"Because I like it," said Theodore.
Garrison knew better. He wondered what the whole game signified.
The old man was glaring at him sharply.
"I should think for a man who has to leave at nine your time is getting short," he said. "Perhaps your story was invented."
Garrison took out his watch. The fiction would have to be played to the end. The hour lacked twenty minutes of nine. He must presently depart, yet he felt that Dorothy might need protection. Having made up his mind that a marriage had doubtless been planned between Dorothy and Theodore—on the man's part for the purpose of acquiring valuable property, probably veiled to Dorothy—he felt she might not be safe if abandoned to their power.
He had found himself plunged into complications on which it had not been possible to count, but notwithstanding which he meant to remain by Dorothy with the utmost resolution. He had not acknowledged that the charm she exercised upon him lay perilously close to the tenderest of passions, but tried to convince himself his present desire was merely to see this business to the end.
It certainly piqued him to find himself obliged to leave with so much of the evening's proceedings veiled in mystery. He would have been glad to know more of what it meant to have this cousin, Theodore, masquerading as the devil in one house, and covering all the signs here at home. He was absolutely helpless in the situation. He knew that Dorothy wished him to depart. She could not, of course, do otherwise.
"Thank you," he said to the elder Robinson. "I must leave in fifteen minutes."
Dorothy looked at him strangely. She could not permit him to stay, yet she felt the need of every possible safeguard, now that her cousin had appeared. The strange trust and confidence she felt in Garrison had given her new hope and strength. To know he must go in the next few minutes, leaving her there with the Robinsons, afflicted her abruptly with a sense of desolation.
Yet there was nothing she could say or do to prevent his immediate retreat.
Young Robinson, made aware that Garrison would soon be departing, appeared to be slightly excited.
"I'll go down and 'phone for my suit-case," he said, and he left the room at once.
Aunt Jill and old Robinson sat down. It was quite impossible for Garrison to ask them again to retire. Dorothy crossed the room and seated herself before the piano. Garrison followed, and stood there at her side.
She had no spirit for music, and no inclination to play, nevertheless she permitted her hands to wander up and down the keys, calling forth a sweetly sad bit of Hungarian song that took a potent hold on Garrison's emotions.
"Is there anything I can do but go?" he murmured, his voice well masked by the melody. "Do you think you may need me very soon?"
"I do not know. I hope not," she answered, for him alone to hear. "I'm sorry it's been so disagreeable. Do you really have to go away from town?"
"Yes."
"To-day you said you had no employment."
"It was true. Employment came within ten minutes of your leaving. I took it. For you know you hardly expected to require my services so soon."
She played a trifle louder, and asked him:
"Where are you going?"
"To Branchville and Hickwood."
The playing suddenly ceased. She looked up at him swiftly. In nervous haste she resumed her music.
"Not on detective work? You mentioned insurance."
"It concerns insurance."
She was silent for a moment.
"When do you return?"
"I hardly know," he answered. "And I suppose I've got to start at once in order to maintain our little fiction."
"Don't forget to write," she said, blushing, as she had before; and she added: "for appearances." She rose from her seat.
Garrison pulled out his watch and remarked, for the Robinsons to hear:"Well, I've got to be off."
"Wait a minute, please," said Dorothy, as if possessed by a sudden impulse, and she ran from the room like a child.
With nothing particularly pleasant to say to the Robinsons, Garrison approached a center-table and turned the pages of a book.
Dorothy was back in a moment.
"I'll go down to the door," she said.
Garrison said good-night to the Robinsons, who answered curtly. He closed the door upon them as he left the room.
Dorothy had hastened to the stairs before him, and continued down to the hall. Her face was intensely white again as she turned about, drawing from her dress a neat, flat parcel, wrapped in paper.
"I told you to-day that I trust you absolutely," she said, in a nervous undertone. "I wish you'd take care of this package."
Garrison took it, finding it heavy in his hand. "What is it?" he said.
"Don't try to talk—they'll listen," she cautioned. "Just hurry and go."
"If you need me, write or wire," he said.
"Good-night!"
She retreated a little way from him, as if she felt he might exact a husband's right of farewell, which the absence of witnesses made quite unessential.
"Good-night," she answered, adding wistfully; "I am very grateful, believe me."
She gave him her hand, and his own hand trembled as he took it.
A moment later he was out upon the street, a wild, sweet pleasure in his veins.
Across the way a man's dark figure detached itself from the darkness of a doorstep and followed where Garrison went.
Shadowed to his very door, Garrison came to his humble place of abode with his mind in a region of dreams.
It was not until he stood in his room, and his hand lay against his pocket, that he thought again of Dorothy's parcel surrendered to his keeping. He took it out. He felt he had a right to know its contents.
It had not been sealed.
He removed the paper, disclosing a narrow, shallow box, daintily covered with leather. It was merely snapped shut with a catch.
He opened it, and an exclamation of astonishment escaped his lips.
It contained two necklaces—one of diamonds and one of pearls, the gems of both marvelously fine.
Nothing more disquieting than this possession of the necklaces could possibly have happened to Garrison. He was filled with vague suspicions and alarms. The thing was wholly baffling.
What it signified he could not conjecture. His mind went at once to that momentary scene at the house he had entered by mistake, and in which he had been confronted by the masked young woman, with the jewels on her throat, she who had patted his face and familiarly called him by name.
He could not possibly doubt the two ropes of gems were the same. The fact that Dorothy's cousin, in the garb of Satan, had undoubtedly participated in the masking party, aroused disturbing possibilities in Garrison's mind.
What was the web in which he was entangled?
To have Theodore come to the house in his long, concealing coat, straight from the maskers next door; to have him disappear, and then to have Dorothy bring forth these gems with such wholly unimaginable trust in his honesty, brought him face to face with a brand-new mystery from which he almost shrank. Reflections on thefts, wherein women were accomplices, could not be driven from his brain.
Here was Dorothy suddenly requiring a pseudo-husband—for what? Here was a party next door to the house—a party on which he had stumbled accidentally—where a richly dressed young woman chanced to greet him, with her jewels on her neck. Here was, apparently, a family disturbance, engendered by his marriage with old Robinson's niece. And now—here were the necklaces, worth, at the least estimation, the sum of thirty thousand dollars—delivered to himself!
