Chapter XXIV.If George KnewAfter a hasty and solitary lunch Storm returned to his office, and forcing all other thoughts aside he devoted himself throughout the long afternoon to getting his books and files in order to hand over to Sherwood the next day. He had always been as methodical as a machine in the affairs of the trust company, and his task itself was not difficult, although he found it no easy matter to concentrate, and his head ached dully.The first real heat of the summer had come in a blaze of tropic intensity which seemed to rise in blasting waves from the baking streets, and as Storm worked he felt a strange lassitude creeping over him. What if he were to be ill? That was one consideration which had not occurred to him, and, stifling as he was, a chill seemed to strike at the core of his being. Illness might mean delirium, and in delirium men babbled of the most secret, hidden things! He imagined himself lying inert and helpless, the guard of consciousness loosed from his tongue, his disordered brain stealing back over the forbidden hours of the past; and in fancy he could hear the words which should spell his doom issuing from his fevered lips.It must not come to pass! By sheer force of will alone he must not permit himself to fall ill, at least until he had left the city and all who knew him forever behind; until he was in a strange land, where his very language would not be understood!Bright spots were dancing before his eyes, and the pain in his head had increased; but by a supreme effort he flung off the lethargy which had settled upon him and completed his task. The building was almost deserted when he made his way out at last; the rush hour had started, and he turned disgustedly from the swarms of wilted, wearied toilers who blocked the entrance to elevated staircases and subways. Thank God that to-morrow would be his last day of all this!Sunset had brought no relief, and the reeking asphalt seemed to melt and sink beneath his feet as he dragged himself over to the Square for a taxi. Was it only the heat that was affecting him so strangely or could it be really illness after all? Would Homachi find him in the morning muttering and raving at the two shadowy figures which delirium would bring to stand at his bedside? Would strange doctors come to listen and wonder and finally summon the police?Shuddering with horror at the vision, Storm climbed into the first open taxi that he saw and giving his Riverside Drive address, sank back against the cushions with closed eyes. He felt that never in his life had he so wanted human companionship, not even on that night when he had encountered Jack Horton in the rain; yet he dared not summon anyone. George would drop his affairs with Abbott and come, of course, but George was the last person in the world whom he would want near if he were not to be in full possession of his faculties. There was no one he could trust; he stood alone! In health and strength, with the guard of reticence about him, he could walk among men, but at the first weakening, the first inkling of the truth all mankind would be upon him like a pack of wolves, tearing him down!As the taxi turned into the Drive at length a breath of cooler air blew up from the river, and when they reached the door of his apartment house Storm felt more at ease, although his head still throbbed and a weight seemed dragging at his limbs.His rooms, as he let himself in with his latchkey, were dim and cool and inviting, and with a shiver of distaste at the thought of food he threw himself across the bed and almost at once fell into a heavy, troubled sleep.When he awoke the moonlight was flooding the room, casting vague, fantastic shadows in the corners and grouping them about the head of his bed. Storm sat up, bewildered. His throat felt drawn and parched, his head ached splittingly and a vague but insistent craving assailed him.Then he remembered and got weakly to his feet. He had had no dinner, nothing since that hasty, unappetizing noonday meal. He groped his way to the light switch in the living-room and turning it on, blinked dazedly at the clock. It was after midnight! He must have lain for many hours in that exhausted sleep as if drugged.But he felt better, at any rate; the lassitude was gone and his head was clearer, even though it ached. He would be all right in the morning. . . .Foraging about, he found bread and cheese in the pantry and milk and fruit in the ice chest and upon these he made a simple but satisfying meal.It was cooler; there was no doubt about it. A freshening breeze was sweeping up from the river and blowing in the curtains at the living-room windows.Storm decided impulsively upon a stroll before turning in again. He had not indulged in one of his nocturnal walks since that momentous one with Jack Horton the week before; but he need not bring that back too vividly by venturing in the same direction, and his