous. The sense of the ridiculous +is very close to the sense of tragedy. I opened my screen and whistled, +and Johnson looked up and grinned. We said nothing. I held up a handful +of cigars, he extended his hat, and when I finally went to sleep, it +was to a soothing breeze that wafted in salt air and a faint aroma of +good tobacco. I was thoroughly tired, but I slept restlessly, dreaming +of two detectives with Pittsburg warrants being held up by Hotchkiss at +the point of a splint, while Alison fastened their hands with a chain +that was broken and much too short. I was roused about dawn by a light +rap at the door, and, opening it, I found Forbes, in a pair of trousers +and a pajama coat. He was as pleasant as most fleshy people are when +they have to get up at night, and he said the telephone had been +ringing for an hour, and he didn’t know why somebody else in the +blankety-blank house couldn’t have heard it. _He_ wouldn’t get to sleep +until noon. + +As he was palpably asleep on his feet, I left him grumbling and went to +the telephone. It proved to be Richey, who had found me by the simple +expedient of tracing Alison, and he was jubilant. + +“You’ll have to come back,” he said. “Got a railroad schedule there?” + +“I don’t sleep with one in my pocket,” I retorted, “but if you’ll hold +the line I’ll call out the window to Johnson. He’s probably got one.” + +“Johnson!” I could hear the laugh with which McKnight comprehended the +situation. He was still chuckling when I came back. + +“Train to Richmond at six-thirty A.M.,” I said. “What time is it now?” + +“Four. Listen, Lollie. We’ve got him. Do you hear? Through the woman at +Baltimore. Then the other woman, the lady of the restaurant”—he was +obviously avoiding names—“she is playing our cards for us. No—I don’t +know why, and I don’t care. But you be at the Incubator to-night at +eight o’clock. If you can’t shake Johnson, bring him, bless him.” + +To this day I believe the Sam Forbeses have not recovered from the +surprise of my unexpected arrival, my one appearance at dinner in +Granger’s clothes, and the note on my dresser which informed them the +next morning that I had folded my tents like the Arabs and silently +stole away. For at half after five Johnson and I, the former as +uninquisitive as ever, were on our way through the dust to the station, +three miles away, and by four that afternoon we were in Washington. The +journey had been uneventful. Johnson relaxed under the influence of my +tobacco, and spoke at some length on the latest improvements in +gallows, dilating on the absurdity of cutting out the former free +passes to see the affair in operation. I remember, too, that he +mentioned the curious anomaly that permits a man about to be hanged to +eat a hearty meal. I did not enjoy my dinner that night. + +Before we got into Washington I had made an arrangement with Johnson to +surrender myself at two the following afternoon. Also, I had wired to +Alison, asking her if she would carry out the contract she had made. +The detective saw me home, and left me there. Mrs. Klopton received me +with dignified reserve. The very tone in which she asked me when I +would dine told me that something was wrong. + +“Now—what is it, Mrs. Klopton?” I demanded finally, when she had +informed me, in a patient and long-suffering tone, that she felt worn +out and thought she needed a rest. + +“When I lived with Mr. Justice Springer,” she began acidly, her +mending-basket in her hands, “it was an orderly, well-conducted +household. You can ask any of the neighbors. Meals were cooked and, +what’s more, they were _eaten;_ there was none of this ‘here one day +and gone the next’ business.” + +“Nonsense,” I observed. “You’re tired, that’s all, Mrs. Klopton. And I +wish you would go out; I want to bathe.” + +“That’s _not_ all,” she said with dignity, from the doorway. “Women +coming and going here, women whose shoes I am not fit—I mean, women who +are not fit to touch my shoes—coming here as insolent as you please, +and asking for you.” + +“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “What did you tell them—her, whichever it +was?” + +“Told her you were sick in a hospital and wouldn’t be out for a year!” +she said triumphantly. “And when she said she thought she’d come in and +wait for you, I slammed the door on her.” + +“What time was she here?” + +“Late last night. And she had a light-haired man across the street. If +she thought I didn’t see him, she don’t know me.” Then she closed the +door and left me to my bath and my reflections. + +At five minutes before eight I was at the Incubator, where I found +Hotchkiss and McKnight. They were bending over a table, on which lay +McKnight’s total armament—a pair of pistols, an elephant gun and an old +cavalry saber. + +“Draw up a chair and help yourself to pie,” he said, pointing to the +arsenal. “This is for the benefit of our friend Hotchkiss here, who +says he is a small man and fond of life.” + +Hotchkiss, who had been trying to get the wrong end of a cartridge into +the barrel of one of the revolvers, straightened himself and mopped his +face. + +“We have desperate people to handle,” he said pompously, “and we may +need desperate means.” + +“Hotchkiss is like the small boy whose one ambition was to have people +grow ashen and tremble at the mention of his name,” McKnight jibed. But +they were serious enough, both of them, under it all, and when they had +told me what they planned, I was serious, too. + +“You’re compounding a felony,” I remonstrated, when they had explained. +“I’m not eager to be locked away, but, by Jove, to offer her the stolen +notes in exchange for Sullivan!” + +“We haven’t got either of them, you know,” McKnight remonstrated, “and +we won’t have, if we don’t start. Come along, Fido,” to Hotchkiss. + +The plan was simplicity itself. According to Hotchkiss, Sullivan was to +meet Bronson at Mrs. Conway’s apartment, at eight-thirty that night, +with the notes. He was to be paid there and the papers destroyed. “But +just before that interesting finale,” McKnight ended, “we will walk in, +take the notes, grab Sullivan, and give the police a jolt that will put +them out of the count.” + +I suppose not one of us, slewing around corners in the machine that +night, had the faintest doubt that we were on the right track, or that +Fate, scurvy enough before, was playing into our hands at last. Little +Hotchkiss was in a state of fever; he alternately twitched and examined +the revolver, and a fear that the two movements might be synchronous +kept me uneasy. He produced and dilated on the scrap of pillow slip +from the wreck, and showed me the stiletto, with its point in cotton +batting for safekeeping. And in the intervals he implored Richey not to +make such fine calculations at the corners. + +We were all grave enough and very quiet, however, when we reached the +large building where Mrs. Conway had her apartment. McKnight left the +power on, in case we might want to make a quick get-away, and Hotchkiss +gave a final look at the revolver. I had no weapon. Somehow it all +seemed melodramatic to the verge of farce. In the doorway Hotchkiss was +a half dozen feet ahead; Richey fell back beside me. He dropped his +affectation of gayety, and I thought he looked tired. “Same old Sam, I +suppose?” he asked. + +“Same, only more of him.” + +“I suppose Alison was there? How is she?” he inquired irrelevantly. + +“Very well. I did not see her this morning.” + +Hotchkiss was waiting near the elevator. McKnight put his hand on my +arm. “Now, look here, old man,” he said, “I’ve got two arms and a +revolver, and you’ve got one arm and a splint. If Hotchkiss is right, +and there is a row, you crawl under a table.” + +“The deuce I will!” I declared scornfully. + +We crowded out of the elevator at the fourth floor, and found ourselves +in a rather theatrical hallway of draperies and armor. It was very +quiet; we stood uncertainly after the car had gone, and looked at the +two or three doors in sight. They were heavy, covered with metal, and +sound proof. From somewhere above came the metallic accuracy of a +player-piano, and through the open window we could hear—or feel—the +throb of the Cannonball’s engine. + +“Well, Sherlock,” McKnight said, “what’s the next move in the game? Is +it our jump, or theirs? You brought us here.” + +None of us knew just what to do next. No sound of conversation +penetrated the heavy doors. We waited uneasily for some minutes, and +Hotchkiss looked at his watch. Then he put it to his ear. + +“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, his head cocked on one side, “I believe +it has stopped. I’m afraid we are late.” + +We _were_ late. My watch and Hotchkiss’ agreed at nine o clock, and, +with the discovery that our man might have come and gone, our zest in +the adventure began to flag. McKnight motioned us away from the door +and rang the bell. There was no response, no sound within. He rang it +twice, the last time long and vigorously, without result. Then he +turned and looked at us. + +“I don’t half like this,” he said. “That woman is in; you heard me ask +the elevator boy. For two cents I’d—” + +I had seen it when he did. The door was ajar about an inch, and a +narrow wedge of rose-colored light showed beyond. I pushed the door a +little and listened. Then, with both men at my heels, I stepped into +the private corridor of the apartment and looked around. It was a +square reception hall, with rugs on the floor, a tall mahogany rack for +hats, and a couple of chairs. A lantern of rose-colored glass and a +desk light over a writing-table across made the room bright and +cheerful. It was empty. + +None of us was comfortable. The place was full of feminine trifles that +made us feel the weakness of our position. Some such instinct made +McKnight suggest division. + +“We look like an invading army,” he said. “If she’s here alone, we will +startle her into a spasm. One of us could take a look around and—” + +“What was that? Didn’t you hear something?” + +The sound, whatever it had been, was not repeated. We went awkwardly +out into the hall, very uncomfortable, all of us, and flipped a coin. +The choice fell to me, which was right enough, for the affair was mine, +primarily. + +“Wait just inside the door,” I directed, “and if Sullivan comes, or +anybody that answers his description, grab him without ceremony and ask +him questions afterwards.” + +The apartment, save in the hallway, was unlighted. By one of those +freaks of arrangement possible only in the modern flat, I found the +kitchen first, and was struck a smart and unexpected blow by a swinging +door. I carried a handful of matches, and by the time I had passed +through a butler’s pantry and a refrigerator room I was completely lost +in the darkness. Until then the situation had been merely +uncomfortable; suddenly it became grisly. From somewhere near came a +long-sustained groan, followed almost instantly by the crash of +something—glass or china—on the floor. + +I struck a fresh match, and found myself in a narrow rear hallway. +Behind me was the door by which I must have come; with a keen desire to +get back to the place I had started from, I opened the door and +attempted to cross the room. I thought I had kept my sense of +direction, but I crashed without warning into what, from the resulting +jangle, was the dining-table, probably laid for dinner. I cursed my +stupidity in getting into such a situation, and I cursed my nerves for +making my hand shake when I tried to strike a match. The groan had not +been repeated. + +I braced myself against the table and struck the match sharply against +the sole of my shoe. It flickered faintly and went out. And then, +without the slightest warning, another dish went off the table. It fell +with a thousand splinterings; the very air seemed broken into crashing +waves of sound. I stood still, braced against the table, holding the +red end of the dying match, and listened. I had not long to wait; the +groan came again, and I recognized it, the cry of a dog in straits. I +breathed again. + +“Come, old fellow,” I said. “Come on, old man. Let’s have a look at +you.” + +I could hear the thud of his tail on the floor, but he did not move. He +only whimpered. There is something companionable in the presence of a +dog, and I fancied this dog in trouble. Slowly I began to work my way +around the table toward him. + +“Good boy,” I said, as he whimpered. “We’ll find the light, which ought +to be somewhere or other around here, and then—” + +I stumbled over something, and I drew back my foot almost instantly. +“Did I step on you, old man?” I exclaimed, and bent to pat him. I +remember straightening suddenly and hearing the dog pad softly toward +me around the table. I recall even that I had put the matches down and +could not find them. Then, with a bursting horror of the room and its +contents, of the gibbering dark around me, I turned and made for the +door by which I had entered. + +I could not find it. I felt along the endless wainscoting, past miles +of wall. The dog was beside me, I think, but he was part and parcel +now, to my excited mind, with the Thing under the table. And when, +after æons of search, I found a knob and stumbled into the reception +hall, I was as nearly in a panic as any man could be. + +I was myself again in a second, and by the light from the hall I led +the way back to the tragedy I had stumbled on. Bronson still sat at the +table, his elbows propped on it, his cigarette still lighted, burning a +hole in the cloth. Partly under the table lay Mrs. Conway face down. +The dog stood over her and wagged his tail. + +McKnight pointed silently to a large copper ashtray, filled with ashes +and charred bits of paper. + +“The notes, probably,” he said ruefully. “He got them after all, and +burned them before her. It was more than she could stand. Stabbed him +first and then herself.” + +Hotchkiss got up and took off his hat. “They are dead,” he announced +solemnly, and took his note-book out of his hatband. + +McKnight and I did the only thing we could think of—drove Hotchkiss and +the dog out of the room, and closed and locked the door. “It’s a matter +for the police,” McKnight asserted. “I suppose you’ve got an officer +tied to you somewhere, Lawrence? You usually have.” + +We left Hotchkiss in charge and went down-stairs. It was McKnight who +first saw Johnson, leaning against a park railing across the street, +and called him over. We told him in a few words what we had found, and +he grinned at me cheerfully. + +“After while, in a few weeks or months, Mr. Blakeley,” he said, “when +you get tired of monkeying around with the blood-stain and finger-print +specialist up-stairs, you come to me. I’ve had that fellow you want +under surveillance for ten days!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. +FINER DETAILS + + +At ten minutes before two the following day, Monday, I arrived at my +office. I had spent the morning putting my affairs in shape, and in a +trip to the stable. The afternoon would see me either a free man or a +prisoner for an indefinite length of time, and, in spite of Johnson’s +promise to produce Sullivan, I was more prepared for the latter than +the former. + +Blobs was watching for me outside the door, and it was clear that he +was in a state of excitement bordering on delirium. He did nothing, +however, save to tip me a wink that meant “As man to man, I’m for you.” +I was too much engrossed either to reprove him or return the courtesy, +but I heard him follow me down the hall to the small room where we keep +outgrown lawbooks, typewriter supplies and, incidentally, our wraps. I +was wondering vaguely if I would ever hang my hat on its nail again, +when the door closed behind me. It shut firmly, without any particular +amount of sound, and I was left in the dark. I groped my way to it, +irritably, to find it locked on the outside. I shook it frantically, +and was rewarded by a sibilant whisper through the keyhole. + +“Keep quiet,” Blobs was saying huskily. “You’re in deadly peril. The +police are waiting in your office, three of ’em. I’m goin’ to lock the +whole bunch in and throw the key out of the window.” + +“Come back here, you imp of Satan!” I called furiously, but I could +hear him speeding down the corridor, and the slam of the outer office +door by which he always announced his presence. And so I stood there in +that ridiculous cupboard, hot with the heat of a steaming September +day, musty with the smell of old leather bindings, littered with broken +overshoes and handleless umbrellas. I was apoplectic with rage one +minute, and choked with laughter the next. It seemed an hour before +Blobs came back. + +He came without haste, strutting with new dignity, and paused outside +my prison door. + +“Well, I guess that will hold them for a while,” he remarked +comfortably, and proceeded to turn the key. “I’ve got ’em fastened up +like sardines in a can!” he explained, working with the lock. “Gee +whiz! you’d ought to hear ’em!” When he got his breath after the +shaking I gave him, he began to splutter. “How’d I know?” he demanded +sulkily. “You nearly broke your neck gettin’ away the other time. And I +haven’t got the old key. It’s lost.” + +“Where’s it lost?” I demanded, with another gesture toward his coat +collar. + +“Down the elevator shaft.” There was a gleam of indignant satisfaction +through his tears of rage and humiliation. + +And so, while he hunted the key in the debris at the bottom of the +shaft, I quieted his prisoners with the assurance that the lock had +slipped, and that they would be free as lords as soon as we could find +the janitor with a pass-key. Stuart went down finally and discovered +Blobs, with the key in his pocket, telling the engineer how he had +tried to save me from arrest and failed. When Stuart came up he was +almost cheerful, but Blobs did not appear again that day. + +Simultaneous with the finding of the key came Hotchkiss, and we went in +together. I shook hands with two men who, with Hotchkiss, made a not +very animated group. The taller one, an oldish man, lean and hard, +announced his errand at once. + +“A Pittsburg warrant?” I inquired, unlocking my cigar drawer. + +“Yes. Allegheny County has assumed jurisdiction, the exact locality +where the crime was committed being in doubt.” He seemed to be the +spokesman. The other, shorter and rotund, kept an amiable silence. “We +hope you will see the wisdom of waiving extradition,” he went on. “It +will save time.” + +“I’ll come, of course,” I agreed. “The sooner the better. But I want +you to give me an hour here, gentlemen. I think we can interest you. +Have a cigar?” + +The lean man took a cigar; the rotund man took three, putting two in +his pocket. + +“How about the catch of that door?” he inquired jovially. “Any danger +of it going off again?” Really, considering the circumstances, they +were remarkably cheerful. Hotchkiss, however, was not. He paced the +floor uneasily, his hands under his coat-tails. The arrival of McKnight +created a diversion; he carried a long package and a corkscrew, and +shook hands with the police and opened the bottle with a single +gesture. + +“I always want something to cheer on these occasions,” he said. +“Where’s the water, Blakeley? Everybody ready?” Then in French he +toasted the two detectives. + +“To your eternal discomfiture,” he said, bowing ceremoniously. “May you +go home and never come back! If you take Monsieur Blakeley with you, I +hope you choke.” + +The lean man nodded gravely. “Prosit,” he said. But the fat one leaned +back and laughed consumedly. + +Hotchkiss finished a mental synopsis of his position, and put down his +glass. “Gentlemen,” he said pompously, “within five minutes the man you +want will be here, a murderer caught in a net of evidence so fine that +a mosquito could not get through.” + +The detectives glanced at each other solemnly. Had they not in their +possession a sealskin bag containing a wallet and a bit of gold chain, +which, by putting the crime on me, would leave a gap big enough for +Sullivan himself to crawl through? + +“Why don’t you say your little speech before Johnson brings the other +man, Lawrence?” McKnight inquired. “They won’t believe you, but it will +help them to understand what is coming.” + +“You understand, of course,” the lean man put in gravely, “that what +you say may be used against you.” + +“I’ll take the risk,” I answered impatiently. + +It took some time to tell the story of my worse than useless trip to +Pittsburg, and its sequel. They listened gravely, without interruption. + +“Mr. Hotchkiss here,” I finished, “believes that the man Sullivan, whom +we are momentarily expecting, committed the crime. Mr. McKnight is +inclined to implicate Mrs. Conway, who stabbed Bronson and then herself +last night. As for myself, I am open to conviction.” + +“I hope not,” said the stout detective quizzically. And then Alison was +announced. My impulse to go out and meet her was forestalled by the +detectives, who rose when I did. McKnight, therefore, brought her in, +and I met her at the door. + +“I have put you to a great deal of trouble,” I said contritely, when I +saw her glance around the room. “I wish I had not—” + +“It is only right that I should come,” she replied, looking up at me. +“I am the unconscious cause of most of it, I am afraid. Mrs. Dallas is +going to wait in the outer office.” + +I presented Hotchkiss and the two detectives, who eyed her with +interest. In her poise, her beauty, even in her gown, I fancy she +represented a new type to them. They remained standing until she sat +down. + +“I have brought the necklace,” she began, holding out a white-wrapped +box, “as you asked me to.” + +I passed it, unopened, to the detectives. “The necklace from which was +broken the fragment you found in the sealskin bag,” I explained. “Miss +West found it on the floor of the car, near lower ten.” + +“When did you find it?” asked the lean detective, bending forward. + +“In the morning, not long before the wreck.” + +“Did you ever see it before?” + +“I am not certain,” she replied. “I have seen one very much like it.” +Her tone was troubled. She glanced at me as if for help, but I was +powerless. + +“Where?” The detective was watching her closely. At that moment there +came an interruption. The door opened without ceremony, and Johnson +ushered in a tall, blond man, a stranger to all of us: I glanced at +Alison; she was pale, but composed and scornful. She met the +new-comer’s eyes full, and, caught unawares, he took a hasty backward +step. + +“Sit down, Mr. Sullivan,” McKnight beamed cordially. “Have a cigar? I +beg your pardon, Alison, do you mind this smoke?” + +“Not at all,” she said composedly. Sullivan had had a second to sound +his bearings. + +“No—no, thanks,” he mumbled. “If you will be good enough to explain—” + +“But that’s what you’re to do,” McKnight said cheerfully, pulling up a +chair. “You’ve got the most attentive audience you could ask. These two +gentlemen are detectives from Pittsburg, and we are all curious to know +the finer details of what happened on the car Ontario two weeks ago, +the night your father-in-law was murdered.” Sullivan gripped the arms +of his chair. “We are not prejudiced, either. The gentlemen from +Pittsburg are betting on Mr. Blakeley, over there. Mr. Hotchkiss, the +gentleman by the radiator, is ready to place ten to one odds on you. +And some of us have still other theories.” + +“Gentlemen,” Sullivan said slowly, “I give you my word of honor that I +did not kill Simon Harrington, and that I do not know who did.” + +“Fiddlededee!” cried Hotchkiss, bustling forward. “Why, I can tell +you—” But McKnight pushed him firmly into a chair and held him there. + +“I am ready to plead guilty to the larceny,” Sullivan went on. “I took +Mr. Blakeley’s clothes, I admit. If I can reimburse him in any way for +the inconvenience—” + +The stout detective was listening with his mouth open. “Do you mean to +say,” he demanded, “that you got into Mr. Blakeley’s berth, as he +contends, took his clothes and forged notes, and left the train before +the wreck?” + +“Yes.” + +“The notes, then?” + +“I gave them to Bronson yesterday. Much good they did him!” bitterly. +We were all silent for a moment. The two detectives were adjusting +themselves with difficulty to a new point of view; Sullivan was looking +dejectedly at the floor, his hands hanging loose between his knees. I +was watching Alison; from where I stood, behind her, I could almost +touch the soft hair behind her ear. + +“I have no intention of pressing any charge against you,” I said with +forced civility, for my hands were itching to get at him, “if you will +give us a clear account of what happened on the Ontario that night.” + +Sullivan raised his handsome, haggard head and looked around at me. +“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” he asked. “Weren’t you an uninvited +guest at the Laurels a few days—or nights—ago? The cat, you remember, +and the rug that slipped?” + +“I remember,” I said shortly. He glanced from me to Alison and quickly +away. + +“The truth can’t hurt me,” he said, “but it’s devilish unpleasant. +Alison, you know all this. You would better go out.” + +His use of her name crazed me. I stepped in front of her and stood over +him. “You will not bring Miss West into the conversation,” I +threatened, “and she will stay if she wishes.” + +“Oh, very well,” he said with assumed indifference. Hotchkiss just then +escaped from Richey’s grasp and crossed the room. + +“Did you ever wear glasses?” he asked eagerly. + +“Never.” Sullivan glanced with some contempt at mine. + +“I’d better begin by going back a little,” he went on sullenly. “I +suppose you know I was married to Ida Harrington about five years ago. +She was a good girl, and I thought a lot of her. But her father opposed +the marriage—he’d never liked me, and he refused to make any sort of +settlement. + +“I had thought, of course, that there would be money, and it was a bad +day when I found out I’d made a mistake. My sister was wild with +disappointment. We were pretty hard up, my sister and I.” + +I was watching Alison. Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap, and +she was staring out of the window at the cheerless roof below. She had +set her lips a little, but that was all. + +“You understand, of course, that I’m not defending myself,” went on the +sullen voice. “The day came when old Harrington put us both out of the +house at the point of a revolver, and I threatened—I suppose you know +that, too—I threatened to kill him. + +“My sister and I had hard times after that. We lived on the continent +for a while. I was at Monte Carlo and she was in Italy. She met a young +lady there, the granddaughter of a steel manufacturer and an heiress, +and she sent for me. When I got to Rome the girl was gone. Last winter +I was all in—social secretary to an Englishman, a wholesale grocer with +a new title, but we had a row, and I came home. I went out to the +Heaton boys’ ranch in Wyoming, and met Bronson there. He lent me money, +and I’ve been doing his dirty work ever since.” + +Sullivan got up then and walked slowly forward and back as he talked, +his eyes on the faded pattern of the office rug. + +“If you want to live in hell,” he said savagely, “put yourself in +another man’s power. Bronson got into trouble, forging John Gilmore’s +name to those notes, and in some way he learned that a man was bringing +the papers back to Washington on the Flier. He even learned the number +of his berth, and the night before the wreck, just as I was boarding +the train, I got a telegram.” + +Hotchkiss stepped forward once more importantly. “Which read, I think: +‘Man with papers in lower ten, car seven. Get them.’” + +Sullivan looked at the little man with sulky blue eyes. + +“It was something like that, anyhow. But it was a nasty business, and +it made matters worse that he didn’t care that a telegram which must +pass through a half dozen hands was more or less incriminating to me. + +“Then, to add to the unpleasantness of my position, just after we +boarded the train—I was accompanying my sister and this young lady, +Miss West—a woman touched me on the sleeve, and I turned to face—my +wife! + +“That took away my last bit of nerve. I told my sister, and you can +understand she was in a bad way, too. We knew what it meant. Ida had +heard that I was going—” + +He stopped and glanced uneasily at Alison. + +“Go on,” she said coldly. “It is too late to shield me. The time to +have done that was when I was your guest.” + +“Well,” he went on, his eyes turned carefully away from my face, which +must have presented certainly anything but a pleasant sight. “Miss West +was going to do me the honor to marry me, and—” + +“You scoundrel!” I burst forth, thrusting past Alison West’s chair. +“You—you infernal cur!” + +One of the detectives got up and stood between us. “You must remember, +Mr. Blakeley, that you are forcing this story from this man. These +details are unpleasant, but important. You were going to marry this +young lady,” he said, turning to Sullivan, “although you already had a +wife living?” + +“It was my sister’s plan, and I was in a bad way for money. If I could +marry, secretly, a wealthy girl and go to Europe, it was unlikely that +Ida—that is, Mrs. Sullivan—would hear of it. + +“So it was more than a shock to see my wife on the train, and to +realize from her face that she knew what was going on. I don’t know +yet, unless some of the servants—well, never mind that. + +“It meant that the whole thing had gone up. Old Harrington had carried +a gun for me for years, and the same train wouldn’t hold both of us. Of +course, I thought that he was in the coach just behind ours.” + +Hotchkiss was leaning forward now, his eyes narrowed, his thin lips +drawn to a line. + +“Are you left-handed, Mr. Sullivan?” he asked. + +Sullivan stopped in surprise. + +“No,” he said gruffly. “Can’t do anything with my left hand.” Hotchkiss +subsided, crestfallen but alert. “I tore up that cursed telegram, but I +was afraid to throw the scraps away. Then I looked around for lower +ten. It was almost exactly across—my berth was lower seven, and it was, +of course, a bit of exceptional luck for me that the car was number +seven.” + +“Did you tell your sister of the telegram from Bronson?” I asked. + +“No. It would do no good, and she was in a bad way without that to make +her worse.” + +“Your sister was killed, think.” The shorter detective took a small +package from his pocket and held it in his hand, snapping the rubber +band which held it. + +“Yes, she was killed,” Sullivan said soberly. “What I say now can do +her no harm.” + +He stopped to push back the heavy hair which dropped over his forehead, +and went on more connectedly. + +“It was late, after midnight, and we went at once to our berths. I +undressed, and then I lay there for an hour, wondering how I was going +to get the notes. Some one in lower nine was restless and wide awake, +but finally became quiet. + +“The man in ten was sleeping heavily. I could hear his breathing, and +it seemed to be only a question of getting across and behind the +curtains of his berth without being seen. After that, it was a mere +matter of quiet searching. + +“The car became very still. I was about to try for the other berth, +when some one brushed softly past, and I lay back again. + +“Finally, however, when things had been quiet for a time, I got up, and +after looking along the aisle, I slipped behind the curtains of lower +ten. You understand, Mr. Blakeley, that I thought you were in lower +ten, with the notes.” + +I nodded curtly. + +“I’m not trying to defend myself,” he went on. “I was ready to steal +the notes—I had to. But murder!” + +He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. + +“Well, I slipped across and behind the curtains. It was very still. The +man in ten didn’t move, although my heart was thumping until I thought +he would hear it. + +“I felt around cautiously. It was perfectly dark, and I came across a +bit of chain, about as long as my finger. It seemed a queer thing to +find there, and it was sticky, too.” + +He shuddered, and I could see Alison’s hands clenching and unclenching +with the strain. + +“All at once it struck me that the man was strangely silent, and I +think I lost my nerve. Anyhow, I drew the curtains open a little, and +let the light fall on my hands. They were red, blood-red.” + +He leaned one hand on the back of the chair, and was silent for a +moment, as though he lived over again the awful events of that more +than awful night. + +The stout detective had let his cigar go out; he was still drawing at +it nervously. Richey had picked up a paper-weight and was tossing it +from hand to hand; when it slipped and fell to the floor, a startled +shudder passed through the room. + +“There was something glittering in there,” Sullivan resumed, “and on +impulse I picked it up. Then I dropped the curtains and stumbled back +to my own berth.” + +“Where you wiped your hands on the bed-clothing and stuck the dirk into +the pillow.” Hotchkiss was seeing his carefully built structure +crumbling to pieces, and he looked chagrined. + +“I suppose I did—I’m not very clear about what happened then. But when +I rallied a little I saw a Russia leather wallet lying in the aisle +almost at my feet, and, like a fool, I stuck it, with the bit of chain, +into my bag. + +“I sat there, shivering, for what seemed hours. It was still perfectly +quiet, except for some one snoring. I thought that would drive me +crazy. + +“The more I thought of it the worse things looked. The telegram was the +first thing against me—it would put the police on my track at once, +when it was discovered that the man in lower ten had been killed. + +“Then I remembered the notes, and I took out the wallet and opened it.” + +He stopped for a minute, as if the recalling of the next occurrence was +almost beyond him. + +“I took out the wallet,” he said simply, “and opening it, held it to +the light. In gilt letters was the name, Simon Harrington.” + +The detectives were leaning forward now, their eyes on his face. + +“Things seemed to whirl around for a while. I sat there almost +paralyzed, wondering what this new development meant for me. + +“My wife, I knew, would swear I had killed her father; nobody would be +likely to believe the truth. + +“Do you believe me now?” He rooked around at us defiantly. “I am +telling the absolute truth, and not one of you believes me! + +“After a bit the man in lower nine got up and walked along the aisle +toward the smoking compartment. I heard him go, and, leaning from my +berth, watched him out of sight. + +“It was then I got the idea of changing berths with him, getting into +his clothes, and leaving the train. I give you my word I had no idea of +throwing suspicion on him.” + +Alison looked scornfully incredulous, but I felt that the man was +telling the truth. + +“I changed the numbers of the berths, and it worked well. I got into +the other man’s berth, and he came back to mine. The rest was easy. I +dressed in his clothes—luckily, they fitted—and jumped the train not +far from Baltimore, just before the wreck.” + +“There is something else you must clear up,” I said. “Why did you try +to telephone me from M——, and why did you change your mind about the +message?” + +He looked astounded. + +“You knew I was at M——?” he stammered. + +“Yes, we traced you. What about the message?” + +“Well, it was this way: of course, I did not know your name, Mr. +Blakeley. The telegram said, ‘Man with papers in lower ten, car seven,” +and after I had made what I considered my escape, I began to think I +had left the man in my berth in a bad way. + +“He would probably be accused of the crime. So, although when the wreck +occurred I supposed every one connected with the affair had been +killed, there was a chance that you had survived. I’ve not been of much +account, but I didn’t want a man to swing because I’d left him in my +place. Besides, I began to have a theory of my own. + +“As we entered the car a tall, dark woman passed us, with a glass of +water in her hand, and I vaguely remembered her. She was amazingly like +Blanche Conway. + +“If she, too, thought the man with the notes was in lower ten, it +explained a lot, including that piece of a woman’s necklace. She was a +fury, Blanche Conway, capable of anything.” + +“Then why did you countermand that message?” I asked curiously. + +“When I got to the Carter house, and got to bed—I had sprained my ankle +in the jump—I went through the alligator bag I had taken from lower +nine. When I found your name, I sent the first message. Then, soon +after, I came across the notes. It seemed too good to be true, and I +was crazy for fear the message had gone. + +“At first I was going to send them to Bronson; then I began to see what +the possession of the notes meant to me. It meant power over Bronson, +money, influence, everything. He was a devil, that man.” + +“Well, he’s at home now,” said McKnight, and we were glad to laugh and +relieve the tension. + +Alison put her hand over her eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the +man she had so nearly married, and I furtively touched one of the soft +little curls that nestled at the back of her neck. + +“When I was able to walk,” went on the sullen voice, “I came at once to +Washington. I tried to sell the notes to Bronson, but he was almost at +the end of his rope. Not even my threat to send them back to you, Mr. +Blakeley, could make him meet my figure. He didn’t have the money.” + +McKnight was triumphant. + +“I think you gentlemen will see reason in my theory now,” he said. +“Mrs. Conway wanted the notes to force a legal marriage, I suppose?” + +“Yes.” + +The detective with the small package carefully rolled off the rubber +band, and unwrapped it. I held my breath as he took out, first, the +Russia leather wallet. + +“These things, Mr. Blakeley, we found in the seal-skin bag Mr. Sullivan +says he left you. This wallet, Mr. Sullivan—is this the one you found +on the floor of the car?” + +Sullivan opened it, and, glancing at the name inside, “Simon +Harrington,” nodded affirmatively. + +“And this,” went on the detective—“this is a piece of gold chain?” + +“It seems to be,” said Sullivan, recoiling at the blood-stained end. + +“This, I believe, is the dagger.” He held it up, and Alison gave a +faint cry of astonishment and dismay. Sullivan’s face grew ghastly, and +he sat down weakly on the nearest chair. + +The detective looked at him shrewdly, then at Alison’s agitated face. + +“Where have you seen this dagger before, young lady?” he asked, kindly +enough. + +“Oh, don’t ask me!” she gasped breathlessly, her eyes turned on +Sullivan. “It’s—it’s too terrible!” + +“Tell him,” I advised, leaning over to her. “It will be found out +later, anyhow.” + +“Ask him,” she said, nodding toward Sullivan. The detective unwrapped +the small box Alison had brought, disclosing the trampled necklace and +broken chain. With clumsy fingers he spread it on the table and fitted +into place the bit of chain. There could be no doubt that it belonged +there. + +“Where did you find that chain?” Sullivan asked hoarsely, looking for +the first time at Alison. + +“On the floor, near the murdered man’s berth.” + +“Now, Mr. Sullivan,” said the detective civilly, “I believe you can +tell us, in the light of these two exhibits, who really did murder +Simon Harrington.” + +Sullivan looked again at the dagger, a sharp little bit of steel with a +Florentine handle. Then he picked up the locket and pressed a hidden +spring under one of the cameos. Inside, very neatly engraved, was the +name and a date. + +“Gentlemen,” he said, his face ghastly, “it is of no use for me to +attempt a denial. The dagger and necklace belonged to my sister, Alice +Curtis!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. +AND ONLY ONE ARM + + +Hotchkiss was the first to break the tension. + +“Mr. Sullivan,” he asked suddenly, “was your sister left-handed?” + +“Yes.” + +Hotchkiss put away his note-book and looked around with an air of +triumphant vindication. It gave us a chance to smile and look relieved. +After all, Mrs. Curtis was dead. It was the happiest solution of the +unhappy affair. McKnight brought Sullivan some whisky, and he braced up +a little. + +“I learned through the papers that my wife was in a Baltimore hospital, +and yesterday I ventured there to see her. I felt if she would help me +to keep straight, that now, with her father and my sister both dead, we +might be happy together. + +“I understand now what puzzled me then. It seemed that my sister went +into the next car and tried to make my wife promise not to interfere. +But Ida—Mrs. Sullivan—was firm, of course. She said her father had +papers, certificates and so on, that would stop the marriage at once. + +“She said, also, that her father was in our car, and that there would +be the mischief to pay in the morning. It was probably when my sister +tried to get the papers that he awakened, and she had to do—what she +did.” + +It was over. Save for a technicality or two, I was a free man. Alison +rose quietly and prepared to go; the men stood to let her pass, save +Sullivan who sat crouched in his chair, his face buried in his hands. +Hotchkiss, who had been tapping the desk with his pencil, looked up +abruptly and pointed the pencil at me. + +“If all this is true, and I believe it is,—then who was in the house +next door, Blakeley, the night you and Mr. Johnson searched? You +remember, you said it was a woman’s hand at the trap door.” + +I glanced hastily at Johnson, whose face was impassive. He had his hand +on the knob of the door and he opened it before he spoke. + +“There were a number of scratches on Mrs. Conway’s right hand,” he +observed to the room in general. “Her wrist was bandaged and badly +bruised.” + +He went out then, but he turned as he closed the door and threw at me a +glance of half-amused, half-contemptuous tolerance. + +McKnight saw Alison, with Mrs. Dallas, to their carriage, and came back +again. The gathering in the office was breaking up. Sullivan, looking +worn and old, was standing by the window, staring at the broken +necklace in his hand. When he saw me watching him, he put it on the +desk and picked up his hat. + +“If I can not do anything more—” he hesitated. + +“I think you have done about enough,” I replied grimly, and he went +out. + +I believe that Richey and Hotchkiss led me somewhere to dinner, and +that, for fear I would be lonely without him, they sent for Johnson. +And I recall a spirited discussion in which Hotchkiss told the +detective that he could manage certain cases, but that he lacked +induction. Richey and I were mainly silent. My thoughts would slip +ahead to that hour, later in the evening, when I should see Alison +again. + +I dressed in savage haste finally, and was so particular about my tie +that Mrs. Klopton gave up in despair. + +“I wish, until your arm is better, that you would buy the kind that +hooks on,” she protested, almost tearfully. “I’m sure they look very +nice, Mr. Lawrence. My late husband always—” + +“That’s a lover’s knot you’ve tied this time,” I snarled, and, jerking +open the bow knot she had so painfully executed, looked out the window +for Johnson—until I recalled that he no longer belonged in my +perspective. I ended by driving frantically to the club and getting +George to do it. + +I was late, of course. The drawing-room and library at the Dallas home +were empty. I could hear billiard balls rolling somewhere, and I turned +the other way. I found Alison at last on the balcony, sitting much as +she had that night on the beach,—her chin in her hands, her eyes fixed +unseeingly on the trees and lights of the square across. She was even +whistling a little, softly. But this time the plaintiveness was gone. +It was a tender little tune. She did not move, as I stood beside her, +looking down. And now, when the moment had come, all the thousand and +one things I had been waiting to say forsook me, precipitately beat a +retreat, and left me unsupported. The arc-moon sent little fugitive +lights over her hair, her eyes, her gown. + +[Illustration] + +“Don’t—do that,” I said unsteadily. “You—you know what I want to do +when you whistle!” + +She glanced up at me, and she did not stop. She _did not stop!_ She +went on whistling softly, a bit tremulously. And straightway I forgot +the street, the chance of passers-by, the voices in the house behind +us. “The world doesn’t hold any one but you,” I said reverently. “It is +our world, sweetheart. I love you.” + +And I kissed her. + +A boy was whistling on the pavement below. I let her go reluctantly and +sat back where I could see her. + +“I haven’t done this the way I intended to at all,” I confessed. “In +books they get things all settled, and then kiss the lady.” + +“Settled?” she inquired. + +“Oh, about getting married and that sort of thing,” I explained with +elaborate carelessness. “We—we could go down to Bermuda—or—or Jamaica, +say in December.” + +She drew her hand away and faced me squarely. + +“I believe you are afraid!” she declared. “I refuse to marry you unless +you propose properly. Everybody does it. And it is a woman’s privilege: +she wants to have that to look back to.” + +“Very well,” I consented with an exaggerated sigh. “If you will promise +not to think I look like an idiot, I shall do it, knee and all.” + +[Illustration] + +I had to pass her to close the door behind us, but when I kissed her +again she protested that we were not really engaged. + +I turned to look down at her. “It is a terrible thing,” I said +exultantly, “to love a girl the way I love you, and to have only one +arm!” Then I closed the door. + +From across the street there came a sharp crescendo whistle, and a +vaguely familiar figure separated itself from the park railing. + +“Say,” he called, in a hoarse whisper, “shall I throw the key down the +elevator shaft?” + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN LOWER TEN *** + +***** This file should be named 1869-0.txt or 1869-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/6/1869/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Man in Lower Ten</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August, 1999 [eBook #1869]<br /> +[Most recently updated: May 28, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN LOWER TEN ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>The Man in Lower Ten</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Mary Roberts Rinehart</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01"> CHAPTER I. I GO TO PITTSBURG</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02"> CHAPTER II. A TORN TELEGRAM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03"> CHAPTER III. ACROSS THE AISLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04"> CHAPTER IV. NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05"> CHAPTER V. THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06"> CHAPTER VI. THE GIRL IN BLUE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07"> CHAPTER VII. A FINE GOLD CHAIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08"> CHAPTER VIII. THE SECOND SECTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09"> CHAPTER IX. THE HALCYON BREAKFAST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10"> CHAPTER X. MISS WEST’S REQUEST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11"> CHAPTER XI. THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12"> CHAPTER XII. THE GOLD BAG</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13"> CHAPTER XIII. FADED ROSES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14"> CHAPTER XIV. THE TRAP-DOOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15"> CHAPTER XV. THE CINEMATOGRAPH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16"> CHAPTER XVI. THE SHADOW OF A GIRL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17"> CHAPTER XVII. AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18"> CHAPTER XVIII. A NEW WORLD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19"> CHAPTER XIX. AT THE TABLE NEXT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20"> CHAPTER XX. THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21"> CHAPTER XXI. McKNIGHT’S THEORY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22"> CHAPTER XXII. AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23"> CHAPTER XXIII. A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24"> CHAPTER XXIV. HIS WIFE’S FATHER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25"> CHAPTER XXV. AT THE STATION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26"> CHAPTER XXVI. ON TO RICHMOND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27"> CHAPTER XXVII. THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28"> CHAPTER XXVIII.ALISON’S STORY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29"> CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE DINING-ROOM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30"> CHAPTER XXX. FINER DETAILS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31"> CHAPTER XXXI. AND ONLY ONE ARM</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/fig01.jpg" width="394" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>THE MAN IN LOWER TEN</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /> +I GO TO PITTSBURG</h2> + +<p> +McKnight is gradually taking over the criminal end of the business. I never +liked it, and since the strange case of the man in lower ten, I have been a bit +squeamish. Given a case like that, where you can build up a network of clues +that absolutely incriminate three entirely different people, only one of whom +can be guilty, and your faith in circumstantial evidence dies of overcrowding. +I never see a shivering, white-faced wretch in the prisoners’ dock that I +do not hark back with shuddering horror to the strange events on the Pullman +car Ontario, between Washington and Pittsburg, on the night of September ninth, +last. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight could tell the story a great deal better than I, although he can not +spell three consecutive words correctly. But, while he has imagination and +humor, he is lazy. +</p> + +<p> +“It didn’t happen to me, anyhow,” he protested, when I put it +up to him. “And nobody cares for second-hand thrills. Besides, you want +the unvarnished and ungarnished truth, and I’m no hand for that. +I’m a lawyer.” +</p> + +<p> +So am I, although there have been times when my assumption in that particular +has been disputed. I am unmarried, and just old enough to dance with the +grown-up little sisters of the girls I used to know. I am fond of outdoors, +prefer horses to the aforesaid grown-up little sisters, am without sentiment +(<i>am</i> crossed out and <i>was</i> substituted.—Ed.) and completely +ruled and frequently routed by my housekeeper, an elderly widow. +</p> + +<p> +In fact, of all the men of my acquaintance, I was probably the most prosaic, +the least adventurous, the one man in a hundred who would be likely to go +without a deviation from the normal through the orderly procession of the +seasons, summer suits to winter flannels, golf to bridge. +</p> + +<p> +So it was a queer freak of the demons of chance to perch on my unsusceptible +thirty-year-old chest, tie me up with a crime, ticket me with a love affair, +and start me on that sensational and not always respectable journey that ended +so surprisingly less than three weeks later in the firm’s private office. +It had been the most remarkable period of my life. I would neither give it up +nor live it again under any inducement, and yet all that I lost was some twenty +yards off my drive! +</p> + +<p> +It was really McKnight’s turn to make the next journey. I had a +tournament at Chevy Chase for Saturday, and a short yacht cruise planned for +Sunday, and when a man has been grinding at statute law for a week, he needs +relaxation. But McKnight begged off. It was not the first time he had shirked +that summer in order to run down to Richmond, and I was surly about it. But +this time he had a new excuse. “I wouldn’t be able to look after +the business if I did go,” he said. He has a sort of wide-eyed frankness +that makes one ashamed to doubt him. “I’m always car sick crossing +the mountains. It’s a fact, Lollie. See-sawing over the peaks does it. +Why, crossing the Alleghany Mountains has the Gulf Stream to Bermuda beaten to +a frazzle.” +</p> + +<p> +So I gave him up finally and went home to pack. He came later in the evening +with his machine, the Cannonball, to take me to the station, and he brought the +forged notes in the Bronson case. +</p> + +<p> +“Guard them with your life,” he warned me. “They are more +precious than honor. Sew them in your chest protector, or wherever people keep +valuables. I never keep any. I’ll not be happy until I see Gentleman Andy +doing the lockstep.” +</p> + +<p> +He sat down on my clean collars, found my cigarettes and struck a match on the +mahogany bed post with one movement. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s the Pirate?” he demanded. The Pirate is my +housekeeper, Mrs. Klopton, a very worthy woman, so labeled—and +libeled—because of a ferocious pair of eyes and what McKnight called a +bucaneering nose. I quietly closed the door into the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your voice down, Richey,” I said. “She is looking for +the evening paper to see if it is going to rain. She has my raincoat and an +umbrella waiting in the hall.” +</p> + +<p> +The collars being damaged beyond repair, he left them and went to the window. +He stood there for some time, staring at the blackness that represented the +wall of the house next door. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s raining now,” he said over his shoulder, and closed the +window and the shutters. Something in his voice made me glance up, but he was +watching me, his hands idly in his pockets. +</p> + +<p> +“Who lives next door?” he inquired in a perfunctory tone, after a +pause. I was packing my razor. +</p> + +<p> +“House is empty,” I returned absently. “If the landlord would +put it in some sort of shape—” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you put those notes in your pocket?” he broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” I was impatient. “Along with my certificates of +registration, baptism and vaccination. Whoever wants them will have to steal my +coat to get them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I would move them, if I were you. Somebody in the next house was +confoundedly anxious to see where you put them. Somebody right at that window +opposite.” +</p> + +<p> +I scoffed at the idea, but nevertheless I moved the papers, putting them in my +traveling-bag, well down at the bottom. McKnight watched me uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a hunch that you are going to have trouble,” he said, as I +locked the alligator bag. “Darned if I like starting anything important +on Friday.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have a congenital dislike to start anything on any old day,” I +retorted, still sore from my lost Saturday. “And if you knew the owner of +that house as I do you would know that if there was any one at that window he +is paying rent for the privilege.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Klopton rapped at the door and spoke discreetly from the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Did Mr. McKnight bring the evening paper?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, but I didn’t, Mrs. Klopton,” McKnight called. +“The Cubs won, three to nothing.” He listened, grinning, as she +moved away with little irritated rustles of her black silk gown. +</p> + +<p> +I finished my packing, changed my collar and was ready to go. Then very +cautiously we put out the light and opened the shutters. The window across was +merely a deeper black in the darkness. It was closed and dirty. And yet, +probably owing to Richey’s suggestion, I had an uneasy sensation of eyes +staring across at me. The next moment we were at the door, poised for flight. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll have to run for it,” I said in a whisper. +“She’s down there with a package of some sort, sandwiches probably. +And she’s threatened me with overshoes for a month. Ready now!” +</p> + +<p> +I had a kaleidoscopic view of Mrs. Klopton in the lower hall, holding out an +armful of such traveling impedimenta as she deemed essential, while beside her, +Euphemia, the colored housemaid, grinned over a white-wrapped box. +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully sorry—no time—back Sunday,” I panted over my +shoulder. Then the door closed and the car was moving away. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight bent forward and stared at the façade of the empty house next door as +we passed. It was black, staring, mysterious, as empty buildings are apt to be. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to hold a post-mortem on that corpse of a house,” +he said thoughtfully. “By George, I’ve a notion to get out and take +a look.” +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody after the brass pipes,” I scoffed. “House has been +empty for a year.” +</p> + +<p> +With one hand on the steering wheel McKnight held out the other for my +cigarette case. “Perhaps,” he said; “but I don’t see +what she would want with brass pipe.” +</p> + +<p> +“A woman!” I laughed outright. “You have been looking too +hard at the picture in the back of your watch, that’s all. There’s +an experiment like that: if you stare long enough—” +</p> + +<p> +But McKnight was growing sulky: he sat looking rigidly ahead, and he did not +speak again until he brought the Cannonball to a stop at the station. Even then +it was only a perfunctory remark. He went through the gate with me, and with +five minutes to spare, we lounged and smoked in the train shed. My mind had +slid away from my surroundings and had wandered to a polo pony that I +couldn’t afford and intended to buy anyhow. Then McKnight shook off his +taciturnity. +</p> + +<p> +“For heaven’s sake, don’t look so martyred,” he burst +out; “I know you’ve done all the traveling this summer. I know +you’re missing a game to-morrow. But don’t be a patient mother; +confound it, I have to go to Richmond on Sunday. I—I want to see a +girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t mind me,” I observed politely. “Personally, +I wouldn’t change places with you. What’s her name—North? +South?” +</p> + +<p> +“West,” he snapped. “Don’t try to be funny. And all I +have to say, Blakeley, is that if you ever fall in love I hope you make an +egregious ass of yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +In view of what followed, this came rather close to prophecy. +</p> + +<p> +The trip west was without incident. I played bridge with a furniture dealer +from Grand Rapids, a sales agent for a Pittsburg iron firm and a young +professor from an eastern college. I won three rubbers out of four, finished +what cigarettes McKnight had left me, and went to bed at one o’clock. It +was growing cooler, and the rain had ceased. Once, toward morning, I wakened +with a start, for no apparent reason, and sat bolt upright. I had an uneasy +feeling that some one had been looking at me, the same sensation I had +experienced earlier in the evening at the window. But I could feel the bag with +the notes, between me and the window, and with my arm thrown over it for +security, I lapsed again into slumber. Later, when I tried to piece together +the fragments of that journey, I remembered that my coat, which had been folded +and placed beyond my restless tossing, had been rescued in the morning from a +heterogeneous jumble of blankets, evening papers and cravat, had been shaken +out with profanity and donned with wrath. At the time, nothing occurred to me +but the necessity of writing to the Pullman Company and asking them if they +ever traveled in their own cars. I even formulated some of the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“If they are built to scale, why not take a man of ordinary stature as +your unit?” I wrote mentally. “I can not fold together like the +traveling cup with which I drink your abominable water.” +</p> + +<p> +I was more cheerful after I had had a cup of coffee in the Union Station. It +was too early to attend to business, and I lounged in the restaurant and hid +behind the morning papers. As I had expected, they had got hold of my visit and +its object. On the first page was a staring announcement that the forged papers +in the Bronson case had been brought to Pittsburg. Underneath, a telegram from +Washington stated that Lawrence Blakeley, of Blakeley and McKnight, had left +for Pittsburg the night before, and that, owing to the approaching trial of the +Bronson case and the illness of John Gilmore, the Pittsburg millionaire, who +was the chief witness for the prosecution, it was supposed that the visit was +intimately concerned with the trial. +</p> + +<p> +I looked around apprehensively. There were no reporters yet in sight, and +thankful to have escaped notice I paid for my breakfast and left. At the +cab-stand I chose the least dilapidated hansom I could find, and giving the +driver the address of the Gilmore residence, in the East end, I got in. +</p> + +<p> +I was just in time. As the cab turned and rolled off, a slim young man in a +straw hat separated himself from a little group of men and hurried toward us. +</p> + +<p> +“Hey! Wait a minute there!” he called, breaking into a trot. +</p> + +<p> +But the cabby did not hear, or perhaps did not care to. We jogged comfortably +along, to my relief, leaving the young man far behind. I avoid reporters on +principle, having learned long ago that I am an easy mark for a clever +interviewer. +</p> + +<p> +It was perhaps nine o’clock when I left the station. Our way was along +the boulevard which hugged the side of one of the city’s great hills. Far +below, to the left, lay the railroad tracks and the seventy times seven looming +stacks of the mills. The white mist of the river, the grays and blacks of the +smoke blended into a half-revealing haze, dotted here and there with fire. It +was unlovely, tremendous. Whistler might have painted it with its pathos, its +majesty, but he would have missed what made it infinitely suggestive—the +rattle and roar of iron on iron, the rumble of wheels, the throbbing beat, +against the ears, of fire and heat and brawn welding prosperity. +</p> + +<p> +Something of this I voiced to the grim old millionaire who was responsible for +at least part of it. He was propped up in bed in his East end home, listening +to the market reports read by a nurse, and he smiled a little at my enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t see much beauty in it myself,” he said. “But +it’s our badge of prosperity. The full dinner pail here means a nose that +looks like a flue. Pittsburg without smoke wouldn’t be Pittsburg, any +more than New York without prohibition would be New York. Sit down for a few +minutes, Mr. Blakeley. Now, Miss Gardner, Westinghouse Electric.” +</p> + +<p> +The nurse resumed her reading in a monotonous voice. She read literally and +without understanding, using initials and abbreviations as they came. But the +shrewd old man followed her easily. Once, however, he stopped her. +</p> + +<p> +“D-o is ditto,” he said gently, “not <i>do</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +As the nurse droned along, I found myself looking curiously at a photograph in +a silver frame on the bed-side table. It was the picture of a girl in white, +with her hands clasped loosely before her. Against the dark background her +figure stood out slim and young. Perhaps it was the rather grim environment, +possibly it was my mood, but although as a general thing photographs of young +girls make no appeal to me, this one did. I found my eyes straying back to it. +By a little finesse I even made out the name written across the corner, +“Alison.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Gilmore lay back among his pillows and listened to the nurse’s +listless voice. But he was watching me from under his heavy eyebrows, for when +the reading was over, and we were alone, he indicated the picture with a +gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“I keep it there to remind myself that I am an old man,” he said. +“That is my granddaughter, Alison West.” +</p> + +<p> +I expressed the customary polite surprise, at which, finding me responsive, he +told me his age with a chuckle of pride. More surprise, this time genuine. From +that we went to what he ate for breakfast and did not eat for luncheon, and +then to his reserve power, which at sixty-five becomes a matter for thought. +And so, in a wide circle, back to where we started, the picture. +</p> + +<p> +“Father was a rascal,” John Gilmore said, picking up the frame. +“The happiest day of my life was when I knew he was safely dead in bed +and not hanged. If the child had looked like him, I—well, she +doesn’t. She’s a Gilmore, every inch. Supposed to look like +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very noticeably,” I agreed soberly. +</p> + +<p> +I had produced the notes by that time, and replacing the picture Mr. Gilmore +gathered his spectacles from beside it. He went over the four notes +methodically, examining each carefully and putting it down before he picked up +the next. Then he leaned back and took off his glasses. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re not so bad,” he said thoughtfully. “Not so +bad. But I never saw them before. That’s my unofficial signature. I am +inclined to think—” he was speaking partly to +himself—“to think that he has got hold of a letter of mine, +probably to Alison. Bronson was a friend of her rapscallion of a father.” +</p> + +<p> +I took Mr. Gilmore’s deposition and put it into my traveling-bag with the +forged notes. When I saw them again, almost three weeks later, they were +unrecognizable, a mass of charred paper on a copper ashtray. In the interval +other and bigger things had happened: the Bronson forgery case had shrunk +beside the greater and more imminent mystery of the man in lower ten. And +Alison West had come into the story and into my life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /> +A TORN TELEGRAM</h2> + +<p> +I lunched alone at the Gilmore house, and went back to the city at once. The +sun had lifted the mists, and a fresh summer wind had cleared away the smoke +pall. The boulevard was full of cars flying countryward for the Saturday +half-holiday, toward golf and tennis, green fields and babbling girls. I +gritted my teeth and thought of McKnight at Richmond, visiting the lady with +the geographical name. And then, for the first time, I associated John +Gilmore’s granddaughter with the “West” that McKnight had +irritably flung at me. +</p> + +<p> +I still carried my traveling-bag, for McKnight’s vision at the window of +the empty house had not been without effect. I did not transfer the notes to my +pocket, and, if I had, it would not have altered the situation later. Only the +other day McKnight put this very thing up to me. +</p> + +<p> +“I warned you,” he reminded me. “I told you there were queer +things coming, and to be on your guard. You ought to have taken your +revolver.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would have been of exactly as much use as a bucket of snow in +Africa,” I retorted. “If I had never closed my eyes, or if I had +kept my finger on the trigger of a six-shooter (which is novelesque for +revolver), the result would have been the same. And the next time you want a +little excitement with every variety of thrill thrown in, I can put you by way +of it. You begin by getting the wrong berth in a Pullman car, and +end—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know how it ends,” he finished shortly. “Don’t +you suppose the whole thing’s written on my spinal marrow?” +</p> + +<p> +But I am wandering again. That is the difficulty with the unprofessional +story-teller: he yaws back and forth and can’t keep in the wind; he drops +his characters overboard when he hasn’t any further use for them and +drowns them; he forgets the coffee-pot and the frying-pan and all the other +small essentials, and, if he carries a love affair, he mutters a fervent +“Allah be praised” when he lands them, drenched with adventures, at +the matrimonial dock at the end of the final chapter. +</p> + +<p> +I put in a thoroughly unsatisfactory afternoon. Time dragged eternally. I +dropped in at a summer vaudeville, and bought some ties at a +haberdasher’s. I was bored but unexpectant; I had no premonition of what +was to come. Nothing unusual had ever happened to me; friends of mine had +sometimes sailed the high seas of adventure or skirted the coasts of chance, +but all of the shipwrecks had occurred after a woman passenger had been taken +on. “<i>Ergo</i>,” I had always said “no women!” I +repeated it to myself that evening almost savagely, when I found my thoughts +straying back to the picture of John Gilmore’s granddaughter. I even +argued as I ate my solitary dinner at a downtown restaurant. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you troubles enough,” I reflected, “without +looking for more? Hasn’t Bad News gone lame, with a matinée race booked +for next week? Otherwise aren’t you comfortable? Isn’t your house +in order? Do you want to sell a pony in order to have the library done over in +mission or the drawing-room in gold? Do you want somebody to count the empty +cigarette boxes lying around every morning?” +</p> + +<p> +Lay it to the long idle afternoon, to the new environment, to anything you +like, but I began to think that perhaps I did. I was confoundedly lonely. For +the first time in my life its even course began to waver: the needle registered +warning marks on the matrimonial seismograph, lines vague enough, but lines. +</p> + +<p> +My alligator bag lay at my feet, still locked. While I waited for my coffee I +leaned back and surveyed the people incuriously. There were the usual couples +intent on each other: my new state of mind made me regard them with tolerance. +But at the next table, where a man and woman dined together, a different +atmosphere prevailed. My attention was first caught by the woman’s face. +She had been speaking earnestly across the table, her profile turned to me. I +had noticed casually her earnest manner, her somber clothes, and the great mass +of odd, bronze-colored hair on her neck. But suddenly she glanced toward me and +the utter hopelessness—almost tragedy—of her expression struck me +with a shock. She half closed her eyes and drew a long breath, then she turned +again to the man across the table. +</p> + +<p> +Neither one was eating. He sat low in his chair, his chin on his chest, ugly +folds of thick flesh protruding over his collar. He was probably fifty, bald, +grotesque, sullen, and yet not without a suggestion of power. But he had been +drinking; as I looked, he raised an unsteady hand and summoned a waiter with a +wine list. +</p> + +<p> +The young woman bent across the table and spoke again quickly. She had +unconsciously raised her voice. Not beautiful, in her earnestness and stress +she rather interested me. I had an idle inclination to advise the waiter to +remove the bottled temptation from the table. I wonder what would have happened +if I had? Suppose Harrington had not been intoxicated when he entered the +Pullman car Ontario that night! +</p> + +<p> +For they were about to make a journey, I gathered, and the young woman wished +to go alone. I drank three cups of coffee, which accounted for my wakefulness +later, and shamelessly watched the tableau before me. The woman’s protest +evidently went for nothing: across the table the man grunted monosyllabic +replies and grew more and more lowering and sullen. Once, during a brief +unexpected <i>pianissimo</i> in the music, her voice came to me sharply: +</p> + +<p> +“If I could only see him in time!” she was saying. “Oh, +it’s terrible!” +</p> + +<p> +In spite of my interest I would have forgotten the whole incident at once, +erased it from my mind as one does the inessentials and clutterings of memory, +had I not met them again, later that evening, in the Pennsylvania station. The +situation between them had not visibly altered: the same dogged determination +showed in the man’s face, but the young woman—daughter or wife? I +wondered—had drawn down her veil and I could only suspect what white +misery lay beneath. +</p> + +<p> +I bought my berth after waiting in a line of some eight or ten people. When, +step by step, I had almost reached the window, a tall woman whom I had not +noticed before spoke to me from my elbow. She had a ticket and money in her +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you try to get me a lower when you buy yours?” she asked. +“I have traveled for three nights in uppers.” +</p> + +<p> +I consented, of course; beyond that I hardly noticed the woman. I had a vague +impression of height and a certain amount of stateliness, but the crowd was +pushing behind me, and some one was standing on my foot. I got two lowers +easily, and, turning with the change and berths, held out the tickets. +</p> + +<p> +“Which will you have?” I asked. “Lower eleven or lower +ten?” +</p> + +<p> +“It makes no difference,” she said. “Thank you very much +indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +At random I gave her lower eleven, and called a porter to help her with her +luggage. I followed them leisurely to the train shed, and ten minutes more saw +us under way. +</p> + +<p> +I looked into my car, but it presented the peculiarly unattractive appearance +common to sleepers. The berths were made up; the center aisle was a path +between walls of dingy, breeze-repelling curtains, while the two seats at each +end of the car were piled high with suitcases and umbrellas. The perspiring +porter was trying to be six places at once: somebody has said that Pullman +porters are black so they won’t show the dirt, but they certainly show +the heat. +</p> + +<p> +Nine-fifteen was an outrageous hour to go to bed, especially since I sleep +little or not at all on the train, so I made my way to the smoker and passed +the time until nearly eleven with cigarettes and a magazine. The car was very +close. It was a warm night, and before turning in I stood a short time in the +vestibule. The train had been stopping at frequent intervals, and, finding the +brakeman there, I asked the trouble. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed that there was a hot-box on the next car, and that not only were we +late, but we were delaying the second section, just behind. I was beginning to +feel pleasantly drowsy, and the air was growing cooler as we got into the +mountains. I said good night to the brakeman and went back to my berth. To my +surprise, lower ten was already occupied—a suit-case projected from +beneath, a pair of shoes stood on the floor, and from behind the curtains came +the heavy, unmistakable breathing of deep sleep. I hunted out the porter and +together we investigated. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you asleep, sir?” asked the porter, leaning over +deferentially. No answer forthcoming, he opened the curtains and looked in. +Yes, the intruder was asleep—very much asleep—and an overwhelming +odor of whisky proclaimed that he would probably remain asleep until morning. I +was irritated. The car was full, and I was not disposed to take an upper in +order to allow this drunken interloper to sleep comfortably in my berth. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to get out of this,” I said, shaking him +angrily. But he merely grunted and turned over. As he did so, I saw his +features for the first time. It was the quarrelsome man of the restaurant. +</p> + +<p> +I was less disposed than ever to relinquish my claim, but the porter, after a +little quiet investigation, offered a solution of the difficulty. +“There’s no one in lower nine,” he suggested, pulling open +the curtains just across. “It’s likely nine’s his berth, and +he’s made a mistake, owing to his condition. You’d better take +nine, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +I did, with a firm resolution that if nine’s rightful owner turned up +later I should be just as unwakable as the man opposite. I undressed leisurely, +making sure of the safety of the forged notes, and placing my grip as before +between myself and the window. +</p> + +<p> +Being a man of systematic habits, I arranged my clothes carefully, putting my +shoes out for the porter to polish, and stowing my collar and scarf in the +little hammock swung for the purpose. +</p> + +<p> +At last, with my pillows so arranged that I could see out comfortably, and with +the unhygienic-looking blanket turned back—I have always a distrust of +those much-used affairs—I prepared to wait gradually for sleep. +</p> + +<p> +But sleep did not visit me. The train came to frequent, grating stops, and I +surmised the hot box again. I am not a nervous man, but there was something +chilling in the thought of the second section pounding along behind us. Once, +as I was dozing, our locomotive whistled a shrill warning—“You keep +back where you belong,” it screamed to my drowsy ears, and from somewhere +behind came a chastened “All-right-I-will.” +</p> + +<p> +I grew more and more wide-awake. At Cresson I got up on my elbow and blinked +out at the station lights. Some passengers boarded the train there and I heard +a woman’s low tones, a southern voice, rich and full. Then quiet again. +Every nerve was tense: time passed, perhaps ten minutes, possibly half an hour. +Then, without the slightest warning, as the train rounded a curve, a heavy body +was thrown into my berth. The incident, trivial as it seemed, was startling in +its suddenness, for although my ears were painfully strained and awake, I had +heard no step outside. The next instant the curtain hung limp again; still +without a sound, my disturber had slipped away into the gloom and darkness. In +a frenzy of wakefulness, I sat up, drew on a pair of slippers and fumbled for +my bath-robe. +</p> + +<p> +From a berth across, probably lower ten, came that particular aggravating snore +which begins lightly, delicately, faintly soprano, goes down the scale a note +with every breath, and, after keeping the listener tense with expectation, ends +with an explosion that tears the very air. I was more and more irritable: I sat +on the edge of the berth and hoped the snorer would choke to death. He had +considerable vitality, however; he withstood one shock after another and +survived to start again with new vigor. In desperation I found some cigarettes +and one match, piled my blankets over my grip, and drawing the curtains +together as though the berth were still occupied, I made my way to the +vestibule of the car. +</p> + +<p> +I was not clad for dress parade. Is it because the male is so restricted to +gloom in his every-day attire that he blossoms into gaudy colors in his pajamas +and dressing-gowns? It would take a Turk to feel at home before an audience in +my red and yellow bathrobe, a Christmas remembrance from Mrs. Klopton, with +slippers to match. +</p> + +<p> +So, naturally, when I saw a feminine figure on the platform, my first instinct +was to dodge. The woman, however, was quicker than I; she gave me a startled +glance, wheeled and disappeared, with a flash of two bronze-colored braids, +into the next car. +</p> + +<p> +Cigarette box in one hand, match in the other, I leaned against the uncertain +frame of the door and gazed after her vanished figure. The mountain air flapped +my bath-robe around my bare ankles, my one match burned to the end and went +out, and still I stared. For I had seen on her expressive face a haunting look +that was horror, nothing less. Heaven knows, I am not psychological. Emotions +have to be written large before I can read them. But a woman in trouble always +appeals to me, and this woman was more than that. She was in deadly fear. +</p> + +<p> +If I had not been afraid of being ridiculous, I would have followed her. But I +fancied that the apparition of a man in a red and yellow bath-robe, with an +unkempt thatch of hair, walking up to her and assuring her that he would +protect her would probably put her into hysterics. I had done that once before, +when burglars had tried to break into the house, and had startled the parlor +maid into bed for a week. So I tried to assure myself that I had imagined the +lady’s distress—or caused it, perhaps—and to dismiss her from +my mind. Perhaps she was merely anxious about the unpleasant gentleman of the +restaurant. I thought smugly that I could have told her all about him: that he +was sleeping the sleep of the just and the intoxicated in a berth that ought, +by all that was fair and right, to have been mine, and that if I were tied to a +man who snored like that I should have him anæsthetized and his soft palate put +where it would never again flap like a loose sail in the wind. +</p> + +<p> +We passed Harrisburg as I stood there. It was starlight, and the great crests +of the Alleghanies had given way to low hills. At intervals we passed smudges +of gray white, no doubt in daytime comfortable farms, which McKnight says is a +good way of putting it, the farms being a lot more comfortable than the people +on them. +</p> + +<p> +I was growing drowsy: the woman with the bronze hair and the horrified face was +fading in retrospect. It was colder, too, and I turned with a shiver to go in. +As I did so a bit of paper fluttered into the air and settled on my sleeve, +like a butterfly on a gorgeous red and yellow blossom. I picked it up curiously +and glanced at it. It was part of a telegram that had been torn into bits. +</p> + +<p> +There were only parts of four words on the scrap, but it left me puzzled and +thoughtful. It read, “—ower ten, car seve—.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lower ten, car seven,” was my berth—the one I had bought and +found preempted. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /> +ACROSS THE AISLE</h2> + +<p> +No solution offering itself, I went back to my berth. The snorer across had +apparently strangled, or turned over, and so after a time I dropped asleep, to +be awakened by the morning sunlight across my face. +</p> + +<p> +I felt for my watch, yawning prodigiously. I reached under the pillow and +failed to find it, but something scratched the back of my hand. I sat up +irritably and nursed the wound, which was bleeding a little. Still drowsy, I +felt more cautiously for what I supposed had been my scarf pin, but there was +nothing there. Wide awake now, I reached for my traveling-bag, on the chance +that I had put my watch in there. I had drawn the satchel to me and had my hand +on the lock before I realized that it was not my own! +</p> + +<p> +Mine was of alligator hide. I had killed the beast in Florida, after the +expenditure of enough money to have bought a house and enough energy to have +built one. The bag I held in my hand was a black one, sealskin, I think. The +staggering thought of what the loss of my bag meant to me put my finger on the +bell and kept it there until the porter came. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ring, sir?” he asked, poking his head through the curtains +obsequiously. McKnight objects that nobody can poke his head through a curtain +and be obsequious. But Pullman porters can and do. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I snapped. “It rang itself. What in thunder do you mean +by exchanging my valise for this one? You’ll have to find it if you waken +the entire car to do it. There are important papers in that grip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Porter,” called a feminine voice from an upper berth near-by. +“Porter, am I to dangle here all day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let her dangle,” I said savagely. “You find that bag of +mine.” +</p> + +<p> +The porter frowned. Then he looked at me with injured dignity. “I brought +in your overcoat, sir. You carried your own valise.” +</p> + +<p> +The fellow was right! In an excess of caution I had refused to relinquish my +alligator bag, and had turned over my other traps to the porter. It was clear +enough then. I was simply a victim of the usual sleeping-car robbery. I was in +a lather of perspiration by that time: the lady down the car was still dangling +and talking about it: still nearer a feminine voice was giving quick orders in +French, presumably to a maid. The porter was on his knees, looking under the +berth. +</p> + +<p> +“Not there, sir,” he said, dusting his knees. He was visibly more +cheerful, having been absolved of responsibility. “Reckon it was taken +while you was wanderin’ around the car last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you fifty dollars if you find it,” I said. +“A hundred. Reach up my shoes and I’ll—” +</p> + +<p> +I stopped abruptly. My eyes were fixed in stupefied amazement on a coat that +hung from a hook at the foot of my berth. From the coat they traveled, dazed, +to the soft-bosomed shirt beside it, and from there to the collar and cravat in +the net hammock across the windows. +</p> + +<p> +“A hundred!” the porter repeated, showing his teeth. But I caught +him by the arm and pointed to the foot of the berth. +</p> + +<p> +“What—what color’s that coat?” I asked unsteadily. +</p> + +<p> +“Gray, sir.” His tone was one of gentle reproof. +</p> + +<p> +“And—the trousers?” +</p> + +<p> +He reached over and held up one creased leg. “Gray, too,” he +grinned. +</p> + +<p> +“Gray!” I could not believe even his corroboration of my own eyes. +“But my clothes were blue!” The porter was amused: he dived under +the curtains and brought up a pair of shoes. “Your shoes, sir,” he +said with a flourish. “Reckon you’ve been dreaming, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Now, there are two things I always avoid in my dress—possibly an +idiosyncrasy of my bachelor existence. These tabooed articles are red neckties +and tan shoes. And not only were the shoes the porter lifted from the floor of +a gorgeous shade of yellow, but the scarf which was run through the turned over +collar was a gaudy red. It took a full minute for the real import of things to +penetrate my dazed intelligence. Then I gave a vindictive kick at the offending +ensemble. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re not mine, any of them,” I snarled. “They are +some other fellow’s. I’ll sit here until I take root before I put +them on.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re nice lookin’ clothes,” the porter put in, +eying the red tie with appreciation. “Ain’t everybody would have +left you anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Call the conductor,” I said shortly. Then a possible explanation +occurred to me. “Oh, porter—what’s the number of this +berth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seven, sir. If you cain’t wear those shoes—” +</p> + +<p> +“Seven!” In my relief I almost shouted it. “Why, then, +it’s simple enough. I’m in the wrong berth, that’s all. My +berth is nine. Only—where the deuce is the man who belongs here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Likely in nine, sir.” The darky was enjoying himself. “You +and the other gentleman just got mixed in the night. That’s all, +sir.” It was clear that he thought I had been drinking. +</p> + +<p> +I drew a long breath. Of course, that was the explanation. This was number +seven’s berth, that was his soft hat, this his umbrella, his coat, his +bag. My rage turned to irritation at myself. +</p> + +<p> +The porter went to the next berth and I could hear his softly insinuating +voice. “Time to get up, sir. Are you awake? Time to get up.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no response from number nine. I guessed that he had opened the +curtains and was looking in. Then he came back. +</p> + +<p> +“Number nine’s empty,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Empty! Do you mean my clothes aren’t there?” I demanded. +“My valise? Why don’t you answer me?” +</p> + +<p> +“You doan’ give me time,” he retorted. “There +ain’t nothin’ there. But it’s been slept in.” +</p> + +<p> +The disappointment was the greater for my few moments of hope. I sat up in a +white fury and put on the clothes that had been left me. Then, still raging, I +sat on the edge of the berth and put on the obnoxious tan shoes. The porter, +called to his duties, made little excursions back to me, to offer assistance +and to chuckle at my discomfiture. He stood by, outwardly decorous, but with +little irritating grins of amusement around his mouth, when I finally emerged +with the red tie in my hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Bet the owner of those clothes didn’t become them any more than +you do,” he said, as he plied the ubiquitous whisk broom. +</p> + +<p> +“When I get the owner of these clothes,” I retorted grimly, +“he will need a shroud. Where’s the conductor?” +</p> + +<p> +The conductor was coming, he assured me; also that there was no bag answering +the description of mine on the car. I slammed my way to the dressing-room, +washed, choked my fifteen and a half neck into a fifteen collar, and was back +again in less than five minutes. The car, as well as its occupants, was +gradually taking on a daylight appearance. I hobbled in, for one of the shoes +was abominably tight, and found myself facing a young woman in blue with an +unforgettable face. (“Three women already.” McKnight says: +“That’s going some, even if you don’t count the Gilmore +nurse.”) She stood, half-turned toward me, one hand idly drooping, the +other steadying her as she gazed out at the flying landscape. I had an instant +impression that I had met her somewhere, under different circumstances, more +cheerful ones, I thought, for the girl’s dejection now was evident. +Beside her, sitting down, a small dark woman, considerably older, was talking +in a rapid undertone. The girl nodded indifferently now and then. I fancied, +although I was not sure, that my appearance brought a startled look into the +young woman’s face. I sat down and, hands thrust deep into the other +man’s pockets, stared ruefully at the other man’s shoes. +</p> + +<p> +The stage was set. In a moment the curtain was going up on the first act of the +play. And for a while we would all say our little speeches and sing our little +songs, and I, the villain, would hold center stage while the gallery hissed. +</p> + +<p> +The porter was standing beside lower ten. He had reached in and was knocking +valiantly. But his efforts met with no response. He winked at me over his +shoulder; then he unfastened the curtains and bent forward. Behind him, I saw +him stiffen, heard his muttered exclamation, saw the bluish pallor that spread +over his face and neck. As he retreated a step the interior of lower ten lay +open to the day. +</p> + +<p> +The man in it was on his back, the early morning sun striking full on his +upturned face. But the light did not disturb him. A small stain of red dyed the +front of his night clothes and trailed across the sheet; his half-open eyes +were fixed, without seeing, on the shining wood above. +</p> + +<p> +I grasped the porter’s shaking shoulders and stared down to where the +train imparted to the body a grisly suggestion of motion. “Good +Lord,” I gasped. “The man’s been murdered!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /> +NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE</h2> + +<p> +Afterwards, when I tried to recall our discovery of the body in lower ten, I +found that my most vivid impression was not that made by the revelation of the +opened curtain. I had an instantaneous picture of a slender blue-gowned girl +who seemed to sense my words rather than hear them, of two small hands that +clutched desperately at the seat beside them. The girl in the aisle stood, bent +toward us, perplexity and alarm fighting in her face. +</p> + +<p> +With twitching hands the porter attempted to draw the curtains together. Then +in a paralysis of shock, he collapsed on the edge of my berth and sat there +swaying. In my excitement I shook him. +</p> + +<p> +“For Heaven’s sake, keep your nerve, man,” I said bruskly. +“You’ll have every woman in the car in hysterics. And if you do, +you’ll wish you could change places with the man in there.” He +rolled his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +A man near, who had been reading last night’s paper, dropped it quickly +and tiptoed toward us. He peered between the partly open curtains, closed them +quietly and went back, ostentatiously solemn, to his seat. The very crackle +with which he opened his paper added to the bursting curiosity of the car. For +the passengers knew that something was amiss: I was conscious of a sudden +tension. +</p> + +<p> +With the curtains closed the porter was more himself; he wiped his lips with a +handkerchief and stood erect. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my last trip in <i>this</i> car,” he remarked heavily. +“There’s something wrong with that berth. Last trip the woman in it +took an overdose of some sleeping stuff, and we found her, jes’ like +that, dead! And it ain’t more’n three months now since there was +twins born in that very spot. No, sir, it ain’t natural.” +</p> + +<p> +At that moment a thin man with prominent eyes and a spare grayish goatee +creaked up the aisle and paused beside me. +</p> + +<p> +“Porter sick?” he inquired, taking in with a professional eye the +porter’s horror-struck face, my own excitement and the slightly gaping +curtains of lower ten. He reached for the darky’s pulse and pulled out an +old-fashioned gold watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Hm! Only fifty! What’s the matter? Had a shock?” he asked +shrewdly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I answered for the porter. “We’ve both had one. +If you are a doctor, I wish you would look at the man in the berth across, +lower ten. I’m afraid it’s too late, but I’m not experienced +in such matters.” +</p> + +<p> +Together we opened the curtains, and the doctor, bending down, gave a +comprehensive glance that took in the rolling head, the relaxed jaw, the ugly +stain on the sheet. The examination needed only a moment. Death was written in +the clear white of the nostrils, the colorless lips, the smoothing away of the +sinister lines of the night before. With its new dignity the face was not +unhandsome: the gray hair was still plentiful, the features strong and well +cut. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor straightened himself and turned to me. “Dead for some +time,” he said, running a professional finger over the stains. +“These are dry and darkened, you see, and <i>rigor mortis</i> is well +established. A friend of yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know him at all,” I replied. “Never saw him +but once before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you don’t know if he is traveling alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he was not—that is, I don’t know anything about +him,” I corrected myself. It was my first blunder: the doctor glanced up +at me quickly and then turned his attention again to the body. Like a flash +there had come to me the vision of the woman with the bronze hair and the +tragic face, whom I had surprised in the vestibule between the cars, somewhere +in the small hours of the morning. I had acted on my first impulse—the +masculine one of shielding a woman. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor had unfastened the coat of the striped pajamas and exposed the dead +man’s chest. On the left side was a small punctured wound of +insignificant size. +</p> + +<p> +“Very neatly done,” the doctor said with appreciation. +“Couldn’t have done it better myself. Right through the intercostal +space: no time even to grunt.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t the heart around there somewhere?” I asked. The +medical man turned toward me and smiled austerely. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s where it belongs, just under that puncture, when it +isn’t gadding around in a man’s throat or his boots.” +</p> + +<p> +I had a new respect for the doctor, for any one indeed who could crack even a +feeble joke under such circumstances, or who could run an impersonal finger +over that wound and those stains. Odd how a healthy, normal man holds the +medical profession in half contemptuous regard until he gets sick, or an +emergency like this arises, and then turns meekly to the man who knows the ins +and outs of his mortal tenement, takes his pills or his patronage, ties to him +like a rudderless ship in a gale. +</p> + +<p> +“Suicide, is it, doctor?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He stood erect, after drawing the bed-clothing over the face, and, taking off +his glasses, he wiped them slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it is not suicide,” he announced decisively. “It is +murder.” +</p> + +<p> +Of course, I had expected that, but the word itself brought a shiver. I was +just a bit dizzy. Curious faces through the car were turned toward us, and I +could hear the porter behind me breathing audibly. A stout woman in negligee +came down the aisle and querulously confronted the porter. She wore a pink +dressing-jacket and carried portions of her clothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Porter,” she began, in the voice of the lady who had +“dangled,” “is there a rule of this company that will allow a +woman to occupy the dressing-room for one hour and curl her hair with an +alcohol lamp while respectable people haven’t a place where they can hook +their—” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped suddenly and stared into lower ten. Her shining pink cheeks grew +pasty, her jaw fell. I remember trying to think of something to say, and of +saying nothing at all. Then—she had buried her eyes in the nondescript +garments that hung from her arm and tottered back the way she had come. Slowly +a little knot of men gathered around us, silent for the most part. The doctor +was making a search of the berth when the conductor elbowed his way through, +followed by the inquisitive man, who had evidently summoned him. I had lost +sight, for a time, of the girl in blue. +</p> + +<p> +“Do it himself?” the conductor queried, after a businesslike glance +at the body. +</p> + +<p> +“No, he didn’t,” the doctor asserted. “There’s no +weapon here, and the window is closed. He couldn’t have thrown it out, +and he didn’t swallow it. What on earth are you looking for, man?” +</p> + +<p> +Some one was on the floor at our feet, face down, head peering under the berth. +Now he got up without apology, revealing the man who had summoned the +conductor. He was dusty, alert, cheerful, and he dragged up with him the dead +man’s suit-case. The sight of it brought back to me at once my own +predicament. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know whether there’s any connection or not, +conductor,” I said, “but I am a victim, too, in less degree; +I’ve been robbed of everything I possess, except a red and yellow +bath-robe. I happened to be wearing the bath-robe, which was probably the +reason the thief overlooked it.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a fresh murmur in the crowd. Some body laughed nervously. The +conductor was irritated. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t bother with that now,” he snarled. “The +railroad company is responsible for transportation, not for clothes, jewelry +and morals. If people want to be stabbed and robbed in the company’s +cars, it’s their affair. Why didn’t you sleep in your clothes? I +do.” +</p> + +<p> +I took an angry step forward. Then somebody touched my arm, and I unclenched my +fist. I could understand the conductor’s position, and beside, in the +law, I had been guilty myself of contributory negligence. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not trying to make you responsible,” I protested as +amiably as I could, “and I believe the clothes the thief left are as good +as my own. They are certainly newer. But my valise contained valuable papers +and it is to your interest as well as mine to find the man who stole it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, of course,” the conductor said shrewdly. “Find the man +who skipped out with this gentleman’s clothes, and you’ve probably +got the murderer.” +</p> + +<p> +“I went to bed in lower nine,” I said, my mind full again of my +lost papers, “and I wakened in number seven. I was up in the night +prowling around, as I was unable to sleep, and I must have gone back to the +wrong berth. Anyhow, until the porter wakened me this morning I knew nothing of +my mistake. In the interval the thief—murderer, too, perhaps—must +have come back, discovered my error, and taken advantage of it to further his +escape.” +</p> + +<p> +The inquisitive man looked at me from between narrowed eyelids, ferret-like. +</p> + +<p> +“Did any one on the train suspect you of having valuable papers?” +he inquired. The crowd was listening intently. +</p> + +<p> +“No one,” I answered promptly and positively. The doctor was +investigating the murdered man’s effects. The pockets of his trousers +contained the usual miscellany of keys and small change, while in his hip +pocket was found a small pearl-handled revolver of the type women usually keep +around. A gold watch with a Masonic charm had slid down between the mattress +and the window, while a showy diamond stud was still fastened in the bosom of +his shirt. Taken as a whole, the personal belongings were those of a man of +some means, but without any particular degree of breeding. The doctor heaped +them together. +</p> + +<p> +“Either robbery was not the motive,” he reflected, “or the +thief overlooked these things in his hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +The latter hypothesis seemed the more tenable, when, after a thorough search, +we found no pocketbook and less than a dollar in small change. +</p> + +<p> +The suit-case gave no clue. It contained one empty leather-covered flask and a +pint bottle, also empty, a change of linen and some collars with the laundry +mark, S. H. In the leather tag on the handle was a card with the name Simon +Harrington, Pittsburg. The conductor sat down on my unmade berth, across, and +made an entry of the name and address. Then, on an old envelope, he wrote a few +words and gave it to the porter, who disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess that’s all I can do,” he said. “I’ve had +enough trouble this trip to last for a year. They don’t need a conductor +on these trains any more; what they ought to have is a sheriff and a +<i>posse</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +The porter from the next car came in and whispered to him. The conductor rose +unhappily. +</p> + +<p> +“Next car’s caught the disease,” he grumbled. “Doctor, +a woman back there has got mumps or bubonic plague, or something. Will you come +back?” +</p> + +<p> +The strange porter stood aside. +</p> + +<p> +“Lady about the middle of the car,” he said, “in black, sir, +with queer-looking hair—sort of copper color, I think, sir.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /> +THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR</h2> + +<p> +With the departure of the conductor and the doctor, the group around lower ten +broke up, to re-form in smaller knots through the car. The porter remained on +guard. With something of relief I sank into a seat. I wanted to think, to try +to remember the details of the previous night. But my inquisitive acquaintance +had other intentions. He came up and sat down beside me. Like the conductor, he +had taken notes of the dead man’s belongings, his name, address, clothing +and the general circumstances of the crime. Now with his little note-book open +before him, he prepared to enjoy the minor sensation of the robbery. +</p> + +<p> +“And now for the second victim,” he began cheerfully. “What +is your name and address, please?” I eyed him with suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost everything but my name and address,” I parried. +“What do you want them for? Publication?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no; dear, no!” he said, shocked at my misapprehension. +“Merely for my own enlightenment. I like to gather data of this kind and +draw my own conclusions. Most interesting and engrossing. Once or twice I have +forestalled the results of police investigation—but entirely for my own +amusement.” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded tolerantly. Most of us have hobbies; I knew a man once who carried his +handkerchief up his sleeve and had a mania for old colored prints cut out of +Godey’s <i>Lady’s Book</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“I use that inductive method originated by Poe and followed since with +such success by Conan Doyle. Have you ever read <i>Gaboriau?</i> Ah, you have +missed a treat, indeed. And now, to get down to business, what is the name of +our escaped thief and probable murderer?” +</p> + +<p> +“How on earth do I know?” I demanded impatiently. “He +didn’t write it in blood anywhere, did he?” +</p> + +<p> +The little man looked hurt and disappointed. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that the pockets of those +clothes are entirely empty?” The pockets! In the excitement I had +forgotten entirely the sealskin grip which the porter now sat at my feet, and I +had not investigated the pockets at all. With the inquisitive man’s +pencil taking note of everything that I found, I emptied them on the opposite +seat. +</p> + +<p> +Upper left-hand waist-coat, two lead pencils and a fountain pen; lower right +waist-coat, match-box and a small stamp book; right-hand pocket coat, pair of +gray suede gloves, new, size seven and a half; left-hand pocket, gun-metal +cigarette case studded with pearls, half-full of Egyptian cigarettes. The +trousers pockets contained a gold penknife, a small amount of money in bills +and change, and a handkerchief with the initial “S” on it. +</p> + +<p> +Further search through the coat discovered a card-case with cards bearing the +name Henry Pinckney Sullivan, and a leather flask with gold mountings, filled +with what seemed to be very fair whisky, and monogrammed H. P. S. +</p> + +<p> +“His name evidently is Henry Pinckney Sullivan,” said the cheerful +follower of Poe, as he wrote it down. “Address as yet unknown. Blond, +probably. Have you noticed that it is almost always the blond men who affect a +very light gray, with a touch of red in the scarf? Fact, I assure you. I kept a +record once of the summer attire of men, and ninety per cent, followed my rule. +Dark men like you affect navy blue, or brown.” +</p> + +<p> +In spite of myself I was amused at the man’s shrewdness. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; the suit he took was dark—a blue,” I said. He rubbed +his hands and smiled at me delightedly. “Then you wore black shoes, not +tan,” he said, with a glance at the aggressive yellow ones I wore. +</p> + +<p> +“Right again,” I acknowledged. “Black low shoes and black +embroidered hose. If you keep on you’ll have a motive for the crime, and +the murderer’s present place of hiding. And if you come back to the +smoker with me, I’ll give you an opportunity to judge if he knew good +whisky from bad.” +</p> + +<p> +I put the articles from the pockets back again and got up. “I wonder if +there is a diner on?” I said. “I need something sustaining after +all this.” +</p> + +<p> +I was conscious then of some one at my elbow. I turned to see the young woman +whose face was so vaguely familiar. In the very act of speaking she drew back +suddenly and colored. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,—I beg your pardon,” she said hurriedly, +“I—thought you were—some one else.” She was looking in +a puzzled fashion at my coat. I felt all the cringing guilt of a man who has +accidentally picked up the wrong umbrella: my borrowed collar sat tight on my +neck. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” I said idiotically. “I’m sorry, +but—I’m not.” I have learned since that she has bright brown +hair, with a loose wave in it that drops over her ears, and dark blue eyes with +black lashes and—but what does it matter? One enjoys a picture as a +whole: not as the sum of its parts. +</p> + +<p> +She saw the flask then, and her errand came back to her. “One of the +ladies at the end of car has fainted,” she explained. “I thought +perhaps a stimulant—” +</p> + +<p> +I picked up the flask at once and followed my guide down the aisle. Two or +three women were working over the woman who had fainted. They had opened her +collar and taken out her hairpins, whatever good that might do. The stout woman +was vigorously rubbing her wrists, with the idea, no doubt, of working up her +pulse! The unconscious woman was the one for whom I had secured lower eleven at +the station. +</p> + +<p> +I poured a little liquor in a bungling masculine fashion between her lips as +she leaned back, with closed eyes. She choked, coughed, and rallied somewhat. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor thing,” said the stout lady. “As she lies back that way +I could almost think it was my mother; she used to faint so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would make anybody faint,” chimed in another. “Murder and +robbery in one night and on one car. I’m thankful I always wear my rings +in a bag around my neck—even if they do get under me and keep me +awake.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl in blue was looking at us with wide, startled eyes. I saw her pale a +little, saw the quick, apprehensive glance which she threw at her traveling +companion, the small woman I had noticed before. There was an +exchange—almost a clash—of glances. The small woman frowned. That +was all. I turned my attention again to my patient. +</p> + +<p> +She had revived somewhat, and now she asked to have the window opened. The +train had stopped again and the car was oppressively hot. People around were +looking at their watches and grumbling over the delay. The doctor bustled in +with a remark about its being his busy day. The amateur detective and the +porter together mounted guard over lower ten. Outside the heat rose in +shimmering waves from the tracks: the very wood of the car was hot to touch. A +Camberwell Beauty darted through the open door and made its way, in erratic +plunges, great wings waving, down the sunny aisle. All around lay the peace of +harvested fields, the quiet of the country. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /> +THE GIRL IN BLUE</h2> + +<p> +I was growing more and more irritable. The thought of what the loss of the +notes meant was fast crowding the murder to the back of my mind. The forced +inaction was intolerable. +</p> + +<p> +The porter had reported no bag answering the description of mine on the train, +but I was disposed to make my own investigation. I made a tour of the cars, +scrutinizing every variety of hand luggage, ranging from luxurious English bags +with gold mountings to the wicker nondescripts of the day coach at the rear. I +was not alone in my quest, for the girl in blue was just ahead of me. Car by +car she preceded me through the train, unconscious that I was behind her, +looking at each passenger as she passed. I fancied the proceeding was +distasteful, but that she had determined on a course and was carrying it +through. We reached the end of the train almost together—empty-handed, +both of us. +</p> + +<p> +The girl went out to the platform. When she saw me she moved aside, and I +stepped out beside her. Behind us the track curved sharply; the early sunshine +threw the train, in long black shadow, over the hot earth. Forward somewhere +they were hammering. The girl said nothing, but her profile was strained and +anxious. +</p> + +<p> +“I—if you have lost anything,” I began, “I wish you +would let me try to help. Not that my own success is anything to boast +of.” +</p> + +<p> +She hardly glanced at me. It was not flattering. “I have not been robbed, +if that is what you mean,” she replied quietly. “I +am—perplexed. That is all.” +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing to say to that. I lifted my hat—the other +fellow’s hat—and turned to go back to my car. Two or three members +of the train crew, including the conductor, were standing in the shadow +talking. And at that moment, from a farm-house near came the swift clang of the +breakfast bell, calling in the hands from barn and pasture. I turned back to +the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“We may be here for an hour,” I said, “and there is no buffet +car on. If I remember my youth, that bell means ham and eggs and country butter +and coffee. If you care to run the risk—” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not hungry,” she said, “but perhaps a cup of +coffee—dear me, I believe I <i>am</i> hungry,” she finished. +“Only—” She glanced back of her. +</p> + +<p> +“I can bring your companion,” I suggested, without enthusiasm. But +the young woman shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“She is not hungry,” she objected, “and she is +very—well, I know she wouldn’t come. Do you suppose we could make +it if we run?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t any idea,” I said cheerfully. “Any old train +would be better than this one, if it does leave us behind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Any train would be better than this one,” she repeated +gravely. I found myself watching her changing expression. I had spoken two +dozen words to her and already I felt that I knew the lights and shades in her +voice,—I, who had always known how a woman rode to hounds, and who never +could have told the color of her hair. +</p> + +<p> +I stepped down on the ties and turned to assist her, and together we walked +back to where the conductor and the porter from our car were in close +conversation. Instinctively my hand went to my cigarette pocket and came out +empty. She saw the gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“If you want to smoke, you may,” she said. “I have a big +cousin who smokes all the time. He says I am ‘kippered.’” +</p> + +<p> +I drew out the gun-metal cigarette case and opened it. But this most +commonplace action had an extraordinary result: the girl beside me stopped dead +still and stood staring at it with fascinated eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Is—where did you get that?” she demanded, with a catch in +her voice; her gaze still fixed on the cigarette case. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you haven’t heard the rest of the tragedy?” I asked, +holding out the case. “It’s frightfully bad luck for me, but it +makes a good story. You see—” +</p> + +<p> +At that moment the conductor and porter ceased their colloquy. The conductor +came directly toward me, tugging as he came at his bristling gray mustache. +</p> + +<p> +“I would like to talk to you in the car,” he said to me, with a +curious glance at the young lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t it wait?” I objected. “We are on our way to a +cup of coffee and a slice of bacon. Be merciful, as you are powerful.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid the breakfast will have to wait,” he replied. +“I won’t keep you long.” There was a note of authority in his +voice which I resented; but, after all, the circumstances were unusual. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll have to defer that cup of coffee for a while,” I said +to the girl; “but don’t despair; there’s breakfast +somewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +As we entered the car, she stood aside, but I felt rather than saw that she +followed us. I was surprised to see a half dozen men gathered around the berth +in which I had wakened, number seven. It had not yet been made up. +</p> + +<p> +As we passed along the aisle, I was conscious of a new expression on the faces +of the passengers. The tall woman who had fainted was searching my face with +narrowed eyes, while the stout woman of the kindly heart avoided my gaze, and +pretended to look out the window. +</p> + +<p> +As we pushed our way through the group, I fancied that it closed around me +ominously. The conductor said nothing, but led the way without ceremony to the +side of the berth. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” I inquired. I was puzzled, but not +apprehensive. “Have you some of my things? I’d be thankful even for +my shoes; these are confoundedly tight.” +</p> + +<p> +Nobody spoke, and I fell silent, too. For one of the pillows had been turned +over, and the under side of the white case was streaked with brownish stains. I +think it was a perceptible time before I realized that the stains were blood, +and that the faces around were filled with suspicion and distrust. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it—that looks like blood,” I said vacuously. There was +an incessant pounding in my ears, and the conductor’s voice came from far +off. +</p> + +<p> +“It is blood,” he asserted grimly. +</p> + +<p> +I looked around with a dizzy attempt at nonchalance. “Even if it +is,” I remonstrated, “surely you don’t suppose for a moment +that I know anything about it!” +</p> + +<p> +The amateur detective elbowed his way in. He had a scrap of transparent paper +in his hand, and a pencil. +</p> + +<p> +“I would like permission to trace the stains,” he began eagerly. +“Also”—to me—“if you will kindly jab your finger +with a pin—needle—anything—” +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t keep out of this,” the conductor said savagely, +“I will do some jabbing myself. As for you, sir—” he turned +to me. I was absolutely innocent, but I knew that I presented a typical picture +of guilt; I was covered with cold sweat, and the pounding in my ears kept up +dizzily. “As for you, sir—” +</p> + +<p> +The irrepressible amateur detective made a quick pounce at the pillow and +pushed back the cover. Before our incredulous eyes he drew out a narrow steel +dirk which had been buried to the small cross that served as a head. +</p> + +<p> +There was a chorus of voices around, a quick surging forward of the crowd. So +that was what had scratched my hand! I buried the wound in my coat pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I said, trying to speak naturally, “doesn’t +that prove what I have been telling you? The man who committed the murder +belonged to this berth, and made an exchange in some way after the crime. How +do you know he didn’t change the tags so I would come back to this +berth?” This was an inspiration; I was pleased with it. +“That’s what he did, he changed the tags,” I reiterated. +</p> + +<p> +There was a murmur of assent around. The doctor, who was standing beside me, +put his hand on my arm. “If this gentleman committed this crime, and I +for one feel sure he did not, then who is the fellow who got away? And why did +he go?” +</p> + +<p> +“We have only one man’s word for that,” the conductor +snarled. “I’ve traveled some in these cars myself, and no one ever +changed berths with <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Somebody on the edge of the group asserted that hereafter he would travel by +daylight. I glanced up and caught the eye of the girl in blue. +</p> + +<p> +“They are all mad,” she said. Her tone was low, but I heard her +distinctly. “Don’t take them seriously enough to defend +yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you think I didn’t do it,” I observed meekly, over +the crowd. “Nothing else is of any importance.” +</p> + +<p> +The conductor had pulled out his note-book again. “Your name, +please,” he said gruffly. +</p> + +<p> +“Lawrence Blakeley, Washington.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your occupation?” +</p> + +<p> +“Attorney. A member of the firm of Blakeley and McKnight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Blakeley, you say you have occupied the wrong berth and have been +robbed. Do you know anything of the man who did it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only from what he left behind,” I answered. “These +clothes—” +</p> + +<p> +“They fit you,” he said with quick suspicion. “Isn’t +that rather a coincidence? You are a large man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Heavens,” I retorted, stung into fury, “do I look like +a man who would wear this kind of a necktie? Do you suppose I carry purple and +green barred silk handkerchiefs? Would any man in his senses wear a pair of +shoes a full size too small?” +</p> + +<p> +The conductor was inclined to hedge. “You will have to grant that I am in +a peculiar position,” he said. “I have only your word as to the +exchange of berths, and you understand I am merely doing my duty. Are there any +clues in the pockets?” +</p> + +<p> +For the second time I emptied them of their contents, which he noted. “Is +that all?” he finished. “There was nothing else?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not all, sir,” broke in the porter, stepping forward. +“There was a small black satchel.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s so,” I exclaimed. “I forgot the bag. I +don’t even know where it is.” +</p> + +<p> +The easily swayed crowd looked suspicious again. I’ve grown so accustomed +to reading the faces of a jury, seeing them swing from doubt to belief, and +back again to doubt, that I instinctively watch expressions. I saw that my +forgetfulness had done me harm—that suspicion was roused again. +</p> + +<p> +The bag was found a couple of seats away, under somebody’s +raincoat—another dubious circumstance. Was I hiding it? It was brought to +the berth and placed beside the conductor, who opened it at once. +</p> + +<p> +It contained the usual traveling impedimenta—change of linen, collars, +handkerchiefs, a bronze-green scarf, and a safety razor. But the attention of +the crowd riveted itself on a flat, Russia leather wallet, around which a heavy +gum band was wrapped, and which bore in gilt letters the name “Simon +Harrington.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /> +A FINE GOLD CHAIN</h2> + +<p> +The conductor held it out to me, his face sternly accusing. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this another coincidence?” he asked. “Did the man who +left you his clothes and the barred silk handkerchief and the tight shoes leave +you the spoil of the murder?” +</p> + +<p> +The men standing around had drawn off a little, and I saw the absolute futility +of any remonstrance. Have you ever seen a fly, who, in these hygienic days, +finding no cobwebs to entangle him, is caught in a sheet of fly paper, finds +himself more and more mired, and is finally quiet with the sticky stillness of +despair? +</p> + +<p> +Well, I was the fly. I had seen too much of circumstantial evidence to have any +belief that the establishing of my identity would weigh much against the other +incriminating details. It meant imprisonment and trial, probably, with all the +notoriety and loss of practice they would entail. A man thinks quickly at a +time like that. All the probable consequences of the finding of that +pocket-book flashed through my mind as I extended my hand to take it. Then I +drew my arm back. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want it,” I said. “Look inside. Maybe the +other man took the money and left the wallet.” +</p> + +<p> +The conductor opened it, and again there was a curious surging forward of the +crowd. To my intense disappointment the money was still there. +</p> + +<p> +I stood blankly miserable while it was counted out—five +one-hundred-dollar bills, six twenties, and some fives and ones that brought +the total to six hundred and fifty dollars. +</p> + +<p> +The little man with the note-book insisted on taking the numbers of the notes, +to the conductor’s annoyance. It was immaterial to me: small things had +lost their power to irritate. I was seeing myself in the prisoner’s box, +going through all the nerve-racking routine of a trial for murder—the +challenging of the jury, the endless cross-examinations, the alternate hope and +fear. I believe I said before that I had no nerves, but for a few minutes that +morning I was as near as a man ever comes to hysteria. +</p> + +<p> +I folded my arms and gave myself a mental shake. I seemed to be the center of a +hundred eyes, expressing every shade of doubt and distrust, but I tried not to +flinch. Then some one created a diversion. +</p> + +<p> +The amateur detective was busy again with the seal-skin bag, investigating the +make of the safety razor and the manufacturer’s name on the bronze-green +tie. Now, however, he paused and frowned, as though some pet theory had been +upset. +</p> + +<p> +Then from a corner of the bag he drew out and held up for our inspection some +three inches of fine gold chain, one end of which was blackened and stained +with blood! +</p> + +<p> +The conductor held out his hand for it, but the little man was not ready to +give it up. He turned to me. +</p> + +<p> +“You say no watch was left you? Was there a piece of chain like +that?” +</p> + +<p> +“No chain at all,” I said sulkily. “No jewelry of any kind, +except plain gold buttons in the shirt I am wearing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where are your glasses?” he threw at me suddenly: instinctively my +hand went to my eyes. My glasses had been gone all morning, and I had not even +noticed their absence. The little man smiled cynically and held out the chain. +</p> + +<p> +“I must ask you to examine this,” he insisted. “Isn’t +it a part of the fine gold chain you wear over your ear?” +</p> + +<p> +I didn’t want to touch the thing: the stain at the end made me shudder. +But with a baker’s dozen of suspicious eyes—well, we’ll say +fourteen: there were no one-eyed men—I took the fragment in the tips of +my fingers and looked at it helplessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very fine chains are much alike,” I managed to say. “For all +I know, this may be mine, but I don’t know how it got into that sealskin +bag. I never saw the bag until this morning after daylight.” +</p> + +<p> +“He admits that he had the bag,” somebody said behind me. +“How did you guess that he wore glasses, anyhow?” to the amateur +sleuth. +</p> + +<p> +That gentleman cleared his throat. “There were two reasons,” he +said, “for suspecting it. When you see a man with the lines of his face +drooping, a healthy individual with a pensive eye,—suspect astigmatism. +Besides, this gentleman has a pronounced line across the bridge of his nose and +a mark on his ear from the chain.” +</p> + +<p> +After this remarkable exhibition of the theoretical as combined with the +practical, he sank into a seat near-by, and still holding the chain, sat with +closed eyes and pursed lips. It was evident to all the car that the solution of +the mystery was a question of moments. Once he bent forward eagerly and putting +the chain on the window-sill, proceeded to go over it with a pocket magnifying +glass, only to shake his head in disappointment. All the people around shook +their heads too, although they had not the slightest idea what it was about. +</p> + +<p> +The pounding in my ears began again. The group around me seemed to be suddenly +motionless in the very act of moving, as if a hypnotist had called +“Rigid!” The girl in blue was looking at me, and above the din I +thought she said she must speak to me—something vital. The pounding grew +louder and merged into a scream. With a grinding and splintering the car rose +under my feet. Then it fell away into darkness. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +THE SECOND SECTION</h2> + +<p> +Have you ever been picked up out of your three-meals-a-day life, whirled around +in a tornado of events, and landed in a situation so grotesque and yet so +horrible that you laugh even while you are groaning, and straining at its +hopelessness? McKnight says that is hysteria, and that no man worthy of the +name ever admits to it. +</p> + +<p> +Also, as McKnight says, it sounds like a tank drama. Just as the revolving saw +is about to cut the hero into stove lengths, the second villain blows up the +sawmill. The hero goes up through the roof and alights on the bank of a stream +at the feet of his lady love, who is making daisy chains. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, when I was safely home again, with Mrs. Klopton brewing strange +drinks that came in paper packets from the pharmacy, and that smelled to +heaven, I remember staggering to the door and closing it, and then going back +to bed and howling out the absurdity and the madness of the whole thing. And +while I laughed my very soul was sick, for the girl was gone by that time, and +I knew by all the loyalty that answers between men for honor that I would have +to put her out of my mind. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, all the night that followed, filled as it was with the shrieking +demons of pain, I saw her as I had seen her last, in the queer hat with green +ribbons. I told the doctor this, guardedly, the next morning, and he said it +was the morphia, and that I was lucky not to have seen a row of devils with +green tails. +</p> + +<p> +I don’t know anything about the wreck of September ninth last. You who +swallowed the details with your coffee and digested the horrors with your chop, +probably know a great deal more than I do. I remember very distinctly that the +jumping and throbbing in my arm brought me back to a world that at first was +nothing but sky, a heap of clouds that I thought hazily were the meringue on a +blue charlotte russe. As the sense of hearing was slowly added to vision, I +heard a woman near me sobbing that she had lost her hat pin, and she +couldn’t keep her hat on. +</p> + +<p> +I think I dropped back into unconsciousness again, for the next thing I +remember was of my blue patch of sky clouded with smoke, of a strange roaring +and crackling, of a rain of fiery sparks on my face and of somebody beating at +me with feeble hands. I opened my eyes and closed them again: the girl in blue +was bending over me. With that imperviousness to big things and keenness to +small that is the first effect of shock, I tried to be facetious, when a spark +stung my cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“You will have to rouse yourself!” the girl was repeating +desperately. “You’ve been on fire twice already.” A piece of +striped ticking floated slowly over my head. As the wind caught it its charring +edges leaped into flame. +</p> + +<p> +“Looks like a kite, doesn’t it?” I remarked cheerfully. And +then, as my arm gave an excruciating throb—“Jove, how my arm +hurts!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl bent over and spoke slowly, distinctly, as one might speak to a deaf +person or a child. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen, Mr. Blakeley,” she said earnestly. “You <i>must</i> +rouse yourself. There has been a terrible accident. The second section ran into +us. The wreck is burning now, and if we don’t move, we will catch fire. +Do you hear?” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice and my arm were bringing me to my senses. “I hear,” I +said. “I—I’ll sit up in a second. Are you hurt?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, only bruised. Do you think you can walk?” +</p> + +<p> +I drew up one foot after another, gingerly. +</p> + +<p> +“They seem to move all right,” I remarked dubiously. “Would +you mind telling me where the back of my head has gone? I can’t help +thinking it isn’t there.” +</p> + +<p> +She made a quick examination. “It’s pretty badly bumped,” she +said. “You must have fallen on it.” +</p> + +<p> +I had got up on my uninjured elbow by that time, but the pain threw me back. +“Don’t look at the wreck,” I entreated her. “It’s +no sight for a woman. If—if there is any way to tie up this arm, I might +be able to do something. There may be people under those cars!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is too late to help,” she replied solemnly. A little +shower of feathers, each carrying its fiery lamp, blew over us from some +burning pillow. A part of the wreck collapsed with a crash. In a resolute +endeavor to play a man’s part in the tragedy going on around, I got to my +knees. Then I realized what I had not noticed before: the hand and wrist of the +broken left arm were jammed through the handle of the sealskin grip. I gasped +and sat down suddenly. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/fig02.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +“You must not do that,” the girl insisted. I noticed now that she +kept her back to the wreck, her eyes averted. “The weight of the +traveling-bag must be agony. Let me support the valise until we get back a few +yards. Then you must lie down until we can get it cut off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will it have to be cut off?” I asked as calmly as possible. There +were red-hot stabs of agony clear to my neck, but we were moving slowly away +from the track. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she replied, with dumfounding coolness. “If I had a +knife I could do it myself. You might sit here and lean against this +fence.” +</p> + +<p> +By that time my returning faculties had realized that she was going to cut off +the satchel, not the arm. The dizziness was leaving and I was gradually +becoming myself. +</p> + +<p> +“If you pull, it might come,” I suggested. “And with that +weight gone, I think I will cease to be five feet eleven inches of baby.” +</p> + +<p> +She tried gently to loosen the handle, but it would not move, and at last, with +great drops of cold perspiration over me, I had to give up. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I can’t stand it,” I said. “But +there’s a knife somewhere around these clothes, and if I can find it, +perhaps you can cut the leather.” +</p> + +<p> +As I gave her the knife she turned it over, examining it with a peculiar +expression, bewilderment rather than surprise. But she said nothing. She set to +work deftly, and in a few minutes the bag dropped free. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s better,” I declared, sitting up. “Now, if you +can pin my sleeve to my coat, it will support the arm so we can get away from +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“The pin might give,” she objected, “and the jerk would be +terrible.” She looked around, puzzled; then she got up, coming back in a +minute with a draggled, partly scorched sheet. This she tore into a large +square, and after she had folded it, she slipped it under the broken arm and +tied it securely at the back of my neck. +</p> + +<p> +The relief was immediate, and, picking up the sealskin bag, I walked slowly +beside her, away from the track. +</p> + +<p> +The first act was over: the curtain fallen. The scene was “struck.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /> +THE HALCYON BREAKFAST</h2> + +<p> +We were still dazed, I think, for we wandered like two troubled children, our +one idea at first to get as far away as we could from the horror behind us. We +were both bareheaded, grimy, pallid through the grit. Now and then we met +little groups of country folk hurrying to the track: they stared at us +curiously, and some wished to question us. But we hurried past them; we had put +the wreck behind us. That way lay madness. +</p> + +<p> +Only once the girl turned and looked behind her. The wreck was hidden, but the +smoke cloud hung heavy and dense. For the first time I remembered that my +companion had not been alone on the train. +</p> + +<p> +“It is quiet here,” I suggested. “If you will sit down on the +bank I will go back and make some inquiries. I’ve been criminally +thoughtless. Your traveling companion—” +</p> + +<p> +She interrupted me, and something of her splendid poise was gone. “Please +don’t go back,” she said. “I am afraid it would be of no use. +And I don’t want to be left alone.” +</p> + +<p> +Heaven knows I did not want her to be alone. I was more than content to walk +along beside her aimlessly, for any length of time. Gradually, as she lost the +exaltation of the moment, I was gaining my normal condition of mind. I was +beginning to realize that I had lacked the morning grace of a shave, that I +looked like some lost hope of yesterday, and that my left shoe pinched +outrageously. A man does not rise triumphant above such handicaps. The girl, +for all her disordered hair and the crumpled linen of her waist, in spite of +her missing hat and the small gold bag that hung forlornly from a broken chain, +looked exceedingly lovely. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I won’t leave you alone,” I said manfully, and we +stumbled on together. Thus far we had seen nobody from the wreck, but well up +the lane we came across the tall dark woman who had occupied lower eleven. She +was half crouching beside the road, her black hair about her shoulders, and an +ugly bruise over her eye. She did not seem to know us, and refused to accompany +us. We left her there at last, babbling incoherently and rolling in her hands a +dozen pebbles she had gathered in the road. +</p> + +<p> +The girl shuddered as we went on. Once she turned and glanced at my bandage. +“Does it hurt very much?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s growing rather numb. But it might be worse,” I answered +mendaciously. If anything in this world could be worse, I had never experienced +it. +</p> + +<p> +And so we trudged on bareheaded under the summer sun, growing parched and dusty +and weary, doggedly leaving behind us the pillar of smoke. I thought I knew of +a trolley line somewhere in the direction we were going, or perhaps we could +find a horse and trap to take us into Baltimore. The girl smiled when I +suggested it. +</p> + +<p> +“We will create a sensation, won’t we?” she asked. +“Isn’t it queer—or perhaps it’s my state of +mind—but I keep wishing for a pair of gloves, when I haven’t even a +hat!” +</p> + +<p> +When we reached the main road we sat down for a moment, and her hair, which had +been coming loose for some time, fell over her shoulders in little waves that +were most alluring. It seemed a pity to twist it up again, but when I suggested +this, cautiously, she said it was troublesome and got in her eyes when it was +loose. So she gathered it up, while I held a row of little shell combs and +pins, and when it was done it was vastly becoming, too. Funny about hair: a man +never knows he has it until he begins to lose it, but it’s different with +a girl. Something of the unconventional situation began to dawn on her as she +put in the last hair-pin and patted some stray locks to place. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not told you my name,” she said abruptly. “I forgot +that because I know who you are, you know nothing about me. I am Alison West, +and my home is in Richmond.” +</p> + +<p> +So that was it! This was the girl of the photograph on John Gilmore’s +bedside table. The girl McKnight expected to see in Richmond the next day, +Sunday! She was on her way back to meet him! Well, what difference did it make, +anyhow? We had been thrown together by the merest chance. In an hour or two at +the most we would be back in civilization and she would recall me, if she +remembered me at all, as an unshaven creature in a red cravat and tan shoes, +with a soiled Pullman sheet tied around my neck. I drew a deep breath. +</p> + +<p> +“Just a twinge,” I said, when she glanced up quickly. +“It’s very good of you to let me know, Miss West. I have been +hearing delightful things about you for three months.” +</p> + +<p> +“From Richey McKnight?” She was frankly curious. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. From Richey McKnight,” I assented. Was it any wonder McKnight +was crazy about her? I dug my heels into the dust. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been visiting near Cresson, in the mountains,” Miss West +was saying. “The person you mentioned, Mrs. Curtis, was my hostess. +We—we were on our way to Washington together.” She spoke slowly, as +if she wished to give the minimum of explanation. Across her face had come +again the baffling expression of perplexity and trouble I had seen before. +</p> + +<p> +“You were on your way home, I suppose? Richey spoke about seeing +you,” I floundered, finding it necessary to say something. She looked at +me with level, direct eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she returned quietly. “I did not intend to go home. +I—well, it doesn’t matter; I am going home now.” +</p> + +<p> +A woman in a calico dress, with two children, each an exact duplicate of the +other, had come quickly down the road. She took in the situation at a glance, +and was explosively hospitable. +</p> + +<p> +“You poor things,” she said. “If you’ll take the first +road to the left over there, and turn in at the second pigsty, you will find +breakfast on the table and a coffee-pot on the stove. And there’s plenty +of soap and water, too. Don’t say one word. There isn’t a soul +there to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +We accepted the invitation and she hurried on toward the excitement and the +railroad. I got up carefully and helped Miss West to her feet. +</p> + +<p> +“At the second pigsty to the left,” I repeated, “we will find +the breakfast I promised you seven eternities ago. Forward to the +pigsty!” +</p> + +<p> +We said very little for the remainder of that walk. I had almost reached the +limit of endurance: with every step the broken ends of the bone grated +together. We found the farm-house without difficulty, and I remember wondering +if I could hold out to the end of the old stone walk that led between hedges to +the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Allah be praised,” I said with all the voice I could muster. +“Behold the coffee-pot!” And then I put down the grip and folded up +like a jack-knife on the porch floor. +</p> + +<p> +When I came around something hot was trickling down my neck, and a despairing +voice was saying, “Oh, I don’t seem to be able to pour it into your +mouth. Please open your eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t want it in my eyes,” I replied dreamily. +“I haven’t any idea what came over me. It was the shoes, I think: +the left one is a red-hot torture.” I was sitting by that time and +looking across into her face. +</p> + +<p> +Never before or since have I fainted, but I would do it joyfully, a dozen times +a day, if I could waken again to the blissful touch of soft fingers on my face, +the hot ecstasy of coffee spilled by those fingers down my neck. There was a +thrill in every tone of her voice that morning. Before long my loyalty to +McKnight would step between me and the girl he loved: life would develop new +complexities. In those early hours after the wreck, full of pain as they were, +there was nothing of the suspicion and distrust that came later. Shorn of our +gauds and baubles, we were primitive man and woman, together: our world for the +hour was the deserted farm-house, the slope of wheat-field that led to the +road, the woodland lot, the pasture. +</p> + +<p> +We breakfasted together across the homely table. Our cheerfulness, at first +sheer reaction, became less forced as we ate great slices of bread from the +granny oven back of the house, and drank hot fluid that smelled like coffee and +tasted like nothing that I have ever swallowed. We found cream in stone jars, +sunk deep in the chill water of the spring house. And there were eggs, great +yellow-brown ones,—a basket of them. +</p> + +<p> +So, like two children awakened from a nightmare, we chattered over our food: we +hunted mutual friends, we laughed together at my feeble witticisms, but we put +the horror behind us resolutely. After all, it was the hat with the green +ribbons that brought back the strangeness of the situation. +</p> + +<p> +All along I had had the impression that Alison West was deliberately putting +out of her mind something that obtruded now and then. It brought with it a +return of the puzzled expression that I had surprised early in the day, before +the wreck. I caught it once, when, breakfast over, she was tightening the sling +that held the broken arm. I had prolonged the morning meal as much as I could, +but when the wooden clock with the pink roses on the dial pointed to half after +ten, and the mother with the duplicate youngsters had not come back, Miss West +made the move I had dreaded. +</p> + +<p> +“If we are to get into Baltimore at all we must start,” she said, +rising. “You ought to see a doctor as soon as possible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush,” I said warningly. “Don’t mention the arm, +please; it is asleep now. You may rouse it.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I only had a hat,” she reflected. “It wouldn’t need +to be much of one, but—” She gave a little cry and darted to the +corner. “Look,” she said triumphantly, “the very thing. With +the green streamers tied up in a bow, like this—do you suppose the child +would mind? I can put five dollars or so here—that would buy a dozen of +them.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a queer affair of straw, that hat, with a round crown and a rim that +flopped dismally. With a single movement she had turned it up at one side and +fitted it to her head. Grotesque by itself, when she wore it it was a thing of +joy. +</p> + +<p> +Evidently the lack of head covering had troubled her, for she was elated at her +find. She left me, scrawling a note of thanks and pinning it with a bill to the +table-cloth, and ran up-stairs to the mirror and the promised soap and water. +</p> + +<p> +I did not see her when she came down. I had discovered a bench with a tin basin +outside the kitchen door, and was washing, in a helpless, one-sided way. I felt +rather than saw that she was standing in the door-way, and I made a final +plunge into the basin. +</p> + +<p> +“How is it possible for a man with only a right hand to wash his left +ear?” I asked from the roller towel. I was distinctly uncomfortable: men +are more rigidly creatures of convention than women, whether they admit it or +not. “There is so much soap on me still that if I laugh I will blow +bubbles. Washing with rain-water and home-made soap is like motoring on a +slippery road. I only struck the high places.