CHAPTER XX
JACK TELLS THE STORY
When I came down she was waiting for me. With a finger against her lipsin a command for silence, she turned and went along the passage to thedoor from which I had seen her enter. I followed her and catching upwith her as she placed her hand on the knob, burst out:
"What is it--what _does_ it mean? Where's Barker? In the name of Heaventell me quickly what _has_ happened?"
"I'll tell you in here," she said softly, and opening the door precededme into the room.
It was evidently the dining-room of the house, a round table standing inthe center, a sideboard with glass and china on it against the wall. Acoal fire burned in the grate, and the blinds were raised showing thedazzling glitter of the snow outside. It was warm and bright, the oneplace in that sinister house that seemed to have a human note about it.She passed round the table to the fire and, standing there, made agesture that swept the walls and unveiled windows:
"Last night in this room I at last understood the tragedy in which we'veall been involved."
I stood like a post, still too bemused to have any questions ready.There were too many to ask. It was like a skein so tangled there was noloose thread to start with.
"Did you know Harland was here when you came?" was what I finally said.
She nodded:
"I suspected it on Sunday afternoon. I was certain of it on Sunday nightbefore I left New York." She dropped into a chair by the fire, andpointed me to one near-by at the table. "Sit down and let me tell it toyou as it happened to me, my side of it. When you've heard that, you canread the statement he gave, then you'll see it all. Straight from itsbeginning to its awful end here last night."
Before she began I told her of our interview with Mrs. Whitehall andthat we knew her true relationship to Barker.
She seemed relieved and asked if her mother had also told us of herposition with regard to Harland. When she saw how fully we'd beeninformed she gave a deep sigh and said:
"Now you can understand why I prevaricated that day in Mr. Whitney'soffice. I was trying to shield my father, to help him any way I could.Oh, if I'd known the truth then or you had--the truth you don't knoweven yet! It was Johnston Barker that was murdered and Hollings Harlandwho murdered him!"
I started forward, but she raised a silencing hand, her voice shaken andpleading:
"Don't, please, say anything. Let me go on in my own way. It's so hardto tell." She dropped the hand to its fellow and holding themtight-clenched in her lap, said slowly: "If my mother told you of thatconversation I had with Mr. Harland you know what I discoveredthen--that he loved me. I never suspected it before, but when he pressedme with questions about Johnston Barker, so unlike himself, vehement andexcited, I understood and was sorry for him. I told him as much as Icould then, explained my feeling for the man he was jealous of withouttelling my relationship, said how I respected and trusted him, what anygirl might say of her father. He seemed relieved but went on to ask ifMr. Barker and I were not interested in some scheme, some undertaking ofa secret nature. _That_ frightened me, it sounded as if he had found outabout us, had been told something by someone. Taken by surprise, Ianswered with a half truth, that Mr. Barker _had_ a plan on foot for mywelfare, that he wanted to help me and my mother to a better financialposition, but that I was not yet at liberty to tell what it was. I sawhe thought I meant business, and as I go on, you'll see how thatinformation gave him the confidence to do what he did later.
"I know now that the Whitney office discovered I had had a letter fromMr. Barker mailed from Toronto asking me to join him there and that Iagreed to do so in a phone message that same day. That letter, directedto my office, was in typewriting and was signed with my father'sinitials. It was short, merely telling me that there was a reason forhis disappearance which he would explain to me, that his whereaboutsmust be kept secret, and that he wanted me to come to him to makearrangements for a new business venture in which he hoped to set me up.As you know I attempted to do what he asked, and was followed by two menfrom the Whitney office."
"How do you know all this?" I couldn't help butting in.
She gave a slight smile, the first I had seen on her face:
"I'll tell you that later--it's not the least curious part of my story.Realizing by the papers that there was a general hue and cry for him Iwas very cautious, much more so than your detectives thought. I sawthem, decided the move was too dangerous, and came back. At that time,and for some time afterward, I believed that letter was from my father."
"Wasn't it?"