He could not escape the thought of a "fence," in which he himself had possibly been impressed as a tool, by the cleverest intrigue. The entire attitude of the Robinsons might, he realized, have been but a part of the game. He had witnessed Dorothy's acting. It gave him a vivid sense of her powers, some others of which might well lie concealed behind her appearance of innocence.
And yet, when he thought of the beautiful girl who had begged him not to desert her, he could not think her guilty of the things which this singular outcome might suggest. He was sure she could clear up the mystery, and set herself straight in his eyes.
Not a little disturbed as to what he should do with these precious baubles, sparkling and glinting in his hand, he knitted his brow in perplexity. He was due to leave New York at once, on orders from Wicks. No safe deposit vault was available at such an hour. He dared not leave the things behind in this room. There was no alternative, he must carry them along in his pocket.
Inasmuch as the problem could not possibly be solved at once, and in view of the fact that his mind, or his heart, refused to credit Dorothy with guilt, there was nothing to do but dismiss the subject, as far as possible, and make ready to depart.
He opened a drawer to procure the few things requisite for his trip. On top of a number of linen garments lay a photograph—the picture of a sweetly pretty young woman. He took it up, gazed at it calmly, and presently shook his head.
He turned it over.
On the back was written: "With the love of my heart—Ailsa."
He had kissed this picture a thousand times, in rapture. It had once represented his total of earthly happiness, and then—when the notice of her marriage had come so baldly, through the mail—it had symbolized his depths of despair. Through all his hurt he had clung, not only to the picture, but also to some fond belief that Ailsa loved him still; that the words she had spoken and the things she had done, in the days of their courtship, had not been mere idle falsehoods.
To-night, for the first time since his dream had been shattered, the photograph left him cold and unfeeling. Something had happened, he hardly knew what—something he hardly dared confess to himself, with Dorothy only in his vision. The lifeless picture's day was gone at last.
He tossed it back in the drawer with a gesture of finality, drew forth a number of collars and ties, then went to a closet, opened the door and studied his two suit-cases thoughtfully. He knew not which to take. One was an ordinary, russet-leather case; the other was a thin-steel box, veneered with leather, but of special construction, on a plan which Garrison himself had invented. Indeed, the thing was a trap, ingeniously contrived when the Biddle robbery had baffled far older men than himself, and had then been solved by a trick.
On the whole, he decided he would take this case along. It had brought him luck on the former occasion, and the present was, perhaps, a criminal case. He lifted it out, blew off some dust, and laid it, open, on the bed.
To all appearances the thing was innocent enough. On the under side of the cover was a folding flap, fastened with a string and a button. Unremembered by Garrison, Ailsa's last letter still reposed in the pocket, its romance laid forever in the lavender of rapidly fading memories.
Not only was the case provided with a thin false bottom, concealing its mechanism, but between the cover and the body proper, on either side, were wing-like pieces of leather, to judge from their looks, that seemed to possess no function more important than the ordinary canvas strips not infrequently employed on a trunk to restrain the cover from falling far backward when opened. But encased in these wings were connections to powerful springs that, upon being set and suddenly released, would snap down the cover like the hammer of a gun and catch, as in the jaws of a trap, any meddling hands that might have been placed inside the case by a thief, at the same time ringing a bell. To set it was a matter of the utmost simplicity, while to spring it one had barely to go at the contents of the case and touch the trigger lightly.
The springs were left unset, as Garrison tossed in the trifles he should need. Then he changed his clothes, turned off the gas, and was presently out once more in the open of the street, walking to the Grand Central Station, near at hand.
The man who had followed all the way from Dorothy's residence not only was waiting, but remained on Garrison's trail.
At a quarter of ten Garrison ensconced himself in a train for Branchville. His "shadow" was there in the car. The run required fifty minutes. Hickwood, a very small village, was passed by the cars without a stop. It was hardly two miles from the larger settlement.
The hour was late when Garrison arrived. He and his "shadow" alighted from the train and repaired to a small, one-story hotel near the railway depot, the only place the town afforded. They were presently assigned to adjoining rooms.
Garrison opened his suit-case on the bureau, removed one or two articles, and left the receptacle open, with the cover propped against the mirror. Despite the lateness of the hour he then went out, to roam about the village. His fellow traveler watched only to see him out of the house, and then returned in haste.
In the town there was little to be seen. The houses extended far back from the railroad, on considerably elevated hills. There was one main thoroughfare only, and this was deserted. The dwellings were dark. No one seemed stirring in the place, though midnight had not yet struck.
Garrison was out for half an hour. When he returned his suit-case was closed. He thought nothing of a matter so trifling till he looked inside, and then he underwent a feeling as if it had been rifled. But nothing was gone, so far as he could see. Then he noticed the folding-pocket, for its fastening cord was undone. How well he remembered placing there the letter from Ailsa, months ago! A little surprised that he had so utterly forgotten its existence, he slipped his hand inside the place—and found it empty!
Even then he entertained no suspicions, for a moment. The letter, like the photograph, was no longer a valued possession. Yet he wondered where it could have gone. Vaguely uncertain, after all, as to whether he had left it here or not, his eye was suddenly caught by the slightest movement in the world, reflected in the mirror of the bureau. The movement was up at the transom, above a door that led to the next adjoining room.
Instantly turning away, to allay any possible suspicion that he might be aware of the fact that someone was spying upon him, Garrison moved the suit-case to a chair, drew from his pocket a folded paper that might have appeared important—although merely a railroad folder—placed it carefully, as if to hide it, under various articles of apparel, set the springs of the vicious steel-trap, and, leaving the suitcase open as before, took a turn around the room.
All this business was merely for the benefit of the man whom he knew to be watching from over the door. Starting as if to undress, he paused, appeared to remember something left neglected, and hastened from his room, purposely leaving the door more than half-way ajar. Down the hall he strode, to the office, where he looked on the register and discovered the name of his neighbor—John Brown—an obvious alias.
He had hardly been thus engaged for two minutes when the faint, far-off sound of a ringing bell came distinctly to his ears.
"My alarm-clock's gone off," he said to the man at the desk, and he fled up the hall like a sprinter.