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, having achieved a brilliant polish with the towel, I looked at the girl. +</p> + +<p> +She was leaning against the frame of the door, her face perfectly colorless, +her breath coming in slow, difficult respirations. The erratic hat was pinned +to place, but it had slid rakishly to one side. When I realized that she was +staring, not at me, but past me to the road along which we had come, I turned +and followed her gaze. There was no one in sight: the lane stretched dust white +in the sun,—no moving figure on it, no sign of life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /> +MISS WEST’S REQUEST</h2> + +<p> +The surprising change in her held me speechless. All the animation of the +breakfast table was gone: there was no hint of the response with which, before, +she had met my nonsensical sallies. She stood there, white-lipped, unsmiling, +staring down the dusty road. One hand was clenched tight over some small +object. Her eyes dropped to it from the distant road, and then closed, with a +quick, indrawn breath. Her color came back slowly. Whatever had caused the +change, she said nothing. She was anxious to leave at once, almost impatient +over my deliberate masculine way of getting my things together. Afterward I +recalled that I had wanted to explore the barn for a horse and some sort of a +vehicle to take us to the trolley, and that she had refused to allow me to +look. I remembered many things later that might have helped me, and did not. At +the time, I was only completely bewildered. Save the wreck, the responsibility +for which lay between Providence and the engineer of the second section, all +the events of that strange morning were logically connected; they came from one +cause, and tended unerringly to one end. But the cause was buried, the end not +yet in view. +</p> + +<p> +Not until we had left the house well behind did the girl’s face relax its +tense lines. I was watching her more closely than I had realized, for when we +had gone a little way along the road she turned to me almost petulantly. +“Please don’t stare so at me,” she said, to my sudden +confusion. “I know the hat is dreadful. Green always makes me look +ghastly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it was the green.” I was unaccountably relieved. “Do +you know, a few minutes ago, you looked almost pallid to me!” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at me quickly, but I was gazing ahead. We were out of sight of the +house, now, and with every step away from it the girl was obviously relieved. +Whatever she held in her hand, she never glanced at it. But she was conscious +of it every second. She seemed to come to a decision about it while we were +still in sight of the gate, for she murmured something and turned back alone, +going swiftly, her feet stirring up small puffs of dust at every step. She +fastened something to the gate-post,—I could see the nervous haste with +which she worked. When she joined me again it was without explanation. But the +clenched fingers were free now, and while she looked tired and worn, the strain +had visibly relaxed. +</p> + +<p> +We walked along slowly in the general direction of the suburban trolley line. +Once a man with an empty wagon offered us a lift, but after a glance at the +springless vehicle I declined. +</p> + +<p> +“The ends of the bone think they are castanets as it is,” I +explained. “But the lady—” +</p> + +<p> +The young lady, however, declined and we went on together. Once, when the +trolley line was in sight, she got a pebble in her low shoe, and we sat down +under a tree until she found the cause of the trouble. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I don’t know what I should have done without you,” I +blundered. “Moral support and—and all that. Do you know, my first +conscious thought after the wreck was of relief that you had not been +hurt?” +</p> + +<p> +She was sitting beside me, where a big chestnut tree shaded the road, and I +surprised a look of misery on her face that certainly my words had not been +meant to produce. +</p> + +<p> +“And my first thought,” she said slowly, “was regret that +I—that I hadn’t been obliterated, blown out like a candle. Please +don’t look like that! I am only talking.” +</p> + +<p> +But her lips were trembling, and because the little shams of society are +forgotten at times like this, I leaned over and patted her hand lightly, where +it rested on the grass beside me. +</p> + +<p> +“You must not say those things,” I expostulated. “Perhaps, +after all, your friends—” +</p> + +<p> +“I had no friends on the train.” Her voice was hard again, her tone +final. She drew her hand from under mine, not quickly, but decisively. A car +was in sight, coming toward us. The steel finger of civilization, of propriety, +of visiting cards and formal introductions was beckoning us in. Miss West put +on her shoe. +</p> + +<p> +We said little on the car. The few passengers stared at us frankly, and +discussed the wreck, emphasizing its horrors. The girl did not seem to hear. +Once she turned to me with the quick, unexpected movement that was one of her +charms. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not wish my mother to know I was in the accident,” she said. +“Will you please not tell Richey about having met me?” +</p> + +<p> +I gave my promise, of course. Again, when we were almost into Baltimore, she +asked to examine the gun-metal cigarette case, and sat silent with it in her +hands, while I told of the early morning’s events on the Ontario. +</p> + +<p> +“So you see,” I finished, “this grip, everything I have on, +belongs to a fellow named Sullivan. He probably left the train before the +wreck,—perhaps just after the murder.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so—you think he committed the—the crime?” Her eyes +were on the cigarette case. +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally,” I said. “A man doesn’t jump off a Pullman +car in the middle of the night in another man’s clothes, unless he is +trying to get away from something. Besides the dirk, there were the stains that +you saw. Why, I have the murdered man’s pocket-book in this valise at my +feet. What does that look like?” +</p> + +<p> +I colored when I saw the ghost of a smile hovering around the corners of her +mouth. “That is,” I finished, “if you care to believe that I +am innocent.” +</p> + +<p> +The sustaining chain of her small gold bag gave way just then. She did not +notice it. I picked it up and slid the trinket into my pocket for safekeeping, +where I promptly forgot it. Afterwards I wished I had let it lie unnoticed on +the floor of that dirty little suburban car, and even now, when I see a woman +carelessly dangling a similar feminine trinket, I shudder involuntarily: there +comes back to me the memory of a girl’s puzzled eyes under the brim of a +flopping hat, the haunting suspicion of the sleepless nights that followed. +</p> + +<p> +Just then I was determined that my companion should not stray back to the +wreck, and to that end I was determinedly facetious. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know that it is Sunday?” she asked suddenly, “and +that we are actually ragged?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind that,” I retorted. “All Baltimore is divided on +Sunday into three parts, those who rise up and go to church, those who rise up +and read the newspapers, and those who don’t rise up. The first are +somewhere between the creed and the sermon, and we need not worry about the +others.” +</p> + +<p> +“You treat me like a child,” she said almost pettishly. +“Don’t try so hard to be cheerful. It—it is almost +ghastly.” +</p> + +<p> +After that I subsided like a pricked balloon, and the remainder of the ride was +made in silence. The information that she would go to friends in the city was a +shock: it meant an earlier separation than I had planned for. But my arm was +beginning again. In putting her into a cab I struck it and gritted my teeth +with the pain. It was probably for that reason that I forgot the gold bag. +</p> + +<p> +She leaned forward and held out her hand. “I may not have another chance +to thank you,” she said, “and I think I would better not try, +anyhow. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.” I muttered something about +the gratitude being mine: owing to the knock I was seeing two cabs, and two +girls were holding out two hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Remember,” they were both saying, “you have never met me, +Mr. Blakeley. And—if you ever hear anything about me—that is +not—pleasant, I want you to think the best you can of me. Will +you?” +</p> + +<p> +The two girls were one now, with little flashes of white light playing all +around. “I—I’m afraid that I shall think too well for my own +good,” I said unsteadily. And the cab drove on. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /> +THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN</h2> + +<p> +I had my arm done up temporarily in Baltimore and took the next train home. I +was pretty far gone when I stumbled out of a cab almost into the scandalized +arms of Mrs. Klopton. In fifteen minutes I was in bed, with that good woman +piling on blankets and blistering me in unprotected places with hot-water +bottles. And in an hour I had a whiff of chloroform and Doctor Williams had set +the broken bone. +</p> + +<p> +I dropped asleep then, waking in the late twilight to a realization that I was +at home again, without the papers that meant conviction for Andy Bronson, with +a charge of murder hanging over my head, and with something more than an +impression of the girl my best friend was in love with, a girl moreover who was +almost as great an enigma as the crime itself. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’m no hand at guessing riddles,” I groaned half aloud. +Mrs. Klopton came over promptly and put a cold cloth on my forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“Euphemia,” she said to some one outside the door, “telephone +the doctor that he is still rambling, but that he has switched from green +ribbons to riddles.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing the matter with me, Mrs. Klopton,” I +rebelled. “I was only thinking out loud. Confound that cloth: it’s +trickling all over me!” I gave it a fling, and heard it land with a soggy +thud on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Thinking out loud is delirium,” Mrs. Klopton said imperturbably. +“A fresh cloth, Euphemia.” +</p> + +<p> +This time she held it on with a firm pressure that I was too weak to resist. I +expostulated feebly that I was drowning, which she also laid to my mental +exaltation, and then I finally dropped into a damp sleep. It was probably +midnight when I roused again. I had been dreaming of the wreck, and it was +inexpressibly comforting to feel the stability of my bed, and to realize the +equal stability of Mrs. Klopton, who sat, fully attired, by the night light, +reading <i>Science and Health</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Does that book say anything about opening the windows on a hot +night?” I suggested, when I had got my bearings. +</p> + +<p> +She put it down immediately and came over to me. If there is one time when Mrs. +Klopton is chastened—and it is the only time—it is when she reads +<i>Science and Health</i>. “I don’t like to open the shutters, Mr. +Lawrence,” she explained. “Not since the night you went +away.” +</p> + +<p> +But, pressed further, she refused to explain. “The doctor said you were +not to be excited,” she persisted. “Here’s your beef +tea.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a drop until you tell me,” I said firmly. “Besides, you +know very well there’s nothing the matter with me. This arm of mine is +only a false belief.” I sat up gingerly. “Now—why don’t +you open that window?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Klopton succumbed. “Because there are queer goings-on in that house +next door,” she said. “If you will take the beef tea, Mr. Lawrence, +I will tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +The queer goings-on, however, proved to be slightly disappointing. It seemed +that after I left on Friday night, a light was seen flitting fitfully through +the empty house next door. Euphemia had seen it first and called Mrs. Klopton. +Together they had watched it breathlessly until it disappeared on the lower +floor. +</p> + +<p> +“You should have been a writer of ghost stories,” I said, giving my +pillows a thump. “And so it was fitting flitfully!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what it was doing,” she reiterated. “Fitting +flitfully—I mean flitting fitfully—how you do throw me out, Mr. +Lawrence! And what’s more, it came again!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come now, Mrs. Klopton,” I objected, “ghosts are like +lightning; they never strike twice in the same night. That is only worth half a +cup of beef tea.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may ask Euphemia,” she retorted with dignity. “Not more +than an hour after, there was a light there again. We saw it through the chinks +of the shutters. Only—<i>this time it began at the lower floor and +climbed!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“You oughtn’t to tell ghost stories at night,” came +McKnight’s voice from the doorway. “Really, Mrs. Klopton, I’m +amazed at you. You old duffer! I’ve got you to thank for the worst day of +my life.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Klopton gulped. Then realizing that the “old duffer” was meant +for me, she took her empty cup and went out muttering. +</p> + +<p> +“The Pirate’s crazy about me, isn’t she?” McKnight said +to the closing door. Then he swung around and held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove,” he said, “I’ve been laying you out all day, +lilies on the door-bell, black gloves, everything. If you had had the sense of +a mosquito in a snow-storm, you would have telephoned me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never even thought of it.” I was filled with remorse. +“Upon my word, Rich, I hadn’t an idea beyond getting away from that +place. If you had seen what I saw—” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight stopped me. “Seen it! Why, you lunatic, I’ve been digging +for you all day in the ruins! I’ve lunched and dined on horrors. Give me +something to rinse them down, Lollie.” +</p> + +<p> +He had fished the key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my shoe bag +and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw—a foundation of +brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in sight to give it snap. Now +that I saw him clearly, he looked weary and grimy. I hated to tell him what I +knew he was waiting to hear, but there was no use wading in by inches. I ducked +and got it over. +</p> + +<p> +“The notes are gone, Rich,” I said, as quietly as I could. In spite +of himself his face fell. +</p> + +<p> +“I—of course I expected it,” he said. “But—Mrs. +Klopton said over the telephone that you had brought home a grip and I +hoped—well, Lord knows we ought not to complain. You’re here, +damaged, but here.” He lifted his glass. “Happy days, old +man!” +</p> + +<p> +“If you will give me that black bottle and a teaspoon, I’ll drink +that in arnica, or whatever the stuff is; Rich,—the notes were gone +before the wreck!” +</p> + +<p> +He wheeled and stared at me, the bottle in his hand. “Lost, strayed or +stolen?” he queried with forced lightness. +</p> + +<p> +“Stolen, although I believe the theft was incidental to something +else.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Klopton came in at that moment, with an egg-nog in her hand. She glanced +at the clock, and, without addressing any one in particular, she intimated that +it was time for self-respecting folks to be at home in bed. McKnight, who could +never resist a fling at her back, spoke to me in a stage whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“Is she talking still? or again?” he asked, just before the door +closed. There was a second’s indecision with the knob, then, judging +discretion the better part, Mrs. Klopton went away. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then,” McKnight said, settling himself in a chair beside the +bed, “spit it out. Not the wreck—I know all I want about that. But +the theft. I can tell you beforehand that it was a woman.” +</p> + +<p> +I had crawled painfully out of bed, and was in the act of pouring the egg-nog +down the pipe of the washstand. I paused, with the glass in the air. +</p> + +<p> +“A woman!” I repeated, startled. “What makes you think +that?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know the first principles of a good detective +yarn,” he said scornfully. “Of course, it was the woman in the +empty house next door. You said it was brass pipes, you will remember. +Well—on with the dance: let joy be unconfined.” +</p> + +<p> +So I told the story; I had told it so many times that day that I did it +automatically. And I told about the girl with the bronze hair, and my +suspicions. But I did not mention Alison West. McKnight listened to the end +without interruption. When I had finished he drew a long breath. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” he said. “That’s something of a mess, +isn’t it? If you can only prove your mild and child-like disposition, +they couldn’t hold you for the murder—which is a regular +ten-twent-thirt crime, anyhow. But the notes—that’s different. They +are not burned, anyhow. Your man wasn’t on the train—therefore, he +wasn’t in the wreck. If he didn’t know what he was taking, as you +seem to think, he probably reads the papers, and unless he is a fathead, +he’s awake by this time to what he’s got. He’ll try to sell +them to Bronson, probably.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or to us,” I put in. +</p> + +<p> +We said nothing for a few minutes. McKnight smoked a cigarette and stared at a +photograph of Candida over the mantel. Candida is the best pony for a heavy +mount in seven states. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t go to Richmond,” he observed finally. The remark +followed my own thoughts so closely that I started. “Miss West is not +home yet from Seal Harbor.” +</p> + +<p> +Receiving no response, he lapsed again into thoughtful silence. Mrs. Klopton +came in just as the clock struck one, and made preparation for the night by +putting a large gaudy comfortable into an arm-chair in the dressing-room, with +a smaller, stiff-backed chair for her feet. She was wonderfully attired in a +dressing-gown that was reminiscent, in parts, of all the ones she had given me +for a half dozen Christmases, and she had a purple veil wrapped around her +head, to hide Heaven knows what deficiency. She examined the empty egg-nog +glass, inquired what the evening paper had said about the weather, and then +stalked into the dressing-room, and prepared, with much ostentatious creaking, +to sit up all night. +</p> + +<p> +We fell silent again, while McKnight traced a rough outline of the berths on +the white table-cover, and puzzled it out slowly. It was something like this: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/fig03.jpg" width="600" height="200" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +“You think he changed the tags on seven and nine, so that when you went +back to bed you thought you were crawling into nine, when it was really seven, +eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Probably—yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then toward morning, when everybody was asleep, your theory is that he +changed the numbers again and left the train.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think of anything else,” I replied wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“Jove, what a game of bridge that fellow would play! It was like +finessing an eight-spot and winning out. They would scarcely have doubted your +story had the tags been reversed in the morning. He certainly left you in a bad +way. Not a jury in the country would stand out against the stains, the +stiletto, and the murdered man’s pocket-book in your possession.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you think Sullivan did it?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said McKnight confidently. “Unless you did it in +your sleep. Look at the stains on his pillow, and the dirk stuck into it. And +didn’t he have the man Harrington’s pocket-book?” +</p> + +<p> +“But why did he go off without the money?” I persisted. “And +where does the bronze-haired girl come in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Search me,” McKnight retorted flippantly. “Inflammation of +the imagination on your part.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then there is the piece of telegram. It said lower ten, car seven. +It’s extremely likely that she had it. That telegram was about me, +Richey.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m getting a headache,” he said, putting out his cigarette +against the sole of his shoe. “All I’m certain of just now is that +if there hadn’t been a wreck, by this time you’d be sitting in an +eight by ten cell, and feeling like the rhyme for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But listen to this,” I contended, as he picked up his hat, +“this fellow Sullivan is a fugitive, and he’s a lot more likely to +make advances to Bronson than to us. We could have the case continued, release +Bronson on bail and set a watch on him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not my watch,” McKnight protested. “It’s a family +heirloom.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better go home,” I said firmly. “Go home and go +to bed. You’re sleepy. You can have Sullivan’s red necktie to dream +over if you think it will help any.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Klopton’s voice came drowsily from the next room, punctuated by a +yawn. “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she called, with the suspicious +lisp which characterizes her at night, “somebody called up about noon, +Mr. Lawrence. It was long distance, and he said he would call again. The name +was”—she yawned—“Sullivan.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /> +THE GOLD BAG</h2> + +<p> +I have always smiled at those cases of spontaneous combustion which, like +fusing the component parts of a seidlitz powder, unite two people in a bubbling +and ephemeral ecstasy. But surely there is possible, with but a single meeting, +an attraction so great, a community of mind and interest so strong, that +between that first meeting and the next the bond may grow into something +stronger. This is especially true, I fancy, of people with temperament, the +modern substitute for imagination. It is a nice question whether lovers begin +to love when they are together, or when they are apart. +</p> + +<p> +Not that I followed any such line of reasoning at the time. I would not even +admit my folly to myself. But during the restless hours of that first night +after the accident, when my back ached with lying on it, and any other position +was torture, I found my thoughts constantly going back to Alison West. I +dropped into a doze, to dream of touching her fingers again to comfort her, and +awoke to find I had patted a teaspoonful of medicine out of Mrs. +Klopton’s indignant hand. What was it McKnight had said about making an +egregious ass of myself? +</p> + +<p> +And that brought me back to Richey, and I fancy I groaned. There is no use +expatiating on the friendship between two men who have gone together through +college, have quarreled and made it up, fussed together over politics and +debated creeds for years: men don’t need to be told, and women can not +understand. Nevertheless, I groaned. If it had been any one but Rich! +</p> + +<p> +Some things were mine, however, and I would hold them: the halcyon breakfast, +the queer hat, the pebble in her small shoe, the gold bag with the broken +chain—the bag! Why, it was in my pocket at that moment. +</p> + +<p> +I got up painfully and found my coat. Yes, there was the purse, bulging with an +opulent suggestion of wealth inside. I went back to bed again, somewhat dizzy, +between effort and the touch of the trinket, so lately hers. I held it up by +its broken chain and gloated over it. By careful attention to orders, I ought +to be out in a day or so. Then—I could return it to her. I really ought +to do that: it was valuable, and I wouldn’t care to trust it to the mail. +I could run down to Richmond, and see her once—there was no disloyalty to +Rich in that. +</p> + +<p> +I had no intention of opening the little bag. I put it under my +pillow—which was my reason for refusing to have the linen slips changed, +to Mrs. Klopton’s dismay. And sometimes during the morning, while I lay +under a virgin field of white, ornamented with strange flowers, my cigarettes +hidden beyond discovery, and <i>Science and Health</i> on a table by my elbow, +as if by the merest accident, I slid my hand under my pillow and touched it +reverently. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight came in about eleven. I heard his car at the curb, followed almost +immediately by his slam at the front door, and his usual clamor on the stairs. +He had a bottle under his arm, rightly surmising that I had been forbidden +stimulant, and a large box of cigarettes in his pocket, suspecting my +deprivation. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said cheerfully. “How did you sleep after keeping +me up half the night?” +</p> + +<p> +I slid my hand around: the purse was well covered. “Have it now, or wait +till I get the cork out?” he rattled on. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want anything,” I protested. “I wish you +wouldn’t be so darned cheerful, Richey.” He stopped whistling to +stare at me. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I am saddest when I sing!’” he quoted unctuously. +“It’s pure reaction, Lollie. Yesterday the sky was low: I was +digging for my best friend. To-day—he lies before me, his peevish self. +Yesterday I thought the notes were burned: to-day—I look forward to a +good cross-country chase, and with luck we will draw.” His voice changed +suddenly. “Yesterday—she was in Seal Harbor. To-day—she is +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here in Washington?” I asked, as naturally as I could. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Going to stay a week or two.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh, I had a little hen and she had a wooden leg<br /> +And nearly every morning she used to lay an egg—” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you stop that racket, Rich! It’s the real thing this time, I +suppose?” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“She’s the best little chicken that we have on the farm<br /> +And another little drink won’t do us any harm—” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +he finished, twisting out the corkscrew. Then he came over and sat down on the +bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said judicially, “since you drag it from me, I +think perhaps it is. You—you’re such a confirmed woman-hater that I +hardly knew how you would take it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing of the sort,” I denied testily. “Because a man +reaches the age of thirty without making maudlin love to every—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve taken to long country rides,” he went on reflectively, +without listening to me, “and yesterday I ran over a sheep; nearly went +into the ditch. But there’s a Providence that watches over fools and +lovers, and just now I know darned well that I’m one, and I have a +sneaking idea I’m both.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are both,” I said with disgust. “If you can be rational +for one moment, I wish you would tell me why that man Sullivan called me over +the telephone yesterday morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Probably hadn’t yet discovered the Bronson notes—providing +you hold to your theory that the theft was incidental to the murder. May have +wanted his own clothes again, or to thank you for yours. Search me: I +can’t think of anything else.” The doctor came in just then. +</p> + +<p> +As I said before, I think a lot of my doctor—when I am ill. He is a young +man, with an air of breezy self-confidence and good humor. He looked directly +past the bottle, which is a very valuable accomplishment, and shook hands with +McKnight until I could put the cigarettes under the bedclothes. He had +interdicted tobacco. Then he sat down beside the bed and felt around the +bandages with hands as gentle as a baby’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty good shape,” he said. “How did you sleep?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, occasionally,” I replied. “I would like to sit up, +doctor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense. Take a rest while you have an excuse for it. I wish to thunder +I could stay in bed for a day or so. I was up all night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have a drink,” McKnight said, pushing over the bottle. +</p> + +<p> +“Twins!” The doctor grinned. +</p> + +<p> +“Have two drinks.” +</p> + +<p> +But the medical man refused. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t even wear a champagne-colored necktie during business +hours,” he explained. “By the way, I had another case from your +accident, Mr. Blakeley, late yesterday afternoon. Under the tongue, +please.” He stuck a thermometer in my mouth. +</p> + +<p> +I had a sudden terrible vision of the amateur detective coming to light, +note-book, cheerful impertinence and incriminating data. “A small +man?” I demanded, “gray hair—” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your mouth closed,” the doctor said peremptorily. “No. +A woman, with a fractured skull. Beautiful case. Van Kirk was up to his eyes +and sent for me. Hemorrhage, right-sided paralysis, irregular pupils—all +the trimmings. Worked for two hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she recover?” McKnight put in. He was examining the doctor +with a new awe. +</p> + +<p> +“She lifted her right arm before I left,” the doctor finished +cheerily, “so the operation was a success, even if she should die.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Heavens,” McKnight broke in, “and I thought you were +just an ordinary mortal, like the rest of us! Let me touch you for luck. Was +she pretty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and young. Had a wealth of bronze-colored hair. Upon my soul, I +hated to cut it.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight and I exchanged glances. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know her name, doctor?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No. The nurses said her clothes came from a Pittsburg tailor.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is not conscious, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; she may be, to-morrow—or in a week.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at the thermometer, murmured something about liquid diet, avoiding my +eye—Mrs. Klopton was broiling a chop at the time—and took his +departure, humming cheerfully as he went down-stairs. McKnight looked after him +wistfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Jove, I wish I had his constitution,” he exclaimed. “Neither +nerves nor heart! What a chauffeur he would make!” +</p> + +<p> +But I was serious. +</p> + +<p> +“I have an idea,” I said grimly, “that this small matter of +the murder is going to come up again, and that your uncle will be in the deuce +of a fix if it does. If that woman is going to die, somebody ought to be around +to take her deposition. She knows a lot, if she didn’t do it herself. I +wish you would go down to the telephone and get the hospital. Find out her +name, and if she is conscious.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight went under protest. “I haven’t much time,” he said, +looking at his watch. “I’m to meet Mrs. West and Alison at one. I +want you to know them, Lollie. You would like the mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not the daughter?” I inquired. I touched the little gold bag +under the pillow. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said judicially, “you’ve always declared +against the immaturity and romantic nonsense of very young women—” +</p> + +<p> +“I never said anything of the sort,” I retorted furiously. +</p> + +<p> +“‘There is more satisfaction to be had out of a good saddle +horse!’” he quoted me. “‘More excitement out of a polo +pony, and as for the eternal matrimonial chase, give me instead a good stubble, +a fox, some decent hounds and a hunter, and I’ll show you the real joys +of the chase!’” +</p> + +<p> +“For Heaven’s sake, go down to the telephone, you make my head +ache,” I said savagely. +</p> + +<p> +I hardly know what prompted me to take out the gold purse and look at it. It +was an imbecile thing to do—call it impulse, sentimentality, what you +wish. I brought it out, one eye on the door, for Mrs. Klopton has a ready eye +and a noiseless shoe. But the house was quiet. Down-stairs McKnight was +flirting with the telephone central and there was an odor of boneset tea in the +air. I think Mrs. Klopton was fascinated out of her theories by the +“boneset” in connection with the fractured arm. +</p> + +<p> +Anyhow, I held up the bag and looked at it. It must have been unfastened, for +the next instant there was an avalanche on the snowfield of the +counterpane—some money, a wisp of a handkerchief, a tiny booklet with +thin leaves, covered with a powdery substance—and a necklace. I drew +myself up slowly and stared at the necklace. +</p> + +<p> +It was one of the semi-barbaric affairs that women are wearing now, a heavy +pendant of gold chains and carved cameos, swung from a thin neck chain of the +same metal. The necklace was broken: in three places the links were pulled +apart and the cameos swung loose and partly detached. But it was the supporting +chain that held my eye and fascinated with its sinister suggestion. Three +inches of it had been snapped off, and as well as I knew anything on earth, I +knew that the bit of chain that the amateur detective had found, blood-stain +and all, belonged just there. +</p> + +<p> +And there was no one I could talk to about it, no one to tell me how hideously +absurd it was, no one to give me a slap and tell me there are tons of fine gold +chains made every year, or to point out the long arm of coincidence! +</p> + +<p> +With my one useful hand I fumbled the things back into the bag and thrust it +deep out of sight among the pillows. Then I lay back in a cold perspiration. +What connection had Alison West with this crime? Why had she stared so at the +gun-metal cigarette case that morning on the train? What had alarmed her so at +the farm-house? What had she taken back to the gate? Why did she wish she had +not escaped from the wreck? And last, in Heaven’s name, how did a part of +her necklace become torn off and covered with blood? +</p> + +<p> +Down-stairs McKnight was still at the telephone, and amusing himself with Mrs. +Klopton in the interval of waiting. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did he come home in a gray suit, when he went away in a blue?” +he repeated. “Well, wrecks are queer things, Mrs. Klopton. The suit may +have turned gray with fright. Or perhaps wrecks do as queer stunts as +lightning. Friend of mine once was struck by lightning; he and the caddy had +taken refuge under a tree. After the flash, when they recovered consciousness, +there was my friend in the caddy’s clothes, and the caddy in his. And as +my friend was a large man and the caddy a very small boy—” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight’s story was interrupted by the indignant slam of the dining-room +door. He was obliged to wait some time, and even his eternal cheerfulness was +ebbing when he finally got the hospital. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Doctor Van Kirk there?” he asked. “Not there? Well, can +you tell me how the patient is whom Doctor Williams, from Washington, operated +on last night? Well, I’m glad of that. Is she conscious? Do you happen to +know her name? Yes, I’ll hold the line.” There was a long pause, +then McKnight’s voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Hello—yes. Thank you very much. Good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +He came up-stairs, two steps at a time. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” he said, bursting into the room, “there may be +something in your theory, after all. The woman’s name—it may be a +coincidence, but it’s curious—her name is Sullivan.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did I tell you?” I said, sitting up suddenly in bed. +“She’s probably a sister of that scoundrel in lower seven, and she +was afraid of what he might do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll go there some day soon. She’s not conscious yet. +In the meantime, the only thing I can do is to keep an eye, through a +detective, on the people who try to approach Bronson. We’ll have the case +continued, anyhow, in the hope that the stolen notes will sooner or later turn +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Confound this arm,” I said, paying for my energy with some +excruciating throbs. “There’s so much to be looked after, and here +I am, bandaged, splinted, and generally useless. It’s a beastly +shame.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t forget that I am here,” said McKnight pompously. +“And another thing, when you feel this way just remember there are two +less desirable places where you might be. One is jail, and the other +is—” He strummed on an imaginary harp, with devotional eyes. +</p> + +<p> +But McKnight’s light-heartedness jarred on me that morning. I lay and +frowned under my helplessness. When by chance I touched the little gold bag, it +seemed to scorch my fingers. Richey, finding me unresponsive, left to keep his +luncheon engagement with Alison West. As he clattered down the stairs, I turned +my back to the morning sunshine and abandoned myself to misery. By what strain +on her frayed nerves was Alison West keeping up, I wondered? Under the +circumstances, would I dare to return the bag? Knowing that I had it, would she +hate me for my knowledge? Or had I exaggerated the importance of the necklace, +and in that case had she forgotten me already? +</p> + +<p> +But McKnight had not gone, after all. I heard him coming back, his voice +preceding him, and I groaned with irritation. +</p> + +<p> +“Wake up!” he called. “Somebody’s sent you a lot of +flowers. Please hold the box, Mrs. Klopton; I’m going out to be run down +by an automobile.” +</p> + +<p> +I roused to feeble interest. My brother’s wife is punctilious about such +things; all the new babies in the family have silver rattles, and all the sick +people flowers. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight pulled up an armful of roses, and held them out to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonder who they’re from?” he said, fumbling in the box for a +card. “There’s no name—yes, here’s one.” +</p> + +<p> +He held it up and read it with exasperating slowness. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“‘Best wishes for an early recovery.<br /> + A C<small>OMPANION IN</small> +M<small>ISFORTUNE</small>.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you know about that!” he exclaimed. +“That’s something you didn’t tell me, Lollie.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was hardly worth mentioning,” I said mendaciously, with my +heart beating until I could hear it. She had not forgotten, after all. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight took a bud and fastened it in his button-hole. I’m afraid I was +not especially pleasant about it. They were her roses, and anyhow, they were +meant for me. Richey left very soon, with an irritating final grin at the box. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by, sir woman-hater,” he jeered at me from the door. +</p> + +<p> +So he wore one of the roses she had sent me, to luncheon with her, and I lay +back among my pillows and tried to remember that it was his game, anyhow, and +that I wasn’t even drawing cards. To remember that, and to forget the +broken necklace under my head! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /> +FADED ROSES</h2> + +<p> +I was in the house for a week. Much of that time I spent in composing and +destroying letters of thanks to Miss West, and in growling at the doctor. +McKnight dropped in daily, but he was less cheerful than usual. Now and then I +caught him eying me as if he had something to say, but whatever it was he kept +it to himself. Once during the week he went to Baltimore and saw the woman in +the hospital there. From the description I had little difficulty in recognizing +the young woman who had been with the murdered man in Pittsburg. But she was +still unconscious. An elderly aunt had appeared, a gaunt person in black, who +sat around like a buzzard on a fence, according to McKnight, and wept, in a +mixed figure, into a damp handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +On the last day of my imprisonment he stopped in to thrash out a case that was +coming up in court the next day, and to play a game of double solitaire with +me. +</p> + +<p> +“Who won the ball game?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“We were licked. Ask me something pleasant. Oh, by the way, +Bronson’s out to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad I’m not on his bond,” I said pessimistically. +“He’ll clear out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not he.” McKnight pounced on my ace. “He’s no fool. +Don’t you suppose he knows you took those notes to Pittsburg? The papers +were full of it. And he knows you escaped with your life and a broken arm from +the wreck. What do we do next? The Commonwealth continues the case. A deaf man +on a dark night would know those notes are missing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t play so fast,” I remonstrated. “I have only one +arm to your two. Who is trailing Bronson? Did you try to get Johnson?” +</p> + +<p> +“I asked for him, but he had some work on hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“The murder’s evidently a dead issue,” I reflected. +“No, I’m not joking. The wreck destroyed all the evidence. But +I’m firmly convinced those notes will be offered, either to us or to +Bronson very soon. Johnson’s a blackguard, but he’s a good +detective. He could make his fortune as a game dog. What’s he +doing?” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight put down his cards, and rising, went to the window. As he held the +curtain back his customary grin looked a little forced. +</p> + +<p> +“To tell you the truth, Lollie,” he said, “for the last two +days he has been watching a well-known Washington attorney named Lawrence +Blakeley. He’s across the street now.” +</p> + +<p> +It took a moment for me to grasp what he meant. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s ridiculous,” I asserted. “What would they +trail me for? Go over and tell Johnson to get out of there, or I’ll pot +at him with my revolver.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can tell him that yourself.” McKnight paused and bent forward. +“Hello, here’s a visitor; little man with string halt.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t see him,” I said firmly. “I’ve been +bothered enough with reporters.” +</p> + +<p> +We listened together to Mrs. Klopton’s expostulating tones in the lower +hall and the creak of the boards as she came heavily up the stairs. She had a +piece of paper in her hand torn from a pocket account-book, and on it was the +name, “Mr. Wilson Budd Hotchkiss. Important business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, show him up,” I said resignedly. “You’d +better put those cards away, Richey. I fancy it’s the rector of the +church around the corner.” +</p> + +<p> +But when the door opened to admit a curiously alert little man, adjusting his +glasses with nervous fingers, my face must have shown my dismay. +</p> + +<p> +It was the amateur detective of the Ontario! +</p> + +<p> +I shook hands without enthusiasm. Here was the one survivor of the wrecked car +who could do me any amount of harm. There was no hope that he had forgotten any +of the incriminating details. In fact, he held in his hand the very note-book +which contained them. +</p> + +<p> +His manner was restrained, but it was evident he was highly excited. I +introduced him to McKnight, who has the imagination I lack, and who placed him +at once, mentally. +</p> + +<p> +“I only learned yesterday that you had been—er—saved,” +he said rapidly. “Terrible accident—unspeakable. Dream about it all +night and think about it all day. Broken arm?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. He just wears the splint to be different from other people,” +McKnight drawled lazily. I glared at him: there was nothing to be gained by +antagonizing the little man. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a fractured humerus, which isn’t as funny as it +sounds.” +</p> + +<p> +“Humerus—humorous! Pretty good,” he cackled. “I must +say you keep up your spirits pretty well, considering everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to have escaped injury,” I parried. He was fumbling for +something in his pockets. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I escaped,” he replied abstractedly. “Remarkable thing, +too. I haven’t a doubt I would have broken my neck, but I landed +on—you’ll never guess what! I landed head first on the very pillow +which was under inspection at the time of the wreck. You remember, don’t +you? Where did I put that package?” +</p> + +<p> +He found it finally and opened it on a table, displaying with some +theatricalism a rectangular piece of muslin and a similar patch of striped +ticking. +</p> + +<p> +“You recognize it?” he said. “The stains, you see, and the +hole made by the dirk. I tried to bring away the entire pillow, but they +thought I was stealing it, and made me give it up.” +</p> + +<p> +Richey touched the pieces gingerly. “By George,” he said, +“and you carry that around in your pocket! What if you should mistake it +for your handkerchief?” +</p> + +<p> +But Mr. Hotchkiss was not listening. He stood bent somewhat forward, leaning +over the table, and fixed me with his ferret-like eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen the evening papers, Mr. Blakeley?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +I glanced to where they lay unopened, and shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I have a disagreeable task,” he said with evident relish. +“Of course, you had considered the matter of the man Harrington’s +death closed, after the wreck. I did myself. As far as I was concerned, I meant +to let it remain so. There were no other survivors, at least none that I knew +of, and in spite of circumstances, there were a number of points in your +favor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” I put in with a sarcasm that was lost on him. +</p> + +<p> +“I verified your identity, for instance, as soon as I recovered from the +shock. Also—I found on inquiring of your tailor that you invariably wore +dark clothing.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight came forward threateningly. “Who are you, anyhow?” he +demanded. “And how is this any business of yours?” Mr. Hotchkiss +was entirely unruffled. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a minor position here,” he said, reaching for a visiting +card. “I am a very small patch on the seat of government, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight muttered something about certain offensive designs against the said +patch and retired grumbling to the window. Our visitor was opening the paper +with a tremendous expenditure of energy. +</p> + +<p> +“Here it is. Listen.” He read rapidly aloud: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“The Pittsburg police have sent to Baltimore two detectives who are +looking up the survivors of the ill-fated Washington Flier. It has transpired +that Simon Harrington, the Wood Street merchant of that city, was not killed in +the wreck, but was murdered in his berth the night preceding the accident. +Shortly before the collision, John Flanders, the conductor of the Flier, sent +this telegram to the chief of police: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“‘Body of Simon Harrington found stabbed in his berth, lower ten, +Ontario, at six-thirty this morning.<br /> + J<small>OHN</small> F<small>LANDERS</small>, +Conductor.’ +</p> + +<p> +“It is hoped that the survivors of the wrecked car Ontario will be found, +to tell what they know of the discovery of the crime. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. John Gilmore, head of the steel company for which Mr. Harrington was +purchasing agent, has signified his intention of sifting the matter to the +bottom.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“So you see,” Hotchkiss concluded, “there’s trouble +brewing. You and I are the only survivors of that unfortunate car.” +</p> + +<p> +I did not contradict him, but I knew of two others, at least: Alison West, and +the woman we had left beside the road that morning, babbling incoherently, her +black hair tumbling over her white face. +</p> + +<p> +“Unless we can find the man who occupied lower seven,” I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“I have already tried and failed. To find him would not clear you, of +course, unless we could establish some connection between him and the murdered +man. It is the only thing I see, however. I have learned this much,” +Hotchkiss concluded: “Lower seven was reserved from Cresson.” +</p> + +<p> +Cresson! Where Alison West and Mrs. Curtis had taken the train! +</p> + +<p> +McKnight came forward and suddenly held out his hand. “Mr. +Hotchkiss,” he said, “I—I’m sorry if I have been +offensive. I thought when you came in, that, like the Irishman and the +government, you were ‘forninst’ us. If you will put those cheerful +relics out of sight somewhere, I should be glad to have you dine with me at the +Incubator.” (His name for his bachelor apartment.) “Compared with +Johnson, you are the great original protoplasm.” +</p> + +<p> +The strength of this was lost on Hotchkiss, but the invitation was clear. They +went out together, and from my window I watched them get into McKnight’s +car. It was raining, and at the corner the Cannonball skidded. Across the +street my detective, Johnson, looked after them with his crooked smile. As he +turned up his collar he saw me, and lifted his hat. +</p> + +<p> +I left the window and sat down in the growing dusk. So the occupant of lower +seven had got on the car at Cresson, probably with Alison West and her +companion. There was some one she cared about enough to shield. I went +irritably to the door and summoned Mrs. Klopton. +</p> + +<p> +“You may throw out those roses,” I said without looking at her. +“They are quite dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have been quite dead for three days,” she retorted +spitefully. “Euphemia said you threatened to dismiss her if she touched +them.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /> +THE TRAP-DOOR</h2> + +<p> +By Sunday evening, a week after the wreck, my inaction had goaded me to frenzy. +The very sight of Johnson across the street or lurking, always within sight of +the house, kept me constantly exasperated. It was on that day that things began +to come to a focus, a burning-glass of events that seemed to center on me. +</p> + +<p> +I dined alone that evening in no cheerful frame of mind. There had been a polo +game the day before and I had lent a pony, which is always a bad thing to do. +And she had wrenched her shoulder, besides helping to lose the game. There was +no one in town: the temperature was ninety and climbing, and my left hand +persistently cramped under its bandage. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Klopton herself saw me served, my bread buttered and cut in tidbits, my +meat ready for my fork. She hovered around me maternally, obviously trying to +cheer me. +</p> + +<p> +“The paper says still warmer,” she ventured. “The thermometer +is ninety-two now.” +</p> + +<p> +“And this coffee is two hundred and fifty,” I said, putting down my +cup. “Where is Euphemia? I haven’t seen her around, or heard a dish +smash all day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Euphemia is in bed,” Mrs. Klopton said gravely. “Is your +meat cut small enough, Mr. Lawrence?” Mrs. Klopton can throw more mystery +into an ordinary sentence than any one I know. She can say, “Are your +sheets damp, sir?” And I can tell from her tone that the house across the +street has been robbed, or that my left hand neighbor has appendicitis. So now +I looked up and asked the question she was waiting for. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with Euphemia?” I inquired idly. +</p> + +<p> +“Frightened into her bed,” Mrs. Klopton said in a stage whisper. +“She’s had three hot water bottles and she hasn’t done a +thing all day but moan.” +</p> + +<p> +“She oughtn’t to take hot water bottles,” I said in my +severest tone. “One would make me moan. You need not wait, I’ll +ring if I need anything.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Klopton sailed to the door, where she stopped and wheeled indignantly. +“I only hope you won’t laugh on the wrong side of your face some +morning, Mr. Lawrence,” she declared, with Christian fortitude. +“But I warn you, I am going to have the police watch that house next +door.” +</p> + +<p> +I was half inclined to tell her that both it and we were under police +surveillance at that moment. But I like Mrs. Klopton, in spite of the fact that +I make her life a torment for her, so I refrained. +</p> + +<p> +“Last night, when the paper said it was going to storm, I sent Euphemia +to the roof to bring the rugs in. Eliza had slipped out, although it was her +evening in. Euphemia went up to the roof—it was eleven +o’clock—and soon I heard her running down-stairs crying. When she +got to my room she just folded up on the floor. She said there was a black +figure sitting on the parapet of the house next door—the empty +house—and that when she appeared it rose and waved long black arms at her +and spit like a cat.” +</p> + +<p> +I had finished my dinner and was lighting a cigarette. “If there was any +one up there, which I doubt, they probably sneezed,” I suggested. +“But if you feel uneasy, I’ll take a look around the roof to-night +before I turn in. As far as Euphemia goes, I wouldn’t be uneasy about +her—doesn’t she always have an attack of some sort when Eliza rings +in an extra evening on her?” +</p> + +<p> +So I made a superficial examination of the window locks that night, visiting +parts of the house that I had not seen since I bought it. Then I went to the +roof. Evidently it had not been intended for any purpose save to cover the +house, for unlike the houses around, there was no staircase. A ladder and a +trap-door led to it, and it required some nice balancing on my part to get up +with my useless arm. I made it, however, and found this unexplored part of my +domain rather attractive. It was cooler than down-stairs, and I sat on the +brick parapet and smoked my final cigarette. The roof of the empty house +adjoined mine along the back wing, but investigation showed that the trap-door +across the low dividing wall was bolted underneath. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing out of the ordinary anywhere, and so I assured Mrs. Klopton. +Needless to say, I did not tell her that I had left the trap-door open, to see +if it would improve the temperature of the house. I went to bed at midnight, +merely because there was nothing else to do. I turned on the night lamp at the +head of my bed, and picked up a volume of Shaw at random (it was <i>Arms and +the Man</i>, and I remember thinking grimly that I was a good bit of a +chocolate cream soldier myself), and prepared to go to sleep. Shaw always puts +me to sleep. I have no apologies to make for what occurred that night, and not +even an explanation that I am sure of. I did a foolish thing under impulse, and +I have not been sorry. +</p> + +<p> +It was something after two when the door-bell rang. It rang quickly, twice. I +got up drowsily, for the maids and Mrs. Klopton always lock themselves beyond +reach of the bell at night, and put on a dressing-gown. The bell rang again on +my way down-stairs. I lit the hall light and opened the door. I was wide-awake +now, and I saw that it was Johnson. His bald head shone in the light—his +crooked mouth was twisted in a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Good Heavens, man,” I said irritably. “Don’t you ever +go home and go to bed?” +</p> + +<p> +He closed the vestibule door behind him and cavalierly turned out the light. +Our dialogue was sharp, staccato. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you a key to the empty house next door?” he demanded. +“Somebody’s in there, and the latch is caught.” +</p> + +<p> +“The houses are alike. The key to this door may fit. Did you see them go +in?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. There’s a light moving up from room to room. I saw something +like it last night, and I have been watching. The patrolman reported queer +doings there a week or so ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“A light!” I exclaimed. “Do you mean that you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Very likely,” he said grimly. “Have you a revolver?” +</p> + +<p> +“All kinds in the gun rack,” I replied, and going into the den, I +came back with a Smith and Wesson. “I’m not much use,” I +explained, “with this arm, but I’ll do what I can. There may be +somebody there. The servants here have been uneasy.” +</p> + +<p> +Johnson planned the campaign. He suggested on account of my familiarity with +the roof, that I go there and cut off escape in that direction. “I have +Robison out there now—the patrolman on the beat,” he said. +“He’ll watch below and you above, while I search the house. Be as +quiet as possible.” +</p> + +<p> +I was rather amused. I put on some clothes and felt my way carefully up the +stairs, the revolver swinging free in my pocket, my hand on the rail. At the +foot of the ladder I stopped and looked up. Above me there was a gray rectangle +of sky dotted with stars. It occurred to me that with my one serviceable hand +holding the ladder, I was hardly in a position to defend myself, that I was +about to hoist a body that I am rather careful of into a danger I +couldn’t see and wasn’t particularly keen about anyhow. I +don’t mind saying that the seconds it took me to scramble up the ladder +were among the most unpleasant that I recall. +</p> + +<p> +I got to the top, however, without incident. I could see fairly well after the +darkness of the house beneath, but there was nothing suspicious in sight. The +roofs, separated by two feet of brick wall, stretched around me, unbroken save +by an occasional chimney. I went very softly over to the other trap, the one +belonging to the suspected house. It was closed, but I imagined I could hear +Johnson’s footsteps ascending heavily. Then even that was gone. A near-by +clock struck three as I stood waiting. I examined my revolver then, for the +first time, and found it was empty! +</p> + +<p> +I had been rather skeptical until now. I had had the usual tolerant attitude of +the man who is summoned from his bed to search for burglars, combined with the +artificial courage of firearms. With the discovery of my empty gun, I felt like +a man on the top of a volcano in lively eruption. Suddenly I found myself +staring incredulously at the trap-door at my feet. I had examined it early in +the evening and found it bolted. Did I imagine it, or had it raised about an +inch? Wasn’t it moving slowly as I looked? No, I am not a hero: I was +startled almost into a panic. I had one arm, and whoever was raising that +trap-door had two. My knees had a queer inclination to bend the wrong way. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson’s footsteps were distinct enough, but he was evidently far below. +The trap, raised perhaps two inches now, remained stationary. There was no +sound from beneath it: once I thought I heard two or three gasping +respirations: I am not sure they were not my own. I wanted desperately to stand +on one leg at a time and hold the other up out of focus of a possible revolver. +</p> + +<p> +I did not see the hand appear. There was nothing there, and then it was there, +clutching the frame of the trap. I did the only thing I could think of; I put +my foot on it! +</p> + +<p> +There was not a sound from beneath. The next moment I was kneeling and had +clutched the wrist just above the hand. After a second’s struggle, the +arm was still. With something real to face, I was myself again. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t move, or I’ll stand on the trap and break your +arm,” I panted. What else could I threaten? I couldn’t shoot, I +couldn’t even fight. “Johnson!” I called. +</p> + +<p> +And then I realized the thing that stayed with me for a month, the thing I can +not think of even now without a shudder. The hand lay ice cold, strangely +quiescent. Under my fingers, an artery was beating feebly. The wrist was as +slender as—I held the hand to the light. Then I let it drop. +</p> + +<p> +“Good Lord,” I muttered, and remained on my knees, staring at the +spot where the hand had been. It was gone now: there was a faint rustle in the +darkness below, and then silence. +</p> + +<p> +I held up my own hand in the starlight and stared at a long scratch in the +palm. “A woman!” I said to myself stupidly. “By all +that’s ridiculous, a woman!” +</p> + +<p> +Johnson was striking matches below and swearing softly to himself. “How +the devil do you get to the roof?” he called. “I think I’ve +broken my nose.” +</p> + +<p> +He found the ladder after a short search and stood at the bottom, looking up at +me. “Well, I suppose you haven’t seen him?” he inquired. +“There are enough darned cubbyholes in this house to hide a patrol wagon +load of thieves.” He lighted a fresh match. “Hello, here’s +another door!” +</p> + +<p> +By the sound of his diminishing footsteps I supposed it was a rear staircase. +He came up again in ten minutes or so, this time with the policeman. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s gone, all right,” he said ruefully. “If +you’d been attending to your business, Robison, you’d have watched +the back door.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not twins.” Robison was surly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I broke in, as cheerfully as I could, “if you are +through with this jolly little affair, and can get down my ladder without +having my housekeeper ring the burglar alarm, I have some good Monongahela +whisky—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +They came without a second invitation across the roof, and with them safely +away from the house I breathed more freely. Down in the den I fulfilled my +promise, which Johnson drank to the toast, “Coming through the +rye.” He examined my gun rack with the eye of a connoisseur, and even +when he was about to go he cast a loving eye back at the weapons. +</p> + +<p> +“Ever been in the army?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said with a bitterness that he noticed but failed to +comprehend. “I’m a chocolate cream soldier—you don’t +read Shaw, I suppose, Johnson?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never heard of him,” the detective said indifferently. +“Well, good night, Mr. Blakeley. Much obliged.” At the door he +hesitated and coughed. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you understand, Mr. Blakeley,” he said awkwardly, +“that this—er—surveillance is all in the day’s work. I +don’t like it, but it’s duty. Every man to his duty, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sometime when you are in an open mood, Johnson,” I returned, +“you can explain why I am being watched at all.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /> +THE CINEMATOGRAPH</h2> + +<p> +On Monday I went out for the first time. I did not go to the office. I wanted +to walk. I thought fresh air and exercise would drive away the blue devils that +had me by the throat. McKnight insisted on a long day in his car, but I +refused. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why not,” he said sulkily. “I can’t +walk. I haven’t walked two consecutive blocks in three years. Automobiles +have made legs mere ornaments—and some not even that. We could have +Johnson out there chasing us over the country at five dollars an hour!” +</p> + +<p> +“He can chase us just as well at five miles an hour,” I said. +“But what gets me, McKnight, is why I am under surveillance at all. How +do the police know <i>I</i> was accused of that thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“The young lady who sent the flowers—she isn’t likely to +talk, is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. That is, I didn’t say it was a lady.” I groaned as I +tried to get my splinted arm into a coat. “Anyhow, she didn’t +tell,” I finished with conviction, and McKnight laughed. +</p> + +<p> +It had rained in the early morning, and Mrs. Klopton predicted more showers. In +fact, so firm was her belief and so determined her eye that I took the umbrella +she proffered me. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” I said. “We can leave it next door; I have a +story to tell you, Richey, and it requires proper setting.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight was puzzled, but he followed me obediently round to the kitchen +entrance of the empty house. It was unlocked, as I had expected. While we +climbed to the upper floor I retailed the events of the previous night. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the finest thing I ever heard of,” McKnight said, +staring up at the ladder and the trap. “What a vaudeville skit it would +make! Only you ought not to have put your foot on her hand. They don’t do +it in the best circles.” +</p> + +<p> +I wheeled on him impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand the situation at all, Richey!” I +exclaimed. “What would you say if I tell you it was the hand of a lady? +It was covered with rings.” +</p> + +<p> +“A lady!” he repeated. “Why, I’d say it was a darned +compromising situation, and that the less you say of it the better. Look here, +Lawrence, I think you dreamed it. You’ve been in the house too much. I +take it all back: you do need exercise.” +</p> + +<p> +“She escaped through this door, I suppose,” I said as patiently as +I could. “Evidently down the back staircase. We might as well go down +that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“According to the best precedents in these affairs, we should find a +glove about here,” he said as we started down. But he was more impressed +than he cared to own. He examined the dusty steps carefully, and once, when a +bit of loose plaster fell just behind him, he started like a nervous woman. +</p> + +<p> +“What I don’t understand is why you let her go,” he said, +stopping once, puzzled. “You’re not usually quixotic.” +</p> + +<p> +“When we get out into the country, Richey,” I replied gravely, +“I am going to tell you another story, and if you don’t tell me +I’m a fool and a craven, on the strength of it, you are no friend of +mine.” +</p> + +<p> +We stumbled through the twilight of the staircase into the blackness of the +shuttered kitchen. The house had the moldy smell of closed buildings: even on +that warm September morning it was damp and chilly. As we stepped into the +sunshine McKnight gave a shiver. +</p> + +<p> +“Now that we are out,” he said, “I don’t mind telling +you that I have been there before. Do you remember the night you left, and, the +face at the window?” +</p> + +<p> +“When you speak of it—yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I was curious about that thing,” he went on, as we started +up the street, “and I went back. The street door was unlocked, and I +examined every room. I was Mrs. Klopton’s ghost that carried a light, and +clumb.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you find anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only a clean place rubbed on the window opposite your dressing-room. +Splendid view of an untidy interior. If that house is ever occupied, +you’d better put stained glass in that window of yours.” +</p> + +<p> +As we turned the corner I glanced back. Half a block behind us Johnson was +moving our way slowly. When he saw me he stopped and proceeded with great +deliberation to light a cigar. By hurrying, however, he caught the car that we +took, and stood unobtrusively on the rear platform. He looked fagged, and +absent-mindedly paid our fares, to McKnight’s delight. +</p> + +<p> +“We will give him a run for his money,” he declared, as the car +moved countryward. “Conductor, let us off at the muddiest lane you can +find.” +</p> + +<p> +At one o’clock, after a six-mile ramble, we entered a small country +hotel. We had seen nothing of Johnson for a half hour. At that time he was a +quarter of a mile behind us, and losing rapidly. Before we had finished our +luncheon he staggered into the inn. One of his boots was under his arm, and his +whole appearance was deplorable. He was coated with mud, streaked with +perspiration, and he limped as he walked. He chose a table not far from us and +ordered Scotch. Beyond touching his hat he paid no attention to us. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m just getting my second wind,” McKnight declared. +“How do you feel, Mr. Johnson? Six or eight miles more and we’ll +all enjoy our dinners.” Johnson put down the glass he had raised to his +lips without replying. +</p> + +<p> +The fact was, however, that I was like Johnson. I was soft from my week’s +inaction, and I was pretty well done up. McKnight, who was a well spring of +vitality and high spirits, ordered a strange concoction, made of nearly +everything in the bar, and sent it over to the detective, but Johnson refused +it. +</p> + +<p> +“I hate that kind of person,” McKnight said pettishly. “Kind +of a fellow that thinks you’re going to poison his dog if you offer him a +bone.” +</p> + +<p> +When we got back to the car line, with Johnson a draggled and drooping tail to +the kite, I was in better spirits. I had told McKnight the story of the three +hours just after the wreck; I had not named the girl, of course; she had my +promise of secrecy. But I told him everything else. It was a relief to have a +fresh mind on it: I had puzzled so much over the incident at the farm-house, +and the necklace in the gold bag, that I had lost perspective. +</p> + +<p> +He had been interested, but inclined to be amused, until I came to the broken +chain. Then he had whistled softly. +</p> + +<p> +“But there are tons of fine gold chains made every year,” he said. +“Why in the world do you think that the—er—smeary piece came +from that necklace?” +</p> + +<p> +I had looked around. Johnson was far behind, scraping the mud off his feet with +a piece of stick. +</p> + +<p> +“I have the short end of the chain in the sealskin bag,” I reminded +him. “When I couldn’t sleep this morning I thought I would settle +it, one way or the other. It was hell to go along the way I had been doing. +And—there’s no doubt about it, Rich. It’s the same +chain.” +</p> + +<p> +We walked along in silence until we caught the car back to town. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said finally, “you know the girl, of course, and I +don’t. But if you like her—and I think myself you’re rather +hard hit, old man—I wouldn’t give a whoop about the chain in the +gold purse. It’s just one of the little coincidences that hang people now +and then. And as for last night—if she’s the kind of a girl you say +she is, and you think she had anything to do with that, you—you’re +addled, that’s all. You can depend on it, the lady of the empty house +last week is the lady of last night. And yet your train acquaintance was in +Altoona at that time.” +</p> + +<p> +Just before we got off the car, I reverted to the subject again. It was never +far back in my mind. +</p> + +<p> +“About the—young lady of the train, Rich,” I said, with what +I suppose was elaborate carelessness, “I don’t want you to get a +wrong impression. I am rather unlikely to see her again, but even if I do, +I—I believe she is already ‘bespoke,’ or next thing to +it.” +</p> + +<p> +He made no reply, but as I opened the door with my latch-key he stood looking +up at me from the pavement with his quizzical smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Love is like the measles,” he orated. “The older you get it, +the worse the attack.” +</p> + +<p> +Johnson did not appear again that day. A small man in a raincoat took his +place. The next morning I made my initial trip to the office, the raincoat +still on hand. I had a short conference with Miller, the district attorney, at +eleven. Bronson was under surveillance, he said, and any attempt to sell the +notes to him would probably result in their recovery. In the meantime, as I +knew, the Commonwealth had continued the case, in hope of such contingency. +</p> + +<p> +At noon I left the office and took a veterinarian to see Candida, the injured +pony. By one o’clock my first day’s duties were performed, and a +long Sahara of hot afternoon stretched ahead. McKnight, always glad to escape +from the grind, suggested a vaudeville, and in sheer <i>ennui</i> I consented. +I could neither ride, drive nor golf, and my own company bored me to +distraction. +</p> + +<p> +“Coolest place in town these days,” he declared. “Electric +fans, breezy songs, airy costumes. And there’s Johnson just +behind—the coldest proposition in Washington.” +</p> + +<p> +He gravely bought three tickets and presented the detective with one. Then we +went in. Having lived a normal, busy life, the theater in the afternoon is to +me about on a par with ice-cream for breakfast. Up on the stage a very stout +woman in short pink skirts, with a smile that McKnight declared looked like a +slash in a roll of butter, was singing nasally, with a laborious kick at the +end of each verse. Johnson, two rows ahead, went to sleep. McKnight prodded me +with his elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at the first box to the right,” he said, in a stage whisper. +“I want you to come over at the end of this act.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the first time I had seen her since I put her in the cab at Baltimore. +Outwardly I presume I was calm, for no one turned to stare at me, but every +atom of me cried out at the sight of her. She was leaning, bent forward, lips +slightly parted, gazing raptly at the Japanese conjurer who had replaced what +McKnight disrespectfully called the Columns of Hercules. Compared with the +draggled lady of the farm-house, she was radiant. +</p> + +<p> +For that first moment there was nothing but joy at the sight of her. +McKnight’s touch on my arm brought me back to reality. +</p> + +<p> +“Come over and meet them,” he said. “That’s the cousin +Miss West is visiting, Mrs. Dallas.” +</p> + +<p> +But I would not go. After he went I sat there alone, painfully conscious that I +was being pointed out and stared at from the box. The abominable Japanese gave +way to yet more atrocious performing dogs. +</p> + +<p> +“How many offers of marriage will the young lady in the box have?” +The dog stopped sagely at ‘none,’ and then pulled out a card that +said eight. Wild shouts of glee by the audience. “The fools,” I +muttered. +</p> + +<p> +After a little I glanced over. Mrs. Dallas was talking to McKnight, but She was +looking straight at me. She was flushed, but more calm than I, and she did not +bow. I fumbled for my hat, but the next moment I saw that they were going, and +I sat still. When McKnight came back he was triumphant. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve made an engagement for you,” he said. “Mrs. +Dallas asked me to bring you to dinner to-night, and I said I knew you would +fall all over yourself to go. You are requested to bring along the broken arm, +and any other souvenirs of the wreck that you may possess.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I declared, struggling against +my inclination. “I can’t even tie my necktie, and I have to have my +food cut for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right,” he said easily. “I’ll +send Stogie over to fix you up, and Mrs. Dal knows all about the arm. I told +her.” +</p> + +<p> +(Stogie is his Japanese factotum, so called because he is lean, a yellowish +brown in color, and because he claims to have been shipped into this country in +a box.) +</p> + +<p> +The Cinematograph was finishing the program. The house was dark and the music +had stopped, as it does in the circus just before somebody risks his neck at so +much a neck in the Dip of Death, or the hundred-foot dive. Then, with a sort of +shock, I saw on the white curtain the announcement: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +T<small>HE</small> N<small>EXT</small> P<small>ICTURE</small> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<small>IS THE DOOMED</small> W<small>ASHINGTON</small> F<small>LIER, TAKEN A +SHORT DISTANCE FROM THE SCENE OF THE WRECK ON THE FATAL MORNING OF SEPTEMBER +TENTH</small>. T<small>WO MILES FARTHER ON IT MET WITH ALMOST COMPLETE +ANNIHILATION</small>. +</p> + +<p> +I confess to a return of some of the sickening sensations of the wreck; people +around me were leaning forward with tense faces. Then the letters were gone, +and I saw a long level stretch of track, even the broken stone between the ties +standing out distinctly. Far off under a cloud of smoke a small object was +rushing toward us and growing larger as it came. +</p> + +<p> +Now it was on us, a mammoth in size, with huge drivers and a colossal tender. +The engine leaped aside, as if just in time to save us from destruction, with a +glimpse of a stooping fireman and a grimy engineer. The long train of sleepers +followed. From a forward vestibule a porter in a white coat waved his hand. The +rest of the cars seemed still wrapped in slumber. With mixed sensations I saw +my own car, Ontario, fly past, and then I rose to my feet and gripped +McKnight’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +On the lowest step at the last car, one foot hanging free, was a man. His black +derby hat was pulled well down to keep it from blowing away, and his coat was +flying open in the wind. He was swung well out from the car, his free hand +gripping a small valise, every muscle tense for a jump. +</p> + +<p> +“Good God, that’s my man!” I said hoarsely, as the audience +broke into applause. McKnight half rose: in his seat ahead Johnson stifled a +yawn and turned to eye me. +</p> + +<p> +I dropped into my chair limply, and tried to control my excitement. “The +man on the last platform of the train,” I said. “He was just about +to leap; I’ll swear that was my bag.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could you see his face?” McKnight asked in an undertone. +“Would you know him again?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. His hat was pulled down and his head was bent. I’m going back +to find out where that picture was taken. They say two miles, but it may have +been forty.” +</p> + +<p> +The audience, busy with its wraps, had not noticed. Mrs. Dallas and Alison West +had gone. In front of us Johnson had dropped his hat and was stooping for it. +</p> + +<p> +“This way,” I motioned to McKnight, and we wheeled into the narrow +passage beside us, back of the boxes. At the end there was a door leading into +the wings, and as we went boldly through I turned the key. +</p> + +<p> +The final set was being struck, and no one paid any attention to us. Luckily +they were similarly indifferent to a banging at the door I had locked, a +banging which, I judged, signified Johnson. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess we’ve broken up his interference,” McKnight +chuckled. +</p> + +<p> +Stage hands were hurrying in every direction; pieces of the side wall of the +last drawing-room menaced us; a switchboard behind us was singing like a +tea-kettle. Everywhere we stepped we were in somebody’s way. At last we +were across, confronting a man in his shirt sleeves, who by dots and dashes of +profanity seemed to be directing the chaos. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” he said, wheeling on us. “What can I do for +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would like to ask,” I replied, “if you have any idea just +where the last cinematograph picture was taken.” +</p> + +<p> +“Broken board—picnickers—lake?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. The Washington Flier.” +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at my bandaged arm. +</p> + +<p> +“The announcement says two miles,” McKnight put in, “but we +should like to know whether it is railroad miles, automobile miles, or +policeman miles.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry I can’t tell you,” he replied, more civilly. +“We get those pictures by contract. We don’t take them +ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where are the company’s offices?” +</p> + +<p> +“New York.” He stepped forward and grasped a super by the shoulder. +“What in blazes are you doing with that gold chair in a kitchen set? Take +that piece of pink plush there and throw it over a soap box, if you +haven’t got a kitchen chair.” +</p> + +<p> +I had not realized the extent of the shock, but now I dropped into a chair and +wiped my forehead. The unexpected glimpse of Alison West, followed almost +immediately by the revelation of the picture, had left me limp and unnerved. +McKnight was looking at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“He says the moving picture people have an office down-town. We can make +it if we go now.” +</p> + +<p> +So he called a cab, and we started at a gallop. There was no sign of the +detective. “Upon my word,” Richey said, “I feel lonely +without him.” +</p> + +<p> +The people at the down-town office of the cinematograph company were very +obliging. The picture had been taken, they said, at M——, just two +miles beyond the scene of the wreck. It was not much, but it was something to +work on. I decided not to go home, but to send McKnight’s Jap for my +clothes, and to dress at the Incubator. I was determined, if possible, to make +my next day’s investigations without Johnson. In the meantime, even if it +was for the last time, I would see Her that night. I gave Stogie a note for +Mrs. Klopton, and with my dinner clothes there came back the gold bag, wrapped +in tissue paper. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br /> +THE SHADOW OF A GIRL</h2> + +<p> +Certain things about the dinner at the Dallas house will always be obscure to +me. Dallas was something in the Fish Commission, and I remember his reeling off +fish eggs in billions while we ate our caviar. He had some particular stunt he +had been urging the government to for years—something about forbidding +the establishment of mills and factories on river-banks—it seems they +kill the fish, either the smoke, or the noise, or something they pour into the +water. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dallas was there, I think. Of course, I suppose she must have been; and +there was a woman in yellow: I took her in to dinner, and I remember she +loosened my clams for me so I could get them. But the only real person at the +table was a girl across in white, a sublimated young woman who was as brilliant +as I was stupid, who never by any chance looked directly at me, and who +appeared and disappeared across the candles and orchids in a sort of halo of +radiance. +</p> + +<p> +When the dinner had progressed from salmon to roast, and the conversation had +done the same thing—from fish to scandal—the yellow gown turned to +me. “We have been awfully good, haven’t we, Mr. Blakeley?” +she asked. “Although I am crazy to hear, I have not said +‘wreck’ once. I’m sure you must feel like the survivor of +Waterloo, or something of the sort.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you want me to tell you about the wreck,” I said, glancing +across the table, “I’m sorry to be disappointing, but I don’t +remember anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are fortunate to be able to forget it.” It was the first word +Miss West had spoken directly to me, and it went to my head. +</p> + +<p> +“There are some things I have not forgotten,” I said, over the +candles. “I recall coming to myself some time after, and that a girl, a +beautiful girl—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said the lady in yellow, leaning forward breathlessly. Miss +West was staring at me coldly, but, once started, I had to stumble on. +</p> + +<p> +“That a girl was trying to rouse me, and that she told me I had been on +fire twice already.” A shudder went around the table. +</p> + +<p> +“But surely that isn’t the end of the story,” Mrs. Dallas put +in aggrievedly. “Why, that’s the most tantalizing thing I ever +heard.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid that’s all,” I said. “She went her +way and I went mine. If she recalls me at all, she probably thinks of me as a +weak-kneed individual who faints like a woman when everything is over.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did I tell you?” Mrs. Dallas asserted triumphantly. “He +fainted, did you hear? when everything was over! He hasn’t begun to tell +it.” +</p> + +<p> +I would have given a lot by that time if I had not mentioned the girl. But +McKnight took it up there and carried it on. +</p> + +<p> +“Blakeley is a regular geyser,” he said. “He never spouts +until he reaches the boiling point. And by that same token, although he +hasn’t said much about the Lady of the Wreck, I think he is crazy about +her. In fact, I am sure of it. He thinks he has locked his secret in the caves +of his soul, but I call you to witness that he has it nailed to his face. Look +at him!” +</p> + +<p> +I squirmed miserably and tried to avoid the startled eyes of the girl across +the table. I wanted to choke McKnight and murder the rest of the party. +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t fair,” I said as coolly as I could. “I have +my fingers crossed; you are five against one.” +</p> + +<p> +“And to think that there was a murder on that very train,” broke in +the lady in yellow. “It was a perfect crescendo of horrors, wasn’t +it? And what became of the murdered man, Mr. Blakeley?” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight had the sense to jump into the conversation and save my reply. +</p> + +<p> +“They say good Pittsburgers go to Atlantic City when they die,” he +said. “So—we are reasonably certain the gentleman did <i>not</i> go +to the seashore.” +</p> + +<p> +The meal was over at last, and once in the drawing-room it was clear we hung +heavy on the hostess’ hands. “It is so hard to get people for +bridge in September,” she wailed, “there is absolutely nobody in +town. Six is a dreadful number.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a good poker number,” her husband suggested. +</p> + +<p> +The matter settled itself, however. I was hopeless, save as a dummy; Miss West +said it was too hot for cards, and went out on a balcony that overlooked the +Mall. With obvious relief Mrs. Dallas had the card-table brought, and I was +face to face with the minute I had dreaded and hoped for for a week. +</p> + +<p> +Now it had come, it was more difficult than I had anticipated. I do not know if +there was a moon, but there was the urban substitute for it—the arc +light. It threw the shadow of the balcony railing in long black bars against +her white gown, and as it swung sometimes her face was in the light. I drew a +chair close so that I could watch her. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know,” I said, when she made no effort at speech, +“that you are a much more formidable person to-night, in that gown, than +you were the last time I saw you?” +</p> + +<p> +The light swung on her face; she was smiling faintly. “The hat with the +green ribbons!” she said. “I must take it back; I had almost +forgotten.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not forgotten—anything.” I pulled myself up short. +This was hardly loyalty to Richey. His voice came through the window just then, +and perhaps I was wrong, but I thought she raised her head to listen. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at this hand,” he was saying. “Regular pianola: you +could play it with your feet.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a dear, isn’t he?” Alison said unexpectedly. +“No matter how depressed and downhearted I am, I always cheer up when I +see Richey.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s more than that,” I returned warmly. “He is the +most honorable fellow I know. If he wasn’t so much that way, he would +have a career before him. He wanted to put on the doors of our offices, +Blakeley and McKnight, P. B. H., which is Poor But Honest.” +</p> + +<p> +From my comparative poverty to the wealth of the girl beside me was a single +mental leap. From that wealth to the grandfather who was responsible for it was +another. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if you know that I had been to Pittsburg to see your +grandfather when I met you?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“You?” She was surprised. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And you remember the alligator bag that I told you was exchanged +for the one you cut off my arm?” She nodded expectantly. “Well, in +that valise were the forged Andy Bronson notes, and Mr. Gilmore’s +deposition that they were forged.” +</p> + +<p> +She was on her feet in an instant. “In that bag!” she cried. +“Oh, why didn’t you tell me that before? Oh, it’s so +ridiculous, so—so hopeless. Why, I could—” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped suddenly and sat down again. “I do not know that I am sorry, +after all,” she said after a pause. “Mr. Bronson was a friend of my +father’s. I—I suppose it was a bad thing for you, losing the +papers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it was not a good thing,” I conceded. “While we are on +the subject of losing things, do you remember—do you know that I still +have your gold purse?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not reply at once. The shadow of a column was over her face, but I +guessed that she was staring at me. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i> have it!” She almost whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“I picked it up in the street car,” I said, with a cheerfulness I +did not feel. “It looks like a very opulent little purse.” +</p> + +<p> +Why didn’t she speak about the necklace? For just a careless word to make +me sane again! +</p> + +<p> +“You!” she repeated, horror-stricken. And then I produced the purse +and held it out on my palm. “I should have sent it to you before, I +suppose, but, as you know, I have been laid up since the wreck.” +</p> + +<p> +We both saw McKnight at the same moment. He had pulled the curtains aside and +was standing looking out at us. The tableau of give and take was unmistakable; +the gold purse, her outstretched hand, my own attitude. It was over in a +second; then he came out and lounged on the balcony railing. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re mad at me in there,” he said airily, “so I +came out. I suppose the reason they call it bridge is because so many people +get cross over it.” +</p> + +<p> +The heat broke up the card group soon after, and they all came out for the +night breeze. I had no more words alone with Alison. +</p> + +<p> +I went back to the Incubator for the night. We said almost nothing on the way +home; there was a constraint between us for the first time that I could +remember. It was too early for bed, and so we smoked in the living-room and +tried to talk of trivial things. After a time even those failed, and we sat +silent. It was McKnight who finally broached the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“And so she wasn’t at Seal Harbor at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know where she was, Lollie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Somewhere near Cresson.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that was the purse—her purse—with the broken necklace in +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it was. You understand, don’t you, Rich, that, having given +her my word, I couldn’t tell you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand a lot of things,” he said, without bitterness. +</p> + +<p> +We sat for some time and smoked. Then Richey got up and stretched himself. +“I’m off to bed, old man,” he said. “Need any help with +that game arm of yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thanks,” I returned. +</p> + +<p> +I heard him go into his room and lock the door. It was a bad hour for me. The +first shadow between us, and the shadow of a girl at that. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br /> +AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN</h2> + +<p> +McKnight is always a sympathizer with the early worm. It was late when he +appeared. Perhaps, like myself, he had not slept well. But he was apparently +cheerful enough, and he made a better breakfast than I did. It was one +o’clock before we got to Baltimore. After a half hour’s wait we +took a local for M——, the station near which the cinematograph +picture had been taken. +</p> + +<p> +We passed the scene of the wreck, McKnight with curiosity, I with a sickening +sense of horror. Back in the fields was the little farm-house where Alison West +and I had intended getting coffee, and winding away from the track, maple trees +shading it on each side, was the lane where we had stopped to rest, and where I +had—it seemed presumption beyond belief now—where I had tried to +comfort her by patting her hand. +</p> + +<p> +We got out at M——, a small place with two or three houses and a +general store. The station was a one-roomed affair, with a railed-off place at +the end, where a scale, a telegraph instrument and a chair constituted the +entire furnishing. +</p> + +<p> +The station agent was a young man with a shrewd face. He stopped hammering a +piece of wood over a hole in the floor to ask where we wanted to go. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re not going,” said McKnight, “we’re coming. +Have a cigar?” +</p> + +<p> +The agent took it with an inquiring glance, first at it and then at us. +</p> + +<p> +“We want to ask you a few questions,” began McKnight, perching +himself on the railing and kicking the chair forward for me. “Or, rather, +this gentleman does.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a minute,” said the agent, glancing through the window. +“There’s a hen in that crate choking herself to death.” +</p> + +<p> +He was back in a minute, and took up his position near a sawdust-filled box +that did duty as a cuspidor. +</p> + +<p> +“Now fire away,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“In the first place,” I began, “do you remember the day the +Washington Flier was wrecked below here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I!” he said. “Did Jonah remember the whale?” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you on the platform here when the first section passed?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you recall seeing a man hanging to the platform of the last +car?” +</p> + +<p> +“There was no one hanging there when she passed here,” he said with +conviction. “I watched her out of sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you see anything that morning of a man about my size, carrying a +small grip, and wearing dark clothes and a derby hat?” I asked eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight was trying to look unconcerned, but I was frankly anxious. It was +clear that the man had jumped somewhere in the mile of track just beyond. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes, I did.” The agent cleared his throat. “When the +smash came the operator at MX sent word along the wire, both ways. I got it +here, and I was pretty near crazy, though I knew it wasn’t any fault of +mine. +</p> + +<p> +“I was standing on the track looking down, for I couldn’t leave the +office, when a young fellow with light hair limped up to me and asked me what +that smoke was over there. +</p> + +<p> +“‘That’s what’s left of the Washington Flier,’ I +said, ‘and I guess there’s souls going up in that smoke.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Do you mean the first section?’ he said, getting kind of +greenish-yellow. +</p> + +<p> +“‘That’s what I mean,’ I said; ‘split to kindling +wood because Rafferty, on the second section, didn’t want to be +late.’ +</p> + +<p> +“He put his hand out in front of him, and the satchel fell with a bang. +</p> + +<p> +“‘My God!’ he said, and dropped right on the track in a heap. +</p> + +<p> +“I got him into the station and he came around, but he kept on groaning +something awful. He’d sprained his ankle, and when he got a little better +I drove him over in Carter’s milk wagon to the Carter place, and I reckon +he stayed there a spell.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all, is it?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all—or, no, there’s something else. About noon +that day one of the Carter twins came down with a note from him asking me to +send a long-distance message to some one in Washington.” +</p> + +<p> +“To whom?” I asked eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“I reckon I’ve forgot the name, but the message was that this +fellow—Sullivan was his name—was at M——, and if the man +had escaped from the wreck would he come to see him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t have sent that message to me,” I said to +McKnight, rather crestfallen. “He’d have every object in keeping +out of my way.” +</p> + +<p> +“There might be reasons,” McKnight observed judicially. “He +might not have found the papers then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was the name Blakeley?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“It might have been—I can’t say. But the man wasn’t +there, and there was a lot of noise. I couldn’t hear well. Then in half +an hour down came the other twin to say the gentleman was taking on awful and +didn’t want the message sent.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s gone, of course?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Limped down here in about three days and took the noon train for +the city.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed a certainty now that our man, having hurt himself somewhat in his +jump, had stayed quietly in the farm-house until he was able to travel. But, to +be positive, we decided to visit the Carter place. +</p> + +<p> +I gave the station agent a five-dollar bill, which he rolled up with a couple +of others and stuck in his pocket. I turned as we got to a bend in the road, +and he was looking curiously after us. +</p> + +<p> +It was not until we had climbed the hill and turned onto the road to the Carter +place that I realized where we were going. Although we approached it from +another direction, I knew the farm-house at once. It was the one where Alison +West and I had breakfasted nine days before. With the new restraint between us, +I did not tell McKnight. I wondered afterward if he had suspected it. I saw him +looking hard at the gate-post which had figured in one of our mysteries, but he +asked no questions. Afterward he grew almost taciturn, for him, and let me do +most of the talking. +</p> + +<p> +We opened the front gate of the Carter place and went slowly up the walk. Two +ragged youngsters, alike even to freckles and squints, were playing in the +yard. +</p> + +<p> +“Is your mother around?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“In the front room. Walk in,” they answered in identical tones. +</p> + +<p> +As we got to the porch we heard voices, and stopped. I knocked, but the people +within, engaged in animated, rather one-sided conversation, did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“‘In the front room. Walk in,’” quoted McKnight, and +did so. +</p> + +<p> +In the stuffy farm parlor two people were sitting. One, a pleasant-faced woman +with a checked apron, rose, somewhat embarrassed, to meet us. She did not know +me, and I was thankful. But our attention was riveted on a little man who was +sitting before a table, writing busily. It was Hotchkiss! +</p> + +<p> +He got up when he saw us, and had the grace to look uncomfortable. +</p> + +<p> +“Such an interesting case,” he said nervously, “I took the +liberty—” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” said McKnight suddenly, “did you make any +inquiries at the station?” +</p> + +<p> +“A few,” he confessed. “I went to the theater last +night—I felt the need of a little relaxation—and the sight of a +picture there, a cinematograph affair, started a new line of thought. Probably +the same clue brought you gentlemen. I learned a good bit from the station +agent.” +</p> + +<p> +“The son-of-a-gun,” said McKnight. “And you paid him, I +suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“I gave him five dollars,” was the apologetic answer. Mrs. Carter, +hearing sounds of strife in the yard, went out, and Hotchkiss folded up his +papers. +</p> + +<p> +“I think the identity of the man is established,” he said. +“What number of hat do you wear, Mr. Blakeley?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seven and a quarter,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s only piling up evidence,” he said cheerfully. +“On the night of the murder you wore light gray silk underclothing, with +the second button of the shirt missing. Your hat had ‘L. B.’ in +gilt letters inside, and there was a very minute hole in the toe of one black +sock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush,” McKnight protested. “If word gets to Mrs. Klopton +that Mr. Blakeley was wrecked, or robbed, or whatever it was, with a button +missing and a hole in one sock, she’ll retire to the Old Ladies’ +Home. I’ve heard her threaten it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hotchkiss was without a sense of humor. He regarded McKnight gravely and +went on: +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been up in the room where the man lay while he was unable to +get away, and there is nothing there. But I found what may be a possible clue +in the dust heap. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Carter tells me that in unpacking his grip the other day she took +out of the coat of the pajamas some pieces of a telegram. As I figure it, the +pajamas were his own. He probably had them on when he effected the +exchange.” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded assent. All I had retained of my own clothing was the suit of pajamas +I was wearing and my bath-robe. +</p> + +<p> +“Therefore the telegram was his, not yours. I have pieces here, but some +are missing. I am not discouraged, however.” +</p> + +<p> +He spread out some bits of yellow paper, and we bent over them curiously. It +was something like this: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Man with p— Get—<br /> + Br— +</p> + +<p> +We spelled it out slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” Hotchkiss announced, “I make it something like this: +The ‘p.—’ is one of two things, pistol—you remember the +little pearl-handled affair belonging to the murdered man—or it is +pocket-book. I am inclined to the latter view, as the pocket-book had been +disturbed and the pistol had not.” +</p> + +<p> +I took the piece of paper from the table and scrawled four words on it. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” I said, rearranging them, “it happens, Mr. Hotchkiss, +that I found one of these pieces of the telegram on the train. I thought it had +been dropped by some one else, you see, but that’s immaterial. Arranged +this way it almost makes sense. Fill out that ‘p.—’ with the +rest of the word, as I imagine it, and it makes ‘papers,’ and add +this scrap and you have: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“‘Man with papers (in) lower ten, car seven. Get +(them).’” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight slapped Hotchkiss on the back. “You’re a trump,” he +said. “Br— is Bronson, of course. It’s almost too easy. You +see, Mr. Blakeley here engaged lower ten, but found it occupied by the man who +was later murdered there. The man who did the thing was a friend of +Bronson’s, evidently, and in trying to get the papers we have the motive +for the crime.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are still some things to be explained.” Mr. Hotchkiss wiped +his glasses and put them on. “For one thing, Mr. Blakeley, I am puzzled +by that bit of chain.” +</p> + +<p> +I did not glance at McKnight. I felt that the hand, with which I was gathering +up the bits of torn paper were shaking. It seemed to me that this astute little +man was going to drag in the girl in spite of me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br /> +A NEW WORLD</h2> + +<p> +Hotchkiss jotted down the bits of telegram and rose. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said, “we’ve done something. We’ve +found where the murderer left the train, we know what day he went to Baltimore, +and, most important of all, we have a motive for the crime.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems the irony of fate,” said McKnight, getting up, +“that a man should kill another man for certain papers he is supposed to +be carrying, find he hasn’t got them after all, decide to throw suspicion +on another man by changing berths and getting out, bag and baggage, and then, +by the merest fluke of chance, take with him, in the valise he changed for his +own, the very notes he was after. It was a bit of luck for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why,” put in Hotchkiss doubtfully, “why did he collapse +when he heard of the wreck? And what about the telephone message the station +agent sent? You remember they tried to countermand it, and with some +excitement.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will ask him those questions when we get him,” McKnight said. +We were on the unrailed front porch by that time, and Hotchkiss had put away +his notebook. The mother of the twins followed us to the steps. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me,” she exclaimed volubly, “and to think I was +forgetting to tell you! I put the young man to bed with a spice poultice on his +ankle: my mother always was a firm believer in spice poultices. It’s +wonderful what they will do in croup! And then I took the children and went +down to see the wreck. It was Sunday, and the mister had gone to church; +hasn’t missed a day since he took the pledge nine years ago. And on the +way I met two people, a man and a woman. They looked half dead, so I sent them +right here for breakfast and some soap and water. I always say soap is better +than liquor after a shock.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss was listening absently: McKnight was whistling under his breath, +staring down across the field to where a break in the woods showed a half dozen +telegraph poles, the line of the railroad. +</p> + +<p> +“It must have been twelve o’clock when we got back; I wanted the +children to see everything, because it isn’t likely they’ll ever +see another wreck like that. Rows of—” +</p> + +<p> +“About twelve o’clock,” I broke in, “and what +then?” +</p> + +<p> +“The young man up-stairs was awake,” she went on, “and +hammering at his door like all possessed. And it was locked on the +outside!” She paused to enjoy her sensation. +</p> + +<p> +“I would like to see that lock,” Hotchkiss said promptly, but for +some reason the woman demurred. +</p> + +<p> +“I will bring the key down,” she said and disappeared. When she +returned she held out an ordinary door key of the cheapest variety. +</p> + +<p> +“We had to break the lock,” she volunteered, “and the key +didn’t turn up for two days. Then one of the twins found the turkey +gobbler trying to swallow it. It has been washed since,” she hastened to +assure Hotchkiss, who showed an inclination to drop it. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t think he locked the door himself and threw the key out +of the window?” the little man asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The windows are covered with mosquito netting, nailed on. The mister +blamed it on the children, and it might have been Obadiah. He’s the quiet +kind, and you never know what he’s about.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s about to strangle, isn’t he,” McKnight remarked +lazily, “or is that Obadiah?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carter picked the boy up and inverted him, talking amiably all the time. +“He’s always doing it,” she said, giving him a shake. +“Whenever we miss anything we look to see if Obadiah’s black in the +face.” She gave him another shake, and the quarter I had given him shot +out as if blown from a gun. Then we prepared to go back to the station. +</p> + +<p> +From where I stood I could look into the cheery farm kitchen, where Alison West +and I had eaten our <i>al fresco</i> breakfast. I looked at the table with +mixed emotions, and then, gradually, the meaning of something on it penetrated +my mind. Still in its papers, evidently just opened, was a hat box, and +protruding over the edge of the box was a streamer of vivid green ribbon. +</p> + +<p> +On the plea that I wished to ask Mrs. Carter a few more questions, I let the +others go on. I watched them down the flagstone walk; saw McKnight stop and +examine the gate-posts and saw, too, the quick glance he threw back at the +house. Then I turned to Mrs. Carter. +</p> + +<p> +“I would like to speak to the young lady up-stairs,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +She threw up her hands with a quick gesture of surrender. “I’ve +done all I could,” she exclaimed. “She won’t like it very +well, but—she’s in the room over the parlor.” +</p> + +<p> +I went eagerly up the ladder-like stairs, to the rag-carpeted hall. Two doors +were open, showing interiors of four poster beds and high bureaus. The door of +the room over the parlor was almost closed. I hesitated in the hallway: after +all, what right had I to intrude on her? But she settled my difficulty by +throwing open the door and facing me. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I beg your pardon, Miss West,” I stammered. “It has +just occurred to me that I am unpardonably rude. I saw the hat down-stairs and +I—I guessed—” +</p> + +<p> +“The hat!” she said. “I might have known. Does Richey know I +am here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so.” I turned to go down the stairs again. +Then I halted. “The fact is,” I said, in an attempt at +justification, “I’m in rather a mess these days, and I’m apt +to do irresponsible things. It is not impossible that I shall be arrested, in a +day or so, for the murder of Simon Harrington.” +</p> + +<p> +She drew her breath in sharply. “Murder!” she echoed. “Then +they have found you after all!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t regard it as anything more +than—er—inconvenient,” I lied. “They can’t +convict me, you know. Almost all the witnesses are dead.” +</p> + +<p> +She was not deceived for a moment. She came over to me and stood, both hands on +the rail of the stair. “I know just how grave it is,” she said +quietly. “My grandfather will not leave one stone unturned, and he can be +terrible—terrible. But”—she looked directly into my eyes as I +stood below her on the stairs—“the time may +come—soon—when I can help you. I’m afraid I shall not want +to; I’m a dreadful coward, Mr. Blakeley. But—I will.” She +tried to smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you would let <i>me</i> help <i>you</i>,” I said +unsteadily. “Let us make it a bargain: each help the other!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl shook her head with a sad little smile. “I am only as unhappy as +I deserve to be,” she said. And when I protested and took a step toward +her she retreated, with her hands out before her. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you ask me all the questions you are thinking?” +she demanded, with a catch in her voice. “Oh, I know them. Or are you +afraid to ask?” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at her, at the lines around her eyes, at the drawn look about her +mouth. Then I held out my hand. “Afraid!” I said, as she gave me +hers. “There is nothing in God’s green earth I am afraid of, save +of trouble for you. To ask questions would be to imply a lack of faith. I ask +you nothing. Some day, perhaps, you will come to me yourself and let me help +you.” +</p> + +<p> +The next moment I was out in the golden sunshine: the birds were singing carols +of joy: I walked dizzily through rainbow-colored clouds, past the twins, +cherubs now, swinging on the gate. It was a new world into which I stepped from +the Carter farm-house that morning, for—I had kissed her! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br /> +AT THE TABLE NEXT</h2> + +<p> +McKnight and Hotchkiss were sauntering slowly down the road as I caught up with +them. As usual, the little man was busy with some abstruse mental problem. +</p> + +<p> +“The idea is this,” he was saying, his brows knitted in thought, +“if a left-handed man, standing in the position of the man in the +picture, should jump from a car, would he be likely to sprain his right ankle? +When a right-handed man prepares for a leap of that kind, my theory is that he +would hold on with his right hand, and alight at the proper time, on his right +foot. Of course—” +</p> + +<p> +“I imagine, although I don’t know,” interrupted McKnight, +“that a man either ambidextrous or one-armed, jumping from the Washington +Flier, would be more likely to land on his head.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow,” I interposed, “what difference does it make whether +Sullivan used one hand or the other? One pair of handcuffs will put both hands +out of commission.” +</p> + +<p> +As usual when one of his pet theories was attacked, Hotchkiss looked aggrieved. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir,” he expostulated, “don’t you understand +what bearing this has on the case? How was the murdered man lying when he was +found?” +</p> + +<p> +“On his back,” I said promptly, “head toward the +engine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” he retorted, “and what then? Your heart lies +under your fifth intercostal space, and to reach it a right-handed blow would +have struck either down or directly in. +</p> + +<p> +“But, gentleman, the point of entrance for the stiletto was below the +heart, striking up! As Harrington lay with his head toward the engine, a person +in the aisle must have used the left hand.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight’s eyes sought mine and he winked at me solemnly as I +unostentatiously transferred the hat I was carrying to my right hand. Long +training has largely counterbalanced heredity in my case, but I still pitch +ball, play tennis and carve with my left hand. But Hotchkiss was too busy with +his theories to notice me. +</p> + +<p> +We were only just in time for our train back to Baltimore, but McKnight took +advantage of a second’s delay to shake the station agent warmly by the +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to express my admiration for you,” he said beamingly. +“Ability of your order is thrown away here. You should have been a city +policeman, my friend.” +</p> + +<p> +The agent looked a trifle uncertain. +</p> + +<p> +“The young lady was the one who told me to keep still,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight glanced at me, gave the agent’s hand a final shake, and climbed +on board. But I knew perfectly that he had guessed the reason for my delay. +</p> + +<p> +He was very silent on the way home. Hotchkiss, too, had little to say. He was +reading over his notes intently, stopping now and then to make a penciled +addition. Just before we left the train Richey turned to me. “I suppose +it was the key to the door that she tied to the gate?” +</p> + +<p> +“Probably. I did not ask her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Curious, her locking that fellow in,” he reflected. +</p> + +<p> +“You may depend on it, there was a good reason for it all. And I wish you +wouldn’t be so suspicious of motives, Rich,” I said warmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Only yesterday you were the suspicious one,” he retorted, and we +lapsed into strained silence. +</p> + +<p> +It was late when we got to Washington. One of Mrs. Klopton’s small +tyrannies was exacting punctuality at meals, and, like several other things, I +respected it. There are always some concessions that should be made in return +for faithful service. +</p> + +<p> +So, as my dinner hour of seven was long past, McKnight and I went to a little +restaurant down town where they have a very decent way of fixing chicken <i>a +la</i> King. Hotchkiss had departed, economically bent, for a small hotel where +he lived on the American plan. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to think some things over,” he said in response to my +invitation to dinner, “and, anyhow, there’s no use dining out when +I pay the same, dinner or no dinner, where I am stopping.” +</p> + +<p> +The day had been hot, and the first floor dining-room was sultry in spite of +the palms and fans which attempted to simulate the verdure and breezes of the +country. +</p> + +<p> +It was crowded, too, with a typical summer night crowd, and, after sitting for +a few minutes in a sweltering corner, we got up and went to the smaller +dining-room up-stairs. Here it was not so warm, and we settled ourselves +comfortably by a window. +</p> + +<p> +Over in a corner half a dozen boys on their way back to school were ragging a +perspiring waiter, a proceeding so exactly to McKnight’s taste that he +insisted on going over to join them. But their table was full, and somehow that +kind of fun had lost its point for me. +</p> + +<p> +Not far from us a very stout, middle-aged man, apoplectic with the heat, was +elephantinely jolly for the benefit of a bored-looking girl across the table +from him, and at the next table a newspaper woman ate alone, the last edition +propped against the water-bottle before her, her hat, for coolness, on the +corner of the table. It was a motley Bohemian crowd. +</p> + +<p> +I looked over the room casually, while McKnight ordered the meal. Then my +attention was attracted to the table next to ours. Two people were sitting +there, so deep in conversation that they did not notice us. The woman’s +face was hidden under her hat, as she traced the pattern of the cloth +mechanically with her fork. But the man’s features stood out clear in the +light of the candles on the table. It was Bronson! +</p> + +<p> +“He shows the strain, doesn’t he?” McKnight said, holding up +the wine list as if he read from it. “Who’s the woman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Search me,” I replied, in the same way. +</p> + +<p> +When the chicken came, I still found myself gazing now and then at the +abstracted couple near me. Evidently the subject of conversation was +unpleasant. Bronson was eating little, the woman not at all. Finally he got up, +pushed his chair back noisily, thrust a bill at the waiter and stalked out. +</p> + +<p> +The woman sat still for a moment; then, with an apparent resolution to make the +best of it, she began slowly to eat the meal before her. +</p> + +<p> +But the quarrel had taken away her appetite, for the mixture in our +chafing-dish was hardly ready to serve before she pushed her chair back a +little and looked around the room. +</p> + +<p> +I caught my first glimpse of her face then, and I confess it startled me. It +was the tall, stately woman of the Ontario, the woman I had last seen cowering +beside the road, rolling pebbles in her hand, blood streaming from a cut over +her eye. I could see the scar now, a little affair, about an inch long, +gleaming red through its layers of powder. +</p> + +<p> +And then, quite unexpectedly, she turned and looked directly at me. After a +minute’s uncertainty, she bowed, letting her eyes rest on mine with a +calmly insolent stare. She glanced at McKnight for a moment, then back to me. +When she looked away again I breathed easier. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is it?” asked McKnight under his breath. +</p> + +<p> +“Ontario.” I formed it with my lips rather than said it. +McKnight’s eyebrows went up and he looked with increased interest at the +black-gowned figure. +</p> + +<p> +I ate little after that. The situation was rather bad for me, I began to see. +Here was a woman who could, if she wished, and had any motive for so doing, put +me in jail under a capital charge. A word from her to the police, and polite +surveillance would become active interference. +</p> + +<p> +Then, too, she could say that she had seen me, just after the wreck, with a +young woman from the murdered man’s car, and thus probably bring Alison +West into the case. +</p> + +<p> +It is not surprising, then, that I ate little. The woman across seemed in no +hurry to go. She loitered over a demi-tasse, and that finished, sat with her +elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, looking darkly at the changing groups +in the room. +</p> + +<p> +The fun at the table where the college boys sat began to grow a little noisy; +the fat man, now a purplish shade, ambled away behind his slim companion; the +newspaper woman pinned on her business-like hat and stalked out. Still the +woman at the next table waited. +</p> + +<p> +It was a relief when the meal was over. We got our hats and were about to leave +the room, when a waiter touched me on the arm. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “but the lady at the table +near the window, the lady in black, sir, would like to speak to you.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked down between the rows of tables to where the woman sat alone, her chin +still resting on her hand, her black eyes still insolently staring, this time +at me. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have to go,” I said to McKnight hurriedly. “She +knows all about that affair and she’d be a bad enemy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like her lamps,” McKnight observed, after a glance +at her. “Better jolly her a little. Good-by.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br /> +THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN</h2> + +<p> +I went back slowly to where the woman sat alone. +</p> + +<p> +She smiled rather oddly as I drew near, and pointed to the chair Bronson had +vacated. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, Mr. Blakeley,” she said, “I am going to take a few +minutes of your valuable time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly.” I sat down opposite her and glanced at a cuckoo clock +on the wall. “I am sorry, but I have only a few minutes. If +you—” She laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and opening a +small black fan covered with spangles, waved it slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is,” she said, “I think we are about to make a +bargain.” +</p> + +<p> +“A bargain?” I asked incredulously. “You have a second +advantage of me. You know my name”—I paused suggestively and she +took the cue. +</p> + +<p> +“I am Mrs. Conway,” she said, and flicked a crumb off the table +with an over-manicured finger. +</p> + +<p> +The name was scarcely a surprise. I had already surmised that this might be the +woman whom rumor credited as being Bronson’s common-law wife. Rumor, I +remembered, had said other things even less pleasant, things which had been +brought out at Bronson’s arrest for forgery. +</p> + +<p> +“We met last under less fortunate circumstances,” she was saying. +“I have been fit for nothing since that terrible day. And you—you +had a broken arm, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“I still have it,” I said, with a lame attempt at jocularity; +“but to have escaped at all was a miracle. We have much, indeed, to be +thankful for.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose we have,” she said carelessly, “although sometimes +I doubt it.” She was looking somberly toward the door through which her +late companion had made his exit. +</p> + +<p> +“You sent for me—” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I sent for you.” She roused herself and sat erect. +“Now, Mr. Blakeley, have you found those papers?” +</p> + +<p> +“The papers? What papers?” I parried. I needed time to think. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Blakeley,” she said quietly, “I think we can lay aside +all subterfuge. In the first place let me refresh your mind about a few things. +The Pittsburg police are looking for the survivors of the car Ontario; there +are three that I know of—yourself, the young woman with whom you left the +scene of the wreck, and myself. The wreck, you will admit, was a fortunate one +for you.” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded without speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“At the time of the collision you were in rather a hole,” she went +on, looking at me with a disagreeable smile. “You were, if I remember, +accused of a rather atrocious crime. There was a lot of corroborative evidence, +was there not? I seem to remember a dirk and the murdered man’s +pocket-book in your possession, and a few other things that were—well, +rather unpleasant.” +</p> + +<p> +I was thrown a bit off my guard. +</p> + +<p> +“You remember also,” I said quickly, “that a man disappeared +from the car, taking my clothes, papers and everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember that you <i>said</i> so.” Her tone was quietly +insulting, and I bit my lip at having been caught. It was no time to make a +defense. +</p> + +<p> +“You have missed one calculation,” I said coldly, “and that +is, the discovery of the man who left the train.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have found him?” She bent forward, and again I regretted my +hasty speech. “I knew it; I said so.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are going to find him,” I asserted, with a confidence I did not +feel. “We can produce at any time proof that a man left the Flier a few +miles beyond the wreck. And we can find him, I am positive.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you have not found him yet?” She was clearly disappointed. +“Well, so be it. Now for our bargain. You will admit that I am no +fool.” +</p> + +<p> +I made no such admission, and she smiled mockingly. +</p> + +<p> +“How flattering you are!” she said. “Very well. Now for the +premises. You take to Pittsburg four notes held by the Mechanics’ +National Bank, to have Mr. Gilmore, who is ill, declare his indorsement of them +forged. +</p> + +<p> +“On the journey back to Pittsburg two things happen to you: you lose your +clothing, your valise and your papers, including the notes, and you are accused +of murder. In fact, Mr. Blakeley, the circumstances were most singular, and the +evidence—well, almost conclusive.” +</p> + +<p> +I was completely at her mercy, but I gnawed my lip with irritation. +</p> + +<p> +“Now for the bargain.” She leaned over and lowered her voice. +“A fair exchange, you know. The minute you put those four notes in my +hand—that minute the blow to my head has caused complete forgetfulness as +to the events of that awful morning. I am the only witness, and I will be +silent. Do you understand? They will call off their dogs.” +</p> + +<p> +My head was buzzing with the strangeness of the idea. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” I said, striving to gain time, “I haven’t the +notes. I can’t give you what I haven’t got.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have had the case continued,” she said sharply. “You +expect to find them. Another thing,” she added slowly, watching my face, +“if you don’t get them soon, Bronson will have them. They have been +offered to him already, but at a prohibitive price.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” I said, bewildered, “what is your object in coming to +me? If Bronson will get them anyhow—” +</p> + +<p> +She shut her fan with a click and her face was not particularly pleasant to +look at. +</p> + +<p> +“You are dense,” she said insolently. “I want those +papers—for myself, not for Andy Bronson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the idea is,” I said, ignoring her tone, “that you +think you have me in a hole, and that if I find those papers and give them to +you you will let me out. As I understand it, our friend Bronson, under those +circumstances, will also be in a hole.” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“The notes would be of no use to you for a limited length of time,” +I went on, watching her narrowly. “If they are not turned over to the +state’s attorney within a reasonable time there will have to be a +<i>nolle pros</i>—that is, the case will simply be dropped for lack of +evidence.” +</p> + +<p> +“A week would answer, I think,” she said slowly. “You will do +it, then?” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed, although I was not especially cheerful. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’ll not do it. I expect to come across the notes any time +now, and I expect just as certainly to turn them over to the state’s +attorney when I get them.” +</p> + +<p> +She got up suddenly, pushing her chair back with a noisy grating sound that +turned many eyes toward us. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re more of a fool than I thought you,” she sneered, and +left me at the table. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br /> +McKNIGHT’S THEORY</h2> + +<p> +I confess I was staggered. The people at the surrounding tables, after glancing +curiously in my direction, looked away again. +</p> + +<p> +I got my hat and went out in a very uncomfortable frame of mind. That she would +inform the police at once of what she knew I never doubted, unless possibly she +would give a day or two’s grace in the hope that I would change my mind. +</p> + +<p> +I reviewed the situation as I waited for a car. Two passed me going in the +opposite direction, and on the first one I saw Bronson, his hat over his eyes, +his arms folded, looking moodily ahead. Was it imagination? or was the small +man huddled in the corner of the rear seat Hotchkiss? +</p> + +<p> +As the car rolled on I found myself smiling. The alert little man was for all +the world like a terrier, ever on the scent, and scouring about in every +direction. +</p> + +<p> +I found McKnight at the Incubator, with his coat off, working with enthusiasm +and a manicure file over the horn of his auto. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the worst horn I ever ran across,” he groaned, without +looking up, as I came in. “The blankety-blank thing won’t +blow.” +</p> + +<p> +He punched it savagely, finally eliciting a faint throaty croak. +</p> + +<p> +“Sounds like croup,” I suggested. “My sister-in-law uses +camphor and goose greese for it; or how about a spice poultice?” +</p> + +<p> +But McKnight never sees any jokes but his own. He flung the horn clattering +into a corner, and collapsed sulkily into a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” I said, “if you’re through manicuring that horn, +I’ll tell you about my talk with the lady in black.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s wrong?” asked McKnight languidly. “Police +watching her, too?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not exactly. The fact is, Rich, there’s the mischief to +pay.” +</p> + +<p> +Stogie came in, bringing a few additions to our comfort. When he went out I +told my story. +</p> + +<p> +“You must remember,” I said, “that I had seen this woman +before the morning of the wreck. She was buying her Pullman ticket when I did. +Then the next morning, when the murder was discovered, she grew hysterical, and +I gave her some whisky. The third and last time I saw her, until to-night, was +when she crouched beside the road, after the wreck.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight slid down in his chair until his weight rested on the small of his +back, and put his feet on the big reading table. +</p> + +<p> +“It is rather a facer,” he said. “It’s really too good +a situation for a commonplace lawyer. It ought to be dramatized. You +can’t agree, of course; and by refusing you run the chance of jail, at +least, and of having Alison brought into publicity, which is out of the +question. You say she was at the Pullman window when you were?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I bought her ticket for her. Gave her lower eleven.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you took ten?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lower ten.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight straightened up and looked at me. +</p> + +<p> +“Then she thought you were in lower ten.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose she did, if she thought at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“But listen, man.” McKnight was growing excited. “What do you +figure out of this? The Conway woman knows you have taken the notes to +Pittsburg. The probabilities are that she follows you there, on the chance of +an opportunity to get them, either for Bronson or herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing doing during the trip over or during the day in Pittsburg; but +she learns the number of your berth as you buy it at the Pullman ticket office +in Pittsburg, and she thinks she sees her chance. No one could have foreseen +that that drunken fellow would have crawled into your berth. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I figure it out this way: She wanted those notes +desperately—does still—not for Bronson, but to hold over his head +for some purpose. In the night, when everything is quiet, she slips behind the +curtains of lower ten, where the man’s breathing shows he is asleep. +Didn’t you say he snored?” +</p> + +<p> +“He did!” I affirmed. “But I tell you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Now keep still and listen. She gropes cautiously around in the darkness, +finally discovering the wallet under the pillow. Can’t you see it +yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +He was leaning forward, excitedly, and I could almost see the gruesome tragedy +he was depicting. +</p> + +<p> +“She draws out the wallet. Then, perhaps she remembers the alligator bag, +and on the possibility that the notes are there, instead of in the pocket-book, +she gropes around for it. Suddenly, the man awakes and clutches at the nearest +object, perhaps her neck chain, which breaks. She drops the pocket-book and +tries to escape, but he has caught her right hand. +</p> + +<p> +“It is all in silence; the man is still stupidly drunk. But he holds her +in a tight grip. Then the tragedy. She must get away; in a minute the car will +be aroused. Such a woman, on such an errand, does not go without some sort of a +weapon, in this case a dagger, which, unlike a revolver, is noiseless. +</p> + +<p> +“With a quick thrust—she’s a big woman and a bold +one—she strikes. Possibly Hotchkiss is right about the left-hand blow. +Harrington may have held her right hand, or perhaps she held the dirk in her +left hand as she groped with her right. Then, as the man falls back, and his +grasp relaxes, she straightens and attempts to get away. The swaying of the car +throws her almost into your berth, and, trembling with terror, she crouches +behind the curtains of lower ten until everything is still. Then she goes +noiselessly back to her berth.” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to fit partly, at least,” I said. “In the morning +when she found that the crime had been not only fruitless, but that she had +searched the wrong berth and killed the wrong man; when she saw me emerge, +unhurt, just as she was bracing herself for the discovery of my dead body, then +she went into hysterics. You remember, I gave her some whisky. +</p> + +<p> +“It really seems a tenable theory. But, like the Sullivan theory, there +are one or two things that don’t agree with the rest. For one thing, how +did the remainder of that chain get into Alison West’s possession?” +</p> + +<p> +“She may have picked it up on the floor.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll admit that,” I said; “and I’m sure I hope +so. Then how did the murdered man’s pocket-book get into the sealskin +bag? And the dirk, how account for that, and the blood-stains?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now what’s the use,” asked McKnight aggrievedly, “of +my building up beautiful theories for you to pull down? We’ll take it to +Hotchkiss. Maybe he can tell from the blood-stains if the murderer’s +finger nails were square or pointed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hotchkiss is no fool,” I said warmly. “Under all his +theories there’s a good hard layer of common sense. And we must remember, +Rich, that neither of our theories includes the woman at Doctor Van +Kirk’s hospital, that the charming picture you have just drawn does not +account for Alison West’s connection with the case, or for the bits of +telegram in the Sullivan fellow’s pajamas pocket. You are like the man +who put the clock together; you’ve got half of the works left +over.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go home,” said McKnight disgustedly. “I’m no Edgar +Allan Poe. What’s the use of coming here and asking me things if +you’re so particular?” +</p> + +<p> +With one of his quick changes of mood, he picked up his guitar. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to this,” he said. “It is a Hawaiian song about a fat +lady, oh, ignorant one! and how she fell off her mule.” +</p> + +<p> +But for all the lightness of the words, the voice that followed me down the +stairs was anything but cheery. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“There was a Kanaka in Balu did dwell,<br /> +Who had for his daughter a monstrous fat girl— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +he sang in his clear tenor. I paused on the lower floor and listened. He had +stopped singing as abruptly as he had begun. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br /> +AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE</h2> + +<p> +I had not been home for thirty-six hours, since the morning of the preceding +day. Johnson was not in sight, and I let myself in quietly with my latchkey. It +was almost midnight, and I had hardly settled myself in the library when the +bell rang and I was surprised to find Hotchkiss, much out of breath, in the +vestibule. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, come in, Mr. Hotchkiss,” I said. “I thought you were +going home to go to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I was, so I was.” He dropped into a chair beside my reading +lamp and mopped his face. “And here it is almost midnight, and I’m +wider awake than ever. I’ve seen Sullivan, Mr. Blakeley.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have,” he said impressively. +</p> + +<p> +“You were following Bronson at eight o’clock. Was that when it +happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something of the sort. When I left you at the door of the restaurant, I +turned and almost ran into a plain clothes man from the central office. I know +him pretty well; once or twice he has taken me with him on interesting bits of +work. He knows my hobby.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know him, too, probably. It was the man Arnold, the detective whom +the state’s attorney has had watching Bronson.” +</p> + +<p> +Johnson being otherwise occupied, I had asked for Arnold myself. +</p> + +<p> +I nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he stopped me at once; said he’d been on the fellow’s +tracks since early morning and had had no time for luncheon. Bronson, it seems, +isn’t eating much these days. I at once jotted down the fact, because it +argued that he was being bothered by the man with the notes.” +</p> + +<p> +“It might point to other things,” I suggested. “Indigestion, +you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss ignored me. “Well, Arnold had some reason for thinking that +Bronson would try to give him the slip that night, so he asked me to stay +around the private entrance there while he ran across the street and got +something to eat. It seemed a fair presumption that, as he had gone there with +a lady, they would dine leisurely, and Arnold would have plenty of time to get +back.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about your own dinner?” I asked curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” he said pompously, “I have given you a wrong estimate +of Wilson Budd Hotchkiss if you think that a question of dinner would even +obtrude itself on his mind at such a time as this.” +</p> + +<p> +He was a frail little man, and to-night he looked pale with heat and +over-exertion. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you have any luncheon?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He was somewhat embarrassed at that. +</p> + +<p> +“I—really, Mr. Blakeley, the events of the day were so +engrossing—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I said, “I’m not going to see you drop on the +floor from exhaustion. Just wait a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +I went back to the pantry, only to be confronted with rows of locked doors and +empty dishes. Downstairs, in the basement kitchen, however, I found two +unattractive looking cold chops, some dry bread and a piece of cake, wrapped in +a napkin, and from its surreptitious and generally hang-dog appearance, +destined for the coachman in the stable at the rear. Trays there were +none—everything but the chairs and tables seemed under lock and key, and +there was neither napkin, knife nor fork to be found. +</p> + +<p> +The luncheon was not attractive in appearance, but Hotchkiss ate his cold chops +and gnawed at the crusts as though he had been famished, while he told his +story. +</p> + +<p> +“I had been there only a few minutes,” he said, with a chop in one +hand and the cake in the other, “when Bronson rushed out and cut across +the street. He’s a tall man, Mr. Blakeley, and I had had work keeping +close. It was a relief when he jumped on a passing car, although being well +behind, it was a hard run for me to catch him. He had left the lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Once on the car, we simply rode from one end of the line to the other +and back again. I suppose he was passing the time, for he looked at his watch +now and then, and when I did once get a look at his face it made +me—er—uncomfortable. He could have crushed me like a fly, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +I had brought Mr. Hotchkiss a glass of wine, and he was looking better. He +stopped to finish it, declining with a wave of his hand to have it refilled, +and continued: +</p> + +<p> +“About nine o’clock or a little later he got off somewhere near +Washington Circle. He went along one of the residence streets there, turned to +his left a square or two, and rang a bell. He had been admitted when I got +there, but I guessed from the appearance of the place that it was a +boarding-house. +</p> + +<p> +“I waited a few minutes and rang the bell. When a maid answered it, I +asked for Mr. Sullivan. Of course there was no Mr. Sullivan there. +</p> + +<p> +“I said I was sorry; that the man I was looking for was a new boarder. +She was sure there was no such boarder in the house; the only new arrival was a +man on the third floor—she thought his name was Stuart. +</p> + +<p> +“‘My friend has a cousin by that name,’ I said. +‘I’ll just go up and see.’ +</p> + +<p> +“She wanted to show me up, but I said it was unnecessary. So after +telling me it was the bedroom and sitting-room on the third floor front, I went +up. +</p> + +<p> +“I met a couple of men on the stairs, but neither of them paid any +attention to me. A boarding-house is the easiest place in the world to +enter.