Chapter XIX.FoundWhen, a few minutes later, they came down the steps of the building, Millard was still descanting on the infallible methods of the bureau they had just quitted; but Storm was silent, although in his heart he gave grudging assent to the eulogy. They were thorough, for a fact; he had not anticipated such extensive work on the part of the police in so short a time. The alarm sent out at sundown from Pennsylvania for the missing man, and by midnight his record known and the house in which his sweetheart lived placed under surveillance!To Millard and himself as mere curious visitors no information had been dropped, and he had an uneasy idea that the mental reservation indicated by Captain Nairn’s attitude concealed a far deeper knowledge of the case than had been given out to the press. In the latter’s manner, especially when they shook hands at the moment of departure, he felt that, had the Captain chosen to speak, he might have learned something of vital importance to himself. Had the bag been already discovered at the station, and was the porter’s memory for faces more keen than he had judged? Were detectives even now scouring the city for a man of his personal description?“I’ll wager that telephone message had something to do with the Horton affair,” Millard remarked suddenly. “Maybe he was caught then!”Storm roused himself from his meditations with a start.“Why do you think that?”“Well, you see, I’ve watched the Captain before,” replied Millard. “You saw how quickly his expression could change when he wanted it to. By Jove, that chap should have been an actor! He put me over the jumps for a solid hour, I don’t mind telling you, when I went in to explain about my acquaintance with Du Chainat, and although he did it in a perfectly courteous, kid-glove manner I felt as limp as a rag when I came out. His expression ran the gamut from bland incredulity to direct accusation, and if I had had anything to confess he would have broken me down absolutely. Those fellows at Headquarters could force a confession from the cleverest crook in Christendom!”“And what has this to do with the telephone message to-day?” Storm inquired in bored disgust at his companion’s garrulousness.“Everything, my boy!” Millard retorted. “While he was talking to Big Jim’s daughter just now and drawing her out, his face was alive with expression, but after he had heard the first few words which came to him over the ’phone he looked absolutely blank and wooden. He got some information right then that he did not mean to convey, or I am very much mistaken. I say, there was something rather fine, wasn’t there, about that girl?”“She was rather pretty,” Storm admitted, with a shrug.“I don’t mean that!” exclaimed the other impatiently. “She was gotten up like a circus queen! I mean her attitude, her loyalty toward your friend Horton. Jolly white of her, I thought it!”“Oh, when a woman is in love!” Storm sneered and added in cold displeasure, “Don’t call Horton my friend, please. I doubt still that this fellow is the one I knew at college.”“But the Captain told you he was at Elmhaven——”“After I had myself informed him that there was a chap of that name there; don’t forget that, Millard. A mere play to the gallery.” Storm laughed. “Captain Nairn is highly successful, I have no doubt, in cases of lost children and runaway girls, but I must confess I see no basis for your remarkable faith in the powers of the Department. They’ve failed in other cases just as they will in this.”“You wait and see!” Millard’s tone was distinctly ruffled. “I’ve known the Commissioner’s secretary for years and I’m going to get him to let me in on this case from the inside and watch how they work it. I’ll bet you fifty dollars they get that man Horton!”“Andthe hundred thousand?” Storm was still laughing, but there was a reckless glint in his eyes.“And the hundred thousand!” Millard repeated with emphasis.“Any time limit?”“Oh, well, if the fellow succeeds in getting out of the country——” Millard hedged.“Shall we say six months?—Done! Come up and dine with me at my rooms on Tuesday night, and we’ll let George Holworthy hold the stakes.” Storm held out his hand in a sudden volatile accession of cordiality. “Good-bye, and thanks for a most interesting afternoon, old man, really!”After he had left Millard, however, a quick revulsion of mood came and he cursed the impulse which had led him to extend the invitation. The voluble little man bored him horribly, but he had felt an impish desire to goad him on in his laudation of the Department, and to seal the compact of the wager within a few feet of where the money lay securely hidden had seemed a great joke at the moment. It might be a wise move, at that, to keep in with Millard if the latter managed through his boasted friendship with the Commissioner’s secretary to obtain any inside information on the progress of the case. He would be sure to retail it in defense of his argument, and in spite of his sense of security Storm determined to be forewarned of any possible