A clatter of sounds, as of someone struggling, had come before he reached his room. As he bounded in he beheld his suit-case, over at the window, jerking against the sash and sill as if possessed of evil spirits. No thief was visible. The fellow, with the trap upon his fingers, had already leaped to the ground.
Within a yard of his captured burglar Garrison beheld the suit-case drop, and his man had made good his escape.
He thrust his head outside the window, but the darkness was in favor of the thief, who was not to be seen.
Chagrined to think Mr. "Brown" had contrived to get loose, Garrison took up the case, carried it back to the bureau, and opened it up, by skillfully releasing the springs. Three small patches of finger-skin were left in the bite of its jaws—cards of the visitor left as announcements of his visit.
The room next door was not again occupied that night. The hotel saw no more of Mr. Brown.
Not in the least reassured, but considerably aroused in all his instincts by these further developments of a night already full of mysterious transactions, Garrison, after a futile watch for his neighbor, once more plunged into a study of the case in which he found himself involved.
Vaguely he remembered to have noticed that the man who had come here to Branchville with him on the train carried no baggage. He had no doubt the man had been close upon his trail for some considerable time; but why, and what he wanted, could not be so readily determined. Certain the man had extracted Ailsa's letter from the pocket of the case, yet half convinced that the thief had been searching for the necklaces intrusted to his care, Garrison was puzzled.
There seemed to be no possible connection between the two. He could not understand what a thief who would take the one would require of the other. Aside from his money, the gems were the only articles he possessed of the slightest value or significance. Half persuaded that the diamonds and pearls afforded the booty for which his visitor had searched, he was once more in doubt as to whether he had lost Ailsa's letter or not. He might find it still among his things, at his room in Forty-fourth Street.
He was fully convinced the man would return no more. Nevertheless, when he turned in at last, the jewels were under the pillow.
Branchville, in the morning, proved an attractive place of residence. Half its male population went to New York as commuters. Its housewives then bustled about their gardens or their chicken-coops, at the rear of the houses, and a dozen old men gathered slowly at the post-office store to resume the task of doing nothing.
Garrison experienced no difficulty in searching out Mrs. Webber, the woman who had supplied certain details concerning the finding of the body of the man, John Hardy, whose death had occurred here the previous week.
The house, at the porch of which the body had been discovered, was empty. Mrs. Webber went with Garrison to the place, showed him exactly where the body had reclined, and left him alone at the scene.
He looked the details over carefully. The porch was low and roofed; its eaves projected a foot. If, as Garrison fancied, the stricken man might have come here in weakness, to lean against the post, and had then gone down, perhaps leaving heel-marks in the earth, all signs of any such action had been obliterated, despite the fact that no rains had fallen since the date of the man's demise. Garrison scrutinized the ground closely. A piece of broken crockery, a cork, the top of a can, an old cigar, and some bits of glass and wire lay beside the baseboard—the usual signs of neglect. The one man-made article in all the litter that attracted Garrison's attention was the old cigar. He took it up for a more minute examination.
It had never been lighted. It was broken, as if someone had stepped upon the larger end; but the label, a bright red band of paper, was still upon it. The wrapper had somewhat spread; but the pointed end had been bitten off, half an inch up on the taper.
Aware that the weed might have been thrown down by anyone save Hardy, Garrison nevertheless placed it in an envelope and tucked it away in his pocket. A visit to the local coroner presenting itself as the next most natural step, he proceeded at once to his office.
As a dealer in real estate, a notary public, and an official in several directions, the coroner was a busy man. He said so himself.
Garrison introduced himself candidly as a New York detective, duly licensed, at present representing a State insurance company, and stated the nature of his business.
"All right," said the coroner, inclined at once to be friendly. "My name is Pike. What'd you want to know? Sit down and take it easy."
"As much as I can learn about the case." Garrison took a proffered chair. "For instance, what did you find on the body?"
"Nothing—of any importance—a bunch of keys, a fountain-pen, and—and just some useless trash—I believe four dollars and nineteen cents."
"Anything else?"
"Oh, some scraps of paper and a picture postal-card."
"Any cigars?" asked Garrison.
"Yep—three, with labels on 'em—all but one, I mean." He had taken one label for his son's collection.
"What did you do with the stuff?"
"Locked it up, waiting orders from the court," replied Mr. Pike. "You bet, I know my business."
Garrison was pursuing a point. He inquired: "Do you smoke?"
"No, I don't; and if I did, I wouldn't touch one of them," said the coroner. "And don't you forget it."
"Did anyone help you to carry off the body—anyone who might have thrown a cigar away, unlighted?"
"No, siree! When Billy Ford and Tom Harris git a cigar it never gits away," said Mr. Pike.
"Did you find out where the dead man came from and what he was doing in the village?"
"He was stopping down to Hickwood with Mrs. Wilson," answered Pike. "His friend there was Charlie Scott, who's making a flying-machine that's enough to make anybody luny. I've told him he can't borrow no money from me on no such contraption, and so has Billy Dodd."
Garrison mentally noted down the fact that Scott was in need of money.
"What can you tell me of the man's appearance?" he added, after a moment of silence. "Did his face present any signs of agony?"
"Nope. Just looked dead," said the coroner.
"Were there any signs upon him of any nature?"
"Grass stain on his knee—that's about all."
"About all?" Garrison echoed. "Was there anything else—any scratches or bruises on his hands?"
"No—nary a scratch. He had real fine hands," said the coroner. "But they did have a little dirt on 'em—right on three of the knuckles of the left hand and on one on the right—the kind of dirt you can't rub off."
"Did it look as if he'd tried to rub it off?"
"Looked as if he'd washed it a little and it wouldn't come."
"Just common black dirt?"
"Yes, kind of grimy—the kind that gits in and stays."
Garrison reflected that a sign of this nature might and might not prove important. Everything depended on further developments. One deduction was presented to his mind—the man had doubtless observed that his hands were soiled and had washed them in the dark, since anyone with the "fine" hands described by the coroner would be almost certain to keep them immaculate; but might, in the absence of a light, wash them half clean only.
He was not disposed to attach a very great importance to the matter, however, and only paused for a moment to recall a number of the various "dirts" that resist an effort to remove them—printers' ink, acid stains, axle grease, and greasy soot.