She shook her head:
"No--but wait. I had no other letter and no other communication of anysort. I searched the papers for any news of him, thinking he might putsomething for me in the personal columns, but there was not a sign. Dayspassed that way, my business was closed and I had time to think, and themore I thought the more strange and inexplicable it seemed. Why, in theletter, had he made no reference to the broken engagement, so vital toboth of us, that night in the church. Why had he said nothing about mymother whose state of mind he would have guessed?
"From the first I had suspicions that something was wrong. I could notbelieve he would have done what they said he had. Even after I read inthe papers of his carefully planned get-away I was not convinced. Afterthat scene in the Whitney office, when I saw you were all watching me,eager to trip me into any admission, my suspicions grew stronger. Therewas more than showed on the surface. I sensed it, an instinct warned me.
"As days passed and I heard nothing more from him, the conviction grewthat something had happened to him. If it was accident I was certain itwould have been known; if, as many thought, he'd lost his memory andstrayed away, I was equally certain he'd have been seen and recognized.What else could it be? Can you picture me, shut up with my poordistracted mother, ravaged by fear and anxiety? Those waiting days--howterrible they were--with that sense of dread always growing, growing.Finally it came to a climax. If my father was dead as I thought, therewas only one explanation--foul play. On Friday, when you came to see me,I was at the breaking point, afraid to speak, desperate for help andunable to ask for it.
"Now I come to the day when I learned everything, when all these brokenforebodings of disaster fell together like the bits of glass in akaleidoscope and took a definite shape. It was Sunday, can it be onlytwo days ago? My mother had moved to the cottage and I was alone in theapartment packing up to follow her. About the middle of the afternoonwhile I was hard at work the telephone rang. I answered it and was toldby the operator Long Distance was calling me, Quebec. At that my heartgave a great jump of joy and relief--my father was alive and sending forme again. It was like the wireless answer of help to a founderingvessel.
"You know how often the Long Distance connection varies--one day you canrecognize a voice a thousand miles off that on the next you can't makeout at a hundred? The voice that had spoken to me from Toronto was nomore than a vibration of the wire, thin and toneless. The one that spokefrom Quebec was distinct and colored with a personality.
"The first words were that it was J. W. B. and at these words, as if thereceiver had shot an electric current into me, I started and grew tense,for it did not sound like the voice of J. W. B. It went on, explainingwhy he had not communicated with me, and how he now again wanted me tocome to him. I, listening, became more and more sure that the personspeaking was not my father, but that, whoever he was, his voice stirreda faint memory, was dimly suggestive of a voice I _did_ know.
"I was confused and agitated, standing there with the receiver at myear, while those sentences ran over the wire, every syllable clear anddistinct. Then, suddenly, I thought of a way I could find out. My fatherwas the only man in the world who knew of our secret, of the plan forour reunion. A simple question would test the knowledge of the persontalking to me. When he had finished I said:
"'I've been longing to hear from you, not only for myself but for mymother--she's been in despair.'
"There was a slight pause before the
voice answered:
"'Why should Mrs. Whitehall be so disturbed?'
"Then I _knew_ it wasn't Johnston Barker. The reason for Mrs.Whitehall's disturbance was as well known to him as it was to me.Besides in our talks together he had never alluded to her as 'Mrs.Whitehall' but always as 'your mother' or by her Christian name, Serena.
"I said the mystery of his disappearance had upset her, she was afraidsomething had happened to him. A faint laugh--with again that curiouslyfamiliar echo in it--came along the wire:
"'You can set her mind at rest after you've seen me.'
"There was something ghastly about it--talking to this unknown being,listening to that whispering voice that called me to come and wasn't thevoice I knew. It was like an evil spirit, close to me but invisible, andthat I had no power to lay hold of.
"While I was thinking this he was telling me that he had a safe hidingplace and that I must join him at once, the plans were now perfected forthe new enterprise in which he was to launch me. I demurred and to gaintime told him how I'd tried to go before and been followed. That caughthis attention at once, his questions came quick and eager. Perhapsbefore that he had tried to disguise his voice, anyway now the familiarnote in it grew stronger. I began to catch at something--inflexions,accent--till suddenly, like a runner who rounds a corner and sees hisgoal unexpectedly before him, my memory saw a name--Harland!