danger.He dined alone at an old down-town hotel which he frequented when the mood for solitude came upon him. It was a Stately place with an air of faded grandeur about it, left far behind in the upward march of the city, but still retaining a remnant of its ancient patronage.As he sat over his coffee, Storm idly studied the diners scattered about at the nearby tables. They were elderly for the most part with a solid air of conscious rectitude and well-being, and they ate with the deliberation and grave relish due to the reputation of the cuisine. A shining bald pate above a coat of magisterial black at the next table caught Storm’s eye by its glistening expanse. The man was sitting back luxuriously reading a paper which he held outstretched to aid some defect of vision, and over one ample shoulder a few letters of the headline jumped out in staring type.“—ton’s Body——”Storm caught his breath, and for a moment the page wavered and blurred before his eyes. Could it mean Horton’s body? Had it been discovered? He craned his neck, leaning as far forward and to one side as he dared; but by a perverse fate the older man moved also, his shoulder effectually concealing the rest of the message.Storm cursed him softly beneath his breath, still maneuvering desperately to read the lines so tantalizingly withheld from him. Confound the old dotard! If he would shift that paper only a bit to one side, hold it a matter of a few inches higher, the whole article could be read, for he sat so near that even the small type would be plainly legible to Storm’s sharp eyes.While he writhed impotently the unconscious reader turned the page, and in the flirt of the paper Storm caught a fleeting glimpse of the last word on the headline. It looked like “Found,” but he dared not trust the evidence of that swift glance. He felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to stride across to the other man and tear the paper from his hands; but the reader must have lost the thread of the article in which he was engrossed, for even as Storm struggled with his maddened impatience he turned back, raising the paper so that the whole upper part was in plain view.“Horton’s Body Found.”His instinct had been right, after all! Storm’s heart hammered in his chest, and for a second time his vision blurred, only to clear the next instant; and he read without effort through to the end of the brief news item. It told only what he of all men already knew, what he had wished the world to learn.The older man folded his paper, yawned, and departed, and Storm called for his check and strolled out of the hotel with a serenely detached air; but although the night was warm he shivered as if a sudden chill had swept over him. That phase of the investigation was over; now the search would begin in earnest for the black bag.Suddenly he recalled Millard’s conviction about the telephone message which Chief Nairn had received in their presence and the added reservation in the latter’s manner when he bade them good-bye. Millard must have been right; that message was a report of the finding of the body!As he journeyed homeward he felt a sense of relief that the suspense was over. Horton was no longer lying out there—but what did Horton matter? He was dead and that was an end of it. How easily his skull had caved in beneath the force of that single blow! How easily the whole thing had been accomplished!But was the money really safe in his apartment now that the search would narrow down to the bag and its contents? Would it not be wiser if he were to hire a safe-deposit box somewhere under an assumed name——? But even as the thought came he negatived it. Wise or not, he realized that he could not know a moment’s rest with the money for which he had risked so much out of his immediate possession. He would wait until the bag was discovered and the news of it had been forgotten and then slip unostentatiously away. This might come at any day; he must be prepared.Thank heaven he had mentioned his proposed trip to George long before Horton crossed his path once more! Now his suddenly announced decision would call forth no surprise from that devoted friend, and George could be depended upon in the depths of his innocence to explain the situation to any curious acquaintances.“Poor old Norman!” he would say, shaking his head sadly. “Went all to pieces over the loss of his wife. Health gave out completely, you know; couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, racked with nerves! Sea voyage is the best thing for him, and he’ll come back a new man.”Storm laughed at his own conceit, but by morning his resolve had strengthened and definite plans began to form themselves in his mind. When he was safely away—in Japan, perhaps,—he would change some of the banknotes at a foreign branch of one of the banking houses and send back a draft to old Foulkes to take up that mortgage on the Greenlea house with Langhorne; he could get a far better price for the property unencumbered.Still later he could write to old George and deputize