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re not always so easy to leave,” I put in, to his +evident irritation. +</p> + +<p> +“When I got to the third story, I took out a bunch of keys and posted +myself by a door near the ones the girl had indicated. I could hear voices in +one of the front rooms, but could not understand what they said. +</p> + +<p> +“There was no violent dispute, but a steady hum. Then Bronson jerked the +door open. If he had stepped into the hall he would have seen me fitting a key +into the door before me. But he spoke before he came out. +</p> + +<p> +“‘You’re acting like a maniac,’ he said. ‘You +know I can get those things some way; I’m not going to threaten you. It +isn’t necessary. You know me.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘It would be no use,’ the other man said. ‘I tell you, +I haven’t seen the notes for ten days.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘But you will,’ Bronson said savagely. ‘You’re +standing in your own way, that’s all. If you’re holding out +expecting me to raise my figure, you’re making a mistake. It’s my +last offer.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I couldn’t take it if it was for a million,’ said the +man inside the room. ‘I’d do it, I expect, if I could. The best of +us have our price.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Bronson slammed the door then, and flung past me down the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“After a couple of minutes I knocked at the door, and a tall man about +your size, Mr. Blakeley, opened it. He was very blond, with a smooth face and +blue eyes—what I think you would call a handsome man. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I beg your pardon for disturbing you,’ I said. ‘Can +you tell me which is Mr. Johnson’s room? Mr. Francis Johnson?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I can not say,’ he replied civilly. ‘I’ve only +been here a few days.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I thanked him and left, but I had had a good look at him, and I think +I’d know him readily any place.” +</p> + +<p> +I sat for a few minutes thinking it over. “But what did he mean by saying +he hadn’t seen the notes for ten days? And why is Bronson making the +overtures?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think he was lying,” Hotchkiss reflected. “Bronson +hasn’t reached his figure.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a big advance, Mr. Hotchkiss, and I appreciate what you have +done more than I can tell you,” I said. “And now, if you can locate +any of my property in this fellow’s room, we’ll send him up for +larceny, and at least have him where we can get at him. I’m going to +Cresson to-morrow, to try to trace him a little from there. But I’ll be +back in a couple of days, and we’ll begin to gather in these scattered +threads.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss rubbed his hands together delightedly. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it,” he said. “That’s what we want to do, +Mr. Blakeley. We’ll gather up the threads ourselves; if we let the police +in too soon, they’ll tangle it up again. I’m not vindictive by +nature; but when a fellow like Sullivan not only commits a murder, but goes to +all sorts of trouble to put the burden of guilt on an innocent man—I say +<i>hunt him down</i>, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are convinced, of course, that Sullivan did it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who else?” He looked over his glasses at me with the air of a man +whose mental attitude is unassailable. “Well, listen to this,” I +said. +</p> + +<p> +Then I told him at length of my encounter with Bronson in the restaurant, of +the bargain proposed by Mrs. Conway, and finally of McKnight’s new +theory. But, although he was impressed, he was far from convinced. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a very vivid piece of imagination,” he said drily; +“but while it fits the evidence as far as it goes, it doesn’t go +far enough. How about the stains in lower seven, the dirk, and the wallet? +Haven’t we even got motive in that telegram from Bronson?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I admitted, “but that bit of chain—” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh,” he said shortly. “Perhaps, like yourself, Sullivan +wore glasses with a chain. Our not finding them does not prove they did not +exist.” +</p> + +<p> +And there I made an error; half confidences are always mistakes. I could not +tell of the broken chain in Alison West’s gold purse. +</p> + +<p> +It was one o’clock when Hotchkiss finally left. We had by that time +arranged a definite course of action—Hotchkiss to search Sullivan’s +rooms and if possible find evidence to have him held for larceny, while I went +to Cresson. +</p> + +<p> +Strangely enough, however, when I entered the train the following morning, +Hotchkiss was already there. He had bought a new note-book, and was sharpening +a fresh pencil. +</p> + +<p> +“I changed my plans, you see,” he said, bustling his newspaper +aside for me. “It is no discredit to your intelligence, Mr. Blakeley, but +you lack the professional eye, the analytical mind. You legal gentlemen call a +spade a spade, although it may be a shovel.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘A primrose by the river’s brim<br /> +A yellow primrose was to him,<br /> +And nothing more!’” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I quoted as the train pulled out. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br /> +A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS</h2> + +<p> +I slept most of the way to Cresson, to the disgust of the little detective. +Finally he struck up an acquaintance with a kindly-faced old priest on his way +home to his convent school, armed with a roll of dance music and surreptitious +bundles that looked like boxes of candy. From scraps of conversation I gleaned +that there had been mysterious occurrences at the convent,—ending in the +theft of what the reverend father called vaguely, “a quantity of +undermuslins.” I dropped asleep at that point, and when I roused a few +moments later, the conversation had progressed. Hotchkiss had a diagram on an +envelope. +</p> + +<p> +“With this window bolted, and that one inaccessible, and if, as you say, +the—er—garments were in a tub here at X, then, as you hold the key +to the other door,—I think you said the convent dog did not raise any +disturbance? Pardon a personal question, but do you ever walk in your +sleep?” +</p> + +<p> +The priest looked bewildered. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what to do,” Hotchkiss said cheerfully, +leaning forward, “look around a little yourself before you call in the +police. Somnambulism is a queer thing. It’s a question whether we are +most ourselves sleeping or waking. Ever think of that? Live a saintly life all +day, prayers and matins and all that, and the subconscious mind hikes you out +of bed at night to steal undermuslins! Subliminal theft, so to speak. Better +examine the roof.” +</p> + +<p> +I dozed again. When I wakened Hotchkiss sat alone, and the priest, from a +corner, was staring at him dazedly, over his breviary. +</p> + +<p> +It was raining when we reached Cresson, a wind-driven rain that had forced the +agent at the newsstand to close himself in, and that beat back from the rails +in parallel lines of white spray. As he went up the main street, Hotchkiss was +cheerfully oblivious of the weather, of the threatening dusk, of our generally +draggled condition. <i>My</i> draggled condition, I should say, for he improved +every moment,—his eyes brighter, his ruddy face ruddier, his collar newer +and glossier. Sometime, when it does not encircle the little man’s neck, +I shall test that collar with a match. +</p> + +<p> +I was growing steadily more depressed: I loathed my errand and its necessity. I +had always held that a man who played the spy on a woman was beneath contempt. +Then, I admit I was afraid of what I might learn. For a time, however, this +promised to be a negligible quantity. The streets of the straggling little +mountain town had been clean-washed of humanity by the downpour. Windows and +doors were inhospitably shut, and from around an occasional drawn shade came +narrow strips of light that merely emphasized our gloom. When Hotchkiss’ +umbrella turned inside out, I stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know where you are going,” I snarled, “I +don’t care. But I’m going to get under cover inside of ten seconds. +I’m not amphibious.” +</p> + +<p> +I ducked into the next shelter, which happened to be the yawning entrance to a +livery stable, and shook myself, dog fashion. Hotchkiss wiped his collar with +his handkerchief. It emerged gleaming and unwilted. +</p> + +<p> +“This will do as well as any place,” he said, raising his voice +above the rattle of the rain. “Got to make a beginning.” +</p> + +<p> +I sat down on the usual chair without a back, just inside the door, and stared +out at the darkening street. The whole affair had an air of unreality. Now that +I was there, I doubted the necessity, or the value, of the journey. I was wet +and uncomfortable. Around me, with Cresson as a center, stretched an irregular +circumference of mountain, with possibly a ten-mile radius, and in it I was to +find the residence of a woman whose first name I did not know, and a man who, +so far, had been a purely chimerical person. +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss had penetrated the steaming interior of the cave, and now his voice, +punctuated by the occasional thud of horses’ hoofs, came to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Something light will do,” he was saying. “A runabout, +perhaps.” He came forward rubbing his hands, followed by a thin man in +overalls. “Mr. Peck says,” he began,—“this is Mr. Peck +of Peck and Peck,—says that the place we are looking for is about seven +miles from the town. It’s clearing, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not,” I returned savagely. “And we don’t want a +runabout, Mr. Peck. What we require is an hermetically sealed diving suit. I +suppose there isn’t a machine to be had?” Mr. Peck gazed at me, in +silence: machine to him meant other things than motors. +“Automobile,” I supplemented. His face cleared. +</p> + +<p> +“None but private affairs. I can give you a good buggy with a rubber +apron. Mike, is the doctor’s horse in?” +</p> + +<p> +I am still uncertain as to whether the raw-boned roan we took out that night +over the mountains was the doctor’s horse or not. If it was, the doctor +may be a good doctor, but he doesn’t know anything about a horse. And +furthermore, I hope he didn’t need the beast that miserable evening. +</p> + +<p> +While they harnessed the horse, Hotchkiss told me what he had learned. +</p> + +<p> +“Six Curtises in the town and vicinity,” he said. “Sort of +family name around here. One of them is telegraph operator at the station. +Person we are looking for is—was—a wealthy widow with a brother +named Sullivan! Both supposed to have been killed on the Flier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Her brother,” I repeated stupidly. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” Hotchkiss went on, “three people, in one party, +took the train here that night, Miss West, Mrs. Curtis and Sullivan. The two +women had the drawing-room, Sullivan had lower seven. What we want to find out +is just who these people were, where they came from, if Bronson knew them, and +how Miss West became entangled with them. She may have married Sullivan, for +one thing.” +</p> + +<p> +I fell into gloom after that. The roan was led unwillingly into the weather, +Hotchkiss and I in eclipse behind the blanket. The liveryman stood in the +doorway and called directions to us. “You can’t miss it,” he +finished. “Got the name over the gate anyhow, ‘The Laurels.’ +The servants are still there: leastways, we didn’t bring them +down.” He even took a step into the rain as Hotchkiss picked up the +lines. “If you’re going to settle the estate,” he bawled, +“don’t forget us, Peck and Peck. A half-bushel of name and a bushel +of service.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss could not drive. Born a clerk, he guided the roan much as he would +drive a bad pen. And the roan spattered through puddles and splashed +ink—mud, that is—until I was in a frenzy of irritation. +</p> + +<p> +“What are we going to say when we get there?” I asked after I had +finally taken the reins in my one useful hand. “Get out there at midnight +and tell the servants we have come to ask a few questions about the family? +It’s an idiotic trip anyhow; I wish I had stayed at home.” +</p> + +<p> +The roan fell just then, and we had to crawl out and help him up. By the time +we had partly unharnessed him our matches were gone, and the small bicycle lamp +on the buggy was wavering only too certainly. We were covered with mud, panting +with exertion, and even Hotchkiss showed a disposition to be surly. The rain, +which had lessened for a time, came on again, the lightning flashes doing more +than anything else to reveal our isolated position. +</p> + +<p> +Another mile saw us, if possible, more despondent. The water in our clothes had +had time to penetrate: the roan had sprained his shoulder, and drew us along in +a series of convulsive jerks. And then through the rain-spattered window of the +blanket, I saw a light. It was a small light, rather yellow, and it lasted +perhaps thirty seconds. Hotchkiss missed it, and was inclined to doubt me. But +in a couple of minutes the roan hobbled to the side of the road and stopped, +and I made out a break in the pines and an arched gate. +</p> + +<p> +It was a small gate, too narrow for the buggy. I pulled the horse into as much +shelter as possible under the trees, and we got out. Hotchkiss tied the beast +and we left him there, head down against the driving rain, drooping and +dejected. Then we went toward the house. +</p> + +<p> +It was a long walk. The path bent and twisted, and now and then we lost it. We +were climbing as we went. Oddly there were no lights ahead, although it was +only ten o’clock,—not later. Hotchkiss kept a little ahead of me, +knocking into trees now and then, but finding the path in half the time I +should have taken. Once, as I felt my way around a tree in the blackness, I put +my hand unexpectedly on his shoulder, and felt a shudder go down my back. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you expect me to do?” he protested, when I remonstrated. +“Hang out a red lantern? What was that? Listen.” +</p> + +<p> +We both stood peering into the gloom. The sharp patter of the rain on leaves +had ceased, and from just ahead there came back to us the stealthy padding of +feet in wet soil. My hand closed on Hotchkiss’ shoulder, and we listened +together, warily. The steps were close by, unmistakable. The next flash of +lightning showed nothing moving: the house was in full view now, dark and +uninviting, looming huge above a terrace, with an Italian garden at the side. +Then the blackness again. Somebody’s teeth were chattering: I accused +Hotchkiss but he denied it. +</p> + +<p> +“Although I’m not very comfortable, I’ll admit,” he +confessed; “there was something breathing right at my elbow here a moment +ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” I took his elbow and steered him in what I made out to +be the direction of the steps of the Italian garden. “I saw a deer just +ahead by the last flash; that’s what you heard. By Jove, I hear +wheels.” +</p> + +<p> +We paused to listen and Hotchkiss put his hand on something close to us. +“Here’s your deer,” he said. “Bronze.” +</p> + +<p> +As we neared the house the sense of surveillance we had had in the park +gradually left us. Stumbling over flower beds, running afoul of a sun-dial, +groping our way savagely along hedges and thorny banks, we reached the steps +finally and climbed the terrace. +</p> + +<p> +It was then that Hotchkiss fell over one of the two stone urns which, with tall +boxwood trees in them, mounted guard at each side of the door. He didn’t +make any attempt to get up. He sat in a puddle on the brick floor of the +terrace and clutched his leg and swore softly in Government English. +</p> + +<p> +The occasional relief of the lightning was gone. I could not see an outline of +the house before me. We had no matches, and an instant’s investigation +showed that the windows were boarded and the house closed. Hotchkiss, still +recumbent, was ascertaining the damage, tenderly peeling down his stocking. +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my soul,” he said finally, “I don’t know whether +this moisture is blood or rain. I think I’ve broken a bone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Blood is thicker than water,” I suggested. “Is it sticky? +See if you can move your toes.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause: Hotchkiss moved his toes. By that time I had found a knocker +and was making the night hideous. But there was no response save the wind that +blew sodden leaves derisively in our faces. Once Hotchkiss declared he heard a +window-sash lifted, but renewed violence with the knocker produced no effect. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s only one thing to do,” I said finally. +“I’ll go back and try to bring the buggy up for you. You +can’t walk, can you?” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss sat back in his puddle and said he didn’t think he could stir, +but for me to go back to town and leave him, that he didn’t have any +family dependent on him, and that if he was going to have pneumonia he had +probably got it already. I left him there, and started back to get the horse. +</p> + +<p> +If possible, it was worse than before. There was no lightning, and only by a +miracle did I find the little gate again. I drew a long breath of relief, +followed by another, equally long, of dismay. For I had found the hitching +strap and there was nothing at the end of it! In a lull of the wind I seemed to +hear, far off, the eager thud of stable-bound feet. So for the second time I +climbed the slope to the Laurels, and on the way I thought of many things to +say. +</p> + +<p> +I struck the house at a new angle, for I found a veranda, destitute of chairs +and furnishings, but dry and evidently roofed. It was better than the terrace, +and so, by groping along the wall, I tried to make my way to Hotchkiss. That +was how I found the open window. I had passed perhaps six, all closed, and to +have my hand grope for the next one, and to find instead the soft drapery of an +inner curtain, was startling, to say the least. +</p> + +<p> +I found Hotchkiss at last around an angle of the stone wall, and told him that +the horse was gone. He was disconcerted, but not abased; maintaining that it +was a new kind of knot that couldn’t slip and that the horse must have +chewed the halter through! He was less enthusiastic than I had expected about +the window. +</p> + +<p> +“It looks uncommonly like a trap,” he said. “I tell you there +was some one in the park below when we were coming up. Man has a sixth sense +that scientists ignore—a sense of the nearness of things. And all the +time you have been gone, some one has been watching me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t see you,” I maintained; “I can’t see +you now. And your sense of contiguity didn’t tell you about that flower +crock.” +</p> + +<p> +In the end, of course, he consented to go with me. He was very lame, and I +helped him around to the open window. He was full of moral courage, the little +man: it was only the physical in him that quailed. And as we groped along, he +insisted on going through the window first. +</p> + +<p> +“If it is a trap,” he whispered, “I have two arms to your +one, and, besides, as I said before, life holds much for you. As for me, the +government would merely lose an indifferent employee.” +</p> + +<p> +When he found I was going first he was rather hurt, but I did not wait for his +protests. I swung my feet over the sill and dropped. I made a clutch at the +window-frame with my good hand when I found no floor under my feet, but I was +too late. I dropped probably ten feet and landed with a crash that seemed to +split my ear-drums. I was thoroughly shaken, but in some miraculous way the +bandaged arm had escaped injury. +</p> + +<p> +“For Heaven’s sake,” Hotchkiss was calling from above, +“have you broken your back?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I returned, as steadily as I could, “merely driven it +up through my skull. This is a staircase. I’m coming up to open another +window.” +</p> + +<p> +It was eerie work, but I accomplished it finally, discovering, not without +mishap, a room filled with more tables than I had ever dreamed of, tables that +seemed to waylay and strike at me. When I had got a window open, Hotchkiss +crawled through, and we were at last under shelter. +</p> + +<p> +Our first thought was for a light. The same laborious investigation that had +landed us where we were, revealed that the house was lighted by electricity, +and that the plant was not in operation. By accident I stumbled across a +tabouret with smoking materials, and found a half dozen matches. The first one +showed us the magnitude of the room we stood in, and revealed also a brass +candle-stick by the open fireplace, a candle-stick almost four feet high, +supporting a candle of similar colossal proportions. It was Hotchkiss who +discovered that it had been recently lighted. He held the match to it and +peered at it over his glasses. +</p> + +<p> +“Within ten minutes,” he announced impressively, “this candle +has been burning. Look at the wax! And the wick! Both soft.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it’s the damp weather,” I ventured, moving a little +nearer to the circle of light. A gust of wind came in just then, and the flame +turned over on its side and threatened demise. There was something almost +ridiculous in the haste with which we put down the window and nursed the +flicker to life. +</p> + +<p> +The peculiarly ghost-like appearance of the room added to the uncanniness of +the situation. The furniture was swathed in white covers for the winter; even +the pictures wore shrouds. And in a niche between two windows a bust on a +pedestal, similarly wrapped, one arm extended under its winding sheet, made a +most life-like ghost, if any ghost can be life-like. +</p> + +<p> +In the light of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were objects for +mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and preparing to make himself +comfortable, while I hung my muddy raincoat over the ghost in the corner. Thus +habited, he presented a rakish but distinctly more comfortable appearance. +</p> + +<p> +“When these people built,” Hotchkiss said, surveying the huge +dimensions of the room, “they must have bought a mountain and built all +over it. What a room!” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to be a living-room, although Hotchkiss remarked that it was much +more like a dead one. It was probably fifty feet long and twenty-five feet +wide. It was very high, too, with a domed ceiling, and a gallery ran around the +entire room, about fifteen feet above the floor. The candle light did not +penetrate beyond the dim outlines of the gallery rail, but I fancied the wall +there hung with smaller pictures. +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss had discovered a fire laid in the enormous fireplace, and in a few +minutes we were steaming before a cheerful blaze. Within the radius of its +light and heat, we were comfortable again. But the brightness merely emphasized +the gloom of the ghostly corners. We talked in subdued tones, and I smoked, a +box of Russian cigarettes which I found in a table drawer. We had decided to +stay all night, there being nothing else to do. I suggested a game of +double-dummy bridge, but did not urge it when my companion asked me if it +resembled euchre. Gradually, as the ecclesiastical candle paled in the +firelight, we grew drowsy. I drew a divan into the cheerful area, and stretched +myself out for sleep. Hotchkiss, who said the pain in his leg made him wakeful, +sat wide-eyed by the fire, smoking a pipe. +</p> + +<p> +I have no idea how much time had passed when something threw itself violently +on my chest. I roused with a start and leaped to my feet, and a large Angora +cat fell with a thump to the floor. The fire was still bright, and there was an +odor of scorched leather through the room, from Hotchkiss’ shoes. The +little detective was sound asleep, his dead pipe in his fingers. The cat sat +back on its haunches and wailed. +</p> + +<p> +The curtain at the door into the hallway bellied slowly out into the room and +fell again. The cat looked toward it and opened its mouth for another howl. I +thrust at it with my foot, but it refused to move. Hotchkiss stirred uneasily, +and his pipe clattered to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +The cat was standing at my feet, staring behind me. Apparently it was following +with its eyes, an object unseen to me, that moved behind me. The tip of its +tail waved threateningly, but when I wheeled I saw nothing. +</p> + +<p> +I took the candle and made a circuit of the room. Behind the curtain that had +moved the door was securely closed. The windows were shut and locked, and +everywhere the silence was absolute. The cat followed me majestically. I +stooped and stroked its head, but it persisted in its uncanny watching of the +corners of the room. +</p> + +<p> +When I went back to my divan, after putting a fresh log on the fire, I was +reassured. I took the precaution, and smiled at myself for doing it, to put the +fire tongs within reach of my hand. But the cat would not let me sleep. After a +time I decided that it wanted water, and I started out in search of some, +carrying the candle without the stand. I wandered through several rooms, all +closed and dismantled, before I found a small lavatory opening off a billiard +room. The cat lapped steadily, and I filled a glass to take back with me. The +candle flickered in a sickly fashion that threatened to leave me there lost in +the wanderings of the many hallways, and from somewhere there came an +occasional violent puff of wind. The cat stuck by my feet, with the hair on its +back raised menacingly. I don’t like cats; there is something psychic +about them. +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss was still asleep when I got back to the big room. I moved his boots +back from the fire, and trimmed the candle. Then, with sleep gone from me, I +lay back on my divan and reflected on many things: on my idiocy in coming; on +Alison West, and the fact that only a week before she had been a guest in this +very house; on Richey and the constraint that had come between us. From that I +drifted back to Alison, and to the barrier my comparative poverty would be. +</p> + +<p> +The emptiness, the stillness were oppressive. Once I heard footsteps coming, +rhythmical steps that neither hurried nor dragged, and seemed to mount endless +staircases without coming any closer. I realized finally that I had not quite +turned off the tap, and that the lavatory, which I had circled to reach, must +be quite close. +</p> + +<p> +The cat lay by the fire, its nose on its folded paws, content in the warmth and +companionship. I watched it idly. Now and then the green wood hissed in the +fire, but the cat never batted an eye. Through an unshuttered window the +lightning flashed. Suddenly the cat looked up. It lifted its head and stared +directly at the gallery above. Then it blinked, and stared again. I was amused. +Not until it had got up on its feet, eyes still riveted on the balcony, tail +waving at the tip, the hair on its back a bristling brush, did I glance +casually over my head. +</p> + +<p> +From among the shadows a face gazed down at me, a face that seemed a fitting +tenant of the ghostly room below. I saw it as plainly as I might see my own +face in a mirror. While I stared at it with horrified eyes, the apparition +faded. The rail was there, the Bokhara rug still swung from it, but the gallery +was empty. +</p> + +<p> +The cat threw back its head and wailed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br /> +HIS WIFE’S FATHER</h2> + +<p> +I jumped up and seized the fire tongs. The cat’s wail had roused +Hotchkiss, who was wide-awake at once. He took in my offensive attitude, the +tongs, the direction of my gaze, and needed nothing more. As he picked up the +candle and darted out into the hall, I followed him. He made directly for the +staircase, and part way up he turned off to the right through a small door. We +were on the gallery itself; below us the fire gleamed cheerfully, the cat was +not in sight. There was no sign of my ghostly visitant, but as we stood there +the Bokhara rug, without warning, slid over the railing and fell to the floor +below. +</p> + +<p> +“Man or woman?” Hotchkiss inquired in his most professional tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Neither—that is, I don’t know. I didn’t notice +anything but the eyes,” I muttered. “They were looking a hole in +me. If you’d seen that cat you would realize my state of mind. That was a +traditional graveyard yowl.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think you saw anything at all,” he lied cheerfully. +“You dozed off, and the rest is the natural result of a meal on a buffet +car.” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, he examined the Bokhara carefully when we went down, and when I +finally went to sleep he was reading the only book in sight—<i>Elwell on +Bridge</i>. The first rays of daylight were coming mistily into the room when +he roused me. He had his finger on his lips, and he whispered sibilantly while +I tried to draw on my distorted boots. +</p> + +<p> +“I think we have him,” he said triumphantly. “I’ve been +looking around some, and I can tell you this much. Just before we came in +through the window last night, another man came. Only—he did not drop, as +you did. He swung over to the stair railing, and then down. The rail is +scratched. He was long enough ahead of us to go into the dining-room and get a +decanter out of the sideboard. He poured out the liquor into a glass, left the +decanter there, and took the whisky into the library across the hall. +Then—he broke into a desk, using a paper knife for a jimmy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Lord, Hotchkiss,” I exclaimed; “why, it may have been +Sullivan himself! Confound your theories—he’s getting farther away +every minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was Sullivan,” Hotchkiss returned imperturbably. “And he +has not gone. His boots are by the library fire.” +</p> + +<p> +“He probably had a dozen pairs where he could get them,” I scoffed. +“And while you and I sat and slept, the very man we want to get our hands +on leered at us over that railing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Softly, softly, my friend,” Hotchkiss said, as I stamped into my +other shoe. “I did not say he was gone. Don’t jump at conclusions. +It is fatal to reasoning. As a matter of fact, he didn’t relish a night +on the mountains any more than we did. After he had unintentionally frightened +you almost into paralysis, what would my gentleman naturally do? Go out in the +storm again? Not if I know the Alice-sit-by-the-fire type. He went up-stairs, +well up near the roof, locked himself in and went to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he is there now?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is there now.” +</p> + +<p> +We had no weapons. I am aware that the traditional hero is always armed, and +that Hotchkiss as the low comedian should have had a revolver that missed fire. +As a fact, we had nothing of the sort. Hotchkiss carried the fire tongs, but my +sense of humor was too strong for me; I declined the poker. +</p> + +<p> +“All we want is a little peaceable conversation with him,” I +demurred. “We can’t brain him first and converse with him +afterward. And anyhow, while I can’t put my finger on the place, I think +your theory is weak. If he wouldn’t run a hundred miles through fire and +water to get away from us, then he is not the man we want.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss, however, was certain. He had found the room and listened outside the +door to the sleeper’s heavy breathing, and so we climbed past luxurious +suites, revealed in the deepening daylight, past long vistas of hall and +boudoir. And we were both badly winded when we got there. It was a tower room, +reached by narrow stairs, and well above the roof level. Hotchkiss was glowing. +</p> + +<p> +“It is partly good luck, but not all,” he panted in a whisper. +“If we had persisted in the search last night, he would have taken alarm +and fled. Now—we have him. Are you ready?” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a mighty rap at the door with the fire tongs, and stood expectant. +Certainly he was right; some one moved within. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello! Hello there!” Hotchkiss bawled. “You might as well +come out. We won’t hurt you, if you’ll come peaceably.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him we represent the law,” I prompted. “That’s +the customary thing, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +But at that moment a bullet came squarely through the door and flattened itself +with a sharp <i>pst</i> against the wall of the tower staircase. We ducked +unanimously, dropped back out of range, and Hotchkiss retaliated with a +spirited bang at the door with the tongs. This brought another bullet. It was a +ridiculous situation. Under the circumstances, no doubt, we should have +retired, at least until we had armed ourselves, but Hotchkiss had no end of +fighting spirit, and as for me, my blood was up. +</p> + +<p> +“Break the lock,” I suggested, and Hotchkiss, standing at the side, +out of range, retaliated for every bullet by a smashing blow with the tongs. +The shots ceased after a half dozen, and the door was giving, slowly. One of us +on each side of the door, we were ready for almost any kind of desperate +resistance. As it swung open Hotchkiss poised the tongs; I stood, bent forward, +my arm drawn back for a blow. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing happened. +</p> + +<p> +There was not a sound. Finally, at the risk of losing an eye which I justly +value, I peered around and into the room. There was no desperado there: only a +fresh-faced, trembling-lipped servant, sitting on the edge of her bed, with a +quilt around her shoulders and the empty revolver at her feet. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/fig04.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +We were victorious, but no conquered army ever beat such a retreat as ours down +the tower stairs and into the refuge of the living-room. There, with the door +closed, sprawled on the divan, I went from one spasm of mirth into another, +becoming sane at intervals, and suffering relapse again every time I saw +Hotchkiss’ disgruntled countenance. He was pacing the room, the tongs +still in his hand, his mouth pursed with irritation. Finally he stopped in +front of me and compelled my attention. +</p> + +<p> +“When you have finished cackling,” he said with dignity, “I +wish to justify my position. Do you think the—er—young woman +up-stairs put a pair of number eight boots to dry in the library last night? Do +you think she poured the whisky out of that decanter?” +</p> + +<p> +“They have been known to do it,” I put in, but his eye silenced me. +</p> + +<p> +“Moreover, if she had been the person who peered at you over the gallery +railing last night, don’t you suppose, with +her—er—belligerent disposition, she could have filled you as full +of lead as a window weight?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” I assented. “It wasn’t Alice-sit-by-the-fire. I +grant you that. Then who was it?” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss felt certain that it had been Sullivan, but I was not so sure. Why +would he have crawled like a thief into his own house? If he had crossed the +park, as seemed probable, when we did, he had not made any attempt to use the +knocker. I gave it up finally, and made an effort to conciliate the young woman +in the tower. +</p> + +<p> +We had heard no sound since our spectacular entrance into her room. I was +distinctly uncomfortable as, alone this time, I climbed to the tower staircase. +Reasoning from before, she would probably throw a chair at me. I stopped at the +foot of the staircase and called. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello up there,” I said, in as debonair a manner as I could +summon. “Good morning. <i>Wie geht es bei ihnen?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +No reply. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Bon jour, mademoiselle</i>,” I tried again. This time there was +a movement of some sort from above, but nothing fell on me. +</p> + +<p> +“I—we want to apologize for rousing you +so—er—unexpectedly this morning,” I went on. “The fact +is, we wanted to talk to you, and you—you were hard to waken. We are +travelers, lost in your mountains, and we crave a breakfast and an +audience.” +</p> + +<p> +She came to the door then. I could feel that she was investigating the top of +my head from above. “Is Mr. Sullivan with you?” she asked. It was +the first word from her, and she was not sure of her voice. +</p> + +<p> +“No. We are alone. If you will come down and look at us you will find us +two perfectly harmless people, whose horse—curses on him—departed +without leave last night and left us at your gate.” +</p> + +<p> +She relaxed somewhat then and came down a step or two. “I was afraid I +had killed somebody,” she said. “The housekeeper left yesterday, +and the other maids went with her.” +</p> + +<p> +When she saw that I was comparatively young and lacked the earmarks of the +highwayman, she was greatly relieved. She was inclined to fight shy of +Hotchkiss, however, for some reason. She gave us a breakfast of a sort, for +there was little in the house, and afterward we telephoned to the town for a +vehicle. While Hotchkiss examined scratches and replaced the Bokhara rug, I +engaged Jennie in conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you tell me,” I asked, “who is managing the estate since +Mrs. Curtis was killed?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one,” she returned shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Has—any member of the family been here since the accident?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. There was only the two, and some think Mr. Sullivan was killed +as well as his sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” with conviction. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +She wheeled on me with quick suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you a detective?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“You told him to say you represented the law.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a lawyer. Some of them misrepresent the law, but I—” +</p> + +<p> +She broke in impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“A sheriff’s officer?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Look here, Jennie; I am all that I should be. You’ll have to +believe that. And I’m in a bad position through no fault of my own. I +want you to answer some questions. If you will help me, I will do what I can +for you. Do you live near here?” +</p> + +<p> +Her chin quivered. It was the first sign of weakness she had shown. +</p> + +<p> +“My home is in Pittsburg,” she said, “and I haven’t +enough money to get there. They hadn’t paid any wages for two months. +They didn’t pay anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” I returned. “I’ll send you back to +Pittsburg, Pullman included, if you will tell me some things I want to +know.” +</p> + +<p> +She agreed eagerly. Outside the window Hotchkiss was bending over, examining +footprints in the drive. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” I began, “there has been a Miss West staying +here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Sullivan was attentive to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. She was the granddaughter of a wealthy man in Pittsburg. My aunt +has been in his family for twenty years. Mrs. Curtis wanted her brother to +marry Miss West.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think he did marry her?” I could not keep the excitement +out of my voice. +</p> + +<p> +“No. There were reasons”—she stopped abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know anything of the family? Are they—were they New +Yorkers?” +</p> + +<p> +“They came from somewhere in the south. I have heard Mrs. Curtis say her +mother was a Cuban. I don’t know much about them, but Mr. Sullivan had a +wicked temper, though he didn’t look it. Folks say big, light-haired +people are easy going, but I don’t believe it, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long was Miss West here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Two weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +I hesitated about further questioning. Critical as my position was, I could not +pry deeper into Alison West’s affairs. If she had got into the hands of +adventurers, as Sullivan and his sister appeared to have been, she was safely +away from them again. But something of the situation in the car Ontario was +forming itself in my mind: the incident at the farmhouse lacked only motive to +be complete. Was Sullivan, after all, a rascal or a criminal? Was the murderer +Sullivan or Mrs. Conway? The lady or the tiger again. +</p> + +<p> +Jennie was speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope Miss West was not hurt?” she asked. “We liked her, +all of us. She was not like Mrs. Curtis.” +</p> + +<p> +I wanted to say that she was not like anybody in the world. +Instead—“She escaped with some bruises,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at my arm. “You were on the train?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +She waited for more questions, but none coming, she went to the door. Then she +closed it softly and came back. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Curtis is dead? You are sure of it?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“She was killed instantly, I believe. The body was not recovered. But I +have reasons for believing that Mr. Sullivan is living.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew it,” she said. “I—I think he was here the night +before last. That is why I went to the tower room. I believe he would kill me +if he could.” As nearly as her round and comely face could express it, +Jennie’s expression was tragic at that moment. I made a quick resolution, +and acted on it at once. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not entirely frank with me, Jennie,” I protested. +“And I am going to tell you more than I have. We are talking at cross +purposes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was on the wrecked train, in the same car with Mrs. Curtis, Miss West +and Mr. Sullivan. During the night there was a crime committed in that car and +Mr. Sullivan disappeared. But he left behind him a chain of circumstantial +evidence that involved me completely, so that I may, at any time, be +arrested.” +</p> + +<p> +Apparently she did not comprehend for a moment. Then, as if the meaning of my +words had just dawned on her, she looked up and gasped: +</p> + +<p> +“You mean—Mr. Sullivan committed the crime himself?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think he did.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was murder,” I said deliberately. +</p> + +<p> +Her hands clenched involuntarily, and she shrank back. “A woman?” +She could scarcely form her words. +</p> + +<p> +“No, a man; a Mr. Simon Harrington, of Pittsburg.” +</p> + +<p> +Her effort to retain her self-control was pitiful. Then she broke down and +cried, her head on the back of a tall chair. +</p> + +<p> +“It was my fault,” she said wretchedly, “my fault, I should +not have sent them the word.” +</p> + +<p> +After a few minutes she grew quiet. She seemed to hesitate over something, and +finally determined to say it. +</p> + +<p> +“You will understand better, sir, when I say that I was raised in the +Harrington family. Mr. Harrington was Mr. Sullivan’s wife’s +father!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br /> +AT THE STATION</h2> + +<p> +So it had been the tiger, not the lady! Well, I had held to that theory all +through. Jennie suddenly became a valuable person; if necessary she could prove +the connection between Sullivan and the murdered man, and show a motive for the +crime. I was triumphant when Hotchkiss came in. When the girl had produced a +photograph of Mrs. Sullivan, and I had recognized the bronze-haired girl of the +train, we were both well satisfied—which goes to prove the ephemeral +nature of most human contentments. +</p> + +<p> +Jennie either had nothing more to say, or feared she had said too much. She was +evidently uneasy before Hotchkiss. I told her that Mrs. Sullivan was recovering +in a Baltimore hospital, but she already knew it, from some source, and merely +nodded. She made a few preparations for leaving, while Hotchkiss and I compared +notes, and then, with the cat in her arms, she climbed into the trap from the +town. I sat with her, and on the way down she told me a little, not much. +</p> + +<p> +“If you see Mrs. Sullivan,” she advised, “and she is +conscious, she probably thinks that both her husband and her father were killed +in the wreck. She will be in a bad way, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that she—still cares about her husband?” +</p> + +<p> +The cat crawled over on to my knee, and rubbed its head against my hand +invitingly. Jennie stared at the undulating line of the mountain crests, a +colossal sun against a blue ocean of sky. “Yes, she cares,” she +said softly. “Women are made like that. They say they are cats, but Peter +there in your lap wouldn’t come back and lick your hand if you kicked +him. If—if you have to tell her the truth, be as gentle as you can, sir. +She has been good to me—that’s why I have played the spy here all +summer. It’s a thankless thing, spying on people.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is that,” I agreed soberly. +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss and I arrived in Washington late that evening, and, rather than +arouse the household, I went to the club. I was at the office early the next +morning and admitted myself. McKnight rarely appeared before half after ten, +and our modest office force some time after nine. I looked over my previous +day’s mail and waited, with such patience as I possessed, for McKnight. +In the interval I called up Mrs. Klopton and announced that I would dine at +home that night. What my household subsists on during my numerous absences I +have never discovered. Tea, probably, and crackers. Diligent search when I have +made a midnight arrival, never reveals anything more substantial. Possibly I +imagine it, but the announcement that I am about to make a journey always seems +to create a general atmosphere of depression throughout the house, as though +Euphemia and Eliza, and Thomas, the stableman, were already subsisting, in +imagination, on Mrs. Klopton’s meager fare. +</p> + +<p> +So I called her up and announced my arrival. There was something unusual in her +tone, as though her throat was tense with indignation. Always shrill, her +elderly voice rasped my ear painfully through the receiver. +</p> + +<p> +“I have changed the butcher, Mr. Lawrence,” she announced +portentously. “The last roast was a pound short, and his +mutton-chops—any self-respecting sheep would refuse to acknowledge +them.” +</p> + +<p> +As I said before, I can always tell from the voice in which Mrs. Klopton +conveys the most indifferent matters, if something of real significance has +occurred. Also, through long habit, I have learned how quickest to bring her to +the point. +</p> + +<p> +“You are pessimistic this morning,” I returned. “What’s +the matter, Mrs. Klopton? You haven’t used that tone since Euphemia baked +a pie for the iceman. What is it now? Somebody poison the dog?” +</p> + +<p> +She cleared her throat. +</p> + +<p> +“The house has been broken into, Mr. Lawrence,” she said. “I +have lived in the best families, and never have I stood by and seen what I saw +yesterday—every bureau drawer opened, and my—my most sacred +belongings—” she choked. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you notify the police?” I asked sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“Police!” she sniffed. “Police! It was the police that did +it—two detectives with a search warrant. I—I wouldn’t dare +tell you over the telephone what one of them said when he found the whisky and +rock candy for my cough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did they take anything?” I demanded, every nerve on edge. +</p> + +<p> +“They took the cough medicine,” she returned indignantly, +“and they said—” +</p> + +<p> +“Confound the cough medicine!” I was frantic. “Did they take +anything else? Were they in my dressing-room?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I threatened to sue them, and I told them what you would do when +you came back. But they wouldn’t listen. They took away that black +sealskin bag you brought home from Pittsburg with you!” +</p> + +<p> +I knew then that my hours of freedom were numbered. To have found Sullivan and +then, in support of my case against him, to have produced the bag, <i>minus</i> +the bit of chain, had been my intention. But the police had the bag, and, +beyond knowing something of Sullivan’s history, I was practically no +nearer his discovery than before. Hotchkiss hoped he had his man in the house +off Washington Circle, but on the very night he had seen him Jennie claimed +that Sullivan had tried to enter the Laurels. Then—suppose we found +Sullivan and proved the satchel and its contents his? Since the police had the +bit of chain it might mean involving Alison in the story. I sat down and buried +my face in my hands. There was no escape. I figured it out despondingly. +</p> + +<p> +Against me was the evidence of the survivors of the Ontario that I had been +accused of the murder at the time. There had been blood-stains on my pillow and +a hidden dagger. Into the bargain, in my possession had been found a +traveling-bag containing the dead man’s pocket-book. +</p> + +<p> +In my favor was McKnight’s theory against Mrs. Conway. She had a motive +for wishing to secure the notes, she believed I was in lower ten, and she had +collapsed at the discovery of the crime in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +Against both of these theories, I accuse a purely chimerical person named +Sullivan, who was not seen by any of the survivors—save one, Alison, whom +I could not bring into the case. I could find a motive for his murdering his +father-in-law, whom he hated, but again—I would have to drag in the girl. +</p> + +<p> +And not one of the theories explained the telegram and the broken necklace. +</p> + +<p> +Outside the office force was arriving. They were comfortably ignorant of my +presence, and over the transom floated scraps of dialogue and the +stenographer’s gurgling laugh. McKnight had a relative, who was reading +law with him, in the intervals between calling up the young women of his +acquaintance. He came in singing, and the office boy joined in with the +uncertainty of voice of fifteen. I smiled grimly. I was too busy with my own +troubles to find any joy in opening the door and startling them into silence. I +even heard, without resentment, Blobs of the uncertain voice inquire when +“Blake” would be back. +</p> + +<p> +I hoped McKnight would arrive before the arrest occurred. There were many +things to arrange. But when at last, impatient of his delay, I telephoned, I +found he had been gone for more than an hour. Clearly he was not coming +directly to the office, and with such resignation as I could muster I paced the +floor and waited. +</p> + +<p> +I felt more alone than I have ever felt in my life. “Born an +orphan,” as Richey said, I had made my own way, carved out myself such +success as had been mine. I had built up my house of life on the props of law +and order, and now some unknown hand had withdrawn the supports, and I stood +among ruins. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose it is the maternal in a woman that makes a man turn to her when +everything else fails. The eternal boy in him goes to have his wounded pride +bandaged, his tattered self-respect repaired. If he loves the woman, he wants +her to kiss the hurt. +</p> + +<p> +The longing to see Alison, always with me, was stronger than I was that +morning. It might be that I would not see her again. I had nothing to say to +her save one thing, and that, under the cloud that hung over me, I did not dare +to say. But I wanted to see her, to touch her hand—as only a lonely man +can crave it, I wanted the comfort of her, the peace that lay in her presence. +And so, with every step outside the door a threat, I telephoned to her. +</p> + +<p> +She was gone! The disappointment was great, for my need was great. In a fury of +revolt against the scheme of things, I heard that she had started home to +Richmond—but that she might still be caught at the station. +</p> + +<p> +To see her had by that time become an obsession. I picked up my hat, threw open +the door, and, oblivious of the shock to the office force of my presence, +followed so immediately by my exit, I dashed out to the elevator. As I went +down in one cage I caught a glimpse of Johnson and two other men going up in +the next. I hardly gave them a thought. There was no hansom in sight, and I +jumped on a passing car. Let come what might, arrest, prison, disgrace, I was +going to see Alison. +</p> + +<p> +I saw her. I flung into the station, saw that it was empty—empty, for she +was not there. Then I hurried back to the gates. She was there, a familiar +figure in blue, the very gown in which I always thought of her, the one she had +worn when, Heaven help me—I had kissed her, at the Carter farm. And she +was not alone. Bending over her, talking earnestly, with all his boyish heart +in his face, was Richey. +</p> + +<p> +They did not see me, and I was glad of it. After all, it had been +McKnight’s game first. I turned on my heel and made my way blindly out of +the station. Before I lost them I turned once and looked toward them, standing +apart from the crowd, absorbed in each other. They were the only two people on +earth that I cared about, and I left them there together. Then I went back +miserably to the office and awaited arrest. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br /> +ON TO RICHMOND</h2> + +<p> +Strangely enough, I was not disturbed that day. McKnight did not appear at all. +I sat at my desk and transacted routine business all afternoon, working with +feverish energy. Like a man on the verge of a critical illness or a hazardous +journey, I cleared up my correspondence, paid bills until I had writer’s +cramp from signing checks, read over my will, and paid up my life insurance, +made to the benefit of an elderly sister of my mother’s. I no longer +dreaded arrest. After that morning in the station, I felt that anything would +be a relief from the tension. I went home with perfect openness, courting the +warrant that I knew was waiting, but I was not molested. The delay puzzled me. +The early part of the evening was uneventful. I read until late, with +occasional lapses, when my book lay at my elbow, and I smoked and thought. Mrs. +Klopton closed the house with ostentatious caution, about eleven, and hung +around waiting to enlarge on the outrageousness of the police search. I did not +encourage her. +</p> + +<p> +“One would think,” she concluded pompously, one foot in the hall, +“that you were something you oughtn’t to be, Mr. Lawrence. They +acted as though you had committed a crime.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not sure that I didn’t, Mrs. Klopton,” I said +wearily. “Somebody did, the general verdict seems to point my way.” +</p> + +<p> +She stared at me in speechless indignation. Then she flounced out. She came +back once to say that the paper predicted cooler weather, and that she had put +a blanket on my bed, but, to her disappointment, I refused to reopen the +subject. +</p> + +<p> +At half past eleven McKnight and Hotchkiss came in. Richey has a habit of +stopping his car in front of the house and honking until some one comes out. He +has a code of signals with the horn, which I never remember. Two long and a +short blast mean, I believe, “Send out a box of cigarettes,” and +six short blasts, which sound like a police call, mean “Can you lend me +some money?” To-night I knew something was up, for he got out and rang +the door-bell like a Christian. +</p> + +<p> +They came into the library, and Hotchkiss wiped his collar until it gleamed. +McKnight was aggressively cheerful. +</p> + +<p> +“Not pinched yet!” he exclaimed. “What do you think of that +for luck! You always were a fortunate devil, Lawrence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I assented, with some bitterness, “I hardly know how +to contain myself for joy sometimes. I suppose you know”—to +Hotchkiss—“that the police were here while we were at Cresson, and +that they found the bag that I brought from the wreck?” +</p> + +<p> +“Things are coming to a head,” he said thoughtfully “unless a +little plan that I have in mind—” he hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope so; I am pretty nearly desperate,” I said doggedly. +“I’ve got a mental toothache, and the sooner it’s pulled the +better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tut, tut,” said McKnight, “think of the disgrace to the firm +if its senior member goes up for life, or—” he twisted his +handkerchief into a noose, and went through an elaborate pantomime. +</p> + +<p> +“Although jail isn’t so bad, anyhow,” he finished, +“there are fellows that get the habit and keep going back and going +back.” He looked at his watch, and I fancied his cheerfulness was +strained. Hotchkiss was nervously fumbling my book. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever read <i>The Purloined Letter</i>, Mr. Blakeley?” he +inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Probably, years ago,” I said. “Poe, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +He was choked at my indifference. “It is a masterpiece,” he said, +with enthusiasm. “I re-read it to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I inspected the rooms in the house off Washington Circle. I—I +made some discoveries, Mr. Blakeley. For one thing, our man there is +left-handed.” He looked around for our approval. “There was a small +cushion on the dresser, and the scarf pins in it had been stuck in with the +left hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody may have twisted the cushion,” I objected, but he looked +hurt, and I desisted. +</p> + +<p> +“There is only one discrepancy,” he admitted, “but it +troubles me. According to Mrs. Carter, at the farmhouse, our man wore gaudy +pajamas, while I found here only the most severely plain night-shirts.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any buttons off?” McKnight inquired, looking again at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“The buttons were there,” the amateur detective answered gravely, +“but the buttonhole next the top one was torn through.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight winked at me furtively. +</p> + +<p> +“I am convinced of one thing,” Hotchkiss went on, clearing his +throat, “the papers are not in that room. Either he carries them with +him, or he has sold them.” +</p> + +<p> +A sound on the street made both my visitors listen sharply. Whatever it was it +passed on, however. I was growing curious and the restraint was telling on +McKnight. He has no talent for secrecy. In the interval we discussed the +strange occurrence at Cresson, which lost nothing by Hotchkiss’ dry +narration. +</p> + +<p> +“And so,” he concluded, “the woman in the Baltimore hospital +is the wife of Henry Sullivan and the daughter of the man he murdered. No +wonder he collapsed when he heard of the wreck.” +</p> + +<p> +“Joy, probably,” McKnight put in. “Is that clock right, +Lawrence? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. By the way, Mrs. Conway dropped +in the office yesterday, while you were away.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” I sprang from my chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure thing. Said she had heard great things of us, and wanted us to +handle her case against the railroad.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would like to know what she is driving at,” I reflected. +“Is she trying to reach me through you?” +</p> + +<p> +Richey’s flippancy is often a cloak for deeper feeling. He dropped it +now. “Yes,” he said, “she’s after the notes, of course. +And I’ll tell you I felt like a poltroon—whatever that may +be—when I turned her down. She stood by the door with her face white, and +told me contemptuously that I could save you from a murder charge and +wouldn’t do it. She made me feel like a cur. I was just as guilty as if I +could have obliged her. She hinted that there were reasons and she laid my +attitude to beastly motives.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” I said, as easily as I could. Hotchkiss had gone to the +window. “She was excited. There are no ‘reasons,’ whatever +she means.” +</p> + +<p> +Richey put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ve been together too long +to let any ‘reasons’ or ‘unreasons’ come between us, +old man,” he said, not very steadily. Hotchkiss, who had been silent, +here came forward in his most impressive manner. He put his hands under his +coat-tails and coughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Blakeley,” he began, “by Mr. McKnight’s advice we +have arranged a little interview here to-night. If all has gone as I planned, +Mr. Henry Pinckney Sullivan is by this time under arrest. Within a very few +minutes—he will be here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to talk to him before he was locked up,” Richey +explained. “He’s clever enough to be worth knowing, and, besides, +I’m not so cocksure of his guilt as our friend the Patch on the Seat of +Government. No murderer worthy of the name needs six different motives for the +same crime, beginning with robbery, and ending with an unpleasant +father-in-law.” +</p> + +<p> +We were all silent for a while. McKnight stationed himself at a window, and +Hotchkiss paced the floor expectantly. “It’s a great day for modern +detective methods,” he chirruped. “While the police have been +guarding houses and standing with their mouths open waiting for clues to fall +in and choke them, we have pieced together, bit by bit, a fabric—” +</p> + +<p> +The door-bell rang, followed immediately by sounds of footsteps in the hall. +McKnight threw the door open, and Hotchkiss, raised on his toes, flung out his +arm in a gesture of superb eloquence. +</p> + +<p> +“Behold—your man!” he declaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Through the open doorway came a tall, blond fellow, clad in light gray, wearing +tan shoes, and followed closely by an officer. +</p> + +<p> +“I brought him here as you suggested, Mr. McKnight,” said the +constable. +</p> + +<p> +But McKnight was doubled over the library table in silent convulsions of mirth, +and I was almost as bad. Little Hotchkiss stood up, his important attitude +finally changing to one of chagrin, while the blond man ceased to look angry, +and became sheepish. +</p> + +<p> +It was Stuart, our confidential clerk for the last half dozen years! +</p> + +<p> +McKnight sat up and wiped his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Stuart,” he said sternly, “there are two very serious things +we have learned about you. First, you jab your scarf pins into your cushion +with your left hand, which is most reprehensible; second, you +wear—er—night-shirts, instead of pajamas. Worse than that, perhaps, +we find that one of them has a buttonhole torn out at the neck.” +</p> + +<p> +Stuart was bewildered. He looked from McKnight to me, and then at the +crestfallen Hotchkiss. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t any idea what it’s all about,” he said. +“I was arrested as I reached my boarding-house to-night, after the +theater, and brought directly here. I told the officer it was a mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Hotchkiss tried bravely to justify the fiasco. “You can not +deny,” he contended, “that Mr. Andrew Bronson followed you to your +rooms last Monday evening.” +</p> + +<p> +Stuart looked at us and flushed. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t deny it,” he said, “but there was nothing +criminal about it, on my part, at least. Mr. Bronson has been trying to induce +me to secure the forged notes for him. But I did not even know where they +were.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you were not on the wrecked Washington Flier?” persisted +Hotchkiss. But McKnight interfered. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no use trying to put the other man’s identity on Stuart, +Mr. Hotchkiss,” he protested. “He has been our confidential clerk +for six years, and has not been away from the office a day for a year. I am +afraid that the beautiful fabric we have pieced out of all these scraps is +going to be a crazy quilt.” His tone was facetious, but I could detect +the undercurrent of real disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +I paid the constable for his trouble, and he departed. Stuart, still indignant, +left to go back to Washington Circle. He shook hands with McKnight and myself +magnanimously, but he hurled a look of utter hatred at Hotchkiss, sunk +crestfallen in his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“As far as I can see,” said McKnight dryly, “we’re +exactly as far along as we were the day we met at the Carter place. We’re +not a step nearer to finding our man.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have one thing that may be of value,” I suggested. “He is +the husband of a bronze-haired woman at Van Kirk’s hospital, and it is +just possible we may trace him through her. I hope we are not going to lose +your valuable co-operation, Mr. Hotchkiss?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He roused at that to feeble interest, “I—oh, of course not, if you +still care to have me, I—I was wondering about—the man who just +went out, Stuart, you say? I—told his landlady to-night that he +wouldn’t need the room again. I hope she hasn’t rented it to +somebody else.” +</p> + +<p> +We cheered him as best we could, and I suggested that we go to Baltimore the +next day and try to find the real Sullivan through his wife. He left sometime +after midnight, and Richey and I were alone. +</p> + +<p> +He drew a chair near the lamp and lighted a cigarette, and for a time we were +silent. I was in the shadow, and I sat back and watched him. It was not +surprising, I thought, that she cared for him: women had always loved him, +perhaps because he always loved them. There was no disloyalty in the thought: +it was the lad’s nature to give and crave affection. Only—I was +different. I had never really cared about a girl before, and my life had been +singularly loveless. I had fought a lonely battle always. Once before, in +college, we had both laid ourselves and our callow devotions at the feet of the +same girl. Her name was Dorothy—I had forgotten the rest—but I +remembered the sequel. In a spirit of quixotic youth I had relinquished my +claim in favor of Richey and had gone cheerfully on my way, elevated by my +heroic sacrifice to a somber, white-hot martyrdom. As is often the case, +McKnight’s first words showed our parallel lines of thought. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Lollie,” he asked, “do you remember Dorothy +Browne?” <i>Browne</i>, that was it! +</p> + +<p> +“Dorothy Browne?” I repeated. “Oh—why yes, I recall her +now. Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” he said. “I was thinking about her. That’s +all. You remember you were crazy about her, and dropped back because she +preferred me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I got out,” I said with dignity, “because you declared you +would shoot yourself if she didn’t go with you to something or +other!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, why yes, I recall now!” he mimicked. He tossed his cigarette +in the general direction of the hearth and got up. We were both a little +conscious, and he stood with his back to me, fingering a Japanese vase on the +mantel. +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking,” he began, turning the vase around, “that, +if you feel pretty well again, and—and ready to take hold, that I should +like to go away for a week or so. Things are fairly well cleaned up at the +office.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean—you are going to Richmond?” I asked, after a +scarcely perceptible pause. He turned and faced me, with his hands thrust in +his pockets. +</p> + +<p> +“No. That’s off, Lollie. The Seiberts are going for a week’s +cruise along the coast. I—the hot weather has played hob with me and the +cruise means seven days’ breeze and bridge.” +</p> + +<p> +I lighted a cigarette and offered him the box, but he refused. He was looking +haggard and suddenly tired. I could not think of anything to say, and neither +could he, evidently. The matter between us lay too deep for speech. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s Candida?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Martin says a month, and she will be all right,” I returned, in +the same tone. He picked up his hat, but he had something more to say. He +blurted it out, finally, half way to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“The Seiberts are not going for a couple of days,” he said, +“and if you want a day or so off to go down to Richmond +yourself—” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I <i>shall</i>,” I returned, as indifferently as I could. +“Not going yet, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. It is late.” He drew in his breath as if he had something +more to say, but the impulse passed. “Well, good night,” he said +from the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Good night, old man.” +</p> + +<p> +The next moment the outer door slammed and I heard the engine of the Cannonball +throbbing in the street. Then the quiet settled down around me again, and there +in the lamplight I dreamed dreams. I was going to see her. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the idea of being shut away, even temporarily, from so great and +wonderful a world became intolerable. The possibility of arrest before I could +get to Richmond was hideous, the night without end. +</p> + +<p> +I made my escape the next morning through the stable back of the house, and +then, by devious dark and winding ways, to the office. There, after a +conference with Blobs, whose features fairly jerked with excitement, I +double-locked the door of my private office and finished off some imperative +work. By ten o’clock I was free, and for the twentieth time I consulted +my train schedule. At five minutes after ten, with McKnight not yet in sight, +Blobs knocked at the door, the double rap we had agreed upon, and on being +admitted slipped in and quietly closed the door behind him. His eyes were +glistening with excitement, and a purple dab of typewriter ink gave him a +peculiarly villainous and stealthy expression. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re here,” he said, “two of ’em, and that +crazy Stuart wasn’t on, and said you were somewhere in the +building.” +</p> + +<p> +A door slammed outside, followed by steps on the uncarpeted outer office. +</p> + +<p> +“This way,” said Blobs, in a husky undertone, and, darting into a +lavatory, threw open a door that I had always supposed locked. Thence into a +back hall piled high with boxes and past the presses of a bookbindery to the +freight elevator. +</p> + +<p> +Greatly to Blobs’ disappointment, there was no pursuit. I was exhilarated +but out of breath when we emerged into an alleyway, and the sharp daylight +shone on Blobs’ excited face. +</p> + +<p> +“Great sport, isn’t it?” I panted, dropping a dollar into his +palm, inked to correspond with his face. “Regular walk-away in the +hundred-yard dash.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gimme two dollars more and I’ll drop ’em down the elevator +shaft,” he suggested ferociously. I left him there with his blood-thirsty +schemes, and started for the station. I had a tendency to look behind me now +and then, but I reached the station unnoticed. The afternoon was hot, the train +rolled slowly along, stopping to pant at sweltering stations, from whose roofs +the heat rose in waves. But I noticed these things objectively, not +subjectively, for at the end of the journey was a girl with blue eyes and dark +brown hair, hair that could—had I not seen it?—hang loose in +bewitching tangles or be twisted into little coils of delight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br /> +THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS</h2> + +<p> +I telephoned as soon as I reached my hotel, and I had not known how much I had +hoped from seeing her until I learned that she was out of town. I hung up the +receiver, almost dizzy with disappointment, and it was fully five minutes +before I thought of calling up again and asking if she was within telephone +reach. It seemed she was down on the bay staying with the Samuel Forbeses. +</p> + +<p> +Sammy Forbes! It was a name to conjure with just then. In the old days at +college I had rather flouted him, but now I was ready to take him to my heart. +I remembered that he had always meant well, anyhow, and that he was explosively +generous. I called him up. +</p> + +<p> +“By the fumes of gasoline!” he said, when I told him who I was. +“Blakeley, the Fount of Wisdom against Woman! Blakeley, the Great +Unkissed! Welcome to our city!” +</p> + +<p> +Whereupon he proceeded to urge me to come down to the Shack, and to say that I +was an agreeable surprise, because four times in two hours youths had called up +to ask if Alison West was stopping with him, and to suggest that they had a +vacant day or two. “Oh—Miss West!” I shouted politely. There +was a buzzing on the line. “Is she there?” Sam had no suspicions. +Was not I in his mind always the Great Unkissed?—which sounds like the +Great Unwashed and is even more of a reproach. He asked me down promptly, as I +had hoped, and thrust aside my objections. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” he said. “Bring yourself. The lady that keeps my +boarding-house is calling to me to insist. You remember Dorothy, don’t +you, Dorothy Browne? She says unless you have lost your figure you can wear my +clothes all right. All you need here is a bathing suit for daytime and a dinner +coat for evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds cool,” I temporized. “If you are sure I +won’t put you out—very well, Sam, since you and your wife are good +enough. I have a couple of days free. Give my love to Dorothy until I can do it +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Sam met me himself and drove me out to the Shack, which proved to be a +substantial house overlooking the water. On the way he confided to me that lots +of married men thought they were contented when they were merely resigned, but +that it was the only life, and that Sam, Junior, could swim like a duck. +Incidentally, he said that Alison was his wife’s cousin, their respective +grandmothers having, at proper intervals, married the same man, and that Alison +would lose her good looks if she was not careful. +</p> + +<p> +“I say she’s worried, and I stick to it,” he said, as he +threw the lines to a groom and prepared to get out. “You know her, and +she’s the kind of girl you think you can read like a book. But you +can’t; don’t fool yourself. Take a good look at her at dinner, +Blake; you won’t lose your head like the other fellows—and then +tell me what’s wrong with her. We’re mighty fond of Allie.” +</p> + +<p> +He went ponderously up the steps, for Sam had put on weight since I knew him. +At the door he turned around. “Do you happen to know the MacLures at Seal +Harbor?” he asked irrelevantly, but Mrs. Sam came into the hall just +then, both hands out to greet me, and, whatever Forbes had meant to say, he did +not pick up the subject again. +</p> + +<p> +“We are having tea in here,” Dorothy said gaily, indicating the +door behind her. “Tea by courtesy, because I think tea is the only +beverage that isn’t represented. And then we must dress, for this is hop +night at the club.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which is as great a misnomer as the tea,” Sam put in, ponderously +struggling out of his linen driving coat. “It’s bridge night, and +the only hops are in the beer.” +</p> + +<p> +He was still gurgling over this as he took me upstairs. He showed me my room +himself, and then began the fruitless search for evening raiment that kept me +home that night from the club. For I couldn’t wear Sam’s clothes. +That was clear, after a perspiring seance of a half hour. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t do it, Sam,” I said, when I had draped his +dress-coat on me toga fashion. “Who am I to have clothing to spare, like +this, when many a poor chap hasn’t even a cellar door to cover him. I +won’t do it; I’m selfish, but not that selfish.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord,” he said, wiping his face, “how you’ve kept your +figure! I can’t wear a belt any more; got to have suspenders.” +</p> + +<p> +He reflected over his grievance for some time, sitting on the side of the bed. +“You <i>could</i> go as you are,” he said finally. “We do it +all the time, only to-night happens to be the annual something or other, +and—” he trailed off into silence, trying to buckle my belt around +him. “A good six inches,” he sighed. “I never get into a +hansom cab any more that I don’t expect to see the horse fly up into the +air. Well, Allie isn’t going either. She turned down Granger this +afternoon, the Annapolis fellow you met on the stairs, pigeon-breasted +chap—and she always gets a headache on those occasions.” +</p> + +<p> +He got up heavily and went to the door. “Granger is leaving,” he +said, “I may be able to get his dinner coat for you. How well do you know +her?” he asked, with his hand on the knob. +</p> + +<p> +“If you mean Dolly—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Alison.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fairly well,” I said cautiously. “Not as well as I would +like to. I dined with her last week in Washington. And—I knew her before +that.” +</p> + +<p> +Forbes touched the bell instead of going out, and told the servant who answered +to see if Mr. Granger’s suitcase had gone. If not, to bring it across the +hall. Then he came back to his former position on the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, we feel responsible for Allie—near relation and all +that,” he began pompously. “And we can’t talk to the people +here at the house—all the men are in love with her, and all the women are +jealous. Then—there’s a lot of money, too, or will be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Confound the money!” I muttered. “That is—nothing. +Razor slipped.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can tell you,” he went on, “because you don’t lose +your head over every pretty face—although Allie is more than that, of +course. But about a month ago she went away—to Seal Harbor, to visit +Janet MacLure. Know her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She came home to Richmond yesterday, and then came down +here—Allie, I mean. And yesterday afternoon Dolly had a letter from +Janet—something about a second man—and saying she was disappointed +not to have had Alison there, that she had promised them a two weeks’ +visit! What do you make of that? And that isn’t the worst. Allie herself +wasn’t in the room, but there were eight other women, and because Dolly +had put belladonna in her eyes the night before to see how she would look, and +as a result couldn’t see anything nearer than across the room, some one +read the letter aloud to her, and the whole story is out. One of the cats told +Granger and the boy proposed to Allie to-day, to show her he didn’t care +a tinker’s dam where she had been.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good boy!” I said, with enthusiasm. I liked the Granger +fellow—since he was out of the running. But Sam was looking at me with +suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“Blake,” he said, “if I didn’t know you for what you +are, I’d say you were interested there yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +Being so near her, under the same roof, with even the tie of a dubious secret +between us, was making me heady. I pushed Forbes toward the door. +</p> + +<p> +“I interested!” I retorted, holding him by the shoulders. +“There isn’t a word in your vocabulary to fit my condition. I am an +island in a sunlit sea of emotion, Sam, a—an empty place surrounded by +longing—a—” +</p> + +<p> +“An empty place surrounded by longing!” he retorted. “You +want your dinner, that’s what’s the matter with you—” +</p> + +<p> +I shut the door on him then. He seemed suddenly sordid. Dinner, I thought! +Although, as matter of fact, I made a very fair meal when, Granger’s +suitcase not having gone, in his coat and some other man’s trousers, I +was finally fit for the amenities. Alison did not come down to dinner, so it +was clear she would not go over to the club-house dance. I pled my injured arm +and a ficticious, vaguely located sprain from the wreck, as an excuse for +remaining at home. Sam regaled the table with accounts of my distrust of women, +my one love affair—with Dorothy; to which I responded, as was expected, +that only my failure there had kept me single all these years, and that if Sam +should be mysteriously missing during the bathing hour to-morrow, and so on. +</p> + +<p> +And when the endless meal was over, and yards of white veils had been tied over +pounds of hair—or is it, too, bought by the yard?—and some eight +<i>ensembles</i> with their abject complements had been packed into three +automobiles and a trap, I drew a long breath and faced about. I had just then +only one object in life—to find Alison, to assure her of my absolute +faith and confidence in her, and to offer my help and my poor self, if she +would let me, in her service. +</p> + +<p> +She was not easy to find. I searched the lower floor, the verandas and the +grounds, circumspectly. Then I ran into a little English girl who turned out to +be her maid, and who also was searching. She was concerned because her mistress +had had no dinner, and because the tray of food she carried would soon be cold. +I took the tray from her, on the glimpse of something white on the shore, and +that was how I met the Girl again. +</p> + +<p> +She was sitting on an over-turned boat, her chin in her hands, staring out to +sea. The soft tide of the bay lapped almost at her feet, and the draperies of +her white gown melted hazily into the sands. She looked like a wraith, a +despondent phantom of the sea, although the adjective is redundant. Nobody ever +thinks of a cheerful phantom. Strangely enough, considering her evident +sadness, she was whistling softly to herself, over and over, some dreary little +minor air that sounded like a Bohemian dirge. She glanced up quickly when I +made a misstep and my dishes jingled. All considered, the tray was out of the +picture: the sea, the misty starlight, the girl, with her beauty—even the +sad little whistle that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though +it fought against the odds of a trembling lip. And then I came, accompanied by +a tray of little silver dishes that jingled and an unmistakable odor of broiled +chicken! +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” she said quickly; and then, “Oh! I thought you were +Jenkins.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Timeo Danaos</i>—what’s the rest of it?” I asked, +tendering my offering. “You didn’t have any dinner, you +know.” I sat down beside her. “See, I’ll be the table. What +was the old fairy tale? ‘Little goat bleat: little table appear!’ +I’m perfectly willing to be the goat, too.” +</p> + +<p> +She was laughing rather tremulously. +</p> + +<p> +“We never <i>do</i> meet like other people, do we?” she asked. +“We really ought to shake hands and say how are you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to meet you like other people, and I suppose you +always think of me as wearing the other fellow’s clothes,” I +returned meekly. “I’m doing it again: I don’t seem to be able +to help it. These are Granger’s that I have on now.” +</p> + +<p> +She threw back her head and laughed again, joyously, this time. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s so ridiculous,” she said, “and you have never +seen me when I was not eating! It’s too prosaic!” +</p> + +<p> +“Which reminds me that the chicken is getting cold, and the ice +warm,” I suggested. “At the time, I thought there could be no place +better than the farmhouse kitchen—but this is. I ordered all this for +something I want to say to you—the sea, the sand, the stars.” +</p> + +<p> +“How alliterative you are!” she said, trying to be flippant. +“You are not to say anything until I have had my supper. Look how the +things are spilled around!” +</p> + +<p> +But she ate nothing, after all, and pretty soon I put the tray down in the +sand. I said little; there was no hurry. We were together, and time meant +nothing against that age-long wash of the sea. The air blew her hair in small +damp curls against her face, and little by little the tide retreated, leaving +our boat an oasis in a waste of gray sand. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year<br /> +Do you suppose, the walrus said, that they could get it clear?” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +she threw at me once when she must have known I was going to speak. I held her +hand, and as long as I merely held it she let it lie warm in mine. But when I +raised it to my lips, and kissed the soft, open palm, she drew it away without +displeasure. +</p> + +<p> +“Not that, please,” she protested, and fell to whistling softly +again, her chin in her hands. “I can’t sing,” she said, to +break an awkward pause, “and so, when I’m fidgety, or have +something on my mind, I whistle. I hope you don’t dislike it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I love it,” I asserted warmly. I did; when she pursed her lips +like that I was mad to kiss them. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw you—at the station,” she said, suddenly. +“You—you were in a hurry to go.” I did not say anything, and +after a pause she drew a long breath. “Men are queer, aren’t +they?” she said, and fell to whistling again. +</p> + +<p> +After a while she sat up as if she had made a resolution. “I am going to +confess something,” she announced suddenly. “You said, you know, +that you had ordered all this for something you—you wanted to say to me. +But the fact is, I fixed it all—came here, I mean, because—I knew +you would come, and I had something to tell you. It was such a miserable thing +I—needed the accessories to help me out.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to hear anything that distresses you to tell,” +I assured her. “I didn’t come here to force your confidence, +Alison. I came because I couldn’t help it.” She did not object to +my use of her name. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you found—your papers?” she asked, looking directly at +me for almost the first time. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. We hope to.” +</p> + +<p> +“The—police have not interfered with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“They haven’t had any opportunity,” I equivocated. “You +needn’t distress yourself about that, anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I do. I wonder why you still believe in me? Nobody else does.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder,” I repeated, “why I do!” +</p> + +<p> +“If you produce Harry Sullivan,” she was saying, partly to herself, +“and if you could connect him with Mr. Bronson, and get a full account of +why he was on the train, and all that, it—it would help, wouldn’t +it?” +</p> + +<p> +I acknowledged that it would. Now that the whole truth was almost in my +possession, I was stricken with the old cowardice. I did not want to know what +she might tell me. The yellow line on the horizon, where the moon was coming +up, was a broken bit of golden chain: my heel in the sand was again pressed on +a woman’s yielding fingers: I pulled myself together with a jerk. +</p> + +<p> +“In order that what you might tell me may help me, if it will,” I +said constrainedly, “it would be necessary, perhaps, that you tell it to +the police. Since they have found the end of the necklace—” +</p> + +<p> +“The end of the necklace!” she repeated slowly. “What about +the end of the necklace?” +</p> + +<p> +I stared at her. “Don’t you remember”—I leaned +forward—“the end of the cameo necklace, the part that was broken +off, and was found in the black sealskin bag, stained with—with +blood?” +</p> + +<p> +“Blood,” she said dully. “You mean that <i>you</i> found the +broken end? And then—you had my gold pocket-book, and you saw the +necklace in it, and you—must have thought—” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t think anything,” I hastened to assure her. “I +tell you, Alison, I never thought of anything but that you were unhappy, and +that I had no right to help you. God knows, I thought you didn’t want me +to help you.” +</p> + +<p> +She held out her hand to me and I took it between both of mine. No word of love +had passed between us, but I felt that she knew and understood. It was one of +the moments that come seldom in a lifetime, and then only in great crises, a +moment of perfect understanding and trust. +</p> + +<p> +Then she drew her hand away and sat, erect and determined, her fingers laced in +her lap. As she talked the moon came up slowly and threw its bright pathway +across the water. Back of us, in the trees beyond the sea wall, a sleepy bird +chirruped drowsily, and a wave, larger and bolder than its brothers, sped up +the sand, bringing the moon’s silver to our very feet. I bent toward the +girl. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to ask just one question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything you like.” Her voice was almost dreary. “Was it +because of anything you are going to tell me that you refused Richey?” +</p> + +<p> +She drew her breath in sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said, without looking at me. “No. That was not the +reason.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br /> +ALISON’S STORY</h2> + +<p> +She told her story evenly, with her eyes on the water, only now and then, when +I, too, sat looking seaward, I thought she glanced at me furtively. And once, +in the middle of it, she stopped altogether. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t realize it, probably,” she protested, “but +you look like a—a war god. Your face is horrible.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will turn my back, if it will help any,” I said stormily, +“but if you expect me to look anything but murderous, why, you +don’t know what I am going through with. That’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +The story of her meeting with the Curtis woman was brief enough. They had met +in Rome first, where Alison and her mother had taken a villa for a year. Mrs. +Curtis had hovered on the ragged edges of society there, pleading the poverty +of the south since the war as a reason for not going out more. There was talk +of a brother, but Alison had not seen him, and after a scandal which implicated +Mrs. Curtis and a young attaché of the Austrian embassy, Alison had been +forbidden to see the woman. +</p> + +<p> +“The women had never liked her, anyhow,” she said. “She did +unconventional things, and they are very conventional there. And they said she +did not always pay her—her gambling debts. I didn’t like them. I +thought they didn’t like her because she was poor—and popular. +Then—we came home, and I almost forgot her, but last spring, when mother +was not well—she had taken grandfather to the Riviera, and it always uses +her up—we went to Virginia Hot Springs, and we met them there, the +brother, too, this time. His name was Sullivan, Harry Pinckney Sullivan.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mother had a nurse, and I was alone a great deal, and they were very +kind to me. I—I saw a lot of them. The brother rather attracted me, +partly—partly because he did not make love to me. He even seemed to avoid +me, and I was piqued. I had been spoiled, I suppose. Most of the other men I +knew had—had—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that, too,” I said bitterly, and moved away from her a +trifle. I was brutal, but the whole story was a long torture. I think she knew +what I was suffering, for she showed no resentment. +</p> + +<p> +“It was early and there were few people around—none that I cared +about. And mother and the nurse played cribbage eternally, until I felt as +though the little pegs were driven into my brain. And when Mrs. Curtis arranged +drives and picnics, I—I slipped away and went. I suppose you won’t +believe me, but I had never done that kind of thing before, and I—well, I +have paid up, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of looking chap was Sullivan?” I demanded. I had got up +and was pacing back and forward on the sand. I remember kicking savagely at a +bit of water-soaked board that lay in my way. +</p> + +<p> +“Very handsome—as large as you are, but fair, and even more +erect.” +</p> + +<p> +I drew my shoulders up sharply. I am straight enough, but I was fairly sagging +with jealous rage. +</p> + +<p> +“When mother began to get around, somebody told her that I had been going +about with Mrs. Curtis and her brother, and we had a dreadful time. I was +dragged home like a bad child. Did anybody ever do that to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody ever cared. I was born an orphan,” I said, with a cheerless +attempt at levity. “Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“If Mrs. Curtis knew, she never said anything. She wrote me charming +letters, and in the summer, when they went to Cresson, she asked me to visit +her there. I was too proud to let her know that I could not go where I wished, +and so—I sent Polly, my maid, to her aunt’s in the country, +pretended to go to Seal Harbor, and really went to Cresson. You see I warned +you it would be an unpleasant story.” +</p> + +<p> +I went over and stood in front of her. All the accumulated jealousy of the last +few weeks had been fired by what she told me. If Sullivan had come across the +sands just then, I think I would have strangled him with my hands, out of pure +hate. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you marry him?” I demanded. My voice sounded hoarse and +strange in my ears. “That’s all I want to know. Did you marry +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +I drew a long breath. +</p> + +<p> +“You—cared about him?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said finally. “I did not care about him.” +</p> + +<p> +I sat down on the edge of the boat and mopped my hot face. I was heartily +ashamed of myself, and mingled with my abasement was a great relief. If she had +not married him, and had not cared for him, nothing else was of any importance. +</p> + +<p> +“I was sorry, of course, the moment the train had started, but I had +wired I was coming, and I could not go back, and then when I got there, the +place was charming. There were no neighbors, but we fished and rode and +motored, and—it was moonlight, like this.” +</p> + +<p> +I put my hand over both of hers, clasped in her lap. “I know,” I +acknowledged repentantly, “and—people do queer things when it is +moonlight. The moon has got me to-night, Alison. If I am a boor, remember that, +won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +Her fingers lay quiet under mine. “And so,” she went on with a +little sigh, “I began to think perhaps I cared. But all the time I felt +that there was something not quite right. Now and then Mrs. Curtis would say or +do something that gave me a queer start, as if she had dropped a mask for a +moment. And there was trouble with the servants; they were almost insolent. I +couldn’t understand. I don’t know when it dawned on me that the old +Baron Cavalcanti had been right when he said they were not my kind of people. +But I wanted to get away, wanted it desperately.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, they were not your kind,” I cried. “The man was +married! The girl Jennie, a housemaid, was a spy in Mrs. Sullivan’s +employ. If he had pretended to marry you I would have killed him! Not only +that, but the man he murdered, Harrington, was his wife’s father. And +I’ll see him hang by the neck yet if it takes every energy and every +penny I possess.” +</p> + +<p> +I could have told her so much more gently, have broken the shock for her; I +have never been proud of that evening on the sand. I was alternately a boor and +a ruffian—like a hurt youngster who passes the blow that has hurt him on +to his playmate, that both may bawl together. And now Alison sat, white and +cold, without speech. +</p> + +<p> +“Married!” she said finally, in a small voice. “Why, I +don’t think it is possible, is it? I—I was on my way to Baltimore +to marry him myself, when the wreck came.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you said you didn’t care for him!” I protested, my heavy +masculine mind unable to jump the gaps in her story. And then, without the +slightest warning, I realized that she was crying. She shook off my hand and +fumbled for her handkerchief, and failing to find it, she accepted the one I +thrust into her wet fingers. +</p> + +<p> +Then, little by little, she told me from the handkerchief, a sordid story of a +motor trip in the mountains without Mrs. Curtis, of a lost road and a broken +car, and a rainy night when they—she and Sullivan, tramped eternally and +did not get home. And of Mrs. Curtis, when they got home at dawn, suddenly +grown conventional and deeply shocked. Of her own proud, half-disdainful +consent to make possible the hackneyed compromising situation by marrying the +rascal, and then—of his disappearance from the train. It was so terrible +to her, such a Heaven-sent relief to me, in spite of my rage against Sullivan, +that I laughed aloud. At which she looked at me over the handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“I know it’s funny,” she said, with a catch in her breath. +“When I think that I nearly married a murderer—and +didn’t—I cry for sheer joy.” Then she buried her face and +cried again. +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t,” I protested unsteadily. “I won’t +be responsible if you keep on crying like that. I may forget that I have a +capital charge hanging over my head, and that I may be arrested at any +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +That brought her out of the handkerchief at once. “I meant to be so +helpful,” she said, “and I’ve thought of nothing but myself! +There were some things I meant to tell you. If Jennie was—what you say, +then I understand why she came to me just before I left. She had been packing +my things and she must have seen what condition I was in, for she came over to +me when I was getting my wraps on, to leave, and said, ‘Don’t do +it, Miss West, I beg you won’t do it; you’ll be sorry ever +after.’ And just then Mrs. Curtis came in and Jennie slipped out.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was all?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. As we went through the station the telegraph operator gave +Har—Mr. Sullivan a message. He read it on the platform, and it excited +him terribly. He took his sister aside and they talked together. He was white +with either fear or anger—I don’t know which. Then, when we boarded +the train, a woman in black, with beautiful hair, who was standing on the car +platform, touched him on the arm and then drew back. He looked at her and +glanced away again, but she reeled as if he had struck her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what?” The situation was growing clearer. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Curtis and I had the drawing-room. I had a dreadful night, just +sleeping a little now and then. I dreaded to see dawn come. It was to be my +wedding-day. When we found Harry had disappeared in the night, Mrs. Curtis was +in a frenzy. Then—I saw his cigarette case in your hand. I had given it +to him. You wore his clothes. The murder was discovered and you were accused of +it! What could I do? And then, afterward, when I saw him asleep at the +farmhouse, I—I was panic-stricken. I locked him in and ran. I +didn’t know why he did it, but—he had killed a man.” +</p> + +<p> +Some one was calling Alison through a megaphone, from the veranda. It sounded +like Sam. “<i>All-ee</i>,” he called. “<i>All-ee!</i> +I’m going to have some anchovies on toast! <i>All-ee!</i>” Neither +of us heard. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder,” I reflected, “if you would be willing to repeat a +part of that story—just from the telegram on—to a couple of +detectives, say on Monday. If you would tell that, and—how the end of +your necklace got into the sealskin bag—” +</p> + +<p> +“My necklace!” she repeated. “But it isn’t mine. I +picked it up in the car.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>All-ee!</i>” Sam again. “I see you down there. I’m +making a julep!” +</p> + +<p> +Alison turned and called through her hands. “Coming in a moment, +Sam,” she said, and rose. “It must be very late: Sam is home. We +would better go back to the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t,” I begged her. “Anchovies and juleps and Sam +will go on for ever, and I have you such a little time. I suppose I am only one +of a dozen or so, but—you are the only girl in the world. You know I love +you, don’t you, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +Sam was whistling, an irritating bird call, over and over. She pursed her red +lips and answered him in kind. It was more than I could endure. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam or no Sam,” I said firmly, “I am going to kiss +you!” +</p> + +<p> +But Sam’s voice came strident through the megaphone. “Be good, you +two,” he bellowed, “I’ve got the binoculars!” And so, +under fire, we walked sedately back to the house. My pulses were +throbbing—the little swish of her dress beside me on the grass was pain +and ecstasy. I had but to put out my hand to touch her, and I dared not. +</p> + +<p> +Sam, armed with a megaphone and field glasses, bent over the rail and watched +us with gleeful malignity. +</p> + +<p> +“Home early, aren’t you?” Alison called, when we reached the +steps. +</p> + +<p> +“Led a club when my partner had doubled no-trumps, and she fainted. Damn +the heart convention!” he said cheerfully. “The others are not here +yet.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Three hours later I went up to bed. I had not seen Alison alone again. The +noise was at its height below, and I glanced down into the garden, still bright +in the moonlight. Leaning against a tree, and staring interestedly into the +billiard room, was Johnson. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.<br /> +IN THE DINING-ROOM</h2> + +<p> +That was Saturday night, two weeks after the wreck. The previous five days had +been full of swift-following events—the woman in the house next door, the +picture in the theater of a man about to leap from the doomed train, the dinner +at the Dallases’, and Richey’s discovery that Alison was the girl +in the case. In quick succession had come our visit to the Carter place, the +finding of the rest of the telegram, my seeing Alison there, and the strange +interview with Mrs. Conway. The Cresson trip stood out in my memory for its +serio-comic horrors and its one real thrill. Then—the discovery by the +police of the seal-skin bag and the bit of chain; Hotchkiss producing +triumphantly Stuart for Sullivan and his subsequent discomfiture; McKnight at +the station with Alison, and later the confession that he was out of the +running. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, when I thought it all over, the entire week and its events were two +sides of a triangle that was narrowing rapidly to an apex, a point. And the +said apex was at that moment in the drive below my window, resting his long +legs by sitting on a carriage block, and smoking a pipe that made the night +hideous. The sense of the ridiculous is very close to the sense of tragedy. I +opened my screen and whistled, and Johnson looked up and grinned. We said +nothing. I held up a handful of cigars, he extended his hat, and when I finally +went to sleep, it was to a soothing breeze that wafted in salt air and a faint +aroma of good tobacco. I was thoroughly tired, but I slept restlessly, dreaming +of two detectives with Pittsburg warrants being held up by Hotchkiss at the +point of a splint, while Alison fastened their hands with a chain that was +broken and much too short. I was roused about dawn by a light rap at the door, +and, opening it, I found Forbes, in a pair of trousers and a pajama coat. He +was as pleasant as most fleshy people are when they have to get up at night, +and he said the telephone had been ringing for an hour, and he didn’t +know why somebody else in the blankety-blank house couldn’t have heard +it. <i>He</i> wouldn’t get to sleep until noon. +</p> + +<p> +As he was palpably asleep on his feet, I left him grumbling and went to the +telephone. It proved to be Richey, who had found me by the simple expedient of +tracing Alison, and he was jubilant. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to come back,” he said. “Got a railroad +schedule there?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t sleep with one in my pocket,” I retorted, “but +if you’ll hold the line I’ll call out the window to Johnson. +He’s probably got one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Johnson!” I could hear the laugh with which McKnight comprehended +the situation. He was still chuckling when I came back. +</p> + +<p> +“Train to Richmond at six-thirty <small>A.M</small>.,” I said. +“What time is it now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Four. Listen, Lollie. We’ve got him. Do you hear? Through the +woman at Baltimore. Then the other woman, the lady of the +restaurant”—he was obviously avoiding names—“she is +playing our cards for us. No—I don’t know why, and I don’t +care. But you be at the Incubator to-night at eight o’clock. If you +can’t shake Johnson, bring him, bless him.” +</p> + +<p> +To this day I believe the Sam Forbeses have not recovered from the surprise of +my unexpected arrival, my one appearance at dinner in Granger’s clothes, +and the note on my dresser which informed them the next morning that I had +folded my tents like the Arabs and silently stole away. For at half after five +Johnson and I, the former as uninquisitive as ever, were on our way through the +dust to the station, three miles away, and by four that afternoon we were in +Washington. The journey had been uneventful. Johnson relaxed under the +influence of my tobacco, and spoke at some length on the latest improvements in +gallows, dilating on the absurdity of cutting out the former free passes to see +the affair in operation. I remember, too, that he mentioned the curious anomaly +that permits a man about to be hanged to eat a hearty meal. I did not enjoy my +dinner that night. +</p> + +<p> +Before we got into Washington I had made an arrangement with Johnson to +surrender myself at two the following afternoon. Also, I had wired to Alison, +asking her if she would carry out the contract she had made. The detective saw +me home, and left me there. Mrs. Klopton received me with dignified reserve. +The very tone in which she asked me when I would dine told me that something +was wrong. +</p> + +<p> +“Now—what is it, Mrs. Klopton?” I demanded finally, when she +had informed me, in a patient and long-suffering tone, that she felt worn out +and thought she needed a rest. +</p> + +<p> +“When I lived with Mr. Justice Springer,” she began acidly, her +mending-basket in her hands, “it was an orderly, well-conducted +household. You can ask any of the neighbors. Meals were cooked and, +what’s more, they were <i>eaten;</i> there was none of this ‘here +one day and gone the next’ business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” I observed. “You’re tired, that’s +all, Mrs. Klopton. And I wish you would go out; I want to bathe.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s <i>not</i> all,” she said with dignity, from the +doorway. “Women coming and going here, women whose shoes I am not +fit—I mean, women who are not fit to touch my shoes—coming here as +insolent as you please, and asking for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “What did you tell +them—her, whichever it was?” +</p> + +<p> +“Told her you were sick in a hospital and wouldn’t be out for a +year!” she said triumphantly. “And when she said she thought +she’d come in and wait for you, I slammed the door on her.” +</p> + +<p> +“What time was she here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Late last night. And she had a light-haired man across the street. If +she thought I didn’t see him, she don’t know me.” Then she +closed the door and left me to my bath and my reflections. +</p> + +<p> +At five minutes before eight I was at the Incubator, where I found Hotchkiss +and McKnight. They were bending over a table, on which lay McKnight’s +total armament—a pair of pistols, an elephant gun and an old cavalry +saber. +</p> + +<p> +“Draw up a chair and help yourself to pie,” he said, pointing to +the arsenal. “This is for the benefit of our friend Hotchkiss here, who +says he is a small man and fond of life.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss, who had been trying to get the wrong end of a cartridge into the +barrel of one of the revolvers, straightened himself and mopped his face. +</p> + +<p> +“We have desperate people to handle,” he said pompously, “and +we may need desperate means.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hotchkiss is like the small boy whose one ambition was to have people +grow ashen and tremble at the mention of his name,” McKnight jibed. But +they were serious enough, both of them, under it all, and when they had told me +what they planned, I was serious, too. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re compounding a felony,” I remonstrated, when they had +explained. “I’m not eager to be locked away, but, by Jove, to offer +her the stolen notes in exchange for Sullivan!” +</p> + +<p> +“We haven’t got either of them, you know,” McKnight +remonstrated, “and we won’t have, if we don’t start. Come +along, Fido,” to Hotchkiss. +</p> + +<p> +The plan was simplicity itself. According to Hotchkiss, Sullivan was to meet +Bronson at Mrs. Conway’s apartment, at eight-thirty that night, with the +notes. He was to be paid there and the papers destroyed. “But just before +that interesting finale,” McKnight ended, “we will walk in, take +the notes, grab Sullivan, and give the police a jolt that will put them out of +the count.” +</p> + +<p> +I suppose not one of us, slewing around corners in the machine that night, had +the faintest doubt that we were on the right track, or that Fate, scurvy enough +before, was playing into our hands at last. Little Hotchkiss was in a state of +fever; he alternately twitched and examined the revolver, and a fear that the +two movements might be synchronous kept me uneasy. He produced and dilated on +the scrap of pillow slip from the wreck, and showed me the stiletto, with its +point in cotton batting for safekeeping. And in the intervals he implored +Richey not to make such fine calculations at the corners. +</p> + +<p> +We were all grave enough and very quiet, however, when we reached the large +building where Mrs. Conway had her apartment. McKnight left the power on, in +case we might want to make a quick get-away, and Hotchkiss gave a final look at +the revolver. I had no weapon. Somehow it all seemed melodramatic to the verge +of farce. In the doorway Hotchkiss was a half dozen feet ahead; Richey fell +back beside me. He dropped his affectation of gayety, and I thought he looked +tired. “Same old Sam, I suppose?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Same, only more of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose Alison was there? How is she?” he inquired irrelevantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. I did not see her this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss was waiting near the elevator. McKnight put his hand on my arm. +“Now, look here, old man,” he said, “I’ve got two arms +and a revolver, and you’ve got one arm and a splint. If Hotchkiss is +right, and there is a row, you crawl under a table.” +</p> + +<p> +“The deuce I will!” I declared scornfully. +</p> + +<p> +We crowded out of the elevator at the fourth floor, and found ourselves in a +rather theatrical hallway of draperies and armor. It was very quiet; we stood +uncertainly after the car had gone, and looked at the two or three doors in +sight. They were heavy, covered with metal, and sound proof. From somewhere +above came the metallic accuracy of a player-piano, and through the open window +we could hear—or feel—the throb of the Cannonball’s engine. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Sherlock,” McKnight said, “what’s the next move +in the game? Is it our jump, or theirs? You brought us here.” +</p> + +<p> +None of us knew just what to do next. No sound of conversation penetrated the +heavy doors. We waited uneasily for some minutes, and Hotchkiss looked at his +watch. Then he put it to his ear. +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, his head cocked on one side, +“I believe it has stopped. I’m afraid we are late.” +</p> + +<p> +We <i>were</i> late. My watch and Hotchkiss’ agreed at nine o clock, and, +with the discovery that our man might have come and gone, our zest in the +adventure began to flag. McKnight motioned us away from the door and rang the +bell. There was no response, no sound within. He rang it twice, the last time +long and vigorously, without result. Then he turned and looked at us. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t half like this,” he said. “That woman is in; +you heard me ask the elevator boy. For two cents I’d—” +</p> + +<p> +I had seen it when he did. The door was ajar about an inch, and a narrow wedge +of rose-colored light showed beyond. I pushed the door a little and listened. +Then, with both men at my heels, I stepped into the private corridor of the +apartment and looked around. It was a square reception hall, with rugs on the +floor, a tall mahogany rack for hats, and a couple of chairs. A lantern of +rose-colored glass and a desk light over a writing-table across made the room +bright and cheerful. It was empty. +</p> + +<p> +None of us was comfortable. The place was full of feminine trifles that made us +feel the weakness of our position. Some such instinct made McKnight suggest +division. +</p> + +<p> +“We look like an invading army,” he said. “If she’s +here alone, we will startle her into a spasm. One of us could take a look +around and—” +</p> + +<p> +“What was that? Didn’t you hear something?” +</p> + +<p> +The sound, whatever it had been, was not repeated. We went awkwardly out into +the hall, very uncomfortable, all of us, and flipped a coin. The choice fell to +me, which was right enough, for the affair was mine, primarily. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait just inside the door,” I directed, “and if Sullivan +comes, or anybody that answers his description, grab him without ceremony and +ask him questions afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +The apartment, save in the hallway, was unlighted. By one of those freaks of +arrangement possible only in the modern flat, I found the kitchen first, and +was struck a smart and unexpected blow by a swinging door. I carried a handful +of matches, and by the time I had passed through a butler’s pantry and a +refrigerator room I was completely lost in the darkness. Until then the +situation had been merely uncomfortable; suddenly it became grisly. From +somewhere near came a long-sustained groan, followed almost instantly by the +crash of something—glass or china—on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +I struck a fresh match, and found myself in a narrow rear hallway. Behind me +was the door by which I must have come; with a keen desire to get back to the +place I had started from, I opened the door and attempted to cross the room. I +thought I had kept my sense of direction, but I crashed without warning into +what, from the resulting jangle, was the dining-table, probably laid for +dinner. I cursed my stupidity in getting into such a situation, and I cursed my +nerves for making my hand shake when I tried to strike a match. The groan had +not been repeated. +</p> + +<p> +I braced myself against the table and struck the match sharply against the sole +of my shoe. It flickered faintly and went out. And then, without the slightest +warning, another dish went off the table. It fell with a thousand splinterings; +the very air seemed broken into crashing waves of sound. I stood still, braced +against the table, holding the red end of the dying match, and listened. I had +not long to wait; the groan came again, and I recognized it, the cry of a dog +in straits. I breathed again. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, old fellow,” I said. “Come on, old man. Let’s +have a look at you.” +</p> + +<p> +I could hear the thud of his tail on the floor, but he did not move. He only +whimpered. There is something companionable in the presence of a dog, and I +fancied this dog in trouble. Slowly I began to work my way around the table +toward him. +</p> + +<p> +“Good boy,” I said, as he whimpered. “We’ll find the +light, which ought to be somewhere or other around here, and then—” +</p> + +<p> +I stumbled over something, and I drew back my foot almost instantly. “Did +I step on you, old man?” I exclaimed, and bent to pat him. I remember +straightening suddenly and hearing the dog pad softly toward me around the +table. I recall even that I had put the matches down and could not find them. +Then, with a bursting horror of the room and its contents, of the gibbering +dark around me, I turned and made for the door by which I had entered. +</p> + +<p> +I could not find it. I felt along the endless wainscoting, past miles of wall. +The dog was beside me, I think, but he was part and parcel now, to my excited +mind, with the Thing under the table. And when, after æons of search, I found a +knob and stumbled into the reception hall, I was as nearly in a panic as any +man could be. +</p> + +<p> +I was myself again in a second, and by the light from the hall I led the way +back to the tragedy I had stumbled on. Bronson still sat at the table, his +elbows propped on it, his cigarette still lighted, burning a hole in the cloth. +Partly under the table lay Mrs. Conway face down. The dog stood over her and +wagged his tail. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight pointed silently to a large copper ashtray, filled with ashes and +charred bits of paper. +</p> + +<p> +“The notes, probably,” he said ruefully. “He got them after +all, and burned them before her. It was more than she could stand. Stabbed him +first and then herself.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss got up and took off his hat. “They are dead,” he +announced solemnly, and took his note-book out of his hatband. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight and I did the only thing we could think of—drove Hotchkiss and +the dog out of the room, and closed and locked the door. “It’s a +matter for the police,” McKnight asserted. “I suppose you’ve +got an officer tied to you somewhere, Lawrence? You usually have.” +</p> + +<p> +We left Hotchkiss in charge and went down-stairs. It was McKnight who first saw +Johnson, leaning against a park railing across the street, and called him over. +We told him in a few words what we had found, and he grinned at me cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“After while, in a few weeks or months, Mr. Blakeley,” he said, +“when you get tired of monkeying around with the blood-stain and +finger-print specialist up-stairs, you come to me. I’ve had that fellow +you want under surveillance for ten days!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER XXX.<br /> +FINER DETAILS</h2> + +<p> +At ten minutes before two the following day, Monday, I arrived at my office. I +had spent the morning putting my affairs in shape, and in a trip to the stable. +The afternoon would see me either a free man or a prisoner for an indefinite +length of time, and, in spite of Johnson’s promise to produce Sullivan, I +was more prepared for the latter than the former. +</p> + +<p> +Blobs was watching for me outside the door, and it was clear that he was in a +state of excitement bordering on delirium. He did nothing, however, save to tip +me a wink that meant “As man to man, I’m for you.” I was too +much engrossed either to reprove him or return the courtesy, but I heard him +follow me down the hall to the small room where we keep outgrown lawbooks, +typewriter supplies and, incidentally, our wraps. I was wondering vaguely if I +would ever hang my hat on its nail again, when the door closed behind me. It +shut firmly, without any particular amount of sound, and I was left in the +dark. I groped my way to it, irritably, to find it locked on the outside. I +shook it frantically, and was rewarded by a sibilant whisper through the +keyhole. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep quiet,” Blobs was saying huskily. “You’re in +deadly peril. The police are waiting in your office, three of ’em. +I’m goin’ to lock the whole bunch in and throw the key out of the +window.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come back here, you imp of Satan!” I called furiously, but I could +hear him speeding down the corridor, and the slam of the outer office door by +which he always announced his presence. And so I stood there in that ridiculous +cupboard, hot with the heat of a steaming September day, musty with the smell +of old leather bindings, littered with broken overshoes and handleless +umbrellas. I was apoplectic with rage one minute, and choked with laughter the +next. It seemed an hour before Blobs came back. +</p> + +<p> +He came without haste, strutting with new dignity, and paused outside my prison +door. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I guess that will hold them for a while,” he remarked +comfortably, and proceeded to turn the key. “I’ve got ’em +fastened up like sardines in a can!” he explained, working with the lock. +“Gee whiz! you’d ought to hear ’em!” When he got his +breath after the shaking I gave him, he began to splutter. “How’d I +know?” he demanded sulkily. “You nearly broke your neck +gettin’ away the other time. And I haven’t got the old key. +It’s lost.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s it lost?” I demanded, with another gesture toward +his coat collar. +</p> + +<p> +“Down the elevator shaft.” There was a gleam of indignant +satisfaction through his tears of rage and humiliation. +</p> + +<p> +And so, while he hunted the key in the debris at the bottom of the shaft, I +quieted his prisoners with the assurance that the lock had slipped, and that +they would be free as lords as soon as we could find the janitor with a +pass-key. Stuart went down finally and discovered Blobs, with the key in his +pocket, telling the engineer how he had tried to save me from arrest and +failed. When Stuart came up he was almost cheerful, but Blobs did not appear +again that day. +</p> + +<p> +Simultaneous with the finding of the key came Hotchkiss, and we went in +together. I shook hands with two men who, with Hotchkiss, made a not very +animated group. The taller one, an oldish man, lean and hard, announced his +errand at once. +</p> + +<p> +“A Pittsburg warrant?” I inquired, unlocking my cigar drawer. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Allegheny County has assumed jurisdiction, the exact locality where +the crime was committed being in doubt.” He seemed to be the spokesman. +The other, shorter and rotund, kept an amiable silence. “We hope you will +see the wisdom of waiving extradition,” he went on. “It will save +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come, of course,” I agreed. “The sooner the +better. But I want you to give me an hour here, gentlemen. I think we can +interest you. Have a cigar?” +</p> + +<p> +The lean man took a cigar; the rotund man took three, putting two in his +pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“How about the catch of that door?” he inquired jovially. +“Any danger of it going off again?” Really, considering the +circumstances, they were remarkably cheerful. Hotchkiss, however, was not. He +paced the floor uneasily, his hands under his coat-tails. The arrival of +McKnight created a diversion; he carried a long package and a corkscrew, and +shook hands with the police and opened the bottle with a single gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“I always want something to cheer on these occasions,” he said. +“Where’s the water, Blakeley? Everybody ready?” Then in +French he toasted the two detectives. +</p> + +<p> +“To your eternal discomfiture,” he said, bowing ceremoniously. +“May you go home and never come back! If you take Monsieur Blakeley with +you, I hope you choke.” +</p> + +<p> +The lean man nodded gravely. “Prosit,” he said. But the fat one +leaned back and laughed consumedly. +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss finished a mental synopsis of his position, and put down his glass. +“Gentlemen,” he said pompously, “within five minutes the man +you want will be here, a murderer caught in a net of evidence so fine that a +mosquito could not get through.” +</p> + +<p> +The detectives glanced at each other solemnly. Had they not in their possession +a sealskin bag containing a wallet and a bit of gold chain, which, by putting +the crime on me, would leave a gap big enough for Sullivan himself to crawl +through? +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you say your little speech before Johnson brings the +other man, Lawrence?” McKnight inquired. “They won’t believe +you, but it will help them to understand what is coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“You understand, of course,” the lean man put in gravely, +“that what you say may be used against you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take the risk,” I answered impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +It took some time to tell the story of my worse than useless trip to Pittsburg, +and its sequel. They listened gravely, without interruption. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Hotchkiss here,” I finished, “believes that the man +Sullivan, whom we are momentarily expecting, committed the crime. Mr. McKnight +is inclined to implicate Mrs. Conway, who stabbed Bronson and then herself last +night. As for myself, I am open to conviction.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope not,” said the stout detective quizzically. And then Alison +was announced. My impulse to go out and meet her was forestalled by the +detectives, who rose when I did. McKnight, therefore, brought her in, and I met +her at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“I have put you to a great deal of trouble,” I said contritely, +when I saw her glance around the room. “I wish I had not—” +</p> + +<p> +“It is only right that I should come,” she replied, looking up at +me. “I am the unconscious cause of most of it, I am afraid. Mrs. Dallas +is going to wait in the outer office.” +</p> + +<p> +I presented Hotchkiss and the two detectives, who eyed her with interest. In +her poise, her beauty, even in her gown, I fancy she represented a new type to +them. They remained standing until she sat down. +</p> + +<p> +“I have brought the necklace,” she began, holding out a +white-wrapped box, “as you asked me to.” +</p> + +<p> +I passed it, unopened, to the detectives. “The necklace from which was +broken the fragment you found in the sealskin bag,” I explained. +“Miss West found it on the floor of the car, near lower ten.” +</p> + +<p> +“When did you find it?” asked the lean detective, bending forward. +</p> + +<p> +“In the morning, not long before the wreck.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever see it before?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not certain,” she replied. “I have seen one very much +like it.” Her tone was troubled. She glanced at me as if for help, but I +was powerless. +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” The detective was watching her closely. At that moment +there came an interruption. The door opened without ceremony, and Johnson +ushered in a tall, blond man, a stranger to all of us: I glanced at Alison; she +was pale, but composed and scornful. She met the new-comer’s eyes full, +and, caught unawares, he took a hasty backward step. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, Mr. Sullivan,” McKnight beamed cordially. “Have a +cigar? I beg your pardon, Alison, do you mind this smoke?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” she said composedly. Sullivan had had a second to +sound his bearings. +</p> + +<p> +“No—no, thanks,” he mumbled. “If you will be good +enough to explain—” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s what you’re to do,” McKnight said +cheerfully, pulling up a chair. “You’ve got the most attentive +audience you could ask. These two gentlemen are detectives from Pittsburg, and +we are all curious to know the finer details of what happened on the car +Ontario two weeks ago, the night your father-in-law was murdered.” +Sullivan gripped the arms of his chair. “We are not prejudiced, either. +The gentlemen from Pittsburg are betting on Mr. Blakeley, over there. Mr. +Hotchkiss, the gentleman by the radiator, is ready to place ten to one odds on +you. And some of us have still other theories.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen,” Sullivan said slowly, “I give you my word of +honor that I did not kill Simon Harrington, and that I do not know who +did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fiddlededee!” cried Hotchkiss, bustling forward. “Why, I can +tell you—” But McKnight pushed him firmly into a chair and held him +there. +</p> + +<p> +“I am ready to plead guilty to the larceny,” Sullivan went on. +“I took Mr. Blakeley’s clothes, I admit. If I can reimburse him in +any way for the inconvenience—” +</p> + +<p> +The stout detective was listening with his mouth open. “Do you mean to +say,” he demanded, “that you got into Mr. Blakeley’s berth, +as he contends, took his clothes and forged notes, and left the train before +the wreck?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“The notes, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I gave them to Bronson yesterday. Much good they did him!” +bitterly. We were all silent for a moment. The two detectives were adjusting +themselves with difficulty to a new point of view; Sullivan was looking +dejectedly at the floor, his hands hanging loose between his knees. I was +watching Alison; from where I stood, behind her, I could almost touch the soft +hair behind her ear. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no intention of pressing any charge against you,” I said +with forced civility, for my hands were itching to get at him, “if you +will give us a clear account of what happened on the Ontario that night.” +</p> + +<p> +Sullivan raised his handsome, haggard head and looked around at me. +“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” he asked. +“Weren’t you an uninvited guest at the Laurels a few days—or +nights—ago? The cat, you remember, and the rug that slipped?” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember,” I said shortly. He glanced from me to Alison and +quickly away. +</p> + +<p> +“The truth can’t hurt me,” he said, “but it’s +devilish unpleasant. Alison, you know all this. You would better go out.” +</p> + +<p> +His use of her name crazed me. I stepped in front of her and stood over him. +“You will not bring Miss West into the conversation,” I threatened, +“and she will stay if she wishes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well,” he said with assumed indifference. Hotchkiss just +then escaped from Richey’s grasp and crossed the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever wear glasses?” he asked eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“Never.” Sullivan glanced with some contempt at mine. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d better begin by going back a little,” he went on +sullenly. “I suppose you know I was married to Ida Harrington about five +years ago. She was a good girl, and I thought a lot of her. But her father +opposed the marriage—he’d never liked me, and he refused to make +any sort of settlement. +</p> + +<p> +“I had thought, of course, that there would be money, and it was a bad +day when I found out I’d made a mistake. My sister was wild with +disappointment. We were pretty hard up, my sister and I.” +</p> + +<p> +I was watching Alison. Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap, and she was +staring out of the window at the cheerless roof below. She had set her lips a +little, but that was all. +</p> + +<p> +“You understand, of course, that I’m not defending myself,” +went on the sullen voice. “The day came when old Harrington put us both +out of the house at the point of a revolver, and I threatened—I suppose +you know that, too—I threatened to kill him. +</p> + +<p> +“My sister and I had hard times after that. We lived on the continent for +a while. I was at Monte Carlo and she was in Italy. She met a young lady there, +the granddaughter of a steel manufacturer and an heiress, and she sent for me. +When I got to Rome the girl was gone. Last winter I was all in—social +secretary to an Englishman, a wholesale grocer with a new title, but we had a +row, and I came home. I went out to the Heaton boys’ ranch in Wyoming, +and met Bronson there. He lent me money, and I’ve been doing his dirty +work ever since.” +</p> + +<p> +Sullivan got up then and walked slowly forward and back as he talked, his eyes +on the faded pattern of the office rug. +</p> + +<p> +“If you want to live in hell,” he said savagely, “put +yourself in another man’s power. Bronson got into trouble, forging John +Gilmore’s name to those notes, and in some way he learned that a man was +bringing the papers back to Washington on the Flier. He even learned the number +of his berth, and the night before the wreck, just as I was boarding the train, +I got a telegram.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss stepped forward once more importantly. “Which read, I think: +‘Man with papers in lower ten, car seven. Get them.’” +</p> + +<p> +Sullivan looked at the little man with sulky blue eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“It was something like that, anyhow. But it was a nasty business, and it +made matters worse that he didn’t care that a telegram which must pass +through a half dozen hands was more or less incriminating to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, to add to the unpleasantness of my position, just after we boarded +the train—I was accompanying my sister and this young lady, Miss +West—a woman touched me on the sleeve, and I turned to face—my +wife! +</p> + +<p> +“That took away my last bit of nerve. I told my sister, and you can +understand she was in a bad way, too. We knew what it meant. Ida had heard that +I was going—” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped and glanced uneasily at Alison. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on,” she said coldly. “It is too late to shield me. The +time to have done that was when I was your guest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he went on, his eyes turned carefully away from my face, +which must have presented certainly anything but a pleasant sight. “Miss +West was going to do me the honor to marry me, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“You scoundrel!” I burst forth, thrusting past Alison West’s +chair. “You—you infernal cur!” +</p> + +<p> +One of the detectives got up and stood between us. “You must remember, +Mr. Blakeley, that you are forcing this story from this man. These details are +unpleasant, but important. You were going to marry this young lady,” he +said, turning to Sullivan, “although you already had a wife +living?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was my sister’s plan, and I was in a bad way for money. If I +could marry, secretly, a wealthy girl and go to Europe, it was unlikely that +Ida—that is, Mrs. Sullivan—would hear of it. +</p> + +<p> +“So it was more than a shock to see my wife on the train, and to realize +from her face that she knew what was going on. I don’t know yet, unless +some of the servants—well, never mind that. +</p> + +<p> +“It meant that the whole thing had gone up. Old Harrington had carried a +gun for me for years, and the same train wouldn’t hold both of us. Of +course, I thought that he was in the coach just behind ours.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss was leaning forward now, his eyes narrowed, his thin lips drawn to a +line. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you left-handed, Mr. Sullivan?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Sullivan stopped in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said gruffly. “Can’t do anything with my left +hand.” Hotchkiss subsided, crestfallen but alert. “I tore up that +cursed telegram, but I was afraid to throw the scraps away. Then I looked +around for lower ten. It was almost exactly across—my berth was lower +seven, and it was, of course, a bit of exceptional luck for me that the car was +number seven.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you tell your sister of the telegram from Bronson?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No. It would do no good, and she was in a bad way without that to make +her worse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your sister was killed, think.” The shorter detective took a small +package from his pocket and held it in his hand, snapping the rubber band which +held it. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she was killed,” Sullivan said soberly. “What I say now +can do her no harm.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped to push back the heavy hair which dropped over his forehead, and +went on more connectedly. +</p> + +<p> +“It was late, after midnight, and we went at once to our berths. I +undressed, and then I lay there for an hour, wondering how I was going to get +the notes. Some one in lower nine was restless and wide awake, but finally +became quiet. +</p> + +<p> +“The man in ten was sleeping heavily. I could hear his breathing, and it +seemed to be only a question of getting across and behind the curtains of his +berth without being seen. After that, it was a mere matter of quiet searching. +</p> + +<p> +“The car became very still. I was about to try for the other berth, when +some one brushed softly past, and I lay back again. +</p> + +<p> +“Finally, however, when things had been quiet for a time, I got up, and +after looking along the aisle, I slipped behind the curtains of lower ten. You +understand, Mr. Blakeley, that I thought you were in lower ten, with the +notes.” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded curtly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not trying to defend myself,” he went on. “I was +ready to steal the notes—I had to. But murder!” +</p> + +<p> +He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I slipped across and behind the curtains. It was very still. The +man in ten didn’t move, although my heart was thumping until I thought he +would hear it. +</p> + +<p> +“I felt around cautiously. It was perfectly dark, and I came across a bit +of chain, about as long as my finger. It seemed a queer thing to find there, +and it was sticky, too.” +</p> + +<p> +He shuddered, and I could see Alison’s hands clenching and unclenching +with the strain. +</p> + +<p> +“All at once it struck me that the man was strangely silent, and I think +I lost my nerve. Anyhow, I drew the curtains open a little, and let the light +fall on my hands. They were red, blood-red.” +</p> + +<p> +He leaned one hand on the back of the chair, and was silent for a moment, as +though he lived over again the awful events of that more than awful night. +</p> + +<p> +The stout detective had let his cigar go out; he was still drawing at it +nervously. Richey had picked up a paper-weight and was tossing it from hand to +hand; when it slipped and fell to the floor, a startled shudder passed through +the room. +</p> + +<p> +“There was something glittering in there,” Sullivan resumed, +“and on impulse I picked it up. Then I dropped the curtains and stumbled +back to my own berth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where you wiped your hands on the bed-clothing and stuck the dirk into +the pillow.” Hotchkiss was seeing his carefully built structure crumbling +to pieces, and he looked chagrined. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I did—I’m not very clear about what happened then. +But when I rallied a little I saw a Russia leather wallet lying in the aisle +almost at my feet, and, like a fool, I stuck it, with the bit of chain, into my +bag. +</p> + +<p> +“I sat there, shivering, for what seemed hours. It was still perfectly +quiet, except for some one snoring. I thought that would drive me crazy. +</p> + +<p> +“The more I thought of it the worse things looked. The telegram was the +first thing against me—it would put the police on my track at once, when +it was discovered that the man in lower ten had been killed. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I remembered the notes, and I took out the wallet and opened +it.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped for a minute, as if the recalling of the next occurrence was almost +beyond him. +</p> + +<p> +“I took out the wallet,” he said simply, “and opening it, +held it to the light. In gilt letters was the name, Simon Harrington.” +</p> + +<p> +The detectives were leaning forward now, their eyes on his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Things seemed to whirl around for a while. I sat there almost paralyzed, +wondering what this new development meant for me. +</p> + +<p> +“My wife, I knew, would swear I had killed her father; nobody would be +likely to believe the truth. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you believe me now?” He rooked around at us defiantly. “I +am telling the absolute truth, and not one of you believes me! +</p> + +<p> +“After a bit the man in lower nine got up and walked along the aisle +toward the smoking compartment. I heard him go, and, leaning from my berth, +watched him out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +“It was then I got the idea of changing berths with him, getting into his +clothes, and leaving the train. I give you my word I had no idea of throwing +suspicion on him.” +</p> + +<p> +Alison looked scornfully incredulous, but I felt that the man was telling the +truth. +</p> + +<p> +“I changed the numbers of the berths, and it worked well. I got into the +other man’s berth, and he came back to mine. The rest was easy. I dressed +in his clothes—luckily, they fitted—and jumped the train not far +from Baltimore, just before the wreck.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is something else you must clear up,” I said. “Why did +you try to telephone me from M——, and why did you change your mind +about the message?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked astounded. +</p> + +<p> +“You knew I was at M——?” he stammered. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, we traced you. What about the message?