"I was so amazed, so staggered that for a moment I couldn't speak. Thevoice brought me back, saying sharply, 'Are you there?' I stammered areply and said I couldn't make up my mind to come. He urged, but Iwouldn't promise, till at length, feeling I might betray myself, I saidI'd think it over and let him know later. He had to be satisfied withthat and gave me his telephone number telling me to call him up as soonas I decided.
"What did I feel as I sat alone in that dismantled place? Can yourealize the state of my thoughts? What did it mean--what was going on?The man was not Johnston Barker, but how could he be Harland, who wasdead and buried? Ah, if you had come _then_ instead of Friday I'd havetold you for I was in waters too deep for me. All that I could grasp wasthat I was in the midst of something incomprehensible and terrible, fromthe darkness of which one thought stood out--my father had never sentfor me, I had never heard from him--it had been this other man allalong! I was then as certain as if his spirit had appeared before methat Johnston Barker was dead.
"And now I come to one of the strangest and finest things that everhappened to me in my life. Late on Sunday night a girl--unknown to meand refusing to give her name--came and told me of the murder, the wholeof it, the evidence against me, and that I stood in danger of immediatearrest."
I jumped to my feet--I couldn't believe it:
"A girl--what kind of a girl?"
"Young and pretty, with dark brown eyes and brown curly hair. Oh, I canplace her for you. She said she had been employed to help get theinformation against me and my father, and was the only woman acting inthat capacity."
"Molly!" I gasped, falling back into my chair. "Molly Babbitts! What inHeaven's name--"
"You're right to invoke Heaven's name, for it was Heaven that sent her.She wouldn't tell me who she was or why she came, but I could see. Whatreason could there have been except that she believed me innocent andwanted to help me escape?"
For a moment I couldn't speak. I dropped my head and a silent oath wentup from me to hold Molly sacred forever more. I could see it all--she'dfound her heart, realized the cruelty of what was to be done, discoveredin some way she'd given me wrong information, and done the thingherself. The gallant, noble little soul! God bless her! God bless her!
Carol went on:
"I wonder now what she thought of me. I must have appeared utterlyextraordinary to her. She thought she was telling me what I alreadyknew, or at least knew something of. But as I sat there listening to herI was piecing together in my mind what she was saying with what I myselfhad found out. I was building up a complete story, fitting new and oldtogether, and it held me dumb, motionless, as if I didn't care. It wouldtake too long to tell you how I got at the main facts--the smallerpoints I didn't think of. It was as if what she said and what I knewjumped toward each other like the flame and the igniting gas, connectingthe broken bits into a continuous line of fire. I knew that murder hadbeen committed. I knew that the body was unrecognizable. I knew that hadmy father been living I would have heard from him. I knew that the voiceon the phone was Harland's. Without all the details she gave me it wouldhave been enough. Before she had finished my mind had grasped the truth.It was Johnston Barker who had been murdered and Harland--trying now todraw me to him--was the murderer.
"Do you guess what a flame of rage burst up in me--what a passion totrap and bring to justice the man who could conceive and execute such adevilish thing? I could hardly wait to go. I was too wrought up to thinkout a reasonable course. Looking back on it today it seems like an actof madness, but I suppose a person in that state is half mad. I neverthought of getting anybody to go with me, of applying to the police. Ionly saw myself finding Harland and accusing him. It'sinconceivable--the irrational action of a woman beside herself withgrief and fury.
"I called up the number he'd given me and told him I was coming on thefirst train I could catch. He told me at what hour that morning it wouldleave New York and when it would reach Quebec. He said he would send hisservant, a French woman, to meet me at the depot as he didn't like torisk going himself. Then I left the house and went to the Grand CentralStation, where I sat in the women's waiting room for the rest of thenight.
"I did not get to Quebec till after midnight. The servant met me, put mein a sleigh that was waiting for us, and together we drove here.