him to sell it. George would be pained, of course, but what did that matter? He could explain that he meant to extend his trip and could never, in any event, bring himself to a return to Greenlea. He could tell George also to dispose of what personal belongings still remained of Leila’s among her friends there and to sell the house as it stood.The morning papers threw no further light on the subject of Horton’s murder, yet Storm knew that no stone would be left unturned in the search for the bag, and he felt that its discovery might be imminent. A week or two at most after that took place and the whole affair would vanish from the public mind.He would be prepared to sail at once, but in cutting absolutely adrift from the old life he meant in no sense to become a pariah. When he was satiated with travel he would settle down in some Continental city and enjoy life untrammeled by memories.That night he took stock of his own belongings. He had left the details of his removal from Greenlea in George’s hands, and the latter had made a free selection. When Storm had weeded them out from Potter’s effects he looked at the conglomeration in despair. He meant to travel light, taking only his fresh mourning attire with him, which could be discarded readily enough as soon as he was away from his circle of condoling friends; and his old clothes could be given to Homachi.But George had added a collection of junk which could not be so easily disposed of without opening even that credulous individual’s eyes to the real state of Storm’s mind. His glance swept in exasperation over the room; that reading lamp, for instance, his favorite edition of Balzac, the antique clock, the bronze desk set! George’s infernal sentiment must have directed his choice, for these had all been gifts from Leila; they couldn’t very well be given or thrown away!The impulse came to Storm to tumble them all into an old trunk and ship them back to Greenlea, and his mood demanded instant action. He might as well get them out of the way now and have done with it! There would be plenty to do in the days ahead, and at least he would have the cursed things out of his sight.Whistling cheerily he took off his coat, dragged the trunk out from the storeroom and opened it. He had scarcely started upon his task, however, when there came an insistent double ring at the bell.George, again! Storm sat down deliberately and swore. But it would not do to offend him, and the time would be so short . . . .He rose and opened the door to disclose George, beaming, his arms filled with awkwardly held paper bags and bundles. As he moved, one of them crashed down upon the mat and a thin line of white liquid meandered from it.“Ouch! There goes the cream, I am afraid!” George’s smile faded, and he gazed ruefully down at the mess. “I thought we might make a rarebit, and I stopped——”“Well, never mind! Come in. There is more cream in the ice chest.” Storm pulled his guest unceremoniously within and closed the door. “Homachi can clean the mat in the morning. Here, I’ll take all that stuff to the kitchen.”“Just finished a rubber of bridge over at the Abbott’s and as I hadn’t seen you in two days——” George explained to the empty air. “Why, what the——!”His ejaculation reached Storm in the kitchen and the latter returned to find his guest staring in surprise from the opened trunk to the disordered room.“I’m packing up some stuff to send back to Greenlea,” Storm explained briefly. “All those things Leila gave me, you know; I can’t stand seeing them around me any longer.”“I’m sorry. I thought they would make it more homelike for you here,” George said simply, in honest contrition. “I might have known you wouldn’t want them about just yet, to remind you——Here, let me help pack them.”Storm masked a smile. Old George was almost too easy!“All right, then, if you want to,” he acquiesced. “Take off your coat and we’ll pitch in. There is a pile of old newspapers on the pantry shelf——”George trotted obediently off and returned with the papers.“I say, wasn’t that a fierce thing about poor Jack Horton!” he exclaimed. “You saw it in the papers, of course? He was found murdered——”“I know!” Storm interrupted hastily. “Mind what you are doing with that clock!—Yes, it was very sad, of course, but a chap in his line of work takes chances, and I suppose he took one too many.”“It doesn’t seem possible! Poor old Jack!” George’s tone trembled with real feeling. “It is odd that we should have been talking about him only two nights ago; I don’t think we’ve even mentioned his name before in years. And at that very time he was lying dead out there on the Drive, and no one knew! It’s horrible! Why, we passed twice right within a few feet of the spot!”“That’s so, we did,” Storm said slowly.