He shifted his line of questions abruptly.
"What did you discover about the dead man's relatives? The nephew who came to claim the body?"
"Never saw him," said the coroner. "I couldn't hang around the corpse all day. I'm the busiest man in Branchville—and I had to go down to New York the day he come."
"Did you take possession of any property that deceased might have had at his room in Hickwood?"
"Sure," said Pike. "Half a dozen collars, and some socks, a few old letters, and a box almost full of cigars."
"If these things are here in your office," said Garrison, rising, "I should like to look them over."
"You bet, I can put my hand on anything in my business in a minute," boasted Mr. Pike. He rose and crossed the room to a desk with a large, deep drawer, which he opened with a key.
The dead man's possessions were few, indeed. The three cigars which his pocket had disgorged were lying near a little pile of money. Garrison noted at once that the labels on two were counterparts of the one on the broken cigar now reposing in his pocket. He opened the box beneath his hand. The cigars inside were all precisely like the others. Five only had ever been removed, of which four were accounted for already. The other had doubtless been smoked.
On the even row of dark-brown weeds lay a card, on which, written in pencil, were the words:
Garrison let fall the lid and glanced with fading interest at the few insignificant papers and other trifles which the drawer contained. He had practically made up his mind that John Hardy had died, as the coroner had found, of heart disease, or apoplexy, even in the act of lighting up to smoke.
He questioned the man further, made up his mind to visit Charles Scott and Mrs. Wilson, in Hickwood, and was presently out upon the road.
Garrison walked along the road to Hickwood out of sheer love of being in the open, and also the better to think.
Unfortunately for the case in hand, however, his thoughts wandered truantly back to New York and the mystery about the girl masquerading to the world as his wife. His meditations were decidedly mixed. He thought of Dorothy always with a thrill of strong emotions, despite the half-formed suspicions which had crossed his mind at least a dozen times.
Her jewels were still in his pocket—a burden she had apparently found too heavy to carry. How he wished he might accept her confidence in him freely, unreservedly—with the thrill it could bring to his heart!
The distance to Hickwood seemed to slip away beneath his feet. He arrived in the hamlet far too soon, for the day had charmed bright dreams into being, and business seemed wholly out of place.
The railroad station, a store, an apothecary's shop, and a cobbler's little den seemed to comprise the entire commercial street.
Garrison inquired his way to the home of his man—the inventor.
Scott, whom he found at a workshop, back of his home, was a thin, stooped figure, gray as a wolf, wrinkled as a prune, and stained about the mouth by tobacco. His eyes, beneath their overhanging brows of gray, were singularly sharp and brilliant. Garrison made up his mind that the blaze in their depths was none other than the light of fanaticism.
"How do you do, Mr. Scott?" said the detective, who had determined to pose as an upper-air enthusiast. "I was stopping in Branchville for a day or two, and heard of your fame as a fellow inventor. I've been interested in aeroplanes and dirigible balloons so long that I thought I'd give myself the pleasure of a call."
"Um!" said Scott, closing the door of his shop behind him, as if to guard a precious secret. "What did you say is your name?"
Garrison informed him duly.
"I haven't yet made myself famous as a navigator of the air, but we all have our hopes."
"You'll never be able to steer a balloon," said Scott, with a touch of asperity. "I can tell you that."
"I begin to believe you're right," assented Garrison artfully. "It's a mighty discouraging and expensive business, any way you try it."
"I'll do the trick! I've got it all worked out," said Scott, betrayed into ardor and assurance by a nearness of the triumph that he felt to be approaching. "I'll have plenty of money to complete it soon—plenty—plenty—but it's a long time coming, even now."
"That's the trouble with most of us," Garrison observed, to draw his man. "The lack of money."
"Why can't they pay it, now the man is dead?" demanded Scott, as if he felt that everyone knew his affairs by heart and could understand his meaning. "I need the money now—to-day—this minute! It's bad enough when a man stays healthy so long, and looks as if he'd last for twenty years. That's bad enough without me having to wait and wait and wait, now that he's dead and in the ground."
It was clear to Garrison the man's singleness of purpose had left his mind impaired. He began to see how a creature so bent on some wondrous solution of the flying-machine enigma could even become so obsessed in his mind that to murder for money, insurance benefits, or anything else, would seem a fair means to an end.
"Some friend of yours has recently died?" he asked. "You've been left some needed funds for your labors?"
"Funny kind of friendship when a man goes on living so long," said the alert fanatic. "And I don't get the money; that's what's delaying me now."
"You're far more fortunate than some of us," said Garrison. "Some friend, I suppose, here in town."
"No, he was here two days," answered Scott. "I saw him but little. He died in the night, up to the village." His sharp eyes swung on Garrison peculiarly the moment his speech was concluded.
He demanded sharply; "What's all this business to you?"
"Nothing—only that it shows the world's great inventors are not always neglected, after all," answered Garrison. "Some of us never enjoy such good fortune."
"The world don't know how great I am," declared the inventor, instantly off, on the hint supplied by his visitor. "But just the minute that insurance company gives me the money, I'll be ready to startle the skies! I'll blot out the stars for 'em! I'll show New York! I know what I'm doing! And nothing on earth is going to stop me! All these fool balloonists, with their big silk floating cigars! Deadly cigars is what they are—deadly! You wait!"
Garrison was staring at him fixedly, fascinated by a new idea which had crept upon his mind with startling abruptness. His one idea was to get away for a vital two minutes by himself.
"Well, perhaps I'll try to get around again," he said. "I can see you're very busy, and I mustn't keep you longer from your work. Good luck and good-day."
"The only principle," the old man answered, his gaze directed to the sky.
Garrison looked up, beholding a bird, far off in the azure vault, soaring in the majesty of flight. Then he hastened again to the quiet little street, and down by a fence at a vacant lot, where he paused and looked about. He was quite alone. Drawing from his pocket the envelope containing the old cigar that Hardy had undoubtedly let fall as he died at the porch of the "haunted" house, he turned up the raggedly bitten end.
"By George!" he exclaimed beneath his breath.
Tucked within the tobacco folds, in a small hollow space which was partially closed by the filler which had once been bitten together, was a powdery stuff that seemed comprised of small, hard particles, as of crystals, roughly broken up.
