CHAPTER XXVI. ON TO RICHMOND
Strangely enough, I was not disturbed that day. McKnight did not appearat all. I sat at my desk and transacted routine business all afternoon,working with feverish energy. Like a man on the verge of a criticalillness or a hazardous journey, I cleared up my correspondence, paidbills until I had writer's cramp from signing checks, read over my will,and paid up my life insurance, made to the benefit of an elderly sisterof my mother's. I no longer dreaded arrest. After that morning in thestation, I felt that anything would be a relief from the tension. Iwent home with perfect openness, courting the warrant that I knew waswaiting, but I was not molested. The delay puzzled me. The early part ofthe evening was uneventful. I read until late, with occasional lapses,when my book lay at my elbow, and I smoked and thought. Mrs. Kloptonclosed the house with ostentatious caution, about eleven, and hungaround waiting to enlarge on the outrageousness of the police search. Idid not encourage her.
"One would think," she concluded pompously, one foot in the hall, "thatyou were something you oughtn't to be, Mr. Lawrence. They acted asthough you had committed a crime."
"I'm not sure that I didn't, Mrs. Klopton," I said wearily. "Somebodydid, the general verdict seems to point my way."
She stared at me in speechless indignation. Then she flounced out. Shecame back once to say that the paper predicted cooler weather, and thatshe had put a blanket on my bed, but, to her disappointment, I refusedto reopen the subject.
At half past eleven McKnight and Hotchkiss came in. Richey has a habitof stopping his car in front of the house and honking until someone comes out. He has a code of signals with the horn, which I neverremember. Two long and a short blast mean, I believe, "Send out a box ofcigarettes," and six short blasts, which sound like a police call, mean"Can you lend me some money?" To-night I knew something was up, for hegot out and rang the door-bell like a Christian.
They came into the library, and Hotchkiss wiped his collar until itgleamed. McKnight was aggressively cheerful.
"Not pinched yet!" he exclaimed. "What do you think of that for luck!You always were a fortunate devil, Lawrence."
"Yes," I assented, with some bitterness, "I hardly know how to containmyself for joy sometimes. I suppose you know"--to Hotchkiss--"that thepolice were here while we were at Cresson, and that they found the bagthat I brought from the wreck?"
"Things are coming to a head," he said thoughtfully "unless a littleplan that I have in mind--" he hesitated.
"I hope so; I am pretty nearly desperate," I said doggedly. "I've got amental toothache, and the sooner it's pulled the better."
"Tut, tut," said McKnight, "think of the disgrace to the firm if itssenior member goes up for life, or--" he twisted his handkerchief into anoose, and went through an elaborate pantomime.
"Although jail isn't so bad, anyhow," he finished, "there are fellowsthat get the habit and keep going back and going back." He looked athis watch, and I fancied his cheerfulness was strained. Hotchkiss wasnervously fumbling my book.
"Did you ever read The Purloined Letter, Mr. Blakeley?" he inquired.
"Probably, years ago," I said. "Poe, isn't it?"
He was choked at my indifference. "It is a masterpiece," he said, withenthusiasm. "I re-read it to-day."
"And what happened?"
"Then I inspected the rooms in the house off Washington Circle. I--Imade some discoveries, Mr. Blakeley. For one thing, our man there isleft-handed." He looked around for our approval. "There was a smallcushion on the dresser, and the scarf pins in it had been stuck in withthe left hand."
"Somebody may have twisted the cushion," I objected, but he looked hurt,and I desisted.
"There is only one discrepancy," he admitted, "but it troubles me.According to Mrs. Carter, at the farmhouse, our man wore gaudy pajamas,while I found here only the most severely plain night-shirts."
"Any buttons off?" McKnight inquired, looking again at his watch.
"The buttons were there," the amateur detective answered gravely, "butthe buttonhole next the top one was torn through."
McKnight winked at me furtively.
"I am convinced of one thing," Hotchkiss went on, clearing his throat,"the papers are not in that room. Either he carries them with him, or hehas sold them."
A sound on the street made both my visitors listen sharply. Whatever itwas it passed on, however. I was growing curious and the restraint wastelling on McKnight. He has no talent for secrecy. In the intervalwe discussed the strange occurrence at Cresson, which lost nothing byHotchkiss' dry narration.
"And so," he concluded, "the woman in the Baltimore hospital is the wifeof Henry Sullivan and the daughter of the man he murdered. No wonder hecollapsed when he heard of the wreck."
"Joy, probably," McKnight put in. "Is that clock right, Lawrence? Nevermind, it doesn't matter. By the way, Mrs. Conway dropped in the officeyesterday, while you were away."
"What!" I sprang from my chair.
"Sure thing. Said she had heard great things of us, and wanted us tohandle her case against the railroad."
"I would like to know what she is driving at," I reflected. "Is shetrying to reach me through you?"