“Did you see the latest editions of the papers to-night?” George pursued, and then not waiting for the other to reply, he went on: “That young girl who was in love with him—Big Jim Saulsbury’s daughter—gave an interview to the reporters in which she said she would never rest until his murderers were discovered and convicted. Big Jim is backing her up, too. He came on here to New York, and although he refuses to talk for publication it is understood that he has hired the best private detectives in the country to supplement the authorities. By Jingo, I hope they get them!”“Do they think some gang were out after him?” Storm asked.“They don’t seem to think anything!” George waxed indignant. “I tell you, things are in a pretty state in this town when a chap can be decoyed off a train, robbed of a hundred thousand dollars and murdered in cold blood! Where were the police, I should like to know?”Storm smiled.“We had a little talk about crime not so long ago, if you remember,” he observed. “You didn’t quite agree with me when I suggested that a person could commit any sort of crime and get away with it if he used his brains, but this looks like a case in point, eh?”Suddenly he caught his breath. It had occurred to him that George’s glance had fallen idly upon the sheets of newspaper with which they were packing the articles into the trunk, and remembrance came to him. They were using the outer sheets only from the top of the pile on the pantry shelf; the inner sheets of those papers were wrapped about Horton’s pistol in the bag! Had George noted anything unusual? His manner certainly did not show it, and he was packing with a preoccupation which boded ill for the safe arrival of the fragile lamp at Greenlea.To test him, Storm repeated:“It looks as if the fellow was going to get away with it in this case, at any rate.”“They’ve only just started,” George replied significantly, adding as he eyed the half-filled trunk: “We should have put those books on the bottom, but never mind now. Does this desk set go in, too?”“Yes.” Storm breathed more easily, but his vaunted foresight had received a shock. Why hadn’t he destroyed those confounded outer sheets of the newspaper?The thought brought a swift reminder to him. Why not get rid now of the cap which Horton had worn on that fateful walk? There was room in the trunk . . . .He dashed to the closet.“Wait a minute, George. When you packed up my things to move in town you brought along a lot of old clothes that I shan’t have any use for in a dog’s age. Might as well ship some of them back to Greenlea now and have done with it.”“Sure!” responded George equably. “Bring them along.”Storm returned, his arms filled with a miscellaneous collection of coats and headgear. Among the latter was a certain cap of thin dark blue cloth, and as he saw it disappear into the trunk he heaved a sigh of relief. That, too, was gone! He turned to his companion.“Oh, did I tell you that I saw Horton’s girl yesterday; this Miss Saulsbury?”“Where?” George demanded, staring.“At Police Headquarters. A friend of Millard showed us around.”Storm told in detail of the scene at the Bureau of Missing Persons, and George listened with deep interest.“Mighty loyal of that girl to stand up for poor Jack when the whole world was ready to condemn him as an absconder, wasn’t it?” he commented, as Millard had done. “Even I—well, it did look pretty black against him, didn’t it? They’ll get his murderers, sure!”“So Millard thinks. He is crazy about the work of the Department since he has been given a glimpse behind the scenes, and he swears they can’t fail.” Storm laughed. “In fact, we have a little wager on about it, and you are to hold the stakes. He is coming up to dinner next Tuesday night.”“Well, for an old friend of Jack, you’ve taken a queer stand, it seems to me,” George said slowly. “Anybody would think you didn’t want to see his murderers punished!”“Not at all!” Storm retorted coolly: “There is nothing personal in this; it is a purely abstract question. Millard believes in the infallibility of the Department, and I don’t. What have they done so far? Horton was last seen alive in Poughkeepsie on Wednesday afternoon; he is murdered in New York some time that night, and his body is not even discovered until Friday afternoon. This is Saturday night, and what progress has been made in the case? Exactly none! They don’t know how Horton came to be out there on the Drive, who killed him or where the money is!”“They’ve found the bag it was in, anyway.”“What?” Storm stared at him as though he could scarcely believe he had heard aright.“Uh-huh. The last edition of all the papers is playing it up big. The bag with poor old Jack’s hat and a pistol and a lot of old newspapers inside was discovered in the parcel-checking room of the Grand Central Station.” George paused and added: “Isn’t that marvelous police work for you? They must have doped it out that because he disappeared presumably from the terminal the bag would be found somewhere around there, and by Jingo, it was! Think of conceiving the idea of searching the parcel room and then tell me a fellow can get away with anything in this town when such minds as those are on the job after him! Wonderful work, I call it! When they find out who checked that bag there, they’ve got Jack Horton’s murderer!”