"The house was lit up, every lower window bright. As we walked up thepath from the gate I saw a man moving behind the shrubbery and calledher attention to him. While she was opening the door with her key Inoticed another loitering along the footpath by the gate, obviouslywatching us. This time I asked her why there should be men about at suchan hour and on such a freezing night. She seemed bewildered andfrightened, muttering something in French about having noticed them whenshe went out. In the hallway she directed me to a room on the upperfloor, telling me, when I was ready, to go down to the dining-room wheresupper was waiting.
"I went upstairs and she followed, showing me where I was to go and thenwalking down the passage to another room. As I took off my wraps and hatI could hear her voice, loud and excited, telling someone of the two menwe had seen. Another voice answered it--a man's--but pitched too low forme to make out the words.
"When I was ready I went downstairs and into the room. No one was about,there was not a sound. The fire was burning as it is now, the curtainsdrawn, and the table, set out with a supper, was brightly lit withcandles and decorated with flowers. I stood here by the fire waiting,white, I suppose, as the tablecloth, for I was at the highest climax ofexcitement a human being can reach and keep her senses.
"Suddenly I heard steps on the stairs. I turned and made ready,moistening my lips which were stiff and felt like leather. The stepscame down the passage--the door opened. There he was!
"That first second, when he entered as the lover and conqueror, helooked splendid. The worn and harassed air he had the last time I'd seenhim was gone. He was at the highest pinnacle of his life, 'the very buttand sea mark of his sail,' and it was as if his spirit recognized it andflashed up in a last illuminating glow of fire and force.
"He was prepared for amazement, horror, probably fear from me. The firstshock he received was my face, showing none of these, quiet, and, Isuppose, fierce with the hatred I felt. He stopped dead in the doorway,the confidence stricken out of him--just staring. Then he stammered:
"'Carol--you--you--'
"He was too astounded to say any more. I finished for him, my voice lowand hoarse:
"'You think I didn't expect to see you. I did. I knew you were here--Icame to find you. I came to tell you that I know how you killed JohnstonBarker.'
"I don't think
anyone has ever said he lacked courage. He was one ofthose bold and ruthless beings that came to their fullest flower duringthe Italian Renaissance--terrible and tremendous too. I've thought ofhim since as like one of the Borgias or Iago transplanted to our countryand modern times. When he saw that I knew he went white, but he stoodwith the light of the candles bright on his ghastly face, straight andsteady as a soldier before the cannon.
"'Johnston Barker,' he said very quietly--'killed him? You bring meinteresting news. I didn't know he was dead!'
"As I've told you I had come without plans, with no line of actiondecided upon. Now the futility, the blind rashness of what I had donewas borne in upon me. His stoney calm, his measured voice, showed me Iwas pitted against an antagonist whose strength was to mine as a lion'sto a mouse. The thought maddened me, I was ready to say anything tobreak him, to conquer and crush him and in my desperation--guided bysome flash of intuition--I said the right thing:
"'Oh, don't waste time denying it. It's too late for that now. It's notI alone who knows--they know in New York--everything. How you did it,how you stole away, and where you are now. The net is aroundyou--they've got you. There's no use any more in lies and tricks, foryou can't escape them.'
"He had listened without a movement or a sign of agitation. But when Ifinished he straightened his shoulders and throwing up his head sent aglance of piercing question over the curtained windows. His whole beingsuggested something arrested and fiercely alert, not fear, but a wildconcentration of energy, as if all his forces were aroused to meet adesperate call.
"Then suddenly he made a step forward, leaned across the table andspoke. I can't tell you all he said. It was so horrible and his face--itwas like a demon's in its death throes! But it was about his love forme--that he'd done it all for me--that he could give me more than anywoman ever had before--lay the world at my feet. And to come withhim--now--we could get away--we had time yet. Oh!" she closed her eyesand shuddered at the memory--"I can't go on. He knew it was hopeless, hemust have known then what the men outside meant. It was the lastdefiance--the last mad hope.
