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diff --git a/34934-8.txt b/34934-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..10d7af0 --- /dev/null +++ b/34934-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9049 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of '£ 19,000', by Burford Delannoy + +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: '£19,000' + +Author: Burford Delannoy + +Release Date: January 12, 2011 [EBook #34934] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK '£19,000' *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + + + + +"£19,000" + + + + +"£19,000" + + * * * * * + +By BURFORD DELANNOY + + * * * * * + +_Author of "The Garden Court Murder" +"The Missing Cyclist" Etc. Etc._ + + * * * * * + +[Illustration] + + * * * * * + +R. F. FENNO & COMPANY +9 and 11 East Sixteenth Street, New York + + * * * * * + +WARD LOCK & COMPANY, LONDON + + + + +Copyright, 1900, by +R. F. FENNO & COMPANY + + + + +Contents + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. THE DENTIST'S IN FINSBURY SQUARE 7 + II. WHAT WAS FOUND ON THE BODY 16 + III. ON BOARD THE AMERICAN LINER 23 + IV. THE CITY LAWYER AND THE CLIENT FROM THE WILD AND + WOOLY WEST 30 + V. BETWEEN LIVERPOOL AND QUEENSTOWN 38 + VI. MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS 45 + VII. THE NUMBERS OF THE MISSING NOTES 52 + VIII. THE SEALED UP CABIN 61 + IX. A WAITING WIFE'S DISCOVERY 68 + X. HOW THE DEVIL TEMPTED HIM 76 + XI. A LIFE FOR A LIFE 83 + XII. FATHER AND CHILD--THE OLD STORY 91 + XIII. LOVERS--MORE OF THE OLD STORY 98 + XIV. THE METHOD IN SUSAN TODD'S MADNESS 105 + XV. BOUND TO THE WHEEL 113 + XVI. SUSAN TODD SEES A GHOST 120 + XVII. A SICK BED CONFESSION 126 + XVIII. A WIFE FOR REWARD 133 + XIX. GERALD PUTS HIS NOSE TO THE TRAIL 140 + XX. INSIDE THE LAWYER'S OFFICE 148 + XXI. THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S ART AND ARTFULNESS 156 + XXII. THE HANDCUFFS PLAY AN IMPORTANT PART 163 + XXIII. AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE DENTIST 171 + XXIV. AN AMATEUR CARPENTER 178 + XXV. A WOULD-BE SUICIDE 181 + XXVI. GERALD WALKS INTO THE TRAP 195 + XXVII. PECULIAR MESSENGERS 203 + XXVIII. A PISTOL AND AN OPEN GRAVE 211 + XXIX. THE NEXT MOVE IN THE GAME 218 + XXX. AT THE DENTIST'S 226 + XXXI. MOON BLINDNESS 234 + XXXII. THE LOVERS MEET 241 + XXXIII. THIEF! 249 + XXXIV. A THEATRICAL MAKE-UP 254 + XXXV. NOT A MAN TO STICK AT TRIFLES 262 + XXXVI. ONCE MORE ON THE TRACK 270 + XXXVII. THE LAWYER LIFTED INTO ANOTHER SPHERE 277 + XXXVIII. MRS. DEPEW HOLDS THE REINS 284 + XXXIX. MRS. DEPEW HAS THINGS HER OWN WAY 290 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE DENTIST'S IN FINSBURY SQUARE + + +The gong fixed in the door frame sounded. + +A man entered as Sawyer hurriedly ceased a perusal of the pages of the +_Boys of the World_, and stuffed that sample of the literature of young +England up his page's jacket. + +"Is the boss in?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I want a tooth out." + +"Yes, sir. Will you take a seat a moment?" + +The boy handed the visitor a newspaper as he spoke, and then entered the +inner room. To his employer he said: + +"Gent wants a tooth extracted, sir." + +He had attained the word "extracted" by diligent practice. It had been +hard work, but he got home with it at last. + +There was a hope prevailing in the dentist's breast that in time the boy +would be able to say "gentleman"; at present there were no indications +of the realization of that hope beyond the word's first syllable. + +The dentist was wearily glancing out of the window. He looked very down +in the mouth. + +That is said of him metaphorically, as, actually, it is part of the +business of a dentist to do that sort of thing. That is patent. + +He had little to do but admire the scenery of Finsbury Circus. It is not +an inspiring landscape--weariness naturally follows its frequent +observation. + +His brother had rooms a few doors away, and was the proprietor of a +brass plate which bore four letters after his name--Arthur Lennox, +M.R.C.S. + +Sawyer was a divided possession. However impossible it may seem for a +man to serve two masters, the boy did--it came cheaper that way. + +The surgeon and dentist were not having good times. + +Patience is necessary in waiting for patients, and the stock of it they +had laid in when they started in their respective practices was nearly +exhausted. + +Overdue rent and unpaid bills stared them in the face. In addition to +their kinship they were brothers in misfortune. + +It was such a rare thing for a patient to call that, when the page +announced one, the dentist quite started. Immediately he said: + +"Show him in." + +The boy did so, and retired. To his visitor, the dentist said: + +"Good-morning." + +"Good-morning. You are Mr. Charles Lennox?" + +There was just that twang about the speaker's voice which some persons +find so "charming"--and others tip their noses at--American. + +"That is my name." + +"I saw it up on the wire blind with the word 'dentist' after it." + +"You need dental attention?" + +"I need a tooth out." + +"Will you sit down here?" + +"Say! Hold on a minute. There's another combination on your blind. +'Painless Dentistry.'" + +"Yes." + +"I want to sample that kind." + +"You mean--gas?" + +"I mean the kind where you yank the tooth out without the owner knowing +it. I've heard that it's done that way." + +"Oh, yes, very frequently." + +"Then fire away, boss." + +"I shall have to ask you to wait a minute or two." + +"What for?" + +"I must send for a medical man to administer the gas." + +"Can't do it yourself?" + +"No, it is not usual." + +"Will it be long?" + +"No, my anæsthetist is but a few doors away." + +"All right, then." + +"It is proper that I should mention that for the administration of gas +an extra fee is charged." + +"How do you mean?" + +"The charge is half a guinea extra." + +"Fifteen and six in all?" + +"Yes." + +"That's all right. If it really comes out without my knowing it, I +shan't ask for my change out of a sovereign. Money's no object with me +just now." + +The dentist looked his opinion of the speaker, and, opening the +communication doors, called the boy. + +"Run in to Mr. Arthur, and ask him if he will come in--gas patient +waiting." + +The boy ran in--and remained in Mr. Arthur Lennox' rooms, minding them +while the surgeon went to help his brother. + +As he entered the dentist's sanctum, the man who had been sent for said: + +"Good-morning." + +"Good-morning; are you the pain killer?" + +"That is my present mission," replied the surgeon, with a smile, as he +drew out the rubber gas bag, and prepared the apparatus. + +"What happens after I'm loaded? Sort of balloon business, this. How long +do I stay gassed up?" + +"But a minute, and during that minute the tooth is extracted." + +"Sure it don't hurt?" + +"Not at all--take my word for it. You are conscious, perhaps, of what is +being done, but you will experience no pain." + +"All right, then. It's warm in here; do you mind me taking off my coat, +mister?" + +"Not at all." + +"I've been walking around pretty much all to-day winding things up." + +"Ah!" + +Politeness induced the surgeon to utter that exclamation; he was wholly +uninterested. He wondered why patients should be so communicative. + +"Yes; I'm off back to the States to-morrow. I have been round to Eldon +Street about my passage, and as I walked into Finsbury Circus, blest if +this tooth didn't come on aching a treat. I didn't reckon on any +dentist being aboard the boat, so, when I saw your sign, I popped right +in." + +"And now, if you will sit here.... So. That's it." + +"Hullo! what's that?" + +"Don't be nervous--just the gas. Imagine you are going to sleep. That is +it.... There you are; Charley, he's gone under." + +The surgeon walked aside, the dentist took his place, and, instrument in +hand, quickly operated. + +As he put the forceps down, and picked up a glass of water, he suddenly +cried: + +"Arthur! what's wrong? Arthur, quick!" + +The surgeon was at the window, drumming with his finger-tips on the +panes. He turned round hurriedly when he was addressed and inquired: + +"What's the matter?" + +But he needed no verbal answer. A look at the patient's face told him +much. + +He clawed up a towel, and putting it beneath the chin, snatched the +glass of water the dentist was holding, and dashed it on the livid, +colorless face.... It had no effect. + +He threw the glass and towel down, and felt the pulse, tore open the +man's vest, and applied his stethoscope; seized the body, laid it on the +floor, and on his knees was astride it. + +"Brandy," he said, as he started in his muscular endeavor to restore +animation. + +His brother brought brandy, and poured some between the unconscious +man's lips. + +"My case is in the bag, Charley," said the surgeon, as he continued his +efforts to pump air into the man's lungs. "Fill the hypo-syringe with +brandy." + +The dentist did so, and handed it to his brother. + +The injection had no effect. Once more the manual exercise was +tried--tried for nearly half an hour. + +The dentist wore a very white face as he watched what was being +done--the exercise kept the color in the surgeon's. + +But when presently the latter rose to his feet and wiped the +perspiration from his brow with his handkerchief, the hue of his face +was in close competition with his brother's. + +"Lock the outer door, Charley," he said, hoarsely. + +The dentist did so without a word, but with a shaking hand. When he +returned, the surgeon was drinking neat brandy. + +And when he had finished drinking, he poured out more, and handed the +glass to his brother. + +The dentist looked his inquiry. The surgeon answered it: + +"Yes. Dead. This happens about once in five thousand cases. Our luck, I +suppose, our luck still helping us." + +He said this very bitterly, as they stood looking down at the body. + +Presently the dentist inquired: + +"What is to be done?" + +The other shook his head by way of reply. + +Again the dentist broke the silence. + +"Shall we send for the police?" + +"What good will that do?" + +"It is the usual thing, is it----" + +"Usual! The whole thing is unusual. The police spells for us ruin. A +thing of this sort gets into the papers, and we might as well put up the +shutters at once." + +"Can we avoid----?" + +"We must. Let me think--yes." + +"You have thought of something?" + +"Plain and ordinary enough. It did not want much thinking about." + +"What is it?" + +"Finsbury Circus is deserted at night?" + +"Yes." + +"Wait till then. Then throw the body over the rails into the Circus +garden. Let the police find it there." + +"Horrible!" + +"Why? The man's dead. The police have to find the body. What can it +matter whether it is found in these rooms or the open air? It can't hurt +the dead man to be found there. It will certainly hurt us if he is found +here." + +"That's so." + +There was no help for it. Their exchequer was low enough down as it +was--they must prevent the happening of anything which would reduce it +still lower. + +They had no belief in the proverb that when things were at their worst +they would mend--because their condition was as bad as it very well +could be, and there was an utter absence of any sign of a mend about +it. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +WHAT WAS FOUND ON THE BODY + + +"Couldn't we put the body in a cab and send it home?" + +"Could--but it would probably mean putting ourselves in the bankruptcy, +if not the police court. The thing would be traced home to us. True, the +bankruptcy would come only a little before the appointed time, just +hasten things along, as it were." + +"Could not we put----?" + +"Let's put the body in this cupboard. That's the wisest thing to do for +the present.... That's it. Turn the key. Now I'll get round to my rooms +and send Sawyer back. That little imp must have no inkling of what has +happened." + +"He leaves at five o'clock." + +"And it is close on that hour. Let him come in, and suppose the place +empty. Let him leave at the usual time, in the usual way, and then I +will come back." + +Things happened that way, and soon after Sawyer had left for the day, +the surgeon closed his offices and went into the dentist's. + +He locked the outer door, and walking into the inner chamber, said: + +"Charley, I have been thinking it over, and it does seem an awful thing +to do that over the railings business. Mind you, I still believe it all +sentiment, but, if possible, we will find out where the man lived, and +devise a means of driving him home." + +"Won't it be dangerous?" + +"Yes. Still we will risk it. It seems a brutal thing to do as I +suggested. We will put him on his own doorstep late to-night." + +"You think we can manage it without----" + +"Great point is, where he lived. If in a quiet suburb we can manage it +all right. Get a cab here at my door, send the cabby round the corner +for some cigars, we mind the horse, and, while he is away, slip the body +in. When he comes back he will notice nothing in the darkness." + +"But the man said he was going to America to-morrow!" + +"Great Scott! So he did. I had forgotten that. Anyway, let us see if he +has any address, pocketbook, letters--or anything on him to show where +he would have slept if living to-night." + +The key was turned in the lock of the cupboard, the body brought out and +searched. + +In the pockets were a passage ticket for America, letters addressed to +"Mr. George Depew (of New York), Armfield's Hotel, Finsbury." + +It was evident from the wording of the letters, which the brothers read, +that Mr. Depew had stayed at Armfield's since his arrival from America. + +The letters were from a city solicitor named Loide--Richard Loide, of +Liverpool Street. + +A perusal of those letters showed the whole reason of Mr. Depew's being +that side of the Atlantic. + +Loide had acted for Depew's aunt in the collection of the rents of +certain properties. That aunt died, and Depew was sole legatee. + +When the lawyer's letter reached him to that effect, Depew cabled Loide +to sell all the property immediately. Another cable, a few hours later, +announced that Depew was aboard a liner, and on his way to England. He +was coming to look after his own. + +The last letter from the solicitor was dated only one day before, and +appointed two o'clock that very day--the day of the death--for Depew to +attend at the lawyer's office, and receive nineteen thousand pounds, the +amount the deceased woman's estate had realized. + +The brothers were silent for a few moments after the perusal of that +last letter. The consideration of a sum like nineteen thousand pounds, +by two poor men, needs a few moments' silence. + +Then they turned over again the contents of the dead man's pockets. The +purse contained a few sovereigns and dollars, the steamer passage +ticket, two Broad Street station cloak room tickets, and nothing more. + +"Nineteen thousand pounds!" + +It was the surgeon speaking. He looked at his brother; his brother +looked at him. Each look was full of eloquence. + +Then they picked up the dead man's coat, felt every inch of the lining +thereof, thinking to find a secret pocket, or notes sewn in it. Nothing. + +The two cloak room tickets for portmanteaus inspired the dentist to +remark: + +"Must be in one of the portmanteaus." + +The surgeon shook his head. + +"No man," he said, "would be fool enough to intrust such a sum to a +cloak room's tender mercies." + +"Then at the hotel?" + +The surgeon did not think so--said as much as he bent over the body and +unbuttoned the waistcoat, to make a closer search. + +He felt something hard round the waist, investigated further, unbuckled +what he found, and brought a money belt to the table and loosed the +catch. + +Notes! He pulled them out, and, as he fingered them, the rustle was as +sweet music. + +There were nineteen of them! Each for a thousand pounds. + +They might have dreamed of such things, but they had never expected to +actually handle such a sum. + +For some while silence reigned. In incidents of this kind silence plays +a big part. + +There was no need of conversation--the brothers seemed to read each +other's thoughts. + +"It is a small fortune," presently whispered the dentist. + +"And must be ours." + +"Will the notes be traced?" + +"We must guard against that." + +"How?" + +"I have been thinking----" + +"Well?" + +"This ticket--passage--has been booked in London; he will not be known +on the ship." + +"No." + +"He intended going from Broad Street to Euston, thence to Liverpool, in +time for the boat to-morrow." + +"Well?" + +"He will have to go." + +"What, in heaven's name, do you mean?" + +"Heaven," said the surgeon grimly, "I am afraid, has little to do with +this job. But, see here, Charley, there's time yet. We can be poor and +honest, and give up this fortune, or a few hours' nasty work, and +wealth--nineteen thousand pounds." + +He picked up the notes again, and the rustle made both men's eyes +sparkle. + +A piano organ in the distance was jigging out a "Belle of New York" +tune, but no sound of it was heard by the brothers. Their ears were full +of that crisp, crackling sound. + +"But how do you mean that he will have to go?" + +"One of us in his name, to America." + +"Surely there is no need for that." + +"Every need." + +"Why?" + +"For two reasons. He--this--has to be disposed of." + +He indicated the corpse at their feet, and went on: + +"Then, again, some one in his name must land in America, and disappear +there, so that, when ultimately a hue and cry is raised, no suspicion +may arise this side of the water." + +"I see." + +"While one of us is on the way to America, the other must gradually cash +these notes at home. The numbers cannot be stopped for a week or two." + +"Yes. But--but the body?" + +"Must be taken aboard the boat." + +"Good God!" + +"No help for it, Charley. I had better be the passenger; you look after +the money. I have more nerve for the work. I shall take the body in two +portmanteaus, and manage to drop them overboard _en route_." + +"In two portmanteaus?" + +"Yes. My old days at the hospital operating table will come back to me. +Yes. Don't look so scared; there's no help for it--just lock the door +after me while I go in for my case of instruments." + +The dentist did so, and stood there waiting his brother's return. Waited +with bulging eyes and open mouth. + +His training had not been that of the hospital. He had not the coolness +in handling the limbs of his fellow-men which practice had given the +surgeon. + +The piano organ had struck into a religious tune now, and was +discharging "Abide With Me." The dentist heard that. Heard it and +shivered. The eventide was falling fast. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ON BOARD THE AMERICAN LINER + + +Arthur returned with his case of knives. He saw his brother would be +worse than useless about him in the task he had in hand. + +Personally, he had no more compunction about dismembering his fellow-men +than a butcher had in disjointing a calf--it was his business. + +"Drink this, Charley"--he had poured out some brandy and handed it to +his brother. "And now put on your hat and go out; take a cab down to +Goffs. Buy two large portmanteaus--second hand--not less than a yard +long. Put them on a cab, and come back here with them. Rap three times +on the door--don't forget, three times--then I shall know it is you. +While you are away I will do what is necessary." + +He did. Before his brother returned, there were five small parcels and +one larger one--the contents may be guessed--done up in newspaper. + +Not a trace of blood or otherwise of his handiwork was visible. He had +been an attentive student, and profited by it now. In class he had been +marked "clean." + +Three raps at the door. He opened it, and the dentist entered with the +portmanteaus. + +"Put them down, laddie, and while I pack, you clear out. See here, those +bags in the cloak room at the station had better be fetched away; there +is no knowing what is in them. If they are not large, get a porter to +bring them by hand; if too big, put them on a cab and bring them that +way. Here are the cloak room tickets." + +And while his brother was away he packed the two portmanteaus with the +American, and carefully locked and strapped them. + +The keys he tied together with a piece of twine, and put into his +pocket. Not that they were of use--the locks were never to be turned +again. + +He helped his brother in with the two bags from the cloak room. They +carefully went through the contents, opening the locks with the keys +they had found in the dead man's trousers pocket. + +The bags were full of clothing, hosiery, and general wearing apparel; +not a scrap of paper or article of any other kind. + +"Charley," said the surgeon, "chirp up, old man. There is nothing to +fear. Before I am far away on the trip to America you may be sure that +every trace of a clue to the contents of those portmanteaus will be +lying at the bottom of the sea. A dark night, an open port, and there +will be an end of the matter. This passage ticket is, I see, for a two +berthed cabin--that makes it easier." + +"I fear----" + +"I know you do, old man--early and provident fear is the mother of +safety. But there is nothing to fear. Murder will out, that we see day +by day. But it is not as if we had murdered the man. We have not that +crime on our consciences. Keep cool, and all will be well. + +"I shall--must--land in America. I shall clear from the boat, one of the +first. There I shall get another outfit, and come back in the next boat +in another name. I shall go out, of course, as George Depew." + +"I cannot get rid of the fear----" + +"No, Charley, I know you cannot. But there is nothing to fear. Think +what the money means to you, to us both. To you more than to me. You +have a wife and little Edith to think of. Think what the money means, +the happiness it will bring to mother and child--to them both." + +"I know--I know." + +"After all, I am doing whatever is being done, Charley. You +conscientious old beggar you, just wipe the thing out of your mind. Let +it be a leaf in the book of the past. Paste it down. Don't look at it, +don't think of it. Only think of the future--the brightness of a future +from which the clouds have rolled away, and which a few hours ago did +not seem to have a piece of blue sky in it." + +"Yes--yes." + +"The boat starts from Liverpool, calls only at Queenstown, and then +steams away across to the States. Why, given ordinary traveling--I shall +not be away more than a fortnight, Charley, and when I come back I shall +expect you to have cashed all those notes--and turned them into +something less traceable." + +"How had I better do that? Go to the bank?" + +"M'no. I don't think I can trust you to do that, Charley. You would +present those notes with such a white face and trembling hand that the +most unsophisticated bank clerk breathing would think there was +something fishy." + +"What shall I do, then?" + +"M'well.... I have it! There are two rooms empty above these?" + +"Yes." + +"Take them to-morrow. Take them in the name of Jones, Brown, +Robinson--any name. Get a list of the brokers on the stock exchange, and +buy from separate men nine hundred pounds' worth of stock. Good +stock--no risk. Railway shares and that sort of thing. Pay each of the +brokers with a thousand pound note; you will want the change out of it +for working with. Worse come to the worst, if the shares have to be +sold, there will only be the loss of a few pounds." + +"I will do that." + +"And now get along home, Charley, or you will have your little woman +worrying about you. Don't, for heaven's sake, breathe a solitary +syllable which will give the faintest clue to what has happened. Your +wife is a smart little woman--don't give her too much money at first. +Just a pound or two more for housekeeping expenses. Let her think your +practice is gradually getting better day by day. And now shake hands. +Good-bye." + +"But you----" + +"Oh! I stop here to-night." + +"With those----" + +"Yes. I don't let them leave my possession till I drop the contents in +the sea. I take no unnecessary risks." + +"But--you--can--sleep----" + +"Certainly! soundly. Why not? There might be some reason to fear a live +man, but a dead one--bah!" + +"I will come up early, and see you off." + +"You will do nothing of the sort. Don't do anything a wee bit out of the +ordinary course of things. I shall go out for half an hour presently, +taking the key of the door with me, get something to eat, buy some +collars, shirts, and a few necessary things for the journey, and then +sleep in your operating chair." + +"The chair he died in!" + +"Dear boy, what of that? There, get along. Good-bye." + +He literally pushed his brother from the rooms, and closed the door. +Afterwards he did as he had said he would do. + +In early morning a cab took the four portmanteaus to Euston Station, and +he caught the train for Liverpool. + +There he had two of the portmanteaus labeled "For Cabin Use!" the +others, bags of clothing, were shot into the hold. + +He found that the occupant of the other berth, his cabin companion for +the voyage, had already turned in--presumably to get as much sleep as +possible before the voyage began--and was breathing heavily, the breath +of sleep. + +A short time after he had got on board the vessel started. He determined +not to leave the cabin, or sight of his portmanteaus, till he had +thrown them or their contents into the deep waters. + +That he would do when they were fairly out to sea. Then he would pick +safer--quite safe. + +The vessel steamed on for her one and only stopping--Queenstown, to pick +up the mails. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE CITY LAWYER AND THE CLIENT FROM THE WILD AND WOOLLY WEST + + +Aunt Depew had lived on the rentals of the property she had left to her +nephew. Loide had been her solicitor for nearly twenty years. + +She had a blind confidence in him--that way fraud lies. Absolute trust +in a man oft tempts him to break it. + +Regularly every quarter he had paid over to her the rentals of the +properties; that was all she had cared for. She had never troubled +about, or even visited, the places in which the buildings were situated. + +She had no idea that by reason of the building of a railway station, and +other developing influences, the revenue of her property had gone up by +leaps and bounds, and that ultimately, while she was receiving two +hundred and fifty pounds a year from property which she thought worth +about five thousand pounds, the lawyer was receiving four times that +sum, and the real value was about twenty thousand pounds. + +Could any more sad blow have been aimed at the lawyer than the black +edged intimation which reached him one morning--tidings of the death of +his best client? + +The dead woman had had a companion living with her, and this companion +had witnessed the will, and herself after the funeral handed it to +Loide. + +Otherwise there is a question when the tidings would have reached the +legatee in America--if they ever got so far. + +Yet that eternal hope we hear of in the human breast, sprang up in the +lawyer's, when he reflected that America was a long way off, that he, +Loide, was the executor, and would have the proving of the will. + +What would be easier than to show the legatee the income his aunt had +been deriving, and effect a bogus sale of a part of the property for +about five thousand pounds? That he could transmit to America, and end +the matter. + +He wrote Depew, and when the cablegram came in reply, instructing him to +sell the property at once, Loide rubbed his hands together and chuckled +with glee. It was just what he had wanted. + +But the glee was short lived. Another cablegram came, saying that Depew +was on his way to England, and would be there in a few days. + +Then all hope left Loide's heart. Black ruin stared him in the face. + +He had been drawing nearly a thousand pounds a year from the property +which was to be at once sold. Few city lawyers could view the sudden +cutting off of twenty pounds a week of their income with equanimity. + +Loide viewed it with clenched hands, curses on his lips, and fear in his +heart. + +Then the fear gave place to another feeling--hatred. Hatred of this man +who was crossing the water to rob him of what he had come to look on as +his own. + +This cursed American would come over and sell, and disappear with the +proceeds. + +But would he? Should he--Loide--allow him to do so? + +The lawyer sat and thought. Then he determined to wait till Depew came +and see what he could make out of him, see what manner of man he was. + +It might be possible to handle him--profitably. The lawyer rarely +handled mankind otherwise. + +But when the American came, the thermometer of the lawyer's hopes +dropped down to zero again. + +Depew was a powerful, wiry, keen, shrewd, intelligent man of business. +He picked the lawyer to pieces in five minutes, and so took greater +precaution in seeing that he was fairly dealt with. + +The lawyer had quite an unpleasant time. + +"Say, lawyer, things appear to have been handled by my aunt with a light +hand. Understand that I am driving now, will you, and the coach won't +rock, perhaps." + +"How dare----" + +"Don't bluster, old son. I come from a land where we make holes in +blusterers--round holes, with bullets at the bottom of 'em." + +"Do you dare threaten me?" + +"What, with a shooting iron? Nary a threat. Ain't even brought one along +with me. Away back in the woods where I live I wouldn't open the door +without one in reach of my hand. I was warned not to carry arms in this +country--that the British didn't take kindly to 'em." + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"Don't you? What are you looking so skeered about, then? What's your +face gone all the color of paste for?" + +"Let me tell you----" + +"No, don't, old son--you let me tell you. We'll get there all the +quicker. I don't say you have robbed my aunt----" + +"Robbed!" + +"That's the creckt word. I don't say you robbed my aunt, but I'll take +tarnation good care that you don't rob me. See? Now you just set about +winding up this here estate quick as greased lightning, and mind that it +realizes the best price. See?" + +The man's shrewd eyes were fixed on his listener all the while he was +speaking. Loide felt that the man saw through him, and the lawyer's +shoes held a shaking man. + +It was apparent that Depew was not an individual to be played +with--successfully. + +Within a very short time the property was sold; and, after deduction of +the expenses, there was a sum of nineteen thousand pounds to hand +over--the handing over nearly broke what was left of the lawyer's heart. + +And it was a less fragile one than most men's, too. + +"Now, old man," said Depew, as he buckled the notes in a belt he wore, +"we'll have lunch together, you and I. The matter's been settled +promptly, and I owe you some thanks." + +They went into the Great Eastern Hotel, and had as elaborate a lunch as +could be served. + +The champagne raised the spirits of both. The American's were light +enough. Loide's needed raising. + +And while they sat there, a scheme shaped itself in Loide's brain--it +was an active, busy, plotting brain--and it found good ground to mature +on. + +He determined that the nineteen thousand pounds should be his at any +cost. He said that again to himself--at any cost. His was a +determination not easily shaken. + +"What are you thinking of, lawyer?" + +Loide started as he answered: + +"Really of nothing. I was enjoying my wine." + +"Where'll I book my passage--is there a bureau near here?" + +"Yes, in Eldon Street there is a passenger agent--close here. I'll walk +with you." + +"Will you? I'll take it kindly. The streets are thicker here than in New +York, and are a bit confusing to a stranger." + +Depew paid the bill, and, lighting cigars, the two men walked along +Liverpool Street into Eldon Street. + +"You are still staying at Armfield's?" + +"All the time--it's a good show. I sleep there to-night, and to-morrow +on the Atlantic." + +They entered the passenger agent's office, and that worthy had a +two-berthed cabin vacant. + +Depew booked one berth. The agent confirmed it on the telephone at the +shipping office, the passage money was paid, and the men left. + +"Well," said the lawyer, "I must get back; which way are you going?" + +"Through the Circus here. First I'm going to have an aching tooth out, +and then on to the hotel. I've sent my luggage on, but I've got a small +bag there still." + +"Then you go that way?... Good-bye, good-bye, and a pleasant voyage +home." + +They shook hands heartily, and separated, going in opposite directions. + +The moment Depew was out of sight, the lawyer returned to the passenger +agent's office. + +"My friend has altered his mind," he said. "He will book the other +berth, and so have the whole cabin to himself." + +"Right you are, sir." + +The same process was gone through as before, and presently the lawyer +left the office, with a ticket for the other berth in the cabin Depew +was to journey in. + +Did he intend to travel to America? Not quite as far. + +The only place the boat stopped at after leaving Liverpool, so the +passenger agent told them, was Queenstown. Stopped two or three hours +there, sometimes, waiting for the tender to bring off the mails. + +The lawyer determined to leave the ship at Queenstown, and he hoped to +bring off his coup there--to bring off the steamer those nineteen crisp +Bank of England notes which helped to girdle Mr. Depew's waist. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +BETWEEN LIVERPOOL AND QUEENSTOWN + + +Mr. Richard Loide was getting into the sere, the yellow leaf. A certain +amount of baldness on his head he covered with a wig. His age and the +wig prompted him to two courses of action. + +He knew that he would be at a disadvantage in any personal struggle +which might result from the steps he proposed taking. He discreetly +determined to avoid one. + +Firearms, in dealing with the man with the money round his waist, were +out of the question. The noise would frustrate the very object he had in +view--would attract the attention of others in the ship. + +He did not desire an audience for the performance he had in mind. + +So he bethought him of a long, stiletto shaped, yet fine pointed, +two-edged knife he had seen for sale in a shop window. + +He went to that shop, and acquired the weapon, tested its razor-like +edge on a hair, then on a piece of paper, and was satisfied with the +result. + +He hoped that Mr. Depew would, soon after leaving Liverpool, lie down in +his bunk. He was anxious for that position, because it, apart from the +knife, would give him an advantage. + +In plain words, he proposed cutting the throat of Mr. Depew. It struck +Loide as being an effective way of silencing, in a double sense, his +man. + +He did not suppose that a cry, if the man were able to raise one, would +attract much attention, or be heard above the noise of the ship; but he +did not want to take any unnecessary risk. + +So he figured in his own mind that method of dealing with the +American--killing two birds with one stone. + +If, on the other hand, Depew did not lie down, then he would have to use +his weapon stiletto fashion. A spring from his bunk on to his victim +standing with his back towards him, and a powerful downward sweep and +plunge, would be half way successful. + +He imagined that most men threw up their arms and staggered back on the +happening of such a thing--gathered the idea from witnessing the dramas +of the Adelphi--that would enable him to turn and plunge the weapon into +the man's heart. + +All that would be necessary, then, was to put him in his bunk before the +blood began to make a mess, take from his body the notes which +engirdled it, and be ready to leave on the tender for Queenstown the +moment that vessel came alongside the liner. + +He knew that two-edged weapons were proverbially dangerous, but he was +comforted by the recollection of another proverb about cutting both +ways. + +As to its wig, he determined to change its color. It would be as well. + +Not that he feared detection much; still the prudent man always took +precautions, and Mr. Loide rated prudence very high. + +He knew that when the boat left Queenstown it did not stop again till it +got to the other side. That he counted on. + +It would enable him to reach London, cash the notes, and be prepared for +anything which might happen. He felt that with the money in his +possession he would be prepared for anything. + +He knew that when the purser went his rounds, or the steward, or whoever +it might be, and discovered the dead body, all would be confusion. + +The doctor and captain would be sent for, and an examination entered +upon--but all the time the vessel would be leaving Queenstown further +and further behind. + +He knew the coursing of these ocean greyhounds well enough to know that +the ship would not put back. That hundreds of passengers would not be +inconvenienced, simply because one was dead, that the ship would go +plowing her way right on. + +He turned up in the post-office directory the name of a wig maker the +other side of London, and took a cab there. + +He told some wholly unnecessary lies about the need of a colored wig, +but might have saved himself the trouble, because the sale of a wig or +wigs was an every-day occurrence with the keeper of the shop. + +When Loide saw his reflection in the peruquier's mirror he was astounded +at the change in his appearance. + +The shopman, thinking he was dealing with an amateur actor, very kindly +drew attention to his bushy black eyebrows. + +"Want toning down," he said, "to match the wig." + +"How do you--how do it?" + +The shopman produced a little stick of what looked to the lawyer like +cosmetic, and handed it to the customer. + +The look of ignorance concerning its use made the man smile. + +"Sit down," he said; "it's evident you are a new hand at making up. Let +me show you." + +He did. Daubed the grease paint on the hair, on the brows, and then +combed them out. + +When Loide looked in the glass again he started in astonishment.... He +paid the man, thanked him, and withdrew. + +The shop of a ready made clothier's caught his attention. He went in and +bought a light colored cutaway coat and vest and soft cap--he had worn +black clothing and the regulation chimney pot hat for the last thirty +years of his life. + +At a hosier's he purchased a colored shirt with a turn down collar, and +a colored bow. + +His immaculate white shirt, stiff upstanding collar and stock, should be +discarded for the time being. + +Later on, when he had donned this attire, he marveled at the change in +himself. He was confident that no living soul would be able to recognize +him. + +And curiously enough, nature assisted him. + +As he sat in the train to Liverpool, the loss of his upstanding collar +and stock made his open neck an easy prey to the draft. When he set foot +on the deck of the steamer he had a sore throat and a cold, which made +his voice so raucous that no soul would have recognized in it the clear, +distinct utterance of Mr. Loide, the lawyer. + +His portmanteau on board, after satisfying the officer in charge of his +right to a berth, he at once took possession. + +He was lying in his berth--apparently asleep--when the occupant of the +other half of the cabin entered. + +He was lying with his face to the wall, and only his red hair was +visible. That and the smart colored cutaway suit, he felt, made him as +much unlike the city lawyer as well could be. He did not fear Depew's +recognition. + +Soon after the second man entered the cabin, the vessel started. Loide +knew at what hour she was expected to arrive off her one and only +stopping place. + +During the night, it was fair to assume that no officer of the ship +would come to the cabin, and during the night he would kill and rob the +other man. In the early morning he would leave on the Queenstown tender. +That was his scheme. + +He kept in his bunk. By the electric light in the cabin his companion +read for some time. + +He could hear the rustling of the newspaper; he dared not look round. +About midnight the paper was thrown down, and the listener heard the +sounds of a man making ready for his berth. + +And presently the electric button was turned, and the cabin was in +darkness. + +The lawyer's heart beat the faster then. So far all was going as well as +he could wish. + +Darkness, and his victim recumbent, perhaps asleep. What could he wish +for more? Fortune was favoring him. + +There were three hours now to wait before the reaching of Queenstown, +and during those three hours the other man went to sleep. + +Loide knew it, because he heard the sleeper's deep, heavy breathing, +which bordered closely on snoring. + +He handled his weapon, and dropped noiselessly to his stockinged feet. +Paused--the same still, regular breathing. + +He went to the door and noiselessly shot home the bolt. Paused--the same +still, regular breathing. + +Then he prepared to stop that breathing forever. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS + + +Before his companion had entered the cabin, Loide had located everything +in it. + +Although in the dark, he knew the exact position of all things. So he +reached the sleeper's side without a stumble or noise. + +He knew where to place his hand on a towel, and he placed it. Folded it +into a sort of pad, and gripped the middle in his left hand. + +He bent over the sleeper, heard his breathing, and located his mouth by +the feel of the warm breath. He paused to notice that the sleeper was +lying on his back, then he gripped his knife--saw fashion. + +In another moment he had clapped the towel over his victim's mouth, and +drawn down the knife with a sawing, cutting movement. + +There was just a faint, gurgling sound for a moment, a convulsive quiver +of the whole of the sleeper's body, then stillness. The towel had +stifled any possible cry--the knife had done the rest. + +Loide stood there for a moment to recover his breath. He could almost +hear his own heart beating. + +He tried to still it by thinking that there was not a scrap of risk, +that it was all over now, that, presently, he would possess nineteen +thousand pounds. + +That last thought was not without its comfort. It is a fashion to speak +of money as if it were dross, but as a salve to the conscience, pounds, +shillings, and pence are unsurpassed. + +The towel he was holding, he opened and threw it over the dead man's +head and shoulders. He was not hyper-sensitive, but he wanted to avoid +seeing what the towel would hide. + +Then he turned the button of the electric light. + +He looked round--not a sign of a struggle, not a drop of blood. Yet +stay--his right hand! He must wash it. + +Quickly he had water in the basin and was cleaning that hateful red +stain away. While he wiped his hands, he reflected that he had but to +pull the head curtains, and the body would appear to be that of an +ordinary sleeping man. + +That way the ship might get a dozen hours away from Queenstown before +discovery. He shook hands with himself over the happiness of the idea he +had--so far--carried out so cleverly. + +Then he turned up the blankets and sheeting of the bunk. For obvious +reasons he preferred turning them up from the feet to turning them down +from the head. + +Depew had, with an oath, told him that, sleeping or waking, the belt +would never leave him. He thought grimly that now the man was dead the +oath would be broken. + +He started in surprise; the man was not wearing a belt! He stood still, +holding the bedclothes in sheer amazement. + +He had expected the thing to be so easy of accomplishment--and the +object of his search was not there at all! + +He stepped back, and fell rather than sat on his own berth. He was more +than surprised. + +Then it occurred to him that perhaps, after all, the man had locked the +money in one of his portmanteaus. Loide was thankful that he had time +before him, in which to make search. He had been wise not to leave +things till the last moment. + +He felt in the dead man's coat, vest, and ultimately in a trousers +pocket found two keys, tied together with a piece of twine. These he +presently found fitted the portmanteaus. + +He inserted a key in one, turned the lock, and unbuckled the straps. The +bag contained but one thing--a huge parcel wrapped in newspapers. + +He would try the other bag--did so. Found it contained five smaller +parcels, four long shaped and one something like a large football. + +He picked up one of the long parcels and felt it. It had a curious half +hard feeling. + +He sat on his berth again and opened it on his knees. There was no +string round the parcel. + +As he held the end of the paper it unwound itself, and the contents +dropped on to the floor--a human arm and hand! + +He clapped his own hand to his mouth and so stifled a scream. + +It is all very well to be cool over your own murderous work, but when +you come across another man's, it is apt to startle you. Loide was the +most startled individual on the Atlantic at that particular moment. + +He sat there in stony amazement and horror. He feared to open the other +parcels. Still he had to. + +Qualms had to be kept down. The possession of nineteen thousand pounds +depended on his search. + +He imagined that Depew had murdered some one in England, and was taking +the body out, perhaps to hide traces of his crime in the sea. + +So curiously fashioned was the lawyer's intellect that he was rather +glad that he had killed Depew--looked upon himself as a kind of weapon +in the hand of justice. + +There is no accounting for the kinks into which a man's intellect will +twist. + +The avenger idea gave him the necessary courage to go on examining the +rest of the parcels. Not a solitary thing save of the awful kind the +first was. + +The big parcel in the other portmanteau made him shudder in horror. He +was glad when he was able to shut the bags and get rid of the sight of +those horrible bundles. + +Then another bag--a little hand bag--caught his attention. He felt mad +with himself that he had not examined that first. + +It needed no key. A pressure of the lock opened it, and he turned the +contents on the floor; collars, handkerchiefs, shirts, and +socks--nothing else. + +Once more he sat on his bunk--sat there with his chin in the palms of +his hands, thinking. + +How long he sat there he never knew. He was awakened by the steamer's +gongs; the engine room was being signaled. + +He clambered to the port-hole, and in the gray of the early morning he +could see they were off Queenstown, and the tender was nearly alongside. + +He had no time to lose. What should he do? + +Then it occurred to him that, as a measure of precaution, the man had +given his belt to the captain, to be locked up in the ship's +strong-room. That was the solution of the mystery, then. + +He cursed his luck, himself, and the dead man. For absolutely nothing he +had run all this risk, and killed a man, and had yet to escape. + +It was--from his point of view--perfectly monstrous. If the dead man +could have wanted revenge, surely he was having it then. + +There was a screech from the tender's siren; she was coming alongside. + +He put on his boots, and as he did so there was a sound of rapping at +the door. He hurriedly pulled the head curtains of his victim's berth, +and, shooting back the bolt, opened the door. + +"Any letters or telegrams for shore, sir?" + +"Is there time to go ashore?" + +"Can if you like, sir; the tender will bring you back. You will get +about an hour ashore." + +"Very well, I will go, then." + +"At once, sir. The tender will leave in less than five minutes." + +And the officer went on his round collecting letters and telegrams. + +Loide put on his hat, flung the blood stained knife out of the +port-hole, turned the button of the electric light, and stepped outside, +closing the door after him. + +Then he suddenly remembered that the most likely place of all he had +overlooked. A sleeping man would place valuables beneath his pillow. + +He entered the cabin again, turned the electric light button, and slid +his hand under the dead man's pillow--nothing. + +To make assurance doubly sure--much as he dreaded looking on the face of +the man he had murdered--he pulled aside the towel. + +Then for a second time he was paralyzed with astonishment and horror, +and thrust his fingers in his mouth to prevent the escape of a cry. He +had never before seen the face of his victim. It was not his client +Depew. + +He had killed the wrong man! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE NUMBERS OF THE MISSING NOTES + + +Loide got off the boat safely. On the wharf at Queenstown he secured a +position where, concealed himself, he could watch the liner. + +Hours seemed to drag by which were in reality minutes. At last the +tender put off with the mails and reached the steamer's side. + +With his glasses he could see everything that was going on. There was no +excitement. + +The bags were handed on board, and presently he made out a wake of foam +from the blades of the steamer's screw. The tender had turned and was +coming back; the steamer was going on. + +Loide breathed a deep sigh of relief. So far nothing had been +discovered. + +Ultimately he reached London, and let himself into his office after +dark--as he had left it. + +He made shirt, clothing, and wig, and all the coal he had in his office +scuttle into a parcel, and a short while after that parcel was making a +hole for itself in the soft mud under London Bridge. + +The disguise was disposed of--and Richard was himself again. + +An aggravated, very much upset Richard. He had committed actual murder, +and was not a penny the richer for it. + +The heinousness of the crime did not present itself to him; he rather +looked at it from the standpoint of its barren financial result. + +He had so counted on a large profit in connection with his quick return. + +He had food for thought, sufficient to last an ordinary man many meals. + +But Mr. Richard Loide was not an ordinary man. He no longer imagined +those crisp Bank of England notes to be in the steamer's strong-room. + +He did not believe they were even on the ship. That towel removed and a +tragic story stared him in the face. + +What did it mean? + +That he could not fathom. One solid fact was existent--there had been +foul play. + +Some one had the notes. The man in whose possession they were had a hand +in the murder. And that is where Mr. Loide hoped to step in and take a +part in the drama. + +The hand of death had lowered the curtain on the first act, and the +lawyer just hankered after getting behind the scenes. + +He formed an idea of his own that, for some reason, Depew was lurking in +England; had bargained with the man Loide had killed to personate him on +the boat, and so destroy a clue to his existence in London. + +What then did the other, the cut up body mean? Who could that have been? + +He regretted now that his horror had prevented his looking at the head. + +That was another puzzle, and he could not in any way solve it. + +But he was bent on one thing--the finding of Mr. Depew, and the bleeding +of him for all he was worth. + +Being a city lawyer, and moving in city financial circles, blackmailing +had not for him the horrid appearance it presented to most people. + +One gets used to the atmosphere one breathes daily, and the atmosphere +of London city reeks of blackmail. + +Suddenly a thought came to him which sent all the blood to his heart, +and caused him to start to his feet in alarm. + +Suppose he had been deceived? Suppose he had not handed the money over +to the real George Depew? + +He broke into a cold sweat at the mere idea! + +He remembered how exceedingly lax he had been because Depew had +frightened him. + +The American had seen through the frauds on his aunt, and practically +taxed the lawyer with them. Had he chosen, he could have made him +disgorge all those gains of years. + +Why had he not? If the real, genuine nephew, cute and sharp as he had +been in getting the full value of the estate from the sale, why had he +not, with his suspicions aroused, insisted on an inspection of the back +accounts? + +Why had he not? And once more the sweat of fear beaded on Loide's brow. + +He was poor enough as it was. What if a real George Depew appeared on +the scene and demanded that which was his? + +The perspiration beads grew in size. + +The lawyer called to mind how meagre had been the identification. He +remembered that, frightened as he had been he had accepted a certificate +of birth, and some envelopes directed to Depew in America, as +confirmation that he was the real man. + +For that the lawyer would never forgive himself. In ordinary +circumstances he would have probed much more deeply. + +That fright--that was what did it--unmanned him, and made him behave +like a perfect ass. He could have kicked himself for an hour and +rejoiced in the resultant pain. + +He told himself that he needed punishment--badly. + +He thought of his own disguise; how he had so changed his own appearance +that he had not known himself in the mirror. + +Why should not Mr. Depew have done a similar thing? + +Then another thought. Did disguise account for the different appearance +of the man who was now crossing the Atlantic with a gaping wound in his +throat? + +No; he felt that was not so. Depew was a head shorter than the man he +had killed. + +He was glad he remembered that, because it removed the slightest doubt. +It convinced him that Depew was in London, and it must be +his--Loide's--business to find him. + +Find him, and put pertinent questions to him; make him do a sum in +arithmetic--two into nineteen--and hand over the quotient. + +He did not fear an interview. The unexpected always happens, and the +unexpectant one is generally at a disadvantage. + +Loide felt that. Felt that, in the language of Depew's country, he +would be "upper dog" in the interview. + +And then he set his wits to work--how to discover George Depew's +whereabouts. + +And meanwhile, in the same compass, within the radius of the city of +London, another man was thinking--thinking with the same strained look +on his face, too. + +He was standing looking out of the window of a room in Finsbury Circus, +standing there gnawing what was left of the nails of his hand, and +watching but for one man's advent--the postman. + +He was not looking for the telegraph boy--he knew it was too late for +that--but a letter from his brother. + +It had been arranged between them that the moment Arthur reached +Queenstown in safety he should despatch a wire with the two words "All +serene" if things were so. + +And in case he should be asleep when the boat was off Queenstown, he had +asked the purser to give him a call. + +No such wire reached the dentist, hence his own disturbed serenity. + +He waited and waited for it till he worked himself into such a state of +nervousness--he had not his brother's iron will--that he shook from head +to foot. + +That no one in need of dental attention visited him that day was +fortunate for the man with the aching tooth. + +A trembling hand is not the best kind with which to grip forceps. + +As the day passed by and nothing came, the dentist became positively +ill. He drank all that was left of the bottle of brandy, and for the +first time in his life went home the worse for it. + +His wife was surprised, amazed, shocked. That was, perhaps, as well. + +In her offended dignity she stood aloof from him. It was better so. + +Long before breakfast in the morning he had left the house. He wanted to +be in Finsbury Circus before the postman, and he was. + +The first delivery--no letter. He staggered back, fell into a chair, and +buried his face in his hands. What could it mean? + +It did not occur to him that a letter from Queenstown could not reach so +quickly. + +His brain was pregnant with but two ideas. His brother had promised to +telegraph--he had not. His brother had promised to write--he had not. + +And he seemed to see that one question standing out in fiery letters on +the wall: "What did it mean?" + +He had the notes. He had instructions what to do with them, but he dared +not carry out those instructions. + +Suppose his brother had been arrested--arrested with the terrible +contents of those two portmanteaus in his possession! + +As each edition of the evening papers came out, he sent Sawyer for +copies, but he gleaned nothing from them, no arrest was reported, +nothing in any way bearing on the matter. + +The purchase of the papers did no good--save sending him up in the +estimation of his satellite. + +Sawyer imagined that "the guv'nor had been putting a bit on the four +legged 'uns," and was anxious to peruse the column captioned "All the +Winners." + +His own sporting instincts made him look up to his employer for the +first time. + +And the lawyer? + +Made up his mind. It was risky what he proposed doing, because, as a man +innocent of any knowledge of what had occurred, he was clearly, legally +wrong in doing it. + +Still he had to find Mr. Depew, and there was only one way to do it. + +Fraught with risk--but he risked it. Desperate diseases need desperate +remedies. + +He sat down and pulled a sheet of his headed office paper towards him. +Then--as a lawyer--he wrote a letter. + +It was to the Bank of England stopping the numbers of the nineteen notes +he had obtained from that institution, and paid over to Mr. Depew. + +Bold, daring, but must necessarily be successful. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE SEALED UP CABIN + + +"Man overboard!" + +The cry rang through the ship--as cries of that sort do--first uttered +by the man who witnessed the happening, and then passed from mouth to +mouth. + +As a matter of fact it was a girl--a child--who had fallen overboard, +and the nurse was standing with blanched face and clasped hands, +watching what looked like a bundle of clothing on the surface of the +ocean, which bundle the vessel was now rapidly leaving astern. + +Then another cry rang out. It was literally as well as vocally a man +overboard this time--a real man. + +For such a title is surely due to one who plunges from a liner's deck +into the sea to save another's life. + +The gongs were ringing in the engine-room before the man touched the +water, but a liner traveling at the rate of twenty knots an hour has a +way on her. + +"Full speed astern" showed on the indicator, and then careful handling +of the vessel became necessary. Almost directly she stopped. + +As she stopped, the boat which had been hanging from the outspread +davits with a crew in her was rapidly lowered, and once in the water, +vigorously rowed in the direction pointed out by the standing coxswain. + +Rescuer and rescued were promptly hauled into the boat, and carried to +the waiting ship, neither of them much the worse for their ducking. + +The girl was seized by her mother and nurse, and speedily carried off to +their own private cabin. + +The rescuer--Gerald Danvers, a second-class passenger--at his own +request went down the stoke hole. + +Brave enough to dive into the sea, he yet had a dreadful fear of +rheumatism, to which he was subject; hence his desire for the warmth of +the stoke hole. + +A drink of brandy and willing hands to rub him down and the warmth of +the stoke hole soon made him himself. + +He had at hand only the clothes he stood upright in; the rest of his +wardrobe, packed in a portmanteau, was in the hold. + +The usual custom was departed from, and a man despatched to try to find +his portmanteau--a brown one with his initials "G. D." on it. + +"Don't bring it down here, old chap," said Danvers to the man who had +volunteered to fetch it. "Here are my keys. There are only clothes in +it. Just bring me underflannels and shirt, that's all. I can wait while +these trousers dry." + +He had thrown off coat and vest and boots before he had dived. + +The things were brought him, and he sat talking to the men while his +trousers dried, as they very quickly did in such an atmosphere, and +before long he was on deck again. + +He would probably have been made to pose as a hero--for a shipload of +passengers needs something to occupy its attention--but another more +startling sensation came about. + +The mere saving of a life sank into insignificance before the loss of +one. + +The sea was not rough, and very few passengers were in their berths. +Nearly all of them sat down to the meals prepared for them. + +Before dinner, the steward went over his list, and found that the +occupants of one of the two berthed cabins had not figured at breakfast +or luncheon. + +He went to the door of the cabin, and rapped with his +knuckles--twice--thrice. Getting no answer, he turned the handle and +pushed open the door. + +One berth was empty; in the other the occupant was apparently asleep. + +"Don't you feel well, sir?" + +No answer. Question repeated. Same result. + +Then the steward drew aside the curtains, and was transformed into the +whitest faced being aboard that ship. For what he saw was a man lying +there with his throat cut. + +To bound out of that cabin and fetch the doctor and captain was the work +of a few moments. + +"Suicide." + +One word the steward had let drop, and it spread all over the ship like +wildfire. + +But the doctor shook his head at the suggestion the moment he saw the +body. + +"What is it?" inquired the captain; "don't you think it suicide?" + +"No," answered the doctor laconically; "murder." + +"Murder!" + +"Yes." + +"Who occupied the other berth? Where is he? Find him. What? went ashore +at Queenstown--don't know whether he came back on tender? Who received +the mails? Tell him to come here." + +The officer sent for came. + +It was in his watch that the tender departed and returned. Had noticed a +red-haired man who had come aboard at Liverpool. + +"Passenger of this berth was red-haired," interjected the steward. + +"Go on," said the captain; "did you see the man come back on the tender? +Is he aboard?" + +The officer scratched his head and replied: + +"Come to think of it, sir, I don't remember that he did come back." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Well, yes, I am, sir. It was very early morning when we touched, and I +noted that only one passenger went on the tender." + +"Sure it was the occupant of this berth?" + +"Must have been, sir," interrupted the steward, "because when I rapped +for letters and telegrams the red-haired man asked whether he could go +ashore, and how long he could stop." + +"And you----?" + +"Told him, sir. I didn't actually see him go, but he was already +dressed." + +The captain turned to the officer who had received the mails. + +"Are you sure the man did not come back on the tender?" + +"Yes, sir. Certain, now I come to remember." + +"He has escaped, then," said the captain. Then, looking at his watch, he +continued: "We are nearly twelve hours out from Queenstown. I shall not +put back." + +"Gives the murderer a good opportunity of escape, doesn't it?" queried +the doctor. + +"Yes, yes; I know. But we should be more than a dozen hours getting back +with this wind, and the ship would be detained. No, I'll go on. Let the +American police investigate it." + +"Information ought to be furnished as promptly as possible," said the +doctor dubiously. + +"That's all very well for you, doctor; but what would they say to me as +captain of the ship? We will draw up a full report. Just write down as +detailed a description of the escaped man as you can, steward. Bryer, +run up to the bridge, and tell the mate to steer for any vessel coming +in, and fly a flag that we want to communicate. We'll send the +description back. That's the best way out of the difficulty, doctor." + +It was not the doctor's duty to dispute the captain's authority. + +He may have had his own opinion as to what should be done, but he +forbore from expressing it. He had his thoughts, and he had his living +to get. + +The latter fact often prevents a man's thoughts finding their way to his +lips. This is an age of discretion--it often pays better than mere +valor. + +"Been dead over a dozen hours," he said, after examining the body. + +"That seems to confirm the idea of murder and escape at Queenstown." + +"Better leave all things as they are for the police to examine, eh?" + +"Yes." + +Disinfectants were put in the cabin, and the door locked. + +At the suggestion of the doctor, the captain affixed seals to a piece of +tape fastened to the door and its lintel. The ship steamed on. + +Ocean bore a secret on her billowy bosom--it was but one added to the +myriads buried in her fathomless depths. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A WAITING WIFE'S DISCOVERY + + +In the sight of the harbor of New York the ship slowed down, and the +tender came alongside. + +The customs officers and port sanitary authority came aboard. + +Soon after the liner was moored at her pier, and in compliance with the +signal she had hoisted, the police came on board. + +Not a passenger was allowed to land until the officers had thoroughly +gone into their characters, and investigated the details which the +captain had thoughtfully put on paper. + +Every passenger, his address, description, and destination had been +listed; the evidence of the second mate, doctor, steward, and purser had +been committed to paper and signed. + +The two berthed cabin spoke for itself--eloquently. + +The passengers were allowed to land at last. There was no reasonable +excuse for their further detention. + +The crowds waiting on shore had wondered at the delay, but the first +man off told the news, and it spread. + +The extra editions of the newspapers sold well that evening. It is an +ill wind which fails to inflate the circulation of the newspapers. + +The people assembled at the pier gradually dispersed, moving away with +the friends they had come to meet, until at last only the working staff +of boat and shore hands were around. + +The public had gone home--all save one member of it, a tall, bony, +dressed in country style woman. + +She had started from home with whole white cotton gloves on. + +As she stood watching the boat now, there was not a whole finger left in +one of the gloves--she had nibbled them off in her anxiety. + +She attracted the attention of the hands discharging the cargo, and was +the object, among themselves, of many humorous remarks. + +"Waitin' for some one, missus?" at last one of the men inquired of her. + +She was glad. She had been afraid to come forward and make inquiries. +Now the spell was broken, she said: + +"Yes. Have all the passengers landed?" + +"There's one--or two--still aboard," the man answered, grimly. + +But the grimness was lost on the woman. She gave a sigh of relief. She +had yet to learn that the passengers spoken of by the man had crossed +the Stygian Ferry as well as the Atlantic. + +"Mebbe one of 'em's the one I've come to meet." + +"I hope not." + +"Why?" + +The man disregarded the question. Something had occurred to him. He +inquired: + +"What might be the name of the person you've come to meet?" + +The woman hesitated a moment, and then answered: + +"Depew." + +The man suppressed a whistle of astonishment, and repeated the name: + +"Depew!" + +"Yes; George Depew. Was he aboard, do you know?" + +"Wait here a moment, missus--don't go away. I'll go and inquire for +you." + +He disappeared in the ship. He went to the captain's cabin, and knocked +at the door. + +The police officers and witnesses were there discussing the murder. + +"Come in." + +And he went. Touched his cap, then took it off, and spoke: + +"Woman outside, sir--been waitin' long time." + +"Well?" + +"I spoke to her--asked who she was waitin' for." + +"Yes." + +"Said for Depew--George Depew." + +The plain clothes officer was on his feet in a moment inquiring: + +"Where is she?" + +"On the pier." + +"I'll go and see her; come, point her out to me." + +They left the cabin. The tall, gaunt woman was standing where the sailor +had left her. Thanking the man, the officer went towards her. + +"They tell me," he said pleasantly, "that you are waiting for a +passenger." + +"Yes." + +"Perhaps you did not see him land." + +"I never took my eyes off the gangway." + +"Then you think he is aboard." + +"I understood the man to say there were one or two passengers there +still." + +The detective suppressed a smile at the grim humor of the sailor's +remark. They were there still--very still. + +"What is the name of the person you were expecting to meet?" + +Again there was a slight hesitation before the woman spoke. Then she +said: + +"Depew." + +"George?" + +"Yes. Then he is aboard?" + +"Well--you--see----" + +Then something dawned on, some fear seized the woman. It was in a +trembling voice that she inquired: + +"You, you are not wearing the ship's uniform. You--you are a policeman?" + +"That's so." + +"My God! I see. I see why he has not landed. It's all found out--he's in +custody." + +The detective twiddled the ends of a moustache he had under cultivation. + +The case had looked complicated--and he liked complications--indeed, got +a living out of them. But this latest phase of the business looked like +the envelopment of the puzzle in another one. + +"Tell me," she said, "is he aboard?" + +"Yes." + +"Let me see him." + +"Come this way." + +She came. + +As they went below, the detective paused a minute. He inquired: + +"Are you any relation of his?" + +"His wife." + +The detective whistled. Then he said: + +"Come in here." + +"He is not here?" + +"No." + +"Take me to him." + +"Don't be in a hurry. See here, you'd best prepare yourself for a +shock." + +"Shock!" + +"Your husband came aboard this boat at Liverpool." + +"I know that; is he here now?" + +"His--his remains are." + +"His--his----" + +"Now brace up. Take the blow like a--like a real woman." + +"G-go on." + +"He's lying aboard the ship now." + +"Lying!" + +"Dead." + +"D-dead." + +"Here, hold up. There, there, pull yourself together, missus----. Here, +drink that----. That's better----. We all have to die, you know, sooner +or later----. That's it. Sit there a minute or two. Now, you are going +along all right, aren't you?" + +"Yes--yes." + +"Drop more water? That's it. Now, how do you feel? Well enough to see +the body? You'd like to? That's all right, then. Must be identified, you +know. Just sit here a minute, and I'll arrange things for you." + +He went out, leaving the woman staring stonily at the roof of the +saloon. To a subordinate on duty he said: + +"Open that cabin, Mace. Tuck a towel round the neck so the wound don't +show. Woman's his wife. I haven't told her yet he's been murdered. Time +for that after she identifies him. Stand by." + +He returned to the saloon in which he had left the woman. + +"Now, Mrs. Depew." + +The woman started. + +"Just lean on my arm, ma'am, and brace yourself up. This way. Mind the +step. That's it. In here. There you are, ma'am. There's the body." + +The woman moaned, braced herself up as she had been told to, and went +forward. + +The moment her eyes rested on the dead body she screamed: + +"That!" + +She flung up her arms, and burst into hysterical laughter, which ended +in a wail as she sank, a nerveless heap, in the officer's arms. + +"Too much for her, Mace. Here, give me a hand out with her. That's it. +Take her on deck, the air will bring her to. That's it. Fetch a pillow +for her head. Heart's beating, and she's breathing all right--it's only +a faint. The shock was too great for her." + +It was. She had expected to see in the dead man her husband. + +It was an expectation she had not realized. + +The face of the dead man was utterly unknown to her. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HOW THE DEVIL TEMPTED HIM + + +"There, there," said the doctor; "you will be all right in a few +minutes." + +The woman closed her eyes again. + +"It was the shock of seeing her dead husband." + +The doctor spoke this in a whisper, but the woman heard. She opened her +eyes. She spoke: + +"Let me lie like this for half an hour. I shall be all right then. I--I +am subject to fainting fits." + +"Certainly. We shall be in that cabin there--there, away where you see +the light. You see it? That's all right. We will leave you now, and when +you feel well enough, come in, and you shall hear all the particulars." + +She moved her head. They walked away. + +She shifted on her back, and the eyes in the head resting on the pillow +were fixed on the stars. She lay quiet--thinking. + +Thinking what to do; or what had happened; how to escape; of the mistake +she had made, and whether it would bear bad fruit. + +For the dead man lying in the ship's cabin was not named Depew, nor was +the living woman lying on the ship's deck named that way. + +It was a case of lying right through, and she thought to herself that +she had in a measure given the show away. + +So she lay thinking. The mantle of night fell gradually and cloaked +things. + +Shadows were deep. She might steal off the ship in them unseen. + +A boat's lantern hung at each end of the gangway, but there appeared to +be no one watching her. + +There was not. It was not supposed that there was the slightest chance +of her running away. + +A woman overcome by emotion as she had been does not run away from the +recently discovered body of her dead husband. + +So the police argued--argued in the dark--in ignorance of the facts, and +left her in the dark in fancied possession of them. + +Should she go to that cabin with the light, brave it out there, and +carry the lie on further? + +Or should she steal off in the gradually growing darker night, and +escape home? + +Home! Her home more than fifty miles away in the village of Oakville. + +She determined to do that. Many reasons prompted her to the act. + +Her husband had not been on the boat. Another man bearing his name +filled his berth. + +There was trickery somewhere--but that was no novelty where her husband +was concerned. She was unprepared for it, and had made a mistake. Best +rectify it by escape. + +She did. Cleared the ship without a soul noticing it. + +Reached the railway station, and hid herself in a corner of the ladies' +waiting room till the Oakville train started. In that train she was +carried home. + +Her real name? Todd--Susan Todd. Her husband? Josh Todd. + +All that was left of the husband was in the cabin of the ship she had +left. It had traveled in two portmanteaus. + +His had been a checkered career, but at last he had handed in his +checks. + +How did it happen that he masqueraded before Lawyer Loide as George +Depew? + +Because he was the right hand of the somewhat illiterate western farmer +who bore that name, or as he would himself have described it, his head +cook and bottle washer. + +George Depew could write his name, and his caligraphic talents ended +right there. So he took for assistant Josh Todd. + +Josh saw to all the correspondence, opened the letters, read and +answered them. His wife, Susan, was the house help. + +Between them, they were paid well, and could have put away for the rainy +day. But providence was a thing unknown to Josh. + +He put nothing away, except an excessive quantity of old Rye. On +Saturday nights he went into Oakville, and in the saloon there sat at +the table presided over by Mr. Jack Hamblin. + +Jack Hamblin was generally the richer by Josh's visits. + +Frequent handling of the cards had made him expert in the dealing +thereof. He usually dealt. + +So Josh--as he figuratively put it--had not a feather to fly with. And +he did not like it. + +There was farmer George Depew--provident man--putting by a little each +year. Not much, but sufficient for his wife and daughter, Tessie, if he +should suddenly be beckoned into the next world. + +Then one day there came a letter from a London lawyer named Loide, to +George Depew. + +As usual Josh opened it. He cursed the luck of Depew freely, and then +paused--paused to wonder whether he could not make that luck his own. + +Susan had been with the Depews when they paid a visit to England many +years before. So Josh took counsel with the wife of his bosom, and +learned all there was to know about George. + +It was a certain thing that on the other side of that wide water--which +the rapidity of our ocean grayhounds has made us come to think so +narrow--not a living soul could remember George Depew. + +That determined Josh. And when he had determined he always went on. + +His scheme was simplicity itself. But for lawyer Loide's fears he +probably would not have succeeded so well. + +Josh told the real George Depew that he had had a little money left him +in Europe, and that his attendance the other side was necessary. + +Good-hearted, honest old George congratulated him, and willingly acceded +to the request for a month's holiday. + +He went into New York, bought two portmanteaus, had the initials "G. D." +painted on them, and to them transferred the contents of the bags with +which he had left the farm. + +A certificate of his employer's birth, a bundle of letters directed to +him, two cables to the lawyer, a passage on the next outgoing steamer, +and he had all the voyage to think of what he could do next. + +A shrewd, keen man, he at once saw through the cheating of lawyer +Loide--and handled that limb of the law accordingly. + +Fear of detection blinded the lawyer; he failed to make the usual +precautionary inquiries. Conscience doth make cowards of us all. + +Susan saw her husband off from New York, and she never saw him again. + +She had a cable from him saying which boat he was returning by, and that +he had sent a letter to her to be called for at the New York +post-office. + +She went to New York on the day the home coming steamer was to arrive, +and called for the letter sent by the preceding mail. It read: + + DEAR OLD GIRL: + + All's gone right, and I am as happy as a clam at high water. + There's been two hands at the grab game I've been playing, + but I've raked in the pool. Nineteen thousand English + pounds, old girl. Think of it. Reckon it up, and see what it + comes to in almighty dollars. + + The property is all sold, and the proceeds will be mine in a + day or two. The lawyer here is a cute thief, but he found me + cuter. I gave him some chin music he'd never listened to + before in his natural. No bunco steerer can come it over + Josh, and don't you forget it. + + I'll be back by the boat arriving on Wednesday the 13th. + I'll cable you certain, so you can come out to meet me. + + No more work, old girl. Enjoyment for the future. There's + no chance of anything being found out, but all the same + we'll skip from the farm. I'm just as full of joy as I was + of Old Rye the day you saw me off. + + Only one thing troubling me: that blamed old tooth of mine + at the back, that you put the cotton in, is aching like mad. + I'll just get a dentist to yank it out if I can find one to + do it without pain.--So long, old girl, your loving husband, + + JOSH. + + P.S.--Burn this when you've read it. + +Susan did not comply with the request contained in the postscript. She +had read it when she left the post-office, and thrust it into her pocket +as she hurried to the pier. + +There, the shock of the discovery that her husband was dead, and the +double shock of relief and joy to find that the dead man was not her +husband, upset her so, that she lost consciousness, and for a time the +subsequent proceedings interested her no more. + +She came to herself on deck with the letter still in her pocket. + +If she stayed in New York there was going to be trouble. She saw that +plainly. She must go home and wait for another cable from Josh. + +So she went home. And the letter was still in her pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A LIFE FOR A LIFE + + +Danvers--the man who had dived from the ship and saved the child--was +the bearer of a letter of introduction to George Depew, and the next day +he presented himself with it at the farmhouse. + +Susan admitted him. Neither had, of course, ever seen the other. + +Danvers was a rolling stone--had been a colossal failure as a moss +gatherer in the mother country. + +He was keen and intelligent, and busy with other people's affairs, but +sleepy, indolent, and lazy with his own. + +Every one liked him, yet every one shook his or her head when his name +was mentioned. It was felt that he would never be a success. + +At last it was determined to ship him to a country where he would have +to work, from the fact that there there would be no friends to help him. + +If he wanted to eat, he must earn his food by his labor. It was felt +that it was best for Danvers--and best for the friends he had been +living on so long. + +The friends felt that strongly. + +The exile jumped at the idea. He had long wanted to see America. + +One of his friends had done business with Depew over certain +consignments, and to Depew he wrote a letter introducing Danvers, and +asking him to do what he could for the bearer. + +Others of his friends purchased for him clothing and outfit generally, +and saw him off--with their pockets lighter perhaps, but a strong +feeling of relief. + +Depew welcomed Danvers heartily. + +Strangers were rarely seen in Oakville. Come from the mother country, he +was doubly welcome. + +Danvers felt that he had dropped on both feet. + +Straightway, too, he fell in love with the farmer's daughter, and it +must be admitted that his city ways found favor in the eyes of Tessie. + +The farmer promised to find him work, and meanwhile put him into the +position the supposed to be holiday making Josh had filled. + +This was a thing which disturbed Susan. + +Days went by and she was still without news from her husband, and here +was a stranger--she knew now that he came over in the boat she had been +on--filling the post her husband had so long occupied. + +She feared, too, lest any of Josh's petty delinquencies should come to +light. She knew that his books must bristle with evidence of them. + +So things went on for two or three weeks, Susan working herself up to +such a state of excitement that at times the blood rushed so to her head +that her eyes were blinded to the work she was engaged in. + +The acuteness of her agony nearly drove her mad; it arose from the +silence which was imposed on her; she dared not make any inquiries. + +And then one day she received such a shock that she became mad in real +earnest. For she felt convinced that her husband had been murdered, and +that Danvers was his murderer. + +Did she not at that very moment hold in her hands unquestionable proof +of his guilt? + +She was standing at the wash-tub when she discovered it. It had been +through her hands once before at the weekly wash. + +It was simply a flannel undervest, given out with the rest of his +washing by George Danvers. + +But it bore her private mark, which she had with her own fingers put on +to the vest of her missing husband weeks before. It had belonged to and +been worn by Josh Todd! + +There was no real mystery about it, and if she had opened her mouth the +matter would have been made plain to Susan. But her lips were sealed to +silence. + +She remained with the firm conviction that her husband was dead, and +that his murderer was sleeping beneath the same roof as herself. + +She became filled with a fiendish desire for revenge. It was impossible +for her to give any information which would convince the police and +bring about the murderer's punishment, but she was none the less +convinced herself. + +She could not insure his sitting in the electrocution chair, but that +was no reason why he should go unpunished. + +But one desire filled her--she hankered for vengeance. + +She sought for means of compassing it. She never closed her eyes at +night for thinking about it--thinking how to get level with Danvers. + +She wanted a life for a life. + +The solution of the mystery? Simple enough. Gerald Danvers' things had +been got together by his friends. He had only handled them in packing +his portmanteau--a portmanteau which bore his initials. + +When in the stoke hole on that day of the child's rescue, he had asked +one of the sailors to get his portmanteau and handed the keys from his +wet trousers. The man had singled out in the hold a portmanteau bearing +the initials "G. D." and the key fitting it--it was the ordinary key, +one of which will fit hundreds of the cheaper kind of lock--he had taken +out an undervest and shirt. + +That they were not an accurate fit in no way disturbed Danvers; he had +not bought them himself, and he imagined that his friends had jumped at +his size. + +As a matter of fact, the sailor had opened one of Josh Todd's +portmanteaus, which, of course, bore the initials "G. D." + +It was all capable of simple explanation, but Susan Todd was not in need +of simple explanation. She had a large sized thirst for revenge on just +then--a thirst she determined should be quenched. + +The woman was mad--absolutely mad; filled with all the cunning which +madness proverbially entails. + +Mere death would not satisfy her. She must make this murderer suffer. +That was why she worried. + +She had opportunities for killing him fifty times in a day, for she was +strong, and bony, and powerful; and an axe or a chopper would have +bought about all she wanted. + +But the act itself would give her no pleasure. Her mind was full of the +leading up to it. + +She wanted the man who had killed her husband to die a slow death by +torture, and she was puzzled how to devise this. + +She anticipated a pleasure from watching him counting the moments to his +death. Three parts of the pleasure of life lies in its anticipation. + +Then there came to her an idea. There must surely have been a strain of +the old Indian blood in her, for it savored so of those times when the +brave was honored who invented the most devilish kind of torture. + +The material for her scheme was close at hand, not a mile from the +farmhouse--an old, disused water mill. + +Disused for want of motor power. + +It stood on the banks of what had been a swift, flowing river, but +diversion of its course nearer its rise had turned the river into a +little stream which could be crossed in almost all parts without water +coming over shoe tops. Only in wet weather was it ever deep enough to +rise to one's knees. + +When it rained above, and the waters gathered, it would come down in a +little rush. + +Shortly prior to its final abandonment, a new wheel had been put to the +mill. That accounted for the wheel being its soundest part--all else was +ruin. + +It had been disconnected, and the machinery of the mill removed years +ago; but still the big paddle wheel rested on its axle, and every time +it rained sufficiently to swell the stream above and make the water flow +stronger, so assuredly, the wheel would revolve--revolve till the strong +flow ceased, and the water trickled again as it was wont to do in dry +weather. + +How the scheme came into Susan Todd's head it is impossible to say, but +it came--came to stop. + +She would lure her husband's murderer to the old mill. She had no fear +of an inability to do that. There she would overpower him by a blow from +behind, which would stun him. + +His unconscious form she would drag outside the little window, and tie +it with a clothes-line to one of the blades or paddles of the wheel. + +The accomplishment of the task the muscles of her brawny arms told her +would be simple, and she gloated over the enjoyment she would experience +in coming to the mill as often as possible to talk to the gagged and +bound man. + +She would discuss the weather for his benefit, and let him know whether +the glass was high or low--whether rain might be expected. + +And then, when the rain came, assuredly she must be there, even if it +came in the dead of the night. + +She must be there to watch the agony on the upturned face of a starving, +thirsty man, an agony bred of a knowledge of what would happen when the +water was strong enough to turn the mill wheel. + +She wanted to see the mill wheel start; she had watched it before and +knew how it acted, and she knew it would act just the same with its +human burden. + +The water moved it just a little at first, then further, then further, +and all the while the bound wretch would be going slowly but surely to +that pool of water through which the lower paddles of the wheel always +passed. + +Half drowned in that, he would be dragged up into air again for the same +ghastly performance to commence again. + +Oh! it would be beautiful--she hugged herself in the joy of the +anticipation. + +And when the wheel had ceased whirling, and the waters had gone down, +what easier than to cut the bonds, and let the body drop into the pool +beneath, buried from human sight forever! + +What easier! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +FATHER AND CHILD--THE OLD STORY + + +"Come here, Tessie." + +"Yes, dad." + +"Sit down, girlie." + +"Let me kneel, here. There, like that, then you can't be very cross, I +know. Let me put my arms around your neck, and I know your lecture won't +be very serious." + +"Kiss me." + +"There." + +"And now I want to talk to you, seriously, Tessie." + +"I knew you did, dad; you had such a long face. What have I done?" + +"Nothing yet, girlie. It's to prevent your doing something that I fear +you will be sorry for all your life that I am talking to you now." + +"Yes, dad." + +"Gerald Danvers has been here nearly a month. He's in love with +you--that's plain to be seen. There's no blame to himself for that. You +are a very pretty girl." + +"Dad!" + +"That's so. That don't matter much; and if you are only flirting that +wouldn't matter much, either. But the point is--are you? Do you feel +that you love him, Tessie?" + +She was playing with the seal at the end of his watch-chain, and her +eyes were cast down as she answered: + +"He's the nicest man round these parts, dad." + +"To look at, Tessie--yes. I admit that. He's got the city polish on him. +It's a question if that's good though. The bit of veneer on an article +of furniture doesn't make the wood beneath any better quality." + +"No, but the farm hands, dad! And then at Oakville who is there to talk +to?" + +"Maybe not polished people, Tessie." + +"No, dad, and that's it. Don't think I'm blaming you, dear old daddie, +but you see the years you sent me away to boarding-school made a change +in me. The girls--I met people of a different class. One must talk, you +know, dad, and there isn't a soul for miles round that has an idea +beyond the crops." + +"I see--I see." + +"Don't think I'm finding fault, daddie--not for a moment. I am as happy +as possible at the dear old farm. I was born here, and I should like to +die here. But one likes to exchange ideas, dad. You might, for instance, +circle ten miles round the farm and you would not meet one soul who +could tell you what poetry meant." + +"And this man, Danvers, he talks well?" + +"He is a gentleman, dad." + +"Without a dollar to call his own." + +"Dad! is he any the less a gentleman for that?" + +"The world thinks so, Tessie." + +"Let it, dad, I don't; and I know you don't. A man's a man for all +that." + +"But a poor man, Tessie--in a double sense. I am really sorry to hear +you say this." + +"What have I said, dad?" + +"Nothing, girlie, nothing. But I can read you. You like Danvers?" + +She was playing with the charm on the chain again as she answered: + +"I don't dislike him, dad." + +The old man sighed. + +"I have heard you yourself say, dad, that you liked him." + +"Ah! but there's a difference in my and your liking. When a woman begins +by liking a man, she generally ends up by loving him." + +No answer. + +"Danvers was sent out to me, Tessie, with a letter of introduction. You +read it. By the next mail another letter came. I opened it myself, as I +have done all letters since Josh went away. It was from the writer of +the letter of introduction." + +"Another, dad?" + +"No. He repeated that he would be glad if I would do all I could for +Danvers, but, above all, I was to make him work, and work hard. That his +life up, he had never done a stroke of work, that he had always lived on +his friends, that his friends had provided him with an outfit and paid +his passage money, and hoped that in a new country, where he had not a +single friend, he would be forced to work--work for his living." + +"Poor fellow!" + +"Tessie!" + +"Well, dad, isn't he a poor fellow? Fancy, thousands of miles from a +friend, and, as you say, without a dollar of his own. Am I wrong, dad, +to sympathize with, and say of him 'poor fellow'?" + +The old man stifled a groan. + +He was acting badly. He felt that. He was trying to paint this man in +repulsive colors, and was but exciting a tender feeling! He was putting +his foot into it deeper every step he took. + +It is curious how persistently parents force their children into the +marriages they are so anxious not to bring about. + +Bespatter her lover to a girl, and straightway the girl loves him the +more. Call him everything black you can lay your tongue to, and the girl +will be framing pretty speeches for future use--to make up to him for +it. + +"Tessie, think, my girl, you are happy now because you have everything +you can reasonably want. Just picture to yourself what your life would +be married to a centless man." + +"But, dad, why should you think he will always be poor?" + +"All his life, Tessie, he has been living on other people." + +"But he may reform, dad. You said he was doing the work better than Josh +had done it." + +"New brooms sweep clean." + +"And in a new country, dad, perhaps he has turned over a new leaf." + +"Supposing he has, Tessie, what is his future? If he left here, he might +get a job as a store clerk; what can he expect to be better? A store +clerk with perhaps a dozen dollars a week." + +"You are hard on him, dad." + +"Come, Tessie, have I been? But for the fact that Josh is away on a +holiday, what could I have done with him? There is not an ounce of farm +work in him. They send such men out from the mother country--God knows +what for--when we want only muscle, strength, and grit." + +"He has been useful, dad." + +"Useful! And when Josh comes back, what then? I have told him it is only +a temporary job, and perhaps that is the reason." + +"For what, dad?" + +"His making love to you." + +"Dad!" + +"Oh, I know the world, Tessie, better than you do. He thinks you are a +pretty girl, and that if he can make you love him, he is in for a soft +thing." + +"Oh, dad, you are unjust." + +"I would to God he had never come here." + +"Dad!" + +"It is true. Marry? Of course you'll marry. It's a woman's mission in +life. I can't say I have seen the man yet that I think worthy of you, +but that is neither here nor there. But I did think you would fall into +the hands of a man who had a bit of land of his own to walk on, and a +roof of his own to cover him----" + +"You are bitter, dad." + +"I feel so, girlie. You are so bound up heart and soul in my heart and +soul that what affects you affects me. I want to see you happy." + +"I know that, dad." + +"Tell me, he has not spoken to you of love yet?" + +"Not--with his lips, dad--yet." + +Then the old man groaned aloud. He knew it was hopeless to talk. + +He prayed for the return of Josh that he might have a reasonable excuse +for packing off Danvers. + +And Josh--all that was left of him--after the inquest had been buried in +the city cemetery. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +LOVERS--MORE OF THE OLD STORY + + +"Tessie, why are you angry with me?" + +"Angry?" + +His question answered by another, answered to the accompaniment of +elevated eyebrows and a pretty little expression of surprise--after the +manner of her sex. + +"Well--yes. You are--aren't you?" + +"Was never better tempered in my life." + +"I rather wish that you would get ill tempered." + +"Why?" + +"Because--because then you are nicer. Nicer to me. + +"Nicer, Mr. Danvers?" + +"Mr. Danvers!" + +"Well, that is your name, is it not?" + +"Oh, certainly, Miss Depew." + +The girl laughed nervously. + +They were walking across the fields from the milking shed, the girl +carrying the cream for supper. + +"You are laughing now," he said. + +"You said once you liked to hear me laugh." + +"Oh, I mean you are laughing at me. Don't feel sufficient interest in +me, I suppose? Please don't say it; I will take it you mean that." + +"I think you are very horrid this afternoon." + +"I feel so. My feelings are oozing up to the surface, I suppose. And I +meant to----" + +"To what?" + +"Oh, it--it does not matter." + +"You talk in--well, I can't understand you." + +"Like a man awakening from a sleep. Wits have been wool gathering. I +have been dreaming. Accept my apologies, Miss Depew." + +"Miss Depew! How dreadfully formal you have grown." + +"Blizzard came along, and froze me all up." + +"Poor fellow!" + +"I am glad you have some sort of feeling for me--if it is only pity." + +"Oh, I always sympathize with--with people who are all frozen up." + +"I suppose it is no use asking you for a plain answer to a plain +question?" + +"Why not?" + +"Well--you are a woman." + +"Is that a compliment for my sex, or is it marked 'personal'?" + +"Tessie----" + +"That's better; you are thawing." + +"Tessie!" + +"You have called me twice, and I am listening all the time." + +"I don't know how to say what I want to say." + +"How curious! You are usually so--well, never at a loss for words." + +"You chill me." + +"Poor fellow! Going into the Arctic regions again?" + +"I am going away from the farm--to the Arctic regions, or to the devil, +I don't much care where." + +She started when he said he was going away, and caught her underlip +between her teeth, and held it there. + +It prevented its trembling. Presently she said: + +"I thought you were going to stay--quite a while." + +"So did I." + +"Why are you going, then?" + +"Driven away." + +"Really." + +She was herself again by now. A conscious smile played round her lips as +she inquired: + +"Who's the driver?" + +"Tessie Depew." + +It did not surprise her a bit; she had guessed what was coming. But she +simply said again: + +"Really!" + +And he found it most aggravating. She had said "really" in that +surprised tone so often that he began to hate the word. + +He swished the heads of the tall grass with the stick he was +carrying--the beheading operation was a relief to his feelings. + +She watched him from beneath her long lashes, and there was a curve +round her lips all the time--she couldn't help a smile. + +"I thought at one time, Tessie----" + +"Yes?" + +"Thought you--well, I was a fool for thinking so, wasn't I?" + +"Really can't tell what you did think," she answered demurely. "I am +sure I should be a conspicuous failure as a thought reader." + +"Last night I went to bed the happiest man in America." + +"So?" + +"Yes. I am a poor devil of a wandering sort of sheep, and a woman's kind +words have come on my ears so seldom----" + +"Yes." + +"That they influence me when they come." + +"Women," she spoke with assumed carelessness, "have been kind to you, +then?" + +"You were kind to me last night, Tessie." + +"Really! What did I say?" + +"Not so much what you said, but the way you said it. Tessie, don't drive +me mad. You know--you do--now, don't you--that I love you?" + +Of course she knew it, but she was not going to admit it. She looked +quite surprised, as if such an idea had never occurred to her. + +She was a true woman--an actress to the tips of her fingers, when the +subject of the play was love. He went on: + +"I led an idle sort of life, Tessie, in the old country, and I came out +here to turn over a new leaf. I have turned it over, and fastened down +the old one. + +"I am not worth a red cent--whatever that is--now, but I have faith in +myself, and I believe that presently, if hard work and persistence raise +a man on the ladder, I'll be able to climb up. I never expected for a +moment that you would climb with me; I would not be such a selfish brute +as to ask you to. But there was something I had intended to ask +you--only--only----" + +"What was it?" + +"Your kindness made me think of it. I told you that I went to bed last +night the happiest man in all America. But I didn't tell you I slept. + +"I did not. I lay thinking--thinking all the time of you. I thought I +would begin that climb with such a heart, with such an eagerness, with +such a will, because I would have you for an incentive." + +"Well?" + +"I thought that last night, because you behaved to me like a--like an +angel. And I determined to ask you to-day to--to--that's why I came out +to the sheds to meet you." + +"What were you--what were you going to ask me?" + +"To wait for me, Tessie. To wait a year or two till I was up the tree a +bit with a nest I could invite you to share with me. I love you, Tessie, +love you with all my heart and soul. + +"I suppose I ought to have told you all this differently; then you would +have liked me all the better for it. But I am not experienced in love +affairs, Tessie. You are the first woman I have ever really loved--the +first I have ever told so." + +She did not, somehow, seem dissatisfied with his manner of telling it, +and the concluding sentence was as wise a one as he could have framed. + +They were walking very slowly now, and if the girl did not say much, she +thought the more. Nice, pleasant, happy thoughts, and they made her +sweet to the man who had inspired them. + +"The plain question I wanted a plain answer to, Tessie, was: Was I a +fool last night? Was I ass enough to misunderstand you? Did my vanity +make me think you cared for me? Tessie, Tessie, do you love me?" + +"You said a plain question, Gerald." + +She had her eyes fixed on the ground as she spoke. "But I have counted +four questions all in that one breath." + +"Tessie, darling, answer me." + +"What, all four?" + +She had raised her mischievous eyes to his, and fixed them on him in +such a way that his heart leaped. + +"Tessie!" + +"Supposing I answer one?" + +"Tessie?" + +"The--last--one." + +"Yes, yes, yes." + +"That is my answer." + +"What?" + +"Yes." + +He caught her in his arms then, and--well, Blossom standing in the +middle of the meadow chewing her cud paused in that operation in sheer +astonishment. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE METHOD IN SUSAN TODD'S MADNESS + + +The next day the farmer's daughter went into Oakville shopping. She had +arranged to have tea with a friend and be back before dusk. + +Danvers had been sent in another direction in the early morning, and +knew nothing of this. He was back early in the afternoon, and wondered +at seeing nothing of the girl of his heart. + +Susan spoke to him presently. She beckoned him as he passed the back of +the house. + +"I've a message for you, Mr. Danvers." + +"Oh! What is it, Susan?" + +"Not so loud! From Miss Tessie." + +"Ah!" + +"She's gone for a ride. Will you meet her in the old water mill at four +o'clock?" + +"The old--why on earth all that distance away? What is she doing there?" + +"That she did not tell me," the woman answered shortly; "don't go if you +don't want to. I've given you the message." + +"That's all right, Susan; don't lose your temper. I'll go fast enough." + +"She told me to say, too, that you were not to tell any one." + +"Trust me, I won't. What's the time by your kitchen clock? Just three. +There's an hour to wait. All right." + +He went away about his business. Susan watched him out of sight. + +Presently she went away about her business--in the direction of the old +water mill. She took with her some old pieces of rope which had been +used for binding butter kegs, and which she knew would never be missed. +They had been thrown aside as useless, because they were so soaked in +fat. + +She had half an hour to wait before the hands of the kitchen clock would +point to four, but she waited patiently. + +Her revenge was coming within her grasp, the revenge she had been +praying and hoping for--a life for a life. + +The roof of the old mill and the rafters and part of the loft flooring +were fairly sound. + +She tied a heavy stone to her rope, and, after climbing to the loft, +pulled up the stone after her. There she waited. The old mill was a +baited trap. + +She passed the time in coiling the rope, and handling and weighing the +stone. She intended to drop the stone on her victim's head. + +She knew it would stun him. She had seen a man fall senseless--and +remain senseless for an hour--on the occasion of a far less heavy weight +falling on his head. + +Ten minutes would suffice for her task, if he remained senseless as +long. + +She mapped out what she would do if the stone failed. She would drop +from above, spring on him from behind, and half choke the life out of +him with her strong, long, bony fingers. + +Then she would bring him to again, when she had fastened him up. She did +not want him to die--yet. + +Before four o'clock, Gerald Danvers entered the mill. + +Before four o'clock he was lying senseless on the floor, a great ugly +gash in the back of his head, and a woman feeling at his heart to know +if it was beating, and laughing a maniacal laugh of triumph when she +found it was, and that her scheme was successful--so far. + +Then she tied him up. Tightly round the ankles and knees, and his wrists +close round his waist. + +His arms she kept open--open for the binding cords to be looped +through. + +The wheel she kept in a fixed position by means of a wooden pin thrust +in its side from the interior of the mill. That fixed, it was easy to +walk out of the door window on the floor's level, straight to the paddle +nearest it. + +Susan dragged Gerald's unconscious body along the floor, out of the +window, on to the paddle, and then she began to bind him to the blade. + +She had come with plenty of pieces of rope, and, slinging one round the +paddle, she caught the end of it the other side. + +By that means she fastened the feet. Another piece, thrown in a similar +way, she drew through the arms, and her prisoner was securely bound +then, unable to move, literally, hand or foot. + +Then she drew the man's handkerchief from his pocket, and forcing his +mouth open, used it as a gag, knotting it behind his head. + +She got off the paddle, back into the mill, and gazed on her handiwork. + +The figure did not stir. The eyes were closed, and although the blood +had ceased flowing, the body seemed lifeless. + +This did not suit Susan. She wanted the man to awake, to suffer torture. + +She wondered how she could get water to pour over him. She had come +without dipper or basin of any kind. + +Could she move the wheel, she wondered. She knew she was strong. If she +could gradually turn this, blade by blade, it would go faster and +faster, and as the bottom three blades, she could see, were in the pool, +it followed that, for a few moments, the man would be--from head to +foot--in the cold water. That could not fail to revive him. + +She would try. She did. + +She withdrew the pin, and pulled and pushed with all the strength that +in her lay. + +It seemed a hopeless task, but presently she felt the paddle she was +pushing move just half an inch, then an inch, then more and more, and at +last the second paddle was where the first had been. + +The wheel was moving. The man was on his road to the water at the +bottom. + +The wheel went round faster because the weight of the man told. + +The body passed through the water and came up. And then real hard work +for Susan commenced. + +She had not thought of the additional weight on the upward journey. + +But she was bound to bring the body up to a level position, if she broke +every sinew in her wiry frame. + +After infinite labor she succeeded, and with a sigh of relief thrust the +pin into its place again--the pin which held the wheel firm. + +Not that there was any need for that. Lying in a level position, the +balance was true. + +The wheel would have stayed so without the pin. + +Then she looked at the prisoner--he was looking at her! The water had +nearly choked him, but it had at the same time brought him back to life, +if not to understanding of the situation. The woman spoke to him: + +"You are back to your senses. You can understand what I am saying?" + +The look in his eyes answered her. She went on: + +"You are going to die, Gerald Danvers. Die slowly. I am killing you +because you killed my husband. It's a life for a life. Your life for +that of the man you killed on the ship. + +"You will live there, just as you are, without bite or sup, till the +rain comes. You will be able to see the clouds as you lie there, the +stars at night and the sun by day. When the rain comes the waters gather +above, and where you see that trickling which just escapes your head, a +waterfall appears and turns the wheel you are on." + +The man had his eyes fixed on her all the time. + +He understood clearly all she was saying now--but he could not fathom +what was the reason for it all--what he had done to merit such a +revenge. + +He did not understand how--as Byron says--sweet is revenge, especially +to women. + +But for the handkerchief in his mouth, he might have been able to +explain; as it was, he could not make a sound. She continued: + +"If you want to live, pray that the rain may not come; if you want to +die, pray that it may. When you feel that waterfall reaching you, then +you may know that presently there will be force enough to turn the +wheel, and that you will go round and round, faster and faster, now in +the air, now in the water, now in the air, now in the water!" + +She was waving her arms round and round to illustrate her meaning--she +was so fearful that he should lose any of the horror of his position. + +She need not have been. He lost none. + +Every word she uttered went home. He realized it the more because he saw +the woman was mad. Her eyes alone spoke the fact eloquently. + +"If you pray for life, remember it will be a famishing, thirsty, hungry +life. If we have no rain for a dozen days, not a taste of food, not a +drop of water do you get. You can hear the water always trickling by +you, and in a day or two as you get hungry I will bring my dinner here, +and you shall see me eat it, you murdering brute, you!" + +He realized, without the maniacal laughter, how mad she was. + +His heart almost ceased beating. He was not a coward, but he felt that +at this woman's mercy his death was certain. Not a speedy death, but a +lingering, torturing one. + +Rescue was out of the question. Not a soul came near the old mill, +except at haymaking time to cut the grass. That was weeks ahead. + +Still the woman talked. + +"Till the rain comes, you know what to expect. Till the rain comes. +And when it is all over I shall cut your cords and let you +drop--splash--into the pool you have just been through. + +"You killed my husband, you murderer, you! His blood calls out for +vengeance. I am going to take--a terrible vengeance. But it is justice, +the justice the parson tells us of--a life for a life--a tooth for a +tooth. You took my husband's life--I am going to take yours. You +murdering brute!" + +It was her farewell speech. She slammed to the door, and he was left +alone! + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +BOUND TO THE WHEEL + + +Gerald Danvers was never able to realize how long he lay there. + +Blissful moments of unconsciousness came with awful awakenings to the +reality of that painful binding. Every time he moved the cords seemed to +attain the heat of redness, and to burn into his flesh. + +Thirst--that was the most awful feeling. He had not been there an hour +before he was assailed with it. + +The handkerchief made his mouth water, and the linen seemed to act like +blotting paper, absorbing and drawing up every drop of moisture in his +body. + +He could turn his head, and there, not a yard away, sparkling in the +sun, was water trickling down; the waterfall which was to swell in body +and force and whirl him to his death. + +It was not long before he was praying for death--life seemed so full of +pain. + +The acute agony of that immovable position, with the cords seeming to +cut into his flesh every time he attempted to move, became unendurable. + +He could keep no count of the hours, but when at last the setting sun +turned things red, he felt that he had been there days and days. + +Not that he noticed the color of the sun; the blood which had rushed to +his head made things all black one moment, all red the next. + +Night fell; all was darkness--so black a darkness that in the shadow in +which he lay he could not see the faintest outline of the mill. + +Presently a little speck of light appeared above him. Water was in his +eyes, tears forced there by the pain, blurring his sight. + +The little light looked like a flashing diamond. He could not wipe the +water from his eyes, but when presently it fell away, and