His breath came fast. His heart was pumping rapidly. He raised the cigar to his nostrils and smelled, but could only detect the pungent odor of tobacco.
That the powder was a poison he had not the slightest doubt. Aware that one poison only, thus administered, would have the potency to slay an adult human being practically on the instant, he realized at once that here, at the little, unimportant drug-shop of the place, the simple test for such a stuff could be made in a matter of two minutes.
Eager and feverish to inform himself without delay, he took out his knife and carefully removed all the powder from its place and wrapped it most cautiously about in the paper of the envelope in hand. The cigar he returned to his pocket.
Five minutes later, at the drug-store down the street, an obliging and clever young chemist at the place was holding up a test-tube made of glass, with perhaps two thimblefuls of acidulated solution which had first been formed by dissolving the powder under inspection.
"If this is what you suppose," he said, "a slight admixture of this iron will turn it Prussian blue."
He poured in the iron, which was likewise in solution, and instantly the azure tint was created in all its deadly beauty.
Garrison was watching excitedly.
"No mistake about it," said the chemist triumphantly. "Where did you find this poison?"
"Why—in a scrap of meat," said Garrison, inventing an answer with ready ingenuity; "enough to have killed my dog in half a shake!"
Startled, thus to discover that, after all, a crime of the most insidious and diabolical nature had been committed, Garrison wandered along the street, after quitting the drug-store, with his brain aglow with excitement and the need for steady thought.
The case that had seemed but a simple affair of a man's very natural demise had suddenly assumed an aspect black as night.
He felt the need for light—all the light procurable in Hickwood.
Aware of the misleading possibilities of a theory preconceived, he was not prepared even now to decide that inventor Scott was necessarily guilty. He found himself obliged to admit that the indications pointed to the half-crazed man, to whom a machine had become a god, but nothing as yet had been proved.
To return to Scott this morning would, he felt, be indiscreet. The one person now to be seen and interviewed was Mrs. Wilson, at whose home the man Hardy had been lodged. He started at once to the place, his mind reverting by natural process to the box of cigars he had seen an hour before, and from which, without a doubt, this poisoned weed had been taken by Hardy to smoke. He realized that one extremely important point must be determined by the box itself.
If among the cigars still remaining untouched there were others similarly poisoned, the case might involve a set of facts quite different from those which reason would adduce if the one cigar only had been loaded. It was vital also to the matter in hand to ascertain the identity of the person who had presented the smokes as a birthday remembrance to the victim.
He arrived at Mrs. Wilson's home, was met at the door by the lady herself, and was then obliged to wait interminably while she fled to some private boudoir at the rear to make herself presentable for "company."
For the second time, when she at length appeared, Garrison found himself obliged to invent a plausible excuse for his visit and curiosity.
"I dropped in to ascertain a few little facts about the late Mr. Hardy, whose death occurred last week in Branchville," he said. "The insurance company that I represent goes through this trifling formality before paying a claim."
"He certainly was the nicest man," said Mrs. Wilson. "And just as I was countin' on the money, he has to up and die. I didn't think he was that kind."
"Did he have many visitors?" Garrison asked, hastening at once to the items he felt to be important. "I mean, from among the neighbors, or—anyone else?"
"Well, Charlie Scott come over, that second night and actin' that queer I didn't know what was the matter. He went off just about nine o'clock, and I went to bed, and then I heard him come back in half an hour, while Mr. Hardy was out, and he went again before Mr. Hardy come in and started off to Branchville to die."
Her method of narrative was puzzling.
"You mean," said Garrison, "that after Mr. Scott had called and gone, Mr. Hardy went out temporarily, and in his absence Mr. Scott returned and remained for a time in his room?"
"I didn't git up to see what he wanted, or how long he stayed," saidMrs. Wilson. "I hate gittin' up when once I'm abed."
"And he went before Mr. Hardy's return?"
"Yes, I stayed awake for that; for although Charlie Scott may be honest enough, he's inventin' some crazy fiddlede-dee, which has been the crown of thorns of that dear woman all these——"
"Did they seem to be friends, Mr. Scott and Mr. Hardy?" Garrison interrupted mildly. "A clever woman, you know, can always tell."
"Ain't you New York men the quick ones to see!" said Mrs. Wilson. "Of course they was friends. The day he come Mr. Hardy was over to Charlie's all the livelong afternoon."
"Did Mr. Hardy get very many letters, or anything, through the mail?"
"Well, of course, I offered to go to the post-office, and bring him everything," said Mrs. Wilson, "but he went himself. So I don't know what he got, or who it come from. Not that I read anything but the postals and——"
"Did he get any packages sent by express?"
"Not that come to my house, for little Jimmie Vane would have brought 'em straight to me."
Garrison went directly to the mark around which he had been playing.
"Who delivered his birthday present—the box of cigars?"
"Oh, that was his niece, the very first evenin' he was here—and she the prettiest girl I ever seen."
"His niece?" echoed Garrison. "Some young lady—who brought them here herself?"
"Well, I should say so! My, but she was that lovely! He took her up to Branchville to the train—and how I did hate to see her go!"
"Of course, yes, I remember he had a niece," said Garrison, his mind reverting to the "statement" in his pocket. "But, upon my word, I believe I've forgotten her name."
"He called her Dot," said Mrs. Wilson.
"But her real name?" said Garrison.
"Her real name was Dorothy Booth before she was married," replied Mrs.Wilson, "but now, of course, it's changed."
Garrison had suddenly turned ashen. He managed to control himself by making a very great effort.
"Perhaps you know her married name?" he said.
"I never forget a thing like that," said Mrs. Wilson. "Her married name is Mrs. Fairfax."
It seemed to Garrison he was fighting in the toils of some astounding maze, where sickening mists arose to clog his brain. He could scarcely believe his senses. A tidal wave of facts and deductions, centering about the personality of Dorothy Booth-Fairfax, surged upon him relentlessly, bearing down and engulfing the faith which he strove to maintain in her honesty.
He had felt from the first there was something deep and dark with mystery behind the girl who had come to his office with her most amazing employment. He had entertained vague doubts upon hearing of wills and money inheritance at the house where she lived in New York.