"And _then_ I conquered him, not as I'd meant to do, not with anyintention. All the horror and loathing I felt came out in what I said.Terrible words--how I hated him--all that had been locked up in me sinceI'd known the truth. His face grew so dreadful that I shrank back inthis corner, and finally to hide it, hid my own in my hands.
"People do such strange things in life, not at all like what they do inbooks and plays. When I stopped speaking he said nothing, and droppingmy hands I looked at him, not knowing what I'd see. He was standing veryquiet, gazing straight in front of him, like a man thinking--deeplythinking, lost in thought.
"We were that way for a moment, so still you could hear the clockticking, then, without a word or look at me, he turned and went out ofthe room.
"I was so paralyzed by the scene that for a space I stood where he'dleft me, squeezed into the angle behind the mantelpiece, stunned andsenseless. Then the sound of his feet on the stairs called me back tolife. He was going, he was running away. I did not know myself then whothe men outside were and thought he could easily make his escape.
"I ran out into the hall, calling to the French woman. She came, out ofa door somewhere in the back part of the house, and I have a queerimpression of her face by the light of a bracket lamp, almost ludicrousin its expression of fright. As I ran up the stairs I screamed to her tocome, to follow me, and heard her steps racing along the passage and herpanting exclamations of terror. At the stair head my ear caught the snapof a closing door and the click of a key turned in a lock. It came fromthe darkened end of the hall and as I ran down I cried to the woman,'Get someone. Call. Get help.' Then and there she threw up a window andthrusting out her head screamed into the darkness, '_Au secours! Ausecours!_'
"A man's voice, close under the window, answered her and she flew pastme to another staircase beyond in the darkness down which I could hearher clattering rush. Then there were the sound of steps, and thebreaking of wood, sharp tearing noises mixed with the shouts of men. Itall came together, for as I stood outside that locked door, listening tothe woman's cries and the smashing of the wood below, sharp as a flashcame the report of a pistol from the closed room.
"That's all. I didn't see him again, I couldn't. The policeinspector--they've all been very kind, have done everything for me theycould--let me see the statement. When you've read that you'll knoweverything--it'll be the last chapter. I can't tell it to you--it's morethan I can bear."
She glanced at me and then suddenly looked away for tears, quick andunexpected, welled into her eyes. She put up one hand, pressing itagainst her eyelids, while the other lay still on the table. I leanedforward and laid mine over it. As she sat speechless, struggling withher moment of weakness, I looked at the two hands--mine big and hard andbrown, almost hid hers, closing round it, sheltering and guarding it, asmy life, if God willed it, would close round and shelter and guard hers.
----
I am coming to the end of my part of the story and it's only up to menow to give the final explanation--furnished by Harland's statement--ofthe strangest crime that had ever come within the ken of the Whitneyoffice.
We all read the statement that day and that night in our sitting-room atthe Frontenac, O'Mally, Babbitts and I talked it over. A good deal hadto be supplemented by our own inside information. For anyone who had notour fuller knowledge there would have been many broken links in thechain. But to us it read as a clear, consecutive sequence of events. Onething I drew from it--almost as if Harland had told me himself--itsunconscious revelation of the development in him of sinisterpossibilities that had lain dormant during the struggle of his earlyyears. In middle life, his world conquered, two master passions, love ofgain and love of a woman, had seized him, and swept him to his ruin.
I won't give it in his words, but in as plain and short a narrative as Ican.
Harland had been the welcher in the Copper Pool and Barker had suspectedhim. This was the immediate cause of the murder. Back of that, the rootfrom which the whole intricate crime grew, was his love of CarolWhitehall and determination to make her his wife.
Briefly outlined, his position with regard to her was as follows. Hispassion for her had started with the inauguration of the land company,but while she was grateful and friendly, he soon saw that she wasnothing more. So he kept his counsel, making no attempt by word or lookto disturb the harmony of their relations. But while he maintained thepose of a business partner he studied her and saw that she wasambitious, large in her aims, and aspiring. This side of her characterwas the one he decided to lay siege to. If he could not win her heart,he would amass a fortune and tempt her with its vast possibilities. Hismembership in the Copper Pool gave him the opportunity, and he sawhimself able to lay millions at her feet.