throbbing head demanded the fresh night air. Why should he think of Horton now? Last week was past and dead, as dead as last month, as this whole, wretched, nerve-racking time would be a year from now when he would be far away, and all of this forgotten!Yet when he reached the path he found his feet insensibly turning toward the incline beyond the viaduct, around that turn where the ground sloped so sharply down from the wall. With returning strength the impulse came to test himself, to see if he had sufficient nerve to stroll past that spot where in the darkness he had struck that single, sure blow. Why not? Surely no suspicion could attach to him for that! It was public property, the path was free to all and there would be nothing strange about a midnight stroll after the terrific heat of the day should anyone chance to cross his path.Could he do it? Could he bring himself to walk slowly, steadily up that incline, to pass without faltering that place against the wall where Horton’s body had crumpled; to go on without a backward glance into the shadows that would lurk behind? Surely no other man in the world would dare such a supreme test of his fortitude, his strength! Could he see it through?Storm threw back his shoulders and with measured, determined tread started upon the path. The moon was sinking behind a cloud, the breeze blew in sharper, angrier gusts and the stir in the treetops had become a sibilant, whispering chorus. It might be that a storm was brewing, but it would not come until long after he was safe at home again, and he was rather glad that the moon’s eerie light was fading; it had a tricky way of bringing unfamiliar angles into sharp relief, casting weird shadows to creep after one, filling one with a senseless desire to walk faster, to glance behind. . . .Here was where they had walked when Horton boasted so about his girl! What a complacent, self-satisfied creature he had been! Common, too; how a few years of roughing it brought out the bourgeois streak in a man! Everything about him had grated, repelled; his swagger, his laugh, the animal-like gusto with which he ate and drank and smoked. What a boor!Yonder was the street lamp and here the place where Storm himself had halted ostensibly to light a cigarette, but in reality to wait until the approaching figure of the policeman should have advanced into the surrounding shadows. There was no policeman to-night; no living thing seemed to be abroad save himself, and the path ahead looked all at once lonely and foreboding.It rose sharply now; he had reached the foot of the incline. This was where Horton had first suggested going back, and he had argued for the sight of the river steamer when she came around the turn. Horton had been descanting on his future with the Mid-Eastern people; his future, which had come to an end there ahead where the wall sloped! He had been so sure of himself!But surely the wind was rising! These summer showers came up with amazing suddenness; perhaps it would be as well——?No! Storm shook himself angrily and plodded doggedly on. He would make no weak excuses to himself, pander to no womanish impulse to evade. This was a moral test and he would see it through!It was just here that the automobile had appeared, roaring and careening down the road. What fools the authorities were to make such a point of its wild progress! Even old George, dense as he was, had seen the improbability of its connection with that night’s event.There was the turn in the path just ahead, where the shadows lay thickest. Storm could feel the moisture gathering beneath the band of his hat, and it seemed to him that an ever-increasing weight was attached to his feet, dragging them back. The whisper in the trees had changed to a rising moan, and the swaying branches threw clutching shadows out across the path.Here was the spot, at last! Here was where he had suggested that Horton look to see if the steamer were coming, where he himself had stepped back, rasping a dead match against his cigarette case that the other might hear and not wonder why his companion loitered; where he had gripped that heavy cane part way down its length, where he had raised it—— A-ah!A sharp, hissing gasp escaped from Storm’s lips, to be caught up and carried away on a gust of wind, and he halted, staring at the figure which had seemed to rise from nowhere to confront him.Then for a fleeting instant a rift in the cloud wrack sent a streak of pale moonlight shimmering down, and by its glow Storm saw the familiar blue uniform of a policeman.“Good-evening, Officer.” Was that his own voice, that casually cordial drawl?“’Evening, sir.” The other’s tone was civil enough, but was not his glance a trifle too keen, too questioning?“Looks as though we were going to have a storm.”“It does that, sir.”What was the fellow waiting for? Why didn’t he go on about his business? Storm felt that he himself could not move. He seemed held to the spot as by invisible chains. Why was the policeman eying him so strangely?