his vision was +clearer, he saw that what had appeared as a speck of light was a star in +the sky above him. + +Then he realized that it was night. He gathered some idea of the time, +too. + +He knew that the moon did not rise till nine o'clock, and it had not +risen yet. It was clear and cloudless, the canopy above him, and he knew +that ere long the moon would rise and lighten up his surroundings. + +Then he lapsed into unconsciousness again. + +From that state he was aroused by a noise--aroused to find that the moon +was up, and flooding half the mill wheel with light, and throwing the +other half in deep shadow. + +His head and chest were in the former, and the rest of him in darkness. + +The noise was slight, but his tense nerves caught it; it was on the +wheel, and presently he was conscious that some one was feeling his +legs, and then higher up his body, round his waist. + +He guessed it was the mad woman come back, and he was not sorry. He +still heard the slight noise, and imagined it to be the woman creeping +along the paddle. + +He closed his eyes. + +Not that he feared death. In his conscious moments, for hours past, he +had been praying for release from his torturing position--praying for +death. + +And he felt that it was coming at last. He closed his eyes because he +did not want to see in what shape it had arrived. + +He guessed that it would be a noiseless weapon, perhaps a knife, and a +feeling of wonder stole over him, wonder of how it would feel as the +knife sheathed itself in his heart. + +No feeling of fear, not a scrap; he would welcome it. It would end the +pain. And then he prayed. + +He felt the movements about his legs, but his limbs were so numbed that +he could not very well tell what was being done. + +And then he felt a weight on his chest, a moving weight. He thought that +his last moments had arrived--that his murderer was getting closer and +closer. Still he prayed. + +His had not been a very religious upbringing. Indeed, there had been +times when he had scoffed at godly people, and the idea of entering a +church had never occurred to him since his childhood. + +There had been nothing particularly vicious in his life, but the idea of +prayer had never entered his mind. He had, he had thought, too much to +do in thinking of this world to trouble himself about the next one. Time +enough for that when he was dying. + +Quite a number of persons think that way. The heavenly bookkeepers are +troubled only with entries on the debit side during most men's healthy +times. + +No grateful acknowledgment rises for that same health; it is only when +illness reaches the man on earth that he thinks of heaven. + +The recording angel can usually gauge a man's health by a reference to +the credit side of his ledger account. The entries tell. + +Now, with closed eyes, Gerald Danvers prayed. He thanked God for +bringing his torture to an end, and asked forgiveness for his previous +forgetfulness. He was earnest in his prayer, and he prayed on. And all +the time he felt the movement on his chest; but his life was spared. + +Then he wondered why. He knew that his chest was in the moonlight, and +that if he opened his eyes he could see his murderer there. + +And the suspense was as bad to bear as the previous torture. He would +open his eyes. + +Danvers opened his eyes. Could he have given vent to a scream it would +have been one of mortal fear and agony. + +His cry to God was not one of thankfulness now, but of fear, horror, and +fear of being eaten alive! + +For on his chest, his legs, his whole body, there seemed to be swarming +hundreds and hundreds of huge rats! + +Perhaps his prayer was answered, for once more he became oblivious of +his surroundings. And he remained unconscious for many hours, so much so +that, when next he opened his eyes, the sun was rising, and the whole +place was bright with the light of daybreak. + +He cast his eyes to his chest, to his feet; thank God! not a sign of a +rat. Moreover, the feeling of numbness and pain had left him. + +He began to wonder whether it had all been a fearful dream. + +And then something happened which startled him. A fly alighted on his +face. + +Involuntarily he started to brush it away with his hand. And the hand +brushed it away! + +It was not till he had so used his hand that he realized that that +member was free. Then he could not understand. + +He lay there quite still with the hand poised in the air--his own hand +free. He looked at his wrist, and there were the red marks where the +rope had been. He could not understand it. + +Gently he tried to move his left hand--and succeeded. Lifted it till it +grasped the blade of the wheel to his left. + +Still he lay quiet, unable to realize that his hands were free--and what +that meant. + +But it did not take long for the full meaning to burst on him, and when +it did, he lost no time. + +A moment after he was in a sitting position, and had wrenched the +handkerchief from his aching, parched mouth. + +The sitting position pained him intensely for a few moments, after his +long recumbent attitude, and he rested for the pain to go off. + +He heard a noise, and, looking down over the wheel, saw cattle on the +brink of the rivulet--cattle endeavoring to bury their noses in the cool +water. + +The sight gave him fresh life; he must reach that water and drink, and +drink, and drink. + +He essayed to move his legs--he could. He was quite free. Just cramped, +that was all. + +What could it mean? How had his liberation been effected? + +He looked around, and there was not a trace of the ropes which had bound +him. + +Yet stay, what was that upon which he was sitting? He put his hands +beneath him, and withdrew a piece of rope--a piece of greasy rope. + +He examined it carefully. It was a piece that had been entirely covered +by his body. He examined the ends, and the marks thereon told him all. + +The rats which had caused him such horror had been his salvation. +Attracted by the fat sodden rope, they had gnawed it and gnawed it all +the while he was lying unconscious. + +And now--thank God--he was free at last. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SUSAN TODD SEES A GHOST + + +That water--that delicious water! Would he ever forget that drink? + +It was some little while before he was able to climb off the mill wheel, +and he staggered, too, when he reached the ground. + +Prone on his chest, he buried his mouth and nose in the little stream, +and sucked up the water. Never had he tasted sweeter. + +He looked across the fields. Away in the distance he could see in the +clearness of the early morning the windows of the farmhouse with the +blinds drawn. + +Half way between himself and the house were the milking sheds. + +He walked towards them. He could see the cows beginning to gather there, +ready for the relief of the early milking. + +He stood sorely in need of food--a draft of milk would be as good as a +meal. + +At first walking was hard work. His late cramped position told. + +But each step he took, the pain seemed to wear away more and more. He +reached the sheds, had no difficulty in finding a pail, and was +presently gratefully drinking the warm milk. It made a man of him. + +It was still early. Susan, he knew, was the first to be up in the +household. + +If he went to the farm now he would come face to face with the woman who +had tried to murder him. + +That he determined to do. He was consumed with a feverish anxiety to +know why he had been sentenced to death. + +At the same time, strong as he felt now, and prepared for assault, he +would take precautions. + +He looked around for something wherewith to arm himself. An ax hung by a +cord from the wall of the shed. He took it and walked towards the farm. + +He knew that Susan would come down and make straight for her kitchen; +that the first thing she would do would be to open wide the door leading +to the garden. + +In that garden he would stand. He was curious to see how she would view +him. He would stand there and wait--with the ax behind him in case of +accidents. + +He did so. Waited a long while. Then he heard the sounds of her +footsteps clattering over the hard kitchen floor; the shooting of the +top bolt, then the bottom one, the rattle of fingers on the catch, and +then the door opened. + +He saw the woman--she saw him. The color left her face, she went livid, +she threw up her arms, screamed and fell senseless to the floor, +muttering: + +"A ghost! A ghost!" + +Gerald entered the kitchen. The scream had alarmed the people in the +house; he could hear them hurriedly moving about up-stairs. + +He bent over the unconscious woman. She had struck her head in falling, +and it was bleeding slightly. + +It would be untrue to record any feeling of pity on Gerald's part. He +rather grimly recognized a coincidence. + +They both had head wounds. She had let something fall on his, now she +had fallen on her own. + +"What's this? What--you Gerald! Where have you been? What does this +mean?" + +It was farmer Depew talking. + +"This woman's mad." + +"Mad! What on earth do you mean?" + +"You will scarcely believe me when I tell you. But the woman is in a +faint now. Let us----" + +"You leave her to Harper there. Harper, throw some cold water over her. +And now you, Mr. Danvers, just throw some light on these fixings, will +you? Where have you passed the night?" + +"Bound hand and foot to the old mill wheel!" + +"See here--you said she was mad, I shall begin to think----" + +"Hear me out--you won't then. I have been nearer death's door than I +shall ever be again without entering. Death must keep his hinges well +oiled," he added grimly, "or I should have heard them creaking." + +"What--how did it happen?" + +"I went into the mill yesterday afternoon, just before four o'clock. +This young lady"--he indicated Susan with his foot--"was there before +me. She had climbed aloft with something heavy. What it was she dropped +on my head I don't know, but I know it struck me at the time as being +heavy." + +"Curious thing to joke about!" + +"If you felt as light-hearted as I do, farmer, you would want to skip +and dance. It was no joking matter at the time, I can tell you." + +"Go on." + +"The blow rendered me insensible. When I came to myself I found that my +lady here had dragged me on to the wheel, and tied me to it, bound hand +and foot, and gagged." + +"Good God!" + +"Fact. Look at my wrists. There are the marks, you see, yet. She had +evidently thrown pails of water over me, I suppose to bring me to, for I +was drenched from head to foot." + +"Go on." + +"It evidently did bring me to, for I found myself looking her in the +face. She spoke. Told me what she intended to do with me." + +"What?" + +"Leave me there without food or drink till the rain came and made the +stream powerful enough to revolve the wheel, and let me be whirled to +glory." + +"Is--it possible?" + +"I don't know. I didn't wait to see." + +"Well, you certainly take it light-heartedly----" + +"I didn't at the time. I was the most heavy-hearted man in this country. +But it is over, and the reaction is immense." + +"Did she not give her reason for this behavior?" + +"Well--she seemed to think that I had killed her husband, and that it +was her duty to lay me out in consequence." + +"Killed her husband?" + +"That's what she said--killed him on a boat." + +"On a boat? What does she mean? Has she been thinking about the murder +on the liner you came over by? She may have heard you talking about it." + +"I never thought of that! She said, 'Your life for that of the man you +killed on the ship.' Had that man anything to do with her husband?" + +"Don't know. Wait till she comes round, we will see. She's moving a bit +now." + +The woman did move. Opened her eyes, and then seemed to remember how she +came on the floor. + +She started into a sitting position, and her eyes fell on Gerald. Once +more she screamed out: + +"A ghost! A ghost! A ghost!" + +Then she fell back in a burst of frenzied hysterical laughter, and +despite the fact that two men held her down, the tattoo made by the +tapping of her feet could be heard all over the building. + +Ultimately, she was carried up to her room, quieted, and with the +assistance of the farmer's wife and daughter undressed and put to bed. + +Danvers was rather struck by the change in positions. He had been afraid +for his life of her, now she was afraid of him. + +It caused him to hang up the ax. He felt he would be able to get along +without it now. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A SICK BED CONFESSION + + +One of the men built the fire, and assistance with the crockery by +others meant breakfast being served ultimately. + +Gerald had an appetite which some of the farm hands paused to view with +a kind of envy. In the rare intervals of the meal, when his mouth was +not too full, he told the farmer the rest of the story. + +Susan came out of her fit, but it left her lying there as weak as a rat. + +It was explained to her that Gerald was really alive, and then she +relapsed into sullen silence--she guessed that the sheriff or his men +would be the next to interview her. + +Later in the day the farmer and Gerald went up to her room. + +Danvers was so buoyant over his release, so assured that the woman had a +grievance, and above all so curious to get to the bottom of the affair, +that he greeted her with a smile on his lips, and no visible anger. + +She answered him never a word. + +He sat on the bedside, and addressed her at some length, while the +farmer seated himself near the head of the bed. + +"Susan, those born to be hanged can't be drowned, you know; so I am +here. There's no need to bother you by telling you how I escaped--I'm +here. That's good enough. Now, what I want to know is what the dickens +made you put me on the wheel." + +Sullen silence. + +"Don't think I feel more than necessarily angry over it, because I +don't. I know perfectly well that you, in your own mind, thought you had +a good reason, or you would not have done it. What was it?" + +Sullen silence. + +"You said I had murdered your husband. I have never seen him, never even +heard his name, and never hurt, killed, or wounded any man, woman, or +child in the whole course of my life." + +She turned her head and looked at him. + +"Yes," he said smilingly, "I can look you straight in the face, Susan. +And I should be scarcely likely to do that, should I, if I had killed +your husband?" + +Still she looked at him. + +"On the steamer in which I crossed the Atlantic there certainly was a +man found dead. But whether murdered or suicide, or what his name was, I +don't know. Was that your husband, or was the other man?--who, no doubt +had been murdered, judging by the way his body was found." + +That made her open her lips. She was startled into a speech. She said: + +"Other man?" + +"Yes; there were two bodies found in the one cabin." + +"I only saw one." + +That brought the farmer to his feet. He said: + +"You saw? How on earth could you see?" + +But the woman, annoyed at having been betrayed into speech, was silent. + +Gerald spoke again. + +"Susan, don't be a fool. If your husband is dead, I did not kill him. +Your common sense ought to tell you that. But if he is dead, you ought +to know how, and by what means. + +"I never saw either of the passengers who were found dead, and do not +know their names--if I ever heard them. But it is surely a duty for you +to find out the true story. Dead men tell no tales, but live ones do. + +"Find out the truth. Come, let me help you. I bear you no malice--not a +scrap. Tell me all about it--tell me." + +She spoke at last. + +"I don't trust you." + +"I see that, Susan," he answered cheerfully; "and it is that distrust I +want to wipe away. Why, do you know, over in England, I was in the +office of a private detective agency, and there is no knowing how I +might be able to help you." + +Again she said: + +"I don't trust you." + +"I know. But why? You have got in your mind some reason for this +distrust. It's a wrong reason, absolutely wrong, Susan. Anyway, tell me +what causes you to suspect me, and see if it cannot be explained away." + +"You are wearing my dear husband's clothes." + +"What!" + +He sprang to his feet in such genuine amazement, that even Susan's +belief in his guilt was shaken. + +"Your husband's clothes!" he blurted out; "why, I bought this suit the +very week I left England at Samuels', on Ludgate Hill." + +"I meant your underclothes," she said shortly. + +"Underclothes!" he answered. "Those I certainly did not buy. Friends got +the outfit for me. It came on board in my portmanteau, save those +things I wore on board. How on earth you can suppose that I am wearing +another man's clothes, I can't think." + +"All the same, you have been wearing my husband's shirt." + +"Your husband who was on the boat? Stay, though. A light breaks in on +me. I changed on board. I got wet through in jumping overboard after a +child. I sent one of the men to the hold for my portmanteau. What is +your husband's name?" + +The woman did not answer--the farmer did: + +"Josh Todd." + +"That's not it, then," said Danvers. "That is not the explanation. No +sailor would be such an ass as to make a mistake like that. I told him +to go to a long, brown portmanteau with the initials 'G. D.' on." + +"My initials," said the farmer. + +"So they are," said Danvers. "I did not notice it. But that does not +affect the matter. No sailor would be fool enough when I told him to go +to a bag labeled 'G. D.' to go to one bearing the initials 'J. T.' That +throws no light on the thing." + +The woman turned uneasily on her bed. Danvers spoke again, earnestly +now. + +"Susan, tell us everything. You have some knowledge. You know +something. I can see you do. What is it? Lying here you will never find +the man who murdered your husband, and you seem sure that he is dead." + +"Or he would have written me; I know it, I know it, I know it." + +"Yes, yes, I understand. You think he was on the steamer?" + +"I did. Then I didn't. I do now." + +"Why now?" + +"Because when I was there I heard nothing of two bodies." + +"Why were you there?" + +"I went to meet my husband." + +"He was on the boat, then?" + +"He cabled me from England that he was coming by it." + +"England?" + +"Yes; he has been over there." + +"You say you saw one body on the boat?" + +"Yes; the boat people showed it me, then I fainted from relief that it +was not my husband." + +"Did they not tell you of the other?" + +"No, I did not wait. I came away, back home here as quickly as +possible." + +"And," interposed the farmer, "that is all she would know. We are right +off the map here. There is no one to carry the news. Some weeks we get +a N'York paper, other weeks we don't, and I question if Susan ever +picked one up." + +"Tell me," she said, "the description of the other dead man." + +"I can't, Susan, for I don't know it. I certainly, as a matter of +curiosity, read it, but I don't remember." + +His humanity made him abstain from telling her how the second body was +found. He said: + +"We can find all that out for you, Susan. Just trust us fully. It is +right you should know, and you shall. Do you believe you can trust me?" + +"Now--yes, I do." + +"Why the change?" + +"Because I can understand your wearing my husband's shirt now." + +"You can?" + +"Yes, in the change on the boat." + +"No; I told you that my bag was marked 'G. D.'--your husband's was not." + +"Yes--it was!" + +"What!" + +"I had better make a full confession, and tell you everything. It is the +better way." + +She was going to do so. It was no longer a case of rebellious Susan. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A WIFE FOR REWARD + + +"That time you asked for a day's holiday," said the farmer, "was when +you went to meet the boat, I suppose?" + +"Yes. It is a hard thing to say of your husband, farmer, but there is no +help for it now, if I am to tell all. My husband robbed you." + +"Robbed me!" + +"Yes. Of nineteen thousand pounds." + +The farmer did not speak. He simply looked at the woman. + +The story of the tying to the mill wheel had roused his suspicions as to +her sanity--this last speech convinced him. + +Nineteen thousand pounds! He had never in his life possessed such a sum +or anything like it. + +The little nest egg he added to year by year for those he might leave +behind him did not count a nineteenth part of that sum. + +Nineteen thousand pounds! He smiled. + +"You think I am mad?" queried the woman, reading it in his face. "I am +not. You had an aunt named Depew living in England?" + +The farmer started. The smile left his face. He said: + +"How do you know that?" + +"Through Josh. She is dead. She died worth a lot of property--nineteen +thousand pounds." + +The farmer looked in amazement; he was too astonished to speak. + +The woman continued: + +"Josh used to open all your letters. One day one came from an English +lawyer to say your aunt was dead, and had left you all her money." + +The farmer gasped. The woman continued: + +"The idea occurred to Josh to take your place." + +"Take my place!" + +"Yes. He did. He went over to England in your name. Said he was you. +Took documents to prove it. He got the money and cabled me that he was +coming back on the boat you came by." + +She looked at Danvers as she finished speaking, and he said suddenly: + +"Now, I see. On his portmanteau there would be the initials 'G. D.' for +George Depew." + +"Yes. They were painted on before he left New York. He thought of +that." + +"Well," said Gerald thoughtfully, "it is the most extraordinary +coincidence----" + +"Coincidence be damned," interposed the farmer; "where's my nineteen +thousand pounds?" + +He had got rid of the theory of insanity now. Had almost lost sight of +the idea of Josh's supposed murder. + +His own loss was predominant. + +"My man has been robbed of it, I expect," said the woman; "that would be +why he was murdered. Some one must have known he had the money, and +killed him for it." + +"Have you the cable your husband sent you?" inquired Gerald. + +"Yes, and a letter, too. Open that top drawer and you'll see them +between the leaves of the Bible under my handkerchiefs." + +Gerald opened the drawer and found the documents. He read them both. + +The letter commencing "Dear old Girl," and ending "Your loving husband, +Josh," told the story. + +Gerald was by no means a fool, and he read between the lines of that +letter--read the character of the writer; the rejoicing in the success +of his villainy; the rogue meets rogue clause; the aching tooth and the +fear of pain at the dentist's. + +Indeed, it did not require a very shrewd brain to read between the +lines of that letter, and understand the nature of the man who penned +it. + +"Your knowledge ends there, Susan?" + +"Yes." + +"May I take these letters? They may prove a clue." + +"Yes." + +"Will you accept my assurance that I will do all possible to have this +matter out, and clear it up satisfactorily?" + +"Yes." + +"Very well, then; for the present, good-bye. Next time I see you I may +have something to report." + +The two men left the room. Gerald seemed a changed man. + +His ability to look after other people's affairs in better fashion than +his own has been mentioned. He proposed looking after the present +business. + +"Farmer," he said, "you believe all you have just heard?" + +"Of course, and a damned nice----" + +"Let me take this matter in hand for you." + +"For me?" + +"Yes. There's nineteen thousand pounds hanging to it." + +"Stolen, if Susan's story is right." + +"Let me trace the money." + +"You?" + +"Yes. I was in a private detective's agency once, and I know how to set +about an affair of this sort." + +"What would you do?" + +"Get to New York, ascertain all about the man who figured in your name. +Get identification. See if the man who was 'packed' was Josh Todd." + +"Yes." + +"Then ascertain how he shipped. Go across the Atlantic, and find out who +paid him the money, and how." + +"Yes." + +"It is not likely that any man would take nineteen thousand pounds in +gold--it would be too weighty." + +"No." + +"If he took notes, the numbers are traceable." + +"True." + +"It is worth inquiring into. Being a murder case, the police will give +every assistance. What do you say?" + +"I don't believe in throwing good money after bad. I fancy that money, +if it has been stolen, will never be seen again." + +"And I think you are wrong. Fifty pounds wouldn't affect you. Spend +that. Let me have it for passage over, and necessary expenses. It is not +a great sum even if it is lost. It's a small stake to try to get +nineteen thousand pounds with." + +"M' yes." + +"It shall not cost you more. There's much in that letter Todd wrote to +Susan. It bristles with clues if they can only be followed. I believe I +can follow them." + +"You seem confident." + +"Because I know what I am talking about. What do you say?" + +"I'll go to the fifty pounds--but, mind, not a cent more. I am not a +wealthy man, and fifty pounds is fifty pounds to me." + +"I know that. By the same rule, nineteen thousand pounds would be +acceptable." + +"Acceptable! When I think of that villain Josh, I----" + +"Don't get excited. Does no good. Just tell me all about your aunt who +left you this money." + +"I have not seen her for years. I was with her when a little boy. I +think I am the only relation she had." + +"Well, I can soon trace out the property, the name of her lawyers, and +what her property was." + +"You can?" + +"Certainly. The will's been proved. I go to Somerset House and pay a +search fee; reading the will over does the rest." + +"I see." + +"Now, give me a check on the Oakville branch of the New York Central +Bank, and let me get to work at once." + +"How about your own payment?" + +"I don't ask for any now. Wait till I find the money. Payment shall be +based on result." + +"What is the payment to be?" + +"Not money." + +"Not money!" + +"No. If I am successful--the hand of your daughter, Tessie." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +GERALD PUTS HIS NOSE TO THE TRAIL + + +The intelligence of Gerald Danvers has been remarked on. + +He had a long interview with Tessie, and told her that her father had +engaged him to do certain work, in which, if successful, his reward was +her engagement to himself. Which was true. + +What the work was he did not say. The farmer, after giving his promise, +was rather ashamed of having done so, and bound Danvers down to secrecy +on the subject of his mission. + +He did not want his wife to laugh at him for throwing fifty pounds away. +A wife's mirth under such circumstances is irritating. It is not a thing +easy to get away from. + +Gerald cashed his fifty pound check, and, arrived in New York, sat down +and thought. + +It was clear to him that Josh Todd--if he were one of the murdered +men--could not have had about him any writing to lead to identification +with the man whose name he had assumed; because no shadow of an inquiry +had been made at the farm. + +The latter was some way from Oakville, and Oakville was a long way from +New York. So although the papers after the time that the news reached +them were full of the name of Depew, taken from the passenger list, not +a copy of any journal had found its way to the farm. + +That made Gerald ponder. + +Was it wise in going to the New York police at all? He knew that a +murderer had escaped at Queenstown--it had been common talk on the +ship--and that the murder was done in English waters. + +Why then wake up the American police by giving them identification clues +to Josh, and so possibly foul a trail in England? + +It was just possible that the murderer was lulled to an idea of security +by the absence of discovery. That would make his own work easier. + +The news in the American papers would be copied by the English press, +and Gerald's first work was to secure copies of the _New York Herald_ +and _World_ daily editions dating from the day of the arrival of the +ship. + +He perused these papers with all their sensational hydra headed columns, +from first to last. + +Nothing had been discovered more than he knew. Not the faintest trace of +the identity of the man in the portmanteau could be found. + +It was known that two berths had been booked in the name of Depew, but +who Depew was or where he had lived was still unascertained. + +The man who had been found lying dead in his berth had been +photographed, and the picture was sent to England for the inspection of +the passenger agent where the berth had been booked. + +He in no way recognized it--had never seen the face! That had deepened +the mystery. + +It was plain that the New York police knew nothing. + +Gerald felt that no good purpose would be served by enlightening them, +and that the sooner he got to England, the sooner he would be getting at +the root of the matter. + +The newspapers gave portraits reproduced by the half tone process from +the photograph taken, and Gerald cut one of these out and pasted it on a +card. + +It went with him to England. He went there himself by the next outgoing +steamer. + +A photograph of only one of the dead men had been taken--for reasons +which will be readily understood. That photograph in no way resembled +Josh Todd. + +Gerald knew that, because he had brought away from the farm a +daguerreotype of the missing man. Comparison showed its unlikeness to +the picture of the man with the cut throat. + +By personating a man with a missing friend--thereby receiving +information and giving none--he obtained from the police a description +of the head of the man found in the portmanteau. + +He told the police that it in no way resembled the person for whom he +was looking. All the same he was convinced it was Josh. + +Josh packed dead in England and despatched to America, meant that the +packers were in Europe with the nineteen thousand pounds. + +Danvers was keen on getting that money. The steamer on which the murder +had been committed bore him in the direction of it. + +He was keen on it, because it meant the possession of Tessie. He wanted +her badly. + +On board the boat he learned everything there was to be learned. + +He checked the evidence of the boat people as it had appeared in the +papers by what they said now. + +From Liverpool to London. There he rented a cheap room. + +He did not communicate with his own friends in any way, but put his nose +to the trail. + +His first visit was to Somerset House. He paid a fee, and read the will +of Aunt Depew. + +From it he learned that the farmer was the sole legatee, and that Lawyer +Loide was sole executor. The property left was described--certain east +end houses. + +Should he go straight to the lawyer? No, he would go down and see the +houses first. + +He did. Knocked at the doors and asked who, before the sale of the +property, had managed it. + +"Lawyer Loide," was the answer. + +Managed the property, and was sole executor. + +Danvers chewed that over. The end was juicy. + +He wanted to see Loide--before Loide saw him. He believed in surprises, +and he liked to be the surprise party. + +He went to Liverpool Street where the lawyer's offices were. +Interviewed, and subsequently had a drink with the janitor there. From +him obtained a description of Loide. + +Loide was no believer in Christmas boxes or tips of any description--how +great events from little causes spring! + +The janitor did not reverence the lawyer for this want of belief. He was +willing to say anything against him he could. + +Told Danvers--over the third glass--that he had never been in arrears +with his rent before, that he had discharged his two clerks, and had +only a junior working for him now, and that even he was under notice to +leave. + +They parted. Danvers went home and wrote a letter to Loide. It ran: + + DEAR SIR: + + I happened to hear that your clerk is leaving you. At the + end of the year I am going to Germany to join (as junior + partner) a commercial house, where a knowledge of the + rudiments of English commercial law may be of much use to + me. May I offer my services as your clerk? + + You can see I write well, and am quick at figures, and + willing to make myself useful. Of course I shall not expect + any salary. + + Yours truly, + G. DANVERS. + +"If he is hard up," muttered the writer, "that last line may appeal to +him. It may come off: it may not. If it does, a week will enable me to +turn the place inside out for any clue there may be. Was the nineteen +thousand pounds ever handed Josh Todd?" + +Therein lay the reason for the course Danvers was taking. It seemed to +him a reasonable solution of the matter. + +Instead of handing Todd the money, the lawyer had killed him, bribed +another man to help him, and to divert suspicion, had sent that man +with Todd's body on the ship for America, telling him to return and +share the spoil. + +But before the ship left English waters, Loide had managed to kill his +accomplice, and so, as he thought, destroy all trace of his crime. + +But, thought the pursuer, he has Gerald Danvers to deal with! + +Gerald said this to himself, with a note of exclamation at the end of +it. Most of us have a trace of melodrama in our natures. Gerald was not +without it. + +He had a description of the perky, red haired, rough voiced, flashily +dressed man who had left the boat at Queenstown, and he quite reckoned +that when he saw Lawyer Loide he would--mentally--exclaim, "Thou art the +man!" + +With that melodramatic trait aforesaid, he no doubt would. + +If he found it so, he would not betray the faintest sign of his +knowledge. He must work quietly, and give his man no pretext for flight. + +He must find where that nineteen thousand pounds was deposited, and draw +the meshes of his net so closely around that the bird could not +escape--anyway, with the money. + +As a matter of fact, Gerald was more concerned about the money than the +murder. Because it concerned Tessie more closely. + +Moreover, it was but human to expect that a nineteen thousand pound +father-in-law would be generous in the way of wedding presents. + +He guessed that the housekeeper's story of Loide's poverty was a piece +of acting on Loide's part to divert suspicion. + +Perhaps the discharge of the clerks meant only the gradual winding up of +his business, and that presently he would sail away to another land. +Danvers felt cold at the fear of this. If it were true, there was not +the faintest chance of a reply to his application for a situation. His +letter could only appeal to a poor man. + +And while he was thinking this again the next morning, an answer came. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +INSIDE THE LAWYER'S OFFICE + + +Gerald opened the letter. The flap of the envelope bore the embossed +name and address of the lawyer. The contents read: + + I shall be pleased to see you if you will give me a call + to-morrow between ten and eleven o'clock, with reference to + your letter of yesterday's date. + +Gerald was pleased too. He just chuckled with glee. He did not fear +obtaining the situation. And then the smile left his face. + +His theory that the lawyer had the nineteen thousand pounds had received +rather a rude shock. A man with that money would not trouble about the +mere saving of a clerk's salary. + +Anyway, he thought he would be in touch with the man who last dealt with +Josh Todd. + +In Todd's letter to his wife, he had spoken of Loide as a "cute thief." +Was there anything in that? + +There would be the letter books and office papers open to him. If he was +unable to get an answer to that question, surely it would be his own +fault. + +He was in Liverpool Street between ten and eleven o'clock next morning. +Saw the lawyer and settled with him. + +He was to begin his duties on Monday--three days after. The lawyer was +satisfied with his appearance, and did not ask for references. + +He could not very well do so, as the man was giving him his services. +Moreover, things were fitting so tightly with Mr. Loide that anything a +clerk could filch would not be worth looking at. + +When a man's income is suddenly reduced it hurts. Hurts badly. + +Loide was experiencing that. At present his little luxuries were knocked +off, and in the future he foresaw a difficulty in the procuration of +even necessaries. + +He had been wont to take home from the city fish shop a middle cut of +salmon. Now he took the--perhaps as toothsome but certainly +cheaper--fresh herring. + +As with the fish, so with all things. His economy was of the studied +kind. It had to be. + +The cutting off of the twenty pounds a week did not unfortunately mean +that sum only. Money breeds money, and Mr. Loide was an excellent +breeder--sixty pet cent. breed. + +He liked to lend a man a five or ten pound note for a week, and charge +him one or two guineas for the loan. If you work that out you will find +it quite a big percentage. + +Mr. Loide did not need to do so. He knew. He had done it so often. It +was a big source of revenue to him. + +Indeed money lending was the profitable part of his business. He had +found it so much so, that he had neglected the more legitimate but less +profitable legal work. + +The result was that that had slowly filtered away. It had not mattered a +bit so long as the thousand pounds a year was coming in. In the course +of the year his interest enabled him to double it. + +So it will be seen that honesty--strictly speaking--if the best was +certainly not the most profitable policy with Mr. Loide. + +Wipe that nearly forty pounds a week away from his income, and--well, +wipe the naught off the forty, and you get at about what his legal work +brought him in now. + +Four pounds a week is not colossal wealth. It comes very, very hard on a +man to have to live on it who has been living on ten times as much. + +Loide found it so. Cold, flinty, bed rock bottom hardness. + +On Monday morning Gerald took his first step on the trail, and his seat +in Loide's office. + +There was not much work to do. Gerald saw that at a glance. + +There was no acting about the matter. His employer was poor. What did it +mean? + +Round the walls of the outer office were black tin boxes, with--real and +imaginary--names of clients printed on the flap doors thereof in white +letters. + +You turned the key and the flap fell down, enabling you to get at the +contents. One in particular had a great charm for the new clerk. He +fixed his eyes on it with an eager I-wonder-what's-inside-you sort of +glance. + +It bore the name of Depew. + +The locks were poor things. Evidenced by the fact that one key on the +bunch seemed to open them all. + +Loide kept the bunch in his trousers pocket. If he wanted a paper from a +particular box, he would ring his bell, give the keys and ask for the +paper to be brought to him. + +That seemed to take the pebbles out of Gerald's part--smoothed his +course a trifle. + +Why? Because he knew it would enable him to examine the Depew papers. + +The next time he was asked to get a paper, he first opened the Depew +flap, and closed it again without turning the key. + +He kept the flap in position by a small wedge of paper. It was handy +that way. + +Mr. Loide would go to lunch at one o'clock, and Gerald proposed devoting +that hour to an examination of the Depew papers. + +He was not the kind of young man to let the grass grow to any extreme +length under his feet. + +"If you are learning, you should commence at the beginning. Mount the +ladder from the lowest rung, and you will know then what the work is +like." + +So spake the lawyer to Gerald. It was in connection with the letter +book. + +The indexing of it was in arrear, and Gerald's business was to bring +that index up to date. + +The lawyer showed him how. He had a system of his own, had Loide. In +addition to the name of the sender of the letter, the letter itself was +indexed under the name of the action or matter. + +It was a good way, because when Loide made out his bills of costs, he +did not miss a single letter he could charge for. + +There was perhaps no man in the City of London who could make out a +better bill of costs than Loide. + +There were rivals in his profession who said that if you blew your nose +in his office, he clapped down six and eightpence, while if you wiped +your feet on his door-mat, it meant three and six. + +But then rivals will say anything, won't they? And again, if there is +any reputation for truthfulness in the legal profession, it is not a +world-wide one. + +Its patron saint is the father of lies. + +So it was that, with the letter book in his hand, at his own desk, +Gerald turned up in the index "Depew." + +There were two entries; one he found applied to a letter sent to Depew +in America, which had brought him over, and the other to a series of +letters connected with the winding up of the affair. + +The letter to Depew he read, and was not a whit the wiser. Then he took +on a perusal of the others. + +He started at the last, and proposed to work his way back. + +He was surprised to find the last letter of so recent a date. And when +he saw it was to the governor of the Bank of England, and read in it +that Loide was stopping the numbers of the notes for nineteen thousand +pounds, he stopped himself. + +Stopped right there and did nothing but look out of the window +blankly--he was so unutterably amazed. + +That he had struck a tangled web he knew quite well. That when he was in +the lawyer's office he was in the meshes of that web, he guessed. + +But he had not expected the spider to give him such a facer as this. He +knew--knew most certainly now that Loide did not possess the missing +money. + +He was depressed, his heart sank a bit, he had been so sure--so sure. +Chicken counting before hatchment is a poor game anyway. Gerald indorsed +that. + +When lunch time came, he did not even open the tin box with "Depew" on +it. It had ceased to interest him. + +He knew it would not help him along a bit. He sat there all the time +thinking. + +His theory of Todd's disappearance shaped differently now. + +He somehow felt convinced that the lawyer had had a hand in the man's +murder, and he tried to piece things together so that he could account +for the notes being missing. + +His short acquaintance with the lawyer did not favor the idea that he +was a man to lose things. + +Then ideas came to him. He thought he had struck the solution. + +There had been a quarrel about the division of the spoil--the nineteen +thousand pounds--between Loide and the man who was lying with his +throat cut on the boat. Or Loide had perhaps murdered him for possession +of the whole sum. + +He had been disappointed to find that his victim had not the notes in +his possession, had probably given them to a friend in London to mind +till his return from America. + +The moment Loide got back to London he would stop the notes. + +He tallied the date of the murder and the date of the letter to the +bank. They fitted his idea. + +Gerald was aware that where there had been a mere hill, there was a +mountain for him to climb now; but he was not dismayed. There was Tessie +for certain, and a possible _dot_ on the top of that mountain. Its +summit was worth reaching. + +He meant getting there--he was full up to the brim with excelsior. + +He was debating now whether he should keep up the farce of clerkship any +longer, or blossom forth--for surprise purposes--as a New York +detective, and see what he could frighten out of Loide. + +Then he determined to wait a little longer, till he had seen the +passenger agent at Eldon Street. + +That individual had been away ill, and would be at the office, it was +thought, to-morrow or the day after. Gerald decided to wait till then. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S ART AND ARTFULNESS + + +When the lawyer came back from lunch, the new clerk went out to his. + +His meal consisted--apart from a sandwich and glass of beer--of the +absorption of the contents of a catalogue of photographic materials. + +He spent the greater part of his dinner hour on the second floor at +Benetfink's in Cheapside. That firm's photographic department is there. + +He was purchasing a small snapshot hand camera, and the difficulty he +had was in getting one which went off at short range. + +He wanted to photograph a picture at about two yards' distance. He +succeeded finally in procuring what he wanted. + +Gerald knew nothing of photography, and the assistant very kindly +"loaded" his camera for him. + +There is a dark room on the premises kept for the convenience of +customers, and a few moments later, Gerald emerged--armed with the +loaded camera. + +When he returned to the office, Mr. Loide went out to keep an +appointment at the West End of London. That left the floor free for +Gerald. + +He went into his employer's room, and stood opposite the fireplace. With +the "view finder" on his camera, he brought the mantel within focus. + +He did that because hanging above the mantel was an oil painting of the +lawyer. + +There was a little tablet let into the frame of the painting inscribed, +"From a grateful client." + +Gerald rather wondered whether the artist--the client filled with +gratitude--could have been quite sane; but his business just then was +with the painting--not the painter. + +He had described the room to Benetfink's assistant, the light it faced, +and so on; and had been told to pull down the lever, count seventy-five +seconds by his watch, and then let go. + +These instructions he carried out. + +First he measured off two yards, and piling up tin boxes till he got the +level he required, he snapped his first photograph for seventy-five +seconds' exposure. + +He used all six plates, varying the distance of his tin boxes support an +inch each time, to insure focus. + +Then he packed up his camera, replaced the tin boxes, and waited till +closing time. + +He left the office at half-past five, mounted a tram-car in the City +Road, and with his camera in a hand bag made for the regions of the +Euston Road. + +For some reason the Euston Road is famous for the number of its +photographers--the lower class of that art. + +The double description is used as it is a calling full of artfulness and +craft. The this-style-in-a-frame-for-a-shilling sort seem to look on it +as a happy hunting ground. + +The tout outside produces samples of the photographic art--created +perhaps a dozen miles away--and lies with the freedom of a cyclometer. + +Night makes but little difference to these artists. They have an +arrangement of what the outside man calls "magnesia," which he will +assure you "results in as good a picter as if tiken in the brord +dielight." + +Gerald entered one of these art studios. He found the man inside quite +as full of art as the outside one. + +When Gerald stated his business and needs, the man shook his head, and +spoke of terms which made Gerald put the camera back in his bag. + +The art of the photographer fell before that act, and his artfulness +came into play--it looked like money walking away. + +When Gerald spoke of trying another photographer, the studio man thought +he could manage it--became sure of it, and a bargain was struck. + +Benetfink's man had told Gerald something. Told him that after +development, the negative could have a bath of spirits of wine, and be +dry enough to print from in ten minutes. + +He had also sold Gerald a packet of special printing paper, which could +easily be printed on by the light from an ordinary gas jet. + +Ultimately--things were a trifle tight in the neighborhood of Euston +Road; to servant girls and their military admirers photography seemed to +have lost its charm--the photographer agreed to develop the six plates, +and print one copy of each for six and sixpence. + +Four of the plates turned out failures in the developing dish; the other +two were all right. When, later on, the printing paper came out of the +little printing frames, Gerald was quite satisfied. + +He cheerfully paid the six and sixpence, and walked away with two +unmistakable pictures of Loide, the lawyer, in an envelope in his +pocket. + +The next morning he went to Eldon Street before going to his office, and +was cheered to hear that the steamboat agent was much better, and was +coming to business that morning. + +Gerald asked if he would be in between two and three o'clock, and was +answered affirmatively. + +So it came about that in his dinner hour he walked round to the agent's. +The agent was in. + +"I have come to see you about the Europia murder case." + +"Have you?" replied the agent, somewhat wearily; "and what particular +line is yours--newspaper? If so, I haven't a scrap of fresh news for +you." + +"No," said Gerald, with a smile; "there's nothing journalistic about +me." + +"Not the police then again, surely! I understood from Inspector Welch +that they had dropped the matter." + +"Maybe the English police have," answered Gerald quietly; "but the +American force hasn't. I'm from the other side--come over in the Europia +last week." + +"Oh! Is that so? Anything fresh? I suppose so, by your coming across the +pond." + +"Well, I think we are striking a trail. I want you to help me a little. +I see by one of the newspaper interviews that you stated to a reporter +that you would know the two men who booked the particular berth in which +the murder took place." + +"That's so. One thing, my memory's keen on, is faces. If I see a man +once, I know him again. I could locate him in a crowd." + +"That will perhaps help us." + +"I don't think so. They photographed one of the bodies found on the +boat, and it was sent across here for identification. Inspector Welch +brought it here, but bless your soul, it wasn't a tiny scrap like either +of the men." + +"So I understand." + +"Inspector Welch didn't quite believe me. Thought I placed too much +reliance on my memory. Almost said so. But I know right enough where my +strong point lies. I didn't recognize that photograph simply because it +wasn't the picture of either of the men. But the moment I get a +photograph of either of the real men before me, you'll see I'll pick it +out from fifty others." + +"You are sure you would know it?" + +"Know it! I'm dead certain--cock-sure." + +"Well," said Gerald, as he quietly drew the daguerreotype of Josh Todd +from his pocket and put it on the agent's desk, "is that like either of +them?" + +"That's one!--that one!" cried the agent excitedly, as he banged his +fist on the desk. "I'd know him from a thousand. That's the man that +spoke with a Yankee accent and came in first." + +"So," said Gerald quietly, although in his excitement his blood was +racing through his veins, "and possibly this may be the portrait of the +other one?" + +He placed the picture he had brought away from the Euston Road studio +before the agent. + +"By God, sir, you're right! That's 'em--that's 'em both. You've got the +right men, sir--you've got 'em. I always said if the American detectives +took the case up over here, they'd strike the trail. No English 'tec can +touch 'em for cuteness. If you know where to put your hands on these two +men, you're able to solve the Europia mystery." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE HANDCUFFS PLAY AN IMPORTANT PART + + +That was just what Gerald was unable to do. + +He knew Todd was dead. His suspicions about Loide were in a measure +confirmed. + +He was convinced now that the lawyer was involved in this crime--but how +far? To know that was what troubled him. + +The red haired man was the mystery--a mystery which looked clueless. + +Loide had booked a passage after Todd had done so. Todd was found in a +parcel, and the other man in the berth with his throat cut, and yet the +lawyer was alive! + +It was a problem which needed a deal of thought. + +Gerald gave it that. He thought all the time. + +So far, he still filled the rôle of clerk, but he got no nearer a +solution. He waded through the evidence again and again in the hope of +spotting a hole which the lawyer would fit. + +To run through the disguise shops of London in the hope of tracing a man +who had bought a red wig, he knew would be as sensible a task as +endeavoring to find the needle in the proverbial stack of hay. + +He read again and again the description of the spruce, smartly dressed, +jaunty looking, raucous voiced, red haired missing man, and for the life +of him, he could not make it fit in with the present appearance of the +lawyer. + +He started rehearsing his bogus detective from New York idea. Thought +how best he could so surprise the lawyer as to force the truth from him. + +He knew him to be a cute old fox, and that if he gleaned anything it +would be at a time when the lawyer's shrewdness was overclouded by fear. + +His business was to bring on that cloud--to inspire that fear. + +It took him a long while to formulate his scheme. He knew that a false +move in it would upset everything--that the lawyer would snap it up in a +moment, and save himself. + +When he had got his idea as near perfection as he thought he could get, +he walked into Loide's private room, ostentatiously turned the key in +the door, and seated himself opposite the astonished lawyer. + +"What the devil does this mean, sir?" + +"It means, Mr. Loide, that the game is up." + +As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a pair of handcuffs he had hired +for a shilling at a theatrical costumer's in the neighboring +Houndsditch. + +Even yet, so surprised was he, the lawyer did not understand the +situation. He spluttered out: + +"What does this play acting business mean in office hours?" + +"I'm afraid your office hours, Mr. Loide, are all over. I throw off the +disguise of clerk, and appear as Detective Crayle of the New York +police." + +"Detective!" + +"There is a warrant out for your arrest in connection with the murder on +the Europia." + +The livid face of the lawyer told Gerald all he wanted to know--he had +hit the right nail on the head, despite the red hair. + +He continued: + +"There's been a little trouble in trailing this scent, Mr. Loide, but +we've got it all mapped out from the moment of your entrance of the +Eldon Street agent's office, and your subsequent purchase of the other +half of the berth, down to the present moment. You have been watched +right through, Mr. Loide." + +The lawyer groaned. + +"The American system of police work is different from the English. Every +man to his department. Now, mine is not to arrest you. There's a man on +the Atlantic now, in response to my cable, on his way here to do +that--no, don't look at the door; don't play at silly fools--you know I +could put you in the custody of the first policeman we met." + +"If not to arrest me, what is your business, then?" + +The hoarse voice of the lawyer showed how deeply he was affected. + +"Well, I've been deputed to hunt up that missing nineteen thousand +pounds." + +The lawyer looked up. Gerald continued: + +"Oh, I know you don't know where it is, but if I heard the whole story +from your lips, I might be able to find a clue. Now, bargain for +bargain--I've told you my business isn't to arrest you. + +"I don't personally care whether you go to eternity viâ our recently +invented electrocution chair, or whether you scoot. See? Just tell me +the whole story from beginning to end without missing a single +detail--and remember, I know the facts, so if you lie or attempt to +deceive me, I shall consider the bargain off--do this, and you'll get +three days start. I'll leave you to do what you like--go where you +like." + +"I can believe--rely--on that?" + +"I'm no liar in straight business, Mr. Loide. Follow my example, tell me +the truth, and we'll say good-bye. If we meet again, it will be your +own fault." + +"Very well, I will tell you, then." + +"Good. I've my note-book here containing an account of every movement of +yours since----" + +"Oh, I'll tell the truth. On the day of the settlement with Depew, I +handed him nineteen thousand pounds in notes. The numbers----" + +"I know them," interposed Gerald--he had got them from the lawyer's +letter book--"get on with the story." + +"After that we went to the Great Eastern Hotel opposite and had lunch. +He did not know where the passenger agent's was, so I showed him. It was +the agent saying he had the other half berth which confirmed me in my +idea of robbing him, which, as you know, I did not do." + +"I know all about it," said Gerald, "but all the same, you tell me the +whole thing complete." + +"Well, after Depew had bought his ticket, we came outside, shook hands, +and parted, and I never saw him again until I saw his cut up +remains"--the lawyer shuddered at the recollection--"in the Europia's +cabin." + +"After you parted, you went back to the agent's, and got the other +berth. Where did Depew go; do you know that?" + +"No. I fancy to his hotel. He was staying during his visit to England at +Armfield's." + +"Did he go in that direction?" + +"No. Now I come to think of it, I remember he spoke of an aching tooth, +and said he was going to a dentist's in Finsbury Circus to have one--as +he called it--'yanked out.'" + +The lawyer faithfully detailed every other incident which had occurred, +and with which the reader who has followed this narrative will be +acquainted. + +When he had finished, Gerald said: + +"Just write me a letter to the Bank of England, withdrawing that stop on +the notes, will you?" + +"What?" inquired the lawyer eagerly. "Have you found the missing notes, +then?" + +"I came over to Europe for that purpose," answered Gerald shortly. "Give +me that letter. That'll do, and now good-bye. You deserve a shove into +Kingdom Come, but it's not my business to push you." + +He put the handcuffs into his pockets and opened the door. + +"Now put your hat on and mizzle. I'll take charge of this office. Don't +set foot near it again, or you'll have yourself to blame for the +consequences." + +The lawyer gathered up a few letters, and cramming them into his +pocket, walked to the hat rail. + +"This isn't a trap," he inquired; "they are not waiting for me at the +bottom of the stairs?" + +"I've told you I'm not a liar. You can walk straight away and no soul +will attempt to stop you." + +"Good-bye." + +"Good-bye." + +Left to himself, Gerald locked the outer door, and sat down to think. + +So far, he had arrived at very little. He knew now that Todd had stopped +at Armfield's, that when he left the lawyer he had gone into a dentist's +in Finsbury Circus, that when next seen he was unrolled from a newspaper +parcel on the boat. + +He took down the post-office directory from the shelf and turned up +Finsbury Circus. + +Surgeons and doctors abounded. That set Gerald thinking. + +At the inquest, medical evidence had been given that only a medical +expert could have dismembered the body so neatly. He went down the names +in the directory carefully. + +One thing struck him. There was a Mr. Charles Lennox, a dentist, and a +door or two off a Mr. Arthur Lennox, surgeon. There might be nothing in +it, but it was worth looking into. The combination was suggestive. + +Gerald made up his mind to have his teeth seen to at one place, and to +attend at the other with some imaginary complaint. + +He then took the whole of the Depew papers from the tin box, and made +them into a compact parcel. They might be useful to the farmer. + +Then he put on his hat, and with the parcel under his arm left the +building. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE DENTIST + + +At Armfield's Gerald learned but little more. + +Nothing had been seen of Depew there after eleven o'clock on the morning +of his leaving. His bags he had taken away to the station, paid his +bill, and had said he was not sure whether he would sleep there or at +Liverpool that night. + +There was a small hand bag still at the hotel, containing a shirt, +collars, and handkerchiefs--nothing more. + +That left Finsbury Circus for Gerald to investigate. + +He remembered the names of Lennox, and looked at his short cuff whereon +he had penciled the numbers of the houses from the directory. + +He saw the letters on the wire blind which had attracted Todd, "Painless +Dentistry"; and he remembered what Todd had said in the letter to his +wife about the extraction of his tooth. + +He went further and saw a brass plate--"Arthur Lennox, M.R.C.S." This +determined him. + +He believed in his power of reading faces, and he was eager to try his +hand at the doctor's. + +He entered the house, and went to the surgeon's door. Knocked and +knocked again; and again. + +Then he pulled the housekeeper's bell. + +In reply to his inquiries he learned that Mr. Arthur Lennox was away +abroad; had gone--he tallied the date--the day the Europia sailed with +Todd's body aboard. + +Further information, the housekeeper told him, could be obtained of the +surgeon's brother--a dentist, a few doors off. + +Gerald felt that at last he was nearing his goal. + +"Ah! I don't want to see the dentist," he said. "I don't know him. I was +very friendly with the doctor, and I promised to see him when I came to +England. I wasn't quite sure, though, that I had the address +correct--indeed, I am not now sure that this Dr. Lennox is the one I +want. What sort of a man is he?" + +The housekeeper described him. And at each detail of the description +Gerald's hopes rose higher and higher. + +For she was describing the man who had been found with his throat cut, +the man whose newspaper picture Gerald had then in his coat pocket. + +He withdrew that from his pocketbook, and handing it to the housekeeper, +said: + +"Is that anything like him?" + +"Oh, yes," answered the housekeeper in a moment; "there is no mistaking +it. That's he right enough." + +"Then I haven't made any mistake after all. Thank you for----" + +"There goes his brother if you want to see him," interposed the +housekeeper hurriedly. "He goes home about this time--they used both to +leave at five o'clock." + +"No, thank you," answered Gerald; "I am obliged to you. Good-day;" and +he went down the steps. + +"The dentist has gone," he muttered. "I'll just look at his show now, +and interview him to-morrow. A night's thought on this won't do any +harm. There's such a thing as being in too great a hurry. More haste, +less speed." + +He entered the house in which the dentist had rooms. + +As he stood looking at the door, it opened, and a boy started to come +out. + +"Good-afternoon," said Gerald cheerfully, and walking in. "Is it too +late to have a tooth seen to?" + +"Just too late, sir," replied the boy Sawyer; "Guv'nor's just gone. +He'll be here at ten o'clock in the morning--if he's well enough." + +"I'm sorry. Do you mind my sitting down and resting for just a minute or +two? I hurried here so fast for fear of missing him, that it set my +heart beating dangerously fast." + +"Not at all, sir." + +"I was recommended here by an American gentleman, a friend of mine." + +"Oh, sir." + +"Yes. Some while ago he came here--one afternoon--and had a tooth out, +and spoke so well of the job that I determined to come here myself." + +"Yes, sir." + +"He had a tooth extracted painlessly." + +"Yes, sir, lots of people has 'em out that way." + +"How is it done--chloroform?" + +"Bless you, no sir! With the gas." + +"Is it dangerous at all?" + +"Lor no, sir. 'Sides, there's always a doctor present to help." + +"Really?" + +"Yes. The guv'nor used to have his brother in to do it before he went +abroad." + +"Has rooms some doors off, hasn't he?" + +"Yes, that's him, sir." + +"Has he been abroad long?" + +"Been away just--well, that's curious, sir, as you mentioned an American +gent. I haven't seen the doctor since the day the last American gent +came here." + +"That is very funny. Very likely, too, it happened to be my friend. Do +you remember him?" + +"Rather, sir. We don't have too many patients here"--with a grin--"as I +can't remember em." + +"You would know him again if you saw him?" + +"Rather." + +"Is that like him?" + +Gerald handed the boy the daguerreotype of Todd as he spoke. + +"Like him!" said the boy; "it is him." + +"That certainly is a curious thing. My American friend was a bit of a +coward, you know. I guess he made a big fuss about having his tooth +pulled. Did he call out in any pain?" + +"I don't know." + +"I thought you said----" + +"You see I minded both places. When your American friend came in and +said he wanted the gas, I was sent in for the doctor, and minded his +place for him when he came in here." + +"I see." + +"When I came back, of course your friend had gone." + +"Hadn't, I suppose, fallen asleep on the couch or in the operating +chair, had he?" + +"No. I said had gone." + +"So you did--I thought perhaps you might have overlooked him." + +"Not much. I have to put away the things tidily, and I shouldn't +overlook much." + +"My American friend described to me the chair he sat in--operating +chair, don't they call it?" + +"Yes, that's it." + +"As being a very curious one--is it?" + +"Nothing out of the common. This is it." + +He opened the inner door as he spoke, and Gerald entered. + +"You were right about not overlooking him. If he had been here you must +have seen him." + +"Yes." + +"This cupboard would have held him, though." + +"Yes," replied the boy, with a grin. "It is big enough; but we don't +stick patients into cupboards, you know." + +Gerald laughed heartily at the joke. + +"Well," he said, "my heart's quiet enough, now, thanks. I am much +obliged to you for letting me rest. I'll come in and see the dentist +to-morrow." + +"If he's well enough to come to business, he'll be pleased to see you." + +"Ill, is he?" + +"Yes, sir. Has been for some weeks, ever since his brother went away." + +"That's curious." + +"Yes, sir. Shall I make an appointment for you to-morrow, sir?" + +"Yes; you can say I'll be here at eleven o'clock sharp." + +"Right you are, sir; he'll keep the appointment right enough if he can. +He won't fail." + +"Nor shall I." + +"Good-evening, sir." + +"Good-evening." + +Down the steps went Gerald, down into the Circus. + +He felt more pleased with himself than he had felt for a long while. He +was on the right scent now, he was sure. + +To-morrow at eleven he must assume once more the guise of the New York +detective. The appointment was eleven o'clock. Gerald would not fail to +keep it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AN AMATEUR CARPENTER + + +Loide left Liverpool Street with trembling limbs, and a heart full of +bitterness. + +That nineteen thousand pounds he had so counted on getting at least a +part of, was safe in the possession of the New York detective, who had +been one too many for him--that was his dominant, irritating thought. + +It worried him. + +Gerald had played a bluff game, and with success. Loide quite believed +all he had said about his three days' freedom from arrest. + +Either Gerald was an artistic liar, or the lawyer's impressions of the +ways and doings of the American police were quaintly original. + +He had made up his mind to flee within three days, but the details of +his flight were not worrying him just then; he was more easily engaged +in taking a tight hold of the fact that he was a ruined man--practically +a penniless fugitive from justice--unless---- + +That "unless." + +He had killed one man with the idea of possessing that nineteen thousand +pounds, and although the murder did not lie heavily on his conscience, +the ill success attending his effort did--very heavily. + +As he walked through his office to the Mansion House station of the +electric railway, he was debating in his mind whether he should have +another shot for the nineteen thousand pounds the New York detective had +in his possession. + +En route to Waterloo he made up his mind that he would. His mind did not +need much making up--the fancied rustle of those crisp Bank of England +notes helped a deal. + +He lived at a place called The Elms, on the outskirts of Wimbledon. His +house stood in its own grounds, some distance away from the road, and +from other houses. + +It was a property he had acquired by foreclosing a mortgage. It would be +a quiet spot in which to carry out the scheme he was mentally sitting +on. + +He hoped to hatch out a nineteen thousand pound egg. + +His big difficulty would lie in luring the detective to Wimbledon. And +again, as an old man, he would be at a disadvantage in any struggle. + +To kill the officer would be an easy task, but that was not his +intention. Not that he hesitated at the mere taking of a life--that was +a detail--but he wanted to profit by his work. + +He was tired of profitless murder. One incident of that sort he felt was +sufficient to last a long time. + +He guessed that the officer would not walk about all day with nineteen +thousand pounds in his possession, that he had stored the notes away +safely. + +That he had them he was convinced, and his conviction was confirmed by +the request for the letter to the Bank of England withdrawing the +stoppage. + +That letter had helped to form Loide's idea. + +He would imprison the detective, keep him without food or drink till he +wrote a note to the custodian of the notes requesting the handing over +of them to the bearer of the letter. Loide anticipated playing the part +of the bearer. + +He reached Wimbledon station, alighted, and walked along the road. + +As he did so, he reflected that within three days he would have shaken +the dust of that suburb from his feet for good and all. + +At a furniture dealer's he paused. Entering the shop, he said: + +"You know me?" + +"Yes, sir; Mr. Loide, the lawyer." + +"That's right. I am leaving the neighborhood--giving up possession of my +house." + +"Sorry to hear that, sir." + +"I am going to live at Brighton. I have hesitated about the expense of +moving my furniture, and now I am confirmed in my belief that it would +be best to sell it. It is getting old, and would not fit my new +house--larger rooms, you know." + +"Yes, sir." + +"I want you to come along with me now, and make me a cash offer for the +houseful of furniture, just as it stands. If your offer is good enough I +shall accept it, on condition that you clear the whole lot out before +to-night." + +"To-night!" + +"Yes, to-night. There are only nine rooms--a couple of vans would move +it all easily. However, if you don't think you can manage it, I'll try +somewhere----" + +"Not at all, sir," said the man, taking off his apron, and rolling down +his shirt-sleeves; "I'll be ready in two seconds." + +He scented a profitable job. Hasty matters of this kind often come in +the way of furniture dealers and brokers--generally with much profit to +the buyer. + +The buyers are wont to sing gladsomely of such transactions. +Surrounding creditors usually sang in another key. + +The shopman put on his coat and hat, and went with Loide to The Elms. + +Loide let himself in with his key. His servants had been dismissed long +since. His meals he had obtained in the city, visiting his home purely +for sleeping purposes. + +A bargain was struck. The dealer guaranteed that before six o'clock the +house should be absolutely clear of furniture--that within an hour the +two vans should drive up and clear out all. + +They did. The furniture dealer was as good as his word. + +Everything was cleared save three feather beds which Loide kept back. + +The furniture dealer marveled at this, but he had done well over the +deal, and said nothing. + +Loide placed those feather beds to his own credit--as an act of mercy. +They were to save the detective pain. + +The furniture removers had completed their task and driven away. At +their heels trod Loide--in the direction of the post-office. + +From there he sent a telegram to his late clerk's address. He thanked +his memory that he had remembered the address in the letter applying +for the situation. + +The telegram ran: + + Leaving England to-night, strange and most important + information to give you in exchange for your kindness + to-day. Come at once, trains every few minutes from + Waterloo. + + LOIDE, _The Elms, Maypole Road, Wimbledon_. + +He paid the one and eightpence cost of the telegram, and then sought in +the high road an ironmonger's. + +There he bought two saws, a hammer, chisel, some nails, and some yards +of webbing. + +At a lamp shop he purchased a pound of candles, a ready trimmed bicycle +lamp, and then hurried home with his purchases to The Elms. + +Entering, he threw off his coat, and tucked up his shirt-sleeves. + +Manual labor was not in his way, but he guessed from having seen workmen +prepare for their tasks in that way that it was the correct thing to +work coatless--he had some hard work ahead of him. + +His bicycle lamp lighted, he set to work, drove four of his long French +nails through the floor of the passage. + +The four nails formed a square--a square yard. + +With his bicycle lamp in hand, he went downstairs to the wine cellar. A +stout old door yielded to the key. + +Loide in his palmy days had been a lover of wine, and the cellar had +been built to his order. It was the most lofty apartment in the house. + +Air and light came to it through strong iron bars, which were on a level +with the ground above. The roof was at least fourteen feet from the +floor. + +On to that roof, formed--apart from the cobwebs--of the rafters +supporting the floor boards above, Loide threw the rays of his lantern. + +Four bright, sharp points were sticking through the wood, dust, and +cobwebs. He grunted with satisfaction as he noted the situation of the +points of his nails. + +He hurried out of the cellar, up the steps to where the heads of the +nails were, and there his real hard work began. + +He bored a hole with the aid of the chisel and hammer, then inserting +the fret saw, worked through the width of one of the boards, working +against the passage wall. + +This operation he repeated the other side, and in a few minutes had a +length of floor board up--a yard long. + +With the larger saw he had bought, he was soon sawing through five other +boards and their supports, and there presently gaped an opening more +than a yard square. + +He hurriedly put the boards together again as he had taken them up. + +Going into a back room, he ripped some laths from the Venetian blinds. +These he nailed to the floor boards, fastening them together as a lid +for the hole he had made. + +He tried it--it fitted well. But for his holding it, the lid would have +fallen through the hole. + +He cut the parcel of webbing open, and, leaning over the hole, nailed +pieces along one side of the square beneath the floor boards. + +When he had nailed the other ends of these pieces to his lid, he had a +crude but perfectly hinged flap. + +Rushing up-stairs, he dragged down two of the feather beds, one after +the other, and dropped them through the hole. + +That was what he counted as his mercy. He did not want to break any of +the detective's limbs. + +He just wanted information about the nineteen thousand pounds. + +Two pieces of lath slightly tacked under the opposite side of the hole +to prevent the lid falling through till trodden on, and he lowered the +flap on its hinges. + +Apart from the sawdust around, it looked a perfect floor. He swished +away the dust, and stood up with a smile of satisfaction on his face. + +He was dog tired with the work, but he had done all he needed to do. The +snare was set--the trap was waiting. + +Would the bird come to his call? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A WOULD BE SUICIDE + + +At Finsbury Circus next morning dentist Lennox was in attendance. + +He had been growing very ill lately, mentally and physically, and this +morning he had turned over in his bed with the intention of remaining in +it for the day. + +Dental patients were so few and far between that he did not fear losing +much by his absence. + +But when his wife--as was her custom--brought up his cup of tea, and +morning letters, there was a post-card from Sawyer--his boy. It was to +tell him that a patient would call about his teeth at eleven o'clock. + +Despite his really ill condition, he bathed and dressed, and got to the +city somehow. + +He was in time for his appointment, and waited long for the coming +patient. But eleven o'clock struck and he came not. + +Calling Sawyer in, he questioned him minutely as to the person making +the appointment, and the likelihood of his turning up later. + +"Oh, he meant coming right enough, sir. Had been recommended here by a +friend who had been." + +"Oh, who was that?" + +"Dunno his name, sir. That American agent, sir, what came the day Mr. +Arthur went away." + +The dentist controlled his emotion, checked an exhibition of it by +gripping the arms of his chair, and inquired: + +"What did he say?" + +"Said the American gent had spoken very 'ighly of the painless manner in +which you treated him when he called here." + +The dead man, the cut up man, had spoken highly of his treatment! + +The dentist's lip was kept from trembling by the grip of his teeth on +it. He wiped away the beads of perspiration from his brow, and inquired: + +"This gentleman who called was a friend of his?" + +"Yus, sir; was most interested about him. Arst a lot of questions, sir, +and showed me his picture which he had in his pocket." + +Not a word from the dentist; he seemed frozen to his chair. + +His head was turned from the boy. Could Sawyer have seen it, he would +have wondered at the stony look of fright in his master's face. + +For the dentist feared the worst. He guessed that the man coming was a +detective. Conscience doth make cowards of us all. + +He sat there, waiting--a prey to indescribable fear. Useless, he knew, +to attempt to escape--perhaps even now the place was being watched. + +Well! let them arrest him; it would be the end of all--of all the worry +and trouble which he felt was hastening him to the grave. + +And then he thought of his wife, of his girl child, and groaned aloud. + +Was his widow to be shamed by his death; was he to cast a cloud over his +child's life, to give people a chance of saying of her: "Her father was +hanged for murder." + +He groaned again in his mental agony. + +Suicide! Ah! why had he not thought of that? + +It would save all--the exposure, the torture of the trial, the +disgraceful death at the hangman's hand. What a fool that the idea had +not occurred to him before! + +His brother died with his throat cut, why should he not do the same? +Life with its overhanging fears and terrors was not worth the living to +him. He would shuffle off this mortal coil. + +He walked quietly to the door, and gently turned the key in the lock. +Then he unlocked a small safe in the corner of the room, and from the +drawer thereof he took out the nineteen Bank of England notes he had +always been afraid to attempt to cash. + +He looked at them and shuddered--blood money! Their rustle gave him no +pleasure now. + +To his desk--then inserting the notes in an envelope, he directed it on +the outside, "To the Police, Scotland Yard." + +His hand trembled so he could not write more. He had intended giving an +explanation of the whole thing, but as he asked himself--who would +believe so wildly improbable--so incredible--a story? + +He sat, pen in his trembling fingers, intending to write to his wife, +and then it occurred to him that to do so would mean ruin to her--that +were his death ascribed to suicide, the moneys payable under his +insurance policies would be forfeited. + +The thought made him pause. + +No, he must run no risk. Those scraped together premiums on the policies +must not be lost. + +He reflected that it was better to die. That then there would be an end +to that grinding, scraping, pinching poverty at home--that looking at +every sixpence before it was spent. + +He was insured for fifteen hundred pounds--a policy issued for the +benefit of his wife, so that she would get the whole sum without his +creditors being able to touch a penny of it, or any deduction for death +dues. + +He thought how it would lighten the burden of the woman to whom he had +been bound till death should them part. + +Death! He feared it--feared it horribly. He loathed himself for his +cowardice all the while he feared. It was his duty to destroy himself. + +His daughter Edith, too--his little Edie--how different her future would +be! She would be sent to a first-class school, where they turned out +women, and not mechanical scholars, the result of the cramming process +of the brass plated Seminary for Young Ladies. + +He thought of all this as he considered how he should compass the death +which was to bring about these things. + +He must do it in such a way that no suspicion should arise; there must +be no doubt about the death--it must be ascribed to an accident. + +He looked around. His eyes rested on his dead brother's case of surgical +instruments. + +The case had remained in his rooms since--he shuddered at the +recollection of their use. He walked to the side table and opened the +box. + +The cold glitter of the polished steel made him shudder again, and from +his lips came the whispered prayer: + +"Oh, God, give me courage to do this thing." + +How should he make assurance doubly sure? By Sawyer's aid. + +It was certain there would be an inquest, the boy's evidence would be +essential--the last human being to see him alive. He must supply that +witness with material. + +He took one of the knives in his hand, gently turned the key in the +lock, and walked into the outer room. + +Sawyer hurriedly concealed the pages of "The Brass Bound Pirate of the +Pacific, or the One Eyed Man in the Crimson Mask." + +It was the sort of mental food his taste ran to. Exciting and +cheap--dirt cheap. + +"Do you know that fancy shop--bazar--just opposite the entrance to +Liverpool Street Station, Sawyer?" + +"Two or three doors from the corner? Yussir." + +"They have some hones in the window." + +"Some which, sir?" + +"Sharpening stones. You will see them in the window at a shilling each." + +"Yussir." + +"Get me one. Here's a shilling. I want to sharpen this knife." + +"Yussir." + +"You understand what I want it for. To sharpen this knife." + +"Yussir." + +Sawyer went out, procured the required article, and returned with it to +his employer. + +"You will be going to dinner in half an hour, Sawyer?" + +"Yussir." + +"When you do so, go into the post-office and register this letter--it is +already stamped." + +"Yussir." + +"Now, I'll sharpen my knife." + +The dentist went into his room. His fingers rested on the key in the +lock for a moment. + +"No," he muttered; "a locked door would create suspicion. Besides, there +is no need." + +He unfastened his sleeve link, and rolled back the cuff of his shirt. + +He was surgeon enough to know which opened vein would drain his body the +quickest, for he intended to bleed to death. + +It was an almost painless way--the drawback to it, its slowness. + +Thrice he poised the knife, thrice the hand holding it dropped to his +side, thrice he groaned in his despair--at his own cowardice. + +"Oh, God," he prayed--and if ever heartfelt prayer ascended to the +heavenly throne, one went up then--"give me strength and courage to do +this thing. My life has been a useless one. Give me courage, God, to end +it for my wife and child's sake." + +A loud rapping at the door broke in on his prayer. + +He had disregarded--had not heard the previous tapping. Relieved at the +interruption, he opened the door. + +He started when he did so. Was he too late? + +For behind Sawyer, who had been knocking, there stood two men in the +uniform of the police. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +GERALD WALKS INTO THE TRAP + + +Gerald was enveloped in an atmosphere of tobacco smoke which nearly +choked his landlady when she entered the room. + +A telegram had come for him, and it being, as she explained, "that +dratted gal's night out," she had ascended the stairs with the message +herself. + +Gerald was thick in smoke, because he had an idea that his brain liked +it; he thought better with a pipe in his mouth. + +And he was as full of thought just then as a pomegranate is of pips. + +He took the telegram, opened it, and raised his eyebrows at the +contents. + +"What's the meaning of it?" he muttered. "What can have happened since +the morning? What more can he know?" + +He was in no way suspicious that it was part of a trap. + +He did not credit Loide with any revengeful feeling, because he had been +dealt with leniently--let fly when his wings should have been clipped. + +Was it possible that there was such a thing as gratitude in that tough +old legal breast? He half smiled as he wholly doubted it. + +And yet--well, he would go down and see what it was. Wimbledon was not +far--he could soon get there and back. + +He turned down his lamp, and, putting on his coat and hat, went out, +took train to, and reached Wimbledon. + +He had some difficulty in finding his way through the ill-lit streets, +but at last he reached The Elms. + +Through the slats of the Venetian blinds he saw the house well lighted. +There was nothing dark or mysterious about it. + +A faint suspicion which had been born en route subsided. + +Clever Loide had foreseen and disarmed such suspicion by means of his +pound of candles, lighted and distributed on the floors of the front +rooms. + +Gerald opened the gate and walked up the steps to the door. He knocked. + +Presently he heard footsteps, and then a voice--a voice he recognized as +the lawyer's--saying: + +"That is all right, Mary; don't bother to open the door. I will. I know +who it is--a gentleman I am expecting. Just put some coals on the +dining-room fire, will you?" + +Then there was a rattling of the lock, and the hall door swung open. The +lawyer stood there. + +"Come in," he said. "Excuse the condition of the hall; the white washers +are at work." + +Gerald entered, and the lawyer closed the door behind him. + +"Straight on," he said. "My room is at the end of the passage, the door +facing you." + +Gerald walked on. Then suddenly the floor gave way beneath him. + +With a cry he stretched out his hands, and gripped the edge of what he +perceived to be a trap, saving himself from falling thereby. The lawyer +saw this, and endeavored with his foot on Gerald's shoulder to thrust +him down. + +In turn Gerald released one hand, and made a grab at the lawyer's leg. +Just in time Loide withdrew his limb, and Gerald replaced his hand on +the edge of the opening, striving to draw himself up. + +There was only one thing to be done, and the lawyer did it. He +deliberately placed his feet, one on the fingers of each of the hands +gripping the wood. + +With a cry of pain Gerald released his hold, and fell to the feather bed +below. + +The lawyer knelt on the edge of the hole, and, throwing the rays of his +lantern down, inquired: + +"All right? You aren't hurt, are you?" + +"What's the meaning of this devil's trick? Is this the gratitude you +spoke of?" + +"A little bit of it--just a little bit of it. I'm sorry; really, truly +sorry to put you in such a position, but business, you know, business +must be attended to." + +"I've walked into your trap." + +"Just nicely and comfortably." + +"Like a fool." + +"No, no, don't say that," said the lawyer soothingly. "You couldn't +possibly foresee." + +"What does it mean? What's your object? How long do you propose to keep +me here?" + +"Depends entirely on yourself." + +"How?" + +"Let me handle those nineteen thousand pound notes, and you shall have +your liberty within twenty four hours." + +"And if I don't do that?" + +The grim smile on the lawyer's face seemed to answer him. + +"Supposing I cannot?" + +Once more the lawyer smiled. He stroked his chin and said quietly: + +"You are not a fool. I don't think I am. Let's play this game, then, +like men. You are here in my power. You've got to stop here till I +handle those notes. I can't afford to let that time be a long one, so I +must hurry things on a bit." + +"You mean to torture me?" + +"That's as you may choose to put it. You must remember that the torture +will cease the moment you care to let it. You've got the check string in +your hand." + +"What do you intend doing?" + +"Nothing, I hope, because I think you will see the game is mine, and +hand over the pool." + +"You think I have the notes on me?" + +"No, I don't, or I should have adopted other means--rendered you +unconscious while I despoiled you of them, and then perhaps popped you +where you are for some hours while I cashed the notes and cleared out." + +"What is it you want me to do, then?" + +"Well, you made me sit down and write a note once, didn't you? I have a +stylographic pen here, paper, and an envelope." + +"Yes." + +"I want you to write a letter, authorizing the giving up to the bearer +of it the packet containing the notes." + +"A letter--to whom?" + +The lawyer laughed as he answered: + +"To the custodian of them, of course." + +"And if I can't--if I don't do that?" + +"Then, my friend, you'll gain knowledge. You will know what it is to be +hungry and thirsty. I don't know that the information will be of much +service to you in the police force, but for all it's worth, it will be +yours." + +"You will starve me!" + +"I shall keep you without bite or sup till you give me what I want, if +it's for a day or a week, or--or as long as you can live. If you are +obstinate enough, if ultimately your skeleton is found here--for I may +tell you that rats abound in the cellar, and they are reputed to be +excellent bone pickers--the fault will be yours, wholly yours, not +mine." + +There was silence for a few moments. + +Gerald was in a cold sweat of fear and horror. He knew the lawyer well +enough to know that an appeal to his mercy would be wasted. + +If he told the truth--that he did not know where the notes were--he +would not be believed. If he did convince the lawyer, then what might +happen? + +At the fellow's mercy he might be killed, just as the man on the boat +had been. Human life, he knew, was no sacred thing to the man who held +him prisoner. + +To lie or to tell the truth--which should he do? + +"How do you shape?" presently inquired the lawyer. "Will you make +yourself as comfortable on those beds as you can for the night without +bedclothes, and with rodent company, or will you give me the letter I +ask for now?" + +"I can't give it." + +"Very well," said the lawyer, pretending to smile genially, although he +was sick at heart at the answer. "Perhaps a night's reflection will make +you change your mind;" he drew up the flap as he spoke. + +"Good-night." + +"God! Are you going to leave me here in the dark?" + +"I am afraid so. I am sleeping in the house, and if the loneliness--but +you will have plenty of company--if you should change your mind in the +night, call out. I shall hear you, and bring a light." + +"If I scream for help the neighbors----" + +"Will not hear you. Grip that fact, and it will be a breath saver. This +house stands off the road in its own grounds. There is not a living +being within earshot." + +"Leave me a light, man--it's inhuman." + +"I am sorry you think that. However, it's your own fault, you know. Give +me the letter I want, and I'll lower this lamp to you, and before this +time to-morrow night you shall be as free as air." + +He waited a minute, holding the flap in his hand. No answer. + +"I am sorry you don't see your way to it. You don't mind my shutting +this flap, do you? You'll get plenty of ventilation from the barred +window. By the by, don't waste strength trying the bars. I tried them +before you dropped down, and you can take my word that they are firm +enough; while as to the door, it's as solid a piece of oak as was ever +carpentered. Accept my assurance that you are as secure as it is +possible to make you, will you? Good-night." + +He put one of the pieces of lath across a corner of the opening as he +spoke, and rested the flap on that. + +The square border of light, which those eager eyes in the cellar looked +up to, the light of the lamp through the cracks, gradually grew fainter +and fainter--the lantern had been lifted. + +The light faded, then all was darkness. The prisoner was alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +PECULIAR MESSENGERS + + +Gerald was alone for some time; he remained in the same position. + +He was partly stunned by what had happened. It had all taken place so +rapidly, and so unexpectedly, and he feared--greatly--the danger ahead. + +Man to man, he would have feared nothing. He was not a coward. + +But, as it was, he had a murderer to deal with, and his opponent had the +keys. + +He considered Loide's character, and he calculated that his own life was +a small thing in the lawyers estimation. It was an unwholesome thought. + +He turned his head slowly, and then very quickly, for he saw a glimmer +of light. It was from the barred window. + +The moon was shining, and would soon o'ertop the trees he could see +silhouetted on what was his horizon. + +He thought of escape--naturally. But it was a poor thought; he +anticipated no success. + +A point in his favor was his early athletic training. With finger or +foothold he would have been a factor to reckon with in an attempt to get +out. + +Running the whole length of what was his roof were the supporting beams +of the floor boards above. They afforded no grip if he got there--and he +had to reach them. + +He looked at the window. If he ran and sprang high enough, he would be +able to grip the bars. + +He essayed it--failed at first, but was clinging successfully the second +time. + +The width between the bars was not great enough for him to put his head +through, but he threw up his left leg and hooked the toe of his boot so +that he could rest there, and look round without the heavy strain on his +arms. + +In the semi-darkness he looked out on what appeared to be a long garden +with high trees at the bottom. + +Behind those trees he knew the moon was coming up, and that presently +that awful darkness would be ended. + +The rafters above him--they were his only hope of escape. + +By means of the window he could reach those beams, and possibly the +trap-door, but he feared--horribly feared--that his fingers would slip +from the pieces of square wood, which it seemed impossible to grip. + +He tried it, however. He got both legs up and through the rails till the +thickness of his thighs prevented further protrusion. + +He sat there with his calves out of window, resting a moment, and +getting ready for his test of strength. + +Then, his hands at the top of the bars, and his feet resting at their +base, he stretched up first one hand and then the other. + +He gripped easily the long timbers--gripped them easily while his weight +was supported by his feet, but the moment he hung--well, that same +moment he dropped to the ground. + +In his fall he did not hurt himself at all--he was prepared for it. + +He had known, even while testing it, that the task was a hopeless one; +there was nothing to grip in the strict sense of the word; all he could +do was to pinch the wood with his fingers, and the difficulty of that +operation with one hundred and forty pounds depending is apparent. + +He felt his way over to the beds, and lay down; his exertions had +fatigued him a bit. + +He lay very quietly, thinking--thinking of the possibility of escape, +and realizing more and more how hopeless the idea was, how secure was +the trap he was in. + +He heard a sound and started up--the sound ceased. He called out: + +"Who's there?" + +And there was a scampering, scraping, scratching noise. What it was +burst on him at once. He muttered: + +"Rats!" + +He was not afraid of them. His limbs were free. + +He had read accounts of those rodents attacking living men, but he had +looked upon them as mere fiction. He was content to think that he could +beat them off if his voice failed to frighten them. + +The moon o'ertopped the trees, and he was thankful. The light was a +great comfort. + +It shone into the cellar, and he lay there on the beds as in a patch of +lime-light, the shadow of the bars running as great dark lines across +the floor. + +He put his hands under his head, and lay quite still, looking up at the +moon. Presently a shadow was cast--there was something at the window! + +He did not move, and then he saw what it was--a cat--a common or garden +cat! + +A well cared for, plump, collared member of the feline race--he could +see the silver part of the leather collar in the moon's beams. + +The cat looked in between the bars and listened. Then she stealthily ran +or dropped, after the manner of her kind, down the wall on to the floor. + +It was evident from her manner that this was not her first visit. The +squeaking and scuttling of the rats had ceased as by magic. + +The fear they had not felt for the man, they instinctively felt for the +cat--their natural enemy. + +Quite idly, without moving, Gerald said: + +"Puss, puss; poor pussie." + +The cat paused in her stealthy walk across the cellar floor. Gerald +spoke again. + +Perhaps she was reassured by his voice, for she did not run away when he +stretched out his hand and scratched her neck and head; indeed, she came +closer. Evidently Gerald had found her soft spot. + +Another shadow! Another cat! Then another! + +They followed the example of the first and dropped down--it was +evidently a happy hunting ground for the neighboring cats. + +Gerald was rather pleased than otherwise--they acted as a kind of +police, so far as the rats were concerned. + +The moon, as it climbed its way along the heavens, lighted up different +parts of the cellar, and presently in looking round a ray of hope +entered Gerald's heart--for there, on a nail in the wall, was a coil of +wire! + +There were possibilities in it. + +He walked to the coil and took it down, and his heart sank again. + +It was the thread-like wire used in bottling, and absolutely useless as +a means of escape. + +Then suddenly a thought occurred to him, which sent the blood rushing to +his head, and set his pulse and heart beating faster. + +"My God!" he said, "there's a chance yet." + +From his breast pocket he drew his note-book and tore three leaves out. +In the light of the moon with a pencil he wrote: + + "For God's sake, whoever finds this, take it to the nearest + police station. I am imprisoned without food or drink in the + back cellar of The Elms, Maypole Road, Wimbledon, by a man + who threatens to murder me. This is life or death. For God's + sake, help." + +"That ought to be strong enough," he muttered, as he reread it. "I don't +know that I can add to it in any way." + +Then he made two copies of the document, and folded all three into flat, +long-shaped tapers. + +He then broke off a couple of yards of the wire, and called a cat to +him. + +Scratching the cat, and fastening the note to the collar with the wire, +was not altogether an easy task, but he accomplished it. Then he +effected the same thing round the necks of the other two. + +One had no collar at all, and Gerald had to make one with the wire. He +succeeded, and then one by one he pitched the cats up to the window. + +They looked round with ruffled fur at this indignity after such soothing +treatment as they had been experiencing, and probably in their hearts +thought that Gerald was no gentleman. + +They evidenced this thought of him by walking away and leaving him. + +He climbed up to the window bars, and watched them as well as he could. + +They lingered, probably with a view to the formation of a choir; but +Gerald said "Shoo!" and they fled. As they did so, he heard a clock +striking. + +Counting the strokes, he found it was ten o'clock. He had been in the +cellar an hour only, and it seemed days. + +He remembered the period of his residence in suburban lodgings. He +remembered the care of the proprietors of cats then, how before going to +bed they would patiently call "puss, puss, puss" at their back doors, in +order to prevent their pets spending a night out. + +He prayed earnestly that the owners of the feline trinity he had just +let loose were affectionately disposed towards their cats. He hoped +great things from those messages. + +If not to-night, surely in the morning one of the three must bear fruit. +He prayed so with all his heart and soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +A PISTOL AND AN OPEN GRAVE + + +Eleven o'clock struck. In that upper room at The Elms, where he had left +a feather bed, Loide lay smoking and thinking. + +He was disappointed at the ill success of his scheme. + +His talk of starving out the detective had been all bluff--starvation +was a process which would fill too much time. + +It would be three days before the man with the warrant touched English +shores. Before that time expired, Loide must be away. + +But he wanted to flit with the money--the nineteen thousand pounds. + +A hundred and one ideas floated through his mind. + +Would it be any use trying to bribe the man in the cellar? His life +threatened, he would be justified in giving information as to the +hiding-place of the notes. + +What if he promised to give him a share of the spoil in untraceable +gold? But he had not much faith in that idea. + +He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and replaced the latter in its +pistol-shaped case--and that very act gave him an idea. + +He had not been firm enough. He had not frightened the detective--that +was evident from the man's silence. + +Despite the rats and the darkness, he was holding on. Loide felt that he +should have played his cards with a firmer hand. + +He handled the pipe case--in the dimly lit room it looked remarkably +like a pistol. He would play it for that. + +Another detail entered his brain, and the humor of it rather appealed to +him. + +It was grim humor. It pertained to the digging of a grave in front of +the barred window. + +With the smile on his lips, pipe in his pocket, and lantern in hand, he +descended the stairs. He walked slowly along the passage, and stepped +across the trap. + +Not a sound from the man below. The lawyer bit his lips in vexation. + +He turned back and lifted the trap. The light from his lantern showed +Gerald lying on the beds. + +"Sleeping pretty comfortably?" queried the lawyer genially. + +"Sleep! What do you think I'm made of?" + +"Flesh and blood just at present. So you can't sleep, eh? We will alter +that. You shall sleep soundly enough within the next hour, I promise +you." + +He let the flap fall as he spoke, and walked away in the direction of +the back door. + +Gerald heard the unfastening of the bolts, the descent of the stone +steps into the garden, and presently a glimmer of light from the lantern +showed through the window on to the cellar wall. + +Springing to his feet, he jumped up to the bars and clung to them. + +He could see Loide walking down the garden path, and saw him enter a +sort of shed. Soon he came out, carrying a spade. + +With this he walked in the direction of the window, and then, putting +down the lantern on the ground, with the edge of the spade marked out a +space on the earth, about six feet long and two feet wide. + +The lawyer then started digging. He never turned his head to note if +there was a face at the window, but from the corner of his eye he saw it +and chuckled. + +Could he have seen Gerald's appearance, he would have been still better +pleased, for the eyes in the face at the window were protruding, and +the hair on the head was almost on end. The shape of that hole the +lawyer was digging caused the fright--it was the shape of a grave. + +Steadily the lawyer went on with his task. He was really digging in the +middle of a flower-bed, so that his work was not very difficult. + +The hole got deeper and deeper, the digger standing in it and shoveling +out the earth, and all the while the white face remained glued to the +bars of the window. + +As midnight struck, the task was finished. The lawyer stuck the spade +into the earth, wiped his brow, put on his coat, and picked up his +lantern. + +As he mounted the steps leading into the house, Gerald dropped to the +floor of the cellar, and waited, dreading--he knew not what. + +The flap was flung up, and the lawyer bent over. In one hand Gerald +could see a pistol! + +This was laid down beside the lantern, and coolly squatting on the floor +with folded arms, the lawyer addressed his prisoner. + +"You have been down there some little time, policeman, and I dare say +you have been thinking of the best way to get out--I guess that's what +you would think." + +"Yes, I have thought a little of it." + +"Has anything struck you? I am asking you for information. I mean, how +it would be possible for me to get you out through this hole." + +"If you mean to let me out"--his heart gave a great leap as he +spoke--"surely it would be better to open the door." + +"No," said the lawyer, shaking his head. "I am not so young as I was. +Age robs one of one's strength. Besides, you are a big, heavy fellow--by +reason of that I have allowed a good two feet wide--I should never be +able to drag you up the cellar stairs--I could drag you down all right." + +"I could walk," said Gerald hoarsely, full of horrible thoughts +engendered of the lawyer's last speech; "you wouldn't need to assist +me." + +Again the lawyer shook his head. + +"I am afraid you don't quite understand the position," he said. "You +wouldn't be able to help me. When you leave this cellar you will be +beyond help." + +"What do you mean?" + +It was a startled, hoarse voice which came up from the cellar. + +The lawyer picked up the pipe case, and then put it down again. It was +an effective bit of byplay. + +"You see, my dear fellow, I'm as sorry as sorry can be--but necessity +knows no law. I tried to arrange things comfortably. You'll admit I was +thoughtful; I did not even want to hurt a limb. I even took the trouble +to break your fall with feather beds." + +"Yes." + +"But you didn't respond. I wanted those notes--now I have given up any +idea of your telling me where they are. I thought I should cash them, +and plant a couple of thousand pounds in gold where you would be able to +find them later on. Your imprisonment here would have given you all the +excuse you would have needed. But you did not clinch on to the idea." + +"It was--it is--impossible." + +"Just so, just so," replied the lawyer soothingly. "I admire that trait +in any man's character; and seeing you're in the position you are, +facing your own grave, why, damme, it positively borders on heroism." + +"Heroism?" + +"That's it, that's the word. I'm full of unqualified praise. But, as I +said, necessity knows no law. As I said to myself when I loaded this +pistol"--byplay again--"'it's a hundred pities to make holes in the +man's head, and then plant him in the back garden,' but what would you +do? There's no help for it." + +"No--help--for--it?" + +"Ah, it strikes you so, does it? You see you could have earned your +freedom and a couple of thousand pounds, and you prefer going over to +the great majority." + +"You don't mean to tell me that you are going to murder me in cold +blood?" + +"Afraid so, dear boy, afraid so. What's troubling me is, how the devil I +am to get you out into the garden. Frankly, I don't want to leave you +here to be nibbled by the rats--skeletons are such horrible things, and +I'm a sensitive sort of beast when you come to know me. I have dug a +nice comfortable little grave outside, and you'll be as snug as can be +in it." + +"You--murderer!" + +"Just so, just so. I confessed as much to you once when you had me in +your power, didn't I? The positions are reversed now you are in my +power, but you don't make any confession of the whereabouts of these +notes." + +"I cannot." + +"Just so, just so. As I have said before, it's heroism--beautiful +heroism. I'll have to take my chance of dragging you up the cellar +stairs, I suppose. There's no last sort of wish or request you have to +make, have you"--byplay again--"before I put a bullet in your brain?