When, a few minutes later, they came down the steps of the building, Millard was still descanting on the infallible methods of the bureau they had just quitted; but Storm was silent, although in his heart he gave grudging assent to the eulogy. They were thorough, for a fact; he had not anticipated such extensive work on the part of the police in so short a time. The alarm sent out at sundown from Pennsylvania for the missing man, and by midnight his record known and the house in which his sweetheart lived placed under surveillance!
To Millard and himself as mere curious visitors no information had been dropped, and he had an uneasy idea that the mental reservation indicated by Captain Nairn’s attitude concealed a far deeper knowledge of the case than had been given out to the press. In the latter’s manner, especially when they shook hands at the moment of departure, he felt that, had the Captain chosen to speak, he might have learned something of vital importance to himself. Had the bag been already discovered at the station, and was the porter’s memory for faces more keen than he had judged? Were detectives even now scouring the city for a man of his personal description?
“I’ll wager that telephone message had something to do with the Horton affair,” Millard remarked suddenly. “Maybe he was caught then!”
Storm roused himself from his meditations with a start.
“Why do you think that?”
“Well, you see, I’ve watched the Captain before,” replied Millard. “You saw how quickly his expression could change when he wanted it to. By Jove, that chap should have been an actor! He put me over the jumps for a solid hour, I don’t mind telling you, when I went in to explain about my acquaintance with Du Chainat, and although he did it in a perfectly courteous, kid-glove manner I felt as limp as a rag when I came out. His expression ran the gamut from bland incredulity to direct accusation, and if I had had anything to confess he would have broken me down absolutely. Those fellows at Headquarters could force a confession from the cleverest crook in Christendom!”
“And what has this to do with the telephone message to-day?” Storm inquired in bored disgust at his companion’s garrulousness.
“Everything, my boy!” Millard retorted. “While he was talking to Big Jim’s daughter just now and drawing her out, his face was alive with expression, but after he had heard the first few words which came to him over the ’phone he looked absolutely blank and wooden. He got some information right then that he did not mean to convey, or I am very much mistaken. I say, there was something rather fine, wasn’t there, about that girl?”
“She was rather pretty,” Storm admitted, with a shrug.
“I don’t mean that!” exclaimed the other impatiently. “She was gotten up like a circus queen! I mean her attitude, her loyalty toward your friend Horton. Jolly white of her, I thought it!”
“Oh, when a woman is in love!” Storm sneered and added in cold displeasure, “Don’t call Horton my friend, please. I doubt still that this fellow is the one I knew at college.”
“But the Captain told you he was at Elmhaven——”
“After I had myself informed him that there was a chap of that name there; don’t forget that, Millard. A mere play to the gallery.” Storm laughed. “Captain Nairn is highly successful, I have no doubt, in cases of lost children and runaway girls, but I must confess I see no basis for your remarkable faith in the powers of the Department. They’ve failed in other cases just as they will in this.”
“You wait and see!” Millard’s tone was distinctly ruffled. “I’ve known the Commissioner’s secretary for years and I’m going to get him to let me in on this case from the inside and watch how they work it. I’ll bet you fifty dollars they get that man Horton!”
“Andthe hundred thousand?” Storm was still laughing, but there was a reckless glint in his eyes.
“And the hundred thousand!” Millard repeated with emphasis.
“Any time limit?”
“Oh, well, if the fellow succeeds in getting out of the country——” Millard hedged.
“Shall we say six months?—Done! Come up and dine with me at my rooms on Tuesday night, and we’ll let George Holworthy hold the stakes.” Storm held out his hand in a sudden volatile accession of cordiality. “Good-bye, and thanks for a most interesting afternoon, old man, really!”
After he had left Millard, however, a quick revulsion of mood came and he cursed the impulse which had led him to extend the invitation. The voluble little man bored him horribly, but he had felt an impish desire to goad him on in his laudation of the Department, and to seal the compact of the wager within a few feet of where the money lay securely hidden had seemed a great joke at the moment. It might be a wise move, at that, to keep in with Millard if the latter managed through his boasted friendship with the Commissioner’s secretary to obtain any inside information on the progress of the case. He would be sure to retail it in defense of his argument, and in spite of his sense of security Storm determined to be forewarned of any possible danger.