“I’ve walked further than I meant, myself, but I guess I’ll get home before it starts.” He forced a laugh. “Couldn’t sleep and came out for a stroll and then remembered about that murder last week; thought I’d have a look at the spot, but I can’t seem to find it from the newspaper description. It happened somewhere about here, didn’t it, Officer?”“Justhere, sir. You’re standing on the very spot now,” the policeman responded with emphasis. “See that place on the wall there by the bush? That’s where they figure the body was thrown over. As for the murder itself: well, it’s not come out yet where that was done, but ’twas just down from here that the body was found.”“Indeed! Are you sure?” Storm assumed an unconsciously clever imitation of Millard’s eager curiosity.“I ought to be, sir! I’ve pointed it out enough of times since.” There was a touch of weariness in the official’s tones. “What with them operatives from the private agency, and the coal company’s men, to say nothing of the nuts and cranks——”He paused significantly and Storm took up the cue.“I’m coming back here in the daytime; I’ve a theory of my own about this case!” he announced confidentially. “Let me see; I’ll know the spot by that clump of trees and the bench. You know, Officer——”“Excuseme, sir!” the policeman interrupted in utter boredom. “I’ve got to be getting on down my beat.”“I’ll walk on with you,” proposed Storm equably. “I live down the Drive a bit and it is too dark for me to poke around up here now.”The other accepted his companionship with resignation, and they started down the path while Storm inwardly congratulated himself upon the skill with which he had handled the situation. It was unique, unheard-of! That he, the murderer, should encounter an officer of the law on the very scene of his crime, successfully foster the belief that he was a harmless crank and presently slip through that official’s fingers——! Oh, it was colossal!“I’ve read every word the papers have printed about this affair,” he went on, still in that guileless, confidential tone. “I can’t conceive why the body wasn’t found before.”“Reason enough!” the officer asserted with warmth. “There’s no path down there, nothing but a steep slope of shale and bushes between the wall and the railroad tracks, and no one’s ever along there but a track walker now and then. There’s a dump and two docks near, but the road leads down from under the Drive at the viaduct. If it hadn’t been for them boys playing around, the body mightn’t have been found till Christmas, and no blame to the Department!”Every nerve in Storm’s body shook with the tension, and he could feel the sweat starting from his pores; but they had left that spot behind and every slow, swinging step took them further from it. He had no intention of permitting the policeman to note the street near which he lived; a few blocks further on and he would take leave of him and cut across the Drive. A few blocks—but he must play up, he must not drop his rôle for an instant.“I don’t think that automobile that the papers make so much of had anything to do with it, do you, Officer?” he asked in a loquacious tone, adding: “A friend of mine has a friend at Headquarters who told him that two men were seen walking together on the Drive here only a little before the time when the murder was supposed to have been committed, and one of them——”“Say!” the other interrupted disgustedly. “Some guy at Headquarters must have a mighty big mouth! You’re the second that’s been after me about that!”“After you!” Storm repeated.“Sure. I’m the one seen them,” the policeman retorted. “And what of it? I’ve had no orders since I’ve been on the Force to interfere with two respectable-appearing gentlemen walking along cold sober and peaceable, and minding their own business, just as you come to be out here to-night yourself, sir! They’d no more to do with the murder than you had! Of course, when the body was found I had to report them, but that would have been the end of it if some guy down there hadn’t been shooting his mouth off!”“But if you are the officer who passed them,” Storm insisted, “my friend says he was told that your description of one of them fitted the dead man——”“As it would fit any big, well-built fellow you met in the dark!” the policeman snorted contemptuously. “Besides, as far as I made out from a passing look at him he was wearing a cap of some kind. There was none found anywhere near the dead man, and his own hat was hid away in that bag down at the Grand Central Station. If that boob at Headquarters——”“But the other man who was with him——?” Storm steadied his voice carefully. “Did you get a good look at him, Officer? What was he like?”