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it was this way: of course, I did not know your name, Mr. +Blakeley. The telegram said, ‘Man with papers in lower ten, car +seven,” and after I had made what I considered my escape, I began to +think I had left the man in my berth in a bad way. +</p> + +<p> +“He would probably be accused of the crime. So, although when the wreck +occurred I supposed every one connected with the affair had been killed, there +was a chance that you had survived. I’ve not been of much account, but I +didn’t want a man to swing because I’d left him in my place. +Besides, I began to have a theory of my own. +</p> + +<p> +“As we entered the car a tall, dark woman passed us, with a glass of +water in her hand, and I vaguely remembered her. She was amazingly like Blanche +Conway. +</p> + +<p> +“If she, too, thought the man with the notes was in lower ten, it +explained a lot, including that piece of a woman’s necklace. She was a +fury, Blanche Conway, capable of anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why did you countermand that message?” I asked curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“When I got to the Carter house, and got to bed—I had sprained my +ankle in the jump—I went through the alligator bag I had taken from lower +nine. When I found your name, I sent the first message. Then, soon after, I +came across the notes. It seemed too good to be true, and I was crazy for fear +the message had gone. +</p> + +<p> +“At first I was going to send them to Bronson; then I began to see what +the possession of the notes meant to me. It meant power over Bronson, money, +influence, everything. He was a devil, that man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he’s at home now,” said McKnight, and we were glad to +laugh and relieve the tension. +</p> + +<p> +Alison put her hand over her eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the man she +had so nearly married, and I furtively touched one of the soft little curls +that nestled at the back of her neck. +</p> + +<p> +“When I was able to walk,” went on the sullen voice, “I came +at once to Washington. I tried to sell the notes to Bronson, but he was almost +at the end of his rope. Not even my threat to send them back to you, Mr. +Blakeley, could make him meet my figure. He didn’t have the money.” +</p> + +<p> +McKnight was triumphant. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you gentlemen will see reason in my theory now,” he said. +“Mrs. Conway wanted the notes to force a legal marriage, I +suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +The detective with the small package carefully rolled off the rubber band, and +unwrapped it. I held my breath as he took out, first, the Russia leather +wallet. +</p> + +<p> +“These things, Mr. Blakeley, we found in the seal-skin bag Mr. Sullivan +says he left you. This wallet, Mr. Sullivan—is this the one you found on +the floor of the car?” +</p> + +<p> +Sullivan opened it, and, glancing at the name inside, “Simon +Harrington,” nodded affirmatively. +</p> + +<p> +“And this,” went on the detective—“this is a piece of +gold chain?” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to be,” said Sullivan, recoiling at the blood-stained +end. +</p> + +<p> +“This, I believe, is the dagger.” He held it up, and Alison gave a +faint cry of astonishment and dismay. Sullivan’s face grew ghastly, and +he sat down weakly on the nearest chair. +</p> + +<p> +The detective looked at him shrewdly, then at Alison’s agitated face. +</p> + +<p> +“Where have you seen this dagger before, young lady?” he asked, +kindly enough. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t ask me!” she gasped breathlessly, her eyes turned +on Sullivan. “It’s—it’s too terrible!” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him,” I advised, leaning over to her. “It will be found +out later, anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ask him,” she said, nodding toward Sullivan. The detective +unwrapped the small box Alison had brought, disclosing the trampled necklace +and broken chain. With clumsy fingers he spread it on the table and fitted into +place the bit of chain. There could be no doubt that it belonged there. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you find that chain?” Sullivan asked hoarsely, looking +for the first time at Alison. +</p> + +<p> +“On the floor, near the murdered man’s berth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Mr. Sullivan,” said the detective civilly, “I believe +you can tell us, in the light of these two exhibits, who really did murder +Simon Harrington.” +</p> + +<p> +Sullivan looked again at the dagger, a sharp little bit of steel with a +Florentine handle. Then he picked up the locket and pressed a hidden spring +under one of the cameos. Inside, very neatly engraved, was the name and a date. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen,” he said, his face ghastly, “it is of no use for +me to attempt a denial. The dagger and necklace belonged to my sister, Alice +Curtis!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.<br /> +AND ONLY ONE ARM</h2> + +<p> +Hotchkiss was the first to break the tension. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Sullivan,” he asked suddenly, “was your sister +left-handed?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Hotchkiss put away his note-book and looked around with an air of triumphant +vindication. It gave us a chance to smile and look relieved. After all, Mrs. +Curtis was dead. It was the happiest solution of the unhappy affair. McKnight +brought Sullivan some whisky, and he braced up a little. +</p> + +<p> +“I learned through the papers that my wife was in a Baltimore hospital, +and yesterday I ventured there to see her. I felt if she would help me to keep +straight, that now, with her father and my sister both dead, we might be happy +together. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand now what puzzled me then. It seemed that my sister went +into the next car and tried to make my wife promise not to interfere. But +Ida—Mrs. Sullivan—was firm, of course. She said her father had +papers, certificates and so on, that would stop the marriage at once. +</p> + +<p> +“She said, also, that her father was in our car, and that there would be +the mischief to pay in the morning. It was probably when my sister tried to get +the papers that he awakened, and she had to do—what she did.” +</p> + +<p> +It was over. Save for a technicality or two, I was a free man. Alison rose +quietly and prepared to go; the men stood to let her pass, save Sullivan who +sat crouched in his chair, his face buried in his hands. Hotchkiss, who had +been tapping the desk with his pencil, looked up abruptly and pointed the +pencil at me. +</p> + +<p> +“If all this is true, and I believe it is,—then who was in the +house next door, Blakeley, the night you and Mr. Johnson searched? You +remember, you said it was a woman’s hand at the trap door.” +</p> + +<p> +I glanced hastily at Johnson, whose face was impassive. He had his hand on the +knob of the door and he opened it before he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“There were a number of scratches on Mrs. Conway’s right +hand,” he observed to the room in general. “Her wrist was bandaged +and badly bruised.” +</p> + +<p> +He went out then, but he turned as he closed the door and threw at me a glance +of half-amused, half-contemptuous tolerance. +</p> + +<p> +McKnight saw Alison, with Mrs. Dallas, to their carriage, and came back again. +The gathering in the office was breaking up. Sullivan, looking worn and old, +was standing by the window, staring at the broken necklace in his hand. When he +saw me watching him, he put it on the desk and picked up his hat. +</p> + +<p> +“If I can not do anything more—” he hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you have done about enough,” I replied grimly, and he went +out. +</p> + +<p> +I believe that Richey and Hotchkiss led me somewhere to dinner, and that, for +fear I would be lonely without him, they sent for Johnson. And I recall a +spirited discussion in which Hotchkiss told the detective that he could manage +certain cases, but that he lacked induction. Richey and I were mainly silent. +My thoughts would slip ahead to that hour, later in the evening, when I should +see Alison again. +</p> + +<p> +I dressed in savage haste finally, and was so particular about my tie that Mrs. +Klopton gave up in despair. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish, until your arm is better, that you would buy the kind that hooks +on,” she protested, almost tearfully. “I’m sure they look +very nice, Mr. Lawrence. My late husband always—” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a lover’s knot you’ve tied this time,” I +snarled, and, jerking open the bow knot she had so painfully executed, looked +out the window for Johnson—until I recalled that he no longer belonged in +my perspective. I ended by driving frantically to the club and getting George +to do it. +</p> + +<p> +I was late, of course. The drawing-room and library at the Dallas home were +empty. I could hear billiard balls rolling somewhere, and I turned the other +way. I found Alison at last on the balcony, sitting much as she had that night +on the beach,—her chin in her hands, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the +trees and lights of the square across. She was even whistling a little, softly. +But this time the plaintiveness was gone. It was a tender little tune. She did +not move, as I stood beside her, looking down. And now, when the moment had +come, all the thousand and one things I had been waiting to say forsook me, +precipitately beat a retreat, and left me unsupported. The arc-moon sent little +fugitive lights over her hair, her eyes, her gown. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t—do that,” I said unsteadily. +“You—you know what I want to do when you whistle!” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced up at me, and she did not stop. She <i>did not stop!</i> She went +on whistling softly, a bit tremulously. And straightway I forgot the street, +the chance of passers-by, the voices in the house behind us. “The world +doesn’t hold any one but you,” I said reverently. “It is our +world, sweetheart. I love you.” +</p> + +<p> +And I kissed her. +</p> + +<p> +A boy was whistling on the pavement below. I let her go reluctantly and sat +back where I could see her. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t done this the way I intended to at all,” I +confessed. “In books they get things all settled, and then kiss the +lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Settled?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, about getting married and that sort of thing,” I explained +with elaborate carelessness. “We—we could go down to +Bermuda—or—or Jamaica, say in December.” +</p> + +<p> +She drew her hand away and faced me squarely. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you are afraid!” she declared. “I refuse to marry +you unless you propose properly. Everybody does it. And it is a woman’s +privilege: she wants to have that to look back to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” I consented with an exaggerated sigh. “If you +will promise not to think I look like an idiot, I shall do it, knee and +all.” +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/fig05.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +I had to pass her to close the door behind us, but when I kissed her again she +protested that we were not really engaged. +</p> + +<p> +I turned to look down at her. “It is a terrible thing,” I said +exultantly, “to love a girl the way I love you, and to have only one +arm!” Then I closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +From across the street there came a sharp crescendo whistle, and a vaguely +familiar figure separated itself from the park railing. +</p> + +<p> +“Say,” he called, in a hoarse whisper, “shall I throw the key +down the elevator shaft?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN LOWER TEN ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 1869-h.htm or 1869-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/6/1869/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..08fec27 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1869 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1869) diff --git a/old/1869.txt b/old/1869.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac6239d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1869.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8084 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man in Lower Ten, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man in Lower Ten + +Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Positng Date: November 17, 2008 [EBook #1869] +Release Date: August, 1999 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN LOWER TEN *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer + + + + + +THE MAN IN LOWER TEN + +By Mary Roberts Rinehart + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I I GO TO PITTSBURG + + II A TORN TELEGRAM + + III ACROSS THE AISLE + + IV NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE + + V THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR + + VI THE GIRL IN BLUE + + VII A FINE GOLD CHAIN + + VIII THE SECOND SECTION + + IX THE HALCYON BREAKFAST + + X MISS WEST'S REQUEST + + XI THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN + + XII THE GOLD BAG + + XIII FADED ROSES + + XIV THE TRAP-DOOR + + XV THE CINEMATOGRAPH + + XVI THE SHADOW OF A GIRL + + XVII AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN + + XVIII A NEW WORLD + + XIX AT THE TABLE NEXT + + XX THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN + + XXI MCKNIGHT'S THEORY + + XXII AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE + + XXIII A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS + + XXIV HIS WIFE'S FATHER + + XXV AT THE STATION + + XXVI ON TO RICHMOND + + XXVII THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS + + XXVIII ALISON'S STORY + + XXIX IN THE DINING-ROOM + + XXX FINER DETAILS + + XXXI AND ONLY ONE ARM + + + +THE MAN IN LOWER TEN + + + + + +CHAPTER I. I GO TO PITTSBURG + + +McKnight is gradually taking over the criminal end of the business. I +never liked it, and since the strange case of the man in lower ten, I +have been a bit squeamish. Given a case like that, where you can +build up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three entirely +different people, only one of whom can be guilty, and your faith in +circumstantial evidence dies of overcrowding. I never see a shivering, +white-faced wretch in the prisoners' dock that I do not hark back with +shuddering horror to the strange events on the Pullman car Ontario, +between Washington and Pittsburg, on the night of September ninth, last. + +McKnight could tell the story a great deal better than I, although +he can not spell three consecutive words correctly. But, while he has +imagination and humor, he is lazy. + +"It didn't happen to me, anyhow," he protested, when I put it up to +him. "And nobody cares for second-hand thrills. Besides, you want the +unvarnished and ungarnished truth, and I'm no hand for that. I'm a +lawyer." + +So am I, although there have been times when my assumption in that +particular has been disputed. I am unmarried, and just old enough to +dance with the grown-up little sisters of the girls I used to know. I +am fond of outdoors, prefer horses to the aforesaid grown-up little +sisters, am without sentiment (am crossed out and was substituted.-Ed.) +and completely ruled and frequently routed by my housekeeper, an elderly +widow. + +In fact, of all the men of my acquaintance, I was probably the most +prosaic, the least adventurous, the one man in a hundred who would be +likely to go without a deviation from the normal through the orderly +procession of the seasons, summer suits to winter flannels, golf to +bridge. + +So it was a queer freak of the demons of chance to perch on my +unsusceptible thirty-year-old chest, tie me up with a crime, ticket +me with a love affair, and start me on that sensational and not always +respectable journey that ended so surprisingly less than three weeks +later in the firm's private office. It had been the most remarkable +period of my life. I would neither give it up nor live it again under +any inducement, and yet all that I lost was some twenty yards off my +drive! + +It was really McKnight's turn to make the next journey. I had a +tournament at Chevy Chase for Saturday, and a short yacht cruise planned +for Sunday, and when a man has been grinding at statute law for a week, +he needs relaxation. But McKnight begged off. It was not the first time +he had shirked that summer in order to run down to Richmond, and I was +surly about it. But this time he had a new excuse. "I wouldn't be able +to look after the business if I did go," he said. He has a sort of +wide-eyed frankness that makes one ashamed to doubt him. "I'm always car +sick crossing the mountains. It's a fact, Lollie. See-sawing over the +peaks does it. Why, crossing the Alleghany Mountains has the Gulf Stream +to Bermuda beaten to a frazzle." + +So I gave him up finally and went home to pack. He came later in the +evening with his machine, the Cannonball, to take me to the station, and +he brought the forged notes in the Bronson case. + +"Guard them with your life," he warned me. "They are more precious +than honor. Sew them in your chest protector, or wherever people keep +valuables. I never keep any. I'll not be happy until I see Gentleman +Andy doing the lockstep." + +He sat down on my clean collars, found my cigarettes and struck a match +on the mahogany bed post with one movement. + +"Where's the Pirate?" he demanded. The Pirate is my housekeeper, Mrs. +Klopton, a very worthy woman, so labeled--and libeled--because of a +ferocious pair of eyes and what McKnight called a bucaneering nose. I +quietly closed the door into the hall. + +"Keep your voice down, Richey," I said. "She is looking for the evening +paper to see if it is going to rain. She has my raincoat and an umbrella +waiting in the hall." + +The collars being damaged beyond repair, he left them and went to the +window. He stood there for some time, staring at the blackness that +represented the wall of the house next door. + +"It's raining now," he said over his shoulder, and closed the window +and the shutters. Something in his voice made me glance up, but he was +watching me, his hands idly in his pockets. + +"Who lives next door?" he inquired in a perfunctory tone, after a pause. +I was packing my razor. + +"House is empty," I returned absently. "If the landlord would put it in +some sort of shape---" + +"Did you put those notes in your pocket?" he broke in. + +"Yes." I was impatient. "Along with my certificates of registration, +baptism and vaccination. Whoever wants them will have to steal my coat +to get them." + +"Well, I would move them, if I were you. Somebody in the next house was +confoundedly anxious to see where you put them. Somebody right at that +window opposite." + +I scoffed at the idea, but nevertheless I moved the papers, putting +them in my traveling-bag, well down at the bottom. McKnight watched me +uneasily. + +"I have a hunch that you are going to have trouble," he said, as I +locked the alligator bag. "Darned if I like starting anything important +on Friday." + +"You have a congenital dislike to start anything on any old day," I +retorted, still sore from my lost Saturday. "And if you knew the owner +of that house as I do you would know that if there was any one at that +window he is paying rent for the privilege." + +Mrs. Klopton rapped at the door and spoke discreetly from the hall. + +"Did Mr. McKnight bring the evening paper?" she inquired. + +"Sorry, but I didn't, Mrs. Klopton," McKnight called. "The Cubs won, +three to nothing." He listened, grinning, as she moved away with little +irritated rustles of her black silk gown. + +I finished my packing, changed my collar and was ready to go. Then very +cautiously we put out the light and opened the shutters. The window +across was merely a deeper black in the darkness. It was closed and +dirty. And yet, probably owing to Richey's suggestion, I had an uneasy +sensation of eyes staring across at me. The next moment we were at the +door, poised for flight. + +"We'll have to run for it," I said in a whisper. "She's down there with +a package of some sort, sandwiches probably. And she's threatened me +with overshoes for a month. Ready now!" + +I had a kaleidoscopic view of Mrs. Klopton in the lower hall, holding +out an armful of such traveling impedimenta as she deemed essential, +while beside her, Euphemia, the colored housemaid, grinned over a +white-wrapped box. + +"Awfully sorry-no time-back Sunday," I panted over my shoulder. Then the +door closed and the car was moving away. + +McKnight bent forward and stared at the facade of the empty house next +door as we passed. It was black, staring, mysterious, as empty buildings +are apt to be. + +"I'd like to hold a post-mortem on that corpse of a house," he said +thoughtfully. "By George, I've a notion to get out and take a look." + +"Somebody after the brass pipes," I scoffed. "House has been empty for a +year." + +With one hand on the steering wheel McKnight held out the other for my +cigarette case. "Perhaps," he said; "but I don't see what she would want +with brass pipe." + +"A woman!" I laughed outright. "You have been looking too hard at the +picture in the back of your watch, that's all. There's an experiment +like that: if you stare long enough--" + +But McKnight was growing sulky: he sat looking rigidly ahead, and he +did not speak again until he brought the Cannonball to a stop at the +station. Even then it was only a perfunctory remark. He went through the +gate with me, and with five minutes to spare, we lounged and smoked +in the train shed. My mind had slid away from my surroundings and had +wandered to a polo pony that I couldn't afford and intended to buy +anyhow. Then McKnight shook off his taciturnity. + +"For heaven's sake, don't look so martyred," he burst out; "I know +you've done all the traveling this summer. I know you're missing a game +to-morrow. But don't be a patient mother; confound it, I have to go to +Richmond on Sunday. I--I want to see a girl." + +"Oh, don't mind me," I observed politely. "Personally, I wouldn't change +places with you. What's her name--North? South?" + +"West," he snapped. "Don't try to be funny. And all I have to say, +Blakeley, is that if you ever fall in love I hope you make an egregious +ass of yourself." + +In view of what followed, this came rather close to prophecy. + +The trip west was without incident. I played bridge with a furniture +dealer from Grand Rapids, a sales agent for a Pittsburg iron firm and +a young professor from an eastern college. I won three rubbers out of +four, finished what cigarettes McKnight had left me, and went to bed +at one o'clock. It was growing cooler, and the rain had ceased. Once, +toward morning, I wakened with a start, for no apparent reason, and sat +bolt upright. I had an uneasy feeling that some one had been looking at +me, the same sensation I had experienced earlier in the evening at the +window. But I could feel the bag with the notes, between me and the +window, and with my arm thrown over it for security, I lapsed again into +slumber. Later, when I tried to piece together the fragments of that +journey, I remembered that my coat, which had been folded and placed +beyond my restless tossing, had been rescued in the morning from a +heterogeneous jumble of blankets, evening papers and cravat, had been +shaken out with profanity and donned with wrath. At the time, nothing +occurred to me but the necessity of writing to the Pullman Company and +asking them if they ever traveled in their own cars. I even formulated +some of the letter. + +"If they are built to scale, why not take a man of ordinary stature +as your unit?" I wrote mentally. "I can not fold together like the +traveling cup with which I drink your abominable water." + +I was more cheerful after I had had a cup of coffee in the Union +Station. It was too early to attend to business, and I lounged in the +restaurant and hid behind the morning papers. As I had expected, they +had got hold of my visit and its object. On the first page was a staring +announcement that the forged papers in the Bronson case had been +brought to Pittsburg. Underneath, a telegram from Washington stated that +Lawrence Blakeley, of Blakeley and McKnight, had left for Pittsburg the +night before, and that, owing to the approaching trial of the Bronson +case and the illness of John Gilmore, the Pittsburg millionaire, who was +the chief witness for the prosecution, it was supposed that the visit +was intimately concerned with the trial. + +I looked around apprehensively. There were no reporters yet in sight, +and thankful to have escaped notice I paid for my breakfast and left. +At the cab-stand I chose the least dilapidated hansom I could find, and +giving the driver the address of the Gilmore residence, in the East end, +I got in. + +I was just in time. As the cab turned and rolled off, a slim young man +in a straw hat separated himself from a little group of men and hurried +toward us. + +"Hey! Wait a minute there!" he called, breaking into a trot. + +But the cabby did not hear, or perhaps did not care to. We jogged +comfortably along, to my relief, leaving the young man far behind. I +avoid reporters on principle, having learned long ago that I am an easy +mark for a clever interviewer. + +It was perhaps nine o'clock when I left the station. Our way was along +the boulevard which hugged the side of one of the city's great hills. +Far below, to the left, lay the railroad tracks and the seventy times +seven looming stacks of the mills. The white mist of the river, the +grays and blacks of the smoke blended into a half-revealing haze, dotted +here and there with fire. It was unlovely, tremendous. Whistler might +have painted it with its pathos, its majesty, but he would have missed +what made it infinitely suggestive--the rattle and roar of iron on iron, +the rumble of wheels, the throbbing beat, against the ears, of fire and +heat and brawn welding prosperity. + +Something of this I voiced to the grim old millionaire who was +responsible for at least part of it. He was propped up in bed in his +East end home, listening to the market reports read by a nurse, and he +smiled a little at my enthusiasm. + +"I can't see much beauty in it myself," he said. "But it's our badge +of prosperity. The full dinner pail here means a nose that looks like a +flue. Pittsburg without smoke wouldn't be Pittsburg, any more than New +York without prohibition would be New York. Sit down for a few minutes, +Mr. Blakeley. Now, Miss Gardner, Westinghouse Electric." + +The nurse resumed her reading in a monotonous voice. She read literally +and without understanding, using initials and abbreviations as they +came. But the shrewd old man followed her easily. Once, however, he +stopped her. + +"D-o is ditto," he said gently, "not do." + +As the nurse droned along, I found myself looking curiously at a +photograph in a silver frame on the bed-side table. It was the picture +of a girl in white, with her hands clasped loosely before her. Against +the dark background her figure stood out slim and young. Perhaps it was +the rather grim environment, possibly it was my mood, but although as a +general thing photographs of young girls make no appeal to me, this one +did. I found my eyes straying back to it. By a little finesse I even +made out the name written across the corner, "Alison." + +Mr. Gilmore lay back among his pillows and listened to the nurse's +listless voice. But he was watching me from under his heavy eyebrows, +for when the reading was over, and we were alone, he indicated the +picture with a gesture. + +"I keep it there to remind myself that I am an old man," he said. "That +is my granddaughter, Alison West." + +I expressed the customary polite surprise, at which, finding me +responsive, he told me his age with a chuckle of pride. More surprise, +this time genuine. From that we went to what he ate for breakfast +and did not eat for luncheon, and then to his reserve power, which at +sixty-five becomes a matter for thought. And so, in a wide circle, back +to where we started, the picture. + +"Father was a rascal," John Gilmore said, picking up the frame. "The +happiest day of my life was when I knew he was safely dead in bed and +not hanged. If the child had looked like him, I--well, she doesn't. +She's a Gilmore, every inch. Supposed to look like me." + +"Very noticeably," I agreed soberly. + +I had produced the notes by that time, and replacing the picture Mr. +Gilmore gathered his spectacles from beside it. He went over the four +notes methodically, examining each carefully and putting it down before +he picked up the next. Then he leaned back and took off his glasses. + +"They're not so bad," he said thoughtfully. "Not so bad. But I never saw +them before. That's my unofficial signature. I am inclined to think--" +he was speaking partly to himself--"to think that he has got hold of +a letter of mine, probably to Alison. Bronson was a friend of her +rapscallion of a father." + +I took Mr. Gilmore's deposition and put it into my traveling-bag with +the forged notes. When I saw them again, almost three weeks later, they +were unrecognizable, a mass of charred paper on a copper ashtray. In the +interval other and bigger things had happened: the Bronson forgery case +had shrunk beside the greater and more imminent mystery of the man in +lower ten. And Alison West had come into the story and into my life. + + + +CHAPTER II. A TORN TELEGRAM + + +I lunched alone at the Gilmore house, and went back to the city at once. +The sun had lifted the mists, and a fresh summer wind had cleared away +the smoke pall. The boulevard was full of cars flying countryward for +the Saturday half-holiday, toward golf and tennis, green fields and +babbling girls. I gritted my teeth and thought of McKnight at Richmond, +visiting the lady with the geographical name. And then, for the first +time, I associated John Gilmore's granddaughter with the "West" that +McKnight had irritably flung at me. + +I still carried my traveling-bag, for McKnight's vision at the window +of the empty house had not been without effect. I did not transfer +the notes to my pocket, and, if I had, it would not have altered the +situation later. Only the other day McKnight put this very thing up to +me. + +"I warned you," he reminded me. "I told you there were queer things +coming, and to be on your guard. You ought to have taken your revolver." + +"It would have been of exactly as much use as a bucket of snow in +Africa," I retorted. "If I had never closed my eyes, or if I had kept +my finger on the trigger of a six-shooter (which is novelesque for +revolver), the result would have been the same. And the next time you +want a little excitement with every variety of thrill thrown in, I can +put you by way of it. You begin by getting the wrong berth in a Pullman +car, and end--" + +"Oh, I know how it ends," he finished shortly. "Don't you suppose the +whole thing's written on my spinal marrow?" + +But I am wandering again. That is the difficulty with the unprofessional +story-teller: he yaws back and forth and can't keep in the wind; he +drops his characters overboard when he hasn't any further use for them +and drowns them; he forgets the coffee-pot and the frying-pan and all +the other small essentials, and, if he carries a love affair, he +mutters a fervent "Allah be praised" when he lands them, drenched with +adventures, at the matrimonial dock at the end of the final chapter. + +I put in a thoroughly unsatisfactory afternoon. Time dragged eternally. +I dropped in at a summer vaudeville, and bought some ties at a +haberdasher's. I was bored but unexpectant; I had no premonition of what +was to come. Nothing unusual had ever happened to me; friends of mine +had sometimes sailed the high seas of adventure or skirted the coasts of +chance, but all of the shipwrecks had occurred after a woman passenger +had been taken on. "Ergo," I had always said "no women!" I repeated +it to myself that evening almost savagely, when I found my thoughts +straying back to the picture of John Gilmore's granddaughter. I even +argued as I ate my solitary dinner at a downtown restaurant. + +"Haven't you troubles enough," I reflected, "without looking for more? +Hasn't Bad News gone lame, with a matinee race booked for next week? +Otherwise aren't you comfortable? Isn't your house in order? Do you want +to sell a pony in order to have the library done over in mission or the +drawing-room in gold? Do you want somebody to count the empty cigarette +boxes lying around every morning?" + +Lay it to the long idle afternoon, to the new environment, to anything +you like, but I began to think that perhaps I did. I was confoundedly +lonely. For the first time in my life its even course began to waver: +the needle registered warning marks on the matrimonial seismograph, +lines vague enough, but lines. + +My alligator bag lay at my feet, still locked. While I waited for my +coffee I leaned back and surveyed the people incuriously. There were the +usual couples intent on each other: my new state of mind made me regard +them with tolerance. But at the next table, where a man and woman dined +together, a different atmosphere prevailed. My attention was first +caught by the woman's face. She had been speaking earnestly across the +table, her profile turned to me. I had noticed casually her earnest +manner, her somber clothes, and the great mass of odd, bronze-colored +hair on her neck. But suddenly she glanced toward me and the utter +hopelessness--almost tragedy--of her expression struck me with a shock. +She half closed her eyes and drew a long breath, then she turned again +to the man across the table. + +Neither one was eating. He sat low in his chair, his chin on his chest, +ugly folds of thick flesh protruding over his collar. He was probably +fifty, bald, grotesque, sullen, and yet not without a suggestion of +power. But he had been drinking; as I looked, he raised an unsteady hand +and summoned a waiter with a wine list. + +The young woman bent across the table and spoke again quickly. She had +unconsciously raised her voice. Not beautiful, in her earnestness and +stress she rather interested me. I had an idle inclination to advise the +waiter to remove the bottled temptation from the table. I wonder +what would have happened if I had? Suppose Harrington had not been +intoxicated when he entered the Pullman car Ontario that night! + +For they were about to make a journey, I gathered, and the young woman +wished to go alone. I drank three cups of coffee, which accounted for +my wakefulness later, and shamelessly watched the tableau before me. +The woman's protest evidently went for nothing: across the table the man +grunted monosyllabic replies and grew more and more lowering and sullen. +Once, during a brief unexpected pianissimo in the music, her voice came +to me sharply: + +"If I could only see him in time!" she was saying. "Oh, it's terrible!" + +In spite of my interest I would have forgotten the whole incident +at once, erased it from my mind as one does the inessentials and +clutterings of memory, had I not met them again, later that evening, +in the Pennsylvania station. The situation between them had not visibly +altered: the same dogged determination showed in the man's face, but the +young woman--daughter or wife? I wondered--had drawn down her veil and I +could only suspect what white misery lay beneath. + +I bought my berth after waiting in a line of some eight or ten people. +When, step by step, I had almost reached the window, a tall woman whom +I had not noticed before spoke to me from my elbow. She had a ticket and +money in her hand. + +"Will you try to get me a lower when you buy yours?" she asked. "I have +traveled for three nights in uppers." + +I consented, of course; beyond that I hardly noticed the woman. I had a +vague impression of height and a certain amount of stateliness, but the +crowd was pushing behind me, and some one was standing on my foot. I got +two lowers easily, and, turning with the change and berths, held out the +tickets. + +"Which will you have?" I asked. "Lower eleven or lower ten?" + +"It makes no difference," she said. "Thank you very much indeed." + +At random I gave her lower eleven, and called a porter to help her +with her luggage. I followed them leisurely to the train shed, and ten +minutes more saw us under way. + +I looked into my car, but it presented the peculiarly unattractive +appearance common to sleepers. The berths were made up; the center aisle +was a path between walls of dingy, breeze-repelling curtains, while +the two seats at each end of the car were piled high with suitcases and +umbrellas. The perspiring porter was trying to be six places at once: +somebody has said that Pullman porters are black so they won't show the +dirt, but they certainly show the heat. + +Nine-fifteen was an outrageous hour to go to bed, especially since I +sleep little or not at all on the train, so I made my way to the smoker +and passed the time until nearly eleven with cigarettes and a magazine. +The car was very close. It was a warm night, and before turning in I +stood a short time in the vestibule. The train had been stopping +at frequent intervals, and, finding the brakeman there, I asked the +trouble. + +It seemed that there was a hot-box on the next car, and that not only +were we late, but we were delaying the second section, just behind. I +was beginning to feel pleasantly drowsy, and the air was growing cooler +as we got into the mountains. I said good night to the brakeman and +went back to my berth. To my surprise, lower ten was already occupied--a +suit-case projected from beneath, a pair of shoes stood on the floor, +and from behind the curtains came the heavy, unmistakable breathing of +deep sleep. I hunted out the porter and together we investigated. + +"Are you asleep, sir?" asked the porter, leaning over deferentially. +No answer forthcoming, he opened the curtains and looked in. Yes, the +intruder was asleep--very much asleep--and an overwhelming odor of +whisky proclaimed that he would probably remain asleep until morning. I +was irritated. The car was full, and I was not disposed to take an upper +in order to allow this drunken interloper to sleep comfortably in my +berth. + +"You'll have to get out of this," I said, shaking him angrily. But he +merely grunted and turned over. As he did so, I saw his features for the +first time. It was the quarrelsome man of the restaurant. + +I was less disposed than ever to relinquish my claim, but the +porter, after a little quiet investigation, offered a solution of the +difficulty. "There's no one in lower nine," he suggested, pulling open +the curtains just across. "It's likely nine's his berth, and he's made a +mistake, owing to his condition. You'd better take nine, sir." + +I did, with a firm resolution that if nine's rightful owner turned up +later I should be just as unwakable as the man opposite. I undressed +leisurely, making sure of the safety of the forged notes, and placing my +grip as before between myself and the window. + +Being a man of systematic habits, I arranged my clothes carefully, +putting my shoes out for the porter to polish, and stowing my collar and +scarf in the little hammock swung for the purpose. + +At last, with my pillows so arranged that I could see out comfortably, +and with the unhygienic-looking blanket turned back--I have always a +distrust of those much-used affairs--I prepared to wait gradually for +sleep. + +But sleep did not visit me. The train came to frequent, grating stops, +and I surmised the hot box again. I am not a nervous man, but there was +something chilling in the thought of the second section pounding along +behind us. Once, as I was dozing, our locomotive whistled a shrill +warning--"You keep back where you belong," it screamed to my drowsy +ears, and from somewhere behind came a chastened "All-right-I-will." + +I grew more and more wide-awake. At Cresson I got up on my elbow and +blinked out at the station lights. Some passengers boarded the train +there and I heard a woman's low tones, a southern voice, rich and +full. Then quiet again. Every nerve was tense: time passed, perhaps ten +minutes, possibly half an hour. Then, without the slightest warning, as +the train rounded a curve, a heavy body was thrown into my berth. The +incident, trivial as it seemed, was startling in its suddenness, for +although my ears were painfully strained and awake, I had heard no step +outside. The next instant the curtain hung limp again; still without a +sound, my disturber had slipped away into the gloom and darkness. In a +frenzy of wakefulness, I sat up, drew on a pair of slippers and fumbled +for my bath-robe. + +From a berth across, probably lower ten, came that particular +aggravating snore which begins lightly, delicately, faintly soprano, +goes down the scale a note with every breath, and, after keeping the +listener tense with expectation, ends with an explosion that tears the +very air. I was more and more irritable: I sat on the edge of the berth +and hoped the snorer would choke to death. He had considerable vitality, +however; he withstood one shock after another and survived to start +again with new vigor. In desperation I found some cigarettes and one +match, piled my blankets over my grip, and drawing the curtains together +as though the berth were still occupied, I made my way to the vestibule +of the car. + +I was not clad for dress parade. Is it because the male is so restricted +to gloom in his every-day attire that he blossoms into gaudy colors in +his pajamas and dressing-gowns? It would take a Turk to feel at +home before an audience in my red and yellow bathrobe, a Christmas +remembrance from Mrs. Klopton, with slippers to match. + +So, naturally, when I saw a feminine figure on the platform, my first +instinct was to dodge. The woman, however, was quicker than I; she +gave me a startled glance, wheeled and disappeared, with a flash of two +bronze-colored braids, into the next car. + +Cigarette box in one hand, match in the other, I leaned against the +uncertain frame of the door and gazed after her vanished figure. The +mountain air flapped my bath-robe around my bare ankles, my one match +burned to the end and went out, and still I stared. For I had seen +on her expressive face a haunting look that was horror, nothing less. +Heaven knows, I am not psychological. Emotions have to be written large +before I can read them. But a woman in trouble always appeals to me, and +this woman was more than that. She was in deadly fear. + +If I had not been afraid of being ridiculous, I would have followed +her. But I fancied that the apparition of a man in a red and yellow +bath-robe, with an unkempt thatch of hair, walking up to her and +assuring her that he would protect her would probably put her into +hysterics. I had done that once before, when burglars had tried to break +into the house, and had startled the parlor maid into bed for a week. +So I tried to assure myself that I had imagined the lady's distress--or +caused it, perhaps--and to dismiss her from my mind. Perhaps she was +merely anxious about the unpleasant gentleman of the restaurant. I +thought smugly that I could have told her all about him: that he was +sleeping the sleep of the just and the intoxicated in a berth that +ought, by all that was fair and right, to have been mine, and that if I +were tied to a man who snored like that I should have him anesthetized +and his soft palate put where it would never again flap like a loose +sail in the wind. + +We passed Harrisburg as I stood there. It was starlight, and the great +crests of the Alleghanies had given way to low hills. At intervals we +passed smudges of gray white, no doubt in daytime comfortable farms, +which McKnight says is a good way of putting it, the farms being a lot +more comfortable than the people on them. + +I was growing drowsy: the woman with the bronze hair and the horrified +face was fading in retrospect. It was colder, too, and I turned with a +shiver to go in. As I did so a bit of paper fluttered into the air and +settled on my sleeve, like a butterfly on a gorgeous red and yellow +blossom. I picked it up curiously and glanced at it. It was part of a +telegram that had been torn into bits. + +There were only parts of four words on the scrap, but it left me puzzled +and thoughtful. It read, "-ower ten, car seve-." + +"Lower ten, car seven," was my berth-the one I had bought and found +preempted. + + + +CHAPTER III. ACROSS THE AISLE + + +No solution offering itself, I went back to my berth. The snorer across +had apparently strangled, or turned over, and so after a time I dropped +asleep, to be awakened by the morning sunlight across my face. + +I felt for my watch, yawning prodigiously. I reached under the pillow +and failed to find it, but something scratched the back of my hand. +I sat up irritably and nursed the wound, which was bleeding a little. +Still drowsy, I felt more cautiously for what I supposed had been my +scarf pin, but there was nothing there. Wide awake now, I reached for +my traveling-bag, on the chance that I had put my watch in there. I had +drawn the satchel to me and had my hand on the lock before I realized +that it was not my own! + +Mine was of alligator hide. I had killed the beast in Florida, after the +expenditure of enough money to have bought a house and enough energy to +have built one. The bag I held in my hand was a black one, sealskin, I +think. The staggering thought of what the loss of my bag meant to me put +my finger on the bell and kept it there until the porter came. + +"Did you ring, sir?" he asked, poking his head through the curtains +obsequiously. McKnight objects that nobody can poke his head through a +curtain and be obsequious. But Pullman porters can and do. + +"No," I snapped. "It rang itself. What in thunder do you mean by +exchanging my valise for this one? You'll have to find it if you waken +the entire car to do it. There are important papers in that grip." + +"Porter," called a feminine voice from an upper berth near-by. "Porter, +am I to dangle here all day?" + +"Let her dangle," I said savagely. "You find that bag of mine." + +The porter frowned. Then he looked at me with injured dignity. "I +brought in your overcoat, sir. You carried your own valise." + +The fellow was right! In an excess of caution I had refused to +relinquish my alligator bag, and had turned over my other traps to the +porter. It was clear enough then. I was simply a victim of the usual +sleeping-car robbery. I was in a lather of perspiration by that time: +the lady down the car was still dangling and talking about it: still +nearer a feminine voice was giving quick orders in French, presumably to +a maid. The porter was on his knees, looking under the berth. + +"Not there, sir," he said, dusting his knees. He was visibly more +cheerful, having been absolved of responsibility. "Reckon it was taken +while you was wanderin' around the car last night." + +"I'll give you fifty dollars if you find it," I said. "A hundred. Reach +up my shoes and I'll--" + +I stopped abruptly. My eyes were fixed in stupefied amazement on a +coat that hung from a hook at the foot of my berth. From the coat they +traveled, dazed, to the soft-bosomed shirt beside it, and from there to +the collar and cravat in the net hammock across the windows. + +"A hundred!" the porter repeated, showing his teeth. But I caught him by +the arm and pointed to the foot of the berth. + +"What--what color's that coat?" I asked unsteadily. + +"Gray, sir." His tone was one of gentle reproof. + +"And--the trousers?" + +He reached over and held up one creased leg. "Gray, too," he grinned. + +"Gray!" I could not believe even his corroboration of my own eyes. +"But my clothes were blue!" The porter was amused: he dived under the +curtains and brought up a pair of shoes. "Your shoes, sir," he said with +a flourish. "Reckon you've been dreaming, sir." + +Now, there are two things I always avoid in my dress--possibly an +idiosyncrasy of my bachelor existence. These tabooed articles are red +neckties and tan shoes. And not only were the shoes the porter lifted +from the floor of a gorgeous shade of yellow, but the scarf which was +run through the turned over collar was a gaudy red. It took a full +minute for the real import of things to penetrate my dazed intelligence. +Then I gave a vindictive kick at the offending ensemble. + +"They're not mine, any of them," I snarled. "They are some other +fellow's. I'll sit here until I take root before I put them on." + +"They're nice lookin' clothes," the porter put in, eying the red tie +with appreciation. "Ain't everybody would have left you anything." + +"Call the conductor," I said shortly. Then a possible explanation +occurred to me. "Oh, porter--what's the number of this berth?" + +"Seven, sir. If you cain't wear those shoes--" + +"Seven!" In my relief I almost shouted it. "Why, then, it's simple +enough. I'm in the wrong berth, that's all. My berth is nine. +Only--where the deuce is the man who belongs here?" + +"Likely in nine, sir." The darky was enjoying himself. "You and the +other gentleman just got mixed in the night. That's all, sir." It was +clear that he thought I had been drinking. + +I drew a long breath. Of course, that was the explanation. This was +number seven's berth, that was his soft hat, this his umbrella, his +coat, his bag. My rage turned to irritation at myself. + +The porter went to the next berth and I could hear his softly +insinuating voice. "Time to get up, sir. Are you awake? Time to get up." + +There was no response from number nine. I guessed that he had opened the +curtains and was looking in. Then he came back. + +"Number nine's empty," he said. + +"Empty! Do you mean my clothes aren't there?" I demanded. "My valise? +Why don't you answer me?" + +"You doan' give me time," he retorted. "There ain't nothin' there. But +it's been slept in." + +The disappointment was the greater for my few moments of hope. I sat +up in a white fury and put on the clothes that had been left me. Then, +still raging, I sat on the edge of the berth and put on the obnoxious +tan shoes. The porter, called to his duties, made little excursions back +to me, to offer assistance and to chuckle at my discomfiture. He stood +by, outwardly decorous, but with little irritating grins of amusement +around his mouth, when I finally emerged with the red tie in my hand. + +"Bet the owner of those clothes didn't become them any more than you +do," he said, as he plied the ubiquitous whisk broom. + +"When I get the owner of these clothes," I retorted grimly, "he will +need a shroud. Where's the conductor?" + +The conductor was coming, he assured me; also that there was no bag +answering the description of mine on the car. I slammed my way to the +dressing-room, washed, choked my fifteen and a half neck into a fifteen +collar, and was back again in less than five minutes. The car, as well +as its occupants, was gradually taking on a daylight appearance. I +hobbled in, for one of the shoes was abominably tight, and found myself +facing a young woman in blue with an unforgettable face. ("Three women +already." McKnight says: "That's going some, even if you don't count +the Gilmore nurse.") She stood, half-turned toward me, one hand idly +drooping, the other steadying her as she gazed out at the flying +landscape. I had an instant impression that I had met her somewhere, +under different circumstances, more cheerful ones, I thought, for the +girl's dejection now was evident. Beside her, sitting down, a small dark +woman, considerably older, was talking in a rapid undertone. The girl +nodded indifferently now and then. I fancied, although I was not sure, +that my appearance brought a startled look into the young woman's face. +I sat down and, hands thrust deep into the other man's pockets, stared +ruefully at the other man's shoes. + +The stage was set. In a moment the curtain was going up on the first act +of the play. And for a while we would all say our little speeches and +sing our little songs, and I, the villain, would hold center stage while +the gallery hissed. + +The porter was standing beside lower ten. He had reached in and was +knocking valiantly. But his efforts met with no response. He winked at +me over his shoulder; then he unfastened the curtains and bent forward. +Behind him, I saw him stiffen, heard his muttered exclamation, saw the +bluish pallor that spread over his face and neck. As he retreated a step +the interior of lower ten lay open to the day. + +The man in it was on his back, the early morning sun striking full on +his upturned face. But the light did not disturb him. A small stain of +red dyed the front of his night clothes and trailed across the sheet; +his half-open eyes were fixed, without seeing, on the shining wood +above. + +I grasped the porter's shaking shoulders and stared down to where the +train imparted to the body a grisly suggestion of motion. "Good Lord," I +gasped. "The man's been murdered!" + + + +CHAPTER IV. NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE + + +Afterwards, when I tried to recall our discovery of the body in lower +ten, I found that my most vivid impression was not that made by the +revelation of the opened curtain. I had an instantaneous picture of a +slender blue-gowned girl who seemed to sense my words rather than hear +them, of two small hands that clutched desperately at the seat beside +them. The girl in the aisle stood, bent toward us, perplexity and alarm +fighting in her face. + +With twitching hands the porter attempted to draw the curtains together. +Then in a paralysis of shock, he collapsed on the edge of my berth and +sat there swaying. In my excitement I shook him. + +"For Heaven's sake, keep your nerve, man," I said bruskly. "You'll have +every woman in the car in hysterics. And if you do, you'll wish you +could change places with the man in there." He rolled his eyes. + +A man near, who had been reading last night's paper, dropped it quickly +and tiptoed toward us. He peered between the partly open curtains, +closed them quietly and went back, ostentatiously solemn, to his seat. +The very crackle with which he opened his paper added to the bursting +curiosity of the car. For the passengers knew that something was amiss: +I was conscious of a sudden tension. + +With the curtains closed the porter was more himself; he wiped his lips +with a handkerchief and stood erect. + +"It's my last trip in this car," he remarked heavily. "There's something +wrong with that berth. Last trip the woman in it took an overdose of +some sleeping stuff, and we found her, jes' like that, dead! And it +ain't more'n three months now since there was twins born in that very +spot. No, sir, it ain't natural." + +At that moment a thin man with prominent eyes and a spare grayish goatee +creaked up the aisle and paused beside me. + +"Porter sick?" he inquired, taking in with a professional eye the +porter's horror-struck face, my own excitement and the slightly gaping +curtains of lower ten. He reached for the darky's pulse and pulled out +an old-fashioned gold watch. + +"Hm! Only fifty! What's the matter? Had a shock?" he asked shrewdly. + +"Yes," I answered for the porter. "We've both had one. If you are a +doctor, I wish you would look at the man in the berth across, lower ten. +I'm afraid it's too late, but I'm not experienced in such matters." + +Together we opened the curtains, and the doctor, bending down, gave a +comprehensive glance that took in the rolling head, the relaxed jaw, the +ugly stain on the sheet. The examination needed only a moment. Death +was written in the clear white of the nostrils, the colorless lips, the +smoothing away of the sinister lines of the night before. With its new +dignity the face was not unhandsome: the gray hair was still plentiful, +the features strong and well cut. + +The doctor straightened himself and turned to me. "Dead for some time," +he said, running a professional finger over the stains. "These are dry +and darkened, you see, and rigor mortis is well established. A friend of +yours?" + +"I don't know him at all," I replied. "Never saw him but once before." + +"Then you don't know if he is traveling alone?" + +"No, he was not--that is, I don't know anything about him," I corrected +myself. It was my first blunder: the doctor glanced up at me quickly and +then turned his attention again to the body. Like a flash there had come +to me the vision of the woman with the bronze hair and the tragic face, +whom I had surprised in the vestibule between the cars, somewhere in +the small hours of the morning. I had acted on my first impulse--the +masculine one of shielding a woman. + +The doctor had unfastened the coat of the striped pajamas and exposed +the dead man's chest. On the left side was a small punctured wound of +insignificant size. + +"Very neatly done," the doctor said with appreciation. "Couldn't have +done it better myself. Right through the intercostal space: no time even +to grunt." + +"Isn't the heart around there somewhere?" I asked. The medical man +turned toward me and smiled austerely. + +"That's where it belongs, just under that puncture, when it isn't +gadding around in a man's throat or his boots." + +I had a new respect for the doctor, for any one indeed who could +crack even a feeble joke under such circumstances, or who could run an +impersonal finger over that wound and those stains. Odd how a healthy, +normal man holds the medical profession in half contemptuous regard +until he gets sick, or an emergency like this arises, and then turns +meekly to the man who knows the ins and outs of his mortal tenement, +takes his pills or his patronage, ties to him like a rudderless ship in +a gale. + +"Suicide, is it, doctor?" I asked. + +He stood erect, after drawing the bed-clothing over the face, and, +taking off his glasses, he wiped them slowly. + +"No, it is not suicide," he announced decisively. "It is murder." + +Of course, I had expected that, but the word itself brought a shiver. I +was just a bit dizzy. Curious faces through the car were turned toward +us, and I could hear the porter behind me breathing audibly. A stout +woman in negligee came down the aisle and querulously confronted the +porter. She wore a pink dressing-jacket and carried portions of her +clothing. + +"Porter," she began, in the voice of the lady who had "dangled," "is +there a rule of this company that will allow a woman to occupy the +dressing-room for one hour and curl her hair with an alcohol lamp while +respectable people haven't a place where they can hook their--" + +She stopped suddenly and stared into lower ten. Her shining pink cheeks +grew pasty, her jaw fell. I remember trying to think of something to +say, and of saying nothing at all. Then--she had buried her eyes in the +nondescript garments that hung from her arm and tottered back the way +she had come. Slowly a little knot of men gathered around us, silent +for the most part. The doctor was making a search of the berth when the +conductor elbowed his way through, followed by the inquisitive man, who +had evidently summoned him. I had lost sight, for a time, of the girl in +blue. + +"Do it himself?" the conductor queried, after a businesslike glance at +the body. + +"No, he didn't," the doctor asserted. "There's no weapon here, and the +window is closed. He couldn't have thrown it out, and he didn't swallow +it. What on earth are you looking for, man?" + +Some one was on the floor at our feet, face down, head peering under the +berth. Now he got up without apology, revealing the man who had summoned +the conductor. He was dusty, alert, cheerful, and he dragged up with him +the dead man's suit-case. The sight of it brought back to me at once my +own predicament. + +"I don't know whether there's any connection or not, conductor," I said, +"but I am a victim, too, in less degree; I've been robbed of everything +I possess, except a red and yellow bath-robe. I happened to be wearing +the bath-robe, which was probably the reason the thief overlooked it." + +There was a fresh murmur in the crowd. Some body laughed nervously. The +conductor was irritated. + +"I can't bother with that now," he snarled. "The railroad company is +responsible for transportation, not for clothes, jewelry and morals. If +people want to be stabbed and robbed in the company's cars, it's their +affair. Why didn't you sleep in your clothes? I do." + +I took an angry step forward. Then somebody touched my arm, and I +unclenched my fist. I could understand the conductor's position, and +beside, in the law, I had been guilty myself of contributory negligence. + +"I'm not trying to make you responsible," I protested as amiably as I +could, "and I believe the clothes the thief left are as good as my own. +They are certainly newer. But my valise contained valuable papers and it +is to your interest as well as mine to find the man who stole it." + +"Why, of course," the conductor said shrewdly. "Find the man who +skipped out with this gentleman's clothes, and you've probably got the +murderer." + +"I went to bed in lower nine," I said, my mind full again of my lost +papers, "and I wakened in number seven. I was up in the night prowling +around, as I was unable to sleep, and I must have gone back to the wrong +berth. Anyhow, until the porter wakened me this morning I knew nothing +of my mistake. In the interval the thief--murderer, too, perhaps--must +have come back, discovered my error, and taken advantage of it to +further his escape." + +The inquisitive man looked at me from between narrowed eyelids, +ferret-like. + +"Did any one on the train suspect you of having valuable papers?" he +inquired. The crowd was listening intently. + +"No one," I answered promptly and positively. The doctor was +investigating the murdered man's effects. The pockets of his trousers +contained the usual miscellany of keys and small change, while in his +hip pocket was found a small pearl-handled revolver of the type women +usually keep around. A gold watch with a Masonic charm had slid down +between the mattress and the window, while a showy diamond stud was +still fastened in the bosom of his shirt. Taken as a whole, the personal +belongings were those of a man of some means, but without any particular +degree of breeding. The doctor heaped them together. + +"Either robbery was not the motive," he reflected, "or the thief +overlooked these things in his hurry." + +The latter hypothesis seemed the more tenable, when, after a thorough +search, we found no pocketbook and less than a dollar in small change. + +The suit-case gave no clue. It contained one empty leather-covered flask +and a pint bottle, also empty, a change of linen and some collars with +the laundry mark, S. H. In the leather tag on the handle was a card +with the name Simon Harrington, Pittsburg. The conductor sat down on my +unmade berth, across, and made an entry of the name and address. Then, +on an old envelope, he wrote a few words and gave it to the porter, who +disappeared. + +"I guess that's all I can do," he said. "I've had enough trouble this +trip to last for a year. They don't need a conductor on these trains any +more; what they ought to have is a sheriff and a posse." + +The porter from the next car came in and whispered to him. The conductor +rose unhappily. + +"Next car's caught the disease," he grumbled. "Doctor, a woman back +there has got mumps or bubonic plague, or something. Will you come +back?" + +The strange porter stood aside. + +"Lady about the middle of the car," he said, "in black, sir, with +queer-looking hair--sort of copper color, I think, sir." + + + +CHAPTER V. THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR + + +With the departure of the conductor and the doctor, the group around +lower ten broke up, to re-form in smaller knots through the car. The +porter remained on guard. With something of relief I sank into a seat. +I wanted to think, to try to remember the details of the previous night. +But my inquisitive acquaintance had other intentions. He came up and sat +down beside me. Like the conductor, he had taken notes of the dead man's +belongings, his name, address, clothing and the general circumstances of +the crime. Now with his little note-book open before him, he prepared to +enjoy the minor sensation of the robbery. + +"And now for the second victim," he began cheerfully. "What is your name +and address, please?" I eyed him with suspicion. + +"I have lost everything but my name and address," I parried. "What do +you want them for? Publication?" + +"Oh, no; dear, no!" he said, shocked at my misapprehension. "Merely for +my own enlightenment. I like to gather data of this kind and draw my +own conclusions. Most interesting and engrossing. Once or twice I have +forestalled the results of police investigation--but entirely for my own +amusement." + +I nodded tolerantly. Most of us have hobbies; I knew a man once who +carried his handkerchief up his sleeve and had a mania for old colored +prints cut out of Godey's Lady's Book. + +"I use that inductive method originated by Poe and followed since with +such success by Conan Doyle. Have you ever read Gaboriau? Ah, you have +missed a treat, indeed. And now, to get down to business, what is the +name of our escaped thief and probable murderer?" + +"How on earth do I know?" I demanded impatiently. "He didn't write it in +blood anywhere, did he?" + +The little man looked hurt and disappointed. + +"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that the pockets of those clothes are +entirely empty?" The pockets! In the excitement I had forgotten entirely +the sealskin grip which the porter now sat at my feet, and I had not +investigated the pockets at all. With the inquisitive man's pencil +taking note of everything that I found, I emptied them on the opposite +seat. + +Upper left-hand waist-coat, two lead pencils and a fountain pen; lower +right waist-coat, match-box and a small stamp book; right-hand pocket +coat, pair of gray suede gloves, new, size seven and a half; left-hand +pocket, gun-metal cigarette case studded with pearls, half-full of +Egyptian cigarettes. The trousers pockets contained a gold penknife, a +small amount of money in bills and change, and a handkerchief with the +initial "S" on it. + +Further search through the coat discovered a card-case with cards +bearing the name Henry Pinckney Sullivan, and a leather flask with +gold mountings, filled with what seemed to be very fair whisky, and +monogrammed H. P. S. + +"His name evidently is Henry Pinckney Sullivan," said the cheerful +follower of Poe, as he wrote it down. "Address as yet unknown. Blond, +probably. Have you noticed that it is almost always the blond men who +affect a very light gray, with a touch of red in the scarf? Fact, I +assure you. I kept a record once of the summer attire of men, and ninety +per cent, followed my rule. Dark men like you affect navy blue, or +brown." + +In spite of myself I was amused at the man's shrewdness. + +"Yes; the suit he took was dark--a blue," I said. He rubbed his hands +and smiled at me delightedly. "Then you wore black shoes, not tan," he +said, with a glance at the aggressive yellow ones I wore. + +"Right again," I acknowledged. "Black low shoes and black embroidered +hose. If you keep on you'll have a motive for the crime, and the +murderer's present place of hiding. And if you come back to the smoker +with me, I'll give you an opportunity to judge if he knew good whisky +from bad." + +I put the articles from the pockets back again and got up. "I wonder +if there is a diner on?" I said. "I need something sustaining after all +this." + +I was conscious then of some one at my elbow. I turned to see the young +woman whose face was so vaguely familiar. In the very act of speaking +she drew back suddenly and colored. + +"Oh,--I beg your pardon," she said hurriedly, "I--thought you were--some +one else." She was looking in a puzzled fashion at my coat. I felt all +the cringing guilt of a man who has accidentally picked up the wrong +umbrella: my borrowed collar sat tight on my neck. + +"I'm sorry," I said idiotically. "I'm sorry, but--I'm not." I have +learned since that she has bright brown hair, with a loose wave in it +that drops over her ears, and dark blue eyes with black lashes and--but +what does it matter? One enjoys a picture as a whole: not as the sum of +its parts. + +She saw the flask then, and her errand came back to her. "One of the +ladies at the end of car has fainted," she explained. "I thought perhaps +a stimulant--" + +I picked up the flask at once and followed my guide down the aisle. Two +or three women were working over the woman who had fainted. They had +opened her collar and taken out her hairpins, whatever good that might +do. The stout woman was vigorously rubbing her wrists, with the idea, +no doubt, of working up her pulse! The unconscious woman was the one for +whom I had secured lower eleven at the station. + +I poured a little liquor in a bungling masculine fashion between her +lips as she leaned back, with closed eyes. She choked, coughed, and +rallied somewhat. + +"Poor thing," said the stout lady. "As she lies back that way I could +almost think it was my mother; she used to faint so much." + +"It would make anybody faint," chimed in another. "Murder and robbery in +one night and on one car. I'm thankful I always wear my rings in a bag +around my neck--even if they do get under me and keep me awake." + +The girl in blue was looking at us with wide, startled eyes. I saw her +pale a little, saw the quick, apprehensive glance which she threw at her +traveling companion, the small woman I had noticed before. There was an +exchange--almost a clash--of glances. The small woman frowned. That was +all. I turned my attention again to my patient. + +She had revived somewhat, and now she asked to have the window opened. +The train had stopped again and the car was oppressively hot. People +around were looking at their watches and grumbling over the delay. +The doctor bustled in with a remark about its being his busy day. The +amateur detective and the porter together mounted guard over lower ten. +Outside the heat rose in shimmering waves from the tracks: the very wood +of the car was hot to touch. A Camberwell Beauty darted through the open +door and made its way, in erratic plunges, great wings waving, down the +sunny aisle. All around lay the peace of harvested fields, the quiet of +the country. + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE GIRL IN BLUE + + +I was growing more and more irritable. The thought of what the loss of +the notes meant was fast crowding the murder to the back of my mind. The +forced inaction was intolerable. + +The porter had reported no bag answering the description of mine on the +train, but I was disposed to make my own investigation. I made a tour +of the cars, scrutinizing every variety of hand luggage, ranging from +luxurious English bags with gold mountings to the wicker nondescripts of +the day coach at the rear. I was not alone in my quest, for the girl in +blue was just ahead of me. Car by car she preceded me through the train, +unconscious that I was behind her, looking at each passenger as she +passed. I fancied the proceeding was distasteful, but that she had +determined on a course and was carrying it through. We reached the end +of the train almost together--empty-handed, both of us. + +The girl went out to the platform. When she saw me she moved aside, and +I stepped out beside her. Behind us the track curved sharply; the early +sunshine threw the train, in long black shadow, over the hot earth. +Forward somewhere they were hammering. The girl said nothing, but her +profile was strained and anxious. + +"I--if you have lost anything," I began, "I wish you would let me try to +help. Not that my own success is anything to boast of." + +She hardly glanced at me. It was not flattering. "I have not +been robbed, if that is what you mean," she replied quietly. "I +am--perplexed. That is all." + +There was nothing to say to that. I lifted my hat--the other fellow's +hat--and turned to go back to my car. Two or three members of the train +crew, including the conductor, were standing in the shadow talking. +And at that moment, from a farm-house near came the swift clang of the +breakfast bell, calling in the hands from barn and pasture. I turned +back to the girl. + +"We may be here for an hour," I said, "and there is no buffet car on. If +I remember my youth, that bell means ham and eggs and country butter and +coffee. If you care to run the risk--" + +"I am not hungry," she said, "but perhaps a cup of coffee--dear me, I +believe I am hungry," she finished. "Only--" She glanced back of her. + +"I can bring your companion," I suggested, without enthusiasm. But the +young woman shook her head. + +"She is not hungry," she objected, "and she is very--well, I know she +wouldn't come. Do you suppose we could make it if we run?" + +"I haven't any idea," I said cheerfully. "Any old train would be better +than this one, if it does leave us behind." + +"Yes. Any train would be better than this one," she repeated gravely. +I found myself watching her changing expression. I had spoken two dozen +words to her and already I felt that I knew the lights and shades in +her voice,--I, who had always known how a woman rode to hounds, and who +never could have told the color of her hair. + +I stepped down on the ties and turned to assist her, and together we +walked back to where the conductor and the porter from our car were in +close conversation. Instinctively my hand went to my cigarette pocket +and came out empty. She saw the gesture. + +"If you want to smoke, you may," she said. "I have a big cousin who +smokes all the time. He says I am 'kippered.'" + +I drew out the gun-metal cigarette case and opened it. But this most +commonplace action had an extraordinary result: the girl beside me +stopped dead still and stood staring at it with fascinated eyes. + +"Is--where did you get that?" she demanded, with a catch in her voice; +her gaze still fixed on the cigarette case. + +"Then you haven't heard the rest of the tragedy?" I asked, holding out +the case. "It's frightfully bad luck for me, but it makes a good story. +You see--" + +At that moment the conductor and porter ceased their colloquy. The +conductor came directly toward me, tugging as he came at his bristling +gray mustache. + +"I would like to talk to you in the car," he said to me, with a curious +glance at the young lady. + +"Can't it wait?" I objected. "We are on our way to a cup of coffee and a +slice of bacon. Be merciful, as you are powerful." + +"I'm afraid the breakfast will have to wait," he replied. "I won't keep +you long." There was a note of authority in his voice which I resented; +but, after all, the circumstances were unusual. + +"We'll have to defer that cup of coffee for a while," I said to the +girl; "but don't despair; there's breakfast somewhere." + +As we entered the car, she stood aside, but I felt rather than saw that +she followed us. I was surprised to see a half dozen men gathered around +the berth in which I had wakened, number seven. It had not yet been made +up. + +As we passed along the aisle, I was conscious of a new expression on the +faces of the passengers. The tall woman who had fainted was searching +my face with narrowed eyes, while the stout woman of the kindly heart +avoided my gaze, and pretended to look out the window. + +As we pushed our way through the group, I fancied that it closed around +me ominously. The conductor said nothing, but led the way without +ceremony to the side of the berth. + +"What's the matter?" I inquired. I was puzzled, but not apprehensive. +"Have you some of my things? I'd be thankful even for my shoes; these +are confoundedly tight." + +Nobody spoke, and I fell silent, too. For one of the pillows had been +turned over, and the under side of the white case was streaked with +brownish stains. I think it was a perceptible time before I realized +that the stains were blood, and that the faces around were filled with +suspicion and distrust. + +"Why, it--that looks like blood," I said vacuously. There was an +incessant pounding in my ears, and the conductor's voice came from far +off. + +"It is blood," he asserted grimly. + +I looked around with a dizzy attempt at nonchalance. "Even if it is," +I remonstrated, "surely you don't suppose for a moment that I know +anything about it!" + +The amateur detective elbowed his way in. He had a scrap of transparent +paper in his hand, and a pencil. + +"I would like permission to trace the stains," he began eagerly. +"Also"--to me--"if you will kindly jab your finger with a +pin--needle--anything--" + +"If you don't keep out of this," the conductor said savagely, "I will +do some jabbing myself. As for you, sir--" he turned to me. I was +absolutely innocent, but I knew that I presented a typical picture of +guilt; I was covered with cold sweat, and the pounding in my ears kept +up dizzily. "As for you, sir--" + +The irrepressible amateur detective made a quick pounce at the pillow +and pushed back the cover. Before our incredulous eyes he drew out a +narrow steel dirk which had been buried to the small cross that served +as a head. + +There was a chorus of voices around, a quick surging forward of the +crowd. So that was what had scratched my hand! I buried the wound in my +coat pocket. + +"Well," I said, trying to speak naturally, "doesn't that prove what I +have been telling you? The man who committed the murder belonged to this +berth, and made an exchange in some way after the crime. How do you know +he didn't change the tags so I would come back to this berth?" This was +an inspiration; I was pleased with it. "That's what he did, he changed +the tags," I reiterated. + +There was a murmur of assent around. The doctor, who was standing beside +me, put his hand on my arm. "If this gentleman committed this crime, and +I for one feel sure he did not, then who is the fellow who got away? And +why did he go?" + +"We have only one man's word for that," the conductor snarled. "I've +traveled some in these cars myself, and no one ever changed berths with +me." + +Somebody on the edge of the group asserted that hereafter he would +travel by daylight. I glanced up and caught the eye of the girl in blue. + +"They are all mad," she said. Her tone was low, but I heard her +distinctly. "Don't take them seriously enough to defend yourself." + +"I am glad you think I didn't do it," I observed meekly, over the crowd. +"Nothing else is of any importance." + +The conductor had pulled out his note-book again. "Your name, please," +he said gruffly. + +"Lawrence Blakeley, Washington." + +"Your occupation?" + +"Attorney. A member of the firm of Blakeley and McKnight." + +"Mr. Blakeley, you say you have occupied the wrong berth and have been +robbed. Do you know anything of the man who did it?" + +"Only from what he left behind," I answered. "These clothes--" + +"They fit you," he said with quick suspicion. "Isn't that rather a +coincidence? You are a large man." + +"Good Heavens," I retorted, stung into fury, "do I look like a man who +would wear this kind of a necktie? Do you suppose I carry purple and +green barred silk handkerchiefs? Would any man in his senses wear a pair +of shoes a full size too small?" + +The conductor was inclined to hedge. "You will have to grant that I +am in a peculiar position," he said. "I have only your word as to the +exchange of berths, and you understand I am merely doing my duty. Are +there any clues in the pockets?" + +For the second time I emptied them of their contents, which he noted. +"Is that all?" he finished. "There was nothing else?" + +"Nothing." + +"That's not all, sir," broke in the porter, stepping forward. "There was +a small black satchel." + +"That's so," I exclaimed. "I forgot the bag. I don't even know where it +is." + +The easily swayed crowd looked suspicious again. I've grown so +accustomed to reading the faces of a jury, seeing them swing from +doubt to belief, and back again to doubt, that I instinctively watch +expressions. I saw that my forgetfulness had done me harm--that +suspicion was roused again. + +The bag was found a couple of seats away, under somebody's +raincoat--another dubious circumstance. Was I hiding it? It was brought +to the berth and placed beside the conductor, who opened it at once. + +It contained the usual traveling impedimenta--change of linen, collars, +handkerchiefs, a bronze-green scarf, and a safety razor. But the +attention of the crowd riveted itself on a flat, Russia leather wallet, +around which a heavy gum band was wrapped, and which bore in gilt +letters the name "Simon Harrington." + + + +CHAPTER VII. A FINE GOLD CHAIN + + +The conductor held it out to me, his face sternly accusing. + +"Is this another coincidence?" he asked. "Did the man who left you his +clothes and the barred silk handkerchief and the tight shoes leave you +the spoil of the murder?" + +The men standing around had drawn off a little, and I saw the absolute +futility of any remonstrance. Have you ever seen a fly, who, in these +hygienic days, finding no cobwebs to entangle him, is caught in a sheet +of fly paper, finds himself more and more mired, and is finally quiet +with the sticky stillness of despair? + +Well, I was the fly. I had seen too much of circumstantial evidence to +have any belief that the establishing of my identity would weigh much +against the other incriminating details. It meant imprisonment and +trial, probably, with all the notoriety and loss of practice they would +entail. A man thinks quickly at a time like that. All the probable +consequences of the finding of that pocket-book flashed through my mind +as I extended my hand to take it. Then I drew my arm back. + +"I don't want it," I said. "Look inside. Maybe the other man took the +money and left the wallet." + +The conductor opened it, and again there was a curious surging forward +of the crowd. To my intense disappointment the money was still there. + +I stood blankly miserable while it was counted out--five +one-hundred-dollar bills, six twenties, and some fives and ones that +brought the total to six hundred and fifty dollars. + +The little man with the note-book insisted on taking the numbers of +the notes, to the conductor's annoyance. It was immaterial to me: small +things had lost their power to irritate. I was seeing myself in the +prisoner's box, going through all the nerve-racking routine of a trial +for murder--the challenging of the jury, the endless cross-examinations, +the alternate hope and fear. I believe I said before that I had no +nerves, but for a few minutes that morning I was as near as a man ever +comes to hysteria. + +I folded my arms and gave myself a mental shake. I seemed to be the +center of a hundred eyes, expressing every shade of doubt and distrust, +but I tried not to flinch. Then some one created a diversion. + +The amateur detective was busy again with the seal-skin bag, +investigating the make of the safety razor and the manufacturer's name +on the bronze-green tie. Now, however, he paused and frowned, as though +some pet theory had been upset. + +Then from a corner of the bag he drew out and held up for our inspection +some three inches of fine gold chain, one end of which was blackened and +stained with blood! + +The conductor held out his hand for it, but the little man was not ready +to give it up. He turned to me. + +"You say no watch was left you? Was there a piece of chain like that?" + +"No chain at all," I said sulkily. "No jewelry of any kind, except plain +gold buttons in the shirt I am wearing." + +"Where are your glasses?" he threw at me suddenly: instinctively my hand +went to my eyes. My glasses had been gone all morning, and I had not +even noticed their absence. The little man smiled cynically and held out +the chain. + +"I must ask you to examine this," he insisted. "Isn't it a part of the +fine gold chain you wear over your ear?" + +I didn't want to touch the thing: the stain at the end made me shudder. +But with a baker's dozen of suspicious eyes--well, we'll say fourteen: +there were no one-eyed men--I took the fragment in the tips of my +fingers and looked at it helplessly. + +"Very fine chains are much alike," I managed to say. "For all I know, +this may be mine, but I don't know how it got into that sealskin bag. I +never saw the bag until this morning after daylight." + +"He admits that he had the bag," somebody said behind me. "How did you +guess that he wore glasses, anyhow?" to the amateur sleuth. + +That gentleman cleared his throat. "There were two reasons," he said, +"for suspecting it. When you see a man with the lines of his face +drooping, a healthy individual with a pensive eye,--suspect astigmatism. +Besides, this gentleman has a pronounced line across the bridge of his +nose and a mark on his ear from the chain." + +After this remarkable exhibition of the theoretical as combined with the +practical, he sank into a seat near-by, and still holding the chain, sat +with closed eyes and pursed lips. It was evident to all the car that the +solution of the mystery was a question of moments. Once he bent forward +eagerly and putting the chain on the window-sill, proceeded to go +over it with a pocket magnifying glass, only to shake his head in +disappointment. All the people around shook their heads too, although +they had not the slightest idea what it was about. + +The pounding in my ears began again. The group around me seemed to be +suddenly motionless in the very act of moving, as if a hypnotist had +called "Rigid!" The girl in blue was looking at me, and above the din +I thought she said she must speak to me--something vital. The pounding +grew louder and merged into a scream. With a grinding and splintering +the car rose under my feet. Then it fell away into darkness. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE SECOND SECTION + + +Have you ever been picked up out of your three-meals-a-day life, whirled +around in a tornado of events, and landed in a situation so grotesque +and yet so horrible that you laugh even while you are groaning, and +straining at its hopelessness? McKnight says that is hysteria, and that +no man worthy of the name ever admits to it. + +Also, as McKnight says, it sounds like a tank drama. Just as the +revolving saw is about to cut the hero into stove lengths, the second +villain blows up the sawmill. The hero goes up through the roof and +alights on the bank of a stream at the feet of his lady love, who is +making daisy chains. + +Nevertheless, when I was safely home again, with Mrs. Klopton brewing +strange drinks that came in paper packets from the pharmacy, and that +smelled to heaven, I remember staggering to the door and closing it, and +then going back to bed and howling out the absurdity and the madness of +the whole thing. And while I laughed my very soul was sick, for the +girl was gone by that time, and I knew by all the loyalty that answers +between men for honor that I would have to put her out of my mind. + +And yet, all the night that followed, filled as it was with the +shrieking demons of pain, I saw her as I had seen her last, in the queer +hat with green ribbons. I told the doctor this, guardedly, the next +morning, and he said it was the morphia, and that I was lucky not to +have seen a row of devils with green tails. + +I don't know anything about the wreck of September ninth last. You who +swallowed the details with your coffee and digested the horrors with +your chop, probably know a great deal more than I do. I remember very +distinctly that the jumping and throbbing in my arm brought me back to a +world that at first was nothing but sky, a heap of clouds that I thought +hazily were the meringue on a blue charlotte russe. As the sense of +hearing was slowly added to vision, I heard a woman near me sobbing that +she had lost her hat pin, and she couldn't keep her hat on. + +I think I dropped back into unconsciousness again, for the next thing +I remember was of my blue patch of sky clouded with smoke, of a strange +roaring and crackling, of a rain of fiery sparks on my face and of +somebody beating at me with feeble hands. I opened my eyes and +closed them again: the girl in blue was bending over me. With that +imperviousness to big things and keenness to small that is the first +effect of shock, I tried to be facetious, when a spark stung my cheek. + +"You will have to rouse yourself!" the girl was repeating desperately. +"You've been on fire twice already." A piece of striped ticking floated +slowly over my head. As the wind caught it its charring edges leaped +into flame. + +"Looks like a kite, doesn't it?" I remarked cheerfully. And then, as my +arm gave an excruciating throb--"Jove, how my arm hurts!" + +The girl bent over and spoke slowly, distinctly, as one might speak to a +deaf person or a child. + +"Listen, Mr. Blakeley," she said earnestly. "You must rouse yourself. +There has been a terrible accident. The second section ran into us. The +wreck is burning now, and if we don't move, we will catch fire. Do you +hear?" + +Her voice and my arm were bringing me to my senses. "I hear," I said. +"I--I'll sit up in a second. Are you hurt?" + +"No, only bruised. Do you think you can walk?" + +I drew up one foot after another, gingerly. + +"They seem to move all right," I remarked dubiously. "Would you mind +telling me where the back of my head has gone? I can't help thinking it +isn't there." + +She made a quick examination. "It's pretty badly bumped," she said. "You +must have fallen on it." + +I had got up on my uninjured elbow by that time, but the pain threw me +back. "Don't look at the wreck," I entreated her. "It's no sight for a +woman. If--if there is any way to tie up this arm, I might be able to do +something. There may be people under those cars!" + +"Then it is too late to help," she replied solemnly. A little shower of +feathers, each carrying its fiery lamp, blew over us from some burning +pillow. A part the wreck collapsed with a crash. In a resolute to play +a man's part in the tragedy going on around, I got to my knees. Then I +realized what had not noticed before: the hand and wrist of the broken +left arm were jammed through the handle of the sealskin grip. I gasped +and sat down suddenly. + +"You must not do that," the girl insisted. I noticed now that she +kept her back to the wreck, her eyes averted. "The weight of the +traveling-bag must be agony. Let me support the valise until we get back +a few yards. Then you must lie down until we can get it cut off." + +"Will it have to be cut off?" I asked as calmly as possible. There were +red-hot stabs of agony clear to my neck, but we were moving slowly away +from the track. + +"Yes," she replied, with dumfounding coolness. "If I had a knife I could +do it myself. You might sit here and lean against this fence." + +By that time my returning faculties had realized that she was going to +cut off the satchel, not the arm. The dizziness was leaving and I was +gradually becoming myself. + +"If you pull, it might come," I suggested. "And with that weight gone, I +think I will cease to be five feet eleven inches of baby." + +She tried gently to loosen the handle, but it would not move, and at +last, with great drops of cold perspiration over me, I had to give up. + +"I'm afraid I can't stand it," I said. "But there's a knife somewhere +around these clothes, and if I can find it, perhaps you can cut the +leather." + +As I gave her the knife she turned it over, examining it with a peculiar +expression, bewilderment rather than surprise. But she said nothing. She +set to work deftly, and in a few minutes the bag dropped free. + +"That's better," I declared, sitting up. "Now, if you can pin my sleeve +to my coat, it will support the arm so we can get away from here." + +"The pin might give," she objected, "and the jerk would be terrible." +She looked around, puzzled; then she got up, coming back in a minute +with a draggled, partly scorched sheet. This she tore into a large +square, and after she had folded it, she slipped it under the broken arm +and tied it securely at the back of my neck. + +The relief was immediate, and, picking up the sealskin bag, I walked +slowly beside her, away from the track. + +The first act was over: the curtain fallen. The scene was "struck." + + + +CHAPTER IX. THE HALCYON BREAKFAST + + +We were still dazed, I think, for we wandered like two troubled +children, our one idea at first to get as far away as we could from the +horror behind us. We were both bareheaded, grimy, pallid through the +grit. Now and then we met little groups of country folk hurrying to the +track: they stared at us curiously, and some wished to question us. +But we hurried past them; we had put the wreck behind us. That way lay +madness. + +Only once the girl turned and looked behind her. The wreck was +hidden, but the smoke cloud hung heavy and dense. For the first time I +remembered that my companion had not been alone on the train. + +"It is quiet here," I suggested. "If you will sit down on the bank I +will go back and make some inquiries. I've been criminally thoughtless. +Your traveling companion--" + +She interrupted me, and something of her splendid poise was gone. +"Please don't go back," she said. "I am afraid it would be of no use. +And I don't want to be left alone." + +Heaven knows I did not want her to be alone. I was more than content to +walk along beside her aimlessly, for any length of time. Gradually, as +she lost the exaltation of the moment, I was gaining my normal condition +of mind. I was beginning to realize that I had lacked the morning grace +of a shave, that I looked like some lost hope of yesterday, and that +my left shoe pinched outrageously. A man does not rise triumphant above +such handicaps. The girl, for all her disordered hair and the crumpled +linen of her waist, in spite of her missing hat and the small gold bag +that hung forlornly from a broken chain, looked exceedingly lovely. + +"Then I won't leave you alone," I said manfully, and we stumbled on +together. Thus far we had seen nobody from the wreck, but well up the +lane we came across the tall dark woman who had occupied lower eleven. +She was half crouching beside the road, her black hair about her +shoulders, and an ugly bruise over her eye. She did not seem to know +us, and refused to accompany us. We left her there at last, babbling +incoherently and rolling in her hands a dozen pebbles she had gathered +in the road. + +The girl shuddered as we went on. Once she turned and glanced at my +bandage. "Does it hurt very much?" she asked. + +"It's growing rather numb. But it might be worse," I answered +mendaciously. If anything in this world could be worse, I had never +experienced it. + +And so we trudged on bareheaded under the summer sun, growing parched +and dusty and weary, doggedly leaving behind us the pillar of smoke. +I thought I knew of a trolley line somewhere in the direction we +were going, or perhaps we could find a horse and trap to take us into +Baltimore. The girl smiled when I suggested it. + +"We will create a sensation, won't we?" she asked. "Isn't it queer--or +perhaps it's my state of mind--but I keep wishing for a pair of gloves, +when I haven't even a hat!" + +When we reached the main road we sat down for a moment, and her hair, +which had been coming loose for some time, fell over her shoulders in +little waves that were most alluring. It seemed a pity to twist it +up again, but when I suggested this, cautiously, she said it was +troublesome and got in her eyes when it was loose. So she gathered it +up, while I held a row of little shell combs and pins, and when it was +done it was vastly becoming, too. Funny about hair: a man never knows +he has it until he begins to lose it, but it's different with a girl. +Something of the unconventional situation began to dawn on her as she +put in the last hair-pin and patted some stray locks to place. + +"I have not told you my name," she said abruptly. "I forgot that because +I know who you are, you know nothing about me. I am Alison West, and my +home is in Richmond." + +So that was it! This was the girl of the photograph on John Gilmore's +bedside table. The girl McKnight expected to see in Richmond the next +day, Sunday! She was on her way back to meet him! Well, what difference +did it make, anyhow? We had been thrown together by the merest chance. +In an hour or two at the most we would be back in civilization and she +would recall me, if she remembered me at all, as an unshaven creature in +a red cravat and tan shoes, with a soiled Pullman sheet tied around my +neck. I drew a deep breath. + +"Just a twinge," I said, when she glanced up quickly. "It's very good +of you to let me know, Miss West. I have been hearing delightful things +about you for three months." + +"From Richey McKnight?" She was frankly curious. + +"Yes. From Richey McKnight," I assented. Was it any wonder McKnight was +crazy about her? I dug my heels into the dust. + +"I have been visiting near Cresson, in the mountains," Miss West was +saying. "The person you mentioned, Mrs. Curtis, was my hostess. We--we +were on our way to Washington together." She spoke slowly, as if she +wished to give the minimum of explanation. Across her face had come +again the baffling expression of perplexity and trouble I had seen +before. + +"You were on your way home, I suppose? Richey spoke about seeing you," I +floundered, finding it necessary to say something. She looked at me with +level, direct eyes. + +"No," she returned quietly. "I did not intend to go home. I--well, it +doesn't matter; I am going home now." + +A woman in a calico dress, with two children, each an exact duplicate of +the other, had come quickly down the road. She took in the situation at +a glance, and was explosively hospitable. + +"You poor things," she said. "If you'll take the first road to the left +over there, and turn in at the second pigsty, you will find breakfast on +the table and a coffee-pot on the stove. And there's plenty of soap and +water, too. Don't say one word. There isn't a soul there to see you." + +We accepted the invitation and she hurried on toward the excitement and +the railroad. I got up carefully and helped Miss West to her feet. + +"At the second pigsty to the left," I repeated, "we will find the +breakfast I promised you seven eternities ago. Forward to the pigsty!" + +We said very little for the remainder of that walk. I had almost reached +the limit of endurance: with every step the broken ends of the bone +grated together. We found the farm-house without difficulty, and I +remember wondering if I could hold out to the end of the old stone walk +that led between hedges to the door. + +"Allah be praised," I said with all the voice I could muster. "Behold +the coffee-pot!" And then I put down the grip and folded up like a +jack-knife on the porch floor. + +When I came around something hot was trickling down my neck, and a +despairing voice was saying, "Oh, I don't seem to be able to pour it +into your mouth. Please open your eyes." + +"But I don't want it in my eyes," I replied dreamily. "I haven't any +idea what came over me. It was the shoes, I think: the left one is a +red-hot torture." I was sitting by that time and looking across into her +face. + +Never before or since have I fainted, but I would do it joyfully, a +dozen times a day, if I could waken again to the blissful touch of soft +fingers on my face, the hot ecstasy of coffee spilled by those fingers +down my neck. There was a thrill in every tone of her voice that +morning. Before long my loyalty to McKnight would step between me and +the girl he loved: life would develop new complexities. In those early +hours after the wreck, full of pain as they were, there was nothing +of the suspicion and distrust that came later. Shorn of our gauds and +baubles, we were primitive man and woman, together: our world for the +hour was the deserted farm-house, the slope of wheat-field that led to +the road, the woodland lot, the pasture. + +We breakfasted together across the homely table. Our cheerfulness, at +first sheer reaction, became less forced as we ate great slices of bread +from the granny oven back of the house, and drank hot fluid that smelled +like coffee and tasted like nothing that I have ever swallowed. We found +cream in stone jars, sunk deep in the chill water of the spring house. +And there were eggs, great yellow-brown ones,--a basket of them. + +So, like two children awakened from a nightmare, we chattered over +our food: we hunted mutual friends, we laughed together at my feeble +witticisms, but we put the horror behind us resolutely. After all, it +was the hat with the green ribbons that brought back the strangeness of +the situation. + +All along I had had the impression that Alison West was deliberately +putting out of her mind something that obtruded now and then. It brought +with it a return of the puzzled expression that I had surprised early in +the day, before the wreck. I caught it once, when, breakfast over, she +was tightening the sling that held the broken arm. I had prolonged the +morning meal as much as I could, but when the wooden clock with the pink +roses on the dial pointed to half after ten, and the mother with the +duplicate youngsters had not come back, Miss West made the move I had +dreaded. + +"If we are to get into Baltimore at all we must start," she said, +rising. "You ought to see a doctor as soon as possible." + +"Hush," I said warningly. "Don't mention the arm, please; it is asleep +now. You may rouse it." + +"If I only had a hat," she reflected. "It wouldn't need to be much of +one, but--" She gave a little cry and darted to the corner. "Look," she +said triumphantly, "the very thing. With the green streamers tied up in +a bow, like this--do you suppose the child would mind? I can put five +dollars or so here--that would buy a dozen of them." + +It was a queer affair of straw, that hat, with a round crown and a rim +that flopped dismally. With a single movement she had turned it up at +one side and fitted it to her head. Grotesque by itself, when she wore +it it was a thing of joy. + +Evidently the lack of head covering had troubled her, for she was elated +at her find. She left me, scrawling a note of thanks and pinning it +with a bill to the table-cloth, and ran up-stairs to the mirror and the +promised soap and water. + +I did not see her when she came down. I had discovered a bench with +a tin basin outside the kitchen door, and was washing, in a helpless, +one-sided way. I felt rather than saw that she was standing in the +door-way, and I made a final plunge into the basin. + +"How is it possible for a man with only a right hand to wash his left +ear?" I asked from the roller towel. I was distinctly uncomfortable: men +are more rigidly creatures of convention than women, whether they admit +it or not. "There is so much soap on me still that if I laugh I will +blow bubbles. Washing with rain-water and home-made soap is like +motoring on a slippery road. I only struck the high places." + +Then, having achieved a brilliant polish with the towel, I looked at the +girl. + +She was leaning against the frame of the door, her face perfectly +colorless, her breath coming in slow, difficult respirations. The +erratic hat was pinned to place, but it had slid rakishly to one side. +When I realized that she was staring, not at me, but past me to the road +along which we had come, I turned and followed her gaze. There was +no one in sight: the lane stretched dust white in the sun,--no moving +figure on it, no sign of life. + + + +CHAPTER X. MISS WEST'S REQUEST + + +The surprising change in her held me speechless. All the animation of +the breakfast table was gone: there was no hint of the response with +which, before, she had met my nonsensical sallies. She stood there, +white-lipped, unsmiling, staring down the dusty road. One hand was +clenched tight over some small object. Her eyes dropped to it from the +distant road, and then closed, with a quick, indrawn breath. Her color +came back slowly. Whatever had caused the change, she said nothing. +She was anxious to leave at once, almost impatient over my deliberate +masculine way of getting my things together. Afterward I recalled that I +had wanted to explore the barn for a horse and some sort of a vehicle to +take us to the trolley, and that she had refused to allow me to look. I +remembered many things later that might have helped me, and did not. +At the time, I was only completely bewildered. Save the wreck, the +responsibility for which lay between Providence and the engineer of the +second section, all the events of that strange morning were logically +connected; they came from one cause, and tended unerringly to one end. +But the cause was buried, the end not yet in view. + +Not until we had left the house well behind did the girl's face relax +its tense lines. I was watching her more closely than I had realized, +for when we had gone a little way along the road she turned to me +almost petulantly. "Please don't stare so at me," she said, to my sudden +confusion. "I know the hat is dreadful. Green always makes me look +ghastly." + +"Perhaps it was the green." I was unaccountably relieved. "Do you know, +a few minutes ago, you looked almost pallid to me!" + +She glanced at me quickly, but I was gazing ahead. We were out of +sight of the house, now, and with every step away from it the girl was +obviously relieved. Whatever she held in her hand, she never glanced at +it. But she was conscious of it every second. She seemed to come to +a decision about it while we were still in sight of the gate, for +she murmured something and turned back alone, going swiftly, her feet +stirring up small puffs of dust at every step. She fastened something +to the gate-post,--I could see the nervous haste with which she worked. +When she joined me again it was without explanation. But the clenched +fingers were free now, and while she looked tired and worn, the strain +had visibly relaxed. + +We walked along slowly in the general direction of the suburban trolley +line. Once a man with an empty wagon offered us a lift, but after a +glance at the springless vehicle I declined. + +"The ends of the bone think they are castanets as it is," I explained. +"But the lady--" + +The young lady, however, declined and we went on together. Once, when +the trolley line was in sight, she got a pebble in her low shoe, and we +sat down under a tree until she found the cause of the trouble. + +"I--I don't know what I should have done without you," I blundered. +"Moral support and--and all that. Do you know, my first conscious +thought after the wreck was of relief that you had not been hurt?" + +She was sitting beside me, where a big chestnut tree shaded the road, +and I surprised a look of misery on her face that certainly my words had +not been meant to produce. + +"And my first thought," she said slowly, "was regret that I--that I +hadn't been obliterated, blown out like a candle. Please don't look like +that! I am only talking." + +But her lips were trembling, and because the little shams of society are +forgotten at times like this, I leaned over and patted her hand lightly, +where it rested on the grass beside me. + +"You must not say those things," I expostulated. "Perhaps, after all, +your friends--" + +"I had no friends on the train." Her voice was hard again, her tone +final. She drew her hand from under mine, not quickly, but decisively. A +car was in sight, coming toward us. The steel finger of civilization, of +propriety, of visiting cards and formal introductions was beckoning us +in. Miss West put on her shoe. + +We said little on the car. The few passengers stared at us frankly, and +discussed the wreck, emphasizing its horrors. The girl did not seem to +hear. Once she turned to me with the quick, unexpected movement that was +one of her charms. + +"I do not wish my mother to know I was in the accident," she said. "Will +you please not tell Richey about having met me?" + +I gave my promise, of course. Again, when we were almost into Baltimore, +she asked to examine the gun-metal cigarette case, and sat silent with +it in her hands, while I told of the early morning's events on the +Ontario. + +"So you see," I finished, "this grip, everything I have on, belongs to +a fellow named Sullivan. He probably left the train before the +wreck,--perhaps just after the murder." + +"And so--you think he committed the--the crime?" Her eyes were on the +cigarette case. + +"Naturally," I said. "A man doesn't jump off a Pullman car in the middle +of the night in another man's clothes, unless he is trying to get away +from something. Besides the dirk, there were the stains that you saw. +Why, I have the murdered man's pocket-book in this valise at my feet. +What does that look like?" + +I colored when I saw the ghost of a smile hovering around the corners +of her mouth. "That is," I finished, "if you care to believe that I am +innocent." + +The sustaining chain of her small gold bag gave way just then. She did +not notice it. I picked it up and slid the trinket into my pocket for +safekeeping, where I promptly forgot it. Afterwards I wished I had let +it lie unnoticed on the floor of that dirty little suburban car, and +even now, when I see a woman carelessly dangling a similar feminine +trinket, I shudder involuntarily: there comes back to me the memory of +a girl's puzzled eyes under the brim of a flopping hat, the haunting +suspicion of the sleepless nights that followed. + +Just then I was determined that my companion should not stray back to +the wreck, and to that end I was determinedly facetious. + +"Do you know that it is Sunday?" she asked suddenly, "and that we are +actually ragged?" + +"Never mind that," I retorted. "All Baltimore is divided on Sunday into +three parts, those who rise up and go to church, those who rise up +and read the newspapers, and those who don't rise up. The first are +somewhere between the creed and the sermon, and we need not worry about +the others." + +"You treat me like a child," she said almost pettishly. "Don't try so +hard to be cheerful. It--it is almost ghastly." + +After that I subsided like a pricked balloon, and the remainder of the +ride was made in silence. The information that she would go to friends +in the city was a shock: it meant an earlier separation than I had +planned for. But my arm was beginning again. In putting her into a cab +I struck it and gritted my teeth with the pain. It was probably for that +reason that I forgot the gold bag. + +She leaned forward and held out her hand. "I may not have another chance +to thank you," she said, "and I think I would better not try, anyhow. +I cannot tell you how grateful I am." I muttered something about the +gratitude being mine: owing to the knock I was seeing two cabs, and two +girls were holding out two hands. + +"Remember," they were both saying, "you have never met me, Mr. Blakeley. +And--if you ever hear anything about me--that is not--pleasant, I want +you to think the best you can of me. Will you?" + +The two girls were one now, with little flashes of white light playing +all around. "I--I'm afraid that I shall think too well for my own good," +I said unsteadily. And the cab drove on. + + + +CHAPTER XI. THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN + + +I had my arm done up temporarily in Baltimore and took the next train +home. I was pretty far gone when I stumbled out of a cab almost into the +scandalized arms of Mrs. Klopton. In fifteen minutes I was in bed, with +that good woman piling on blankets and blistering me in unprotected +places with hot-water bottles. And in an hour I had a whiff of +chloroform and Doctor Williams had set the broken bone. + +I dropped asleep then, waking in the late twilight to a realization that +I was at home again, without the papers that meant conviction for +Andy Bronson, with a charge of murder hanging over my head, and with +something more than an impression of the girl my best friend was in love +with, a girl moreover who was almost as great an enigma as the crime +itself. + +"And I'm no hand at guessing riddles," I groaned half aloud. Mrs. +Klopton came over promptly and put a cold cloth on my forehead. + +"Euphemia," she said to some one outside the door, "telephone the doctor +that he is still rambling, but that he has switched from green ribbons +to riddles." + +"There's nothing the matter with me, Mrs. Klopton," I rebelled. "I was +only thinking out loud. Confound that cloth: it's trickling all over +me!" I gave it a fling, and heard it land with a soggy thud on the +floor. + +"Thinking out loud is delirium," Mrs. Klopton said imperturbably. "A +fresh cloth, Euphemia." + +This time she held it on with a firm pressure that I was too weak to +resist. I expostulated feebly that I was drowning, which she also laid +to my mental exaltation, and then I finally dropped into a damp sleep. +It was probably midnight when I roused again. I had been dreaming of the +wreck, and it was inexpressibly comforting to feel the stability of my +bed, and to realize the equal stability of Mrs. Klopton, who sat, fully +attired, by the night light, reading Science and Health. + +"Does that book say anything about opening the windows on a hot night?" +I suggested, when I had got my bearings. + +She put it down immediately and came over to me. If there is one time +when Mrs. Klopton is chastened--and it is the only time--it is when +she reads Science and Health. "I don't like to open the shutters, Mr. +Lawrence," she explained. "Not since the night you went away." + +But, pressed further, she refused to explain. "The doctor said you were +not to be excited," she persisted. "Here's your beef tea." + +"Not a drop until you tell me," I said firmly. "Besides, you know very +well there's nothing the matter with me. This arm of mine is only a +false belief." I sat up gingerly. "Now--why don't you open that window?" + +Mrs. Klopton succumbed. "Because there are queer goings-on in that house +next door," she said. "If you will take the beef tea, Mr. Lawrence, I +will tell you." + +The queer goings-on, however, proved to be slightly disappointing. It +seemed that after I left on Friday night, a light was seen flitting +fitfully through the empty house next door. Euphemia had seen it first +and called Mrs. Klopton. Together they had watched it breathlessly until +it disappeared on the lower floor. + +"You should have been a writer of ghost stories," I said, giving my +pillows a thump. "And so it was fitting flitfully!" + +"That's what it was doing," she reiterated. "Fitting flitfully--I mean +flitting fitfully--how you do throw me out, Mr. Lawrence! And what's +more, it came again!" + +"Oh, come now, Mrs. Klopton," I objected, "ghosts are like lightning; +they never strike twice in the same night. That is only worth half a cup +of beef tea." + +"You may ask Euphemia," she retorted with dignity. "Not more than an +hour after, there was a light there again. We saw it through the +chinks of the shutters. Only--this time it began at the lower floor and +climbed!" + +"You oughtn't to tell ghost stories at night," came McKnight's voice +from the doorway. "Really, Mrs. Klopton, I'm amazed at you. You old +duffer! I've got you to thank for the worst day of my life." + +Mrs. Klopton gulped. Then realizing that the "old duffer" was meant for +me, she took her empty cup and went out muttering. + +"The Pirate's crazy about me, isn't she?" McKnight said to the closing +door. Then he swung around and held out his hand. + +"By Jove," he said, "I've been laying you out all day, lilies on the +door-bell, black gloves, everything. If you had had the sense of a +mosquito in a snow-storm, you would have telephoned me." + +"I never even thought of it." I was filled with remorse. "Upon my word, +Rich, I hadn't an idea beyond getting away from that place. If you had +seen what I saw--" + +McKnight stopped me. "Seen it! Why, you lunatic, I've been digging for +you all day in the ruins! I've lunched and dined on horrors. Give me +something to rinse them down, Lollie." + +He had fished the key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my shoe +bag and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw--a foundation +of brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in sight to give it +snap. Now that I saw him clearly, he looked weary and grimy. I hated to +tell him what I knew he was waiting to hear, but there was no use wading +in by inches. I ducked and got it over. + +"The notes are gone, Rich," I said, as quietly as I could. In spite of +himself his face fell. + +"I--of course I expected it," he said. "But--Mrs. Klopton said over the +telephone that you had brought home a grip and I hoped--well, Lord knows +we ought not to complain. You're here, damaged, but here." He lifted his +glass. "Happy days, old man!" + +"If you will give me that black bottle and a teaspoon, I'll drink that +in arnica, or whatever the stuff is; Rich,--the notes were gone before +the wreck!" + +He wheeled and stared at me, the bottle in his hand. "Lost, strayed or +stolen?" he queried with forced lightness. + +"Stolen, although I believe the theft was incidental to something else." + +Mrs. Klopton came in at that moment, with an eggnog in her hand. She +glanced at the clock, and, without addressing any one in particular, she +intimated that it was time for self-respecting folks to be at home in +bed. McKnight, who could never resist a fling at her back, spoke to me +in a stage whisper. + +"Is she talking still? or again?" he asked, just before the door closed. +There was a second's indecision with the knob, then, judging discretion +the better part, Mrs. Klopton went away. + +"Now, then," McKnight said, settling himself in a chair beside the +bed, "spit it out. Not the wreck--I know all I want about that. But the +theft. I can tell you beforehand that it was a woman." + +I had crawled painfully out of bed, and was in the act of pouring the +egg-nog down the pipe of the washstand. I paused, with the glass in the +air. + +"A woman!" I repeated, startled. "What makes you think that?" + +"You don't know the first principles of a good detective yarn," he said +scornfully. "Of course, it was the woman in the empty house next door. +You said it was brass pipes, you will remember. Well--on with the dance: +let joy be unconfined." + +So I told the story; I had told it so many times that day that I did it +automatically. And I told about the girl with the bronze hair, and my +suspicions. But I did not mention Alison West. McKnight listened to the +end without interruption. When I had finished he drew a long breath. + +"Well!" he said. "That's something of a mess, isn't it? If you can only +prove your mild and child-like disposition, they couldn't hold you for +the murder--which is a regular ten-twent-thirt crime, anyhow. But the +notes--that's different. They are not burned, anyhow. Your man wasn't on +the train--therefore, he wasn't in the wreck. If he didn't know what +he was taking, as you seem to think, he probably reads the papers, and +unless he is a fathead, he's awake by this time to what he's got. He'll +try to sell them to Bronson, probably." + +"Or to us," I put in. + +We said nothing for a few minutes. McKnight smoked a cigarette and +stared at a photograph of Candida over the mantel. Candida is the best +pony for a heavy mount in seven states. + +"I didn't go to Richmond," he observed finally. The remark followed my +own thoughts so closely that I started. "Miss West is not home yet from +Seal Harbor." + +Receiving no response, he lapsed again into thoughtful silence. Mrs. +Klopton came in just as the clock struck one, and made preparation for +the night by putting a large gaudy comfortable into an arm-chair in the +dressing-room, with a smaller, stiff-backed chair for her feet. She was +wonderfully attired in a dressing-gown that was reminiscent, in parts, +of all the ones she had given me for a half dozen Christmases, and she +had a purple veil wrapped around her head, to hide Heaven knows what +deficiency. She examined the empty egg-nog glass, inquired what the +evening paper had said about the weather, and then stalked into the +dressing-room, and prepared, with much ostentatious creaking, to sit up +all night. + +We fell silent again, while McKnight traced a rough outline of the +berths on the white table-cover, and puzzled it out slowly. It was +something like this: + ____________________________________ + | 12 | 10 | 8 | + |____________|___________|___________| + |_______________AISLE________________| + | 11 | 9 | 7 | + |____________|___________|___________| + +"You think he changed the tags on seven and nine, so that when you went +back to bed you thought you were crawling into nine, when it was really +seven, eh?" + +"Probably-yes." + +"Then toward morning, when everybody was asleep, your theory is that he +changed the numbers again and left the train." + +"I can't think of anything else," I replied wearily. + +"Jove, what a game of bridge that fellow would play! It was like +finessing an eight-spot and winning out. They would scarcely have +doubted your story had the tags been reversed in the morning. He +certainly left you in a bad way. Not a jury in the country would stand +out against the stains, the stiletto, and the murdered man's pocket-book +in your possession." + +"Then you think Sullivan did it?" I asked. + +"Of course," said McKnight confidently. "Unless you did it in your +sleep. Look at the stains on his pillow, and the dirk stuck into it. And +didn't he have the man Harrington's pocket-book?" + +"But why did he go off without the money?" I persisted. "And where does +the bronze-haired girl come in?" + +"Search me," McKnight retorted flippantly. "Inflammation of the +imagination on your part." + +"Then there is the piece of telegram. It said lower ten, car seven. It's +extremely likely that she had it. That telegram was about me, Richey." + +"I'm getting a headache," he said, putting out his cigarette against the +sole of his shoe. "All I'm certain of just now is that if there hadn't +been a wreck, by this time you'd be sitting in an eight by ten cell, and +feeling like the rhyme for it." + +"But listen to this," I contended, as he picked up his hat, "this fellow +Sullivan is a fugitive, and he's a lot more likely to make advances to +Bronson than to us. We could have the case continued, release Bronson on +bail and set a watch on him." + +"Not my watch," McKnight protested. "It's a family heirloom." + +"You'd better go home," I said firmly. "Go home and go to bed. You're +sleepy. You can have Sullivan's red necktie to dream over if you think +it will help any." + +Mrs. Klopton's voice came drowsily from the next room, punctuated by a +yawn. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," she called, with the suspicious lisp +which characterizes her at night, "somebody called up about noon, Mr. +Lawrence. It was long distance, and he said he would call again. The +name was"--she yawned--"Sullivan." + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE GOLD BAG + + +I have always smiled at those cases of spontaneous combustion which, +like fusing the component parts of a seidlitz powder, unite two people +in a bubbling and ephemeral ecstasy. But surely there is possible, with +but a single meeting, an attraction so great, a community of mind and +interest so strong, that between that first meeting and the next the +bond may grow into something stronger. This is especially true, I fancy, +of people with temperament, the modern substitute for imagination. It is +a nice question whether lovers begin to love when they are together, or +when they are apart. + +Not that I followed any such line of reasoning at the time. I would not +even admit my folly to myself. But during the restless hours of that +first night after the accident, when my back ached with lying on it, +and any other position was torture, I found my thoughts constantly going +back to Alison West. I dropped into a doze, to dream of touching +her fingers again to comfort her, and awoke to find I had patted a +teaspoonful of medicine out of Mrs. Klopton's indignant hand. What was +it McKnight had said about making an egregious ass of myself? + +And that brought me back to Richey, and I fancy I groaned. There is no +use expatiating on the friendship between two men who have gone together +through college, have quarreled and made it up, fussed together over +politics and debated creeds for years: men don't need to be told, and +women can not understand. Nevertheless, I groaned. If it had been any +one but Rich! + +Some things were mine, however, and I would hold them: the halcyon +breakfast, the queer hat, the pebble in her small shoe, the gold bag +with the broken chain--the bag! Why, it was in my pocket at that moment. + +I got up painfully and found my coat. Yes, there was the purse, bulging +with an opulent suggestion of wealth inside. I went back to bed again, +somewhat dizzy, between effort and the touch of the trinket, so lately +hers. I held it up by its broken chain and gloated over it. By careful +attention to orders, I ought to be out in a day or so. Then--I could +return it to her. I really ought to do that: it was valuable, and I +wouldn't care to trust it to the mail. I could run down to Richmond, and +see her once--there was no disloyalty to Rich in that. + +I had no intention of opening the little bag. I put it under my +pillow--which was my reason for refusing to have the linen slips +changed, to Mrs. Klopton's dismay. And sometimes during the morning, +while I lay under a virgin field of white, ornamented with strange +flowers, my cigarettes hidden beyond discovery, and Science and Health +on a table by my elbow, as if by the merest accident, I slid my hand +under my pillow and touched it reverently. + +McKnight came in about eleven. I heard his car at the curb, followed +almost immediately by his slam at the front door, and his usual clamor +on the stairs. He had a bottle under his arm, rightly surmising that +I had been forbidden stimulant, and a large box of cigarettes in his +pocket, suspecting my deprivation. + +"Well," he said cheerfully. "How did you sleep after keeping me up half +the night?" + +I slid my hand around: the purse was well covered. "Have it now, or wait +till I get the cork out?" he rattled on. + +"I don't want anything," I protested. "I wish you wouldn't be so darned +cheerful, Richey." He stopped whistling to stare at me. + +"'I am saddest when I sing!'" he quoted unctuously. "It's pure reaction, +Lollie. Yesterday the sky was low: I was digging for my best friend. +To-day--he lies before me, his peevish self. Yesterday I thought the +notes were burned: to-day--I look forward to a good cross-country chase, +and with luck we will draw." His voice changed suddenly. "Yesterday--she +was in Seal Harbor. To-day--she is here." + +"Here in Washington?" I asked, as naturally as I could. + +"Yes. Going to stay a week or two." + + "Oh, I had a little hen and she had a wooden leg + And nearly every morning she used to lay an egg--" + +"Will you stop that racket, Rich! It's the real thing this time, I +suppose?" + + "She's the best little chicken that we have on the farm + And another little drink won't do us any harm--" + +he finished, twisting out the corkscrew. Then he came over and sat down +on the bed. + +"Well," he said judicially, "since you drag it from me, I think perhaps +it is. You--you're such a confirmed woman-hater that I hardly knew how +you would take it." + +"Nothing of the sort," I denied testily. "Because a man reaches the age +of thirty without making maudlin love to every--" + +"I've taken to long country rides," he went on reflectively, without +listening to me, "and yesterday I ran over a sheep; nearly went into the +ditch. But there's a Providence that watches over fools and lovers, and +just now I know darned well that I'm one, and I have a sneaking idea I'm +both." + +"You are both," I said with disgust. "If you can be rational for one +moment, I wish you would tell me why that man Sullivan called me over +the telephone yesterday morning." + +"Probably hadn't yet discovered the Bronson notes--providing you hold to +your theory that the theft was incidental to the murder. May have wanted +his own clothes again, or to thank you for yours. Search me: I can't +think of anything else." The doctor came in just then. + +As I said before, I think a lot of my doctor--when I am ill. He is a +young man, with an air of breezy self-confidence and good humor. +He looked directly past the bottle, which is a very valuable +accomplishment, and shook hands with McKnight until I could put the +cigarettes under the bedclothes. He had interdicted tobacco. Then he sat +down beside the bed and felt around the bandages with hands as gentle as +a baby's. + +"Pretty good shape," he said. "How did you sleep?" + +"Oh, occasionally," I replied. "I would like to sit up, doctor." + +"Nonsense. Take a rest while you have an excuse for it. I wish to +thunder I could stay in bed for a day or so. I was up all night." + +"Have a drink," McKnight said, pushing over the bottle. + +"Twins!" The doctor grinned. + +"Have two drinks." + +But the medical man refused. + +"I wouldn't even wear a champagne-colored necktie during business +hours," he explained. "By the way, I had another case from your +accident, Mr. Blakeley, late yesterday afternoon. Under the tongue, +please." He stuck a thermometer in my mouth. + +I had a sudden terrible vision of the amateur detective coming to light, +note-book, cheerful impertinence and incriminating data. "A small man?" +I demanded, "gray hair--" + +"Keep your mouth closed," the doctor said peremptorily. "No. A woman, +with a fractured skull. Beautiful case. Van Kirk was up to his eyes and +sent for me. Hemorrhage, right-sided paralysis, irregular pupils--all +the trimmings. Worked for two hours." + +"Did she recover?" McKnight put in. He was examining the doctor with a +new awe. + +"She lifted her right arm before I left," the doctor finished cheerily, +"so the operation was a success, even if she should die." + +"Good Heavens," McKnight broke in, "and I thought you were just an +ordinary mortal, like the rest of us! Let me touch you for luck. Was she +pretty?" + +"Yes, and young. Had a wealth of bronze-colored hair. Upon my soul, I +hated to cut it." + +McKnight and I exchanged glances. + +"Do you know her name, doctor?" I asked. + +"No. The nurses said her clothes came from a Pittsburg tailor." + +"She is not conscious, I suppose?" + +"No; she may be, to-morrow--or in a week." + +He looked at the thermometer, murmured something about liquid diet, +avoiding my eye--Mrs. Klopton was broiling a chop at the time--and +took his departure, humming cheerfully as he went down-stairs. McKnight +looked after him wistfully. + +"Jove, I wish I had his constitution," he exclaimed. "Neither nerves nor +heart! What a chauffeur he would make!" + +But I was serious. + +"I have an idea," I said grimly, "that this small matter of the murder +is going to come up again, and that your uncle will be in the deuce of +a fix if it does. If that woman is going to die, somebody ought to be +around to take her deposition. She knows a lot, if she didn't do it +herself. I wish you would go down to the telephone and get the hospital. +Find out her name, and if she is conscious." + +McKnight went under protest. "I haven't much time," he said, looking at +his watch. "I'm to meet Mrs. West and Alison at one. I want you to know +them, Lollie. You would like the mother." + +"Why not the daughter?" I inquired. I touched the little gold bag under +the pillow. + +"Well," he said judicially, "you've always declared against the +immaturity and romantic nonsense of very young women--" + +"I never said anything of the sort," I retorted furiously. + +"'There is more satisfaction to be had out of a good saddle horse!'" he +quoted me. "'More excitement out of a polo pony, and as for the eternal +matrimonial chase, give me instead a good stubble, a fox, some decent +hounds and a hunter, and I'll show you the real joys of the chase!'" + +"For Heaven's sake, go down to the telephone, you make my head ache," I +said savagely. + +I hardly know what prompted me to take out the gold purse and look at +it. It was an imbecile thing to do--call it impulse, sentimentality, +what you wish. I brought it out, one eye on the door, for Mrs. +Klopton has a ready eye and a noiseless shoe. But the house was quiet. +Down-stairs McKnight was flirting with the telephone central and +there was an odor of boneset tea in the air. I think Mrs. Klopton was +fascinated out of her theories by the "boneset" in connection with the +fractured arm. + +Anyhow, I held up the bag and looked at it. It must have been +unfastened, for the next instant there was an avalanche on the snowfield +of the counterpane--some money, a wisp of a handkerchief, a tiny booklet +with thin leaves, covered with a powdery substance--and a necklace. I +drew myself up slowly and stared at the necklace. + +It was one of the semi-barbaric affairs that women are wearing now, a +heavy pendant of gold chains and carved cameos, swung from a thin neck +chain of the same metal. The necklace was broken: in three places the +links were pulled apart and the cameos swung loose and partly detached. +But it was the supporting chain that held my eye and fascinated with +its sinister suggestion. Three inches of it had been snapped off, and as +well as I knew anything on earth, I knew that the bit of chain that the +amateur detective had found, blood-stain and all, belonged just there. + +And there was no one I could talk to about it, no one to tell me how +hideously absurd it was, no one to give me a slap and tell me there are +tons of fine gold chains made every year, or to point out the long arm +of coincidence! + +With my one useful hand I fumbled the things back into the bag and +thrust it deep out of sight among the pillows. Then I lay back in a cold +perspiration. What connection had Alison West with this crime? Why had +she stared so at the gun-metal cigarette case that morning on the train? +What had alarmed her so at the farm-house? What had she taken back to +the gate? Why did she wish she had not escaped from the wreck? And last, +in Heaven's name, how did a part of her necklace become torn off and +covered with blood? + +Down-stairs McKnight was still at the telephone, and amusing himself +with Mrs. Klopton in the interval of waiting. + +"Why did he come home in a gray suit, when he went away in a blue?" he +repeated. "Well, wrecks are queer things, Mrs. Klopton. The suit may +have turned gray with fright. Or perhaps wrecks do as queer stunts as +lightning. Friend of mine once was struck by lightning; he and the caddy +had taken refuge under a tree. After the flash, when they recovered +consciousness, there was my friend in the caddy's clothes, and the caddy +in his. And as my friend was a large man and the caddy a very small +boy--" + +McKnight's story was interrupted by the indignant slam of the +dining-room door. He was obliged to wait some time, and even his eternal +cheerfulness was ebbing when he finally got the hospital. + +"Is Doctor Van Kirk there?" he asked. "Not there? Well, can you tell me +how the patient is whom Doctor Williams, from Washington, operated on +last night? Well, I'm glad of that. Is she conscious? Do you happen to +know her name? Yes, I'll hold the line." There was a long pause, then +McKnight's voice: + +"Hello--yes. Thank you very much. Good-by." + +He came up-stairs, two steps at a time. + +"Look here," he said, bursting into the room, "there may be something in +your theory, after all. The woman's name--it may be a coincidence, but +it's curious--her name is Sullivan." + +"What did I tell you?" I said, sitting up suddenly in bed. "She's +probably a sister of that scoundrel in lower seven, and she was afraid +of what he might do." + +"Well, I'll go there some day soon. She's not conscious yet. In +the meantime, the only thing I can do is to keep an eye, through a +detective, on the people who try to approach Bronson. We'll have the +case continued, anyhow, in the hope that the stolen notes will sooner or +later turn up." + +"Confound this arm," I said, paying for my energy with some excruciating +throbs. "There's so much to be looked after, and here I am, bandaged, +splinted, and generally useless. It's a beastly shame." + +"Don't forget that I am here," said McKnight pompously. "And another +thing, when you feel this way just remember there are two less desirable +places where you might be. One is jail, and the other is--" He strummed +on an imaginary harp, with devotional eyes. + +But McKnight's light-heartedness jarred on me that morning. I lay and +frowned under my helplessness. When by chance I touched the little gold +bag, it seemed to scorch my fingers. Richey, finding me unresponsive, +left to keep his luncheon engagement with Alison West. As he clattered +down the stairs, I turned my back to the morning sunshine and abandoned +myself to misery. By what strain on her frayed nerves was Alison West +keeping up, I wondered? Under the circumstances, would I dare to return +the bag? Knowing that I had it, would she hate me for my knowledge? Or +had I exaggerated the importance of the necklace, and in that case had +she forgotten me already? + +But McKnight had not gone, after all. I heard him coming back, his voice +preceding him, and I groaned with irritation. + +"Wake up!" he called. "Somebody's sent you a lot of flowers. Please hold +the box, Mrs. Klopton; I'm going out to be run down by an automobile." + +I roused to feeble interest. My brother's wife is punctilious about such +things; all the new babies in the family have silver rattles, and all +the sick people flowers. + +McKnight pulled up an armful of roses, and held them out to me. + +"Wonder who they're from?" he said, fumbling in the box for a card. +"There's no name--yes, here's one." + +He held it up and read it with exasperating slowness. + + "'Best wishes for an early recovery. + A COMPANION IN MISFORTUNE.' + +"Well, what do you know about that!" he exclaimed. "That's something you +didn't tell me, Lollie." + +"It was hardly worth mentioning," I said mendaciously, with my heart +beating until I could hear it. She had not forgotten, after all. + +McKnight took a bud and fastened it in his button-hole. I'm afraid I was +not especially pleasant about it. They were her roses, and anyhow, they +were meant for me. Richey left very soon, with an irritating final grin +at the box. + +"Good-by, sir woman-hater," he jeered at me from the door. + +So he wore one of the roses she had sent me, to luncheon with her, and +I lay back among my pillows and tried to remember that it was his game, +anyhow, and that I wasn't even drawing cards. To remember that, and to +forget the broken necklace under my head! + + + +CHAPTER XIII. FADED ROSES + +I was in the house for a week. Much of that time I spent in composing +and destroying letters of thanks to Miss West, and in growling at the +doctor. McKnight dropped in daily, but he was less cheerful than usual. +Now and then I caught him eying me as if he had something to say, but +whatever it was he kept it to himself. Once during the week he went to +Baltimore and saw the woman in the hospital there. From the description +I had little difficulty in recognizing the young woman who had been with +the murdered man in Pittsburg. But she was still unconscious. An elderly +aunt had appeared, a gaunt person in black, who sat around like a +buzzard on a fence, according to McKnight, and wept, in a mixed figure, +into a damp handkerchief. + +On the last day of my imprisonment he stopped in to thrash out a case +that was coming up in court the next day, and to play a game of double +solitaire with me. + +"Who won the ball game?" I asked. + +"We were licked. Ask me something pleasant. Oh, by the way, Bronson's +out to-day." + +"I'm glad I'm not on his bond," I said pessimistically. "He'll clear +out." + +"Not he." McKnight pounced on my ace. "He's no fool. Don't you suppose +he knows you took those notes to Pittsburg? The papers were full of it. +And he knows you escaped with your life and a broken arm from the wreck. +What do we do next? The Commonwealth continues the case. A deaf man on a +dark night would know those notes are missing." + +"Don't play so fast," I remonstrated. "I have only one arm to your two. +Who is trailing Bronson? Did you try to get Johnson?" + +"I asked for him, but he had some work on hand." + +"The murder's evidently a dead issue," I reflected. "No, I'm not joking. +The wreck destroyed all the evidence. But I'm firmly convinced those +notes will be offered, either to us or to Bronson very soon. Johnson's +a blackguard, but he's a good detective. He could make his fortune as a +game dog. What's he doing?" + +McKnight put down his cards, and rising, went to the window. As he held +the curtain back his customary grin looked a little forced. + +"To tell you the truth, Lollie," he said, "for the last two days he has +been watching a well-known Washington attorney named Lawrence Blakeley. +He's across the street now." + +It took a moment for me to grasp what he meant. + +"Why, it's ridiculous," I asserted. "What would they trail me for? Go +over and tell Johnson to get out of there, or I'll pot at him with my +revolver." + +"You can tell him that yourself." McKnight paused and bent forward. +"Hello, here's a visitor; little man with string halt." + +"I won't see him," I said firmly. "I've been bothered enough with +reporters." + +We listened together to Mrs. Klopton's expostulating tones in the lower +hall and the creak of the boards as she came heavily up the stairs. She +had a piece of paper in her hand torn from a pocket account-book, and on +it was the name, "Mr. Wilson Budd Hotchkiss. Important business." + +"Oh, well, show him up," I said resignedly. "You'd better put those +cards away, Richey. I fancy it's the rector of the church around the +corner." + +But when the door opened to admit a curiously alert little man, +adjusting his glasses with nervous fingers, my face must have shown my +dismay. + +It was the amateur detective of the Ontario! + +I shook hands without enthusiasm. Here was the one survivor of the +wrecked car who could do me any amount of harm. There was no hope that +he had forgotten any of the incriminating details. In fact, he held in +his hand the very note-book which contained them. + +His manner was restrained, but it was evident he was highly excited. +I introduced him to McKnight, who has the imagination I lack, and who +placed him at once, mentally. + +"I only learned yesterday that you had been--er--saved," he said +rapidly. "Terrible accident--unspeakable. Dream about it all night and +think about it all day. Broken arm?" + +"No. He just wears the splint to be different from other people," +McKnight drawled lazily. I glared at him: there was nothing to be gained +by antagonizing the little man. + +"Yes, a fractured humerus, which isn't as funny as it sounds." + +"Humerus-humorous! Pretty good," he cackled. "I must say you keep up +your spirits pretty well, considering everything." + +"You seem to have escaped injury," I parried. He was fumbling for +something in his pockets. + +"Yes, I escaped," he replied abstractedly. "Remarkable thing, too. I +haven't a doubt I would have broken my neck, but I landed on--you'll +never guess what! I landed head first on the very pillow which was under +inspection at the time of the wreck. You remember, don't you? Where did +I put that package?" + +He found it finally and opened it on a table, displaying with some +theatricalism a rectangular piece of muslin and a similar patch of +striped ticking. + +"You recognize it?" he said. "The stains, you see, and the hole made by +the dirk. I tried to bring away the entire pillow, but they thought I +was stealing it, and made me give it up." + +Richey touched the pieces gingerly. "By George," he said, "and you +carry that around in your pocket! What if you should mistake it for your +handkerchief?" + +But Mr. Hotchkiss was not listening. He stood bent somewhat forward, +leaning over the table, and fixed me with his ferret-like eyes. + +"Have you see the evening papers, Mr. Blakeley?" he inquired. + +I glanced to where they lay unopened, and shook my head. + +"Then I have a disagreeable task," he said with evident relish. "Of +course, you had considered the matter of the man Harrington's death +closed, after the wreck. I did myself. As far as I was concerned, I +meant to let it remain so. There were no other survivors, at least none +that I knew of, and in spite of circumstances, there were a number of +points in your favor." + +"Thank you," I put in with a sarcasm that was lost on him. + +"I verified your identity, for instance, as soon as I recovered from +the shock. Also--I found on inquiring of your tailor that you invariably +wore dark clothing." + +McKnight came forward threateningly. "Who are you, anyhow?" he demanded. +"And how is this any business of yours?" Mr. Hotchkiss was entirely +unruffled. + +"I have a minor position here," he said, reaching for a visiting card. +"I am a very small patch on the seat of government, sir." + +McKnight muttered something about certain offensive designs against the +said patch and retired grumbling to the window. Our visitor was opening +the paper with a tremendous expenditure of energy. + +"Here it is. Listen." He read rapidly aloud: + +"The Pittsburg police have sent to Baltimore two detectives who are +looking up the survivors of the ill-fated Washington Flier. It has +transpired that Simon Harrington, the Wood Street merchant of that city, +was not killed in the wreck, but was murdered in his berth the night +preceding the accident. Shortly before the collision, John Flanders, the +conductor of the Flier, sent this telegram to the chief of police: + + "'Body of Simon Harrington found stabbed in his berth, lower ten, + Ontario, at six-thirty this morning. + JOHN FLANDERS, Conductor.' + +"It is hoped that the survivors of the wrecked car Ontario will be +found, to tell what they know of the discovery of the crime. + +"Mr. John Gilmore, head of the steel company for which Mr. Harrington +was purchasing agent, has signified his intention of sifting the matter +to the bottom." + +"So you see," Hotchkiss concluded, "there's trouble brewing. You and I +are the only survivors of that unfortunate car." + +I did not contradict him, but I knew of two others, at least: Alison +West, and the woman we had left beside the road that morning, babbling +incoherently, her black hair tumbling over her white face. + +"Unless we can find the man who occupied lower seven," I suggested. + +"I have already tried and failed. To find him