He dined alone at an old down-town hotel which he frequented when the mood for solitude came upon him. It was a Stately place with an air of faded grandeur about it, left far behind in the upward march of the city, but still retaining a remnant of its ancient patronage.
As he sat over his coffee, Storm idly studied the diners scattered about at the nearby tables. They were elderly for the most part with a solid air of conscious rectitude and well-being, and they ate with the deliberation and grave relish due to the reputation of the cuisine. A shining bald pate above a coat of magisterial black at the next table caught Storm’s eye by its glistening expanse. The man was sitting back luxuriously reading a paper which he held outstretched to aid some defect of vision, and over one ample shoulder a few letters of the headline jumped out in staring type.
“—ton’s Body——”
Storm caught his breath, and for a moment the page wavered and blurred before his eyes. Could it mean Horton’s body? Had it been discovered? He craned his neck, leaning as far forward and to one side as he dared; but by a perverse fate the older man moved also, his shoulder effectually concealing the rest of the message.
Storm cursed him softly beneath his breath, still maneuvering desperately to read the lines so tantalizingly withheld from him. Confound the old dotard! If he would shift that paper only a bit to one side, hold it a matter of a few inches higher, the whole article could be read, for he sat so near that even the small type would be plainly legible to Storm’s sharp eyes.
While he writhed impotently the unconscious reader turned the page, and in the flirt of the paper Storm caught a fleeting glimpse of the last word on the headline. It looked like “Found,” but he dared not trust the evidence of that swift glance. He felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to stride across to the other man and tear the paper from his hands; but the reader must have lost the thread of the article in which he was engrossed, for even as Storm struggled with his maddened impatience he turned back, raising the paper so that the whole upper part was in plain view.
“Horton’s Body Found.”
His instinct had been right, after all! Storm’s heart hammered in his chest, and for a second time his vision blurred, only to clear the next instant; and he read without effort through to the end of the brief news item. It told only what he of all men already knew, what he had wished the world to learn.
The older man folded his paper, yawned, and departed, and Storm called for his check and strolled out of the hotel with a serenely detached air; but although the night was warm he shivered as if a sudden chill had swept over him. That phase of the investigation was over; now the search would begin in earnest for the black bag.
Suddenly he recalled Millard’s conviction about the telephone message which Chief Nairn had received in their presence and the added reservation in the latter’s manner when he bade them good-bye. Millard must have been right; that message was a report of the finding of the body!
As he journeyed homeward he felt a sense of relief that the suspense was over. Horton was no longer lying out there—but what did Horton matter? He was dead and that was an end of it. How easily his skull had caved in beneath the force of that single blow! How easily the whole thing had been accomplished!
But was the money really safe in his apartment now that the search would narrow down to the bag and its contents? Would it not be wiser if he were to hire a safe-deposit box somewhere under an assumed name——? But even as the thought came he negatived it. Wise or not, he realized that he could not know a moment’s rest with the money for which he had risked so much out of his immediate possession. He would wait until the bag was discovered and the news of it had been forgotten and then slip unostentatiously away. This might come at any day; he must be prepared.
Thank heaven he had mentioned his proposed trip to George long before Horton crossed his path once more! Now his suddenly announced decision would call forth no surprise from that devoted friend, and George could be depended upon in the depths of his innocence to explain the situation to any curious acquaintances.
“Poor old Norman!” he would say, shaking his head sadly. “Went all to pieces over the loss of his wife. Health gave out completely, you know; couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, racked with nerves! Sea voyage is the best thing for him, and he’ll come back a new man.”
Storm laughed at his own conceit, but by morning his resolve had strengthened and definite plans began to form themselves in his mind. When he was safely away—in Japan, perhaps,—he would change some of the banknotes at a foreign branch of one of the banking houses and send back a draft to old Foulkes to take up that mortgage on the Greenlea house with Langhorne; he could get a far better price for the property unencumbered.
Still later he could write to old George and deputize him to sell it. George would be pained, of course, but what did that matter? He could explain that he meant to extend his trip and could never, in any event, bring himself to a return to Greenlea. He could tell George also to dispose of what personal belongings still remained of Leila’s among her friends there and to sell the house as it stood.