“Look here, what are you after, anyway?” the policeman demanded in exasperation. “What’s it to you? I’m not here on my beat to be answering questions and I had enough last night with that little fat guy pestering me for an hour! I’ve nothing to say, sir! Go to the friend of your friend at Headquarters and get what you can out of him!”‘Last night—little fat guy’! The words struck Storm with the force of a blow, and he recalled that the officer had complained only a few minutes before: ‘You’re the second that has been after me’! Who could that other have been? Not Millard, surely! He voiced the doubt aloud:“It couldn’t have been my friend who bothered you about it last night, Officer. He’s getting stout, but he is not short.”“Well, this guy was, and with a big bald spot on top, too, as I saw when he took off his hat to wipe his forehead under the lamp there! He kept squinting at me with his near-sighted eyes and jotting down what I said in a little book till I felt as if I was up before the Board!” The officer’s tone had grown slightly mollified. “You’ll excuse me for being short with you, sir, but this thing happening on my beat and all has made me fair sick. I’ve not eyes on the back of my head nor yet the kind that can see in the dark, and I can’t be in two places at once! You’d think to hear some of the knocks I’ve had right in my own platoon that I’d been asleep on the job!”‘Bald—nearsighted——!’ George! The questioner had been George Holworthy!“I don’t know how you could be expected to see a dead man being brought to that spot on the hill up there and dumped over the wall if you were down—well, here, say,” Storm remarked consolingly, but his tone was absent. He must get away from his companion at once; he must be alone to think.“Great Scott, I’ve passed my street and I believe—yes, it’s beginning to rain! Good night, Officer! I’m glad of this little talk——”“Don’t mention it, sir!” The other’s words had been balm to his sore spirit, and the policeman beamed. “Good night, sir!”Storm crossed the Drive, and despite the rain which came pattering down in a quickening shower he turned north again to make good his statement. At the end of the block he halted beneath a jutting cornice and waited until he calculated that the policeman must be a safe distance away, then retraced his steps and hurried on down the Drive to his own rooms, heedless of the torrent which drenched him.So Millard was right! George had become a ‘bug’ about the Horton case! Storm recalled that at the dinner on Tuesday, when Millard told of the encounter on the Drive with the two men which the policeman had reported, George had announced that he would like to talk with the officer. Millard said he could be found on his beat at about the same time on any night, and George had evidently taken him at his word. He must have hunted up the policeman immediately after leaving Storm’s rooms on the previous night. What could have put the impulse into his head? For a wonder, the murder had not even been mentioned between the two during the entire evening.Why had he not announced his intention? Storm could not conceive of deliberate reticence on the part of old George! No, he couldn’t have planned it; he probably ran into the policeman by accident after he left the house, and remembering the incident which Millard had described he must have plied him with questions until the good-natured official writhed.Yet he had jotted down the replies in a little book, and in the morning he had called up Millard for further information as to the name of newspapers found in Horton’s bag. He could not have an inkling of the truth, of course. It must be as Storm had concluded that morning; that George, still adhering to his theory of the murder having been a one-man job, was seeking to confirm it in his own mind before trying to locate some recent associate or crony of Horton’s who might have been with him on that night.He would never reach the true solution, of course, but it was just as well, all things considered, that he was to be dragged away on that fishing trip and compelled to drop his self-imposed rôle of investigator until the police themselves relegated the case to the shelf.Storm had removed his dripping garments, and arrayed himself in his pajamas, and as he turned off the light and went to bed a thought came which made him smile grimly in the darkness.He had done it twice, and gotten away with it. He could do it a third time! If George knew, if George betrayed the least sign of being on the right track, then he, too, must be eliminated!Up there in the woods alone Storm could sound him, could analyze every word and inflection and look; there would be no habitation near, no one within sight or hearing for days. If murder could be so simply, successfully accomplished here in the heart of the city, what mere child’s play it would be up in there in the wilderness!He chuckled aloud, unconscious that he was giving audible voice to his reflections:“One thing is sure; nothing must interfere with that trip!I’ve got to go fishing with George!”