He recalled the start she had given, while playing at the piano, upon learning he was leaving for Hickwood. Her reticence and the strangeness of the final affair of the necklaces, in connection with this present development, left him almost in despair.
Despite it all, as it overwhelmed him thus abruptly, he felt himself struggling against it. He could not even now accept a belief in her complicity in such a deed while he thought of the beauty of her nature. That potent something she had stirred in his heart was a fierce, fighting champion to defend her.
He had not dared confess to himself he was certainly, fatefully falling in love with this girl he scarcely knew, but his heart refused to hear her accused and his mind was engaged in her defence.
Above all else, he felt the need for calmness. Perhaps the sky would clear itself, and the sun again gild her beauty.
"Mrs. Fairfax," he repeated to his garrulous informant. "She brought the cigars, you say, the day of Mr. Hardy's arrival?"
"And went away on the six-forty-three," said Mrs. Wilson. "I remember it was six minutes late, and I did think my dinner would be dry as a bone, for she said she couldn't stay——"
"And that was his birthday," Garrison interrupted.
"Oh, no. His birthday was the day he died. I remember, 'cause he wouldn't even open the box of cigars till after his dinner that day."
Garrison felt his remaining ray of hope faintly flicker and expire.
"You are sure the box wasn't opened?" he insisted.
"I guess I am! He borrowed my screwdriver out of the sewin'-machine drawer, where I always keep it, to pry up the cover."
Garrison tacked to other items.
"Why did she have to go so soon?" he inquired. "Couldn't she have stayed here with you?"
"What, a young thing like her, only just married?" demanded Mrs. Wilson, faintly blushing. "I guess you don't know us women when we're in love." And she blushed again.
"Of course," answered Garrison, at a loss for a better reply. "Did her uncle seem pleased with her marriage?"
"Why, he sat where you're now settin' for one solid hour, tellin' me how tickled he felt," imparted the housewife. "He said she'd git everything he had in the world, now that she was married happy to a decent man, for he'd fixed it all up in his will."
"Mr. Hardy said his niece would inherit his money?"
"Settin' right in that chair, and smilin' fit to kill."
"Did the niece seem very fond of her uncle?"
"Well, at first I thought she acted queer and nervous," answered Mrs. Wilson, "but I made up my mind that was the natural way for any young bride to feel, especial away from her husband."
Garrison's hopes were slipping from him, one by one, and putting on their shrouds.
"Did Mr. Hardy seem to be pleased with his niece's selection—with Mr.Fairfax?" he inquired. "Or don't you know?"
"Why, he never evenseenthe man," replied Mrs. Wilson. "It seems Mr. Fairfax was mixin' up business with his honeymoon, and him and his bride was goin' off again, or was on their way, and she had a chance to run up and see her uncle for an hour, and none of us so much as got a look at Mr. Fairfax."
The mystery darkened rather than otherwise. There was nothing yet to establish whether or not a real Mr. Fairfax existed. It appeared to Garrison that Dorothy had purposely arranged the scheme of her alleged marriage and honeymoon in such a way that her uncle should not meet her husband.
He tried another query:
"Did Mr. Hardy say that he had never seen Mr. Fairfax?"
"Never laid eyes on the man in his life, but expected to meet him in a month."
Garrison thought of the nephew who had come to claim the body. His name had been given as Durgin. At the most, he could be no more than Dorothy's cousin, and not the one he had recently met at her house.
"I don't suppose you saw Mr. Durgin, the nephew of Mr. Hardy?" he inquired. "The man who claimed the body?"
"No, sir. I heard about Mr. Durgin, but I didn't see him."
Garrison once more changed the topic.
"Which was the room that Mr. Hardy occupied? Perhaps you'll let me see it."
"It ain't been swept or dusted recent," Mrs. Wilson informed him, rising to lead him from the room, "but you're welcome to see it, if you don't mind how it looks."
The apartment was a good-sized room, at the rear of the house. It was situated on a corner, with windows at the side and rear. Against the front partition an old-fashioned fireplace had been closed with a decorated cover. The neat bed, the hair-cloth chairs, and a table that stood on three of its four legs only, supplied the furnishings. The coroner had taken every scrap he could find of the few things possessed by Mr. Hardy.
"Nice, cheerful room," commented Garrison. "Did he keep the windows closed and locked?"
"Oh, no! He was a wonderful hand to want the air," said the landlady."And he loved the view."
The view of the shed and hen-coops at the rear was duly exhibited. Garrison did his best to formulate a theory to exonerate Dorothy from knowledge of the crime; but his mind had received a blow at these new disclosures, and nothing seemed to aid him in the least. He could only feel that some dark deed lay either at the door of the girl who had paid him to masquerade as her husband, or the half-crazed inventor down the street.
And the toils lay closer to Dorothy, he felt, than they did to Scott.
"You have been very helpful, I am sure," he said to Mrs. Wilson.
He bade her good-by and left the house, feeling thoroughly depressed in all his being.
Once in the open air again, with the sunshine streaming upon him, Garrison felt a rebound in his thoughts. He started slowly up the road to Branchville, thinking of the murder as he went.
The major requisite, he was thoroughly aware, was motive. Men were never slain, except by lunatics, without a deeply grounded reason. It disturbed him greatly to realize that Dorothy might have possessed such a motive in the danger of losing an inheritance, depending upon her immediate marriage. He could not dismiss the thought that she had suddenly found herself in need of a husband, probably to satisfy conditions in her uncle's will; that she had paid Mr. Hardy a visit as a bride, butwithout her husband, and had since been obliged to come to himself and procure his professional servicesas such husband, presumably for a short time only.
She was cheating the Robinsons now through him.
Of this much there could be no denial. She was stubbornly withholding important information from himself as the masquerading husband. She was, therefore, capable of craft and scheming. The jewel mystery was equally suspicious and unexplainable.
And yet, when his memory flew to the hour in which he had met her for the very first time, his faith in her goodness and honesty swept upon him with a force that banished all doubt from his being. Every word she had uttered, every look from her eyes, had borne her sincerity in upon him indelibly.
This was his argument, brought to bear upon himself. He did not confess the element of love had entered the matter in the least.