The morning papers threw no further light on the subject of Horton’s murder, yet Storm knew that no stone would be left unturned in the search for the bag, and he felt that its discovery might be imminent. A week or two at most after that took place and the whole affair would vanish from the public mind.
He would be prepared to sail at once, but in cutting absolutely adrift from the old life he meant in no sense to become a pariah. When he was satiated with travel he would settle down in some Continental city and enjoy life untrammeled by memories.
That night he took stock of his own belongings. He had left the details of his removal from Greenlea in George’s hands, and the latter had made a free selection. When Storm had weeded them out from Potter’s effects he looked at the conglomeration in despair. He meant to travel light, taking only his fresh mourning attire with him, which could be discarded readily enough as soon as he was away from his circle of condoling friends; and his old clothes could be given to Homachi.
But George had added a collection of junk which could not be so easily disposed of without opening even that credulous individual’s eyes to the real state of Storm’s mind. His glance swept in exasperation over the room; that reading lamp, for instance, his favorite edition of Balzac, the antique clock, the bronze desk set! George’s infernal sentiment must have directed his choice, for these had all been gifts from Leila; they couldn’t very well be given or thrown away!
The impulse came to Storm to tumble them all into an old trunk and ship them back to Greenlea, and his mood demanded instant action. He might as well get them out of the way now and have done with it! There would be plenty to do in the days ahead, and at least he would have the cursed things out of his sight.
Whistling cheerily he took off his coat, dragged the trunk out from the storeroom and opened it. He had scarcely started upon his task, however, when there came an insistent double ring at the bell.
George, again! Storm sat down deliberately and swore. But it would not do to offend him, and the time would be so short . . . .
He rose and opened the door to disclose George, beaming, his arms filled with awkwardly held paper bags and bundles. As he moved, one of them crashed down upon the mat and a thin line of white liquid meandered from it.
“Ouch! There goes the cream, I am afraid!” George’s smile faded, and he gazed ruefully down at the mess. “I thought we might make a rarebit, and I stopped——”
“Well, never mind! Come in. There is more cream in the ice chest.” Storm pulled his guest unceremoniously within and closed the door. “Homachi can clean the mat in the morning. Here, I’ll take all that stuff to the kitchen.”
“Just finished a rubber of bridge over at the Abbott’s and as I hadn’t seen you in two days——” George explained to the empty air. “Why, what the——!”
His ejaculation reached Storm in the kitchen and the latter returned to find his guest staring in surprise from the opened trunk to the disordered room.
“I’m packing up some stuff to send back to Greenlea,” Storm explained briefly. “All those things Leila gave me, you know; I can’t stand seeing them around me any longer.”
“I’m sorry. I thought they would make it more homelike for you here,” George said simply, in honest contrition. “I might have known you wouldn’t want them about just yet, to remind you——Here, let me help pack them.”
Storm masked a smile. Old George was almost too easy!
“All right, then, if you want to,” he acquiesced. “Take off your coat and we’ll pitch in. There is a pile of old newspapers on the pantry shelf——”
George trotted obediently off and returned with the papers.
“I say, wasn’t that a fierce thing about poor Jack Horton!” he exclaimed. “You saw it in the papers, of course? He was found murdered——”
“I know!” Storm interrupted hastily. “Mind what you are doing with that clock!—Yes, it was very sad, of course, but a chap in his line of work takes chances, and I suppose he took one too many.”
“It doesn’t seem possible! Poor old Jack!” George’s tone trembled with real feeling. “It is odd that we should have been talking about him only two nights ago; I don’t think we’ve even mentioned his name before in years. And at that very time he was lying dead out there on the Drive, and no one knew! It’s horrible! Why, we passed twice right within a few feet of the spot!”
“That’s so, we did,” Storm said slowly.
“Did you see the latest editions of the papers to-night?” George pursued, and then not waiting for the other to reply, he went on: “That young girl who was in love with him—Big Jim Saulsbury’s daughter—gave an interview to the reporters in which she said she would never rest until his murderers were discovered and convicted. Big Jim is backing her up, too. He came on here to New York, and although he refuses to talk for publication it is understood that he has hired the best private detectives in the country to supplement the authorities. By Jingo, I hope they get them!”