After a hasty and solitary lunch Storm returned to his office, and forcing all other thoughts aside he devoted himself throughout the long afternoon to getting his books and files in order to hand over to Sherwood the next day. He had always been as methodical as a machine in the affairs of the trust company, and his task itself was not difficult, although he found it no easy matter to concentrate, and his head ached dully.
The first real heat of the summer had come in a blaze of tropic intensity which seemed to rise in blasting waves from the baking streets, and as Storm worked he felt a strange lassitude creeping over him. What if he were to be ill? That was one consideration which had not occurred to him, and, stifling as he was, a chill seemed to strike at the core of his being. Illness might mean delirium, and in delirium men babbled of the most secret, hidden things! He imagined himself lying inert and helpless, the guard of consciousness loosed from his tongue, his disordered brain stealing back over the forbidden hours of the past; and in fancy he could hear the words which should spell his doom issuing from his fevered lips.
It must not come to pass! By sheer force of will alone he must not permit himself to fall ill, at least until he had left the city and all who knew him forever behind; until he was in a strange land, where his very language would not be understood!
Bright spots were dancing before his eyes, and the pain in his head had increased; but by a supreme effort he flung off the lethargy which had settled upon him and completed his task. The building was almost deserted when he made his way out at last; the rush hour had started, and he turned disgustedly from the swarms of wilted, wearied toilers who blocked the entrance to elevated staircases and subways. Thank God that to-morrow would be his last day of all this!
Sunset had brought no relief, and the reeking asphalt seemed to melt and sink beneath his feet as he dragged himself over to the Square for a taxi. Was it only the heat that was affecting him so strangely or could it be really illness after all? Would Homachi find him in the morning muttering and raving at the two shadowy figures which delirium would bring to stand at his bedside? Would strange doctors come to listen and wonder and finally summon the police?
Shuddering with horror at the vision, Storm climbed into the first open taxi that he saw and giving his Riverside Drive address, sank back against the cushions with closed eyes. He felt that never in his life had he so wanted human companionship, not even on that night when he had encountered Jack Horton in the rain; yet he dared not summon anyone. George would drop his affairs with Abbott and come, of course, but George was the last person in the world whom he would want near if he were not to be in full possession of his faculties. There was no one he could trust; he stood alone! In health and strength, with the guard of reticence about him, he could walk among men, but at the first weakening, the first inkling of the truth all mankind would be upon him like a pack of wolves, tearing him down!
As the taxi turned into the Drive at length a breath of cooler air blew up from the river, and when they reached the door of his apartment house Storm felt more at ease, although his head still throbbed and a weight seemed dragging at his limbs.
His rooms, as he let himself in with his latchkey, were dim and cool and inviting, and with a shiver of distaste at the thought of food he threw himself across the bed and almost at once fell into a heavy, troubled sleep.
When he awoke the moonlight was flooding the room, casting vague, fantastic shadows in the corners and grouping them about the head of his bed. Storm sat up, bewildered. His throat felt drawn and parched, his head ached splittingly and a vague but insistent craving assailed him.
Then he remembered and got weakly to his feet. He had had no dinner, nothing since that hasty, unappetizing noonday meal. He groped his way to the light switch in the living-room and turning it on, blinked dazedly at the clock. It was after midnight! He must have lain for many hours in that exhausted sleep as if drugged.
But he felt better, at any rate; the lassitude was gone and his head was clearer, even though it ached. He would be all right in the morning. . . .
Foraging about, he found bread and cheese in the pantry and milk and fruit in the ice chest and upon these he made a simple but satisfying meal.
It was cooler; there was no doubt about it. A freshening breeze was sweeping up from the river and blowing in the curtains at the living-room windows.
Storm decided impulsively upon a stroll before turning in again. He had not indulged in one of his nocturnal walks since that momentous one with Jack Horton the week before; but he need not bring that back too vividly by venturing in the same direction, and his throbbing head demanded the fresh night air. Why should he think of Horton now? Last week was past and dead, as dead as last month, as this whole, wretched, nerve-racking time would be a year from now when he would be far away, and all of this forgotten!