would not clear you, of +course, unless we could establish some connection between him and the +murdered man. It is the only thing I see, however. I have learned this +much," Hotchkiss concluded: "Lower seven was reserved from Cresson." + +Cresson! Where Alison West and Mrs. Curtis had taken the train! + +McKnight came forward and suddenly held out his hand. "Mr. Hotchkiss," +he said, "I--I'm sorry if I have been offensive. I thought when you came +in, that, like the Irishman and the government, you were 'forninst' us. +If you will put those cheerful relics out of sight somewhere, I should +be glad to have you dine with me at the Incubator." (His name for his +bachelor apartment.) "Compared with Johnson, you are the great original +protoplasm." + +The strength of this was lost on Hotchkiss, but the invitation was +clear. They went out together, and from my window I watched them get +into McKnight's car. It was raining, and at the corner the Cannonball +skidded. Across the street my detective, Johnson, looked after them with +his crooked smile. As he turned up his collar he saw me, and lifted his +hat. + +I left the window and sat down in the growing dusk. So the occupant of +lower seven had got on the car at Cresson, probably with Alison West and +her companion. There was some one she cared about enough to shield. I +went irritably to the door and summoned Mrs. Klopton. + +"You may throw out those roses," I said without looking at her. "They +are quite dead." + +"They have been quite dead for three days," she retorted spitefully. +"Euphemia said you threatened to dismiss her if she touched them." + + + +CHAPTER XIV. THE TRAP-DOOR + + +By Sunday evening, a week after the wreck, my inaction had goaded me to +frenzy. The very sight of Johnson across the street or lurking, always +within sight of the house, kept me constantly exasperated. It was on +that day that things began to come to a focus, a burning-glass of events +that seemed to center on me. + +I dined alone that evening in no cheerful frame of mind. There had been +a polo game the day before and I had lent a pony, which is always a bad +thing to do. And she had wrenched her shoulder, besides helping to +lose the game. There was no one in town: the temperature was ninety and +climbing, and my left hand persistently cramped under its bandage. + +Mrs. Klopton herself saw me served, my bread buttered and cut in +tidbits, my meat ready for my fork. She hovered around me maternally, +obviously trying to cheer me. + +"The paper says still warmer," she ventured. "The thermometer is +ninety-two now." + +"And this coffee is two hundred and fifty," I said, putting down my cup. +"Where is Euphemia? I haven't seen her around, or heard a dish smash all +day." + +"Euphemia is in bed," Mrs. Klopton said gravely. "Is your meat cut +small enough, Mr. Lawrence?" Mrs. Klopton can throw more mystery into +an ordinary sentence than any one I know. She can say, "Are your sheets +damp, sir?" And I can tell from her tone that the house across the +street has been robbed, or that my left hand neighbor has appendicitis. +So now I looked up and asked the question she was waiting for. + +"What's the matter with Euphemia?" I inquired idly. + +"Frightened into her bed," Mrs. Klopton said in a stage whisper. "She's +had three hot water bottles and she hasn't done a thing all day but +moan." + +"She oughtn't to take hot water bottles," I said in my severest +tone. "One would make me moan. You need not wait, I'll ring if I need +anything." + +Mrs. Klopton sailed to the door, where she stopped and wheeled +indignantly. "I only hope you won't laugh on the wrong side of your face +some morning, Mr. Lawrence," she declared, with Christian fortitude. +"But I warn you, I am going to have the police watch that house next +door." + +I was half inclined to tell her that both it and we were under police +surveillance at that moment. But I like Mrs. Klopton, in spite of the +fact that I make her life a torment for her, so I refrained. + +"Last night, when the paper said it was going to storm, I sent Euphemia +to the roof to bring the rugs in. Eliza had slipped out, although it was +her evening in. Euphemia went up to the roof--it was eleven o'clock--and +soon I heard her running down-stairs crying. When she got to my room she +just folded up on the floor. She said there was a black figure sitting +on the parapet of the house next door--the empty house--and that when +she appeared it rose and waved long black arms at her and spit like a +cat." + +I had finished my dinner and was lighting a cigarette. "If there was any +one up there, which I doubt, they probably sneezed," I suggested. "But +if you feel uneasy, I'll take a look around the roof to-night before +I turn in. As far as Euphemia goes, I wouldn't be uneasy about +her--doesn't she always have an attack of some sort when Eliza rings in +an extra evening on her?" + +So I made a superficial examination of the window locks that night, +visiting parts of the house that I had not seen since I bought it. Then +I went to the roof. Evidently it had not been intended for any purpose +save to cover the house, for unlike the houses around, there was no +staircase. A ladder and a trap-door led to it, and it required some nice +balancing on my part to get up with my useless arm. I made it, however, +and found this unexplored part of my domain rather attractive. It was +cooler than down-stairs, and I sat on the brick parapet and smoked my +final cigarette. The roof of the empty house adjoined mine along the +back wing, but investigation showed that the trap-door across the low +dividing wall was bolted underneath. + +There was nothing out of the ordinary anywhere, and so I assured +Mrs. Klopton. Needless to say, I did not tell her that I had left the +trap-door open, to see if it would improve the temperature of the house. +I went to bed at midnight, merely because there was nothing else to do. +I turned on the night lamp at the head of my bed, and picked up a volume +of Shaw at random (it was Arms and the Man, and I remember thinking +grimly that I was a good bit of a chocolate cream soldier myself), +and prepared to go to sleep. Shaw always puts me to sleep. I have +no apologies to make for what occurred that night, and not even an +explanation that I am sure of. I did a foolish thing under impulse, and +I have not been sorry. + +It was something after two when the door-bell rang. It rang quickly, +twice. I got up drowsily, for the maids and Mrs. Klopton always +lock themselves beyond reach of the bell at night, and put on a +dressing-gown. The bell rang again on my way down-stairs. I lit the hall +light and opened the door. I was wide-awake now, and I saw that it was +Johnson. His bald head shone in the light--his crooked mouth was twisted +in a smile. + +"Good Heavens, man," I said irritably. "Don't you ever go home and go to +bed?" + +He closed the vestibule door behind him and cavalierly turned out the +light. Our dialogue was sharp, staccato. + +"Have you a key to the empty house next door?" he demanded. "Somebody's +in there, and the latch is caught." + +"The houses are alike. The key to this door may fit. Did you see them go +in?" + +"No. There's a light moving up from room to room. I saw something like +it last night, and I have been watching. The patrolman reported queer +doings there a week or so ago." + +"A light!" I exclaimed. "Do you mean that you--" + +"Very likely," he said grimly. "Have you a revolver?" + +"All kinds in the gun rack," I replied, and going into the den, I came +back with a Smith and Wesson. "I'm not much use," I explained, "with +this arm, but I'll do what I can. There may be somebody there. The +servants here have been uneasy." + +Johnson planned the campaign. He suggested on account of my familiarity +with the roof, that I go there and cut off escape in that direction. "I +have Robison out there now--the patrolman on the beat," he said. "He'll +watch below and you above, while I search the house. Be as quiet as +possible." + +I was rather amused. I put on some clothes and felt my way carefully +up the stairs, the revolver swinging free in my pocket, my hand on the +rail. At the foot of the ladder I stopped and looked up. Above me there +was a gray rectangle of sky dotted with stars. It occurred to me that +with my one serviceable hand holding the ladder, I was hardly in a +position to defend myself, that I was about to hoist a body that I am +rather careful of into a danger I couldn't see and wasn't particularly +keen about anyhow. I don't mind saying that the seconds it took me to +scramble up the ladder were among the most unpleasant that I recall. + +I got to the top, however, without incident. I could see fairly +well after the darkness of the house beneath, but there was nothing +suspicious in sight. The roofs, separated by two feet of brick wall, +stretched around me, unbroken save by an occasional chimney. I went very +softly over to the other trap, the one belonging to the suspected house. +It was closed, but I imagined I could hear Johnson's footsteps ascending +heavily. Then even that was gone. A near-by clock struck three as I +stood waiting. I examined my revolver then, for the first time, and +found it was empty! + +I had been rather skeptical until now. I had had the usual tolerant +attitude of the man who is summoned from his bed to search for burglars, +combined with the artificial courage of firearms. With the discovery +of my empty gun, I felt like a man on the top of a volcano in lively +eruption. Suddenly I found myself staring incredulously at the trap-door +at my feet. I had examined it early in the evening and found it bolted. +Did I imagine it, or had it raised about an inch? Wasn't it moving +slowly as I looked? No, I am not a hero: I was startled almost into a +panic. I had one arm, and whoever was raising that trap-door had two. My +knees had a queer inclination to bend the wrong way. + +Johnson's footsteps were distinct enough, but he was evidently far +below. The trap, raised perhaps two inches now, remained stationary. +There was no sound from beneath it: once I thought I heard two or three +gasping respirations: I am not sure they were not my own. I wanted +desperately to stand on one leg at a time and hold the other up out of +focus of a possible revolver. + +I did not see the hand appear. There was nothing there, and then it was +there, clutching the frame of the trap. I did the only thing I could +think of; I put my foot on it! + +There was not a sound from beneath. The next moment I was kneeling and +had clutched the wrist just above the hand. After a second's struggle, +the arm was still. With something real to face, I was myself again. + +"Don't move, or I'll stand on the trap and break your arm," I panted. +What else could I threaten? I couldn't shoot, I couldn't even fight. +"Johnson!" I called. + +And then I realized the thing that stayed with me for a month, the thing +I can not think of even now without a shudder. The hand lay ice cold, +strangely quiescent. Under my fingers, an artery was beating feebly. +The wrist was as slender as--I held the hand to the light. Then I let it +drop. + +"Good Lord," I muttered, and remained on my knees, staring at the spot +where the hand had been. It was gone now: there was a faint rustle in +the darkness below, and then silence. + +I held up my own hand in the starlight and stared at a long scratch +in the palm. "A woman!" I said to myself stupidly. "By all that's +ridiculous, a woman!" + +Johnson was striking matches below and swearing softly to himself. "How +the devil do you get to the roof?" he called. "I think I've broken my +nose." + +He found the ladder after a short search and stood at the bottom, +looking up at me. "Well, I suppose you haven't seen him?" he inquired. +"There are enough darned cubbyholes in this house to hide a patrol +wagon load of thieves." He lighted a fresh match. "Hello, here's another +door!" + +By the sound of his diminishing footsteps I supposed it was a rear +staircase. He came up again in ten minutes or so, this time with the +policeman. + +"He's gone, all right," he said ruefully. "If you'd been attending to +your business, Robison, you'd have watched the back door." + +"I'm not twins." Robison was surly. + +"Well," I broke in, as cheerfully as I could, "if you are through with +this jolly little affair, and can get down my ladder without having +my housekeeper ring the burglar alarm, I have some good Monongahela +whisky--eh?" + +They came without a second invitation across the roof, and with them +safely away from the house I breathed more freely. Down in the den I +fulfilled my promise, which Johnson drank to the toast, "Coming through +the rye." He examined my gun rack with the eye of a connoisseur, and +even when he was about to go he cast a loving eye back at the weapons. + +"Ever been in the army?" he inquired. + +"No," I said with a bitterness that he noticed but failed to comprehend. +"I'm a chocolate cream soldier--you don't read Shaw, I suppose, +Johnson?" + +"Never heard of him," the detective said indifferently. "Well, good +night, Mr. Blakeley. Much obliged." At the door he hesitated and +coughed. + +"I suppose you understand, Mr. Blakeley," he said awkwardly, "that +this--er--surveillance is all in the day's work. I don't like it, but +it's duty. Every man to his duty, sir." + +"Sometime when you are in an open mood, Johnson," I returned, "you can +explain why I am being watched at all." + + + +CHAPTER XV. THE CINEMATOGRAPH + + +On Monday I went out for the first time. I did not go to the office. I +wanted to walk. I thought fresh air and exercise would drive away the +blue devils that had me by the throat. McKnight insisted on a long day +in his car, but I refused. + +"I don't know why not," he said sulkily. "I can't walk. I haven't walked +two consecutive blocks in three years. Automobiles have made legs mere +ornaments--and some not even that. We could have Johnson out there +chasing us over the country at five dollars an hour!" + +"He can chase us just as well at five miles an hour," I said. "But what +gets me, McKnight, is why I am under surveillance at all. How do the +police know I was accused of that thing?" + +"The young lady who sent the flowers--she isn't likely to talk, is she?" + +"No. That is, I didn't say it was a lady." I groaned as I tried to get +my splinted arm into a coat. "Anyhow, she didn't tell," I finished with +conviction, and McKnight laughed. + +It had rained in the early morning, and Mrs. Klopton predicted more +showers. In fact, so firm was her belief and so determined her eye that +I took the umbrella she proffered me. + +"Never mind," I said. "We can leave it next door; I have a story to tell +you, Richey, and it requires proper setting." + +McKnight was puzzled, but he followed me obediently round to the kitchen +entrance of the empty house. It was unlocked, as I had expected. While +we climbed to the upper floor I retailed the events of the previous +night. + +"It's the finest thing I ever heard of," McKnight said, staring up at +the ladder and the trap. "What a vaudeville skit it would make! Only +you ought not to have put your foot on her hand. They don't do it in the +best circles." + +I wheeled on him impatiently. + +"You don't understand the situation at all, Richey!" I exclaimed. "What +would you say if I tell you it was the hand of a lady? It was covered +with rings." + +"A lady!" he repeated. "Why, I'd say it was a darned compromising +situation, and that the less you say of it the better. Look here, +Lawrence, I think you dreamed it. You've been in the house too much. I +take it all back: you do need exercise." + +"She escaped through this door, I suppose," I said as patiently as I +could. "Evidently down the back staircase. We might as well go down that +way." + +"According to the best precedents in these affairs, we should find a +glove about here," he said as we started down. But he was more impressed +than he cared to own. He examined the dusty steps carefully, and once, +when a bit of loose plaster fell just behind him, he started like a +nervous woman. + +"What I don't understand is why you let her go," he said, stopping once, +puzzled. "You're not usually quixotic." + +"When we get out into the country, Richey," I replied gravely, "I am +going to tell you another story, and if you don't tell me I'm a fool and +a craven, on the strength of it, you are no friend of mine." + +We stumbled through the twilight of the staircase into the blackness +of the shuttered kitchen. The house had the moldy smell of closed +buildings: even on that warm September morning it was damp and chilly. +As we stepped into the sunshine McKnight gave a shiver. + +"Now that we are out," he said, "I don't mind telling you that I have +been there before. Do you remember the night you left, and, the face at +the window?" + +"When you speak of it--yes." + +"Well, I was curious about that thing," he went on, as we started up the +street, "and I went back. The street door was unlocked, and I examined +every room. I was Mrs. Klopton's ghost that carried a light, and clumb." + +"Did you find anything?" + +"Only a clean place rubbed on the window opposite your dressing-room. +Splendid view of an untidy interior. If that house is ever occupied, +you'd better put stained glass in that window of yours." + +As we turned the corner I glanced back. Half a block behind us Johnson +was moving our way slowly. When he saw me he stopped and proceeded with +great deliberation to light a cigar. By hurrying, however, he caught +the car that we took, and stood unobtrusively on the rear platform. +He looked fagged, and absent-mindedly paid our fares, to McKnight's +delight. + +"We will give him a run for his money," he declared, as the car moved +countryward. "Conductor, let us off at the muddiest lane you can find." + +At one o'clock, after a six-mile ramble, we entered a small country +hotel. We had seen nothing of Johnson for a half hour. At that time he +was a quarter of a mile behind us, and losing rapidly. Before we had +finished our luncheon he staggered into the inn. One of his boots was +under his arm, and his whole appearance was deplorable. He was coated +with mud, streaked with perspiration, and he limped as he walked. He +chose a table not far from us and ordered Scotch. Beyond touching his +hat he paid no attention to us. + +"I'm just getting my second wind," McKnight declared. "How do you feel, +Mr. Johnson? Six or eight miles more and we'll all enjoy our dinners." +Johnson put down the glass he had raised to his lips without replying. + +The fact was, however, that I was like Johnson. I was soft from my +week's inaction, and I was pretty well done up. McKnight, who was a well +spring of vitality and high spirits, ordered a strange concoction, made +of nearly everything in the bar, and sent it over to the detective, but +Johnson refused it. + +"I hate that kind of person," McKnight said pettishly. "Kind of a fellow +that thinks you're going to poison his dog if you offer him a bone." + +When we got back to the car line, with Johnson a draggled and drooping +tail to the kite, I was in better spirits. I had told McKnight the story +of the three hours just after the wreck; I had not named the girl, of +course; she had my promise of secrecy. But I told him everything else. +It was a relief to have a fresh mind on it: I had puzzled so much over +the incident at the farm-house, and the necklace in the gold bag, that I +had lost perspective. + +He had been interested, but inclined to be amused, until I came to the +broken chain. Then he had whistled softly. + +"But there are tons of fine gold chains made every year," he said. "Why +in the world do you think that the--er--smeary piece came from that +necklace?" + +I had looked around. Johnson was far behind, scraping the mud off his +feet with a piece of stick. + +"I have the short end of the chain in the sealskin bag," I reminded him. +"When I couldn't sleep this morning I thought I would settle it, one +way or the other. It was hell to go along the way I had been doing. +And--there's no doubt about it, Rich. It's the same chain." + +We walked along in silence until we caught the car back to town. + +"Well," he said finally, "you know the girl, of course, and I don't. But +if you like her--and I think myself you're rather hard hit, old man--I +wouldn't give a whoop about the chain in the gold purse. It's just one +of the little coincidences that hang people now and then. And as for +last night--if she's the kind of a girl you say she is, and you think +she had anything to do with that, you--you're addled, that's all. You +can depend on it, the lady of the empty house last week is the lady +of last night. And yet your train acquaintance was in Altoona at that +time." + +Just before we got off the car, I reverted to the subject again. It was +never far back in my mind. + +"About the--young lady of the train, Rich," I said, with what I suppose +was elaborate carelessness, "I don't want you to get a wrong impression. +I am rather unlikely to see her again, but even if I do, I--I believe +she is already 'bespoke,' or next thing to it." + +He made no reply, but as I opened the door with my latch-key he stood +looking up at me from the pavement with his quizzical smile. + +"Love is like the measles," he orated. "The older you get it, the worse +the attack." + +Johnson did not appear again that day. A small man in a raincoat took +his place. The next morning I made my initial trip to the office, +the raincoat still on hand. I had a short conference with Miller, the +district attorney, at eleven. Bronson was under surveillance, he said, +and any attempt to sell the notes to him would probably result in their +recovery. In the meantime, as I knew, the Commonwealth had continued the +case, in hope of such contingency. + +At noon I left the office and took a veterinarian to see Candida, the +injured pony. By one o'clock my first day's duties were performed, and +a long Sahara of hot afternoon stretched ahead. McKnight, always glad +to escape from the grind, suggested a vaudeville, and in sheer ennui +I consented. I could neither ride, drive nor golf, and my own company +bored me to distraction. + +"Coolest place in town these days," he declared. "Electric fans, breezy +songs, airy costumes. And there's Johnson just behind--the coldest +proposition in Washington." + +He gravely bought three tickets and presented the detective with one. +Then we went in. Having lived a normal, busy life, the theater in the +afternoon is to me about on a par with ice-cream for breakfast. Up on +the stage a very stout woman in short pink skirts, with a smile that +McKnight declared looked like a slash in a roll of butter, was singing +nasally, with a laborious kick at the end of each verse. Johnson, two +rows ahead, went to sleep. McKnight prodded me with his elbow. + +"Look at the first box to the right," he said, in a stage whisper. "I +want you to come over at the end of this act." + +It was the first time I had seen her since I put her in the cab at +Baltimore. Outwardly I presume I was calm, for no one turned to stare at +me, but every atom of me cried out at the sight of her. She was leaning, +bent forward, lips slightly parted, gazing raptly at the Japanese +conjurer who had replaced what McKnight disrespectfully called the +Columns of Hercules. Compared with the draggled lady of the farm-house, +she was radiant. + +For that first moment there was nothing but joy at the sight of her. +McKnight's touch on my arm brought me back to reality. + +"Come over and meet them," he said. "That's the cousin Miss West is +visiting, Mrs. Dallas." + +But I would not go. After he went I sat there alone, painfully conscious +that I was being pointed out and stared at from the box. The abominable +Japanese gave way to yet more atrocious performing dogs. + +"How many offers of marriage will the young lady in the box have?" +The dog stopped sagely at 'none,' and then pulled out a card that said +eight. Wild shouts of glee by the audience. "The fools," I muttered. + +After a little I glanced over. Mrs. Dallas was talking to McKnight, but +She was looking straight at me. She was flushed, but more calm than I, +and she did not bow. I fumbled for my hat, but the next moment I saw +that they were going, and I sat still. When McKnight came back he was +triumphant. + +"I've made an engagement for you," he said. "Mrs. Dallas asked me to +bring you to dinner to-night, and I said I knew you would fall all over +yourself to go. You are requested to bring along the broken arm, and any +other souvenirs of the wreck that you may possess." + +"I'll do nothing of the sort," I declared, struggling against my +inclination. "I can't even tie my necktie, and I have to have my food +cut for me." + +"Oh, that's all right," he said easily. "I'll send Stogie over to fix +you up, and Mrs. Dal knows all about the arm. I told her." + +(Stogie is his Japanese factotum, so called because he is lean, a +yellowish brown in color, and because he claims to have been shipped +into this country in a box.) + +The Cinematograph was finishing the program. The house was dark and the +music had stopped, as it does in the circus just before somebody risks +his neck at so much a neck in the Dip of Death, or the hundred-foot +dive. Then, with a sort of shock, I saw on the white curtain the +announcement: + + THE NEXT PICTURE + +IS THE DOOMED WASHINGTON FLIER, TAKEN A SHORT DISTANCE FROM THE SCENE OF +THE WRECK ON THE FATAL MORNING OF SEPTEMBER TENTH. TWO MILES FARTHER ON +IT MET WITH ALMOST COMPLETE ANNIHILATION. + +I confess to a return of some of the sickening sensations of the wreck; +people around me were leaning forward with tense faces. Then the letters +were gone, and I saw a long level stretch of track, even the broken +stone between the ties standing out distinctly. Far off under a cloud +of smoke a small object was rushing toward us and growing larger as it +came. + +Now it was on us, a mammoth in size, with huge drivers and a colossal +tender. The engine leaped aside, as if just in time to save us from +destruction, with a glimpse of a stooping fireman and a grimy engineer. +The long train of sleepers followed. From a forward vestibule a porter +in a white coat waved his hand. The rest of the cars seemed still +wrapped in slumber. With mixed sensations I saw my own car, Ontario, fly +past, and then I rose to my feet and gripped McKnight's shoulder. + +On the lowest step at the last car, one foot hanging free, was a man. +His black derby hat was pulled well down to keep it from blowing away, +and his coat was flying open in the wind. He was swung well out from +the car, his free hand gripping a small valise, every muscle tense for a +jump. + +"Good God, that's my man!" I said hoarsely, as the audience broke into +applause. McKnight half rose: in his seat ahead Johnson stifled a yawn +and turned to eye me. + +I dropped into my chair limply, and tried to control my excitement. "The +man on the last platform of the train," I said. "He was just about to +leap; I'll swear that was my bag." + +"Could you see his face?" McKnight asked in an undertone. "Would you +know him again?" + +"No. His hat was pulled down and his head was bent I'm going back to +find out where that picture was taken. They say two miles, but it may +have been forty." + +The audience, busy with its wraps, had not noticed. Mrs. Dallas and +Alison West had gone. In front of us Johnson had dropped his hat and was +stooping for it. + +"This way," I motioned to McKnight, and we wheeled into the narrow +passage beside us, back of the boxes. At the end there was a door +leading into the wings, and as we went boldly through I turned the key. + +The final set was being struck, and no one paid any attention to us. +Luckily they were similarly indifferent to a banging at the door I had +locked, a banging which, I judged, signified Johnson. + +"I guess we've broken up his interference," McKnight chuckled. + +Stage hands were hurrying in every direction; pieces of the side wall +of the last drawing-room menaced us; a switchboard behind us was singing +like a tea-kettle. Everywhere we stepped we were in somebody's way. At +last we were across, confronting a man in his shirt sleeves, who by dots +and dashes of profanity seemed to be directing the chaos. + +"Well?" he said, wheeling on us. "What can I do for you?" + +"I would like to ask," I replied, "if you have any idea just where the +last cinematograph picture was taken." + +"Broken board--picnickers--lake?" + +"No. The Washington Flier." + +He glanced at my bandaged arm. + +"The announcement says two miles," McKnight put in, "but we should like +to know whether it is railroad miles, automobile miles, or policeman +miles." + +"I am sorry I can't tell you," he replied, more civilly. "We get those +pictures by contract. We don't take them ourselves." + +"Where are the company's offices?" + +"New York." He stepped forward and grasped a super by the shoulder. +"What in blazes are you doing with that gold chair in a kitchen set? +Take that piece of pink plush there and throw it over a soap box, if you +haven't got a kitchen chair." + +I had not realized the extent of the shock, but now I dropped into a +chair and wiped my forehead. The unexpected glimpse of Alison West, +followed almost immediately by the revelation of the picture, had left +me limp and unnerved. McKnight was looking at his watch. + +"He says the moving picture people have an office down-town. We can make +it if we go now." + +So he called a cab, and we started at a gallop. There was no sign of the +detective. "Upon my word," Richey said, "I feel lonely without him." + +The people at the down-town office of the cinematograph company were +very obliging. The picture had been taken, they said, at M-, just +two miles beyond the scene of the wreck. It was not much, but it was +something to work on. I decided not to go home, but to send McKnight's +Jap for my clothes, and to dress at the Incubator. I was determined, if +possible, to make my next day's investigations without Johnson. In the +meantime, even if it was for the last time, I would see Her that night. +I gave Stogie a note for Mrs. Klopton, and with my dinner clothes there +came back the gold bag, wrapped in tissue paper. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. THE SHADOW OF A GIRL + + +Certain things about the dinner at the Dallas house will always be +obscure to me. Dallas was something in the Fish Commission, and I +remember his reeling off fish eggs in billions while we ate our caviar. +He had some particular stunt he had been urging the government to +for years--something about forbidding the establishment of mills and +factories on river-banks--it seems they kill the fish, either the smoke, +or the noise, or something they pour into the water. + +Mrs. Dallas was there, I think. Of course, I suppose she must have been; +and there was a woman in yellow: I took her in to dinner, and I remember +she loosened my clams for me so I could get them. But the only real +person at the table was a girl across in white, a sublimated young woman +who was as brilliant as I was stupid, who never by any chance looked +directly at me, and who appeared and disappeared across the candles and +orchids in a sort of halo of radiance. + +When the dinner had progressed from salmon to roast, and the +conversation had done the same thing--from fish to scandal--the +yellow gown turned to me. "We have been awfully good, haven't we, Mr. +Blakeley?" she asked. "Although I am crazy to hear, I have not said +'wreck' once. I'm sure you must feel like the survivor of Waterloo, or +something of the sort." + +"If you want me to tell you about the wreck," I said, glancing across +the table, "I'm sorry to be disappointing, but I don't remember +anything." + +"You are fortunate to be able to forget it." It was the first word Miss +West had spoken directly to me, and it went to my head. + +"There are some things I have not forgotten," I said, over the candles. +"I recall coming to myself some time after, and that a girl, a beautiful +girl--" + +"Ah!" said the lady in yellow, leaning forward breathlessly. Miss West +was staring at me coldly, but, once started, I had to stumble on. + +"That a girl was trying to rouse me, and that she told me I had been on +fire twice already." A shudder went around the table. + +"But surely that isn't the end of the story," Mrs. Dallas put in +aggrievedly. "Why, that's the most tantalizing thing I ever heard." + +"I'm afraid that's all," I said. "She went her way and I went mine. +If she recalls me at all, she probably thinks of me as a weak-kneed +individual who faints like a woman when everything is over." + +"What did I tell you?" Mrs. Dallas asserted triumphantly. "He fainted, +did you hear? when everything was over! He hasn't begun to tell it." + +I would have given a lot by that time if I had not mentioned the girl. +But McKnight took it up there and carried it on. + +"Blakeley is a regular geyser," he said. "He never spouts until he +reaches the boiling point. And by that same token, although he hasn't +said much about the Lady of the Wreck, I think he is crazy about her. In +fact, I am sure of it. He thinks he has locked his secret in the caves +of his soul, but I call you to witness that he has it nailed to his +face. Look at him!" + +I squirmed miserably and tried to avoid the startled eyes of the girl +across the table. I wanted to choke McKnight and murder the rest of the +party. + +"It isn't fair," I said as coolly as I could. "I have my fingers +crossed; you are five against one." + +"And to think that there was a murder on that very train," broke in the +lady in yellow. "It was a perfect crescendo of horrors, wasn't it? And +what became of the murdered man, Mr. Blakeley?" + +McKnight had the sense to jump into the conversation and save my reply. + +"They say good Pittsburgers go to Atlantic City when they die," he +said. "So--we are reasonably certain the gentleman did not go to the +seashore." + +The meal was over at last, and once in the drawing-room it was clear +we hung heavy on the hostess' hands. "It is so hard to get people for +bridge in September," she wailed, "there is absolutely nobody in town. +Six is a dreadful number." + +"It's a good poker number," her husband suggested. + +The matter settled itself, however. I was hopeless, save as a dummy; +Miss West said it was too hot for cards, and went out on a balcony that +overlooked the Mall. With obvious relief Mrs. Dallas had the card-table +brought, and I was face to face with the minute I had dreaded and hoped +for for a week. + +Now it had come, it was more difficult than I had anticipated. I do not +know if there was a moon, but there was the urban substitute for it--the +arc light. It threw the shadow of the balcony railing in long black bars +against her white gown, and as it swung sometimes her face was in the +light. I drew a chair close so that I could watch her. + +"Do you know," I said, when she made no effort at speech, "that you are +a much more formidable person to-night, in that gown, than you were the +last time I saw you?" + +The light swung on her face; she was smiling faintly. "The hat with the +green ribbons!" she said. "I must take it back; I had almost forgotten." + +"I have not forgotten--anything." I pulled myself up short. This was +hardly loyalty to Richey. His voice came through the window just then, +and perhaps I was wrong, but I thought she raised her head to listen. + +"Look at this hand," he was saying. "Regular pianola: you could play it +with your feet." + +"He's a dear, isn't he?" Alison said unexpectedly. "No matter how +depressed and downhearted I am, I always cheer up when I see Richey." + +"He's more than that," I returned warmly. "He is the most honorable +fellow I know. If he wasn't so much that way, he would have a career +before him. He wanted to put on the doors of our offices, Blakeley and +McKnight, P. B. H., which is Poor But Honest." + +From my comparative poverty to the wealth of the girl beside me was +a single mental leap. From that wealth to the grandfather who was +responsible for it was another. + +"I wonder if you know that I had been to Pittsburg to see your +grandfather when I met you?" I said. + +"You?" She was surprised. + +"Yes. And you remember the alligator bag that I told you was exchanged +for the one you cut off my arm?" She nodded expectantly. "Well, in that +valise were the forged Andy Bronson notes, and Mr. Gilmore's deposition +that they were forged." + +She was on her feet in an instant. "In that bag!" she cried. "Oh, why +didn't you tell me that before? Oh, it's so ridiculous, so--so hopeless. +Why, I could--" + +She stopped suddenly and sat down again. "I do not know that I am sorry, +after all," she said after a pause. "Mr. Bronson was a friend of my +father's. I--I suppose it was a bad thing for you, losing the papers?" + +"Well, it was not a good thing," I conceded. "While we are on the +subject of losing things, do you remember--do you know that I still have +your gold purse?" + +She did not reply at once. The shadow of a column was over her face, but +I guessed that she was staring at me. + +"You have it!" She almost whispered. + +"I picked it up in the street car," I said, with a cheerfulness I did +not feel. "It looks like a very opulent little purse." + +Why didn't she speak about the necklace? For just a careless word to +make me sane again! + +"You!" she repeated, horror-stricken. And then I produced the purse and +held it out on my palm. "I should have sent it to you before, I suppose, +but, as you know, I have been laid up since the wreck." + +We both saw McKnight at the same moment. He had pulled the curtains +aside and was standing looking out at us. The tableau of give and +take was unmistakable; the gold purse, her outstretched hand, my own +attitude. It was over in a second; then he came out and lounged on the +balcony railing. + +"They're mad at me in there," he said airily, "so I came out. I suppose +the reason they call it bridge is because so many people get cross over +it." + +The heat broke up the card group soon after, and they all came out for +the night breeze. I had no more words alone with Alison. + +I went back to the Incubator for the night. We said almost nothing on +the way home; there was a constraint between us for the first time that +I could remember. It was too early for bed, and so we smoked in the +living-room and tried to talk of trivial things. After a time even those +failed, and we sat silent. It was McKnight who finally broached the +subject. + +"And so she wasn't at Seal Harbor at all." + +"No." + +"Do you know where she was, Lollie?" + +"Somewhere near Cresson." + +"And that was the purse--her purse--with the broken necklace in it?" + +"Yes, it was. You understand, don't you, Rich, that, having given her my +word, I couldn't tell you?" + +"I understand a lot of things," he said, without bitterness. + +We sat for some time and smoked. Then Richey got up and stretched +himself. "I'm off to bed, old man," he said. "Need any help with that +game arm of yours?" + +"No, thanks," I returned. + +I heard him go into his room and lock the door. It was a bad hour for +me. The first shadow between us, and the shadow of a girl at that. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN + + +McKnight is always a sympathizer with the early worm. It was late when +he appeared. Perhaps, like myself, he had not slept well. But he was +apparently cheerful enough, and he made a better breakfast than I did. +It was one o'clock before we got to Baltimore. After a half hour's wait +we took a local for M-, the station near which the cinematograph picture +had been taken. + +We passed the scene of the wreck, McKnight with curiosity, I with a +sickening sense of horror. Back in the fields was the little farm-house +where Alison West and I had intended getting coffee, and winding away +from the track, maple trees shading it on each side, was the lane where +we had stopped to rest, and where I had--it seemed presumption beyond +belief now--where I had tried to comfort her by patting her hand. + +We got out at M-, a small place with two or three houses and a general +store. The station was a one-roomed affair, with a railed-off place at +the end, where a scale, a telegraph instrument and a chair constituted +the entire furnishing. + +The station agent was a young man with a shrewd face. He stopped +hammering a piece of wood over a hole in the floor to ask where we +wanted to go. + +"We're not going," said McKnight, "we're coming. Have a cigar?" + +The agent took it with an inquiring glance, first at it and then at us. + +"We want to ask you a few questions," began McKnight, perching himself +on the railing and kicking the chair forward for me. "Or, rather, this +gentleman does." + +"Wait a minute," said the agent, glancing through the window. "There's a +hen in that crate choking herself to death." + +He was back in a minute, and took up his position near a sawdust-filled +box that did duty as a cuspidor. + +"Now fire away," he said. + +"In the first place," I began, "do you remember the day the Washington +Flier was wrecked below here?" + +"Do I!" he said. "Did Jonah remember the whale?" + +"Were you on the platform here when the first section passed?" + +"I was." + +"Do you recall seeing a man hanging to the platform of the last car?" + +"There was no one hanging there when she passed here," he said with +conviction. "I watched her out of sight." + +"Did you see anything that morning of a man about my size, carrying a +small grip, and wearing dark clothes and a derby hat?" I asked eagerly. + +McKnight was trying to look unconcerned, but I was frankly anxious. It +was clear that the man had jumped somewhere in the mile of track just +beyond. + +"Well, yes, I did." The agent cleared his throat. "When the smash came +the operator at MX sent word along the wire, both ways. I got it here, +and I was pretty near crazy, though I knew it wasn't any fault of mine. + +"I was standing on the track looking down, for I couldn't leave the +office, when a young fellow with light hair limped up to me and asked me +what that smoke was over there. + +"'That's what's left of the Washington Flier,' I said, 'and I guess +there's souls going up in that smoke.' + +"'Do you mean the first section?' he said, getting kind of +greenish-yellow. + +"'That's what I mean,' I said; 'split to kindling wood because Rafferty, +on the second section, didn't want to be late.' + +"He put his hand out in front of him, and the satchel fell with a bang. + +"'My God!' he said, and dropped right on the track in a heap. + +"I got him into the station and he came around, but he kept on groaning +something awful. He'd sprained his ankle, and when he got a little +better I drove him over in Carter's milk wagon to the Carter place, and +I reckon he stayed there a spell." + +"That's all, is it?" I asked. + +"That's all--or, no, there's something else. About noon that day one +of the Carter twins came down with a note from him asking me to send a +long-distance message to some one in Washington." + +"To whom?" I asked eagerly. + +"I reckon I've forgot the name, but the message was that this +fellow--Sullivan was his name--was at M-, and if the man had escaped +from the wreck would he come to see him." + +"He wouldn't have sent that message to me," I said to McKnight, rather +crestfallen. "He'd have every object in keeping out of my way." + +"There might be reasons," McKnight observed judicially. "He might not +have found the papers then." + +"Was the name Blakeley?" I asked. + +"It might have been--I can't say. But the man wasn't there, and there +was a lot of noise. I couldn't hear well. Then in half an hour down came +the other twin to say the gentleman was taking on awful and didn't want +the message sent." + +"He's gone, of course?" + +"Yes. Limped down here in about three days and took the noon train for +the city." + +It seemed a certainty now that our man, having hurt himself somewhat +in his jump, had stayed quietly in the farm-house until he was able to +travel. But, to be positive, we decided to visit the Carter place. + +I gave the station agent a five-dollar bill, which he rolled up with a +couple of others and stuck in his pocket. I turned as we got to a bend +in the road, and he was looking curiously after us. + +It was not until we had climbed the hill and turned onto the road to the +Carter place that I realized where we were going. Although we approached +it from another direction, I knew the farm-house at once. It was the one +where Alison West and I had breakfasted nine days before. With the new +restraint between us, I did not tell McKnight. I wondered afterward if +he had suspected it. I saw him looking hard at the gate-post which had +figured in one of our mysteries, but he asked no questions. Afterward he +grew almost taciturn, for him, and let me do most of the talking. + +We opened the front gate of the Carter place and went slowly up the +walk. Two ragged youngsters, alike even to freckles and squints, were +playing in the yard. + +"Is your mother around?" I asked. + +"In the front room. Walk in," they answered in identical tones. + +As we got to the porch we heard voices, and stopped. I knocked, but the +people within, engaged in animated, rather one-sided conversation, did +not answer. + +"'In the front room. Walk in,'" quoted McKnight, and did so. + +In the stuffy farm parlor two people were sitting. One, a pleasant-faced +woman with a checked apron, rose, somewhat embarrassed, to meet us. She +did not know me, and I was thankful. But our attention was riveted on +a little man who was sitting before a table, writing busily. It was +Hotchkiss! + +He got up when he saw us, and had the grace to look uncomfortable. + +"Such an interesting case," he said nervously, "I took the liberty--" + +"Look here," said McKnight suddenly, "did you make any inquiries at the +station?" + +"A few," he confessed. "I went to the theater last night--I felt +the need of a little relaxation--and the sight of a picture there, a +cinematograph affair, started a new line of thought. Probably the +same clue brought you gentlemen. I learned a good bit from the station +agent." + +"The son-of-a-gun," said McKnight. "And you paid him, I suppose?" + +"I gave him five dollars," was the apologetic answer. Mrs. Carter, +hearing sounds of strife in the yard, went out, and Hotchkiss folded up +his papers. + +"I think the identity of the man is established," he said. "What number +of hat do you wear, Mr. Blakeley?" + +"Seven and a quarter," I replied. + +"Well, it's only piling up evidence," he said cheerfully. "On the night +of the murder you wore light gray silk underclothing, with the second +button of the shirt missing. Your hat had 'L. B.' in gilt letters +inside, and there was a very minute hole in the toe of one black sock." + +"Hush," McKnight protested. "If word gets to Mrs. Klopton that Mr. +Blakeley was wrecked, or robbed, or whatever it was, with a button +missing and a hole in one sock, she'll retire to the Old Ladies' Home. +I've heard her threaten it." + +Mr. Hotchkiss was without a sense of humor. He regarded McKnight gravely +and went on: + +"I've been up in the room where the man lay while he was unable to get +away, and there is nothing there. But I found what may be a possible +clue in the dust heap. + +"Mrs. Carter tells me that in unpacking his grip the other day she took +out of the coat of the pajamas some pieces of a telegram. As I figure +it, the pajamas were his own. He probably had them on when he effected +the exchange." + +I nodded assent. All I had retained of my own clothing was the suit of +pajamas I was wearing and my bath-robe. + +"Therefore the telegram was his, not yours. I have pieces here, but some +are missing. I am not discouraged, however." + +He spread out some bits of yellow paper, and we bent over them +curiously. It was something like this: + + Man with p- Get- + Br- + +We spelled it out slowly. + +"Now," Hotchkiss announced, "I make it something like this: The 'p.-' is +one of two things, pistol--you remember the little pearl-handled affair +belonging to the murdered man--or it is pocket-book. I am inclined to +the latter view, as the pocket-book had been disturbed and the pistol +had not." + +I took the piece of paper from the table and scrawled four words on it. + +"Now," I said, rearranging them, "it happens, Mr. Hotchkiss, that I +found one of these pieces of the telegram on the train. I thought it had +been dropped by some one else, you see, but that's immaterial. Arranged +this way it almost makes sense. Fill out that 'p.-' with the rest of the +word, as I imagine it, and it makes 'papers,' and add this scrap and you +have: + +"'Man with papers (in) lower ten, car seven. Get (them).' + +McKnight slapped Hotchkiss on the back. "You're a trump," he said. "Br- +is Bronson, of course. It's almost too easy. You see, Mr. Blakeley +here engaged lower ten, but found it occupied by the man who was later +murdered there. The man who did the thing was a friend of Bronson's, +evidently, and in trying to get the papers we have the motive for the +crime." + +"There are still some things to be explained." Mr. Hotchkiss wiped his +glasses and put them on. "For one thing, Mr. Blakeley, I am puzzled by +that bit of chain." + +I did not glance at McKnight. I felt that the hand, with which I was +gathering up the bits of torn paper were shaking. It seemed to me that +this astute little man was going to drag in the girl in spite of me. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. A NEW WORLD + + +Hotchkiss jotted down the bits of telegram and rose. + +"Well," he said, "we've done something. We've found where the murderer +left the train, we know what day he went to Baltimore, and, most +important of all, we have a motive for the crime." + +"It seems the irony of fate," said McKnight, getting up, "that a +man should kill another man for certain papers he is supposed to be +carrying, find he hasn't got them after all, decide to throw suspicion +on another man by changing berths and getting out, bag and baggage, and +then, by the merest fluke of chance, take with him, in the valise he +changed for his own, the very notes he was after. It was a bit of luck +for him." + +"Then why," put in Hotchkiss doubtfully, "why did he collapse when he +heard of the wreck? And what about the telephone message the station +agent sent? You remember they tried to countermand it, and with some +excitement." + +"We will ask him those questions when we get him," McKnight said. We +were on the unrailed front porch by that time, and Hotchkiss had put +away his notebook. The mother of the twins followed us to the steps. + +"Dear me," she exclaimed volubly, "and to think I was forgetting to tell +you! I put the young man to bed with a spice poultice on his ankle: my +mother always was a firm believer in spice poultices. It's wonderful +what they will do in croup! And then I took the children and went down +to see the wreck. It was Sunday, and the mister had gone to church; +hasn't missed a day since he took the pledge nine years ago. And on the +way I met two people, a man and a woman. They looked half dead, so I +sent them right here for breakfast and some soap and water. I always say +soap is better than liquor after a shock." + +Hotchkiss was listening absently: McKnight was whistling under his +breath, staring down across the field to where a break in the woods +showed a half dozen telegraph poles, the line of the railroad. + +"It must have been twelve o'clock when we got back; I wanted the +children to see everything, because it isn't likely they'll ever see +another wreck like that. Rows of--" + +"About twelve o'clock," I broke in, "and what then?" + +"The young man up-stairs was awake," she went on, "and hammering at his +door like all possessed. And it was locked on the outside!" She paused +to enjoy her sensation. + +"I would like to see that lock," Hotchkiss said promptly, but for some +reason the woman demurred. + +"I will bring the key down," she said and disappeared. When she returned +she held out an ordinary door key of the cheapest variety. + +"We had to break the lock," she volunteered, "and the key didn't turn up +for two days. Then one of the twins found the turkey gobbler trying to +swallow it. It has been washed since," she hastened to assure Hotchkiss, +who showed an inclination to drop it. + +"You don't think he locked the door himself and threw the key out of the +window?" the little man asked. + +"The windows are covered with mosquito netting, nailed on. The mister +blamed it on the children, and it might have been Obadiah. He's the +quiet kind, and you never know what he's about." + +"He's about to strangle, isn't he," McKnight remarked lazily, "or is +that Obadiah?" + +Mrs. Carter picked the boy up and inverted him, talking amiably all the +time. "He's always doing it," she said, giving him a shake. "Whenever we +miss anything we look to see if Obadiah's black in the face." She gave +him another shake, and the quarter I had given him shot out as if blown +from a gun. Then we prepared to go back to the station. + +From where I stood I could look into the cheery farm kitchen, where +Alison West and I had eaten our al fresco breakfast. I looked at the +table with mixed emotions, and then, gradually, the meaning of something +on it penetrated my mind. Still in its papers, evidently just opened, +was a hat box, and protruding over the edge of the box was a streamer of +vivid green ribbon. + +On the plea that I wished to ask Mrs. Carter a few more questions, I let +the others go on. I watched them down the flagstone walk; saw McKnight +stop and examine the gate-posts and saw, too, the quick glance he threw +back at the house. Then I turned to Mrs. Carter. + +"I would like to speak to the young lady up-stairs," I said. + +She threw up her hands with a quick gesture of surrender. "I've done all +I could," she exclaimed. "She won't like it very well, but--she's in the +room over the parlor." + +I went eagerly up the ladder-like stairs, to the rag-carpeted hall. Two +doors were open, showing interiors of four poster beds and high bureaus. +The door of the room over the parlor was almost closed. I hesitated +in the hallway: after all, what right had I to intrude on her? But she +settled my difficulty by throwing open the door and facing me. + +"I--I beg your pardon, Miss West," I stammered. "It has just occurred +to me that I am unpardonably rude. I saw the hat down-stairs and I--I +guessed--" + +"The hat!" she said. "I might have known. Does Richey know I am here?" + +"I don't think so." I turned to go down the stairs again. Then I halted. +"The fact is," I said, in an attempt at justification, "I'm in rather +a mess these days, and I'm apt to do irresponsible things. It is not +impossible that I shall be arrested, in a day or so, for the murder of +Simon Harrington." + +She drew her breath in sharply. "Murder!" she echoed. "Then they have +found you after all!" + +"I don't regard it as anything more than--er--inconvenient," I lied. +"They can't convict me, you know. Almost all the witnesses are dead." + +She was not deceived for a moment. She came over to me and stood, both +hands on the rail of the stair. "I know just how grave it is," she said +quietly. "My grandfather will not leave one stone unturned, and he can +be terrible--terrible. But"--she looked directly into my eyes as I stood +below her on the stairs--"the time may come--soon--when I can help you. +I'm afraid I shall not want to; I'm a dreadful coward, Mr. Blakeley. +But--I will." She tried to smile. + +"I wish you would let me help you," I said unsteadily. "Let us make it a +bargain: each help the other!" + +The girl shook her head with a sad little smile. "I am only as unhappy +as I deserve to be," she said. And when I protested and took a step +toward her she retreated, with her hands out before her. + +"Why don't you ask me all the questions you are thinking?" she demanded, +with a catch in her voice. "Oh, I know them. Or are you afraid to ask?" + +I looked at her, at the lines around her eyes, at the drawn look about +her mouth. Then I held out my hand. "Afraid!" I said, as she gave me +hers. "There is nothing in God's green earth I am afraid of, save of +trouble for you. To ask questions would be to imply a lack of faith. I +ask you nothing. Some day, perhaps, you will come to me yourself and let +me help you." + +The next moment I was out in the golden sunshine: the birds were singing +carols of joy: I walked dizzily through rainbow-colored clouds, past the +twins, cherubs now, swinging on the gate. It was a new world into which +I stepped from the Carter farm-house that morning, for--I had kissed +her! + + + +CHAPTER XIX. AT THE TABLE NEXT + + +McKnight and Hotchkiss were sauntering slowly down the road as I caught +up with them. As usual, the little man was busy with some abstruse +mental problem. + +"The idea is this," he was saying, his brows knitted in thought, "if +a left-handed man, standing in the position of the man in the picture, +should jump from a car, would he be likely to sprain his right ankle? +When a right-handed man prepares for a leap of that kind, my theory +is that he would hold on with his right hand, and alight at the proper +time, on his right foot. Of course--" + +"I imagine, although I don't know," interrupted McKnight, "that a man +either ambidextrous or one-armed, jumping from the Washington Flier, +would be more likely to land on his head." + +"Anyhow," I interposed, "what difference does it make whether Sullivan +used one hand or the other? One pair of handcuffs will put both hands +out of commission." + +As usual when one of his pet theories was attacked, Hotchkiss looked +aggrieved. + +"My dear sir," he expostulated, "don't you understand what bearing this +has on the case? How was the murdered man lying when he was found?" + +"On his back," I said promptly, "head toward the engine." + +"Very well," he retorted, "and what then? Your heart lies under your +fifth intercostal space, and to reach it a right-handed blow would have +struck either down or directly in. + +"But, gentleman, the point of entrance for the stiletto was below the +heart, striking up! As Harrington lay with his head toward the engine, a +person in the aisle must have used the left hand." + +McKnight's eyes sought mine and he winked at me solemnly as I +unostentatiously transferred the hat I was carrying to my right hand. +Long training has largely counterbalanced heredity in my case, but I +still pitch ball, play tennis and carve with my left hand. But Hotchkiss +was too busy with his theories to notice me. + +We were only just in time for our train back to Baltimore, but McKnight +took advantage of a second's delay to shake the station agent warmly by +the hand. + +"I want to express my admiration for you," he said beamingly. "Ability +of your order is thrown away here. You should have been a city +policeman, my friend." + +The agent looked a trifle uncertain. + +"The young lady was the one who told me to keep still," he said. + +McKnight glanced at me, gave the agent's hand a final shake, and climbed +on board. But I knew perfectly that he had guessed the reason for my +delay. + +He was very silent on the way home. Hotchkiss, too, had little to say. +He was reading over his notes intently, stopping now and then to make a +penciled addition. Just before we left the train Richey turned to me. "I +suppose it was the key to the door that she tied to the gate?" + +"Probably. I did not ask her." + +"Curious, her locking that fellow in," he reflected. + +"You may depend on it, there was a good reason for it all. And I wish +you wouldn't be so suspicious of motives, Rich," I said warmly. + +"Only yesterday you were the suspicious one," he retorted, and we lapsed +into strained silence. + +It was late when we got to Washington. One of Mrs. Klopton's small +tyrannies was exacting punctuality at meals, and, like several other +things, I respected it. There are always some concessions that should be +made in return for faithful service. + +So, as my dinner hour of seven was long past, McKnight and I went to a +little restaurant down town where they have a very decent way of fixing +chicken a la King. Hotchkiss had departed, economically bent, for a +small hotel where he lived on the American plan. + +"I want to think some things over," he said in response to my invitation +to dinner, "and, anyhow, there's no use dining out when I pay the same, +dinner or no dinner, where I am stopping." + +The day had been hot, and the first floor dining-room was sultry in +spite of the palms and fans which attempted to simulate the verdure and +breezes of the country. + +It was crowded, too, with a typical summer night crowd, and, after +sitting for a few minutes in a sweltering corner, we got up and went +to the smaller dining-room up-stairs. Here it was not so warm, and we +settled ourselves comfortably by a window. + +Over in a corner half a dozen boys on their way back to school were +ragging a perspiring waiter, a proceeding so exactly to McKnight's taste +that he insisted on going over to join them. But their table was full, +and somehow that kind of fun had lost its point for me. + +Not far from us a very stout, middle-aged man, apoplectic with the heat, +was elephantinely jolly for the benefit of a bored-looking girl across +the table from him, and at the next table a newspaper woman ate alone, +the last edition propped against the water-bottle before her, her hat, +for coolness, on the corner of the table. It was a motley Bohemian +crowd. + +I looked over the room casually, while McKnight ordered the meal. Then +my attention was attracted to the table next to ours. Two people were +sitting there, so deep in conversation that they did not notice us. The +woman's face was hidden under her hat, as she traced the pattern of the +cloth mechanically with her fork. But the man's features stood out clear +in the light of the candles on the table. It was Bronson! + +"He shows the strain, doesn't he?" McKnight said, holding up the wine +list as if he read from it. "Who's the woman?" + +"Search me," I replied, in the same way. + +When the chicken came, I still found myself gazing now and then at the +abstracted couple near me. Evidently the subject of conversation was +unpleasant. Bronson was eating little, the woman not at all. Finally he +got up, pushed his chair back noisily, thrust a bill at the waiter and +stalked out. + +The woman sat still for a moment; then, with an apparent resolution to +make the best of it, she began slowly to eat the meal before her. + +But the quarrel had taken away her appetite, for the mixture in our +chafing-dish was hardly ready to serve before she pushed her chair back +a little and looked around the room. + +I caught my first glimpse of her face then, and I confess it startled +me. It was the tall, stately woman of the Ontario, the woman I had +last seen cowering beside the road, rolling pebbles in her hand, blood +streaming from a cut over her eye. I could see the scar now, a little +affair, about an inch long, gleaming red through its layers of powder. + +And then, quite unexpectedly, she turned and looked directly at me. +After a minute's uncertainty, she bowed, letting her eyes rest on mine +with a calmly insolent stare. She glanced at McKnight for a moment, then +back to me. When she looked away again I breathed easier. + +"Who is it?" asked McKnight under his breath. + +"Ontario." I formed it with my lips rather than said it. McKnight's +eyebrows went up and he looked with increased interest at the +black-gowned figure. + +I ate little after that. The situation was rather bad for me, I began to +see. Here was a woman who could, if she wished, and had any motive for +so doing, put me in jail under a capital charge. A word from her to the +police, and polite surveillance would become active interference. + +Then, too, she could say that she had seen me, just after the wreck, +with a young woman from the murdered man's car, and thus probably bring +Alison West into the case. + +It is not surprising, then, that I ate little. The woman across seemed +in no hurry to go. She loitered over a demi-tasse, and that finished, +sat with her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, looking darkly at +the changing groups in the room. + +The fun at the table where the college boys sat began to grow a little +noisy; the fat man, now a purplish shade, ambled away behind his slim +companion; the newspaper woman pinned on her business-like hat and +stalked out. Still the woman at the next table waited. + +It was a relief when the meal was over. We got our hats and were about +to leave the room, when a waiter touched me on the arm. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but the lady at the table near the +window, the lady in black, sir, would like to speak to you." + +I looked down between the rows of tables to where the woman sat alone, +her chin still resting on her hand, her black eyes still insolently +staring, this time at me. + +"I'll have to go," I said to McKnight hurriedly. "She knows all about +that affair and she'd be a bad enemy." + +"I don't like her lamps," McKnight observed, after a glance at her. +"Better jolly her a little. Good-by." + + + +CHAPTER XX. THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN + +I went back slowly to where the woman sat alone. + +She smiled rather oddly as I drew near, and pointed to the chair Bronson +had vacated. + +"Sit down, Mr. Blakeley," she said, "I am going to take a few minutes of +your valuable time." + +"Certainly." I sat down opposite her and glanced at a cuckoo clock on +the wall. "I am sorry, but I have only a few minutes. If you--" She +laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and opening a small black fan +covered with spangles, waved it slowly. + +"The fact is," she said, "I think we are about to make a bargain." + +"A bargain?" I asked incredulously. "You have a second advantage of me. +You know my name"--I paused suggestively and she took the cue. + +"I am Mrs. Conway," she said, and flicked a crumb off the table with an +over-manicured finger. + +The name was scarcely a surprise. I had already surmised that this might +be the woman whom rumor credited as being Bronson's common-law wife. +Rumor, I remembered, had said other things even less pleasant, things +which had been brought out at Bronson's arrest for forgery. + +"We met last under less fortunate circumstances," she was saying. "I +have been fit for nothing since that terrible day. And you--you had a +broken arm, I think." + +"I still have it," I said, with a lame attempt at jocularity; "but to +have escaped at all was a miracle. We have much, indeed, to be thankful +for." + +"I suppose we have," she said carelessly, "although sometimes I doubt +it." She was looking somberly toward the door through which her late +companion had made his exit. + +"You sent for me--" I said. + +"Yes, I sent for you." She roused herself and sat erect. "Now, Mr. +Blakeley, have you found those papers?" + +"The papers? What papers?" I parried. I needed time to think. + +"Mr. Blakeley," she said quietly, "I think we can lay aside all +subterfuge. In the first place let me refresh your mind about a few +things. The Pittsburg police are looking for the survivors of the car +Ontario; there are three that I know of--yourself, the young woman with +whom you left the scene of the wreck, and myself. The wreck, you will +admit, was a fortunate one for you." + +I nodded without speaking. + +"At the time of the collision you were in rather a hole," she went +on, looking at me with a disagreeable smile. "You were, if I remember, +accused of a rather atrocious crime. There was a lot of corroborative +evidence, was there not? I seem to remember a dirk and the murdered +man's pocket-book in your possession, and a few other things that +were--well, rather unpleasant." + +I was thrown a bit off my guard. + +"You remember also," I said quickly, "that a man disappeared from the +car, taking my clothes, papers and everything." + +"I remember that you said so." Her tone was quietly insulting, and I bit +my lip at having been caught. It was no time to make a defense. + +"You have missed one calculation," I said coldly, "and that is, the +discovery of the man who left the train." + +"You have found him?" She bent forward, and again I regretted my hasty +speech. "I knew it; I said so." + +"We are going to find him," I asserted, with a confidence I did not +feel. "We can produce at any time proof that a man left the Flier a few +miles beyond the wreck. And we can find him, I am positive." + +"But you have not found him yet?" She was clearly disappointed. "Well, +so be it. Now for our bargain. You will admit that I am no fool." + +I made no such admission, and she smiled mockingly. + +"How flattering you are!" she said. "Very well. Now for the premises. +You take to Pittsburg four notes held by the Mechanics' National Bank, +to have Mr. Gilmore, who is ill, declare his indorsement of them forged. + +"On the journey back to Pittsburg two things happen to you: you lose +your clothing, your valise and your papers, including the notes, and +you are accused of murder. In fact, Mr. Blakeley, the circumstances were +most singular, and the evidence--well, almost conclusive." + +I was completely at her mercy, but I gnawed my lip with irritation. + +"Now for the bargain." She leaned over and lowered her voice. "A fair +exchange, you know. The minute you put those four notes in my hand--that +minute the blow to my head has caused complete forgetfulness as to +the events of that awful morning. I am the only witness, and I will be +silent. Do you understand? They will call off their dogs." + +My head was buzzing with the strangeness of the idea. + +"But," I said, striving to gain time, "I haven't the notes. I can't give +you what I haven't got." + +"You have had the case continued," she said sharply. "You expect to find +them. Another thing," she added slowly, watching my face, "if you don't +get them soon, Bronson will have them. They have been offered to him +already, but at a prohibitive price." + +"But," I said, bewildered, "what is your object in coming to me? If +Bronson will get them anyhow--" + +She shut her fan with a click and her face was not particularly pleasant +to look at. + +"You are dense," she said insolently. "I want those papers--for myself, +not for Andy Bronson." + +"Then the idea is," I said, ignoring her tone, "that you think you have +me in a hole, and that if I find those papers and give them to you you +will let me out. As I understand it, our friend Bronson, under those +circumstances, will also be in a hole." + +She nodded. + +"The notes would be of no use to you for a limited length of time," +I went on, watching her narrowly. "If they are not turned over to the +state's attorney within a reasonable time there will have to be a nolle +pros--that is, the case will simply be dropped for lack of evidence." + +"A week would answer, I think," she said slowly. "You will do it, then?" + +I laughed, although I was not especially cheerful. + +"No, I'll not do it. I expect to come across the notes any time now, +and I expect just as certainly to turn them over to the state's attorney +when I get them." + +She got up suddenly, pushing her chair back with a noisy grating sound +that turned many eyes toward us. + +"You're more of a fool than I thought you," she sneered, and left me at +the table. + + + +CHAPTER XXI. McKNIGHT'S THEORY + + +I confess I was staggered. The people at the surrounding tables, after +glancing curiously in my direction, looked away again. + +I got my hat and went out in a very uncomfortable frame of mind. That +she would inform the police at once of what she knew I never doubted, +unless possibly she would give a day or two's grace in the hope that I +would change my mind. + +I reviewed the situation as I waited for a car. Two passed me going in +the opposite direction, and on the first one I saw Bronson, his hat over +his eyes, his arms folded, looking moodily ahead. Was it imagination? or +was the small man huddled in the corner of the rear seat Hotchkiss? + +As the car rolled on I found myself smiling. The alert little man was +for all the world like a terrier, ever on the scent, and scouring about +in every direction. + +I found McKnight at the Incubator, with his coat off, working with +enthusiasm and a manicure file over the horn of his auto. + +"It's the worst horn I ever ran across," he groaned, without looking up, +as I came in. "The blankety-blank thing won't blow." + +He punched it savagely, finally eliciting a faint throaty croak. + +"Sounds like croup," I suggested. "My sister-in-law uses camphor and +goose greese for it; or how about a spice poultice?" + +But McKnight never sees any jokes but his own. He flung the horn +clattering into a corner, and collapsed sulkily into a chair. + +"Now," I said, "if you're through manicuring that horn, I'll tell you +about my talk with the lady in black." + +"What's wrong?" asked McKnight languidly. "Police watching her, too?" + +"Not exactly. The fact is, Rich, there's the mischief to pay." + +Stogie came in, bringing a few additions to our comfort. When he went +out I told my story. + +"You must remember," I said, "that I had seen this woman before the +morning of the wreck. She was buying her Pullman ticket when I did. Then +the next morning, when the murder was discovered, she grew hysterical, +and I gave her some whisky. The third and last time I saw her, until +to-night, was when she crouched beside the road, after the wreck." + +McKnight slid down in his chair until his weight rested on the small of +his back, and put his feet on the big reading table. + +"It is rather a facer," he said. "It's really too good a situation for +a commonplace lawyer. It ought to be dramatized. You can't agree, of +course; and by refusing you run the chance of jail, at least, and of +having Alison brought into publicity, which is out of the question. You +say she was at the Pullman window when you were?" + +"Yes; I bought her ticket for her. Gave her lower eleven." + +"And you took ten?" + +"Lower ten." + +McKnight straightened up and looked at me. + +"Then she thought you were in lower ten." + +"I suppose she did, if she thought at all." + +"But listen, man." McKnight was growing excited. "What do you figure out +of this? The Conway woman knows you have taken the notes to Pittsburg. +The probabilities are that she follows you there, on the chance of an +opportunity to get them, either for Bronson or herself. + +"Nothing doing during the trip over or during the day in Pittsburg; but +she learns the number of your berth as you buy it at the Pullman ticket +office in Pittsburg, and she thinks she sees her chance. No one could +have foreseen that that drunken fellow would have crawled into your +berth. + +"Now, I figure it out this way: She wanted those notes desperately--does +still--not for Bronson, but to hold over his head for some purpose. In +the night, when everything is quiet, she slips behind the curtains of +lower ten, where the man's breathing shows he is asleep. Didn't you say +he snored?" + +"He did!" I affirmed. "But I tell you--" + +"Now keep still and listen. She gropes cautiously around in the +darkness, finally discovering the wallet under the pillow. Can't you see +it yourself?" + +He was leaning forward, excitedly, and I could almost see the gruesome +tragedy he was depicting. + +"She draws out the wallet. Then, perhaps she remembers the alligator +bag, and on the possibility that the notes are there, instead of in +the pocket-book, she gropes around for it. Suddenly, the man awakes and +clutches at the nearest object, perhaps her neck chain, which breaks. +She drops the pocket-book and tries to escape, but he has caught her +right hand. + +"It is all in silence; the man is still stupidly drunk. But he holds her +in a tight grip. Then the tragedy. She must get away; in a minute +the car will be aroused. Such a woman, on such an errand, does not go +without some sort of a weapon, in this case a dagger, which, unlike a +revolver, is noiseless. + +"With a quick thrust--she's a big woman and a bold one--she strikes. +Possibly Hotchkiss is right about the left-hand blow. Harrington may +have held her right hand, or perhaps she held the dirk in her left hand +as she groped with her right. Then, as the man falls back, and his grasp +relaxes, she straightens and attempts to get away. The swaying of the +car throws her almost into your berth, and, trembling with terror, she +crouches behind the curtains of lower ten until everything is still. +Then she goes noiselessly back to her berth." + +I nodded. + +"It seems to fit partly, at least," I said. "In the morning when she +found that the crime had been not only fruitless, but that she had +searched the wrong berth and killed the wrong man; when she saw me +emerge, unhurt, just as she was bracing herself for the discovery of my +dead body, then she went into hysterics. You remember, I gave her some +whisky. + +"It really seems a tenable theory. But, like the Sullivan theory, there +are one or two things that don't agree with the rest. For one thing, how +did the remainder of that chain get into Alison West's possession?" + +"She may have picked it up on the floor." + +"We'll admit that," I said; "and I'm sure I hope so. Then how did the +murdered man's pocket-book get into the sealskin bag? And the dirk, how +account for that, and the blood-stains?" + +"Now what's the use," asked McKnight aggrievedly, "of my building up +beautiful theories for you to pull down? We'll take it to Hotchkiss. +Maybe he can tell from the blood-stains if the murderer's finger nails +were square or pointed." + +"Hotchkiss is no fool," I said warmly. "Under all his theories there's +a good hard layer of common sense. And we must remember, Rich, that +neither of our theories includes the woman at Doctor Van Kirk's +hospital, that the charming picture you have just drawn does not account +for Alison West's connection with the case, or for the bits of telegram +in the Sullivan fellow's pajamas pocket. You are like the man who put +the clock together; you've got half of the works left over." + +"Oh, go home," said McKnight disgustedly. "I'm no Edgar Allan Poe. +What's the use of coming here and asking me things if you're so +particular?" + +With one of his quick changes of mood, he picked up his guitar. + +"Listen to this," he said. "It is a Hawaiian song about a fat lady, oh, +ignorant one! and how she fell off her mule." + +But for all the lightness of the words, the voice that followed me down +the stairs was anything but cheery. + + "There was a Kanaka in Balu did dwell, + Who had for his daughter a monstrous fat girl-- + +he sang in his clear tenor. I paused on the lower floor and listened. He +had stopped singing as abruptly as he had begun. + + + +CHAPTER XXII. AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE + + +I had not been home for thirty-six hours, since the morning of the +preceding day. Johnson was not in sight, and I let myself in quietly +with my latchkey. It was almost midnight, and I had hardly settled +myself in the library when the bell rang and I was surprised to find +Hotchkiss, much out of breath, in the vestibule. + +"Why, come in, Mr. Hotchkiss," I said. "I thought you were going home to +go to bed." + +"So I was, so I was." He dropped into a chair beside my reading lamp and +mopped his face. "And here it is almost midnight, and I'm wider awake +than ever. I've seen Sullivan, Mr. Blakeley." + +"You have!" + +"I have," he said impressively. + +"You were following Bronson at eight o'clock. Was that when it +happened?" + +"Something of the sort. When I left you at the door of the restaurant, I +turned and almost ran into a plain clothes man from the central office. +I know him pretty well; once or twice he has taken me with him on +interesting bits of work. He knows my hobby." + +"You know him, too, probably. It was the man Arnold, the detective whom +the state's attorney has had watching Bronson." + +Johnson being otherwise occupied, I had asked for Arnold myself. + +I nodded. + +"Well, he stopped me at once; said he'd been on the fellow's tracks +since early morning and had had no time for luncheon. Bronson, it seems, +isn't eating much these days. I at once jotted down the fact, because it +argued that he was being bothered by the man with the notes." + +"It might point to other things," I suggested. "Indigestion, you know." + +Hotchkiss ignored me. "Well, Arnold had some reason for thinking that +Bronson would try to give him the slip that night, so he asked me to +stay around the private entrance there while he ran across the Street +and got something to eat. It seemed a fair presumption that, as he had +gone there with a lady, they would dine leisurely, and Arnold would have +plenty of time to get back." + +"What about your own dinner?" I asked curiously. + +"Sir," he said pompously, "I have given you a wrong estimate of Wilson +Budd Hotchkiss if you think that a question of dinner would even obtrude +itself on his mind at such a time as this." + +He was a frail little man, and to-night he looked pale with heat and +over-exertion. + +"Did you have any luncheon?" I asked. + +He was somewhat embarrassed at that. + +"I--really, Mr. Blakeley, the events of the day were so engrossing--" + +"Well," I said, "I'm not going to see you drop on the floor from +exhaustion. Just wait a minute." + +I went back to the pantry, only to be confronted with rows of locked +doors and empty dishes. Downstairs, in the basement kitchen, however, I +found two unattractive looking cold chops, some dry bread and a piece +of cake, wrapped in a napkin, and from its surreptitious and generally +hang-dog appearance, destined for the coachman in the stable at the +rear. Trays there were none--everything but the chairs and tables seemed +under lock and key, and there was neither napkin, knife nor fork to be +found. + +The luncheon was not attractive in appearance, but Hotchkiss ate his +cold chops and gnawed at the crusts as though he had been famished, +while he told his story. + +"I had been there only a few minutes," he said, with a chop in one hand +and the cake in the other, "when Bronson rushed out and cut across the +street. He's a tall man, Mr. Blakeley, and I had had work keeping close. +It was a relief when he jumped on a passing car, although being well +behind, it was a hard run for me to catch him. He had left the lady. + +"Once on the car, we simply rode from one end of the line to the other +and back again. I suppose he was passing the time, for he looked at his +watch now and then, and when I did once get a look at us face it made +me--er--uncomfortable. He could have crushed me like a fly, sir." + +I had brought Mr. Hotchkiss a glass of wine, and he was looking better. +He stopped to finish it, declining with a wave of his hand to have it +refilled, and continued: + +"About nine o'clock or a little later he got off somewhere near +Washington Circle. He went along one of the residence streets there, +turned to his left a square or two, and rang a bell. He had been +admitted when I got there, but I guessed from the appearance of the +place that it was a boarding-house. + +"I waited a few minutes and rang the bell. When a maid answered it, I +asked for Mr. Sullivan. Of course there was no Mr. Sullivan there. + +"I said I was sorry; that the man I was looking for was a new boarder. +She was sure there was no such boarder in the house; the only new +arrival was a man on the third floor--she thought his name was Stuart. + +"'My friend has a cousin by that name,' I said. 'I'll just go up and +see.' + +"She wanted to show me up, but I said it was unnecessary. So after +telling me it was the bedroom and sitting-room on the third floor front, +I went up. + +"I met a couple of men on the stairs, but neither of them paid any +attention to me. A boarding-house is the easiest place in the world to +enter." + +"They're not always so easy to leave," I put in, to his evident +irritation. + +"When I got to the third story, I took out a bunch of keys and posted +myself by a door near the ones the girl had indicated. I could hear +voices in one of the front rooms, but could not understand what they +said. + +"There was no violent dispute, but a steady hum. Then Bronson jerked the +door open. If he had stepped into the hall he would have seen me fitting +a key into the door before me. But he spoke before he came out. + +"'You're acting like a maniac,' he said. 'You know I can get those +things some way; I'm not going to threaten you. It isn't necessary. You +know me.' + +"'It would be no use,' the other man said. 'I tell you, I haven't seen +the notes for ten days.' + +"'But you will,' Bronson said savagely. 'You're standing in your own +way, that's all. If you're holding out expecting me to raise my figure, +you're making a mistake. It's my last offer.' + +"'I couldn't take it if it was for a million,' said the man inside the +room. 'I'd do it, I expect, if I could. The best of us have our price.' + +"Bronson slammed the door then, and flung past me down the hall. + +"After a couple of minutes I knocked at the door, and a tall man about +your size, Mr. Blakeley, opened it. He was very blond, with a smooth +face and blue eyes--what I think you would call a handsome man. + +"'I beg your pardon for disturbing you,' I said. 'Can you tell me which +is Mr. Johnson's room? Mr. Francis Johnson?' + +"'I can not say,' he replied civilly. 'I've only been here a few days.' + +"I thanked him and left, but I had had a good look at him, and I think +I'd know him readily any place." + +I sat for a few minutes thinking it over. "But what did he mean by +saying he hadn't seen the notes for ten days? And why is Bronson making +the overtures?" + +"I think he was lying," Hotchkiss reflected. "Bronson hasn't reached his +figure." + +"It's a big advance, Mr. Hotchkiss, and I appreciate what you have done +more than I can tell you," I said. "And now, if you can locate any of +my property in this fellow's room, we'll send him up for larceny, and at +least have him where we can get at him. I'm going to Cresson to-morrow, +to try to trace him a little from there. But I'll be back in a couple of +days, and we'll begin to gather in these scattered threads." + +Hotchkiss rubbed his hands together delightedly. + +"That's it," he said. "That's what we want to do, Mr. Blakeley. We'll +gather up the threads ourselves; if we let the police in too soon, +they'll tangle it up again. I'm not vindictive by nature; but when a +fellow like Sullivan not only commits a murder, but goes to all sorts +of trouble to put the burden of guilt on an innocent man--I say hunt him +down, sir!" + +"You are convinced, of course, that Sullivan did it?" + +"Who else?" He looked over his glasses at me with the air of a man whose +mental attitude is unassailable. "Well, listen to this," I said. + +Then I told him at length of my encounter with Bronson in the +restaurant, of the bargain proposed by Mrs. Conway, and finally of +McKnight's new theory. But, although he was impressed, he was far from +convinced. + +"It's a very vivid piece of imagination," he said drily; "but while it +fits the evidence as far as it goes, it doesn't go far enough. How about +the stains in lower seven, the dirk, and the wallet? Haven't we even got +motive in that telegram from Bronson?" + +"Yes," I admitted, "but that bit of chain--" + +"Pooh," he said shortly. "Perhaps, like yourself, Sullivan wore glasses +with a chain. Our not finding them does not prove they did not exist." + +And there I made an error; half confidences are always mistakes. I could +not tell of the broken chain in Alison West's gold purse. + +It was one o'clock when Hotchkiss finally left. We had by that time +arranged a definite course of action--Hotchkiss to search Sullivan's +rooms and if possible find evidence to have him held for larceny, while +I went to Cresson. + +Strangely enough, however, when I entered the train the following +morning, Hotchkiss was already there. He had bought a new note-book, and +was sharpening a fresh pencil. + +"I changed my plans, you see," he said, bustling his newspaper aside for +me. "It is no discredit to your intelligence, Mr. Blakeley, but you lack +the professional eye, the analytical mind. You legal gentlemen call a +spade a spade, although it may be a shovel." + + "'A primrose by the river's brim + A yellow primrose was to him, + And nothing more!'" + +I quoted as the train pulled out. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS + + +I slept most of the way to Cresson, to the disgust of the little +detective. Finally he struck up an acquaintance with a kindly-faced old +priest on his way home to his convent school, armed with a roll of dance +music and surreptitious bundles that looked like boxes of candy. +From scraps of conversation I gleaned that there had been mysterious +occurrences at the convent,--ending in the theft of what the reverend +father called vaguely, "a quantity of undermuslins." I dropped asleep at +that point, and when I roused a few moments later, the conversation had +progressed. Hotchkiss had a diagram on an envelope. + +"With this window bolted, and that one inaccessible, and if, as you say, +the--er--garments were in a tub here at X, then, as you hold the key +to the other door,--I think you said the convent dog did not raise any +disturbance? Pardon a personal question, but do you ever walk in your +sleep?" + +The priest looked bewildered. + +"I'll tell you what to do," Hotchkiss said cheerfully, leaning +forward, "look around a little yourself before you call in the police. +Somnambulism is a queer thing. It's a question whether we are most +ourselves sleeping or waking. Ever think of that? Live a saintly life +all day, prayers and matins and all that, and the subconscious mind +hikes you out of bed at night to steal undermuslins! Subliminal theft, +so to speak. Better examine the roof." + +I dozed again. When I wakened Hotchkiss sat alone, and the priest, from +a corner, was staring at him dazedly, over his breviary. + +It was raining when we reached Cresson, a wind-driven rain that had +forced the agent at the newsstand to close himself in, and that beat +back from the rails in parallel lines of white spray. As he went up the +main street, Hotchkiss was cheerfully oblivious of the weather, of +the threatening dusk, of our generally draggled condition. My draggled +condition, I should say, for he improved every moment,--his eyes +brighter, his ruddy face ruddier, his collar newer and glossier. +Sometime, when it does not encircle the little man's neck, I shall test +that collar with a match. + +I was growing steadily more depressed: I loathed my errand and its +necessity. I had always held that a man who played the spy on a woman +was beneath contempt. Then, I admit I was afraid of what I might learn. +For a time, however, this promised to be a negligible quantity. The +streets of the straggling little mountain town had been clean-washed of +humanity by the downpour. Windows and doors were inhospitably shut, and +from around an occasional drawn shade came narrow strips of light that +merely emphasized our gloom. When Hotchkiss' umbrella turned inside out, +I stopped. + +"I don't know where you are going," I snarled, "I don't care. But I'm +going to get under cover inside of ten seconds. I'm not amphibious." + +I ducked into the next shelter, which happened to be the yawning +entrance to a livery stable, and shook myself, dog fashion. Hotchkiss +wiped his collar with his handkerchief. It emerged gleaming and +unwilted. + +"This will do as well as any place," he said, raising his voice above +the rattle of the rain. "Got to make a beginning." + +I sat down on the usual chair without a back, just inside the door, +and stared out at the darkening street. The whole affair had an air of +unreality. Now that I was there, I doubted the necessity, or the value, +of the journey. I was wet and uncomfortable. Around me, with Cresson +as a center, stretched an irregular circumference of mountain, with +possibly a ten-mile radius, and in it I was to find the residence of a +woman whose first name I did not know, and a man who, so far, had been a +purely chimerical person. + +Hotchkiss had penetrated the steaming interior of the cave, and now his +voice, punctuated by the occasional thud of horses' hoofs, came to me. + +"Something light will do," he was saying. "A runabout, perhaps." He came +forward rubbing his hands, followed by a thin man in overalls. "Mr. Peck +says," he began,--"this is Mr. Peck of Peck and Peck,--says that the +place we are looking for is about seven miles from the town. It's +clearing, isn't it?" + +"It is not," I returned savagely. "And we don't want a runabout, Mr. +Peck. What we require is hermetically sealed diving suit. I suppose +there isn't a machine to be had?" Mr. Peck gazed at me, in silence: +machine to him meant other things than motors. "Automobile," I +supplemented. His face cleared. + +"None but private affairs. I can give you a good buggy with a rubber +apron. Mike, is the doctor's horse in?" + +I am still uncertain as to whether the raw-boned roan we took out that +night over the mountains was the doctor's horse or not. If it was, the +doctor may be a good doctor, but he doesn't know anything about a horse. +And furthermore, I hope he didn't need the beast that miserable evening. + +While they harnessed the horse, Hotchkiss told me what he had learned. + +"Six Curtises in the town and vicinity," he said. "Sort of family name +around here. One of them is telegraph operator at the station. Person we +are looking for is--was--a wealthy widow with a brother named Sullivan! +Both supposed to have been killed on the Flier." + +"Her brother," I repeated stupidly. + +"You see," Hotchkiss went on, "three people, in one party, took the +train here that night, Miss West, Mrs. Curtis and Sullivan. The two +women had the drawing-room, Sullivan had lower seven. What we want to +find out is just who these people were, where they came from, if Bronson +knew them, and how Miss West became entangled with them. She may have +married Sullivan, for one thing." + +I fell into gloom after that. The roan was led unwillingly into the +weather, Hotchkiss and I in eclipse behind the blanket. The liveryman +stood in the doorway and called directions to us. "You can't miss it," +he finished. "Got the name over the gate anyhow, 'The Laurels.' The +servants are still there: leastways, we didn't bring them down." He even +took a step into the rain as Hotchkiss picked up the lines. "If you're +going to settle the estate," he bawled, "don't forget us, Peck and Peck. +A half-bushel of name and a bushel of service." + +Hotchkiss could not drive. Born a clerk, he guided the roan much as +he would drive a bad pen. And the roan spattered through puddles and +splashed ink--mud, that is--until I was in a frenzy of irritation. + +"What are we going to say when we get there?" I asked after I had +finally taken the reins in my one useful hand. "Get out there at +midnight and tell the servants we have come to ask a few questions about +the family? It's an idiotic trip anyhow; I wish I had stayed at home." + +The roan fell just then, and we had to crawl out and help him up. By the +time we had partly unharnessed him our matches were gone, and the small +bicycle lamp on the buggy was wavering only too certainly. We were +covered with mud, panting with exertion, and even Hotchkiss showed a +disposition to be surly. The rain, which had lessened for a time, came +on again, the lightning flashes doing more than anything else to reveal +our isolated position. + +Another mile saw us, if possible, more despondent. The water in our +clothes had had time to penetrate: the roan had sprained his shoulder, +and drew us along in a series of convulsive jerks. And then through +the rain-spattered window of the blanket, I saw a light. It was a small +light, rather yellow, and it lasted perhaps thirty seconds. Hotchkiss +missed it, and was inclined to doubt me. But in a couple of minutes the +roan hobbled to the side of the road and stopped, and I made out a break +in the pines and an arched gate. + +It was a small gate, too narrow for the buggy. I pulled the horse into +as much shelter as possible under the trees, and we got out. Hotchkiss +tied the beast and we left him there, head down against the driving +rain, drooping and dejected. Then we went toward the house. + +It was a long walk. The path bent and twisted, and now and then we +lost it. We were climbing as we went. Oddly there were no lights ahead, +although it was only ten o'clock,--not later. Hotchkiss kept a little +ahead of me, knocking into trees now and then, but finding the path in +half the time I should have taken. Once, as I felt my way around a tree +in the blackness, I put my hand unexpectedly on his shoulder, and felt a +shudder go down my back. + +"What do you expect me to do?" he protested, when I remonstrated. "Hang +out a red lantern? What was that? Listen." + +We both stood peering into the gloom. The sharp patter of the rain +on leaves had ceased, and from just ahead there came back to us the +stealthy padding of feet in wet soil. My hand closed on Hotchkiss' +shoulder, and we listened together, warily. The steps were close by, +unmistakable. The next flash of lightning showed nothing moving: the +house was in full view now, dark and uninviting, looming huge above a +terrace, with an Italian garden at the side. Then the blackness again. +Somebody's teeth were chattering: I accused Hotchkiss but he denied it. + +"Although I'm not very comfortable, I'll admit," he confessed; "there +was something breathing right at my elbow here a moment ago." + +"Nonsense!" I took his elbow and steered him in what I made out to be +the direction of the steps of the Italian garden. "I saw a deer just +ahead by the last flash; that's what you heard. By Jove, I hear wheels." + +We paused to listen and Hotchkiss put his hand on something close to us. +"Here's your deer," he said. "Bronze." + +As we neared the house the sense of surveillance we had had in the +park gradually left us. Stumbling over flower beds, running afoul of +a sun-dial, groping our way savagely along hedges and thorny banks, we +reached the steps finally and climbed the terrace. + +It was then that Hotchkiss fell over one of the two stone urns which, +with tall boxwood trees in them, mounted guard at each side of the door. +He didn't make any attempt to get up. He sat in a puddle on the brick +floor of the terrace and clutched his leg and swore softly in Government +English. + +The occasional relief of the lightning was gone. I could not see an +outline of the house before me. We had no matches, and an instant's +investigation showed that the windows were boarded and the house closed. +Hotchkiss, still recumbent, was ascertaining the damage, tenderly +peeling down his stocking. + +"Upon my soul," he said finally, "I don't know whether this moisture is +blood or rain. I think I've broken a bone." + +"Blood is thicker than water," I suggested. "Is it sticky? See if you +can move your toes." + +There was a pause: Hotchkiss moved his toes. By that time I had found a +knocker and was making the night hideous. But there was no response save +the wind that blew sodden leaves derisively in our faces. Once Hotchkiss +declared he heard a window-sash lifted, but renewed violence with the +knocker produced no effect. + +"There's only one thing to do," I said finally. "I'll go back and try to +bring the buggy up for you. You can't walk, can you?" + +Hotchkiss sat back in his puddle and said he didn't think he could stir, +but for me to go back to town and leave him, that he didn't have any +family dependent on him, and that if he was going to have pneumonia he +had probably got it already. I left him there, and started back to get +the horse. + +If possible, it was worse than before. There was no lightning, and only +by a miracle did I find the little gate again. I drew a long breath of +relief, followed by another, equally long, of dismay. For I had found +the hitching strap and there was nothing at the end of it! In a lull of +the wind I seemed to hear, far off, the eager thud of stable-bound feet. +So for the second time I climbed the slope to the Laurels, and on the +way I thought of many things to say. + +I struck the house at a new angle, for I found a veranda, destitute of +chairs and furnishings, but dry and evidently roofed. It was better than +the terrace, and so, by groping along the wall, I tried to make my way +to Hotchkiss. That was how I found the open window. I had passed perhaps +six, all closed, and to have my hand grope for the next one, and to find +instead the soft drapery of an inner curtain, was startling, to say the +least. + +I found Hotchkiss at last around an angle of the stone wall, and told +him that the horse was gone. He was disconcerted, but not abased; +maintaining that it was a new kind of knot that couldn't slip and that +the horse must have chewed the halter through! He was less enthusiastic +than I had expected about the window. + +"It looks uncommonly like a trap," he said. "I tell you there was some +one in the park below when we were coming up. Man has a sixth sense that +scientists ignore--a sense of the nearness of things. And all the time +you have been gone, some one has been watching me." + +"Couldn't see you," I maintained; "I can't see you now. And your sense +of contiguity didn't tell you about that flower crock." + +In the end, of course, he consented to go with me. He was very lame, and +I helped him around to the open window. He was full of moral courage, +the little man: it was only the physical in him that quailed. And as we +groped along, he insisted on going through the window first. + +"If it is a trap," he whispered, "I have two arms to your one, and, +besides, as I said before, life holds much for you. As for me, the +government would merely lose an indifferent employee." + +When he found I was going first he was rather hurt, but I did not wait +for his protests. I swung my feet over the sill and dropped. I made a +clutch at the window-frame with my good hand when I found no floor under +my feet, but I was too late. I dropped probably ten feet and landed with +a crash that seemed to split my ear-drums. I was thoroughly shaken, but +in some miraculous way the bandaged arm had escaped injury. + +"For Heaven's sake," Hotchkiss was calling from above, "have you broken +your back?" + +"No," I returned, as steadily as I could, "merely driven it up through +my skull. This is a staircase. I'm coming up to open another window." + +It was eerie work, but I accomplished it finally, discovering, not +without mishap, a room filled with more tables than I had ever dreamed +of, tables that seemed to waylay and strike at me. When I had got +a window open, Hotchkiss crawled through, and we were at last under +shelter. + +Our first thought was for a light. The same laborious investigation +that had landed us where we were, revealed that the house was lighted +by electricity, and that the plant was not in operation. By accident +I stumbled across a tabouret with smoking materials, and found a half +dozen matches. The first one showed us the magnitude of the room we +stood in, and revealed also a brass candle-stick by the open fireplace, +a candle-stick almost four feet high, supporting a candle of similar +colossal proportions. It was Hotchkiss who discovered that it had been +recently lighted. He held the match to it and peered at it over his +glasses. + +"Within ten minutes," he announced impressively, "this candle has been +burning. Look at the wax! And the wick! Both soft." + +"Perhaps it's the damp weather," I ventured, moving a little nearer to +the circle of light. A gust of wind came in just then, and the flame +turned over on its side and threatened demise. There was something +almost ridiculous in the haste with which we put down the window and +nursed the flicker to life. + +The peculiarly ghost-like appearance of the room added to the +uncanniness of the situation. The furniture was swathed in white covers +for the winter; even the pictures wore shrouds. And in a niche between +two windows a bust on a pedestal, similarly wrapped, one arm extended +under its winding sheet, made a most life-like ghost, if any ghost can +be life-like. + +In the light of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were objects +for mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and preparing to +make himself comfortable, while I hung my muddy raincoat over the ghost +in the corner. Thus habited, he presented a rakish but distinctly more +comfortable appearance. + +"When these people built," Hotchkiss said, surveying the huge dimensions +of the room, "they must have bought a mountain and built all over it. +What a room!" + +It seemed to be a living-room, although Hotchkiss remarked that it +was much more like a dead one. It was probably fifty feet long and +twenty-five feet wide. It was very high, too, with a domed ceiling, +and a gallery ran around the entire room, about fifteen feet above the +floor. The candle light did not penetrate beyond the dim outlines of the +gallery rail, but I fancied the wall there hung with smaller pictures. + +Hotchkiss had discovered a fire laid in the enormous fireplace, and in a +few minutes we were steaming before a cheerful blaze. Within the radius +of its light and heat, we were comfortable again. But the brightness +merely emphasized the gloom of the ghostly corners. We talked in subdued +tones, and I smoked, a box of Russian cigarettes which I found in a +table drawer. We had decided to stay all night, there being nothing else +to do. I suggested a game of double-dummy bridge, but did not urge it +when my companion asked me if it resembled euchre. Gradually, as the +ecclesiastical candle paled in the firelight, we grew drowsy. I drew +a divan into the cheerful area, and stretched myself out for sleep. +Hotchkiss, who said the pain in his leg made him wakeful, sat wide-eyed +by the fire, smoking a pipe. + +I have no idea how much time had passed when something threw itself +violently on my chest. I roused with a start and leaped to my feet, and +a large Angora cat fell with a thump to the floor. The fire was still +bright, and there was an odor of scorched leather through the room, from +Hotchkiss' shoes. The little detective was sound asleep, his dead pipe +in his fingers. The cat sat back on its haunches and wailed. + +The curtain at the door into the hallway bellied slowly out into the +room and fell again. The cat looked toward it and opened its mouth +for another howl. I thrust at it with my foot, but it refused to move. +Hotchkiss stirred uneasily, and his pipe clattered to the floor. + +The cat was standing at my feet, staring behind me. Apparently it was +following with its eyes, an object unseen to me, that moved behind +me. The tip of its tail waved threateningly, but when I wheeled I saw +nothing. + +I took the candle and made a circuit of the room. Behind the curtain +that had moved the door was securely closed. The windows were shut and +locked, and everywhere the silence was absolute. The cat followed me +majestically. I stooped and stroked its head, but it persisted in its +uncanny watching of the corners of the room. + +When I went back to my divan, after putting a fresh log on the fire, I +was reassured. I took the precaution, and smiled at myself for doing it, +to put the fire tongs within reach of my hand. But the cat would not let +me sleep. After a time I decided that it wanted water, and I started +out in search of some, carrying the candle without the stand. I wandered +through several rooms, all closed and dismantled, before I found a small +lavatory opening off a billiard room. The cat lapped steadily, and I +filled a glass to take back with me. The candle flickered in a sickly +fashion that threatened to leave me there lost in the wanderings of the +many hallways, and from somewhere there came an occasional violent puff +of wind. The cat stuck by my feet, with the hair on its back raised +menacingly. I don't like cats; there is something psychic about them. + +Hotchkiss was still asleep when I got back to the big room. I moved his +boots back from the fire, and trimmed the candle. Then, with sleep gone +from me, I lay back on my divan and reflected on many things: on my +idiocy in coming; on Alison West, and the fact that only a week before +she had been a guest in this very house; on Richey and the constraint +that had come between us. From that I drifted back to Alison, and to the +barrier my comparative poverty would be. + +The emptiness, the stillness were oppressive. Once I heard footsteps +coming, rhythmical steps that neither hurried nor dragged, and seemed to +mount endless staircases without coming any closer. I realized finally +that I had not quite turned off the tap, and that the lavatory, which I +had circled to reach, must be quite close. + +The cat lay by the fire, its nose on its folded paws, content in the +warmth and companionship. I watched it idly. Now and then the green +wood hissed in the fire, but the cat never batted an eye. Through an +unshuttered window the lightning flashed. Suddenly the cat looked up. +It lifted its head and stared directly at the gallery above. Then it +blinked, and stared again. I was amused. Not until it had got up on its +feet, eyes still riveted on the balcony, tail waving at the tip, the +hair on its back a bristling brush, did I glance casually over my head. + +From among the shadows a face gazed down at me, a face that seemed a +fitting tenant of the ghostly room below. I saw it as plainly as I might +see my own face in a mirror. While I stared at it with horrified eyes, +the apparition faded. The rail was there, the Bokhara rug still swung +from it, but the gallery was empty. + +The cat threw back its head and wailed. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. HIS WIFE'S FATHER + + +I jumped up and seized the fire tongs. The cat's wail had roused +Hotchkiss, who was wide-awake at once. He took in my offensive attitude, +the tongs, the direction of my gaze, and needed nothing more. As he +picked up the candle and darted out into the hall, I followed him. He +made directly for the staircase, and part way up he turned off to the +right through a small door. We were on the gallery itself; below us the +fire gleamed cheerfully, the cat was not in sight. There was no sign +of my ghostly visitant, but as we stood there the Bokhara rug, without +warning, slid over the railing and fell to the floor below. + +"Man or woman?" Hotchkiss inquired in his most professional tone. + +"Neither--that is, I don't know. I didn't notice anything but the eyes," +I muttered. "They were looking a hole in me. If you'd seen that cat you +would realize my state of mind. That was a traditional graveyard yowl." + +"I don't think you saw anything at all," he lied cheerfully. "You dozed +off, and the rest is the natural result of a meal on a buffet car." + +Nevertheless, he examined the Bokhara carefully when we went down, +and when I finally went to sleep he was reading the only book in +sight--Elwell on Bridge. The first rays of daylight were coming mistily +into the room when he roused me. He had his finger on his lips, and he +whispered sibilantly while I tried to draw on my distorted boots. + +"I think we have him," he said triumphantly. "I've been looking around +some, and I can tell you this much. Just before we came in through the +window last night, another man came. Only--he did not drop, as you +did. He swung over to the stair railing, and then down. The rail is +scratched. He was long enough ahead of us to go into the dining-room +and get a decanter out of the sideboard. He poured out the liquor into +a glass, left the decanter there, and took the whisky into the library +across the hall. Then--he broke into a desk, using a paper knife for a +jimmy." + +"Good Lord, Hotchkiss," I exclaimed; "why, it may have been Sullivan +himself! Confound your theories--he's getting farther away every +minute." + +"It was Sullivan," Hotchkiss returned imperturbably. "And he has not +gone. His boots are by the library fire." + +"He probably had a dozen pairs where he could get them," I scoffed. "And +while you and I sat and slept, the very man we want to get our hands on +leered at us over that railing." + +"Softly, softly, my friend," Hotchkiss said, as I stamped into my other +shoe. "I did not say he was gone. Don't jump at conclusions. It is +fatal to reasoning. As a matter of fact, he didn't relish a night on the +mountains any more than we did. After he had unintentionally frightened +you almost into paralysis, what would my gentleman naturally do? Go out +in the storm again? Not if I know the Alice-sit-by-the-fire type. He +went up-stairs, well up near the roof, locked himself in and went to +bed." + +"And he is there now?" + +"He is there now." + +We had no weapons. I am aware that the traditional hero is always armed, +and that Hotchkiss as the low comedian should have had a revolver that +missed fire. As a fact, we had nothing of the sort. Hotchkiss carried +the fire tongs, but my sense of humor was too strong for me; I declined +the poker. + +"All we want is a little peaceable conversation with him," I demurred. +"We can't brain him first and converse with him afterward. And anyhow, +while I can't put my finger on the place, I think your theory is weak. +If he wouldn't run a hundred miles through fire and water to get away +from us, then he is not the man we want." + +Hotchkiss, however, was certain. He had found the room and listened +outside the door to the sleeper's heavy breathing, and so we climbed +past luxurious suites, revealed in the deepening daylight, past long +vistas of hall and boudoir. And we were both badly winded when we got +there. It was a tower room, reached by narrow stairs, and well above the +roof level. Hotchkiss was glowing. + +"It is partly good luck, but not all," he panted in a whisper. "If we +had persisted in the search last night, he would have taken alarm and +fled. Now--we have him. Are you ready?" + +He gave a mighty rap at the door with the fire tongs, and stood +expectant. Certainly he was right; some one moved within. + +"Hello! Hello there!" Hotchkiss bawled. "You might as well come out. We +won't hurt you, if you'll come peaceably." + +"Tell him we represent the law," I prompted. "That's the customary +thing, you know." + +But at that moment a bullet came squarely through the door and flattened +itself with a sharp pst against the wall of the tower staircase. We +ducked unanimously, dropped back out of range, and Hotchkiss retaliated +with a spirited bang at the door with the tongs. This brought another +bullet. It was a ridiculous situation. Under the circumstances, no +doubt, we should have retired, at least until we had armed ourselves, +but Hotchkiss had no end of fighting spirit, and as for me, my blood was +up. + +"Break the lock," I suggested, and Hotchkiss, standing at the side, out +of range, retaliated for every bullet by a smashing blow with the tongs. +The shots ceased after a half dozen, and the door was giving, slowly. +One of us on each side of the door, we were ready for almost any kind +of desperate resistance. As it swung open Hotchkiss poised the tongs; I +stood, bent forward, my arm drawn back for a blow. + +Nothing happened. + +There was not a sound. Finally, at the risk of losing an eye which I +justly value, I peered around and into the room. There was no desperado +there: only a fresh-faced, trembling-lipped servant, sitting on the edge +of her bed, with a quilt around her shoulders and the empty revolver at +her feet. + +We were victorious, but no conquered army ever beat such a retreat +as ours down the tower stairs and into the refuge of the living-room. +There, with the door closed, sprawled on the divan, I went from one +spasm of mirth into another, becoming sane at intervals, and suffering +relapse again every time I saw Hotchkiss' disgruntled countenance. He +was pacing the room, the tongs still in his hand, his mouth pursed +with irritation. Finally he stopped in front of me and compelled my +attention. + +"When you have finished cackling," he said with dignity, "I wish to +justify my position. Do you think the--er--young woman up-stairs put +a pair of number eight boots to dry in the library last night? Do you +think she poured the whisky out of that decanter?" + +"They have been known to do it," I put in, but his eye silenced me. + +"Moreover, if she had been the person who peered at you over the +gallery railing last night, don't you suppose, with her--er--belligerent +disposition, she could have filled you as full of lead as a window +weight?" + +"I do," I assented. "It wasn't Alice-sit-by-the-fire. I grant you that. +Then who was it?" + +Hotchkiss felt certain that it had been Sullivan, but I was not so sure. +Why would he have crawled like a thief into his own house? If he had +crossed the park, as seemed probable, when we did, he had not made any +attempt to use the knocker. I gave it up finally, and made an effort to +conciliate the young woman in the tower. + +We had heard no sound since our spectacular entrance into her room. I +was distinctly uncomfortable as, alone this time, I climbed to the tower +staircase. Reasoning from before, she would probably throw a chair at +me. I stopped at the foot of the staircase and called. + +"Hello up there," I said, in as debonair a manner as I could summon. +"Good morning. Wie geht es bei ihen?" + +No reply. + +"Bon jour, mademoiselle," I tried again. This time there was a movement +of some sort from above, but nothing fell on me. + +"I--we want to apologize for rousing you so--er--unexpectedly this +morning," I went on. "The fact is, we wanted to talk to you, and +you--you were hard to waken. We are travelers, lost in your mountains, +and we crave a breakfast and an audience." + +She came to the door then. I could feel that she was investigating the +top of my head from above. "Is Mr. Sullivan with you?" she asked. It was +the first word from her, and she was not sure of her voice. + +"No. We are alone. If you will come down and look at us you will find +us two perfectly harmless people, whose horse--curses on him--departed +without leave last night and left us at your gate." + +She relaxed somewhat then and came down a step or two. "I was afraid I +had killed somebody," she said. "The housekeeper left yesterday, and the +other maids went with her." + +When she saw that I was comparatively young and lacked the earmarks of +the highwayman, she was greatly relieved. She was inclined to fight shy +of Hotchkiss, however, for some reason. She gave us a breakfast of a +sort, for there was little in the house, and afterward we telephoned to +the town for a vehicle. While Hotchkiss examined scratches and replaced +the Bokhara rug, I engaged Jennie in conversation. + +"Can you tell me," I asked, "who is managing the estate since Mrs. +Curtis was killed?" + +"No one," she returned shortly. + +"Has--any member of the family been here since the accident?" + +"No, sir. There was only the two, and some think Mr. Sullivan was killed +as well as his sister." + +"You don't?" + +"No," with conviction. + +"Why?" + +She wheeled on me with quick suspicion. + +"Are you a detective?" she demanded. + +"No." + +"You told him to say you represented the law." + +"I am a lawyer. Some of them misrepresent the law, but I--" + +She broke in impatiently. + +"A sheriff's officer?" + +"No. Look here, Jennie; I am all that I should be. You'll have to +believe that. And I'm in a bad position through no fault of my own. I +want you to answer some questions. If you will help me, I will do what I +can for you. Do you live near here?" + +Her chin quivered. It was the first sign of weakness she had shown. + +"My home is in Pittsburg," she said, "and I haven't enough money to +get there. They hadn't paid any wages for two months. They didn't pay +anybody." + +"Very well," I returned. "I'll send you back to Pittsburg, Pullman +included, if you will tell me some things I want to know." + +She agreed eagerly. Outside the window Hotchkiss was bending over, +examining footprints in the drive. + +"Now," I began, "there has been a Miss West staying here?" + +"Yes." + +"Mr. Sullivan was attentive to her?" + +"Yes. She was the granddaughter of a wealthy man in Pittsburg. My aunt +has been in his family for twenty years. Mrs. Curtis wanted her brother +to marry Miss West." + +"Do you think he did marry her?" I could not keep the excitement out of +my voice. + +"No. There were reasons"--she stopped abruptly. + +"Do you know anything of the family? Are they--were they New Yorkers?" + +"They came from somewhere in the south. I have heard Mrs. Curtis say her +mother was a Cuban. I don't know much about them, but Mr. Sullivan had +a wicked temper, though he didn't look it. Folks say big, light-haired +people are easy going, but I don't believe it, sir." + +"How long was Miss West here?" + +"Two weeks." + +I hesitated about further questioning. Critical as my position was, I +could not pry deeper into Alison West's affairs. If she had got into the +hands of adventurers, as Sullivan and his sister appeared to have been, +she was safely away from them again. But something of the situation +in the car Ontario was forming itself in my mind: the incident at the +farmhouse lacked only motive to be complete. Was Sullivan, after all, a +rascal or a criminal? Was the murderer Sullivan or Mrs. Conway? The lady +or the tiger again. + +Jennie was speaking. + +"I hope Miss West was not hurt?" she asked. "We liked her, all of us. +She was not like Mrs. Curtis." + +I wanted to say that she was not like anybody in the world. +Instead--"She escaped with some bruises," I said. + +She glanced at my arm. "You were on the train?" + +"Yes." + +She waited for more questions, but none coming, she went to the door. +Then she closed it softly and came back. + +"Mrs. Curtis is dead? You are sure of it?" she asked. + +"She was killed instantly, I believe. The body was not recovered. But I +have reasons for believing that Mr. Sullivan is living." + +"I knew it," she said. "I--I think he was here the night before last. +That is why I went to the tower room. I believe he would kill me if +he could." As nearly as her round and comely face could express +it, Jennie's expression was tragic at that moment. I made a quick +resolution, and acted on it at once. + +"You are not entirely frank with me, Jennie," I protested. "And I am +going to tell you more than I have. We are talking at cross purposes." + +"I was on the wrecked train, in the same car with Mrs. Curtis, Miss West +and Mr. Sullivan. During the night there was a crime committed in that +car and Mr. Sullivan disappeared. But he left behind him a chain of +circumstantial evidence that involved me completely, so that I may, at +any time, be arrested." + +Apparently she did not comprehend for a moment. Then, as if the meaning +of my words had just dawned on her, she looked up and gasped: + +"You mean--Mr. Sullivan committed the crime himself?" + +"I think he did." + +"What was it?" + +"It was murder," I said deliberately. + +Her hands clenched involuntarily, and she shrank back. "A woman?" She +could scarcely form her words. + +"No, a man; a Mr. Simon Harrington, of Pittsburg." + +Her effort to retain her self-control was pitiful. Then she broke down +and cried, her head on the back of a tall chair. + +"It was my fault," she said wretchedly, "my fault, I should not have +sent them the word." + +After a few minutes she grew quiet. She seemed to hesitate over +something, and finally determined to say it. + +"You will understand better, sir, when I say that I was raised in the +Harrington family. Mr. Harrington was Mr. Sullivan's wife's father!" + + + +CHAPTER XXV. AT THE STATION + + +So it had been the tiger, not the lady! Well, I had held to that theory +all through. Jennie suddenly became a valuable person; if necessary she +could prove the connection between Sullivan and the murdered man, and +show a motive for the crime. I was triumphant when Hotchkiss came in. +When the girl had produced a photograph of Mrs. Sullivan, and I had +recognized the bronze-haired girl of the train, we were both well +satisfied--which goes to prove the ephemeral nature of most human +contentments. + +Jennie either had nothing more to say, or feared she had said too much. +She was evidently uneasy before Hotchkiss. I told her that Mrs. Sullivan +was recovering in a Baltimore hospital, but she already knew it, from +some source, and merely nodded. She made a few preparations for leaving, +while Hotchkiss and I compared notes, and then, with the cat in her +arms, she climbed into the trap from the town. I sat with her, and on +the way down she told me a little, not much. + +"If you see Mrs. Sullivan," she advised, "and she is conscious, she +probably thinks that both her husband and her father were killed in the +wreck. She will be in a bad way, sir." + +"You mean that she--still cares about her husband?" + +The cat crawled over on to my knee, and rubbed its head against my hand +invitingly. Jennie stared at the undulating line of the mountain crests, +a colossal sun against a blue ocean of sky. "Yes, she cares," she said +softly. "Women are made like that. They say they are cats, but Peter +there in your lap wouldn't come back and lick your hand if you kicked +him. If--if you have to tell her the truth, be as gentle as you can, +sir. She has been good to me--that's why I have played the spy here all +summer. It's a thankless thing, spying on people." + +"It is that," I agreed soberly. + +Hotchkiss and I arrived in Washington late that evening, and, rather +than arouse the household, I went to the club. I was at the office early +the next morning and admitted myself. McKnight rarely appeared before +half after ten, and our modest office force some time after nine. I +looked over my previous day's mail and waited, with such patience as I +possessed, for McKnight. In the interval I called up Mrs. Klopton +and announced that I would dine at home that night. What my household +subsists on during my numerous absences I have never discovered. Tea, +probably, and crackers. Diligent search when I have made a midnight +arrival, never reveals anything more substantial. Possibly I imagine it, +but the announcement that I am about to make a journey always seems +to create a general atmosphere of depression throughout the house, +as though Euphemia and Eliza, and Thomas, the stableman, were already +subsisting, in imagination, on Mrs. Klopton's meager fare. + +So I called her up and announced my arrival. There was something unusual +in her tone, as though her throat was tense with indignation. Always +shrill, her elderly voice rasped my ear painfully through the receiver. + +"I have changed the butcher, Mr. Lawrence," she announced portentously. +"The last roast was a pound short, and his mutton-chops--any +self-respecting sheep would refuse to acknowledge them." + +As I said before, I can always tell from the voice in which Mrs. Klopton +conveys the most indifferent matters, if something of real significance +has occurred. Also, through long habit, I have learned how quickest to +bring her to the point. + +"You are pessimistic this morning," I returned. "What's the matter, Mrs. +Klopton? You haven't used that tone since Euphemia baked a pie for the +iceman. What is it now? Somebody poison the dog?" + +She cleared her throat. + +"The house has been broken into, Mr. Lawrence," she said. "I have lived +in the best families, and never have I stood by and seen what I +saw yesterday--every bureau drawer opened, and my--my most sacred +belongings--" she choked. + +"Did you notify the police?" I asked sharply. + +"Police!" she sniffed. "Police! It was the police that did it--two +detectives with a search warrant. I--I wouldn't dare tell you over the +telephone what one of them said when he found the whisky and rock candy +for my cough." + +"Did they take anything?" I demanded, every nerve on edge. + +"They took the cough medicine," she returned indignantly, "and they +said--" + +"Confound the cough medicine!" I was frantic. "Did they take anything +else? Were they in my dressing-room?" + +"Yes. I threatened to sue them, and I told them what you would do when +you came back. But they wouldn't listen. They took away that black +sealskin bag you brought home from Pittsburg with you!" + +I knew then that my hours of freedom were numbered. To have found +Sullivan and then, in support of my case against him, to have produced +the bag, minus the bit of chain, had been my intention. But the police +had the bag, and, beyond knowing something of Sullivan's history, I was +practically no nearer his discovery than before. Hotchkiss hoped he had +his man in the house off Washington Circle, but on the very night he had +seen him Jennie claimed that Sullivan had tried to enter the Laurels. +Then--suppose we found Sullivan and proved the satchel and its contents +his? Since the police had the bit of chain it might mean involving +Alison in the story. I sat down and buried my face in my hands. There +was no escape. I figured it out despondingly. + +Against me was the evidence of the survivors of the Ontario that I had +been accused of the murder at the time. There had been blood-stains on +my pillow and a hidden dagger. Into the bargain, in my possession had +been found a traveling-bag containing the dead man's pocket-book. + +In my favor was McKnight's theory against Mrs. Conway. She had a motive +for wishing to secure the notes, she believed I was in lower ten, and +she had collapsed at the discovery of the crime in the morning. + +Against both of these theories, I accuse a purely chimerical person +named Sullivan, who was not seen by any of the survivors--save one, +Alison, whom I could not bring into the case. I could find a motive for +his murdering his father-in-law, whom he hated, but again--I would have +to drag in the girl. + +And not one of the theories explained the telegram and the broken +necklace. + +Outside the office force was arriving. They were comfortably ignorant +of my presence, and over the transom floated scraps of dialogue and the +stenographer's gurgling laugh. McKnight had a relative, who was reading +law with him, in the intervals between calling up the young women of his +acquaintance. He came in singing, and the office boy joined in with the +uncertainty of voice of fifteen. I smiled grimly. I was too busy with my +own troubles to find any joy in opening the door and startling them into +silence. I even heard, without resentment, Blobs of the uncertain voice +inquire when "Blake" would be back. + +I hoped McKnight would arrive before the arrest occurred. There were +many things to arrange. But when at last, impatient of his delay, I +telephoned, I found he had been gone for more than an hour. Clearly he +was not coming directly to the office, and with such resignation as I +could muster I paced the floor and waited. + +I felt more alone than I have ever felt in my life. "Born an orphan," +as Richey said, I had made my own way, carved out myself such success as +had been mine. I had built up my house of life on the props of law and +order, and now some unknown hand had withdrawn the supports, and I stood +among ruins. + +I suppose it is the maternal in a woman that makes a man turn to her +when everything else fails. The eternal boy in him goes to have his +wounded pride bandaged, his tattered self-respect repaired. If he loves +the woman, he wants her to kiss the hurt. + +The longing to see Alison, always with me, was stronger than I was that +morning. It might be that I would not see her again. I had nothing to +say to her save one thing, and that, under the cloud that hung over me, +I did not dare to say. But I wanted to see her, to touch her hand--as +only a lonely man can crave it, I wanted the comfort of her, the peace +that lay in her presence. And so, with every step outside the door a +threat, I telephoned to her. + +She was gone! The disappointment was great, for my need was great. In +a fury of revolt against the scheme of things, I heard that she had +started home to Richmond--but that she might still be caught at the +station. + +To see her had by that time become an obsession. I picked up my hat, +threw open the door, and, oblivious of the shock to the office force +of my presence, followed so immediately by my exit, I dashed out to the +elevator. As I went down in one cage I caught a glimpse of Johnson and +two other men going up in the next. I hardly gave them a thought. There +was no hansom in sight, and I jumped on a passing car. Let come what +might, arrest, prison, disgrace, I was going to see Alison. + +I saw her. I flung into the station, saw that it was empty--empty, for +she was not there. Then I hurried back to the gates. She was there, a +familiar figure in blue, the very gown in which I always thought of +her, the one she had worn when, Heaven help me--I had kissed her, at the +Carter farm. And she was not alone. Bending over her, talking earnestly, +with all his boyish heart in his face, was Richey. + +They did not see me, and I was glad of it. After all, it had been +McKnight's game first. I turned on my heel and made my way blindly out +of the station. Before I lost them I turned once and looked toward them, +standing apart from the crowd, absorbed in each other. They were the +only two people on earth that I cared about, and I left them there +together. Then I went back miserably to the office and awaited arrest. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. ON TO RICHMOND + + +Strangely enough, I was not disturbed that day. McKnight did not appear +at all. I sat at my desk and transacted routine business all afternoon, +working with feverish energy. Like a man on the verge of a critical +illness or a hazardous journey, I cleared up my correspondence, paid +bills until I had writer's cramp from signing checks, read over my will, +and paid up my life insurance, made to the benefit of an elderly sister +of my mother's. I no longer dreaded arrest. After that morning in the +station, I felt that anything would be a relief from the tension. I +went home with perfect openness, courting the warrant that I knew was +waiting, but I was not molested. The delay puzzled me. The early part of +the evening was uneventful. I read until late, with occasional lapses, +when my book lay at my elbow, and I smoked and thought. Mrs. Klopton +closed the house with ostentatious caution, about eleven, and hung +around waiting to enlarge on the outrageousness of the police search. I +did not encourage her. + +"One would think," she concluded pompously, one foot in the hall, "that +you were something you oughtn't to be, Mr. Lawrence. They acted as +though you had committed a crime." + +"I'm not sure that I didn't, Mrs. Klopton," I said wearily. "Somebody +did, the general verdict seems to point my way." + +She stared at me in speechless indignation. Then she flounced out. She +came back once to say that the paper predicted cooler weather, and that +she had put a blanket on my bed, but, to her disappointment, I refused +to reopen the subject. + +At half past eleven McKnight and Hotchkiss came in. Richey has a habit +of stopping his car in front of the house and honking until some +one comes out. He has a code of signals with the horn, which I never +remember. Two long and a short blast mean, I believe, "Send out a box of +cigarettes," and six short blasts, which sound like a police call, mean +"Can you lend me some money?" To-night I knew something was up, for he +got out and rang the door-bell like a Christian. + +They came into the library, and Hotchkiss wiped his collar until it +gleamed. McKnight was aggressively cheerful. + +"Not pinched yet!" he exclaimed. "What do you think of that for luck! +You always were a fortunate devil, Lawrence." + +"Yes," I assented, with some bitterness, "I hardly know how to contain +myself for joy sometimes. I suppose you know"--to Hotchkiss--"that the +police were here while we were at Cresson, and that they found the bag +that I brought from the wreck?" + +"Things are coming to a head," he said thoughtfully "unless a little +plan that I have in mind--" he hesitated. + +"I hope so; I am pretty nearly desperate," I said doggedly. "I've got a +mental toothache, and the sooner it's pulled the better." + +"Tut, tut," said McKnight, "think of the disgrace to the firm if its +senior member goes up for life, or--" he twisted his handkerchief into a +noose, and went through an elaborate pantomime. + +"Although jail isn't so bad, anyhow," he finished, "there are fellows +that get the habit and keep going back and going back." He looked at +his watch, and I fancied his cheerfulness was strained. Hotchkiss was +nervously fumbling my book. + +"Did you ever read The Purloined Letter, Mr. Blakeley?" he inquired. + +"Probably, years ago," I said. "Poe, isn't it?" + +He was choked at my indifference. "It is a masterpiece," he said, with +enthusiasm. "I re-read it to-day." + +"And what happened?" + +"Then I inspected the rooms in the house off Washington Circle. I--I +made some discoveries, Mr. Blakeley. For one thing, our man there is +left-handed." He looked around for our approval. "There was a small +cushion on the dresser, and the scarf pins in it had been stuck in with +the left hand." + +"Somebody may have twisted the cushion," I objected, but he looked hurt, +and I desisted. + +"There is only one discrepancy," he admitted, "but it troubles me. +According to Mrs. Carter, at the farmhouse, our man wore gaudy pajamas, +while I found here only the most severely plain night-shirts." + +"Any buttons off?" McKnight inquired, looking again at his watch. + +"The buttons were there," the amateur detective answered gravely, "but +the buttonhole next the top one was torn through." + +McKnight winked at me furtively. + +"I am convinced of one thing," Hotchkiss went on, clearing his throat, +"the papers are not in that room. Either he carries them with him, or he +has sold them." + +A sound on the street made both my visitors listen sharply. Whatever it +was it passed on, however. I was growing curious and the restraint was +telling on McKnight. He has no talent for secrecy. In the interval +we discussed the strange occurrence at Cresson, which lost nothing by +Hotchkiss' dry narration. + +"And so," he concluded, "the woman in the Baltimore hospital is the wife +of Henry Sullivan and the daughter of the man he murdered. No wonder he +collapsed when he heard of the wreck." + +"Joy, probably," McKnight put in. "Is that clock right, Lawrence? Never +mind, it doesn't matter. By the way, Mrs. Conway dropped in the office +yesterday, while you were away." + +"What!" I sprang from my chair. + +"Sure thing. Said she had heard great things of us, and wanted us to +handle her case against the railroad." + +"I would like to know what she is driving at," I reflected. "Is she +trying to reach me through you?" + +Richey's flippancy is often a cloak for deeper feeling. He dropped it +now. "Yes," he said, "she's after the notes, of course. And I'll tell +you I felt like a poltroon--whatever that may be--when I turned +her down. She stood by the door with her face white, and told me +contemptuously that I could save you from a murder charge and wouldn't +do it. She made me feel like a cur. I was just as guilty as if I could +have obliged her. She hinted that there were reasons and she laid my +attitude to beastly motives." + +"Nonsense," I said, as easily as I could. Hotchkiss had gone to the +window. "She was excited. There are no 'reasons,' whatever she means." + +Richey put his hand on my shoulder. "We've been together too long to +let any 'reasons' or 'unreasons' come between us, old man," he said, not +very steadily. Hotchkiss, who had been silent, here came forward in +his most impressive manner. He put his hands under his coat-tails and +coughed. + +"Mr. Blakeley," he began, "by Mr. McKnight's advice we have arranged a +little interview here to-night. If all has gone as I planned, Mr. +Henry Pinckney Sullivan is by this time under arrest. Within a very few +minutes--he will be here." + +"I wanted to talk to him before he was locked up," Richey explained. +"He's clever enough to be worth knowing, and, besides, I'm not so +cocksure of his guilt as our friend the Patch on the Seat of Government. +No murderer worthy of the name needs six different motives for the +same crime, beginning with robbery, and ending with an unpleasant +father-in-law." + +We were all silent for a while. McKnight stationed himself at a window, +and Hotchkiss paced the floor expectantly. "It's a great day for modern +detective methods," he chirruped. "While the police have been guarding +houses and standing with their mouths open waiting for clues to fall in +and choke them, we have pieced together, bit by bit, a fabric--" + +The door-bell rang, followed immediately by sounds of footsteps in the +hall. McKnight threw the door open, and Hotchkiss, raised on his toes, +flung out his arm in a gesture of superb eloquence. + +"Behold--your man!" he declaimed. + +Through the open doorway came a tall, blond fellow, clad in light gray, +wearing tan shoes, and followed closely by an officer. + +"I brought him here as you suggested, Mr. McKnight," said the constable. + +But McKnight was doubled over the library table in silent convulsions of +mirth, and I was almost as bad. Little Hotchkiss stood up, his important +attitude finally changing to one of chagrin, while the blond man ceased +to look angry, and became sheepish. + +It was Stuart, our confidential clerk for the last half dozen years! + +McKnight sat up and wiped his eyes. + +"Stuart," he said sternly, "there are two very serious things we have +learned about you. First, you jab your scarf pins into your cushion +with your left hand, which is most reprehensible; second, you +wear--er--night-shirts, instead of pajamas. Worse than that, perhaps, we +find that one of them has a buttonhole torn out at the neck." + +Stuart was bewildered. He looked from McKnight to me, and then at the +crestfallen Hotchkiss. + +"I haven't any idea what it's all about," he said. "I was arrested as +I reached my boarding-house to-night, after the theater, and brought +directly here. I told the officer it was a mistake." + +Poor Hotchkiss tried bravely to justify the fiasco. "You can not deny," +he contended, "that Mr. Andrew Bronson followed you to your rooms last +Monday evening." + +Stuart looked at us and flushed. + +"No, I don't deny it," he said, "but there was nothing criminal about +it, on my part, at least. Mr. Bronson has been trying to induce me to +secure the forged notes for him. But I did not even know where they +were." + +"And you were not on the wrecked Washington Flier?" persisted Hotchkiss. +But McKnight interfered. + +"There is no use trying to put the other man's identity on Stuart, Mr. +Hotchkiss," he protested. "He has been our confidential clerk for six +years, and has not been away from the office a day for a year. I am +afraid that the beautiful fabric we have pieced out of all these scraps +is going to be a crazy quilt." His tone was facetious, but I could +detect the undercurrent of real disappointment. + +I paid the constable for his trouble, and he departed. Stuart, still +indignant, left to go back to Washington Circle. He shook hands with +McKnight and myself magnanimously, but he hurled a look of utter hatred +at Hotchkiss, sunk crestfallen in his chair. + +"As far as I can see," said McKnight dryly, "we're exactly as far along +as we were the day we met at the Carter place. We're not a step nearer +to finding our man." + +"We have one thing that may be of value," I suggested. "He is the +husband of a bronze-haired woman at Van Kirk's hospital, and it is just +possible we may trace him through her. I hope we are not going to lose +your valuable co-operation, Mr. Hotchkiss?" I asked. + +He roused at that to feeble interest, "I--oh, of course not, if you +still care to have me, I--I was wondering about--the man who just went +out, Stuart, you say? I--told his landlady to-night that he wouldn't +need the room again. I hope she hasn't rented it to somebody else." + +We cheered him as best we could, and I suggested that we go to Baltimore +the next day and try to find the real Sullivan through his wife. He left +sometime after midnight, and Richey and I were alone. + +He drew a chair near the lamp and lighted a cigarette, and for a time we +were silent. I was in the shadow, and I sat back and watched him. It +was not surprising, I thought, that she cared for him: women had always +loved him, perhaps because he always loved them. There was no disloyalty +in the thought: it was the lad's nature to give and crave affection. +Only--I was different. I had never really cared about a girl before, +and my life had been singularly loveless. I had fought a lonely battle +always. Once before, in college, we had both laid ourselves and our +callow devotions at the feet of the same girl. Her name was Dorothy--I +had forgotten the rest--but I remembered the sequel. In a spirit of +quixotic youth I had relinquished my claim in favor of Richey and had +gone cheerfully on my way, elevated by my heroic sacrifice to a somber, +white-hot martyrdom. As is often the case, McKnight's first words showed +our parallel lines of thought. + +"I say, Lollie," he asked, "do you remember Dorothy Browne?" Browne, +that was it! + +"Dorothy Browne?" I repeated. "Oh--why yes, I recall her now. Why?" + +"Nothing," he said. "I was thinking about her. That's all. You remember +you were crazy about her, and dropped back because she preferred me." + +"I got out," I said with dignity, "because you declared you would shoot +yourself if she didn't go with you to something or other!" + +"Oh, why yes, I recall now!" he mimicked. He tossed his cigarette in +the general direction of the hearth and got up. We were both a little +conscious, and he stood with his back to me, fingering a Japanese vase +on the mantel. + +"I was thinking," he began, turning the vase around, "that, if you feel +pretty well again, and--and ready to take hold, that I should like to go +away for a week or so. Things are fairly well cleaned up at the office." + +"Do you mean--you are going to Richmond?" I asked, after a scarcely +perceptible pause. He turned and faced me, with his hands thrust in his +pockets. + +"No. That's off, Lollie. The Sieberts are going for a week's cruise +along the coast. I--the hot weather has played hob with me and the +cruise means seven days' breeze and bridge." + +I lighted a cigarette and offered him the box, but he refused. He was +looking haggard and suddenly tired. I could not think of anything to +say, and neither could he, evidently. The matter between us lay too deep +for speech. + +"How's Candida?" he asked. + +"Martin says a month, and she will be all right," I returned, in the +same tone. He picked up his hat, but he had something more to say. He +blurted it out, finally, half way to the door. + +"The Seiberts are not going for a couple of days," he said, "and if you +want a day or so off to go down to Richmond yourself--" + +"Perhaps I shall," I returned, as indifferently as I could. "Not going +yet, are you?" + +"Yes. It is late." He drew in his breath as if he had something more +to say, but the impulse passed. "Well, good night," he said from the +doorway. + +"Good night, old man." + +The next moment the outer door slammed and I heard the engine of the +Cannonball throbbing in the street. Then the quiet settled down around +me again, and there in the lamplight I dreamed dreams. I was going to +see her. + +Suddenly the idea of being shut away, even temporarily, from so great +and wonderful a world became intolerable. The possibility of arrest +before I could get to Richmond was hideous, the night without end. + +I made my escape the next morning through the stable back of the house, +and then, by devious dark and winding ways, to the office. There, after +a conference with Blobs, whose features fairly jerked with excitement, +I double-locked the door of my private office and finished off some +imperative work. By ten o'clock I was free, and for the twentieth time +I consulted my train schedule. At five minutes after ten, with McKnight +not yet in sight, Blobs knocked at the door, the double rap we had +agreed upon, and on being admitted slipped in and quietly closed the +door behind him. His eyes were glistening with excitement, and a purple +dab of typewriter ink gave him a peculiarly villainous and stealthy +expression. + +"They're here," he said, "two of 'em, and that crazy Stuart wasn't on, +and said you were somewhere in the building." + +A door slammed outside, followed by steps on the uncarpeted outer +office. + +"This way," said Blobs, in a husky undertone, and, darting into a +lavatory, threw open a door that I had always supposed locked. Thence +into a back hall piled high with boxes and past the presses of a +bookbindery to the freight elevator. + +Greatly to Blobs' disappointment, there was no pursuit. I was +exhilarated but out of breath when we emerged into an alleyway, and the +sharp daylight shone on Blobs' excited face. + +"Great sport, isn't it?" I panted, dropping a dollar into his +palm, inked to correspond with his face. "Regular walk-away in the +hundred-yard dash." + +"Gimme two dollars more and I'll drop 'em down the elevator shaft," he +suggested ferociously. I left him there with his blood-thirsty schemes, +and started for the station. I had a tendency to look behind me now and +then, but I reached the station unnoticed. The afternoon was hot, the +train rolled slowly along, stopping to pant at sweltering stations, +from whose roofs the heat rose in waves. But I noticed these things +objectively, not subjectively, for at the end of the journey was a girl +with blue eyes and dark brown hair, hair that could--had I not seen +it?