On January fifth, he met Barker on the street and in the course of ashort conversation learned that the head of the pool suspected histreachery. That half-expressed suspicion, with its veiled hint ofpublicity, planted the seed of murder in his mind.
It was not, however, till two days later that the seed sprouted. How hisidea came to him indicated the condition of morbidly acute perceptionand wild recklessness he had reached. Walking up Fifth Avenue after darkhe had seen a man standing under a lamp, lighting a pipe. The man,Joseph Sammis, was so like Barker, that he moved nearer to address him.A closer view showed him his mistake, but also showed him that Sammis,feeble in health, shabby and impoverished, was sufficiently like Barkerto pass for him.
From that resemblance his idea expanded still further. He followedSammis to his lodgings, had a conference with him, and told him he hadwork in Philadelphia which he wanted Sammis to undertake. The man, downto his last dollar, flattered and amazed at his good fortune, agreed atonce. Though the work had not developed, it was necessary for Sammis tobe on the ground and stay there awaiting instructions. Money was givenhim for proper clothes and an advance of salary. The date when he wa
s toleave would be communicated to him within a few days. It would appearthat Sammis never knew his benefactor's real name, but accepted the luckthat came to him eagerly and without question. In _his_ case the chiefhad guessed right--he was a "plant."
From this point the plot mushroomed out into its full dimensions.Harland and Barker were of a size, small, light and wiry, both men hadgray hair and dark eyes. The features obliterated, clothes, personalpapers and jewelry would be the only means of identification. The backoffice with its one egress through the other rooms was selected as thescene of the crime. Barker's body could be lowered from the cleat--triedand tested--to the floor below. Through his acquaintance with Ford andMiss Whitehall, Harland was familiar with the hours of the Azalea WoodsEstates people. They would be gone when he went down, entered theiroffice with the pass key he had procured, and made the change ofclothing with his victim. His own disguise was a very simple matter.Through an acquaintance with actors in his youth he had learned theirmethod of building up the nose by means of an adhesive paste--that andthe white mustache were all he needed. He took one chance and oneonly--a gambler's risk--that the body might not be sufficiently crushedto escape recognition. This chance, as we know, went his way.
Gone thus far he had only to wait his opportunity. Against that hebought and concealed the rope, the blackjack for the blow, and thearticles for his own transformation--all the properties of the grislydrama he was about to stage.
Meantime his scheme to win Carol was working out less successfully andthe strain was wearing on him. On January fifteenth, his nervesstretched to the breaking point, he went to her determined to find outhow she stood with Barker. Her answer satisfied him. He knew her to betruthful and when she told him she had no other than a filial affectionfor the magnate he believed her. The information she gave about Barker'sintention of helping her, of having plans afoot for her future welfare,he seized upon and subsequently used.
He also, in that interview, learned that she had had a phone messagefrom the magnate saying he was coming to her office that afternoon andwould later go to the floor above to see Mr. Harland. When he heard thishe knew that his time had come.
From her he went straight to a telephone booth, called up Barker'sgarage and gave Heney the instructions to meet him that night and takehim to the Elizabeth Depot. That done he returned to the Black EagleBuilding, saw that his stenographer and clerk were disposed to hissatisfaction, and made ready for the final event.
The quarrel with Barker was genuine. The head of the Copper Pool burstinto accusations of treachery and threatened immediate exposure. Sittingat the desk, engrossed in his anger, he did not notice Harland slipbehind him. One blow of the blackjack delivered below the templeresulted in death, as instantaneous as it was noiseless. Fastening therope about the body, Harland swung it from the cleat to the floor below,where in the darkness it would have been invisible at a distance of tenfeet.
He then passed through the outer offices and went downstairs. He musthave missed Carol by a few seconds. His knock being unanswered, he lethimself in with his pass key, and walked through to the back room. Herehe drew in the body, then curtaining the window, turned on the lightsand effected the change of clothes, shaving off the mustache, andlooking for the scarf pin which he couldn't find. He had just completedthis when Ford entered--a terrible moment for him.