Yet when he reached the path he found his feet insensibly turning toward the incline beyond the viaduct, around that turn where the ground sloped so sharply down from the wall. With returning strength the impulse came to test himself, to see if he had sufficient nerve to stroll past that spot where in the darkness he had struck that single, sure blow. Why not? Surely no suspicion could attach to him for that! It was public property, the path was free to all and there would be nothing strange about a midnight stroll after the terrific heat of the day should anyone chance to cross his path.
Could he do it? Could he bring himself to walk slowly, steadily up that incline, to pass without faltering that place against the wall where Horton’s body had crumpled; to go on without a backward glance into the shadows that would lurk behind? Surely no other man in the world would dare such a supreme test of his fortitude, his strength! Could he see it through?
Storm threw back his shoulders and with measured, determined tread started upon the path. The moon was sinking behind a cloud, the breeze blew in sharper, angrier gusts and the stir in the treetops had become a sibilant, whispering chorus. It might be that a storm was brewing, but it would not come until long after he was safe at home again, and he was rather glad that the moon’s eerie light was fading; it had a tricky way of bringing unfamiliar angles into sharp relief, casting weird shadows to creep after one, filling one with a senseless desire to walk faster, to glance behind. . . .
Here was where they had walked when Horton boasted so about his girl! What a complacent, self-satisfied creature he had been! Common, too; how a few years of roughing it brought out the bourgeois streak in a man! Everything about him had grated, repelled; his swagger, his laugh, the animal-like gusto with which he ate and drank and smoked. What a boor!
Yonder was the street lamp and here the place where Storm himself had halted ostensibly to light a cigarette, but in reality to wait until the approaching figure of the policeman should have advanced into the surrounding shadows. There was no policeman to-night; no living thing seemed to be abroad save himself, and the path ahead looked all at once lonely and foreboding.
It rose sharply now; he had reached the foot of the incline. This was where Horton had first suggested going back, and he had argued for the sight of the river steamer when she came around the turn. Horton had been descanting on his future with the Mid-Eastern people; his future, which had come to an end there ahead where the wall sloped! He had been so sure of himself!
But surely the wind was rising! These summer showers came up with amazing suddenness; perhaps it would be as well——?
No! Storm shook himself angrily and plodded doggedly on. He would make no weak excuses to himself, pander to no womanish impulse to evade. This was a moral test and he would see it through!
It was just here that the automobile had appeared, roaring and careening down the road. What fools the authorities were to make such a point of its wild progress! Even old George, dense as he was, had seen the improbability of its connection with that night’s event.
There was the turn in the path just ahead, where the shadows lay thickest. Storm could feel the moisture gathering beneath the band of his hat, and it seemed to him that an ever-increasing weight was attached to his feet, dragging them back. The whisper in the trees had changed to a rising moan, and the swaying branches threw clutching shadows out across the path.
Here was the spot, at last! Here was where he had suggested that Horton look to see if the steamer were coming, where he himself had stepped back, rasping a dead match against his cigarette case that the other might hear and not wonder why his companion loitered; where he had gripped that heavy cane part way down its length, where he had raised it—— A-ah!
A sharp, hissing gasp escaped from Storm’s lips, to be caught up and carried away on a gust of wind, and he halted, staring at the figure which had seemed to rise from nowhere to confront him.
Then for a fleeting instant a rift in the cloud wrack sent a streak of pale moonlight shimmering down, and by its glow Storm saw the familiar blue uniform of a policeman.
“Good-evening, Officer.” Was that his own voice, that casually cordial drawl?
“’Evening, sir.” The other’s tone was civil enough, but was not his glance a trifle too keen, too questioning?
“Looks as though we were going to have a storm.”
“It does that, sir.”
What was the fellow waiting for? Why didn’t he go on about his business? Storm felt that he himself could not move. He seemed held to the spot as by invisible chains. Why was the policeman eying him so strangely?