“Do they think some gang were out after him?” Storm asked.
“They don’t seem to think anything!” George waxed indignant. “I tell you, things are in a pretty state in this town when a chap can be decoyed off a train, robbed of a hundred thousand dollars and murdered in cold blood! Where were the police, I should like to know?”
Storm smiled.
“We had a little talk about crime not so long ago, if you remember,” he observed. “You didn’t quite agree with me when I suggested that a person could commit any sort of crime and get away with it if he used his brains, but this looks like a case in point, eh?”
Suddenly he caught his breath. It had occurred to him that George’s glance had fallen idly upon the sheets of newspaper with which they were packing the articles into the trunk, and remembrance came to him. They were using the outer sheets only from the top of the pile on the pantry shelf; the inner sheets of those papers were wrapped about Horton’s pistol in the bag! Had George noted anything unusual? His manner certainly did not show it, and he was packing with a preoccupation which boded ill for the safe arrival of the fragile lamp at Greenlea.
To test him, Storm repeated:
“It looks as if the fellow was going to get away with it in this case, at any rate.”
“They’ve only just started,” George replied significantly, adding as he eyed the half-filled trunk: “We should have put those books on the bottom, but never mind now. Does this desk set go in, too?”
“Yes.” Storm breathed more easily, but his vaunted foresight had received a shock. Why hadn’t he destroyed those confounded outer sheets of the newspaper?
The thought brought a swift reminder to him. Why not get rid now of the cap which Horton had worn on that fateful walk? There was room in the trunk . . . .
He dashed to the closet.
“Wait a minute, George. When you packed up my things to move in town you brought along a lot of old clothes that I shan’t have any use for in a dog’s age. Might as well ship some of them back to Greenlea now and have done with it.”
“Sure!” responded George equably. “Bring them along.”
Storm returned, his arms filled with a miscellaneous collection of coats and headgear. Among the latter was a certain cap of thin dark blue cloth, and as he saw it disappear into the trunk he heaved a sigh of relief. That, too, was gone! He turned to his companion.
“Oh, did I tell you that I saw Horton’s girl yesterday; this Miss Saulsbury?”
“Where?” George demanded, staring.
“At Police Headquarters. A friend of Millard showed us around.”
Storm told in detail of the scene at the Bureau of Missing Persons, and George listened with deep interest.
“Mighty loyal of that girl to stand up for poor Jack when the whole world was ready to condemn him as an absconder, wasn’t it?” he commented, as Millard had done. “Even I—well, it did look pretty black against him, didn’t it? They’ll get his murderers, sure!”
“So Millard thinks. He is crazy about the work of the Department since he has been given a glimpse behind the scenes, and he swears they can’t fail.” Storm laughed. “In fact, we have a little wager on about it, and you are to hold the stakes. He is coming up to dinner next Tuesday night.”
“Well, for an old friend of Jack, you’ve taken a queer stand, it seems to me,” George said slowly. “Anybody would think you didn’t want to see his murderers punished!”
“Not at all!” Storm retorted coolly: “There is nothing personal in this; it is a purely abstract question. Millard believes in the infallibility of the Department, and I don’t. What have they done so far? Horton was last seen alive in Poughkeepsie on Wednesday afternoon; he is murdered in New York some time that night, and his body is not even discovered until Friday afternoon. This is Saturday night, and what progress has been made in the case? Exactly none! They don’t know how Horton came to be out there on the Drive, who killed him or where the money is!”
“They’ve found the bag it was in, anyway.”
“What?” Storm stared at him as though he could scarcely believe he had heard aright.
“Uh-huh. The last edition of all the papers is playing it up big. The bag with poor old Jack’s hat and a pistol and a lot of old newspapers inside was discovered in the parcel-checking room of the Grand Central Station.” George paused and added: “Isn’t that marvelous police work for you? They must have doped it out that because he disappeared presumably from the terminal the bag would be found somewhere around there, and by Jingo, it was! Think of conceiving the idea of searching the parcel room and then tell me a fellow can get away with anything in this town when such minds as those are on the job after him! Wonderful work, I call it! When they find out who checked that bag there, they’ve got Jack Horton’s murderer!”