Richey's flippancy is often a cloak for deeper feeling. He dropped itnow. "Yes," he said, "she's after the notes, of course. And I'll tellyou I felt like a poltroon--whatever that may be--when I turnedher down. She stood by the door with her face white, and told mecontemptuously that I could save you from a murder charge and wouldn'tdo it. She made me feel like a cur. I was just as guilty as if I couldhave obliged her. She hinted that there were reasons and she laid myattitude to beastly motives."
"Nonsense," I said, as easily as I could. Hotchkiss had gone to thewindow. "She was excited. There are no 'reasons,' whatever she means."
Richey put his hand on my shoulder. "We've been together too long tolet any 'reasons' or 'unreasons' come between us, old man," he said, notvery steadily. Hotchkiss, who had been silent, here came forward inhis most impressive manner. He put his hands under his coat-tails andcoughed.
"Mr. Blakeley," he began, "by Mr. McKnight's advice we have arranged alittle interview here to-night. If all has gone as I planned, Mr.Henry Pinckney Sullivan is by this time under arrest. Within a very fewminutes--he will be here."
"I wanted to talk to him before he was locked up," Richey explained."He's clever enough to be worth knowing, and, besides, I'm not sococksure of his guilt as our friend the Patch on the Seat of Government.No murderer worthy of the name needs six different motives for thesame crime, beginning with robbery, and ending with an unpleasantfather-in-law."
We were all silent for a while. McKnight stationed himself at a window,and Hotchkiss paced the floor expectantly. "It's a great day for moderndetective methods," he chirruped. "While the police have been guardinghouses and standing with their mouths open waiting for clues to fall inand choke them, we have pieced together, bit by bit, a fabric--"
The door-bell rang, followed immediately by sounds of footsteps in thehall. McKnight threw the door open, and Hotchkiss, raised on his toes,flung out his arm in a gesture of superb eloquence.
"Behold--your man!" he declaimed.
Through the open doorway came a tall, blond fellow, clad in light gray,wearing tan shoes, and followed closely by an officer.
"I brought him here as you suggested, Mr. McKnight," said the constable.
But McKnight was doubled over the library table in silent convulsions ofmirth, and I was almost as bad. Little Hotchkiss stood up, his importantattitude finally changing to one of chagrin, while the blond man ceasedto look angry, and became sheepish.
It was Stuart, our confidential clerk for the last half dozen years!
McKnight sat up and wiped his eyes.
"Stuart," he said sternly, "there are two very serious things we havelearned about you. First, you jab your scarf pins into your cushionwith your left hand, which is most reprehensible; second, youwear--er--night-shirts, instead of pajamas. Worse than that, perhaps, wefind that one of
them has a buttonhole torn out at the neck."
Stuart was bewildered. He looked from McKnight to me, and then at thecrestfallen Hotchkiss.
"I haven't any idea what it's all about," he said. "I was arrested asI reached my boarding-house to-night, after the theater, and broughtdirectly here. I told the officer it was a mistake."
Poor Hotchkiss tried bravely to justify the fiasco. "You can not deny,"he contended, "that Mr. Andrew Bronson followed you to your rooms lastMonday evening."
Stuart looked at us and flushed.
"No, I don't deny it," he said, "but there was nothing criminal aboutit, on my part, at least. Mr. Bronson has been trying to induce me tosecure the forged notes for him. But I did not even know where theywere."
"And you were not on the wrecked Washington Flier?" persisted Hotchkiss.But McKnight interfered.
"There is no use trying to put the other man's identity on Stuart, Mr.Hotchkiss," he protested. "He has been our confidential clerk for sixyears, and has not been away from the office a day for a year. I amafraid that the beautiful fabric we have pieced out of all these scrapsis going to be a crazy quilt." His tone was facetious, but I coulddetect the undercurrent of real disappointment.
I paid the constable for his trouble, and he departed. Stuart, stillindignant, left to go back to Washington Circle. He shook hands withMcKnight and myself magnanimously, but he hurled a look of utter hatredat Hotchkiss, sunk crestfallen in his chair.
"As far as I can see," said McKnight dryly, "we're exactly as far alongas we were the day we met at the Carter place. We're not a step nearerto finding our man."
"We have one thing that may be of value," I suggested. "He is thehusband of a bronze-haired woman at Van Kirk's hospital, and it is justpossible we may trace him through her. I hope we are not going to loseyour valuable co-operation, Mr. Hotchkiss?" I asked.
He roused at that to feeble interest, "I--oh, of course not, if youstill care to have me, I--I was wondering about--the man who just wentout, Stuart, you say? I--told his landlady to-night that he wouldn'tneed the room again. I hope she hasn't rented it to somebody else."
We cheered him as best we could, and I suggested that we go to Baltimorethe next day and try to find the real Sullivan through his wife. He leftsometime after midnight, and Richey and I were alone.