“I’ve walked further than I meant, myself, but I guess I’ll get home before it starts.” He forced a laugh. “Couldn’t sleep and came out for a stroll and then remembered about that murder last week; thought I’d have a look at the spot, but I can’t seem to find it from the newspaper description. It happened somewhere about here, didn’t it, Officer?”
“Justhere, sir. You’re standing on the very spot now,” the policeman responded with emphasis. “See that place on the wall there by the bush? That’s where they figure the body was thrown over. As for the murder itself: well, it’s not come out yet where that was done, but ’twas just down from here that the body was found.”
“Indeed! Are you sure?” Storm assumed an unconsciously clever imitation of Millard’s eager curiosity.
“I ought to be, sir! I’ve pointed it out enough of times since.” There was a touch of weariness in the official’s tones. “What with them operatives from the private agency, and the coal company’s men, to say nothing of the nuts and cranks——”
He paused significantly and Storm took up the cue.
“I’m coming back here in the daytime; I’ve a theory of my own about this case!” he announced confidentially. “Let me see; I’ll know the spot by that clump of trees and the bench. You know, Officer——”
“Excuseme, sir!” the policeman interrupted in utter boredom. “I’ve got to be getting on down my beat.”
“I’ll walk on with you,” proposed Storm equably. “I live down the Drive a bit and it is too dark for me to poke around up here now.”
The other accepted his companionship with resignation, and they started down the path while Storm inwardly congratulated himself upon the skill with which he had handled the situation. It was unique, unheard-of! That he, the murderer, should encounter an officer of the law on the very scene of his crime, successfully foster the belief that he was a harmless crank and presently slip through that official’s fingers——! Oh, it was colossal!
“I’ve read every word the papers have printed about this affair,” he went on, still in that guileless, confidential tone. “I can’t conceive why the body wasn’t found before.”
“Reason enough!” the officer asserted with warmth. “There’s no path down there, nothing but a steep slope of shale and bushes between the wall and the railroad tracks, and no one’s ever along there but a track walker now and then. There’s a dump and two docks near, but the road leads down from under the Drive at the viaduct. If it hadn’t been for them boys playing around, the body mightn’t have been found till Christmas, and no blame to the Department!”
Every nerve in Storm’s body shook with the tension, and he could feel the sweat starting from his pores; but they had left that spot behind and every slow, swinging step took them further from it. He had no intention of permitting the policeman to note the street near which he lived; a few blocks further on and he would take leave of him and cut across the Drive. A few blocks—but he must play up, he must not drop his rôle for an instant.
“I don’t think that automobile that the papers make so much of had anything to do with it, do you, Officer?” he asked in a loquacious tone, adding: “A friend of mine has a friend at Headquarters who told him that two men were seen walking together on the Drive here only a little before the time when the murder was supposed to have been committed, and one of them——”
“Say!” the other interrupted disgustedly. “Some guy at Headquarters must have a mighty big mouth! You’re the second that’s been after me about that!”
“After you!” Storm repeated.
“Sure. I’m the one seen them,” the policeman retorted. “And what of it? I’ve had no orders since I’ve been on the Force to interfere with two respectable-appearing gentlemen walking along cold sober and peaceable, and minding their own business, just as you come to be out here to-night yourself, sir! They’d no more to do with the murder than you had! Of course, when the body was found I had to report them, but that would have been the end of it if some guy down there hadn’t been shooting his mouth off!”
“But if you are the officer who passed them,” Storm insisted, “my friend says he was told that your description of one of them fitted the dead man——”
“As it would fit any big, well-built fellow you met in the dark!” the policeman snorted contemptuously. “Besides, as far as I made out from a passing look at him he was wearing a cap of some kind. There was none found anywhere near the dead man, and his own hat was hid away in that bag down at the Grand Central Station. If that boob at Headquarters——”
“But the other man who was with him——?” Storm steadied his voice carefully. “Did you get a good look at him, Officer? What was he like?”