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE NEXT MOVE IN THE GAME + + +Before Gerald could answer the very unpleasant question, there came a +sound which caused both men's hearts to cease beating for a moment, the +one with hope, the other with fear. + +For it was a loud hammering on the front door, and an authoritative +voice crying: + +"Open instantly, or we break in." + +Looking at the door, the lawyer saw through the ground glass a round +disk of light, such as a bull's-eye lantern throws, and then silhouetted +a helmet--a policeman's helmet. + +Loide stood in the passageway with a blanched face--irresolute--for a +moment. There was not time to be so longer. + +Then he rushed to the back door, and disappeared down the steps into the +darkness. + +His movements were quickened by the sound of breaking glass. A truncheon +had shattered one of the panels in the door, and a coat sleeve, with a +striped band round it, was thrust through the hole in the glass. + +There was a hand in the sleeve, a hand feeling around for the catch, a +policeman's hand. + +The hand caught the catch, and presently the door opened. + +Three men in uniform stood on the steps, a sergeant and two constables. +They paused a moment listening, and then entered. + +"Be careful," said the sergeant. "Throw your light ahead of you. Hullo! +What's this?" + +He was referring to the open trap which yawned at his feet. + +He cast the light of his lantern down the hole, and a voice came up, +saying: + +"The police! Thank God!" + +"Wasn't a hoax then, after all," said the sergeant grimly. "Are you all +right?" + +"Yes," came the voice; "all right now you have arrived. Had you been +five minutes later you would have had a dead man to carry out." + +"Who's the would-be murderer?" + +"Escaped the back way as you entered the front. I heard him run down the +steps." + +"Jim, Jack, quick; scour the back, and see what you can find." + +The men found nothing. They returned. + +"He knew the lay of the land better than we did," said the sergeant; +and then stooping over the opening in the floor, he continued, "How are +we going to get you out of this?" + +"That's the question which was put to me five minutes ago, only it was +proposed to bring me out dead, not alive." + +"Shall I try and borrow a ladder, sergeant?" inquired one of the men. +"Or a pair of steps would do." + +"Where the devil are you going to borrow such a thing at midnight? Slip +off your belts. Here's mine; buckle them together. That's it." + +He leaned over the hole, and lowered the length of leather. + +"Just wrap the end round one wrist," he called out to the man below, +"and hold on with the other hand. Got it? Now, Jim, Jack, grip this. +Stand on the corner there and pull all together." + +The long, strong pull of the three men brought Gerald's head above the +hole. + +"Catch hold of the side with your free hand," called out the sergeant; +"that will relieve the weight. That's it. Stoop down, Jack, and catch +his arms. There." + +In another moment Gerald formed one of the four panting men in the +passage. + +"And now," inquired the sergeant, "what's the meaning of this little +game? How did you come to get down there?" + +"First tell me," inquired Gerald, "how you came to arrive in the very +nick of time?" + +"Well, your note--ingenious idea that--round the cat's neck, was noticed +by the cat's owner. At first she thought it was a hoax, but ultimately +she put on a bonnet and shawl, and came with it to the police station." + +"Good woman!" + +"It seemed a funny sort of story to find tied to a cat, and at first we +shared in the belief that it was a hoax. We probably should have treated +it so--for you don't find this kind of thing happening except in books, +you know--but one of our men who was standing in the office had reported +that two vans had cleared the furniture away from The Elms during the +evening. + +"I think that decided us. If it had not been for the fact that it was an +empty house--empty houses form the backgrounds of a lot of crimes, you +know--I don't think we should have taken notice of it." + +"That would have been pleasant." + +"You can't conceive how the police are hoaxed, or you wouldn't wonder. +We seem to be fair game for the practical joker. But now, tell us, how +did you get down that hole?" + +"It's a long story," said Gerald, who for obvious reasons could not tell +the true one. "I was lured here presumably by a madman, walked into that +trap, and when you were knocking at the door, the fellow was standing +over me with a pistol. He had dug a grave in the back garden--you can +see it for yourself--and was intending to bury me in it." + +"Who was it?" + +"The man who lived here--Mr. Loide, the lawyer. I was his clerk. He sent +for me to come here to-night, and I came down by train. When I got +here--well, the man was mad; there can be no doubt of it." + +"Just give me his description," said the sergeant; "we don't want madmen +rambling about a quiet little place like Wimbledon. The sooner we spot +the old gentleman the better. He seems to be shaping himself for a +strait jacket." + +"A quiet five minutes with him," replied Gerald viciously, as he +clenched his fist, "would, I think, result in his being one of the +sanest men in the country. I shouldn't forget in the interview that he +tried to murder me." + +"You don't want to take the law into your own hands. That's what we are +around for. Now, give me his description." + +Gerald gave it. Then the sergeant said: + +"Your own name and address." + +Gerald gave them. + +While the sergeant had been eliciting these particulars, and writing an +account of the affair, his men had searched the house from top to +bottom, and reported absolute emptiness. + +"Now I think we have done here. Better let us take the key," said the +sergeant; "we'll go over the place again to-morrow. If he's as mad as +you say he is, he's likely to come back. We may be able to clap hands on +him if we keep watch." + +The street door was locked, and the four men made their way to the high +road. + +"I would give something for a drink of brandy," said Gerald. + +"I fear you are not in such dire distress as to warrant my knocking up a +licensed victualer," replied the sergeant. "How would a cup of hot cocoa +fit you? There's a stall at the corner." + +Gerald sampled it, and found it grateful and comforting. + +"Now, about sleeping. Will you come on to the station? We can give you a +pitch there on a rug till the morning." + +Gerald thanked them and walked to the police station. The next morning +he was up betimes, and caught an early train back to London. + +His astonished landlady let him in, and opined with a shaking head that +there was only one end for young men who stopped out all night. + +Gerald did not want to hear what the termination was, but made his way +up-stairs. + +In his own room he lay on his bed and slept. He had not found the bench +at the police station of a soporific kind. + +After the excitement of the preceding evening, he needed sleep, and he +took his fill of it. + +He did not awake till eleven o'clock; then he had breakfast, and mapped +out his plans for the day. + +He rehearsed his coming interview with the dentist--he did not suppose +it would matter being an hour or so late--what he should say, what he +should do, and then went out. + +His landlady sarcastically inquired as he passed whether he thought he +should sleep at home that night, and he answered by banging the door. + +He made his way to Finsbury Circus, and entered the building in which +the dentist had rooms. Sawyer opened the door. + +"Is Mr. Lennox in?" + +"Yessir; will you come inside? What name shall I say, sir?" + +"Brown--John Brown." + +Then Gerald sat down and waited while the boy took his name in to his +employer. + +"Am I going to draw a prize or a blank," he muttered. "Am I coming out +of this interview with the notes in sight, or failure?" + +His interview with the dentist told him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +AT THE DENTIST'S + + +The dentist himself was left--the last time he was referred to in this +chronicle--facing Sawyer and two policemen. + +The sight of the policemen caused him to clutch at the door frame for +support. He thought the moment of his arrest had come, and his knees +seemed to take on a desire to figure as castanets. + +The two men touched their caps and did not attempt to enter. + +That surprised the dentist. It dawned on him that a salute was not the +usual preliminary to an arrest. + +One of the men had a note-book in his hand. He spoke: + +"Sorry to intrude, sir, but there's a fête on at the Crystal Palace for +the police orphanage. Your name's down on the books as subscribing +something last year, and we thought we'd just ask if you'd be so kind as +to remember the poor orphans again." + +What a feeling, what an intense feeling of relief came over him! + +Relief! He almost laughed, the tension for a minute had been so great. + +"What did I give last year?" he inquired, in as natural a voice as he +could assume. + +"Five shillings, sir." + +"Then here's the same again. That's all right." + +The men thanked him and withdrew. The dentist closed the door and almost +sobbed. + +Then he changed his mind about the registered letter. Opening the door, +he entered the outer room, and took it from Sawyer. + +"I'll see to this," he said. + +That police visit seemed to have roused some courage in him--it was an +element in his nature that needed a lot of rousing. + +Why should he be afraid of every shadow? Where was the need for it? + +Unless he betrayed himself--and then he remembered the visit of the man +yesterday, the man who had made an appointment for eleven o'clock that +day. + +What could that mean? His inquiries, his reference to the American, all +this seemed suspicious. + +He would wait another half hour and see. Perhaps after all there was no +need for fright. + +During that half hour Sawyer tapped at and opened the door. + +"The gent that came yesterday, sir." + +"His name?" + +"Mr. Brown, sir." + +"Show him in." + +The dentist braced himself for the interview. He put the envelope +containing the notes in his table drawer, and looked up as his visitor +entered. + +"Mr. Brown?" + +"That's it." + +"You were recommended here, I think, by some one whose teeth I attended +to." + +"Well, I don't think you attended to his teeth only." + +"No." + +"He was rather cut up by your treatment." + +Gerald had his eyes fixed on the dentist, and when he had uttered that +double meaning remark, he saw the man's face grow pale as death. + +He knew then that his bolt had gone home; knew that he was on the right +track at last. + +He adopted bold measures. The dentist's appearance warranted them. + +"Sit down, Mr. Lennox. You don't mind my turning the key in the door, so +we shan't be disturbed, do you? That's it." + +He seated himself opposite the dentist, and pulled out his +hired-for-a-shilling handcuffs. + +The effect of their production was electric. He was more than ever +convinced that he was right. + +"Of course," he said quietly, "you guess the game's up. That little game +you and your brother played with Mr. George Depew when he came to have a +tooth out?" + +The dentist was incapable of an answer. He sat there as if turned to +stone. + +Gerald went on: + +"I'm of the American detective force--you have perhaps heard of me, +Detective Grabbem. I gave the name of Brown to your boy because I didn't +want to give the show away." + +Still no answer. Then Gerald said suddenly: + +"Where are the nineteen thousand pound notes?" + +For answer the tongue-tied dentist with trembling hand opened his +drawer, and handed Gerald the envelope he had recently given to and +taken from Sawyer. + +"You intended them for the London police? I'm from New York." + +Gerald opened the envelope and his eyes sparkled as he handled the +notes. + +As a measure of precaution he collated the numbers with the entries in +his pocketbook--all were correct. + +"I'll take charge of these," he said, as he put the notes in his pocket. +"Thanks for saving me trouble." + +Then Gerald's anxiety was to get away. He said: + +"Out of gratitude for saving me bother, is there anything you would like +me to do for you? Want to write to your friends or anything?" + +He had got all he wanted, and he decided to leave with it as promptly as +possible. The dentist found his tongue, and said: + +"I would be grateful for half an hour for--for the purpose of writing to +my friends." + +"It's yours. There is no back way out of this house, I see. I'll just +smoke a pipe outside. No tricks, mind. I'll be back in half an hour." + +Gerald went out slowly, lighted a pipe within sight of the dentist's +window, sauntered with his hands behind him, after the manner of one +waiting, and then when he reached the corner, turned it, and bolted in +the direction of Moorgate Street. + +There he hailed a hansom and was rapidly driven to his lodgings. He was +one of the happiest fares in a London cab that day. + +And the dentist? He completed the unfinished work of the morning. + +No need now for the subtleties of the sharpening stone--all was known. +He might as well use the knife in the quickest possible way, and end it +all speedily. + +His old cowardice came over him. He loathed himself for it, stamped his +foot and strove to attain the courage needed to draw that sharp +surgeon's knife under his chin. + +He knew its edge was razor-like, that one strong, firm draw and all +would be over. But he lacked the nerve. + +He almost laughed when he remembered that he had heard it said that a +suicide is a coward--he imagined that it required more courage to take +one's own life than another's. + +He looked at the clock; he had fooled away five minutes. That braced him +up--he must avoid the hangman's attention at any cost. + +It was not the loss of his life which had deterred him so much as the +method of losing it. + +Then an idea occurred to him. He had the gas apparatus, why not--no +sooner thought than he started to put the idea into execution. + +He had a little bench whereat he worked in and about the repairing and +making of false teeth. + +At each end were small vises. He fastened the surgeon's long knife into +it after the manner of a man who would sharpen a saw. + +It was firm and rigid. + +The gas apparatus he put on the bench itself, and leaned over to it, his +neck almost touching the knife. + +As he lost consciousness and the power of standing, he knew what would +happen; the weight of his whole body would drag his neck on to the keen +edge. Long before he could recover consciousness, all would be over. + +Then he expelled a deep breath and inhaled the gas. + + * * * * * + +When Gerald's copy of the _Star_ was brought up to him, a triple +head-lined column caught his eye. It was captioned: + +STRANGE DEATH + +OF A WELL KNOWN + +CITY DENTIST + +and it went on to describe the ghastly details of the find in the +dentist's room. + +It was put down as a pure accident. The boy's evidence about the +sharpening of the knives, the extraordinary position in which the body +was found, were chronicled; there was not the breath of a suspicion of +suicide. + +Perhaps that soul which had taken its flight to another world knew +naught of the happenings in this--would never know that the insurance +office paid over the policy moneys, and that the wife and child the dead +man had thought so much of benefited by the application of a golden +salve in their time of grief. + +And yet--who knows? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +MOON BLINDNESS + + +"No need to shave this off now." + +Gerald was standing next morning in front of his dressing-glass, and +referred to his pointed beard. + +He had intended shaving as a disguise in case of any bother with the now +dead dentist. He had not seen what could arise--what the dentist would +dare to do--but the detective's failure to go back for his prisoner +would naturally excite suspicion in the dentist's breast. + +Now--well, that breast was cold. + +"There is no doubt," thought Gerald, "the doctor and the dentist between +them did for Josh Todd. Both are now done for. So far as Josh Todd's +murder is concerned, that is avenged. A restoration of the money"--he +had the bank notes in front of him as he spoke--"to its rightful owner +will end the whole thing. + +"And," he thought, with a smile of pleasure playing round his mouth, "it +will end up like a story too, with a marriage with Tessie--and, please +God, a live happy ever after." + +He inserted the notes in an envelope. Then in another, and another, and +ultimately in a piece of brown paper, which he tied round with twine. + +He went to the head of the stairs, and called out to the landlady, would +she lend him a needle and cotton? + +The maid of all work came up with it, and Gerald set about using the +same. + +He took off his coat and waistcoat, and ripped the lining of the latter +from the cloth; pushing the envelope of money up, he sewed the lining +down again. + +"That's on my left side," said Gerald, "over the heart. I put that +waistcoat on now"--he did so--"and it shall never leave me till I hand +the money over to old Depew. I'll sleep in that waistcoat, and never, +night or day, shall it be out of my touch." + +He looked up the trains and boat sailings, booked his passage, and +arranged to step on board a liner the next day on his way to America--on +his way to the girl he loved. + +The next day he settled with his landlady. Then he took an omnibus to +Euston, sitting on the top of it with his bag on his knees, for his +exchequer was running low, and it did not admit of cab hire. By tram he +went to the dock, and stepped aboard the vessel which was to bear him to +the land of the free. + +He had gone to the expense in town of booking both berths in his second +class cabin. It left him almost without a pound in his pocket, but he +had too much in value about him to run any risk. + +He had provided against any tampering with the bolts or locks of his +cabin door by purchasing one of the bell door alarms which fix into the +floor, and at the slightest pressure of the door rings a loud alarm. + +He did not fear for a moment that any attempt to rob him would be made; +he simply took no risks. + +Traveling second class, no one would suppose him in possession of +nineteen thousand pounds, and as he had made up his mind that the +package should never leave his breast, he felt quite safe. + +On board the boat, after she sailed, he kept very much to his cabin. He +did not make many acquaintances. He occasionally chatted and smoked with +a poor looking, club-footed old man, who was a fellow-passenger. + +He was moved to this by the extreme sensitiveness of the man; indeed, a +veiled pity prompted him to take notice of the only creature on the ship +who seemed to be without an acquaintance. + +He was surprised when he found from conversation what a mine of +information he had struck; that his companion was a well-informed, +educated, and apparently wealthy man. + +"Yes," the other said, "I suppose you are surprised to find me traveling +second class. I am extremely sensitive. I know with this hideous +deformity, a hump back and a club foot, that people talk of me in +pitying tones behind my back. + +"I don't want their pity," he continued fiercely; "I only want to be let +alone, unnoticed. With you, it is different. You are the only man on +this ship who looks at me without conveying an impression that you would +like to pat me on the back and say, 'Poor old fellow.' Damn their pity!" + +Gerald laughed heartily. The man was speaking the truth, he knew. + +His almost toothless gums caused chin and nose to come together in a +manner strikingly suggestive of Punch, and he spoke with a squeak. + +His nose even was deformed, and a swelling on one side of it below the +bridge added to the curious appearance of the face. A bald head, with a +fringe round it of snow white hair, completed the grotesqueness. + +In the more crowded second class cabin, the man escaped notice better +than he would have done in the saloon. + +So it came about that during the voyage Gerald and the club-footed +hunchback passed many hours together. + +Gerald learned much, for there was scarcely a subject on which his +companion was not well posted. + +The nights were particularly pleasant, for the moon was at the full, +and, well wrapped up, they usually spent the after dinner time on deck, +while the majority of the passengers were more sociably engaged in the +way of games or music. + +At one meal the subject of moon blindness had cropped up, and many +curious anecdotes were told anent it--anecdotes more or less truthful, +after the manner of shipboard stories. + +Afterwards, on deck, Gerald's companion continued the conversation. At +table he rarely spoke. He said: + +"It is quite true. Moon blindness is a terrible thing. The great relief +about it is the knowledge that the sight comes back. + +"I remember, many years ago, abroad, being foolish enough to insist on +sleeping on an open deck. It was, of course, terribly hot weather, or +even I--young as I was then--should never have been so foolish. I lay on +my back on the deck--on the back is the only comfortable way in which to +lie on a hard couch, by the by--and when I woke I could not see my hand +before me. + +"Fright! God bless me! I believe I went mad." + +"Enough to make you." + +"The captain reassured me by laughing at me. It seemed a cruel thing to +do, but I have since thought it saved me from going mad. I have always +feared blindness so--I have always had weak eyes." + +"I notice that you are never without colored glasses." + +"That is so. I cannot see a yard away without them. + +"Well, on this occasion of which I am speaking, there was no ship's +doctor aboard. The captain gave me an ointment to use which he told me +would restore my sight in five or six days." + +"Did it?" + +"In that time my sight became as good as ever it was. As to the +ointment--well, the captain afterwards told me that was a mere trick. +That nothing but time cured moon blindness, and that he had given me the +fat as an ointment merely to keep me busy." + +"Smart." + +"Yes. There was another effect it had on a fellow-passenger--who slept +as I had slept. He got up from the deck, felt his way to his berth, and +lay there unconscious for nearly a day and a half. + +"When he recovered, he had not the faintest recollection of even lying +down on the deck, and was amazed to find himself in his clothes in his +bunk." + +"Curious." + +"So I thought. Don't light your pipe--try one of these cigars. They are +from a box I have just opened. I want your opinion of them." + +"Thanks--want the light?" + +"No, I won't smoke any more to-night. I think"--a yawn--"I'll be getting +to bed. Good-night." + +"Good-night. I shan't turn in just yet; as I've lighted this cigar, I'll +smoke it out." + +"Give me your opinion of it in the morning. Good-night." + +"Good-night." + +Gerald sat on in the moonlight smoking, and when in the morning he found +himself in his berth with his clothes on, he thought of the story of the +moon struck man, thought he had been affected in the same way, and was +thankful that he had awakened at his regular hour with nothing worse +than a headache. + +He determined never to go to sleep on deck again while the moon was +shining. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE LOVERS MEET + + +New York. Gerald bade farewell to his companion, who pressed him, if +ever he returned to England again, to pay him a visit, and they parted. + +Gerald's first act, after fixing on a train at the railway station, was +to send a wire to Depew. + + Have succeeded in every way. Coming by train, arriving + Oakville at six. Let Tessie meet me with trap. + + GERALD DANVERS. + +And Tessie was there to meet him--Tessie, bright, bonnie, and expectant. + +Their eyes spoke, but they just shook hands quietly and then drove away. + +When they reached the country road, away from people, Gerald took hold +of the reins, and pulled the horses up. + +"What's that for?" + +"Comfort, Tessie. You have just got to give me the biggest kisses you're +capable of giving, and I don't like them in a jolting cart." + +"Gerald!" + +"That's it. Now another. I can do with another. Greedy, eh? Why, I +haven't had a kiss all the time I have been away." + +"I should hope not!" + +"Little woman, I've come back so full of joy--and I may say of +money--that I wonder my feelings aren't too much for me. I wonder I +don't burst." + +"Is it true, Gerald--all of it? Dad told us when he got your wire." + +"What did he say?" + +"Well, when he opened it and read it, he said, 'Hallelujah!'" + +"That's the old man right enough." + +"Then he told us that you had been over for nineteen thousand pounds, +and that you said you were bringing them with you." + +"That was so." + +"And is it true, Gerald? True that you have nineteen thousand pounds +about you now?" + +"Feel right here, lassie." + +"Your heart?" + +"No, you can't feel that--you've had it for weeks past." + +"Don't be foolish, Gerald." + +"Feel there--my vest." + +"Paper." + +"That's it--wrapped up in more paper--there's nineteen of them, each for +a thousand pounds." + +"My!" + +"Wants some swallowing, doesn't it? That's what I went across the pond +for, to get that money for your dad." + +"So he said." + +"And before I went I bargained how I was to be paid for my work. I made +him promise to give me--you." + +"So he said." + +"'Pears to me he has told you 'most all there is to tell." + +"He had never said a word to mother or to me till your wire came. But he +was full enough of talk then." + +"Trust the old man for that. When he pops the cork out you can hear +him." + +"He says that if it had not been for you, he never would have seen a +dollar of the money." + +"That's so. Sounds egotistical, but I don't sorter reckon he would." + +"He's mapped out what he's going to do with part of it." + +"Hasn't lost any time!" + +"He's not going to give you any of it." + +"Don't want it. I've got his word that he'll give you to me, and that's +enough for me to handle. I am counting on finding you a handful." + +"I'm sure!" + +"Old man's a man of his word; he won't go away from it. Our two beating +hearts are going to be made one, Tessie, just as soon as a parson can +tie us up." + +"I don't see any reason for hurry!" + +"Your sight's bad! We'll have to see to it." + +"But you haven't asked what he's doing with the part of the money I +referred to." + +"Don't want to know. Don't care a mosquito's wing what he does with it. +I plank those notes into his hand, and I say, 'Farmer, there's your part +of the bargain,' then I step across to you and I say, 'and I think this +is mine?' Farmer he agrees, and you and I----" + +"But Gerald, darling----" + +"That's right; you keep on calling me 'darling.' It sounds real +sweet--just like molasses--coming from your lips." + +"I wish you would be sensible for a minute." + +"Couldn't, Tessie, if I tried. I've earned you, my girl, and you're +mine, mine, mine!" + +"Gerald, don't scream out like that!" + +"Don't care. There's only the dicky birds to hear, and it won't frighten +them. Catch up the reins, lassie, steer for the farm, let me unload my +cargo, and have the right to claim you for first mate on our voyage +through life." + +"Gerald! I never saw you so silly." + +"Ain't I? I own up. I'm just oozing stupidity at every pore. Gimme a +kiss, or I'll stop the horse again." + +"How rough you are, Gerald!" + +"Ain't I? Gimme another. And another. Hallo! What's the mare stopped +for? Gee up! Don't you know you've got a bride and bridegroom behind +you? Don't you know the wedding march? Gee up, anyway." + +"Gerald! Do be quiet. I want to tell you something." + +"Fire away." + +"About that money." + +"Yes?" + +"Dad's going to give me some." + +"Well?" + +"How much do you think?" + +"Dunno--don't care." + +"Nine thousand pounds." + +"Get away! What are you giving us?" + +"Fact. He's not going to give you a cent. He says he promised to give me +to you, and he'll settle on me as a wedding portion the odd half." + +"He's a thorough, regular, kiln dried brick!" + +"Nine thousand pounds, Gerald!" + +"Don't seem as if there could be so much money in the world, Tessie, +does it? There's a capital for us to start a life partnership on!" + +"As the capitalist partner, I shall keep you in order, my boy." + +"You will--you will--I feel it looming." + +"You may not be in such a hurry about our marriage after that threat." + +"Oh, yes. I am in a greater hurry. I want to get over it." + +"You wretch!" + +"Ain't I? Biggest wretch on the American continent at this moment. +Hullo, Tessie! I didn't see the crape round your sleeve. Who's dead?" + +"Poor old Susan." + +"No!" + +"Yes; she died the second week you were away." + +"Poor old soul! She nearly sent me to glory, but I bear her no grudge." + +"Did you find out, Gerald, whether her husband was really murdered after +all?" + +"Not only that, Tessie, but I found who were his two murderers." + +"Are they arrested?" + +"They were arrested by the hand of death. No earthly judge and jury will +try them. They have to toe the mark before the Judge of All." + +"Dead?" + +"Yes, and that is all we will say about it. We don't want to talk of +death now, Tessie, but of life, the life which is before us, the life +which you and I are going to travel in double harness. The life----" + +"Take your arm away, Gerald. There's the farm, and mother and father are +standing at the door." + + * * * * * + +"Hip, hip, hooray, farmer!" + +"Come right in, lad, come right in. You, Jim, look after the mare." + +"Mother-in-law, give me a kiss." + +"I'm sure----" + +"It's right, farmer, isn't it? She can kiss her future son-in-law in +safety, can't she? I bring you home nineteen thousand pounds, and Tessie +and I enter into partnership till death doth us part. Isn't that the +bond?" + +"Every word of it, sonny, every word. But that money, where is it?" + +"Here, right here, farmer; on my beating, palpitating, manly bosom. +Mother-in-law that is to be, give me your scissors. No, take 'em +yourself. Undo the stitches. There. That's it. 'Open sesame' and out she +rolls. + +"Brown paper parcel tied with twine. Don't look worth nineteen thousand +pounds, does it, farmer? Open the packet, and you will see a sight for +sore eyes. Nineteen crisp, crackling, rustling Bank of England notes for +a thousand pounds each!" + +The trembling fingers of the farmer gripped the scissors, and he cut the +twine. Then he tore off the brown paper and revealed--a piece of folded +newspaper! + +For a moment there was a silence, but in that moment a great change came +over those present. + +All the hilarity left Gerald. He stood looking at the packet with surely +the whitest face that ever living man bore. The farmer's clouded to the +pitch of blackness, and, bringing his hand down on the table with a +force which made the crockery on the dresser ring again, he blurted out: + +"What damned fool's game is this, anyhow?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THIEF! + + +Gerald never moved, never took his eyes off that packet, never answered. + +Then he walked closer to it, picked it up, dropped it, and sank into a +chair, still a white faced, speechless man. + +The farmer watched him for a whole minute. Then he sneeringly remarked: + +"Been robbed of the money, eh?" + +Gerald had to moisten his lips before he could ejaculate the word: + +"Yes." + +Then the farmer laughed, but it was not a pleasant laugh. + +He rose to his feet and pointed to the door. He uttered but one word: + +"Go!" + +"Father!" + +"Silence, girl! and stand aside from that lying cheat." + +"Cheat!" + +Gerald spoke the last word. There was an air of unnatural calm about the +farmer, as he answered: + +"Cheat! Fraud! Liar! Bunco-steerer; we're a long way from the sheriff, +or, by the God that's in the heaven above, I'd lodge you in jail +to-night." + +"Lodge--me--in--jail!" + +"For robbing me of fifty pounds." + +"Robbing!" + +"Do you think I don't see through your trickery? Do you take me for a +hayseed because I'm a farmer? Do you think I believe a word of what you +say? + +"Tell me--tell me again that you had nineteen thousand pounds in that +vest of yours, and that you've been robbed of it." + +"I sewed--it--in--myself." + +Again the farmer laughed--that unpleasant laugh of his. + +Then he walked to the wall and took down a whip--a stock whip with a +long thong. He drew the lash through his fingers and said: + +"This farmhouse has sheltered a thief long enough. I look on that fifty +pounds as lost. I give you two minutes to get the other side of that +door. If you're not gone then, I'll write a receipt on your back with +this lash. So help me, God!" + +"Father!" + +"Stand back, girl!--this is no place for you." + +"Father----" + +"Stand back, I say. You're my flesh and blood--the flesh and blood of +honest people; you want no truck with carrion like this." + +"Farmer, you think I have robbed you----" + +"Thief!" + +"You think that I----" + +"Thief!" + +"I, who wanted to----" + +"Thief!" + +Gerald walked to the door. Tessie sprang to it, too, and said: + +"Gerald!" + +"Tessie, I--answer me, lassie; it looks black enough, God knows. Answer +me! Do you think I lied when I told you----" + +"No, Gerald; I believe in you now as I did then." + +"Thank God!" + +"My own flesh and blood turnin' agin' me!" + +"Farmer, I----" + +"Thief!" + +"Listen to----" + +"Thief!" + +"Father!" + +"Stand aside, child, and let that thief go out--out before I lash him +like the dog he is." + +"No, father, you wrong him, you wrong me. He is my promised husband. If +he is turned out, I go with him." + +And once more the farmer muttered: + +"My own flesh and blood turnin' agin' me!" + +"Tessie, my little girl." + +Gerald had his arms round her waist, and drew her to him as he spoke. + +"God bless you for those words. They put heart, life, and courage into +me. But this is your home. Stay here, girlie, till I fetch you from +it--till I have found the money of which I have been robbed." + +"Gerald!" + +"My girlie," there was a little tremble in his voice, "the sky looked so +clear and bright as we came to the farm, and it looks all drear and +black now I am leaving it. But the blackest cloud has a silver lining, +and I know that money is in America. + +"I've got to find it, Tessie, and I'm going right away now to do it. +Right away into New York, and you won't see me back here again until I +come with the money; until I come to make your father apologize for +calling an honest man a thief, and admit that it doesn't always do to +judge by appearances." + +"Gerald!" + +"Oh, I don't blame him, lass; things look black, cruelly black; and if +he knew all, he'd be more full of wonder than unjust rage. I sewed those +notes into this vest myself, Tessie, and sleeping or waking, girlie, it +has never left my body." + +"Where--where, Gerald, can the notes be?" + +"That, lass, I am going to New York to find out. A kiss, girlie; just +one. You'll see me back; trust me." + +"I do, Gerald--trust you with all my heart and soul." + +"Mrs. Depew, you don't feel so strong about this matter as the farmer; +you don't know quite so much. If he's inclined to be rough on this girl +here, remember that I tell you that when she defends me, she defends an +honest man. + +"You told me once that you knew by my eyes I could never tell a woman a +lie. I'm looking you straight in the face now, Mrs. Depew, and I tell +you that I sewed that money in my vest myself." + +"Why," blurted out the farmer, "why didn't----" + +"Hold on, there, farmer--you've said enough. I've taken such words from +you to-night as no living man can say he has ever uttered to me before. +I don't want to hear you talk now. Later on, I'll listen--listen when +you beg my pardon for your injustice; as you shall, by God! Good-night." + +And he passed through the doorway, out on to the road, his face towards +the capital. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +A THEATRICAL MAKE-UP + + +We leave America for England, and turn back in our history a week or +so--to Wimbledon and The Elms on the night of Gerald's adventure there. + +The police and Gerald are in the passage by the front door, and a +haggard faced man is crouched below the steps listening. + +He hears all that Gerald says, and his fury rises to white heat as he +realizes by his late clerk's reticence that he is not a detective at +all! + +No policeman would speak as he speaks--concealing the facts from other +officers. + +The police and Gerald go away. Indelibly printed on the lawyer's memory +is his late clerk's address. + +Loide breaks into his own house, and sleeps that night on the bed he had +left up-stairs. + +Early as Gerald leaves Wimbledon next morning, Loide has left it before +him. + +The lawyer has profited in his former lesson in make up. + +He remembers that in the Waterloo Road there are two or three theatrical +shops. He waits about till they are open, and then enters one. + +"You will be surprised at what I want," he says to the man in the shop, +"and perhaps you will not be able to give it to me." + +"What is it, sir?" + +"I want such a complete disguise that my own son will not know me." + +"Your son!" + +"Yes. It's a ghastly thing for a father to have to confess, but I +suspect my son of having robbed me. I want to find out if it is so. If +so, I shall ship him abroad. + +"I dare not place the matter in the hands of the police, because, if my +suspicions are confirmed, I should have to prosecute--that I cannot do, +for his mother's sake alone." + +"But how will you manage to----" + +"I have thought it all out. We have just discharged our old caretaker at +the warehouse. I have given out that I am going abroad, and I propose to +be the new caretaker for a week or so." + +"For a week! You can't expect make up to last a week." + +"You think the disguise is impossible?" + +"Well, no----" + +"See here, I have false teeth. Now they are out you see what a +difference it makes." + +"Yes, you're right; pinches in your cheeks, and brings your nose and +chin nearer. A good wig----" + +"I wear one now. I propose not to wear one at all. I am quite bald at +top. Can you color the fringe of hair round?" + +"Color wouldn't stand for a week; besides, in daylight it would be +seen." + +"There is no way, then?" + +"Yes; if you don't mind it." + +"What is it?" + +"Bleach it--won't take five minutes--bleach what you have, and your +bushy eyebrows whitened and trimmed will make all the difference in the +world." + +"Good." + +"But, mind, you will have to dye it black again when you want to return +to your own color." + +"That's all right. Can you suggest anything else?" + +"Yes. Your skin is white--'London tint' we call it--that can be stained +a darker color--'country tint' our name for it. Complexion is a big +factor in a make up." + +"I understand." + +"If you don't mind a little pain, we can alter your nose. This little +thing put up the nostril distends one side, and contracts the other." + +"Good." + +"Bodily--you don't mind walking lame?" + +"Don't mind anything so long as the disguise is effective." + +"Elevators in your boots raise you three inches in height, and a club +boot will cause you to walk altogether differently." + +"I see." + +"A hump on your back, and a pair of tinted glasses will complete the +thing. It would need a very close observer to detect you." + +"The voice is the only thing----" + +"Need not trouble you. This little thing fixes like the plate of false +teeth in the roof of the mouth. Stage dudes wear them. Speak slowly, and +you'll find yourself--unconsciously--lisping and stammering. The nose +distender adds a little twangy, nasal sound, and it's your own fault if +your voice gives you away." + +"All sounds good. Can you take me in hand now?" + +"Walk in." + +Terms were discussed and settled, and for an hour Loide was under the +shopkeeper's hands. + +At the expiration of that time he looked in the glass. He started back +in amazement. + +Truly had he had a son, that son would scarcely have recognized him. He +would have been a wise child to know his own father in that disguise. + +"The advantage of this, you see," said the make up man, "is that it is +what we call a 'daylight get up.' You needn't be afraid of it rubbing +off. It'll last. You'll look the same this day week as you look now. It +will be more than a week before that stain begins to wear off. Now, try +the coat." + +Several coats were tried before a fit to suit the shopman was arrived +at, and then he gave it out to one of his men with directions. + +Meanwhile boots were tried on. + +"You will find the height and the club boot strange at first." + +"If I look as I feel with these elevators on, I must appear to be a +giant." + +The shopman laughed. + +"It makes a big change. Walk round the shop for five minutes so as to +get used to them. Coat ready? Now try this on. That will do, I think. +Put on these tinted specs, and you're complete." + +Once more Loide looked in the mirror. His bent appearance altered his +shape as much as the shopman's art had altered his face--he felt +absolutely satisfied. + +Having paid the bill, he left the shop, and started walking towards the +bridge; but he did not walk far--he would have been lame in reality--he +hailed a hansom. + +The direction he gave the driver was the main road, in a street off +which Gerald was lodging. + +Reaching the end of it he alighted, paid his fare, and boldly walked to +No. 9--the number Gerald had given to the police. + +It was an ordinary lodging house, and the lawyer was pleased to see a +bill in the window, bearing the legend, "Bed for Single Gentleman." + +He knocked at the door. He was after that bed. + +Yes, the landlady was in, said the girl; would he step inside and wait a +minute? + +He stepped. The landlady came; she quoted her terms for a bedroom for a +week. + +Would the gentleman like to see it? The gentleman would--and did. + +The second floor was devoted to bedrooms. Loide approved of the one +shown him. + +He commented on the fact that the tenant of the next room slept late, as +his boots were still outside his door; and with a darkened brow the +landlady replied to the effect that those who stopped out all night +usually slept late the next day. + +Loide's heart beat quicker--he guessed the boots were Gerald's. + +He was sleeping in the next room, sleeping there with nineteen thousand +pounds in his possession. + +In the next room--there were possibilities. Loide smiled pleasantly, and +his heart felt lightened. + +He paid a deposit, and said that if the landlady would get him a chop +that would be all he would require till supper. + +He was left alone. + +Turning the key in the lock he carefully felt the walls separating him +from the adjoining room--as he suspected, lath