He drew a chair near the lamp and lighted a cigarette, and for a time wewere silent. I was in the shadow, and I sat back and watched him. Itwas not surprising, I thought, that she cared for him: women had alwaysloved him, perhaps because he always loved them. There was no disloyaltyin the thought: it was the lad's nature to give and crave affection.Only--I was different. I had never really cared about a girl before,and my life had been singularly loveless. I had fought a lonely battlealways. Once before, in college, we had both laid ourselves and ourcallow devotions at the feet of the same girl. Her name was Dorothy--Ihad forgotten the rest--but I remembered the sequel. In a spirit ofquixotic youth I had relinquished my claim in favor of Richey and hadgone cheerfully on my way, elevated by my heroic sacrifice to a somber,white-hot martyrdom. As is often the case, McKnight's first words showedour parallel lines of thought.
"I say, Lollie," he asked, "do you remember Dorothy Browne?" Browne,that was it!
"Dorothy Browne?" I repeated. "Oh--why yes, I recall her now. Why?"
"Nothing," he said. "I was thinking about her. That's all. You rememberyou were crazy about her, and dropped back because she preferred me."
"I got out," I said with dignity, "because you declared you would shootyourself if she didn't go with you to something or other!"
"Oh, why yes, I recall now!" he mimicked. He tossed his cigarette inthe general direction of the hearth and got up. We were both a littleconscious, and he stood with his back to me, fingering a Japanese vaseon the mantel.
"I was thinking," he began, turning the vase around, "that, if you feelpretty well again, and--and ready to take hold, that I should like to goaway for a week or so. Things are fairly well cleaned up at the office."
"Do you mean--you are going to Richmond?" I asked, after a scarcelyperceptible pause. He turned and faced me, with his hands thrust in hispockets.
"No. That's off, Lollie. The Sieberts are going for a week's cruisealong the coast. I--the hot weather has played hob with me and thecruise means seven days' breeze and bridge."
I lighted a cigarette and offered him the box, but he refused. He waslooking haggard and suddenly tired. I could not think of anything tosay, and neither could he, evidently. The matter between us lay too deepfor speech.
"How's Candida?" he asked.
"Martin says a month, and she will be all right," I returned, in thesame tone. He picked up his hat, but he had something more to say. Heblurted it out, finally, half way to the door.
"The Seiberts are not going for a couple of days," he said, "and if youwant a day or so off to go down to Richmond yourself--"
"Perhaps I shall," I returned, as indifferently as I could. "Not goingyet, are you?"
"Yes. It is late." He drew in his breath as if he had something moreto say, but the impulse passed. "Well, good night," he said from thedoorway.
"Good night, old man."
The next moment the outer door slammed and I heard the engine of theCannonball throbbing in the street. Then the quiet settled down aroundme again, and there in the lamplight I dreamed dreams. I was going tosee her.
Suddenly the idea of being shut away, even temporarily, from so greatand wonderful a world became intolerable. The possibility of arrestbefore I could get to Richmond was hideous, the night without end.
I made my escape the next morning through the stable back of the house,and then, by devious dark and winding ways, to the office. There, aftera conference with Blobs, whose features fairly jerked with excitement,I double-locked the door of my private office and finished off someimperative work. By ten o'clock I was free, and for the twentieth timeI consulted my train schedule. At five minutes after ten, with McKnightnot yet in sight, Blobs knocked at the door, the double rap we hadagreed upon, and on being admitted slipped in and quietly closed thedoor behind him. His eyes were glistening with excitement, and a purpledab of typewriter ink gave him a peculiarly villainous and stealthyexpression.
"They're here," he said, "two of 'em, and that crazy Stuart wasn't on,and said you were somewhere in the building."
A door slammed outside, followed by steps on the uncarpeted outeroffice.
"This way," said Blobs, in a husky undertone, and, darting into alavatory, threw open a door that I had always supposed locked. Thenceinto a back hall piled high with boxes and past the presses of abookbindery to the freight elevator.
Greatly to Blobs' disappointment, there was no pursuit. I wasexhilarated but out of breath when we emerged into an alleyway, and thesharp daylight shone on Blobs' excited face.
"Great sport, isn't it?" I panted, dropping a dollar into hispalm, inked to correspond with his face. "Regular walk-away in thehundred-yard dash."
"Gimme two dollars more and I'll drop 'em down the elevator shaft," hesuggested ferociously. I left him there with his blood-thirsty schemes,and started for the station. I had a tendency to look behind me now andthen, but I reached the station unnoticed. The afternoon was hot, thetrain rolled slowly along, stopping to pant at sweltering stations,from whose roofs the heat rose in waves. But I noticed these thingsobjectively, not subjectively, for at the end of the journey was a girlwith blue eyes and dark brown hair, hair that could--had I not seenit?--hang loose in bewitching tangles or be twisted into little coils ofdelight.
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