“Look here, what are you after, anyway?” the policeman demanded in exasperation. “What’s it to you? I’m not here on my beat to be answering questions and I had enough last night with that little fat guy pestering me for an hour! I’ve nothing to say, sir! Go to the friend of your friend at Headquarters and get what you can out of him!”
‘Last night—little fat guy’! The words struck Storm with the force of a blow, and he recalled that the officer had complained only a few minutes before: ‘You’re the second that has been after me’! Who could that other have been? Not Millard, surely! He voiced the doubt aloud:
“It couldn’t have been my friend who bothered you about it last night, Officer. He’s getting stout, but he is not short.”
“Well, this guy was, and with a big bald spot on top, too, as I saw when he took off his hat to wipe his forehead under the lamp there! He kept squinting at me with his near-sighted eyes and jotting down what I said in a little book till I felt as if I was up before the Board!” The officer’s tone had grown slightly mollified. “You’ll excuse me for being short with you, sir, but this thing happening on my beat and all has made me fair sick. I’ve not eyes on the back of my head nor yet the kind that can see in the dark, and I can’t be in two places at once! You’d think to hear some of the knocks I’ve had right in my own platoon that I’d been asleep on the job!”
‘Bald—nearsighted——!’ George! The questioner had been George Holworthy!
“I don’t know how you could be expected to see a dead man being brought to that spot on the hill up there and dumped over the wall if you were down—well, here, say,” Storm remarked consolingly, but his tone was absent. He must get away from his companion at once; he must be alone to think.
“Great Scott, I’ve passed my street and I believe—yes, it’s beginning to rain! Good night, Officer! I’m glad of this little talk——”
“Don’t mention it, sir!” The other’s words had been balm to his sore spirit, and the policeman beamed. “Good night, sir!”
Storm crossed the Drive, and despite the rain which came pattering down in a quickening shower he turned north again to make good his statement. At the end of the block he halted beneath a jutting cornice and waited until he calculated that the policeman must be a safe distance away, then retraced his steps and hurried on down the Drive to his own rooms, heedless of the torrent which drenched him.
So Millard was right! George had become a ‘bug’ about the Horton case! Storm recalled that at the dinner on Tuesday, when Millard told of the encounter on the Drive with the two men which the policeman had reported, George had announced that he would like to talk with the officer. Millard said he could be found on his beat at about the same time on any night, and George had evidently taken him at his word. He must have hunted up the policeman immediately after leaving Storm’s rooms on the previous night. What could have put the impulse into his head? For a wonder, the murder had not even been mentioned between the two during the entire evening.
Why had he not announced his intention? Storm could not conceive of deliberate reticence on the part of old George! No, he couldn’t have planned it; he probably ran into the policeman by accident after he left the house, and remembering the incident which Millard had described he must have plied him with questions until the good-natured official writhed.
Yet he had jotted down the replies in a little book, and in the morning he had called up Millard for further information as to the name of newspapers found in Horton’s bag. He could not have an inkling of the truth, of course. It must be as Storm had concluded that morning; that George, still adhering to his theory of the murder having been a one-man job, was seeking to confirm it in his own mind before trying to locate some recent associate or crony of Horton’s who might have been with him on that night.
He would never reach the true solution, of course, but it was just as well, all things considered, that he was to be dragged away on that fishing trip and compelled to drop his self-imposed rôle of investigator until the police themselves relegated the case to the shelf.
Storm had removed his dripping garments, and arrayed himself in his pajamas, and as he turned off the light and went to bed a thought came which made him smile grimly in the darkness.
He had done it twice, and gotten away with it. He could do it a third time! If George knew, if George betrayed the least sign of being on the right track, then he, too, must be eliminated!
Up there in the woods alone Storm could sound him, could analyze every word and inflection and look; there would be no habitation near, no one within sight or hearing for days. If murder could be so simply, successfully accomplished here in the heart of the city, what mere child’s play it would be up in there in the wilderness!
He chuckled aloud, unconscious that he was giving audible voice to his reflections:
“One thing is sure; nothing must interfere with that trip!I’ve got to go fishing with George!”