And now, as he walked and began to try to show himself that she could not have done this awful crime, the uppermost thought that tortured his mind was a fear that she might have agenuinehusband.
He forced his thoughts back to the box of cigars, through the medium of which John Hardy's death had been accomplished. What a diabolically clever device it had been! What scheme could be more complete to place the deadly poison on the tongue of the helpless victim! The cigar is bitten—the stuff is in the mouth, and before its taste can manifest itself above the strong flavor of tobacco, the deadly work is done! And who would think, in ordinary circumstances, of looking in a cigar for such a poison, and how could such a crime be traced?
The very diabolism of the device acquitted Dorothy, according to Garrison's judgment. He doubted if any clever woman, perhaps excepting the famous and infamous Lucrezia Borgia, could have fashioned a plan so utterly fiendish and cunning.
He began to reflect what the thing involved. In the first place, many smokers cut the end from every cigar, preliminary to lighting up to smoke. The person who had loaded this cigar must have known it was John Hardy's habit to bite his cigars in the old-fashioned manner. He hated this thought, for Dorothy would certainly be one to know of this habit in her uncle.
On the other hand, however, the task of placing the poison was one requiring nicety, for clumsy work would of course betray itself at the cigar-end thus prepared. To tamper with a well-made cigar like this required that one should deftly remove or unroll the wrapper, hollow out a cavity, stuff in the poison, and then rewrap the whole with almost the skill and art of a well-trained maker of cigars. To Garrison's way of thinking, this rendered the task impossible for such a girl as Dorothy.
He had felt from the first that any man of the inventive, mechanical attributes doubtless possessed by Scott could be guilty of working out this scheme.
Scott, too, possessed a motive. He wanted money. The victim was insured in his favor for a snug little fortune. And Scott had returned to Hardy's room, according to Mrs. Wilson, while Hardy was away, and could readily have opened the box, extracted one or two cigars, and prepared them for Hardy to smoke. He, too, would have known of Hardy's habit of biting the end from his weed.
There was still the third possibility that even before Dorothy's visit to her uncle the cigars could have been prepared. Anyone supplied with the knowledge that she had purchased the present, with intention to take it to her uncle, might readily have conceived and executed the plan and be doubly hidden from detection, since suspicion would fall upon Dorothy.
Aware of the great importance of once more examining the dead man's effects at the coroner's office, Garrison hastened his pace. It still lacked nearly an hour of noon when he re-entered Branchville. The office he sought was a long block away from his hotel; nevertheless, before he reached the door a hotel bell-boy discerned him, waved his arm, then abruptly disappeared inside the hostelry.
The coroner was emerging from his place of business up the street.Garrison accosted him.
"Oh, Mr. Pike," he said, "I've returned, you see. I've nearly concluded my work on the Hardy case; but I'd like, as a matter of form, to look again through the few trifling articles in your custody."
"Why, certainly," said Mr. Pike. "Come right in. I've got to be away for fifteen minutes, but I guess I can trust you in the shop."
He grinned good-naturedly, opened the drawer, and hurriedly departed.
Garrison drew up a chair before the desk.
At the door the hotel-boy appeared abruptly.
"Telegram for you, Mr. Garrison," he said. "Been at the office about an hour, but nobody knew where you was."
Garrison took it and tore it open. It read:
"Return as soon as possible. Important.
"Any answer?" inquired the boy.
"No," said Garrison. "What's the next train for New York?"
"Eleven-forty-five," answered the boy. "Goes in fifteen minutes."
"All right. Have my suit-case down at the office."
He returned to his work.
Ignoring the few piled-up papers in the drawer, he took up the three cigars beside the box, the ones which had come from Hardy's pocket, and scrutinized them with the most minute attention.
So far as he could possibly detect, not one had been altered or repasted on the end. He did not dare to cut them up, greatly as he longed to examine them thoroughly. He opened the box from which they had come.
For a moment his eye was attracted and held by the birthday greeting-card which Dorothy had written. The presence of the card showed a somewhat important fact—the box had been opened once before John Hardy forced up the lid, in order that the card might be deposited within.
His gaze went traveling from one even, nicely finished cigar-end to the next, in his hope to discover signs of meddling. It was not until he came to the end cigar that he caught at the slightest irregularity. Here, at last, was a change.
He took the cigar out carefully and held it up. There could be no doubt it had been "mended" on the end. The wrapper was not only slightly discolored, but it bulged a trifle; it was not so faultlessly turned as all the others, and the end was corkscrewed the merest trifle, whereas, none of the others had been twisted to bring them to a point.
Garrison needed that cigar. He was certain not another one in all the box was suspicious. The perpetrator of the poisoning had evidently known that Hardy's habit was to take his cigars from the end of the row and not the center. No chance for mistake had been permitted. The two end cigars had been loaded, and no more.
How to purloin this cigar without having it missed by Mr. Pike was a worry for a moment.
Garrison managed it simply. He took out a dozen cigars in the layer on top and one from the layer next the bottom; then, rearranging the underlying layer so as to fill in the empty space, he replaced the others in perfect order in the topmost row, and thus had one cigar left over to substitute for the one he had taken from the end.
He plumped the suspicious-looking weed into his pocket and closed the box.
Eagerly glancing at the letters found among the dead man's possessions, he found a note from Dorothy. It had come from a town in Massachusetts. The date was over six weeks old.
It was addressed, "Dear Uncle John," and, in a girlish way, informed him she had recently been married to a "splendid, brilliant young man, named Fairfax," whom she trusted her uncle would admire. They were off on their honeymoon, it added, but she hoped they would not be long away, for they both looked forward with pleasure to seeing him soon.
It might have been part of her trickery; he could not tell.
The envelope was missing. Where Hardy had been at the time of receiving the note was not revealed. The picture postal-card that Pike had mentioned was also there. It, too, apparently, had come from Dorothy, and had been sent direct to Hickwood.
Once more returning to the box of cigars, Garrison took it up and turned it around in his hand. On the back, to his great delight, he discovered a rubber-stamp legend, which was nothing more or less than a cheap advertisement of the dealer who had sold the cigars.
He was one Isaac Blum, of an uptown address on Amsterdam Avenue, New York, dealer in stationery, novelties, and smokers' articles. Garrison jotted down the name and address, together with the brand of the cigars, and was just about to rise and close the drawer when the coroner returned.