--hang loose in bewitching tangles or be twisted into little coils of +delight. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS + + +I telephoned as soon as I reached my hotel, and I had not known how much +I had hoped from seeing her until I learned that she was out of town. I +hung up the receiver, almost dizzy with disappointment, and it was fully +five minutes before I thought of calling up again and asking if she was +within telephone reach. It seemed she was down on the bay staying with +the Samuel Forbeses. + +Sammy Forbes! It was a name to conjure with just then. In the old days +at college I had rather flouted him, but now I was ready to take him to +my heart. I remembered that he had always meant well, anyhow, and that +he was explosively generous. I called him up. + +"By the fumes of gasoline!" he said, when I told him who I was. +"Blakeley, the Fount of Wisdom against Woman! Blakeley, the Great +Unkissed! Welcome to our city!" + +Whereupon he proceeded to urge me to come down to the Shack, and to say +that I was an agreeable surprise, because four times in two hours +youths had called up to ask if Alison West was stopping with him, and +to suggest that they had a vacant day or two. "Oh--Miss West!" I shouted +politely. There was a buzzing on the line. "Is she there?" Sam had no +suspicions. Was not I in his mind always the Great Unkissed?--which +sounds like the Great Unwashed and is even more of a reproach. He asked +me down promptly, as I had hoped, and thrust aside my objections. + +"Nonsense," he said. "Bring yourself. The lady that keeps my +boarding-house is calling to me to insist. You remember Dorothy, don't +you, Dorothy Browne? She says unless you have lost your figure you +can wear my clothes all right. All you need here is a bathing suit for +daytime and a dinner coat for evening." + +"It sounds cool," I temporized. "If you are sure I won't put you +out--very well, Sam, since you and your wife are good enough. I have a +couple of days free. Give my love to Dorothy until I can do it myself." + +Sam met me himself and drove me out to the Shack, which proved to be a +substantial house overlooking the water. On the way he confided to me +that lots of married men thought they were contented when they were +merely resigned, but that it was the only life, and that Sam, Junior, +could swim like a duck. Incidentally, he said that Alison was his wife's +cousin, their respective grandmothers having, at proper intervals, +married the same man, and that Alison would lose her good looks if she +was not careful. + +"I say she's worried, and I stick to it," he said, as he threw the lines +to a groom and prepared to get out. "You know her, and she's the kind +of girl you think you can read like a book. But you can't; don't fool +yourself. Take a good look at her at dinner, Blake; you won't lose your +head like the other fellows--and then tell me what's wrong with her. +We're mighty fond of Allie." + +He went ponderously up the steps, for Sam had put on weight since I knew +him. At the door he turned around. "Do you happen to know the MacLures +at Seal Harbor?" he asked irrelevantly, but Mrs. Sam came into the hall +just then, both hands out to greet me, and, whatever Forbes had meant to +say, he did not pick up the subject again. + +"We are having tea in here," Dorothy said gaily, indicating the door +behind her. "Tea by courtesy, because I think tea is the only beverage +that isn't represented. And then we must dress, for this is hop night at +the club." + +"Which is as great a misnomer as the tea," Sam put in, ponderously +struggling out of his linen driving coat. "It's bridge night, and the +only hops are in the beer." + +He was still gurgling over this as he took me upstairs. He showed me my +room himself, and then began the fruitless search for evening raiment +that kept me home that night from the club. For I couldn't wear Sam's +clothes. That was clear, after a perspiring seance of a half hour. + +"I won't do it, Sam," I said, when I had draped his dress-coat on me +toga fashion. "Who am I to have clothing to spare, like this, when many +a poor chap hasn't even a cellar door to cover him. I won't do it; I'm +selfish, but not that selfish." + +"Lord," he said, wiping his face, "how you've kept your figure! I can't +wear a belt any more; got to have suspenders." + +He reflected over his grievance for some time, sitting on the side of +the bed. "You could go as you are," he said finally. "We do it all the +time, only to-night happens to be the annual something or other, and--" +he trailed off into silence, trying to buckle my belt around him. "A +good six inches," he sighed. "I never get into a hansom cab any more +that I don't expect to see the horse fly up into the air. Well, +Allie isn't going either. She turned down Granger this afternoon, the +Annapolis fellow you met on the stairs, pigeon-breasted chap--and she +always gets a headache on those occasions." + +He got up heavily and went to the door. "Granger is leaving," he said, +"I may be able to get his dinner coat for you. How well do you know +her?" he asked, with his hand on the knob. + +"If you mean Dolly--?" + +"Alison." + +"Fairly well," I said cautiously. "Not as well as I would like to. I +dined with her last week in Washington. And--I knew her before that." + +Forbes touched the bell instead of going out, and told the servant who +answered to see if Mr. Granger's suitcase had gone. If not, to bring it +across the hall. Then he came back to his former position on the bed. + +"You see, we feel responsible for Allie--near relation and all that," he +began pompously. "And we can't talk to the people here at the +house--all the men are in love with her, and all the women are jealous. +Then--there's a lot of money, too, or will be." + +"Confound the money!" I muttered. "That is--nothing. Razor slipped." + +"I can tell you," he went on, "because you don't lose your head over +every pretty face--although Allie is more than that, of course. But +about a month ago she went away--to Seal Harbor, to visit Janet MacLure. +Know her?" + +"She came home to Richmond yesterday, and then came down here--Allie, I +mean. And yesterday afternoon Dolly had a letter from Janet--something +about a second man--and saying she was disappointed not to have had +Alison there, that she had promised them a two weeks' visit! What do +you make of that? And that isn't the worst. Allie herself wasn't in +the room, but there were eight other women, and because Dolly had put +belladonna in her eyes the night before to see how she would look, and +as a result couldn't see anything nearer than across the room, some one +read the letter aloud to her, and the whole story is out. One of the +cats told Granger and the boy proposed to Allie to-day, to show her he +didn't care a tinker's dam where she had been." + +"Good boy!" I said, with enthusiasm. I liked the Granger fellow--since +he was out of the running. But Sam was looking at me with suspicion. + +"Blake," he said, "if I didn't know you for what you are, I'd say you +were interested there yourself." + +Being so near her, under the same roof, with even the tie of a dubious +secret between us, was making me heady. I pushed Forbes toward the door. + +"I interested!" I retorted, holding him by the shoulders. "There isn't a +word in your vocabulary to fit my condition. I am an island in a sunlit +sea of emotion, Sam, a--an empty place surrounded by longing--a--" + +"An empty place surrounded by longing!" he retorted. "You want your +dinner, that's what's the matter with you--" + +I shut the door on him then. He seemed suddenly sordid. Dinner, I +thought! Although, as matter of fact, I made a very fair meal when, +Granger's suitcase not having gone, in his coat and some other man's +trousers, I was finally fit for the amenities. Alison did not come +down to dinner, so it was clear she would not go over to the club-house +dance. I pled my injured arm and a ficticious, vaguely located sprain +from the wreck, as an excuse for remaining at home. Sam regaled the +table with accounts of my distrust of women, my one love affair--with +Dorothy; to which I responded, as was expected, that only my failure +there had kept me single all these years, and that if Sam should be +mysteriously missing during the bathing hour to-morrow, and so on. + +And when the endless meal was over, and yards of white veils had been +tied over pounds of hair--or is it, too, bought by the yard?--and some +eight ensembles with their abject complements had been packed into three +automobiles and a trap, I drew a long breath and faced about. I had +just then only one object in life--to find Alison, to assure her of my +absolute faith and confidence in her, and to offer my help and my poor +self, if she would let me, in her service. + +She was not easy to find. I searched the lower floor, the verandas and +the grounds, circumspectly. Then I ran into a little English girl who +turned out to be her maid, and who also was searching. She was concerned +because her mistress had had no dinner, and because the tray of food she +carried would soon be cold. I took the tray from her, on the glimpse of +something white on the shore, and that was how I met the Girl again. + +She was sitting on an over-turned boat, her chin in her hands, staring +out to sea. The soft tide of the bay lapped almost at her feet, and the +draperies of her white gown melted hazily into the sands. She looked +like a wraith, a despondent phantom of the sea, although the adjective +is redundant. Nobody ever thinks of a cheerful phantom. Strangely +enough, considering her evident sadness, she was whistling softly to +herself, over and over, some dreary little minor air that sounded like +a Bohemian dirge. She glanced up quickly when I made a misstep and my +dishes jingled. All considered, the tray was out of the picture: the +sea, the misty starlight, the girl, with her beauty--even the sad little +whistle that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though it +fought against the odds of a trembling lip. And then I came, accompanied +by a tray of little silver dishes that jingled and an unmistakable odor +of broiled chicken! + +"Oh!" she said quickly; and then, "Oh! I thought you were Jenkins." + +"Timeo Danaos--what's the rest of it?" I asked, tendering my offering. +"You didn't have any dinner, you know." I sat down beside her. "See, +I'll be the table. What was the old fairy tale? 'Little goat bleat: +little table appear!' I'm perfectly willing to be the goat, too." + +She was laughing rather tremulously. + +"We never do meet like other people, do we?" she asked. "We really ought +to shake hands and say how are you." + +"I don't want to meet you like other people, and I suppose you always +think of me as wearing the other fellow's clothes," I returned meekly. +"I'm doing it again: I don't seem to be able to help it. These are +Granger's that I have on now." + +She threw back her head and laughed again, joyously, this time. + +"Oh, it's so ridiculous," she said, "and you have never seen me when I +was not eating! It's too prosaic!" + +"Which reminds me that the chicken is getting cold, and the ice warm," +I suggested. "At the time, I thought there could be no place better than +the farmhouse kitchen--but this is. I ordered all this for something I +want to say to you--the sea, the sand, the stars." + +"How alliterative you are!" she said, trying to be flippant. "You are +not to say anything until I have had my supper. Look how the things are +spilled around!" + +But she ate nothing, after all, and pretty soon I put the tray down in +the sand. I said little; there was no hurry. We were together, and time +meant nothing against that age-long wash of the sea. The air blew her +hair in small damp curls against her face, and little by little the tide +retreated, leaving our boat an oasis in a waste of gray sand. + + "If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year + Do you suppose, the walrus said, that they could get it clear?" + +she threw at me once when she must have known I was going to speak. I +held her hand, and as long as I merely held it she let it lie warm in +mine. But when I raised it to my lips, and kissed the soft, open palm, +she drew it away without displeasure. + +"Not that, please," she protested, and fell to whistling softly again, +her chin in her hands. "I can't sing," she said, to break an awkward +pause, "and so, when I'm fidgety, or have something on my mind, I +whistle. I hope you don't dislike it?" + +"I love it," I asserted warmly. I did; when she pursed her lips like +that I was mad to kiss them. + +"I saw you--at the station," she said, suddenly. "You--you were in a +hurry to go." I did not say anything, and after a pause she drew a long +breath. "Men are queer, aren't they?" she said, and fell to whistling +again. + +After a while she sat up as if she had made a resolution. "I am going +to confess something," she announced suddenly. "You said, you know, that +you had ordered all this for something you--you wanted to say to me. +But the fact is, I fixed it all--came here, I mean, because--I knew you +would come, and I had something to tell you. It was such a miserable +thing I--needed the accessories to help me out." + +"I don't want to hear anything that distresses you to tell," I assured +her. "I didn't come here to force your confidence, Alison. I came +because I couldn't help it." She did not object to my use of her name. + +"Have you found--your papers?" she asked, looking directly at me for +almost the first time. + +"Not yet. We hope to." + +"The--police have not interfered with you?" + +"They haven't had any opportunity," I equivocated. "You needn't distress +yourself about that, anyhow." + +"But I do. I wonder why you still believe in me? Nobody else does." + +"I wonder," I repeated, "why I do!" + +"If you produce Harry Sullivan," she was saying, partly to herself, "and +if you could connect him with Mr. Bronson, and get a full account of why +he was on the train, and all that, it--it would help, wouldn't it?" + +I acknowledged that it would. Now that the whole truth was almost in +my possession, I was stricken with the old cowardice. I did not want to +know what she might tell me. The yellow line on the horizon, where the +moon was coming up, was a broken bit of golden chain: my heel in the +sand was again pressed on a woman's yielding fingers: I pulled myself +together with a jerk. + +"In order that what you might tell me may help me, if it will," I said +constrainedly, "it would be necessary, perhaps, that you tell it to the +police. Since they have found the end of the necklace--" + +"The end of the necklace!" she repeated slowly. "What about the end of +the necklace?" + +I stared at her. "Don't you remember"--I leaned forward--"the end of the +cameo necklace, the part that was broken off, and was found in the black +sealskin bag, stained with--with blood?" + +"Blood," she said dully. "You mean that you found the broken end? And +then--you had my gold pocket-book, and you saw the necklace in it, and +you--must have thought--" + +"I didn't think anything," I hastened to assure her. "I tell you, +Alison, I never thought of anything but that you were unhappy, and that +I had no right to help you. God knows, I thought you didn't want me to +help you." + +She held out her hand to me and I took it between both of mine. No word +of love had passed between us, but I felt that she knew and understood. +It was one of the moments that come seldom in a lifetime, and then only +in great crises, a moment of perfect understanding and trust. + +Then she drew her hand away and sat, erect and determined, her fingers +laced in her lap. As she talked the moon came up slowly and threw its +bright pathway across the water. Back of us, in the trees beyond the sea +wall, a sleepy bird chirruped drowsily, and a wave, larger and bolder +than its brothers, sped up the sand, bringing the moon's silver to our +very feet. I bent toward the girl. + +"I am going to ask just one question." + +"Anything you like." Her voice was almost dreary. "Was it because of +anything you are going to tell me that you refused Richey?" + +She drew her breath in sharply. + +"No," she said, without looking at me. "No. That was not the reason." + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. ALISON'S STORY + + +She told her story evenly, with her eyes on the water, only now and +then, when I, too, sat looking seaward, I thought she glanced at me +furtively. And once, in the middle of it, she stopped altogether. + +"You don't realize it, probably," she protested, "but you look like a--a +war god. Your face is horrible." + +"I will turn my back, if it will help any," I said stormily, "but if you +expect me to look anything but murderous, why, you don't know what I am +going through with. That's all." + +The story of her meeting with the Curtis woman was brief enough. They +had met in Rome first, where Alison and her mother had taken a villa for +a year. Mrs. Curtis had hovered on the ragged edges of society there, +pleading the poverty of the south since the war as a reason for not +going out more. There was talk of a brother, but Alison had not seen +him, and after a scandal which implicated Mrs. Curtis and a young +attache of the Austrian embassy, Alison had been forbidden to see the +woman. + +"The women had never liked her, anyhow," she said. "She did +unconventional things, and they are very conventional there. And they +said she did not always pay her--her gambling debts. I didn't like +them. I thought they didn't like her because she was poor--and popular. +Then--we came home, and I almost forgot her, but last spring, when +mother was not well--she had taken grandfather to the Riviera, and it +always uses her up--we went to Virginia Hot Springs, and we met them +there, the brother, too, this time. His name was Sullivan, Harry +Pinckney Sullivan." + +"I know. Go on." + +"Mother had a nurse, and I was alone a great deal, and they were very +kind to me. I--I saw a lot of them. The brother rather attracted me, +partly--partly because he did not make love to me. He even seemed to +avoid me, and I was piqued. I had been spoiled, I suppose. Most of the +other men I knew had--had--" + +"I know that, too," I said bitterly, and moved away from her a trifle. +I was brutal, but the whole story was a long torture. I think she knew +what I was suffering, for she showed no resentment. + +"It was early and there were few people around--none that I cared about. +And mother and the nurse played cribbage eternally, until I felt as +though the little pegs were driven into my brain. And when Mrs. Curtis +arranged drives and picnics, I--I slipped away and went. I suppose you +won't believe me, but I had never done that kind of thing before, and +I--well, I have paid up, I think." + +"What sort of looking chap was Sullivan?" I demanded. I had got up and +was pacing back and forward on the sand. I remember kicking savagely at +a bit of water-soaked board that lay in my way. + +"Very handsome--as large as you are, but fair, and even more erect." + +I drew my shoulders up sharply. I am straight enough, but I was fairly +sagging with jealous rage. + +"When mother began to get around, somebody told her that I had been +going about with Mrs. Curtis and her brother, and we had a dreadful +time. I was dragged home like a bad child. Did anybody ever do that to +you?" + +"Nobody ever cared. I was born an orphan," I said, with a cheerless +attempt at levity. "Go on." + +"If Mrs. Curtis knew, she never said anything. She wrote me charming +letters, and in the summer, when they went to Cresson, she asked me to +visit her there. I was too proud to let her know that I could not go +where I wished, and so--I sent Polly, my maid, to her aunt's in the +country, pretended to go to Seal Harbor, and really went to Cresson. You +see I warned you it would be an unpleasant story." + +I went over and stood in front of her. All the accumulated jealousy of +the last few weeks had been fired by what she told me. If Sullivan had +come across the sands just then, I think I would have strangled him with +my hands, out of pure hate. + +"Did you marry him?" I demanded. My voice sounded hoarse and strange in +my ears. "That's all I want to know. Did you marry him?" + +"No." + +I drew a long breath. + +"You--cared about him?" + +She hesitated. + +"No," she said finally. "I did not care about him." + +I sat down on the edge of the boat and mopped my hot face. I was +heartily ashamed of myself, and mingled with my abasement was a great +relief. If she had not married him, and had not cared for him, nothing +else was of any importance. + +"I was sorry, of course, the moment the train had started, but I had +wired I was coming, and I could not go back, and then when I got there, +the place was charming. There were no neighbors, but we fished and rode +and motored, and--it was moonlight, like this." + +I put my hand over both of hers, clasped in her lap. "I know," I +acknowledged repentantly, "and--people do queer things when it is +moonlight. The moon has got me to-night, Alison. If I am a boor, +remember that, won't you?" + +Her fingers lay quiet under mine. "And so," she went on with a little +sigh, "I began to think perhaps I cared. But all the time I felt that +there was something not quite right. Now and then Mrs. Curtis would say +or do something that gave me a queer start, as if she had dropped a mask +for a moment. And there was trouble with the servants; they were almost +insolent. I couldn't understand. I don't know when it dawned on me that +the old Baron Cavalcanti had been right when he said they were not my +kind of people. But I wanted to get away, wanted it desperately." + +"Of course, they were not your kind," I cried. "The man was married! The +girl Jennie, a housemaid, was a spy in Mrs. Sullivan's employ. If he had +pretended to marry you I would have killed him! Not only that, but the +man he murdered, Harrington, was his wife's father. And I'll see +him hang by the neck yet if it takes every energy and every penny I +possess." + +I could have told her so much more gently, have broken the shock +for her; I have never been proud of that evening on the sand. I was +alternately a boor and a ruffian--like a hurt youngster who passes the +blow that has hurt him on to his playmate, that both may bawl together. +And now Alison sat, white and cold, without speech. + +"Married!" she said finally, in a small voice. "Why, I don't think it +is possible, is it? I--I was on my way to Baltimore to marry him myself, +when the wreck came." + +"But you said you didn't care for him!" I protested, my heavy masculine +mind unable to jump the gaps in her story. And then, without the +slightest warning, I realized that she was crying. She shook off my hand +and fumbled for her handkerchief, and failing to find it, she accepted +the one I thrust into her wet fingers. + +Then, little by little, she told me from the handkerchief, a sordid +story of a motor trip in the mountains without Mrs. Curtis, of a lost +road and a broken car, and a rainy night when they--she and Sullivan, +tramped eternally and did not get home. And of Mrs. Curtis, when they +got home at dawn, suddenly grown conventional and deeply shocked. Of +her own proud, half-disdainful consent to make possible the hackneyed +compromising situation by marrying the rascal, and then--of his +disappearance from the train. It was so terrible to her, such a +Heaven-sent relief to me, in spite of my rage against Sullivan, that I +laughed aloud. At which she looked at me over the handkerchief. + +"I know it's funny," she said, with a catch in her breath. "When I think +that I nearly married a murderer--and didn't--I cry for sheer joy." Then +she buried her face and cried again. + +"Please don't," I protested unsteadily. "I won't be responsible if you +keep on crying like that. I may forget that I have a capital charge +hanging over my head, and that I may be arrested at any moment." + +That brought her out of the handkerchief at once. "I meant to be so +helpful," she said, "and I've thought of nothing but myself! There were +some things I meant to tell you. If Jennie was--what you say, then I +understand why she came to me just before I left. She had been packing +my things and she must have seen what condition I was in, for she came +over to me when I was getting my wraps on, to leave, and said, 'Don't do +it, Miss West, I beg you won't do it; you'll be sorry ever after.' And +just then Mrs. Curtis came in and Jennie slipped out." + +"That was all?" + +"No. As we went through the station the telegraph operator gave Har--Mr. +Sullivan a message. He read it on the platform, and it excited him +terribly. He took his sister aside and they talked together. He was +white with either fear or anger--I don't know which. Then, when we +boarded the train, a woman in black, with beautiful hair, who was +standing on the car platform, touched him on the arm and then drew back. +He looked at her and glanced away again, but she reeled as if he had +struck her." + +"Then what?" The situation was growing clearer. + +"Mrs. Curtis and I had the drawing-room. I had a dreadful night, just +sleeping a little now and then. I dreaded to see dawn come. It was to be +my wedding-day. When we found Harry had disappeared in the night, Mrs. +Curtis was in a frenzy. Then--I saw his cigarette case in your hand. I +had given it to him. You wore his clothes. The murder was discovered and +you were accused of it! What could I do? And then, afterward, when I saw +him asleep at the farmhouse, I--I was panic-stricken. I locked him in +and ran. I didn't know why he did it, but--he had killed a man." + +Some one was calling Alison through a megaphone, from the veranda. It +sounded like Sam. "All-ee," he called. "All-ee! I'm going to have some +anchovies on toast! All-ee!" Neither of us heard. + +"I wonder," I reflected, "if you would be willing to repeat a part of +that story--just from the telegram on--to a couple of detectives, say +on Monday. If you would tell that, and--how the end of your necklace got +into the sealskin bag--" + +"My necklace!" she repeated. "But it isn't mine. I picked it up in the +car." + +"All-ee!" Sam again. "I see you down there. I'm making a julep!" + +Alison turned and called through her hands. "Coming in a moment, Sam," +she said, and rose. "It must be very late: Sam is home. We would better +go back to the house." + +"Don't," I begged her. "Anchovies and juleps and Sam will go on for +ever, and I have you such a little time. I suppose I am only one of a +dozen or so, but--you are the only girl in the world. You know I love +you, don't you, dear?" + +Sam was whistling, an irritating bird call, over and over. She pursed +her red lips and answered him in kind. It was more than I could endure. + +"Sam or no Sam," I said firmly, "I am going to kiss you!" + +But Sam's voice came strident through the megaphone. "Be good, you two," +he bellowed, "I've got the binoculars!" And so, under fire, we walked +sedately back to the house. My pulses were throbbing--the little swish +of her dress beside me on the grass was pain and ecstasy. I had but to +put out my hand to touch her, and I dared not. + +Sam, armed with a megaphone and field glasses, bent over the rail and +watched us with gleeful malignity. + +"Home early, aren't you?" Alison called, when we reached the steps. + +"Led a club when my partner had doubled no-trumps, and she fainted. +Damn the heart convention!" he said cheerfully. "The others are not here +yet." + +Three hours later I went up to bed. I had not seen Alison alone again. +The noise was at its height below, and I glanced down into the garden, +still bright in the moonlight. Leaning against a tree, and staring +interestedly into the billiard room, was Johnson. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE DINING-ROOM + + +That was Saturday night, two weeks after the wreck. The previous five +days had been full of swift-following events--the woman in the house +next door, the picture in the theater of a man about to leap from the +doomed train, the dinner at the Dallases', and Richey's discovery that +Alison was the girl in the case. In quick succession had come our visit +to the Carter place, the finding of the rest of the telegram, my seeing +Alison there, and the strange interview with Mrs. Conway. The Cresson +trip stood out in my memory for its serio-comic horrors and its one real +thrill. Then--the discovery by the police of the seal-skin bag and the +bit of chain; Hotchkiss producing triumphantly Stuart for Sullivan and +his subsequent discomfiture; McKnight at the station with Alison, and +later the confession that he was out of the running. + +And yet, when I thought it all over, the entire week and its events were +two sides of a triangle that was narrowing rapidly to an apex, a point. +And the said apex was at that moment in the drive below my window, +resting his long legs by sitting on a carriage block, and smoking a pipe +that made the night hideous. The sense of the ridiculous is very close +to the sense of tragedy. I opened my screen and whistled, and Johnson +looked up and grinned. We said nothing. I held up a handful of cigars, +he extended his hat, and when I finally went to sleep, it was to a +soothing breeze that wafted in salt air and a faint aroma of good +tobacco. I was thoroughly tired, but I slept restlessly, dreaming of +two detectives with Pittsburg warrants being held up by Hotchkiss at the +point of a splint, while Alison fastened their hands with a chain that +was broken and much too short. I was roused about dawn by a light rap at +the door, and, opening it, I found Forbes, in a pair of trousers and a +pajama coat. He was as pleasant as most fleshy people are when they have +to get up at night, and he said the telephone had been ringing for an +hour, and he didn't know why somebody else in the blankety-blank house +couldn't have heard it. He wouldn't get to sleep until noon. + +As he was palpably asleep on his feet, I left him grumbling and went to +the telephone. It proved to be Richey, who had found me by the simple +expedient of tracing Alison, and he was jubilant. + +"You'll have to come back," he said. "Got a railroad schedule there?" + +"I don't sleep with one in my pocket," I retorted, "but if you'll hold +the line I'll call out the window to Johnson. He's probably got one."' + +"Johnson!" I could hear the laugh with which McKnight comprehended the +situation. He was still chuckling when I came back. + +"Train to Richmond at six-thirty A.M.," I said. "What time is it now?" + +"Four. Listen, Lollie. We've got him. Do you hear? Through the woman +at Baltimore. Then the other woman, the lady of the restaurant"--he was +obviously avoiding names--"she is playing our cards for us. No--I don't +know why, and I don't care. But you be at the Incubator to-night at +eight o'clock. If you can't shake Johnson, bring him, bless him." + +To this day I believe the Sam Forbeses have not recovered from the +surprise of my unexpected arrival, my one appearance at dinner in +Granger's clothes, and the note on my dresser which informed them the +next morning that I had folded my tents like the Arabs and silently +stole away. For at half after five Johnson and I, the former as +uninquisitive as ever, were on our way through the dust to the station, +three miles away, and by four that afternoon we were in Washington. The +journey had been uneventful. Johnson relaxed under the influence of my +tobacco, and spoke at some length on the latest improvements in gallows, +dilating on the absurdity of cutting out the former free passes to see +the affair in operation. I remember, too, that he mentioned the curious +anomaly that permits a man about to be hanged to eat a hearty meal. I +did not enjoy my dinner that night. + +Before we got into Washington I had made an arrangement with Johnson to +surrender myself at two the following afternoon. Also, I had wired to +Alison, asking her if she would carry out the contract she had made. The +detective saw me home, and left me there. Mrs. Klopton received me with +dignified reserve. The very tone in which she asked me when I would dine +told me that something was wrong. + +"Now--what is it, Mrs. Klopton?" I demanded finally, when she had +informed me, in a patient and long-suffering tone, that she felt worn +out and thought she needed a rest. + +"When I lived with Mr. Justice Springer," she began acidly, her +mending-basket in her hands, "it was an orderly, well-conducted +household. You can ask any of the neighbors. Meals were cooked and, +what's more, they were eaten; there was none of this 'here one day and +gone the next' business." + +"Nonsense," I observed. "You're tired, that's all, Mrs. Klopton. And I +wish you would go out; I want to bathe." + +"That's not all," she said with dignity, from the doorway. "Women coming +and going here, women whose shoes I am not fit--I mean, women who are +not fit to touch my shoes--coming here as insolent as you please, and +asking for you." + +"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What did you tell them--her, whichever it +was?" + +"Told her you were sick in a hospital and wouldn't be out for a year!" +she said triumphantly. "And when she said she thought she'd come in and +wait for you, I slammed the door on her." + +"What time was she here?" + +"Late last night. And she had a light-haired man across the street. If +she thought I didn't see him, she don't know me." Then she closed the +door and left me to my bath and my reflections. + +At five minutes before eight I was at the Incubator, where I found +Hotchkiss and McKnight. They were bending over a table, on which lay +McKnight's total armament--a pair of pistols, an elephant gun and an old +cavalry saber. + +"Draw up a chair and help yourself to pie," he said, pointing to the +arsenal. "This is for the benefit of our friend Hotchkiss here, who says +he is a small man and fond of life." + +Hotchkiss, who had been trying to get the wrong end of a cartridge into +the barrel of one of the revolvers, straightened himself and mopped his +face. + +"We have desperate people to handle," he said pompously, "and we may +need desperate means." + +"Hotchkiss is like the small boy whose one ambition was to have people +grow ashen and tremble at the mention of his name," McKnight jibed. But +they were serious enough, both of them, under it all, and when they had +told me what they planned, I was serious, too. + +"You're compounding a felony," I remonstrated, when they had explained. +"I'm not eager to be locked away, but, by Jove, to offer her the stolen +notes in exchange for Sullivan!" + +"We haven't got either of them, you know," McKnight remonstrated, "and +we won't have, if we don't start. Come along, Fido," to Hotchkiss. + +The plan was simplicity itself. According to Hotchkiss, Sullivan was +to meet Bronson at Mrs. Conway's apartment, at eight-thirty that night, +with the notes. He was to be paid there and the papers destroyed. "But +just before that interesting finale," McKnight ended, "we will walk in, +take the notes, grab Sullivan, and give the police a jolt that will put +them out of the count." + +I suppose not one of us, slewing around corners in the machine that +night, had the faintest doubt that we were on the right track, or that +Fate, scurvy enough before, was playing into our hands at last. Little +Hotchkiss was in a state of fever; he alternately twitched and examined +the revolver, and a fear that the two movements might be synchronous +kept me uneasy. He produced and dilated on the scrap of pillow slip from +the wreck, and showed me the stiletto, with its point in cotton batting +for safekeeping. And in the intervals he implored Richey not to make +such fine calculations at the corners. + +We were all grave enough and very quiet, however, when we reached the +large building where Mrs. Conway had her apartment. McKnight left the +power on, in case we might want to make a quick get-away, and Hotchkiss +gave a final look at the revolver. I had no weapon. Somehow it all +seemed melodramatic to the verge of farce. In the doorway Hotchkiss +was a half dozen feet ahead; Richey fell back beside me. He dropped his +affectation of gayety, and I thought he looked tired. "Same old Sam, I +suppose?" he asked. + +"Same, only more of him." + +"I suppose Alison was there? How is she?" he inquired irrelevantly. + +"Very well. I did not see her this morning." + +Hotchkiss was waiting near the elevator. McKnight put his hand on +my arm. "Now, look here, old man," he said, "I've got two arms and a +revolver, and you've got one arm and a splint. If Hotchkiss is right, +and there is a row, you crawl under a table." + +"The deuce I will!" I declared scornfully. + +We crowded out of the elevator at the fourth floor, and found ourselves +in a rather theatrical hallway of draperies and armor. It was very +quiet; we stood uncertainly after the car had gone, and looked at the +two or three doors in sight. They were heavy, covered with metal, +and sound proof. From somewhere above came the metallic accuracy of a +player-piano, and through the open window we could hear--or feel--the +throb of the Cannonball's engine. + +"Well, Sherlock," McKnight said, "what's the next move in the game? Is +it our jump, or theirs? You brought us here." + +None of us knew just what to do next. No sound of conversation +penetrated the heavy doors. We waited uneasily for some minutes, and +Hotchkiss looked at his watch. Then he put it to his ear. + +"Good gracious!" he exclaimed, his head cocked on one side, "I believe +it has stopped. I'm afraid we are late." + +We were late. My watch and Hotchkiss' agreed at nine o clock, and, with +the discovery that our man might have come and gone, our zest in the +adventure began to flag. McKnight motioned us away from the door and +rang the bell. There was no response, no sound within. He rang it twice, +the last time long and vigorously, without result. Then he turned and +looked at us. + +"I don't half like this," he said. "That woman is in; you heard me ask +the elevator boy. For two cents I'd--" + +I had seen it when he did. The door was ajar about an inch, and a narrow +wedge of rose-colored light showed beyond. I pushed the door a little +and listened. Then, with both men at my heels, I stepped into the +private corridor of the apartment and looked around. It was a square +reception hall, with rugs on the floor, a tall mahogany rack for hats, +and a couple of chairs. A lantern of rose-colored glass and a desk light +over a writing-table across made the room bright and cheerful. It was +empty. + +None of us was comfortable. The place was full of feminine trifles +that made us feel the weakness of our position. Some such instinct made +McKnight suggest division. + +"We look like an invading army," he said. "If she's here alone, we will +startle her into a spasm. One of us could take a look around and--" + +"What was that? Didn't you hear something?" + +The sound, whatever it had been, was not repeated. We went awkwardly out +into the hall, very uncomfortable, all of us, and flipped a coin. The +choice fell to me, which was right enough, for the affair was mine, +primarily. + +"Wait just inside the door," I directed, "and if Sullivan comes, or +anybody that answers his description, grab him without ceremony and ask +him questions afterwards." + +The apartment, save in the hallway, was unlighted. By one of those +freaks of arrangement possible only in the modern flat, I found the +kitchen first, and was struck a smart and unexpected blow by a swinging +door. I carried a handful of matches, and by the time I had passed +through a butler's pantry and a refrigerator room I was completely lost +in the darkness. Until then the situation had been merely uncomfortable; +suddenly it became grisly. From somewhere near came a long-sustained +groan, followed almost instantly by the crash of something--glass or +china--on the floor. + +I struck a fresh match, and found myself in a narrow rear hallway. +Behind me was the door by which I must have come; with a keen desire +to get back to the place I had started from, I opened the door and +attempted to cross the room. I thought I had kept my sense of direction, +but I crashed without warning into what, from the resulting jangle, was +the dining-table, probably laid for dinner. I cursed my stupidity in +getting into such a situation, and I cursed my nerves for making my hand +shake when I tried to strike a match. The groan had not been repeated. + +I braced myself against the table and struck the match sharply against +the sole of my shoe. It flickered faintly and went out. And then, +without the slightest warning, another dish went off the table. It fell +with a thousand splinterings; the very air seemed broken into crashing +waves of sound. I stood still, braced against the table, holding the red +end of the dying match, and listened. I had not long to wait; the groan +came again, and I recognized it, the cry of a dog in straits. I breathed +again. + +"Come, old fellow," I said. "Come on, old man. Let's have a look at +you." + +I could hear the thud of his tail on the floor, but he did not move. He +only whimpered. There is something companionable in the presence of a +dog, and I fancied this dog in trouble. Slowly I began to work my way +around the table toward him. + +"Good boy," I said, as he whimpered. "We'll find the light, which ought +to be somewhere or other around here, and then--" + +I stumbled over something, and I drew back my foot almost instantly. +"Did I step on you, old man?" I exclaimed, and bent to pat him. I +remember straightening suddenly and hearing the dog pad softly toward +me around the table. I recall even that I had put the matches down and +could not find them. Then, with a bursting horror of the room and its +contents, of the gibbering dark around me, I turned and made for the +door by which I had entered. + +I could not find it. I felt along the endless wainscoting, past miles of +wall. The dog was beside me, I think, but he was part and parcel now, to +my excited mind, with the Thing under the table. And when, after aeons +of search, I found a knob and stumbled into the reception hall, I was as +nearly in a panic as any man could be. + +I was myself again in a second, and by the light from the hall I led +the way back to the tragedy I had stumbled on. Bronson still sat at the +table, his elbows propped on it, his cigarette still lighted, burning a +hole in the cloth. Partly under the table lay Mrs. Conway face down. The +dog stood over her and wagged his tail. + +McKnight pointed silently to a large copper ashtray, filled with ashes +and charred bits of paper. + +"The notes, probably," he said ruefully. "He got them after all, and +burned them before her. It was more than she could stand. Stabbed him +first and then herself." + +Hotchkiss got up and took off his hat. "They are dead," he announced +solemnly, and took his note-book out of his hatband. + +McKnight and I did the only thing we could think of--drove Hotchkiss and +the dog out of the room, and closed and locked the door. "It's a matter +for the police," McKnight asserted. "I suppose you've got an officer +tied to you somewhere, Lawrence? You usually have." + +We left Hotchkiss in charge and went down-stairs. It was McKnight who +first saw Johnson, leaning against a park railing across the street, and +called him over. We told him in a few words what we had found, and he +grinned at me cheerfully. + +"After while, in a few weeks or months, Mr. Blakeley," he said, "when +you get tired of monkeying around with the blood-stain and finger-print +specialist up-stairs, you come to me. I've had that fellow you want +under surveillance for ten days!" + + + +CHAPTER XXX. FINER DETAILS + + +At ten minutes before two the following day, Monday, I arrived at my +office. I had spent the morning putting my affairs in shape, and in a +trip to the stable. The afternoon would see me either a free man or a +prisoner for an indefinite length of time, and, in spite of Johnson's +promise to produce Sullivan, I was more prepared for the latter than the +former. + +Blobs was watching for me outside the door, and it was clear that he was +in a state of excitement bordering on delirium. He did nothing, however, +save to tip me a wink that meant "As man to man, I'm for you." I was too +much engrossed either to reprove him or return the courtesy, but I heard +him follow me down the hall to the small room where we keep outgrown +lawbooks, typewriter supplies and, incidentally, our wraps. I was +wondering vaguely if I would ever hang my hat on its nail again, when +the door closed behind me. It shut firmly, without any particular amount +of sound, and I was left in the dark. I groped my way to it, irritably, +to find it locked on the outside. I shook it frantically, and was +rewarded by a sibilant whisper through the keyhole. + +"Keep quiet," Blobs was saying huskily. "You're in deadly peril. The +police are waiting in your office, three of 'em. I'm goin' to lock the +whole bunch in and throw the key out of the window." + +"Come back here, you imp of Satan!" I called furiously, but I could hear +him speeding down the corridor, and the slam of the outer office door +by which he always announced his presence. And so I stood there in that +ridiculous cupboard, hot with the heat of a steaming September day, +musty with the smell of old leather bindings, littered with broken +overshoes and handleless umbrellas. I was apoplectic with rage one +minute, and choked with laughter the next. It seemed an hour before +Blobs came back. + +He came without haste, strutting with new dignity, and paused outside my +prison door. + +"Well, I guess that will hold them for a while," he remarked +comfortably, and proceeded to turn the key. "I've got 'em fastened up +like sardines in a can!" he explained, working with the lock. "Gee whiz! +you'd ought to hear 'em!" When he got his breath after the shaking I +gave him, he began to splutter. "How'd I know?" he demanded sulkily. +"You nearly broke your neck gettin' away the other time. And I haven't +got the old key. It's lost." + +"Where's it lost?" I demanded, with another gesture toward his coat +collar. + +"Down the elevator shaft." There was a gleam of indignant satisfaction +through his tears of rage and humiliation. + +And so, while he hunted the key in the debris at the bottom of the +shaft, I quieted his prisoners with the assurance that the lock had +slipped, and that they would be free as lords as soon as we could find +the janitor with a pass-key. Stuart went down finally and discovered +Blobs, with the key in his pocket, telling the engineer how he had tried +to save me from arrest and failed. When Stuart came up he was almost +cheerful, but Blobs did not appear again that day. + +Simultaneous with the finding of the key came Hotchkiss, and we went +in together. I shook hands with two men who, with Hotchkiss, made a +not very animated group. The taller one, an oldish man, lean and hard, +announced his errand at once. + +"A Pittsburg warrant?" I inquired, unlocking my cigar drawer. + +"Yes. Allegheny County has assumed jurisdiction, the exact locality +where the crime was committed being in doubt." He seemed to be the +spokesman. The other, shorter and rotund, kept an amiable silence. "We +hope you will see the wisdom of waiving extradition," he went on. "It +will save time." + +"I'll come, of course," I agreed. "The sooner the better. But I want you +to give me an hour here, gentlemen. I think we can interest you. Have a +cigar?" + +The lean man took a cigar; the rotund man took three, putting two in his +pocket. + +"How about the catch of that door?" he inquired jovially. "Any danger +of it going off again?" Really, considering the circumstances, they were +remarkably cheerful. Hotchkiss, however, was not. He paced the floor +uneasily, his hands under his coat-tails. The arrival of McKnight +created a diversion; he carried a long package and a corkscrew, and +shook hands with the police and opened the bottle with a single gesture. + +"I always want something to cheer on these occasions," he said. "Where's +the water, Blakeley? Everybody ready?" Then in French he toasted the two +detectives. + +"To your eternal discomfiture," he said, bowing ceremoniously. "May you +go home and never come back! If you take Monsieur Blakeley with you, I +hope you choke." + +The lean man nodded gravely. "Prosit," he said. But the fat one leaned +back and laughed consumedly. + +Hotchkiss finished a mental synopsis of his position, and put down his +glass. "Gentlemen," he said pompously, "within five minutes the man you +want will be here, a murderer caught in a net of evidence so fine that a +mosquito could not get through." + +The detectives glanced at each other solemnly. Had they not in their +possession a sealskin bag containing a wallet and a bit of gold chain, +which, by putting the crime on me, would leave a gap big enough for +Sullivan himself to crawl through? + +"Why don't you say your little speech before Johnson brings the other +man, Lawrence?" McKnight inquired. "They won't believe you, but it will +help them to understand what is coming." + +"You understand, of course," the lean man put in gravely, "that what you +say may be used against you." + +"I'll take the risk," I answered impatiently. + +It took some time to tell the story of my worse than useless trip to +Pittsburg, and its sequel. They listened gravely, without interruption. + +"Mr. Hotchkiss here," I finished, "believes that the man Sullivan, +whom we are momentarily expecting, committed the crime. Mr. McKnight is +inclined to implicate Mrs. Conway, who stabbed Bronson and then herself +last night. As for myself, I am open to conviction." + +"I hope not," said the stout detective quizzically. And then Alison +was announced. My impulse to go out and meet her was forestalled by the +detectives, who rose when I did. McKnight, therefore, brought her in, +and I met her at the door. + +"I have put you to a great deal of trouble," I said contritely, when I +saw her glance around the room. "I wish I had not--" + +"It is only right that I should come," she replied, looking up at me. +"I am the unconscious cause of most of it, I am afraid. Mrs. Dallas is +going to wait in the outer office." + +I presented Hotchkiss and the two detectives, who eyed her with +interest. In her poise, her beauty, even in her gown, I fancy she +represented a new type to them. They remained standing until she sat +down. + +"I have brought the necklace," she began, holding out a white-wrapped +box, "as you asked me to." + +I passed it, unopened, to the detectives. "The necklace from which was +broken the fragment you found in the sealskin bag," I explained. "Miss +West found it on the floor of the car, near lower ten." + +"When did you find it?" asked the lean detective, bending forward. + +"In the morning, not long before the wreck." + +"Did you ever see it before?" + +"I am not certain," she replied. "I have seen one very much like it." +Her tone was troubled. She glanced at me as if for help, but I was +powerless. + +"Where?" The detective was watching her closely. At that moment there +came an interruption. The door opened without ceremony, and Johnson +ushered in a tall, blond man, a stranger to all of us: I glanced at +Alison; she was pale, but composed and scornful. She met the new-comer's +eyes full, and, caught unawares, he took a hasty backward step. + +"Sit down, Mr. Sullivan," McKnight beamed cordially. "Have a cigar? I +beg your pardon, Alison, do you mind this smoke?" + +"Not at all," she said composedly. Sullivan had had a second to sound +his bearings. + +"No--no, thanks," he mumbled. "If you will be good enough to explain--" + +"But that's what you're to do," McKnight said cheerfully, pulling up a +chair. "You've got the most attentive audience you could ask. These two +gentlemen are detectives from Pittsburg, and we are all curious to know +the finer details of what happened on the car Ontario two weeks ago, the +night your father-in-law was murdered." Sullivan gripped the arms of his +chair. "We are not prejudiced, either. The gentlemen from Pittsburg are +betting on Mr. Blakeley, over there. Mr. Hotchkiss, the gentleman by the +radiator, is ready to place ten to one odds on you. And some of us have +still other theories." + +"Gentlemen," Sullivan said slowly, "I give you my word of honor that I +did not kill Simon Harrington, and that I do not know who did." + +"Fiddlededee!" cried Hotchkiss, bustling forward. "Why, I can tell +you--" But McKnight pushed him firmly into a chair and held him there. + +"I am ready to plead guilty to the larceny," Sullivan went on. "I took +Mr. Blakeley's clothes, I admit. If I can reimburse him in any way for +the inconvenience-" + +The stout detective was listening with his mouth open. "Do you mean +to say," he demanded, "that you got into Mr. Blakeley's berth, as he +contends, took his clothes and forged notes, and left the train before +the wreck?" + +"Yes." + +"The notes, then?" + +"I gave them to Bronson yesterday. Much good they did him!" bitterly. +We were all silent for a moment. The two detectives were adjusting +themselves with difficulty to a new point of view; Sullivan was looking +dejectedly at the floor, his hands hanging loose between his knees. +I was watching Alison; from where I stood, behind her, I could almost +touch the soft hair behind her ear. + +"I have no intention of pressing any charge against you," I said with +forced civility, for my hands were itching to get at him, "if you will +give us a clear account of what happened on the Ontario that night." + +Sullivan raised his handsome, haggard head and looked around at me. +"I've seen you before, haven't I?" he asked. "Weren't you an uninvited +guest at the Laurels a few days--or nights--ago? The cat, you remember, +and the rug that slipped?" + +"I remember," I said shortly. He glanced from me to Alison and quickly +away. + +"The truth can't hurt me," he said, "but it's devilish unpleasant. +Alison, you know all this. You would better go out." + +His use of her name crazed me. I stepped in front of her and stood over +him. "You will not bring Miss West into the conversation," I threatened, +"and she will stay if she wishes." + +"Oh, very well," he said with assumed indifference. Hotchkiss just then +escaped from Richey's grasp and crossed the room. + +"Did you ever wear glasses?" he asked eagerly. + +"Never." Sullivan glanced with some contempt at mine. + +"I'd better begin by going back a little," he went on sullenly. "I +suppose you know I was married to Ida Harrington about five years ago. +She was a good girl, and I thought a lot of her. But her father opposed +the marriage--he'd never liked me, and he refused to make any sort of +settlement. + +"I had thought, of course, that there would be money, and it was a +bad day when I found out I'd made a mistake. My sister was wild with +disappointment. We were pretty hard up, my sister and I." + +I was watching Alison. Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap, and +she was staring out of the window at the cheerless roof below. She had +set her lips a little, but that was all. + +"You understand, of course, that I'm not defending myself," went on the +sullen voice. "The day came when old Harrington put us both out of the +house at the point of a revolver, and I threatened--I suppose you know +that, too--I threatened to kill him. + +"My sister and I had hard times after that. We lived on the continent +for a while. I was at Monte Carlo and she was in Italy. She met a young +lady there, the granddaughter of a steel manufacturer and an heiress, +and she sent for me. When I got to Rome the girl was gone. Last winter I +was all in--social secretary to an Englishman, a wholesale grocer with +a new title, but we had a row, and I came home. I went out to the Heaton +boys' ranch in Wyoming, and met Bronson there. He lent me money, and +I've been doing his dirty work ever since." + +Sullivan got up then and walked slowly forward and back as he talked, +his eyes on the faded pattern of the office rug. + +"If you want to live in hell," he said savagely, "put yourself in +another man's power. Bronson got into trouble, forging John Gilmore's +name to those notes, and in some way he learned that a man was bringing +the papers back to Washington on the Flier. He even learned the number +of his berth, and the night before the wreck, just as I was boarding the +train, I got a telegram." + +Hotchkiss stepped forward once more importantly. "Which read, I think: +'Man with papers in lower ten, car seven. Get them.'" + +Sullivan looked at the little man with sulky blue eyes. + +"It was something like that, anyhow. But it was a nasty business, and it +made matters worse that he didn't care that a telegram which must pass +through a half dozen hands was more or less incriminating to me. + +"Then, to add to the unpleasantness of my position, just after we +boarded the train--I was accompanying my sister and this young lady, +Miss West--a woman touched me on the sleeve, and I turned to face--my +wife! + +"That took away my last bit of nerve. I told my sister, and you can +understand she was in a bad way, too. We knew what it meant. Ida had +heard that I was going--" + +He stopped and glanced uneasily at Alison. + +"Go on," she said coldly. "It is too late to shield me. The time to have +done that was when I was your guest." + +"Well," he went on, his eyes turned carefully away from my face, which +must have presented certainly anything but a pleasant sight. "Miss West +was going to do me the honor to marry me, and--" + +"You scoundrel!" I burst forth, thrusting past Alison West's chair. +"You--you infernal cur!" + +One of the detectives got up and stood between us. "You must remember, +Mr. Blakeley, that you are forcing this story from this man. These +details are unpleasant, but important. You were going to marry this +young lady," he said, turning to Sullivan, "although you already had a +wife living?" + +"It was my sister's plan, and I was in a bad way for money. If I could +marry, secretly, a wealthy girl and go to Europe, it was unlikely that +Ida--that is, Mrs. Sullivan--would hear of it. + +"So it was more than a shock to see my wife on the train, and to realize +from her face that she knew what was going on. I don't know yet, unless +some of the servants--well, never mind that. + +"It meant that the whole thing had gone up. Old Harrington had carried +a gun for me for years, and the same train wouldn't hold both of us. Of +course, I thought that he was in the coach just behind ours." + +Hotchkiss was leaning forward now, his eyes narrowed, his thin lips +drawn to a line. + +"Are you left-handed, Mr. Sullivan?" he asked. + +Sullivan stopped in surprise. + +"No," he said gruffly. "Can't do anything with my left hand." Hotchkiss +subsided, crestfallen but alert. "I tore up that cursed telegram, but I +was afraid to throw the scraps away. Then I looked around for lower ten. +It was almost exactly across--my berth was lower seven, and it was, of +course, a bit of exceptional luck for me that the car was number seven." + +"Did you tell your sister of the telegram from Bronson?" I asked. + +"No. It would do no good, and she was in a bad way without that to make +her worse." + +"Your sister was killed, think." The shorter detective took a small +package from his pocket and held it in his hand, snapping the rubber +band which held it. + +"Yes, she was killed," Sullivan said soberly. "What I say now can do her +no harm." + +He stopped to push back the heavy hair which dropped over his forehead, +and went on more connectedly. + +"It was late, after midnight, and we went at once to our berths. I +undressed, and then I lay there for an hour, wondering how I was going +to get the notes. Some one in lower nine was restless and wide awake, +but finally became quiet. + +"The man in ten was sleeping heavily. I could hear his breathing, and it +seemed to be only a question of getting across and behind the curtains +of his berth without being seen. After that, it was a mere matter of +quiet searching. + +"The car became very still. I was about to try for the other berth, when +some one brushed softly past, and I lay back again. + +"Finally, however, when things had been quiet for a time, I got up, and +after looking along the aisle, I slipped behind the curtains of lower +ten. You understand, Mr. Blakeley, that I thought you were in lower ten, +with the notes." + +I nodded curtly. + +"I'm not trying to defend myself," he went on. "I was ready to steal the +notes--I had to. But murder!" + +He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. + +"Well, I slipped across and behind the curtains. It was very still. The +man in ten didn't move, although my heart was thumping until I thought +he would hear it. + +"I felt around cautiously. It was perfectly dark, and I came across a +bit of chain, about as long as my finger. It seemed a queer thing to +find there, and it was sticky, too." + +He shuddered, and I could see Alison's hands clenching and unclenching +with the strain. + +"All at once it struck me that the man was strangely silent, and I think +I lost my nerve. Anyhow, I drew the curtains open a little, and let the +light fall on my hands. They were red, blood-red." + +He leaned one hand on the back of the chair, and was silent for a +moment, as though he lived over again the awful events of that more than +awful night. + +The stout detective had let his cigar go out; he was still drawing at it +nervously. Richey had picked up a paper-weight and was tossing it from +hand to hand; when it slipped and fell to the floor, a startled shudder +passed through the room. + +"There was something glittering in there," Sullivan resumed, "and on +impulse I picked it up. Then I dropped the curtains and stumbled back to +my own berth." + +"Where you wiped your hands on the bed-clothing and stuck the dirk +into the pillow." Hotchkiss was seeing his carefully built structure +crumbling to pieces, and he looked chagrined. + +"I suppose I did--I'm not very clear about what happened then. But when +I rallied a little I saw a Russia leather wallet lying in the aisle +almost at my feet, and, like a fool, I stuck it, with the bit of chain, +into my bag. + +"I sat there, shivering, for what seemed hours. It was still perfectly +quiet, except for some one snoring. I thought that would drive me crazy. + +"The more I thought of it the worse things looked. The telegram was the +first thing against me--it would put the police on my track at once, +when it was discovered that the man in lower ten had been killed. + +"Then I remembered the notes, and I took out the wallet and opened it." + +He stopped for a minute, as if the recalling of the next occurrence was +almost beyond him. + +"I took out the wallet," he said simply, "and opening it, held it to the +light. In gilt letters was the name, Simon Harrington." + +The detectives were leaning forward now, their eyes on his face. + +"Things seemed to whirl around for a while. I sat there almost +paralyzed, wondering what this new development meant for me. + +"My wife, I knew, would swear I had killed her father; nobody would be +likely to believe the truth. + +"Do you believe me now?" He rooked around at us defiantly. "I am telling +the absolute truth, and not one of you believes me! + +"After a bit the man in lower nine got up and walked along the aisle +toward the smoking compartment. I heard him go, and, leaning from my +berth, watched him out of sight. + +"It was then I got the idea of changing berths with him, getting into +his clothes, and leaving the train. I give you my word I had no idea of +throwing suspicion on him." + +Alison looked scornfully incredulous, but I felt that the man was +telling the truth. + +"I changed the numbers of the berths, and it worked well. I got into +the other man's berth, and he came back to mine. The rest was easy. I +dressed in his clothes--luckily, they fitted--and jumped the train not +far from Baltimore, just before the wreck." + +"There is something else you must clear up," I said. "Why did you try +to telephone me from M-, and why did you change your mind about the +message?" + +He looked astounded. + +"You knew I was at M-?" he stammered. + +"Yes, we traced you. What about the message?" + +"Well, it was this way: of course, I did not know your name, Mr. +Blakeley. The telegram said, 'Man with papers in lower ten, car seven," +and after I had made what I considered my escape, I began to think I had +left the man in my berth in a bad way. + +"He would probably be accused of the crime. So, although when the wreck +occurred I supposed every one connected with the affair had been killed, +there was a chance that you had survived. I've not been of much account, +but I didn't want a man to swing because I'd left him in my place. +Besides, I began to have a theory of my own. + +"As we entered the car a tall, dark woman passed us, with a glass of +water in her hand, and I vaguely remembered her. She was amazingly like +Blanche Conway. + +"If she, too, thought the man with the notes was in lower ten, it +explained a lot, including that piece of a woman's necklace. She was a +fury, Blanche Conway, capable of anything." + +"Then why did you countermand that message?" I asked curiously. + +"When I got to the Carter house, and got to bed--I had sprained my ankle +in the jump--I went through the alligator bag I had taken from lower +nine. When I found your name, I sent the first message. Then, soon +after, I came across the notes. It seemed too good to be true, and I was +crazy for fear the message had gone. + +"At first I was going to send them to Bronson; then I began to see what +the possession of the notes meant to me. It meant power over Bronson, +money, influence, everything. He was a devil, that man." + +"Well, he's at home now," said McKnight, and we were glad to laugh and +relieve the tension. + +Alison put her hand over her eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the +man she had so nearly married, and I furtively touched one of the soft +little curls that nestled at the back of her neck. + +"When I was able to walk," went on the sullen voice, "I came at once to +Washington. I tried to sell the notes to Bronson, but he was almost at +the end of his rope. Not even my threat to send them back to you, Mr. +Blakeley, could make him meet my figure. He didn't have the money." + +McKnight was triumphant. + +"I think you gentlemen will see reason in my theory now," he said. "Mrs. +Conway wanted the notes to force a legal marriage, I suppose?" + +"Yes." + +The detective with the small package carefully rolled off the rubber +band, and unwrapped it. I held my breath as he took out, first, the +Russia leather wallet. + +"These things, Mr. Blakeley, we found in the seal-skin bag Mr. Sullivan +says he left you. This wallet, Mr. Sullivan--is this the one you found +on the floor of the car?" + +Sullivan opened it, and, glancing at the name inside, "Simon +Harrington," nodded affirmatively. + +"And this," went on the detective--"this is a piece of gold chain?" + +"It seems to be," said Sullivan, recoiling at the blood-stained end. + +"This, I believe, is the dagger." He held it up, and Alison gave a faint +cry of astonishment and dismay. Sullivan's face grew ghastly, and he sat +down weakly on the nearest chair. + +The detective looked at him shrewdly, then at Alison's agitated face. + +"Where have you seen this dagger before, young lady?" he asked, kindly +enough. + +"Oh, don't ask me!" she gasped breathlessly, her eyes turned on +Sullivan. "It's--it's too terrible!" + +"Tell him," I advised, leaning over to her. "It will be found out later, +anyhow." + +"Ask him," she said, nodding toward Sullivan. The detective unwrapped +the small box Alison had brought, disclosing the trampled necklace and +broken chain. With clumsy fingers he spread it on the table and fitted +into place the bit of chain. There could be no doubt that it belonged +there. + +"Where did you find that chain?" Sullivan asked hoarsely, looking for +the first time at Alison. + +"On the floor, near the murdered man's berth." + +"Now, Mr. Sullivan," said the detective civilly, "I believe you can +tell us, in the light of these two exhibits, who really did murder Simon +Harrington." + +Sullivan looked again at the dagger, a sharp little bit of steel with +a Florentine handle. Then he picked up the locket and pressed a hidden +spring under one of the cameos. Inside, very neatly engraved, was the +name and a date. + +"Gentlemen," he said, his face ghastly, "it is of no use for me to +attempt a denial. The dagger and necklace belonged to my sister, Alice +Curtis!" + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. AND ONLY ONE ARM + + +Hotchkiss was the first to break the tension. + +"Mr. Sullivan," he asked suddenly, "was your sister left-handed?" + +"Yes." + +Hotchkiss put away his note-book and looked around with an air of +triumphant vindication. It gave us a chance to smile and look relieved. +After all, Mrs. Curtis was dead. It was the happiest solution of the +unhappy affair. McKnight brought Sullivan some whisky, and he braced up +a little. + +"I learned through the papers that my wife was in a Baltimore hospital, +and yesterday I ventured there to see her. I felt if she would help me +to keep straight, that now, with her father and my sister both dead, we +might be happy together. + +"I understand now what puzzled me then. It seemed that my sister went +into the next car and tried to make my wife promise not to interfere. +But Ida--Mrs. Sullivan--was firm, of course. She said her father had +papers, certificates and so on, that would stop the marriage at once. + +"She said, also, that her father was in our car, and that there would be +the mischief to pay in the morning. It was probably when my sister tried +to get the papers that he awakened, and she had to do--what she did." + +It was over. Save for a technicality or two, I was a free man. Alison +rose quietly and prepared to go; the men stood to let her pass, save +Sullivan who sat crouched in his chair, his face buried in his hands. +Hotchkiss, who had been tapping the desk with his pencil, looked up +abruptly and pointed the pencil at me. + +"If all this is true, and I believe it is,--then who was in the house +next door, Blakeley, the night you and Mr. Johnson searched? You +remember, you said it was a woman's hand at the trap door." + +I glanced hastily at Johnson, whose face was impassive. He had his hand +on the knob of the door and he opened it before he spoke. + +"There were a number of scratches on Mrs. Conway's right hand," he +observed to the room in general. "Her wrist was bandaged and badly +bruised." + +He went out then, but he turned as he closed the door and threw at me a +glance of half-amused, half-contemptuous tolerance. + +McKnight saw Alison, with Mrs. Dallas, to their carriage, and came back +again. The gathering in the office was breaking up. Sullivan, looking +worn and old, was standing by the window, staring at the broken necklace +in his hand. When he saw me watching him, he put it on the desk and +picked up his hat. + +"If I can not do anything more--" he hesitated. + +"I think you have done about enough," I replied grimly, and he went out. + +I believe that Richey and Hotchkiss led me somewhere to dinner, and +that, for fear I would be lonely without him, they sent for Johnson. +And I recall a spirited discussion in which Hotchkiss told the detective +that he could manage certain cases, but that he lacked induction. Richey +and I were mainly silent. My thoughts would slip ahead to that hour, +later in the evening, when I should see Alison again. + +I dressed in savage haste finally, and was so particular about my tie +that Mrs. Klopton gave up in despair. + +"I wish, until your arm is better, that you would buy the kind that +hooks on," she protested, almost tearfully. "I'm sure they look very +nice, Mr. Lawrence. My late husband always--" + +"That's a lover's knot you've tied this time," I snarled, and, jerking +open the bow knot she had so painfully executed, looked out the +window for Johnson--until I recalled that he no longer belonged in my +perspective. I ended by driving frantically to the club and getting +George to do it. + +I was late, of course. The drawing-room and library at the Dallas home +were empty. I could hear billiard balls rolling somewhere, and I turned +the other way. I found Alison at last on the balcony, sitting much as +she had that night on the beach,--her chin in her hands, her eyes fixed +unseeingly on the trees and lights of the square across. She was even +whistling a little, softly. But this time the plaintiveness was gone. +It was a tender little tune. She did not move, as I stood beside her, +looking down. And now, when the moment had come, all the thousand and +one things I had been waiting to say forsook me, precipitately beat +a retreat, and left me unsupported. The arc-moon sent little fugitive +lights over her hair, her eyes, her gown. + +"Don't--do that," I said unsteadily. "You--you know what I want to do +when you whistle!" + +She glanced up at me, and she did not stop. She did not stop! She went +on whistling softly, a bit tremulously. And straightway I forgot the +street, the chance of passers-by, the voices in the house behind us. +"The world doesn't hold any one but you," I said reverently. "It is our +world, sweetheart. I love you." + +And I kissed her. + +A boy was whistling on the pavement below. I let her go reluctantly and +sat back where I could see her. + +"I haven't done this the way I intended to at all," I confessed. "In +books they get things all settled, and then kiss the lady." + +"Settled?" she inquired. + +"Oh, about getting married and that sort of thing," I explained with +elaborate carelessness. "We--we could go down to Bermuda--or--or +Jamaica, say in December." + +She drew her hand away and faced me squarely. + +"I believe you are afraid!" she declared. "I refuse to marry you unless +you propose properly. Everybody does it. And it is a woman's privilege: +she wants to have that to look back to." + +"Very well," I consented with an exaggerated sigh. "If you will promise +not to think I look like an idiot, I shall do it, knee and all." + +I had to pass her to close the door behind us, but when I kissed her +again she protested that we were not really engaged. + +I turned to look down at her. "It is a terrible thing," I said +exultantly, "to love a girl the way I love you, and to have only one +arm!" Then I closed the door. + +From across the street there came a sharp crescendo whistle, and a +vaguely familiar figure separated itself from the park railing. + +"Say," he called, in a hoarse whisper, "shall I throw the key down the +elevator shaft?" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Man in Lower Ten, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN LOWER TEN *** + +***** This file should be named 1869.txt or 1869.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/6/1869/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This Etext prepared by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer. + + + + + +The Man in Lower Ten, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I I GO TO PITTSBURG + +II A TORN TELEGRAM + +III ACROSS THE AISLE + +IV NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE + +V THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR + +VI THE GIRL IN BLUE + +VII A FINE GOLD CHAIN + +VIII THE SECOND SECTION + +IX THE HALCYON BREAKFAST + +X MISS WEST'S REQUEST + +XI THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN + +XII THE GOLD BAG + +XIII FADED ROSES + +XIV THE TRAP-DOOR + +XV THE CINEMATOGRAPH + +XVI THE SHADOW OF A GIRL + +XVII AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN + +XVIII A NEW WORLD + +XIX AT THE TABLE NEXT + +XX THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN + +XXI MCKNIGHT'S THEORY + +XXII AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE + +XXIII A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS + +XXIV HIS WIFE'S FATHER + +XXV AT THE STATION + +XXVI ON TO RICHMOND + +XXVII THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS + +XXVIII ALISON'S STORY + +XXIX IN THE DINING-ROOM + +XXX FINER DETAILS + +XXXI AND ONLY ONE ARM + + + +THE MAN IN LOWER TEN + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +I GO TO PITTSBURG + + +McKnight is gradually taking over the criminal end of the business. +I never liked it, and since the strange case of the man in lower ten, +I have been a bit squeamish. Given a case like that, where you can +build up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three +entirely different people, only one of whom can be guilty, and your +faith in circumstantial evidence dies of overcrowding. I never see +a shivering, white-faced wretch in the prisoners' dock that I do not +hark back with shuddering horror to the strange events on the +Pullman car Ontario, between Washington and Pittsburg, on the night +of September ninth, last. + +McKnight could tell the story a great deal better than I, although +he can not spell three consecutive words correctly. But, while he +has imagination and humor, he is lazy. + +"It didn't happen to me, anyhow," he protested, when I put it up to +him. "And nobody cares for second-hand thrills. Besides, you want +the unvarnished and ungarnished truth, and I'm no hand for that. +I'm a lawyer." + +So am I, although there have been times when my assumption in that +particular has been disputed. I am unmarried, and just old enough +to dance with the grown-up little sisters of the girls I used to +know. I am fond of outdoors, prefer horses to the aforesaid +grown-up little sisters, am without sentiment (am crossed out and +was substituted.-Ed.) and completely ruled and frequently routed by +my housekeeper, an elderly widow. + +In fact, of all the men of my acquaintance, I was probably the most +prosaic, the least adventurous, the one man in a hundred who would +be likely to go without a deviation from the normal through the +orderly procession of the seasons, summer suits to winter flannels, +golf to bridge. + +So it was a queer freak of the demons of chance to perch on my +unsusceptible thirty-year-old chest, tie me up with a crime, ticket +me with a love affair, and start me on that sensational and not +always respectable journey that ended so surprisingly less than +three weeks later in the firm's private office. It had been the +most remarkable period of my life. I would neither give it up nor +live it again under any inducement, and yet all that I lost was +some twenty yards off my drive! + +It was really McKnight's turn to make the next journey. I had a +tournament at Chevy Chase for Saturday, and a short yacht cruise +planned for Sunday, and when a man has been grinding at statute law +for a week, he needs relaxation. But McKnight begged off. It was +not the first time he had shirked that summer in order to run down +to Richmond, and I was surly about it. But this time he had a new +excuse. "I wouldn't be able to look after the business if I did +go," he said. He has a sort of wide-eyed frankness that makes one +ashamed to doubt him. "I'm always car sick crossing the mountains. +It's a fact, Lollie. See-sawing over the peaks does it. Why, +crossing the Alleghany Mountains has the Gulf Stream to Bermuda +beaten to a frazzle." + +So I gave him up finally and went home to pack. He came later in +the evening with his machine, the Cannonball, to take me to the +station, and he brought the forged notes in the Bronson case. + +"Guard them with your life," he warned me. "They are more precious +than honor. Sew them in your chest protector, or wherever people +keep valuables. I never keep any. I'll not be happy until I see +Gentleman Andy doing the lockstep." + +He sat down on my clean collars, found my cigarettes and struck a +match on the mahogany bed post with one movement. + +"Where's the Pirate?" he demanded. The Pirate is my housekeeper, +Mrs. Klopton, a very worthy woman, so labeled--and libeled--because +of a ferocious pair of eyes and what McKnight called a bucaneering +nose. I quietly closed the door into the hall. + +"Keep your voice down, Richey," I said. "She is looking for the +evening paper to see if it is going to rain. She has my raincoat +and an umbrella waiting in the hall." + +The collars being damaged beyond repair, he left them and went to +the window. He stood there for some time, staring at the blackness +that represented the wall of the house next door. + +"It's raining now," he said over his shoulder, and closed the window +and the shutters. Something in his voice made me glance up, but he +was watching me, his hands idly in his pockets. + +"Who lives next door?" he inquired in a perfunctory tone, after a +pause. I was packing my razor. + +"House is empty," I returned absently. "If the landlord would put +it in some sort of shape---" + +"Did you put those notes in your pocket?" he broke in. + +"Yes." I was impatient. "Along with my certificates of registration, +baptism and vaccination. Whoever wants them will have to steal my +coat to get them." + +"Well, I would move them, if I were you. Somebody in the next house +was confoundedly anxious to see where you put them. Somebody right +at that window opposite." + +I scoffed at the idea, but nevertheless I moved the papers, putting +them in my traveling-bag, well down at the bottom. McKnight watched +me uneasily. + +"I have a hunch that you are going to have trouble," he said, as I +locked the alligator bag. "Darned if I like starting anything +important on Friday." + +"You have a congenital dislike to start anything on any old day," I +retorted, still sore from my lost Saturday. "And if you knew the +owner of that house as I do you would know that if there was any one +at that window he is paying rent for the privilege." + +Mrs. Klopton rapped at the door and spoke discreetly from the hall. + +"Did Mr. McKnight bring the evening paper?" she inquired. + +"Sorry, but I didn't, Mrs. Klopton," McKnight called. "The Cubs +won, three to nothing." He listened, grinning, as she moved away +with little irritated rustles of her black silk gown. + +I finished my packing, changed my collar and was ready to go. Then +very cautiously we put out the light and opened the shutters. The +window across was merely a deeper black in the darkness. It was +closed and dirty. And yet, probably owing to Richey's suggestion, +I had an uneasy sensation of eyes staring across at me. The next +moment we were at the door, poised for flight. + +"We'll have to run for it," I said in a whisper. "She's down there +with a package of some sort, sandwiches probably. And she's +threatened me with overshoes for a month. Ready now!" + +I had a kaleidoscopic view of Mrs. Klopton in the lower hall, +holding out an armful of such traveling impedimenta as she deemed +essential, while beside her, Euphemia, the colored housemaid, +grinned over a white-wrapped box. + +"Awfully sorry-no time-back Sunday," I panted over my shoulder. +Then the door closed and the car was moving away. + +McKnight bent forward and stared at the facade of the empty house +next door as we passed. It was black, staring, mysterious, as empty +buildings are apt to be. + +"I'd like to hold a post-mortem on that corpse of a house," he said +thoughtfully. "By George, I've a notion to get out and take a look." + +"Somebody after the brass pipes," I scoffed. "House has been empty +for a year." + +With one hand on the steering wheel McKnight held out the other for +my cigarette case. "Perhaps," he said; "but I don't see what she +would want with brass pipe." + +"A woman!" I laughed outright. "You have been looking too hard at +the picture in the back of your watch, that's all. There's an +experiment like that: if you stare long enough--" + +But McKnight was growing sulky: he sat looking rigidly ahead, and +he did not speak again until he brought the Cannonball to a stop +at the station. Even then it was only a perfunctory remark. He +went through the gate with me, and with five minutes to spare, we +lounged and smoked in the train shed. My mind had slid away from +my surroundings and had wandered to a polo pony that I couldn't +afford and intended to buy anyhow. Then McKnight shook off his +taciturnity. + +"For heaven's sake, don't look so martyred," he burst out; "I know +you've done all the traveling this summer. I know you're missing a +game to-morrow. But don't be a patient mother; confound it, I have +to go to Richmond on Sunday. I--I want to see a girl." + +"Oh, don't mind me," I observed politely. "Personally, I wouldn't +change places with you. What's her name--North? South?" + +"West," he snapped. "Don't try to be funny. And all I have to say, +Blakeley, is that if you ever fall in love I hope you make an +egregious ass of yourself." + +In view of what followed, this came rather close to prophecy. + +The trip west was without incident. I played bridge with a +furniture dealer from Grand Rapids, a sales agent for a Pittsburg +iron firm and a young professor from an eastern college. I won +three rubbers out of four, finished what cigarettes McKnight had +left me, and went to bed at one o'clock. It was growing cooler, +and the rain had ceased. Once, toward morning, I wakened with a +start, for no apparent reason, and sat bolt upright. I had an +uneasy feeling that some one had been looking at me, the same +sensation I had experienced earlier in the evening at the window. +But I could feel the bag with the notes, between me and the +window, and with my arm thrown over it for security, I lapsed +again into slumber. Later, when I tried to piece together the +fragments of that journey, I remembered that my coat, which had +been folded and placed beyond my restless tossing, had been rescued +in the morning from a heterogeneous jumble of blankets, evening +papers and cravat, had been shaken out with profanity and donned +with wrath. At the time, nothing occurred to me but the necessity +of writing to the Pullman Company and asking them if they ever +traveled in their own cars. I even formulated some of the letter. + +"If they are built to scale, why not take a man of ordinary stature +as your unit?" I wrote mentally. "I can not fold together like +the traveling cup with which I drink your abominable water." + +I was more cheerful after I had had a cup of coffee in the Union +Station. It was too early to attend to business, and I lounged in +the restaurant and hid behind the morning papers. As I had expected, +they had got hold of my visit and its object. On the first page was +a staring announcement that the forged papers in the Bronson case +had been brought to Pittsburg. Underneath, a telegram from +Washington stated that Lawrence Blakeley, of Blakeley and McKnight, +had left for Pittsburg the night before, and that, owing to the +approaching trial of the Bronson case and the illness of John +Gilmore, the Pittsburg millionaire, who was the chief witness for +the prosecution, it was supposed that the visit was intimately +concerned with the trial. + +I looked around apprehensively. There were no reporters yet in +sight, and thankful to have escaped notice I paid for my breakfast +and left. At the cab-stand I chose the least dilapidated hansom +I could find, and giving the driver the address of the Gilmore +residence, in the East end, I got in. + +I was just in time. As the cab turned and rolled off, a slim young +man in a straw hat separated himself from a little group of men and +hurried toward us. + +"Hey! Wait a minute there!" he called, breaking into a trot. + +But the cabby did not hear, or perhaps did not care to. We jogged +comfortably along, to my relief, leaving the young man far behind. +I avoid reporters on principle, having learned long ago that I am +an easy mark for a clever interviewer. + +It was perhaps nine o'clock when I left the station. Our way was +along the boulevard which hugged the side of one of the city's great +hills. Far below, to the left, lay the railroad tracks and the +seventy times seven looming stacks of the mills. The white mist of +the river, the grays and blacks of the smoke blended into a +half-revealing haze, dotted here and there with fire. It was +unlovely, tremendous. Whistler might have painted it with its +pathos, its majesty, but he would have missed what made it +infinitely suggestive--the rattle and roar of iron on iron, the +rumble of wheels, the throbbing beat, against the ears, of fire +and heat and brawn welding prosperity. + +Something of this I voiced to the grim old millionaire who was +responsible for at least part of it. He was propped up in bed +in his East end home, listening to the market reports read by a +nurse, and he smiled a little at my enthusiasm. + +"I can't see much beauty in it myself," he said. "But it's our +badge of prosperity. The full dinner pail here means a nose that +looks like a flue. Pittsburg without smoke wouldn't be Pittsburg, +any more than New York without prohibition would be New York. +Sit down for a few minutes, Mr. Blakeley. Now, Miss Gardner, +Westinghouse Electric." + +The nurse resumed her reading in a monotonous voice. She read +literally and without understanding, using initials and +abbreviations as they came. But the shrewd old man followed her +easily. Once, however, he stopped her. + +"D-o is ditto," he said gently, "not do." + +As the nurse droned along, I found myself looking curiously at a +photograph in a silver frame on the bed-side table. It was the +picture of a girl in white, with her hands clasped loosely before +her. Against the dark background her figure stood out slim and +young. Perhaps it was the rather grim environment, possibly it was +my mood, but although as a general thing photographs of young girls +make no appeal to me, this one did. I found my eyes straying back +to it. By a little finesse I even made out the name written across +the corner, "Alison." + +Mr. Gilmore lay back among his pillows and listened to the nurse's +listless voice. But he was watching me from under his heavy eyebrows, +for when the reading was over, and we were alone, he indicated the +picture with a gesture. + +"I keep it there to remind myself that I am an old man," he said. +"That is my granddaughter, Alison West." + +I expressed the customary polite surprise, at which, finding me +responsive, he told me his age with a chuckle of pride. More +surprise, this time genuine. From that we went to what he ate for +breakfast and did not eat for luncheon, and then to his reserve +power, which at sixty-five becomes a matter for thought. And so, +in a wide circle, back to where we started, the picture. + +"Father was a rascal," John Gilmore said, picking up the frame. +"The happiest day of my life was when I knew he was safely dead in +bed and not hanged. If the child had looked like him, I--well, she +doesn't. She's a Gilmore, every inch. Supposed to look like me." + +"Very noticeably," I agreed soberly. + +I had produced the notes by that time, and replacing the picture Mr. +Gilmore gathered his spectacles from beside it. He went over the +four notes methodically, examining each carefully and putting it +down before he picked up the next. Then he leaned back and took off +his glasses. + +"They're not so bad," he said thoughtfully. "Not so bad. But I +never saw them before. That's my unofficial signature. I am +inclined to think--" he was speaking partly to himself--"to think +that he has got hold of a letter of mine, probably to Alison. +Bronson was a friend of her rapscallion of a father." + +I took Mr. Gilmore's deposition and put it into my traveling-bag +with the forged notes. When I saw them again, almost three weeks +later, they were unrecognizable, a mass of charred paper on a copper +ashtray. In the interval other and bigger things had happened: the +Bronson forgery case had shrunk beside the greater and more imminent +mystery of the man in lower ten. And Alison West had come into the +story and into my life. + + + +CHAPTER II + +A TORN TELEGRAM + + +I lunched alone at the Gilmore house, and went back to the city at +once. The sun had lifted the mists, and a fresh summer wind had +cleared away the smoke pall. The boulevard was full of cars flying +countryward for the Saturday half-holiday, toward golf and tennis, +green fields and babbling girls. I gritted my teeth and thought of +McKnight at Richmond, visiting the lady with the geographical name. +And then, for the first time, I associated John Gilmore's granddaughter +with the "West" that McKnight had irritably flung at me. + +I still carried my traveling-bag, for McKnight's vision at the window +of the empty house had not been without effect. I did not transfer +the notes to my pocket, and, if I had, it would not have altered the +situation later. Only the other day McKnight put this very thing up +to me. + +"I warned you," he reminded me. "I told you there were queer things +coming, and to be on your guard. You ought to have taken your +revolver." + +"It would have been of exactly as much use as a bucket of snow in +Africa," I retorted. "If I had never closed my eyes, or if I had +kept my finger on the trigger of a six-shooter (which is novelesque +for revolver), the result would have been the same. And the next +time you want a little excitement with every variety of thrill +thrown in, I can put you by way of it. You begin by getting the +wrong berth in a Pullman car, and end--" + +"Oh, I know how it ends," he finished shortly. "Don't you suppose +the whole thing's written on my spinal marrow?" + +But I am wandering again. That is the difficulty with the +unprofessional story-teller: he yaws back and forth and can't keep +in the wind; he drops his characters overboard when he hasn't any +further use for them and drowns them; he forgets the coffee-pot and +the frying-pan and all the other small essentials, and, if he carries +a love affair, he mutters a fervent "Allah be praised" when he lands +them, drenched with adventures, at the matrimonial dock at the end +of the final chapter. + +I put in a thoroughly unsatisfactory afternoon. Time dragged +eternally. I dropped in at a summer vaudeville, and bought some +ties at a haberdasher's. I was bored but unexpectant; I had no +premonition of what was to come. Nothing unusual had ever happened +to me; friends of mine had sometimes sailed the high seas of +adventure or skirted the coasts of chance, but all of the shipwrecks +had occurred after a woman passenger had been taken on. "Ergo," I +had always said "no women!" I repeated it to myself that evening +almost savagely, when I found my thoughts straying back to the +picture of John Gilmore's granddaughter. I even argued as I ate my +solitary dinner at a downtown restaurant. + +"Haven't you troubles enough," I reflected, "without looking for +more? Hasn't Bad News gone lame, with a matinee race booked for +next week? Otherwise aren't you comfortable? Isn't your house in +order? Do you want to sell a pony in order to have the library +done over in mission or the drawing-room in gold? Do you want +somebody to count the empty cigarette boxes lying around every +morning?" + +Lay it to the long idle afternoon, to the new environment, to +anything you like, but I began to think that perhaps I did. I +was confoundedly lonely. For the first time in my life its even +course began to waver: the needle registered warning marks on the +matrimonial seismograph, lines vague enough, but lines. + +My alligator bag lay at my feet, still locked. While I waited for +my coffee I leaned back and surveyed the people incuriously. There +were the usual couples intent on each other: my new state of mind +made me regard them with tolerance. But at the next table, where +a man and woman dined together, a different atmosphere prevailed. +My attention was first caught by the woman's face. She had been +speaking earnestly across the table, her profile turned to me. I +had noticed casually her earnest manner, her somber clothes, and the +great mass of odd, bronze-colored hair on her neck. But suddenly +she glanced toward me and the utter hopelessness--almost tragedy +--of her expression struck me with a shock. She half closed her +eyes and drew a long breath, then she turned again to the man across +the table. + +Neither one was eating. He sat low in his chair, his chin on his +chest, ugly folds of thick flesh protruding over his collar. He +was probably fifty, bald, grotesque, sullen, and yet not without +a suggestion of power. But he had been drinking; as I looked, he +raised an unsteady hand and summoned a waiter with a wine list. + +The young woman bent across the table and spoke again quickly. She +had unconsciously raised her voice. Not beautiful, in her +earnestness and stress she rather interested me. I had an idle +inclination to advise the waiter to remove the bottled temptation +from the table. I wonder what would have happened if I had? Suppose +Harrington had not been intoxicated when he entered the Pullman car +Ontario that night! + +For they were about to make a journey, I gathered, and the young +woman wished to go alone. I drank three cups of coffee, which +accounted for my wakefulness later, and shamelessly watched the +tableau before me. The woman's protest evidently went for nothing: +across the table the man grunted monosyllabic replies and grew more +and more lowering and sullen. Once, during a brief unexpected +pianissimo in the music, her voice came to me sharply: + +"If I could only see him in time!" she was saying. "Oh, it's +terrible!" + +In spite of my interest I would have forgotten the whole incident +at once, erased it from my mind as one does the inessentials and +clutterings of memory, had I not met them again, later that evening, +in the Pennsylvania station. The situation between them had not +visibly altered: the same dogged determination showed in the man's +face, but the young woman--daughter or wife? I wondered--had +drawn down her veil and I could only suspect what white misery lay +beneath. + +I bought my berth after waiting in a line of some eight or ten +people. When, step by step, I had almost reached the window, a +tall woman whom I had not noticed before spoke to me from my elbow. +She had a ticket and money in her hand. + +"Will you try to get me a lower when you buy yours?" she asked. "I +have traveled for three nights in uppers." + +I consented, of course; beyond that I hardly noticed the woman. I +had a vague impression of height and a certain amount of stateliness, +but the crowd was pushing behind me, and some one was standing on +my foot. I got two lowers easily, and, turning with the change and +berths, held out the tickets. + +"Which will you have?" I asked. "Lower eleven or lower ten?" + +"It makes no difference," she said. "Thank you very much indeed." + +At random I gave her lower eleven, and called a porter to help her +with her luggage. I followed them leisurely to the train shed, and +ten minutes more saw us under way. + +I looked into my car, but it presented the peculiarly unattractive +appearance common to sleepers. The berths were made up; the center +aisle was a path between walls of dingy, breeze-repelling curtains, +while the two seats at each end of the car were piled high with +suitcases and umbrellas. The perspiring porter was trying to be six +places at once: somebody has said that Pullman porters are black so +they won't show the dirt, but they certainly show the heat. + +Nine-fifteen was an outrageous hour to go to bed, especially since +I sleep little or not at all on the train, so I made my way to the +smoker and passed the time until nearly eleven with cigarettes and +a magazine. The car was very close. It was a warm night, and +before turning in I stood a short time in the vestibule. The train +had been stopping at frequent intervals, and, finding the brakeman +there, I asked the trouble. + +It seemed that there was a hot-box on the next car, and that not +only were we late, but we were delaying the second section, just +behind. I was beginning to feel pleasantly drowsy, and the air was +growing cooler as we got into the mountains. I said good night to +the brakeman and went back to my berth. To my surprise, lower ten +was already occupied--a suit-case projected from beneath, a pair +of shoes stood on the floor, and from behind the curtains came the +heavy, unmistakable breathing of deep sleep. I hunted out the +porter and together we investigated. + +"Are you asleep, sir?" asked the porter, leaning over deferentially. +No answer forthcoming, he opened the curtains and looked in. Yes, +the intruder was asleep--very much asleep--and an overwhelming +odor of whisky proclaimed that he would probably remain asleep +until morning. I was irritated. The car was full, and I was not +disposed to take an upper in order to allow this drunken interloper +to sleep comfortably in my berth. + +"You'll have to get out of this," I said, shaking him angrily. But +he merely grunted and turned over. As he did so, I saw his features +for the first time. It was the quarrelsome man of the restaurant. + +I was less disposed than ever to relinquish my claim, but the porter, +after a little quiet investigation, offered a solution of the +difficulty. "There's no one in lower nine," he suggested, pulling +open the curtains just across. "It's likely nine's his berth, and +he's made a mistake, owing to his condition. You'd better take nine, +sir." + +I did, with a firm resolution that if nine's rightful owner turned +up later I should be just as unwakable as the man opposite. I +undressed leisurely, making sure of the safety of the forged notes, +and placing my grip as before between myself and the window. + +Being a man of systematic habits, I arranged my clothes carefully, +putting my shoes out for the porter to polish, and stowing my collar +and scarf in the little hammock swung for the purpose. + +At last, with my pillows so arranged that I could see out comfortably, +and with the unhygienic-looking blanket turned back--I have always +a distrust of those much-used affairs--I prepared to wait gradually +for sleep. + +But sleep did not visit me. The train came to frequent, grating +stops, and I surmised the hot box again. I am not a nervous man, +but there was something chilling in the thought of the second section +pounding along behind us. Once, as I was dozing, our locomotive +whistled a shrill warning--"You keep back where you belong," it +screamed to my drowsy ears, and from somewhere behind came a +chastened "All-right-I-will." + +I grew more and more wide-awake. At Cresson I got up on my elbow +and blinked out at the station lights. Some passengers boarded the +train there and I heard a woman's low tones, a southern voice, rich +and full. Then quiet again. Every nerve was tense: time passed, +perhaps ten minutes, possibly half an hour. Then, without the +slightest warning, as the train rounded a curve, a heavy body was +thrown into my berth. The incident, trivial as it seemed, was +startling in its suddenness, for although my ears were painfully +strained and awake, I had heard no step outside. The next instant +the curtain hung limp again; still without a sound, my disturber +had slipped away into the gloom and darkness. In a frenzy of +wakefulness, I sat up, drew on a pair of slippers and fumbled for +my bath-robe. + +From a berth across, probably lower ten, came that particular +aggravating snore which begins lightly, delicately, faintly soprano, +goes down the scale a note with every breath, and, after keeping the +listener tense with expectation, ends with an explosion that tears +the very air. I was more and more irritable: I sat on the edge +of the berth and hoped the snorer would choke to death. He had +considerable vitality, however; he withstood one shock after another +and survived to start again with new vigor. In desperation I found +some cigarettes and one match, piled my blankets over my grip, and +drawing the curtains together as though the berth were still occupied, +I made my way to the vestibule of the car. + +I was not clad for dress parade. Is it because the male is so +restricted to gloom in his every-day attire that he blossoms into +gaudy colors in his pajamas and dressing-gowns? It would take a Turk +to feel at home before an audience in my red and yellow bathrobe, a +Christmas remembrance from Mrs. Klopton, with slippers to match. + +So, naturally, when I saw a feminine figure on the platform, my +first instinct was to dodge. The woman, however, was quicker than +I; she gave me a startled glance, wheeled and disappeared, with a +flash of two bronze-colored braids, into the next car. + +Cigarette box in one hand, match in the other, I leaned against the +uncertain frame of the door and gazed after her vanished figure. +The mountain air flapped my bath-robe around my bare ankles, my one +match burned to the end and went out, and still I stared. For I +had seen on her expressive face a haunting look that was horror, +nothing less. Heaven knows, I am not psychological. Emotions have +to be written large before I can read them. But a woman in trouble +always appeals to me, and this woman was more than that. She was +in deadly fear. + +If I had not been afraid of being ridiculous, I would have followed +her. But I fancied that the apparition of a man in a red and yellow +bath-robe, with an unkempt thatch of hair, walking up to her and +assuring her that he would protect her would probably put her into +hysterics. I had done that once before, when burglars had tried to +break into the house, and had startled the parlor maid into bed for +a week. So I tried to assure myself that I had imagined the lady's +distress--or caused it, perhaps--and to dismiss her from my mind. +Perhaps she was merely anxious about the unpleasant gentleman of the +restaurant. I thought smugly that I could have told her all about +him: that he was sleeping the sleep of the just and the intoxicated +in a berth that ought, by all that was fair and right, to have been +mine, and that if I were tied to a man who snored like that I should +have him anesthetized and his soft palate put where it would never +again flap like a loose sail in the wind. + +We passed Harrisburg as I stood there. It was starlight, and the +great crests of the Alleghanies had given way to low hills. At +intervals we passed smudges of gray white, no doubt in daytime +comfortable farms, which McKnight says is a good way of putting it, +the farms being a lot more comfortable than the people on them. + +I was growing drowsy: the woman with the bronze hair and the +horrified face was fading in retrospect. It was colder, too, and +I turned with a shiver to go in. As I did so a bit of paper +fluttered into the air and settled on my sleeve, like a butterfly +on a gorgeous red and yellow blossom. I picked it up curiously +and glanced at it. It was part of a telegram that had been torn +into bits. + +There were only parts of four words on the scrap, but it left me +puzzled and thoughtful. It read, "-ower ten, car seve-." + +"Lower ten, car seven," was my berth-the one I had bought and found +preempted. + + + +CHAPTER III + +ACROSS THE AISLE + + +No solution offering itself, I went back to my berth. The snorer +across had apparently strangled, or turned over, and so after a +time I dropped asleep, to be awakened by the morning sunlight across +my face. + +I felt for my watch, yawning prodigiously. I reached under the +pillow and failed to find it, but something scratched the back of +my hand. I sat up irritably and nursed the wound, which was bleeding +a little. Still drowsy, I felt more cautiously for what I supposed +had been my scarf pin, but there was nothing there. Wide awake now, +I reached for my traveling-bag, on the chance that I had put my watch +in there. I had drawn the satchel to me and had my hand on the lock +before I realized that it was not my own! + +Mine was of alligator hide. I had killed the beast in Florida, after +the expenditure of enough money to have bought a house and enough +energy to have built one. The bag I held in my hand was a black one, +sealskin, I think. The staggering thought of what the loss of my bag +meant to me put my finger on the bell and kept it there until the +porter came. + +"Did you ring, sir?" he asked, poking his head through the curtains +obsequiously. McKnight objects that nobody can poke his head through +a curtain and be obsequious. But Pullman porters can and do. + +"No," I snapped. "It rang itself. What in thunder do you mean by +exchanging my valise for this one? You'll have to find it if you +waken the entire car to do it. There are important papers in that +grip." + +"Porter," called a feminine voice from an upper berth near-by. +"Porter, am I to dangle here all day?" + +"Let her dangle," I said savagely. "You find that bag of mine." + +The porter frowned. Then he looked at me with injured dignity. +"I brought in your overcoat, sir. You carried your own valise." + +The fellow was right! In an excess of caution I had refused to +relinquish my alligator bag, and had turned over my other traps +to the porter. It was clear enough then. I was simply a victim +of the usual sleeping-car robbery. I was in a lather of +perspiration by that time: the lady down the car was still +dangling and talking about it: still nearer a feminine voice was +giving quick orders in French, presumably to a maid. The porter +was on his knees, looking under the berth. + +"Not there, sir," he said, dusting his knees. He was visibly more +cheerful, having been absolved of responsibility. "Reckon it was +taken while you was wanderin' around the car last night." + +"I'll give you fifty dollars if you find it," I said. "A hundred. +Reach up my shoes and I'll--" + +I stopped abruptly. My eyes were fixed in stupefied amazement on +a coat that hung from a hook at the foot of my berth. From the +coat they traveled, dazed, to the soft-bosomed shirt beside it, and +from there to the collar and cravat in the net hammock across the +windows. + +"A hundred!" the porter repeated, showing his teeth. But I caught +him by the arm and pointed to the foot of the berth. + +"What--what color's that coat?" I asked unsteadily. + +"Gray, sir." His tone was one of gentle reproof. + +"And--the trousers?" + +He reached over and held up one creased leg. "Gray, too," he +grinned. + +"Gray!" I could not believe even his corroboration of my own eyes. +"But my clothes were blue!" The porter was amused: he dived under +the curtains and brought up a pair of shoes. "Your shoes, sir," he +said with a flourish. "Reckon you've been dreaming, sir." + +Now, there are two things I always avoid in my dress--possibly an +idiosyncrasy of my bachelor existence. These tabooed articles are +red neckties and tan shoes. And not only were the shoes the porter +lifted from the floor of a gorgeous shade of yellow, but the scarf +which was run through the turned over collar was a gaudy red. It +took a full minute for the real import of things to penetrate my +dazed intelligence. Then I gave a vindictive kick at the offending +ensemble. + +"They're not mine, any of them," I snarled. "They are some other +fellow's. I'll sit here until I take root before I put them on." + +"They're nice lookin' clothes," the porter put in, eying the red +tie with appreciation. "Ain't everybody would have left you +anything." + +"Call the conductor," I said shortly. Then a possible explanation +occurred to me. "Oh, porter--what's the number of this berth?" + +"Seven, sir. If you cain't wear those shoes--" + +"Seven!" In my relief I almost shouted it. "Why, then, it's +simple enough. I'm in the wrong berth, that's all. My berth is +nine. Only--where the deuce is the man who belongs here?" + +"Likely in nine, sir." The darky was enjoying himself. "You and +the other gentleman just got mixed in the night. That's all, sir." +It was clear that he thought I had been drinking. + +I drew a long breath. Of course, that was the explanation. This +was number seven's berth, that was his soft hat, this his umbrella, +his coat, his bag. My rage turned to irritation at myself. + +The porter went to the next berth and I could hear his softly +insinuating voice. "Time to get up, sir. Are you awake? Time +to get up." + +There was no response from number nine. I guessed that he had +opened the curtains and was looking in. Then he came back. + +"Number nine's empty," he said. + +"Empty! Do you mean my clothes aren't there?" I demanded. "My +valise? Why don't you answer me?" + +"You doan' give me time," he retorted. "There ain't nothin' there. +But it's been slept in." + +The disappointment was the greater for my few moments of hope. I +sat up in a white fury and put on the clothes that had been left me. +Then, still raging, I sat on the edge of the berth and put on the +obnoxious tan shoes. The porter, called to his duties, made little +excursions back to me, to offer assistance and to chuckle at my +discomfiture. He stood by, outwardly decorous, but with little +irritating grins of amusement around his mouth, when I finally +emerged with the red tie in my hand. + +"Bet the owner of those clothes didn't become them any more than +you do," he said, as he plied the ubiquitous whisk broom. + +"When I get the owner of these clothes," I retorted grimly, "he +will need a shroud. Where's the conductor?" + +The conductor was coming, he assured me; also that there was no bag +answering the description of mine on the car. I slammed my way to +the dressing-room, washed, choked my fifteen and a half neck into a +fifteen collar, and was back again in less than five minutes. The +car, as well as its occupants, was gradually taking on a daylight +appearance. I hobbled in, for one of the shoes was abominably tight, +and found myself facing a young woman in blue with an unforgettable +face. ("Three women already." McKnight says: "That's going some, +even if you don't count the Gilmore nurse.") She stood, half-turned +toward me, one hand idly drooping, the other steadying her as she +gazed out at the flying landscape. I had an instant impression that +I had met her somewhere, under different circumstances, more cheerful +ones, I thought, for the girl's dejection now was evident. Beside +her, sitting down, a small dark woman, considerably older, was +talking in a rapid undertone. The girl nodded indifferently now and +then. I fancied, although I was not sure, that my appearance brought +a startled look into the young woman's face. I sat down and, hands +thrust deep into the other man's pockets, stared ruefully at the +other man's shoes. + +The stage was set. In a moment the curtain was going up on the +first act of the play. And for a while we would all say our little +speeches and sing our little songs, and I, the villain, would hold +center stage while the gallery hissed. + +The porter was standing beside lower ten. He had reached in and +was knocking valiantly. But his efforts met with no response. He +winked at me over his shoulder; then he unfastened the curtains and +bent forward. Behind him, I saw him stiffen, heard his muttered +exclamation, saw the bluish pallor that spread over his face and +neck. As he retreated a step the interior of lower ten lay open to +the day. + +The man in it was on his back, the early morning sun striking full +on his upturned face. But the light did not disturb him. A small +stain of red dyed the front of his night clothes and trailed across +the sheet; his half-open eyes were fixed, without seeing, on the +shining wood above. + +I grasped the porter's shaking shoulders and stared down to where +the train imparted to the body a grisly suggestion of motion. "Good +Lord," I gasped. "The man's been murdered!" + + + +CHAPTER IV + +NUMBERS SEVEN AND NINE + + +Afterwards, when I tried to recall our discovery of the body in +lower ten, I found that my most vivid impression was not that made +by the revelation of the opened curtain. I had an instantaneous +picture of a slender blue-gowned girl who seemed to sense my words +rather than hear them, of two small hands that clutched desperately +at the seat beside them. The girl in the aisle stood, bent toward +us, perplexity and alarm fighting in her face. + +With twitching hands the porter attempted to draw the curtains +together. Then in a paralysis of shock, he collapsed on the edge +of my berth and sat there swaying. In my excitement I shook him. + +"For Heaven's sake, keep your nerve, man," I said bruskly. "You'll +have every woman in the car in hysterics. And if you do, you'll +wish you could change places with the man in there." He rolled his +eyes. + +A man near, who had been reading last night's paper, dropped it +quickly and tiptoed toward us. He peered between the partly open +curtains, closed them quietly and went back, ostentatiously solemn, +to his seat. The very crackle with which he opened his paper added +to the bursting curiosity of the car. For the passengers knew that +something was amiss: I was conscious of a sudden tension. + +With the curtains closed the porter was more himself; he wiped his +lips with a handkerchief and stood erect. + +"It's my last trip in this car," he remarked heavily. "There's +something wrong with that berth. Last trip the woman in it took an +overdose of some sleeping stuff, and we found her, jes' like that, +dead! And it ain't more'n three months now since there was twins +born in that very spot. No, sir, it ain't natural." + +At that moment a thin man with prominent eyes and a spare grayish +goatee creaked up the aisle and paused beside me. + +"Porter sick?" he inquired, taking in with a professional eye the +porter's horror-struck face, my own excitement and the slightly +gaping curtains of lower ten. He reached for the darky's pulse and +pulled out an old-fashioned gold watch. + +"Hm! Only fifty! What's the matter? Had a shock?" he asked +shrewdly. + +"Yes," I answered for the porter. "We've both had one. If you are +a doctor, I wish you would look at the man in the berth across, +lower ten. I'm afraid it's too late, but I'm not experienced in +such matters." + +Together we opened the curtains, and the doctor, bending down, gave +a comprehensive glance that took in the rolling head, the relaxed +jaw, the ugly stain on the sheet. The examination needed only a +moment. Death was written in the clear white of the nostrils, the +colorless lips, the smoothing away of the sinister lines of the +night before. With its new dignity the face was not unhandsome: the +gray hair was still plentiful, the features strong and well cut. + +The doctor straightened himself and turned to me. "Dead for some +time," he said, running a professional finger over the stains. +"These are dry and darkened, you see, and rigor mortis is well +established. A friend of yours?" + +"I don't know him at all," I replied. "Never saw him but once +before." + +"Then you don't know if he is traveling alone?" + +"No, he was not--that is, I don't know anything about him," I +corrected myself. It was my first blunder: the doctor glanced up +at me quickly and then turned his attention again to the body. +Like a flash there had come to me the vision of the woman with +the bronze hair and the tragic face, whom I had surprised in the +vestibule between the cars, somewhere in the small hours of the +morning. I had acted on my first impulse--the masculine one of +shielding a woman. + +The doctor had unfastened the coat of the striped pajamas and +exposed the dead man's chest. On the left side was a small +punctured wound of insignificant size. + +"Very neatly done," the doctor said with appreciation. "Couldn't +have done it better myself. Right through the intercostal space: +no time even to grunt." + +"Isn't the heart around there somewhere?" I asked. The medical +man turned toward me and smiled austerely. + +"That's where it belongs, just under that puncture, when it isn't +gadding around in a man's throat or his boots." + +I had a new respect for the doctor, for any one indeed who could +crack even a feeble joke under such circumstances, or who could +run an impersonal finger over that wound and those stains. Odd +how a healthy, normal man holds the medical profession in half +contemptuous regard until he gets sick, or an emergency like this +arises, and then turns meekly to the man who knows the ins and outs +of his mortal tenement, takes his pills or his patronage, ties to +him like a rudderless ship in a gale. + +"Suicide, is it, doctor?" I asked. + +He stood erect, after drawing the bed-clothing over the face, and, +taking off his glasses, he wiped them slowly. + +"No, it is not suicide," he announced decisively. "It is murder." + +Of course, I had expected that, but the word itself brought a shiver. +I was just a bit dizzy. Curious faces through the car were turned +toward us, and I could hear the porter behind me breathing audibly. +A stout woman in negligee came down the aisle and querulously +confronted the porter. She wore a pink dressing-jacket and carried +portions of her clothing. + +"Porter," she began, in the voice of the lady who had "dangled," +"is there a rule of this company that will allow a woman to occupy +the dressing-room for one hour and curl her hair with an alcohol +lamp while respectable people haven't a place where they can hook +their--" + +She stopped suddenly and stared into lower ten. Her shining pink +cheeks grew pasty, her jaw fell. I remember trying to think of +something to say, and of saying nothing at all. Then--she had +buried her eyes in the nondescript garments that hung from her arm +and tottered back the way she had come. Slowly a little knot of +men gathered around us, silent for the most part. The doctor was +making a search of the berth when the conductor elbowed his way +through, followed by the inquisitive man, who had evidently summoned +him. I had lost sight, for a time, of the girl in blue. + +"Do it himself?" the conductor queried, after a businesslike glance +at the body. + +"No, he didn't," the doctor asserted. "There's no weapon here, and +the window is closed. He couldn't have thrown it out, and he didn't +swallow it. What on earth are you looking for, man?" + +Some one was on the floor at our feet, face down, head peering under +the berth. Now he got up without apology, revealing the man who +had summoned the conductor. He was dusty, alert, cheerful, and he +dragged up with him the dead man's suit-case. The sight of it +brought back to me at once my own predicament. + +"I don't know whether there's any connection or not, conductor," I +said, "but I am a victim, too, in less degree; I've been robbed of +everything I possess, except a red and yellow bath-robe. I happened +to be wearing the bath-robe, which was probably the reason the thief +overlooked it." + +There was a fresh murmur in the crowd. Some body laughed nervously. +The conductor was irritated. + +"I can't bother with that now," he snarled. "The railroad company +is responsible for transportation, not for clothes, jewelry and +morals. If people want to be stabbed and robbed in the company's +cars, it's their affair. Why didn't you sleep in your clothes? +I do." + +I took an angry step forward. Then somebody touched my arm, and I +unclenched my fist. I could understand the conductor's position, +and beside, in the law, I had been guilty myself of contributory +negligence. + +"I'm not trying to make you responsible," I protested as amiably +as I could, "and I believe the clothes the thief left are as good +as my own. They are certainly newer. But my valise contained +valuable papers and it is to your interest as well as mine to find +the man who stole it." + +"Why, of course," the conductor said shrewdly. "Find the man who +skipped out with this gentleman's clothes, and you've probably got +the murderer." + +"I went to bed in lower nine," I said, my mind full again of my lost +papers, "and I wakened in number seven. I was up in the night +prowling around, as I was unable to sleep, and I must have gone back +to the wrong berth. Anyhow, until the porter wakened me this morning +I knew nothing of my mistake. In the interval the thief--murderer, +too, perhaps--must have come back, discovered my error, and taken +advantage of it to further his escape." + +The inquisitive man looked at me from between narrowed eyelids, +ferret-like. + +"Did any one on the train suspect you of having valuable papers?" +he inquired. The crowd was listening intently. + +"No one," I answered promptly and positively. The doctor was +investigating the murdered man's effects. The pockets of his +trousers contained the usual miscellany of keys and small change, +while in his hip pocket was found a small pearl-handled revolver +of the type women usually keep around. A gold watch with a Masonic +charm had slid down between the mattress and the window, while a +showy diamond stud was still fastened in the bosom of his shirt. +Taken as a whole, the personal belongings were those of a man of +some means, but without any particular degree of breeding. The +doctor heaped them together. + +"Either robbery was not the motive," he reflected, "or the thief +overlooked these things in his hurry." + +The latter hypothesis seemed the more tenable, when, after a +thorough search, we found no pocketbook and less than a dollar in +small change. + +The suit-case gave no clue. It contained one empty leather-covered +flask and a pint bottle, also empty, a change of linen and some +collars with the laundry mark, S. H. In the leather tag on the +handle was a card with the name Simon Harrington, Pittsburg. The +conductor sat down on my unmade berth, across, and made an entry of +the name and address. Then, on an old envelope, he wrote a few +words and gave it to the porter, who disappeared. + +"I guess that's all I can do," he said. "I've had enough trouble +this trip to last for a year. They don't need a conductor on these +trains any more; what they ought to have is a sheriff and a posse." + +The porter from the next car came in and whispered to him. The +conductor rose unhappily. + +"Next car's caught the disease," he grumbled. "Doctor, a woman back +there has got mumps or bubonic plague, or something. Will you come +back?" + +The strange porter stood aside. + +"Lady about the middle of the car," he said, "in black, sir, with +queer-looking hair--sort of copper color, I think, sir." + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WOMAN IN THE NEXT CAR + + +With the departure of the conductor and the doctor, the group around +lower ten broke up, to re-form in smaller knots through the car. +The porter remained on guard. With something of relief I sank into +a seat. I wanted to think, to try to remember the details of the +previous night. But my inquisitive acquaintance had other +intentions. He came up and sat down beside me. Like the conductor, +he had taken notes of the dead man's belongings, his name, address, +clothing and the general circumstances of the crime. Now with his +little note-book open before him, he prepared to enjoy the minor +sensation of the robbery. + +"And now for the second victim," he began cheerfully. "What is your +name and address, please?" I eyed him with suspicion. + +"I have lost everything but my name and address," I parried. "What +do you want them for? Publication?" + +"Oh, no; dear, no!" he said, shocked at my misapprehension. "Merely +for my own enlightenment. I like to gather data of this kind and +draw my own conclusions. Most interesting and engrossing. Once +or twice I have forestalled the results of police investigation--but +entirely for my own amusement." + +I nodded tolerantly. Most of us have hobbies; I knew a man once who +carried his handkerchief up his sleeve and had a mania for old +colored prints cut out of Godey's Lady's Book. + +"I use that inductive method originated by Poe and followed since +with such success by Conan Doyle. Have you ever read Gaboriau? +Ah, you have missed a treat, indeed. And now, to get down to +business, what is the name of our escaped thief and probable +murderer?" + +"How on earth do I know?" I demanded impatiently. "He didn't write +it in blood anywhere, did he?" + +The little man looked hurt and disappointed. + +"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that the pockets of those clothes +are entirely empty?" The pockets! In the excitement I had forgotten +entirely the sealskin grip which the porter now sat at my feet, and +I had not investigated the pockets at all. With the inquisitive +man's pencil taking note of everything that I found, I emptied them +on the opposite seat. + +Upper left-hand waist-coat, two lead pencils and a fountain pen; +lower right waist-coat, match-box and a small stamp book; right-hand +pocket coat, pair of gray suede gloves, new, size seven and a half; +left-hand pocket, gun-metal cigarette case studded with pearls, +half-full of Egyptian cigarettes. The trousers pockets contained a +gold penknife, a small amount of money in bills and change, and a +handkerchief with the initial "S" on it. + +Further search through the coat discovered a card-case with cards +bearing the name Henry Pinckney Sullivan, and a leather flask with +gold mountings, filled with what seemed to be very fair whisky, and +monogrammed H. P. S. + +"His name evidently is Henry Pinckney Sullivan," said the cheerful +follower of Poe, as he wrote it down. "Address as yet unknown. +Blond, probably. Have you noticed that it is almost always the +blond men who affect a very light gray, with a touch of red in the +scarf? Fact, I assure you. I kept a record once of the summer +attire of men, and ninety per cent, followed my rule. Dark men like +you affect navy blue, or brown." + +In spite of myself I was amused at the man's shrewdness. + +"Yes; the suit he took was dark--a blue," I said. He rubbed his +hands and smiled at me delightedly. "Then you wore black shoes, not +tan," he said, with a glance at the aggressive yellow ones I wore. + +"Right again," I acknowledged. "Black low shoes and black +embroidered hose. If you keep on you'll have a motive for the +crime, and the murderer's present place of hiding. And if you come +back to the smoker with me, I'll give you an opportunity to judge +if he knew good whisky from bad." + +I put the articles from the pockets back again and got up. "I +wonder if there is a diner on?" I said. "I need something sustaining +after all this." + +I was conscious then of some one at my elbow. I turned to see the +young woman whose face was so vaguely familiar. In the very act of +speaking she drew back suddenly and colored. + +"Oh,--I beg your pardon," she said hurriedly, "I--thought you +were--some one else." She was looking in a puzzled fashion at my +coat. I felt all the cringing guilt of a man who has accidentally +picked up the wrong umbrella: my borrowed collar sat tight on my +neck. + +"I'm sorry," I said idiotically. "I'm sorry, but--I'm not." I +have learned since that she has bright brown hair, with a loose +wave in it that drops over her ears, and dark blue eyes with black +lashes and--but what does it matter? One enjoys a picture as a +whole: not as the sum of its parts. + +She saw the flask then, and her errand came back to her. "One of +the ladies at the end of car has fainted," she explained. "I +thought perhaps a stimulant--" + +I picked up the flask at once and followed my guide down the aisle. +Two or three women were working over the woman who had fainted. +They had opened her collar and taken out her hairpins, whatever +good that might do. The stout woman was vigorously rubbing her +wrists, with the idea, no doubt, of working up her pulse! The +unconscious woman was the one for whom I had secured lower eleven +at the station. + +I poured a little liquor in a bungling masculine fashion between +her lips as she leaned back, with closed eyes. She choked, coughed, +and rallied somewhat. + +"Poor thing," said the stout lady. "As she lies back that way I +could almost think it was my mother; she used to faint so much." + +"It would make anybody faint," chimed in another. "Murder and +robbery in one night and on one car. I'm thankful I always wear +my rings in a bag around my neck--even if they do get under me +and keep me awake." + +The girl in blue was looking at us with wide, startled eyes. I saw +her pale a little, saw the quick, apprehensive glance which she +threw at her traveling companion, the small woman I had noticed +before. There was an exchange--almost a clash--of glances. The +small woman frowned. That was all. I turned my attention again +to my patient. + +She had revived somewhat, and now she asked to have the window +opened. The train had stopped again and the car was oppressively +hot. People around were looking at their watches and grumbling over +the delay. The doctor bustled in with a remark about its being his +busy day. The amateur detective and the porter together mounted +guard over lower ten. Outside the heat rose in shimmering waves +from the tracks: the very wood of the car was hot to touch. A +Camberwell Beauty darted through the open door and made its way, +in erratic plunges, great wings waving, down the sunny aisle. All +around lay the peace of harvested fields, the quiet of the country. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE GIRL IN BLUE + + +I was growing more and more irritable. The thought of what the loss +of the notes meant was fast crowding the murder to the back of my +mind. The forced inaction was intolerable. + +The porter had reported no bag answering the description of mine +on the train, but I was disposed to make my own investigation. I +made a tour of the cars, scrutinizing every variety of hand luggage, +ranging from luxurious English bags with gold mountings to the +wicker nondescripts of the day coach at the rear. I was not alone +in my quest, for the girl in blue was just ahead of me. Car by car +she preceded me through the train, unconscious that I was behind her, +looking at each passenger as she passed. I fancied the proceeding +was distasteful, but that she had determined on a course and was +carrying it through. We reached the end of the train almost +together--empty-handed, both of us. + +The girl went out to the platform. When she saw me she moved aside, +and I stepped out beside her. Behind us the track curved sharply; +the early sunshine threw the train, in long black shadow, over the +hot earth. Forward somewhere they were hammering. The girl said +nothing, but her profile was strained and anxious. + +"I--if you have lost anything," I began, "I wish you would let me +try to help. Not that my own success is anything to boast of." + +She hardly glanced at me. It was not flattering. "I have not been +robbed, if that is what you mean," she replied quietly. "I am +--perplexed. That is all." + +There was nothing to say to that. I lifted my hat--the other +fellow's hat--and turned to go back to my car. Two or three members +of the train crew, including the conductor, were standing in the +shadow talking. And at that moment, from a farm-house near came the +swift clang of the breakfast bell, calling in the hands from barn +and pasture. I turned back to the girl. + +"We may be here for an hour," I said, "and there is no buffet car +on. If I remember my youth, that bell means ham and eggs and +country butter and coffee. If you care to run the risk--" + +"I am not hungry," she said, "but perhaps a cup of coffee--dear me, +I believe I am hungry," she finished. "Only--" She glanced back +of her. + +"I can bring your companion," I suggested, without enthusiasm. But +the young woman shook her head. + +"She is not hungry," she objected, "and she is very--well, I know +she wouldn't come. Do you suppose we could make it if we run?" + +"I haven't any idea," I said cheerfully. "Any old train would be +better than this one, if it does leave us behind." + +"Yes. Any train would be better than this one," she repeated +gravely. I found myself watching her changing expression. I had +spoken two dozen words to her and already I felt that I knew the +lights and shades in her voice,--I, who had always known how a +woman rode to hounds, and who never could have told the color of +her hair. + +I stepped down on the ties and turned to assist her, and together +we walked back to where the conductor and the porter from our car +were in close conversation. Instinctively my hand went to my +cigarette pocket and came out empty. She saw the gesture. + +"If you want to smoke, you may," she said. "I have a big cousin +who smokes all the time. He says I am 'kippered.'" + +I drew out the gun-metal cigarette case and opened it. But this +most commonplace action had an extraordinary result: the girl +beside me stopped dead still and stood staring at it with fascinated +eyes. + +"Is--where did you get that?" she demanded, with a catch in her +voice; her gaze still fixed on the cigarette case. + +"Then you haven't heard the rest of the tragedy?" I asked, holding +out the case. "It's frightfully bad luck for me, but it makes a +good story. You see--" + +At that moment the conductor and porter ceased their colloquy. The +conductor came directly toward me, tugging as he came at his +bristling gray mustache. + +"I would like to talk to you in the car," he said to me, with a +curious glance at the young lady. + +"Can't it wait?" I objected. "We are on our way to a cup of coffee +and a slice of bacon. Be merciful, as you are powerful." + +"I'm afraid the breakfast will have to wait," he replied. "I won't +keep you long." There was a note of authority in his voice which +I resented; but, after all, the circumstances were unusual. + +"We'll have to defer that cup of coffee for a while," I said to the +girl; "but don't despair; there's breakfast somewhere." + +As we entered the car, she stood aside, but I felt rather than saw +that she followed us. I was surprised to see a half dozen men +gathered around the berth in which I had wakened, number seven. It +had not yet been made up. + +As we passed along the aisle, I was conscious of a new expression +on the faces of the passengers. The tall woman who had fainted was +searching my face with narrowed eyes, while the stout woman of the +kindly heart avoided my gaze, and pretended to look out the window. + +As we pushed our way through the group, I fancied that it closed +around me ominously. The conductor said nothing, but led the way +without ceremony to the side of the berth. + +"What's the matter?" I inquired. I was puzzled, but not +apprehensive. "Have you some of my things? I'd be thankful even +for my shoes; these are confoundedly tight." + +Nobody spoke, and I fell silent, too. For one of the pillows had +been turned over, and the under side of the white case was streaked +with brownish stains. I think it was a perceptible time before I +realized that the stains were blood, and that the faces around were +filled with suspicion and distrust. + +"Why, it--that looks like blood," I said vacuously. There was an +incessant pounding in my ears, and the conductor's voice came from +far off. + +"It is blood," he asserted grimly. + +I looked around with a dizzy attempt at nonchalance. "Even if it +is," I remonstrated, "surely you don't suppose for a moment that +I know anything about it!" + +The amateur detective elbowed his way in. He had a scrap of +transparent paper in his hand, and a pencil. + +"I would like permission to trace the stains," he began eagerly. +"Also"--to me--"if you will kindly jab your finger with a +pin--needle--anything--" + +"If you don't keep out of this," the conductor said savagely, "I +will do some jabbing myself. As for you, sir--" he turned to me. +I was absolutely innocent, but I knew that I presented a typical +picture of guilt; I was covered with cold sweat, and the pounding +in my ears kept up dizzily. "As for you, sir--" + +The irrepressible amateur detective made a quick pounce at the +pillow and pushed back the cover. Before our incredulous eyes he +drew out a narrow steel dirk which had been buried to the small +cross that served as a head. + +There was a chorus of voices around, a quick surging forward of the +crowd. So that was what had scratched my hand! I buried the wound +in my coat pocket. + +"Well," I said, trying to speak naturally, "doesn't that prove what +I have been telling you? The man who committed the murder belonged +to this berth, and made an exchange in some way after the crime. +How do you know he didn't change the tags so I would come back to +this berth?" This was an inspiration; I was pleased with it. "That's +what he did, he changed the tags," I reiterated. + +There was a murmur of assent around. The doctor, who was standing +beside me, put his hand on my arm. "If this gentleman committed +this crime, and I for one feel sure he did not, then who is the +fellow who got away? And why did he go?" + +"We have only one man's word for that," the conductor snarled. +"I've traveled some in these cars myself, and no one ever changed +berths with me." + +Somebody on the edge of the group asserted that hereafter he would +travel by daylight. I glanced up and caught the eye of the girl in +blue. + +"They are all mad," she said. Her tone was low, but I heard her +distinctly. "Don't take them seriously enough to defend yourself." + +"I am glad you think I didn't do it," I observed meekly, over the +crowd. "Nothing else is of any importance." + +The conductor had pulled out his note-book again. "Your name, +please," he said gruffly. + +"Lawrence Blakeley, Washington." + +"Your occupation?" + +"Attorney. A member of the firm of Blakeley and McKnight." + +"Mr. Blakeley, you say you have occupied the wrong berth and have +been robbed. Do you know anything of the man who did it?" + +"Only from what he left behind," I answered. "These clothes--" + +"They fit you," he said with quick suspicion. "Isn't that rather +a coincidence? You are a large man." + +"Good Heavens," I retorted, stung into fury, "do I look like a man +who would wear this kind of a necktie? Do you suppose I carry +purple and green barred silk handkerchiefs? Would any man in his +senses wear a pair of shoes a full size too small?" + +The conductor was inclined to hedge. "You will have to grant that +I am in a peculiar position," he said. "I have only your word as +to the exchange of berths, and you understand I am merely doing +my duty. Are there any clues in the pockets?" + +For the second time I emptied them of their contents, which he noted. +"Is that all?" he finished. "There was nothing else?" + +"Nothing." + +"That's not all, sir," broke in the porter, stepping forward. +"There was a small black satchel." + +"That's so," I exclaimed. "I forgot the bag. I don't even know +where it is." + +The easily swayed crowd looked suspicious again. I've grown so +accustomed to reading the faces of a jury, seeing them swing from +doubt to belief, and back again to doubt, that I instinctively +watch expressions. I saw that my forgetfulness had done me harm +--that suspicion was roused again. + +The bag was found a couple of seats away, under somebody's raincoat +--another dubious circumstance. Was I hiding it? It was brought +to the berth and placed beside the conductor, who opened it at once. + +It contained the usual traveling impedimenta--change of linen, collars, +handkerchiefs, a bronze-green scarf, and a safety razor. But the +attention of the crowd riveted itself on a flat, Russia leather +wallet, around which a heavy gum band was wrapped, and which bore in +gilt letters the name "Simon Harrington." + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A FINE GOLD CHAIN + + +The conductor held it out to me, his face sternly accusing. + +"Is this another coincidence?" he asked. "Did the man who left you +his clothes and the barred silk handkerchief and the tight shoes +leave you the spoil of the murder?" + +The men standing around had drawn off a little, and I saw the +absolute futility of any remonstrance. Have you ever seen a fly, +who, in these hygienic days, finding no cobwebs to entangle him, is +caught in a sheet of fly paper, finds himself more and more mired, +and is finally quiet with the sticky stillness of despair? + +Well, I was the fly. I had seen too much of circumstantial evidence +to have any belief that the establishing of my identity would weigh +much against the other incriminating details. It meant imprisonment +and trial, probably, with all the notoriety and loss of practice +they would entail. A man thinks quickly at a time like that. All +the probable consequences of the finding of that pocket-book flashed +through my mind as I extended my hand to take it. Then I drew my +arm back. + +"I don't want it," I said. "Look inside. Maybe the other man took +the money and left the wallet." + +The conductor opened it, and again there was a curious surging +forward of the crowd. To my intense disappointment the money was +still there. + +I stood blankly miserable while it was counted out--five +one-hundred-dollar bills, six twenties, and some fives and ones that +brought the total to six hundred and fifty dollars. + +The little man with the note-book insisted on taking the numbers of +the notes, to the conductor's annoyance. It was immaterial to me: +small things had lost their power to irritate. I was seeing myself +in the prisoner's box, going through all the nerve-racking routine +of a trial for murder--the challenging of the jury, the endless +cross-examinations, the alternate hope and fear. I believe I said +before that I had no nerves, but for a few minutes that morning I +was as near as a man ever comes to hysteria. + +I folded my arms and gave myself a mental shake. I seemed to be +the center of a hundred eyes, expressing every shade of doubt and +distrust, but I tried not to flinch. Then some one created a +diversion. + +The amateur detective was busy again with the seal-skin bag, +investigating the make of the safety razor and the manufacturer's +name on the bronze-green tie. Now, however, he paused and frowned, +as though some pet theory had been upset. + +Then from a corner of the bag he drew out and held up for our +inspection some three inches of fine gold chain, one end of which +was blackened and stained with blood! + +The conductor held out his hand for it, but the little man was not +ready to give it up. He turned to me. + +"You say no watch was left you? Was there a piece of chain like +that?" + +"No chain at all," I said sulkily. "No jewelry of any kind, except +plain gold buttons in the shirt I am wearing." + +"Where are your glasses?" he threw at me suddenly: instinctively my +hand went to my eyes. My glasses had been gone all morning, and I +had not even noticed their absence. The little man smiled cynically +and held out the chain. + +"I must ask you to examine this," he insisted. "Isn't it a part of +the fine gold chain you wear over your ear?" + +I didn't want to touch the thing: the stain at the end made me +shudder. But with a baker's dozen of suspicious eyes--well, we'll +say fourteen: there were no one-eyed men--I took the fragment in +the tips of my fingers and looked at it helplessly. + +"Very fine chains are much alike," I managed to say. "For all I +know, this may be mine, but I don't know how it got into that +sealskin bag. I never saw the bag until this morning after daylight." + +"He admits that he had the bag," somebody said behind me. "How did +you guess that he wore glasses, anyhow?" to the amateur sleuth. + +That gentleman cleared his throat. "There were two reasons," he +said, "for suspecting it. When you see a man with the lines of his +face drooping, a healthy individual with a pensive eye,--suspect +astigmatism. Besides, this gentleman has a pronounced line across +the bridge of his nose and a mark on his ear from the chain." + +After this remarkable exhibition of the theoretical as combined with +the practical, he sank into a seat near-by, and still holding the +chain, sat with closed eyes and pursed lips. It was evident to all +the car that the solution of the mystery was a question of moments. +Once he bent forward eagerly and putting the chain on the window-sill, +proceeded to go over it with a pocket magnifying glass, only to shake +his head in disappointment. All the people around shook their heads +too, although they had not the slightest idea what it was about. + +The pounding in my ears began again. The group around me seemed to +be suddenly motionless in the very act of moving, as if a hypnotist +had called "Rigid!" The girl in blue was looking at me, and above +the din I thought she said she must speak to me--something vital. +The pounding grew louder and merged into a scream. With a grinding +and splintering the car rose under my feet. Then it fell away into +darkness. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE SECOND SECTION + + +Have you ever been picked up out of your three-meals-a-day life, +whirled around in a tornado of events, and landed in a situation +so grotesque and yet so horrible that you laugh even while you +are groaning, and straining at its hopelessness? McKnight says that +is hysteria, and that no man worthy of the name ever admits to it. + +Also, as McKnight says, it sounds like a tank drama. Just as the +revolving saw is about to cut the hero into stove lengths, the +second villain blows up the sawmill. The hero goes up through the +roof and alights on the bank of a stream at the feet of his lady +love, who is making daisy chains. + +Nevertheless, when I was safely home again, with Mrs. Klopton +brewing strange drinks that came in paper packets from the pharmacy, +and that smelled to heaven, I remember staggering to the door and +closing it, and then going back to bed and howling out the absurdity +and the madness of the whole thing. And while I laughed my very +soul was sick, for the girl was gone by that time, and I knew by all +the loyalty that answers between men for honor that I would have to +put her out of my mind. + +And yet, all the night that followed, filled as it was with the +shrieking demons of pain, I saw her as I had seen her last, in the +queer hat with green ribbons. I told the doctor this, guardedly, +the next morning, and he said it was the morphia, and that I was +lucky not to have seen a row of devils with green tails. + +I don't know anything about the wreck of September ninth last. You +who swallowed the details with your coffee and digested the horrors +with your chop, probably know a great deal more than I do. I +remember very distinctly that the jumping and throbbing in my arm +brought me back to a world that at first was nothing but sky, a +heap of clouds that I thought hazily were the meringue on a blue +charlotte russe. As the sense of hearing was slowly added to vision, +I heard a woman near me sobbing that she had lost her hat pin, and +she couldn't keep her hat on. + +I think I dropped back into unconsciousness again, for the next +thing I remember was of my blue patch of sky clouded with smoke, of +a strange roaring and crackling, of a rain of fiery sparks on my +face and of somebody beating at me with feeble hands. I opened my +eyes and closed them again: the girl in blue was bending over me. +With that imperviousness to big things and keenness to small that +is the first effect of shock, I tried to be facetious, when a spark +stung my cheek. + +"You will have to rouse yourself!" the girl was repeating +desperately. "You've been on fire twice already." A piece of +striped ticking floated slowly over my head. As the wind caught it +its charring edges leaped into flame. + +"Looks like a kite, doesn't it?" I remarked cheerfully. And then, +as my arm gave an excruciating throb--"Jove, how my arm hurts!" + +The girl bent over and spoke slowly, distinctly, as one might speak +to a deaf person or a child. + +"Listen, Mr. Blakeley," she said earnestly. "You must rouse +yourself. There has been a terrible accident. The second section +ran into us. The wreck is burning now, and if we don't move, we +will catch fire. Do you hear?" + +Her voice and my arm were bringing me to my senses. "I hear," I +said. "I--I'll sit up in a second. Are you hurt?" + +"No, only bruised. Do you think you can walk?" + +I drew up one foot after another, gingerly. + +"They seem to move all right," I remarked dubiously. "Would you +mind telling me where the back of my head has gone? I can't help +thinking it isn't there." + +She made a quick examination. "It's pretty badly bumped," she said. +"You must have fallen on it." + +I had got up on my uninjured elbow by that time, but the pain threw +me back. "Don't look at the wreck," I entreated her. "It's no +sight for a woman. If--if there is any way to tie up this arm, I +might be able to do something. There may be people under those cars!" + +"Then it is too late to help," she replied solemnly. A little shower +of feathers, each carrying its fiery lamp, blew over us from some +burning pillow. A part the wreck collapsed with a crash. In a +resolute to play a man's part in the tragedy going on around, I got +to my knees. Then I realized what had not noticed before: the hand +and wrist of the broken left arm were jammed through the handle of +the sealskin grip. I gasped and sat down suddenly. + +"You must not do that," the girl insisted. I noticed now that she +kept her back to the wreck, her eyes averted. "The weight of the +traveling-bag must be agony. Let me support the valise until we get +back a few yards. Then you must lie down until we can get it cut +off." + +"Will it have to be cut off?" I asked as calmly as possible. There +were red-hot stabs of agony clear to my neck, but we were moving +slowly away from the track. + +"Yes," she replied, with dumfounding coolness. "If I had a knife I +could do it myself. You might sit here and lean against this fence." + +By that time my returning faculties had realized that she was going +to cut off the satchel, not the arm. The dizziness was leaving and +I was gradually becoming myself. + +"If you pull, it might come," I suggested. "And with that weight +gone, I think I will cease to be five feet eleven inches of baby." + +She tried gently to loosen the handle, but it would not move, and +at last, with great drops of cold perspiration over me, I had to +give up. + +"I'm afraid I can't stand it," I said. "But there's a knife +somewhere around these clothes, and if I can find it, perhaps you +can cut the leather." + +As I gave her the knife she turned it over, examining it with a +peculiar expression, bewilderment rather than surprise. But she +said nothing. She set to work deftly, and in a few minutes the bag +dropped free. + +"That's better," I declared, sitting up. "Now, if you can pin my +sleeve to my coat, it will support the arm so we can get away from +here." + +"The pin might give," she objected, "and the jerk would be terrible." +She looked around, puzzled; then she got up, coming back in a minute +with a draggled, partly scorched sheet. This she tore into a large +square, and after she had folded it, she slipped it under the broken +arm and tied it securely at the back of my neck. + +The relief was immediate, and, picking up the sealskin bag, I walked +slowly beside her, away from the track. + +The first act was over: the curtain fallen. The scene was "struck." + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE HALCYON BREAKFAST + + +We were still dazed, I think, for we wandered like two troubled +children, our one idea at first to get as far away as we could +from the horror behind us. We were both bareheaded, grimy, pallid +through the grit. Now and then we met little groups of country +folk hurrying to the track: they stared at us curiously, and some +wished to question us. But we hurried past them; we had put the +wreck behind us. That way lay madness. + +Only once the girl turned and looked behind her. The wreck was +hidden, but the smoke cloud hung heavy and dense. For the first +time I remembered that my companion had not been alone on the train. + +"It is quiet here," I suggested. "If you will sit down on the bank +I will go back and make some inquiries. I've been criminally +thoughtless. Your traveling companion--" + +She interrupted me, and something of her splendid poise was gone. +"Please don't go back," she said. "I am afraid it would be of no +use. And I don't want to be left alone." + +Heaven knows I did not want her to be alone. I was more than +content to walk along beside her aimlessly, for any length of time. +Gradually, as she lost the exaltation of the moment, I was gaining +my normal condition of mind. I was beginning to realize that I had +lacked the morning grace of a shave, that I looked like some lost +hope of yesterday, and that my left shoe pinched outrageously. A +man does not rise triumphant above such handicaps. The girl, for +all her disordered hair and the crumpled linen of her waist, in +spite of her missing hat and the small gold bag that hung forlornly +from a broken chain, looked exceedingly lovely. + +"Then I won't leave you alone," I said manfully, and we stumbled on +together. Thus far we had seen nobody from the wreck, but well up +the lane we came across the tall dark woman who had occupied lower +eleven. She was half crouching beside the road, her black hair +about her shoulders, and an ugly bruise over her eye. She did not +seem to know us, and refused to accompany us. We left her there at +last, babbling incoherently and rolling in her hands a dozen pebbles +she had gathered in the road. + +The girl shuddered as we went on. Once she turned and glanced at +my bandage. "Does it hurt very much?" she asked. + +"It's growing rather numb. But it might be worse," I answered +mendaciously. If anything in this world could be worse, I had never +experienced it. + +And so we trudged on bareheaded under the summer sun, growing parched +and dusty and weary, doggedly leaving behind us the pillar of smoke. +I thought I knew of a trolley line somewhere in the direction we were +going, or perhaps we could find a horse and trap to take us into +Baltimore. The girl smiled when I suggested it. + +"We will create a sensation, won't we?" she asked. "Isn't it queer +--or perhaps it's my state of mind--but I keep wishing for a pair +of gloves, when I haven't even a hat!" + +When we reached the main road we sat down for a moment, and her +hair, which had been coming loose for some time, fell over her +shoulders in little waves that were most alluring. It seemed a +pity to twist it up again, but when I suggested this, cautiously, +she said it was troublesome and got in her eyes when it was loose. +So she gathered it up, while I held a row of little shell combs +and pins, and when it was done it was vastly becoming, too. Funny +about hair: a man never knows he has it until he begins to lose it, +but it's different with a girl. Something of the unconventional +situation began to dawn on her as she put in the last hair-pin and +patted some stray locks to place. + +"I have not told you my name," she said abruptly. "I forgot that +because I know who you are, you know nothing about me. I am Alison +West, and my home is in Richmond." + +So that was it! This was the girl of the photograph on John +Gilmore's bedside table. The girl McKnight expected to see in +Richmond the next day, Sunday! She was on her way back to meet him! +Well, what difference did it make, anyhow? We had been thrown +together by the merest chance. In an hour or two at the most we +would be back in civilization and she would recall me, if she +remembered me at all, as an unshaven creature in a red cravat and +tan shoes, with a soiled Pullman sheet tied around my neck. I drew +a deep breath. + +"Just a twinge," I said, when she glanced up quickly. "It's very +good of you to let me know, Miss West. I have been hearing +delightful things about you for three months." + +"From Richey McKnight?" She was frankly curious. + +"Yes. From Richey McKnight," I assented. Was it any wonder +McKnight was crazy about her? I dug my heels into the dust. + +"I have been visiting near Cresson, in the mountains," Miss West +was saying. "The person you mentioned, Mrs. Curtis, was my hostess. +We--we were on our way to Washington together." She spoke slowly, +as if she wished to give the minimum of explanation. Across her +face had come again the baffling expression of perplexity and +trouble I had seen before. + +"You were on your way home, I suppose? Richey spoke about seeing +you," I floundered, finding it necessary to say something. She +looked at me with level, direct eyes. + +"No," she returned quietly. "I did not intend to go home. I--well, +it doesn't matter; I am going home now." + +A woman in a calico dress, with two children, each an exact duplicate +of the other, had come quickly down the road. She took in the +situation at a glance, and was explosively hospitable. + +"You poor things," she said. "If you'll take the first road to the +left over there, and turn in at the second pigsty, you will find +breakfast on the table and a coffee-pot on the stove. And there's +plenty of soap and water, too. Don't say one word. There isn't a +soul there to see you." + +We accepted the invitation and she hurried on toward the excitement +and the railroad. I got up carefully and helped Miss West to her +feet. + +"At the second pigsty to the left," I repeated, "we will find the +breakfast I promised you seven eternities ago. Forward to the +pigsty!" + +We said very little for the remainder of that walk. I had almost +reached the limit of endurance: with every step the broken ends of +the bone grated together. We found the farm-house without +difficulty, and I remember wondering if I could hold out to the end +of the old stone walk that led between hedges to the door. + +"Allah be praised," I said with all the voice I could muster. +"Behold the coffee-pot!" And then I put down the grip and folded +up like a jack-knife on the porch floor. + +When I came around something hot was trickling down my neck, and a +despairing voice was saying, "Oh, I don't seem to be able to pour +it into your mouth. Please open your eyes." + +"But I don't want it in my eyes," I replied dreamily. "I haven't +any idea what came over me. It was the shoes, I think: the left +one is a red-hot torture." I was sitting by that time and looking +across into her face. + +Never before or since have I fainted, but I would do it joyfully, +a dozen times a day, if I could waken again to the blissful touch +of soft fingers on my face, the hot ecstasy of coffee spilled by +those fingers down my neck. There was a thrill in every tone of +her voice that morning. Before long my loyalty to McKnight would +step between me and the girl he loved: life would develop new +complexities. In those early hours after the wreck, full of pain +as they were, there was nothing of the suspicion and distrust that +came later. Shorn of our gauds and baubles, we were primitive man +and woman, together: our world for the hour was the deserted +farm-house, the slope of wheat-field that led to the road, the +woodland lot, the pasture. + +We breakfasted together across the homely table. Our cheerfulness, +at first sheer reaction, became less forced as we ate great slices +of bread from the granny oven back of the house, and drank hot +fluid that smelled like coffee and tasted like nothing that I have +ever swallowed. We found cream in stone jars, sunk deep in the +chill water of the spring house. And there were eggs, great +yellow-brown ones,--a basket of them. + +So, like two children awakened from a nightmare, we chattered over +our food: we hunted mutual friends, we laughed together at my feeble +witticisms, but we put the horror behind us resolutely. After all, +it was the hat with the green ribbons that brought back the +strangeness of the situation. + +All along I had had the impression that Alison West was deliberately +putting out of her mind something that obtruded now and then. It +brought with it a return of the puzzled expression that I had +surprised early in the day, before the wreck. I caught it once, +when, breakfast over, she was tightening the sling that held the +broken arm. I had prolonged the morning meal as much as I could, +but when the wooden clock with the pink roses on the dial pointed +to half after ten, and the mother with the duplicate youngsters had +not come back, Miss West made the move I had dreaded. + +"If we are to get into Baltimore at all we must start," she said, +rising. "You ought to see a doctor as soon as possible." + +"Hush," I said warningly. "Don't mention the arm, please; it is +asleep now. You may rouse it." + +"If I only had a hat," she reflected. "It wouldn't need to be much +of one, but--" She gave a little cry and darted to the corner. +"Look," she said triumphantly, "the very thing. With the green +streamers tied up in a bow, like this--do you suppose the child +would mind? I can put five dollars or so here--that would buy a +dozen of them." + +It was a queer affair of straw, that hat, with a round crown and +a rim that flopped dismally. With a single movement she had turned +it up at one side and fitted it to her head. Grotesque by itself, +when she wore it it was a thing of joy. + +Evidently the lack of head covering had troubled her, for she was +elated at her find. She left me, scrawling a note of thanks and +pinning it with a bill to the table-cloth, and ran up-stairs to the +mirror and the promised soap and water. + +I did not see her when she came down. I had discovered a bench +with a tin basin outside the kitchen door, and was washing, in a +helpless, one-sided way. I felt rather than saw that she was +standing in the door-way, and I made a final plunge into the basin. + +"How is it possible for a man with only a right hand to wash his +left ear?" I asked from the roller towel. I was distinctly +uncomfortable: men are more rigidly creatures of convention than +women, whether they admit it or not. "There is so much soap on me +still that if I laugh I will blow bubbles. Washing with rain-water +and home-made soap is like motoring on a slippery road. I only +struck the high places." + +Then, having achieved a brilliant polish with the towel, I looked +at the girl. + +She was leaning against the frame of the door, her face perfectly +colorless, her breath coming in slow, difficult respirations. The +erratic hat was pinned to place, but it had slid rakishly to one +side. When I realized that she was staring, not at me, but past me +to the road along which we had come, I turned and followed her gaze. +There was no one in sight: the lane stretched dust white in the +sun,--no moving figure on it, no sign of life. + + + +CHAPTER X + +MISS WEST'S REQUEST + + +The surprising change in her held me speechless. All the animation +of the breakfast table was gone: there was no hint of the response +with which, before, she had met my nonsensical sallies. She stood +there, white-lipped, unsmiling, staring down the dusty road. One +hand was clenched tight over some small object. Her eyes dropped +to it from the distant road, and then closed, with a quick, indrawn +breath. Her color came back slowly. Whatever had caused the change, +she said nothing. She was anxious to leave at once, almost +impatient over my deliberate masculine way of getting my things +together. Afterward I recalled that I had wanted to explore the +barn for a horse and some sort of a vehicle to take us to the +trolley, and that she had refused to allow me to look. I remembered +many things later that might have helped me, and did not. At the +time, I was only completely bewildered. Save the wreck, the +responsibility for which lay between Providence and the engineer of +the second section, all the events of that strange morning were +logically connected; they came from one cause, and tended unerringly +to one end. But the cause was buried, the end not yet in view. + +Not until we had left the house well behind did the girl's face +relax its tense lines. I was watching her more closely than I had +realized, for when we had gone a little way along the road she turned +to me almost petulantly. "Please don't stare so at me," she said, +to my sudden confusion. "I know the hat is dreadful. Green always +makes me look ghastly." + +"Perhaps it was the green." I was unaccountably relieved. "Do you +know, a few minutes ago, you looked almost pallid to me!" + +She glanced at me quickly, but I was gazing ahead. We were out of +sight of the house, now, and with every step away from it the girl +was obviously relieved. Whatever she held in her hand, she never +glanced at it. But she was conscious of it every second. She +seemed to come to a decision about it while we were still in sight +of the gate, for she murmured something and turned back alone, going +swiftly, her feet stirring up small puffs of dust at every step. +She fastened something to the gate-post,--I could see the nervous +haste with which she worked. When she joined me again it was +without explanation. But the clenched fingers were free now, and +while she looked tired and worn, the strain had visibly relaxed. + +We walked along slowly in the general direction of the suburban +trolley line. Once a man with an empty wagon offered us a lift, +but after a glance at the springless vehicle I declined. + +"The ends of the bone think they are castanets as it is," I +explained. "But the lady--" + +The young lady, however, declined and we went on together. Once, +when the trolley line was in sight, she got a pebble in her low +shoe, and we sat down under a tree until she found the cause of +the trouble. + +"I--I don't know what I should have done without you," I blundered. +"Moral support and--and all that. Do you know, my first conscious +thought after the wreck was of relief that you had not been hurt?" + +She was sitting beside me, where a big chestnut tree shaded the road, +and I surprised a look of misery on her face that certainly my words +had not been meant to produce. + +"And my first thought," she said slowly, "was regret that I--that +I hadn't been obliterated, blown out like a candle. Please don't +look like that! I am only talking." + +But her lips were trembling, and because the little shams of society +are forgotten at times like this, I leaned over and patted her hand +lightly, where it rested on the grass beside me. + +"You must not say those things," I expostulated. "Perhaps, after +all, your friends--" + +"I had no friends on the train." Her voice was hard again, her tone +final. She drew her hand from under mine, not quickly, but +decisively. A car was in sight, coming toward us. The steel finger +of civilization, of propriety, of visiting cards and formal +introductions was beckoning us in. Miss West put on her shoe. + +We said little on the car. The few passengers stared at us frankly, +and discussed the wreck, emphasizing its horrors. The girl did not +seem to hear. Once she turned to me with the quick, unexpected +movement that was one of her charms. + +"I do not wish my mother to know I was in the accident," she said. +"Will you please not tell Richey about having met me?" + +I gave my promise, of course. Again, when we were almost into +Baltimore, she asked to examine the gun-metal cigarette case, and +sat silent with it in her hands, while I told of the early morning's +events on the Ontario. + +"So you see," I finished, "this grip, everything I have on, belongs +to a fellow named Sullivan. He probably left the train before the +wreck,--perhaps just after the murder." + +"And so--you think he committed the--the crime?" Her eyes were +on the cigarette case. + +"Naturally," I said. "A man doesn't jump off a Pullman car in the +middle of the night in another man's clothes, unless he is trying +to get away from something. Besides the dirk, there were the stains +that you, saw. Why, I have the murdered man's pocket-book in this +valise at my feet. What does that look like?" + +I colored when I saw the ghost of a smile hovering around the +corners of her mouth. "That is," I finished, "if you care to believe +that I am innocent." + +The sustaining chain of her small gold bag gave way just then. She +did not notice it. I picked it up and slid the trinket into my +pocket for safekeeping, where I promptly forgot it. Afterwards I +wished I had let it lie unnoticed on the floor of that dirty little +suburban car, and even now, when I see a woman carelessly dangling +a similar feminine trinket, I shudder involuntarily: there comes +back to me the memory of a girl's puzzled eyes under the brim of a +flopping hat, the haunting suspicion of the sleepless nights that +followed. + +Just then I was determined that my companion should not stray back +to the wreck, and to that end I was determinedly facetious. + +"Do you know that it is Sunday?" she asked suddenly, "and that we +are actually ragged?" + +"Never mind that," I retorted. "All Baltimore is divided on Sunday +into three parts, those who rise up and go to church, those who +rise up and read the newspapers, and those who don't rise up. The +first are somewhere between the creed and the sermon, and we need +not worry about the others." + +"You treat me like a child," she said almost pettishly. "Don't try +so hard to be cheerful. It--it is almost ghastly." + +After that I subsided like a pricked balloon, and the remainder of +the ride was made in silence. The information that she would go to +friends in the city was a shock: it meant an earlier separation +than I had planned for. But my arm was beginning again. In putting +her into a cab I struck it and gritted my teeth with the pain. It +was probably for that reason that I forgot the gold bag. + +She leaned forward and held out her hand. "I may not have another +chance to thank you," she said, "and I think I would better not try, +anyhow. I cannot tell you how grateful I am." I muttered something +about the gratitude being mine: owing to the knock I was seeing two +cabs, and two girls were holding out two hands. + +"Remember," they were both saying, "you have never met me, Mr. +Blakeley. And--if you ever hear anything about me--that is not +--pleasant, I want you to think the best you can of me. Will you?" + +The two girls were one now, with little flashes of white light +playing all around. "I--I'm afraid that I shall think too well +for my own good," I said unsteadily. And the cab drove on. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN + + +I had my arm done up temporarily in Baltimore and took the next +train home. I was pretty far gone when I stumbled out of a cab +almost into the scandalized arms of Mrs. Klopton. In fifteen +minutes I was in bed, with that good woman piling on blankets +and blistering me in unprotected places with hot-water bottles. +And in an hour I had a whiff of chloroform and Doctor +Williams had set the broken bone. + +I dropped asleep then, waking in the late twilight to a realization +that I was at home again, without the papers that meant conviction +for Andy Bronson, with a charge of murder hanging over my head, and +with something more than an impression of the girl my best friend +was in love with, a girl moreover who was almost as great an enigma +as the crime itself. + +"And I'm no hand at guessing riddles," I groaned half aloud. Mrs. +Klopton came over promptly and put a cold cloth on my forehead. + +"Euphemia," she said to some one outside the door, "telephone the +doctor that he is still rambling, but that he has switched from +green ribbons to riddles." + +"There's nothing the matter with me, Mrs. Klopton," I rebelled. +"I was only thinking out loud. Confound that cloth: it's trickling +all over me!" I gave it a fling, and heard it land with a soggy +thud on the floor. + +"Thinking out loud is delirium," Mrs. Klopton said imperturbably. +"A fresh cloth, Euphemia." + +This time she held it on with a firm pressure that I was too weak +to resist. I expostulated feebly that I was drowning, which she +also laid to my mental exaltation, and then I finally dropped into +a damp sleep. It was probably midnight when I roused again. I had +been dreaming of the wreck, and it was inexpressibly comforting to +feel the stability of my bed, and to realize the equal stability of +Mrs. Klopton, who sat, fully attired, by the night light, reading +Science and Health. + +"Does that book say anything about opening the windows on a hot +night?" I suggested, when I had got my bearings. + +She put it down immediately and came over to me. If there is one +time when Mrs. Klopton is chastened--and it is the only time--it +is when she reads Science and Health. "I don't like to open the +shutters, Mr. Lawrence," she explained. "Not since the night you +went away." + +But, pressed further, she refused to explain. "The doctor said you +were not to be excited," she persisted. "Here's your beef tea." + +"Not a drop until you tell me," I said firmly. "Besides, you know +very well there's nothing the matter with me. This arm of mine is +only a false belief." I sat up gingerly. "Now--why don't you open +that window?" + +Mrs. Klopton succumbed. "Because there are queer goings-on in that +house next door," she said. "If you will take the beef tea, Mr. +Lawrence, I will tell you." + +The queer goings-on, however, proved to be slightly disappointing. +It seemed that after I left on Friday night, a light was seen +flitting fitfully through the empty house next door. Euphemia had +seen it first and called Mrs. Klopton. Together they had watched +it breathlessly until it disappeared on the lower floor. + +"You should have been a writer of ghost stories," I said, giving my +pillows a thump. "And so it was fitting flitfully!" + +"That's what it was doing," she reiterated. "Fitting flitfully--I +mean flitting fitfully--how you do throw me out, Mr. Lawrence! And +what's more, it came again!" + +"Oh, come now, Mrs. Klopton," I objected, "ghosts are like lightning; +they never strike twice in the same night. That is only worth half +a cup of beef tea." + +"You may ask Euphemia," she retorted with dignity. "Not more than +an hour after, there was a light there again. We saw it through +the chinks of the shutters. Only--this time it began at the lower +floor and climbed!" + +"You oughtn't to tell ghost stories at night," came McKnight's voice +from the doorway. "Really, Mrs. Klopton, I'm amazed at you. You +old duffer! I've got you to thank for the worst day of my life." + +Mrs. Klopton gulped. Then realizing that the "old duffer" was meant +for me, she took her empty cup and went out muttering. + +"The Pirate's crazy about me, isn't she?" McKnight said to the +closing door. Then he swung around and held out his hand. + +"By Jove," he said, "I've been laying you out all day, lilies on +the door-bell, black gloves, everything. If you had had the sense +of a mosquito in a snow-storm, you would have telephoned me." + +"I never even thought of it." I was filled with remorse. "Upon my +word, Rich, I hadn't an idea beyond getting away from that place. +If you had seen what I saw--" + +McKnight stopped me. "Seen it! Why, you lunatic, I've been digging +for you all day in the ruins! I've lunched and dined on horrors. +Give me something to rinse them down, Lollie." + +He had fished the key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my +shoe bag and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw--a +foundation of brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in +sight to give it snap. Now that I saw him clearly, he looked weary +and grimy. I hated to tell him what I knew he was waiting to hear, +but there was no use wading in by inches. I ducked and got it over. + +"The notes are gone, Rich," I said, as quietly as I could. In +spite of himself his face fell. + +"I--of course I expected it," he said. "But--Mrs. Klopton said +over the telephone that you had brought home a grip and I hoped +--well, Lord knows we ought not to complain. You're here, damaged, +but here." He lifted his glass. "Happy days, old man!" + +"If you will give me that black bottle and a teaspoon, I'll drink +that in arnica, or whatever the stuff is; Rich,--the notes were +gone before the wreck!" + +He wheeled and stared at me, the bottle in his hand. "Lost, strayed +or stolen?" he queried with forced lightness. + +"Stolen, although I believe the theft was incidental to something +else." + +Mrs. Klopton came in at that moment, with an eggnog in her hand. +She glanced at the clock, and, without addressing any one in +particular, she intimated that it was time for self-respecting folks +to be at home in bed. McKnight, who could never resist a fling at +her back, spoke to me in a stage whisper. + +"Is she talking still? or again?" he asked, just before the door +closed. There was a second's indecision with the knob, then, +judging discretion the better part, Mrs. Klopton went away. + +"Now, then," McKnight said, settling himself in a chair beside the +bed, "spit it out. Not the wreck--I know all I want about that. +But the theft. I can tell you beforehand that it was a woman." + +I had crawled painfully out of bed, and was in the act of pouring +the egg-nog down the pipe of the washstand. I paused, with the +glass in the air. + +"A woman!" I repeated, startled. "What makes you think that?" + +"You don't know the first principles of a good detective yarn," he +said scornfully. "Of course, it was the woman in the empty house +next door. You said it was brass pipes, you will remember. Well +--on with the dance: let joy be unconfined." + +So I told the story; I had told it so many times that day that I +did it automatically. And I told about the girl with the bronze +hair, and my suspicions. But I did not mention Alison West. +McKnight listened to the end without interruption. When I had +finished he drew a long breath. + +"Well!" he said. "That's something of a mess, isn't it? If you +can only prove your mild and child-like disposition, they couldn't +hold you for the murder--which is a regular ten-twent-thirt crime, +anyhow. But the notes--that's different. They are not burned, +anyhow. Your man wasn't on the train--therefore, he wasn't in the +wreck. If he didn't know what he was taking, as you seem to think, +he probably reads the papers, and unless he is a fathead, he's +awake by this time to what he's got. He'll try to sell them to +Bronson, probably." + +"Or to us," I put in. + +We said nothing for a few minutes. McKnight smoked a cigarette and +stared at a photograph of Candida over the mantel. Candida is the +best pony for a heavy mount in seven states. + +"I didn't go to Richmond," he observed finally. The remark followed +my own thoughts so closely that I started. "Miss West is not home yet +from Seal Harbor." + +Receiving no response, he lapsed again into thoughtful silence. Mrs. +Klopton came in just as the clock struck one, and made preparation +for the night by putting a large gaudy comfortable into an arm-chair +in the dressing-room, with a smaller, stiff-backed chair for her +feet. She was wonderfully attired in a dressing-gown that was +reminiscent, in parts, of all the ones she had given me for a half +dozen Christmases, and she had a purple veil wrapped around her head, +to hide Heaven knows what deficiency. She examined the empty +egg-nog glass, inquired what the evening paper had said about the +weather, and then stalked into the dressing-room, and prepared, with +much ostentatious creaking, to sit up all night. + +We fell silent again, while McKnight traced a rough outline of the +berths on the white table-cover, and puzzled it out slowly. It was +something like this: + ____________________________________ + | 12 | 10 | 8 | + |____________|___________|___________| + |_______________AISLE________________| + | 11 | 9 | 7 | + |____________|___________|___________| + +"You think he changed the tags on seven and nine, so that when you +went back to bed you thought you were crawling into nine, when it +was really seven, eh?" + +"Probably-yes." + +"Then toward morning, when everybody was asleep, your theory is that +he changed the numbers again and left the train." + +"I can't think of anything else," I replied wearily. + +"Jove, what a game of bridge that fellow would play! It was like +finessing an eight-spot and winning out. They would scarcely have +doubted your story had the tags been reversed in the morning. He +certainly left you in a bad way. Not a jury in the country would +stand out against the stains, the stiletto, and the murdered man's +pocket-book in your possession." + +"Then you think Sullivan did it?" I asked. + +"Of course," said McKnight confidently. "Unless you did it in your +sleep. Look at the stains on his pillow, and the dirk stuck into +it. And didn't he have the man Harrington's pocket-book?" + +"But why did he go off without the money?" I persisted. "And where +does the bronze-haired girl come in?" + +"Search me," McKnight retorted flippantly. "Inflammation of the +imagination on your part." + +"Then there is the piece of telegram. It said lower ten, car seven. +It's extremely likely that she had it. That telegram was about me, +Richey." + +"I'm getting a headache," he said, putting out his cigarette against +the sole of his shoe. "All I'm certain of just now is that if there +hadn't been a wreck, by this time you'd be sitting in an eight by +ten cell, and feeling like the rhyme for it." + +"But listen to this," I contended, as he picked up his hat, "this +fellow Sullivan is a fugitive, and he's a lot more likely to make +advances to Bronson than to us. We could have the case continued, +release Bronson on bail and set a watch on him." + +"Not my watch," McKnight protested. "It's a family heirloom." + +"You'd better go home," I said firmly. "Go home and go to bed. +You're sleepy. You can have Sullivan's red necktie to dream over +if you think it will help any." + +Mrs. Klopton's voice came drowsily from the next room, punctuated +by a yawn. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," she called, with the +suspicious lisp which characterizes her at night, "somebody called +up about noon, Mr. Lawrence. It was long distance, and he said +he would call again. The name was"--she yawned--"Sullivan." + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE GOLD BAG + + +I have always smiled at those cases of spontaneous combustion which, +like fusing the component parts of a seidlitz powder, unite two +people in a bubbling and ephemeral ecstasy. But surely there is +possible, with but a single meeting, an attraction so great, a +community of mind and interest so strong, that between that first +meeting and the next the bond may grow into something stronger. +This is especially true, I fancy, of people with temperament, the +modern substitute for imagination. It is a nice question whether +lovers begin to love when they are together, or when they are apart. + +Not that I followed any such line of reasoning at the time. I would +not even admit my folly to myself. But during the restless hours of +that first night after the accident, when my back ached with lying +on it, and any other position was torture, I found my thoughts +constantly going back to Alison West. I dropped into a doze, to +dream of touching her fingers again to comfort her, and awoke to +find I had patted a teaspoonful of medicine out of Mrs. Klopton's +indignant hand. What was it McKnight had said about making an +egregious ass of myself? + +And that brought me back to Richey, and I fancy I groaned. There is +no use expatiating on the friendship between two men who have gone +together through college, have quarreled and made it up, fussed +together over politics and debated creeds for years: men don't need +to be told, and women can not understand. Nevertheless, I groaned. +If it had been any one but Rich! + +Some things were mine, however, and I would hold them: the halcyon +breakfast, the queer hat, the pebble in her small shoe, the gold +bag with the broken chain--the bag! Why, it was in my pocket at +that moment. + +I got up painfully and found my coat. Yes, there was the purse, +bulging with an opulent suggestion of wealth inside. I went back +to bed again, somewhat dizzy, between effort and the touch of the +trinket, so lately hers. I held it up by its broken chain and +gloated over it. By careful attention to orders, I ought to be out +in a day or so. Then--I could return it to her. I really ought +to do that: it was valuable, and I wouldn't care to trust it to the +mail. I could run down to Richmond, and see her once--there was +no disloyalty to Rich in that. + +I had no intention of opening the little bag. I put it under my +pillow--which was my reason for refusing to have the linen slips +changed, to Mrs. Klopton's dismay. And sometimes during the morning, +while I lay under a virgin field of white, ornamented with strange +flowers, my cigarettes hidden beyond discovery, and Science and +Health on a table by my elbow, as if by the merest accident, I slid +my hand under my pillow and touched it reverently. + +McKnight came in about eleven. I heard his car at the curb, followed +almost immediately by his slam at the front door, and his usual +clamor on the stairs. He had a bottle under his arm, rightly +surmising that I had been forbidden stimulant, and a large box of +cigarettes in his pocket, suspecting my deprivation. + +"Well," he said cheerfully. "How did you sleep after keeping me up +half the night?" + +I slid my hand around: the purse was well covered. "Have it now, +or wait till I get the cork out?" he rattled on. + +"I don't want anything," I protested. "I wish you wouldn't be so +darned cheerful, Richey." He stopped whistling to stare at me. + +"'I am saddest when I sing!'" he quoted unctuously. "It's pure +reaction, Lollie. Yesterday the sky was low: I was digging for my +best friend. To-day--he lies before me, his peevish self. +Yesterday I thought the notes were burned: to-day--I look forward +to a good cross-country chase, and with luck we will draw." His +voice changed suddenly. "Yesterday--she was in Seal Harbor. To-day +--she is here." + +"Here in Washington?" I asked, as naturally as I could. + +"Yes. Going to stay a week or two." + + + "Oh, I had a little hen and she had a wooden leg + And nearly every morning she used to lay an egg--" + +"Will you stop that racket, Rich! It's the real thing this time, +I suppose?" + + "She's the best little chicken that we have on the farm + And another little drink won't do us any harm--" + +he finished, twisting out the corkscrew. Then he came over and sat +down on the bed. + +"Well," he said judicially, "since you drag it from me, I think +perhaps it is. You--you're such a confirmed woman-hater that I +hardly knew how you would take it." + +"Nothing of the sort," I denied testily. "Because a man reaches +the age of thirty without making maudlin love to every--" + +"I've taken to long country rides," he went on reflectively, without +listening to me, "and yesterday I ran over a sheep; nearly went into +the ditch. But there's a Providence that watches over fools and +lovers, and just now I know darned well that I'm one, and I have a +sneaking idea I'm both." + +"You are both," I said with disgust. "If you can be rational for +one moment, I wish you would tell me why that man Sullivan called me +over the telephone yesterday morning." + +"Probably hadn't yet discovered the Bronson notes--providing you +hold to your theory that the theft was incidental to the murder. +May have wanted his own clothes again, or to thank you for yours. +Search me: I can't think of anything else." The doctor came in +just then. + +As I said before, I think a lot of my doctor--when I am ill. He +is a young man, with an air of breezy self-confidence and good +humor. He looked directly past the bottle, which is a very valuable +accomplishment, and shook hands with McKnight until I could put the +cigarettes under the bedclothes. He had interdicted tobacco. Then +he sat down beside the bed and felt around the bandages with hands +as gentle as a baby's. + +"Pretty good shape," he said. "How did you sleep?" + +"Oh, occasionally," I replied. "I would like to sit up, doctor." + +"Nonsense. Take a rest while you have an excuse for it. I wish to +thunder I could stay in bed for a day or so. I was up all night." + +"Have a drink," McKnight said, pushing over the bottle. + +"Twins!" The doctor grinned. + +"Have two drinks." + +But the medical man refused. + +"I wouldn't even wear a champagne-colored necktie during business +hours," he explained. "By the way, I had another case from your +accident, Mr. Blakeley, late yesterday afternoon. Under the tongue, +please." He stuck a thermometer in my mouth. + +I had a sudden terrible vision of the amateur detective coming to +light, note-book, cheerful impertinence and incriminating data. "A +small man?" I demanded, "gray hair--" + +"Keep your mouth closed," the doctor said peremptorily. "No. A +woman, with a fractured skull. Beautiful case. Van Kirk was up to +his eyes and sent for me. Hemorrhage, right-sided paralysis, irregular +pupils--all the trimmings. Worked for two hours." + +"Did she recover?" McKnight put in. He was examining the doctor +with a new awe. + +"She lifted her right arm before I left," the doctor finished +cheerily, "so the operation was a success, even if she should die." + +"Good Heavens," McKnight broke in, "and I thought you were just an +ordinary mortal, like the rest of us! Let me touch you for luck. +Was she pretty?" + +"Yes, and young. Had a wealth of bronze-colored hair. Upon my +soul, I hated to cut it." + +McKnight and I exchanged glances. + +"Do you know her name, doctor?" I asked. + +"No. The nurses said her clothes came from a Pittsburg tailor." + +"She is not conscious, I suppose?" + +"No; she may be, to-morrow--or in a week." + +He looked at the thermometer, murmured something about liquid diet, +avoiding my eye--Mrs. Klopton was broiling a chop at the time--and +took his departure, humming cheerfully as he went down-stairs. +McKnight looked after him wistfully. + +"Jove, I wish I had his constitution," he exclaimed. "Neither +nerves nor heart! What a chauffeur he would make!" + +But I was serious. + +"I have an idea," I said grimly, "that this small matter of the +murder is going to come up again, and that your uncle will be in +the deuce of a fix if it does. If that woman is going to die, +somebody ought to be around to take her deposition. She knows a +lot, if she didn't do it herself. I wish you would go down to +the telephone and get the hospital. Find out her name, and if she +is conscious." + +McKnight went under protest. "I haven't much time," he said, +looking at his watch. "I'm to meet Mrs. West and Alison at one. +I want you to know them, Lollie. You would like the mother." + +"Why not the daughter?" I inquired. I touched the little gold bag +under the pillow. + +"Well," he said judicially, "you've always declared against the +immaturity and romantic nonsense of very young women--" + +"I never said anything of the sort," I retorted furiously. + +"'There is more satisfaction to be had out of a good saddle horse!'" +he quoted me. "'More excitement out of a polo pony, and as for +the eternal matrimonial chase, give me instead a good stubble, a +fox, some decent hounds and a hunter, and I'll show you the real +joys of the chase!'" + +"For Heaven's sake, go down to the telephone, you make my head ache," +I said savagely. + +I hardly know what prompted me to take out the gold purse and look +at it. It was an imbecile thing to do--call it impulse, +sentimentality, what you wish. I brought it out, one eye on the +door, for Mrs. Klopton has a ready eye and a noiseless shoe. But +the house was quiet. Down-stairs McKnight was flirting with the +telephone central and there was an odor of boneset tea in the air. +I think Mrs. Klopton was fascinated out of her theories by the +"boneset" in connection with the fractured arm. + +Anyhow, I held up the bag and looked at it. It must have been +unfastened, for the next instant there was an avalanche on the +snowfield of the counterpane--some money, a wisp of a handkerchief, +a tiny booklet with thin leaves, covered with a powdery substance +--and a necklace. I drew myself up slowly and stared at the +necklace. + +It was one of the semi-barbaric affairs that women are wearing now, +a heavy pendant of gold chains and carved cameos, swung from a thin +neck chain of the same metal. The necklace was broken: in three +places the links were pulled apart and the cameos swung loose +and partly detached. But it was the supporting chain that held my +eye and fascinated with its sinister suggestion. Three inches of +it had been snapped off, and as well as I knew anything on earth, I +knew that the bit of chain that the amateur detective had found, +blood-stain and all, belonged just there. + +And there was no one I could talk to about it, no one to tell me +how hideously absurd it was, no one to give me a slap and tell me +there are tons of fine gold chains made every year, or to point out +the long arm of coincidence! + +With my one useful hand I fumbled the things back into the bag and +thrust it deep out of sight among the pillows. Then I lay back in +a cold perspiration. What connection had Alison West with this +crime? Why had she stared so at the gun-metal cigarette case that +morning on the train? What had alarmed her so at the farm-house? +What had she taken back to the gate? Why did she wish she had not +escaped from the wreck? And last, in Heaven's name, how did a part +of her necklace become torn off and covered with blood? + +Down-stairs McKnight was still at the telephone, and amusing himself +with Mrs. Klopton in the interval of waiting. + +"Why did he come home in a gray suit, when he went away in a blue?" +he repeated. "Well, wrecks are queer things, Mrs. Klopton. The suit +may have turned gray with fright. Or perhaps wrecks do as queer +stunts as lightning. Friend of mine once was struck by lightning; he +and the caddy had taken refuge under a tree. After the flash, when +they recovered consciousness, there was my friend in the caddy's +clothes, and the caddy in his. And as my friend was a large man +and the caddy a very small boy--" + +McKnight's story was interrupted by the indignant slam of the +dining-room door. He was obliged to wait some time, and even his +eternal cheerfulness was ebbing when he finally got the hospital. + +"Is Doctor Van Kirk there?" he asked. "Not there? Well, can you +tell me how the patient is whom Doctor Williams, from Washington, +operated on last night? Well, I'm glad of that. Is she conscious? +Do you happen to know her name? Yes, I'll hold the line." There +was a long pause, then McKnight's voice: + +"Hello--yes. Thank you very much. Good-by." + +He came up-stairs, two steps at a time. + +"Look here," he said, bursting into the room, "there may be +something in your theory, after all. The woman's name--it may be +a coincidence, but it's curious--her name is Sullivan." + +"What did I tell you?" I said, sitting up suddenly in bed. "She's +probably a sister of that scoundrel in lower seven, and she was +afraid of what he might do." + +"Well, I'll go there some day soon. She's not conscious yet. In +the meantime, the only thing I can do is to keep an eye, through a +detective, on the people who try to approach Bronson. We'll have +the case continued, anyhow, in the hope that the stolen notes will +sooner or later turn up." + +"Confound this arm," I said, paying for my energy with some +excruciating throbs. "There's so much to be looked after, and here +I am, bandaged, splinted, and generally useless. It's a beastly +shame." + +"Don't forget that I am here," said McKnight pompously. "And +another thing, when you feel this way just remember there are two +less desirable places where you might be. One is jail, and the +other is--" He strummed on an imaginary harp, with devotional +eyes. + +But McKnight's light-heartedness jarred on me that morning. I lay +and frowned under my helplessness. When by chance I touched the +little gold bag, it seemed to scorch my fingers. Richey, finding +me unresponsive, left to keep his luncheon engagement with Alison +West. As he clattered down the stairs, I turned my back to the +morning sunshine and abandoned myself to misery. By what strain +on her frayed nerves was Alison West keeping up, I wondered? Under +the circumstances, would I dare to return the bag? Knowing that I +had it, would she hate me for my knowledge? Or had I exaggerated +the importance of the necklace, and in that case had she forgotten +me already? + +But McKnight had not gone, after all. I heard him coming back, his +voice preceding him, and I groaned with irritation. + +"Wake up!" he called. "Somebody's sent you a lot of flowers. +Please hold the box, Mrs. Klopton; I'm going out to be run down by +an automobile." + +I roused to feeble interest. My brother's wife is punctilious about +such things; all the new babies in the family have silver rattles, +and all the sick people flowers. + +McKnight pulled up an armful of roses, and held them out to me. + +"Wonder who they're from?" he said, fumbling in the box for a card. +"There's no name--yes, here's one." + +He held it up and read it with exasperating slowness. + + "'Best wishes for an early recovery. + A COMPANION IN MISFORTUNE.' + +"Well, what do you know about that!" he exclaimed. "That's something +you didn't tell me, Lollie." + +"It was hardly worth mentioning," I said mendaciously, with my heart +beating until I could hear it. She had not forgotten, after all. + +McKnight took a bud and fastened it in his button-hole. I'm afraid +I was not especially pleasant about it. They were her roses, and +anyhow, they were meant for me. Richey left very soon, with an +irritating final grin at the box. + +"Good-by, sir woman-hater," he jeered at me from the door. + +So he wore one of the roses she had sent me, to luncheon with her, +and I lay back among my pillows and tried to remember that it was +his game, anyhow, and that I wasn't even drawing cards. To remember +that, and to forget the broken necklace under my head! + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FADED ROSES + +I was in the house for a week. Much of that time I spent in +composing and destroying letters of thanks to Miss West, and in +growling at the doctor. McKnight dropped in daily, but he was less +cheerful than usual. Now and then I caught him eying me as if he +had something to say, but whatever it was he kept it to himself. +Once during the week he went to Baltimore and saw the woman in the +hospital there. From the description I had little difficulty in +recognizing the young woman who had been with the murdered man in +Pittsburg. But she was still unconscious. An elderly aunt had +appeared, a gaunt person in black, who sat around like a buzzard +on a fence, according to McKnight, and wept, in a mixed figure, +into a damp handkerchief. + +On the last day of my imprisonment he stopped in to thrash out a +case that was coming up in court the next day, and to play a game +of double solitaire with me. + +"Who won the ball game?" I asked. + +"We were licked. Ask me something pleasant. Oh, by the way, +Bronson's out to-day." + +"I'm glad I'm not on his bond," I said pessimistically. "He'll +clear out." + +"Not he." McKnight pounced on my ace. "He's no fool. Don't you +suppose he knows you took those notes to Pittsburg? The papers +were full of it. And he knows you escaped with your life and a +broken arm from the wreck. What do we do next? The Commonwealth +continues the case. A deaf man on a dark night would know those +notes are missing." + +"Don't play so fast," I remonstrated. "I have only one arm to +your two. Who is trailing Bronson? Did you try to get Johnson?" + +"I asked for him, but he had some work on hand." + +"The murder's evidently a dead issue," I reflected. "No, I'm not +joking. The wreck destroyed all the evidence. But I'm firmly +convinced those notes will be offered, either to us or to Bronson +very soon. Johnson's a blackguard, but he's a good detective. He +could make his fortune as a game dog. What's he doing?" + +McKnight put down his cards, and rising, went to the window. As he +held the curtain back his customary grin looked a little forced. + +"To tell you the truth, Lollie," he said, "for the last two days he +has been watching a well-known Washington attorney named Lawrence +Blakeley. He's across the street now." + +It took a moment for me to grasp what he meant. + +"Why, it's ridiculous," I asserted. "What would they trail me for? +Go over and tell Johnson to get out of there, or I'll pot at him +with my revolver." + +"You can tell him that yourself." McKnight paused and bent forward. +"Hello, here's a visitor; little man with string halt." + +"I won't see him," I said firmly. "I've been bothered enough with +reporters." + +We listened together to Mrs. Klopton's expostulating tones in the +lower hall and the creak of the boards as she came heavily up the +stairs. She had a piece of paper in her hand torn from a pocket +account-book, and on it was the name, "Mr. Wilson Budd Hotchkiss. +Important business." + +"Oh, well, show him up," I said resignedly. "You'd better put those +cards away, Richey. I fancy it's the rector of the church around +the corner." + +But when the door opened to admit a curiously alert little man, +adjusting his glasses with nervous fingers, my face must have shown +my dismay. + +It was the amateur detective of the Ontario! + +I shook hands without enthusiasm. Here was the one survivor of the +wrecked car who could do me any amount of harm. There was no hope +that he had forgotten any of the incriminating details. In fact, +he held in his hand the very note-book which contained them. + +His manner was restrained, but it was evident he was highly excited. +I introduced him to McKnight, who has the imagination I lack, and +who placed him at once, mentally. + +"I only learned yesterday that you had been--er--saved," he said +rapidly. "Terrible accident--unspeakable. Dream about it all night +and think about it all day. Broken arm?" + +"No. He just wears the splint to be different from other people," +McKnight drawled lazily. I glared at him: there was nothing to be +gained by antagonizing the little man. + +"Yes, a fractured humerus, which isn't as funny as it sounds." + +"Humerus-humorous! Pretty good," he cackled. "I must say you keep +up your spirits pretty well, considering everything." + +"You seem to have escaped injury," I parried. He was fumbling for +something in his pockets. + +"Yes, I escaped," he replied abstractedly. "Remarkable thing, too. +I haven't a doubt I would have broken my neck, but I landed on +--you'll never guess what! I landed head first on the very pillow +which was under inspection at the time of the wreck. You remember, +don't you? Where did I put that package?" + +He found it finally and opened it on a table, displaying with some +theatricalism a rectangular piece of muslin and a similar patch of +striped ticking. + +"You recognize it?" he said. "The stains, you see, and the hole +made by the dirk. I tried to bring away the entire pillow, but they +thought I was stealing it, and made me give it up." + +Richey touched the pieces gingerly. "By George," he said, "and you +carry that around in your pocket! What if you should mistake it for +your handkerchief?" + +But Mr. Hotchkiss was not listening. He stood bent somewhat forward, +leaning over the table, and fixed me with his ferret-like eyes. + +"Have you see the evening papers, Mr. Blakeley?" he inquired. + +I glanced to where they lay unopened, and shook my head. + +"Then I have a disagreeable task," he said with evident relish. "Of +course, you had considered the matter of the man Harrington's death +closed, after the wreck. I did myself. As far as I was concerned, I +meant to let it remain so. There were no other survivors, at least +none that I knew of, and in spite of circumstances, there were a +number of points in your favor." + +"Thank you," I put in with a sarcasm that was lost on him. + +"I verified your identity, for instance, as soon as I recovered from +the shock. Also--I found on inquiring of your tailor that you +invariably wore dark clothing." + +McKnight came forward threateningly. "Who are you, anyhow?" he +demanded. "And how is this any business of yours?" Mr. Hotchkiss +was entirely unruffled. + +"I have a minor position here," he said, reaching for a visiting +card. "I am a very small patch on the seat of government, sir." + +McKnight muttered something about certain offensive designs against +the said patch and retired grumbling to the window. Our visitor +was opening the paper with a tremendous expenditure of energy. + +"Here it is. Listen." He read rapidly aloud: + +"The Pittsburg police have sent to Baltimore two detectives who are +looking up the survivors of the ill-fated Washington Flier. It has +transpired that Simon Harrington, the Wood Street merchant of that +city, was not killed in the wreck, but was murdered in his berth +the night preceding the accident. Shortly before the collision, +John Flanders, the conductor of the Flier, sent this telegram to the +chief of police: + + "'Body of Simon Harrington found stabbed in his berth, lower ten, + Ontario, at six-thirty this morning. + JOHN FLANDERS, Conductor.' + +"It is hoped that the survivors of the wrecked car Ontario will be +found, to tell what they know of the discovery of the crime. + +"Mr. John Gilmore, head of the steel company for which Mr. Harrington +was purchasing agent, has signified his intention of sifting the +matter to the bottom." + +"So you see," Hotchkiss concluded, "there's trouble brewing. You +and I are the only survivors of that unfortunate car." + +I did not contradict him, but I knew of two others, at least: Alison +West, and the woman we had left beside the road that morning, +babbling incoherently, her black hair tumbling over her white face. + +"Unless we can find the man who occupied lower seven," I suggested. + +"I have already tried and failed. To find him would not clear you, +of course, unless we could establish some connection between him and +the murdered man. It is the only thing I see, however. I have +learned this much," Hotchkiss concluded: "Lower seven was reserved +from Cresson." + +Cresson! Where Alison West and Mrs. Curtis had taken the train! + +McKnight came forward and suddenly held out his hand. "Mr. +Hotchkiss," he said, "I--I'm sorry if I have been offensive. I +thought when you came in, that, like the Irishman and the government, +you were 'forninst' us. If you will put those cheerful relics out +of sight somewhere, I should be glad to have you dine with me at +the Incubator." (His name for his bachelor apartment.) "Compared +with Johnson, you are the great original protoplasm." + +The strength of this was lost on Hotchkiss, but the invitation was +clear. They went out together, and from my window I watched them +get into McKnight's car. It was raining, and at the corner the +Cannonball skidded. Across the street my detective, Johnson, +looked after them with his crooked smile. As he turned up his +collar he saw me, and lifted his hat. + +I left the window and sat down in the growing dusk. So the occupant +of lower seven had got on the car at Cresson, probably with Alison +West and her companion. There was some one she cared about enough +to shield. I went irritably to the door and summoned Mrs. Klopton. + +"You may throw out those roses," I said without looking at her. +"They are quite dead." + +"They have been quite dead for three days," she retorted spitefully. +"Euphemia said you threatened to dismiss her if she touched them." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE TRAP-DOOR + + +By Sunday evening, a week after the wreck, my inaction had goaded +me to frenzy. The very sight of Johnson across the street or +lurking, always within sight of the house, kept me constantly +exasperated. It was on that day that things began to come to a +focus, a burning-glass of events that seemed to center on me. + +I dined alone that evening in no cheerful frame of mind. There +had been a polo game the day before and I had lent a pony, which +is always a bad thing to do. And she had wrenched her shoulder, +besides helping to lose the game. There was no one in town: the +temperature was ninety and climbing, and my left hand persistently +cramped under its bandage. + +Mrs. Klopton herself saw me served, my bread buttered and cut in +tidbits, my meat ready for my fork. She hovered around me +maternally, obviously trying to cheer me. + +"The paper says still warmer," she ventured. "The thermometer is +ninety-two now." + +"And this coffee is two hundred and fifty," I said, putting down +my cup. "Where is Euphemia? I haven't seen her around, or heard a +dish smash all day." + +"Euphemia is in bed," Mrs. Klopton said gravely. "Is your meat cut +small enough, Mr. Lawrence?" Mrs. Klopton can throw more mystery +into an ordinary sentence than any one I know. She can say, "Are +your sheets damp, sir?" And I can tell from her tone that the +house across the street has been robbed, or that my left hand +neighbor has appendicitis. So now I looked up and asked the +question she was waiting for. + +"What's the matter with Euphemia?" I inquired idly. + +"Frightened into her bed," Mrs. Klopton said in a stage whisper. +"She's had three hot water bottles and she hasn't done a thing all +day but moan." + +"She oughtn't to take hot water bottles," I said in my severest +tone. "One would make me moan. You need not wait, I'll ring if I +need anything." + +Mrs. Klopton sailed to the door, where she stopped and wheeled +indignantly. "I only hope you won't laugh on the wrong side of +your face some morning, Mr. Lawrence," she declared, with +Christian fortitude. "But I warn you, I am going to have the +police watch that house next door." + +I was half inclined to tell her that both it and we were under +police surveillance at that moment. But I like Mrs. Klopton, in +spite of the fact that I make her life a torment for her, so I +refrained. + +"Last night, when the paper said it was going to storm, I sent +Euphemia to the roof to bring the rugs in. Eliza had slipped out, +although it was her evening in. Euphemia went up to the roof--it +was eleven o'clock--and soon I heard her running down-stairs crying. +When she got to my room she just folded up on the floor. She said +there was a black figure sitting on the parapet of the house next +door--the empty house--and that when she appeared it rose and waved +long black arms at her and spit like a cat." + +I had finished my dinner and was lighting a cigarette. "If there +was any one up there, which I doubt, they probably sneezed," I +suggested. "But if you feel uneasy, I'll take a look around the +roof to-night before I turn in. As far as Euphemia goes, I wouldn't +be uneasy about her--doesn't she always have an attack of some sort +when Eliza rings in an extra evening on her?" + +So I made a superficial examination of the window locks that night, +visiting parts of the house that I had not seen since I bought it. +Then I went to the roof. Evidently it had not been intended for +any purpose save to cover the house, for unlike the houses around, +there was no staircase. A ladder and a trap-door led to it, and it +required some nice balancing on my part to get up with my useless +arm. I made it, however, and found this unexplored part of my +domain rather attractive. It was cooler than down-stairs, and I +sat on the brick parapet and smoked my final cigarette. The roof +of the empty house adjoined mine along the back wing, but +investigation showed that the trap-door across the low dividing +wall was bolted underneath. + +There was nothing out of the ordinary anywhere, and so I assured +Mrs. Klopton. Needless to say, I did not tell her that I had left +the trap-door open, to see if it would improve the temperature of +the house. I went to bed at midnight, merely because there was +nothing else to do. I turned on the night lamp at the head of my +bed, and picked up a volume of Shaw at random (it was Arms and the +Man, and I remember thinking grimly that I was a good bit of a +chocolate cream soldier myself), and prepared to go to sleep. +Shaw always puts me to sleep. I have no apologies to make for what +occurred that night, and not even an explanation that I am sure of. +I did a foolish thing under impulse, and I have not been sorry. + +It was something after two when the door-bell rang. It rang quickly, +twice. I got up drowsily, for the maids and Mrs. Klopton always +lock themselves beyond reach of the bell at night, and put on a +dressing-gown. The bell rang again on my way down-stairs. I lit +the hall light and opened the door. I was wide-awake now, and I saw +that it was Johnson. His bald head shone in the light--his crooked +mouth was twisted in a smile. + +"Good Heavens, man," I said irritably. "Don't you ever go home and +go to bed?" + +He closed the vestibule door behind him and cavalierly turned out +the light. Our dialogue was sharp, staccato. + +"Have you a key to the empty house next door?" he demanded. +"Somebody's in there, and the latch is caught." + +"The houses are alike. The key to this door may fit. Did you see +them go in?" + +"No. There's a light moving up from room to room. I saw something +like it last night, and I have been watching. The patrolman +reported queer doings there a week or so ago." + +"A light!" I exclaimed. "Do you mean that you--" + +"Very likely," he said grimly. "Have you a revolver?" + +"All kinds in the gun rack," I replied, and going into the den, I +came back with a Smith and Wesson. "I'm not much use," I explained, +"with this arm, but I'll do what I can. There may be somebody there. +The servants here have been uneasy." + +Johnson planned the campaign. He suggested on account of my +familiarity with the roof, that I go there and cut off escape in +that direction. "I have Robison out there now--the patrolman on +the beat," he said. "He'll watch below and you above, while I +search the house. Be as quiet as possible." + +I was rather amused. I put on some clothes and felt my way carefully +up the stairs, the revolver swinging free in my pocket, my hand on +the rail. At the foot of the ladder I stopped and looked up. Above +me there was a gray rectangle of sky dotted with stars. It occurred +to me that with my one serviceable hand holding the ladder, I was +hardly in a position to defend myself, that I was about to hoist a +body that I am rather careful of into a danger I couldn't see and +wasn't particularly keen about anyhow. I don't mind saying that the +seconds it took me to scramble up the ladder were among the most +unpleasant that I recall. + +I got to the top, however, without incident. I could see fairly +well after the darkness of the house beneath, but there was nothing +suspicious in sight. The roofs, separated by two feet of brick +wall, stretched around me, unbroken save by an occasional chimney. +I went very softly over to the other trap, the one belonging to +the suspected house. It was closed, but I imagined I could hear +Johnson's footsteps ascending heavily. Then even that was gone. +A near-by clock struck three as I stood waiting. I examined my +revolver then, for the first time, and found it was empty! + +I had been rather skeptical until now. I had had the usual tolerant +attitude of the man who is summoned from his bed to search for +burglars, combined with the artificial courage of firearms. With +the discovery of my empty gun, I felt like a man on the top of a +volcano in lively eruption. Suddenly I found myself staring +incredulously at the trap-door at my feet. I had examined it early +in the evening and found it bolted. Did I imagine it, or had it +raised about an inch? Wasn't it moving slowly as I looked? No, I +am not a hero: I was startled almost into a panic. I had one arm, +and whoever was raising that trap-door had two. My knees had a +queer inclination to bend the wrong way. + +Johnson's footsteps were distinct enough, but he was evidently far +below. The trap, raised perhaps two inches now, remained stationary. +There was no sound from beneath it: once I thought I heard two or +three gasping respirations: I am not sure they were not my own. I +wanted desperately to stand on one leg at a time and hold the other +up out of focus of a possible revolver. + +I did not see the hand appear. There was nothing there, and then +it was there, clutching the frame of the trap. I did the only thing +I could think of; I put my foot on it! + +There was not a sound from beneath. The next moment I was kneeling +and had clutched the wrist just above the hand. After a second's +struggle, the arm was still. With something real to face, I was +myself again. + +"Don't move, or I'll stand on the trap and break your arm," I panted. +What else could I threaten? I couldn't shoot, I couldn't even fight. +"Johnson!" I called. + +And then I realized the thing that stayed with me for a month, the +thing I can not think of even now without a shudder. The hand lay +ice cold, strangely quiescent. Under my fingers, an artery was +beating feebly. The wrist was as slender as--I held the hand to +the light. Then I let it drop. + +"Good Lord," I muttered, and remained on my knees, staring at the +spot where the hand had been. It was gone now: there was a faint +rustle in the darkness below, and then silence. + +I held up my own hand in the starlight and stared at a long scratch +in the palm. "A woman!" I said to myself stupidly. "By all that's +ridiculous, a woman!" + +Johnson was striking matches below and swearing softly to himself. +"How the devil do you get to the roof?" he called. "I think I've +broken my nose." + +He found the ladder after a short search and stood at the bottom, +looking up at me. "Well, I suppose you haven't seen him?" he +inquired. "There are enough darned cubbyholes in this house to +hide a patrol wagon load of thieves." He lighted a fresh match. +"Hello, here's another door!" + +By the sound of his diminishing footsteps I supposed it was a rear +staircase. He came up again in ten minutes or so, this time with +the policeman. + +"He's gone, all right," he said ruefully. "If you'd been attending +to your business, Robison, you'd have watched the back door." + +"I'm not twins." Robison was surly. + +"Well," I broke in, as cheerfully as I could, "if you are through +with this jolly little affair, and can get down my ladder without +having my housekeeper ring the burglar alarm, I have some good +Monongahela whisky--eh?" + +They came without a second invitation across the roof, and with +them safely away from the house I breathed more freely. Down in +the den I fulfilled my promise, which Johnson drank to the toast, +"Coming through the rye." He examined my gun rack with the eye +of a connoisseur, and even when he was about to go he cast a +loving eye back at the weapons. + +"Ever been in the army?" he inquired. + +"No," I said with a bitterness that he noticed but failed to +comprehend. "I'm a chocolate cream soldier--you don't read Shaw, +I suppose, Johnson?" + +"Never heard of him," the detective said indifferently. "Well, +good night, Mr. Blakeley. Much obliged." At the door he hesitated +and coughed. + +"I suppose you understand, Mr. Blakeley," he said awkwardly, "that +this--er--surveillance is all in the day's work. I don't like it, +but it's duty. Every man to his duty, sir." + +"Sometime when you are in an open mood, Johnson," I returned, "you +can explain why I am being watched at all." + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE CINEMATOGRAPH + + +On Monday I went out for the first time. I did not go to the +office. I wanted to walk. I thought fresh air and exercise would +drive away the blue devils that had me by the throat. McKnight +insisted on a long day in his car, but I refused. + +"I don't know why not," he said sulkily. "I can't walk. I haven't +walked two consecutive blocks in three years. Automobiles have +made legs mere ornaments--and some not even that. We could have +Johnson out there chasing us over the country at five dollars an +hour!" + +"He can chase us just as well at five miles an hour," I said. "But +what gets me, McKnight, is why I am under surveillance at all. How +do the police know I was accused of that thing?" + +"The young lady who sent the flowers--she isn't likely to talk, is +she?" + +"No. That is, I didn't say it was a lady." I groaned as I tried +to get my splinted arm into a coat. "Anyhow, she didn't tell," I +finished with conviction, and McKnight laughed. + +It had rained in the early morning, and Mrs. Klopton predicted more +showers. In fact, so firm was her belief and so determined her eye +that I took the umbrella she proffered me. + +"Never mind," I said. "We can leave it next door; I have a story +to tell you, Richey, and it requires proper setting." + +McKnight was puzzled, but he followed me obediently round to the +kitchen entrance of the empty house. It was unlocked, as I had +expected. While we climbed to the upper floor I retailed the +events of the previous night. + +"It's the finest thing I ever heard of," McKnight said, staring up +at the ladder and the trap. "What a vaudeville skit it would make! +Only you ought not to have put your foot on her hand. They don't +do it in the best circles." + +I wheeled on him impatiently. + +"You don't understand the situation at all, Richey!" I exclaimed. +"What would you say if I tell you it was the hand of a lady? It +was covered with rings." + +"A lady!" he repeated. "Why, I'd say it was a darned compromising +situation, and that the less you say of it the better. Look here, +Lawrence, I think you dreamed it. You've been in the house too +much. I take it all back: you do need exercise." + +"She escaped through this door, I suppose," I said as patiently as +I could. "Evidently down the back staircase. We might as well go +down that way." + +"According to the best precedents in these affairs, we should find +a glove about here," he said as we started down. But he was more +impressed than he cared to own. He examined the dusty steps +carefully, and once, when a bit of loose plaster fell just behind +him, he started like a nervous woman. + +"What I don't understand is why you let her go," he said, stopping +once, puzzled. "You're not usually quixotic." + +"When we get out into the country, Richey," I replied gravely, "I +am going to tell you another story, and if you don't tell me I'm a +fool and a craven, on the strength of it, you are no friend of mine." + +We stumbled through the twilight of the staircase into the blackness +of the shuttered kitchen. The house had the moldy smell of closed +buildings: even on that warm September morning it was damp and chilly. +As we stepped into the sunshine McKnight gave a shiver. + +"Now that we are out," he said, "I don't mind telling you that I +have been there before. Do you remember the night you left, and, +the face at the window?" + +"When you speak of it--yes." + +"Well, I was curious about that thing," he went on, as we started +up the street, "and I went back. The street door was unlocked, and +I examined every room. I was Mrs. Klopton's ghost that carried a +light, and clumb." + +"Did you find anything?" + +"Only a clean place rubbed on the window opposite your dressing-room. +Splendid view of an untidy interior. If that house is ever occupied, +you'd better put stained glass in that window of yours." + +As we turned the corner I glanced back. Half a block behind us +Johnson was moving our way slowly. When he saw me he stopped and +proceeded with great deliberation to light a cigar. By hurrying, +however, he caught the car that we took, and stood unobtrusively +on the rear platform. He looked fagged, and absent-mindedly paid +our fares, to McKnight's delight. + +"We will give him a run for his money," he declared, as the car +moved countryward. "Conductor, let us off at the muddiest lane +you can find." + +At one o'clock, after a six-mile ramble, we entered a small country +hotel. We had seen nothing of Johnson for a half hour. At that +time he was a quarter of a mile behind us, and losing rapidly. +Before we had finished our luncheon he staggered into the inn. One +of his boots was under his arm, and his whole appearance was +deplorable. He was coated with mud, streaked with perspiration, and +he limped as he walked. He chose a table not far from us and +ordered Scotch. Beyond touching his hat he paid no attention to us. + +"I'm just getting my second wind," McKnight declared. "How do you +feel, Mr. Johnson? Six or eight miles more and we'll all enjoy our +dinners." Johnson put down the glass he had raised to his lips +without replying. + +The fact was, however, that I was like Johnson. I was soft from my +week's inaction, and I was pretty well done up. McKnight, who was +a well spring of vitality and high spirits, ordered a strange +concoction, made of nearly everything in the bar, and sent it over +to the detective, but Johnson refused it. + +"I hate that kind of person," McKnight said pettishly. "Kind of a +fellow that thinks you're going to poison his dog if you offer him +a bone." + +When we got back to the car line, with Johnson a draggled and +drooping tail to the kite, I was in better spirits. I had told +McKnight the story of the three hours just after the wreck; I had +not named the girl, of course; she had my promise of secrecy. But +I told him everything else. It was a relief to have a fresh mind +on it: I had puzzled so much over the incident at the farm-house, +and the necklace in the gold bag, that I had lost perspective. + +He had been interested, but inclined to be amused, until I came to +the broken chain. Then he had whistled softly. + +"But there are tons of fine gold chains made every year," he said. +"Why in the world do you think that the--er--smeary piece came +from that necklace?" + +I had looked around. Johnson was far behind, scraping the mud off +his feet with a piece of stick. + +"I have the short end of the chain in the sealskin bag," I reminded +him. "When I couldn't sleep this morning I thought I would settle +it, one way or the other. It was hell to go along the way I had +been doing. And--there's no doubt about it, Rich. It's the same +chain." + +We walked along in silence until we caught the car back to town. + +"Well," he said finally, "you know the girl, of course, and I don't. +But if you like her--and I think myself you're rather hard hit, old +man--I wouldn't give a whoop about the chain in the gold purse. +It's just one of the little coincidences that hang people now and +then. And as for last night--if she's the kind of a girl you say +she is, and you think she had anything to do with that, you--you're +addled, that's all. You can depend on it, the lady of the empty +house last week is the lady of last night. And yet your train +acquaintance was in Altoona at that time." + +Just before we got off the car, I reverted to the subject again. It +was never far back in my mind. + +"About the--young lady of the train, Rich," I said, with what I +suppose was elaborate carelessness, "I don't want you to get a wrong +impression. I am rather unlikely to see her again, but even if I do, +I--I believe she is already 'bespoke,' or next thing to it." + +He made no reply, but as I opened the door with my latch-key he +stood looking up at me from the pavement with his quizzical smile. + +"Love is like the measles," he orated. "The older you get it, the +worse the attack." + +Johnson did not appear again that day. A small man in a raincoat +took his place. The next morning I made my initial trip to the +office, the raincoat still on hand. I had a short conference with +Miller, the district attorney, at eleven. Bronson was under +surveillance, he said, and any attempt to sell the notes to him +would probably result in their recovery. In the meantime, as I +knew, the Commonwealth had continued the case, in hope of such +contingency. + +At noon I left the office and took a veterinarian to see Candida, +the injured pony. By one o'clock my first day's duties were +performed, and a long Sahara of hot afternoon stretched ahead. +McKnight, always glad to escape from the grind, suggested a +vaudeville, and in sheer ennui I consented. I could neither ride, +drive nor golf, and my own company bored me to distraction. + +"Coolest place in town these days," he declared. "Electric fans, +breezy songs, airy costumes. And there's Johnson just behind--the +coldest proposition in Washington." + +He gravely bought three tickets and presented the detective with +one. Then we went in. Having lived a normal, busy life, the +theater in the afternoon is to me about on a par with ice-cream +for breakfast. Up on the stage a very stout woman in short pink +skirts, with a smile that McKnight declared looked like a slash in +a roll of butter, was singing nasally, with a laborious kick at the +end of each verse. Johnson, two rows ahead, went to sleep. +McKnight prodded me with his elbow. + +"Look at the first box to the right," he said, in a stage whisper. +"I want you to come over at the end of this act." + +It was the first time I had seen her since I put her in the cab at +Baltimore. Outwardly I presume I was calm, for no one turned to +stare at me, but every atom of me cried out at the sight of her. +She was leaning, bent forward, lips slightly parted, gazing raptly +at the Japanese conjurer who had replaced what McKnight +disrespectfully called the Columns of Hercules. Compared with the +draggled lady of the farm-house, she was radiant. + +For that first moment there was nothing but joy at the sight of her. +McKnight's touch on my arm brought me back to reality. + +"Come over and meet them," he said. "That's the cousin Miss West +is visiting, Mrs. Dallas." + +But I would not go. After he went I sat there alone, painfully +conscious that I was being pointed out and stared at from the box. +The abominable Japanese gave way to yet more atrocious performing +dogs. + +"How many offers of marriage will the young lady in the box have?" +The dog stopped sagely at 'none,' and then pulled out a card that +said eight. Wild shouts of glee by the audience. "The fools," I +muttered. + +After a little I glanced over. Mrs. Dallas was talking to McKnight, +but She was looking straight at me. She was flushed, but more calm +than I, and she did not bow. I fumbled for my hat, but the next +moment I saw that they were going, and I sat still. When McKnight +came back he was triumphant. + +"I've made an engagement for you," he said. "Mrs. Dallas asked me +to bring you to dinner to-night, and I said I knew you would fall +all over yourself to go. You are requested to bring along the +broken arm, and any other souvenirs of the wreck that you may +possess." + +"I'll do nothing of the sort," I declared, struggling against my +inclination. "I can't even tie my necktie, and I have to have my +food cut for me." + +"Oh, that's all right," he said easily. "I'll send Stogie over to +fix you up, and Mrs. Dal knows all about the arm. I told her." + +(Stogie is his Japanese factotum, so called because he is lean, a +yellowish brown in color, and because he claims to have been shipped +into this country in a box.) + +The Cinematograph was finishing the program. The house was dark and +the music had stopped, as it does in the circus just before somebody +risks his neck at so much a neck in the Dip of Death, or the +hundred-foot dive. Then, with a sort of shock, I saw on the white +curtain the announcement: + + THE NEXT PICTURE + +IS THE DOOMED WASHINGTON FLIER, TAKEN A SHORT DISTANCE FROM THE +SCENE OF THE WRECK ON THE FATAL MORNING OF SEPTEMBER TENTH. TWO +MILES FARTHER ON IT MET WITH ALMOST COMPLETE ANNIHILATION. + +I confess to a return of some of the sickening sensations of the +wreck; people around me were leaning forward with tense faces. Then +the letters were gone, and I saw a long level stretch of track, even +the broken stone between the ties standing out distinctly. Far off +under a cloud of smoke a small object was rushing toward us and +growing larger as it came. + +Now it was on us, a mammoth in size, with huge drivers and a colossal +tender. The engine leaped aside, as if just in time to save us from +destruction, with a glimpse of a stooping fireman and a grimy +engineer. The long train of sleepers followed. From a forward +vestibule a porter in a white coat waved his hand. The rest of the +cars seemed still wrapped in slumber. With mixed sensations I saw +my own car, Ontario, fly past, and then I rose to my feet and +gripped McKnight's shoulder. + +On the lowest step at the last car, one foot hanging free, was a man. +His black derby hat was pulled well down to keep it from blowing +away, and his coat was flying open in the wind. He was swung well +out from the car, his free hand gripping a small valise, every +muscle tense for a jump. + +"Good God, that's my man!" I said hoarsely, as the audience broke +into applause. McKnight half rose: in his seat ahead Johnson stifled +a yawn and turned to eye me. + +I dropped into my chair limply, and tried to control my excitement. +"The man on the last platform of the train," I said. "He was just +about to leap; I'll swear that was my bag." + +"Could you see his face?" McKnight asked in an undertone. "Would +you know him again?" + +"No. His hat was pulled down and his head was bent I'm going back +to find out where that picture was taken. They say two miles, but +it may have been forty." + +The audience, busy with its wraps, had not noticed. Mrs. Dallas and +Alison West had gone. In front of us Johnson had dropped his hat +and was stooping for it. + +"This way," I motioned to McKnight, and we wheeled into the narrow +passage beside us, back of the boxes. At the end there was a door +leading into the wings, and as we went boldly through I turned the +key. + +The final set was being struck, and no one paid any attention to +us. Luckily they were similarly indifferent to a banging at the +door I had locked, a banging which, I judged, signified Johnson. + +"I guess we've broken up his interference," McKnight chuckled. + +Stage hands were hurrying in every direction; pieces of the side +wall of the last drawing-room menaced us; a switchboard behind us +was singing like a tea-kettle. Everywhere we stepped we were in +somebody's way. At last we were across, confronting a man in his +shirt sleeves, who by dots and dashes of profanity seemed to be +directing the chaos. + +"Well?" he said, wheeling on us. "What can I do for you?" + +"I would like to ask," I replied, "if you have any idea just where +the last cinematograph picture was taken." + +"Broken board--picnickers--lake?" + +"No. The Washington Flier." + +He glanced at my bandaged arm. + +"The announcement says two miles," McKnight put in, "but we should +like to know whether it is railroad miles, automobile miles, or +policeman miles." + +"I am sorry I can't tell you," he replied, more civilly. "We get +those pictures by contract. We don't take them ourselves." + +"Where are the company's offices?" + +"New York." He stepped forward and grasped a super by the shoulder. +"What in blazes are you doing with that gold chair in a kitchen set? +Take that piece of pink plush there and throw it over a soap box, if +you haven't got a kitchen chair." + +I had not realized the extent of the shock, but now I dropped into +a chair and wiped my forehead. The unexpected glimpse of Alison +West, followed almost immediately by the revelation of the picture, +had left me limp and unnerved. McKnight was looking at his watch. + +"He says the moving picture people have an office down-town. We +can make it if we go now." + +So he called a cab, and we started at a gallop. There was no sign +of the detective. "Upon my word," Richey said, "I feel lonely +without him." + +The people at the down-town office of the cinematograph company were +very obliging. The picture had been taken, they said, at M-, just +two miles beyond the scene of the wreck. It was not much, but it +was something to work on. I decided not to go home, but to send +McKnight's Jap for my clothes, and to dress at the Incubator. I was +determined, if possible, to make my next day's investigations without +Johnson. In the meantime, even if it was for the last time, I would +see Her that night. I gave Stogie a note for Mrs. Klopton, and with +my dinner clothes there came back the gold bag, wrapped in tissue +paper. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE SHADOW OF A GIRL + + +Certain things about the dinner at the Dallas house will always be +obscure to me. Dallas was something in the Fish Commission, and +I remember his reeling off fish eggs in billions while we ate our +caviar. He had some particular stunt he had been urging the +government to for years--something about forbidding the +establishment of mills and factories on river-banks--it seems they +kill the fish, either the smoke, or the noise, or something they +pour into the water. + +Mrs. Dallas was there, I think. Of course, I suppose she must have +been; and there was a woman in yellow: I took her in to dinner, and +I remember she loosened my clams for me so I could get them. But +the only real person at the table was a girl across in white, a +sublimated young woman who was as brilliant as I was stupid, who +never by any chance looked directly at me, and who appeared and +disappeared across the candles and orchids in a sort of halo of +radiance. + +When the dinner had progressed from salmon to roast, and the +conversation had done the same thing--from fish to scandal--the +yellow gown turned to me. "We have been awfully good, haven't we, +Mr. Blakeley?" she asked. "Although I am crazy to hear, I have +not said 'wreck' once. I'm sure you must feel like the survivor +of Waterloo, or something of the sort." + +"If you want me to tell you about the wreck," I said, glancing +across the table, "I'm sorry to be disappointing, but I don't +remember anything." + +"You are fortunate to be able to forget it." It was the first word +Miss West had spoken directly to me, and it went to my head. + +"There are some things I have not forgotten," I said, over the +candles. "I recall coming to myself some time after, and that a +girl, a beautiful girl--" + +"Ah!" said the lady in yellow, leaning forward breathlessly. Miss +West was staring at me coldly, but, once started, I had to stumble +on. + +"That a girl was trying to rouse me, and that she told me I had been +on fire twice already." A shudder went around the table. + +"But surely that isn't the end of the story," Mrs. Dallas put in +aggrievedly. "Why, that's the most tantalizing thing I ever heard." + +"I'm afraid that's all," I said. "She went her way and I went mine. +If she recalls me at all, she probably thinks of me as a weak-kneed +individual who faints like a woman when everything is over." + +"What did I tell you?" Mrs. Dallas asserted triumphantly. "He +fainted, did you hear? when everything was over! He hasn't begun +to tell it." + +I would have given a lot by that time if I had not mentioned the +girl. But McKnight took it up there and carried it on. + +"Blakeley is a regular geyser," he said. "He never spouts until he +reaches the boiling point. And by that same token, although he +hasn't said much about the Lady of the Wreck, I think he is crazy +about her. In fact, I am sure of it. He thinks he has locked his +secret in the caves of his soul, but I call you to witness that he +has it nailed to his face. Look at him!" + +I squirmed miserably and tried to avoid the startled eyes of the +girl across the table. I wanted to choke McKnight and murder the +rest of the party. + +"It isn't fair," I said as coolly as I could. "I have my fingers +crossed; you are five against one." + +"And to think that there was a murder on that very train," broke +in the lady in yellow. "It was a perfect crescendo of horrors, +wasn't it? And what became of the murdered man, Mr. Blakeley?" + +McKnight had the sense to jump into the conversation and save my +reply. + +"They say good Pittsburgers go to Atlantic City when they die," he +said. "So--we are reasonably certain the gentleman did not go to +the seashore." + +The meal was over at last, and once in the drawing-room it was clear +we hung heavy on the hostess' hands. "It is so hard to get people +for bridge in September," she wailed, "there is absolutely nobody +in town. Six is a dreadful number." + +"It's a good poker number," her husband suggested. + +The matter settled itself, however. I was hopeless, save as a +dummy; Miss West said it was too hot for cards, and went out on a +balcony that overlooked the Mall. With obvious relief Mrs. Dallas +had the card-table brought, and I was face to face with the minute +I had dreaded and hoped for for a week. + +Now it had come, it was more difficult than I had anticipated. I +do not know if there was a moon, but there was the urban +substitute for it--the arc light. It threw the shadow of the +balcony railing in long black bars against her white gown, and as +it swung sometimes her face was in the light. I drew a chair close +so that I could watch her. + +"Do you know," I said, when she made no effort at speech, "that you +are a much more formidable person to-night, in that gown, than you +were the last time I saw you?" + +The light swung on her face; she was smiling faintly. "The hat with +the green ribbons!" she said. "I must take it back; I had almost +forgotten." + +"I have not forgotten--anything." I pulled myself up short. This +was hardly loyalty to Richey. His voice came through the window +just then, and perhaps I was wrong, but I thought she raised her +head to listen. + +"Look at this hand," he was saying. "Regular pianola: you could +play it with your feet." + +"He's a dear, isn't he?" Alison said unexpectedly. "No matter how +depressed and downhearted I am, I always cheer up when I see Richey." + +"He's more than that," I returned warmly. "He is the most honorable +fellow I know. If he wasn't so much that way, he would have a +career before him. He wanted to put on the doors of our offices, +Blakeley and McKnight, P. B. H., which is Poor But Honest." + +From my comparative poverty to the wealth of the girl beside me was +a single mental leap. From that wealth to the grandfather who was +responsible for it was another. + +"I wonder if you know that I had been to Pittsburg to see your +grandfather when I met you?" I said. + +"You?" She was surprised. + +"Yes. And you remember the alligator bag that I told you was +exchanged for the one you cut off my arm?" She nodded expectantly. +"Well, in that valise were the forged Andy Bronson notes, and Mr. +Gilmore's deposition that they were forged." + +She was on her feet in an instant. "In that bag!" she cried. "Oh, +why didn't you tell me that before? Oh, it's so ridiculous, so--so +hopeless. Why, I could--" + +She stopped suddenly and sat down again. "I do not know that I am +sorry, after all," she said after a pause. "Mr. Bronson was a +friend of my father's. I--I suppose it was a bad thing for you, +losing the papers?" + +"Well, it was not a good thing," I conceded. "While we are on the +subject of losing things, do you remember--do you know that I still +have your gold purse?" + +She did not reply at once. The shadow of a column was over her +face, but I guessed that she was staring at me. + +"You have it!" She almost whispered. + +"I picked it up in the street car," I said, with a cheerfulness I +did not feel. "It looks like a very opulent little purse." + +Why didn't she speak about the necklace? For just a careless word +to make me sane again! + +"You!" she repeated, horror-stricken. And then I produced the purse +and held it out on my palm. "I should have sent it to you before, +I suppose, but, as you know, I have been laid up since the wreck." + +We both saw McKnight at the same moment. He had pulled the curtains +aside and was standing looking out at us. The tableau of give and +take was unmistakable; the gold purse, her outstretched hand, my own +attitude. It was over in a second; then he came out and lounged on +the balcony railing. + +"They're mad at me in there," he said airily, "so I came out. I +suppose the reason they call it bridge is because so many people +get cross over it." + +The heat broke up the card group soon after, and they all came out +for the night breeze. I had no more words alone with Alison. + +I went back to the Incubator for the night. We said almost nothing +on the way home; there was a constraint between us for the first +time that I could remember. It was too early for bed, and so we +smoked in the living-room and tried to talk of trivial things. +After a time even those failed, and we sat silent. It was McKnight +who finally broached the subject. + +"And so she wasn't at Seal Harbor at all." + +"No." + +"Do you know where she was, Lollie?" + +"Somewhere near Cresson." + +"And that was the purse--her purse--with the broken necklace in +it?" + +"Yes, it was. You understand, don't you, Rich, that, having given +her my word, I couldn't tell you?" + +"I understand a lot of things," he said, without bitterness. + +We sat for some time and smoked. Then Richey got up and stretched +himself. "I'm off to bed, old man," he said. "Need any help with +that game arm of yours?" + +"No, thanks," I returned. + +I heard him go into his room and lock the door. It was a bad hour +for me. The first shadow between us, and the shadow of a girl at +that. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +AT THE FARM-HOUSE AGAIN + + +McKnight is always a sympathizer with the early worm. It was +late when he appeared. Perhaps, like myself, he had not slept +well. But he was apparently cheerful enough, and he made a better +breakfast than I did. It was one o'clock before we got to Baltimore. +After a half hour's wait we took a local for M-, the station near +which the cinematograph picture had been taken. + +We passed the scene of the wreck, McKnight with curiosity, I with +a sickening sense of horror. Back in the fields was the little +farm-house where Alison West and I had intended getting coffee, and +winding away from the track, maple trees shading it on each side, +was the lane where we had stopped to rest, and where I had--it +seemed presumption beyond belief now--where I had tried to comfort +her by patting her hand. + +We got out at M-, a small place with two or three houses and a +general store. The station was a one-roomed affair, with a +railed-off place at the end, where a scale, a telegraph instrument +and a chair constituted the entire furnishing. + +The station agent was a young man with a shrewd face. He stopped +hammering a piece of wood over a hole in the floor to ask where we +wanted to go. + +"We're not going," said McKnight, "we're coming. Have a cigar?" + +The agent took it with an inquiring glance, first at it and then +at us. + +"We want to ask you a few questions," began McKnight, perching +himself on the railing and kicking the chair forward for me. "Or, +rather, this gentleman does." + +"Wait a minute," said the agent, glancing through the window. +"There's a hen in that crate choking herself to death." + +He was back in a minute, and took up his position near a +sawdust-filled box that did duty as a cuspidor. + +"Now fire away," he said. + +"In the first place," I began, "do you remember the day the +Washington Flier was wrecked below here?" + +"Do I!" he said. "Did Jonah remember the whale?" + +"Were you on the platform here when the first section passed?" + +"I was." + +"Do you recall seeing a man hanging to the platform of the last car?" + +"There was no one hanging there when she passed here," he said with +conviction. "I watched her out of sight." + +"Did you see anything that morning of a man about my size, carrying +a small grip, and wearing dark clothes and a derby hat?" I asked +eagerly. + +McKnight was trying to look unconcerned, but I was frankly anxious. +It was clear that the man had jumped somewhere in the mile of track +just beyond. + +"Well, yes, I did." The agent cleared his throat. "When the smash +came the operator at MX sent word along the wire, both ways. I got +it here, and I was pretty near crazy, though I knew it wasn't any +fault of mine. + +"I was standing on the track looking down, for I couldn't leave the +office, when a young fellow with light hair limped up to me and +asked me what that smoke was over there. + +"'That's what's left of the Washington Flier,' I said, 'and I guess +there's souls going up in that smoke.' + +"'Do you mean the first section?' he said, getting kind of +greenish-yellow. + +"'That's what I mean,' I said; 'split to kindling wood because +Rafferty, on the second section, didn't want to be late.' + +"He put his hand out in front of him, and the satchel fell with a +bang. + +"'My God!' he said, and dropped right on the track in a heap. + +"I got him into the station and he came around, but he kept on +groaning something awful. He'd sprained his ankle, and when he got +a little better I drove him over in Carter's milk wagon to the +Carter place, and I reckon he stayed there a spell." + +"That's all, is it?" I asked. + +"That's all--or, no, there's something else. About noon that day +one of the Carter twins came down with a note from him asking me to +send a long-distance message to some one in Washington." + +"To whom?" I asked eagerly. + +"I reckon I've forgot the name, but the message was that this fellow +--Sullivan was his name--was at M-, and if the man had escaped +from the wreck would he come to see him." + +"He wouldn't have sent that message to me," I said to McKnight, +rather crestfallen. "He'd have every object in keeping out of my +way." + +"There might be reasons," McKnight observed judicially. "He might +not have found the papers then." + +"Was the name Blakeley?" I asked. + +"It might have been--I can't say. But the man wasn't there, and +there was a lot of noise. I couldn't hear well. Then in half an +hour down came the other twin to say the gentleman was taking on +awful and didn't want the message sent." + +"He's gone, of course?" + +"Yes. Limped down here in about three days and took the noon train +for the city." + +It seemed a certainty now that our man, having hurt himself somewhat +in his jump, had stayed quietly in the farm-house until he was able +to travel. But, to be positive, we decided to visit the Carter place. + +I gave the station agent a five-dollar bill, which he rolled up with +a couple of others and stuck in his pocket. I turned as we got to a +bend in the road, and he was looking curiously after us. + +It was not until we had climbed the hill and turned onto the road +to the Carter place that I realized where we were going. Although +we approached it from another direction, I knew the farm-house at +once. It was the one where Alison West and I had breakfasted +nine days before. With the new restraint between us, I did not tell +McKnight. I wondered afterward if he had suspected it. I saw him +looking hard at the gate-post which had figured in one of our +mysteries, but he asked no questions. Afterward he grew almost +taciturn, for him, and let me do most of the talking. + +We opened the front gate of the Carter place and went slowly up the +walk. Two ragged youngsters, alike even to freckles and squints, +were playing in the yard. + +"Is your mother around?" I asked. + +"In the front room. Walk in," they answered in identical tones. + +As we got to the porch we heard voices, and stopped. I knocked, +but the people within, engaged in animated, rather one-sided +conversation, did not answer. + +"'In the front room. Walk in,'" quoted McKnight, and did so. + +In the stuffy farm parlor two people were sitting. One, a +pleasant-faced woman with a checked apron, rose, somewhat embarrassed, +to meet us. She did not know me, and I was thankful. But our +attention was riveted on a little man who was sitting before a table, +writing busily. It was Hotchkiss! + +He got up when he saw us, and had the grace to look uncomfortable. + +"Such an interesting case," he said nervously, "I took the liberty--" + +"Look here," said McKnight suddenly, "did you make any inquiries at +the station?" + +"A few," he confessed. "I went to the theater last night--I felt +the need of a little relaxation--and the sight of a picture there, +a cinematograph affair, started a new line of thought. Probably the +same clue brought you gentlemen. I learned a good bit from the +station agent." + +"The son-of-a-gun," said McKnight. "And you paid him, I suppose?" + +"I gave him five dollars," was the apologetic answer. Mrs. Carter, +hearing sounds of strife in the yard, went out, and Hotchkiss folded +up his papers. + +"I think the identity of the man is established," he said. "What +number of hat do you wear, Mr. Blakeley?" + +"Seven and a quarter," I replied. + +"Well, it's only piling up evidence," he said cheerfully. "On the +night of the murder you wore light gray silk underclothing, with the +second button of the shirt missing. Your hat had 'L. B.' in gilt +letters inside, and there was a very minute hole in the toe of one +black sock." + +"Hush," McKnight protested. "If word gets to Mrs. Klopton that Mr. +Blakeley was wrecked, or robbed, or whatever it was, with a button +missing and a hole in one sock, she'll retire to the Old Ladies' +Home. I've heard her threaten it." + +Mr. Hotchkiss was without a sense of humor. He regarded McKnight +gravely and went on: + +"I've been up in the room where the man lay while he was unable to +get away, and there is nothing there. But I found what may be a +possible clue in the dust heap. + +"Mrs. Carter tells me that in unpacking his grip the other day she +took out of the coat of the pajamas some pieces of a telegram. As +I figure it, the pajamas were his own. He probably had them on when +he effected the exchange." + +I nodded assent. All I had retained of my own clothing was the suit +of pajamas I was wearing and my bath-robe. + +"Therefore the telegram was his, not yours. I have pieces here, but +some are missing. I am not discouraged, however." + +He spread out some bits of yellow paper, and we bent over them +curiously. It was something like this: + + Man with p- Get- + Br- + +We spelled it out slowly. + +"Now," Hotchkiss announced, "I make it something like this: The 'p.-' +is one of two things, pistol--you remember the little pearl-handled +affair belonging to the murdered man--or it is pocket-book. I am +inclined to the latter view, as the pocket-book had been disturbed +and the pistol had not." + +I took the piece of paper from the table and scrawled four words on +it. + +"Now," I said, rearranging them, "it happens, Mr. Hotchkiss, that I +found one of these pieces of the telegram on the train. I thought +it had been dropped by some one else, you see, but that's immaterial. +Arranged this way it almost makes sense. Fill out that 'p.-' with +the rest of the word, as I imagine it, and it makes 'papers,' and add +this scrap and you have: + +"'Man with papers (in) lower ten, car seven. Get (them).' + +McKnight slapped Hotchkiss on the back. "You're a trump," he said. +"Br- is Bronson, of course. It's almost too easy. You see, Mr. +Blakeley here engaged lower ten, but found it occupied by the man +who was later murdered there. The man who did the thing was a +friend of Bronson's, evidently, and in trying to get the papers we +have the motive for the crime." + +"There are still some things to be explained." Mr. Hotchkiss wiped +his glasses and put them on. "For one thing, Mr. Blakeley, I am +puzzled by that bit of chain." + +I did not glance at McKnight. I felt that the hand, with which I +was gathering up the bits of torn paper were shaking. It seemed to +me that this astute little man was going to drag in the girl in +spite of me. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A NEW WORLD + + +Hotchkiss jotted down the bits of telegram and rose. + +"Well," he said, "we've done something. We've found where the +murderer left the train, we know what day he went to Baltimore, +and, most important of all, we have a motive for the crime." + +"It seems the irony of fate," said McKnight, getting up, "that a +man should kill another man for certain papers he is supposed to +be carrying, find he hasn't got them after all, decide to throw +suspicion on another man by changing berths and getting out, bag +and baggage, and then, by the merest fluke of chance, take with +him, in the valise he changed for his own, the very notes he was +after. It was a bit of luck for him." + +"Then why," put in Hotchkiss doubtfully, "why did he collapse when +he heard of the wreck? And what about the telephone message the +station agent sent? You remember they tried to countermand it, and +with some excitement." + +"We will ask him those questions when we get him," McKnight said. +We were on the unrailed front porch by that time, and Hotchkiss had +put away his notebook. The mother of the twins followed us to the +steps. + +"Dear me," she exclaimed volubly, "and to think I was forgetting to +tell you! I put the young man to bed with a spice poultice on his +ankle: my mother always was a firm believer in spice poultices. +It's wonderful what they will do in croup! And then I took the +children and went down to see the wreck. It was Sunday, and the +mister had gone to church; hasn't missed a day since he took the +pledge nine years ago. And on the way I met two people, a man and +a woman. They looked half dead, so I sent them right here for +breakfast and some soap and water. I always say soap is better +than liquor after a shock." + +Hotchkiss was listening absently: McKnight was whistling under his +breath, staring down across the field to where a break in the woods +showed a half dozen telegraph poles, the line of the railroad. + +"It must have been twelve o'clock when we got back; I wanted the +children to see everything, because it isn't likely they'll ever +see another wreck like that. Rows of--" + +"About twelve o'clock," I broke in, "and what then?" + +"The young man up-stairs was awake," she went on, "and hammering at +his door like all possessed. And it was locked on the outside!" +She paused to enjoy her sensation. + +"I would like to see that lock," Hotchkiss said promptly, but for +some reason the woman demurred. + +"I will bring the key down," she said and disappeared. When she +returned she held out an ordinary door key of the cheapest variety. + +"We had to break the lock," she volunteered, "and the key didn't +turn up for two days. Then one of the twins found the turkey +gobbler trying to swallow it. It has been washed since," she +hastened to assure Hotchkiss, who showed an inclination to drop it. + +"You don't think he locked the door himself and threw the key out +of the window?" the little man asked. + +"The windows are covered with mosquito netting, nailed on. The +mister blamed it on the children, and it might have been Obadiah. +He's the quiet kind, and you never know what he's about." + +"He's about to strangle, isn't he," McKnight remarked lazily, "or +is that Obadiah?" + +Mrs. Carter picked the boy up and inverted him, talking amiably all +the time. "He's always doing it," she said, giving him a shake. +"Whenever we miss anything we look to see if Obadiah's black in the +face." She gave him another shake, and the quarter I had given him +shot out as if blown from a gun. Then we prepared to go back to +the station. + +From where I stood I could look into the cheery farm kitchen, where +Alison West and I had eaten our al fresco breakfast. I looked at +the table with mixed emotions, and then, gradually, the meaning of +something on it penetrated my mind. Still in its papers, evidently +just opened, was a hat box, and protruding over the edge of the box +was a streamer of vivid green ribbon. + +On the plea that I wished to ask Mrs. Carter a few more questions, +I let the others go on. I watched them down the flagstone walk; saw +McKnight stop and examine the gate-posts and saw, too, the quick +glance he threw back at the house. Then I turned to Mrs. Carter. + +"I would like to speak to the young lady up-stairs," I said. + +She threw up her hands with a quick gesture of surrender. "I've +done all I could," she exclaimed. "She won't like it very well, +but--she's in the room over the parlor." + +I went eagerly up the ladder-like stairs, to the rag-carpeted hall. +Two doors were open, showing interiors of four poster beds and high +bureaus. The door of the room over the parlor was almost closed. +I hesitated in the hallway: after all, what right had I to intrude +on her? But she settled my difficulty by throwing open the door +and facing me. + +"I--I beg your pardon, Miss West," I stammered. "It has just +occurred to me that I am unpardonably rude. I saw the hat +down-stairs and I--I guessed--" + +"The hat!" she said. "I might have known. Does Richey know I am +here?" + +"I don't think so." I turned to go down the stairs again. Then I +halted. "The fact is," I said, in an attempt at justification, +"I'm in rather a mess these days, and I'm apt to do irresponsible +things. It is not impossible that I shall be arrested, in a day or +so, for the murder of Simon Harrington." + +She drew her breath in sharply. "Murder!" she echoed. "Then they +have found you after all!" + +"I don't regard it as anything more than--er--inconvenient," I +lied. "They can't convict me, you know. Almost all the witnesses +are dead." + +She was not deceived for a moment. She came over to me and stood, +both hands on the rail of the stair. "I know just how grave it is," +she said quietly. "My grandfather will not leave one stone unturned, +and he can be terrible--terrible. But"--she looked directly into +my eyes as I stood below her on the stairs--"the time may come +--soon--when I can help you. I'm afraid I shall not want to; I'm +a dreadful coward, Mr. Blakeley. But--I will." She tried to smile. + +"I wish you would let me help you," I said unsteadily. "Let us make +it a bargain: each help the other!" + +The girl shook her head with a sad little smile. "I am only as +unhappy as I deserve to be," she said. And when I protested and +took a step toward her she retreated, with her hands out before her. + +"Why don't you ask me all the questions you are thinking?" she +demanded, with a catch in her voice. "Oh, I know them. Or are you +afraid to ask?" + +I looked at her, at the lines around her eyes, at the drawn look +about her mouth. Then I held out my hand. "Afraid!" I said, as +she gave me hers. "There is nothing in God's green earth I am +afraid of, save of trouble for you. To ask questions would be to +imply a lack of faith. I ask you nothing. Some day, perhaps, you +will come to me yourself and let me help you." + +The next moment I was out in the golden sunshine: the birds were +singing carols of joy: I walked dizzily through rainbow-colored +clouds, past the twins, cherubs now, swinging on the gate. It was +a new world into which I stepped from the Carter farm-house that +morning, for--I had kissed her! + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +AT THE TABLE NEXT + + +McKnight and Hotchkiss were sauntering slowly down the road as I +caught up with them. As usual, the little man was busy with some +abstruse mental problem. + +"The idea is this," he was saying, his brows knitted in thought, +"if a left-handed man, standing in the position of the man in the +picture, should jump from a car, would he be likely to sprain his +right ankle? When a right-handed man prepares for a leap of that +kind, my theory is that he would hold on with his right hand, and +alight at the proper time, on his right foot. Of course--" + +"I imagine, although I don't know," interrupted McKnight, "that a +man either ambidextrous or one-armed, jumping from the Washington +Flier, would be more likely to land on his head." + +"Anyhow," I interposed, "what difference does it make whether +Sullivan used one hand or the other? One pair of handcuffs will +put both hands out of commission. + +As usual when one of his pet theories was attacked, Hotchkiss looked +aggrieved. + +"My dear sir," he expostulated, "don't you understand what bearing +this has on the case? How was the murdered man lying when he was +found?" + +"On his back," I said promptly, "head toward the engine." + +"Very well," he retorted, "and what then? Your heart lies under +your fifth intercostal space, and to reach it a right-handed blow +would have struck either down or directly in. + +"But, gentleman, the point of entrance for the stiletto was below +the heart, striking up! As Harrington lay with his head toward the +engine, a person in the aisle must have used the left hand." + +McKnight's eyes sought mine and he winked at me solemnly as I +unostentatiously transferred the hat I was carrying to my right hand. +Long training has largely counterbalanced heredity in my case, but +I still pitch ball, play tennis and carve with my left hand. But +Hotchkiss was too busy with his theories to notice me. + +We were only just in time for our train back to Baltimore, but +McKnight took advantage of a second's delay to shake the station +agent warmly by the hand. + +"I want to express my admiration for you," he said beamingly. +"Ability of your order is thrown away here. You should have been +a city policeman, my friend." + +The agent looked a trifle uncertain. + +"The young lady was the one who told me to keep still," he said. + +McKnight glanced at me, gave the agent's hand a final shake, and +climbed on board. But I knew perfectly that he had guessed the +reason for my delay. + +He was very silent on the way home. Hotchkiss, too, had little to +say. He was reading over his notes intently, stopping now and +then to make a penciled addition. Just before we left the train +Richey turned to me. "I suppose it was the key to the door that +she tied to the gate?" + +"Probably. I did not ask her." + +"Curious, her locking that fellow in," he reflected. "You may +depend on it, there was a good reason for it all. And I wish you +wouldn't be so suspicious of motives, Rich," I said warmly. + +"Only yesterday you were the suspicious one," he retorted, and we +lapsed into strained silence. + +It was late when we got to Washington. One of Mrs. Klopton's small +tyrannies was exacting punctuality at meals, and, like several other +things, I respected it. There are always some concessions that +should be made in return for faithful service. + +So, as my dinner hour of seven was long past, McKnight and I went +to a little restaurant down town where they have a very decent way +of fixing chicken a la King. Hotchkiss had departed, economically +bent, for a small hotel where he lived on the American plan. + +"I want to think some things over," he said in response to my +invitation to dinner, "and, anyhow, there's no use dining out when +I pay the same, dinner or no dinner, where I am stopping." + +The day had been hot, and the first floor dining-room was sultry in +spite of the palms and fans which attempted to simulate the verdure +and breezes of the country. + +It was crowded, too, with a typical summer night crowd, and, after +sitting for a few minutes in a sweltering corner, we got up and went +to the smaller dining-room up-stairs. Here it was not so warm, and +we settled ourselves comfortably by a window. + +Over in a corner half a dozen boys on their way back to school were +ragging a perspiring waiter, a proceeding so exactly to McKnight's +taste that he insisted on going over to join them. But their table +was full, and somehow that kind of fun had lost its point for me. + +Not far from us a very stout, middle-aged man, apoplectic with the +heat, was elephantinely jolly for the benefit of a bored-looking +girl across the table from him, and at the next table a newspaper +woman ate alone, the last edition propped against the water-bottle +before her, her hat, for coolness, on the corner of the table. It +was a motley Bohemian crowd. + +I looked over the room casually, while McKnight ordered the meal. +Then my attention was attracted to the table next to ours. Two +people were sitting there, so deep in conversation that they did not +notice us. The woman's face was hidden under her hat, as she traced +the pattern of the cloth mechanically with her fork. But the man's +features stood out clear in the light of the candles on the table. +It was Bronson! + +"He shows the strain, doesn't he?" McKnight said, holding up the +wine list as if he read from it. "Who's the woman?" + +"Search me," I replied, in the same way. + +When the chicken came, I still found myself gazing now and then at +the abstracted couple near me. Evidently the subject of conversation +was unpleasant. Bronson was eating little, the woman not at all. +Finally he got up, pushed his chair back noisily, thrust a bill at +the waiter and stalked out. + +The woman sat still for a moment; then, with an apparent resolution +to make the best of it, she began slowly to eat the meal before her. + +But the quarrel had taken away her appetite, for the mixture in our +chafing-dish was hardly ready to serve before she pushed her chair +back a little and looked around the room. + +I caught my first glimpse of her face then, and I confess it +startled me. It was the tall, stately woman of the Ontario, the +woman I had last seen cowering beside the road, rolling pebbles in +her hand, blood streaming from a cut over her eye. I could see the +scar now, a little affair, about an inch long, gleaming red through +its layers of powder. + +And then, quite unexpectedly, she turned and looked directly at me. +After a minute's uncertainty, she bowed, letting her eyes rest on +mine with a calmly insolent stare. She glanced at McKnight for a +moment, then back to me. When she looked away again I breathed +easier. + +"Who is it?" asked McKnight under his breath. + +"Ontario." I formed it with my lips rather than said it. McKnight's +eyebrows went up and he looked with increased interest at the +black-gowned figure. + +I ate little after that. The situation was rather bad for me, I +began to see. Here was a woman who could, if she wished, and had +any motive for so doing, put me in jail under a capital charge. A +word from her to the police, and polite surveillance would become +active interference. + +Then, too, she could say that she had seen me, just after the wreck, +with a young woman from the murdered man's car, and thus probably +bring Alison West into the case. + +It is not surprising, then, that I ate little. The woman across +seemed in no hurry to go. She loitered over a demi-tasse, and that +finished, sat with her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, +looking darkly at the changing groups in the room. + +The fun at the table where the college boys sat began to grow a +little noisy; the fat man, now a purplish shade, ambled away behind +his slim companion; the newspaper woman pinned on her business-like +hat and stalked out. Still the woman at the next table waited. + +It was a relief when the meal was over. We got our hats and were +about to leave the room, when a waiter touched me on the arm. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but the lady at the table near +the window, the lady in black, sir, would like to speak to you." + +I looked down between the rows of tables to where the woman sat +alone, her chin still resting on her hand, her black eyes still +insolently staring, this time at me. + +"I'll have to go," I said to McKnight hurriedly. "She knows all +about that affair and she'd be a bad enemy." + +"I don't like her lamps," McKnight observed, after a glance at her. +"Better jolly her a little. Good-by." + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN + +I went back slowly to where the woman sat alone. + +She smiled rather oddly as I drew near, and pointed to the chair +Bronson had vacated. + +"Sit down, Mr. Blakeley," she said, "I am going to take a few +minutes of your valuable time." + +"Certainly." I sat down opposite her and glanced at a cuckoo clock +on the wall. "I am sorry, but I have only a few minutes. If you--" +She laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and opening a small black +fan covered with spangles, waved it slowly. + +"The fact is," she said, "I think we are about to make a bargain." + +"A bargain?" I asked incredulously. "You have a second advantage of +me. You know my name"--I paused suggestively and she took the cue. + +"I am Mrs. Conway," she said, and flicked a crumb off the table with +an over-manicured finger. + +The name was scarcely a surprise. I had already surmised that this +might be the woman whom rumor credited as being Bronson's common-law +wife. Rumor, I remembered, had said other things even less pleasant, +things which had been brought out at Bronson's arrest for forgery. + +"We met last under less fortunate circumstances," she was saying. +"I have been fit for nothing since that terrible day. And you--you +had a broken arm, I think." + +"I still have it," I said, with a lame attempt at jocularity; "but +to have escaped at all was a miracle. We have much, indeed, to be +thankful for." + +"I suppose we have," she said carelessly, "although sometimes I doubt +it." She was looking somberly toward the door through which her +late companion had made his exit. + +"You sent for me--" I said. + +"Yes, I sent for you." She roused herself and sat erect. "Now, Mr. +Blakeley, have you found those papers?" + +"The papers? What papers?" I parried. I needed time to think. + +"Mr. Blakeley," she said quietly, "I think we can lay aside all +subterfuge. In the first place let me refresh your mind about a few +things. The Pittsburg police are looking for the survivors of the +car Ontario; there are three that I know of--yourself, the young +woman with whom you left the scene of the wreck, and myself. The +wreck, you will admit, was a fortunate one for you." + +I nodded without speaking. + +"At the time of the collision you were in rather a hole," she went +on, looking at me with a disagreeable smile. "You were, if I +remember, accused of a rather atrocious crime. There was a lot of +corroborative evidence, was there not? I seem to remember a dirk +and the murdered man's pocket-book in your possession, and a few +other things that were--well, rather unpleasant." + +I was thrown a bit off my guard. + +"You remember also," I said quickly, "that a man disappeared from +the car, taking my clothes, papers and everything." + +"I remember that you said so." Her tone was quietly insulting, and +I bit my lip at having been caught. It was no time to make a defense. + +"You have missed one calculation," I said coldly, "and that is, the +discovery of the man who left the train." + +"You have found him?" She bent forward, and again I regretted my +hasty speech. "I knew it; I said so." + +"We are going to find him," I asserted, with a confidence I did not +feel. "We can produce at any time proof that a man left the Flier +a few miles beyond the wreck. And we can find him, I am positive." + +"But you have not found him yet?" She was clearly disappointed. +"Well, so be it. Now for our bargain. You will admit that I am no +fool." + +I made no such admission, and she smiled mockingly. + +"How flattering you are!" she said. "Very well. Now for the +premises. You take to Pittsburg four notes held by the Mechanics' +National Bank, to have Mr. Gilmore, who is ill, declare his +indorsement of them forged. + +"On the journey back to Pittsburg two things happen to you: you lose +your clothing, your valise and your papers, including the notes, and +you are accused of murder. In fact, Mr. Blakeley, the circumstances +were most singular, and the evidence--well, almost conclusive." + +I was completely at her mercy, but I gnawed my lip with irritation. + +"Now for the bargain." She leaned over and lowered her voice. "A +fair exchange, you know. The minute you put those four notes in my +hand--that minute the blow to my head has caused complete +forgetfulness as to the events of that awful morning. I am the only +witness, and I will be silent. Do you understand? They will call +off their dogs." + +My head was buzzing with the strangeness of the idea. + +"But," I said, striving to gain time, "I haven't the notes. I can't +give you what I haven't got." + +"You have had the case continued," she said sharply. "You expect +to find them. Another thing," she added slowly, watching my face, +"if you don't get them soon, Bronson will have them. They have been +offered to him already, but at a prohibitive price." + +"But," I said, bewildered, "what is your object in coming to me? If +Bronson will get them anyhow--" + +She shut her fan with a click and her face was not particularly +pleasant to look at. + +"You are dense," she said insolently. "I want those papers--for +myself, not for Andy Bronson." + +"Then the idea is," I said, ignoring her tone, "that you think you +have me in a hole, and that if I find those papers and give them to +you you will let me out. As I understand it, our friend Bronson, +under those circumstances, will also be in a hole." + +She nodded. + +"The notes would be of no use to you for a limited length of time," +I went on, watching her narrowly. "If they are not turned over to +the state's attorney within a reasonable time there will have to be +a nolle pros--that is, the case will simply be dropped for lack +of evidence." + +"A week would answer, I think," she said slowly. "You will do it, +then?" + +I laughed, although I was not especially cheerful. + +"No, I'll not do it. I expect to come across the notes any time +now, and I expect just as certainly to turn them over to the state's +attorney when I get them." + +She got up suddenly, pushing her chair back with a noisy grating +sound that turned many eyes toward us. + +"You're more of a fool than I thought you," she sneered, and left +me at the table. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Mc KNIGHT'S THEORY + + +I confess I was staggered. The people at the surrounding tables, +after glancing curiously in my direction, looked away again. + +I got my hat and went out in a very uncomfortable frame of mind. +That she would inform the police at once of what she knew I never +doubted, unless possibly she would give a day or two's grace in +the hope that I would change my mind. + +I reviewed the situation as I waited for a car. Two passed me +going in the opposite direction, and on the first one I saw Bronson, +his hat over his eyes, his arms folded, looking moodily ahead. Was +it imagination? or was the small man huddled in the corner of the +rear seat Hotchkiss? + +As the car rolled on I found myself smiling. The alert little man +was for all the world like a terrier, ever on the scent, and scouring +about in every direction. + +I found McKnight at the Incubator, with his coat off, working with +enthusiasm and a manicure file over the horn of his auto. + +"It's the worst horn I ever ran across," he groaned, without looking +up, as I came in. "The blankety-blank thing won't blow." + +He punched it savagely, finally eliciting a faint throaty croak. + +"Sounds like croup," I suggested. "My sister-in-law uses camphor +and goose greese for it; or how about a spice poultice?" + +But McKnight never sees any jokes but his own. He flung the horn +clattering into a corner, and collapsed sulkily into a chair. + +"Now," I said, "if you're through manicuring that horn, I'll tell +you about my talk with the lady in black." + +"What's wrong?" asked McKnight languidly. "Police watching her, +too?" + +"Not exactly. The fact is, Rich, there's the mischief to pay." + +Stogie came in, bringing a few additions to our comfort. When he +went out I told my story. + +"You must remember," I said, "that I had seen this woman before the +morning of the wreck. She was buying her Pullman ticket when I did. +Then the next morning, when the murder was discovered, she grew +hysterical, and I gave her some whisky. The third and last time I +saw her, until to-night, was when she crouched beside the road, +after the wreck." + +McKnight slid down in his chair until his weight rested on the small +of his back, and put his feet on the big reading table. + +"It is rather a facer," he said. "It's really too good a situation +for a commonplace lawyer. It ought to be dramatized. You can't +agree, of course; and by refusing you run the chance of jail, at +least, and of having Alison brought into publicity, which is out of +the question. You say she was at the Pullman window when you were?" + +"Yes; I bought her ticket for her. Gave her lower eleven." + +"And you took ten?" + +"Lower ten." + +McKnight straightened up and looked at me. + +"Then she thought you were in lower ten." + +"I suppose she did, if she thought at all." + +"But listen, man." McKnight was growing excited. "What do you +figure out of this? The Conway woman knows you have taken the +notes to Pittsburg. The probabilities are that she follows you +there, on the chance of an opportunity to get them, either for +Bronson or herself. + +"Nothing doing during the trip over or during the day in Pittsburg; +but she learns the number of your berth as you buy it at the Pullman +ticket office in Pittsburg, and she thinks she sees her chance. No +one could have foreseen that that drunken fellow would have crawled +into your berth. + +"Now, I figure it out this way: She wanted those notes desperately +--does still--not for Bronson, but to hold over his head for some +purpose. In the night, when everything is quiet, she slips behind +the curtains of lower ten, where the man's breathing shows he is +asleep. Didn't you say he snored?" + +"He did!" I affirmed. "But I tell you--" + +"Now keep still and listen. She gropes cautiously around in the +darkness, finally discovering the wallet under the pillow. Can't +you see it yourself?" + +He was leaning forward, excitedly, and I could almost see the +gruesome tragedy he was depicting. + +"She draws out the wallet. Then, perhaps she remembers the alligator +bag, and on the possibility that the notes are there, instead of in +the pocket-book, she gropes around for it. Suddenly, the man awakes +and clutches at the nearest object, perhaps her neck chain, which +breaks. She drops the pocket-book and tries to escape, but he has +caught her right hand. + +"It is all in silence; the man is still stupidly drunk. But he +holds her in a tight grip. Then the tragedy. She must get away; +in a minute the car will be aroused. Such a woman, on such an +errand, does not go without some sort of a weapon, in this case a +dagger, which, unlike a revolver, is noiseless. + +"With a quick thrust--she's a big woman and a bold one--she strikes. +Possibly Hotchkiss is right about the left-hand blow. Harrington may +have held her right hand, or perhaps she held the dirk in her left +hand as she groped with her right. Then, as the man falls back, and +his grasp relaxes, she straightens and attempts to get away. The +swaying of the car throws her almost into your berth, and, trembling +with terror, she crouches behind the curtains of lower ten until +everything is still. Then she goes noiselessly back to her berth." + +I nodded. + +"It seems to fit partly, at least," I said. "In the morning when +she found that the crime had been not only fruitless, but that she +had searched the wrong berth and killed the wrong man; when she saw +me emerge, unhurt, just as she was bracing herself for the discovery +of my dead body, then she went into hysterics. You remember, I gave +her some whisky. + +"It really seems a tenable theory. But, like the Sullivan theory, +there are one or two things that don't agree with the rest. For one +thing, how did the remainder of that chain get into Alison West's +possession?" + +"She may have picked it up on the floor." + +"We'll admit that," I said; "and I'm sure I hope so. Then how did +the murdered man's pocket-book get into the sealskin bag? And the +dirk, how account for that, and the blood-stains?" + +"Now what's the use," asked McKnight aggrievedly, "of my building +up beautiful theories for you to pull down? We'll take it to +Hotchkiss. Maybe he can tell from the blood-stains if the murderer's +finger nails were square or pointed." + +"Hotchkiss is no fool," I said warmly. "Under all his theories +there's a good hard layer of common sense. And we must remember, +Rich, that neither of our theories includes the woman at Doctor +Van Kirk's hospital, that the charming picture you have just drawn +does not account for Alison West's connection with the case, or +for the bits of telegram in the Sullivan fellow's pajamas pocket. +You are like the man who put the clock together; you've got half +of the works left over." + +"Oh, go home," said McKnight disgustedly. "I'm no Edgar Allan +Poe. What's the use of coming here and asking me things if you're +so particular?" + +With one of his quick changes of mood, he picked up his guitar. + +"Listen to this," he said. "It is a Hawaiian song about a fat +lady, oh, ignorant one! and how she fell off her mule." + +But for all the lightness of the words, the voice that followed me +down the stairs was anything but cheery. + + "There was a Kanaka in Balu did dwell, + Who had for his daughter a monstrous fat girl- + +he sang in his clear tenor. I paused on the lower floor and +listened. He had stopped singing as abruptly as he had begun. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +AT THE BOARDING-HOUSE + + +I had not been home for thirty-six hours, since the morning of the +preceding day. Johnson was not in sight, and I let myself in +quietly with my latchkey. It was almost midnight, and I had hardly +settled myself in the library when the bell rang and I was surprised +to find Hotchkiss, much out of breath, in the vestibule. + +"Why, come in, Mr. Hotchkiss," I said. "I thought you were going +home to go to bed." + +"So I was, so I was." He dropped into a chair beside my reading +lamp and mopped his face. "And here it is almost midnight, and +I'm wider awake than ever. I've seen Sullivan, Mr. Blakeley." + +"You have!" + +"I have," he said impressively. + +"You were following Bronson at eight o'clock. Was that when it +happened?" + +"Something of the sort. When I left you at the door of the +restaurant, I turned and almost ran into a plain clothes man from +the central office. I know him pretty well; once or twice he has +taken me with him on interesting bits of work. He knows my hobby." + +"You know him, too, probably. It was the man Arnold, the detective +whom the state's attorney has had watching Bronson." + +Johnson being otherwise occupied, I had asked for Arnold myself. + +I nodded. + +"Well, he stopped me at once; said he'd been on the fellow's tracks +since early morning and had had no time for luncheon. Bronson, it +seems, isn't eating much these days. I at once jotted down the fact, +because it argued that he was being bothered by the man with the +notes." + +"It might point to other things," I suggested. "Indigestion, you +know." + +Hotchkiss ignored me. "Well, Arnold had some reason for thinking +that Bronson would try to give him the slip that night, so he asked +me to stay around the private entrance there while he ran across +the Street and got something to eat. It seemed a fair presumption +that, as he had gone there with a lady, they would dine leisurely, +and Arnold would have plenty of time to get back." + +"What about your own dinner?" I asked curiously. + +"Sir," he said pompously, "I have given you a wrong estimate of +Wilson Budd Hotchkiss if you think that a question of dinner would +even obtrude itself on his mind at such a time as this." + +He was a frail little man, and to-night he looked pale with heat +and over-exertion. + +"Did you have any luncheon?" I asked. + +He was somewhat embarrassed at that. + +"I--really, Mr. Blakeley, the events of the day were so +engrossing--" + +"Well," I said, "I'm not going to see you drop on the floor from +exhaustion. Just wait a minute." + +I went back to the pantry, only to be confronted with rows of locked +doors and empty dishes. Downstairs, in the basement kitchen, +however, I found two unattractive looking cold chops, some dry bread +and a piece of cake, wrapped in a napkin, and from its surreptitious +and generally hang-dog appearance, destined for the coachman in the +stable at the rear. Trays there were none--everything but the +chairs and tables seemed under lock and key, and there was neither +napkin, knife nor fork to be found. + +The luncheon was not attractive in appearance, but Hotchkiss ate +his cold chops and gnawed at the crusts as though he had been +famished, while he told his story. + +"I had been there only a few minutes," he said, with a chop in one +hand and the cake in the other, "when Bronson rushed out and cut +across the street. He's a tall man, Mr. Blakeley, and I had had +work keeping close. It was a relief when he jumped on a passing +car, although being well behind, it was a hard run for me to catch +him. He had left the lady. + +"Once on the car, we simply rode from one end of the line to the +other and back again. I suppose he was passing the time, for he +looked at his watch now and then, and when I did once get a look +at us face it made me--er--uncomfortable. He could have crushed +me like a fly, sir." + +I had brought Mr. Hotchkiss a glass of wine, and he was looking +better. He stopped to finish it, declining with a wave of his +hand to have it refilled, and continued: + +"About nine o'clock or a little later he got off somewhere near +Washington Circle. He went along one of the residence streets +there, turned to his left a square or two, and rang a bell. He +had been admitted when I got there, but I guessed from the +appearance of the place that it was a boarding-house. + +"I waited a few minutes and rang the bell. When a maid answered it, +I asked for Mr. Sullivan. Of course there was no Mr. Sullivan there. + +"I said I was sorry; that the man I was looking for was a new +boarder. She was sure there was no such boarder in the house; the +only new arrival was a man on the third floor--she thought his name +was Stuart. + +"'My friend has a cousin by that name,' I said. 'I'll just go up +and see.' + +"She wanted to show me up, but I said it was unnecessary. So after +telling me it was the bedroom and sitting-room on the third floor +front, I went up. + +"I met a couple of men on the stairs, but neither of them paid any +attention to me. A boarding-house is the easiest place in the world +to enter." + +"They're not always so easy to leave," I put in, to his evident +irritation. + +"When I got to the third story, I took out a bunch of keys and +posted myself by a door near the ones the girl had indicated. I +could hear voices in one of the front rooms, but could not +understand what they said. + +"There was no violent dispute, but a steady hum. Then Bronson +jerked the door open. If he had stepped into the hall he would +have seen me fitting a key into the door before me. But he spoke +before he came out. + +"'You're acting like a maniac,' he said. 'You know I can get those +things some way; I'm not going to threaten you. It isn't necessary. +You know me.' + +"'It would be no use,' the other man said. 'I tell you, I haven't +seen the notes for ten days.' + +"'But you will,' Bronson said savagely. 'You're standing in your +own way, that's all. If you're holding out expecting me to raise +my figure, you're making a mistake. It's my last offer.' + +"'I couldn't take it if it was for a million,' said the man inside +the room. 'I'd do it, I expect, if I could. The best of us have +our price.' + +"Bronson slammed the door then, and flung past me down the hall. + +"After a couple of minutes I knocked at the door, and a tall man +about your size, Mr. Blakeley, opened it. He was very blond, with +a smooth face and blue eyes--what I think you would call a handsome +man. + +"'I beg your pardon for disturbing you,' I said. 'Can you tell me +which is Mr. Johnson's room? Mr. Francis Johnson?' + +"'I can not say,' he replied civilly. 'I've only been here a few +days.' + +"I thanked him and left, but I had had a good look at him, and I +think I'd know him readily any place." + +I sat for a few minutes thinking it over. "But what did he mean by +saying he hadn't seen the notes for ten days? And why is Bronson +making the overtures?" + +"I think he was lying," Hotchkiss reflected. "Bronson hasn't +reached his figure." + +"It's a big advance, Mr. Hotchkiss, and I appreciate what you have +done more than I can tell you," I said. "And now, if you can +locate any of my property in this fellow's room, we'll send him up +for larceny, and at least have him where we can get at him. I'm +going to Cresson to-morrow, to try to trace him a little from there. +But I'll be back in a couple of days, and we'll begin to gather in +these scattered threads." + +Hotchkiss rubbed his hands together delightedly. + +"That's it," he said. "That's what we want to do, Mr. Blakeley. +We'll gather up the threads ourselves; if we let the police in too +soon, they'll tangle it up again. I'm not vindictive by nature; but +when a fellow like Sullivan not only commits a murder, but goes to +all sorts of trouble to put the burden of guilt on an innocent man +--I say hunt him down, sir!" + +"You are convinced, of course, that Sullivan did it?" + +"Who else?" He looked over his glasses at me with the air of a man +whose mental attitude is unassailable. "Well, listen to this," I +said. + +Then I told him at length of my encounter with Bronson in the +restaurant, of the bargain proposed by Mrs. Conway, and finally of +McKnight's new theory. But, although he was impressed, he was far +from convinced. + +"It's a very vivid piece of imagination," he said drily; "but while +it fits the evidence as far as it goes, it doesn't go far enough. +How about the stains in lower seven, the dirk, and the wallet? +Haven't we even got motive in that telegram from Bronson?" + +"Yes," I admitted, "but that bit of chain--" + +"Pooh," he said shortly. "Perhaps, like yourself, Sullivan wore +glasses with a chain. Our not finding them does not prove they did +not exist." + +And there I made an error; half confidences are always mistakes. I +could not tell of the broken chain in Alison West's gold purse. + +It was one o'clock when Hotchkiss finally left. We had by that time +arranged a definite course of action--Hotchkiss to search Sullivan's +rooms and if possible find evidence to have him held for larceny, +while I went to Cresson. + +Strangely enough, however, when I entered the train the following +morning, Hotchkiss was already there. He had bought a new note-book, +and was sharpening a fresh pencil. + +"I changed my plans, you see," he said, bustling his newspaper aside +for me. "It is no discredit to your intelligence, Mr. Blakeley, but +you lack the professional eye, the analytical mind. You legal +gentlemen call a spade a spade, although it may be a shovel." + + "'A primrose by the river's brim + A yellow primrose was to him, + And nothing more!'" + +I quoted as the train pulled out. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS + + +I slept most of the way to Cresson, to the disgust of the little +detective. Finally he struck up an acquaintance with a +kindly-faced old priest on his way home to his convent school, +armed with a roll of dance music and surreptitious bundles that +looked like boxes of candy. From scraps of conversation I gleaned +that there had been mysterious occurrences at the convent,--ending +in the theft of what the reverend father called vaguely, "a quantity +of undermuslins." I dropped asleep at that point, and when I roused +a few moments later, the conversation had progressed. Hotchkiss had +a diagram on an envelope. + +"With this window bolted, and that one inaccessible, and if, as you +say, the--er--garments were in a tub here at X, then, as you hold +the key to the other door,--I think you said the convent dog did not +raise any disturbance? Pardon a personal question, but do you ever +walk in your sleep?" + +The priest looked bewildered. + +"I'll tell you what to do," Hotchkiss said cheerfully, leaning +forward, "look around a little yourself before you call in the +police. Somnambulism is a queer thing. It's a question whether +we are most ourselves sleeping or waking. Ever think of that? +Live a saintly life all day, prayers and matins and all that, +and the subconscious mind hikes you out of bed at night to steal +undermuslins! Subliminal theft, so to speak. Better examine +the roof." + +I dozed again. When I wakened Hotchkiss sat alone, and the priest, +from a corner, was staring at him dazedly, over his breviary. + +It was raining when we reached Cresson, a wind-driven rain that had +forced the agent at the newsstand to close himself in, and that beat +back from the rails in parallel lines of white spray. As he went up +the main street, Hotchkiss was cheerfully oblivious of the weather, +of the threatening dusk, of our generally draggled condition. My +draggled condition, I should say, for he improved every moment, +--his eyes brighter, his ruddy face ruddier, his collar newer and +glossier. Sometime, when it does not encircle the little man's +neck, I shall test that collar with a match. + +I was growing steadily more depressed: I loathed my errand and its +necessity. I had always held that a man who played the spy on a +woman was beneath contempt. Then, I admit I was afraid of what I +might learn. For a time, however, this promised to be a negligible +quantity. The streets of the straggling little mountain town had +been clean-washed of humanity by the downpour. Windows and doors +were inhospitably shut, and from around an occasional drawn shade +came narrow strips of light that merely emphasized our gloom. When +Hotchkiss' umbrella turned inside out, I stopped. + +"I don't know where you are going," I snarled, "I don't care. But +I'm going to get under cover inside of ten seconds. I'm not +amphibious." + +I ducked into the next shelter, which happened to be the yawning +entrance to a livery stable, and shook myself, dog fashion. +Hotchkiss wiped his collar with his handkerchief. It emerged +gleaming and unwilted. + +"This will do as well as any place," he said, raising his voice +above the rattle of the rain. "Got to make a beginning." + +I sat down on the usual chair without a back, just inside the door, +and stared out at the darkening street. The whole affair had an +air of unreality. Now that I was there, I doubted the necessity, +or the value, of the journey. I was wet and uncomfortable. Around +me, with Cresson as a center, stretched an irregular circumference +of mountain, with possibly a ten-mile radius, and in it I was to +find the residence of a woman whose first name I did not know, and +a man who, so far, had been a purely chimerical person. + +Hotchkiss had penetrated the steaming interior of the cave, and now +his voice, punctuated by the occasional thud of horses' hoofs, came +to me. + +"Something light will do," he was saying. "A runabout, perhaps." +He came forward rubbing his hands, followed by a thin man in +overalls. "Mr. Peck says," he began,--"this is Mr. Peck of Peck +and Peck,--says that the place we are looking for is about seven +miles from the town. It's clearing, isn't it?" + +"It is not," I returned savagely. "And we don't want a runabout, +Mr. Peck. What we require is hermetically sealed diving suit. I +suppose there isn't a machine to be had?" Mr. Peck gazed at me, in +silence: machine to him meant other things than motors. "Automobile," +I supplemented. His face cleared. + +"None but private affairs. I can give you a good buggy with a +rubber apron. Mike, is the doctor's horse in?" + +I am still uncertain as to whether the raw-boned roan we took out +that night over the mountains was the doctor's horse or not. If it +was, the doctor may be a good doctor, but he doesn't know anything +about a horse. And furthermore, I hope he didn't need the beast +that miserable evening. + +While they harnessed the horse, Hotchkiss told me what he had +learned. + +"Six Curtises in the town and vicinity," he said. "Sort of family +name around here. One of them is telegraph operator at the station. +Person we are looking for is--was--a wealthy widow with a brother +named Sullivan! Both supposed to have been killed on the Flier." + +"Her brother," I repeated stupidly. + +"You see," Hotchkiss went on, "three people, in one party, took the +train here that night, Miss West, Mrs. Curtis and Sullivan. The two +women had the drawing-room, Sullivan had lower seven. What we want +to find out is just who these people were, where they came from, if +Bronson knew them, and how Miss West became entangled with them. +She may have married Sullivan, for one thing." + +I fell into gloom after that. The roan was led unwillingly into the +weather, Hotchkiss and I in eclipse behind the blanket. The +liveryman stood in the doorway and called directions to us. "You +can't miss it," he finished. "Got the name over the gate anyhow, +'The Laurels.' The servants are still there: leastways, we didn't +bring them down." He even took a step into the rain as Hotchkiss +picked up the lines. "If you're going to settle the estate," he +bawled, "don't forget us, Peck and Peck. A half-bushel of name and +a bushel of service." + +Hotchkiss could not drive. Born a clerk, he guided the roan much as +he would drive a bad pen. And the roan spattered through puddles and +splashed ink--mud, that is--until I was in a frenzy of irritation. + +"What are we going to say when we get there?" I asked after I had +finally taken the reins in my one useful hand. "Get out there at +midnight and tell the servants we have come to ask a few questions +about the family? It's an idiotic trip anyhow; I wish I had stayed +at home." + +The roan fell just then, and we had to crawl out and help him up. +By the time we had partly unharnessed him our matches were gone, +and the small bicycle lamp on the buggy was wavering only too +certainly. We were covered with mud, panting with exertion, and +even Hotchkiss showed a disposition to be surly. The rain, which +had lessened for a time, came on again, the lightning flashes doing +more than anything else to reveal our isolated position. + +Another mile saw us, if possible, more despondent. The water in +our clothes had had time to penetrate: the roan had sprained his +shoulder, and drew us along in a series of convulsive jerks. And +then through the rain-spattered window of the blanket, I saw a +light. It was a small light, rather yellow, and it lasted perhaps +thirty seconds. Hotchkiss missed it, and was inclined to doubt me. +But in a couple of minutes the roan hobbled to the side of the road +and stopped, and I made out a break in the pines and an arched gate. + +It was a small gate, too narrow for the buggy. I pulled the horse +into as much shelter as possible under the trees, and we got out. +Hotchkiss tied the beast and we left him there, head down against +the driving rain, drooping and dejected. Then we went toward the +house. + +It was a long walk. The path bent and twisted, and now and then we +lost it. We were climbing as we went. Oddly there were no lights +ahead, although it was only ten o'clock,--not later. Hotchkiss +kept a little ahead of me, knocking into trees now and then, but +finding the path in half the time I should have taken. Once, as I +felt my way around a tree in the blackness, I put my hand +unexpectedly on his shoulder, and felt a shudder go down my back. + +"What do you expect me to do?" he protested, when I remonstrated. +"Hang out a red lantern? What was that? Listen." + +We both stood peering into the gloom. The sharp patter of the rain +on leaves had ceased, and from just ahead there came back to us the +stealthy padding of feet in wet soil. My hand closed on Hotchkiss' +shoulder, and we listened together, warily. The steps were close by, +unmistakable. The next flash of lightning showed nothing moving: +the house was in full view now, dark and uninviting, looming huge +above a terrace, with an Italian garden at the side. Then the +blackness again. Somebody's teeth were chattering: I accused +Hotchkiss but he denied it. + +"Although I'm not very comfortable, I'll admit," he confessed; "there +was something breathing right at my elbow here a moment ago." + +"Nonsense!" I took his elbow and steered him in what I made out to +be the direction of the steps of the Italian garden. "I saw a deer +just ahead by the last flash; that's what you heard. By Jove, I +hear wheels." + +We paused to listen and Hotchkiss put his hand on something close +to us. "Here's your deer," he said. "Bronze." + +As we neared the house the sense of surveillance we had had in the +park gradually left us. Stumbling over flower beds, running afoul +of a sun-dial, groping our way savagely along hedges and thorny banks, +we reached the steps finally and climbed the terrace. + +It was then that Hotchkiss fell over one of the two stone urns which, +with tall boxwood trees in them, mounted guard at each side of the +door. He didn't make any attempt to get up. He sat in a puddle on +the brick floor of the terrace and clutched his leg and swore softly +in Government English. + +The occasional relief of the lightning was gone. I could not see an +outline of the house before me. We had no matches, and an instant's +investigation showed that the windows were boarded and the house +closed. Hotchkiss, still recumbent, was ascertaining the damage, +tenderly peeling down his stocking. + +"Upon my soul," he said finally, "I don't know whether this moisture +is blood or rain. I think I've broken a bone." + +"Blood is thicker than water," I suggested. "Is it sticky? See if +you can move your toes." + +There was a pause: Hotchkiss moved his toes. By that time I had +found a knocker and was making the night hideous. But there was no +response save the wind that blew sodden leaves derisively in our +faces. Once Hotchkiss declared he heard a window-sash lifted, but +renewed violence with the knocker produced no effect. + +"There's only one thing to do," I said finally. "I'll go back and +try to bring the buggy up for you. You can't walk, can you?" + +Hotchkiss sat back in his puddle and said he didn't think he could +stir, but for me to go back to town and leave him, that he didn't +have any family dependent on him, and that if he was going to have +pneumonia he had probably got it already. I left him there, and +started back to get the horse. + +If possible, it was worse than before. There was no lightning, and +only by a miracle did I find the little gate again. I drew a long +breath of relief, followed by another, equally long, of dismay. For +I had found the hitching strap and there was nothing at the end of +it! In a lull of the wind I seemed to hear, far off, the eager thud +of stable-bound feet. So for the second time I climbed the slope +to the Laurels, and on the way I thought of many things to say. + +I struck the house at a new angle, for I found a veranda, destitute +of chairs and furnishings, but dry and evidently roofed. It was +better than the terrace, and so, by groping along the wall, I tried +to make my way to Hotchkiss. That was how I found the open window. +I had passed perhaps six, all closed, and to have my hand grope for +the next one, and to find instead the soft drapery of an inner +curtain, was startling, to say the least. + +I found Hotchkiss at last around an angle of the stone wall, and +told him that the horse was gone. He was disconcerted, but not +abased; maintaining that it was a new kind of knot that couldn't +slip and that the horse must have chewed the halter through! He +was less enthusiastic than I had expected about the window. + +"It looks uncommonly like a trap," he said. "I tell you there was +some one in the park below when we were coming up. Man has a sixth +sense that scientists ignore--a sense of the nearness of things. +And all the time you have been gone, some one has been watching me." + +"Couldn't see you," I maintained; "I can't see you now. And your +sense of contiguity didn't tell you about that flower crock." + +In the end, of course, he consented to go with me. He was very +lame, and I helped him around to the open window. He was full of +moral courage, the little man: it was only the physical in him that +quailed. And as we groped along, he insisted on going through the +window first. + +"If it is a trap," he whispered, "I have two arms to your one, and, +besides, as I said before, life holds much for you. As for me, the +government would merely lose an indifferent employee." + +When he found I was going first he was rather hurt, but I did not +wait for his protests. I swung my feet over the sill and dropped. +I made a clutch at the window-frame with my good hand when I found +no floor under my feet, but I was too late. I dropped probably +ten feet and landed with a crash that seemed to split my ear-drums. +I was thoroughly shaken, but in some miraculous way the bandaged +arm had escaped injury. + +"For Heaven's sake," Hotchkiss was calling from above, "have you +broken your back?" + +"No," I returned, as steadily as I could, "merely driven it up +through my skull. This is a staircase. I'm coming up to open +another window." + +It was eerie work, but I accomplished it finally, discovering, not +without mishap, a room filled with more tables than I had ever +dreamed of, tables that seemed to waylay and strike at me. When I +had got a window open, Hotchkiss crawled through, and we were at +last under shelter. + +Our first thought was for a light. The same laborious +investigation that had landed us where we were, revealed that the +house was lighted by electricity, and that the plant was not in +operation. By accident I stumbled across a tabouret with smoking +materials, and found a half dozen matches. The first one showed +us the magnitude of the room we stood in, and revealed also a +brass candle-stick by the open fireplace, a candle-stick almost +four feet high, supporting a candle of similar colossal proportions. +It was Hotchkiss who discovered that it had been recently lighted. +He held the match to it and peered at it over his glasses. + +"Within ten minutes," he announced impressively, "this candle has +been burning. Look at the wax! And the wick! Both soft." + +"Perhaps it's the damp weather," I ventured, moving a little nearer +to the circle of light. A gust of wind came in just then, and the +flame turned over on its side and threatened demise. There was +something almost ridiculous in the haste with which we put down the +window and nursed the flicker to life. + +The peculiarly ghost-like appearance of the room added to the +uncanniness of the situation. The furniture was swathed in white +covers for the winter; even the pictures wore shrouds. And in a +niche between two windows a bust on a pedestal, similarly wrapped, +one arm extended under its winding sheet, made a most life-like +ghost, if any ghost can be life-like. + +In the light of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were +objects for mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and +preparing to make himself comfortable, while I hung my muddy +raincoat over the ghost in the corner. Thus habited, he presented +a rakish but distinctly more comfortable appearance. + +"When these people built," Hotchkiss said, surveying the huge +dimensions of the room, "they must have bought a mountain and built +all over it. What a room!" + +It seemed to be a living-room, although Hotchkiss remarked that it +was much more like a dead one. It was probably fifty feet long and +twenty-five feet wide. It was very high, too, with a domed ceiling, +and a gallery ran around the entire room, about fifteen feet above +the floor. The candle light did not penetrate beyond the dim +outlines of the gallery rail, but I fancied the wall there hung +with smaller pictures. + +Hotchkiss had discovered a fire laid in the enormous fireplace, and +in a few minutes we were steaming before a cheerful blaze. Within +the radius of its light and heat, we were comfortable again. But +the brightness merely emphasized the gloom of the ghostly corners. +We talked in subdued tones, and I smoked, a box of Russian +cigarettes which I found in a table drawer. We had decided to stay +all night, there being nothing else to do. I suggested a game of +double-dummy bridge, but did not urge it when my companion asked me +if it resembled euchre. Gradually, as the ecclesiastical candle +paled in the firelight, we grew drowsy. I drew a divan into the +cheerful area, and stretched myself out for sleep. Hotchkiss, who +said the pain in his leg made him wakeful, sat wide-eyed by the +fire, smoking a pipe. + +I have no idea how much time had passed when something threw itself +violently on my chest. I roused with a start and leaped to my feet, +and a large Angora cat fell with a thump to the floor. The fire +was still bright, and there was an odor of scorched leather through +the room, from Hotchkiss' shoes. The little detective was sound +asleep, his dead pipe in his fingers. The cat sat back on its +haunches and wailed. + +The curtain at the door into the hallway bellied slowly out into +the room and fell again. The cat looked toward it and opened its +mouth for another howl. I thrust at it with my foot, but it +refused to move. Hotchkiss stirred uneasily, and his pipe +clattered to the floor. + +The cat was standing at my feet, staring behind me. Apparently it +was following with its eyes, an object unseen to me, that moved +behind me. The tip of its tail waved threateningly, but when I +wheeled I saw nothing. + +I took the candle and made a circuit of the room. Behind the +curtain that had moved the door was securely closed. The windows +were shut and locked, and everywhere the silence was absolute. The +cat followed me majestically. I stooped and stroked its head, but +it persisted in its uncanny watching of the corners of the room. + +When I went back to my divan, after putting a fresh log on the fire, +I was reassured. I took the precaution, and smiled at myself for +doing it, to put the fire tongs within reach of my hand. But the +cat would not let me sleep. After a time I decided that it wanted +water, and I started out in search of some, carrying the candle +without the stand. I wandered through several rooms, all closed +and dismantled, before I found a small lavatory opening off a +billiard room. The cat lapped steadily, and I filled a glass to +take back with me. The candle flickered in a sickly fashion that +threatened to leave me there lost in the wanderings of the many +hallways, and from somewhere there came an occasional violent puff +of wind. The cat stuck by my feet, with the hair on its back raised +menacingly. I don't like cats; there is something psychic about +them. + +Hotchkiss was still asleep when I got back to the big room. I moved +his boots back from the fire, and trimmed the candle. Then, with +sleep gone from me, I lay back on my divan and reflected on many +things: on my idiocy in coming; on Alison West, and the fact that +only a week before she had been a guest in this very house; on +Richey and the constraint that had come between us. From that I +drifted back to Alison, and to the barrier my comparative poverty +would be. + +The emptiness, the stillness were oppressive. Once I heard +footsteps coming, rhythmical steps that neither hurried nor dragged, +and seemed to mount endless staircases without coming any closer. +I realized finally that I had not quite turned off the tap, and that +the lavatory, which I had circled to reach, must be quite close. + +The cat lay by the fire, its nose on its folded paws, content in the +warmth and companionship. I watched it idly. Now and then the +green wood hissed in the fire, but the cat never batted an eye. +Through an unshuttered window the lightning flashed. Suddenly the +cat looked up. It lifted its head and stared directly at the +gallery above. Then it blinked, and stared again. I was amused. +Not until it had got up on its feet, eyes still riveted on the +balcony, tail waving at the tip, the hair on its back a bristling +brush, did I glance casually over my head. + +From among the shadows a face gazed down at me, a face that seemed +a fitting tenant of the ghostly room below. I saw it as plainly as +I might see my own face in a mirror. While I stared at it with +horrified eyes, the apparition faded. The rail was there, the +Bokhara rug still swung from it, but the gallery was empty. + +The cat threw back its head and wailed. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +HIS WIFE'S FATHER + + +I jumped up and seized the fire tongs. The cat's wail had roused +Hotchkiss, who was wide-awake at once. He took in my offensive +attitude, the tongs, the direction of my gaze, and needed nothing +more. As he picked up the candle and darted out into the hall, I +followed him. He made directly for the staircase, and part way up +he turned off to the right through a small door. We were on the +gallery itself; below us the fire gleamed cheerfully, the cat was +not in sight. There was no sign of my ghostly visitant, but as we +stood there the Bokhara rug, without warning, slid over the railing +and fell to the floor below. + +"Man or woman?" Hotchkiss inquired in his most professional tone. + +"Neither--that is, I don't know. I didn't notice anything but the +eyes," I muttered. "They were looking a hole in me. If you'd seen +that cat you would realize my state of mind. That was a traditional +graveyard yowl." + +"I don't think you saw anything at all," he lied cheerfully. "You +dozed off, and the rest is the natural result of a meal on a buffet +car." + +Nevertheless, he examined the Bokhara carefully when we went down, +and when I finally went to sleep he was reading the only book in +sight--Elwell on Bridge. The first rays of daylight were coming +mistily into the room when he roused me. He had his finger on his +lips, and he whispered sibilantly while I tried to draw on my +distorted boots. + +"I think we have him," he said triumphantly. "I've been looking +around some, and I can tell you this much. Just before we came in +through the window last night, another man came. Only--he did not +drop, as you did. He swung over to the stair railing, and then +down. The rail is scratched. He was long enough ahead of us to go +into the dining-room and get a decanter out of the sideboard. He +poured out the liquor into a glass, left the decanter there, and +took the whisky into the library across the hall. Then--he broke +into a desk, using a paper knife for a jimmy." + +"Good Lord, Hotchkiss," I exclaimed; "why, it may have been +Sullivan himself! Confound your theories--he's getting farther +away every minute." + +"It was Sullivan," Hotchkiss returned imperturbably. "And he has +not gone. His boots are by the library fire." + +"He probably had a dozen pairs where he could get them," I scoffed. +"And while you and I sat and slept, the very man we want to get our +hands on leered at us over that railing." + +"Softly, softly, my friend," Hotchkiss said, as I stamped into my +other shoe. "I did not say he was gone. Don't jump at conclusions. +It is fatal to reasoning. As a matter of fact, he didn't relish a +night on the mountains any more than we did. After he had +unintentionally frightened you almost into paralysis, what would +my gentleman naturally do? Go out in the storm again? Not if I +know the Alice-sit-by-the-fire type. He went up-stairs, well up +near the roof, locked himself in and went to bed." + +"And he is there now?" + +"He is there now." + +We had no weapons. I am aware that the traditional hero is always +armed, and that Hotchkiss as the low comedian should have had a +revolver that missed fire. As a fact, we had nothing of the sort. +Hotchkiss carried the fire tongs, but my sense of humor was too +strong for me; I declined the poker. + +"All we want is a little peaceable conversation with him," I +demurred. "We can't brain him first and converse with him afterward. +And anyhow, while I can't put my finger on the place, I think your +theory is weak. If he wouldn't run a hundred miles through fire and +water to get away from us, then he is not the man we want." + +Hotchkiss, however, was certain. He had found the room and listened +outside the door to the sleeper's heavy breathing, and so we climbed +past luxurious suites, revealed in the deepening daylight, past long +vistas of hall and boudoir. And we were both badly winded when we +got there. It was a tower room, reached by narrow stairs, and well +above the roof level. Hotchkiss was glowing. + +"It is partly good luck, but not all," he panted in a whisper. "If +we had persisted in the search last night, he would have taken alarm +and fled. Now--we have him. Are you ready?" + +He gave a mighty rap at the door with the fire tongs, and stood +expectant. Certainly he was right; some one moved within. + +"Hello! Hello there!" Hotchkiss bawled. "You might as well come +out. We won't hurt you, if you'll come peaceably." + +"Tell him we represent the law," I prompted. "That's the customary +thing, you know." + +But at that moment a bullet came squarely through the door and +flattened itself with a sharp pst against the wall of the tower +staircase. We ducked unanimously, dropped back out of range, and +Hotchkiss retaliated with a spirited bang at the door with the tongs. +This brought another bullet. It was a ridiculous situation. Under +the circumstances, no doubt, we should have retired, at least until +we had armed ourselves, but Hotchkiss had no end of fighting spirit, +and as for me, my blood was up. + +"Break the lock," I suggested, and Hotchkiss, standing at the side, +out of range, retaliated for every bullet by a smashing blow with +the tongs. The shots ceased after a half dozen, and the door was +giving, slowly. One of us on each side of the door, we were ready +for almost any kind of desperate resistance. As it swung open +Hotchkiss poised the tongs; I stood, bent forward, my arm drawn +back for a blow. + +Nothing happened. + +There was not a sound. Finally, at the risk of losing an eye which +I justly value, I peered around and into the room. There was no +desperado there: only a fresh-faced, trembling-lipped servant, +sitting on the edge of her bed, with a quilt around her shoulders +and the empty revolver at her feet. + +We were victorious, but no conquered army ever beat such a retreat +as ours down the tower stairs and into the refuge of the living-room. +There, with the door closed, sprawled on the divan, I went from one +spasm of mirth into another, becoming sane at intervals, and +suffering relapse again every time I saw Hotchkiss' disgruntled +countenance. He was pacing the room, the tongs still in his hand, +his mouth pursed with irritation. Finally he stopped in front of +me and compelled my attention. + +"When you have finished cackling," he said with dignity, "I wish to +justify my position. Do you think the--er--young woman up-stairs +put a pair of number eight boots to dry in the library last night? +Do you think she poured the whisky out of that decanter?" + +"They have been known to do it," I put in, but his eye silenced me. + +"Moreover, if she had been the person who peered at you over the +gallery railing last night, don't you suppose, with her--er +--belligerent disposition, she could have filled you as full of +lead as a window weight?" + +"I do," I assented. "It wasn't Alice-sit-by-the-fire. I grant you +that. Then who was it?" + +Hotchkiss felt certain that it had been Sullivan, but I was not so +sure. Why would he have crawled like a thief into his own house? +If he had crossed the park, as seemed probable, when we did, he had +not made any attempt to use the knocker. I gave it up finally, and +made an effort to conciliate the young woman in the tower. + +We had heard no sound since our spectacular entrance into her room. +I was distinctly uncomfortable as, alone this time, I climbed to +the tower staircase. Reasoning from before, she would probably +throw a chair at me. I stopped at the foot of the staircase and +called. + +"Hello up there," I said, in as debonair a manner as I could summon. +"Good morning. Wie geht es bei ihen?" + +No reply. + +"Bon jour, mademoiselle," I tried again. This time there was a +movement of some sort from above, but nothing fell on me. + +"I--we want to apologize for rousing you so--er--unexpectedly +this morning," I went on. "The fact is, we wanted to talk to you, +and you--you were hard to waken. We are travelers, lost in your +mountains, and we crave a breakfast and an audience." + +She came to the door then. I could feel that she was investigating +the top of my head from above. "Is Mr. Sullivan with you?" she +asked. It was the first word from her, and she was not sure of her +voice. + +"No. We are alone. If you will come down and look at us you will +find us two perfectly harmless people, whose horse--curses on +him--departed without leave last night and left us at your gate." + +She relaxed somewhat then and came down a step or two. "I was +afraid I had killed somebody," she said. "The housekeeper left +yesterday, and the other maids went with her." + +When she saw that I was comparatively young and lacked the earmarks +of the highwayman, she was greatly relieved. She was inclined to +fight shy of Hotchkiss, however, for some reason. She gave us +a breakfast of a sort, for there was little in the house, and +afterward we telephoned to the town for a vehicle. While Hotchkiss +examined scratches and replaced the Bokhara rug, I engaged Jennie +in conversation. + +"Can you tell me," I asked, "who is managing the estate since Mrs. +Curtis was killed?" + +"No one," she returned shortly. + +"Has--any member of the family been here since the accident?" + +"No, sir. There was only the two, and some think Mr. Sullivan was +killed as well as his sister." + +"You don't?" + +"No," with conviction. + +"Why?" + +She wheeled on me with quick suspicion. + +"Are you a detective?" she demanded. + +"No." + +"You told him to say you represented the law." + +"I am a lawyer. Some of them misrepresent the law, but I--" + +She broke in impatiently. + +"A sheriff's officer?" + +"No. Look here, Jennie; I am all that I should be. You'll have to +believe that. And I'm in a bad position through no fault of my own. +I want you to answer some questions. If you will help me, I will +do what I can for you. Do you live near here?" + +Her chin quivered. It was the first sign of weakness she had shown. + +"My home is in Pittsburg," she said, "and I haven't enough money to +get there. They hadn't paid any wages for two months. They didn't +pay anybody." + +"Very well," I returned. "I'll send you back to Pittsburg, Pullman +included, if you will tell me some things I want to know." + +She agreed eagerly. Outside the window Hotchkiss was bending over, +examining footprints in the drive. + +"Now," I began, "there has been a Miss West staying here?" + +"Yes." + +"Mr. Sullivan was attentive to her?" + +"Yes. She was the granddaughter of a wealthy man in Pittsburg. +My aunt has been in his family for twenty years. Mrs. Curtis wanted +her brother to marry Miss West." + +"Do you think he did marry her?" I could not keep the excitement out +of my voice. + +"No. There were reasons"--she stopped abruptly. + +"Do you know anything of the family? Are they--were they New +Yorkers?" + +"They came from somewhere in the south. I have heard Mrs. Curtis +say her mother was a Cuban. I don't know much about them, but Mr. +Sullivan had a wicked temper, though he didn't look it. Folks say +big, light-haired people are easy going, but I don't believe it, sir." + +"How long was Miss West here?" + +"Two weeks." + +I hesitated about further questioning. Critical as my position was, +I could not pry deeper into Alison West's affairs. If she had got +into the hands of adventurers, as Sullivan and his sister appeared +to have been, she was safely away from them again. But something of +the situation in the car Ontario was forming itself in my mind: the +incident at the farmhouse lacked only motive to be complete. Was +Sullivan, after all, a rascal or a criminal? Was the murderer +Sullivan or Mrs. Conway? The lady or the tiger again. + +Jennie was speaking. + +"I hope Miss West was not hurt?" she asked. "We liked her, all of +us. She was not like Mrs. Curtis." + +I wanted to say that she was not like anybody in the world. Instead +--"She escaped with some bruises," I said. + +She glanced at my arm. "You were on the train?" + +"Yes." + +She waited for more questions, but none coming, she went to the door. +Then she closed it softly and came back. + +"Mrs. Curtis is dead? You are sure of it?" she asked. + +"She was killed instantly, I believe. The body was not recovered. +But I have reasons for believing that Mr. Sullivan is living." + +"I knew it," she said. "I--I think he was here the night before +last. That is why I went to the tower room. I believe he would +kill me if he could." As nearly as her round and comely face could +express it, Jennie's expression was tragic at that moment. I made +a quick resolution, and acted on it at once. + +"You are not entirely frank with me, Jennie," I protested. "And I +am going to tell you more than I have. We are talking at cross +purposes." + +"I was on the wrecked train, in the same car with Mrs. Curtis, Miss +West and Mr. Sullivan. During the night there was a crime committed +in that car and Mr. Sullivan disappeared. But he left behind him a +chain of circumstantial evidence that involved me completely, so +that I may, at any time, be arrested." + +Apparently she did not comprehend for a moment. Then, as if the +meaning of my words had just dawned on her, she looked up and gasped: + +"You mean--Mr. Sullivan committed the crime himself?" + +"I think he did." + +"What was it?" + +"It was murder," I said deliberately. + +Her hands clenched involuntarily, and she shrank back. "A woman?" +She could scarcely form her words. + +"No, a man; a Mr. Simon Harrington, of Pittsburg." + +Her effort to retain her self-control was pitiful. Then she broke +down and cried, her head on the back of a tall chair. + +"It was my fault," she said wretchedly, "my fault, I should not +have sent them the word." + +After a few minutes she grew quiet. She seemed to hesitate over +something, and finally determined to say it. + +"You will understand better, sir, when I say that I was raised in +the Harrington family. Mr. Harrington was Mr. Sullivan's wife's +father!" + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +AT THE STATION + + +So it had been the tiger, not the lady! Well, I had held to that +theory all through. Jennie suddenly became a valuable person; if +necessary she could prove the connection between Sullivan and the +murdered man, and show a motive for the crime. I was triumphant +when Hotchkiss came in. When the girl had produced a photograph +of Mrs. Sullivan, and I had recognized the bronze-haired girl of +the train, we were both well satisfied--which goes to prove the +ephemeral nature of most human contentments. + +Jennie either had nothing more to say, or feared she had said too +much. She was evidently uneasy before Hotchkiss. I told her that +Mrs. Sullivan was recovering in a Baltimore hospital, but she +already knew it, from some source, and merely nodded. She made a +few preparations for leaving, while Hotchkiss and I compared notes, +and then, with the cat in her arms, she climbed into the trap from +the town. I sat with her, and on the way down she told me a little, +not much. + +"If you see Mrs. Sullivan," she advised, "and she is conscious, she +probably thinks that both her husband and her father were killed in +the wreck. She will be in a bad way, sir." + +"You mean that she--still cares about her husband?" + +The cat crawled over on to my knee, and rubbed its bead against my +hand invitingly. Jennie stared at the undulating line of the +mountain crests, a colossal sun against a blue ocean of sky. "Yes, +she cares," she said softly. "Women are made like that. They say +they are cats, but Peter there in your lap wouldn't come back and +lick your hand if you kicked him. If--if you have to tell her the +truth, be as gentle as you can, sir. She has been good to me--that's +why I have played the spy here all summer. It's a thankless thing, +spying on people." + +"It is that," I agreed soberly. + +Hotchkiss and I arrived in Washington late that evening, and, rather +than arouse the household, I went to the club. I was at the office +early the next morning and admitted myself. McKnight rarely +appeared before half after ten, and our modest office force some +time after nine. I looked over my previous day's mail and waited, +with such patience as I possessed, for McKnight. In the interval +I called up Mrs. Klopton and announced that I would dine at home +that night. What my household subsists on during my numerous +absences I have never discovered. Tea, probably, and crackers. +Diligent search when I have made a midnight arrival, never reveals +anything more substantial. Possibly I imagine it, but the +announcement that I am about to make a journey always seems to +create a general atmosphere of depression throughout the house, +as though Euphemia and Eliza, and Thomas, the stableman, were +already subsisting, in imagination, on Mrs. Klopton's meager fare. + +So I called her up and announced my arrival. There was something +unusual in her tone, as though her throat was tense with +indignation. Always shrill, her elderly voice rasped my ear +painfully through the receiver. + +"I have changed the butcher, Mr. Lawrence," she announced +portentously. "The last roast was a pound short, and his +mutton-chops--any self-respecting sheep would refuse to +acknowledge them." + +As I said before, I can always tell from the voice in which Mrs. +Klopton conveys the most indifferent matters, if something of +real significance has occurred. Also, through long habit, I have +learned how quickest to bring her to the point. + +"You are pessimistic this morning," I returned. "What's the matter, +Mrs. Klopton? You haven't used that tone since Euphemia baked a +pie for the iceman. What is it now? Somebody poison the dog?" + +She cleared her throat. + +"The house has been broken into, Mr. Lawrence," she said. "I have +lived in the best families, and never have I stood by and seen what +I saw yesterday--every bureau drawer opened, and my--my most +sacred belongings--" she choked. + +"Did you notify the police?" I asked sharply. + +"Police!" she sniffed. "Police! It was the police that did it--two +detectives with a search warrant. I--I wouldn't dare tell you over +the telephone what one of them said when he found the whisky and rock +candy for my cough." + +"Did they take anything?" I demanded, every nerve on edge. + +"They took the cough medicine," she returned indignantly, "and they +said--" + +"Confound the cough medicine!" I was frantic. "Did they take +anything else? Were they in my dressing-room?" + +"Yes. I threatened to sue them, and I told them what you would do +when you came back. But they wouldn't listen. They took away that +black sealskin bag you brought home from Pittsburg with you!" + +I knew then that my hours of freedom were numbered. To have found +Sullivan and then, in support of my case against him, to have +produced the bag, minus the bit of chain, had been my intention. +But the police had the bag, and, beyond knowing something of +Sullivan's history, I was practically no nearer his discovery than +before. Hotchkiss hoped he had his man in the house off Washington +Circle, but on the very night he had seen him Jennie claimed that +Sullivan had tried to enter the Laurels. Then--suppose we found +Sullivan and proved the satchel and its contents his? Since the +police had the bit of chain it might mean involving Alison in the +story. I sat down and buried my face in my hands. There was no +escape. I figured it out despondingly. + +Against me was the evidence of the survivors of the Ontario that +I had been accused of the murder at the time. There had been +blood-stains on my pillow and a hidden dagger. Into the bargain, +in my possession had been found a traveling-bag containing the +dead man's pocket-book. + +In my favor was McKnight's theory against Mrs. Conway. She had a +motive for wishing to secure the notes, she believed I was in lower +ten, and she had collapsed at the discovery of the crime in the +morning. + +Against both of these theories, I accuse a purely chimerical person +named Sullivan, who was not seen by any of the survivors--save one, +Alison, whom I could not bring into the case. I could find a motive +for his murdering his father-in-law, whom he hated, but again--I +would have to drag in the girl. + +And not one of the theories explained the telegram and the broken +necklace. + +Outside the office force was arriving. They were comfortably +ignorant of my presence, and over the transom floated scraps of +dialogue and the stenographer's gurgling laugh. McKnight had a +relative, who was reading law with him, in the intervals between +calling up the young women of his acquaintance. He came in +singing, and the office boy joined in with the uncertainty of +voice of fifteen. I smiled grimly. I was too busy with my own +troubles to find any joy in opening the door and startling them +into silence. I even heard, without resentment, Blobs of the +uncertain voice inquire when "Blake" would be back. + +I hoped McKnight would arrive before the arrest occurred. There +were many things to arrange. But when at last, impatient of his +delay, I telephoned, I found he had been gone for more than an hour. +Clearly he was not coming directly to the office, and with such +resignation as I could muster I paced the floor and waited. + +I felt more alone than I have ever felt in my life. "Born an +orphan," as Richey said, I had made my own way, carved out myself +such success as had been mine. I had built up my house of life +on the props of law and order, and now some unknown hand had +withdrawn the supports, and I stood among ruins. + +I suppose it is the maternal in a woman that makes a man turn to +her when everything else fails. The eternal boy in him goes to +have his wounded pride bandaged, his tattered self-respect repaired. +If he loves the woman, he wants her to kiss the hurt. + +The longing to see Alison, always with me, was stronger than I was +that morning. It might be that I would not see her again. I had +nothing to say to her save one thing, and that, under the cloud that +hung over me, I did not dare to say. But I wanted to see her, to +touch her hand--as only a lonely man can crave it, I wanted the +comfort of her, the peace that lay in her presence. And so, with +every step outside the door a threat, I telephoned to her. + +She was gone! The disappointment was great, for my need was great. +In a fury of revolt against the scheme of things, I heard that she +had started home to Richmond--but that she might still be caught +at the station. + +To see her had by that time become an obsession. I picked up my +hat, threw open the door, and, oblivious of the shock to the office +force of my presence, followed so immediately by my exit, I dashed +out to the elevator. As I went down in one cage I caught a glimpse +of Johnson and two other men going up in the next. I hardly gave +them a thought. There was no hansom in sight, and I jumped on a +passing car. Let come what might, arrest, prison, disgrace, I was +going to see Alison. + +I saw her. I flung into the station, saw that it was empty--empty, +for she was not there. Then I hurried back to the gates. She was +there, a familiar figure in blue, the very gown in which I always +thought of her, the one she had worn when, Heaven help me--I had +kissed her, at the Carter farm. And she was not alone. Bending +over her, talking earnestly, with all his boyish heart in his face, +was Richey. + +They did not see me, and I was glad of it. After all, it had been +McKnight's game first. I turned on my heel and made my way blindly +out of the station. Before I lost them I turned once and looked +toward them, standing apart from the crowd, absorbed in each other. +They were the only two people on earth that I cared about, and I +left them there together. Then I went back miserably to the office +and awaited arrest. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +ON TO RICHMOND + + +Strangely enough, I was not disturbed that day. McKnight did not +appear at all. I sat at my desk and transacted routine business +all afternoon, working with feverish energy. Like a man on the +verge of a critical illness or a hazardous journey, I cleared up +my correspondence, paid bills until I had writer's cramp from +signing checks, read over my will, and paid up my life insurance, +made to the benefit of an elderly sister of my mother's. I no +longer dreaded arrest. After that morning in the station, I felt +that anything would be a relief from the tension. I went home +with perfect openness, courting the warrant that I knew was waiting, +but I was not molested. The delay puzzled me. The early part +of the evening was uneventful. I read until late, with occasional +lapses, when my book lay at my elbow, and I smoked and thought. +Mrs. Klopton closed the house with ostentatious caution, about +eleven, and hung around waiting to enlarge on the outrageousness +of the police search. I did not encourage her. + +"One would think," she concluded pompously, one foot in the hall, +"that you were something you oughtn't to be, Mr. Lawrence. They +acted as though you had committed a crime." + +"I'm not sure that I didn't, Mrs. Klopton," I said wearily. +"Somebody did, the general verdict seems to point my way." + +She stared at me in speechless indignation. Then she flounced out. +She came back once to say that the paper predicted cooler weather, +and that she had put a blanket on my bed, but, to her disappointment, +I refused to reopen the subject. + +At half past eleven McKnight and Hotchkiss came in. Richey has a +habit of stopping his car in front of the house and honking until +some one comes out. He has a code of signals with the horn, which +I never remember. Two long and a short blast mean, I believe, "Send +out a box of cigarettes," and six short blasts, which sound like a +police call, mean "Can you lend me some money?" To-night I knew +something was up, for he got out and rang the door-bell like a +Christian. + +They came into the library, and Hotchkiss wiped his collar until +it gleamed. McKnight was aggressively cheerful. + +"Not pinched yet!" he exclaimed. "What do you think of that for +luck! You always were a fortunate devil, Lawrence." + +"Yes," I assented, with some bitterness, "I hardly know how to +contain myself for joy sometimes. I suppose you know"--to +Hotchkiss--"that the police were here while we were at Cresson, +and that they found the bag that I brought from the wreck?" + +"Things are coming to a head," he said thoughtfully "unless a little +plan that I have in mind--" he hesitated. + +"I hope so; I am pretty nearly desperate," I said doggedly. "I've +got a mental toothache, and the sooner it's pulled the better." + +"Tut, tut," said McKnight, "think of the disgrace to the firm if +its senior member goes up for life, or--" he twisted his +handkerchief into a noose, and went through an elaborate pantomime. + +"Although jail isn't so bad, anyhow," he finished, "there are +fellows that get the habit and keep going back and going back." +He looked at his watch, and I fancied his cheerfulness was strained. +Hotchkiss was nervously fumbling my book. + +"Did you ever read The Purloined Letter, Mr. Blakeley?" he inquired. + +"Probably, years ago," I said. "Poe, isn't it?" + +He was choked at my indifference. "It is a masterpiece," he said, +with enthusiasm. "I re-read it to-day." + +"And what happened?" + +"Then I inspected the rooms in the house off Washington Circle. +I--I made some discoveries, Mr. Blakeley. For one thing, our man +there is left-handed." He looked around for our approval. "There +was a small cushion on the dresser, and the scarf pins in it had +been stuck in with the left hand." + +"Somebody may have twisted the cushion," I objected, but he looked +hurt, and I desisted. + +"There is only one discrepancy," he admitted, "but it troubles me. +According to Mrs. Carter, at the farmhouse, our man wore gaudy +pajamas, while I found here only the most severely plain +night-shirts." + +"Any buttons off?" McKnight inquired, looking again at his watch. + +"The buttons were there," the amateur detective answered gravely, +"but the buttonhole next the top one was torn through." + +McKnight winked at me furtively. + +"I am convinced of one thing," Hotchkiss went on, clearing his +throat, "the papers are not in that room. Either he carries them +with him, or he has sold them." + +A sound on the street made both my visitors listen sharply. Whatever +it was it passed on, however. I was growing curious and the +restraint was telling on McKnight. He has no talent for secrecy. +In the interval we discussed the strange occurrence at Cresson, which +lost nothing by Hotchkiss' dry narration. + +"And so," he concluded, "the woman in the Baltimore hospital is the +wife of Henry Sullivan and the daughter of the man he murdered. No +wonder he collapsed when he heard of the wreck." + +"Joy, probably," McKnight put in. "Is that clock right, Lawrence? +Never mind, it doesn't matter. By the way, Mrs. Conway dropped in +the office yesterday, while you were away." + +"What!" I sprang from my chair. + +"Sure thing. Said she had heard great things of us, and wanted us +to handle her case against the railroad." + +"I would like to know what she is driving at," I reflected. "Is she +trying to reach me through you?" + +Richey's flippancy is often a cloak for deeper feeling. He dropped +it now. "Yes," he said, "she's after the notes, of course. And +I'll tell you I felt like a poltroon--whatever that may be--when +I turned her down. She stood by the door with her face white, and +told me contemptuously that I could save you from a murder charge +and wouldn't do it. She made me feel like a cur. I was just as +guilty as if I could have obliged her. She hinted that there were +reasons and she laid my attitude to beastly motives." + +"Nonsense," I said, as easily as I could. Hotchkiss had gone to +the window. "She was excited. There are no 'reasons,' whatever +she means." + +Richey put his hand on my shoulder. "We've been together too long +to let any 'reasons' or 'unreasons' come between us, old man," he +said, not very steadily. Hotchkiss, who had been silent, here came +forward in his most impressive manner. He put his hands under his +coat-tails and coughed. + +"Mr. Blakeley," he began, "by Mr. McKnight's advice we have arranged +a little interview here to-night. If all has gone as I planned, +Mr. Henry Pinckney Sullivan is by this time under arrest. Within a +very few minutes--he will be here." + +"I wanted to talk to him before he was locked up," Richey explained. +"He's clever enough to be worth knowing, and, besides, I'm not so +cocksure of his guilt as our friend the Patch on the Seat of +Government. No murderer worthy of the name needs six different +motives for the same crime, beginning with robbery, and ending with +an unpleasant father-in-law." + +We were all silent for a while. McKnight stationed himself at a +window, and Hotchkiss paced the floor expectantly. "It's a great +day for modern detective methods," he chirruped. "While the police +have been guarding houses and standing with their mouths open +waiting for clues to fall in and choke them, we have pieced together, +bit by bit, a fabric--" + +The door-bell rang, followed immediately by sounds of footsteps in +the hall. McKnight threw the door open, and Hotchkiss, raised on +his toes, flung out his arm in a gesture of superb eloquence. + +"Behold--your man!" he declaimed. + +Through the open doorway came a tall, blond fellow, clad in light +gray, wearing tan shoes, and followed closely by an officer. + +"I brought him here as you suggested, Mr. McKnight," said the +constable. + +But McKnight was doubled over the library table in silent +convulsions of mirth, and I was almost as bad. Little Hotchkiss +stood up, his important attitude finally changing to one of chagrin, +while the blond man ceased to look angry, and became sheepish. + +It was Stuart, our confidential clerk for the last half dozen years! + +McKnight sat up and wiped his eyes. + +"Stuart," he said sternly, "there are two very serious things we +have learned about you. First, you jab your scarf pins into your +cushion with your left hand, which is most reprehensible; second, +you wear--er--night-shirts, instead of pajamas. Worse than that, +perhaps, we find that one of them has a buttonhole torn out at the +neck." + +Stuart was bewildered. He looked from McKnight to me, and then at +the crestfallen Hotchkiss. + +"I haven't any idea what it's all about," he said. "I was arrested +as I reached my boarding-house to-night, after the theater, and +brought directly here. I told the officer it was a mistake." + +Poor Hotchkiss tried bravely to justify the fiasco. "You can not +deny," he contended, "that Mr. Andrew Bronson followed you to your +rooms last Monday evening." + +Stuart looked at us and flushed. + +"No, I don't deny it," he said, "but there was nothing criminal +about it, on my part, at least. Mr. Bronson has been trying to +induce me to secure the forged notes for him. But I did not even +know where they were." + +"And you were not on the wrecked Washington Flier?" persisted +Hotchkiss. But McKnight interfered. + +"There is no use trying to put the other man's identity on Stuart, +Mr. Hotchkiss," he protested. "He has been our confidential clerk +for six years, and has not been away from the office a day for a +year. I am afraid that the beautiful fabric we have pieced out of +all these scraps is going to be a crazy quilt." His tone was +facetious, but I could detect the undercurrent of real +disappointment. + +I paid the constable for his trouble, and he departed. Stuart, +still indignant, left to go back to Washington Circle. He shook +hands with McKnight and myself magnanimously, but he hurled a look +of utter hatred at Hotchkiss, sunk crestfallen in his chair. + +"As far as I can see," said McKnight dryly, "we're exactly as far +along as we were the day we met at the Carter place. We're not a +step nearer to finding our man." + +"We have one thing that may be of value," I suggested. "He is the +husband of a bronze-haired woman at Van Kirk's hospital, and it is +just possible we may trace him through her. I hope we are not going +to lose your valuable co-operation, Mr. Hotchkiss?" I asked. + +He roused at that to feeble interest, "I--oh, of course not, if you +still care to have me, I--I was wondering about--the man who just +went out, Stuart, you say? I--told his landlady to-night that he +wouldn't need the room again. I hope she hasn't rented it to +somebody else." + +We cheered him as best we could, and I suggested that we go to +Baltimore the next day and try to find the real Sullivan through +his wife. He left sometime after midnight, and Richey and I were +alone. + +He drew a chair near the lamp and lighted a cigarette, and for a +time we were silent. I was in the shadow, and I sat back and +watched him. It was not surprising, I thought, that she cared for +him: women had always loved him, perhaps because he always loved +them. There was no disloyalty in the thought: it was the lad's +nature to give and crave affection. Only--I was different. I had +never really cared about a girl before, and my life had been +singularly loveless. I had fought a lonely battle always. Once +before, in college, we had both laid ourselves and our callow +devotions at the feet of the same girl. Her name was Dorothy--I +had forgotten the rest--but I remembered the sequel. In a spirit +of quixotic youth I had relinquished my claim in favor of Richey +and had gone cheerfully on my way, elevated by my heroic sacrifice +to a somber, white-hot martyrdom. As is often the case, McKnight's +first words showed our parallel lines of thought. + +"I say, Lollie," he asked, "do you remember Dorothy Browne?" Browne, +that was it! + +"Dorothy Browne?" I repeated. "Oh--why yes, I recall her now. Why?" + +"Nothing," he said. "I was thinking about her. That's all. You +remember you were crazy about her, and dropped back because she +preferred me." + +"I got out," I said with dignity, "because you declared you would +shoot yourself if she didn't go with you to something or other!" + +"Oh, why yes, I recall now!" he mimicked. He tossed his cigarette +in the general direction of the hearth and got up. We were both a +little conscious, and he stood with his back to me, fingering a +Japanese vase on the mantel. + +"I was thinking," he began, turning the vase around, "that, if you +feel pretty well again, and--and ready to take hold, that I should +like to go away for a week or so. Things are fairly well cleaned +up at the office." + +"Do you mean--you are going to Richmond?" I asked, after a scarcely +perceptible pause. He turned and faced me, with his hands thrust in +his pockets. + +"No. That's off, Lollie. The Sieberts are going for a week's +cruise along the coast. I--the hot weather has played hob with me +and the cruise means seven days' breeze and bridge." + +I lighted a cigarette and offered him the box, but he refused. He +was looking haggard and suddenly tired. I could not think of +anything to say, and neither could he, evidently. The matter between +us lay too deep for speech. + +"How's Candida?" he asked. + +"Martin says a month, and she will be all right," I returned, in the +same tone. He picked up his hat, but he had something more to say. +He blurted it out, finally, half way to the door. + +"The Seiberts are not going for a couple of days," he said, "and if +you want a day or so off to go down to Richmond yourself--" + +"Perhaps I shall," I returned, as indifferently as I could. "Not +going yet, are you?" + +"Yes. It is late." He drew in his breath as if he had something +more to say, but the impulse passed. "Well, good night," he said +from the doorway. + +"Good night, old man." + +The next moment the outer door slammed and I heard the engine of the +Cannonball throbbing in the street. Then the quiet settled down +around me again, and there in the lamplight I dreamed dreams. I was +going to see her. + +Suddenly the idea of being shut away, even temporarily, from so great +and wonderful a world became intolerable. The possibility of arrest +before I could get to Richmond was hideous, the night without end. + +I made my escape the next morning through the stable back of the +house, and then, by devious dark and winding ways, to the office. +There, after a conference with Blobs, whose features fairly jerked +with excitement, I double-locked the door of my private office and +finished off some imperative work. By ten o'clock I was free, and +for the twentieth time I consulted my train schedule. At five +minutes after ten, with McKnight not yet in sight, Blobs knocked at +the door, the double rap we had agreed upon, and on being admitted +slipped in and quietly closed the door behind him. His eyes were +glistening with excitement, and a purple dab of typewriter ink gave +him a peculiarly villainous and stealthy expression. + +"They're here," he said, "two of 'em, and that crazy Stuart wasn't +on, and said you were somewhere in the building." + +A door slammed outside, followed by steps on the uncarpeted outer +office. + +"This way," said Blobs, in a husky undertone, and, darting into a +lavatory, threw open a door that I had always supposed locked. +Thence into a back hall piled high with boxes and past the presses +of a bookbindery to the freight elevator. + +Greatly to Blobs' disappointment, there was no pursuit. I was +exhilarated but out of breath when we emerged into an alleyway, and +the sharp daylight shone on Blobs' excited face. + +"Great sport, isn't it?" I panted, dropping a dollar into his palm, +inked to correspond with his face. "Regular walk-away in the +hundred-yard dash." + +"Gimme two dollars more and I'll drop 'em down the elevator shaft," +he suggested ferociously. I left him there with his blood-thirsty +schemes, and started for the station. I had a tendency to look +behind me now and then, but I reached the station unnoticed. The +afternoon was hot, the train rolled slowly along, stopping to pant +at sweltering stations, from whose roofs the heat rose in waves. +But I noticed these things objectively, not subjectively, for at the +end of the journey was a girl with blue eyes and dark brown hair, +hair that could--had I not seen it?--hang loose in bewitching +tangles or be twisted into little coils of delight. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE SEA, THE SAND, THE STARS + + +I telephoned as soon as I reached my hotel, and I had not known how +much I had hoped from seeing her until I learned that she was out +of town. I hung up the receiver, almost dizzy with disappointment, +and it was fully five minutes before I thought of calling up again +and asking if she was within telephone reach. It seemed she was +down on the bay staying with the Samuel Forbeses. + +Sammy Forbes! It was a name to conjure with just then. In the old +days at college I had rather flouted him, but now I was ready to +take him to my heart. I remembered that he had always meant well, +anyhow, and that he was explosively generous. I called him up. + +"By the fumes of gasoline!" he said, when I told him who I was. +"Blakeley, the Fount of Wisdom against Woman! Blakeley, the Great +Unkissed! Welcome to our city!" + +Whereupon he proceeded to urge me to come down to the Shack, and to +say that I was an agreeable surprise, because four times in two +hours youths had called up to ask if Alison West was stopping with +him, and to suggest that they had a vacant day or two. "Oh--Miss +West!" I shouted politely. There was a buzzing on the line. "Is +she there?" Sam had no suspicions. Was not I in his mind always +the Great Unkissed?--which sounds like the Great Unwashed and is +even more of a reproach. He asked me down promptly, as I had hoped, +and thrust aside my objections. + +"Nonsense," he said. "Bring yourself. The lady that keeps my +boarding-house is calling to me to insist. You remember Dorothy, +don't you, Dorothy Browne? She says unless you have lost your +figure you can wear my clothes all right. All you need here is +a bathing suit for daytime and a dinner coat for evening." + +"It sounds cool," I temporized. "If you are sure I won't put you +out--very well, Sam, since you and your wife are good enough. I +have a couple of days free. Give my love to Dorothy until I can do +it myself." + +Sam met me himself and drove me out to the Shack, which proved to +be a substantial house overlooking the water. On the way he confided +to me that lots of married men thought they were contented when they +were merely resigned, but that it was the only life, and that Sam, +Junior, could swim like a duck. Incidentally, he said that Alison was +his wife's cousin, their respective grandmothers having, at proper +intervals, married the same man, and that Alison would lose her good +looks if she was not careful. + +"I say she's worried, and I stick to it," he said, as he threw the +lines to a groom and prepared to get out. "You know her, and she's +the kind of girl you think you can read like a book. But you can't; +don't fool yourself. Take a good look at her at dinner, Blake; you +won't lose your head like the other fellows--and then tell me what's +wrong with her. We're mighty fond of Allie." + +He went ponderously up the steps, for Sam had put on weight since +I knew him. At the door he turned around. "Do you happen to know +the MacLures at Seal Harbor?" he asked irrelevantly, but Mrs. Sam +came into the hall just then, both hands out to greet me, and, +whatever Forbes had meant to say, he did not pick up the subject +again. + +"We are having tea in here," Dorothy said gaily, indicating the door +behind her. "Tea by courtesy, because I think tea is the only +beverage that isn't represented. And then we must dress, for this +is hop night at the club." + +"Which is as great a misnomer as the tea," Sam put in, ponderously +struggling out of his linen driving coat. "It's bridge night, and +the only hops are in the beer." + +He was still gurgling over this as he took me upstairs. He showed +me my room himself, and then began the fruitless search for evening +raiment that kept me home that night from the club. For I couldn't +wear Sam's clothes. That was clear, after a perspiring seance of a +half hour. + +"I won't do it, Sam," I said, when I had draped his dress-coat on +me toga fashion. "Who am I to have clothing to spare, like this, +when many a poor chap hasn't even a cellar door to cover him. I +won't do it; I'm selfish, but not that selfish." + +"Lord," he said, wiping his face, "how you've kept your figure! I +can't wear a belt any more; got to have suspenders." + +He reflected over his grievance for some time, sitting on the side +of the bed. "You could go as you are," he said finally. "We do it +all the time, only to-night happens to be the annual something or +other, and--" he trailed off into silence, trying to buckle my +belt around him. "A good six inches," he sighed. "I never get +into a hansom cab any more that I don't expect to see the horse fly +up into the air. Well, Allie isn't going either. She turned down +Granger this afternoon, the Annapolis fellow you met on the stairs, +pigeon-breasted chap--and she always gets a headache on those +occasions." + +He got up heavily and went to the door. "Granger is leaving," he +said, "I may be able to get his dinner coat for you. How well do +you know her?" he asked, with his hand on the knob. + +"If you mean Dolly--?" + +"Alison." + +"Fairly well," I said cautiously. "Not as well as I would like to. +I dined with her last week in Washington. And--I knew her before +that." + +Forbes touched the bell instead of going out, and told the servant +who answered to see if Mr. Granger's suitcase had gone. If not, to +bring it across the hail. Then he came back to his former position +on the bed. + +"You see, we feel responsible for Allie--near relation and all +that," he began pompously. "And we can't talk to the people here at +the house--all the men are in love with her, and all the women are +jealous. Then--there's a lot of money, too, or will be." + +"Confound the money!" I muttered. "That is--nothing. Razor +slipped." + +"I can tell you," he went on, "because you don't lose your head over +every pretty face--although Allie is more than that, of course. +But about a month ago she went away--to Seal Harbor, to visit Janet +MacLure. Know her?" + +"She came home to Richmond yesterday, and then came down here +--Allie, I mean. And yesterday afternoon Dolly had a letter from +Janet--something about a second man--and saying she was +disappointed not to have had Alison there, that she had promised +them a two weeks' visit! What do you make of that? And that isn't +the worst. Allie herself wasn't in the room, but there were eight +other women, and because Dolly had put belladonna in her eyes the +night before to see how she would look, and as a result couldn't +see anything nearer than across the room, some one read the letter +aloud to her, and the whole story is out. One of the cats told +Granger and the boy proposed to Allie to-day, to show her he didn't +care a tinker's dam where she had been." + +"Good boy!" I said, with enthusiasm. I liked the Granger fellow +--since he was out of the running. But Sam was looking at me with +suspicion. + +"Blake," he said, "if I didn't know you for what you are, I'd say +you were interested there yourself." + +Being so near her, under the same roof, with even the tie of a +dubious secret between us, was making me heady. I pushed Forbes +toward the door. + +"I interested!" I retorted, holding him by the shoulders. "There +isn't a word in your vocabulary to fit my condition. I am an +island in a sunlit sea of emotion, Sam, a--an empty place surrounded +by longing--a--" + +"An empty place surrounded by longing!" he retorted. "You want your +dinner, that's what's the matter with you--" + +I shut the door on him then. He seemed suddenly sordid. Dinner, I +thought! Although, as matter of fact, I made a very fair meal when, +Granger's suitcase not having gone, in his coat and some other man's +trousers, I was finally fit for the amenities. Alison did not come +down to dinner, so it was clear she would not go over to the +club-house dance. I pled my injured arm and a ficticious, vaguely +located sprain from the wreck, as an excuse for remaining at home. +Sam regaled the table with accounts of my distrust of women, my one +love affair--with Dorothy; to which I responded, as was expected, +that only my failure there had kept me single all these years, and +that if Sam should be mysteriously missing during the bathing hour +to-morrow, and so on. + +And when the endless meal was over, and yards of white veils had +been tied over pounds of hair--or is it, too, bought by the yard? +--and some eight ensembles with their abject complements had been +packed into three automobiles and a trap, I drew a long breath and +faced about. I had just then only one object in life--to find +Alison, to assure her of my absolute faith and confidence in her, +and to offer my help and my poor self, if she would let me, in her +service. + +She was not easy to find. I searched the lower floor, the verandas +and the grounds, circumspectly. Then I ran into a little English +girl who turned out to be her maid, and who also was searching. +She was concerned because her mistress had had no dinner, and +because the tray of food she carried would soon be cold. I took +the tray from her, on the glimpse of something white on the shore, +and that was how I met the Girl again. + +She was sitting on an over-turned boat, her chin in her hands, +staring out to sea. The soft tide of the bay lapped almost at her +feet, and the draperies of her white gown melted hazily into the +sands. She looked like a wraith, a despondent phantom of the sea, +although the adjective is redundant. Nobody ever thinks of a +cheerful phantom. Strangely enough, considering her evident sadness, +she was whistling softly to herself, over and over, some dreary +little minor air that sounded like a Bohemian dirge. She glanced +up quickly when I made a misstep and my dishes jingled. All +considered, the tray was out of the picture: the sea, the misty +starlight, the girl, with her beauty--even the sad little whistle +that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though it +fought against the odds of a trembling lip. And then I came, +accompanied by a tray of little silver dishes that jingled and an +unmistakable odor of broiled chicken! + +"Oh!" she said quickly; and then, "Oh! I thought you were Jenkins." + +"Timeo Danaos--what's the rest of it?" I asked, tendering my +offering. "You didn't have any dinner, you know." I sat down +beside her. "See, I'll be the table. What was the old fairy tale? +'Little goat bleat: little table appear!' I'm perfectly willing +to be the goat, too." + +She was laughing rather tremulously. + +"We never do meet like other people, do we?" she asked. "We really +ought to shake hands and say how are you." + +"I don't want to meet you like other people, and I suppose you always +think of me as wearing the other fellow's clothes," I returned meekly. +"I'm doing it again: I don't seem to be able to help it. These are +Granger's that I have on now." + +She threw back her head and laughed again, joyously, this time. + +"Oh, it's so ridiculous," she said, "and you have never seen me when +I was not eating! It's too prosaic!" + +"Which reminds me that the chicken is getting cold, and the ice +warm," I suggested. "At the time, I thought there could be no place +better than the farmhouse kitchen--but this is. I ordered all this +for something I want to say to you--the sea, the sand, the stars." + +"How alliterative you are!" she said, trying to be flippant. "You +are not to say anything until I have had my supper. Look how the +things are spilled around!" + +But she ate nothing, after all, and pretty soon I put the tray down +in the sand. I said little; there was no hurry. We were together, +and time meant nothing against that age-long wash of the sea. The +air blew her hair in small damp curls against her face, and little +by little the tide retreated, leaving our boat an oasis in a waste +of gray sand. + + "If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year + Do you suppose, the walrus said, that they could get it clear?" + +she threw at me once when she must have known I was going to speak. +I held her hand, and as long as I merely held it she let it lie warm +in mine. But when I raised it to my lips, and kissed the soft, open +palm, she drew it away without displeasure. + +"Not that, please," she protested, and fell to whistling softly again, +her chin in her hands. "I can't sing," she said, to break an awkward +pause, "and so, when I'm fidgety, or have something on my mind, I +whistle. I hope you don't dislike it?" + +"I love it," I asserted warmly. I did; when she pursed her lips +like that I was mad to kiss them. + +"I saw you--at the station," she said, suddenly. "You--you were +in a hurry to go." I did not say anything, and after a pause she +drew a long breath. "Men are queer, aren't they?" she said, and +fell to whistling again. + +After a while she sat up as if she had made a resolution. "I am +going to confess something," she announced suddenly. "You said, +you know, that you had ordered all this for something you--you +wanted to say to me. But the fact is, I fixed it all--came here, +I mean, because--I knew you would come, and I had something to +tell you. It was such a miserable thing I--needed the accessories +to help me out." + +"I don't want to hear anything that distresses you to tell," I +assured her. "I didn't come here to force your confidence, Alison. +I came because I couldn't help it." She did not object to my use +of her name. + +"Have you found--your papers?" she asked, looking directly at me +for almost the first time. + +"Not yet. We hope to." + +"The--police have not interfered with you?" + +"They haven't had any opportunity," I equivocated. "You needn't +distress yourself about that, anyhow." + +"But I do. I wonder why you still believe in me? Nobody else does." + +"I wonder," I repeated, "why I do!" + +"If you produce Harry Sullivan," she was saying, partly to herself, +"and if you could connect him with Mr. Bronson, and get a full +account of why he was on the train, and all that, it--it would +help, wouldn't it?" + +I acknowledged that it would. Now that the whole truth was almost +in my possession, I was stricken with the old cowardice. I did +not want to know what she might tell me. The yellow line on the +horizon, where the moon was coming up, was a broken bit of golden +chain: my heel in the sand was again pressed on a woman's yielding +fingers: I pulled myself together with a jerk. + +"In order that what you might tell me may help me, if it will," I +said constrainedly, "it would be necessary, perhaps, that you tell +it to the police. Since they have found the end of the necklace--" + +"The end of the necklace!" she repeated slowly. "What about the +end of the necklace?" + +I stared at her. "Don't you remember"--I leaned forward--"the +end of the cameo necklace, the part that was broken off, and was +found in the black sealskin bag, stained with--with blood?" + +"Blood," she said dully. "You mean that you found the broken end? +And then--you had my gold pocket-book, and you saw the necklace in +it, and you--must have thought--" + +"I didn't think anything," I hastened to assure her. "I tell you, +Alison, I never thought of anything but that you were unhappy, and +that I had no right to help you. God knows, I thought you didn't +want me to help you." + +She held out her hand to me and I took it between both of mine. No +word of love had passed between us, but I felt that she knew and +understood. It was one of the moments that come seldom in a +lifetime, and then only in great crises, a moment of perfect +understanding and trust. + +Then she drew her hand away and sat, erect and determined, her +fingers laced in her lap. As she talked the moon came up slowly +and threw its bright pathway across the water. Back of us, in +the trees beyond the sea wall, a sleepy bird chirruped drowsily, +and a wave, larger and bolder than its brothers, sped up the sand, +bringing the moon's silver to our very feet. I bent toward the +girl. + +"I am going to ask just one question." + +"Anything you like." Her voice was almost dreary. "Was it because +of anything you are going to tell me that you refused Richey?" + +She drew her breath in sharply. + +"No," she said, without looking at me. "No. That was not the +reason." + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +ALISON'S STORY + + +She told her story evenly, with her eyes on the water, only now +and then, when I, too, sat looking seaward, I thought she glanced +at me furtively. And once, in the middle of it, she stopped +altogether. + +"You don't realize it, probably," she protested, "but you look like +a--a war god. Your face is horrible." + +"I will turn my back, if it will help any," I said stormily, "but +if you expect me to look anything but murderous, why, you don't +know what I am going through with. That's all." + +The story of her meeting with the Curtis woman was brief enough. +They had met in Rome first, where Alison and her mother had taken +a villa for a year. Mrs. Curtis had hovered on the ragged edges of +society there, pleading the poverty of the south since the war as +a reason for not going out more. There was talk of a brother, but +Alison had not seen him, and after a scandal which implicated Mrs. +Curtis and a young attache of the Austrian embassy, Alison had +been forbidden to see the woman. + +"The women had never liked her, anyhow," she said. "She did +unconventional things, and they are very conventional there. And +they said she did not always pay her--her gambling debts. I didn't +like them. I thought they didn't like her because she was poor +--and popular. Then--we came home, and I almost forgot her, but +last spring, when mother was not well--she had taken grandfather +to the Riviera, and it always uses her up--we went to Virginia Hot +Springs, and we met them there, the brother, too, this time. His +name was Sullivan, Harry Pinckney Sullivan." + +"I know. Go on." + +"Mother had a nurse, and I was alone a great deal, and they were +very kind to me. I--I saw a lot of them. The brother rather +attracted me, partly--partly because he did not make love to me. +He even seemed to avoid me, and I was piqued. I had been spoiled, +I suppose. Most of the other men I knew had--had--" + +"I know that, too," I said bitterly, and moved away from her a +trifle. I was brutal, but the whole story was a long torture. I +think she knew what I was suffering, for she showed no resentment. + +"It was early and there were few people around--none that I cared +about. And mother and the nurse played cribbage eternally, until I +felt as though the little pegs were driven into my brain. And when +Mrs. Curtis arranged drives and picnics, I--I slipped away and went. +I suppose you won't believe me, but I had never done that kind of +thing before, and I--well, I have paid up, I think." + +"What sort of looking chap was Sullivan?" I demanded. I had got up +and was pacing back and forward on the sand. I remember kicking +savagely at a bit of water-soaked board that lay in my way. + +"Very handsome--as large as you are, but fair, and even more erect." + +I drew my shoulders up sharply. I am straight enough, but I was +fairly sagging with jealous rage. + +"When mother began to get around, somebody told her that I had been +going about with Mrs. Curtis and her brother, and we had a dreadful +time. I was dragged home like a bad child. Did anybody ever do +that to you?" + +"Nobody ever cared. I was born an orphan," I said, with a cheerless +attempt at levity. "Go on." + +"If Mrs. Curtis knew, she never said anything. She wrote me charming +letters, and in the summer, when they went to Cresson, she asked me +to visit her there. I was too proud to let her know that I could +not go where I wished, and so--I sent Polly, my maid, to her aunt's +in the country, pretended to go to Seal Harbor, and really went to +Cresson. You see I warned you it would be an unpleasant story." + +I went over and stood in front of her. All the accumulated jealousy +of the last few weeks had been fired by what she told me. If +Sullivan had come across the sands just then, I think I would have +strangled him with my hands, out of pure hate. + +"Did you marry him?" I demanded. My voice sounded hoarse and strange +in my ears. "That's all I want to know. Did you marry him?" + +"No." + +I drew a long breath. + +"You--cared about him?" + +She hesitated. + +"No," she said finally. "I did not care about him." + +I sat down on the edge of the boat and mopped my hot face. I was +heartily ashamed of myself, and mingled with my abasement was a +great relief. If she had not married him, and had not cared for +him, nothing else was of any importance. + +"I was sorry, of course, the moment the train had started, but I +had wired I was coming, and I could not go back, and then when I +got there, the place was charming. There were no neighbors, but we +fished and rode and motored, and--it was moonlight, like this." + +I put my hand over both of hers, clasped in her lap. "I know," I +acknowledged repentantly, "and--people do queer things when it is +moonlight. The moon has got me to-night, Alison. If I am a boor, +remember that, won't you?" + +Her fingers lay quiet under mine. "And so," she went on with a +little sigh, "I began to think perhaps I cared. But all the time +I felt that there was something not quite right. Now and then Mrs. +Curtis would say or do something that gave me a queer start, as if +she had dropped a mask for a moment. And there was trouble with the +servants; they were almost insolent. I couldn't understand. I +don't know when it dawned on me that the old Baron Cavalcanti had +been right when he said they were not my kind of people. But I +wanted to get away, wanted it desperately." + +"Of course, they were not your kind," I cried. "The man was +married! The girl Jennie, a housemaid, was a spy in Mrs. Sullivan's +employ. If he had pretended to marry you I would have killed him! +Not only that, but the man he murdered, Harrington, was his wife's +father. And I'll see him hang by the neck yet if it takes every +energy and every penny I possess." + +I could have told her so much more gently, have broken the shock +for her; I have never been proud of that evening on the sand. I +was alternately a boor and a ruffian--like a hurt youngster who +passes the blow that has hurt him on to his playmate, that both +may bawl together. And now Alison sat, white and cold, without +speech. + +"Married!" she said finally, in a small voice. "Why, I don't think +it is possible, is it? I--I was on my way to Baltimore to marry +him myself, when the wreck came." + +"But you said you didn't care for him!" I protested, my heavy +masculine mind unable to jump the gaps in her story. And then, +without the slightest warning, I realized that she was crying. She +shook off my hand and fumbled for her handkerchief, and failing to +find it, she accepted the one I thrust into her wet fingers. + +Then, little by little, she told me from the handkerchief, a sordid +story of a motor trip in the mountains without Mrs. Curtis, of a +lost road and a broken car, and a rainy night when they--she and +Sullivan, tramped eternally and did not get home. And of Mrs. +Curtis, when they got home at dawn, suddenly grown conventional and +deeply shocked. Of her own proud, half-disdainful consent to make +possible the hackneyed compromising situation by marrying the rascal, +and then--of his disappearance from the train. It was so terrible +to her, such a Heaven-sent relief to me, in spite of my rage against +Sullivan, that I laughed aloud. At which she looked at me over the +handkerchief. + +"I know it's funny," she said, with a catch in her breath. "When I +think that I nearly married a murderer--and didn't--I cry for +sheer joy." Then she buried her face and cried again. + +"Please don't," I protested unsteadily. "I won't be responsible if +you keep on crying like that. I may forget that I have a capital +charge hanging over my head, and that I may be arrested at any +moment." + +That brought her out of the handkerchief at once. "I meant to be +so helpful," she said, "and I've thought of nothing but myself! +There were some things I meant to tell you. If Jennie was--what +you say, then I understand why she came to me just before I left. +She had been packing my things and she must have seen what condition +I was in, for she came over to me when I was getting my wraps on, to +leave, and said, 'Don't do it, Miss West, I beg you won't do it; +you'll be sorry ever after.' And just then Mrs. Curtis came in and +Jennie slipped out." + +"That was all?" + +"No. As we went through the station the telegraph operator gave +Har--Mr. Sullivan a message. He read it on the platform, and it +excited him terribly. He took his sister aside and they talked +together. He was white with either fear or anger--I don't know +which. Then, when we boarded the train, a woman in black, with +beautiful hair, who was standing on the car platform, touched him +on the arm and then drew back. He looked at her and glanced away +again, but she reeled as if he had struck her." + +"Then what?" The situation was growing clearer. + +"Mrs. Curtis and I had the drawing-room. I had a dreadful night, +just sleeping a little now and then. I dreaded to see dawn come. +It was to be my wedding-day. When we found Harry had disappeared +in the night, Mrs. Curtis was in a frenzy. Then--I saw his +cigarette case in your hand. I had given it to him. You wore his +clothes. The murder was discovered and you were accused of it! +What could I do? And then, afterward, when I saw him asleep at +the farmhouse, I--I was panic-stricken. I locked him in and ran. +I didn't know why he did it, but--he had killed a man." + +Some one was calling Alison through a megaphone, from the veranda. +It sounded like Sam. "All-ee," he called. "All-ee! I'm going to +have some anchovies on toast! All-ee!" Neither of us heard. + +"I wonder," I reflected, "if you would be willing to repeat a part +of that story--just from the telegram on--to a couple of +detectives, say on Monday. If you would tell that, and--how the +end of your necklace got into the sealskin bag--" + +"My necklace!" she repeated. "But it isn't mine. I picked it up +in the car." + +"All-ee!" Sam again. "I see you down there. I'm making a julep!" + +Alison turned and called through her hands. "Coming in a moment, +Sam," she said, and rose. "It must be very late: Sam is home. We +would better go back to the house." + +"Don't," I begged her. "Anchovies and juleps and Sam will go on +for ever, and I have you such a little time. I suppose I am only +one of a dozen or so, but--you are the only girl in the world. You +know I love you, don't you, dear?" + +Sam was whistling, an irritating bird call, over and over. She +pursed her red lips and answered him in kind. It was more than +I could endure. + +"Sam or no Sam," I said firmly, "I am going to kiss you!" + +But Sam's voice came strident through the megaphone. "Be good, you +two," he bellowed, "I've got the binoculars!" And so, under fire, +we walked sedately back to the house. My pulses were throbbing +--the little swish of her dress beside me on the grass was pain +and ecstasy. I had but to put out my hand to touch her, and I +dared not. + +Sam, armed with a megaphone and field glasses, bent over the rail +and watched us with gleeful malignity. + +"Home early, aren't you?" Alison called, when we reached the steps. + +"Led a club when my partner had doubled no-trumps, and she fainted. +Damn the heart convention!" he said cheerfully. "The others are +not here yet." + +Three hours later I went up to bed. I had not seen Alison alone +again. The noise was at its height below, and I glanced down into +the garden, still bright in the moonlight. Leaning against a tree, +and staring interestedly into the billiard room, was Johnson. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +IN THE DINING-ROOM + + +That was Saturday night, two weeks after the wreck. The previous +five days had been full of swift-following events--the woman in +the house next door, the picture in the theater of a man about to +leap from the doomed train, the dinner at the Dallases', and Richey's +discovery that Alison was the girl in the case. In quick succession +had come our visit to the Carter place, the finding of the rest of +the telegram, my seeing Alison there, and the strange interview with +Mrs. Conway. The Cresson trip stood out in my memory for its +serio-comic horrors and its one real thrill. Then--the discovery +by the police of the seal-skin bag and the bit of chain; Hotchkiss +producing triumphantly Stuart for Sullivan and his subsequent +discomfiture; McKnight at the station with Alison, and later the +confession that he was out of the running. + +And yet, when I thought it all over, the entire week and its events +were two sides of a triangle that was narrowing rapidly to an apex, +a point. And the said apex was at that moment in the drive below +my window, resting his long legs by sitting on a carriage block, +and smoking a pipe that made the night hideous. The sense of the +ridiculous is very close to the sense of tragedy. I opened my screen +and whistled, and Johnson looked up and grinned. We said nothing. I +held up a handful of cigars, he extended his hat, and when I finally +went to sleep, it was to a soothing breeze that wafted in salt air +and a faint aroma of good tobacco. I was thoroughly tired, but I +slept restlessly, dreaming of two detectives with Pittsburg warrants +being held up by Hotchkiss at the point of a splint, while Alison +fastened their hands with a chain that was broken and much too short. +I was roused about dawn by a light rap at the door, and, opening it, +I found Forbes, in a pair of trousers and a pajama coat. He was as +pleasant as most fleshy people are when they have to get up at night, +and he said the telephone had been ringing for an hour, and he +didn't know why somebody else in the blankety-blank house couldn't +have heard it. He wouldn't get to sleep until noon. + +As he was palpably asleep on his feet, I left him grumbling and went +to the telephone. It proved to be Richey, who had found me by the +simple expedient of tracing Alison, and he was jubilant. + +"You'll have to come back," he said. "Got a railroad schedule +there?" + +"I don't sleep with one in my pocket," I retorted, "but if you'll +hold the line I'll call out the window to Johnson. He's probably +got one."' + +"Johnson!" I could hear the laugh with which McKnight comprehended +the situation. He was still chuckling when I came back. + +"Train to Richmond at six-thirty A.M.," I said. "What time is it +now?" + +"Four. Listen, Lollie. We've got him. Do you hear? Through the +woman at Baltimore. Then the other woman, the lady of the +restaurant"--he was obviously avoiding names--"she is playing our +cards for us. No--I don't know why, and I don't care. But you be +at the Incubator to-night at eight o'clock. If you can't shake +Johnson, bring him, bless him." + +To this day I believe the Sam Forbeses have not recovered from the +surprise of my unexpected arrival, my one appearance at dinner in +Granger's clothes, and the note on my dresser which informed them +the next morning that I had folded my tents like the Arabs and +silently stole away. For at half after five Johnson and I, the +former as uninquisitive as ever, were on our way through the dust +to the station, three miles away, and by four that afternoon we +were in Washington. The journey had been uneventful. Johnson +relaxed under the influence of my tobacco, and spoke at some length +on the latest improvements in gallows, dilating on the absurdity of +cutting out the former free passes to see the affair in operation. +I remember, too, that he mentioned the curious anomaly that permits +a man about to be hanged to eat a hearty meal. I did not enjoy my +dinner that night. + +Before we got into Washington I had made an arrangement with Johnson +to surrender myself at two the following afternoon. Also, I had +wired to Alison, asking her if she would carry out the contract she +had made. The detective saw me home, and left me there. Mrs. +Klopton received me with dignified reserve. The very tone in which +she asked me when I would dine told me that something was wrong. + +"Now--what is it, Mrs. Klopton?" I demanded finally, when she had +informed me, in a patient and long-suffering tone, that she felt +worn out and thought she needed a rest. + +"When I lived with Mr. Justice Springer," she began acidly, her +mending-basket in her hands, "it was an orderly, well-conducted +household. You can ask any of the neighbors. Meals were cooked +and, what's more, they were eaten; there was none of this 'here +one day and gone the next' business." + +"Nonsense," I observed. "You're tired, that's all, Mrs. Klopton. +And I wish you would go out; I want to bathe." + +"That's not all," she said with dignity, from the doorway. "Women +coming and going here, women whose shoes I am not fit--I mean, +women who are not fit to touch my shoes--coming here as insolent +as you please, and asking for you." + +"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What did you tell them--her, +whichever it was?" + +"Told her you were sick in a hospital and wouldn't be out for a +year!" she said triumphantly. "And when she said she thought she'd +come in and wait for you, I slammed the door on her." + +"What time was she here?" + +"Late last night. And she had a light-haired man across the street. +If she thought I didn't see him, she don't know me." Then she +closed the door and left me to my bath and my reflections. + +At five minutes before eight I was at the Incubator, where I found +Hotchkiss and McKnight. They were bending over a table, on which +lay McKnight's total armament--a pair of pistols, an elephant gun +and an old cavalry saber. + +"Draw up a chair and help yourself to pie," he said, pointing to +the arsenal. "This is for the benefit of our friend Hotchkiss here, +who says he is a small man and fond of life." + +Hotchkiss, who had been trying to get the wrong end of a cartridge +into the barrel of one of the revolvers, straightened himself and +mopped his face. + +"We have desperate people to handle," he said pompously, "and we +may need desperate means." + +"Hotchkiss is like the small boy whose one ambition was to have +people grow ashen and tremble at the mention of his name," McKnight +jibed. But they were serious enough, both of them, under it all, +and when they had told me what they planned, I was serious, too. + +"You're compounding a felony," I remonstrated, when they had +explained. "I'm not eager to be locked away, but, by Jove, to +offer her the stolen notes in exchange for Sullivan!" + +"We haven't got either of them, you know," McKnight remonstrated, +"and we won't have, if we don't start. Come along, Fido," to +Hotchkiss. + +The plan was simplicity itself. According to Hotchkiss, Sullivan +was to meet Bronson at Mrs. Conway's apartment, at eight-thirty that +night, with the notes. He was to be paid there and the papers +destroyed. "But just before that interesting finale," McKnight +ended, "we will walk in, take the notes, grab Sullivan, and give +the police a jolt that will put them out of the count." + +I suppose not one of us, slewing around corners in the machine that +night, had the faintest doubt that we were on the right track, or +that Fate, scurvy enough before, was playing into our hands at last. +Little Hotchkiss was in a state of fever; he alternately twitched +and examined the revolver, and a fear that the two movements might +be synchronous kept me uneasy. He produced and dilated on the scrap +of pillow slip from the wreck, and showed me the stiletto, with its +point in cotton batting for safekeeping. And in the intervals he +implored Richey not to make such fine calculations at the corners. + +We were all grave enough and very quiet, however, when we reached +the large building where Mrs. Conway had her apartment. McKnight +left the power on, in case we might want to make a quick get-away, +and Hotchkiss gave a final look at the revolver. I had no weapon. +Somehow it all seemed melodramatic to the verge of farce. In the +doorway Hotchkiss was a half dozen feet ahead; Richey fell back +beside me. He dropped his affectation of gayety, and I thought +he looked tired. "Same old Sam, I suppose?" he asked. + +"Same, only more of him." + +"I suppose Alison was there? How is she?" he inquired irrelevantly. + +"Very well. I did not see her this morning." + +Hotchkiss was waiting near the elevator. McKnight put his hand on +my arm. "Now, look here, old man," he said, "I've got two arms and +a revolver, and you've got one arm and a splint. If Hotchkiss is +right, and there is a row, you crawl under a table." + +"The deuce I will!" I declared scornfully. + +We crowded out of the elevator at the fourth floor, and found +ourselves in a rather theatrical hallway of draperies and armor. +It was very quiet; we stood uncertainly after the car had gone, +and looked at the two or three doors in sight. They were heavy, +covered with metal, and sound proof. From somewhere above came +the metallic accuracy of a player-piano, and through the open +window we could hear--or feel--the throb of the Cannonball's +engine. + +"Well, Sherlock," McKnight said, "what's the next move in the +game? Is it our jump, or theirs? You brought us here." + +None of us knew just what to do next. No sound of conversation +penetrated the heavy doors. We waited uneasily for some minutes, +and Hotchkiss looked at his watch. Then he put it to his ear. + +"Good gracious!" he exclaimed, his head cocked on one side, "I +believe it has stopped. I'm afraid we are late." + +We were late. My watch and Hotchkiss' agreed at nine o clock, and, +with the discovery that our man might have come and gone, our zest +in the adventure began to flag. McKnight motioned us away from the +door and rang the bell. There was no response, no sound within. He +rang it twice, the last time long and vigorously, without result. +Then he turned and looked at us. + +"I don't half like this," he said. "That woman is in; you heard me +ask the elevator boy. For two cents I'd--" + +I had seen it when he did. The door was ajar about an inch, and a +narrow wedge of rose-colored light showed beyond. I pushed the door +a little and listened. Then, with both men at my heels, I stepped +into the private corridor of the apartment and looked around. It +was a square reception hall, with rugs on the floor, a tall mahogany +rack for hats, and a couple of chairs. A lantern of rose-colored +glass and a desk light over a writing-table across made the room +bright and cheerful. It was empty. + +None of us was comfortable. The place was full of feminine trifles +that made us feel the weakness of our position. Some such instinct +made McKnight suggest division. + +"We look like an invading army," he said. "If she's here alone, we +will startle her into a spasm. One of us could take a look around +and--" + +"What was that? Didn't you hear something?" + +The sound, whatever it had been, was not repeated. We went +awkwardly out into the hall, very uncomfortable, all of us, and +flipped a coin. The choice fell to me, which was right enough, +for the affair was mine, primarily. + +"Wait just inside the door," I directed, "and if Sullivan comes, +or anybody that answers his description, grab him without ceremony +and ask him questions afterwards." + +The apartment, save in the hallway, was unlighted. By one of those +freaks of arrangement possible only in the modern flat, I found the +kitchen first, and was struck a smart and unexpected blow by a +swinging door. I carried a handful of matches, and by the time +I had passed through a butler's pantry and a refrigerator room I +was completely lost in the darkness. Until then the situation had +been merely uncomfortable; suddenly it became grisly. From +somewhere near came a long-sustained groan, followed almost instantly +by the crash of something--glass or china--on the floor. + +I struck a fresh match, and found myself in a narrow rear hallway. +Behind me was the door by which I must have come; with a keen desire +to get back to the place I had started from, I opened the door and +attempted to cross the room. I thought I had kept my sense of +direction, but I crashed without warning into what, from the +resulting jangle, was the dining-table, probably laid for dinner. +I cursed my stupidity in getting into such a situation, and I +cursed my nerves for making my hand shake when I tried to strike a +match. The groan had not been repeated. + +I braced myself against the table and struck the match sharply +against the sole of my shoe. It flickered faintly and went out. +And then, without the slightest warning, another dish went off the +table. It fell with a thousand splinterings; the very air seemed +broken into crashing waves of sound. I stood still, braced +against the table, holding the red end of the dying match, and +listened. I had not long to wait; the groan came again, and I +recognized it, the cry of a dog in straits. I breathed again. + +"Come, old fellow," I said. "Come on, old man. Let's have a look +at you." + +I could hear the thud of his tail on the floor, but he did not move. +He only whimpered. There is something companionable in the presence +of a dog, and I fancied this dog in trouble. Slowly I began to work +my way around the table toward him. + +"Good boy," I said, as he whimpered. "We'll find the light, which +ought to be somewhere or other around here, and then--" + +I stumbled over something, and I drew back my foot almost instantly. +"Did I step on you, old man?" I exclaimed, and bent to pat him. I +remember straightening suddenly and hearing the dog pad softly +toward me around the table. I recall even that I had put the +matches down and could not find them. Then, with a bursting horror +of the room and its contents, of the gibbering dark around me, I +turned and made for the door by which I had entered. + +I could not find it. I felt along the endless wainscoting, past +miles of wall. The dog was beside me, I think, but he was part and +parcel now, to my excited mind, with the Thing under the table. +And when, after aeons of search, I found a knob and stumbled into +the reception hall, I was as nearly in a panic as any man could be. + +I was myself again in a second, and by the light from the hall I +led the way back to the tragedy I had stumbled on. Bronson still +sat at the table, his elbows propped on it, his cigarette still +lighted, burning a hole in the cloth. Partly under the table lay +Mrs. Conway face down. The dog stood over her and wagged his tail. + +McKnight pointed silently to a large copper ashtray, filled with +ashes and charred bits of paper. + +"The notes, probably," he said ruefully. "He got them after all, +and burned them before her. It was more than she could stand. +Stabbed him first and then herself." + +Hotchkiss got up and took off his hat. "They are dead," he +announced solemnly, and took his note-book out of his hatband. + +McKnight and I did the only thing we could think of--drove +Hotchkiss and the dog out of the room, and closed and locked the +door. "It's a matter for the police," McKnight asserted. "I +suppose you've got an officer tied to you somewhere, Lawrence? +You usually have." + +We left Hotchkiss in charge and went down-stairs. It was McKnight +who first saw Johnson, leaning against a park railing across the +street, and called him over. We told him in a few words what we +had found, and he grinned at me cheerfully. + +"After while, in a few weeks or months, Mr. Blakeley," he said, +"when you get tired of monkeying around with the blood-stain and +finger-print specialist up-stairs, you come to me. I've had that +fellow you want under surveillance for ten days!" + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +FINER DETAILS + + +At ten minutes before two the following day, Monday, I arrived at +my office. I had spent the morning putting my affairs in shape, +and in a trip to the stable. The afternoon would see me either a +free man or a prisoner for an indefinite length of time, and, in +spite of Johnson's promise to produce Sullivan, I was more prepared +for the latter than the former. + +Blobs was watching for me outside the door, and it was clear that +he was in a state of excitement bordering on delirium. He did +nothing, however, save to tip me a wink that meant "As man to man, +I'm for you." I was too much engrossed either to reprove him or +return the courtesy, but I heard him follow me down the hall to the +small room where we keep outgrown lawbooks, typewriter supplies and, +incidentally, our wraps. I was wondering vaguely if I would ever +hang my hat on its nail again, when the door closed behind me. It +shut firmly, without any particular amount of sound, and I was left +in the dark. I groped my way to it, irritably, to find it locked +on the outside. I shook it frantically, and was rewarded by a +sibilant whisper through the keyhole. + +"Keep quiet," Blobs was saying huskily. "You're in deadly peril. +The police are waiting in your office, three of 'em. I'm goin' to +lock the whole bunch in and throw the key out of the window." + +"Come back here, you imp of Satan!" I called furiously, but I could +hear him speeding down the corridor, and the slam of the outer +office door by which he always announced his presence. And so I +stood there in that ridiculous cupboard, hot with the heat of a +steaming September day, musty with the smell of old leather +bindings, littered with broken overshoes and handleless umbrellas. +I was apoplectic with rage one minute, and choked with laughter +the next. It seemed an hour before Blobs came back. + +He came without haste, strutting with new dignity, and paused +outside my prison door. + +"Well, I guess that will hold them for a while," he remarked +comfortably, and proceeded to turn the key. "I've got 'em fastened +up like sardines in a can!" he explained, working with the lock. +"Gee whiz! you'd ought to hear 'em!" When he got his breath after +the shaking I gave him, he began to splutter. "How'd I know?" he +demanded sulkily. "You nearly broke your neck gettin' away the +other time. And I haven't got the old key. It's lost." + +"Where's it lost?" I demanded, with another gesture toward his +coat collar. + +"Down the elevator shaft." There was a gleam of indignant +satisfaction through his tears of rage and humiliation. + +And so, while he hunted the key in the debris at the bottom of the +shaft, I quieted his prisoners with the assurance that the lock had +slipped, and that they would be free as lords as soon as we could +find the janitor with a pass-key. Stuart went down finally and +discovered Blobs, with the key in his pocket, telling the engineer +how he had tried to save me from arrest and failed. When Stuart +came up he was almost cheerful, but Blobs did not appear again that +day. + +Simultaneous with the finding of the key came Hotchkiss, and we went +in together. I shook hands with two men who, with Hotchkiss, made +a not very animated group. The taller one, an oldish man, lean and +hard, announced his errand at once. + +"A Pittsburg warrant?" I inquired, unlocking my cigar drawer. + +"Yes. Allegheny County has assumed jurisdiction, the exact locality +where the crime was committed being in doubt." He seemed to be the +spokesman. The other, shorter and rotund, kept an amiable silence. +"We hope you will see the wisdom of waiving extradition," he went +on. "It will save time." + +"I'll come, of course," I agreed. "The sooner the better. But I +want you to give me an hour here, gentlemen. I think we can +interest you. Have a cigar?" + +The lean man took a cigar; the rotund man took three, putting two +in his pocket. + +"How about the catch of that door?" he inquired jovially. "Any +danger of it going off again?" Really, considering the +circumstances, they were remarkably cheerful. Hotchkiss, however, +was not. He paced the floor uneasily, his hands under his +coat-tails. The arrival of McKnight created a diversion; he carried +a long package and a corkscrew, and shook hands with the police and +opened the bottle with a single gesture. + +"I always want something to cheer on these occasions," he said. +"Where's the water, Blakeley? Everybody ready?" Then in French he +toasted the two detectives. + +"To your eternal discomfiture," he said, bowing ceremoniously. "May +you go home and never come back! If you take Monsieur Blakeley with +you, I hope you choke." + +The lean man nodded gravely. "Prosit," he said. But the fat one +leaned back and laughed consumedly. + +Hotchkiss finished a mental synopsis of his position, and put down +his glass. "Gentlemen," he said pompously, "within five minutes +the man you want will be here, a murderer caught in a net of +evidence so fine that a mosquito could not get through." + +The detectives glanced at each other solemnly. Had they not in +their possession a sealskin bag containing a wallet and a bit of +gold chain, which, by putting the crime on me, would leave a gap +big enough for Sullivan himself to crawl through? + +"Why don't you say your little speech before Johnson brings the +other man, Lawrence?" McKnight inquired. "They won't believe you, +but it will help them to understand what is coming." + +"You understand, of course," the lean man put in gravely, "that what +you say may be used against you." + +"I'll take the risk," I answered impatiently. + +It took some time to tell the story of my worse than useless trip +to Pittsburg, and its sequel. They listened gravely, without +interruption. + +"Mr. Hotchkiss here," I finished, "believes that the man Sullivan, +whom we are momentarily expecting, committed the crime. Mr. +McKnight is inclined to implicate Mrs. Conway, who stabbed Bronson +and then herself last night. As for myself, I am open to +conviction." + +"I hope not," said the stout detective quizzically. And then Alison +was announced. My impulse to go out and meet her was forestalled +by the detectives, who rose when I did. McKnight, therefore, brought +her in, and I met her at the door. + +"I have put you to a great deal of trouble," I said contritely, when +I saw her glance around the room. "I wish I had not--" + +"It is only right that I should come," she replied, looking up at +me. "I am the unconscious cause of most of it, I am afraid. Mrs. +Dallas is going to wait in the outer office." + +I presented Hotchkiss and the two detectives, who eyed her with +interest. In her poise, her beauty, even in her gown, I fancy she +represented a new type to them. They remained standing until she +sat down. + +"I have brought the necklace," she began, holding out a white-wrapped +box, "as you asked me to." + +I passed it, unopened, to the detectives. "The necklace from which +was broken the fragment you found in the sealskin bag," I explained. +"Miss West found it on the floor of the car, near lower ten." + +"When did you find it?" asked the lean detective, bending forward. + +"In the morning, not long before the wreck." + +"Did you ever see it before?" + +"I am not certain," she replied. "I have seen one very much like +it." Her tone was troubled. She glanced at me as if for help, but +I was powerless. + +"Where?" The detective was watching her closely. At that moment +there came an interruption. The door opened without ceremony, and +Johnson ushered in a tall, blond man, a stranger to all of us: I +glanced at Alison; she was pale, but composed and scornful. She met +the new-comer's eyes full, and, caught unawares, he took a hasty +backward step. + +"Sit down, Mr. Sullivan," McKnight beamed cordially. "Have a cigar? +I beg your pardon, Alison, do you mind this smoke?" + +"Not at all," she said composedly. Sullivan had had a second to +sound his bearings. + +"No--no, thanks," he mumbled. "If you will be good enough to +explain--" + +"But that's what you're to do," McKnight said cheerfully, pulling +up a chair. "You've got the most attentive audience you could ask. +These two gentlemen are detectives from Pittsburg, and we are all +curious to know the finer details of what happened on the car Ontario +two weeks ago, the night your father-in-law was murdered." Sullivan +gripped the arms of his chair. "We are not prejudiced, either. The +gentlemen from Pittsburg are betting on Mr. Blakeley, over there. +Mr. Hotchkiss, the gentleman by the radiator, is ready to place ten +to one odds on you. And some of us have still other theories." + +"Gentlemen," Sullivan said slowly, "I give you my word of honor +that I did not kill Simon Harrington, and that I do not know who +did." + +"Fiddlededee!" cried Hotchkiss, bustling forward. "Why, I can tell +you--" But McKnight pushed him firmly into a chair and held him +there. + +"I am ready to plead guilty to the larceny," Sullivan went on. "I +took Mr. Blakeley's clothes, I admit. If I can reimburse him in +any way for the inconvenience-" + +The stout detective was listening with his mouth open. "Do you mean +to say," he demanded, "that you got into Mr. Blakeley's berth, as +he contends, took his clothes and forged notes, and left the train +before the wreck?" + +"Yes." + +"The notes, then?" + +"I gave them to Bronson yesterday. Much good they did him!" +bitterly. We were all silent for a moment. The two detectives +were adjusting themselves with difficulty to a new point of view; +Sullivan was looking dejectedly at the floor, his hands hanging +loose between his knees. I was watching Alison; from where I stood, +behind her, I could almost touch the soft hair behind her ear. + +"I have no intention of pressing any charge against you," I said +with forced civility, for my hands were itching to get at him, "if +you will give us a clear account of what happened on the Ontario +that night." + +Sullivan raised his handsome, haggard head and looked around at me. +"I've seen you before, haven't I?" he asked. "Weren't you an +uninvited guest at the Laurels a few days--or nights--ago? The +cat, you remember, and the rug that slipped?" + +"I remember," I said shortly. He glanced from me to Alison and +quickly away. + +"The truth can't hurt me," he said, "but it's devilish unpleasant. +Alison, you know all this. You would better go out." + +His use of her name crazed me. I stepped in front of her and stood +over him. "You will not bring Miss West into the conversation," I +threatened, "and she will stay if she wishes." + +"Oh, very well," he said with assumed indifference. Hotchkiss just +then escaped from Richey's grasp and crossed the room. + +"Did you ever wear glasses?" he asked eagerly. + +"Never." Sullivan glanced with some contempt at mine. + +"I'd better begin by going back a little," he went on sullenly. "I +suppose you know I was married to Ida Harrington about five years +ago. She was a good girl, and I thought a lot of her. But her +father opposed the marriage--he'd never liked me, and he refused +to make any sort of settlement. + +"I had thought, of course, that there would be money, and it was a +bad day when I found out I'd made a mistake. My sister was wild +with disappointment. We were pretty hard up, my sister and I." + +I was watching Alison. Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap, +and she was staring out of the window at the cheerless roof below. +She had set her lips a little, but that was all. + +"You understand, of course, that I'm not defending myself," went on +the sullen voice. "The day came when old Harrington put us both +out of the house at the point of a revolver, and I threatened--I +suppose you know that, too--I threatened to kill him. + +"My sister and I had hard times after that. We lived on the +continent for a while. I was at Monte Carlo and she was in Italy. +She met a young lady there, the granddaughter of a steel +manufacturer and an heiress, and she sent for me. When I got to +Rome the girl was gone. Last winter I was all in--social +secretary to an Englishman, a wholesale grocer with a new title, +but we had a row, and I came home. I went out to the Heaton boys' +ranch in Wyoming, and met Bronson there. He lent me money, and +I've been doing his dirty work ever since." + +Sullivan got up then and walked slowly forward and back as he +talked, his eyes on the faded pattern of the office rug. + +"If you want to live in hell," he said savagely, "put yourself in +another man's power. Bronson got into trouble, forging John +Gilmore's name to those notes, and in some way he learned that a +man was bringing the papers back to Washington on the Flier. He +even learned the number of his berth, and the night before the +wreck, just as I was boarding the train, I got a telegram." + +Hotchkiss stepped forward once more importantly. "Which read, I +think: 'Man with papers in lower ten, car seven. Get them.'" + +Sullivan looked at the little man with sulky blue eyes. + +"It was something like that, anyhow. But it was a nasty business, +and it made matters worse that he didn't care that a telegram which +must pass through a half dozen hands was more or less incriminating +to me. + +"Then, to add to the unpleasantness of my position, just after we +boarded the train--I was accompanying my sister and this young lady, +Miss West--a woman touched me on the sleeve, and I turned to face +--my wife! + +"That took away my last bit of nerve. I told my sister, and you +can understand she was in a bad way, too. We knew what it meant. +Ida had heard that I was going--" + +He stopped and glanced uneasily at Alison. + +"Go on," she said coldly. "It is too late to shield me. The time +to have done that was when I was your guest." + +"Well," he went on, his eyes turned carefully away from my face, +which must have presented certainly anything but a pleasant sight. +"Miss West was going to do me the honor to marry me, and--" + +"You scoundrel!" I burst forth, thrusting past Alison West's chair. +"You--you infernal cur!" + +One of the detectives got up and stood between us. "You must +remember, Mr. Blakeley, that you are forcing this story from this +man. These details are unpleasant, but important. You were going +to marry this young lady," he said, turning to Sullivan, "although +you already had a wife living?" + +"It was my sister's plan, and I was in a bad way for money. If I +could marry, secretly, a wealthy girl and go to Europe, it was +unlikely that Ida--that is, Mrs. Sullivan--would hear of it. + +"So it was more than a shock to see my wife on the train, and to +realize from her face that she knew what was going on. I don't +know yet, unless some of the servants--well, never mind that. + +"It meant that the whole thing had gone up. Old Harrington had +carried a gun for me for years, and the same train wouldn't hold +both of us. Of course, I thought that he was in the coach just +behind ours." + +Hotchkiss was leaning forward now, his eyes narrowed, his thin +lips drawn to a line. + +"Are you left-handed, Mr. Sullivan?" he asked. + +Sullivan stopped in surprise. + +"No," he said gruffly. "Can't do anything with my left hand." +Hotchkiss subsided, crestfallen but alert. "I tore up that cursed +telegram, but I was afraid to throw the scraps away. Then I looked +around for lower ten. It was almost exactly across--my berth was +lower seven, and it was, of course, a bit of exceptional luck for +me that the car was number seven." + +"Did you tell your sister of the telegram from Bronson?" I asked. + +"No. It would do no good, and she was in a bad way without that to +make her worse." + +"Your sister was killed, think." The shorter detective took a small +package from his pocket and held it in his hand, snapping the rubber +band which held it. + +"Yes, she was killed," Sullivan said soberly. "What I say now can +do her no harm." + +He stopped to push back the heavy hair which dropped over his +forehead, and went on more connectedly. + +"It was late, after midnight, and we went at once to our berths. +I undressed, and then I lay there for an hour, wondering how I was +going to get the notes. Some one in lower nine was restless and +wide awake, but finally became quiet. + +"The man in ten was sleeping heavily. I could hear his breathing, +and it seemed to be only a question of getting across and behind +the curtains of his berth without being seen. After that, it was +a mere matter of quiet searching. + +"The car became very still. I was about to try for the other berth, +when some one brushed softly past, and I lay back again. + +"Finally, however, when things had been quiet for a time, I got up, +and after looking along the aisle, I slipped behind the curtains of +lower ten. You understand, Mr. Blakeley, that I thought you were +in lower ten, with the notes." + +I nodded curtly. + +"I'm not trying to defend myself," he went on. "I was ready to +steal the notes--I had to. But murder!" + +He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. + +"Well, I slipped across and behind the curtains. It was very still. +The man in ten didn't move, although my heart was thumping until I +thought he would hear it. + +"I felt around cautiously. It was perfectly dark, and I came across +a bit of chain, about as long as my finger. It seemed a queer thing +to find there, and it was sticky, too." + +He shuddered, and I could see Alison's hands clenching and +unclenching with the strain. + +"All at once it struck me that the man was strangely silent, and I +think I lost my nerve. Anyhow, I drew the curtains open a little, +and let the light fall on my hands. They were red, blood-red." + +He leaned one hand on the back of the chair, and was silent for a +moment, as though he lived over again the awful events of that more +than awful night. + +The stout detective had let his cigar go out; he was still drawing +at it nervously. Richey had picked up a paper-weight and was +tossing it from hand to hand; when it slipped and fell to the floor, +a startled shudder passed through the room. + +"There was something glittering in there," Sullivan resumed, "and +on impulse I picked it up. Then I dropped the curtains and stumbled +back to my own berth." + +"Where you wiped your hands on the bed-clothing and stuck the dirk +into the pillow." Hotchkiss was seeing his carefully built +structure crumbling to pieces, and he looked chagrined. + +"I suppose I did--I'm not very clear about what happened then. +But when I rallied a little I saw a Russia leather wallet lying in +the aisle almost at my feet, and, like a fool, I stuck it, with +the bit of chain, into my bag. + +"I sat there, shivering, for what seemed hours. It was still +perfectly quiet, except for some one snoring. I thought that would +drive me crazy. + +"The more I thought of it the worse things looked. The telegram was +the first thing against me--it would put the police on my track at +once, when it was discovered that the man in lower ten had been +killed. + +"Then I remembered the notes, and I took out the wallet and opened +it." + +He stopped for a minute, as if the recalling of the next occurrence +was almost beyond him. + +"I took out the wallet," he said simply, "and opening it, held it +to the light. In gilt letters was the name, Simon Harrington." + +The detectives were leaning forward now, their eyes on his face. + +"Things seemed to whirl around for a while. I sat there almost +paralyzed, wondering what this new development meant for me. + +"My wife, I knew, would swear I had killed her father; nobody would +be likely to believe the truth. + +"Do you believe me now?" He rooked around at us defiantly. "I am +telling the absolute truth, and not one of you believes me! + +"After a bit the man in lower nine got up and walked along the +aisle toward the smoking compartment. I heard him go, and, leaning +from my berth, watched him out of sight. + +"It was then I got the idea of changing berths with him, getting +into his clothes, and leaving the train. I give you my word I had +no idea of throwing suspicion on him." + +Alison looked scornfully incredulous, but I felt that the man was +telling the truth. + +"I changed the numbers of the berths, and it worked well. I got +into the other man's berth, and he came back to mine. The rest was +easy. I dressed in his clothes--luckily, they fitted--and jumped +the train not far from Baltimore, just before the wreck." + +"There is something else you must clear up," I said. "Why did you +try to telephone me from M-, and why did you change your mind about +the message?" + +He looked astounded. + +"You knew I was at M-?" he stammered. + +"Yes, we traced you. What about the message?" + +"Well, it was this way: of course, I did not know your name, Mr. +Blakeley. The telegram said, 'Man with papers in lower ten, car +seven," and after I had made what I considered my escape, I began +to think I had left the man in my berth in a bad way. + +"He would probably be accused of the crime. So, although when the +wreck occurred I supposed every one connected with the affair had +been killed, there was a chance that you had survived. I've not +been of much account, but I didn't want a man to swing because I'd +left him in my place. Besides, I began to have a theory of my own. + +"As we entered the car a tall, dark woman passed us, with a glass +of water in her hand, and I vaguely remembered her. She was +amazingly like Blanche Conway. + +"If she, too, thought the man with the notes was in lower ten, it +explained a lot, including that piece of a woman's necklace. She +was a fury, Blanche Conway, capable of anything." + +"Then why did you countermand that message?" I asked curiously. + +"When I got to the Carter house, and got to bed--I had sprained my +ankle in the jump--I went through the alligator bag I had taken +from lower nine. When I found your name, I sent the first message. +Then, soon after, I came across the notes. It seemed too good to be +true, and I was crazy for fear the message had gone. + +"At first I was going to send them to Bronson; then I began to see +what the possession of the notes meant to me. It meant power over +Bronson, money, influence, everything. He was a devil, that man." + +"Well, he's at home now," said McKnight, and we were glad to laugh +and relieve the tension. + +Alison put her hand over her eyes, as if to shut out the sight of +the man she had so nearly married, and I furtively touched one of +the soft little curls that nestled at the back of her neck. + +"When I was able to walk," went on the sullen voice, "I came at +once to Washington. I tried to sell the notes to Bronson, but he +was almost at the end of his rope. Not even my threat to send them +back to you, Mr. Blakeley, could make him meet my figure. He didn't +have the money. + +McKnight was triumphant. + +"I think you gentlemen will see reason in my theory now," he said. +"Mrs. Conway wanted the notes to force a legal marriage, I suppose?" + +"Yes." + +The detective with the small package carefully rolled off the rubber +band, and unwrapped it. I held my breath as he took out, first, +the Russia leather wallet. + +"These things, Mr. Blakeley, we found in the seal-skin bag Mr. +Sullivan says he left you. This wallet, Mr. Sullivan--is this the +one you found on the floor of the car?" + +Sullivan opened it, and, glancing at the name inside, "Simon +Harrington," nodded affirmatively. + +"And this," went on the detective--"this is a piece of gold chain?" + +"It seems to be," said Sullivan, recoiling at the blood-stained end. + +"This, I believe, is the dagger." He held it up, and Alison gave +a faint cry of astonishment and dismay. Sullivan's face grew +ghastly, and he sat down weakly on the nearest chair. + +The detective looked at him shrewdly, then at Alison's agitated face. + +"Where have you seen this dagger before, young lady?" he asked, +kindly enough. + +"Oh, don't ask me!" she gasped breathlessly, her eyes turned on +Sullivan. "It's--it's too terrible!" + +"Tell him," I advised, leaning over to her. "It will be found out +later, anyhow." + +"Ask him," she said, nodding toward Sullivan. The detective +unwrapped the small box Alison had brought, disclosing the trampled +necklace and broken chain. With clumsy fingers he spread it on the +table and fitted into place the bit of chain. There could be no +doubt that it belonged there. + +"Where did you find that chain?" Sullivan asked hoarsely, looking +for the first time at Alison. + +"On the floor, near the murdered man's berth." + +"Now, Mr. Sullivan," said the detective civilly, "I believe you can +tell us, in the light of these two exhibits, who really did murder +Simon Harrington." + +Sullivan looked again at the dagger, a sharp little bit of steel +with a Florentine handle. Then he picked up the locket and pressed +a hidden spring under one of the cameos. Inside, very neatly +engraved, was the name and a date. + +"Gentlemen," he said, his face ghastly, "it is of no use for me to +attempt a denial. The dagger and necklace belonged to my sister, +Alice Curtis!" + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +AND ONLY ONE ARM + + +Hotchkiss was the first to break the tension. + +"Mr. Sullivan," he asked suddenly, "was your sister left-handed?" + +"Yes." + +Hotchkiss put away his note-book and looked around with an air of +triumphant vindication. It gave us a chance to smile and look +relieved. After all, Mrs. Curtis was dead. It was the happiest +solution of the unhappy affair. McKnight brought Sullivan some +whisky, and he braced up a little. + +"I learned through the papers that my wife was in a Baltimore +hospital, and yesterday I ventured there to see her. I felt if she +would help me to keep straight, that now, with her father and my +sister both dead, we might be happy together. + +"I understand now what puzzled me then. It seemed that my sister +went into the next car and tried to make my wife promise not to +interfere. But Ida--Mrs. Sullivan--was firm, of course. She +said her father had papers, certificates and so on, that would stop +the marriage at once. + +"She said, also, that her father was in our car, and that there +would be the mischief to pay in the morning. It was probably when +my sister tried to get the papers that he awakened, and she had to +do--what she did." + +It was over. Save for a technicality or two, I was a free man. +Alison rose quietly and prepared to go; the men stood to let her +pass, save Sullivan who sat crouched in his chair, his face buried +in his hands. Hotchkiss, who had been tapping the desk with his +pencil, looked up abruptly and pointed the pencil at me. + +"If all this is true, and I believe it is,--then who was in the +house next door, Blakeley, the night you and Mr. Johnson searched? +You remember, you said it was a woman's hand at the trap door." + +I glanced hastily at Johnson, whose face was impassive. He had his +hand on the knob of the door and he opened it before he spoke. + +"There were a number of scratches on Mrs. Conway's right hand," he +observed to the room in general. "Her wrist was bandaged and badly +bruised." + +He went out then, but he turned as he closed the door and threw at +me a glance of half-amused, half-contemptuous tolerance. + +McKnight saw Alison, with Mrs. Dallas, to their carriage, and came +back again. The gathering in the office was breaking up. Sullivan, +looking worn and old, was standing by the window, staring at the +broken necklace in his hand. When he saw me watching him, he put +it on the desk and picked up his hat. + +"If I can not do anything more--" he hesitated. + +"I think you have done about enough," I replied grimly, and he went +out. + +I believe that Richey and Hotchkiss led me somewhere to dinner, and +that, for fear I would be lonely without him, they sent for Johnson. +And I recall a spirited discussion in which Hotchkiss told the +detective that he could manage certain cases, but that he lacked +induction. Richey and I were mainly silent. My thoughts would slip +ahead to that hour, later in the evening, when I should see Alison +again. + +I dressed in savage haste finally, and was so particular about my +tie that Mrs. Klopton gave up in despair. + +"I wish, until your arm is better, that you would buy the kind that +hooks on," she protested, almost tearfully. "I'm sure they look +very nice, Mr. Lawrence. My late husband always--" + +"That's a lover's knot you've tied this time," I snarled, and, +jerking open the bow knot she had so painfully executed, looked out +the window for Johnson--until I recalled that he no longer belonged +in my perspective. I ended by driving frantically to the club +and getting George to do it. + +I was late, of course. The drawing-room and library at the Dallas +home were empty. I could hear billiard balls rolling somewhere, +and I turned the other way. I found Alison at last on the balcony, +sitting much as she had that night on the beach,--her chin in her +hands, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the trees and lights of the +square across. She was even whistling a little, softly. But this +time the plaintiveness was gone. It was a tender little tune. She +did not move, as I stood beside her, looking down. And now, when +the moment had come, all the thousand and one things I had been +waiting to say forsook me, precipitately beat a retreat, and left +me unsupported. The arc-moon sent little fugitive lights over her +hair, her eyes, her gown. + +"Don't--do that," I said unsteadily. "You--you know what I want +to do when you whistle!" + +She glanced up at me, and she did not stop. She did not stop! +She went on whistling softly, a bit tremulously. And straightway +I forgot the street, the chance of passers-by, the voices in the +house behind us. "The world doesn't hold any one but you," I +said reverently. "It is our world, sweetheart. I love you." + +And I kissed her. + +A boy was whistling on the pavement below. I let her go reluctantly +and sat back where I could see her. + +"I haven't done this the way I intended to at all," I confessed. +"In books they get things all settled, and then kiss the lady." + +"Settled?" she inquired. + +"Oh, about getting married and that sort of thing," I explained +with elaborate carelessness. "We--we could go down to Bermuda--or +--or Jamaica, say in December." + +She drew her hand away and faced me squarely. + +"I believe you are afraid!" she declared. "I refuse to marry you +unless you propose properly. Everybody does it. And it is a +woman's privilege: she wants to have that to look back to." + +"Very well," I consented with an exaggerated sigh. "If you will +promise not to think I look like an idiot, I shall do it, knee and +all." + +I had to pass her to close the door behind us, but when I kissed +her again she protested that we were not really engaged. + +I turned to look down at her. "It is a terrible thing," I said +exultantly, "to love a girl the way I love you, and to have only +one arm!" Then I closed the door. + +From across the street there came a sharp crescendo whistle, and a +vaguely familiar figure separated itself from the park railing. + +"Say," he called, in a hoarse whisper, "shall I throw the key down +the elevator shaft?" + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Man in Lower Ten, by Rinehart + diff --git a/old/tmilt10.zip b/old/tmilt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..30cff7a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tmilt10.zip |