When Ford left his nerve was shaken and he realized he must finish thejob at once. After he had done so he went back to the private office,carefully arranged his own disguise, and after waiting for over an hour,put on Barker's hat and coat and went down the service stairs.
He met no person or obstacle, skirted the back of the block and pickedup Heney at the place designated. At the Elizabeth Station he bought aticket to Philadelphia, but when he saw his chance, crossed the lines tothe Jersey Central platform and boarded a local for Jersey City, fromwhich by a devious route he made his way to Canada. It was in thewaiting-room at the Jersey City depot that he removed his disguise.
In Toronto he sublet a small apartment, only going out at night, andkeeping a close watch on the developments in New York which he followedthrough the papers. By these he learned that everything had worked outas he hoped, that the crime was unsuspected, and the public interestcentered on the chase for Barker. All that now remained to complete hisenterprise was to get Carol.
That his continued success must have given him an almost insaneconfidence is proved by the way he went about this last and mostdifficult step. Criminals all slip up somewhere. He had attended to thedetails of the murder with amazing skill and thoroughness. It was in hisestimate of the character of Carol that he showed that blind spot in thebrain they all have.
The only way to explain it is that he was so sure of his own powers, soconfident that she was heart whole and would be unable to resist thetemptation of his enormous wealth, that he took the final risk--sent forher in Barker's name. Her response to his first summons encouraged him.When she didn't come he had many reasons with which to buoy himselfup--fears, illness, the impossibility of leaving her mother.
But it made him more cautious and he didn't venture again till the hueand cry for Barker had subsided and he had made a move to the last portof call on the St. Lawrence. That he had expected to take her by storm,win her consent and leave her no time to deliberate was proved by thefact that "Henry Santley" had engaged accommodations for himself and"sister" on the _Megantic_, sailing from Quebec at ten the next morning.
What had he intended to say to her, how was he going to explain? If hehad not mentioned it in his statement we never would have known, forCarol did not give him time to tell. The story was simple and in theface of her supposed ignorance of the murder, might have satisfied her.
He was going to admit his duplicity in the Copper Pool--his excuse beinghe had done it for her. In his last interview with Barker he saw thatdiscovery was imminent, and decided to drop out of sight. When he passedthrough his own office he was on his way out of the building, descendingunseen by the stairs, and going immediately to Canada. When he read inthe papers of the suicide, identified as Hollings Harland, no one wasmore surprised than he was.
How the mistake had been made he readily guessed. Some months before hehad discharged one of his clerks for intemperance. The man, unable toget another job and in the clutch of his vice, had gone to the dogs,applying frequently to Harland for help. The lawyer, moved to pity, hadgiven this in the form of clothing and money. On the afternoon ofJanuary fifteenth he had visited the Harland offices, in a suit ofHarland's clothes, begging for money and threatening suicide. He wassunk to the lowest depths of degradation, for, during a few moments whenhe was alone in the private office, he had evidently searched among hisemployer's papers and taken a watch and chain which was lying on thedesk, to be sent to a jeweler's for repairs. Startled in his hunt amongthe papers he had had no time to replace them and had put them in hispocket. After the man had gone Harland noticed the missing documents andjewelry but in the stress of his own affairs paid no attention to thetheft. The next day when he read of the suicide, he remembered the man'sthreat to kill himself and realized he had done it later that afternoon.That the body, crushed beyond recognition, had been identified throughthe clothes, papers and watch as himself, he regarded as a lucky chance.Without his intervention a thing had occurred which forever severed himfrom the life he wished to be done with.
Such was Harland's crime as explained in Harland's statement. How wetalked it over! How we mused on the slight happening that had brought itto light--a child at a window! Strange and wonderful! The hotel noises,the traffic in the street, faded into the silence of the night as we satthere, pondering, speculating, and awed too by this modern fall ofLucifer.
The Black Eagle Mystery Page 20