and plaster! Presently he +heard some one moving in there, heard distinctly through the thin wall. +Then the door was opened, and the boots taken in. Gerald was going out. + +He went. Ear to crack in the door, the lawyer heard the man he was so +anxious about speak to the landlady on the next floor, saying he would +return in about two hours' time, and would she get him a steak and +potatoes for then. + +Two hours! There would be time. + +The lawyer stood on his bed and took down from its nail a framed and +highly colored statement to the effect that The Way of the Transgressor +is Hard. + +On that part of the wall the frame had covered he operated with his +pocket-knife. + +Stripping the paper, he cut away plaster and laths till he could see the +back of the paper of the adjoining chamber. + +He sighed with satisfaction. His task was over. + +He did not care how soon Gerald came back. He would have his eye on +him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +NOT A MAN TO STICK AT TRIFLES + + +The lawyer then rolled up a sheet of stiff note paper from his bag into +funnel shape, pinned it so, and made a tiny hole in the wall paper of +the other room. + +Fitting the small end of his funnel to the hole, he commanded a perfect +view of the next room. + +He was surprised, too, to find how it improved the sight looking through +the tube--it was like a telescope, it seemed to bring things so near. + +With the framed text hanging on its hook again, there was not the +slightest suspicious thing about the room, and when his chop came up, +everything was finished. + +Soon after his dinner things were cleared away, Gerald returned. + +The lawyer had not troubled to enter the adjoining chamber; the fact +that it had been left unlocked convinced him that his man carried the +notes on his person. + +And he did at that stage, for he had just returned from his interview +with the dentist. + +With locked door, and eye to his funnel, Loide watched. + +He was seized with a frenzy as he saw Gerald take the notes from an +envelope, and count them one by one--nineteen of them. + +Had the look on the lawyer's face been seen by Gerald, that gentleman +would not have hummed so blithely and looked so happy. + +Gerald put the notes in his breast pocket, and pinned the top of it +up--he was taking great care of them. + +Loide had made up his mind to get those notes. He rather fancied that he +would get them that night. + +He generally got what he laid himself out to get. He was not a man to +stick at trifles. + +Presently Gerald drew from his pocket and opened a little box. + +Loide knew what it was--he had seen them in a shop window. + +A small alarm with points to be pressed into the floor, so that when the +door it lay against was pushed--the lawyer's hope of getting possession +of the notes that night received a rude shock. + +The moment Gerald had swallowed his meal he went out again. He came back +within an hour, and once more the lawyer's eye was busy. + +Gerald took a ticket from his pocket and put it on the mantelpiece. To +the girl who was dusting the room he said: + +"Tell Mrs. Parkes I am leaving to-morrow morning; ask her to have my +bill made out, including the morning's breakfast." + +The watcher strained his eyes, and ultimately read the ticket on the +mantel board. + +It was a second class passage on the American liner _Cascaria_. + +Loide heard Gerald order tea for six o'clock, and then putting on his +hat and breathing a prayer of thankfulness that it was raining--the +devil helps his children--he went downstairs and out into the street. + +Had Gerald been looking out of the window he would only have seen an +umbrella leaving the house--the man beneath was effectually concealed by +it. + +Loide entered the nearest news agent's shop, and bought the morning +paper. Looking down the shipping advertisements, he found to which line +the _Cascaria_ belonged, and took a cab to the company's head office. + +The passenger list was open to inspection. Gerald had booked in his own +name. + +To the lawyer's chagrin, the whole cabin had been booked. What had +looked an easy road, now showed a stumbling block. + +He had counted on sharing that cabin. He had shared one once before, and +the performance therein had been--in a measure--a success. + +He had looked to a repetition of it--it had been so easy. + +He booked--booked, too, a cabin to himself as Gerald had done. He +reflected that there were contingencies likely to arise when his sole +occupancy of the cabin might be advantageous. + +He hoped to secure the notes without risk. He quite recognized the +danger attending the luring of Gerald into his own cabin, and +then--besides, perhaps he wouldn't be lured; he might turn a deaf ear to +the charmer, charm he never so wisely. + +Loide purchased a box of cigars to smoke on the steamer. Then he went +into a chemist's and bought a tiny hypo syringe, and a certain drug, the +potency of which was known to him. + +He rather prided himself on his general knowledge--he was a well read +man. His reading was now serving him a good turn. + +With that syringe he would inject the drug into one of the cigars--there +was no knowing when such a thing might prove useful. + +He entered the house at ten minutes past six. + +He reflected that Gerald would not be through with his tea in ten +minutes, and that there was little likelihood of a meeting on the +stairs--he was right; he reached his own room in safety. + +Nothing happened that night. The next morning he watched Gerald packing. + +He saw by the way he packed his portmanteau that the money was not to be +placed in it. + +Presently Gerald called out to his landlady for a needle and thread. + +The watcher saw him put the notes in the envelopes, then wrap them in +brown paper and tie the packet with a piece of white grocer's twine. + +The packet lay on the table, and the shape and size thereof were easily +seen. + +Then the lining of the vest was ripped, the packet pushed in, and the +lining sewn down again with the needle and black thread. + +Loide made a mental note of further things he needed for the voyage. + +Item: needle and black thread; item: brown paper and white twine. + +The articles went on board with him in the shape of a parcel--a +duplicate of Gerald's. + +He guessed the train Gerald would go by, and resolved to travel by it +himself. + +He did not want to let his man out of his sight more than was absolutely +necessary. + +Within four minutes of Gerald's departure, Loide left, and a cab took +him to the station. + +He was in the train first, and, unseen himself, watched Gerald enter. So +on to the boat. + +He played his cards well, and during the voyage he and Gerald became +close acquaintances. + +With his syringe and drug, Loide had doctored his cigars. They rested in +his case for use when the occasion arose. + +One night on deck the conversation turned on moon blindness, and Loide +testified to its effects. If the picture he drew of its results lacked +truth, it was at least original, and he had a manner which was +convincing. + +He concluded the conversation by handing Gerald a cigar and saying, +"Good-night," and left him to smoke it. + +He came back within three minutes. He had watched from a shadowed +portion of the boat, and seen the cigar drop from the smoker's mouth and +roll on the deck. + +Loide picked it up and threw it overboard--it had served its purpose. + +He helped Gerald to his feet, and in a dazed, unseeing way, the drugged +man was helped to his cabin. There he sank on his bunk unconscious. + +Loide turned on the electric light and fastened the door. He did +nothing hurriedly; he knew just how long the effects of the drug would +last--he had plenty of time. + +Undoing the coat and vest, he ripped out the stitches which held in the +notes. + +He put the packet in his pocket, and replaced it by another similar in +shape and size. + +Then very carefully he sewed up the vest again with a needle and thread +he had about him, buttoned up the coat, turned off the light, and found +his way to his own cabin. + +There he undid the parcel. His eyes glistened. + +Nineteen crackling pieces of paper worth a thousand pounds each! + +He rolled and pressed them together till they formed a very small ball, +and then he took off his clubfoot boot. The thick clump was for +lightness--hollow. + +By lifting the inner soles he had been able to put his finger into the +hollow--now he put the notes. + +With the contents of a penny bottle of liquid glue he glued down the +leathers he had raised, one by one, and then left the thing to be dry by +the morning--which it was, solidly dry. + +Brown paper, envelopes, string, needle, thread, glue were all cast from +a port-hole into the sea. + +From a bottle he had with him he took a deep drink of brandy--he thought +he had earned it. + +Then he undressed, carefully fastened his door, turned off the light, +and prepared for the earliest night's rest he had had for many a day. + +Next morning Gerald woke with a headache--he said nothing of what was +not quite clear to him--his finding himself in his bunk with his clothes +on. + +His first waking movement was to grip and look at his vest--all was +secure. + +He had not feared anything otherwise, but it was the first night he had +slept with his door unlocked. + +Still he had the vest on, and after all, he reflected--with a +smile--that was the safest place. No one could possibly have tampered +with it without his knowing the fact. + +And he smiled again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +ONCE MORE ON THE TRACK + + +When Gerald was turned out of the farm, it was too late to catch a train +to New York. He slept in a roadside shed. + +Early next morning he was in the city, and he had made up his mind to go +to police headquarters, and tell sufficient of his story to justify a +stoppage of the notes. + +He passed a money changer's on the other side of the way, and looked at +the shop. + +As he did so, he saw something which turned him rigid. + +Emerging from the money changer's was his close companion of the voyage. +It was not so much that which came as a shock to him as the change in +the fellow's appearance. + +The humpbacked man was no longer humpbacked. The club-footed man was no +longer club-footed. + +The toothless gums were now filled with teeth, and where there had been +a long drawn face, there was now a round one. + +The glasses off, revealed eyes, sharp, shrewd, keen, piercing eyes, +which even with the road between them, Gerald recognized in a +moment--Lawyer Loide's! + +In that moment there flashed on him the knowledge of how he had been +robbed. + +Loide boarded a passing car, and was carried away. + +Gerald hesitated. Should he follow? No, he must first ascertain beyond a +doubt that the notes were in the man's possession. + +He could follow the car in a hack, and catch it up if need be. + +He dashed across the road, and entered the money changer's. + +"You are the principal?" + +"Yes. Vat can I do for you?" + +"I am an English detective." + +"So." + +"I am shadowing a man who has just left you. Stolen notes, a thousand +pounds each. Has he cashed one with you?" + +"No, no, mine frent. He not haf me so. I makes inquiries first." + +Gerald pulled out his note-book. + +"Was the note he presented one of these numbers?" + +"Dat von." + +The index finger of the banker's hand was at work. + +"What name did he give you?" + +"Loide." + +"Richard Loide, lawyer, of Liverpool Street, London?" + +"Dat vos so. Here vos his cart." + +"Has he left the note with you?" + +"I haf lock him in mine safe." + +"What to do with it?" + +"I am at his oxpense cabling to Englant. Dat is all rights, den I vos +pay him--but not now." + +"What address has he given you here?" + +"Oriental Hall, Seventh Avenue." + +"You will not do anything with the note till you see me again? We shall +probably arrest him to-night, or in the morning." + +"Dat vos so." + +"Good-bye for the present." + +"Goot-bye." + +"Seventh Avenue, Oriental Hotel, drive like fury." + +Such were Gerald's instructions to the hackman. + +He knew he would get there before Loide. As a matter of fact, he passed +the car bearing that individual half way. + +When he had paid his fare, the number of dollars he had left he could +have counted on his finger-tips. + +It was a third-rate hotel. While waiting for the hotel clerk, he looked +through the visitors' or arrival book. Loide had signed his own name; it +stood out boldly, "Richard Loide, London, Eng." + +"Is room No. 40 (the next one to Loide's) vacant?" he inquired. + +"Yes." + +"I'll book it." + +He did so; signed a fictitious name in the visitors' book, received his +key, and went up in the elevator to his room. + +He sat down and waited, waited till he heard the tenant of No. 41 come +along the passage, and pass through the room bearing that number. + +Then Gerald flung off his coat, stepped into the passage, satisfied +himself that no soul was in sight, turned the handle of the door of No. +41, pushed it open, and sprang on its occupant--Loide. + +The surprise party generally has the advantage--Gerald had. + +Before Loide could utter a cry, or turn to gaze at his assailant, strong +fingers were gripping his throat and half choking him. + +The lawyer was being garroted. Resistance ceased. + +He became limp. Gerald was holding an unconscious man in his arm. + +Gerald dropped his burden to the floor and sprang to the door, shot the +bolt, and then turned to the man on the carpet. + +He felt his heart, it was beating--beating furiously. That was all +right. + +Gerald knew his victim to be a murderer, but he did not want to become +one himself. + +He went over the man. In the breast pocket, in an envelope, he found the +notes. He counted them--eighteen. + +One glance at the man, one more feel of the heart, and he went into his +own chamber. + +Getting into his coat, and putting on his hat, he went out of his room, +and, key in hand, was carried by the lift to the ground floor. + +Leaving his key in the bureau, he walked away from the hotel, and +inquiring of a policeman where the office of the New York Central Bank +was, he made in its direction. + +At the bank counter he filled a form paying in to the credit of George +Depew eighteen thousand pounds. + +"Will you wire through to your Oakville branch, telling them to let Mr. +Depew know at once that this money has been paid to his account?" + +"Certainly, sir. It shall be done immediately." + +"Thank you. Give me the name of the most respectable lawyer near here, +will you?" + +"Denison, Coomer & Wall--they rank highest around here." + +"Thanks." + +Gerald went to the lawyers. To the acting partner he said: + +"I was recommended here by the New York Central Bank. I was commissioned +by Mr. George Depew, farmer, of Oakville, to go to England to collect +nineteen thousand pounds, money left him under a will. I got it, and +came over by the _Cascaria_. I was robbed on board. Eighteen thousand +pounds of the money I have recovered and paid into the New York Central +to Mr. Depew's credit; here is the bank's receipt." + +"Yes--that is an order." + +"One thousand pounds is missing--I traced it to Myer Wolff's--Exchange +Bureau on Broadway. I went in. He has the note. + +"I told him not to part with the money for it. The man who left it with +him was the thief. He is a shrewd, clever thief; prompt measures must be +taken to prevent his getting that thousand pounds." + +"Where's Depew?" + +"At home in Oakville. I want you to fetch him here express." + +"Why don't you fetch him yourself?" + +"He thinks I am the thief. I only got hands on the eighteen thousand +pounds an hour ago. The whole lot was missing yesterday." + +"He'll have to make a declaration and get bondsmen before that thousand +pounds can be successfully claimed." + +"He can do that--most respectable man in the section." + +"I'll write him now to come along, and send the letter through special. +How do the trains run? Can he get here to-night?" + +"Dead easy. If you catch the next out with your letter, he can be back +here before half past four." + +"Good. I'll tell him to be here at five o'clock. There'll be justices +around at that time. You'll come back?" + +"I will--you'll want me?" + +"To join in the declaration--that's so." + +"Good. I'll be here." + +"Till five o'clock then. Good-bye." + +"Good-bye." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +THE LAWYER LIFTED INTO ANOTHER SPHERE + + +Loide lifted himself on his elbow and looked round. Then he +remembered--he was in his room at the New York hotel. + +He had entered the room and then--of course, some one had sprung on him +from behind. + +A horrible thought smote him. He plunged his hand into his breast pocket +and screamed with rage--the pocket was empty! + +The notes were gone! + +He sprang to his feet and thought. + +What should he do? Give information to the police--would it be safe? + +He had--foreseeing possession again--written the Bank of England +withdrawing the stop on the notes, saying they were now in his client's +possession. + +How then was he to account for the holding of them himself? Would not +unpleasant inquiries be made? + +Would he be able to answer them--without danger? + +Had all his labor been in vain? How had the robber possibly known that +he had these notes in his possession? + +At the money changer's he had purposely only spoken of one. + +He knew it was not the work of a common hotel thief, for his studs, +watch, and loose money had not been touched. It must have been some one +who knew. + +He would, at that moment, have cheerfully given one of the missing notes +to know who the thief was. + +He was afraid to go to the police, to say that he was an English lawyer +bringing the money over to his client, Depew, and that he had been +robbed, because if there was a real Depew, he would step forward and +claim the money, and he--Loide--would be worse off than ever. + +Besides, what explanation of his attempt to cash the one note could he +give? + +There was the thousand pounds fortunately saved from the robbery. This +was safe in the money changer's hands. He looked at his watch. By the +time he reached the banker's office, time would have elapsed, the reply +cable would probably be back. + +He would secure the thousand pounds first, and consider what he should +do about the others after. + +He took a car to Broadway and entered the banker's office. + +The money changer looked at him. + +"You haf come back--alone, eh?" + +"Alone?--yes. I told you I was a stranger in New York." + +"Dat vos so. But you haf frents here--frents anxious to meet wit you." + +"What do you mean? What nonsense are you talking? Have you got a cable +back from England?" + +"No, mine frent, nor did I cable out there--I saves the oxpense." + +"You----" + +"You see, von of the peeples vat is so anxious to meet mit you, he comes +in directly you leaf here." + +"My--friend?" + +"Oh, yes. He know you quite well. He say to me, 'Dat vos my very goot +frent, Meestair Loide, the lawyer, of London, England, eh?'" + +"Said--that--to--you?" + +"Ogsactly. I say, 'Yes, dat vos so.' Den your frent he answers that he +came after you about stolen notes. He say, 'Dat I change him.' I smile. +He go out to seeks you. I am much surprised to see you alone here all +by yourself." + +"Alone!" + +"Yes, because he say that he tink to-day he arrest you." + +"Arrest me!" + +"Dat is a way vid detectives; dey do dat wid peoples vot steals bank +notes." + +"Steals!" + +"So." + +"This is a trick! Give me back my note." + +"Your note?" + +"Yes--damn you--give me back my money." + +"Shacob," the money changer called to his assistant sitting in the glass +office behind, "will you oblige me by ring up the call for the police." + +"Police," said Loide. + +"So." + +"What the devil do you mean?" + +"Vait, mine frent. Do not get oxcited. It is big mistakes. Vait till the +police come. They explain tings bettaire." + +"Curse you!" + +"So--if it please you, it pass the times." + +"I shall go to my lawyer," he was making for the door as he spoke, "you +shall pay for this." + +"Ogsactly." + +Loide disappeared. He saw a couple of policemen coming along the +sidewalk, and promptly jumped on a car going in the opposite direction. + +It took him the way of the hotel. There would be time to go in, get his +bag, and leave before the police turned up there. + +There was a little money left in the bag; he must secure that. + +He got his key in the hotel office, and was carried in the elevator to +his floor. + +Locking himself in his room, he tore open his bag, and threw the +contents on the floor. + +Papers--he crammed them into the grate, and, applying a match, set them +burning. He destroyed everything which would link him with the name of +Loide. + +Then he started to resume the disguise which had been so successful on +the boat. He would be safe in it, he thought. + +He would wait for the police, and give another name and--and then there +flashed to his memory the recollection of the register! He had signed +there his full name, Richard Loide. His signature would convict him. + +He sank with a groan on the bed. What should--what could he do? + +The police were on his track without doubt, or why the call at the +money changer's? What a fool he had been to set foot in America--how +could he set foot out of it? + +If he was to escape, there was no time to be lost. He took his bag in +his hand and passed out into the passage. + +Looking over the staircase, he saw on the ground floor two policemen +talking to the hotel clerk. Was he too late? + +One of the officers stepped into the ever moving elevator. Slowly he was +being borne upwards. + +What should he do? The thought occurred to him that they would find his +room empty, and think him gone. + +He would hide--on the floor above. They would not think of searching +there. + +He sprang into the elevator--he should have waited for the next up +coming car--the floor was nearly level with his knees when he jumped. +The result was that he slipped, staggered, and fell prone on the floor +of the lift, his head projecting. + +Before he could move, the floor of the compartment reached the next +floor of the building. + +There was a scream of agony, a sudden wrenching jerk which shook the +lift and halted the powerful machinery for half a moment, and then the +cars went on in their old automatic way. + +But when the policeman alighted on the floor on which room No. 14 was +situate, he was horrified to see a bleeding human head staring him in +the face, and marked the trail of blood across the floor leading to it, +while the policeman below was equally shocked when the lift reached the +ground to see the headless trunk of a human body lying on the floor. + +The coroner's jury brought in the usual verdict. + +Loide had at one time feared death by hanging, English fashion; later by +electrocution, American fashion; he had never feared a French +performance--the guillotine--and yet, after all, decapitation was his +end. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +MRS. DEPEW HOLDS THE REINS + + +At the farm bells jangled. The usual harmony was not prevailing. + +No one struck the right key in conversation. After the manner of +mothers, Mrs. Depew sympathized with her daughter, with a result that +things were not running smoothly with the farmer. + +A wife has facilities for disturbing a husband's tranquillity. + +Apart from the displeasure of his wife and daughter, George Depew was +not that pleased with himself. + +Gerald's behavior when leaving had certainly not been that of a guilty +man. And when the farmer came to think things over quietly, he came to +the conclusion that he had been a large sized fool to lose his temper as +he had done. + +He realized Gerald's story must have been true--what would have been the +sense of trying to pass off that folded piece of newspaper as bank +notes? The trick would necessarily be found out at once. + +The midday meal was under way, and was being disposed of in unusual +silence. + +Mrs. Depew did not like the red eyed appearance of her daughter, and her +husband did not like the glances his wife occasionally favored him with +as a result thereof. + +A messenger came to the door with a letter for the farmer. He took it +and tried to read it, but could only make out a word here and there. + +"Here, Tess, just read this out, will you?" + +His daughter took it and read. + +The farmer said "Jerusalem!" His wife--after the manner of wives--said, +"There! I told you so," and the daughter said tearfully, "And you called +him a thief, father!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Depew, rubbing it in, after the manner of her sex, "an +almost stranger goes out of his way to bring you more money than you +have ever dreamed of, and you call him a thief! I've no patience with +the man." + +"No, old woman, you haven't," replied the farmer. "Mebbe it would be +better for all of us if you had. Give me my store coat and hat. I'm +going right away to N'York by the next train." + +"And what good's that, I should like to know? Sakes alive! Can't the man +understand that the money's to his credit here in Oakville?" + +"Yes, the man's got gumption enough for that," answered the farmer +grimly. "Just now, it ain't the money that's agitating me--that's all +right." + +"Then, what on earth do you want to go to N'York for?" + +"To make about the most humble apology lips ever vented. I'm going to +find Gerald Danvers, and tell him that a bigger old fool don't prowl +about this airth than I am; and I'm going to beg him--d'ye hear--beg him +to forgive me for insulting him." + +"Dear father!" + +"That's it, Tess. Because your old dad's a bit of a fool, you don't want +to rub it in, do you? You leave that to your mother. Come here, girlie, +and gimme a kiss." + +"Lawd sakes, now! Just listen to the man! As if I'd said anything!" + +"No, mother," said the farmer, over Tessie's shoulder--he was holding +her to him--"it wouldn't be you to say anything. Silence is the kind of +thing you shine in. Now, Tessie, gimme your sweetheart's address, and +I'll get there slick away." + +"Father, I don't know it." + +"You--don't--know--it?" + +"No, father. He will come back here now the money is found." + +"Not if I know him, he won't," interposed the farmer's wife. "People +that are turned out of doors and called 'thief' and threatened with +whips ain't likely to come groveling around." + +"Mother!" + +"Oh, yes, 'mother.' But 'mother' won't find that boy, will it? Lawd +sakes! When I was a gal, sweethearts didn't behave like that. When your +father was courting me, I should ha' liked to see him stalk away to +N'York without telling me where he was going to put up. My--yes!" + +"Hullo!" said the farmer, "here's a special delivery letter!" + +"Perhaps it's from Gerald, father. + +"More likely," snorted Mrs. Depew, "from the county lunatic asylum, to +say they've a vacancy for a permanency if your father likes to call." + +"Here, Tess, girlie, read this. See who it's from, and what it's about." + +The girl took the letter and read. + +"That makes the nineteen thousand pounds," said Tessie, as she finished +reading the letter. "I wondered what eighteen meant." + +"There's time to catch the train;" he walked to the window as he spoke, +and called out, "You, Sam, just hitch the mare on to the buggy----" + +"And what's the buggy for?" interrupted his wife. + +"To drive to the station, of course." + +"Well, the buggy won't hold four people, will it?" + +"Four?" + +"Yes. Sam'll have to go to bring it back. Do you expect me and Tessie to +hang on to that axle?" + +"What? Are you going?" + +"Am I? I reckon. If you think, George Depew, that you are going to +career around the streets of N'York, bulging money at every pocket, with +nary a sensible soul to look after you, let me tell you, you make a +mistake." + +"But, mother dear," said Tessie; "you will never be ready. The train +goes in twenty minutes, and you will never have time to change your +dress." + +"Won't I? Sakes alive! You've known me for nigh on nineteen years, and +you don't know your mother yet." + +She had thrown off her apron and was rolling down her sleeves as she +spoke. Then she called out to the hired girl: + +"You, Liz, my boots, the ones I wore last time I was in Oakville. Won't +be ready, won't I?" she continued, as she bustled up-stairs to change +her dress; "I guess I shall be ready before you are." + +Her husband changed the order, and the horse was harnessed to a four +wheeled trap. By the time the farmer had changed into fresh boots and +coat, Mrs. Depew was heard descending the stairs. + +"On time, I reckon, ain't I?" she inquired as she tied her bonnet +strings. "Where's that gal? Now, you, Tessie, jump about; never mind +your hair, clap your hat on, and come right down at once. We don't need +to miss that train." + +She was outside getting into her seat, and had taken the reins in hand +before she had finished speaking. + +Tessie ran down, jumped up, and presently they were driving rapidly in +the direction of the station. + +The train was caught, and during the journey the situation was discussed +with much spirit. + +The fact that the hero had appealed to Mrs. Depew, when her husband had +turned him out, was not forgotten by that lady. Her "I told you so" song +she sang for all it was worth, and kept her foot on the low pedal, too. + +"I know a man, I do hope, when I see one," she said, "and at five +o'clock this afternoon I hope to put my arms round the neck of one, and +give him a good sounding kiss. I'm just real anxious to fill a great +gaping hole in our midst. I'm wanting to extend a welcoming hand to a +son-in-law that'll fill it, and supply the common sense we're so hard up +for with our men folk." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +MRS. DEPEW HAS THINGS HER OWN WAY + + +Before five o'clock the three Depews--father, mother, and daughter--were +in the New York lawyer's office, and punctually at the hour Gerald +entered. + +The lawyer, who had guessed something of what had happened, judiciously +left them together for a few minutes. + +Mrs. Depew carried out her threat; she walked straight over to Gerald, +and gave him what she called a "smack." + +"You, Gerald," she said, "I'm as real pleased to see you as I am to see +the snow go away in winter. I believed in you, my lad, from the first, +and if I've got an old fool for a husband, remember that he is only an +old fool, and there's no scrap of real bad in him--that he's as good a +husband, and as good a father as ever stepped in shoes." + +"I want to say right here, Gerald," interposed the farmer, "that I'm as +real sorry as any man can be for what I----" + +"There's no need for you to say anything to me just now, farmer," +interrupted Gerald stiffly; "you said enough last time we met to last me +for many a day." + +"I know, lad, I know, lad--don't I know it? You're not going to play +heavy on a man old enough to be your father?" + +"You were heavy enough on me--young enough to be your son! I have made +up my mind"--he sat down with an air of determination as he spoke "to +talk to you; to talk to you freely, when the whole of your nineteen +thousand pounds is found. + +"I've got hold on the balance that's missing, and it only wants the +lawyer to put things in trim for it to be recovered. When it is--when +the whole nineteen thousand pounds is in your possession--I shall want +you to eat the word 'thief' you applied to me." + +"Ain't I just eating it, Gerald?" said the old man humbly. "Is there a +man here in N'York with as much humble pie in his mouth as I've got? I +take back all I said----" + +"Maybe, but I----" + +And then Gerald paused. + +Two soft, warm hands passed over the back of his chair, passed his face, +came round his neck; warm lips touched his ear, and a voice he loved +better than any other whispered: + +"Gerald!--he is my father." + +That did it. Gerald jumped up and took the farmer by the hand. + +All his anger had evaporated under the touch of those soft, warm lips. + +"Well, farmer, let bygones be bygones. We'll forget all that's been said +that ought not to have been said. Here comes the lawyer. Let's get along +with the declaration." + +"I have it all ready," said the lawyer. "It is a joint declaration." He +read it, and then said, "Come along with me to the justice's office; and +it can be declared right off." + +The justice before whom they presented themselves glanced at the +document he was signing. + +"Coincidence," he said, "or is it the same? Loide's--an English +lawyer--death was reported at the police station this afternoon." + +Death! Gerald started. Had he then killed the man he had struggled with? +He said: + +"You mean Richard Loide." And he mentioned the hotel. + +"That's where the accident occurred. Lift accident--there is the +certificate just brought in." + +"Will you loan this to me?" inquired the lawyer, after perusing it; "I +think it will save some trouble." + +"Yes," answered the justice; "if you return it within two hours. It has +to go to the coroner by then." + +This was promised. Outside the office the lawyer hailed a hackman. + +"Get in," he said to his companions; "we will drive straight to the +money changer's." + +They did. The hackman waited. They entered the office. + +"You remember me, Mr. Wolff?" queried the lawyer. + +It was evident the banker did--from his obsequious manner in receiving +his visitor. Doubtless the lawyer knew something of him. + +"You have a thousand pound English note in your possession belonging to +my client here." + +"I hope you not tink, Meestair Denison, dat I intends----" + +"Oh, I know you only want to give it up to the right owner. He's +here--this gentleman. Mr. Loide left it with you--Loide's dead. Here's +the police certificate of his death." + +"Det, eh?" + +"He was acting in England as a lawyer for this client of mine, and paid +over eighteen out of nineteen thousand pounds. The other thousand pound +note was missing. This declaration sworn to before Justice Colonel +George F. Vanderwood to-day proves the ownership." + +"So." + +It was evident that the mention of the justice had impressed the banker. + +"You will give up the note, I suppose, without any trouble?" + +"Sairtenly, Meestair Denison, if you say so. I suppose I haf some +eendemnity, eh?" + +"I have prepared one. Here it is. Mr. Depew, will you sign it?" + +Mr. Depew did so, and in exchange got the missing thousand pound note. + +"Now, back to my office," said the lawyer, "where the ladies are +waiting." + +They returned there. The farmer flourished his note, and then threw it +into his wife's lap. + +"All's well, old girl," he said; "got him. It's all settled." + +"And now you have only to settle with me," said the lawyer, with a +smile, "and the whole thing will be ended." + +"Not much, it isn't," interposed Mrs. Depew. "There's a marriage +settlement for you to draw up. My old man is settling nine thousand +pounds on our daughter, Tessie, who is to be married to Mr. Gerald +Danvers here." + +"No need for a settlement, madam. Give her the money now before they are +married, and it's hers as firmly as any deed could make it so." + +"Is that so? Then, George, you'd better give it right away--here." + +"Plenty of time, old girl, when we get back----" + +"Get back! There's no putting back from here with a couple of single +people around. Those two is going to be made one before we step out of +N'York again." + +"Mother!" + +"That's me, Tess--you hear me say it. + +"You really mean that, Mrs. Depew," inquired Gerald, with sparkling +eyes. + +"Young man," she answered, "you've evidently got to learn that when your +mother-in-law that is to be says a thing, she means it." + +"Mrs. Depew, you're the finest mother-in-law the world holds! You're a +brick! a regular brick!" + +"But, mother," said the blushing Tessie, "I haven't got anything +ready----" + +"Lawd sakes! Listen to that now! And here are we in N'York with a bank +full of money, too! Can't you buy what you want?" + +"Of course she can," interrupted Gerald eagerly. "Mrs. Depew, you're the +most sensible woman I've ever met." + +"None of your soft soap now!" + +"It's a fact. It's a capital idea. Couldn't be better. Don't you think +so, farmer?" + +Of course the farmer thought so. He valued his domestic peace, and +assured it by acquiescence in most of his wife's ideas. + +He even went so far as to say that he had thought a similar idea out as +they drove along. + +Tessie made another--must it be confessed, very faint-hearted?--protest. + +"Why should you be in such a hurry, mother?" + +"Because I don't believe in long engagements--that's why. Because this +boy was promised his reward--that's why. Because you know perfectly well +that you are just as anxious to get married as he is to marry +you--that's why. Because I'm getting an old woman, and the sooner you +get married, the longer I shall have on earth to play with my +grandchildren--that's why." + +"Mother!" + +Of course it was settled that way. When they left New York shortly +after, Gerald and Tessie were man and wife. + +Mrs. Depew usually contrived to get her own way. If, of that household +it was true that the husband was the head, she was the neck--she was so +capable of turning the head. + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of '£19,000', by Burford Delannoy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK '£19,000' *** + +***** This file should be named 34934-8.txt or 34934-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/9/3/34934/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + +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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