"I shall have to go down to New York this morning," said Garrison. "I owe you many thanks."
"Oh, that's all right," Mr. Pike responded. "If you're goin' to try to catch fifteen, you'd better git a move. She's whistled for the station just above."
Garrison hastened away. He was presently whirling back to Dorothy.
His "shadow," with his bruised hand gloved, was just behind him in the car.
With ample time in which to wonder what Dorothy's summons might imply, Garrison naturally found himself in the dark, despite his utmost efforts at deduction.
He welcomed the chance thus made possible to behold her again so soon, after what he had so recently discovered, and yet he almost dreaded the necessity of ferreting out all possible facts concerning her actions and motives for the past six weeks, the better to work up his case. Wherever it led him, he knew he must follow unrelentingly.
Masquerading as her husband, he had involved himself in—Heaven alone knew what—but certainly in all her affairs, even to the murder itself, since he was alleged to have married her prior to John Hardy's death, and was now supposed to benefit, in all probability, by some will that Hardy had executed.
The recent developments disturbed him incessantly. He almost wished he had never heard of Mr. Wicks, who had come to his office with employment. And yet, with Dorothy entangled as she was in all this business, it was better by far that he should know the worst, as well as the best, that there was to be discovered.
He wondered if the whole affair might be charged with insidious fatalities—either for himself or Dorothy. He was groping in the dark—and the only light was that which shone in Dorothy's eyes; there was nothing else to guide him. He could not believe it was a baneful light, luring him on to destruction—and yet—and yet——
His gaze wandered out at the window on a scene of Nature's loveliness.The bright June day was perfect. In their new, vivid greens, thefields and the trees were enchanting. How he wished that he andDorothy might wander across the hills and meadows together!
A sweet, lawless wildness possessed his rebellious nature. His mind could reason, but his heart would not, despite all his efforts at control.
Thus the time passed until New York was reached.
Unobserved, the man who had shadowed Garrison so faithfully left the train at the Harlem station, to take the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street crosstown car, in his haste to get to Ninety-third Street, where the Robinsons were waiting.
Garrison went on to the Grand Central, carried his suit-case to his room, freshened his dress with new linen, and then, going forth, lunched at a corner café, purchased another bunch of roses, and proceeded on to Dorothy's.
It was a quarter of two when he rang the bell. He waited only the briefest time. The door was opened, and there stood young Robinson, smiling.
"Why, how do you do, Cousin Jerold?" he said, cordially extending his hand. "Come right in. I'm delighted to see you."
Garrison had expected any reception but this. He felt his old dislike of the Robinsons return at once. There was nothing to do, however, but to enter.
"Is Dorothy——" he started.
"Won't you go right up?" interrupted Theodore. "I believe you are not unexpected."
Garrison was puzzled. A certain uneasiness possessed him. He proceeded quietly up the stairs, momentarily expecting Dorothy to appear. But the house was silent. He reached the landing and turned to look at Theodore, who waved him on to the room they had occupied before.
When he entered he was not at all pleased to find the elder Robinson only awaiting his advent. He halted just inside the threshold and glanced inquiringly from father to son.
"How do you do?" he said stiffly. "Is Dorothy not at home?"
"She is not," said old Robinson, making no advance and giving no greeting. "Will you please sit down?"
Garrison remained where he was.
"Do you expect her soon?" he inquired.
"We shall get along very well without her. We've got something to say to you—alone."
Garrison said: "Indeed?"
He advanced to a chair and sat down.
"In the first place, perhaps you will tell us your actual name," said old Robinson, himself taking a seat.
Garrison was annoyed.
"Let me assure you, once for all, that I do not in the least recognize your right to meddle in my concerns, or subject me to any inquisitions."
"That's another way of saying you refuse to answer!" snapped Robinson tartly. "You know your name isn't Fairfax, any more than it's mine. Your name is Garrison."
Garrison stared at him coldly.
"You seem to have made up your mind very decidedly," he said. "Is that all you have to say?"
"You don't deny it?" cried the old man, exasperated by his calmness."You don't dare deny it!"
Garrison grew calmer.
"I haven't the slightest reason to deny anything," he said. "I frequently require a pseudonym. Dorothy knows that I employ the name Garrison whenever occasion demands."
The old man was wild.
"Will you swear that your right name is Fairfax?" he said. "That's what I demand to know!"
Garrison answered: "I came here to see my wife. I warn you I am growing impatient with your hidden insinuations!"
"Your wife!" cried old Robinson, making a dive into one of his pockets with his hand. "What have you to say to this letter, from the woman who is doubtless by now yourlegalwife?" Suddenly snatching a letter from his coat, he projected himself toward Garrison and held up the missive before him.
It was the letter from Ailsa—the one that Garrison had missed—the letter in which she had agreed to become his wife. He put forth his hand to receive it.
"No, you don't!" cried the old man, snatching it out of his reach."I'll keep this, if you please, to show my niece."
Garrison's eyes glittered.
"So, it wasyourhired thief who stole it, up at Branchville?" he said. "I don't suppose he showed you the skin that he left behind from his fingers."
"That's got nothing to do with the point!" the old man cried at him triumphantly. "I don't believe you are married to my niece. If you think you can play your game on me——"
Garrison interrupted.
"The theft of that letter was a burglary in which you are involved. You are laying up trouble for yourself very rapidly. Give that letter to me!"
"Give it up, hey? We'll see!" said Robinson. "Take it to court if you dare! I'm willing. This letter shows that another woman accepted you, andthat'sthe point you don't dare face in the law!"
Whatever else he discerned in the case. Garrison did not understand in the least how Dorothy could have summoned him back here for this.
"That letter is an old one," he replied to Robinson calmly. "Look at the date. It's a bit of ancient history, long since altered."
"There is no date!" the old man shrilled in glee; and he was right.
Garrison's reply was never uttered. The door behind him abruptly opened, and there stood Dorothy, radiant with color and beauty.
"Why, Jerold!" she cried. "Why, when did you come? I didn't even know you were in town."
She ran to him ardently, as she had before, with her perfect art, and kissed him with wifely affection.